The SiteVisit

Building Construction Security with Mike Gloeckner from Securiforce Services

• James Faulkner

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Discover how personal connections and cutting-edge technology can transform an industry. Meet our guest, Mike Gloeckner, as we reminisce about our first encounter at a dry-cleaning business and journey through the remarkable evolution of Securiforce, a leader in construction site security. Mike shares the secrets behind Securiforce's exponential growth from 52 to 125 monitored sites within a year, highlighting the critical role of strategic scaling and the integration of advanced video technology.

Explore the competitive landscape of the construction industry with us, where networking and building strategic relationships are as crucial as physical security measures. We also discuss innovative projects like modular schools and the importance of partnerships with major organizations in tackling large-scale infrastructure projects.

Technology takes center stage as we dive into AI-driven security systems tailored for major construction sites, including hospital projects. Learn how virtual borders and thermal cameras enhance site monitoring and fire watch capabilities, and get a glimpse into the future with potential API integrations and the use of robots for surveillance. Our discussion touches on job site safety innovations, the use of RFID tags, and the importance of ethical data use, offering a comprehensive look at how technology is reshaping the construction security landscape. Don't miss this episode packed with insights and innovative strategies from the forefront of the construction industry.

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Speaker 1:

So you knew Christian originally? Right, I did. Yeah, you had the OG podcaster with me.

Speaker 2:

So my dad and I, believe it or not, we used to have a dry cleaning business for about 12 years and Christian was one of our dry cleaning customers and one of the guys that I just kind of shoot the you-know-what with every day, and dry cleaning was, you know, a small aspect of what I did every day.

Speaker 1:

That's good. So welcome to the dry cleaning podcast everybody. No, this is a construction podcast, so let's just talk about this. So we're talking. You're in the business of security cameras, secure force, so how long have you been there and what's the sort of path been like Because you were with a different company before? So how long have you been there and what's the sort of path been like Because you were with a different company before? So how long have you been in the construction industry and how'd you get into this? Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast, Leadership and perspective from construction With your host, James Falkner. Business as usual, as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button. You know you read all the books, you read the email, you read Scaling Up, you read Good to Great. You know I could go on. We've got to a place where we found the secret serum.

Speaker 2:

We found the secret potion. We can get the workers in. We know where to get them. One time I was on a job sale for a while and actually we had a semester, concrete and I ordered like a Korean-Finnish patio out front of the site show.

Speaker 1:

yesterday I was down at Dallas and a guy just hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Favourite Connect platform on your guys' podcast Home. It crush it and love it and we celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it.

Speaker 2:

Been in the construction industry for, I would say probably on and off for about 12, 13 years. Right, everybody asks what did I do wrong to get into security?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what did you do wrong?

Speaker 2:

It's not necessarily the most sexiest of career choices or paths.

Speaker 1:

Why is that? What's wrong with it?

Speaker 2:

Well, I was in temporary fence before and so it's probably right up there with security. I'm not sure what the stigma is. I think temporary fence. One of my kind of goals and I think we kind of crushed it when I got in there is to change the whole thought of you know, temporary fences, looked at as, uh, you know something that was, um, I don't know.

Speaker 1:

But it's. I mean, temporary fences are are are required for a number of different things. You know, obviously, from live events I mean I saw the BMO marathon that was on like right in front of my street. There was like miles and miles of that stuff. But you know, having said that, you know the security on the job site. I think it's a very important function. You know, there's a lot of expensive things on the job site. There are safety hazards, the reason people shouldn't be going into a job site until somebody has cleared that job site, like a superintendent or a safety officer, to make sure that that's actually a place you can go. And there's also the theft side of things. And now I would say that the video world in construction is becoming one of the most exciting places due to the fact that video is required for so much technology to move forward in terms of robotics, in terms of reporting, yeah. So let's just chat a little bit about that. So Securiforce, is that a national company or is it mostly, you know, a British Columbia company?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was born in BC. Here it's a family company 2000,.

Speaker 1:

I believe it was yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm the only Caucasian person in the whole company. They thought they needed to spice things up and bring a white guy in. So you know, jokes aside, they want to scale, spice things up and bring a white guy in. Jokes aside, they want to scale the business and they can't have all their cousins and friends and everybody that they know growing the business. They have to bring outside talent in. It's funny because Indian families it's really thought that the boys are going to take over the family business one day and the boys growing up in a security business did not want anything to do with a security company. Mom and dad started with one security guard and now we've got over 300. So the security guard side of it is our meats and potatoes of the company, of the business.

Speaker 1:

Is it like personnel on the job site 100%?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's how it started.

Speaker 1:

So what's the blend now? Revenue-wise People on the job site from when it closes till the morning versus cameras.

Speaker 2:

Percentage-wise as far as-.

Speaker 1:

Like revenue of the company.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I would say, guard side is probably about 70%, 70%.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so how long has the company been doing cameras for we're going into our sixth year.

Speaker 2:

Sixth year, okay. So the idea is the cameras never call in sick, they never say a bad word to you, they always show up on time. Having 300 guards, you can imagine just the HR side of it, but the payroll the idea is to maybe get it down to 150, 200 guards and grow our monitoring side. I got on board with SecureForce October of 2022. They only had 52 sites at that time. They told me that if we can secure 20, 25 sites, if I can secure 20, 25 sites, that they'll look to upgrade their office and get some new digs. And we went from 52 to 125 sites at the end of 2023. Crazy, okay.

Speaker 1:

So you've been part of that huge growth. Yeah, 100%. So business development, just going out there pounding the pavement, hauling ass, doing your thing, it's all relationships, right 100%.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, everyone thinks you I don't sell anything to anyone. Once you grow your network to a certain point if you've grown it properly and organically they call you when they need something. My number one rule is that when I connect and meet people, I don't try and sell them that minute. You make the connection, you grow the contact and, like I said, eventually when they need your product or service, they'll hopefully call you.

