From zero golf experience to a head equipment manager position in a year-and-a-half: that’s just how Matt Leis rolls. Matt joins us from the Westin Kierland Golf Club in Scottsdale, AZ. While earning his bachelor’s degree in accounting, Matt got a taste for turf working for his local parks & rec department. After a quick detour in selling private jets, Matt turned his focus to the golf course where, like all of us, he got hooked on the sunrises. Matt built his skills as an irrigation technician, learned to operate heavy equipment, and threw his hat in the ring for the head EM job with less than two years in the industry under his belt. We get into the weeds on the first cut on overseed and have a whole lot of fun with spreadsheets and forecasting. Matt shares his passion for sports officiating, what that side hustle has taught him, and gives a shout-out to his dad who is a special education teacher.
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. Manny let’s have some Welcome to the real turf techs podcast, episode 26. Today, we’re talking to Matt Leese. He’s the equipment manager at the Western Carolyn golf club and Scottsdale Arizona. The Western Carolina is a 27 hole daily. Golf course. And it is a Troon managed property. Maya has one full-time technician. And one part-time technician working with him in the shop. Let’s talk to Matt today. Welcome Matt to the Reel Turf Techs podcast. Thank you for coming on today.
Matt Leis:
Thanks Trent. Appreciate it.
Trent Manning:
I’m glad you’re here. Tell us how you got into the turf industry.
Matt Leis:
Well, it was definitely a. transition period, came out of the business aviation industry. Actually, I was working for a brokerage company, based in Scottsdale. That’s what originally got me down there from, Wisconsin, where I grew up and, went to college. And, you know, we were in the business of selling private jets, mainly large cabin golf streams, globals. we were affiliated with the company out of the middle east, and they were a large management company over there. And so we bought, sold and traded for a lot of their customers. And then from there, stuck it out for two years with that. It was a very interesting industry to be a part of. just wasn’t Equating to what I wanted to do for a career. So I decided to move on. And so I had a little interim period. knew some people in the golf they gave me the suggestion of, looking at, getting into the maintenance side, if I want to do anything to start. And fortunately my wife and I at the time lived, on the golf course. We had a condo we rented right there and, I ended up just applying originally for an irrigation tech position. I had no idea what I was really getting myself into with even applying for that, when it interviewed, and my superintendent, director of agronomy, he, said, well, we’re already looking at filling that position internally, but we want to offer you a spot on the crew. And so that’s what I did start off as a greenskeeper star off raking bunkers, mow and greens. And then I turned into the. Kind of the list guy, my director of agronomy would make lists every all stuff kind of bugaboo that he was wanting to get taken care of. And I turned into the guy to knock that list out for him. and you know, what kind of predicated me wanting to get into golf as well as my true first turf management experience, if you want to consider it, it was back in college. I was getting an accounting degree, and when during the summer months I worked for my city’s parks and recreation department, and most of the time I was there. We, I was a part of the 55 acre sports complex soccer fields, baseball fields, softball fields. So that was my first real go at anything like that. And then what ended up happening after I left my position with, and business aviation, I wanted to get back to that, but more on a professional level. So that’s why golf really, really interested me. I had no idea if I wanted to be, you know, a superintendent, if I wanted to be, you know, an assistant pro no idea, but I just knew, from the conversations I had with people in the industry, Being at a true in property because of now, even though in my 10 years, since I’ve been there, how big it’s grown, the opportunity would be there. Once I was established on the crew and did that our head mechanic at the time he saw that I had a mechanical inkling in me. He knew that I had some type of experience and from my parks and rec experience, I had had, you know, experience doing PM’s on some of our, smaller equipment. And then my last summer there too, I was very fortunate to work with a guy who is retired, heavy equipment operator. And man, he exposed me to operate skid-steers front end loaders, backhoes, everything in anything. And, it was worth gold. now looking back at it. And so when I took that to the golf course, a I was fortunate because, was able to operate pretty, pretty early in my tenure there. And then two that our head mechanic recognized those inklings. He invited me into the shop. He said, Hey, we got an assistant spot open. And it was that half and half. We have a half and half position at our property. And the main thing I was in charge of in that position was our gas powered maintenance card fleet because we have about 24, you know, Clubcard turf twos that we use. And so that was, that was my main responsibility mornings. I’d be out on the course to in course, set up mow and whatever it happens to be, then that second half of the day, my responsibility, were those carts. And I really came in with zero experience. When it, when it came to being in the shop, I mean, I started off with a little, little red toolbox that had a set of wrenches, some screwdrivers, some other stuff, obviously. Our head mechanic at the time was more than willing to share, especially tools that I needed, but, that’s where it started. And it was a great way to, figure a lot of stuff out. And at the same time I got exposed to then all this stuff that, that we have to take care of on a daily basis, if it’s cutting unit hydraulics, electrical, it just started to build and build and build well. That was about six months after I had started. And then fast forward, another six months, I kind of had seen that, our head mechanic at the time was looking to move on. And also additionally, we had, our other assistant technician. He, he moved on as well, so it was just him and I, and the shop we did end up hiring another assistant. He was a long time guy came to me with a lot of knowledge, but you could tell also he was towards the end of his career. So. Kind of seeing foreshadowing a little bit and seeing what might be coming down. I, I put together how I believed our fleet should be managed. And then after our head mechanic decided to leave, I presented that to my director of agronomy. And then, from there he was comfortable with giving me the interim role. And after a few months, him and our director of golf, offered me the position and we’ve been rifling from there. So it’s, it’s been a pretty wild ride because I’ve, you know, going on four years now in the industry itself. And I went from zero golf experience to becoming the head equipment manager at our club, you know, pretty much within a year and a half. And it was, it was pretty crazy.
Trent Manning:
That’s very cool. And I think a lot of guys can relate to that.
