Transcript of Episode 15
David Supple: Alright, welcome to the design build show, we’re starting a new trend where we dress alike.
David Tourjé,: That’s right, we design and build wedding uniforms.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Yeah, exactly.
David Supple: Why are we dressed alike?
David Tourjé,: We’re at our friends wedding right now.
David Supple: Yeah, we’re both in the wedding.
David Tourjé,: That’s right.
David Supple: This is Mr. Dave Touje, thank you very much for being on the show.
David Tourjé,: Thank you, absolutely.
David Supple: I just met Dave yesterday and I had to have him on the show. This was the only opportunity and he was gracious enough to cut out of the wedding. You hear the music in the background.
David Tourjé,: Take five minutes out of some heavy drinking to talk about designing and building.
David Supple: Yes. The reason I had to have you on the show is just in the time I’ve spoken to you, you have an amazing story.
David Tourjé,: Oh thanks.
David Supple: Yeah, and you run a company with 180 people in your staff is that right?
David Tourjé,: That’s right, that’s right.
David Supple: Amazing.
David Tourjé,: In fact …
David Supple: What do you guys do?
David Tourjé,: We design and build mainly structural reinforcement, foundation repair, [inaudible 00:01:12], we’re in L.A. so we deal in the hillsides. We deal in ocean front and if you live out of state and you watch the news you’ll see during the winter houses come down the hills …
David Supple: Right okay.
David Tourjé,: That’s what we do.
David Supple: You prevent that.
David Tourjé,: We prevent that, yeah cause usually if it moves too much it has to be demolished.
David Supple: Got it.
David Tourjé,: Basically there’s indicators that reveal themselves before that happens so people call us, we check it out, and design and build new [inaudible 00:01:46].
David Supple: Awesome, and you are the only design builder in L.A. or in this area that does what you do, is that right?
David Tourjé,: To my knowledge I do not believe there’s another company in L.A. authorized to do what we do. Sometimes they’ll say they design …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: But there’s actually a specific legal protocol that has to be in place.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: And if you don’t have that you really can’t say that. I think we’re the only ones, I mean …
David Supple: Do you guys ever build something that was designed by somebody else or design something for somebody else to build?
David Tourjé,: Very rarely.
David Supple: Very rarely.
David Tourjé,: I’d say one out of 300 jobs.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: Is designed by somebody else?
David Tourjé,: Yeah, I can’t even think of one in recent memory, you know?
David Supple: Yeah, yeah. Awesome.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: And why is that? Why did you bring it together?
David Tourjé,: Well, as we were talking last night, years ago there was a very fixed protocol, at least in Los Angeles, for how the work flowed from engineering to construction, right?
David Supple: When was that? What time period?
David Tourjé,: I mean I’ve been licensed since 1988 so …
David Supple: Okay, yep.
David Tourjé,: We’re talking about late ’80’s, early ’90’s.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: It went from the geotechnical engineer from what I do, which is deep foundations, to the structural engineer, to the contractor. I came along, I was in my 20’s so …
David Supple: Geotechnical to structural, to contractor.
David Tourjé,: Yes, to contractor.
David Supple: That was the sequence that a client would go through.
David Tourjé,: That’s right.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: The geotech would usually get the first call.
David Supple: Yep.
David Tourjé,: He would decide who the engineer was and then the engineer would decide who would build it.
David Supple: Got it.
David Tourjé,: I came along … You know when you’re in your 20’s you know everything, right?
David Supple: Yeah. Still do.
David Tourjé,: Yeah. What I didn’t like was I was the one building stuff that didn’t make sense to build.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: And when you’re 50 feet deep in a hole you don’t want extra annoyances, right?
David Supple: Yeah, I mean that’s the thing that strikes me about your industry. It’s very, I won’t say unsafe, but the potential for death …
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: You’re hand digging with a jackhammer 50 feet deep, you say?
David Tourjé,: It could be yeah.
David Supple: That’s incredible. And what’s the circumference?
David Tourjé,: 30 inches is the least amount.
