Energy 101: We Ask The Dumb Questions So You Don't Have To

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;20;23
Unknown
Hello and welcome to energy 101. Today we have Mark Rankin all the way from the Great White North north of Edmonton. From what I understand. So basically like you're hanging out with Santa Claus every day, Pretty much. Yeah. Mostly Grand Prairie. Santa Claus? Yeah. He does this lovely sometimes, you know, when they're good. And special guest Brit bro.

00;00;21;00 - 00;00;49;12
Unknown
Thank you. This is one of our Callide members, not members. That that that implies that you're in a community. You are a literal employee. And I work in an office with them. He is a man doing something on the sales side, right, I believe. Yeah. So, at Callide, dedicated sales, FTE standing a lot of our commercialization pipeline, doing a lot of our cold outreach, and scaling up our sales, with our marketing department.

00;00;49;15 - 00;01;10;19
Unknown
And then I'm also the offshore FTE, which is really like a, you know, the for deployed engineer, but, subject matter expert, for the offshore space while we're out there, you know, building our AI platform and applications. And that's what I do at Cly. Yeah, we love to do that. Just to explain that to you. Like here we build software and tech especially.

00;01;10;19 - 00;01;28;14
Unknown
I was leaning in on that. And it isn't like we just have a bunch of people from Silicon Valley or Sri from college. We have actual guys from the field so they can speak their language. And we kind of middleman that in and, they learn how to, code or they have experience whatever and then not it doesn't just end there.

00;01;28;17 - 00;01;45;02
Unknown
They hand it off to actual engineers, those nerdy guys who don't know what they're you don't know anything about the field. And that's the that's the pipeline. That's the model. And that's what the FWD model is. And it's really popular now. And yeah, it's just really the right way. And like it. Imagine that. Not oil and gas, but like the medical industry or lawyers.

00;01;45;02 - 00;02;04;11
Unknown
Right. Like have that like middleman in between to understand all the jargon that comes in these super important industries. And you get people like Brett, who when you have an offshore question which is like insane, huge scale runs the world kind of industry. Yeah, he's right here. So next to us. Appreciate it. I'm not as good as I assisted though.

00;02;04;14 - 00;02;26;23
Unknown
Yeah. Well you lay the practical foundation, but you're the PhD model. I really I really love it, you know, and ours is one that we've, adapted, so it's, like, uniquely ours. And, I'm really enjoying working in that model, especially with the talent we have. I think you have to have really, you know, really world class talent to be able to pull it off, you know, like we're doing.

00;02;26;23 - 00;02;47;04
Unknown
So it's a lot of fun. Yeah. I was just in Austin. Working with a bunch of these. California, Austin. Okay. The same thing. Investors. And I was telling them about the FTE model because they were presenting some of their new, like, websites and software, and they're like, we built this in a month. And I was like, oh, this is vibe coding over here.

00;02;47;06 - 00;03;05;17
Unknown
And then I explained them to FTE model talk and afterwards and like they didn't know what it was. And I was like, Like so they are so they're out here building the stuff with these people without the like domain expertise. The people who like, kind of understand and like their eyes lit up when I was explaining it to them, which I think is so simple.

00;03;05;19 - 00;03;23;17
Unknown
But I don't know, I think a good, you know, a good example would be like Mark right here. Like, I really think Mark would be a great candidate for an FDA. He's got the engineering experience. He obviously has the military experience. So the forward deployed part, I mean, we're pretty much taken care of. But, you know, we try to bring in, you know, one by one domain experience.

00;03;23;19 - 00;03;43;26
Unknown
Mark has a ton of MWD experience. It's got turbine experience. He's, you know, very well cross-trained cross first. So, like, that would be. That's an ideal PhD candidate. But really want to talk about Mark, what Mark's career and the stuff he's interested in it and what he's building right now. So appreciate you coming in. Thanks, guys.

00;03;43;26 - 00;04;02;09
Unknown
Oh yeah. And yeah, you would be you would be very for FTE. Like not only that he just has like the social skills and stuff. I mean he's he's literally in here walking walking the ground eidetic. Yeah. Which you know, isn't necessarily like something you need to do, but you're doing it for the networking and just seeing what the hell is out there, right?

00;04;02;09 - 00;04;19;26
Unknown
Yeah. For the love of the game, you know, definitely. I've always been, like, a very fuel forward person. And I do believe that, you know, without the field, as much as, you know, we have all these great ideas as much as we have, like, fantastic inventions, none of it really happens without the field being there. You know, you can have the greatest brain in the world.

00;04;19;28 - 00;04;36;26
Unknown
As long as it can't go anywhere and do nothing, it's not really going to matter much. So that's why I more I've always been a big advocate for the field. Even still, that's kind of the basis of my company, is that we're very much field forward. We're field focused. That's the basis of everything. And that's kind of where we start from there.

00;04;36;28 - 00;04;52;25
Unknown
And then we work our way back to more of the technical corporate side. But it's always field first. All right. Well people love that in our industry. So yeah I well up in Canada we we love that too. The field's a big thing. Of course, we have lots of room up there. Lots of room, lots of field, lots of field.

00;04;52;25 - 00;05;11;03
Unknown
Not very much office. You know, we got two cities in Alberta, mostly offices in one city. And then the rest of it is just wide open, right. So they're just beautiful, too. That's very beautiful. It's such a pretty place. It's, it's different, you know, despite the cold. It's very, very beautiful. Calgary in a summer like you, just.

00;05;11;04 - 00;05;30;27
Unknown
You would just think you're in any American city. Really? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. There's very little difference between American Citizen Kane cities, on that side and like, even culturally, we're so similar. Yeah. You know, I mean, we're neighbors that make sense. The crackheads are just as crazy, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That is not your fault. You know, like the remote, crowd resistant, where we are, you know, they're used to it.

00;05;30;27 - 00;05;46;09
Unknown
They're a bit more hardy out there. So, they've got a bit of a cooled off, but, they're they're more resourceful in that sense. They got really got to adapt to survive. You know, it's a little extra work resilience out there. Fall or die? Yeah. Evolve or die. That's right, that's right. Yeah. So let's keep covering a little bit of your intro and stuff.

00;05;46;09 - 00;06;06;19
Unknown
Right. So, you, you know, you're not you're not just starting from, like, wireline and the MWD, you're actually an army mana originally. Yes. Yeah. And that's, I was in school. I didn't really like schooling. It wasn't really fit for me. I was having a hard time considering I wasn't really seeing direction for me through traditional university.

00;06;06;19 - 00;06;23;00
Unknown
I needed a bit of direction. And, you know, as a young man, what better way to kind of get some direction than join the army where someone's going to give you direction, whether you like it or not? And and oh, boy, that I get some direction. It works. Yeah, yeah. A whole five years and 75 days of direction, to be exact.

00;06;23;02 - 00;06;38;15
Unknown
I remember two of the day, and, it was definitely good. It was a good experience. It laid the foundation of everything that came after. So. And, I still rely on a lot of the skills I learned, a lot of the habits I developed, a lot of those things, like in the oilfield. I just kind of crossed right over.

00;06;38;15 - 00;06;56;28
Unknown
Yeah. And, I hear the comic common theme here in the States where a lot of military guys actually end up in the oil field as well. Yeah. So it's very, very similar in that sense. You know, you get that field skills that are very useful and that drive also the drive helps having that like mentality of like go, go, go, you know push get it done.

00;06;57;00 - 00;07;13;11
Unknown
You know that that is very much a that's an oil field mentality. You know, and any other industry, you know, they look at the oil field, they think like you're crazy. You know, why are you guys up 24 seven. Why are you guys doing this. But that's just something you got to experience to understand. And, I don't really know.

00;07;13;11 - 00;07;35;05
Unknown
Any other industry has got that sort of like, I don't know, say mojo or just the right way, but just right now. But at that pace, you know, the pace. Yeah. The aggression. I mean, I've seen service companies or technology companies come in the oil field and they just don't cater to them, you know, like they they don't reply within the first 24 hours or hour, depending on how critical it is.

00;07;35;05 - 00;07;57;03
Unknown
They don't work weekends. They don't. That's overnight. And that's just like not how we operate. Oh, you know, but on the, on the military theme, you know, kind of restructuring your life and changing it and transferring over. I mean, last night I was hanging out with a guy at OTC. He sells testing. Kit got kicked out of high school three times, you know, went to went to the military.

00;07;57;03 - 00;08;12;24
Unknown
And literally the thing he said was change my life. Yeah. You know, and and a lot of men and women, that's how they find direction is like, you know, through the military. And I just have a ton of respect for it. You know, I considered going to into the military, you know, when I was trying to decide and ultimately didn't.

00;08;12;26 - 00;08;30;19
Unknown
It's one of like the ultimate things I you know, what if I think about, you know, I, I wouldn't use the word regret. I don't I don't know if I ever use the word regret, but, you know, there's plenty of times I really wish I went the military route and value making friends with men like you after the fact, you know, ten, 15 years down the road, a different path.

00;08;30;19 - 00;08;55;13
Unknown
So like very happy to have, you know, a lot of people make a village. Right. So so those are folks, male folk, some awful folk, some tech folk. So not only is it like the perfect pipeline going from military to oilfield, but like just any kid in high school, knowing college is going to be a waste of money, having no direction, whatever, there's actually the pipeline of just going straight to the oil field from from that.

