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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 (00:20):
Welcome once again to another podcast chatNAPT with the AI chatter bots. Chuck and Howie, another gorgeous day here.
Howard (Howie) (00:29):
Oh my gosh. Is it beautiful today? We should be outside.
Chuck (00:33):
You know, I couldn't agree with you more. Um, summertime is approaching, you know, it's that whole, you know, conferences is gonna be started here pretty soon. All the science conferences. Oh yeah. We're getting ready for that.
Howard (Howie) (00:44):
About
Chuck (00:44):
You.
Howard (Howie) (00:44):
Everybody blooming outside. It is just gorgeous.
Chuck (00:47):
We're gonna have to have, uh, another session here where we talk about our personal summer plans and share that with the audience. We're not gonna have Sure time for that today, but, you know, um, 'cause we got a guest today that's gonna take up all of our time.
Howard (Howie) (01:02):
We have a guest today that's over the top. Yeah. I mean, the accomplishments this guy has
Chuck (01:06):
Had. Incredible. Yeah, he's, um, and not only that, I mean, once we get into him, we're not gonna be, it's gonna be easily four, five minutes today For sure. And he's a very interesting guest, but it's not gonna be enough. He's nothing like we had with Paul. We, we want Paul back again automatically right away. We want Kirk back. Right. Again, we want right away. We want Peter back again.
Howard (Howie) (01:27):
Well, look, I just wanna give the audience a little heads up. Chuck and I can compile the list of the guests we think we'd like to have. Right. And then we trim it down to the guest. We think we're gonna have on each podcast for each episode, for each season. We have six full seasons of guests lined up. Right. Not committed, but targeted. And then we're working on those a season at a time, and that we won't return guests for the ones that have so much information to share. So this is good. We have plenty of material coming forward.
Chuck (02:02):
Well, you know, that is hard because, you know, we both have been in the industry for, you know, like a count combined 90 years you and I together.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You
Chuck (02:09):
Know, we know everybody, you know, basically, you know, between you and I think there is probably not a person that's been in the business for 20 years that we don't know. Yeah. You know, quite honestly that, you know, we've gone to just about, you and I together have gone to at least 50 plus conferences over the years. I mean, I've, between the MSC and the A two LA and the N-C-S-L-I, I've gone to 60 plus conferences in my lifetime, if not more.
Howard (Howie) (02:34):
Yeah. I started in 99. That was my first year that I went to NCSL. There's only a couple years I missed there. Um, and then MSC probably since 2000. 2000, 2001. Yeah.
Chuck (02:48):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (02:48):
2000 was the first year.
Chuck (02:50):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (02:51):
So lots of conferences and I've gone to interfects and some other ones as well. Right. Other industry trade.
Chuck (02:57):
Yeah. You know, I've been to a couple of other ones that really never panned out, you know, and then of course when I had my golf club business, you know, I went to all the PGA shows.
Howard (Howie) (03:04):
Oh, yeah.
Chuck (03:04):
Which is not metrology, but they were trade shows.
Howard (Howie) (03:07):
I talked about NM in one of our previous episodes. I love that. That was the first time I ever went to the music merchant show, and that was a blast.
Chuck (03:13):
Yeah. Well, I, you know what, um, we're, we're gonna be expecting Chris here in a minute, so I probably should get started on his introduction because Oh, good luck. Oh my God. Okay. Just in all seriousness, this guy has got a bio that is four pages long. You know, Chris has been around longer than I am. He's one year older than I am. And I've known Chris for 30 plus years. Chris was one of the main people that helped me start NAPT when I needed, I reached out to Chris and he worked at Compact at the time, and Compact was a huge supporter of NAPT when it first started. Chris was on the original board of directors when, when I needed to start a board of directors. He was there with support, with unbelievable support. Chris started out in the Air Force. He worked his way up. He's got three degrees. He's got a master's degree now. Um, he started out in the Air Force, then he worked at NASA for, at Kenny. Same place you did for a while.
Howard (Howie) (04:07):
Yeah. He was there before I was then left shortly before I started out there.
Chuck (04:11):
And then he worked his way up and he worked at Compact, which later became Hewlett Packard. He spent a, a, a very short time at your company. Transcat. Yes. Then after that he went to National Instruments.
Howard (Howie) (04:23):
Now he just landed on our show.
Chuck (04:25):
There we go guys. Hey. And perfect timing. Good morning, Chris. How are
Christopher Grachanen (04:30):
You this morning? Doing peachy. We got Blue Bond season here in Texas and it's favorite time of year.
Howard (Howie) (04:37):
Yeah, understood.
Chuck (04:38):
I, I got a funny feeling. I, you know, I could probably just sign off and let you guys talk because I see that in the back in the background. You've got your guitar.
Howard (Howie) (04:46):
Oh, we're gonna get into that.
Chuck (04:48):
Guitars.
Howard (Howie) (04:49):
Absolutely.
Christopher Grachanen (04:49):
Guitars. They're plural.
Howard (Howie) (04:50):
I'm seeing a awards Oh yeah. In the background. Right. He's got NCSL awards and he is got the woodington up there. He is got UF you know, PS certificate. I can see there. And his guitars now. And the antique museum for metrology instruments.
Christopher Grachanen (05:04):
Oh, yeah. I got a bunch of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Interesting. My other collection,
Chuck (05:11):
, what we did, Chris, is we tried in the intro to go through your bio
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Mm-hmm .
Chuck (05:19):
And, you know, you've been around the block forever, even longer than I have. Mm-hmm
Speaker 3 (05:24):
. You
Chuck (05:24):
Know, because you're, I think, one year older than I am by, I'm gonna say you're one year older than I am.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Mm-hmm .
Chuck (05:30):
Um, but you've been around forever. You've got great accomplishments. You've been recognized literally by every single association that you've been with. You've got more awards than most meteorologists have.
Howard (Howie) (05:41):
Yeah. I forgot. Wild heck. I can see wild heck there too. Oh,
Chuck (05:43):
Yeah. . Well, he's the, he's what, the NIE Murphy of metrology, right?
Howard (Howie) (05:48):
Yes. Yes.
Chuck (05:49):
Can we call you the NIE Murphy of metrology? Because you've got every single award that is basically out there. Right. I'm thinking, you know. Right.
Christopher Grachanen (05:57):
I got a lot of active lights. Yeah.
Chuck (05:59):
Yeah. So that, that, that's well
Howard (Howie) (06:00):
Just means you've accomplished a lot. Right. Right.
Chuck (06:02):
Mm-hmm . Yeah, exactly. So, so with that being said, what are you doing now? Why are you not retired? What is you, why
Christopher Grachanen (06:09):
You Well, I'm finishing my last year actually gonna retire at the end of this year. I'm really unique, the position I am, and I'm, I'm a global technical manager, so I have laboratories all over the world, but where I'm in a position now that never than in calibration is, and I designs equipment. So right from the get go when the business units, Hey, we got a suggestion for a product and it's goes to RDI get involved from upstream as opposed to downstream where, you know, a calibration program has been planned and the instrument's already done, and Okay, hey, metrology support it. No. From the very get go, I can get involved and, you know, suggest the methodologies, test technique, the equipment, you know, be able, I can reproduce it into my laboratory. So that part is extremely inter, you know, I'm a geek, so I You're
Howard (Howie) (06:59):
Gonna retire from that. That's too much fun.
Christopher Grachanen (07:01):
Oh, well, I got my other, my other things I like to do. So other
Howard (Howie) (07:05):
Interest. Yeah.
Christopher Grachanen (07:06):
Okay. So one more year and I'm outta here.
Howard (Howie) (07:10):
Okay.
Christopher Grachanen (07:11):
Are you sure? Then what? Uh, then, uh, I'm playing out a lot in bands. You know, I got a lot of grandkids. Keep me busy. I'm a ab fisherman and my latest hobby, well, it's been a lifetime hobby, but I put some money to it now. I, uh, I polish and I cut rocks. So when I got my, uh, diamond songs and my polishers and I go out in the field and get me TA and glue to points, and I'm just loving to love it.
Howard (Howie) (07:37):
You happen to have any samples of it right there in front of you that you can share or? No?
Christopher Grachanen (07:42):
No. Not this, no. Okay. Just curious. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't like my, everything else is just spread under, around the house.
Chuck (07:50):
You know, Chris. Right. There's, you know, not even an hour away from me is the Arkansas Diack.
Christopher Grachanen (07:55):
I, I, I
Chuck (07:56):
Went there after
Christopher Grachanen (07:56):
We had our conference, and I didn't tell you about that. It was after the
Howard (Howie) (08:00):
Board meeting or?
Christopher Grachanen (08:02):
Yeah, after the board meeting. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's the middle of nowhere. And, you know, you get there and I had my wagon, I had my boots, I had all my tools, and I sunk up many times up to my knees in mud . I twisted my ankle twice. I was cursing everything I got. I still got a bucket of stuff I have to sift through. But, you know, I was planning to spend all day there all day.
Howard (Howie) (08:25):
Did you get it haul or? No. I mean, were,
Christopher Grachanen (08:27):
We got a thumbnail, something like that looks a little interesting. It's
Howard (Howie) (08:31):
Blue. Not problem. If you had the, you had the own tools. You were panicking for gold and it was diamonds.
Christopher Grachanen (08:35):
Yes. . That's right. That's right. . So I got outta there, but I mean, I had swollen ankles. Oh gosh. If you ever want to do it, do it in summertime, but I tell you what, okay. It was very popular. I mean, it was just amazing to see these grannies out there with shovels and they were getting into it. Oh yeah. .
Chuck (08:53):
So let's move on to Chris. You know, know we talked about that and we, you said your retirement's gonna be what you enjoy, but before you got to retirement, let's talk about what you've done for the metrology community. One of the things that I want to talk about that I think that, that maybe the last people that are not, like Howard and I talked about the people we know everybody that's been around for 20 years. Let's kind of talk about people that are fairly new to metrology, not the last, you know, 10 years. One of the things that you're responsible for, Chris, that is really huge. And there's three major things I wanna talk about. But one is the, is is the uncertainty calculator and the other software that you developed over time that are still in use today. Mm-hmm . A lot of people that are new to the metrology community don't know the fact that you're the one that introduced this software for free and all these new programs that are out there. They're all based on what you designed some 30 years ago.
Christopher Grachanen (09:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, you know, at the time when the measurement uncertainty, well, actually, lemme go back to this is during the compact days, and we didn't have a lot of engineers, and so we were SSON doing data sheets, you know, calibration data sheets. And so I deployed this to my, my lead technicians and my senior technician. And they found a lot of inconsistencies, you know, percent of reading, percent of tolerance floor, you know, all that was just ha haphazard, you know, whatever a manufacturer called it. So that's when I built the, the tolerance calculator. So that was the first one that was out there. And after that was when we started getting into uncertainties. And, you know, the only thing out there at the time was a very expensive program from Dr. Carl Castro. Right. And so I did want mail, you know, and it was, this was in the days of EBA three.
(10:30)
And so I petitioned compact to make these freeware, you know, to the, the metrology community young requested that I ever had was back then, I would have a fax to justify my time, you know, and showing, hey, you know, who was using it. So I, I got a book buried someplace, I think it was over 38 different countries I had access from, I mean, from standards laboratories to mom and pop shops. It, it was just great doing that. And then the last one I did was a mismatch on certainty calculator for doing rf. I worked a lot with the Sandia folks and, and developing that.
Howard (Howie) (11:04):
I imagine I have a question related to that later.
Christopher Grachanen (11:06):
Oh, okay. So go ahead.
Howard (Howie) (11:08):
Yeah,
Christopher Grachanen (11:08):
Go ahead. Yeah. So yeah, it was all in the freeware arena. I never made any, any money off it. I did a lot of training for folks in different laboratories, you know, that I would be asked to, to come out and participate in. So it was good. Both of them towns calculated around certain Canada and mismatched went through a lot of revisions from input from folks. And it, and it's still available out there, which is just absolutely amazes me.
Chuck (11:34):
Yeah. It, yeah, I, I still see it from, you know, I deal with a lot of people too. And we, and when we ask them to submit to us what they did for their uncertainty budget, a lot of them people will submit the uncertainty budget in your particular tool. I'll get, I get a lot of your spreadsheets sent to me a lot. Believe it or not. It's still, it's still a tool that's widely used. So, so, um, the other thing I want to talk about real briefly that, uh, that I'm really proud of as well, is something that you're, that you were headed up and that was getting our profession recognized by the Department of Labor. You wanna touch on that real briefly for us?
Christopher Grachanen (12:07):
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, this is about two decades in the, in the making. You know, real quick side story, when I, when I was in the high school, I went to my counselor 'cause I wanted to be a force ranger mm-hmm . And he pulled out a book, it was called The Occupational Outlook Handbook, the old, old H. And he went through it and he says, no, you don't want become one. Which says, well, why? And he says, well, projected job growth was like negative 20. 'cause everybody wanted to be a force ranger. Well, I think it was in, it was after I spearheaded the, uh, CCT program
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Mm-hmm .
Christopher Grachanen (12:41):
We were looking at public domain guidance, you know, as, as far as public domain, you know, what is the, the field going to. So I went to Department of Labor and I queried calibration technician, calibration technologist, whatnot. And there was nothing there. So I, I started getting interested in it. So I, I found out there's a thing called the SOC Stand Occupational Classification System. The Department Labor uses. And based on that, they will generate occupations for the occupational Outlook handbook. So I went into the SOC and obviously there was nothing there. There was absolutely not. And then I read about it and that every 10 years, they would update it and I started reading more, and that you could solicit the SOC on occupations. And I says, well, that's great. I says, but I can't do it by myself. So I reached out to folks at the A SQA measurement quality division, folks from MSC and, and CSL. We developed a TIGER team and I, we wrote up a, a, a 12 page proposal of why we shouldn't be recognized in the SOC and ideally keeping the eye on the prize. The occupational handbook. We were turned down, this was in oh
Howard (Howie) (13:57):
Thousand six, right?
Christopher Grachanen (13:58):
Yeah. Around that timeframe. Yeah. And, and the reason was that they thought that there was not enough people in the occupation to justify any action mm-hmm . Right. And so, boom. And that was it closed door. So I put it aside, you know, one my happy ways for years and years, and then all of a sudden I got a, a call from Greg Gula from NCSL saying, Hey, you know, they're taking in information for the SOC again. And I said, oh my gosh.
Howard (Howie) (14:28):
Yeah, we've been down that path, .
Christopher Grachanen (14:29):
I remember that. So I really thought about the problems that we had, you know, in justifying it. And at that time, I was not versed in a lot of things in social media. And then one day it occurred to me, blank, LinkedIn. LinkedIn, when you take a look, they have people that say that their occupation, I'm a calibration technician, not calibration engineer and stuff. So I, I did some data mining in LinkedIn and I was able to produce tens of thousands of people that had the occupation. So, based on that, okay. So I took the, the remarks from the 2006. So c rejection added to that, and then really pumped it up with social media and this. So what I presented, it didn't hear anything for about three months, and all of a sudden that they were accepted, and I I they did not accept meteorologists. Yeah. They didn't accept all of the entries, but they accepted two or three, they accepted calibration technicians and calibration technologies.
Howard (Howie) (15:34):
Yeah.
Christopher Grachanen (15:34):
Okay.
Howard (Howie) (15:35):
So, Chris, I was on that original committee with you mm-hmm . Uh, you chaired that committee for NCSL, put a lot of hard work into it. You carried that torch and made it happen. So thank you for that.
Christopher Grachanen (15:45):
Well, I, I tell you what, it was a labor alone. And you know what, I was tickle pink is, I knew once the SOC had accepted it, the Occupational Abook handbook was next. So they didn't do it the that year, but the next year we have the Occupational Outlook handbook. I sent you guys a link. Did you want to show the link just real quick on one of yours?
Chuck (16:08):
We'll make it available in the, uh, in, in the notes when, when we, when we do the editing.
Christopher Grachanen (16:12):
Yes. 'cause in the Occupational Outlook handbook, it, it tells you what it takes to become a calibration technician. You know what the job expectation on growth is, what you can expect to be paid. You know, so the nice thing about it is the occupational handbook is by power, the, the defacto standard that guidance counselors, you know, and, and people that are given instruction to people and where hey guy comes in and I, I like lasers and all. Like, hey, hey, they're, look at this one here. Just calibration occupation here. I mean,
Howard (Howie) (16:45):
That's a thick book. Right. So how are they finding that? First of all, it's great that it's getting into the hands of guidance counselors, because I was, you know, serious in the Chicago area mm-hmm. Good public schools. But I don't remember spend a lot of time with a guidance counselor on what my future was gonna be. Sure. Um, so whatever, maybe I got a, a miss on that one. But with that in their hands, now with those entries in there, there's a chance to get it exposed to young students. How do you find that amongst the myriad? I mean, it's a, a needle in a haystack right? Trying to find that particular career field among the rest.
Christopher Grachanen (17:21):
Well, you know, that's the nice thing about the, the handbook is you can do a sort on buzzwords, you know, things. So it's like I said, I like lasers and I like to do so that there are some of the buzzwords that will appear in the occupations. And one of them could very well be the calibration technologist. Mm-hmm .
Chuck (17:39):
You know, the, the, the thing that I think I should add to this conversation aside from that is, you know, becoming a calibration technician right now
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Mm-hmm.
Chuck (17:46):
Really has never been a better field to enter in with minimal experience. You know, we, we, we, we've been down this road going on for a good 10 years, where the qualifications of the military providing us with qualified calibration technicians has been, you know, diluted to a, a, a huge number. And so companies are being forced to train their own calibration people. And so people coming into the industry are being trained, if you will, as we all know, by their employer. And there is a great opportunity for those individuals that don't want to go to college, that want a great career field to become calibration technicians.
Howard (Howie) (18:25):
And I can tell you that's what, that's what we've done at transcat, right? Yeah. We have Transcat University in Houston that we've developed. We're partnering with sign calibration for the, you know, theoretical pieces of that for the training modules. And then we do application transition with mentoring in the labs on the job experience. Right. Typically, what we're looking for is, uh, people have had exposure to instrumentation. Yeah. They've worked with that. If you're, you know, working on cars as a teenager or, you know, in your teens and twenties, that's something that you wanna learn more about. You've got the exposure to the instruments, you know what they're used for. That's half the battle. Bring you in and teach you the rest for calibration and traceability. Same thing with people who are working on production lines somewhere. Right. And they're tired of that monotony, but they see what the instruments are doing, and now we can bring 'em into the fold. So there's great ways for people without direct calibration training to get into metrology.
Christopher Grachanen (19:20):
Abso Absolutely. I remember when Lee suggested that, you know about the university, and, you know, when I left transcat, I left a lot of Russians material. Yes. And, um, one thing that's next time I, I visit the lab, I, I got two boxes of original HP application notes from the seventies, eighties, and stuff that are absolutely just fabulous gold mining. But another thing about metrology and education, do you remember the metrology cd? Oh,
Howard (Howie) (19:47):
Yeah. Oh yeah. I was on that committee.
Christopher Grachanen (19:48):
Yeah. Yeah. That, that, that was a good, I got the whole careers of
Howard (Howie) (19:52):
Metrology.
Christopher Grachanen (19:53):
Yeah. Yeah. I thought, I thought that was an excellent, it was
Howard (Howie) (19:55):
Fun. And what I liked about that too is that they had little clips of interviews with people in the industry.
Christopher Grachanen (20:01):
Yeah. You were
Howard (Howie) (20:02):
Talking about how they got into it, right. Yeah. And that was pretty, pretty fun to watch.
Christopher Grachanen (20:05):
Yeah. You were, you were interviewed. I, I I was interviewed. Yeah.
Chuck (20:08):
Bunch folks were. So, Chris, um, you know, I have a bad memory and I know I've known you for 30 plus years.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Mm-hmm.
Chuck (20:19):
How did we meet? I, I, I,
Christopher Grachanen (20:21):
I, I, I did, I think it was at NCSL, and I believe I was sitting in the dorm, I don't know what the session was, a presentation, but I remember this, this, this, this gorilla getting up and just challenging the speakers . And I'm like, who is that guy? You know? Yeah. And I, I think right after the session, I, I think I came up and I shook your hand and I said, Hey, that was kinda ballsy what you said. And we just hit it off from there.
Howard (Howie) (20:51):
Yeah, that's, I talked about that in the previous episode where I got heckled and strung with the audience, and it was Chuck that did that.
Christopher Grachanen (20:58):
It was Chuck.
Howard (Howie) (20:59):
And it's not that he's trying to, you know, poke fun in any way. He's actually challenging the thought process and saying, you know, what is it that we're trying to get to?
Chuck (21:07):
You know, I, I wish I could remember that, because honestly, I, that's, that, that, that's a memory I wish that I, that I could recall, but mm-hmm . You know, I, I, I have other memories I recall with both of you guys. And, and I think that's what I wanna share with the audience is, you know, I've known both of you guys a long time, obviously Chris, you know, you, you and I have known each other just maybe a day or two long that I've known Howard
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Mm-hmm
Chuck (21:27):
. But, you know, one of the things that, that I owe you a personal gratitude for is, you know, when I, you know, started NAPT going on 30 years ago, now, you were there, you know, I just, I gave you, I made a phone call and you didn't even take a, a second to say, yes, you would help me out. You were, you were right away. What, what, I can almost imagine you saying, what do you need from me and you, you've got Compact to sponsor us, you know, with computers, and you've got Compact to, to give us our first set of artifacts. I think the very first, um, kit we did was a DMM. And that was one that you donated? Uh, yeah. A five and a half DMM that you donated from the, from your storage that you guys had. And that was our first artifact. And the other thing that people don't know is you wrote the very first set of software
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yes.
Chuck (22:14):
For doing the reports. Mm-hmm . Now, now granted we've migrated about 50 times,
Howard (Howie) (22:19):
Which is no easy feat, by the way. We're not talking about just the coding that could be complicated. Right. But the content
Christopher Grachanen (22:26):
Mm-hmm . Yeah. In the math, very
Howard (Howie) (22:28):
Detailed.
Christopher Grachanen (22:28):
Yeah. And during that time, we, we pioneered the, uh, the in, within and out that we've had a bunch of published papers and really kinda set the, the standard for industry.
Chuck (22:39):
Yep. And, and everyone copied that from us, Chris. And, and I, I, you know, I love that too, because everyone uses that, that, that, uh, the algorithm, you know, and in a lot of other papers and a lot of other, you know, I, I see that, that that graph used all the time. And that's something that you developed, you know, and, you know, with the conjunction with, you know, I, I, I don't like to take credit for it, but you and I, we spent many hours talking about how we're gonna create these and, and what do we want for statistics, you know, and, and, and because they didn't have 13 528 back then,
Christopher Grachanen (23:07):
No, we didn't,
Chuck (23:08):
You know, so we, we had to come up with what the rules were. And, and they, they did have a paper that was written and, um, do you remember who it was? Um, Perry? Was it Dr. Perry? Oh, I think you're right. I think you're right by rings a bell. I don't remember the Yeah. But the, he had, it was a reference document for Dewey, statistical analysis for inflammatory comparisons based on, on, uh, dataset. Uh, I, again, my, I apologize. My memory is not what it used to be. But anyways, my, my point was, Chris, is that I remember when we had our first board meeting in Minneapolis, everybody came to Minneapolis and we broke into sessions, and we wrote the quality manual, and we had the whole thing done in a weekend. And boy, that is one of the best memories I have, is how the metrology community came together. The people that I come to know and trust all got together, came to Minneapolis on their own dimes. 'cause many, um, NAP didn't have two, two nickels to rub together at that time
Christopher Grachanen (24:05):
In the beginning.
Chuck (24:05):
Yeah. And they, they, they wrote the quality manual, and they, they, they got people and they, they, they talked about pushing that together. So, you know, there's a lot of times I get credit for, for NAPT, but the truth is, the metrology community community built that, yeah. Community. You,
Christopher Grachanen (24:21):
I, I have the same analogy with the CCT program. You know, when, when I was challenged by, uh, Phil Stein, you know, to develop the Certified Calibration Technician program, I took the challenge, I wrote up the proposal one from the Board of Directors for a SQ, and it was accepted. So based on that, I pulled in folks from the metrology community. I remember we had one in Washington DC that was fabulous. We had representation from mom and pop shops up to DOD. Um, we had NASA folks there. And I can remember when we were first described what we want in a CCT program that we had yellow stickum. And this was a big conference room with bunch of windows. And you could see out the Windows , they had so many yellow stickum. We had such good interaction. It was phenomenal from theology community. And so afterwards, we, we had the workshops up in the Milwaukee at a SQ to develop the body of knowledge, develop the test questions. So, and these were all people that just volunteered, you know, that just came from all walks and places of life. And that's how we developed the, the questions we had Psychometricians that helped us, lead us what is involved in writing questions, you know, and you know, what we wanted as far as to cover the, the body of knowledge and stuff. So the, you know, a lot of people said, wow, you know, you, you, you created CCT. No, no, I heard it. A bunch of metrology posts.
Howard (Howie) (25:54):
But that's what it takes, right? Yeah. Somebody could corral it
Chuck (25:57):
Mm-hmm .
Howard (Howie) (25:58):
And yes, there's a lot of involvement from the community. Yep.
Chuck (26:01):
Do you think, do you think that that a lot of, that, that goodwill
Howard (Howie) (26:04):
Mm-hmm
Chuck (26:05):
. I mean, I have my personal opinion and, you know, I don't want to influence either two of you guys mm-hmm
Speaker 3 (26:09):
. But
Chuck (26:10):
To do both of you guys, you know, have any thoughts that, that, that volunteerism that was, you know, very much the thing of the norm years ago. Has that been decreased in your opinion over the last 10, 15 years?
Howard (Howie) (26:23):
I think it has. I think, you know, you look at the trade shows and the reduction in attendance having a lot to do with social media presence and, and online videos, which then separates people from being more active and, and volunteer type of activities.
Christopher Grachanen (26:40):
Yeah. I, I see it, you know, it, it, it was un uncommon to be involved with 2, 3, 4 committees, you know, NCSL or, or whatnot. And I see these committees, you know, they're down to like five people times six people. They're just, they're just, you know, we need, we need help. We need volunteers. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah.
Christopher Grachanen (26:57):
I have to concur. Check. I, I think the expectation of giving back to the profession isn't as strong as it once was.
Chuck (27:07):
So the work's not getting done. It needs to get done.
Christopher Grachanen (27:10):
Yeah. Essentially. Correct. A a lot of work like that. Yeah.
Chuck (27:13):
Yeah. That's, and that's, that's a sad thing because there's still a lot of things that, that, that we want to continue to grow because that we're, we're, we're, we're seeing a, not a new technology, you know, the quantum physics, for example. There's a lot of new technology that's coming out. And, and the leaders of this c of this, our, our, our profession, if you will, where are they? I mean, Chris, you're retiring, right? Who's gonna replace Chris Scratching? You know, who, who is the new Chris scratching out there? Mm-hmm . Again, I'm not trying to be negative, but Yeah. You know, who's gonna replace these people that are retiring? I could, I could give a, a list of 20 people that I know are retiring this year alone. Mm-hmm . And, you know, who's gonna replace those 20 people? I, I don't, I don't see it, honestly.
Christopher Grachanen (27:55):
Yeah. And I, I don't see AI filling that gap. The
Howard (Howie) (28:00):
No, certainly not.
Christopher Grachanen (28:01):
Yeah. I, I, I recently was show you with you a program that I did in co valley training, and you know what? AI makes mistakes. Yeah. Makes drastic mistakes. You gotta train AI and you gotta what Reagan trust but verify.
Chuck (28:18):
Yeah, exactly. Well, interesting. Okay. So, so we, we've covered just about everything professionally. We, I think we, we can give acknowledgements. Howard, do you agree? Do we, do we need to bend over and you know, any more, Howard? Oh, on, come on.
Howard (Howie) (28:33):
Look. Yeah. We haven't even touched Scratch the surface on the number of, you know, awards. You know, his fellowships, all, all, everything that he's accomplished. There is so much you can go read that, right?
Chuck (28:44):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (28:45):
Nothing take away from you, Chris, you've done a phenomenal job with your career and volunteering and, and making things happen. Um, but we wanna get into more of the meat of things of, you know, what you do on a daily basis and, um, how that impacts. Well, let's start with that, right? With you being on the board of directors again, uh, why did you decide to come back? What, what attracted you to that?
Christopher Grachanen (29:06):
Well, uh, you know, I, I saw that there were, uh, neat, like a company, like an I, you know, globally mm-hmm . You know, that, that as far as proficiency testing, proficiency testing was typically done by predecessors in a haphazard way. And the consistency across laboratories. Like when I first came over with ni, we had, uh, uh, four major laboratories. We had in Texas, we had in Hungary, we had it in Malaysia, and we had in China, each one was asylum. Each one had their own quality systems. Each one. Yes. Well, and they were all accredited. So that was one of the things that I was tasked in having to do, was to, to bring it all together under one umbrella.
Howard (Howie) (29:48):
So there's a challenge for you, right? Because the whole concept of ISO 71 25 is to have a standard that's, uh, accepted by all. And now you're in a position where you're seeing different countries and how they go through accreditation and how they interpret 1745, and you're seeing differences, right? The way they operate.
Christopher Grachanen (30:06):
It was inconsistency. It was, uh, uh, a lot of folks didn't know what they didn't know. Uh, you know, so, you know, bringing it into one, you know, umbrella with both the uncertainties and, you know, to keep 'em consistent across so that we can leverage, you know, if we have downtime and Hungary, I can ship things to Malaysia and know that I'm, I'm doing the same uncertainties and we're, we just brought aboard our, our newest laboratory in India. And so we've gone through the initial accreditation based on what we've learned from our other laboratories and passed first time.
Howard (Howie) (30:40):
So I gotta ask you, um, just thinking about different countries, we're sitting here talking about the challenge of finding technicians to grow into mm-hmm . The US labs mm-hmm . Right? Whether they're internal or commercial labs, what are other countries doing? How are they fighting?
Christopher Grachanen (30:55):
Oh, they're, you know, and, and this is great, you know, I spent a lot of time at Jefferson, that's where I went to where he is in Hungary and they have, uh, technical institutes. Alright. Specifically catering. What is the need of hungry? And, and there is definitely, I don't wanna say career fields, but there's definitely education pursuits to become educated in metrology. So they're, they're hardcore, they're embedded in that they're accredited, and it's just not one laboratory or one institute and hungry. It's spread around hungry. So you're able to then bring these people into the metrology community. And in Malaysia, I saw a lot different, I saw a lot more mentoring, you know, where they would bring folks in and, you know, a reduced rate and not putting out widgets and stuff, but half they would be into mentoring to being, you know, with a person there specifically to group them into a position with a guarantee that at the end of your, your mentor and you show certain qualifications, you guaranteed a job. And
Howard (Howie) (32:05):
Like apprenticeship.
Christopher Grachanen (32:06):
Yeah, exactly. And a very good job. I saw the same type of app pre in Shanghai in China, the same thing. So
Howard (Howie) (32:15):
Interesting. Yeah.
Christopher Grachanen (32:16):
You, and
Howard (Howie) (32:17):
Unlike, I think that's really what I think it comes down to, is you've gotta have that pass it on type of process.
Christopher Grachanen (32:22):
Yeah. And unlike any other country besides us, I, I never saw anybody within these laboratories. The came from the military.
Howard (Howie) (32:30):
Yeah. I figured that is probably the case.
Christopher Grachanen (32:32):
Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (32:34):
Wow.
Chuck (32:35):
Interesting. Okay. Well, the other, the other interesting thing about your, what you do after life, you know, we, we wanna talk about is we touched on before, is your guitars. You know, I, I said I'm gonna back away and I personally know Chris, that you love playing the guitar.
Christopher Grachanen (32:49):
Absolutely.
Chuck (32:50):
Chris,
Howard (Howie) (32:50):
How is it that we've never jammed all the years? We, we've got each other.
Christopher Grachanen (32:53):
I, I never drank guitar. You never drank drum storm world? No. And I'm trying, don't the drum, but I gotta be honest, you know, I, I played guitar all my life. I was acoustic guitar player. I grew up America, you know, that, that type of genre. And then my girlfriend, we went to visit her brother who was, he was Sergeant Arms and Bandidos on him. And, but he's Mexican. My girlfriend's Mexican, and he is my guitar Gulu. He has played Pink Floyd on his 1987 red strap perfectly. So I says, Hmm, okay. So he gave me, he gave me an old Rickenbacker guitar, electric guitar, and I never got into electric guitar, but all of a sudden things started to click
Howard (Howie) (33:39):
About,
Christopher Grachanen (33:40):
And oh, and then I start, I bought my first strap, you know, ES three 30 fives, that I got 10 guitars more, more than 10 guitars. I got me one of my favorites that it took a long time though to fix, was a, a 1982 Glen Campbell special Ovation 12 string.
Howard (Howie) (33:58):
I had an ovation years ago.
Christopher Grachanen (33:59):
Well, lemme show you. Not
Howard (Howie) (34:00):
That I'm a guitar,
Christopher Grachanen (34:01):
I'm gonna grab it off the wall just to show you. Okay.
Howard (Howie) (34:04):
Yeah. The round back. That's pretty cool. You know, I've messed around with it, but I am clearly not a guitarist.
Chuck (34:10):
Well, you, you, you're a drummer. We all, we all know that you're the drummer. Yeah, yeah.
Howard (Howie) (34:15):
Now that, that's a beautiful guitar. It's just
Christopher Grachanen (34:19):
Beautiful.
Howard (Howie) (34:20):
It is. And it has a great sound. So
Christopher Grachanen (34:24):
I
Howard (Howie) (34:24):
Thought you were gonna perform for us
Christopher Grachanen (34:25):
What happened? No, no, no. That's, that's from the next, next one. Okay. Well, one, one the opportunity. I, so I started to go, I do, I do a lot of my own music I play out and stuff. But one of the things that I was very happy is I brought the, the gift of music to my grandkids, my, well, my, my granddaughter, my girlfriend's, grandkids. But on grandpa, I, I taught 'em all how to fish. No, none of them ever to learn how to fish. But I bought them their first, I bought Squire Electric guitars, you know, cheap balls and amplifier. And we would go out in the garage and we would start jamming. And these guys have just phenomenal, you know, they got, they got those big spidey fingers where they can span four or five rets the same time, moon and stuff. But, we'll, we'll, we'll go into what's one of favorite one we do. We do, of course, pink Floyd a a bunch of stuff there, but Carlos Santana, we do some, we do some, some Carlos stuff. Santana is just, just amazing. And I, I'm just tickling, they just gotten so good. And to them join the Marine the summer, but they're gonna have that gift the rest of their life.
Chuck (35:29):
Nice. Nice. Good job. Well, now we get to move into the personal questions where we get to embarrass you. Oh, shit. Shit. Okay. Oh, shit. Well, Matt, for the first question that we'd like to ask our guests, and we got a couple questions we always ask every guest mm-hmm . The, the first question that I'm gonna ask, and then Howard's gonna ask one, we're gonna rotate, we'll see how long it takes to become embarrassed.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Two,
Chuck (35:50):
What is your favorite, I know you had a ton of them, but if you could nail it down to one best moment that you've had in your metrology career career besides meeting me, of course, you know, besides you Yeah. What would that moment be?
Howard (Howie) (36:05):
We call it the four M, right? We're using alliteration called the most memorable metrology moment. Well, what would that be for you?
Christopher Grachanen (36:13):
It, what would directly was inferred metrology. And I know Howard, you're gonna appreciate this. And you know, at the Challenger I was working, NASA Lewis, John Glenn went down to Kennedy Space Center, and we had the layoffs and we had all the problem with rock and die and stuff. And then Discovery was on the path, and we were all out there, you know, CIF building, you can't quite see, you have to go up on the roof to be able to see it.
Howard (Howie) (36:39):
Yes.
Christopher Grachanen (36:39):
. Yeah. And so everybody,
Howard (Howie) (36:41):
Even though we got in trouble for doing that, we still did.
Christopher Grachanen (36:42):
Yeah. We did , we, we some somebody else got in trouble, but I mean, arm and arm, I mean, the janitors, the VPs, everybody in the laboratory, you know, that, that supported this when we saw it doing the, and then all of a sudden and then take off and, you know, see the water deluge and you feel your shirt ripple from the sound and stuff like that. Yeah. To me, you know, that, that made what I had worked for metrology. And knowing that, you know, I, I, I, I contribute to that flight, that was probably the most, that's
Howard (Howie) (37:17):
The prompt moment for sure.
Christopher Grachanen (37:18):
Yeah. That was
Howard (Howie) (37:20):
Awesome. Nati, I thought you were gonna talk about your silver Snoopy.
Christopher Grachanen (37:24):
Oh, that I didn't get.
Howard (Howie) (37:26):
Yeah.
Christopher Grachanen (37:27):
Well, okay.
Howard (Howie) (37:29):
It's still, you know, you were nominated, right?
Christopher Grachanen (37:31):
Yeah. Long story short, you know, when, when I first owned KSC, I had my, my supervisor from John gans name's Mike Maxwell PE I love Mike. Did you ever know? Yeah. Mikey,
Howard (Howie) (37:42):
Mikey, Mike, Mike. I didn't work directly for him, but he was an amazing person.
Christopher Grachanen (37:47):
Oh, Mikey was just phenomenal. And when I first came down there, I was, I was an electro meteorologist then we had layoffs course, and there was, there was need in the lab, there was dimensional lab, there was need, and Mikey said, just go just wherever you need to just go. And, you know, we had so many senior technicians that took me under the wing and mentioned me. And so long story short, we to do a lot of those big little high gauges, you know, the pressure gauges. Oh, a ton of those. Yeah. And so one of the things you had to make sure once it was cleaned, you know, you didn't wanna have any hyper coal or any toxics in it. So they would go through mono
Howard (Howie) (38:21):
Hydrazine, whatever.
Christopher Grachanen (38:22):
Yeah. They would, they would go through the clean process and then, uh, uh, they would, uh, inject the fluid. At that time, I think it was Freon. And then they would go through a, uh, uh, a micro crawls filter, and we would look at the particulates,
Speaker 3 (38:36):
Uhhuh .
Christopher Grachanen (38:36):
And, uh, I came into the laboratory and I saw a bunch of samples there, and something caught my eye, you know, and, and it didn't seem kind of right. Uh
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Mm-hmm .
Christopher Grachanen (38:48):
So I, I looked at it, I said, lemme look under the microscope and stuff. And I was just using, uh, just ambient light. But I saw things there that did not look right. They looked like rust.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Mm.
Christopher Grachanen (39:01):
And the little bit of knowledge that I knew about the hyper galls, it said, you know, come on in with an oxidizer, and rust is an oxidizer. Things go boom. So I got a bunch of samples on there. I took to the material analysis laboratory, the dissection, and indeed they found rust Yep. In the board on tubes. And so, uh, there was instantly the, uh, um, I can remember I used to drive, uh, I had, uh, 38, 39, you know, on, on my motorcycle. And I can remember looking out and seeing streamers, red flags, where they had tagged all the, the gauges that could possibly, you know, have contamination. Right. So, uh, I wrote a paper, it was actually in 1989, I think, NASA proceedings and stuff, uh, uh, where the material analysis came back and says, there is a, uh, uh, a, a big possibility that we could lose the shuttle on people if these cages got mixed, you know, or the, they, the rest had got. And so based on that, I was, uh, uh, nominated to, to receive, uh, so Snoopy. Yeah,
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Uh,
Christopher Grachanen (40:06):
Uh, but, uh, I had, uh, decided to leave, uh, NASA contract, and I went up to work for Digital Equipment Corporation deck up in Massachusetts. And because I was leaving, why waste the silver?
Howard (Howie) (40:19):
Yep. Understood. But the nomination and the work that you did,
Christopher Grachanen (40:23):
That's
Howard (Howie) (40:24):
What I wanted to bring that light.
Christopher Grachanen (40:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was very gratifying work. I, I got where, uh, that's the one thing I loved about, uh, KSC stuff, like material analysis, labor quality stuff. You, you, it was all one family. It wasn't, uh, you know, Hey, where's the money coming from before I can talk to you? You know, the pass, the funding and money between contract, it didn't exist. Well, it might exist, but I didn't see it too much.
Howard (Howie) (40:48):
It started coming into play more later, uh, after you had left and I was there. Mm-hmm. That started getting to where, you know, it kind of stayed in your lane. And that's not good. That's how accidents happened. Rightly. You wanna share connection?
Christopher Grachanen (41:00):
You know, I have the opportunity to reread the Rogers Commission. Uh, uh, if you go through the decision making on the day, the day before, you know, the Challenger went off it's maze. I mean, people doing song and dance, song and dance, people that were so adamant about something, and then after a couple hours, they had another meeting and they changed their entire opinion. Mm-hmm . Fly. It was like, man, they must have got pressured or something.
Howard (Howie) (41:30):
That's what the problem was. Right. Nobody, nobody had the guts to say no. Right. Yeah. Not cleared for lunch. And they, they just went and that was wrong. Yeah. Yeah. We won't get into the details. Yeah.
Chuck (41:41):
Mm-hmm . Okay. Howard, your turn.
Howard (Howie) (41:45):
I would like to know, of all these places that you traveled all over the world mm-hmm
Chuck (41:48):
. What
Howard (Howie) (41:48):
Are the top one or two that I can't miss that I need to go see?
Christopher Grachanen (41:52):
Oh, Malaysia. Really? Malaysia, by far. Oh my God. Yeah. Uh, qala, lump war, uh, the, uh, the rainforest, uh, that are there, the, the, uh, hundreds of year old, uh, uh, tea, uh, fields, covering the mountains and stuff. You know, there are reserves there where they still have tigers. They still have, uh, uh, elephants wander and wild. Uh, the, the Malaysian people are the most fondest, happiest, lovable people you ever want. The food is great. The weather's great. Uh, I enjoy my time in I go there. That, that's one of my favorite. Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (42:27):
Good to know. Thank you.
Chuck (42:29):
Yep. Yeah. Someone else recommended Malaysia too. Um, Howard Peter. He said that. Peter . Yeah.
Christopher Grachanen (42:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it, it, it's phenomenal though. Uh, you know, uh, 70% of Malaysia is reserves. You cannot build on it. They will not lose their heritage and stuff. How about they're just, and they're happy people.
Howard (Howie) (42:51):
All right. For those Zoolander fans out there, we are not gonna kill the prime Minister of Malaysia. . No, no, no,
Chuck (42:58):
No. Well, believe it or not, uh, gentlemen, we've already been here for 40 minutes. Oh, it goes by quick
Howard (Howie) (43:03):
Because, well, this, every time, this is the point in the show where we give our words of wisdom. So my words of wisdom are this. Just remember this. Gr good thought. Robotics engineers are never lonely because they're always making new friends. , ,
Chuck (43:22):
Chuck
Howard (Howie) (43:22):
Your words of wisdom.
Chuck (43:23):
No, I, I, I think that I could have, I could have went with a, a day without that, but, you know, I don't know. Uh, I'm gonna say my words of wisdom for my closing thoughts. I, I, because, you know, my wisdom is one that should be salvad and saved and and spoken last in the world. Chris, do you have any, uh, uh, partying thoughts that, that they'd like to say? Uh, before we call it a day? I, my friend,
Christopher Grachanen (43:44):
Uh, well, actually, uh, I, I do, uh, and it's, it is kind of fundamental to metrology and know, and it goes down to when Reagan, uh, you know, when he was with the breaking down the wall and stuff, and it was the idea of trust with verify. Don't assume
Chuck (44:01):
You like that. That's, that, that's your phrases, Dave.
Christopher Grachanen (44:03):
Yeah. That that works for me though.
Chuck (44:05):
Yeah. Yeah. My, my, my particular phrase is one I've learned in the, uh, uh, when I was in the service, you know, while you guys were, were saving the, the, the shuttle program, I was, you know, I was busy, you know, fighting the wars, you know, back in the day. So, but, uh, you know, uh, there's two things. I think, you know, actions speak louder than words. Mm-hmm . I, I've, I've said that my entire life. Mm-hmm . And I had, when I went to the academy, the TAC officer, I said, you know, always said to us, if you're not solving the problem, you are the problem. So those are two of my key phrases that I have always tried to live by. And, uh, so solving to me, solving the problem, and obviously then, you know, that's the action, the, the absence of that's
Christopher Grachanen (44:46):
Really, I think to Marie is lead follow, get the hell outta the way. Yeah,
Howard (Howie) (44:51):
Yeah,
Christopher Grachanen (44:52):
Yeah. You
Howard (Howie) (44:52):
Guys, well, we say you're so full of philosophical wisdom there. Can that change my robotics engineer statement? ?
Chuck (45:00):
Well, the other thing that we didn't share with the audience, I can't believe that we didn't share it, is that this is probably one of the few times that you're gonna see a conversation, uh, a podcast with three people that are, were, were graciously awarded the exact same award.
Christopher Grachanen (45:18):
Regiment science, the Woodton Award. We're all Woody's,
Chuck (45:22):
We're, we're all woody.
Christopher Grachanen (45:23):
That's it. Weddings, woody brothers. Lot of jokes after that. But we won't get into that.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Yeah.
Chuck (45:30):
Chris, you were the first, uh, what you, uh, award recipient way back in what, 1945? Was it when you got yours?
Christopher Grachanen (45:37):
. Uh,
Howard (Howie) (45:38):
Which is interesting because NC SL was founded, what, 19 76, 9, somewhere in there, right?
Christopher Grachanen (45:44):
Yeah, I, I, it was the same year I won the wood hack, so I was, I was a double player. I got a winnington and wood hack in the same year.
Chuck (45:51):
Yeah. Yeah. And then Howard, you were two years later? I think.
Howard (Howie) (45:55):
Uh, you know, I think it was 2019. I don't remember the year. Sorry,
Chuck (46:02):
. Well, it's, it's easy to remember. So, okay, well, listen, uh, gentlemen, uh, it's, it's Chris, uh, as we said me a couple seconds ago, never enough time. Um, I guarantee we're gonna have to have you back again and probably we'll have you back. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll do a, we'll pick a topic where we can explore more of a singular item, whether it be uncertainty analysis or something that, that we really wanna spend a lot of time on,
Howard (Howie) (46:29):
Or guitar riff, you never know. Or
Chuck (46:30):
Guitar riff. Yeah, I would, I would just think, Howard, you drag the drums out and I'm gonna plug in the, uh,
Speaker 3 (46:36):
You,
Chuck (46:36):
We ought to do Howard, we ought to get, uh, a foursome is get Paul on board and get the, you know, Paul and Howard, uh, Paul and Chris to do a little bit of a card guitar action at the same time. Yes.
Christopher Grachanen (46:47):
I love it. Yeah. And, and maybe we can invite my buddy Jeff Willie and bring in some,
Howard (Howie) (46:51):
I'd like to have Jeff on board. Absolutely.
Christopher Grachanen (46:53):
Yeah. Yeah.
Howard (Howie) (46:54):
I've gone to see him play a couple times when I lived in Orlando. Haven't been able to get see him lately.
Chuck (46:58):
Well, you know, he's moved now. Jeff is, Jeff is moved. He's, he's married and happy and living up north Yes. And a on a farm, you know, so he's a very happy guy now. Mm-hmm
Speaker 3 (47:07):
.
Chuck (47:07):
So we're very happy for you, Jeff, if you're, if you're listening to this, uh, absolutely. Send, drop us the line and tell us how you're doing, by the way, Jeff. So, so with that being said, uh, let, let's call it a day. Um, you know, I wanted to thank our sponsor. We didn't thank our sponsor all day long for supporting this podcast, national Association of Proficiency Testing. Thank you very much. Mm-hmm . As I always like to say, you know, proficiency testing is the only two way you can prove your technical competency. So if you don't use the services of NAPT, do it some other way because you need to do, participate in order to prove your technical competence. So with that said being said, Chris, thank you so much for participating. We look forward to the next time we chat.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Great
Chuck (47:46):
Talking to you again. We'll, we'll see you soon. Yeah, couple weeks, gentlemen. We'll forward to seeing you soon. Down the road. Peace.