Jason Armistead: Be Proud of Your Work

Intro:
Today our guest is Jason Armistead, Software Engineering Manager with G.A.L. Manufacturing. Jason started in the elevator industry as a 17 year old after responding to an ad in the newspaper in Sydney, Australia, moved to the USA in 2006 and has worked in the industry 38 years. Although the work of an elevator engineer is often behind-the-scenes, Jason finds great satisfaction in seeing his software and innovations being used and appreciated by customers. While working in the software realm, he has also been fortunate to spend a lot of time in the field at job sites alongside many talented mechanics and field engineers. Jason has had a long and fulfilling career and he encourages others to consider the elevator industry as a rewarding career path.

Summary:
Jason Armistead, a software engineering manager at GAL Manufacturing, discussed his 38-year career in the elevator industry, starting as a 17-year-old trainee in Sydney, Australia. He detailed his work on the Otis 401 modernization project, which involved creating software to seamlessly integrate old 401 controllers with new 411 controllers. This project led to his relocation to the US in 2006. Armistead emphasized the rewarding aspects of his work, such as customer satisfaction and the joy of seeing his innovations in action. He advised aspiring engineers to consider the elevator industry for its variety, stability, and recession-proof nature.

Transcript:
Jason Armistead 0:00
You know, when that’s running, it’s a a class building down there in the business district. And, you know, some, some really high, high class tenants. And when you see them using the using the system, and, you know, giving you a happy smile, two thumbs up, as they see you in the in the lobby, as you’re sort of keeping an eye on it. I mean, there’s something, there’s something, there’s something just, just when you, you bring that smile to somebody’s face. And, I mean, the elevators aren’t normally something people smile about much, right? I mean, you know, generally it’s, it’s, I hope I don’t get trapped in this. You know, you normally hear the bad side of things, but to see the good part of it, and there’s obviously a lot of good. I mean, we move a lot of people around the world, sure, you know, around the US and Canada every day on our products. You know, that’s something that every elevator engineer, I mean, from the people who who design it to the people in the factories who build it to the customers that we sell to who install it and service it, they should be proud. I mean, it’s a it’s a pretty unique industry in that regard. Absolutely,

Matthew Allred 1:01
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 Jason Armistead, software engineering manager with gal manufacturing. Jason started in the elevator industry as a 17 year old after responding to an ad in the newspaper in Sydney, Australia. He moved to the USA in 2006 and has worked in the industry for 38 years, although the work of an elevator engineer is often behind the scenes, Jason finds great satisfaction in seeing his software and innovations being used and appreciated by customers while working in the software realm. He has also been fortunate to spend a lot of time in the field, at job sites, along many talented mechanics and field engineers. Jason has had a long and fulfilling career, and he encourages others to consider the elevator industry as a rewarding career path. Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Armistead 2:08
Hi, Matt. It’s good to be here.

Matthew Allred 2:10
It’s good to have you. I’m excited. It’s it’s always fun talking with you. And so to be able to dig a little bit deeper into background is is something I’ve been looking forward to. And I’m just curious, did you ever in your life think you would grow up to be an elevator professional?

Jason Armistead 2:24
Absolutely not. I. I grew up in a small country town where probably the biggest elevators were a couple of, you know, three stop hydraulics, so

Matthew Allred 2:36
and obviously not in the US, right,

Jason Armistead 2:38
correct. I grew up in Australia, a couple of hours south of Sydney,

Matthew Allred 2:42
nice, nice. So, so how did you decide you wanted to be an engineer?

Jason Armistead 2:46
Well, interesting story. My grandfather was in construction. He did a lot of excavation, and you know, the Sydney airport runways, his company reclaimed some land for that. My dad was a civil engineer. He worked for the main roads department for the state, and then he worked for the local town council in the town I grew up, so I guess I was surrounded by engineering influences for a lot of my life.

Matthew Allred 3:12
What was it that you think that first, like, started clicking in your mind that, hey, I really want to want to be an engineer. I want to take things apart and put them back together. And,

Jason Armistead 3:22
yeah, interesting. Well, I remember I’d go in sometimes with my dad to the council. He sometimes did some after hours work on a weekend. I’d go in there, and he’d, you know, he’d do his thing, and he’d the computer terminal there. I’d play around, do some games on that, you know, you can log me into the games account they had, which was always fun. You know, I picked up some computer books there. I’m like, Hey, maybe I can learn to program. Our school. Got a computer at Apple two when I was in seventh grade, and I beat the teacher at a game called lemonade stand. So I was kind of hooked on that. And then, you know my visit my grandfather’s place, he had an old combination radio and record player. When he was getting rid of that, I got the screwdrivers out and pulled it apart and looked at all the capacitors and valves and everything that was inside that. So I guess I had the engineer gene drive me along,

Matthew Allred 4:21
right, right. So what was it that got you started in elevators?

Jason Armistead 4:26
Well, interesting. So I finished high school, and I enrolled in a electrical engineering degree, and the university I was doing it at was one that only offered it part time. So it took six years of part time study to to actually complete that, and you had to get industrial experience. So originally, I applied for a few jobs. Some I got rejected from. One was with the State Railways, which sounded interesting, the other one was with Otis Elevator. Um. There was a small ad in the Sydney newspaper. It was about, probably a couple of inches square, and it just said, training engineers wanted. And so I contacted them, and didn’t hear back from them, Initially. Ended up briefly working for the railways, and then Otis said, hey, we’d like to interview you. So I came in for the interview, and they offered me a job. So

Matthew Allred 5:24
so as a training engineer, you essentially had high school under your belt. That’s pretty impressive. That the, I guess, the, you know, just, just would bring you in with, with, really, you know, you obviously, you’re college yet to go. You’re so much yet to do that was, that’s neat.

Jason Armistead 5:42
yeah. I mean, I’ve done a good number of engineering subjects. You know, in the last couple years of high school in Australia, you have, like, a high school certificate you complete your 12 with and so you have two year courses. So, you know, I’ve done physics and chemistry and advanced math and engineering science class on materials and tech drawing and stuff like that. So I guess I had some, you know, some credential, and I was a top 2% student in the state, so that was always a bonus. And yeah, they took, they took a chance on me, for sure, you know. But my manager at the time, guy called Ken Muller. He he believed in getting people in early and and training them up, you know. And he saw that as a good opportunity for the company.

Matthew Allred 6:31
Well, it seems to have stuck. I mean, you you with the industry,How long now?

Jason Armistead 6:35
It’s coming up on 38 years.

Matthew Allred 6:39
that’s awesome. How long was it before you as a 1718, year old, were like, Oh, hey, this is, this is what I want to do, right? This is not just a job, but this is becoming me.

Jason Armistead 6:50
Yeah, you know, I was fortunate. I mean, the people at Otis were good, people that I started working with, and they really took me under their wing and were keen to, you know, teach me everything that that I’d learned. I mean, some of the people were, you know, people that had done controller designs and then worked on a lot of their then current products, you know. And I was, I was young Jason, to some of the older draftsmen in the in the department, engineering department. I, in fact, I still get called that when I catch up with them from time to time. So I’m still young, Jason, but, you know, they gave me a lot of opportunities and and I really enjoyed, I mean, the people, the nature of the work. You know, sometimes I think you can get pigeonholed into just doing one thing, but elevators offer a broad range of of different technologies and different aspects, you know, whether it’s purely electrical for me, the software, which is ultimately where I I’ve gone most you know, the design, the the opportunity to do some problem solving and, you know, creating new and innovative products. I mean, all those things are part of of what our industry offers. So

Matthew Allred 8:03
yeah, so Did, did your job. I mean, you said it was like a six year program, so it took you six or so years to finish your degree, and then, I mean, did your job change dramatically once you finished your degree, or did it just kind of all come to all work together from the beginning it?

Jason Armistead 8:20
It. I mean, it definitely changed over the course of those years. It was, end up being longer than six years for a bunch of reasons. But, you know, initially I spent some time with a draftsman redrawing. I remember it was, it was a hotel Dumb Waiter out in Perth in Western Australia. So I remember redrawing that one as one of my first little, little forays to understand just the symbols on a wiring divers, right, you know? And then it was working with other electrical engineers and software doing some programming with the early, early systems, and it just went from there.

Matthew Allred 8:59
yeah, what would you say you love most about the industry? Obviously, made it your career, stuck with it.

