David Smarte: There’s No Question Not Worth Asking

Intro:
Today our guest is David Smarte, Global Education and Safety Officer with the National Association of Elevator Contractors.
David started his career in 1978 as a union apprentice in Ocean City, MD and spent over 20 years in the field. David started specializing in safety over 20 years ago and joined the NAEC in a staff position in 2021 with a desire to drive safety education throughout the industry. David loves the elevator industry and loves helping keep people safe; he is passionate about learning and believes every question is worth asking.

Summary:
David Smarte, Global Education and Safety Officer at the National Association of Elevator Contractors (NAEC), discussed his 40-year career in the elevator industry, emphasizing safety and education. He highlighted his transition from a union apprentice in 1978 to a safety specialist and his current role at NAEC. Smart praised the industry’s collaborative spirit and the importance of networking and continuous learning. He underscored the need for safety education and the role of organizations like OSHA and NEI in promoting best practices. Smart also noted the underrepresentation of small, independent shops and NAEC’s efforts to support them through training and networking opportunities.

Transcript:
David Smarte 0:00
The one message is, if there’s something you don’t know or something somebody you need to be in touch with, reach out to anybody in the industry, especially NAEC, we’re here. We want to help everyone, if we can, and if we don’t have an answer, we would like to try and put you in touch with somebody that you could get the answer from. And again, that that that would be my messages be safe out there. There’s no question not worth asking.

Matthew Allred 0:25
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 David smart, global education and safety officer with the National Association of Elevator Contractors. David started his career in 1978 as a union apprentice in Ocean City, Maryland, and he spent over 20 years in the field. David started specializing in safety over 20 years ago, and joined the NAEC in a staff position in 2021 with a desire to drive safety education throughout the industry. David loves the elevator industry and loves keeping people safe. He is passionate about learning and believes every question is worth asking. Well, David, welcome to the show.

David Smarte 1:26
Thank you for having me.

Matthew Allred 1:28
Yeah, thank you. I’m excited to be able to talk with you again. I’ll always enjoy our conversations and one of the things that I find most fascinating about you is just how much you love your job. And so you know, after 40 years, how do you still love your job so much?

David Smarte 1:45
It’s always new. It’s the people. It’s just been a great industry. How do you not like something that in an industry where you have competitors that come together to try and help each other, I don’t think you see that in any other industry out there at all.

Matthew Allred 2:03
Yeah, yeah. And honestly, that’s it’s that’s definitely true, from what I’ve seen, and I’ve worked with a lot of other industries, that there’s something special about the elevator industry, and it from my you know, just watching you and others, it’s like, it seems to just give you motivation, give you energy, you know, so you want to continue to just be in that space?

David Smarte 2:28
Oh absolutely I can’t. I can’t imagine anybody once they get bit by this industry, ever leaving it not willingly. Anyhow

Matthew Allred 2:37
yeah, yeah, I hear you. So what is it that you love the most?

David Smarte 2:46
Again, I like the people. I don’t care what side of the track you’re on, merit, union, independent, Major. They’re all great people. And you know, although they might have a little bit of a business philosophy difference, they all come together for the industry and try to make it better safer. It’s just so many people that that have been involved in it that you’ve got Pete Meeks gave me the opportunity to be able to learn to do what I do now, for the last 22 years, getting into the safety component, the training component, and allowing me to volunteer with NAEC, on their committees, and being on the board NAEC, then taking all this to NAEC, when I finally retired from Pete, and right helping them and helping all the smaller, independent shops, and whether union or non union, because they just don’t have the resources that NAEC is putting it together, trying to help with safety, having a voice for them on different committees, whether it be ASME for the code committees or the OSHA Alliance, or, you know, just building technical courses for the certified elevator Technician Program or the accessibility Technician program. It’s just all challenging and fun, and I enjoy the heck of it, and I enjoy all the volunteers and staff and other organizations such as neat workers preservation fund they saw. I mean, I could keep going with them there. Sure, we’re competitors, but we all come together to try and help each other with safety.

Matthew Allred 4:26
What it sounds like is work, for you, is more play than work. It’s, I mean, it sounds like you just you love it so much that it’s like it

David Smarte 4:34
Well, I’m kind of selfish. You know, the networking is a very important part of it all, but I learn every time I network. So that’s the selfish part. I always get something, but I always try to give something back too

Matthew Allred 4:45
Nice, nice. So you, you mentioned Pete, you know, giving the opportunity. How did you get started in the elevator industry?

