0:00 - Madeline
All right, on today's episode, we had Nathan Lind with Lines, Wyoming Lines that is, and he is a steel detailer.

0:07 - Andy Richardson
Correct.

0:08 - Madeline
Was there anything you wanted to say about that?

0:11 - Andy Richardson
Well, he doesn't want to be called just a detailer. That's number one. That was important. And I can definitely respect that because we've all experienced that probably at some point in our lives. You're just an engineer. You're just an architect. But I think maybe he has some feelings about that they come out and He has a message a strong message. I believe in this episode of that ties to that somewhat and also the importance of what steel detailers do the importance of Valuing that not as a just a commodity but as somebody who provides value to AEC industry we even we even talked about perhaps we should change this to the AECD. Maybe we should change it, what do you think?

1:03 - Madeline
Maybe, but if we get a new sign.

1:04 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, we got to get a new sign. We'll keep it as is for now, but...

1:07 - Madeline
Or we can just share a female DM.

1:11 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, so did you have anything about the episode that...

1:13 - Madeline
I think you hit on the main points. I liked how you brought it back to the first episode where you said, you know, building blocks and then, or you're building a cathedral, where it's like, I'm not just an engineer, just a steel designer. I'm not just an architect or whatever it is, and I am looking at the big picture of what I am doing throughout this whole job and what I'm doing ultimately.

1:39 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, now we definitely get into it on this episode. We get into the details of what a detailer does, these aspects of it. We had a another detailer on another episode. So, but this is a different angle. So I think you're going to get some value on it as well. So I would definitely keep listening. My name is Andy Richardson and I'm a structural engineer. I've been doing this 27 years. This is Madeline, our producer, and this is the Enhanced Podcast. We interview professionals in the AEC industry and find out their what and their why. Let's get started.

2:23 - Madeline
Welcome to Enhance, an AEC podcast where we learn the why behind AEC professionals so that you can learn your why.

2:30 - Andy Richardson
All right. Well, we're, we're actually live. Nathan, we're going to go right into it. Okay. Just, I like to keep it organic, but welcome to the Enhance podcast.

2:41 - Nathan
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this for a a long time.

2:45 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, definitely. We met a few months ago, and quite an interesting post on LinkedIn is how we got introduced. You're a detailer, and you actually have a, you're in Wyoming, and you actually have an itinerary for me today, which is awesome. Thank you for putting that together. So, since you took the time to put that together, I'm going to go ahead and follow that. The first order of business, detail-oriented you are, right? But the first order of business really is just give a background on yourself, if you could, today, Nathan.

3:23 - Nathan
So I've been detailing since 1993. I think I'm in my 33rd year. I started on April 1st. I don't know if that was a something 410 to come, but April 1st of 93. I have worked for an industry independent detailer for about 17 years, then I worked for a fabricator for about four, and my wife and I have been in business as our own independent for, I think we're in our 12th year now, so 30 some years. As we get into later in our discussion here, I think one of the key strengths of a detailer is we work on everything. We often have the idea that if it rusts, we draw it, so I've worked on projects literally around the world. Of course, most of my stuff's in the continental US, but we've worked on projects in Canada and South America, Kuwait. We've used Asian steel, British steel, metric and standard and everything. Right now, we tend to do primarily commercial work, but we've done industrial work, high-end residential work. We've done everything from two posts on a carport to six or 7,000 ton projects. That I've been involved with. So, yeah, that's kind of, kind of gives you an idea of where we're at. Like I say, we are located in Wyoming now, and the beautiful thing about this type of work, you can pretty much live anywhere, so.

4:54 - Andy Richardson
You started in Colorado, now in Wyoming, so you've seen a lot of the country. I guess that's your favorite part of the country, should I assume, or?

5:04 - Nathan
Well, I grew up in Montana, My wife and I met at Bible College in 89, 88, 89, right out of high school. She was from Canada, and we got married, moved back to Montana. And then we moved to Wyoming, actually, in pursuing another job. And about the time our first child was born, I thought, boy, I need to figure out a career that's gonna make some sense for me in my life. And the deacon in our church owned a steel detailing business, and he actually hired me. I just feel like I was like a duck to water. It just fit me. All the interests I had and the skill set that God had given me, I just had attention to detail, high math skill, conceptual, mechanical aptitude, all those kind of things. And I've been doing it ever since.

5:52 - Andy Richardson
Now, was that what you were planning on doing?

5:55 - Nathan
Oh, no. You went into Bible college. No, I just went one year out of high school just to get a basic Bible education. And before I started my adult life. Actually, my wife and I went back to Bible College, same Bible College in 98 through 2002, and I got a Bachelor of Music in Worship to be a worship pastor, which I have done some part-time and continue to do as a volunteer, so at different levels throughout the years, but I've stayed detailing. All these years, so.

6:33 - Andy Richardson
Do you still play a lot of music?

6:36 - Nathan
Not as much as I used to, for sure. I'm not doing much of that right now, so.

6:41 - Andy Richardson
But still active with the music? Yeah, I need to certainly get back into that for sure. What's your instrument of choice?

6:49 - Nathan
I play mostly keyboard, piano, but I also do some, I got trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn kind of stuff, so, brass. Yeah. But it's so much different than keyboard, and I grew up a keyboard player, that conceptually, guitar is, I don't know, I can do it, but I'm not very good at it.

7:10 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, it's very, I mean, from a, I think piano is technically, you know, or the music theory in piano is probably more higher than guitar, but the fingering and things, things with guitar is just physically challenging. I think that's what I've discovered anyway. And obviously the different chords. So thank you for sharing some of that background, Nathan. And so you've got a next item on our list here. It's just life of a detailer. We get to have an inside look today. And this is the Enhanced Podcast, an AE So we, our audience is really anybody looking in on the AEC industry, but also people in the AEC industry, architects, engineers, contractors, people that are, I mean, my number one target audience honestly is architects, because that's one of the people that we do a lot of work for. But we want the audience to be general. But today we're getting an inside look at the detailing aspect. Of the AEC industry, which is significant. And you gave us a little bit of a glimpse in terms of steel is what we all think of That's what I think of, steel detailing. And some people may not even know what that is, by the way. So we did have another detailer on recently, but that being said, so basically give us a glimpse into what it's like to be a detailer. As you mentioned, it's not just steel.

