Building Your Business Ep. 37: Aaron Walker, Phase 1 ESA for Inspectors

CCPIA (00:01)
Hello, Ryan. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Welcome.

Ryan Walker (00:06)
Thanks, Rob. Happy to be here. been looking forward to this.

CCPIA (00:10)
Yeah, so have I. It’s been way too long for us to sit down on this format. I am so happy that you, ⁓ I guess, blocked out a little bit of time today.

Ryan Walker (00:22)
Yeah, yeah, no, appreciate you having me and yeah, I’m happy to help the group and looking forward to just continuing to grow my relationship with CCPIA and it’s been great. anything we can do to help inspectors grow their business and provide more services, you know, that’s what we’re here to do.

CCPIA (00:45)
Excellent.

So I want to dive in. You and I have had a history. don’t know. I think we go back at least 10 years. What you own a company called ETS environmental. What got you into environmental?

Ryan Walker (00:57)
Skål!

Yeah, that’s interesting. So I was a commercial lender in my former life and would utilize ETS for phase ones because as a lender, that was part of the requirements. You’re doing a commercial deal on real estate, they need an appraisal and you need some environmental work done. And I met ETS early on in my career.

They came to our office and solicited their services. So it’s like, OK, well, I put a face with the name. Now I have somebody I go to and utilize them through my career. And then in 08, when the implosion and banks started collapsing, my bank was one that collapsed. And at that time,

Lending is kind of challenging and I just kind of got burnt out and I didn’t want to go to a large bank and So I just kind of sat on the sidelines, you know, there’s some personal stuff going on so it’s just I sat on the sidelines for about a year and knowing what the hell I want to do and ETS reached out to me through LinkedIn. They said hey See that you’re not working right now. What would you think about doing some business development for us? You know selling phase ones

All right, well that’s kind of easy. I know the product. I know the client. So I just started, you know, I thought about, that’s pretty simple. And I just started calling my contacts and banking and networking and referral sources and then just kind of grew and built that up. And.

You know, fast forward to 2016, I was just a sales, on the sales side, an employee, and had an opportunity to go to a larger national firm to do in phase ones and talk to the ownership and say, I think I’m gonna go on to something else. And they said, no, you’re not, you know. What is it gonna take to keep you here, Ryan? And so then that’s where management came in and opportunity to buy in as a partner.

And that was 2012, I’m sorry, 2016. And then I became a member, an 18, a managing member, and now it’s my partner Tom and I who, between the two of us, we’re the managing members now and kind of running ETS, the day-to-day operations. And I still handle the business development and client relationship sides, but that was kind of a fast track in my career getting started here. So.

Now it’s 2016 and I’m probably here hopefully, and this is it.

CCPIA (03:32)
Yeah,

it’s funny when you said I had to sell phase ones. You weren’t really selling phase ones as much as you were selling ETS doing phase ones.

Ryan Walker (03:39)
Yeah.

Correct, I mean when you’re going in and you’re talking to somebody, say, here, we’re here for you, we can offer this service when you need it. And then, you know, whenever they need it, give us a call and that’s when our opportunity is to shine. Okay, let’s perform well on the first one. And with banks, it’s almost like building an annuity. You do a good job with the client, they’re gonna call you forever. So, you know, you have one cup of coffee, one lunch.

You know, he had a relationship for 10 years. so even us, we started off on a golf course with just a cigar and a puck. And here we are.

CCPIA (04:15)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so I’m sitting

here thinking, ⁓ for those that are listening, watching, or whoever they’re consuming this, maybe they don’t understand what is a phase one. So I guess let’s start there. Give me your best definition of what is a phase one and what is it used for?

Ryan Walker (04:42)
Sure. So technically it gives you what they call circular protection. You’re innocent land owner defense. So if there’s any environmental liability, the phase one is not technically an insurance policy, but we always say it’s an environmental insurance policy to know that once you take title to a commercial property, if there’s any issues, contamination, there’s no you didn’t know. Once you’re on title, it’s yours.

And what the phase one is going to do, it prevents or provides the new ownership an opportunity to know if there’s any issues and address those before taking title. So with the phase one, we’re really going to say, hey, we didn’t find anything that’s an issue.

No further recommendations, we feel you’re good to go. ⁓ Then they can close on the loan and ⁓ take title. And if there’s an issue in the road, then that’s where, you know, we’re the consultants, while we have insurance and says, hey, ATS, you said this was fine. Someone else is saying it’s not.

Okay, now we have the deal on us. ⁓ Conversely, they don’t, they buy it. Most lenders, at some point, you want to refinance, you want to get financed, you sell this, there’s a good chance that this is going to come up even in the future. And now, if you want to sell the deal, sell the, I’m sorry, sell the piece of property.

CCPIA (05:47)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Walker (06:07)
get a phase one and there’s issues. now you’re maybe can’t sell. Now you got to discount the property and deal with this issue where when you get the phase one, you kind of know all that upfront. And then we can take the next steps to quantify if there’s any contamination, what that is, or at least rule out those potential concerns. Because if there’s a history of the property, if it was a gas station for 40 years, it’s always going to show up in the history. It’s always going to be a historical gas station. So it’s something in the phase one.

can address those concerns upfront and then you don’t have to reinvent the wheel later. ⁓ So that’s what majority of it is. The practical real world lenders require it. And so someone’s buying a commercial property, eventually a phase one or environmental study is gonna come up. Maybe not today, but if you decide to refinance or sell it, there’s a good chance that this is gonna pop up and it’s better to know upfront than.

you know, in the back end when you don’t really have an opportunity for recourse with the seller. You know, it’s a great negotiation tool, okay? It’s going to be 10 grand or 50 grand or 100 grand to solve this issue. Well, now you can discount the price of the purchase price and put that in escrow or whatnot and kind of work that into the deal. So it’s a really proactive way to kind of understand, you know, any environmental liability on the property.

CCPIA (07:33)
Well, I think you said it well, where you say it’s an insurance policy, not an insurance policy. It’s an insurance policy, not an insurance policy. It’s basically a bed hedge of. So I know a lot of this came in, and I’ll circle back to that. A lot of this came in because of CERCLA and the Comprehensive Environmental Response Liability Act.

Ryan Walker (07:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

CCPIA (08:00)
And it makes me think of that movie. And I don’t know, my ADD ADD kicks in that movie, Funny Farm, where Chevy Chase buys this farm in upstate somewhere and they find a a ⁓ in the garden, a dead donkey.

Ryan Walker (08:09)
Okay.

I’m

CCPIA (08:20)
And

they’re going, well, Chet owned that donkey or something. Did you find him too? Because they were responsible for the disposal of, even though they didn’t bury the donkey, they’re responsible for it. So I’m thinking to myself, boy, I’m buying this piece of property and I look across it and all it is is beans and corn. Fabulous. Beans and corn. But we don’t know what it was 30, 40.

50 years from now, years ago. And so I just buy this property done. Well, what if I sell my business, my property in a decade from now? Well, why would I ever want to be on the hook for what was there when it was beans and corn? And that’s what you guys can do. Is that reading it right?

Ryan Walker (09:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, we’re gonna give you the history, right, what it is today, or, you know, you see this nice…

CCPIA (09:19)
Yeah.

Ryan Walker (09:23)
piece of corner lot and it’s just a lot and you’re like, oh man, this thing’s going for a song here. And you say, well, maybe there’s a reason why. you know, we get people say, well, I’m just gonna buy this cash. Well, that doesn’t prevent you from the liability or even if it’s a small piece of property, maybe you’re buying it for 50,000 or a hundred thousand dollars, you might have a 50 or a hundred thousand dollar liability. And they’re saying, oh yeah, you took this off of my hands. I don’t have to worry about this. So it prevents that from happening.

CCPIA (09:52)
I drive down the road, know, and where I live, you know, see all the, there’s a couple of really awesome looking corner lots. It just, as you said, and they have like older buildings that used to be like restaurants or I call them the typical Friday lunch, lunch three beer place. And I’m going, ⁓ what an awesome.

pipe dream to own that. Then I’m thinking to myself, boy, you pull a building permit, you do this. And what do you think was here on this corner 50 years ago? I bet you it was a gas station and they and this is why it’s not selling and all those things. So, yeah, I see that. ⁓ So so you’re being solicited by largely the banks.

How does the inspector fit into this equation?

Ryan Walker (10:51)
That’s a great question. I mean, I don’t feel so, we’re an environmental consulting firm and I know our niche of clients. It’s mostly banks and brokers and attorneys. That’s where we get 95 % of our work. So I would imagine it’s the same.

could be the same kind of referral sources as a commercial property inspector. And it fits in by, I’m kind of old school, it’s just talking to people, hey, this is what we do, we can offer this service, who do you know that it would be, you know, I could talk to?

It’s kind of that simple. mean, I’m pretty old school. It’s just knocking on doors, talking to people you know, getting a few referrals, and that goes a long way. So I imagine if you’re doing building inspections, they’re buying it. Do you need a phase one? Just talking to people and asking them if they need that service while they’re getting a quote for the building inspection, seems to go hand in hand. ⁓

CCPIA (11:57)
As I

know for our relationship, you and I, mean, for, for, years, I never, we’ll get, we’ll touch on this in a minute, but I never wanted to, to, embrace or be a part of the phase one because that was outside of my comfort zone. That’s outside of my pervance. And so I always treated as, as, mean, we’re in Chicago. So, so the term is I got a guy and

And you were always my guy where I know our relationship was reciprocal where I’m going, hey, all I’m going to do is give an introduction. Somebody’s going to call me up and say, I need a phase one. Say, great. Here’s Ryan Walker, ETS. Give him a call. And then I copied you on the email. And then you followed up and I’m done. And the same way happened with you was if somebody called you first.

You say, got a guy. You need an inspection. You’re going to give Rob a call. Give him a call. He’ll take care of you. And we were done. But then a few years ago, we talked. And that’s morphed into something a little bit more interesting. And I came from the engineering world. ⁓ I spent the first

Ryan Walker (13:13)
Definitely.

CCPIA (13:24)
25 years of my formidable life in engineering. And no, I’m not 105 years old. I grew up in a home of engineers, so I was in engineering. I held the backside of a transit at five. I’m running line at eight. I’m laying out highways at 16. So I understand engineering. And so I went to you, Ryan, and I said,

When was the last time an engineer actually left their desk and did the technical work in the field? Never.

Ryan Walker (14:04)
No, they’re too expensive.

CCPIA (14:05)
Yes, when you think of job costing and billing, boy, it makes no sense to have the big brain out there doing little brain work. And who’s a better little brain on buildings than the inspector? And so we talked about that. And we talked about going, boy, if we could figure out a way that an inspector could be trained.

to do the site field observations, I bet you there’s an economy of scale that can be translated to make it beneficial for the inspector and the environmental contractor. And why don’t you elaborate a little bit on that?

Ryan Walker (14:52)
Yeah, that’s exactly right, Rob. it was what, about maybe a year and a half or two years ago, we decided to start this process of figuring out a way to collaborate. And ⁓ it’s been great. you know, as you know, we have a program now where I always say we’re the back office, you know, we’re kind of them behind the curtain. ⁓ We don’t talk to any of the inspectors clients. We’re strictly support.

And right now what we have going on is we have an agreement where we write the report, we do all the research, we certify it, we determine if there’s a recognized environmental condition or not, and we have a flat fee.

The inspector brings, finds the job. They do the field work. We train them. We help them to do everything in the field to collect all the data. They’re basically giving us a feel for everything that’s going on on the property today. That’s in essence what the inspector’s role is and gives us that information. We address the report directly to their client. We deliver it through the inspector. We bill the inspector a flat fee and then they charge

whatever the market is above. Some clients, it all depends. We’re doing one today and they just doubled our fee. And we are there to assist all along the way. ⁓ So we are, I said, if you find the job, we’re gonna give you a good product to give to your client, an ASTM standard product ⁓ that’s high quality and we know the end user, so this is gonna be acceptable to banks, lenders, brokers.

This is what we do all day every day. And it’s been working out well. ⁓ The only thing that we don’t do is provide the clients, but we give you everything else. You bring them in, and we’re going to give you a great product and a good quality, another additional service to add to your book of business.

CCPIA (16:52)
So to my example earlier where I go, I got a guy. Well, now I’ve got more than a guy. I’ve got a collaboration where I’m not going to, I’m not going to leave money on the table. I don’t want to think it that way that this is the almighty capitalist world, but it is. Instead of me going, hey, I’m going to give this entire client and this book of work to Ryan.

Now we’ve got a collaboration where I can grab this phase one that I otherwise couldn’t touch because in my understanding is the only people that can do phase one is an environmental company.

Ryan Walker (17:37)
You need an environmental professional to sign off on a phase one. And there’s certain qualifications, you know, and in essence, you need about 10 years of experience of writing reports, being under somebody to be able to sign off on that. that’s what we’re able to provide. ⁓

CCPIA (17:51)
Yeah, in this emerging

industry of commercial property inspections, most of my entire industry hasn’t been in business for 10 years. And so this allows me then to have this entire ancillary business line or this entire billing category on my turnkey of my business.

So long as first, I’m qualified. And that’s where you guys can come in, correct?

Ryan Walker (18:25)
Correct, yeah. I mean, we are the qualified environmental professionals. you know, it’s, in essence, you’re providing your client and, you know, when you partner with us, an ETS report. Your name as the inspector is in our report doing the, so it’s a collaborative effort, but it has not been any issues saying we can offer a phase one, we partner up with ETS and we give you a phase one. There has been no…

CCPIA (18:38)
Hmm?

Ryan Walker (18:53)
issues about, our name’s not on the report. It’s been a non event. It’s been smooth and there’s not been any hiccups with that. And so that was one of the first things going into this is how is that going to be perceived in the market? And it’s a non-issue. So. Right.

CCPIA (19:11)
mean, the bank only wants the document. The client

only wants to check the box. So it doesn’t really matter whose name is on it or whose branding is on it so much as it’s got that magic signature on the bottom that says it was done with validity.

Ryan Walker (19:16)
Right.

Right, all that matters, I mean, the real is, you can use that, you can get financing with it, we work with the SBA. So when this really comes into play, when someone buys, you know, purchases a Phase One, if they’re getting, it’s really driven, for peace of mind and that liability protection. But in the real world, it helps,

get a deal, it helps sell the property, and it helps get financing because depending on the property, it’s going to need some type of environmental ⁓ regulatory review, phase one. And not only buildings, we do them on vacant lands. if someone needs something, so as an inspector,

your site inspection is pretty easy if you’re walking vacant property. So, and you could do residential. mean, it’s a litany. We do them on farms. I mean, you imagine, you name it, we’ve done a phase one on. So it doesn’t always have to be this huge heavy industrial building. It’s apartment buildings we do phase ones on.

CCPIA (20:33)
And I

really stand back because I’ve always said this and boy, I love your background when you said, yeah, I came in here as the business development guy. Because I mean, that was my job. My job is to get the phone to ring. And I start thinking about, and you and I talked about this recently when we were together of, boy, I wish I would have, boy, if I could move the clock back type of thing. When I stand back and think about

Just this opportunity to have this partnership in this new way, I would be going, I would have so many articles on my website and I would make myself the phase one authority in my marketplace. especially, dot, dot, dot, if I’m in the rural area where for that,

brokerage or that bank to find a phase one person, they might have to travel hundreds of miles, which increases their fees exponentially.

And now I could be able to offer this service very much ⁓ locally and remotely because everything is done now through what we’re doing right now through a virtual media.

Ryan Walker (22:01)
Right.

CCPIA (22:02)
So talk a little bit about your process, ⁓ The inspector finds you, and you have an onboarding process.

Ryan Walker (22:10)
Yeah.

We do, and I tell every inspector that comes on, it’s new. So it’s not the same as a building inspection. You’re looking at the building, we’re concerned with what’s going on in the building. So we always say, at first, and I’ll get it, you do the inspection, your building inspection, then do a second inspection in the phase ones until you get comfortable. So we do have two things. We have onboarding, we have training.

videos, do a couple trainings where we just go through our report, how to read a report, what a report looks like, whereas the inspector, where your role fits in into the end product, that’s one training. Then we have just another training on actually what to look for, how to do the inspection, and I always tell all the inspectors the training wheels don’t come off until everybody’s comfortable because the reality is we train our guys about six months before

let them go off on their own. So what we do here is that we say we’re gonna give you a project manager, assign it from ETS, it’s gonna work directly with you. They’re gonna be available for a pre-call. So you call us before you go to the site. I’m at a, you know…

Automotive facility or repair shop. Okay, we’re going to tell you this is what you want to look for. These are the questions you want to ask. If you’re walking around, you see something that you don’t understand. We’re available for FaceTime. Call us. And then after this inspection, before you leave the site, give us a call so we can walk through it so you don’t have to go out there again. So and we will, we’re not going to stop doing that until everybody’s comfortable because we want to make sure

Our name is on there, your name is on there, and we want to get you a good product. And the last thing we want is you have to go back out to a site twice. we really stick with that, and we help you walk through the process. There’s an ETS way.

And once everybody’s comfortable getting on and doing it our way, it’s smooth sailing. the reality is after you, know, you always say the first few are gonna be more challenging to get through than once you get the hang of it. you know, the guys that are doing some volume, they’re getting everything done. Their portion, I say between an hour and a two hour tops. At first it might take you a little bit more than that, but.

our site visits once you get used to it about a half an hour. We’re not climbing up on the roof. We’re not doing any of that stuff. And then to put our photo section together and help us create a sketch map, because those are the four areas you help us with. So if you think we need, you’re helping us with what’s going on today. So the site, what they’re doing, we ask you to help us create a sketch map. So basically a Google Earth.

You can mark it with a Sharpie. tell you what kind of feature. So we can put that into a nice CAD map. So we walk you through. If you give us just kind of the building blocks, we create the rest of the product. And so we try to make it as simple and as easy for everybody as we can.

CCPIA (25:24)
So if the standard commercial property inspection is defined as a visual, that’s all we’re doing for an environmental inspection as well. We’re not taking any samples, are we?

Ryan Walker (25:35)
No, it’s a visual inspection and the photos are to document what you’ve seen. depending on the building, it could be 12 photos, it could be 30 photos. It just depends on the property type, how many tenants there are. ⁓ But like I said, it’s a visual inspection. The photos are just to document what you’ve seen.

CCPIA (25:42)
Yeah.

And I would imagine,

especially in the very beginning while the training wheels are still on, the more photos, the better, because all that does is help your project manager better wrap their arms around your skills and verifying that you checked all your boxes.

Ryan Walker (26:20)
100 % so what we at what we we provide a link when you upload all of your photos We ask you upload all your photos. It could be 50 there could be there could be a hundred photos We might take 30 20

But those other photos will help us give a better feel, because we need to get a feel for the property based on your photo. So we’re assessing this based on what you’re providing us as an inspector. the more details, the more photos, we can get a better feel for what’s going on on the property to determine if there’s any concerns. Because the majority of the time, if there’s a concern that’s solely from the site visit, that’s…

There’s only a few different things that are just, okay, we’re calling something out just from the site visit. Maybe that’s because we see a vent and fill pipe that’s undocumented. Or, I mean, there’s just a pool of oil that’s just spilled over or something, you know, or there’s a big mound of,

soil or debris that nobody knows where that came from. And where this fly dumping in this fly dumping in Chicago, they just come in and they dump a bunch of debris and who knows where it’s from that could be an issue. So those are in the real world.

what is probably gonna be called out just from a site visit. Most of the times it’s a combination thereof, the history and what’s going on there today. Maybe today everything looks squeaky clean, but it was a plating facility for 30 years and now it’s just a warehouse. Okay, today it looks good, but the history is something we need to be concerned with.

CCPIA (27:50)
I have to laugh, Ryan, because as you talk, again, my stupid brain is flying. I grew up in a little farm town downstate that ⁓ the entire town is the super funds. I grew up in Ottawa, where they were painting luminous dials on watches and airplane gear. And people would take paint home.

⁓ and put it in their backyard or their garage. I know there’s a section of town and all it is is three strand barbed wire over about four blocks that you’re not allowed to go to. know, it’s when you say fly dumping or mysterious stuff, it’s that’s the truth. It’s you don’t know where the stuff was originated.

I people bring stuff in, people take stuff out. ⁓ It could have been a small landscaper’s business and he dumped a dump truck full of dirt there, but that dirt came from over there. Well, now the site’s contaminated.

Ryan Walker (29:08)
Yeah, there’s a reason

why dump because they don’t want to take it to a hazardous waste site and spend, you know, you know, thousand dollars for a ton. They can just dump it in this lot and be done with it.

CCPIA (29:19)
Well, ⁓ I live and die on this, watching TV all the time. And I watched an episode recently of just my brain thinking like this, that could never be traced. That would be a nightmare for everybody. Is this company removed ballast from EPDM roofs with a giant vac truck. They’d suck the gravel, the ballast off the roofs.

and then they would give it to other companies to use in parking lots. Well, what if the company that they were taking the ballast off is a plating company and that’s right underneath their stack pipes? mean, that would be contaminated, wouldn’t it? Yeah. So I’m just sitting there going, it’s amazing when you really stand back and think of how important that tracking of the business history.

Ryan Walker (30:04)
It could be. It could be.

CCPIA (30:17)
and the ownership history is in the scope of ⁓ a phase one, it’s you on the research side, you’re really doing the heavy lifting.

Ryan Walker (30:33)
Yeah, I mean, yes. ⁓ The site visit is important, obviously, but usually it’s a combination thereof. And the history and the regulatory is majority of the time, that’s where a wreck comes from. Unless, like I said, there’s something really obvious.

CCPIA (30:44)
And so.

Yeah, but it’s, yeah, that field

person is critical. mean, there’s nothing gonna, AI can’t do this. You can’t Google Earth this. ⁓ Somebody has to be walking around with boots on the ground, taking photos so that that all important report can be produced. But at the end of the day, for those that are listening going, I never thought that I could ever do this. For years, I’ve been saying, no, I can’t.

Ryan Walker (30:57)
yeah.

CCPIA (31:23)
is there’s finally a way that yes you can if you’ve got good observational skills, if you take the time to learn the process and you partner with somebody that can do the other half of the work.

Ryan Walker (31:39)
yeah, and we’ll train you up. You you get the job in. We have one person, it’s Ryan Hoff, who’s on the videos for the CCPIA. He’s our dedicated project manager for CCPIA.

Because everybody that we have on board is a CCPIA member. That’s just a requirement that we have. So, and he, we’ve been doing quite a bit now. I mean, it’s growing and each inspector’s a little bit different. You’re running your own business. So Ryan is, kudos to him. He’s really being nimble and work with the different personalities and to make sure we get everybody a good product.

CCPIA (32:23)
I think it’s awesome. I need to ask, and I don’t care about addresses, I don’t care about anything. So what has been in your history of doing these for the past couple of decades, some of the more interesting things you’ve found on site visits?

Ryan Walker (32:44)
You know, there’s one that comes to my mind because it’s more of a, it’s like, man, you kind of feel bad. You know, it’s one of these where a guy bought a small piece of property in the burbs, bought it cash, couple hundred grand, and he was gonna put a little gaming shop in there, you know, like Tracy’s or, you know, just a little, what, the slots. And now he wants to go get financing. Well, you need a phase one.

Well, this thing, this was like the trifecta. It was a gas station, was a dry cleaner, and it had tanks still.

Now he bought this thing for, you know, a hundred grand or so, but he probably, we probably put in a hundred grand just to clean it up. We had to pull tanks, we had to get an FR letter, the piping was still all there. So that one really sticks to my mind because everyone says, oh, it’s a small piece of, it’s not worth a whole lot. You know, it’s a hundred grand or something, you know, and a commercial deal, that’s small potatoes. But the liability there and the headache.

It’s just it all could have been avoided. So that’s the one that really sticks out more than anyone because you kind of feel bad, but That’s just buyer beware. And it’s a good story to tell clients or anybody I’m buying the cash. It’s 100 grand. Well, there’s maybe a reason

CCPIA (34:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think of our own purchase when we purchased our building in the fall of 98 in downtown Naperville. It was an old real estate office. Brick.

⁓ craftsman style home on the corner. I ⁓ don’t, think that we bought it with finance. I know we got it with financing. I was the general manager of the company, so I wasn’t part of that. ⁓ during the phase one inspection, we had nine inch floor tiles in the basement and we had a buried tank out in the.

Parkway. So I had to go find a contractor to get the tank out, pay that money. think it was back in 98, I think it was 13 or $15,000. But that’s a lot of money still. People don’t have that in your pocket. But I’ll tell you the bright side, Ryan, that gave me an opportunity to take my kid to work day.

And he sat there in the window watching the excavator pull that tank out for three or four hours. And I became the hero of the world. But you’re right. mean, even the most innocuous of buildings, the little craftsman bungalow, nine inch floor tiles are going to fail ⁓ an environmental visual.

Ryan Walker (35:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we’ll call that out. know, one thing, you know, there are a couple of non scope items that we mentioned, as asbestos and lead, we see nine by nine tiles or broken tiles, you know, say there might be asbestos containing material here. And you know, pipe wrapping, the nine by nine tiles, you know, it’s if they’re not cracked, okay, but if there’s they’re cracked or anything, or now you want to, you know, read and remodel the building.

That’s a big ticket item, because you got to be a specialist to remove that asbestos license. mean, that’s a big deal.

CCPIA (36:13)
Yeah, yeah. mean, it’s so, so there’s probably not a whole lot that’s that for a commercial property inspector that is, that is trained to be observant. This is not that far left or that far right of their, of their wheelhouse.

Ryan Walker (36:32)
No, I just think it’s kind of dialing it in. They already understand a building, how it operates. It’s just put in a different set of lenses on it. Now all we would say is it’s almost like being a kid and you’re going and getting a tour of a company and what do you do here? The difference between, I think that one of the biggest differences is we have to ask questions. know, what do you, and the…

depending on the building really determines the level of questions. you’re doing a phase one on a former Taco Bell, well, probably not a whole lot going on there. So your questions are very limited. But if you’re in a plating facility or you’re dealing with chemicals, some of this, okay, well.

We need to know what chemicals are you using? ⁓ well, how are you disposing of those? Are know, they dumping down the drain? no, we have somebody to pick those up. Okay, can we get the documentation? So it’s a lot of what they’re doing, what’s the process and how are you disposing of those chemicals? if you’re looking at the building as an inspector, and what we’re looking at is almost like what’s going on on the ground down? What are they doing that could?

contaminate the soil and our groundwater. So you’re looking at floor drains. We’re looking at cracks. We’re looking at anything where there could be a potential source of

either hazardous, know, hazardous products or petroleum products that could, you know, seep into the ground and or groundwater and spread onto the property or God forbid the adjoining properties. So, you know, these are all the things that we consider. And that’s the biggest difference is just training your brain how to look and we’re more it’s a little bit more detective work. What we do and but

CCPIA (38:15)
Yeah.

Ryan Walker (38:16)
It’s just getting into that mode. And that’s where we train our inspectors. Hey, just do your thing and then go a second time until you’re really good at it where you can just, you know, like the back of your hand.

CCPIA (38:27)
I think of all those buildings I’ve inspected that had gravel parking lots for a reason. And that’s where they were spreading, you know, to keep dust down. know, they were doing dust control. You know, it was all manufactured right there at the facility. And you just, you can see it in the gravel, the chemical look or the oil look.

that it certainly wasn’t a tachifier that you’d buy at the store. It was certainly a, yep, and here’s the streaks from when I took the bucket and I put holes in the bucket and waved it. So these are, this is good stuff. I know we’ve got some videos on the CCPA website that we created a couple of years ago. Is there any other…

Prequels is there any other you know what you really need to be at this level of business before you Before you really want to dive this way, or is this something that I could consider? Simultaneously with the launch of my business

Ryan Walker (39:39)
You know, it could be simultaneous because you know, we’re here to help you if you’re if you’re Aggressive if you’re smart if you have ability to learn and want to grow and want to do this I always say if you can follow directions We’re gonna get you through it. You know, you could just follow what we ask you to do. It’s not rocket science, but it is You know, there is just some thoughts process going

Into this but we help you train up and like like I always say I’ll say it again the training wheels don’t go off Until until everybody’s comfortable

CCPIA (40:16)
Other than my training, is there any investment I need to make?

Ryan Walker (40:20)
No, mean, we just, our insurance, we have an insurance requirement. So there might be an investment to bump up your insurance. We have a $2 million requirement, but an inspector we signed up this week, he had a million bucks. It costs a natural 20 bucks a month. That’s what it was. So it’s a nominal investment. Maybe some inspectors already have it, but we don’t charge anything to sign up and you stay on and you get a job and then…

CCPIA (40:35)
boy.

Ryan Walker (40:48)
Do you give us an email and then away we go. So ⁓ it’s just being able to market it, know, building out your website and that’s probably the biggest challenge is making sure you can get out there and market just like you would your services and growing your property, the building inspections and this is another service you offer. So it’s being able to sell, it’s probably like anything else.

CCPIA (41:14)
Yeah.

Well, I think that’s really the key is I think the key is being able to say, yes, I can and not all know. I’m afraid of it. I can’t do that. You’re going to have to find somebody. Sorry. You know, go back to your broker and get that resource or go back to your lender and get that resource that they have. No. Darn it. You called me. I want this.

Ryan Walker (41:42)
Mm-hmm.

CCPIA (41:44)
and I can get paid for it. I think that’s the most important thing.

Ryan Walker (41:48)
Right.

Oh yeah, yeah. And we always say, you know, it’s a couple, you know, at first it’s going to be a little longer, but on average, you know, about two hours, probably worth the work. And it’s, you know, it’s not a whole lot of time and there’s not, other than your drive time to get to the site, there’s not, there’s no hard cost.

CCPIA (42:07)
Well, you’re billing for it anyway. So it’s not, it’s not like you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart. You’re actually billing. So to me, it’s, to me, it’s a W. ⁓ so, so you said the qualifications to do a phase one is an environmental company, but it’s not necessarily an engineer as much as it’s that experience and understanding that system and, and to be pre-qualified.

Ryan Walker (42:13)
Mm-hmm.

CCPIA (42:35)
You have to have had that number of inspections performed, correct?

Ryan Walker (42:41)
Yeah, you’re under the wing of somebody and it’s basically 10 years of experience.

CCPIA (42:49)
Yeah, so I saw any inspector that thinks they can skate around this or do it. Well, then you’re either going to have to find somebody local that does exactly what you’re doing or B, you can certainly reach out to you and I’ll I’ll I’ll make sure that that we place ⁓ the appropriate links to our that we have for ETS at the end of this. ⁓ But it certainly seems like something that’s going to make sure that you can.

Dot I’s, cross T’s, and make sure you don’t lose a customer.

Ryan Walker (43:22)
100 % and we don’t you know one thing we say to all the inspectors we don’t call your customer we don’t talk to anybody unless you want us to and if we do as a joint call we’re happy to get on the get and explain the phase one but we don’t talk to anybody without your permission now we say we’re behind the curtain we’re the firm behind the curtain

CCPIA (43:43)
the end of the

day, I’ve seen your reports. mean, they’re pretty darn self-explanatory. It’s not, there’s nothing written in an ambiguity, in an ambiguity fashion where they, you what’s this? It’s here’s a pile, here’s an issue, here’s a pipe, here’s an issue, dot.

Ryan Walker (43:49)
yeah.

Yeah,

and I always say not all phase ones are created equal either. we really gear towards, the reason I like phase ones because they’re easy to read. I mean, I’m sorry, the reason I like ETS’s phase ones is because they’re easy to read. Not every phase one is the same. Sometimes you go through a phase one and you’re hunting for like, where’s the conclusion? Where’s the punch line? And you gotta scroll and look through it and hunt through it.

We don’t. Ours is executive summary right up front, tells you the issues, and we tell them the recommendations, what the next steps are. The recommendation section is not a requirement for a phase one, but our experience, everybody wants to know, well, what do we ought to do next? And so we cater to the end user. So we’re always kind of retweaking our reports, adding things, making them easier, because we take the feedback from the client.

to revise our report. So it’s very simple to read our reports and that’s why a lot of people like using the ETS reports. It tells you right there.

CCPIA (45:11)
What’s the turnaround on a completed report,

Ryan Walker (45:14)
We always say two to three weeks. And that’s pretty much industry standard. Everyone wants it faster like anything else, but that’s typical two to three weeks. And most of the time the clients, you give them that window, they’re okay. They say, hey, I need it fast. Luke, can you get it closer to two? Most of the time, okay. That’s fine. But I always try to give myself as much wiggle room as I can. And that…

CCPIA (45:38)
There’s a lot

of work to it. There’s a lot of research to it. There’s a lot of look-through. mean, it’s, and this is for those listening that are, that that’s the panic. Commercial inspections have a 30, 60, 90 day window of due diligence. And this is just one portion of it. So two to three week.

report creation is nothing in this matter. And in fact, most commercial property inspectors that are doing inspection reports same day or 24 hour turnaround don’t have to. You could pause a little bit and breathe and ruminate a little bit because most of our clients don’t have the emergency bells going off that other inspection disciplines might have.

Ryan Walker (46:35)
The only time it happens when they drop the ball, I’m like, my gosh, we forgot to order the phase one and we’re gonna close in two weeks. Can you do an emergency? Can we do a miracle? Okay, most of the time we’re able to, we usually say yes and we figure things out. So, and that clock went, so for us, when an inspector gets a job, the two weeks start clicking.

Ticking once you give us the address, all we need is an address. You can have your inspection in a week from now. We encourage as soon as you get the job, let us know, because that’s when our clock starts ticking. And then you might have a deliverable a week out after your site visit. ⁓ And then inspectors, if you need it faster, you let us know. mean, there’s a rush fee, but things can always get done if one wants to pay for it.

CCPIA (47:24)
That’s fabulous. So

what haven’t we talked about, Ryan? I good grief. ⁓ I just think it’s a wonderful process. And I think what you’ve created is certainly a pedestal that others, I think it’s going to be other environmental companies are going to mimic, but if we keep it quiet, they won’t. ⁓

Ryan Walker (47:32)
Yeah, it’s been going great.

CCPIA (47:54)
But I certainly think it’s something that our membership should look at as a pronounced opportunity in their business.

Ryan Walker (48:05)
Yeah, it’s another service you can offer and you don’t have to say no. OK, we can do that for you. And you just you know, it’s like anything else. You just got to ask for the business. If you ask for it. You might get five knows, you know where I’m a salesman at heart. You gotta say you gotta ask 10 times to get two or three yeses. So yeah.

CCPIA (48:07)
Yeah. No. No.

⁓ 100%.

Thanks so much, Ryan, for spending some time with us. You know, this is exactly what building your business is all about.

Ryan Walker (48:34)
Well, I appreciate it, Rob. It’s always a pleasure. And we’re here to help. Thanks, Rob.

CCPIA (48:37)
We’ll talk to you soon.