00;00;00;06 - 00;00;28;06

Andy Richardson

Okay. Well, this is the next episode of the Enhance AEC podcast. And I'm pretty excited about this episode because this has got one of my own kids as a guest, my son Charlie Richardson. And there's a few aspects of it that we key. And number one, he is the son. He is my son. So he brings a perspective of the son of an engineer and also son of an entrepreneur, and he becomes a little bit of an entrepreneur himself.

00;00;28;06 - 00;00;57;13

Andy Richardson

And we learn about that, how he dabbles in that a little bit. And then also he has moved into construction. So he's working in the trades as an Hvac technician and he does Hvac work for houses and some commercial work as well. And so we learn about what an Hvac technician does. We learn about Hvac in the South, which is interesting because in the last episode we learn about a mechanical engineer.

00;00;57;13 - 00;01;14;28

Andy Richardson

So there's a bit of a tie in with that. And so and then also Charlie is a marine. So we learn how he ties into his work ethic. So those were a few aspects of it. But like all episodes we're going to learn we're going to be inspired and learn from his why. And we're also going to have a good time.

00;01;14;28 - 00;01;22;08

Andy Richardson

And he brings a few good laughs as well. Was there anything that you particularly think we should point out for the episode?

00;01;22;08 - 00;01;36;22

Madeline Richardson

Just like his view on integrity, honesty and hard work was, it was very inspiring to listen to him and talking about you, you know, being up till midnight and then get up at 6:30 to go around and work in a full day's work, you know, just definitely inspiring.

00;01;36;22 - 00;01;46;01

Madeline Richardson

And, you know, just the way he talked about you and in general, it was very inspiring, doesn't it? Yeah. Okay. So those are some of the things we're going to be key in on it.

00;01;46;08 - 00;01;58;01

Andy Richardson

Today in our episode my name is Andy Richardson. I'm a structural engineer. I've been doing this for 26 years and I'm still on a journey to learn more about other professionals in the AEC industry.

00;01;58;06 - 00;02;20;00

Andy Richardson

What do they do? What are some of the details and aspects that I'm not familiar with, and also what drives them? What helps them realize the why of what they're doing? That's what we're here about at the Enhance AEC podcast. So I hope you listen in with us the rest of the episode. Let's jump to our intro.

00;02;20;00 - 00;02;24;19

(intro)

00;02;24;19 - 00;02;31;28

Madeline Richardson

Welcome to enhance, an AEC podcast, where we learn the why behind AEC professionals so that you can learn your why.

00;02;32;24 - 00;02;33;22

Andy Richardson

Hey, Charlie.

00;02;33;25 - 00;02;35;11

Charlie Richardson

Hey, dad.

00;02;35;13 - 00;02;36;11

Andy Richardson

How's it going?

00;02;36;13 - 00;02;37;18

Charlie Richardson

Pretty good. How are you doing?

00;02;37;19 - 00;02;43;10

Andy Richardson

Pretty good, pretty good. So, episode number two of Enhanced AEC podcast. Thanks for jumping on with us today.

00;02;43;11 - 00;02;46;24

Charlie Richardson

You ran out of people that quick?

00;02;46;27 - 00;03;07;12

Andy Richardson

Exactly. Exactly. So, I guess we wanted to start with people we knew, and, we're trying to get it going, so. Yeah, definitely. I appreciate you jumping on with us. But I thought there were some cool connections with you. Obviously, you're my son, and you grew up as a son of an engineer. So there's that connection.

00;03;07;12 - 00;03;35;12

Andy Richardson

And then you're currently in the construction industry. So those are some tie-ins that I wanted to explore and just discuss with you. So, yeah. So I think first of all, it's just, just growing up here and you're you're, I guess growing up and in Beaufort, South Carolina, which also wanted to discuss the Marine Corps a little bit, too, but just growing up here and then also what it was like being the son of an engineer.

00;03;35;13 - 00;03;40;02

Andy Richardson

So talk a little bit about your background and just growing up.

00;03;40;05 - 00;04;07;21

Charlie Richardson

Well, I mean, I'm your son, obviously. Beaufort is a good place to be from. It's a small town. Not as much as it used to be, but it definitely had that small town. Still does. Very small town feel. And then, it's grown a lot. You know, it's getting getting a little bigger, a little more expensive here, but,

00;04;07;23 - 00;04;11;05

Charlie Richardson

Well, I guess, like, what else do you want to know? Like specific.

00;04;11;06 - 00;04;25;08

Andy Richardson

Yeah. I mean, so that's a little bit about growing up here, and, I mean, it's. You went away in the Marine Corps for five years and you just came back, so I guess, did anything change or. Big difference?

00;04;25;11 - 00;04;30;10

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, it's grown a lot. When I left, we didn't have a Chipotle, and now we have one.

00;04;30;13 - 00;04;31;19

Andy Richardson

Okay. Yeah.

00;04;31;21 - 00;04;44;01

Charlie Richardson

But, yeah, you can definitely tell it's even in the last, last five years or seven years or so. It's grown a lot. But like, barely, but really recognizable from what it used to be.

00;04;44;04 - 00;05;07;12

Andy Richardson

Okay. So, and then wanted to discuss or get into, you know, just growing up as a son of an engineer, I mean, you saw me working, either in the office sometimes, probably at night. And, you saw some of the things I did, I guess just from that perspective. And then even now. Like what?

00;05;07;12 - 00;05;14;06

Andy Richardson

What is it like to be the son of an engineer, or did that impact you at all growing up?

00;05;14;06 - 00;05;42;21

Charlie Richardson

I think it did. I didn't really realize exactly what you did until I was an adult. And so, even though I didn't know exactly what you did, I got an appreciation of work from you. Yeah. You own your own business. And so I would see you know, I would get up to use a restroom a little night, and I would see at 2 a.m. working at the bar, and then you'd get up and go for a run at 6 a.m. the next day.

00;05;42;29 - 00;06;11;13

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. So it gave me an appreciation for it. For what? That's what that's like to just work and provide for a family. Yeah. And so as far as the actual engineering part, I think I, I think I came to appreciate what you did a little more. And once I got older and kind of saw what you did, you know, like problem solving and all the math and things like that and kind of looking back, you know, like, like, oh, well, I guess a lot of that, a lot of this stuff makes sense.

00;06;11;13 - 00;06;13;08

Charlie Richardson

Now, you know why he works so much.[1] 

00;06;13;12 - 00;06;14;25

Andy Richardson

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

00;06;14;25 - 00;06;19;21

Andy Richardson

And you, you actually worked in the business a little bit. I mean.

00;06;19;27 - 00;06;21;05

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, just.

00;06;21;07 - 00;06;22;09

Charlie Richardson

Filing things like.

00;06;22;09 - 00;06;23;02

Charlie Richardson

That. Yeah.