David Smarte 4:52
I started, actually, with the IUEC back in 1978 Okay, worked for small, independent called VIC. Very short time VIC Elevator, and then I went on to Armor. And then I stayed with armor when they became part of Kone And then Kone bought Montgomery, and that’s when I had left. I was with 21 years the IUEC had a local seven out of Baltimore, and with Pete, I went to him as a as a route guy, became a supervisor, and then I started doing all the training, and then the safety. And, you know, I just took a knack. When I had a bigger route, I’d always take somebody with me, and we’d spend the first couple days doing all the maintenance, and then we do one day learning for them, doing troubleshooting, setting up problems for them. Okay, so that’s kind of how I got into the safety and the training part of it?

Matthew Allred 5:42
Yeah. So you obviously started, you know, way before your time with Pete. But what was it that first i when you realized, I guess, that, hey, this is something I love. This is something I want to keep doing. When did that first kind of click with you?

David Smarte 5:58
When I first started with Vic. I My father had a business, and I worked with him, plumbing, heating and air conditioning. And dad introduced me to one of the Vic who owned Vic’s elevator. Vic offered me a job, and I’d had my fill of having my hands in the toilets and everything with my dad, and I was still I wasn’t even 16 at that point. I mean, from 13 to 18, that’s what I did, or 17, I should say, when I was 17, I got involved, got invited from Vic to start. Once I got my hands on the equipment, I started meeting people in the industry. It was like there’s nothing else. It’s never looked back. I did take a brief stance to go into the military, but I had a broken auricular bone, and ended up not being able to finish, and ended up getting discharged, medical discharge, honorable discharge, went right back to the elevator, didn’t go to any place else

Matthew Allred 6:52
Right, That’s, that’s awesome. So, so it sounds like you, you obviously had a lot of time in the in the field, but it was really these last, I guess, 20 something years, when you started to specialize, what kind of led you to you talked about bringing somebody along with you was, was safety a big part of why you were doing that, to help keep them safe.

David Smarte 7:12
It started out more the training and understanding using the tools properly, and understanding how to troubleshoot, using diagrams and layouts, and you know, for your equipment, trying to figure out that’s kind of where it started from. And then that quickly realized that you have to have safety. You don’t have safety, it cost you more money, injuries, trying to replace people, downtime. So it just kind of felt together, hand in hand. So I guess the 22 years I was with Delaware elevator, about 14 of it or so, or 13 or 14 was just concentrating the safety and the training aspect and trying to build programs. And the whole time I was volunteering with NAEC right helping them with their programs. 2001 I started volunteering with them, and then about almost four years ago, is when I started with NAEC after retired from Delaware.

Matthew Allred 8:09
cool. What would you say it is that ultimately drives safety in the industry? I mean, you talked about, you know, education and, you know, is it what’s what are the biggest factors? Is it policing it? Is it, you know, enforcing it? Or

David Smarte 8:24
You know, policing, enforcing, to me, is not the proper terminology. It’s more about caring and showing to the individuals. You know, the things that we do aren’t a penalty, and they’re not a punishment. It’s for the betterment of them, making sure they get home to their families. That’s the key. You want to make sure everybody gets home to their families. They have families to support, and it’s not fair for the families if they don’t get home. So that was the emphasis Ray Downs always, you know him and I’ve worked together a lot on a lot of things, and Ray and I both have had the same philosophy that, you know you’re not doing your job correctly, if you’re not getting people home safely. Trainings the only way you can do it. I mean, that’s why NAEC got so heavily involved with the alliance, the OSHA Alliance, which partnered up with NEI, IUEC workers Preservation Fund, neat, all of the all the offices of OSHA, some great people that work with OSHA, Anthony Tuohy, Jim Toohey, Sandra Bullock, they were great people involved. The OSHA alliance is still going, and you had all these major Otis and Thyssens all being part of it through NEI that Shared Workers preservation fund absolutely were a great partner Curtis Deville providing with approval from everybody, documents for the smaller companies to help them be safe. I mean, yeah, we may be competitors, but it’s important. That everybody’s sharing the safety and the training of the people to make sure the industry stays safe. We share labor back and forth. It’s important.

Matthew Allred 10:08
Yeah. Well, and I think what it sounds like to me is that, you know, we can call it education, but it’s really just helping somebody be aware that, you know what, the consequences of doing it this way, are going to be so heavy that you’re, you’re not going to, you know, if you can just understand how important it is for you to do it the right way and to be safe, well, then you don’t have to learn the hard way, because, unfortunately, there are those who have learned the hard way, and we don’t. We don’t want to repeat those, those mistakes.

David Smarte 10:37
Absolutely, we learn. You know, OSHA has always been references. You know, we learn from the blood of others, and we don’t want the same thing to happen to other people. So we try to take those and, you know, I know, we try to promote NASA, tries to promote NEI NEAP, all of them, workers, preservation fund, everybody tries to share all those experiences to try and get the word out. You know this, we want to be safe. We want to be a great industry. We already have great industry. We just want everybody, everybody to take heed to that and do the best they can, be quality, be safe, understand what they got to do. And you know, it’s really worked out. Another great partner. I do want to mention is uh, Elevator World. They do a tremendous job with the safety handbook. Uh, NEI, NAEC and NEAP, just recently have completed the remake. It should be coming out on to the market, I would say, published in the next month or two. It’s been a really big, big remake. It’s probably one of the biggest ones that they’ve done. I don’t think there’s a section of the book that hasn’t been unturned. Dot Mehan from nei has been a big part of it as well. Her and I are actually going to start doing some presentations on that different, different events in the industry the next year.

Matthew Allred 11:56
Very cool, very cool. Well, no, and you, you’ve mentioned, you know, multiple different committees. And, you know, I know you’re involved with, you know, code safety committees, what? What’s your greatest desire from the time you spend with those different committees and groups?

David Smarte 12:15
The desire is to do exactly what we’re doing, trying to make it easier for everybody in the industry, whether you’re an inspector or a mechanic or a business owner, to understand and make it simple that you can understand what we have to do to put the equipment in safe for the riding public, for the individuals doing the work, to the business owner. And if we’re all doing it right, everybody’s profitable for it. You’re profitable when you get home. You’re making a good living. The business owners happy, the building owners happy. You know, it’s terrible event when somebody does get injured, and it affects every one of us, and that’s why we try to do what we do. I don’t care what organization you’re in at that’s at the foremost is the training and the safety.

Matthew Allred 13:01
Yeah, one of the things that fascinates me about these different groups and organizations, and, you know, is that they’ll, you mentioned it, they all come together, right? With kind of the single purpose. But I am curious how, how do codes become code, you know? How does the, you know, hey, this is the new code. Where did that come from?

David Smarte 13:20
Wow, you’re going way, way back before me. I know what we do today is we try to if there’s a problem or an installation issue, or there’s a request for an interpretation, you know, being part of ASME on some of the committees I’m on, and there’s multiple, multiple committees, task groups, and it’s constantly evolving and changing with new equipment coming out. How does it comply? There’s big look right now at the harmonization with the European codes or the ISOs. Oh, wow, standards and somehow all this, everybody’s taking different pieces of it, and they’re trying to put the puzzle together. And you know, you try to, you hope that you get the puzzle right, but when you don’t, that’s when you get the variances, or you get a relook at it. But it’s a constant evolving with a lot of great people, like I said, Scott Burke Boucher from Kone, he’s one of the big ones. Dave McCall from Otis. John Koshak is independent. You know, they all have different backgrounds, different philosophies, but in the when we sit in the room, we talk, we’re talking about it. Everybody understands. Everybody has an opinion, and you try and adjust it to where you need for everybody to work and understand it. So that’s a great thing about the codes.

Matthew Allred 14:38
Yeah, it’s really neat and encouraging to hear that, that, you know, there’s harmonization, even, even internationally, or at least attempts to, because I imagine, you know, when you say way behind, you know, before me that there’s just a lot of organic, you know, a lot of tradition, a lot of, hey, this is how we do it. It’s, you know, there’s just so much that has. Changed, like you say, it’s just kind of grown up over the years, and here’s how we do it now, but, but so many different competing interests and groups and everybody trying to do the right thing, but, but hitting it from a different angle.

David Smarte 15:13
Well you know, to say that, well, that’s always been the way it’s been done, that’s always being challenged now. So that’s the way it was, doesn’t mean it’s going to be the way it’s going to be sure, you know, again, I talked with David Griffinhagan and Eric Mikulski and all these guys that are part of the union side, and they point out, hey, it doesn’t always have to be the way it was. You know, they’re great, great partners in all this. And I learn a lot from all these different people, I’m constantly evolving myself, seeing different perspectives and then listening to our members, not just our contractor members, but our supplier members, and they have pointed questions they want to get addressed or answered or try and figure it out. And humbly, I’m I’ve been tasked to do some of that, and I’m doing the best that I can, and so far, it’s worked out well for everyone. It’s beginning to be a little overwhelming, because there’s so many components and so many moving pieces, but it’s fun again, never bored. Always like being challenged.

Matthew Allred 16:17
That’s awesome. And I think it’s great that that you and so many others are are willing to look at, you know, this is the way we’ve done it, but that, you know, if there’s a better way, well, let’s find a better way, right? And I think that’s the purpose of the committee structured and the subcommittees is, Hey, there, there may be a better, safer, you know, whatever you know way, way to make this happen that’s in everybody’s best interest.

David Smarte 16:41
You have so much knowledge is pouring into trying to figure and make that better wheel. You know, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but sometimes you might have to, and especially with new ways of doing things. I mean, when I started in the trade, it was relay logic. Went from relay logic to CPUs, microprocessors now, and you know, it’s just constantly evolving. Now you have AI. Oh, wow, yeah, there’s a lot of companies working on the AI and helping with the troubleshooting component. You know that that to me, that’s, that’s my learning curve. I’m not exactly sure. In the old day, you look at a print, you see a contact, you work on it’s easy. Then you went to the boards. Well, the old day, you can work on those boards. They give you diagrams. You can replace components of it. Now it’s just swapping. Hey, you know, you got a bad board in this area. You get new board, send the board off. And, you know, it’s just so much, and it’s constantly evolving. Drives are, you know, changing up constantly, and how you can work on the equipment low wears the feedback into the drives to give you a better ride. Yes, they’re getting more complicated. You know, back in the day it was geared you had some gearless. Now we’re looking at permanent magnet gearless. They’re, they’re a lot more relevant now, and a lot more out there, a lot more there’s, there’s more product there that hadn’t been in the past. And, you know, there’s good points, there’s bad points. It just you work through it, and you apply the code, you try and get the code, the code doesn’t work. Well, what would be the best way to do this? And, yeah, there’s a lot of smart people out there in this industry

Matthew Allred 18:18
Right? Well, and like you say, the technology is constantly changing, too, so there’s never a dull moment, because something’s always changing, whether it’s the technology or, Hey, the code needs to be updated now, maybe to catch up with the technology or whatever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Is there any group that you feel like is underrepresented when it comes to safety, and if so, you know, how could they be included more?

David Smarte 18:48
So, the group that I would have to say that was underrepresented would be your small, small, independent mom and pops. And again, I think that’s why there’s been such a big focus with the OSHA alliance with NEI and NAEC and the IUEC workers preservation fund and all of those to they recognize that whether it’s union or 90 they have they don’t have a voice, and it’s hard for them because they’re running a business every day, and it’s sometimes week to week for them, so trying to get them more representation. A lot of them are joining the NAEC, which we try to represent them, but all these groups recognize that, and I would say it’s only been within the last five, six years they’ve noticed that and where all this came together. So that would be the group that’s underrepresented. You know, we’re trying to do our best to help them at NAEC, and trying to get them to listen to them. What do they need, and trying to work for them

Matthew Allred 19:50
Sure well as they’re invited to participate and come to the education conferences and network of course call older buddies.

David Smarte 20:00
That’s the biggest thing, is networking, getting them to come to you know, within our organization, we had the spring conference, which is getting ready to come up with down in Hilton Head, South Carolina. You know, we’re trying to have a very good educational conference, and that’s what the spring is. Of course, the Falls also got plenty of education involved with it, but that’s more of a big show. So they can come see the equipment, the new equipment, put their hands on the equipment, talk with the engineers. It’s great for the mechanics, for the smaller shops and the bigger shops to come to these because they get to meet, network and build that personal relationship, so they know the guy at the other end of the phone. So that’s a big part of what NAEC tries to do is bring everybody together and network and, you know, put that personal touch to it.

Matthew Allred 20:46
Yeah. And I’ve heard from so many people just how valuable that is, whether it’s, you know, learning about safety or or even learn how to troubleshoot different machines. If they know there’s, there’s somebody out there, they can call. And I do think that’s a big part of what makes the industry special is just that people are willing to take a call and to help out.

David Smarte 21:06
They are. I’ve not seen I’ve never heard of anybody refusing to help somebody. I don’t care what side of the aisle they’re there to help.

Matthew Allred 21:13
Yeah, which is awesome. So Dave, we’re about out of time. But I guess the last question I want to ask you is, what is one message that you would like to give to the industry and to our listeners.

David Smarte 21:25
The one message is, if there’s something you don’t know or something somebody you need to be in touch with, reach out to anybody in the industry, especially NAEC, we’re here. We want to help everyone, if we can, and if we don’t have an answer, we would like to try and put you in touch with somebody that you could get the answer from, and again, that would be my message is, be safe out there. There’s no question not worth asking.

Matthew Allred 21:52
I love that. Love that. That’s perfect. Dave, thank you so much for being with me today. I’ve enjoyed it as always.

David Smarte 21:59
Thank you. I appreciate it too. It’s been awesome.

Matthew Allred 22:02
Thanks.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai