Running a family construction business presents unique challenges, especially in demanding fields like concrete and excavation where attracting reliable talent is tough. Many companies struggle to blend tradition with the need for new technology and approaches to keep up. But Amanda Kurt, VP and Managing Partner at Kurk Inc., reveals how they've not only survived but thrived, expanding services and crews by tackling these issues head on. Therefore, learning from their experience offers a blueprint for building a resilient, profitable construction business that values both its people and its bottom line.
Discover how Amanda navigates the complexities of managing a growing concrete and excavation workforce, integrating technology like GPS and total stations, and maintaining crucial boundaries in a family run operation. She shares the realities of the job, the strategies for finding young talent in a tight labor market, and the mindset needed for sustainable growth in today's construction world.
Topics:
- Concrete work: physical demands and labor
- Hiring strategy and mapping career paths
- Market conditions and scaling up
- Legacy, next gen and work-life balance
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Episode transcript:
Taylor White: Hey, everyone. Before we get into today's episode of the CONEXPO/CON-AGG Podcast, I would like to thank our new title sponsor for the show, John Deere Power Systems. Super happy and proud to have them part of the team and we'll hear more about them later. Let's get into today's episode. Welcome back everybody to the CONEXPO/CON-AGG Podcast. I am your host, as always, Taylor White. With me here today, I have Amanda Kurt, who is the Vice President and Managing Partner at Kurk Inc. She was featured in an article that we had here at CONEXPO we did a few years back that spoke about the priority of today's workforce to develop and being early adopters of new technology. Amanda, thanks for being on today.
Amanda Kurt: Thanks for having me.
Taylor White: Yeah. I didn't know that you were famous and we already did a write up about you.
Amanda Kurt: I don't know if I call it famous, but I guess CONEXPO famous maybe.
Taylor White: Well, you're doing something right and for everybody kind of at home, you know, tell us a little bit about, you know, what you do in your role at Kurk Inc. And kind of maybe how you got there.
Amanda Kurt: Sure. So our company… So my business partner is my dad and together we manage somewhere between 35 and 45 people in the field, depending on the time of year. We do gas in place, concrete foundations, flat work, excavation, and a little bit of private site utilities like sewer and water laterals. My day-to-day is managing most of the foundation crews and then doing some of the commercial estimating and kind of doing some of the items in the office, especially any of our technology. So our GPS equipment, our GPS modeling and then any like project management software and that type of stuff in the office. I just looked this up and I don't remember. I think I bought into the company. It's almost been 10 years, so I actually went to school to be a structural engineer. And after graduation, the economy wasn't great. It was hard to get a job as a structural engineer with no experience. So I joined my dad and his business partner at that time. And it has kind of evolved over 10 years.
Taylor White: It's crazy how fast it feels. It's funny that you say that because I just have a LinkedIn message saying that it was my 10-year work anniversary officially being at our family business as well too. And it's crazy how that time goes by so quick. Like it feels like it was not 10 years ago.
Amanda Kurt: It doesn't feel like 10 years ago. And then like when you think about it, you're like, I can't believe we've done that in 10 years. You know, growth changing, you know, just a lot of different stuff.
Taylor White: Yeah. I share almost the same kind of story. And it's not until times like this, when you talk about it and say it out loud, that you realize kind of how far you've come from, and how proud you should be. But we never take time to stop and smell the roses. It's just a constant push to the next thing. Right? So what was the business like, I guess, when you first got involved?
Amanda Kurt: So when I first started, we were a lot more residential construction. There was not an excavation division at all. We had some guys who were maybe versed in excavation, but they were just kind of doing our site prep, maybe like barn pads and that kind of stuff. And then we have kind of slowly but surely climbed up the ranks of adding excavation services, including a, you know, full fleet of excavators, dozers, you know, and support equipment for them. We're about the same size, though, but just different scope of work.
Taylor White: Wow. What was the idea for, I guess, like, offering different services or more services?
