Energy 101: We Ask The Dumb Questions So You Don't Have To

0:00 Welcome back to another episode of Energy 101. We have a very special guest today and a good friend of DigiWalkatters, Lee Payne, the director of sales and marketing for Cold War. Lee, thanks for

0:12 coming. Thanks for having me on. This is great. I've never done a podcast before. So you're going to be great. Yeah, take it easy on me. We will. Um, so today we are going to dive into the

0:22 evolution of data data. However you want to say it specifically in completions, which my very first question is, what does completions mean? Because I do not know now you're going to put me on the

0:34 spot. But so it's kind of a just an encompassing term for, um, you know, completing the well and getting it ready for production, right? Got it. And so a lot of people when you think, you know,

0:42 completions, especially in this space, you know, the biggest product on the block out there is going to be your freck fleet, right? Right. Makes sense. Yep. Cool. So before we get into that,

0:52 um, I'd love to know a little bit more about you, what your backgrounds and how you found Cold Boar, Yeah, so I had quite a bit of a different journey, I guess, in oil and gas. I went to AM, I

1:05 can - Missed you on AM. I did too. Yeah, gig 'em, we're a cult, happy window. And so I went to AM and did not quite know what I wanted to do in my life. I was working at a bank, author college,

1:20 and thought that, hey, this is a good path to go on. So I became a commercial real estate appraiser when I first got out of school. Wow, okay Great job, friends with the people I used to work

1:30 with, got some of my buddies hired on at the company I was there. But it was, I just couldn't see myself doing it for the rest of my life. It was fun, but it just, it didn't really appeal to me,

1:41 I guess. Yeah, gotcha. So did a hard reset in '08, worked for a medical supply company in sales while I tried to figure out what I was gonna do. I feel like that's like the go-to for college

1:51 grads. What do I do, med sales? It was interesting

1:56 I did it for about a year. Um, and then I got actually hired on as a freck field engineer, trainee for weatherford, um, and, and, you know, from like the moment, you know, I started, I was

2:07 like, okay, this is for me. I truly enjoy this, you know, being in the field, learn everything, you know, I could about frack and then kind of working my way up from, uh, field engineer to

2:16 district engineer, to assistant district manager, to running the district. I think several times interim district manager, uh, before they finally said, okay, we want you in Houston Gotcha, so

2:27 where were you, were you in Metland? So I was, no, I was in, uh, Alice in South Texas and then San Antonio. Okay. Um, how we say we were in San Antonio for exactly one year when they moved us

2:38 and then they were like, okay, you're going to Houston. Yeah. Um, and then came back to Houston. I'm from here. Got it. So it was great. And, uh, and then stable Rutherford until 2019, um,

2:47 and left and they wound up at Cold War. My actual start day with Cold War was, um, coming up on four years, but it was March 2nd, uh, 2020 So right when COVID was.

2:59 So it's funny you say that because that month is also when Jake Collin and Julie went full time with DW as well. March 20th. I remember it. I think coming out of COVID, because that's when, you

3:12 know, started seeing a lot more of their stuff on LinkedIn and Twitter and I'm not going to disclose my name on Twitter. We're going to post it. Yeah. No, we won. I brought it. Yeah. I don't

3:25 think anybody wants to see that Um, and, you know, coming out, I think, uh, I think it was labeled on Twitter and some other things, but some of the non, you know, uh, oil and gas folks of

3:36 the, uh, they were hosting a COVID event or something like that. It was pizza and beer here at the office. It was like, well, the first one's coming out of, uh, but out of COVID. And there

3:46 was probably like 2530 of us and we were all like, what do we do? Like, we're actually getting to talk to people in person now. Exactly Most of how I really got to be callin' in JIK. and kind of

3:55 the group. Well, after that, people got asking for it and here we are. Yeah, you know, and it was such a great talk. Yeah, I think we were all in here and

4:04 there's no mask. You know, we were just like normal and it was like, man, this is great tonight. This is nice. Yeah, and then of course, they always laugh. The four worth of Doug coming out

4:12 of COVID was, you know, had a happy hour. Oh, yeah, yeah. And that was like, you know, that was when everybody was finally released to go and network again and be friends and I was like, man,

4:23 these people are getting wild at this event just because you were so bad about it. Yeah, they were, I'm sure they were just waiting for the opportunity to get to do it again.

