Lawrence Wolf: Standing Ovation for Superman!

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Intro:
Today our guest is Lawrence Wolf. Lawrence talks about his journey from the Merchant Marine to the elevator industry, discussing the challenges and rewards of transitioning careers.
He emphasizes the importance of technical skills, community, and the satisfaction derived from helping others. The discussion also touches on the future of the elevator industry and the need for more young people to enter the trade.

Summary:
Lawrence Wolf discussed his career transition from the Merchant Marine to the elevator industry. He shared his initial challenges, including troubleshooting and repairing old elevators, and the satisfaction of helping people. Lawrence highlighted the importance of technical skills, community, and the need for more young people in the trade. He mentioned his new company and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on his commute. Lawrence also emphasized the variety of career paths in the elevator industry, including sales, inspection, and management, and the importance of continuous learning and adaptability.

Transcript:
Lawrence Wolf 0:00
I do like helping people. It’s very gratifying. Like one time when I was with my first company, this was an elderly people’s home, and I get a call to come out there, and when I arrive, I get a standing ovation down there. I’m like okay? I haven’t fixed anything yet. I mean, you’re kind of a rock star. You’ve got the logo on your truck or shirt or whatever it is, like, game on. It’s like, well, it’s like, that. It’s, oh, wow. You’re Superman. It’s like, well, super Superman. Show that, you know? Yeah. And it’s like, that could be, it could be really gratifying. You’re like, wow. Hey, wow, you know, thank you. Now let me see if I can help you.

Matthew Allred 0:43
Let me see if I can get this done. 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. Today, our guest is Lawrence Wolf. Lawrence talks about his journey from the merchant marine to the elevator industry, discussing the challenges and rewards of transitioning careers. He emphasizes the importance of technical skills community and the satisfaction derived from helping others. The discussion also touches on the future of the elevator industry and the need for more young people to enter the trade. Well, Lawrence, welcome to the show.

Lawrence Wolf 1:50
Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely.

Matthew Allred 1:53
I appreciate your time. It’s always been good. I know I’ve harassed you many times over the years. You know, seeing, Hey, you want to, you know, do something different, and things haven’t worked out, but I’ve always enjoyed the conversations right on.

Lawrence Wolf 2:05
Yes, Likewise, likewise. And it’s I always like, you know, when you send me the emails about various different you know, thing I look at the roles that you’re offering, you know that what you’re what you’re looking for, what you’re head hunting for. And I’m like, can I see myself in that role? You know, would that be something business manager? Probably not. I don’t know if I had, you know, yeah, that’s not me, you know, service supervisor, I could probably do that. Where’s this? Oh, Greensboro, huh? Greensboro? Well, I always liked, North Carolina. But as things are right now, I’d have to say, you know, I’m happy in the Bay Area. And I think, as I was mentioning to you, I’ve started with a new company, and so far so good, so awesome.

Matthew Allred 2:57
Yeah. And I think, as I recall, you used to work in the Merchant Marine, correct? Is that, yes, part of your journey?

Lawrence Wolf 3:04
How I got into the elevator train, actually, I was a licensed officer in the Merchant Marine, which, okay, that’s, that’s the Love Boat, that’s the Exxon Valdez, that’s Captain Phillips, okay, that’s those guys. It’s not the US Marines, just right? So we know that. So I was an engineering officer, and I, you know, was part of fixing the power plant and propulsion systems on a merchant vessel. And I would travel about, I wouldn’t see too much of the outside, but I didn’t see a lot of the world. I saw a lot of the Harbos.

Matthew Allred 3:40
Yeah, yeah. Well, for months at a time, right? You’re, like, buried in this belly of a whale kind of thing.

Lawrence Wolf 3:46
Yes, exactly. You’re, you’re you’re running a watch, so you’re on, you’re on four hours, you’re off eight hours. You’re lucky if you get six hours of sleep, six hours is beauty sleep, if you’re getting six hours on a merchant hustle. It’s like, I mean, unless it’s an automated plant, if you have an automated plans, okay, as long as you don’t have the duty night and you you should be able to get a good night’s sleep.

Matthew Allred 4:13
So just curious, and this little maybe off the subject, are those diesel powered, I mean, you weren’t shoveling coal.

Lawrence Wolf 4:18
Oh, yeah. Well, right, yeah, the main varieties are steam or diesel. I sailed on both. I was attached to a gas turbine vessel, but that vessel didn’t go anywhere. It was in a was called reduced operating status, so it was hanging out at the dock, waiting for orders to okay, we’re going to fire it up. And I did a little bit of that work as well, where you would essentially do maintenance on the ship. Ship was just hanging out at dock. It would just be doing maintenance items on it, making sure that’s ready to go. Because those ships are supposed to be able to ready to go in about 30 days. They say, Okay, get ready. You should be able to pick up your cargo in 30 days.

