Emerald Kuhns: Be Safe Out There!

INTRO:
Emerald Kuhns, Executive Director of NAESA International. Emerald joined NAESA after working in sales leadership and she has never looked back. After 8 years administering the QEI certification program, Emerald was promoted to Assistant Executive Director and in 2023, she became the Executive Director. Emerald loves the fact that the elevator industry is one big family. She is passionate about safety and wants each and every person to be safe and return home at the end of the day

SUMMARY:
Emerald Kuhns, Executive Director of NAESA International, emphasized the importance of safety in the elevator industry. She joined NAESA after a career in sales and has been with the organization for nearly 14 years, starting with QEI certification applications and progressing to Assistant Executive Director and then Executive Director. NAESA, founded in 1971, certifies and educates elevator inspectors, conducting about 75 classes annually. Kuhns highlighted the need for more inspectors due to an aging workforce and launched a new inspector training program. She also discussed the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated industry and the supportive nature of the industry as a family.

TRANSCRIPT:
Emerald Kuhns 0:00
That safety is my big thing. Just be safe out there. It’s a scary industry, and in a matter of a drop of a hat, something can happen. So always be cautious of what you’re doing, and know your surroundings and be safe.

Matthew Allred 0:14
Hello and welcome to the elevator careers podcast sponsored by the Allred group. I am your host, Matt Allred. In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers. Today, our guest is Emerald Kuhns, Executive Director of NAESA International. Emerald joined NAESA after working in sales leadership, and she has never looked back. After eight years administering the QEI certification program, emerald was promoted to Assistant Executive Director, and in 2023 she became the Executive Director. Emerald loves the fact that the elevator industry is one big family. She is passionate about safety and wants each and every person to be safe and return home at the end of the day.

Emerald, welcome to the show.

Emerald Kuhns 1:09
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Matthew Allred 1:10
Thank you. I’m excited to to be able to talk to you again today and obviously understand a little bit more about your career, your position. And then also, I wanted to ask you some questions about NAESA, just to better understand, you know, how that impacts and fits into the vertical transportation industry. So I guess first question, tell me a little bit about your your background prior to getting into the elevator industry.

Emerald Kuhns 1:38
Prior to get into the elevator industry. I was in sales, and just happened to stumble on this job position, not my current one, but with NAESA, the past Executive Director. Her husband worked for me and said that his wife was hiring. So that’s kind of how I got into this career. I knew nothing about elevators. I knew how to ride one, and that was about it,

Matthew Allred 2:01
right, right? Were you looking for for another job at the time, or what kind of tipped him off to

Emerald Kuhns 2:08
I was kind of looking for another one. I knew where I was at. Was not my forever career that I wanted. So it was looking but not steady looking,

Matthew Allred 2:18
right, right. What, what What job did you first come into? Because you’re the executive director now, but you probably didn’t step right into that role, or did you know?

Emerald Kuhns 2:28
So when I first came in, I was handled all the QEI certification applications, and I did that for a few years, and then I was promoted to do that, and also the assistant executive director. And then in October of 2023 I was promoted to executive director.

Matthew Allred 2:47
So fairly so you did the other job for 12-13, years, something like that.

Emerald Kuhns 2:51
Yeah. So I, I’ve been with NAESA almost 14 years. July will be 14 years I did the other one, probably eight years. And then I switched into the Assistant Executive Director position.

Matthew Allred 3:04
Okay, okay, what? What do you think from your previous career most prepared you for this industry?

Emerald Kuhns 3:13
Um, so in my previous career, I did a lot of customer service stuff, so it was easy coming into this when having that background of working with individuals and having to deal with any aspect that would happen. So it was easier to come in without having if I would have been, I don’t know, grocery store, cart pusher, it would have been different, because I didn’t have that interaction and contracts and stuff like that. So that made it easier coming into this position.

Matthew Allred 3:41
Well, so tell me a little bit about about NAESA itself. How did it get started, and what’s some of the history there.

