Following the Electron: Kevin Senn on How FTI Connects Energy, Automation, and Industrialized Construction
Manufacturing Happy Hour
On an episode of Manufacturing Happy Hour recorded at Raised Grain Brewery in Waukesha, Wisconsin, host Chris sat down with Kevin Senn, Director of Automation at Faith Technologies (FTI), to answer a question the host admitted wasn't obvious going in: why would one company do electrical contracting, renewable energy, prefabricated power systems for data centers, EV charging infrastructure, and industrial automation? Senn's answer was short: the common thread is electricity. Over the conversation he explained how that thread runs through a biodigester the company owns, an off-grid facility that mines crypto with surplus solar power, and his own views on where energy and AI are heading.
From Electrical Contractor to a Broader Footprint
Senn described FTI as a company that has been around for just over half a century. By his account, it spent roughly its first 30 years focused on electrical contracting. Over the last two decades it has grown both organically and through acquisitions to widen the value it can offer customers.
He named several areas that came out of that expansion. Renewable energy, which he called a growing trend for 15 to 20 years, was one the company recognized early and wanted to "put a foot in that door." Industrial automation has been part of the company for about 20 years. The third is what FTI calls industrialized construction. As a construction company, Senn said, they realized that much of the work done on a construction site could be done better offsite, so they now do a lot of it in their own facilities and deliver a finished product to the site. He summed up the scope as anything involving electric power, low-voltage communications, renewable energy, or energy storage: "anything having to do with electricity."
Senn's Path: Rockwell Automation to FTI
Senn is from Wisconsin and studied mechanical engineering, which he said makes him "a little bit of a misfit" in an electrical company. He started his career at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee in 2006 and stayed about 15 years, until he joined FTI in 2021. At Rockwell he held a range of roles, and much of his work was on electric motor control applications, which he said is still his passion. The host shared a similar background, having joined Rockwell's sales side around 2010.
At FTI, Senn started as a solutions architect. He described that job as business development: finding and building relationships with new customers, then managing those accounts and continuing to deliver solutions. For roughly the past 12 months he has been Director of Automation. The customer-facing focus is the same, but he now leads a small team doing that work. He described his team as one of three pillars in the automation group. The other two are project management and an engineering execution team that does the work. In his words, the project management and execution teams "look to fulfill" the promises his side makes. He said all three work together through the sales cycle so the expectations they set match what they can deliver. Both men joked about not overpromising as salespeople.
How Customers Find Their Way to FTI
Chris noticed that FTI's website puts energy front and center and asked whether customers come in for energy and then discover the other capabilities. Senn said much of it starts with the company's reputation as an electrical contractor, particularly in the Midwest, where the name is recognized after 50 years. Customers often already know FTI can install and deliver an entire project, from concept development through engineering and installation. Automation can then be added to that scope.
He gave the example of a manufacturer building a new plant. That manufacturer will work with a design firm for civil and structural engineering, which FTI doesn't offer. For the electrical scope, though, FTI can carry the design all the way through manufacturing. Senn argued that doing this work internally and shortening the time crews spend on site is a significant value add, for three reasons. First, it saves time. Second, products built in FTI's facility typically come out at somewhat higher quality. Third, safety, which he called "a huge part of our culture." Less time working in the elements on a construction site is better for FTI's people and for the other trades building the facility. After installation, the automation team can commission the system, help get the manufacturing line running, and provide long-term support.
When Chris pressed on whether the company's reputation is shifting toward energy and sustainability, Senn said conveying that message to customers and partners is a conscious effort. Energy is part of everything, he said, since you can't make a product without putting energy into it. FTI's focus is specifically electrical power. The company's people are electrical engineers, electrical field crews, and automation staff, so it is electrical "at its core." He framed the goal as helping customers capture any efficiency they can. That could mean battery storage to time-shift power use, or renewable resources that let a company present itself as more sustainable. Energy, he said, is "kind of the billboard," but there is a lot more behind it.
Prefabrication and the Data Center Wave
Chris brought up his early career in Houston, where electrical e-houses are built and shipped to oil platforms worldwide. He asked whether prefabricated buildings are becoming more common in manufacturing. Senn said yes, though for FTI the trend is somewhat market-specific and tied to data center growth. "We caught the wave at the right time and we're riding that wave," he said, and that is currently producing serious growth for the company as it supplies prefabricated electric power distribution systems to data centers.
He recalled field service work in Houston for Rockwell, restructuring MCCs and switchgear for the oil industry in late June. It was 110 degrees, rained at noon every day, and got more humid in the afternoon. He said he couldn't decide whether that was worse than Wisconsin's cold, since neither is pleasant, and that a controlled environment is the best outcome. Over roughly the last five years, he said, FTI has built three production facilities totaling about 1.2 million square feet, dedicated to modular electric power distribution systems. Data centers are a big part of that business but not all of it.
What "Energy" Means for FTI and the Pathway to Smarter Energy
Asked to break down the energy category, Senn listed petroleum, renewables, and nuclear as examples of energy in general, noting FTI isn't in all of those. The company's current focus is renewable energy resources and electric power distribution. He also highlighted a third angle: how energy is used. Automation, for instance, can help a manufacturer optimize its production system and cut its energy consumption.