Matthew Allred 5:00
right, okay

Lawrence Wolf 5:02
and, yeah, actually, my first vessel was a steam vessel that was brought out of Ready Reserve. Well, no, it wasn’t ready to reserve. It was a moth ball. Okay, so this was the Gulf War. My first ship was because of the Gulf War first off Okay, yeah, I didn’t expect it. We thought this was the gulf war to end all Gulf Wars, but it wasn’t anyway. So my first vessel I caught at Pier 70 in San Francisco, and it was cold iron, and we were actually able to get that up within 30 days. And, you know, do our sea trials and stuff like that. And we were able to pick up our car, get ready to go get our cargo in 30 days. But there are very few ships we’re able to do that. And of course, whenever we would like shut down. You know, sometimes you on a steam vessel that has two boilers, generally speaking, if you notice that you might be having a leak or something like that, you’ll shut down one of the boilers. Or in some cases, if you have the time, maybe you shut down both boilers, but then as soon as you start back up again, you get all these leaks. So we were always, it was just always like, whack, a mole, leaks.

Matthew Allred 6:13
I can’t even imagine. So, what was it that led you to elevators from traveling the world and, you know, working on the power plants. As you say

Lawrence Wolf 6:23
I got well, I got married this I got married in 2004 and was I? I had known her for a number of years, but as a girlfriend and you’re going out to see, it’s one thing, and then you know, as a wife and you’re going out to see it’s another, I think I was pretty Cavalier, you know, when it it’s like, Well, hey, there’s no ring attached, that kind of thing, you know, okay, well, now we’re serious. And it’s like, yeah, this, you know, this is tough. This is hard. She liked the fact that I liked it. And then I, you know, I had a lot of pride in doing it, sure. So, you know, I think she could tolerate that, but it was hard on her, and it’s hard on anybody who, who does it, it’s, it’s anybody, okay, you know, anybody who’s like a, you know, a long haul trucker. You got family and you’re a long haul trucker, same difference,

Matthew Allred 7:18
almost like the military, maybe, right, you’re deployed for however many months.

Lawrence Wolf 7:22
active duty military or reserved. Was Get Active Duty Absolutely.

Matthew Allred 7:28
Yeah, had you ever dreamed of working on elevators? Or what was it that kind of brought it to your attention?

Lawrence Wolf 7:33
No, I had no idea what it was. I answered a Craigslist and I was I was on vacation. Everything’s great, and I’m just like, right, maybe I could do something while I’m cool on my heels. I was in a Craigslist and I was like, elevators. There was this local company in San Francisco. Well, they were out of Pacifica, they still are, and they were looking for somebody. I was thinking, you know, at the time, if nothing else, it’s something I can do. Well, my union card with the mairtime union gets nice and built up, and then I can go back and back, you know, get a nice, really good, good paying job at the union hall. And then I can tell these guys, hey, look, you know, I’m just going to go to see to go to the sea for a little while and I’ll be back. I was thinking, you know, that’s what I would do. But as it turned out, I ended up getting in with this company, you know, after they interviewed me and they saw that, I knew what the heck I was talking about, at least as far as maybe not elevators. But, you know, they handed me a print, and I was able to go, well, that’s this, that’s, you know, there’s a relay, there’s a coil, right? This is a transformer, blah, blah, blah, you know, I was able to go through that. They saw that I had aptitude, and so they took me on. And they were in a situation where they were losing two guys at the same time, wow. Yeah, one of them was a service guy for them. The other was, he did mods. He did, he did repair mod for them.

Matthew Allred 9:08
Were they retiring? Where were they? Where were they going?

Lawrence Wolf 9:11
They wanted to move to Texas. This was, this was 2006. So they both, you know, they both lived in San Francisco, and they they had had it. They were the kind of guys who were just like, You know what? They had that I’m getting out of California. Okay, there was they were part of the early Exodus, right? Okay, so anyway, so that was their thing. They were just like, now we’re moving to Texas, and that’s it. Okay, right on. And they ended up getting into they ended up getting jobs working. I’ve lost contact with both of them, but I think one of them was working with EMR, yeah. So there the other one I think works for Alimack, so he’s. Doing, like, crane, crane elevators

Matthew Allred 10:05
For sure. So, I mean, it sounds like you maybe stepped right into the to the fire. I mean, took you, I assume, some time to, like, get your license, right. But if you’re got two guys walking out and one guy walking in, it’s like, you better ramp up pretty quick.

