After graduating from UD, I worked for several companies, and I started traveling all over
the US and Canada, helping to run their different programs on the energy side of the equation.
And after that, I decided it was time to kind of stop traveling and living in hotels.
And so that's when I created EBEB Solutions in ‘16.
Those are great 3Cs by the way.
I was fascinated when you brought those up to me that somebody has actually written them
down.
And that I'm using them every day in my everyday practice, but never really put all the pieces
and parts together.
So that was really good to see.
And I think it's very valuable.
It's great for opening their eyes to say there's more than just doing the textbook work.
The curiosity is probably the most important one.
I didn't have that right out of college.
Again, I was, give me a task.
I finished the task, right.
That has developed over time and asking questions and being curious about why you do something
or ‘how does this work?’
allows you to, one, understand what's going on for somebody, and then to help them solve
their problem.
You're not really trying- in an application world, I'm not really helping me just to do
a project.
I'm trying to help somebody else solve their problem.
And then unless I'm curious and ask them, ‘how do I help you?’
Or ‘how do I help your business?’ then I'm not really helping them.
So the curiosity is a big part of understanding the owner's world, the customer's world, not
my world.
Different types of connections.
So there are informational connections that you want to take and have the experience,
so that you can connect the dots to apply things.
And there are people connections.
And as much as we're in a technological world, people still buy from people still.
People still need people to solve their problems.
And you need those people connections.
Unless you can create value with engineering, it's not really doing the world any good.
So value is on, again, the owner's side of the fence, whoever you're trying to help,
it needs to be their value.
That could be, maybe their environmental piece, that's what they're looking for to reduce
their carbon footprint, or they're trying to reduce their operating costs, or they're
just trying to create and free up capital to expand.
Those are business side of the values that I'm trying to create for different industries.
If it's a school district, I'm trying to free up their operating costs so they can hire
more teachers, buy more books, create a better learning environment.
Same for a university.
And healthcare, maybe I'm trying to help, again, free up money so they can have more
equipment, have better patient rooms, shorten people's length of stay, get them in and out
and healed up faster.
So those are the values that you can take, just using the energy and engineering and
money principles.
So I create value for my clients by taking the time to understand their business, and
their business metrics.
I had a project where we found $500,000 worth of savings just by switching electric rates.
And they didn't think that was significant until we said it was $2 a car.
And they went, ‘well that's a huge amount of savings, so we have to do it.’
But until they heard the metric that was of value to them, it was insignificant.
They were willing to brush it off.
So again, you've got to take the time to understand whoever you're talking to, how do I help them?
And I think that's in any walk of life.
I like the way this is laid out because you have to have some explanation about this,
right?
You know, just saying connections… students are going to connect with who they're comfortable
connecting.
And I found you have to go into areas you're not so comfortable, just so you can learn
something different.
If all I do is stay in engineering circles, I don't learn how to talk to the business
people or a marketing person or a human resource person or a legal person, right, because they
all think differently.
So I have to make the connections with them.
And along with just meeting them, you have to create trust.
And trust is a big deal.
They have to understand that you're there to help them.
Then you've got to show them how to create that value.
You can't just put it in a bunch of papers, you’ve got to show them.
So you got to have this to figure it out.
You got to be willing to go do the tedious work to figure out the business side.
And it takes a lot of work because people don't give up information easily on the curiosity
part.
Just because you ask them, they're not going to tell you.
And so that's, that's why I liked all three of these pieces.
And then as it flowed into the middle, right, you've got opportunity, design and impact,
right?
Which ties all these pieces together.
And you never know which one of these components you're going to use.
So you have to be good at kind of all of them, and knowing how they all connect.
If all I’m good at is this area, how do I ever get to the impact area?
If all I’m doing is the design, that's what I love, but it may not have any relevance
to what I'm- So I have to be able to connect all the dots.
So that's why I liked all this layout because it, you know, people- you're going to start
one area, then you need to grow in others.
So that's why I liked it.
It's critical if we're going to be really good engineers, critical to have that kind
of skillset.
Absolutely critical.
And sometimes people get it, sometimes people don't.
But those who do are going to be able to take their careers and go a lot farther in the
world.