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After attending tech school as a diesel mechanic, Ryan spent lots of time on the road and working second shift with a young family at home. Looking for a better fit for family life, he stumbled across a golf course job on Indeed and describes discovering the turf industry as the best thing that’s happened to his career. We’re talking fabricating trailers and reel racks, reel storage ideas, and why it’s so great to be a golf course equipment manager. Meet one of the up and coming leaders in our industry who’s getting involved and making a difference at the local and national levels.

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Transcript:

Trent Manning: 0:05
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manning let’s have some Welcome to the real turf text podcast, episode 64. Today, we’re talking to Ryan Hampton stall. Equipment manager. At Colombian Hills golf. And swim club in Columbia station, Ohio. Colombian Hills golf and swim club is a private 18 hole course. Ron is the loan technician and a shop. He has a mix of Toro, Jake and a couple of JD units. Let’s talk to Ron. welcome Ryan to the Reel turf text podcast. How you doing today? I’m doing great. Thank you so much for coming on.

Ryan Haptonstall: 1:02
thanks for having me.

Trent Manning: 1:03
Absolutely. Tell us how you got into the Turpin.

Ryan Haptonstall: 1:07
When I was about, uh, 23, I went back to tech school after trying my hand at a few different trades. I was, a alignment for a while and I got laid off from that. So I decided to go back to tech school. I wanted to do mechanics right out of high school actually, but my dad was a mechanic in the Navy and he ran a, operation out in Nebraska and Bellevue. so he kinda talked me out of that coming out of high school, all you’re going to hate it. So I ended up coming back to that. I went to diesel school, at OTC in Cleveland. That’s how I ended up in Ohio. And, I was doing that for about 10 years. It was about to have a another baby. and the diesel field was, you know, very demanding, uh, the job that I had at the time I was doing refrigeration, I worked for carrier and I was on the road a lot. I was doing road calls all the time. I worked second shift, so I just wanted to make sure I found something that was a little bit more suitable for the family. And I honestly just kind of stumbled upon it on indeed. I didn’t even know really what I was applying for. It wasn’t all to a detailed, but, I went in for the interview and, uh, things just worked out great. And, I think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I haven’t missed diesel ever since I came over to this day, that much.

Trent Manning: 2:20
So you get enough diesel at the golf course.

Ryan Haptonstall: 2:24
Absolutely. Yes, no small diesel’s are enough for me and my supers, this power stroke. I got to work on that too.

Trent Manning: 2:32
Okay. Of course you do. Yeah, That’s what we do. Let me work on the bosses, uh, the vehicle and maybe some of the crew just depends on how long they’ve been there and how much you liked them.

Ryan Haptonstall: 2:44
that’s right. Every once in all.

Trent Manning: 2:46
Yep. First year. So how long have you been at the golf course?

Ryan Haptonstall: 2:50
I’ve been here for three years now,

Trent Manning: 2:51
Okay. So

Ryan Haptonstall: 2:53
a man in the shop for two years.

Trent Manning: 2:55
what was one of your biggest hurdles or learning curves or something like that?

Ryan Haptonstall: 3:00
you know, engine wise. Uh wasn’t. Wasn’t it. You know, that that was nothing. It was all the small details of, you know, fine tune and ahead grind in and, you know, understanding, you know, what a mower does and what we’re aiming to do. You know, that was a, that was a big thing. But, you know, I had a guy, that I learned from my first, uh, year, he was retiring and that’s one reason they were bringing somebody else in. So they could, you know, kind of go under him for awhile and. learned a lot from him. He was in the industry for about 30 years.

Trent Manning: 3:33
Oh, wow. Okay. And he’s so he’s retired now.

Ryan Haptonstall: 3:36
Oh, he’s semi-retired so the, the old super from my course now runs another small, uh, course in the area. And, he’s over there working for him part time.

Trent Manning: 3:46
Gotcha. Do we ever really want to retire?

Ryan Haptonstall: 3:50
Nope.

Trent Manning: 3:51
I don’t. I mean, I would like to slow down maybe, but I don’t know. I’m still like getting my hands dirty from time to time. Do you relief grant?

Ryan Haptonstall: 4:00
no, that’s something that, he never did and never taught me. We had a relief grinder that I’d never saw turned on, and ended up getting sold. So, um, no, that’s not something that I do, but it’s something that I would be willing to learn. And hopefully someday I get to learn that, you know, I, uh, I’m a, I’m a thirst for knowledge.

Trent Manning: 4:21
Yeah. Yeah, no, and that’s a great way to be for sure. And both ways work. There’s, there’s a lot of people doing it each way. And a lot of people that are successful doing it that way. So nothing wrong with that. Tell some you fabricated lately.

Ryan Haptonstall: 4:37
actually, I just got done fabricating some trailers. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the older John Deere now. Walk behind mower trailers that they had, they had that lever that lower them down to the ground and the actual underneath just ran through, uh, it was a solid field shaft that ran built. So yeah, we had a few of those and then. I couldn’t, I couldn’t get them going anymore. They, they were all seized up. And so, uh, actually the guy that trained me, he had some blueprints for some trailers. He fabricated up about 15 years ago and I got my hands on those and, uh, made three more.

Trent Manning: 5:15
Oh, that’s awesome.

Ryan Haptonstall: 5:16
Yeah. Yeah.

Trent Manning: 5:18
I think, I think a lot of us can relate and I think most of us really liked. Because it’s something a little bit different, you know, it’s not something you do every day and, you know, as better than grounding rail sometimes, you know, just gets your mind thinking about other things.

Ryan Haptonstall: 5:34
Yeah. Right now I’m, uh, I’m getting ready to fabricate some, uh, some real racks.

Trent Manning: 5:41
So tell me what kind of designer you think.

Ryan Haptonstall: 5:45
Um, I want to do a, I I’ve looked at a couple different, designs, but I, I want to do a, you know, a back-to-back kind of like an A-frame ill, um, three on each side, probably. Well,

Trent Manning: 5:57
Yeah. Yeah, Yep. That’s cool. Yeah, I’ve uh, I did a tips and tricks class for GIS and. One of the things in there. Well, not I say I did it, I stole it from Eric Dickerson, but that’s okay. Hopefully he hears this. Um, anyway, I found he found some, I found some more, really cool, uh, real storage systems. So, and I, you know, I don’t remember I had five or six of them in my presentation just to give people different ideas, but one of them, I liked the best, but it uses wall space is it was a rack on the. And it was about three high and I’m assuming this person, I don’t even know what club it was at, but I’m assuming this person had, one of the lifts that holds, you know, just to cut in the unit, kind of like the one sip makes, but you know, there’s a bunch of other people that make them too. Um, so I’m assuming they would just run it up there and put it on the rack. But like I said, it takes that wall space and we all.

Ryan Haptonstall: 6:57
got full, um, that’s battery powered. I roll around the shop everywhere. So that actually might for me. I might have to find that from ya.

Trent Manning: 7:07
Yeah. Yeah, no, I’ll be happy to I’ll share the whole presentation with you. And for that matter, anybody else that’s listening. If they want the presentation, I’ll be happy to share it too. Tell us what your favorite tool is.

Ryan Haptonstall: 7:19
honestly, uh, just coming from the diesel field and, coming over to, the golf Garfield. I, I got a power probe recently. I know we were just talking about that in the chat the other day.

Trent Manning: 7:29
Yup.

Ryan Haptonstall: 7:31
That thing is awesome. Uh, especially when, I just broke it out just to cut just the other day when I was trying to run down that existence, which problem I was having on my Sidewinder. well, yeah, that thing is a lifesaver and, uh, you know, I got the extensions on it. So, um, you know, you, you, you hook up to the battery, you can reach anywhere on any machine. You

Trent Manning: 7:50
was awesome.

Ryan Haptonstall: 7:51
it is pretty.

Trent Manning: 7:52
Yeah. Saying Justin King and the WhatsApp group saying that he broke his out just because he wanted to break it out and use it excuse to use it.

Ryan Haptonstall: 8:02
I had seen back in the day, probably about five or six years ago, and I was blown away by it. But, um, you know, budget wasn’t really, affording at the time, but, uh, yeah, it was pretty cool to, to use this one. And now that I’ve got that and, hope, hope to use it, anytime I can, honestly,

Trent Manning: 8:21
You’ll be like Justin, you’ll be trying to find an excuse just to use it

Ryan Haptonstall: 8:25
absolutely.

Trent Manning: 8:26
will tell us what you do to relax or find your balance.

Ryan Haptonstall: 8:29
well, I, I’m a father of three boys, so, uh,

Trent Manning: 8:32
No, relax. And then.

Ryan Haptonstall: 8:34
it. I don’t get a whole lot of time. My oldest son, he plays, travel baseball. so honestly that’s, that’s my, that’s my relaxation time when I’m, when I’m watching him play, just being out outside, uh, but outside of that, you know, when he’s, when he’s not doing baseball, we like to travel. And with him doing baseball, we do get to travel quite a bit. He plays like an Alabama and, South Carolina and Florida and stuff. So this year I’m taking my first trip to Disney with, uh, with the little,

Trent Manning: 9:02
Okay. Awesome. At least so much fun. Yeah, that’s really cool. That’s ended up pretty good drive Alabama.

Ryan Haptonstall: 9:09
yeah, it’s about a 14 hours.

Trent Manning: 9:11
Yeah. It’s a long time with three kids in the car.

Ryan Haptonstall: 9:17
It will, did you older ones, you know, they’re 14 and 13. It’s the three-year-old that, uh, that’ll be rough on. So, uh, when we go down to Florida, we’re actually stopping in Savannah, Georgia. I’ve never been there and I wanted to go so bad. So we’re going to take an extra day and stop there and Savannah and check that out for a little while.

Trent Manning: 9:35
You will love it. And I know I’m a Georgia boy, but Savannah is one is one of my most favorite places. I love the. All the history and the town is wonderful. Uh, actually Kelly and I, we spent like five days there last Thanksgiving, and we just had the best time ever walking around downtown saying all. the old buildings, so much history there, the live Oak trees with the Spanish Moss hanging off of them. It’s just, there’s a special.

Ryan Haptonstall: 10:08
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it.

Trent Manning: 10:10
Well, definitely let me know if you got any, I’ll give some suggestions on places to go

Ryan Haptonstall: 10:15
Absolutely.

Trent Manning: 10:16
for sure. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen at work.

Ryan Haptonstall: 10:21
Hmm, that, that, that’s a really, uh, there’s so many things that come to mind. I don’t know which, which to really stick with. Um,

Trent Manning: 10:29
Preferably PG 13.

Ryan Haptonstall: 10:32
Yeah, well, no, no, no, nothing, nothing. Just trying to think if I should go people or equipment story here, because there’s both.

Trent Manning: 10:40
well let’s, let’s go equipment.

Ryan Haptonstall: 10:42
All right. well, the strangest thing I saw was, a planetary gear that was in a 45 hundreds that, um, we had gotten, and I think somebody else. Someone else was just talking about this. somebody put grease in there instead of, oil and, and it was all seized up. It w like, I don’t know, probably, I think we got maybe, maybe 80 hours out of it after we bought it before it locked up out on the course. And I had to tear it apart up. Yeah. And I don’t know how that, I don’t know how that happened.

Trent Manning: 11:19
Yeah. I don’t know if, uh,

Ryan Haptonstall: 11:22
poultry auction down there in Georgia.

Trent Manning: 11:24
okay. Yeah, I don’t know if it was Leakin, Gerell, and then maybe somebody says let’s just put some grease in there. so the old don’t run out. I don’t know why somebody would do that or maybe they just don’t know.

Ryan Haptonstall: 11:38
Yeah, so ours, it looked, you know, the photos that I saw, the one in the chat there, it looked, you know, mixed, you know, like the oil had mixed with this was just completely packed.

Trent Manning: 11:50
Wow. Okay.

Ryan Haptonstall: 11:51
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was strange.

Trent Manning: 11:54
One I’ve heard. So the old, this is way before your time, but the Jacobson had a fixed head walking mower and it was a 4 22, I think. And it had a gearbox that drove the reel on the left-hand side of the machine, and it was supposed to be filled with Giro 89 year old, and they were notorious for leaking. So what a lot of people would do instead of running gear, all, they would run double out grease, which worked pretty good and double out Greece might work and planetary, I don’t know, but not definitely. Don’t use number two.

Ryan Haptonstall: 12:33
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Trent Manning: 12:36
No worries.

Ryan Haptonstall: 12:38
I actually use double out Greece. I fill, um, the front rollers up on the decks on the 4,535 hundreds and all that, those first, when I rebuild those, I, I pack them about three quarters of the way, full, a double lot grease

Trent Manning: 12:52
Okay.

Ryan Haptonstall: 12:53
to, help help things inside there. And if they get water in there, it doesn’t, you know, can’t take on too much, really.

Trent Manning: 13:00
No, that’s pretty solid out there. Hello. you have a pet peeve around the shop?

Ryan Haptonstall: 13:07
Yeah, something that actually just came up today, when people take tools out of the shop and don’t bring them back,

Trent Manning: 13:13
Yes. Yeah.

Ryan Haptonstall: 13:15
that a thousand times.

Trent Manning: 13:17
Oh yeah. No, it happens every.

Ryan Haptonstall: 13:20
you know, I don’t care because luckily I don’t, I, all the tools at the shop, you know, were there when I started here is another great thing about working where I’m at. And, um, so, you know, I can’t really say, Hey, no, you can’t take that. But, um, you know, like today someone took the half inch impact gun out and, someone got a flat tire out on the course and I needed to go out there and change a tire. And I had to spend 20 minutes trying to track my impact down, you know, Yeah.

Trent Manning: 13:47
So what were they using the impact for?

Ryan Haptonstall: 13:49
to put the pump in the water pump into the river.

Trent Manning: 13:52
Okay. Okay.

Ryan Haptonstall: 13:54
We pull all of our irrigation water from the river.

Trent Manning: 13:56
Gotcha. Do you have a mentor in the industry?

Ryan Haptonstall: 14:00
I would say, like you said, the guy that I trained under, for my first year, um, he, he was a solid, you know, mentor to me and, uh, he’s still someone that I call every now. And then when I got a real, real brain Buster, I try not to bug him too much, you know? but yeah, he was definitely someone I looked up to and someone, I know that if. If I’m ever in a pinch, you know, I called him and if he can’t help me, he’ll at least point me in the direction of someone that might be able to

Trent Manning: 14:27
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Ryan Haptonstall: 14:28
also, I’ve learned so much from all the people and in our, uh, real turf decks chat, you know, the OGE members, as you say, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of those guys and talking to them and, I love being able to pick their brains. And I would say, you know, a lot of those guys are kind of mentors to me too, cause I’m still learning so much. And then anytime someone that answers one of my questions, you know, I appreciate that. That’s that’s mentoring to me. You know what I mean?

Trent Manning: 14:56
Oh, yeah, no, that’s awesome. And I think it works both ways too, because. I think for most of us, we really want to help somebody out. So if there’s a newer person in the industry and they have a lot of questions and maybe we’ve done the job 25 times, You know, and it’s really easy for us to do, and we can explain it halfway decent. Maybe even send you some pictures is rewarding for us to say, oh man, we helped round out today. Well, you know, this is awesome. It really is. That’s a great thing that we got going on there

Ryan Haptonstall: 15:31
Absolutely.

Trent Manning: 15:32
I’m, I’m glad we split the groups. Um, not split them up, but uh, made another group because there was getting a lot of banner going back and forth, which I enjoy. And I think a lot of people do enjoy, but some of them did. So it’s a, I think, worked out really well.

Ryan Haptonstall: 15:51
Yup. Yup. I agree.

Trent Manning: 15:53
What would be your dream job or opportunity?

Ryan Haptonstall: 15:57
I would really like to work at, uh, you know, Top 100 or top 50 course in the us one day. I mean, I think that’s probably might be a goal for a lot of guys, but, uh, you know, honestly, if I could just, you know, I want to move down south someday. That’s, that’s my ultimate goal. If I end up down south somewhere where it’s warm, most of, most of the year, be pretty happy with that, you know?

Trent Manning: 16:20
Well, lucky for you. There’s a lot of golf down here too, because the weather is good

Ryan Haptonstall: 16:24
Yes. Yes.

Trent Manning: 16:25
we can play year round. But I will tell you, That’s one thing I like about even north Alabama, north Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas, that general area, we at least have the four seasons. There’s not a lot of the four seasons you experience,

Ryan Haptonstall: 16:42
right. Yeah, no, we get, uh, you know, five months, a summer, one month for five months, integrate in one month.

Trent Manning: 16:50
Yeah. Yeah. What technician would you like to work with for.

Ryan Haptonstall: 16:55
Honestly, I’d like to work with Jr. Wilson, that guy, he comes up with some of the coolest stuff and he just makes, he makes stuff work. I love, I just recently got on Twitter, but, uh, he was one of the first people I followed and I went on there and started looking at all the stuff he’s posted and all the stuff he’s done. And, you know, I got to meet him. in Kansas. And, uh, it just seems like a very knowledgeable guy and, you know, a lot of people have knowledge, but not everyone can teach it very well. And

Trent Manning: 17:24
Yep.

Ryan Haptonstall: 17:24
I just feel like he could definitely, you know, uh, I have a lot to share and offer.

Trent Manning: 17:30
No, he would be a great one and Jr is a. And I was fortunate enough to spend, I think, four or five days up there with him. I’m staying there right next to his course and walking in his shop, everything, every single thing I looked at, he had modified like, no matter what the tool was or, you know, whatever it was, where there was a grinder or the shop press, he had made some kind of little Jr modification. And I said this to him, not really thinking, and he could have took it the wrong way, but he didn’t. I said, nothing’s good enough for you. Is it Jr? And he’s like, oh, what are you talking about? So, you know, then I had to kind of explain myself, but I just thought that was so cool. And I know a lot of us do that, but Jr kind of takes it to the next level and talking about one of the smartest people that I’ve ever met. He’s definitely one. I mean, he’s, he’s a genius and he looks at stuff in a lot different way than most people.

Ryan Haptonstall: 18:36
Yes.

Trent Manning: 18:37
It’s something I just have kind of started realizing here lately. Like I was talking to our golf pro the other day and we’re in the car barn and he’s, he’s asked. the cords were hanging down. So the carts were hitting the courts for the battery chargers, all electric cars. And he said like, what, what can we do? What could we do to get these courts out of the way and not, why don’t you just use a zip tie and zip tie it up and you know, for me, and you that’s really easy, but for certain people, they don’t, they don’t get. You know, they don’t have that experience or whatever, it doesn’t make them dumb or whatever. But. Jr is not one of those guys. So you can look at anything. It’s like, okay, we’re going to figure this out. And the first day or not the first day, but on Monday when I was up there, we were going to do a class and there was about close to 20 other mechanics that come over, to listen to this class. And we, he had, uh, he had borrowed a projector from one of the vendors or something and. We didn’t have the Right. cables to plug it up to the laptop and all that stuff. So Jr. He’s problem solver. He’s like, hang on a minute. And then he comes back with their 65 inch, a job board TV from the break room and he’s like this got an HTMI on it. We’re just going to plug this thing in like, perfect. Yeah. So that would be a good one. Jr. Is definitely one of the cat. What do you know now? You wish you’d known on day one.

Ryan Haptonstall: 20:08
I guess how much I’d love the job and the industry really. I mean, I didn’t know what to expect, but I mean, everyone has a rough days, but man, there’s more days than not that I come home and I appreciate that. I have my job and I’m not, not just where I work. Like what I do. I really just have a passion for it. I mean, yeah, mechanics is one thing, but being a, being an equipment manager is a, is a totally different breed. It’s a small niche in the mechanic world and it definitely takes a special type of person to do it. And, I’ve never been so passionate about a job before and just learning and growing and networking and just trying to advance myself all the time, you know?

Trent Manning: 20:51
No exactly. And that was the one that was my thought. I had a minute ago, when you were saying, you know, maybe top 100 top 50 club or whatever, you can do it. And it’s not that difficult. I mean, Yeah. you got to put some time in, but you can do it. And hopefully soon I’ll get Mike Elliott on the podcast, but he’s the equivalent manager at the union league. And. Which they have three different courses that he’s over. And I was lucky enough when I went to see Jr on my way back, I stopped by union league national and visited with him. And he was saying, when he first got into the industry, he wanted to work at Augusta national. He wanted to be the equivalent manager at Augusta national. And I mean, where else can you go from the national, I mean, that’s, that’s up there, right? But ends up, he works his way up through, and he’s the equipment manager at pine valley, which is number one. Yeah. And he leaves there to go to union league. So that tells you a little bit about the union league. That is pretty special place too. And I’ll tell you all that to say.

Ryan Haptonstall: 22:07
Absolutely.

Trent Manning: 22:08
And they’ll get it wrong. Mike’s an awesome dude. Really smart, talented, but we can all do that. We put our mind to it,

Ryan Haptonstall: 22:17
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Trent Manning: 22:23
but you got any tips or tricks you want to share?

Ryan Haptonstall: 22:26
I probably don’t have anything that anyone else hasn’t already said or no. I just know the, the, the most recent thing that I picked up on that I love and I’ve used quite a bit, is the, uh, welding, a bead inside a, a race dish to shrink it and get it out.

Trent Manning: 22:42
Mm.

Ryan Haptonstall: 22:43
It’s been a, uh, such a time saver. I learned that, I don’t know, maybe about two or three months ago.

Trent Manning: 22:49
Okay. Yeah. Yep. That is one of the greatest

Ryan Haptonstall: 22:53
It is,

Trent Manning: 22:54
it is Yeah. So for the listeners that hadn’t tried it in a while, or maybe you’ve heard about it and never tried it, just go try it.

Ryan Haptonstall: 23:01
yeah. Yeah. I was kinda nervous about it cause I’m like, well, you know, if it doesn’t shrink and I’ll got this beat in there, you know, what am I going to do? Oh. But it, it was, it was like, uh, I was like, just popped out like butter man.

Trent Manning: 23:13
Yup. Yup. It does probably 99% of the time just falls right out. And the other thing, if you have a blind hole puller, you run that beat in there, then it gives you more spot for your puller to grab a hold up to.

Ryan Haptonstall: 23:26
Ah, yeah, I do have, I just got one of those from RNR, not too long ago.

Trent Manning: 23:33
Okay. Yup, yup. Familiar with it. Well, what else do you want to talk about? I know you can’t say it. Go into depth and talk nitty-gritty details, but you don’t talk about going to the task group

Ryan Haptonstall: 23:45
Oh, sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Trent Manning: 23:46
Lawrence and yeah. Tell us a little bit about that experience. How much fun it was.

Ryan Haptonstall: 23:50
that was a really cool experience. Just going out there to the, uh, to the headquarters and seeing all the history inside of that building. Obviously it was really cool meeting all the equipment managers, talking to everybody there, but at the actual building, my favorite part was talking about. Downstairs. Uh, I probably could have stood there and talked to that guy for two or three hours. I mean, uh, he was, he was super fun and I was asking him all kinds of questions about everything that was down there. But it was really awesome, uh, to, to meet everybody and to talk about, you know, the future of, the industry for all of us younger guys that are just kind of getting into it, you know, with the, the EMC piece and laying out everything for the, for the C Tam program. Kind of ignited a passion and all of us, or reignited a fire for a lot of us that were there about, just getting involved with other people. Um, that’s been the biggest thing for me. ever since I came back there, I got a. You know, joined my local chapter of the GCSA and, been talking to them. they haven’t, they have a EDM designation in my chapter, but they don’t have a lot of people in it. So they’re kind of asking, talking to me about possibly being on the board as an, a liaison to, uh, to help get more people in. So, you know, I’m just getting more involved in the community. I’ve been talking to a lot of guys on Twitter. I met a couple of, local guys, uh, club, uh, 40 minutes from me. that’s run by Mr. Jordan, who was the president of the GCSA last year.

Trent Manning: 25:21
Yup. Yup.

Ryan Haptonstall: 25:22
Yup. Uh, so, Westfield, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it.

Trent Manning: 25:25
Yeah. Yeah. Yup. Westfield contract club

Ryan Haptonstall: 25:28
Yup. Yup.

Trent Manning: 25:29
Jordan.

Ryan Haptonstall: 25:30
Uh, yep. Mark Jordan. Yeah. So, um, I’m actually going to be going down there and talking to those guys and, uh, I think one of their EMS is leaving. So they’re going to have a spot open up soon. anybody in the Ohio areas here in this looking for a job. but, I’m gonna go down there and check out their facility and talk to their guys and hopefully, you know, get some more people on board and, um, I just saw that Brian had their first EDM meeting out there at the Arbor links in Nebraska.

Trent Manning: 25:58
Yeah, I saw that too. So cool. So

Ryan Haptonstall: 26:00
that’s pretty setting. I’m hoping to maybe do something like that at my clubs. And.

Trent Manning: 26:04
Yeah, for sure. And it takes a lot of work. I won’t be honest. It takes a whole lot of work. The other thing. I would talk to the people at the association, but the Em’s don’t actually have to be a member of the local association. I’m sure people’s going to complain about me saying that, but I’m going to tell you how we done it here in Georgia for years and years and years, way before there was ever a EDM, classification. We have. And we still have one equivalent manager, seven yards a year and is sponsored by Greenville, turf and tractor, the John Deere distributor and every year. And it’s been this way as long as I can remember. So for the last 20 years, there’s been a hundred plus people attend. And I would say out of that group, maybe 5% is members of the local.

Ryan Haptonstall: 27:01
oh, well,

Trent Manning: 27:02
So, and that’s one of the things. So as a superintendent association and we support the superintendent, so the association shouldn’t have a problem with educating equivalent managers. And that’s my opinion. And I’m all stand up here on my soap box and shout it from the rafters or whatever I have to do.

Ryan Haptonstall: 27:25
absolutely.

Trent Manning: 27:26
the associations on the local level, I have to get behind the equivalent manager and help us organize Yeah. That’s where I’m at, but there’s a lot of work and you’re going to, you’re going to do a meeting and there’s going to be three people show up and you’re going to get kind of discouraged and then do another one and then you get five and then you got 10 and 15 and so on. And so.

Ryan Haptonstall: 27:51
Got to build a foundation.

Trent Manning: 27:53
That’s right. Stars from the bottom. You’re ready for some rapid fire questions. What’s your favorite movie? I love it as, yes. Classic one of all time favorites. I’m not going to do any quotes cause I love to quote it that I think, well, what would be your last.

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:15
Chicken fried steak

Trent Manning: 28:16
Um, gravy, no gravy.

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:19
gravy,

Trent Manning: 28:20
Why gravy brown gravy,

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:21
brown gravy.

Trent Manning: 28:23
man. You had, you had me there for a little while and down here in the south, we go watch all of that.

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:29
Yeah. Yeah. I get dragged on quite a bit for that.

Trent Manning: 28:32
What are you most proud of?

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:33
My family.

Trent Manning: 28:34
Ten four.

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:36
Obvious answer for a lot of guys, but it’s the most true.

Trent Manning: 28:40
Yeah. Yeah. You can’t be proud of your family. Who can you be proud of right now? That’s awesome. And get on you three boys. That’s awesome. Gotta be a lot of fun. Tell the listeners how they can get a home.

Ryan Haptonstall: 28:53
I’m on a Facebook, you know, shirts, my name, Ryan hap stall, or, my Twitter is an E Ohio golf tech. I’m also on tick-tock. I know some people are starting to get into that. Some people aren’t, but, I I’ve actually met quite a few equipment managers and assistant supers and stuff on there. Uh, and once you, you know, once you get going on that, Start liking just golf stuff. That’s all you pretty much see after that, you know, it’s got an algorithm figures that out for you, so that’s pretty nice. So, um, same thing on there. Any old golf tech, that same as my Twitter.

Trent Manning: 29:27
Awesome. Very cool. Yeah, Maybe I’m we’ll have trial this Tik TOK. I know this, I got a 14 and 17 year old and that’s all they do is stay on Tik TOK. And the other day I was asking the 14 year old on him or what she told me, but I said, where’d you learn that at the Tech-Talk. Okay. That’s great. Take dogs, teaching everything you needed to

Ryan Haptonstall: 29:49
Yeah, the full hats on there.

Trent Manning: 29:51
yeah. First year. Thank you so much, Ryan, for being on it’s been a blast.

Ryan Haptonstall: 29:55
Oh, great. Thanks for having me.

Trent Manning: 29:58
I’ll see you in the WhatsApp.

Ryan Haptonstall: 30:00
All right. Sounds good. Thank you.

Trent Manning: 30:01
hope you enjoyed hearing from Ryan. How cool is it getting new technicians in our industry? I don’t know about you, but it gets me really excited. We need more new voices. Points of view to help push this industry forward. If, you know, somebody reach out to them. And I really think Ryan’s passion for this industry can be contagious. And I hope it rubs off on you. I really enjoy chatting with him. And he’s in our WhatsApp group and I’m really excited. About what he’s doing, where he’s going. And I hope this helps inspire you a little bit. On another note. I got huge news. Real turf. TX finally has a website. Reel turf techs.com. I would really appreciate it. If you go check it out. And give us some feedback. Posted on Twitter, let us know what you think about it. Send us an email. We try to put in a lot of resources there. To. Hello, everyone. If there’s more. Resources that you know about that you think it’d be a good idea for, for us to add. Just let us know. We’ll get it on there. And thank you all for listening and making this podcast. What it is. Until next time. See you. Bye. thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at Reel turf techs.

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