00;08;55;13 - 00;09;24;26
Unknown
Yeah. Right. So like, yeah. Have you considered that or have y'all seen other guys too gone on that pipeline? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, grown up actually, as I grew up, in Ontario, mostly it's a different way, different part of Canada where the oil field is actually kind of demonized. Yeah. And, you know, from the teachers, like, before I even ever moved to Alberta, where I live now, and for the last while time, I thought Alberta was this sort of like dark, oil covered, polluted zone, kind of like, how I hear the average Californian describe Texas.

00;09;24;28 - 00;09;41;03
Unknown
Yeah. You know, and then I went to Alberta and the skies are blue, and it's like this vast, green, beautiful landscape with these gorgeous mountains. And yeah, sure, the lift trucks are there, you know? Yeah, they're real cool. Yeah. Okay. That's kind of true. You know, there's a Cowboys there. There is a ranches that is 100% true. But it was clean.

00;09;41;03 - 00;10;06;15
Unknown
It was actually very, very beautiful. And you know, aside from the odd flare, you know, shooting of some black smoke here in there very rarely that I see nowadays. Like it was a complete shift and I just didn't know about the oil field. Had the oil field in Canada as a marketing problem? I'd say out in the other provinces where it has such a negative view, it doesn't help when the government passes laws like banning you from like promoting your field in positive ways as a company that, you know, that's a whole other thing.

00;10;06;17 - 00;10;23;23
Unknown
The past couple of years ago, that was that was a crazy even concept. To begin with. Like, you can't educate people on things, kind of what you guys do. You know, the crazy that somebody would ban you from being able to speak, about, you know, the positive aspect of the oil field where, you know, you offer people jobs, guarantee people way to change your lifestyle, right?

00;10;23;23 - 00;10;41;26
Unknown
Because for somebody who grows up low income, you get the opportunity to have a job that is very lucrative, that is paying you well, that is true. You it gives you these benefits, gives you the ability to learn and become a better person. You know, I would love to have that opportunity again, like growing up. So unfortunately for me it wasn't a traditional thing.

00;10;41;26 - 00;11;00;11
Unknown
And locals Alberta. Yeah. You know you see the rigs. It's like hell yeah. You know, you see guys that, go into it and that's where it's also really interesting is without some sort of like military foundation, it's very much a do or die, you know, you're gonna know if you're going to make it or not. If you're tough enough to be working on the street, you're going to know pretty quick once you get in there.

00;11;00;11 - 00;11;15;18
Unknown
And that's where it really tests you. And you see it all the time in the oil field. People come in and they leave. So it's one of those issues, a high turnover rate because of stuff like that. So that's really fun. You know, I really want to speak to the whole, you know, having the community you were raising demonize it.

00;11;15;18 - 00;11;37;11
Unknown
You know, not so much my community, but you know, the you know, the larger narrative, the national narrative or global narrative, whatever you want to call it. You know, I grew up in a deep oil field community, and that was like the only way life, right? For most people. I mean, I am a fourth generation oilman. You know, when I was born and being raised, I did not think about that.

00;11;37;11 - 00;11;56;20
Unknown
You know, I didn't want to go into the oil field. I purposely didn't want to go into it. My dad was always gone. My grandfather was always gone. And then there was the whole, like, demonized part, right. You know, we're talking about peak supply, peak demand that still seems to flip flop all the time. And, and it was like, you know, there's going to be no oil left, electrification.

00;11;56;20 - 00;12;16;17
Unknown
And, you know, that was like in the mid 2000. And then I entered the industry in mid 2008. And it wasn't until I entered the field and got that taste that I was just like, no, this is for me, you know, and actually from early age, you know, knew I wanted to build a company. The first one I want to build was a vessel operator.

00;12;16;17 - 00;12;37;01
Unknown
And, like, those decisions were made in the field on the job site, falling in love with the business and the industry, and the breaking through that whole, like, demonized, mantra. But and that's something that we battle in the community every day. It's like almost a part of our thesis is because I don't think you're ever going to be done fighting the demonization part.

00;12;37;01 - 00;12;57;05
Unknown
Right. Like, unfortunately, you have to have world events that show you that energy is a resource and a commodity, and it needs to be developed, you know, and you even need to create military interest to protect your security, whether it's energy or, you know, national defense. So we fight that demonization all the time. That's what makes me proud to be a part of Clyde.

00;12;57;05 - 00;13;19;11
Unknown
And it's part of what we do with with the podcast. So. All right, this guy should start a podcast. Yeah. Spinning over here. Offshore energy. Yeah. I've got, like, 12 gas line down. Yeah. Do a committed working on it. Representing. Yeah. So like Brady over here is from New Orleans area. Same as me. And yeah you bring it up like you're from Ontario.

00;13;19;14 - 00;13;41;18
Unknown
Are you aware at some point where you're thinking about it and. Yeah, Ontario is not the place where people are pro oil and gas? You know, the province that holds Toronto, one of the most culturally diverse and progressive places in the world. Yeah, and we're from the Deep South. But funny enough, like, I did not grow up with any oil in my family at all because you grew up in New Orleans.

00;13;41;20 - 00;14;02;22
Unknown
And, driving around and taking the ferry across islands like, I've never seen any pump jacks or anything, but there's a whole basin there, right? So, like, how does that how does that happen? Well, Louisiana has oil and gas assets all throughout the state. I mean, you've got onshore, you've got coastal, and then you have, offshore, particularly state offshore.

00;14;02;23 - 00;14;24;29
Unknown
If we think about Louisiana, my core focus has always been the coastal market. So, you know, instead of seeing pump jacks, you see production platforms, you know, in the marsh, you can usually tap the trout or the red fish around them. They love structure, and there's plenty of little production structures out there in the, in the marsh and in the Gulf Coast.

00;14;25;01 - 00;14;46;26
Unknown
So that's that's more what I'm familiar with. I did see it a lot. I mean, you go to Louisiana's coast, you go to Grand Isle, you go to fish oil. You can see the, production platforms right off the coast. But but yeah, that's I just I grew up around it, grew seeing it. But closer to New Orleans, you definitely don't see it because on the drive there, there's nothing, you know, as far as production facilities.

00;14;46;26 - 00;15;10;24
Unknown
Well, you know, what you do see is refineries. Okay. Yeah. The refineries are as tall as the skyline itself. Well, yeah, it's, it's very ugly. A lot of stuff in New Orleans. It's ugly. But to us, it's like beautiful, right? Like, it's a it's a beautiful, economically beautiful. Yeah. But in this, I say it's environmentally. We may not be, kindred spirits even though we're from the same area, but, you know, I see I see the beauty and the ugly there.

00;15;10;26 - 00;15;29;26
Unknown
But, that reminds me. Do you know about the, the Kaiser smokestack in Chalmette? The big pink one that used to give everyone cancer back in the 70s? No, but that's kind of what I wanted to jump on is like, that area is called Cancer Alley. Yeah. My brother actually suffered from brain cancer. But, that's a that's a big thing.

00;15;29;26 - 00;15;56;02
Unknown
I wish we had the, the, metric for how much refining capacity happens in Louisiana. Like up even built, the Baton Rouge Bridge to stop big cargo ships from going further north so that all the refining capability happened in Louisiana coast. Super savvy. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks, big B. Yeah. And I love that bridge. It's it's it's fun to go over it and see everything I really like.

00;15;56;02 - 00;16;22;00
Unknown
Also going over the Mississippi and seeing all the ship traffic, you know, there's the grains, the inland, the tankers, everything. It really is an economic engine. And part of the reason there's so much refining capacity in the Gulf Coast is because we have so much production in the Gulf and in the Gulf Coast. Okay. So a lot of that, that refining capability, some of it's coming from the south, from the entire offshore gathering network.

00;16;22;02 - 00;16;38;25
Unknown
And then I don't really know what's coming from the north or from Texas, but I do think that there's significant product coming in, and that's why there's so much refining capability in that area. Yeah, that's really interesting. I really got, Brett talk in the area, said it's all for Mark, and now he got the bug immediately.

00;16;38;27 - 00;17;01;23
Unknown
15 minutes in, bro. He's like, I take it just take it. Mark, that is super interesting. On any parallels there with Canada or at least in Alberta. You know, in Alberta, yeah. You've got Refinery Row, out in Edmonton, Los refineries there. You've got to like cities for much built around refineries like Fort Saskatchewan, for example, which used to be a British fort back in the day when it was Fort Saskatchewan on the Saskatchewan River.

00;17;01;26 - 00;17;18;03
Unknown
They started building these, like, big plants. And all of a sudden you kind of see the communities span from the plant. Same for a lot of places in Alberta, you kind of see communities built around the oil and gas industry in that fashion where like geographically, it is not pretty, where you build plants, usually flat, you know, pretty plain terrain, cheap real estate, really.

00;17;18;03 - 00;17;31;07
Unknown
Because, you know, why would you spend more on plants, right? Makes no sense. But then the house people want to drive three hours to go to work, and also the houses kind of pop up around there, and then the cities kind of grow and it's, it's really interesting. And seeing urbanization kind of get into that mix as well.

00;17;31;07 - 00;17;57;11
Unknown
And you've got community on both sides of the plant where before it was only on one side. So it's kind of interesting seeing that it's not pretty, but economically, like you said, it's economically it's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. You got a house paid for by that plant. Yeah I love a good. I love a good boomtown. Yeah, absolutely. So like, Edmonton, Alberta, the whole province is basically like, over time, you see a lot of places or boomtowns that have grown and shrunk and grown again, with just cyclical nature of the oil and gas industry.

00;17;57;11 - 00;18;13;04
Unknown
You know, it's up and down, up and down. So you kind of you see those effects now shaping the city and shaping the communities, which is really interesting. It's a it's a not very organic growth. But in a way it's, it's own organic growth. Yeah. So yeah, industrial organic growth I don't know what the term is for that.

00;18;13;04 - 00;18;32;19
Unknown
Boomtown. Yeah. Boom boom town. Yeah. Describing a boom town back in the. Yeah. Exactly. So that's pretty cool. And, you know, I like you saying cancer alley, right? Like, oh, all these things are coming out of the plans. Like, obviously, you know, the intent of people isn't necessarily everybody cancer. But it's unfortunate byproduct of the industry and the world's energy demands.

00;18;32;21 - 00;18;47;16
Unknown
And, you know, brings a bigger question to the industry, like what can you do to be better? Yeah. Like obviously don't want to, you know, want to kill your employees. You don't want to kill the people that are helping you in this industry. Yeah. So it's all one big team. So is there something the industry can do to make it better?

00;18;47;18 - 00;19;08;06
Unknown
Maybe. Maybe. So I'm sure, you know, technology develops every day. There's always something new coming out. So it's a matter of finding the right thing. And by the way, the thing in Chalmette, I was talking about in Louisiana is an aluminum factory. So it has nothing to do with oil. It's. No, no, I guess. Yeah. So it's just one of those things where, like, it reminds me of, like, the aerosol in the ozone layer.

00;19;08;06 - 00;19;23;06
Unknown
It's like we invented something and we're like, oh, shit. We need to stop this immediately. Yeah, but like, five years later, right? So it's just one of those things. Yeah. Which is how we got back to flaring. Yeah. So. That's right. Yeah, exactly. I, we just vented initially and then all of a sudden, you know, someone's like, well, we should just burn it.

00;19;23;06 - 00;19;45;05
Unknown
Yeah. And then we should mine Bitcoin and my you I data processing. Yeah. Well with the flare you know it's it's a bit of a personal point for me right. I, I live next to a flare. When I was on a disposal project for, for a client Canada. And even though flaring burns, you know, 90 whatever percent of the pollutants in there, you still inhale quite a bit of the stuff when you're near it.

00;19;45;07 - 00;20;02;17
Unknown
Yeah. So living there for a couple of months, I start getting really sick. I will describe how sick, but it wasn't pleasant. It was actually really terrible. You know, you wake up in the morning not feeling good, and it was simply from living downstream of a flare. And I actually, like, got me thinking. I have now a personal experience of like, well, I'm directly impacted by this flare.

00;20;02;17 - 00;20;15;19
Unknown
Usually I live north of Edmonton, a small town. There's no flare near me. That's not something I think about on a daily basis. But now all of a sudden I'm right next to it. There's no where I can go because I simply have to work there. And it's like all this guy, be some better. We can do the flare, you know?

00;20;15;19 - 00;20;41;17
Unknown
Sure. Flares been inventing, but why stop there? And then, you know, I kind of went on the hunt for some tech on my own. I kind of decided to go check some stuff out, look around, and I ended up finding a solution to it and, you know, rerouted, or redirected my business to kind of, look into that avenue a little more, see if we can kind of develop that market out here in North America.

00;20;41;19 - 00;20;59;19
Unknown
You know, the Europeans are pretty big on emissions, right? You know, I see there's a lot of population density in Europe. There's not a lot of space. So for them, having a flare anywhere is, is just bad PR not just, not just the the effects and everything and regulations there too, that effects that as well. So the Europeans came up with stuff to, to reduce learning.

00;20;59;21 - 00;21;18;27
Unknown
Yeah. And, you know, try to slowly bring it over here. Sure. Well, would you mind talking more about, you know, getting your company started? You know, that idea of that process when when you took that, like, I like putting years on everything, you know, like, this is your chance to tell your story. So. Okay, you know, trying to make it chronologically be would be great.

00;21;18;27 - 00;21;44;07
Unknown
But, really about, you know, maybe more of that, that transition from military to working in the field and then, like how long that took you to really start engaging in entrepreneurship in the field and like, where do these companies start? Yeah. And, and kind of digging into there. Yeah. Well, the timeline for that was honestly really short.

00;21;44;10 - 00;22;01;28
Unknown
And April 22nd of 2022, it was really a day to remember, you know. Yeah. That's when my last day of the military happened. That was it. And and from there it was into the oil fields. And I got in on a good time where things were picking up and there was lots of work. And I got into Ireland.

00;22;02;00 - 00;22;19;23
Unknown
I kind of started everything for me, and I was the left field wireline, but and I was working on completions and pump down, which is a branch of wireline, is very physical, very demanding. There's a lot of movement and it's not something you see, everyone thinks of frack and they forget about everything else surrounding frack. But the pump down side of wireline is extremely physical.

00;22;19;23 - 00;22;39;29
Unknown
You're spinning tools on and off. These things are heavy depending on the size, but everything's heavy. Basically default in the oil field in general. Everything in the oil field is usually heavy and expensive and expensive and goodness, the and that was my first kind of, view at, the sort of the flow of money in there. It wasn't something I was thinking, I'm going to be spent altogether.

00;22;40;01 - 00;22;50;15
Unknown
But, you know, when I go back to the camp, I would sit there. I had a couple hours myself where I was like, wow, this is there's there's a lot going on here. And it was a big shift from like, the military where you're not thinking about the money and military as a military, you do what you're told.

00;22;50;15 - 00;23;05;01
Unknown
You don't think any more than that. And all of a sudden I had, you know, some freedom to think. And I was like, oh, man, I'll be cool to do that one day. And then I had an opportunity to cross over and start MWD, which I took. Why don't you explain that real quick? Because I don't think we have ever covered that on a show.

00;23;05;03 - 00;23;22;27
Unknown
Oh, well, in the oil fields you have companies that look for skills, and this is something that I always talk with. People that are new in the oil field is like, it doesn't matter what you do. It's kind of, well, it doesn't matter what you do. Yes, but it also really matters what you know and what you can bring to somebody, where you can offer someone as a skillset or knowledge.

00;23;23;00 - 00;23;42;12
Unknown
And companies look for that. And so when the company was looking for somebody that had some of, wireline experience specifically, and I was interested in learning MWD, and that's kind of how I came along. And, and what's it stand for? And nobody stands for measurement while drilling. It's, very misunderstood part of the directional, drilling process.

00;23;42;14 - 00;24;04;23
Unknown
Anybody who's on the drilling side knows the famous phrase, you know, it's always MWD. It's always to and you always blame the MWD, which is the measurement, right? It's a lot of complicated electronic systems. There's a lot of technology. It's basically one of the most technologically advanced parts of the drilling process. You know, you're basically it's what steers drilling rigs while they're drilling.

00;24;04;25 - 00;24;21;29
Unknown
And so a lot of people don't understand that. And so it's really easy to blame something that's like voodoo magic that you just don't understand what it is. Well, it's easy to point fingers at it when things go wrong. So I was really interested in getting into that because there is so much to learn. And, I mean, you think you've learned everything and someone brings something new up.

00;24;22;01 - 00;24;49;08
Unknown
Yeah, there's always new development on there constantly. Every other day there's more data. That is the biggest way to create downhole telemetry and downhole data that can be used for every other part of the drilling process. It's a really, really interesting, like subsub subsection of the oil field. And I did that for a while. And so I to start my own company and, basically contract myself out, with the skills I'd learned.

00;24;49;08 - 00;25;09;04
Unknown
So and, that's how I kind of got into the entrepreneurship side. I was like, how can I leverage this? How can I turn this into something more? Yes. So and that's that's when once you obviously, you guys know as entrepreneurs, you guys know like once you get that, first taste of like of entrepreneurship, it's just yeah, that freedom that like freedom and like on the back.

00;25;09;07 - 00;25;27;20
Unknown
Yeah. You can get you can't, you can't. It's, it's like the first time you get your oilfield paycheck and all of a sudden it just it changes things for you. And it's. Yeah, it's like when you start to talk about crunching the numbers, it's like you, you got you figured out what office money was. You know, you got that first taste, then you're like, Holy cow.

00;25;27;28 - 00;25;44;09
Unknown
It's eye opening and it's like, it's it changes things in so many ways. You know, some people fall into the trap, you know, the big house and all that, and and which isn't terrible, you know? I mean, who doesn't like that kind of stuff? But it is also really fun to see. It's an adventure. And there's so many avenues that open up.