Speaker 2:

For me, half the battle is just being included within the coding process, so it's easy to find out what projects are starting. But it's another whole thing trying to figure out who the decision makers are within a company, because it seems that every company has. You know, it could be the site super. It could be a project manager, it could be an estimator. It could be the vice president. It could be the owner. It could be a project manager. It could be an estimator, it could be the vice president, it could be the owner. You just got to figure it out and there's no rhyme or reason. It's not a perfect science. You just kind of got to go through the motions.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about your organic process. And you were saying, when you meet people, you go to events, you don't try and sell them right away, sort of sales 101. How do you establish trust, uh, within those? Do you? Do you have like a budget that you get to play with, where you can go and have lunches, go for coffees, that kind of stuff? How's that work?

Speaker 2:

So um, I don't have a budget. It's kind of open to a certain point. So sometimes they'll tell me hey, you've kind of my big thing is golf tournaments. I try and get in as many golf tournaments as possible Do you score well. Are you a good player? Depends on how much I've had to drink.

Speaker 1:

Oh, really yeah.

Speaker 2:

Usually, the more I drink, the better I play.

Speaker 1:

It's the opposite. For me, Actually, that's not true. One drink is like a beer is good and you're done. Second one it'll Trouble.

Speaker 2:

No, I start chunking, See the tournaments are usually best ball, so you don't necessarily have to be a great golfer, because you can rely on usually one of the other three. Usually one of them is a good golfer, so that's true.

Speaker 1:

But you also can't be the crappiest shot every time because then no one wants to play with you.

Speaker 2:

Uh, well, it depends on, uh, yeah, true, true, If for me, yeah, you gotta have some magic. But I've golfed with some really crappy project managers and estimators, but I want their POs, right. So, yeah, I'll tolerate it, but it's it's. It's like you said, it's, um, it's just about getting out there. Um, I, I don't have a budget. Uh, they've kind of let me just do my thing. Budget, uh, they've kind of let me just do my thing.

Speaker 2:

Um, the great thing with SecureForce is that, uh, for the first little while, they kept an eye on me and, uh, when I first jumped on board with them, they weren't a part of any of the associations. So the first rule of thumb uh was to get um on board with the VRCA and the BC home builders. Uh, uh, that was a must Um. Home builders, yeah, uh, uh, that was a must Um. And, just like I said, I go to every event that I could possibly go to. Um, it's.

Speaker 2:

It's funny, because the events that you think aren't going to really pay dividends are the ones that actually do. So. To give you an example uh, the VRCA has um an event where you can go into high schools and talk about careers in construction. Right, uh, so can go into high schools and talk about careers in construction, right? So I go into. I've done three, four of these now where I go in and I talk to the kids about careers in construction with sales in mind. So you got to keep in mind that all the concrete, rebar, security, somebody has to sell that service or that product to the companies. So I go in and talk to them. And the very first one I did there's a I won't name him, but he was a. He was a director that I was after for a long time. He didn't want to have anything to do with me. He wouldn't answer my call.

Speaker 1:

A director of what?

Speaker 2:

Construction company, okay, a company that I wanted to get in with. I see I wanted to provide security to Gotcha wanted to get in with. I see I wanted to provide security too, gotcha, he wouldn't answer my emails, wouldn't answer my call, very busy person, didn't have you know, didn't want to talk to a sales guy. So I go to this careers in construction and, lo and behold, one of the other presenters is him. Oh, I see, and it was like ding, ding, ding, it's like winning the six for nine. So we did our presentation afterwards. Uh, he said, do you want to go grab a beer and a bite? For sure, and, um, we did that and he's become a really good friend, um, really good mentor, um, and I've done four of these now and three of them I've I've gotten a lot of business from.

Speaker 1:

Nice.

Speaker 2:

So it's like and these are just careers in construction, like I didn't go into it. You know wanting to, you know want either connect or or get business from it, but I did you know Nice.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, can we just chat a little bit about those programs? When you go into high schools, what's the sort of the general sentiment when you guys start talking? Are people pretty reluctant to take on the ideas or are they pretty curious? It's kind of hit or miss what are the hits like and what are the misses like?

Speaker 2:

So the misses are like when you go in there everyone knows why you're there, but if you ask everybody what they want to do, you'll get the doctors, lawyers, accountants the usual suspects. Very few want to get into construction. To go back to that person I was talking about, he. He made this comment. He said you know, I have lawyers, high powered accountants that they do that work for me. Who do you think makes the most money in my company? And they all say you know the lawyer, the accountant this and that and he's like no, me and it kind of you can. You can kind of see a light bulb go off in some of the kids.

Speaker 1:

That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's something else out there, because I think so many kids think that construction is just swinging a hammer, pulling a measuring tape out and, as you know, it's so much more than that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean you've gotten a lot out of the construction industry. I mean you're not out swinging a hammer or screwing in screws.

Speaker 2:

Well, like I said, I was selling temporary fence before. I've now selling security Different product but I'm calling on the exact same people, so it was a real easy transition for me. I've been in the. I work for a company called Solder Industries where I sold wood moldings, so I've been around it for a long time.