Lawrence Wolf 10:18
Yes, and it kind of for me, they kind of just, they threw me around everywhere. At first, it was like, Okay, well, we’re gonna have to do repair. They had me working on the mod. They had me doing repair. I mean, it was chaos. It was true chaos. And the thing is, it was just so they hired me, and they hired this other guy, and that guy was from, I think he was aerospace, or airplanes, you know, so A and P, he was probably like, kind of guy. He didn’t turn out, though, as it turned out, it’s like, I think he lasted maybe a month, and then he was just like, Okay, now. So at that point, they were like, oh, you know what, we’re going to have you run this route.

Matthew Allred 11:03
Okay, how long you’ve been there, a month or two, and

Lawrence Wolf 11:06
Yeah, and so, yeah, they just kind of threw me wherever. And I just said, okay, great, yeah, I’m going to do that.

Matthew Allred 11:22
What was it? So I’m just curious. I mean, obviously, for him, it was a little too chaotic. Did you like the chaos? It was that part of what you thrived in, or?

Lawrence Wolf 11:25
I was okay with that, you know, I you know? I mean, a merchant vessel can be kind of chaotic.

Matthew Allred 11:31
I can’t even imagine when you you don’t have any outside resources, right? It’s like, Oh, hey. Well, when we swing by Hawaii, we need to pick up parts. I mean, you really didn’t have the option, right? You had to, you had to make it work, the option.

Lawrence Wolf 11:44
Oh, well, no, there’s, there’s that, you know, there’s the, the idea of that you have to be resilient. You’re the fire department. You’re the doctor. If they, if it can’t be handled on ship, yeah, they you need to have it flown to you, or you need to call for a tow. So, yeah, there’s a lot of thinking ahead in that line of work. So, so, yeah, in that respect, I think, you know, the chaos was okay, you know, sure, I’m all right with that. It’s, I think it’s the driving around is that was probably the biggest for me. I never see, first of all, I never thought, oh gosh, I’ll just get involved. What I loved about the being in the merchant marine is that my commute was I, you know, wake up, throw on my boiler so you brush my teeth and walk down to the engine flat. Was a really easy commute. I didn’t like commuting. Driving, you know, having I thought, Oh my God, that’s just I could never imagine that. And then now I’ve been doing it for well over 20 years.

Matthew Allred 12:45
How long is your commute now?

Lawrence Wolf 12:48
It’s depending on San Francisco track. I have to cross the Bay Bridge, and sometimes the Bay Bridge. It’s been less now, since covid, all that stuff, traffic hasn’t come back to what it was, where it certainly took me a good hour just to get in.

Matthew Allred 13:07
So you are working downtown, because I’ve heard San Francisco has a lot of very historic, you know, drum machines and all kinds of stuff that

Lawrence Wolf 13:14
oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I’ve worked on drum machines. In fact, you know, the company that I was working with, they, well, they had their shop in the tenderloin, okay,

Matthew Allred 13:28
In the what? Sorry.

Lawrence Wolf 13:29
The tenderloin. So the tenderloin of San Francisco, with another, every major city, I guess, technically, has a tenderloin, a tenderloin, okay, this is what I found out. Tenderloin is, well, first of all, it’s a steak, right? But it’s sure it’s the better steak. The idea is that a cop, you know, a cop who’s on a cop salary, probably can’t afford the tenderloin, but he can if he’s in an area where there’s gonna be some payout. So they called that the tech they called the tenderloin, because it’s kind of the seedy part of town, okay, that San Francisco tenderloin. It’s a rough it’s a rough neighborhood. You definitely, you gotta mind your P’s and Q’s as far as, okay, I can’t leave anything out, because it’s like Star Wars. I mean, Jawas will take it anyway that, yeah, that place was, they originally had their shop in the tenderloin, and so that’s where, you know, if you had to load up your vehicle, basically it was, so it was in this parking garage, like on the third floor of this parking garage, you would take this old elevator up to, you know, this elevator was probably installed in 1926 it was a 20th elevator overhead traction. And I believe they had two elevators now that I think about it. But this was this whole parking garage. And essentially we would do the service for free. This company would do a lot of in trade. Oh yeah, because it was like, well, we’ll do your. It, because I’m sure they got a kickback as far as either reduced rent or they got free rent. I’m not sure what.

