Hey everyone, my name is Sonny Makin. I’m the Chief Operating Officer of ABC, Associated Builders and Contractors, Florida East Coast Chapter. I’m Peter Dyga, I’m the President and CEO, and excited to be part of this new project at the Florida East Coast Chapter. Absolutely, we want to welcome you to our very first inaugural episode of our new podcast, The Obvious Podcast.

The Obvious Podcast This podcast, unless otherwise stated, all the opinions and content reflects our own opinions and the opinions of our guests. So, shall we get started? So, Peter, yeah, let’s get started. Why, why are we hosting a podcast? Wow, why are we hosting a podcast? Well, we think, obviously, this medium, I think, is hot, right?

ABC Florida East Coast Chapter
Corporate Office
3730 Coconut Creek Pkwy
Suite 200
Coconut Creek, FL 33066
(954) 951-3911

Hours of Operation
Monday- Friday: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Visit our website: https://abceastflorida.com/

It’s the way the modern consumer, I think, consumes news and material and whatnot. So, we hope to talk about, as the title of the show, I think, uh, references, obvious things, which I think ABC is oftentimes about obvious things, we think. Absolutely. Because you and I had this conversation, right? We think that truth is obvious, but it’s not always self evident.

Right. So we just want to talk about it. We want to talk about what’s happening in our world, what’s happening in our country, what’s happening in our industry, and bring you information that’s entertaining, but also enlightening. So we thought for the first one that one of the most obvious things is, and in the core of ABC, is merit.

The word merit, what merit means today in the world, in business, um, you know, obviously ABC, um, kind of coined a phrase called the merit shop, which is very specific to construction. Um, because, you know, for years and years and decades and decades, uh, you know, we had the union shop. So, the merit shop kind of means, I think, what it implies, which is, you know, rather than being a union shop, we’re, we are contractors who believe in merit and believe that’s the most important thing that should be the deciding factor, uh, in winning work and, uh, delivering work, et cetera, so.

And it’s part of our philosophy. It’s written on the board right behind me. ABC. Literally stands for the marriage of philosophy and what we find really interesting and exciting about that is it’s part of the DNA of this country. Absolutely. So in thinking about our first podcast, we thought it would be interesting to, um, Make the tie between something that’s consuming a lot of people’s attention these days, which is the Olympics.

Now, put the controversy aside, and there’s plenty that we can do in other shows. But by and large, people still love the Olympics because it’s about merit. In the end, right? We want to see, we want to see the very best people in whatever that, uh, sport is, or that, um, um. Or breakdancing, which is not a sport.

Right. You know. But baseball isn’t. But it still consumes us because we know we’re, they’re competing, and we’re putting the person, people on the podium at the end that are the most meritous. Yes. In their particular sport. And it’s funny how we have no issue with that, I think, as a world, as a country, when it comes to sports.

Yes. Yes, then we move over into the business community or the business side of things and all of a sudden it becomes controversial You know, we got to have quotas and yeah programs and you know, as opposed to just looking to Who has the record, the merit, the capability in, in construction, you know, the bonding capacity and the insurance and the experience in the, um, you know, maybe you’ve got a client that you’ve, you’ve delivered many, many times over all this builds into the merit.

And what we believe is the obvious is that the merit should matter as much. I think when it comes to the business community, hiring and firing, Right. And if you look at, if you look at American success, if you look at literally the history of America and the pilgrims coming to this country, you know, getting settled, I mean, my goodness, Darwin, the survival of the fittest, right?

You look at all of that and meritocracy has always played a role in how the world has developed. And, and anytime you get away from that, you look at cultures that are steeped in corruption. You look at cultures that are steeped in rewarding bad behavior, right? Those are cultures that are. struggling to succeed, where people’s standard of living isn’t as good.

You had sent a study a couple of years ago that talked about countries where people have freedom, the freedom to pursue their goals, their dreams. Those people live longer than countries that had, that had less freedom. And I found that fascinating. You know, you give people, you and I often talk about this, right?

This is a country where you want people to have equal opportunity, you know, Results will never be equal. You know, I’m never going to be an NBA player, right? Right. Doesn’t matter how many opportunities you give me, it’s never going to happen. But there are other areas where we can succeed, where we have a passion, where, you know, God has placed a calling in our heart.

And I find that to be sort of the foundational piece of meritocracy, right? Because we all pursue our goals and our dreams. Absolutely. So, I want to talk a few minutes about You know, we’re so blessed, I think, as a chapter, with our leadership, uh, for a number of years now, has been concerned about the fact that it seems like that appreciation of the role of meritocracy or merit and free markets in, in the success of our country has kind of, um, falling, uh, you know, away from appreciation, especially in particular in the younger generation.