00;25;44;15 - 00;26;15;07
Unknown
And, from the TV side, you know, definitely a lot of work there. And how, how do I get better? And it kind of motivated me to like, learn things and apply that in the field and apply that to help, you know, rigs drill better. Apply that to basically what I was doing to help others. And, there's actually a, there's an exploration company up in northern Alberta that was exploring this field that is way shallower than what they're currently drilling down there.

00;26;15;09 - 00;26;33;20
Unknown
And it was something that I wouldn't say was missed. They knew they always knew there was oil there, but they never really dug into it and scale that this company started doing it. And the only reason that they can really do that is because technology is advanced nowadays where you can find little pockets of oil that previously you weren't even really going to touch them.

00;26;33;20 - 00;26;51;11
Unknown
It wasn't worth the juice, wasn't worth the squeeze. But now, with the new tech, all of a sudden your reserves basically kind of grew. So this whole thing of like peak oil, is it really ever peak oil if we just keep finding layers of oil now? Right. And all of a sudden, you know, things you thought were impossible ten years ago are possible today.

00;26;51;14 - 00;27;15;03
Unknown
Well, what the real one that that gets me is like, I don't know how to pronounce it, but it's that the world is inherently producing, more, oil and gas, like some internal process in the Earth that's producing enough that would sustain. But, that is what I always thought was, was fascinating is that it's like actively, you know, pumping up oil.

00;27;15;03 - 00;27;30;24
Unknown
And we haven't realized that yet, but that's like a, a big thing, like the fossil fuel. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I never thought of it. It's like happening at a faster rate than we think. And like, oh I don't know. There's some reserves that end up with oil, but I don't know there's an interesting. Yeah.

00;27;30;26 - 00;27;48;06
Unknown
And not only that, there's just completely untapped basins. And I'm not talking about like, the crazy controversial ones that like maybe an Antarctica or Greenland, but like, what's happening in Australia or, north of Guyana, like, these are there is still like untouched things. So the whole peak oil thing I learned quickly not coming from this industry is.

00;27;48;06 - 00;28;14;28
Unknown
Yeah, I don't even know why people say that make any sense. East coast, I mean, I mean, the East Gulf. I saw something I read an article this week that was, that was like geological formation, assessment that the federal government was doing, centered around the the Haynesville play. And it's like the West, the dude plays the West Haynesville with high pressure and that the the Bossier Bossier formation.

00;28;14;28 - 00;28;46;25
Unknown
I mean, I'm not a geologist. I don't know, I'm sure, but I was reading this that was like that geological formation is conducive to the fact that there's probably a lot more oil discoverable in the eastern Gulf, because those two geometries connect, except that we're not drilling or exploring in the eastern Gulf. And like that's another example. You know, we have a lot of protected areas, some that are not that environmentally sensitive, that still has a bunch of reserves that were just like, not it's not even on the table, you know, it's not even on the EIA radar, you know.

00;28;46;27 - 00;29;10;13
Unknown
No, it hasn't even been touched. It is cool. Like, you know, we we talked about, ecologic protected areas. Now I remember reading years ago, this was a couple years ago actually about something in Alaska. And people were crying about, you know, what about the ecological areas. But a lot of people don't understand, like the beauty of directional drilling and how much reach you can have with a single.

00;29;10;13 - 00;29;29;04
Unknown
Well, that back in the day, this used to be like eight wells that were vertical and just poking holes, kind of like sipping through, sipping through a straw for your slushie. But now are Strock and Ben sideways and do all kinds of cool stuff U-turns, paper clips, essays, and just sit right where all the sweet stuff is.

00;29;29;06 - 00;29;57;04
Unknown
So you're looking at these pads in Alaska, and people were assuming we're just going to poke holes all over these, like, pristine forests. Alaska. When in reality, if you ever look at a modern pad, it's it's so small. It's almost like, where is it? Where's the rest of it? Where's the rest of you? Yeah. And you just they can they can from one pad, they can kind of reach in and 360 degrees exploit multiple miles or kilometers in Canada, multiple kilometers of zone without having to go there and DeForest the area.

00;29;57;06 - 00;30;13;04
Unknown
And all of a sudden boom. Now you're more efficient, is better for the environment, you know, better for the world. And that's just the nature of the game for us. That's what the oil does. They just innovate to make things better because, you know, you guys live in Texas, right? Why would the Texas oil field want to ruin Texas?

00;30;13;06 - 00;30;26;19
Unknown
You know, it's all it's always like, in the back of their mind. These people live here, right? You guys live here? That the companies are headquartered here. These people live here. This is your home? Yeah, and same in Alberta. It's our home. You know, it's in our best interest to treat it nicely and to make it a good place.

00;30;26;19 - 00;30;50;24
Unknown
Like. And I that's one thing that I love about the oil field is, is like we do have some sort of responsibility and we do carry it. Well I do I do feel strongly towards, you know, the stewardship part, especially in my communities, and my geographic area, because it is a relatively sensitive I mean, it's a marine ecosystem, of course, being eaten by little rodents.

00;30;50;26 - 00;31;09;29
Unknown
Yes. That's, you know, a nutria. No, no, no. Oh, God. There's a reason to shoot them. There's a reason. The boot. The southern boot of Louisiana looks like has been bitten. And tiny bite. Rabid because it's literally bitten in tiny bites by a rodent. Wow. I think it's like nutria. It's just like a huge rat. I think it comes from South America.

00;31;10;01 - 00;31;30;02
Unknown
But, they had imported these maybe in the 1800s earlier, but at some point, imported these because they thought it was a cheap alternative to leather. Oh. So they would, like, raise them skin, for the, for skins. We have fun history. We have that. We have pirates, real life pirates. Pirates and rat leather.

00;31;30;02 - 00;31;50;05
Unknown
And not old pirates. Like pirates, like 100 years ago. Okay. Like we had piracy. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. We've been on the feet. I mean, Java Feet was the mascot of my my. And they're heroes and heroes. Yeah. Yeah. Like not like evil pirates. Like, say like, kind of like cartels. Got up privateer. And, you know, we we help the Americans win the war.

00;31;50;09 - 00;32;09;21
Unknown
Okay. Yeah, yeah. You know, for profit. You know, the the roots of for profit activities in the States. Good versus bad pirates. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So derailed. You know, finish that thought I am a privateer. That's like that was our college mascot, so. Oh okay, I quite literally. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it's funny you guys mentioned rats and the bronze rats cause you guys have eaten everything.

00;32;09;25 - 00;32;26;19
Unknown
Albert is one of the only places without rats in the world. God bless. Legitimately, the entire province is certified rat free. We have a rat task force. If you see a rat, you call the rat task force, they will come out. It is a serious thing. It's it's almost comical, but it's actually it's a weird little, you know, Albertan ism.

00;32;26;21 - 00;32;44;18
Unknown
Yeah, I know that. I hear that about like, snakes or mosquitoes, which is also nice, but yeah, yeah. Scooter mats, rat free ice cream. We don't need them, Scatman. Keep them. Yeah. Keep them east of the Rockies, Yeah. He's like he. Keep them east of Alberta and west. Very east of the Rockies. Exactly. Yeah. So you were talking about entrepreneurship?

00;32;44;19 - 00;33;04;27
Unknown
Yeah. That's a very common motif that anyone can relate to. What? What? Any industry, which is. When do you quit your nice, big comfy job and start surviving off of your make believe money that you're going to start getting as an entrepreneur? Like that's currently what you're doing, right? Yeah. Well, the thing is, I never even quit my job.

00;33;04;29 - 00;33;22;23
Unknown
Okay? That's the part that, I like to, I like to bring up is that a lot of people are afraid to make that jump, and it can. It's a risky jump to make. I never even quit my job. Essentially, I turned my job into my business. Exactly. And I kind of leverage my my experience and my time in the company and loyalty in the network and the friendships I built there.

00;33;22;25 - 00;33;43;02
Unknown
I kind of turned that into the my first income stream. Yeah. And that's that's one thing that I find for entrepreneurship. It's not so black and white sometimes. Yeah. There is opportunities where, you know, in some cases, yes, you got to leave your job, you got to go off the deep end. Sure. But in my case, I was very lucky and very fortunate that I worked with this great company and they were fantastic.

00;33;43;02 - 00;34;04;14
Unknown
And the transition was seamless. You know, I pretty much didn't have to change anything. I got to keep my email address, that kind of stuff. You know, the things you take for granted, the things that you take for granted and for big company. I got to keep a lot of those perks while launching myself and draw entrepreneurship. Yeah, and with the oil fields, be on a rotation, it was very accommodating for an entrepreneurship because, yeah, you're working, but you're in you're working.

00;34;04;14 - 00;34;19;13
Unknown
Yeah. You got no time for your business right then and there. Sure. But then you've got time off and your time off is yours. And you don't have to abide anybody's schedules. You don't have to worry about anything. That time off is yours. And you can actually use that time off all of a sudden to build your business.

00;34;19;13 - 00;34;34;00
Unknown
Yeah, you got 10 to 14. You know, if there's a downturn, occasionally get three months, and you get this time to basically just build your business so you can work on it. And because you're not thinking about, well, am I going back to work Monday to when I have five from Monday to Friday? You're not thinking about that.

