Killing Gatekeepers with Kindness: The Energy of Juan Macias

Wade00:00

Hello. accidentally followed the zoom and I was like, this is different.

Peter Brecht00:01

Wade!

Juan Macias00:01

How's it going?

Peter Brecht00:06

Yeah, not quite the, this is not the room you're looking for. Dude, what, like it's so funny on the days that I don't wear the local energy hat, Wade wears it. And it's not, we don't plan this at all. It's not like we try to figure this out, so.

Wade00:10

That's right.

Juan Macias00:17

Bye.

Wade00:18

Thank

I don't

Know that we should look like we try and play in it too much, you know?

Peter Brecht00:24

Never. He does, he does. He's got his curved out.

Juan Macias00:26

He got his nice and curved though.

Wade00:31

I was gonna say, I'm a baseball player from the 90s. I mean, it was all the way down, it had to be all the way down here. And it kills me when my boy is like, I touch his hat, and he wants to keep it flat and everything. So it's funny. What do we got going on for hats today? All right. It's Macias, right? Macias, all right. And what do you, Riggs and-

Juan Macias00:33

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Peter Brecht00:46

Yeah, that's Macias Industries. Macias, yeah. Yeah. I got rigs

Juan Macias00:50

Maceus Industries. Yep, Maceus Industries.

Peter Brecht00:56

And fins. So I got a couple, we had that com that you and I talked about, the single double triple rig, and then a friend of mine was like, dude, we gotta, he just threw some hats together for me for fun, Yeah. Right, yeah, exactly, I, no.

Wade01:03

Right?

That's right. So the one with the surfing and stuff. All right. That was

A sweet picture, by the way.

Peter Brecht01:14

That is a sweet picture. JJ's a good

Juan Macias01:15

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht01:16

Dude. We get some good photography out here. It'll be even better if I get to go surf off of one of those Sable rigs someday, it'd be fun. Anyways.

Wade01:25

That'd be pretty awesome.

Peter Brecht01:28

So Juan, dude, we're so excited to have you on today. So wait, I don't know if I told you and I'll start the show here in a second, but this is just all backstory. But so we, I was making this hot sauce and I couldn't come up with a name for it. And I think I had a name for it, but it was super basic or just like our logo. So I sent the copy over to Juan and he goes, he came back with like five names and the top one was friction reducer. And I was like, that is, that's the one we're going with.

Wade01:35

Okay.

Juan Macias01:51

Thank

Wade01:55

I like it.

Peter Brecht01:58

So anyways, he's the marketing genius behind the name. So it's been good. So our.

Juan Macias02:03

But I actually

Wade02:03

That's gotta

Get you a free bottle, right?

Juan Macias02:04

Gave it, I gave one of those to a completions company man yesterday out on the site and he immediately took pictures of it and started sending it to all his buddies and laughing and... yep.

Peter Brecht02:06

Yeah. Did you? Okay.

Sweet. Dude,

Wade02:14

Ha

Peter Brecht02:15

It's so funny. We buy hot sauce for, $6, $7, $8 a bottle.

And the reality is like I you know talking to my magazine's Matt who helps make all the sauces he goes dude it's it the it's pennies on the dollar like it's insane like like it's it well it because you're just making like gallons of this liquid at once right and putting these small bottles and he's like you know all he sells me the each bottle that I buy is three dollars and 85 cents right so it's 385 a bottle but he retails he'll go retail that same bottle that same size for eight dollars here

Wade02:32

Really?

Right.

Peter Brecht02:51

In California, so it's insane. So anyways, there's margin, but I mean, it's a hot, I don't know how much hot sauce can you sell, right? So we're gonna keep Juan stocked up though, that's for sure.

Wade02:53

Alright.

Juan Macias02:59

Mm-hmm.

Wade02:59

Right.

Juan Macias03:02

But yeah,

I got people asking for it.

Peter Brecht03:04

Good, all right, well you're gonna be our official ambassador here pretty quickly, so as long as we're making sauce, we'll keep you stocked, how's that? Cool, all right, well I'll kick things off, and how do want me to introduce you? Just Juan Macias, Macias, Macias, I'm sorry, I keep saying your name wrong, so I'll fix that. Macias, okay. Okay. Waggoner? Okay. Waggoner, I'm sorry, okay.

Juan Macias03:13

Sounds good.

Yeah, Macias, Macias Industries, Wagner Energy Services. Wagner. Yep.

Peter Brecht03:32

I'm

Juan Macias03:32

No, you're good.

Peter Brecht03:33

Looking at your LinkedIn right now. You know how like I see your name so many times I say it in my head But I'm not saying it out loud. So this is the first time for me. So Yeah, I know for sure. All here we go. All right Welcome to local energy. My name is Peter Brecht. I'm here with Wade Spear and our guest today is Juan Macias Juan, how are you doing? Yeah, you told me you've got it like two in the morning just so you could make this recording

Juan Macias03:37

Well, mm-hmm.

Wade03:40

You're going to have to break that. Yeah, you're going have to break it now.

Juan Macias03:56

Good, excited.

Yeah, I had a couple customers I had to get out to this morning and made sure I made time for that. Brought a rig breakfast and had to go see another one.

Peter Brecht04:06

Yeah.

That's awesome man. So hey, bring us up to speed. Like what's new and exciting in your world and what are you doing these days?