FTI packages this as what it calls the Pathway to Smarter Energy, a stepwise approach aimed at eventually making a customer energy independent:
- Assess and benchmark the customer's current energy use.
- Propose measures to optimize or conserve energy.
- Offset energy use with renewable resources.
- Become energy independent, with full resilience across the production facility, office, or whatever the site is.
The Middleton Biodigester: From Generator to Renewable Natural Gas
The most detailed case study was a biodigester in Middleton, Wisconsin. The host mentioned working on an anaerobic digester in college. Senn clarified that FTI saw this facility as an asset worth acquiring, and the company now owns and operates it.
When FTI acquired it, the site ran as a biodigester fed with cow manure, which Senn and the host agreed "feedstock" is a nicer way to describe. The off-gas was burned in an engine to turn a generator and produce electricity. Senn called that a great renewable solution already, but said FTI took it further "for good reason": money. When they took on the conversion, natural gas prices and carbon credits made it financially attractive to inject renewable natural gas into the national pipeline. So instead of burning the fuel for power, FTI converted the site to produce gas for injection. Technically, he clarified, the gas is loaded onto a truck and brought to a separate injection site.
He walked through the process. Manure comes into the digester tanks, "the biology does its magic," and the off-gas fills a balloon. The gas is drawn out and scrubbed to remove constituents that don't add value as renewable natural gas or could corrode the pipeline. It is then compressed and loaded onto a vehicle for transfer to the injection site. Senn described a hefty investment covering electrical design, an EPC-style engagement that brought in skid providers and other partners, the full installation, and the automation to make it work. FTI continues to support the site.
He said the operational change was significant. The plant used to need a team to keep it running every day. Now it rests on one individual, who has a team of automation engineers to call if needed. That person no longer has to be on site daily and can check the plant's performance and production from a phone. FTI also installed a large solar array with one of its microgrid inverters. The site still draws utility power when needed, such as when it's cloudy, but on a sunny day it can run completely off grid.
Automation's Role: Operations and the Integrity of the Transaction
Beyond remote monitoring, Senn stressed reporting. The facility has to report how much gas it produces and loads onto trucks, and that data has to be accurate. With the control system in place, the job is to collect the data, historize it, keep records, and generate the reports sent to the entities that decide how much FTI gets paid for its renewable natural gas. He summed up automation's role as ensuring the site stays operational and reporting its performance accurately, which Chris called "the integrity of the business transaction." The site runs a Rockwell-based control system with a historian, remote monitoring, and remote dashboards. Both men joked that former Rockwell employees don't fall far from the tree, and Senn noted that avoiding Rockwell is hard in the US anyway.
Where the Growth Is: Data Centers and EV Infrastructure
Asked where the company is growing most, Senn pointed to the data center market again, adding that three years ago the answer might have been different, though they were already starting to ride the wave. He also mentioned EV infrastructure, while saying he didn't want the topic to turn political and that things may change going forward. FTI stood up a team dedicated to building EV infrastructure, tailored some services, and put some production capacity toward the right products.
He said the approach looks beyond buying an off-the-shelf charger for a garage or a Starbucks to the whole system. Ten chargers are different from one, and the electrical load from some DC fast chargers is significant. Where it makes sense, FTI looks at pairing a small solar array and one of its microgrid inverters to feed the chargers, and he said they have done some projects like that. He called EV infrastructure a growth engine that still is one but "could change," while hyperscale and data centers generally have been a very rapid growth area.
The Common Thread: The Electron
Chris summarized that FTI seems positioned on several macro trends at once: data centers driven by AI and new fabs, sustainability, and electric vehicles. He asked what ties all of it together. Senn answered: "the subatomic particle called the electron."
He gave credit to FTI's leadership. After three decades focused on electrical contracting, leadership made conscious decisions over the past 20 years to examine emerging markets, invest early, build teams, and structure the organization around them. He said he believes that if they look back, they would agree they made the right calls.
Crypto Mining and an Off-Grid Vision Center
The host asked how FTI ended up in crypto mining. Senn said skidded and containerized solutions have fit some crypto miners, depending on how those companies want their facilities and miners arranged, but he said it's hard to claim FTI is really "in" that space. He used the question to return to energy resilience.
FTI built a facility on the eastern side of Wisconsin that it calls its Vision Center. It is mostly an office building meant to showcase the technologies the company delivers: automation, renewables, digital power, construction services, and containerized or modular products. It has a large solar field, a big inverter, and some small battery storage. The whole facility is off grid, with no utility connection. When solar produces more than the building needs, the options are to store the power or use it, so FTI runs crypto miners as "a little side project." Senn presented this as an energy resilience point: since they rely entirely on what they generate, having excess power is a good problem, while not having enough would be a bad one.
Resilience Versus Independence
Asked whether more companies will be able to go fully off grid in the coming years, Senn separated resilience from independence. Resilience is about designing a system so that losing utility power doesn't cause downtime, and he believes every company can achieve it. Energy independence is a bigger step, especially for large manufacturers that may consume hundreds of megawatts. Covering that load independently is "a pretty tall ask" and would likely require a generation source beyond a solar field. He said examples exist but didn't want to go into the weeds. He called independence the last step of the Pathway, achievable but case-dependent, and added that he didn't want to overpromise in a public conversation.
