Being an Engineer
Being an Engineer
S6E29 Joshua Tarbutton | Lessons From the Military Applied to Engineering
Joshua Tarbutton shares his journey from military service to engineering entrepreneurship, discussing how military discipline and leadership principles can transform engineering culture and workplace dynamics.
Main Topics:
- Military influence on engineering leadership
- Restoring dignity in engineering workplaces
- Creating psychological safety for engineers
- Scaling a design and fabrication company
- Navigating business challenges during COVID-19
About the guest: Joshua Tarbutton, a former U.S. Army Reserve Platoon Sergeant, transitioned from military leadership to academia, earning a PhD from Clemson and teaching engineering for nine years before founding Bravo Team in 2018. His goal: to combine technical expertise with strategic leadership and restore dignity to the engineering profession.
Bravo Team is a full-service product development firm that supports clients from idea to production, partnering with top-tier companies such as Siemens and Stanley Black & Decker. Known for rapid iteration and a maker-friendly culture, the company has grown quickly, ranking #2 on Charlotte’s Fast 50 and #489 on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list with 904% growth.
Still veteran-owned and transitioning toward employee ownership, Bravo Team is recognized for innovations such as the Bravo Walk dog collar and its production of medical shields during the COVID-19 era. Joshua promotes community and team growth through events, EOS, and mentoring. He’s a licensed professional engineer and certified ScrumMaster.
Links:
Aaron Moncur, host
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I mean, engineers, we are ruthless to each other. We want every second of every day, every dollar that's possible. I mean, we are ruthless to each other because we hold ourselves to such a high standard, but that can often lead to very toxic culture. I
Aaron Moncur:Hello and welcome to the being an engineer podcast today, we're speaking with Joshua tar button, a US Army veteran and former professor who founded Bravo team in 2018 blending discipline from the military with academic rigor to build an innovation first engineering design and fabrication firm headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, under his leadership, Bravo team has been recognized as number two on the Charlotte Business Journal's Fast 50 and ranked number 489 on the Inc 5000 guiding a growing team of engineers and technologists to tackle clients' toughest challenges across design automation and prototyping today, Josh brings insight into building a company that centers engineer creativity, scalable leadership and applied innovation. Josh, thanks so much for being with us today on the being an engineer podcast. Thank you, Aaron, for having me glad to be here. So why don't you walk us through your history a little bit, what made you decide to become an engineer, and then you spent some time in in the military, and then as a professor as well?
Joshua Tarbutton:Yes, yes, yes. So I guess this memory actually came to me this year. I remembered going to my dad's office, and my dad was a struck he he was a forensics engineer for mainly buildings, but joined a forensics firm, and they had a busted up car that they were trying to figure out and do the accident reconstruction. And I just remember being fascinated that it's like, wow, there's people out there that, like, can tell the story about what happened just by looking at the wreckage. And so I guess I was inspired. I guess I knew about engineering because my my father, but it was really just, I guess, an early, you know, fascination or, or like echoes of of potential bliss, if I were able to, you know, find a pathway to spend more time there.
Aaron Moncur:Very cool. Okay, so tell us a little bit about being in in the in the army, and how you think that influenced your career as an engineer,
Joshua Tarbutton:yeah, and actually, I had quite a huge influence. And I'd say there's two main things. The first is the esprit de corps through that you that you experience through mutual suffering, and I think the bond a lot of you know people that have been in the service, or you know, even are, you know, part of a, you know, fire department or Police unit, there's sort of this above and beyond experiences that you get to have together, and those those times, are really bonding. You also, you know, I spent a year in Iraq, so we lived together in Iraq, and you really learn a lot about people. And at first, I think the people we don't understand, we come to understand a lot better the things that rubbed us the wrong way we find often it was just we didn't understand. We were the ones who were looking at it, at it from just a lower way of thinking. And so I think the people, part of it was, was just has returned many rich blessings, I guess, throughout my life, with the relating to other people. But then there's the the other part of the Army, where, you know, there is sort of the you know, kind of knowing what you're capable of, I think, personally. But the second, the second thing that I was going to mention is this philosophy of setting your soldiers up for success, and you know, deeply ingrained in, you know, the military way of being is that you know, if you have a subordinate that could have performed their mission with less trouble, and you're their leader, it's your responsibility, like 100% to do everything in your power to set them up for success, I'd say that's permeated all throughout Bravo team, the company that that I'm part of now. And it's, it's a core way of being, especially if you're in a position of leadership. It's, you know, yet the sense of ownership for how well other people do. And it's really. Like the heart of servant leadership, I think so there's a lot of other good lessons that I learned, but those, those two stick out, tell
Aaron Moncur:us a little bit about your your beginning Bravo team. So that was 2018 right? That you started the company, and I think you were a professor before then, what made you decide to make the leap to being a business owner?
Joshua Tarbutton:Well, it started a little bit earlier than that. There's a little bit of a backstory where I met a person that needed a little technical help, and we ended up starting a company which I got voted out of, but I had spent a year of my life helping try to build this company, and realized that, you know, when, when I first started, I thought, oh, man, there's no way I can, you know, be a professor and and and do anything like this simultaneously. But then through the course of the year, I had learned how to do, you know, the things in business that I needed to do, so they took a little bit less time. And it just kind of gave me the confidence that, when I got voted out, that I I just started Bravo team, you know, the next week. And so there was a lot of lessons, you know, learned there. As far as leaving academia, I didn't leave academia at that time. I did consulting on the side to kind of help supplement the income, because professors are not particularly overpaid. And so and I have my wife and I, we have four kids, and as they get older, they get a little bit more expensive. And so, you know, I would do some consulting. And I just couple things happen is, you know, you know, I went to helping these, these other guys make their start their company, or start our company, which I, you know, got voted out of, but that experience kind of gave me more confidence. And I also realized the how hard it is to just do everything on your own is just so much of your personal time is consumed just by trying to make sure your customers have a good experience and all this stuff. And as part of getting voted out. They said, well, we don't want to do engineering services which, which is part of the reason we started the company so but they we had developed a relationship with a customer, and that customer, that one customer, said, Oh, we love the way that you do design. We'd like to stay with you. You know, why don't you hire a couple students? And so I did. And you know that first year, I think, we did quarter million dollars in revenue, which was enough to keep them both paid and pay the rent. And we made it. We made it through our first year barely. I mean, I was still had a full teaching load, and, you know, the four kids and all that stuff. So it was, it was, it was a required, 100% of my focus, 100% of my focus. That was a long answer to short question.
Aaron Moncur:No, I love the detail. Getting voted out of a company, to me, that seems like kind of a rough experience. How did
Joshua Tarbutton:you, you know?
Aaron Moncur:How did you, you know, how did you deal with that? What was your mindset? How did you get past it and just, you know, pick that ball up and keep running.
Joshua Tarbutton:Well, I think, I mean, I'm no, I'm no superman. I felt all the feels like anybody else would. I mean, I mean I even thought about, you know, like, hurting, hurting the person's dog. That's how, like, angry I was about it, and just insane, you know, the things we think about when we're angry, but like all bad things that happen, there's always opportunity for them to be transmuted into wisdom. And took it took a couple years, years, but we were able to finally, you know, reconnect and bury the hatchet, and, you know, see things from the other person's perspective and all that, but in the in the middle of it, it was, I think, you know, we all respond differently to conflict. I'm on the fight, flight or fold category. I definitely identify more with fight. So I think there's a little bit of an unhealthy like, well, you know, let's see what we can do, kind of thing, and a little bit of ego and pride associated with getting through the first year, you know, profitably and and all that stuff. But then it really just became, you know, back to what we are, what I had originally set out to do, and that is to build, you know, a company where the engineer is given everything they need to absolutely, you know, shine in their creative magic. And, you know, people don't think of the engineer. Are, like, like an artist, but, but, but they're the artists that take the laws of the universe and paint them on the canvas of the world. And I just, you know, as graduating all these students, you know, it's like, they, they graduate, you know, they started college off with a lot of hopes and dreams, and they want to design, they want to create, and then they realize somewhere along the way that it's, you know, what takes a lot of almost. That's why people don't know famous engineers. I mean, it's because it takes a village to to get anything, I mean, done. Well, I mean, we, we do have examples of fantastic engineers, you know, when, where they still have their names associated, like Zeiss and Timken and things like that, but, but generally, the engineer, you know, isn't, you know, able to bring everything that they could without the right, you know, system and seeing students graduate and then going into what I would consider like places where all creativity is destroyed. They it was part of it was just, you know, heartbreaking to like, why are people? Why do not? Why do people? Why are these companies not getting all of this latent, late, latent, like, value out of these engineers. And, you know, like most people that start businesses, I guess I thought I could do it a little better. You know, that's, that's part of why we start businesses. We don't know how hard it is to do a good job, but, but we've learned a lot along the way.
Aaron Moncur:So Well, that's a great segue into this next question, which is, you've, you've talked about this idea of restoring the dignity of the engineers experience. What does that mean?
Joshua Tarbutton:Yeah, I guess I, I guess I already was on that soapbox a little bit. But I think, I mean, I feel like, you know, engineers are often special humans. And you know, that's why they make so many jokes about us. I think, you know, the likelihood of many of us being able to pass the test that puts us on the spectrum is pretty high and and I just don't think they're seen in all their beauty. And I think because of that, you know, people poke fun of them, but they don't realize, just like, what, what a beautiful and creative, you know, person, this isn't as a professor, you get to see this in such a profound way. I mean, it's the student that has, you know, no shoes on, and, you know, is at the back of the class and hasn't showered in days and just doesn't talk and and their homework looks like chicken scratch, until you start to see how they're thinking. And it's just this, this beautiful person is in there, you know, but stuck in a world where, you know, there's, it's not super safe for them. And, you know, this raises all sorts of questions in my mind. But just to be a part of being creative, just creating a little bit of safer place for people to create, and seeing what happens, you know, and them being able to define their own dignity, their own sense of who they how they want to show up. I mean, we so we created a company in such a way to try to foster that, but that's also hard to do. I mean, when you're an idealist, you know you're either angry all the time because life is doesn't meet your ideals, or you just, you know, have to understand that you know to aspire to things is, is, is, is a worthy endeavor to make progress towards things as worthy endeavor, you know, but the destination it always is moving, right? So,
Aaron Moncur:right, yeah, I love that phrase, restoring the dignity of the engineers experience. I like to say that engineers are the unsung heroes of the world. Yes, because you look around and I mean, pretty much everything that we interact with is was innovated by a team of engineers, right? So I agree, engineers don't get the credit that that they deserve. I'd love to go back and talk a little bit more about you made a comment to the effect of creating a safe space in which engineers can operate. Can you share if one comes to mind? Is there an example of a time when you saw an unsafe place? I assume we're talking about psychologically unsafe here and then, and then also. Second part to that question is, what are a couple of tactical things that you have done a Bravo team to ensure they do have a safe space in which to operate? Well,
Joshua Tarbutton:yes, great question. So, I mean, I think academia is generally unsafe for people that struggle. Mm. You know, it's like, you know you're, you're measured, you know, you get your score on your paper if you didn't do well, you know, you feel the like everybody's looking at you. I mean, I don't, I don't know how everybody feels, but I definitely see a lot of this type of, saw a lot of this type of behavior, and I just, I just feel like, when performance is attached to identity, we always are at risk of destroying someone's security and confidence. And you know, I think the way that we're unsafe, and I've been a very unsafe person, you know, not not always realizing it, but because, you know, I stayed in school a long time, and I have a lot of life experiences, and I created a company that has been successful. You know, people will perceive me as somebody with with more authority sometimes. And I think, you know, if I make a comment about somebody's work, I have to be careful, because it it would the way it could land, could just be shame, you know, but I might be coming at it just from a very, you know, impatient technical perspective. And I think you know that the way we make things unsafe for engineers. One way is we like, you know, if they screw up or they don't do a good job, it's, it's like, it's almost like your work, your work is kind of public in a sense. And I think, like, if you do a bun, if you do a couple of stupid things in the wrong environment, then people may, you know, undervalue what you can contribute. So I think, you know, anytime we create, you know, a culture in our companies where we don't let people be who they really are, and allow their own superpowers to kind of, you know, emerge, then I think not only is the company missing out, but we're creating toxic places for these, these individuals. Problem is it's hard to see and so and especially this is compounded in engineering by having engineers that are always they're often run by people that don't even know the tool that they're working with, you know, the engineer. They don't even understand the engineer. And unfortunately, the engineer doesn't always understand that the business has to make money. And so it's just this, this, you know, it's this dance that I wish we could, you know, craft a little bit of language about and kind of restore the dignity of this whole experience. It's, you know, engineers are not trying to make life harder for anybody. They're always trying to make it better. And it just often, I think, you know, it gets lost in translation. So those are some things I think about, restoring the dignity and, you know, trying to avoid a toxic workplace.
Aaron Moncur:0
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Joshua Tarbutton:As they say, you know, like no matter what you say, as the leadership goes, so goes the people and so, you know, I think I have to model it. I think one way of modeling it is to be vulnerable. You know, I'm a huge Brene Brown fan, and, you know, she had a huge impact on my own life, personally, and she's that the shame and vulnerability researcher that basically said that people cannot experience human connection if they're if they're trapped in toxic shame. And you know, the only way out of it is for us to be vulnerable, and vulnerability requires courage and so. And, you know, courage is only defined when there's fear. And so really, it's about, you know, people not being afraid to be vulnerable. And so one way that I try to encourage the company to be vulnerable is to say, hey, look, we don't know everything. Or, you know, when there's moments I do something stupid, maybe try to acknowledge it. You know, not. You know, I want to be the smartest guy in the room. I'm not gonna lie. You know, my ego definitely wants to know the answer, right? But, you know, just realize, just reminding myself, like, look, and I'm reminded all the time, if this is really not an issue for me at Broadway team, so much anymore, but the people that we've been able to hire and attract and retain, you know, I'll come in and say, Hey, have you thought about this? And they're like, Oh yeah, that was like, last week's discussion. So, you know, it's like, so I think you know, modeling vulnerability is the key to allowing people to face those fears that prevent them from exercising courage, to be vulnerable if they need a little help. So I'm always reminding them, Look, guys, we're in this together. If you're don't struggle. Why struggle? Just go ask somebody for help. If you're afraid you feel like you look stupid, well then you're giving them permission, and when they feel safe, when they don't, when they feel stupid to go ask you, it's like forgetting the quadratic formula on a test, you know, I would, I taught numerical methods, I would tell the students, don't forget the quadratic formula, like basic, you know, but, but there you are in the headlights, and, you know, Who knows what happened? Who knows what friend did, what or who who died, or what grandmother I killed again by assigning another exam. And so this, it's like, it's, it's, it's one of those things where you don't know where they are. So I'd always give them the formula, because if they could do the rest of the work, I mean, it's like, where they're going to be in a world where they can't get that information, and it's like, Hey, it's okay. Well, how do you think that students is is going to feel towards the subject? How do you think they're going to feel towards the class? You know? How will their approach and their learning be, you know, for the next exam, if they know that I'm not out there trying to get them to prove how smart they are, you know? And it's really like separating that identity from the performance in a culture where you really do need to perform. I mean, engineers, we are ruthless to each other. We want every second of every day, every dollar that's possible. I mean, we are ruthless to each other because we hold ourselves to such a high standard, but that can often lead to very toxic culture. I
Aaron Moncur:I love what you say about being ruthless to one another, because we're so driven. It's not that we have antagonistic intent at all, right? It's it's just that we're so driven to be highly, highly efficient. And I've noticed this in my own life, that I think I've actually based my identity, to some extent, on on productivity, and in, in the times when I feel like I'm not being productive, I don't feel good about myself. I don't I'm not sure that that's healthy, but it's, it's an insight I've had about myself recently. And when I am being very productive, I feel I feel great about myself, right? So I don't think, I think engineers are generally just, you know, like normal humans, most people are just good, nice people who want to do well to others, but we are driven to be so efficient, and sometimes that can come across as being ruthless towards each other.
Joshua Tarbutton:Yeah, and design is open so it so anytime we're designing an open ended design, it's open for for criticism, and it's, yeah, it's but getting past that, right? And it's kind of what I've described, trying to describe with Army is, I think if a teams can get past that, they can, they can, they can experience the esprit de corps like that. You know, the spirit of the core is what the Marines like describe. It's, it's the Semper Fi. It's like the the unifying experience. I think when, when people get past that, that transition, they can really experience something special. They even have, you know, the data that, you know people talk about some of the worst times that they had, you know, in their companies, when they're working like in 20 hour days, and they have these deadlines, and they they often look back at these memories, and these are some of the, you know, best memories that they have in their life because they were working for something, they were putting their heart into it. And that's what I want. I mean that I want to have a company that's that, that where the work merits the work, the customers, the people you get to work with, it merits you. Bringing your energy with you today. You bring your whole heart into it, like you're excited. You want to get into design. But another part of the problem with engineering is that some of the stuff we do is just so. So boring. It's like, we get these ebbs and flows of, like, creative and new projects and awesome, but then we have to get a freaking drawing package and, you know, generate drawings for like, hours and hours and days and days and details and and so, you know, one of the ways around that is to find people that like, enjoy different parts of the work, but that goes back to being vulnerable and honest, you know. And we take, we have people take the working genius assessment. We have, we encourage them to take their Myers Briggs. We are piloting a new platform called the Wilder method, which which compounds like kind of where you are in terms of where you want to be. So it's a very personalized way of examining and taking a look at how you approach your work. So these are some of the things we're doing as well.
Aaron Moncur:Very cool, you've been successful with Bravo. Teams started in 2018 and you've already grown quite a bit since then. What? What do you recognize as some of the core factors that have helped you grow your company so quickly?
Joshua Tarbutton:Well, I would say, you know, for us, it comes down to having a amazing partnership with a big company and and that's the truth of it, but, but scaling with the demands of a big company is something that was extremely challenging to do, you know, because we went from, you know, six people to 50 people at a relatively short amount of time, with over 30 engineers. And you know, we had five machinists, fabricators, so, so the scaling, I think, was, was, was the hard the scaling for the demand, but, but I'd say, like, we had a customer that really resonated with the value that we provided, and we were able to grow into that relationship and really became, you know, a beautiful partnership. So I think, like our growth and our success, you know, is a little bit overly inflated, because we did have one customer, but we've also served, you know, over to over 100 other customers. And,
Unknown:you know, it's
Joshua Tarbutton:so, I'd say a lot of the successes is because of that, but also just doing, doing what it takes to do the work, you know, and doing what it takes to keep the customer happy, even if they're crazy. There's crazy customers out there. They're horrible people, like horrible they're just really unable to listen to another human being. You know, their their way of the world, seeing the world is the way, I guess the world is that that they uniquely see and, and I think that's that can be difficult, you know, too. But I think you know, like just being true to the true to your word and and showing up for the work is, I mean, I think the fundamentals are kind of simple, as you know, you got to provide value for people to exchange money, and they just got to get more value that they have to feel. They have to, you know, get the value that they pay for. And I think that's the hard part of all businesses, is, how do we do that better? How do we do that well? And I made a lot of mistakes along the way. What
Aaron Moncur:was one of the biggest mistakes that you've made so far?
Joshua Tarbutton:I'd say like the reoccurring theme is like, I imagine that we can change directions faster than we can. And so I was, I brought a lot of chaos to the company by trying to go after things, mobilize people, and I burned people out. I think part of it was survival. Part it was like rooted in, you know, fear and just trying to make sure everybody get got, gets paid, you know, and carrying the weight and the burden of responsibility, fortunately, I've hired some great people around me. Dan Hawk is our president, and he and I worked together at the university. He did about 1000 you know, more than 1000 senior design projects over 15 years. So he's stepped in as president. Brought a lot of maturity, and just the past couple weeks, Tom Ryan has agreed to step in as the CEO, which is allowing me to get back to the get back to the more creative work. So that's, that's the other thing is, is people so great customer stick to the fundamentals, and you've got to have great people, because that doesn't matter who you are. You're not, you're not everything to everybody, and you really need to find people that compliment your, you know, strengths and make up for your weak. Weaknesses. And in my case, pretty, some pretty obvious weaknesses. And so I was, I was able to, you know, protect the business by protecting, you know, us from what we couldn't deliver Well, or what I couldn't do very well. I'm, as you probably tell, from me rambling here, I'm a little bit more on the scatterbrained side. And I, you know, so hiring people that are much more organized is was essential. You know, for us to grow
Aaron Moncur:the product development expo or PDX, is your chance to learn from subject matter experts providing practical, hands on training for dozens of different engineering topics, Gd and T advanced surface modeling, DFM, plating and finishing techniques, programming robots, adhesive, dispensing, prototyping, tips and tricks and lots more. PDX happens October, 21 and 22nd in Phoenix, Arizona, Learn more at PD Expo. Dot engineer, that's p, d, e, x, p, O, dot engineer, yeah, I hate to say this, but I think it's true, and most businesses would agree with me that there's at least an element of truth to luck, just oh yeah, getting lucky, right? Finding that big customer we've had, I'll say we've had two big customers in our history, and each of them helped take pipeline to that next level, and we probably wouldn't have gotten there without those big customers, you know, that just pump a whole bunch of cash into the company, of course, for you know, some really great work that we did, but the end of the day is that cash coming in, the cash flow that allows you to hire more people, increase and improve your capabilities, and just take the step to that, that next level of company. So, yeah, I think luck is also an element. Of course, like you said, you have to have really great people, you have to deliver value, you have to have the right team members. But there's also this, this pesky element of luck that is really difficult to like designed for, right? It just kind of, it's capricious. It's random. It just it happens. And you have to be around long enough for luck to find you sometimes,
Joshua Tarbutton:yeah, when you get lucky, you got to remember you were lucky. You can't, all of a sudden be like, Oh, look how awesome I am. I'm so amazing, right? Look what I did, but we tend it. We tend there. I tend there. My wife and I, we actually have a saying along those that lines is we say we're accidentally awesome, you know. So
Aaron Moncur:I, I'll tell this story because I understand that you are, or at least were, maybe still are, a member of EO Entrepreneurs Organization, and we so for those of you listeners who don't know entrepreneur EO Entrepreneurs Organization is it's kind of like group coaching in a way. You get together, typically four times a year, and you have these these day long educational events where there's a speaker, usually a very seasoned business person who who does some training. And then, on a monthly basis, you'll get together with a smaller group, and there's a coach who is a successful business owner, him or herself. And anyway, you get trained over time like this. I loved it. I thought it was really great. That was, I was actually part of Entrepreneurs Organization accelerator, which was like sub a million dollars and and then I, for whatever reason, just decided not to continue going with it once I graduated that stage. But there was this, this woman in my group who used to call me the accidental millionaire. Not that I'm a millionaire, but by I'm not even close to a millionaire, but we had this, this really big customer, right? And, like, we totally just lucked into it, and just shoot that's what she would call me, as the accidental millionaire. All right? Well, let me take a very short break here and ensure that the being an engineer podcast is brought to you by pipeline design and engineering, where we don't design pipelines, but we do help companies develop advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R D services. Learn more at Team pipeline.us The podcast is also sponsored by the wave, an online platform of free tools, education and community for engineers, Learn more at the wave dot engineer, we're speaking with Josh tar button today. So Josh, during the COVID time the pandemic 2020, ish, you you did a pivot into producing some recyclable protect. Of shields. But tell us a little bit about that experience. What was that like, and what did you learn about about rapid manufacturing? Oh, boy.
Joshua Tarbutton:So since we've started, we always wanted to be able to make some of what we what we design. So we bought a CNC machine early on, mainly because I'm impatient and I don't want to wait two weeks for something. If I could just go out and make it and get the answer today. And if you look at, you know, project life cycles, I I think a lot of projects, most projects could probably you could reduce their life cycle by 2020, to 40% by just managing projects differently. But the in this particular case, we had a flex space. It's about a 2000 square foot building, and we about half and half office and Fab equipment where we had, you know, welder and CNC machine and laser cutter and all that stuff, and our work dried up, as most people's did, you know, we're kind of the tip of the spear. You know, we do development of, you know, new things, kind of like pipeline. And when, you know, the consumers are all afraid and don't know what to think, and everybody's locked in their houses, they're obviously not, you know, paying money for the next, you know, innovation, so our money just dried up almost overnight. So I but I believed in what we were doing, so I mortgaged my house and drain my retirement, and I did it more than once, like I can't remember what what I did at this point in time, I didn't have any money. So, I mean, like, there's a time, and we started the business, I think I had like,$28.32 in the account, and I had like, $0.00 in my personal account. I mean, like, you know, in my late 30s, it's like, are you serious? But, you know, and then, and then COVID, COVID happened, and our customers dried up. And so I try to, you know, one of the things you try to do in your business early on is manage cash flow and figure out accounting. And so, you know, basically had a Cash Flow Planning spreadsheet, and I just tried to figure out how to get that date as far as possible into the future. And because we made a bunch of stuff for people, somebody reached out to us from a friend of a friend, and we ended up making 20,000 you know, face shields for the local hospitals. So that, you know, their workers could have a little bit more protection and confidence, you know, during that whole thing, and that, you know, and we built, we built sets like, like, theater sets. We built a couple of theater sets. And basically, wherever the money was. You know, if it's like, Hey, you have money, I, you know, we got time. We put everybody on w2 like, sent from the beginning. I just don't, I don't, don't feel like the company should pass their uncertainty, if they can avoid it to the employee, if they can. Of course, we do have some 1099, guys. But in general, you know, everybody's full time w2 I wanted them to have that security. So I guess deep sense of pride to me. I just wanted to make, I just wanted to keep. I just never wanted to miss a payroll. I'd never wanted to miss a w2 payroll. So
Aaron Moncur:there's a lot of impact to helping everyone feel safe too, right, psychologically safe in the environment.
Joshua Tarbutton:Yeah, I mean, in this your company's profitable. I mean, don't spend all the money. Save some money for the rainy day. And, you know, I like, I'm a big fan of simple numbers. The guy there's an accountant, Greg Crabtree, and pretty much he said, Hey, you got to have two months cash and then your monthly swing. You know, before you say you're a healthy business and fully capitalized, and, you know, so those things were very important to me, so, but in many ways, I just felt like, you know, COVID, just like, took us all the way back to square one, you know, wiped out all of our cash. Walked out on my cash reserve. Wiped out all my, you know, borrow, like, really my borrowing capacity and all all the money I could get. My brother also helped me, and also have a friend named Stan. They both, they both helped me, but I didn't really ask for their help as until, you know, I kind of knew that their money was going to be okay. You know, they weren't like my parachute. They were more like, you know, once I knew it was going to work. Unfortunately, the customers came back, and then we got the idle loan, and we got the PPP, like many companies. And that, that little bit of difference, like that little bit of tightening of the belt, experiencing the suffering. Like, you know, deciding whether or not, you know, I'm gonna, what am I gonna do? It's like, so, I mean, it's like, do you mortgage your house or go bankrupt, or shutter it, or lay everybody off, or, I mean, all those things, so many, a lot of stress for everybody. So many people experience this. So, I mean, we just, I'm just like, well, let's burn the ships. I was broke when I started. And if we're broke again, then, you know, it's like, here we are. You know, it's like, you gotta, you gotta go for it. You know, it's like, if you want to change the narrative, like, what are you gonna what are you willing to do? And in my particular case, I, I mean, I, you know, it's not like I was my only way of earning money, I could still go and be an engineer for somebody else, but, my goodness, I wanted to. I wanted to go for it, and so we, we just burned the ships and went for it, but it sucked.
Aaron Moncur:How did you deal with stress? This is a topic that I have thought a lot about over the years, and I'm still definitely not perfect at it. I've gotten maybe, maybe 10% better over the past five years or so. But how do you deal with stress
Joshua Tarbutton:sometimes? Well, not always. And I meditate a lot, a lot, and that's been over probably the past five years. And I started doing it after my wife, I saw how it benefited her. Definitely like, you know, reminding yourself that you are not the higher power that there is, you know, for me, higher power, and then, you know, things don't go my way some days that that's okay. And you know, everybody says exercise works. One day, I'll listen to them. And I, you know, I did it, dealt with stress and unhealthy ways. And, you know, drank way too much through through the time you know. Just think you know. And cried out pretty, pretty much, cried out to God Almighty and to help me make it through. It's like, please,
Unknown:you know, please, you know, please.
Aaron Moncur:I love how open and vulnerable you are about all of this, and I can, I can assume how that level of candor and vulnerability translates into helping your team feel safe around you, because my guess is they obviously know that the same thing. And they know that they're not hearing any BS from you. They're they're hearing, you know, exactly what's going on. And I know from my own experiences that teams, you know, sometimes it can be tempting as a business owner, to sugarcoat what's actually going on behind the scenes at a company, and you think, or maybe you justify it to yourself, well, I don't want to put that stress on my team, on my employees. I'll just, you know, sugarcoat things. Everything's fine. There's no problem. But what I've found is is, especially engineers who are intelligent, bright individuals, they would much prefer to hear what's actually happening than the sugar coated, you know, Rainbow stars in the sky version, where everything is just fine. So anyway, I'm sure your team really appreciates that, and that's one of the things that contributes to this culture of psychological safety that you've cultivated there at Bravo team. I
Joshua Tarbutton:hope so. Yeah, that's a dream. I also just want to create a place where I wanted to work, you know, that's like, yeah, it's, it's about, it's about the work, doing the work we love, doing a good job, taking care of the customer, you know? And I mean, it's so much fun to see something come from nothing, and to see it happen over and over and over again. And also see, like young engineers, you know, experience like their own design being celebrated by the customer when they show it to them, like those you know, those cheeky grins, like the ear to ear grin just a tear delight, the pride they know they did, they know they knocked it out of the park. I mean, to me, this, it's like a just a worthy endeavor. It's a worthwhile way of, you know, investing your time and and energy, and we make huge economic impact. I mean, you know, we're closely tied to manufacturing, and it's like a four or five to one, you know, impact that we get in our economy just by creating and designing, and I think, and again, like, I think the engineer doesn't get the proper, you know, they just, they don't. Nobody's talking about it. So I'm glad you have this podcast. I'm glad you're increasing the awareness. Just. People can see like, hey, this, you know, they're not freaks. They're just, you know, a little, a little special.
Aaron Moncur:You ever seen the I think it's like an audio clip or something. I don't know that there's a video behind it came out quite a while ago, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, maybe, or maybe it was even earlier, I don't know, but it's this audio clip about the knack engineers having the neck. Yeah, you've heard that there, so I haven't heard it go find that. That's a Dilbert the neck. Yes. Oh, is
Joshua Tarbutton:that where it came from? Yeah, yeah, his mother, your his mother is taking him to the doctor, and that's how it starts. So it's a good little scene, if you haven't seen it, it's a rite of passage. You know
Aaron Moncur:it is, yeah, it is okay, all right. Well, Josh, this has been such a pleasure. Let me just ask one more question, and then we'll wrap things up here. What is one thing that you have seen or done to accelerate the speed of engineering?
Joshua Tarbutton:I think our company structure is one thing. If we're talking about the speed at which we deliver the engineering, and we have core hours, I have a lot of things, but I mean, I think I mean getting the team to work, getting the teams to work well together is, is the most important thing, just getting people to work well together.
Aaron Moncur:What are the core hours that you just mentioned?
Joshua Tarbutton:We, like I said, almost all employees at Broadway team are w2 and so we have core hours from nine to three, where everybody has to be boots on the ground so the conversations can happen. People, they need help, they can get help, you know. And so we're all there in the work for a window of time where we know we have each other.
Aaron Moncur:Hmm, that's a cool idea. I mean, I think that just naturally happens. Well, you would hope that naturally happens at a lot of places, but I don't know that I've ever heard it explicitly defined that way, and I imagine there are some very tangible benefits to doing so,
Joshua Tarbutton:yeah, I think just magic happens when humans are sharing the same space. I mean, that you can measure our energy fields, like, to the width of our, you know, our wingspan, or hands. I mean, it's like you can measure it. There's so much that happens when we're together that doesn't happen when we're we're apart. But I also know that, like engineers, also need quiet time, and so that's something, that's something we're struggling with right now. It's like, we have these four hours, we have these days. But, you know, I think we can, I think there's opportunities to just continue to innovate, you know, to facilitate deep work. We do have, like, pods set up in the office. But, I mean, I think it's like there's a never ending opportunity of trying to figure out how to do things better. And our also, our brains are very different. I mean, and the younger people coming now too. I mean, they've been on devices for decades, you know, at the younger ages. And, you know, I remember when I when I sat in front of a computer for the first time. So, you know, it's just very we have to keep on asking those types of questions about, How do we make things faster. How do we do better?
Aaron Moncur:Yeah, yeah. I hear a lot of parallels in your story and in mind. So this has been a lot of fun, getting to talk to a fellow business owner of an engineering company, Josh, thanks so much for being with us today. And how can people get in touch with you?
Joshua Tarbutton:Well, I have a pretty unique name, so that's one pretty easy to find. Josh tar button. I think I have a landing page. Jtar button.com, or Bravo team.tech.com was too expensive when I started the company. I did buy it later. It was $8,000 so if you go to bravoteam.com it'll redirect you to Bravo team dot tech. And yeah, we also, you know, you can, we also, you can also get in touch with us through the Bravo walk, which is a product that we invented to help your dog with, with pulling on the leaf. And so those are kind of the different ways. And yeah, I would love to hear from anybody, and Aaron is fantastic. Be on the show. I hope we get to meet in person.
Aaron Moncur:I do too. We have an event coming up in October. Here a shameless plug for our PDX event, product development Expo in October, just outside of Phoenix. So if you find yourself in the area, yeah, that would be awesome to meet in person.
Joshua Tarbutton:Yeah, saw it at the end of your email. I'll check it out. Thank you, please. Yeah.
Aaron Moncur:All right, Josh. Well, thanks again. So much for being here and contributing all of your experience and wisdom into this body of knowledge that we call the being an engineer podcast.
Joshua Tarbutton:My pleasure. Thank you for having me, Aaron.
Aaron Moncur:I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and engineering. If you liked what you heard today, please share the episode to learn how your team can leverage our team's expertise developing advanced manufacturing processes, automated machines and custom fixtures, complemented with product design and R D services. Visit us at Team pipeline.us to join a vibrant community of engineers online visit the wave. Dot, engineer, thank you for listening. You.