00;06;23;04 - 00;06;24;08

Andy Richardson

You remember that?

00;06;24;11 - 00;06;33;22

Charlie Richardson

I do, yeah, I mean, you know, I would come in and work with you every now and then and put my chicken, chicken scratch on some labels.

00;06;33;22 - 00;06;36;01

Charlie Richardson

And put it, put them away.

00;06;36;02 - 00;07;01;16

Andy Richardson

Yeah. I mean, I've always enjoyed having, I mean, I guess if I had a construction company or working construction, I could show my kids how to build something out of two bars, two by fours, or, you know, something like that. But in my world, it's hard to find things to do. But we've tried to do things over the years, whether it's filing or things like that.

00;07;01;16 - 00;07;24;05

Andy Richardson

So, just bring you in and, and let you be a part of it, but. Okay. So, that was a little bit of your childhood, and then you went over to the Marine Corps, which and some people listening might be, you know, not from this area, but, last week we actually had Stoney in our last episode, and he was a marine.

00;07;24;07 - 00;07;26;10

Andy Richardson

Or they say that you're always a marine, right, I guess.

00;07;26;15 - 00;07;30;19

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. So people say that, but they're not paying me anymore.

00;07;30;21 - 00;07;55;24

Andy Richardson

So, but what's cool is you grew up here in Beaufort and Parris Island is here in Beaufort as well? And so you went really across the river to where Parris Island is. But, talk a little bit about the Marine Corps, your experience there, growing up here in Beaufort and so talk a little bit about Marine Corps and your, your experience there.

00;07;55;27 - 00;08;13;05

Charlie Richardson

So I joined the Marine Corps basically right out of high school. And, It was good. You know, it kind of needed to get roughed up a little bit. And so, I went and it was a, you know, big, big learning curve doing that.

00;08;13;05 - 00;08;16;22

Andy Richardson

Do you have any funny stories from Boot camp?

00;08;22;10 - 00;08;25;07

Andy Richardson

That you can think of?

00;08;25;10 - 00;08;27;14

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, I do

00;08;27;14 - 00;08;34;18

Andy Richardson

That you can share, family friendly. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah, yeah. No, I, yeah.

00;08;34;18 - 00;08;41;09

Charlie Richardson

Let me think for a second. I mean, that's pretty broad, but.

00;08;41;12 - 00;08;46;25

Andy Richardson

Yeah, I mean, anything that might be.

00;08;46;27 - 00;08;53;03

Andy Richardson

Did you have some interesting. Did you have some interesting drill sergeants? Drill instructors?

00;08;53;09 - 00;08;58;16

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. One guy in particular sticks out. His name was Sergeant Stout.

00;08;58;19 - 00;08;58;29

Andy Richardson

Okay.

00;08;58;29 - 00;09;24;15

Charlie Richardson

And so he was this, he was this. I mean, they're all bald, basically, he's this bald guy. And, I remember he would yell and his lips would turn purple when he yelled. So he kind of, you know, sometimes they kind of take a liking to you a little bit, and, and when they, when they yell at you a lot, they, they're really like, you're, they really hate you.

00;09;24;15 - 00;09;45;10

Charlie Richardson

And so he yelled at me a lot, but, I remember he was, he was a pretty funny guy. So some of the sayings and things that they would have, you know, I mean, I'm trying to think of, I'm sorry. I'm trying to think of some, like, some funny stories, but I'm. I'm not coming up with this kind of.

00;09;45;10 - 00;10;08;22

Andy Richardson

Blanking out, okay? I mean, we can come back to it. So, I know there was so, the thing I remember is the story I think you've told a few times, too. So at the last I'm tell I'm talking to you, but I'm also talking to the audience. But so the last night, right. Right before the graduation ceremony the next day.

00;10;08;22 - 00;10;26;29

Andy Richardson

So they have this dinner, and what happens is, they if you want, you can come to this dinner and meet the drill instructors. Yeah. And so, I mean, it was just interesting because at that point, the drill instructors have really loosened up a little bit, let's just say and I mean, they really, really did loosen up.

00;10;26;29 - 00;10;38;23

Andy Richardson

And they had some, some interesting language even at that point. So I don't want to get anybody in trouble. But let's just say they had some, some interesting language and they were pretty loose at that stage.

00;10;38;23 - 00;10;39;28

Andy Richardson

So yeah.

00;10;40;01 - 00;10;55;14

Andy Richardson

So but it was you know, I definitely respect what they do. But because we live here, I actually invited them to, actually invited one of their drone instructors to church the next day, and, and, he came back in there and was like, Richardson. Yeah.

00;10;55;16 - 00;10;58;04

Andy Richardson

Your dad invited me to church. Yeah.

00;10;58;06 - 00;11;00;14

Andy Richardson

I don't think he ended up coming there.

00;11;00;27 - 00;11;21;27

Andy Richardson

I don't think so, but, yeah, that was a little memory I had, and a few others, I guess, that you told over the years, but. So let's, let's. If you think of anything else that you can share, but let's jump into that. And you because I think it does tie in, you know, the Marine Corps affects your work currently.

00;11;21;27 - 00;11;31;05

Andy Richardson

Now you're in construction, you're in the Hvac industry. And so I want to continue on the Marine Corps path a little bit.

00;11;31;07 - 00;11;32;27

Andy Richardson

Right. 

00;11;32;28 - 00;11;34;26

Charlie Richardson

I thought of a funny story, do you want to hear it? Okay. Yeah. Funny story.

00;11;34;28 - 00;11;53;14

Charlie Richardson

So here's a pretty funny story, so it's all about. Oh, it's not all about. But the whole time you're there, they're trying to tell you, you know, you have good bearing, you know, keep, you know, basically you're trying to control your emotions and, and, control your facial expressions and all these other things. And control your body language.

00;11;53;16 - 00;12;04;24

Charlie Richardson

And so this one guy, his name was, and then the military, everybody uses last names, everybody. And so this guy's last name was Schnepp and Heim. And so nobody we all everybody called him Alec.

00;12;04;26 - 00;12;07;06

Charlie Richardson

Well, even the drill instructors called him Alec. Okay.

00;12;07;06 - 00;12;33;13

Charlie Richardson

And he was, the generals would mess with each other sometimes. So he would, one of them would stand behind another drill instructor, and he would do this with his hand, like, real quick, like, for people listening, it's like a like a imagine you're holding a puppet like a hand puppet in his mouth, and it real fast and so when he would see that, he would he would open his eyes and mouth and close and really fast, like.

00;12;34;18 - 00;12;37;05

Charlie Richardson

And the drill instructor that was trying to talk, he would say.

00;12;37;07 - 00;12;38;04

Charlie Richardson

He, you know, he would be.

00;12;38;04 - 00;12;39;07

Charlie Richardson

So thrown off of like.