Trends for 2025: Production Optimization
On energy and sustainability trends heading into 2025, Senn expects companies to keep adopting renewables. He doesn't expect most to offset their entire utility usage, but rather enough to improve sustainability reports and appeal to customers and supply chain partners. His own focus is the first two steps of the Pathway, assessing use and finding ways to optimize or conserve, where he said automation plays a huge role.
He argued that the bigger issue for manufacturers, now and well into the future, is production optimization. Energy conservation is one part of it. Others include reducing scrap, increasing yield, improving quality, and addressing workforce constraints. In his view, all of these fall under production optimization, and that is what manufacturers are looking for. The host added that reducing scrap also has energy impacts.
The "Aha" Moment: Speed to Market and End-to-End Delivery
Asked about customers' biggest realization when working with FTI, Senn pointed to time savings on new facilities. That means shortening the path from the idea of a new plant to making product, earning revenue, and realizing profit, whether by a day, two weeks, or a month. He acknowledged FTI isn't unique here, since many capable integrators and contractors pursue the same goal. What he thinks sets FTI apart is its range: high-level concept development, engineering consultation, full design, in-house manufacturing, delivery to site, the automation package, and lifecycle support. That is what the company means by "end to end." He said others do this too, but it's less common. The host noted that in more than 200 episodes, Senn was the first guest from a business with this breadth.
Senn said that breadth was one reason he made his career move. He saw it as a differentiator that's easy to talk about: FTI doesn't just sell a product or provide a service. When Chris asked how he recognized the opportunity, Senn called it a tough question over a beer and said he didn't overthink it and just decided "let's do it."
AI: "Awesome and Scary at the Same Time"
In closing, Senn noted they hadn't talked much about automation, and that he'd expected a question about AI. Asked for his view, he called AI "awesome and scary at the same time." He sees a lot of potential, especially in industrial automation, where he said much can be done, though the limits are "not boundless." He also argued that every individual needs to take responsibility and ownership.
His concern was consumer AI. He said that asking ChatGPT to generate an image or write something takes "20, 30 fold, whatever it might be" the electric power of a regular Google search. He mentioned seeing ads for AI headsets that let people hold conversations with an AI for hours, and asked where personal responsibility comes in, since those features consume power. The same person, he suggested, might be calling for an end to coal and a switch to all-renewable energy, which puts them on both sides of the argument. Because FTI builds power distribution systems for large data centers, he said, the company sees firsthand how much power it takes to make these services work. His closing call to action was for listeners to think hard about their own AI use and what it takes to run it.
All right, there we go. Well, cheers. Only proper way to start. Kevin, welcome to the show. Cheers, thanks, Chris.
Only proper way to start here in Waukesha, Wisconsin is to describe the setting of today's conversation, because you and I were chatting: as Manufacturing Happy Hour has evolved, the spirit is always as if we're having a drink with one another, but we don't always get to have a beer like we are today. So where are we hanging out? Describe the place.
This is Raised Grain Brewery in Waukesha. I would say one of my faves, but I can't say I frequent a lot of microbreweries or craft breweries. Okay. But it is an awesome place. I guess, you know, I live 20 minutes from here, so this would be right at the top of my list if I was going to get out and grab a beer.
Yeah, well, fortunately they have to-go packs as well, so you can always bring the goodness home. And it has been freezing here in Wisconsin these past few days, so you and I are both drinking dark beers. You've got the Supporter, I'm doing the Guitar City black lager, which, if folks aren't familiar with Waukesha, we should probably share a little bit of history. There's a very renowned individual that's from this area, correct?
Yeah, yeah, Les Paul. Yeah. And am I making it up? Isn't, Les Paul, guitar legend, but isn't Gene Wilder from here as well? That I don't know, actually. He might be. He's somewhere from the Wisconsin area out here. I'm not sure if this is the exact one, but nevertheless, some good history down here in Waukesha. A lot of awesome people from Wisconsin, I'll say that.
Yeah. Well, let's get into the spirit of Manufacturing Happy Hour a little bit. You know, how do you describe what Faith Technologies, or more broadly FTI, does if you're having a drink with someone?
Yeah, so FTI is a company that's been around for just over half a century now. I would say for the first 30 years or so they were focused primarily on electrical contracting, and for the last two decades now they've been organically growing and then also, through acquisitions, trying to broaden the footprint of what value they can bring to their customers and clients. So things like renewable energies, you know, that's been a growing trend for 15 to 20 years now or so, and I think they recognized that early and wanted to put a foot in that door to start, you know, start the momentum. Industrial automation is another good example of that; that's probably about 20 years old now at the company.
And then also what we call industrialized construction. So being a construction company, what we realize is there's a lot of things that take place on a construction site that can be done better if done offsite. So we offsite a lot of that work now and then bring a finished product to the site. So that's another one of those areas, and I think we can talk more about each one of those as we get further into the conversation. But, you know, been around for 50 years, and anything that has anything to do with electric power or low-voltage communications or renewable energies or energy storage, for that matter, anything having to do with electricity, that's kind of what we get into.