Amanda Kurt: Most of our excavation services and site utilities are in the residential industry. We do a little bit of smaller commercial in the excavation, but the biggest driver of that adding that service was our customers. They wanted to, you know, shop with one contractor instead of their house line excavator, their concrete contractor, and then someone to backfill, you know, we'll do it all. And that's still, to this day, what I would say most of our, we call it kind of like the turnkey foundation package, that's what most of our residential customers want. They want to deal with one entity.
Taylor White: Actually, I love that because we're from the opposite end of that, where they reach out to us to, you know, clear the land, put the laneway in, dig the hole. And then the conversation always ends at, okay, so… And then when you guys do the foundation work, and I'm like, “Oh, no, we don't do concrete.” Like, “Oh, well, I guess who would you recommend?” Or, “Now, we got to deal with somebody else.” And I've always thought about that, like, why don't we offer that service of doing the concrete? To me, it scares the crap out of me, to be honest with you, because once that stuff's hard, I don't want to have to overram it all if I mess it up. But you mentioned 35 to 40 people. And just when you're speaking, you know, you said you're on some smaller residential jobs and I'm sure with your concrete, maybe you're on, you know, some larger commercial. But like it's very labor intensive concrete work.
Amanda Kurt: Concrete is very labor intensive. And I would say if we're hovering around 40 employees, you know, 35 of them are on the concrete side. It's kind of an in house joke. But I would say the whole industry agrees. I mean, you have to keep feeding those concrete crews with younger people because it's just physically demanding. You know, your body can only do it and there's great technology and you know, we have cranes and placement like conveyors and pumps, but it's still physically demanding to get ready to and pour concrete.
Taylor White: Yeah, I always say, you know, we're from the heavy equipment side and I always say the two savage industries within our industries are asphalt and concrete, guys and girls. I mean it's especially concrete in the wintertime here. I don't know. Whereabouts are you located?
Amanda Kurt: So I'm in southeast Wisconsin, kind of between Milwaukee and Chicago.
Taylor White: You get snow, cold temperatures and all that in your concrete. Are you guys offering the forming? You do the forming concrete forms as well? Yeah. So it's not just pouring concrete. That's insane. I mean you go by a job site and it's, you know, minus 30 and they're just swinging hammers, beating these forms off, smashing them up. They're walking between on the poor concrete. It's like, holy crap. Like, that is some physically demanding work. What's it like trying to find people and you mentioned younger people and rotating them in? Like I know the guys around here. Like, that's hard to do. That's very hard to do. So what are you guys doing to maybe find those young people that are interested in doing it?
Amanda Kurt: Yeah, it’s tough. I think a lot of people maybe don't realize how physically demanding and sometimes challenging it is. You know, like you said, we're in the winter or you know, we're one of the first on site. So it's muddy and wet and it can be kind of a disaster. And one thing we've kind of transitioned to is when people come apply to us, we're very clear. This is not like a clean, rosy, I don't want to say fun because it's fun, but it's not.
Taylor White: It is in its own sick twisted way.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah, it is. And it's physically demanding. So I mean we start there by being very transparent that this is not for everybody. If you try it for a week and you don't like it, just come to us and say, “Hey, this isn't for me.” But one of the big things we do, I mean, we ask for referrals from our current employees and a lot of people come from referral. But we also are pretty involved in the different high schools in our area. In our area, there's kind of a bigger metropolitan school and then smaller, more rural schools. So we try to just kind of stay involved with them and be top of mind for students who maybe don't know what they're going to do. But at least you can come work for us for a while, earn a really good wage and, and hopefully stay on with us. But you know, some of them go on to other types of trades or school.
Taylor White: Yeah, that's smart. I mean definitely reach out to them. We do a co-op thing here as well. So like with our local high school, kids that are interested in getting to the trades, you know, we'll try to reach out and get to them and know they come and work with us for a semester and kind of see how it is. But a lot of the stuff too I find is like, you know, investing in new technology. And I know that you were talking about as well, you know, you got cranes and pumper trucks and all this cool stuff. So is there an element to you even, you know, coming into the business and how it's kind of reshaped of like trying to invest in a new technology and new stuff in the business to keep that next generation kind of interested?