4:33 So obviously the point of our podcast is to help people who are either like new to oil and gas or energy or maybe you don't work in oil and gas or energy, but your clients do and you're just looking

4:44 to learn more. You coming from a position not in the

4:49 industry into this training position with Weatherford, Did you know anything? About oil and gas. I, you know, I may have been the best seller I ever did by selling myself in that interview

5:01 because I did not know. I didn't come from a family of oil and gas folks. Right. I, you know, did have a couple of, you know, my dad's one of his buddies had sold a company to Halliburton, I

5:15 think, or to an oil and gas company. He was giving me some insights. My father-in-law has retired from an oil and gas company. Gotcha From an operator, he was giving me some insights. And so,

5:28 we took a flyer. You know, we were like, yeah, that's just, you know, the old adage, like, burned the boats. Like, we just got hired and went down to Corpus and made the best of it. Got

5:37 thrown in. Yeah, so, I mean, I remember going out to my first frex site. That's the best way to do it. I'd seen pictures. Just jump right in, right. I'd watched videos on YouTube and I'd seen

5:45 pictures and I got out there and I was like, wow, this is massive.

5:49 And, but, you know, it was really like, I think this industry, you either love it or you don't. I don't think you can stay in this industry and just have a mediocre way of thinking about it.

6:01 Right. 'Cause like I said from day one, there wasn't a time where I was like, I've made a huge mistake. I think a lot of people will probably wake up, the first time they wake up at 430 in the

6:10 morning to get to location. They're like, what do they get myself into? Long day, they're like, oh man, this was, why am I doing this? And I don't think I've ever really had that. Even during

6:20 the downturns, I think there were times during the downturns, I was like, I wish I had a normal job But that's part of the excitement of it though too. Awesome, love to hear it. Yeah, we're

6:29 kind of in the same boat. I mean, we're not in as steep as you and we didn't get trained in fracking, but both of us didn't come from the industry really before starting here. So it's been really

6:39 fun to get to know the people and what all goes into powering the world. It's insane how big the industry is. It's nuts, like I don't think, until you really start learning about it, you

6:52 understand what all goes into. you know, driving your car up at the gas station and getting gas. You know, and I think that's one of the biggest problems. And I love what like, you know, Chuck

7:05 and Colin and Jake, some of them do is trying to, maybe not, maybe not Jake and Colin, but Chuck tries to take a softer approach with some of the, the people who are entitled, I guess, yeah,

7:14 to try to say, Hey, you know, cause I think there's no wish that cause it's almost offensive to us when somebody's like, no fossil fuels. And we're like, dude, really, you're delusional. Yeah.

7:22 What are you going to do? You know, you got your cell phone. You got all the stuff that you, you know, is on your body. Comes from gas and, um, so I love the education aspect of it. But I

7:31 think if people saw more of, you know, the guy getting up, you know, four o'clock in the morning to go, um, you know, frack a well or go beyond drilling rig. I think that people would kind of

7:41 humanize that and less vilify, maybe. Yep. Oh, that's a good point. Um, so talk to us about the evolution of, do you say data or data? Both data, I guess, I don't know. I'm from, I'm from.

7:54 you know, Houston, Texas. So after stuff I say, probably isn't said properly. Sounds a little weird. And that's okay. I had parents who came from Mississippi and then I grew up in Texas. So I

8:02 mean, you know, tell them what I'm going to say. So where did we start? Yeah. So yeah, so like I said, I wasn't a tech guy when I came over to Cold War. I had a frag background and that's what

8:14 the team over there was looking for. You know, hired on during during COVID. So there wasn't a whole lot of opportunities to be in front of people. Right. So spent a lot of time with our dev

8:21 teams on Zoom calls Of course, I couldn't go to Calgary and

8:27 learned a little bit. And what appealed to me was, so when I first started, you know, it was kind of the ending of, but, you know, to get data from the field, we were having to burn it onto

8:36 CDs, you know, at one point. And then all of a sudden you got, you know, some thumb drives that could actually hold all your data files. And you'd have to take that to the office and it

8:46 typically go in a vanilla envelope because everything was on, you know, onsite servers, on-prem servers. It couldn't really load anything, all the files on there, because they're so large. So,

8:56 you know, those data files would just kind of get lost over the years, right? And, you know, when I, you know, even when I moved here and we shut down frack at Weatherford, you know, I would

9:07 get phone calls from operators that are asking like, hey, do y'all have any data files from the well y'all fracked in like 2014? And I was like, no, I don't like never that was like, what

9:15 happened to y'all as well? You know, like a lost some of them drive somewhere Well, thumb drives, which are like typically very small, like, and I think unless you're keeping them in a safe,

9:25 like, how can you ever keep track of all of them? Hundreds of them that just get tossed in a drawer and then who was honestly was security now? Put a thumb drive on your computer and see what's

9:34 right. Right, right. Yeah, you never know. And so, you know, as I talked with, with the team over at Cold War and Brett and everybody else, we looked at what they were doing and was very

9:42 early on. I mean, I think at the time, I was the only US employee. Oh, everyone else is in Calgary. Yeah and there was only probably not including our - field takes in the field. I think there

9:52 was less than 10 of us. Yeah, wow. And so, you know, I met Brett when I interviewed with him and then Shane, our VP, or he's actually our chief revenue officer now, came into town and gave me