Yeah, there's going to be a lot of talk around energy, or the in-vogue term in the manufacturing space, sustainability, as we get into this conversation. I want to ask a little bit about your career, though, because you've been with Faith, FTI, for a while now, and you mentioned that there are different segments to this business. I'm curious about the evolution of your role, because you were a solutions architect, now you're the director of automation, and you dabble in all these different groups. Can you tell us a little bit about your own career evolution in that regard?
Sure. Only during my time at FTI, or kind of leading up to it, or what are you thinking? What do you think? Give us a little bit about the pre-FTI background, because I think that's relevant, because you and I actually have some common career background as well.
Sure, yeah. Well, like I said earlier, a lot of great people from Wisconsin; I'm from Wisconsin. But I started my career actually just after school. I studied mechanical engineering, so I'm a little bit of a misfit when it comes to this electrical world. Studied mechanical engineering, started my career with Rockwell Automation, which is also a Milwaukee-based company. Yep. That was 2006. I was with Rockwell about 15 years, up until 2021 when I came to FTI. So held a variety of different roles at Rockwell. A lot of my focus was electric motor control applications, and that's still my passion today.
My time here at FTI, yeah, started as a solution architect. So the focus there is really finding and developing relationships with new customers and clients, call it business development, and then, you know, certain levels of account management as we stay close to those customers and continue to deliver meaningful solutions to them. So that was, you know, the first couple years of my career with FTI, and now, just over the last 12 months or so, my focus is very much the same in regards to customer relationship management, business development, but I have a small team that reports to me, and that's their focus as well.
So that's like one pillar of our automation group. Then we've got a project management team, and we've got the engineering execution team that actually does the work. So the promises that we make, the project management and project execution team look to fulfill those promises. But we all work together in unison, you know, throughout the process, throughout the sales cycle, to make sure that we're setting the right expectations and able to deliver on what we talk about.
So you and I have a bit of overlap in our background. I was four years behind you starting at Rockwell in the sales world. If you were '06, I was getting there around 2010. And it's good to hear you still have a role where you can make some promises to the clients and, you know, have the project management team and execution team have to deliver on those as well. So I like to think I never over-promised too much when I was a salesperson, so I still try to temper that these days. Definitely. Yep.
So I've got a question. We were talking about the range of projects you do, from, you know, if I saw it right, modular e-houses and things that you can build for a construction site offsite, and you bring them, you know, basically prefab buildings. That's one of the elements. There's a large energy element to your business. So when companies bring in FTI, because you have this range of capabilities, I notice energy is a sweet spot for you. Are they bringing you in for energy and then saying, oh, you can do prefab buildings, you can do automation? I'm just curious what that engagement looks like, just kind of for my own knowledge.
I think a lot of it actually starts with the reputation that we have as an electrical contractor, and I'll say that maybe specifically to kind of the Midwest region, right? So it's a recognizable name because it's been around for 50 years or so. So maybe a lot of the interactions that we have start with they already know who we are. We can, you know, install and do the entire project itself, so from concept development through engineering, installation. Now we can add these pieces of automation into the scope as well.
So a manufacturer, for example, building a new plant, they're going to want to work with a design firm, and that design firm may have civil and structural engineering disciplines. We're not going to be able to offer some of that, but for the electrical scope certainly. And then to carry that design all the way through a manufacturing cycle, again, if we can internalize that and shorten the time that the team has to spend on site, that's a pretty big value add.
So not only is it shortening the time, but if we're producing something in our facility that we bring to site, typically the quality is going to be a little bit better. And then safety is a huge part of our culture. Yeah. So the less time spent on site working in the elements in a construction environment, the better in terms of personnel safety, both for our team as well as the other trades that are building out that facility. Yeah. So that's a big deal. But then again, you know, once the product is installed, the system is installed, now we can add to that picture: automation solutions come in and commission the system, help them get their manufacturing line up and running, and then future long-term support is something else that we offer.
So it's interesting, because when I look at your website, when I was getting familiar with FTI, it seems like energy is front and center right now, but you were just highlighting that your reputation as an electrical contractor is one of the things that really, if I'm hearing this right, helped you evolve into these areas. Have you started to see that reputation, to use the word I just said, evolve over time, where now folks are like, hey, this is the group that can help us with a sustainability project, a stored energy project, for example?
Yeah, yeah, good point. Maybe I kind of sidestepped your question there, Chris. Oh, that's okay, that's okay. That's what a conversation over beer is for.
Yeah. Certainly a conscious effort for us to articulate that message to our customers and clients and other partners, for that matter. Energy is one of those resources that takes, you know, I mean, it's part of everything that we do as a human race, really, right? So you're not going to produce a product unless you're putting energy into it. Our focus of energy is really the electrical power itself. So we've created solutions and we've made acquisitions over the years that put us into a unique position to provide some of those, for example, renewable energy solutions.
But again, you look at our team, it's like we've got electrical engineers, we've got electrical contractor, you know, field team members, we've got automation group members. So that's kind of electrical at its base or at its core. It all kind of evolves, I would say, around electric power, electricity in general, and energy is core to that, right? So it's like, how do we allow our customers to realize any efficiency that they can? And if it's battery storage and they can kind of time-shift the utilization of power, you know, that might be one solution. If it's adding renewable energy resources to their facility so that they can advertise as a more sustainable company, yeah, we want to help them with that. So energy is, I would say, kind of the billboard, if you will, but I think there's a lot more to it than just that.
