Custom Cab Interiors: A Niche in the Elevator Industry | Jared Giblin
In this episode, I sat down with Jared Giblin from Draper Elevator Interiors. We talked about how their business evolved into a highly specialized niche, what goes into designing and installing custom elevator cabs, why interiors require such attention to detail, and what’s next for this area of the elevator industry.
Resources:
Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@elevatorcareers/
Submit a Topic Idea for the Podcast: https://elevatorcareers.net/
Connect With Us: linktr.ee/AllredGroup
A Message from our Sponsor:
Looking for top-tier talent to join your team? Call The Allred Group for your elevator recruiting needs! With a deep network and unmatched industry expertise, we quickly connect you with skilled professionals who are ready to elevate your team. Let us handle the hiring process, so you can focus on growing your business with the best in the industry. Reach out today, and let us help you take your business to new heights!
To contact us go to: https://allredgroup.com
Transcript:
Jared Giblin (00:00)
I was at a hotel with my family and it was such a gorgeous hotel. The lobby was incredible. The common areas were so well thought out and we got into the elevator,
it just did not match the aesthetic of the rest of the building. It’s one of those things that it really sticks out. I have to imagine whether you’re in the elevator industry or not, you’d probably feel that as well.
Matt Allred (00:21)
Sure, especially if you’re gonna spend a lot of money and time to design the interior of your hotel. Well, then you want that to carry through. and yeah, it kind of breaks as soon as you walk into this steel cage and it’s like, ⁓ it’s broken.
Jared Giblin (00:35)
Yeah,
we’ve renovated some cabs that, do like a backlit kind of, or something really unique with lighting. I think it just, there’s that wow factor, the doors open up and there’s, whoa, you know, look at this. Like, I didn’t even know you could do something like that.
Matt Allred (00:50)
Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group. I am your host, Matt Allred.
Matt Allred (00:58)
Does your workforce need a lift? At the Allred Group, we are committed to connecting your company with top talent that matches your need. Give us a call at 404-890-0445.
Matt Allred (01:12)
Today’s guest is Jared Giblin of Draper Elevator Interiors, a company that has carved out a strong reputation in the highly specialized world of custom elevator interiors. Jared grew up in and around the family business and has helped guide its evolution from a broad metal fabrication shop into a focused leader in high-end elevator cab design and modernization. In this conversation, we dig into the complexity behind custom elevator interiors, the realities of running a family and partnership
matter so much.
Matt Allred (01:42)
Jared, welcome to the show.
Jared Giblin (01:44)
Thanks for having me. I’m excited for our conversation. I appreciate it.
Matt Allred (01:47)
Yeah, no thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve enjoyed our past conversations and obviously wanted to dig a little deeper into what you do, what you bring to the elevator business. And I just want to start a little bit with your business itself. Like, know, Draper has a strong reputation in a very specific niche, elevator interiors. So I’m curious, what drew you personally into this side of the business and how did the company find its lane in an industry dominated by large OEMs?
Jared Giblin (02:16)
Well, offering really has morphed over time. We started as a metal fabrication shop primarily. We’re making miscellaneous elevator parts like pit ladders, things that are welded and bent that you were really only seen in the hoist way.
Matt Allred (02:27)
Okay.
Jared Giblin (02:31)
A big product line of ours actually was animal research products. We make like rabbit restrainers and custom cages for like
Matt Allred (02:38)
Interesting.
Jared Giblin (02:41)
McLean Hospital, Dana Farmer for research projects that they would have. And there would be the occasional cab worked in there, but it was all pretty much textured metal and plastic laminate. ⁓ I remember when I was younger coming into the shop, I saw a cab that had some Cornean panels in it. And thought, at the time, I thought that was fancy.
Matt Allred (02:52)
Interesting.