00;12;39;07 - 00;12;47;22

Charlie Rihardson

“What are you doing? Stop that.” And then he's like, sorry. And then the other drill instructor would start doing it again. And, and there that the, the.

00;12;47;22 - 00;12;49;16

Charlie Richardson

One drill director had no idea the other was doing it.

00;12;49;16 - 00;12;51;00

Charlie Richardson

He figured it out one dat.

00;12;51;00 - 00;12;53;17

Charlie Richardson

Day and it was pretty funny. But every time I would see him doing.

00;12;53;17 - 00;12;59;16

Charlie Richardson

That, I would crack up laughing. Yeah. And then inevitably I would get in trouble. But yeah, so that was.

00;12;59;18 - 00;13;04;00

Charlie Richardson

It was pretty funny. Yeah. It's the funniest. It's the funniest time that you can't laugh.

00;13;04;05 - 00;13;04;21

Andy Richardson

Yeah.

00;13;04;24 - 00;13;05;26

Charlie Richardson

That's what makes it so funny.

00;13;06;01 - 00;13;08;24

Andy Richardson

But then you just have to laugh about it later I guess.

00;13;08;25 - 00;13;10;11

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Yeah.

00;13;10;14 - 00;13;23;00

Andy Richardson

And it is interesting to like the drill instructors. There's a kind of ribbing happening even within there's like a thing happening with them too, because they're going through it too. Right. The boot camp.

00;13;23;02 - 00;13;44;27

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Yeah. So that I mean there's like a, there's like a hierarchy to it, you know, like the senior guys pick on the younger guys and the younger guys pick on the even younger guys. Yeah. And so they're all, they're all trying to prove themselves and, and move up in the rank there. But, you kind of got a, you kind of got to roll with the punches to do that.

00;13;45;00 - 00;13;52;05

Andy Richardson

So but they're, they're having to go through that too. I mean, it's, it's a what, 13 weeks.

00;13;52;07 - 00;13;59;26

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Depending on when you go through I think, I think now I'm not sure if it's longer or shorter now, but yeah, it's yeah about 13.

00;13;59;26 - 00;14;04;12

Andy Richardson

Weeks, but they're grueling for the boot. The instructors too.

00;14;04;14 - 00;14;15;14

Charlie Richardson

But yeah it is. Yeah. They're there 24 hours a day. Basically seven days a week. I mean they, they sleep there. Well, what little they do sleep man.

00;14;15;16 - 00;14;25;05

Andy Richardson

So I mean, definitely respect all the respect goes to you for making it through boot camp. Put in five years in and, you know, thank you for your service.

00;14;25;05 - 00;14;26;29

Charlie Richardson

Well, it was my pleasure.

00;14;27;01 - 00;14;52;15

Andy Richardson

And, and to those boot camps, you know, those drill instructors and really everybody that served. So, it definitely I, you know, I didn't serve in the military. We've talked about that before, and I respect you for that. I respect people more for that. Now I understand a little bit more. I mean, I definitely don't understand it because I didn't serve, but I, I understand a little glimpse into military life.

00;14;52;17 - 00;15;27;01

Andy Richardson

So thanks to you. So, it's really been a pleasure to watch you go through that. So going into the, going into your actual duty, I guess, your five year tour, a little bit about that in terms of I think the lens is, you know, how that affected you currently with your career and moving into construction, but you worked to tell me about your your job in the Marine Corps and what you did.

00;15;27;03 - 00;15;44;14

Charlie Richardson

Well, my answer for that depends on who's asking. So if somebody knows a little bit about Marine Corps aviation, I'll give them the real answer. And the real answer is I was flight equipment. Okay. And then if they speak the language, they'll know what that is and we'll have a good laugh about it.

00;15;44;16 - 00;16;09;06

Charlie Richardson

But, if they don't know anything about marine aviation, I just tell them I was a mechanic now, like. And like, oh, okay. That's cool. Know. And then the conversation moves on. Right. But, basically I worked on, I was a helicopter maintainer, and I worked on Huey's, and I worked on Cobra's. They're basically the same aircraft, the same airframe, but with a few different modifications.

00;16;09;06 - 00;16;34;00

Charlie Richardson

One holds a bunch of people and one doesn't hold on, only holds two people. And so I worked on seats. I worked on fire extinguishers for the engine and for the hand-held fire extinguishers, all the safety equipment. I worked on some explosives and I worked on any, like some, like the real expensive helmets and communication devices, those kinds of things.

00;16;34;03 - 00;16;53;27

Charlie Richardson

Some night vision. A lot of odds and ends. We're a kind of a catch all shop for some, like, the smaller things. And so, and actually, it's funny, I do air conditioning now because that was one of the things that I worked on when I was in the Marine Corps was, it was a lot different, but it was a air conditioning system and a helicopter.

00;16;54;00 - 00;17;10;22

Charlie Richardson

Fans. Not big enough. So, that was basically that was what I did. And it was a lot of tedious work, but, Yeah, that was a basic, basic what I did. Yeah.

00;17;10;24 - 00;17;27;05

Andy Richardson

Okay. And, I've kind of just kind of going down a trail here, but, just a little bit more about the Marine Corps because you did a you actually went overseas to, know on a deployment,

00;17;27;07 - 00;17;29;00

Charlie Richardson

If you can call it that.

00;17;29;02 - 00;17;29;28

Charlie Richardson

It, I mean.

00;17;30;01 - 00;17;52;21

Charlie Richardson

It was a deployment, but it wasn't like a combat deployment. Yeah. You know, it was, we were out. It's basically like a patrol. Like you get. They got these people on a boat, and you get aircraft, and you get a bunch of infantry on there, and. And you're kind of patrolling the sea. And, we made eight ports, which is like, unheard of.

00;17;52;25 - 00;17;56;09

Charlie Richardson

It was like I won the lottery on a deferred deployment.

00;17;57;13 - 00;18;13;20

Charlie Richardson

Guys that went, I think it was two boats before us. They went seven months, no ports. I think they made one, but they were only allowed to get on the dock. And so it was, we were very lucky. Yeah. With, with what we got to do.

00;18;13;23 - 00;18;17;06

Andy Richardson

Okay. I mean, you got to see the world and a lot of ways, right?

00;18;17;07 - 00;18;22;07

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Yeah, I definitely cured my hunger for traveling.

00;18;22;10 - 00;18;24;10

Andy Richardson

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;18;24;12 - 00;18;39;11

Andy Richardson

I mean, I think that's really cool because you got to see. I mean, I've never been to Europe. I've never been to that part of the world. So, you've seen parts of the world I haven't seen. So that's really cool. But, you also got a pretty cool coffee cup collection, right?

00;18;39;16 - 00;18;59;22

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, I got at least one coffee cup in every country we visited. And so, I kind of had to. I had to figure out something I was going to bring home from every country. And that just seemed like that seemed like the best one, because you maybe, you know, we go, we talk about our coffee cup rating system sometimes, and you know how hard it is to find a good coffee cup.

00;18;59;25 - 00;19;13;16

Charlie Richardson

But, so every country that I go to, I get a coffee cup in every new state I go to, I also get a new coffee cup, but I think I've got, I think 18 coffee cups now between the countries and states I've been to.

00;19;13;21 - 00;19;17;08

Andy Richardson

Yeah. And some of them are silly. Some of them are like, some.

00;19;17;08 - 00;19;25;13

Charlie Richardson

Some of them are hilarious, but some of them are really good. My worst one I've got, my funniest one is a donut mug and it's got a hole.

00;19;25;13 - 00;19;27;15

Speaker 3

In the middle. It's.

00;19;27;20 - 00;19;28;29

Charlie Richardson

It's something you can't even clean.

00;19;29;17 - 00;19;32;12

Andy Richardson

And it doesn't even hold much coffee, I think. Right.

00;19;32;13 - 00;19;37;08

Charlie Richardson

No, it doesn't, and you can't really drink. It's so inconvenient. But I think it's one of my favorite mugs.

00;19;37;11 - 00;19;38;14

Speaker 3

Yeah. It's just so.

00;19;38;14 - 00;19;41;14

Andy Richardson

Crazy. Yeah. What about this one? How would you rate this guy?

00;19;41;16 - 00;20;02;08

Charlie Richardson

All right. So. So this is a classic. This is a classic shape. It's got a good thickness on the lip. Yeah. It's got I could put three full fingers in, which is. I don't like that. In between land, between three fingers and four fingers, I'd need three fingers. Exactly. Or four fingers.

00;20;02;10 - 00;20;07;20

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Nice full grip. But this one, this is fire A minus B plus mug. This is pretty good.

00;20;07;20 - 00;20;13;28

Andy Richardson

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a fan of it. I mean, it's simple, you know, it's got a nice color, a nice logo.

00;20;14;06 - 00;20;14;24

Charlie Richardson

It does.

00;20;14;26 - 00;20;22;07

Andy Richardson

But I'm kind of a three finger guy lately. I mean, you know, because it gives you that balance you need. So yeah.

00;20;22;10 - 00;20;30;11

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, I've been enjoying it, when places have like the one finger mode because, because you can just drink a little bit of coffee.

00;20;30;13 - 00;20;33;27

Charlie Richardson

Okay. You know, I kind of like that.

00;20;34;00 - 00;21;03;03

Andy Richardson

So, Yeah. So that's a little bit about your Marine Corps experience and then transitioning into your experience. So you got out of the Marine Corps and you decided to do one tour. So that was a big decision and then move into your current field. So I guess the first question is, you know, why? Why not stay?

00;21;03;03 - 00;21;16;24

Andy Richardson

Why did you decide to get out and, and I'll just say to, I mean, if, if you feel like we get into personal or anything, we can definitely change course. But why did you feel like you wanted to go ahead and get out?

00;21;16;27 - 00;21;51;11

Charlie Richardson

I really enjoyed it. It was the most fun I've ever had in my life. It was also the hardest time of my life. But so far, I mean, I haven't lived that long, but it was very hard. But I made some really good friends and it was a tough decision to get out. But, I think the biggest, the biggest thing is I kind of missed I mean, I missed my family and so I wanted to come home, but, I and all my other friends, they were they were kind of they were getting out and they were going other places and or they were, they were re enlisting and going somewhere else.

00;21;51;17 - 00;22;20;01

Charlie Richardson

So, basically the decision I had was I could either come home and see my family again or I could stay in and, and, you know, figure it out again somewhere else. And, and I didn't really want to do that. Oh, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, but, I wanted to see my family again, and I wanted a family around, you know, I was gone a lot.[2] 

00;22;20;03 - 00;22;31;09

Charlie Richardson

And. Yeah, it's not really a lot of people do it. And kudos to them. But, I just didn't I didn't want to put a woman through that. Right. Okay.

00;22;31;11 - 00;22;38;16

Andy Richardson

So you have some immediate plans to build a family, right? Yeah.

00;22;38;17 - 00;22;41;17

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. I'm engaged to a wonderful lady.

00;22;41;20 - 00;22;43;17

Andy Richardson

Okay. Awesome. Well, congratulations.

00;22;43;22 - 00;22;44;23

Charlie Richardson

Well, thanks.

00;22;44;26 - 00;22;45;10

Andy Richardson

I mean, I already.

00;22;45;10 - 00;22;48;25

Speaker 3

Knew that they were. They didn't, So.

00;22;48;25 - 00;22;59;18

Andy Richardson

Yeah, I mean, coming up in a couple months. So congratulations on that. And it's very exciting. So, yeah, I mean, you got out of there, about a year ago, right?

00;22;59;21 - 00;23;20;24

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, yeah, just hit in. I just hit one year, and sits up with the uniform on in August. Yeah. And so it's, it's been a fast, sort of fast year of my life, but, it's also been good. It's been pretty like, kind of a hard adjustment back to civilian life, but.

00;23;20;27 - 00;23;22;22

Charlie Richardson

But it's been good. I'm enjoying it.

00;23;22;28 - 00;23;33;04

Andy Richardson

Yeah. Now, you have an interesting thing that happened right after you because you went into your own business. So. Yeah, that was interesting. So tell me about that.

00;23;33;04 - 00;23;51;20

Charlie Richardson

So I kind of I'd always wanted to own my own business and that was kind of my I had all these dreams when I got out of the Marine Corps, you know, I was like, I could go, I could go be a rodeo cowboy or not. Not a rodeo cowboy, but I could go work on a ranch.

00;23;51;20 - 00;24;09;16

Charlie Richardson

That thought popped into my mind. I was like, that'd be really cool. And I was. I could go work on an oil rig, you know, I could go, you know, all these different things as I go work overseas, which I know that doesn't sell. A lot of these don't fit into my reasoning for getting out, you know. And so that was kind of what I settled on was to come back home.

00;24;09;19 - 00;24;26;11

Charlie Richardson

And then I had two months of terminal. And so I was kind of playing with monopoly money a little bit. Yeah. And so I could have a business and it fail and I would still be fine. And so I had basically two months to kind of figure my life out. And so I started a little painting business as paint.

00;24;26;11 - 00;24;30;07

Charlie Richardson

I used to work for a construction company and I knew how to paint pretty well.

00;24;30;10 - 00;24;30;20

Andy Richardson

Yeah.

00;24;30;20 - 00;24;38;07

Charlie Richardson

And so, I started my painting company, and you were one of my first clients.

00;24;38;10 - 00;24;38;18

Andy Richardson

Yeah.

