Grease Fires Are No Joke - A Conversation With Keith Bertrand

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone. This is Armando Pescareno and welcome to the web talk show. Today we're joined by Keith Bertrand from MFS Exhaust Hood Cleaning. How are you Keith? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much. Can you tell people a little bit about who you are and what you do so that we can get a little background on the conversation? For sure. So, I'm the head of training here at MFS Trade School. We are the largest commercial exhaust hood cleaning trade school in the country. Uh we've had our campus for over 10 years. We have had the school itself uh for almost 15 years, but our campus is located in Orlando, Florida. Uh our CEO and founder Christos Dascalakis, he started hood cleaning in New Jersey uh back in the '60s and decided that after you know 30 years of doing the actual work itself that there was a a gap or a void in the education. So the National Fire Protection Association creates codes. uh those codes are adopted as loosely or as strictly per state uh as they want and then each state has its own jurisdictions that are broken down by fire marshals and fire inspectors and what they do is they prevent fires. So anyone that's listening or yourself if you own a commercial building you know someone will come by with a nice little badge on them and they'll make sure that your doors aren't blocked or your fire exits work or your extinguishers work and things of that nature. So uh any commercial building will have those responsibilities. We have to take it a step further, right? Because all commercial kitchens have people working in them. They have people eating potentially around or even casinos, for **[00:02:00]** example, you have people living amongst the rooms, right, that are above a commercial kitchen. And so what we do is we're an advocate for ensuring that kitchens are fires safe. And so we train our students to do that. Um, and so we're on a full phone, you know, fledged mission, if you will, uh, to prevent people from dying. uh if you were do simp simple Google search unfortunately people have lost their lives uh they've lost their investments uh firefighters individuals you know for example uh and so what we do is we train our students the proper way to inspect maintain and if necessary uh clean the hood systems because uh the code technically is more of an inspection as opposed to a cleaning but of course if there is found to be grace laden vapors or fire uh experiments you know then we need to properly train people on how to do that. Uh but there are a lot of people that aren't properly trained and so Christos took it upon himself to create a school where we would properly train people to do this. Wow. That's when I found about MFS, I was thoroughly surprised at such a thing existing because I mean commercial kitchen exhaust hood cleaning but training for it and then you said you're the largest. I'm like there's more. Yeah, there are a couple other schools. Um, we're the only one that I'm aware of that has a campus where people come and attend every month. We do a hands-on training. We also offer video training. Uh, same certification, same process for the most part. Obviously, it's online as opposed to turning on the pressure washer and getting the grease in your face and you know, all that kind of **[00:04:00]** good stuff when it comes to the cleaning process. Uh, but yes, there are other places. um but uh might be a bit biased but I believe we are the best at what we do because our CEO and founder uh created a great foundation and he trains us very well. You know, we have to be certified obviously to even be able to teach this these items. Uh and so anyone that works here, even if it's just in customer service, for example, uh they need to know how to do this because people do call, right, and ask questions because it is very niche. You know, you said you looked it up. It kind of blows people away sometimes. uh even restaurant owners, even fire marshals and fire inspectors. You know, the code book comes out every three years, but in between that time, you know, the code book uh so here's the the most recent one. If you're interested, it's NFPA code 96. This is the 2024 edition. So, the next edition won't come out until 2027, but between now and then, obviously, codes change or they can change if something happens. Uh and so, we actually make sure that our students are up to date on that uh via their email address. something I know no one else does, but it's important uh because just, you know, in 2023, for example, they added a chapter 12 and they added some new codes and if someone was not up to date on that or didn't pay attention to it or you it's no there's no way to know. So, we take it upon ourselves to make sure that we educate everyone around us that wants to know about it because, you know, at the bottom line, we're **[00:06:00]** saving lives, right? You know, is does it happen every day? No. But when it does happen, being able to say that you did everything the right way uh can at least clear your conscience, right? I mean, you can't prevent everything, but if you know you're taking the right steps and you're and you're doing things the right way, I think it eases a bit of pain in some instances, right? It definitely does. I one of my questions was going to be about like how how would someone know to start a training business like this? But like you said, your CEO Christos was in the business for many years and this was way back. We said the 60s. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He started a long time ago. I I I really, you know, we've talked in great lengths about some of his passions and things of that nature. And it really just sort of stumbled upon him about the importance because people have lost their lives, right? And in if you're ever in a situation like that and you don't do something the right way, whatever it is, if it's hood cleaning, if it's driving a vehicle, you know, whatever, you know, tragedies do happen. Uh, but there was just a real gap in the knowledge. And it's mainly because if you're familiar with like Fanny May, for example, the people that, you know, the organization that buys mortgages, they're not a government per se. They're not like the DOT or the DOE or whatever. They're an entity that the government uses. So the National Fire Protection Association is the same concept. It is not a government, you know, run program. It's run by fire marshals and fire inspectors from 10 20 years ago. And they created **[00:08:00]** this organization so that there could be some sort of advocacy uh because there really wasn't. And it's it's hard sometimes to know everything to do if there isn't an overseeing group of people that are taking upon themselves to educate themselves or to learn and to grow. Uh so it was a very stagnant uh you know trade and and way of life for a very long time. And so he just decided that he wanted to be a part of that. Uh we have a lot of awesome stuff in the works. We're actually going to be starting a the first ever national hoods association. Um it's sort of breaking news. Um it won't be, you know, coming out for a little bit, but that'll be sort of like a national, you know, group of people. All hood cleaners uh can join it. And uh it'll it'll be mainly mainly for our students uh but it'll be education piece um and stuff like that to sort of create advocacy around the the trade itself. Let's talk about the trade itself because it is very interesting. We all see the kitchens, we go to restaurants and we sometimes they have it sort of in plain view. Sometimes it's hidden away be behind those mystery doors and in some cases you can see the the big stainless steel setup. But I don't think we really stop and think about what happens behind the scenes. And I think the closest one might get if we're not in the kitchen is like going for some hibachi or something and you see this exhaust on top of you with the little And I've always wondered about those little um I don't know what do you call them? The ones that have the the **[00:10:00]** the cap on top of the little red cap on them. Are they like extinguisher things? Yeah. Yeah. That's actually fire suppression. Uh it's a little bit different underneath. Yeah. But you see the hood on top. That's what I mean. So yeah, that's actually hood cleaner is the biggest fear is popping those or you know just hitting those and making them disperse. But it's very difficult to do that and we train them how to not do it. But those that's fire suppression. So the same people that do like fire extinguishing or the fire sprinklers for example generally that same company will do fire suppression. Those things need to be uh looked at every six months and tagged. Uh if they're not if you're a restaurant owner and you haven't had that done in six months, you might want to get to look into that. Uh and then I believe it's two or three years they have to be re um refilled or you know made sure that the the the capacity and the pressure that are in there are adequate, but that's a little bit different. But yes, that that will be on all hood systems. Um all hood systems are pretty basic. You know, there's four parts to it. You know, you have the the hood itself that you're referring to. Uh you have what's referred to as baffle filters, and they come in stainless steel, galvanized, or aluminum. Stainless steel is the best. the other two uh can have issues with the chemical because you have to have very strong chemical to remove some grease in some instances and you know so you have the hood you have the filters which is the first line of defense then you have the ducks right just **[00:12:00]** like your air conditioning unit and that should go all the way to the roof and then the roof you have the fan and the fan is what the little light switch on the uh hood system itself will turn on and off that is the actual fan that is sucking out all of that grease all the smoke all the smell everything in that kitchen is being sucked in through that uh that particular thing. And so grease uh depending on the type of cooking fuel they're using, right? Are they using wood? Are they using charcoal, propane? Are they frying food? Depending on the type of cooking apparatus and stuff that they're using. Uh that'll determine the type of grease that is being uh you know stuck inside that system. And uh and so at the top you're going to have like a grease trap system or they should. Uh some people don't and they never go to their roof. And you know, we get pictures all the time from students cuz we try and tell them right because a lot of people that are in this industry don't do it the right way. You know, they're only cleaning the bottom part, the hoods and the filters. Uh and so what we do is we teach them how to do the full system uh diagnosis, inspection, uh and cleaning. And that way they're actually preventing fires and, you know, not just putting lipstick on a pig. That makes a lot of sense. And for anyone who might be thinking like, does this apply to my home as well? I this this hits home. I I sure we used to live in a house that had a like an oven. It was an indoor outdoor kind of thing and **[00:14:00]** it had a brick oven. It wasn't a pizza oven, unfortunately, but it was a little brick oven and you could you could do your fire there and cook. And then it had one of these exhaust fans with a uh with a nice little switch. And one time the the fan died. And so we went to check so that we could replace it. And all I mean it was all black and soot and it was just a mess and up there. So, I imagine in something that's commercial, it's just running. Yes. Almost. I mean, every day, but sometimes all day, like you were saying, casinos and some of these types of businesses. I bet that gets if you don't clean it, it's it's probably a big issue. I could show you some pictures, my man, of the grossest things you've ever seen in your life in the backs of some kitchens and and in these hood systems. And there have been people that have gone, you know, 5 years, for example, without ever cleaning uh the system properly or or looking through the system properly. And the largest growth I think I've seen is a 6 in. So you think about the duct system, you know, maybe it's 12 in x 12 in and legit only about 6 in. Think of it like clogging your heart, right? So that grease is doing the same thing to the duct system that it does to your heart. That's what that grease does, right? And so it's creating uh and it's you can't bypass a duct system. And so the response to a duct system having too much grease, you know, you have a heart attack, right? If there's too much in your heart, uh the system itself will **[00:16:00]** uh go up in flames. All it takes is one spark. Um and depending on how that happens, right? You