Attila Zold – From Romania to Reinvention: Built From Nothing—Multiple Times

Wasn't the easy way, it was the right way.

I used to run from kindergarten with the truck drivers to go to

the oil rigs because they used to know me and my father.

So I always love that lifestyle and it's not the most glorious

lifestyle, but it's the one that makes me happy.

Basically I was more or less a legal slave and that was

probably the scariest part of all this trip beside the

dumpster fire and the people getting arrested.

I reached my address and I'm sitting and looking at it be

like no wondering this is the real deal or this just a good

old Romanian robbery where they sell you fake papers and fake

contacts. So I waited there on my backpack

for a good hour and a half before I I I it was light enough

outside for me to go ring the doorbell.

When I was working on a roof all day every day, sweating in the

hot sun, I was always frustrated that my clothes really didn't

get clean. They would be stiff and

uncomfortable to wear. Smell came back after just a few

moments of wearing them. Even in a drawer.

They would start to smell musty in a very short period of time.

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show

where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free

thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have been

there, done that and are still getting it done.

Building a life that they love with their hearts, their hands

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shop.fromthegroundupshow.com. Today I'm really excited.

I have an old friend on the show.

Attila's old is joining me. Attila is a native Romanian, an

American citizen, and has had a number of careers in the oil and

gas field both in Europe and the US, as well as having built a

career in roofing. Attila has worked diligently and

successfully to completely start over and build a new life a

number of different times. Attila has a drive and a spirit

that just keeps going regardless of adversity.

He has worked extremely hard to build the life that he enjoys

with his heart, his hands, and his hustle.

So, Attila, thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me, Eric. Yeah, this is a lot of fun.

You and I spent a lot of time together over a number of years,

quite some time ago. But we don't get to catch up as

often as I would like. So it's fun getting to catch up

a little bit this morning. Well, we will dive right in.

I think this is going to be a fun and exciting interview.

But Attila, can you tell us a little bit about your life

growing up? I know you were born in Romania

and and grew up in Romania. What was that like?

Growing up as a kid was different than I see kids

growing up in this country country, or for the matter of

fact the countries grown up in Romania these days.

But we didn't know as kids that would like in a lot of stuff

that other kids have. Basically we didn't miss out on

much. It was more of self-reliance as

a family and was all about maintaining relationships

between neighbors, friends and relatives.

Simple childhood. Very, very fortunate to have

great parents and I don't regret any of the things we didn't had

as a kid, but we appreciate so much more everything we have now

and their kids, their things that we went through as a kids

that my kids will never understand.

And even if I'm going to tell them one day, I don't think

they're going to buy it. But having no, we've never even

had the landline in the house to begin with.

Like a phone, a landline phone and was normal for the whole

country because everything was controlled by the government.

So you couldn't really have the freedom of speech regardless it

was mail or phone or any other way.

And my dad used to destroy a radio about every other year

because we don't work properly. And I recall when he was

smashing down the internal parts of the radios already chopped up

and got it. So the radio was released on a

market for people to the point that you could not take no

foreign radio stations. So everything very tightly

controlled by the government. So all the information that you

could have access to was nothing but the state propaganda.

So you don't it's much up to anything.

And I remember having the daily blackouts, which was every

afternoon we have like 2-3 four hours of electricity, which was

a national saving plan. So all kind of like kind of like

you see in Cuba, rolling blackouts, lack of food, lack of

standard things you have in US, they they don't have and for

them is normal. They don't know different.

So when you move from that away, then you appreciate what you

have here so much more. In a nutshell, happy kids, lots

of playing with toys and hide and seek and make believe

stories. And no really technical

childhood, no video games. No, we had the soccer ball.

We chase that ball every day. We played hide and seek and we

just roam around the neighborhood, get in trouble

running into the woods. That was in a notch of my

childhood. So to me it was amazing.

I wouldn't change it for nothing.

Having grown up, you know, without some of those modern

conveniences and enjoyed it so much, does that affect the way

that you raise your kids now? They are spoiled rotten.

The one thing I tried to keep away is the TV like journalists

do, and he gets glued to the TV and you can't take him outside.

He doesn't sleep right so I try not to let him watch TV almost

at home and I'll force him to go outside and he loves going

outside. Like if you don't think that kid

outside by 8-9 o'clock he's strained 10 from feet.

So I'm fortunate to have a yard and he's happy to be an AR247.

Now. We tried to raise him more on an

outdoor boy and not so much glued to a tea and a tablet.

Eventually I'm going to have to introduce him to it because

going to the dentist couple weeks ago, mom was complaining

that she raised her son without tablets and cell phones and TV's

and the homework at kindergarten level.

It's already a sign on the tablets.

So they're going to force you to embrace the technology, which is

not the terrible thing. You just have to have a balance

between video games, tablet, TV and outdoor activities.

Kids should be kids. They should be burned at energy

and not just be a vegetable on the couch.

I just don't see them being healthy for their development.

Yeah, absolutely. So Speaking of education, what

was your education like in Romania?

I know you actually had quite an extensive college education

there, didn't you? I had a petroleum engineering

degree in Romania and that's thank to my my father's push

because I was more than happy to be part of the working class

with him. He was a mechanic for longest

time for the gas company. Yeah, there are many positions.

But when I was a kid and I was looking at, you know, all the

kids have that your father's your hero stage.

When I was a young kid and I was looking up at him, he always had

like greasy hands and I like 01 day.

I want to be grown up person. I want to be just like him or

greased up. And he was not having that.

So he forced me basically to go seek higher education and he

paid for it too. So I was fortunate from that

standpoint. So I had no student loans, No,

no, nothing like it. And I just went in, got my

degree and I was fortunate enough to work for a couple

years and remaining as a employee for Wrong Gas, which

was the remaining gas company at the time.

Money wise at the time in 2000 and between 2003 and 2005, I was

paid $200 a month. So as you can imagine, it

doesn't really get you a whole lot.

So even as a relatively well educated person in a highly

professional career, the the pay scale just wasn't there in

Romania. It was never there, yes, and

even till this day, like compared to the rest of the

workers, I was the the top of the middle class.

But compared to the rest of the world, you're underpaid, and

that discrepancy carries until this day.

Yeah. So if you were making $200, what

would say if you had followed in your father's footsteps and

become a mechanic, what you would you have been making?

Would be less, would be less than that, significantly less.

OK, I'm just trained there. A random ballpark number.

I'm guessing this day and age they probably get like $2000 a

month because a couple neighbors, mine, they became

doctors like younger but ten years younger than me and they

ended up passing a lot of years back that they pay doctors

standard €3000 a month, which is, I don't know, thirty,

$504,000 a month. So if a doctor is paid $4000 a

month, it don't really imagine a mechanic being paid more than

half of that. So these day and age, they

probably get $2000 a month. But with this war in Iran, I was

keeping track of the fuel prices because I see a lot of memes

from Romania coming up about the fuel and currently the gasoline,

it's about almost $10 a gallon. So if you make $1500 a month and

the gallon is $10 a month, you can imagine all the rest of the

price of tracking that. So you don't really get far in

life. Yeah.

And so I imagine that was probably a a motivating factor

to cause you to come to the US is, is that the primary factor?

