Welcome to the very first episode of The Maintainers: A Blue Cap Community Podcast, Hosted by David Lee, Enterprise Account Director at Tractian, and Jake Hall, The Manufacturing Millennial. Joining Jake & David for Episode 01 is Longchi Foma, General Manager at Kalera, the global leader in vertical community farms.
Welcome to the very first episode of The Maintainers: A Blue Cap Community Podcast, Hosted by David Lee, Enterprise Account Director at Tractian, and Jake Hall, The Manufacturing Millennial. Joining Jake & David for Episode 01 is Longchi Foma, General Manager at Kalera, the global leader in vertical community farms.
The trio cover a wide range of topics including: What maintenance technology Kalera implements in their day to day, how organizations can do a better job of implementing innovative solutions with aging populations, and advice for veterans looking to break into the industry. Longchi shares data about the impact unplanned downtime can have on operations at Kalera given the amount of precise parameters their equipment needs to operate within.
Additionally, hear all the ways Kalera is looking to shape the future of farming through their vertical hydroponic systems. With vertical farming techniques; farmers can use 98 percent less water and 99 percent less land. They can produce crop yields of 240 times that of traditional farms through year-round rolling or perpetual harvest.
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Guest Bio
As a General Manager at Kalera, Longchi leads all aspects of a $60M vertical hydroponic farm facility that produces high-quality, fresh, and sustainable greens for customers across Texas and surrounding states. With nearly a decade of experience in the oil and gas industry, he brings a unique perspective and expertise in managing complex, large-scale, innovative operations, logistics, and quality systems.
He is passionate about continuous improvement, learning new skills, and applying them to new challenges. He holds certifications in Project Management Professional (PMP), Six Sigma Green Belt, and Financial Professional, and is always looking for opportunities to expand his knowledge and network. He’s a proud Texas Tech alum, The Society of Petroleum Engineers, The National Society of Leadership and Success, and a former Army mechanic. His mission is to leverage his skills and experience to positively impact the environment, the community, and the industry.
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Guest Quote
“Maintenance is extremely important because you're dealing with such complex things. From sensors to data analytics, to machine learning, algorithms, predictive maintenance, all that is needed. Because one clog could be detrimental to yield, you could go from having a certain amount of yield to a reduction of 30%. So maintenance is key.” – Longchi Foma
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Time Stamps
*(01:32) Opening Icebreaker
*(02:21) Longchi’s background
*(03:49) Segment 01: The Future of Factories
*(07:02) What’s trending in the industry
*(09:43) Segment 02: The Maintainer Mashup
*(12:00) How to inspire collaboration amongst teams
*(14:35) Are older generations accepting modern technologies?
*(15:55) Segment 03: What’s in Your Toolkit?
*(18:38) Advice for implementing new tools
*(21:59) What we can do for our Veterans
*(24:39) Segment 04: Fix-It Funnies
*(25:52) The importance of agriculture
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Links
[00:00:00] Longchi Foma: Maintenance. Do what you call maintenance. I'll fix it. I'm gonna fix it. Concentrated. Maintain it. Maintain control, maintenance, complete.
[00:00:15] David Lee: Thank you for joining our show today. This is The Maintainers, a Blue Cap Community podcast. Hi, I'm David Lee, enterprise account director with traction and experienced leader in the world of reliability centered maintenance.
[00:00:28] Jake Hall: And I'm Jake Hall, the manufacturing millennial and advocate for manufacturing automation and skilled traits. Thrilled to be, uh, a co-host for the show. And today we're
[00:00:38] David Lee: joined by Launchy Forma. I. Lachy is a general manager over at Calera, a global leader in vertical community farming. He's also a strategic leader who utilizes large scale cross-functional teams to maximize profits.
[00:00:53] David Lee: To do this, he leverages his I O T skills, logistics, supply chain management, budget development and resource management amongst many others. But first a word from our sponsor.
[00:01:06] Ad Read: This podcast is brought to you by Traction. Traction Offers streamlined hardware and software solutions designed to make maintenance more reliable and profitable.
[00:01:16] Ad Read: Their AI powered condition monitoring and asset management solution predicts machine failures and unplanned downtime, allowing clients to save an average of $10 million every trimester. It's artificial intelligence quarterbacking your maintenance.