David Supple: Wow that’s incredible.
David Tourjé,: It is dangerous. You really have to know what you’re doing, you have to [inaudible 00:04:25], there’s so much to it. But like anything else, if you know how to do it …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I’ve never had any serious injuries.
David Supple: Things were going through this sequence geotechincal, structural, to you, and you were getting designs that to you, in your experience, didn’t make sense to execute?
David Tourjé,: Correct.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: Without getting complicated that’s the bottom line, I would look at the plans and I would say, why don’t we do it like this? Why don’t you move this here? Why don’t you do that?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And then of course this pre-existing protocol would get annoyed with me because I’m just a 25 year old punk, you know what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Why are you suggesting that?
David Supple: Right, right, right.
David Tourjé,: And I got sick of that.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And when I did was I thought, you know everybody’s trying to make money so I found an engineer who would actually just … I just paid to execute my idea.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Even him, it took months for him to unwind his mind in terms of how it’s supposed to be.
David Supple: Right.
David Tourjé,: It didn’t make sense to be getting paid by a 26 year old telling him how …
David Supple: Yeah, but it’s not like you were like, hey draw this and he would draw. He still had to do the calculations and …
David Tourjé,: Yeah of course.
David Supple: But you just had the guidance, you were the one guiding. It was weird for him for the contractor …
David Tourjé,: It was backwards.
David Supple: Right. Right.
David Tourjé,: But I had ideas. I went to art school, studied design …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So I have a whole lot of things.
David Supple: So you were thinking holistically.
David Tourjé,: Totally.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Totally. I’m thinking how to make it safer, how to make it faster, cleaner, less work, less difficult …
David Supple: Execution, right?
David Tourjé,: Execution. I mean in what I do, just moving a whole three feet or two feet could make the difference between someone getting seriously hurt or me working three extra days or something …
David Supple: Yeah, you were telling me that when you started out the standard was at the edge … You have a house and the foundation is failing, you need to do pilings or piers …
David Tourjé,: Piles yeah.
David Supple: Piles to whatever depth, and the standard was at the edge of the foundation, right?
David Tourjé,: It’s an obvious thing, right? The foundation goes on the edge of the wall.
David Supple: Right.
David Tourjé,: Okay, so when you build a new house you build a foundation, it’s at the edge of a wall. When guys would engineer what we call under-pinning which is foundations underneath existing buildings …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: They would pretty much always put the foundation right underneath the wall, now …
David Supple: They would jack it up or …
David Tourjé,: Or yeah, if it sunk we would jack it up, but we wouldn’t … That’s another thing, a lot of people back then sometimes would lift the house five feet up and then do it. I didn’t do that.
David Supple: Oh no, you don’t have to.
David Tourjé,: No, I left it in place.
David Supple: Oh, cool.
David Tourjé,: That’s another little twist.
David Supple: Oh wow.
David Tourjé,: I’d leave it in place, jack up what I needed to, but I moved the foundation outside of the wall line so I could work on it.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And that was just one sort of innovation to make things easier.
David Supple: Yeah, you said that was an observation, right? You would drive by bridges and you’d see a cantilever column and you’re like, hey why can’t we do that? And you challenged it and then …
David Tourjé,: Yeah because I would say, why do we have to do this straight underneath a three story building?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And it’s basically, shut up and work.
David Supple: Right.
David Tourjé,: Okay?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And then I would be the one having to get the rebar in the holes, and I’m just like, it’s driving me insane.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: And finally I just hired the engineer to calculate my idea. I dreamed the idea.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And the first response was generally like, well you know it’s not done that way. And I said, look you drive underneath a freeway there’s a column and it’s cantilevered in both directions, if they could do it 50 feet off the ground, you can do it right here.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And how much are you making per hour?
David Supple: Maybe I need to call that engineer who built the bridge, he probably knows. You know what I mean?
David Tourjé,: The way I got it done was I basically had to say, Mr. Engineer, how much am I paying you per hour?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I’m willing to pay you your rate just to indulge me in this.