8:53 - Nathan
other aspects what it what is it and you know so give us an idea what that's like so the life of a detailer 101 okay yeah it's interesting you say that when you when I tell somebody I'm a steel detailer they think I detail cars yeah you have to explain it to them so I usually say I'm a computerized draftsman that kind of gets them a conceptual that they can grasp so in 33 years when I started we were still we had actually the the company I worked for had a pencil plotter of all things. So all of our master drawings were done with a pencil plotter. And then when you scrub check prints or approval prints, you actually scrub them manually. So when I started, I learned lettering and line work and all of that stuff from the old time detailers and project managers at the company I worked for. So I really feel like I got in kind of a transition. You know, computers, we used SDS-II then as well, but SDS-II got us to the print and then from there it was hand, hand done. So, and then of course from there SDS-2 has really, SDS-2 is the steel detailing software that we use.

9:59 - Andy Richardson
Has really- I'm sorry, can I just clarify something? So you said SDS-2 gets you from print and then from there it's hand. Can you clarify what that means?

10:07 - Nathan
There at the beginning, when I started. So we used SDS-2. It was basically a glorified 2D drawing program at that time. But as soon as we printed, master set, if you will, of a sheet. Then it became hand-operated from there on out. Okay.

10:23 - Andy Richardson
So there's like a combination of the two, basically.

10:26 - Nathan
Right. Okay. So I got in just right at that transition point. And eventually, of course, we abandoned all the hand stuff and everything became prints and everything else. Yeah, I think that, you know, just generally speaking of a steel detailer, we're going to get into this more as we, again, as we discuss this. When I started, basically we were translators, right? We were, we translated drawings from people like yourself and the architect into shop drawings. So we took a two-dimensional structural drawing, translated it into an erection drawing for the erector and a shop drawing for the fabricator. That was our job. 2D to 2D to 2D, you know, very, very straightforward. Certainly a level of skill there is required, but as time has progressed, I think it was about 98 that SDS-2 started producing the three-dimensional model. And since that time, we have added so much more tasks to our list of things that we are required to do. So, you know, now we are in charge not ONLY of the model. The model is gospel because the 2D is always representation of the model. And now we have to produce all kinds of electronic files, CNC files, NC1 files, XML files, you know, just all these new things, Fab Suite, Fab Pro, all these things that have come out through the years that require a different file format. So every single one of those operations now requires us to be detailed, and the expectation is 100% accuracy on everything. That is our mandate. So we are, in my opinion, we are no longer just, and I'll talk about it in a minute, just a detailer, just a translator from 2D to 2D. Translate 2D back to 3D, back to 2D, as well as create all these other files. And then as I think as we talked about here in that conversation we had with the other engineers, I feel like a lot of our time is spent, I call it babysitting the design team, helping them finish their design because their design is incomplete or inaccurate. So all of these things have become part of what it is to be a steel detailer as far as our job description. So that kind of gives you an idea of where I think we are at with that.

12:46 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to see the transition that you've experienced, which, I mean, our careers are similar in terms of time frame and, you know, the hand drawing, the 2D, the 3D, but then also it's almost like the more technology that comes out, it's almost like an inverse relationship between the accuracy and, I mean, the accuracy of not necessarily what you're doing, but what you're seeing come to you. It sounds like people are depending more and more on what you do and less and less on the inputs of people like myself. And that's what I'm seeing some of the feedback from people like yourself. Do you feel like some of that accuracy is slipping from the design professionals?

13:39 - Nathan
For sure, yeah, very much so. And it's continually getting worse, in my opinion. I have my opinions about it. I think 3D modeling has actually caused design teams, probably detailers as well, to be lax about their management, their information management, quality control. Well, if the If the model spits it out, it must be right. Well, you gotta manage your model right, and if you're gonna produce a two-dimensional picture for others to use, whether it's a design drawing or a shot drawing, it has to be accurate. You can't just assume it's right. I was actually going back to where I was talking about adding the model to our thing, so now we check the model, right? Model checking is where most of our checking is, as well as the 2Ds. We're basically checking two worlds. To just check the 2D, that's all you check, because that's all you had. Now we have to check the model and check the 2D, and really we should be checking all those files that I talked about, right? All those, we're responsible for all of that information to be accurate, so it's our responsibility to check it all. You know, I don't know what the process is for architects and engineers, but it seems to be that there's less, there's less management of a accuracy in your model 2D, and B, information input on your drawings. And so it makes just a lot more work on our part. It takes a lot more time to get to the finish line.

15:10 - Andy Richardson
Is there something about the process or the organization of how these projects are organized that's causing this? Or is it, do you see a common source of the problem? Or is it a multifaceted?

15:31 - Nathan
From the design team perspective?

15:33 - Andy Richardson
Well, I mean, this idea that we've lost accuracy on the front end, on the professional side. Do you feel like it's, do you see any common threads where that's coming from

15:45 - Nathan
I think, so generally speaking, I think Architects have always been more dependent on this idea of concept, right? The intent of their drawing, they talk about that a lot. They have always talked about that. Their drawings have always been more conceptual. They're not as concerned on accuracy or completion, in my opinion. Engineers have always been, or up until recent years, concerned about accuracy. Close enough wasn't good enough. And engineers produced a solid, usually a solid product. But I think what's happened, just from my opinion, you know, conversations with engineers like yourself, through the years, I think the engineers have developed that kind of concept. Well, the intent. All I need to worry about is the intent. You know, and here's a connection. It shows the intent of the connection. Well, great. I don't know bolt size. I don't know dimensions to holes. I don't know steel grade. You know, all that kind of stuff that needs to be on there. I think that You know the even engineers are saying well, you know, I've got I produced the intent And and I'm done basically But we but you're not you know, the information is not there that you need to show I mean it just it doesn't take very long, you know five minutes into a design set when I bid it I can say You know, they're they're not done and they have some huge issues You know first thing I look for when I bid a job do you gridlock? Dimensions match between architectural and structural. That's a huge red flag. If they're off, that indicates big problems down the road if the grid lines can't even match between the two disciplines. But there's just simple things, just even getting out of the gate, so many times even anchor bolts. And I think we talked about that last time in our conversation. Embedments not shown, grade of bolt is not shown, diameter of holes in base plate is not shown. Dimensions to holes in bass player not shown just all the basic 101 engineering things and whether that's as a result of you know, I don't know your discipline why that is I just I think it has something to do with the modeling side Because in my opinion when modeling started to become the thing early 2000s Since then there's been a degradation of the design product And that's the ONLY thing that I can think of has changed in the last 20, 30 years. And I don't know if it's because there's a reliance on the model now to be gospel and you don't, there's not full connection with quality control in the model and then quality control on the 2D and the interface between the two in order to make that, to make your product go to the next level, so.

18:32 - Andy Richardson
I mean, one of the things I think I appreciate about what you're doing, because you've become somewhat vocal about these things is this idea that maybe these particular professionals never had anybody say, by the way, where's the anchor bolt embedment? In other words, I think a lot of probably what you do is this idea of intent. Take it from an intent and you finish it quote-unquote and so because you can make a decision when you have this quote intent you can say you know what I'm gonna send it back and ask questions aka RFIs etc request for information or you can just take the intent and say you know what I'm gonna do my best guess and run with it so I mean is it fair to say that's basically your two options? I mean, you can either run with it the best you can, or you can send it back for questions. I mean, is there any other options here?

19:42 - Nathan
Yeah, I guess so, and I don't know what other detailers do, but I tend to put the brakes on and say, start asking questions. I don't want to make, I can give suggestions. I can say, you know, I think this is what you want, but I can't, you know, I can't make that decision. That's not what I'm paid for. That's not my job. That's engineering architect's job. So I think to this idea of intent, I never heard engineers talk about intent 10, 15 years ago, ever. There was never any conversation when we talked to them about intent. It was, you know, the architects might talk about that, but the engineers never did. And I kind of liken that if I was a detailer and I sent some shot drawings and I said, well, I meant to draw that beam as 19 foot 11 seven eighths, but I actually drew it as five foot six and three quarters. Whoops. You know, that's kind of this idea of, in my mind, what intent is. Intent is fine. I don't need intent. I need accuracy. I need X, Y, Z. I need information that's right, not intent. So I think that's part of it. That may be a mindset shift on the part of architects and engineers. I don't know. I just have noticed a trend.

20:52 - Andy Richardson
I mean, that's fair. So I think it is good that you're bringing it up because maybe again, some of these professionals haven't heard it, that they didn't realize it was a problem. Or maybe nobody ever raised their hand and said, this is a problem. So in some ways, I would say that's good. And I think, too, another aspect of it is this definition of intent. Because there might be other situations where, I mean, is it possible that the engineer thinks, OK, that bolt diameter is inherent in the building code. For a three-quarter inch bolt, for example, you have a standard hole size. Are things like that more prevalent now, or has that always been the case?

21:42 - Nathan
I don't think so. We'll talk about anchor bolts for a minute. Earlier years when I started, a standard three-quarter inch anchor bolt had a one and one-sixteenth diameter hole in the base plate. That was the standard size for field tolerance for base plate holes. And when whatever it's LRFD or something came out years ago that chart 14-2 I think it's called, now they say you can go up to inch and five sixteenths for a three-quarter inch bolt. So I have two options when I get a set of design drawings and it's not indicated what bolt size they want for anchor bolts holes. Do I do the old standard or the new standard? You know the new standards also requires plate washers that a field weld to fill that gap. You know, um, sometimes they show plate washers, no field welds are shown, no holes are indicated. So, you know, it's little things like that. It's not a, you know, and I get jobs that are both, you know, I get the old style and the new style. So it's not on me to make that call. Um, I don't know if the engineers don't realize there's an option there, but you know, that's just one instance. Yeah.

22:46 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, man, it's a great point that we need to be educated about that and make sure that as professionals, we know those different options as well. So let's go back to a little bit of a glimpse of a life of a detailer. Translating from 2D to 2D was make sure we defined it very clearly. Because the engineer would have drawn the beam, you know, ideally they would have a grid line, clarified, right? But they would have a beam drawn maybe 20 foot center to center of columns, and then your job is to, that's the overall dimensions, but then the guy in the shop needs to know how to cut that beam, right? Bolts and things. Is that a fair, basically we gotta get it from the drawing, to the shop, and then from the shop to the field, an erection, quote unquote, erection drawing, which is like, you know, literally, you take all these beams that are marked on the plan, beam one, beam two, et cetera, and you go out in the field and you put it together like a Lego set. Is that a fair, I mean, that's my thinking of it as a simple engineer, but I'm trying to put two and two together for the listener a bit.

24:11 - Nathan
exactly right. So that's why I say we're a translator. It's like translating Spanish to English or English to Russian. We're taking a language of structural drawings or architectural drawings, in this case steel, and converting it to shop drawings for the steel fabricator and erection drawings for the erector. So it's the same language but it's different information. So it's a process. It's a very linear process and that's kind of something too that I feel like our industry has changed. It's no longer or linear, I feel like the detailer has their fingers everywhere. I mean, we're back at the line helping architects, engineers design it. We're helping contractors figure out sequencing and shipping and staging. We're helping the fabricator with loads and all kind of, you know, just on and on and on. We work with other trades, you know, if we've got specialty things that we need to do, light gauge, you know, all kinds of things that we are, it's no longer very linear. It's no longer a train. It's, you know, it's like a spider web. And I feel sometimes the detailers at the center of that, controlling all that or helping all those pieces come together to, to get the final product to the finish line. So.

25:26 - Andy Richardson
Yeah. I mean, you're, and you're working for, I guess, next question, independent. So does that mean that you're, you're independent from the, and the general contractor, you're an independent company, basically?

25:41 - Andy Richardson
Yep, yep.

25:43 - Nathan
So, again, my first were 17 working for an independent, and my last 12 have been working for myself as an independent, so.

25:51 - Andy Richardson
Okay, and you have a team, yourself and your wife, or you have a team additional to that?

25:58 - Nathan
Right before COVID hit, we had eight employees, counting ourselves, and since COVID has, you know, taken out the job market for us so we've declined over the last three or four years till now it's just my wife and I.

26:11 - Andy Richardson
Okay and she helps with the detailing or?

26:14 - Nathan
She details and does document control project management stuff as well so we just kind of work we have our niches and we just stay in our lanes and do our thing so.

26:24 - Andy Richardson
Okay so what how does that work like you have your area of specialty she has hers? Right. Mind giving a little more information on that?

26:32 - Nathan
Well like I say we've got And I think I showed you briefly that product last time we talked, our Bluebeam, Leverage Bluebeam project and studio. So she manages all of our 2D information that comes to us through design drawings, emails, all that kind of stuff, as well as detail a lot of the structural beams, columns, bracing, checks. She checks the model and certain things. And so we just kind of tag team back and forth.

26:57 - Andy Richardson
So when Nick comes in, she works on this file this Bluebeam file, and it helps you guys basically stay organized with the whole project. I mean, that's a high level. We had a conversation about this not long ago, and that was my understanding of it. I mean, it seems like a great idea to just keep things organized. Bluebeam, some people may not even know that, you know, is a PDF editor. I mean, it's super powerful. I mean, could you live without Bluebeam these days? Well, for sure. So, I mean, kind of give us a little bit more insight. It seems like a great idea as far as if you could just share a little bit more about that if you're willing to give us a sense of how this works. What do you call that project, that system?

27:46 - Nathan
Bluebeam Project, and it's two sides. Bluebeam Project, Bluebeam Studio. If you have a Bluebeam subscription, you have access to both of those. So we just leverage the Bluebeam Project side is basically a file management system. Put any sort of file on there, store it, move it, delete, modify, open, save, all that kind of stuff. The studio side is ONLY for PDF, and it's for multi-users to work live together and see everybody's markups and conversation all the time. So we work those universes parallel with each other. They work in the system that we have.

28:23 - Andy Richardson
So you've really integrated into this Bluebeams project area. I mean, instead of a Dropbox, it's basically a cloud management type system. I haven't heard of that one, so that's good. In the studio, we use more and more. I mean, it seems super helpful because I can do a red line here, and a drafter somewhere else can pick up that red line. And I can say, okay, it's yellow, so it's done. Which is our system of checks. So you're independent, and your wife and yourself work together, and then you work for fabricators, steel fabricators like Gage, other, I guess, reinforcement, Raybar. So how does that, how do you like working for fabricators? Can you share a little bit more about that?

29:19 - Nathan
So as an independent, I work for several, through fabricators, right? So I'm, they send me a job to bid. I bid the job for the steel detailing package and they include that in their steel fabrication costs and turn that, submit that for bid. If awarded, then I'm basically not an employee of theirs, but I'm certainly subcontracted to them as an independent. It's different than many, many fabricators have their own employees that are detailers on staff. They're part of their overhead, they consider them and they do things They're just not independent. They're making the same product specifically for that one fabricator. I may make products for 10 fabricators in an annual cycle. It just depends on the market. So that's the other nice thing about independence especially. We work literally around the United States and around the world in any given point. So we see a broad spectrum of design methods and and we might be working on a car wash and a church and something for an oil refinery all in the same week. And we see all of that. It's the same process, but it certainly has a lot of variety to it.

30:35 - Andy Richardson
Anything interesting going on lately? Any interesting projects that you've worked on lately?

30:40 - Nathan
Yeah, we just finished a school here in Wyoming. A very unique footprint, looking at a plant, a lot of skewed grid lines, wings, and it was all hip and valley, so it was quite intense, but it was very well designed, one of the best I've seen in years. And then right now we're also doing another unique one, actually, if you're familiar with Wyoming and Cheyenne, they have the Cheyenne Frontier Days, it's the big rodeo, and there's some stands, there's some seating over the bull riding pens. And they're tearing all that out and putting this big seating area for people to rent box seats and that kind of stuff. So again, very unique footprint, a lot of skewed stuff, big trusses, bent beams for theater, not theater seating, but stadium seating and that kind of stuff. So yeah, there's always something. Always something.

31:37 - Andy Richardson
Yeah. What's the feather in your cap though for projects? Over the past?

31:43 - Nathan
I don't get a really unique church up in, it was in Wisconsin, not in Oshkosh, but one of the towns right close there was a, I think it's about a five or six thousand seat church if I remember correctly. I don't think there was any 90 degree corners in the building. I remember finding one on an architectural plan that actually had a little 90 degree symbol, but everything else was radiused and skewed and sloped and had a big catwalk system, so that was quite an interesting One, we've done a bunch of, we used to work for Central Texas Ironworks, I don't know if you're familiar with them, out of Waco, Texas. They do a lot of big power plant stuff all around the world. So those are some really interesting industrial projects too, so yeah.

32:25 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, I've seen the scale of it, it sounds like would be what's interesting about that.

32:29 - Nathan
So the church, the nuance, and the intricate aspects of it, and then this is just scale of it on the industrial side right so yeah the variety do you find the variety makes it more enjoyable or oh yeah for sure you rather just crush out money jobs is what I call yeah I mean you're certainly in it to make money it's taken me a long time to figure that out but um yeah I just I just enjoy figuring stuff out kind of making them getting the product to the finish line I sometimes don't enjoy the process but I certainly enjoy the the mental side of it.

33:07 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, you don't like dealing with these dang engineers, right?

33:10 - Nathan
Yeah, architects.

33:15 - Andy Richardson
So, yeah, thanks for sharing some of those projects. Sounds like some really cool projects you got going on. So, and then just talking about working for fabricators, any pros and cons of, you know, having an in-house versus an independent? I mean, you're probably biased on this, but nonetheless. What's your opinion?

33:36 - Nathan
So job security, I think, is the biggest one. So if you're working for a fabricator, you're part of their staff, you're an employee of them, you have job security. You're going to get paid. You're going to get a paycheck. You're going to probably get benefits, right? You're going to get medical and retirement and all those kind of fun things. Vacation. As an independent, you often don't, right? Because you're so You know, the money income for an independent or for a steel detailer in general is not as large as other disciplines. And, you know, to take a week off is a huge undertaking because you've got people depending on you for approvals coming back. I need those in the shop, all of these kinds of things. So, yeah, I kind of listed some of the things I talked about, you know, as far as pay scales, benefits, and, you know, those are all part of that. I think the thing I've noticed working as independent for fabricators is there's two pitfalls in that relationship that often happen. Either the fabricator decides to hire their own in-house detailers or maybe go overseas. That's one pitfall and then you're, you know, you've built a relationship over three or four years and they don't need you anymore. Or the other thing is if the relationship goes sour, maybe you make a mistake on a job or maybe you're trying to get paid on a job as a detailer and fabricators got the money, or they're waiting to get paid as well, but they can't pay you or whatever, and your relationship with them sours, then that could be a big potential pitfall in your money source, your income, which is probably the same as what engineers deal with, I'm sure, very similar issue.

35:19 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, I mean, except we don't really see engineers working in-house too much, unless it's like company, like an AE type company. Obviously you do have, you have fabricators and detailing companies both have engineers a record on staff doing the connection designs or some of these jobs that get big enough they require the, as you know, the shop drawings have to be sealed and the connection designs have to be sealed and that's a whole nother ball of wax, right? The delegated design piece, right, which I think you probably get involved in that from at least from a – because you're this ties into what you do, right? The connection is an integral part of how that beam is drawn or whatever, you know, column beam, et cetera, how it's drawn and the end of it, the condition of it. So you've got to wait on those connection designs before you can draw that beam, right? Does that impact – how does that impact your work, I guess?

36:22 - Nathan
Well, I think deferred design is another swear word right up there with intent as far as I'm concerned. I exclude deferred design, obviously. I used to manage that, pay for the deferred design engineer stuff. I don't anymore. Fabricator, that's on the fabricator if they want to do that. It's interesting, the word deferred actually has a couple of meanings. Deferred can mean to give it to somebody else. You know, somebody else does the task or whatever. It can also mean delayed. And I think both of those happen when there is deferred design. It's a time delay. Every deferred design job I've had, whether it's stairs or connections, it always takes longer than if it had just been designed in the first place. And passing the buck is a bad thing. Because if you have an idea as an engineer what you want connections to be, you defer it to somebody else, well, they may have a different idea. You have to approve it. As the engineer of record. And anyway, there's this back and forth. So it's a lot of work. And I always put a lot more money if there's deferred design. And I exclude any deferred design costs. Those are not on me. I'm not going to bear that burden anymore.

37:38 - Andy Richardson
Which, I mean, it might sound crazy, depending on who's listening to this. It might sound crazy that, for example, the engineering would not include connection design in that, which it actually still sounds a little bit crazy to me, to be honest with you. But I know – but it happens, and there's some engineers that do that. I mean – and that's what they do, right? And I think there is some cases for it in certain jobs, certain scenarios. I guess, do you, it sounds like you're on the fence of, you're on the belief that it's not really that helpful or that needed.

38:21 - Nathan
Yeah, it just takes, I mean, I've got a job right now. We did anchor boat plans a year ago, submitted for fab and field. The steel's actually up in the air. It's deferred design for stairs, and we're still fighting stairs, stairs and rail. I mean, the jobs, they want the stairs in because they want to enclose the job site before winter hits. We're still fiddle-farting around with stairs. It took us six months to get a deferred design engineer on board to figure that, figure the connection information to attach to the structural steel. It just seems like a waste of time. In my opinion, I don't know the whole history of deferred design, but I think it's actually, back in the day, fabricators were preferred like clip-angled connections or shear-tap connections, and they had all these standard connection material that they built by the train load you know and so they wanted to if the design drawings came through a shear tab they said well we want to do shear tabs or we want to do clip angles and I think engineers got to say well that's fine we'll defer that connection design to you if you want to redesign the connections and I think that's where that came from

39:29 - Andy Richardson
Yeah I think it came yeah part of it and then people were I mean, if they're gonna just defer it, then why did I spend all, and I've had that happen to me not long ago, actually, on a light gauge job. But my feeling is, I'm of the belief, especially on these small jobs, you know, 10,000 square foot retail building, or even like a residential, I mean, I'm not gonna put delegated design on there, because it's like three beams, or, you know, Maybe if it's a retail thing, it's got 20 beams or something and some joists. But why put the contractor and fabricator through that effort, that's my feeling. But then on this, it was this project, and we went through the process of designing all the light gauge. The contractor said, well, we have some value engineering ideas we want to go through, and so they an engineer do it?" And I'm thinking, man, that sure would have been nice to know that because we spent hours going through these, drawing it, designing it, calculating it. So that's the counterpoint to that, I guess, is next time. But then again, what's interesting about it is from a design professional standpoint, here's the side of the coin maybe that you don't always see, But from a design professional standpoint, if I draw clip angles, I know for sure they're not going to build clip angles on that job. They're going to go with sheer tabs. And if I show all sheer tabs, I know for sure they're not going to use sheer tabs. They're going to use clip angles. I mean, it doesn't matter. And so the ONLY real way to know is to really find out who the contractor is, who the fabricator is. And I don't always know that. So those are some of the challenges we deal with on a design professional standpoint. I think there's definitely some lack of collaboration in this field. And that's why I was curious if you had any insights or any thoughts on that as far as what can we do to help improve that collaboration. But I don't know if you have any ideas.

41:42 - Nathan
Well, I've seen the engineers put page after page of connection information. So one page will be all shear tabs. The next page will be all clip angles, next page to be end plates, you know, they just put them on all their jobs. So if you want, you pick one, you pick your connection preference. And here's a whole drawing tells you all the specs that we want you to use if you're gonna use XYZ connection. So that's one solution. From a fabrication side of it, I think fabricators have gone away from their standards, at least the ones I work with here in the West, primarily. I don't know what they're like in the South, maybe where you're from They don't care. Everybody's got CNC machines. They've got plate burners. You draw what the design drawings show, and we'll build the connection material, or we'll farm it out. We no longer have a whole trainload of clip angles, two, three, four, five, six row clip angles back in the corner that we want to use. We'll just order the stock that the job specs, and we'll cut the plates that the job calls for. If it's your tab, great. If it's clip angle, great. We'll just do it. And I think fabricators are just moving away from that, at least the ones I work with. I don't know if that's true all across the US, but I would prefer that.