Speaker 2:

But, like you said, it's all about networking and growing your uh, your uh, your group of people that you surround yourself with. And, uh, it's amazing because when you make these connections, um and people, it's not about back in the eighties and the early nineties, is about giving kickbacks and trips and this and that, and I don't have to do any of that. You know, certainly I reward people with a lunch or a dinner or, you know, a golf tournament and whatnot, but none of that shady stuff is happening from way back when. So all of this stuff is happening because people want to deal with me. I see and it's funny because a lot of my customers tell me that you know they're using SecureForce no, because it's SecureForce, because they want to deal with me, which is great, right, you know it's, it's what gets you up in the morning. Yeah, no, totally.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, um. So can we just chat a little bit about um, so what? When, as you guys got into the camera business, you know, six years ago or so, with the other players that are out there, what's the sort of competitive landscape look like? I mean, what are the sort of features and benefits that others are providing that you guys are providing also, or maybe some that are, you know, feature things technology-wise? I mean, are you bumping up against any sort of like oh, these guys do this now, when are you guys going to do that? Or are your competitors not doing as much as you guys? I mean, what's that look like?

Speaker 2:

So everybody kind of sort of does the same thing on the monitoring side. There's things coming in on the tech side like water monitoring, so water, uh um monitoring, so you know an elevator shafts and whatnot. So we're just starting to get into that. Um, it's very expensive to uh um for the uh software, but we're we're slowly getting to that. Uh, it's all about insurance. So whatever insurance says, uh, um, we kind of follow. But yeah, as far as a competitor, uh, our competition, we're kind of in a sweet spot right now where we're right in the middle.

Speaker 2:

So there's some big players, uh, they're national brands but they're just so large that their customer service kind of falls off. Um, so us being positioned where we are, people will call us and we'll answer the phone. You know, I certainly don't have an ownership interest, but I treat this position my job like I do have an ownership interest. So I don't encourage people to call me at 10 o'clock at night. But if somebody does call me at 10 o'clock at night, I answer the phone. Where you won't get that with the big national brands. And then there's on the other side of it there's companies that are lower than us, that you know they have 10 sites and that's all they need in order to make money. You know they're charging up to two grand a month per site, so they're making 20 grand. They don't need to make any more than that, so they're content with that and they'll never grow it to a certain point. It's pretty amazing how fast we've grown. We're on all the major hospital sites, so there's four of them right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Ellis Dawn is the GC on all of them and you have the relationship with them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So we're on all four of them. So we're in with Fraser Health and Infrastructure BC and everybody says, why do you waste your time with Infrastructure BC or Fraser Health? And they're like well, the reason why is because these are the people that are creating these large mega infrastructure projects. Yeah, they'll last for like six years to make 100%. So they're not directly awarding us the project, but by being in a relationship with them you're able to find out, maybe, when a project is coming up before somebody else, or you'll be able to find out who the decision maker is, uh, within a GC that they awarded it to. So, uh, very important to have those relationships, um, so, um, we're on anything that's in mega infrastructure. We're all over.

Speaker 2:

So, the SkyTrain staff hospital I can't tell you how many school projects we're doing. It's funny because at the VRCA Christmas luncheon I had my buddy who was a GC that's now with the Langley School District and I also had Infrastructure BC there and I didn't really think that they would actually talk as much as they did. But, lo and behold, infrastructure BC is approving a pilot project for modular schools. Interesting, and it's kind of the uh way. Modular school projects are 68 months project durations. Uh, so a lot quicker, a lot faster. Um Langley is the uh pilot um project. Uh is the yeah Test case. Yeah, yeah, so, uh, they got talking and um infrastructure BC, but they basically, you know, got together and they figured out a better way to kind of um make the whole project go a lot smoother. And this was just from my Christmas lunch and getting these two together. So, um, yeah, so I try and get on every huge infrastructure project possible.

Speaker 1:

The cameras that you guys have on a job site, for instance. Are you seeing other cameras showing up for different reasons? Other than just security. Like are you seeing progress cameras showing up from progress companies and you guys are like, hey, hang on a sec, what's this?

Speaker 2:

Not on ours directly, but I am seeing those on other sites.

Speaker 1:

And their use case is not necessarily security. It's more monitoring, progress and monitoring safety or maybe deliveries or whatever the case.

Speaker 2:

The idea is like we're monitoring usually a 6 PM 6 AM or 7 PM 7 AM schedule. However, the cameras are always rolling, so the idea is to hopefully monetize monetize, monetize, monetize, monetize yeah, that.

Speaker 1:

Monsterize is something Monsterize yes, I think that's something larger. To monsterize something.

Speaker 2:

So you know, the idea is to to grow our, our net worth, and, uh, that's one way where we can create some wealth is to kind of capitalize on that. So we're trying to figure out how to do that and what the best ways are. Um, uh, it's very new. We're right now we're trying to scale and grow the monitoring side, so eventually we'll get there. But I think there's a real opportunity to capitalize on on some of that. Um, are your customers asking for that stuff? I have. I personally know, but I think it's crazy not to um sounds like an like an amazing opportunity.

Speaker 1:

Sounds like an amazing opportunity?

Speaker 2:

Well, the more information that you know, the more efficient and the better product that you could produce. So I don't know why anybody would turn it away. So I think it's just what information you're capturing and how they can use that information to better themselves. Okay, that's what we're trying to do.

Speaker 1:

So let me ask you this so on a hospital, for instance, are you guys on the St Paul's?

Speaker 2:

No, that's the one we're not on, but Burdaby, the new Surrey.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so how many cameras on that job site?

Speaker 2:

We keep adding and moving. So if I had to guess, 30 to 40, somewhere in there 30 to 40 cameras, wow, guess 30 to 40, somewhere there.

Speaker 2:

30 to 40 cameras, wow, okay. And you know what? We've never and this blows me away we've never had a break-in or any issues on any of the major hospital projects Interesting. Yet we'll have the small sites where we'll have like seven or eight cameras and it's like break-in after break-in after attempt after attempt, right. Yet these big mega hospital projects, we don't have any issues. So I don't know if it's us just because we've got so many cameras that we're overkilling it, or if people just don't want to even try.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's just go through some basics for listeners here. So when an intrusion happens, what does the system do? Does it call somebody right away saying that there's been a breach, or like how does that work?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so there's a lot of misconceptions that we're actually physically watching a construction site and we're not in the year 2024. Uh, you have uh software that can do that for you which lowers the cost, you know anytime you don't have labor doing it, it brings down the cost. But who?

Speaker 2:

is that alert. So it's all done by AI. So a virtual border is usually set with the camera within the temporary fence usually. So as soon as something crosses that virtual border whether it be a dog, cat, raccoon or human it automatically triggers the monitoring center and that camera will pop up on the monitoring center so we can see exactly what it is and react accordingly. So that's why three people can watch 100 plus sites.

Speaker 1:

No, I get that. So what is creating that fence, that virtual fence? It's all AI. No, I know, but AI from the video.

Speaker 2:

From the video.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, video footage okay, yeah yeah, so is there a low res version that is doing that from the video? From the video? Yeah, video footage, okay, yeah, yeah, so is there a low-res version that is doing that all the time, that is communicating quickly, and then, once that does happen, the high-res kicks in? Is that how that works?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Just for data transfer efficiencies et cetera.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly yeah, okay, that's cool.

Speaker 1:

So I would assume that from in the daytime when those cameras are still running, are they running the low res.

Speaker 2:

They are yeah, okay, so that's basically For power reasons too, right, for power reasons.

Speaker 1:

okay, and then so from a wireless network, are these wired cameras?

Speaker 2:

So they connect to each other wirelessly. So they have to have a side of view of each pole, so one pole has got to see another pole. Okay, so they're Wi-Fi based. They're Wi-Fi based, yeah, okay, although each pole has to have a power source to connect.

Speaker 1:

For sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, Okay, and then is there a central hub that is wired.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly, so one pole will have our so one has ethernet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay. And that ethernet? Where are you getting that feed from? I guess most of the big projects have it already.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. Well, we bring our own in, because so what do you bring in?

Speaker 1:

It's not like a Starlink thing, is it?

Speaker 2:

No, we bring in Telus or Shaw, you do Okay. So we have a dedicated TELUS team.

Speaker 1:

That just works on our own sites, so they'll show up and do this for you guys.

Speaker 2:

So, like I said, we have TELUS that all they do is our site. We have a crew, that's how busy we are. They'll just do our sites, that's awesome, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

So if somebody's digging a new, let's say it's a new development clearing a bunch of trees.

Speaker 2:

No service there at all. How does that work? So then at that point, if we can't bring in a line, then we would go to the satellite, or so have you gone to satellite before we have? We try and stay away from it just because it's a little hit or miss.

Speaker 1:

sometimes it's a lot of miss.

Speaker 2:

If it's your only option, it's your only option. Certainly, in some remote areas, that's what we're left with, but the alternative is not having any security.

Speaker 1:

Interesting, yeah. So the fact that you guys have the cameras, you've got the contracts, you've got all that stuff, I mean the opportunity for that feed is massive. I mean you've got this relationship with TELUS. I mean you've got a lot of the hard stuff done already. I mean monetizing that, you know. You know, post 7 am through to 4, the productivity side.

Speaker 2:

I mean you guys are, you're there, yep yep, and if you, if anyone out there wants to, you know, give me a jingle. And if they have a way for us to Partner up. Yeah, partner up, that's. You know, I'm always wanting to create those relationships.

Speaker 1:

Can we chat a little bit about the software side of things? So your customers get a portal that they can look at the cameras so they can toggle through different views?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so all the cameras that have the virtual borders. They're all fixed so anybody that has access can view those cameras. They just can't move them, or whatnot.

Speaker 1:

Fair enough.

Speaker 2:

But there is one camera called a PTZ. It's a 360 camera which they can control and look around the site and if they want to see if the temper fence gate's open or a C can door's open, they can kind of look around.

Speaker 1:

Have you guys ever done any integration where your API chats with the other software?

Speaker 2:

No, not yet Okay.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I mean, it's a very basic question I'm just interested in. You know, sitemax right now has a number of initiatives underway to be pulling in lots of different feeds from different third parties. So, yeah, create a little widget and there you go and you'd be able to have a, you know, a secure force part uh that you could see. Um that's provided you know that that software is on that job site, um. So yeah, there's lots of interesting things going. Have you um? Have you heard anything about uh, like um on the body cam side of things?

Speaker 2:

No, we've, we've been testing it. We were thinking about it on our guard side.

Speaker 1:

Interesting, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like even we've even been looking at robots, we've been looking at a whole bunch of different things but our. So the beauty of when a customer will use our guards and our monitoring is our monitoring can watch real time what the guards are doing. So it's kind of like the big brother. So the guard knowing that big brother's watching them, you know they perform better usually. Yeah, and not only that, we can provide real-time data and information as to where that guard is and where they're moving. So one way we found that guards kind of get around manipulating the system. Usually we'll have in the past we'd have little target stickers where they can go and scan them and that will tell us and the customer that the guard got out of their car, they went to the backside of the property and they scanned it Like QR codes QR codes, qr codes so they're basically waypoints where it shows that they've been A hundred percent On certain time clocks.

Speaker 2:

And that's great if they actually do that. Yeah, but what we found was that sometimes the bad guys bad ones will grab the stickers, pull them off, put it into their car on their dash, set their alarm on their phone an hour later, scan it and it looks like they-.

Speaker 1:

And these are your employees.

Speaker 2:

These are any guards. Yeah, we found out that any guards can do this. I guess those people don't stick around. No, no, no, okay gotcha, by no means so. One way we've got around it is our monitoring cameras can actually track their whereabouts, so we can provide real-time data to our customers, and the insurance companies love this too.

Speaker 1:

It's just another way for them to keep track of their sites On some of the job sites that are sort of closer into the city and you have a pretty bad street crime kind of environment. What's the danger to some of these guards? Have there been some encounters that have been pretty sketchy?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, it's usually the most innocent ones that are the most violent, like dollar stores yeah, those are. I can't tell you how many attacks we've had guard wise, that's on the retail side of things. What about construction? So construction, we've had a lot. So our guards are trained not to actually physically interact with other people. They're there just basically to report and call the police, maybe scare somebody away, but they're by no means trained to interact and actually physically get into it with somebody.

Speaker 1:

Scaring somebody away can be a bit tough. It is. Some of them don't get that scared and they don't but to give you an idea.

Speaker 2:

So we have a mobile patrol unit. We have 11 or 12 cars on the road at any one times. So what we offer to our customers is free mobile responses to their site. Anyone else that has mobile responses, they'll charge for that service. We don't. They're already on the road. We figure, hey, we'll just include it as an add-on. So a lot of the time our mobile patrol will get there before the police. So I can't tell you how many I don't know what it is in the last couple of months people trying to climb tower cranes yeah, Just for selfies and stuff, yeah, and so our mobile patrol has gotten there. And one time, you know, although they're trained not to interact and touch people, but they've grabbed a leg of somebody climbing up like tower crane and pulled them down yeah, Like it's that. So, yeah, the mobile patrol has been great, Just telling our customers that we give free offer, free mobile responses to the site. You know they eat that up.

Speaker 1:

Love it. I find it interesting the prospect of body cams on your people, because what we're trying to find right now is the use case for cameras for productivity, for field workers, people on the job site wearing that camera. Did you ever see that little lapel pin? Have you seen that latest thing that? Is it a camera, or yeah, it got reviewed. It's basically this AI little thing. Anyway, the reviews have been sort of hit and miss with it, but I see sort of where the future of that is going.

Speaker 1:

It's basically a little lapel pin, it's got a camera in it and it's always on and having those, it really the feed is very, very interesting to me because that job um, the main hub that you have your ethernet going into right now that the other cameras connect to because I'm sure I'm sure that's how that happens that can be very, very useful for other peripherals as well, and those peripherals can be the body cameras as well that communicate with that. Obviously, you're going to need power. You're going to need to know that they're on the network and where that network is. How strong is that network? Are you providing internet service to the actual job site as well, for, like even for SiteMax users to be logging into?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. A lot of times they'll have their own. The reason why we like to pull our own is because if the internet goes down in the middle of a night or on a long weekend, we don't have to rely on them to get the password or deal with it. We can deal with it on our side and get it going right away. Having said that, if we get on site and we get the internet first, a lot of time we'll just provide the password so that they can save that in a hundred bucks or whatever a month. It's minimal, but they do appreciate that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

So I think, for the body cam, like we have three to guard, so we would probably have to. We certainly wouldn't have it on every site. Obviously not. Probably have to. Um, we certainly wouldn't have it on every site. Uh, obviously not, probably not retail, but um, construction wise, we'd probably have to pick and choose which site. Um, right now we're, we're doing the um, we just got on the Burnaby RCMP uh site, uh, kinetic construction and there's a halfway house on the other side. So certainly, uh, some point we'll probably need a guard for fire watch and you know that might be, you know, probably a consideration for a site like that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. I find it kind of interesting how this is like construction is evolving so quickly right now and, as I said earlier in our chat here, is that cameras are the key Because there's no other. Like what else are you getting? Cameras are the key because there's no other. Like what else are you getting from? I mean, there's thermal sensors, there's sound sensors, you know, and what else is there? I mean video is everything. So you guys have having those cameras everywhere. You got 30 or 40 cameras on a job site, I mean like on a large one.

Speaker 1:

Most are under 16.

Speaker 2:

Under 16, but fair enough, you hear what I'm saying, though, right, yeah, yeah, yeah it's still pretty good coverage, right?

Speaker 1:

100%, so. And so, what do you? What do you? Do you ever like sort of as you're putting your head down on the pillow at night, do you think? Oh, I wonder if this is ever gonna happen? Do you have some thoughts about technology?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, the wheels are always turning.

Speaker 1:

Give me some wheels, what?

Speaker 2:

do you got? Well, this isn't like I'm not creating anything here, but we include time-lapse packages for our customers. Okay, yeah, like time-lapse is pretty basic, but everybody appreciates it. Certainly when you see a project from start to finish, especially a residential building, if you're buying a townhouse or a unit within the building, you kind of like this, you kind of geek out seeing your, your, your, your home.

Speaker 1:

These are single, single photos that are laced together on a timeline, right? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

So like, uh, all the major hospital projects, you know certainly the, the municipalities like to have that, the construction sales, the GCs like to have that for their marketing purposes. So we include that free of charge. We don't even charge our customers for that. I think everybody else does charge for that. It's another way to make additional revenue stream For us. It's an additional way to get customers by including that.

Speaker 2:

So putting my head down at night. It's like I said, I told you we were really looking at putting robots on site. So one of the things right now is, uh, providing a guard for fire watch, so anything that's timber, any timber structures we'll need at some point. Usually the uh insurance requirements are that our guard is on site for fire watch. Um, one way we've been I don't know it's not really getting around it, but we've been able to put thermal cameras on certain sites to measure temperatures. So the Langley Fire Department came on and they wanted us to point our regular monitoring cameras up at the timber structure, which really doesn't do anything because a fire wouldn't trigger our AI. So we thought, why don't we put thermal? And they actually Langley Fire Department loved it, and so now we've got additional.