David Supple: Oh cool.
David Tourjé,: If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: And once I finally got the guy comfortable then, oh okay that makes sense.
David Supple: I’ll look at it.
David Tourjé,: That’s not so bad.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: Then he helped me figure stuff.
David Supple: Have you seen that innovation now become more of a standard? Are other people doing it now?
David Tourjé,: Yeah, it’s the way we do it.
David Supple: Is that right?
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: Have you been acknowledged for that?
David Tourjé,: No, not really.
David Supple: Oh, let me acknowledge you then.
David Tourjé,: Oh thanks man.
David Supple: Yeah, that is incredible. I mean I don’t know if you can go back and … You can’t copyright that I guess right, or?
David Tourjé,: Well no, I mean it’s just …
David Supple: But you should be validated for it.
David Tourjé,: I’m guessing somebody did it.
David Supple: Well it had been done on bridges right?
David Tourjé,: It had been done in different ways.
David Supple: Just the concept of bringing it to your area.
David Tourjé,: Yeah and honestly my industry did not exist really at all.
David Supple: Is that right?
David Tourjé,: No, there was no foundation repair industry.
David Supple: Why not? It was just like, what happened? Buildings weren’t failing? Or if it did it was just like, move on to another building, or what?
David Tourjé,: Well, you’re talking about the ’80’s so to some extent the older buildings weren’t failing as much.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: You know what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: It just was not evolved. If you got a phone [crosstalk 00:10:06].
Speaker 3: It’s still a mess so …
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.
David Tourjé,: You’d see two companies there, me and another guy.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: And the other guy wasn’t even in L.A.
David Supple: Yeah, like in the ’40’s, ’50’s construction was better or what was the deal?
David Tourjé,: I mean you start from the turn of the century.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So in L.A. you have areas of river rock foundations and then brick, coming up through the ’20’s and ’30’s, and then they use some concrete, but they’re not bolting them or anything. The framing just rests right on top of the rock.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: Once you get into the ’60’s they’re starting to build in the hillsides.
David Supple: Oh okay.
David Tourjé,: Shallow piles.
David Supple: So they didn’t even venture out there to that [crosstalk 00:10:55].
David Tourjé,: They just had better choices for land earlier on.
David Supple: Got it, got it, got it.
David Tourjé,: So even if it was a bad foundation it still sat there.
David Supple: Got it.
David Tourjé,: Basically it wasn’t until it started getting really pressured in the … Probably ’70’s and ’80’s when they were really pushing into the hillsides. I mean, I should say I was too, because that was what I was doing.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Hillside construction.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: Then it really started challenging the older codes for deep foundations. And you’d have a bad winter and houses would collapse, people would die.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: That’s why the code changed.
David Supple: Right, right. Yeah, your industry, I think about it and as a design build firm, I would imagine you almost have a monopoly over that sector because if you’re looking at competing for somebody who’s going to design it and then build, one of the main things about having them separated that I find is the gap in responsibility and the client can be left in the middle, right?
David Tourjé,: Right.
David Supple: If there’s any discrepancies, if there’s any like, oh well the design was wrong, they didn’t execute it, [crosstalk 00:12:07].
David Tourjé,: Not to mention a bad idea, right?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: The client doesn’t know it’s a bad idea.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: The client doesn’t know that you can eliminate three piles?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Right? So they go through all this stuff, they spend a lot of money …
David Supple: Overpaying for a design right?
David Tourjé,: Or at least paying and then it comes to me as the builder and then I go … My door closes and I talk to my guys and go, look at this, three extra piles.
David Supple: Wow, yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: And you know, we try to … Just try talking an engineer out of that.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Once he’s paid and it’s done. It’s not easy.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: We’d have to do these things and … No, like you say, we pull the gap together. There is no gap.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: There’s no excuse.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: There’s no nothing. We design it, we build it.
David Supple: It’s just very practical, right?
David Tourjé,: I mean to me it’s funny cause when I met you … I mean you gotta understand, I don’t have these conversations.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I’ve been doing this … I’ve been licensed since 1988. I’ve been doing this since I was 17.