Amanda Kurt: Yeah, I think so. I mean we kind of talk about new technology being GPS, which is really not that new, but bringing it down to a level where a subcontractor our size can afford it. You know, that is new to us. I think we've been running GPS for like four or five years now. But that's a big one. And I think when we talk to the students, we talk about how now there's, you know, there's like GPS modeling and there's computer stuff and, and learning how to operate like a crane. I don't play video games but apparently, you know, if you do the joysticks, learning how to, you know, that hand eye coordination is huge when it comes to running some of that equipment. So we just try to get their interest, you know, show them there's cool stuff that they can work their way up into and learn to run and be part of our company.
Taylor White: There is a correlation. You are right, 100%. I'm not a video game guy myself either. But I do know that, like, a lot of the younger guys and girls that are coming in, they kind of already have that kind of niche, even for operating, like running the sticks of a machine and then kind of get the feel for it. But I think it's really important also what you said, especially, like, for us, it's kind of like… Because I don't know, the concrete business, like the trajectory for a heavy equipment business is like, I'm going to start as a laborer, and then hopefully when the machine's not running, somebody tells me to get in and I get good on it. Then I'm an operator. Then I can go to a foreman. Then from there I can go to a super. Like there's kind of like this, this trajectory. How do you think you can show the people or young people the path and in concrete to be like, “Hey, this is where you're going to start. This is what it's truly going to be like, and this is where you can kind of go in the business.”
Amanda Kurt: Yep. So when I go talk to the high schools, I actually have this kind of like a little, almost like a career map, I guess you could call it. It is very similar to what you said. You start as a laborer, and then you might be what we call kind of like the right hand man so right below the foreman. And then a foreman and a superintendent and you can go walk through the steps of all those different careers. And then kind of on the side, there's layout technicians, like a survey crew, a pump operator, or a screed operator. So we try to show different students that there is actually a path. You have to take initiative, but there is a path available. So our two superintendents have been with us for like 20 years. And they started as laborers. And then we have some other individuals with us that, you know, started as a laborer and maybe are now a foreman or an equipment operator. So we try to show those stories so that students can kind of see, like, this is real. It can be a career if we choose for it to be.
Taylor White: It's got to be crazy, though. Like, let's say I was applying to be a laborer, how would you describe what you do to me?
Amanda Kurt: Oh, gosh. We put most of our laborers who have no experience. We put them on a wall crew to start with. And usually I actually bring in our superintendent to do part of the interview or just to kind of walk them through that. This is what a day in the life looks like. You know, it's showing up on time at 6:00 and it's working till the job's done. That's one of the big things we— I don't know if I would say it's like a challenge, but we have to describe to them, this isn't 7:00 to 3:00. We're pouring concrete. So it's kind of when it's done and sometimes that's late, unfortunately. So we just kind of talk them through. I keep going back to we don't shy away that it's physical and it's muddy, because the worst thing I want is you to get, you know, have this rosy picture of it and you show up and then you don't show up the next day. Like, I want you to know that it is physically demanding and challenging before you're ready to either come on board with us or quit your job, you know, whatever it might be. I think a lot of our brand new laborers, you know, the 18 or 19-year-old laborers, to be honest, I think a lot of them come to us because they just don’t know what they want to do and here's a job. I feel like that's a totally fair thing. Even if you spend a summer with us and you decide that's not what you want to do, still a win.
Taylor White: Yeah, 100%. Well, it gives them the taste of it, right? And they can either think, this is something I don't want to do ever again, or this is something that I do want to do again and I can see the path and I can kind of excel from there. I always find it interesting when I talk to, you know, people on the podcast as well too, like that have family businesses. So I want to ask you, like, what's it like working with your dad every day?
