Kevin Johnson (00:00.205)
 All right, let's do it. David, thank you for taking some time today to hop on here. You are a fabricator extraordinaire and winner of the 2025 Fabricator Olympics, man.

David Seitz (00:02.553)
Yeah.

David Seitz (00:19.631)
Kevin, nice to see you. How are we doing today? Thank you for taking the time. Ah, good, good. You know, trying to enjoy life and live it up.

Kevin Johnson (00:20.751)
I'm great buddy. How are you?

Kevin Johnson (00:29.411)
Nice man, nice man. Yeah, so you are the winner of the Fabricator Olympics. You put on a really impressive show back in October. And I'm like, you know what? This guy's got something. We've talked personally on the side of how you do a lot of equipment repair and mobile work and stuff like that. So let's get started with like...

David Seitz (00:40.706)
Yes, thank you.

Kevin Johnson (00:56.963)
How'd you get into this? like, tell me about like how you got started, how your business started, family. Tell me about, you know, all that stuff where you're at right now.

David Seitz (01:06.766)
Yeah, so my old man, he used work for the same company since he was 18. And when I was growing up, I seen him, my grandpa worked there, my uncle worked there. was a big, this family worked for this company. They were millwrights and it was awesome. So growing up, I wanted to be a millwright. I wanted to weld and a super funny story that I love telling people. My dad always rolls his eyes about. When I was 11, I was begging him. like, God, I want to learn how to weld. I want to learn how to weld. So he had this old

Lincoln tombstone and he let me try and weld 60 10 eighth inch on it and he got so mad at me because I kept sticking the rods cuz I know how to weld he grounded he grounded me because it's so frustrating burn up my machine So so that's how my career got started into this I was 11 and gotten to dabble around with it Play around making little projects torch cards and stuff for him

Kevin Johnson (01:46.511)
Yeah.

David Seitz (02:06.017)
Then I went to a VOTEC program for welding. Didn't really care for the teacher too much there. We didn't really get along too well, but I would weld for a couple hours in the VOTEC program and then I would bring my coupons home to my old man. I'll be like, what am I doing wrong here? What's going on? So that got started. And then I actually got the opportunity to work with him for five years at that same company. And it was tremendous. It did me super well.

Kevin Johnson (02:30.659)
Nice.

Kevin Johnson (02:35.439)
So you worked with your dad at a high school for five years.

David Seitz (02:40.621)
So not directly out of high school, so I wasn't wasn't the most like respectful kid I was kind of rebellious for a few years and then I got with my now wife and She got pregnant and then I kind of started to straighten out once my old man started to see like I was I kind of had a head on my shoulders Then he told me he's like, all right. Why why don't now now you kind of got your head out of your ass Why don't you come help me?

Kevin Johnson (03:08.259)
Yeah.

David Seitz (03:08.3)
I'll come teach you this industry because I was trying to do it on my own. thought I knew everything No, so I got to be Trained one-on-one with my old man for three years, but I was at the company for five years And let me tell you you want a good teacher. Let's your old man be a teacher for you

Kevin Johnson (03:14.243)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (03:25.623)
Nice.

Kevin Johnson (03:34.219)
Well, it's funny because so so my son is 17 and I told him I'm like, I don't want to be your first boss. So when he was like 15, he got a job at a local supermarket because I told him, I'm like, I'm not going to be your first boss. after he left there, well, he left there this past. So this is December. He left there at the beginning of this summer.

Because I said, I'm like, how will you come work for me for the summertime? He's like, I thought you didn't want me to work for you. I'm like, I didn't want to be your first boss. Because there's something that you just from, there's just something you can't learn from a parent on a job. And you just have to be taught by somebody else. And I still don't want to be his, I still don't want him to work for me yet. He needs to go experience

at, you know, have welding experience at other places. But he came, he worked for me in the summertime and I was like, hey, look, I am your boss when we are at work. I'm not your dad. So, stepdad, whatever. It's funny because I don't even call him my stepson. But yeah.

David Seitz (04:51.934)
Really? No, that means you have a good relationship. That's awesome.

Kevin Johnson (04:55.727)
Yeah, but I was like, when I'm at work, I am your dad. Or I'm sorry, when we are at work, I am your boss. And he respected that pretty well. he is 17, so he usually talks back, but he shut his mouth a lot when I was like, you're wrong, stop it. Just go do it this way, because I'm explaining to you, so just close your mouth and listen to me. You know what I mean?

David Seitz (05:24.698)
Yes.

Kevin Johnson (05:24.719)
Like, I'm going to explain to you why I'm telling you to do it this way. You don't know better. But so I think right after Christmas, he's going to go get a job with my other buddy who does like he does fabrication stuff, but he also does building and stuff like that. So but yeah. So kudos to you for being able to work with your dad for five years.

David Seitz (05:41.959)
Yeah. I think the father son.

he, yeah, he was, very unique in his training abilities. He, he definitely made sure I wasn't standing around and was always doing something. And while at the time for probably the first year or so, it was definitely aggravating because, he was, he was a foreman, always running a crew of big guys. And, yeah, he worked me the hardest for sure up and down. And at the time it was frustrating, but now.

I'm so thankful for it. It was an amazing opportunity. I don't think I'd have the work ethic I do if I didn't get that opportunity.

Kevin Johnson (06:27.599)
Okay. What, so you're at a high, how old are you now?

David Seitz (06:32.04)
29... yeah, 29.

Kevin Johnson (06:36.025)
When did you stop working with your dad? What age?

David Seitz (06:39.143)
five years ago, so it's 24.

Kevin Johnson (06:43.087)
Okay, perfect. Something like that. What did you do after you left working with your dad?

David Seitz (06:44.615)
No, 25. Yeah, 24, 25, somewhere around there.

David Seitz (06:53.799)
Uh, so what ended up happening is when I was working at that company, they were kind of pushing me to try and be a foreman. And I felt like I wasn't necessarily ready for that stress. I was a little bit nervous about it. Um, at that time, my grandpa had just recently passed away, the guy that had worked at that company. Um, and I had kind of seen the trajectory of what was going to happen. Like they wanted, they had like a 10 year plan for me. They wouldn't be a foreman.

