Who Is On Firewatch?

Robert Zimmerman: Well, welcome everybody. Welcome back to the Contech Exec Podcast. I'm here today with James from Ramtech. Now, James, you're gonna have to help me with the pronunciation of your last name just because I'm not that good at it. So is it Pex?

James Pecz: You got it right first time, spot on.

Robert Zimmerman: All right. Well, yeah, good. Pecks. Okay, very good. I figured with the Z it had to do something with that, so we're we're good. We're good. Well, James

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: is from Ramptech, and we're gonna get the story today about the importance of pr being safety fire and safety. I think that's what we're work we're working on here. So I I just want to get some background on it because I'm just trying to figure it out. So James, I'm gonna let you kind of go with Give us a little backstory here about, you know, how you got into it and what Ramtech's role is.

James Pecz: Yeah, okay. mean, Ramtech have been around since 1990. As the listeners can probably already guess, I'm not from the US originally. We are a UK based company, headquartered in Nottingham in England. And we were formed in 1990 really as wireless specialists. initially when we kind of formed the business, it wasn't around fire and safety. It was more around wireless technology and... and different verticals away from kind of what we're focused on today, construction and safety and those aspects. But over the years, we developed our wireless technology and we found different ways to be able to utilize that to enhance protection in different verticals. And we've kind of ended up all these years later, 36 years later, being specialists in wireless temporary fire alarm and evacuation systems. that are specifically designed for use in challenging and hazardous environments. So our core market globally is the construction industry. We also do a lot in the marine industry globally and particularly here in the US.

Robert Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

James Pecz: Infrastructure, industrial, it really is kind of, we offer specific systems that are designed for these challenging environments. So the build quality, the mesh connectivity of the way the wireless works. the componentry we use. You wouldn't see our systems in a typical application like in a hotel or in an office block or in someone's home. The systems

Robert Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

James Pecz: are very much designed for those kind of industrial environments. We started in the UK. We grew a substantial business over a number of years, mainly around changing requirements in construction in the UK. something called the Joint Code of Practice was brought into play 25 years ago. that as that developed, made it a mandatory requirement for construction sites to have an interconnected alarm system during construction. And at the time, there wasn't any wireless systems that were really suited to that environment or where the wireless network would work in that kind of environment with concrete and steel and vibration and all these other things that can affect a wireless signal. we developed our flagship product, which is the WES system, which is the system that is still our flagship product today. And it's just kind of taken off. We've expanded across Europe, Middle East, Australia. And my role for the past eight years really from initially launching the product here in the U.S. has been to grow that business. We've established a premises here in Charlotte in North Carolina as our North American headquarters. We've built the team, we've built the sales and it's been a bit of a whirlwind. Literally eight years ago, there was myself and another English colleague of mine. travelling backwards and forwards across the Atlantic with a rucksack full of alarms to see if there was any opportunity for us in the US. And then we look eight years on and it's established itself now and it's becoming quite an important part of day-to-day construction safety for many areas.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah. So joint joint code of practice, kind of a standardization, is that something that you know, that's happening in the in the US today? Are we are you starting to see more of that or is that

James Pecz: So kind of, I mean we've seen a lot of development in the eight years that we've been in the market and a lot of that is down to Ramtech not just investing in trying to sell products but investing in trying to become an educator and an influencer in how safety works in the industries we work in. So the Joint Code of Practice itself, it's not a legal requirement, it's only in the UK at the moment. What it does do is it forms part of the insurance contract between the contractor and the insurer. So you don't have to follow it. But if you have a fire and you haven't followed it, then you can't claim. it automatically makes it something that's pretty mandatory because contractors don't want to risk having a fire and not being able to claim if the worst was to happen. In the US, we're seeing more and more adoption. And that's led at the moment in a few different ways. sometimes by general contractors or developers themselves who want to utilize new tech to improve safety, even if it isn't something they have to do by code or mandatorily. We see certain AHJs in certain districts starting to, again, recognize technologies and want to specify them for use on certain projects. So the drive comes from there. A small amount of insurance as well. So what I'd say is at the moment is We're seeing more and more use of what we do and other products like us, but there's no kind of one area that they're coming from or they're being driven from. This kind of adoption in different areas by different people, depending on risks, very often if you've got a jurisdiction that's had a number of large scale fires, obviously they're going to be looking to try and stop that happening. very often that is the case with any safety system. You'll probably know it's, know, retrospectively, okay, something's been happening now, let's put it right. It's like my mum and dad, I remember they bought a burglar alarm after they got burgled. I mean, it's not taking, it's not being proactive, it's reactive in many cases, but we are seeing a positive change.

