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00:00:00 Speaker 1
This episode of the Energy Pipeline is sponsored by Caterpillar Oil & Gas. Since the 1930s, Caterpillar has manufactured engines for drilling production, well service and gas compression. With more than 2100 dealer locations worldwide, Caterpillar offers customers a dedicated support team to assist with their premier power solutions.
00:00:28 Speaker 2
Welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast with your host KC Yost. Tune in each week to learn more about industry issues, tools, and resources to streamline and modernize the future of the industry. Whether you work in oil and gas or bring a unique perspective, this podcast is your Knowledge Transfer Hub. Welcome to the Energy Pipeline.
00:00:52 KC Yost
Hello everyone, and welcome to this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast. Today we'll be discussing hiring, training, and advancement opportunities for engineers wanting to work for major pipeline companies. Our guest is someone I've known for years as our professional career paths have crossed many times, two, three times as I recall. And his name is Hoyt Brown, Director of Engineering and Drafting Services, US and Canada Natural Gas Pipeline Projects for TC Energy, formerly known as TransCanada. So welcome to the Energy Pipeline Podcast, Hoyt.
00:01:28 Hoyt Brown
Good afternoon. Thank you for having me.
00:01:31 KC Yost
Great to have you here. By the way, that's a pretty cool title. Director of Engineering and Drafting, U. S. and Canada Natural Gas Projects for TC Energy. That's a cool title. Mouthful.
00:01:43 Hoyt Brown
It is a mouthful. Yeah, I recognize that. But basically my teams, are in the United States or in Canada. We replicated the model that we had in the U.S. and Canada with the way we reorganized and we are in the projects' organization, the engineering and drafting teams that support everything to do with project execution.
00:02:09 KC Yost
Yeah. So before we got started with the podcast recording here, we talked about speaking bilingually, being able to go from metric to empirical rather quickly. You get to be pretty good at that when you work north and south of the border.
00:02:24 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely, and actually I'm really coming to appreciate some of our team members in Canada. Super sharp. It's a little bit different. It's a lot the same. It's a little bit different, but it's more the same than not. But yes, I've learned to speak Canadian and I actually enjoy it.
00:02:41 KC Yost
Excellent, excellent. So we're here to talk about pipeline engineering careers and I appreciate that. But before we get into that, take a few minutes if you would please, let's talk about your background.
00:02:53 Hoyt Brown
Sure. Well, first let me tell you just a little bit about TC Energy, Calgary-based company. But we are in Canada, the United States, Mexico, about 58, 000 miles of natural gas pipelines. We supply 30% of the natural gas supply to North America, so we're one of the bigger ones. And company's been in business... TC Energy, formerly TransCanada has been in business about 70 plus years, but certainly some of our assets like Columbia Pipeline has been around much longer than that. So we have a pretty good size footprint.
00:03:32 KC Yost
Rumor has it that you still have some dresser, couple lines in West Virginia, is that right?
00:03:37 Hoyt Brown
Don't know, but you probably would.
00:03:43 KC Yost
Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.
00:03:44 Hoyt Brown
Yeah, bulk of our assets and people are in the U.S. We have about a little less than 60% of the miles of pipe are in the U. S. and about 40% of our employees. So that's where a lot of the work is taking place. A lot of it's happening, but certainly the company is based in Calgary and Mexico is smaller part of our portfolio, but we have a really big project down there and there's lots of opportunity and I think it's a good model. It seems to be working well. Outside of natural gas, we also have about 3000 miles of crude oil pipelines. That part of the company is now known as South Bow and it's being spun off currently through the rest of this year. They'll finalize all that, but as a separate company, still owned by TC, but separate board of directors and CEO and all that. And we are primarily natural gas, but we do have a power and energy storage group. We have seven power generation facilities that is a smaller part of our portfolio, but is definitely part of it. And we also are an equity investor in nuclear plant, particularly Bruce Power in Canada. It's a big plant up there. So we are in the energy business, but we primarily are in natural gas.
00:05:09 KC Yost
Right. If memory serves me correctly, seven provinces, something like 35 U. S. states. And I don't know how big your operation is down in Mexico, but you cover a great deal of geography.
00:05:24 Hoyt Brown
We do, yeah. It's closer to 40 states in the U. S., but yeah, I think that's correct for Canada. So yeah, we have a lot of our operations folks in various geographies in multiple time zones, and it's a big footprint, which means there's lots of opportunity, lots of projects, it's good stuff.
00:05:44 KC Yost
Okay, so tell us about you.
00:05:49 Hoyt Brown
I have spent half of my career on the consulting engineering side working for companies like TC Energy. And then the other half of my career has been with an operating company, hiring engineers. And I think it's been a really good progression for me. I think as a young engineer to work at an engineering firm, you really learn your craft. You learn how to be a good engineer, you learn a lot about construction. You learn how to put together a good set of construction drawings. And I think that becomes a really good skill working for an operating company and hiring engineers. I know what good looks like. I know a lot of the people. It's a small world, you end up getting to know a lot of folks and it kind of full circle. For me, the beauty of working at an engineering firm is you work for all these different companies. You know how TC does it, how Enbridge does it, how Kinder Morgan does it, and everybody might do things a little bit differently. So you get to be the keeper of all these best practices. And then certainly up on what's the latest tools and innovation and where the trends in the industry are going. Me sitting at TC Energy, I don't necessarily have that lens, so I rely on the engineering firms that we hire to bring that knowledge, to bring those best practices. So I think it's a really good symbiotic relationship, but certainly I think I've really benefited from being on both sides of the fence, if you will.
00:07:24 KC Yost
Sure. And you and I talked about this, previous conversations, lunches and that type of thing. I started out with the operating company and went to the engineering side of the fence, if you will. But you started on the engineering side and now you've been over the years spending a great deal of time with operating companies and doing quite well now at TC. So I get it, that having experience on both sides of the fence has probably made you a better engineering manager. Do you think that you had an advantage working for an engineering firm and then an operating company versus working for an operating company and then an engineering firm?
00:08:09 Hoyt Brown
I think it goes both ways. I think certainly I know what my experience has been, but I've seen people do exactly like you and I think it checks all boxes. For me as a young engineer, what I try to tell people all the time is take the time to get really good at your craft. Graduating out of college, I wanted to be a project manager so fast and I got really good advice from my mentor and the people around me like, Hey, all things in due time, take the time to really learn your craft, learn how to be a good engineer, learn what makes a good set of drawings put together, spend the time in the field, get to know, know the construction contractors. They're going to really help you be a much better engineer. And so for me particularly, I think that was a good progression. By the time five, seven years into my engineering career, I was able to be a project manager. I felt that really equipped me to be a very effective one. And I'd learned a lot about managing relationships and learned a lot about construction and was fortunate that my mentor came from a construction background, so he just had me out in the field as much as possible and that was the time to do it. And I feel like I've really benefited from that. So I give that same advice to ambitious young engineers too. Like, Hey, take the time to get really good at your craft. Don't be in such a hurry to move on to the next thing. You do really good at your job. Everyone's going to want you and there will be nothing but opportunity. And then the challenge for you will be to identify what's the right opportunity. And that's where you lean on those mentors, those people that have been there before you and they can help guide you, but at the end of the day, you got to make decisions for yourself. But that said, I think my journey has been good for me, but again, I've seen lots of people that only worked on the operating company side or really prefer to only be working at an engineering firm. And they do great and there's certainly pluses and minuses. But yeah, I think there's lots of ways to do it.
00:10:29 KC Yost
With every project, every project, there's always a problem, always an issue, right? And I would suspect that having the experience and... Well, experience and working on both sides of the fence and understanding how an engineering firm versus an operating company would address a problem, does add some advantages and add some benefit to dealing with those challenges that every project runs into. Right?
