Head Outside the Shop this week with Tyler Bloom of Tyler Bloom Consulting. This Penn State turf grad who worked his way from assistant to superintendent started his own successful workforce development consulting business in 2020. We talk about how automation to address labor shortages will impact the equipment we maintain and repair, influential mentors, and the restorative benefits of catching an episode of Daniel Tiger. Tyler shares some of his expertise in how to apply Predictive Index tools at the golf facility and how EMs can develop a portfolio to help them stand out in a job search. We also discuss the importance and impact of managers all the way up to GM demonstrating they care for the people who work with them.
Transcript
Trent Manning:
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manning let’s have some Welcome to the real turf techs podcast, episode 47. Today we’re headed outside the shop to talk to Tyler bloom. Tyler is a former golf course superintendent who launched an independent consultant firm and June of 2020. Tyler’s work focuses on direct search and placement career and workforce development. Let’s talk to Tyler. Welcome Tyler to the Reel turf Turf podcast. How you doing today?
Tyler Bloom:
Good man.
Trent Manning:
Tell us how you got into the turf.
Tyler Bloom:
I was introduced into the profession. My cousin was a golf course superintendent in Northeast, Pennsylvania. And so I started working on a golf course when I was 15 and I really did it for free golf. Grew up loving the game come from a blue collar background. So joining a private country club, wasn’t really in the cards for our family. So the parents just said, do you want it? And go work for it. And. I think like most people in the industry my pathway was a turf degree from Penn state. Not everybody’s a Penn state grad, but I went to formal school for it. I had a couple internships throughout the country and some pretty good spots and navigated that the career ladder wasn’t assistant for three years and then actually total of six, but One of my first superintendent job in 2014 at a club called Sparrow’s point country club in Baltimore. It’s your typical middle of the road? Private facility just passionate golfers people that just love the game, not as super place, but just a fun place and good people.
Trent Manning:
That’s
Tyler Bloom:
And yeah. So then that kind of materialized into this consulting business that I’m in. I started in June of 2020. It’s just been a whirlwind since girl.
Trent Manning:
So tell me a little bit about consulting business. What’s your primary. Focus or do you have a specialty when it comes to consulting? Is it all agronomic or.
Tyler Bloom:
Zero. Agrinomic actually Euro agrinomic no turd focus. There’s enough, more qualified people, turf experts out there then that had her bloom. But I really specialize in workforce development and that ranges from direct search and placement. On the job training, helping clubs with that on the job, training, support, mentorship programs we help clubs connect with different networks in their communities, regionally in the state. And we’re going through an exercise right now, my staff, and I’m just on our team. And I just what is our focus area? Because it just continues to evolve. But I would say our focus really has been a lot of direct answers. Specifically over the last 12 months, whether it’s entry level positions superintendent positions, sports fields we’ve dipped their toes into the culinary side of things and clubhouse operations. And I just find my niches my bread and butter is turf because that’s what I know. I relate more to superintendents and you know what, there’s enough really solid people in the food and beverage and hospitality sector.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah,
Tyler Bloom:
handle that
Trent Manning:
for sure.
Tyler Bloom:
maybe someday we’ll expand into that for right now, I just find that I’m in a position to help people and serve people and the turf side of things.
Trent Manning:
No, that was a great, that is that’s awesome. us what your favorite tool is.
Tyler Bloom:
I would say from a equipment operation standpoint, I love the 6 48 Toro 6 48. Pretty versatile piece of equipment. Can really help save a lot of graphs and save careers. I’m a tech guy, so I love tools from moisture, meters, drones I always enjoyed Mowen cranes man on a triplex whether it’s no, no brand affiliation just in general, always enjoyed that. And I’ve often thought about maybe doing weekend mornings or not volunteering just go into one of the local clubs and just enjoy being out there in the morning seeing the sunrise and stuff like.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, there’s nothing better in my opinion than being on the golf course. First thing in the morning when the sun’s coming up and no matter what you’re doing, if you’re mowing fairways or grains, or just riding around the course, So incredible being out there and the same thing in the afternoons. I like being out there really late as the sun’s going down, just riding around, so peaceful and quiet and the things that make us like working on a golf course,
Tyler Bloom:
I wasn’t rolling greens too pretty much covered all bases, but I enjoyed rolling greens because to me it was like one of the last things it’s done in the morning. So you can see the progression of everything and have some silent moments to yourself. I would always put the earbuds and listen to a podcast and listen to some music, but I just enjoyed being that last person on the. Oh rolling and just seeing everything coming together.
Trent Manning:
I remember when I first started on the crew a lot of Walkman grains for ag and bunkers all the beginner stuff. I really inspired to be the fairway mower. That’s what you worked up to. Like you, you’d made it as a crew personnel. If you were mowing fairways, that it was the gravy job that everybody wanted. And now they’re coming up with autonomous mowers to mow fairways for you. So what are these guys going to live up to?
Tyler Bloom:
There only a couple of ways to multiply time. And then that’s what we’re all struggling with is a lack of time because we don’t have the bodies. Golfers are up So automation is a, to? me it’s a great opportunity. Obviously comes with some new technology, skill development and training in that area. So that’ll be interesting when that comes to adoption in the market, who knows when that is, but I see nothing but benefits.
Trent Manning:
What do you do to relax or find your bag?
Tyler Bloom:
Oh, man. I’m not the best person at that right now to ask that. But I got two daughters, three and a half and one and a half and life and just spending family time, just watching football on weekends, watching sporting events, the girls are in a Daniel tiger. Cocoa Mellon is a as a hit list on the radio and and at home. They bring me a lot of joy, just watching them come of age, there’s still a little, but it’s just really cool to watch their their emotions, how they speak what they enjoy doing. We play a lot of hide and seek, which is
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Tyler Bloom:
It brings you back to being a kid a little bit. So
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah, for sure.
Tyler Bloom:
Love to travel. I know COVID is put a damper on that, but we bought the travel And. go see new things. We’re big foodie type people like to go out to eat, try different things. So I enjoy doing that kind of stuff.
Trent Manning:
Awesome. Yeah, the little kids, I don’t, there’s nothing like them. There’s really not and modern, not so little anymore, but I really miss those days. And like you’re saying, like with the real little ones, this they go from baby where there’s laying around and then they start getting that personality and you just get to see ’em come to life. And it’s just incredible to. But you’re out there and see all that firsthand and get on you for spending time with your family. Because on though in this industry, especially superintendents technicians finding that balance between, I know I did a very terrible job when my kids were younger. I worked all the time. And now that they’re older and they’re not interested in hanging out with dad, I have more time, but that’s just the way it goes. Sometimes,
Tyler Bloom:
yeah listen part of my transition into this was to hopefully be able to spend more weekends and do things like that. And I quickly realized like, no matter what, if you want to be successful, you’re gonna have to put the work. I’ve said this kind of quite a few times to some people that as Michael Jordan, didn’t become Michael Jordan by working 40 hours a week and taking vacations and the pro in primetime season. So it just depends on where you want to be. And how you define success. But I think as an industry, as a whole, and it’s tough when you’ve got the pressures that we do, whether you’re dealing with, whether you’re dealing with limitations, budgets, people increased play time is such a commodity now, but we’ve to really do a good job. I think of and it’s easier said than done, but I think really educating the stakeholders, the importance that. We have people here, like they’re humans that need to take time for themselves. And like they have families it’s just not sustainable. But easier said than done. I’m mostly the same person that could be up at midnight, working on a project and that’s not healthy. That’s not good.
Trent Manning:
What’s one of the strangest things you’ve seen in your career, working on a golf. the funny stories and it good stuff.
Tyler Bloom:
I wouldn’t want to incriminate anybody
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, we don’t want to incriminate.
Tyler Bloom:
I think like everybody golf course maintenance crews, It’s like the bad news bears. It’s a bunch of misfits, often times like, and somehow some way we get it done, figuring out how to come together. And it’s like this like just strange family. At times in one, one instance you can be so frustrated and furious with somebody and the next minute you’re hugging them and all that stuff. But that sounds funny, but strangest thing I’ve seen. I think from an employee standpoint I I’ve seen everything from drugs, alcohol flights I think we’ve checked every single box on that end. Probably one of the more unique things was just again, seeing the different athletes that come in and celebrity figures that oftentimes come to a golf course. I remember at sparrows point Michael Phelps at one point was a member there, but he had come back Bob Parsons, who was. Who owns PXG equipment, Harley Davidson stores was the founder owner of GoDaddy before he sold it. You get to see people like that. George W. Bush was at Oakmont country club one time so things like that I think are always unique, but it might be just the small things too. Like just seeing nature, like animals. On a golf course and how they interact has always been something fascinating to me to take for granted.
Trent Manning:
What’s one of your. Pet peeves around the shop or around the house.
Tyler Bloom:
meds. I’m with my way, I’m going to catch crabs. My wife hears me this. For me, it’s like going to see a clean shop, a clean organized facility. It really says a lot about what you should expect on the golf course, how tight it is, the attention to detail. So like that was a pet peeve of mine. Just having carts, lined up, having carts full of gas blowers where they’re supposed to be string trimmers hung up on their proper points. And with that being said, I probably could be a little bit tidy around the house. And so I said, I just don’t want my wife to hear that because would say you are practicing what you preach, but I drove him crazy. Even if I go to a facility, like that’s just, I don’t know. It’s just been something that was embedded into me early on. It’s you can’t be successful on the golf course if your shop’s a mess.
