Pit & Quarry, April 2017

happens But I think were going to see a lot of a positive impact for this industry McGEE My sense is probably the same as the others I see my customers having a renewed sense of optimism probably greater than Ive seen maybe in the last 20 years They have a positive outlook on America Its kind of the American ethic if you will to kind of get in there and get things done On the border wall I think the border wall is going to get bogged down in a political standoff grandstanding I think that in California Governor Brown is already starting Hes hiring Eric Holders firm to basically try to block or delay the wall Theyre already talking about using the Endangered Species Act to try to delay it or basically put a stumbling block on the wall So Im less excited about the wall in and of itself other than its a nice political point to play with and I think the politicians will take full advantage of using it as such But the points on infrastructure for roads highways bridges ports airports those sorts of things I am fortunate enough to have a job where I travel the world quite a bit And if the United States wants to stay a world leader a world player they have to invest We have to invest in these things I mean when you look at highways and our interstates that collapse into rivers when you were growing up did you think that would happen in America And weve allowed our politicians to do this And I think this election is basically the comeuppance where people have said enough we need to take care of ourselves too As far as getting the private sector involved we dont know exactly whats going to happen yet but thats what President Trump has stated Were going to do it differently than the way weve done it in the past and were going to try to mitigate the cost to the taxpayer by having these public private partnerships and trying to see if we can do something different Its a refreshing change to have an administration that says Lets figure out how we can do it rather than just saying No we cant do that SMET A follow up question on the general optimism across board Id like to hear from the producers in the room How do you think thats going to affect your business Do you think its going to put a strain on your business or is there so much extra capacity that you have today that you say No well just produce more and sell more and we ll Smet all get rich or do you say No were going to run into equipment problems into raw material problems into people problems Where do you think the strain is going to come in the business GOETHEL I think the biggest impediment is going to be in the labor force finding good quality people to do the job and training individuals Millennials do you want to do this work I think thats the biggest impediment I see The second impediment I see is youve got the federal component from an infrastructure standpoint and then youve got the states How are the states going to manage that How are they going to match funds and do whatever they have to do ALEXANDER Its hard to find good people Its hard to find good people in this industry that want to do this type of business Millennials dont have the same values and the same outlook as many of us who have been in the industry for a long time So yeah the labor force participation is very low but the number of people who want to be involved in our industry is also very low And so what do you have to do to attract the good talent You have to make it a good workplace You have to pay a very competitive rate and those things are pretty simple but its not easy to do The wage rate is an easy thing to fix www kpijci com pitandquarry com April 2017 PIT QUARRY 17