Meet Brack Crouch, Equipment Manager at the Talisker Club at Tuhaye. Early in his career, Brack made a move from recent college grad in something he didn’t want to do, to the mowing crew where he did want to be – on the golf course. After working as an assistant superintendent who did a lot of the wrenching, to having his own building company, to facilities maintenance, Brack found his home at a unique mountain facility overseeing a truck fleet and snow equipment in addition to the usual golf course equipment. Brack maintains a tubing hill, cross-country ski trail, and is the second Zamboni wrencher we’ve had on the podcast to date. Learn all about Brack and get a great tip for preventing sockets getting stuck on lug nuts in this episode.
Transcript
Trent Manning:
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 Reel turf Techs Podcast. Episode 38. Today, we’re talking to Brack crouch equipment manager. At Talisker club. At two. Hey. Talisker is a private 18 hole golf course designed by mark O’Meara. That sits at an elevation of 7,000 feet. BRAC has one assistant in his shop. Let’s hear from BRAC. All right. Welcome back to the real turf techs podcast. How you doing today?
Brack Crouch:
Really good. Happy to be here.
Trent Manning:
That’s great. Got your, a gaming headset on it. Looks like a game and chair.
Brack Crouch:
Well, you know that the chairman gave way to a, a racing rig, so it’s a whole different ball game there,
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Before the call, we’re talking about doing some. Three rice and online, it’s gotta be fun. Yep. Tell us how you got into the turf industry.
Brack Crouch:
You know, it’s we could go on for about an hour on that topic. The short and sweet of it is that after I graduated from college, I just didn’t want to do what I had gone to school for thought a great way to, you know, take a break would be to get a job at a golf course. And the only job that was available, where I wanted to go was on the moment. And so I did that and I guess did a, did a good enough job. And after about three years, I found myself as a second job being in the shop doing oil changes, you know, really the, the menial stuff. And I remember going to the assistant superintendent and just being like, man, I don’t want to do this. I just, I just want to. And that’s, so, you know, they took me out of that. And after another couple of years, I had actually moved up to an assistant superintendent position. At a nine hole par three, there was also a Dave pills, short game teaching school and was sort of left on my own. My superintendent actually ran a golf course. It was quite a few miles away, so I really didn’t see him too much, but it was seasonal being in the mountains and had a hard time. Keeping an equipment manager or mechanic as we call them. And so I found myself doing a lot of the wrenching just to keep stuff up and running and. I didn’t think that that was going to be my career path was enticed away with money and, and fame, I guess, in the construction industry before the last recession. And did that for a good four or five years, started my own business. Did a bunch of things and then was generally
Trent Manning:
What were you doing? Construction wise, just curious.
Brack Crouch:
Well, I was a project manager for a construction company. And then when the recession hit, I got laid off, started my own business. Anything from decks, framing, interior trim Cabinet installs you know, whatever anybody would hire me to do. And, and as the recession grew on it I was kind of rendered down to being just a handyman, which was Okay. Wasn’t really paying the bills certainly in those times. And then I got a call to work as a director of engineering for a lot. The ski lodge and beaver Creek, Colorado. So, facilities maintenance and found out after about two years. I didn’t want to do that anymore. And I called a you know, my good friend, Brian Rentschler. It’s actually the superintendent. The course I work at currently say, Hey, if you ever need a mechanic, give me. And about seven, eight months later, I had moved to Utah and I guess the rest is history. That was a little over eight years ago.
Trent Manning:
Growing up, did you do any rent?
Brack Crouch:
No, you know, I don’t have that, you know, that grandfather tractor story, everybody seems to seem to have you know, it was, you know, it was a rough growing up single parent family not a lot of money, but my grandfather actually knew the construction trades. So whenever we were doing projects at his house stuff, that, that was where I got into the construction side of things. But. I guess maybe almost at the end of my college or end of going to the university of Colorado, I got into jeeping, which then I started actually working on what you would consider, you know, machinery. And had I had a ball doing that never knew that it could actually turn into a career. I mean, it took almost 20 years to figure that out.
Trent Manning:
Right, right, right, right. I don’t, I mean, I think I’m pretty sad now, but I mean, I would say five years ago, I was still saying, I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,
Brack Crouch:
Right.
Trent Manning:
you know, I’m old enough now I might as well just go with it.
Brack Crouch:
That’s right.
Trent Manning:
I’m halfway decent at what I do. and I enjoy it. So why not stick with it? Kind of walk us through your daily shop routine.
Brack Crouch:
Well, you know, I depending on daylight, certainly I try to show up. Yeah, about half hour, 20 minutes before the guys do take a look at the job board find out what mowers are going to be going out, set out anything that’s in the shop that I have you know, any of the equipment that they need, we need such, you know, those such things. And as they roll out, I give them probably a good hour or so. And then I head out and try to take a look at, you know, maybe not every single guy that’s mowing, but I try to catch up with most of them just to make sure the equipment’s doing what I want it to. And then. Come back and that’s kind of time for major projects and work orders and you know, do that until a little after lunch when all the mowers come back in and we check those in and then it’s work orders and projects again. So.
Trent Manning:
I don’t. What are you using for your work orders?
Brack Crouch:
I use my turf almost solely you know, I guess I would be interested in the one drive. It’s just, I’ve got a pretty strong program as it goes right now. Or not one drive, but Google drive.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Brack Crouch:
So,
Trent Manning:
I was just curious. I mean, everybody uses different stuff and I use my turf back in the day. I mean, I don’t know how long ago it was, but. It just seemed like too much data entry for me. And, you know, with two people working in the shop at same, like I was cause I was, you know, opening all the work orders, closing all the work orders and I don’t have the same lag. I was just behind the computer more than I want to be behind a computer.
Brack Crouch:
Right. Yeah. That’s and, and I do that also. Yeah, it can be kind of time consuming. We’re bringing my new assistant along pretty well and giving, giving her own workstation so she can do a lot of that stuff
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, I should have put those systems in place too. So the TEDx could open and close their own work orders. So you have a female organ for you in.
Brack Crouch:
Yes.
Trent Manning:
That’s awesome. That is so cool.
Brack Crouch:
but strangely enough, you know, we’ve, we put out ads that are ad after ad after ad, you know, just, you know, industry-wide, we’re struggling to find people. And finally got one resume and it was somebody who had about I don’t, I want to say maybe six months at a municipal course in salt lake city and reached out and wanted to work part time, but we just really weren’t having that. You know, in taster to, I guess, come over full time. And if she wanted to help out at the municipal course, she could do it in her or off hours also.
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah. Well, that’s awesome. I was
Brack Crouch:
it was, it was great. You know, I mean, bringing in the smattering of high school kids that we’d had, you know, teaching them how to read tape measures and how to use screwdrivers and stuff just was getting a pinhole. This is much nicer than.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, the guy hired the spring. I think I insulted him a little bit, but that’s a, do you know how to read a tape measure? And he says, yeah, but so I tried to explain, you’d be surprised how many people don’t know how to read a tape measure.
Brack Crouch:
You know, 50, 50, 6 and three small marks. I used to get that quite a bit.
Trent Manning:
That’s buddy of mine. He’s been in construction his whole life. And he had a guy working for him and he would tell him how many eight inch marks there were, oh, you know, the, you know, their framing or whatever. So eighth was close enough, but I forget what he called it. He called it. Hoochie mama or, you know, some, yeah, this is crazy. Yeah. or whatever, but they worked it out and that’s how they could communicate the relief grant.
Brack Crouch:
I wouldn’t say every single time we grind enough, well, depending on top dressing, but we grind enough that you know, usually on a grind I’m taking off maybe eight to 10 thousands. And so it’s about every third time that I get close to, you know, really needing to reintroduce the relief grind. But yes,
Trent Manning:
I don’t when you relieve ground, what kind of numbers are you trying to take your land with? To
Brack Crouch:
Well, the easiest thing I could say is, you know, about the thickness of a dime you know, it’s like a millimeter and a half or something like that.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, I was just curious. Everybody’s kind of got their own thing I guess, or do what works for them. And not that there’s a rat around.
Brack Crouch:
Well, where I really started paying attention to. That was actually a talk that Hector getting. And so I was like, you know, that’s right. This is what the manufacturer wants. I’m going to go that route.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yep. And I don’t know how many times I’ve said this, but if the manufacturer out of three manufacturers, if they’re going to put a relief on there, it’s probably worth doing
Brack Crouch:
that’s right.
Trent Manning:
and they all recommend it. So why not do it? Tell us something you’ve fabricated.
Brack Crouch:
Well, I’m not in the world of just welding stuff together. But if anybody out there as a Toro MP 5,800 spray unit, the way that the air intake is, it’s sort of a. Vacuum nozzle to the underside of the vehicle that sucks up all manner of grass and whatever you’re spraying. We use a lot of mineral oil based chemicals, so not grass, but it’s sticky grass gets sucked up into the fins of the radiator and they want you to blow out the radiator. Well, you can’t really blow it out because it also has the oil cooler sitting right in front of that. So I found that we, if we wanted to do a good job, you had to. Drain all the hydraulic fluid, into a clean bucket or two or three. And then remove the oil cooler, clean out the fence, clean the oil cooler. And what did they ended up doing was taking a a radiator screen from a different Toro, their their Workman HDS. And hammering it flat, embossing it and shaping it to fit over the radiator. You know, machine screwing that to the flange that holds the radiator in place. And then the tunnel that kind of sucks. All the stuff on the bottom. I went ahead and put in gosh, it’s gotta be 12, 10 to 12 holes to hopefully bring more air in from the top. So it’s not just pulling it from under the machine. The two of those.
