 Hey, GubCon Giants family, your host, Eric Coffey here. And today's podcast guest on GubCon Giants podcast that you can find on Stitcher, iHeartRadio, iTunes, Google Play, Google Music, everywhere that you enjoy your podcasts listening. Today's podcast guest, Patrick Heffler. Patrick is an incredible husband. He's an incredible father. He's got four beautiful kids. We showcased that today. He talks about his kids. He talks about his family. He's so proud of what they're doing and its accomplishments. And then we start talking about his business and his aspirations and how he got started and how he remembers his father waking him up on Saturdays to go and work and how he took what was a one-person company, $300,000 in revenues, just before he got into the 8A program and he grew that business out 10,000%. That's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode plus much more stay tuned for this upcoming episode with Patrick Heffler. My name is Patrick Heffler. I'm the president of Heffler Contracting Group. We're an 8A hub zone contractor and based in San Diego, California. We have three offices. One in Hesperia, which is northern, I would say about three hours north of San Diego. And another one near Vandenberg Air Force Base that we just opened up recently. Been in the business all my life, quite honestly. Grew up in the business. My dad was a contractor and the funny thing is I learned so much from my father. He taught me what hard work was all about. He taught me how great it is to love what you do and how going to work every day really is not a job. It's enjoying what you do in life and how you contribute as a family member, as a dad, show your kids how to work. And I felt very comfortable being in construction. I went to St. Augustine High School in San Diego and it is an all-boys school. I met my wife, who's a high school sweetheart. She went to the sister school, which is our lady of peace in San Diego. My sons have, I have three, four kids, twins that are 22. One is now a football coach at Concordia University in Wisconsin. His name is Andrew and my daughter is Caitlin. She is at the University of Alabama and she's going to be a sports broadcaster. And I'll put a little plug in for her. Great podcast is called Bama Network and she's doing extremely well. I'm very proud of her. My son just earned a scholarship to Cal Poly University. He'll be playing football. That's my middle son, his name is Connor. And Justin is gonna be attending St. Augustine High School for the first time as a freshman in the next couple months. So that's how my life is. And I basically have a great family life with my kids and we're very active. As a businessman though, I started in 1991. And all through high school, all through college, I worked. I worked on the weekends, worked in the summers. Can I stop you real quick? I just don't wanna miss the point. We talked about your father. Your father's seen from what I read about him, he considered helping others as his life's greatest work. That is correct. Right. That is great. Amazing. And it seemed like he was a pillar of a community. Yes. My dad, Clifford Heffler, was an amazing man. Amazing man in all aspects. He was tough, I'll tell you that. But the toughness made him so great. He was the kind of guy that you'd always could rely on. He was an AA member. And he was the longest living clean AA member in San Diego when he passed. And that was 65 years sober. And I'm very proud of that. Because a lot of people in society have issues and things that they're struggling with. Monkeys on their back and that was his monkey. And that made him strong. That made him strong. Oh my God. No, keep talking. You just said something that was perfect. Oh my goodness. Keep going. And he went out of his way to help people. Absolutely out of his way to help people. He looked at every challenge that he had in life as an opportunity to be good. And that's what made him so great. He really worked very hard. But he enjoyed what he did. But he really worked on people as well. Everybody around him succeeded in a lot of different ways. He was very inspirational to all that experienced him. Like I said, 65 years sober is a completely incredible feat. And that's the oldest living in San Diego. And when he passed, he passed very peacefully and with a room full of about 1,000 people going to his funeral of all the people he's touched in his life. And it was all because of hard work and honesty and integrity. And that he tried to spill over to his children, my sister and my brother and myself. When it came to giving to people, he was the most generous man I've ever met. And when he was passing, it was very difficult for me. But it was the best two weeks of my life because I got the opportunity to spend two weeks with my dad. He suffered from pancreatic cancer. And I had to change his diapers. He was so helpless. And I've never experienced a man that was so strong but so helpless at the same time. And it was amazing. And it was probably the greatest two weeks of my life because I really got to understand my dad as a person. He had no regrets. The only regret he had is if he could do more for people. And the people that came to visit him was amazing. And I tried to bring that over to my business. And it's very difficult at times because it's a very tough business, a construction-contracting business. But what sets the good companies from the bad, I would say, is integrity. And I think that's where Heflor is as a culture here of that. And that's what it's enticing. It's interesting. One of the questions that I had for you was exactly that. What are some of the principles that your dad taught you that you carried on into your personal life with your family that you wanted to share and convey? Well, I got a funny story about my dad. He was really grew up in a great depression. He was, I think, 11 years old during the time. And he was on the streets the whole time. And the funny thing about that is that that struggle made him who he was today. And I think that's where he always remembered where he came from. He always remember how he came from. And I believe that's where it comes across with Heflor Company. We always remember where we came from as a small company. We're still a small company, but we're doing things that are, I think, very impressive in our industry. How it came across is one of the things my dad taught me is that you always do more than you're expected to do. And that's what's very key in when it comes to construction and working with the government. The government has their priorities. They have their interests. They have their missions to support our troops or the federal agencies that are associated with that. But they're only interested in results. If we can exceed those expectations in every aspect, in the integrity, price, quality, schedule, that's what our goal is. And that's what my dad always instilled in me. Always do more than you're asked, always. Not for profit reasons, for your own reasons. So you feel good about every project you finish. And that's what catapults us from one project to the next. One of the things that I love about federal contracting and the ADA program specifically is that you're only as good as your last project like we just talked about, Eric. Right, right. But in our case, that's what markets our company. Our past performance is what catapults us in two contracts, three contracts. And those two contracts, those contracting officers start saying, who's Heffler? How did they perform? How did they do? What was their pricing and schedule like? What was their integrity? What was their safety program? What were their personnel or management team like? They're excellent. So those are the things that make a difference. Being men of your people of your word is very important as well. So. No, that's a great start. Now you said that you always work, you work to this high school? Yes. My dad, he's a good guy. But he was tough. So