Emerald Kuhns 3:51
So NAESA was we’re incorporated in Arizona. So it was started in Arizona. It was a bunch of hj, so authorities having jurisdiction, sitting around a table, and that’s kind of how it started. They had their first full meeting in 1971 and it’s just kind of gone after, after that. It’s just kind of branched off and continued to grow.

Matthew Allred 4:13
Right? What was it so before NAESA, what was the problem they were looking at? What were they saying, See, I guess the gap they were trying to fill, and what kind of stirred that conversation? Do you think?

Emerald Kuhns 4:29
I’m

I’m not exactly sure what they were trying to fill, but I know it was a lot of the state chiefs and everything getting together wanting some kind of formality and something that they could all go off of so that they could enforce stuff,

Matthew Allred 4:45
right? Which makes a lot of sense. I mean, we’ve talking about QEIs Give us some kind of certification to so that we know if this person has the ability, you know, let alone a credential, to actually show up and inspect the. Elevator and tell us whether it is or is not safe, whether it should or should not be shut down. And I guess that’s probably a pretty big gap that they were looking at, and that’ll know who was doing that before, and obviously you weren’t around to know. How is that even happening so?

Emerald Kuhns 5:16
And it was a gap that I’m sure needed to be filled, because we need to make sure that we’re safe out there, that what our riding public is on is safe. So, yeah, yeah.

Matthew Allred 5:26
Well, and you’re still filling it today, right? I mean, you’ve got plenty of work to do. What? What’s the primary mission of NAESA? What? What is it that you’re here’s our statement.

Emerald Kuhns 5:39
So we certify and educate elevator inspectors. Safety is our number one concern. We want everybody to be safe out there, but yeah, so we certify and educate them. We hold probably 75 classes a year throughout the United States Canada, so that they get that education. They understand the current codes granted most jurisdictions are not on the current ones, but we have that in the history and archive that they can listen to that stuff if they need to, but just keeping everybody safe out there

Matthew Allred 6:10
right, right? So somebody mentioned to me the other day, which I honestly, I just hadn’t thought that much about it. I haven’t worked a lot with inspectors, but they said something like, you know, this is third party. And this is, you know, kind of the state runs it. Do you have an idea how many states actually kind of control that inspection, versus those that are like, well, you know, any third party can show up and do it.

Emerald Kuhns 6:33
I don’t know the exact number. I knew. Do know that it’s different from every state? There’s some states that don’t require QEI. There’s some that do. Some are third party. Some are not. But without, I could probably look up the data, but I don’t know off the top of my head.

Matthew Allred 6:47
So Is it primarily states, or are there certain cities that are like, no, if you’re going to, you know they, they want to have some say in in who’s

Emerald Kuhns 6:59
you have some cities that have many jurisdictions in them, I think of like Florida, they have like Miami Dade, Miami Beach, the state. So some states have many jurisdictions in them, and they each have their own rules that you have to follow when you were in that area.

Matthew Allred 7:16
Do do inspections have to happen annually? Or is that really just depend on the jurisdiction, and what they’re

Emerald Kuhns 7:24
depends on the jurisdiction.

Matthew Allred 7:28
So, and this is just my ignorance, but I guess some, some it may be annual. Some may say every, what, 5-10, years. Or, I mean, yeah, every five Interesting, okay, yeah. And you mentioned that inspectors are who you’re educating, you’re certifying. I’m just curious, how often do you see somebody come from completely outside the industry, you know, maybe they have related industry or, you know, experience, but say, hey, I want to be an elevator inspector.

You’re

Emerald Kuhns 8:03
You’re starting to see it more and more. You’ll have companies that’ll bring on somebody as an apprentice for a year and get them their training. We actually just launched an inspector training program where you have no knowledge. You can just come into this program. You have to have a mentor who’s from the industry, but you can come in from your local Starbucks and have no elevator knowledge at all, and we will teach you through that whole year long class what you need to know alongside your mentor, and your mentor will have you out there, you know, witnessing these inspections and learning all these tools. But there, there, before we launched this program, there is a lot of people that just come in and they, you know, reach out to the majors or a state, and that’s how they get their training, and then eventually come QEI certified.

