Why play cornhole when you can play Crane-Hole? Join Wayne Grayson from IRONPROS and Joel Hicks, product manager for crawler cranes at SANY as they discuss the best bourbon while tossing bags between crane platforms at SANY's booth at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2023.
Wayne Grayson 00:00
Hey guys welcome back into the SANY booth here at CONEXPO-CON/AGG 2023. We're here to play another game and hang out, and have some beers. I'm here with with Joel Hicks. Joel is the product manager for crawler cranes at SANY and Joel we're gonna play some crane-hole today. It's uniquely SANY. I don't know they might want to trademark this. I want to see some of the some of the rights money for that because I did come up with the name. So what we're gonna do, we're gonna It's basically cornhole across these crane platforms. I'm down. I think this is gonna be fun. We're gonna do about three rounds. And then I guess we'll see who's on top after after that after the bucket ping pong. I'm not you know, I'm a little bit better at cornhole but we'll see. Do you want to bet on it?
Joel Hicks 00:57
Sure. Before we talk, should we bet on this?
Wayne Grayson 00:58
what do you want to bet?
Joel Hicks 01:01
I'll bet you a beer.
Wayne Grayson 01:02
Okay. I'll take you on that one.
Joel Hicks 01:05
Okay. All right.
Wayne Grayson
I'll let you have the honor since your it’s your booth.
Joel Hicks 01:24
This is interesting.
Wayne Grayson 01:29
Oh, that was a nice throw. All right, Joel. Now let's start off Tell me a little bit about your background. You've been in the construction industry about 13 years but you actually started in the aerospace tell us about what that was like.
Joel Hicks 01:38
Um, so yeah, I worked five years for in the for helicopters, you know, so I've worked for the military side for the Blackhawk helicopters for five years. Got this got tired of the travel you know, I was up in the Northeast for a while yeah, man to travel so then I took a job with one of our competitors for Yeah, heavy equipment. Yeah, fell in love with it. Yeah, I love cranes man.
Wayne Grayson 02:04
Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, helicopter from a crane is pretty different but
Joel Hicks 02:07
cranes are not so much worried about weight me so sometimes the more weight the better.
Wayne Grayson
I'm gonna make you go. Oh, that backfired in a big way. But that's okay. We're gonna keep on keepin on like nothing happened. Alright, you mentioned you got into the industry about about 12 years ago So what brought you to Sany? What was the thing that you liked about what's going on here?
Joel Hicks
There's been so much momentum here since even since 2020. There is definitely a buzz. So you know starting out you know there's so much, so much growth and we can have and that's why I needed like the freedom we're trying new things we're bringing great products to our market.
Wayne Grayson 02:55
We have one round in the books Joel is up three to nothing. And I thought that I had shaken him up a little bit but I hadn't so beginners luck. Well you know so tell me a little bit about you know what you started off in the in the aerospace industry we're working on Blackhawks and then you came over to... what's the biggest difference between working on and engineering cranes and engineering helicopters?
Joel Hicks 03:18
the weight. [Helicopoters are] sensitive to weight. But with cranes usually you want stuff to be heavier.
Wayne Grayson 03:29
I'm making the comeback now guys
Joel Hicks 03:38
I got a ringer over here yeah
Wayne Grayson 03:43
So I mean obviously you know one of my biggest things coming into this booth 33,000 square feet 17 new machines this year what what was your you know, you went to came into the construction industry about 11 years ago but what's what's your favorite aspect of you know, Sany not not just in general as a company and joining the company I know you've got some some great folks that are here and that was a big help for you coming over but what's some of the stuff that's most exciting about where the company's headed for you right now?
Joel Hicks 04:07
It's just you know, there's just the you know, saying the values our customers Yeah, so we go out to the field we do feel demos which I love doing I love I love putting our units in the field and talking with customers and seeing how they use our machines Yeah, you know, because I only know so much from my desk so I love getting out in the field and having that that experience with with their operators yeah
Wayne Grayson 04:27
man Absolutely. All right, well, so you know one of the other things kind of interesting too is you're you're from Kentucky, the land of bourbon Burg we've been trying to get you a bourbon as soon as we got up on up here to play the game. But what's your favorite bourbon? My favorite bourbon for roses by far okay single barrel. single barrel. Yes, sir. That's the only way to go.
Joel Hicks 04:49
If you have a barrel peak. I mean,
04:52
Absolutely, man. Oh, it was almost clutch man. Almost. All right. So what is your what's the bourbon that's hardest for you to get that you like the most.
Joel Hicks 05:02
Taylor single barrel by far I can get the small batch usually with single barrel.
Wayne Grayson 05:12
I think I don't know where that puts us. pressures on. Last two for you. Yes sir. All right. I'm gonna try to distract you as much as you can on this last throw. Have you ever had pappy
Joel Hicks 05:28
I've had pappy before yeah.
Wayne Grayson 05:29
Yes, you said you've had if you had all of them at all. I've only had the 10. This is this is why you need to live in Kentucky so you can actually have some
Joel Hicks 05:36
In Kentucky, like 10 years ago bourbon was not popular anything by basically find everything on the show that has changed. Definitely has changed. Now prices are crazy. Yeah, I can't even afford to drink bourbon.
Wayne Grayson 05:48
You got to win a lottery to get pappy Oh, that's clutch that's clutch are what do we start up the round the round on four to four to two. So that's you. Did you get one in the keynote? Don't remember that. You got I think you got two on so that's four. Four to four or no six to four plus two. We try. We try. We will. We will we will. We'll just leave it at that. I'm happy with the tie. Good game, sir. Yeah, man. Absolutely. Joel, thank you so much for joining us today. Guys. Be sure to come out to the Santee booth and see all the awesome stuff that they have here. Hang out with these awesome people. Come see the cranes. Absolutely. Maybe they might even let you play cornhole on one of them. Alright guys, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time.