00;24;38;22 - 00;25;04;07

Charlie Richardson

Came in and took your popcorn ceiling out of your house, and I did that. I actually did the same job for one other person. And it is a mess doing that. Right. But, I wasn't in love with painting, but I just wanted to. I wanted to try something. Just try the business owner thing, and it was fun.

00;25;04;09 - 00;25;25;10

Charlie Richardson

It was a fun little adventure, you know, hired, hired a high schooler to come. A high schooler. And my brother. And so they would help me, you know, 2 or 3 days a week. And we did, we actually did some, I mean, real professional work, you know, we painted some people's houses and it was a fun little adventure.

00;25;25;16 - 00;25;26;21

Andy Richardson

Yeah. Okay.

00;25;26;23 - 00;25;29;09

Charlie Richardson

I found out some things about myself, too. I'm a terrible accountant.

00;25;29;14 - 00;25;31;06

Andy Richardson

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;25;31;06 - 00;25;32;14

Andy Richardson

You you get that from me?

00;25;32;14 - 00;25;33;14

Charlie Richardson

Probably. Yeah, yeah.

00;25;33;14 - 00;25;35;04

Charlie Richardson

I've got the receipt box in my truck.

00;25;35;06 - 00;25;38;17

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, it's a shoe bag. Just jam in there. Yeah.

00;25;38;19 - 00;25;54;19

Andy Richardson

So you're a lot better at your job then than accounting and detail aspects. Okay. And what, what, what did you learn from the painting business?

00;25;54;21 - 00;26;03;18

Charlie Richardson

So I learned a little bit about customer relations. You know, don't be transparent with your customers, but don't be that transparent.

00;26;03;20 - 00;26;04;18

Andy Richardson

Yeah, yeah.

00;26;04;21 - 00;26;21;28

Charlie Richardson

Like, you know, I'm a somewhat family oriented guy, you know? I mean, you get a lot of kids and I'm one of them, so they would come and help me with the job sometimes, and it'll give me a little bit of trouble because the homeowners didn't know that I had nine year olds working for me.

00;26;22;01 - 00;26;39;01

Charlie Richardson

And so they would come into the this one guy, he came into the house and he didn't say anything at that point in time, but I could tell he was pretty upset. Yeah. Because we had, you know, I mean, we like his his house looks like it's a wreck. Well, it was an apartment, right? And so he's a landlord, and the house looks like it's a wreck.

00;26;39;01 - 00;26;52;00

Charlie Richardson

Because it is. I mean, there's construction materials everywhere and paint all over the walls. And so he comes in and there's these kids cutting in the baseboards all around the house. He's just kind of like what.

00;26;52;00 - 00;26;53;12

Charlie Richardson

Is going on?

00;26;53;15 - 00;27;12;12

Charlie Richardson

And so he came back, he was, he came back later. It was just me there. And, you know, he was like micro, micro analyzing the paint job. You're kind of looking for mistakes. I was like, I kind of did this to myself. Yeah. But, it ended up working out. He never. He paid me and never talked to me again.

00;27;12;12 - 00;27;13;12

Charlie Richardson

So.

00;27;13;15 - 00;27;15;00

Charlie Richardson

You know.

00;27;15;02 - 00;27;37;00

Charlie Richardson

It's all right. Yeah, I could tell you. Was a little upset. Right. But, lots of good things about customer relations and, you know, basically people, just people, you customers just want to be treated like human beings, you know? And so if you're out and you just honest with them, you're like, hey, man, look, I messed up on your, we messed up here and we're going to.

00;27;37;00 - 00;27;45;12

Charlie Richardson

We'll fix it. But. Right. Yeah, they respect that more than more than they do, you know, professionalism and, professional jargon.

00;27;45;15 - 00;28;06;14

Andy Richardson

Right, right. So and I mean, as far as, I mean, there's so much benefit to what you did, even though it was a short foray into entrepreneurship. But, I mean, you learned, I think, so much about, you know, getting work. You know, every business has to basically get work, do work, and get paid. So you know it.

00;28;06;16 - 00;28;12;05

Andy Richardson

I think it's a great experience for anybody to have a business, even if it's for three months.

00;28;12;12 - 00;28;13;13

Charlie Richardson

Yeah.

00;28;13;16 - 00;28;20;27

Andy Richardson

So, we turn to the page and you said, you know, it turns out I don't. I don't love painting as much as maybe I thought.

00;28;22;03 - 00;28;29;09

Charlie Richardson

And I know I didn't like painting, but I like the idea of entrepreneurship and just something I can do.

00;28;29;17 - 00;28;47;24

Andy Richardson

Right? Right. I mean, you could pick up a paintbrush and start. Start working. Yeah. You can get the work. Well, so I want to go into the next phase, which is your current job, Hvac work. How did you get in? How did you say, this is what I want to do? Because, I mean, you

00;28;47;24 - 00;28;51;25

Andy Richardson

You could have done almost anything. So what? What got you into that?

00;28;51;27 - 00;29;18;14

Charlie Richardson

So, I worked in construction before I went to the Marine Corps, and I like, I like construction, and I like mechanical work. I like turning nuts and bolts, and I like fixing things. I like problem solving. And I thought Hvac would be a good, good field to get into because of those things.

00;29;18;17 - 00;29;30;19

Charlie Richardson

It hasn't turned out to be exactly what I thought it was. It's a little bit less mechanical and a lot more electrical okay, than I thought it was, but it's.

00;29;30;20 - 00;29;32;03

Andy Richardson

Are those technical terms, by the way?

00;29;32;03 - 00;29;34;18

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, yeah, they taught them. They taught us as a TCL.[3] 

00;29;36;12 - 00;29;38;08

Charlie Richardson

That’s technical college of the low country.

00;29;38;11 - 00;29;40;08

Andy Richardson

Yeah, that's a good ad right there.

00;29;40;12 - 00;29;44;28

Charlie Richardson

Okay. How about paying me? Okay. Yeah, yeah.

00;29;45;01 - 00;29;52;12

Charlie Richardson

But, yeah, it's not not quite what I thought it would be, but it's paying the bills for now, so.

00;29;52;15 - 00;29;58;25

Andy Richardson

Yeah. So, what do you do exactly? I mean, as far as.

00;29;58;27 - 00;30;01;11

Charlie Richardson

Tell people to go buy an air filter.

00;30;01;13 - 00;30;02;29

Andy Richardson

Yeah. That's your number one. Yeah.

00;30;02;29 - 00;30;06;14

Charlie Richardson

Basically, you have it, guys. Your air filters are dirty. Go change.

00;30;06;14 - 00;30;09;29

Andy Richardson

It. Yeah. Hey. Yeah, yeah. The thing.