00:11:02 Hoyt Brown
100%. I mean, you learn the best lessons sometimes the hard way or you try to anticipate every project, you try to anticipate, okay, what could go wrong? Sometimes you get lucky and the stars align, but many times something goes wrong. With experience, you anticipate what those things are going to be and you have contingencies in place so that when it does go wrong, boom, here we go. I can think to first time I was on a project doing an HDD and relying heavily on the people around me that knew what to do. And then when we had a problem with the drill and they had to back it out and re-drill, these are all new things to me. Well, every drill I've done since then, I know you put a lot of time into the preparation, having extra equipment there in case there is some type of inadvertent release, having environmental measures in place, you have all these things stacked up and ready because then when it does happen, boom, you're ready. Okay, we're already ready for that. So that just takes experience and sometimes you can't know what's going to happen until you've been there and those are the most valuable lessons, right?
00:12:11 KC Yost
So my grandfather told my father when he first got out of college that you have to start at the small end of the horn in order to come out the big end of the horn. And I've tried to tell that to young engineers that I know, and it gets back to the experience, but even when you get into project management, there are different levels of experience in project management. You're not going to immediately have a $2 billion capital expenditure project that you're assigned. Once you become a project manager, you're going to manage smaller projects and over time with experience, you grow, right? Is that what you tell the younger engineering students and interns and young engineers at TC to, as you're saying, get that experience as an engineer, then get that experience as a PM so that you can become a project director type person?
00:13:15 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely. What we try to do is start people on the low complexity projects and then gradually move to higher complexity, bigger projects. Certainly there's challenges with the low complexity projects. You may have a bunch of them, so you're really kind of managing a portfolio of a bunch of little projects and that has its own challenges as well. But you learn some really good skills. You learn to empower and rely on your various people supporting you as a project engineer. When you're working on these low complexity projects, you don't really understand necessarily what's going on behind the scenes. You just know, Hey, we've got a problem. We're trying to solve it. But what you figure out is there's maybe multiple ways to the solution, but you want to maybe try to find the most elegant and getting with the various stakeholders. If it's a small project, often there's a sponsor for the project, whether it's pipe integrity or facility reliability or measurement or whatever. They identify a problem they want to fix. But sometimes as a project engineer, you have to kind of get in there and look at the whole picture and see how it all fits together. Because sometimes there's either scope that's going to be missed or hey, this is really a small piece in a bigger puzzle that it may be better to approach it from a program or whatever. And the more you do that, the more you engage with some of these people that really know their craft from their side of whether it's environmental land, regulatory operations, some of the different discipline SMEs, that ends up becoming very valuable information for the next project and so on. And then as you progress to more complex projects, well you have that experience to draw on and then you're able to really... It really adds to your capabilities, but also you really understand how all this fits together. Once you get to the bigger projects, we call them growth projects, and that's where the bigger dollar projects and you're having a lot more interactions with the commercial team and you see how the company makes money and all that, well, then a lot of it makes more sense. And you really kind of get to see the breadth of what a operating company does and how we make money. And that maybe makes it all really come to life. And when you're starting on the low-complexity projects, you don't ever have a lens into that, but we try to help get some exposure to some of our folks so that they can, even if they're not working on those yet, they really kind of understand the life cycle of our projects and how we make money. And I think it's good for people to understand that. And then the beauty is what I really like about our industry is we're really providing a necessary service, providing energy to heat people's homes, cooler homes, their businesses provide power to power plants. These are just important things. Part of our lives every day. So our COO, he likes to say we're doing the Lord's work. And at some level, I really agree with that and I like it because we really are providing a necessary service. Sometimes people take it for granted. My wife's one of those people, she's like, look, when I flip the switch on, I just want it to work. Don't tell me what goes on behind the scenes. And that's really with all infrastructure, there's a lot that goes into it getting electricity or natural gas or water to your house. And when we don't have it, suddenly there's a problem.
