It’s great to be back with you – Let’s get 2026 rolling!
This is somewhat of a scattered-topics episode as I had a few things on my mind to share with the crew:
- Engineering Management Institute
- Book Recommendation – Construction Surveying and Layout
- Being good at the basics
- Article – The Tailgate – A Discord for Construction Engineers
If you’re interested in joining “The Tailgate” on Discord, email me, send me a DM on LinkedIn or hit me up at my Contact page and I’ll get you on-board.
Transcript of the Episode
0:17
All right, what’s up team Bob Hildebranski construction engineering show podcast.
Good to be with you starting out 2026 the right way.
Trying to re re hit the refresh button on everything we’re doing here.
0:32
Just good to be back with you again.
Was this dead week?
So it’s between Christmas and New Year’s.
Nice to have some time time with the family time being quiet, burning up.
PTO is really, it’s kind of interesting what construction people are used to having to not take any vacation time during the year because there’s always stuff going on.
0:51
So then you get to the end of the year and you got a whole bunch of PTO that you have to use because you don’t want to company companies will take away or make you have to use it.
So anyway, that’s where I was at.
So it’s been nice.
Kids were home, family Christmas been a good, good holiday season.
1:06
Also just been a nice chance to take a breather, get away from the work laptop, take a look at the areas of focus, what’s going on for the year, first quarter, first quarter 26, What do we want to adjust and change?
So it’s been very rewarding.
I’m sure you’re going through the process too.
1:21
It’s good for me.
I always, always enjoy taking a quick step and seeing where I’m at, how things are going, what adjustments do we need to make.
So that’s what we’ve been doing.
So it’s good to be just getting here.
A couple things I wanted to just kind of cover here housekeeping wise.
A lot of stuff was going on towards the end of the year.
1:39
Always busy time, but just looking forward to getting going here.
I don’t know if anybody of you know this, I’ll throw a link in the show notes.
But so it’s, it’s been like what what’s been happening over the last quarter?
Even if you’re interested, if you’re not just going to scrub through this and see, but last year, I don’t know if you guys know, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but the Engineering Management Institute, Anthony Fasano, Anthony’s out east.
2:00
He’s had a company and it’s an absolute anchor in the project management circle.
Training, education, his podcast, he’s got all sorts of stuff going on.
Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be added as a member of his speakers cadre.
So I’ve been helping out a little bit here and there, trying to do a couple of sessions a month.
2:19
But anyway, Anthony’s company, Engineering Management Institute, they offer training to project management groups, offer training to companies that want to bring his company in to do some modules and project management and training.
It’s been really, really good.
It’s not only been good just from the teaching aspect of it, just to be able to instruct and interact with different people around the country at their companies, but also just the the content, the material that Anthony’s put together, this company’s put together, they do a great job.
2:48
It’s very PM based and it’s been good for me too.
Very, very energizing for me because it’s a different kind of curriculum, a different audience, a different way of instructing.
So I’m learning all the time as we’re going through this.
3:03
But a lot of the stuff that he’s been putting together has been really good.
So honored, a very honored to be part of that group.
So anyway, I’ll throw a link in the show notes, whether or not if your company happens to be looking, I’m not on Commission.
So whether or not your company has to be looking for any kind of training for your project management team, he’s a, he’s a great resource.
3:22
So certainly you can find him, reach back to me, we can get you hooked up.
But if you’re looking for some virtual training, it’s I, I can’t, can’t recommend it enough, not just because I’m part of the group, but anyway, it’s been really good.
So what do we got?
We got spring 26 is coming up, still staying active at work teaching.
3:40
We continue to teach that JJC construction surveying.
One of the things that I did want to kind of point out, I don’t know where people are at in terms of books.
You guys know I’m a huge reader.
Obviously, if you’re watching on YouTube there, you know, tons of books behind me.
The bookshelves are full, got more stacks.
3:56
I ordered a whole bunch more from thrift books this year.
So we got tons of reading to do.
One of the things that I have done with the construction surveying class at Juliet Junior College, I’m switching textbooks and that’s kind of a big deal because let’s see if you’re, if you’re watching on watching on YouTube, you can see the picture.
4:15
But so this was, this was my old book that I had inherited from Tim, the guy that was teaching the course before surveying with construction applications.
It was written by Kavanaugh and Slattery.
Excellent, excellent book.
It’s a bit dated.
This was what, the 8th edition?
4:32
So some of the stuff has been dated.
I don’t know anything about what it’s like to write a textbook or actually keep a textbook current.
But certainly a lot of the pictures and the equipment and that are just, they’re outdated.
And that’s what it was more so great resource for problems and what not.
4:48
But what’s really cool is, and I stumbled into it, I was just looking for options for textbooks last summer and I stumbled into this.
It’s construction serving and layout was written by Wes Crawford.
Wes is a retired professor from Purdue University and I had just found this by kind of searching on the Internet.
5:09
Ended up picking this book up, reached out to Wes and just said, hey, I’m really interested.
What, what is there any way that I might be able to purchase a copy?
He was, he was gracious enough to send me a demo copy to, to check out.
I mean, this thing is thick, but here’s my reason for mentioning this on the on the podcast and on the YouTube channel.
5:26
If you are looking to add tools to your personal toolbox in terms of resources, and I know right now what we’re flooded with PDFs, we’ve got manuals, we have all sorts of things from from the dots from the agencies.
It’s almost like it’s overwhelming with how many resources that we have access to in terms of information.
5:47
Sometimes you just need to have everything kind of coalesced and combined into one place.
And I think I, I wish, I mean, when I, when I was in college, I knew I wanted to be in construction.
And that was in what, 89 there.
I never found there were no books.
6:03
There weren’t any classes on being how to be a construction engineer.
Now we’ve got virtual, you’ve got podcasts and shows and things like this so you can read online, but we didn’t have that.
So there wasn’t a lot of resources.
You just kind of had to learn as you went right now in 2026.
6:20
And Wesley’s book has been around for a while there.
There are places where we can go where it’s combined.
And this is a resource.
Here’s here’s why I throw this out there.
I’m not on Commission.
That’s the second time I said this on this podcast.
But if you’re looking, if you’re a young construction engineer that is looking for a resource, this goes beyond, you know, how to measure things in the field, how to set up a, how to set up a level or a total station or use the GPS unit.
6:45
That’s all in here.
There’s so much content in here about being a field engineer, how to be organized, how to be prepared, how to communicate with people on the site on the that you’re going to be interacting with.
So this is more of a resource for how to be a field engineer as much as it is to be a construction surveyor.
7:05
So I’m just going to throw this out there.
I’m going to throw a link to Wes’s website.
And if you want to pick this book up, I think he charges maybe $85 for it.
So when you think about that thick of a textbook and a resource, it’s really good.
But you know, and I think really the two things that I wanted to kind of talk about today on the podcast that dovetails into what are we doing in terms of educating ourselves?
7:29
And right now, there’s so much, right?
There’s so much information that we can gather from different resources.
I hear a lot about like innovation.
I think this will be the time of year and we’ll see if it happens here, everybody’s going to want to do, hey, what can we do different in 2026?
7:44
Hey, there’s this new this new tool that we could use.
Hey, there’s this new software package.
One of the things that I think it’s imperative, and I’m going to keep ushing and banging the drum on this, is basics.
We need to be good at basics, basic fundamentals.
8:00
Being a good construction engineer, being a good civil engineer, being a good communicator.
None of this stuff needs all sorts of new bells and whistles.
You just need to be good and focus on what you do during the day.
I look at a textbook like this on just being a field engineer.
8:17
What are the rudimentary things of being organized, getting to work on time, having your plans and specs read and ready to go, getting out of the truck and knowing the operation that you’re going to be engaged with during that day, that shift, Being able to communicate with your resident, with the contractor, with the foreman, those types of things.
8:37
Just basic stuff.
You don’t need an iPad with a new software package to do that.
You don’t need some newfangled piece of gear, right?
You just need to be good at what you do.
So trying to fold that back into 2026 of the things that I’m just putting in my list of things to do that I want to focus on.
8:55
That’s a, that’s a big one for me.
Just cooking back down to the basics.
It’s going back through my notes.
It’s finding all the old crib sheets that I had.
Are they still purposeful?
Do I still want to use them?
Should I keep them?
Am I going to kind of flush some of this data out now?
But I don’t, I don’t need everything that’s new.
9:12
So think about that as you’re preparing for this year, being good at the basics and figure out what those basics are for you and your sphere and focus on that.
So add that to your 2026 list of as you’re getting ready to go put things together.
Here’s the second thing that I want to I want to talk about Discord.
9:32
So I’m I’m not a gamer, never been a gamer, but Discord, if you haven’t heard of it already, maybe you have already.
Discord is, if I, for lack of a better term, a social channel place to be able.
I think of my understanding was it was developed by streamers so that you could be streaming on a game and have a chat going on at the same time to be communicating outside the game sphere.
9:51
And that’s pretty cool.
But but it’s it’s got this expandedness to it that can be applied.
And and I’ve now jumped on the jumped in guy named Corley Moore.
He runs a a website Firehouse vigilance is his website.
It’s his handle.
10:06
He’s got a podcast called the weekly scrap.
You guys know that I’m EMA and and at least an emergency services.
So it’s a big one on me.
I don’t miss an episode.
I’ve now jumped in and he started a Discord with and it’s firefighter based, it’s emergency services based, but so there’s as far as I can see, maybe 300 members, maybe there’s 30-40 at a time that are active.
10:30
This fear that we have now of everything is notifications and pings and pops on our phones and being distracted.
It’s that’s one thing.
The other thing that I think though is the community aspect of those notifications and being around people that are into the job, like we are into the job.
10:48
As I’m getting more and engaging more into Corley’s Discord and with the people that are in there, knowing that all of those people are completely focused on their industry, which is, which is fire prevention, right?
11:03
They’re all into that.
So you’re automatically put in with a group of people that are like you pretty much that they are focused and into the job like you are.
I’m, I’ve had enough of LinkedIn.
I’m going to be very candid with you.
11:19
I’ll still promote it here on the channel.
You can still reach out to me.
I’m not turning the switch off, but I don’t know about you.
You feeling the same?
I am so tired of getting just just stuff from people who I don’t know.
It used.
LinkedIn used to be really cool that the the stream that I was getting from people in the network that I knew people that were around.
11:40
Now I’m getting all just sorts of stuff and it’s turned into just a channel that I don’t enjoy engaging anymore like I used to.
It’s still going to be a place to connect to maintain contacts and see what’s see where people are at.
That’s what I enjoy most about it.
But the threads now are just, the content are just that.
11:56
I don’t, I don’t enjoy it like I used to.
And I think part of that is because it used to be very focused.
I felt like it was focused on on my people and the people that I hung out with, people that did what I did.
Discord, I think has the potential to turn in to that.
12:12
I’ve started a Discord channel.
I’ve got a website link.
I actually had a link that’s expired that’s there.
But if you go to the website, if you go down in the show notes, you’re going to see a link to an article and it just tells you a little bit about what I’ve started right now.
12:28
As of what’s today, January 3rd, there’s only five of us in that in the Discord right now.
I would like to grow it, but here’s the key.
I want to grow it with people that are built like you and I.
If you’re listening this podcast right now, it’s telling me right off the bat, you’re into the job.
12:46
If you found the website or you found me from some channel of wherever it’s been and you’re finding that you like what we’re talking about here, you’re that kind of person.
I would love for you to even just try it.
Try it and jump into that.
13:01
Because really what I’ve found in, in Corley’s discord and seeing what it is, it’s the, it’s the energy that every, all the members bring.
It’s not just one person, you know, a host, which is kind of how my, the website is set or a podcast is set.
It the engagement in the interaction of the people that are in it of what they’re sharing.
13:19
But at the same time, knowing that when my phone turns on and I see a ping on the Discord that I know that someone who just put something up there is kind of like me, that they’re digging the job, that they’re in this place.
They’re around hard chargers that dig with dig what they’re doing.
13:37
I think that building that community within our group, there’s the potential for that.
So I want to try it 2026 and it’s, this isn’t like a New Year’s resolution.
I started the Discord, I think back in the summer.
So but I want to try to ramp it up.
I don’t want people to just sign up and just pang and not do anything with it.
13:55
I’m not expecting you to have this thing pinging on your phone all the time, but getting engaged with the people who like to do what you do is vitally important.
And this gives you that ability in a virtual arena that’s not just force feeding you with stuff that you didn’t ask to be force fed with.
14:14
Which is why I’m just going off this tangent.
Give it a shot.
Here’s what I’m going to do.
It’s a call to action right now.
Whatever.
We’re probably 10 minutes into this podcast.
I’m going to shut this thing down here in a second, but this is the call to action.
It’s the challenge for you.
This is my way of filtering out who is actually thinking about or is the right fit for what this thing is about.
14:33
If you made it this far on the podcast, go down to the show notes.
You can find me.
So send me a link through LinkedIn.
Send me a comment in that post that I’ve got that will be in the show notes and justice say, hey, Bob, I’m interested.
Can you send me a link?
You’re going to notice that the links in the articles, they’re no longer, it’ll just send you to Discord site.
14:54
I’m doing that purposefully because I don’t know how websites work and pings work and I don’t want to get flooded with a bunch of stuff.
It’s my filtering mechanism to be able to say, if you’re going to dig this deep into an episode, you’re the right kind of person for it and you got to give it a shot.
So I’ll send you a fresh link.
15:10
You can jump into it, you can give it a shot, engage a little bit, maybe it’s not for you.
And that’s totally all fine.
I’ve got a small ego.
I’m not worried about it building this out for people like you and me that are into the job.
So send me a note.
We’ll get you hooked up.
We’ll give it a shot.
15:27
I think that’s it.
I have a ton of other stuff I can cover, but we’re going to cut it off there.
So anyway, look forward to engaging with you here in 2026.
Hopefully the Discord will be a play for us to find each other.
If not, a more podcast to come.
So great being with you.
Let’s get it done, get those goals, set basics, basics for the win this year.
15:46
All right, all right, peace.
Catch you on the next one.
16:15
The.
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