Matthew Weitzel: 0:07

Celebrating 10 years of trailblazing in ground support Xcēd marks a decade as your leading partner in ground support equipment leasing at the forefront of both short term and long term leasing solutions. Xcēd adapts to your unique operational needs, whether you're ramping up for peak season or planning for long term growth, we provide the right equipment to keep your operations running smoothly. This anniversary, we renew our dedication to empowering your ground operations with efficiency and innovation. With Xcēd, you're equipped for success today and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow. Exceed driving excellence on the ground year after year. Explore more at exceed gse.com this is Brad Compton. This is Luke brown. This is Jeff Barrett. This is Tessa Fauci, and you are listening to the GSE podcast. I am here with Mark di Maria and Billy Ashe. Mark di Maria, formerly of Textron and Billy Ashe, a current Textron employee, and Mark, I will, I will start with you, and I just want to hear a little bit about your career and how you started in the ground support equipment industry. I want to go the whole way back.

Mark DiMaria: 1:28

Okay, I started off where I was working overseas, and I came back to the states to live and I wanted to get overseas again. So a friend of mine says, Have you ever tried the airline industry. And I was thinking, why would the airline industry want a diesel mechanic? Had no clue. So I applied for Saudi Arabian Airlines, and I ended up getting a job in Saudi Arabia as a technical instructor for GSE, and that was back in like 1990 so it's a couple years back. So I went to Saudi Arabia, and I worked there for close to 10 years as a training on GSE mechanics.

Matthew Weitzel: 2:13

So you were, were you working in diesel, I'm guessing, like, Where does your career start, before ground support equipment, then in diesel engines?

Mark DiMaria: 2:20

Yeah, just diesel in general. I work for an oil research company right out of tech school. And funny enough, I didn't work on many diesel engines. At first in the oil industry, I worked on everything else, really funky machines, and then I ended up working on remote crews, like in Egypt and Dubai, on all types of equipment.

Matthew Weitzel: 2:43

So you started out stateside, and then, and then got this opportunity out in Saudi Arabia.

Mark DiMaria: 2:49

Well, I worked international for oil research on a ship, Spain, Ireland, Norway, New Foundland, and then went to Egypt for on a land based crew, went to China on a crew up there for a little over a year, and then went to Dubai. Here. What was Egypt, Dubai? And then China went back to the states for about three years. And that's when this opportunity came up to go to Saudi Arabian Airlines. Wow,

Matthew Weitzel: 3:17

that's incredible. So then, so you're at Saudi Arabian Airlines, and then does this tug at that point are Stuart and Stevenson, like, who gets a hold of you at that point from and then, how did you make your transition from Saudi Arabian Airlines to, you know, landing at the tug slash Textron? Well,

Mark DiMaria: 3:34

Bill o'conn and Ben Reeves came to Saudi to do some training, but it happened to be during one of the Saudi holidays, so no training was going to happen. So Ben asked, Hey, would you like to go out to dinner? Well, I was playing on a men's softball league So, and we were short people, so I just told them. I said, Hey, look, I can't go to dinner, but you guys would like to come out and watch some softball and eat some hot dogs we'd love to have you. Ben Reeves popped up. Yeah, they came. And I picked them up at the hotel. We came out to the compound, and while we're playing softball. And after the after the games, he was talking about they wanted to open up an office in Europe, and was want to know if I'd be interested in being a manager for the European office. And I said, yeah, definitely interested. A few months later, he sends me an email. He says, if you're still interested, I'd like to take the talks to the next level. And I just sent him back an email and said, welcome to the next level. And next thing I know, I got hired and went to work for it was when Stewart and Stevenson had just bought tug, okay, and I went to work in Amsterdam.

Matthew Weitzel: 4:48

And is this the broom closet? The infamous,

Mark DiMaria: 4:51

the infamous broom closet, okay, at klm, you know the equipment services, yeah, that was,

Matthew Weitzel: 4:57

I've heard a lot about that broom closet. Yeah. Yes, it

Mark DiMaria: 5:01

was, it was, it was small that

Matthew Weitzel: 5:03

That's hilarious. Let's get billion on this conversation. I

Billy Ash: 5:07

met Mark in the late 90s, and we did air conditioners. Stewart and Stevenson bought Lear Sigler, okay, and so we built the air conditioners, and I was over there doing some repairs. Mark was doing the training. So we got together. He invited me to his house.

Matthew Weitzel: 5:25

So, Billy, how did you start your career? Did you grow up in Texas and then somehow start working for Stewart and Stevenson? Or how did all that work?

Billy Ash: 5:32

I grew up in Tennessee. Okay, graduate. As soon as I took off to Texas, because I had some friends down there in Houston working in the construction business. I went down there, moved in with them, started working, walking to the store, guys. GTO was broke down. I said, Hey, can I help you? Said, Yeah, ma'am, I put oil in the car, and now it won't start. It's all lights on. I said, Okay, let me check it. Checked all he had overfilled it. Oh, and I said, Man, you put too much oil in he said, Man, the oil lights on. I put oil in it. I said, Man, it's too much oil. It's not going to turn over. Can you fix it? I said, Yeah, I fix it. So I towed his car to his house next day. I fixed it. He said, You need a job. So I got a job, but I'm always looking for something else. He said, Well, I'm the personnel manager for Sherman Stevenson, so if you come see me Monday morning. I'll put you to work, and I'll pay you good I want to work for Stewart and Stevenson. That is

Matthew Weitzel: 6:25

the craziest story. No idea that's that's the the Billy ash origin story. Just got lucky. That is, that is so funny. I love that. So Stuart and Stevenson at that time, what were they? What were they building? So I'm guessing pushbacks and air starts and things like that.

Billy Ash: 6:41

Push backs, air starts, and GPUs, okay, that's it all,

Matthew Weitzel: 6:45

right. And then at some point, tug, or, well, Stuart and Stevenson bought tug, correct,

Billy Ash: 6:50

yes, okay, Stevenson bought tug, and then they moved, took the GSE from Houston, and since tug had the property in Kennesaw, moved everything to Georgia, okay?

Matthew Weitzel: 7:02

And then at what point then did, I guess, Stewart and Stevenson wanted to sell off their product? Yep,

Billy Ash: 7:09

they sold it to

Mark DiMaria: 7:11

Jacobs, yeah, the airline industry, or the airline proportion of their company, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 7:16

and that's when I came on, is right after that? Yeah, okay, technologies, okay? And then they kept around. Well, so what happened to the GPUs? Because at some point we well, tug bought davco, right? So where did the GPUs go that you said that steward Stevenson was building, they

Billy Ash: 7:33

just discontinued it, okay, matter of fact, it rolled over to tug technologies, but then they phased it out because wasn't profitable. They couldn't tug. Wanted to build everything on assembly lines, yep, and GPUs, air starts tough to do. They were their Bay builds, right? Yeah. So when they had the needed the room and other stuff, Mark probably knows more about now. I mean, he's there. I was still in Houston, because they never made me move, because travel, yeah. So they just wasn't profitable, so they discontinued it. Well,

Mark DiMaria: 8:04

Stuart and Stevenson had a special area where they built all their own wire harnesses. And they actually used to build their cards for the GPUs, the electronic Oh, wow. Boards, okay. They had a separate section that did all that. So when they moved the factory from Houston to Kennesaw, they didn't move that part of the factory. So there was, it just didn't make sense anymore to to continue building them, because they required all that pre assembly stuff.

Matthew Weitzel: 8:34

Yeah. So then they just got rid of the GPU line, and then at some point, tug got Dave CO and then now that's been sunsetted as well, right? Okay, awesome. And then Billy, at what point, so were you working always remotely, doing like a traveling technician? Because we haven't told the audience here that doesn't know you. I'm sure a lot of people in the GSE industry know you, but you're a traveling technician for Textron GSE, and you have been a traveling technician for a very long time. At what point did you start that portion of your career?

Billy Ash: 9:05

Well, at Stuart and Stevenson, I worked on in the test cell. We built GPUs, we built air starts, we built the push back so they needed they had a test cell. They'd send it down there. We would test it, fix all the little issues, ship it. So I was in that apartment. We had a guy, this older guy, and he was doing the traveling, he got hurt, and they come to me and they said, Hey, we need you to go to Abu Dhabi. I said, I don't know where Abu Dhabi is at. I've never been out of the country, right? Oh, we're gonna get you everything. We're gonna get you a passport. We're gonna do this, and we're gonna get you everything, and we'll show you how to do it. And I'm like, Cool, let's do it. Got me to passport, sent me to training. I went to Detroit training, learned how to tune in just the Detroits, and they sent me to Abu Dhabi, and I did my job, and I came back and they said, you want to go to California? I said, Yeah, I'll go to California. Been doing it ever since.

Matthew Weitzel: 9:57

So do you have an estimate on how many kind. Trees you've been to throughout your career?

Billy Ash: 10:02

No, around the world. I've been around the world 27 times, complete trips. That's incredible. I can't tell you which way that way, yeah, I know the numbers 27

Matthew Weitzel: 10:16

so what kind of status? What kind of status are we talking about here on the airline of your choice. I was

Billy Ash: 10:22

global service on United for a while. Okay, now I'm 1k because I don't travel overseas much anymore. Okay, yeah, let the young kids do that. Yeah, exactly.

Matthew Weitzel: 10:31

So, so mark where, at what point in time did you move from the broom closet back over stateside? It

Mark DiMaria: 10:39

was, I want to say, around 2000 2001 so I was in Amsterdam a year, okay, territories Europe, Middle East and Africa. So I was constantly traveling. So then I moved to Houston for about a year before they transferred everything to Georgia. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 10:57

so you were actually at Stuart and Stevenson in Houston, in Houston. Oh, okay. And then you moved at some point to to Georgia, yeah.

Mark DiMaria: 11:05

So I moved in less than three years. I moved from Saudi to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Houston, and Houston to Georgia.

Matthew Weitzel: 11:13

That's incredible. So what was your title? Then, when you moved over to Stewart and Stevenson and then eventually to tug.

Mark DiMaria: 11:21

I was a manager for the European office. When I moved to Houston, they didn't, they weren't quite sure where I was going to fit in. And then shortly, they made me the service manager.

Matthew Weitzel: 11:32

Okay, so. And then when I came on in 2007 I think you were, you were the service manager, right over warranty and repaired all that kind of

Mark DiMaria: 11:41

stuff. I've been doing that pretty much since 2001 I guess, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 11:46

yeah. And then you, you have now ended your career at tug, right? Congratulations.

Mark DiMaria: 11:52

I have almost 25 I was a week shy of 25 years.

Matthew Weitzel: 11:56

That's an incredible career, yeah. So what were your biggest takeaways over these 25 years, I

Mark DiMaria: 12:02

guess over the last few years, the technology has really changed. I mean, it was for a long time the technology just stayed pretty much the same. And then I would say, over the last maybe six or seven years, when EPA, you know, engine regulation, started changing, the technology just really started

Unknown: 12:22

changing, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 12:24

and the engines started getting larger, and then, obviously, electrification. But electrification is not new by any stretch of the imagination. Billy, I'd love for you to get your opinion on this whole thing, because even though we have more of a focus on electrification now, we've been, you know, dealing with electric equipment forever. And GSE, right,

Billy Ash: 12:44

yep, the PLC, when the PLC came out and took all the relays away, yeah, took a lot of mechanics away, yeah. So now you got to have a laptop to do everything. You carry a laptop. You do everything with a laptop. If you don't have the software to connect to these PLCs, you can't fix it.

Matthew Weitzel: 13:01

Yeah, it's all it's all there. So I mean, was it a hard transition for you to go from working on mechanical to, you know, the PLCs and all that kind of stuff?

Billy Ash: 13:12

I wouldn't say it was hard. I would say it was a training experience. You either did it or you stayed behind, yeah, so you move forward, or you stay you stay behind. A lot of people don't like the new technologies, and they didn't want to do it. Yeah, I bang a key on a computer. So I like learning new stuff. So it was okay with me. Do you do the hunting pack? Is I do? Oh, you have two fingers. But really, I love the enter key. Oh, yeah, that's your favorite download, the program enter and yeah, exactly,

Matthew Weitzel: 13:42

yeah. It works a lot of times. I mean, I don't know that that's true or not, but I mean, sometimes that's the fix, right? Is updating the software, sometimes,

Billy Ash: 13:50

sometimes the software, tweaking the software, you can find emissions, like Mark said, it's crazy, you know, depth fluid came out, and once the emissions came through, you know, we rely on Deutsch and Cummins and everybody. Sometimes we can't rely on them because we're there. Yeah, we have to have their software. We have to have the ability to do what they can do. And Mark was great, because he always wanted us to have the best equipment for a service guy. If I call mark and say, Hey, I need to come in software, I can't call Cummins in here get it done, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 14:22

yeah, because Mark understood it, right? He grew up kind of in the same way that you did with this whole thing, right? So Mark came from being a service guy into then, you know, kind of leading a team, and so he understood what was what was required, right?

Billy Ash: 14:36

You couldn't ask you when you got somebody who's been in it and traveled and done it, yeah? When he I call him Mr. Mark, I got a problem with this electrical drawing, I don't think it's right. Yeah, I think engineering done, maybe made a mistake or something. He sat there and work with you, you know, until you hold it, yep, it's here. Let me go talk to this guy, because he's there. Yeah, go talk to me. Call me back. Say, yeah, you can do it this way. Let's see works.

Unknown: 15:00

Yeah.

Mark DiMaria: 15:00

So yeah, I'm a firm believer have the right tool for the job. So it's when they were out there. And I'd say, just get it. Get what you need. Let's do it.

Matthew Weitzel: 15:08

Yeah. And you all have known each other since what year was that that you all met? I'm sorry.

Mark DiMaria: 15:12

Well, it's funny, my son we we met when my son was a year old. He's 35

Matthew Weitzel: 15:18

that's incredible. So before you all well, I mean, I guess you you were working for Stuart and Stevenson, right? But you weren't yet, so, and

Mark DiMaria: 15:26

that's funny, you know, we're at the house having a few beers, and I told him, I says, I might be your boss one day. And he says, Well, I don't care. Four years later, I was his boss.

Billy Ash: 15:36

Been a great boss. Yeah, good,

Matthew Weitzel: 15:38

good. That's awesome. What's the one service call Billy that you remember the most? Like, what is the one that sticks in your mind that maybe was couple weeks long, you couldn't figure it out, whatever? Just a funny story about one that just you couldn't get it, and then it was just having to come along, or whatever. You have a good service story. For me, there have been a ton of, yeah, you pick your favorite one? I you know, everybody listens this podcast. They love a good story. So

Billy Ash: 16:06

I was in El Salvador. Shouldn't have been there. They flew me over from Puerto Rico, took me off a plane, fixed the fixed the machine, put me in a room for five hours until they can get me back out, brought me food, and a security guard standing outside the door I couldn't leave, said, No, you gotta stay here until, until the plane leaves, we'll put you back on it and send you back

Matthew Weitzel: 16:31

out. This was in El Salvador. Yeah,

Billy Ash: 16:35

Syria. I've been to Syria. I've been all over the Middle East, China. Were there

Matthew Weitzel: 16:39

a ton of places that you felt unsafe. Syria, Syria, Yeah. Syria, like, Yeah. I bet that was not a good one. Yeah.

Billy Ash: 16:48

We were in Syria starting an aircraft, and we didn't have headsets, so we were like, Okay, we're gonna tell the pilot when to throw the fuel to the plane, right? So we're spooling the engine over. He throws the fuel. We don't tell him fuel's running. All about back out the engines. I mean, fuel is just dumping. Everybody takes off running. I'm standing by the airstart. The hell am I gonna do? Gotta run too. Yeah. So we got it shut down, and everything's okay. It didn't blow up or nothing, but it was scary.

Matthew Weitzel: 17:16

Oh my gosh, Mark. Mark, what's your favorite service story?

Mark DiMaria: 17:22

I don't know if I have a favorite service story. I know I've had some good trips.

Matthew Weitzel: 17:26

All right, let's talk about a trip. Then,

Mark DiMaria: 17:29

when I worked oil research, I was in China, and I happened to go to the Great Wall on my birthday. 30 years later, on my birthday, I was on a trip in China with Billy, and we got to tour a lot of different areas. We we took trains and we went through multiple cities. It was awesome. And I was used to be married to a Thai so I love Thai food. We love beer and we like music. So we were in this little town. I don't I can't even remember the name of it, but we, we walked by this restaurant. It was Thai food and craft beer. Oh, check this out. So we went in there. Sure enough, Thai food is good, craft beer, all kinds of different craft beers. And then they had a big screen TV, and they were playing the 2010 guitar Crossroads Festival on the screen. So it was awesome. I mean, we're out in the middle of nowhere in China, some little town, yeah, and eating Thai food, drinking craft beer and watching a great concert. So I said it's like, you know, where else can you this happen? Yeah, exactly. That was a good trip. We I hit more cities in or we hit more cities in China than I had ever done before. It was, it was cool.

Matthew Weitzel: 18:44

So, I mean, I guess Stuart and Stevenson and tug and Textron had equipment all over the world, right? I mean, and a lot, a lot in the Middle East. I mean, hey, you spent a lot of time in the Middle East. Is that correct? I've

Billy Ash: 18:57

spent years in the Middle East, yeah, Dubai, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi, all of them. No,

Matthew Weitzel: 19:04

were you the guy who would fix those huge were they the ACU eight, oh fours? Were they the 80513434 not the 805134, I'm sorry, somebody else. I know that's somebody else. I don't know why I got that in my head. News, yeah, it's 5134, the truck mounted. AC, yes,

Unknown: 19:22

me, that was you that's mixed

Billy Ash: 19:26

a bunch of them. They're still working. Though, you know they're, are they really? They're still going Qatar has got them. Dubai's got them. Emirates has them. Qatar, they're in Oman, they're still working. Still going strong. That's incredible. Philippines. I just worked on one in Philippines. I just got, I was there, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 19:44

you still do a little bit of international travel. It's just not what it used to be.

Billy Ash: 19:48

It's not what it used to be, yeah, I still do it, yeah. And something comes up and they need my certain information, or some information that I have, I can do it. I still do it,

Matthew Weitzel: 19:59

yeah, yeah. So, you know, we went out to lunch before this. So just a little bit of background in case, you know, we have a listener for that, for some odd reason, hasn't listened to every single podcast. I used to work for tug and Textron GSE, so I've known you guys since 2007 but you know, we went out to lunch before this, and we're talking about training, right, and how training is so important. And Billy, I just kind of wanted to give you, like, a little bit of a forum here to to discuss, you know, kind of your thoughts on, on how we can, you know, help move the industry forward, really, via training.

Billy Ash: 20:39

I think the internet, if we can do more YouTube videos of fixing equipment and get it out there on a YouTube channel, like cars, yeah, hook stuff on cars all the time. My daughter brings me her new car. You know, the CX five never worked on them as the CX five, I good. I Google it, pull it in the shop, put brakes on it fixed, if we can get into that more. And I think a guy, a technician, hasn't been trained because he hasn't had it yet, he can Google that and say, hey, I want to work the conveyor, on the conveyor, bet and see what's wrong with it. If it's there, it'd be great.

Matthew Weitzel: 21:17

Oh, the housekeeping is here, so we're going to take a little bit of a break and we'll be right back, all right. Well, we are back after we had house housekeeping come in here, yeah, so that was the first time for that. And, yeah, that was interesting. So we were kind of talking about training and how there's kind of a lack of information out there for new techs, and how you know YouTube would be a great I mean, I know, for me, if something goes wrong in my house, and especially nowadays, you can't afford to hire a handyman or anything like that. It seems like it costs a ton of money. It didn't used to but now it does. So I try to do everything myself, and the first thing I do is go to YouTube. That's great.

Mark DiMaria: 21:56

Yeah, I think YouTube snippets on all kinds of different things would be really useful. Because even in the the support side, somebody calls in, you just tell them, you just send them the link and say, Here, watch this. If you have any more problems, call back and and do that. So I think more of those little YouTube snippets would be, you know, really advantageous for for everybody.

Matthew Weitzel: 22:17

Yeah. I think we just started a new business guys,

Billy Ash: 22:19

yeah. And I think we could do it at the factory, because, you know, we got to test the machine before we put it on our truck. But you know, when it comes off the line, there's guys there who actually, okay, we have this, this, boom, that won't go up, come here if they did it then and say, Okay, this is what we've done, and this is how we fixed it. That's a start.

Matthew Weitzel: 22:38

Yeah. So, I mean, how many times you show up to these service calls. So a customer calls in, they say, Yeah, my belt loader, the Boom's not raising. You fly out to, you know, San Francisco. I mean, are you there? And the people just have no idea what they're I mean, like, what does that situation look like? Yeah,

Billy Ash: 22:58

but I rent a car because I'm a lot my stuff in the trunk.

Matthew Weitzel: 23:02

Yeah, we do need to have a public service announcement about this. If you go to San Francisco, please, please rent a car and not an SUV, and lock your car and don't leave any valuables in it. Yeah, we know about that. Yeah, yeah, you and I know very, very, almost too well about that, yeah.

Billy Ash: 23:19

So yeah, they when we go on a service job, we kind of have a mechanic with us, so we kind of do training in the repair at the same time. Okay? So we show the mechanics always with us, because we have to have an escort because we're on the airport without bad so we try to always do a little training while we're there to do the repair. So training, to me is, I think it's essential you, if you're if you've got a good crew, and you train them, I've been doing a lot of training for United on their air starts, it's cut our calls down. Oh, a

Mark DiMaria: 23:53

ton. We've hardly ever get a call from and if they do call, it's something odd, very strange. You know that we wouldn't normally catch that. So,

Matthew Weitzel: 24:03

so how does that come about? So let's say that I'm a major airline, and I've never contacted Textron about setting up training for my techs. Is that something that that Textron GSE will do? And then, if so, like, how do I go about getting that training that maybe a United has has gotten?

Mark DiMaria: 24:21

Yeah. I mean, pretty much. Just contact the service department and set it up. You know, tell them what they want, give them all the details. Where, how many people you know, what type of training, what level of training, and they'll work with you to set it up.

Matthew Weitzel: 24:36

Do you think that's something that's underutilized? Oh, yeah, yeah,

Mark DiMaria: 24:39

definitely underutilized. I

Billy Ash: 24:41

like it when a customer buys a piece of equipment and adds it to the sale. Yeah? Like, if you, if you call one of ourselves, Brad, say, Hey, Brad, I want these units, but I want training with them. It's done, yeah, commissioning

Mark DiMaria: 24:55

and training. And they do that in some with in the contract, where they'll say, if a new. Piece of equipment is going to a station that they don't have that equipment there, then you know, you'll have somebody on site to do training the first time. Yeah?

Matthew Weitzel: 25:08

And especially if they're buying something new, like they've never had the Textron GSC air start in their fleet, that's super important, right? Because the mechanics don't know how to work on it already and stuff like that, or

Billy Ash: 25:19

what we were talking about earlier, with smart sense, yeah? So if you get, you got units, you don't have smart sense, you're going to get two or three. Yeah, you need somebody to come train on the use of it. Train on what could go wrong, the repairs, optical sensors, stuff like that. This is how it works. It makes them a huge, huge difference.

Mark DiMaria: 25:40

In some cases they they may operate it and think it's there's something wrong with it, but it's actually the way it's supposed to be functioning. So a lot of that is just familiarization and operation training.

Matthew Weitzel: 25:51

Yeah, that's really interesting. I hadn't really thought about that. And I think that's, you know, I think in in 2025 for sure, I'm going to start doing more interviewing service providers, right, and talking to them about service, because I think it's such an important part of ground support equipment, and we kind of only go over like the sales side, usually. And there's this huge service side, you know, behind all of that, and things that happen once that that equipment's delivered. And I was, I was texting, uh, Brad Compton, uh, before I came here, and, you know, he was saying, he goes, Oh, I'm so glad that you're interviewing mark and Billy, because I wouldn't be here without those guys. And what he meant by that was, and I'm sure, is, that you all have supported him and made him look good in front of customers his entire career, right? You know, going back and doing the hard stuff, right? Like the easy stuff's doing the sale, right? It's, backing up that sale after it's done, making sure the proper service is done. And then when we have a unit down situation, when I worked there was always call mark, and then Mark's gonna reach out to Billy or Chris Solis or and they were gonna go and fix it. And that's how we made our name, right? Was standing behind our product and having the service levels, you know, the high service levels, I guess, is what I'm trying to

Billy Ash: 27:06

say. And especially with a demo. If Brad demos a piece of equipment, I go with Brad. Yeah, he said, he says, Hey, man, who you got free to sit with me, because I'm gonna demo this piece of equipment, and I want somebody there. Something happens. I want it fixed while I'm there. I'm not going to be there by myself. And stuff happens. You know, the trucks beat this stuff to death. We truck it across the country. You put it on a truck, and it just beats it up. So you it's, you got to go through it again.

Matthew Weitzel: 27:36

It is amazing, like, I just had a unit show up at a customer's location, and it turns out that there was damage that happened during the some whether it was the loading of the unit or the unloading or while it was on the truck. I mean, stuff like that happens all the time. And I think the customer thinks, oh, it just showed to me, didn't work. I mean, a lot of times it can be damage in transportation, right?

Mark DiMaria: 27:57

Oh, yeah. There's a lot of a

Unknown: 27:59

lot that can happen. I

Billy Ash: 28:01

think the funniest ones, the one we shipped an airstart to Miami, and they never got it, and they still ain't got it, it disappeared. Remember that somebody stole it? It's gone, really, yeah, like our backpack? Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 28:18

that airstart disappeared. Oh, wow, that's incredible. Yeah, I remember when I pulled I think it was the one of the first times I pulled into that Kennesaw parking lot and I bottomed out because, I guess somebody had left, you know, like, I don't know, as a GT 50 or GT 110, sitting in the parking lot. Do you remember this sinking into the ground, into the ground, and there was, like, two, like, you know, huge swells in the, in the in the concrete there i and that is the first time I realized that, you know, not all concrete is built the same,

Mark DiMaria: 28:50

yeah. Oh, that was an asphalt Park. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 28:52

well, that's, that's why, yeah, I just sank right

Mark DiMaria: 28:55

in. Sank right in, yeah. So,

Matthew Weitzel: 28:57

what do you see, Billy, let's go back to electric really quickly. So do you think, do you see less repairs in electric than you do internal combustion?

Unknown: 29:06

Yes, I see less repair on the electric. Okay, so it's, go ahead,

Billy Ash: 29:12

it's easier. I mean, there's not as much to it. It's all electric, but you got to have special trained technicians to work on it, because you got to be able to connect to the controller to see what the controller is doing is, you know, it's not tweaking. You can't tweak something on all electric, yeah, raise the RPM, lower to rpm, you know, change the pressure. Do this. It's a lot more,

Mark DiMaria: 29:35

um, fixed kind of cut and dry,

Unknown: 29:37

cut and dry.

Matthew Weitzel: 29:39

So do you see it as an issue with new technicians, as far as not knowing how to work on electric equipment. Do you see, eventually we're going to have some, some issues because people just don't know how to work on it. We're

Billy Ash: 29:51

already having them issues that people don't know how to work on because they're they're this coming, you know, it's there, and we just okay, we're going to buy you a. Electrics, but they don't train. You didn't got trained on electrics, yeah? So it's a whole different ball game, and it's dangerous. You need the training, yeah? So I have people who call me wanting me to help them fix stuff, and I make sure I have to be really careful. Mark stressed this a lot, yeah, be really careful what they know, know what they know before you send them in there, you know? Because it's, you know, you get shocked by it, and it can be bad, you know, you hit the battery, gets the metal. It's, it's worse, yeah, it'll weld. And it's a welder. So, yeah, it's very dangerous, especially

Mark DiMaria: 30:34

with a lot of the newer, higher voltage stuff coming out, almost like over the road, highway type systems. It's you got to really know what you're doing and know, know where the disconnects are, and know all that. So it's just a different animal altogether.

Matthew Weitzel: 30:49

But so the technicians that are out there today, they're, they're good with internal combustion stuff for the most part, but they just don't, they don't have the training to go in there and work on that, on that kind of equipment, right?

Billy Ash: 31:01

They, you know, we learn by what we do, yep. And then you throw something new at them, and then sometimes it works, sometimes it don't, yeah, yep. The forklift

Mark DiMaria: 31:13

industry has been electric for a long time, so there's a lot of those technicians which are going to transition. They've been working on that on electrics for years, so they may have a little bit of an advantage. So you're going to probably see some people in different industries migrate over because they have that experience. Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 31:30

yeah, for sure. So what do you what do you see as far as when you go to these airports, infrastructure wise, do you see airports like starting to get more infrastructure. Is it? Is it going pretty slow, or do you see it ramping up like you're out there in the field all day? It's going really

Unknown: 31:47

slow. Yeah, really slow to do what

Billy Ash: 31:51

we want to do, to replace a lot of gas powered equipment, diesel powered equipment, and go straight electrics. Yeah, it's going really slow. We're not there yet. We're not there yet.

Mark DiMaria: 32:02

And it's not just the airport. It's actually the power to the airport. Okay, they don't, you know, the they don't have the, the grid, the capacity yet to change over to all electrics. That's going to take some time, yeah, and, and a lot of investment. And then then the question is, who's going to pay for the investment, or who's going to pay

Unknown: 32:24

for it? Yeah, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 32:26

that's interesting. I see a lot of people they're investing in electric, and then I've see other people that are investing in electric, and it's sitting there because, you know, they have, like, a yard now where they can't even get the stuff out. They have it new, but there's no there's not enough infrastructure for them to even put those units in service. That's

Mark DiMaria: 32:45

why you're seeing the mobile charging stations where you have a diesel generator or something else, exactly, powering a

Matthew Weitzel: 32:52

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna, I mean, it'll be interesting to see, because all these companies have these ESG goals, right? You know, whether it be a ground handler and airline and they're mandated to buy a certain amount of electric equipment, but then there's no infrastructure, then you're gonna have to go to these mobile charging solutions, whether it be like an amp cart type thing that has actually, like a Gen set on it, or whether it be something that connects to the gate power. Are you starting to see that kind of stuff out in the field or not really yet. It's It's coming.

Billy Ash: 33:21

It's getting there. It's airports that are expanding today. So they're adding GPUs on the jet bridge. Air conditions on the jet bridge. Air start in the ground. It's on new airports. It's coming. You haven't heard about the air starts in the ground. Oh yeah. Thing is that, yeah, it's look at Dubai. Okay, yeah, they've done it. Their start comes out of ground, really? GPU comes out of ground,

Matthew Weitzel: 33:46

yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Okay, so are you seeing that in, like, in North America, or is that mainly overseas, mainly

Billy Ash: 33:53

overseas Europe and Dubai and Middle East. Qatar is looking at it. They're going for that. Okay,

Mark DiMaria: 34:00

yeah, I haven't, I haven't seen it in North America. Me neither. Okay,

Matthew Weitzel: 34:04

all right, but no, but I know about that, so that's great. This is, I mean, this is fantastic. So I'm learning something today, so I appreciate that. So is that I'm that must be a lot of infrastructure changes on the airport, though, right? They can't just snap your fingers, that's done. It's,

Billy Ash: 34:20

it has to be on an airport, I think, where you're adding a terminal, or you're doing something from ground up, yeah,

Mark DiMaria: 34:26

it's a new build. They're not, it's

Matthew Weitzel: 34:27

not, yeah, yeah. You're not retrofitting that kind of stuff, right? No, that's not happening, okay? But that's still really interesting, all right, yeah. So what other stories do you have? Billy, do you have any other good stories that we can tell on the podcast. Yeah,

Billy Ash: 34:42

I was sitting in a terminal in Japan, yeah, waiting for a flight back to the States, and a guy comes up to me, Billy, yeah, said, Man, I got a tractor down here. It's broke. I need you to look at it. So he walks me down through customs, out of customs, back down, all the way back down under the airplane. And it's setting on airplane. And, yeah, I had to fix it.

Mark DiMaria: 35:05

So he mentions Japan. So, yeah, do you know? Have you ever watched the Little League World Series where the Japanese teams go out and they pay homage to the little figurine out there? I've not. Okay, you got to see that. Okay. Well, that's what the Japanese do when Billy shows up for Jose. I mean, they pay homage to him. He is like, yeah, he's, he's a god for GSE when he goes to Japan, yeah.

Matthew Weitzel: 35:31

I mean, some would say he's a god of GSE anyway, but, yeah, but especially in Japan, I guess

Billy Ash: 35:36

4343 years, you better learn something. So

Matthew Weitzel: 35:40

I've heard that the G and then this is, like, completely rumor, but I've heard that the GSC in Japan looks like, perfect. That's perfect. Oh, it's perfect. I mean, it's like, pristine condition. You

Billy Ash: 35:51

know, you've been in a piece of equipment around, you know, everywhere, yeah, you know, they eat in it. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 35:56

yeah, they're, you don't see that. They don't care. They're hitting stuff with it. Yeah, not in Japan. Have

Mark DiMaria: 36:01

you? Have you ever seen operations in Japan? No

Unknown: 36:04

different group. They all wear different color

Mark DiMaria: 36:07

uniforms. So it's like the ground handlers, you know, the ones that are dealing with baggage will wear green, the ones that are doing fuel and wear blue, the ones that are, I mean, you can actually see and it, it's, it's an orchestra, or it's, amazing out there. The way they do it, and that equipment is, is spotless. They they don't tolerate people, you know, messing with stuff and all that. It's, it's respected, and they really take care of their stuff. You're not

Billy Ash: 36:32

finding a coffee cup and an aircraft pushback trying to

Mark DiMaria: 36:36

drop or burritos stuffed under a seat, you know. Yeah, exactly.

Matthew Weitzel: 36:42

It's not happening. That's hilarious. Yeah, I don't think that the operators here in the United States, I would say, have quote, unquote, respect for the equipment.

Mark DiMaria: 36:52

So if you want to see something spectacular, though, like when I was in Saudi the air starts where the gas turbines, yeah, and they were truck mounted, and they used to have a safety device in there where, you know, you'd have to put the hose in there, and if the hose was out, you couldn't drive the truck. Well, they used to put a coke can in there and bypass that. And at night, they had an air start connected to an aircraft, and it was running, and someone got in the truck, and they had that bypass. Some guy got in the truck and took off. And you know, when the 50 foot hose got to its end, it yanked that gas turbine off the back of the pickup truck. And when it hits the ground, and it kind of explodes at 42,000 RPM, it's, it's pretty spectacular. So, yeah, we,

Billy Ash: 37:44

we had one in Saudi too, that, uh, the guy was saying, Man, something's wrong with this air. Start, it stinks. I'm like, Man, I don't know what's wrong with it. And, uh, cat had got up in there, and it shot the cat up into the airplane. Oh, my God.

Mark DiMaria: 38:00

And, yeah, that cat had been there a while.

Billy Ash: 38:03

Yeah, apparently that's when we started putting screens on the end of the houses. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 38:07

okay, there you go. There's a reason for everything. We fix that, yeah,

Billy Ash: 38:11

to break before you figure out, wait a minute, they need to put a screen. Imagine that smell going into the air. Oh,

Matthew Weitzel: 38:18

I can't even imagine it was horrible. I remember my dad got like a bird stuck in his like, I don't know it's like a radiator or something like that in his car, and they in the air conditioning. It was horrific. For weeks, and we couldn't figure out what it was. Oh, it was bad, yeah. So I can only imagine what that was. Time to sell a car, yeah. Oh, we got rid of that thing. That was a Sundance. It was a fancy car. You know, you remember those deals, all those things were terrible, but they seen it here nor there. So I had one, one last good question for you, but it has since left me because of my, my Sundance car thing. So we'll, we'll, we'll think of it here in one second. But Mark, what else do you have for us?

Mark DiMaria: 39:01

Um, no, I agree. Like Billy, you know, training is going to be the biggest thing, and electrics are going to take off more once they start really figuring out how much the mate how much they're saving on maintenance cost and the, you know, telematics, I think we're still way far behind on the telematics, and I think that connected direct to the maintenance systems. You're going to really figure out what equipment is costing, and you know your maintenance savings on electrics versus internal combustion, and I think that's what's going to really help drive the conversion to electrics a little bit higher speed. So

Matthew Weitzel: 39:38

do we see Billy a move towards telematics and being able to remotely diagnose and fix a lot of the equipment remotely. Is that something that can happen now? Or is that something do you think that we're going to eventually be

Billy Ash: 39:54

able to do that's happening now? We can do it on an alpha four, okay, yeah. Matter of fact, again. Guy in LA has a problem. Had a problem with his album four. He has the app on his phone. I can go, clicked on it. It called our engineers. They went through it, found the problem, had him fix it, done. It's there. Yeah. I think it's gonna be more and more and more. And I think it's a great feature to sell. A selling feature, yeah, hey, we don't need to send our guy. It's gonna and it's been there, you know, they started on the loaders, you know, yeah, and it's been around a while, but it's getting better and better now that you got an app on your phone, you just connect, and it calls somebody, and the engineer looks at, oh, I got a call here. Let me look at it. And they look at it, and then they say, oh, yeah, here's your problem. Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 40:42

because it's like you said, a lot of this, lot of the stuff that you're fixing now is with a laptop, right? So why couldn't you just do that remotely? You can connect

Billy Ash: 40:48

to it? Yeah? Alpha three, alpha four,

Mark DiMaria: 40:51

yeah. And communication infrastructure is getting better, so it's going to get a lot better.

Billy Ash: 40:56

Yeah, we're not there yet, but we're getting there. We're getting, I think it's getting closer and closer to being that the app on your phone is, I mean, that's crazy. It works great. I've used it. I got it on my phone, yeah. And every mechanic that calls me, I said, Man, get this app on your phone. It's 75 bucks. Yeah. I mean, why not? Of course, Mark approved mine. So, yeah, exactly. My 75 bucks. But, uh, they, they're willing. The mechanic in LA was willing to pay for this his self, just to get it done. Just to get it done. Yeah, he got it on his phone. He said, Man, this thing, this is great. What kind of app is this? I mean, is this like a software app? It's the company that builds the software for the Alpha four. Oh, okay, it's their app. Nice, our mechanics control it. And, yeah, it's tied to our system, and it works great. Yeah, it's a

Matthew Weitzel: 41:47

great selling feature. So how many I remember, what I was going to ask you now, how many days in a year, and it could have varied or whatever, but I mean, how many days a year were you out traveling as a traveling technician,

Billy Ash: 42:00

the most of was out at one time was four months steady, gone for four months, three months, two months. But so,

Matthew Weitzel: 42:07

I mean, out of 307 days a year, you're looking at like maybe 200 200

Unknown: 42:13

of it or more. Yeah, he's incredible, yeah, yeah. Now the wife says, when you leaving? Yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 42:21

what are you doing here? I just got home Friday. Yeah, she's like, she's listening this podcast going, I hope they don't make those technology advancements, or else he's going to be around sitting on the couch remotely diagnosing things. Yeah, we don't want that.

Mark DiMaria: 42:34

Yeah, time for you to leave. Yeah, exactly.

Matthew Weitzel: 42:37

That's awesome. Well, yeah, I mean, I, I was actually thinking about doing this podcast. It brought it got brought up the first day that I did. So my first podcast that I ever did was with Brad Compton, and we did it at my house, at a kitchen table. And we get, we get done with the podcast, and he goes, you know, who you really need to have on is Billy ash and Mark di Maria. And he's like, they've got all the stories they they've supported all these customers. That's the people that they want to hear from, and all this stuff. So this has been a long time coming, because I agree with him. I'm like, if I get those two on, it'd be amazing. And I really appreciate you all coming on today and talking to me about about GSE and just about what you've seen and your stories and Mark, I'm sad to see you go, but hopefully we can continue to work together. And you want to kind of tell everybody what you're doing now in your retirement.

Mark DiMaria: 43:31

So yeah, it's even though I've retired, I've just kind of switched careers completely. I am now in promotional products, business and embroidery and, and something with marketing, nothing, nothing to do with GSE, although we do have a lot of GSE customers that it's my wife's company. She's owned it for 28 years. And, yeah, it's, it was a great opportunity, perfect timing, you know, GSE was a wonderful ride 35 years and, but now it's, you know, turning the page and and looking forward to this new, new endeavor.

Matthew Weitzel: 44:05

Yeah, exactly. And if they need your services and they need some apparel or promotional products, where would they reach you? Just on LinkedIn. Aimpromos.com.

Mark DiMaria: 44:14

LinkedIn. We're getting ready to to do our redo the page and all that. But aim promos,

Matthew Weitzel: 44:19

so you've got, how many years now? 4343 How much longer are you planning on going down this road?

Billy Ash: 44:27

I don't know. I enjoy it. Number one, I enjoy what I do and enjoy who I work for. And I work for a great company, great people. They give you what you need to do the job. They give you the time off you need when you need it, yep, until I'm tired and say yeah, I don't want to get on the airplane no more. Yeah, I'm gonna be around a little while longer. Nice,

Matthew Weitzel: 44:47

all right? 43 years. That's incredible. I can't even imagine. So this is I've only done it 17 years, so I'm way far behind you. I've got some I got some time to go so, but any other closing, parting. Words of wisdom from either of you. No,

Mark DiMaria: 45:02

I mean, it's great industry. It's the people you meet and the relationships that you get along

Unknown: 45:07

the way. Yeah, I

Billy Ash: 45:09

know people that's known me all my life down there, since I was in this business. Yeah, you know, that's

Matthew Weitzel: 45:15

crazy. Yeah, it is. I was thinking this morning as I was on a plane here about how, you know, we have this text group going. And I'm sure a lot of people in the industry don't know this, but tug was like a family. I mean, obviously, you know, like old tug, right? Like before Textron GSE. I'm not saying anything bad about Textron GSE, I'm just talking about tug Technologies was, was like a family, right? We're really close knit, and we have a text group that goes, you know, on and off occasionally, and then we get together and stuff like that, that, that Lynn beard put together. And, I mean, that's how close this little GSE family is, is that they, we still get together and do things I haven't got a chance to go to them. I'm sure you all have, right? Yeah. And it's

Mark DiMaria: 45:57

usually around Christmas, or, you know, some kind of a holiday, but, yeah, the old tug group gets

Matthew Weitzel: 46:02

together, yeah? And, I mean, it was, I mean, you know, it was like, just, like, I said, like, a big family, and

Billy Ash: 46:07

Stevenson did that for a long time, yeah, long time. We would always get together, yeah,

Matthew Weitzel: 46:12

it's in, I'd say the we just had a podcast that I record in Toronto, and everybody was talking about how it's just a big community, right? And then we have this new guy starting at exceed, and his name's Jake. And I was telling Jake, I was like, You're gonna love the industry. Never been in the industry before, because everybody's so welcoming, and it's like the nicest group of people you'll ever meet. We have an industry unlike any other, I think, in my opinion, and so anyway, so it's a great industry to be a part of. I've enjoyed knowing both of you for so long, and I really appreciate you all coming on. No, I appreciate it. Yeah. So all right. Well, this has been Billy and Mark and Matt for the GSE podcast. Talk to you later. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the GSE podcast. We hope you found it informative and engaging. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with your colleagues and peers in the ground support equipment community, your support is invaluable to us. We'd appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate and review our podcast. Your feedback not only encourages us, but also helps expand our reach within the GSE community. Keep an eye out for more episodes as we continue to explore the dynamic world of ground operations, bringing you the latest trends, insights and stories from the industry. Thank you for listening to the GSE podcast until we meet again. Stay grounded and keep pushing forward. You.