David Supple: And it’s still totally against the trend.
David Tourjé,: I don’t see it, I don’t see it.
David Supple: Yeah, you don’t see design, build.
David Tourjé,: I still don’t.
David Supple: The conversations you’ve had with me, it’s like new, people don’t talk about design, build like it’s …
David Tourjé,: No because there’s not enough experience. See, I started very young and worked very hard, very long hours.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Doing what I do.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Doing hillside foundations in L.A. early on in the early ’80’s and all this kind of stuff. And learning how to set forms, and do the caissons, and rebar, and all this stuff. I mean there’s nobody in L.A. that knows how to do that that I know of.
David Supple: Yeah, right.
David Tourjé,: Anymore … There were a few guys that I knew, right?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: See, then you have a design background, but you’re also an entrepreneur. If I was just a tradesman, which would’ve been fine then I would’ve been more into the execution, but I was developing my own business, see what I mean?
David Supple: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Tourjé,: Cause I’m too independent, I don’t wanna work for people.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I tell people I’m unemployable, you know what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Who am I gonna work for? I’m just gonna drive them nuts.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I have to have my own business. It evolved that way and part of it was selfish. It was easier for me … I did the design.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: I remember one for instance, it was a house near where I live actually now, and most of the foundation had to be replaced. The geotechnical guy said that there was some ancient riverbed eight feet below the house so we had to go past that point into the heart of [inaudible 00:15:02].
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: And I can do that, you know what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Cause I was doing radical foundation systems.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: This was actually on flat ground, this was not a hillside.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: The lady said, okay, but my cousin’s an engineer and he needs to do the design and I said, okay. I’m thinking, how bad could it be?
David Supple: You were just gonna be the contractor?
David Tourjé,: Yeah. I figured it’s flat ground, eight feet deep, how bad can it be?
David Supple: Right.
David Tourjé,: He came up with something really outrageous.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And I bit it.
David Supple: The river scared him.
David Tourjé,: Well, it was just … He didn’t know how you would do stuff like that.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So he drew something on paper that looked okay on paper, but was really not …
David Supple: Not practical.
David Tourjé,: Just terrible idea.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: I looked at this thing and it was just, here it is again.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Right?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I bit it and I remember it was $82,000.
David Supple: Just based on the drawings?
David Tourjé,: Just based on that. I did his job.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: Which was a large amount of money for what we were doing.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: But then I did it … If I did it …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: It was $42,000.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So I go see the lady, I sit down and I said, well I got good news and bad news.
David Supple: It was her cousin?
David Tourjé,: It was her cousin.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: And she says, well what’s the bad news? I said, your cousins plan is gonna cost you $82,000 to do and she’s like, oh my god. That was a lot of money back in like 1990, right?
David Supple: Yeah, she could’ve got a new house for that right?
David Tourjé,: Well not quite, but it was still …
David Supple: Significant.
David Tourjé,: Yeah. She says, well what’s the good news? I said, well I do design work and if I do the design it’s 42. And she says, well we’re gonna go with you. And I said, good you talk to your cousin, I don’t wanna talk to your cousin.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: That’s a very typical story.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: That’s the thing you pull it together, the idea to the construction.
David Supple: Yeah, I mean it’s so practical to me, but when you say you don’t have conversations like this, what do you mean? Nobody’s doing design, build? Is it still the geotechnical, the structural, is that still the standard sequence?
David Tourjé,: I pretty much turned that inside out.
David Supple: Do you have a monopoly of this industry in this area?
David Tourjé,: I wouldn’t call it a monopoly. There are other people who do foundation repair, but you have foundation repairs in layers from the simplest [inaudible 00:17:53] up to landslide repair, which we do.
David Supple: Okay, yep.
David Tourjé,: Monopoly, I wouldn’t say monopoly, but are we extremely unique and are we the most equipped? For sure.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Like 100%.
David Supple: Yeah. This idea keeps coming to me when I do this show and with you particularly because you have this … it’s not safe, right? Like it’s not safe to work in the conditions and you’re making an unsafe condition safe, right?