Robert Zimmerman: Right. So okay, a lot of roads we can go down here. One I wanna talk about the wireless connectivity. one of the complaints since I've been in the software side of the construction world was we can't hot we can't get these sites what they call hot, right? bad terms I guess in in what you do, but we can't have you know, we don't really get good connection. and so what's your experience with that? I mean, in the States, again, in these like maybe remote locations that may would may need this kind of thing. I know we're doing a lot of big data center builds. We're doing a lot of big power builds that are in some are in re very remote locations, some are not. but but those kind of things. So what is how does that solution work with that? Do you need a network? Do you provide a network? What is how does that work?

James Pecz: Yeah, and that's a great question. And like I mentioned at the start, we started as a wireless tech company. So the

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: strength of our business and our product really is the way our systems connect wirelessly together. we connect our units together via a flooded mesh radio network. So we don't rely on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cell signal to connect the system together. The system creates its own radio network in the location that it's installed. It works on the emergency frequency 915 megahertz, which we have the obviously the FCC approvals for the use of that frequency across the US and Canada. And ultimately, what that means is that every single unit within our network acts as a signal receiver and a signal sender. So what we do is create this strong mesh of signal on that frequency around the project. So that means a couple of things. That means one. You can literally send this anywhere, take it out of the box and it creates its own radio network in that area. So this could be on a desert island, it can be on a ship at sea, it can be in a mountain. It's still going to connect the same way as it would anywhere else because it creates its own radio network around the area it's installed in. It gives us really strong signal. And the more units you add into a mesh, the stronger the signal gets. So I imagine anyone listening to a construction tech, podcasts will probably understand the mesh network. for those who don't, I always try and imagine it like a spider web. So if you imagine a spider web and every single point where two of the webs cross is a unit, you create this crisscross and pattern. And what that allows you to do is have no single point of failure because unlike a linear detection system where you may have, I always reference the old Christmas tree lights for those old enough to remember them, where if you have a line of bulbs, and one bulb in the middle goes out, then everything stops working. That's because it's relying on passing the signal one, two, three linear. Our system would just find a way.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah. Right. They they didn't re Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They didn't recognize they the parallel circuit. Right. The parallel circuit is a big deal.

James Pecz: Yeah, 100%. Yeah, well, the Christmas tree light is easier to digest for a lot of people. So that's the reference I normally use. But yeah, so it creates that flooded mesh network. And the beauty of that, with that no single point of failure is, look, this is a life safety system. This is detecting for fire. It's evacuating in the event of an emergency. It needs to work. And we've, you know, we have extremely good results with our signal in some really challenging environments. I mentioned at the start, we do work with the marine industry here. Our systems are actually installed on Navy vessels down both coasts. And if you imagine the steel bulkheads and the level of challenging environment that is for a wireless system, that kind of just gives testament to the strength of our product and how it works in those kind of challenging environments.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah, that's kind of just living inside of a Faraday cage, basically, in

James Pecz: Yep.

Robert Zimmerman: those environments sometimes and it's hard to get any kind of signal. so I can imagine

James Pecz: Yeah, 100%.

Robert Zimmerman: the the the challenge. So is it just a fire system that you're kind of providing at at this point, or do people is it kind of a a whole there's a whole host of things that you can provide with that radio network?

James Pecz: Yeah, 100%. So it's, it's cool. It was designed as a fire detection and evacuation system. So ultimately we have heat detection, we have smoke detection, we have the, the, the, the pulse stations with the audio and visual notifications as well. But we also, I mean, a lot of construction sites initially start with our product just as an evacuation system. So still the majority of construction sites across the U S are using air horns to evacuate and. I think there's no doubt that that's kind of a dated method now and isn't really sufficient for some of the multi-million, multi-billion dollar construction projects that we see going up now across the US. Still relying on a kind of compressed gas to evacuate people in the event of emergency isn't ideal. So we see our system really as a replacement to that. So on each floor of the building, on all the exits, you may have one of our pull station units, our call points. which gives you the ability to manually raise an evacuation of the site. And each point where we have a pull station, we have a 95 decibel sounder and a flashing strobe as well. So that gives kind of a site wide notification, interconnected alarm, hit one button. If the site team need to evacuate the site, they press one of the call points and instantly that's going to get that notification around. Also included in that pull station unit, the call point, we have a medical alert button as well, which in construction has been a huge benefit. And we've got some great cases where it's been very, very effective. So if someone was to have an accident on site or one of their colleagues, and sometimes in these tower buildings, hard to get cell signal or to raise an alert, you can literally hit the medical button on the call point nearest to you. And that will send a notification down to the control panel, to the site trailer to let you know that first aid assistance is required at that location. So it's an addressable system. So they get an address of whereabouts on site that call has come from. But then on top of that, we also have a digital app as well. So we can have an unlimited number of people receiving notifications to their mobile phone as well. with the digital app, can actually give things like we can upload site plans. We can grid reference where alarms are on the site. So let's say you're a first aid, you're walking the project. Someone calls for first aid assistance on the fifth floor. You'd receive that notification to your phone. you'd see a diagram of site and a beacon of exactly whereabouts you need to go. So away from fire and evacuation, we have that medical aspect as well, as well as through our interface being able to interconnect to different types of systems as well, linear heat detection, water detection, standpipe monitoring. So our interface allows us to be able to utilize our West systems notifications on and off site and linking to really anything else that may be that needs notifying. to the wider site team in the event of it activating. So it's much more than fire.

Robert Zimmerman: So it's kind of a sensor right. So it's sensor basically sensor technology hooked to a radio network that is always on and and kind of available to to what you need.

James Pecz: Yeah, completely wireless, it literally does mean completely wireless with us. Even the control panel doesn't require a hardwired power, it's battery powered. So everything that we have has a three year battery life. So you can, the majority of construction projects wouldn't last more than three years. If they do, you can change the batteries as they start to die. But we really wanted to design a system that was plug and play, easy to set up, don't have to worry about it. They don't have to have constant downtime to change batteries or have specialist electricians to come on site to kind of move units. We all know how dynamic construction sites are and, you know, one day a ceiling's there with the detector on, the next day that ceiling might be gone. Our system's very easy to move and manipulate and be dynamic like the environment that it's installed in.

Robert Zimmerman: Right. So okay, well this this opens up my the my mind to a whole kind of list of things, areas where this could go, mining, those types of areas, core drilling, when they doing the large core construction, you know. So I I there's so many different possibilities in this. You know, there's the boring company, right? And he's got that huge, you know, and there's several companies that do it, not just the boring company, but they make these large tunnels, right? And they go

James Pecz: Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: underneath these places and they've got zero connectivity. They get right, they've they maybe have radios, walkie talkies, those kind of things. So I'm certain that those are areas for things such as that. what were Again, I you you said this has evolved from a wireless technology into this. Like what were the statistics that said, Hey, these folks need fire alarms? what were

James Pecz: you

Robert Zimmerman: was it just events that happened that somebody said, We've got a real problem here?

James Pecz: Yeah, well, mean, anyone who's kind of within this industry will know straight away that the amount of fires there are in construction sites in the US, in particular every year. I think, you know, there's a lot of timber frame building here that you don't see elsewhere in the world, which could obviously be a higher fire risk as well. And if there is a fire, then it's almost always you've lost the project if you have a big fire on a timber frame. But some of the statistics that we looked at with from NFPA, where every single year in the US reported an average of 4,400 fires on construction sites. Of those fires, are normally, average again, around 60 injuries and fire fatalities caused by construction site fires every year. those numbers tell you that it is a problem. And then from a financial point of view, There's just under $400 million every year in insurance claims through fires in construction as well across the US. So big numbers. And one of the interesting facts that I like to talk about is construction site fires account for 1 % of all structure fires in the US, but they account for nearly 4 % of property damage. So that shows you that even though it's only 1 % of all fires, because of the very often when if you've got a tower going up or you've got a hotel going up and it's in an area where there are lots of surrounding buildings, the damage isn't always kept just to the site that it's on. It can cause impact to the environment around it. And because of the, you spoke about data centers earlier on, like if you're to lose, if you're to lose a data center, it's almost... impossible to try and calculate how much that's cost with, you know, the value of these things going up. Some of them

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah.

James Pecz: are millions, some of them are billions of dollars to build. So lots of fires, unfortunately, a number of deaths and injuries each year. But the interesting stat, yeah, is that 1 % of all fires it accounts for, but 4 % of the actual property damage. So it just shows kind of the scale. Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: Right. It's it's the residual effect. It's the residual effect of a fire that I'm quite honestly is very, very difficult to calculate. you know, there I obviously on the side there's the the i the emotional toll, th not not to mention the the financial toll, those types of things. I'm just again, that that transition for for Ramtech, what was there Was there kind of an initial did somebody approach you in in the UK and say, Hey, here's the thing, here's what we need. You've got a wireless

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: technology, here's what we need.

James Pecz: Yeah, so I'll tell the story and it's not a long one, but it's quite interesting. when the Joint Code of Practice came in, which I mentioned earlier on, like I said, there was no wireless systems available in the market to fit that purpose. So contractors were trying to use wired systems because they had to have an interconnected alarm. So they had wire trailing around sites. It was getting damaged. It was getting cut by the drywall guys or whatever it may be were on site and they were just having a nightmare. Yeah, I know.

Robert Zimmerman: It's it's always the drywall guys are cutting the lines. What's gone what's up there?

James Pecz: A lot to you, I've got a lot to answer for those guys. Now, one of the systems we provided at that time was to the leisure industry, like trailer park homes and mobile homes and things where we had like PIR sensors wirelessly in people's trailers so that when they left them, they could activate the alarm so that if anyone went in, they'd get a notification. Pretty basic system, but one of the top general contractors in the UK at the time. one of their directors had a park home with our alarm in that was wireless. So he actually contacted us and said, look, we've got this challenge with the joint code of practice. We're trying to run this wire around sites. We're having an absolute nightmare. Is there any way you can design something for us that's wireless that is going to help serve the purpose here? And crazily enough, that's how it all started. We go in. You know, 25 years, 20 years later, we've sold half a million alarms across 30 countries to construction sites all across the world. So it came from a necessity, but an interesting story to how that came to be. Without that phone call, who knows if we'd have ever had the idea or if this is where we are now. So it's a bit of a crazy one.

Robert Zimmerman: So what happens, obviously your system is is, you know, favorable when it people don't have to use it, right? it's one of those things. It's When when people approach you is it's kinda like you said before, they approach you when they've had an accident and they're like, I don't want this to happen again and that's the unfortunate part. Are you finding now that people are being a bit more proactive in this market?

James Pecz: 100%. Yeah, we're starting to see that more and more and that's being driven, to be honest, mainly by AHJs. So they are now aware of these new technologies and they're starting to require...

Robert Zimmerman: No What are what are okay, you had to explain what are AHJ's?

James Pecz: sorry. So the authority having jurisdiction, basically the fire marshals, the fire marshals for the area. Apologies.

Robert Zimmerman: Okay, fire marshals. Okay.

James Pecz: So yeah, so the local fire marshals are, when they're speaking with general contractors, they're starting to now require in certain areas that they utilize something that's suitable for fire and for evacuation. So very often now when we get phone calls from potential customers, they'll say, The fire marshal has been to site, he says, I've got to put something in place. We've done a Google search and you look like exactly what we're looking for. So a lot of it comes from there. But also alongside that, personally myself, I've been working a lot over the past couple of years on kind of the high level strategic effort to try and drive change at a higher level. So NFPA, the National Fire Protection Association has a number of different. codes. They have something called NFPA 241, which is a specific document that is targeted at buildings under construction demolition and alteration for what you should do in terms of fire safety. And that's pretty loose at the moment. It says you need a means of evacuating or notifying of an evacuation in the event of an emergency taking place. But what it also now adds is that you have to have a fire prevention program manager on each site. What that means is the NFPA are now asking contractors to put someone on site in charge of managing fire protection for that construction project.

Robert Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

James Pecz: I say in charge, in charge is the wrong way of putting it. It's someone who's accountable now

Robert Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

James Pecz: for the fire protection on site. Now there's mixed results with this because not every state follows the most recent versions of codes. We see that with not just with fire within all industries. So it's not something that's been completely widespread yet, but it is a change that's coming from the Fire Protection Association and that we are starting to see more and more contractors do. So if that person's ultimately accountable for the protection of the building and the people from fire, that then puts responsibility on them to go and look what is available out there in terms of tech to. you know, do the best they can to protect the people and the building themselves. Alongside that, NFPA 72, which is the overarching fire code for everything in the US, has recently developed a new chapter. And I was part of the task group and committee that wrote that new chapter. So chapter 28, which will be published in the 2028 revision of that new code, will actually for the first time... give guidance and reference to the use of wireless systems in construction for that temporary purpose. So a bit of a long answer to your question, but yes, we're seeing AHJs, the authorities having jurisdiction and the fire marshals start to ask for it. We're seeing general contractors start to do it because they think it's a good thing to do. But now we're also seeing at the higher level changes to the codes and standards, which are going to start to drive adoption of not just Ramtex products, anything else that can do what we do in terms of offering that level of protection for construction sites. So it's an exciting time and there is really like a turn in the tide at the moment in terms of how things are going and it's exciting. It's an exciting time for the construction industry in my opinion because safety is important and it needs to be treated that way.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah. We everybody agrees, you know, safety is important. some folks say, you know, it maybe it goes a little too far, you know, and you start wanting people to be, you know, tied off on a six foot ladder, you know, those kind of things. my thing is is that we're talking about adding like this NF NFPA two hundred forty one would be a person accountable. Do they have to be on site at all times and would your system give some leeway to that to say that yeah, we've got this system in place and it notifications everywhere the person doesn't have to be on site the whole time, like you could be able to do multiple jobs. The that seems

James Pecz: Yeah, yeah, very often at the moment, the person who's put in charge of the FPPM isn't actually, that's not their full-time role. Very often

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: it's someone who does that as part of their other tasks. So having our system on site gives you those eyes and ears around the project all the time in terms of detecting for fire. So a lot of construction sites also have fire watch out of hours. So... The FPPM's role wouldn't be to be there and look for fire. It would be to ensure that there's adequate things in place that can detect or notify the fire in the event of it happening. And

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: the FPPM's role goes a lot further than that. They'd be looking at escape routes, making sure that everyone's aware of what to do in the event of a fire, making sure there's access for the emergency services in the event of a fire coming in there. It's a much wider kind of scope than just putting a detection system or a fire watch in there. But we are starting to see also our system utilized to replace Firewatch in certain areas. Some AHAs are now approving it for that. the human element of Firewatch has always been a challenge, just like it is in lots of things. You employ someone to walk every square foot of a building through the night when no one's on site. Sometimes they're great at that, but the truth is a lot of the time they're in their truck watching Netflix or whatever it may be, and they're not actually doing it. They're just picking up the paycheck, obviously, with a system like ours. 24 seven detecting has that wireless connectivity. It's being now kind of approved by a lot of AHAs to replace that manual aspect as well. So, and that would be the FPPM's decision to do that and how they're going to protect that site. And ultimately, like I said, the key word is responsibility. If something goes wrong and the FPPM hasn't done their job, it's them that they're going to go to. It's them who could potentially end up in court. because they're responsible for the fire safety. So it's an important role.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah, so okay, I I own a small contracting company. I actually have a steel job coming up. obviously I'm gonna do some welding on site. I'm probably not gonna need your system for the little stuff that I'm doing. But I I can certainly see the the value in it in again, heat detection, one, smoke detection another, those types of things. I guess one of my questions would be, Is this something that we see, you know Do we see this becoming more and more of a like it's got it's an actual actually required on on the site? Actually you think the US is gonna be doing that anytime soon?

James Pecz: I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon, but I do think it's going to happen in the future. And I think that will be driven, like in the UK, more from insurance requirements moving forwards. And that's not to say that every single construction project in the US will have to have one of these. And you mentioned a small project. There'll be certain boundaries around kind of amount of people's square footage of the project, materials that's being built in that kind of thing, I imagine will have to be taken into consideration. You can't expect small kind of mom and pop builders to have to invest in wireless technology to protect a garage conversion that they're doing or something like that. yeah. Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: Right. And and that's I yeah, and I think that's what I'm getting at because y again, I've got to go to the city of Fort Worth today to go, you know, pick up a permit and and do some stuff in in the at the at the city hall. And that is pulling my hair out. Be g be honest with you, because

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: so one of the biggest problems I have is that I have a very, very small job, but I have to run through all the same steps And do all the things that somebody that's running a multi-million dollar hotel build is doing, even though you know their scope is much larger, I'm still having them to do all these same steps for this tiny little bitty job, you know. And so what what I worry about with with stuff sometimes is I worry about these types of things where it's like, well, now you have to have this. Because I've seen it happen in the past where cities adopt this, go, well, guess what? This is what you have to have. And I worry about that.

James Pecz: Yeah. I hope there'll be common sense, like, because I totally agree with you. Like it isn't sustainable or even required for every single construction project to have to have a, you know, something, this level of technology to protect. think it's about ensuring that you're taking the reasonable steps based on the risk. The risk on your project is much smaller than the risk on a, like you mentioned, a hotel or something. And I agree that the way that these, you know, what you're having to do, I don't necessarily think it's right. not, it shouldn't be a one size fits all mentality with this. There should be a level of common sense used.

Robert Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

James Pecz: And I'm hoping we can, we can help that. mean, and as we do, you know, start to talk more with the insurance companies, as these NFPA changes come in, I really want to try and be part of that conversation. Like I have been with certain things recently. And try and make, ultimately, mean, right, the big thing here is if you put something in that's unachievable, people are gonna do everything they can to avoid it. If you make it sensible and you have a tailored approach based on what you're working with, it's much more likely to be adopted. And that's

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah.

James Pecz: something that we'll really want to try and support and drive from Ramtech's point of view as things progress.

Robert Zimmerman: Well, James, you know, honestly, we need more common sense, you know, folks. 'cause I feel like there's a lot of common sense that gets thrown out through the window on some of this stuff. So I like that I like that approach. And but in and speaking of that common sense approach, I did want to talk to you a little bit more about who owns th the product. So so you guys you guys you guys bring it in, you have teams of installers, you install it on a project. Obviously a project progresses, like especially if you're doing a multi story hotel or, you know, if you're building I don't care, if you're building a road, building bridges, wherever you need it, you know, those kind of things. Building a tunnel, obviously you're gonna need to install more devices. So is that something that you guys do or is that a a contracted out thing? What is that?

James Pecz: Yeah, so we don't in the US and Canada, North America in general, we don't sell direct to the end user. So what we have is a number of distribution partners all around the US who were able to offer the system to the end users, but also support them with installation, with tech support, with after sales care, troubleshooting, anything it might be. And the way we've set that up is We come at the industries from multiple angles. So we have some partners who are security companies whose core business might be mobile CCTV cameras for construction sites and they can offer the wear system to give a combined fire and security package. We work with safety companies. So the companies that might be on site every day selling ear protection, hard hats, boots, gloves, all that kind of stuff. They can also, some of those can offer our system. And we have fire companies who work with electrical contractors and who are actually fire alarm integrators and would install permanent alarms and can offer a temporary system as well. over the past eight years, we've built a network of distribution partners dotted all around the US. So if we get an inquiry, we can point them in the direction of their local support who can offer the system and offer that support for it as well. And in terms of who owns it, again, Some of our partners offer a leasing model, some sell it, some offer both. So if you've got a project where, like you mentioned, the system is designed to be very easily kind of grown as the project grows. So you can start on day one with a panel and a couple of call points. And then as you go up each floor, you can just add another 60 texas to each floor or whatever it may be. So some of our partners will offer a leasing model to make the... the cost of this more digestible for the contractors and maybe for smaller contractors. But we do see a lot of GCs wanting to purchase this because it is designed to be reused. So it's not a kind of one and throw away product. It is designed, you know, with the three year battery, the nature it's built being very hard wearing, you could use it for three years as a contractor that you own the product. You could send it back to us at Ramtech here in Charlotte. We could. change the batteries, give it the once over, give it a clean up, repair any parts that need, stamp another one year warranty on it and send it back to you and then you use it again. So then it becomes commercially more viable if you look after it and you

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: use it on multiple projects.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah, it's no different than, you know, maintaining your equipment, right? You've got a I don't care if you've you've got a excavator or bull you know, you're putting that kind of equipment on. it needs maintenance, it needs updating, those types of things. You know, I see this I see this as a very entering interesting concept when they start to talk about these modular builds and we're gonna start to see this more temporary build pieces, right?

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: think of Colossus XAI in in Memphis, okay.

James Pecz: Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: Brought in some like forty nine different, you know, turbines, I think diesel generators, quite honestly, is what I think they were. But it I could see those as having a a system like yours where it has sensors on it already, it drops in and automatically connects up to the system maybe that they've got in place. as a as a temporary, because again you're not gonna want to install a permanent piece. You wanna install your permanent stuff on your permanent gear. I could

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: s that is a possibility as well.

James Pecz: Yeah, that would work well. And we do see kind of some work with modular. So we do a lot of globally, not as much in the US actually as we do in other areas, but the modular, like the jobsite trailer setups. So a lot of the

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: big companies there will install our system in there as a standard. And then when they take them to site and they put the, they call them slices, they put the slices of modular together. You hold the button down, it connects and it's already done. So it's a similar kind of thing. You mentioned mining earlier. We've done quite a lot in mining in Australia more than anywhere else, but some in North America where they actually use our system in the temporary accommodation units out in the middle of nowhere, where it's

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: very difficult with power and reliability. They'll put our systems in there where people are actually living and cooking and doing everything else to offer that fire protection out there as well. And again, that's that kind of modular, temporary building setup. So I think the beauty of what we do is it... It's so dynamic. You can literally use it anyway. You can find a use for it almost in any industry or any vertical where

Robert Zimmerman: Mm-hmm.

James Pecz: there's a challenge with evacuation or fire protection. So it's, you know, it's led to some quite exciting commercial journey for us over the years because we've, we ended up on things like cannabis grow farms out in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma where the fire department knew they were there. They knew they were there illegally, but there was no fire protection. So they said, look, if you're going to be here, let's put something on. So we got a call and the next thing we've got was alarms in a greenhouse growing cannabis in the middle of Oklahoma somewhere. It's like these crazy applications, but it just goes to show it can literally be used anywhere.

Robert Zimmerman: That's hilarious. So I I you know, a lot of times you only hear the bad news about fire. You only hear the bad news about safety stuff a lot of times. Give me some good stories. I'm sure you've got a few where your system said, Hey man, we've got a we got a problem, but detected, everybody got out, it was good.

James Pecz: Yeah, look, it happens reasonably frequently. And I can't give you any huge stories here where we've stopped a huge fire because the whole point of our system is detecting it while it's still very small and stopping it being an issue. But we commonly get calls from general contractors where we say, and then the marine industry actually, we've had quite a few recently where we get told that our sister detected a fire, maybe someone had done some hot works. The fire watch hadn't stayed as long as they should. It had left a smolder in and then after a couple of hours that turned into a flame. One of our smoke detectors picked it up very early, raised the alert and they managed to put it out while it was just a very small fire on one floor, know, given another hour that could have taken the building. So that is an uncommon for us to hear those kinds of stories, which is to be honest, the reason we do this. And one thing I didn't mention is at the very start, I came from the construction industry, so I worked for a 15 years for a major general contractor in the UK. And one of the roles that I filled during that time was looking after temporary services and fire protection in construction. And I actually got to know the Ramtech system through that and started to deploy it on my projects, fell in love with it. So then when I got the chance to actually come and work for Ramtech and help spread that globally, I jumped at the chance and 10 years later I'm still here. so that, mean, Yeah, we're all here. We're all in business to make money. But ultimately my kind of initial passion for what Ramtech do came from being a customer and loving the simplicity and what the system bought. We also had just recently a great example where a contractor called us and I won't give names of contractors and stuff because I don't feel I should. one of the members of the team had had a heart attack on site and their colleague had hit the medical button. got the first aid response to them very quickly and saved his life. And they did say that if that hadn't have been there or they hadn't been able to notify so quickly, it might not have been the case. So they're the kind of stories that we hear quite commonly that really make you realize what we're doing is for a good reason. You know, we're all in business

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah.

James Pecz: to make money, but ultimately if we can save lives, save properties and improve and ensure people get home at night after their day on the construction site. whether that be from a fire or from a medical incident, then that helps me sleep easier at night.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah, no, I I I find it fascinating, topics like this. you know, things that we take for granted in the world, like, you know, flipping on the electrical switch, your smoke alarms that are in your house, you know, the the battery starts to beep, you know, those kind of things and you're like that it frustrates you. But it's the one time you know, when it does detect like the small incident and and suddenly you're like, hey, that worked. And it it it's almost invaluable, even though we we take it for granted, it's almost in an invaluable tool that we've developed that now we somehow, you know, we forget about. Not to mention the

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: fact that it's can it's it's in everything that we do, it's it's that it's there's in construction there's It's a whole like another environment where there's thousands of different little things that can be going on and you need to have that overwatch basically.

James Pecz: Yeah, it's necessities sometimes that none of us like doing but we know we've got to. It's a bit like putting your seatbelt on in the car. A lot of people don't but the one time you don't, you know, and if you have an incident you'll go through the windscreen so we all put our seatbelts on, or the majority of people do. The safety equipment. I remember being in construction when the safety really kind of started to become more of a strong presence in the UK and all of a sudden I wasn't allowed to wear shorts on site. had to have a hard hat, glasses, gloves at all times, all this stuff. at the time you think, this is a nightmare. Why are we having to do this? But then looking back now retrospectively, of course it's for the greater good. It's there for a reason. It's not there just to be annoying. My son's actually in construction now and he's going through the same thing. He comes home and he says, dad, it's 100 degrees all day today. I've had my glasses on, I've had my helmet on, I've had my... boots, I've had my gloves, I've had my vest, all this. And he moans about it. Well, I say, look, as your dad, I'm glad you're doing that. You know, it's important. These things are there for a reason. So I agree. I think it will become more of a, more of a necessity, more of a standard with years to come. And it will take time like everything does, you know, a lot of things at first, they're, they're kind of a novelty and then they become a standard. I'm not in any... huge rush to, you know, I'm not trying to force people into doing this. What we're trying to do is show the benefit it brings, show how it can save lives and how it can protect property and almost wait for people to make their own minds up in some cases. And with the support of NFPA and fire marshals and stuff like that, that will start to happen. But it's there for the greater good. it's a completely different landscape to what it was eight years ago. Even though we haven't got full standardization, we haven't got full adoption. So many more people are willing to do this now than they were eight years ago.

Robert Zimmerman: So last few minutes here, just want to kind of get your thoughts. again, the world of AI and infrastructure is is kinda blowing up, people throwing lots and you know, billions of dollars at these these massive projects. And folks don't realize a lot of times that kind of what you're talking about, standardization, a bit of this would be a very huge benefit to their process because if it's kind of standardized, it's it's it's almost a given instead of every everything being some sort of custom reinvention of the wheel and and how we how we go about these processes, right? So yeah, not only would you a system like this help work, but also would help improve your processes in that area as far as how you approach this.

James Pecz: Yeah, I agree. And the thing is, once it's standardised and you become more accustomed to it, it becomes like one of the biggest push backs we get is the cost, obviously, depending on the size of project. People say, I love it. It's great. We never introduced it. And they say, no, we don't like that. They always like it. But then they say, look, well, we haven't got the budget for it. Once something becomes standard, it's included in your budget. When you're bidding for the project. because you know it's a fair equal playing field and every contractor that's bidding for that project is going to have to include fire detection, then all of a sudden it just becomes standard and it's in the budget and it's accounted for and the processes follow from there. So that's one of the real important things around I think that standardization and it takes away that kind of should I, shouldn't I aspect of moving forwards. And when we talk about AI and data centers, I mean, People shouldn't ask how much the system costs. They should ask how much would a fire cost. And in the case of a data center, that is, I say, almost uncalculated. You can't calculate how much that will cost. These projects

Robert Zimmerman: Right.

James Pecz: very often fall running to the billions. Every day that that project's delayed can cost millions of dollars.

Robert Zimmerman: I I wrote a thesis I wrote a thesis on this whole thing. people are talking about the data centers and and their and their possibility being built, but they're they're saying it's this unique they feel like it's this unique situation where just because they demand it and they've thrown a lot of money at it, that it's automatically going to happen. They're they have this unicorn case of yeah, well we can do this and yes, I do agree you can put up a data center in in in Two years. Yes, I believe that you can. You're probably doing 18 months, you know, tilt wall building,

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: everything around it. You could certainly build that whole thing, but you're not calculating for the effect of, you know, the what ifs and in the in the continual problems with the schedule or even now where it's like, hey, by the way, we need to bolt on some sort of power project to it. So in order to power this thing, now your schedule shifts, your delay shifts. And then what does that cost the the owner that they can't get the leases to get started on those machines that they're trying to install because we've got delays in construction. We've got delays because of, you know, we don't have fuel. We we've got delays because we've had a fire. we you know, those types of things. And people aren't we're not calculating for that.

James Pecz: Yeah, no, they're not. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that's really interesting what you said because data centers are just as susceptible to incidents as any others. But like you say, I think there's a general feeling that it won't happen to us, know, where this is, you know, we've got the best contractors, we're doing this, we're doing that, the location. But a data center at the start is just like any other construction project. And it looks like that as well. Just because there's billions of dollars of investment and technology and AI and all this going in there, it doesn't mean that the fire is going to stay away from it. And the cost of a detection system is so small compared to probably just one day of delay. If someone said to a contractor, give me $100,000, and we'll make sure there's no fires or delays from fire on this site, guaranteed. They would snap your hand off. But then you go to them and say, do you want to spend $60,000 on a wireless fire detection system to protect the people and the project? Not sure we've got the budget for that. But I say that, but we are actually seeing a lot more data centers utilize our product now. that was led, I don't always mention names when I'm talking about data centers, because it's a bit, you know what it's like. around data protection and stuff. But Amazon actually, we did a few Amazon data centers early on and they actually, they was made aware of what was being done and they started to drive that as well from them making sure that when new data centers are going up for Amazon, that our system is put in there. Cause they see the value, like they don't mind spending

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah.

James Pecz: an extra $100,000 to put something in there that's potentially going to, you know, save the project or save huge delays. So it's common sense.

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah, yeah. The ownership side of the world is yeah, the ownership side of the world is getting more and more educated about the process in construction. And they're and they're really kind of driving they're kind of driving the boat on it, in a lot of places. Yeah.

James Pecz: Yeah. No, I, I agree. Yeah. Very often change comes from like the top down and that's a great case of it. Like, you know, if they enforce it as the client, then it's not even a conversation. It's just, that's what's done

Robert Zimmerman: Yeah, it's not a conversation.

James Pecz: and that just becomes standard. Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: Well, it's been fantastic speaking with you today, James. forty five minutes runs pretty quick around here when you're talking about good good topics. Right. Yeah, it's great.

James Pecz: Wow, that did go quick.

Robert Zimmerman: I call it the Texas drive time conversation because we've you know, we can cover any you can go anywhere in Texas in about forty five minutes or anywhere in D FW, I say I'm in about forty five

James Pecz: Okay.

Robert Zimmerman: minutes. Anyway, James, thank

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: you so much for joining me today. I I wish you

James Pecz: No problem.

Robert Zimmerman: great success here in the States with with with the product. Obviously I see its value. Maybe not for my little job, but you know, for the big stuff that's going on. There's a lot of data centers going on in in in Texas, that's for sure.

James Pecz: Yeah, 100%. No, thank you for having me. It's been great and good to meet you. And I really enjoy the podcast. I've been watching the last few episodes and yeah, good luck with everything there and good luck with your little construction projects. And if there's anything I can do for you in the future, just let me know.

Robert Zimmerman: It's just a little Yeah, just a little structural steel job, not a big deal. Yeah. But we'll

James Pecz: Yeah.

Robert Zimmerman: stay in touch. Folks, thanks everybody for joining us today and hope you join us next week on the Contech Exec podcast.