Powering Boston’s Largest Developments - Inside McDonald Electric with Mike McDonald

In this episode, we sit down with Mike McDonald of McDonald Electric to talk about the realities of running a successful electrical contracting company and what it takes to build strong partnerships across the industry. Mike shares insights on the growth of McDonald Electric, the importance of skilled union labor, and the role contractors play in delivering complex projects that power our communities. It’s a conversation about leadership, craftsmanship, and the future of the electrical industry.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Are you guys doing any of the tenant fit outs over there?

SPEAKER_02 0:03

We have not received no, we've not been awarded one yet.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Yeah. But you I mean you guys did the whole building over there. Oh yeah, we did a lot of the residences.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

We did all the residences. Yeah. So that was a very interesting. So we were there six years. I think we started there in either late 2018 or 19, enabling. Yeah. All right. And so before anyone. What was very interesting about it was the MB when they built Sol Station, they put piles in ahead of time, anticipating building a building there.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, I mean 20 years ago, I think, right?

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Then Heinz group took them twenty over 25 years. I mean, you I mean, as long as you and I have probably been on our career, we heard about this job.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

You know, this this fictitious job that was out there. So it finally came to fruition. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Um I mean permitting took 15 at least. Which one? Festival station, I think, to permit the job. It took 15 to 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

It was uh it was outrageous. Yeah. So what was very interesting about the job is so you're looking at, I don't know what you're where it ranks in Boston, but it's it's 54 stories. The whole job is built on four supercarns. That whole entire tower is four supercolumns.

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

So what the interesting thing about the arches underneath, right? No, these are massive square. So and again, remember, this is after 9-11. This is after the bombing. So these massive square steel beams. But what they did is they took these beams, okay. Let me go before that, to support the beams. They had to do what they call micropiles. So the micropiles would set the foundation that would support these four columns that transferred the load up the 54 stories. Before they could do the micro columns, they had to relocate a lot of utilities in the basement. So the job was really broken down, I would say, in three elements. Um enabling, which was that was what we considered enabling. So our general foreman, I mean, basically rerouting, a lot of high voltage work.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

How many layers of train stations are under there?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Just there's none. Under building direct? No. That's off to the side a little bit. It just it just was off to the side. So you just so you basically have your service tracks. Yep. Um, but we had to do what so before you you really saw much going on above the ground, there was a lot subterrain. In other words, you you're doing a lot of enabling to to build it. Well, once that was accomplished, then the site work really went into earnest. Um and enabled them to start obviously, you know, constructing the tower. But part of that site work, you also have to understand, was an expansion of the bus train facility and the the bus and train facility. So the buses now, when they come in where the bus terminal used to be, that track is now elongated quite a bit. They added parking in there for the tenants in the residences of the building as well. Oh, yeah. Uh, and then you had we had to interact with the MBTA as well. Sure. You setting up those tracks. Uh so we had to deal with multiple authorities at that time. Um so when they went into construction, as they mentioned, enabling was on site, and then they began these supercolumns coming up. As they mentioned before, post 9-11, post what happened, um uh the marathon bombing. So these super columns, now you you remember, this is now considered a major transportation hub. Oh, sure. So the way it's you know, the way it's the engineering of it was much different because of the mass of people that would be traveling in and out of this transportation hub. So these massive columns, and I can't tell you dimensionally how big they are, they were still columns with rebar set all around them and then poured within concrete. And this went on for quite a while. Um, also, the staircases that existed were wrapped in steel plates because of potential bombing. Yeah, wow. Because of potential bombing. It was it was very fascinating watching the construction. I I've never seen a building like this in my in in all my career. I've never seen a building like this built before. And you know, I know there's an issue right now in New York City with one of their towers, but when they were building the building in all the steel that exists within that structure, there were like horizontal bracing that was on hydraulic pistons that to give leeway? No. These were temporary. Oh it was to maintain building plum. Oh that building couldn't be off at all. So there was a lot of like the one in New York City. The one in New York City is off plum. Yep. That the one in New York in San Francisco is different because that's soil.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

The one in New York City, I believe, was because of construction. Wow. So you had to maintain plum for that entire 54. I mean, you gotta think about it. I a fraction, a fraction of an inch through that, you know, going up very high. Yeah, it's a foot, you know, 600 or almost 700, what is it, 700 feet in the air. Right. It would it would generally taper off. And then we have structure hurt the structural integrity as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

But so going from the there was six-year duration of actual construction, again, between enabling the transportation, the tower, fitting up the tower with residences. Um, but prior to that, we probably had two years of pre-construction that we were doing trying to you know secure the job, which was very unique. So we we lived the job before the job happened.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

I worked I worked 30 years ago this year, 1996. I was out of my time a couple years. I was working at the big dig right at Cell Station, right on Atlantic Ave. They were putting slurry walls in. Yes. And that was the beginning of the big dig, really. I mean, it was another 10 years before it opened. But they were talking about Cell Station Tower back then. There's gonna be a building here, they're gonna build a 50-story building here in the next couple years. It took it took another 25 years before it got going, but they were talking about it 30 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

No, it it's it's been in the works for for a very long time. And actually, I unfortunately the um the senior developer project management president from Heinz Group, who's based out of Texas, he actually just passed away here in this past year. Oh, is that right? Yeah, about a year ago. Yeah. Um, and I remember having a dialogue, some dialogue with him, and he goes, I've been living this project for over 25 years. So for him to actually see it come to fruition and be built, and it is an instant iconic piece of boss. Oh, yeah. Uh, you know, it it it it stands out. Yep. It really does. I mean, that's a that's a once-in-a-lifetime building. And I even said to my general foreman, who now is in my in my office, I said, you have to realize you're you're about less than half percent of the electricians in the United States. Yeah, right. That have worked on a project like this. I mean, I I would definitely say less than than than a half. I mean, that's obviously New York City that's not uncommon.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah. That that job, the South Station Tower, and the one right across the way, our pension fund job, the state street job, right? The big um tower there, the two towers. I mean, those are the two like crown jewels of the Boston skyline now. The I mean the South Station Tower is a beautiful, beautiful building, and they got their platforms up top with parks 35 stories up. I mean, that thing is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

That's what the public does not see and experience are the parks that actually where you see that building transition. So as you look at that building, all of a sudden it steps inward and then continues upward. That's where your residences start. Yeah, and that's operated by Rich Collin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Um low rent district over there.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah, very low rent district. The views are spectacular. I mean, no obstruction, right? You I mean, I can some of the penthouses. So on the back side of that building, as you're looking at the front of South Station, the back side of the building, those penthouses have like two-story, floor-to-ceiling glass. As you look out, you have more than a 180-degree view of the city.

unknown 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

I mean, I can see Fenway Park over there, you know, and I got a full view of Logan Airport over here. Yeah. One of the things that struck me, but one of the things that, so yeah, no, no obstructions. One of the things that really struck me, I was sitting in the penthouse. Well, stay standing in the penthouse, just walking around, checking it out. You didn't buy the penthouse. No, no. I uh that's a that's a that's a different level also. As I was standing in one of the units, and I'm looking out at Logan Airport, and fortunately enough, we do a lot of work at Logan Airport. We do all the we've had the maintenance contract for the high voltage for quite a number of years. Um, and we do a lot of the runway lighting over there. So I was looking down one of the runways, uh, one of the one of the major runway systems is there's two uh parallel to one another. And I'm looking over and you see you start to see a small little air pain starting to accelerate. All of a sudden it takes off and it's getting bigger and bigger and it's coming right at me. And then all of a sudden it vears off. And it's like, what happens if the steering goes? Or God forbid, it is, you know, or or terrorism.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

That's why uh we have height restrictions in Boston, right? I mean, because the airport is so is like right on top of the city, it's right there.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Well, that's indicative of the entire um seaport area. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Um right, they're only 25 story max or whatever it is, yeah, because of that, because of the airport. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

You throw a football at it. I believe there's recently a study done too, in terms of height restrictions in the city. The mayor just did something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

With the section of the city to raise uh the heights because there's no land available, so the only place you can go is on.