10:03 a laptop and some information and then got the call that he had to be back on the flight to Calgary. So, did have a whole lot of chance to learn, but what I was appealing, I guess, from the gig

10:16 go and learning about the data and everything else was that he, it was actually now at one spot. Yeah. Like, you could actually have one data file that was workable for the entire pad. And it's a,

10:28 everybody's had this kind of chance to kind of evolve with it. And early on a lot of people didn't necessarily understand the need or the why, because they just weren't used to getting that level of

10:38 data. Drilling has had, you know, really good data for, for a very long time, and, you know, completions and fracking, everything else, because you have so many services. Yeah. And they're

10:47 not talking to each other, Like on a drilling rig, I mean. there's no central hub to connect to, there was nothing. And so you had, you know, an operator might have a wire line data file, he

10:58 might have a frag data file, he might have something from pump down. If they had it, he might have this out in the other. And then for that, for that, you know, engineer, you know, working

11:05 for the operator, trying to figure out, okay, how do I stack this and make this make sense? Yeah. Because you're not, they weren't looking at it even from a pad perspective, because now you're

11:13 on a pad and you're operating on four wells or six or however many, as opposed to, hey, we're fracking just one well Right. And so that's where it's been really neat to kind of follow and kind of

11:24 educate the market and educate our customers and potential customers and stuff on. Now that you have this,

11:32 you can find insights. We can give you insights. We can help you move that data into whatever resource you wanted into in your office, if it's internal data basing. Just if you just want to have

11:44 the raw data at one spot, we can house it Yeah. Um, you know, we're. right next door to them or, you know, working with Corva, we're pushing data into Corva now, which a lot of people thought

11:52 we were competitors. I remember that. That's so exciting. We love them over there. Yeah. Yeah, and they're great people. And it's, you know, but that was a perception. You know, we

11:60 announced the, you know, the agreement that we could work together six, seven months ago. Yeah. And it was purely because of that. You know, we had a customer that said, hey, you know, can

12:08 you push your data into Corva? And we're like, I don't see why not. Yeah. And as we sat down and we just started doing that. And then, you know, seeing some of the other, you know, companies

12:17 that we've been able to work with, you know, and whether we're pulling data or pushing data, you know, to and from, that we've kind of become this kind of central hub of communication, right?

12:26 Yeah, that's awesome. So if someone asks you, like, what does Coldboard do? What would you say?

12:32 So there's a couple ways to different ways to do it. You always have to know your audience, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, like, if somebody has a drilling background, you know, it's very

12:39 similar to, you know, an EDR, electronic drilling recorder. Okay. And we call it, you know, the completions, or digital completions recorder, is kind of what we call, you know, smart pad.

12:49 And that's just that central

12:53 hub of communication that you can just set it on location and then all your services can plug in. We can bring in all the data. You can glean insights from all the data because now it's all

13:02 connected. And then in some instances, you can communicate back to the other service company. So you're not just one way communication. That's nice. And what gets really intriguing and

13:12 interesting on that is

13:15 over time, the ability to start automating some of your operations on the completion side. Right.

13:22 That's been kind of the buzzword for a long time is automation, automation. Oh, for sure. Yeah, I feel like every event we've done, there's something around automating whatever you possibly can.

13:34 Right. And one of the biggest things is you can't automate if you have incomplete data. Like you can't just assume large blocks of data and then try to automate off of that. Right. Like, so I

13:45 always bring this up because, you know, my dad was an airline pilot and I was around, you know, flying and going every stuff all the time. Like, you wouldn't want to get on an airplane if the

13:55 autopilot was assuming just massive blocks of data, right? Yeah. It'd be insanely unsafe. You'd be like, no, absolutely not. Yeah. Same thing with what would do anything on drilling or

14:04 completions. If you're having to assume stuff, then you're adding elements of unsafe activities to your operation. Yeah. And so you have to have that data And that's what we've spent so much time,

14:15 you know, working on is how do we get this complete data set, this workable that can be delivered, you know, in sub, you know, one to two seconds. Right. That can be in real time, as close to

14:25 real time as possible, to be able to act on that information. Right, 'cause who wants to wait around? Yeah. I mean, you can have a data set, but if you're not getting it till 24, 48 hours

14:37 later, then you can't actually do anything more. Make any decisions, right, when you need to. And so that's where we've really, really focused our business, you know, from the very beginning

14:45 is getting the status, like getting it right, getting a standardized data set and then then working with, you know, it opens up all the doors for the other services too. Right. And that's what's

14:55 really neat of what we're doing really the last six, seven months with some of the, you know, partnerships is we've always jokingly called ourselves Sweden, where like the, you know, the third

15:06 party just stands in the middle. We're just hanging out, you know, we, you know, we just want to work with everybody, right? And so then, you know, you have the core of announcement, you've

15:14 had the downing announcement. We're working with downing and helping them provide data to, to their freedom series. And so we have all these companies now and there's more, I hope, that are, you

15:23 know, going with the conversations we're having. And it's how do you, how do you create the best product

15:32 for the, for the customer, right? Yeah, for the market. And it's very difficult for one company to actually solve every problem the completions it's had. in the data, in the technology space.