Trent Manning:
That’s awesome. Yeah. And that’s fabrication little sheet metal work. Yeah. That’s still
Brack Crouch:
You know, now we,
Trent Manning:
weld. Anything.
Brack Crouch:
we just reach into the hole, scrub it with a brush, blow it off, and the fins are fine. They never get Anything. on. So it’s a much better solution.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I was always bugged me. The, they put the old cooler right in front of the radiator, and then they tell you to clean the radiator out and you’re like, okay. He coulda done something a little different here, and I know Torah has done it on like the 3,500, the oil cooler will kind of swing out of the way and give you a little bit better access. But on other machines where it’s fixed, they’re hard line. Okay. How am I supposed to do this? What is your favorite tool and why?
Brack Crouch:
Is growing on me very quickly and it there, the Milwaukee 18 and 12 volt impacts introduce us to the shop last winter. And now it is it’s amazing. Just today I had to just change a flat tire on a utility cart. Loaded a couple of things into the, into my cart, took off, got there. And it, you know, for you Southern guys, it was like NASCAR. It was so cool to just zip it off, roll the next one on zip it on off, I went and I mean, it goes with anything changing time blocks out in the field, you know, it’s
Trent Manning:
oh yeah. Yeah.
Brack Crouch:
extremely useful to have those.
Trent Manning:
It’s funny to me because you know, I’ve been doing this since 95. And all we used and I had was air tools. We didn’t have any electric tools and the guys I got working in the shop. Now, the only time they pull out of the air hose is to put air in a tire. I mean, you know, that’s the only top, there, there one electric all the time.
Brack Crouch:
we were actually going to be ordering a new compressor here soon and talking with that guy, he’s like, so how often do you use it when we’re talking, you know, screwdriver, reciprocating, and he’s like screwdriver you’d, you know, you’d burn that thing up and in a week, if you ran it as much as you do, which is again, just, you know, blowing out air filters and carburetors and Edgar plenums and whatnot. And.
Trent Manning:
Yeah.
Brack Crouch:
pull it out five times a day.
Trent Manning:
What do you like best about your job?
Brack Crouch:
I’m sure it’s cliche. But it’s different every day. I love taking stuff apart and being able to put it back together. It’s always really gratifying when you have. You put it back together and it works the way that you thought it should before you took it apart. So but just the, the differences in machines I guess it goes down to you even with reels, I’m very interested in the science behind everything that goes into grinding and why we do it. And if you do it wrong, what, what are the implications out on the turf? So it just, it really piques my interest day to day. So.
Trent Manning:
I find it interesting. The, we still call it real. Right.
Brack Crouch:
good point. Real practice.
Trent Manning:
yeah, it’s real theory. And I mean, not that I did really terrible in school. I’ll be honest with everybody, but I thought it was a theory before it came a law. Right. So w we’re we’re still, we’re still, I don’t think it’s a law. I think we’re still trying to figure. And the rails only been around what 200 years. So maybe eventually we’ll get it figured out, but I’m like, you definitely piques my interest on, you know, can I do things different to make it cut better, cleaner, more efficient. And it, it doesn’t get old.
Brack Crouch:
No, and it’s different every time, you know, there’s some equipment stuff going on with Toros walk units that actually can hourglass the real instead of just coning it. And when you grind an hour glass real, the first time you like really scratch your head and wonder what the hell you’ve been doing. so
Trent Manning:
so what is it? Is it like the bed bar?
Brack Crouch:
Yeah, the bed bar? they’ve, they’ve lightened it. So they give you give a little bit of an arch to it. So,
Trent Manning:
I don’t. I heard somebody, I went to the sip open house and I heard somebody there saying that Torah was doing that, that the med bar was not flat, that it did have a rise in it.
Brack Crouch:
right. Which is, it’s kind of tough when you use, I use fully grinders and they’re you know, their bed knife grinder. Actually we’ll suck that thing flat. You grind it. It’s perfect. But then when you put it in the machine, it Springs up. So you do see a little bit more where to the center.
Trent Manning:
Okay. Hmm. That’s interesting. I guess finally, he’s going to have to address that with
Brack Crouch:
Well, yeah, you know, we’ll see.