SPEAKER_02 11:28

No, no, it in one of my short things that's been difficult for me is and I and I think that this mayor has this opportunity. There is a lot of development scheduled for along the waterfront. And tying in the big dig, um one great example of that is right there along Four Point Channel and between there and A Street. So right now I know there's a developer that has three right next to the Lily building, which was just completed there.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Oh, yeah. The old Gillette area, too.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

So there's there are three buildings, and what I just saw the renditions, there's they want to put like an amphitheater there, public space. It would be a spectacular area for the park and for the neighborhood. Yeah. And fortunately, I I can't have a place in the neighborhood there, too. So it would just it would really it would change the dynamic of it. But that those buildings are being built over the tunnel.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

That's right. The tunnel goes right underneath there. Correct. The uh third half of the tunnel. That's right out to the airport.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Yep. Uh right there, there is the um exit staircase. Right there, if it's the edge of um uh the old Gillette PG.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah. Yeah, so there's a ton of work coming. There's a lot of stuff in Irons in the Fire, whether it's the old flower exchange, the Widet Circle that's off the point of um, you know, in the shadow of um Cell Station Tower. But, you know, doing Cell Station Tower. No, you know, Rinky Dink company is gonna be able to build and deliver on Cell Station Tower. I mean, you guys executed that job with precision. The job came out beautifully. It's a crown jewel, the Boston Skyline. Now, Mike, I mean, that's I don't know. Is that is that McDonald's biggest job? Pro biggest profile job, biggest money job. That must gotta be one of them, right? It's gotta be able to do that. All the above. All the above.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

I mean, when you the the final tab and the job is over 100 million.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

A hundred million dollar job. Yeah. So, I mean, that's just electrical.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah. Um one of the, if not the biggest job in Boston right now in the last you know, last decade or so, last five or ten years.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Yeah. Yeah. So you know, there were lessons, obviously the lessons learned. Um but I think through the evolution, um since the inception of the company, where we are today. Yeah, that's what I kind of wanted to get back.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Like you McDonald Electric wasn't always doing uh$100 million electrical jobs, right? You guys had some humble beginnings, right? I think you celebrated your 25th anniversary a year or two ago. I mean, your first job wasn't a uh 60-story high rise, right? 27 years, March 19th this year. Is that right? Coming right up on 27. I'd love to hear more about McDonald's humble beginnings. We all know the great stories and the success stories of the big office towers and the Quincy bus electric terminals, and we'll get to all that. But I want to hear, I want to go back the Wayback Machine a little bit and hear about uh, you know, how Mike McDonald and and crew built McDonald's electric and got it to where it is today because that's no easy task. Just opening your doors and now you're doing hundred-story buildings.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

I'll I'll try to uh I'll try to make it a little shorter than I normally is. Uh always impossible for me to do. Um so I was working for another company within Boston, a high-profile company. And um I again going back before that, my father was a vocational teacher at Quincy Votech, and then Blue Hills Regional. Um, had always been in the business, been part of the business, worked in the business, had always had aspirations of having my own company. At the time, my father was a you know, he did work?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Did you go to Quincy Votech?

SPEAKER_02 15:30

I went to Blue Hills. Yeah, okay. So That's why you guys hire all the blue blue kids.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

We try.

SPEAKER_02 15:37

We try. We we we try to mine from all of them. Sure you do. Uh so we're big advocates in vocational education. Yeah. Um, but my father, you know, I worked for him Saturdays in after work. So my father said, when I when I graduated high school, my father said, You gotta go work for somebody else. He goes, if you want to learn more about the business. And in hindsight, you know, at the time, you're like, well, I'm content with where I am, but in hindsight, you look back and you're like, best movie I ever made. Yeah. Uh first job I ever worked on was The Prison in Bridgewater. So my first job was in, you know, concrete, labs, real more industrial types of things. So that was from a foundational standpoint for me personally, that's kind of where I started. Um in during my vocational years, I met my business partner, Tom Cooney, um, freshman year in high school, when we played football together. So that that was, you know, we have known each other quite some time. Um and Tom and I both came into organization at 19 years old, working in the field. Well, I had always had aspirations of have my own company. Well, I I did I worked, did housework a bit on the side, whatnot. So get married in 1995. And then uh I was 27 and my wife got pregnant. I was 27 and 28. And uh perfect time to start a company. What happened? What this is a true story, and if you were to ask her, she'd tell you the same thing. I she comes home and I'm like, shit, my clock is running out. So I said, if I don't do it now, I will never do it. Now I was very fortunate. I bought my first home when I was 21, so we we had our own house, but but that also came along with Bill's. Sure. Never mind, a new child. Um so my wife will always say, I got scared into doing it. So I started assembling a business plan. And I had always worked in large construction, so Tom Cooney approached me and said, He goes, Mike, he goes, I've known you obviously a very long time. Would you entertain taking on a partner? Um, he goes, I know you. I know you don't want to be a small company. Um he goes, to balance a family and begin a business, he goes, it's gonna be practically impossible. You'll never see a child. So I gave some consideration and I said, Yeah, let's do it. So during our first, I this is one of the running jokes during the first meeting that he and I met as we were plotting, and my wife is going through her pregnancy. Um, I put together a business plan. First thing I did is spill spell business wrong. That's my vocational education. Um but long story short, okay, where are you gonna start? We're gonna pick up customers. So at the time, it was a robust time in the Boston market. Um in this was 1999. So our philosophy was you know, there are a lot of table scraps out there. What if we pick up the table scraps nobody wants? Because at the time, people like, oh, we want to do the larger job, we want to do this. Everyone was letting all these little things go. And we talk about that, you know, from an organizational standpoint in in labor and in you know, IBW in general, both locally and nationally, you know, those small jobs that are always a loss. So that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

That's what we said about the jobs that nobody else wants to do.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

That's what we did. Clean up. Yeah. We we were not we were basically, I think the first three months we didn't sign agreement, but we were maintained uh communication. Um as I remember, um Richie Gambino was the business manager at that point in time. So um we signed on, and it was one you know, you'd always have a uh you'd you'd find this job that was a step up in, you know, in terms of testing your sophistication. So one of the jobs that you know one of the jobs m actually most proud of in Boston um was in 2004, which was the Boston Opera House. Oh wow. And the job at the time was like a it was like a$3.4 million job. Now we haven't done we didn't do anything approaching that. We were, I mean, our largest job at that time was a million or two less than that. But we went after it. Um it was a very risky job. 3.4 million 25 years ago was a big job. Yeah. And the thing is, this was a difficult job. So you had so you had a job under tight timeline. I think it was nine months to do the job. Lion King was coming to town, liquidity damages were off the charts. So we couldn't delay that job at all. But the GC at the time took a risk on us. We performed it, job did well. That's what it considered, then it stepped us up. And that's what occurred over time. So um who's the GC? Uh Suffolk Construction. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

It was uh I was gonna ask how you got your stat with Suffolk and uh That was the first job.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

That was the first job, yeah. And I forget how it came out of the woodwork for us. It was it was by chance, but did the job and it was very successful. So over time, you know, there were other marquee jobs that were performed and um it kind of helped us grow. Uh Soul Station Tower, I mean, there's nothing like I mean, there's I always say with a time, I mean, to me, as somebody who's come from the industry, you know, the the the basics of it are. Kind of fundamental because again it it's you look at the floor plate, but there's a lot of floor plates. Yeah. And the dolls are very big.

unknown 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

So and as time evolved too, we evolved as an organization. Because if you didn't evolve, you weren't gonna be successful. And I think one of the things that made that that that's has separated us and has been our how we've embraced technology. So a job like CellStation takes a lot of sophistication. Oh sure. Um between the BIM coordination, um uh trimble layouts, uh accounting, you you name it. I mean, so all those things had to be in place. So we we had to be somewhat a more sophisticated contractor. And I think we definitely achieved that. And with every job, you take away your your lessons. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

I mean, Suffolk as a as a GC, and to to build up a rapport and trust and a relationship with Suffolk. I mean, they're in Boston, they're the 800-pound gorilla. They're the they're the biggest and the baddest there is. I mean, they're they're a great, great contractor, good union contractor. And uh a lot of a lot of our contractors think might be a little intimidated by them or a little gun shy working with a with a with a big company like that. But you guys have kind of embraced it. You there's a couple others, but you guys, for the most part, whenever Suffolk's got a big job, it's usually that's gonna be McDonald's electric. How did how did you get that with John Fish and with uh with the Suffolk crew?

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Um they would they were definitely a very demanding company. It still are. Oh, yeah. By the way, um that's not changed. Um they were a very hard-driving company. And I think we were always we were always um we had to match that in terms of our intensity. And I I believe we did. Yeah. One of the mantras that I've always lived by is I'd rather lose money than reputation. You can always make money back, but you can't get reputation back. That's for sure, yeah. So, you know, you do what you have to do, um, you take risks. Uh, God knows there's been enough risks over the year, you still take them to the today. Um I think with all these companies, and it maybe stuff was a little bit uh further ahead of the curve with some people on certain aspects back then. Uh the client base has really changed out across the landscape, not only locally, but nationally. But um the the contractual language is very arduous uh that you have to deal with. And um they all have the nuances. You know, if there's no perfect contractor out there. I actually look more the developer than I do the contractor, to be honest with you. Um but you have to just execute your job. Okay, as long as you do your job, usually that takes care of about 90% of it normal times. So you're just gonna match them intensity-wise. Yeah. Um, and there's nothing worse than not, you know, you can't use the fact that, well, we're not making money, I can't put in more people here. Well, the best thing to do when you're not making when you're when the job's going difficult and you need people on the job, flood the job, get the job done, get that albatross off your back.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah. I mean, 27-year-old kid, you got a baby on the way, newly married, decide to, you know, take a chance, throw it all, you know, throw the dice, open up your own company, um, dealing with, you know, the the shocks out there in the development world and the construction world in Boston. That's I mean, that's a huge, huge risk that you took on. Are you did you like secretly hit the Powerball or do you have a trust fund somewhere that I mean how does how does one manage that kind of uh commitment? I mean, that's that's it's pretty impressive. I mean, lot a lot of uh companies in 103, multi-generational companies, and you know, they're established, and you just went in and cold turkey and started and built an arguably one of the one of the biggest and better companies in in in Boston. I'm I'm I'm so intrigued by it, Mike. It's really impressive.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

Um you know you you just hit on probably the most the the biggest and hardest thing about starting company. And the uh in today it's and I'll go back to the differences between today and back then, but back then people said, well, you you you need to have money in the bank, you know, you you need you'd have to need two three hundred thousand dollars of the bank, something like that. Well, I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, right? Yeah, no, I I mean I you're working guys. My father was my father was a vocational teacher. So I mean, I wasn't, I mean, I didn't I wasn't borrowing 100k from them. Right. So but I did have a$30,000 credit line in my house. I mean, I'm I'm laughing, but that's the truth. Yeah. Um in that, you know, I didn't being naive was probably was I was absolutely naive. If if I knew what I do today, somebody would say I would tell somebody today, oh dude, you you you're not even close to starting. Right. Um naivety kind of helped you, right? Didn't wasn't an obstacle. Yeah. I I would also attribute a lot of my success, you know, I is listening to the people whom I surrounded myself with. So I I made a very, you know, between Tom and I, we we made a very conscious effort to surround ourselves with people who knew the industry. What I mean by that is your accountant, your banker, your attorney. People who work in our industry. In other words, you know, too often, oh, I'm gonna use the accountant my my dad uses who does my taxes. Right. They don't know how to do that. Right. So, and I was fortunate enough that we we did find the right people, and they were mentors to me in terms of just learning those disciplines. Sure. The thing is, I listened to those disciplines and adhered to those disciplines, and our organization does as a whole. And and that's I think what I would attribute a lot of you know to success toward. Yeah. You know, and it's taking a lot of time. And the thing is, definitely you see a lot of people too that they they do a a large job and they get a big check.

unknown 28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Like, oh, I'm gonna go buy a boat. Yeah. Guess what? It doesn't work that way. Yeah, it takes a lot of you gotta you you gotta keep a very tight belt for many, many years. I mean, there might be a lot of money you can develop the more the money builds in the bank, doesn't mean you have more money to spend on a bigger boat. Right. You still have to keep it there to build a bigger company.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

It's really the non-glamorous side of the business, right? We're pipe and wire guys, but there's a whole team, like you said, of attorneys that execute contracts, bankers that make sure your credit line's okay, accountants that make sure every penny's in the right column where it's supposed to be. That's a side of the business that we don't really take you know much stock in. But as a business owner, you better be paying attention to those things, or you won't be a business owner long, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:36

100%. I mean, you know, it it's just because you're paying people, you know, X, you know, X money, X Money dollars per hour in this envelope, you could also remember a month later, you could also pick up his, you're gonna pay his benefits. Yeah. Now that isn't just a luxury. No, they're owed that. Yeah. They're owed that money. That's part of the agreement that you made through us, you know, between us and IBW inside that CBA. So you gotta be caught, you so that that's why I say, because you have a lot of the money. The thing is, the money comes in this hand and goes out that hand very quickly. Um so some of those principles along the way, definitely. Yeah. So everything, you know, so through time, you're, you know, you're fortunate enough, you have enough success. Not every job makes money, you know, not every job was a grand slam. You know, there's a lot of doubles and singles, and I'll tell you, there was some pretty bad wipeouts, too. Uh a little bit of all. Uh, but you you have to, you know, gradually grow.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, base hits though. Consistently hitting base hits is how you do, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

And I think today, as I look at things today, the cost of entry into the market is far greater than it was when I was younger.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

And what has driven that cost is technology. You know, what you need technology-wise, to effectively effectively implement a job.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

What kind of technology are you talking?

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Well, I I I'll start with some basics. You know, you're accounting systems. Estimating software type systems. Estimating software. But today, you know, I talk about trimble. So in other words, but to do trimbling, um, which trimble for those who aren't aware, it's uh you're you're basically uh you're you're setting secure uh fastening points toward a building in order to, you know, to hang whatever piece of apparatus you're hanging. Um but in order to even do that ahead of that, you'd have to do building image modeling, as they referred to in short-term BIM.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

There was no BIM and there was no trimble, we were coming up to the trade, right? Zero.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Yeah. Zero. Um you know, those things did not exist. So in those are, I mean, today if you don't have um somebody to do that, um, not to mention, you know, obviously we want everyone to be safe. The safety being instituted on projects is now become very expensive. And obviously it's it's worthwhile to keep everyone safe. And I'm not I'm not complaining about extra cost for that, but it it is very expensive because today safety is is I always say enforced a lot more. I mean, I mean Lou, I can I'm sure you can remember being on a job site stupid things such as well not stupid things, let me rephrase that. Things such as like hard hats, sure, um, air protection, eye protection, respirators. I used to drill concrete constantly. I'd I'd go home, I'd be blowing white dust on my nose consistently. Remember those days, yeah. That was commonplace. Yeah. Today, yeah. Silica is not a joke, and they just kept, oh, that's pretty awful for you. I'm like, oh Jesus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Well, I'm on board time, I guess. Um talking about technology. I remember um working out in Deer Island in the early 90s. The general foreman on the job said, you know, these planned benches, you know, in the electric room, they got a plan bench and there's all sets of plans. He said, in the future, it's gonna be computers at all these planned benches. And everybody was like, What are you talking about? No way. Computer's gonna replace uh, you know, a set of drawings. But I mean, every planned bench, every job you got, the foreman got the what they got, iPads and laptops and 60-inch computer screens with the drawings on them.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Our foreman today don't walk around with plants, right? They walk around with with with um iPads. Yeah, tablet, whatever. Now, I'm becoming a dinosaur in this industry. I I mean I I I need that piece of paper to hold on to and and write and doodle on and whatnot. Today, the younger generation did they just they're wired differently. Yeah. You know, with technology and how they use it. Um but yeah, every job site, that's what you're gonna see. Uh that you know, your gang boxes will have a uh large TV monitor, and that's what people will go back to reference. Yeah. Uh so how that operates today is very different as well. You know, in back in the day, too, you'd be constantly talking with, say, you know, when somebody installing the duct work on a job site. Well, I'm gonna run it at this elevation. Okay, well, I'll make sure I just make sure I drop a low you at this elevation. Right that type of dialogue does not happen anymore. That's drawn the the art the job is basically drawn before it's built. Yeah. So you you you've built that job in virtual world first, and then it's being applied to real world. Yeah. So definitely something um, and we're gonna see a lot of changes coming up too. Um within a short period of time, and it's already been instituted, people were going around wearing smart glasses.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

I was gonna say the meta glasses, that that's next.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

You know, so from a coordination standpoint, you can go around and basically you're gonna see things virtually through your glasses.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

That's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Yeah. And that's just that's the reality. Yeah. I mean, it's already, it's already underway. It's already happening. Uh you go to the different trade shows that exist and you you're you're seeing that.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Yeah, unbelievable. I mean, the evolution of the electrical industry in just the 25 or 30 years that we've been in the industry has come, it's just accelerated so fast. We're like living in the future when it comes to some of the technology. How is McDonald Electric and Mike McDonald? How is the evolution with your relationship um with Local 103? Like, how has that changed and gone from when you started to where you are today?

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Well, with the change of the industry in the DAP, the DAP um having all these new uh systems technology that's brought in, you know, there is always the back and forth with that. Um, if I aim to speak specifically about 103, there's been tremendous labor management cooper cooperation. In other words, there is dialogue. We don't always agree. Let's face it, we don't always agree. But there's also an air that's gonna listen and be practical about things. Um I think no, I won't let me rephrase that. I don't think. I know we are a moral for the country. Now I'm I'm fortunate enough I was recently um, yeah, you gotta do a job at Nika. For those who aren't familiar with it, NICA's National Intellectual Contract Association. So essentially NECA represents management side, IBW is the labor side. Um and we we negotiate as IBW represents the workers, we represent the management, um, but having that dialogue is incredibly important toward all of our success. 103, particularly today, is a marvel of the country. And I know this even more so, and it's one important five because the area that I represent from a Negro standpoint today, and I just recently took the position on. I represent Quebec, all New England, New York, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

The regional vice president? Yes. Yeah, congratulations on that's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

District one vice president. That's great. So you I have the opportunity that I speak with other, you know, managers and meet with and oftentimes I do talk to, you know, the um the business managers as well. You know, so just through interaction, through different uh things that are going on. Um and you know, I could use Philadelphia uh recently, you know, who is you know, you're starting to see people who are looking at our model and want to adopt our model. So you're seeing more of it. Yeah. And it's it is being praised throughout the country. It doesn't exist in a lot of places still.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Yeah, you mentioned Philly. I mean, we had that little summit that we had with the IBW folks in Boston, the Nika folks in Boston went down to Philly and kind of talked about business development, talked about the industry, compared notes, similar sized markets, similar sized cities. Super successful way to share our uh our experiences with other local unions and other regions. And uh, and I think we've been doing a lot of that the last couple of years. And it's part of what the partnership is all about is going wherever we have to to find uh models of success to kind of adopt or to compare or to share. And I think that's kind of why we've been so successful, because we communicate, because we respect one another, because we talk through things. Before we came in here, we were talking about issues that affect us, not the craziest major issues in the world, but issues of everyday stuff that you know it sometimes need tweaking and need talking through so both of us can understand what they are. And I think we've been we've done a great job doing that.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

For anybody who would have listened to this, if I if it was one thing I'd want you to walk away from is to understand that we're in this together. Right. Management and labor are in this together. And in our in in by virtue of that, our families are in this together. We're joined at the hip. Sure. If we're not successful, if we're not successful. Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

We're not successful.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

You're not successful, and vice versa. Absolutely. 100%. And I'm fortunate enough, I've worked both sides of the fence, you know, from management and also on the labor side. But um our success is truly driven by the cooperation having the ability to have dialogue, to talk honestly. And again, as long as you understand you can walk away, you don't always have to agree, but there is a continued respect for one another. That's right. And and that's that projects out toward our customers, toward the developers, toward the end users. And that has that can that's gonna continue to evolve and always improve. And we do it, I think again, rephrase it. I know we do better than most, if not all the people in the country.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

We are the marble people looking at today. Yeah. And it's been demonstrated by what you see.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah, I I've always taken the approach where if um you know I can represent my members better and achieve more at the bargaining table for my members. And you the and you as well. If we have a cohesive, open dialogue and a in a in a good working relationship, if I can call Mike McDonald any day of the week and talk about an issue that we're having, I'm being I'm able to do my job better. And I think it's the same for you, as opposed to waiting three years or four years or whatever the contract length is to start talking. Okay, I'm not gonna talk to Mike for three years, but then when it's contract time, we're gonna talk about and resolve all the issues that we've had in the next the last three years. We're like constantly talking, constantly bringing up issues that affect both sides in navigating through them so it's not all or nothing at at uh contract time. And I think we can bring more back to each side of the table by doing that, by having that relationship. And it's it's worked on our side. I know that. And I I'm hearing from you that it's it works for you guys as well.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Yeah, lines of communication are are are paramount to success. And in and again, as it as issues come up during the duration of a uh during any contract period. Sure. Um the issues that come up during the way that you know you work toward to come to some type of resolution, they can then be carried forward toward negotiating the next uh CBA.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

I got a great for instance. I got a great for instance on how we were in the middle of a contract, we're three years into a five-year contract. Um, this past year and the current year we're in right now. We wanted to implement some changes to the pension. Now, everything that you talk about with health, the pension and trust funds, has got to be done um at the labor management table at the trust fund. Um so we come up with some ideas, and typically, like you mentioned around the country, it would be a no from one side of the table or the other if they wanted to make changes in between a contract, so to speak. But we came up with some ideas, and we first thing we did, we sat down with you, some other contractors at NECA, talked about why we thought they were important, talked about whether we could afford to do these changes, and talked about the common sense and the effect it would have on the contractors. If if people are gonna go to mass retirement, that's not gonna be good to execute projects. And we talked it through like we always do. And we got to a a point where both sides understood the need and the the the abil ability to execute it. And we did, and we offered a great benefit to our members and and to your employees. And I thought that was a great example in how we work together. Because when you talk to people around the country that say, I I I can't talk to them unless it's it's less we're negotiating because they would never, you know, they would never agree, or we would never, you know, bring it up or agree either. And I think it's a it's a hats off to our table, to our labor management team to get stuff done for both sides.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

I would say this, you know, I I've been very fortunate. Um I've I've sat on many committees in in different forums. And I, you know, seeing and being part of that would it be part of the decision making or listening to certain individuals and having sat here on the pension fund here at 103, uh the trust funds um on some occasions, you know, I've seen 103 far better than most in terms of the proactive approaches they have taken in terms of anticipating cost issues, whether it be the the funding of the pension funds or the ongoing issue of health care. Um those proactive approaches have kept us in a very healthy zone. Oh, yeah. And I I think a lot of young people, I mean, they want to see money in into their check and all that. When they get to my age, which will be 58 here in the next within the next month, um you look back and you're like, holy shit. It is great to know that you have that nest egg there. And so often, I mean, I read a lot of articles and whatnot, people don't start thinking about it until they're 50 years old. It's too late.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

So, you know what people might take for granted and kind of annoyed by or whatnot when they're younger, they will eventually will see the light and say, wow, how fortunate are we in having that in the the trust funds of between IBW and Nika, in in managing that and taking those product approaches and keeping those funds healthy. And they're extremely healthy, as is I've seen the data run. Um that's a testament to the leadership that has been ongoing um on both sides.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

Yeah, yeah. No, both sides have uh have done great as trustees managing our funds. Mike Donovan, Rich Gambino before him, prudent, prudent stewards of our of our collective monies. And uh we're reaping the benefits of it today because you can't give additional benefits if you can't afford to pay for them. No. You want to raise the multiplier for the pension, you want to increase health benefits, or you want to increase pension benefits or give a bonus benefit at the time of retirement? You don't do that unless you're well over 100% funded. And uh, and that's where we are because of great trustees like like yourself and others. Um in looking back, like we weren't, I remember the goal was always we're gonna get to 100% funded, you know, in 12 years, in 10 years. It was always this faraway land to get to 100% funded and zero uh fund liability. And we've actually got there. And now we're exceeding it and exceeding it. And now we have money to spend on benefits to increase the lives of our members while still making sure that they can afford to live day to day. And that's just something that the the union model, I think, doesn't talk about enough, you know, from the contractor chance point to the union standpoint, just how much and how valuable uh what we offer really is.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

No, I I think having having been in the room, you can you recognize how fiscally responsible those trust funds have been. Yeah. And you go back to a company and what it takes to be in business for quite a long time. Right. Fundamentally speaking, it's the same thing. Yeah. It's keeping the fundamentals of the finances solid and in place. So whether it be you know running a business or running trust funds, same thing. Right. You have to look at things objectively. Unfortunately, our friends in DC don't always look at things fiscally responsible. They just think that you just write a check into caches. Yeah, well, it doesn't work with us. That's right. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

We don't have the we don't have the machine. We ain't getting any bailouts. No, we ain't getting any bailouts if we fail.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Absolutely not. Right. Absolutely. You know, the the last thing you want is these because we never had the experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

We have to balance we have to balance budgets, whether it's your business, whether it's the union, or whether it's the members' money and the health and the trust funds. We have to make sure the money's there to pay the bills. Because if the doctor's bill comes in for your kid or my kid or a member's child that's got something wrong, we got to be able to pay those those doctors' bills. How exorbit they are, that's another you know, a problem for another day. But we got to make sure we're paying the bills, keeping the lights on, and making sure members get the benefits they want and there's no bailouts coming from DC, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

And that's something that should never be underappreciated is how good the healthcare is that we enjoy and we take granted for. And too many people do take this for granted. Because it is so good, yeah, it costs money. And there has to be anticipation, because guess what? Cost of health care is continue to go up. Case in point. And we we talk, we've talked about this at trust funds as well. You know, there's while procedures are staying somewhat steady, if not somewhat dropping, cost of medication is going up. Life expectancy is going up. Yep. So keeping that responsible tension in place is also because it's funny it's funny, all these things tie in some in some way, because you know it's great having the health care, but it's costly.

SPEAKER_00 50:41

Yeah, people are living longer, we got to carry them longer. And then you gotta carry them longer. Part of the plan, part of the formula, I guess, right?

SPEAKER_02 50:46

It that's all this comes into play. And uh, you know, I I think wisely the the trust fund administrators over the years, and the you know, the people have rotated in and out. Um they've hired great people that advise us. Yeah. Really fantastic individuals who are very knowledgeable in what they do and help us keep ourselves out of trouble.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Amen to that. Amen to that.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

You know, and and again, I know I know it's nobody wants to hear, oh, I gotta pay more for this. Well, guess what? Things go up. Yeah. You're doing the responsible thing because if it goes the wrong way, it's gonna cost you a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yeah, we had we had Mike Donovan come down, sat in here in the chair, the RN, and just talk about the state of the trust funds, talk about the health, talk about the pension, the increases in the benefits that we've made in the last few years. And he is just such a world of information, really knowledgeable, very articulate to just talk in plain language of all the benefits you get. And I find myself in awe just sometimes just listening to him go off about the state of the benefits of the IBW Nico, what we've established here. Uh, it is incredible, and it's something that we should all be proud of uh as being stewards of it. I know I am.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

He does an outstanding job in to find um uh a CPA that has uh humility and uh a personality is very rare. Yeah. Um Mike happens to have that.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an understatement for having some personality.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

But usually but usually those two things don't come together. But yeah, uh no, Mike Mike does an outstanding job. Yep. Um incredibly uh bright individual. And I I if you were to, I'm trying to think, we could how many billions of dollars does he have to manage out of that office? It's six, seven?

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Yeah, more. It's all it's it's not quite that yet. When I came on as a trustee about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, we would uh trust the board of trustees, I think you were on the board of trustees at the time, we're just celebrating that we hit two billion dollars in total trust fund assets. And uh two years ago we hit four billion dollars. So we are growing, we're still increasing benefits, and we're and we continue to grow the pot and the kitty to you know keep the future uh looking bright.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Four billion dollars. Yeah. And run out of upstairs. Right. That's building. That is a impressive impressive accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Yeah, yeah. Switching gears a little bit, and I know we talked about the complexity and um of one of your jobs, South Station, that's over. But you guys got another big job um down in Quincy for the MBTA, that that electric bus terminal, that's a massive job on its own. Uh and I know it's an MBTA job. We talked a little bit about the airport and how important those jobs are to the 103 family community to keep people working. And um I know that job wasn't under it. And what you see, I know you do a lot of job out at Logan Airport on the runways, the high voltage stuff. We um we just it hasn't been publicly announced yet. I'm hoping it'll be publicly announced by the time this podcast airs, is that um, you know, a couple years ago we worked hard to get some legislative changes um for public the to be pro-public PLA. The last you know, 10, 20 years have been difficult to get public PLAs executed legally. And we worked hard to get that changed. The governor reinforced it with an executive order um to promote PLAs in min in her administration. And now we have uh some major PLAs coming at Massport in the MBTA for their capital improvement projects, which is billions of dollars in each each individual uh um agency that we're so looking forward to. And that's uh that's an area where McDonald's you know excels at Massport and the MBTA. Talk about some of those um the working for those agencies and what PLAs will mean uh to you guys.

SPEAKER_02 55:12

Well, I think PLAs are incredibly important because you're talking about highly sophisticated jobs that you need very experienced mechanics on. Yeah. Um you know, to to and I think that's where the union excels is in the term of the training and in the professionalism that that our members are. Yeah. Um but having the right training to do that work, this is the workforce you want to draw from. Um those two agencies, I know that the MBTA has been under heat for numerous years. I've I believe under Eng's leadership, I think it's done much better. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. And you know, to speak to the MBTA in particular, I know there's a lot of work going on across the transit system. Um, they're investing in future uh technologies or uh future equipment such as power buses. Yep, Quincy, yep. Uh Quincy is the first one that they're building. There is another one coming up behind it. Uh, from what I understand, I'm not sure when the date is that. Um, but that's been uh we're probably 50 plus percent of the way into that one. Yeah. Gonna be complete by the year end. Uh great job. Um massport, same thing. But there are nuances and rules that apply to these agencies that don't apply to say some other, you know, so l generic private development. Sure. And um they say having the skill sets that 103 has within their membership in what they offer is very important. And again, you get what you pay for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

And I think the PLA is well served for all the residents of Massachusetts. Even though it it the people always tend to look at the price tag well.

unknown 57:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

Look a little deeper.

SPEAKER_00 57:28

Yeah, if your project doesn't finish on time, the price tag is much deeper. The end price is always much deeper than the beginning price if the job's not done right. Absolutely. Yeah, and that's something that definitely um talking about Massport, you know, 10 years ago, Massport was a not a place that we were doing that well at. Uh we were struggling. We had um, you know, bigger non union contractors were in there doing a lot of work. Uh maybe not on the uh on the air side, but definitely on the land side, um, with some of the terminals and some of the infrastructure over there, and uh with help with you know companies like McDonald Electric and a few other bigger local 103 contractors, you know, getting together in a room, putting our heads together, um, you know, use strategically using our market recovery funds, what they were intended to do. We've been able to claw back just about all of that work over at Massport. And it's been one of the the highlights, I think, you know, when I look at what you know, what we've been able to accomplish together, that being one of them, I'm really proud that we've been able to kind of solve uh you know getting that Massport work back because there's always infrastructure, there's always work going on out there, and it's a great millions of man hours every year we get to work, as you know.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

So I have a little bit of an interesting history with um Massport. Uh in my previous life, uh when I was working for somebody else. I started working at Massport in 1992 or 1993. It was called Logan 2000. Yep. And it was the start of a master plan that was developed to modernize all of Logan Airport. And at that point, I don't know if there were any uni shops working out there. Yeah. There were if there were, it was very few and sporadic. Um, and that definitely changed. Yeah. Uh at the same time, the there tends to always be that period of time that somebody tries to push the envelope and in and get in there. But other than that, it it's been mostly union um the union uh market out there.

SPEAKER_01 59:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:39

Um but people should be very proud of Logan Airport. It's it's become such an international desk uh hub. Um I'm not sure what the passengers are at right now, but you know, you look at all the between the design of the new airplanes and and where they're going from like from Logan, you can go to Hawaii nonstop now. I I think they go to Dubai nonstop, if I'm not mistaken. I wouldn't know. Yeah, I I've not I've not visited there either. Um, but I I you know the number of nonstop that destinations that run right from Logan Airport.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

It's a world-class airport. You drive through you walk through there, you see how you see the quality of the craftsmanship that built that place. And it's continuing there's a whole other hole in the ground that could build an add-on to the pocket garage. Each terminal is added on. They just did terminal E. You know, there's another terminal C, it's got a giant addition coming, two billion dollar jet blue expansion. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

So yes, that does actually just went under contract.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:43

Um, PLA. What's that? It's gonna be under that new PLA. Yep. As is the um that's actually ride down a brain train.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

What I was told was under that one. The jet blue is private development. Yep. But the basic private lease back through um uh through MassBort. The GC said they're pushing them to go with the PLA because they said it doesn't necessarily fall under the PLA because it's not under Massport.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Sure, it's private because it's JetBlue, but yeah. They've agreed. JetBlue's agreed to do a lot of.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

Yeah, yeah, they agreed to but yeah, that that's that's quite an undertaking. That that project is basically essentially the entire terminal's coming down. Yeah. Um and JetBlue's created quite a presence over there. But if you look at over there, um they just you have the they're gonna connect A to B together. So you can fly into Terminal A, not go outside of security, maintain behind the house. Yeah. And you're gonna be going to B. Uh Terminal E is adding the other three gates now that were lopped off prior to 9-11. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:56

COVID, I think, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

Uh then you have Northgate where they're consolidating a lot of facilities right now. We're actually out there doing um um early enabling work right now. That's unbelievable. So we're we've we've been doing some work there. We are doing um the well, they have the parking garage, it's going to front terminally. One of the most interesting projects I would love to see, I'm looking forward to seeing and has been talked about forever, has been a tram system that would connect all the airport over to the blue line, META, and then back through, would go through what they call a Conrack, which is where you rent carage, yeah. Yeah, the car and um that that's been it the the thing is obviously there's a big price tag there. Sure. But that would be a crowning achievement there for electric.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:50

Yep. They're also talking about um where the parking rides in Braintree off of 93 there.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:56

Talking about two massive um parking terminals there and a check-in where you can check in, check your bags, and go right to your terminal when in on the bus when you get to uh when you get to Logan. So that's gonna be part of um that PLA that we're talking about. So that'll be uh almost a billion dollar job right there in Braintree. It's gonna be unbelievable the amount of work they got coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

But if they're doing it in Braintree, they're gonna be doing it at all parking rounds. So, yes, I I've I've heard all about that. That's great, yeah. Uh so with large parking, you know, so basically sleeves will be there, you'll check in there. I don't know exactly how they're gonna do it, you know, going through security and all that. But I think I think you're you're checking all your baggage and checking in for your flight, but you'll probably still have to do sustained security when you get here. But I have heard a lot about that. I don't know what the timeline is on it. Um, but I think it's an exciting job, and I think it's a great way to especially when um anything you do to save traffic here in Boston would be appreciated.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

Yeah, isn't that ain't that the truth? So, I mean, outside of all this work at Massport, outside all this work at MBTA, what else is McDonald Electric looking at and doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

I know you guys are big in the pharmaceutical and the uh pharma has been has been a big element for us for for a number of years, but that market has slowed up um overbuilt itself. Quite substantially right now. Yeah. Um we are looking heavily with transportation because that seems to be where there seems to be quite a bit of work that is happening. Um we continue to work toward the expansion of our service department, which is a lot of small jobs. That has been year-over-year growth that we've we've seen that that has developed as well. Um, we continue to try to expand our footprint beyond just Boston. Um we were very fortunate that we had so much work within this small geographical area, but we we've been trying to spread that footprint out in with diversification. We opened up a we bought a company down in Rhode Island, so now we're operating down the Rhode Island market. That's great. Um great market down there.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

The RBW guys in Rhode Island are awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

It's it's it's been going well. Yeah, it's been going well. We're doing quite a bit of work for brown medical right now, actually. Um and we will continue to look at other markets. I mean, right now you want to uh through the acquisition of that, you want to get things up and operating the way you expect or I would expect. And then may look at other markets. Um when we were down in Philly, uh, we talked, I talked to them down there. You look at the DC market that feeds out toward Virginia. Um the electrical industry, our industry here is far different than the rest of the United States. So we were always so busy, like so you. If you look at New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, the large large metropolitan cities, right? They always carried a lot of work. Well, what's happened is the mega projects are now occurring in the Midwest. In small towns, these data centers are amazing how large they are, and also chip plants. That's gonna be something. Unfortunately, we're not seeing it here. Right. I don't think you're gonna see much of it here because of ageing costs and real estate costs in itself. Yep. But this market will evolve. You know, we have some, at least say that there's some great future work, just the demand has to be there. I mean one place that you have not brought up that is a major project is um Proctor and Gamble. Yep. They came out with their master plan there are 54 buildings going in there. Yeah. Um I think that that would be very exciting between the I think there in Bayside, I think it's two exciting areas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

And in the the the the couple of markets that we haven't talked about yet, but always worthy of uh talking about because we're so proud of is the um the hospitals and the university system in Austin. I mean, that's what built Local 103 into what it is today, you know, six, seven thousand person local building hospitals, the world-class hospitals and university system that we have. Now it's tr it's kind of rolled into what the pharmaceutical build out has been the last 12, 15 years. It's just really that's our bread and butter here. I mean, I'd love to get a few data centers, don't get me wrong, or a few chip plants. We don't have any hundred-acre sites anywhere near the city, but the hospitals continue to find places to build uh billions of dollars worth of uh, you know, hospital beds and medical centers and emergency rooms and cancer treatment centers, which is unbelievable in the research.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

Always, always an exciting market. Um, and I I think Boston leads far and away leads the country in research, too. I was speaking to somebody out of Texas. Um and I was asking about the hospitals down there, just out of curiosity. They have some enormous and very highly esteemed um medical centers. Sure. But they don't have the research. So all these trials are going through areas. Uh, I mean, obviously, there's consolidation that has taken place. I think there's a lot of money that that's a that's an industry going through a metamorphosis right now. Yeah. There was an article this morning, even on Norwood Hospital. Yeah. That was um demolished and made way for a new hospital under um Stewart Development. And I think it's, you know, anybody listening knows about the demise of Stewart. Yeah. Uh but but you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

State just took them over in the eminent domain, yeah. And they're probably gonna auction off to another hospital network and to get that job going again will be County Hospital as well. Yeah, that's gonna be a huge development. That that land, that site there um is massive in Dorchester, right down on uh on Dodd Avenue, County Hospital. So there's a major, major development in the in the plans right now. I mean infancy stages, but it's coming, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:19

Uh right now, under the current administration, the problem is some of the uh to a lot of hospitals, small hospitals in particular, funding is cut off, NAH funding, and I've seen it impact. Unfortunately, I've seen it impact some.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:33

Talking about the DC administration, the Trump administration. Yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:37

Um that's yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:38

Research in hospitals is not their uh uh thing right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

Trying to watch my tongue. Yes. Um but you still have like, say, partners that they'll tell you, and I've spoken to people over there, they have such great donors. I mean big dollar donors. Philanthropists, yeah. That are keeping, you know, that are keeping that perpetuating forward. And I think they generally have, you know, it it's gonna be a continued thing here. That market's not gonna go away. It may flow a little bit. Um, I think you'd say the same thing with the universities. Sure. Um, you know, again, those are the areas that we we've consistently worked in. We just actually reached recently um finished um, I'm not sure if you saw any of the publications on the um tree house that um on the in the ER site, ERC site. Yeah, that's awesome. So it was all the large uh convention center. Yeah, all built with tum um lumber.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:43

Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable project. So that um that research center you're talking about over at Harvard University, and then we have the Mass General Hospital that's under construction right now. Those two projects alone, five billion dollars um in you know, in development for for our region, just those two jobs. I mean, just again, the hospitals, the universities, just massive, massive amounts of work that come to our contractors and our members every single year. Millions of man hours. Could yeah, it wouldn't be what we were without it.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:13

You know, well, the thing is let's not even talk about just the building of it, which I see that that's you know, that's a nice little adrenaline boost, but it's the maintenance of them. Yeah. You know, the small, which the the amount of small revolving work that we do, and I talked about a service vision, and that's kind of part of it. I mean, we do a lot of work in education in different areas through our service department. I mean, they require a lot of that. Yeah. Um, there are a number of facilities, uh, whether it be GE and Lynn, whether it be uh Windsor School in the Longwood area, uh a number of clients like that. Raytheon is another one. Our service division is just is absolutely a continued focus for us because when the job is done, who maintains it? That's right. And we cannot lose sight of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:18

Right. That's the most important thing. When we're walking off the job to make sure whoever's coming in to maintain the building itself, the security, the the low voltage, the high voltage, or the fire alarm to make sure it's uh it's our folks. And the fact that you guys are growing in that that part of our that sector of our industry is is great to hear, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:38

Yeah, I don't that's been every year. There's a lot of emphasis within the company on that. Um actually, we we're spreading that model now down to Rhode Island. You're talking about technologies like your iPads, your scheduling, your information, your ticketing information, it's all on that iPad. Yeah, that's right. Thank God.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:01

Thank God it's somewhere. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:03

But no, it's it's it's an important aspect of what we do. Between that and also the utility side, I think there's still a lot of work to be coming down. I've been trying to watch it. There's a lot of work on the power distribution side on the utility side of things. Yeah. Um the this country, and in particular this region, is deficient on power or the infrastructure to transport the power.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:33

Yeah. I mean, it's been it's been neglected for for decades. And all of a sudden there's a need and a surge for more power for these data centers, for these hospitals, for these microchip plants. And uh it's it's putting a major uh strain on the energy system in this country. And you're gonna see they're talking about bringing nukes back, they're talking about bringing up building power plants again, and uh, and all of the above approach, another another sector of the industry where McDonald kind of excels at is uh power stuff, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:02

We definitely do. We're more we're not on the transmission side. No. Um on the underground side, uh, the power. We do quite a bit at that. Um we have a division of the company that handles that type of work. Yeah. Um but it's an area that I expect more robust growth in in the future. I think power in general is again one of those subject matters you don't want to get me on because I'll go on for too long. But you know, you're gonna start to see now that you're seeing a lot of private investment in fusion and yeah, you know that that that could be that could be a product.

unknown 1:14:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:48

Yeah, bring it on. Absolutely. If they can prove that technology, that'll that'll change the uh that'll change the world, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, a little nuclear nuclear reactor in the back of a uh uh 18-wheeler. Pretty much. You know what I mean? Yeah, just bring them into a power uh place where they got power lines and there you are, you're up and going.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

It's not that simple, but it's in theory, I guess it is uh I mean that's what they talk about out at Commonwealth Fusion.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:15

Yeah, you know what I mean? A couple of uh tractor trailer type trucks. Yeah. That'll that's the size of them. I mean, it's pretty intense amount of work that goes with it, but change the world. And no, and they don't have the um, you know, the the toxicity that regular nuclear power has, which you know, it's a hundred thousand years of uh, you know, toxic waste where these uh the fusion plants, the the waste is very minimal, very minimal.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:40

Uh the byproduct of that is water. Yeah. As opposed to uh, you know, what's a half-life half-life of plutonium? I'm uh say a thousand years. Yeah, right. That's a half-life. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:53

I'm not gonna last for that long. Yeah, no, me either. But um, so what's what's next up uh in the future? What does you see for the future, the next step, next 10 years for McDonald's electric?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:05

Um I just to continue to build on the markets we we've created, you know, that we're in right now. Yeah um, you know, I I think we encaps we we basically handle most aspects of it communication, utility, electrical construction. But we've we've seen and actually looking at over if I go back over the number of years, there's it always in every flow in terms of what markets are are really hitting. Um one thing that I think is gonna be very popular, well, is very popular already, is your audiovisual markets um that are out there. Um again, the growth of the service, I I can't say that enough. The electrical construction side of it, it really it's more about demand. I mean, there's a lot of buildings being built, then that division can grow. If there's not a lot of buildings built, it's hard to grow something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:06

Yeah, you're probably not gonna see any more office towers for a while. I mean, I think it might have been the last one. I mean, for a lot of different reasons. Yep. Um, but you know, after COVID, people aren't don't need 10 floors. Now they need three floors uh because they're the work from home model and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:21

I think there's more like I think more people are starting to come back in. I read an article this morning, um, and this is the first I've actually seen something like this, but Bernardo Real Estate is building its first speculatory power tower in New York. Wow. They're back going back into building because they said the demand of TI is so high. And and my hope is that the bellwether for what we may see, and one thing I there was an opportunity I was talking about with, you know, in terms of the mayor in development, we talked about height restrictions. But I think there's a great opportunity, and I think there should be one to incentivize development along the along the waterfront, around the harbor, because then you can deal with the right, you know, the rising tides. So, in other words, Lilly is a great example of that. They raise that whole elevation up to deal with rising sea levels. Now, if you look at, again, right next to it there, where they're putting, you know, there's there's multiple there's different developers working on different projects, but areas like that um in the four-port channels is especially susceptible um to flooding by incorporating great development in environmental consciousness in terms of dealing with you know uh the water tables um and which ultimately is a result of global warming. Right. Um I think that's an area that that should be promoted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:59

And uh kind of smart development is definitely what's needed, especially in a coastal city like Boston.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:04

Exactly. And if I were to say if if if Mayor Wu was sitting here, I would tell the same thing. Yep. You should be encouraging development along that, and I'll tell you, you know, uh the environmental mitigation um that would be incorporating that job would be money well spent. Sure. And I think could be negotiated into that. And it it also takes care of a problem of you know, the the flooding within the city. And uh, you know, I think it if you've read the studies, whether it be down in Miami, New York, I mean, you see what happened when they had that when City came in. Yeah. I mean, that that was it's devastating. That was a small example of what we could see.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:54

Sure. It's not a matter of if it's just a matter of when. There's hundred-year storms, it seems like they're every 10 years now or sooner.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

No doubt. Yeah, no doubt. So again, construction-wise, it it would it's what the market pairs.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:07

Yeah, I think the interest rates come down a little bit. I think I think uh things will start to pick up. They've they've kind of semi-picked up the last couple of months. You see the forecast for the next 12-18 months. How do you see it in Boston? No contractor, a lot of bidding.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

Uh a lot of budgeting. Yeah, um, I I I personally think because you have to remember when we secured a large project, we're a year before we're boots in the crib. Yeah, sure, no doubt. So I I think in the second half this year you're gonna see some pickup of maybe some execution, like jobs moving forward, but the labor impact won't really occur to probably 2027 because of the lag. Sure. But as long as the pipeline is there, that's that's what you really want to see. Um, and that's always been the his history of our of our industry. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:02

Mike, this has been awesome. This is a great this is a great conversation. I'm really glad you you came on. I thought it would thought it went fantastic. I hope you uh you know it was what you thought it would be, but I thought it was a great conversation talking about your company and talking about development in the city and all the markets you're working in that we're working in together. Yeah, you know, this is awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:20

Well, I mean, you know, um obviously we deal together professionally. I I I I I like you all personally. And um, you know, we've always had great conversations, whether it be personal or whether it be professional. We've we've been able to do that. Um, you know, talking about the industry, I I could I could talk about all day. Yeah, same here, same here. You know, and and I know you're so you're very active, even though you know you're you're the business manager of local 103 today, you know, that network has to connect to other places as well. So you get you get that broader look. And and you know, membership, I think too often they they they're kind of looking in their own backyard.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:02

Always, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:03

Yeah. But you gotta really look around and the differences that exist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:09

Well, thanks for coming on this podcast, Mike. Uh on the job with Mike McDonald. It's been freaking great. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate it. I love G, my friend. Yeah, I love it.