Jason Armistead 9:08
Yeah, there’s a lot of things. I mean, for one the people, I mean, definitely, there’s such a variety of great people in our industry and a lot of people that are really passionate about it, I’d say they’re, you know, true craftsmen, you know, at the top of their their game, whether that’s, you know, people designing, you know, they’ve got a real passion for design, or the installers, who who do a great job of of getting getting a building up and running initially, or the maintenance mechanics, who, keep the equipment running. You know, my boss sent me out probably three or four months in. He sent me out with a with a field mechanic on a route in the Sydney central business district. And he said, Go out there for four months, learn all you can about elevators and then come back and tell me everything you learned. And so I was, I was with a mechanic. I was wearing the overalls and the steel cap boots and all that sort of stuff. And, you know, going to classes in the afternoons and evenings, because that was the way it was with my degree program. And so that’s what I did. I mean, I painted machine room floors. I cleaned door locks on the top of a car, swept out pits, recovered people’s keys and umbrellas and everything that dropped, you know, helped help with breakdowns, carried tool bags up, you know, 16 flights of stairs when the only elevator of the building was out of service, a bit of everything. So it was a good time to be around a bunch of great people

Matthew Allred 10:44
right, right. It sounds like a true immersion in in the industry, to from the field to the engineering to just kind of seeing everything that goes into it.

Jason Armistead 10:53
Absolutely. I think I count myself very fortunate that that, you know, he gave me such great opportunities. I mean, I mean, I went out again for another three months on construct, new construction, and, you know, got to see how that sort of business worked, you know, again, just go out and learn. And that was, that was, that was it. So I still love, you know, field work, whenever the opportunity arises, it’s, it’s, it’s still a highlight of my career, to spend time on job sites, working on great projects with people that are really, you know, top of their game. And I’ve certainly had the opportunity to work with people that have worked on some of the, you know, biggest installs around the world. I mean, up to, you know, the people that worked on Burj Khalifa, I know a few of those were colleagues of mine, and, you know, good people doing great things.

Matthew Allred 11:42
that’s awesome. That’s really cool. What would you say is the most rewarding thing you do or have done throughout your career?

Jason Armistead 11:50
I think definitely, some of the development projects that I’ve worked on, you know, of a lot of the times it’s, it’s simple things, just to get a product introduced. You know, for the first time, we had one project that involved an older control that Otis had the element 401 that customers wanted to upgrade. And at the time there was no solution available. So, you know, we were challenged by our customers in Australia come up with a way of doing that effectively for them. And so I, pretty much solo, worked on that for probably 12 months or so, you know, developing an interface and some software that brought the new generation of controllers and the old old one together in a way that was seamless to the customer and and certainly saved a lot of time and headaches on modernization to get it done.

Matthew Allred 12:47
Yeah, I think you told me a little bit about that, that was really the customers that that were pushing, whereas when you talk to the people headquarters in the US, they’re like, We don’t, we don’t even see a need for that, because our customers haven’t said anything. But the Australian customers are, like, banging on your door saying, get this done. Sounds like

Jason Armistead 13:03
Exactly, yeah. I mean, I think, I think, you know, having traveled a little bit around the world and the elevator industry, you know, you realize that Australians, for whatever reason, just love new technology. And, you know, look for new, new solutions. I think part of it, maybe because they’re so far from the rest of the world, you know, I mean, everything in Australia is a long haul flight to get to, you know, Europe or Asia or the US, and so I think they they pride themselves in wanting to push things along, because if they don’t do it, no one else will for them. So

Matthew Allred 13:39
it’ll be years until it actually shows up Australia, if they’re not pulling for it, right?

Jason Armistead 13:43
Absolutely. I mean, interesting. Fun fact, Destination Dispatching, which is a current product. It was developed by a guy called Leo Port, who was an Australian way back in the size of the late 50s or early 60s. Wow, but, but it never really took off because the technology wasn’t ready for his idea, and it took a lot longer till the early 90s. Wow, sort of because

Matthew Allred 14:06
so he had the theory, the thought and everything, and just just not the technology to support it, apparently,

Jason Armistead 14:12
exactly, yeah, you know.

Matthew Allred 14:15
That is fascinating. So, so tell me how the the Otis four one modernization project really helped shape your career, because you mentioned you’d been working on it. We’re kind of a year, I guess, on your own. Is that right?