David Tourjé,: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Supple: So there’s a lot of risk in that.
David Tourjé,: Right.
David Supple: And when there’s a lot of risk I find design, build becomes the only option.
David Tourjé,: I agree.
David Supple: You know because …
David Tourjé,: And I don’t know it any other way because I never saw a set of plans I didn’t redo, one way or another.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Even when I was framing, you know?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: You see this thing and it’s like you get together with the carpenters, it’s like, you can’t do that.
David Supple: Right.
David Tourjé,: So then you change it. You know you asked why I don’t have these conversations, thinking about it because I haven’t even thought about it till now, I think it’s because the training of an engineer or architect lacks heavy physical experience.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: Right?
David Supple: And there’s a disconnect.
David Tourjé,: There’s a disconnect.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: They can probably make it up with their intellect and everything else, but there’s still a separation. [inaudible 00:19:30], but in construction, what I’ve seen, you have a lack of experience, okay?
David Supple: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Tourjé,: In the mid ’90’s the experience tradesman that I grew up with left town, okay?
David Supple: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
David Tourjé,: They just moved away. There was a lot of illegal labor, all kinds of stuff, creeping up.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Making it just cut throat and [inaudible 00:19:57]. I stayed away from all that. I just stayed in things that only I could do.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Because that kept me busy and kept my prices okay.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: But I just think there’s … Construction people that lack design experience and design people that lack construction experience.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So they need each other, but if you’re somebody …
David Supple: And that can work, right?
David Tourjé,: It can work.
David Supple: There can be a collaboration where each is overextending and trying to not look at the other side. There’s great architects, there’s great builders …
David Tourjé,: For sure.
David Supple: Who were collaborative, but that is a design, build mindset right there. That is … They’re filling each other’s gaps to create that design, build experience, yeah.
David Tourjé,: I think so and the great architects, the really good engineers, they’ve been at least close enough to field to know how to bridge that conversation.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: They’re not an ivy tower.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: And the same with the really good builders, they’ve interfaced with a lot of smart architects.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: So they make it happen.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: I’m just saying for what I do, I mean this is America right? We can do what we want.
David Supple: Oh yeah.
David Tourjé,: And that’s the way I want it.
David Supple: We’re bringing it back baby.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: I mean design, build is not only American, it’s earthly. Like that’s how it’s been on planet earth, design, build has been the preeminent methodology to build and if you think of other industries it doesn’t make sense the separation of the planning, it’s like a chef only writing recipes, but never cooked.
David Tourjé,: Right.
David Supple: Or it’s like a musician only writing music, but never playing an instrument or singing. It doesn’t make sense, right?
David Tourjé,: Right.
David Supple: Somehow it was forced, this separation was forced, it’s only been the past 150 years.
David Tourjé,: I agree.
David Supple: And design, build is coming back man because it just makes so much sense in industries like yours where there’s life and death at stake, you can’t … The risk is too high. With what I do, with residential remodeling, the risk for a client is higher just cause it’s their home.
David Tourjé,: Right.
David Supple: They don’t wanna be messing around and so design, build is really getting popular in that space.
David Tourjé,: They don’t want the bathroom door 11 inches wide.
David Supple: Yeah and then they don’t have to live with it and be in the middle of some architect or designer, and some contractor, you know it’s …
David Tourjé,: Yeah, the arguments and the stuff that can happen, I mean …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: No, I honestly don’t really know any other way. I’ve been doing it so long.
David Supple: Yeah. It’s kind of innately or naturally you evolve this, right?
David Tourjé,: Yeah, it was forced mainly do to the fact that … Remember, I was in the field. I was doing the work and I just became less and less willing to do things that put me at risk just because of the location of ink on a paper.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: And a guy’s unwillingness to move the ink, you know what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: When it was right.
David Supple: Yeah, so now you’re fully accountable?
David Tourjé,: Fully accountable.
David Supple: You don’t have that … You don’t have to sacrifice your integrity.
David Tourjé,: No and we can also … We pull all this experience out of our own crews and I get the crews together with the engineers.
David Supple: Oh, high-five me with that man.
David Tourjé,: Oh yeah.
David Supple: The loop.
David Tourjé,: No.
David Supple: Right? Cause you have this constant loop of information and learning right?
David Tourjé,: We have meetings with all my guys and I will … If I’m at the meeting I will say, if that’s what the meeting’s about, I’ll say, look, what are you running into? For instance, some of our details come straight out of the mouths of the laborers.
David Supple: Oh wow. Wow.
David Tourjé,: Not to get too technical, without any drawings.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: But like, you have an existing foundation, we’re going under it.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So we had some conventional rebar details that were actually clumsy to install.
David Supple: Oh wow.
David Tourjé,: And when you have bare hands and you have an existing raggedy concrete [inaudible 00:24:28] and you’re trying to rebar into it, it slips and you rip your knuckles off …
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: You see what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: That’s a bummer, right?
David Supple: Right.
David Tourjé,: The guy’s, if you ask them, they’ll tell you, look, if we could split the rebar into two pieces then I can put one in the other one.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And that’s what we do.
David Supple: Yeah, I like that.
David Tourjé,: We actually respond to people all the way down to the laborer.
David Supple: That’s incredible.
David Tourjé,: You see what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah, it’s a loop of information.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: I mean it makes you better, right?
David Tourjé,: Yeah, it’s not a ego thing man. It’s like safety … See on the kind of work I do it’s important that we as the workers, like the foreman, carpenters, and the laborers are not overly strained or stressed, or pushing on things.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: It’s better if everybody’s cool, moving at a good pace, paying attention, you know what I mean?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Because when people get too strained either physically, mentally, or whatever, bad things can happen.
David Supple: Yeah. Yeah.
David Tourjé,: So the design is the place to start.
David Supple: Right and the thing about design, build, and we talked about this last night, it’s not so much of the build aspect of it, it’s just more thinking with design, thinking with build while you design.
David Tourjé,: Exactly.
David Supple: And thinking with execution, but the fact that you build provides you that loop. If it’s separated the engineer, architect never hears about that guy who just ripped off his knuckles and …
David Tourjé,: Yeah, right.
David Supple: And it creates this adversity and disconnect, and it doesn’t make things better.
David Tourjé,: Right. Here’s another one for you … Actually a pretty good engineer in his day, deceased now so I’m not gonna throw dirt on his grave or something, but …
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: We were talking once and this was early before I was really in business for myself.
David Supple: Okay.
David Tourjé,: And I was talking to him like this, moving stuff and stuff like that and I was 25 years old.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And he goes, what is your background? And I said, I’m a carpenter. You know what he said to me? He said, oh you mean the carpet.
David Supple: Oh, it was like a bad joke?
David Tourjé,: No he was offending me.
David Supple: Oh wow.
David Tourjé,: What do you do with the carpet? You walk on it.
David Supple: Wow.
David Tourjé,: Get the point?
David Supple: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: He’s trying to put me in my place.
David Supple: Wow, wow.
David Tourjé,: Not a carpenter, carpet.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: And I just went, can I say fuck this guy? That’s what I said, I said fuck this guy.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: I know what I’m saying is correct I don’t care how renowned he is.
David Supple: Right, right. Yeah.
David Tourjé,: You see what I mean?
David Supple: That’s incredible.
David Tourjé,: You know these things happen and they inspire you.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: Cause I just went like, carpet? What the fuck is this guy thinking?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: What I have to go through at work, I’m not taking that out on him.
David Supple: Yeah, but this is the same guy you told me you ended up working with [crosstalk 00:27:49].
David Tourjé,: No, it’s a different guy.
David Supple: Oh, different guy okay. Fair enough.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: Alright. That guy you were done with?
David Tourjé,: Yeah, basically, yeah.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: It was just no respect.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Division …
David Supple: I mean the thing about it is, it’s very entrenched. The universities, it’s very entrenched, and the consumer’s gonna be the one to change it because the consumer’s the one who demands it. More and more of the consumer … That’s really the purpose of the show, is to increase the awareness because the majority of people I peak to believe have been duped into the way it seems is it’s always been split.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: You know? And that’s what people just think it’s … The [inaudible 00:28:35] they bought it. They’ve been educated to believe that’s the way it is, that’s the way it’s taught in universities, but the consumer …
David Tourjé,: If it’s in a big thick book it must be right.
David Supple: Yeah, you tell a consumer, hey you know the derivation of the word architect is master builder and the majority of the history that architects build and they’re like, oh my god. It wakes people up, it makes so much sense to them.
David Tourjé,: I took note of the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright was a mason.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: And I didn’t study architecture that much.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: You know as far as who’s who and what’s what.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: But basically that caught my attention … [crosstalk 00:29:15].
David Supple: A lot of the great architects, was it [inaudible 00:29:17]?
David Tourjé,: We’re going back to …
David Supple: In the renaissance, that’s the renaissance [inaudible 00:29:22]. A lot of people don’t know more … Anyway, I’m writing a book about it.
David Tourjé,: Buy his book.
David Supple: Yeah, I gotta get it out first. But Dave thank you so much for being on the show.
David Tourjé,: You’re welcome man.
David Supple: We really have enjoyed talking to you.
David Tourjé,: Thank you, we’ll talk more.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah. And great job man, doing what you’re doing.
David Tourjé,: Thank you.
David Supple: You know what, it’s not easy you know. Coming into that industry takes some courage to see what you see and then persist and keep your integrity and set up things so that they’re in your control and you can now produce a better product, cost less can be done, better product can be done quicker.
David Tourjé,: And that’s really what it’s about right?
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: The customer really is what we’re about, right?
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: I mean I have my own things I’m trying to resolve with safety and speed, and everything, but why? To get in and out of the customers property faster and cheaper.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah.
David Tourjé,: You know what I mean? But, yeah the transition when I was young was a pretty rough five years.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Roughly, as I recall it was just … You’d have to endure shit that was … Sorry, stuff, you know?
David Supple: I understand that.
David Tourjé,: You’d have to endure stuff that was … Because listen, you’re turning something inside out and there’s an old guard and they don’t want to.
David Supple: Right, right.
David Tourjé,: Now the good news is L.A. is so huge I was able to make my place, you know, elbow my way in.
David Supple: Yeah.
David Tourjé,: Everybody still works.
David Supple: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Awesome man.
David Tourjé,: Yeah.
David Supple: Well design, build is going to continue to [inaudible 00:31:00], I think of you and I think of, you know, going to space. Elon Musk’s going to mars right now, right? He’s design, build man.
David Tourjé,: I heard he’s still … He’s driving there, he’s got a Tesla up there.
David Supple: Yeah, well in L.A. he’s gonna do a tunnel now, for the L.A. Dodgers.
David Tourjé,: Really?
David Supple: But my point of this is, when you get to go to space or building this underground tunnel, is that not design, build? No it’s fucking design, build because it has to be, it has to be.
David Tourjé,: Of course. Right.
David Supple: You’re not gonna get drawings of doing some settlement on mars and be like, okay this is how you do it. Okay, good, you guys go do it. The guy’s gonna be there, the guy who designed it is gonna be up there fricken’ directing it, you better believe, you know?
David Tourjé,: Oh yeah, absolutely.
David Supple: And it just makes sense that way, you know? And it’s similar. Your industry is like … You’re not going to mars, but it’s dangerous, you know? It’s gotta be right the first time.
David Tourjé,: Maybe Elon Musk will take me up there to help reinforce his foundations.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah. Well we got a wedding … Thank you for letting me steal you.
David Tourjé,: You got it bro. Thank you, let’s talk again.
David Supple: Yeah, yeah. Awesome brother. Alright, well thank you guys for watching. I’m losing my voice here screaming at the wedding, we’re gonna go dance. Alright brother …