Matthew Allred 15:06
That makes sense. Okay, so your office was actually in a parking garage. That’s what I was trying to

Lawrence Wolf 15:11
Yes, that was where, I mean. So like, they had a desk, they had piles of parts and various different than, you know, lubricants, whatever you needed, you know, pig pads, you name it. So you would like, roll into that garage. And depending you there might be four or five, five other cars already there trying to load in and stuff like that. And so it’s one of those circular kind of garages where, you know, there’s, it isn’t that wide of a lane. So, you know, you sometimes you’d have to move your trucks, let somebody pass, and stuff like that. So anyway, that was there in the Tenderloin. I remember my first day, you know, once it was like, okay, show up and they can, we’re going to show you around. So I think they said, Well, no, we, our uniform is black, so just, you know, just wear black. And I said, Okay, great. So I had, you know, a t shirt, black pants. And, you know, they said, Yeah, bring a Leatherman. So that’s all they do, sure, sure, yeah. So I went, Okay, right on. So I had a Leatherman, and that’s it. And then I’m walking, I took the BART being my girlfriend at the time we lived in the city. I’m like, we didn’t have, we didn’t have a garage or anything like that. It’s like, well, you know, I really parking in this where I was living, and we were living at the time, it was like, parking city, anyway, so, yeah, I took the BART down there, and, you know, I’m walking up the street, and I meet with the owner, Eric, and he took me around. It was like, Okay, well, we’re, I’m gonna, you know, gonna get ticket to this place. He could drop me off at some place, and I’m gonna have you work with this guy. Well, yeah, okay, great, see what this guy is doing.

Matthew Allred 15:11
So this was before you got the route?

Lawrence Wolf 15:34
Just kind of like seasoning, of like the owner, he was pretty much their Troubleshooter. So if he was busy, it was like, okay, look, I’m going to give you these guys. And he had me working with, you know, the repair guy. He had to be working with that service guy, you know, those two guys who were going to take off to Texas. I mean, they were actually really good, because they, I think, if I remember, I think they gave him, like, two months. They said, look, we’re leaving

Matthew Allred 15:34
okay, right.

Lawrence Wolf 15:53
So they gave him a lot of time to, you know, you know, we’re gonna make it nice and easy to go. We’re leaving. So anyway, I really hit it off with those guys. We would, you know, we would do things after work and things like that, so meeting of the minds and stuff like that. So, yeah, he had me work with the repair guy. He had me working with the service guy a little bit. And then when it was like, okay, look, I’m gonna have you be a repair guy. Okay, I was working with repair guy and helping him do babbit, you know, re babbiting things. And, you know, of course, for me, my understanding of babbit was like, okay, bearings, like for a line, shaft bearing on a ship, right? You know, you never dreamed that I would be okay. Well, you’re going to be pouring this stuff. You’re going to be heating this stuff up and actually pouring it into a mold and creating the bearing, creating the bearing surface yourself, like so in that respect, it was great. It was, you know, because I learned about Babbitt, you know, in school when I was at the Maritime Academy. But, you know, I the actual practical application of it? Yeah. I’ve never, ever worked with it

Matthew Allred 18:42
For sure, for sure. Yeah. Have you ever looked back? Have you ever thought, Man, I wish I was back on the ships. I mean, it sounds like you’re

Lawrence Wolf 18:48
No, no, no. I know I swallowed in Kurt. It’s a young man’s game or young person’s game, I would say, although, if you look at the average age of our of our Merchant Marine, they’re probably more like my age, and it’s like, I don’t know how you’re gonna keep going like that. But anyway, that’s not my problem.

Matthew Allred 19:10
How long before you you really, you know, I, I guess clicked. I mean, it sounds like you didn’t really look back. You were just like, hey, this is what I’m doing. Was there a point at which you were like, Hey, this is, this is awesome. I’m going to be here.

Lawrence Wolf 19:22
Well, I think once I looked at my pay, once I was looking at my pay, and I wasn’t having to leave, it was like, Yeah, okay. Well, this is my no brainer. This is a no brainer. The Merchant Marine again, I was very proud doing it. I enjoyed it a lot. I had a lot of pride doing it. It’s a great skill set. It’s constant learning, just like the elevator trade, for sure, just like the elevator industry, but you don’t have to leave your loved ones behind, yeah, for months at a time, or however. You know. Yeah. I mean, I gotta leave your work, you know, they haven’t made the elevator where you can just fix it from a computer.

Matthew Allred 20:07
They’re not gonna drop it off at your house. And,

Lawrence Wolf 20:10
Yeah, well, actually, I do get parts sent to my house now, okay, yeah, so, but you gotta go install them somewhere. I do have to bring, I have to bring it to where I’m at. So yeah.

Matthew Allred 20:21
Hey everyone, thank you for listening. This is Matt with a brief message from our sponsor, the Allred group, has been recruiting elevator industry talent for over 14 years. If you are looking to grow your business and hire great people, contact the Allred group at Allred group.com that’s a, L, L, R, E, D, G, R, o, u, p.com, and talk with Matt and his team about how they can assist you. And now back to the show. What would you say was the, maybe the hardest thing for you to kind of, you mentioned the commute, right, where there are other things or other lessons that you were like, Man, this is tough.