Matt Leis:
And it’s definitely, you know, I think all of us have some different windy roads that get us to the point that we’re at now and how, for me, it really just came all full circle with how all of my experience that I had in college in those college days, definitely prepared me to get me introduced into the golf industry. And then to even, you know, some people, some people might go, oh, you have an accounting degree. Why, why aren’t you an accountant? And I mean, but at the same time, it’s a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a major in accounting. I use all those tools I still had there in the shop every day. cause we’re, we’re managing these assets and that’s what the important thing is. And so man, I’ve, I’ve absolutely loved it, but a lot of self self-teaching right.
Trent Manning:
Mm.
Matt Leis:
I’m one of those kind of odd guys that really liked service manuals and as dry as some of those can be.
Trent Manning:
Hmm.
Matt Leis:
if you want to kill some time, man popping open a service may not remember the first one I read and I didn’t read it fully, but cover to cover looked through. It was just for a greens master 1000 and just kind of figuring out how it all worked. But then the bigger thing is then when I came across an issue, it was so much faster to be able to look up and find a resource because I was kinda familiar with it. So, that was great. And. Kind of that’s that’s the way I’ve learned. I’ve also gotten some additional opportunity, that my club has been able to support me with, with going up to one, up to Minneapolis for Toros training seminar a few years back, done some done, some other to stroke and small engine, stuff. And that’s been, you know, just, I just eat all that up and I, and I just love it.
Trent Manning:
I don’t work on a two-stroke small engine stuff is available, like in your area.
Matt Leis:
Our dealer for our steel and eco products, they’ll have steel and echo come in, and they’ll do it. We did general engine diagnostics and then the other thing too, it became a certification course for carburetor adjustments. So you can properly, purchase the tools and all those kinds of things. And they also, then they had Kohler come in and do a engine rebuild class
Trent Manning:
Okay. Yeah.
Matt Leis:
So that was, that was very neat to be a part of. And because it just, it emulated to everything we have on property because we have of being a 27 whole facility is definitely. Diverse a diverse fleet and a larger fleet because that we do with the double T every day and we’re Mo and every, we Mo all shortcut ahead of, ahead of play, most of the time. And so to have that, all of that equipment, then in the diversity of the equipment, it definitely serves me well to get some more exposure, to all different kinds of, education opportunities for those things.
Trent Manning:
Well, those are great that you have that in your area. I can’t say that we have that in my area. Firstly, when it goes to the steel equipment, just useless knowledge steel Southeast. Is the only company that is not own directly by steel and they don’t do service schools for end users, which is really a bummer because, mid Atlantic steel services, North Carolina, and a buddy of mine, he has a steel class up there. So I’ll go visit him once a year. And, only has a service grill at his shop. Well, unfortunately in the, in the Southeast, we don’t, we don’t get that.
Matt Leis:
I was just going to mention that, you know, and, and that’s the thing too, if we, the biggest thing is we have those opportunities and it’s really important that guys continue to go to those things. And not just from the aspect of, us continuing to learn, but then it shows the demand for it as well. And I know, like you’re saying in the Southeast, it just isn’t there and that’s the tough thing. Right? Cause it doesn’t create this cycle of a supply and demand for those classes. So.
Trent Manning:
Why don’t I was working with steels out east and trying to get a, a class set up and Georgia and a long list of emails. And then it, then COVID. And then I heard anything. I need to follow back up with them. I want to get something going again.
Matt Leis:
for sure.
Trent Manning:
Walk us through your daily shop routine.
Matt Leis:
So I typically try to get, get in about 20 minutes early ahead of when the cruise is going to start, we do our best to, prep and have everything from the day before I’ll touch base with our assistant superintendent or director of agronomy, about mid day, every day to kind of see what the game plan is going forward. So that’s going to allow us to not have to do a heck of a lot in the mornings. We assign every piece of equipment, to everybody. So there’s usually no confusion on, oh, where’s this mower going? Or what’s that mower doing? Or what cart do I have? So double-check those still every morning to make sure our, our assignment sheet is jiving makes it makes good sense. Still as there will be some, some double assignments or things like that. We need to sort out after I check in with them, usually do open up the shop, do a quick, walk around and during the summer months, sometimes when we go and we’ll, we’ll check cutting units in the afternoon. And if the pavement’s 150 degrees, then in the mornings, when it might be 80 and they’re parked inside. It’s just crazy that sometimes went from having great contact to no contact overnight. And you’re kind of like what happened. So I always like to double check that. So we’re not having an issue right. On the first hole, after the crew starts to get ready and go, I’ll usually retreat into my office. I do create a daily schedule for, my two technicians that I work with. And it just allows us to have a, it’s not a very direct of the do this, this and this, but it’s more of a game plan of the day to make sure we’re covered for what we need to do. And so after, after I get that, after that point, it’s done typically everybody’s out of the yard and going, and then I’ll do one, one quick, one quick run. And check, usually, you know, we’re paying on low infrequency two to three days a week with our shortcut right now, but go hit the PA practice greens for greens mowers. First few holes then for our fairways and tees, collars and approach mowers, make sure everything’s looking good there. Then at that point I’ll make it back to the shop. And touch base. Usually my assistant at that point, he typically will most in practice areas and do some other things to assist right out of the gate. But then he gets freed up pretty early. So we’ll touch base game plan on the day, go through any work orders or questions, what we need to do. And then from there, we’ll just kind of get into it. And, you know, there’s, we all have days where sometimes we’re, we’re more office work than in the shop. But then there’s other days that it’s getting right into grinding or whatever it might be. So, then throughout the day, you know, obviously after first jobs are done, when guys are coming off, the course we’ll kind of retouch base. If. You know, we’re in a situation where it might have a specialty piece of equipment going out second job. We’ll usually do a double check of that as well. But then the second half of the day is, usually we’re getting more into checking, cutting units, doing that. And my assistant takes care of a lot of that. It was a great job with it. And, from there it’s kinda then already starting to think about the next day and what we can accomplish. So from there, it’s, you know, that again, checking with the assistant superintendent, making a game plan and, obviously our days never are structured, as we’d like to be, you know, yesterday was a prime prime example and it usually snowballs really quick. We’re out vacuuming of Vertica clippings, have an issue with our large vac and then about 35 seconds later, I get another call that we have a hydraulic leak on a rough mower. So then it’s we divide and conquer real quick. And then we’re, we’re looking at, we only looked at minimal downtime and that was, that was a plus, but it’s a lot of guys talk about that and that it’s just, you never know what the day is going to give us.