Then they wanted me to step into a project manager role. And, I was just thinking, I just kept thinking, man, if I'm going to work this hard and I'm going to give my life up, I just kind of want it to be for myself, you know, and for my family. So the transition out of the company that I thought I was going to work for my whole life came from when I realized how much stress it was going to be. And I decided if I'm going to live a life with that much stress, I want it to be meaningful other than just the paycheck.

So I had a local mail write guy that I had known through friends of friends for a while and had helped in doing some side work and we had a conversation and I gave, we ended up coming to an agreement where I give him five years of work and he teaches me how to be a business owner. And July of this year,

July 19th of this year, that five years comes to an end.

Kevin Johnson (08:26.904)
Nice. Okay.

David Seitz (08:27.834)
Yeah, so it's been a it's been a unique road that I've been on in this industry.

Kevin Johnson (08:34.447)
Sure. Absolutely. So coming up in July, so 2026 is your five years is up. Gotcha. So you're still there now. What sort of work are you doing for him versus like what sort of work are you doing on your own?

David Seitz (08:49.701)
So for him, we do a majority of quarry based repairs and some new install work, maintenance assist for a couple different big quarry companies around here down in Maryland. So he's a small guy. He started, I started out as a first employee. He's got five employees now, six, including himself. The guy is doing really, really well for himself and he's

He's an amazing idol to have. I'm really glad that I have a man like him in my corner.

Kevin Johnson (09:26.605)
Yeah, absolutely, So when do you find the time to go and work for yourself?

David Seitz (09:34.916)
So two years ago I I was doing enough side work and on the weekends and a couple days during the week that I Decided it was probably time that I get some insurance and an LLC to kind of back some stuff So I started out just Saturday Sundays and couple day couple evenings during the week doing repairs that I got hooked up with through my brother my brother has a

He's an owner operator of a tri axle business. So I started out like doing bed repairs and some bucket repairs for excavation companies, um, just through him and word of mouth on Facebook. got, um, a logger friend of mine. He runs a log and truck. He he's really helped me out and grown. Um, so I started out just kind of grinding and keeping, keeping, you know, 50, 60 hours a week with my employer.

and then doing another 20, 30 hours a week for myself. when my fourth year came up with my employer, I kind of had a conversation with them and told them, listen, things are going tremendously well. I don't want to ruin the relationship. I want to keep the five years. But I also want to see if I can't go part time, drop down to three, four days a week with you, trying to give myself some breathing room. And he was cool with it.

The respect level there is super mutual both ways. He understood it. He understood I wasn't just trying to not do anything, but I was trying to gain some balance in my life. So he was, he worked with me and so I've been doing three, four days a week with him and two, three days a week for myself trying to not work Sundays, but yeah, life,

Kevin Johnson (11:27.215)
Yeah, that grind is hard in the beginning.

David Seitz (11:30.787)
It's a unique road and not one that anybody should take likely if they're trying to start a business.

Kevin Johnson (11:38.595)
Yeah, yeah. Tell me about your three biggest challenges you have right now with doing this, like easing off your day job and doing this more, more, more full, full time slash still part time.

David Seitz (11:55.746)
So, through my biggest challenges, time, time management for me, not being burnt out when I finally am able to get to doing my tasks, location. I know we spoke before about that. I'm pretty much mobile-based, but it's hard to run a mobile business without also having a shop to assist in that. And then,

The other big struggle I face is learning the management side of running a business. That's been a little slow for me.

Kevin Johnson (12:31.512)
Okay.

Okay. What what what do think you struggle with the most with that that management part?

David Seitz (12:42.854)
actually forcing myself to sit down and stare at computer and do the work without being sidetracked into what I should be doing to make the money.

Kevin Johnson (12:49.487)
Yeah, yeah, it's so easy to just get distracted when you want to get distracted because you're sitting in front of a computer, you know.

David Seitz (13:02.753)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's another subject that I do want to touch on is the distractions of social media. So, you know, how important is it for somebody starting a business to spend time on social media versus making the content and dialing in managing the business because

Kevin Johnson (13:12.685)
Mmm.

David Seitz (13:29.46)
You if you're on social media a lot, people always say like, you need to make content. You need to be pushing content out. And like, I'll find myself, I'll go to make content and then I'm scrolling more content than I'm trying to make.

Kevin Johnson (13:43.695)
Mm hmm. Yep.

David Seitz (13:44.852)
So it's a cycle to break of being a consumer versus a creator when it comes to staring at a screen.

Kevin Johnson (13:53.732)
Do you enjoy doing the creative side of putting things out on social media or are you doing it just because that's what everybody says to do?

David Seitz (14:06.272)
A little bit of both. Sometimes, so I'm a very, I try to be very humble and modest and sometimes I'll feel like if I'm making a post, it's more of me dragging and I haven't figured out how to break that mindset of like being proud versus bragging. Cause the, like, I just don't want to come off as seem like an arrogant business owner. My whole thing is I'm trying to be respectful and humble.

Kevin Johnson (14:08.345)
Okay.

Kevin Johnson (14:22.415)
Hmm.

David Seitz (14:36.037)
and earn my way through it.

Kevin Johnson (14:39.971)
Yeah, absolutely.

David Seitz (14:42.071)
but like I love designing and getting to sit on draft site and making these custom parts and getting them sent out and cut and, create, send that, getting to sit down with my wife and create invoices is, is an awesome bonding experience for us. So there's some unique stuff to it, but content creation is just, it's a challenging hurdle for me.

Kevin Johnson (15:08.163)
Hmm. Yeah.

David Seitz (15:10.12)
but I'm trying to deem like, is it even necessary or is it 100 %? You wanna be a business owner, you need to create content.

