As you know, I am Eli the computer guy, and we're doing yet another coffee with geeks.

So I have Bride Wilson here, President of Geist.

We're gonna be talking about Petey used today power distribution units.

Basically, they go into ah oh.

Data centers.

And essentially, I guess, are power strips on steroids, I guess.

Guess is what I would say.

So thank you for being here.

You got it.

Thanks for having.

Yep.

Okay, so I always ask this with everybody that comes on, the first thing is their title.

So when you're president of Geist, what does that actually mean to people?

Well, so I'm in charge of what Geist is for us.

We have to manufacturing facilities one in Lincoln, Nebraska, one and taunted in the UK, which is in the southwest of UK.

Um, we have sales guys all over the United States.

We have another sales office in London and sales are extensions and China and we have a d.

C.

I am at the center of research of management software group That's out in Fort Collins, and we have ah ah ah.

A nest of geeks down in Austin, Texas, that designed circuit boards and the firmware that goes on the circuit boards that that make the smarts of our product work.

So I worried all of that charge.

How did you How did you wind up in that position?

How long have you been in the tech world?

I I This is kind of Ah, I don't know.

I guess a historian As much as anything I started with one of the wet are the parent company of Guy Stones.

Three plastic Cos I started with one of them in 1992.

Was there for three years, a different one.

For three years, I came into Geist.

Geist was initially a plastics company.

Invented ah, little piece of plastic that runs across the floor of people used to hide telephone cords under and things like that.

You probably seen it A little duck, expressive floor.

So that was invented in 1948 s o.

I came in here on the plastic side and in 98 when you know the internet wasn't really what we think of the internet now.

It was people were using 1520 full power strips.

Most of the stuff we did in those days was more referred to us telco than it was data center.

And so I kind of moved over to the power side in in about 2000.

And so in the last 16 years, the industry has changed and we're just trying to keep up with.

So I've been from I've been in operations, I've been in engineering, I've been in upper management, so I just outlasted everybody.

I guess that's the way of a successful.

So But you didn't You didn't start off is like a technology professional.

Then you were You were in plastics and just kind of wound up here as your career got you there.

Yeah, much more.

I'm your technical aptitude.

But I started off Morrison Operations Guy.

I was really about, you know, how do we build things and build a more efficiently?

How do we How do we ramp up production and how do we take different skill sets and, you know, Adam into our product.

And so, over that course of time, I've learned this industry and got more familiar with the technology side.

But I got my background is more operations and my degrees in agriculture.

I Michael So then how did?

Okay, so Geist was the plastics company.

So then how did it wind up as a PTU company?

How did this wind up is a major profit center for you?

Yeah, that's an interesting question.

The that floor duck that I was talking about, that rents press the floor was kind of sold in office products markets on from that, we got into some of the you know what you think of as a power strip?

That plastic power strip that sits underneath your desk with six hours on it.

So we were making those in the United States well beyond when all the rest of the market had gone to gonna Asia.

For those we we were kind of the sole supplier to the government for awhile because we were the only one still made in the United States.

That kind of lead into a few of these customers from doctor from these other things started asking us if we could build, you know, power strips and metal boxes.

One, you mounted our strips.

And so we had a few customers back in go back in the early days.

And one, um, sales guy that really saw the potential in this from the standpoint of marketing into telcos again in the image.

And so we started into it with the 15 a.

M.

Stuff.

People started asking for more powers who made 20 m stuff.

And then and then it came to three people wanted smart power.

And so we just kept growing and adding a CZ the market demanded.

But we maintained the manufacturing base here in Lincoln.

Um and so, you know, I think that's one of one of the keys to our success is that we've always kept it close and everybody's in the same building so way we're fast to respond.

I'm gonna may.

I may have answered about three questions, E.

I guess that's one of the questions is so you're doing in the U.

S.

But I I thought common knowledge was that you couldn't manufacture anything in the U S.

Like how How is that actually profitable for you folks?

That's one of things where we've defied common knowledge, and I think I think we've proven that knowledge wrong.

Um, we've taken every opportunity we can to vertically integrate as we go, so we only started out.

We we bought everything, including the metal box that it goes.

We didn't have the ability to build the technology and so on.

So as we as we grew, we vertically integrated.

So we we we harder with the company called ITIN Watchdogs back in about 4 4005 eventually bought that company.

That's the group of that.

The remainder of that group is a group in Austin, Texas, that designs all our circuit court.

So we design in house, Um, we we were We wanted to build a customized product fast for people, but we were relying on outside sources to make the metal box.

That thing's going so we added, at the cost of about 2.5 $1,000,000 metal metal working capabilities so we could We could take a flat sheet of steel punch out the shape we want folded out, running through a powder coating booth, and we can make about chassis for this thing with the end within a day.

So we've done all these things over time, too, to integrate vertically, integrate and, you know, become efficient.

And so everybody else is worried about labor costs.

Are labor costs low because we made a product that's easy to build because we're here to support the bill.

A lot of people, I think, underestimate the amount of time and effort goes into trying to support building a product half a world away in a time zone that's 12 hours off of yours.

So what what people end up doing is they have 10 Scuse.

You go to our competitors.

They've got 15 20 different products that they want to try and sell you.

And don't make a boatload of those and ship them over here.

May 1235 however many you need on man.

And that's another thing that we do.

We don't sit on inventory finished products.

We build on demand.

We ship on demand.

So a lot of people think that, well, that's not a violent model either.

But we figured out a way to do that lean manufacturing to do it in 3 to 5 days.

So were we don't have finished good sitting in our warehouse that we can get you the product you need when you need it.

So that's that's made us a viable US based manufacturing company, and we're very proud of that that's interesting.

Do you think that's very replicate?

Herbal in this modern world?

Is is it just a quirk of you do P to use?

And that's a special type of business.

Where do you think other manufacturing businesses could duplicate what you're doing?

I think other manufacturing business could duplicate it, but it's not something.

It's not a switch you turn on, you know?

I mean, you work at it and work at it for years and years and years and you're never done.

Guys is all about continuous improvement and that and that.

You know that every day we talk about that, what are we going to do to make ourselves better?

What's gonna what's the next?

You know, always looking for that next piece of low hanging fruit in it, and sometimes you're reaching pretty high for that anymore.

But you're always looking for that.

Next.

That next thing that sets you apart makes you better make you more responsive.

And then I guess one of the things that since you brought up the manufacturing is there's a whole argument that I guess Americans don't want these types of jobs like what?

What are what do your employees do that that assemble the P to use, like, what's their job, like, What's their education like, um, I would say you're mostly the floor.

You know, the assembly floor is mostly high school education, um, its mix of backgrounds.

Uh, then there's, you know, then there's a lot of support from, you know we have, you know, maybe there's 1/2 a dozen technicians and then you get into the engineering.

You know, when there's we've got dozens of engineers that support all.

So the key is to make it so that it's and so that the job is repeatable, right?

That it's not, you know, way strive to make a very nice working environment.

So we moved into the factory we're in right now about 13 months ago.

If you walk through this place, this is normally you would think of.

If you think of an agent sweatshop, right, we've got a good high ceilings, really good light air condition.

No, the latest and greatest in terms of tools to make our product.

And we have your nice assembly flow cell so that the product flows through easily.

Um, people are, I think, motivated to come to work.

They like working here.

We have a very low turnover on our assembly floor.

So again, I think we're doing a good job.

They're off keeping people happy and creating a work environment that's conducive.

Becoming a work that's interesting.

So then, with the with the P to use, then how do you end up like, What's the process for actually designing these cause again, like normally, you think of a P to you, and it's just the power strip.

But you you've got intelligent ones and managed ones.

You could do a lot of kind of fancy stuff with it.

So what's the process for figuring out what products people actually want and then actually designing them?

Well, good question, I guess.

You know, we've we've we always have our ear to the ground.

You know, we're listening to what people say we at a zoo, I said earlier, We we have developed a family of products over time.

So what started as just basic strips?

The first thing that you know kind of came to mind when, when, when people were asking for us, we'd like to know how much power being consumed.

So first that was a local here.

And then it became.

Well, how can I get this data out of because their weight and get it out through cereal or through either net or whatever.

So we we added the internet monitoring, um, that capability then became How much information to people want or is there a way to scale and information?

At one point, it was just I needed to know how much power how much current is being drawn.

So I'm not gonna trip a circuit breaker upstream.

So you start out with just just, uh, current monitoring.

Then it may be it's like I want to know how much power is being consumed altogether.

Data centers A few years ago went from mentality of watts per square foot to kill Oscar cabinet.

So my putting a my drawing two kilowatts in the cabinet, 10 kilowatts in cabinet.

Now we're seeing people consistently pushing, you know, 15 kilowatts in a Cabinet s O.

This is there's a lot of power.

So those kind of things go into your design.

You're not only you're designing a technology that monitor our but then you're figuring out okay, How How many circuit breakers duo anyhow?

maney circuits going in this, um that allow me to whole 15 kilowatts through, you know, through a cabinet.

So that's gonna be you know, instead of a 1520 fold plug like I've got on the wall in the house.

Now I've got a 60 a three phase plug.

That's, you know, this bigger around this long and, you know, it just draws an immense amount of power.

So all of these elements go into the design and into figuring out you know what's gonna work.

And then the next thing is I want all of that.

But I want this big because nobody wants to give up space in the back.

We want a free air flow over the servers, so you're constantly challenged with with finding the right components that fit the need but make it small, make it compact, but still make it easy to build an easy years.

So it's, uh oh, it's a it's a process, but it's one, I guess, that we've developed over time.

So how often do like new classes of P to use come out?

Is this like a car where every year there's a newer, better one or every five years, or I guess when it happens, Yeah, I say you're probably, you know, five year life span on technology is probably, you know, reasonable five, 5 to 7.

So you're taking what we're what we're looking at right now where we're developing a much more modular approach.

So overtime, we developed this board does this This sport does this and And these kind of get siloed so we're working on now is much more my style approach where, ah, one front end board may be able to talk to a lot of different types of ports behind it.

So one interface, um, will become a front end for just power monitoring.

Or it could be the front end for environmental monitoring or power, plus environmental power plus outlet.

You know, we do a lot of out of control out what?