Lawrence Wolf 20:55
It was certainly when you’re first, when you’re cutting your teeth, you know, in troubleshooting, yeah, that’s tough. It’s, it’s very frustrating, you know? Okay, yeah, first of all, you had to take the stairs just to get to the place. Sure, or you had to, you had to crawl into that steamy belly basement drum machine room that has rat feces all over fun and yeah, sure you know, you gotta get seasoned to that. But once, once you’re over that, well, now I gotta troubleshoot this thing. Why is this? Why is this ancient machine, this machine that was installed before I was born?

Matthew Allred 21:37
You gotta, you gotta understand how. I mean, how does it even work? Right? Because there’s such a different function going on if you’ve not worked on it

Lawrence Wolf 21:46
Yeah, and I, I was pretty much in at the deep end. Pretty much threw me in at the deep end. So I was like, no, okay, you just use you just sort of pick up things from I would, if I had trouble, I’d call for help. And what do you think? There was always the phone. But sometimes, you know, the guy would come in and go, Well, you know, a lot of times I could, you know, rely, at least at first, I could rely on the guy who was, you know, hired me, who was the, their Troubleshooter. He was the owner troubleshooter, right? So, and I gleaned a lot from him, because, I mean, he was, he was very and he’d been doing it very skilled. I think I want to say, at that time, let’s see, this is in 2006 so I want to say he might have had at that time. So he was like third generation, or actually fourth generation. It’s fourth generation of an elevator family. Who they got their start. They probably had, they had a company called independent elevator that was back probably as early as 1915

Matthew Allred 22:57
Wow.

Lawrence Wolf 22:57
So their, their great granddad was, I believe, winding motors with Thomas Edison. He came. So he’s, you know, back east, I think he was on there. They’re an Austrian name. So they, he came out west, probably sometime around 1915 or thereabouts. And I only I remember seeing a bell cages, ad from, from 1920 that had independent elevator and had their address, and, you know, Klondike, 527, you know, as the as the phone number, so that was their lineage. And, I mean, he would say fourth generation elevator guy

Matthew Allred 23:35
Sure, sure sounds like he had a huge impact on, obviously, you ramping up quickly. And, you know, not just that, hey, you’re, oh yeah, you’re being thrown to the wolves, but hey, I’m here to support you. So you were able to learn fast.

Lawrence Wolf 23:47
Yes, I was able to learn fast. I was able to matriculate very quickly. So yeah, having that support system was was very good. I had my six month time. And, you know, once my six months? So that was like, Okay, and here’s your pay bump. Okay, right on. Now I’m really seeing the cash flow in. So that was really great.

Matthew Allred 24:11
What do you love the most? I mean, you’ve been doing it for 20 years. Remind me

Lawrence Wolf 24:17
I’ve been 18 years in the industry, so Well, it’s 25 Oh, hold on. Oh, 19 years in the industry. Yeah, 19 years in the industry.

Matthew Allred 24:26
What do you what do you love the most?

Lawrence Wolf 24:28
I do like helping people. I think it’s very gratifying, like one time, this is when I was with my first company, and this was an old person’s home, so elderly people’s home, and I get a call to come out there, and when I arrive, I get a standing ovation down there. I’m like, Okay, I haven’t fixed anything yet. Yeah, you know, I mean,

Matthew Allred 25:02
I mean you’re, you’re kind of a rock star, right? It’s like, you’ve got the logo on your truck or shirt or whatever, and it’s like, game on.

Lawrence Wolf 25:09
It’s like, Oh, wow. You’re Superman. It’s like, well, super Superman showed up. It could be, it could be really gratifying. You’re like, Wow. I wow, you know, thank you. Now let me see if I can help you. Let me, let me see if I can get this done.

Matthew Allred 25:36
See if I can live up to this expectation, right?

Lawrence Wolf 25:29
Yeah, yeah. I mean, okay, no pressure, yeah. So that that is, it’s very gratifying. I like the relationships that I’ve been able to make, the camaraderie, you know, my fellow mechanics, yeah.

Matthew Allred 25:49
Awesome, yeah. What’s, what would you say, you know, to maybe somebody who’s brand new, maybe somebody who’s, you know, considering or considering getting into the industry. What kind of advice would you give them?

