BuildWitt Begins. No Joke.
Welcome back to my highly inaccurate history of BuildWitt!
If you missed PART 13, I discussed crabs, drones, and explosives.
As my summer with Kiewit ended, I moved back to Arizona to start my senior year. Almost there? Not quite…
Montgomery Street / Arlington Heights
Starting school meant restarting with team Haydon in the estimating office.
A big project called Montgomery Street / Arlington Heights hit my desk. And when I say hit my desk, I mean they emailed it to me.
It was a $20MM road reconstruction project in Texas, similar to my previous work. But instead of low bid, the project was a CMAR. CMAR (construction manager at risk) is an alternative delivery method that awards public works based on qualifications rather than only price.
After an initial budget, plan, and interview, The City of Fort Worth selected Haydon, with the project beginning in the summer of 2017.
I did the legwork for the utilities, paving, and phasing. And thanks to the incomplete plans (the downside of alternative delivery), I did it all many times. You get to know the project well when you stare at the same sidewalk drawings for months.
Full-Time Employment
I served as a hired gun for five contractors over four years; it was finally time to push all my chips in on one hand.
By September, I had offers from some of North America's largest, most kick-ass contractors. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I could go almost anywhere.
Since I owed them at least a shot, I also discussed post-college employment with Haydon.
Haydon's hand was compelling—I could move to Texas and work on the Montgomery Street project in Fort Worth. I could help bid and then build the job. Not only would I see a decent-size project from end to end, but it was my ticket out of the desert.
When comparing offers, I didn't weigh the salary heavily. I wanted the best opportunity—who could tee me up for one day starting a company?
I acknowledged that the "majors," as I'll call them, would own my life upon signing. Whenever they say dance, you do or look for a new job.
I wasn't afraid of the hours. I feared being a gypsy or becoming one of seven field engineers on a multi-billion dollar highway project tasked with tracking striping.
I didn't debate long. The sexiness of the majors was appealing, but I wanted something more well-rounded, meaning Haydon was the clear choice. I signed their offer letter in September of 2016, meaning all I had to focus on for my senior year was passing engineering school. Easier said than done…
CONEXPO / MINEXPO
After hearing the legends of both shows, I marked my calendar, determined to see the spectacles for myself.
First up was MINEXPO in the fall of 2016. To keep costs low, I drove from Phoenix to Vegas only for the day to visit the show with two friends. It was INSANE. Cat had brought a 994K loader, Komatsu a cab-less autonomous haul truck, and Hitachi with an EX5600 front shovel. Not only were they in Vegas, but they were INDOORS.
In spring was CONEXPO, the industry's premier trade show. Since it was during my spring break, I'd arranged a road trip with my girlfriend, with Vegas as our second stop. No, not for the Vegas stuff—I only wanted to see the trucks.
On the morning we were set to drive there, she woke in pain after sleeping on her neck wrong. I wanted to ask, "Is it that bad?" But I made a wise choice and drove us home.
However… When we arrived back in Phoenix, I asked if she would mind me driving to Vegas the following day to check out the show. She obliged, so there I was at 2 AM heading north again to Las Vegas.
I found parking and walked to the convention center, but no one was around. I double-checked my phone to see what time the show began. Shit. Thanks to the time change, I was an hour early.
Thinking fast, I had a Cat polo on and walked into the show anyway. I didn't drive five hours to wait outside of a building packed wall to wall with machines for an hour. What harm could I do by sending it?
I'm glad I did. I photographed the show without the crowds with my new Canon 70D I bought to document my hiking journeys. I had no purpose for the photos then, but boy, did they come in handy soon.
Buying a Drone
Since my experience with DJ's drone over the summer, I was in the market for one. In the fall, DJI announced a ground-breaking new drone called the Mavic. It had similar image quality to the Phantom but could fold up and fit inside a backpack.
I had to have it. But so did everyone else. After ordering, I waited MONTHS for it to arrive.
"Package Delivered"
I don't think I'd ever been so excited to open a box.
Why? I don't even know. I had no plans for it. I didn't even start with construction… I began photographing scenic sights around Phoenix. Mountains, pools, and roads. I spent hours on Google Earth finding unique-looking things to photograph from the air.
At this point, drones were still rare commercially, so every photo I took wowed people, even though they sucked. Photography lesson—if you photograph something that no one's photographed before or from a novel angle, you don't have to work hard to create a great photograph. I've hung my hat on this one BIG TIME.
Connect 202
My love for earthmoving meant I knew about most large projects around the city. But one overshadowed them all—the new Loop 202 freeway.
After a decade or two of budget approval, permitting, legal disputes, and environmental reviews, ADOT finally awarded a new 20+ mile freeway to a joint venture between Fluor, Ames, and Granite, who cleverly called the tri-venture "Connect 202 Partners." It was the largest contract in the state's history at a few billion dollars.
Like a shark smelling blood in the water, I drove out to Central Phoenix to watch the work begin. After a visit or two, I had the bright idea of using my drone to capture the machines at work. I photographed excavators, dozers, and scrapers moving dirt without anyone the wiser. It was a high I'd never felt before. Before I knew it I'd taken hundreds of photos of the job from the comfort of my Toyota.
BuildWitt Begins
Since the railroad, I'd listened to a podcast by Andy Frisella titled the "MFCEO Project." I'd found him years before since he sponsored a fancy car event called the "Gold Rush Rally." He had a Lamborghini Aventador, so I was hooked when he started a business podcast diving into the nitty gritty details of building a company.
One day, to avoid ASU's criminally overpriced parking, I was riding my bike home from class, listening to Andy talk about the importance of a personal brand.
It was my third or fourth time listening to the episode. It made sense, but what did it mean for me?
I brainstormed the unique aspects of my life I could use to build my brand… I enjoyed hiking and backpacking, so what about sharing nature or travel? I could, but a million other more talented people already did that. Differentiation was unlikely.
For whatever reason, it finally clicked—one of the few times in my life when something so big smacked me in the face.
I hurried home, sat at my desk, pulled out a legal notepad, and started writing down names for my new brand and Instagram page.
I badly wish I still had that paper… I must've had twenty names on it. I can see it in my head now. I circled "BuildWitt." It was available, so I took the IG username and bought the URL.
I scrolled through my phone for photos to post. I selected photos from my time in the industry, CONEXPO, and recent drone photos of the 202 project. I had around 100 solid shots, which was more than enough.
With my ducks in a row, I wrote my first post and hit the button. Over the following weeks, I posted daily, honing in on my hashtags, following other relevant accounts, and messaging prominent heavy equipment pages like @daily_construciton and @heavyequipmentnation.
17 likes… 49 likes… It was a slow start. But after a few weeks, the snowball started to roll.
I hired a freelancer to make a logo and built a shitty website with Squarespace. My friends thought I was going nuts, but I was onto something. What was it? I had no idea… But it was something.
OH… And did it seriously take me FOURTEEN newsletters to reach the legitimate beginning of BuildWitt? Yes. I'm not the best storyteller. But if you're reading this, the joke's on you.
Foundations
Since the theoretical purpose of college is to find employment following graduation, you'd expect me to say I coasted my senior year. Coast? In engineering school?
In my last semester, I came face to face with the final civil engineering boss—Foundations.
I'll spare you the details, but the class was bullshit. Our professor didn't care one bit. Our test averages were between 40-50%. And these were kids who'd survived seven other semesters of engineering classes. They weren't dummies. Well, I was. But they weren't.
Once again, I was in danger of failing. But this time, the stakes were infinitely higher… If the worst did happen, I established I could still walk at graduation but would have to retake the class over the summer. Not so bad… But what would I tell Haydon?
As I took the final exam, I was shaking in my boots. All the work and effort to be one stupid exam from screwing it all up… Frustrated was an understatement.
A few days later… 70% for the class… Passing. I hadn't felt that kind of relief before. I passed engineering school by a whisker.
Texas?
About a month before graduating, two executives sat me down in the Haydon office.
"We want to keep you in Arizona."
From my outside perspective, Haydon did what many other contractors did—they started bidding work in Texas as it blew up post-recession. But Texas was a different animal… The weather, soil, and sheer competition provide complications that out-of-state contractors typically aren't equipped for. It's a brutal market.
They didn't explicitly say it, but they doubted their future in Texas. Haydon's operations in Arizona were booming, so the intelligent business move was to focus on their bread and butter.
Even with the uncertainty, I didn't hesitate to decline politely. I had options, and my gut said I needed to leave Arizona. If they couldn't send me elsewhere, someone would. I needed to do what was best for me. They relented, and I stayed on track to move to Fort Worth in May.
Texas... For Real
At last, I sat through the boring graduation ceremony, feeling like a little penguin that had just escaped the jaws of a hungry seal.
The best part? The construction kids like me wore ASU-branded hard hats. Worth it? Eh...
One week later, I packed everything in a Uhaul and was ready to drive to Texas to move into a house I'd rented sight unseen. Hopefully, it didn't have an old lady and cats?
I was at the official starting line of my career. But that's a story for another time. Until then, stay dirty!
Dirt Talk Podcast
This week on Dirt Talk, host Aaron Witt is joined by Alex Horton and Mr. i_filmdrt himself, Angel Torres. Aaron and Angel recount their recent trip to Hawaii to visit Goodfellow Bros, Alpha Inc, and Truth Excavation. While there, Aaron got to do a podcast with Steve Goodfellow (DT158), as well as squeeze in a “nutz fit” workout with Kimo Clark, aka Jimmy Cheezenutz.
Vlog
In this episode, we got to explore the Suncor Base Mine and compare some of the largest trucks on Earth.
Witness the process of oil sand mining from start to finish as we journey through the shovel pit, analyze the extraction process, and observe how these massive trucks carry their loads to the crusher for processing. We got to see how these mechanical beasts work in harmony to support our oil-dependent world.
Special thanks to Suncor for showing us around. Hope you enjoy and learn something new along the way!
#mining #construction #heavyequipment
I’ll see you next week!