Right. Well, you got me thinking about the prefab building element of your business as well, because I started my career in Houston, Texas, where electrical e-houses are a big part of the market down there. You're just providing power that gets shipped out to oil platforms. These e-houses travel all over the world as well. But I never thought of it from the standpoint of, especially here in Wisconsin, where, as we said, it's freezing cold right now, where you can do these projects in more of a safe environment, where you can have more focus on quality without having to be outside the entire time putting these things together. Are you seeing more of a trend in the manufacturing space to do more of these pre-fabricated buildings?
Definitely, yeah. And I mean, I think it's somewhat market-specific for us, which is related to, you know, data center and the growth within that market space. Sure. We caught the wave at the right time and we're riding that wave, and that's producing a serious amount of growth for our company at the moment, providing electric power distribution systems in a prefabricated way to those, you know, data centers.
But I was going to say, I've been down to Houston when I was working for Rockwell as a field service engineer, and it's kind of the opposite. It's freezing cold up here right now; I was in Houston in late June, and I just remember, and I was in a facility working on, you know, restructuring MCCs and switchgear, basically for the oil industry. And again, it's the opposite: it was 110 degrees and it rained every day at noon on the spot and then got way more humid in the afternoon. It was like, I don't know what's worse, working in that or working in the cold. I mean, neither are pleasant. So if we can do that in a controlled environment, which is what we're doing, I think that's the best end result.
So yeah, over the last 5 years or so we've built out three production facilities now, totaling about 1.2 million square feet. So those are dedicated to modular electric power distribution systems, and again, maybe not specific to data center, but that's a big part of it.
So, well, I've got some questions about data centers and some other very interesting applications I came across, but let's double down on energy for a little bit first, because that is one of the areas that has stood out, and there you have some well-publicized case studies in this area. But when we're talking energy, let's break it down for the folks as if we're having beers right now. Like, when we talk energy, you mentioned battery storage, right? We're going to talk about biodigesters as well. What other areas fall under the energy category?
Petroleum, right? That's an energy resource. Any renewable energy, of course, you know, nuclear. We're not necessarily in all of these spaces that I'm talking about, but I think your question is just general, like what falls within energy. So yeah, and I'd be curious with the ones that you're most focused on as well.
Yeah. So renewable energy resources, and I would say in general just electric power distribution, those are kind of the two areas that we're doing work in or focused on at this point in time. But the other thing is, you know, energy and how it's used, right? So can we help a manufacturing customer, through the utilization of automation, for example, optimize their production system and reduce their energy?
So we have what we call Pathway to Smarter Energy, and it's really a stepwise approach to helping a customer look towards becoming energy independent. So step one is, let's assess where you guys are at, let's benchmark it. And step two is, maybe we can propose a few things that help them optimize or help them conserve energy. Yeah. Step three is, how can you leverage or offset your energy with renewable energy resources? And then ultimately step four is, how can you become energy independent, with, you know, full resilience of that energy throughout your production facility or your office environment or whatever it might need to be?
Okay, so there's a lot there. So we were just talking about energy independence, which feels like a subset of renewables. You were also talking electrical power distribution, and then just the impacts that automating and modernizing have on sustainability and energy efficiency. Let's double down on renewables a little bit, because you did a biodigester in Middleton, Wisconsin. This is the project I want to talk about first, for a couple reasons. One, I've seen a lot about this project. Two, I actually worked on an anaerobic digester when I was in college. We won't focus on that one right now, but give us a bit of background on biodigesters as if you're having a drink with someone. You're basically taking manure and you're turning it into renewable natural gas, correct?
Yep. Yeah, so we have a stream of feedstock coming in, feedstock being cow manure. That's a really nice way to describe cow manure, by the way. Yeah, sometimes it's appropriate to use that phrase instead of just cow poop.
So, but let me back up one sec. So that particular facility, FTI looked at that and said, this is an asset that we would like to acquire. So we own and operate that particular facility. Very cool. And in the state that we acquired it in, it was really a biodigester using cow manure. The off-gas was then used and, you know, sent through an engine, basically burn the gas to turn a generator to produce electric power. So that's a form of renewable energy. Instead, I mean, that's a great
That's a great solution, right? Yeah, but kind of took it to the next level, right? And for good reason. I mean, money makes the world go around. So at the time that we took that project on and kind of converted it to what it is today, you know, natural gas prices were different, carbon credits were different, etc., and injecting renewable natural gas into the national pipeline made a lot of sense financially. So if we could do that, we wanted to. So we looked at that facility, we said that might be the place where we can do that. So instead of combusting that fuel and turning a generator to produce electric power, we converted the site to a reinjection site. Technically it's offloaded onto a truck and then it's brought to a reinjection site. Sure.
But yeah, the basics are: the feedstock comes in, again cow manure, that comes in, goes into our digester tanks, the biology does its magic, if you will, produces off-gases, fills up a balloon. We suck the gas out of that balloon, we scrub that gas, clean it, remove the constituents that aren't needed, you know, that don't add value to a renewable natural gas or could be corrosive to the pipeline, and then compress it and deliver it to a vehicle that transfers it over to the pipeline injection site. So that's kind of it in a nutshell.