Lawrence Wolf 26:09
Well, you want to be technically you want to be technically savvy. First and foremost, I’m a trade unionist now. I’m a part of the IUEC local 8. And so if you want to get into the elevator trade, then you know, it’s competitive thing. Everybody knows about it, and there’s a line around the block trying to get into that. So you need to set yourself apart from everybody else. And one of the first things that I recommend is get certified in your welding, because that will say Part A, if you’re not a, if you’re not already union, if you’re, let’s say you’re a union carpenter. Well, that’s good. Now if you can, on the side, get a, a certified welding certificate. Oh, dude, you just now gave yourself two bumps up. Congratulations. Um, but for somebody who maybe isn’t but is trying to do that, well, then I would say, okay, a certified welding certificate, or if you are, you can get an AA and electronics, we’re not putting in relay logic elevators and so, okay, that’s gonna that’s gonna really boost you. That’s going to set you apart from any, from the guy who’s just going, Well, hey, you know, I’m young, I’m strapping. But for the younger kids, if you’re in high school, because we the union is trying to get the younger folks for sure, when I when I came across, when I came across in 2015 you know, I was in my I was in my 40s, I was part of an old group. And I remember somebody saying something about that, oh, about that bunch of old people like, you know what? Just because we’re old doesn’t make us useless, I had my CCCM when I came over, so I was able to hit the ground running as an apprentice. So anyway, but we there is a greater desire to reach out to the younger than the high school kids and a number of my union brothers have set up like a trade trailer. Just this one guy has it’s, I’ve got the name of this foundation. I think it’s the Friendship Foundation or something like that. But his name is John, Christopher. Heck, I’m gonna throw it out there. I don’t know. He might be retired now, but anyway, he started this trailer that goes around high schools, and it opens up and it it has various different things that the kids can get into, and these high school students can look at and and learn what it is to be a tradesman. So for those you know, unfortunately they’re not teaching shop anymore, or not not too many schools have shop.

Matthew Allred 26:14
Not as many places, yes, as used to as I understand.

Lawrence Wolf 26:14
I know, on a previous episode of your your podcast, you know, I heard one of the guys talking about, well, you know, I have a suit of cars and stuff like that, you know, yeah, if you, if you’re mechanically minded, okay, well, that’s a bump up. I mean, I know that if you were to go come into the trade, or even into the industry, okay, you’re going to go non union, you’re going to work non union. Fine. I’ve done it myself, nothing, no shame. So if you tell I work on my car, and I’m doing that already, that sets you apart from the other guy who’s, well, I show up to work on time every day, and I well, you know what we kind of expect, that. That’s good, that you show up work on that because, I mean,

Matthew Allred 29:29
You got to your point, you you gotta have some mechanical aptitude, some competencies. I mean, I talked to a guy the other day that had somebody just starting and didn’t know how to read a tape measure. I’m like, wow, that’s a, that’s a basic skill that, yeah, a little bit of carpentry, a little bit of something

Lawrence Wolf 29:45
Well, see, that’s part of the proficiency for the Union, you know, it’s like, there, so you have the, there’s like, a three part test, there’s an English test, there’s a, you know, so to make sure that you understand how you construct sentences. And then there’s the the mechanical. Okay, you know, okay, if this, this is, if this wheel is rotating, this is secure, and it’s rotating this way, which way, you know, and this one’s rotating this way, which way does this one rotate? You know, there’s so there’s the mechanical aptitude portion of it. There’s also, what is this? You know, there’s an arrow that points to the gradient on the tape measure. What is this read? So, yeah, if you can’t read the tape measure, forget it, dude. You’re not going to score very well. You might be able to BS somebody else, but you’re not going to be able to get past the union for sure.

Matthew Allred 30:33
Yeah. So I got a question for you. I one of the issues that I run into frequently, and I hear, you know, a lot of people will call me, especially, you know, residential elevators, right? There seems to be this growing, growing, growing need. Can’t find anybody, I mean, and on one hand, it’s like, I shouldn’t say anybody, right? But they really struggle, a lot of them to to find people to do residential elevators, which I would think that that’s a great place, maybe to, you know, to look for, for elevator mechanics, just because they’ve got some, some basics. But what, what could be done to maybe get more of those folks, you know, I guess more, and you’ve kind of talked to it, right, get young folks to even look at, you know, residential for example

Lawrence Wolf 30:38
I’ve been to college, yeah, it’s great. And I went to a Maritime Academy. It’s great. The elevator industry does not care about my maritime or my college credentials. They cared about my high school diploma. And the same with the NAEC when I was, you know, going through that apprenticeship program, they didn’t care about my high or my my college transcripts. They cared about my high school. And it’s like, okay, which, you know, I was like, this is more technical. This is, you know, more germane to what this is all about. But no, they were more interested in what my high school aptitude was. And I don’t know, maybe that’s because that’s the microcosm for, you know, hey, what you were in high school. Maybe that’s what you always are. Maybe it’s kind of a microcosm of what you eventually will be. Maybe, maybe, you know,

Matthew Allred 32:17
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s, it’s an interesting observation. If there’s one thing you could wave your magic wand and improve or change or make different, what would you do?