00;30;09;29 - 00;30;37;18

Charlie Richardson

I never realized this, that things would change every three months. Okay? Yeah, they get real dirty real quick. But basically, I solve expensive problems. And so, sometimes, you know, so sometimes it'll be like a, It'll just be a circuit board, or it'll just be a blown fuse or a just a bad connection somewhere and something that's like, basically free to fix.

00;30;37;18 - 00;30;56;29

Charlie Richardson

You just got to know what you're looking for. And then sometimes it's a, you know, sometimes a whole unit shot and there's nothing you can do about it. Right? So but you just basically our whole job is to find problems like figure out, diagnose the problem correctly. This is my job. I do that about 90% of the time.

00;30;57;01 - 00;31;16;05

Andy Richardson

Yeah. And, it sounds like you're pretty talented at that scale of this problem solving. And I mean, where do you think that came from and where how did you get that ability?

00;31;16;07 - 00;31;18;09

Charlie Richardson

I don't know.

00;31;22;22 - 00;31;43;29

Charlie Richardson

I, I've always been kind of mechanically inclined, you know, I used to, I always like to tinker with things. So when, when I was a kid, mom would, mama go thrift shop, and and and there's this guy. His name was Mr. Brian. He worked at this thrift store, we used to go to a lot. And, Mr. Brian, you know, people, people give things to these thrift stores that they don't want.

00;31;44;04 - 00;32;04;12

Charlie Richardson

And so a lot of times it was like electronics or small mechanical things like, like a weed eater or like a, like a toaster oven, just, just like little appliances and things like that. He would just give them to us and I would know because, you know, I like to mess up stuff and I wouldn't really fix anything, but I would take them apart.

00;32;04;15 - 00;32;31;15

Charlie Richardson

And I guess I just, I guess that kind of I learned a lot because I was a little kid, you know, so that was like a big part of my development was just messing with these electronics and whatnot all day long. And so I don't know that I directly learn anything from that. But I learned a lot about tools and about how things work and how objects interact with each other.

00;32;31;15 - 00;32;40;27

Charlie Richardson

And I think it's, I mean, it's like a God given ability as because I'm kind of mechanically minded. You know,

00;32;40;29 - 00;32;55;19

Andy Richardson

And, you know, we've talked about this too, like, there might have been a thought that there might have been a thought that you might go down the engineering path, but you felt like this was a better fit for you.

00;32;55;19 - 00;33;32;11

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, I definitely thought it because I had that GI Bill available. I still do, but I could have gone to the engineering round, but I think I figured it out after a little while I came in. I came in like, did a one day internship with the kind of just shadowed you for a little while, and, I just found that I really I liked the idea of what you did, but I like being, I like the hands on and on stuff, so, I kind of realized that I didn't want to be an engineer, but I wanted to be,

00;33;32;13 - 00;33;33;23

Charlie Richardson

I wanted to work on the stuff.

00;33;33;23 - 00;34;00;25

Andy Richardson

Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's really good. I mean, I think for anybody that maybe you have kids or, you're, you're in that career age and you're trying to figure out what you want to do. There's no right or wrong answer. I mean, you do what? Like you said, you had a God given ability to, to put that into an office environment where you're not enjoying it, that that's not what you should do.

00;34;00;27 - 00;34;24;12

Andy Richardson

And I think you're going to thrive more in this then, than a different environment. So, there's a guy that I follow on LinkedIn, Andrew Brown. He talks a lot about the trades. And, I mean, I just think there's a big push for that right now. And, like when I was growing up, it was a big push for white collar work and engineering and things like that.

00;34;24;15 - 00;34;42;10

Andy Richardson

I am blessed with what I do, but at the same time I can see the value of the trades. I think that's, we have a lack of people in that field right now. And so the fact that you're in that, I think is a good fit because there's good money in it, too, right now.[4] 

00;34;42;10 - 00;34;56;18

Andy Richardson

So those are some of the things that I'm seeing. Any thoughts about that as far as, like advice to others or advice to a parents of, of a career age. Yeah. People.

00;34;56;20 - 00;35;19;29

Charlie Richardson

There's not enough workers to go around and so and there's definitely not enough good workers to go around. And so the biggest struggle for any company right now is finding, not just finding a warm body that wants to work, but finding somebody who kind of knows what they're doing and who's got a good head on their shoulders.

00;35;20;01 - 00;35;36;16

Charlie Richardson

And so if you're like that, then you're going to, I mean, blow past everybody and and whatever. If whatever trade you go into, I mean, if you show up on time and have a little bit of sense about you, you'll be ahead of 90% of the, of the, of the field.

00;35;36;18 - 00;35;42;03

Andy Richardson

Yeah. I mean, those are, those are kind of low bar things. But you don't see it now.

00;35;42;03 - 00;35;42;17

Charlie Richardson

You don't.

00;35;42;17 - 00;35;46;19

Andy Richardson

So yeah, just show up on time.

00;35;46;20 - 00;35;47;03

Charlie Richardson

Yeah.

00;35;47;03 - 00;35;48;08

Andy Richardson

Just brush your hair and.

00;35;48;13 - 00;35;52;18

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, you don't really need to do that. Just show up on time and be.

00;35;52;18 - 00;36;13;22

Charlie Richardson

Ready to work, you know? I mean, it's like the simple stuff, you know, that people don't know, like, the biggest, I probably say, and AC work, the biggest, most common thing I see is plumbing issues. Believe it or not. Okay. Because, you know, there's a winning you collecting warm air. All that water has to go somewhere. Oh that warm, humid air.

00;36;13;22 - 00;36;24;28

Charlie Richardson

That water has to go somewhere. It goes outside when it goes outside through a pipe. And so a lot of Hvac guys don't know how to do plumbing, right? And they don't realize that water goes downhill. Right. And.

00;36;26;02 - 00;36;38;28

Charlie Richardson

And if there's stuff in the pipe, you have to get it out. And so that's like, that's like 50% of, of when somebody calls air conditioning, man, that's, that's about what it is half the time. Yeah. There's a problem with that line.

00;36;39;00 - 00;36;41;24

Andy Richardson

That's surprising. Yeah. That's the main.

00;36;41;28 - 00;36;46;12

Charlie Richardson

Yeah I was shocked to find that out. So. Yeah.

00;36;46;14 - 00;37;00;29

Andy Richardson

Okay. Well and what so talking to more about your, your job, I mean, is there anything that is your big like what's your biggest challenge in HVAC work.

00;37;01;01 - 00;37;33;04

Charlie Richardson

Biggest challenge I would say, What's 1 or 2 things? I would say fit like the most physically challenging thing is going into crawl spaces because they're disgusting. 99% of crawl spaces are filthy. You know, they got spider webs. And so I've got sewage issues and some. And I don't go under those, but if I see poop, I leave.

00;37;33;06 - 00;37;35;17

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. That's my,

00;37;35;20 - 00;37;37;01

Andy Richardson

But that's your rule of thumb.