know, maybe they don't have all their baffle filters on, maybe they're missing one, and so that spark gets sucked up in there and then it goes up. Um and the systems are supposed to be built, you know, airtight. they're supposed to be sealed continuously and welded. Um, but depending how old it is, right, maybe that's not the case. And if they've never gone and had a proper person inspect it, there could be some issues in the duck work. And in that duck work, you know, grease just like water, it's going to find a way if it has the ability to. And if it starts leaking outside of that welding, you know, welded area cuz it wasn't done properly, that spark then drops all over the place and then that whole building goes up. Uh, there was a place that just happened to here locally, uh, the College Park Diner. It's in Orlando. uh their system was not, you know, maintained properly and the whole place went up in smoke. They were in a strip mall area and they were not the only building affected. And regardless of what the fire inspector or fire marshall says, as we talked about a little bit before, uh they do have a little bit of liberty to sort of, you know, put and use as much or as little of it as possible, right? As far as the coding goes. Um, but 100% of the time, no matter what, the insurance company and the lawyers for the insurance company, I promise you, require a certified person to do this work. Uh, because if they don't and you're not certified **[00:18:00]** and the building does go up in flames, promise you, they're going to come after you. That's Yeah. Wow. We saw in We were in Chicago once and we started seeing smoke coming out of the building. across the street. We were at a friend's house and something like that had happened. So, we started seeing a little bit of light coming out of the everything. It was very late at night and we started seeing a little red and so we called we reported the fire like I think there's a like a real fire going on in that building and it turned out like by the time the trucks came, it took a while for the fire trucks to get here, but it turned into like a three alarm or four alarm. It was like they came from everywhere and the building just went up in flames and it was like you said like a strip mall. So it started spreading and it was just horrendous to watch. Fortunately it was night time but all the investment everything people have there their something their livelihood and just because maybe something just wasn't checked properly in right and that fire suppression system you were talking about you saw it. It points straight down at the the grill, right? And it points at the fryer. It's not pointing up. So, if a fire starts up there, where's it going to go? It's it's there, right? It's too late at that point. And really better hope that it's welded, you know, properly cuz the system is meant to maintain the fire within, you know, the duct system, right? Like that's how it's supposed to be. But again, buildings are old. Once you put in a $50,000, you know, hood system, who **[00:20:00]** goes up there and make sure that it's okay? Does anybody go up there? Does anyone go on the roof? Does anyone check the duct? And you can pop a ceiling tile, right? And you can kind of see how it works. Um, but you know, if if you're not a properly trained hood person, then you're not going to do it, right? And that's why we train our guys and girls to do it properly because we're the first line of defense. Um, and it's a good way to build business, too. a relationship with the with the with the restaurant because no one else has ever talked to them about this. Um, so that's why we teach people the way that we do. We teach them directly to the code so that they can be that person for the restaurant. We don't teach sales tactics here. We teach education. And when you build a relationship with a business owner and you educate them on protecting their investment, I mean, it it it's it's not a get-richquick scheme by any means. You know, there's guys that have made a lot of money doing this. It can be very profitable. Um, we've we've helped people make become millionaires. Now, is that everyone's story? Of course not. But, you know, if you're in the right market, you've done the right research, you have the right connections, uh, it's just something we've talked it's so niche. Um, and then, you know, we expand into other things too because I, like we mentioned, the code is always changing. And so, if they say that, you know, this needs to be done and that needs to be done, has to be done, right? And again, even if the jurisdiction doesn't want to enforce it **[00:22:00]** for whatever reason, maybe it's like a seasonal restaurant or it's a mom and pop place and they just don't want to bust their chops or whatever, something happens, it's over, right? And so that's sort of the avenue we take is it's insurance for your insurance kind of thing because if you are certified, I I get calls not all the time, a couple times a year, people will call up and say it'll be a fire marshal and they'll say, "Hey, uh, is this MFS Trade School? You know, who am I speaking with?" Oh, you know, this is Keith. I run the training programs here. Like, okay, great. um can you verify the certification number for me? So I have to go into the books and I have to go into our system and I you know John Smith you know MFS number right and they say are they currently up to date with their certification because it is a you do have to reertify every year you know there's another small certification they need to take uh you know so they call and they ask hey is this person certified yes they are you can verify that we'll send over you will send you over to the dock or whatever like great thanks so much and then I've had conversations with people who maybe got certified by us four or five years ago still doing the work decided to not get reertified That's a different conversation. Okay. Uh is, you know, Mike Smith or whatever, you know, are they certified? Uh, Mr. Fire Marshall, you know, Johnson, no. Uh, we don't, they're not currently certified. Wow, great. Thanks for information. You know, we may need to talk, we may need to talk to you later for **[00:24:00]** a deposition or something like that. So, it happens, right? It again, does it happen every day? No. But, um, you know, doing things the right way will prevent anything bad from happening, uh, for the most part, right? But if it doesn't, at least you can say you did you tried your best. That's great to hear. And for for everyone listening, we've had a few episodes about around training and this whole reertification topic hasn't come up in the few episodes. So I'm I'm glad you brought it up. Reertification is so important in many industries and sometimes we build system for clients where they need to keep track of those previous certifications or those previous attempts at quizzes, at courses, etc. And sometimes they just don't have that. And so when something like you say happens, you have your books, you have your files, but some companies just got into training and just grew so quickly that they lose track of of all the documentation and then in a scenario like this where you actually need the information, it get it could get tough. Training is vital to anything in my opinion. Um I I did hoods a long time ago. It was where how I kind of cut my teeth out of college and I actually got into mortgages after that. Uh before I was here, I was actually the VP of lending over at a local credit union here uh here in the area and I, you know, kind of retired slash, you know, had some kids and never get to spend any time with them. If you're familiar with the real estate game, it can be crazy, right? Especially if you're doing 40 $50 million a year, it can be very uh seven days **[00:26:00]** a week, right? 10 hours a day. And then everyone wants to go to a Magic game, right? or a city soccer game or you know some realator event or whatever. But anyway, so I got out of that into this after I met Christos the passion that he has. I mean all you have to do is look at our YouTube channel. Uh we have free webinars on there. You know you can see if you take our course if you get a chance to talk to Chris. He's just passionate and you know he found what he really loved in life and he ran with it. Um he heads our co I mean obviously he heads the whole place and he does all kinds of stuff right. Um the guy's a workaholic uh in my opinion, but uh you know he runs our coaching and mentorship program. And so going back to what you said about training, we don't just take people's money, right, and you know, slap them on the butt and say good luck or anything like that. Um our owners are able to have Christos's personal cell phone number and they have my personal cell phone number and if they have any issues after the class cuz it's kind of a crash course, right? It's a lot of information. takes years and years to be able to, you know, master this and then they, you know, tra they change the code on you, right? And so it it has to be continuous training. And so Chris, you know, all of our students, all 2,000 students we have in North America, we have students in Canada and Mexico and overseas and Africa. So we don't just train people here in the 48 uh, you know, and **[00:28:00]** Hawaii and Alaska. We train people all over the world. We have military contracts and it's vital because, you know, it everything is continuously ch changing. So Chris offers that coaching mentorship program as a part of being a certified with us. Um you have a question for him. He picks up the phone at one o'clock if someone blows a fire suppression system, right? He gets that call at 1:00 in the morning. What do I do? And he picks up. And so he's passionate about this. He's passionate about the training. And you know, I think it comes out not only in how we treat our students, but you know, it comes out in me, right? I didn't care about this stuff as much as I do when I started here a couple years ago. Uh but now he's sort of instilled in me how important this is. Uh, and you know, we we just really want to be able to keep people safe. That's the bottom line. And if we can help people build a life for their family and get some financial freedom in the process, I mean, what's what's wrong with that, right? That's amazing. The passion is so important and structured, of course, can get you very very far. I I I love that that he actually spread that passion over to you. And I imagine it just seeps into the whole ecosystem of your your business, but also your learners. Correct. Yes. If you can tell very quickly if they're MFS certified. A, they're going to have logoed stuff because we let our students use our logo, right? We don't care. Uh we let our students use the video to train their people. Now, obviously, we do have a course specifically made for **[00:30:00]** workers, right? Um but, you know, if they can't afford it at the very beginning or whatever, like we're not trying to hold people over the coals. Use the video we've given you to train your people. Make sure they're doing this the right way. Uh you can quickly tell, right? Very, you know, if you're dealing with someone who's a professional in an industry or someone who's just run-of-the-mill. Uh and so all of our guys are passionate about what they do and if they're very passionate about it, they're going to be successful. That's a very Oh, that's a good point because it's not just you're training and we'll get to who you're actually training. uh but you train these let's let's say sometimes business owners or practitioners but then they also have employees or workers and you also have content that is applicable to that second level who's actually doing the work 100%. So, we have a worker's course and we have an owner's course, right? And the the the meat and potatoes is the same. The code, the implementation of the code, the inspections, all that stuff is going to be the same between the two courses. But what we've done is we've created an owner's course for our trades for someone who either has an HVAC business, for example, and now they're being asked by their restaurants to clean their hoods. That happens all the time. So, businesses want to expand, but they're like, "Well, how do I do that? How do I estimate? How do I, you know, build out a clientele? Like, what does this cost? what does that cost? How do I get insurance? And so, we've built into our program all those things. Now, a step further for that would be **[00:32:00]** some guy working in the kitchen, right? Let's say he's been there 10 years and he's just tired of, you know, shleing around all day, you know, making people's food and he wants to start his own business. And so, our owner scores goes as deep as how to register with the IRS, you know, how to create an EIN number, how to open a business bank account, what's business credit, right? There's things that just aren't taught on a daily basis to anybody. And and so, we try and encompass all of that. And obviously we can't, you know, in a our course is only three days, right? Um the hands-on course, but the videos that we have in our library is available to them at any time. They can go on the dashboard, they can rewatch the videos. Uh so it's available for and then the coaching and mentorship program as I mentioned before. Um that's something they can call us, talk to us about. So um we we we realize training and understanding is the most important thing when it comes to especially something like this cuz you know it's called hood cleaning, right? That's the the underlying identity of what this is. But what we're I think you're doing a fantastic thing. And the way you talk about it, I just feel the love for it. that I see a lot of training companies that just they find a market that needs training and basically and this we've talked about in some of the other shows they just slap a PowerPoint basically in a video and put it up there and that's your e-learning and then employees have to take that and then maybe they get a certification but it's just just to say that they **[00:34:00]** got it at the end of the day what you're doing since it's so handson hands on and there's so much at stake if people don't do it right. The fact that you taken the time through the years to build out this whole program and also have the mentorship and even and the business part is great. I there's so many people who like you said they might be in the kitchen they might want to just start something having these tools available but not in a general sense you know I mean there's I I love the cities sometimes have these programs where you can go and they'll teach you some business stuff and how to get your business started and things like that but it's generally sorry for redundancy but general uh in this case it's like you just have them go through the exact path they need for that particular type of business. And you don't get that in a lot of places. No. And the reason that we're able to do it is because we've already made all the mistakes. It's it's the running joke that Chris and I try to tell people, right? Listen, the we put this together for you, right? And we're not selling snake oil, right? We're not used car salesmen. But what we're doing is we've gone through this before. We've built the business out. You know, we've fallen off of roofs. We've burned our skin. I mean, I could show you the amount of of marks I have from acidbased chemicals being used to clean hood systems, right? I mean, what we're trying to do is we've tried to create a all-in-one package that can allow someone if they follow the steps. I mean, I can give you examples **[00:36:00]** of people who come out of, you know, the gate running and, you know, they do exactly what we say and two years from now, you know, they're making a million dollars a year. We've had people take six to eight months and they don't do what we say. They try to do it on their own and then they call us and they complain about it and we ask them very specific four or five questions. Are you doing this? Are you doing this? Are you 100% of the time they're not doing it and you know can I can I make everyone do everything? Of course not. But I just reiterate, listen, the reason that we talk about this, the reason we sell the equipment that we sell, right? You don't have to go all over the internet and and talk to all these people. We have it in front of us, right? Yes. Do we make a little bit of money off of it? Sure. But that's how we run the business, right? That's how I pay my salary. That's how Chris, you know, that's how our customer service team gets paid, right? Uh so it's it's a win-win for everybody by just, you know, allowing us to or any any industry if they're doing it properly, you know, they're going to pro they should be able to provide you with the tools that you need to be successful once you get certified. Uh you know, I I have my brother-in-laws. I got a plumber. I got a HVAC guy. Uh I got a drywall brother-in-law. You know, there's no school to teach them how to do this, right? they had to go and they had to go do the job for five, seven, 10 years and **[00:38:00]** then all of a sudden they're like, I think I want to start my own business. So, what does that look like? There's nowhere they can go, right? And even if there is, do they want to spend the four or 5 hundred bucks to learn how to do it? Yes or no? I guess it depends on how, you know, passionate they are about doing it. But that's why we put all this together. Uh we rolled it all into one nice little burrito and anybody that wants to take a bite can. That's amazing. That was actually was what I was going to ask. Where is MFS for plumbing, electricians, drywall? It sounds some all these trades are so important. And you see, if you talk to like a master electrician who loves his work, his job, it's it's amazing the things they can do and the things they need to know with all the codes to be able to do things properly and then avoid again fires like in your case. But you see them in their old van that's breaking apart and they've got like thousands of dollars of tools and everything in the back. But but still you can see that they're not at the place where they should be because of what they're doing because it's such an important work that they're doing. It should be a very profitable business if they only knew how to follow the path, right? You know, I uh I hope that uh I don't get in trouble with what I'm about to say next, but I'm going to go ahead and do it. I'm a pretty blunt guy. Uh the problem is Title 4. And if you're familiar with Title 4, that is what uh an institution needs **[00:40:00]** to do to be able to allow people to get student loans, PEL grants, and free money from the government to be able to attend a school. So, we're not title four eligible because we don't meet the requirements of the Department of Education. So, people that come to our school have to pay out of pocket. Now, we have financing options, but obviously a financing option for us is going to be 18, 20, 25%. Okay? Uh, if you get a student loan, now they're a little bit higher now, but back in the day, mine was 4%. Right? That's a lot more palatable, right, to be able to do that. And so, if we were able to expand Title 4 into trade schools, I know Mike Row tries to do this uh on a consistent basis. I really don't know how successful he is. I'm kind of immersed into this uh you know NFPA code sort of trade world. So, you know, maybe it'll change, maybe it won't. I'm not sure. Uh hopefully people that get passionate enough about it uh you know, want to take those next steps, but that's really the main problem is that there's no financing for people to be able to attend trade schools as far as I know. Things may have changed. Again, I don't know in the last couple years. Uh but, you know, they they can't do it at our school. So, I think that's the main problem if if you want to be honest with you. Is do you think it's both the person not being able to afford this school or also the fact that there might not be as many schools as well structured as yours because they don't think there's a market because these people cannot **[00:42:00]** afford to pay for I I I think you hit it both would be the simple question or excuse me the simple answer to that because they do have to pay out of pocket, right? And the amount of the amount of people that call us that want to do this or want to get into something like this because again we offer more than one. We have seven trades total that we teach here and you know they're they're priced differently just sort of based off of uh you know the need and and the code and and things of that nature and the materials for the course. Um, but you know it it's it's both, right? Because it's very difficult to probably even start a plumbing school, right? I mean, I didn't start this school. Chris did. Uh, and I know the the painstaking things that he went through having to submit our curriculum to every fire marshal, right? You know, we had to get approved to be able even to do this, right? So, even just thinking about that concept of writing a textbook, which we have, right? Submitting it to all over the the place and have people come back and say, "Wow, cool. We like this. Thank you. Go ahead. you're, you know, teach it. Um, so it's a process, you know. Um, it just takes someone that really wants to do it, I guess, right? Because you're going to take losses at some point, uh, in any venture you take. Um, you know, I back in back when I was probably selling more than I should have uh, with this stuff, instead of using like the educational piece, I used to have this line. I would always just say, you know, if you're not **[00:44:00]** willing to invest in yourself, who is, right? Because if you don't want to take the time to invest in your own life, whatever that is, like if you're working out or you want to quit doing something or you want to take your life to the next level, you know, Jesus Jesus loves you, but he's not popping out of your pocket to to teach you how to do something, right? You got to take your own onus to to create your own life. Uh and so you re whatever you want to do, whatever your passion is, invest in it, okay? You want to be a good dad, invest in that. You want to be a good person, invest in that. You want to start your own business, invest in it. Uh because if you don't, no one else is going to do it for you. That's that's so true. So true. And I I hope I really hope that this gets more more traction like you're saying. I mean, I'm glad Mike Rose and of course he has a lot of uh reach uh and the stuff he's doing is fantastic. trade. I actually fairly recently learned a little bit more about trade school because of of his his stuff. And it's astounding because everyone's spending all this money on university and these colleges tuition is so expensive. Well, and in some cases even before because some people go to private school plus university plus continuing education to then get into these jobs that might I mean they might do well, they might not. You never know. It's uh everything's changing but trades are required. There's so much need for these. you try to get uh an emergency plumber or an emergency electrician or or someone in **[00:46:00]** your industry and and sometimes they're busy, sometimes they cannot go and it's going to cost you a ton of money just because it's an emergency. But but people need these trades and people doing these trades and and again, it makes me really sad to see that they're not like just living the life because what they do is so good. I I don't know. I It's just uh it baffles me. I again I don't want to bring it back to the whole that money and government thing, but you know it if if the University of Florida is getting $100 million a year from the government, right? Okay, great. But like how many communications degrees do we need? How many marketing degrees do we actually need? Yeah, I don't know. I I don't want to say that it's it's worthless to do something like that, but I can promise you that uh there's a higher need for trades than there is for a marketing degree. Okay? I mean, I'll just go ahead and I'll I'll die on that hill. Um so, if we can somehow become advocates for the trade in general, uh not just ours and the ones we teach, but all of them, you know, I think that that's something that will benefit everyone, what that looks like, how that starts. I I I think it just it would take it would take an industry leader from every trade getting together and just sacrificing themselves and what they want and fighting for the future of what everybody else wants. And you know, is that something they want to do? Is that something they have time for? I you know, I don't know. Um can can they have can we afford can all the trades get **[00:48:00]** together and throw some money at a a lobby group and then have that lobby group go and and and try to do that? Maybe. But again, who's going to organize that? Who's got time to do all that, right? Uh, usually trade guys work. I mean, I'll be working tonight at 10 p.m., right? So, I'm up up all day teaching, talking, you know, we're doing this. I got consultations with students and then I'm going to go hop in my truck uh with my boy Victor and we're going to go to a restaurant uh down in South Orlando off Chickasaw Trail and we're going to go do a cleaning. So, you know, it's there's a lot to do. Um, who has time to do anything else, right? I love that you're still in it apart from working in it the training aside but actually still in the business that's and you need to do that like there's there's so many instances of people who become coaches or