Lawrence Wolf 32:29
Finding qualified people at entry level. Well, I would change the educational system as much as my high school was a very good high school, I especially our English department was tops. All right. Mrs. Bennett, you were awesome. All right. Love you, you know. But from what I understand, our shop, I didn’t take shop in high school, we had a motor shop. We had like a to work on cars. But I remember talking to my brother. My brother was telling me that, um, no, this was a place for the retrobaits. Sure. Brother jury taking that he took auto shop the apparently, with the teacher, saw him in there, you know, my brother, we both played football, you know. So, you know, we both letter football guys. He’s my older brother, and he is, one year ahead of me. This was a conversation we had recently, and he kind of brought this up, but apparently that was a place for the retrobait. It was just like, it, what is that movie Breakfast club? You know? It’s like, you know, I take shop. Yeah, retrobait. It doesn’t have to be that way. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be. You will have a skill. You don’t go to college. I’m the biggest believer. I would not go to the Maritime Academy today. Now, if you were to put me back. I’m 18, I wouldn’t it costs a lot of money. It’s a good education. Don’t get me wrong. Sure. Don’t get me wrong. You learn a lot. You learn by doing at that school, but it was expensive, for sure, when I went through, you know, I’m gonna date myself to help 86 through 1990 I want to say all said, and done, it was like, $28,000 now, this is,

Matthew Allred 34:31
that was a while ago, for sure, yeah,

Lawrence Wolf 34:31
and that was a lot of money then, oh, yeah, that was a lot of money back then, I don’t know. And I remember when they changed to be in a CSU school, oh, everything went up. It’s like, okay, but you and you didn’t get as much time at sea so, you know, anyway, I don’t want to, you know, bad mouth. Anybody here, they would go best they could, but all said and done, no, they’re, they’re keep your tuition cost low. If somebody will take you on as an apprentice, do it, man, they’re Paying you and you’re young, do it! Oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna pay I want to go and I want to party. You can party when you’re making money, dude. You can go to these. You can be social when you’re making money. In fact, it’s a lot easier when you have money in your pocket to be social, right? Yeah. But, you know, I know from my era, you know, any high school in 1986 for me, it was like, Okay, I got accepted to the Maritime Academy. My parents were all so proud, blah, blah, blah, and it’s like, yeah, you know, if I could only go back in time, I would say, that’s great. That’s neat. Yes, I’m the first of my family to go to college. For me, I was planning on joining the army. I wanted to become an Army Ranger. For crying out loud

Matthew Allred 35:54
One thing I see in the elevator industry is definitely like, you’re talking about just such a variety and diversity of skills that you can. You can really not only gain a lot of confidence across the board, but you can really open up all kinds of opportunities, right, if you like. You say, when we talked at the beginning about, hey, if I want to go be a supervisor or a manager, if I want to go be a consultant or an inspector or I mean, I can, I can do a lot of different things because of this vast experience and knowledge I have that to your point, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t necessarily get that in most of the colleges these days.

Lawrence Wolf 36:30
No, I absolutely, especially the elevator, especially the elevator industry. Absolutely, the field is wide open. I I truly don’t have any fear in as far as well, let’s say, let’s say I something bad was to happen to me, and I can’t, I can’t go and work on elevators anymore. Well, one of the things is, there’s sales, not only elevator sales, but there’s elevator part sales, there’s components you could, if you knew how to source all this stuff, you could become a supplier. There’s this guy who’s just running his whenever you need a part of area called MAI elevator products. MAI elevator products, yeah, I mean, this guy, he, I, he runs it out of his garage. He’s been doing it for years. And I went my first company whenever we needed a part. You know, it’s like, can’t go through the usual places, can’t seem to find it. Call up MAI he seemed to happen. The guy seemed to be a wizard. And when I was a star, it’s like, same thing, a little MAI elevator. In fact, I was going through inventory today, and I’m like, Oh, MAI elevator product. I’m gonna have to turn the ETI guys on, onto my in the event we’re having trouble sourcing things. So yeah, there’s, there’s so many things. Yes, supervising elevator, inspecting NEAP, you know, the National elevator industry education program they offer. Well, I mean, there’s there’s also NASA. You can always go through NASA, but I plan on availing myself to the NEAP elevator inspection program,

Matthew Allred 38:21
get your QEI and

Lawrence Wolf 38:22
Get my QEI and, and, yeah, add that to my belt. Add that to my sash.

Matthew Allred 38:28
So it does make you, yeah, more marketable, right? You you can market yourself a lot of different directions and, and to your point, it may, there may be a point at which you’re like, Yeah, I’m kind of, I don’t want to keep climbing around and burning.

Lawrence Wolf 38:41
I really hope, you know, not only I can get another 10 years, that’ll give me 20 years of the union and okay, and I’d say by that time, I will be pushing up and getting close to the 70 year old. 70 year age. Hey, I don’t mind dating myself. Fine. I think after that, you know, it’s, you know, talking about, talking about earlier, you know, that’s old timer. And I’m going, you know, what, about retirement, and he’s going and do what. But, yeah, I mean, with that company, there was a couple of old timers there that just, I get it and do what?