00:16:52 KC Yost
That's right. That's right.
00:16:54 Hoyt Brown
And we know we all experienced that recently with Beryl, me being one of them. So it just kind of emphasizes how important it is the work that we're doing every day.
00:17:04 KC Yost
Sure, sure. By the way, just as a side note, when I finally got to a point where I became a "project manager, encroachments."
00:17:14 Hoyt Brown
Yes.
00:17:15 KC Yost
Encroachments, encroachments, encroachments, still, I was blue in the face. I remember when I-10 here west of Katy, which expanded to three lanes each direction and had to take care of the Tennessee gas pipeline, main lines that cross the interstate right there. That was one of my first encroachment projects back in the '70s. Good stuff. Good stuff. Anyway, so let's talk about TC. Are you guys centralized or decentralized when it comes to your engineering and drafting? Do you do most of it in-house or do you hire third parties?
00:17:56 Hoyt Brown
So 90 plus percent of it is third-party engineering firms that we hire. Our project engineers are managing the whole life cycle from the initial scoping of projects and interacting with all the stakeholders, supporting the project managers to make sure that scope of work is accurate and solves the problem. And then we go out to the third-party engineers, either we bid it or we direct award it, and then the project engineer will manage that 30, 60, 90 design review cycle. And then Shepard, usually the engineering service provider is putting together the bill of materials, the project engineers, just verifying that all meets our specifications and all that, get the materials procured, all that. And then when it goes to construction, answering questions, reviewing hydro test packages, RFIs from construction contractors. So really there's a lot that our project engineers are doing that is not "doing the design." We hire the firms for that. But there's a lot that goes into it and there's a lot of necessary experience to really understand what the scope needs to be, constructability, how our specs and regs need to be met. And so there's a lot to it, but yes, we form out the... I like to say this is why God created engineering firms so we could hire them.
00:19:29 KC Yost
That's how I made a living.
00:19:29 Hoyt Brown
That's right.
00:19:30 KC Yost
Fair enough. So thank you very much.
00:19:32 Hoyt Brown
Yes.
00:19:32 KC Yost
Thank you very much. So one of the cool things I liked about large energy firms like TC or Kinder Morgan or Williams or whomever else, is that there are various career paths that an engineer can take within the organization. And we talked about operations, engineering and on and on. I assume that there is a clear distinction and availability for young engineers to discuss what they see as their future at let's say, TC, right?
00:20:15 Hoyt Brown
Yeah. So what I talk about with my teams all the time and what I say about our engineering team is we are a place we grow talent. We are often the entry level for people right out of college. And actually a really good career path is somebody interns with us. That internship turns into getting hired as an EIT, and we have a three-year rotational program that we put together a few years ago that we modeled after Tennessee Gas and Spectra and Kinder Morgan and some of the peer companies that had some really good programs. So then there is some structure to how the early part of their career as an engineer, they're getting to get some exposure to different parts of the company, but have a career progression. And then they're able to... They want to stay technical, stay in engineering. They certainly can go into project management. A lot of people do. I did. I loved it and came back to engineering. Love it. But the beauty of an operating company and a company the size of ours is you want to go into the commercial operations side, you want to do gas control, you want to go into regulatory or the environmental side, or you want to get into marketing, accounting, finance. We have it all. And the beauty of a company like ours is we encourage people to look for those opportunities. We're trying to provide some of the structure such that we have that offered to people, but the biggest part is get your career started, learn about the company, particularly as an young engineer. And then the door is open for you to go in different directions. I personally was in... When I first started with inaudible, it was at Tennessee Gas, it was part of El Paso, it's now Kinder Morgan, but I was in project management. I worked on maintenance projects and then I worked on the bigger growth projects. We called them Value-added projects. And then I went to work in our project controls group, and I was doing cost and schedule risk analysis for bigger projects and smaller projects. I'd host those meetings, do it myself and Monte Carlo analysis. And then the bigger projects, we'd bring in a third-party consultant that this is what they did every day, and I learned a lot from them. And then I got to know the BD team, and so I went into business development and man... I did two years of that, and that was the best thing I could have done. Because I sat at the same table just on a different side, and I really kind of got to see how we make money and get to learn a lot from that. From the customer's standpoint.