42:56 - Andy Richardson
That seems reasonable to me. I mean, it seems like more of a lean approach. You build what is drawn. I mean, unless there's some kind of early collaboration where we can talk and say, hey, what it meant. And I have had that opportunity. It does help a lot if I can talk fabricator or contractor and say, hey, what do you guys recommend? I mean, let's sit down and go over this. And even the detail, hey, what would make sense here? And it seems like that kind of collaboration would be amazing if we could do that.

43:31 - Nathan
Yeah. And I find that I've become more vocal about that. Just for instance, the last couple of jobs, as you know, sometimes anchor bolts, gusset plates are not anchor bolts. Base plates, gusset plates are spec'd as A5. 570-250 where standard plates are A36 or drag beam connections are A570-250. You might have four or five scenarios on a project that are a different steel grade for plate material. Well, that's great as long as the steel detailer catches all that and details that correctly. I'm finding now that I say, hey, at the beginning of the job, we got all these plates, they're A570-250, all these are A36. Can we just streamline and make them all 570-250? Can we just make that the standard on this job? A572.50, um, satisfies the requirements for both levels. And it will guarantee that I don't make a problem or, you know, make a mistake here somewhere along the line and make an A36 plate that should be A572.50. So I think there's, I have become a lot more proactive at job, at the beginning of jobs and those kinds of things, you know, where can we streamline, you know, how can we make this better? Um, both sides, both types, all that kind of stuff.

44:41 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, I think that definitely helps to have that type of communication. Right. So you mentioned about the, on here also on our list here to go over, is overseas detail or crossover detailing. Can you talk about that?

44:57 - Nathan
I think it was the 90s or so, we started to see competition by people in particular India for doing steel detailing. You see as the internet became more prevalent worldwide, this became an option for fabricators to use what we call overseas detailers. Now, you know, there's overseas detailers, South America, Africa, Philippines, East, or India, those kind of seem to be the bigger points. It's kind of interesting, I was doing some, a little bit of research preparing for this podcast, and I googled how many steel detailers are there in the United States. Google AI, for whatever it's worth, said there are 7,000 steel detailers listed on LinkedIn. Now, steel detailers are not licensed like an engineer. So I asked, how many engineers are in the US? And it said right under 60,000. How many architects? 116,000. So the disparity in number is huge. And I would say of those LinkedIn detailers, I bet overseas. European, East Indian, South American, whatever. I bet, you know, I pretty much know all the American steel detailers on LinkedIn. And it's just interesting to me, I was thinking about this, if you had a, you know, if you were to interview 10,000 high school students that were leaving, graduating from high school, and ask them how many were going to be an engineer, you know, what would that number be out of 10,000? Would be a hundred, you know, I don't know. It would be, you know, considerable sum. And if you ask that same 10,000, how many are going to be a steel detailer? I bet it'd be a zero. It would probably be negative because if any of those 10,000 students had a parent that was a steel detailer, they would say, there's no way I'm going to be a steel detailer. And it's interesting to me and just in the, just in the professions of architectural, architecture, steel detailers, just that disparity in volume of people that do it. More and more of the steel detailing profession is leaving our shores and is being done overseas. Those people can work cheaper. What I mean by crossover detailing, often those steel detailers are managed by American fronts, people that have two or three people in the U.S. That manage the people overseas and manage the project management and whatnot on the American side so that's a real concern and I can't compete. So what's the concern?

47:39 - Andy Richardson
I mean in your opinion like what's the basis of the concern? Just it's taking money from the U.S. Or taking jobs from the U.S. Or is it because is there a quality concern? What is your primary issue?

47:56 - Nathan
For sure at the beginning there was a huge quality concern. But I think now, you know, this has been years, 25 years that this has been going on. So there has been, I think, a level up of quality. Fabric carers that use overseas detailers, I think, are telling me that some are good and some are not so good. Not that all American steel detailers are good. You know, it's probably the same disparity. Certainly the cost, you know, a steel detailing company overseas can work for a third or a quarter of what I can work for. For and make money. They probably make a good income for themselves. I think the biggest issue, the three biggest issues I see are language barrier. Even though they speak English, they're not necessarily speaking American English. They have their own native tongues that they speak and that causes some issues. I think the time barriers can be an issue. A lot of them are working in the night, that's their day. And if a fabricator has an issue during the daytime when they need an answer, who are they gonna call? Nobody's available overseas. But I think the biggest issue is just problem solving. I don't think people overseas problem solve like Americans do. I think they just say, kind of going back to what you'd ask before, I've seen with overseas detailers, if there's no dimensions, they'll just scale it. They don't even ask, just scale it and go. And I don't know. Is that I'll scale, but I'll also ask. I'll make sure that that is correct. I won't just assume that my scale dimension is correct. And that's just one instance. And I could be off base there. But I think those are certainly concerns that I see.

49:39 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You mentioned about the scaling. I mean, we do have work with overseas drafters designers, and I have noticed, I don't know, the cultural aspects of it maybe or what, but it seems like there's a sense that sometimes a draft or overseas might, and I don't want to overgroup this, right, because obviously we have the same, no matter, people are people, but I do there's some cultural aspects of it, or maybe it's the time zone, but the feeling is that I need to get it back to you. I don't know. I'm trying to be careful about my words, right, but I don't always know if it's just right or wrong, but I just got to get you something. I got to get it over the fence. I feel that sometimes, and I feel that I feel that with engineers and drafters here. I think that's a problem. I used to think it was a good thing because I could say, oh, well, I got something. And now I think, well, yeah, you got something, but it's wrong. So that doesn't really help me. And I got to mark it up. That takes me time. And I'd rather get the right thing the first time. So anyway, that's my theory. I guess for you though, why would somebody hire somebody from Montana? Or Wyoming, sorry. Why would somebody hire somebody from Wyoming right now?