Speaker 2:

So again it comes back to insurance. Yeah, everything does. Yeah, insurance loves it, and I'll be honest with you, there's certain projects where the insurance providers dictate what security company is on site. So if the security companies love you, then you're going to get more than not, right? So in regards to so, like I said, we were looking at putting robots on site the cost to getting into that right now is unbearable. Boston Scientific is just like-.

Speaker 1:

Boston Dynamics.

Speaker 2:

Or Dynamics, sorry yeah.

Speaker 1:

But I mean the Superdryads guys are doing basic robots down the states. And when you guys are saying you're looking at robots, I mean there's a huge spectrum of a robot. You can have a little one that spins around the desk here and does something, versus something that's trying to be a human form. But where on the spectrum was it in terms of ideas for robots?

Speaker 2:

So we've seen them where they can actually move around. An actual construction site and if you've been on the average construction site, there's debris all over the place, the terrain is difficult and these things can go over that.

Speaker 2:

So what do they have tank tracks? Yeah, they have tank, exactly. Okay, the whole thing. Basically it's the same thing as our monitoring cameras. It's all done with AI, so they're basically doing the exact same things that are on the post, but they're moving it around. They're great in malls. They're great in malls. I see For Firewatch they're going to be able to detect a fire before a human would. They can measure your carbon dioxide. It's really endless. But it's the software. It's just so ridiculously expensive to get into it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, all this will come down, this will come down, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it's part of us. Just knocking on the door and making sure that we're in the conversation is just because, for when it does come down, that we've already done our homework and we already know about it.

Speaker 1:

And we can hopefully I mean innovation at this point, I think will give you guys a big leg up on knowing exactly I mean. The fact you're even having the conversation about robots is great.

Speaker 2:

Well, we've talked to customers to see what their kind of feedback was, Because for me it's kind of weird having a roadblock.

Speaker 1:

It seems gimmicky a little bit yeah it seems a little gimmicky.

Speaker 2:

So we asked a lot of our customers what they thought and they thought hey, that's cool, although they're not footing the bill for these $200,000 robots, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

Is that how much they are? Yeah, 200 grand, 200 grand. So this is. So can you just describe what kind of what it looks like? It looks like-.

Speaker 2:

How tall is it?

Speaker 1:

RDD two. Okay, so it looks like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, on the tracks, like you said, on the tank tracks. Do you remember Wally? Do you remember that movie? Yeah, sort of Kind of like that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So is it basically a heavy tank track base and then it's got some sort of vertical structure?

Speaker 2:

I think they're very heavy, because one of my worries is the tip of where it gets stolen right, like what's stopping somebody to come and grab in the thing and take off with it? I guess I just always see probably trackers on them, but still you're going to get some idiots that are going to want to go and take it for a little.

Speaker 1:

I did notice on your website that you guys had RFID points, so it said RFID. So can you just take us through that? So that's those scan points that I talked about. Those aren't RFID, though. Those are just QR codes. Rfid is like a Like a tag, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like an AirTag's RFID. So that's what I meant. It's an actual AirTag. It's a sticker that goes onto the wall where their guard will come and scan them. So it's, I think, like it says secure force on them. But I think the technology behind it is basically a QR code.

Speaker 1:

behind it, I'm guessing, a QR code stands for quick response, so that's basically something that the camera and it provides an instruction and it's typically a URL. That URL gets hit and sometimes that's an API saying, okay, that person's been there and that's what that call is. So it's saying it's identifying that that came from that particular code. However, if you actually have an RFID tag, like the fobs that you go in and get into buildings with those kind of things, those are like. Rfid. Yeah, so is that what those things are? It?

Speaker 1:

is yeah, okay, so they're actual little hardware pieces.

Speaker 2:

They are yeah.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so there's no scanning with a camera. This is just like a.

Speaker 2:

So they do scan it with their camera, which is why I think it's kind of QR-based. Again, I'm not going to pretend that I'm the most tech-savvy person out there, but they come in with their camera and they do scan it, okay, and it notes time, date and.

Speaker 1:

Because I find RFIDs kind of interesting because there's something called an iBeacon and iBeacons are basically like these. Something called an iBeacon and iBeacons are basically like these. They're essentially putting out a communication field that once an RFID tag hits it, it's there's a trigger, basically, which is really kind of cool. You see those on tools, for instance. That RFID tag, you know it goes near a phone or it goes near a little base and it's like, okay, that's it checks it in, checks it out, kind of thing. So yeah, there's some definitely cool things in terms of, you know, rfid, on how that is used and how that is also triggered with, for instance, motion on a fence, let's see could have an RFID tag on it, so the fact that it moved, it could shake something, or it's not just motion but like reverberation, et cetera. There's lots of different things coming down the pipe, I think.

Speaker 2:

So do you think there's a Is?

Speaker 1:

it pipe or pike. I say pike, pike.

Speaker 2:

So what is that?

Speaker 1:

So like is that? Like a I've always wondered this like Coastal the pike, is it a pike as in, so a turn pike?

Speaker 2:

Is it a water pike? Yeah, I think that's probably what it is, because it's certainly not the fish, right? So, yeah, yeah, turn pike.

Speaker 1:

Definitely not the fish Coming down the pipes also sounds pretty accurate too. I don't know Pike Pike. I hear all of it. I also hear other ones, like there is another one that is I couldn't care less, or I could care less, could care less. Which one is it?

Speaker 2:

I think it's. I couldn't care less yeah because that's just.

Speaker 1:

There's no way I could give any more of a shit than this. Do you get the other way sometimes? I hear people say I could care any more of a shit than this. Do you get the other way? Sometimes I hear people say I could care less. I'm like, well then, that's nothing.

