Chris Pearce: Celebrate the Wins!
Chris Pearce sat down with Matt Allred to discuss his new career and his new venture, Skytec Elevator.
Here are show notes for the interview:
– Chris started working in the elevator industry at a young age, learning from his stepdad during summers. After a detour in the high-tech industry, Chris returned to the elevator industry and gained valuable skills that he still uses today.
– Chris worked in high tech for three years before moving back to San Antonio and joining his stepfather’s company. He had a mentor named Dan Bryant who later became his co-founder and friend. Chris was inspired by the passion for new technology in Silicon Valley and wanted to use technology to bring change and add value to the elevator industry. He realized this during his second stint at Omni Elevator when they developed a mobile time ticket system for independent elevator companies.
– Chris, a former blue-collar worker and elevator troubleshooter, discussed his passion for transparency and helping people in the elevator industry. This led him to start his own consulting business, where he could use his expertise to provide solutions and alleviate the fears and anxieties of building owners and property managers.
– Matthew and Chris discussed how Chris’s unique background in technology and his co-founded company, Data Voice, could set him apart from traditional consulting firms. They explored the potential of leveraging technology, such as IoT devices and data analysis, to offer more transparent and valuable services to clients in areas like elevator asset management and maintenance.
– Matthew and Chris discussed the importance of incorporating data from various sources in elevator maintenance while still maintaining a human touch. They also emphasized the significance of celebrating wins and advised newcomers to find their niche in the industry and follow their chosen path.
FULL TRANSCRIPT: AI Generated
Chris Pearce Transcript
Chris Pearce interview: Zoom link below – September 07
VIEW RECORDING – 36 mins (No highlights)
@0:01 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Chris, welcome to the show.
@1:00 – Chris Pearce
Thank you. Glad to be on.
@1:02 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Thank you. Thank you. I’m excited to be able to talk to you. I think you’ve got a fascinating story from what, you know, from previous conversations we’ve had.
And obviously want to talk a little bit more about your career and certainly from here on out because I know you’re starting a new business.
You’re looking to make some exciting as I see it some pretty exciting contributions to the elevator industry. But I would love to start the beginning and just tell me how did you get started in the elevator industry from the get-go.
@1:35 – Chris Pearce
So when I was 19, I was in college in Northern California. That’s where my dad lived at the time.
And I wasn’t real focused on my studies. And my dad basically he gave me an ultimatum. Said that, you know, I needed to find a job that he was no longer gonna.
Support me in college. So, um, my, I talked to my stepdad back in Texas and he said, hey, I got a job for you.
He owned an operated Omni elevator. It was pretty large independent in the state of Texas at the time. And so I moved back to Texas and went to work for him.
Started out as a 50% out in the field. We were a signatory company in the union. And, um, know, spend probably about two, two and a half years in the field worked up to being a 70%er.
@2:45 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Uh, just pause for just a second. If you don’t mind pausing. And so my question is. In the college, not super motivated.
Obviously dad wasn’t super impressed with your, your track record. What was it that, that got you in. I’m in the elevator industry enough that you could pull out of this funk of, oh, hey, I’m just failing out of college or whatever it was you were doing.
@3:09 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, actually great question. So, I grew up in San Antonio and I didn’t move to go live with my dad until I was in high school, but growing up during the summers, I would go to work with my stepdad.
Maybe it’s only like 11 or 12 years old and I can remember him taking me to some of his maintenance jobs and he’d have me burnishing the contacts on an old Westinghouse controller.
Show me how to do maintenance on a door track or just various things. And I always enjoyed. I was a kid that’d take apart stuff, know, take apart my boombox and then put it back together, you know, that’s impressive.
@4:00 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
I can never get them back together.
@4:01 – Chris Pearce
Well, you know, I always, I usually had an extra screw, you know.
@4:07 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Okay. still worked, right?
@4:09 – Chris Pearce
That’s the man that’s Yes, yes. But, yeah, so I was interested in it. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do at that age, you know, and I think that’s probably why college just wasn’t really there for me, you know, at that time.
So, yeah, it was great getting in there, getting the field experience, some time on modernization, repair crew, and then I transitioned to being a maintenance helper.
And I think that was primarily because I was always pretty good with the customers. And so I can remember we even had some maintenance mechanics at the time that they were great maintenance mechanics, but maybe their strong suit wasn’t communication.
So I could go in there with those mechanics and it was a good marriage, I guess. A good fit between me.