Trent Manning:
I’m on a vent frustration and our small equipment room. I have a hanger for each blower, each line tremor, and the line tremor is numbered and the spot on the wall is not. And they still fail to put it back in the wrong spot or put it back. You know what I mean? This is simple stuff you would think. Okay. Yeah. This number one, it goes on number one, but like you said, we have some misfits,
Tyler Bloom:
It’s funny, like there’s certain stages of my career and listen, I’m going to sit and tell you I wasn’t I wasn’t in the, always the best employee I’ve had my own fault as well, but one thing that always stuck with me I remember when I worked at Oakmont country club for John Zimmer’s, one of the things that he had said was put your name on it. And that always stuck with me. And maybe at that stage of my life, I probably wasn’t. I definitely wasn’t mature enough to like really take that to heart, but it’s why I put my name on my business because at the end of the day, it’s my reputation. And it’s something that I don’t lose sight of every single day. So that’s just something that’s always stuck with me. It’s the same thing. Like I try to tell whether it was my staff members when I was superintendent or even like our staff, like the two guys that work for me now, it’s we got to put our name on everything that we do because at the end of the day, it’s our reputation.
Trent Manning:
No, that’s great. And you kinda already. I answered the next question, but hopefully you got another, do you have a mentor in the industry? And if so, what lessons did you learn from them?
Tyler Bloom:
I think just, and again, I’ve been pretty blessed in my current work for some really Top echelon superintendents. So it’s hard to just say like one person had an aged person had an influence on me in some way, shape or form whether they want to hear that or not might be another story. But as a superintendent, somebody who was like very helpful for me was Dean graves. Dean graves’ is former superintendent director at Chevy chase club. Very polished in his presentation. And was really helpful for me at that stage of my career to help navigate some of the political waters that we all face. Steve MacDonald pretty well-known agrinomic consultant really in the Northeast. Mid-Atlantic when he’d, Steve works all over the place, pretty influential on my career on that standpoint. But probably the one that stands out to me is honestly the people I worked with, like my teammates, like coming up I I was fortunate to, I think close to over 50 of my coworkers are now superintendents or general managers or club professionals across the country. So I’ve learned a little bit from each of them and seen their career trajectories and what makes them unique and different. And I would probably say. Each one of them? has been somewhat influential and a mentor for me in some capacity.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, where would we be without our mentor?
Tyler Bloom:
And it’s a lot of the things that where my faults, where I’ve been able to reflect on that and learn from that and my shortcomings as well. Just again, pretty grateful for the opportunities that I had and probably didn’t appreciate them as much as I do.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. And I think that’s all part of aging and getting older. Obviously when I was 18, my dad was not very smart. And now looking back, it was like that old guy knew what he was talking about What would be your dream job or opportunity? Are you living it?
Tyler Bloom:
I think I’m living it right now. I’m an entrepreneur, who’s living the American dream a little bit. When I was a superintendent for me, was to get to that top 100 level. And I, and it’s funny because. Kind of midpoint of my career path. Like when I was an assistant, I didn’t think that was a, and it was almost too late because I had already entered. I’ve already moved into it as a superintendent job that the profile of the club is there’s a lot to overcome that stigma, I guess when you’re going up against really reputable, qualified people coming from really good clubs. Recognize that, or appreciate that kind of where I wanted to be early enough and definitely wasn’t disciplined enough to stay the course and make sure I was putting myself in that position to be there. And that’s okay. Like I said, there’s no regret. It’s just Yeah. Dream job for me was being at a top 100 facility. Not necessarily that they’re going to host a major championship a top of the line private facility that you can do a lot. Your programs and you can recruit really good people. But I made the best of my situation. Like sparrows point was my top 100 I didn’t need to have that name recognition. I, I put as much effort into that as I would have anywhere else.
Trent Manning:
What do you know now? You wish you’d known on day one and the turf industry.
Tyler Bloom:
It’s an ever changing business and the people side of it, like managing the politics of clubs and understanding how clubs operate the governance model where you could have a change of board every three or four years in some places every year, which is really sad. I don’t, that’s a tough environment to work in, but I think really having a perspective on. I think additionally, understanding the steps it’s going to take depending on where you want to land of making sure you’re in alignment with the sort of club cultures that you know, these clubs want to emulate and want to be at so having a pretty good self-awareness on the scale of the industry and all the different opportunities that there are there’s no Right. or wrong. Just understanding that to go from a Sparrow’s point to a top of heart level club was probably not realistic. Not that it couldn’t be done, it was difficult. And I wish I knew that a little bit would have been a little bit more mature in my career decisions.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, you definitely got to work on those. If that is your goal, you got to work on those stepping points of how you’re going to get there. Bouncing from rock to rock. Yes.
Tyler Bloom:
So predictive index is. It’s town optimization company. And the way I try to explain it to people that aren’t really familiar with it, it encompasses a lot of things. Leadership self-awareness training, using personality assessments and data. Really tracking people data to help make better decisions, better coaching, better hiring decisions. How to motivate people and inspire them all from just a simple little six to eight minute assessment. I think they’re unique and what they offer in the sense that you can use those tools and resources just for your own education purposes, like to learn and be just a better leader, better manager. But it can be designed all the way up to building your team from the hiring phase all the way through the onboarding and management development. And so the company, I think really aligns to. What I was trying to pursue in my business efforts is really trying to match your business strategy with your talent strategy. In most places they don’t have a talent strategy, even though they say they do. It’s very ad hoc. So, this is just to me, a proven framework that uses science and data to back some of those decisions.
Trent Manning:
How would you use predictive index to hire somebody?
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah. So first off establishing a little bit of the job assessment and of itself, like what are the motivations and drives and the key points of that position what’s going to make that person successful? Are they going to be very processed and precision focused? Are they going to be, team-based focused very results driven and there’s a variety of different factors that go into that. But you use that to, I think, help support your decision. Maybe. A candidate completes that assessment against that benchmark from that original job assessment and it gives them a score. And again, I think PI has a lot of data to prove that their programs and their assessments work the way I see it is in a hiring perspective, it can be a differentiator when you’re really trying to match culture Of the personality and the individual, all things are equal. I’m going to go with somebody that fits that cultural alignment and the personalities in some instances it can help prevent a bad hire. So if you have some, it’s not aligned to that job profile I think it’s a very effective tool that way. I think if I’m somebody who is maybe struggling with an assistant manager, a department head or there’s friction within the team, Know, I think doing those personality assessments can be and uses PI specifically, I think creates awareness within how those relationships or that friction is how they need to communicate better. What are some strengths and cautions, so helping people, I think become. Teammates and of itself. I think it’s just a good business practice, maybe a little bit more corporate, but I find that these tools can be super helpful, especially if somebody’s really struggling to connect with their staff. Or again, like I said, there’s some internal friction, or it can just be a best management practice to strengthen what they’re already doing. Good at it. And you can identify like why you’re being successful. You can’t measure what you don’t know.
Trent Manning:
Is it free to take the test or how’s that work?
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah. So there’s a couple of different features, but to do just your basic personality assessment, it’s free and you get a nice report. It outlines your management style. How you like to work? just some basic over. And then I think if a company is like I want to integrate this into our hiring decisions, into our management development. Yeah. There’s different subscription fees based on the tools that you use, typically most of them again, depending on how you’re using it and implementing it I would say on average, you’re spending less than 2,500, right around $2,500 for a year subscription. And again, when you think about the cost to hire, if it helps you save one bad, huh? That’s 4,500 to $7,500 on a bad hire. So it can end up saving you money if anything.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. So any club that’s hiring anybody and you could use that throughout the club, right? Not just for grim pharma.
Tyler Bloom:
Correct. Correct. And I find like in my engagements with it, Depending on when somebody is coming into engagement with us for search it’s probably not something that I’m pushing on to a client in July or August, but I think obviously once they get to the off season months, and they have time to like really focus and think about how are we going to improve what we’re doing from our people management side of things. I don’t know how somebody is not operating, whether it’s PI disc profiling. I don’t know how that’s not a part of your club culture at this point. Especially when as we talked about general labor, like man managing people is like it’s every day, like you can’t meet your day-to-day expectations without understanding your people and what motivates them and drives them. So having a tool like this, it’s simple to use. It’s not like this overwhelming in my estimation, it’s not an overwhelming tool to use. It seems pretty simple to me. And it can help justify. Again, hiring decisions, management development. There’s a lot of neat features. It’s just I just say meet people where they’re at and start focus on one or two things, and then you can always build up from there using PI
Trent Manning:
Yeah, that’s awesome. I was lucky enough. To volunteer for the 100th PGA championship at bell rave 2018. And Carlos had all the volunteers do a pie and I’d never heard of it at that point. So this is interesting. And I found the story interesting. So I do the pie and I guess I’m pretty self-aware because I lined up right where I thought I would be. With all the different traits and all that kind of stuff. So I’m telling Courtney young, my director of agronomy about this pie, and he’s that’s been around forever. I thought it was like something that was kinda new. So he shows me, and I know a lot of the listeners will know and you probably know RAF capital, the drag around me at basically. He was Courtney’s assistant and the late eighties and Courtney opens the file and says, here’s raspy that I’d done whatever 89 90. And it was just, I don’t know, I felt a little dumb that I’d never heard of this, and I really found the whole process and. And I love the idea. It gives you yeah, everybody is motivated different. So how do you motivate this individual? That’s working for you? I got motivated as a kid with my dad screaming at me, but a lot of people aren’t motivated that.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah. I find it very insightful. I can tell you when I did my two searches for two staff members that are. My team right now, we used it to help design, helped it to design the two roles I was looking for. I was looking for somebody with communication and outreach skills specifically and steady Eddie. I need somebody that can be consistent in their day-to-day operations. And then I needed somebody that could be like a little bit more flexible that can handle multiple priorities. Somebody that could be could perform under pressure when we’re under a time crunch, like just need to get it done. And I thought it was really enlightening to go through that designing a new business. I use it as a superintendent to, from a coaching standpoint and we implemented some of the feedback every 90 days, six months, and helped me learn how to manage myself.
