Dirt Talk Podcast

Although social media has been almost universally adopted for personal use worldwide, it can still sometimes be a polarizing topic when it comes to its use in business. This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex discuss the value that comes from using social media to tell the world who your business is and what you’re all about. A majority of this week's conversation centers around the idea that treat...

When Aaron Witt found out that Priestly Demolition’s VP of Operations Brian Priestly & President Ryan Priestly would travel south to Nashville from Ontario, Canada, Aaron immediately reached out to the rest of the Dirt Talk crew with a simple message: “get these guys on the podcast.” Fortunately for us, they came down to the BuildWitt HQ, and we had a ball talking demolition… because who doesn’t e...

Aaron and Alex are back in the studio, but this Monday the audience members are the ones truly in the driver's seat. That’s right we are doing another question-and-answer episode and touching on some great submissions from our amazing Dirt Talk fans. The questions touch on recognizable iron, how rewarding a career in the Dirt World can be, running one-hundred miles, our core values, and lessons fr...

This week, we bring you the very first edition of Dirt Talk: LIVE where Aaron, Alex, and Eric take the Dirt Talk show on the road. Aaron lays out the story below: “Months ago, organizers from the ECC (The Association for the Capital Projects Engineering and Construction Community) asked us to speak to 200 of their future leaders at their annual conference in San Antonio. Think key future leaders f...

On today’s episode of Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex are joined by Eric Jumper. The guys are coming right off of a full company BuildWitt meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, and they examine why it makes sense to spend money on a company meeting when you’re in growth mode. They discuss the value of educating each person in the company understanding how each team works and why each piece is important to th...

Today’s episode is a special treat for Dirt Talk listeners (and maybe especially the Dirt Talk host): Aaron’s mother Carolyn MacDonald is the guest! She gives the dirt (pun intended?) on Aaron’s obsession with construction and its equipment from a very young age as well as gives context (and corroboration) for many of the memories that Aaron has shared over the years about his earliest memories of...

This week on the Dirt Talk podcast, Aaron, Alex, and guest-host Eric Jumper revisit their recent experience doing the Dirt Talk podcast LIVE in front of a large audience at the ECC Conference in San Antonio, TX. They discuss the challenges of changing up the approach and why it was both fun (and intimidating) to talk about the Dirt World to a room of folks from the energy sector. Later, they chat...

Brent Rasmussen might have the title of Project Manager on LinkedIn, but he’s got his hands all over the family company, Rasmussen Excavation LLC. Rasmussen was started almost 50 years ago with a focus on excavation, but in the years since, they’ve branched out into utilities, sand/gravel, rentals, and their most niche offering: solar projects.  This week on Dirt Talk, host Aaron Witt is joined by...

This week begins a new phase on Dirt Talk: Each Monday, we’ll be releasing episodes with new formats, new guests, and new stories!  This week on Dirt Talk, the OG Dirt Talk crew (Aaron Witt and Alex Horton) is here with a Q+A. The guys chat about “hidden gem” locations in the Dirt World, book recommendations for young people in the industry, and “chasing the dozer dream”. They also discuss the rig...

Because September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, we’re featuring a few experts on the topic to share information and tools to help make the Dirt World a better place for all of us.  Today, Michelle Walker, founding chairperson of the Construction Industry Alliance for Suicide Prevention, is back on the Dirt Talk podcast for her second episode. She was first featured on episode 41 way back...

This week, we’ve got Aaron, Alex, and frequent guest Eric Jumper talking about jobsite mistakes and the lessons learned (or not learned). Aaron shares a story from his time working on the railroad, and Eric realizes once he starts telling one mistake story how many others begin flooding his memory. We all make mistakes on the job, and it’s time we admit that mistakes are part of the pathway to gro...

Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas sees issues of suicide prevention and mental health promotion from a host of perspectives. Clinical psychologist. Mental health advocate. Faculty member. Researcher. And suicide loss survivor. She has earned an international reputation as an entrepreneur and innovator in social change. Along the way, she’s helped establish many large-scale, gap-filling mental health effort...

This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron Witt and Alex Horton are joined by Dirt World “Expert” Eric Jumper. Eric complains about not getting paid after working at BuildWitt for two years (editor’s note: this is not true) before the guys address internet trolls who complain that every video Aaron posts doesn’t show every step of every process, people putting RAM-NEK in the back of an excavator to warm it up...

Sophie Coleman (of Victoria, Australia) was raised around the Dirt World as her father built up his career before he started MC Earthmoving. Sophie had thought joining the family business would be for her other siblings, and ended up moving to New York City. But after working a few jobs and traveling a good bit around the US, she started feeling the pull to go back to Australia. And after working...

This week, Aaron recounts his recent travel through Canada as he visited an oil sands mine site, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the world, Fort McMurray, Calgary - a wide-ranging trip with some badass earthwork. Aaron weighs in on the negative perception (and the importance today) of oil and the role it plays in society before he and Alex discuss questions about how some employers are provi...

“The only way to have a more sustainable world is through infrastructure.” Will Paddock is the Managing Director of WAP Sustainability based in Tennessee, a team of sustainability professionals who help clients both in and out of the Dirt World achieve their sustainability goals. To say “the world of sustainability is complex” would be an understatement, as evidenced by the conversation Will had w...

This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron and Alex check in on the joys of running and the utter terror of a bathroom emergency in the middle of a long run. Naturally, they transition to the topic of “Perseverance”. Later, they answer questions about staying in the Dirt World while striving for a healthy work-life balance and how to work through relational issues with difficult crew members. Don’t forget to c...

This week on Dirt Talk, the DT crew has collected some of the most asked-about topics and combined them into one episode to answer YOUR questions about the importance of training and leadership in the Dirt World. Spanning over six months of conversations, we hope that every listener learns something new or sees a new perspective that they hadn’t considered before. Questions/topics discussed includ...

This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron Witt and Alex Horton are back at it, catching up after another long stretch of travel for Aaron. The guys discuss the Appalachian Trail and the “time warp” of living on the road before diving into this week’s topic: Interns. They discuss the value of skipping the unpaid internship and just getting out in the field and working. Then, they answer a question about the va...

George Marsh is a collector at heart. Recently, he’s begun hunting for and collecting chain saws. Why? “Why not?!” he says. But because this is a podcast about construction, George’s most obvious (and precious) collection is the armada of heavy equipment that he and his father have accumulated over the years. According to George, a self-proclaimed “old iron enthusiast,” they have something like 70...

This week on Dirt Talk, host Aaron Witt is joined by Eric Jumper to talk equipment (of course), but the conversation quickly evolves into a conversation on how you approach valuing your work abilities and how to use certain tools to develop yourself and your career. The guys also touch on landfills, meat processing, and machine rental. Later, Aaron and Eric answer questions like “what is strip min...

If you’ve spent any time working in or around the Dirt World, you know this one thing to be true: there is a labor shortage. And if you’ve been listening to Dirt Talk for any length of time, you know that host Aaron Witt is very passionate about working with folks in the industry to fix that issue.  Enter Tyler Robertson: CEO of Diesel Laptops. In addition to being a badass company name, it’s also...

 This week, we’ve got a special edition of Dirt Talk: host Aaron Witt and producer Alex Horton are joined by BuildWitt Co-President Dan Briscoe to discuss what’s been going on lately on the business side of BuildWitt.  Suppose you’ve been following along with the BuildWitt story for the last few months. In that case, you know that we’ve been working on rolling out BuildWitt Training, a software pl...

Reilly Sasse gives a sh!t about the blue collar world. You can see it on his company Red River’s website, you can see it on his LinkedIn, and you’ll pick up on it quickly when you chat in person… and luckily, Reilly was kind enough to come hang with the Dirt Talk crew at the BuildWitt HQ last week. Reilly is CEO of Red River, a company in Wyoming that does manufacturability and fabrication for the...

This week on Dirt Talk, Aaron gives a preview of his upcoming trip to Canada. Among other things, he’s pumped to go see the oil sands at Fort McMurray. Later, he and Alex discuss public work vs private work and the complications and opportunities that come with each. They then speak a little about joining a union before addressing BuildWitt’s future plans regarding getting involved in government. ...