[00:01:32] Jake Hall: All right. Well thanks for joining us Longhi. Uh, before we kick into industry conversations, you know, I wanna get to know you a little bit better and I want the audience who's listening to know you as well.
[00:01:41] Jake Hall: So we're in the middle of summer right now. If you invited David and I to come somewhere that you just love to relax in the summertime, uh, what's
[00:01:49] Longchi Foma: your pick. Well, I have to say, um, North Dakota, 'cause it's hot as in Texas.
[00:01:56] Jake Hall: So what do you, what do you like about North
[00:01:57] Longchi Foma: Dakota? I mean, it's, it's a, it's a change of pace, right?
[00:02:01] Longchi Foma: Yeah. It's, um, quiet rain. You can sit back and, um, just watch the flatlands sip of beer. Just talk about life. I have
[00:02:10] David Lee: to say, I, I do agree compared to the, the humidity of Houston for right now. That's right. That's right. But I, that was the last thing I expected.
[00:02:19] Jake Hall: So, so what's your background? Let's dive into that a little bit.
[00:02:21] Jake Hall: You know, tell us about your background. How did you, how did you get in the industry? How did you get from North Dakota to Texas? Where did it all start?
[00:02:28] Longchi Foma: I wasn't born in this country. I was born in Cameroon, Africa. Then we moved over to New York when I was about 14. At that time my mom wanted to come to Dallas, Texas.
[00:02:38] Longchi Foma: I thought we was going to, coming to Austin, you know, I watched a lot of wrestling. Don call Steve Austin. So I found myself back in Dallas. Um, I went to high school in Dallas. After that, I joined the military, got out the military. I wanted to do something different. So I went to school in Texas Tech to become a patrol engineer.
[00:02:59] Longchi Foma: From there, I joined Slumber Jay and I, I was there for about close to 10 years, and then with the oil of the backhoe, everything going on, they had a change in, in the division. So I want find myself out of a job in North Dakota, so I had to move back here to Texas. And the, in the time while I was search for a job, I happened to stumble to Calera and it was a change of pace.
[00:03:20] Longchi Foma: I went to your facility in Orlando and that was fantastic. I, I was something new at those, um, I'm gonna be a wave of the future, so I wind up joining the company. We open up the facility here in, uh, Humboldt, Texas, and I've been here ever since.
[00:03:35] Jake Hall: That's, that's awesome. So, I mean, what a, what a background coming to America, being in the military.
[00:03:40] Jake Hall: Thanks. Thanks for your service. I. And I like where you talked about the future. So, you know, I kind of wanna open up with, with our first segment that we have is the future of Factories
[00:03:49] Longchi Foma: Meet the Future To Our
[00:03:51] David Lee: Futures?
[00:03:52] Longchi Foma: What Future? The factory.
[00:03:54] Jake Hall: My
[00:03:54] David Lee: factory, everybody's factory.
[00:03:55] Longchi Foma: I love your factory. My factory, my
[00:03:59] Jake Hall: walls.
[00:04:00] Jake Hall: We think of farming you, you know, the big fields with the tractors and the combines going out there, you know, tilling the dirt, putting a bunch of fertilizers, spraying chemicals, a lot of that stuff, you know, that's out there with traditional farming that we think of. But there has been a shift in the industry.
[00:04:15] Jake Hall: I think a lot of it is because people wanna be more sustainable. It also, you want to say, well, hey, we can't put big farms in the middle of cities, but. You can be more efficient when it comes to vertical farming and all that stuff. So can you describe for a person who's never seen a vertical farming system before, what does it look like
[00:04:35] Longchi Foma: to them?
[00:04:35] Longchi Foma: Alright, so I just want you to imagine you walk into a warehouse. Let's just say it's about 60,000 square foot. You see a whole bunch of structure vertically standing up. First of all, you'll notice the pink Q because it's just the magenta look. And that's just based on the, the life frequencies that we do use.
[00:04:56] Longchi Foma: Mm-hmm. So you walk into a warehouse, um, you have a whole bunch of problematic units, you know, de unification units, and then you have stacks of just plants going all the way from zero to 21 feet in the air. As you mentioned before, maximization of your space is key. Right? At max capacity, we're able to do somewhat of upwards of 18 million heads if we were to be in max capacity.
[00:05:22] Longchi Foma: That is per year. Yeah. So, you know, imagine that you're doing that amount of, um, production in a conventional way. You need a ton of land.
[00:05:31] David Lee: So the original spirit of doing vertical farming, was it. To address things like potential future shortages, logistics issue. 'cause we, as you know, obviously we have a whole host of new challenges in the world right now.
[00:05:46] David Lee: Mm-hmm. Right? Nearshoring, onshoring. We're doing this out of need. Right. So how do you see you all's approach in vertical farming fitting into kind of that apparatus of things that. Really, it's everything from just need to have access to food, to national security from a very objective
[00:06:03] Longchi Foma: perspective. I do believe it's, it's a combination of things.
[00:06:06] Longchi Foma: And I, you stated, I can't speak for the founders, but I do understand, you know, um, when you look at just the logistical part of it, right? Having a vertical farm in like a hub where the logistic is very short, it makes it cost effective, therefore it won't be as expensive to the consumer. But when you start looking at food shortage, I mean, it, it's very impactful also, right?
[00:06:31] Longchi Foma: 'cause now you could start having those strategic spot, you could start placing those farms, you know, make it more accessible to people all over the world. So long as right, innovation, keep improving and the costs, and, you know, keep going down.
[00:06:43] Jake Hall: So that means my, my food doesn't have to go 400 miles in a truck to get to me anymore.
[00:06:48] Jake Hall: I, I can you grow down the street and put in my grocery store a mile
[00:06:51] Longchi Foma: away. You know what I'm saying? And you wonder like, why does it still look. Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:58] David Lee: After. That's the real pharma table,
[00:06:59] Jake Hall: right there. It is. It's, and so when you come from the, the chemical field, and now you're in the field where, you know what I call high tech industry that you're in, can you talk to about what is like the top of the mind when it comes to the current state of the industry right now?
[00:07:16] Jake Hall: What are the main topics you guys are talking about and you're discussing?
[00:07:20] Longchi Foma: Right now, apart from everything, believe it or not, it's profitability. That's number one for sure. Um, again, there's, there's this, um, talk here just without the control agricultural environment. We just want to talk about how do you create an environment when plants could grow and also control the cost of energy.
[00:07:41] Longchi Foma: So that's the biggest thing right now.
[00:07:43] David Lee: So in your role, what are the things that are. On your mind regularly to make this happen and to hit these metrics that you're looking
[00:07:51] Longchi Foma: at. What is gonna reduce cost and make us more efficient? How do we streamline our processes that we have in-house? Because you're dealing with such complex thing, you're dealing with live and plants, so you know it has to be a balance.
[00:08:03] Longchi Foma: You know, humidity, temperature, water management, all those stuff you need to monitor and just ensure that all of it is just the right amount. You don't wanna be too much, you don't wanna be too heavy, and it would just shift it. So what I really focus on on day to day is just making sure everything is at a balance.
[00:08:23] Jake Hall: So really what you're doing is you're, you're completely replicating the agricultural growing process that normally happens outside, inside of a building now, inside of a facility. So, The one thing I think of is it's hard to replicate Mother Earth in a lot of cases. I would assume the temperature, the air quality, the humidity.
[00:08:43] Jake Hall: Mm-hmm. The light, the amount of water that's being fed to 'em, the time of water there. There's a lot of all these systems that all come into play that, you know, produce the best crop or vegetable that you guys are producing. How does maintenance affect what you guys are
[00:08:59] Longchi Foma: doing? Maintenance is extremely important.
[00:09:03] Longchi Foma: I can't even stress that enough. 'cause as I mentioned, everything is outta balance. Something is not working, it throws everything in outta whack, right? So from sensors to data analytics, to machine learning, algorithm, predictive maintenance, all that is needed. Um, since we control everything using the iOS system, we are able to see those predictive nature of, of actual, the solenoids.
[00:09:25] Longchi Foma: You know, if something is clocked, we are able to fix that. Because one clock could be detrimental to yield, right? You could go from having a certain amount of yield to a reduction of 30%, so maintenance is key.
[00:09:37] Jake Hall: And, and I think that would tie up a little bit into, you know, that the next segment we talk about, the maintainer, mashup, maintenance
[00:09:44] Longchi Foma: required.
[00:09:45] Longchi Foma: Listen, I maintain, I maintain them myself. Maintain course, maintain speed. I gotta
[00:09:52] David Lee: maintain respect.
[00:09:54] Jake Hall: I love this idea where you're talking about like visualizations. Can you speak on like, It's not just the information that's being collected through a sensor, but you're actually visually seeing that through dashboards.
[00:10:04] Jake Hall: What is the best way information's being presented to you guys so you can make decisions when it comes to replacing or fixing or doing preventative maintenance on
[00:10:14] Longchi Foma: things? So we do have a proprietary system that we do use, like say, uh, mention a solenoid. If something is stuck. It's able to give you that visual representation on a dashboard.
[00:10:25] Longchi Foma: Lockade, this is stuck. Now we're able to make a, a maintenance ticket so the maintenance personnel could actually go and fix it. Without that, it, it makes things harder. 'cause you know, when you have a whole bunch of system with, you know, different piping, everything running around to have that visual, uh, representation makes it just easy.
[00:10:42] Longchi Foma: Tell me
[00:10:43] David Lee: how you, all, your philosophy when it comes to predictive maintenance, how you all look at that and how would you apply that from your perspective? So
[00:10:52] Longchi Foma: right now, for our pumps, the pumps that we do use, we u look at the. You know, the strokes of the pumps to kind of dictate if it's cavitating, is it about a fail?
[00:11:03] Longchi Foma: So when you're looking at the actual representation that we getting from all the sensors, we do see the strokes, and sometimes we have times that we had, uh, a power outage, right? Mm-hmm. And the pump will stroke a little bit out of place and we were able to come back and see that, okay, block we're see in the stroke.
[00:11:20] Longchi Foma: The spikes are, are higher than usual. So we'll start focusing on that pump and nine times outta 10. That's, that's an indication that it's about a fail by just looking at the, the strokes. Looking at how much frequency of stroke is happening. When we looking at the solenoids and sensors is one that we need all the time.
[00:11:38] Longchi Foma: We constantly monitor that. If it's outta calibration, we'll look at any close nearby sensors and see, okay, this sensor's reading this, but you know, about two feet over the sensor's not reading the same way. That's indication that we need to calibrate the sensor. The one thing
[00:11:53] Jake Hall: I, I love talking about this is these tools are a means for your team to work together and to communicate.
[00:12:00] Jake Hall: Stepping away from the technology, how do you better create collaboration between your team and, and I, I think the technology could be a tool for that, but how do you build on that when making sure that all the diff different people that make sure this process runs successfully? How do you see that as a team go?
[00:12:18] Longchi Foma: So is to understand your team. Strength and weaknesses, right? You have to balance that. And when it comes towards maintenance, it's just understanding are your leaders here? Are they committed to working in terms of, to put maintenance at the forefront? Then are they trained? Are you working on how they're training and skilled development?
[00:12:39] Longchi Foma: That's key number one. 'cause if people feel like they're actually trained and they're developed, they're willing to, you know, buy into the whole objective of just ensuring that everybody's good in terms of keeping the equipment up to. To talk. Uh, I believe it's just you working into the strength, right?
[00:12:55] Longchi Foma: Because for me personally, um, I have, uh, a team of seven trying figure out how, how do they work as a leader? How do they work as a person, how do they work here? And I try to balance them by, you know, giving them feedback, seeing what the strength are, position them the right way to make sure there's success.
[00:13:14] Longchi Foma: And if, if I see there's a weakness, you know, I try to position somebody with them to cover that weakness.
[00:13:19] David Lee: So evaluating your staff, uh, your maintenance workers and things of that nature, what are ways that you look at, uh, whether it be their skillset, testing it, their performance, how are you evaluating that and are you utilizing any sort of technology to track that?
[00:13:36] David Lee: And what's your, your general approach there?
[00:13:39] Longchi Foma: Funny you asked that right there is this, um, A company that we had started early on with Calera, well, we were partnering with them to use their analytics. They're called pi, right? It's one of those tests that you, you take, it'll tell you how you work, but this one is incredibly, incredibly accurate.
[00:13:57] Longchi Foma: Each leader will take that test and you able to see how they actually work, like from, are they more introvert? Are they more, you know, routine wise? Are they more detailed or not? So we use that every day to just. You know, communicate and the more I use it over time, you see how accurate that is. So using that tool, I'm able to better communicate certain objective to my subordinates.
[00:14:23] Longchi Foma: Or if there's an issue, I know like they're not very confrontational, I know how to navigate that with them too. So just so able to AppSource the information without feeling like they're not being heard. Are you
[00:14:35] Jake Hall: seeing a level of acceptance when it comes to this technology through different generations?
[00:14:41] Jake Hall: You know, the one thing I always see is millennials and Gen Zs, the younger ones, they love this idea of technology and collaborating mm-hmm. With it. Where older generations might be a little bit more skeptical when you have, you know, you said you have, you have a team of, of like seven people that, that you're working with.
[00:14:58] Jake Hall: What's the demographic of that team and how do you make sure that you know, all these different generations? Work together when it comes to embracing this type of technology?
[00:15:08] Longchi Foma: Well, the demographic is, is pretty wide and spread here. Right? So we have, uh, The young millennials here too. Then we have some, some of the older ones too.
[00:15:17] Longchi Foma: But I will say I work incredibly hard on myself to listen more and to just understand the human side of things, right? You have to understand the human side of things first and foremost. So, um, I use that and then you leverage technology to, to further amplify what I'm discussing with them or. What I wanna make clear or objective that I'm setting for the whole farm.
[00:15:45] Longchi Foma: I feel as, um, technology is one of those things. You either get with it or you get left behind. So it's just one of those things.
[00:15:55] Longchi Foma: We're gonna fix it.
[00:15:56] David Lee: Get the tool,
[00:15:57] Longchi Foma: pick the one right tool,
[00:16:00] Jake Hall: the right tool for the right chop.
[00:16:03] David Lee: So you mentioned a few different parts or different pieces of technology that you all are utilizing. Mm-hmm. So tell us about your toolkit. What type of technology stack are you utilizing across the board? You've mentioned a few, but give us an overview and kind of how that impacts the actual
[00:16:18] Longchi Foma: operation.
[00:16:19] Longchi Foma: We have several right in, in, in terms of just inventory management, you know, just c r m we use, uh, dynamics just to, to, to manage the whole business when it comes to, to the maintenance side. I know we are still in the process of rolling out new things. We still building out our actual, um, maintenance process here.
[00:16:40] Longchi Foma: So we still in the early stage of it, but now we are basically getting all our inventory into the maintenance system. We are. You know, detailing out the actual maintenance process from using actual documentation from the manufacturer. Then from there, we're gonna be moving towards doing predictive maintenance ourself.
[00:16:59] Longchi Foma: Like see, when do we actually need to do the predictive maintenance rather than what the manufacturer tell us? 'cause sometimes, depending on your environment, it could change. Then in terms of people management, of course we use a d p, you know, that's, that's another set just to, to manage, uh, the workforce.
[00:17:18] Longchi Foma: Then of course I spoke about the proprietary system we do have here to monitor the whole brew room, the, the, um, controlled environment that monitors anything from water management, temperature, humidity, airflow, dissolved oxygen. So we monitor all that with that system.
[00:17:34] David Lee: So let's talk about the old school ways of doing things that tried and true.
[00:17:39] David Lee: Mm-hmm. So let's say, for example, spreadsheets or something adjacent to that. Do they still have a place in your opinion, or are we making a mistake by keeping these methods around? In your
[00:17:52] Longchi Foma: opinion? The spreadsheet has its place. It has its place, right. Uh, and it depends on what, what level you are in in your company, right?
[00:18:00] Longchi Foma: Like, say if you are startup like you, bootstrapping, yes, you might need some spreadsheets to get stuff in mind and, and allow you to, to, to do things without having to spend the extra money. 'cause you need all your capital if you. Now profitable per se, right? You could afford to, to be efficient, you know, get things that is seamless, have some automation in place.
[00:18:22] Longchi Foma: Yeah. Spreadsheet will be dead at that point. But I think there's always, there's always gonna be a need for spreadsheet, right? Depending on what level or what lifecycle you are in within your own company. So
[00:18:35] David Lee: let's say we want to bridge the gap now. Mm-hmm. What advice would you give to someone, let's say a maintenance manager or another general manager who's trying to take their operation from no technology to where you all are or where you have been, even in another operations.
[00:18:51] David Lee: How would you advise them to do this process or tackle this process?
[00:18:58] Longchi Foma: Well, first and foremost, there has to be a need for that technology. 'cause if there's no need and you can't basically present that to whoever's paying your bills, you know, there there won't be no need for it. So once you've figured that out, there is a need, it's actually saving you.
[00:19:14] Longchi Foma: It could be efficiency, it could be, um, labor, um, just overall process, right? If it's saving you that you are able to put forward the user case and there's some monetary value tied into that. Then I would be like, okay, then you'll move forward. Which a lot of the time, that's what we had to do here. But also with technology comes additional expenditure.
[00:19:36] Longchi Foma: Right? Right. So you have to be a balance. I would say the best way to go about it is to figure out the user case, see how, how it impacts the business from a totality standpoint. Then once you do that, you see how you could do a test run to see how it actually, because it's one thing to view it from a paper standpoint, but in actual reality might be completely different.
[00:19:56] Longchi Foma: I'm speaking from experience here too, so,
[00:19:59] Jake Hall: right, so let's dive into that. You see, you know, when you're speaking from that experience, when it comes to. Things that you've learned. I know people don't like talking about mistakes that they've made of course, but people learn the best from mistakes. So Uhhuh you, if you were to go out there and say, A lot of times the most valuable things that we learned aren't the things that we did well, is the things that we did bad.
[00:20:20] Jake Hall: Can you dive into maybe a learning experience that you learned, you tried something and it wasn't as successful as you
[00:20:27] Longchi Foma: hoped it to be? Let's just say the hiring process, right? Trying to hire people here. At first, you know, we were trying to hire people. We'll go out in the street because at, when we started here, we thought we were, we were gonna start up at a hundred percent.
[00:20:43] Longchi Foma: So we went out there to hire people. We didn't necessarily do a due diligence to begin with, which we had, remember I was telling you we had this software that the PI, that we could have leveraged, but we never did. So we were relying on strictly on all the management here to go out, find people, bring 'em in.
[00:21:01] Longchi Foma: It turns out, you know, we got all the people here. We managed to hit that goal, but by doing so, our attrition rate was terrible because we didn't really vet as much. Right. Because people don't realize, yes, it's indoor foreman. You're like, okay, thinking it's new, but at the end of the day, you're still dealing with plants.
[00:21:20] Longchi Foma: There's still that work that you need to do,
[00:21:23] Jake Hall: so. So what would you say is a characteristic that you wish you found more of when you
[00:21:29] Longchi Foma: were hiring? People that were willing to work and do anything necessary. That's one characteristic that fell out that you, people always interview. They were like, yeah, I could do this, I could do that.
[00:21:44] Longchi Foma: But we actually have the work to do, like, you know, something like simple as just cleaning the floor. I, I, you didn't hire me to clean the floor. Like, but it, it's a team effort, right? Yeah.
[00:21:57] Jake Hall: So, so I, I wanna dive into that. Actually, I wanna go back to our earlier conversation talking about how you served.
[00:22:03] Jake Hall: Mm-hmm. Because the one thing that I've learned with within the manufacturing industry for a lot of people that I've met is some of the best employees you could ever find are the ones that serve because they understand from doing the bottom end work. Mm-hmm. To the top end when it comes to leadership, how can us as an industry within manufacturing.
[00:22:24] Jake Hall: Do a better job attracting veterans who served in the past.
[00:22:30] Longchi Foma: I think it's just to be more involved in some of the communities too. Right. You know, to have different veteran organization reaching out to those individuals, you know, see how you could partner with them. That's one way for me. I, I normally just use, you know, word of mouth too.
[00:22:44] Longchi Foma: Reach out to some of my battle buddies. Ask 'em, Hey, you have somebody that's interested in doing this position. Say, yay. Okay. Send 'em over for an interview.
[00:22:53] Jake Hall: Launch,
[00:22:53] David Lee: you may have heard of the Skill Bridge program. Mm-hmm. Um, and so that's one of the things I'd like to mention as, as a resource for different, uh, companies listening to this now.
[00:23:04] David Lee: Um, but let's, let's, uh, change the perspective a little bit. What advice would you give to veterans who are currently listening to this podcast and they're interested in getting into maintenance? Or let's say they're a maintenance worker who they're interested in showing their leadership capacities, more wanting to be the general managers, or wanting to be the plant managers like yourself.
[00:23:26] David Lee: What advice would you give to these type individuals? 'cause I'm sure that we have a lot listening today.
[00:23:31] Longchi Foma: Well, yeah. I mean, one of the great things about that too, as a veteran, you already know how to work. That that's, that's for sure. One thing I will say is that you have to come in with as if you know nothing about the industry and just be willing to be an open book.