Jared Giblin (03:02)
over time, it’s like with…
all the materials that are getting the market and architects really pushing the limits of wanting to design what’s newest and what stands out. mean, the sky’s the limit as far as the product line and the custom cabs kind of just absolutely took off. And it kind of created that where the OEMs can’t really offer that within their standard operating packages. So all the other products that we were offering, it kind of just tailed off because we had to focus on what became the whole.
hottest demand within our business and the more kind of specialized you had to be in the cabs, the less you could spend time doing other things. So we got to a point where we really had to make the decision that like, even though some of these requests and these jobs are being, are coming in, we got to focus on being great at something, being great at one thing. Otherwise, you know, one’s going to suffer for the other
you know, percentage of work was just getting stronger and stronger for the cab. That’s really kind of what, is really kind of where we honed our attention. you know, wasn’t, it didn’t go away easily. My father was very like, I think he had an emotional attachment to some of the other stuff that, really. Yeah, I mean, cause he always had that mindset. You know, he started the business from nothing. So it’s almost like you don’t know when you’re
Matt Allred (04:15)
want to kind of keep doing everything, right?
Jared Giblin (04:25)
where your next job’s coming from and if you turn away business, what could that mean for you? Which I completely understand and if we’re doing a good job for people, you don’t want to tell them, well, hey, we don’t do this anymore. But the more systems that you needed in place and the specialized people to do certain things, it just, it got to a point where it wasn’t meshing well and we had to say, hey, this is where we’re diving in on and we got to be great at this.
Matt Allred (04:26)
I hear you.
Jared Giblin (04:50)
you know, that eventually, it turned into what it is now.
Matt Allred (04:53)
Yeah, I mean, it’s a strategic move, right? It’s a very smart business decision. And honestly, I had to make a similar decision with my company because, you 15 years ago, I started recruiting for elevator companies, but I was also working with a bunch of manufacturing companies from aerospace to auto to food to chemicals, just all over the place. And but I kept gravitating towards elevator. I’m like, no, this is is cool. This is where I want to be. So how long since you as a company said, hey, this is all we do. This is who we are.
Jared Giblin (05:11)
Yeah.
I’d probably say probably somewhere around like 12 years ago. I started in 2009 and I was trying to get my head wrapped around everything.
know, I was following people around trying to learn from them. And what I started to really notice was when I would get a request and like, can you go survey this thing over at, you know, like I said, maybe it’s at BU and I really, I didn’t really know.
how to survey it. didn’t know how to, what the customer was kind of asking for, because I wasn’t experienced in that. I was going out looking at elevators every day. I could, you know, read up about them. I could talk to a lot of people in the industry, but as far as like custom fabricating, you know, a cage that was made for like two monkeys to be able to do the study that they’re doing. I just, I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
It was getting hard for me to communicate it. It didn’t feel like I could give a good customer service to that. And I think the years went on, we weren’t performing as well financially on those jobs because we had maybe a couple of guys that were specialized that could do it. It took so much time. He was hand sketching stuff to give it to the guys in the shop and they were.
once they were working on all this elevator stuff, they’d be like, all right, what is this that I’m looking at? And it would just,
you would see all this time on this job for this, you know, for this one thing. It’s like, how much could you ever really sell that for? we, after a couple of jobs came in that, you know, we weren’t making money on them, it would just made it that much easier. But I think there was like an emotional attachment that was tough for, you know, for my father to let go of, he’s like, hey, this is what got the business off the ground, this kind of stuff. And.
Matt Allred (06:57)
For sure.
Jared Giblin (07:04)
you know, it wasn’t like this easy conversation, but I think, the more people that were responsible for, bringing the jobs in and working on them and saying like, this isn’t, this isn’t easy for us. Not, that the elevator interiors are necessarily easy either, but it was just creating this, you know, friction and it wasn’t really, something that we thought was going to be sustainable to keep, keep the two going, at the same level of quality. So,
you know, we had to make the strategic decision and make a sacrifice.
Matt Allred (07:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, thank you. So I am curious, I mean, you’ve described a little bit about that decision. Obviously, you’re in a family business and they often have a very different heartbeat than corporate environments, for example. So I’m curious, how would you describe the culture at Draper now versus maybe 15 plus years ago when you were still kind of going different directions? I guess on top of that, what is it that makes it feel like a family operation day to day?