00;37;37;02 - 00;38;00;09

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. That is I'm not going under your house if theres  poop. But and the, you know, they're usually just, like, private and you're crawling on your belly the whole time. Yeah. And so, if that's probably the most physically challenging thing, and then you got to make, you know, 100 trips in and out because you keep forgetting things and you're trying to fix something.

00;38;00;12 - 00;38;27;28

Charlie Richardson

The most mentally challenging thing is, Dealing with customers, you know, and that could be like dealing with an unhappy customer where, you know, I mean, things happen and you don't get everything, you know, you might not diagnose something. Right? And then the customer is upset. And the worst is when you're in the wrong and the customer is upset.

00;38;28;05 - 00;38;34;08

Charlie Richardson

And so they're, so they're rightfully upset, so you can't you mean, what do you do?

00;38;34;11 - 00;38;35;22

Charlie Richardson

You yell at them.

00;38;35;25 - 00;38;59;06

Charlie Richardson

So kind of humbling yourself a little bit. I guess that's pretty difficult in general. Yeah. But, yeah, going out and wanting to do some work and you're going in and just doing customer service all day, that's I think that's probably the one of the tougher parts of this job. Right, is the customer service okay.

00;38;59;06 - 00;39;11;15

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. That was one thing I didn't really expect was, I thought I was going to be doing mostly mechanic work, but it's mostly customer service. That's probably one of the most surprising things about this field.

00;39;11;17 - 00;39;13;07

Andy Richardson

Yeah. Okay.

00;39;13;10 - 00;39;30;02

Andy Richardson

So dealing with different people. Yeah. Throughout the day. And I would imagine your experience, your experience with Richardson Painting LLC. Yeah, probably helped with that a little bit. Would you say?

00;39;30;05 - 00;39;39;25

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, it helped a little bit. I wasn't doing it that long, but I learned how to learn how to talk to people a little bit.

00;39;39;27 - 00;39;40;02

Andy Richardson

Yeah.

00;39;40;03 - 00;39;56;06

Charlie Richardson

Doing that. I don't know if that was as much Richardson painting as it was, growing up, you know, just just knowing how to talk to adults, it's kind of, you know, as homeschooled as, you know. So. Right. Yeah. That's one of the perks is you kind of learn how to talk to adults.

00;39;56;09 - 00;40;20;11

Andy Richardson

Yeah. A lot of people don't realize that. I mean, because you don't really have that. You're talking to people of all different age groups. So there's not this sense of adults are unapproachable, you know, because you're with adults a lot. Yeah. I mean, you're with adults as a public school person too, but there's just a sense that there's not a separation feel, you know, it's a different kind of thing.

00;40;20;14 - 00;40;50;26

Andy Richardson

Okay. Well, I want to get into one of the big aspects of this show is the why. Right. Like, so it's called Enhance Podcast. And the idea is that we enhance the world around us. You know, I joke about how it's sounds a little, I don't know, hokey or maybe like a miss America pageant, but but I do like to get into that in terms of, you know, why are you doing what you're doing in the HVAC industry and what are you doing?

00;40;50;26 - 00;40;58;28

Andy Richardson

So so why are you doing what you're doing in the HVAC industry? Like what? What gives you what drives you? I guess that is what I'm saying.

00;40;59;01 - 00;41;05;05

Charlie Richardson

Well, what drives me is I need to put food on the table. I mean, that's sure.

00;41;05;08 - 00;41;08;05

Charlie Richardson

I mean, that's the why.

00;41;08;08 - 00;41;37;07

Charlie Richardson

Beyond that, what drives me to do a good job is I just. I feel like. What upsets me a lot is some of these. A lot of these companies are not honest. And like, there's no integrity with it, with a lot of people these days. Which because it's hard, you know, having integrity is hard. But, when, when, when you treat somebody right and they know it, I mean, it, they, they respect you for it.

00;41;37;09 - 00;41;59;19

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. You know, and so that that is kind of, that's kind of a, a why for me. Why, why I like how I am enhancing how I am enhancing the air conditioning world is just treating people right. Like treat them fairly right. You know, whether that be I'm not going to lie to them and about what's going on with their air conditioner.

00;41;59;22 - 00;42;16;27

Charlie Richardson

You know and I mean sometimes I cost a boss some money doing that, but I'm like, hey, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to charge this lady twice for this thing. You know, I'm going to, I mean, I messed up, but we gotta, we gotta, we gotta make it, right? Yeah, yeah. You know.[5] 

00;42;17;00 - 00;42;25;22

Andy Richardson

And I mean, not throwing anybody under the bus, but, I mean, can you help me understand what you mean by that? Like, so what you mean by integrity in this field?

00;42;25;23 - 00;42;40;08

Charlie Richardson

So I went I went to a guy's house and he had a, his system was leaking refrigerant and refrigerants were really expensive. It's about 90 to 100 dollars a pound and depending on the day.

00;42;41;03 - 00;43;15;26

Charlie Richardson

But, his system was low on gas or refrigerant and so I, I put, I think it was 4 pounds and okay, that's almost $400 worth of refrigerant. And so, I left and I put the caps on. Well, these caps, it's a Schrader valve, which is like a bicycle valve. And so if you put the cap on too tight, it depresses the actual Schrader valve part and lets refrigerant out very slowly, but it still does.

00;43;15;28 - 00;43;39;23

Charlie Richardson

So we get a call from him, a couple days later and he says, my air is not working. So I go back over there and and I look at it and, I'm like, well, he's 4 pounds or he's several pounds low on gas. And so, I was like, you know, there's I know you got a leak in your coil, but this is not that's not where this went, you know?

00;43;39;26 - 00;44;01;08

Charlie Richardson

And, so I called, I was and I was like, hey, you know, I messed up this guy. He, this guy paid for this gas, and I put the cap on. I can't put the cap on too tight. And it all leaked out, and, and so he was a little upset, but I, I mean, we had to fix it.

00;44;01;11 - 00;44;18;21

Charlie Richardson

And the guy I told the, I told the customer that, and he appreciated that, and it was a little embarrassing. It was really embarrassing because, I mean, it doesn't cost us as much as it cost the customer for refrigerant nearly as much as we have a big markup on it. But, but I mean, it's pretty embarrassing.

00;44;18;21 - 00;44;36;23

Charlie Richardson

I was like, hey, you know, I messed up. I put this in the thing I do every day, I did it wrong. And all that stuff you bought from us is gone. And so, yeah, but I told him that I was just honest and that his response to that. Well, he didn't respond immediately. He's like, okay. I was like, but we're going to fix it.

00;44;36;27 - 00;44;55;03

Charlie Richardson

And so I went outside and put the right amount of gas in and, and, I just kind of, I kind of it's one of the situation. You just kind of grit your teeth a little bit and hope your boss don't get too mad at you. Right. And so I, I went back inside and I was like, all right, you know, we got that call on the way there, like the permanent fix for his system.

00;44;55;03 - 00;45;14;03

Charlie Richardson

And, I was like, you know, hopefully as I hopefully it'll hold until then. And he just told me he was like, hey, I really appreciate you owning up to yet that mistake. You know, you could have just said that it leaked out of a hole in there and that's. But you but you owned up to it.

00;45;14;05 - 00;45;25;23

Charlie Richardson

He's like, it's hard to find people like that these days. Yeah. You know, and so that his response, his appreciation of that will probably stick with me for a long time, you know, but that's like an example.

00;45;25;25 - 00;45;37;20

Andy Richardson

Yeah. And sometimes those are the ones that really you like. I said, you can kind of use that as motivation because you're going to have other clients or we call them clients, I guess you'll call them customer.

00;45;38;21 - 00;45;41;19

Andy Richardson

But but you have patients.

00;45;42;18 - 00;45;56;27

Andy Richardson

So you have customers and there'll be some that aren't quite as easy to get along with. So you almost have to have that motivation to push through because, yeah, we have to do the right thing. Even if the customer isn't nice.

00;45;57;00 - 00;46;02;04

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. No, you do, you definitely do. But, if they start yelling at me, I'm going to leave.

00;46;02;09 - 00;46;02;20

Andy Richardson

Yeah.

00;46;02;22 - 00;46;04;21

Charlie Richardson

I mean, I'm a grown man. You can't yell at me.

00;46;04;26 - 00;46;09;05

Andy Richardson

Yeah. I don't care that they don't pay enough for that. Yeah, they don't.

00;46;09;05 - 00;46;11;23

Charlie Richardson

Pay me near enough for that.

00;46;12;26 - 00;46;36;28

Andy Richardson

Oh, okay. Well, really, we're kind of a wrap up point here, and, with. With the HVAC and really the podcast episode, I mean, I just kind of want to bring it in for a landing here, but. What, was there anything else you wanted to maybe share with me or share with the podcast?

00;46;36;28 - 00;47;03;26

Andy Richardson

Like what? Maybe thoughts about the HVAC, the Marine Corps? I mean, we talked about a lot of things. And, I felt like it was interesting to find out more about you. I mean, even, you know, obviously I see you all the time, but, you know, in this setting, just a different perspective. But was there anything else you wanted to share with me or the podcast today?

00;47;03;29 - 00;47;05;13

Charlie Richardson

Not on the top of my head.

00;47;05;15 - 00;47;06;24

Andy Richardson

Yeah, but.

00;47;06;27 - 00;47;31;18

Charlie Richardson

Yeah, I yeah, I do say, I will say, you know, like kind of what I was talking about earlier, no matter what, no matter what you do, this is like advice to anybody who's like a high schooler or, you know, young adult who's saying, like, get in the trades and or any whatever field you're going to work in is, if you just just work hard at it, you're going to do well, you know, I mean, that that was kind of something.

00;47;31;20 - 00;47;59;09

Charlie Richardson

I mean, like I was saying earlier, I really appreciate learning that from you, you know, because, I mean, I'm sure it was tough, like, you know, growing, growing your family and trying to grow your business, and and you got deadlines, you got to push out. And so like that, waking up, in the middle of the night and seeing you working at the bar in the kitchen and like, you know, five hours after everybody else in the house is kind of bed.

00;47;59;11 - 00;48;02;03

Charlie Richardson

And then you get up and go to work the next day.

00;48;02;18 - 00;48;12;11

Charlie Richardson

And then, you know, you go for a run before you go to work. Yeah. You know, and so that was that's, that's something I hope I can teach my kids one day.

00;48;12;13 - 00;48;13;17

Andy Richardson

Maybe not stay up until two.

00;48;13;25 - 00;48;17;11

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Maybe not settle too, but, but that level of hard work.

00;48;17;14 - 00;48;39;06

Andy Richardson

Yeah, well appreciate that. I mean, it's something, you know, that is the life of an engineer, I guess, right? Yeah. The double edged sword is we. We can work late because we have our computer and our stuff that we can bring home, and then. So it's a double edged sword because we can do that. But then we do it and therefore work like so.

00;48;39;12 - 00;49;04;03

Andy Richardson

Definitely work life balance. We hear about that a lot these days. But it's definitely something that I've, I guess balanced in my life as well. But. So what is the next thing for Charlie in your career and in your life? I guess generally speaking. But most of your career, because this is an AEC podcast, but, yeah, career based.

00;49;04;05 - 00;49;28;25

Charlie Richardson

I don't know. I don't know exactly what's next in my career. I mean. I got a lot of options open. Yeah, but, I don't know if I don't even know if I'll stay in HVAC forever, but, but that's it's my job for now. It's it's paying the bills. And so I don't really know that it's my passion, but I do enjoy fixing things.

00;49;28;25 - 00;49;48;17

Charlie Richardson

And so, yeah, I get to fix my, my, my career is something in the mechanical world, but I don't necessarily know that it's working on air conditioners. Right. You know, but it's good for now. And, I mean, I may have to pay for my wife's health insurance and things here and there for the next few months.

00;49;48;17 - 00;49;52;13

Charlie Richardson

So, I mean, it's good for now. Okay.

00;49;52;16 - 00;49;58;00

Andy Richardson

Maybe not change up yet because you're getting married and. Yeah, a lot of things are going on with that front.

00;49;58;06 - 00;50;01;24

Charlie Richardson

Yeah. Yeah. I'm a hold on, hold on for a while, but.

00;50;01;26 - 00;50;06;07

Andy Richardson

Okay. Awesome. Well, anything else you want to say today?

00;50;06;09 - 00;50;09;09

Charlie Richardson

No, I think, that's all. All the words I've got for the day.

00;50;09;09 - 00;50;35;23

Andy Richardson

All right. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you being on today, and just enjoyed learning about you and all the different aspects from growing up in you for being in the Marine Corps, the construction industry, and the HVAC, and then also Richardson painting. So, yeah, we got a nice line there. And I think there's a lot of lessons learned for, for everybody that can apply.

00;50;35;23 - 00;50;42;21

Andy Richardson

So, we met a lot of the goals. So with that, I think that brings us to the end of the show. And, thanks.

00;50;42;21 - 00;50;43;28

Charlie Richardson

Thanks for having me on.

00;50;44;00 - 00;50;44;23

Andy Richardson

Take care.

00;50;44;25 - 00;50;45;29

Charlie Richardson

You to.

00;50;45;29 - 00;50;54;14

(outro)

good appreciation from son to father

decision to transition from Marine to back home

Why Charlie got into HVAC + a little comedy

talking about the trades and career paths

integrity clip