But, you know, there was a pretty hefty investment that went into that, both from an electrical installation, I'll say electrical design, and kind of an EPC engagement where we're looking at skid providers, you know, additional partners to add value, and then the overall installation of the project, the automation that went in to make it all happen, and then long term, you know, we continue to support that. So I guess it kind of went from a team of people making sure that that plant ran every day to it falls on the shoulders of one individual, but that individual has a team of automation engineers behind him if he ever needs to make that phone call. His job is different now today. He doesn't have to be on site every day. He can, not sit on his couch, because he's paid to not sit on his couch, but can look at his phone and understand what is the performance of the plant now, how much am I producing. Yeah.
The other thing is we put in a large solar array at that site, okay, with one of our microgrid inverters. So from an electric power consumption standpoint, we're still using utility power as needed or when needed, when the clouds are overhead, for example. Okay. But when we have a nice sunny day, we can run completely off grid. So, all right.
Yeah, that is... so okay, so the business case then was converting from, you know, sending natural gas into a generator to putting it back into the grid, essentially, or the pipeline that would go to the grid at that point. And you were touching on the role of automation in this project, because I want to get behind the scenes a little bit, right? Because we know what the business driver was for this project. The roles I heard automation played in this was there was remote monitoring, that was an element of it. What other ways did automation play into this project?
You know, you have to report the amount of gas that you produce, for example, what you're injecting or what you're loading onto a truck, and the accuracy of that data needs to be pretty sharp. Mhm. So looking at the control system, we have all the metrics that we need. It's really, at that point, once that control system is in place, it's really a matter of collecting the data and historizing it, keeping those records, and then using those records to create the reports that we do to send to, you know, the entities that decide how much we get paid from a renewable natural gas injection standpoint. So I would say it allows us to support the site, ensure it's operational. Automation allows us to ensure it's operational, it allows us to report accurately on its performance and how much, you know, money we get back, basically. Yeah, the integrity of the business transaction, right? Yep.
So automation is a very important play at that particular facility, for sure. It's a Rockwell-based control system. It's got a historian, so it's, you know, like you said, remote monitoring, remote dashboarding, things like that. So yeah.
Well, as you and I both know, even when you spend your career at Rockwell Automation, you go somewhere else, you don't fall too far from the tree in that regard, so I would expect it to have played out that way. It's hard to, at least if you're really residing in the US, right? So yeah. Well, I think what people realize, and really I think most of the audience listening, they see how vast the Rockwell ecosystem is. In fact, most people are probably working with systems integrators, solution companies like yourself, or their local distributor. So yeah, it's no secret, just the breadth that, we'll call it an empire, that that empire covers.
I'm curious, where are you seeing the most growth in your business right now? Whether it's, hey, maybe it's the prefab buildings, whether it's energy projects, I don't want to put too many words in your mouth. Where are you seeing the growth and the trends in the industry right now going?
I mean, I think a lot of the growth that the company is seeing at the moment is tied to that data center market growth. If you asked me that question three years ago, the answer might have been different, but I think even at that time we were already kind of starting to ride that wave, so to speak. We've seen recent growth, and maybe things change now moving forward, and I don't want this to become a political discussion by any means, but EV infrastructure, for example. You know, the company kind of stood up a team dedicated to and focused on building out EV infrastructure. So we've tailored some of our services, we've operationalized some of our production capacity to make the right solutions for building out that infrastructure.
When you say infrastructure, you're talking like charging stations and like that? Yep. Okay. And then taking it one step further. So I mean, someone can go buy an off-the-shelf EV charger and put it in their garage or put it at a Starbucks or whatever. We like to take it one step further and really look at the system as a whole and say, all right, what additional infrastructure is needed to, you know, support this thing long term? And one charger is different than putting in 10 chargers at a site. The electrical load is pretty significant, as you can imagine, for some of these DC fast chargers. And then for locations where it makes sense, how do we leverage renewable energies? So can we set up a small solar array, put one of our microgrid inverters on site, and allow that to feed the EV chargers? So we've done some examples of that.
So again, I would say that was a growth engine for us, or kind of still is, but it could change. But the hyperscale data, or even just, I'll call it, data center space in general, that's been a really rapid growth space for us. So.
Well, you know, if I'm hearing things right, you've positioned yourself to be right on top of some of the macro trends taking place in the world in general, right? There's going to be more data centers. With artificial intelligence, with all these new fabs that are being built, there's a need for new data centers. There's a big push for sustainable solutions, and then EV infrastructure, right? Electric cars clearly aren't going anywhere. So I find it really interesting that you've been able to double down on all these different markets, which I guess leads me to one final question kind of around this topic. What would you say the common thread across the different projects you take on is? Because, you know, when I look at electrical contracting, data centers, EV infrastructure, you know, it doesn't always seem like, oh yeah, clearly one company would be doing all those. So what would you describe as the common thread?