Trent Manning:
You mentioned something about work orders. What are you using to keep track of that?
Matt Leis:
So we use a Toros, my turf, definitely have a dialed in for PMs and preventative maintenance. I wish we could get it to the level of getting everything into there that we do. But man, it’s, it’s, it’s difficult to, when you do those little quick repairs, you’re just maybe swapping apart out doing a quick adjustment. And then it becomes a little cumbersome trying to get all that in there. So I still do keep a, a separate log of, repair parts specific to pieces of equipment and, and, you know, when it comes to labor, right. It is important to understand what pieces of equipment we’re putting a lot of labor into. But the decision makers, a lot of the time at many properties, you know, they, labor’s more fixed, than we might think. So that’s why, in my turf, it really, for me is definitely just keeping us on track. With our preventative maintenance program. And it’s nice because then I can, we can tweak it. We can tweak, adding stuff, during it, it kind of keeps us set. It would be definitely ideal if, we really had our parts room or the parts inventory system completely figured out with it. I’m about, I’m about 80% there. That was one major project that first year, when I took over was, was trying to get that all sorted and, you know, and it’s, it’s no fault to anybody in the past. Any, any golf course maintenance yard and shop kinda ends up turning into a storage area a lot on a large property, like
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah, for sure.
Matt Leis:
there was some stuff I found in there that I had no idea what it was for found out what it was for, some stuff we still had on property. Some we didn’t, It definitely was pretty eyeopening. And from there, it’s my goal to get that figured out. We definitely have more organization, but room to grow in that aspects too, but definitely the, the, the parts repair log has been our key to if it’s justification or if it’s, just keeping an eye on what something is might be costing us, but that’s a, that’s how we go about with that kind of tracking.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, that’s good. That’s what I was getting at. And I know some courses, you know, really want to see that number of the amount of labor that a technician is putting into a piece of equipment, but really at the end of the year, you know, are you going to lose, you know, if you need one assistant technician in your shop and he’s working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, That you know, you get where I’m
Matt Leis:
like I said, it ends up, it ends up being more, like I said, a fixed costs and, in their eyes and the, the main variable is, definitely more the what we’re, what we’re spending on parts.
Trent Manning:
right. Yeah. No, I mean, that’s what I was like, kind of lost my train of thought there, but that’s what I was trying to get at. You’re not going to lose an employee over one piece of equipment or two pieces of equipment. You can’t justify that. So the labor, like you said, is pretty much fixed and you’re just looking at the parts, but I like that. It’s good. You relief grind?
Matt Leis:
We do, we have a beautiful, fully six 30, acupro six 30. it started, you know, grinding wheels when I was back in elementary school. I’m pretty sure. But at the same time, when you look at the mechanisms that are on that, even comparison to the new ones today, very similar and it provides a very good, very good at, quality grind when it’s done. And with relief, grinding definitely took me a while to get that all dialed in, being unfamiliar. But, man, that manual serves great and some videos that fully has out there, definitely helped, but really from post overseed being, being a Southwest property, we do overseed, in the fall. So post oversee. Once we get prepped on, on one of our nines, we do nine at a time. The equipment we’ll use for prep that goes in and we’ll get that all in shape for once we have seed popping. And at that time I take the extra time to make sure we get a good relief grind to OEM spec and gets us into the winter season on a really good note. And then throughout the winter season, it is very easy to maintain a, to OEM specifications, all of our cutting units, just because the frequency of requiring of grinding, it goes down. And so we really like to do that, man, when we get to the summer months and we’re throwing sand around, we’re punching holes everywhere, we’re Verde cutting stuff. It turns into spin and get them back out. but whenever we have the time, we, we do want to get them back to OEM spec, as much as we
Trent Manning:
Right. Gotcha. Good deal. what do you use to prep for ever say? Do you do a lot of scalping?
Matt Leis:
We do it’s, you know, and I think as an, as an industry, right, we’re, we’re, we’re going a little less aggressive on, on prep for oversee. That’s at least in my opinion, from talking to other people. But typically the, in the past, I don’t know what, what the plan is a hundred percent gonna be this year. But you know, it might be a little verdict cut before, and then we’re going to do a scalp, but that was, that was more when we had our, our Heights, we raised our Heights back up during the summer months, but now we’re, we’re at a point where we’re holding, holding pretty low. And I really think going into this oversee, it’s going to be a, a really good thing, cause we’re not going to have to be taken a lot of material off, especially on our shortcut on our fairways and TCAs. I’ve been a part of, you know, a wall to wall where we were scalping and making it look like a nuclear bomb went off. But time times are changing. And, I really think this is going to be a huge benefit and cause too we would, we would go out. We would typically, if it, if it was a verdict cut or if it was just a Mo Mo scalp, we would do that. Then we would have to clean all that material off, maybe go out and mow it again, depending on how good a quality it was. Then from there, after we get everything cleared off and gone and obviously tons of weed eaters, edge, head edgers, all, all stuff. We have people going in, all different kinds of directions. Then from there we had our typical kind of seating application. You know, if it’s, Anderson, rotary spreaders, Gandy drop Cedars, some big Lilly, broadcast spreaders. those are all bins, zinging, zinging out some seed everywhere. And then once it’s down, we turn that water on and let it rock.