I know it’s like a three-part question.
Jared Giblin (08:03)
Yeah, no, I love the fact that as a family business I grew up in the business as a kid, you know, my parents started in 1995. So I always heard
conversations and the discussions that they would have in their home. cared so much about every single person in the company. And I remember my father always saying how
You know, he felt the responsibility to provide for us, obviously, but he also felt like a burden to provide for everyone else’s family. Like he felt like their families were ultimately tied into what he did and how how well the company could do. And it’s something that he took very seriously. And I think that culture just kind of. Was contagious when you come in here, I think people can feel it, you know, I think
for people to do their best work, things have to be right at home. They have to feel like they’re supported, not just, you know, professionally, but personally as well. And, um, you know, we’ve always wanted that kind of a culture and we’ve, we’ve kept it. There are a lot of people that work here. I’ve been here for a long time. think because of that, I think, you know, talking to friends and people different companies, even within the industry, when it gets to be like, you’re just like a cog in the wheel. It’s.
It’s hard to fulfillment and reward for what you do. So that’s always been very important for us. And, we have, for example, our engineering manager, Izzy, he started working for us when he was 16 years old. He’s been here longer than I have. He was working at a tech school and he had to do one week in the high school and one week here in the shop. And he…
Matt Allred (09:35)
Wow, yeah.
Jared Giblin (09:45)
kind of worked his way all the way through the shop floor. Then he started doing some engineering. Now he runs our engineering department, just super sharp guy. But you’ll hear my father when he references him, you know, talk to him, he’ll say, Hey son, you know, and he really, and he does the admiration he has for me. He’s been from been with him for so long and there’s just so much history there. And he cares so much. I really, look at a lot of the people in the company, I feel it does have like a family feel to
Matt Allred (09:59)
That’s cool.
Jared Giblin (10:13)
And
you bring people we always want them to feel like that kind of welcoming atmosphere and that level of support. So I think it makes it a great place to show up and to do your best work.
Matt Allred (10:26)
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I like the, you just point out that, you know, having people care about you is a, is a very big difference than, than feeling like a cog in the wheel. But I am curious, you know, a lot of times with, with family businesses, you know, especially growing up in it, you know, there may have been times when you’re like, no way am I going to do that, right? I’m going the other direction. So I’m curious, you know, once you made that choice, you know, nine to start, what did you think the job was, was going to be
Jared Giblin (10:44)
Yeah.
Matt Allred (10:54)
Well, actually, you’ve kind of described what it was, but you thinking?
Jared Giblin (10:58)
Well, I was excited to come into the business just because I was proud of my parents and what they had built. ⁓ But
Matt Allred (11:05)
Mm-hmm.
Jared Giblin (11:07)
there were, I saw how humble the beginnings were. You know, when you start a company, you know, it’s not just sunshine and rainbows. And I really thought sales would come a lot easier than they did. You know, I knew we had a great product.
and we did a good job. So I thought, you know, all customers will just, they’ll just see that. But, you know, my, my goal when I came into the company was to help expand our customer base. And, you know, it was 2009. So we were just coming into a recession and it was, it was a lot harder than I would have ever anticipated. But it was such a great experience to, you know, I, I almost, didn’t start the company obviously, but I kind of,
Matt Allred (11:35)
Yeah.
Jared Giblin (11:47)
have the feeling that I have that ground up.
that ground up experience as well because I felt like I was kind of running my own business because when I came in it was just bring some new younger perspectives, modernize some things that we’re doing
and try to get a new customer base because everyone was just so busy working on what we already had been.
Matt Allred (12:06)
For sure, for sure. I’m curious, what was something you had to learn the hard way about running this type of business?
