Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome back to another episode of Living Your Legacy podcast. For Inside Success, I'm Ray Gutierrez. Today, another legacy maker, Clayton Curtis. Bub, how are you feeling, my friend, from top-tier line work?
I'm feeling good. Feeling good. You better be.
We just finished filming your episode.
I know, yeah. How do you feel? Man, it was like everything was coming at once, and I didn't know what to say sometimes, but I think it went all right. Right on, dude. Where are you coming from? Branson, Missouri. Right on, dude.
Are you often in Miami?
Never in Miami ever in my life until today, until yesterday. And I will ride it out until Tuesday because we'll see what Miami is about. Cool. Well, I hope day one didn't disappoint. No, no, it didn't.
Well, you're in for a treat. You're in for quite a summer because quite for a weekend. I think it's a holiday on Monday.
Yeah. Yeah. Labor Day.
Right on. Well, welcome. Welcome aboard, dude. What are we going to learn about you in your episode?
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Chapter 2: How did Clayton Curtis become an entrepreneur in fiber optics?
Yeah.
So how the hell do you make the world, I don't know, move? Like, what's the... It's got to be a pain in the ass to get fiber through the ground, all the regulations, all the bullshit. It is. Like, Google versus AT&T, please walk me through the nightmare.
So, like, people don't understand, like, fiber... So let's say, for instance, a 48 count. That's a fiber that we put up that's pretty popular, right? So when you look at it, it's just a black tube that's like this, that's coated. But then when you crack into it, it's got 48 fibers that is in there. And these fibers are like, if you pull a hair and you look at a hair, that's what they look like.
And they're glass tubes. And so... What a lot of people don't understand is when these fiber runs that we get put on, they're no-cut fiber runs. So they'll like to start from point A, and you're going to pull it to point B 15,000 foot down. Yeah. through zigzags and through 90s without breaking any of these fiber tubes. Holy moly. Yeah, yeah. And so we'll go through and jig out.
We'll have to, like, let's say we get a 15,000-foot run. We'll have to set up in the middle or find a breaking point, send it one way, tension back to that trailer, and then spit out the remaining footage and go the other way because when that fiber gets put under a certain pressure of a bend radius, you'll ruin your whole run. Holy moly. And I've got to pay for that. Sure.
Shit, that sounds intense. Before we get to the nitty-gritty, literally, this literally sounds like Roswell technology. I've got to say, internet, fiber, Blackhawks. It's crazy. do you feel sometimes like this is not human tech?
No, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. And I'm the one that's installing it. And so it gets crazy because like you could take a whole reel of 20,000 foot reel untouched on, just crack it open and shine a light. Like we'll have, we'll have, yeah, we'll have a light that testing the light and we'll shine it at the end of that tube or the end of that fiber.
And it'll roll through that whole 20,000 foot reel and shoot a red light out the other end. And it's absolutely insane. And it's that quick. Nothing's faster than the speed of light.
Yeah, I was just going to say that's kind of what I think life is, and our brains are just filtering it, and it's called life.
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Chapter 3: What challenges are faced in installing fiber optic lines?
We're on it like, okay, I've always got a crew that's on call because we know what's going to happen through the night.
I'm sure a lot of the... A lot of money is made on the maintenance. Oh, yeah. Especially since it's such a fiber. It's just a delicate piece of tech that's out of this world. How much of it is maintenance? How much of it is going back and digging the hole again and then, like, how do you fix something that cannot be broken?
Right. So it should not be broken. And it does get kind of difficult because it's not like, oh, well, just cut it and splice it here. Because, you know, it doesn't really work that way.
A lot of it right now when we're building the new builds, like let's say I just were to jump in a project and start building a new build project, you wouldn't find a lot of outages, obviously, because we're just putting it up. But usually you'll see by the time you start to get in like phase two, a year into that project,
and they're starting to light it up, they'll already have squirrel shoes, and they'll already have, you know. And so it's something that was like, oh, hold on. There's a demand in this kind of a business. There's already a demand in this kind of a business, but who's maintaining this stuff? I know contractors are coming in, making their money, and getting out. Yeah. But then what?
You know, and so then I would be like, OK, I'm going to get in. I'm going to make my money and I'm just going to hang out. And so and that's what I did. And so and so doing that with White River led me to another co-op, to another co-op. And they're like, hey, hold on. You can maintain fiber. You want to maintain ours?
And so, wow, it gets crazy because, I mean, we'll get calls like, hey, you've got an outage in Columbia. And it's like, oh, we got to drive three hours away and drop what we're doing to do that. But. I mean, it's helping. I mean, imagine going all day without internet or whatever. Sure, sure. That's all you live off of. So, I mean, we try to be as responsible as possible and tend to this.
That's awesome. You're literally doing God's work. You're moving light from one point to the other.
It is, dude. It's like sometimes we'll get on runs. It's like, man, you're tying in three different towns here. So make sure we're doing it right. It's a big deal.
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Chapter 4: How does fiber optic technology differ from traditional communication methods?
Yeah. And so it is a lot of it too is, and that's also why top tiers built a name too, because a lot of contractors will run into scenarios like that and they'll either one build it wrong. Cause that's how it said to build it. I'll get paid either way. And they'll say, fuck it. And that is not us. Or they'll go through and be like, man, we can't do it. Figure it out. This is your problem.
You should have engineered it the first time. And instead of, instead I will look at it and, and our guys, even if I'm not on the site, I know our supervisors or leads, they'll look at it and be like, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. We can reroute it to here, to here, to here. And honestly, we have enough footage and, you know, and they will, and they'll propose it to me. And I'll be like,
That's why I got you, right? And we'll make the call and be like, hey, guys, this is a problem, but this is our solution. So usually I will never make a call to be like, hey, we've got a problem. There's no solution. What do you want us to do? Because usually it's always like, there's a problem. Here's how we would fix it, but do you want us to do it that way?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How are you keeping yourselves, I'm not going to say employed in 10 years, when 6G and 7Gs is faster than fiber at some point? Do you feel like you've reached a point where you're constantly busy? Is that ever going to even out? Like there's traffic lights everywhere, but you don't see folks like making billions in traffic light repair.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's always a fear. It's always a fear. And honestly, as the CEO, it's a fear that I have. I mean, I can't say that...
we're going to be steady booking 10 years from now but i would love to say we're going to be steady booking 10 years yeah but they're going to need transmitters yeah right so that's the thing and that's the thing too it's like kind of sculpting them around what was thrown at us so like when we first started we were just strictly coax phone line wow you know what i mean yeah yeah people don't even know what the hell that is
Exactly. Coax, copper, and that's what top tier learned on. And then it was like, okay, government grant for fiber. Hey, hold on. Hold up. And then it was chase the fiber down. And then it was like, okay, now the government grant's kind of pulling back because a lot of it's built or it's going up in the satellite. Yeah. So how can I maintain this?
And that's what even kind of drove like, then how can I maintain this? Because this isn't always going to be building. It's going to come to a point where it's all built. You can maintain it.
Yeah, exactly.
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