[00:23:48] Longchi Foma: Just listen and just do as, be hardworking as possible. 'cause anybody could do things, but there's the people that always listen and always try to. Do what they have to, um, that always succeed. Like I came into this industry myself. I was all about the oil field. Really did not know as much, you know, when it came to horticulture and plant nutrient.
[00:24:09] Longchi Foma: I mean, I learned about these things in, in like elementary, right? You know, forte synthesis and everything like that. I came in just with the attitude that I, I don't know what I don't know, and I'm gonna learn as much as I can. Right, and I just use some of the skills I have. You know, problem solving skills that's huge with veterans.
[00:24:26] Longchi Foma: You know, sticking it through the, the tough times, resiliency, all that has already been ingrained in you. You just have to be willing to just do whatever it takes and be the one to always raise your hands, Hey, is there something I need to do? Hey, Pick me fixes in. It's making a really funny noise. I'm gonna fix it.
[00:24:43] Longchi Foma: Make it funny. Would be great if you could make it funny. Your fate is fixed. Makes it funny. Make
[00:24:48] David Lee: sure it's
[00:24:49] Jake Hall: funny. I'm gonna provide you with a couple questions and you're gonna give us some fun answers to give us a better idea. So would you rather have the ability to see 10 minutes into the future or 150 years into the future?
[00:25:05] Longchi Foma: Ooh, 10
[00:25:06] Jake Hall: minutes. 10 minutes in the future. All right. That's right. Would you rather swim in a pool of Nutella or a pool full of maple syrup?
[00:25:18] Longchi Foma: That's hard. Um, yeah. Nutella is very viscous. Uh,
[00:25:25] Jake Hall: that's, that's your, that's your like petroleum chemical. Exactly.
[00:25:35] Longchi Foma: Uh, I, I would say, uh, maple man, I have a better chance to swim out. Swim out there.
[00:25:42] Jake Hall: Alright. Would you rather have a personal maid to do your cleaning or a personal chef to
[00:25:48] Longchi Foma: cook your food? Oh, personal chef. Hands down. Personal
[00:25:51] Jake Hall: chef. All right. You know, as we wrap up our conversation, lunchie, the one question that I love to ask is, is there something that we haven't talked about yet or brought up in conversation?
[00:26:02] Longchi Foma: Just the potential of the control environment and agriculture, again, as people make it become more conscious about what they put in your mouth. Right. Uh, one thing I have to say, like even working here, the lettuce is definitely, it do taste better. Uh, they really do. Um, you get to see a different side of things, right?
[00:26:23] Longchi Foma: Agriculture is everything. What you put in your mouth is basically makes you, I think, More people need to be more, um, knowledgeable when it comes to agriculture. The control environment space is still in the beginning. It's not a lot of, um, information out there for it. So I, I encourage people to learn.
[00:26:44] Longchi Foma: You could even implement this in the back of your yard, right? Mm-hmm. You know, they have so many different technology. I just think the more people that become interested in it, the more bigger the space will become and, Just look at the climate changes, right? Look at what's happening. You know, when we had the, the afis, the all the issues here in California, the more we have this industry start blooming, the better.
[00:27:05] Longchi Foma: It's for everybody, right? I think
[00:27:06] Jake Hall: the thing with that as well is, you know, when you hit sustainability, it talks about what future generation, I think, you know, the future generations are going to choose with their pocketbook where they wanna buy stuff and if they have the option to buy something that's gonna have be more sustainable and more healthy for them, and what they view down the road, they're gonna make that decision.
[00:27:23] Jake Hall: So I think if they're a company that's producing agriculture or if you're a manufacturer that's producing whatever product, um, I think it's one of those topics that definitely need to be discussed and, and looked at on your impact. Ten four. Well, Longhi, thanks so much for joining us. Uh, thanks for your insights on, um, you know, how we can get, uh, the community more involved, how we can get our industry more excited about reaching the future generations and how maintenance is really affecting us and our daily lives with our work.
[00:27:52] Jake Hall: Oh, yeah.
[00:27:53] Longchi Foma: Maintenance is key.
[00:27:55] Jake Hall: Awesome. Well, this has been an episode of The Maintainers Podcast. Once again, I am here with David Lee and myself, Jake Hall. We'll see you again next week for another episode. This
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