Jared Giblin (12:13)
Man, that’s a, you know, where do you even start with that one? I think with custom, anything that’s custom,
there’s so many dynamic elements to that, that there’s so many people that are, yeah, that their hands on the project, whether it’s your own, whether it’s your customer, or, you know, maybe it’s a designer. Learning that was,
That took a lot. And then learning the elevator industry from the outside in was tough, the dynamics of an elevator union. So it felt like I had to kind of, there was all these lanes that I had to get figured out and mistakes were definitely made along the way, but I feel like that’s what experience is, is learning from those.
⁓ Yeah, it was learning about materials. It was learning about, you know, the elevator unit, the people that work in the field. It was learning about manufacturing process, all those things. And then managing people on top of that, you know, getting good people and having to work through their situations. So it was, I think probably anyone could relate to that, with the elevator industry having.
being a manufacturer and installer,
really like two different business models. And to be able to understand both and be effective at both, you know, at the same time. So, you you always have work for your installers, but you’re always delivering on time for your customers who you just, you know, furnish materials to. That was, ⁓ that took a lot for me to wrap my head around it and understand how to do that, you know, successfully.
Matt Allred (13:41)
How many years before you felt like you really kind of started to find your groove, if you will?
Jared Giblin (13:47)
You know, I’d say It took honestly, I would say about like four years. There’s just so much to it.
Matt Allred (13:52)
Thank so much. Yeah.
Jared Giblin (13:54)
I mean, even understanding equipment, the equipment that’s out in the shop, the capability of what you can And then it was just every kind of year, it was almost like a,
Compounding effect. It was like leaps and bounds more and more to like, you know now I feel like I’m in I’m in my prime of what I know what we can do and all those things but You know, I almost look at I have a new hire who? I’m almost treating them as an assistant because I just want him to see a lot of this stuff before I release them into the wild because There’s so much that can go wrong. need you to see all this and I want you to you know be my
be by my side for it and show you, you know, here’s what we need to do. Here’s why. And then, you know, he has seen like, I couldn’t believe like they thought, you know, you could do this or that. Or do they really think we could get all this done in, you know, a couple of days and it’s like, yeah. I would be like, yeah, this is some of the stuff that,
you know, you need to, know how to organize it and then communicate it properly so they can, you know, decide whether they’re going to go to the site or not. And the trickle down effect that all those things have.
You know, that’s really important for what we do.
Matt Allred (15:02)
Yeah, absolutely. So if you will walk us through a project a little bit. When does Draper get involved? What do you actually deliver? What’s the difference between standard and fully custom? And where do projects break down? Design, coordination, install? I know it’s a loaded question, but as much as you can.
Jared Giblin (15:19)
Yeah.
Well, the earlier we can get into a project, I like that the better. I would say on an average project, we’ll quote up the scope of work and once released, we’ll go out, we do a lot of our own surveying because of the custom nature of what we do. And then
provide renderings and shop drawings for the customer to approve them. And once that gets approved, it goes into
know, manufacturing released it and we schedule our installation date or when we’re delivering to a site. But I like to get involved earlier in the process, like some time around where they’re designing it, where, you know, we can kind of weigh in our own two cents about what we think about, maybe it’s a material selection, or if there’s something that doesn’t seem right about, you know, the design centered around, you know, something that’s, you know, it just can’t, it’s not feasible. Like they want, you know,
A lot of times we fight like escape hatch locations with a ceiling design or something that someone wants that might not be up to a code or floor that selection that is not gonna fit within the cell allowance or something, one of those things. So the earlier we can get on board, the better.
And
lot of our customers that we’ve been working with on a repeat basis have seen the value in that where they’ll bring us in nice and early and be like, hey, can you go look at this for me? Here’s what they’re looking to do. And that’s when I think we can provide the best service for sure.
Matt Allred (16:43)
For sure.
Matt Allred (16:45)
Hey there listeners, it’s Matt and I would love to know what you want to hear more of on the podcast. If you have a topic in mind or a guest you’d like to hear from, head over to ElevatorCareers.net and drop a suggestion in the box or you can email podcast at ElevatorCareers.net. The link will also be in the description below. Thank you so much for being part of this conversation. Now back to the show.
Matt Allred (17:08)
Where will you see the biggest breakdowns in process? It sounds like if you’re in early, maybe on the design phase, it’s gonna be better, but the coordination, the install, mean, obviously if you screw up early and you don’t notice it till the end, well, it’s gonna blow up.
Jared Giblin (17:15)
Yeah.
Well, that’s That’s it. 100%. I think when something doesn’t go right, you can always pin it back to something that happened early
You you gotta you gotta have accurate information upfront, whether it’s the survey or the scope of Understanding that the lead times that’s really where it’s rare that a product goes up out to the field and is just a catastrophe. It’s it’s.
If done properly along the way, it will get to a shop drawing print that they’re going to fabricate to what you had laid out. if it was surveyed properly and the submittal process was done with the right scope of work, it’s going to get fabricated correctly and it should go out to the field for a smooth install. But if you don’t have all the information you need upfront, if you got a bad number or something along the lines, that’s kind of where it goes wrong.
later on, you don’t know it, you’re not gonna know it while it goes through the shop floor, you might think everything’s great, this order’s going through, everything’s looking primo, and then all of sudden you get a
from an installer and saying, hey, what’s going on with this, this doesn’t work, blah, blah, and then you kinda can pin it back to like, wait a second, why do you have that? That’s, know, it’s, it’s over.
Matt Allred (18:39)
What did we miss? Yeah.
Well,
I’m sure when you’re talking custom versus standard, right? The more custom, the more likelihood something’s going to go awry because, we don’t normally work with this or what you holes over here or a certain product, some kind of material that we’re just not used to or I don’t know.
Jared Giblin (18:56)
Right.
Yeah,
with custom there, there always, it creates a whole other element. I mean, sometimes just the lead times alone, I mean, we’ve done jobs where something’s coming from overseas and you know, they’ll tell you, it lead times 12 weeks and you check up on it. And sometimes the only answer you get is like, it shipped, it’s on a boat somewhere. And that’s all you get. don’t, well, don’t know if you get there and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, ship it right. It’s, it’s.
Matt Allred (19:22)
Well, and what if it’s wrong when it gets here, right?
Jared Giblin (19:29)
You can’t complete the project that way. And it’s not necessarily anyone’s fault along the way. just, you might have an issue there. had a funny situation with just a week ago, we ordered two cartons of a flooring that had a lead time to it. And thank God I had the guy who ordered it. went to go pick it up. It was local and it was just one box with two tiles in it. And he said, yeah. He said, well, what am I supposed to do with this? Like it’s not for a dollhouse.
Matt Allred (19:50)
wow.
Jared Giblin (19:54)
It says two, he’s like, yeah, two cartons, this is one carton with two tiles in it. And like I said, that had a lead time to it. And fortunately flooring is the last thing that goes down most of the times in the elevators. if that just got thrown onto a truck and sat in our shop, that would have created a problem because someone would have gotten and said, hey, what do you think I’m gonna do with this? then while they needed it, we would have had to reorder it. So again, it’s not like…
It’s not like it got ordered wrong. It’s not that you didn’t order the right stuff. It’s just a mistake was made along the way.
you don’t have QC checkpoints within your process, can break things down. And the busier you are, the faster people are requesting stuff. Sometimes you have to make a decision, well, if we do it this way, we’re not gonna be able to set it up on our shop and go through, take the time with it that we’d like to.
We try to stick to the process of what we know works best as much as we can, but it’s a fast moving industry and speed matters a lot, but so does accuracy. But they don’t always go hand in hand. Hey, how quickly can you do this? I ran out of this jam. Well, to do this properly, typically we would like to have it in
our hands for a certain amount of time, but sometimes you have to make things happen on the fly too.
Matt Allred (21:08)
for sure.
Yeah, well, and I’m sure you’re always constantly reviewing, revising, changing up your process just to make sure that at critical moments, you’re looking at it, you’re making the right decision so that you can have fewer and fewer errors, mistakes. mean, it’s going to work to everybody’s advantage when you do.
Jared Giblin (21:29)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Most times.
Yeah. Most times if something goes wrong, you know, we the first step is get it right and get it, get it out to the field as quickly as possible. Then then we can do a post-mortem on it. We just say, all right, let’s learn from the mistake here. How, where did this go wrong? How did it happen? So something like this doesn’t happen again. And then you add that you know, step into the procedure of what you do. And sometimes it’s just a one off. It was a super.
unique situation or custom material or whatever the case is where you’re not going to see it maybe in 95 % of your orders, but in the event that you You know, OK, can we have can we have a checkmark or something that we go along the way that will prevent this from
A good example is we’ve sometimes in new construction, You know the OEMs they have their they they’ll
install their own package of the cab shell and their swing returns and all that. And you’ll have a custom cab. that you do. we, you we did one that had this circular light fixture, a surface mount. it was really slick looking. We installed it and a couple of days before the test, I got a call from the the customer that said, Hey, my, my adjuster is out there. They said there’s no emergency lighting in this elevator. And, you know, wait a second.
Yeah, of course not. it had that custom light fixture. There’s no way to put an emergency light in there. And the margins around the ceiling to the walls were super tight. was like, you know, next to impossible to do anything. You usually have those lenses in your COPs. ⁓ well, the architect, they took them out of that lens out of the COP, but that’s a submittal that you know, we never saw, you know, because they submit that separate. We said, submitted our separate, everything gets approved. And, know, you, you know, maybe one’s assuming the other.
So we have, you know, on new construction projects, that’s part of part of a checklist that we make. Okay, the emergency light fixture or emergency lighting, where’s it coming from? And if it’s this custom light that doesn’t offer it because of the architectural spec, well, let’s check with the OEM, is that going to be in their COP? If it’s not, need to have the discussion with how we’re going to do this. you know? So it’s just, it’s just little things like that. It seems like a nothing item and it…
rarely happens, but when it does,
a big deal because they got a test coming up and there’s a lot of dates that ride on that thing passing itself.
Matt Allred (23:53)
Yeah,
absolutely. Yeah, so in your world, what does reliability actually mean?
Jared Giblin (23:59)
Yeah, so reliability to me, I like to think of it, know, when someone hands a job over to us that they know that they can sleep well at night knowing that the job’s gonna get done the right way and they’re in good hands with
We’re gonna get them to a place where you’re getting sign off and there’s no laundry list of a punch list. Everything will be done exactly to specification and you know.
You’re going to show up, you’re going to be there. When you say you’re going to be there, you’re going to meet the dates that are communicated and a quality job is going be done. If challenges arise, you’ll bring them up, you’ll talk about them, you’ll figure out a game plan so everyone can be successful and no one’s put in a tough position or facing some sort of financial ramification because of it. that’s, to us, that’s the standard of how we like to…
run our projects and how we want our customer base to feel about partnering with us. Like, if we go with them, it’s going to be done the way it’s supposed to be. Whatever challenges might be on the horizon, because sometimes jobs, they span sometimes a new construction multiple years through the middle process, we’ll get to where we need to be when the time comes. If the schedule is difficult, if there’s multiple
and there’s challenges there. There’ll be job meetings with us. We’ll work through this. And we want
to feel like we’re an extension of their business. Partnering with us means that we’re going to be rowing this boat in the same direction and looking out for one another. And that’s how a job is done successfully in our eyes.
Matt Allred (25:27)
Absolutely.
What would you
say separates a great interiors partner from an average
Jared Giblin (25:43)
Yeah, I think that kind of experience is what it is for me where, know, you’re not, if you’re not a cab vendor, you know, you’re not going to be like this expert in elevator cabs and there’s going to be a lot of questions and requests along the way. So you’re going to rely on your cab vendor
to get you all those things. mean, we make, you know, whether it’s renderings, I make storyboards sometimes where, you know, we’re renovating
Matt Allred (26:01)
Mm-hmm.
Jared Giblin (26:07)
building’s doing a renovation and it’s an inconvenience to the tenants of the building, but they want something visual to say, you know, maybe here’s what the elevators are going to look like when this is all done. You know, we make those things, marketing materials, sit into job meetings to answer all the questions. So it’s not them having to talk about something that they don’t interact with every single day. So it’s kind of like a, I look at like some, it’s like a concierge service.
to provide the customers as early in the process, no matter what the request, if it relates to the elevator cabs, be there to support their needs. It’s not gonna be like, hey, fill out these forms and get them back to me and then I’ll tell you what we can do for you. trying to deliver a much different experience there
they can know that, okay, if this job goes to Draper, I can rely on them no matter what the…
Yeah, no matter what pops up.
Matt Allred (27:05)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So just curious, know, for someone outside the industry, like property manager, developer, what would surprise them most about the complexity behind cab interiors?
Jared Giblin (27:18)
Yeah, I think, you know, when you think about an elevator, you know, it just seems like it’s four walls, right? And whatever you do to it should be so simple. know, property managers, building owners, they renovate spaces throughout their building all the time. They do tenant fit outs on
multiple different floors. So this is just another set of walls, right? But I think the complexity with that is a lot of what
you you’re working on. your first of all, it’s a moving structure. So what works on a wall that is, you know, not moving versus something that’s being racked up and down a hoist way all day long and people are in and out of, I mean, thousands of times a day, it’s a big difference and a lot of the surfaces, You know, they play into the or they interact with the other.
You know, you might have a swing COP and then a floor height. Can those two, can those two mesh? You know, you can’t just dump any amount of weight onto the elevator and think you’re going to be okay. There’s a lot of codes that they’re heavily regulated spaces. So there’s a lot of things that you have to design around. So I think you’d be surprised with, although it looks like just a couple of walls, what you need to be aware of when doing it. And, you know, some things that you might
Matt Allred (28:17)
Right.
Jared Giblin (28:35)
want to avoid. mean, something as simple as I spoke to earlier earlier about is emergency escape patch in your ceiling. You know, a lot of people don’t know how they operate, what they’re for, or even that there is one because they’re not, you know, if you have a hung ceiling that you can’t necessarily see them a lot of times. But yeah, there’s a lot of elements that go into it. So I think it’s really important, you know, to have a good cab vendor that can kind of steer you in the right direction
make sure that everything
within that space can run smoothly.
Matt Allred (29:05)
Yeah, it’s its own game, right? Like I say, even though they’re renovating spaces all the time, this is a very, very peculiar and specialized space and you need the expert to help you through that. So we’ve got a few more questions before we wrap up. And one is around trends, right? What kind of trends are you seeing with elevator interiors, you know, whether it’s materials or design or even expectations?
Jared Giblin (29:29)
Well, I think lighter materials, there’s, know,
lighter, quicker, like those types of things more prevalent lately, systems type installs where it can be installed by, you know, maybe you’re not a cab expert installer. You know, do you have a standardized package that can go together quickly? Is is it lightweight because
We can’t put a lot of weight onto the cap. A lot of these newer MRLs have been on the market over the past like 15 years or so. When you renovate them, can’t, there’s just, you just can’t put a ton of weight onto them and there’s nothing coming off of them in some cases. So, you know, we’ve had to design all around a lot of things with a perspective of how can we make this as minimal as possible, but still deliver something that’s
things interesting challenges because, like I said earlier, you want them to be durable to a level of durability, a level of beauty,
also how can we balance that with someone being able to install it and it look good at the end of the day.
Matt Allred (30:30)
Yeah, yeah. Are you seeing owners and developers starting to care more about the cab experience? that something you’re seeing?
Jared Giblin (30:37)
I am actually, which I’m excited about. think people are definitely seeing the value design and the level of quality they have out in their into the elevator cabs,
think it’s a great thing, not just for people that are in the elevator industry, but I think we’ve probably all been to.
you know, maybe a building or a facility where the cab gets left behind and it just sticks out like a sore thumb, you know, and it can leave, you know, just a strange like a taste. I was at a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina a few months ago with my family and it was such a gorgeous hotel. The lobby was incredible. The common areas were so well thought out and we got into the elevator, which we, you we were there for about a week. So we were on it, you know, multiple times a day. And I just, you know, I’m sure it’s
From an elevator’s perspective, I’m looking at it more closely than a lot of people, but it just did not match the aesthetic of the rest of the building. like I said, you spend so much time in it. It’s one of those things
it really sticks out. I have to imagine whether you’re in the elevator industry or not, you’d probably feel that as well.
Matt Allred (31:42)
Sure, especially if you’re gonna spend a lot of money and time to design the interior of your hotel. Well, then you want that to carry through. You want it to carry up all the way upstairs and yeah, it kind of breaks as soon as you walk into this steel cage and it’s like, ⁓ it’s broken.
Jared Giblin (31:51)
Right.
Yeah,
we’ve renovated some cabs that, you know, I always love when people
do like a backlit kind of, or something really unique with lighting. I think it just, there’s that wow factor, the doors open up and there’s, whoa, you know, look at this. Like, I didn’t even know you could do something like that. We’ve done a handful of elevators that really have that wow factor. And I always think that, you know, if you own a building or, you know, you’re renovating that you kind of want
element of that. Maybe it doesn’t have to be something that’s so cutting edge, but when those doors open and be like, this is the caliber of building, you know, of the building is continued into the elevator. And
no matter where I, you know, step my feet in here, that it’s, just a quality experience.
Matt Allred (32:43)
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So where do you see Draper going in the next five to 10 years?
Jared Giblin (32:47)
I think we’ll be expanding our product line in the geographic area that we’re servicing.
Really excited about, we’ve made some big investments into precision equipment that we’ll be taking in over the next couple of weeks. I think that will allow us to do a lot of things that are cutting edge. We’re always trying to listen to customer feedback or feedback from the field.
from installers or what makes their lives easier, what could make our product better and implementing those things. We have very, like I said, long-tendered fabricators and engineers who design our products. So we’ve come up, we’ve made great strides with improving our own products. And I think we’ll be hitting the market with some really exciting stuff over the next,
I would say like six to eight months ⁓ once we get some.
some of this equipment underway. It’s going to be exciting.
Matt Allred (33:37)
Very cool, very cool, thank you. So as we wrap up, I’ve got three rapid fire questions. So very short answers. I’m just gonna ask you three in a row. I wanna see if you can just kinda knock them out of the park like baseballs, whatever. ⁓ But first one, most unique cab you’ve ever worked on.
Jared Giblin (33:51)
Right.
I would say probably the podium elevators at the Encore Casino.
Matt Allred (34:00)
One mistake building owners should avoid.
Jared Giblin (34:05)
involved upfront with elevator plans. think have a good understanding of the materials that are gonna be put into their cabs and speak to your cab vendor, ask them, hey, what are the pros and cons of this design? What do you like? What don’t you like? How difficult will this be for me to maintain over the years to come?
If you’re a building owner and you do that, partner with your cab vendor and ask those type questions. think you’ll, you’ll be much happier and you’ll save yourself some, some problems down the road.
Matt Allred (34:36)
Last one, what does done right look like for you?
Jared Giblin (34:39)
Done right, I would say no punch or little to no punch list and happy customer was talking about doing future projects with you.
Matt Allred (34:48)
Well Jared, thank you for being with me today. It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve enjoyed it.
Jared Giblin (34:53)
Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on.
Matt Allred (34:55)
Yeah, I it’s been great and I wish you the best as you continue to build your business.
Jared Giblin (34:59)
Thank you very much,
Matt Allred (35:01)
Thank you.
Matt Allred (35:02)
Thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast sponsored by the Allred Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. Please visit our YouTube channel @ElevatorCareers or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.