Amanda Kurt: For the most part, it's good. We fill in the gaps, you know, of each other. We sync a lot alike. I suppose I was trained to think a certain way, you know, over the last 10 years, we don't really talk about work after work, you know, when we go. So we live close to each other too. We don't, I don't want to say never, but very rarely because work is work and that's like a boundary we want to keep. Sometimes you have a crappy day and you're maybe mad at each other or you didn't communicate effectively and something happened, hit the fan or whatever have you, not to bring that to Christmas dinner. Because I think, like I said, that boundary is really important to us.
Taylor White: What are some of the best lessons that you've learned over the past 10 years, working with family?
Amanda Kurt: Well, I think the boundary is a big one and that's whether, like your work life boundary of not bringing it to the dinner table. But I also have a pretty hard 5:00-ish stop time because that's when I go home and I'm with my kids and I think it's important to be present for them. And I understand not everybody can do that, but I think trying to do that's important. Something else I have learned is sometimes you have to take the time to see it through their perspective. And we think, you know, this is the only perspective and we're right. But then when we take time and kind of learn more about it, we can now see maybe why they decided something that we thought was totally wrong. I sometimes joke about that. Sometimes you have to make your family members think that they had the idea and that's how you convince them to do different new things. You know, if you just start kind of feeding them a little micro doses and then eventually they accept it. And sometimes that's easier than coming in full force and saying, “Hey, we're changing this, this and this.” Somebody just did to me as like, the business we own, that's my dad's baby. Right? He started that from scratch. And understanding and respecting that is kind of a big deal. And I never really thought of it that way until somebody actually mentioned it to me. And I was like, “That makes sense.” That's why sometimes I feel like our family members have a close hold on things because it's so in tune to them. That's all they know.
Taylor White: Yeah, I'm in the same boat. And I also think, like, another valid point is, like, sometimes I'll give my dad really, like, minute tasks to do, but I know that it's going to take him a long time to do. And it sounds mean, but it's like, it gets to the point where, like, after a while, you know… I've been in the business for, you know, 10 years now, and it's like, I hate saying the word, like they're not needed as much, but there's less and less because ultimately that's how I feel fulfilled with my life, is knowing that My dad and mom can have more free time to go to their cabin. They have more free time to go on vacations. They can go and do stuff with them. Dad, you don't need to be here every day. And he's not now, which is good. So when he is there, what I found is, like, there's some tasks… Like, today we're actually at a conference, and, you know, I said, “I have to bounce out for a bunch of meetings today, dad, but, like, your task today and tomorrow is just, like, mingle with the people.” Because it's a lot of older contractors and engineers. And, like, his role will never be replaced by being able to be like, “Oh, hey. Ann from, you know, engineering. What's going on? I haven't seen you in a long time.” Like, those little tasks are so important, but I found that really making, you know, sure like, “Hey, this is what you have to do.” It kind of keeps him out of the hair, but also, he's helping the business in the long run because, like you said, it's their baby, and it's hard for them to just kind of say, “Hey. Well, I don't want to do this anymore.”
Amanda Kurt: Yeah, totally true. We're not to the stage, you and your dad are, where he's not showing up every day. We're still in the show up every day, and. And that's okay. Like, I'm not ready for them to not show up every day, you know?
Taylor White: Yeah, I know.
Amanda Kurt: I could see the give them some tasks. They need to be needed.
Taylor White:
Yeah, no, 100%. Because I think of myself, too, like, I'm a workaholic. I enjoy working all the time and feeling like my business doesn't need me anymore, it would be a really sad feeling. One thing I wanted to touch on, I know you mentioned GPS. Where do you utilize GPS in concrete? And what was the decision, like, to bite the bullet to buy it? Because that's a big investment.
Amanda Kurt: Okay. So we, in concrete, we don't really use GPS. We use a total station. There is definitely room for GPS in concrete. We don't use it because a lot of the concrete we're doing, we either need to be more accurate than GPS can give us even today, even though it's really, really accurate. Or I'm sure you've seen people use, like, a GPS curb machine. We can't use that for the most part, because if we're doing curb work, the buildings are up, and we're doing it 10 feet from the building. So you have such that challenge with GPS signal which has gotten better but it's still kind of in a finished sense, still challenging. So we use a total station for everything on the concrete side and then we use GPS on the excavation side. So we have, you know, a basin, a rover and then we have an excavator that's actually outfitted with GPS. It doesn't have machine control but I think if I remember when we purchased it, it can like be upgraded to machine control. But we weren't. It's not something we need yet.
