Join our host as he hangs out with Certified Turf Equipment Managers Bryan Epland and Jordan Roth. They recap the ins and outs of Trent’s Nebraska shop tours and the 2023 NGCSA Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska – from Jordan’s cool Milwaukee tools to the mystery of the ‘funnel Christmas tree.’
Get the lowdown on why Nebraska’s sandhills are special and learn the ropes on starting small at your local EM event. Bryan and Jordan share tips on making EM education events a hit and why you might be the spark your area needs to get something started.
This crew provides a good reminder on finding the fun in life’s technical glitches. Join the Nebraska crew for an hour packed with turf wisdom and good vibes.
Thank you to @ASBtaskTracker for supporting this episode and agronomy teams everywhere!
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 I Welcome to the real turf techs podcast today. I’m sitting down. This is the first time ever doing this with more than one guest at one time. And I’m sitting here with Jordan Roth at champions run. Yep. Give me a head nod. Make, make sure that didn’t mess that up. And Brian Eplin at Arbor links. And both of these fine gentlemen are in Nebraska. And they were very nice to invite me to speak at the Nebraska Imposium the better part. In my opinion, the employees imposing was great. We’ll get to that. I really enjoyed it, but I really enjoyed the shop tours we done on my first day there, and thank y’all so much for setting that up.
Bryan Epland: 1:11
Our pleasure. Thank you, Trent.
Trent Manning: 1:13
So I just thought we would kind of talk about the different courses we went to. So. I got in that morning rented a really sweet ride. buT yeah, not, I’m not trying to to brag here, but it was really cool. An Audi SUV Quattro seven. I had a hard time getting it and to drive and every time I got in it. And wanted to put it in drive. I put it in reverse first. I mean, it was, yeah, it was a little hard. And then when you park, you had to hit the P button to park it. You could not use the shifter. So that, that took a little bit. But I drove to Jordan’s course and Brian met us there and kind of walked me through Jordan, your setup at Champions Run.
Jordan Roth: 2:04
We did just a quick little shop tour. I mean, I kind of saw the operation for, for what it was and a pretty decent busy fall day in Nebraska where we’re fighting leaves and fighting the last little bit of grass growth and just doing a few of those things. And yeah, you know, from there, we went over to Happy Hollow and saw Mr. Brian Poole, who has been at Happy Hollow since, I believe, 2014. He’s the lead technician there, and he’s got a guy underneath him that just started a couple weeks ago. So, it was really good to see those two guys interacting, and, you know, Brian kind of, Passing down some of his knowledge and skill sets to what is hopefully the next generation of techs at that facility. HaPpy Hollow. Go
Trent Manning: 2:52
you know how young that young man is that was helping him?
Jordan Roth: 2:57
be 19 or 20.
Trent Manning: 2:59
Yeah, I was really excited. Yeah. I was really excited to see a dude that young.
Jordan Roth: 3:06
Yeah, and I, just from talking to those guys in passing and over the phone Sounds like they’re doing a good apprenticeship program with him. Where, you know, there’s some tool allowances and… There’s, you know, just the opportunity to learn under Brian, who’s been a technician in the industry for, oh, I think probably close to 30 years.
Trent Manning: 3:28
Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. Is he getting close to retirement? Do you know?
Jordan Roth: 3:33
I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s quite at that age yet. He’s still kicking pretty strong and he, he’s very active there at the club,
Trent Manning: 3:42
Yeah. That’s awesome. Really, really good to see. And that, that was a nice facility. And then back on your facility, I mean, you had a super nice facility there, clean, organized, squared away. Love to see it. And especially after some of the shops I’ve been into that, yeah, especially my days with like Jerry Pate and Tor, I mean, I’m sure you with Jacobson dealer, I mean, how many Bad shops. Did you get to see?
Jordan Roth: 4:08
we saw them all, but you, you kind of saw, and you understand, you got to understand the struggle some of those guys go through, you know, like. We all go through it ourselves too. You get your spurts and sometimes things get out of sorts. But as long as everything has a place, you can find a spot for it and keep some sort of normalcy within your shop life. Just to kind of help your day go better. But like Brian, you were a customer of mine way back in the day. I remember your day one.
Bryan Epland: 4:37
Yeah, you know, that’s how we met. The good old Jacobson days.
Jordan Roth: 4:40
It was just sunshine and rainbows, wasn’t it, Brian?
Bryan Epland: 4:43
Yeah, I saw you a lot.
Jordan Roth: 4:45
Yeah.
Trent Manning: 4:46
good. I don’t, I mean, that was another thing I guess I noticed and we’ll move on through the thing, but just while I’m thinking about it, that I noticed y’all had really good interaction with the other techs in the area. The class and you could just tell, you know, I mean, I think you being Jordan on the road and getting to meet those guys and know them better than say Brian does, you know, and, but you bring Brian into the fold too. And I don’t, I mean, it just seemed like a good cohesive group.
Jordan Roth: 5:24
Yeah, and I don’t want to take words out of Brian’s mouth, but I think he’s done the most out of anybody here in the state of Nebraska for the EMs in our little chapter that we’re trying to grow and the classification and everything. So it’s, you know, hats off to Brian for doing all that.
Bryan Epland: 5:39
Yeah,
Trent Manning: 5:40
Oh yeah, for sure.
Bryan Epland: 5:41
I think some of that too is just we’re not as, you know, we don’t have as many techs in the area either as many golf courses. We have quite a few, but if you, if you compare directly to maybe like Atlanta, so everybody kind of knows each other. I mean, Jordan obviously knows a lot more guys than I do, but it’s just fewer and further between.
Trent Manning: 5:59
well, that was, well, just this is going to be a whirlwind cause me and Brian just got back from Myrtle beach for the T TAC slash Carolinas group. And that was one thing, a good friend of ours. And he’s in the WhatsApp group Chad cancer. He’s been on the podcast before he was saying that, I don’t know how many courses there is in Myrtle beach. I mean, there’s a lot of courses. And he’s like, yeah, over a hundred courses in Myrtle beach and one city. And he’s like the only tech that comes to this stuff and it’s in their city. I mean, it’s just unbelievable that you got a great resource there and people don’t show up. It’s kind of a shame.
Bryan Epland: 6:45
yeah, we have guys that travel from, you know, we’ve had guys show up from Caprock, which is, it couldn’t be any further away from the east side of state where we’re at, so. So I’m not saying anything bad about TTAC or Myrtle Beach area, but It just seems like what we got going, it kind of solidifies that and makes us realize what we’re doing is the right thing. Hopefully, anyway.
Trent Manning: 7:03
it is. I think it’s awesome. Yeah. What y’all are doing there. And I think it’s so great that I may have put Brian’s name on an email. Today about as one of the GCSA staff guys, the field staff, and he invited me to, I don’t remember what it is. It’s like the field staff get together, not necessarily get together. Did you get an email from him
Bryan Epland: 7:31
I did, from Randy, yeah. Yeah,
Trent Manning: 7:32
Oh, okay.
Bryan Epland: 7:33
is that the one you’re talking
Trent Manning: 7:34
No, I was talking to David. So anyway, you might be getting another email then.
Bryan Epland: 7:39
Well, it might be him and David working together on that.
Trent Manning: 7:43
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very possibly. Yeah. Cause I think he’s the new Southeast guy that took over for Ron, right?
Bryan Epland: 7:50
That could be, yeah.
Trent Manning: 7:51
Yeah. And he could have definitely reached out to Randy.
Bryan Epland: 7:54
Yep.
Trent Manning: 7:54
All right. Since I derailed us so much, where did we go next?
Jordan Roth: 8:00
We went from there over to Indian Creek Golf Course in Elkhorn, Nebraska, another little suburb of Omaha, where Nate was the equipment manager there. Indian Creek hosts a corn ferry tour event there every year, and it was Nate’s first year. He’s been in the industry for a while, but it’s Nate’s first year as an equipment manager. And I think he’s doing an absolute bang up job there. You know, he’s really embraced the role and the position. And you know, happy to call him a friend. And yeah, he’s got a nice little organization going on there. I remember that shop from them being a customer to where it is now. And he’s done really good things there. So it’s nice to see a guy kind of getting into it in his mid thirties and grabbing the bull by the horns there.
Trent Manning: 8:47
No, it’s very cool. And you could tell he’d done a lot of stuff, moving stuff around the fab table he had and yeah. So what was the rotary blade sharpener that y’all all use?