Juan Macias04:16

Yeah, busy, always working. Wagner Energy's keeping me busy, visiting rigs, going on jobs, running all their social media. CS Industries as well, busy. Lately I've had a lot of people reaching out, just graphic design, marketing ideas, always emails, text messages, busy. Yep.

Peter Brecht04:37

Constant well

You are the mastermind behind our friction reducer hot sauce name and actually helping us fix some of the copy-ups So, we and I put our heads together on the first draft and you know I like to think I'm pretty good at some marketing stuff every now and then but then I sent it to you and you just had these like these I was just like this is brilliant. So You're the right person for the job and just want to say thank you for that. So You're you're you're

Wade04:50

You you

Juan Macias04:59

No, I appreciate that.

Peter Brecht05:03

Social media energy is unmatched, think, by a lot of people. On LinkedIn, I just look at your posts and the number of impressions and your photography and the drones. I mean, you're doing all these things. You got the marketing company on the side. I guess, what brought you into, first of all, oil and gas. And then, the second part of that is, the marketing side of it. You don't find a lot of guys that are, tried and true oil and gas marketing people.

Juan Macias05:18

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht05:31

It's usually one or the other.

Juan Macias05:33

Yeah, oil and gas kind of just happened. I did two years at Ohio State, tried the college life and then decided to try and make money instead. So I was working for a carbide manufacturing company out here in Pennsylvania and it's next to a trucking company that hauled tools for Baker Hughes. And one of the truckers got out of the truck while we were all sitting outside and said, hey, any of you guys want to work in the oil field, Baker Hughes is hiring, apply.

And about a week later, I was in orientation for a wireline operator position at Baker Hughes. So that's that started.

Wade06:10

So what'd you start doing at

Baker? What was your first job over there?

Juan Macias06:14

As a wireline operator, my first job was for... I'm trying to think of a company. They don't work anymore up here. ...

Wade06:16

Okay.

But you were wireline operator? Okay. Gotcha. How'd you like that?

Juan Macias06:25

Yep, yeah, wireline operator.

It was fun. It was cool. It was, I was basically thrown onto a crew, put on the back of a truck and was started tearing down Baker twenties. So yeah, learned from the ground up.

Wade06:36

Right. That's awesome.

What year was that?

Juan Macias06:43

2014. So going on almost 12 years. What was that?

Wade06:44

Okay. So still blowing and going up there in the Northeast?

It was still blowing and going up in the Northeast? Still really busy? Okay.

Juan Macias06:50

Yeah, yep, no

They were busy. They were hiring people left and right.

Wade06:54

That sounds very similar to how I got started at Baker. Baker was my first job too as an MWD. I was told they were hiring anybody with a pulse, so I figured. How long were you an operator for?

Juan Macias06:57

Yeah.

Pretty much,

Two years.

Wade07:10

Okay, gotcha. Just run around all over there in the northeast, Ohio, Pennsylvania, kind of all in that area or?

Juan Macias07:13

And then I went to

I got volunteered to work all over. Was in North Dakota. I was in Oklahoma City. I was in Midland. Almost went to Bakersfield, but ended up not. So I was all over the place.

Wade07:30

Gotcha.

Peter Brecht07:31

Hmm, very, so you're there for, yeah, it looks like two years and then from there, made your kind of your next move, right? Cause I think about it like 2014, it's 11 years ago, oh my gosh, time flies. It's insane, it's insane. So you've had, you've had, almost over 10 years of experience at this point, but so start a wireline. What was your next kind of phase from there?

Juan Macias07:42

Yeah, that's a long time ago. Doesn't seem like it. Yep.

After that it was Gyrodata I started running a truck for Gyrodata running gyros setting whip stocks Motor orientations that kind of stuff

Peter Brecht07:57

Okay. Okay.

Hmm, okay. And then currently, you're, man, it's just so much going on. You're with Wagner Energy. 10 years later, kind of more of a wealth of knowledge, right? But what's your day to day with Wagner?

Juan Macias08:21

Yeah, day to day I'm usually out the door by 5 a.m. Have a list of rigs I want to get to, customers I want to see, or potential customers to try and get in the door with. And I'm usually just spreading the word and knocking on doors.

Peter Brecht08:36

Gotcha.

Wade08:36

What's

Wagner's focus like in terms of?

Juan Macias08:39

So our main service is torque and test, but we provide torque and test, Hydrovac, water blasting, all sorts of things. Lot of stuff you can get into with all that equipment. Yeah.

Wade08:43

Okay.

Yeah, no kidding. Where are you

Based out of?

Juan Macias08:54

Wagner is based out of Marietta, OH, So it's a couple hour drive from me, but I have rigs right by my house that we're working on, so we're all over the place.

Wade08:57

Welcome.

I got you. Awesome.

Peter Brecht09:04

That's cool. What's your, gosh, so anyone in a sales position where you have to go talk to people, think food is like a great way in, right, to talk to people, but that said, are you having to call people, like cold calls and stuff like that, or is it more like boots on the ground for the most part? Yeah.

Juan Macias09:14

Yeah. Yup.

I'll definitely cold call. Like I'll

Get contacts from people and reach out or send emails, but a lot of it is I like being face to face. I like visiting the rigs and you know, getting to know, getting to know them.

Peter Brecht09:33

Yeah.

Okay, understood. And how big is the company you're with? I mean, I'm not familiar with it and I wish I was a little bit more, but.