Trent Manning:
Yeah,
Tyler Bloom:
no, most more than anything. When I get those moments where you’re frustrated about something and can’t really figure out what it is, I would typically go back into my profile and say, man, Tyler, like you got to check yourself out a little bit. It’s not them. It’s actually, you, there’s a different way of going about this.
Trent Manning:
No, that’s great. How would an equipment manager stand out in a job search?
Tyler Bloom:
I think for anybody it’s to make sure the low hanging fruit is you’ve got an updated resume. It’s a professional looking resume with proper formatting, dates of employment. Making sure you’re listing your certifications. I think doing your research on the facility that you’re applying to obviously. This is like really critical that customize it. So you’re not just sending some boilerplate copy what I’ve found, doing. We’re just wrapping up our sixth equipment manager search since August and it’s consistent even with other surgeons it’s enthusiasm. You can tell when somebody wants a job and when somebody is just kinda going through the motions. And I think that’s pretty apparent from that resume submission all the way through their interactions, they follow up with you on an email correspondence or a text message or phone call. They don’t wait four or five days to respond. They’re pretty quick to that. I think things that would help a lot of equipment managers stand out is to be able to have a nice portfolio to supplement. And that could be something as pictures of how they organize the shop how they label equipment, how they organize their parts inventory, maybe having showing some spreadsheets or something to demonstrate their organizational skills. I can tell you I’m not a wrench head. I even, I was not that kind of superintendent that could sit there and grind reels set up equipment. I That was definitely one of my biggest flaws. So I had to highly depend on that person to do that for me. So I think where I got comfortable was just seeing somebody, what’s your process, what’s your organization look like? And I think if you can highlight that in a nice portfolio, that doesn’t need to be 20:00 PM. I think five to 10 page 10 pages, I think is a lot. I think five pages pretty much sums it up for me.
Trent Manning:
Does Twitter make a good portfolio?
Tyler Bloom:
I can see that. Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you’re showing some of your work in the projects that you’re doing and the pride that you have in your work environment is certainly something that can be demonstrated. The GCs W’s equipment manager certificate program I think is again, a nice value added something that could help differentiate you. I don’t know enough of the tactical teachings that are in there that would basically say this person is more qualified than someone else, but that somebody took the initiative to do it, so it shows that they care
Trent Manning:
Yeah. They’re trying to better themselves.
Tyler Bloom:
And they’re in their craft. So I think those kinds of things are important. I find them, good mechanics network with good mechanics. So what’s their peer network look like. I like to try to ask that do you go to continued education events? What other mechanics in the region do you network with? Who do you know? Because that usually speaks volumes to. They’re trying to better themselves and be respected amongst their peers. If they have questions they don’t have all the answers that they can network with somebody that’s going to help them. So no different than an assistant or a superintendent. So I think those things are to me, really stand out about somebody. Yeah, I think that’s probably a pretty good starting point list.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, I, a plenty of things to get started on so how do we, whether that be me or my community here, get more technicians involved because there’s real. There’s a lot of people that are engaged. There’s a lot of people, a lot more people that are not engaged in our industry. And I don’t know if it’s burnout, they’re stuck wherever they’re at and they’re just in their zone. Just for instance, I went to spoke Alabama golf course superintendents association, they’re having a thing for assistant superintendents and technicians. And there was three technicians in the class and the technicians from the club that we were at. We’re not even in the class, which I found very strange. And I think it’s that way in a lot of the country. Here in Georgia. We’re very fortunate. We have a technician seminar, we’ll have a hundred plus people.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah. So this is what I got into my business for is workforce development. How do you get more people into the industry and upskill them? So I think currently. That some of the programs like we just talked about the Jesus AA program down at the local chapter level, it has to be where the equipment managers, a prized, educated expert, and they’re treated that way. And I think clubs at the individual level have to treat that role, whether it’s through compensation, whether it’s through continued education trends. That role to me is probably it’s equally as important to that superintendent and the club’s success, just as similar as what an executive chefs role is to the success of a club, because it’s a specialized skill that not everybody has, and there’s personality traits that help to find a good technician that can save you. Save somebody’s life. And the safety of people too from a cost operation standpoint if you have bad quality cut turf then you’re spending more money on whether it’s water, fertility, fungicides maybe your conditioning’s not as good as what it should be. So that role really has a direct impact on the overall quality of service that a club offers. So that role to me needs to be respected. How do we go about doing that? Again, I think some of the certifications that are offered as something that helps, I think, education from the superintendent and going to bat for that person and making sure that person’s even respected within the crew. Cause I remember our equipment manager at times, not feeling that as much as he would train people and show them things and the staff kind of would make a joke of it and then not really follow through and execute on their end. So making sure you set that accountability standard. Super important. Those are things that I think that we can do obviously awareness within the community at large, whether that is in trade schools, high schools, and being able to show them what a career path could look like. And I remember I’ll turn back to a young gentleman that worked for me, unfortunately, at a very short stint was coming from a local tech education program. And his family owned like a, marina. And so they did a lot of servicing on boats. So that was he was already like in graded to mechanical in mechanical aptitude. And so when I explained to him, I remembered at job fair about a career as a technician, his eyes lit up. He’s like, I never even thought of this, especially when I started talking about the salaries that are out there for equipment managers. So again, I think from an awareness standpoint, I think each person or each entity in the industry, whether it be an individual club, an association, chapter association, or the national association, there’s going to do a better job of promoting this and creating more consistency in our messaging and reaching those audiences. And I think that’s how you build this industry up is through.
Trent Manning:
how can a facility attract a good kid?
Tyler Bloom:
First, I’ll make sure that you’ve got heating. I’ve got air conditioning. It’s a desirable facility to want to work under good mechanics and technicians don’t want to come to a dirt floor that there’s no AC in the middle of summer and they’re sweating. That’s super uncomfortable. So I think just making sure that again, from an accountability standpoint that, that is a, an emphasis point, day in, day out. So I think creating that sort of culture internally is like, step one, obviously reinvestment into the equipment in every, club’s got their own ways of how they handle leasing or capital purchasing. But I think if you’re not investing that equipment, it’s I remember our mechanic. Common manager just basically be like, why do I have to keep prolonging something? I’ve already put the band-aid on a band-aid on a band-aid and at what point do we finally invest into this? I can’t do any more than I have. I think that’s obviously a point of reference for any call. If you’re not keeping the latest technology and tools, they’re going to find somebody that will a good mechanics going to find that they talk, they know where the good jobs are. It’s interesting. The feedback that you get sometimes that people know about specific clubs or they say stay away because the superintendent doesn’t hold a staff accountable, or there’s no investment in the equipment. Those are some key things. I think again, just respect, like respect for that position that they’re appreciated. And those oftentimes they’re just small gestures, a general manager coming down and saying, Hey. Especially when BMS, oftentimes cherry pick mechanics to come and fix their refrigerator or at the marina, the both slipped number 62 needs something. And it’s all the times the facility manager, the equipment manager that’s picking up the slack on that.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I got a call from my general manager on my 11th anniversary and he called me just to say, thanks for everything. And they went a long way with me. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a call from a general manager. And I think the club has been through. And my time there and the one we got now, he’s way more engaged with the lower end staff, if you will, than any other one that, that I’ve dealt with. And he normally comes by the shop every Saturday morning, just to say, Hey, see how things are going. And I think it was really. Whether that’d be a general manager or the superintendent, or just the constant, not the they’re looking over your shoulder, but they’re checking in and they’re appearing that they care about you. That goes a long way. I think.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And again, like I’m too early in my venture here to be able to I haven’t networked with enough general managers or club officials to like, get a pulse on what their thoughts are. But in my experience, depending on the level of club, I do think. there’s a disconnect that they don’t understand what that equipment managers dealing with on a day in day out. Now, the more the, I don’t want to use the word prominent because it’s like the wrong term. There are a lot of clubs that do understand, and you look at the compensation that’s offered. They obviously respect that. Because that, person’s not just managing equipment, they’re helping with other needs within the facility. So they’re just a go-to person for a lot of technical type things. But I remember my general manager, I don’t think had too much knowledge of grounds maintenance as a whole.
Trent Manning:
Yep.
Tyler Bloom:
And so I think that respect factor wasn’t really there early on. So I had to do a good job of educating now, making sure that they respected them as professionals, not just, ah, it’s the guys down at the shop.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, I think that’s a very valid point because I think most of your general managers come from the FMB. Because they were clubhouse manager and then they work their way up to general manager. So they had that food and beverage background and not so much agronomic side.
Tyler Bloom:
So they keep them from me. It’s if I could ask to come help with a culinary search, like the guards are up on, on the up and beside who’s this guy coming in. How to recruit. And I think it’s the same way for them to come down to our area of expertise, especially if they’re silos. So you’ve got to break those silos down, but I just think they’re uncomfortable. So they don’t know any better. They don’t put themselves in that position to want to learn. But if they did, I think they would gain so much street cred that you’d want to go to bat for somebody like that.
Trent Manning:
Oh a hundred percent. And so back to our general manager, he came down one Saturday morning and I was carving these signs. For the club on a CNC machine. And he stayed with me for 30 minutes, asked him questions on how this works how do you do this? Why do you do it this way? And all these different things. And that went a really long way with me. Yeah. I want to go to bat for this GM because he cares what we’re doing and the more he sees what we’re doing, the more he’s going to invest. And us.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah, for sure. Oh man. And again, I think that’s where superintendents, I think have to come into play to go to bat for their people. And that doesn’t mean compensation wise. That means just going up there and educating. Those key stakeholders on what that role is, maybe some of what the financial impacts that position could have. That, that turned some heads. That gets some eyebrows raised. Oh wow. This person’s really contributing to this bottom line number.
Trent Manning:
And it goes a long way to me, if the superintendent or director of agronomy or assistant superintendent comes in the shop and says Hey, what are you working on? What’s wrong with this? Or not that they’re looking over your shoulder, but if they have, if they’re inquisitive and they want to learn, most of the guys in my spot are more than happy to teach them what we’re doing and it gives them a better understanding and it makes us feel a lot better that they care about what we’re doing. That’s where I’m at. Yeah.
Tyler Bloom:
Wouldn’t it be something to pick up? I don’t know if you’ve ever read boardroom magazine, but it’s typically designed in the audiences, general managers and club officials, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see a monthly column in there from an equipment manager?
Trent Manning:
That’s something, that’s an idea there the editor in chief let’s talk to this guy
Tyler Bloom:
Uh, I mean, yeah that’s I when you’re asking, how do we encourage the profession? We tell ourselves great stories. I love going on Twitter to see all the successes That appears in colleagues and innovative ideas. It’s the wrong audience. Cause they’re not the ones making the financial decisions. Oftentimes they may be having a piece. But it’s the general managers and it’s the, and it’s the board members, the club officials that are ultimately making those decisions. So we gotta be, we gotta be speaking to them. You can get in their environment and educate them just as much as we do back and forth to each other.
Trent Manning:
That was a great idea. I love it. I got one last thing and I just thought of this yesterday. And you, when we were first talking about mentorship programs, can we start a mentorship program for technicians? I think between me and the real turf tech community here, that we can find several technicians and each state willing to mentor new people in the industry or. The stuff. I don’t care how long you’ve been in the industry. If you want to come work with me for a day, I would be happy to entertain that.
Tyler Bloom:
It’s music to my ears. Again, it’s like the answer’s yes. And we should have started yesterday, but one of the, I guess you could say core deliverables that. we do as a business is help create that apprenticeship, mentorship, management development. However you want to call it structurize program, because I think that’s lacking in the industry as a whole where you have that structure has. And there’s a lot of superintendents that do, but I would say the majority. There isn’t that unified developmental system to take somebody with little to no experience and paved the way for them to lay out a good equipment manager job. I His jobs are paying 15, 16 bucks an hour. Here’s a lot of jobs paying 70, 80 to a hundred thousand. I’ve heard up to 150,000 at some situations, maybe more yeah, the answer is, yes. It’s who’s going to be the central coordinator. Cause you all have day to day jobs. If I can be a conduit in that and help organize something like that, not to I’d love to do that. Cause I think that there’s a definite need state to state region, to region club, the club, but you gotta have input from the industry, Right, Tyler bloom being that messenger. I’m not going to be the person that can really customize that training program. What I’m going to help do is connect to the right. people. I need people like you that understand that the progression of somebody with no experience to somebody that’s got six to eight years of experience, what should they know? Yeah, I think that’s a great initiative. Those are All great things to just got to get going and stay on top of it and be realistic on the timeframes.
Trent Manning:
All right. I got some thinking to do, but yeah, and I know plenty of people that are a lot better than me. That would be passionate about getting this going. So I don’t think promoting it would be a piece of cake. I think it was just be laying out all the logistics on exactly pat.
Tyler Bloom:
We work with a couple of clubs that have started this kind of initiative for their individual clubs. And again like workforce development as you’re tying business needs with talent needs the skills of the future, what sort of education providers. It needs to be I guess you could say, create a credible certificate. And it just again, like from my viewpoint and I’ve done a lot of research and I’ve actually tried to work with local community colleges and they have no interest in starting something new because it’s not paying their bills. So if they have an automotive service tech technician program, they’ll basically say we’ll advertise your position to. Our students, but we’re not going to create something from scratch. So if it’s going to be done, it’s going to come from the industry, the universities trade schools, they’re not going to create it on their own if there’s no demand.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Tyler Bloom:
And I’m sure there’s somebody out here in the country that says that’s BS. We’ve got our turf technician training program at our local high school or trade school. That’s great. But we got to get that information to the wider audience.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, we’ve got to get it out there.
Tyler Bloom:
And it doesn’t need to be this lengthy over-complicated, it’s like start with the core eight basics that you, if you need to focus on maybe it’s step one, one thing, two things. And over the course of a year, you’re able to build a nice little outline program that can be replicable. In any state, any local region, any club or sports facility, university, whatever.
Trent Manning:
Those eight things are already. GCs
Tyler Bloom:
There you go.
Trent Manning:
the EMCP cause we’re going to eight, eight exams. And that’s when we wrote those exams, that’s what a barely qualified individual needed to have.
Tyler Bloom:
How hard is that for somebody to take, like with no experience? How long does it take for them to, would it take for somebody to go through that?
Trent Manning:
That’s a good question. So if you were just dedicated and put your time, man, I would think in three months, have you focused on just those eight exams? You could pass the test, but working at a golf course, I think it’s going to take you closer to a year because you’re not focused on those every day. That’s just my.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah, usual. And I know we’re getting off topic here, but in a usual apprenticeship program, if you look at an electricians or plumbers they’re typically four to six year programs, for somebody to come in with zero experience. And by the end of it, be considered a journey worker electrician. So that’s the pathway. Like I look out for. If I’m somebody fresh out of school or I’m a, I’m an employee that has no formal background, but I want to get into an apprenticeship kind of training program. I’d be looking at a four to six year program. So by the time they graduate that they should be making 60, 70, 80 grand. So it’s comparable to other industries. And some people might say, man, that’s a really high number, but it’s that’s what’s, it’s going to take to be competitive with other industries. So you might as well start with the end in mind and work backwards. Even if you’re starting that person out at minimum wage, that’s what it’s going to take to, to build that pipeline and retain people. You’re going to have to pay them what they’re worth, probably paying more than what they are worth and invest in people.
Trent Manning:
That’s the thing. You look at pretty much any equivalent manager, job posting, and they want you to be a small engine mechanic. They want you to be a D. they want you to be a welder. Those are the three minimums. Sometimes they want you to be an electrician. Sometimes you might need to be a plumber and you want to pay me $40,000 to be an expert in all those fields that just doesn’t have.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah, I can see. And again, we’re at the New York state we’ve developed a formalized apprenticeship program for equipment technicians. It’s a two-year program. And I believe we took two of those modules from GCs AA. Like they have the equipment manager certificates and we one for each year. So maybe that maybe somebody could come in and digest more of that material a lot faster. It’s probably individually based, but. The goal was the trip to truly try to create that development program. And again we’ve started that New York state. Oh, I give a lot of credit to the nice aboard for being the pilot, if you want to call it that on a statewide level. So we just started that program. We’re actually in the approval process right now with the department of labor. So it’s a formalized training program, but we’re excited. We we feel we’ll get a nice, some nice industry support, even from our local manufacturer. Whether it’s Deere, Toro, Jacobson, Ventrac whomever that want to jump on board. Because again, I think it serves a bigger purpose that it’s a great template for the rest of the country to follow.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, all those vendors they’re looking for employees. They’re looking for technicians. Every one of the distributors is looking for a road technician or a technician to work in their distributor ship. So yeah, it helps them to, I guess what I’m thinking more is just a mentorship program. So it wouldn’t be as formal and it wouldn’t be near as much straining, but you could spend the day with a world renowned. See how they do things. So I think it would be great for an individual that just got into turning ranches in our industry. That’s been there maybe three months. Maybe he’s been there six months or she, cause we’re getting more females come on, girls. And then.
Tyler Bloom:
Trying to diversify what we’re doing and reach different audiences.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate you.
Tyler Bloom:
Yeah. this is fun. I appreciate what you’re doing. It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there, like you’re doing. And I think, again, from an education standpoint, we need more stories like this to reach the right audiences. So kudos to you.
Trent Manning:
Thank you. And yeah I the podcast has been great. If we could get it in front of. So I’m high schoolers, I guess I’m wanting to start a tick top page or something or whatever that’s called. I don’t know a channel or it’s not that don’t tick dog and try to reach that audience, but thank you, Tyler. I guess we’ll see you in San Diego.
Tyler Bloom:
Hey, we need to catch up. Yeah, that’ll be a good introduction formerly. So we’ll exchange numbers and I’m sure I’ll see out there somewhere.
Trent Manning:
Alright, sounds great. Tyler had some great tips for job searches. Have you passed the GCSA M certificate program level one, or to add it to your resume, add it to your LinkedIn show, your credentials and the investment you’ve made in yourself and your current. And it’ll go a long way to promote yourself in the industry. We talked a little bit about salary and while we know this varies, depending on your area, We need to dispel the myth that 60, 70 or 80,000 is a lot to pay for a golf course equipment manager. Just look what an auto mechanic makes in your area. So I’m in Atlanta, the auto mechanics make around a hundred. Now I had a decent mechanic, same thing, 60 to 90 K. Now I add a welder salary to that 60 K again. What about a skilled carpenter plumber, electric. Those three are all 60 to a hundred K many facilities rely on their equipment manager to fill all these roles. Not just one. Think about how many highly skilled trades you’re really trying to employ within this. When you’re considering what is a fair salary. If you’re posting a job for 50 a year and wonder why you’re not getting any applicants mystery. You’re competing with a much wider job market than golf alone for the few people out there who are willing and able to work with their hands. Tyler also made another great point on how the mechanics you network. It can have an impact on how you present yourself in a job search. There’s a saying that says a person as the average of the five people they spend the most time with who are the five mechanics you spend the most time engaging with, whether that be on social media or actually in person, all these things make us a better technician mechanic. And. And the groups I run in, I’m the lowest one out of those five. I’m trying to bring myself up and you should too until next time. See you. Bye. thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at real turf techs.