Mind Wrench Podcast

Episode #158 - The Art of Pivoting- w/Jeremy Winters-PART 1

January 29, 2024 Rick Selover w/ Jeremy Winters Episode 158
Episode #158 - The Art of Pivoting- w/Jeremy Winters-PART 1
Mind Wrench Podcast
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Mind Wrench Podcast
Episode #158 - The Art of Pivoting- w/Jeremy Winters-PART 1
Jan 29, 2024 Episode 158
Rick Selover w/ Jeremy Winters

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Episode Notes: 

When Jeremy Winters, a former refinish technician with an artistic flair, faced a life-altering health scare, he didn't let it end his career. Instead, he learned to pivot, transforming his passion for automotive painting into a role that continues to influence the industry from a new perspective. This episode we navigate Jeremy's inspiring journey from the shop floor to his position at Accudraft Booths, exploring the resilience required to turn adversity into opportunity.

My conversation with Jeremy is more than a mere trip down memory laneβ€”it's an eye-opener on the potential hazards of automotive refinishing. His first-hand account pinpoints the crucial moments where health concerns from paint fumes forced him to hit the brakes on his career as a painter. Yet, it was through these challenges that we uncover the serendipitous encounters and the robust network that steered Jeremy towards a path of industry relations and content creation. His gratitude towards fresh air systems, mentorship, and the evolution of workplace safety is palpable, and it underscores a message that resonates with every technician who has ever picked up a spray gun.

Wrapping up Part 1 of this 2-part episode, Jeremy's anecdote reminds us that sometimes a single phone call can launch an entirely new chapter. A chance conversation led to an unanticipated job opportunity with AccuDraft, where he now crafts content that supports and educates fellow painting technicians. It's a compelling tale of harnessing resourcefulness, the strength of community, and how maintaining a passion for your craft can guide you through the most unexpected career turns. Listen in to hear how Jeremy's tenacity and dedication have made him an invaluable resource in the automotive refinishing community and be sure to come back next week for Part 2 & the inspirational conclusion of our conversation!

 

Guest Info: Jeremy Winters 

FB - https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.winters.33

IG and TikTok - @that_jeremy_fella 

Website:  https://www.accudraftpaintbooths.com/

 πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½

Sign up for FREE to my "Quote of the Day" below:

 https://tinyurl.com/fv5xr68h

Support the Show.

Join our Mind Wrench mailing list! πŸ‘‰ https://bit.ly/3DGNM9o


Need one-on-one Mindset or Personal Development coaching? – drop me a note @ Personal Coaching – Rick Selover

πŸ‘‰ CLICK HERE FOR 50% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH OF COACHING!

(use PROMO code FREE50 in the message box!)

πŸ”—Affiliate Links

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πŸ§‘β€πŸ’Ό Need freelance help with your business? Check out Fiverr

β€‹πŸ›’β€‹πŸ’β€‹πŸ₯¦β€‹ Want an easier way to shop? Check out Instacart

Thanks for listening and please share The Mind Wrench Podcast with others!

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Send us a Text Message.

Episode Notes: 

When Jeremy Winters, a former refinish technician with an artistic flair, faced a life-altering health scare, he didn't let it end his career. Instead, he learned to pivot, transforming his passion for automotive painting into a role that continues to influence the industry from a new perspective. This episode we navigate Jeremy's inspiring journey from the shop floor to his position at Accudraft Booths, exploring the resilience required to turn adversity into opportunity.

My conversation with Jeremy is more than a mere trip down memory laneβ€”it's an eye-opener on the potential hazards of automotive refinishing. His first-hand account pinpoints the crucial moments where health concerns from paint fumes forced him to hit the brakes on his career as a painter. Yet, it was through these challenges that we uncover the serendipitous encounters and the robust network that steered Jeremy towards a path of industry relations and content creation. His gratitude towards fresh air systems, mentorship, and the evolution of workplace safety is palpable, and it underscores a message that resonates with every technician who has ever picked up a spray gun.

Wrapping up Part 1 of this 2-part episode, Jeremy's anecdote reminds us that sometimes a single phone call can launch an entirely new chapter. A chance conversation led to an unanticipated job opportunity with AccuDraft, where he now crafts content that supports and educates fellow painting technicians. It's a compelling tale of harnessing resourcefulness, the strength of community, and how maintaining a passion for your craft can guide you through the most unexpected career turns. Listen in to hear how Jeremy's tenacity and dedication have made him an invaluable resource in the automotive refinishing community and be sure to come back next week for Part 2 & the inspirational conclusion of our conversation!

 

Guest Info: Jeremy Winters 

FB - https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.winters.33

IG and TikTok - @that_jeremy_fella 

Website:  https://www.accudraftpaintbooths.com/

 πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½πŸ”½

Sign up for FREE to my "Quote of the Day" below:

 https://tinyurl.com/fv5xr68h

Support the Show.

Join our Mind Wrench mailing list! πŸ‘‰ https://bit.ly/3DGNM9o


Need one-on-one Mindset or Personal Development coaching? – drop me a note @ Personal Coaching – Rick Selover

πŸ‘‰ CLICK HERE FOR 50% OFF YOUR FIRST MONTH OF COACHING!

(use PROMO code FREE50 in the message box!)

πŸ”—Affiliate Links

πŸ‘€ Read or listen to Top non-fiction book on Blinkist 20% off membership & 7-day free trial

πŸ§‘β€πŸ’Ό Need freelance help with your business? Check out Fiverr

β€‹πŸ›’β€‹πŸ’β€‹πŸ₯¦β€‹ Want an easier way to shop? Check out Instacart

Thanks for listening and please share The Mind Wrench Podcast with others!

Rick:

This week, my special guest is a former 18-year refinished technician that is absolutely in love with his trade. He was forced out at an early age due to a work-related health issue, but followed his passion, which has now landed him a position with AccuDraft Booth as content creator and industry relations. He's also the former founder and host of Booth Talk podcast.

Rick:

Welcome to the MindWrench podcast with your host, rick Selover, where minor adjustments produce major improvements in mindset, personal growth and success. This is the place to be every Monday, where we make small improvements and take positive actions in our business and personal lives that will make a major impact in our success, next-level growth and quality of life.

Rick:

Hey, what's up everybody.

Rick:

Welcome to the MindWrench podcast. I'm your host, rick Selover. Thanks so much for stopping in. If you're a returning listener and haven't done so already, please take a minute and click the follow or subscribe button, and then rate and review the show. When you rate and review the show, the algorithms for Apple, spotify, google podcasts, iheart radio, amazon music and all the other platforms will see it's valuable and show it to more people that have never seen it before, and hopefully it can help them too. I would really, really really appreciate your help, sharing this word with your friends and family as well. If you're a brand-new listener, welcome. I hope you find something of value here that helps you in your personal or professional life as well. Please make sure to click the subscribe or follow button so you never miss another episode.

Rick:

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with a man whose intense passion for this refinished side of the industry can be truly felt as soon as he starts speaking. His relentless desire to help other painter technicians in whatever way he can is incredibly infectious. Jeremy Winters is currently the content creator and industry relations wizard for AccuDraft booths. His story is fascinating, from being born and raised into an artistic family, where he was naturally drawn into the automotive refinishing world early in life but sidelined by health concerns from his chosen profession way too early in his career. But then a training class, a friend and fate changed the trajectory of his life. This conversation was really good and a little long, so I decided to break it into two episodes. Please make sure to tune back in next week for part two, but first let's get to part one of that interview with Jeremy Winters.

Rick:

Welcome back everybody to the MindWrench podcast. I'm your host, rick Slover. Thanks so much for stopping in and spending a few minutes with me today. This week my special guest is a former 18-year refinished technician that's absolutely in love with his trade, but he was kind of forced out at an early age due to some work related health concerns. That didn't stop him. He followed his passion and which has now landed him in a position with AccuDraft booths as content creator, and he's he does the industry relations too. I've seen him in the past two years at Siemen. If you were there too, I'm sure you saw him. He's also the former founder and host of the Booth Talk podcast, which I'm sure a lot of you might have heard of, started back I think several years ago and ran till about COVID. But anyways, really excited this is. I'm looking forward to this. Please help me in welcoming Jeremy Winters to the MindWrench podcast. So, jeremy, glad you're here, welcome to the show.

Jeremy:

Thanks for having me. Man Glad to be part of it.

Rick:

Absolutely, absolutely. You know we talked earlier and you know I've I've ran into you so many times over the past several years and it's.

Rick:

It's almost like we've had some common paths and it's just kind of cool and I know you're, you're just like me, you're finished, you're finished, technician at heart. That got derailed a couple times but you still. I mean, that's still your passion. Can you give me a little bit because I think all of us have a little bit of an artistic background, it seems like, and we when we end up in in refinishing Can you share a little bit of your background, kind of where you started from, what kind of drove, that artistic flair that puts you down the path of being a painter? Sure?

Jeremy:

First and foremost, it's all my mother's fault and to this day I still blame her for it, you know, and she's going to get a kick out of that whenever she hears that.

Jeremy:

Yeah, but no so we had a arts and crafts business growing up. If you're in the South you'll recognize it. It's a. It's a type of painting called toll painting, to le, kind of just an old fashioned style with woodworking and whatnot. And my dad? That's what he did. He was a woodworker. My mom did all the painting. Well, my older brother he is a carbon copy of our father. Really scary genetics there. But he takes after my dad and he would always be out in the shop helping dad with woodworking itself.

Jeremy:

Well, I enjoyed painting and I was the youngest, so I got to hang out with mom all the time. So, yeah, over the years I clocked hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of hours sitting there with mom and just doing nothing but painting and picking up how she would do patterns, and you know then you know, child labor laws be dammed, and they were out there. You know varnishing everything and we've literally got hundreds of pieces out. There were varnishing, putting the shines on, and we're doing high gloss, matte finishes, stuff like that. But it all comes from her, you know, seeing what could be created from just a blank slate, and it was just something that was fun for her that eventually turned into a business for the family that we did for gosh 10 years, 11 years, something like that, but it was.

Jeremy:

It was a lot of fun, so she kind of got me introduced into you know the right way to do things for the art side of stuff. You know when, when you know I'd have to get the pieces prepped for, I'd have to tack everything down. I have the brushes ready. I would do base coating on certain parts for and they had to have a clean edge on everything they had. You know which you have to learn to hold the brush, just the right way to be able to do it different types of brush, different cut tips of the brush, ways to do different cornering and stuff. And just so that she would be ready so she could do studio artsy stuff and I got to do the basic stuff, that's pretty cool stuff to learn at a young age.

Rick:

To yeah, I was.

Jeremy:

I was four years old when I started working with her and I think I was. I was like four and a half whenever we four and a half or five whenever we took it on the road and started doing craft shows touring around. But it was. It was cool sitting beside her because she had a steady hand, man. That that's why I love seeing some of these artists, you know, with an airbrush and they're getting in there doing fine detail work or the pinch stripers yes, you guys that do pinch stripe work just blow my mind, because I remember watching mom do it and I picked up a little bit, but I never had that steady hand that she did.

Jeremy:

You know how to turn a brush as you're making a corner. You know using a stylist to kind of kind of make your legs coming off of the ball in stylus. All the different tricks that you could do to accent eyes. You know the highlights, shadows, all it was really cool to take it all in and it really gave me an appreciation for art and that there's always more to an image, to an art project, something that's been airbrushed, something has been painted, than just what meets the eye. And it sounds like I'm kind of nerding out about it.

Jeremy:

But when you get into it's okay, it's it, you tend to look deeper. One of the things that I like talking about is whenever I first saw my first giant artwork piece and it was by Mickey Harris, it was the old dragon semi. It was Carlisle, all truck nationals back in 2003 I believe it was. If you Google it, look it up everybody. This thing is monstrous, is entire semi, the front end, the trailer, and the more you look in it, the more little details you find. And that's the cool thing about it is that you can get as involved or as plain as you want or have stuff hidden in plain sight. Art is a skill and it's so amazing to be able to see, but I did see, you know, I know Mickey Harris.

Rick:

I ran into him at an early age and, yeah, he was just, he was the king of. He always had a crown, crown, royal bag with him in a bottle, right. He was doing those really cool full truck murals and paintings are just super detailed. So yeah, I, along with you, I love that level of artistic detail on vehicles now.

Jeremy:

So anyways, and to Mickey, just throw it out there, you know one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. If anybody has ever had the pleasure of meeting them, you understand exactly where we're going with that, but if you haven't, when you see him introduce yourself, dude is phenomenal. He is good people, as we say down here.

Rick:

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Rick:

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Rick:

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Jeremy:

But no, we did that for gosh 10, 11 years did the craft shows traveled around all the Southeast and we stopped doing it because of my dad's health. It sounds worse than what it was. He had old school hip replacements so it just got harder for him to get around doing set up, tear down stuff like that. Plus me, my brother and myself, we were getting older, getting into high school and Jason was getting into college and stuff, so times had changed. It was gonna fall more on my parents to do that and dad wasn't up for it. He didn't want to do it anymore. So his love of hot riding and mom sitting beside her for all those years of painting they just kind of merged.

Jeremy:

And every truck show I'd go to, I'm a truck guy, you got muscle car guys, I'm a sport truck guy, I'm a product of the 90s and just seeing some of these paint jobs that you would see the shades of the past up in Tennessee, the world of wheels, stuff like that you used to travel around, just phenomenal and I have so many fond memories of just I don't even and it sounds bad being a car guy. I didn't really even really care for a lot of the cars. It was the paint that always drew me into it. Just seeing the finish, just seeing the fit and finish. Just how flat is that panel? It looks like a mirror.

Jeremy:

The colors that's what drew me into it and you had to be a painter at that point, right? Yeah, it just drew me into it, man. And I got a quote for I think it was $2,000 to do a full color change on my old 88 Silverado that I had back in high school. Now, looking back at rose color glasses $2,000, yeah, I was about to get host, but especially for a full color change. But it was one of those things of $2,000. I can learn how to do this and literally that started everything. So it turned into an awesome career, one that you know we'll. I'm sure we'll touch on a bunch of different things on it, but you know I'm still in it. I'm not painting every day, but I can, I'm still involved in the industry and absolutely love it.

Rick:

So yeah, and you. So. You were several shops right and you did some independence. You finished up, I think, in some dealership work, but what kind of pushed you out to where you had to change direction? I know you were doing a couple of different things, but I know we talked a little bit about this, right.

Jeremy:

No, no, you're fine man. So, yeah, I was working at a dealership and it was early in my career, whatever this first started happening and I didn't know what it was. Now, let me preface this for anybody who is under the age of 30, because they don't know a world without the internet. I'm part of that last generation, born in the early 80s of. I know what the world was before the internet, you know, but all we had was just what everybody told us or what we could read, you know, in the material available. Yes, and we didn't have everything available in the click of a finger. You know, and even more so, even at this time. This is back 2009,. This is what 15 years ago now. So I'm two, three years into my painting career. Even back then, the internet wasn't what it is today. You know at that point what Facebook had just, maybe just gotten started? Everybody was on. Myspace had top what four or five friends, whatever it was. You know that'll date me to some levels.

Jeremy:

But no, I started developing really bad chest paints. Anytime I would be priming anything, clear-coating anything, and I didn't understand what it was. Well, being a commission-based painter if I'm not going through, and, you know, painting cars. If I'm not turning hours, I'm not gonna get paid. So the more hours I turn, the better off it is. Well, I'll go get it checked out at the doctor. I'll see what it is. Whenever something pops up, you know, whenever I have time. Well, we all know how that is and it just you're kicking the can down the road.

Jeremy:

Lo and behold, it was gosh. That happened for probably about a year, off and on, and it finally hit me. And it was so bad. It was literally like a like if you take your fist and put it right here on your sternum, right between your pecs, and then put another fist in the same spot on your spine and then just start squeezing in and it just gets tighter and tighter and I could never get a deep breath. It was literally I'm just. It was just these shallow breaths. And it got to the point where it was. I was curled up on the floor thinking I'm having a heart attack, and I knew it was paint related, but I didn't know what exactly it was and we made the decision right. Then it was like I gotta get out of this. I have got to get out of this. Didn't know about fresh air, didn't know about anything like that Took a about an 18 month break from the industry.

Jeremy:

I like to think that things happen for a reason because in that time I got my little sister's job at where I was working and she wound up meeting her now husband. So believe in what you want, things happen for a reason. So I missed the industry. I really did. And that time off I wound up going.

Jeremy:

A buddy of mine was painting his engine bay and or he was ready to do a paint his engine bay. He was doing a motor swap and asked if I could do it. Hadn't painted anything in a while. All right, so I got me a full face, you know respirator, a 3M respirator, and I went in and I sprayed it. I didn't have any issues, no reactions, no, nothing. I was like that's kind of cool. So I thought everything was good and I wound up getting a job at one of the bigger shops here in town to kind of ease myself back in. And that did great for about a month and all of a sudden I started having them and I can I remember exactly what I was painting.

Jeremy:

I remember the day it happened. I was painting the front end of a silver C in a van and I had a bumper on one side. I had the van backed up and I turned from doing the front end of the van and I'm turning to go to the bumper and the same thing just chest tightening everything and it hit with a vengeance and it dropped me to my knees in the booth. I'm in the middle of first coat of clear. I unhooked the gun and I crawl out, trying not to drop the clear because you know, okay, you gotta save it, you gotta save the money. I crawl into the mixing room and the other painters just looking at me and I just bowed my hand up and I handed the gun. I was like, go finish that, go finish that. And I'm just sitting there and I'm just sitting on a bucket trying to figure out what is going on here.

Jeremy:

The next week that was a Thursday, it was a Thursday or Friday, it was right. At the end, anyways, I went to a PPG training seminar, training school, PPG school up in Atlanta and I met Tony Lerimer there. So this is 2011, 2012, something like that. Yeah, and I knew of Tony because of actually what he had been doing with Kristen Felder from Collision Hub. Nobody else knew who he was. Nobody else was interested.

Jeremy:

Well, I'm that nerd that whenever I go to class yes, I'm the guy you all hate I'm going to constantly be putting my hand up and asking questions. And well, what is this to? What about this? Well, I'm having pains with this. Do you even have to know what would cause that? And Tony, you know this is. This is where he earned earned. My trust is that he never tried to go for a sale. Through the entire thing, man, he, he heard of what I was saying, what I was asking, and he just answered my questions. He's like, dude, that really sounds like I sign you poisoning. It sounds like you're getting sensitized to it. Do you know anything about fresh air, breathing air, this and that? Well, and I didn't. And he took a huge chunk of that class to educate us on proper you know air filtration, the fresh air hoods, this and that got me in touch with somebody.

Jeremy:

Yeah, got me in touch with somebody to get a to buy a hood and make sure that we had the filtration in the shop. So the fact that I even have this second half of my career I owe, or the second half of my refinishing career I owe to Tony Larimer, you know it's it's if I hadn't had that chance meeting with him and not been able to ask questions right then. Yeah, it was stupid. I mean I should have gone to the doctor, absolutely.

Rick:

You know. But I will tell you this being a painter and being in so many shops over all these years, most guys back in that time really had not have heard of ISO sensitivity, so nobody really knew what that was unless they asked somebody that knew about that. And usually the only guys that knew about that were the guys that ran training centers. Or you know the guys that are at the top of SADA or 3M or some of those places. You know where they make equipment to handle that. So totally understand it. And it's a great thing that you just happened to cross Tony at the time that you did yeah, because you might have gone another six months or had another episode right, or I would have been that guy that just got out in the middle of the shop and I just wouldn't be here.

Rick:

Yeah, I had some friends that have gone through that stuff, so it's nothing to play with. So yeah, I mean, we heard stories.

Jeremy:

We've all heard stories about, you know, people who just dropped because of that and it's no fun and it's scary. You know the comment of you know you don't see very many old painters. And at that point, you know, I started kind of thinking like what? I need to do something to have something to fall back on, yeah, and that's, that's eventually what. What wound up happening.

Jeremy:

But all these years later, I'm working at a. I finished, I finished my tenure as a painter at a independent shop here in town and I was at God. I was walking through the shop and somebody was open air priming something and same thing, it just it hit. And it was at that point I'm like, okay, I, at that point I'm already in school, I'm trying to, you know, get everything finished up on a degree. And I was like I, when something comes up, I need to start looking at. You know, possibly getting out of this, I'm hitting my limit already.

Jeremy:

So, the fresh air stuff, it extended my career of being a full time in the booth painter and I am so thankful for it because I had an awesome career. I got it. It's led me to other awesome opportunities and I wouldn't trade it for anything. You know I haven't had a reaction to to paint or clear code or anything like that and the two and a half years that I've been out. So that to me solidifies that that's what it is and I can be as involved in the industry as I want now and I just preach to everybody you know you only get one set of lungs. Take care of them, make sure you got your fresh air, make sure that you got your filters and change your air filters.

Rick:

Stay on top of them, man, but yeah fresh air is the way to go, and these young painters today have a much better grasp of how to protect themselves, which is great to see. I'm PPP. Ppe is more prevalent than it was I. You know I grew up, I started painting in the late 70s and you know I, at that time other painters would wrap towels around their face. You know, just spray the lacquer or the enamel and figured well, that's catching everything right. Or two, two, three m dust masks together was the same thing as a respirator.

Jeremy:

What about the cigarette man?

Rick:

Yeah, I have a whole cigarette, so but anyways it's a good thing you got it when you did so, how did you? How did you end up in acudraft? Did Tony have another place, or was he a part of moving you towards working for an equipment company, or how did that work?

Jeremy:

No, no, tony was was one of two people that was instrumental in supporting me outside of my family for getting going back, going back to school and getting a degree, just so I have something to fall back on. And, in the grand scheme of things, getting a degree isn't the fact of you know, hey, you went to school, you got this, it's showing a potential employer that, hey, I showed up for four or five years straight, I did the work that was supposed to, that was required of me, and I've got this piece of paper saying that, hey, I did that and I was never a school guy, you know, but it was one of those things of. We found out my daughter was coming, you know, we were pregnant with her and I had to do something. But Tony and Kevin Tetz or Kevin Tetz both of those guys were instrumental when I was frustrated and hated school. Why am I doing this and keeping me moving forward? They believed in me and it still to this day. I can never thank them enough for that.

Jeremy:

But getting with acudraft, everything happens by chance and it's all an opportunity. So I was working at a dealership it was right before the independent shop that I ended my career at and we had two acudraft booths. God, the shop had just been built. I think it was just over a year old, maybe a year and a half old whenever I went there. Full AC shop, two acudraft Titans, a mixing room in between and then had two prep decks one single prep deck, a mixing room and then a double prep deck the side. Awesome setup.

Rick:

Nice yeah, and.

Jeremy:

When I got there, the previous painter that was there before had messed with some stuff and you know they hadn't been serviced and stuff had gotten out of whack. You know you start messing with stuff and you don't know what you're doing. But hey, I know what I'm doing. I've been doing this 30 years. One of those guys and it got all out of whack. So they sent a guy they had gotten in touch with Aggie Draft and sent JB Haydill down there and me and him we had just struck up this conversation I had logs of all of my filter changes, the hours that it was done. You know this and that because I learned years ago, keep records of that, because you never know when you're going to need it. And so I'm talking to him and I handed these and he just looks at me like you actually have records of when you change filters, like you actually have them.

Jeremy:

Yeah, kind of freak Well yeah, because, oh well, I changed them two weeks ago and it was really a month, or I just changed them, you know, 40, 40 hours ago, and it's been three weeks, you know, and it's it's completely, it's completely being on this side of it now, I see all of these things and but we just struck up this friendship and it came out. You know, hey, I'm used to keeping records of everything. You know I'm going to the school, so I try to keep up with every little thing. I've got too much going on and you know just one last thing I've got to do, and he found out that you know through the conversation that I had to get out and I was making plans to get out of painting, but I never wanted to leave the industry.

Jeremy:

I've got too much time vested in us. I love this industry, right, and you know, and I was doing booth talk at the time and at a full time school, and now I got a daughter and you know my wife and you know this before or son was born. So I got all these things going and JB just stayed in contact with me through the years and we're in the middle of the wonderful, wonderful, prosperous year that was 2020.

Jeremy:

And, and so it's like yeah, I mean so freaking amazing year. That will never, yeah, but but now he just. I graduated in December of 2020 and you guys can't see on the radio here, but I'm doing air quotes because that is a rant from Jeremy for another time.

Rick:

Yes, For phase two. We'll do a part two of this.

Jeremy:

You want to hear Jeremy get you off on something. Let's talk about that graduation in the middle of COVID. And. But yeah, I had a, it was the pre. It was the following probably April, so April of 21. And JB just calls me and he says hey, man, I got a question for you. You graduated, didn't you? Yeah, if you call it a graduation, yeah, I graduated. Oh cool, so you still paying. You're still looking to get out. I'm always looking at getting out, but you know, nobody's hiring right now. Jb, I'm not too worried about it. I'm a steady job. I'm painting cars, you know, paying off student loans, you know. Just just, the world is unsteady right now. So he goes oh, okay, so something came up. You'd be interested. You would tell you, jb, what's going on.

Rick:

man, You'd be straight right, brother.

Jeremy:

Yeah, I was like what, what are you getting that? And he goes All right, well, we got something coming up and I think you'd be a good fit for it. So, uh, hey, sorry, not sorry. I went ahead and passed your name and number along to my boss. I said so, you're going to. You're going to be getting a call from a guy named Guido here here shortly. Just just take the call. A guy named Guido is going to be giving me a call. You pass my information along.

Rick:

Dude, I'm right up your alley.

Jeremy:

Yeah, he's like it's right up your alley. I think you'll be good for it. Just talk to him. Okay, sure enough, guido calls and we talk, and we hit it off.

Jeremy:

I'm like, okay, next thing, I know I'm on a plane up to uh, up to Jersey, and, being the typical blue collar guy, I, when you're in the shops and you're changing jobs to a different shop, sometimes you're promised the moon. We've, everybody who's been listening is listening right now. You understand you, you have been promised the moon and then let down so very hard. And so so I was like I'm going to book my own flight, I'm going to go up to Jersey, I'm going to rent my own car. This way, nobody can say anything on this interview of, hey, well, I flew you up here and you're going to shoot me down. You know, no, no, you're not having that. And Guido will second this, he'll tell you because he never had somebody interview and actually pay for their own flight to come up. And uh, so we, we talked in person and we literally talked like we had known each other for a number of years and I've only had that vibe off off of like maybe two or three other people in my life and it's, it's okay, this is cool. And then, the more I started thinking about it, the dumb painter comes in and he's like well, now everything's lining up. This has got to be bad. No, no, no, no, this has got to be bad.

Jeremy:

Well, I, I wound up, guido got busy and didn't call me back whenever he said he was going to and uh, so I'm not one to be a pastor. Hey, somebody says they're going to call me, I'll do it. And uh, it'd been like two, three more weeks after that. So I just called JB. I'm like hey, man, obviously y'all got somebody else for the uh, for the position. You know I appreciate the offer, but you know I'm going to email Guido just telling thanks, no, thanks, no, no, no, no, no. He hasn't made a decision, I promise you. He said hang by your phone. It's literally. It was almost like I hung up not five seconds later, it seems. He called Guido, was calling me, oh and uh, and yeah, absolutely, you know I'd love to. And and uh, yeah, we struck a deal right then and they brought me on board and I do content marketing with them, uh, little bit industry relations, but my, my official title is uh is content.

Jeremy:

I handle tech articles for them, uh, write ups and stuff. You know, uh, if you're messing through social media, 99% of the times you're going to be talking with me. I try to. I try to be that source for people that's out in the field, if they're. If you're a painter working late and your booth shuts off in the middle of it yeah, I've had it happen. You know it's after hours, you know you may be done with that job until morning. You know you're working late for a reason Hell, I was. So I try to be that source for somebody. If somebody's got an issue, you know, heck, they can message us and at least have somebody there to help troubleshoot, help them. Help them, help them walk through something, if possible. So, uh, it's.

Jeremy:

It's been a great place to be at. You know you get the whole thing of treated like family and whatnot. Um it, this one really has been. It's. It's been really cool to work with people who all have the same goals. You all have the same goals in mind and let you do your job and not not everything is micromanaged. So everybody's got the goal. Hey, we're going after this, you're going after this. If you need something, give us a holler in between and we'll get it going. Sweet, and you just, you can just get stuff moving and then send stuff in for approval. Hey, just change the wording at this part and change this a little bit. Okay, cool, and we roll on with it. It's. It's been really nice.

Rick:

Well, I hope you enjoyed part one of my interview with Jeremy Winters from AccuDraft Booths. As you could probably tell from the conversation, jeremy has an incredible passion for the refinished side of this business and loves to share his knowledge and as the kind of person, honestly, you could just talk to for hours. But there's much more to the story. Please be sure to come back next week to tune in to part two for the rest of our conversation. Thanks again for tuning in. I really appreciate your support and I hope you have a great week. I can always be reached at wwwricksellovercom, where you can find all my social media links podcast episodes, blog posts and much more. Thank you.

Passion for Refinishing and Artistic Background
Painting Industry Health Risks and Career Changes
Career Transition and Gratitude for Safety
Job Opportunity and Content Marketing