Juan Macias09:41

Wagner is

A pretty small family-owned company. I want to say there's a total of eight of us right now. Yep.

Peter Brecht09:44

Okay.

Oh wow, okay, gotcha, okay,

Fantastic. Yeah, that's really cool. So they're still family owned and operated, a lot of these companies, which is cool.

Wade09:52

Else.

Juan Macias09:54

Yes, the word. You know.

Peter Brecht10:00

That's really special. I worked for, I've always worked for smaller independent companies and mostly because I just like the flexibility or like, hey, the ability to kind of lead and get into certain things or raise your hand, right? Take the initiative on parts of it. But as soon as you kind of get into that corporate life, it's definitely more structured. There's definitely benefits to it. But, they kind of tell you what to do and where to go and how to do it. It'd be my impression too. Is that the same in the oil and gas field? Yeah. Okay.

Juan Macias10:28

Yeah, I think so. I've

Worked at a lot of bigger companies, but it's definitely a lot more intimate at the smaller companies. I'm talking to the owner 10 times a day.

Peter Brecht10:37

Right, Very cool.

Wade10:43

So if you got a rig that you're

Trying to get onto and having a hard time getting in the door, what's your go-to food order up there? What's really popular?

Juan Macias10:57

Popular up here? I don't know, a of the time, man, they like steak. But I'm pretty big on, I like bringing beef jerky first. That'll, that'll get them in the door. They like beef jerky more than donuts.

Peter Brecht10:57

Probably Whataburger.

Yeah.

Wade11:01

I'm go.

Peter Brecht11:08

That's cool, I didn't think about that.

Wade11:08

Man, I'll tell you.

We used to have our rigs a lot closer to the house, so I spent a lot more time out there. And there was some beef jerky that some of the vendors brought by that were from this butcher shop in Tri-City. And it was, like you say, it was absolutely amazing. Whenever I'm driving through there, I still stop and get some of that jerky, because it was so good. And it keeps forever, so.

Peter Brecht11:26

Hmm.

Juan Macias11:33

Yeah,

Well there's one up here called 84 Packing that's just outside of Washington, Pennsylvania. Anytime I can stop there and grab three or four bags of it, because I know I'm heading to three or four rigs just to pass them out, it definitely helps.

Wade11:47

All right.

Peter Brecht11:48

Hmm have you guys ever

Wade11:48

What's so good about it? It?

Peter Brecht11:50

Tried have you ever tried making your own sorry I gotta ask if you ever tried to make your own jerky no all right wait if you ever know all right if you get a chance like Dude, it is so like homemade it takes so much work to do it right, but like I have a smoker and I'll you know do you can

Juan Macias11:53

I have not, No. I'd love to, but I haven't.

Wade11:58

Decades ago.

Juan Macias12:04

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht12:07

To like pound or two at a time because I got a small smoker but it's not the cool one that collide gave away but that said it's so good when it's fresh like it is it's otherworldly and wait I'll actually both you guys there's a place here off to send you some jerky from it's called house of jerky and it's in Temecula and it's just like people drive from Los Angeles so two-hour drive just to go to this place it's insane I'm gonna bookmark it right now let me try get that to you all right

Juan Macias12:16

We will hear.

Wade12:30

Alright.

Juan Macias12:33

Or the phone

Did be jerky.

Peter Brecht12:34

We can move on to the next topic. For sure. That's funny, I might have to ask them that.

Wade12:35

That's the sponsorship you want right there. So Peter, you mind if we move on to kind of talking about Macias industry? Okay, so tell me about Macias. That's one maybe I'm not as familiar with.

Peter Brecht12:45

Yeah, no, you're good. You're good. You're good. No, dude, don't. Yeah, you're good.

Juan Macias12:53

Macias Industries. So it kind of just started back in COVID. I got laid off, what was that, April of 2020. And I started into like woodworking and stuff. So that's what really started it was just artwork. And then it morphed into doing graphic design and then it morphed into doing just more stuff. It was basically a hobby that people kept asking me to do for them. So I started doing it.

Wade12:54

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I got you.

So what does that look like today? How do you spend still spend quite a bit time on it? And is it is it still some woodworking stuff or is it mainly the digital?

Juan Macias13:28

Yeah, it's, you know...

Yeah, mean Wagner is my 9 to 5, but Macias Industries, I'm the rest of the day. I have people that I run a few social media pages for, I'm always taking pictures, always scheduling posts and creating graphics and just taking pictures and always finding more stuff to do.

Wade13:35

Right.

I got you.

Okay.

Gotcha. That's

Peter Brecht13:53

Huh.

Wade13:55

Awesome.

Peter Brecht13:56

The one thing I've learned about oil and gas is like a lot of companies, massive producers, right? Will have like a website with like just the logo and a phone number, right? It's very much, they don't have a social presence. And I've always been,

Juan Macias14:06

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht14:12

I got a degree in marketing, which is basically saying that I got a piece of paper that you can light on fire because it's not worth anything, right? But with that in mind, I think I've always kind of looked at things from marketing lens and it's been intriguing to me that you can have such a massive company, massive operation, very little social media marketing presence. When you talk to an operator like that or a company like that, are they asking like, we would like to kind of turn into something else here?

Know Noble for example, I mean their social media the kid whoever is running I would love to talk to this guy whoever's running their videos is Crushing it and they really weren't if you looked at their site, you need to do like an internet archive of their site It wasn't anything special up until about three years ago So like what's been your impression of those bigger companies that are kind of turning the corner on on on the internet?