Bryan Epland: 9:00
That’d be the all American sharpener. I think the version of him and I have, it’s like 250 bucks.
Trent Manning: 9:06
I thought that was, yeah, pretty cool.
Bryan Epland: 9:09
Yeah. Yeah. I’m not, I’m not a sponsor by, by any means, but it maintains the same angle all the time, just like some of your milling machines do and some of your more expensive machines do, but it does just a good job in my opinion. So,
Jordan Roth: 9:22
The repeatable function of it is fantastic, because you can take a guy that can’t necessarily hold that angle perfectly every time. Like, we get really used to it. Like, I’ve got nice little you know, action with my body when I used to run a normal angle grinder. But it takes all the variables out of it, and it makes you hold that plane for that angle. You could take a guy that’s your operator if you’re at a smaller course, and say, hey man, you hold a grease gun, you can hold a grinder too.
Trent Manning: 9:50
that’s a great point. And I think Nate or one of y’all, somebody even mentioned that about bringing guys from the crew that normally run the rough mower in the wintertime and he’s in there sharpening blades
Bryan Epland: 10:01
yeah, I believe that was Nate. Yep. Which I think is great. Get them guys. it may be able to take a little better care of the machine if they know they have to sharpen blades and grease as well so.
Trent Manning: 10:10
well, true. Yeah. Yeah. They’re putting a little, little work in a little effort and we’re not all built like Jordan is and holding that same angle all the time. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s hard.
Jordan Roth: 10:23
That, that, all that takes is a couple Chinese buffets and then you get a nice little rest there.
Trent Manning: 10:28
That’s good. Oh, and I have to mention too. So, so I don’t forget. Jordan is the best Google maps slash whatever app you want to use for navigation there is as we’re driving around, he’s like, they’re going to be a pothole up here on your right. You want to be in the left lane. They’re doing some construction up here, a mile ahead. You want to be in the left lane. I mean, it was awesome. I mean, I joke, but you did really, really good.
Bryan Epland: 10:58
know everybody needs a backseat Jordan for sure.
Trent Manning: 11:01
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was good. That definitely made it worthwhile. So, yeah, a couple other things I’m thinking about. Nate, he had a really cool funnel set up this PVC pipe that he could stick his funnels in and it would drain down into the drain into a bucket.
Jordan Roth: 11:23
Drained into another oil caddy. He had, it looked like a oil funnel Christmas tree. He had sent me a picture of it like the day before you showed up Trent. I’m like, sweet. Why don’t we hang an ornament and
Bryan Epland: 11:34
Right, yeah, that’s what I was
Jordan Roth: 11:35
it, it’s a, God, it, it’s got a lot of form and function going on. It looks pretty good.
Trent Manning: 11:41
We’ll cut this out. I’m going to pull my camera up so it can remind me of some of the things that I saw there. Cause I did, I did take some pictures. Was the Milwaukee thing at his place
Bryan Epland: 11:52
That was Jordan’s.
Jordan Roth: 11:54
That was my shop.
Trent Manning: 11:55
Oh, all right. Yeah, that was awesome. So Jordan’s Milwaukee toolbox and Milwaukee electrical setup, very, very cool stuff.
Jordan Roth: 12:06
Have you ever seen those rivet nut insert tools,
Bryan Epland: 12:11
Yeah,
Trent Manning: 12:12
from Milwaukee. I
Jordan Roth: 12:13
not from, well,
Trent Manning: 12:14
Like a regular rivet gun.
Jordan Roth: 12:16
rivet gun, but it sets it can set nuts in like a sheet metal panel. That’s what’s holding all those battery chargers up in
Bryan Epland: 12:22
Oh, neat.
Trent Manning: 12:24
Giving your secrets away. So using the old nutsert.
Jordan Roth: 12:28
yeah, the old nuts are like 80 bucks on Amazon. You get a whole kit that goes up to a half inch.
Trent Manning: 12:33
Oh wow. That’s yeah, that’s really good. I’ll have a kit, but it don’t go to half inches. Maybe it goes to three eights.
Jordan Roth: 12:39
Yeah. I bought it and I set some three eights nutserts and I was like, holy cow, that’s, it’s too easy. You almost don’t even know you set it. Cause it’s got about a 18 inch handle on it.
Trent Manning: 12:49
Oh yeah. That’s heavy duty.
Jordan Roth: 12:51
Yeah. It’s like cheating.
Trent Manning: 12:54
I don’t know if, well, you like to cheat, but did either one of y’all ever work on the old Toro 1000s?
Jordan Roth: 13:02
The GM 1000s, I got two of them
Trent Manning: 13:04
Do they still have nutserts
Jordan Roth: 13:07
in play. Yeah, on the
Trent Manning: 13:08
hold the covers on? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know how many of those are replaced back in the day. Quarter 20, such a pain doing that
Bryan Epland: 13:18
just welded a nut on it at a certain point. Or can you?
Trent Manning: 13:21
Well, it’s like thin sheet metal and yeah, the, we’ll let, we’ll let you re engineer the Toro 1000, Brian.
Bryan Epland: 13:30
No thanks.
Trent Manning: 13:31
Okay. And then I’m looking at Nate’s stuff here behind the, the oil funnel. He had I could have really done y’all a solid and been prepared and had all this up and shared my screen. So you could see the pictures that I’m looking at, but. I don’t want to show you any of my extracurricular stuff, but my mayor may
Bryan Epland: 13:52
yeah. No, we don’t need to see that.
Trent Manning: 13:54
it,
Bryan Epland: 13:55
my favorite thing at Nate’s shop is the fact that he had everything in his tool room or in his parts room to build a go kart.
Trent Manning: 14:01
Yeah, that’s, that’s another
Bryan Epland: 14:03
I’m sitting there like, why are we screwing around? Why aren’t we building this go kart right now?
Trent Manning: 14:08
funny. We, we talked about it me and skip Heinz and we were talking to Hector Velasquez. About having, did y’all ever see monster garage?
Bryan Epland: 14:18
Mm hmm.
Trent Manning: 14:19
You know, and they build some crazy something and we were talking about having like a turf version of monster garage at Hector’s shop. I would love to do something like that. It’d be so much fun.
Jordan Roth: 14:30
they do a Mustang reel mower? Do you remember that episode?
Trent Manning: 14:33
Oh yes. Yes, they did. They sure did. Yeah. I’m sure most people in the golf industry remember that episode.
Jordan Roth: 14:41
That episode and then the that was a Callaway driver commercial back in the day. Where they had a national mower that goes like 5 feet in the air off of a T box.
Trent Manning: 14:52
I don’t remember
Jordan Roth: 14:53
you haven’t seen that one? If you get on YouTube, look up National Mower Callaway. And it’s the grainiest video from 2006 you could ever find. But I, I die laughing because the guy goes flying over a T box. He’s got a chainsaw in his hand. He’s whacking down trees. And the fairway goes from 10 feet wide to 100 yards wide. And it’s…
Trent Manning: 15:14
That’s awesome. Yeah.
Bryan Epland: 15:16
of
Trent Manning: 15:16
Yeah. I’m gonna, I’m gonna have to
Jordan Roth: 15:19
I’ll see if I can find a link and I’ll email it to you guys. You
Trent Manning: 15:24
gotta see that. And yeah, while we’re just rambling here, um, hopefully the listeners enjoy listening to three of us ramble, but did y’all ever see the movie moving with Richard Pryor? It was like late eighties and I think it was a Randy Quaid, no, or Dennis Quaid, one of the Quaids had this. Like eight foot wide real mower with a V8 on it, and it was a walk behind and it was so awesome. And anyway, he comes out of his garage with this, the, you know, I mean, it almost took the whole garage door to, to get out and he gets up to this tree that’s like, you know, whatever, five inches in diameter and the chainsaw comes out and cuts the tree down.
Bryan Epland: 16:15
That’s like a mower.
Trent Manning: 16:15
And he’s, yeah, he’s mowing over gnomes and stuff in the yard with it, just chewing everything up. And since you, you hadn’t seen the movie or Jordan had not telling. So Richard Pryor, he moved, I forget where he’s at, but he moves to Idaho and the house he moves into, he’s so glad to move away from this crazy guy with this huge lawnmower, the house he moves into. Is next door to this guy’s brother, and he has a matching reel mower that’s 8 foot wide with a V8 on it, and he comes out, you know, at like 6 a. m. in the morning to cut his grass and wakes everybody up with a straight pipe V8. Anyway, if listeners has not seen that movie, it’s a classic 80s movie
Bryan Epland: 17:00
Makes you
Trent Manning: 17:00
Richard Pryor.