trainers or make a training business and then they get away from the actual work and they lose lose sight of it. And we see it often and there's some rare instances like in your case that no that people stay in it and and that's that's where success comes because you really need to be in the weeds at the end of the day like Gary Vee I imagine you you know Gary Vaynerchuk. Uh for anyone who's listening who doesn't follow Gary Vee the he apart from running this global immense business plus uh many other site business that he has he is there every day and he knows live social shopping is big. Then he goes in, he's selling on whatnot and he's giving advice on there. **[00:50:00]** But at the same time, he's selling coffee mugs and he's building a brand of like trading cards and he's just doing everything because everything comes back to what his business does or his other business teaches or etc. But he's in the weeds and so he knows what's working and not working. And in your case, since the codes are changing so often, if if you're not in it, like even just reading the codes, you might realize something in the day-to-day that, oh man, we we should really pick up on this new index or whatever. Yeah. A great example of code changing in between books um is another course that we teach, right? And so last in 2023 um in between uh the 2021 2024 code books coming out uh now not only does the hood system have to be inspected, maintained, and potentially cleaned by a certified trained professional. Now the exterior of appliances in kitchens must have the same type of inspection. Now, if you've been in the back of the kitchen before, uh, for anyone listening or if you have Arando, some people do not clean the exterior of their ovens or their fryers or, you know, whatever, right? And there's uh this buildup that accumulates on the outside. And after oil and grease uh hardens, it becomes carbonized. You know, if you're familiar with Star Wars, right? It's carbon. That's what Han Solo gets put in. That hard substance gets stuck to the exterior of these appliances. Okay. And they can catch fire just like anything else can, right? And so that has been happening more and more and more. So what do they do? 2023, they come out with a new code 12.7.1 and 12.7.2 that says now the exterior of all **[00:52:00]** commercial appliances in a kitchen must be inspected, maintained, and if necessary with grease laden vapors, cleaned. Okay? So if that's not being done at restaurants now, I can tell you that no one's doing that right now. Okay? And one of the reasons we adopted the trade uh and we started teaching the course is because it's a very easy transition for our hood guys and girls. Now I'm doing the hoods. Hey, just so you know, and again, it's not a sales tactic. The code has changed. I I could pull in the book right now. All right. It the code says right here that this has to be done now. So I'm make I'm maintaining your hood systems, but now I have to do the appliances. And it's not the interior, it's the exterior, right? Because that's where that grease sort of builds up. They're built to have fires inside, right? Because they cook stuff, right? You can maintain it. You can close it up. Hopefully the fire will go out, but the fire start on the outside. Yeah. What do you do? So, if you're if you're not up to date on this stuff and you don't know for all of 2023, right, leading into the book being released in 2024, excuse me, you had a fire on the exterior of your of your fryer, whatever, right? And your whole building burns down. The fire marshall comes in and says, "Oh, well, they know where the fire starts, right? They know if it's a match. They know if it's outlet. They know they know. So, oh, it looks like a fire starter on the exterior of your fire here from this buildup with this carbon and uh so, hey, can you provide me with your uh **[00:54:00]** cert certification of completion for uh the inspection of this? And they're going to be like and they would they would be like, what are you even talking about? Right? And so, and they're like, well, guess what? We're not paying your claim out. So, it's little stuff like that, you know? Does it happen all the time? No. Right? But the the the 50 to 100 people in America that it does happen to every year, they sure as heck wish they knew about it. Yes. I I love the educational piece where you're you're just just telling them what they actually need to know instead of I mean these these restaurants are millions of dollars, right? And and if you don't and if and if your hood cleaner, right, is not up to date on the code, if they're not an MFS student, there's a good chance they're not. And if they're not up to date on something happens, you're liable as a restaurant owner, right? The fire marshall is not liable, right? They they're doing their job, you know, the way that they know how to do it. If their jurisdiction's ever been educated, doesn't have an up- to-date, doesn't have an NFPA, uh, uh, you know, membership, for example, so they get updated, um, you know, they're not going to know. So, that's why we teach our guys to do that, so they can be fully prepared to to to do the right thing and then make a living doing it. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. No, it's great. That's great. And and I see some of your videos on your site like teaching people like you can make a business out of this. Like it's not only you can get better at **[00:56:00]** the trade and get hired somewhere else. It's you can literally build your own business about this and actually do really well. So again, there's a free webinar on our YouTube page. Chris does it. Um the guy's a millionaire. Okay, I could tell you that. I you know, he didn't have Yeah, he he probably wouldn't tell you that just because he's a very humble guy. He's from Greek origin, you know, first first time uh first generation American from my understanding, I believe. Um maybe second, but regardless, um we've done the math. It's on there. You know, two guys on a truck doing 10 jobs a week can make $364,000 a year on average. One truck, put three trucks on the road doing 30 jobs a week. Now, again, this is not a get-rich quick scheme. How it's not easy to go find 30 restaurants to clean in a week for three trucks, okay? It takes some work, takes some build out, but we help with that. Um, so you know, on average one truck can make uh $364,000 a year. Do some math, you know, pay a couple guys $50 to $75,000 a year. That leaves you, you know, maybe materials, another 50 grand. So you can make about $100,000 a year not doing anything but managing one truck. Now, does that happen from the beginning? No. But it does happen for some guys. And some guys got five trucks. I got one of my friends, I call them friends now. I got a client, he has five trucks, right? Um, we helped guys get contracts for Piggly Wiggly and Darden and, you know, bring all these types of scenarios are possible. Again, is it everybody? No. But success is different to everybody. We got guys **[00:58:00]** that come and take the class and they, you know, they just want to go themselves and do a couple jobs a week, make a couple thousand bucks, and they work 10 hours a week, 15 hours a week, and that's fine. They don't even have a second person. Now, you should have a second person, right, when you're doing this work, but some guys don't. It's up to them. Uh but everything's possible, you know, as long as uh you work hard and you know, keep keep your head down and do the right thing. Nice. How how often do people So let's say you start a business and you have a truck or or multiple trucks and you you go and do the cleanings or inspections or whatever you need to do. How let's say you have 10 restaurant clients. Are you going to them every few weeks, every few months, every few days? How does that work? And how Sure. So, in inside the NFPA96 code book, there's something called a frequency schedule. And that frequency schedule is based off of multiple items, what they're cooking material is, uh, you know, what they're cooking with as far as oil, are they using wood, charcoal, um, are they 24 hours a day, are they an event hall, are they a church, are they a casino? So um there's multiple things inside of the code book and we have taken all that info uh made it very easy to uh digest in our textbook and then when we teach people how to do that uh each place is different. So uh one restaurant could be 12 times one restaurant could be one time a year. Uh casinos generally they want to do it every week, every two weeks um **[01:00:00]** just because of their liability with having pe anytime there's people living above a restaurant. Uh those places generally want to do it more than once a month. But that's but once a month is going to be like a barbecue restaurants and stuff like that. And then like I said like an event hall or like a church place, you know, that's usually once a year or like a daycare center. I mean, the positive is I mean, prisons, hospitals, daycarees, food trucks, every single one of these places has to be inspected at least once a year and sometimes cleaned, right? And that's a different price point. And that we teach them how to how to do that, how to work it, um, you know, how to build the business. That's amazing. Keith, I know you have somewhere to get to. I really appreciate you coming on to the show. This has been really insightful. I had no idea about all this and and and every time I go to a restaurant now, I'm going to going to be looking at other things that maybe I I wasn't looking at before, but I really appreciate you coming on. If people want to learn a little bit more about MFS or exhaust hood cleaning or I know you you also have kitchen appliance cleaning now, where is the best way to find you? And finally, if you could also just give a recommendation to someone who's thinking of going into a specific trade, what would be their ideal next step? Yeah, I I'll answer the second one first and then I'll give my info if that's cool with you, Arando. Um the most important thing when you're building a business, whether you're going to open ice cream shop or **[01:02:00]** you want to do hoods, okay, is you need to do a business plan, right? You need to do some research. You need to find out what the need is in your local community. Okay? Now, here in Orlando, it's my probably a lot easier, right? There's 3,000 restaurants just in like the city that I live in, right? And so, it's very easy to sort of know, okay, there's 3,000 restaurants. Somebody's doing this work, right? Uh so, I would say a business plan, doing your due diligence, doing your research on the the the target market that you want to focus on. Once you've accomplished that and you see that it is a good thing to go do, right? Because that's step one. Once you've done that, I think the second thing is to get your education. Now, what does that look like? Is there a school you can attend? Is there a conference you can go to? Do you need to go be uh someone's assistant for a while and learn how to do it? Whatever that looks like. So, first thing first is understand your target market, understand your area. Uh second thing would be to get educated in it. Whatever that looks like. From that point, it's trial by fire. Uh no business owner that I'm aware of, unless their dad did it for them or their grandpa walks straight into some place and becomes really rich. Right now, if that's the case, great. You know, as long as you don't mess it up, you know what they've built, kudos to you. Uh, I don't think there's anything wrong with that whatsoever. Um, you know, so I think those are some important steps. And if you want to learn more about us, uh, we're at **[01:04:00]** www.mfstsradeschool.com. Very simple. If you type in MFStrade school, we will pop up. Our YouTube channel will pop up. Our website will pop up. Not only do we teach the seven different trades, uh, which one includes public entity bidding, right? Because government contracts are out there. Every school has a kitchen and every school has to be cleaned. Uh those are quarter million, half million, million-dollar contracts that that the government puts out there for people. Um and so you can find us MFS Trade School anywhere. You can call us our 1-800 number. I mean, you can you can easily find my cell phone uh number on there and I'll pick up, Chris will pick up. Um you know, we're here to help. We can answer questions about your particular restaurant uh if you want to build a trade. And I have friends that do everything here locally. Um you know, fire suppression, like I mentioned, plumbing. So, we're here to help. Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, Keith. I'll put some of those links in the show notes and thank everyone for listening. Talk to you in the next show. Cheers. Appreciate Armando. Pleasure to