Trent Manning:
I don’t. I mean, I’m a hardcore Foley guy and have been my whole life and I like their products and I’m happy with what I got, but if I end up getting some new Torres with a curve bed bars, I’ll probably have to be doing something.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah. And you know, I mean, it’s, it’s minuscule maybe a couple thousand stole,
Trent Manning:
Hmm. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen at work.
Brack Crouch:
the day. you know, anything from equipment fires to you know, I don’t know. We got maybe a couple years ago we had two fairway units that were following each other down the hill. And I get a call that one of them is off in the, in the weeds and needs help getting out. And I go up there and there’s two fairway units sitting there and the guy in front on the hydrostat led off the guy behind him, not paying attention. Andrew I’m guessing driving way too close, ended up colliding with them. You know, we had a fairway unit collision on the way back to the shop and it was really amazing with, you know, the travel speed on those, as let’s say. Eight to 10 miles an hour. And the damage that those two Michigan’s did to each other, it was, was impressive. So,
Trent Manning:
were they both traveling full speed when they
Brack Crouch:
well it, well, one was one that slowed down.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Brack Crouch:
no brake lights, I guess.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. So technically it was your fault because there was no break.
Brack Crouch:
Exactly.
Trent Manning:
know, that’s, I’ve been there before. I had a guy drive a mower in a lake and he blamed it on me because the brake didn’t work and it’s a hydrostatic, you know, fairway mower.
Brack Crouch:
Right.
Trent Manning:
So, and if you let off the forward pedal, it would return to neutral and where he went in, the lake was flat. So I don’t really know why he needed.
Brack Crouch:
Well, and in neutral doesn’t mean freewheeling. Maybe there’ll be a dead stop.
Trent Manning:
Yes. it would have stopped. So anyway, yeah. What’s one of your pet peeves around the shop.
Brack Crouch:
I would have to say clutter, you know, just certainly with the assistant mechanics and stuff. When you take something apart, Organize the bolts as you take them off, especially if you don’t know the piece of equipment you’re working on. You know, had a situation not too long ago where I came out to help on something that was kind of questionable. And I remember just like sweeping bolts and parts out of the way. So we could spin the cutting unit around and it’s like, man, this, this just can’t happen here.
Trent Manning:
Yup.
Brack Crouch:
lot of OCD in my shop certainly.
Trent Manning:
I think I would say it’s getting better. And since I’ve been in the industry, I think shops or more organized and clean than they used to be. There used to be some real, not nice places.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah, certainly.
Trent Manning:
And I’m sure there still is some, but I mean, I’ve traveled around, you know, to quite a different shops and they’re not all, you know, high-end budget places now, but. That’s the thing. You don’t need a budget to keep it clean and organized.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah. brooms brimstone cost too much. So.
Trent Manning:
What would be your dream job or opportunity?
Brack Crouch:
Man, you know, I, I would say it would probably have to include what I do currently, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, on a higher level taking multiple courses on that sort of thing. I’m certainly not looking at leaving. I’m leaving my current employment. I’m excited for where the company is headed. We’ve added a bunch of amenities and actually we’re, constructing a par three golf course now, which is going to, sort of elevate elevate me to that level. But you know, I really enjoy what I’m doing. You know, unless Mercedes calls and wants me to drive their cars around a track for living. I can’t really put all my eggs in that basket just yet. So.
Trent Manning:
But also in Atlanta, we got a Porsche test. And they have a driver training and that kind of stuff. And a buddy of mine actually took a job there. Part-time being an instructor. And I couldn’t imagine how much fun that would be.
Brack Crouch:
It would be. amazing. You know, Utah doesn’t really have much in Mileva speedways or tracks road tracks. So
Trent Manning:
So with the par three, where you begin a lot more.
Brack Crouch:
Yes. For the space that we have you know, it’ll probably be maybe six more walk mowers you know, a triplex of some sort and a couple of rough units to take care of it. So yes, and you know, cold storage is. You know, spaces at a premium currently. So we’re going to have to figure that out, but yeah, we’ll take on more equipment. And I think within a system that we should be able to manage it for the most part
Trent Manning:
Do you get involved with the ski aspect or the lodge, or do you have to do any of that kind of stuff?
Brack Crouch:
Well, you know we are kind of unique property. Not only do we have the golf amenity, but we also have another whole clubhouse with fitness and spa and in residences, up on deer valley ski resort. And then along with that, they do a lot of. Activities have, is the department that we call it in. And what that includes is, you know, in the summer it’s mountain biking and fly fishing and, you know, sort of the summer activities in the winter, we include snowcats and snowmobiles. And there is a lot of work that needs to go into all of those and they’re, you know, miles and miles apart. So on occasion, we do have to travel.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Brack Crouch:
But, you know, as it comes to winter, yes, we, we have numerous snowblowers all manner of trucks taking snow equipment to all the other properties and, and stuff like that. So we, we stay busy
Trent Manning:
So you have basically a whole fleet then truck fleet or whatever the
Brack Crouch:
Yes. Yeah, we go as far as oil and brakes, if it gets to be much more than that they just spend too much time on my lift, so we just send them off to a dealership. But Yeah. we’re a little over 20 vehicles with all the departments, you know, housekeeping and sales and things like that. But currently we are in the middle of swapping into studded and winter tires,
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Brack Crouch:
a lot of, a lot of manual labor days
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, I was kinda curious, because in your email, you said that you had a golf lift and a rotary lift for vehicles and kind of red flag. Why, why don’t you need a vehicle there? I mean, but if you’ve got 20 vehicles that make sense.
Brack Crouch:
No, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting. You know, as, as we transition into winter, we’ve got a lot of what most people would call strange equipment. You know, we. We groom and maintain a cross-country ski trail. We have a tubing hill that we take care of. We have a Zamboni that’s actually on a three point hitch of a tractor that we do and I shrink. So, and you know, along with that is just obviously Zamboni, never thought I’d work on one of those you know, a groomer that’s pulled behind a snowmobile it’s it’s it stays interesting. That’s for sure.
Trent Manning:
I guess so, so how much does your normal crew stay around for the winter?
Brack Crouch:
Well, you know, to take care of say the grooming trail and the ice rink and those amenities, it’s the superintendent, the assistants, possibly my assistant. If, if help is needed sometimes me. And then we have what we call the snow crew. And usually it’s, I think it’s about five or six guys that travel around all the properties and clean walks and plow and do whatever it takes to keep all the pathways open. So,
Trent Manning:
What do you know now that you wish you’d known on day one?
Brack Crouch:
well, I guess it would go back to when I was put into the shop for my afternoon jobs. If I knew I would have liked it so much, I would have done that as a career from, from get-go. It just, it took me a really long time to find my way, I guess, but I’m here now, so
Trent Manning:
Welcome to the club.
Brack Crouch:
That’s right.
Trent Manning:
Any tips or tricks you want to share with us?
Brack Crouch:
Well, you know I guess most of the people listening to this would also, or would already be on Twitter, but boy I would say the best tip tip or trick I could mention is get on Twitter, a part of the community that we have. I can’t believe the amount of information that I get paid to do. But if you really want to get down to the nitty gritty of it, you know, I saw one the other day where you take a Cotter pin and slide some Emery cloth through it and hook it into a, drove it to a clean rust out of skewer. Oh, that idea for my own part would be maybe on vehicle lug nuts. I don’t know how many people actually get sockets caught on those, if they’re a little rusted or whatnot, but I found if you spray like a little bit of a dry Molly lube or WD 40 into those, you can you can keep it from sticking so much.
Trent Manning:
Okay. Yeah, that’s a really good one that I have not heard. I think that was Ben beard. The Emory,
Brack Crouch:
was, that was great.
Trent Manning:
yeah, that was, it was great.
Brack Crouch:
You know, I’ve always had that, that one index finger that comes out rust orange from trying to, you know, trying to sand something out.
Trent Manning:
yep. No, that was a good one.
Brack Crouch:
we used it today, actually.
Trent Manning:
Awesome. What about a brake cylinder?
Brack Crouch:
Excuse me.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I mean, have you ever used one?
Brack Crouch:
No.
Trent Manning:
No. Okay. That’s usually what I go to now that they’re technically made for that, but you can get them for all different kinds of bore sizes and it’s got, so it was like an engine cylinder home, but it’s small diameter. So it’ll go in a, a brake cylinder. So I guess. What I’ve been doing and when it’s really rusty, you can kind of go through them and they’re not real cheap. So yeah, the Emery cloth and Carter pan, it was a really, really good idea.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah. I think I might’ve spent like 35 cents today
Trent Manning:
Right. Exactly. Yup. That’s awesome. What else do you want to talk about?
Brack Crouch:
most people know that you know, a great, a great source of information is getting involved in your local chapters plus national chapters, and then doing any continuing education. And I’ve been putting sort of a unique situation where here in Utah, they have the Utah chapter of the GCs and about two years ago they reached out to me and I’m not exactly certain how my name came. But I was, I guess, tasked with trying to help them start an equipment managers classification, and we have done so, but with COVID that hit shortly after we’ve been really struggling to get this thing off the ground and currently. We have nine equipment manager members. And as I did reach out to GCSA to find out what the national standard is, and it is about 9%. And since we have a hundred courses and we have nine members, we are at about? 9%, so sort of holding true, but I think it could be a lot higher. You know, it seems that all the. Oh, the superintendents are really hoping that their equipment managers take part in stuff like this. But, you know, we’re running into certain obstacles on, what education is interesting and who do we enlist to? Hold these talks, you know, where I’m located. It’s pretty far from the center of things is as it goes. So, you know, we do have plans to have our first education day in mid January coming up. And it will be at our local Toro distributor doing more, more hands-on. Training, as opposed to all of the other ones, which were PowerPoint presentations. And really the only reason people went was to get the food and the Toro schwag. So we another obstacle that we’ve been running into is, a lot of superintendents are saying, well, my, my equipment is. he never learns anything at these things. So he’s not going to be going. And, I come back every time with that and just say, you know, either he does know everything and he should be teaching the rest of us or he should take it like I do, where it doesn’t matter what education setting I’m going into. I’m always looking at. That one little thing. I mean, it might be a Eureka moment and make my life extremely easy. Or it could be, years and years of compiling these little things, which then, time-wise, you’re talking about days per year, it’s taking off of labor because of the efficiency that you’re gaining from knowing these things. So getting guys to, to realize that you know, there’s an opportunity to learn in every setting. I mean, even if it is When, you know, you’re going up to pizza for lunch and you and the guy next to you have a small little conversation and he says something that, you know, makes a lot of sense to you. So it’s just, it’s just getting in with a community of like-minded people and talking about things that you know about.
Trent Manning:
I don’t know, I think it’s on us to try to change the culture too. And I don’t want to talk bad about anybody, but I think they are people that has been in the industry too long, and they’re not happy while they’re doing and they should find something else. If you’re not happy doing what you’re doing, find something else. There’s some out there for you. And I’m a hundred percent with you. No matter what the education is, you can learn something. And if you know it all, you need to be doing something else. And I mean, I’ve said this my whole life, but the day that I stopped learning something, I’m quitting because it’s not doing me. I need to be somewhere else. And I’ve been doing this a long time and every day I still learn something. And while there might not be some amazing thing, that’s going to save me hours and hours, but you learn something every day
Brack Crouch:
That’s right.
Trent Manning:
and
Brack Crouch:
You think about all the things you learned since the mid nineties, you know, how much more efficient and better you are at your job because of it,
Trent Manning:
well, yeah, I mean, I look back at what I was doing in the midnight. And I didn’t know what I was doing at all.
Brack Crouch:
that’s right.
Trent Manning:
And now I think I’m starting to figure it out, but I don’t have it figured out.
Brack Crouch:
I don’t think anybody does.
Trent Manning:
No. And I mean, there’s, you know, some really sharp people out there and they’ll tell you, they don’t have it figured out this is what’s working for them right now, but that doesn’t mean they’re not gonna change and try something. And I think that’s another great thing about what we do is we can always be changing stuff and trying to make things better. And that’s the main reason that I’m where I’m at working for the director of agronomy I have is he has the same mindset is he wants the course to be better every single day. And I do too. And I, I couldn’t stand working for somebody saying, oh no, don’t worry about that. This place is fine. We don’t want to make it any better. I don’t, you know, I just don’t have that in my blood.
Brack Crouch:
I completely agree. You know, the superintendent I work for currently, we’ve known each other for 20 years, you know, the first golf course I worked at he was actually an intern while I was on the Mo crew. You know, I mean, we’ve lived together for five years. I, you know, I dog sat for both his kids’ births. I was at his wedding. You know, we’ve got a really good relationship and, to go back to what we were saying, he’s really pushing me, maybe not to be in the capacity that I’m in, but at least to get out and network and, and learn as much as I possibly can. And I think, that’s, that’s an amazing, an amazing relationship to have. Because I I’ve seen where. Certainly in this climate, I think superintendents are a little afraid of their mechanics or equipment managers leaving. And so when the equipment manager says, you know, I don’t want to go to that. I’m really busy right now. I’ve got all these reels to grind Whatever to sharpen, work quarters. I had a conversation with the president of the association here and he was like, yeah, you know, my equipment manager, he’s not gonna be able to make it. He gave me this list and I was just like, these are all just excuses. You know, you, you can, you can tell your equipment. That he needs to go to this. If you think it’s important enough to vote, yes, we need to have this classification. It should be important enough to be like, you know, maybe the real is can wait until tomorrow. You know, you go go to this thing and better yourself. Maybe you won’t, but you know, there, at least the possibility is there,
Trent Manning:
right. Yeah. I don’t, you know, on the other hand, if the person doesn’t want to go, they’re probably not going to learn anything,
Brack Crouch:
right?
Trent Manning:
you know, cause they’re not in the head space and they’re just going to show up for their free lunch,
Brack Crouch:
Well, but if they don’t go, they certainly won’t learn anything.
Trent Manning:
I’m with you a hundred percent and sometimes people need that push and sometimes you need to be pushed out of your comfort. And it’s okay to not be comfortable and
Brack Crouch:
I certainly agree. I’ve I’ve talked in front of so many groups in the last two years. I never thought I’d be doing that. It’s a shocking how you become used to doing public speaking.
Trent Manning:
oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. If you’d asked me 10 years, would you be doing a podcast? What are you talking about? Not that I even knew what a podcast was 10 years ago, but no, you know what I’m saying? And same thing speaking in front of crowds. I don’t really like big crowds. I do decent like this one-on-one, but in a big crowd, I don’t not my thing. And I thought it was really funny. So I went. I already said that I went to the sip seminar. And John Patterson he’d done. It was about an hour and a half talk on cutting unit maintenance and stuff, and a lot of basic stuff, but a lot of stuff that I probably already knew, but I needed to be reminded of. Anyway, it was a really good talk. He didn’t seem nervous. He’d done an excellent job. And I was talking to him after and he’s like, man, get out there talking this. It just really gets to me, you know? I mean, so we all go through that. I mean, so if you’re sitting in a class and you see an instructor and say, oh man, he’s killing it in the back of the instructors mind, he’s, you know, scared to death, you know? Yeah. It’s, it’s crazy. But like you’re saying, the more you do it, the easier it gets and. Don’t worry about looking stupid. We all gonna look dumb at some point or another. So this is get up there and do it and get out of your comfort zone. And we need more people doing that.
Brack Crouch:
It definitely. I, I, you know, if I can inspire anybody to, you know, either help me along with us or, or, you know, take it off on their own, that. would, that would be amazing. I hear from superintendents all the time that, you know, their, their equipment manager wants to get involved and, and I just really haven’t had any of them reach out to me. But I guess when the day comes, when one does, I’ll be extremely proud of what I’ve done so far.
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no. And I’m, I’m proud of what you’re doing there. That’s awesome. I mean, you’re starting at the, at the ground level and trying to get something going and superintendents need to be encouraged in their. Get out there and help. I don’t, we’re really lucky here in Georgia. I don’t know how many members we have. But we have we only do one mechanics summit NAR a year in January, but we usually have a hundred people there and it’s the best time good education. And it’s like, anything else? Most times people will come for the net. And you get more out of network and you can out of the seminar sometimes, but that’s the thing, just knowing, knowing your neighbor, you know, if you’re at a golf course and you don’t know anybody call the golf course down the road and talk to that person and just get to know them a little bit, or I asked to bomb a drink or a coffee, or, you know, have lunch one day or whatever. I think all that kind of stuff goes a long way.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah, certainly, you know, and end up where we are. You know, you have a mountain range between us and salt lake. You know, we’re up in a ski community. There’s about, I think there’s a well, they’re building a 14th ago of course now, but I think there’s 13 of us and on occasion we just. All get together and have a drink.
Trent Manning:
Okay.
Brack Crouch:
And you know, we, we sit around a table and we all just laugh and have a good time, but, you know, that’s opened up a pathway where, you know, I feel comfortable calling any of them if I’ve got a question. And I, you know, I would hope that they would feel just as comfortable calling me,
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yep. For sure. That’s when I had a little group going here in my local area, we’d get, we were getting together once a month. We’d done it until COVID hit and. That stop. And then I started the podcast and I didn’t have much time for any other thing, but we would get together and I mean, it was just the best time I have lunch and shoot the breeze and talk shop. And like you’re saying, you get a lot more comfortable with those people and you get a known better and you kind of get. Feeling on where they’re really good. So just like in my little group, if I had a sprayer problem, I knew what person to call and if I had a two-stroke problem, I knew I was calling Ken Carson because he was as to stroke.
Brack Crouch:
ed Harris went to, I call for the small engines,
Trent Manning:
Is that
Brack Crouch:
Ed Harris. He was the equipment manager across the way to victory ranch. He owned a small engine business for a long time, so he was the only guy to call.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, that’s that’s right. So it doesn’t matter what, you know, it’s who, you know, sometimes,
Brack Crouch:
That’s right.