I wanted to travel, I wanted to see what world has to offer

because at that point we have had TV and I was seeing all the

national parks in the world and especially for me, I really

wanted to see Yellowstone Park. That to me was the major factor,

the dream factor between Yellowstone and the New York and

other parks in Australia. I wanted to find a way to be

able to travel and the only way for me to travel was to seek a

job outside of Romania and in the process of trying to go to

Australia or New Zealand because at the time they used to have

decent jobs. They would outsource OK, and

they would all source them through middle men companies,

third party companies. So I went and I signed up for

one of these companies to test me a job contract in case they

have something outside of Romania.

And they just so happened they called me a few years later,

which was for me was phenomenal luck.

And they told me that they have a job in Buffalo in USA and

said, great, I'm going there. So you want to know more like,

Nope, that's all I need to know, it's in USA, I'll take it.

So with that job contract, I had to pay for like 600, seven, $100

at the time. That's how they make their money

out of it. And I took that job contract and

I went to the Romanian embassy in Bucharest and I had to go

through the whole system and basically had to have a

background check, runway tickets.

You had to have health insurance for the time period you want to

apply for the visa and you had to have a proof of income.

You had to have basically a decent life and remain have to

be allowed to leave the country. Basically they wanted to have

some sort of proof that you will return and there's a reason for

you to return. So once again, the job was

paying $200 a month. In their eyes, that was a great

job. So like, Oh yeah, this guy's

going to be bad for sure. Which I did and I, I did that

for like 3 years in a row before I find out that you don't have

to return to your country to extend your work.

We, so you can do it in US. And that's how I was able to

carry on and be here for longer. But when I came out to USI just

wanted to make some quick bugs as I was able to travel more.

And then I kind of developed the bug that man, life here is so

much different and you, you can get so much done in way less

time than the lifespan. And there was the the driven

factor behind my decision to try to stay because at the beginning

my plan was just to make some quick box, make a couple $1000,

go see the world and go home and be happy.

But it's, like I said, being from outside of the country.

People here don't realize how many opportunities they have.

And it's never easy, but it's easier to grow here than it is

in Romania. Like basically there, if you're

not born in a rich family or in some sort of connected family,

then you're going to work your whole life just to stay afloat.

And in the USI saw it from the get go, like nothing served on a

plate, but it's attainable. Like if you work for it, you can

have things that you can only dream of in other places.

And that's where for me, till this day, American dream, it's

live and it's well. Like people who are depressed

and unhappy, they should grab a pack to go to different

countries. How they agree that's going to

work out. I appreciate that perspective.

And like you said, it's not served up on a silver platter.

It's not just there to have, but if you work hard, it's still

attainable. And I think you're living proof

of that. So you said it, it took $600.00

that you had to put together to pay the third party company to

go out and find a work contract. How difficult was it coming up

with that $600.00 when you're making $200 a month and and have

to live off of it? Was that a process?

That was quite the process, but I was always once again, I was

fortunate enough to have my brother-in-law to help me out

front those money. So he loaned me the money from

the contract and the plane tickets because otherwise to to

to have basically I need about $2000.

Between the plane tickets and all the other fees I need about

$2000. So I would have to have saved

basically the whole year's salary without spending any.

And you know, on a paper is doable, but in a real life it's

not so easy to save every penny up for paycheck.

Granted that the time was living with my parents so I was able to

save more, but still, to save all that money would have taken

me 2-3 years for sure. And so the, the process of

coming to the US, that's kind of when you and I met, I think I

met you on your, your second day on US soil, but I, I know

there's quite a process traveling and, and a little bit

of a story there. I'd love to hear that from your

side. How how scary was that just

hopping on a plane coming to the US and not really knowing what

was in front of you. It was.

Pretty scary though. The, the one reason I, I

embraced the travel with ease. I when I went to the travel

agency to book my tickets, it was a young girl my age that

she's been to us previously and she said it's easy, just hop on

a plane. If I was able to do it and I

made it safe, you should be able to do it.

So I was like, yeah, if a girl can do it, I can do it.

Kind of. Not all people are equal as far

as courage and spirit of adventure or the 4th of it's

safe or unsafe to do it. But I hopped on the plane and I

flew into Salt Lake City and in my mind I Googled back home,

Buffalo, WY and I had the print out of Buffalo, so I knew where

I have to go. However, from Salt Lake City, I

assumed that there's a train that goes to Wyoming because in

Romania I was very used to trains.

We never had a family car. So I always commuted by public

transportation means. So when I landed in Salt Lake

City and I say, OK, we're at the train station.

So they sent me to the train station.

So it's a few blocks away, so few blocks.

I turned out being like a 45 minutes walk for me to some very

sketchy neighborhoods where people, let's say they just warm

up around barrels isn't the nicest streets I ever roamed on.

I made it though nobody had nothing to say.

And then there was been the first night at Motel 6 where

when I was trying to check in, when I went to front desk, they

had police vehicles in front of it arresting somebody.

This was all the Hollywood movies all in once within the

first half a day of me being there, upon finding out there's

no train taking people to Wyoming, and I said, OK, what's

my other way of getting there? So this is great Greyhound,

which was another experience for me because in order to get from

Salt Lake City to Buffalo, I had to go all the way around the

state. I ended up to change in Idaho

and in Montana to track down South to Wyoming.

There was like 2223 bus ride. I had to change three different

buses and we took breaks here and there.

We, we stopped in gas, gas stations so people could go use

the restroom and get the beverage.

And I remember having $5 bills. My was my lowest bill and I

couldn't get no sodas because they all asked for $1.00 bill.

And I wasn't sure if they're going to give me any change or

not. So I didn't want the chance $5

for a drink. But yeah, I remember getting out

in Buffalo at the bus station and I was heading towards the

motel across the the street from the the parking lot and it was a

big lightning bolt just stroke the parks at your front.

Was like, I wonder if this sucks for me to turn around and go

home or should I just carry on? But that, that was quite a trip.

And then I remember getting to getting to buff like pull my map

out and I saw there wasn't that far to get to the circle drive.

And then so as I was tracking my way, the police car stopped by

me and kind of looked at me and looked at them and they saw me

looking at the map and I didn't run.

I didn't do nothing stupid. So they just kept on driving.

And that was probably the scariest part of all this travel

beside the dumpster fire and the people getting arrested.

When I reached my address and I was sitting and looking at them

be like, no wondering this is the real deal or this just a

good old Romanian robbery where they sell you fake papers and

stay contracts. So I waited there on my backpack

for a good hour, hour and a half before I I, I it was light

enough outside for me to go ring the doorbell.

So that was probably the scarier part of the whole travel, just

sitting on my backpack contemplating I'm here now.

What? What's next?

If this is not the paper that was sold, what's my next step?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.

I know that was a surprise for us as well, that that was when I

met you was when you rang the doorbell.

My parents were still running our roofing company at that time

and they had applied for a bunch of H2B visas and had used a a

third party recruiting company, apparently the same third party

that you had signed up for to get a work contract.

And we had not heard whether we got our visas or whether we

were, you know, had people coming, when they were coming,

where they were coming from until you rang the doorbell

pretty early in the morning and said, I am Attila's old here

from Romania, ready to go to work.

So yeah, that. Was it that was a?