15:42 Absolutely. But if, 'cause you can be a jack of all chasing master of none, right? But if I was working with Corvo, provides a better product to the end user, then hey, that's a good call.

15:51 Right, well, and I, it's so refreshing to hear someone, you guys in general have a company have that perspective on collaboration and looking at it from, you know, we've got to look at what's,

16:05 like you said, the best for the customer, the best for the market, the best for the industry as a whole And I think 999 of the time, the answer is never going to be to just be in your own little

16:16 silo. You know, we say all the time it's going to take all of us to get where we need to be, to be able to power the world, you know, the energy we're going to need in the coming years. So I

16:26 think it does everyone to just service any company that is a little resistant to collaborating with people, whether they seem like a competitor or not. I think so many people in companies, their

16:36 first instinct is to be like, things, but no things. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, it's the, I think part of it is the, you know, just being overly protective of what you do. Right. And

16:45 I think we're at an information, you know, time where I can find out what you're doing by going to Google. Right. And I can do it out for research to understand it. And I think it's also people

16:56 having the trust factor, right? That you're in it because you wanna actually build something, you know, a partnership and agreement or a package that an offering to the market and the customer

17:07 that's good Yeah. That's beneficial for you and me. And it's not just having your own best interests. It's, how does this work? And we've seen a lot of positive reaction to that because I think

17:17 it's refreshing, I think. 100. It used to be very, very siloed. Like this is my company, this is what I do. Like, you know, I frack, you used to do your waterline. I don't need to talk to

17:26 you, whatever. And now you're seeing, you know, at least information share on site has gotten better. And you're seeing the, you know, when we call somebody now, like when I first started

17:35 calling service companies to say, We're going to be out there with the operator and, you know, can I, where can I plug in to get your data? Um, I was, I was initially met with one, like, who

17:46 are you and why do you, why are you doing this? I need to call the operator. Right. Um, or no, I'm good. Like, I don't want to mess with it. I'm like, you don't have to mess with anything.

17:55 Literally. You're like, that wasn't the question. Yeah. Um, to now, you know, people are like, Oh, yeah, no, I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We know you're coming out. This is great. Yeah.

18:03 How can we, how can we help you? And, and vice versa We're like, Hey, we can help you too. Like, you know, what do you need from us? Yep. And, and it's just gotten a lot better. And it

18:11 makes, you know, when you're on site, it makes it a little bit more, uh, pleasant when, you know, there's an air of cooperation. Oh, absolutely. I, I think that some of the episodes we've

18:22 done and just in talking to other people, um, I am never, I think I'm not surprised anymore about hearing about the ways things used to be, where people didn't communicate and it wasn't as.

18:35 cohesive because I feel like looking at it now, my brain is like, why wouldn't you want to make sure everyone is on the same page? Yep.

18:44 And

18:47 it, you know, I think it was, you know, going back, it was, you know, frack would just operate on one well before they got into zebra fracks and flammal fracks and everything else, right? And,

18:56 and I think that the, you didn't have to necessarily have that level of communication. Right. 'Cause I know when I first started, we were like, hey, why don't I just hurry up? We're ready,

19:03 we're ready to start talking again. Get it done We're ready to go, we're ready to go. And now there's a little bit more because there's so many moving parts out there. And some of the passengers

19:12 get more and more complex, right? That you have to do that. And, you know, I think what we are working towards is the more companies that we can say, hey, we work with, the better it is. All

19:25 right. And so now that's the cool thing is there's not too many companies out there that we have not hooked up to now. And now I call it as much as your conversation. Oh, I bet. 'Cause we're like,

19:34 Oh, yeah, we've done this, yeah. We're good. Yeah, come on out. See you there. So I know other than obviously collaboration is a big thing for you guys as is for us. I think from what I've

19:46 seen, you guys are also really big on community. Yes. Just like we are. So you guys have the podcast, you, Poker Night. So I'd love to hear kind of, I think the whole world knows how we feel

19:56 about our community, but I'd love to hear your thoughts how kind of cold bore, what value you guys see in fostering your own community. Yeah, you know, and it's,

20:08 so we were, you know, obviously we're getting to be a bigger company, but we're still a small company compared to a lot. Yeah, how many employees do you guys have now? I mean, it's around the

20:18 100 mark probably. Yeah. Like that's a good question. It's a good size, yeah. I should have asked that.

20:24 And every one of them is great. Yeah. No, so the community aspect is, you know, we leaned into it really hard because it's, you know, one, that's just my personality. You know, never met a

20:34 stranger. I can walk into a, you know, my wife laughs and everybody laughs 'cause I can walk into a restaurant and they're like 10 people by the time we're done. Right. Just 'cause I'm just gonna

20:41 talk.