Trent Manning:
and just talking to a friend, a colleague or whatever, even if they don’t tell you the answer to tell you how to fix them, just getting it out there in the open. A lot of times we’ll help you solve a problem
Brack Crouch:
And Yeah. I mean, even, even go into the Twitter side of things, I had a lot of reservations of, of answering or, you know, I said, you know, say an equipment manager had a problem. They’re like, has anybody seen this? If I knew the answer, I’d kind of hold back. But I’ve gotten to the point now where I feel comfortable putting myself out there and you know, so far I haven’t gotten any nasty comments back, like, what are you talking about? So, and it is, it’s amazingly gratifying when somebody is like, wow, thank you.
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I do think Twitter is a better platform than say Facebook. Because Facebook, somebody asked a question and then I get bash for ask the question. I seen a post the other day and the guy, you know, he asked her preference, his question with I’m new to the industry. Y’all take it easy on me and don’t be beat me up too bad. But in, you know, then he asked his question and I’m like, that’s ridiculous that the guy has to say. I mean, were you and I new to the industry at one point we were, everybody was new at some point, you know, we didn’t come out of the womb knowing how to set up a cutting unit. Right. So if people are bright, they got to start somewhere and just, yeah, just to answer their question. So, I don’t know. But I do like Twitter. The other thing, if you’re interested, I’ll get you signed up. What’s that? We’ve got a WhatsApp group just to, you know, a text messaging group and it’s been great. And if I ever see anything like that, people bashing somebody they’re gone. I mean, I ain’t putting up that last too short, but I mean, everybody in our group is just amazing. And if you got a question and I ended up questioning and they’re going to do their best that they can to answer it. And we have a lot of fun in there too, you know, sharing pictures of, Hey, you know, look at this, look at that, you know, whatever. I actually got a day. He said he got into a yellow JAG as nasty at 6:00 AM and his face is all swollen up. It’s a long way to start the week, buddy. I hate it for you. That’s terrible. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you. Tell the listeners how they can get ahold of you.
Brack Crouch:
I have shied away from Facebook, you. know, that seems to be fairly toxic. But Twitter ad Brett crouch is easiest way.
Trent Manning:
All right. And for the listeners, don’t hesitate if somebody does, you know, if you see it on Twitter or whatever, and you got a question and you don’t want to put it out. The cinema DM. I don’t know how many DDMs, I’ve got asked him questions and I’ll do the best I can to answer them. And if I don’t know the answer, I might know somebody that does know the answer and I’ll send you that way. So.
Brack Crouch:
I don’t know if you remember, about two years ago, I got in touch with you when they, asked me about this Utah chapter thing that we were trying to get going and, and, you know, ask your advice and you came back with a couple of names and a couple of organizations that I should look at. So you’re extremely helpful with that.
Trent Manning:
Well, thank you for that. But yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m here to help. That’s why we’re doing the podcast. That’s why we got the WhatsApp group going. Anything we can do to help where out
Brack Crouch:
That’s great.
Trent Manning:
Thank you so much for being.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah. Thank you. It’s been, it’s been great.
Trent Manning:
yeah, that’s been fun. And I guess we’ll see you in a couple of weeks. I’ll have to say brag is also on the task group for GCs, and we’ve been working on the CTM certification for a turf equipment managers. And it’s been an awesome experience when you.
Brack Crouch:
Yeah, Yeah, definitely. You know, getting the inner workings of what we’re going to be. You know, rolling out here, here in the near futures is it’s been an honor. it really has.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, it has. And I don’t, I mean, I learned so much just doing that, you know, talking with everybody else and seeing how they’re doing things, how their shops set up, picking up stuff all the time. Well, take care. Thank you again for coming on and we’ll be talking to. Hope you enjoy hearing from BRAC. I remember him reaching out to me. I don’t probably a couple years ago. he sent me an email. And he was trying to get an E M chapter started in Utah. So I gave him, you know, what little information I had. And I’m really proud of what he’s done there. And Utah has definitely got a lot of challenges because it’s not very densely populated. With, Golf courses. Or equipment managers. And that was several a. Courses the superintendent is the equipment manager out there in that region. So I’m very proud all the things he’s doing out there. And Utah. And that’s the way it starts. the ground level. So any of y’all that need help. Just reach out. And. Somebody will help you G C S a. Talk to BRAC. Talk to me. Talk to T tack and the Carolina. So I got a great thing going on there. I’ve also been working alongside BRAC with the CTM program. Uh, certified turf equipment. Manager. And he’s been very instrumental in. Getting that out. And he’s also helped with level one and level two. Of the CTM program. And it’s amazing how much. We all learn working through those programs. 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 real turf techs.