@5:11 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
So it sounds like you like the hands-on, but you also like the people aspect.
@5:17 – Chris Pearce
Absolutely. really, later, I left the industry for a little while, and then I came back. And when I came back, I went into sales.
@5:31 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
So tell me a little bit about that detour. think you said you’d gone to college, worked in high-tech. What were some of the things you gained while you were outside?
@5:40 – Chris Pearce
So I’m in back to California, which was Silicon Valley, and I got a job with a company that was manufacturing disk drives for the computer industry.
And I was a technician. I worked on the capital equipment. I built the disk drives, but I got a chance to work directly with a mechanical engineer and was essentially kind of a mechanical engineer assistant.
And he taught me, you know, all sorts of things about being a mechanical engineer from trying to be how to do AutoCAD, mechanical desktop, how to create builds the material.
I even did some procuring of parts and managing one of the subsystems for him. He kind of offloaded on to me.
@6:40 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
The one that he didn’t want to deal with.
@6:43 – Chris Pearce
yeah, it was a great experience and I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a very transferable skills for me that I absolutely been able to let And in the elevator industry years, years later and even to this day.
@7:00 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah, so and while you were out in California, I think you said you finished your college degree, correct?
@7:05 – Chris Pearce
I didn’t finish then, but yeah, I got a pretty good segue into it.
@7:18 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
And it sounds like the impression I’m getting is that you were a better student the second time around after having had some real life experience.
@7:27 – Chris Pearce
Very much so, yes.
@7:29 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah. Cool. So how long were you in high tech, know, building the disk drives and all that?
@7:37 – Chris Pearce
So I’m going to say I did that for about three years. And then I moved back to San Antonio and went to work for my stepfather again.
This time in a sales role and. Yeah, started out. It’s a kind of sales representative for our Austin, Texas branch.
And it was a small branch for us.
@8:08 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
It wasn’t profitable. It was very it was struggling.
@8:13 – Chris Pearce
And so it was kind of a last ditch ditch effort by him to see if maybe he could save that branch and, fortunately, we were successful in doing that.
And. While there. I guess taking a step back when I first got into the industry, I had the pleasure of encountering somebody that became kind of a mentor.
Of mine and later a co founder, a good friend. And.
@8:52 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Your current venture and then.
@8:55 – Chris Pearce
He is in my last.
@8:58 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Current venture. Yeah.
@9:02 – Chris Pearce
But yeah, a gentleman by the name of Dan Bryant. And when I met him, I was a mod helper at University Hospital in San Antonio.
And he was doing a fire service overlay on the old Otis controller. And he was there like making his own little solid state boards, these little breadboards with wires.
I was just like, wow, this is, this guy’s different, you know, and I was just very much drawn to him so much.
So I actually got into trouble with the mod superintendent at the time. Because I was helping Dan more than I was helping my own mod mechanic that I was working with.
So I got reprimanded a little bit for that. But Dan always kind of stuck out of my mind. And when I took over, took over the sales role years later in Austin, I went to my stepdad.
And that was one of the big reasons why we were successful is I went to my stepdad and I told him I said, Hey, I would really like Dan Bryant to come on board with me here in Austin and help me with this branch.
And he did. from there. The story. Definitely. Grows into how I got into some of the other things I did after my time there.
@10:37 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah, that’s great. And you had mentioned in a previous conversation that, yeah, that things really kind of accelerated after your California experience.
What were some of the things you took away from Silicon Valley from working with hard drives and high tech?
you mentioned specifically this mechanical engineer that seems like he was really mentor for it too. And maybe helps you get to that next.
@11:00 – Chris Pearce
I think overall, more than anything, it’s the passion for new technology there. Right? Valley. We see it here in Austin too.
It’s kind of a sister city to Silicon Valley. It’s just incredible. mean, the risks that people will take to just jump in.
And do whatever it takes for something that they believe is going to change the world. And it doesn’t have to change the world, but I think about it as, I think for me, I very much want to change things in the elevator industry or add value.
And technology is such a great way to be able to do that. There’s always something that somebody is developing that is just mind-blowing and sometimes it doesn’t work out, it isn’t a good fit, other times it might be 10-15 years too early.
Sure, sure. And so yeah, I think just being around that kind of environment is just very engaging and just exciting.
@12:32 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Very cool. So what point was it that you kind of clicked for you that, hey, not only do I love elevators, but I really want to marry up some of this technology with it, and like you said, drive change and drive improvements.
@12:46 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, it was that second stint at Ocami Elevator. Dan was working on a Essentially like an ERP mobile time ticket system for independent elevator company.
And we actually started developing it around Omni elevator’s operations. And I think at the time we were probably one of the first independents in the country to have mobile time tickets.
@13:23 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
We were using smartphones.
@13:26 – Chris Pearce
This was we were using Dell Axiom PDAs. I mean, this is around 2002.
@13:36 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
I’m just like because I’m remembering the home pilot that I used to carry around.
@13:41 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, very similar. The Dell PDAs, they were Windows based. so our software was Windows based. And so I got my first I loved it.
I mean, it was right at my alley to be involved. In helping develop a platform to run the operations of an independent elevator company, from callback management to work order management, time tickets.
We even had a portal to where our customers could log in and they could view the data online. And I just knew it.
I was like, this is the way it’s all going. This is awesome. think that was the point where I really realized that this, I can make this industry more exciting.
For myself, and just what it did been for my stepdad for most of his life. was blue collar. He was a great elevator troubleshooter.
You know, that wasn’t me. That wasn’t my. I wasn’t some exceptional troubleshooter. was more about people in high-tech.
@15:09 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah. Well, part of what I’m taking out of your story is about people, but also about making it more accessible for people, or making it easier for people.
In fact, you had a portal probably years before I heard that term portal, even thought about it. That’s very impressive.
to go back to people is you’re serving their needs by making it more transparent. And I’ve heard you say that word, transparency.
Just, hey, here’s what it is, right? Here’s what I don’t know what that looked like, but here’s the ticket, and here’s when we think we’re going to get it done, here’s whatever information we have on it.
@15:48 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, I do believe that’s one of the things that’s really driving me these days, and has been for a long time, is I think I’ve always had a really good sense of being able to hide.
Identify with people’s pain points and the way that the industry is now, there’s a lot of pain when it comes to the building owners and the property managers and just let’s talk about elevator’s break.
@16:19 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah, yeah, where would you, where are some of these pain points that you see?
@16:25 – Chris Pearce
Well, you know, I think some of it is in that lack of transparency. Things are very profit driven in the industry, which is not a bad thing.
But I think some of what’s been lost is, you know, many, many years ago, you know, they saw their technician, you know, property manager would see their technician.
Every week, every month, you know, they had a relationship with them and, and those things are. John, and they’re just not as commonplace, and there’s a host of reasons, The industry is just not the same times, they’re not the same people.
@17:13 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
They’re busier.
@17:16 – Chris Pearce
know, everybody lives in Greece by text message and email. So that’s where things like the technology, the more the portals or IOT, know, various software platforms, those things really can, in my view, can help enable that piece that’s missing now.
I’ll kind of bring back some of that to where, you know, maybe it’s not as face-to-face relationship as much as it used to be, but it could still be a really solid, trustworthy relationship that they enjoy.
@17:56 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
You can still provide something that they love.
@18:01 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, that’s what drives me with that stuff.
@18:07 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah, thank you. And I’m glad you brought that up. talked about pain points and giving them the information. What comes to mind is, you know, being in recruiting and hiring and years ago I was in HR and kind of one philosophies in my brain is that you know you hire somebody who you can see taking away that pain, right?
It’s like I have this not only fear that I’m going to hire the wrong person but this problem that I need this person and their skills and their, you know, they’ve got to be able to solve this particular problem and the more they can convince me that they’re the one then the more likely they are to get the job and put me at ease and kind of call my fears.
I hear you kind of saying the same thing with technology and with information and transparency that you’re going to have everything you need and therefore the fears can subside.
@18:57 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, yeah, it’s no different with the That could absolutely relate to a property manager or a building owner. It’s very similar.
At the end of the day, people just want their elevators to run. a perfect world, they would never break down.
They would always be running, maybe not in a perfect world, for an elevator technician that would analyze how I’m going to fix them.
They’re going to break. They’re going to have problems. It’s the nature of the beast. Being able to do that in the most efficient and transparent way that it might sound kind of silly, but it makes people feel warm and fuzzy.
@19:45 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Knowing you’re taking care of their problems, knowing that they can let go of the fear and the anxiety and just know that, hey, this is going to be taken care of.
even if it does break down, I know I can trust so and so to show up, take care of my, so that I’m not, you know, having to
@20:00 – Chris Pearce
Stress about it. Yep, absolutely.
@20:02 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
That’s very cool. So what led you to get into consulting and we can talk a little bit more about your business?
But what is it that kind of said, hey, it’s time for me to jump out here on my own.
@20:17 – Chris Pearce
You I think a large part, like it’s all kind of been leading up to this. So I’ve had the pleasure being in a lot of various roles over the years, you know, whether it was sales to, you know, operations, modernization, superintendent, new installation, superintendent, you know, just a lot of varied roles.
I think over the years, one thing that I continually kind of, and I always seem to kind of fall into,
These situations where people are just calling me asking me for advice, you know, about their elevators. And sometimes it has been related to my job, you know, as a lead or something like that.
And those moments, I always come away from them feeling great. Like I’ve really offered something to somebody in a way that they couldn’t have got it from anybody else, you know, maybe a unique approach to it.
yeah, the feedback that you give does feel good moments about really being able to help somebody with their elevator problem.
And hear them out and maybe sometimes there isn’t always a good solution, but just if nothing else, then. I feel like they got something off of their chest or you know even situations like that are really good.
think that people component is a huge part of it and that’s ultimately what’s been kind of driving more of the thoughts around consulting and you know how I can help people with all this elevator knowledge up there.
@22:25 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Right, right. It sounds like you are getting a lot of satisfaction out of doing exactly that. you say, it’s something you’ve been building, your understanding, broad base of knowledge and what’s going on.
so when you go to somebody who has an elevator and a problem and worries or whatever they’ve got around that, you can address it with that.
I’m just the same kind of empathy that you described early on that you kind of get people issues.
@22:55 – Chris Pearce
Yeah. I can see it. For me, it’s very relatable. I think everybody’s got their own individual, it’s kind of its own situation and everything.
if you can recognize that uniqueness in each person that you’re talking to, in each situation that they’re in, it becomes really easy to be able to pull from all the very things that you’ve heard over the years and be able to add value somewhere or be able to help people in a unique way that maybe others aren’t able to.
@23:34 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Right, right. So would you consider yourself a similar to other consulting firms and how you approach it or do you have some different, maybe technology offerings or something that sets you apart from some of the others?
@23:50 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, I mean, that’s an interesting question. I’m not entirely sure yet. My sense is that My focus is a little bit different, definitely with such a strong technology background.
Something that we haven’t really touched on would be a company that I co-founded with Dan years later, around 2014, called Data Voice, when we were building remote monitoring devices.
It was leveraging essentially sensor technology and cloud edge computing, what now people refer to as IOT and it’s become more of a common household name.
But when I look at consulting these days, to me it seems like some of these things could be leveraged to help with, you know, maybe as simple as doing
A higher level of elevator asset management. Or, you know, people are starting to ask about, you know, they want KPIs and, you know, they want call back reporting, you know, various things to be able to help them make their business decisions that they need to make, you know, whether it’s when I need to mob an elevator.
And to me, some of the traditional consulting companies, know, a lot of them seem like a lot of it is based off of, you know, writing documents, know, and heavy dose of that.
And I know that there are those out there that do some of the things I’m talking about and have been for a while.
But I think one can take it maybe. He is fed further with with the transparency and leveraging some of these newer technologies, you know, whether it’s a software platform or a sensor device that goes on top of the elevator.
When you start incorporating the data from all those various sources through the use of software as well. It really starts getting really very compelling.
It’s not all that interesting by itself. So some usage statistics on an elevator. If you just had the elevator ran 1500 times last month.
You know, right? Oh, okay, great. You know, that doesn’t, that’s really not all that interesting by itself. when you incorporate that with some other data, maybe some field data.
From what the elevator technician is seeing out there or with a building manager, facility manager is seeing. Once you start to pull all that together, I think that’s where it gets really interesting and what you can offer people.
@27:19 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Right. What I’m hearing you saying is with transparency, not only am I going to let my customer know that they just ran 1500 times last month.
But maybe I’m going to let them know that as far as where in terror goes, for lack of a better metaphor here on analogy, whatever, break pads.
It’s like, hey, you’ve only got X number, X amount left before this really needs to be replaced. I don’t know enough about elevators to say they have the same kind of thing, but I’m sure there’s a way to measure ropes or whatever shims or breaks or, you know, some of those different pieces that you do replace.
And say, you know, by the next time, you know, we really need to be doing this and then delivering that to them.
They may call you and say, hey, guys, time for an oil change. Guys, hey, we’re ready for you to, you know, do this repair because all this information you’ve given us is telling us that it needs to happen.
@28:17 – Chris Pearce
So please come do it. Yes. Yeah. And it’s, that’s a great point. And, you know, well, there’s, you know, there’s other companies that have been working on this.
And, you think it’s, it’s really important to leverage that data in the right way, you know. I’ve heard, you know, some people talk about, well, I never see my elevator technician anymore since we got this.
IOT device on our elevator. And so that’s not the right way. You know, I think if people, know, people can get.
You’re it more towards using it as a tool versus to maybe take a more targeted approach to their maintenance versus to saying, oh, well, we don’t need to go out there now because the device hasn’t told us that anything’s required yet.
@29:19 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Yeah. Don’t you envision that? Talk me through what is the right way in your mind?
@29:25 – Chris Pearce
Well, I think the right way to do it is to try to incorporate the data from all the various sources that I talked about and not really so much a shift in the way we know how to do elevator maintenance because I think we all know like really what needs to happen.
I mean, you know, some of it is just janitorial. know, you got to go out there and clean off a car.
Top is when you’re doing that, maybe you find a bolt missing or a belt’s not in good condition. And these devices aren’t going to always pick up on some of that.
Some of them are great and they will eventually start to pick up on that. But I think it has to be an approach where you know you’re you’re still going out there and taking care of the customer and doing the visits.
@30:31 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
So the human touch I hear is what I think.
@30:33 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, I think that’s still really important. No, maybe it’s not in a situation where it used to be where you spend your technician spend 1520 minutes with the building manager after he did his maintenance, you know, just talking about whatever and hanging out.
Because the world is just it’s changed, you know, people are busy, you’re moving around more. But you could use technology to be able to see.
Say, hey, he got it. He just left. I just got a notification on my phone that my elevator man left left, you know, maybe it includes a picture of what he did or what he found.
You know, I think there’s still a way to engage with the customers and provide them with that with a really high level of maintenance and transparency and everything.
It’s still be able to move fast and do what’s needed in today’s economy.
@31:34 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Good. Good. you. Thank you. You know, as we’re kind of getting towards the end of our time, but I’m just curious, what’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned throughout your career?
@31:46 – Chris Pearce
You know, I, one of the things I learned from my dad early on was celebrating the wins. So, I think it’s really important for a company when they have a win, whether that win is, it doesn’t matter really what department it is.
You know, maybe it’s that they got a new contract. Maybe that’s they successfully turned over and a new elevator after a big modernization project.
Maybe they got an award. I think it’s important to celebrate those wins with everybody, you know, from the guy in the warehouse to someone up at front desk, to someone out in the field, you know, To me, like the companies that I’ve worked for that have done that successfully have been great to work at and they’ve fostered.
Just incredible achievements. mean, just been so successful.
@33:06 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
yeah, I would say celebrate the wins. It sounds like from your perspective that really drives desire to make more wins, the desire to really dig in and make great stuff happen.
So thank you for sharing that. The last question I want to ask you as we wrap up is, what’s one piece of advice you would give somebody who’s maybe they’re new to the industry?
Not even sure what they’ve latched into. What would you tell them as they kind of start this journey?
@33:36 – Chris Pearce
Sure, sure. tell people that there’s a lot of different paths. You can go in this industry. You know, if it’s somebody that’s in the field, you know, you can be new equipment installation.
You could be mods. You could be repair. You could be a maintenance tech. They all have kind of their own things, right?
You could get into sales, know, you get into management, get on the tech side, software-sided, so varied. There’s so many paths.
I’ve seen people, you know, start out like myself, you know, out in the field and, you know, now they’re doing something completely different still within the industry.
But, you know, being a maintenance company. And wasn’t their path, you know, they write software code. Yeah, so it’s a wealth of opportunity in the industry.
And I would tell someone to kind of find their niche, you know, what they like, and then follow that path, the opportunities there.
@34:54 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Great. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. yeah, I think you’re kind of a living. Witness of that that you can bounce around a lot of different ways.
You can find your own path and then build from it.
@35:07 – Chris Pearce
Yeah, absolutely.
@35:10 – Matthew Allred (Allred Group)
Awesome. Well, thank you again for being with me today.
@35:12 – Chris Pearce
I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you, Matt.