some of the things we used to work, I used to go work. Your dad was in the Navy? Yes, he was in the Navy. So you're a Navy kid. He was in a pilot, he was a pilot mechanic. So he'd work on the planes, the corsairs. He'd work on the corsairs in the Navy on the ship. But Patrick, those Navy men from back in those days were tough, man. I haven't met a single person in that generation that they weren't like tough. It's amazing. Those men were, yeah, they were. And so the funny story is one of his first contracts was to dig out a basement out of a house, a complete basement with no equipment. So he did it by hand. And he did it by himself. And I said, man, how did you do that? He just took me a couple of weeks. I was good. Made $38. And I look at that funny because he looked today, not a lot of people would do that today. It'd be very difficult. But he was tough. So on the weekends, we would work on the weekends. And he'd get me out of bed at five o'clock in the morning, crack it down, take me to donuts. That was my, and he'd put me in the ditches digger all day long. And literally dig it. Then I graduated from that point and started able to, he'd let me use a wheelbarrow. And then from that point, he gave me actually a piece of equipment to learn how to operate. So I learned from the bottom. And I learned working side by side with people that work hard. I understand work ethic. I understand what's involved. And he would work beyond the weekends. And I didn't argue. I loved it. You know, I'm sure also that in working construction, because again, I've come from construction background, you probably work with all types of people. Oh, yes. Because construction, we bring out all the people come into construction, right? Oh, yeah. We bring it all in. We bring it all in. And from all different states and all different backgrounds. Backgrounds, personalities, backgrounds. Yeah. So I'm sure. And it was hard. It was hard. No, I mean, it's just honestly, because people always, I tell people, look, look. You know, I'm not a, I consider myself a tough guy. And for me, I didn't like yelling at people and fighting with people. And what I found in the construction industry was that you did a lot of yelling and fighting and screaming. And it was just, for me, being in the field now, obviously the personnel in the office was a different caliber. But the guys in the field and running crews was just not my forte. Yeah, it was. And that was my contribution, my parents. And it helped them. It was what I could give a little bit back to my parents and my dad. But I enjoyed it quite honestly. I mean, we'd crack it down. We'd be driving to projects. And I had the best conversations with my dad at that time. Wow. And it really wasn't about work. It was just about being a man. Right. And what needed to be done. And from there, the funny thing is, I used to play football. I played at high school. I played at USD. And during high school, we had games on Friday nights. But my dad would still wake me up at five in the morning and go to work the next day, even considering how sore and tired I was. And I didn't mind it quite honestly. I didn't mind it. And if we celebrated a little bit too much after a game in high school, you know how teenagers are sometimes after football games. And I get in, my dad's pretty liberal about getting in anytime you wanted. But make sure you're ready to go at five o'clock in the morning. So one story is, I was cruising on in about three o'clock in the morning, four o'clock in the morning, I had something to eat down in the kitchen. We asked my stuff. He goes, let's go. Didn't say work. Except let's go to work. Just go to work. That was his way of saying, you know, he got responsibilities. He got to take care of those. I'm not gonna argue with what he did last night or why you're so late. So he had very common sense with all about it. A lot of things. Love it. I love it. And then USD, same thing. I was working on the weekends. I was helping them during the week because my schedule is a little bit more flexible. And I learned a lot. I graduated from working in the field to equipment operator, to concrete finisher, to also an estimator. And I had a pretty good background. My parents thought I had a pretty darn good background on numbers with numbers. And so I started estimating. And I was doing that while going to school. And that's sort of my background, estimating. I studied economics at USD. And my dad was more on the civil side of civil engineering. So I really understood the civil side of construction. I understand all the sidewalk, all the utilities, everything associated with that. At the end of USD, my parents, my brother suddenly passed away. And that was a tough time for my parents. And they wanted to stop, get out of the business. And so I basically purchased portion of the company from, I guess, my dad's license from him at that time. So, you know, he didn't give it to me. He made me purchase it. And that's how it started with me, 1991. 1991, okay, because I had on here 81, 56. I had a different date. Well, 1956 was when my father originally started his company. Gotcha. That's when he got his contractor's license. Okay. And then 1991 is when you purchased it. When I actually purchased it and really started taking over, that's my brother died about a year and a half before that. Okay, okay. All right, so now you purchased it. And roughly, you know, when you purchased it, I'm assuming it was still like a mom and pop business. Or was it, had you grown, had he built it up to something, you know? No, you know what? It was sort of in the, I'm gonna be honest with you, it was sort of in the decline because my brother was going through a lot of struggles at the time. And my dad, you know, his background and being in AA for so long, my brother had some issues that he had that he was struggling with. And my dad couldn't figure out a way to help him. He couldn't not get that way. And I loved my brother to death. Everybody loved him. It just, he had some issues that he couldn't, he was struggling with and it tore my dad apart. It was like probably his toughest struggle in his life that he really couldn't get past. And so when my brother passed, it really devastated her family, devastated my mom and my dad quite often, quite a bit. And I said, dad, I know at that time, they were not really fit to continue working. They didn't want to work. They had some success with their company and they did well and they saved their money. Like most of that generation does. And so they had a lot of savings and they were fine. I said, well, I'd like to take over the business. And he goes, well, you can buy my license and then it's all up to you. And that's what he, that's what he did. And he didn't give me anything, didn't give me any equipment, didn't give me anything. He sold all his stuff and he just said, go ahead. My first contract. He gave you no equipment, no trucks, nothing. Nothing, all had to be brought in. My first piece of equipment. Oh, actually, no, he did give me one piece of equipment but it didn't run. So it didn't run, it was a piece of junk. I just want to be clear for dad, if you're watching, he did give me one piece of equipment, just didn't run. He traded in for something, Pat. But at that point, my first contract was a $29,000 contract at, well, it was a service contract and then the one, my first real contract was with the San Diego Office of Education and it was a parking lot expansion project. And that was my first project. That's funny because you're still doing parking lot expansions. Yes, we are. I saw that on one of your profiles. You're still doing parking lot expansions. Yeah, we still do that. We still, now we build buildings and do a lot of other things. How, that's, thank you for that. That was a great intro, excellent. You know, because a lot of times people, they talk about work ethic and they talk about, you know, what it takes and then it's funny because you mentioned the monkey in your back. Now, I forgot what context we referenced it, but hold on, let me show you something. Let me show you this real quick. That's funny. I was looking for that when you made that comment about the monkey in front of your back. And the reason why is because a friend of mine who's a successful business person today, he said, if you could figure out how to get that monkey off your back, you've made it, right? And get past all of those things. He says, you know, you will start finding yourself on the path of being successful. So when you made the comment about the monkey in your back, it just reminded me. And again, like, I think we were referencing like the AA program, I think at the time, but it's the same difference. Whatever it is that's stopping you or preventing you or impeding you from being able to do your life's greatest work. Yeah, I agree. I agree. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I had to bring that up. I was looking for it the whole time. I was like, I had to find that picture because I'm actually gonna make a post about it just because a lot of the truths, a lot of what you said about your dad about doing more than you get paid for and living a life of service, those are all like old adages that are timeless. They are and they work. And they work. Doesn't matter what time of frame you work to live in. Everything works that way. The good, strong values of that generation, in my opinion. But the monkey on the back is a great analogy because it's everybody has them. Doesn't matter who you are. Doesn't matter who you are. And it just, if you can contain that and be able to control that and be able to direct it in a positive way, it tends to help you in the future, in my opinion. No, that's great. So at what point did you, so you started off and you work with, the $20,000 contract and then you work with San Diego. At what point did you start looking at the federal arena? It was not until 2009, quite honestly. Wow. I was doing capital improvements for a very long time, Mitch's local government municipality work. The problem with local government municipality work is we always had a great, we had always had a great, I would say a great, not only great integrity, but it had a great relationships with a lot of these in the city of San Diego, the counties, the Caltrans, all these different municipalities. But the thing about those municipalities is it's all based upon low bid. It's not based upon your reputation. So they might be able to give you a bad boy and tap you on the shoulder, hey, we really like you, but no, it's gotta be fair and open when it comes to some of these. Which is I understand, because you're dealing with taxpayer money, but the problem is, what ends up happening is we get a lot of contracts that are either under bid or going to contractors that don't have that type of reputation or not looking for the best interest of the client. And so what I did is I said, you know what? The economy hit me really bad in 2008 and 2009. It was devastating. Yeah, it was absolutely devastating. I was going from bidding against poor contractors to bidding against 28 contractors. And I didn't get a project for three years. Three years. It was devastating. How'd you survive? Selling a piece of equipment a week. Or a month. And that's honestly, that's what I did. That's how I survived. I sold off my assets slowly to keep things going. I kept all my employees up to the last minute and then had to just wait until the economy changed. At that time, the housing market was in the tank. The credit market was in the tank. The construction market was in the tank. So it was sort of a perfect storm. And at the same time, I was trying to figure out a way to get my kids in school and give them the opportunity and the dreams that I had in high school because Saints and OLP are private schools and I wanted to give them that opportunity. I didn't want anything that I was doing to take away from what they were trying to do in their life. I wanted to get this opportunity my dad gave me and my mom gave me. And so I struggled. And how I struggled was I struggled with, okay, what can I do to show my kids how to get out of a problem such as this? Because my dad showed me. So I fought and I fought and I figured out, I said, hey, what's gonna give me a competitive advantage over the other contractors? What's, how can I utilize my ability to do good work, show integrity, not be a change order contractor and provide that to the client. The ADA program was the solution. And not that the ADA program is a free ticket in any aspect. It just gives you, it just gives you the, instead of a cold call, it gives you a warm call. When it gets you, when you talk to a client, they actually, that's just a vehicle they can use to help you get into contracts. But you have to do all the work. So the thing about my ADA is I went to knowing construction and I knew how to run a business. So I had that advantage, quite honestly. But what I didn't have the advantage was, is how the federal market worked and how was it, how did the maneuver in it successfully during a short period of time, the window of ADA program was nine years. So the ADA gave us the warm call in lieu of the cold call. But I still had to figure out how to maneuver through the program. So what I did is I went and interviewed, I think it was 18 past and present ADA contractors. And I basically went to them and I said, okay, if you had the opportunity to have your ADA today, what would you have done differently? And what would you have, what would you try to accomplish? Every single one of them, that was successful, said I would have stayed in the programs, the max, the jocks, not rely on soul source contracts. The reason why is soul source are taken care of a need of a particular base, which is great. It's you're getting revenue, but the long-term programs give you long-term viability within the program. In a sense, it extends your ability to be an ADA. So the companies that were successful were massive companies, big companies. And they're very good companies and they're still viable in federal construction today. The ones that were not, I don't see them around. The ones that lived off of soul source. Soul source, or lived off the low-hanging fruit, let's call it. There's really no low-hanging fruit with federal contracting. There might be, I mean, you can't take it that way when you're in the ADA program, because it's gonna die on the branch very quickly. Because if you rely on that, the government understands that you're relying on that. If you're not, see, the whole purpose of the ADA program is the business development program. They're trying to give you the opportunity to become a business that's gonna bring a lot of employment to the industry. They want you to become that large business employer. That's what they would like. What made you decide to interview 18 ADA companies? Because I'm a pretty analytical person, quite honestly. And when I get into something, I really look in everything, look at every aspect. How can I succeed in it? What are people doing that works and what are people doing that don't work? So I really spend a lot of time doing my research on things. So at the same time, I had a lot of time in my hand, Eric. I didn't have any contracts. And I was submitting, I was submitting. Very valid, very valid point, I like that. I submitted my ADA application. It took me 18 months to get it. Similar situations that people have today. Right, well, it's a very difficult process. It's a very difficult process. And so I had some time on my hand. Okay, I know, but still, I've never heard of that before. What's that? That anyone sat down to actually interview ADA companies. I've never heard of that. It's a, I wouldn't. No, it makes total sense. It makes absolute 100%. I mean, like, if people did more of that, I think I would be out of a job. Which, yeah, my goal is to put myself out of a job by helping and training people and teaching them how these things work, right? So I'd like to work myself out of a job. I just, there are so many people out here that have the ADA certification that have no idea how to use it. They don't even know why they got it. Someone told them about it, right? And they go into it completely blind, not knowing the program, not knowing how to leverage the program. How is it supposed to work? What is it supposed to do for them? Well, I didn't want to waste time. I wanted, the day I got my ADA certification, which I remember it was outside of a little coffee shop where I was picking up my daughter from school and I was been waiting on it and waiting on it and waiting on it. But prior to that, I would say, I'm not gonna waste one day in the ADA program. Not one, not one. Because you waste a day, you're never gonna get that back. Never. And I didn't. And I said, as soon as I get certified, I'm gonna be ready to go. I'm gonna be ready to go. I owe that to my family. I owe that to my future employees or people that are gonna be working for bringing Heffler Company to fruition. And I was outside in that coffee shop. I got that email. After 18 months, I freaking cried. I was so happy. Because I felt something gave me a chance. My dad's looking down on me. And he said, hey, I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna let, let's see what you can do with it. And so when I interviewed these 18 contractors, it was serious. I was going in there for a particular reason. What is it, and you'll find a lot of ADA contractors are willing to give back. They're willing to give back. And they're willing to help any, a lot of contractors out. How did you find that, 18? Just through small business and names. I knew contractors and I went, like I said, I went for the biggest ones and even the smaller ones. And I just went through SBA search. My SBA person I was actually dealing with gave me some names as well. And I asked her, hey, could you give me some successful ones and some not successful ones or ones that maybe didn't take the program to its fullest extent. So I did that. And, but what I did find out was the contractors that were just worried about the low hanging fruit, just the one contract, one contract, lived in my contract contract, they didn't last. The ones that had a long-term goal on the programs, they lasted and they're still in business today. But so as a company, Hefler Contracting, we took all that and I struggled as an A&A, quite honestly, for the first two years. Not in a revenue standpoint, I would say. I wanted to, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to bring in people to help me, smarter people than myself. That's what I needed. And I needed to use the leverage, their abilities to build the company. And so that's what I did. I hired three senior project managers and we went after it. We got after it quick. And each of them had a particular specialty. The first one is Mike Flood, who understood all the desert air bases. He worked in the desert forever. And a lot of the projects out there, 29 Palms, China Lake, Port Irwin, just everything that's out there, Barstow, he understood that market. Edwards Air Force Base, NASA, he understood that market. And I knew as a federal contractor, I had to not have a single, I couldn't rely on just contracts in San Diego. I had to rely on multiple bases because multiple bases get their funding at different times. Sometimes Barstow will not get any funding this year. Maybe they'll get funding next year. So I had to be, I had to move around, be able to be liquid and move around that way. Then I said I needed a really strong and smart operations manager. And that new construction, new federal contract. Jesse Tovar, a great man, ex-marine. And he and I built the infrastructure of the company. That means all the technology, all the structure of protocols, everything associated with the business. We designed it together. Obviously he did a lot more because he's a lot smarter now. But he did an incredible job. And we're using his infrastructure today. Then I said, okay, I don't wanna have any gaps in my backlog when it comes to work, none whatsoever. I had a background of estimating, but I had to market my company. I had to go do my capability presentations. I had to meet clients. I had to meet the government, introduce myself, get my feet out there. And to balance both of them, to estimate and do a good job marketing your company and selling yourself, it was very difficult. So I hired a gentleman that had 40 years' experience in program management and estimated, Carl Kastner. He has been extremely, extremely successful when he does. Because I give him the leeway. I give Jesse, I give Mike, and I give Carl all the binding authority they need to perform. And they trust me to do my job, which is the market, the company. And keep us in the program, keep us finance, keep us going. And the day we started in the A&A program, I had myself and one other employee. Today we have 96 employees. I was gonna ask that question. I was gonna ask something. Because what it sounded like to me that she's built it from ground up again, basic to your business. Completely ground up. And it was ground up, but we had knowledge. We had some knowledge. And we did make some right moves. No, obviously we had been in business before and you had some success in the past. And so you weren't coming into the business as green, as they like to say, right? You had a business experience, but you just had to start over, right? From a certain sort of role. And have a totally different mentality. Totally different outlook on it when it comes to federal contract. Because it is different. It is different. No, congratulations. You started off with the capital work and I don't know if you've ever heard any of my podcasts, but man, let me tell you, a lot of the things that you say echo things that I've shared in the past. I did work for Miami-Dade County and I just, I never saw anyone really become successful at the county level. They made money and they survived, but they didn't, like you said, they weren't like in the terms of the federal reading where people today still awesome and thrive even beyond those programs, right? They're still large organizations. I never saw that at the city level. I didn't have those examples. You know, there's a few, quite honestly, but there's a few that take it, they have it, they're in other footprints besides San Diego, they have other counties. So if you're reliant on one municipality or one client, that's your total downfall. That's why 8A program actually forces you to have multiple clients. Forces you to have 8A work and non-8A work because they realize that if you're dominant in one market or one client and something happens to that client, that could be your business. And that's what happened to me, quite honestly, in 2008. All municipalities work. Once the municipalities work shut down, I had nowhere to go and that's what happened. So now the way we're diversified now is that we're in several different US, USACE, NATVAC, DHS, NASA, Department of Interior, we do a lot of work with all the agencies. And not only in San Diego, we're doing projects in Hill Air Force Base, Nevada, Arizona, and we have projects also in Bannonburg, in Washington. So we're pretty diversified. We try to go where the work is needed and a lot of our managers on these projects are willing to do that. And that's also an obstacle we had. Finding the people that wanted to be able to expand the footprint, understand what we're trying to do, what we're trying to accomplish. The whole thing is never have a gap in your backlog of work in municipality work. If you didn't get a project, you'd have a big gap and you wouldn't have many billions for that month and you might be making money as a contractor, but those gaps are what kill you. So the consistency, and that's what also, it kills you as a contractor, but it also kills a morale of the company because maybe you might have to dismiss somebody. My goal is, every day that comes in this Catholic company, I'm always looking at them as a long-term employee or a long-term team player that comes in that wants to end their career here. That's the way I look at it. And that's why we have so much backlog and we have so much work coming in because our goal is to never have any gaps at all. Now, when you say, you have to take care of the backlog and the caption of backlog, someone listening to this is gonna say, well, yeah, you have 96 employees, it's easy to do today. How did you do that when you had five employees? You're right, it's very difficult. What we found out is I was subcontracting a lot of work at that time that was helping a little bit as well. But now we're doing about 50% of the work in-house. The employees, yeah, it was gradual. It was gradual going from, let's say, one employee to 96, but it's always, we always looked at the model as being we have an office in Hesperia that replicates the model here in San Diego. We have an office in Vandenberg that replicates the models throughout those areas. So we build, whatever we can manage, we go after it. If we can't manage, we don't go after it. In this day and age, having 96 employees, it might be a little bit easier because the market's pretty viable, but you still have to manage. You still have to have that culture that- That's a big payroll. That's a big payroll. You still have to have that culture that wants to get these projects done. And I think that's a bigger challenge. That is, that's a challenge. Tell us about that, because, you know, I actually posted something recently and actually I did a podcast earlier with a gentleman and we said that people are our greatest assets, but they're also your greatest liabilities. So- Yeah, it's, sometimes Jesse tells me I'm the liability. No, I'm just joking. Oh, that's good. That's good when you're the liability. That's good. I like that. I'll be straight, I'll be straight with you. I'm just a leader. And the company is made up of great people and they're the ones who make this company successful, not me. I just have the vision. I have the guts and the determination and the willingness to take risks. And they're enticed by that. And they like that. And as far as liabilities are concerned, I don't consider people a liability. I consider the way I treat them or the way I approach a situation that could be a more of a liability. If I'm not treating the person correctly, if I'm not doing what I say I'm gonna do, then that's the problem. That's the issue. I'm very clear when I interview anyone that comes into the company. I'm not here to have you work on one particular project. I'm here to have you work the rest of your career here. You're ever rest your time here. And I go, but I'm gonna try to do everything I can to make you have all the success in the world here. I'm gonna give you everything you need, all the tools you have. There's never gonna be an issue where it's my, I'm the excuse for success. But it's up to you to do it. You need to live up and I will live up to my expectations as well. So that's the way I treat it. And sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. That's what I was gonna say. I mean, you've had to have people that it didn't work out. There wasn't a- Oh yeah. Yeah, and it's sometimes it's not fit because they're just quite honestly, the only time it's really not a fit is when the strictures of our protocols are not what they're used to. And it's tough for them to adapt to the strictures. It's usually not a personality or a conflict. It's just maybe they're not as strong technology-wise or not used to doing it their way. That's usually what it is. How do you deal with people that are not performing? I can employ that's not, he has a certain expectations that you guys have set for him a roadmap and he's not living up to that. First of all, we find out why he's not. Is it Kefler? Is it us? Are we not providing him the resources, the training, the technology, the assets that he needs or she needs? If we find out that's not the issue, then we find out, hey, what can we do? You're missing it a little bit. How can we make it better for you? And sometimes they're able to explain themselves and say, hey, you know what? I'm just not used to how you guys do things. I understand why you do it, but I'm not used to it. And I'm struggling. We've had people come in to our company and in one week they know all the protocols. Then we've had people that are 30 year veterans in construction that takes them two to three months. So we give them the flexibility to learn. But at that point, whether it comes a time that we're business is business and say, you know what? I'm not living up to your expectations. You may not be living up to what we expected when we discussed everything and let's just part ways for all the right reasons, amicably. And that's what happens, quite honestly. And you gotta have the ability to do that. So that's, look, the first thing Katie, my mind is I'd work for you. I mean, now that's some good stuff. I don't know what you're gonna work for yet. No, listen, Patrick. I mean, that sounds like Starbucks, like Disney World type stuff, man. That's great. I mean, I have never experienced that, right? I mean, and the workforce of people that I've experienced are like, you know, you know, ship up or shape out. You know, it's like, I just, I love the approach and I think that that is the right way to do it and give you an opportunity and look at yourself because we could have been the problem. But I just, again, a lot of these concepts I haven't heard and I think a lot of people will benefit from them. But we're in no way perfect. I'm gonna tell you right now, we're always constantly changing. I'm a firm believer on making 1% improvement weekly on everything and I'm constantly trying to tweak things. I'm lucky I have Jesse because Jesse is the type of guy that you wanna go into battle with on every aspect. He's the banker, he's the analytical side of a lot of things. I tell him, hey, this is my goal. This is what I'm trying to achieve. How can we do it? And he'll give me the right answer, the wrong answer. He's not a yes man. He just says, you know what Pat, that's not gonna work. This is the reason why. And he tells me what I wanna hear sometimes but he tells me a lot of times, probably most of the time, but I don't wanna hear. And one of the things is going into these capability presentations. I think a lot of your clients or your people you work with, they go into these capability presentations with a big old PowerPoint and this and that. Just talk to the government. That's the key. You're real. The people that are sitting across from you are real. And you just need to make them look good. And you need to see what their needs are and what they're trying to do. A lot of contractors, a lot of contractors, or I'm not saying a lot of contractors. A lot of things I've told Jesse is that we need to go in there every time we talk to the government like we're sitting across listening to ourselves. Do you wanna hear what this guy's telling you? Do you guys, can this guy be a benefit to us? Can Patrick be a benefit? And that's what we gotta look at. And that's the one thing that when we go to these capability presentations and I've probably done it, 200 of them. Different agencies. Some successful, some not. And the whole aspect of it is being real. And a lot of the guys you work with, they need to realize that they don't need to try to impress people. They just need to impress upon them what you are of all about and how you can help them. And that's what's important. No, I like that. That was great. The concepts that you mentioned, the ideas. Do they come from any place or these are yours? Do they come from a book? Do they come from literature? Do they come from? No, you know what, I'm gonna honestly say it's my dad. Okay. I'm, he didn't, he taught me a lot of things. And I think I used his influence and sort of made it my own. And tweaked it to be able to articulate it somehow with people. Because I know he was a very inspirational person. And that, I think a lot of people that come to work for Heffler, they're coming here because they're inspired by what we're trying to achieve. And they wanna be part of it. And they wanna be long, they wanna family. And they wanna be long to it. And I think that I got that from my dad. I mean, he worked many years side by side from guys' laboring to guys' operating to guys that have master's degree. And he never treated him any different. Never. And he was real. And you could sense that. And you can feel that from the guy. And I think I try to do the best I can to bring that into my company and in my life as much as I can. What kind of extracurricular activities are you into? I am a full-fledged sports fanatic when it comes to my kids. My kids are... Man, your kids, I see them. They're all over Twitter, man. Yeah, I mean, I love those guys. And my son played football at Pomona-Pitzer, three years, almost a four-year starter. Now he's, that's a good example. He's not making a lot of money. I'll tell you, he's getting his master's degree at Concordia and I told him, hey, don't worry about the money. Just worry about what you love. Worry about your passion. And money will come later when you need it. Don't worry about it. And he's doing exceptional. My daughter with Bama Network, it just took off. She had this great idea. She was sitting down, we're just sitting down drinking coffee with her mom and her. He goes, why are you guys creating? Because she went to Alabama from USD to get into journalism, or to broadcast journalism. And it's specifically sports. And they had to come up with a solution on how they can get trained and how they can get experience because everybody she was trying to intern with was asking, what experience do you have? And so she said, why don't we create, with her really good friend, why don't we create a podcast, or let's say a YouTube, I don't even know what it's called anymore, but a YouTube that has a college girls basically standpoint on sports. Specifically Alabama sports. Which is huge. And it took off. Alabama sports, first of all, it's huge. It actually took out. Luckily she has my wife's looks, and she's got my wife's intelligence. And she's doing really well. Extremely well. And now she's getting the opportunities at certain networks to get internships. Her internship got canceled this last summer because of COVID. She was disappointed with that, but it got deferred until after she graduates. So she's a semester behind my oldest son. And but extracurricular activities, I love going to their games. I have never missed my son's football games. Never missed it, no matter where it's at. I'll fly there wherever, fly by myself, whatever it is, I'll be there. And I told my son, if you play college football, I'll be at every single game no matter what. And I was, and my wife and I were. And now my middle son, Connor, is gonna be playing for Cal Poly. And division one. And he's a great guy and great kid, great smart kid. Again, takes after my wife and intelligence and grades. But he's going up in about a week to start optional training or volunteer training up at Cal Poly. What position is it gonna play? He's a linebacker, middle linebacker, Mike linebacker. Yeah, he's a mean guy. So he takes after my dad, my dad. And then we got my younger guy, who's a baseball player and a football player. And he's gonna be going to St. Augustine as a freshman next year, just coming here. So I go to all their games and that's how I get, I guess that's how I release my steam. Congratulations on your daughter podcast. I mean, I wish her all the best. I actually- Yeah, you gotta check her out, family network. No, listen, I already checked her out before I got, I knew her before I knew you. I mean, she tweets all the time and it started off as Bama Girls and then it went to Bama Network. Yeah, that's right. So, but no, again, obviously I'm a podcaster, I'm a YouTuber, so I resonate with things. And on top of that, I'm a Gator, some SEC guy and I'm a Bama, this SEC. So she hits a lot of my hot button points. Oh, I bet. Yeah, because I saw one of your tweets, they tweeted an athlete, Florida football game was on your Twitter feed. It was an athlete chasing down Clemson player. Oh, that was awesome. Number 99. Yeah, he chased him, he ran, got in the backfield. Yeah, exactly, that's right. Yeah, yeah. It's funny because she argues and discusses the drafts with my sons and they're big time into sports and she stands her ground. I can see that having an appeal with people, right? Because that's a different perspective, that's a whole other, I would like that because again, you're used to getting the typical like agent perspective on sports, right? The ESPN stuff, but let's hear what some college students think about it. Exactly, and especially two girls. Yeah, two girls. Very smart, beautiful young ladies who have a real strong knowledge in football. No, I saw them do a mock draft. Yeah. It's really cool. No, I'm telling you, that makes sense to me. Yeah. That makes sense to me. She hit sort of a niche. Yeah, she did, she did, she did. No, I mean, look, again, if there's no opportunities, right, you have to create your own path. So, you know, she, like you said, she was looking for a way to get herself some internships and opportunities. She just created her own path. Right. And I honestly, I love technology and I love where we're at in the world to do that because again, you know, you were, I had the curve in entering 18 persons, right? But that's kind of what we do here at the podcast, right? Is we interview people, share their stories and talk about what made them successful and how they got there because those lessons, right, can be passed along to the next generation. The next small business guy coming up, you know, so let's fast forward to now we're 2020, it's COVID, right? The last time we had a recession, you, right, you had to sell off equipment every month. How are you doing this time? Well, this time I'm hiring, quite honestly. Love it. I took a complete opposite approach and we hired five very good people to add to our team. We hired five people. We hired two estimators and three superintendents just recently and we looked at it as, yeah, it's COVID but let's look at this as an opportunity. There's some very successful people out there that we'd like to bring aboard our team and this might be the opportunity to do so. And luckily, luckily they were enticed by what we were able to offer and we engaged them and now they're aboard. As far as sales is concerned, we have had a drop off in sales in revenue but it's really just because of the fact that it's more difficult to get things done. That's better. Right, right, right. As far as the contracts are concerned, nothing changed there. Nothing changed. We're still getting awarded contracts. We're still bidding. We have 12 estimators and they're going non-stop, non-stop. Really, 12 estimators? Yeah, they're just, well, they all have their specialty. Quite honestly, we have a electrical estimator, we have a mechanical estimator, a wet and dry. We have two civil estimators and like three or four GC type estimators and then Carl runs that, all runs them. You talked about IDIQs, Chocks, Macs. I mean, I looked at your website. I take it that you're on various vehicles. Yes, we're on $157 million worth of job contracts and I think our programs, we have 12 programs that are Macs and those 12 programs are anywhere from HVAC Macs to general construction Macs and our jocks that we're, they're all competitive jocks that we went into and they're all different locations. Some are in the desert areas, some are in San Diego, some are in Metro, which encompasses all the bases in San Diego, some are up north. Our Macs, we just received a Mac, a nationwide roofing Mac, so and we're part of that group. And I'm sure you're aware of Macs sort of like a select bidder's list, basically what it is. The government isolates a certain amount of funding for these contractors to compete, to go after. You have to demonstrate your ability and capabilities and your background and your past performance. And then the next phase would be a pricing phase, which would be possibly a project that's either a seed project that you propose upon and that's how the government evaluates you. And these contracts take about a year to get. And so some of these contracts we have, like I said, we have 12 of them right now and they all vary in size, but they're all, they all encompass pretty much all the bases in states that are like Arizona, Nevada, California, Washington, things of that nature. So then like I said, we just got our nationwide roofing Mac which we're excited about. No, I love it. There's something on your website, it says POCA. Okay, POCA? Orinic Construction Activity. I've never heard of that before. Basically, it comes from U.S.A.s. So you know, Army Corps of Engineers. And what it is, it's a contract vehicle that's designated similar to like a job contract. But what it is, it's an isolated contract vehicle with the Army Corps of Engineers. And it's a sole source. What they do is they negotiate your GNA only. And then each particular project that they issue off of it or task order, you negotiate the costs associated with that task order with exception to the GNA, which gets added to the contract. So for instance, the POCA's that we have are usually designed to, hello, Heffler, we got a sole source for you. We're gonna use a POCA as the vehicle. And we're gonna award you a $2 million POCA. That $2 million POCA is gonna cover this project, which is let's say a runway project at Edwards. And then it's gonna handle this tenant improvement that we need to be done at Edwards as well. And so a lot of times the POCA contracts are anywhere from like $500,000 to a million dollars. And, but they can also be large in that, but they're not to exceed $2 million. We have had a $4 million POCA, but they don't do that that often. A lot of the Army Corps of Engineers don't use POCA's with exception to LA District. LA District uses POCA's more often. Hmm, I've never heard of it. That's a good vehicle for any ADA is to request POCA's opportunity to prove themselves through a POCA contract. Very good opportunity for them. And LA District is the one that actually administers a lot more than the other districts. Why is it different than a regular sole source? It's just a vehicle. It's not a one particular contract. So they don't know. Okay, okay. It's not for one specific. It's like a job, a bigger job. Yeah, okay. But the thing, instead of on a job, you submit your coefficient on a POCA, you submit a GNA cost only or a GNA percentage. So you're not negotiating that at all in any aspect. You know, I, two years ago, I went after a job conflict in the New England area. And, man, it was really strange how to fill out the jock forms. They recommended that you buy that software that they have. Four clicks or? Yeah, no. It's, yeah, RS Means, but RS Means has a jock version of it. Yes, we use four clicks. Use which one? It's called four clicks. Four clicks? Okay. Some other people use guardian group, guardian and there's other ones as well. Yeah, because, I mean, it was a first time for us. And I think that our estimate was just like overwhelmed. He thought he could whip it up in the last, you know, a couple of days. Yeah. It's a cumbersome program. RS Means is very tough and tough in a sense that it takes so long. If you're an estimator, if you know you're estimating and you, if you watch, if you look at RS Means, each individual line on them doesn't always encompass the complete scope of your activity that you're trying to perform. Right. And if you don't know what you're doing, you can lose a lot of money. You can lose a lot of money doing that and because it's very difficult to maneuver. Right, no, no, I agree. I agree. No, I, no, it was really difficult and ended up not doing it just because, you know, they took it for granted, the complexity of it. Because most people think, hey, it's just like any other bid, you know, we're going to put together, we're going to estimate the job. And again, the seed product was very simple in nature, right? So like, oh, this is, you know, I could put this on a back burner and work on it later and then turn it on to be okay. Definitely, I'll tell you right now, the Jock programs that we're in are take a lot more course power to get them going on an individual task order process because a lot of times say the scope is undefined or it's a very limited, definite defined scope. And so you have to go in that out there and partner with the client or the end user or the government and say, okay, this is what needs to be done. This is what's lacking in your scope. Let's joint scope this project and partner with them. That's what the government wants. The government, in my opinion, has limited resources of people that understand the POCA process or the JocCon process. It's supposed to be a job-oriented contract, but it's supposed to be a fast job. Is there supposed to be able to get through the contract, get it done as quickly as possible without going through the procurement process of SAM.gov? That's the whole point of it. It's a quick vehicle. And if you don't know the process from start to finish, it takes a lot of time. And in my opinion, it takes more time to do a job task order. Sometimes if you do it correctly, then it does to bid a Mac task order. In my opinion. Let me ask you this. I noticed that recently you won some full and open competition jobs, right? What do you think or give me your take on a sole source versus full and open competition? From the standpoint of, like you said just earlier, you talked about horsepower, the amount of work that goes into it. A lot of people presume or assume that sole source is easier, it's the low hanging fruit. I have a minute, but I'm gonna hear what you have to say and then I'll give my two cents. I'm gonna be straight with you, Eric. We never go after sole source. It just comes to us. And I don't mean it arrogantly. I mean that there's a lot of work involved with sole source. Because, and there's a lot of negotiating going on with sole source. Because they're really trying to hammer you for the right reason, I guess, in a lot of aspects. But they're- Can you explain that to everybody? What that means? Because I don't think a lot of people have experienced that. I know exactly what you're mean. But can you further elaborate? What we've experienced is a lot of these contracts, the government has great ideas about this particular project. But a lot of the projects that have these great ideas about, their budgets are three to four or five, six years old. So they're using older numbers and they're trying to build that project using older numbers into a current pricing project or to a current pricing proposal. And what they have to realize is a lot of the Davis-Bacon wages increased. A lot of materials are more costly. The logistics are associated with that more costly. And you have to sort of tell that story to the government and sort of bring them to reality on a lot of things, respectfully, obviously. So a lot of times the projects, they might have an intent of a project being two or three million dollars, to say. But in reality, it's a four million dollar project all day long. But honestly, it correctly, because of the increases in escalation in material and labor costs and location, wherever the logistics are. And so when it comes to a lot of those sole sources, what we've found is a lot of those projects have a lot of downscoping in their original intent. We're gonna have to try to give them the best value for the money, but we might have to downscope it. And we'll go through six or seven negotiations on that particular project to get it within the guidelines of their strictures of their funding. And but in addition to that, it's multiple job walks, multiple discussions, multiple showing them the story, showing them the true reality and having somebody on the other end have a common sense and realize, you know what, Hefler's making a good point. This is what we need, this is, we bid this thing, we created our budget three or four years ago. This is what it was then, this is what it is now, just based on same scope. So it takes a lot of work. The key to, in my opinion, to the sole sources is filling out your sources side. That's the key. A lot of the people that you work with, they should be filling out sources side all day long. That's the way they market their company. That is the key, because those sources side create opportunity. And it might not be the contracting officer, it might not be the one that, that particular project they use you on, but they'll call you on about another project they know based upon your sources side response. And the sources side, as you know, is just a market research for the government. It's their way of marketing contractors. And a lot of our projects are based on those sources sides and that we've submitted. I might've submitted one, two years ago, and it was just a market research two years ago. The funding wasn't available then. They come around the corner and they say, are you still interested in this particular project? And that is for an 8A, if they submit their sources side and spend the time to do that, that's a huge benefit. I wish I would have known that early on because it really yielded a lot of good contacts for us. And, but like I said, the sources side is a way we market, quite honestly, our company. And when it comes to the sole sources, like I said, they're tough, they're tough, they're tough to deal with. But if you get a contract on the sole source, you need to perform. You need to give them what they're asking for in every aspect, management, quality, schedule, everything. And that should yield more opportunities in the future. I, we actually, about three weeks ago, the SBA 7J training, we, I led a proposal writing class and we talked about the benefits of sources so it's an RFI to 8A. Yeah, the sources side is huge. No, it's huge. And I showed examples where exactly what you said, we had responded to a sources side back in 2018. And then we responded again in 2019 to the same person. And then 2020, you get a phone call with an opportunity. You don't know where it comes from. It just comes out of the blue one day and the next thing you know, hey, I have something, are you interested? You know what, the government, they don't let a lot of the people that we work with, contracting, operators, specialists, whatever they may be, they don't wanna have a lot of time. They don't have a lot of resources, a lot of time to deal with things. But you gotta find every opportunity to contact them. Any excuse, any excuse to contact them. So it might have been a source of thought that you're mentioning, 2018. That could be an excuse to follow up with them with a phone call or an email six months later. And they'll respectfully answer you. And that's the great thing about it. And if I would have known about the sources side and put more emphasis, because it is a lot of horsepower to do it. You gotta answer their questions and provide capabilities and all that. But sometimes you gotta realize that maybe you're not 100% qualified or let's say you don't have a lot of projects that have that specific scope. But that contracting officer and or specialist manages multiple projects. Not just that one. You might not be qualified for that one. And they'll tell you, hey, you don't meet the qualifications, but I have this other one in San Antonio. What do you thought, what's your thoughts? So that's what ends up happening. One door closes, the other one opens. Wow, wow. Patrick, I've gone past my time. I wanna be respectful of you. Talk to, tell the small businesses out here. Some parting words, things that, again, like I said, if you wanna give a message from your father, some advice that stuck with you, I know sometimes it's difficult for people to imagine, say, hey, well, I'm not like Patrick because he's at 96 employees, but at some point, you stuck it out, you stayed with it, you didn't change lanes, you didn't give up, right? And you started over again. And that story is a lot like my story, which everyone in the audience already knows my story. But I got into government contracts in 2007, right? For the market to crash. And I saw people like yourself that prior to this recession had been tremendously successful and I looked up to them, I respected them, I admired them. And when the market crashed, they crashed with it. And meanwhile, I was new to construction, new to the business world in terms of that industry. And we were having tremendous success just because we're in a different market, not because I was smarter or more ambitious, we just operate in a different market place. And that's why I just tout the power of federal contracting and I teach it and I want to get the word out to as many people as possible because it does have a way of changing your trajectory, right, in life. And I have three of my closest friends that we communicate on a regular basis, we all do federal contracting. And it's been a great blessing to us and our families. And I don't know, I can't have enough good words to say about it. So- I agree, I enjoy it as well. I enjoy it as well. Just some final words that you'd like to share with everyone out there to leave them with a message. Well, I think it's an opportunity and I think you need to treat that opportunity like your child in every aspect. Your child's only gonna be here for so long. So you wanna instill in them and build with them some lasting memories. And you wanna do everything you can to help put that child in the right direction. The ADA program is something that's an opportunity for many. And if you use that opportunity to its fullest, you can be completely successful. But you have to be dedicated and you have to realize that it's not only an opportunity that could help you advance your career, but it can advance everybody else's career with you, your company, your everybody associated with you. So what I instill with everyone on your podcast is remember where you came from. And remember that any difficulty you may have within the ADA program, it's just a difficulty. It's not an obstacle. And it's something that you can just get through. And getting through that difficult is gonna make you stronger in the program. And it has made me stronger. My difficulties in 2007, 2008, made me a stronger person and gave me the focus on what I needed to achieve. And if I look at my dad now from above, or my dad's looking at me, I guess he can say, and I think he would be happy with what we were doing for people. Not for me, for people. And realize that this company, this company, this company is everybody's. It's not just mine. So I enjoy it. I really do and I have a passion for contracting. I really do. That's amazing. One thing I did forget to mention or ask, do you use Delltech or GovWin or GovTribe? Any of those software tools? I did try Delltech a while back. Probably three, four years ago. And I didn't need it, quite honestly. And I found that the best work where I came out of was just sam.gov and just finding the resources myself. It does take a lot of time, but that's my job, to find opportunities and work a mouth and capability presentations and getting our company's name out there. That's what worked more for us. Okay, no, no, good stuff. I was just kind of thinking of that in my brain. No, well, thank you, Patrick. This has been wonderful. Thanks for agreeing to come on today, taking out the time on your Monday, just after the holidays.