Trent Manning:
yeah. Yep, yep. No, I was just curious. We oversee fairways and we start easily the end of July and Merdeka at every week fairways and is a pretty lot Vertica and non disruptive to apply. then. The day of overseed, we will, a little bit heavier. And then most part, we just use to get to eight foot Ganges
Matt Leis:
We got a 10 footer.
Trent Manning:
yeah. And we use those and get down all our ever see it and you know, the Thai hands and some of those places that are a little more handwork, but we get around the new McCann with the big ones.
Matt Leis:
For sure. And we during the summer months, during our summer maintenance, that’s when we heavily Virta cut during those times we’re, you know, being a 27 old facility, it’s, we’re fortunate because we get to close nine at a
Trent Manning:
Hmm.
Matt Leis:
and take care of everything during those closures and always have 18 holes open, which is still good. And. That’s when we’ll go through Green’s aerification we’ll do, we’ll do heavy verdict, cutting practices. So for, for us, I mean, go time really starts in June. When we really think about our schedule, everybody always asks me about, oh, you guys are so busy in the, in the winter. And yeah, golf is busy, but when it comes to agronomic practices, we’re kind of re slowed down a little bit, and we’re more in maintenance mode. And, but when June hits, it’s, it’s a marathon from June all the way, pretty much to the end of October, when, when that last seed is on the ground and we’re going, and it’s, definitely now this is going to be my, I started in January when I first started off on the crew. And so. Four or five overseas I’m going to be, they have gone through. And so definitely a very neat, neat process. The first time I saw it, it was pretty wild, but it’s, it’s really cool. The end result. Cause there’s nothing better than, than first cuts.
Trent Manning:
Right, right. Yeah. No, it is. There’s nothing like it. So on the first cut and I’m sorry if we’re getting a little sidetrack, but, interested in something a little bit different on the first cut or using real mowers.
Matt Leis:
Yes we are.
Trent Manning:
The reason I asked we, you know, we’ve played back And forth, but pretty much our motto for the last 10 years is we go out with a rotary,
Matt Leis:
Okay.
Trent Manning:
You know, seven to 10 days after Jeremy nations, something like that. And you know, his settlement, you know, and two and a half, something like that. And, Canada Taz membership over for a week. We usually go out, you know, Friday, seven days later and, a low with the rotary and then give them two or three more days. And then we put the real song.
Matt Leis:
Yeah, we’ll, we’ll, we’ll hit the reels right away at a pretty high to cut and then we’ll start whittling it down from there. So it creates a very unique, musical chairs scenario. Once we get into the third course of prep and we have two courses that are oversedated and one of the courses is pretty much down at its final. Definitely creates a musical chair situation. And that’s where, kind of me and me planning out the day, every day for us in the shop is becomes really important. And cause we do the simple duct tape label on every, every mower that signifies where it’s allowed to go. So the hope is the combination of us assigning equipment to our associates and then us having them labeled properly as well will overt disaster. Hopefully at any point.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. I’ve experienced that, thing with our team mowers, because we only overseed our Remuda teas and not 90% of our teasers, Georgia. And, we’ll, kind of run into the same thing there. So that making sure it’s liable is very important. TeleSign fabricated lately.
Matt Leis:
Well, self-taught welder. I usually am good enough to, glue some stuff back together. That’s about the extent of it right now, but if we kind of take fabrication as a loose term, one really neat thing I put together is I created, a spreadsheet on Excel, that broke down how much each piece of equipment should cost us. And this is more predicated on if the, we walked in tomorrow and our entire fleet was gone and we needed a whole new fleet breaking down what we need, what actually works for us. And pretty much being able to come up with a PM budget number is the goal. And then also consumables that knives by dive screws, tires, PR stuff that you can regularly, regularly kind of account for. And. With that, then it really, what started this all was we were looking at a potential for a lease cause we do, we are right now a hundred percent owned facility with all of our equipment. So that was a, big part of us looking into that. And if there would be cost savings or what, what it might be, but very interesting to see what, what some stuff costs on a per month basis, especially, and allows us to then align budgetarily for planning. What, what really is realistic? A realistic amount.
Trent Manning:
I think that totally counts for fabrication because I am a little bit of a spreadsheet junkie and, like nerding out on stuff like that. So you wouldn’t mind, I would enjoy seeing that spreadsheet if you wouldn’t mind
Matt Leis:
That’s some I could share with
Trent Manning:
Yeah. That would be great.
Matt Leis:
It’s it’s Nothing secret about it. Right. But the big thing is, is someone’s got to put in all the data.
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Matt Leis:
My goal is with it is I want to get it to where then the part numbers with the tasks would associate with each, kind of item. So then every year I could go in and just update the pricing and then it would give it, give a four year forecast for us then on, on everything, that when it was going to take some time. And but yeah, it’s definitely an interesting, interesting tool when I kind of wrapped up my last version of it and it’s still not done, but It’s very interesting. Like one, one specifically, one piece of equipment for us is, is our sprayer. MultiPro 5,800, to break down that cost in relation, especially to the pump. Okay. And for, for whatever reason, I view the pump as a consumable. I don’t view it, as more of a long-term thing. I think that needs to be managed more, more on a basis of where than it is on it should be lasting X amount of years. So breaking that down and putting in new heads, a new whole pump assembly itself into the whole mix of what the consumables makes that, interesting price number, on a per month basis, it is an extremely important piece of equipment, obviously. So it, it garners that, requirement when it comes to monetary value, but definitely, eye-opening you put it all down on paper.
Trent Manning:
I bet. I bet. Yeah, no, I would love to love to see some of those numbers. I love, I love numbers. Anyway. What’s your favorite tool?
Matt Leis:
When I started diving into cutting units really hard. I’ve noticed in Toros Toros manuals for cutting units, they kept mentioning this to thousands and shin. And man, once I figured out that and using that to parallel and set to light contact that is specified by the manufacturer, it took so many variables out and that’s why I love that thing. I keep one in my shirt pocket. We, we utilize that also as, for our, for our gauge on determining when we’re going to grind as well. And it’s not you know, for, for those who are not familiar with, without Toro recommends you, you set them up, you drag that you drag that shim between the bed knife and the real, on the same blade at the same spot on each side of the reel and you get it to that. It’ll just drag through. So your next click on that adjusted. Would catch it up and not allow it to go. And then from there you know, if you give it two clicks, cause I can’t remember off the top of my head, but each click is,
Trent Manning:
10.
Matt Leis:
seven, 10 thousands. Yep. And so then if you do the math real quick, obviously then technically there, that gets you to you know, 14,000. So there’d be six, 10 thousands of clearance between if we were getting on a really small scale. So that’s where that light contact definition comes from. And then the other thing that aloud for me personally is that then I got the learn what light contact actually is. Once I, I remember the first time I relief ground a fairway unit and set it up, using the shim that it was completely parallel. It was. Awesome to spend that real that time and be like, all right, so this is what they’re getting at. So then too, when you go out and you’re out in the field and your hand, check-in, you have a good, good idea of either a that’s too loose. The that’s too tight for whatever reason. It can, it can get you thinking. And then how, obviously if you set it up that way, regardless of freshly freshly ground, or if it’s been used, you reset it up and cuts one paper, obviously once you to pay piece of paper, you’re good to go. Then if it doesn’t and you’re still cutting to you got some margin, but for us, that’s what we entered into our grinding protocol and start to schedule it auto rotation so we can get it into the shop and get it ground.
Trent Manning:
No. That’s awesome. And I think that’s really good because
Matt Leis:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
no, if you’re new to the industry and you hadn’t been turning reels for 20 years and know what lot contact is or the whisper you hear guys talk about after a grind does an easy way to get there, you know, with miserable tools.
Matt Leis:
And that’s, that’s a big thing for me is I try to, I always try to think about to teaching somebody. And that’s an easy way to teach that method. It’s it’s very subjective. It’s not objective or no. It’s you know, what am I trying to say here? It’s it’s fine. I did. You can, it’s it’s easy to show and have somebody feel that, where if you’re just saying like, oh, we’re kind of setting it up to this. That might be difficult for somebody to graph. So, I mean, there’s many other things that I, you know, try to make things more objective. If it’s setting up the grinder or if it’s how we rebuild something, if we, we can use measurables, it makes it a heck of a lot
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah, for sure. What’s what do you like best about your.
Matt Leis:
A lot of guys, mirror this, but, it can be the variety, but for me too, it’s that instant gratification. And this is this stems from when I was on the crew too. you’re assigned to go out and rake bunkers. You get into a bunker, you rake it up. Nice. You get out of that bunker and it looks good. You a green, you most straight lines. It looks good. Feels good. And then two, when it, when it, when it’s gotten to me in the shop, it’s about going after repair. Maybe you haven’t done before and then you accomplish it, man. That, that feels great. And especially then, for me, it’s the, not just the fact of that, that piece of equipment is now back out and doing its job. But the other thing too is now I know, and the next time a similar issue comes up, we’ll be able to do it even more efficiently.
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah.
Matt Leis:
that that’s a large part of it. I can not complain about my office view every day. Every, a lot of people talk about that. And for us, where we sit in north Scottsdale, we get a nice view of the McDowell mountains in the background every morning. And the sun creeps up from the east right over the top of those. And it’s always worth taking a second and, feeling good about knowing where we’re
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah, no, that’s awesome. And there’s of my favorite things about this podcast and hearing people talk about the sunrise and how great it is. And you think about people that have different schedules and they never even see the sunrise and it’s something really special to them, but we see it every day and it’s still really special to us.
Matt Leis:
and, and I hearkened back to my, my days growing up in Wisconsin, winter months when, you know, playing, playing basketball and I would go to school in the dark. I would then, you know, go throughout school, go to basketball practice and I’d go home in the
Trent Manning:
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt Leis:
And it was, and in some days I’d never even stepped foot outside of the building. And it’s just, it’s an amazing thing. And that’s why I really enjoyed my work back in, in the, in the summers, during college working outside. And then now it’s just, you know, on, on a scale and the thing I like about Arizona too, that we don’t ever change clocks so that doesn’t really grow and shrink as much throughout the year. So we still get it. We do change our schedule throughout the year, a little bit, depending on winter versus summer, but, we always get to, we always get to see that every day and it’s great.
Trent Manning:
What is the strangest thing you’ve seen at work?
Matt Leis:
It’s definitely there’s two things. When I was on the crew, I was taking care of a high visibility area, right by the resort. It’s kind of perched up on the hill. Next thing I hear is some commotion down on the fairway. It was on number nine forever Acacia course, right in front of the hotel. These two guys are just going at it, throwing punches, tussling, each other, getting down to the ground, you know, it was just, I’m thinking in my head, like I’m a golfer myself. I’ve, I’ve played plenty of golf and played competitively with some friends before. And I don’t ever have risen to the level of requiring to do that. But you know, that was crazy, but the craziest thing I’ve seen on the property, and I technically wasn’t working that day. I had a come to play golf with some friends and I get a call from a director of agronomy and he says, Hey, we got an issue over on Ironwood. A car went through the fence and I’m like, okay. So for us, we want to try to secure the property as well. And behold I’m on just got on property right now. Let me just touch base with these guys, get them set up. I’ll meet you over at the shop. Let’s go check it out. And so we get over there and at that one part of the property, there’s a road that teas, and there’s the big concrete pillars of, Hey, don’t go this direction there. The person. Don’t know what happened. Must must’ve been going pretty quick and somehow launched themselves through and over the concrete pillars through our fence and ended up, they didn’t make it onto the turf, but they were in our our landscape area there. So by the time we’d got all sorted, they had gotten the car, moved into everything and we do keep spare panels of metal fencing in the, in the, in the yard. So we were, we were out there hoisting those into, into position with a backhoe and it was, it was wild to
Trent Manning:
But
Matt Leis:
the car was, I mean, I couldn’t, I couldn’t believe that made it through some of those. And I mean, Ben, Ben, some of those pillars over and I mean, it was crazy,
Trent Manning:
that is crazy, What is one of your pet peeves around them?
Matt Leis:
you know, I, I try to try to have the mantra of. Whatever the next person is going to do. They should be able to do their job right away. And if that goes to us doing a repair properly, so a guys guys get to know the next, whoever it is, the next time was going to do a repair or kind of something to expect that also goes into guys with equipment and then notifying us. We, we check a lot of the equipment every day, but nothing nothing kinda throws a wrench more than anything than if a guy puts a weed-eater back in its spot. It doesn’t work and you want grab the another one, didn’t tell anybody. And then when we got six guys going out with weed eaters and one or two of them don’t work, and now we’re in scramble mode that that can doesn’t make me upset, but it definitely gets me off of my game a little bit
Trent Manning:
yeah, yeah, no, I understand that. And I’ll be willing to say it makes me upset when people don’t tell me stuff’s broken,
Matt Leis:
And we,
Trent Manning:
how are we, going to fix it?
Matt Leis:
yeah, and we did it, we did a fun thing with the crew where we kind of had a little ad campaign of if he hits something, say something more, more, more geared towards our operators. And my director of agronomy came up with this brilliant idea. So we superimposed my face on like an uncle Sam poster, And you know, where he’s pointing and it’s, and it says uncle Matt wants you to say something if you hit something. And we got that posted up, posted up on the wall and in the shop and stuff. So it’s, it’s a good conversation starter for new associates who start with us and gets the message across. And actually since then, we’ve, we’ve had some improvement when it’s come to that,
Trent Manning:
awesome. That’s a really good idea. I like it. What would be your dream job or opportunity?
Matt Leis:
You know, I’m really fortunate to be a part of not only the property I’m at, but being a part of Schroon, I’ve had the opportunity to assist other properties as well. So that’s been really unique and all, and a lot of fun. And, but with that one, one challenge that really intrigues me. And I don’t know if I’ll ever actually do it. Depends on just time and situation and all those other things, but as a brand new property. Cause I believe there’ll be some challenges, you know, some people would talk about oh, it’s all new equipment yet. And all that like that, that’s the exciting stuff. No, I think the exciting stuff is. Being a part of a shop design being a part of a yard setup, also determining determining a fleet of equipment. But that, that, that type of challenge really intrigues me. Don’t know if I’ll ever actually want to do it but at the same time it definitely interests me for that.
Trent Manning:
Oh, yeah, for sure. And you know, if you get there a little early and you’re working out of a tent and you’re doing grow in, I mean, there’s is a ton more variables that. you know, Mike’s is better.
Matt Leis:
Exactly. And it definitely, I feel I could lead to some extreme growth but the way the industry is right now there, I don’t think there’s as many new builds going up.
Trent Manning:
All right,
Matt Leis:
but there still are some but you never know.
Trent Manning:
Well, this next question is going to be a new to our format and it was brought to us by miles Kemp. And do you know who miles campus?
Matt Leis:
The name sounds familiar. I maybe through some of the social media stuff that we do, I’ve I’ve seen the name.
Trent Manning:
He invented the birdie bar,
Matt Leis:
Okay.
Trent Manning:
Hanukkah.
Matt Leis:
Yup. Yup. Now this is all coming to
Trent Manning:
For our listeners, there’s a link and our Twitter that takes you to a survey. And if you fill out that survey, one of the questions is, what would you like to hear us ask guests? And that’s where this question came from. And I thought it was one of the best questions. And it was one of those where I hit my head and said, why didn’t not think of that. So without further ado, what do you know now that you wish you knew on day one?
Matt Leis:
For me, it is. I wish I would’ve known to eliminate variables right away because when it comes to specifically after cut appearance and cutting units if you first start off by getting them all back to a default setting and then making adjustments from there probably would have saved me a lot of heartache and confusion and pain and trying to get everything set up to giving an affricate appearance of what I found acceptable. And when you have like us a fleet, We have anywhere from a 2007 Toro, 56, 10 up to a 20 18 56, 10, and some have some have groomer groomers set ups on them. Some have roller rear roller brush sets, set ups on them. Some are 11 blade. Some are eight blade. Some are forward swept. Some are radial is just how it happens throughout the year or throughout the, throughout the life of the property. And so it’s it’s if you first go back to a default setting then it, it ends up starting from there, then you can make your adjustments, but you need to start somewhere. And I wish I would have been able to do that earlier. I would’ve probably been able to get things to my standard a lot sooner. But that’s it, would’ve probably made things easier.
Trent Manning:
Right, right. No, I think that’s great advice too, because if you just jump in and, you know, you might for changes, you don’t know what fixed it or what made it worse or, you know, whatever the case may be. So good advice. What are the latest tips and tricks that you’ve seen or you want to share?