Bryan Epland: 17:01
guys tried to, tried to do that afterwards, or put a bigger motor on a real mower.
Trent Manning: 17:06
I’m sure, I mean, you see these guys with Harley’s putting V8s on them and stuff. I mean, I couldn’t imagine.
Bryan Epland: 17:12
yeah, I’ve looked into it. So I can’t, I can’t imagine other people have it.
Trent Manning: 17:16
Yeah. Right. Right.
Bryan Epland: 17:17
I’ve got a couple of beads laying around. Yeah,
Trent Manning: 17:23
relate. I mean, a lot of us like the hot rod stuff, you know, I mean, I w I was guilty. I took a steel three 10 and changed out the jug and piston and made it because the bottom ends the same and made it a three 90 and then opened up the exhaust So it was wider and man, that thing will scream and cut some wood. You know, this is what we do in our spare time. The other thing I saw at Nate’s place and he said he bought them off Amazon was hangers for chainsaws. See how I’ve worked chainsaws right into this and didn’t even know I was doing it. Anyway, they hang by the handle and it looked like they were 3d printed. And I thought, that’s pretty cool. So I just got a 3d printer not too long ago and I hadn’t played with it that much, but I really want to get some started, whether I put it on Twitter, how we do it, but, and I talked to J. R. Wilson up at NOIAC about it to getting all those files in one place that people are using on the golf court. I just think it’d be awesome to get something like that going.
Bryan Epland: 18:37
I think you and I had that conversation in Myrtle Beach about, I said what, you know, the Toro keys that everybody breaks or, you know, any kind of sprinkler head key like that. It’d be nice to be able to 3D print that.
Trent Manning: 18:48
Right. And I seen a gap. Go ahead, Jordan.
Jordan Roth: 18:53
3d printers. Are you familiar with thingy verse.
Bryan Epland: 18:56
I’ve heard of it,
Trent Manning: 18:57
Yeah. Yeah.
Jordan Roth: 18:57
Okay. All right. No, our, our assistant’s got a 3d printer at home and he’s done a few things for me. And usually it involves, you know, after work looking at thingy verse. com and I’m like, all right, what kind of cool stuff can we find here? A lot of stuff on there. I just thought I’d throw it out there. I don’t have a 3d printer, but.
Trent Manning: 19:16
No, it’s
Jordan Roth: 19:16
looked there.
Bryan Epland: 19:17
I don’t yet.
Trent Manning: 19:19
right. And I don’t, I think it’s me and Jr’s talked about, I’ve talked about it with other people. I do think it’s going to be something that’s more normal for a course to have. I mean, why not? Cause they’re getting so cheap and you can print off parts. You need, or like Brian was talking about the Toro tool, you know. Just all those different things. And I just thought it’d be awesome if we can get all those files that people are using, kind of like a thingy verse for the golf course industry,
Bryan Epland: 19:48
Yeah, that’d be awesome.
Trent Manning: 19:50
because yeah, you can get on thingy verse and, but you’re scrolling trying to find what you’re looking for. And there’s a lot of cool stuff on there. So yeah, just another idea. And then where did we go after Indian Creek?
Jordan Roth: 20:07
So after there, we went down to Gretna, another suburb of Omaha, kind of did a citywide tour of the whole, whole place and missed every pothole along the way. But
Trent Manning: 20:19
right. Thanks to you.
Jordan Roth: 20:21
went to the Lost Rail Golf Club, which is the, one of the newer builds on this side of the state. It’s a kind of a high end exclusive private club that’s built on the bluffs of the Elkhorn River. Got some amazing scenic views. They’ve been open for, you know, one, one full growing season now. So there’s some really good looks out there as far as you, I don’t even think you have to enjoy the game of golf. If you just like being outside, it’s, you know, a place like that, or Brian’s golf course down in Arbor links where it’s, you know, you and nature. It’s just fun. It’s just good, clean fun. But Brian’s been there, uh, since, you know, before they were open other Brian, Brian Naki. So we saw a lot of Brian’s on our tour. Nate was the only non Brian that we met with. So
Trent Manning: 21:09
When y’all, y’all, y’all told me that you done that on purpose so I could keep everybody’s name straight because everybody knows I struggle with names.
Jordan Roth: 21:17
we can do to help Trent,
Trent Manning: 21:18
Yes. No, thank you.
Jordan Roth: 21:21
I know. So that, that was a cool property. We actually got out and saw some of that and it’s, it’s named after a lost railroad. That has been shut down for a while. And some of those rails and the trails through there are still there. So seeing that is, I thought it was kind of neat. It was the first time I got to be on property there myself, even though I’ve been to their shop a few times.
Trent Manning: 21:40
Was that your first time there, Brian?
Bryan Epland: 21:44
yep. And I, I was enamored by it. I know the superintendent or director of agronomy, Aaron Wunderlich, went up to him a few days later and told him how nice it was and thanked him for having us out there. Cause it was beautiful course,
Trent Manning: 21:57
It was. And I know both of y’all play golf. I don’t, I really care less about golf, but it was a really beautiful golf course. And there is, I’ve had this conversation with my, my director of agronomy. When you show up at certain golf courses and you’re out on the course riding around, you get a sense that there’s something special about that course. And I definitely got that feeling at Lost Braille, you know, and I’ve seen a lot of golf courses and a bunch of them, you know, like, okay, yeah, it’s a golf course, but there’s certain ones, I mean, you know, like some of the high end ones, especially like going to Pine Valley. I mean, that was amazing. The experience the whole time riding around, you’re like, this is special.
Bryan Epland: 22:42
not a blade of grass out of place.
Trent Manning: 22:45
well, and it’s not, I mean, greens, fairways teas. Yeah, it’s perfect. But I mean, they have a lot of natural areas and all the waste bunkers, you know, natural bunkers. And so it wouldn’t like Augusta where, yeah, there’s not a place. A piece of grass outta place or a pine cone that you can find on the ground. You know, it wouldn’t necessarily like
Bryan Epland: 23:10
think it is like lost rail in specific? Not necessarily. Just because it’s what we’re on the subject of, but is it just because you go from the populated area of Omaha or metro, you know, Omaha, and then all of a sudden you’re, you’re on a gravel road and and you can’t see houses around you.
Trent Manning: 23:24
I mean, maybe that plays into it. I think for me what kind of done it was, the bunkering and how all the bunkers looked and it wouldn’t just, you know, a circle. There’s all these, you know, jagged edges, if you will, around the bonkers. But definitely well manicured the. Using the existing landscape and, you know, again, I don’t play golf and I probably shouldn’t even talk about it, but, you know, in the design aspect, you know, letting the land be the course and not having to do a ton of shaping and dirt moving and all those things, I think they’ve done a really good job of using what they had there. To make something special. And then obviously the railroad that ran through there using some of those existing train features to make the whole, I don’t more impressive.
Bryan Epland: 24:18
Yeah, no. And in that hole that you’re talking about, I think it’s hole five. Is that correct, Jordan?
Jordan Roth: 24:23
It sounds right.
Bryan Epland: 24:24
So you tee off through what used to be a train bridge. So you’re, you’re kind of teeing off through a, I mean, obviously you hit over it, but you got this, what appears to be a narrow opening to hit through. But truthfully, you’re hitting over the top of it. It’s, it’s a really neat hole. I don’t know if there’s pictures of it online or anything, but…
Trent Manning: 24:40
Yeah, I’m sure there is. Yeah. And their team markers were railroad spikes. I thought that was cool. I mean, they really done a good job keeping the theme of lost rail and I don’t remember what green it was, but 1 of the back of the grains was actually the old rail bed was the back part of the green. I thought that was cool how they incorporated.
Jordan Roth: 25:02
There’s been some good golf courses been built the last, you know, two, three years here in the state of Nebraska, you know, the lost rail there’s a land man up north, and then there’s another one in Brian’s network out there.
Bryan Epland: 25:16
Yeah, Grey Bull, yep. It’s set to open, I believe July of next year. Maybe a little later. it’s… I don’t know what it, what it is about sandhills, but… Or sandhills, excuse me, but… The designer, David McClay Kidd of Grey Bull, said there’s no other place like it and he’s been all over the world, so… There’s something special there, I guess.
Jordan Roth: 25:36
Oh, the Sandhills are beautiful. I had a chance back in 2005 to go play Sandhills Country Club in Mullen, Nebraska. I was so giddy the whole time. I got on the 18th tee and I’m like, well, crap. This is over. I don’t even remember what I shot. I mean, gosh, I could have had the worst day of my life with a club in my hand, but I had the best day of my life just being out there. It was, it was memorable, beautiful landscapes out there.
Trent Manning: 26:01
Yeah. And I mean, I think that’s another thing about the lost rail is all the views that you have. Cause you kind of up on a hilltop and some really good vistas throughout the property. Well, let’s talk about our first day of training at Lincoln country club
Bryan Epland: 26:19
Yeah,
Trent Manning: 26:19
or is it the country club of Lincoln?
Bryan Epland: 26:21
I say it both ways, but it is the country of Lincoln. So, so
Trent Manning: 26:26
leave it to me. I’m going to screw it up.
Bryan Epland: 26:28
I, I say it both ways, even in emails and stuff to the, the superintendent and the mechanic. So, yeah, no, you want me to start her off, Jordan?
Jordan Roth: 26:36
Yeah, go for it.
Trent Manning: 26:37
actually let’s back up just a little bit and Brian, tell us kind of how you got this going.
Bryan Epland: 26:47
yeah, sure. I believe it was 2000, like January, 2021. For whatever reason. I don’t know if it was something we talked about in the WhatsApp group or what, but I reached out to Katie Boggs of the NGCSA and I emailed her and said, Hey, I want to get something going for mechanics. And she responded pretty much right away, which was good. That was really nice to feel like I was received right away. And then I went to the spring meeting for Nebraska shortly after that and announced what I was doing. I think Jordan was there, a couple other guys. And then I want to say we had our first spring meeting then at Arbor links, just for the equipment managers. It was like, what, three or four of us showed up, Jordan
Jordan Roth: 27:27
and it was it was a small group half the group rode in my pickup
Bryan Epland: 27:30
yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a single cab pickup too. So, so that was great. I was ecstatic that, you know, that four people were there. Cause it meant that there was support, you know, already. So, and then, you know, fast forward throughout the summer, I think we kind of talked a few times. Then last fall. We had our first event, uh, fall of 2022 I had a guy from Chris Eden from Stihl come in. He talked about all the battery options, saws, trimmers, all that stuff. anD then then I did a class over reels and bed knives and angles and theories. Jordan, you did a voltmeter class, I believe, is that correct?
Jordan Roth: 28:06
Yeah, just some basic basic electrical Because what was really, yeah, and then Mark Thomas, he did you know, kind of a educational tutorial on what’s going on inside of a diesel particulate filter and the stages things go through as, you know, the air comes in and out of there and what we’re, what we’re after with that technology. That was great because we opened it up to not just EMS. We had. A lot of assistants and a couple of superintendents and people that were there eager to learn that, that sort of thing. Cause like even going back to my dealership gaze, you know, guys would say, Hey, I’d love to have somebody talk about equipment maintenance at the. At the state show. And well, lo and behold, Brian put it together and we got her done and it was well received last year.
Bryan Epland: 28:54
Yeah, and I think that’s where we really got to dig our heels in a little bit and gain some traction with the superintendent side of things. And from there on out, we’ve had support. I mean, once the spring meeting again this year, I was a lot bigger crowd. Got up again and spoke about what we were doing, and then fast forward to this fall. If you want to dig into that a little bit, Trent, we, um, we had you, the, the one and only Trent Manning come in as our keynote speaker. tHen,
Trent Manning: 29:21
I never, I never in a million years would have thought my name and keynote speaker would been in the, in the same sentence.
Bryan Epland: 29:33
yeah,
Jordan Roth: 29:33
but it
Trent Manning: 29:33
you want to call it that I’m, I’m happy. I’ll take it. I love it.
Bryan Epland: 29:37
That’s what it
Jordan Roth: 29:37
It was a, it was a great home run, I thought, because, you know, that was, this was the first year that the NGCSA went out and did their own symposium on their own, instead of joined with the Nebraska Turfgrass Association. So it was, you know, it was a lot of, a lot of new things for us on the golf course side of the turfgrass industry here in this state. So, yeah, no, it went really well.
Trent Manning: 30:01
That’s awesome. Yeah. I mean, so thank y’all again for inviting me up there. I mean, it was a pleasure for me to get up there, but what y’all done in Nebraska, you know, I think needs to be repeated throughout the country. And something that y’all brought up there that really got my wheels turning is there’s a lot of courses where the superintendent. Or the assistant or superintendent is the assistant. They’re also the a lot of these smaller operations, and I’m sure those guys would like to get more mechanical training or, you know, turf equipment training. And the national show, I think it’s so big, they want to do more of the agronomy stuff while they’re there and not necessarily slide into an EM class. So maybe it’s better to do it on the local level and your local chapter with more equipment management training for assistants and savers.
Bryan Epland: 31:04
well, yeah, you know, you also get to dig some guys out of their, out of their corner, so to speak, and, and get them out and get them involved. I mean, I heard some immediate feedback. I think you were the one that told me Jordan like the day afterwards, those guys said that was great. You know, I’m so glad I went to that. So, we’re two years in and things are kind of skyrocketing right now. And I would. I don’t anticipate it to ever get as big as TTAC just because golf is way bigger down there, but I mean, we’re going the right direction for sure. We’re getting a lot of support from locally and national affiliates. So,
Trent Manning: 31:34
Oh, yeah, and yeah, to try to compare anything to T TAC would be unfair because it is the Carolinas. So you got 2
Bryan Epland: 31:43
yeah,
Trent Manning: 31:43
and there are 2 southern states and there’s a lot of golf, a lot of golf in both states. So, yeah, it would be hard to Matt, you know, Texas. I’m sure they everything’s being in Texas, right? They could probably match something like that. But I think that’s the other challenge when it is like, Texas. I mean, how long does it take to drive across Texas?
Bryan Epland: 32:05
long time. I
Trent Manning: 32:06
Yeah, East East, the West.
Bryan Epland: 32:07
can start in Dallas and it takes you, I think, 9, 10 hours to get to Laredo, maybe a little longer.
Trent Manning: 32:13
Right. So, I mean, logistically, that, you know, would be hard to. Get all those people in one place just because of the travel where North Carolina and South Carolina, and I think that’s one reason they have it at Myrtle beach. I mean, for one, they got a big convention center, but the father’s that is for anybody in North Carolina or South Carolina is probably like Joe Maria has to come from Western North Carolina and it’s five hours and everybody else is within two or three, maybe four,
Bryan Epland: 32:47
or Chad Kinser in 10 minutes.
Trent Manning: 32:50
Well, right. Yeah. Yeah. He lives in the city. Yeah. He has the longest commute and I’ve never seen him not wear shorts Never seen him in a pair of pants and it doesn’t and when we got there It was 50 degrees and raining and he’s still supporting the shorts I don’t know
Bryan Epland: 33:08
Yeah. Some people have
Trent Manning: 33:10
each his own and he’s he’s also a teddy bear. He likes hugs And I got, I got a text one night from Caleb and said, Chad really needs you to get over here to give you a hug like, all right, this is great. But I mean, yeah, T TAC’s another great group, but I think it’s great. Everything that y’all are doing there. And I do hope. That y’all, we, however it works out can spread that throughout the country.
Bryan Epland: 33:44
I think there’s things coming down the pipeline for sure. Just what we were talking about earlier, Trent, I don’t know what we are, or aren’t supposed to say if there’s any secretness to that or yeah, they’re supposed to be kind of developing some kind of plan or implementation to where it’s local, other smaller groups can easily do what we’ve done or do something similar.
Trent Manning: 34:04
Yeah. And I know I guess Ben gets credit for starting it in Michigan. Ben Beard. I know he was really intermittent, intermittent still. I can’t say words. Yes. Yeah, they were I guarantee the, the editor will not cut that out. Every time I make a mistake like that, that’s okay. Anyway, he does a really good job up there in Michigan and he’s since turned it over to Mitch Hunt. And I mean, Mitch, he’ll take the ball and run with it. But I was up there last year. They had a really good group of technicians getting together too. So, and I mean, it just makes my heart warm to see the industry headed in this direction because it’s been so long coming.
Bryan Epland: 34:47
Yeah, for sure.
Jordan Roth: 34:49
Yeah, I, you take like the country club of Lincoln where Mark Thomas is the equipment manager there. I don’t want to put words in his mouth because I don’t recall exactly, but I know he had said he tried to do something like this in Nebraska years ago and it never materialized. So he’s, you know, he’s been there for a while and he’s really excited to be a part of this too. And, you know, there’s, there’s enough guys out there that want it to happen and, you know, honestly, it probably needs to happen too. It’s nice to see the GCSAA know that we’re all a huge part of what happens in the industry. For them to be a part of it and help us be a part of it, it’s nice.
Trent Manning: 35:31
Mm
Bryan Epland: 35:31
Yeah, not only that, it’s, it’s, it’s expressing that the folks that attend these things are wanting to better themselves too, so there’s, there’s, that’s good to see too. It’s refreshing to see that they’re not just the guy in the corner, like I said earlier, they’re the guy that wants to get out there and better themselves and socialize a little bit too.
Trent Manning: 35:48
Yeah. And I, I mean, I think a lot of us and I mean, I’ll speak for myself. I was in my own little corner for a long time doing my thing and living a good life and, and all those things. But. Since I decided to get out of my comfort zone, and that was the talk I had on Tuesday, just, you know, about getting out of your comfort zone. Life is so much better, not just work, but life is a whole lot better getting out of your comfort zone and doing things that make you uncomfortable. And you get to meet so many good people. I mean, just like both of y’all. And I mean, I could. I don’t know how many good people I’ve met and I made the joke and that about, I think we’re all rednecks in the mechanic world. I know a lot of us are, maybe not all of us, but most of us are, you know, down to earth, good people that want to help each other and to get a group, you know, like that together of like minded individuals. Why not? And you might end up with a mentor. Or a friend, a sidekick, you know, something else along the line. And if nothing else, somebody that, that you can call and lean on every now and again, whether you need help necessarily or not. And I talk about Howard Horn a lot. Good friend of mine. He’s a mechanic here and that’s how we met and we became really good friends. And sometimes I’ll just call him up and say, man. Listen to this crap that’s going on today. You know what I mean? Just, just to vent because we all go through that. And I think it is important to have somebody that gets it to vent to. Cause yeah, you might vent to your wife or your girlfriend or some, you know, another friend you have that’s not in the industry and they might be sympathetic and compassionate about things, but it’s not like talking to somebody that has. You know, went through the exact same thing you’re going through. Does that make sense?
Bryan Epland: 37:56
No, 100 percent agree. And it’s actually, I’ve had that scenario happen with my assistant and he’s, you know, he’s pretty green, but it’s happened a lot recently. So.
Trent Manning: 38:06
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, not to be exclusive. It’s not just an EM thing. I mean, we, we all go through it, superintendents and. Assistance. And I mean, I know my director of agronomy comes in my office to vent sometimes about things that are going on.
Jordan Roth: 38:22
That’s part about being the shop therapist, you know.
Trent Manning: 38:25
Yeah, there you go. All right. Who cracked a beer open?
Bryan Epland: 38:29
It wasn’t me, it was me.
Trent Manning: 38:30
Okay. It was definitely you. All right. That’s good. I love it.
Jordan Roth: 38:36
gotta open it up before he hits record,
Bryan Epland: 38:38
Did you see me like?
Trent Manning: 38:39
Yeah. Oh, yep. Yep. That’s good. That was good. Are you drinking a truly?
Bryan Epland: 38:45
Yeah, yeah, I’m off the beer. I drink the lightweight stuff now.
Trent Manning: 38:48
Okay. All right. Well, I won’t make any more jokes
Bryan Epland: 38:51
I’ll accept it. I’ve heard it
Trent Manning: 38:53
now. It’s all good.
Bryan Epland: 38:55
So,
Trent Manning: 38:56
can we, can we talk about the, I don’t, the state beer of Nebraska?
Jordan Roth: 39:02
Brian, I don’t think it’s truly I hate to burst your bubble there, bud.
Bryan Epland: 39:06
Listen, listen man, can
Jordan Roth: 39:08
Unless you got a gluten intolerance, then yeah, then that’s your thing,
Bryan Epland: 39:12
get it on the voting, the roster though, for the voting, just so I feel better?\
Jordan Roth: 39:17
like option J or K, where, how, where’s that
Bryan Epland: 39:20
whatever.
Trent Manning: 39:21
Yeah, that’s really
Bryan Epland: 39:22
There’s a lot of local breweries in Omaha and Lincoln, both. I don’t know what the state beer would be.
Trent Manning: 39:28
it’s Bush light. I found this out at, at, at the after party because one of the, I don’t know if he was superintendent, I said, I don’t know what his role was, but one of the guys that was there, he was not happy that they didn’t serve Bush light. I don’t, do y’all remember the
Bryan Epland: 39:44
Yeah, yeah, I don’t remember what his name was.
Trent Manning: 39:47
He was quite loud and outspoken and maybe he’d already had too many bush lives before he showed up
Bryan Epland: 39:52
he had to,
Trent Manning: 39:53
To that, but it was
Bryan Epland: 39:54
I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna say what he said, but he had to have it switched to Bud Light, and he called it a certain term. So,
Trent Manning: 40:00
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. What I love about task tracker is they’re constantly innovating and listening to their users. They’ve added dozens of updates to make our job easier. One new feature is the ability to upload manuals to the equipment. All you have to do is scan the equipment. QR code. And you have the manual and all other information at the tip of your fingers. You can even create links to those manuals and the work orders. And it goes directly to the page that you need. Make your life a lot easier and check them out at AASB task. tracker.com. Let’s get back to the episode. So yeah,
Bryan Epland: 40:39
continue down the road of the other two?
Trent Manning: 40:41
we had a great EM seminar on Monday or no, I don’t even remember the days. It was Wednesday, right? Yeah. Great seminar day one. And that was a Wednesday. tHen after that we went out, I don’t remember the name of the, was it a brewery that we went
Jordan Roth: 41:00
it was, it was a restaurant in the Haymarket in downtown Lincoln. I just had, had dinner there and it was pretty, pretty informal. You know, everybody invited, not just EMs. It was all those because the the EMs, we had our deal at the Country Club of Lincoln day one, where we covered our agenda and then the superintendents had their own agenda elsewhere at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln there at the East Campus. And then we all met up for dinner in the evening.
Trent Manning: 41:31
well, and I guess going back on day 1, so who spoke 1st?
Bryan Epland: 41:39
you do.
Trent Manning: 41:41
honestly couldn’t remember if I spoke 1st or 2nd, that’s how
Bryan Epland: 41:46
Yeah, so, so you went, you went first I believe you went about, what, two hours for your tips and tricks presentation.
Trent Manning: 41:52
Yeah, it was
Bryan Epland: 41:53
then we had a round table, which was awesome. We got a
Trent Manning: 41:57
that was really
Bryan Epland: 41:58
lot of really good information out of that. And we got some ideas for next year out of it too, which was great.
Trent Manning: 42:03
Cause that was one of the questions you asked right in the round table is what do you want to do next year? What do you want to see?
Bryan Epland: 42:09
what’s something that the equipment managers would benefit from and future events and
Trent Manning: 42:13
And
Bryan Epland: 42:14
a lot of really good ideas came out of it. So
Trent Manning: 42:17
then what Mark done something on sprayers.
Bryan Epland: 42:20
go ahead and do it. I
Jordan Roth: 42:28
on site, I’m going to call them props. You know, we didn’t rebuild anything, but just kind of, you know, what’s inside a diaphragm pump. And, you know, it’s one of those things, I don’t think there was too many guys in the room that had been through the nuts and bolts of a diaphragm pump, and there’s a lot of them out there, you know. So, that was good to see. I’ll be honest. I got into my first one this summer at
Trent Manning: 42:50
Okay.
Jordan Roth: 42:51
five o’clock in the afternoon, the day before a spray day. So it was do or die, but yeah, no, Mark did a good job there. And we had a good discussion about GPS also on the sprayers. And that was kind of nice too. It, when Mark did his presentation, we had some dealer support. We had a couple of different, different colors represented there, and they were able to chime in and give some knowledge and answer a few questions. So it was a good Good open table discussion there, you know, no shade was thrown, too bad,
Trent Manning: 43:22
Well, right. I mean,
Jordan Roth: 43:23
there was a little, little, little ribbing here and there, but, you know, it was, that was good to see, and then,
Trent Manning: 43:30
Yeah. And then what did you and Brian do?
Jordan Roth: 43:32
so, me and Brian number four Brian,
Trent Manning: 43:36
Knocky.
Jordan Roth: 43:37
yeah, Brian Naki from the Lost Rail, we went over just kind of shop management, kind of the, The back end office work that nobody really wants to do and stuff sit in the fan and I just pull tips and tricks showed guys a couple different ways of doing things. I mean, obviously I asked the question. I was like, who does nothing? There was not a hand that went up. Everybody’s got a method that they’re comfortable with, but you know, and doing my research with Brian on the presentation, you know, I even learned a few things from other guys and
Trent Manning: 44:10
Oh
Jordan Roth: 44:10
that I’m going to implement.
Trent Manning: 44:12
Mm hmm. Oh yeah, for
Jordan Roth: 44:14
It was, you know, aside from standing up there and talking to people, just the research side of it, I felt was beneficial because, you know, I’d even, I learned some by preparing to talk to people for 40 minutes and I talked, I talked for 60. That’s my fault,
Trent Manning: 44:30
Oh no, that’s all
Bryan Epland: 44:31
I think it worked out great because we, we got to go to Shields right afterwards. So
Trent Manning: 44:35
Oh yeah. Yeah. Didn’t make a trip by shields, but before I get, forget, I got two points on what you just said, Jordan. And one is I was very impressed by your spreadsheets. Because I’m a fellow spreadsheet nerd, and I knew I was amongst friends when you were showing us how cool some of your, I’m serious. I mean, you could take it as a joke, but I’m serious as a heart attack. I’m a spreadsheet nerd and I could tell you nerd out on spreadsheets, just like I do. And I think it’s very cool.
Jordan Roth: 45:08
Yeah. No, there’s a lot of V lookups and oh, man, they’re drop down list. That’s a running science experiment on a computer for about 15 years now. I’ve been upset and happy with it the whole time, but it’s, you know, it’s just one of those things is what are you comfortable with and what works for you? You
Trent Manning: 45:29
Right, right.
Jordan Roth: 45:30
you know, so
Trent Manning: 45:31
Yeah. At the end of the day,
Jordan Roth: 45:33
nerd and you’re scared of computers, I mean, it was just nice to see that. Not a single hand went up when they said, no, we’re, everybody’s got a plan for tracking maintenance and that’s perfect. So
Trent Manning: 45:45
point I want to make is. You learn in something, putting your class together and I think that’s an important point to make. So anybody that’s listening, if you’re scared of teaching a class or doing something at your local level, or something at the national level is. Just get out of your comfort zone and do it. If you got to ask for help, ask somebody to help because just like Jordan, I mean, you did a great job and you didn’t need any help, but I’m sure you talked to other guys and you were researching, getting more information, you know, all those things. And I mean, they make you better, right? Cause you, you, you learn stuff while you were doing the research, figuring out how you wanted to teach this class and what you want to talk about. And I’ve done it. I don’t know how many times. I mean, every class I put together, I learned something putting the class together. So it’s a learning experience. And if you reach out to the, they’ll help you put something together. So, so you’re not good at PowerPoint or. You know, spreadsheets or, you know, whatever it is, if you, if you struggle with that, you can reach out to them. You can reach out to somebody else, you know, that’s good at that. I mean, I’m terrible at writing, you know, I, I, I hate it and I don’t even really like texting. I’d much rather just call somebody and talk to them. And that’s yet to be determined if I can even talk. Well, I barely know the English language, but it’s, sometimes it’s hard to ask for help, but once you ask the question, most time you’re, you’re met above your expectations and people say, Oh yeah, I don’t mind, I’ll help you with this. I’ll help you with that. And as a mechanic technician, we can offer a lot of help too. So when you need your battery changed or, you know, I mean, it works both ways, you know,
Bryan Epland: 47:50
for sure, I mean, I’ve even run into situations with my current director of agronomy where I’m just a different perspective on something that, you know, him and these, the superintendent can’t necessarily figure out. So a fresh set of ears and eyes and hands is always nice too.
Trent Manning: 48:04
Oh, that’s yeah. A hundred percent. Right. Yeah. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a technical. You know, machine question or agronomy question, sometimes just bouncing it off. Somebody else helps and I’ve told the story, I know, but we had an old guy in the shop at Jerry Pate been there forever knew the, and the Toro encyclopedia, you know. Of the back of his head name off part numbers for this and that, I mean, just incredible knowledgeable guy and I would call him and ask, you know, tell him what I’m working with and half the time he wouldn’t even give me the answer to my problem. But just talking to him, you know, triggered something else like, Ooh, I need to check that, you know, it’s probably, it might be that, you know, I mean, sometimes, yeah, you’d say, oh, well, this, this, and you need a one Oh seven dash 31 62. And it’s torqued, you know, whatever. I mean, he was an encyclopedia, amazing guy, but yeah, just bouncing stuff off. Others, extra set of eyes.
Bryan Epland: 49:11
Oh, and I think we all remember torque specifications, but random ones, like, I can still, because we had problems when I first started Arbor Lynx with Jacobson equipment. It’s like 22 and a half foot pounds, the bed bar bolts, something right in there.
Jordan Roth: 49:26
Well, they’ll, they’ll say 25,
Bryan Epland: 49:29
Yeah, yeah.
Jordan Roth: 49:30
but if you’re running a super tournament bed knife from Jake, that’s stamped with the two X’s on the back and you sneak up on it, you can start to see deflection in that at about 20 to 22. So we’d, we’d really just say, Hey, let’s stick with 20. But yeah, because of all the fun times Brian and I had, uh, yeah, I, I learned a few things there too. And that, that was, that was good. We had a really good product service manager, Mike Dillon, who will believe he was from Bend, Oregon, but that dude covered from Hawaii to Chicago and North. So yeah, so yeah, it was crazy, but yeah, he was in my shop that day and we had your, your cutting units from your your LF 550 in the shop. And he’s like, all right, let’s see where things start to deflect on bed knife torque. Cause we were going through all these crazy scenarios and long story short, to give the listeners some context, we were having issues with rifling reels out there.
Trent Manning: 50:38
Mm-Hmm.
Jordan Roth: 50:39
And at that point in time Jake had some, some other issues that could lead to rifling and it was, is it a, is it B, is it C? Which one is it? What are we dealing with here? Yeah, it was kind of hit or miss on the cases, but yeah, that was, that was a fun one. Yeah, no, to answer your question, Brian, back to me. I remember I could talk to a two by four for 20 minutes out in the parking lot, but yeah, 20 foot pounds is what we came up with there.
Trent Manning: 51:06
All right. Awesome. Good, good story. So that gets through day one and well, day one was the traveling round of the shops, I guess, and then day, that was a Tuesday, right?
Jordan Roth: 51:20
Yes.
Trent Manning: 51:21
Then day two was at Country Club of Lincoln with a seminar, and then we went out to dinner. That was a great time. Met some more good people. And then what do we do on Thursday? We were back at country club of Lincoln. The superintendents were back over there that day. There was a guy talking about bent grass,
Bryan Epland: 51:43
uh, yeah. James Hamilton from Rutgers.
Trent Manning: 51:48
the double Oh seven guru.
Jordan Roth: 51:52
007777. Was it 007XL? He’s the, the breeder of the quote super bents that a lot of people are talking about. He’s the guy that’s been behind the research and the genetics of that, which was pretty interesting to listen to. Like I have a turf grass degree. That’s how I got into the industry. Yeah, I’ve kind of since left that and stayed in the shop where it doesn’t rain
Trent Manning: 52:17
hmm.
Jordan Roth: 52:19
and where Sundays really don’t happen too much. So I like the shop. I like the shop,
Bryan Epland: 52:25
Oh, I, I, I, I apologize. I said I gave you the wrong name. It was Dr. Richard Hurley for the turfgrass. My apologies. Hopefully, I dunno if you can edit that or correct it, but I apologize that
Trent Manning: 52:35
Yeah, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll cut that right out and put in Dr. Hurley.
Bryan Epland: 52:41
You don’t have to, but yeah.
Trent Manning: 52:43
No, we will. We will.
Bryan Epland: 52:45
it was all good stuff.
Trent Manning: 52:46
what we do over here at
Bryan Epland: 52:47
Who, oh, Jay, Jay
Trent Manning: 52:48
Behind the scenes.
Bryan Epland: 52:49
Foreman, former Husker and NFL player for nine years came and spoke and I thought his presentation was pretty funny and informative as well. He basically just said, you know, you can do it. You just have to you know, apply yourself.
Trent Manning: 53:02
Right. And I think that is a good point. Yeah. Just, just apply yourself. It sounds easy. It’s not. It can be really easy. Just get out there and do it.
Bryan Epland: 53:13
I think we lost Jordan. Hold on here. He’s calling me.
Trent Manning: 53:17
Oh yeah.
Bryan Epland: 53:18
what’s up,
Trent Manning: 53:18
he is.
Bryan Epland: 53:19
just said, F you. Ha ha ha ha ha ha Well, I think we’re, are we about ready to wrap up? I mean, we
Trent Manning: 53:27
Yeah, we, we can, we can wrap
Bryan Epland: 53:29
put me on, you can’t put me on speaker. Oh, yeah, he can hear you, you’re on speaker. Right now. You can hear him, right?
Trent Manning: 53:40
Yeah, I can’t hear him.
Bryan Epland: 53:43
What’s up? He can hear
Trent Manning: 53:45
He can’t hear me.
Bryan Epland: 53:46
you, he just can’t hear him. Okay, so, you can, like, you can hear me through the speakerphone, or? Yeah. Microphone or the, or the headset? Both. Cause my computer’s rebooting. Okay, well we can hang out for a second while it does that too. I don’t, I don’t have anywhere to be, but I don’t know if you do Trent, so.
Trent Manning: 54:05
No, I don’t. Yeah.
Bryan Epland: 54:06
they used to have
Trent Manning: 54:07
We’re just going to take a timeout.
Bryan Epland: 54:09
this thing called a melodrama. Local town, Goner, Nebraska. Yeah, melodrama was like a musical. And at intermission, this guy would come out and whistle for 20 minutes and he wouldn’t stop. It was amazing. He’s probably dead by now, but we need that guy to come out and whistle for us for 20 minutes while we’re reviewing. That would be funny. It’s good clean family
Trent Manning: 54:32
I don’t think that, I don’t think this is getting cut.
Bryan Epland: 54:35
No, because it’s funny.
Trent Manning: 54:37
Yeah, it’s funny.
Bryan Epland: 54:38
said he didn’t think this part’s getting cut. Oh, God. How often do you get to have fun and talk to somebody on speakerphone? I’m not even sure what I was. I’ve got my headset on, my phone in my hand, half a bottle of water and one state beer I’m looking at. This is just, it’s just neat. It’s just neat. So, so yeah. What was your favorite part, Trent, about the symposium in general, not necessarily the EM stuff?
Trent Manning: 55:05
I mean, probably the same thing I enjoy about any network opportunity. I think that’s the important part is. Yeah, you can get good education. You can learn some stuff, but the people you meet, you might be talking to your next boss or you might be talking to your next coworker. And I think that’s the most important thing to me is the networking. I was like, y’all, I really enjoyed the, the bent grass talk and how they derive those plants. I thought it was really cool. And I really enjoyed talking to rock. And learning about some research he done at Jordan’s course, I thought that was super cool and I have reached out to him since and even Jordan replied to rocks email, asking some questions about machine set up and all that kind of stuff. And I, I just, I’m a nerd, I like nerding out on information like that and trying to figure out what,
Bryan Epland: 56:12
Well, I think as, as equipment managers, we’re, we like results because results speak, right? They, you know, you fix an engine or rebuild an engine, like I know you’ve done, Trent, a skid steer, and it works afterwards. That’s a result and you get to see that instant, it’s like instant gratification, I guess you’d call it.
Trent Manning: 56:29
Yeah. Yeah. We, yeah. Get a lot of instant
Bryan Epland: 56:32
so when we get to see research and it’s interesting to us, it kind of clicks, I think.
Trent Manning: 56:37
Mm-Hmm. And I’m a little bit of a, a research junkie too. I mean, even, you know, if I’m, like, when I was buying a three D printer, I spent, you know, a month, not every day, but you know, a few nights a week trying to figure out which three D printer I was gonna buy. And anything over a few bucks end up spending a lot of time researching and trying to find, they don’t always work out, but trying to find the best deal and getting the best piece of equipment.
Bryan Epland: 57:08
Yeah,
Trent Manning: 57:12
Is he on? Is he coming
Bryan Epland: 57:14
I think he’s getting on his computer.
Trent Manning: 57:16
Okay.
Bryan Epland: 57:17
Yeah. For the viewers, if Trent doesn’t cut it out, I’ve got Jordan on FaceTime and now I’ve got him on my camera with me.
Trent Manning: 57:25
That’s awesome. I’ve been thinking about doing a YouTube podcast. So video,
Bryan Epland: 57:33
I w I was going to ask you that a while ago about doing so Jordan, I know you can’t hear Trent, but he said he’s been thinking about doing stuff on YouTube. So I, I think
Trent Manning: 57:40
well, I mean, I’ve been thinking about doing videos for a long time, but up here recently, I’ve been thinking about, yeah, since we’re recording, like, we are on Riverside and the videos there to, you know, why not?
Bryan Epland: 57:55
especially the debacle we’ve been going through
Trent Manning: 57:58
Right, right.
Bryan Epland: 57:59
I think it’d be funny.
Trent Manning: 58:00
Pretty funny.
Bryan Epland: 58:01
Are you about back in Jordan? There’s satellites with NASA right now. When we get through home, I’ll be there. Okay, that should only take a few minutes, huh? Not a sponsor.
Trent Manning: 58:12
Like the. Yeah, yeah. Not a sponsor. Yeah, maybe we need to talk to All American Sharpener, see if, see if they would do
Bryan Epland: 58:20
I wonder if they would or wouldn’t. I mean, not to push their product, but I bet, I bet they’ll get some more business out of it. I use ours, you know, twice a week during the growing season, as we call it here in the, in the cold states.
Trent Manning: 58:31
Mm hmm.
Bryan Epland: 58:32
That’s great. We were talking about all American sharpener. You talked about maybe trying to do sponsorships or something like that, or have them be a sponsor. Yeah. If you compare it to some of your, your heavy, your milling machines or your. belt sander machines. Not that they’re, they probably do a better job. I mean, I gotta be honest, but I think Jordan’s still trying to hack into Homeland Security.
Trent Manning: 58:53
No, it’s, it’s all good. I was actually looking at this the settings here and I think I’m just recording the audio, even though,
Bryan Epland: 59:02
Oh,
Trent Manning: 59:03
see each other, because yeah, it’s checked for record audio only.
Bryan Epland: 59:09
I think it’d be fun. I mean, it’d make
Trent Manning: 59:11
Oh yeah.
Bryan Epland: 59:12
unless the, the audio is tied to the video, then it’d make it easier.
Trent Manning: 59:17
Yeah, they’re supposed to be tied together, of course, you know, you’ll end up seeing a bunch of jobs. Jump cuts or whatever. All right. It’s coming back.
Bryan Epland: 59:28
he’s in cause I hung up on him.
Trent Manning: 59:30
Oh It looks like he’s coming back.
Bryan Epland: 59:35
Yeah, he should be.
Trent Manning: 59:37
There he is.
Bryan Epland: 59:38
You didn’t get better looking.
Trent Manning: 59:41
All right.
Jordan Roth: 59:42
Hey, you’d be nice now. Yeah,
Trent Manning: 59:45
be nice Yeah. So that’s a wrap.
Jordan Roth: 59:49
well, you know, I’m glad I could get back on here to say goodbye. Good night and don’t let the bedbugs bite. But yeah, no, thanks for
Trent Manning: 59:58
no. So seriously, yeah, we were talking about the last day and Brian asked me what was my favorite thing about the symposium and I think it’s my favorite thing at any get together is the networking and the people you meet and who you get to talk to. That’s always been my favorite part. What, what, what about you?
Jordan Roth: 1:00:20
Oh, last year was the first year that I got to go to the national show down in Orlando. Never been to a national show since I was in college and in 2006 as a student. And. So, when you, when you walk around the show with a student badge, it’s kind of interesting. Yeah, no, so getting to meet some of those guys. Like, I’d been on the Golf Tex forum, GolfTex. net. And so, I knew like Skip and Chad Braun and some of these guys. Like, and even Mark Thomas, who’s just down the road from us here, who hosted the event for us. You know, I’ve known those guys since I got in the industry in 2006. So, to actually put a face to those names and meet those guys. Talk to them and the same thing here in in Nebraska, too I mean, you know that I knew probably 70 percent of those guys, but the the other 30 percent It was nice to go up shake their hands meet them and see where they’re from and what they’re fighting.
Trent Manning: 1:01:18
What about what about you Brian? What was your favorite part?