00;34;34;00 - 00;34;54;25
Unknown
You can think 100%. Focus all your attention onto your business, which is another incredible yes perk in a way, of the oilfield hack. Yeah, a little hack, like, yeah, don't don't entirely quit your job if you have to. Definitely not. And look, I'm so glad you brought some of that stuff up because it's kind of the way I've been thinking for a long time.

00;34;54;27 - 00;35;21;29
Unknown
I did the same thing when I started working on my first tech company. I was working seven, seven, dispatching, doing logistics out of seaport, in Port Fisher, working for shell, Repsol, Chevron, ConocoPhillips. And that that actually was a push back from the job I got out of college. That was which I thought was ideal for me and my career, which is I was a vessel coordinator for Edison Sweat's offshore.

00;35;22;03 - 00;35;47;01
Unknown
Okay. And in 1415, when the price crashed, we laid up 50% of the Gulf fleet and we let go or repurposed 50% of the junior operations personnel, and I was one of them. So I got repurposed to working seven and seven at the port. And, I'm like, man, I had this whole career plan, you know, like, and I wanted to accelerate that.

00;35;47;04 - 00;36;09;09
Unknown
And then this whole market, you know, has just completely destroyed that outlook. Like what? What can I do to keep advancing my career and it was, you know, the market didn't need more boats because I wanted to be a vessel owner operator. The market needed to, use, vessels more efficiently. So, when I was working seven and seven, I started working on the tech company to help optimize vessel logistics and vessel chartering.

00;36;09;11 - 00;36;27;19
Unknown
But it's the same thing, you know, like you have those seven days. Don't waste it. Yeah. You didn't, you know, you know, back then when when you're in your 20s and you're working like that, that's when you need to take your big steps in entrepreneurship, you know, when you have the time. So now I have two little ones at home, you know, and it's a much different trade off.

00;36;27;22 - 00;36;54;05
Unknown
Yeah. It's a little tougher. Yeah a lot tougher actually I, I had guess I don't have any kids. So I'm definitely taking advantage of the time right now to to kind of build something. Yeah. That I can be proud of and I can hopefully pass out on my kids one day. I be you know, that's exactly. Yeah, that's what drives me, too, you know, and I think a part of the a good thing about the energy 101 podcast and why we need to focus on that is if you have a young person who thinks they're into entrepreneurship or knows, you know, and you always the one of the most common questions, what advice you

00;36;54;05 - 00;37;11;18
Unknown
have for young people, it's like, don't fucking waste your time. Yeah. You know, and also you you want a goal, you want a career path, then go get a job that puts you on that. Like don't don't fight your day job and what you want to do for a living. Try to go on a professional route and I'll give you everything you need to start your business.

00;37;11;21 - 00;37;30;29
Unknown
And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to go into sales immediately, as fast as I could. Okay, was was to like, because I felt the relationship and the client part was that was the most important was the hardest thing to acquire. Definitely. Yeah. And I find like usually someone who is a successful professional, there's a lot of transferring to being a successful entrepreneur.

00;37;31;02 - 00;37;51;26
Unknown
If you're the kind of guy that thinks that entrepreneurs just kind of sit around and do all this and just post on Instagram and go to Miami and drive up and down a rented car, that's not entrepreneurship, you know, that's that Instagram hype building that really isn't real. It's more and more into like the scammy territory. But real entrepreneurs like just being here at ODC, seeing how much people are moving.

00;37;51;26 - 00;38;17;18
Unknown
And yes, we're having fun, you know, we're we're we're going out, we're seeing things. We're we're talking all these people. We're we're making these connections. We're having fun. But people are still professional. They're polite. You know, there's that sort of respect, mutual respect amongst people that just is very important. And you get that sort of base when you have a good job and when you apply yourself to a job, you genuinely become a better person, which gives you the opportunity, the keys to success, to be an actual successful entrepreneur.

00;38;17;21 - 00;38;37;02
Unknown
It translates like right over, like you started obviously in your job, you had these goals and like even though you didn't achieve the initial goal because things got changed, whether you liked it or not. You know, sometimes we're it's not in our control. Yeah, but you had that base and you just were able to move along like you were essentially a rolling, rolling Stone and you're just unstoppable.

00;38;37;09 - 00;39;04;02
Unknown
Well, that's what I that's what I like about the, the collect community and then like running it to you, you know, immediately tons of respect for the, you know, the hustle and entrepreneurship part. And that's and I love that about our community is we pull these people in and you just you don't see it elsewhere. You know, like I'm really active with, the big industry events aid or, you know, whatever it is with, with a lot of offs and like ENP clients and you don't see that there, right.

00;39;04;02 - 00;39;27;11
Unknown
Like we bring that's unique to the community that we bring in. So we bring builders, we bring creators, disruptors, innovators and, and the entrepreneurs I've met through our network even before we were collide when I was coming here in 14, 15. I've created some of the, you know, my best friends in the career, and we've worked together for a while so that back in the wild, Carter days.

00;39;27;13 - 00;39;45;20
Unknown
Star. Yeah, yeah, it started there. The Houston energy tech scene was really fun then. Yeah, it's still fun now, but that was a that was a time I was following community back then. Yeah, that's when I learned about the community. One of your one of your founders there, you know, shout out to Julie, you know, through LinkedIn and all that.

00;39;45;20 - 00;40;07;09
Unknown
That's how I got got a bit wind of that community and, which is, you know, interesting, cause you have a legacy, like social media stuff like LinkedIn, right? That sort of things happen there. But then you move into much newer, you know, more, more active, more ones. They have necessarily, but like more dynamic media like collide, like the group that you guys have here and this community you guys are building.

00;40;07;12 - 00;40;21;11
Unknown
And it's really cool to kind of get to finally see that in person, you know, cause I've been following online and I see the posts and I see you see all the media, and it's one thing to see all the media and see that part, which is really fun. But it's another thing to actually get to go to one of your guys's events.

00;40;21;11 - 00;40;45;19
Unknown
You get to guys, meet guys in person, you meet everybody. It's actually part three, part of the network. Take part of the community and from someone who comes from Canada who, you know, never really. I've never worked in Texas and legally can't, I've never worked in Texas. I don't, I don't I don't plan to without a visa, you know, I guess back to the, the United States of America and I come here as sort of a once in an outsider, like, yes, I'm an industry guy.

00;40;45;22 - 00;41;02;24
Unknown
But I don't really know everybody here. Yeah. You don't know a couple people here that I've met throughout my career and all that stuff. But to be able to kind of jump into that community and have that community support in a way, yeah, is is incredible. Just being able to integrate once it, you know, almost seamlessly, if you will.

00;41;02;26 - 00;41;19;20
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah I like endorsements. Yeah. So when you guys built up really though, it's like we have an open door policy kind of for that stuff. Right. Like you just you don't get that. You look at all the OTC parties and like, you either get an invite or you're not allowed in some of them, you know, that's here.

00;41;19;20 - 00;41;34;19
Unknown
It's like we make it easy, it's free. You can just show up, just be a part of the community, you know, and everyone's welcome. And it gives you a landing spot. Right? I gave you a landing spot. Absolutely. Yeah. I was actually the that I rare event. I knew of the event. And then I was like, I'm not sure.

00;41;34;19 - 00;41;48;19
Unknown
Like am I, am I really like, am I part of that group. Am I it and have a bit of an eye, you know, coming in from Canada, you know, we are the same with different. So a little bit of an identity crisis when you like Houston, everything's big, everything's hot fast, like you got all these like, things going on.

00;41;48;19 - 00;42;08;01
Unknown
Everyone's moving. Everyone's like, you know, Texan. I'm just the Canadian guy, man. I'm just the Canadian under my daddy crisis. I'm like, am I? Am I part of the club? I don't know. And you know what the way that you guys structure things makes it like very approachable. And, you know, it was simple as all online. I didn't have to like, go and like track somebody down and do some sort of ritual to get in.

00;42;08;04 - 00;42;22;19
Unknown
It was pretty simple, straightforward. You know, this community, it's online. It's accessible from my phone. That's all I had. And I was able to see as talk some other people that, you know, I found out later, actually part of the community and gets me thinking and then bam, all a sudden, you know, we're hanging out, meeting up, you know, having drinks and having a good time.

00;42;22;19 - 00;42;38;14
Unknown
It was just it was an incredible night, honestly. Welcome to Houston. Yeah, I know you had a good week and a great week. Yeah. I, you know, already looking forward to coming back and having a left. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that was an amazing endorsement. I mean, at the end of the day, it's social media, you know?

00;42;38;14 - 00;42;55;24
Unknown
So I mean, not to get all the social, but holistic about it. It's like, yeah, like it's a, it's a cheat code, you know, like download like 200 people. It's like I know them now we're cool. And then you show up and you're like, hey, hey, you are. And it's like, I that's so comforting and so cool that you that you can just like, do that because.

00;42;56;00 - 00;43;14;07
Unknown
And what we built, I mean, shit, I know. Well it it really pulls down the barrier, right. And like you would, you had enough online interaction with felt a part of the community to just show up. Right. Like you're not necessarily going to get that showing up to other events. Yeah. And I think another key here is like, what?