Jason Armistead 14:27
Yeah, pretty much. I mean, apart from a small bit of hardware that there’s another engineer worked on, it was pretty much me solo. I spent a lot of time in machine rooms, late at night, at a job site in downtown Sydney, and ironing all that out for the first job. Then there was another job in Melbourne, and then there was some interest in the US. When I sort of said, Hey guys, this is what we’ve come up with. You know, it works for us. Maybe it’ll work for you. And from there, there was a few jobs in the. One in one in Texas, the one in one in New York City, at 1585 Broadway that they used the software. We provided a couple of bits of hardware, and they they used it there, and from there, I guess, you know, they saw that, yes, this was, this was viable. It worked. You know, let’s figure out how to prioritize it a little more than we could with the limited resources in Australia.

Matthew Allred 15:24
So, so help me just, you know, obviously not being nearly as educated in some of these things as as you are, and maybe some, for some of our listeners, that, what was it that you were accomplishing so you were, you were basically taking the 401, and what, connecting it to newer technology or something like that?

Jason Armistead 15:43
Yeah. Otis is current product at that time was the 411 controller, which was a different, a completely different architecture. It had, it had different ways of communicating with the controllers.

Matthew Allred 15:57
They hadn’t even built it to integrate with their own system. In other words

Jason Armistead 16:00
Correct, yeah. I mean, when 401 came out, it was, it was actually done by some guys to work for Hamilton test systems, which was a division. Let me give you some history. Otis was, was originally a standalone company until 76 and then United Technologies bought Otis, and so became part of UTC umbrella, and that included a company called Hamilton test systems, which did avionics type work. And if you looked at the 401 controller, it looked like it could have been on, you know, a rack of electronics in a war plane or on a space station or something like that. It definitely didn’t look like anything Otis had ever done, because, you know, these other engineers designed it, right? And that was sort of 79 and so then, you know, Otis subsequently developed the, the 411, series of products, and the other other products in that family. And that was really a German, predominantly German driven initially, and then with the US involved. And it was just a completely different group of engineers. And they never thought about, you know, how to, how to interface the old with the new. There was, it was basically a clean slate design that didn’t incorporate anything for 401

Matthew Allred 17:19
So why was it that the Australians kind of pushing ahead, were like, hey, this needs to connect. What problems were they kind of bumping into as they were dealing with that?

Jason Armistead 17:28
Yeah, well I mean, the biggest problem you have whenever you modernize a group of elevators is that, inevitably, if you have, say, six elevators to modernize them, you’ve got to take one out of service. So structure, straight away you go from having six to five, and the first thing that happens is in a busy building, is you lose, you know, the ability to handle as much traffic as effectively by being a car down. So then when you’ve got that controller of modernized now, you have five of the old and one of the new, and there’s no way for them to share the load, okay, between the old and the new. And obviously, then you get to the point where you’ve got four old cars and two new ones. And, oh, wow, the ratio keeps on changing. And you know, you could put in separate whole buttons for each one, but then people, will press both buttons, which makes both systems busy, right? And so what I did, and we dubbed it chameleon. And the reason was, you know, you know the little colorful lizards that change colors to let camouflage themselves. And so, you know the software that I did, which one was another engineer, a field guy, came up with that name, but effectively it allowed you to mimic the 401 cars. So the 401 had a separate group controller cabinet, and it thought it was talking to just another 401 when, in fact, it was talking now to a new 411 and so. So that meant that, you know, you press one of the hall buttons, the 401 group dispatcher makes the decision happens to send it to a 411 car, modernized, and it goes away and answers the whole call. And, you know, it just looks like another 401 car

Matthew Allred 19:15
So you never really have to go through. It almost sounds like, yeah, some kind of bottleneck, where, where, if you’re in, you know, modernizing these six, you’re going to end up with a group of three and three or two and four, and it’s going to be awkward for for quite some time, depending on how long it takes you to get through those.

Jason Armistead 19:31
Yeah, yeah. And, and in Australia, particularly, they had, they used, you know, one of this is monitoring systems. And again, you know, the security guard, or whoever was looking at that, all he saw was a group of six elevators, and he couldn’t tell which was old or which was new. And when people use their, you know, card reader and swipe their card when they got in the elevator to register the call that also went through that system, and it just was all seamless. So, so, you know. So that’s, that’s something, I mean, the end user experience in everything we do matters. I mean, whether it’s sort of case or it’s, it’s a mechanic, you know, interfacing with the equipment and trying to do diagnostics or or set it up, you know, try and make that easy for them. Is, is definitely something, you know, as a software person, I definitely keep in mind, because, you know, going back to my early field experience, you know, I work with a fairly experienced mechanic. He could listen to the relays on those old, relay logic controllers, clatter, clatter, clatter, nothing, clatter, clatter. He’s like, Well, something’s missing in the middle there, right? I mean, he just had the ear for that