Speaker 2:

I think they're just doing it to piss you off.

Speaker 1:

No, they're not. They don't know me. I hear it from famous people. They go, I could care less. Okay, then you haven't made a point, sorry.

Speaker 2:

So to get back to what you were saying, with like the RFID tags on like safety vests and our cameras tracking these things, or the amount.

Speaker 1:

The hardest part of any of this is getting a camera on a site that a company is paying for Right, and you are the master of that, apparently because you got lots of accounts. You've done the hardest part there is Right. Next part is how do you positively get the most out of that footage and what can you do to add to it in order to provide a more robust service that is waiting for technology. The first thing is, in my opinion, is an open API on your software side. All really that is is that if I have a key and you provide me a URL address, I can get to certain endpoints for certain footage based on certain jobs and I can pull that footage. It's all it really means.

Speaker 1:

And maybe you guys have some other events that are in the database of the job that allows you to have other events that have been triggered via whatever type of peripheral. It could have been an RFID tag, it could have been an intrusion, it could have been a thermal trigger. All of these things create points in the database of things and those things then turn into data over time. How many things, what happened over time, analysis and then you take that corpus of data and you look at that over all the jobs and you go, okay, which jobs are better than others? And companies can really inform and create efficiencies and better safety and better overall productivity. So there's it really is.

Speaker 1:

You guys have a massive, massive opportunity. Also, the fact that you have guards as well, that human component. You know they're sitting there doing SFA for a long time. You could be testing things. They could be the next bastion of testing. They can do a test all night rather than sitting, you know, watching Netflix or whatever they're doing. Right, so I mean there is a huge opportunity you guys have. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 2:

I think it's a fine line, and something that kind of does scare me is that you don't want you know. Of course we want to make as much money as possible and take advantage of all the technology that we have on a site, but we don't want to have our customers. We want to make sure our customers are part of that.

Speaker 1:

So I'm thinking but that's really what.

Speaker 2:

That is right yeah 100%, ideally, yeah, but there's other opportunities where we can take that information. That's really what. That is right, yeah, 100% Well, yes, and no, ideally, yeah, but there's other opportunities where we can take that information, not just with that customer but for other entities and use that information.

Speaker 1:

But what I've learned in construction is that, when it comes to this is just my opinion and this is how we operate at SightMax is that customers pay us to interact with their job site, providing data that is useful to them, and we are the conduit for them to be able to do that. In SightMax, they're storing that information. It is not for us to be taking that information and selling that or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

That's not how it should be. What I should be doing, though, however, is creating the best tools I can possibly create for them in order for them to make great business decisions based on that data.

Speaker 1:

Yeah 100% Right, and that's no different to you guys. So if you're testing something new, you go to ABC General Contract and you say look, this is some new innovations we're doing and they're going to love the fact that you're in an innovative company. Sure, you know that's. That's another piece right there. When you're at the Christmas lunch, you just go look, this is, this is what's coming down in Q4 here. Yeah, you guys are interested in doing a pilot with us. They're like well, what kind of discount do we get on our, on our field work or on our on our, on our man sites? And you go well, it's normally. How about we provide you some kind of a discount when we do roll out the pilot? There's lots of business model ways in order to have people collaborate with you. But yeah, I'm really impressed with the amount of coverage you guys have and foothold you have. So what percentage of the market would you say you have in lower mainland anyway?

Speaker 2:

It's really tough. We've certainly made our name for ourselves and we've created some interest within the industry. If I had to guess, we're probably about 30-35%.

Speaker 1:

That's a lot for one player.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, like I said, it's all come in the last couple years. We're not creating anything out of the ordinary, it's just our customer service is bar none, the best out there.

Speaker 2:

There's similar companies that have similar technology, but they use it differently. So one of the major competitors of ours. The less equipment you put on a site, the less money you have invested, tied up for one to four years. We don't see it like that. We want to make sure that there's not going to be any issues on that site, so we tend to put more than what's needed. And one of the misconceptions in this industry and I can't stand it is a company, a security company, will promise 10 cameras, although and then they'll say, oh, okay, we'll give you another two cameras. Well, if 10 cameras got you 100 hundred percent coverage, uh, 12 cameras cameras isn't getting any more coverage, you're still getting a hundred percent. So there's a misconception that those other two cameras are actually doing something for you and they're really not. Um, but how we place these cameras and how we use them, uh, we're. We're one of few trucking lots that there's lighting is such an issue, and ever since we put thermal cameras in, you can see the heartbeat on these people.

Speaker 1:

You can't get away from it.

Speaker 2:

It's very cool. So, you kind of get going on some of this stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I could see you kind of enjoy it. I think it's interesting. You were saying that you know you would go to these. Do these high school presentations about being in construction? Think of the conversation we're having right now. This is construction. You know, I keep saying this, I keep harping on this. Construction is the last bastion of technology. I'm telling you Like a perfect example is you go from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 15. What's the difference? It's barely incremental. It's like it's so small, like the camera just-.

Speaker 2:

But you got to have it Make a pic?

Speaker 1:

Well, no, no.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

I think I'd say it's the reverse I have a 14. I have no desire to get a 15. Really None. So you're a minority though, right? Nope, I'm not. You don't think they're selling.

Speaker 2:

Really.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure they're selling.

Speaker 2:

I've got a couple of phones. I don't have to pay for them Fair enough, but I don't think it's.

