In Episode 306, Kelly Kennedy reconnects with Mckinley Hyland, founder of Maverick NDT Inspection Inc. and the very first guest in the history of The Business Development Podcast, for a raw and grounded conversation about Alberta, Oil and Gas, and the people who make the industry work. Mckinley shares the reality behind high-paying field work, from long rotations and time away from family to the quiet sacrifices that define life in Alberta’s energy sector. This episode isn’t about politics or complaints. It’s about resilience, responsibility, and the work ethic that Albertans carry with pride.

The conversation explores why Mckinley chose entrepreneurship as a way to regain control of his time, how building Maverick NDT became a legacy project rooted in family, and what “Alberta Strong” truly means when lived day to day. From sleeping in trucks and riding out downturns to leading teams through uncertainty and putting people first, this episode offers a powerful example of Alberta through the lens of lived experience, leadership, and quiet strength.

Learn more about Maverick NDT Inspection Inc., an Alberta-based non-destructive testing company helping industrial clients improve safety, quality, and efficiency through innovative inspection solutions at https://www.maverickndt.ca.

Key Takeaways:

1. Alberta Strong means you do the job when it’s hard, not when it’s convenient, and you stay proud without needing applause.

2. In oil and gas, you’re often paid as much for your absence as your effort, and that trade-off is real for families.

3. Time is the one asset nobody can buy back, so the smartest leaders build their life around it before it’s gone.

4. The unseen heroes are the partners at home, because they carry the full load when the work pulls you away.

5. Entrepreneurship is often a decision to regain control, not chase status, and for Mckinley it was the only way to be truly present with his family.

6. Relationships aren’t a nice-to-have in volatile industries, they’re what keeps you alive when the market turns and everyone gets squeezed.

7. Trust beats slogans every time, because anyone can claim “quality and safety,” but only consistent behavior earns loyalty.

8. The oil patch can shape you fast, and if you don’t build discipline early, the lifestyle can drag you into habits that cost more than money.

9. Resilience is built by repeated uncertainty, and Alberta entrepreneurs are forced to adapt because the ground shifts again and again.

10. Innovation is a survival advantage, and Maverick’s push toward AI and computed radiography shows how Alberta companies can set the pace instead of just keeping up.

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Mentioned in this episode:

Hyperfab Midroll

It's hard to really like explain to someone what it is, but you're, you're getting paid for basically your absence, your sacrifices.

What you're, what you're missing out on is, is what you're getting paid.

And I mean, sure, like 35 bucks an hour, that's a lot of money.

Fresh out of school and like, let's go up to the Alberta oil sands or let's go up to Grand Prairie or, or wherever.

Let's go on this project, this pipeline project and you know, work six 12s so six days in a row.

You work 12 hour days and then you have Sundays off.

But you're, you know, you're 800 kilometers from home.

So you're not driving home.

No, with.

You got 16 hours of driving.

If you drive there and back.

Yeah.

So you're not driving home.

So that 35 bucks an hour now, you know, for, I mean, what's 12 times 6 be?

72 hours or 70.

Yeah, 72 hours.

So you're getting paid for 72 hours, but you're gone for the whole, you're gone 7 times 24.

So what does that work out to hourly?

I mean, you're less than minimum wage for being gone from home.

Don't get to see your family.

Thank God things have changed.

I don't know how they did it back in the day where you'd have to go find a hill to park on to call your wife on a satellite phone once a week.

Yeah, there's no way I would have made it like 0%.

It's a.

Those were, those guys were different animals.

I don't know how.

And my dad was one of them.

I don't know how they did it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know how they did it.

And even still now, like the mental health in the oil and gas industry.

And maybe I'm biased because I don't see any of the other industries, but I can't count on both hands how many guys I know that are no longer with us.

And I wouldn't attribute that to oil and gas or the industry, but I would attribute it to the lifestyle that you live.

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And we couldn't agree more.

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Let's do it.

Welcome to the Business Development Podcast.

And now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Hello.

Welcome to episode 306 of the Business Development Podcast.

And today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you McKinley Highland.

McKinley is a leader in the world of non destructive testing and the visionary behind Maverick NDT Inspection.

With over a decade of expertise in radiography, welding and advanced inspection techniques, he has built a company that isn't just keeping up with industry advancements, it's setting the pace.

By integrating AI into NDT, McKinley is pioneering a future where inspections are faster, smarter and more precise than ever before.

His commitment to innovation, quality and industry leading technology has positioned him at the forefront of a rapidly evolving field.

But his journey isn't just about business growth and cutting edge advancements.

As an entrepreneur, McKinley has faced the challenge of building a thriving company while maintaining a fulfilling family life.

Through years of trial, adaptation and relentless drive, he has learned what it takes to lead with purpose while keeping his priorities in check.

His story is one of resilience, evolution and pursuit of success without sacrificing what matters most.

McKinley also holds a special place in the business development podcast history.

Nearly 300 episodes ago, he was our very first guest, sharing his insights and fearless approach to entrepreneurship.

At the time, he was already making waves in the NDT industry, but his journey since then has been nothing short of extraordinary.

Seeing how far he has come, pushing the boundaries of innovation skills, scaling his business and mastering the balance of leadership and family is truly inspiring.

McKinley, it's an honor to have you back.

Thanks, man.

Geez.

You.

You said you had an anode.

That's.

That's a good one.

What an intro.

Oh my God.

Could have wrote that one.

That's wild.

Well, you've done some stuff, man.

And you know, we've stayed connected throughout the whole time.

And you know I've said it many times, but I'm going to say it again.

Thank you so much for believing in me, believing in this show.

Taking a gigantic gamble as our very first guest of the Business Development Podcast and of course financially sponsoring us for a period of time.

Dude, you have been instrumental in the success of this show.

I owe you a ton and I just want to say thank you from the bottom of My Heart.

300 episodes later, it's hard to believe we're here, but thank you for believing in me and believing in us.

We wouldn't be here without you.

Hey, man, we all need someone to believe in us at some point.

I mean, at the end of the day, sometimes your own belief just isn't enough.

You need other people too.

And hey, man, you've done great.

You've.

The show is blown up.

You're doing a.

You're doing a wicked job, dude.

So keep on keeping at it and we'll see you in another 300 episodes.

I'm gonna do my best, man.

I have no plans of quitting yet, so.

Yeah, man, maybe we're just getting started.

Who knows, dude, I want to just chat with you though, because 300 episodes ago, you know, maybe our listeners have.

Have found you were not.

We have a lot of catalog space.

I did some digging.

We have at this point in time and we're actually recording almost a full year in advance.

But at this point in time, we have over seven full days of content of the business development podcast.

It's a roll of the dice whether or not anyone even goes back and listens to episode eight.

So I want to just treat this a little bit like it's our first interview.

Sure.

Take me back to the beginning, dude.

You know, who is McKinley Highland?

Talk about your journey with us.

Oh, man.

Who is McKinley Highland?

I was born in Calgary, came back to Medicine Hat with my mom and I. I grew up playing sports and doing all that fun stuff.

My stepdad, who my mom married shortly after when I was like three.

My stepdad was, was in the non destructive testing business.

So we moved down here and, and yeah, spent a lot of time, you know, just hanging out.

My dad worked on the.

My stepdad worked on the road a lot.

So I spent a lot of time with my mom.

Didn't have, didn't have a real like male role model until my dad started working at home a lot more when I was, I don't know, maybe 12 or 13.

And yeah, so it's hard to kind of count everything that's happened up to this point.

But you know, my dad started his own company when he was, oh, I don't know how old he would have been then.

Maybe 42, 43, something like that.

Yeah, he ended up exiting that company within a year, year and a half and then just was a subcontractor for the rest of it.

And yeah, now he, now he works with us, he subcontracts to us.

But he's really the, he was the real motivator, you know, when he started his business and he started it with two partners And I just thought that was so cool to say my dad owned a business.

Yeah.

And I don't know if it was like, I don't know if it was like an ego thing or what it was, but I just thought it was so cool.

I had a neighbor of mine, his dad owned a business, and for some reason I always just, look, my auntie owns a business.

My uncle owns multiple businesses.

My other uncle owns a steel fabrication facility.

So I guess I've been surrounded by business owners and entrepreneurship my whole life.

Yeah, my, my real dad was a innovator, I would say, like, he had many, many patents.

And so I guess you could say it's kind of in my blood to, to, to be an entrepreneur, to, to be self employed.

I don't really like authority.

Not that I don't mean that in a, in a condescending way.

I just, I don't really like someone telling me what to do or how to do it or what the best way is.

And yeah, that's, that's kind of what led me to, to ending up starting my own business in the long run was that, you know, I had some ideas that fell on deaf ears and at multiple different points in my life.

And finally I just said, well, if you guys aren't gonna let me do it, I'll just do it my own way and we'll see what happens.

It's, it's interesting because I've talked with at this point, probably about 150 people.

And one of the funny things that I've seen along that path is that people that grow up in entrepreneurial families tend to take the jump to be entrepreneurs.

And, and I kind of think about it from that standpoint.

It's like, of course, like, with you, most of the people closest to you ran their own businesses or multiple businesses.

You didn't see a lot of, like, emulation of the other way of people that like, went to work as employees, like, maybe other than your friends and maybe cousins or whatever.

But like so many of the people around you who were influential to you were entrepreneurs, and on a certain level, it set you up for success.

And I wonder, you know, that pride, that pride in your dad being an entrepreneur, you know, I can guarantee you, your kids feel the exact same way about you.

And what will that say in the future about their own choice to maybe take on entrepreneurship?

Yeah, and I think that, you know, like I said, I don't know what it was, but I felt like when my dad started his company and I was young, like I said, when he started that company.

I was maybe 10 or 11, and he went and worked on the road for quite some time when he did that.

But I just remember saying like.

Or thinking or saying to my friends, you know, my dad owns a business.

And I was probably bragging, looking back at it now, a kid.

But, you know, it was something that I didn't have.

Like, it was new to me at that point.

It was a world that we kind of had stepped into as a family.

And it was all that I. I heard about, you know, because there's.

With any business, when you start it, you're talking to your spouse or your wife or your friends or your family, and you're talking about the issues and the what's good and what's bad and.

And, you know, the dealership won't let me buy a truck because I have no credit because I've only been employed for this long.

Like, it.

It's the topic of the conversation all the time.

And, you know, I. I do wonder about my kids sometimes because Maverick, my son, he's gonna be.

Well, he'll be eight when this comes out.

But he.

I started really using Maverick NDT and made it a named company when.

When me and his mom found out that we were pregnant with him.

And that's where Maverick NDT came from, was from his name, even though he hadn't been born yet.

But he never really got to see too much of the.

He doesn't know any other way.

Like, he never saw the.

He never saw the.

Any, like, the.

The real hard stuff.

We'll say.

I mean, there's hard stuff now, don't get me wrong.

Just.

It's just as hard as it was back then.

It's just on a different level.

And you know how to.

You know how to deal with the stress a little bit better and cope with it.

But, yeah, I really do wonder how it'll affect them and what they'll end up doing.

I find myself asking.

Asking Maverick more specifically because he's.

He's old enough now that I can actually have an, you know, an adult conversation kind of with him.

And he understands.

And I ask him pretty often, like, what do you think you're gonna do when you grow up?

And.

And I mean, be an NHL player.

Comes up here and there.

But other than that, I don't think he.

He's not too sure.

And, yeah, I mean, if you asked me back then, I think I probably would have said I was gonna do the same thing, be an NHL player or something like that.

So, yeah.

Yeah, but yeah, I, I wonder how that will emulate on them and, and I wonder how they.

It's a good question.

I guess we'll, we'll check back on episode 600, see if there's still.

See what he's thinking then.

Well, man, I think it's.

Man, I, I kind of think we're hard on kids in general to ask any kid even like a grade 12 kid, they are still kids.

I'm gonna throw that out there for my young people listening.

I'm sorry.

Like, there's so much to learn still.

Even if you are 17, 18, the life is still very much ahead of you.

I had no idea, McKinley, what I wanted to do at 18, 19.

Even in college I went to business school because I had no idea what I wanted to do.

I just knew that if I went to business school that opened up the doors of pretty much everything so I could then make a choice.

Right.

Even in business school, I never learned about business development.

It wasn't until I was working for angrity inspection that I even like was informed as to what it is and that I might be good at it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And even then, dude, it took me years and years and years to develop a passion for it.

I wasn't immediately good at it as nobody is.

It took a long time of building relationships and finding new business and then finding reward, like intrinsic reward in that and then eventually getting to a point where I was ready to do it for myself.

But what's so funny, dude?

Like know 16, 17, 18 year old Kelly.

No, this wouldn't have been the chosen life path, but it turned out to be pretty good anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, it's, it's funny, I got actually my, my cousin, he's going to I think Mount Royal and he's going into business and, and well, he's been there for three years and he's majoring in supply chain management.

And you know, even you ask him now like, what are you doing?

And he's like, I don't know.

Right.

Yeah.

I guess this leaves a little bit of room for I guess a little bit of advice or maybe just a touch of information from, from me on, on the, you know, that you're, those are still kids, you know, you can, you can move on in life.

And I'm speaking directly to those, you know, 16, 18, 20 year old people that, that feel like, you know, maybe they're not doing enough or they don't know what's going on.

And I saw a clip of, on LinkedIn yesterday and the guy had a customer come in who was a young kid, he was 18 years old.

And he's a, this guy is a, he's a really, he's a wealthy, wealthy businessman.

And, and the kid was asking him some questions and he said, I'm gonna tell you something.

You are richer than I will ever be.

You have something that I cannot have.

I can give you the passwords to my bank account, I can open the vault, I can give you all of.

Doesn't matter.

You have time.

That's something that you can buy it.

I can't buy it.

It doesn't matter.

If you got the world by the balls, you can't buy time.

Yeah, to those kids that are, you know, 16, 18, 20, 22, hell, 25, 30, you got time.

Yeah.

And so just use it.

You know, in your intro you said that, you know, I, I've really worked on finding a balance with my family.

And to be honest, that's where all this came from, is being able to be in control of my time.

Yeah, I'm still very much, I'm still very much engaged in my business and, and you know, when the phone rings, I answer and, and deal with that stuff.

But ultimately being able to, to coach my kids lacrosse team and to go to 80% of his hockey and get to see my daughter's first dance recital and all that stuff, that was, that's where all this came from.

Because when I was working on the road and employed by someone who basically, if you say like, I can't go do that job or yeah, I'd love that six months project, but you know, I need this weekend and that weekend and this weekend offer.

I want to be home every second weekend with my son.

Yeah.

I mean, you're not going to be at the top of their list.

Yeah.

And so that's where all this really came from, man, was that I wanted to be engaged and involved in my family.

Yeah.

I spent the first four years of my son's, six years of my, five years of my son's life working out of town.

Really just I looked at those five years and said, I gotta set myself up here.

I have to build relationships with these clients.

I have to build relationships with our guys.

I have to.

And don't get me wrong, I still go when I need to go.

And when there's an opportunity to go, you know, shake hands and kiss babies on the forehead, I go do it.

But to me, this was the only way.

Yeah, it was the only way for me to, to be able to be present and be a part of my family in a truly meaningful way.

And that's what business ownership was to me, was that it was my kind of out from the field.

And.

And that's.

It's the biggest thing, man.

It's.

It's the most important thing to me.

Yeah.

Is my family.

And that's something I really want to spend some time with you on today, because it's something that I really admire about you.

We had a.

The other day, when you're on vacation, I was like, oh, you're on vacation?

You' like, yeah.

Like, this is what life's about.

Like, this is the whole point of everything else.

It's so that I can have this time with my family.

And I think for a lot of our listeners, and it's not their fault, the Alberta oil and gas industry is a little bit hard to understand.

And I want to kind of use you and your experience to teach them, to educate them what the Alberta oil and gas sector is actually like.

Because first off, we'll go into what is it like or what is that work schedule like for so many Albertans?

Just what they know.

Because I think people, especially people from the east side of this country, maybe not Newfoundland, there's pretty much mini.

Mini Newfoundland here in Alberta, but there's a lot of people in Ontario, Toronto who just see Alberta as like.

Well, you know, they're just.

They're working for it.

They just get this massive advantage of being Albertan.

That's why they.

They make all the money.

But, no, there is a massive, massive sacrifice happening for Albertan families.

And you just kind of alluded to it.

And we haven't talked to this in 300 episodes of the show.

And so I think this is a great time maybe for you to educate the world, McKinley, not just Canada, but the world, on what is going on for Albertan oil and gas workers.

Because there's a lot of time being sacrificed, isn't there?

Yeah, man, that's.

I mean, there's not very many industries you can go into.

And, you know, you're making 100 grand with a green hard hat on or.

Or with zero experience and no schooling.

And.

And that's not.

That's not because Alberta boys are built different or Alberta girls or whatever.

It's not because we're built different.

It's because we have industry like, we have tech, and we have that stuff, and we're not building very many high rises in Medicine Hat here.

You know what I mean?

So, like, construction is the oil and gas industry.

That's what we have.

I mean, don't get me wrong, Calgary, Edmonton, I mean you can build houses or be an electrician or be a plumber, but ultimately like if you.

To me, it made no sense not to go into the oil and gas industry when I was young.

It was a lot of money.

It was all I knew.

My, my dad, like I said, he started an NDT company with a couple of guys and, and that's what he did his whole life.

My real dad was a entrepreneur and he was a field operator before he passed away.

And you know, it's, it's, it's hard to really like explain to someone what it is, but you're getting paid for basically your absence, your sacrifices.

What you're, what you're missing out on is, is what you're getting paid.

And I mean, sure, like 35 bucks an hour, that's a lot of money.

Fresh out of school and like let's go up to the Alberta oil sands or let's go up to Grand Prairie or, or wherever.

Let's go on this project, this pipeline project and you know, work six 12s so six days in a row.

You work 12 hour days and then you have Sundays off.

But you're, you know, you're 800 kilometers from home.

So you're not driving home.

No, with.

You got 16 hours of driving if you drive there and back.

Yeah.

So you're not driving home.

So that 35 bucks an hour now, you know, for, I mean, what's 12 times 6 would be 72 hours or 70.

Yeah, 72 hours.

So you're getting paid for 72 hours, but you're gone for the whole.

You're gone 7 times 24.

So what does that work out to hourly?

I mean, you're less than minimum wage for being gone from home, don't get to see your family.

I mean, thank God things have changed.

I don't know how they did it back in the day where you'd have to go find a hill to park on to call your wife on a satellite phone once a week.

Yeah, there's no way I would have made it like 0%.

It's a.

Those were, those guys were different animals.

I don't know how.

And my dad was one of them.

I don't know how they did it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know how they did it.

And even still now, like the mental health in the oil and gas industry.

And maybe I'm biased because I don't see any of the other industries, but I can't count on both hands how many guys I know that are no longer with us.

And, and I wouldn't attribute that to oil and gas or the industry, but I would attribute it to the lifestyle that you live.

Yeah.

And based on, and you know, the, the partying gets out of hand.

The, you know, you come into it and you're 18 years old and you know, all the 30 year olds are going out and they're.

And eventually like it's, it's not, it catches up to you.

Right.

You know, there, there is a stigma when you get into the oil patch or the, the oil and gas industry still and it's gotten better, but there still is a stigma that, you know, you, we go drink till 3am and get in the truck at 6 and go to work.

Yeah.

And I don't care if you're hungover and I don't care if you miss your mom and dad.

I don't care if you miss your wife.

We don't want to hear about it because we all miss our wives too.

So if we just don't talk about it, we don't think about it and it makes our day go by quicker.

And that's not, we've done our best to, to mitigate that.

You know, I've, I've had, in the past, I've had guys call me and say, hey man, like I need to go home.

I, you know, I'm not doing well.

Or you know, they'll, they'll drag up as we call it and say, hey, I'm out of here.

I gotta go spend some time with my wife or kids or whatever.

And, and so, you know, when that happens, it's basically, I've, there's been plenty times before where I've hopped in my truck, drove up to Grand Prairie and went and covered for guys for two, three weeks and said, come back when you're ready, when you're in the headspace to be here.

And if, if that never happens and you want to go work a job that's local or whatever, that's fine.

Yeah, that's totally okay.

But I'm not going to be the guy that's going to offer you five bucks an hour more to stay because that's not doing you any favors and it's not doing me any favors.

Yeah, at the end of the day, this is, it's not easy.

This is hard, man.

This is a really hard thing.

And a lot of people don't have the foresight to understand that this is what life looks like when you're 18 years old and all you see is the dollar signs.

Yeah.

That's all you care about.

You don't have a wife, you don't have kids, you don't have a dog to take care of.

You probably still live with your mom and dad, and if you don't, you rent a place with three buddies and rent doesn't pay itself.

You know, it's a, it's an interesting landscape.

And even going back, looking at it now, like, I had so much fun when I got into this industry at 18, until I was 22 or 23 and too much fun.

I fell into that stigma, you know, doing the, you know, we were out drinking, I was doing drugs, I was partying.

And that was the other big thing was like when I found out that we were having Maverick, I completely decided to turn my life around.

Yeah.

And I think that there's a lot of people that don't get that or they're too far in the hole when that happens and they can't get out.

You know, you got a mortgage, you got bills, you got a wife depending on you, you got a baby on the way.

What are you going to do?

You can't, you can't drop your salary in half.

It doesn't work.

Yeah.

So it is a, it is a, it's a vicious cycle if you can't and you can.

My mom told me, my dad told me, you know, the money isn't there forever or, you know, it's going to at some point it dries up or save up for breakup or whatever.

And you don't do it.

No.

Nobody.

I don't know one 18 year old that had a bunch of money for breakup.

Not one.

Unless they were saving to go to school or something like that.

Yeah, none.

You know, I mean, they're not cheap.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My gosh.

And everybody does it.

There's no everybody does it.

Yeah.

And you can joke.

Everybody in Alberta does drive a pickup truck.

Yeah, they do.

Even in business development.

Like, let's take the other side to this.

You know, there was an obligation to be there, to show up, to put in the time.

Like no matter what, when I was like, full level business development.

Right.

If I needed to be in Calgary tomorrow, I was in Calgary tomorrow.

Come hell, high water, a blizzard, the worst storm you've ever seen.

A Tornado.

I literally drove through a tornado once.

But like, dude, I would drive to estevan for a 30 minute lunch, 12 hours.

For a 30 minute lunch, 12 hours back and still finish my week.

There was something to be said about that Alberta work ethic.

Like it was a real thing.

It's still, still is a real thing.

Oh, for certain, for certain.

And I think that's just the way that people are brought up.

Like, and, and say you mentioned Newfoundland earlier.

I mean, there's a lot of guys from Audis that come to work and you know, they, I wouldn't say it's necessarily in Albertan's bones or in, in Newfoundlander's bones, but what I would say is that as soon as you get into it, you either make it happen or you don't.

You either cut it or you don't.

And lots of guys get into this industry and find out real quick they're not meant for this.

Yeah.

And that's okay.

It's not for everybody.

Or they're not meant for the field side of it.

Or they're not meant.

You know, they're not.

And there's lots of people that go get desk jobs and go, not for me either I want to work with my hands or.

And so I.

But I do think that it's, it's a lot of, a lot about who you're surrounded with and how you grow up.

I mean, I grew up thinking that you made money from hard work.

Yeah, me too.

And that's how it was like it.

There was no other.

In my head, there was no other option.

I remember one time I told my, my stepdad I wanted to be a lawyer.

He was joking, obviously, so it wasn't too bad, but he just looked at me and was like, you can't finish grade 10.

How are you gonna be a lawyer?

What are you thinking, man?

Yeah, yeah, well.

And you know, there's still hope.

I think if you want to be a lawyer, it's still very possible for you.

Mc, I get to argue with my wife every night.

It's okay.

That's good enough.

But the problem is as a lawyer, you'll get to win some arguments.

Yeah, yeah, very true.

Maybe I should take that up.

That's not a bad second career choice.

Oh, man, thank you so much for that.

Thank you so much for that deep dive because literally, I don't think many people understand the true sacrifice that many Albertans, especially Albertan oil field workers make.

And they're amazing people.

You know, I spent 10 years of my career working in the inspection industry as well.

Just like you meeting tons and tons of people who sacrificed entire months of their lives without seeing their families, you know, so the oil and gas industry could continue to thrive, really, because that's what it takes at the end of the day.

It really takes that consistent effort to keep this industry going.

So, you know, to our listeners today, I just want to say, you know, if you look down on the oil and gas industry, that's who you're looking down on.

You're looking down on, you know, millions of hard working people from across this country who sacrifice the most valuable thing they have, their time so that their families can live a good life.

Because that's really what it is.

They don't necessarily get to live that great life with their families.

Right.

They're not always there for every recital.

They don't make every lacrosse game most of the time, especially doing pipeline work or stuff like that.

They're working six in ones and they're not going home on that one day.

It's too far.

They can't go.

And so I just, I really appreciate that, McKinley.

I like it coming from you because you still live that life and you're doing better.

You run your own company now, but you still have employees that do that life for you.

Well, and, and yeah, that.

Sorry to cut you off.

I just, there's, there's one other thing I'll, I'll throw in there.

You can't forget the wives or the partners at home, man, because I, I used to be able to kind of put it to the side of my mind when, when I would leave and Janelle had both kids and, you know, I'd go.

I knew it was hard, right?

I knew it was tough on her to, you know, you got to get this one there, this one there.

You got to pick this one up by this time, this one up by this time.

And I knew it was hard, but I could also kind of negate that in my head by saying, well, I'm working hard too.

Like I'm.

I'm staying in a hotel or whatever.

And.

But now, now that I've, I've been home for the majority in the last couple years, I've.

I've mostly been at home and, you know, I'm sitting right now, I'm in my home office and I spend a lot of time in here and I'm not always present.

Even though I'm here, I'm not present in my family life.

That happens on the other side of that door.

I know what you mean.

But I do see what she does.

Yeah.

I do see how hard this is.

And it's something that goes unnoticed all the time.

And I'm guilty of it.

I'm still guilty of it.

I still take it for granted.

And so just that's another thing we got to throw out there is to all you, all the wives, oil field wives, construction wives, all the wives, really, I mean, let's be honest, like it's, it's not as easy as they make it look all, I'll tell you that much.

So thank you to the wives who really go above and beyond because that's truly what it is when you, most of them are working too, which, you know, we, we always forget about.

It's like they're doing their job and raising this family too.

And so you're absolutely right.

I think there's many, many, many, many, many, many incredibly hard working women out there who allow our lives to move forward.

So thank you.

My side.

Thank you, I'm sure from McKinley's side.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Dude, you are still deep into the oil and gas industry.

Two things for our listeners who maybe have never heard of non destructive testing before.

It's an absolutely critical piece of the oil and gas industry, of the integrity industry, making sure things don't blow up, making sure that things continue to move forward as they need to.

Can you maybe just do a quick introduction for our listeners as to what non destructive testing is and then if you could also lead that into a pulse on Alberta's oil and gas industry?

How are we doing?

Sure.

Non destructive testing, radiography, ultrasound.

This is the easiest way to explain it because a lot of people can relate to this.

So radiography, you know, you break your arm, you go get an X ray, they say, oh yeah, you can see a crack right there, you can see where it's broken, whatever.

So radiography, you know, we do that on all, all sorts of components.

Primarily what we're doing it on is, is new construction stuff.

So just like if you go get your RM X rayed, we're X raying piping and not just piping vessels, all that stuff.

And we're looking at the welds, we're looking inside the welds to make sure that there's no voids or no cracks, no, you know, inclusions that, that can be detrimental.

There's a code that we have to abide by or construction code.

And, and so that's radiography, ultrasound.

I mean women will know what ultrasound is.

You know, you think you're pregnant, they put some goop on your belly and, and they, they pump sound waves into your tummy and they bounce back and the sensor will tell you what's in there and what's happening, what's going on.

So I mean that's what ultrasound is.

They, they do that.

There's different types of ultrasound, shearwave which is more in depth ultrasound.

There's Paut which is.

I still really can't wrap my head around exactly what's happening with Paut.

We're, we're not super involved in the, on the UT side of things.

We have a, another company that we've partnered with.

Yeah.

That provides all that stuff for us and we provide all their radiography.

So that's kind of the two, the two main ones would be, would be radiography and UT and then there's a bunch of different smaller methods, you know, positive material identification, making sure that dissimilar metals are when they're welded together, that the composition of that weld isn't going to cause corrosion or isn't going to cause it to be, to not work together.

You know there's mag particle liquid, penetrant.

This is stuff that's, it's mostly for surface indications.

There's hardness testing, there's ferrite testing, there's spark testing, there's all sorts of different stuff.

But what the NDT industry does is, is more or less it's a, it's the quality side of the oil and gas industry.

It's what makes sure the reason when we put pipe in the ground we want to make sure that it's not gonna, it's not gonna cause any harm or not gonna blow up, not gonna leak.

And so that's what our job primarily is, you know.

And, and in, you know, this isn't all pipeline stuff in facility stuff where there's you know, 100 operators walking around and, and stuff like that.

So that's what our job is.

It's a quality but it's a safety related thing as well.

That's what non destructive testing is.

And don't get me wrong, that's oil and gas.

Non destructive testing.

There's, they do NDT on, on automobiles.

They do.

I've, I've x rayed iPhone cords before for quality control to see how many of them were, were not connected in like the base of the charger.

Yeah, I don't know if you've ever bought like a phone charger, plugged it in and it just didn't work right off the hop.

I absolutely have.

Yeah.

So we had to do like a thousand phone cords one time to figure out how many were not working from factory or not connected right from the factory.

Yeah, it was part of their quality control program.

And so we've done stuff like that.

We've done, done all sorts of cool stuff, man.

We've, we've done, I don't know, we've x rayed cell phones, we've.

I don't know, there's a ton of stuff that we've got to do.

Yeah, it's a really, it's a cool thing.

You know, it's probably one of the places that you're going to find the most nerdy people in the oil and gas industry.

I can attest to quality people being a little bit on the nerdy side.

Yeah.

And I mean it's, you meet all sorts of different characters in this industry.

I mean I've met so many different walks of life and a lot of them are bred into this industry like I was with my stepdad basically.

Otherwise I would have had no idea what NDT was.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's a, it's, it's a really good industry.

If it's like I said, there's a lot of places where you're going to, a lot of times where you got to sacrifice your time for money and, and your career and, and that's just like any other oil and gas job.

But ultimately I believe that this is a, I don't think that there's another oil and gas job that I would have picked.

Looking back on it in the last.

And that's not just because I've been successful with it, but I really do think that, you know, it's, it's a, it's a good job.

There's lots of good benefits and perks that come with it.

You're not at the same place all the time.

You're not doing the same thing all the time.

There's different challenges that kind of challenge you mentally where you have to use your brain.

So I'm, I mean, yeah, I think if I look back, I don't think I would have changed anything about where I, how I went about this and what industry I'm in.

I think I would, I'd stick with it.

If I could go, if I got a do over, I might go about it a little bit differently, but I'd still end up, I'd still end up where I am and I'd still end up, you know, in this industry for sure.

I love that, dude.

I love that.

Yeah.

And then the oil and Gas landscape in Alberta or you know, the energy industry, I guess we can call it now.

Absolutely.

Sorry, I just want to pause you really quick here.

And it was devastating.

Like, absolutely devastating.

I was in Edmonton at the time.

The only thing that saved our butts was the fact that we had a few contracts and some really great relationships who were like, we get it, but you're still going to give us a deal, but we're going to keep you working.

And that's really what it was at that time.

If you didn't have friends in the oil and gas industry, you were screwed.

There was no way that you were coming out the other side of that.

I remember them just coming, coming in.

It felt like every single week they were coming and asking for another discount.

You know, the oil and gas people, the shutdown people, they're like, no, like, we need more money, we need more money, more money.

And most of these people were working up pretty thin margins to begin with.

And a lot of businesses just straight up folded.

You launched a business in that time and you've been incredibly successful.

And I do just need to give you a clap.

Dude, only 35% of Canadian businesses make it 10 years.

You have beat the odds.

You continue to beat the odds.

Congratulations.

Thanks, man.

Yeah, you know what it was, I think at that point I had nothing to lose.

I wouldn't necessarily say that it was like a launched company.

You know, I started to acquire equipment and stuff like that.

I wasn't doing a whole lot of work with Maverick I or with the numbered company, which we'll call Maverick because that's what it led into.

So I wasn't full scale.

It was just I had accumulated enough tools and equipment to be able to go perform jobs by myself.

I didn't have, I didn't have my own procedures or licenses or safety program yet.

You know, I was going to work for companies that, that had, you know, bid on a job and got it and they would subcontract it out to me.

And so it was challenging, but I don't think I understood how challenging it really was at the time.

You know, I remember I was working for a company in White Court, and they were actually the first company that gave me a shot with my own truck and my own, you know, as a subcontractor, you cost a little bit more money.

And, you know, I took a dive on rates.

What they should, what I should have been getting paid and what I was getting paid were two completely different things.

But I wanted to get my truck on the road.

Yeah.

And so I was.

I remember I was working for a company in White Court and I was sleeping in my truck in the Walmart parking lot.

Wow.

And like, looking back at it, I mean, I still sleep in the passenger seat of my truck if I get tired on the way home.

Yeah.

But it's definitely not like a.

It's not a strategy at this point.

But back then it was like, okay, how am I going to make this work?

What I, you know, these guys, you know, you got to work for 30 days and then you don't get paid for another 30 days after that.

So you basically have to have enough money to operate for 60 days.

And, you know, being just a young guy, I didn't have a lot of savings and my parents didn't.

My dad bought me my first dark room, which was like a. I still have it, but it was not.

It was not.

It wasn't a brand new one, I'll tell you that much.

We actually, he bought it for a thousand bucks.

I sent him a picture of it and I said, it's a short box dark room.

He can't get and can't find them very, very often.

Right.

I said, it's a short box dark room.

And he said, well, I'll ask the guy how much he wants.

And.

And the guy said, we'll make him an offer.

And.

And I didn't even tell my dad.

I just said, I'll give you a thousand bucks for it.

Off the top of my head.

And he's like, yep, pick it up, find a way to load it and get it out of here.

So I called my dad and I said, yeah.

He said, a thousand bucks.

And my dad was like, ah, well, that's not too bad.

I said, yeah, but we got to get it out of here.

Do you know anyone in Brooks that can get it out of here?

And he's like, well, slow down.

He's like, slow down.

And I was like, no, slow.

I already told the guy I made the thousand dollar offer.

Yeah.

And he's like, oh.

I'm like, yeah.

He's like, I guess I'll send him the money.

Then, and I don't know that I ever paid him back for that.

I think that was the deal, was that I had to pay him back for that.

But I'm not sure, not sure if I did.

But that was pretty much all I got.

Like, I wasn't given.

I wasn't given anything other than advice.

And, you know, they've helped me out here and there.

My mom and dad have help me out here and there, you know, when, When I maybe didn't have enough cash to get through, but certainly not in the beginning.

And, and yeah, so I remember sleeping in my.

That.

I mean, that was my business plan.

My business plan was I can save, you know, 6,000 bucks by not getting a hotel room.

Yeah.

So 6,000 bucks is a ton of money, man.

That's right.

And so I slept in the backseat of my truck.

I, I, you know, in White Court, in the parking lot.

I mean, there was no.

And I didn't, it wasn't that bad.

I mean, whatever.

I was making lots of money and I don't know, I guess sleep in a bed wasn't worth six grand to me for two months.

So I think what you did, I.

Think, you know, this is a perfect example of what our oil and gas workers do to get by.

Like, I, I love this conversation because it's so authentic.

Dude, this is so Alberta oil and gas, you know, especially from my time in it, you know, I mean, I don't know how it is today.

I'm not in it the same way that I used to be, but I just, I remember this time.

I remember these people.

I remember you.

You know what I mean?

Like, that was just how it was.

And it wasn't just you.

There were thousands and thousands of people doing the same thing.

Yeah, man, it's.

I mean, I was so young that I didn't notice.

I didn't think that I was.

That I would look back 10 years down the road and go, do you remember that time I slept in my white.

In my truck in White Core for two months?

And that's not the only time that's happened.

Like, that's not.

You know, I remember being in Edmonton too, and I, I slept in that.

I was.

Actually, there's a. I slept in my trailer in the Walmart parking lot.

Where was it?

I think right off 17th or something.

Right in Edmonton.

And there was a guy that caught.

Because it was a.

It's a big toy hauler.

I still have it.

Yeah, I slept in my.

Because I didn't want to pay for.

I had this trailer.

I didn't want to pay for a campground.

I didn't know how long I was going to be there.

So I just pulled it into Walmart parking lot and they, There's a guy that called into the radio station that I was listening to that was like joking and making fun of Albertan oil workers.

And there's a guy in the parking lot with this big, you know, $100,000 trailer and $100,000 truck and he can't afford a campground.

Whatever.

And I just remember how, and just laughing myself.

But I don't know, it's just what we do, man.

It's just different.

And there's, don't get me wrong, they're not all like that.

Like, there's not.

People aren't all like that.

There's guys that work in this industry that they go sleep in a hotel every night and they want to.

And, and there's young guys too that are like, I'm not sleeping in my truck, no way.

Yeah.

Like you can't pay me enough to sleep in my truck.

Whatever.

And, and that's okay.

That's, you're right.

Is to have a hotel room.

Like, you know, I, as an employer, I would never tell somebody, hey, you gotta sleep in your truck.

Yeah, I, I would never do that.

This is a perfect example.

Last night I had a guy that drove up to grand prairie to shoot 21 welds and it was a night shift.

He finished up at like 3, 4 in the morning as we were talking about earlier before the podcast started.

That's why I was up so early.

And he, when I was talking to him on the phone at 4 o' clock this morning, he said, so should I just go get a hotel room or like what should I do?

And I'm like, yeah, go, go get a hotel room.

Yeah.

And I said, make sure you get late checkout because they're gonna, otherwise they're gonna try and kick you out at 11 o' clock and, and whatever.

And he goes, well you just give me full sub and I'll sleep in the truck.

Sure, whatever.

You, if you're okay with that, then go ahead.

Right?

Yeah, if he wants to, if he wants 180 bucks and puts it in his pocket and sleeps in the truck, that's fine with me.

I mean I, I certainly wouldn't let him go to a two month project and do it.

Yeah, I think I wouldn't let that fly myself.

But if, what's the difference?

He's going to get three hours of sleep in the in a hotel or he's going to probably sleep six hours in the backseat of the truck and whatever, he's going to pack up and head back to Edmonton.

And I think that we're just built different.

Like, it's just a different thing.

It's.

There's some guys that will do it, some guys that don't.

I don't expect it of anyone.

Yeah.

But, you know, I, I don't know.

It's a, it's a weird, it's a weird industry, man.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And I want to take that opportunity to just lead into, you know, how is the Alberta oil and gas industry doing from your perspective?

Like, is business up, is it down, is it coasting?

You know, in the past, let's call it two years or three years since we talked last, you know, what's new?

Are we, are we doing okay?

That's a hard one, man.

I think some parts of the industry are doing well, some parts aren't.

It's hard because this is going to come out in, in eight or 10 months or whatever it is, and the world is going to change so much right now, you know, with the new Trump administration that just took office, we're looking at an election in Canada, hopefully in the next six months.

Should have been a month ago.

Yeah, should have been, should have been four years ago, if you ask me.

But yeah, no politics.

No politics, no politics.

So, I mean, the, we're just gonna, we're on a roller coaster ride, man.

From when, when we're recording this to even when this comes out, we're gonna be, we're gonna be on a tear.

We might be Americans by the time this comes out.

You never know.

So it's just it, the industry itself is, I would say, holding back.

Yeah.

Right now, I would say the big oil and gas companies, the Suncor, cnrl, Synovus, like those guys are, they're just taking it easy right now.

I don't think big corporations hate uncertainty.

If they can't win or they don't know if they're going to win, they would rather just ride the wave.

And so I think that's, I think that's where we're at right now.

I think you're gonna see kind of just steady, you're gonna see the maintenance work continue.

I mean, at the end of the day, these guys still gotta spend their money.

So a lot of times when you're in uncertainty like this, they spend it on maintaining rather than new construction or new projects, which is unfortunate for us because we're not we're not super involved in the maintenance side of things as we are in the, the new construction side of things.

But I think that that's where you're going to see most of their, most of the oil and gas companies money going to, is going to be the maintenance side of things.

Upgrading what they currently have, which I guess is new construction, making their systems, their current systems better.

Maybe a little bit of a.

Probably a little bit of expansion, but I wouldn't expect to see too much, too many new projects put out on the table by the Big three.

That being said, you know, with, with all the stuff that's going on where Trump, the tariffs that Trump wants to put on or is threatening to put on, I'm hoping that maybe that gives us the ability to get our product to Tidewater.

You know, we've had so many canceled pipelines over the last 15 years that we really don't sell our oil and gas and energy to any other market other than the US we're tied to a chair and we, it's all we can do.

So if they say we're paying this much, we're paying.

That's what they're paying.

And so I'm really hoping that we can hit other markets here.

I'm hoping that the government and industry sees what, what we need to do.

And I think what we need to do is get our product to other markets.

I mean, at the end of the day, if oil and gas dies and I want my business to still keep going, I need to find another market to sell to.

Yeah.

So whether that means I need to go certify windmills or I need to go certify cars or lifting equipment or diversify.

Right now, these oil companies, they've gone from just being oil companies to energy companies where, you know, Suncor is putting up windmills and solar farms and stuff like that.

But I don't think that that's enough diversification.

I mean, at the end of the day, they make their money.

I mean, that's for, that's for carbon credits.

That's all that's for.

Yeah, they're not making money on that stuff.

They're getting tax breaks, but they're not making money on it.

So I'm hoping that the government in particular sees that we need to get this stuff to new markets.

We need to start selling to Asia.

We need to, you know, we gotta, we gotta get this stuff out.

And at the end of the day, if I'm only selling my services to you and you say, well, I ain't Paying.

What am I gonna do?

It's funny because we talk about it on here all the time, that almost all business gets too comfortable.

And at the end of the day, your customers can leave at any time for any reason.

And unfortunately, we're seeing that right now with the United States being like, well, what are you gonna do?

Right?

Like, you hope for good faith, you hope that you're gonna be able to work together in a.

In a good way.

But diversification is always good for that very reason, because you never know.

You never know.

Your customer can leave at any time for any reason.

Yeah.

And that's the.

That's the biggest thing, right?

I mean, you know, if you cut the same block, if you cut the same.

You take the same block and you shovel it all winter.

And all of a sudden there's three new house owners and they decide, we don't need you to shovel our walk.

And you didn't go to the next block and see if you could shovel some of theirs?

And they already got a guy this year.

Well, now what?

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's simple.

It's not.

It's not hard.

Right.

Like, when the oil downturn happened, they only had one customer, oil and gas.

And like, a ton of businesses folded.

Atchison and Nisku were like ghost towns.

Like what were once bustling oil and gas locations overnight.

Just ghost towns, like you could drive through and not even see a person.

And these massive fabrication buildings that they spent, you know, millions and millions of dollars building.

Yeah.

Empty.

You know, it was crazy.

It was crazy.

I'd never seen anything like it at that time.

We were just getting.

We were just scaling.

We were just, you know, I bought a second truck, and I was just getting ready to get my procedures.

And then.

Covid.

Yeah, right.

That had closed the doors decided, hey, I'm going to give it another kick at the can.

Things are looking good.

They get their feet back underneath them just to have the carpet pulled out a year and a half later.

Yeah.

You know, Covid absolutely destroyed the industry.

And then.

And so now we, you know, the last couple years, Covid's over, you know, we've all kind of got our feet back under us again.

We're trying to figure things out.

Everybody's repaid their SIBA loans or their Serb loans or whatever.

And.

And then now you have the new administration in the US and everyone's like, well, what the hell?

You know, at this point, it's like, if you.

If you're not expecting something like this and it's good because it doesn't give you the opportunity to get comfortable anymore.

Yeah.

I mean, you used to get 8, 10 years.

Good years out of it before, easy.

Before.

Pardon my language, but before, shit went absolutely sideways.

Yeah.

And now it's like every six months, something is, like, catastrophic happens, and you're like, oh, I don't know.

I'll tell you what, if nothing else, it is building some incredibly resilient Canadian entrepreneurs.

Oh, for sure, for sure.

Or breaking them, Damn it.

We're resilient.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's.

It's a weird industry, man.

It's.

It's.

It's fun.

I.

It's something new all the time, you know, and the landscape is always changing.

The ride that you're on is always a new ride, sometimes scarier than others.

Yeah, I like the up better than the down myself, but, I mean, most people get the rush from the down.

I'm.

I'm good with just going up on the roller coaster.

We don't even need to do the loop de loops.

We can just.

We can skip that.

Yeah.

So we're good with just.

We're good with just gradual uptick.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So, I mean, that's it, man.

And I think that taking this all back to the business development side of things, I mean, that's what this podcast is about.

It's really important that you.

That you're ready for this.

And I think, like you said, having relationships is the absolute key.

You know, we.

I try really hard to keep our relationships and make sure that.

And.

And not just for business, but because these people have become my friends.

Like, they really have.

And, you know, there's times where I've done companies favors, you know, hey, I know.

So and so didn't pay.

We're good till next month.

It's all good.

Don't worry about it.

There's also times where I went to those same clients and said, hey, I.

You know, we just took on this new project, and I'm running a little short, and.

And they'll cut a check 15 days early.

And.

And having those relationships, and it doesn't just pertain monetarily.

I mean, it's just having relationships that you can be honest and upfront and open with your clients and friends and.

And they'll always know that you're going to tell them when, when stuff's going sideways and that's, it's, they'll have trust in you.

And trust is the biggest thing.

I mean, we can all say, oh, we're quality orientated, we're safe, we're this, we're that, we're.

Everybody says that.

Everybody's motto now is quality, safety, productivity.

Show me a company slogan that doesn't have those three things in it.

In the oil and gas industry, we all have it.

Yeah, but at the end of the day, like the relationships and being honest and building trust with your clients and customers and friends and employees and it's, that is what is key to building a successful business.

Yeah, it's absolutely key.

Anybody that says you don't need your clients or you don't need your employees or, you know, I can replace that guy from a gas station, it's not true.

And if those are the people that you're employing, you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, because I guarantee if one of my guys leaves, I'm in a real panic to figure out how to fix it.

And 99.9% of the time it's me that goes out into the field to cover for it and train somebody to be exactly like the guy that just left.

And we don't have, we don't have turnover often, but it does happen, people.

We had a, we had a really great guy that was, he's from out east and he's got a kid out east.

And like we were talking about earlier, he just couldn't take it anymore.

He's like, man, I got to get on a flight.

And I said to him, I'll come up there, I'll cover everything, I'll deal with it.

Just get home, go see your, go see your family, go see your kid and we'll talk.

And we talked three weeks later and he said, I'm not coming back.

I can't, can't do it.

And that's, and who am I to say, well, you left me in a lurch.

No one, you didn't leave me in a lurch.

This is business.

And that's what I had to do.

And you know, we, we got another guy, we trained him up, he's out in the field, he's doing just as good of a job as the last guy.

And I still talk to the, I still talk to him.

He's one of my good friends.

I've known him for 10 years.

He's the last guy that would have left me an Alert on purpose.

Yeah, he just couldn't do it.

And so having those relationships, that's key.

If you don't have those relationships, you're not gonna make her.

Yeah, yeah.

Doesn't work.

So would you say that in the last like 10 years, because like I said, 35% of Canadian businesses get to 10 years, like the remaining 65 never make it.

They die, they dissolve.

Would you say that your relationships have been your secret to long term success or is there more to it than that?

No, I think it's a mixture.

I think it's certainly a mixture, but I think that without the relationships, none of it, none of it would have happened.

Yeah, relationships would be, would be the, the number one thing.

Relationships and tenacity and, and you know, the, the hustle.

Right.

When you have guys that work with you or work for you, they're out in the field and they know that I'm here, they know that I'm at home, they know that I'm sleeping in my bed every night and they're in camp for seven days a week for however long.

And if they don't think that you'll come out there to help them if they call, they're not going to stick around.

They don't owe you anything.

And why should they?

Why should they stick around?

So they're not going to do you any favors.

And so I think that that's the key, is that, you know what, we've built relationships with the people that work, that work for us and they've seen that we'll bend over backwards for them when we need to and we're always going to be for there for them.

And it's not just talk.

Yeah.

Like sometime at some point you're going to have to back it up.

Like I said, we can all say we're quality minded, but at some point you're going to get audited and they're going to find out if you're not quality minded.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so you got to talk to talk, but you got to walk the walk too.

And that's, that's the biggest thing is lots of guys don't do that.

Lots of companies don't do that.

Lots.

And they don't.

They fail.

They fail.

I can, you can see a good company from a bad.

You can see in the culture, you can see in the culture whether a company is based on, on profits or a company is based on relationships and surviving and thriving and what that company is all about.

If it's all about the bottom line, those companies don't work.

If you started a company just to make.

To get rich don't work.

Well, I would also argue the people that start a company to get rich, they're not invested enough to make it successful anyway.

Like, it takes so much blood, sweat, tears, and dedication to make any of these things work.

They.

You have to almost be willing to do it for free.

If you're not willing to do that thing for damn near free or free, you're probably not going to succeed long term.

It has to be something you're passionate about.

Yeah, it has to be.

To me, Maverick NDT is a legacy project.

That's what it is.

It's named after my son for a reason.

It's a pride thing.

Yeah.

It's an ego thing.

It's a pride thing.

It's.

Entrepreneurs are so stubborn.

And I, I mean, I.

From what I find anyway, like, they don't accept defeat.

They don't.

There's never a great day in entrepreneurship.

Yeah, it's a hell.

And the good days.

The good days or the, the, you know, the, the days that I go to bed with a smile on my face because of.

Of work are few and far between.

Yeah.

But when they happen, man, are they good.

That's.

The wins are big wins.

The losses are big, big losses.

And you know what?

It's just, it's fun.

It's, it's.

This is a ride.

It's funny.

We might be in an abusive relationship with entrepreneurship for certain.

There is no doubt about that.

Dude, it's been an absolute pleasure having you back here, man.

I love our conversations.

I miss talking to you.

So thank you so much for doing this.

You know, before we close up today, though, we did, we did teach people about ndt.

But can you please just, like, let our listeners know about Maverick ndt, because you guys are doing it a little bit differently.

Sure, I'll pump the tires a little bit.

Yeah.

It's a new way of doing things.

It's not the old boys club.

It's.

It's.

Take everything about NDT now throw it out the window.

We're doing it different.

We're incorporating AI into reporting.

We've been doing that for a long time now.

We've been really successful with it.

We're.

Now we're really into the computed radiography.

We're eliminating film, getting rid of it completely.

We got one film truck left on the road, and A couple film processing trailers.

But other than that, we're all in on the computed radiography.

We're just doing things completely different than anyone else.

Our margins are better because of the way that we're doing things, and our clients are saving money because of the way that we're doing things.

If we can save a client money, we can make more money on our end, reinvest it into our business and grow.

I think it's a win, win, win, win.

And yeah, man, that's about all I got it.

You need.

And, you know, you're being modest.

You're actually saving companies quite a bit.

I'll let them reach out to you.

But seriously, Maverick ndt, they're awesome.

You're servicing, obviously, Alberta, but you'll go anywhere, right?

Yeah, for the most part.

We're doing a little bit in Saskatchewan.

We've been called to go.

To go into.

Out in the Kitimat area.

You know, for projects, we'd go out there.

I mean, we're not doing anything call out in the B.C.

area.

We do a little bit of call out in Saskatchewan.

That's.

We're primarily located in Edmonton.

We got trucks.

We got a few trucks in Edmonton, a few trucks in Grand Prairie, and we're breaking into the Fort McMurray market as we speak.

And then we got a truck down south here in Medicine Hat.

And yeah, man, we're.

We're gonna roll.

We'll see when this comes out.

It'll be 20, 26, so maybe we'll be in another market by then.

Hopefully.

Brave new world.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

Thanks for having me on.

And, and hey, listen, you've done a great job, dude.

You.

You know, as.

As much as you pump my tires, you started this thing.

I bet you when we recorded our podcast, you had about six faithful listeners, probably less.

Probably like a man, maybe, and his dog.

Hey, that was me.

It might have just been you, dude.

Hold on, hold on.

One thing.

One thing that I do remember from that time.

Your episode with me was our very first time that we broke 80 listeners for a show.

Hey, that was a pretty big deal at the time, man.

Yes.

Smiling ear to ear.

I like it.

Yeah, man, you've.

You've done phenomenal.

I mean, we.

We talk about business growth all the time and your reach and whatever, and.

And, you know, you've done for what you've scaled in the last 300 episodes.

It's phenomenal.

Keep doing it.

Don't give up.

I mean, honestly, dude, you're.

You're out there, you're Grinding.

I know sometimes you probably don't look forward to these things or, oh, God, I gotta go listen to this or gotta go do that.

And.

And all while having a family and just keep it up, dude.

Don't.

Don't quit.

Yeah, don't quit.

Winners don't quit.

There have been plenty of.

Plenty of days, man.

Plenty.

Plenty where I questioned what the hell am I doing?

So let's get real.

These.

These things, they don't make a lot of money, right?

Like, they're really passion projects at the end of the day.

I hope one day we make some money from it.

So, you know, but it's.

It's just hard work.

Like, the reality is at this point, maybe I've gone on vacation by the time this comes out, but, like, no vacation.

We didn't go on vacation for, like, two full years.

And it was just.

It was hard.

It was challenging, it was tough.

There were plenty of days I questioned it.

But you know what, dude?

We are the biggest business development show in the world, bar none.

We have more business development information than anywhere on earth at this period in time, even at this period of the recording.

Seven full days of business development information.

You're not going to find that anywhere else.

And I did it from a basement in Edmonton.

Yeah, keep going, man.

Don't.

Don't stop.

And like, like we were talking about earlier, entrepreneurs, they don't quit.

They don't give up.

Lots of days suck, but the days that are good are really good.

They are.

And the highs are really high.

And every other day is a low.

So just get used to it.

That's right.

And learn.

Except the baseline of suck.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you just gotta.

You just gotta give her, man.

But thanks for having me on, dude.

I. I will hop on here anytime with you.

Don't be a stranger.

Ask me to come on.

Or.

Or, hey, let's.

Maybe we have one with the wives.

Let them chat it out and talk about entrepreneurship and see what they think about it.

I don't know if we'd want to do that one.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I hear about it all the time, so it'd be interesting to hear what she'd say, knowing that I'm not going to hear it for a year and.

Then, yeah, Shelby is incredibly supportive of what I do, but there have been plenty of challenges along the way and plenty of times where I have felt the unfairness of that for her.

Right.

Totally get it.

There's.

There's plenty of late nights in your world and in mine where, you know, they're doing the brunt of the parenting and the work, unfortunately.

So, yes, absolutely.

Shout out once again to the wives, to the partners.

They're incredible.

We could not do this without you.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay, dude.

Well, it was an honor.

Again, dude, thank you so much for being my very first interview and for.

For the listeners.

Listen, if you want to hear maybe a very different interview than the one we just had here, go Back to episode eight.

Just go for it with McKinley Highland for our very first business development podcast interview.

To Contrast with this 306th episode, man, it's been a journey and you are killing it.

You are absolutely crushing it.

Congratulations on your success, and I wish you just the utmost of continued success.

McKinley, you're an incredible individual.

Thanks, man.

I appreciate it.

And I'll see you in Edmonton.

All right, buddy.

Okay.

Until next time, this has been episode 306 of the Business development podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.

see you next time on the business development podcast.