E744. Contractor Horror Stories | Tommy Cole EVP of Industry Relations at LeanScaper

The biggest lesson I ever learned in civil construction was, if you touch dirt twice, you know this, you lost money.

And that experience was so fascinating from a construction standpoint that... us landscapers really struggle with touching products over and over and over and over before it actually gets into this final resting place in the ground.

And hell, I might have learned this from you, but the Ohio method is only handle it once, right? And yeah, in the dirt world, it is a carnal sin to touch dirt twice.

It is.

And we're not, you know, that's something we're still, it's one of the reasons I really like talking to my excavator pals is is learning how to be better at a smaller scale.

We're not moving 30,000 cubic yards, but if we're moving 100 yards on site or whatever it is, we need to figure out and develop a better eye of how to stage and stock material on site so that we handle it, I'll say minimally, instead of moving it multiple times.

Those are some hard lessons we've had there when it comes to material moving.

I want to, you mentioned the plant, the plant pallet plant zone in Dallas, but you're native to West Texas.

How was that a more desert landscape in West Texas? I'm guessing.

Desert's probably a strong word.

When you think of desert, it's more cactus and succulents.

It wasn't like that in West Texas.

I mean, we had a lot of the normal things there.

The landscape in West Texas is a little bland.

When I was in college, we had to take a plant ID course, and I think it was something like 3,000 plants and trees we had to memorize.

We also had to do it during the wintertime.

So we would walk through campus and look at the buds of all the trees and the bark and structure and identify all that.

And then when I left, I moved to Phoenix.

That's when I heard to learn the desert plants.

But, Caleb, I had multiple very large projects there.

in Southern California, which was Santa Barbara Montecito, where it's year-round 75 degrees and never freezes.

Yeah.

And then I also had projects in San Francisco.

The coastal sort of cold climate, but northern.

And then I had Phoenix.

The biggest lesson I ever learned in civil construction was, if you touch dirt twice, you know this, you lost money.

And that experience was so fascinating from a construction standpoint that... us landscapers really struggle with touching products over and over and over and over before it actually gets into this final resting place in the ground.

And hell, I might have learned this from you, but the Ohio method is only handle it once, right? And yeah, in the dirt world, it is a carnal sin to touch dirt twice.

It is.

And we're not, you know, that's something we're still, it's one of the reasons I really like talking to my excavator pals is is learning how to be better at a smaller scale.

We're not moving 30,000 cubic yards, but if we're moving 100 yards on site or whatever it is, we need to figure out and develop a better eye of how to stage and stock material on site so that we handle it, I'll say minimally, instead of moving it multiple times.

Those are some hard lessons we've had there when it comes to material moving.

I want to, you mentioned the plant, the plant pallet plant zone in Dallas, but you're native to West Texas.

How was that a more desert landscape in West Texas? I'm guessing.

Desert's probably a strong word.

When you think of desert, it's more cactus and succulents.

It wasn't like that in West Texas.

I mean, we had a lot of the normal things there.

The landscape in West Texas is a little bland.

When I was in college, we had to take a plant ID course, and I think it was something like 3,000 plants and trees we had to memorize.

We also had to do it during the wintertime.

So we would walk through campus and look at the buds of all the trees and the bark and structure and identify all that.

And then when I left, I moved to Phoenix.

That's when I heard to learn the desert plants.

But, Caleb, I had multiple very large projects there.

in Southern California, which was Santa Barbara Montecito, where it's year-round 75 degrees and never freezes.

Yeah.

And then I also had projects in San Francisco.

The coastal sort of cold climate, but northern.

And then I had Phoenix.