20:43 But, you know, so we really lean into that. We, you know, we got the tech house down here and we wanted to figure out how to utilize it in the best manner. You know, a buddy of mine, he's

20:53 actually sitting over there. We had kind of lost touch and ran into each other at the airport, funny story. We were actually hitchhiking in Midland, not recommended Why were you? Yeah. Wait,

21:04 you have to. We didn't know we were each on the same flight. Last flight out of Houston, like lands in Midland at like 11, rental car places are shut down, trying to catch a, like on a Tuesday

21:15 night at Uber or Lyft at the airport in Midland, next to impossible.

21:21 Happened to be sitting next to a guy on the flight, talked to him, he's, everything seemed good. I was like, Hey, man, can you just, like, he's walking out. I was like, I'm not dropping us

21:29 off. And it was wild riding, I'll say that Didn't know the guy, but we made it safe. Um, but we started, you know, we, we kind of reconnected, uh, me and John. And, um, you know, talking

21:39 about the house and he also do a poker night. And so that's how the poker thing kind of began. Um, and it's been really good. It's a great opportunity to bring people together to collaborate, to

21:47 network, um, have people, um, you know, whether service companies or operators come by. And it's, it is starting to really cool. We actually have it tonight. Um, it's not without some effort.

21:58 Yeah. But now we've got, you know, people that want to come in and sponsor and be a part of it Love that as well. And so it makes things easier. Yeah, it makes things easier. And so now we've

22:06 got, um, you know, social octane, uh, Mark and Madison are helping the host because, you know, down here, um, they're, you know, kind of actively involved now, um, Justin overstreet,

22:16 walk out oil tool, um, he kind of said, Hey, I want to be a part of this. I, you know, so great. Come on. And, um, and then Fletch, I was, who is our official tequila sponsor. I love

22:26 that you guys have it to be. Yeah, I think my bosses were kind of a little like, okay, what are we doing here? You're like, just go with it, right? But, you know, they're the official

22:33 tequila of oil and gas. So it only makes sense that if I'm having an oil and gas poker game that, you know, tequila. So Justin and Fletcher are great and bring some tequila. So everybody can have

22:44 a ranch water or whatever. Love it. And so it's actually kind of grown. It's kind of gotten funny in that regard. But like when I first told Blair or CEO, like, Hey, I got a tequila sponsor for

22:51 poker. He kind of like, I hope you know what you're doing. You're like, I don't, but I think it's going to be not a clue. Just kind of winging it But we'll see, you know, and it's turned out

23:01 great. Awesome. Because you guys, you have a, what's it called? A tech house. Is that right? Yeah, tech shack tech house. I forgot what I'm going to call it. Yeah. So is that kind of like

23:10 your office? Yeah. So it's our office and so when, you know, people are in town from Calgary. It looks real fun. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's wholesome, good networking fun. Yeah. And, um,

23:21 but people will come in and they'll stay there. Like when I'm in Houston, I'll stay, uh, stay at the house, you know, one or two nights a week to be able to do different events and, you know,

23:28 just, you know, You know, if I go to meetings downtown, it's easier and actually cheaper just to park there in Uber. Right. Than to try to find a parking spot downtown. Yeah. That's so smart.

23:37 We should go to the house. I know, and I'm gonna put that on our list. I've been telling Jake and Colin, you know, Hey, you should do a house thing. Get a house. Get a house. I know we have

23:45 our little shack. Wow, I can. I mean, this is great. It fits us. Yeah. It fits us. I still never came over for the pickleball tournament. Well, our pickleball court was taken over by another

23:57 office, but. I hate when that happens That's okay now. It is what it is. Maybe we won't get it back some way. But the, yeah, so I mean, the house has been great. You know, we've done a lot

24:08 of new stuff there and it's, it's just a, I like it because it's a kind of a, people don't want to go hang out at an office after they leave their office, right? I know, yeah. Like, you know.

24:18 I feel like that's kind of what we kind of try to have our vibe here and make it a little more. It's very open we, have our little living room, like it's a little less off the sea. And that's,

24:31 yeah, people, I mean, 'cause they're like, I just sent an office, I don't want to see. But I'll have, you know, I've got customers that will just swing by, they'll, you know, they'll text

24:36 or call. They're like, Hey, if you went to home, yep. I'll call them, come by the house. And so they'll just swing by the house and, you know, they'll wait out traffic. Yeah. If there's

24:44 traffic on I-10, they're just like, Man, I'm just gonna come hang out. We're just gonna hang out. Or, you know, with real stakes. That's smart. And done that a lot, just fire up the grill

24:50 and have people over. And so it's worked out really good 'Cause that's, I mean, we're, I'm all about, you know, one community, networking with people, you know, getting people out. You know,

24:60 we've got Red M. Oh, yeah. Who's actually using the house now. It's kind of their meeting space. Nice. So we've opened it up and so they do all their educational meetings there and stuff.