00:23:03 KC Yost
Did your golf game improve during those two years?
00:23:05 Hoyt Brown
I didn't get to play as much golf as I would like, but I hear what you're saying. Yeah. It seems like they go to a lot of baseball games, football games, play little golf. Yes. But no, what I try to encourage people is take the time, get good at your craft, but know that you can take your career in different directions, and that's the benefit of a company like TC.
00:23:30 KC Yost
So what kind of characteristics or traits do you look for in a young engineer or an intern just in school and coming out of school?
00:23:40 Hoyt Brown
Yeah, I think young engineer, certainly there's a few different institutions that we recruit at. We look for people that are involved in some of the ASCE, SME, IEEE, different engineering organizations. We look for people that are good communicators. They ask lots of questions, people that are looking to work hard, seek out advice, mentorship, but with every task that they tackle it with the same enthusiasm. And that's some of the people that we've been able to attract. And what's nice about interning is you get a little peek at who they are, and then the cream of the crop are the ones we go after to try to hire to be our young engineers, our EITs.
00:24:34 KC Yost
We used to look for young engineers that were very good at analytical problem solving. I mean, that was the basis. I didn't care whether they were a civil engineer, a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer or electrical engineer, wire jockeys or whatever. The idea was they needed to have the basics of engineering down and how to solve a problem and look at that. Is that still high on the list of attributes you look for?
00:25:11 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely. I think discipline doesn't necessarily mean much. Coming out of school, you're really just prepared to learn and problem solve. So I agree with you. We've been successful with people of varying degrees of different discipline within engineering and have had successes across the board. Sometimes people end up getting their degree and for whatever reason, I got mine in civil. And I'd say most of the time I was doing a lot of mechanical work, but it was the same thing. I just felt I was prepared to learn. And that's where you learn is on the job. So yes, I agree with your statements.
00:25:52 KC Yost
I know you don't home grow all of your engineers and project managers. So you do hire in people that have five years experience or on occasion you need a senior project manager to come on board to fill someone that's retiring or whatever the case may be, if there's no one that you can promote. Are there certain attributes that you look for in a five-year engineer versus a senior project engineer or project manager?
00:26:25 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely. We look for relevant experience, of course, but I like people that maybe have worked on pipeline facilities, meter stations. Certainly if they come from natural gas industry, that's helpful. But we've had people come over from nuclear, from the power industry, from wherever, and some of those skills are transferable. Certainly they need to learn some of the regs that we have to deal with in some of the design conditions that we deal with. But that's easy. They already know... Like what you said. They already know how to problem solve. And that's the key. And I think one of the biggest things is being a good communicator. The thing I try to emphasize to people all the time is the ability to communicate in the written spoken word is the most important skill to have. And we can teach you a lot of the technical, but being a good communicator, asking good questions, collaboration with team, it's all about collaboration. And there's lots of people you got to collaborate with, and some people are really interested in working with you and some people are not. You may have to chase down that regulatory person because busy and you're not at the top of their list. But that is a very important stakeholder you got to get to. And understanding that and how to do that. Do you need to take them cookies? Do you go buy them lunch? Building those relationships is important. So yes, what I look for is somebody that is going to think out of the box, somebody maybe that's familiar with tools and technology. I think technology is our friend. The good part about some of the young folks that are in college now and interning or just out of college is they've been exposed to some technology that we haven't, and they bring those tools with them, love that. And so we're able to take advantage of some of that. And then some of that's more experienced. Certainly they've been there, they've done that. Also, a good communicator, but they also... They want to mentor and train because definitely the more senior folks on our team, they do a lot of that. And if we're doing it right, we're giving them the appropriate workload where they really can take care of their workload, but they're really also spending time mentoring and training because that's what it's all about.
00:28:45 KC Yost
All about knowledge transfer and relationships and communication. I think you're hitting the nail on the head there. I really, really like what you're saying. I think that's really important not only to companies like TC, but the energy industry as a whole. Being able to communicate and recognize challenges and how to deal with them and communicate with other individuals is extremely important.
00:29:15 Hoyt Brown
And along those lines, something else I also look for and I encourage is getting involved in industry organizations from Houston Pipeliners, the more regional ones to INGAA Foundation, to the Southern Gas Association. Some of these organizations will encourage some of that. That knowledge sharing, that communication, getting to know people in the industry. It's good for you individually, but it's really good for the company as well, the exposure. And I think we do a good job with some of these organizations in the U. S., but certainly we're trying to make sure we divide and conquer, but I think people enjoy it. But also there's lots of really good training, industry training, just phenomenal. I've been involved in the SGA for the last few years, and some of the training they offer I think is just wonderful. And so we've been able to take advantage of some of that with some of our folks. But certainly there's many good organizations and depending on what geography and some of the local ones are really good too.
00:30:19 KC Yost
Sure, absolutely. We've had episodes where we've had Rocky Mountain, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Permian, San Antonio, and Houston Pipeline Associations come on and talk about the group. And what they're doing is just amazing and the networking that it allows. And again, it's all about relationships within the industry. So that's really great. Well, we're starting to run out of time, but I wanted to get into the training process at TC. We talked earlier, back in the'70s when I started Tennessee Gas had an engineering training program, and I spent 18 months working in different departments, offshore and onshore. Worked back east, worked down in South Texas, and all around. Now you guys have these internships and you've developed the mentorships that you were talking about. Can you tell us a little bit more about what happens at TC?
00:31:19 Hoyt Brown
Sure. So we created this a few years ago, and again, we modeled it after some of peer companies and stuff that we've seen that's worked well and people that were alums of different training programs. But we started a EIT rotational program. And so our interns, we have a really good robust intern program in various groups. And we identify particularly within engineering with our commercial operations like gas control facility planning. And then we have a technical services, and that's where some of our more technical measurement, SMEs for compression other. But we started a three-year rotational program a few years ago, and we call it the new engineering training or net program because we love acronyms. And so we take the cream of the crop of our interns, we hire our three... We started with three in a three-year program, so we'll max out at nine, and that's just what we started with, but we're looking to expand that. But basically it's a three-year program, mandatory field experience. And that could be the first rotation, it could be the second, the last or whatever, but just emphasizing how important the field experience is.
00:32:39 KC Yost
On that point, something I got out of my class, and I think you and I talked about it a little bit, the chief engineer at Tennessee Gas pipeline, guy named inaudible, shout out to him, said that we don't want you designing a riser and a flange until you've been out in the field and had to break down that flange and understand why you need to have a pup between the flange and the long radius elbow so you can get equipment in between it. That type of conversation. Until you've done it, you shouldn't be designing it. Sorry, inaudible.
00:33:16 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely. So mandatory field rotation, but then we are flexible with what some of the other rotations will be. But the whole intent is just kind of give in your first three years, give people a little taste of some different parts of the company. And then you're really kind of prepared to, oh, hey, I really like this group. Or Hey, the group that hired me in and I like the other rotations, but I really want to be in this group. I think it provides a little job satisfaction, but also developing some relationships with other groups. And then they're a new engineer, say they're on my team. And again, we take them from low complexity to more complex type projects and we try to provide that pathway for them to develop their career over the next several years. And then again, if they want to go into project management or other parts of the company, they certainly can, but they're equipped and they really have developed some strong relationships. They've learned quite a bit, seen quite a bit. And I think it really benefits their career. And I've got a couple of managers that work for me that are 10 plus year that engineers and managing engineers now, and that's the path they took. And so having them mentor that next generation is wonderful because they know what they really liked and what worked for them, and they end up being some of the best people to help manage their careers. So we've got a pretty good start at it. We're certainly trying to make it a little more robust. And then the company, we're really taking a fresh look at how we develop the next level. Somebody who's ready to become a people leader and be a manager, how do we help prepare them, equip them? Because traditionally, you take a really good individual contributor, you go, Hey, you're doing a great job. Here you go. Now you're in charge of some people. Well, we don't do a good job of that. And so we're trying to put some structure around how we can really help equip them to those leadership skills. So it's really about new leader training. But you put that all together, and then I think someone can have a really nice robust career for a number of years and then just depends on what want to do next with their career. And that's the beauty of a company like ours. And certainly many of our peer companies are the same.