Matt Leis:
You know, for, for me, I find it really important for our positions, you know, to be true experts when it comes to our equipment. And one, one part of that expertise is knowing how much this stuff costs and what I had found kind of stumbled upon it, but government contracts, right? So if you do some Google search and there’s a lot of municipalities state governments, whatever it might be that. By law have to publish their contracts with different vendors. And so it allows you to, most of them will have an MSRP list. So you can have an idea because depending on your organization you might be you know, you might have some preferred pricing with certain, certain vendors. So you can adjust off there, but knowing the MSRP is stuff definitely can help you out. And especially if you ever need to do a fleet valuation coming from the sales business before nothing pain to me, more than having to reach out to a service provider. And pry for information and asked for a lot of information when I kinda knew that it really wasn’t going to happen. So with this, I don’t, I didn’t need to bother our Arturo sales rep when it more, more or less I’m doing hypothetical thinking stuff. And having that information was, has been valuable to me and has also created an understanding too, of, you know, obviously we have the base price for a lot of these units, but understanding how much a lot of these attachments and extras do end up costing. You can start to question is, is it required? Is it needed? And you can have some serious conversation because if you don’t need X on a piece of equipment that might allow you to get Y on another piece of equipment, that would make more of an impact. And with that. You know, without having to really bug anybody, you can have that information in front of you.
Trent Manning:
That really liked that because, so I got a five-year and a ten-year equipment replacement skills. So I’m always updating that and trying to get new numbers and, you know, I’m bugging salesman and you know, I’m not buying anything today or this year, but I’m probably going to in five years. So I don’t know how much it’s going to cost me in five years. Do you have any kind of equation for project and price long-term like that?
Matt Leis:
I’ve fortunately been tracking the past few years. So that two to 3% number has been pretty safe. I think obviously with the current economic situation That’s blown out the door at this point. So we have to, we’re gonna have to see in the next couple of years but that two to 3% is what I’ve used. And I obviously am on the more conservative route. I want it to potentially be on my list as expensive as it possibly might be. So then if it does come under that number it, it feels a little
Trent Manning:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. First year. So with our spreadsheet and, well, we worked out, we’re sticking with 3%, but like you’re saying, who knows what’s really going to happen in the next, next few years. And honestly, the 3% is almost not enough from what we’ve seen historically with turf equipment, you know, isn’t is not matching the rest of the economy. So maybe that’s a discussion for another day.
Matt Leis:
Yeah.
Trent Manning:
Tell me something about refereeing.
Matt Leis:
So, yeah. You know, everybody talks about side hustles. And for me, it’s, it’s this advocation of sports officiating. And I’ve been doing this thankfully a long time, even though I’m only 29 years old. I’ve been refereeing high school and college athletics since you know, my early twenties and actually I started off umpiring baseball when I was 12 years old.
Trent Manning:
Oh, wow.
Matt Leis:
I had my father was a he was a special ed fire teacher in my school district, in my hometown. Prior to that, he was a program director for our local YMCAs. So he that’s how he got into refereeing was through that. And so he did basketball and softball and baseball and to then our youth baseball program, How they did it is for the nine and 10 year old games, the 11 and 12 year olds on pirates. And then for the 11 and 12 year old games, the 13, 14 year olds on Pyre, then at the 13 and 14 year old level, the, a, usually there was a high school a high school athlete and or kid who wanted to participate in umpiring. And then an adult would do, would be on the game as well. But that also then. Went into our youth football program or youth football program was varsity football players. At least twice during the year had to go out and work youth football. And so on youth football games, it was two adults and then two, two high school football players on the game. So those were my first exposures to officiating. I was fortunate enough my freshman year of college, I did play go play football for one year I had an injury and then at that time that made me kind of reconsider if I wanted to continue participating as an athlete. But one thing I knew for sure is I wanted to participate as an official and it kept me engaged in the game. So I started referee in high school athletics at that point. So that was when I was 18, 19 years old. And it’s been a, it’s been a great thing. I’ve got to meet people all across the country. I’ve been very fortunate to have been rewarded for some of my hard work on working state championship games, work you know, collegiate post-season football games. I’ve you know, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve got to had I’ve had the experience of working in front of a crowd of 16,000 people for a state championship
Trent Manning:
That’s
Matt Leis:
And it’s, it’s a pretty wild thing. And I really encourage people to. Consider it if you want to stay engaged in athletics, Specifically for football, having a crew of five to seven guys go out and work a game, man, there’s nothing better. It, it brings back it brings back that team aspect and that comradery, and I really, really enjoy it. And I have pursued some trying to work college football at a high level and really really have a lot of good things going with that right now. And I’m very fortunate to work with a director of agronomy and a director of golf who really support what I do when it comes to this advocation
Trent Manning:
Yeah, no, that’d be great.
Matt Leis:
It’s, it does create some busy times in the fall for me because we’re in the middle of overseed. And then I might be hopping on a flight to somewhere in west Texas to go work a college football on Friday night, and I’ll be back, you know, Sunday morning and then be back at the course on Monday. But it can it can become a little overextension sometimes, but it is a lot of fun still and my best friends all officiate we, we definitely have grown grown together. Some of us have kind of went through the ranks together. But it’s something I started back you know, back in Wisconsin, I was very fortunate to have have some people take me under their wing and then continued on with it here in Arizona. And it’s taken me some pretty cool places.
Trent Manning:
That is so awesome. That’s incredible. So most of the folks you work with, this is a side hustle for them as well.