00;43;14;09 - 00;43;35;24
Unknown
It's the, the imposter syndrome, right? You're like, do I belong? Like, what am I doing here? And, like, you're a smart guy. You're super capable, energetic, like, you've got you've got all these pros and yet you're over here doubting yourself. Yeah. You know, but that's also, I think, a common thread between entrepreneurs, creators, disruptors. You know, like, like the person sitting in the corporate structure who's like, I'm not happy.

00;43;35;24 - 00;43;55;09
Unknown
And I can't talk about it because everyone else is happy, you know, like they don't feel the same drivers that I feel like why I feel stuck, you know, and that's very alienating. Or like when you have a big idea and like, it makes normal people feel uncomfortable or even makes smart people like, will shoot you down, you know, like you get that imposter syndrome.

00;43;55;12 - 00;44;11;28
Unknown
And I mean, it's real. It's like it's in each one of us, especially that entrepreneur life can be isolating, you know, and like, but this is the community for those people, you know, like you're welcomed here you come. You can meet so many other people who are trying to figure out how to make it, you know, are finding ways to make it.

00;44;12;00 - 00;44;28;24
Unknown
In a way, I find that sort of imposter syndrome is a healthy part of entrepreneurship. I find if you don't have a little bit of it every once in a while, you're not really pushing your boundaries and not really pushing. You're out of your comfort zone. If you're always in the comfort zone, you think you belong there and it's like, are you really doing something new?

00;44;28;26 - 00;44;45;06
Unknown
You just kind of sitting, you know, resting on your chair, sitting, relaxing. It's not I find entrepreneurship supposed to be like have some sort of risk element, have some sort of uncertainty. Like if you don't have that uncertainty, are you really making something not different? Yeah, it's the same motif of, not wanting to be the smartest person in the room, right?

00;44;45;06 - 00;45;05;06
Unknown
Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. And where do I go to find the smartest people in the room while they're not in my basement? When I'm out on my computer typing up emails? No, it was just me. Yeah. You know, by definition, I'd be a the smartest and the dumbest person when I'm by myself. So, no, I'll come out OTC, come out to the events, I'll come up to collide, and I'll get to meet people that have, like, incredible connections.

00;45;05;06 - 00;45;18;23
Unknown
Actually, you know, all of a sudden I meet somebody who actually is buddies with somebody that I worked with back in Canada, even though they've never met. But they're like best friends over email type of deal. Yeah, but we have that connection that we didn't even know. Know. And then we can talk about stuff because we're both guys.

00;45;18;23 - 00;45;37;05
Unknown
I work in the same industry that even though we've we would never normally meet, there is not even a chance. We're different companies, completely different everything. But here we are hanging out, having a beer in Houston. Yeah. You know, enjoying our evening like it was just it was a bit of an eye opening experience for me. Honestly. And, like I was looking for.

00;45;37;05 - 00;45;59;16
Unknown
I'm already looking for it. Next time I get to come by here to hopefully, like, go hang out to whatever one of the other events. Yeah, that's that's definitely one of the things that makes Houston cool. You know, it's having that energy network here. And it just seems to aggregate here, you know, pulls everybody from the far reaches whether it's West Texas, Canada, you know, absolutely pulls us in together, to, to Houston.

00;45;59;16 - 00;46;17;28
Unknown
But, so how do you go from MWD to turbines? You just had under the same house? Yes. Company. Right. Oh, no. Unfortunately not. I wish, you know, the motor made things way easier. But then again, easiness isn't always good. So that was honestly a bit of a fluke. And I got to get my younger brother credit for that one.

00;46;18;00 - 00;46;35;16
Unknown
You know, and credit where credit is due. So we end up, I end up going to Milan for a gastro gas tech. Milan 2025 there. Cool. Pretty cool show, honestly. And gas. That kind of travels not always in Milan. I think they're in Thailand next year. I'm like that. Milan, Italy. Yeah. Milan, Italy. Okay. Oh, I guess there's other lawns out my back.

00;46;35;16 - 00;46;51;13
Unknown
Know, I just I didn't think the word Milan would come up and, podcast. Right. Yeah. I like Milan, Italy. I think fast capital world. There's nothing really oil and gas related in my, in my mind. Like when I think of Milan, I don't think oil and gas. I think I think good food, I think fashion, I think like design.

00;46;51;13 - 00;47;09;10
Unknown
That's what I think. I think designer brands, I think Gucci. Yeah. You know, I think these things leather purses, other purses, like models, I think that kind of stuff. So and gas was somewhere around the fashion week time as well. So we went there and it was also an incredible show. Huge. And I mean, you know, I sponsor Baker.

00;47;09;10 - 00;47;27;28
Unknown
He was the usual stuff. And we went there. We're kind of turned around. We weren't really sure what we were looking for. I knew I wanted to look for technology and gas tech. Gas technology. Wow. It's in the name. So we go there. I ended up actually focusing on something totally different than turbines. I was looking at, just like electrochemical filter or whatnot.

00;47;27;28 - 00;47;44;29
Unknown
And I won't name the company because, you know, can't can be saying stuff, but, the attitude that I received from them was just unpleasant. Like, I went up to their booth as some as just some guy. Right. And I wasn't in a suit. You know, I'm not there to to to be, like, a sales guy or nothing.

00;47;44;29 - 00;48;02;14
Unknown
I just want to know more about the tech and. And the way that they treat me was like unpleasant. They quite literally turn their nose up at me. My brother and and my girlfriend. The time me that kind of like, what was that like Italian. So yeah. European. Yeah. It was some part of Europe. I wanted to see the country.

00;48;02;19 - 00;48;18;13
Unknown
I wasn't telling the Italians. Fantastic. Fine. UFF two booths over was an Italian guy. And he's now basically our business partner. And so we just kind of walked over and we were just looking and they had this, this booth set up and we're kind of like what does this do. You know, it's curious I always love learning.

00;48;18;13 - 00;48;36;26
Unknown
It's the thing I love about The Office. You can always learn something was like, tell me about this. And he told me about this technology that this company develops. And it was incredible. And basically that alone could eliminate flaring in certain applications. We were chatting. He said, well, you know, it's only good to -20, which in Canada gets to -40 below.

00;48;36;26 - 00;48;51;25
Unknown
So that was not good enough for us. There's a new market, a new market. I was like, well, you know how you guys are about Canada. And they were at that point they hadn't. And over time we kind of built a relationship with them. And a lot of the work that I did for them was completely for free.

00;48;51;28 - 00;49;08;15
Unknown
I took that risk thinking, okay, well, I believe in this. I don't actually want to ask them for money and treat this like a job. Yeah, I want to show good faith and work with them, work on their product, worked on the work on their brand, work on everything. I want to work with these guys. You know, I flew out to Belgium on my own dime.

00;49;08;15 - 00;49;31;22
Unknown
Everything. Everything was on my own company's dime. But still everything would came out of my budget just to kind of go and collaborate. Because I really believed in what they were building. I really believed in it. And I thought, this has like crazy applications. And in Canada, maybe even in the USA at the time, that was really my focus because, yeah, I was living and work in Canada mostly, and I'm thinking like, wow, like this.

00;49;31;24 - 00;49;48;07
Unknown
I could, for example, me getting sick from a flare, I could have been prevented if such a thing was in Canada and replaced that flare. Like, I was like, man, I wish I knew about the sooner, but things kind of work out at the time to do it. And that's how I got into the turbines. Essentially, they're not even turbine manufacturer.

00;49;48;07 - 00;50;12;07
Unknown
They make micro turbines. And it's really cool because you think turbines, what do you think? You think of a big jet engine. Expensive. Yeah. Yeah. Spinning. Wow. You're thinking 50% you know, thermodynamic efficiency. Yes. Yeah, yeah. And these guys had this small thing. And when you make things smaller you can tweak them a lot more. And these guys have like some like I like I think was like 83% efficiency rating which is incredible.

00;50;12;07 - 00;50;26;09
Unknown
Yeah. Like any, any jump of 33% at anything sometimes sounds too good to be true. But no, they had the data. They had all the proof. And when I went to Belgium, they showed me a lot of stuff and they were like that. This is in the flash. Like, it's not vaporware, it's real and it's ready to go.

00;50;26;09 - 00;50;44;25
Unknown
We're just we need to get going. And so that's where we're at is the get going stage. Yeah. And I do I do love working with them. You know, we, we talk with them all the time. We can we collaborate, you know, tell them what's going on here. Yeah. And, Houston was a part of that. That's why I came here, to kind of get a feel for the market, talk to people, see, like, hey, what do you want?

00;50;44;25 - 00;51;04;20
Unknown
And then I find out that, you know, I. And oil and gas are, like, fighting for turbines. Pretty much. Which is insane. Like, you're looking at two industry titans, like, slugging it out for. For what is it they want? Energy, right? Power generation. Power generation. Everyone's power generation on site. Yeah. And it seems like they're competing for it.

00;51;04;23 - 00;51;32;08
Unknown
Yeah, but why should they compete like the oil industry? How much are we flaring? Like, I don't even know the numbers on it. It's probably like I don't know a lot. That's a lot of energy. Right. It's a lot now imagine we would turn that energy into computing power instead of flaring. You kind of win on both ends here where the computing power side of things are happy because, well, they get more energy to crunch numbers and whatever else data centers do.

00;51;32;10 - 00;51;51;02
Unknown
And then on the flaring or in the oil and gas side, you get the benefit of no more wasted resource. So where does that kind of fit in. And that's what we're working on. And it's really exciting. And this is where like entrepreneurship I recommend it to everybody who you know is interested because you can go from just doing something a niche in one industry.

00;51;51;05 - 00;52;10;15
Unknown
And as kind of a quick turn of events, this is like less, less than a full year at this point. You know, it's going to be a full year that we started this venture, I think just about in September. So within less than a year you can go from being on the drilling side doing measurement while drilling something totally unrelated to turbines.

00;52;10;15 - 00;52;31;09
Unknown
Yeah. And through I don't know, entrepreneurship. I don't know how to put it. But like through this like adventure you can end up in a completely different side of the industry. And you actually can potentially be even looking at trying to bridge industries together, get people to work together, which I would why would we not do that? You know, instead of having two people fighting or two industries fighting, why don't they work together?

00;52;31;11 - 00;52;46;09
Unknown
Yeah. Like, can we do that? Is it something? Is possible. Is this a pipe dream? But as an entrepreneur, these are questions you get to ask yourself instead of man, when is my shift? And yeah, that's to me that's the that's the that's the best part. Yeah. It's like I'm not worried about it. I don't care when work ends.

00;52;46;11 - 00;53;04;16
Unknown
Genuinely enjoy the process of like, even like coming here, you know, like, I don't even know what time it is, but I left I left the conference that OTC, you know, help somebody pack a booth up because, you know, gotta help the friends out and come here in a bit of a rush. But we sit down and I don't really look at the time.

00;53;04;19 - 00;53;22;08
Unknown
I'm like, let's make things happen. Let's let's talk, let's let's discuss things. And this is like, for me, this incredible fun. Yeah. That's the best feeling when time just doesn't exist. It does like it stops and it doesn't exist. That's why they invented a podcast studio, said the guy with no kids. That's harsh. Yeah, yeah. Don't. I'm very sorry.

00;53;22;08 - 00;53;45;17
Unknown
I, I know, I know, you know, you've got you've got kids, you've got kids. I'm sure you got time commitments, but, thankfully you're locked in here with me and, I'm very grateful for the opportunity to get talk to you guys. Yeah. Cool. So, Yeah, if we like. I'm a huge fan of commercialization. It's part of my job here is to help figure out how do we commercialize our technology and how do we distribute it to our channels.

00;53;45;20 - 00;54;06;15
Unknown
So you have this new product, it's coming out of Europe. Is it in the field, deployed, active, provable tech in the field, and it's about getting it here. Or where is the technology at. Yeah. So it's it's it's done. It's good to go. We have two units coming in Canada. And I'm not going to dive into all the details on who's getting them and what.

00;54;06;17 - 00;54;23;01
Unknown
But it was an easy sell because of this whole turbine shortage. But that's not the part that interested me, is that is more of the application of where we could put them. Yeah. And as we looked at one client, we ended up finding another place and another place and another place. And eventually people will kind of start coming and finding you.

00;54;23;04 - 00;54;43;29
Unknown
Yeah. Because they're looking for this thing. And it's really fun because now I've got a product that works. I've got something that can make a change for the industry and not just my own industry, but other industries too. And it's really exciting to just kind of have that thing. And then we have other products coming out, these, these bridge engineers, with a partner company.

00;54;44;02 - 00;55;07;05
Unknown
Okay. They're they're engineers, right? They they love building stuff. They love creating things for which they're not. Oil and gas guys, actually, at all, they, you know, some of them are from like space agencies, some of them have all kinds of different experiences, you know, telecom, whatever. And they all get together and they create things. And then us as entrepreneurs, we get to bridge that gap of the guys that like to work 9 to 5, creating things like that's their thing.

00;55;07;05 - 00;55;23;24
Unknown
They don't they don't want to be proprietors and that's that's fine. They have a niche that they love. And then I have a new show that I love, and we get to Bridge that. And then I get to meet other people that also have their new show that they love, and we get to kind of meet each other because, you know, if I hadn't come to that event, probably never would have heard of me or never heard of my.

00;55;23;26 - 00;55;44;11
Unknown
Till next year. Till next year. Yeah, yeah, something like that. You know. So like it's really cool to kind of how do we meet? And then you guys are kind of creating your own butterfly effect. Pretty much where I look at it, the connections that you guys make and you guys facilitate through your network. Yeah, you don't even see first hand or even second hand or third how far that reaches.

00;55;44;13 - 00;56;17;22
Unknown
And when you look at the big picture, it's like, whoa, yeah. Like whoa, that's the funnel. That's it. It's it's incredible. I just it's like a it's like a delta. I just, I spreads, right, like, whoa. Well, that part is crazy. Like, some of this is mind blowing. And I got to sit down together. Yeah, yeah, you. I mean, Jake Jacob witnessed a lot of this, you know, most of it, especially the the all the growth, you know, and and and like, pulling in the old community like a joke, like it's the Tron system, you know, from the old system, the system, the energy tech night system, you know, and then turning it into the

00;56;17;22 - 00;56;41;19
Unknown
collide community. Jacob's seen a lot of that. And and really how that network magnifies and propagates and thanks. Thanks for the support on on recognizing that. Oh it's it's it's incredible. And like you really you're asking about the turbines like we we were initially underestimating ourselves big time. We weren't sure where we would be in the market. We were like, well, can we get a client like is somebody going to buy it?

00;56;41;19 - 00;57;03;23
Unknown
Yeah, those are the questions we were asking. Yeah. We had no idea. Yeah, in a way. Now we knew AI data, energy demands like these things were floating around. There were concepts and and you know, things happened like geopolitics within. And we could talk hours about what's going on in the world. Yeah. But you know, we come down here and you talk to somebody and they're like, well, you know, I got to wait years for this.

00;57;03;26 - 00;57;22;08
Unknown
Yeah. And then we're saying like, wait, yeah, you got to wait years because you think of a conventional turbine. It's huge. It takes a team of people to build. It takes so many resources. It's massive. And then on our end, what we are working with is micro turbines. The small takes one person to put it together.

00;57;22;10 - 00;57;38;07
Unknown
You know it's it's much smaller. The parts are smaller. Everything's smaller. The scale is smaller. So instead of waiting a year for multiple years for one we can get one built in a couple months. Yeah. Shipped over and that kind of stuff. That's where we're a bit different. Yeah. And we're kind of hoping to bring that difference into the industry where there's not really.

00;57;38;09 - 00;57;55;28
Unknown
Yeah. A huge migratory by market out there. Yeah. And especially with the energy one on one perspective, I know I know y'all have proprietary technology but like understanding the engineering barriers that was, you know, like we've had turbines for a very long time now. Like why haven't we had micro turbines. Like what's what was the engineering challenge?

00;57;55;28 - 00;58;17;12
Unknown
I don't know if you went down that rabbit hole. I have a ton of questions on, like, what does the supply chain market look like for turbines? You know what? Yeah. Well, for micro turbines, it's pretty much got to be built from the ground up at this point. So we're in a very interesting part of a, you know, another branch of entrepreneurship where you're in a bit of a like a almost startup like, mindset out in Canada because the infrastructure doesn't exist.

00;58;17;14 - 00;58;35;07
Unknown
There is no supply chain right now. But the upside is the supply chain doesn't need to be massive when you're a turbine turbo generator unit is the size of a football. You don't really need a giant supply network. You can Amazon could probably take care of that stuff. You know, you could same day ship that thing right to your doorstep.

00;58;35;09 - 00;58;53;09
Unknown
And install yourself like when you lower the complexity of things through technology like you think of computers right. Years ago or not years ago, like decades ago, I'd say building a PC at home was not something that most people did back when PCs were the size of a, you know, basketball stadium. You know, not a stadium necessarily, but a room.

00;58;53;09 - 00;59;09;25
Unknown
Yeah, room. Or there's the other sides of this room. You know, you were going to build that in your living room, but because it was your living room. Yeah. So but over time, the technology things got smaller, things got more efficient. And we're at the day and age now where turbines are of the size of like, you know, like your household fridge.

00;59;09;27 - 00;59;39;09
Unknown
You can make them into that package, which is incredible. Where will we be in the future? Yeah. You know, we'll turbines be the size of like the modern day PC. Like, can we get to there? I don't know, there's a whole irony here as we need more power. You know, here in the US or anywhere around the world, we are focusing on these new technologies like small turbines, small module reactors, which are like the small nuclear plants they're building, which I guess on Mars, that's huge.

00;59;39;16 - 01;00;02;04
Unknown
Yeah. And to like the commercial use of, like, people having these, like, battery electric backup generators that are, again, small. Yeah. Just to name three. Right. They're like, is this like the future of. And how does that irony even work. Yeah. Well that's that's what we some of us at least think and you know, we're talking about micro things like micro turbines.

01;00;02;04 - 01;00;27;22
Unknown
Well, we're think of the grid as a giant monolith. You know, you think about the grid. You never think about the smaller scale application of the grid. Right? So, for example, you're here in Texas, you got oil wells everywhere, you got wells flaring because there's no point or no economic value to bring the gas anywhere. But what if now all of a sudden, instead of flaring, you run that through a small turbine that is not invasive, doesn't impact the local community and actually power the local grid, helping you with grid stability.

01;00;27;25 - 01;00;43;24
Unknown
This is a discussion we had in Alberta because we're all so similar. Sex is just all spread out. Everything's like kind of far away. And we have oil wells all over the place, some of them flaring, some of them venting, whatever. What if now each one of those wells, instead of being like a bit of a sore in your community and like, oh, no, I've got a well in my backyard.

01;00;43;25 - 01;01;09;19
Unknown
Oh, that sucks. No, no, you don't have a well in your backyard. You have a power source. Yeah. You have a gas source sitting in your backyard that can power a turbine that powers your neighborhood, or that helps at least mitigate the power load in your neighborhood. So, you know, the power goes down from an ice storm or something like that, because you guys get those ice storms here every once in a while here, and then, you know, the grid goes down, something breaks, you know, power lines, snaps, somebody crashes in the pole because, you know, yeah.

01;01;09;21 - 01;01;29;27
Unknown
Where are the snow driving experts up there? And, also on the grids down. But now you got people who got no power for their homes. Like it's a much broader impact that has like, nothing to even do with oil and gas. But when gas can come fix kind of an interesting avenue to look into. So not just because I want to sell turbines.

01;01;29;29 - 01;01;54;26
Unknown
My, my last question, as we conclude here is that, you know, you're saying all this really cool ideas and stuff, like, you're not really like, breaking any barriers, right? Like, we've we figured out how to take flaring to help mine Bitcoin or to reuse the gas on site for these drilling sites or even modern day, like, putting them on data centers, like building a data center next to a pad and, you know, refueling it.

01;01;54;26 - 01;02;14;26
Unknown
Right. So just as an industry as a whole, like, what are we looking forward to? How much more normalized this is going to be? And like, where do you see everything in five years, ten years? Pick your choice. You know, ideally in five years the grid is more stable. You know, there's you won't hear stories about or less stories about people dying from like blackouts.

01;02;14;29 - 01;02;36;13
Unknown
Some like that, you know, because, you know, your grandparents live in a home and all of a sudden the power cuts out and no one's there to help them, and something happens to them, right? Like, like those stories that are really personal to us in fact, our family's day to day life, like we can make things better. You know, 100 years ago, before vaccines were around, before there was like modern medicine, you know, there was there's diseases around that are no longer here today.

01;02;36;15 - 01;02;53;06
Unknown
So I'm hoping, you know, as time progresses, we can actually eliminate those things out of the, out of the discussion. Design can be a topic. You know, we don't talk about polio as on a daily basis here nowadays. It's just not even a thing anymore. You know, we don't talk about these issues because they're just kind of phased out.

01;02;53;06 - 01;03;09;18
Unknown
So hopefully in the future, what we're talking about now will be kind of like something of the past that like, yeah, people were discussing it, but it was solved. You're venting. You're flaring. Why why why would you do that. Yeah. Yeah. You could be mining Bitcoin. You could be making money. Yeah. You're burning money. You could be running my clock code.

01;03;09;20 - 01;03;28;16
Unknown
Yeah you're right, I would be five coding off your backyard. Well like that you know nowadays like right now this seems like a bit of a stretch, but hopefully in five years it's a bit more normalized. You know, in ten years, hopefully it's like the norm that like the things that, you know, people did in the past before there was regulation for oil wells, all those things that were drilled and that are there, they're there already.

01;03;28;19 - 01;03;43;26
Unknown
Yeah. We can't, drill them, you know, instead of treating those things as a liability, those could actually be like a positive thing. Yeah. In the future. So yeah, but I'm not going to be the one to solve all that. That's why we need more entrepreneurs, more people to kind of join the community, more people to do this.

01;03;43;26 - 01;04;12;27
Unknown
Because I'm just one man. Well, you know, a big a big thing. I bet home is like, we definitely need more young people to step up. You know, we we have we I mean, we talk about this all the time. It's part of what why collide was created to, to solve. But like, that age gap that that knowledge transfer, you know, in, in our market, I'm watching people sell out, you know, second, third generation companies, no real succession plan, nobody to take it over.

01;04;12;27 - 01;04;39;00
Unknown
And they just they just want to exit. You know, it's been painful the last ten years for the downturn. And, we need entrepreneurs to step up. You know, we need entrepreneurs to challenge the status quo, building new tools, offering new service models, you know, and rebuilding from the ground up so that, you know, it's really nice to see you come in here and talk about what you're doing up north, you know, and the opportunities you see.

01;04;39;03 - 01;04;52;19
Unknown
So, yeah, I mean, hopefully somebody in Canada, someone else and can, I guess to see this and and they get to, you know, maybe they feel like maybe I don't need to be a business owner. Maybe I just need to keep my 9 to 5 thing. And it's like, yeah, maybe you can do both. Yeah. I really think you can do both.

01;04;52;19 - 01;05;11;13
Unknown
I, I know you can do both. I'm doing both. It's possible to kind of keep your professional career in a way and still be an entrepreneur. It's possible to be moving things without completely uprooting your life, and even sometimes you might have to improve your life. I'm sure eventually something will happen and I have to make some changes, but that's okay as part of life.

01;05;11;13 - 01;05;27;22
Unknown
But it's you should never be afraid to make that jump. Or at least think about it a little bit more than you did so far. Yeah. You, you're a lot more risk adjusted when you're younger. That's true. It's the time now. You're not going to be doing this. Yeah. You're not going to do this with, two mouse, two feet of home and a wife.

01;05;27;22 - 01;05;44;05
Unknown
You're not going to be. This is not. That's not the time. Do some people do it? Some people do it. But you've got a golden opportunity in your 20s. I'm 29 now. You know, as I'm coming up to the end of my 20s, I didn't thankfully, thankfully, I'm taking advantage of my last year of my 20s to really dive into it.

01;05;44;05 - 01;06;00;07
Unknown
Yeah, to really build dive into it and get going. Before I get into, you know, a very comfortable spot in my life where, yeah, you know, I'm sure in another life I will. I would love to have a 9 to 5 and just be sitting at home every night, you know, with a wife and kids. I'm sure in another life that's.

01;06;00;07 - 01;06;18;08
Unknown
That's me. Yeah, but in this life, this is me for now. Yeah. For now. Yeah. We'll see. But that's why you do all the hard work up front. Exactly. So, yeah. There's no it never replacement for that. So Brett, is there anything else you want to add? No I think oh, good. Good, good. Yeah. Well Mark welcome to the Our plus club.

01;06;18;08 - 01;06;39;28
Unknown
There's only been a few. Really? Is that a good thing? It's either it's either the conversation's good or they're yapping too much. And I would say Brett was yapping too much, and yours is good. So, how's it go now? It was a lot of fun. I love podcasts that flow in this way. And we're going to have to have you back on next time you're in town.

01;06;40;06 - 01;06;55;29
Unknown
It's a great. And so I, I would be more than willing to come through and I'm sure my partners, my business partners, once we get some sort of like somebody fleshed out, I'm sure they'll be more happy to me. Kind of like get a bit more free with, like, what we can talk about and also like, be also really cool to come back and show you guys a project.

01;06;55;29 - 01;07;12;23
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And really kind of bring it down to one on one level, you know, something very simple. And like, what did we do? And I just talked about what we can talk to you about what we did do. Yeah. Please put it on the table right here. And like how showing you like I'm going out south of San Antonio somewhere.

01;07;12;25 - 01;07;33;02
Unknown
I don't even know where. But there's a site. There's a work over rig. We're going to go there. I'm talking to a man called Tim. And he's actually also Canadian that's working in Texas. But, I'm going to be talking to him, and we're hopefully hoping to make something out of that. And, ideally, maybe that'll be like the first work over in Texas that's powered by waste gas during their work over operation.

01;07;33;02 - 01;07;49;06
Unknown
That'd be really cool. Awesome. He's super cool. And I'll be very happy to bring that forward and kind of show you guys, like, hey, we're talking about it back then. Here we are. No, ma'am. Real thing. So y'all do package engineering because, I mean, you got a design, like, figure out how much to support it, how much you need.

01;07;49;07 - 01;08;08;02
Unknown
Thankfully for the manager, thinking for me, there's tons of companies out there. They do that already for turbines. Yeah, and we're just replacing the turbine with micro turbine. And for them, it opens up a whole new market. Well, you know, so we're going to see what happens there. Yeah. Have you said the company name. My company name is Grid Energy Solutions or Grid for short.

01;08;08;05 - 01;08;23;27
Unknown
We are on LinkedIn and whatever we are on Instagram, but I don't think anybody follow it. I haven't posted ever. It's just one of those things. I just have the account just in case somebody else comes up with the idea. Exactly. But, yeah, grid energy solutions. That's, that's that's the name of the local little startup, I guess, in Canada.

01;08;24;01 - 01;08;28;29
Unknown
Cool. I thanks for coming on, man. Thank you very much, man. Thank you for making the time for me. I really appreciate it.