So What our chapter has been doing, uh, for a, for a couple of years is for one, we, uh, did a, contracted for a professional, um, poll to find out if in fact it’s true that younger people don’t appreciate. And we’ve asked questions like what was most important in terms of, your hiring and your success and being rewarded and paid more.

And what we found out was, you know, there still was a latent appreciation, I think, for that merit should matter more. Right. Than a lot of these other things. So that was good news but it definitely was different amongst age groups and whatnot, and so we embarked in the last couple of years in doing even some social media, you know, to try to change that.

Where we referenced a lot of those national studies or things that you could see that, areas tend to be ones that are more based on a free market. More successful, areas or areas of the country or world tend to be ones that And that’s one of the things I want to connect to what you just said.

I feel like there’s a deep connection between freedom and meritocracy and then success. And any sort of an environment, any sort of a system or an economy where you have, whether it’s the government or you have plutocrats or you have oligarchs, anybody who’s, you have people that are picking winners and winners and losers.

And you, so you detract from meritocracy, the people who live within that system, they are the ones who suffer, right? Because they understand no matter how hard I work, no matter how hard I do something, uh, there’s something in the way. And going back to your Olympics point, I find it fascinating that the United States of America, which is 330 million people, 320 million people, I sent just under 600 people to the Olympics and we’re leading the charts in total.

I know we’re not leading in gold, but in total medals, uh, the U. S. is leading. And then I think about, um, the country where my parents immigrated from India, which has a population of 1. 3 billion people, they had under 200 people at the Olympics. And I find it fascinating that there has to be raw talent, right?

Somewhere in that country of 1. 3 billion people, there has to be somebody who swam, who swims better than. Katie Ledecky. They just have not been discovered. And Something’s preventing that rise. Something’s preventing, exactly. And something’s preventing that rise. And I think what makes America so great, so special as an experiment is that, like, we have historically had that freedom that has allowed us to foster a culture of meritocracy.

And I think the more we have governments play into picking winners and losers, I think you detract from that. And, and then everybody who lives in that system is really the one who suffers. So, ABC members, I think, should be proud knowing that we’re trying, we’re leading the charge, you know, in many ways, in terms of, um, even the subject of this pilot, you know, first podcast is, it’s our first obvious, you know, that merit matters, uh, it, it impacts everything, uh, in the world and in our country.

And, uh, we wanted to kind of segue into a closing segment, if you will, about merit, which is, for the first time, I think, in the history of our country. We have a presidential election where both candidates have a four year track record. Well, they did. They did a few weeks ago. So, I’m not sure how you, but it’s the same ticket.

Yeah, it’s the same administration, right? You know, if, you know, a vice president can’t escape, you know, Yeah, the presidential record. Absolutely. the presidential record of the administration. And so When people go to vote in November, they’re, going to have a very clear choice of which ticket, what kind of merit does each bring to the table.

Right? The the one that’s maybe more, immediate on our minds is the one we’re, we’re living through at the moment, the last four years where we can talk about inflation and the economy, border gas prices, open borders, groceries, housing, struggle of the working class crime, defunding police as a contrast to another presidential candidate that had a, very four year track record.

So, the question is, if merit matters, it should matter to us, you know, in terms of this election. And That’s kind of what we, there’s some really phenomenal news, from ABC coming out in the last two weeks, which is at every level of governance, our National Board of Directors, our State Board of Directors, and our Chapter Board of Directors, all endorsed.

Donald Trump, for president, and we wanted it, we think there’s a very good reason why each organization, they spelled it out, when they made the endorsements, and in fact, have as a guest on our podcast, a local member who has been, a chairman of the chapter. He’s been a chairman of ABC of Florida he’s led the legislative committee. I’m probably missing a whole host of other roles in which he’s provided leadership at the chapter level and at the state and national level. But, he had a significant role. He did recently in this process. And so we welcome George Cuesta to the podcast, to our very first version of the obvious.

So welcome George. Thank you for having me. So, so George, talk from your perspective and a member’s perspective a little bit about that process that happened a couple weeks ago at the state level, and why you think the state board and the other boards have acted the way they did. Well, there’s a couple of reasons.

Um, number one, I wholeheartedly believe in the, um, in the philosophy of this organization and our mission. And, thank you for your kind words. I’ve had the opportunity to serve this association. And it’s members in many capacities but you know, our tagline, which is really, I think defines us, is that we are the voice of commercial construction.

And, uh, I, I truly believe that. And I’ve seen it at all levels of governance whether it be at the local level and city halls county commissions, and various municipalities, whether it be at the state level through ABC of Florida, and obviously through ABC, uh, national. Uh, with our congressional, uh, Senate and, presidential candidates if you have a voice, and we clearly have a voice as an association, then you out, not only do you have the opportunity to use that voice, you have a responsibility to use that voice. And I think that, in this presidential election, I thought it’s incredibly important that we endorse at all levels. Um, Peter, you, you correctly said I no longer sit on the board, but I understand, you know, the governance of the association to, to, to some extent, because I’ve been involved in it for a long time and, sitting in the legislative, committee meeting, I guess it was a week ago.

Or so maybe two weeks ago, uh, I thought important that the board discuss whether the at the chapter level, we should go out and endorse, Donald J. Trump for president in the 2024 election, which, the local board being Florida East Coast chapter did, less than a week later, we were having the same conversation at the state board meeting and again, at that point, you know, I’m a member of that board, so I was able to make that motion and I’m glad that I did. There was some discussion and we were able to, to make that endorsement. These are all things that are, that were done at a more local level and, eventually it was done at the national level.

I say eventually. Because, they had taken a decision to endorse Donald Trump for president, but to hold on the news, and this is the way that even our government works, right? A local chapter, and I’m going to go back and give a little bit of detail so that those that are listening, if they’re not super familiar with the association, they can absorb some of this information.

A Florida East Coast chapter is one of about 70 chapters in the nation. We’re one of five chapters in the state of Florida. for listening. There are about 600 member companies at Florida East Coast Chapter. There are about 1, 800 companies or so in the state of Florida, and about 23, 000 companies or so at the nation, at the national level.

And this represents obviously tens of thousands of employees, team members, and presidential elections, congressional elections, mayoral elections affect the lives of not only our companies, But, um, our team members and their families. So it’s incredible. It’s an incredible opportunity to be part of an association with this amount of breadth.

But when you are part of it, then you want to make sure that you’re wielding that about that amount of influence in the right way. And I think it was important to stand behind Donald Trump because, uh, I think he’s very well aligned not only with our industry, um, but with, uh, our team members and their families.

George, can you tie it in a little bit to the conversation earlier conversation today about merit? I mean, we’ve talked about we’re living through these four years and despite the fact that our friends in the media and the legacy media will do what they can you know to try to cover up how bad things are for the especially for the working class in my opinion , can we help us remember four years ago and the merit it’s So, you know Talking about our association and our members and our team members I would love to focus the conversation around that because if you’re listening to this podcast it’s because you’re a member of this association for the most part So that meritocracy that were you guys were talking about earlier about being the best.

It is the philosophy of every member company in this association. In other words, if we’re not the best, if we don’t treat our team members the best, if we don’t try to get the right subcontractor on the job, if we don’t try to keep the safest job site, we’re not going to win. We’re not, we’re just, we’re just not going to win.

And, I love your example about the Olympics. We go out there and compete as a world, in dozens of sports, and we try to promote and reward excellency. And I would tie it back to the presidential race, because say what you want about any individual that’s running for any office, you have to look at the policies.

And the America first policy is the quintessential meritocracy in the entire world. And what most people that are voting. that our voting age in this election should think about. The simple philosophy is that America should win, but the European Union should strive to win. Russia should strive to win.

China should strive to win. But only the best will prevail. And the only way that the United States prevail if we consider ourselves as putting ourselves first. That doesn’t mean that we disrespect others. But it means that our goals need to be aligned with the rest of the world. So the America first policy philosophy that I completely get behind, I think it’s very obvious, when we get to global competition, of less importance like sports, and it’s easy to keep tabs on who’s winning what game and who’s faster than another individual.

And it’s a little murkier when we’re talking about global national issues, but the America First policy is the quintessential meritocracy in the, at the global level. Well said. Yeah. this is exactly why we wanted you as our pilot guest, George. because of your leadership and, sometimes helping the organization do what it, it should do and needs to do.

But also I know you’d have a great perspective on the merit, uh, that we all, that merit choice we, we face, you know, in, three, three short months or however long it is. So. Less than a hundred days. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us George. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you gentlemen. I appreciate the opportunity to spend this time with you Thank you George.

Take care. Sonny, how was that for our first episode? I think it’s great. Hopefully people find it entertaining informative and not too long You know, we know you don’t have an hour to sit around and listen to us talk about meritocracy and things that are happening in this country because you’re busy working and producing and contributing to the GDP of this great nation of ours.

So thank you so much for joining us. And if you’re with us on the importance of merit, we thank you for your membership. If you’re not a member, we ask you to be part of this great effort and also consider the merits that are before you in November for the president. Absolutely. Thank you all for joining us for this inaugural, pilot podcast called The Obvious.

We hope you enjoyed it and just as an aside, by the way, we hope you’ll join us for the next one. At the end of this recording, we continued to have a really great conversation with George, didn’t we? Yes, we did. And, uh, our staff kept recording, so we think we’ll definitely enjoy it. And we covered, a lot of different topics that I’m sure you’re going to be very interested to listen to.

So, anyway, look forward to, episode two. We’ll see you then. Have a great day.