Matthew Allred 20:39
like, Morse code,

Jason Armistead 20:39
like, almost like that, yeah, you know, whereas with software, I mean, it’s completely silent, I mean, and a lot of what it does is completely invisible, whereas those relay controllers, I mean, you could see, you know, relays in, relays out, right, you know, or them changing, right? So, so that’s, that’s something that’s really changed in our industry, and I think it’s, it’s hard because, you know, people can’t see what’s going on behind the behind the scenes anymore

Matthew Allred 21:08
Sure, sure. So you’ve obviously got to have the some kind of digital readout, or some kind of, you know, device to to tell what’s going on. So tell me you mentioned, you know, just some of the feedback that you had gotten, or I’m trying to remember, you had come to the US, I think, because of that project, right? Because of the 401 and, you know, you spend this time creating it, and now there’s demand, and it’s like, oh, we need somebody who knows what this is and how to implement it.

Jason Armistead 21:37
There was one project. It was out in Chicago, at the Allen center, the old Standard Oil building. It’s about, I think it’s 75 or so floors high. And they had double deck 401s there and, and the work I’d done in Australia was for, for a single deck 401s so, so they wanted to to modernize those. It was a eight car group. So, big, big, big job. You know, biggest, oldest machines, the 339, HTS, which are taller than I am, and and they were doing the mod there. And so again, you know, being able to put this software in was going to really help them with this, with this mod process. And so, you know, because it’s the first of type, and I’d written the original software. We had a plan. I was going to come to Connecticut for about a week, spend some time with the engineers there, then travel with one of them, a guy called Dave Hughes, out to Chicago and spend a week there getting this, you know, dialed in, and making sure it all worked the way everyone hoped it would. So, so, yeah, travel there with Dave. And Dave said, the field engineer out in Chicago, you know, he’s, you know, he’s going to ask a few questions about what you’re what’s going on. And sure enough, we get there, he’s like, so why is this guy from Australia come all the way to Chicago for this project? Like, What could he possibly do that? You know, I couldn’t do and so we went and had lunch and sat down with Bobby and explained exactly why I was here, and he was still a little skeptical. And we got to the job site, and, you know, got to the point where you put the software in and give it a whirl. And he was like, wow, this is amazing. So, you know, that was, that was definitely a fun moment. You know, we got that project done, and it went very smoothly.

Matthew Allred 23:27
right? Did that have any bearing on you actually moving to the US? Because obviously you were getting known at headquarters and out in the field. And how did that work that you came to the US?

Jason Armistead 23:40
Yeah, so Otis headquarters are in Farmington, Connecticut, and shortly after that project, probably about six months later, they reached out to me, and the manager of the group that wanted to hire me actually worked in Australia. He started his career there while I was still a trained engineer, you know, I taught him a few things about how our software worked. And then he jumped around the the Otis world, you know, with his own career, and spent time in in Malaysia and Germany, and ultimately ended up in the US.

Matthew Allred 24:16
Did he call you young. Jason?

Jason Armistead 24:19
No, he wasn’t much older than these. I was just Jason to him. But anyway, so, so he, you know, they set up a, I had a position opening, and they offered me the job. I came across. They, they bought me across my with my wife. We had to look around, you know, offered me the job. And, you know, in about was probably less than five months, you know, I had, you know,US visa to work here, and we’re packing up our family and and, you know, my wife and I and three, three kids. The oldest was like in fifth grade. In second. Grade, and the other one was not even two, and we, we were on this grand adventure, moving to USA. So

Matthew Allred 25:05
what year was that, that you, you actually came?

Jason Armistead 25:07
That was October, 2006. Just before Halloween. We spent Halloween and the next couple of months in the Residence Inn, which is kind of interesting, we got a family of three in a small room for that, that. And then we, we managed to our staff was on a ship, you know, they put everything in an 26ft shipping container. And so our whole life was, you know, packed in the basement. Then of our rental property for about six months. And then we, we bought a house a little while later. So

Matthew Allred 25:39
that sounds quite the ordeal to just, you know, I never really thought about, yeah, just the shipping container. I don’t even know how long it takes to to get a ship from Australia to eastern US.