Taylor White: What kind of excavator? What kind of machinery do you like?
Amanda Kurt: We have been purchasing Kobelco recently. We were a Link Belt family for a while and our Kobelco dealer has really showed up and put some really nice pricing together. We're a mixed manufacturer family. We have Komatsu dozers, some Caterpillar excavators, Bobcat skid steer. So we're whatever fits the bill, the right price and the right specs for us.
Taylor White: I like that. That's like you could be a politician with answers like that. You know, it's like here I'm going to give you the answer but I'm going to say I love everybody and everything at the same time. I like that. That's good.
Amanda Kurt: We like you all. Please give us good pricing and service.
Taylor White: Yeah, 100%. You mentioned a curb machine. So when I think concrete works, you guys are doing slabs, foundations and you're doing commercial like the islands in a parking lot and then the curbing as well too. And you have a machine that lays the curb and you drive it.
Amanda Kurt: Oh, my gosh. I spoke a little incorrectly because we don't actually have a machine. We hire somebody with a machine. A lot of our concrete is all hand formed. It's just smaller, maybe 500 feet of curb. If we get anything much more, we usually subcontract out to someone with a curb machine. And in our market, a lot of the bigger parking lot type stuff, the asphalt crew is actually curbing and doing the asphalt.
Taylor White: How many guys and girls are on your crew? Like when you have, you know, 35 guys and you said you have two supers. Like how many people are going out to a job normally to do concrete?
Amanda Kurt: So for our concrete crews, we're running about five crews. We just added a fifth last year and they're in the realm of five or six man crews. On big, certain larger pours, we might, you know, take one crew down to four and one crew up to eight, you know, just kind of shuffle them around depending on the needs. But the general is about, you know, a five or six man crew and five concrete crew. So that's two flatwork crews. And like I said last year we ran three foundation crews. And then the earthwork guys are really just like three dedicated guys and then truck drivers and you know, equipment delivery and that kind of supplemental people with them.
Taylor White: What was the reasoning… You just said you were in Wisconsin, right?
Amanda Kurt: Yes.
Taylor White: The economy, like are things good down there? Because if you're adding crews… Like last year for us up here in Canada, it was kind of like a weird year. And especially right now, the economy is doing a lot of weird things because people are kind of, you know, talking about tariffs. There's no tariffs. And especially being in Canada, you know, like… What's kind of the economy doing down there? But also what was the reasoning for you to like… Because it's a big investment to say, “Yeah, we're going to add another crew.”
Amanda Kurt: Last year was a really, really strong year, at least in our business. And I think to be honest, the market as a whole, we contracted in… So each building is 99 units and it's an eight building development. Probably one of our, well, not one of the largest contract we've negotiated. And we contracted that like let's say, well just a little over a year ago because we started on site there in like May. And then work just kept coming. Most of our work is cold bid work, not necessarily cold, but it's low bidder.
Taylor White: All tendered.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah. I mean there's relationships in there, but it still comes down to price. And so, you know, we had bid a decent amount of work and they kept calling and saying, “Okay. We want to start, we want to start, we want to start.” And it was just the amount of work. We couldn't do it with two crews. I mean, even if they could work twice as fast, we just couldn't do it with two crews. So we kind of remanned, we hired some people and then also remanned our current crews. So we took three strong team members who have been with us for a while and then we paired three brand new laborers with them to kind of start this would be third foundation crew. Right now, we're only running, you know, two flat work and two foundation. We haven't jumped into that third foundation crew this year. I mean everything says it's going to be a strong year. A lot of people talk about how they've closed their books for the year because they've negotiated all this work. To be honest, we've never had that. We get so much contracted to us, let's say two to four weeks before it happens. And I don't know if that's just the industry you know, we're in, the location we're in or you know, what that is. But so much of our work, I guess I would say, I don't want to say last minute, but it's not six months lead time. But people keep pulling, they're building houses. The multifamily market is still strong in Wisconsin. We're still seeing, I think a lot of that funding trickle through. You know, maybe it's dried up, but it takes a couple of years to actually stop that building. I mean, the developers are still borrowing money. So it seems like it's going to be a good year. We have a lot that's in the pipeline. It just hasn't been signed yet.
Taylor White: Yeah, no, that's awesome. I love hearing that. And yeah, I always laugh. Well, I don't laugh, but I always scratch my head at people that say that we're booked up for the year. It's like, “Oh, well, good for you, that's fantastic.” But we're the same as you. It's like, I mean, I could bid something today and start it next week because I'll just shuffle what the guys are doing next week and we still manage to get it done. Like that's why in the office before, my old operations manager, I mean, it was always a struggle every year because he was a very scheduled guy. Like, “Hey, we have this plan and then next week, the week after we're going to do this job.” And then I'd come in and be like, “No, no, no, I just promised them we're doing here and this one's here and that one's coming here.” So we're actually going to get it all done this week. And it's like, whoa, no. But that's the industry. And that's exactly what you said is it's so fast paced, changing and you have to be able to run with that or else, I don't know, I just feel like you won't be along that much.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah, I always say, like, we don't get a lot of notice because, I mean, just like you, we're such an early subcontractor on site that the municipality delaying permits for some reason because they just didn't get approved fast enough can, like, affect us and then everybody gets their permits at the same time. I always say, like, the carpenter at least knows about when because there's going to be a foundation for. We don't get a lot of notice. You could get notice today and start digging on a house tomorrow.
Taylor White: Oh, yeah, no, 100%. Yeah. It's a project coordinator or manager's nightmare being one of the first ones on site because, yeah, like, somebody could call tomorrow and just want us to go and do it. But that's interesting. I mean, that's crazy. Like, Wisconsin is good busy. That's awesome to hear. I'm super pumped about that. What are you kind of looking forward to in the future for your business? Like, what trajectory are you guys headed? Where do you want to take the business yourself? I know that it's a team and your dad is with you, but I'm thinking, like, you're ahead.
Amanda Kurt: I would like to get a little bit bigger, but still keep nice profit margins and find the right… If you're going to do a million worth of work and only make a million in a worse setting. I still want good profits. I think we just need to find some key team members to get there. And I'm sure, as you can relate, growing is hard. I mean, not only does it cost money in infrastructure, you know, to get there, but building the infrastructure in the office, the coordinators, the scheduling, you know, all that is part of that. And that's probably what we lack a little bit of. You know, we run pretty scrappy, which is why we keep nice profit margins.
Taylor White: Yeah, I was just going to say, yeah, those two go together.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah. So it's kind of getting over that hurdle, but then finding the right person on your team or to bring onto your team. So I would like to get a little bigger. Not majorly bigger, but I also feel like slow and steady is the way to go.
Taylor White: Yeah, I like that growth. I mean, I've seen it all in Ottawa here. Six years ago, we had four guys in our business. And now, like in the summertimes, we'll run 20 to 23 guys. And it's crazy the types of jobs and size of jobs that we can go on now versus back then. But I mean, I've seen guys blow up overnight and it doesn't really work out unless they have an endless pit of money behind them because then you can grow really quick. But especially and you're seeing it as well, too, if you're getting into excavation. Those machines cost half a million dollars for an excavator. And then the fuel to go in them, then the maintenance plans to put them on, and then, and then, and then, and then, and then you need a dozer. And then now the dozer is $300,000. And, like, it's just a lot of money. Overhead is a killer in construction, concrete. Overhead's a killer, right? And every time you add somebody to your office, say, “I'm going to pay them $100,000 a year to do that.” Well, it's $100,000, like, in coming right off the profits, but hopefully that $100,000 person will make up for that and, you know, implement some stuff and being able to make you make more money. But yeah, it's a fine line growing. And we've never really perfected it either, but we just went through four years of serious heavy spending, buying machinery, buying a building. And we, finally, last year, got to this point where I was like, “Wow, okay. Like, some stuff's paid off.” Like, we had a very profitable year, and it was awesome, and it was a great feeling. And then we went and just bought D5 bulldozer, a loader, and I'm looking at buying a stacker today. It’'s like, stuff frees up, but you always spend it. It's just kind of like, what trajectory do you actually want to head on? I like the slow and steady as well, too, but I also have, like, an obsession with spending money. But I also have a very healthy obsession with making it. So those two go together really well.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah, like you build this monster, and then you have to feed it. It's a lot of work to feed.
Taylor White: The monster needs to be fed.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah.
Taylor White: Yeah, it is. And I think sometimes that's just what keeps me up at night. But, yeah, it is insane. And it's exciting for you. I mean, like, family business and be able to grow it. There's no better feeling, really, than that. Like, is your goal maybe one day to have the kids take on the business or be in the family business as well, too?
Amanda Kurt: I mean, I think that would be great. We'll see what they want to do. They're little now.
Taylor White: Oh, they have a choice.
Amanda Kurt: Well, they don't want to learn to use a shovel. They just want to learn the equipment. And I'm like, “Hey, that's not how this works. You first have to learn to use a shovel and tape measure, man.” They're going to have to have a choice because my spouse actually develops land and does like the sewer and water in subdivision. So they're going to have to like pick a lane. Which parent do you want to be with?
Taylor White: Friendly little competition.
Amanda Kurt: They have a few years to decide. It's fine. They got a couple of years.
Taylor White: Yeah. That's awesome. Oh, that's exciting. It's nice. I mean, at the end of it, that's kind of what it's all about, right? You're doing it for family. And really, at the end of the day, that's all you got left if everything went and disappeared tomorrow too. So like you said at the beginning, family is number one and family comes first over everything.
Amanda Kurt: Yep. We like that with our guys too. You know, go to your kids recital or first day of school, whatever it is. You know, I think since I've joined the company, that's something that has changed and I think it's just changed as an industry too. Right? That more family awareness and in, you know, letting your employees have a life outside of work.
Taylor White: Oh, yeah. I always tell my guys, you guys can do whatever you want, but as long as it's after the hours of 6:00 am to 6:00 pm, you know. Just kidding.
Amanda Kurt: You can take a half a day once in a while.
Taylor White: Yeah. You could take 10 minutes here and there to answer the phone, but your kids will be fine. They'll be there when you get home. I'm only kidding. I'm a dick to my guys, but it's all love. No, it is. You're right. They got to do their stuff and you got to do your stuff as well too. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices, I guess, for business. And I guess that's the biggest takeaway sometimes is that running a business does take you away from family as well.
Amanda Kurt: Yeah. And same with our guys. Sometimes you don't get to go. I mean, unfortunately you do have to earn a paycheck probably too. So sometimes that means you show up late or you didn't make that one event.
Taylor White: Yeah, 100%. Are you coming to CONEXPO in March? Are you going to try to make it there?
Amanda Kurt: I'm trying to make it there. I think it should be a good one. Maybe even bigger than last time.
Taylor White: Yeah, I think it is going to be bigger than last time. I mean, the attendance was record breaking last time and I think they're expecting more this year. But tickets do go on in August, so make sure to stay tuned for that. I really appreciate you putting out time today to chat with me, Amanda, and hopefully everybody kind of got to understood you and your business and your dynamic and what you have going on. And I look forward to you growing your business and being even more profitable.
Amanda Kurt: Even more profitable.
Taylor White: That's the way it goes, right?
Amanda Kurt: Yeah. The more profits we make, the more positive impact we can make on our family, community.
Taylor White: Reinvest back in your business, 100%. All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And guess we'll hopefully see you at CONEXPO.
Amanda Kurt: That sounds good. We'll see you at CONEXPO.
Taylor White: Awesome. Thank you for listening to the CONEXPO/CON-AGG podcast, everybody. Take care.