51:30 - Nathan
Yeah, and it's kind of interesting. I've just thought about this a lot. We've tried to sell our business a couple of times. So if you think if steel detailing had stayed in the US 100% and steel detailers were making competing ONLY against each other. Potentially there would be colleges or universities out there that offer a steel detailing program and a degree similar to an engineering degree. But to my knowledge, there's not really anything like that in the United States. I know there was some that used to teach steel detailing from a drafting perspective, but not really the art and skill of steel detailing. But because now that we don't have, competing overseas for price, and we're gonna get beat out every time unless we're okay working for pennies. The whole profession has so many dings against it from a monetary perspective that I don't see it improving. I think that, from what I'm understanding, more and more steel detailing's going overseas, and pretty much at some point, 90% of it's gonna be over there. So what do I bring as somebody from Wyoming, well, I think what I've come up with with myself is that I have 30 years of steel detailing, a portfolio that is absolutely amazing all around the world, and I bring, I cost more money, for sure, probably three or four times what you can get from overseas, but I think I'm gonna project manage it better, I think you're gonna get the best, a better product initially, and potentially, you know, even at the end, the product that I produce will be better than maybe somebody else who doesn't understand the culture here and the process of project management and problem solving. So that's the way I'm approaching it and it seems to be working. I seem to be getting more of these jobs that are a little more high profile jobs that are more intricate, more complex. They're sending in my way. So sounds good in theory, let's see if it continues practice I don't know yeah I mean if you got a job you need done right if you got a job that's tricky right call Nathan right exactly that's what I'm hearing right yeah I'm getting engineers now that are requesting that that shoot nine I was telling you about over the Cheyenne frontier days they've actually requested that we detail the job so they told the contractor we want Wyoming lines to detail this job so Yeah. That's pretty cool.

54:04 - Andy Richardson
Now, what's the name of the business?

54:07 - Nathan
Wyoming Lines.

54:09 - Andy Richardson
Lines. OK. Because how did you come up with that name, by the way? I'm curious.

54:15 - Nathan
Well, my last name is Lind, L-I-N-D. And I draw lines for a living, so I just combine them. Wyoming Lines.

54:23 - Andy Richardson
OK. Wyoming Lines. I thought I was, I thought a minute maybe I spelled it wrong.

54:26 - Nathan
No.

54:27 - Andy Richardson
So that's a creative. I like creative things. See there, detailers can be creative. Do you ever find that you have to have an outlet outside of the day job, so to speak?

54:44 - Nathan
Yeah, I think that's a good idea. I mean, certainly hobbies are good right now. I've started a physical fitness program online, hired a coach, and it's been good, but mostly I've just been walking. It's just been a great, just going for an hour walk just helps clear the mind and helps me sort through problems and de-stress. And yeah, whatever it takes to do, to get yourself to de-stress, it's good, so.

55:13 - Andy Richardson
Yeah. So, just want to give you an opportunity. I know we have a few more bullets here, but I don't know if we'll get through every single one of them. Are there any on here maybe that you might want to emphasize that I didn't hit on already?

55:27 - Nathan
I have a story to tell that I think will kind of encapsulate where I'm at. It's kind of a bit of the conversation we had with you and some of those other engineers the other day. I think that there is an idea that detailers are, it's maybe not a conscious idea, but a subconscious idea that kind of less valuable, less needed in this industry. And we talked about the AEC industry, architects, engineers, contractors, I believe that's what stands for AEDC. Why are detailers, why is it not AEDC? Why are detailers not viewed as a profession right beside architects and engineers? In my mind, they're professionals. We may not have to go to school for this, like you guys do. The story I was going to tell, years ago we did a lot of detailing for the Yellowstone Club up in Big Sky, Montana. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's a place where multimillion-dollar homes are built. You know, some of those homes have 20 tons of steel, some would have 150 tons of steel. Just huge mansions, custom homes, very, very intricate, high-end, multimillion-dollar homes. And we had done several of them and we always had issues kind of getting out of the starting gate. So I told our fabricator, the next one we do, let's have a kickoff meeting with the architect and engineer before we get started so we can maybe circumvent some of the issues that we always run into. That's a great idea. So starting a new one we drove to Bozeman, Montana to the architect's office and in preparation for our meeting I had taken the design set at Bluebeam and bookmarked everything. Everything was bookmarked, color-coded, hyperlinked, took it on our laptop and we got there early and we plugged into the presentation rooms TV and we we were waiting there and I brought two other guys from our business. Engineers came in, a couple, you know, kind of clean cut guys, you know, blue collar looking guys come in and they have the design set and printed in 11 by 17 with a clip on the end. They come in and set that on the table and start talking. We're supposed to start at one o'clock or whatever. Well, about 15 minutes after the start time, the architect comes in and we always laugh at the architect. They always have the architect, Eric Haircut, we talked about, you know, they're all fancy, fancy clothes, fancy hair. He comes in and he's, he's packing a 36 48 set of design drawings, sets them on the, on the table. And, you know, just, we've talked a lot about this, about that situation after that, that meeting. In my opinion, the detailer was the most prepared person in that room. As we got to talking and going flying through the design set, showing, well, this is a problem, this is a problem, and the engineers quit looking at their 11 by 17. They just watched on the screen as we were talking through it, making notes, blah, blah, blah. And the architect kind of sat over there with his arms crossed, you know, with a grumpy look on his face, like he didn't even want to be there in that room with that meeting. And we asked him a few questions and he'd, foom, foom, you know, turn back those big drawings to find the thing, even though it was shown on the screen. But I think that But the reason I bring that story up is I think there is a lot to be learned from the detailer, the steel detailer as an architect and engineer. I think we have a lot to tell you, to show you in your product and help you make your product better. And whether that's in situations like this or whether, I think we talked about maybe as I hire as a consultant for an engineering firm, Let me look at your design drawings. Let me help you make a better product. But, you know, there's kind of this idea of, I'm not a steel detailer. I'm just a steel detailer. And I've heard that over and over again, just a steel detailer. And it's kind of this idea that, you know, we're expendable. I had one engineer say, detailing is a commodity, you know, like grain or corn or something, you know, get the cheapest price because it's all the same. Well, it's not actually all the same. But in this stage of my career, in my life, I would love to give back to the steel detailing community by talking to people like you and helping you produce a better product so that it would make everybody's life easier and everybody's life better. And how that looks, I don't know. Is this the initiation into that, the start of that? I'm kind of hoping so. I'm kind of hoping there's people that listen to this podcast and say, hmm, Nathan has something to say. Nathan has something good to say that I need to listen to and that will help me in my business as a steel detailer, not just a detailer, but as a professional, just like a structural engineer or an architect. And I might not have the haircut. I certainly don't have the haircut. I'm an architect, but I have a lot of wisdom and we bring, steel detailers bring such multi-discipline, multi-geographical perspective to the AEC world that I think it would behoove the AEC professionals to listen to us and to actually not just hear us but actually take heed and act on it. So yeah, that's kind of what I've hoped that happens as a result of this podcast. That's what I want to do more of moving forward as well as detailing, so.

