Green Giants – Episode 46

Brian Abeld (01:31)

Yeah, I wish I could say it was purposeful and planned out, but that would be, that would be inaccurate for sure. You know, I was always interested in construction and engineering and went to school for that. And, you know, where I went to school, Mortenson was, kind of the cream of the crop really from a contractor base and was very interested in working with an organization like that. The type of products we work on are something you dream of coming out of school to work on.

Massive generation projects or sports stadiums or hospitals or anything between that, you know, so for me, it was getting in the door with the company on that. And, you know, when I got my offer out of school, it was, hey, we want you to go to the wind group. And I said, what the heck is the wind group, right? They didn’t teach me all those things in school 20-some years ago. We were really at the forefront of it. Mortenson was at the forefront of that. And I was excited to kind of travel the world, if you will, and see the countryside and build projects like this at the scale that I just wasn’t exposed to at all. And as you mentioned, as part of that, I’ve since then had the opportunity to be directly or indirectly involved in really every new emerging energy technology there has been in the company, whether part of the actual group that focuses on that or supporting the infrastructure from it, from like a power delivery standpoint. So that’s how I got to where I am today.

Would not have planned it, wouldn’t have known, wouldn’t have imagined being in a position really overseeing a whole business with the company. If I look back 20 years ago, but excited for the challenge today for sure.

Wes Ashworth (02:57)

Super cool. There are a lot of stories like that, right? I mean, you’re attracted to the company, you kind of get in the door, and now you fast forward to where you are and what you’ve done. It’s incredible. So you alluded to, has played a major role in energy and infrastructure. What’s the one thing about your team’s approach to EV and microgrid projects that sets you apart?

Brian Abeld (03:23)

I think one thing comes to mind for me is when you look at the diversity of Mortenson right now, you mentioned our role in energy and what that’s been for the last 20, 25 years on the renewable energy front, but we equally are as strong or stronger on the commercial building side as well. Building stadiums and schools and stuff that I mentioned earlier and data centers today is a huge part of our business. And when you go to these projects that we’re talking about, EV and microgrids, they’re not just an energy project anymore. You know, we have project sites that have full commercial buildings on them for the amenities and other infrastructure. We’re building on existing buildings and parking ramps and other stuff. Frankly, most of my experiences in energy would never have brought any of those into consideration. And what I love is I can go down the hallway or whatever it is and talk to my counterpart or subject matter experts that can bring all things to the table for us right now.

And most of the construction companies out there in the industry are really good at energy or good at commercial buildings. And we are fortunate to be able to bring both to the table to really help our customer with their solution. And that’s what I view. It’s proven out time and time again, especially over the last few years that we’ve been in this market, and we continue to see them getting more complex and bigger in scale as well.

Wes Ashworth (04:28)

Yeah, I love it. Love it. It is so cool to kind of have the full picture there, have all that talent available and on the teams and things like that as well, too. And I think it’s a unique thing in the industry. Thinking about just the EV infrastructure industry, it is obviously booming. Not every company gets it right. We’ve seen plenty of those stories. But what’s the biggest mistake you see companies make when they’re planning for electrification?

Brian Abeld (05:08)

I don’t know if it’s a mistake or different approaches, but you know, we far too often find ourselves getting involved too late in the game. And, you know, we are a design builder at heart, and we have engineering staff and other things that support that. But a lot of our customers will either do that on their own and kind of set the tone of the project. Sometimes with designers who are great but also not considering the cost or constructability considerations with that. And it’s usually not too bad if we can kind of get involved early to kind of direct the ship in the right direction. But far too often, we see permitting happening, grant applications happening as part of the package that they’ve created to date. And it’s really hard to course correct at that point because of efforts that have already happened or grants that have been provided, or the schedule just doesn’t allow it anymore. And it’s okay if the budget still works, but it creates a whole other issue if the budget doesn’t work as well. And we have ideas to help with that. They could have turned that CapEx into profit, frankly, at the end of the day, right? And so that’s where certainly a lot of our involvement is in the industry right now is helping with things like that. And just because you have a five-megawatt product, for example, for charging doesn’t mean you need five megawatts of generation and really helping them with kind of what the energy curve or the product needs to be based on the use cases, what we try helping out with.

Wes Ashworth (06:06)

Yeah, absolutely. And kind of digging into that a little further, so you’ve seen firsthand how pre-construction assessments can make or break a project. Can you share any real examples of where planning ahead, maybe seeing the company millions, or lack of planning caused major disruptions?

Brian Abeld (06:46)

Yeah, no, mean, we’re living a real-time example right now on this and a pretty mega, pretty healthy-sized project for the industry. What we always envisioned the industry to look like when we got into it, you know, some of these projects to date have been kind of an EV-only project or maybe a little bit of generation to it. We’re starting to see the tables shift a little bit here to, you know, being battery storage and solar and infrastructure on site and amenities buildings for the experience of truck drivers and others as well. And so, we had a product recently where our customer did, frankly, kind of what I talked about there where they permitted the project, they advanced the project. And when they went to price it for the first time, there was the oh no moment that went off of holy cow, like we are way, way over our budget, right.

And so we tried and are trying to do what we can there on that front is come up with every example there is or value engineering the product as much as possible. And the first step was, okay, what do you need to meet your parameters still of the grant or other things that you owe as part of your product? Well, that still didn’t work. Now, what’s everything on the table that we need to think about? And what happened in this very case is just how they had the site. There’s a number of things that were kind of big-ticket items, but just how they had the site laid out.

It was a multiphase project plan for the future. And what they had done was they built phase two phase one, excuse me, away from the interconnection point, then they should have, they should have had it sequenced where you know you’re going to do phase one. So put that as close to your interconnection point as possible. All your cable, your infrastructure is going to be shorter distances, less cost, right, to do that. So, we had kind of completely swapped the site around and mirrored it in the other direction, and then start digging even deeper of, okay, well, what have you designed to date? Why do you have a 10-inch concrete slab on the entire site of the project where people are going to be just using versus what are your high traffic areas? How do we do, you know, 10-inch slab on that? And in the lower traffic areas, we do a lower cost, lower grade asphalt that sure might have some more operation maintenance to it, but as you’re trying to get your product out the door, out the door, make sure it works economically. How do you do things like that? And then another really neat thing that we did, too, is that they wanted this as their flagship site. And so, they had both an operation maintenance building and kind of the customer experience building as well. And both those have foundations and HVAC systems and roofs and everything with them. And we threw out an example of what- what about just stacking them on top of each other and making them one?

Where maybe your operation maintenance is on the second floor where your control center is and your amenities building for your customer experience is on the first floor for use So we eliminated twice as many foundations, twice the HVAC system, twice the roof lines and all that. So really started dialing in the project design to make it more economical for them. Those are things that we can start doing early on and collaborate with. If we’re too late, it hinders a lot overall.

Wes Ashworth (09:57)

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great example. And I know that as future proofing is a major challenge when you’re looking at these EV infrastructure projects and designing the plans, how do you balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s growth when you’re doing that?

Brian Abeld (10:13)

Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, we have been fortunate to be at the lot of the forefront of technologies. And I give Mortensen all the credit in the world of making that investment to do that and see what takes off. We don’t hit a home run on every one of them, but when we do, we’re there at the beginning of it and really can be a part of that market growing forward. And this is no different. I mean, it’s not uncommon right now for the technology to be advancing so fast that by the time we are midway through the design or even through the project, like the new version of something is out, right? And accounting for that can certainly create some challenges. So, let’s just be mindful of that. mean, in the EV industry right now, there’s a lot of talk about the megawatt charging systems, MCS. They go to the larger chargers that are quicker charging time, more efficient. Well, they also take different infrastructure that you wouldn’t design for today if you didn’t account for that in the future.

So those are considerations we have to come up with. Like, do you oversize your electrical infrastructure system to support a megawatt charger? Today, you still need cable. So it’s just whether you’re upsizing cable or not at this point or just evaluations that we’re making. And do you do that now? Do you put the cable in a duct bank so you can take it out easily later on and just pull in new cable later? Or do you just fight the fight later on when something new comes out and tear it up? That’s the decision we can’t make in a silo I mean, we have to be hand in hand with our customer and help them educate that decision as a whole. We certainly don’t expect our customers to know the trade-offs of that. We owe them the design and the impacts and the costs that go with it to be a part of that.

Wes Ashworth (11:42)

Yeah, and I think that’s a huge piece of it. It’s just knowing the options, knowing what you have to plan for and prepare for. I think of those few examples, and I’m sure there’s much more to that as well, too, but it does give you a taste of just how to think about the future and some things that you have to look at. Obviously, you guys are helping with that process the whole way through. Thinking about phase construction, what’s the key to keeping operations running smoothly while installing EV chargers?

Brian Abeld (12:24)

Well, as cliché as it might sound, I mean, just, so much time has been spent in planning, planning, planning, and knowing our customers’ needs and what to work around. And, sometimes those come out right away, and our customers know that sometimes we have to pull that out of our customers and stakeholders. And sometimes they have an end customer too, right? We might be working for a developer that has kind of sold energy as a service or that you’d be charging infrastructure.

And maybe be shielded between their end customer as in the day. And it’s getting everyone aligned of kind of what we’re working around to do that. I mean, these projects are not usually in rural America, right? They’re in dense metropolitan areas or operating transit facility or trucking facility. And so, there’s a lot to work around in the existing infrastructure as well and disruption avoidance of taking power out of a facility that needs it full time and when do that and work around? There are all sorts of things to be thinking about, but I just sit in here and say like, we have to be very deliberate of what are the milestones that we’re working around. We often as a company do a lot of what we call poll planning, early identifying all the milestones, what the end dates are, working back from there, what we need by when, and then same with flow scheduling of kind of how you set up your crews to be able to work through production or the productivity and what’s needed to accomplish that.

Wes Ashworth (13:50)

Yeah, absolutely. And I know for a public transit fleet project, you had to phase construction into 20 separate steps. What was the biggest challenge in that project, and how did you solve it?

Brian Abeld (14:00)

Yeah, I mean, that’s a cool project right now. We’re building out in the DC metro area right now for a great customer of ours. And it’s a fully active, long-established transit facility that’s converting all its combustion engine buses to EV infrastructure. And as part of that is from a resilience standpoint, they’re adding solar to that. They’re adding battery storage to that. So, should they ever lose connection to the grid, they have a way to at least charge facilities for kind of emergency scenarios as well. So it’s a really cool project that our team loves digging into the details of and designing overall. But, yeah, I mean, the biggest challenge there is as we’re actively building prod, like under construction right now, there are buses zooming around the site and fueling and refueling and picking up people and having to really plan around all that and keeping the operation maintenance building going as well.

So, I mean, sure, it would have been easier just to shut down the whole site, rip up the whole thing. We’ve had to really stage it across around the whole site of how you do little, little pockets of it. And man, it would have been way easier to go knock out every single foundation there is on the site. And we’re constantly bringing crews in and out, in and out to do their, their pod, if you will. As we work our way through the whole site,

Wes Ashworth (15:05)

Yeah, and you mentioned a few things in that answer. But companies do often assume EV projects will go faster than they do. And you mentioned some of the constraints and what happens there. Any other, like what’s the most underestimated factor in construction timelines? How can companies avoid delays?

Brian Abeld (15:38)

Yeah. Well, certainly the flow schedule, like we talked about, just navigating around operations is one thing. But that’s something we have to work around. I think like the things that are driving the industry right now that are changing timeframes because we can throw more people at the site. We can do that all day long to a limitation, right? But what is hindering us right now from going very fast would be just the permitting process. I’d say is one of them. The procurement of material today is just two major kind of hurdles we have. As you can imagine, I talked about our history of building large generation projects that are used, often not in an urban environment. And at a utility scale or for utilities, there’s a whole different permitting process, sometimes not a permitting process that even comes with that. And as you’re building in these metropolitan areas, that’s a whole different world to navigate around on the permitting side of it.

Often, these agencies have never seen a battery storage project or a utility-scale solar project, or micro wind project, or whatever it might be that they’re, well, what does permitting even look like, and what am I reviewing as well? So that naturally creates some challenges with our timeframes. You know, we can do all we want to tell them what the norm is and what they want. And here’s what we did on the last project.

That might be cool across the street, but not here and not my thought and whether it’s fire suppression systems, design access, you’re like you on a utility scale product in a farm field, you might just let something burn up, right? Like, it’s just versus creating a whole fire suppression system around it. You have a controlled loss, maybe out in a non-urban environment, but when you’re in an urban environment, you have to absolutely control that. So that has been a challenge for us in this market today as you are not so much on the EV proper front; it’s pretty kind of typical. You need this size cable to support this charger. But when you start kind of putting this into building infrastructures and urban environments and other stuff and having access to firefighting, like that’s a, that’s a different world we navigate around it. And so we luckily have a lot of experience on both the commercial building side with that and also what it takes for my energy generation side to navigate around that. And we have some great design partners as well to help with that, but it certainly helps to fight the fight and work with our AHJs on what’s needed there.

Wes Ashworth (18:11)

Yeah, it’s great insight. And I know you’ve seen a lot of these, but if you could give companies one unconventional piece of advice or wisdom when scheduling their EV infrastructure project, what would it be?

Brian Abeld (18:23)

I think maybe relying solely on the grid, right? I mean, as far as schedules on our developer front, they are, I know, constantly trying to navigate through power availability and utility interconnection timing. And if you’re relying solely on that, you might be waiting a while. You know, there’s sometimes not a lot of megawatts available in a downtown environment to support electrical vehicle infrastructure.

You know, most commercial buildings are nearly that size, right? And so, the power availability of utility is limited on that. So, I’d say that is certainly one thing that stands out to me. And then I think we already hit on a little bit of just how do you design for the future and planning ahead on that for your proforma.

Wes Ashworth (18:53)

Absolutely. And something we’ve touched on a little bit so far is just EV infrastructure is not a one-company job. Who are the key stakeholders that companies don’t think about but absolutely should think about and involve early on in the process?

Brian Abeld (19:23)

Well, I’d say an EPC contractor, right? No, I’m kidding aside. Yes, that’s true. But we certainly have a lot of partners as well that come with us on that journey. whether it’s special agencies that are very accustomed to working with a permitting authority, not only in that state or city, but the county and city as well, that where we’re doing that to help us navigate through that and what expectations are and then designers with the experience and chops to be able to navigate through this and go, go side by side with our customer and us on why something is, is code, why it isn’t code. You know, we are the ones that own that responsibility if there is a failure or not, and we just really are known to stand behind that. So those are just a couple that come to mind for me, the local companies that are doing the work. If we’re not self-performing, we are critical to our success as well.

Wes Ashworth (20:17)

Yeah, we’ve touched on these two as well, but two of the biggest bottlenecks in EV projects are permitting and grid integration. What’s a common misstep you see? How can companies get ahead of the regulatory process?

Brian Abeld (20:28)

I think I may hit on a lot of them, right? I mean, engage early with the regulatory authority so they just know what’s coming. And, you know, we’ve had some projects that as we started design, the counties didn’t even know really what the intent of the project was and what it really was. And we were handcuffed to be able to take the next step with it on our end, even because they didn’t have that initial kind of authorization to build that type of project even in the area. So, that’s one for me. I’d say just make sure you know that comprehensive checklist of what compliance really takes overall. And then again, think about just planning for the future to not have to go redo stuff later on.

Wes Ashworth (21:09)

Yeah, absolutely. Switching over some industry trends, market challenges. So, the Inflation Reduction Act or IRA has been a game changer for clean energy. What’s something companies misunderstand about maximizing incentives for EV-specific projects?

Brian Abeld (21:24)

Yeah, I’m not sure what the maximum incentive as part of it is, but I certainly think it’s a different world. I mean, Mortenson has been fortunate enough to do wind and solar and battery storage, and we’re heavily involved in the IRA right now on all fronts of that. And we have set up our own compliance and infrastructure to support what goes along with that. Cause it’s not just a slam dunk thing and creating accredited apprenticeship programs for especially the non-union or open shop environment where we’ve kind of just had our own programs, but maybe it wasn’t accredited in some case or not, didn’t get the others to do that. But in the EV world, that’s really interesting, we talked about the diversity of these scopes. And let’s maybe take California, which is a predominant market or the state, but areas that don’t have strong union ties of states like Texas or other states, Arizona and whatnot. Like getting and hiring a company that has a truly accredited apprenticeship program on a non-union environment for drywall, painting, landscape, like all things that go into these projects that we’re building today, as diverse as they are from energy to building infrastructure, has certainly been a challenge and have to be very purposeful with what it’s going to truly take to comply with the IRA. That’s just a huge deal for people to really deploy projects, and their proformas are based on a lot of the incentives and credits that come along with that. And it’s not just a slam dunk of saying, go use, approved accredited labor on every single thing that we do on a project. Having to plan on that can create some definitely some challenge for us depending on where the product is located. So, we’re just having to navigate around that on a pretty regular basis. And just try helping our customers make sure we’re doing everything we can to qualify for that.

Wes Ashworth (23:12)

Yeah, and you mentioned California there, which has been a leader in EV adoption, but grid constraints are a huge challenge. How realistic is it that microgrids and energy storage can truly fill the gap there?

Brian Abeld (23:24)

Yeah, I don’t. Maybe it’s a personal hope or belief. I’m not sure which one it is, but I don’t think it’s a matter of if; it’s more of a when thing to me. I mean, the demand of the industry right now with EV vehicles is not slowing down, right? I mean, I know how many people that have EV that would say I’m never going back again, right? And I think that just continues to increase as the industry matures more and more. So, I think like we talked earlier, instead of waiting for a utility or energy provider to say, here’s when your power will be available or how much, like, I think a lot of people are just done, done waiting for that. As price parity gets more and more with combustion engine vehicles are more aligned, should say, and maybe even less, like you’re now going to be able to take that delta of pricing gap you have before and convert that or move that over to a micro grid type solution and, and build out your infrastructure kind of at your pace and your desire if you want to.

Wes Ashworth (24:25)

Yeah, and thinking about just the space, we see a lot of companies that start with a few chargers. They eventually need to scale. What’s the best way to plan for expansion without overspending upfront?

Brian Abeld (24:36)

Yeah, it’s a delicate balance for sure. And I wish there was like a one-size-fits-all answer for this. I think it’s just talking through, you know, some of those examples that I gave earlier, but certainly, you know, as we’re talking with our customers really, what is your initial CapEx spend versus future and really weighing that balance. And that might be really obvious, but just start there, right? And then other stuff like how much downtime can you afford to have in the future? You know, if your facility is up and running on phase one and we now need to cut it out for a week, a day, a month, whatever that is, to then convert over to phase two or build out phase two. What are you losing out on at that point if that were to happen? So, and then just the design ideas I talked about earlier, do you over oversize cable, do you create duct bank to pull in new cable, other things that maybe give us some flexibility.

When you don’t know if you have phase two coming yet or not, or if the MCM charges are ever gonna take off or not, build some flexibility as much as you can on that.

Wes Ashworth (25:36)

Yeah, in transitioning a little bit to just looking ahead at some of the future things that are coming in in the EV and microgrids. What’s one emerging trend in EV infrastructure that isn’t getting enough attention but will be a game changer, you think, in the next five years?

Brian Abeld (25:50)

I don’t know if it’s a new thing or if it’s just that it hasn’t taken off enough yet. And I think about like the vehicle, the grid or V2G technology where your vehicle isn’t necessarily just drawing power anymore. You’re using it to feed the grid as well when you’re not using it. Then I don’t think a lot of people are kind of planning the design around that today. It’s been talked about forever. I think we’re seeing it more at like the residential scale where, you know, your single vehicle can do that at your household. But at a utility scale, it just hasn’t quite taken off yet as a whole. And I’m excited to see where that can go in the future. Because I also think as you start putting together the whole system, like how does that help us with not just creating more generation, but being smarter with what we have at hand?

So, I think. I don’t know if that’s a trend, but I’m just excited to see where that goes as we get going more and more here.

Wes Ashworth (26:43)

Yeah. No, it’s cool. Can you paint that picture? So, if we fast forward and say that was fully embraced, adopted, and taken out to scale like, what does that look like? Like, what are some of the benefits, and how would that work?

Brian Abeld (26:56)

Yeah, hit on maybe a little bit, right? I think the benefit would be like, are, we’re constantly building generation for the peak load right now. And we’ve all seen all sorts of events that have happened across the industry where we’ve lost power and Texas storm events and California fire events, and you name it, right? Hopefully, it helps kind of balance the grid out a little bit more than it is today, to not just have to keep pumping more and more generation at it versus trying to be really smart with what we do have and scale accordingly from there.

Wes Ashworth (27:27)

Yeah, absolutely. I’ll give you this question as well. So what’s a myth or misconception about EV infrastructure that you’d love to correct once and for all?

Brian Abeld (27:37)

Maybe this plays in a little bit to the question we just talked about, but I think that like too much EV is just going to blow up the system, and we’re going to have blackouts everywhere, and the grid can never handle it. And maybe there are pockets of that, right? And we all know certainly EV is not the only thing driving the energy demand today that is at an all-time high, right? With the way everything works today. But I think just that, like that it’s going to be okay as we are smart with this, and even what we talked about in the previous question here on the V2G technology, there’s ways to work around this and people are planning on it. Yeah, the system’s not going to blow up just because we have EV vehicles on it. There’s no doubt more and smarter demand we have to have, but just because we plug in vehicles isn’t going to shut down the whole grid.

Wes Ashworth (28:07)

Yeah, let me ask this question from a consumer perspective. know, there are ones that are sort of hesitant to buy EV because they’re worried about the infrastructure. They’re worried about being able to charge. You hear that concern come up a lot. from your perspective, what you’re seeing the future, some of these projects that are happening, I guess, what would you say to them? And maybe like, is there some hope for the near future and having a bit better infrastructure, more infrastructure?

Brian Abeld (28:50)

Yeah, I mean, there’s no doubt as we adapt more and more, the infrastructure is going to get better and better. And EV is not the only thing that’s ever been on that journey. Think of countless technologies that have had to start somewhere, right? Even combustion engine vehicles, right? Had to start somewhere. And we’re just on that journey right now. And the more and more chargers we see, the longer range of vehicles go, the faster they charge, just continue to take steps every single day that we look at the industry right now and prepare for it.

Wes Ashworth (29:21)

Yeah, and maybe you mentioned this, so sorry if I stole your answer or you already said the answer, but I’ll make you think of something else. If you had to bet on one major shift in the EV and microgrid space by 2035, so we’ll go out 10 years, what would it be?

Brian Abeld (29:36)

You didn’t take my answer. had a different one here, and maybe because I’m a little involved in the data center market as a company as well. And, just really looking forward to seeing how AI or artificial intelligence really starts helping support all industries as a whole. And, you know, being smart with energy demand and how we build these projects and bringing that to the forefront of kind of helping create our grid and smarter grid and smarter solutions.

The opportunities are endless with that right now. And the pace that we’re building data centers, even as Mortenson as a company supporting some mega hyperscale companies out there. It’s huge right now. And to think that it’s not going to touch the energy business is, is foolish for us. And I think it’s, it’s going to be a matter of time for what it means to this business and how do we use it to help be more efficient with design and economics and pricing projects and we’re looking at all those things as an organization right now to be lean and use our people to think through the challenges and allow some of the AI stuff to help us be leaner with what we can be leaner on. So, and then I think just the other thing, here in the near future, I just don’t think it’s a matter of like, if a microgrid is a part of an EV project, I view it as just being the norm almost in the future as a whole. As I look further out, like that’s where we need to be going with it.

Wes Ashworth (30:56)

Yeah, absolutely. Thinking about data centers, obviously a huge topic right now, a very hot topic. You said you’ve got a little bit of involvement in that. I don’t know, anything that you’re seeing, just trends or what’s happening, or what’s your perspective from a little bit of the inside?

Brian Abeld (31:15)

Yeah, well, I can’t give it all away. We’re sworn on secrecy. But we hit on the energy demand right now. If we’re going to focus on that, putting EV aside and microgrids being a part of it. I mentioned earlier that the EV developers or people building up the infrastructure are eagerly waiting for solutions for their one, five, 10, and 20 megawatt solutions. I mean, imagine being a data center company that is building massive facilities that are hundreds of megawatts or gigawatt-plus-type facilities and not also waiting for the energy companies to come in, build out their infrastructure for them. I think we’re going to see a shift here where they start just doing that on their own as well. It’s probably still called the microgrid because it might be islanded, but you are not doing that at a small scale anymore at that point. It is a massive scale overall.

The industry is taking a paramount shift right now and kind of supporting the data center world as a whole. If you’ve seen some recent construction spending reports of the industry and just the data center spending is of a magnitude of what the rest of the industry has combined even is right now. So, it’s amazing.

Wes Ashworth (32:25)

Yeah, it’s pretty staggering. I’ve mentioned this, I think, in a few past episodes, but you’ve got the biggest tech names out there behind these data centers and supporting that. These are also some of the wealthiest companies in the world. And you think about the capital that they’re pouring in and what that’s going to mean for the industry. For me, I get pretty excited about that. I’m kind of like, well, that’s some tremendous growth ahead. And you’ve got some major, major players kind of pushing that as well, too. Pretty cool to see where it’s going.

Brian Abeld (32:54)

It’s been awesome. They’ve been helping us also learn and be lean and know the companies out there like Meta and Google’s and others, like they are at the forefront of pushing the envelope, right? And there, and sometimes we help them with that. And sometimes they help us with that. And it’s been a really neat experience to be a part of that with them. And I’m working hand in hand with our data center team here, supporting some of those customers, even on my own.

Wes Ashworth (32:58)

Yeah, absolutely. I’ll shift a little bit just to just as a broad topic around just talent and culture and those kinds of things with the company. So you’ve been with Mortenson, I think, since you graduated, right? Is that what you said? Yeah. Which is which is amazing. You don’t see a ton of that happen anymore. And I’m always curious. And I think other people would like to hear as well, too. What is it about Mortenson that’s kept you there that long? What excites you about it? What are some of the things that draw you into working there?

Brian Abeld (33:31)

Good question. I get it a lot, whether it’s with college grads coming out that I get to be a part of some of those experiences and onboarding to people that are experienced hires that have been in the industry for a long time. And your comment about it, you don’t see it that often, it’s quite different here. We see it all the time. I mean, I can look up now my hallway where there are 20, 30, 40-year team members all day long with the company that have been here their entire career or and sometimes I have left to try something different and come back as well pretty quick. And so, I haven’t done that. don’t plan on doing that now that this is recorded. But it is for me neat to hear that from someone that’s been here, my whole company, when someone that’s been in the industry for as long as they have come in and be like, Brian, this is different. You should be proud of where you are, and it makes me feel really good about being in the right spot.

I’ll say like the why standpoint to answer your other question there a little bit is like, think just right here, like being at the forefront of something like a market to grow my career professionally and personally, take the company willing to take the leap of faith to do that. And again, some stick, some don’t, and if they don’t, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just means like we tried, right? And let’s try quick and move on to the next one. And the culture is very much there. Whether its people coming from other organizations, private or especially public, there’s the focus on the mission being in alignment from top to bottom as a whole. So, it’s really neat organization overall from that standpoint.

Wes Ashworth (35:19)

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m always curious as well, companies like Mortenson that are really pushing the envelope, really driving innovation, industry leaders. What do you see, like, within your team, within the company? Like, what helps encourage that innovation and drive that innovation within your team?

Brian Abeld (35:39)

Certainly, again, from the top down to be trying and do stuff and not be afraid to try it. We have facilities set up for prefab and see if we can try something to be better in the field and building out pods of hospital rooms. So, you’re not building them on site; you’re building them off site and bringing them to the location, and setting them in place. I’d say this: the relentless message of not being afraid to fail and see where it is and fail quickly. And so, we know what it is or not and move on. So, I think if we didn’t have that, we wouldn’t see the innovation and the investment that we get, and then people would be afraid to make that move.

Wes Ashworth (36:06)

Yeah, I love it. Love that thread for sure. And I think it’s one you hear a lot with really successful companies. So, I ask you a couple of questions here as we get closer to the time. Thinking about Mortenson, we’ve talked about a lot, but what’s something happening at Mortenson right now that excites you the most? We’ll start there, and then I’ll have a follow-up question to that.

Brian Abeld (36:36)

Yeah, I’d kind of probably go back to my, like, very first response of, or maybe second question you had there about, what Mortenson brings to the table. And, you know, we talked a lot about data centers and energy, and being able to combine those two together today is just such a unique offering for us to really help our customer. beyond just saying like, thanks for building my building. You brought a solution to the table for us that we could not have done ourselves, right? And whether that’s data centers looking for energy or energy companies looking for data centers as a whole. Like there is something there that we have that a lot can’t. And I’m really excited about where that goes in the company and the investment the company’s making. And I think you’ll see us stand out from the competition here on that front in short order, if you haven’t already on that front, because of the diversity we are as an organization. And that is very, very purposeful. No different than the trying like the, whether its markets are just construction means and methods, Mortenson is not afraid to try and see where things go.

Wes Ashworth (37:37)

Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve asked similar questions to this, but I’ll pull out something new. So, zooming out a bit, what’s your boldest prediction for the future of electrification and microgrid infrastructure? And we won’t put this fully on record, but just a prediction. It doesn’t have to be just some things you see as the vision of the future.

Brian Abeld (37:56)

I keep maybe coming back to the same stuff a little bit here, but I think the bold prediction would be like, what is the utility infrastructure, the grid of the future look like for us? And this isn’t a new topic, but I think because of the pure energy demand that you’re seeing from EV and data centers, especially manufacturing facilities, it’s kind of at an all-time high to even support some of these semiconductor and other industries.

I think that like really as people approach to energy is going to look a lot different than what it did a year ago, five years ago, certainly 10 years ago. People aren’t waiting anymore, right? They are taking it into their own hands and driving and creating their future on their own. So that maybe isn’t ultra bold because it’s been in a topic forever. I think the time is now, though, and there’s a lot of momentum to make it actually happen.

Wes Ashworth (38:32)

Yeah, no, absolutely agree wholeheartedly. I’ll ask you one additional question outside of this one, but I’m just curious. All that we’ve talked about, you know, and I love, we’ve kind of hit on topics multiple times and continue to expand on that. For listeners that are tuning in, listening to the episode, if you had like one major key takeaway that you’d hope they got out of the conversation, what would it be?

Brian Abeld (39:15)

Well, hire Mortenson first and foremost. I feel like I would not be doing my job or something. No, there are a ton of great companies out there, and there’s a lot of work overall. I think just kind of planning for the future and being purposeful with that and having the right mindset to prepare for that and try for it and invest in that. I know that’s a huge focus for us right now.

Wes Ashworth (39:38)

Yeah, absolutely. Brian, let’s fast forward 20 years or so when people look back at your work and look back at the legacy that you’ve left. What is it? What is the legacy you hope to leave in the EV and clean energy space when your career is done and you’re retired and enjoying whatever else comes after that?

Brian Abeld (39:59)

The 20 years that had to be is that what you’re saying for retirement? Yeah, maybe, you might be right. Yeah. You have to put it into perspective a little bit. You know, as I now lead one of the leaders in the company and leading a business for the company, you know, certainly people come to mind for me, and I wouldn’t be anywhere I am today without that.

I’ve seen just tremendous momentum in technology in the industry, but also the diversity of our team. And I’ll say Mortenson is also super purposeful with that to innovate and bring ideas to the table. The pace and scale we’re seeing today is awesome, and we’re still; the work’s not done yet. And I, from a personal standpoint, as I have a family and kid and hopefully more like, I want to make sure like we’re setting the industry up for success as well and innovate. And then, you know, from a pure technology or industry standpoint, like just being at the cutting edge of the new and the different and being very purposeful with investing in that and being a part of that. Like, that’s what excites me.

The example I gave, about how we help the customer redesign their building to their whole facility. That’s where I know our team gets a ton of energy from. And our customers, you can see value in that too, not just like how many, how many chargers did you install today? That’s the table stakes for us. You know, it’s beyond that. So, from a personal and professional standpoint, that’s just where my focus is, and trying to be more purposeful with that as I grow in my career.

Wes Ashworth (41:36)

Yeah, that’s fantastic. Very well said. Final question. Anything that we left out, anything you didn’t get to share, final parting words of wisdom- the floor is yours.

Brian Abeld (41:46)

Man, no, I don’t think so. I feel like I could go on for a while about all sorts of examples and cases, but I know just being very structured and there’s a lot out there to do in the industry and keep it moving forward.

Wes Ashworth (41:58)

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Brian, this truly has been an insightful conversation and a fun one. Thank you for sharing your expertise on EV infrastructure, microgrids, and what’s ahead for electrification. For listeners out there, thanks for tuning in. And if you’re thinking about your own EV or microgrid project, planning ahead is everything, as we mentioned. As Brian pointed out, bringing in the right expertise early can make or break a project. So, if you want to learn more about Mortenson and their work, check out the links in the show notes.

As always, if you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who’s passionate about the future of clean energy. Thanks for tuning in to Green Giants, and we’ll catch you next time.