Juan Macias14:58

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it started when I was at Gyro Data. This was why I did two stints at Gyro Data, one before COVID and one after COVID. But after COVID, the person that was running their social media page reached out to me and was just like, I need you to start feeding me pictures. I need to start posting. I need to start doing this and posting from the field and all these different things. And that's what sparked me, taking pictures of everything, running the drone, doing all this different, all the different stuff.

Peter Brecht15:22

Yeah.

Hmm. Okay.

Yeah. And so your drone shots, you DJI? What are you running for that?

Juan Macias15:38

Yeah, I just run a DJI Mini 2. I need to upgrade it so can start shooting vertical, but yeah, that's what I got for now. It works. It does the job. Yeah.

Peter Brecht15:40

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. That's all right. No, dude, those work so well. I

Had one trip in Puerto Rico and it was windy and my wife's like, you shouldn't fly it. And I did anyways. Crashed it in the sand and salt water and it was cooked. But they're fun to fly, man. I gotta get another one. And the technology's gotten so much better. Then stills, are you with canons? Are Sony, what's your camera?

Juan Macias15:52

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All those pictures that you see me post are from my iPhone. Yep.

Peter Brecht16:10

Really? That's insane.

Those are really impressive. You've got, yeah.

Juan Macias16:16

I do have a Canon, I don't bring it out that much, but yeah, mostly my

IPhone.

Peter Brecht16:20

That's awesome. So shot on iPhone is a real thing. Can't, even though I've got all this technology in my pocket, I can't figure out how to frame things right. I mean, it's impressive that I'm even on camera right now. I'm going to be honest with you. This took a lot of work to set up. So that's awesome. Very cool. Well, we had a couple.

Juan Macias16:30

Mm-hmm.

Wade16:31

Yeah

Peter Brecht16:41

I'm like always changing things with the show and trying to figure out, know directions to run things but one thing that I've been asking is You know if there's something in the oil and gas industry that you would change is there is there one thing that you would maybe want to You know get rid of modify change, you know permanently going forward

Juan Macias17:05

Hmm, that's a tough one. I mean the biggest issue that I run into right now, I guess is just the You the chain the changeover with the generations, I guess it's hard to deal with some people. It's a lot easier to deal with You know the younger generation the older generation. I guess it's kind of like gatekeeping I guess the gatekeeping mentality would be one of the things that I would want to

Peter Brecht17:18

Hmm.

Okay.

Juan Macias17:34

Get rid of her change in the industry.

Peter Brecht17:36

That's a great answer. Hadn't thought of the gatekeeping term in that context, but when you say that, are you talking about knowledge sharing, just access, or is it willingness to change or even just have a conversation? Like where do you see that happening the most?

Juan Macias17:51

I guess both. Know knowledge sharing is a big one. Coming from bigger companies like Baker and Gyro Data, they do a lot of training, but sometimes they only have so many slots for training and they want you to share data. Well, they'll send the older guys that have been there for 10 years first to come back and give us the data. And they're kind of like, no, I'm not giving this to you. You're going to take my job type of thing. I've seen it a lot. It's happened to me personally quite a few times.

Peter Brecht18:15

Interesting. Huh.

Wade18:15

Hmm.

Peter Brecht18:21

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Wade, just curious, you've been in this for 15, 20 years, right? I mean, what's been the, I guess, would you echo that with what he's saying, or is there any color on that?

Juan Macias18:21

Just a mindset.

Wade18:23

Yeah.

Maybe in a little different way. For me, peaks and valleys of activity is really difficult. You'll go, like I started in 2006, and like I said, they were hiring anybody with a pulse. And so everybody's kind of piling in and getting these great jobs and doing all this stuff. But then, into 2008, the financial crisis hits, and we're just laying off people left and right. And some of those people...

Come back, some of them never do. And it feels like over the last two decades, the cycles that we're seeing with this hiring, hiring, hiring, and then just cutting as much capital as you can, capex as you can, it seems like those cycles are just accelerating. And I think that, I think if we could level that out and kind of get it to where, hey, you're here, you're doing your job, like keep it going.

Peter Brecht19:08

Hmm.

Wade19:32

I think it would give people a lot more confidence and stability and maybe it would. From what Juan was saying there, some of those people are looking forward to that next valley and they're trying to protect against that because at the end of the day, there is. There's a finite number of jobs and you're competing for it. I know across the board, I've heard from different people, young and old, who are looking ahead, trying to secure that next spot.

And it can definitely lead to what I would say is some poor situations. And I'd say too, I think there's definitely, I've been on enough rigs to where some of the older consultants are kinda talking down to some of younger guys and doing all that stuff. But at the end of the day, everybody's got something to add. Everybody's got information and knowledge and experience that...

Peter Brecht20:08

Yeah.

Wade20:27

That could help the job work smoother. So what you got to do is you really just got to find people who are willing to share that regardless of what they think it's going to affect their job or not. At the end of the day, you just got to realize the more economic wells you drill or the more economic, I just say, operations you do, the more likely everybody is to keep their job. And so you just kind of got to work together, I think, in there. And it's really sad to hear that, though, because, there is.

Peter Brecht20:53

Yeah.