1:01:08 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, man. I think that, first of all, it's not good to hear that, you know, you were treated in that fashion. So, it's a good lesson learned for everybody. Really, this is just treating people with respect, in my opinion, as part of it. I mean, no matter what you are, you're not just any I mean, you're, you know, somebody who is valued by our, by God, by our Creator. And first of all, that's everybody, right? Whether you're, you know, on the job site, building this building, erecting the steel, you're not just a welder either, right? You're the guy who, I mean, you're the one that makes it work. And you're not just a detailer, you're the guy who, I mean, if you didn't have those It's actually, it reminds me of my, the very first episode, are you stacking bricks or are you building a cathedral? And so, hat tip to our first episode slash shameless plug, but it's this idea that, you know, every line you draw, every line I draw, the architect, we're all doing something that's valuable. I mean, that's really what I find interesting about this show and what we're doing is we're doing something important, you know, like the church that you designed and with all these intricate details and angles and the industrial project you did. I mean, we can't get the oil or the coal or whatever it is that we need to run our economy. I mean, these are important things. So, I guess I'm fast forwarding a little bit. Well, obviously, Before I do that because I like to really get into your why but before I do that I just want to say I mean obviously hopefully you've come across architects engineers and contractors that That that have respected you over the years and have valued you and and hopefully that was more of an anecdote I'll be a very well a very important lesson learned for me to make sure I'm always remembering Detailers anybody that's involved in the project but But I'm pretty sure I've got some people in the AEC industry. And maybe after this show today, we'll call it the AECD podcast. But we'll see.

1:03:35 - Andy Richardson
But Nathan, if we could, let's fast forward to your why.

1:03:39 - Andy Richardson
I mean, I sort of alluded to what part of my why is, but what is your why?

1:03:45 - Andy Richardson
I mean, why keep doing this?

1:03:47 - Andy Richardson
Is there a bigger reason why we detail buildings, or is it just putting lines on a page for you?

1:03:55 - Nathan
I think if you'd talk to me at different stages of my career, you'd get a different answer.

1:03:58 - Nathan
I think at this point in my life, my why is to make money.

1:04:01 - Nathan
Actually, I'm 55 old, and I probably have another 10, 15 of doing this, and I want to make the most that I can enjoy the rest of my life making money.

1:04:11 - Nathan
My prices have doubled and tripled in some instances over the last 10 years, just because of the amount of time required to get it.

1:04:20 - Nathan
We're very, very efficient.

1:04:21 - Nathan
We're power users with SDS-2 and Bluebeam.

1:04:24 - Nathan
And we leverage that to get it done as quickly, but still efficiently.

1:04:30 - Nathan
And then another why would be, as I described earlier, can I speak into the AE industry as a detailer?

1:04:38 - Nathan
I would like that to be a why.

1:04:39 - Nathan
I certainly have a yearning to do that and even offering my time freely or at a reasonable cost.

1:04:50 - Nathan
But to get my foot in the door, it seems almost impossible to get into an architectural engineering firm and do a critique of their methods and their product.

1:05:02 - Nathan
Again, I think it's because I'm just a detailer.

1:05:04 - Nathan
I'm not an engineer.

1:05:05 - Nathan
If I was an engineer, going back to what I was talking about, trying to sell our business, we tried to sell it.

1:05:11 - Nathan
And if we'd have been an engineering firm, I think we would have got it done.

1:05:15 - Nathan
But because we were still a detailing firm, you know, we hardly got any money offered to us.

1:05:19 - Nathan
And it was like, well, we could use you here, but you know, you know, not big real time commitment.

1:05:25 - Nathan
And it's just all part of that package.

1:05:28 - Nathan
Um, so yeah, not any big grandiose why, you know, 10 ago, there would have been a different why I was certainly, you know, when we started our business, I was wanting to, to do great things for the steel industry, steel detailing industry.

1:05:41 - Nathan
Um, just not there right now, I guess.

1:05:45 - Andy Richardson
So, Yeah, it sounds like you've been through some things, is one way to put it, right?

1:05:55 - Andy Richardson
You've been through some things.

1:05:57 - Andy Richardson
That anecdote that you gave is an example, it sounds like, right?

1:06:01 - Nathan
Right.

1:06:03 - Andy Richardson
Of that.

1:06:04 - Andy Richardson
So, I mean, I like that you have a vision to improve.

1:06:09 - Andy Richardson
I mean, this is a follow-up to our conversation I think you have a message that's helpful and important, and so that's why I wanted to give you an opportunity to share that message today.

1:06:23 - Nathan
I appreciate it.

1:06:25 - Andy Richardson
We got down into the details today of detailing, and not everybody is involved in structural steel.

1:06:36 - Andy Richardson
You do other aspects, but I think the lesson learned is applicable, at least for me.

1:06:42 - Andy Richardson
There's some lessons learned that apply to all aspects of the AEC industry, in my opinion.

1:06:48 - Andy Richardson
So thanks for sharing that, Nathan.

1:06:50 - Andy Richardson
Was there anything else?

1:06:51 - Andy Richardson
We had a few bullets maybe we missed, but just for time's sake, was there any other bullets that maybe we should hit on before we?

1:06:59 - Nathan
I don't think so.

1:06:59 - Nathan
I don't want to get into the whole thing about where I can see improvements on the design side or anything.

1:07:04 - Nathan
That's a whole other couple hour conversation.

1:07:07 - Nathan
I think this gives us a good gives that your listeners a good understanding of what the steel detailer does and who we are as people and what the profession is you know one of the what are the strengths and weaknesses of our profession as well as the you know the hurt points the pain points that we have and yeah I think a lot of people are going to come into this listening to this like what's a steel detailer you know never even heard of it and now you know after listening they should have a pretty good idea.

1:07:37 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, yeah, awesome.

1:07:38 - Andy Richardson
Yeah, I think that there's other ways that we can continue to extend this message out.

1:07:43 - Andy Richardson
I mean, one, personally, for me, I mean, I definitely want to have you help us out with some of that drawing review and then 29 East