25:08 Awesome. Well, we'll have to come by. I don't know if any of the guys have been. I've never been. Yeah, I know Jake and Colin have been over. I think, I know Jake, I think he showed up for a

25:17 poker. Just check it out. Yeah. And then, you know, crawfish, I think, last year Ooh, are you guys gonna do that again? That's the plan. Working on some dates on that. You know, crawfish

25:27 is, I don't think the crop

25:30 So we'll see how much crawfish we can actually get our hands on. Yeah. But that's my favorite. It's one of my favorite things to cook. And so I cooked last year and this one of my favorite kind of

25:40 events or parties to throw just because it's right, you know, it's just a fun gathering. Awesome. Yeah. Different than throwing a brisket on the pit. Right. We did one. I mean, it was before

25:49 my time, but we did a crawfish. A chop. You're sitting away. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It checks. That was a couple of years ago. Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah, people have been asking for it again.

25:56 So maybe I feel like you have so much shit going on Yeah. I know. You never know. Maybe we'll throw one in. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. It was. That was early on. Mm-hmm. That was, I think

26:08 that was. That was 2020, right? I think that was still COVID logdowns. Yeah. Yeah. I think because that was another one of the, it was a super spreader event. Mm-hmm. Of course. Yeah. Yeah.

26:17 And it was Chuck. It was Chuck. Chuck was probably Asian zero. Yeah. That was a good time. He shut the street down. I had a van and everything. I feel like he, he's like best friends with the

26:26 Richmond like police department.

26:29 So he is, I will say, I love Chuck. He gives me recommendations on dinner spots. Oh, yeah. And then if I can't get a reservation, he can typically call somebody and give me a reservation. Yeah.

26:40 Yeah, he gave me a solid, I can't repeat it, but he gave me a really good recommendation for Uchi Sushi in downtown, and it was fantastic. And he had to help me out with the rest. So appreciate

26:50 it, Chuck. It was good. Chuck is an Uchi fiend. Found that out. Chuck is an Uchi fiend. Yeah, that's like his favorite place to go That's like his go to whenever he's like, I'm going to take

27:01 him to Uchi. I'm like, why haven't you taken me to Uchi? I like Uchi. Yeah. That's fantastic. I took Chuck's advice and I was like, he was like, just do the chef tasting. The Omokase is so

27:10 good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, 10th place later, I was like, man, this is fantastic until I got the bill.

27:17 It was pricey. Yeah, what not expecting that? But it is good. And it's good. So before we wrap up, a couple of things I know before we started recording, you were saying. You guys kind of have

27:28 a lot going on this year. What are you most excited about on the coldboard side by going into 2024? Honestly, just the growth, right? Yeah. Like we've - Big growth year coming up. It's a huge

27:38 growth year coming up. Awesome. We've got a lot of neat stuff coming out as far as partnerships, internal development that, yeah, I think we'll have a pretty significant or much clear partnership

27:49 announcement in the next few weeks even.

27:53 We're launching our V5 of our dashboard, which is gonna be really neat We're gonna be showcasing that at HFTC. What is that,

28:01 HFTC? The hydraulic fracturing technology. Got it, that's always a great event. We'll see if it's freezing weather this year again. So we're gonna showcase V5 there and really roll it out.

28:13 Awesome. But yeah, I mean, you know, 24th shaving up to be a massive growth year. Love it. You know, the first month of the year has already been really good for us. Cool. You know, we're

28:23 seeing traction in the market that I don't think we've really necessarily seen years past. Wow. Um, I think it's just like a, you know, the, the market kind of maturing into the way they look at

28:34 data. Right. And the way they're using it. Yep. Um, and saying, okay, now we can, now we can actually do something. Yeah. Um, and so yeah, 24 is just, you know, we're really excited.

28:45 Great. I can, well, I can't wait to like, you know, stay in the know and LinkedIn and all that good stuff and see all what you guys are doing and hopefully there's more, um, we love you guys

28:55 It's me for us, company who's DW. and Cold Boarda, hang out, work together on the kitchen. Yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, I think, um, you know, we've been apart for a long time with

29:04 the island and have participated in quite a few things. Yeah. That's definitely going to ramp up. I feel like we have very similar, like vibes, ideologies in terms of collaboration, community,

29:15 just being a little something different in the industry. Yeah. And I think that, you know, you have to have that little bit of uniqueness to it, especially when you're a growing company. Yeah.

29:23 You're new to market, right? Right. Because then you're just another. company kind of in the, in the tech space. Yeah, you lost in the shop all because something new, right? Um, as I think

29:33 that's been one of the greatest things for us is having that just kind of unique outlook on it. Like whether it's like you mentioned community, like working with you all kind of being a part of

29:40 different things and saying, okay, hey, you know, how do we have fun at this? Right. Like that's the biggest deal. You know, I'm, we're, we're looking to expand our team. And that's what I

29:48 always tell like people, it's like there's, there's a culture to it. Like we, I want to, you know, it's fun to work with people that you would like to hang out with outside of work Yeah, that

29:57 you truly like, because then it's, then it makes it fun. You don't want to go to work and just be like, oh my God, these people are terrible. Right. You know, you want us to do that, right?

30:04 Yeah especially,, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but we come into the office every day and it would really, really suck. If you were sitting in an office, I would have people you didn't

30:12 like. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the staleness of that is, is probably leaving the industry and probably not coming back. Right. Yeah, getting a bad taste in your mouth and just being like, this

30:22 is not for me. Yeah. And you're, but you're saying like the evolution of companies too. and the culture change into what they do, like whether it's, you know, yeah, I had a boss, you know,

30:32 when I was at Weatherford that like, if I was going to a customer's office, I had to wear a suit. And then I had my customer who was like, if you come in wearing a suit, probably not gonna let

30:40 you in next time.

30:43 But it's like that mindset, right? And it's the culture shift now where people, it's a little bit more casual because people can be more comfortable and stuff like that. I know, I always started

30:51 telling people when we started interviewing people, like when I interviewed Crystal, I emailed her before and I was like, our office is very casual, please, for your sake, do not show up in a

31:04 suit, like you will feel weird. Like when I interviewed with Colin, he was wearing a basketball shorts. Luckily, like I am not a suit person anyway. So I just had on like nicer pants and just

31:16 like a top. But I was like, thank God I didn't show up. I mean, I think anyone that does their research do not say like suit people, but I started telling people like, please don't, you can

31:26 wear jeans. You could honestly wear leggings if you would like, and we're not going to judge you for it. Yeah. So I went to, it was a meeting with a potential investor last year, and I went to

31:36 the, to their office and I'm wearing a suit because I'm like, okay, this is what I'm supposed to do, right? Here we go. Here we go. Oh, okay. I was like, dude, I know you don't normally

31:43 dress like that. He's wearing jeans and like a fishing shirt. And you're like, come on, man, just like I am. I was like, now

31:52 I feel uncomfortable. Yeah, right. And you're just like, you don't ever want to, I don't know what the happy medium is to where you're not under or over. But, yeah,

32:00 culture, we're back on it too. So, but yeah, no, I think great. Awesome. Misty, you want to wrap up with our last two questions? Sure. All right, Lee, what is the biggest misconception and

32:12 energy in your opinion?

32:16 Well, that's

32:19 a good question. You should have prompted me for this. They're supposed to be surprised. No, I think the biggest misconception is that one, that we're not good stewards of the environment. I

32:28 think so, whenever you hear people talk about it on the news, right? It's always, oh, big bad oil. Like one, we, you know, frat guys calls earthquakes. That we're, you know, poisoning the

32:37 water, that we're lighting your water on fire. The movie that came out years ago, gasoline with that idiot, you know, he's pushed a lot of those misconceptions. Yeah. And I think as an industry,

32:48 we've done a really good job We're not there yet, but of regulating and going kind of above and beyond what the government's mandated. Right. And I think that as a whole, when you go across the

32:57 industry, there's not this like evil group of people that just want to poison stuff. Right. And I mean, I've got, you know, my kids, like they watched like Cars 2. Like the evil guy lived in a

33:10 drill, offshore drilling rig, you know, offshore platform, right? Yeah. That was a layer. And I was like, oh my God, are you kidding me? Like this is ridiculous But that's kind of the

33:19 misconception of everything else is that we don't care.

33:35 I think that we do, though. We absolutely do. Yeah, agreed, for sure. The other one. Speaking of caring, so the last question is, why people outside the industry, people like us who are

33:35 coming in, why should we care? Why is it important to care about - That's a good subway. That's impressive. Thanks. So why should we care, or what, say it again? Why should the general

33:45 population, the world, why should they care about energy, where it comes from, anything that has to do with it? Why is it important to just be knowledgeable about energy? Well, so that you

33:56 don't make short-sighted decisions. And if you're not knowledgeable, then you're perfectly fine with, you know, shuttering down means of energy production, right? Yeah. Whether it's, you know,

34:05 not wanting to embrace natural gas is a huge one, right? Like, you know, are kind of like, you know, guy that we know obviously is in the news a lot. Toby Rice is a great steward for talking

34:15 about the need for natural gas.

34:20 people who don't care or just allow themselves to not research it, not understand it. And they're like, oh, we can get it from just wind and solar. Well, that's a portion of it. Yeah, right.

34:32 And it's kind of everything's on the table approach to how we continue to do this with populations and everything else, right? You know, Colin, I think he did a video yesterday talking about,

34:43 you know, to fund technology. Yeah. You know, how are you gonna charge your phones? How are you gonna charge your tablets, your laptops? You know, how are you gonna be able to power your home?

34:50 Right. And it's not gonna come from this, you know, one single solution. No, right. And I think that, you know, people really focus on that and they're more open to what we're doing and seeing

35:02 that we take steps to prevent. You can't stop every accident from ever happening. Right. That's the definition of an accident. Yeah. But you mitigate it and you make it to where they're fewer and

35:12 less impactful. And so like, you know, people, you know, not caring if they build a pipeline or not. Well, you may not have the ability to heat your home, If that pipeline's not here - Uh-huh,

35:22 yep. And so it's, you know, they need to actually, it would be active and caring and learning and doing their own research so that they're not just getting pushed and what single - There's so much

35:30 that people don't know, right? And they just, I mean, mainstream media for the most part just buries us whenever they get a chance. You know, it's easy to kind of be the scapegoat, right? Yeah.

35:41 Like, a pipeline leaks. Oh, it's, you know, because they took shortcuts, not because there was any other thing that could have happened. Right, well, and that's, I feel like there was a

35:49 couple, I think we talked a little bit about safety on a podcast we did, and I feel like that is definitely one thing people don't understand. The safety measures that are put in place, we're not

35:59 just out drilling however we want, whenever we want, however we feel like it, to your point, when accents do happen, it's, I would assume most of them, not because we necessarily cut corners,

36:12 'cause I don't think we do, like people can die. Like, there are very, very strict safety measures in place, they do happen, and like you said, it's scapegoating, and as soon as it does,

36:21 there's always someone to blame, and it's usually boiling gas. And what we do is, I mean, what we do, the guys in the field and the girls in the field is, I mean, it is dangerous. Yeah. But

36:31 it's, and that's one of the things that's kind of appealing too, is you sometimes stretch the limits of the engineering. Yeah. And they have to re-look at it and say, Okay, we have to get this

36:39 done, so how can we redesign to build this? And, you know, and that's

36:46 the people who can re-create are staving off those next accidents and making it safer for everybody. And so, you know, it's, but the lack of caring is also impacting the ability to expand the

36:60 industry. Right. You know, it was getting more difficult to hire some of the younger kids that are coming out of college because they have this kind of mindset of what they've been around, but not

37:09 doing research that, Oh, well, I guess that's stale. Yeah. Or anything but. Yeah. There's a good group that I'm kind of getting associated buddy of mine, Brian, he's doing a group that's

37:20 trying to help kids who want to go to vocational school and high school and not go straight to college, go to a trade school, and then he's introducing them to oil companies and getting them

37:29 involved early so they can help sculpt, you know, their talents. That's one of Colin's big things to like as a company, yeah, as a company, and I think Colin in general to just how important it

37:42 is to kind of repaint the picture so that there are younger generations that aren't afraid to get into energy and to get into oiling us, especially here in Houston. Like there's no reason that

37:53 schools in Houston and Texas in general shouldn't be offering or teaching some basic level of energy, you know, and what they're doing through this is they give scholarships to some of the kids to

38:05 go to vocational school, they earn a scholarship and then they mentor them throughout it. Yeah. And then make introductions to oil and gas company service companies and say, hey, we're vouching

38:12 for this 20 year old kid, give him a chance and I'd have to have 10 years of experience you can train him. Um, and that's, but that's how this has to happen because there's, there's a lot of kids

38:21 aren't going to the oil and gas direction. And that's where we're going to be putting a really bad bind in the next 10, 15 years. You know, they talked in the eighties. What was it? The great

38:29 changeover? Yeah, because, you know, a lot of people were going to petroleum degrees anymore. You know, it's going to be, I think it has a potential to be worse over the next 10, 15. So well,

38:41 thank God for companies that are taking, you know, taking a stand and putting in a concentrated effort to change that. Yeah. And it's the technologies too, right? For sure. Now it is becoming

38:52 way more techy. Yeah. Cool to be on the tech side of things. And while I guess, and it was before where everybody was like, we've always done it this way, a formal way to think we've always done

39:02 it this way. We don't need to change. Right. I've got my tally book. I don't need this. Yeah. And that's, that was all way of thinking. So yeah, way cooler now. Yeah. Now you can build cool

39:10 stuff. Exactly. See, our industry is cool. So cool Have you ever seen Halloween down the Disney movie, which the Halloween is cool? I feel like I'm like oil and gas is cool, it is cool,

39:22 it's a very, I mean, it's not that old, but old Disney Halloween movie, but look it up, look it is a good one, yeah, write that down, good year round. Lee, thank you so much for joining us,

39:36 always a pleasure, yeah, that was awesome y'all, painless, did beat me up too bad, and yeah, hopefully when y'all edited it, y'all edited to make me sound really dumb, we won't, Jacob does a

39:45 great job, yeah he does, Alright y'all, we will see you next time.