It's probably the subatomic particle called the electron. Okay, good. Great answer, actually. Yeah. And you used the word you, referring to me, but I think you meant the company. I'll just go back to, like I said, the first 30 years highly focused on electrical contracting. Over the last two decades, there were some really conscious decisions that the leadership team of this company made, looking at these, you know, emerging markets and saying, this looks interesting, we think there's going to be something happening here, we're going to invest now, we're going to build a team around it, we're going to structure our organization appropriately, whatever. So credit goes to them for sure. And I would say if they look back 20 years and they say, did we make the right decision, I think they would agree, yes.
So I have to ask you about one other fun project I came across: crypto mining. How do you end up in the crypto mining world? Well, you know, skidded solutions, containerized solutions, in some cases that was a good fit, and it depends on the company that's, you know, doing their crypto mining and how they want that facility to look and how they want to structure those miners, those computers. And it's hard to say that we're really in it. But I'm glad you brought that up, actually, because I can tie that back a little bit to some of the renewable energy stuff and energy resilience.
So very similar to the Middleton biodigester site that we were talking about, where we can operate that place off grid, right? We've built another facility kind of on the eastern side of the state of Wisconsin, and it's more of an office facility, and we call it our Vision Center. So it's intended to showcase the technologies that we support and we deliver to our customers and clients. So it's got showcases for automation solutions, renewable energies, digital power, you know, the construction services that we can provide, the containerized or modularized solutions that we can build and deliver. We designed and constructed that facility with the intent of showcasing those things.
So it's got a large solar field, we've got a big inverter, we've got some small battery storage. But when we have, you know, more power available to us through solar, for example, than what is being demanded by the facility, there's two options: store that power, or why don't we run some crypto miners? They consume power, they consume electric power. So why don't we do some crypto mining on the side, if you will? So just a little side project. But yeah, we have done some applications in the crypto space as well.
So I feel like it's very appropriate that there's a side project element to the crypto project that you worked on. That's probably the story for a lot of people that are dabbling in that space right now. I think it's a good way to highlight the energy resilience piece. So if it's done right, because again, this facility is completely off grid, there's no utility tied to it. Wow. So we are dependent on what we have there to, you know, make the power that we need, and what we're finding is we have excess power. That's a good problem to have when we talk about energy resilience. It would be a bad thing if we didn't have enough power. So in our case, we have more, and we're asking ourselves, what do we do with that extra power?
So this actually feels like a good way to switch to talking about some trends in sustainability, because a couple areas you highlighted during our conversation were around energy independence, being totally off grid like you were just talking about. Do you see that being something more achievable, that more companies are going to be able to pursue and enact in the next three years, five years, 10 years, whatever it is, right? You mean pursue energy resilience or energy independence or...? I would say let's go both, whichever you feel is the better way to answer it.
I mean, resilience is one of those things that it really comes down to what is the best and most appropriate design to ensure that downtime due to a loss of utility power, you know... Yeah. So there's certainly ways around that, or ways to address that. Resilience, I think, is something that every company can achieve. Energy independence might be a little bit more of a large step, especially for large manufacturing, where they might be consuming hundreds of megawatts of power. Sure. Having energy independence for that type of load is a pretty tall ask. You almost have to have, you know, a power generation source, more than just maybe a solar field, right? So. But there are applications, there are examples of that, and I guess I don't want to get too deep into the weeds on that. Sure.
So that's maybe my answer for that. I think resilience is something very achievable, and we love helping customers and clients work on that. Mhm. Energy independence is that last step of our Pathway to Smarter Energy, and is achievable, but may be a little bit case dependent, and so I don't want to overpromise anything on a public talk, you know. Of course, of course.
No, I was just kind of curious on some of your perspectives there as we've dabbled in all these areas. What would you say your more general take is on what are the trends we're going to see here when it comes to energy and sustainability moving into 2025?
I mean, I think there's going to be a continuation of, you know, companies embracing renewable energies as needed, and maybe not to offset their entire power utilization from the utility, but offset some of it, so that, you know, on their sustainability report it looks better, it appeals to their customers and clients, it resonates with their partners in their supply chain. So I think we'll continue to see the embracement of that.
The focus area for me, I would say, is really how do we help those customers on the first two steps of that journey: assessing their current utilization and looking for ways to optimize or conserve energy. And automation has a huge play right there. So a lot of times, I think the big thing for manufacturers today, tomorrow, next year, and well into the future is going to be optimization of their production system. Energy utilization or energy conservation might be a component of that, but, you know, leveraging automation to do that, but also reduce scrap, or increase yield, or improve quality, or address the workforce constraints that we know are present in the market. Mhm. Using automation to do those things. And all of those, in my opinion, are categorized as production optimization. I think that's the thing that manufacturing customers and clients are looking for.
And that makes sense to me. I like that you went from talking about energy, assessing utilization, finding ways to conserve energy, but a lot of this, and I think the Manufacturing Happy Hour listeners are familiar with this, a lot of this ties back to optimization of production as well. If you're reducing scrap, like you gave us an example, that's going to have energy impacts also.
You know, I wanted to ask you about automation trends, and you were touching on that quite a bit there. I guess the question that came out of that for me was, what is the biggest aha moment folks you're working with have around automation when they're working on a project with you, whether it's energy related, whether it's electrical contracting, where the aha moment is that they're able to get more out of the project, more out of the process after it's done, that you're witnessing?