Matthew Allred 39:21
Oh and well. And I do find that a lot of people in the industry that do what you do, they love it, and they tell me, why would I want to retire? I love what I do. I love people I’m working with. And it’s fascinating to me, because I think there’s so many people unhappy in their work, unhappy with what they’re doing, dying, you know, just trying to try to retire.

Lawrence Wolf 39:43
Yeah, I never know how my day is going to go. I have a plan for my day. But like Mike Tyson said, you know, to get hit in the face. It’s like, it’s Monday. In fact, I walk in one of my freight units is down, and, you know, it’s like, okay, there’s only two in the building. And I’m like, Okay, well, let’s see what’s going on here. And it’s it’s one of those situations where I knew pretty much what the heck problem was, because every light was illuminated in panel, the fire buzzer was going off and and of course, the doors were open. And I’m like, okay, the power supply is taking a crap. Looks like I’m going to be doing some soldering, and I’m going to have to make sure I got a power supply. And blah, blah, blah. So, you know, the the company I’m with, they do a Monday Zoom meeting. I’ve got that on speakerphone while I’m doing sure changing out this power supply, and they’re talking about governors. And, okay, well, this is, this is the expectation if you run into Governor issues and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, meanwhile, I’m just fixing this thing and swapping that out and getting their getting their stuff up and running. And, yeah, I never know how my day goes. And, I mean, I’m an in house mechanic, so it’s like, okay, my commute is pretty much set. I don’t know how that’s going to go either. I mean, there’s some days I wake up and it’s like, oh, geez, somebody, there’s been, there’s a total pile up on the Bay Bridge, you know, and it’s like, I’m not going down and around to get to work. So there’s, there is that sense of adventure in, you know, as a service mechanic, yes, it’s all it. It’s very much like that, you know? And I would say even for a mod mechanic, you don’t know how that’s going to go, because I’ve done a couple of mods and it’s like, okay, you know, we were going to do this today. Oh, but we don’t have that.

Matthew Allred 41:38
Depends on how old the business the building is, right? I mean, you may be dealing with something that’s like, Whoa, yeah this is.

Lawrence Wolf 41:45
You always run into a challenge. It’s great. The pay is great, yeah. What more can I ask for it? It’s like that standing ovation that I got, you know, you people, you know people are glad to see it. Generally speaking, not always. There are times they’re kind of like, you know, you know, you this is the fifth time I used to love when I be on call, you know? It’s like, I call and they go, the guy was just here five minutes ago. And it’s like, okay, wait,

Matthew Allred 42:15
I’m here with my cape on, and I’m going to get this going, right?

Lawrence Wolf 42:20
I’m going to see what they can do for you. I mean, do you want to, I mean, this is an overtime call, Sir, do you want me to come on down? I’ll come on down. It’s, it’s problem solving and, and I, for me, it’s very much. I like doing that. I like helping, you know, I like helping people. If I can help people, it’s like, alright, that’s great. Great. Yeah, hey, I solved the problem elevator. Mystery solved, baby.

Matthew Allred 42:47
And there aren’t that many people that can do what you do. So, so to a lot of people, you are the superhero. I mean

Lawrence Wolf 42:56
I gotta remain humble, because there are some days where it’s like, Gee, I don’t feel like a hero. I feel like a bum. Sometimes, sometimes these elevators can make you feel real stupid. But, you know, for the most part, I love the challenge, and that’s, you know, that’s one of the things I love about the maritime challenge, and that’s you’re fighting Mother ocean, or you have to deal with a very unforgiving mistress, and the elevator is an unforgiving mistress too. Well, it’s an unforgiving robot, for sure. Now, if they can go, if it thinks it has the permission to go, it goes and you didn’t do what you had to do to make sure that it doesn’t have permission, or you make sure that, no, no, no, dude, you’re not doing you’re not going nowhere. Well, it will crush you it’s and it’s nothing personal. I’m just going somewhere, yeah? But yeah, it’s not kill maim destroy. It must get to level, you know. And you, if you’re in the way, you’re in the way, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Allred 43:59
For sure, for sure. Lawrence, it’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate the time. I appreciate your passion. I mean that again, that’s kind of what draws me to these conversations, is just the excitement, the love you have for what you do, and it’s an honor. So I appreciate you being with me today.

Lawrence Wolf 44:15
Well, the pleasure was all mine, sir. Thank you.

Matthew Allred 44:18
Thank you. Stay safe and we’ll chat again down the road.

Lawrence Wolf 44:22
Thank you. I will.

Matthew Allred 44:24
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 elevator careers, or check us out online at elevatorcareers.net. Please like and subscribe and until next time, stay safe.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai