Not Your Father’s Data Center - Concrete Innovations at Compass Datacenters

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

Nancy Novak, Chief Innovation Officer, Compass Datacenters is a firm believer that innovation comes in different forms, and she knows it’s people, processes and systems that drive innovations. Those three key focuses drive Novak’s work at Compass Datacenters, and she opened up to host Raymond Hawkins about some of the exciting innovations happening at Compass. Novak’s concentration is on improving the data center construction process. She noted that process efficiencies on the job site hadn’t improved much over the years, even as the technology and building processes have. “A lot of people will be like, ‘Wait a minute, we do offsite componentry, we do prefab, we do other things that help us,’” Novak said. “I agree with that, but it’s 100% not normalized in our business, and it's done kind of on the fringes. I’m trying to get us to normalize those processes.” Creating innovations isn’t something done alone in a box. Novak relies on a multitude of ideas from various people. People drive the best ideas and make necessary process improvements. And it isn’t just diversity in ethnicity in people that’s important; it’s also diversity in the experience. “And in our industry, we have all of them,” Novak said. “I focus on collaborating with all the different layers within our industry.” Concrete is an important building material in the data center construction process. But what Novak and her team look at is ways to improve that process to make it more efficient, stronger and more sustainable. “There are so many advantages to concrete,” Novak said. “It’s affordable. It’s readily available. It’s fireproof. CarbonCure is one of the things that helps supplement the cement part of it.” And Novak mentioned other technologies could be layered on to this process to make it even more sustainable.

Welcome to Not Your Father's Data Center podcast, brought to you by Compass Data Centers. We build for what's next. Now here's your host, Raymond Hawkins. Thank you for joining us for another edition of Not Your Father's Data Center. I'm your host, Raymond Hawkins, and we are recording in the new year, January 5th, 2021, with Compass's Chief Innovation Officer, Nancy Novak. Thank you for recording with us today, Nancy. My pleasure. This is an exciting topic. I can't wait to get started. So for those of you who don't know, Nancy is our Chief Innovation Officer. She's got an extensive

career in the construction business that we talked about in her first episode. And we decided to get pretty specific today around things that she's doing at Compass to help lead us from an innovative and diversity perspective. She can tackle either of those subjects at her pleasure. But Nancy, if you would, would you like to lead us off and talk about things that from a construction perspective and from a designing and building data center perspective, initiatives you're leading here at Compass around innovation?

Sure thing, Raymond. You know, I'm a firm believer that innovation comes in different forms. And if anybody Googles innovation processes or innovation tactics, you know, they do circle a lot around the people, processes, and systems and or technology type of categories. I heavily focus on process, especially related to construction. And the reason for that is, you know, we have a business that's very old, as old as the pyramids or older. And it's been around for a long time. And innovative technology has disrupted us probably, I would say, three decades or more ago. However, our efficiency rating and our inclusion and diversity stats have not improved greatly at all. So it made me think, you know, it really has to be focused on the process and the people and then layering on any technology

that helps drive the right behavior and it helps us streamline our processes. So those are the three areas I focus on and I focus most heavily on the people and the processes parts. Nancy, for those of us who don't have near the construction experience you do, can I ask a couple of questions around efficiency? Sure.

You said that, I like the reference that this business is as old as the pyramids, right? We've been building things for a long, long time. And you said the efficiency hasn't changed. Could you give us a few minutes of insight? How does that get measured? When you say efficiency, you know, a few minutes of insight? How does that get measured? When you say efficiency, you know, when I think of manufacturing a process, we made a thousand widgets today and we figured out how to make 2000 widgets tomorrow. That one I get. How does

efficiency in the construction business get analyzed? What are the metrics? What are you measuring? Who's tracking it? How does it get tracked? Can you give us a little bit of understanding of that efficiency hasn't improved? How does it get tracked? Can you give us a little bit of understanding of that efficiency hasn't improved? How does it get tracked? I mean, so clearly efficiency has improved since the pyramids. So I don't want anyone having that as a frame of reference. But in the past 30 years, the efficiency has not greatly improved at all. And what I mean by that is basically it takes as it's basically, it takes us many hours to install

X, Y, or Z, or to, you know, build something. And it still takes the same amount of hours, 30 years and after technology has disrupted us. And when I say technology, I mean, things like information modeling, and, you know, other things that have helped us with equipment and materials. So some of our supply chain has gotten more efficient because they're in a manufactured environment. But the actual execution on the job sites has not. The same amount of hours are required today that were required almost three decades ago to erect a building or to put work in place. All right. So I appreciate the clarification. Yeah, things have gotten better since the pyramids. We're really talking about as technology has transformed the world. So kind of the late 80s on as technology has radically transformed industry after industry. It hasn't helped getting that fixture or that implementation or that device or that piece of equipment installed any quicker.

The hours on the job site, the man hours on the job site haven't changed to get something installed. Correct. I got you. All right. And to think about that in the terms of how technology has transformed so many industries, to think that it hasn't changed construction in any way is pretty alarming. You mentioned that there are three areas you focused on, people, process, and I missed the third one, Nancy. What was the third one? Well, it's systems and technology. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you for that. Sorry, I missed it. All right. So job site execution, thing A shows up on a job site and I install it. I'm doing it basically the same way I did it three plus decades ago.

That's what we're talking about. Yes. And I want to clarify and say, because a lot of people who listen to this podcast are going to be like, well, wait a minute. We do offsite componentry. We do prefab. We do other things that help us. And I absolutely agree with that.

But it's 100% not normalized in our business. And it's done, you know, kind of on the fringes. And what I'm trying to do and what many people are trying to do is get us to normalize those processes so that we can have a much larger impact on the efficiency for a project. Got it. So we're not saying that prefab and those kinds of things don't exist and that there haven't been things that have changed in the last three decades. What we're saying is that it's not generally accepted globally as the normal standard. It's not the way we do it everywhere. Absolutely.

It's not the largest percentage at all by any means of how we implement our work. Got it. Got it. Okay. Very, very good. So as we think through that efficiency on the job site, we think about improving people process and systems do you mind talking through one example of those uh each maybe each one of those categories that that um not only do you that you promote here at compass but but are trying to promote through all

of your um work speaking of around uh this industry absolutely so. So like, you know, I'm a people person, thank goodness, because the industry of construction is all about people from all walks of life. So you have everybody from the trades person, his installing work, up to the engineers and the owners and the architects. My, Raymond, my dog is whining right now. It's all right.

We can have a recorded dog. It is not a problem. Okay. I'm have a recorded dog. It is not a problem. Okay. I'm the only one home. We are certain there are dog lovers in our audience. All right, good, good, good. So, but what I wanted to point out is like, you know, all walks of life. So, it's like getting ideas from everybody is so important.

Part of having good innovation is seen through different lenses. And that's not just gender-based or ethnicity. It's also experience-based and who's got the hands-on experience versus who's got the engineering mindset and who has the visionary experience. And in our industry, we have all of them. So I really focus heavily on trying to collaborate amongst all the different layers within our industry, everything from the, I call it the cradle to grave approach where you've got the investment in looking at geographies and businesses and individual needs from our clients

all the way through to who's going to be installing the work and then, and who's designed it and things like that. So if we're looking at a, like a technology, like carbon care, the way Compass, you know, led the charge for data centers and using embodied carbon in concrete. I had to look at this from, you know, how is this going to impact our supply chain for ready mix and or precast? And how is this going to affect, you know, the individuals who we buy work from, you know, and how readily available is it? And then what do our clients think about this? You know, what kind of a bigger impact are we going to have here?

And our design team, you know, is this going to have a ripple effect through the design team? So, looking at this collaboratively, you know, amongst all the different diverse, you know, talent pool that we have is super important for us to really be able to embed a new a new way of doing business so that's kind of the people part of it i mean we we try to recruit good talent we focused on on behavior based technology so technology that drives good behavior not technology that sucks the life out of you you know and we look at our culture heavily because our culture matters the most to us here at Compass.

So, and I do a lot of mentoring and I do a lot of networking and I learn from everybody. So, I'm going to go back to people and I'm going to ask you to maybe take us one click deeper. So, we did an episode on Carbon Cure with our friends from CarbonCure earlier in the year. But will you take just one minute and explain to everybody what it is? And as you give the example on people, you look at and you go, okay, we're going to change the way we do concrete. And I think I got a great lesson from the CarbonCure guys. There's a difference between concrete and cement. So I think a guy said, you know, there goes a cement between concrete and cement so i think a guy said you know there goes

a cement truck and he goes no no that's actually a concrete truck i thought just i know that's all inside construction lingo that that most of us get wrong but there is a difference concrete and cement two different things right yeah it's like um concrete is the sugar that goes in the chocolate chip cookie exactly right yeah. Yeah, that's the way my CarbonCure friends say it. It's great. It's the flour and the cake is the cement. It's the ready mix. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know I say it wrong, but okay. So give us one minute on what CarbonCure is. And then you talked about how, you know, from a people perspective, hey, how is this going to affect the process of ultimately getting the building set up, whether it's precast or whether it's getting sidewalks put in? So, will you give

us one minute on what CarbonCure is and how you looked at how it would impact everyone that is around our job? Yes, yes, yes. I actually was just looking at ways. I mean, cement is a product, a byproduct of ReadyMix that, or actually not the byproduct, but one of the components of ready mix that has a really bad reputation because concrete is so affordable and so easy to make. It's the largest type of material we use in the construction industry on a global scale. So it does have a large carbon footprint. So I was actually walking through an airport one day and saw a diorama about carbon eating concrete. And I started investigating it and found carbon care was kind of the head of the game. There's more than one technology that's trying to suck carbon out of the atmosphere and then inject it into concrete in lieu of other fillers to make the concrete perform better and also to embody the carbon so that we can reduce our carbon footprint.

But CarbonCure was the leader of the pack. And a lot of the engineers that I've worked with in my career, highly recommended CarbonCare, like Thornton Tomasetti, and, you know, some of our clients. So when I did the webinar, just recently with CarbonCare, I had one, it was an all-female panel, which was really cool. But one of the representatives from LinkedIn was on board with me. And what I thought was fascinating about the people aspect of this, Raymond, is we really dove into not just this new technology that can help us reduce our carbon footprint for the largest volume of construction material used globally, but also the fact that when you really start looking at the ways that you can have an impact from the design all the way through the execution, we started talking about why don don't we use performance specs why are we

doing things the way we've always done them and requiring this many sacks of cement that goes with this many psi of concrete you know design mixes and so on and so forth and so you start really you know canvassing how we've done business before And this new technology has led us to say, hey, you know, there are better ways for us to manage this volume of material that we put in place. And we can do it more sustainably. And we can do it just in a very smarter and more efficient manner. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And what I love about that, and just for our folks that aren't construction experts like you, so the number one most widely used and biggest component of the construction industry, the largest piece, is concrete. I got to get my cement is the flower, concrete is the cake.

That's right. It's concrete. And it's everywhere. And us looking at that huge component of construction and saying hey there's a we could a make concrete better itself because that's one of the things i think that's fascinating about carbon cure is it's actually making the concrete um last longer or be stronger which is kind of a cool side note when the reality is is we were trying to figure out hey how do i embed carbon in it and and help take carbon out of the atmosphere so it's kind of a cool byproduct

that actually improved the performance of the concrete itself. But how do we take this largest building product used today and make it a positive for our environment instead of a negative? Pretty cool thought process and love that there are innovative companies out there doing it and love that you helped Compass get out in front of changing the way we build our data centers and the way we use concrete. So, cool stuff. Well, there's so many advantages to concrete.

I mean, this is why it's affordable. It's readily available. It's fireproof. It's strong. For our purposes, it gets us dried in faster than any other type of construction you know using a precast structure so there's and there's multitudes of benefits for using concrete and and there's also technologies that can layer on to carbon cure so carbon cure is one of the things that helps supplement the cement part of it but there's other technologies dealing with

aggregate and ways that we make our mixed designs that can layer onto this and make it even, you know, more, a more expansive way of not just being more environmentally friendly, but also higher performing. Yeah. All right. So, so that's a, that's an innovative technology. Do you mind giving us a minute, Nancy, and talking about another innovation, maybe something that's around process, maybe something like the fact that Compass, we use prototype buildings or that we have standard ways of doing things. Could you talk a little bit around process and a way process can be an innovation? This is one I'm very excited about. So I'm so happy you asked me about it. So we have, there's a couple of things I'm doing that are strictly process related. One of them is really streamlining our specifications for our prototypes.

And anyone who has ever had to process submittals on a project is going to smile really big when they see this. Because what we've done is we've, by going through and streamlining the specifications, we've eliminated close to 20 of our spec sections and making it to where there's no conflicts, no duplicity, no information that is going to be misunderstood. So we've perfected that. But the best part about this is we've taken the standardized materials that we know we will be using from job to job to job, and we've created a library of pre-approved submittals.

And then we've given layers of the materials that we're going to be using as partially reviewed or fully reviewed based on whether you have to have field measurements or calculations involved. And we've looked at this through a set of lenses that is very intense through liabilities, through legal channels, through quality control, through safety. We've really looked at every single aspect of every single piece of material or equipment we use on the project, and we put them through those lenses. And what we've found is we can eliminate the review and handling of 50% of our submittal items through this process and still cover all of our bases through

every set of lenses that we went through, which I think is really exciting because think about a construction project and the schedule involved with it. We are working so hard to pick up an extra few days at the end of every job. We can pick up a few months at the beginning of a job by streamlining this process the way we have. So that is super exciting. And the second one has to do with the assembly approach to installing the work. So not just having componentized things that are off-site or prefabricated on-site or, you know,

in any way, what we'd call modularized construction. But the industrialized approach to construction also requires a very stringent way of organizing the work. So what we've developed is a way to look at our data centers and again, the prototypes that we have and putting them in different zones to where we can dedicate spaces to each one of our trades. So they're not conflicting with each other or climbing on top of each other. And it very orderly and what every trades person wants to know when they get to the job is exactly what they're going to go install that day and there's nothing more wonderful than a trades person who shows up and says i know exactly what i have to do i know exactly how much i have to get done i know how much time i have to do it and everything i need

is right here in front of me it makes makes for a much, much more efficient job. It makes for a safer job. And it totally improves the quality of work that we install. So those two innovations are strictly process related. And they do take a lot of thought and a lot of buy-in. But we're well on our way to revolutionizing how we build data centers through these two processes. So you covered a lot there, Nancy. So I'm going to ask a few questions and just help me in the understanding. So submittal library, all kinds of paper. So someone who's not in the construction

business, this is the paperwork that gets turned in that says, this is how I'm going to accomplish. You've asked me to build something and this is how I'm going to build it. This is the detailed specs for how it's going to get done, right? Is that a layman's way of describing a submittal? Yeah, there are many different what we call submittal types, right? So you have materials, like a piece of drywall. We say we want the drywall to meet ASTM standards or whatever in our specifications. And we're going to use that same drywall on every job for the rest of the times that we're building, in any location, in any geography, that drywall is going to be used.

So why should we require that the drywall subcontractor package up a submittal that says these are the studs and the drywall and the screws I'll use over and over and over? Because it has to go from the sub trade to the general contractor to the engineer and architect. I mean, we all have to touch it and then it gets approved. And so that's a lot of paperwork to repeat that doesn't need to be repeated. Yeah. So instead of each layer looking at, you know, and those are great three examples, sheetrock, the stud and the screw, we're saying, hey, here's the standard package. We'll give it to you. You can use this over and over and over again in the submittal for sheetrock studs and screws. Yes. And we contractually tie

them to that. We say this is a fully vetted, approved, stamped submittal for these products that you will be using. And your contract is telling you that this is what you'll be using on our project. So we don't skip over any liability there. You know, obviously if something goes, if it gets to where it's not being manufactured anymore, they're allowed to make substitutions, but it'll be a rare occasion for the types of materials that we've chosen to put in the library. Yeah. All right. And then, so that helps me understand the submittal library piece. You talked about zoning and then this is specifically on the site with the trades showing up and saying, hey, I know where I've got to be. I know what I've got to do. I know what

today's job is. I'm not walking into the trailer and saying, okay, where do you want me today? Is this is not only from an efficiency standpoint, but this seems to me as a lay person to be, have a lot to do with safety as well, that we're not having contractors overlapping each other and trades overlapping each other in certain areas or certain spaces. Is this not just an efficiency issue, but also a security or safety issue? It absolutely is a safety issue as well. And this is one of the things a lot of our clients understand and people in the industry, to have a very organized, clean, logistically well-planned and thought-out job site is inherently going to make you a lot safer and vice versa, right?

More efficient, more safe, better quality, and all of those things go together. So the safety component of this is huge. The reason why I thought this was ideal, I mean, I'm so excited about this, Raymond. So the reason why I thought this was ideal is when you look at labor in the construction industry, about, I mean, give or take 5%, about 25% of the labor is usually in the large real estate of commercial projects. So what I mean by that is, it's like in a hospital, it would be all the patient rooms, or in an office, it would be all the office spaces, or in a hospital, it would be all the patient rooms. Or in an office, it would be all the office spaces. Or in a school, it would be all the classrooms.

Or like in my history, in the Pentagon, it would be the large universal space of the Pentagon, right? Five million square foot, most of its universal space. And then 75, give or take, percentage of the labor is in what we call the back of house. So it's all the mechanics, the equipment rooms, the vertical and horizontal chases, areas where, you know, where it's tight, and you're having to make the universal space function. Right. More technical expertise, I would think of from as a layperson's perspective. Yeah. And it's typically, it's the MEP trades. It's the mechanical, electrical,

and plumbing trades who represent not just the largest value on any commercial project, especially data centers, but also the largest amount of labor on the job site. So here's what got me excited. So at the Pentagon, when we were doing the renovation there, we got down to where we were using this zoned approach. And we were in the universal spaces, we got down to where the tradespeople were being rewarded for zero punch lists and they achieved it over and over because the expectations were so clear. They were happy every day. They knew what to do.

They knew how many hours it would take to get it done. They knew exactly what had to happen because it was repeatable, right? But the sad part was in the back of house where it was more complex, we struggled and weren't able to do that because of, you know, the geography of where that equipment sat. Now let's go over to the data center and the prototype Compass has. The largest spaces that we have on our site is the equipment yard

and the data hall. Perfect for the same zoned approach that we use at the Pentagon and universal spaces. So now we can switch the math and we're doing it in the admin areas as well. But the largest hunk of the work where we want to have the biggest impact is where we can use the same approach and get down to a zero punch list, have a safer building and install it more efficiently. So if I'm a customer, if I'm a large internet-based company or cloud-based company and I'm acquiring data centers, so a customer of people like Compass, the way for them to think about this is, hey, the more organized my partner is, the more thoughtful and ahead of the process my partner is, the faster they can deliver, which seems to be everybody's priority. Get it to me faster. Like you said, we're always looking for

days at the end of a job site, at the end of a job, and then make sure it's safe. Because those seem to be the two things we hear the most from our customers is I need it on time or early, and I need it to be safe. And it sounds to me like the things that you're focused on. And it's interesting, when I hear the word submittal library, hey, you're going to keep track of the submittals. I don't think safety and I don't think speed. But when you talk about it a little bit, you go, oh, yeah, of course, it's going to make it much easier for someone to get through the submittal process, which gets us on the job site, which gets us working faster. And then when we get to the job site, the zoned approach allows me to go, hey, I can be safe and also faster. So

ways to be safe and ways to be faster, really, really important to us in this business and to our customers. Well, and yeah, and to tack on to the safety aspect, I mean, it's both speed and safety, right? When you sign a contract, you can start supplying materials immediately if the submittals are pre-approved. So, conduit and things like that that go into the equipment yards, cable bus, you know, anything that doesn't require, like I said, calculations, measurements, or, you know, technical review can show up immediately.

So that picks you up time on the front end. So you're not scrambling at the back end. And then there's ways of that. We have new technologies that I'm investigating right now of tracking our labor. So we can set, we can, we can track them for COVID, you know, distancing. We can track them for, you know, crew sizes. We can track, you know, for muster points points from a safety standpoint in case there's an emergency. And we can also collect the exact information about the hours that we've worked and then see how to improve as we go forward.

Yeah, Nancy, you raise a great point that I didn't even think of. With having the submittals done quickly, we can start getting materials in an environment in a global pandemic where the supply chain is such a big issue, the earlier we can get materials on site and know that there's product there for the trades to install, the better off we are, right? The faster we can go, the more product that shows up and is ready to be assembled and installed is part of going fast. Yeah, it's part of going fast. It's part of not having to, you know, work overtime or double shifts or weekends when you get to the end of a project, because construction is complicated. And sometimes hiccups occur, even in the best of situations. So I mean, and we pride ourselves at Compass of not having to work overtime and on weekends. That's one of our, in my opinion, one of our strongest selling points and one of the safest ways of doing business. Yeah, good stuff. The idea that we're trying to make it, I mean, I don't know about you, but I work best between eight and five. I don't typically work really well between midnight and eight. And that's no different for trades, right? We're trying to run single shift job sites and keep them on schedule where everyone can have a well-rested

dialed in workforce. That's the idea behind what we're doing, isn't it? Absolutely. All right. Well, we've talked people, we've talked process. Can you give us a minute or two on systems? I know we touched a little bit because we talked about Carbon Cure, but, you know, will you highlight one or other two, one or two other things in the systems world that you'd like to talk about from an innovation perspective? Sure. I mean, this is some of the stuff is, you know, we're working on that's a little bit futuristic, but we're in the middle of looking at technology. And I'm not going to give you the actual names of the technology firms because I have quite a few in play right now. But for sure, like I'm using that, I'm looking at getting better visual tools that can render and schedule demos and use both virtual

reality and augmented reality to show our clients and show our contractors how we want the work to go into place. So I have some really cool products that I'm working on in that area. We're working on obviously replacing the generation stored energy that we have to make us more sustainable and more affordable in areas that right now geographically are difficult when the backup power is all done with generators. So, we have a few really impressive types of technology that we're getting into as far as stored energy is concerned. We're even investigating things like demand response and microgrids from a consumption standpoint. And then we're looking at doing performance analytics through a custom

program that we've developed where we can look at our assets and we can monitor their performance and then improve on that by looking at predictive analytics. All cool stuff, all things that are coming to our job sites and ways to make them run better, run faster, run safer, make us understand them. I'm going to cheat a little because you have an image for those of you that are not, you know, because you guys are all listening and can't see I'm going through a presentation. There's an image of a guy with a, I don't know if this is the right word, Nancy, it's like an exoskeleton, you know, so can you talk about that? I just think it's fascinating. It's really cool to me.

Can you talk a little bit about what that is? I know it's another, I don't know if you use company names, but I think it's fascinating, the ways to make the workload safer on people's bodies and able to do more work. Can you talk about that just for a minute? This technology is near and dear to my heart. So thank you for bringing that up. So this was actually started, it was developed for wounded warriors and being able to let them, allow them to do things that they couldn't do when they came back and they were wounded. And I love the fact that the construction industry picked up on this because my husband is a trades person and what we do in the trades is physically very demanding. And to have an exoskeleton, and this is all, this is analog, this type, the one that you're seeing on the screen, it does not have to be digital.

To have an exoskeleton that can take the pressure off your joints and allow you to do your work in a safer manner by not having to strain your body is huge and let's think about the possibility of being able to now bring in more diverse work a trade force you know so that women who don't have the brute strength of being able to you know lift heavy block and um pieces of equipment um can now enter the trade force in a safe manner and and use their skill skill set to be able to contribute a much larger, a much better way than they are currently. Well, that's one of the, I mean, I love the safety aspect and the ability to prevent injury, but that was one of the first things that I thought of is, is if we could get really good at these exoskeletons, it could change who physically does the work, right? To be able to have a much more diverse, to have women in roles where the exoskeleton

helps them lift weights or hold things in place. I just think that's an exciting part of giving us, because I think that having diversity in the workforce gives you perspective and understanding and insights that you never get from having an all-male group. And the idea to be able to have women serve in those roles and offer a unique perspective, I think would be great for the business. We'll see innovations we'd never think of as just men doing it. Yeah, I totally agree.

I mean, like I said, a whole different set of lenses there, especially in an industry that's so dominated by men. I mean, currently in the trades, there's only about three and a half percent are women and that's for all trades combined. So it's very, very dismal as far as that kind of parity is concerned. But you're right, Raymond. I mean, ideas come from all different walks of life and having more than half the population get to contribute on a job that's exciting and that has a good pay and that's very rewarding would be a wonderful, wonderful is in our industry and how needed it is to think that only 3% of the trades are women is just an incredible, talk about an opportunity when we

got 47% where we could go to get to equality. There's a lot of room for growth in that space. And we really appreciate not only you innovating for Compass and for our customers, but being a champion for diversity and inclusion. It's such an important part of our culture and our message, and we're grateful that you spread that message daily. So, Nancy, thank you for joining us, and I appreciate you coming on the podcast. My pleasure. Good talking with you again, Raymond.