For sure. One is, you know, for those situations where we're working with a client that's building a new production facility, the time savings to get from 'we have an idea that we want to build a new production facility' to 'this plant is up and running, we're producing product, creating revenue, and realizing profits,' right? So the time frame to do that, call it speed to market, however you can shorten that by one day, two days, two weeks, a month, whatever, I think that's an aha thing, right? So if we can create solutions, if we can bring ideas to the table that allow that end user manufacturer to do that, mhm, that's a game changer. And we're not unique, right? We're not unique in that regard. There's a lot of cool ideas and a
…lot of really, really, you know, well-versed companies out there, system integrators, contractors, etc., that do that. I think there are a few things that differentiate FTI, and maybe one is just the very broad end-to-end range of what we can do and what we can deliver and the value that we bring.
Yeah, no kidding. I've learned a lot about the intersection of electrical contracting, energy, prefabbed buildings, etc. just throughout this conversation, because admittedly when I go into a discussion like this, I see some of the business models out there and they're all very unique, right? And I don't have that immediate aha moment sometimes of, oh, I see how all this ties together. But I think you've done a really great job of summarizing where all these play together and why this makes so much sense and why it's translating to FTI being very successful in what you're doing right now.
Honestly, it's one of the reasons that I maybe made the career change that I did. I saw that, I recognized it, it looked extremely interesting, and I was like, that's easy to talk to people about. That's a differentiator that's easy to talk about. We don't just sell a product, we don't just provide a service. We can do everything from the front end, you know, very high concept development, to engineering consultation, to full design services, to manufacture this thing in house, whatever it is, and bring it to the site, to the whole automation package around it, and then future life cycle support. That's what we call end to end, and I think that's a pretty key differentiator. Now, there are others out there, again, that do that, we know that, but I think it's less common than, you know.
Well, I would say it's certainly less common. I mean, out of the 200-something episodes we've done, you're the first person I've talked to that is part of a business that has this breadth of experience. I have to ask, this is a personal career question: what do you feel gave you the sensibility to step back and say, hey, what FTI is doing is very unique, I'm probably not going to come across an opportunity like this every day? If you can share some of your discernment process there.
That's a tough question. Over a beer, I know I didn't overthink it. I just, you know, I was just like, yeah, let's do it.
All right, I like that.
There might be more of that answer, Chris, but I'm not thinking of it at the moment.
Sure, no, it's fair. Well, I'm going to help us end in a bit of an open-ended way. Is there anything you wish I would have asked that I haven't touched on yet? We've covered a lot of ground today, from your career to the breadth that FTI offers. What else might be on your mind, or is there a call to action that you have for the audience?
I mean, we talked a lot about the modular and what we call industrialized construction approach that we take. We talked a lot about the energy piece of our business. We didn't really actually talk that much about automation, and I kind of thought you were going to ask me something about AI, because it's hard to have a conversation nowadays without talking about AI.
We did an AI drinking game during one of our live podcasts at one point, which, by the way, the subject of the podcast had nothing to do with artificial intelligence, but I'm like, well, we're doing a live show, it would be fun anyway. And sure enough, there were opportunities where the audience and all the panelists had to take an extra sip of their beer during the discussion. So, well, give us your take on AI, right? I'm trying to actually do a better job to remember to ask people on their takes on where they see it playing in and what you're doing to prepare for it.
It's awesome and it's scary at the same time. I think there's so much to be had, but also along with that there needs to be a certain level of responsibility and ownership that every single one of us take on, because as you probably know, if you ask ChatGPT to perform something and develop an image or write you this, that or whatever, the amount of electric power that it takes to do that is 20, 30 fold, whatever it might be, for a regular Google search.
Yeah.
And now I'm seeing things, you know, advertisements for new AI applications where you can just walk around with a headset on and talk to this AI and have full conversations for hours on end.
Yeah.
Where does the personal responsibility come in? Because these things are consuming electric power to give you that nice cool feature, whatever it is you want.
Yeah, I like that you're bringing this up.
And maybe that person doesn't realize that, but it might be the same person that says we need to stop burning coal and go with all renewable energies. Well, they're kind of on both sides of the argument then, right? So I think that would be my message on AI. I think there's an awesome play for AI and what it can do, especially within industrial automation. I think the limits are not boundless, but there's a lot that can be done with AI with automation solutions. But the consumer end of AI, I think we need to really think about that hard, and what we're doing, because, you know, if we're providing these electric power distribution systems into these large data centers, we get to see firsthand how much power it takes to make this stuff happen, right? So I'd say think about that.
Right. You know, I like that call to action. That is one that I think we all need to think of, right, in terms of what is our, like you were saying, personal responsibility, just being aware of what it takes for artificial intelligence to exist and execute. I think that is a nice way to wrap things up here. So, well, Kevin, I've enjoyed the conversation from start to finish today. I learned a lot during this discussion. These are my favorite ones, where I come in not necessarily knowing what to expect and then walking away with a clearer understanding of where a business like yours really fits in the manufacturing and industrial automation world. So Kevin, thanks so much for jumping on Manufacturing Happy Hour. This was a lot of fun.
Chris, thank you. Cheers.
Yep, cheers.
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