A bit of a surprise on both sides and that was I think the

first day off I had had in about 2 1/2 weeks was that day and.

And I got to take you up to work and.

Yeah. Kind of show you the ropes on

your first day. So and I, I remember being

extremely impressed then you had, yeah, just gotten off a 22

or 24 hour bus ride and you were ready to go to work.

I think we offered you a, a bed or a motel and you said, no, I

came to go to work, I'm going to work.

So So what did you think when you first got to the US and got

settled in those first couple weeks going to work and and

finally getting to the US would have been kind of the the

secondary dream. It wasn't Australia.

But what was that like the first couple weeks in?

Did it live up to all the hype or were you disappointed?

I was. I was not disappointed.

I would say living up to the hype, yes, however was for me

shocking how much of the day by day routine looks just like the

Hollywood movies that back home we assume they're all just fake

and all just make believe in studio down to like the the

homes, the vehicles, the roads, the traffic, the fast food, the

day by day life of the US citizens.

When we watch the movies made in the US, we always assume that

everything we see in the movie is just a movie scene and it's

nothing to do with the reality. So it was fun for me to see that

80% of the movie lifestyle. It's the same with the US

average guys. Lifestyle, big crowds, big

buildings, lots of fast foods everywhere.

People interaction to me was just like a whole new

experience. But it was a pleasant one.

Yeah, you had the ups and downs. You have good days, bad days,

but overall I would say it was fun.

It was good, OK. And then?

As a side funny story, the guy I work with there with Josh, yeah,

he's my he's my current coworker.

I'm not sure if you know about it, but I work again with Josh

20 years later. OK, Josh.

Arden No, Josh. Smith OK.

Yeah, the Pennsylvania. Crew and he's an automation

specialist now. Interesting.

SO 20. Years later, reunited.

That's interesting. Once again.

You could be a roofing one day, a roofer, 801920 year old.

That doesn't mean that that's it.

And it could be your life, career and be good at and make

money out of it and be a have a happy life.

But I remember it several times that people look down on us and

one of them was at the school in Rawlings.

That's another funny story to me.

Was funny at the time and still funny till this day.

I was backing up the the truck to the building and I got up in

my building. We start taking down waste

material from the top of the school to take it to the dump.

And some kids approached the building and yelled up at me and

say, hey, are you a roofer? I say I'm a roofer like the

teacher say if I don't do my homework, I'm gonna end up just

like you. Like, that's a good point.

Go do your homework. Teacher told the kids in school

that if you done your homework, you're gonna become a roofer,

which whatever, I'm not saying it's the best or worst job or

it's it's each person has an option in life to do more or

less. And therefore me being a roofer

for 5-6 years, I don't regret none of it.

I just wanted to do something more.

So if you want to do something different, take a different pad.

There are always avenues and those are not so easy to find in

Romania or other countries. And that's where like everything

I dreamed of US, it's true. Like you can, you can do

whatever you want to do. Sky is the limit.

And there's I will never buy the fact that I couldn't do it or it

was too far or there's no border between States and cities.

You can just grab a backpack and and go somewhere.

Don't, don't get stuck in a place.

And oh, I couldn't find a job working for a Wall Street

Journal in Bodong, Michigan. I don't, I'm just giving an

example. Like, I don't like when people

complain, but they do nothing to change the situation.

Yeah, that's great. And I think statistically, first

generation immigrants, the percentage of first generation

immigrants that become millionaires is much higher than

the general public. And I think just the the

attitude, the perspective you just articulated is a big reason

for that. They, they see the ample

opportunity available to them rather than having more of a

victim mentality. And I know it was really

interesting and educational for me watching you do that, then

come here with nothing. You, you literally had your

backpack that you sat on in front of the house and have have

built an incredible life and a great career here.

So you kind of alluded to it a little bit.

But I know in Romania you were fairly highly educated, had a

high paying career, a career of relatively high status, even if

it didn't have the highest pay, you know, comparatively to the

US, other places. Did it feel like a little bit of

a, a step back to go from being a petroleum engineer and a

professional career to be a, a laborer on a roofing crew?

I grew up. Doing chores around the house so

work with hands and was never an issue for me.

The only thing that kind of made me take a step back and re

analyze everything in life was like how fast can you fast track

in life and build a house and have a saving and have a decent

life here. So I had to reset my end game

and then roofing. It's a demanding work.

Like when I was buying tools for my roofing job, I remember going

to garage sales, which till this day, I love garage.

So they're just something about them.

It's just like other people's trash.

My, my, it's my treasure. But I remember seeing a person

having a garage sale and the wife was selling all the tools

and I saw that everything I covered concrete.

So I knew for sure that that guy had to work with concrete and

ask the lady like, Hey, is this by chance your husband tools or

who who's the owner of the tools?

Because everything have concrete on us.

Oh yeah, my husband worked his whole life in concrete and he

built the house and he gave us everything we have.

But now he's broken down the point that he's just in a chair.

He can't really walk, move much, can't do much.

And he's like late 50s. So that kind of dawned on me

because if I stick to roofing for another 20-30 years, we'll,

we'll slowly put the number on your back and on your knees, on

your joints. And you have to make the call.

Like, is this what you want to do for rest of your life or you

want to do something different? And it covered my bills.

He gave me the opportunity to travel.

He gave me the opportunity to make great friends.

And I, I respect your parents for till the last day I had

great people. I will never, I never wished to,

I never dreamed of having better people in my life that they been

to me or better boss and the more fair person in my life as

a, as a leader was your father. Like it's just you had the rare

qualities of a leader and fairness and it's just hard to

find. And that was probably my

biggest, hardest decision to make, to leave that place

because of your parents and the the relationship I had with them

and they made it difficult to leave.

Otherwise, I just wanted to go back to the oil field bad.

It was kind of a generation thing.

I was the 3rd generation. I wanted to carry on that

history. As a kid, I used to run away

from kindergarten, which this sounds crazy, but it's true

fact. I used to run from kindergarten

with the truck drivers to go to the oil rigs 'cause they used to

know me and my father. So I always love that lifestyle.

And it's not the most glorious lifestyle, but it's the one that

makes me happy. So that's that's why I wanted to

go back to the oil fields. OK.

And I want to dive into your oilfield career here in a little

bit. But I know you mentioned earlier

you put a lot of effort into and really paid attention to doing

things legally and walking through the process.

You, you came to the US to work for a seasonal work visa and

then returned home to Romania three years and and then found a

way to get alternating seasonal work visas and we're able to

work for two different companies and stay here year round and

then eventually became a citizen.

What does that process of becoming a citizen and

immigrating here look like? Was that a difficult process to

navigate? So.

Once I was involved in the process there at the time was

over 200 different type of visas for US.

So it's more than people know about the summer labor and the

non summer labor or whatnot. There's like 200 different types

and for example, I came to US for the non immigrant non

qualified worker visa. Basically I was more or less a

legal slave. I couldn't go more than seven

days without the paychecks otherwise my visa would be void.

So basically you would not be allowed to leave your employer

basically to stay legal. And the only right I had was the

right to work. I had no other rights legally.

I'm here to work and as soon as the work dries up I need to go.