Kevin Johnson (15:21.431)
I think there is a balance between that. So like I struggle with that too. For the last probably six months, I've been doing, I've been making videos of, I've been recording. I haven't made videos yet. I've been recording all the job, like the interesting jobs that I do. Like some of the staircases that we make and some of the balcony replacements that we do. I just, like I get so involved in the work.

that I just forget to turn the video camera on. And then I look over and I'm like, dang, I should have videoed that. That would have been really good. Because I really enjoy the editing part. I can't edit on my phone. I have to be in front of my computer. I bought a computer specifically for video editing just because it takes so much to do. And I've got two screens.

David Seitz (16:01.679)
Yeah, yeah, well.

Kevin Johnson (16:20.943)
It's been like, you know, I, like when I'm set up well, I enjoy making the content, but you know, I, I found that a lot of my business doesn't come from that making the content. It comes from just to being a great business owner and just nurturing the, the, the context I already have and being their go-to person or their go-to company when they have

problems,

David Seitz (16:52.229)
So something else that I struggle with is I do a lot of repair based business. So when I show up to a job site, that customer needs me to get that done so they can get that equipment out. And I, you know, I might be showing up seven, eight o'clock at night to a four or five hour job. And, you know, how do I, how do I justify to the customer, Hey, let me take a half hour here. Let me, let me get, you know, cameras set up and content set up and then start doing the job.

I have, you know, some...

I don't know, I just feel a little strange about doing that and I haven't done that yet. But I feel like if you want to be a content creator, you need to.

Kevin Johnson (17:35.885)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a whole job in itself.

David Seitz (17:42.958)
Yes, I think content creation takes a lot more time than some people make it seem like, just make a video, five minutes, upload it, edit it, and you're done. I don't think that's the case for welding content.

Kevin Johnson (18:01.443)
Yeah, maybe it is, but I haven't figured out how to do that.

David Seitz (18:05.955)
Yeah. Wow. And some of the stuff too, you know, like some of my repairs, they're just down and dirty. Get that customer going. And I feel, you know, a little, little hesitant to even showcase that work, you know, say you're TIG welding in a, in an aluminum bed that's covered in asphalt. You could try and prep and clean that up as much as you want, but you ain't laying dimes in that.

Kevin Johnson (18:14.628)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (18:33.35)
No, no. people, and to be quite honest, I appreciate it when people show repairs that don't look stack a dime, like, you know, put doing an outside corner joint on aluminum. Yeah, like it's not that hard to stack dimes. But like, just like you said, I'd rather see an OK weld and the process of how you want to about cleaning that weld out.

all the asphalt out of that bed. Personally, me, I'm more interested in that than I am seeing pictures or even a video of somebody welding an aluminum fuel tank or something like that. Bro, your stuff is laser cut. You wipe it down with acetone and your gloves are still clean. We are not in the same world. We're both welding, but we are just not

David Seitz (19:02.425)
you

David Seitz (19:15.757)
Yeah, that's super intriguing.

Kevin Johnson (19:30.787)
We are not in the same realm here.

David Seitz (19:33.921)
Yeah, so I run a Miller Bobcat 250 and it's not capable of running a spool gun off of it. But I do keep a TIG welder on the truck and I also keep aluminum stick rods on my truck too. And a few weeks back I was at a customer's location and I was working on a trailer and he said he had aluminum bed that he needed a patch put in.

It was a super windy day and it was just an overlay bed patcher just to help protect it. I stick welded it. I did. And I made it work. wasn't super pretty, but it served its purpose really well and the customer was happy.

Kevin Johnson (20:07.215)
Heck yeah.

Kevin Johnson (20:14.723)
Sometimes that's what repair is.

David Seitz (20:17.258)
I think there's a time and a place to, you make sure you get all the nitty gritty details fine tuned. And there's also a place for just get this done, make it work. I'll, nope, go ahead. I just find that that that'll happen in the repair world a lot where you're the customer is not really looking to have this.

Kevin Johnson (20:28.761)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So you said that, go ahead. No, go ahead.

David Seitz (20:46.273)
show quality piece, their function. Get it working. I need to make money.

Kevin Johnson (20:48.655)
Mm-hmm.

Yep. Absolutely. So you said that you're the guy you're working with is going to is teaching you the business side of this. What kind of like what do you think are some of the biggest things that you've learned from him while you've been with him for the last four years?

David Seitz (21:11.669)
People management and delegating tasks and time management while on the job site. So that was something I was super scared of working at my previous company and why I chose not to be a foreman. Because I felt like I could do the task really well. But learning how to manage people and learning how to think the next step through while you're doing the current step, it's huge.

Kevin Johnson (21:19.182)
Okay.

David Seitz (21:42.267)
And also learning how to talk to customers. That's been huge for me as well. Because, so you can't, I found at least you can't necessarily talk to customers the same way you talk to your coworker.

Kevin Johnson (21:58.224)
but

David Seitz (21:59.004)
Like not in any sense that you gotta lie to them or anything of that sort. You just, it's a different conversation.

Kevin Johnson (22:05.871)
Sure, absolutely.

David Seitz (22:07.92)
know, customers.

Kevin Johnson (22:09.455)
The dynamic of that is very different.

David Seitz (22:13.296)
Yeah, and it's unique. And I grew up in a, know, a male-right family and all my work has been in the background. So cousins, swearing, making fun of people, that's every day. But you can't, you know, you can't pick on a customer the same way you pick on a coworker. That's not how it works. You'll lose that customer pretty quick.

Kevin Johnson (22:25.615)
you

Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (22:35.608)
Yeah

Kevin Johnson (22:44.431)
You tell me that you can't bust their balls about breaking their machine

David Seitz (22:48.659)
Some customers, yes you can. Yeah, yeah, and it's really awesome work for some of those customers, but some customers, you can just tell them. You better not say nothing like that.

Kevin Johnson (22:51.513)
Some customers, she can, yeah.

Kevin Johnson (23:00.879)
Yeah.

David Seitz (23:04.775)
But you know, co-worker lays down a bad beat, yeah, you're going to let them know, and not in a nice way.