00:35:44 KC Yost
With such a large company, there are always opportunities, I'm sure.
00:35:48 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely.
00:35:48 KC Yost
Always opportunity. One question, last question. Do you encourage your engineers to become professional engineers?
00:35:57 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely.
00:35:58 KC Yost
I know you are a professional engineer.
00:35:59 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely. In Canada, everybody gets their inaudible, and so it's pretty much a given that that's everyone's going to do. And it's a little bit different in the U. S. It's a little more stringent, but it's a great process. And recently they've allowed... While in school, they take the FE or EIT test, they're actually letting them take the PE exam then too. They don't have to wait until after their number of years, which that's better for them. They still have to go get that experience and fill out the application and do all the stuff, but while the information's fresh, they let them take the exam. Boy, I wish I had been able to do that.
00:36:42 KC Yost
Oh, I do too. I do too.
00:36:44 Hoyt Brown
But we absolutely are encouraging and the company will pay for them to the prep class, to pay for them to get their license. We're encouraging them to do that. It's only going to benefit their career as they go. Many of our team members have their PE, but not everybody. You don't necessarily have to have it, but why not, right?
00:37:03 KC Yost
Sure, sure. Well, you encourage it and it's their prerogative to decide what to do with it. So I think that's a wonderful thing. And the support you give them to get it if they want it is good. I'm sure you do the same thing for a PMP acronym as well. Okay.
00:37:19 Hoyt Brown
Absolutely.
00:37:20 KC Yost
Cool. We've gone way over time. I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. It's been great. Anything else you want to add briefly before we sign off?
00:37:32 Hoyt Brown
No, I just really like this subject where I'm in my career. I put a lot of thought into developing people. I think knowing you, you're somebody who's done the same. And I think that's just what's beautiful about our industry is we recognize we were all that young engineer once upon a time. And so we want to help provide the best path for those people. And I feel like people development is the most important part of my job now. And I think as you go up the ladder and you take on more responsibility, that becomes everything. So I think this is something I'm really excited that I am involved in, that the company's really put an emphasis on. I know our industry does that. I think the industry really looks for and appreciates and tries to help mentor. So I think it's a great subject and thank you for having me to talk about it today.
00:38:29 KC Yost
Thanks so much for coming on and visiting with us. I've enjoyed the conversation. Great visiting with you, great talking to you. So if anyone like to learn more about TC Energy and the opportunities for engineer, you can find them on the web at tcenergy.com. That's pretty easy, tcenergy.com. So thanks to all of you for tuning into this episode of the Energy Pipeline Podcast, sponsored by Caterpillar Oil & Gas. If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for podcast topics, feel free to reach out to me at kc.yost@oggn.com. I also want to thank my producer inaudible and everyone at the Oil & Gas Global Network for making this podcast possible. Find out more about other OGGN podcasts at oggn.com. This is KC Yost saying goodbye for now. Have a great week. Keep that energy flowing through the pipeline.
00:39:27 Speaker 5
Thanks for listening to OGGN, the world's largest and most listened to podcast network for the oil and energy industry. If you like this, show us a review and then go to oggn.com to learn about all our other shows. Don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. This show has been a production of the Oil & Gas Global Network.
