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In our podcast, we dive deep into metrology, calibration, and proficiency testing bringing you real stories, expert insights, and candid conversations from our 85+ years of combined experience. This isn’t just another technical podcast; we’re here to challenge the status quo, discuss industry changes, and tackle big questions like whether calibration labs are failing to train the next generation or if automation has gone too far. Expect lively discussions, industry leaders as guests, and a little fun along the way. As Howard puts it, “Proficiency testing is checking that transition from theory to application. But what happens when techs are just pushing buttons?” And Chuck adds, “We’re not teaching technicians how to measure anymore—we’re teaching them how to press ‘go.’” Whether we’re reflecting on our journeys—like Howard’s path from Air Force electronics to writing calibration procedures for the NFL—or debating metrology’s future, we promise to keep it engaging, informative, and unfiltered.
Chuck (00:17):
Welcome to another edition of ChatNAPT with AI chat bots. Chuck and Howie, another edition of All Things metrology sponsored by the National Association for Proficiency Testing. Again, like Cohot. Good morning, Chuck. Yeah. Okay. It's another great day here. Great. It's rain. Well, well,
Howard (Howie) (00:36):
It's not snowing, so that's great. You guys actually had tornadoes touching down in Arkansas. I don't think it was near Little Rock, but it was pretty big storms.
Chuck (00:43):
Oh yeah. We had one, just not even 20 miles from us.
Howard (Howie) (00:46):
20 miles.
Chuck (00:48):
Yeah. We had, well, most of the dangerous ones were southeast and the big stretch of storms is, you know, people probably, you know, don't care. But the storms went right over our head until they got really, really, really bad.
Howard (Howie) (01:00):
Yeah.
Chuck (01:01):
And then right along the entire Mississippi, all the way up into Ohio was so bad. There was a 157 warnings and I guess like 17 major tornadoes.
Howard (Howie) (01:14):
Yeah. We saw pictures of two of 'em on the, on the news, just hitting the ground and tearing everything up. Now they weren't like in a populated area for the ones they were showing, but it still was tearing everything up.
Chuck (01:25):
The problem is we're gonna get really warm today. It's gonna be like 84 degrees.
Howard (Howie) (01:29):
Oh wow.
Chuck (01:30):
Yeah. And then this cold front booze in again, which doesn't do good for my quote unquote. Yep. I have, with my
Howard (Howie) (01:36):
Hot air masses, cold air masses. That's where the tornadoes are born.
Chuck (01:40):
Yep. And so we're gonna have all that tonight. So it's gonna be interesting night. But anyway, I'll just, you know, take a couple shots of tequila and , go into our safe room and you know, unfortunately the, the, you know, that's what it's gonna take. Just be prepared, which we are, you know, we're prepared for it. So, you know, hopefully nothing severe happens, but, you know, where we move to a state, I don't know why we did this, but we moved to a state where every April it's got tornadoes. So,
Howard (Howie) (02:09):
Yeah.
Chuck (02:09):
Anyways, hey, so we gotta talk about our guest today. We got a, we got another wonderful guest today. We have a person that we've spent a lot of time talking about training. That's been one of our major topics is the lack of training that we have in the metrology and how we're gonna tackle the problem of the meteorologist not getting enough training. Mm-hmm . So we're gonna talk about that today. And so today our guest is gonna be Ryan Abert.
Howard (Howie) (02:35):
Yes.
Chuck (02:35):
And I'm excited to talk to you about what his approach is to trading. Ryan is the owner and president of Sign Calibration and Metrology training. He's got a great program that he's offered now to provide another solution to training, which I think is widely needed. As we talked about before, there's a ton of people out there that need training, so I'm excited about having him on board with us. Brian, welcome to the show.
Ryan Egbert (03:00):
Hello. Good to see you.
Howard (Howie) (03:03):
Yeah,
Ryan Egbert (03:03):
It's
Howard (Howie) (03:03):
Good to have you on.
Ryan Egbert (03:04):
Well, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure.
Howard (Howie) (03:06):
Chuck was just saying a whole bunch of lies about, you know, how you started out and what you're doing now. I think they sound like they're fake news, so don't you tell us the real story.
Ryan Egbert (03:17):
My path was, I think one of the more common, which is the military, and got to start out at the, what people called the female school there in Biloxi, Mississippi. Mm-hmm . Back in 1999. And then worked my way through the ranks, decided to stay in the Marine Corps and that gives you opportunities. Right. And I got to do a whole bunch of different things from lab management to even in deployment, running a whole avionics department type stuff. But then I got really lucky and that's where my last duty station, before I retired, I got to be an instructor. And then that's where obviously I have a lot of teachers in my family and I didn't know, I really didn't think of it as something you inherit is teaching
Howard (Howie) (04:01):
Uhhuh .
Ryan Egbert (04:02):
And, but I see it in my own kids. Like I have a son that he'll learn something, he'll go and teach it to his sister just instantly. And you're like, okay, how about that?
(04:09)
Maybe it does, maybe it is something in the blood a little bit. But, so I left at the Marine Corps though thinking, honestly, thinking I'd go to the civilian world and everything's kind of figured out. Right. And I'd have a pretty natural path to follow mm-hmm . And it just wasn't that the case. And it was hard finding some footing. And I had always, when I transitioned out, I thought about doing some sort of training program or whatever, but you don't know what the landscape is until you get out there and just trying to survive. It's survive.
Howard (Howie) (04:38):
It's kinda hard to, to estimate the market for that. Right. The market demand.
Ryan Egbert (04:42):
Right. And how to package it. Right. What, how does that work?
Howard (Howie) (04:45):
Mm-hmm
Ryan Egbert (04:45):
. Because it was, I've told this story along for years that it started as a product that I just planned it to be floating out there to help other people like me transition. Yes. You know, some of these things. I didn't know what N-C-S-L-I was, I didn't know what MSC was, any of these things. And so, uh, it's having some sort of program to make that, that transition easier. And then of course when people saw that, Hey, no, hey, built the full course and then Yeah. The rest is, you know, civil
Howard (Howie) (05:14):
History. So you're familiar with Skill Bridge?
Ryan Egbert (05:17):
I am now. Yeah. And, and because a lot of people I help support and a lot of labs I support use Skill Bridge. So
Howard (Howie) (05:23):
I don't know the history of Skill Bridge, how long it's been around. Do you happen to know that?
Ryan Egbert (05:29):
I don't know the specifics. No.
Howard (Howie) (05:31):
Yeah. It feels like it's kind of recent or maybe it's more from something that it was before. But anyway, skill Bridge is, you know, built to help people transition from the military to civilian life.
Howard (Howie) (05:43):
Mm-hmm .
Howard (Howie) (05:43):
And one of the benefits of that is that it, from what I understand, and, and I know that Trans Cat uses it, but I haven't been involved directly with it. What I'm hearing is that they can release the service member up to six months early at no cost to the company that picks them up because they're getting paid from the government. Right.
Ryan Egbert (06:05):
Right.
Howard (Howie) (06:05):
While they're, and that helps 'em transition into a new role for civilian life, which is brilliant.
Ryan Egbert (06:09):
Amazing.
Howard (Howie) (06:10):
That's fantastic.
Ryan Egbert (06:11):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (06:11):
Yeah.
Ryan Egbert (06:12):
I wish I would've have
Howard (Howie) (06:13):
That, but I don't know. I mean, is that, are, is what you are doing with sign calibration and metrology training supplementary to what they're offering? Or is it duplicating some of what they're offering? I don't know. I don't know how that fits together.
Ryan Egbert (06:25):
It's an interesting question. 'cause I've become not on purpose somewhat of an expert in some of these things because we are looking more seriously at things like accreditation, right? Mm-hmm . And so then you start to realize there's a lot of laws like actual federal, state laws that come into play. And so Skill Bridge is an official program that people can do legally, like through statute. Right?
Howard (Howie) (06:52):
Okay.
Ryan Egbert (06:53):
Where to be a part of that, we would also have to have some sort of a accreditation or some sort of approval. If you don't have an accreditation, then you need a wide approval. And there's many ways of doing those things, but obviously they get exponentially more expensive. So the whole point is that right now where we're at in the industry, that's something we're evaluating. Is there e enough need for that? And is there enough cohesion we can have between those programs that it makes sense for the cost of accreditation? Yeah. And kind of merge those things, right? 'cause there's also thoughts of, well, what about a combining those and our program into a journeyman type thing so that in the skill bridge they get attached to a person, in other words, or a trainer, right? So there's a lot of things that we're looking at of what's the best path forward. 'cause I want to keep, there are options out there that have been explored that it would be costing people $20,000 per meteorologist to get through that kind of training. Right. And I don't think the industry can support that. Right. So there's routes we have to go. That makes sense. But, um, so lemme ask you,
Howard (Howie) (07:57):
Um, yeah, go ahead. So for the audience, just expand a little bit on what you offer for training. Oh,
Ryan Egbert (08:04):
Sure.
Howard (Howie) (08:05):
Where is today and where you're looking to go to in the future?
Ryan Egbert (08:08):
Sure. So right now we do what is more considered professional development. So we're a non-accredited training program that's meant to be utilized inside of a work environment. Now, it can be used by an individual trying to get into the industry, but it's angled towards the entry level person, right? Mm-hmm . Someone that is it, it's intended to be that foundational program that someone goes through to be in the industry. Like the whole idea is that everybody has this information, right? And so right now it's split into disciplines. So general metrology being the first, where that's where people will learn about uncertainties and all the other weird oddities that we have to learn about metrology, right? Like what our special nuances are, terminologies, how to round, how to round, what are our resources for those things. Wow. You know? Mm-hmm . And then we go into disciplinary things like electronics, temperature, pressure, force torque. And the way we went about it is, uh, at the time, um, there was some statistics that I believe we got from Quer. I, I don't believe I'm wrong on that, on the what was on the average scope across the United States.
Chuck (09:22):
Okay?
Ryan Egbert (09:22):
Yep. In accredited labs.
Chuck (09:24):
You should use a, an example of someone that user services that came on that was never in neutrality before, signed up for sign calibration, went through your program, and is now a very successful meteorologist. Anybody that, that, you know, that, that I might know that that is a, that is a, a student of your services or chance?
Ryan Egbert (09:45):
There's a lot. Um, we are working on some of those for the podcast actually. Um, kind of from the eyes of the technician that are gonna be coming on. We like to be very careful with confidentiality. Like we don't, um, unless someone has publicly stated these things and there has been mentions over the years in groups like Facebook and things like that, well,
Chuck (10:04):
I can state it to my son, . Okay. I I've sent you
Howard (Howie) (10:08):
I somewhere.
Chuck (10:09):
Yeah. We actually, we use sound. That's why I know so much about it. Because
Howard (Howie) (10:13):
Five
Chuck (10:14):
Years ago when he left school, he didn't know where he wanted to go, you know? And he wanted to come into the metrology business and we use se calibration. So it's a great tool. Like you talked about, Ryan, it's a wonderful tool to give introduction to metrology and give you all the basics that you need to become introduced into metrology. It's an absolute fabulous tool. And I think that almost every podcast we've had, we've talked about where the lack of the skill of the technician is becoming Yes. A more and more.
Howard (Howie) (10:47):
Yes.
Chuck (10:47):
So part of what we wanna have with you on for is that void that you're filling. And you know, I, I tease that, you know, we've used your services, but it's, it's truly a success story. And like you said, you, you've had tons of people that have gone down this path, but it's definitely a tool that's needed. And I don't think there's enough people that know that your service is out there
Howard (Howie) (11:07):
Quite much. Well, it's absolutely a success story. You started him out doing that with NAPT, and now he works for transcon. That's fantastic.
Chuck (11:14):
Boom. It's
Howard (Howie) (11:14):
An example of a success story.
Chuck (11:16):
Well, he's worked for transcon for other reasons, but we're not gonna go into that today.
Howard (Howie) (11:20):
Our, your loss
Ryan Egbert (11:22):
. And the hard thing is, you know, we mentioned, you know, you guys bring up Skill Bridge and, and stuff like that. And I find it such an awesome tool. However, the only problem is that the production, the training of our military calibration personnel is just not what it used to be. And I mean, in volume. Um, and I have my own internal people that, again, I can't divulge, but, you know, they're giving me data that when I used to teach, I had, uh, like on my fitness reports, 200 and something students in a year, just for me personally
Howard (Howie) (11:57):
Mm-hmm .
Ryan Egbert (11:58):
And now they have the entire going through the whole GCAS program an entire year. 40 people. Wow. So that's a significant, with us significant decrease. Yeah. And I don't have all the ins and outs of that data, so Please no one go too crazy with it. But I think we all feel it, right? I think that's more important. We do. And so I, I don't think we're able to transition as many people as we'd like. Unfortunately.
Howard (Howie) (12:23):
I, I can't tell you the number of questions I got reeling in my head from all the stuff we've been talking about. Let's start with finishing your thought on where you are now. You described that. Where do you wanna take this?
Ryan Egbert (12:34):
Uh, great. So I think the pro the professional development that I mentioned, we're maintaining that because it's been so vital for a lot of companies because we can come in and actually help them develop their training program. Because that's a huge issue right now is not everybody that's in charge of a training program has a training program that exists, nor have they ever set one up for metrology nor tied it to a scope mm-hmm . And, you know, and all these things that go into it. Right. And so we have those plans. We, we finished our beta of a train the trainer last year. And so that still maintains as a core part of our program is the non-accredited. And that will always remain non-accredited for that malleability. It allows us to customize it to the customer how we want to, and we're not. That makes sense. Under any rules. Yeah. Now, we also, and I, this is very, this isn't an official announcement or anything with, this is a long road, but we have decided to pursue accreditation. But the goal, hopefully down the road is that an a degree can be gained mm-hmm . Now this would be something that would be a two year program or something of that nature. And that if a two year program is successful, move on to a four, that type of thing.
Howard (Howie) (13:46):
So there's a degreed, uh, a curriculum, right. A a matriculate in curriculum, but then, uh, would you offer certificates in something less than a full degree?
Ryan Egbert (13:55):
Sure. And we currently do, we offer ours in the form of badges, which are digital credentials. Yes.
Howard (Howie) (14:01):
Mm-hmm .
Ryan Egbert (14:02):
And we're, we're moving that also forward, uh, this year we're, we're moving forward with those being blockchain. Um, and that's for future projects as well. Um, things like digital certificates and things like that. Yeah. We're gonna make sure that science credentials can be easily implemented into those. Oh,
Howard (Howie) (14:18):
That's awesome.
Ryan Egbert (14:18):
Uh, so the, we're already ahead of the game on that. Uh, we have some people that currently hold them in what they're called wallets. I don't know if you're familiar with the blockchain stuff?
Howard (Howie) (14:28):
Uh, yeah. Uh, I've heard a few things about that. I had attended a paper that Michael Schwartz had, uh, talked about. Oh, neat. These types of things. Yeah.
Ryan Egbert (14:36):
The where the digital badges, you have a backpack. So when, when they move over to blockchain, then they're in a wallet. So it's all these little semantics, right? Like, you know, it's a blockchain or is it, uh, is it centralized? Uh, but that makes it where the credentials iss always available. You know, if it, where currently if the server goes down that Badger or Cornerstone or wherever it's, you know, those credentials are held theoretically, then they can't be verified. Right? Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (15:02):
So that's the future. So let's talk about, um, let's talk about the competitive landscape for you. Uh, because from our perspective, especially looking at results of proficiency tests and the questions that we're getting and the technical advisor team is getting, it's clear that there's lack of training and lack of mentorship. Uh, so there's a strong need for better training, more in depth breadth, right. Of training. Uh, and so I personally, I'm aware of other companies that provide metrology training, and we've used some of those as well as sign calibration.
Howard (Howie) (15:38):
Mm-hmm .
Howard (Howie) (15:39):
Uh, I don't think that there's enough there as it is. So I think there's plenty of room for all players.
Ryan Egbert (15:45):
Oh, yeah.
Howard (Howie) (15:46):
But what, what is that, from your perspective, are you competing directly with like a two LA workplace training, or is that something that you just see as plenty of room in the playground for everyone?
Ryan Egbert (15:56):
So we have education site and certification site. So there's also the CCT is also brought up as a possible competitor with our CMT our certification, which is what we, is our level one certification, right? So with, with, in both of those cases, I feel like we are attempting to do something different, right? Where instead of providing a, a somewhat of a list of training and it be assigned in however manner that the, the management wants or whatever, we're trying to assign an actual curriculum to this. Okay. What is the end product from this? And that's, you know, the level one program is designed from what I've seen in not only when I worked in the commercial lab, but from the feedback of the industry, right. What does an average technician, if we're gonna, and we're, we focus a lot on third party right. Commercial calibration because yes, there's a lot of our customers government contractors or, or we'll, we'll leave it at that, like the bigger agencies.
(17:00)
Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm . But those are much more restricted technicians, right? They'll have a much smaller scope of work. You know, if, if they learn our entire curriculum, that's great, but they might work in pressure for 15 years or something like that, right? Right. Where a, someone that's going and doing on sites every day, you know, affecting manufacturing and all those type of things, that's who we're trying to aim for. And give them a curriculum where they can go out there and be successful. Because we're not only jetting people out of, or not having enough inflow into the industry, we're also jetting people, and I've said this before, we get a lot of those exit interviews that labs don't, you know, they'll talk to us as they're trying to find new employment or whatever mm-hmm . And we'll say like, what happened? You know? And they're not supported.
(17:46)
They're not feeling supported. And it, yes, it comes a lot down to training, but the big picture is similar to like, what we're trying to create with a level one program is when you go out there, do you know what you're looking at? Hey, is this a thermistor? Is this a, you know, an RTD am? Am I looking at something that's giving me a pulse? You know, do I recognize these signals that I'm going out there and calibrating? Yeah. Or am I sitting there for hours scratching my head, customer's mad at me, my boss is mad at me 'cause I'm not getting things done fast enough. Well, I'm just gonna write down the data. Or
Howard (Howie) (18:21):
Worse, or even worse, the technician is befuddled, eh, I like that word.
Ryan Egbert (18:25):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (18:26):
And asking the customer, how do I connect this? You're supposed to be the expert that they've hired to come in and do the calibration. That's not a good position to be in.
Ryan Egbert (18:35):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Chuck (18:36):
Well, we've, we've, we've had this conversation many, many times, and a lot of our clients would get mad at me for saying this. So, so maybe, hopefully a lot of B-N-A-P-D clients are not listening to this one . But the, the problem is, and this is a common problem, is that they're sending technicians, like you mentioned, Ryan, they, they're leaving the job because they're not supportive. And what we're finding out is we're seeing the people that participate in our programs, the, probably the number two reason is they're not qualified enough to understand the measurement. So they're out there would be required to make measurements. They don't understand they're being required to fill out a form, follow a procedure that requires them, they don't understand what they're doing. And I'm a big proponent of giving more training to people. I, I've said for 40 years, understand the measurement and we're not doing it anymore. And so, you know, anything that we can do as a community to get the technicians to understand what they're doing to me is, is something that we've gotta do more of. Otherwise we're gonna have, like you said, people leaving the job because they're not being supportive, which is, you know, a negative thing. And we wanna do the exact opposite. We want to train these people who do everything about the measurement in my, in my opinion.
Howard (Howie) (19:49):
So you mentioned that like example of pressure certification. And that made me think of our recent podcast that we did with Philip Shaw as our guest. And we were talking about the differences between industrial metrology, scientific metrology, legal metrology. And I know for a fact after Transcat had owned a company that was only legal metrology, right? That we had the guys that were going out and installing truck scales on the highways, cattle scales or livestock scales, and then also servicing smaller scales and balances as well. Mm-hmm .
(20:22)
That type of legal metrology requires certification in every state and for every type of scale that you're calibrating. Yeah. So these guys, these guys were in the state of Wisconsin. They also service parts of, I think a adjoining states. So they had to be certified in each state for up to like seven different types of scales. Right. And they had to maintain those certifications year after year or they couldn't perform that because that's the requirement for legal metrology. And most people aren't in the legal metrology field. Right. Not people who are, but most calibration metrology is industrial metrology. And so we're talking about targeting industrial metrology and having certifications for those maybe not required by state. Right. This could be a national certification or just a career certification mm-hmm
Ryan Egbert (21:09):
. Sure.
Howard (Howie) (21:10):
But I think it's going to help organize and standardize something that's not standardized today. Right. Exactly. What you have is, did you go to the P school or TMDE right? In the military? Do you have a c mm-hmm . Certificate from that. Okay. That's one form of training. Have you gone to OEMs and done their training? Right. It could be a a few hours or a full day or a couple of days.
Ryan Egbert (21:32):
Sure.
Howard (Howie) (21:33):
And that's pretty much by instrument type or or by instrument model. Right. So those are very specific.
Ryan Egbert (21:39):
Right. Unfortunately. Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (21:41):
But it's not really getting to standardizing the industry for training. So that's where I agree with you, that's where we need to go.
Ryan Egbert (21:47):
Oh, and I, I, I'm, yes, exactly. And, and so when, when you ask me do I view them as competitors, I think if you look at the black and white of it, of course there's gonna be, if, if there's customers that view getting training as you must choose this one or this one, and that's it, then yes. Of of course. Yeah. For competitors. But really I view us as, uh, sign as the entity that's trying to give that firm curriculum, right. That, that progression path mm-hmm . But you find when you do accreditation or you do these type of things, it's very strict. Right. And so we'll have very strict requirements. And so that leaves a lot of room. I mean, metrology, there's so much room for in-between training of all the other things, right? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And so that's where I view the other places come in. Great. And, and you'll see a lot of similar contributors on both sides. Right? Right. So it's not like you're losing out on quality either way. So I hope that makes sense. I, I think that it does. Mm-hmm . I'm, I'm, to me, I'm coming to this from the aspect that I would really like us all to have a, a foundational or a general curriculum. We all go through, we all have the same starting point, but then each career is different and we have to train how we need to for our career, you know?
Howard (Howie) (23:03):
Yes, I agree. Alright. I've got to ask you 'cause I keep getting distracted and looking at this looks like upside down broccoli with something on top of it on the desk there. What in the world is that behind you?
Ryan Egbert (23:15):
Oh, my octopus. Oh, okay. My, my kids, my kids gave me this for Christmas.
Howard (Howie) (23:20):
Ah,
Ryan Egbert (23:21):
Named Gary.
Howard (Howie) (23:22):
Gary. This is, that's awesome.
Ryan Egbert (23:23):
Yeah. Gary, the octopus. This is the metrology octopus.
Howard (Howie) (23:28):
Really? How does that relate to metrology? I
Chuck (23:31):
Don't, is
Howard (Howie) (23:32):
It it like the eight pillars of metrology? ,
Chuck (23:35):
Thank you. Yes. Is there eight now? I always thought there were six, but, okay.
Howard (Howie) (23:39):
Well, no, he has eight legs. You gotta have eight pillars now.
Chuck (23:41):
Okay. So
Howard (Howie) (23:42):
Create a couple more.
Chuck (23:43):
You gotta define a few more. Okay. Yeah. .
Howard (Howie) (23:46):
Okay. Anyways. Chuck, do you, uh, I'll, I'll divert to you. I've been asking a lot of questions, so I'll diver to you questions. No,
Chuck (23:53):
That's, I, I like, I like your questions. It's, you know, you guys are really getting into it. So I just sat back and just like listening to it because you guys are really getting into it. So I wanna get back to sign calibration. What was the decision that made you start sign calibration? You know, there had to be something that said, Hey, there was this void out there. You know, I'm tired of being a meteorologist. I'm tired of turning wrenches. I'm, you know, I wanna do something else. What was that decision?
Ryan Egbert (24:20):
So I, and I, I, so forgive me if any of this is a repeat for anybody out there, but some of this was, like I said, a, a product. So I was actively working as a technical manager.
Howard (Howie) (24:33):
Mm-hmm
Ryan Egbert (24:33):
. And I had for a very long time, had a curriculum I had put together just for between the Marine Corps and then getting into the civilian community in between jobs. I had, I think it was 75 days of terminal leave. So I had some time to kind of organize some stuff. But like I said, how to, when Howard asked me like how to package this, you know, and I would get, as I'd be out doing onsites, I'd get questions of like, where did you learn this? And I'd say, oh, from the military, you know, but I used, then I also taught it. And so they would ask me a lot of questions. They're like, you should put together a course. Right? Like that just was something that commonly happened.
Chuck (25:12):
Okay.
Ryan Egbert (25:13):
And then once everything got put together, the company I was working for just never gave me a response if they wanted to work together with me on it. And eventually I had to detach from them. And then I was pretty much on my own and the pandemic happened. And so then I was really on my own, you know? 'cause at that point in time there was plans for a location here in Utah. There was, uh, I don't think we had a full agreement, but luckily we got let out. Or maybe we did sign a full agreement, but they let us out because of the pandemic. Luckily
(25:48)
Because we, there was just no way we were gonna be able to carry any clients coming in for that year, for sure. Mm-hmm. But the beginning parts of it were a lot of tech space and audio based if you could imagine. And so when I started having time from when I was released from my full-time job there, and then I was doing this full-time, that's when I made the decision to go buy a camera and some nicer mics, some lights. I bought some cheaper, you know, some entry level lights and all that stuff. And I went for it. Mm-hmm . And decided, you know what, I'm gonna fully pursue this. I reached out to Henry Zu just out on a whim. 'cause force was one I was not comfortable with originally being the expert in in. And there was a couple others. And I had like Joseph come on. We put out the feelers for some people. And so we had some contributors for that initial project. But as I mentioned, it was not quite what it is now. Right. Where it fully fleshed out, like learning pathway, right. It was more,
Howard (Howie) (26:50):
Right.
Ryan Egbert (26:51):
Lessons learned put together. And then once everything kind of coalesced, then the forward path was a little bit more clear. Oh, okay. So more like a full school into this thing. What would be in that? And that's where some of the decisions of like RFA microwave, should we put that in there. And because I taught it for the military, I did put it in there, but we put it as something that isn't a requirement to graduate. And that's because going back to those, that data that we received in starting and creating the course where about 25% of labs, accredited labs, maybe 30, somewhere around there do RFA microwave. So do we wanna make that a requirement? Right? So that's when we started realizing, okay, so we're looking at this more of like a, what is the overall career pathway we're looking at here? And so that's when the levels started to become more clear. The certification pathway became more clear. So really in the beginning I do mean it, it was a product like, Hey, here's a text and audio based product on how to do CALS and how things work. And the initial customers of that were like, can you please do more? Right. And then did simple recordings and then people wanted more from that and wanted testing and you know, it just one of those things that truly grew from almost nothing.
Chuck (28:11):
So Howard, you, I consider you an expert, right?
Howard (Howie) (28:14):
I don't know about that, but, okay. Well,
Chuck (28:16):
You know, and I consider myself somewhat of an expert. were, did you get a call from Ryan to help him when he started to sign calibration? He said he reached out to all the experts. I, I didn't get a call. Did you get
Howard (Howie) (28:26):
A call? Wow, that is, that is, I don't think that's what I said. . Yeah. After all the training modules I've done, right? We at transcript, there's another gentleman, Roman Melnick and I, for quite a while, developed a lot of training for sales people, right. Non-technical people to help them understand the business they're getting into or have been in. Right. And we take typical examples of daily life and correlate it to what they know, right? So they could understand that part of it and relate to it. And then we'd advance it into industrial metrology examples and help them see that they're really the same thing, but on a higher accuracy scale. Sure. Anyway, so we've done that. I've developed some of our technical training for our technicians. We did a three part module on uncertainty training that got into probability and statistics. Not deep, but just enough for them to understand how that fits. And so I was curious when you said that you have some uncertainty training there, how deep you got into that stuff.
Ryan Egbert (29:24):
So the uncertainty in the beginning and where it currently stands is very introductory. And that was, and there, there's a little bit of a story here. So when this was developed, the feel in the industry definitely was bench technician understands uncertainty is on the certificate. That's about it. Right? I mean that's generally where the industry was. And that came a lot from where I came from. The military is like, you don't need to know the uncertainty stuff until you're at that engineering position, right. In the procedures, all that stuff. Right? So then as time has gone on and as sign has grown, we have a lot of individuals that take our training that are on what we call an island, right? They are by themselves. They're the only ones doing Cal in that facility. And sometimes they're the ones talking and giving advice to management on metrology things and they need to know more, right?
(30:21)
And we've always offered level two and three. Which level two you go through like a Dilip Shaw course or we've also partner with Greg Sanker. So there's a few different providers that we partner with and we're open to more providers that people are listening. It's just, these are the people we have networked currently. But the, we are, we have a release right now that is in the middle of peer review that is coming out that now we start calculating it at level one, where the beginning person will put together simple things like length, you know, couple different contributors to length. But so where we start to understand how those things are put together, what a root, sum square means, why all those type of things. But there's definitely a change where in the industry now people need to know those things. I think also with the release of the document about decision rules from Greg Sanker, dijo, Henry Zu.
Chuck (31:14):
Yep. Yep.
Ryan Egbert (31:16):
We incorporated that as a permanent part of our program as well because a lot of us come into Cal thinking there is a tolerance. And that's a, you know, especially if you're in the military, you stick to the procedure
Howard (Howie) (31:28):
Right?
Ryan Egbert (31:28):
When you go into civilian cal, then you start to realize, wait what the customer has a say in all of this. And so I think it's a really good thing for people to be aware of decision rules and things to explain to customers more about their product that us, we as technicians are giving to these people. Right. And being able to give some advice to them, but not necessarily direct them or anything like that. Right.
Howard (Howie) (31:54):
Yeah.
Ryan Egbert (31:55):
So that's where we sit now where we have a release coming where that's gonna be much more integrated at the level one. But
Chuck (32:03):
You, that's a release for uncertainty calculations. What's next for the, are you expanding your other levels? You mentioned all of them Two level three.
Ryan Egbert (32:11):
So, so level two, level three, not, those are, so level threes, there are a few that are still in development like r fm microwave, that's some bleeding edge technology stuff, doing uncertainties on those are, there's probably literally a handful of entities that can do that right now. But another ones, those are available, most of these updates are coming to our level one program. And so this is in conjunction with our Train the trainer. So our new program allows that, where trainers can connect our learning objectives directly to their scopes. We teach trainers how to do that, how to flesh out a training program, a good follow up program, how to connect it to proficiency testing as well. 'cause that's what we utilize for level two is level one is very much theoretical. And then we expect them to work with their trainers at the lab, right?
(33:02)
So that's why we work a lot with trainers is because we want these people to use our online stuff. They have to have someone facilitate their training. You can't just go from online training to Cal. We all know that we gotta actually have to have someone help us learn on our equipment. But then after that facilitation we have to have follow up, right? And that's been one of the biggest things that we work on with our trainers is what is that continuum plan? 'cause I, one of the biggest shocks to me as I've been training around the whole country and now we support through Australia. I mean we have Puerto Rico, very widespread coverage now, but people think, hey, I get, I've been doing this for 10 years, I don't need any more training. And it's like, no, you need training constantly. You
Howard (Howie) (33:49):
Do. And
Ryan Egbert (33:49):
Continual things are always changing. So, um, you
Howard (Howie) (33:53):
Know, that's one of the things I'd like to relate this to, like the music industry. And I know that even professional musicians constantly are going through training that most people wouldn't even think about. Right. Trying to hone their skills, keep up with the latest changes and or just to keep themselves fresh. Right. Always a good idea. Yeah. Can't hurt.
Chuck (34:15):
Yeah. Well one, one you mentioned one thing that Ryan, that I want to touch base on is that mm-hmm
(34:19)
. We've had some preliminary conversation where we've really never expanded on it. And I'm disappointed in the NAP staff, you know, and I say that because I'm, you know, I'm technically retired and just for the record, I wanna make sure that the audience knows that I'm only the advisor to n now they kind of run the show and they only come to me when they have problems and they ask me to solve problems. But, you know, there, there's been talk where, you know, signed calibration and nap, gonna do some things together where we're gonna support some of the things that you're gonna be doing and we're going to do some training together. 'cause they're gonna do these onsite regional testing and they wanted to get together where you could provide the onsite training at the same time. But these are some synergy things that we're gonna do. And so when you said that your training leads to proficiency testing, um, you know, I'm still hoping that you guys can get together and still solve those problems because I just want you to know if if NAP staff is not there to do it, I'll fire 'em.
Ryan Egbert (35:14):
Oh, no, I, I, and I think that this will go very seamlessly. Uh, so it's intended to work with whoever, um, our, I'm sorry, whenever they need to do it right. That they can request it through their PT provider. What the issue right now is that we do not have a lot of throughput on level two training. Mm-hmm . And that's because a lot of what we're doing is catching the industry up to level one and, and refining level one skills. I, my estimates, uh, when I talk to my own network, my own staff, I, I am saying within two years I'm expecting level twos to start to maybe meet where level ones are maybe surpassing a little bit. Um, because down the road I would like level one to be, you know, if I, if I could make that something that is even free for the public, I would love to do that. But right now it's so vital to us operationally I can't do that. Right. Right,
Howard (Howie) (36:09):
Right.
Ryan Egbert (36:09):
But, um, that is the major, um, slow with or slow down with something like that, um, going even faster because once people need those skills, um, and to be clear, I don't, it's not that I don't think they're needed out there. So just so that the audience knows our level two is what roughly what you'd consider second secondary calibrations or when you're calibrating other people's standards. And I know there's a lot of people out there right now calibrating their own standards or their customer's standards that need that training. Like we're talking about going past the superficial, you know, when we're starting to talk about, um, uh, you know, the, the, the, the materials in our connectors for reasons past, you know, the looks of them. Right. Why do we care that we have gold plated copper, you know mm-hmm . And, and things like that. Uh, or, or into temperature.
(37:08)
You know, why do we aneel, uh, uh, SPRT? What are some reasons that this stuff happens? You know, but, but like I said, there is a big resistance out there. Um, and I get it, you know, people wanna feel secure in their jobs, right. And they don't want people to know that they're weak. But I, I think it's important for people to understand that the industry is severely behind in training. And it's okay to say you don't know something, or it's okay to say that your place needs training in something. I don't think that's a bad thing.
Howard (Howie) (37:40):
Right?
Ryan Egbert (37:41):
That's the whole, but there is like a feeling like you have to know everything. It's like you, you're
Howard (Howie) (37:45):
Right. You're hitting on a very good topic there. I've seen that happen with technicians where they feel like they have to be the one that's the go-to. Right. And they don't wanna feel, they don't wanna be perceived as, as not knowing. Uh, but I tell, I try to tell as many people as I can in the industry, not just in our company. It, it, we are the metrology world is not an island. Right. You are not a single person. It's a team effort. We should be working together and relying on each other for the answers if we don't know them. Uh, plus there's other people we can reach out to outside of whatever organization you're in. Right. Never feel like you have to be the only one that has the answer.
Ryan Egbert (38:24):
Exactly. Yeah. And I feel like that is rampant. And there's a lot of onsite managers right now, there's a lot of just people in positions where they feel that Yeah, exactly. That they have to have every, everything solved and it's just, it's, it's not practical.
Chuck (38:40):
Yeah. Well, we get to, we get to move on now to transition to what we like to call, you know, our speed questions.
Ryan Egbert (38:47):
Oh
Chuck (38:48):
Yeah. These, well, we get to, we get to ask you some, hopefully some embarrassing questions.
Ryan Egbert (38:53):
Oh boy.
Chuck (38:54):
And hopefully, uh, so Howard's always got his favorites. So I, I'm gonna start with,
Howard (Howie) (38:59):
Go ahead.
Chuck (38:59):
You know, what, what is your most memorable moment in metrology? What, is there one, one area that you would go back and say, wow, that was really cool. That was what I remember, you know, that, that, that event that happened in your metrology life?
Ryan Egbert (39:15):
Well, one that comes out to my, comes to mind instantly is the first time I traveled to more Henry, getting a lot of shout outs today, but going to Morehouse and seeing his big stack of weights, for that big dead weight testing machine. 'cause that, that really blew my mind to see something like that in person. But I think my earliest would have to be the first time I went to a test cell for Jet engines and realized what we were doing. And it was really cool. But then also very overwhelming because I don't feel like I was, I knew what I was doing. Enough .
Chuck (39:51):
Yeah. Yeah. That's
Ryan Egbert (39:52):
Good.
Chuck (39:52):
I've been lucky. I I've seen both of those. I've seen, you know, the Jet engines down at Pratt and Whitney down down there at uh, oh
Howard (Howie) (39:58):
Yeah.
Chuck (39:59):
At Palm Beach. I was, uh, part of that operation many, many years ago. And I, I, I've been to Henry's lab as well many times. But, so you didn't get a chance to go over to NIST and see the Million Pounder then by chance?
Ryan Egbert (40:10):
No, but I, I have, um, I have interviewed people from NIST and there are things in work that hopefully I can go there soon. Yeah,
Chuck (40:17):
Yeah. Yeah. I,
Ryan Egbert (40:19):
I, I could do it for the public, like also put it on the, the YouTube and all that. I
Howard (Howie) (40:22):
Think they need to Hi, hang a sign on their size Matters .
Chuck (40:26):
Well, a Million Pounder or The Million Pounder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was lucky enough to, uh, actually calibrate a load cell with Rick. You know, he obviously, you know Rick Seaford right from Nest. He's, uh, anyways, long story short, many, many years ago there, him and his boss at the town was, was no longer, you know, there. But they, they, I'm rip let me calibrate out with him and go down in the pit. And it was, we was quite an experience, there's no doubt about it. Back in, back in the day. So very, you got one of your questions you'd like to bounce off.
Howard (Howie) (40:59):
So he's kind of answered it already. I can't believe it. This is the one. So we have a list of, uh, pre a list of questions that we're gonna ask for a different guest. Right. And we can choose from those. We can ask the same one different ones. Chuck, put this together as a, a nice list. And the one that I highlighted out of like 40 questions was, if Science had a mascot, what would you pick and why? And I'm sitting there looking at Gary, the, uh, octopus meteorologist. I'm gonna call him an ologist, Gary the Ologist.
Ryan Egbert (41:27):
I love it.
Howard (Howie) (41:28):
That must be the mascot. And now I'm thinking that that's your answer, right? The Gary, the Ologist is the mascot for metrology
Ryan Egbert (41:36):
And Yes, and I probably would've answered that. 'cause I, I have mentioned that a few times because I do tutor from here as well. Like, this is, um, I have a camera switcher, so I can go over the top of like, I have dry wells behind me and stuff, stuff like that. Mm-hmm
Howard (Howie) (41:51):
.
Ryan Egbert (41:51):
And so, uh, he is kind of the official mascot. Yes. So I definitely would've,
Howard (Howie) (41:56):
We're gonna have to get Ted Green. He's gonna be one of our guests to, uh, create a series, a metrology series on Gary the Ologist. That's awesome. That'd
Ryan Egbert (42:04):
Be awesome. . Yeah. Well,
Howard (Howie) (42:07):
I, I think, so that was my question. Now the second part of that question is, what would the theme song be for metrology? Do you have anything that would be a theme song?
Ryan Egbert (42:16):
I don't know. Is it a high speed thing? Like a metrology? That's awesome. I don't know.
Chuck (42:23):
Do you, do you play an instrument? Ryan? Do you play
Ryan Egbert (42:25):
I am a rhythm section. I, I formally took bass and drums both Okay. With, uh, instructors.
Howard (Howie) (42:33):
So we got a bass player now we got a rhythm guitarist. We got a lead guitarist. I play the drums as well. We we're gonna, it's been
Ryan Egbert (42:41):
A few been years for me. I don't know if I know my scales anymore.
Howard (Howie) (42:44):
Yeah.
Chuck (42:45):
We got, uh, Troy's on vocals as as well
Ryan Egbert (42:48):
And try on vocals. Yeah. Yeah. You get Rob Kki on there too, is that right?
Howard (Howie) (42:53):
Yeah, he
Ryan Egbert (42:53):
Vocals. He does, yeah, he does the, the, um, karaoke at the MSC or whatever.
Chuck (43:00):
Okay. Interesting. We're gonna
Howard (Howie) (43:02):
Have
Ryan Egbert (43:02):
To do that.
Chuck (43:03):
Well, we're, we're, we're starting on short time, so we gotta go through these questions a little bit quicker. Um,
Howard (Howie) (43:07):
Sure thing. Okay, go ahead.
Chuck (43:08):
So what, if there's one thing you could change in metrology for the benefit of metrology, what do you think? What would you like to see changed that would make metrology better?
Ryan Egbert (43:21):
Oh, these are supposed to be quick. Um, yeah, , well, I, I on, if I could be honest, even remove sign from the equation, but that everybody, that everybody would agree that we need to all undergo a structured training program. Yeah. I mean, our job is important enough that, uh, it just, it touches too much, right. Our, our job is like the sneakiest thing that is just waiting to implode
Chuck (43:50):
Because I, I don't, I, I don't wanna step on you, but I, I think it kind of goes along the lines that I have like this. I think that every technician should go through like a two year program, either through their employer or their ability not to go through it by themselves. But it's kind of like the same thing. I think that every single American should go through like a two year basic trading military course. It's not the same type of concept because they're not learning the measurement. All they're learning how to do is to write on a piece of paper or enter the numbers into a, a data program. And that's, that's the worst thing we can do right now, is not teach people the measurement. And so, you know, to that, uh, uh, that's, that's my opinion. So Howard, you get to guess the next question. All right.
Howard (Howie) (44:34):
So let's say when you train a lab that's never had formal training, what's something that's funny or surprising that you've run across?
Ryan Egbert (44:42):
Um, well probably the resistance Yeah. To that to said training or, um, the lack of follow up. So what I mean by that is there will be the desire for training, the training will happen. And then let's say I go back to the same place a year later, sometimes I'll have the same people in that training and I'll ask them why and they'll say, I don't know, they just told me to be here.
Howard (Howie) (45:09):
Oh,
Ryan Egbert (45:10):
Oh. And that, or, um, we'll go through the training and I'll say, have you guys been implementing things like this? Like, let's say, um, SPC type things like, um, keeping track of your, your triple point. And obviously these things were explained why and why we do them and, and all that. Yes. And then they'll be like, our management said, we, we aren't gonna do that. It's like, why we're putting you through all this training.
Howard (Howie) (45:34):
Yeah. If you're not getting support from the management, that's even worse. Why'd you waste the time and money? Right. But it, the attitude that you were talking about first, clearly not the right hire for the job. You gotta have somebody who's motivated to want to do the job. Right? Oh, right. And learn how to, how to do it. Right. So
Ryan Egbert (45:50):
That's clearly not the person in the right job.
Howard (Howie) (45:52):
Yeah.
Ryan Egbert (45:53):
I think that that sums it up perfectly, Howard, I I, I appreciate that because I think that is the most surprising thing is that our, I I consider, I I'm probably much how you guys feel so much pride in what we do. Mm-hmm . And, and our industry and our whole reason that we do our job and a lot of the people actually doing it where it matters, where they're going to customers that are manufacturing things that are Yes. Creating things. And they don't care. They aren't people that are careerists in our job. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (46:28):
Yeah. If you were gonna tell me one place in the world that I have to travel, what, see
Ryan Egbert (46:32):
What would it be? I'd wanna go to the Netherlands now because of the Marine Corps. I did a lot of Asia Pacific, you know, uh, Thailand and uh, Australia, all that stuff. Definitely want to get over to Europe and, and check that stuff out.
Howard (Howie) (46:46):
Yeah. Uh, I have not been anywhere except for Canada and US.
Ryan Egbert (46:50):
Canada would be cool too.
Howard (Howie) (46:52):
Yeah. We went to The Bahamas here recently. You know, that's Puerto Rico. That's not as far as we've gone. My wife and I, uh, we're thinking in, uh, the fall, going to Europe, England, Portugal, and Ireland. So hopefully that'll be our first Europe trip.
Ryan Egbert (47:07):
Just did my first over water training event in Puerto Rico a month ago. Oh, nice. And it was fantastic. It a little bit of jet lag for me, the instructor, but I find if I can get the teaching out of the way, then the rest of the time I'm, you know, taking a nap. Listen to the ocean.
Chuck (47:22):
Yeah. Nice. And thank you for, you know, taking part, uh, in our podcast. We look forward to the next time we can see, look at the addition, uh, of level one and level two. And, and we look forward to bugging you at the upcoming measurement science
Howard (Howie) (47:35):
Conference.
Ryan Egbert (47:35):
Yeah, it's been, uh,
Howard (Howie) (47:36):
Great talking with you. Thank you for being on the show.
Ryan Egbert (47:38):
Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know when this will be released, but if I can put in a plug for the MSC conference, we are gonna be live there. So, um, like set up with cameras, everything on our YouTube channel. Awesome. So Tuesday night starting Tuesday night, president's reception.
Howard (Howie) (47:53):
Yeah.
Ryan Egbert (47:53):
Um, two sessions on Wednesday, an AM and a PM and then an AM session on Thursday, um, chatting with everybody that's at the conference. So if my email ryan dot eggbert@signcalibration.com or LinkedIn's always a good one. I, I don't do good at the Facebook or Instagrams and things like that, but LinkedIn, we, we have a lot of good following on there. So we do a lot of our announcements there.
Howard (Howie) (48:16):
Awesome. Howard, any final words for you today? There was one more question I wanted to ask him. If you won the lottery, what would you do? Would you have somebody take over the business and just go relax? Or would you invest and grow it? What would you do that's not a final word?
Ryan Egbert (48:31):
Oh, I would, I would have, if it's a, if it's a, like a lot of money, then yeah, sign would get fleshed out. It would have a full location and, and it would have all the things.
Howard (Howie) (48:42):
Did you hear about this guy who, uh, it was a couple of guys who had stolen a credit card somehow. I dunno if they took the card or just lifted the numbers and they bought lottery tickets with it and one of them won half a million bucks. Right.
Howard (Howie) (48:55):
Wow.
Howard (Howie) (48:56):
Now they're, they trace it, they know where the winning lottery ticket was sold. Right. How are you gonna cash that out? And it was paid for with a stolen credit card. Now. Yeah. No one that one through didn't take it through, did they? Or they did not gonna cash it in. Oh my gosh. That's what a dilemma.
Ryan Egbert (49:14):
Well if they cash it in, does that go to the real credit card owner?
Howard (Howie) (49:17):
So the credit card owner offered to split it with 'em for them to turn it in so it doesn't just get thrown away. Right.
Ryan Egbert (49:25):
Wow.
Howard (Howie) (49:26):
Probably the better of the deal. Right. Just to make sure you get something out of it.
Ryan Egbert (49:29):
See, now that kinda lottery, I think we, we all know in business, a half mill wouldn't go very far. No. No.
Chuck (49:37):
Alright. Parting words of wisdom. Yes, as usual, remember proficiency testing is the only true way to prove your technical competence. So you need to enroll in the proficiency test today. So with that, thank you again everyone for participating. We'll look forward to our next podcast. We'll have another great guest, Ryan. Thank you.