That was it. No Ethan bots about it and my

mom raised us with morals like we didn't have money but we had

morals and my mom never ever allowed us to lie or to do

something that was unlawful. So till this day at time I

struggle with that because I see people getting a head in life,

they do shady things. But I like to sleep at night

knowing that I haven't crossed nobody and nobody's going to

fall calm after me. And even if it takes longer,

sleeping good at night makes the next day better.

So therefore, I just followed the law.

I went home, I came back three different times.

And then when I find out that I can stay here and extend the

visa to different company. Basically, I had a summer job

with you and then my winter job. I wanted to learn to snowboard.

And I figured out if I go for for a ski resort, I'll be the

fortune guide to learn to snowball for free.

Well, they mixed up the paperworks and me who signed up

for the ski resort end up being working inside the hotel and the

guy who signed up to be inside the hotel, they end up working

at the ski lift and they hated their life.

People from Indonesia, they never saw snow in their whole

life. But that was still fun.

I, I made some good friends, Indonesian guys, and then I was

like a three month job and I came back to roofing.

And then we figured out in the process that if I worked 3

consecutive years for the same company and the owner have to

sponsor you, which I'm grateful for parents for going through

that length to help me get my paperwork straight.

We started that process, but in that short stand to the ski

resort, I met the girl that became my wife.

And then in the process we switched from employer visa to

marriage visa because the office advises that that's easier,

better way to switch the paper. So we swapped from a company

provided visa program to a marriage program.

And that's why I got my citizenship in the end.

And I got my work permit 1st and the work, once I got my work

permit, that helped me get my citizenship because we, we, we

start the process with your parents to switch from a non

immigrant visa, unqualified worker to qualified worker

because that would allow you to stay the whole year and not just

the 3-4, six months, whatever that summer visa was allowing

you. So we, we, we in the process of

getting the paper straight that we've switched from summer job

to a permanent work visa and then from that permanent work

visa to a citizenship. So it was a seven-year process

in the end. And it was tons of paperworks.

Every six months I had to renew my driving license.

I know people at the DMV knew me.

They used to make fun of me that hey, here you are back.

Let's go on the road, let's get the drive license.

So at one point I had the stack of Dr. licenses because as you

can imagine, doing it every six months it gets, it gets a

collection done. And I can see how could be a

bother for some people. It's tedious.

It's a lot of government work. My file at that point was like

2-3 inch take 'cause I used to cap all the old papers and all

the papers that I filled out. And that was before the

application era where everything had to be filled by hand mailed

in. You'd get mailed back good or

bad. You have to redo certain

paperwork 'cause I remember I screwed up on one, one time on

my visa application and they came back as rejected, but still

within the time allowed it to renewed my visa.

So I, I looked over all the paperwork.

So I was like, I don't know, 100 pages and everything looked

right to me and everything was stand by a computer.

So I realized that the machine looked over the paper, not a

human being. So something the machine picked

up wasn't right. So I reorganized the papers.

I stacked them as was required chapter by chapter and I just

got the different. I sent in a money order and I

had split up into the 2-3 different deals and I ended up

sending a check with all the amount in all in one and I

signed it, sent it back and second time was a charm.

So I think the the money ordered threw the machine off because I

wasn't precise in amounts down to the cents.

That's my guest deal this day. But anyway, it takes a long

time. It's tedious work.

It was harder back then than it is now seeing now with all the

applications you can do things online, you can have.

It's much easier now than used to be.

However, doing things that are the right way usually takes

longer. So that's my stance on this

paperwork. Like it takes a long time and

it's tedious, but like we talked earlier, nothing good in life.

It's easy and you can't take shortcuts because the shortcut I

could have taken years ago when I was at bars in Wyoming in the

weekends, you would have independent regardless, handing

out cards, name cards, like hey, you want to work for me, come

and start Monday. And I've told one guy I can't do

it because I'm a migrant worker and I need papers.

Like, I don't care about paper. Just try and pay you cash.

So do you have those avenues in life?

You can take a shortcut to make quick bucks now, But what you're

going to do 6 months download the five years or 10 years.

It's up to everybody to decide what's more important to you,

the quick buck over a weekend or a month or the longevity.

And I, I just decided the right way.

Yeah. Wasn't wasn't the easy way, was

the right way. So.

Do you stand by that decision? Are you glad that you did what

you did, or do you ever regret not taking the shortcut?

You know, I, I don't regret. I'd only regret.

It's the things I've, I've never tried and not those decisions.

So I nothing I've done in life that was good or bad, I regret.

And everything that doesn't work out or pay off is just a lesson

you learn and you carry on. Yeah.

Was never a true stopper. OK.

So I know you worked here in Wyoming with me for I think six

or seven years and then moved back into the oil and gas

industry. What was that process like?

Were were you able to take your credentials from Romania and

kind of apply them to the position you had in the US or

did you have to start over US? Don't care much about any

degrees outside of the country unless you have that J1B visa or

they require qualified workers and mainly in the tech companies

medical field. My wife had my current wife,

she's also from Romania and she used to work here actually close

to West Palm Beach in with the J1 visa.

So she was a high skilled worker.

But other than that period of six months here or two, however

long they give you the visa, like you are not legally allowed

to stay longer and you are not guaranteed a job.

A business is a business. Everybody wants to make money.

So when they bring high qualified workers from outside

of the state, it's not necessary because they can't find them

here, but not at the price they're willing to pay.

So that's, that's the game. And then I moved to Alaska

because I, I knew that it's going to be harder to shut down

that field than Obama managed to do in Wyoming and North Dakota

when they got electric. And they decided to shut down

the field for the sage grass bird nesting season.

And then they decided to reroute all the federal money towards

windmills and they managed to keep most of the people employed

to keep them busy and ended up moving to Alaska because it's

not the field you can just shut down overnight.

And then once I moved to Anchorage, I applied for jobs.

I had the goal every day, three jobs at minimum and ended up

calling every company eligible twice in a row.

And I I spent every evening looking for a job.

And then couple months in the savings start to dry up and I

realized I need to go back and work something before I get my

weekly job back. So I end up working another year

for the roofing company in Anchorage.

And then I remember the first day on the job I got the call

from a company construction company.

We feel like hey, we want you to start Monday.

And this was a Friday and I said I can't do this Monday because I

need to put at least my two weeks notice because I just

started today. I said can't do that, it's the

Monday or no job. So well, I guess no job then.

So it took me another year till I got the next phone call.

And then a year later, I got a couple interviews and I got the

general maintenance technician job on the North Slope.

That was my first job on the Slope.

And that was in 2010 because I moved up to Alaska in 2010.

And I moved, yes, I moved out in 2010 to Alaska.

And in 2011, June, June 23rd, that's when I started my job on

the North Slope, OK. And I had my first job was AGMT

general maintenance technician, basically a hodgepodge of jobs

that needs to be done, a rush jobs from anywhere from pipe

inspection to scaffold building to ball tub to everything in

between. And then from there I moved to

PSV crew safety valve maintenance.

Basically they the contract changed hands and I wasn't

really fond of the new company. I was taking over that

department, so I'm moving to the instrument shop and then I stick

with the instrument shop. And then from there I went back

to UAA, University of Anchorage, and I did a process technology

associate degree. And with that associate degree,

I was able to be hired by BP because BP was big into hiring

local residents, the graduates from programs that they

sponsored. And that was one of them that

they pushed for. And they used to pick up top of

the class in in that. So I basically had a four point

O score for them to give me a job, which I was fortunate

enough to get the job with them. So I went the avenue of going to

a local college. There wasn't AI paid cash for

all my classes. I used to take 2-3 classes

semester but they also pay cash for everything so one hour.

It took me several years to finish my degree but at the end

of it I had zero bills, everything was paid off and I

could enjoy the benefits of it without having to pay a second

mortgage for 20 years. So whoever has listened to this

podcast or they try to decide what do in life, you go to local

college. The companies don't look at the

title of the college you went to as much as they look as what

they're capable of doing once you're done.

So you don't have to have a $250,000 student loan to get a

good job. Local college can do the trick

just as easy so. The the classes you took at the

University of Anchorage, was that stuff you had already

studied in Romania or was that new coursework?

It was a. Mix it was stuff that I already

studied and it was quite a few new ones.

And I also have to be thankful for the academic advisor from

the college that she really pushed for me to get certain

classes from Romania brought over to USI don't have to take

all the physics, all the math, all the biology, all the

curriculum classes good. So I was able to to bring some

over quite a few of them. Yes, I had to redo all the labs

doing big physics and chemistry and everything else.

Which labs are cool. Like in Romania, we never had

the gadgets we have here in in the lab.

So taking a lab here was was fun.

And furthermore, if you couldn't.

With my job, since I'm till this day, I work 2 weeks.

I'm on a job set in two weeks. I'm off the college work for the

so it's the job. It's on the North Slope in Fruto

Bay. Alaskans call it the Slope and

we're slopers. So the college said the slopers

are allowed to miss classes, but you have to catch up.

So even for the physics lab, they gave me the big O box

mailed home with everything you'd have in a lab.

And then you'd have to record yourself replicating all the

classes at home and you have to come up with your own numbers

and your conclusion. And that was valid for missing

class. But what the end of it when you

have to take the test, you have to go in person at the college

and take the test under surveillance.

So it was fun. It was lots of fun.

And I'm thankful that they're willing to, to work with

workers, basically. Yeah.

If you miss a class or you miss a they they had my schedule.

So the teacher knew exactly what class I'm going to miss and what

class I'm going to attend. And for all the missing classes,

I either had to make up and record my own experiments at the

house or I had to log in after hours at work and watch the

recorded class and I wasn't aware of the time.

I found out later in time that they can actually see if you

watch the whole video, if you paused it, if you skipped it.

The teacher had all the the technology back then to to

follow you through your classes, even if it was recorded and

remote after hours. It's kind of kind of cool

having. Gone through a a college

education in Romania and then again here in the US.

What is your view of a a college education and its value?

How will you advise your kids when they're thinking about a

going into a career field or going to college and what

they're going to go to school for or what advice would you

give them? Well, that's going.

To be a fear down the road. It's way different now.

Like I was thinking I was talking to my Co workers about

like what would you advise your kids to go to college now?

What for? Because yeah, it's coming.

Like it or not, it is coming. I see it already in our jobs how

much is changing things day by day.

So what skill is going to be useful 15 years from now, 20

years from now the computer robot cannot do for you.

So I see more hands on skills, complicated skills that the the

computer are not going to be able to do, like web design,

computer building, chips building, house building.

Who knows what's going to be in 20 years from now.

But it's very difficult to think of a path.

Even medicine like a computer can do an X-ray, can analyse an

X-ray scan or can analyse ultrasound way better than human

I can. So it's very hard to predict

what the kids going to do. I'm definitely going to

encourage them to, to study and read 'cause that was one thing

we, we got told from kids like the government can take anything

from you, but they cannot take your knowledge away.

So from that standpoint, even if you don't have a college degree,

but let's be educated. And like Ellen Musk kept saying

that this day and age, you can watch YouTube and you can learn

as much as you want and as much as you're willing to learn.

You don't have to go to college to be educated, but you have to

spend your time wisely with the information available because

you can get sucked in computer games and just watch YouTube's

all day long and not learning anything.

But education. It's important at least to have

a good boundaries of what's good, what's bad, what you saw,

what's not, so you, you. Mentioned that you work kind of

two weeks on, two weeks off an alternating schedule.

Is that a do you enjoy that schedule?

Is that difficult or was it something that you had to adjust

to? What are what are your thoughts

about the lifestyle that goes along with working on the North

Slope? I saw that.

As a kid, so my my dad job was never remote.

He was always home every evening.

But they had neighbors they used to work remote like all the rig

workover and the drilling crews. They always had that two weeks

on two weeks off schedule in Romania.

So as a kid I saw that as weird but not not unheard of.

Once I got that job in Alaska, I wanted to go so bad that they

didn't care about scheduling. I was single and who cared about

when you're home and when you're not?

Now my wife never saw me with any different job but that job.

So she's used to that schedule. However, for people that think

it's weird and you cannot keep a family for being gone for two

weeks, I will throw in a curveball.

So I have two weeks on, two weeks off and on top of that I

have three weeks pay vacation. So if you take that into

account, I work 5 months and one day, one week a year and I'm off

for six months. How many people have full

paycheck and are are off for six months?

And when I say off for six months, you can be anywhere on

the planet. You can set your schedule for

two years down the road. I know exactly what days in 2027

I'm going to be off and I can book ahead vacations and I can

go on vacation every month 'cause I have two weeks off

every month. So the drawback of not being

home every evening, it compensated by being home and

being able to do things that for other people is difficult, yeah.

That's great. I'll meet.

I'll miss birthdays and I'll miss holidays and this that the

other. But in the end of the day, it's

like I think it's the best schedule ever for me.

And then I'm not home to help my wife every day.

But when I'm home, I'm home. Home.

I don't have that. I have to run to work in the

morning or evening or afternoon. I don't have to be on call.

Like I can just turn my cell phone off and I'm completely for

her and four kids and I'm there for any moment of the day.

That's great. Yeah, that sounds like you spend

that. So that sounds pretty great.

When you are there and are on for two weeks, what does the two

weeks on look like? Do you have any days off at all

or do you just work 14 days straight?

14 days? Straight 12 hours minimum.

So we work from 6:00 to 6:00 every day.

But this is another aspect of my job that most people don't know

about it. We're on call 24/7.

So anytime one of these machine goes down, we have to respond to

it. And then due to the nature of

the, the machines, the planes fly 24/7.

So they, they, they go to rainstorms at time and that

actually washes the jet, which nobody thinks of that you can

lose 1010% efficiency in a, in a jet engine just by having dust

on the blades. So we have to wash the machines

twice a year. So we call it the water wash

festival during the water wash, then we clock easily a hundred

120 hours a week. Wow.

So you. Put in some some hours quick,

but again, I enjoy it there. There's nothing of it that

bothers me. And then we're paid for it like

we're paid by the hour and we're we're being paid for those call

outs. So in the middle of the night, 3

in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning,

when you're being called out, you're being compensated for.

It's not you're we're not salaried.

So we don't feel like we're just putting a lot of time and effort

in that we're not compensated for it.

So I, I think we're compensated fairly.

And I was telling my coworkers I will never, never ride for a pay

raise, but we'll never be against them either.

So we didn't reason if they want to offer me a pay raise, if we

have to go sit down, have a conversation, I'm for it.

But I will never not be grateful for what I have.

Yeah. Oh.

Man, that's a good place to be. So you've lived a very unique

life and have been through a lot of interesting things growing up

in communist Romania, being educated there, moving to the

US, getting a career as a roofer and and then more education and

back into the oil and gas field. If you could go back and do it

all again, would you do all of those steps again?

Is there anything you would change about your your journey

to like I said that? Everything happens for a reason

and it's nothing I would do different.

Like I, I'm happy with my decisions and they paid off.

I wish I would have spent more time with my parents when I had

the opportunity to do because at times when I had my summer

breaks or when I, when I went back from Romania, I went and

spent some time with friends and whatnot.

And I wish I'd have made a stronger effort to go visit the

more when I had the opportunity. That's the only thing I would

change. But other than my, my travel and

job decisions, I'm good with that.

Like every every decision I made, I'm happy with.

Awesome and I know you walked us through a a few of your early

jobs being a a maintenance technician and and moving more

into the tech side of things. What job is it that you're doing

on the North Slope now? What what specifically do you

handle now? I'm.

A part of the crew turbine controls and we're doing

maintenance on the basically industrial jet engines.

We do everything from my crew takes care of program coding to

troubleshooting and repairs on the instrumentation side of the

the jet engines. And we work hand in hand with

the growth mechanics they're specialized in, in taking them

apart and rebuilding them. So they go through cycles based

on how many hours they've been in service.

They have to be either a minor inspection, visible inspections

to a complete tear apart and rebuild.

So we, we support that part of the, the, the industry.

The jet engines in the oil field are used for power generation

and compression. They they're used for driving

large equipment, large compression water pumps, OK.

Those are the. Three main branches they're used

for, I know. You told us a little bit about

the, the turbine specifically and how that fits into the

system, but I'm just kind of curious, you know, at least for

myself, I hear a lot about the, the gas and oil fields and the

North Slope of Alaska, but what is, what is the process of

extracting gas and oil? What is it that you guys do?

What does that look like? Could you help the, the novice

that just knows oil comes out of the ground understand that

process a little bit? There's a couple of.

Different ways to get the oil and gas out of the ground.

You'll have the Middle East where it's, it's, it's built

under pressure in the ground. It has like several layers of

different deposits on top of it that applies pressure to it.

And once it's really a hole deep enough to reach the, the, the

petroleum reserves, then it comes out on the natural

pressure and basically just the, the water well.

And for them, it's very cheap and very easy because all they

have to do is drill a well. And it's, it's, it's gushing oil

out on its own power US most of it comes out with Jack pumps.

It's not under huge amount of pressure.

So you have to use a Jack pump to extract the oil.

And it's, it's not high volume, but it's steady for a long time

and it's going to pay off in time.

And the North Slope, we use the pressure, the, the natural

deposit pressure to extract the oil.

And that was the easy oil known in the industry where you just

drill a hole. If you have, you know enough

know how and enough luck to, to, to hit the proper spot, then you

can have oil for 20, thirty, 40-50 years.

Now the deposits start losing momentum.

So they had to introduce additional pressure and they're

using the gas that comes with the oil, it's separated

facilities and the gas is re injected to apply pressure on

the oil. And then also they're adding

seawater and they're adding some MI to it to dissolve the well

from the rock and push it towards the production wells.

So you have where I work, we have water injection well, gas

injection wells and the the the wag wells, what are alternating

gas. So they for the geologist

establish a cycle for wells, the injection wells to inject

miscible injection gas alternating with water.

The the gas is dissolving the oil from the rock and then the

water just pushing it to the production wells.

So all the wells at work, they're operating under

pressure. So they're not Jack pumps?

And then? From the from the field, the

oil, water and gas. Because it's a mix they come to

the facilities they have. Imagine like a giant incoming

tanks where all that mix goes in and they have a very rough

separation. You have the gas living at the

top, you have the water at the bottom and oil in the middle.

So they'll separate those three and then they'll go to different

trains and different systems. And basically you're

continuously stripping oil from the water and stripping gas from

the oil under different pressure and under different

circumstances. By the end of the day, you'll

have the production field, it's piped into a production

facility. They'll separate water, gas and

oil. Water is reinjected, gas is

reinjected. And then the oil, it's cleaned

and shipped into Trans Alaska system to Valdez where it's

shipped to tankers and then it's shipped down to the West Coast

for refineries. OK.

And then? Where the, the gas turbines

coming into play, they're generating the power for the

whole field and for all devices. If you look on the map, the

North Slope, it's 700 miles away from Fairbanks, which is the

second largest city in in Alaska.

So it, it's remote, it's cut away from civilization, it's cut

away from everything and everybody.

So basically they have to be self reliant and they're

producing their own power. So you have power generation and

then they're used for taking the the the vapor from tanks at low

pressure gas and pump it up to meat pressure gas and for meat

pressure gas to high pressure gas for reinjection.

So you have turbines taking that gas and steps from low pressure

to medium pressure to high pressure.

And then same way you use turbines for drinking huge water

pumps for reinjection. And there are other, several

other uses also for refrigerant and for other other cycles.

But in a nutshell, you're using as a drilling force, high power

drilling force either for power generation or for mechanical use

for drilling pumps and compressors.

Yeah, that was. That was going to be my next

question. I'm not educated in the oil

field. I was wondering what in the

world you use a jet engine for in the oil field.

But there you go. So well, if there's somebody

listening that's not from the US that has ambitions to do

something similar to what you've done, what advice would you give

them? An advice that.

Nobody likes because I I've gave already to many people don't

dream of coming over and the next day to fall into a high

paid big company job. You go out there, have a slice

of humble pie and start wherever you can to put your foot in and

be good at and work hard towards whatever their job is, from

flipping burgers to putting the shingles on a roof or a metal

roof. And do what it takes to be to

stay legal and then use wisely all your opportunities that

arrive. But the first six months you'll

get nowhere and then the following months it's going to

puzzle it start to build in front of you.

But you have to be patient and you have to focus on A56710 year

old plan and not next week. I want to be a millionaire.

It it doesn't happen overnight, I think that's good.

Advice for American citizens as well.

I think there's a lot of young people that think that they're

just going to get a job and be a success overnight and they

expect to have what their parents had at the end of a long

career when they start out. So yeah, start humble and and

take advantage of opportunities as they come to to build to

where you want to be instead of expecting to be there right

away. That that's great advice, and

you will. Fail and I fail that many steps

and don't give up. Keep on, keep on driving, keep

on going, because otherwise everybody had at least a feeling

like and if we all stop at that point, nobody gets nowhere.

What? What has been the most difficult

step in your journey from childhood in Romania to the life

that you have now? It's hard to.

Put on a on on on one single point.

What was the most difficult? But like I said, their ups and

downs like their their frustration in Wyoming when they

try to do roofing and you have snow and wind and rain and trees

are going crooked and you have to be in rollings from all the

places their ups and downs. I wouldn't say the most

difficult. It's looking back now things

that at certain points in life seems to be the end of the

world. Overall it's just another day in

life. It's never like starting like

you said starting second time starting with the backpack.

After my first marriage ended I I started with $50.00 in my bank

account and start from scratch again.

I went from purchasing a house to renting a room from a Co

worker there. There are times in life when

things are crummy and it looks like this is the end of it and

it's it's just another chapter. You just work through it and

make smart choices. Don't do nothing stupid and

start all over. You've done it once, you can do

it twice, 3/5 times. Just don't give up.

Keep on going that. Is some some good advice there

and, and maybe a follow up question it you just mentioned

you've kind of started from scratch three times.

You You built a life in Romania, gaining an education, and then

started over with nothing but a backpack in Wyoming and then

started over a third time. Yeah.

It started over a third time with nothing but a backpack and

$50.00 in your pocket in Alaska. What is it that keeps you moving

forward, that keeps you pressing forward when things get hard and

really hard? Seeing my.

Parents, how they they they they, they handled hard times in

life, like I said, growing in a communist country.

They had really no money. When my parents passed away, we

sold everything they had, including the house and was less

than $10,000. They just give you a perspective

of what they had after a life of working hard.

So it's not what you have, it's how you handle it.

And they've been happy through some rough time and they've been

fine. And the one thing is just have a

person in your life that you can count on and work, you can work

everything out in life. But that's, that's what I was

driven by. See my how my friends, they

handled everything life good, bad, with or without money, with

or without food. And as a kid, you always had

food on the table. So I want to make that clear.

But as a parent now looking back, they at times they they

they spit out the food in portions that the kids had food,

but they never really went to bed fool all the time.

But they always smiled and they always tried to keep us on a

positive attitude and just have to keep on trying and try

harder. And one day is going to pay off.

So at the end of the day, that's where I draw my strength.

And then unfortunate in life not to have a very happy family and

two wonderful kids. And at the end of the day,

that's the most important part to I guess the best investment

in doing life is a good partner. I could make or break the

person. Oh man.

There's some wisdom there. And and they're now having a

wonderful family, beautiful wife, 2 beautiful children's,

like everything. That's just a bonus, yeah.

Great, great. Is there an opinion that you

once held strongly that you've changed your mind about after

your many life experiences? Yeah, unfortunately.

I'm an opinionated person. I still kind of speak up what I

think and I offend people here and there, which that's fine.

I've learned that everybody have their own opinion and they, they

are entitled to their own opinion.

So just 'cause I, I see something right or wrong, the

person next to me doesn't have to obey or adjust to it, but I'm

going to tell them how I see things that they can do whatever

they want to do. But I can see how that I've

changed in time about strongly suggesting something.

Wanting people to follow through And like this is what I'm going

to tell you if you want to listen and if not.

Go run off the. Go run off the Cliff.

I don't care. I'll try to steer in the right

direction, but if you refuse to take that, I will not stop it.

It's going to go nuts. OK, That's what I've changed.

Yeah. I I.

Appreciate your strong opinionated stance and I know

we've had a lot of great discussions and it's always fun

hearing your opinion about various things.

So was there any mistake you've made that you wish you could

have avoided? I made several.

Mistakes I wishing washing is not leading to anything good.

Every mistakes I made I learned something from them, good or

bad. So you have to, you have to make

mistakes to learn because if you want to over analyze things and

you try to avoid any mistakes by over analyzing, you're not going

to do half the things you should be doing.

And by not doing half those things, you miss half the

opportunities. So everything you do, it's

either end up in something bad as a mistake and they're going

to learn from it and do better. But the most important part is a

do something like don't wait for things to happen to just be be

active, be proactive. It's and if you do something

really, really stupid, then just don't record.

Then don't post it and learn from it.

Don't do it again, because that's the downflow of this

generation. They want to record everything.

Oh man. Yeah, I'm, I'm really glad that

my teenage years were not documented as things are today,

that I would not have been fun. What has been your biggest win?

What are you most proud of in life?

My current. Job and my current family and my

kids, those three combined, that's the trifecta of success.

And I feel a very successful person right now.

It might not seem like that to the millionaire neighbors.

It might not seem like that to many people I grew up with or

people around me, but I gave up pleasing other people.

So right now I'm focused on my family's well-being and my kids

well-being and my happiness. And this job helps me be happy,

provides everything for my family.

And we're fine and we're happy. And that's the most important

part. But don't try to impress and

please other people. Just leave your life for

yourself and for family and if your family it's has a negative

effect on your daily days activities which I fortunately

see that more and often. Sometime it's good to put a bit

of distance between your family and pull yourself out of a bad

spot. If if that has to happen then

just follow through and keep a distance from people that pulls

you down. OK.

Yeah, there's some great advice there and that it's a little

harder knowing it's not the millionaires next door.

You live kind of in a community of billionaires.

And so to be content with the life you have and and enjoy the

good things in life that you have, that that says a lot where

you're at and where you've come from.

So yeah, there's a lot of wisdom right there.

Was there one point in your journey where you felt like you

kind of take a take a deep breath and let it out and, and

you felt like you made it? You had a, a level of security,

a level of success. Maybe you had accomplished that

goal that was immediately in front of you.

Was there a time where you were able to kind of just take a deep

breath and appreciate where you've made it to?

I have several. Of those throughout my lifetime,

and the biggest and more recent was when I was hired by BP in

2018. That was one of my big, big

goals and I no longer work for them, not not by my my choice.

They end up selling all the assets in the last 10.

They they moved on. But when I got the, the US visa,

when I got the gas job in Romania, when I when I got to

Buffalo, WY. But there, there's, there are

many, many successes in life. There isn't just one that stands

out, but the latest and the one I felt a big, big, big step in

life was when I was hired by VPN that came with the generous wage

compensation. And that allowed me just to, to,

to spring forward and put behind me all the daily bill worries.

And that allowed me to travel more.

And at that point in life, I was single and I, I remember I was

residing in Alaska and I was, I was at work in Alaska for six

months. But in my 2 weeks off, I maybe

stayed once in Alaska and I just zigzagged the I was bouncing

from New York to Florida to Hawaii.

World was just an oyster like I was everywhere.

Since then, I made some choices. Now that doesn't allow me to do

that anymore because now I have a larger house, a larger

footprint, young kids, good things in life, nothing bad

about them, but now I have to wait a couple more years.

This much you can grow a little bit so we can resume our travels

a bit more. Yeah.

That was that was one that I could definitely say that

changed my life drastically. OK.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I said it.

It's just been a privilege to get to to watch from the

sidelines. If you've as you've built the

life that you have and and accomplished all that you have,

I think you are living proof the American dream is is live and

well, so well. This is my favorite question I

ask of every guest. Are you a person of a particular

faith tradition? And if so, how has that shaped

your life? Fun story.

A little of a back story, I was born Sunday at 11:00 and that

it's when they rang the bells in Romania.

So my wife, my my mom, took that as a sign that I will be a

priest 'cause she was very, very faithful.

So as kids we had to go every Sunday to church and every

Saturday they had youth classes for kids.

So I attended church quite a bit as a kid.

Unfortunately I have not been a church in years since I'm in US

and it it's not the US fault, it's my own choosing.

But we are faithful in the family.

I'm not trying to preach for people but you can take valuable

lesson from the Bible as like be humble, be honest, be faithful,

be loyal, be straight, don't lie, don't cheat and life's

going to be good if anything else.

Like these are things that they are in there.

They're not going to harm nobody.

I don't care what faith you are and what believes you have,

these things cannot hurt nobody. Period.

So we're actually planning on how to take the kids home to

Romania in June, and they're going to be baptized in the

beginning of July. So they're going to be baptized

then. We're going to try to raise them

with Christian values, OK? Wonderful.

Well, I know maybe more just for you and I than for the

listeners, but you know, we, we spent a lot of time together

here in Wyoming roofing and even traveling the country a few

different times and, and doing different things.

Are there any memories from your time in Wyoming and roofing that

really stand out to you that are, are treasured memories or

things that come up frequently? The one thing?

I use the most is rollings and that's used as a bad example

like that is the to me that's the the armpit of USI don't

offend people from rolling. So I'm not saying they're bad

people. Just why you choose to live

there that's your own decision, not mine.

OK. However, fishing in rollings

when they have the bad rainy days, those fond memories, all

the times with the crew and overall the picnics and the

evenings and the weekends with the guys.

I always think of those as best times ever.

And the scenic routes we took through northwest Wyoming and

the time we spent in the mountains that I will cheer

those forever. And that's why I took my wife to

those routes when we moved from Alaska to Florida, because

there's a beauty to the mountains and that countryside

that books don't do justice, videos don't do justice.

You have to see them with your own eyes to truly appreciate

them. So Yellowstone, Great Itans

driving across the mountains, cabins in the mountains, all

that, to me, it's fond memories. And I want to take my kids back

there to one day. And that's what I took away from

Wyoming, time with Co workers, evenings, barbecues, fishing

trips and mountain time, camping, fishing, that to me

that it's life. Like at one point I was dreaming

that I will be moved to LA or New York, one of these mad

places that that that would be so cool to live in.

And the more time I spent in Buffalo, WY and intensely and

Matisse and Laramie and all the small places, the more I

appreciate them. And I feel this day and age now

like I I want to do anything but LA or New York.

They can have it. They can have.

It all. I do like mountainside of

Wyoming and I appreciate the the opportunities to be alone in

nature and be at peace. That's that's something that

money can buy. Awesome.

Well, I will be thoroughly looking forward to when your

kids are old enough to come out and I hope you'll get in touch

and maybe we can go relive some of those experiences and and

check out some of those places together.

That'll be a lot of fun. I want to bring them out.

To the cabin to go canoeing? Absolutely.

We'll make that happen. We were up there just last

weekend checking things out and had a few mice that we had to

take care of and clean stuff up. But it's still there and in good

shape and that'd be a lot of fun.

Is there somebody that you'd like to see on the show?

Somebody that has a really unique a background, a unique

career, works in an industry that you'd love to learn a

little bit more about. I don't one person.

I wanted to show I was already on the show and that was your

father and that that to me, that was it.

OK. Because that.

There was no one person that I I want people to see it because I

I was fortunate enough to spend a couple hours around him to

know him. You can learn some bits of

wisdom that they, they come for free and they're everlasting.

And I'm still struggled to follow one of his recipes and

his advice is if you don't have nothing good to say about the

person, don't speak up, which it's very, very difficult.

Till this day, like I'm trying, I'm just failing.

We might. Have to have him on for a second

episode and dive a little bit more into his search and rescue

career and and less into roofing.

That might be fun to hear from him again.

So he would be. Yeah.

Awesome. Well, a question we ask most

guests. I know we've missed a couple of

them, but to either settle or fuel the debate, if you have a

job to do and have to pick a cordless tool, which brands do

you prefer? A few years back, and I'm saying

like 1010 years back I'd be looking on Google was the

fancest most expensive tool. So I can show off to my friend

that I have the most bad ass kid these day and age is pretty much

Milwaukee because you can see a box and full of Milwaukee from

boxes to stack boxes to chainsaws, blow torches, you

name it, they make everything. However, I have a set of

Craftsman in the house and the reason I have a Craftsman I went

to Lowe's and I went to Home Depot and that was the cheapest

with the most tools in it and that's what I purchased and they

will do just fine. And at the time I didn't have

the Harbor Freight next to me. Now if I have to buy one I'll go

to Harbor Freight and buy the cheapest tool they have.

Because for the house use you will never really take advantage

of the high brand high dollar tools unless you want to show

off. For a company it's a different

thing. If you're going to use and abuse

the tools then you want to buy the one with the best warranty

and the one that has some quality behind it.

But for the average home user, you don't need no fancy brands.

You just buy one that will do the job.

It doesn't cost an arm and a leg because at the end of the day

we're going to collect dust in the in the garage or in the shed

in the shop. There are not going to be no

museums and there's a million plus tools now you can build.

You can. Go Milwaukee, DeWalt sky is the

limit. But like I said, I picked the

Craftsman that was the cheapest. And once you once you buy a half

dozen batteries, it doesn't make sense to buy another brand to

collect another half dozen batteries and then just have

like a million cordless tools on the wall.

But I'm Craftsman price wise, that was the the wisest

decision. Good stuff.

Yeah, I know that the batteries seem to be the biggest

investment there. There are especially the big

high capacity batteries. Those batteries cost more than

almost any tool you can buy. So yes, yeah, I think you're on

to something there. The, the batteries are kind of

once you, once you get a set of batteries, that's where you're

headed for a a listener, whether they're AUS citizen or not, if

they have ambition to pursue a job in the oil and gas field, if

that's something that sounds interesting to them, what advice

would you have for them to get started in that field or pursue

that career move to a? State where they have fields,

that's step one. Or go online and apply for jobs

because North Slope unfortunately require a lot of

skilled work and workers that they don't necessarily have a

pool to draw from from Alaska. So they're willing to allow you

to commute there and work there and still live in a different

state. However, the easy way to get in

it start low as a rust about a mechanic anywhere you want to

start and then just go online and apply.

OK. It doesn't.

Hurt and I applied for hundreds of jobs for a whole year.

So just because you applied for two jobs and never got an

interview, don't stop there. Just like with everything else,

just keep on trying to succeed. Like don't stop and you can.

You can find good jobs anywhere from the Gulf of Mexico to the

Midland, TX to North Dakota to Alaska and not so much in

California anymore. They they still have a bunch of

oil wells, but they just hide them in buildings and warehouses

so people don't see them on the drive by.

You can't see it. It's not there.

That's, that's how California functions.

Oh man. Well, I, I feel like you just

summed up a big part of your story there is you just don't

quit. You keep, keep applying, keep

applying, keep doing whatever it takes to move to that next step.

And you've built a, a pretty incredible life that you have to

be proud of. So.

I'm very, very happy where I'm at in life.

That's awesome. Well, tell it.

Thank you so much for joining us, for making the time.

You really have an incredible story and have had an incredible

journey and you have worked incredibly hard for the life

that you've built just as somebody that's been privileged

to, to watch that man, I'm proud of you.

I'm impressed with what you've done, and I appreciate you

taking the time to chat with us today.

Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me.

I enjoyed just as much as you did having me on this podcast.

Then like I said, I'm looking forward to to come see you

again. Same.

Same and thank you guys for joining us here on From the

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