Matt Leis:
Yeah. A majority until you’re at. More of the professional level. It does become a vocation. It stays an advocation for a very long time. But I mean, I got buddies who are facility directors for universities who are there, you know, they might be in business. They might be in finance. They might be in sales comes from all walks of life. And that’s the thing I love about it too, is we’re all there for a common goal of that’s the betterment of the game and to officiating has also created life skills that I’ll never you know, never would have gotten in any other avenue. I mean there’s, there’s been times definitely that I’ve taken what I would do on a, on a athletic field and I’ve taken it into my professional life too, if it’s at work. Cause you know, sometimes you’re dealing with some people that have some emotional investment in something. If it’s a job, if it’s a position if it’s a kid and. Athletic event. It’s usually, you know, there some, some parent whose kid is out on that field. And so you’re never gonna, you’re never gonna, you know, look past that and don’t think it’s a big deal because I don’t know what that emotion, emotional investment is like. So I’m going to make sure that I’m going to respect whatever way they’re going to go about it. But at the same time, if it rises to the level of of an issue, we are, we have rules in place to take care of
Trent Manning:
Right, right, right.
Matt Leis:
But in the, in the workplace has allowed me to, it’s grown my communication skills, like none other from when I started. And it’s, it’s definitely a really has a lot of life skills in it that you can hone in. And it’s, it’s, it’s great.
Trent Manning:
That’s awesome. you talk to any of the field managers while you’re there?
Matt Leis:
Haven’t yet. It’s been since I’ve been in the industry now I just, I remember vividly going to a university and being being on there on a field and it was natural, natural turf. I’m just like, man, this looks good. And I’m down on my hands and knees looking through looking through the turf and checking it out and all the guys in my career, like, what are you doing? But one thing I do here specifically in the valley is every time I work a high school football game on a field In immaculate shape and there’s many of them here in the valley, I always make sure to send the athletic director a note, to let their, let their guys know that they’re doing, they’re doing a heck of a job. And cause I know that it ain’t easy, especially for for people who might not have all the resources we do in the golf industry.
Trent Manning:
Oh, for
Matt Leis:
still put out a great product.
Trent Manning:
Right. And I mean, not to get off subject here, but I do think it’s interesting. So we have a golf course. We have one sport and you have a field. You might have 10 different spores on the same field. And I mean, it’s just getting more out trashed, you know, especially the lacrosse and stuff like that. I mean, destroys a field.
Matt Leis:
It does. And, and hi, when I think about the fact that, you know, we’re a golf course that we pumped through 55 plus thousand rounds every year. And how much traffic that is. Well, think about 22 football players in the middle, third of a field. Like, how do you keep that
Trent Manning:
Right, right.
Matt Leis:
And that, that, that’s a pretty wild thing. And then to you add on, all right, and then next night there was a soccer game and the next night there’s a lacrosse game. And then how do you keep some of these natural, natural turf surfaces going? And
Trent Manning:
Well, And don’t forget the ban wants to come out there and practice.
Matt Leis:
And then there’s pee during the day there. Um, it, it’s absolutely crazy. And I’m hoping locally here to, to connect with more, more of those guys and, and gals who who do maintain, maintain those surfaces. Cause there’s, there’s probably a lot of stuff we can learn from them as well.
Trent Manning:
Oh yeah. And they’re definitely incredible because a lot of them are, you know, the field manager, you know, a lot of hats too, this lag, I feel we do in this industry. We wear a lot of hats too. I was talking to a guy today and he was saying that he can’t touch electrical. And they have to call an electrician. And I thought, man, that would be so nice. W I was, I had that luxury of calling electrician, but it seems like I’m the electrician in my course. And I think a lot of guys and gals can relate to that we do wear a lot of different hats.
Matt Leis:
that is for sure.
Trent Manning:
Tell the listeners how they can get ahold of you.
Matt Leis:
So I’ve been a little more active on Twitter lately, but at Matt lease 48. That’s my high school football
Trent Manning:
All right. Yeah. I like it.
Matt Leis:
and my, my dad’s my dad’s college football number. So if you didn’t want to send a message through that you know, it it’s it’s been a really good, and that’s where I got it. Got the start of getting in touch with everybody in the industry was through that. I really encourage guys to take a peek at Twitter and to also if they’re a part of our real turf text group, that thing has been great. That’s been a gold mine. My multiple 5,800 is one great example of that, of getting that thing cleaned up from suggestions from guys. That’s it’s been great.
Trent Manning:
Yeah, I, can’t say enough good things about the degree we got going on that real turf techs and the WatsApp. And if you’re interested in that, send me an email, she made the M we’ll get you in there. But it’s been great. and I, love it because I don’t have to do anything, you know, the, the community that does it all. And there’s plenty of conversation guys and gals. Talking about their frustrations that they have the course, and I think it, helps them not feel alone. So especially if you’re one person working at a shop in the middle of nowhere and you think I’m the only person that’s dealing with this, you’re not there. There’s another person down the road of this dealing with the exact same thing. Thank you so much, Matt. I really enjoyed this. It’s been great.
Matt Leis:
it, Trent. Yeah, this, this has been great. And if we want to we want to connect back up and talk more officiating some time or anything like that. Definitely more than willing to have more conversations on
Trent Manning:
Oh Yeah, And I wouldn’t mind talking numbers again on the equipment one day. And I’ll look forward to seeing your spreadsheet.
Matt Leis:
No, I’ll send it your
Trent Manning:
All right. Thank you, sir. Have a good.
Matt Leis:
No problem. You too.
Trent Manning:
Hope you enjoy it here. From Matt. Always love talking spreadsheets. Nothing interesting anymore that I good spreadsheet. If you’re not familiar with spreadsheets, I would encourage you to dig into it. It’s amazing. What all you can do with a spreadsheet. And there’s tons of YouTube videos and stuff like that. Um, pretty much anything you want to do. And it’ll walk you right through it to teach you how to do it. And I hope to get together with Matt again, and just talk more about spreadsheets. When we talked about that after the interview. And I think that would be a pretty fun. I don’t know. A lot of you guys, and gals are already using that. So. Why not expand on that a little bit. We’ll see you next week. Thanks for listening. 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.