Wade20:55

You go back and you look at the oil field. I in 1980s, there was a huge bust in there. I mean, there's an entire generation of guys that never entered during that time. It's just because there was no work, you know? And so we get into the late 90s and things are starting to pick up and you've got, guys who are nearing retirement age but have tons of knowledge and experience. And then you've just got these young guys who are either straight out of school or, have no idea and there's...

There's that entire missing gap there. Created a great opportunity for me because anybody who's willing to stand up and take responsibility and accountability and work hard was able to move up quickly and learn a lot of information and get a lot of that experience. To have that being gate kept, I would never have the knowledge and experience I do right now if the guys ahead of me would have, you know.

Kind of worked that way, so that's just tough to see.

Peter Brecht21:59

Yeah, and I think like, I don't know, I spent way too much time on Twitter, but there is this sort of mentality, I think, too, where you can combat it by trying to befriend people and trying to learn from them, Which is more my approach. Like I just, I'm honestly just, I just want to ask questions. I just want to understand how things work, why they are the way they are, and then seeing, can I slowly help evolve something? And then there's the other side of it where

Juan Macias22:14

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht22:27

Some people just prefer to attack the other side, right? And say like, hey, you're doing it wrong. This is old regime. Like it's more of a punch down mentality. And I, it's just hard to be attracted to that. Right? So I think that's one of the reasons why I've loved following your posts is it's you're so optimistic, and you may not consider yourself an influencer, but I think you are in a sense, right? You've, you've got, you've got a following of people and they're attracted to that positive energy. So.

Wade22:31

Bye.

Juan Macias22:33

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht22:55

I think you're going to get through those gatekeepers a lot quicker than you think. And I think we'll see that more and more over the next couple of years too.

Juan Macias22:59

Yeah, and then...

Yeah, and I mean I try and I guess take my own advice and if people come up to me I if they ask a question I tell them if it doesn't matter who they work for you know what their position is or even if they work for a competitor, you know if we're trying to learn something in the industry, I don't mind helping somebody else.

Peter Brecht23:22

Yeah.

Yeah. How have you been using AI in the field? I mean, for your nine to five, right? The marketing side can get a little crazy, right? We've got all these videos now you can, but I still think the genuine assets are great to have and that ability to take a picture with an iPhone, right? But how are you using AI just on a knowledge basis?

Juan Macias23:35

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

On a knowledge basis, it definitely helps. I don't know everything about torque and test. Don't know everything about hydrostatic testing a drilling rig or what components do what. I'm still learning all of that stuff, but it definitely helps. If you ask it a question about certain types of valves or just functions of the rig or functions of a certain pump or specs of a pump, it's really easy to find that stuff.

Peter Brecht24:11

Really? So just like regular chat GPT Claude is giving pretty solid answers. Okay.

Juan Macias24:18

Yeah, no, it does sometimes.

I think it definitely helps. I ask it a lot about certain stuff, so I think it's getting used to looking for the type of answers that I'm requiring, but... Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Peter Brecht24:28

It's starting to profile you a little bit. So it's starting to know everything. Yeah, yeah, I

Wade24:28

Right.

Peter Brecht24:32

Gotcha. And it knows what you like to hear too, right? It agrees with you. So let's talk about if it's okay, get into maybe some of the technical side of Torque and Test, right? I know it's something that you're getting into and you spent some time doing already, but what is Torque and Test? What are the use cases? Why would a company need that and do that?

Juan Macias24:34

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah, I mean the main thing that all torque test companies do is BOP testing. It's required by the state to have mandated pressure testing for the rig to make sure it's not going to blow out. It's depending on the state, depends on how long the tests need to be for the min and the max and different rigs have different, different BOPs have different pressure ratings that you need to test to. All the components of the rig have different ratings you need to test to, but

There's a lot of tests. We could be testing for 12 hours on a rig and, still be chugging along just because we have 30 minute max tests in Ohio versus five minutes in Pennsylvania. So it's different by state, but it's definitely, it's required and it's something that is very important to, the operations.

Peter Brecht25:37

Hmm.

Yeah.

So you're dealing with not only different types of rigs and different companies, but you're also dealing with different regulations per state and area. I mean, that is a lot to keep track of. I mean, I can't even like, that's just a lot of information.

Juan Macias25:54

Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean it's definitely a lot to learn. I'm still learning all of it. I've been with Wagner for six, seven months, so it's... I'm still learning all that type of information.

Peter Brecht26:06

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And Wade, I'm imagining you, you obviously see this down in Oklahoma as well.

Wade26:18

Oh, yeah, though, OCC for BOP testing and all that stuff, we have to do it every 21 days. And like you said, we've got 30 minute casing tests and we've got test chokes and BOP everything. And so, yeah, that's something that's done everywhere. But to kind of echo what Juan was saying, every state is different in terms of the requirements. So, yeah, being able to know what that is and then know what each component is and what you got to test it to and everything else is...

Is something you definitely have to stay on top of for the regulatory agencies. It's one of those things that hopefully you never really use it.

Peter Brecht26:52

Yeah. Is there

A state that...

Wade26:56

They're good.

Peter Brecht26:57

Yeah, sounds like insurance. Sounds like insurance. So is there a, is there a, yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. Is there a state that you're just, that you guys are, you look at it like Ohio, okay, 30 minutes here, Pennsylvania, five minutes. Is there a state that you're just like, man, this is too much paperwork. Come to California, I'm sure it's a nightmare, but I imagine you guys aren't out this way.

Wade27:00

That's really what it is.

Juan Macias27:26

Yeah, it just really depends. Wagner really uses the digital recording, so it'll record everything for us. We don't usually chart whenever we test, like the old Barton charts. A lot of our stuff is saved on the pressure gauge, and then it auto-populates into a report. The report could be five pages long, it could be 20 pages long, depending on everything that we're doing and the amount of tests and everything.

Wade27:31

Good. Hmm.

Peter Brecht27:34

Okay. Hmm.

Juan Macias27:56

Paperwork isn't crazy. It kind of does itself. Even with the charts,

Peter Brecht27:57

Okay.

Juan Macias28:01

It charts itself. You just got to write a little bit of information on it after the end.

Peter Brecht28:06

That's really cool. How do you, okay, I'm just gonna go, is this like, checking the tire pressure or is it more involved? It's gotta be more involved than that. Okay, all right. Okay, gotcha. So you're turning wrenches.

Juan Macias28:14

There's definitely more involved. Yeah, there's, yeah.

Wade28:15

Yeah.

Peter Brecht28:22

Okay, cool. And again, that might be my stupid question of the week.

Wade28:22

The big part of it, you're opening it closely.

Now, if you think about it, what you're really doing is you're opening and closing valves to isolate certain components, and then you pressure that component up and you're making sure that that component holds. You can't test the whole system at one time, right? Because if there's any kind of a leak, then you're not really sure where it's at. Plus, a lot of the components are tested at different pressure ratings, whether it's your annular or your blinds or your chokes or whatever it is.

Peter Brecht28:31

Don't wait.

Wade28:54

So it's a bit of a process and it's definitely a pretty long checklist to go through. And if you got any failures, it can take a while to switch out components and repair it and get a positive test.

Juan Macias29:07

Do ya?

Peter Brecht29:10

What's the riskiest part of that job then? I mean, you're dealing with higher pressures, right? There's obviously safety procedures that you guys have in place and training you to go through it, but I mean, are there any, is there anything where it's like, I don't know, like more dangerous?

Wade29:14

You

Juan Macias29:27

I mean as long as you know what you're doing it shouldn't really be too dangerous you just you know which valves you have open which valves you have closed which way everything's going you know making sure you're not pumping directly on the wellhead if somebody messed up and opened something they weren't supposed to and you're putting pressure where it's not supposed to go then then you have some problems but

Peter Brecht29:34

Okay, yeah.

Yeah,

Okay. Pretty much, you consider it pretty safe job then. That's cool. As long as you're following the we're good. Okay. That's really awesome. Wait, are you still there?

Wade29:59

Yes I am, but the storm alarms went off. They're testing the alarms.

Juan Macias30:02

His mic's muted.

Peter Brecht30:02

Mays, hold on, yeah, you can hear me okay, right, Juan? Yeah?

Okay. Wade's is in and out a little bit, but I think we'll still be okay.

Juan Macias30:12

Looks like his mic's muted.

Wade30:15

Yeah, the weather alarms went off here and when they go off the dogs start hollering so I'm muting every

Peter Brecht30:20

Okay, let's see here.

Still can't hear him.

The good news is we can post editing is amazing on this thing. It's like, dude, last week, our interview last week was like, Wade like fell off, came back on and like, it was just me and Steve at the end and I was like, yeah, it was super short and whatever. Statistically, and I'm trying to figure this out.

Juan Macias30:29

Yeah, can cut this out.

I saw that, it was like a 15 minute episode or something.

Peter Brecht30:48

Most people only listen to the first eight minutes of our podcast. So any length of time, right? So about half of them will listen to it for the first eight minutes and then we'll have about 20 % that go all the way through to the end. So it's kind of an interesting thing, but I'm like, what do I do with the eight minute mark? I don't know. I'm gonna have to figure out how to people up. Wade, are you still, for some reason can't hear Wade.

Juan Macias30:52

Really?

Wade31:09

I am.

That's right.

Peter Brecht31:20

Does he know that we can't hear him? Okay. Yeah, yeah, sorry. He might have to leave and come back.

Wade31:23

Yeah.

Juan Macias31:24

I don't know. It looks like he was messing with a little bit.

Peter Brecht31:34

Should I kick them off?

Something's coming through.

Juan Macias31:47

It looks like it just froze.

Peter Brecht31:48

Yeah, it's okay. All right. Well, we might lose weight again, but we got like we're good 30 minutes in which is solid. I'm good with good with that. Okay, I'm gonna ask, I'm just gonna ask you, you're a marketing guy. What would you, we're lining up guests, Wade and I are still, we started recording these, 20 weeks ago. I think this is like our 22nd episode. It's been.

Juan Macias31:55

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Peter Brecht32:14

A process just to get to this point because we really just started, I started asking him a question so I could understand more about drilling and those operations. This has slowly evolved to where it's like now we have a book author coming on in a couple of weeks, which is cool. But I'm trying to figure out how to improve the show, right? Like our goal was always to talk to people like you that are working the field, that are getting out there, that are doing things, you know.

Juan Macias32:26

Mm-hmm. Wow.

Peter Brecht32:41

Talking to wireline companies, like really getting in on those details. But we've kind of slowly evolved to where like we'll talk to anyone in energy, but is there anything that you would do from a marketing perspective that we could improve? We'll kind of put you on the spot as the marketing guru while we're for Wade.

Juan Macias32:55

Trying to think.

I mean, I like what you're doing. It's cool to see the different sides of somebody not working in the field and somebody in the field and just putting them together and seeing the questions that come about. It's definitely a cool concept. As far as just different ideas, I can't really think of one right now. Maybe trying to highlight or trying to highlight different jobs in the industry.

Peter Brecht33:06

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Juan Macias33:25

As far as changing anything, I like what you're doing.

Peter Brecht33:28

Cool, well I'm gonna need a thumbnail designer is what's gonna happen. Dude, designing thumbnails is brutal. It is so hard. And nobody, like you don't think about it, but I've tried so many different versions and like YouTube's really cool. You get to A-B test a bunch of stuff. But, and I've like, think I finally found a formula that I'm okay with. And then all of a sudden, like the next week I'll A-B test it. And that one, the one that did really well last week is the one that didn't perform this week. And I'm just like.

Juan Macias33:31

Yeah.

I bet.

Mm.

Peter Brecht33:55

My gosh, it's insane. And tick-tock too is the same way. Learning how to cut videos is it's exhausting. Like truly it's such a weird concept. Man, I'm really hoping I can get way back on here. Let's see here. There we go.

Juan Macias34:12

There he is.

Wade34:12

Could hear you guys that entire time.

Peter Brecht34:14

No way!

It's so funny, I... Well, at least you're back. We don't want to have a repeat.

Wade34:16

Yeah. Well, until I left.

That's why was trying to

Mute and unmute to send you guys something like Morse code or something.

Peter Brecht34:28

Oh, it's funny. Last week, Wade, when you dropped off and it was totally fine, but I was with Stephen and he starts talking about all these like, war stories. And I'm like, God, I wish Wade was here because he would actually be able to like dig into that more. Right. So I'm over here just like he's telling me he's measuring a 16 and I'm like, I'm like, and he's telling me it's really good. I have no context. I'm like, OK, cool. It's a 16, you know. So Wade is you're you're the soul of the show and we got to keep it that way. So.

Wade34:47

No.

Got you.

Juan Macias34:57

Mm-hmm.

Wade34:57

No.

Peter Brecht34:57

Well,

We won't keep Juan much longer. Maybe we could get into a little bit more oil and gas and then we'll do a handoff and call it a day. Is that cool? Is there anything we could grill Juan on for the next five minutes?

Juan Macias35:06

Yeah, that works.

Wade35:13

Well, it's question I kind of ask,

frequently. But like, what's activity looking like up there right now?

Juan Macias35:21

It's a lot of mergers and acquisitions right now. So you have the bigger companies, know the EQT, CNX They're buying up a lot of the smaller companies. So they're gaining rigs, but the rig count's not going up rig count's staying the same. It's been pretty flat around, 36, 40 rigs for The last year or so. So it's I mean it's staying staying about the same as it's been Yep

Wade35:31

Right.

Bye.

Staying steady.

When you see those mergers and acquisitions, do you either benefit or lose from them big time? I've seen a lot of times a company comes in, they kind of take over three or four rigs and all of a sudden the vendor's on there kind of ousted and somebody else is now on them. Do you see that quite a bit or with torque tests?

Juan Macias36:00

Mm-hmm.

I mean

I've been on a couple locations when some of those mergers happen at midnight and you know I watch consultants get walked off location. I mean was years ago with, but I've seen that happen a few times.

Wade36:17

Stuff

Right.

I got you. And as far as like with Wagner and all that is involved, do you gain or have you been gaining or losing work because of any of that lately or is it still pretty steady? That's good.

Peter Brecht36:26

Man.

Juan Macias36:32

It's definitely helped us in the last

Few months. There's been a couple big ones bought out by some other companies. It's definitely helped.

Peter Brecht36:40

Hmm, that's great. That's good. That's good from a Wagner perspective. That's fantastic. Yeah. And it sounds like you're one of the, smaller company. Might be one of the kind of in growth mode, really, it sounds like from a high level.

Wade36:40

Okay, gotcha.

Juan Macias36:42

Yep. Yeah, no, it's help.

Yeah, we're definitely growing. We've got a few more rigs in the last couple months that we didn't have before. We had to hire a couple people and just we're continuing to grow, gain a couple rigs, hire a couple more people.

Peter Brecht36:57

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Rad, that's awesome. That's really cool. And a lot of it comes down to you, right? Just coming through, making it happen.

Wade37:10

Awesome.

Juan Macias37:14

Yeah, trying, making relationships, just getting the name out there.

Peter Brecht37:18

Yeah. Well, how can our listeners help you out? We'll send you, hopefully they just want to DM you some names and say, hey, we need help obviously up in your area, but what states are you guys operating in specifically? And we'll kind of call it out.

Juan Macias37:24

Thank you.

I mean, we're in Ohio,

West Virginia, Pennsylvania. We get some calls from Michigan. We get, there's work in Kentucky that we're close enough to get to if they call. We're talking to some people about possibly, going a little further out. So we'll see if that happens soon.

Peter Brecht37:34

Okay.

Wade37:51

Gotcha.

Peter Brecht37:52

That's awesome. Cool. Great, we'll leave with this, but where can people find you? Know I'll leave these in the show notes. You're on LinkedIn. We've got, yeah.

Juan Macias38:02

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn,

TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. You can find me everywhere at Macias Industries or if you type in Juan Macias, I'm sure I'll pop up a bunch of those places too, but Macias Industries on everything.

Peter Brecht38:06

Yeah.

Perfect, yeah, you got the ultimate handle. Like my username on Instagram and X and all of these, they're completely different. I don't know how many Peter Brechts are out there, it just drives me crazy. And then Waggler Torque and Test, I think you guys have a website too for the company and I can all include that too, so.

Juan Macias38:22

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, Wagner

Energy Services dot com. It's always being updated and you know with new services and new pictures and everything and you can find Wagner Energy Services on everything as well.

Peter Brecht38:44

Fantastic. Well, thank you guys for joining us on this week's episode of Local Energy. Juan, thank you so much. Wade, as always, thank you for your wisdom and questions. We'll see you guys again next week.

Wade38:46

That was so-

Thanks, Mom.

Peter Brecht38:59

All right, cool. Well, I'll cut it there. Pretty straightforward. Then I know you probably would, we'll...

You and I will coordinate something on LinkedIn. I might just hand you the footage and let you go post it, or I can give you the raw files. I don't know if you do video editing or anything, but you're welcome to use any of this, because a lot of the folks we talk to are like, they don't want to have anything to do with it, but you might find joy in repurposing some of this for yourself, even if it's just your own video, right? Okay, okay, cool.

Juan Macias39:30

No, I'd love- yeah, I'd love it.

Peter Brecht39:34

Awesome. Yeah, dude, have you noticed on the collide forum, like everyone that was posting last month dropped off? Like what, like what happened? Like what happened? Like it's Chris.

Juan Macias39:41

Yeah, yeah, I noticed that. Yeah. I'm starting to see some

Familiar names in there. People that I talk to on the regular out here are asking me what it is and hopping on and commenting. But I definitely noticed a lot of people aren't there anymore.

Peter Brecht39:48

Yeah.

Yeah.

They

Like disappeared. I don't know if it's because they raised the prices and they're like for a sweatshirt, but I didn't get my sweatshirt. Didn't, you I like was pretty sure I was going to get one and I never got one. So.

Juan Macias40:04

I

Got an email or a phone call a few weeks ago about that, that they were gonna send one out.

Peter Brecht40:09

Did you?

Man, yeah, there's some, I haven't been able to and Crystal, I think she's dodging me now, so I might have to email her. I'm gonna get my big oil sweatshirt. I'm gonna get my big oil sweatshirt. I spent so much time on the forum just to get that sweatshirt, I can't even tell you. That's hilarious. All right, cool, well as long as I'm not the only one that didn't get it, All right, well thank you guys. Juan, dude, get back to your day. Wade.

Juan Macias40:15

Peace.

Huh.

Peter Brecht40:36

Yeah, I'll catch up with you on the phone at some point. We've been like moving and shaking over here. Yeah, and then we've got some fun people. Got another interview next week and then the week after, like we're booking people up. You know anybody to do share it. I contacted Third Coast Wireline. I reached out to them. I reached out to Echo Meter. I reached out to Underdog. Underdog is going to be like hard to get, but.

Wade40:39

Okay.

Juan Macias40:50

I definitely know a couple people.

Yeah, Frank.

Yeah,

I mean that they have their own podcast now Yeah, I think it's called patch boys or something. I see it

Peter Brecht41:06

I've called every everybody do they really man patch boys

Been around for a while, but I don't think it's their podcast I think they're yeah, Tejano's on there all the time Like he's he's like he's homies and like just goes and hangs out and you know, whatever but like that's a good that's a good setup

Juan Macias41:15

They've been on it a lot.

Yeah, okay, maybe that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah, I have a lot of buddies.

I mean, I have a directional driller buddy that I'm always talking to. I have a friend who I was actually... Yeah, Brendan Vajirani, yep. Yeah, he'd be...

Peter Brecht41:28

Okay. Vidrine, right? Brandon Vidrine? Okay.

I text him. I was supposed to text him, actually. I was supposed to follow up with him tomorrow, so. Yeah. Okay.

Juan Macias41:38

Okay, I know he's home right now.

We work on the rig that he's on and they're drilling surface casing so he won't be there for probably until the weekend so I know he's home. Yeah, I some engineers and you know just I'll throw them your way.

Peter Brecht41:47

Okay, okay, I'll hit them up. I'll hit them up actually today though. Okay.

Wade41:48

Okay.

It's awesome.

Peter Brecht41:54

Yeah,

Anybody and then honestly, like we so we're so thankful for you just kind of repurposing everything and re sharing and everything you're doing there. So like more than happy to contribute, hats and hot sauce and stickers up to you if you're willing to keep spreading the word. Yeah.

Juan Macias42:03

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I know that picture I posted I think what two days ago or something. The first

Day it had 10,000 views on it. So lots of people.

Peter Brecht42:15

Yeah, so dude, whatever

I can do to keep you engaged with us and as part on the marketing side, this is not our full-time job and I pay out of pocket actually to keep it going, but it's not expensive, you know what I'm saying? But we'd love to just kind of keep you in our circle if that's cool. All right.

Juan Macias42:21

Mm-hmm.

Cheers.

Wade42:34

Thanks, guys.

Peter Brecht42:35

Dude, you're the best. Cool. Well, guys, I'll let you guys run. It's been great meeting with you, and we'll talk again soon. Later, guys.