Bryan Epland: 1:01:21
Honestly, hadn’t it was just how well received everything was and it meant that we did a pretty good job but if I had to say something that wasn’t anything that I had to do with, it would have been Jay Foreman, the former Husker and NFL player. He had some humor and it just, it was just a well received speech for me.
Trent Manning: 1:01:39
no, really good And back to TTAC for a minute Jordan made me think about it, but Zach, I can’t remember Zach’s last name, but he, from the Landon’s club, he came up and introduced himself and, you know, I’m like, Zach, where are you at? Landon’s club? Oh, yeah, you’re in the WhatsApp group. He’s been in there for close to a year, but I’d never. You know, met him face to face and then I said, you know, these other guys from the WhatsApp. So I’ll take him over and introduced him to Chad and Brian and Chad and yeah, Justin King. I mean, there’s, you know, pretty good group of the WhatsApp people that were Kayla was there too. Wouldn’t she? I think so anyway, that was really cool to, to put a face with. A WhatsApp handle. I think that goes, goes a long way.
Bryan Epland: 1:02:28
a hundred percent.
Trent Manning: 1:02:30
One of my favorite things about going to the national show is, you know, putting, putting names or faces with Twitter handles.
Bryan Epland: 1:02:38
Yeah.
Trent Manning: 1:02:38
Well, it was funny, I guess it was probably three years ago when I was at T TAC Tim Krieger comes in and so he does the pulling weeds for the Carolinas, if you don’t know about that podcast and anyway, I’m standing there right next to him and Mike Rollins is standing there and he’s like, have y’all met? He’s like pulling weeds, meet real turf techs. And he’s like, no way you’re real turf techs. And I’m like, no way you’re pulling weeds. I mean, it was just, you know, cool. Meet, meet in that way by our Twitter handles.
Bryan Epland: 1:03:14
sitting next to each other, standing next to each other too. Yeah.
Trent Manning: 1:03:17
Right. Yeah. Yeah. And luckily Mike was smart enough to know that or realize that we didn’t know each other and introduce us. Well, yeah. So what else do y’all want to talk about? Oh, I got one thing. Arbor links. We didn’t talk about Arbor links. Awesome facility. They rolled out the red carpet for me. I come out to get on my golf cart from the cottage. And the guy’s drying the seat off, turning my card around. I’m like, I did not expect this kind of treatment at all.
Bryan Epland: 1:03:52
Yeah. And I wish, I wish I could say it was just for you, but it’s not like even when I traveled to other courses in the network, they do the same thing. And it always surprises me when there’s a dry seat in the morning like that.
Trent Manning: 1:04:03
No, it was super cool. But the golf course, Brian took me out there and we rode around beautiful property. I got to see the shop. I really liked the sonic booms that you got on the sprayers. And I am going to be checking into those and already talked to my director about
Bryan Epland: 1:04:22
Nice. Yeah. I could I could get you in touch with whoever, I think they had them on the one at the Carolina show too. So you might be able to work something in there.
Jordan Roth: 1:04:30
Are those the the factory John Deere sonic booms you’re talking about,
Bryan Epland: 1:04:34
they yeah, yep, they were developed for good.
Jordan Roth: 1:04:39
I was gonna say we got them here too. They’re They’re nice.
Bryan Epland: 1:04:42
Yeah, I want to say
Trent Manning: 1:04:43
That is yours on Toro, Jordan.
Jordan Roth: 1:04:46
no, we’ve got a HD 300 GPS sprayer here as well and they’re, they’re nice cause gosh, I go back to my turf grass internship days and my first spray rig was a John Deere 1800 utility vehicle. So if anybody knows any of those, yeah, that was a, that was a peach. So yeah, they’ve definitely come a long ways, but they’re nice.
Trent Manning: 1:05:11
yeah. I remember you bringing that up and I think I was one of the only ones that raised my hand, like, yes, I’ve worked on that thing before.
Jordan Roth: 1:05:19
You might be the only guy I know that I’ve met in the last probably 15 years that knows what that is. Cause I, I think the 1800 was built with parts in a dusty corner at a John Deere parts warehouse. And they’re like, Hey, we’ve got a Kawasaki. Hey, we’ve got this over here. Hey, this seat’s from, I don’t remember what it’s from, but we’re going to put it on there.
Trent Manning: 1:05:42
yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s pretty much how it was. And the way I run across it is when I was building ball fields and. So I did most of the construction work for the contractor I worked for on the laser grading and all that stuff. But we also had a maintenance division that maintains sports fields. And I don’t know where he came across the John Deere 1800 sprayer, but that’s what we had in our fleet. And every time he would call me and say, ah, sprayer went down. Can you come look at it when you get done today? You know? Yeah, that’s exactly what I want to do after I get finished working. I want to come work on
Bryan Epland: 1:06:25
we as mechanics are expected to work for free and extra, right?
Trent Manning: 1:06:29
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Well, yeah. So funny story about what I worked for him. So I’d been a mechanic. You know, and once a mechanic, always a mechanic and you’re never going to change my mind on that, but I’ve been a mechanic for a long time and I went to work with him. So I didn’t have to be a mechanic, so I could, you know, be an operator and every time he would want me to work on something, I’d be working on it. And I guess I would get a little angry or whatever. And he’s like, don’t get mechanic face on me. I guess I got a mechanic’s face when I would start mechanic and turning riches.
Bryan Epland: 1:07:04
management.
Jordan Roth: 1:07:05
scowl, isn’t
Bryan Epland: 1:07:06
Yeah,
Trent Manning: 1:07:07
Yeah, it probably is. Yeah. Just a permanent scowl. Yeah. Yeah. So don’t get mechanic faced on anybody out there while you’re actually mechanic. Well, I guess we’ll wrap it up here. I, I mean, I don’t know if the listeners will like this at all, but this has been so much fun. We’ve definitely had a lot of laughs and it’s been a really good
Bryan Epland: 1:07:30
Think it was a lot of fun having having three guys on here three people. It was a different dynamic for sure
Trent Manning: 1:07:37
Yeah, yeah, no. And I definitely want to do that again. I don’t remember this platform. I use it, you know, how many people I think I can get up to eight. I think that might be a little tricky with eight people like Jordan talking at the same time would be. Be tough, but if there’s any two by fours in the room he wants to talk to now, I joke because you made the joke about yourself that you would,
Jordan Roth: 1:08:02
absolutely. Absolutely. I, I, I know how it is. I mean, gosh, I get around you guys. I got maybe a small chance of talking. But when I pick my daughter up from school, my ears are wide open because I can’t get a word in edgewise, you know?
Trent Manning: 1:08:18
Oh yeah.
Jordan Roth: 1:08:19
Just the joys of driving a 15 year old girl home from high school, she’s gonna talk.
Trent Manning: 1:08:26
Got, got a lot to stay. Got a lot to say. And that’s good. That’s fine. Well, thank y’all. We’ll wrap this up. I appreciate both of you being here. I appreciate you inviting me to Nebraska to speak. I would be glad to come back anytime. To speak or just to hang out and have Jordan be our GPS and tell us where to go. I mean, that was just as much fun as any of the rest of the trip
Bryan Epland: 1:08:53
a second to none
Trent Manning: 1:08:54
riding around.
Bryan Epland: 1:08:56
Our state motto, I want to say, Jordan Crickery if I’m wrong, is it’s Nebraska, it’s not for everyone. So is Nebraska for you? Did you like it here?
Trent Manning: 1:09:05
Yeah, no, I did. I definitely enjoyed it there. And obviously I wasn’t there when it’s, you know, below zero and I don’t think I would enjoy that. But no, I thought it was, it was beautiful and you got way more trees than Kansas does. So you got that going for you. Still kind of windy,
Bryan Epland: 1:09:23
That’s the, that’s the Arbor Day side of things, so. We plant a lot of trees here.
Trent Manning: 1:09:29
But yeah, they have a lot of bushes in Kansas. I don’t quite get to tree hide.
Jordan Roth: 1:09:34
You ever get back up here, we’re gonna have to go west
Trent Manning: 1:09:37
Okay. Yeah, for sure. I would love
Jordan Roth: 1:09:39
other side of the state because that’s great out there.
Bryan Epland: 1:09:43
Yeah, it really is.
Trent Manning: 1:09:44
Well, thank y’all until next time.
Jordan Roth: 1:09:46
Trent.
Trent Manning: 1:09:48
See you. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Reel 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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