Speaker 1:

we are coming to a sort of a there's a ceiling of how much these boxes in our hands can do, and AI is doing everything else as we move forward. And these things are starting to. I'm holding a phone in my hand. For those who can't see, these are becoming fairly limited, as we can see. You know, these are becoming fairly limited. I mean, they are an appendage of our body. Right now, we are reasonably somewhat cyborg. You know? I don't know if you've gone through this situation before. Have you ever had your phone in your hand and you say to somebody that you're around? Anybody see my phone and you're like hang on, it's in my hand.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I know it's so bad right? Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1:

It's so strange that we're just becoming so used to this thing, this appendage, that we're able to disconnect with and put down but for me like the phone is extension of my office, Like I rarely ever go into the office.

Speaker 2:

My office is basically the car, so you know.

Speaker 1:

But I mean my question is my point is when I say construction is the last bastion of technology that has so much greenfield to it. You know, ai is probably the new thing. Obviously, machine learning is the new, robotics is the new thing, but robotics, machine learning, ai will all be in construction and we're basically seeing construction get less dirty every day. There I said it for the hundredth time and it is getting better and better and better in terms of people wanting to be in construction. You know, you said to me early in the podcast here you know the stigma about being in security. I think that stigma needs to be completely busted, because to me it may be.

Speaker 1:

You know jobs that have been seemingly considered to be just field sales jobs or whatever that is. Anybody could go into it. Maybe there's no prestige just because anybody could get the job, but who cares? The reality is that if you this is one thing I can guarantee you right now If you, being in security right now, were to uncover every single possible mine of gems and keep mining and keep mining and keep mining in this industry, you can be a billionaire. It's that simple. Are you willing to do that? Are the people in security willing to do that? You are in a super lucrative industry. Are you willing to do that? Are the people in security willing to do that Into cameras? You are in a super lucrative industry and it is at its infancy.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're just breaking into the Alberta market as well, so we're just we're months away from hitting that. That's awesome. A lot of our customers have extensions in Alberta, so it's a natural-.

Speaker 1:

We've got a lot of customers in Alberta oh beautiful, extensions in Alberta. We've got a lot of customers in Alberta oh beautiful. I love Alberta.

Speaker 2:

So it's a natural move for us to head that way. So we'll be there soon. We can monitor from here, but are you part of the VRCA?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, are you? Yeah, you would be great. I was at Whistler doing the-.

Speaker 2:

Oh, were you? No, I meant to get-?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you would be great. I was at Whistler doing the oh, were you?

Speaker 2:

I meant to go. Yeah, I said I was going to be there two years ago and I didn't know.

Speaker 1:

Janine's like. She's one of my besties. I love Janine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, what's funny is, before she was the president, I asked her if she wanted to be my guest at the Christmas luncheon and she said so. Um, that's how it started. My relationship started with her and then, lo and behold, she's the president. And no, I love her. She's awesome. But you would be great at one of these careers in construction. Yeah, I'd like to do it.

Speaker 1:

I've actually been talking with uh one of the one of the BC um, you know, employment, uh, directors of that, but that was a while ago though. I have to dig that back up again because I think the last message was they got clearance to be able to talk about it with me which is kind of interesting.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, it's interesting, that entire paradigm of getting the younger generation, et cetera. My one main reservation is I, you know, in terms of the, the industry um, strategically needs to really um be a bit more cerebral in terms of thinking about what motivates people. Um, because right now they're just, they're just waving the money card and the money card is great, but the problem is, is the money card it just, you know, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy on that, money card's getting higher and higher and higher. Housing costs get more expensive over and over and over and we're just pushing this thing down, pushing things away from people. There is more altruism around in terms of why are people doing things?

Speaker 1:

The fulfilling thing about being in construction, having some sort of you're not tied to your job constantly, that job site is going to be closing at 4 to 4.30. You know you can do some great things. You can have weekends to yourself. You know you get to actually turn around and look at something you've built. You could be in construction. You can support people who do build things. You know there's so many great things in this industry where the opportunity is massive and industry where the opportunity is massive and, as I said, getting less dirty every day, but I think we definitely have to think of what's the other value proposition items or checklist little boxes that people go. I can get this if I'm in that industry.

Speaker 2:

It's gotten to your point people chasing money, and you know there's not enough talent, good talent, out there right now. Everyone. You know it's not just construction, it's every industry across the board. But construction is really hurting, as you know, and you know I've always said that if we can get more females involved in construction, we would put a large dent into it. The problem is is more females involved in construction, we would put a large dent into it. The problem is is when females get into construction, they're out of construction before you know it, for you know the very, you know the reasons that we all know about. So I think we got to, you know get rid of those avoidance and those deterrents.

Speaker 1:

And it's funny because a lot of these careers in construction that I do, um, it's funny because a lot of these careers in construction that I do, uh, there's usually one or two females and the rest are all males. You know, it's a disservice to demonize some of these really manly men. They have a huge output per minute that is building provinces, building cities, and that needs to be noticed. So, and we need to ensure that the new people we're bringing into construction construction that metric of output per minute uh, needs to be it's not bodies, because otherwise it's just body syndrome. Yeah, okay, so output per minute is everything.

Speaker 1:

The consciousness around a project is everything, too. People who are not conscious about what's going on around them are dangerous, yeah, um, so we've got a lot of interesting things where, uh, we need to have consciousness of the project, consciousness of the job, consciousness of the impact of the work that they're doing, and the output per minute is high. So those are the things that we all need to be looking at in terms of to push the industry forward. So, yeah, we've got a lot of work to do. 100%, all right. Well, this is great. How do people get in touch with you, mike? You're pretty active on LinkedIn. I see that.

Speaker 2:

You know LinkedIn's been. You know a lot of people won't connect with you but or talk to you at events or on email or phone, but they'll connect with you on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn's been great. So I'm on LinkedIn, mike Lochner. My email is at Mike at secureforcecom. Okay, right on. Well, this has been great. Thanks, man.

Speaker 1:

No, I appreciate it. Well, that does it for another episode of the site visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash the site visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.