Welcome to Building BuildWitt! For the last 4 weeks, we’ve published pieces of a 4-part story chronicling Dirt Talk host Aaron Witt’s upbringing far away from the Dirt World and how a series of disconnected experiences and decisions led to the formation and growth of the company that became BuildWitt. In the final episode of this season, we’ll hear how and why Aaron started hiring people, how he almost got arrested in Saudi Arabia, and why its so vital to tell the stories of the Dirt World. Than...
Dec 29, 2022•36 min
Welcome to Building BuildWitt! For the next 4 weeks, we’ll be bringing you pieces of a 4-part story chronicling Dirt Talk host Aaron Witt’s upbringing far away from the Dirt World and how a series of disconnected experiences and decisions led to the formation and growth of the company that became BuildWitt. In episode 3, Aaron tells of his experiences working for Kiewit (and why he turned down their full-time job offer), why he moved to Texas, and why he left construction altogether. Thanks for ...
Dec 22, 2022•30 min
Welcome to Building BuildWitt! For the next 4 weeks, we’ll be bringing you pieces of a 4-part story chronicling Dirt Talk host Aaron Witt’s upbringing far away from the Dirt World and how a series of disconnected experiences and decisions led to the formation and growth of the company that became BuildWitt. In episode 2, Aaron tells of the punch in the mouth that came in the form of “going to college for engineering”, what he realized that he loved about working in the field, and why he came in ...
Dec 15, 2022•32 min
Welcome to Building BuildWitt! For the next 4 weeks, we’ll be bringing you pieces of a 4-part story chronicling Dirt Talk host Aaron Witt’s upbringing far away from the Dirt World and how a series of disconnected experiences and decisions led to the formation and growth of the company that became BuildWitt. In episode 1, Aaron shares the story of his childhood love of the trash truck (and its driver), his formative years working on a ranch in Montana, and the career-shifting experience of his fi...
Dec 08, 2022•27 min
Nate Emerson runs Armadillo Excavation in Chattanooga, TN. Nate grew up on a 100-acre farm in Giles County, about an hour south of Nashville. After 2 years of college studying construction management, Nate knew that it wasn’t for him, and made a hard pivot to working in the music industry, selling merchandise, and doing stagehand work. After some office work experience, Nate found himself staring out the window into the Chattanooga mountains and realized that was where he needed to be. So he sta...
Dec 01, 2022•1 hr 16 min
This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex ditch the original topic planned as they have a frank and honest conversation about the complications of serving an industry without being in the industry directly, why the work in the Dirt World is SO vital, and why the narrative about Blue Collar work in today’s society must change. If you’ve been following along with BuildWitt and care about the Dirt World, you know that the narrative shift must start with us. Stay Dirty! Listen to Dirt Talk: Spotify: ht...
Nov 28, 2022•27 min
This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron and Eric discuss strange emissions laws, plus answer questions about Whistlin’ Diesel, patching highways, and the Dirt World effects of increased interest rates. — DirtWorld.com Let’s build a BETTER DIRT WORLD Without the Dirt World, we wouldn’t have food, clean water, electricity, roads, or shelter required for survival. Demand for the industry is growing, yet over 40% of our workforce will retire by 2031. We must add hundreds of thousands of people every year only...
Nov 21, 2022•38 min
DirtWorld.com Without the Dirt World, we wouldn’t have the food, clean water, electricity, roads, or shelter required for survival. Demand for the industry is growing, yet over 40% of our workforce will retire by 2031. We must add hundreds of thousands of people every year only to keep up… So let’s fix that. What if society viewed our profession as noble? What if parents were proud when their kids declared they wanted to be in the Dirt World? What if a workforce shortage was no longer a worry? N...
Nov 17, 2022•34 min
Last week, hosts Aaron Witt and Alex Horton laid out the plans for Aaron’s trip to Germany with Chase Lyons, a Director/Videographer at BuildWitt. Those guys are now back stateside and they uh… got into some stuff over there. Aaron lays out their time at the bauma trade show , a construction and mining machinery trade fair held every three years in Munich. It’s the largest tradeshow in the world, but the guys got to spend a lot of time meeting folks in the Dirt World and seeing some badass machi...
Nov 14, 2022•38 min
Jennifer Todd has quite a varied background, but saying it that way doesn’t really do her story justice. She is the Founder and President of LMS Contractors (with offices in FL and GA), graduated from law school while starting a business, was the youngest Black woman to acquire California’s CSLB General Engineering (A) license, multiple college degrees… AND was a contestant on NBC’s The Weakest Link (watch a clip here ). And that’s just getting started. So obviously, the Dirt Talk crew was thril...
Nov 10, 2022•1 hr 8 min
This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron lays out the trip itinerary to Europe for late October 2022. He and Chase Lyons (Field Producer at BuildWitt) will be spending a few days at bauma 2022 in Munich, Germany, before a 2 day break in Austria. After the Austrian weekend, the guys will head back to Germany for a few days with the folks from Zeppelin Caterpillar . Stay tuned for the update podcast about bauma (it’s been nuts over there!) as well as a breakdown of the trip in a few weeks. Listen to Dirt Tal...
Nov 07, 2022•30 min
This week on Dirt Talk, we were delighted to host Aric Smith, Safety Manager at Achen-Gardner Construction out of Chandler, AZ. Aric has done it all in the Dirt World: he started running tractors in high school, pouring concrete, digging ponds, pipelayer… and this was before even becoming an operator! Also to note: Aric used to run a crew that included none other than 18-year-old (and future Dirt Talk host) Aaron Witt himself. Aaron and Aric dig into Aric’s background cutting his teeth on farm e...
Nov 03, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 144
Aron Nick was recommended to us with a simple message: “He has been kicking ass trying to make the Dirt World a better place.” Since that is about as good of an intro as any: Aron Nick is an Equipment Trainer at Strack, Inc out of Fairburn, GA. He’s been around the block in the industry: shoveled fly ash at a coal power plant, helped build the 5th runway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and has built a reputation as an elite operator. He’s spent time as a supervisor, thought ...
Oct 27, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Ep. 143
Although social media has been almost universally adopted for personal use worldwide, it can still sometimes be a polarizing topic when it comes to its use in business. This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex discuss the value that comes from using social media to tell the world who your business is and what you’re all about. A majority of this week's conversation centers around the idea that treating social media as a way to get more clients misses tons of its value and only scratches the surfac...
Oct 24, 2022•51 min
When Aaron Witt found out that Priestly Demolition ’s VP of Operations Brian Priestly & President Ryan Priestly would travel south to Nashville from Ontario, Canada, Aaron immediately reached out to the rest of the Dirt Talk crew with a simple message: “get these guys on the podcast.” Fortunately for us, they came down to the BuildWitt HQ, and we had a ball talking demolition… because who doesn’t enjoy a little demo, now and then?! After a quick tour of the office, the guys settled into the ...
Oct 20, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 142
Aaron and Alex are back in the studio, but this Monday the audience members are the ones truly in the driver's seat. That’s right we are doing another question-and-answer episode and touching on some great submissions from our amazing Dirt Talk fans. The questions touch on recognizable iron, how rewarding a career in the Dirt World can be, running one-hundred miles, our core values, and lessons from starting a company. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions. Keep on sending them to dirtal...
Oct 17, 2022•43 min
This week, we bring you the very first edition of Dirt Talk: LIVE where Aaron, Alex, and Eric take the Dirt Talk show on the road. Aaron lays out the story below: “Months ago, organizers from the ECC (The Association for the Capital Projects Engineering and Construction Community) asked us to speak to 200 of their future leaders at their annual conference in San Antonio. Think key future leaders from companies like Chevron, Shell, Fluor, and Kiewit. While I figured I’d prepare another speech abo...
Oct 13, 2022•59 min•Ep. 141
On today’s episode of Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex are joined by Eric Jumper. The guys are coming right off of a full company BuildWitt meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, and they examine why it makes sense to spend money on a company meeting when you’re in growth mode. They discuss the value of educating each person in the company understanding how each team works and why each piece is important to the larger mission to make the Dirt World a better place. Enjoy this Behind the Scenes peek into #buil...
Oct 10, 2022•54 min
Today’s episode is a special treat for Dirt Talk listeners (and maybe especially the Dirt Talk host): Aaron’s mother Carolyn MacDonald is the guest! She gives the dirt (pun intended?) on Aaron’s obsession with construction and its equipment from a very young age as well as gives context (and corroboration) for many of the memories that Aaron has shared over the years about his earliest memories of the Dirt World. This week on Dirt Talk, host Aaron Witt and guest (and mother of the host) Carolyn ...
Oct 06, 2022•57 min•Ep. 140
This week on the Dirt Talk podcast, Aaron, Alex, and guest-host Eric Jumper revisit their recent experience doing the Dirt Talk podcast LIVE in front of a large audience at the ECC Conference in San Antonio, TX. They discuss the challenges of changing up the approach and why it was both fun (and intimidating) to talk about the Dirt World to a room of folks from the energy sector. Later, they chat about the interesting dynamic of some folks in the industry not believing in the BuildWitt mission. ...
Oct 03, 2022•31 min
Brent Rasmussen might have the title of Project Manager on LinkedIn, but he’s got his hands all over the family company, Rasmussen Excavation LLC . Rasmussen was started almost 50 years ago with a focus on excavation, but in the years since, they’ve branched out into utilities, sand/gravel, rentals, and their most niche offering: solar projects. This week on Dirt Talk, host Aaron Witt is joined by Brent Rasmussen. The guys chat about building solar farms (12:54) , keeping younger guys motivated ...
Sep 29, 2022•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 139
This week begins a new phase on Dirt Talk: Each Monday, we’ll be releasing episodes with new formats, new guests, and new stories! This week on Dirt Talk, the OG Dirt Talk crew (Aaron Witt and Alex Horton) is here with a Q+A. The guys chat about “hidden gem” locations in the Dirt World, book recommendations for young people in the industry, and “chasing the dozer dream”. They also discuss the right time to specialize equipment, keeping morale up on a long slog of a job, and Aaron’s “insistence” ...
Sep 26, 2022•43 min
Because September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month , we’re featuring a few experts on the topic to share information and tools to help make the Dirt World a better place for all of us. Today, Michelle Walker, founding chairperson of the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention , is back on the Dirt Talk podcast for her second episode. She was first featured on episode 41 way back in November 2020. You can find that episode here: buildwitt.com/dirt-talk/podcast/suicide-preventio...
Sep 22, 2022•1 hr 10 min
This week, we’ve got Aaron, Alex, and frequent guest Eric Jumper talking about jobsite mistakes and the lessons learned (or not learned). Aaron shares a story from his time working on the railroad, and Eric realizes once he starts telling one mistake story how many others begin flooding his memory. We all make mistakes on the job, and it’s time we admit that mistakes are part of the pathway to growth and getting better. A (semi-) famous quote: “Dude, sucking at something is the first step toward...
Sep 19, 2022•38 min
Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas sees issues of suicide prevention and mental health promotion from a host of perspectives. Clinical psychologist. Mental health advocate. Faculty member. Researcher. And suicide loss survivor. She has earned an international reputation as an entrepreneur and innovator in social change. Along the way, she’s helped establish many large-scale, gap-filling mental health efforts, including Man Therapy (www.ManTherapy.org) and National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. I...
Sep 15, 2022•1 hr 21 min
This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron Witt and Alex Horton are joined by Dirt World “Expert” Eric Jumper. Eric complains about not getting paid after working at BuildWitt for two years (editor’s note: this is not true) before the guys address internet trolls who complain that every video Aaron posts doesn’t show every step of every process, people putting RAM-NEK in the back of an excavator to warm it up in the cold months, and the time Eric brought 10 feet of sewer pipe into the BuildWitt office. Later...
Sep 12, 2022•48 min
Sophie Coleman (of Victoria, Australia) was raised around the Dirt World as her father built up his career before he started MC Earthmoving . Sophie had thought joining the family business would be for her other siblings, and ended up moving to New York City. But after working a few jobs and traveling a good bit around the US, she started feeling the pull to go back to Australia. And after working part-time at MC Earthmoving as she built her freelance graphic design business, she started to find...
Sep 08, 2022•1 hr 14 min
This week, Aaron recounts his recent travel through Canada as he visited an oil sands mine site, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the world, Fort McMurray, Calgary - a wide-ranging trip with some badass earthwork. Aaron weighs in on the negative perception (and the importance today) of oil and the role it plays in society before he and Alex discuss questions about how some employers are providing work-life balance opportunities for their people and why some companies who do the actual earth...
Sep 05, 2022•45 min
“The only way to have a more sustainable world is through infrastructure.” Will Paddock is the Managing Director of WAP Sustainability based in Tennessee, a team of sustainability professionals who help clients both in and out of the Dirt World achieve their sustainability goals. To say “the world of sustainability is complex” would be an understatement, as evidenced by the conversation Will had with Dirt Talk host Aaron Witt, but Will has spent his entire career in the space and was able to con...
Sep 01, 2022•1 hr 9 min
This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex check in on the joys of running and the utter terror of a bathroom emergency in the middle of a long run. Naturally, they transition to the topic of “Perseverance”. Later, they answer questions about staying in the Dirt World while striving for a healthy work-life balance and how to work through relational issues with difficult crew members. Don’t forget to check out the video of this podcast on the Dirt Talk YouTube channel or on the BuildWitt app! To conn...
Aug 29, 2022•40 min