Kevin Johnson (23:10.339)
Yeah. Yeah. Be calling HR on you soon.

David Seitz (23:15.763)
you

Kevin Johnson (23:19.693)
What? So with you, we're still working full time and doing this part time. How do you get like, what have you done to find the customers that you have?

David Seitz (23:32.323)
So that's something that I've actually been super proud of. I still have yet to do any sort of outreach trying to find customers. The closest thing I've done to that is making some occasional content on my personal Facebook page. I've dabbled a little bit on Instagram, but I think I'm going to shy away from Instagram for a little while.

If I'm gonna do social media and just stick to Facebook because I'm just a little more familiar with that platform But everything's been word-of-mouth and just My customers letting people know that you know, hey this guy does good work Good rates. He's gonna show up and do a good job

Kevin Johnson (24:22.755)
Nice.

David Seitz (24:23.728)
The word of mouth has been huge for me.

Kevin Johnson (24:26.635)
Okay, that's awesome. What did you do to get your first initial cut, a few customers?

David Seitz (24:28.691)
You

David Seitz (24:35.282)
My first initial few customers was family and some friends of mine I Got set up my old man set me up with a Lincoln Weldon power 250 man. This thing was old school and It was good for laying down some 70 18 and 60 10 but that was that was about that things capabilities and

Kevin Johnson (24:41.421)
Hmm.

Kevin Johnson (24:51.309)
Yep.

David Seitz (25:02.096)
You don't want to run that old one long or two long man, thing will hurt your ears after a while.

Kevin Johnson (25:07.119)
Oh my gosh, I know all about that. I do. like, like those old Lincolns, I just, I think I just find myself, I just keep getting them. Like I started with a Weldon Power, I forget what it might've been, a 225. And then I got like a Weldon Power G8000. Then I had a Ranger 8. Now I've got a Ranger 9. And holy moly, those things are so freaking loud.

David Seitz (25:09.604)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (25:36.067)
Compared to my bobcat, it is like night and day like.

David Seitz (25:40.469)
yeah, so it was super frustrating for me because my boss, I work full time for it. He doesn't slouch on equipment. He buys top of the line, super nice stuff. So while I'm working for him, I'm using a Miller TrailBazer 325 with auto idle. man, I think diesel, you fire up that raw and then it idles back down after you get your initial arc set up. It just purrs along.

110 power at idle and then I come home and I got a You know a welder power sit in the bed of my truck. No skid just leads thrown in the back and it whoa Man, this is rough, but I made it work

Kevin Johnson (26:21.987)
Yeah. And I find that I want to say almost yeah, yeah. Almost every one of those ones that I own says something with those like the idle circuit board where it doesn't like it burns out and you can't put it down on low idle anymore. Yeah. I see you shaking your head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

David Seitz (26:45.068)
Yeah, I know exactly about it. I got three of them just in parts for it.

Kevin Johnson (26:49.581)
Yes, exactly. Same freaking thing. like, the fact that they are so loud and you have to run them at high idle all the time is just like, my goodness.

David Seitz (27:01.494)
You almost feel bad and especially for me. I'm showing up to customers locations in the evening It's a nine o'clock at light at night and I'm using my phone flashlight because I can't you know I haven't bought any like actual lights or nothing yet, and I'm trying to weld I'm like man. It's just so much feel like a fool, but I'm making it work. know like just I Have definitely earned my way To where I've got to now. That's for sure yeah

Kevin Johnson (27:20.047)
Make it work, man.

Kevin Johnson (27:28.205)
Yeah. You got to put some lights on that big old service truck you got now.

David Seitz (27:32.333)
Yeah, yeah, no I started out, you know just welding power in a bed then a buddy of mine Let me borrow a shop and we traded some labor for some steel. He gave me made a skid I rocked after a little bit and then my neighbor my parents here he he had that 650 he was getting rid of and Newman for years gave me a great deal on it and that thing has just tremendously tenfold increased my work I

I love that old F650, man. That thing is amazing.

Kevin Johnson (28:05.571)
Heck yeah. It's a workhorse, all right.

David Seitz (28:06.989)
Yeah.

It ain't going fast, but it sounds cool and it gets the job done. But yeah, you hit any sort of incline, man. You're going up that hill like 35 mile an hour, man. That thing's not your great.

Kevin Johnson (28:13.911)
Yeah

Kevin Johnson (28:23.651)
Yeah

David Seitz (28:25.942)
Like I went to that, when I went up to Campton for that world competition, I've talked to my GPS and said, you'll be there in 45 minutes. I'm like, ain't no way, ain't no way. It took me an hour and 10 minutes to get there.

Kevin Johnson (28:36.143)
You

David Seitz (28:41.812)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (28:42.729)
man. with this being your side gig, working into it for full time, how do you juggle your work-life-family balance now? What does that look like for you?

David Seitz (28:57.717)
Pure absolute chaos. There is no, all right, know, I'm doing work this day and this day. It's just incorporate it, fit it in wherever I can, make it work, and just make it happen. And the biggest key for me is I have a really, really patient wife.

Kevin Johnson (29:00.815)
you

Kevin Johnson (29:24.024)
Yeah.

David Seitz (29:24.639)
Yeah, that's probably the key to making this all stick together.

Kevin Johnson (29:29.795)
Yep, I agree.

David Seitz (29:31.627)
Yeah, and then and then of course, you know, uh, i'm trying to Find more time to spend with my family. So my oldest boy. He's in a wrestling program So naturally I decided I I have enough free time Uh now i'm I started being an assistant coach for wrestling three days a week in the evenings Why? Why do we torture us? I don't know. I was like I have plenty of time. Uh Everybody I tell that to that knows

Kevin Johnson (29:54.543)
What were you thinking?

David Seitz (30:01.586)
my work schedule is like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just making it work. I'm gonna find a way and I have been, but man, I'll get home from work. I quick jump in the shower and I'm gone. We're going to wrestling practice. I get home, send the kids upstairs and I'm out in the garage working. It is rough, but I'm earning my way as honest as I can.

Kevin Johnson (30:07.395)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (30:21.423)
Yeah, that's rough.

Kevin Johnson (30:28.899)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

David Seitz (30:30.506)
So, you know, that's just a big thing to me. If I have to sacrifice some sleep to make it happen and to shove my way into this industry just to make all of this worthwhile, then that's just what it takes.

Kevin Johnson (30:49.635)
Yeah, absolutely.

David Seitz (30:52.499)
You know, and like I'm a, I consider myself a pretty humble man. I, you know, like when I won that competition, I didn't show up there thinking that I was going to win. I'm like, I'll probably get, you know, 25th, 30th place. Like there's guys way better than me. And I, I just got lucky. I feel that that's how I feel about that.

Kevin Johnson (31:04.633)
You

Kevin Johnson (31:16.175)
you

David Seitz (31:18.789)
And there's like a lot of my family and friends were super mad at me when they found out that I went to this. They're like, you didn't tell me anything about it. I'm like, yeah, it's cause I didn't expect to win. I showed up there thinking like, was just, I was just going to, you know, not make it too far. So I didn't want to tell people. then they're like, how come she didn't like, you know how it is in the mill, right? Industry. You tell people you're going to go do this. They're going to make fun of you. If you lose that thing, you're never going to hear the end of it.

Kevin Johnson (31:35.417)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (31:45.807)
Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah, exactly.

David Seitz (31:49.103)
I just kept it real low key. just... Yeah. It was interesting.

Kevin Johnson (31:53.808)
Hey, Look, the proof is in the pudding. You rocked it, it's time and accuracy. You had it down on everything. you know, there might be guys here who are, quote, better than you. But they can't, you know, like with it being great on time and accuracy, they can be accurate, but can they be fast? Or they can be fast, but is it accurate? it just so, maybe some people choked, but...

David Seitz (31:59.633)
I know.

Kevin Johnson (32:23.679)
You you rocked it that day, man. You did a great job.

David Seitz (32:26.076)
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think, I think it just goes to showcase that maybe I am a little too humble on myself because like I proved to a lot of people in the industry and a lot of people to my local community that, you know, maybe I do deserve a spot in the welding community and can actually be successful at it. That really, that really changed things for me a lot.

And it's really heartfelt to me. I'm just so appreciative of it. My wife and my family, they're super proud of me. They let me that the gold chain with the Lincoln plaque. I got I that's on my Christmas tree right now, man. I got a I a welding hood with your stickers on a couple of stickers I got from that. That's the little tree topper.

Kevin Johnson (33:11.63)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (33:22.467)
Yeah

David Seitz (33:24.493)
When I say this industry is my life, it is tenfold. My life is consumed by this industry, 100%.

Kevin Johnson (33:32.865)
I bet. Yeah, you have to, Well, hey, you know what you could do? Take that stainless steel trophy. Put it on the front of your hood as like an ornament so that it's like a talking point. You know what I mean? Like you don't need a Mac Bulldog. You got that. Be like, first place. What's up? My race just went up 20 bucks an hour.

David Seitz (33:38.693)
What's up?

David Seitz (33:46.607)
Dude, I've been trying...

David Seitz (33:51.461)
I've been trying to find a way to incorporate that. I have it sitting in a glass case in the hallway now, but I'm like, man, that thing needs to be a part of my truck somewhere. The hood ornament, that would be crazy. I'd be scared at the same time, though. I don't want it to get ruined.

Kevin Johnson (34:06.381)
Right.

Hahaha!

Kevin Johnson (34:15.403)
It's stainless, it's alright, just polish it up, you'll be alright.

David Seitz (34:18.403)
I thought it was like maybe I'll put it on the dash. I'm like man if I get into an accident that thing's pretty sharp I don't want that thing anywhere near me.

Kevin Johnson (34:27.296)
Right. It's gonna go flying through you.

David Seitz (34:30.722)
Yeah, no, I don't want any parts of that. But the hood ornament, I like that. You might get a picture here sometime of me riveting that thing fast in my hood.

Kevin Johnson (34:38.799)
Just put it far enough back in that in case you're in an accident, it's still all good.

David Seitz (34:42.999)
Mm!

David Seitz (34:47.348)
I know, Boom.

Kevin Johnson (34:50.712)
yeah. So with you being on the road and doing mostly mobile work, what's your favorite tool?

David Seitz (35:02.988)
Favorite tool?

Kevin Johnson (35:05.453)
And you can't say the welder that you got from the Fabricator Olympics that you won.

David Seitz (35:10.688)
Man, I just TIG welded with that thing, some 20 gauge stainless with that 040 TIG tungsten. Phenomenal, man. I didn't even know they made tungsten that small. I thought it was 1-16. Favorite tool, I would say, is either gonna be a hammer or a DeWalt Rattail 6-inch grinder. I love those grinders.

Kevin Johnson (35:17.785)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (35:22.273)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (35:32.847)
Mm hmm. Yeah, those things are indestructible, man.

David Seitz (35:38.262)
They're indestructible and the balance on them is just on point. And it's an affordable price. And I put those things through a beating.

Kevin Johnson (35:42.276)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (35:45.689)
Heck yeah.

David Seitz (35:51.02)
But a hammer, a hammer in our industry, you just, how do you do a job without having a hammer?

Kevin Johnson (35:59.248)
That's true.

David Seitz (36:02.006)
That's my take on it. Hammer is probably one of my favorite tools.

Kevin Johnson (36:06.159)
What is your tell me a tool that you should probably sell that.

David Seitz (36:12.702)
A tool that I should probably sell, I have perfect example of this. I thought buying a cordless Milwaukee circular saw was going to change the game. Buy a corded one. Don't think that you're gonna get...

Kevin Johnson (36:26.741)
like the steel cutting one, right? yeah.

David Seitz (36:31.264)
Yeah, it just chews up batteries and it's super frustrating. So that was one purchase that I do regret. And if I could get rid of it, I probably should, honestly. But I love the thought behind it. Having a circular saw to cut steel is tremendous. But yeah, if I'm gonna go back to it, I'll either get one of those small cordless ones. That might be better. I thought, you know, getting the eight inch.

Kevin Johnson (36:48.942)
Yeah.

David Seitz (36:59.808)
Milwaukee Core, this was gonna be awesome. But, mm-mm, no.

Kevin Johnson (37:05.645)
Yeah, we have two of the corded ones and I've thought about getting a cordless one, but I mean, we have a couple of 12 amp hour batteries, which is obviously what you need for those. still, like for the amount of time that we actually use those, like that circular saw, like

David Seitz (37:19.592)
yeah, yeah.

Kevin Johnson (37:32.986)
I don't know, I love battery power and I'm sure it'll do great for a solid like two minutes. But like some of the rips that we have to do on like a 10 foot sheet, do quarter inch or something like that. I don't know. I just can't see it being that awesome of a tool to the point where I would not prefer just plugging in a cord. Like doing stair stringers and stuff like that. Amazing for like 10 and 12 inch stair stringers. Like we just did...

What do we do? So we have, we're in the middle of a staircase replacement for 24 staircases, 12 straight runs, and then 12 switchback ones. So we actually have 36 sets of stairs to do. So there's, if you want to consider a switchback, two sets. And then we have two for each. So we had 72 stair channels that we had to rip.

You know, miter on both ends. had a miter, a small sliver up top. So that's three cuts on each. And I mean, with, running two of them, two saws, two guys and a forklift, like, I want to say that they, only took them like, I don't know, maybe six hours, five, six hours to rip all that material with a circular saw. They're like, you know,

they showed up, they're like, oh, do you want to use a seven and grinder or plasma cutter? I'm like, no, use circular saws. They're like, okay. And they're like, there's a blown away about how fast it just ripped through those. So I really do enjoy that tool too.

David Seitz (39:14.013)
Yeah, so currently to combat it, I don't really want, I'm just kind of irritated with the circular saw world right now because I got, I'm just sore about that cordless one. I keep a prime weld plasma cutter on my truck. It's a cheaper quality tool that can get beat up out on a job site. I have a nice little Ingersoll 30 gallon air compressor on the truck. So

I just used plasma cutter and a nice fence and it works well for me.

Kevin Johnson (39:48.121)
Nice, nice.

David Seitz (39:49.307)
Yeah, having a plasma cutter on the truck versus torch flame cutting something, you know, just that alone is a night and day difference. Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (39:58.724)
Yeah. Yeah. I remember when we put our Hypertherm 45 on the truck and it was like, put it on for the, for the gouging part of it. we do like every six or eight weeks, we go to different, auto auction places where they have like the big wheel loaders that have the, like the 20 foot forks on them. And then they have wear plates and we started doing them, with a torch.

And you know, I quoted it and I said, this is going to be what it's going to be and did it with a torch and we were hitting time with a torch. But as soon as I got that plasma couching out, bro, game changer, game changer with washing those welds out. And it cut our time in half of just taking those wear pads off and just having it on there. takes, you know, three minutes to set up and

you know, get everything like plugged in with the air compressor and everything like that. But to have that on site to be able to do that was just like, it was awesome, man. It was awesome.

David Seitz (41:09.167)
Yeah, yeah, no, I appreciate having the torch on for when it's necessary, but you know, I was on a job site the other week and I had to cut some 316s AR400 and I just, I couldn't justify flame cutting it. So I set up that plasma cutter and it was, it was amazing. It took me longer to set everything up than it did to cut it.

Kevin Johnson (41:31.128)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (41:36.227)
Yeah, right.

David Seitz (41:37.7)
And I knew if I knew like if I would have tried to flame cut that thing, I was just would have spent so much time trying to grind everything down. It just wasn't I couldn't justify it. And I wasn't I wasn't trying to raise a really or 400 not not as much as I had to do.

Kevin Johnson (41:47.78)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (41:54.051)
Yeah, no way.

David Seitz (41:56.194)
No.

David Seitz (41:59.843)
No.

Kevin Johnson (42:00.635)
So with you not even doing this full time yet, what is your plan for the growth after you start? Do you have an end goal in mind? Do you want to do all mobile work? Do you want to hire guys? What is your plan for the future?

David Seitz (42:16.877)
So my 2026 plan is to get my efficiency mobile down, get some of my billing squared away and more efficient. And I want to stick to being mobile for now. One of the guys I go to church with, has a fab shop that he dabbles in millwright work. So there's conversation there about

me sharing part of his shop space for when I need to do shop work. But just getting the basics of the business down and making sure that when I step out onto my own, the business is there, I'm efficient at it, and I'm not making novice mistakes that could cost me. So just being as successfully

Running business at this point full-time. That's my goal. It's very basic, but I'm not trying to take massive steps, you know, You got to learn to walk before you can run, you know

Kevin Johnson (43:25.902)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (43:29.9)
Yep.

David Seitz (43:31.564)
So, I mean, eventually maybe, maybe who knows, maybe I do want to have a big business, but I don't think that is my five year plan as of now. My more or less five year plan would be to make sure that I get to where it's sustaining myself, but I'm also there for my kids. I've missed enough, I've missed enough of being a father for my kids that

Kevin Johnson (43:54.649)
Yeah.

David Seitz (44:01.302)
While I want to have a successful business, I need to be a good father to my kids first and foremost.

Kevin Johnson (44:09.039)
Yep. 100%. I'm in the same boat.

David Seitz (44:10.443)
So, yeah, making sure I can do both of those is my ultimate goal currently.

Kevin Johnson (44:18.607)
That's a great goal to have, man. It really is.

David Seitz (44:22.483)
It's a simple one, it's also very meaningful.

Kevin Johnson (44:26.383)
Mm-hmm.

David Seitz (44:28.097)
So yeah, that's my... No, and maybe once they get older, or maybe I just be a one-man band doing little repairs here and there, just making enough to stay afloat, but still being home. Maybe I've rocked that lifestyle for a little bit. And then once they're a little older and don't wanna spend as much time with me, then maybe I start thinking about adding...

Kevin Johnson (44:29.455)
You'll never get the time back with them.

David Seitz (44:55.659)
bigger, better equipment, making more money and employees. But I don't know if that lifestyle of business owner is for me currently.

Kevin Johnson (45:08.719)
So with everything that you're learning in starting your business, what is the worst piece of business advice you've gotten so far?

David Seitz (45:22.762)
Take massive loans out and figure out how to pay for it later.

Yeah, I had a guy tell me, actually this was a little recently when I got the opportunity to stop down at your shop and talk with you that one evening. We were kind of discussing, was a little frustrated with my service truck and there was a potential for me to get a nice new service truck. And I had a guy tell me, he's like, just pull that $80,000 loan out and you'll figure out how to make that payment.

Kevin Johnson (45:30.52)
All right.

David Seitz (45:58.451)
You won't have a choice. You have to figure it out. And I could not do it because I thought that was just real bad advice.

Kevin Johnson (46:07.289)
So you didn't buy that white truck you were showing me then.

David Seitz (46:10.331)
No, no, I ended up I ended up backing away from that and I found a parts truck that had All the parts that I need to fix my truck and I went that route I said, know what? I want to keep my cost I want to keep my costs low so I don't have that huge overhead burdening me because you know if there's something like it goes back to if

Kevin Johnson (46:29.676)
Awesome.

David Seitz (46:34.555)
If I need to take some time off to do something with my kids or there's some emergency or something, I want to be capable of doing that without having that financial burden weighing on me.

Kevin Johnson (46:46.383)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Good. I remember talking with you about that, and I was like, ah, you're like, I'm going to sell this truck and this truck, and I'm going to buy this. I'm like, hmm, all right, cool, man. But just, it's really nice not having a payment, too.

David Seitz (47:00.286)
Hahaha.

I could just tell when I told you that you weren't gonna sway me away from it, but like I'm pretty decent at reading people's body language and you're just like, maybe don't, but I'm not gonna tell you not to, but I probably want it. I didn't register for me. I picked it up. You we were super, you were super cool about it, but like it's easy to read people, you know, and you.

Kevin Johnson (47:12.249)
Ha

Kevin Johnson (47:29.241)
Yeah, no, I'm very easy to read too. I can't hide anything.

David Seitz (47:33.181)
Yeah, you know, no, but that's a great trait to have like not just not being able to sugarcoat things and being straightforward and and honest that I think it helps you out. It helps anybody out. Yeah, so no, I chose not to go that route and you know now. Yeah, I'm pretty thankful I decided not to do that. Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (47:56.368)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, maybe when you go full time and that's what you're in all the time and you're running that four or five days a week, 100%. Like if your other truck's not reliable, definitely go do that. But if you're all like you don't want that, you know, $1,000, $1,200, $1,500 a month payment on top of what you're doing. Like, no, you just don't need that yet.

David Seitz (48:09.819)
Yeah.

David Seitz (48:22.318)
No, so something that like my boss has been trying to instill in me and he's been very successful at it is you want to make sure the business is self-sufficient. you don't want to get too many bills where you're having to pull from savings accounts or for my instance, I'm having to pull from his paycheck to sustain my business. A business in debt isn't really a successful business.

Kevin Johnson (48:43.908)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin Johnson (48:48.173)
Yeah, not like that.

David Seitz (48:50.203)
Not in this case. mean, I think there is a certain extent where debt is good for you. But when you're part-time like me, I don't think it's wise. And that's what ultimately led me to not doing that track because I said, man, in order for me to do that, my billable hours that I'd have to output was just not sustainable in my eyes. I'd have to almost work 50 hours a week in my business.

Kevin Johnson (48:52.27)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (49:13.135)
Yep.

David Seitz (49:19.109)
to justify it on top of working 50, 60 hours a week, even as part-time for my guy now.

Kevin Johnson (49:27.087)
50 hour part-time job.

David Seitz (49:30.491)
I don't know maybe my boss joke about that all the time. I'll hand him a talk I'll hand him a time card and he's like I thought you were part-time. I'm like Yeah, yeah doesn't always work out that way Some weeks are some weeks are but winter time that's his busy season and and I know that so I'm not I'm not harping on him He can't give me as much time off as what I would like but that's just

Kevin Johnson (49:39.311)
Me too.

Kevin Johnson (49:44.952)
Yeah.

David Seitz (49:57.752)
That's just what it takes. You just gotta be give and take in this industry.

Kevin Johnson (50:01.711)
What is one thing you wish you knew before you started out on your own?

David Seitz (50:03.226)
Yeah.

David Seitz (50:09.819)
There's a lot of things that I wish I would have known I Wish I would have known How much money you were gonna have to spend before even the thought of being profitable existed? Hey, I guess I was just negligent to the cost of things things are you can be profitable in this business, but

the tooling required to be efficient is just astronomical. Like I started out with that welding power in a pickup truck bed. And I'm like, man, like this is awesome. And it's just taken me so much longer. I'm watching YouTube videos on just making sure I'm efficient on stuff. this guy's like, yeah, I got this, I got this, I got this. I'm like, well, I don't have a place or the funds to get a plasma table to just custom whip this up.

So I'm using floodlights off my pickup truck bed, hand drilling holes and plane cutting plates out for gussets and stuff. it's just, yeah, so it's been a lot of learning curves and it's a little hard for me to pinpoint, you know, what's something I wish I would have known. Cause I'll probably rant for a while about lessons learned.

Kevin Johnson (51:32.067)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that kind of leads me into my next question of what is by the So real quick, I'm going to lead into this question. I'm going to edit this out. I'll lead into this question and then we'll wrap it up. But stay on afterwards so that it uploads and stuff like that. So when we do our outro, just hang tight. But yeah, so that leads me into my final question of, you know,

Even though you are still, you have a full-time job and you are looking to go full-time on your own next year, what is something that you would change, even being this early in the game before you have, you're out on doing this, before you're out doing this full-time?

David Seitz (52:25.613)
Something that I would change, I probably wish I would have taken maybe like a business management course and learn the business side of things because I think a lot of people that work for other companies and bigger companies just have this kind of arrogant mindset that they, I can just go do this on my own. I'm really good at the job. And yeah, yeah, you are really good at the job, but.

To be a business owner, you can't just be good at the job. You have to be good at so many different other tasks that you don't even realize because you're just not paying attention to it. So.

Kevin Johnson (53:06.617)
Mm-hmm.

David Seitz (53:10.272)
I'm pretty invested into it now where I feel like I have good enough traction that I'll be okay. But if I was to go back and start this journey again, I would have tried to focus more on learning how to be a business owner rather than just thinking I'll figure it out as I go.

Kevin Johnson (53:31.267)
Yep. It's a whole nother skill in itself that a lot of guys don't have. Like they're really good at the task of doing the welding and the figuring it out, but it's a whole nother, almost job that you have to learn to efficiently run a business and learn how to start one in the proper way.

David Seitz (53:53.834)
Yeah, and the other thing is that was really hard for me to get over is you can be a humble person, but that doesn't mean that you have to cut yourself short when billing. You got to learn that there's just a certain cost to doing this and you can't go help somebody out in charge of 50, 60 bucks. Those days are gone. That's not how things work.

Kevin Johnson (54:08.887)
Hmm.

Kevin Johnson (54:20.259)
Yeah.

David Seitz (54:23.671)
So I cut myself short a lot in the beginning because I'm like, you know, this only took me three hours and it only took me 10 pounds of welding rod, but like, you're my buddy. So no big deal. Just give me 50 bucks.

Kevin Johnson (54:41.017)
Yeah.

David Seitz (54:42.613)
What? You know, and, like, yeah, it took me three hours to do the job, but it took me an hour and a half to get ready. And it took me two hours to clean up and all that time needs to be billed. know, two degree, there's some stuff you don't need a bill for, but just that part of it was just such a painful learning curve. When I realized how far I was selling myself short.

Kevin Johnson (54:43.814)
Yep

Kevin Johnson (54:53.092)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (55:12.047)
Yeah, it's funny. The only time I'll ever do a job like that for like 50 bucks is when it's for a project manager of a larger company who we work with. Like, you know, we do 50, 60, 150 thousand dollars with this company and they're the project manager or they're the whatever. And they're like, hey, man, I got something for my basement. Can you just like, well, stop and I'll do it for them just as like a.

customer retention thing. Now, just give me 50 bucks. You know what I mean? Only time I'll ever do it is because they've written the approval for $150,000 on another job. Yeah.

David Seitz (55:43.328)
Yeah.

David Seitz (55:54.024)
Yeah, like that's just a basic thank you. Like, yeah, no big deal. I'm going to make this up in the long run anyway. But, you know, when I was first starting out, I was like, man, I didn't know nothing about pricing at all. it's just like, it's so hard. How could I charge somebody $200 for something? I'm looking back on it now and I'm like, man, what was I doing? I missed out on so much.

Kevin Johnson (56:18.935)
You

David Seitz (56:22.469)
I get like that to a certain degree on some stuff now, but I've been I've been really implementing price minimums and just trying to keep better track of hours and pricing and updated pricing on steel and learning that it's okay to charge somebody for a full stick of material, even though it's 21 feet, but you only used eight feet of it.

Kevin Johnson (56:50.445)
Mm-hmm.

David Seitz (56:50.47)
It's just industry standard that you charge somebody that whole piece.

Kevin Johnson (56:54.893)
Yep, absolutely.

David Seitz (56:56.468)
I didn't know that started now.

Kevin Johnson (56:59.223)
Yeah

David Seitz (57:01.46)
I've had a lot of hard lessons when it comes to pricing things.

Kevin Johnson (57:06.083)
Yeah, I think we all have.

David Seitz (57:09.951)
And unfortunately, I think that maybe it shouldn't be this way, but I think that's just kind of how welding business owners pave their way is they just learn it the hard way. Just feel like we're all really stubborn and think that we can just do this ourselves and don't need outside help. I finally gotten over that hurdle. So I have no problem asking people for help.

Kevin Johnson (57:33.785)
Good, good man. That's the way to be, be a lifetime, lifelong learner.

David Seitz (57:40.135)
Yeah, yeah, don't don't don't think that you know everything because every time you think you know something you might meet somebody who's like, hey, you might have been doing this 30 years that way. But you ever think about doing it this way and it saves you, you know, three hours. What was I doing?

Kevin Johnson (57:56.483)
Yep.

David Seitz (57:59.42)
Yeah.

Kevin Johnson (58:00.239)
Well, is there anything that I missed that I should have asked you?

David Seitz (58:04.946)
No, I just I appreciate taking the time I think I think we touched on a lot of awesome topics today and Just yeah, just thank you for taking the time and talking to a small guy I I get to listen to a lot of your podcast and you talk to some huge crazy awesome people in the industry and you know I've heard some I've heard some podcasts of that you've had with some local guys that I know here in my area

that are idols to me and they don't even know it but they're they're so successful at running a business that they're just for a little guy like me they're big idols you know so yeah just thank you for making a small guy a part of a big thing i appreciate that

Kevin Johnson (58:51.423)
man. I'm happy to have you. You're doing great work,

David Seitz (58:55.697)
Yeah, of course. And I'll see you next year at the Fabricator Olympics,

Kevin Johnson (59:00.569)
Heck yeah. Are you coming back as a judge? Nice. Yes.

David Seitz (59:02.968)
Absolutely, yes. Yeah, no. No, I wanna reach out to you then and discuss some things about that. I wanna be lifetime part of that. That was such an incredible experience. So yeah, I will be at all future events for sure.

Kevin Johnson (59:23.247)
Awesome, man. I'll be happy to have you. Well, I'll see you on September 12th this year, 2026. All right, buddy. Talk to you soon.

David Seitz (59:29.186)
Absolutely. We'll see you buddy.