Jason Armistead 25:50
Yeah, it was pretty, pretty much close to two months So, and, you know, so we just, we’d had a couple of, a couple of suitcases, we had a few boxes, you know, packing boxes that they sort of Express, express shipped across, you know, so that for basic things like, you know, the home PC and some paperwork, and, you know, extra clothes or whatever. And that’s, that’s what we had in this Resident’s Inn for a couple of months, yeah, it was, it was quite an adventure. You know, it was, it was a, it was a fun adventure, though. I mean, you know, my wife, I mean, she was still a mum of three young boys. For me, I was, you know, still an Otis engineer at the time, working with people that I guess I’d corresponded with over many, many years leading up, and by that stage, I’ve been with the company for 20, over 20 years, and some of those people I’d had back and forth interactions with for probably, you know, the best part of 15 plus. So it was fun to actually work face to face with people that that you only ever had communicated with by in those days. I mean, it was still fax machines, telexes, the very occasional phone call. I mean, there’s no video conferencing, you know, for for a lot of that time, you know, and certainly nothing like zoom calls or teams meetings or anything like that. So, you know, a couple of us have met a few times. It’s a worldwide engineering meetings around the globe. But, you know, there’s still bunch of people I’ve never had the chance to actually, you know, face to face, even know what they look like, you know

Matthew Allred 27:30
it’s funny. You say that. Because, you know, I think I take, you know, email and, like, say, technology for granted. But it wasn’t that long ago, right? It was, I remember my first email was, is like, 1996 or, you know, it was, well, you know, it was beyond the high school and kind of starting college. And I’m like, What is this? I don’t even know how to use it. And so, yeah, a lot of your career correspondence, yeah, was, like, the Dark Ages, compared from to where we are now.

Jason Armistead 28:00
We used to send inter office memos, and it was on like a triplicate paper, you know, you’d press really hard to make sure it went through the three copies, and you’d, you’d send two away, you’d keep one, and then somebody would reply with their answer, or sort of the you get one of the copies back.

Matthew Allred 28:15
Oh wow. Okay, got any me knows how those work, but that’s amazing. So tell me, you know, one of the things about the work you do, as, you know, being an engineer, is it seems like it’s, it’s really, you know, it’s behind the scenes. It’s, it’s, not only is are elevators, in general, kind of mysterious for a lot of certainly for the riding public, because they don’t know about the ropes and the shivs and the you know, but, but you’re one step removed from that, it seems, because you’re, you know, kind of mind all that. How do you, how do you judge the success of the work you do, and where does that show up for you?

Jason Armistead 28:51
Yeah, it’s different things. I mean, it’s something, something as simple as getting in an elevator and seeing the, you know, the name plate on the sill, on the older ones, or, you know, placard on the on the car operating panel that has the company’s name, or recognizing part of a product, and going, Yeah, I’ve worked on that. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s exciting. Sometimes, in the case of that modernization product for 401, there was a spreadsheet I’d fill that I’d created for a site survey, and that had my name on it with, like, you know, any questions, contact Jason, right? And for a long time after I transferred that responsibility to, you know, the US operation to take care of that, I still got phone calls from random people all around the, you know, certainly North America with, Hey, I got this problem with this, and your name’s on here. And I’m, like, I told the guys, take my names off this. And I was still getting those for probably, you know, the best part of 10 years or more afterwards. So you know, and definitely, you know, when you have a successful product, you. Um, someone’s hearing from your competitors is interesting. You know, I’m no longer with with Otis, as I mentioned to you, you know, I work for GAL which is part of advantage. And one of our sales guys were chatting, and I said, I worked on this, this product. And he said, you know, he worked at TKE at the time, he said, we could not sell a modernization against that. It was just too good. And that’s, that’s obviously the highest compliment you can get when you’re somebody who’s a competitor, you know, recognizes that it was tough to sell against. So, you know, that’s satisfying. I think sometimes on on, you know, product development, when you’re on a job site and it’s the first time that you’re actually handing over the equipment or customer, you see a difference in the way the building behaves, or the traffic flows, and you just like we did it, you know. And then the consultants and the building management are looking at each other and going, wow, you know, because they maybe didn’t have the confidence that you you had going into it. So, you know, those things are definitely very, very satisfying. You know, I think that’s, that’s, that’s part of the thrill of being an elevator engineer and designing great products that that people use day in day out without ever knowing who you are. Yeah,

Matthew Allred 31:21
no, that’s great. Well, it sounds like some of that, some of the praise, it sounds like it was, you know, is, you know, 20-30, years later that you’re actually hearing, wow, you know that that was impossible to sell again, you know, just that’s, that’s got to be like, you say, very rewarding to hear that. Hey, you did a good thing, even all these years later, we remember how good that was,

Jason Armistead 31:43
absolutely, absolutely, you know, and that’s, you know, that’s the same since, you know, joining, joining Vantage and GAL, you know, done some, some great work there too. You know, we have a destination dispatch job down in Puerto Rico. We got up and running, what, 16-17, months ago. Now, you know, when that’s running, it’s a a class building down there in the business district. And you know, some, some really high, high class tenants. And when you see them using the using the system, and, you know, giving you a happy smile, two thumbs up, as they see you in the in the lobby is you’re sort of, you know, keeping an eye on it. I mean, there’s something, something just, just when you you bring that smile to somebody’s face. And, I mean, the elevators aren’t normally something people smile about much, right? I mean, you know, generally it’s, it’s, I hope I don’t get trapped in this done, you know, you normally hear the bad side of things, but to see the good part of it. And there’s obviously a lot of good. I mean, we move a lot of people around the world, sure, you know, around the US and Canada every day on our products. You know, that’s something that every elevator engineer, I mean, from the people who who design it to the people in the factories who build it, to the customers that we sell to who install it and service it, they should be proud. I mean, it’s a it’s a pretty unique industry in that regard.

Matthew Allred 33:03
Absolutely. Yeah. So let’s, let’s, I guess, end with a couple questions. We’re kind of getting short on our time here. But what would you say is the single most important thing you’ve learned throughout your career in the elevator industry?

Jason Armistead 33:18
Well, I think one thing is, obviously, you know, there always could be a better way for doing something. And sometimes you need to think outside the box to realize what that is. Sometimes you need to do that and go out on a bit of a limb yourself, like, you know, pitch the idea and and have faith that is going to going to work out and then work hard to make sure it does. You gotta do your homework, you know, because, you know, there’s a lot of, a lot of things can go wrong if you don’t consider all of the all of the scenarios and all the options. But when you get it right, it smiles around.

Matthew Allred 33:57
It’s awesome. That’s awesome. What? What advice would you give to someone who’s either interested or maybe just starting a career

Jason Armistead 34:04
Yeah, I would say that, you know, a lot of people in engineering, and I mean, I mean software these days, people think of the big names, you know. They think of the Facebooks, you know, Amazons, apples, Netflix, Googles and stuff like that, right? And they think those are very glamorous careers, but they’ve also got incredible pressure, incredible burnout. I think the elevator industry is a very roaring career path. You know, lots of variation in the in the sort of projects and product you work on. You touch on a lot of different aspects. You know, from from the control electronics to understanding the a 17 elevator code and how that applies to your designs, to you know, the people, the people factors you know just how usable your product is and and I think it’s also a very stable career path. You. Know, I mean, I’ve only had two, two employers in the elevator industry in 38 years. That’s, that’s a pretty good, pretty good run, yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, through good times and bad times, when the economy may have its ups and downs. I mean, people still need the elevators for their ups and downs, you know, out of their apartments, to get them out of their offices and hotels and all over the places. So, you know, it’s got a degree of, you know, recession proof that’s in it that a lot of other industries don’t have, you know. And I think that working with great people across the spectrum of, you know, everyone from from sales to mechanics and everyone in between. You know, those people are some of the, I mean, still people I started work with, I still keep in contact with all these years later. In fact, you know, a couple of years I was back in Australia, I caught up with that mechanic I told you about that. I spent four months with, you know, and we’re still, we still keep in contact all these years later. And, you know, he’s retired now, but we still share elevator stories and a laugh about the good times small, about the good times we had. So

Matthew Allred 36:08
Awesome. Thank you, Jason, appreciate you being with me today. Thanks for for being willing to to do the interview. And it’s been a pleasure getting to know you a little better.

Jason Armistead 36:18
It’s been a pleasure to to chat with you too, Matt. I hope our paths cross physically. We can shake hands and smile and share a few more stories together.

Matthew Allred 36:28
Sounds great. Thank you. 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.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai