Ep 49 - Zoo vs. Aquarium: What 27 Years in Life Support Taught Matt Regensburger

[00:00:04] Greetings all, Joe Arlotto here with Dr. Jeff Kefaber. Welcome to Inflow, the podcast where we discuss all things related to aquatic animal life support. This show is sponsored by Ardura and Matt LSS. You can learn more about our sponsors by clicking on the sponsors page at inflowlsspodcast.com.

[00:00:26] My first LSS job was at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago. It was a total of about a million gallons, marine mammal systems, dolphins, walrus, seals, sea lions. And the folks that had been operating that system and who had built it were no longer around. It frustrated me that I didn't know why something was designed or built the way it was.

[00:00:53] So this led me to eventually move to the design side and then construction at SeaWorld Abu Dhabi. And I got my wish because I was able to design, build, startup and commission it all. And I felt connected to the LSS from start to finish. So, Dr. Jeff, what is your take on the separation or the combining of designing, building and operating?

[00:01:22] Well, I would say that first of all, separation is usually where we are, right? We have a design, design engineer working with an architect. We have contractors that actually do the building under our supervision. And it's usually, you know, large systems, customized.

[00:01:40] But then there are these more, I don't want to call them boutique, but thousands of gallons type systems that hotel lobbies might have or retail stores or restaurants, food and beverage operations, or this sort of level where the client, the owner, may not always be all that sophisticated when it comes to aquariums.

[00:02:06] And it's easier for them to hire a design, build, turnkey firm that can actually do design and implement fabrication and construction and installation and be there at startup.

[00:02:24] So that's kind of where I know in my work, I am looking at this sort of idea, turnkey, in more venues that are not necessarily out in the park. Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:03:09] The contractor's questions. And so when I was on site at SeaWorld and I was watching and helping the LSS being built every day, I was the guy who, when the owner or the contractor asked those questions, why was it designed like this?

[00:03:29] I knew why I could tell them because it was designed like this because structural needed a column there or the HVAC duct couldn't get moved. So when you're involved in the design and the building of the LSS, you sort of have a good feel for why things were designed and built the way they are. So our guest today is Matt Regensberger from Tenji Aquarium Design.

[00:03:58] He's one of these guys who's involved in projects from concept to design, building it and seeing it operate. So Matt, welcome to Inflow. Thanks for having me. Oh, you know what? Well, Matt, so we've known each other for a long time. You're a big supporter of the podcast. We really appreciate that. Matt was, when the first episode came out, Matt was probably the first guy who called me or emailed me and said, I love it.

[00:04:27] Got to keep it up. We definitely need this podcast to move forward. So we appreciate that. So Matt, tell us, let's get a little of your history. Where are you from? What did you study? And how did you get into the LSS world? Yeah, so I grew up in St. Louis for the most part. Moved around a little bit, but yeah, St. Louis based. Strangely enough, I studied business. So I say that, but it ended up being, that was the way that I just chose to go out.

[00:04:57] But I have a lot of, I took a lot of biology and chemistry and mathematic courses as well. But I was always a fish head. So I worked at a pet store going through college and then I was in a choirist, you know, casino, local casino here for a little bit. Oh. And ended up meeting some people at the St. Louis Zoo.

[00:05:21] And when they started doing some major expansions in the 2001, 2002 timeframe, I was able to talk my way into a role there with life support. And so that was life support operator. You were turning the valves, you were backwashing filters. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:40] I, you know, I went from, you know, like a 2,400 gallon aquarium to a 68,000 gallon hypno system that had ozone and all the ozone whistles that we know now as far as full automation and that kind of stuff. And I was like, yeah, I've heard of ozone. Sure. So three. Yeah. I took a chemistry course. Yeah. So did I. No, that's right. That's right.

[00:06:08] So, so, so you're operating the LSS there. And was that, I mean, I guess it wasn't intimidating, but like what, besides the hippo exhibit, what, what other LSS did you have there? So we, we, it was a new department to the St. Louis Zoo. So historically the filtration system was either maintained by plumbing mechanical staff or the keepers themselves.

[00:06:37] And it was kind of, you know, that, well, you can do this and call us if there's a problem kind of a thing. And so we were a brand new department to an institution that's been around for almost a hundred years at this point. And so it was a big culture change for a lot of people. And so we started out just kind of working in the, the hippo. That was the big one.

[00:07:00] And then elephant, we started taking that over and we just kind of migrated out as we built the relationships and, and the department. Matt, I have a question regarding, you know, we've had a couple of 100 year old facilities on the podcast.

[00:07:15] And I am interested in your take on, as we come full circle to where we are today and we add more exhibits and we put more stress on the systems, on the infrastructure. Do you have a take on how you would, you bend and flex and adjust to move forward when the facility is very old?

[00:07:41] You just have to, I think you just said it, you just have to be flexible and understand that there's going to be things that you can't do perfectly. You know, I mean, there's times where you're, you're going to be renovating and you have to work in the space that you have. And then there's going to be times where, you know, you're just bulldozing everything and knocking everything over and starting from scratch. So at the same level, you know, they're, they're 90 acres.

[00:08:03] So they had plenty of space to, I'm going to go after this thing that's been there for 90 some odd years and we're going to tear it out and rebuild it and that kind of stuff. So, but there was times where we had to build systems for reptile or salamander enclosures and that kind of stuff. And so we're working in a basement that, of a building that was built in 1927.

[00:08:27] And, you know, you got drugs from here and this drain's leaking over here and the roof's coming through over here and you got strange columns and who knows what is there and how many times it's been renovated and since the twenties and maybe not documented and that kind of stuff. So, you know, we just had to change and adapt to this situation. It's a good point. It's a good question, Dr. Jeff, and it's a good answer. And I can expand a little bit on that.

[00:08:57] It is sort of a piece by piece thing. Like I had very similar experience at San Diego zoo. I got there and for a place that had been around for a long time, like St. Louis, they didn't really have a dedicated life support staff. So I got there, we hired some people, we put together a staff and then we just went system by system. Like Matt says, like first hippo, that was our thing. We had to take care of hippo.

[00:09:26] Then we expanded into polar bear. Then we expanded one by one. And then when you start renovating, you can't do them all at the same time. Right. And so it's just, it is a, it's a process and you just got to focus on one system at a time and then move on to the next. And before you know it, you're running eight, 10 systems. Yeah. I, you know, I think it's about renovation rehab versus complete replacement. Right.

[00:09:55] When you get up there in the decades, uh, you, you have to start thinking about habitat replacement versus keep fixing it and renewing it and do a worst first sort of renovation. Makes sense. So how long were you at St. Louis zoo, Matt? 13 years. 13 years. And then why did you leave?

[00:10:19] When you're working for a great facility and a great institution, moving up is difficult at times because nobody leaves. So yeah, when you're working at a place like that, you know, there's, there's limited upward mobility oftentimes. And that's kind of what I ran into. And I woke up one morning to a Facebook messenger message from Eric Hall and said, Hey, let's talk.

[00:10:48] I got something that you might be interested in down here in Georgia. Right. And that was, and that was a large aquarium springing up from the ground. It had already been running for 10 years at this point. Maybe a little bit more. For about 10 years. And so I talked to Eric and John and the team down there and packed up the family and we moved down there. So that must, that must've been a big change, huh? It was huge.

[00:11:17] Huge. Yeah. First off, I'm used to a zoo. So we have a filtration system here. We have a 10 minute walk to the left. We have another filtration system. And then we have to go across the zoo to another one. And, but, and then you jump into Georgia and Georgia's high intensity and everything. So. Yeah, Matt, that's a great point.

[00:11:46] And we go back and forth on the podcast all the time talking about zoos, which tend to be more terrestrial in nature. Although they have their LSS and marine mammals and all of that. But you went this, you took this big step to go to arguably one of the largest aquariums in the world. And purely aquarium based.

[00:12:13] Although I would argue aquariums are now getting into more terrestrial side. But when you arrived there, what, how did you take it on? So the St. Louis Zoo, we had a team of three technicians and a supervisor. That was the team. And when I went down to Georgia, it was kind of a lateral move for me.

[00:12:43] I was, I was going from tech to tech. And it was a team of 14 technicians across three shifts. We were working 24 hours a day. And I had a lot of experience. I was getting involved with also. And so I was learning and, you know, I had a pretty good understanding of things, but. I went in there with the attitude of. I need to learn how Georgia works. And then I could bring in things that I know and that kind of stuff.

[00:13:12] But I need to know the hows and the whys before I just go in there. Well, that's not how I did it. And it took a while for me to learn everything there. I mean, it's, it's massive. It's intense. Because of the speed that Georgia technicians run at and that kind of stuff, you know, I lost a lot of weight there to begin with. Yeah. What? Like, like going up and down ladders and stairs, basically. Non-stop. Non-stop. I bet.

[00:13:42] You know, I was like, man, I'm used to walking on, you know, 98-acre facility. No. Georgia, you're, you're a speed walking as fast as you can again for everything done. And how about control systems? You, did you have control systems at St. Louis? So that was one of the things that made it a lot easier is we had RCK at St. Louis Zoo. And Georgia has RCK. So I was able to just jump right in and, and understand at least that component of it.

[00:14:13] But yeah, you know, I'm, I'm coming from the zoo, you know, you got the exhibit and then you got the filtration system right next to the exhibit. Georgia and, you know, aquariums in general, that filtration system might be on a different floor. It might be on the far side of the building because, you know, well, it's pressurized. We could do whatever. Yeah. And Matt, that's what I was getting to the compare and contrast zoo aquarium. You're exactly right.

[00:14:42] And where the architect will provide the space to, to place the LSS in relationship to the different elevation changes of a very large aquarium. Right. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's difficult when you're on potentially three different floors trying to find the filtration for one exhibit and none of the floors look the same. And so you're like, okay, I'm underneath it.

[00:15:13] All right. I think. So there was a lot of times where the other techs were like, come on, Matt, get with it. You know, they're giving me grief and that kind of stuff, but you know, I, I got there. I got there. Yes. So you did move from St. Louis to Georgia for hopefully some sort of upward mobility. Did you get it? Yeah. Yeah. So I was able to earn a couple of promotions and so I was, I got into management and which

[00:15:42] is a different, completely beast when you're trying to manage people across three shifts. And there's times where you might not see them for a while because of the way the shifts work and your, your schedule and what you're trying to do or where you're filling a gap. So often when you're like an assistant manager or even a manager, it's about filling the gaps. Right. You know, if you don't have the people there or you don't have the training here, you know, so there's a lot of hands on there.

[00:16:11] And so there's times where weeks went by and I didn't see some of the staff. Well, yeah. Why do I keep in contact? How do I keep engaged with these people? These people that are dedicating their nights to keep the aquarium running. Plus there was a difference between a not-for-profit like St. Louis zoo and a for-profit for like, for Georgia aquarium, right? Georgia, Georgia's not-profit. Oh, okay. Huh. Did I know that? It doesn't act like it, but it did.

[00:16:42] Interesting. Yeah. Okay. So, so then, so Georgia, you were there for a while and why'd you end up leaving there? So yeah, I was there for four and a half years. Okay. And we went down with one kid and we had a second one down there and the St. Louis Aquarium was calling and wondering if I would be interested in coming back to St. Louis and talk to the family.

[00:17:11] And I just seemed to make the right call there to get the kids back around grandparents and that kind of stuff. Because my family's here, my wife's family's here. Sure. And so we were spending our vacation time down in Georgia to come back to St. Louis. Really? What are we doing? So when, when did you join St. Louis Aquarium? Was it before it actually opened or what was the timing there? Yeah.

[00:17:39] So I joined August of 2019 and it was full construction and decisions were already made. Budgets were already spent. So what many changes that I could do or going to the house and the mines of, why was this designed? How am I supposed to do this? What if we need to do this? And that kind of stuff. And you know, we're like, yeah, sorry. We can't make any, we can't increase the cost, you know? So yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:08] Matt and Joe, we talk a lot about when operators need to be involved in not just the design process, but obviously construction, pre-construction, construction and, and, and going forward. And oftentimes you get inserted in a project at a time when you're, you're pretty much stuck with what was designed. Matt? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we eventually make some changes and that kind of stuff, but you know, if it's

[00:18:35] underground, you can't do much, you know, unless you're tearing everything out, which yeah, you don't do on a new facility. Well, this is, but this, this is a very good, uh, uh, this is a very good example of somebody with some knowledge going in and being responsible for this system that they had no input in at all in the design. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:02] And you don't even really know some of the intention of how are you thinking as a designer to operate this? So we started operating and then we were going, well, that's not really working. We knew we want to do it this way. And so we started making some changes and that kind of stuff. And, uh, TJP did the design there. Joey was the, uh, Joey Fallon was the, the big designer there. And I was talking to him afterwards and he's like, I'll be honest.

[00:19:32] I never even thought about that. That wasn't part of my thought process. And it was, uh, uh, a salt mixing saltwater loop around the system, around the facility. And it was either one or the other, either we're mixing the salt water up or we're sending it around. So we couldn't, if we were mixing keepers and aquarius couldn't do water changes or top off. So we made some changes. We had two pumps.

[00:20:00] So we just made some changes and, and that kind of stuff. And he was just like, yeah, I, now they, now that's standard knowledge and all the drawings. Yeah. Which is, which I mean, honestly, it's hindsight is 2020 and no one's going to design any system. A hundred percent. You know what I mean? A hundred percent correct. You never really know. I mean, that's, and that's why even when operators are involved in a design, mistakes are made,

[00:20:29] not even mistakes. Just, we can't cover everything, but the more input you have, I think from the people who are going to actually be operating the system. I think we, we move to a better place basically. Oh, I would, I would agree. Yeah. Because it younger are able to understand the intention. And that's a huge thing for me is like, how did you intend this to work? Am I doing it completely wrong?

[00:20:56] Because this is how my history and the way we've done things before. And then I'm making changes and you're like, no, if you would have done this, it would have taken care of all that, you know? So there's a lot there to go back and forth and try to understand. Yeah. Matt, you said something about the saltwater loop and Aquarius and the ability to do water changes and have a tap right there of the right salinity.

[00:21:24] And, and Joe, I thought of Abu Dhabi where we, where we have a giant loop running around the entire facility. We have several loops running around the entire facility, right? Correct. Different salinities per demand. That's right. That's right. And, and, and you know what, that was, um, a very, very tough thing to make happen because of all of the piping, obviously, and the various pumps and valve switching positions.

[00:21:52] But at the same time, the fact that we had. SeaWorld people involved in the design sitting in the meetings, they could say, look, when I need this water, I needed it, this salinity, and I knew that this temperature and I needed immediately that allowed us to provide a design that gave them what they wanted. Absolutely. Yeah. So now Matt, so well, you, when you go to St.

[00:22:18] Louis Aquarium, so how was your job different there from the two previous places you worked? So I went in as the manager of life support, water quality, and with that tech. So they didn't have a recontracted out the vet at that point. So we didn't have that on staff that. And, um, but we had an on staff, we've got tech.

[00:22:47] So I kind of took all of that. And then also just like any facilities or anything like that kind of happened, but it was a new facility. So we didn't have too many problems like that. I had to worry about, but yeah. So I've started up individual systems at St. Louis zoo. We started up hippo, sea lion, penguins, you know, all of those things. And Georgia, we started up some there, sea lion and that kind of stuff.

[00:23:13] And so this was a thing where we were trying to start up 30, 30 exhibits, give or take. Wow. At this point, whatever. A lot of them were very small. So I had to develop the staff, hire staff, turtle staff and manage, you know, starting up a brand new aquarium. So that was creating all the SOPs from scratch.

[00:23:42] That was creating the rounds from scratch. You know, it was just doing everything from scratch in a very compressed time. You know, St. Louis Zoo, we had years to develop that stuff because we were doing one thing at a time. Georgia, they had all that stuff already developed. So we were just adding to as new things or we're revising as things changed or needed to get updated. So St. Louis, it was all of that. And I started in August. We opened on Christmas day in December.

[00:24:12] Wow. That's fast. That's a lot of work to do in a few months. We didn't get most of the exhibits until November, mid-November, late-November. Okay. We had one in October. So we were trying to thread the needle in the haystack. Not just find the needle in the haystack, but we had to thread it too. Right. But this was great. I mean, this was, it must have been a great experience.

[00:24:38] I mean, developing all those things from scratch really does help you really know your systems. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. It definitely does. You understand where the valves are, where the cross-connects are. Yeah. It was set points to, you know, everything that you really need to worry about. So. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a huge challenge, honestly.

[00:25:07] You guys have opened up stuff, you know. And it was, I was putting in a lot of hours. Well, I bet. And, and what about your staff? When you hired people, did you look for people from established operators from other places or were you taking them from local? How'd that work?

[00:25:28] I tried to steal people from places and, you know, I don't know if it was St. Louis or maybe I wasn't able to pay them off, but I wasn't able to get anybody. So I, I got one person had an internship at Tampa's, Tampa zoo and reptile aquatic division. So she knew where St. Louis Infiltr was. There you go.

[00:25:56] And, and then I got a, from Ripley's, he was a diver and kind of helped LSS a little bit, like cool protein skimmers and stuff like that. And then I got, Longhorn did the build there and they hired a local guy. And so he helped build the facility and he wasn't going to move on with Longhorn. So I ended up hiring him. And so he knew where all the pipes were and where all the pipes went.

[00:26:26] Didn't know, you know, which way was which. My God, you, it's so funny. You like took, you like took people who sort of had some sort of LSS, but not really. Yeah. Yeah. And I found people that were wanting to be there, were excited to be there. And every single one of them were really bright. We're smart with them. And so it was pretty easy to train though.

[00:26:56] Honestly, they weren't, they were, it was great. The challenges were the timeline, right? Cause what happened in early 2020. Right. And so it just opened and then hit, got hit by COVID. Yeah. That, that, that must've been, did it, I mean, did it affect your opening or did people still even come to the aquarium? Could they come to the aquarium? Was it open? We got, we were open for 11 weeks and then shut down for 12. Wow.

[00:27:24] So we had all the momentum, all the excitement and then it just went vanished. So it took a while to, for them to build that backup marketing team and operations. Okay. Okay. Well, I, I want to, you're, you have a very unique story and I want to get to the, to the next part of it now, because, you know, we've interviewed a lot of people on the podcast and we've interviewed operators. We've interviewed vendors.

[00:27:51] We've interviewed operators that have become vendors. We've interviewed engineers and you're very unique because you're a vendor or you're a previous operator who's now a vendor, but you don't necessarily sell what you do sell, but you, you're a vendor who, who designs and builds as well. So tell us about 10 G aquarium design and what you do now.

[00:28:22] Yeah. So 10 G aquarium design is a design build firm. We're based in Monterey, but we work everywhere. It got started by a couple of the curators out of the Monterey Bay aquarium. I started doing exhibit design and that kind of stuff. And then 10 G ended up growing more than what they could do on the side. And so they broke off and that was not around 2001, 2002, something like that. So it's been going strong since then.

[00:28:52] And we've been building, I joined three and a half years ago. Um, so my role there, we're a small company. So role is what you need right now. Uh, but my title is construction project manager. So I will take a job from bed all the way through completion and training and startup and all that stuff.

[00:29:19] And so I guess the question is now, how do you integrate that design build approach of the aquarium and the support systems LSS with the other disciplines associated with the facility, whether it's a residence, restaurant, hotel, whatever scale you're working on retail store. What, how do you coordinate with the other, um, design disciplines?

[00:29:49] Yeah. So our, our design team works in AutoCAD and in Revit. So Revit is a 3d modeling and we're able to integrate all of our, all of our stuff in there. We could, a lot of times we'll actually develop it in our drawing set in Revit so that we kind of class proof ourself and make sure that we know where the pipes are going and that kind of stuff versus like guessing on a 2d drawing that you're trying to decipher.

[00:30:17] And, but yeah, then we'll take that and we'll integrate it to, you know, a contractor's model or design model or whatever. And, but yeah, that, that really helps reduce that. Those chances of you, you know, having your pipe right where the HVAC ducking is going and that kind of stuff, or you're able to tell the electricians right here. Right. So getting back to our original talk.

[00:30:42] So, so normally now I know that, that Tenji, that they do a lot of things and, and, uh, they interact with engineers or they can be the designers themselves. They interact with contractors or they can be the contractor themselves. So for you, how do you go about getting a job or where do you find out about a job and what kind of jobs do you do? Yeah.

[00:31:09] So even I get handed, like Mark and Ed, the owners, they'll hand me jobs and they're like, Hey, you're running with this one. You know, it's something that came through our means of communication or whatever. They got a phone call, whatever about a job. Or we look at some of the construction management software programs like Construct Connect or Procore, the Autodesk version of that, all that stuff. And we'll put bids in that way too.

[00:31:38] If we do it that way, it tends to be the build side. So it's already been designed and we're just going after a construction project versus a design build project. So we've done stuff, UCLA that way. Um, we've done stuff Cabrillo Marine Aquarium where we're building somebody else's design. But yeah, we'll do, if it's a design build it, clients tend to find us out honestly, or

[00:32:07] contact us on our website. No, I'm, and I can say for me, I I've worked with Tenji over the years. And when we're doing a large aquarium or a large facility, generally there's some sort of quarantine or some sort of smaller type systems that, that we would, that the owner wants

[00:32:34] to be sort of all, all together, the life support and the tanks are all fit in a certain, uh, footprint. So that's something that, that Tenji does as well. Right. Yeah. So we, we did that exact thing up in Seattle at their expansion and down at Moat Sea. Okay. We did, we did a lot of the, the Joel tanks and the standalone systems. So, so yeah, they're all reservoir based, pretty straightforward.

[00:33:04] A lot of coral systems, a lot of specialty systems, which we really sell at. Yeah. And, and you, you do the, I mean, maybe not you personally, but maybe you personally, you do the design. So this is what we're talking about. You actually do the design, you do the build. So you understand exactly what the thought process was in design and you can build it that way. Right. Yeah. Then we know who to yell at when we mess up too. Exactly. Well, we always yell at you, man. Come on. It's always me. It's always you.

[00:33:33] And I know we talked about this the other day, Matt, but on coral systems, you know, and my mind is going to a technical component of that. And that would be a calcium reactor, CO2 inject, these sorts of nuanced systems that are coral specific, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. We, we, we geek out about that. We get, we go all nerd on it.

[00:34:01] We actually, we don't use calcium reactors that much anymore. We, we tend to do the dosing pumps and the, like the Neptune, Triton, I think it's Triton. And they, they test the alkalinity and calcium and that kind of stuff automatically. And then doses as needed, as needed. Keeps it a lot more consistent. And so you've, you've done a recent coral, a recent coral project, right? Yeah.

[00:34:27] About a year and a half ago, we were down at, uh, Birch and, um, La Voia. And we did a big renovation down there for them, their entire fish gallery. We did. And, uh, 7,500 gallon reef tank was part of that renovation. And how did you, you guys know coral systems? How do you interact with the owner?

[00:34:54] Because I'm sure the owner had some very specific ideas on what they wanted. Correct. Oh, absolutely. So when we're doing the design portion of it, we'd really look to be partners. We don't, yeah, we have our ways that we want to do it and our thoughts, but if it doesn't work for the owner and the, them, it's not going to work for us. Ultimately. Right.

[00:35:21] So I, we really look to become partners. And for instance, down at Birch, you know, we've done three different projects with them. Wow. We really value them as a partner and we hope that they value us. They keep coming back. So we think so. Sure. Sure. They must. Yeah. That's, that's, that's important, obviously, because you really are, you really are working with the owner side by side.

[00:35:48] I mean, you're on site, you're installing this stuff. Correct. You personally. Yeah. And we really want, it's a small industry and we don't want those, oh, they're jerks or anything like that. Cause we're, we're not, you know, our entire team are really nice and they care a lot. So. Yeah.

[00:36:11] Matt, I mentioned this at the top of the show, but there, and there are different sophistications when it comes to owners. Right. There's the, the aquariums, the birch, the coral people that know their craft very well and that you work side by side with. And then there's these one-off facilities, a restaurant.

[00:36:36] I keep bringing up other things where they don't know the first thing about an aquarium or what it takes to have one, but they want one. So how, how do you work with them? I want one. I want one. Yeah. So do I.

[00:36:57] So for instance, there's a science center that I, we did a couple of exhibits with recently and they've had some, some hiccups and some problems and that kind of stuff. And so even though we're, we're past the warranty stage and that kind of stuff, you know, we're still providing support. We're still providing technical experience and knowledge to them. You know, they'll give me a call or a text or something like that.

[00:37:25] And I'm glad to help, you know, cause we thought we all started somewhere. And when I started at the St. Louis, you know, we were building it from scratch. We didn't have a institutional knowledge that we could rely on or a bunch of SOPs or, you know, some old guy that's been doing it for 60 years had discussed here. This is what you do.

[00:37:49] We learned a lot of that from making mistakes and are researching it or asking questions. You know, I talked to John Hill a lot, right? John Petauer a lot. I bugged Robert Sancho a lot about things. All our own. So I'm trying to pass that on that, that mentality that it's not necessarily about the dollars and cents. It's about the right thing. Sure.

[00:38:17] It's about culturing that environment that we're all part of. Yeah. And, and you're, you're uniquely qualified to do that because of your experience on the front end, on the design and your experience on the backend, the operating, the commissioning, the starting up and your experience in the middle, actually building it, you know?

[00:38:41] So, so it's, it's, it's, it's, it must be very satisfying to see something go from concept through design and then all the way to, to operating.

[00:39:19] Oh, it's, it's great. Matt, there's expertise on, there's expertise on site. You're working with them hand in hand to try to get the project delivered. I wanted to ask you, Matt, do you have cookie cutter things that are just sitting on the shelf somewhere that you can install in various locations? Or do you custom fabricate everything?

[00:39:43] So we do have like some holding systems, rack systems in the can that we could pull out. But they're easy enough to modify for somebody else's, you know, hey, you know, this tank is 90 gallons. We really need it to be, you know, 180. That's easy enough. We can make those adjustments. And when we're dealing with Revit and that kind of stuff, our bin manager is amazing. She just flies through it.

[00:40:13] Okay. You're faster. You got it done before I got done talking. Yeah, which is which, you know, this this makes sense to me because and it brings up something else. But that's exactly right. I remember talking to Tenji. I think it was for Siwa at Abu Dhabi. We were looking for a bunch of holding stuff. And they immediately sent me like this is kind of not our standard, but this is what we've done.

[00:40:40] And then and then we said, OK, but I need it to be this volume and I need it to be this. And so then it was, like you say, just manipulated a little bit to fit the need, you know, but but this brings up something that I want to talk about real quickly. And that is a performance spec. Right. We have. As part of the design process, we create a huge document, the LSS specifications, which say what every piece of equipment needs to do. Right.

[00:41:08] We want a pump that's made of this material and does this flow and head. We need a bio tower that is this sized and is made of this material. But sometimes we have a performance spec where we say we're not exactly sure how it's going to look, but we need the temperature of the water to be this. We need the turbidity of the water to be this. And we need it to fit in this footprint and have at it. Now, that's something you do. Right. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:41:38] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, that, you know, that's just getting the, the basis of design down and then going forward. That's right. That's right. But you guys can take very minimal input or I guess even zero input because you can design it yourself, but you can take minimal input and then, and then figure out how you're going to build it and how it's going to fit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:05] That, you know, when you start talking about 25 years experience as a company and then 10 plus years as in operations and with Mark, for instance, or at this point over 20 years of doing this kind of stuff with me, you know, we, we could definitely visualize that and put it together into a working model pretty quickly. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. So let's, let's wrap this up, Matt.

[00:42:31] We asked this question at the end and, um, you've kind of answered it already, but what would your advice be to, to young people starting out in LSS and, and, uh, what's your, your golden nugget for them? What do they need to do to have a successful career? I always say there's a couple of things. One is be curious, just be curious, be curious. Ask the question. Sure. Why do your research?

[00:43:01] You know, I mean, the internet's fabulous. We've given you a lot of uneven information and there's somebody out there that's experienced it before. Nothing is new. We've all, we've been either I or Joe or Dr. Jeff here. We've all been through it. So there's, there's resources out there, but yeah, be curious. And then when you get a little bit experienced, that's when you need to be really careful. Cause when you're brand new, you're right.

[00:43:31] So scared of everything. You're not going to really make that mistake. It's when you get a little bit of knowledge and experience in there that you start going in either on autopilot or thinking that maybe you understand something more than you do. And that's when things happen. So just look after you get your first year, start really being careful. Well, that's, that's interesting. You say that cause it comes back to what you said that those people you hired at St. Louis aquarium, maybe it was good.

[00:43:58] They weren't set in their ways or they didn't have too much experience. Right. So I kept them on a short leash. There you go. Dr. Jeff last word. Yeah. Well, Matt said my last word, right? How many weeks in a row do I always say be curious, be creative. It's the two C's.

[00:44:19] And sometimes when you bring, and Matt referred to this early on, you bring a diver in to water quality or life support and they latch on to something. I want to know how a fractionator really works. Be creative. Ask questions. Everything Matt just said. I love it. Thanks, Matt. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Matt. All right. Thank you to Matt Regensberger from 10G Aquarium Design.

[00:44:48] And thanks to Matt LSS and our durer for sponsoring this show. And thank you all for listening to Inflow. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review. And don't forget, you can always stay connected with us at inflowlsspodcast.com.