Jordan Ryan: Be Humble and Teachable in the Elevator Trade

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Intro:

In this episode, Jordan shares his journey in the elevator industry, discussing his experiences from his first day on the job to current projects. 

He highlights the challenges faced during installations, the importance of safety, and the evolving technology in the field. 

Jordan also emphasizes the significance of teamwork and camaraderie on job sites, and offers valuable advice for those considering a career in the trade.

 

Summary:

Jordan Ryan, an elevator mechanic, discusses his journey in the elevator industry, emphasizing the importance of humility and teachability. He recounts his first day on the job, where a mistake led to a messy cleanup, highlighting the need for careful sequencing. Ryan describes a typical installation process, detailing steps from setting jacks to wiring. He shares his most memorable and challenging projects, including a duplex setup in Lehi, Utah, and a fun installation in Holiday, Utah. Ryan also discusses the evolving technology, such as destination dispatch, and the dangers inherent in the trade. He advises aspiring technicians to stay humble and embrace the rewarding nature of the work.

 

Transcript:

Jordan Ryan (00:00)

If you’re going to get into the trade, I would say humility is the key to success. So yeah, just be teachable. You could be, and I know guys that are really good at their jobs. They turn in jobs at a really good time and stuff, but these guys are also extremely humble. They are teachable because nobody’s ever going to know everything there is to know about an elevator or how things work because we’re constantly coming out with new technology, new procedures and methods to do stuff.

 

Matthew Allred (00:04)

Tell me a little bit more about that.

 

Jordan Ryan (00:30)

you get to the point where you know how to do your job and do it well, don’t get a big head about it because there’s always going to be Tom, Dick or Harry down the road that can do it a lot better and knows a lot more than you do. Instead of seeing them as competition, learn from them because nine times out of 10, they’ll share their knowledge with you and you’ll just better yourself as we go.

 

Matthew Allred (00:59)

Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group. I am your host, Matt Allred. In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. When talent is mission critical, call the Allred Group with industry expertise.

 

top talent and exceptional customer service, you need the Allred Group on your side. Your priority is their priority. Call now 404-890-0445. In this episode, Jordan Ryan shares his journey in the elevator industry, discussing his experiences from his first day on the job to current projects. He highlights the challenges faced during installations, the importance of safety, and the evolving technology in the field.

 

Jordan also emphasizes the significance of teamwork and camaraderie on job sites and offers valuable advice for those considering a career in the elevator trade. Jordan, welcome to the show.

 

Jordan Ryan (02:08)

Hey Matt, it’s great to be here man, I’m excited.

 

Matthew Allred (02:10)

Yeah, thank you. No, it’s exciting to be able to talk to you again. I appreciate it and I’m excited to have this conversation. So I did want to start off just how did you find the Elevator Careers podcast?

 

Jordan Ryan (02:24)

It’s actually a little bit of a funny story, honestly. So I’m, you know, I’m a mechanic. So I kind of seek out that elevator related content on social media and everything. And one of the pages I follow just had a link to your podcast and I was like, that’s kind of interesting. So I, you know, hopped on over and listened to some of the episodes. This is really cool.

 

Matthew Allred (02:49)

Cool. Yeah, I mean, it’s nice to know that somebody, I guess, put a link out there and you could follow it and  otherwise you wouldn’t have known. And yeah, you reached out and here we are. That’s awesome. Well, tell me something exciting that you are working on right now.

 

Jordan Ryan (03:02)

There we are.

 

Well, I’m currently doing a duplex set up in Lehi, Utah. It’s actually a big project. There’s six elevators on this thing. And I know a lot of the guys that work in Local 1 or the bigger cities, like, it’s only six? That’s tiny or whatever. But out here, it’s a pretty big project. We’ve got five of them installed right now. One of them is a

 

just a single car, but the duplex we’re working on, we’re on cables, we’re actually setting all of our entrances and stuff, getting ready, we’re kind of getting towards the tail end of the job now, so that’s pretty exciting.

 

Matthew Allred (03:49)

Yeah, yeah, thank you. And for somebody like me who’s a little bit ignorant, but fascinated, the duplex means like you got two cabs on top of each other. Is that correct?

 

Jordan Ryan (04:00)

No,

 

that’s a, Thyssenkrupp does those, it’s a twin. That’s what they call it. Okay. A duplex is just like two cars, you know, side by side, each other.

 

Matthew Allred (04:09)

Okay, I was using the wrong terminology because I honestly about a week ago. I was riding the elevator in the Space needle in Seattle and there was you know one on top and one on bottom and so I was I was yeah trying to think like what do they call that.

 

And I did think I thought it was duplex. Tell me a little bit about what, you know, your first day on the job was like.

 

Jordan Ryan (04:31)

I’ll tell you the first day that was  that was definitely a day I’ll never forget. So I’ve only been in the trade for like literally 20 minutes. I pulled up to  a storage unit in South Jordan, Utah. we were installing the hydraulic elevators, a three stage jack twin post system. And it was like, I think memory serves it was four stops and

 

so we went in, we were setting jacks and stuff that first day and my mechanic at the time, he was actually a temporary mechanic. He told me, okay, we’re going to drain the oil out of the jacks, And I was like, okay. So, you know, we hooked a shutoff valve onto them and everything. We drained all the residual oil that they pack in there for shipping so that the

 

piston doesn’t rust. So we drained it all out. got to where it was just dropping every little bit once in a while. And so we shut it off, got the jacks all set. And then my mechanic, he’s like, okay, I want you to take the tin snips and go cut the banding around the pistons. So trying to be a good apprentice, do what I’m told, you know, I cut the banding. Unbeknownst to me, and I learned this later on down the road, we should have built the oil line first. And

 

We went to crack those Vicks open to build the oil line and just oil came flooding out of that, out of both Jacks. And he’s cussing up a storm. I’m bringing in 55 gallon, trash cans full of dirt just to stop all this up. At one point he’d gotten so mad. He like loosened off or tighten one of the Vicks up and he actually threw the half inch impact

 

out of the hoist way and it shot right past my head and embedded in the sheetrock in the hall.

 

Matthew Allred (06:18)

Oh my gosh.

 

Jordan Ryan (06:19)

I remember and I remember thinking to myself, I’m like, what in the Sam heck did I get myself into?

 

Matthew Allred (06:25)

First day, right? 

 

Jordan Ryan (06:27)

First day on the job, I was like, what is this?

 

Matthew Allred (06:30)

Wow. Wow. How did that resolve? What was that like to get to clean that up? I sound like you had some oily dirt you got to shovel and…

 

Jordan Ryan (06:40)

Yeah, we actually had to leave. We cleaned up all the oil soaked dirt and stuff. We put more down and he was kind of just, you know what, we’re going to leave this overnight just to make sure that all that’s absorbed and everything. And he actually got, after he calmed down, he’s like, look, I know it’s your first day. I apologize for getting so worked up. I’m under the gun right now from the company

 

with whatever circumstances that was his. And so that actually made me feel a lot better at the end of the day. Cause I remember sitting in my truck at lunchtime and I’m just like having almost a panic attack. Like what did I, like, is this really how every day is going to be? Like, what am I doing here?

 

Matthew Allred (07:23)

You learn from that? I mean, obviously, hindsight, you can chuckle, right? Hindsight, you can chuckle. Tell me some things you learned from that.

 

Jordan Ryan (07:31)

I think the one thing that I learned is at least, you know, being in the apprentice, the probationary apprentice mindset is a double check and make sure you actually heard your mechanic right. Maybe you were going to see something that he doesn’t. So speak up if like, you’re not entirely sure about the circumstance or the task at hand. Now granted.

 

You know, again, I’ll reiterate that I didn’t really know anything about anything, I mean, that’s something that, you should have been caught by him in the forefront before we even did all this. So it was definitely an avoidable incident. So I guess. Long story short, you know, just, just make sure that everything is done in sequence.

 

Matthew Allred (08:24)

Sure, sure. And I’m sure, you know, looking back, I’m sure that that situation can educate you, not educate, but you always remember, right? You’re never going to forget it. So when you get your your helper and you’re and you’re doing something similar, I mean, that’s always there as a schoolmaster in a way to say, hey, you know, you’re never going to do that. Right. That’s my point is you’re never going to make that same mistake because you saw exactly what happened.

 

Jordan Ryan (08:53)

Exactly, exactly.

 

Matthew Allred (08:56)

So I’m glad you were safe. I mean, it sounds like it was a little crazy at first and who knows? I’m sure there was some resolution and maybe he learned something from it too. I don’t know. Or maybe he realized, yeah, maybe this isn’t for me, but what an interesting first day.

 

Jordan Ryan (09:15)

That definitely was. I will concur with that.

 

Matthew Allred (09:19)

Yeah, walk us through a typical install. What is a typical installed job look like?

 

Jordan Ryan (09:25)

Yeah. And it varies from, you know, company to company, obviously, and whether you’re installing a traction elevator versus a hydraulic, I work for Kone elevator and, we do traction installs. That’s all we do. So how we start the job is we’ll pull on, we’ll drop our gang boxes, you know, we’ll unload the truck, we’ll get all of our material staged. And then we’ll actually go through the hoist way and do a survey. We’ll go through and we’ll figure out where

 

the tightest floor is in case we need to push rails back into the hoist way a little bit more or and Or whatever have you and then we also figure out what the tightest spot is where our brackets are gonna sit so we can either fudge the rails, you know over a little bit to make more room on the back of the the combo bracket the king side or if we need to pull it

 

towards that and make more room on the queen side. So we can shift the car side to side depending on where the tight spot is. And then after that, man, it’s just, we start with our starter rails, three rounds of brackets, four starter rails, the mains, and then the counterweights. After that, we put car sling in. We throw in our side styles, where our safeties are.

 

Whether they have roller guides or slide guides. That’s where those guys are mounted and then we’ll put the the safety plank in which has all the the mechanisms and stuff to actuate the safeties when they do those tests when we’re on contract speed and everything like that. After that we put the platform in

 

We get the platform centered on the rails where it’s supposed to go. And then we put our counterweight frames in the counterweight rails and we stack all our counterweight up. And then as soon as that’s done, we cab. So we put all the walls in and put the roof on. Finish cab panels and stuff if they have that design. And then after that, we’ll get on top of the car. We’ll put our crosshead on.

 

We’ll bolt that all to the side styles actually. And then we’ll attach our temporary hoist. It’s our, our window climber, our tire rack is the name of the hoist there. And then after that, we, shoot up the hoist way and we, we stack rails the whole way up. Gotcha. And then after rails are done, we’ll put the motor in. I do MRLs, machine roomless elevators. So our motor is in the hoist way.

 

And then our controller actually sits in the top entrance jam. So we’ll get the motor installed. We’ll get all of our,  the dead end hitch is where the rope shackles are going to go. All of our, we call it our overhead steel in, which is like  our locking bar plates to park the car in when they’re servicing the governor or the motor. And then we’ll actually set the top floor entrance next with the MRL. So we’ll get the

 

the jam up, we’ll get the sill on and then we’ll put the controller in  and then we’ll actually start doing all the electrical after that. We’ll wire the motor in, we’ll wire the transformer in, we’ll make sure we have incoming power from the electricians and all that. And we’ll power that guy up and we’ll spin the motor after setting, you know, certain parameters and stuff in there. And then after that we’re

 

We throw ropes. So our, our system is where we under sling our cars. lot of older elevators are hitched and stuff from the top of the car up over the motor to the counterweight frame. The way we do it is  we have  two shivs underneath the car and we’ll essentially kind of lasso it for lack of better term. Sure.

 

All my ropes are on top of the car and then I’ll drive up to where it’s comfortable for me to work and where our formula is to park the counterweight frame beforehand and  how far below the top landing my car’s going to sit. And then we’ll take the ropes out and we’ll actually coil them in a figure eight, either on top of the car or out on the landing. And then we’ll take the dead end. We’ll throw it over the motor.

 

Down to the counterweight frame and then we’ll bring that dead end back up after it goes to the counterweight frame and they shackle them up on the other side. And then after that, we do entrances. We’ll go through, set all of our sills, all of our door tracks, all the  finished jams. And then we’ll do doors, put all of our hoistway doors on. And then it’s all wiring essentially after that.

 

We’ll pull all of our traveler wire to our car top box. We’ll pull the safety switches and stuff that are on top of the car to there. We’ll wire all those in and then we’ll wire all the hoist way interlocks and stuff in. We’ll pull push button wires,  lantern wires,  hoist way access, you name it, whatever’s in the hoist way. And then  after that,

 

After all that said and done, as well as like some little piddly stuff like toe kicks and you know, stuff like that, we commissioned that car to run on the car top. And that’s pretty much the end of our time there on the job. Then they call the adjusters in after that.

 

Matthew Allred (15:02)

What just curious on average how what’s what’s the timeline for your process?

 

Jordan Ryan (15:08)

So they always give us, you know, X amount of hours, whatever they’ve been. Usually what I tell the contractors, which has been pretty true, you know, minus, you know, whatever issues and stuff we have. Normally what I tell the contractors, it takes about us a week per floor. So if we’re doing an eight stop elevator, which is what I’m on now, it’s usually about eight weeks. But then you get like a front reverse car with

 

With that, well, now you have to add time to that.

 

Matthew Allred (15:38)

Awesome. Tell me about one of your most memorable or even challenging installs.

 

Jordan Ryan (15:45)

That’s kind of a two part question there. My most memorable, the one that I think I’ve had the most fun on was,  little five stop single car in a Holiday, Utah. It’s just South,  East of Salt Lake. And, I was a second year apprentice, I believe. And we had a basement machine room.

 

That job was just a lot of fun. I worked really well with the mechanic. were able to, you know, our personalities clicked pretty well. So we were able to have a lot of fun. We goofed off while we worked, obviously. it just, you get those mechanics that, you click really well with them and it just makes the job just that much more fun. Cause then you can just, you know, cut loose and my, I’ve always heard, you know, you’re not having fun at work, go home. Right.

 

Matthew Allred (16:35)

Cool, cool. So that was that was the funnest. But you said there’s a two part to that.

 

Jordan Ryan (16:39)

Yeah. Yeah. So my challenge most challenging, think honestly is the job site I’m working on here in Lehi. Just, from the get go, I feel like we were kind of set up to fail, not really on the, company side of it as much as the contractor. They didn’t build my hoist way to spec. I had rear entrances where my rough opening was too small. I couldn’t get my

 

entrances in without having to have them cut concrete. I had to have them chip the counterweight wall out actually about an inch just to maintain my two inch running clearance for my counterweights by code. Right. From level two all the way to seven.

 

My hoist ways are just too small in general so instead of being straight, the back wall ended up diving in, you know, a good inch, inch and a half. And so we to go through and cut all the landing floors back wider as well to make sure all of our equipment fit. And, know, that’s not just for the, the first duplex we did, but it was also for the second duplex we did as well. When a contractor doesn’t build

 

your stuff to spec and then they throw a fit about it it’s like look dude like i’m not a miracle worker

 

Matthew Allred (17:56)

Give me space to work in, right? They’ve kind of constrained you and it’s like, no, you’re going to have to cut walls or blow them up and start over or something. 

 

Jordan Ryan (18:07)

I dreamt about that a little bit with this job. I won’t lie, but Here’s the problem. Here’s how we’re going to fix it. I’m not trying to screw you guys over or anything. It’s like, here’s the problem and I’ve got the solution.

 

Matthew Allred (18:19)

Well, and it’s got to be plum, right? I mean, if the wall is curving in, okay, we’re going to have to move this thing over. It’s like, obviously, it’s costing him money, but he’s the one that screwed up in the first place.

 

Jordan Ryan (18:30)

Exactly, exactly.

 

Matthew Allred (18:32)

You didn’t cause the problem you’re just there to show him his problem it sounds like you’re in middle of that one right now so are there any other issues that have come up since those initial measurements or? 

 

Jordan Ryan (18:44)

Thankfully no. I mean we’ve had some minor issues with

 

parts and you know, some things got sent out from the factory that were too big or you know, whatever, but we’ve been able to kind of I don’t want to say reverse engineer, but we’ve essentially been able to figure out how to make stuff work and or just completely replace those parts or you know, whatever have you but other than that the major issues and stuff. We’re actually sailing pretty smooth right now. Thankfully

 

Matthew Allred (19:12)

That’s great. I mean, you had to get a little creative, had to make things

 

I’m curious, what were some of the skills or tools or parts of the trade that intimidated you at first? Were there any things like that?

 

Jordan Ryan (19:50)

Yeah. I mean, the only part really I was intimidated by tool wise was the welder. Before I got into the trade, never, I had only welded once and it was for a church youth group activity and I didn’t do a very good job at first. And then it was all hot and you know, I got, a couple of minor burns and stuff on my arm from the sparks and you know, whatever. And I was like, I don’t like this. So when I found out we had to

 

be welders and stuff. And I was like, crap, you know, but I took initiative. I actually enrolled in a, welding course during one of the slower,  times for construction when there wasn’t a lot of work. I essentially was taught how to weld. I learned it. And,  I wouldn’t say I’m a master at it by any means, but I can at least hold my own now.

 

and it’s not intimidating anymore. In fact, I actually look forward to doing that now. I find it fun.

 

Matthew Allred (20:49)

Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. mean, it’s kudos to you for signing up, kind of diving in, leaning into what wasn’t comfortable and just making a skill out of it. Now you can do it. Who knows, maybe people even call you and say, hey, can you weld this for me? I have a friend that used to say that once you’re a really good welder, all kinds of friends that you didn’t know you had, like, hey, can you fix my boat trailer? Hey, can you fix my kids bike? Hey, can you?

 

Jordan Ryan (21:18)

It’s

 

so true too, it is. My father-in-law calls me up every once in while, like, hey, you want to bring your welder down? We’ll fix the boat trailer, you know, Yup, been there, done that.

 

Matthew Allred (21:27)

for sure.

 

Yep. Yep. Awesome. How would you say the trade has changed just in the seven years you’ve been in it?

 

Jordan Ryan (21:37)

In, new construction, you get to see all the new stuff that comes out. Kone hasn’t really changed all that much, at least here in Salt Lake City. The one thing I have noticed, and I actually haven’t even put one of these in yet is,  destination dispatch. Now what, what that is is essentially you have a group or a bank of elevators, whether it’s a duplex, triplex, whatever have you. They all

 

you know, or either in a straight line or they face each other or whatever. It all goes, all the, all the calls that you put into the car to go up to or down to floors, go to a central hub, essentially this big old touchscreen thing in the, in the main lobby and whatever elevator is available at the time that’s not, you know, in service, delivering people to other floors. They’ll actually tell you, Oh, Hey, you’re going to this floor. Take.

 

elevator B2 and you have to walk over to that one and it’ll take you where you need to go. So I think that’s the craziest thing that is new and I’ve experienced it before and it takes some getting used to honestly, cause you know, I’m used to just walking up, hitting the push button and you know, just taking it, taking the car that shows up.

 

Matthew Allred (22:55)

So it’s, and I haven’t, you know, I don’t.

 

I guess, ride a lot of elevators just because I’m, you know, working, whatever, don’t travel a whole lot. I guess just getting used to a touch screen for the elevators is new behavior for the entire riding public. It’s like, OK, we’re used to walking to the elevator, pushing the button. But if there’s no button there and there’s a screen, it’s almost like, ⁓ what? I guess I need to figure out how to how to drive these things.

 

Jordan Ryan (23:20)

100%. And I actually share a little bit of a personal experience with that. Like I remember going to the,  one of the state buildings, I had to turn in some paperwork to get my mechanic license and, the state building that we went to,  had a destination dispatch and it’s like, where the Sam hex the push button, man, like I’m looking all over the place. And I finally had to ask the security guard how do we do this? And he’s like, oh yeah, it’s the one of the new fan dangle things. You got to go over to this little console here.

 

Matthew Allred (23:48)

So even as an elevator guy, you’re probably embarrassed. You’re like, well, I should know how to operate this thing.

 

Jordan Ryan (23:54)

Yes, that thought definitely crossed my mind. like, oh, that’s embarrassing, especially in front of my wife and kid.

 

Matthew Allred (24:01)

Cool. That’s cool. So you haven’t had experience actually installing that, but it sounds like it’s changing, changing the industry, changing the, making things more efficient is what it sounds like.

 

Jordan Ryan (24:13)

Yeah, that is the goal for these. Yes. So I foresee us, you know, using a lot of it now in the near future, especially with these bigger projects and with the Olympics coming to Utah and everything here in the near, you know, in like 2035 or something like that. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of people with a lot of money that want efficiency.

 

Matthew Allred (24:35)

For sure, for sure. Yeah. What do you wish more people understood about elevators, elevator installation?

 

Jordan Ryan (24:44)

That’s quite a bit of a list, Matt, I won’t lie.  I think two things come to mind right out of the gate. First and foremost,  we can only do so much with what we’re given, right? I mentioned earlier that, you know, my hoistways and the one I’m working on is too tight. It’s like, you know, I can’t just wave a magic wand and make your hoistway straight. And, you know, if there’s part delays or…

 

you know, whatever have you like a lot of guys, especially like in the service side of the industry, they get harped on a lot by, you know, the customers and stuff. Why isn’t this up and running yet? And it’s like, look, these are, these are very complex machines, very delicate equipment on a lot of these. And sometimes, you know, as much knowledge is shared between all of us,

 

service guys and other mechanics and stuff and the expertise that is shared, we sometimes can’t fix everything in one shot. Right. And so it’s like, you we would, one thing I wish that they would understand is, you know, have patience with us. Like we’re, we’re not trying to make your lives difficult. We’re trying to get your stuff fixed and we’re trying to get stuff installed correctly so that you can be transported where you need to go in a safe manner. second thing is.

 

Matthew Allred (25:59)

Right. Right.

 

Jordan Ryan (26:02)

being just piggybacking off of that safe factor is what we do is extremely dangerous. We’re around high voltage. We’re around moving parts like the motor itself. Easy to lose fingers, limbs, electrical shock, you know, stuff like that. It’s, one of the more dangerous trades out there. I wouldn’t say it’s the most dangerous, but you know, one little, one little screw up on

 

our part, our apprentice’s part, can cost somebody their life.

 

Matthew Allred (26:34)

For sure. Yeah. Well, and has, right? So it’s, and I think one of the risks of, you know, just people not understanding is because the way the industry is structured, right? People don’t see outside the cab, right? They don’t understand what you do. And in fact, you probably meet a lot of people that, you you tell them what you do and they’re like, what? Is that a thing? I mean, how do you get paid to do that? I don’t get it.

 

Aren’t elevators just born in the building and they just show up?

 

Jordan Ryan (27:09)

Yeah, I’ve gotten that a few times too. It’s one of those things that, you know, it’s a really niche industry and yeah, you tell people what you do. They’re like, I didn’t even really think about that before. Like I never thought an elevator had to be built.

 

Matthew Allred (27:27)

Exactly. Yeah, it just it just it shows up just does its own thing. So tell me, I’m sure there’s a lot of answers to this question, but what’s the culture like on a job site? Is it more like a team, a family, something totally different, you know?

 

Jordan Ryan (27:45)

Yeah, I mean, and again, it depends on who you work with, because I’ve worked with mechanics in the past that, you know, are all straight business. They’re there to do the job and go home and that’s it. You know, you don’t. So it’s very business like, it’s very, I wouldn’t say boring, but when you can’t really talk to your mechanic and like just get to know him on a

 

or personal level and have conversations and stuff while you’re working, it can make for a long day. Thankfully right now, the crews that are on my job right now, we’re all pretty similar with personality. We get to have fun at work. We joke, we laugh, we talk, and we just we’re able to have fun while we’re working.

 

I guess essentially the answer to that question is, Matt, it just depends on who you work with.

 

Matthew Allred (28:37)

Sure. Yeah. And what you create, right? I mean, can, to a point, right? You can kind of decide what the culture is going to be. And somebody might not want to be part of that, but it sounds like there’s some real opportunities for camaraderie, right? Whether they choose to have this team, this brotherhood, if you will, then that’s up to the individual players.

 

Jordan Ryan (29:01)

100%, 100%.

 

Matthew Allred (29:03)

Well Jordan, we’re getting close in our time. I just wanted to end with this last question, which is  if someone is listening, thinking about maybe joining the trade, what advice would you give them?

 

Jordan Ryan (29:16)

I mean, I got a little bit of a list with that one too, but I think there’s two key points to that that I’d like to share with the listeners out there. If you’re to get into the trade, I would say humility is the key to success.

 

Matthew Allred (29:33)

Tell me a little bit more about that. Yeah.

 

Jordan Ryan (29:35)

So yeah, just be teachable. Like you could be, and I know guys that are really good at their jobs. They turn in jobs at a really good time and stuff, but these guys are also extremely humble. They are teachable because nobody’s ever going to know everything there is to know about an elevator or how things work because we’re constantly coming out with new technology, new procedures and methods to do stuff. So you

 

get to the point where you know how to do your job and do it well, don’t get a big head about it because there’s always going to be, you know, Tom, Dick or Harry down the road that can do it a lot better and knows a lot more than you do. And you, instead of seeing them as competition, it’s like, look, dude, learn from them because you know, nine times out of 10, they’ll share their knowledge with you and

 

you’ll just better yourself as we go.

 

Matthew Allred (30:33)

Well, and as soon as you learn it really well, technology is going to change and you’re going to have to learn something totally new. So that probably keeps you humble because it’s like, my gosh, this  is something totally, totally new to me. Yes sir.

 

Jordan Ryan (30:46)

Sure.

 

 And then the second thing that I want to end with here, since we’re running out of time is what we do is, it ain’t no cakewalk. It is very hard work, but it is very rewarding. I mean, the fact that we can go  to essentially an empty hoist way at the beginning of a job, and then by the end of it have a completely running elevator is

 

still mind boggling to me. Like you stand back at the end of the job and you’re like, I built that, you know, that in of itself is kind of humbling to me too, because it’s like, I built that. I contributed my talent, my skills, and we have a working product now.

 

Matthew Allred (31:35)

Sure, sure. You can probably drive up and down the freeway and point to the buildings that, you know, that one and that one and that one.

 

Jordan Ryan (31:43)

Yeah, for sure. I’ve done that with my wife numerous times. She gets so annoyed. She’s like, oh, I’ve heard this before. It’s like, I’m sorry, I take pride in my work.

 

Matthew Allred (31:53)

 I think it’s awesome. I think it makes a lot of sense. you know, just that, not only do have a gratifying, work that you enjoy, that you, you know, that you can, you can look and say, hey, I made a difference and I brought my tools, my talents together. And, you know, me and my team, we made something happen. And I think that’s, I think that’s what makes, part of what makes the industry awesome, you know, for what it is, is just that, you know, people get to…

 

to really contribute, make something happen and make a big difference.

 

Jordan Ryan (32:25)

Yeah, for sure. It really is that rewarding.

 

Matthew Allred (32:29)

Very cool. Well, Jordan, thank you for being on the show with me. I appreciate it. It’s been a pleasure and I wish you the very best as you continue to safely build those elevators.

 

Jordan Ryan (32:39)

Thanks, Matt. I appreciate the opportunity,

 

Matthew Allred (32:42)

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 at ElevatorCareers or check us out online at ElevatorCareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.