Matthew Weitzel: 0:00

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Unknown: 0:56

this is Brad Compton. This is Luke brown. This is Jeff Barrett. This is Tessa Fauci, and you're listening to the GSE podcast,

Matthew Weitzel: 1:06

all right. Well, welcome to the GSE Podcast. I'm Matt Weitzel, and I'm here with Joe and naughty from trc. How you doing today? Appreciate it, Matt Doing well, thanks for having me. Yeah, no problem. So you're in Jacksonville, Florida. Is that correct? Just a little north of here? Yeah, not a bad drive over. We are currently, if you're watching on video, you can see that we're at Oshkosh aero tech, and they've been nice enough to let us use their facilities today to record this episode Absolutely. And I really appreciate you coming down. I think this is a very important topic. I'm sure a lot of people, a lot of our audience, they don't know what trc is, sure. So could you maybe start and kind of explain what trc is?

Joe Annotti: 1:44

Yeah, absolutely. So trc is a global engineering advisory services and consulting firm. We do a lot of work in the utility space. And so if you kind of look at the the life cycle of an energy molecule and electron from from generation to transmission, distribution distribution and consumption. Trc has elements in play and all those different spaces. My particular specialty is on the very tail end of that, on the consumption side, where we are responsible for clean transportation project development effectively so looking at opportunities for using energy and the most efficient and effective means in whatever kind of transportation applications are relevant at the time. Okay, so what does that? What does that mean for people in ground support equipment? Yeah, big and vague. So I mean, basically, if it has wheels and can be done better, more efficiently, we're involved. And so, you know, historically speaking, our company, which used to be called Gladstein, the Andres and Associates we were acquired last year by TRC has been in the on road trucking space. And you kind of look at the evolution of clean freight movement in the US historically and still very much a diesel focused sector, looking at means to making it better. So, you know, 20 years ago, was like, Hey, let's put some fairings and skirts on our trailers and make it more aerodynamic. Then the advancements and natural gas in the early 90s, with the utilities, particularly gas utilities, bringing on a better combustible fuel source, then propane and then hybrids, and now we're very much in the electrification era, with battery electric and and hydrogen fuel cell, and that, that trend, that transition, is now very much active in the GSE space. We've seen it, you know, hugely proactive companies have electrifying their ground support equipment efforts, and this is baggage tractors and pushbacks and any of the cargo stuff. And so we're active in that space because of the capital expenditures associated with that movement. You look at a conventional diesel vehicle, maybe 100 125,000 to go zero. Now it's 234, times that. And to make those types of capital investments. Often, incentives come into play, and that's what my particular practice is responsible for, is the identification of incentive opportunities, navigating that landscape, going out and securing those funds, and then ultimately making sure that the projects are implemented accordingly.

Matthew Weitzel: 4:17

Okay? So like government grants,

Joe Annotti: 4:20

yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 4:20

would be something that you

Joe Annotti: 4:21

exactly

Matthew Weitzel: 4:22

your company would help, right?

Joe Annotti: 4:23

And governments of all shapes and sizes. I mean, I think that's one of the the misnomers right now. And there's been a lot of noise over the past few weeks, of course, about this is that, you know, people think about government grants for for clean transportation projects, they just default to the EPA. And to a lot of extent, that's true, EPA is a huge funder of these projects, and since about 2008 with the National Clean Diesel campaign and the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act absolutely has been at the forefront of funding for these types of projects. But there's a whole slew of other federal agencies as well as state and regional authorities that are in this game as well. On an annual basis, the incentives market is probably two to $3 billion annually. It's a huge, huge market. My team tracks 750 or so different incentive programs in the and that's just US and Canada. We have a partner in Berlin that does a similar thing for the EU and UK, and it's a very, very busy landscape and constantly evolving. Obviously, the recent election is going to change some things, and certainly can, can chat a little bit about that if that's that's of interest. But you know, basically, we just, we work with our clientele to identify what the right funding solution is for them go out and secure it and make sure it's, it's, you know, gone about in the right way. These are, these grants aren't just sort of charitable donations as much as we'd like them to be. Yeah. These are, these are contracts with government authorities, and that can be burdensome to to certain corporations that may want, may not want to take upon that burden.

Matthew Weitzel: 6:02

Yeah. Well, I have a million questions, but let's start with who is Joe Annotti. So how did you get to trc? What did that? What that look like? Yeah. What's your background?

Joe Annotti: 6:12

I come out of the oil and gas space. So I'm a heavy industry guy. I was in. My background is in geology from Tulane, so I was in the oil and gas based in New Orleans for several years, working in heavy industry, largely corporate and occupational safety and health. So I was doing a lot of, you know, you know, like on site, drill rig kind of safety and health inspections, you know, kicking metal around, kind of thing. And got involved into the to the sort of business efficiency associated with it, understanding the safety and health implications of your business and why that matters. And it kept coming back to moving things around is so taken for granted as a means to improve the business. And so you look at the role that diesel plays, particularly in that in that space, and that led me to the EPA. I was happy to have served the EPA during the first Obama administration, when when the National Clean Diesel program was starting, and ran a team that there that was responsible for doling out a lot of the Recovery Act funds. This is back in 2009 now, and at that time, that was a $300 million program, that slug of money that the EPA got to dole out from Recovery Act funds. And it's always amazing to me to think about the context of what that fund meant to the market at that time. And then now you go out and look at a solicitation. You know, most recent EPA solicitation is now a couple 100 million. There's some California funding that's like 350 million. And the most recent California budget for clean transportation was like one point x billion, just massive numbers on an annual basis. Whereas the Recovery Act was this, like, huge slug of money that was meant to solve all the problems for good,

Matthew Weitzel: 7:58

yeah.

Joe Annotti: 7:58

And now, I mean, the market has so evolved from that perspective that it's just really fascinating to see. And so from my time at EPA, I joined up with with Gladstein, Gladstone, ne Andros and Associates in 2013 and you know, since evolved the career from then looking at, you know, various iterations of new projects and the most recent. I mean, boy, it's been probably five, six years. I don't think you can call it a trend anymore. It's, it's just kind of the way things are. Has been in the electrification space, the the role zero emission. It's, it's been, you know, really, since, since kind of 2018 2019 heavy duty trucking has made big moves. And there's, there's a lot going on in zero emission. And that's, that's been the big chatter.

Matthew Weitzel: 8:45

So I was introduced to you by DHL.

Joe Annotti: 8:48

Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 8:49

was that kind of your first connection the industry? How did you kind of make your way into GSE?

Joe Annotti: 8:54

Yeah, within the aviation and GSE space, we've always been tangential at airports, but we, haven't been on the tarmac side. We've been on the passenger side. And so, like a lot of our projects, historically, have been with shuttle busses, medium and heavy duty. Transportation is our sweet spot, okay? And so on, on the front, you know, the front of the airport, if you want to call it that, with shuttle busses, terminals and and the need to refuel and recharge those vehicles. We've been doing those projects for 2025, years. And so looking again, we kind of always look at the the movement of molecules and say, Okay, well, we've, we've, we've addressed that here. So with our friends at law, our Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, these kind of partners, as you go through their sustainability programs, you just kind of pick off areas, and so we picked off those front areas. Okay, we got the shuttle busses and terminal side now let's look at some of the land side movements and the volume opportunity of GSE started really appealing to a lot of our partners. Much, but it is such a busy from a number of companies involved perspective, but busy from a responsibility perspective too. Because is it? Is it the aviation authority? Is it the airline? Is it the operator? You there's so many different, you know, personalities, I suppose, right. So you could look at it that way, but it's, it's just a it's a great opportunity to improve so many different elements. And so from a from a Grants perspective, it's very attractive from funding agencies, because they want to, you know, if you look at a grant as an investment, they these funding agencies look at grants as investments in air quality and investments in public health. You know, you're never going to see an airport in like a super high class community. That's just not how real estate dynamics work. And so you often have this, this tremendous opportunity to improve public health benefits in disadvantaged communities, because those are the ones that are neighboring airports. But also you're looking at an extremely exposed population, for aircraft personnel, for people working on the tarmac, and so from an exposure perspective, if you can limit tailpipe emission exposure for these personnel, both the employees as well as the neighboring communities, there's huge public health benefits. You're talking like some of the EPA math is like 13 to $15 in public health benefits for every dollar invested in a clean diesel project. Yeah. You know, it's from from asthma to premature death. It's, it's, there's pretty dynamic, dynamic benefits associated with these projects.

Matthew Weitzel: 11:35

Yeah. So GSE, obviously, we're moving, we're making the move towards electric. You know, all the airlines have their ESG goals. Ground handlers have their own ESG goals. And then, and then the airports as well, and the airport authorities, and it's just everybody's trying to figure out, you know, where this infrastructure is going to come from, right, right? And I kind of think that's the reason we're here today, is kind of talk about that, right? So there's been what Vail grant that I'm that, I'm sure that you can talk to us about in the VW, right?

Joe Annotti: 12:07

Yeah, still around.

Matthew Weitzel: 12:08

It's still around. And then what? What other ones are kind of like, the bigger ones that, that people are working on,

Joe Annotti: 12:14

sure, well, you're right. Vail and VW are very much the two big linchpins right now, from a from a charging perspective, we can't overlook the role that the DERA programs, de ra programs play most states, as well as there's a federal version of it, so it's something to consider. Now, you do have to do a vehicle with it. It's not just infrastructure only. So you do have to seek vehicle funding at the same time. But that's very much on the upper the very much on the available list of funding opportunities with VW specifically, it's interesting that you brought that up. You're absolutely right. It's been around coming on nine years, which is wild now that has an original 10 year shelf life. Okay, if states don't use their funds, that those unused funds roll up into a pot and then get redistributed to the states that did use all their funds for another five years of spending. So in those states that have been very aggressive with their VW program, and it's the states you would think it's typical, you know, population center, rich states, you're going to see VW money stick around, which is great. That continues the opportunity with Vale the FAA has done a very nice job of supporting that program on an annual basis. You know that November one deadline keeps coming around and keeps coming around. And then you come they have their sort of pre application concept deal in November. And then once you go into full applications, you're kind of in the January, February timeline. But that program is very active, and they've been adding on sort of ancillary funding streams to the Vail program. There's a zero emission pilot program now, and some really good, focused funding that aviation authorities have been very proactive in taking beyond that, it really comes down to the state level, and I think that's where we're going to see things get really busy, particularly with the new administration. Is that with what would we would expect a smaller federal government to look like? States get very busy. States start taking upon themselves to fund these programs, to find their own opportunities, rather than kind of look up at the EPA, at the US, EPA or us do t they say, Okay, well, what can we as the, you know, local state Department of Environmental Quality, what can we do on our own? How can we fund it? And so while the individual states funding pots will be less, they'll just be more of them, and I think that's really presents as a unique opportunity to to look at over the next couple years, to see how that transition happens, and to see what states start setting their own parameters, their own goals, their own guidelines, what their sustainability initiatives line up with like you mentioned, you know, the aviation authorities or.

Unknown: 15:00

Airlines or the the aircraft operator or the GSE operators, how those all kind of dovetail and so that's a really, that's where a lot of the noise is coming from right now, is, how do you rejigger those solutions to to kind of align with your own state's efforts?

Matthew Weitzel: 15:17

So are you okay, like, with an airport?

Joe Annotti: 15:20

Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 15:20

can they? Can they actually go after a grant, like these Vail grants and the VW grants specifically?

Joe Annotti: 15:27

Yeah, absolutely so, so,

Matthew Weitzel: 15:28

and they have, right,

Joe Annotti: 15:29

absolutely. So aviation authorities are the ones that have to go after the veil grants.

Matthew Weitzel: 15:33

Exactly

Joe Annotti: 15:34

eligible entity, yep, for some of the other programs, like, if you were to chase DERA money, you'd actually need a nonprofit to get out in front and to serve as the eligible applicant.

Matthew Weitzel: 15:44

Okay?

Joe Annotti: 15:44

And then you would slot, you know, the aviation authority, their airline, or the GSC operator, behind that nonprofit. It all depends on the funding program's requirements. So there's some where, you know, the airline can go directly apply for it themselves, or the GSE operator can go directly apply for it themselves. That's a really clean way to do it. But some of these other programs, you're gonna have to go in with a team or potentially as a sub, which makes a little convoluted.

Matthew Weitzel: 16:13

So if I'm an airline, and can I come to you and say, Hey, what's available to me? And you all go out and find these opportunities.

Joe Annotti: 16:21

Exactly, yeah, we put together that landscape to basically present the menu of options and and some of these menus are going to be two or three steps down the road, because it's like, okay, I want to eventually get there with that particular program, but I need to find the sponsor first, and then I need to dovetail my project with something else that the Aviation Authority has to be doing, like a Vail grant. The aviation authority are often going to put together five or six different projects as part of Vail. So, you know, if I'm in Atlanta, their aviation authority did a, you know, a solar project, and they're doing a new terminal renovation, and then maybe they're doing some GSE chargers hanging underneath, you know, terminal T, or whatever your your particular project could be one of several that that has to fit under that veil umbrella. Whereas other funding programs, you may be the lone wolf, you may be the project, and so you got to go in and kind of stand up on your own. And it all defined, sorry, it all depends on the structure of that funding program and what it is that the agency wants to fund. That's one of the keys that we do a lot of, a lot of storytelling, you know, grant writing and storytelling. And so we do a lot of storytelling. And one of the first keys that we focus on is, you're not, you know, you applicant, are not necessarily telling your story. We have to tell the story that the agency wants to hear. Now, if your story happens to dovetail with that great but we need to tell the story that gets to the funding, not to the story that your, you know, corporate marketing team wants to spin.

Matthew Weitzel: 17:59

Yeah,

Joe Annotti: 17:59

so you know, it's not that we clash with with marketing groups or anything like that, but it's we have to tell a very specific, very defined, you know, kind of set of set of of talking points that a lot of times focus on public health, emissions reductions, sustainability and efficient use of Federal funding or state funding in certain cases.

Matthew Weitzel: 18:21

So, so there's a possibility to go down this route and be and not get the grant very much.

Joe Annotti: 18:28

Yeah, absolutely. This is not, these aren't handouts. They're no, there are no guarantees in this landscape. We've been very successful. We have a 90% success rate in winning these awards, but we say no, a lot, and there's a lot of off ramps before we ever get to an application. And so when we, when we're kind of evaluating the landscape of opportunities, we're going to throw out a huge chunk of funding opportunities at the very, very outset, because it's either not relevant, you're not going to be Yeah, you may be eligible, but you're not gonna be competitive. And I'll give you an example the there has been a huge sweet spot of funding for electric school busses recently.

Matthew Weitzel: 19:09

Okay,

Joe Annotti: 19:10

politically, very easy win to fund an electric school bus project, but if you look at cost effectiveness perspective, it's not the best use of funds. These are vehicles that only run a few hours a day, they're not huge consumers of fuel, and so we know that from a political perspective, if we're trying to put a project up against what we know to be a very active school bus applicant pool, we'll probably pull back our project, because we know we'll get smoked by school bus applicants. They're just easier to fund.

Matthew Weitzel: 19:39

Yeah, for sure,

Joe Annotti: 19:40

right? So,

Matthew Weitzel: 19:41

The story is better,

Joe Annotti: 19:42

exactly same, same kind of thing if we know we're going up against, you know, marine diesel repowers or diesel replacement projects, those are hugely cost effective and look way better from a public health benefits perspective, versus even a truck or a bus. And so we'll scale back those applications if we know. What the other competitors are going to be doing. So we're very sensitive to that.

Matthew Weitzel: 20:04

But there are some specific ones just aviation.

Joe Annotti: 20:08

FAA is the one that is specific to just aviation. There are other programs that make so there's some programs right now in Texas that, and we appreciate what TC, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has done is they've specifically called out types of GSE that are eligible for funding. Oh, wow, which has been a huge boon for a lot of projects in Houston and San Antonio and Dallas in particular, because those types of vehicles weren't eligible in prior rounds. So whereas these vehicles couldn't compete even two years ago, they're now competing and winning funds, which has been a great thing for that particular market. But you have to, you have to really dig deep into some of these RFPs, because they'll, they'll have a section on eligible vehicle types. And two years ago, if you read that RFP, it would said GSC is not eligible, whereas now it's, it's pushback. Tractors and cargo handlers are eligible specifically, but not tow, right? So, oh, wow. So tractor is not right. Push back is, yeah. And so you kind of look into this and you say, Okay, well, you know, clearly some lobbyists got something through at some point. So they great, but you know, so you got to really read the fine details on some of these things because, man, there's no better way to waste a whole bunch of time and money than to apply something that you're not eligible for.

Matthew Weitzel: 21:29

Do you ever see states kind of follow suit and start doing that same thing? Like so like Oklahoma will all of a sudden try to, like, you know, match that and do ground support equipment? Or is that less likely.

Joe Annotti: 21:41

It's a good question. We haven't seen the we haven't seen that particular thing with ground support equipment.

Matthew Weitzel: 21:48

Okay?

Joe Annotti: 21:49

We've seen a lot of follow the leaders with charging, public charging, particularly, which hurts GSE from a competitive standpoint, because GSE isn't, isn't public charging, right?

Matthew Weitzel: 22:01

That's what I was about to ask, yeah? So I guarantee they don't fall underneath that.

Joe Annotti: 22:04

There's been a huge amount of chatter about nevi funding. For example, nevi has no bearing on the GSE space, because it's not public charging. So the GSE guys can't go after those funds, and you're talking about billions in funding, yeah, not eligible. It's just not relevant to the market. And so there's a lot, there's a lot to learn from that, because so many states just simply say, okay, but you've got to make it eligible for everybody. It's got to be publicly available, which then kicks out any project that we could possibly do for GSE. So you knowing power and stuff. This is kind of in your career. Do you see hydrogen being a thing? I know we're kind of getting off topic of grants right now, but I'm just more curious, like, you know, other like biofuels, things like that. Or do you kind of see everything still moving towards electric really? Oh no, I I am. I believe in the power of silver buckshot versus silver bullet. And so what I mean by that is, is I don't think there is one solution. I think there's trends moving towards zero via battery electric. The costs of those products haven't reduced to the point where the market has fully accepted them

Matthew Weitzel: 23:21

exactly.

Joe Annotti: 23:22

If you took five years ago, there was a lot of of like, yes, we're going to get there. That's going to, you know, cost parity with diesel Over time, right? The TCO model. We haven't gotten there. Things have stayed expensive. And so I think that, combined with what happened in the election two weeks ago is you're gonna, you're gonna see a focus on diversified fuel solutions over the next several years. I think natural gas is going to come back. Is a little bit, a little bit real Renaissance, absolutely.

Matthew Weitzel: 23:52

All right,

Joe Annotti: 23:53

domestic fuel product.

Matthew Weitzel: 23:54

I like this. Yeah,

Joe Annotti: 23:55

yeah. You know, it's domestic. It's, it's widely available. There is a renewable product, and it's very, very acceptable in most solutions. So I think natural gas and propane are still very much in the conversation as a as an alternative fuel. Hydrogen has its place. Hydrogen is still very expensive and very heavy, and in applications where where cost and weight are particularly sensitive issues like over the road trucking, for example, you're not going to want to give up a huge amount of your payload just so you can run an alternative fuel, because that's the stuff in the back of your truck. Is how you get paid

Matthew Weitzel: 24:30

Exactly.

Joe Annotti: 24:31

And so if you have to offset that with a bunch of fuel, that doesn't pencil out quite well. I do think hydrogen is going to going to come around and continue evolving, I think, particularly from a renewable perspective, like blue or green hydrogen has a very interesting roadmap, and something that we're keeping an eye on,

Matthew Weitzel: 24:51

yeah, that's, yeah, you know, we've seen a couple of different companies, you know, try to get kind of hydrogen going. It seems like it. It's always kind of hitting road blocks. It's,

Joe Annotti: 25:03

it's, I think, one of the things that I still am totally fascinated by, we did a lot of work in in New York City over the years on on gaseous fuels and compressed gas and and if you look, you know, the bridge and tunnel authorities still don't allow compressed natural gas vehicles through the bridges and tunnels because of an explosion that happened on Staten Island in the 70s. And so there's still this. There's still these roadblocks in place to this stuff that the advancement of technology. And, you know, it's very easy to make the joke about the Hindenburg too, right? Like, there's always, of course, the hydrogen space. And you gotta, you have to, sort of, you know, okay, that was the that's not exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it's not a thing that happens. And so there's still a lot of education, and there's an, I'm not knocking the fire departments or anything like that. There's absolutely safety risk issues with these kind of things. Battery fires are still real thing. And so you have to do a lot of safety. And you know, if you look at some of the aviation equipment now that we're putting out there, I'm particularly fascinated about the autonomous stuff. And there's some wild labor implications about, you know, autonomous vehicles taking away from the workforce. Obviously, that's a separate issue. But you start thinking about autonomous and the role that it plays on a on an airport tarmac, for example, and it's like, well, you know, an autonomous vehicle delivering my Door Dash dinner running around and like, accidentally running into a lamp post is one issue, but an autonomous vehicle that runs into a multi million dollar aircraft is a very different one, yeah. And so you kind of look at the advancement of technology, and there's so many more sensitive receptors in the aviation space that have to be vetted. You got to kind of navigate that.

Matthew Weitzel: 26:47

So if you were, I guess so, if you wanted to talk to somebody like a ground handler or an airline or an airport, like, Who are you targeting at this moment, all three

Joe Annotti: 27:00

from, from how I develop business, it's, it's, I like to talk to the people that are bringing the products forth first, okay, you know, from, from understanding what, what is available,

Unknown: 27:11

you can't really understand what, what's going to be adopted, until you understand the technologies that are adoptable. And so understanding first, what's available, what's on the horizon of technology is important. Because if you look at the way that I look at is I have my funding over here, and then I need to understand what my technology is over here. Everybody else I'm going to talk to is going to be in the middle somewhere, because they're going to need the funding to do the technology, or they need to buy the technology because of their sustainability or corporate initiatives, and so then they realize how much that costs, and then they need the funding. But I represent the awareness of the funding over here. I need to first understand the awareness of the technology over here. And so that's why guys like Oshkosh are so important to the market right now, because they have such a keen sense of what, what technology, what the capabilities of a current technology are, and what they can bring to market, and then what the future of those technologies looks like, and the relationships that they play. So for me, I always start with technology.

Matthew Weitzel: 28:13

So you like talk to the OEMs first,

Joe Annotti: 28:15

very much,

Matthew Weitzel: 28:16

try to figure out what they're doing, what they're looking for in the future, what they're kind of working on. So,

Joe Annotti: 28:21

because everybody else has goals, the OEMs have the, have the the ability to achieve those goals. And so from from a market adoption rate perspective, knowing the types of technology and the volumes in which they can be produced is absolutely critical.

Matthew Weitzel: 28:37

So are you all working with any OEMs on?

Joe Annotti: 28:40

Oh, yes, okay, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's, that's been the partnerships thus, thus far that that have have made it viable to do any of the work that we've done in the GSE space, is to to understand exactly when these things are going to come out. Remember, like I've said, these are, these are contracts, executable contracts, with government agencies, and that it's money. But you know, the the strange bedfellow to money is time. And so in a lot of these grants, you have to commit to certain timelines and say, okay, you know, in q1 of this year, I'm going to have two of my five GSE deployed, and then the next Q, I'm going to have the two, and then the next quarter is the final fifth. I can't make any of those claims. I can't make any and substantiate any of that until I know from the technology perspective when it's going to be produced, how, and if it's even going to be available to be delivered. And so that's that's why it's so critical to have those types of relationships very early on, is to know the the the potential for opportunity with deploying this technology, the government agencies want them want to move the money as quickly as possible, particularly now with the administration change. And so if you're coming in and saying, Okay, we've got this great new technology, but it's not going to be ready for 36 months, it's a hard sell, yeah, but if you got something, you can put 1218, months on. That's different. That's a horse of different color.

Matthew Weitzel: 30:00

Yeah, yeah. So how does that, I mean, kind of walk me through that. So Oshkosh comes to you and says, Hey, we're developing this new pushback,

Joe Annotti: 30:07

right?

Matthew Weitzel: 30:07

I mean, how do you help them? Like, what does that look like?

Joe Annotti: 30:11

Well, if it's, if it's a new technology, if it's not something that they're intending to be, okay, this is, like the next commercially viable product for us. This is commercial ready. Then we're going to look at a whole different set of grant funding opportunities. The lion's share of grant money out there is for commercial sales, for publicly you know, it's a product that you can go buy on the market and deploy it in the next, whatever, months, yep. But if this is new technology, you're looking in the domain of the Research, Demonstration and deployment, this is all pre commercial stuff. And so you're looking at deployment volumes of like, 123, units, all pre commercial. And so that's a much smaller volume of incentive programs, but higher dollar associated with it, because it's higher risk, higher reward. And so we would start there, if it's a technology that Oshkosh, in this particular case, wants to bring to market that is a commercial unit. Is commercial sales, then that opens us up to any number of incentive programs, and it's really going to be driven by geography. So is this, you know, are we selling to an airline with just the presence on the West Coast? Is this something that you know you're doing at, like the five major hubs for this particular airline? So we gotta go knock off Atlanta, New York, Detroit, you know, and LA and then, so the geography will drive that next step in terms of paring down the list of available incentives. Once we have that, then we gotta look at the palatability of the incentives with Oshkosh, or whoever the manufacturer's partner is. So, you know, we work with with some companies who are very sensitive to public recognition, particularly associated with getting government funds. You know, bigger corporations sometimes don't want to be perceived as taking funding from the government. Yeah, it's a bad look in some cases. And so there are certain programs where we can structure the the company's involvement, so they're not like, at the forefront of it, it's like, you know, X, Y and Z, company gets a million bucks to do this. You know, we can structure it in such a way where a non profit is involved, a neighborhood organization is involved, and they're getting a lot of the public benefit of the grant funding. But from a you know, investment perspective, there's still air quality benefits associated, because we're still putting technology out. And so that's where we get to the viability perspective. And the last thing is just competitiveness. What do we as trc know about the market to say who else is going to apply for this funding? You know, if it's, if it's just the knock down, drag out fight, then we'll be sensitive to it, and we'll come in, you know, with our with our boxing gloves on, but if it's something that's like, okay, every school bus operator and their uncle are going after this funding, and politically speaking, it's going to look better for the agency to fund those projects. Like I said, we'll, we'll throttle back.

Matthew Weitzel: 32:59

So what about like, research and development. So Oshkosh comes to you and says, hey, we'd like to develop this, you know, biofuel, you know, cargo loader, but that's, you know, it's six years out, or whatever is there. Is there funds for that kind of stuff?

Joe Annotti: 33:13

There is as well, yeah, and that's really been the purview of the Department of Energy. Historically, their Vehicle Technologies Office has been outstanding and supporting high risk, high reward pre commercial demonstration, not only like full vehicle and full apparatus, but also components. So putting on a test bed, or putting on a on a dynamometer, and just kind of testing these things out, there's been a huge amount of investment that the DOE and the Vehicle Technologies Office in particular, has made in the market to support pre commercial demonstration projects. That's really the main one that we look to. From an R and D perspective. We can also look at there's some agencies within California that have both the then this is where it gets a little sensitive, because you talk about funding availability, really the DOE and California are the only ones that have sufficient funding to be able to make these types of investments. And so when you look at, you know, like the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is the government agent agency responsible for air quality in Los Angeles, they've done a nice job over the years of funding these types of pre commercial projects that allow for greater innovation. And it's, it's only available because of of how historically poor that air quality has been, which is a function of their geography and prevailing winds and things like that. But they're, you know, autonomous rail and, you know, all sorts of really cool stuff. And hydrogen, hydrogen barges and tugs and the ports and, you know, really cool, you know, really cool, cutting edge stuff. And I think you're gonna see a lot more of that as well.

Matthew Weitzel: 34:46

Now, what if I'm a small, semi small, ground handler, sure, right? And I just have a couple stations here or there where I'm I've got contracts with airlines. Is there money out there for me as a ground handler? Sure, yeah, to try to convert my fleet to electric, absolutely. Have a bunch of old, you know, old internal combustion.

Joe Annotti: 35:06

There's no incentive program out there that stipulates your company has to be of a certain size to chase these funds. It's a resource issue, and obviously, smaller companies are going to be resource constrained. But this funding is available for the market, not for certain people in the market. Yeah, and so, you know, when it comes down to chasing it, it's, it's, it's gumption and resources. Obviously, it's a little easier for bigger companies to go chase this kind of stuff just because the size. But no, there's certainly available opportunity for for smaller, for smaller companies. And actually, you know, the I told talk a little bit earlier about storytelling. It's often a little easier to tell the smaller guys story, because it's, Hey, we're doing the right thing because, you know, we don't, you don't need to make the mom and pop card. You know, they don't play that kind of thing, yeah, but, you know, we're doing the right thing for us because we're focused here. And that that story has a lot of legs, and, you know, it's a viable one, yeah.

Matthew Weitzel: 36:03

And then talk to me about kind of, you know, charging at the airport. So I've heard, obviously, you know, everybody's talking about how there's not enough infrastructure. But, you know, is there actually even enough, like grid power in some cases, and then, and then, are they also looking at, or are there different power companies that are applying to different grants because there's not even enough grid power to even, you know, have enough infrastructure at that airport type of thing, yeah, like, forget the fact that there's not enough chargers, even if they put in enough chargers, not enough. You know,

Joe Annotti: 36:36

it's a great question that has been far and away the toughest nut to crack the infrastructure challenge. And it's not. This isn't an aviation specific thing. It's very easy to say, Okay, well, since we're like, behind the fence kind of thing, it's harder for us. We've got less available land. We've got to deal with aviation authority and the terminal and the baggage and all that kind of yeah, those are all challenges that are unique to the aviation space, but the infrastructure challenge writ large, across on road, off road, medium and heavy duty, everybody is struggling with charging infrastructure, and it comes down to the availability of power. And when you look at that, you can't, you can't make any sort of general assessments to say, okay, you know, everybody's struggling with the availability power. There's power available in a lot of locations, and some there isn't. But maybe the power is available, but the infrastructure to get the power to that site is so dated that it prevents, sorry, it presents as a safety risk. California being one of them, you know, those fire hazards as of late has been a real issue, and that's because of the dated infrastructure. Or you say, Hey, man, we like we just don't have enough power at all. We're never going to be able to support this. Or you have a utility that's so backlogged to say, Okay, we do have available power, but it's going to take 48 months for us to put submissions, sufficient transmission in place to even get the power to the site. There's so many different variables in play when it comes to the movement of electrons to an airport that every single Aviation project we undertake, it's a new set of challenges, but it all falls under that banner of infrastructure.

Matthew Weitzel: 38:17

So do you I mean, so really, I don't even know if you're gonna be able to answer this, but I mean, you know, the mean, you know, a lot of these airlines and ground handlers have ESG goals reports, you too. I mean, are they gonna be able to meet these goals based on the amount of infrastructure challenges that that they're facing?

Joe Annotti: 38:37

It's, it's impossible to say. I mean, I hope so. As somebody, my son has breathing challenges and health issues associated with it, and so like I am keenly invested in making this place better for breathers. Kind of thing as addressing corporate goals, Man, I sure hope so. But I could never stand and say, yes, it's a guarantee that you're going to hit it. Yeah, you know, there's no, you know, there's no, there's no right answer to that. There's probably no answer to that.

Matthew Weitzel: 39:08

Yeah, not at this point. How do you see, you know, without getting to into a political conversation like, I mean, what kind of, what's the difference going to be kind of like as we're looking towards the future with this new president coming in.

Joe Annotti: 39:24

So I'll, I'll start granularly,

Matthew Weitzel: 39:28

okay,

Joe Annotti: 39:28

and then I'll some some larger thoughts. There are some interim technology solutions out there right now that make electrified GSE completely and totally viable immediately. And you look at, you know, you know, power carts, amp carts, kind of deal,

Matthew Weitzel: 39:45

yep,

Joe Annotti: 39:46

that is, that is an outstanding solution. We're seeing it in San Diego. You know, you mentioned DHL earlier, and that was, that was where that relationship started.

Matthew Weitzel: 39:55

I'm actually going to interview Chad Reese. Oh, cool, from San Diego. Oh, super Yeah, at the end of.

Joe Annotti: 40:01

Of next year. That makes this stuff real. Yeah, you don't need to wait. I mean, we're seeing some of my best projects are going to be 12 to 18 months out. You're seeing this, you know, with a with a mobile recharging solution, you're talking weeks instead of months and years. And that's a really big deal. And so from an interim solution perspective that that that is what has me most excited is that you're a mate. You're making charging you're taking out the challenge of charging infrastructure, or at least, you're softening that blow and making it a viable solution more immediately. Now, why I'm excited about stuff like that is because the US has some big things coming up. You know, we've got World Cup in North America here in a year and a half, and then LA has the games in 28 and those are big, you know, those are big public things. And a lot of it, there's a lot of people moving through airports for those kind of things. So from the Aviation space being able to present those types of solutions to a world that is ready for them, pretty cool. I'm excited about that. So granularly, I know I went very big there, but granularly the interim solutions. I think there are interim solutions available right now that can make an absolutely immediate and lasting impact on the landscape now, in terms of some of the political dynamics that we're going to see, one of the things that has me considerably less freaked out from as significant of an administration change as this is is that we've already done this. We did this eight years ago, we saw a pretty dynamic flip of the White House's stripes eight years ago. And so we're prepared for what we see to be a considerably smaller federal spend and also a considerably deregulated market. And so, you know, there's any number of ways you can, you can take those things, I'm speaking specifically to clean transportation and to the transportation space a when you look federally at the likelihood of less regulations, what that means is you look more at what states are going to do. What is California going to do? What are the 15, or whatever number states that follow California's regulations? What are they going to do? And that's where it gets really interesting, because it empowers that at the state level, their regulatory drivers. So that's something we want to watch. And then from an incentives and spending perspective, yeah, the feds are going to spend less. That's that's just sort of a Republican paradigm, but it emboldens corporations to to implement more of their culture on the market by the availability of typically, what we're going to see is cheaper debt, which means bigger corporate spending. And so corporations now have, you know, kind of that seat at their own particular Helm of making their own decisions and going out and doing bigger spends. Now it'll be up to the corporations on how they spend those funds. We've already seen some interesting indications of how folks are going to do that, you know, from, you know, from corporate sustainability, or Dei, or, you know, any number of those initiatives. So that's what really the transition points that we're going to see, those big inflection points, on, on, on, one, a likely deregulated market. And two, you know, who's going to do the spending and how they're going to spend it,

Matthew Weitzel: 43:28

yeah. And then, you know, Elon getting involved can maybe help, sure, with the infrastructure, right?

Joe Annotti: 43:33

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's fascinating to see how, how quickly he got integrated into this whole process from a political perspective. And then what? What he signals, it's really hard to bet against him. Yeah, all the things that he does, it's really hard to bet against him. And so his role in the Zero Mission landscape in particular is going to be fascinating now. He's, he's coming off some some tough challenges in the past year in the infrastructure space too. He's, he's had a hard time. There's nobody's really solved it yet from an infrastructure perspective. So it'll be interesting to see what you know, that sort of road map, that network of of of zero emission recharging and refueling solutions is going to look like.

Matthew Weitzel: 44:16

Yeah, again, the reason I'm bringing that up is not to be political, because Elon is very involved in infrastructure, and especially, you know, in the United States and in North America specifically,

Joe Annotti: 44:28

absolutely.

Matthew Weitzel: 44:29

Yeah. So, all right, talk to me about, what do you like? What do you want to get from this podcast today? So, like, if somebody's listening to this, and whether it be an airport, a ground handler or an airline, those are people that usually listen to this podcast.

Joe Annotti: 44:47

Sure.

Matthew Weitzel: 44:48

What would you want them to reach out about?

Joe Annotti: 44:50

I think the thing that I'm most concerned about is this sense that it's not available to me, that an opportunity isn't available to me because I'm too small or I. At a, you know, third or fourth tier airport, or that I'm just a regional hauler, or I'm a smaller footprint, or, you know, something along those lines. And it's absolutely not the case. So I think for me, what I hope to get out of it is just just audience engagement, from the perspective of, let's at least try to uncover some stones, you know, kind of turn over some opportunities, and suss it out. We may get to a point where, yeah, immediately, there isn't, there isn't an incentive available for 612, months. But looking ahead, maybe with some partnerships, maybe new market entrant opportunity, there's something for you. So I think that, just from an education perspective, that's, that's really what I'm hoping for.

Matthew Weitzel: 45:37

So if I'm in a small regional airport in Alabama or something. You know, we have a couple of flights a day and from Delta and Allegiant or whatever. So I contact you, and so you're going to start digging, seeing what you can find to maybe help help, you know, get that electrification at your airport, that infrastructure there, and you have to pay less for it, right? Because you're going to get a grant of some sort. But you all don't find anything. Is this something where, you know, six months go by and maybe something comes up? Will you all contact those people

Joe Annotti: 46:07

for sure?

Matthew Weitzel: 46:08

Like, kind of keep an eye out for them?

Joe Annotti: 46:09

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, our, you know, my business is predicated on strong relationships. You know, I our clients are 1015, 20 year term clients. These are, these guys are in it for the long haul. And so we're not, you know, our business isn't successful because we know all the answers. Are our business successful because we know where to find the answers, and if we don't have them, then we'll eventually figure it out. And so those long term opportunities, those long term relationships, is what we pride ourselves on. And so, yeah, you know, if we don't find something immediately, immediately available in montgomery. My team has an Alabama specialist that just tracked money in Alabama, and so, you know, we're gonna put a flag on that account and say, All right, man, let's just check in every quarter and see what's what's happening. So we'll absolutely circle back around,

Matthew Weitzel: 46:54

Yeah, that's that's great. I think it's a thing that is needed. That's the reason, when I met you and we started talking. I was like, you'd be perfect for the podcast, because there's so many people out there listening, and there is so much money that sure that's going to be spent on new equipment.

Joe Annotti: 47:11

Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 47:11

right. And if they can find a grant to help them out with that and save millions of dollars. I mean, I think that's a pretty big win

Joe Annotti: 47:19

for sure. And it really depends on how you how you want to approach it, and what your ultimate end goals are. I mean, I can very readily play the marketing game. This, winning a grant looks great for your company, yeah. And we can spin that marketing perspective. We can also play the altruist. We can play the financial guy. You know, there's any different number of ways that you can use these grants to tell your own corporate story and and whether it be through a marketing perspective or sustainability or, you know, fiduciary responsibility, whatever, whatever the case may be, there's the opportunity for that.

Matthew Weitzel: 47:51

So would you mind, like sharing a success story with me? Sure, even if you can't bring up a name specifically or whatever, just kind of any success story, so somebody can kind of hear that and go, Oh, okay, that could be, that could be me. I see why I need to be working, working with Joe.

Joe Annotti: 48:05

Yeah. I think the one of the ones that comes to mind recently is, is, Denver is, is a pain in the butt,

Matthew Weitzel: 48:20

yeah,

Joe Annotti: 48:21

you know, to get to and to get through and but it is one of those. It's one of those airports that the city has grown out to meet it. You know, if you flew through air through Denver 15 years ago, there was nothing, okay, and now the city has come out. And so there's, there's neighborhoods coming out and building. And so the need for, you know, to be that sort of Colorado, like cleaner, you know, that sort of Persona, the need for that has really come about. And so we worked with an airline out there to work on the sustainability of their operations. Now, they've already have very aggressive GSE goals, but they hit an impasse, because just the sheer capital expenditures of achieving those goals is a challenge, but also just the availability of equipment wasn't there, and so we worked with them to identify one funding that overcame both of those it was enough money where the capital expenditures were palatable for the company, but it was slow, enough money that they could deploy the equipment over a two to four year timeline in staggered volumes, right? It wasn't just a big slug of deliveries coming and say, Okay, put it out there. What? What I was most proud of that project was the relationship with utility, though, and making sure that we get the right power in the right places on site to make the deployment successful, and keeping all the parties happy. And the aviation authority, Aviation Authority obviously supported all along the way, we had to be very transparent and communicative about the whole thing, because it is an incursion on their land, right? The airline doesn't own those terminals. They don't get a final say, nor does the ground handler, and so making sure that we have all the partnerships in place and that the. Owner of the land ultimately has the, you know, the thumbs up approval to allow, okay, you know, put in all those chargers in the bag rooms, and whatever the case may be. So that was something that was really proud of. And we got, you know, some nice features from the local partners. And, yeah, it's good project. That's awesome, yeah. And that's, and the cool thing about that is the replicability and the scalability of these projects are so ready and so so obviously, like, Okay, if we can do that here, let's do that in a whole bunch of other places. If you look at the European market, it's it's exceptional to go over and fly through skipple and throw some of these bigger hubs there. It's just electrification. Is just what they do. It's not new, it's not innovative, it's just the right choice. Yeah. And so trying to think about how, you know, you got to take yourself, like, 1015 years back and say, Well, what decision did you make 10 or 15 years ago that allowed you to come to this and, you know, a place like Amsterdam, I mean, all that that airport runs off of wind. The whole thing just Dutch wind. It's phenomenal. That's insane. It's so cool, but it's an investment they made, and so to coming back to the Denver project that was everything had to tie into a greater goal, right? It's not just this little electric tug that is going to make a difference. It's where the electron comes from that powers that tug. It's, it's how that operator now has new skills associated with his job. And it's, and it's ultimately, his safety, the public safety and health benefits, right? So everything kind of can tie back to that greater goal.

Matthew Weitzel: 51:39

Gotcha. And then where does so? Does trc operate worldwide, or is it just North America, or just United States? Like, kind of dive into that real quick.

Joe Annotti: 51:48

We are, we are predominantly North American Europe.

Matthew Weitzel: 51:51

Okay,

Joe Annotti: 51:51

we have worldwide projects, but our biggest footprint right now is North American Europe. We have a big team in London, growing team in mainland Europe, and then the lions share, far and away of our workforces in the US, okay.

Matthew Weitzel: 52:06

And then what was the first GSE show that you you attended?

Joe Annotti: 52:11

Oh, um,

Matthew Weitzel: 52:14

because I met you at GHI Toronto, and was that, was that your first show? Or

Joe Annotti: 52:19

No, I think the first dedicated show was in Toronto.

Matthew Weitzel: 52:22

Okay,

Joe Annotti: 52:23

there's been some GSE show at, sorry, there's been some GSE product at some other shows, like, you know, ces or something like that, right? There's sort of tangential, but not dedicated. But yeah, Toronto was the first one. I was in Lisbon here recently, last month, yep. And then I'll be in Barcelona next month. Yeah. So what are you going to do, doing in Barcelona? I know you're going to be speaking, right? Yeah. I'm on the agenda. I'm, I my my talk. I'm on a panel on the, I think the Tuesday afternoon. It's a technology and implementation panel, so looking at, sort of the new what's next in the market, and then how to get there. So I can't speak technology. I, you know, I'm no chemist, and you got to be a chemist at this point to understand batteries. But I'm on the how to get there side of things. You know, we've got something new. How do we find the resources, the partners, the funding, to get to that point? So I'll be speaking in Barcelona, December 3.

Matthew Weitzel: 53:19

Nice, yeah, yeah. That'd be, that'd be a great show, exciting, yeah. And have you found the GSE industry to be?

Joe Annotti: 53:25

It's incredibly receptive and and, and willing. I mean, there, there's, you know, some of the other markets that we work in are incredibly entrenched. And what I mean is, like, Okay, we've done this for 50 years. It's just how we do it, which is fine, they're probably right in some cases. But I've been particularly impressed with with the GSE space and the ground handlers for their their willingness to not accept change but foment change, their willingness to actively diversify or actively modify their operations. I was lucky enough to be invited to a Delta event this year and looking at all the vendors bringing their new products and sprayers and de ICERs and all sorts of stuff. I mean, it's just phenomenal. And how quickly that stuff comes about. That's product that didn't exist eight months ago, nine months ago, 10, you know, kind of thing. And so now, how quickly it comes about and then it's adopted and integrated into it's just incredible how quickly this, this particular market, moves, yeah, and

Matthew Weitzel: 54:32

then, I don't know, I don't think I asked this, but talk to me. So if I come to you tomorrow, like, what does the process kind of look like?

Joe Annotti: 54:41

We're gonna understand the needs first. So you come to me, I need to understand what it is. And the answer can be, Hey, I just need money for a new product. Cool. That's fine.

Matthew Weitzel: 54:50

That's what a great that's a good enough answer.

Joe Annotti: 54:52

That's okay. That's totally sufficient. I know I don't need to get into the whole, you know, religious idiom of what you're approaching here, right? You. So there can be a more detailed answer. It can be simple as just, I need dollars. The next question is going to be, where this market is hugely driven by geography that I will I can't give you the same answer in Atlanta as I can give you in San Francisco as I can give you in Boston. It will be because there's so much state funding, correct, okay? And and also the local utility, if you're if you're talking about zero emission solutions, the utility has to be involved, okay? And so the difference between an Alabama Power and a Georgia Power and, you know, and all these different groups, even though regionally they're owned by the same southern they're going to have a whole different each has their own particular process. And so my answers will be driven by geography. And then the next one is, is, you know, what is the funding need? Is there a there's there a particular line in the sand that you have to cross to make this viable? Is it 50k per unit? 100k per unit, or is it a different type of project, the role of infrastructure? Do you need a charger associated with your equipment? We'll go through that process. All of that allows me to paint the the landscape picture for you. Once we have that, then we start going down the project implementation phase,

Matthew Weitzel: 56:03

okay, then it's like, these are the these would be the ones that are available. These are the ones that we think you'd actually have a shot at

Joe Annotti: 56:09

correct

Matthew Weitzel: 56:09

and then these are the ones we're going to apply for

Joe Annotti: 56:11

available. And when I mean the the the part that I enjoy the most is the forward vision. So once I understand what the landscape looks like for you, then we start penciling out. Okay? In six months, we're looking here. 12 months, we're looking here. My crystal ball is good enough to about 18 to 24 months out. Anything beyond that gets real hard to see from an incentives perspective. Now, my crystal bar ball took some cracks over the past couple weeks. Yeah, I can't see as far as I'd like to these days. But historically speaking, you know, I can kind of see your plus out. And so if I start scheduling things out because you're, you're, if you're buying product, you don't buy for today, you're buying for a year, you're buying for 18 months, you're buying for 24 months. So allowing me to schedule in incentives that I see into your procurement horizon, really becomes the business model that I like to implement, because it allows us to get much more integrated more quickly.

Matthew Weitzel: 57:10

Now this VW grant, you said it's up in a year, yeah? So

Joe Annotti: 57:13

the 10, the first 10 years, yeah, in your state, yeah.

Matthew Weitzel: 57:16

Okay. So then how long does it take to apply? Like, if I came to you tomorrow, and I'm like, hey, I want to go after that VW is the last year. Is that something that's even possible? Like, how long does it take for these things to kind of take place?

Joe Annotti: 57:27

Unfortunately, one of the knocks about the grant, and one of the frustrations about the about working with grants, is that it feels like you're Hurry up, hurrying up to wait, and that that that is true in a lot of cases, because you do kind of have to get all your ducks in a row real quick and then. So, okay, well now I gotta wait for six months until that program opens. That is the case. And so in an ideal life cycle, typically, let's say we start building out a landscape, and I say, okay, you know, Matt, there's a program that's gonna open December one in Atlanta, and we're gonna apply for that. If we apply in December, award notifications come in April, May, you know it'll take four or five months, six months, some cases, to come back. Then you gotta negotiate with the agency to get that award right. Terms and Conditions. Your legals gotta get involved all that kind of stuff. That takes three months and then. So you're looking at now we've applied in December. You're now looking at next August, by the time you can even start the project. And then you've got a two or three year window to implement it.

Matthew Weitzel: 58:30

Okay?

Joe Annotti: 58:31

So it's,

Matthew Weitzel: 58:32

there's got to be milestones that you focus and all these different things and every and that's you help the entire way through the process,

Joe Annotti: 58:38

absolutely. Yeah. One of the big things is, people often take for granted that these awards, like I said, aren't just sort of charitable handouts. They come with a bunch of strings attached. Oh yeah, you know, there's, there's monthly, quarterly and annual milestones associated with all these grants, and you've got to report on them to a sufficient point where the agency says, yes, okay, we'll keep sending you money. Right? A lot of these grants aren't, payouts at the outset, the project partners have to typically spend the money first and then show proof of that spend to get reimbursed for it. So there is a capital front to a lot of this.

Matthew Weitzel: 59:16

Yeah, I don't, I don't know how anybody would do it without a company like a trc to help them through the process. I mean, are there, though, companies that sure do this by themselves, and are, I mean, are able to do it?

Joe Annotti: 59:28

Well, it's, it's, there are plenty that can.

Matthew Weitzel: 59:31

Are they, like fortune 250, companies type of thing,

Joe Annotti: 59:34

yeah, okay. It's, you know, a lot of times these guys have a dedicated team, like all the dedicated grants. Okay, yep, that does the life cycle approach. Now we help a lot of those companies too, because it is resource intensive. A lot of these companies can't just take I have 25 people that go out and track grants, and then we have a team of about 50 grant writers. There's no other company that that can like just build that on their own. So being able to supplement. That their team with mine allows for a lot of efficiency.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:00:03

Okay,

Joe Annotti: 1:00:04

right? So that's kind of the idea is that we're not trying to, we're not trying to do it all we play, we oftentimes play a supplemental role, but it adds, you know, an extra amount of horsepower that would otherwise be unavailable to these companies.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:00:19

So you all can do it all by your own, or you can supplement,

Unknown: 1:00:22

Yep, absolutely. So we, you know, there's clients are of ours that were their back office, effectively, for grants that we just we are in. We are sort of built in with them. And there are other companies who are, you know, massive, you know, Fortune 50s, that use us for supplemental, sort of that extra bit of overdrive. Yeah, we can play those roles.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:00:42

That's awesome.

Joe Annotti: 1:00:43

Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 1:00:43

what? What haven't I covered? What haven't I asked you today? Oh, boy, the Jaguars demise, we can go. I don't, do we want to go into that? I don't know if that's where. Well, I was kind of thinking more of the saints. Demise,

Joe Annotti: 1:00:57

sure. Well, hey, we gotta, we gotta win yesterday. Oh, that's true, yeah. So we're, we're putting that first place pick further away, which is a bummer, but, yeah, that's the only problem. Yeah, yeah, that's a tough thing about winning when you're terrible. No, it's been an honor, you know, to kind of understand the market. And I think that's what I'm excited about going to see in Barcelona too, is because there's, there's going to be a lot of Americans at the show, but that show, just by virtue of being in Europe, is going to see innovation that we would be otherwise not exposed to. And thought leaders from I'm particularly excited to hear about some of the Eastern European and Asian markets come to speak about that, about their efforts, and then I think the next big ones in Vegas in the spring. So, you know, looking at that show and kind of seeing kind of what's new, what's great, it the next few months are gonna be very busy politically speaking, and just kind of understanding what this transition, transition actually means for a lot of companies. Up to this election, the market has been very tentative. People, people, corporations, have been hesitant to make big spends because they didn't know which way the winds were going to blow. Well, we now know that, but it's incredibly blustery, and it's just really hard to see kind of where the firm footing is going to come from. So that will all be scheduled out over the next few months, I think. And so as we get a little bit more understanding of different initiatives and efforts, and we're starting to see Cabinet picks come through, now, I think it'll be very telling on what the market's going to bear over the next few years.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:02:34

So last question here, because I've just started thinking of this, so I guess my question is, like, if you're looking at this, like, from a GSE exclusive perspective of we have right now electric and internal combustion, there's really no hydrogen, really, that I've seen really out into the airport. There's definitely some LP, especially in Denver, as you're talking about right kind of where do you see these landing in the next five years? Do you think we're gonna like, so do you think electric equipment will work? Perfect for bag tractors and belt loaders and pushbacks, but then you see maybe hydrogen for de ICERs or like, what I guess. Where do you see that? Or do you see it all going electric? If you just had a crystal ball and Joe just had to guess with your amount of knowledge, Is there stuff that other industries are using that we're not thinking about yet?

Joe Annotti: 1:03:33

That's a good question. I think, I think the role of renewables even in zero emission solutions, but the role of renewables is going to take the forefront you look at distributed energy resources. So, you know, yes, you're going to put chargers underneath your terminal, but on the top, you're going to put solar to power those chargers, and so putting in energy management systems. So I think I'm not trying to sort of skirt what you're asking.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:04:02

Okay,

Joe Annotti: 1:04:03

but I think the role of where that power comes from and how it's managed is going to be more prominent than, ultimately, what is the propulsion system for? The View,

Matthew Weitzel: 1:04:13

interesting, yeah, okay,

Joe Annotti: 1:04:15

just because of how, how important the the management of the energy is now, I think it's going to take more of the driver's seat than actually, ultimately, what propels that vehicle forward.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:04:26

Do you think the US is going to move towards nuclear power?

Joe Annotti: 1:04:30

I mean, move again, I suppose.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:04:32

Well, yeah, I know we're still, I know we're doing it, but I didn't know if you thought that there'd be more coming in. Or

Joe Annotti: 1:04:38

if, if you look at the forecasts for what zero emission freight movement and zero emission people movement could be in the future. You can't get there with the power generation that we have today.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:04:50

Yeah, that's the reason I'm asking. Yeah, no, if you thought that that was, that's going to be what we're going to be looking

Joe Annotti: 1:04:56

I mean, unless, you know, unless cold fusion comes, yeah, soon. You know, I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to get from A to B, yeah, without without power, yes, yeah. So I don't see it. Sorry, I don't see that the current power generation abilities get us from A to B. Okay,

Matthew Weitzel: 1:05:17

that's where we want to be,

Joe Annotti: 1:05:18

yeah, yeah, you know. I mean, you, you, I mean, California is great use case for that. I mean, just the the amount of power that they can provide is insufficient to meet the state's goals for zero emission transportation period. So unless you're somehow gonna build a bunch of new combustion programs or find a whole bunch of water that they don't have to provide renewable power. I don't know how you're going to do it, so you got to look to the nuclear stuff.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:05:48

Yeah, and then everybody's got a Tesla out there.

Joe Annotti: 1:05:51

Yeah? I mean, and apparently everybody everywhere is going to have a Tesla soon enough. So yeah, that's who knows. Yeah, I don't have my electric car yet. No, or do you No, I have a 1987 GMC Suburban,

Matthew Weitzel: 1:06:04

very close. It's super it's right there.

Joe Annotti: 1:06:07

I'm hardly the Zero Mission evangelist.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:06:09

Okay,

Joe Annotti: 1:06:10

so I don't want to, I'm not trying to greenwash anybody, because I am certainly not that persona. Oh, that's hilarious, awesome, man. Well,

Matthew Weitzel: 1:06:18

well, unless there's anything else, I mean, I appreciate that. Tom, this is this has been fantastic, very good learning experience for me, and I appreciate it. Sometimes I don't have all the all the right questions ask you, because you know you seem to know a lot about this space, but hopefully we got enough information out there today for sure. Kind of talk to people about what you do and how trc can help out if that's the route that they choose to go. But I just really appreciate you coming on. Good luck in Barcelona. Sure you'll kill your speaking engagements, looking forward to it. Appreciate the time. Man, all right. Man, thank you. Thank

Unknown: 1:06:49

you.

Matthew Weitzel: 1:06:53

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