Matthew Allred 8:51
Okay, no, that’s fascinating. So you say they reach out to the majors, do they like pay them to be their, kind of, their mentor? Or, I guess it depends, right? I think it depends. I don’t know. Some companies, I know that they will hire you on as their apprentice, and they pay you. I don’t know if it’s half the rate. I don’t know exactly what they pay. And there’s some individuals that, you know, it’s a family business, and the nephew wants to learn, so they just go and shadow that individual and get all their documentation and do that for a year. And I would assume, if it’s family, they’re not probably paying them. They’re doing them after hours or on the weekends and stuff. But it varies from Yeah, so it’s more about, do you have the knowledge, do you have the experience, the exposure to to actually do a proper inspection, and can you pass the certification to to prove it. Essentially

Emerald Kuhns 9:42
, yeah. So yeah, before you even sit down to take the exam, you have to show that you have that documentation that you’ve been out there. We don’t want somebody out there just come off the road and go in. You have no idea what you’re looking at, so they have to show that documentation to us.

Matthew Allred 9:56
That makes sense. How? How much time does someone need to. To to actually qualify for that

Emerald Kuhns 10:02
We have to see documentation that you either been performing or witness in inspections for at least one year.

Matthew Allred 10:08
Okay, cool, cool. I have a cousin, I guess. Yeah, cousin son or something. Anyway, he, he had actually expressed interest at one point, and it kind of scratched my head a little bit because I’m like, Well, I don’t, I mean, I know he did some drafting work and solar systems and, you know, but like, solar panels, I guess is what he was working on. But, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t really know that was even a possibility. But it sounds like it really is. And especially with this new course that you’ve you’ve launched Absolutely, yeah. And then who knows, there may be other courses out there as well, or other companies that are kind of offering that training. What would you say is your biggest challenge as the executive director?

Emerald Kuhns 10:55
Oh, I think just me personally wanting to reach out and be able to interact with all of the individuals. I mean, we have a little over 3000 inspectors, and if I could just be able to reach out to each one of them and have a conversation, make sure they’re okay, make sure they don’t need anything from us. And I do reach a lot of them, just through the travel and the workshops and the classes, but just to reach out and, you know, make sure they know we’re here for them, and that it’s about safety. We have to make sure that when you leave in the morning, you get back home that night to say, right, see your children, your wife, your husband,

Speaker 1 11:33
absolutely.

Matthew Allred 11:33
absolutely. And I think you told me that the, I mean, you’ve got inspectors like all over the world, or, you know, multiple countries. It’s not just the US, but

Emerald Kuhns 11:43
correct. We have United States, Canada, Korea, Guam, the Bahamas, a little bit of everywhere.

Matthew Allred 11:51
Yeah, yeah. And I’m sure in certain countries, you know, maybe, maybe they don’t have certifications, or maybe, you know, maybe they use something different, but, but obviously this is becoming, certainly a world standard of of inspection. You know, know how So, and you would, you had mentioned in previous conversations, just that, as I recall, it seems like there’s a, maybe even a shortage, that there’s more inspectors needed, and that’s probably why you, you know, created that program, and how big of a need is it? Is there any way to quantify that?

Emerald Kuhns 12:28
I know that there’s a need, but yeah, to quantify it, I don’t know. I just from the employment opportunities we see that we post, there’s definitely a need. And this industry is an older industry, so we need to start bringing in younger ones and getting them in and getting them the knowledge they need so that the older ones can retire and enjoy life. I sit on ASME code committees, and I see it there. It’s an older industry, and there’s not a lot of younger ones coming up to learn that code and have all the knowledge that the older one they have, and so we’re going to have a big gap there of that knowledge that is not there.

Matthew Allred 13:10
Yeah, I mean, makes a lot of sense that that, yes, there’s a need and a gap now, but it’s probably going to get even worse as more of these baby boomers retire and and just are no longer working, you know, yeah, are we bringing up up enough to to really fill that gap?

Emerald Kuhns 13:27
Yep, yeah, so and hopefully, like so with this, launching this program, we’re hoping that that helps. We’re not going to be able to fulfill that whole gap. But if that, you know, gives us 100 more inspectors a year, it’s 100 more than what we had to begin with

Matthew Allred 13:43
yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it sounds like a great program. It’s a way to, you know, open up the opportunities for more people that would have interest. And maybe they, like you say, aren’t working for one of the elevator companies, but, but would love to get in there and to participate. So this is a little off the track. I’m just curious, what are some of the challenges of being a female in a male dominated industry?

Emerald Kuhns 14:12
I’ve been asked that a lot when I first came in, it was very intimidating, scary, but I think it’s getting better over time, where you’re seeing more and more women in this industry. We have our own group. It’s women in the motion where I attend those meetings. And so it was hard, it’s hard, and it still is, but it’s it’s getting easier and easier as there’s more and more of us coming in. And that’s great.

Matthew Allred 14:40
It’s yeah, yeah. I talked to a lady recently who joined, you know, whatever, 15-20, years ago, and, and she said that there was a one particular woman who, you know, was kind of like an executive level, or had been there a while, and was able to just reach out and and just kind of build that, that network. And. And I’m sure that you you see that you participate in that. And so I’m sure that helps.

Emerald Kuhns 15:06
We stick together. We all stick together and bounce out ideas off each other. And yeah, so

Matthew Allred 15:13
that’s awesome. That’s awesome. What have you come to love the most about this industry,

Emerald Kuhns 15:19
that it’s family. Even though I don’t see them every day, I don’t talk to them every day, when you do, it’s family. Everybody is so welcoming and supportive. If you have a question, I can call somebody that I haven’t talked to in six months, and they will, you know, sit down and talk with me, or it’s a very family. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 15:39
that’s awesome. Yeah. What’s the most I guess, I guess the most important, or the biggest thing you’ve learned in the last 14 years?

Emerald Kuhns 15:52
Well, from the elevator side of it is the safety part. I not being from the industry, I never realized the things that could happen on an elevator, escalator, so the safety part of it is something that was just wow. Other than that, it just the daily functions of everything was something that I’ve learned and didn’t know that they existed and kept going, you know, yeah,

Matthew Allred 16:22
and you’ve, you’ve stuck around the 14 years. You’ve ever been tempted to go back to sales or sales leadership?

Emerald Kuhns 16:27
Oh, absolutely not. Absolutely not. No. This is my forever career where I will retire. I will tell you when, a lot of individuals, when they retire out of this career, they just can’t seem to retire. They still are dabbled in it. And I, at this point in my life, I could say that when I retire, I’m going to retire and enjoy life. So no, I wouldn’t change it. I love my career.

Matthew Allred 16:52
What? What is one message you would like to share with the stakeholders in the in the industry, be a, you know, company owners or executives or mechanics, or, you know, anybody that’s involved in this industry,

Emerald Kuhns 17:09
just to be safe. Be safe out there. You know, I want to see each and every one of these individuals go home to their families. So safety is my big thing. Just be safe out there. It’s a scary industry, and in a matter of a drop of a hat, something can happen. So always be cautious of what you’re doing, and know your surroundings and be safe.

Matthew Allred 17:33
Great, Emerald. Thank you so much for your your time today, it’s been a lot of fun interviewing you. Yeah, I appreciate it very much, and I wish you the best as you continue to build your career and and also invite you to stay safe.

Emerald Kuhns 17:47
Thank you.

Matthew Allred 17:48
Thank you for listening to the elevator careers podcast, sponsored by the Allred group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting. You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net please subscribe and until next time, stay safe. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai