Mike Dingler:
Nice. What all you're in charge of at the fire station?

Willard Harrison: We currently have an engine and two medic trucks in our house that run out of there as well as our battalion chief. Obviously I'm not in charge of him, but he hangs out with us. That's cool. That's cool. Definitely. So you're a charge line, what, five or six guys total. Right. Cool. And your future aspirations are becoming a Lieutenant. I'm already a Lieutenant looking to move into a captain position.  So obviously I see you with your background in construction, why you do some knowing home services, but tell us a little bit about Senoia Home Services. What all you do, you know, what, what's your favorite project you've done so far and you know, just the highlights of that.

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Willard Harrison:

Prior to working in the fire industry, I worked in commercial construction, did that for about nine years. More and more folks just kinda asked me to pick up and start doing projects for them. So for quite a while I worked part time with Peachtree City Fire also.

Mike Dingler:
I've worked with you a little bit there. When I'm in the station, I ran a couple of calls with you.

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Willard Harrison:
It's gotten very busy and I have now given up Peachtree City Fire part time. We do a lot of projects kind of that are in an in between size, that are bigger than most average homeowners can deal with on their own, but not quite big enough where you're going to go out and hire a full on a contractor to do, you know, an entire remodel your house.

Mike Dingler:
So yeah. So you're like in between the DIY phase and the pull permits and add another, you know, a couple thousand square feet in your house space.

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Willard Harrison:
Yeah, we're in that, in between kind of area. So we do a lot of, you know, bathroom remodels, tile, showers, decks, um, porches, um, flooring, that kind of stuff.

Mike Dingler:
Okay. Painting. Do you do any painting? Um, I don't, firstly, I'll be honest, I hate painting. I grew up painting and I don't like it anymore, but I've got a guy, I know a guy that's important. Yeah. That's what FireTrack isall about is I got a guy, that's it. Yeah. If you can't find somebody on FireTrack, try to do something, then you know you're looking in the wrong spot because FireTrack has just about everybody, all the guys in one place. So that's cool. So what's your favorite project that you've done as a Senoia Home Services, what is the most rewarding or whatever you got as far as.......

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Willard Harrison:
More recently, probably one of the big ones we did was a bathroom. They wanted to convert from having just a really small shower, um, standard, like a three by three shower and then take out their big garden tub which wasn't used and then turn that into a big shower.

Mike Dingler:
Oh, nice. So I've seen that a lot. So a lot of new homes come with like this big garden tub that I don't use, I've got one in my home and I don't really use it. So you took that and made it into a big nice show into a big shower

Willard Harrison:
Fancy shower, yet it's just nice because all of it was, not only was the layout not really functional, but most of the finishes were pretty outdated and everything as well. So it's just really rewarding. Sounds kind of cheesy, but it's really rewarding to see it go from something old and not very functional. And then after all your work and everything, see the final project.

Mike Dingler:
So how old are we talking? Are we talking like gold faucets in the bathroom? You're just about just about that, so you can take something like that and turn it into something more modern and, Oh, yeah, I definitely, yeah. That's awesome man. Um, just tell me a little bit about, you know, what's your favorite thing about being a firefighter and being, you know, Senoia Home Services?

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Willard Harrison:
Honestly, it's really just helping folks. That's what got me into the fire service in the first place. It sounds like a cliche, but, when I was doing commercial construction, it really was all about bottom line and deadlines and trying to make money. I mean that's what business is about, but that was just their big push. I got burned out on all that.

Mike Dingler:
I understand that my dad was the same way. He was 20 something years at the AJC and it was all deadlines and push and you know, more productivity and spend more hours here and finally just got tired of it.

Willard Harrison:
So yeah, once I moved into the fire service I really enjoy helping folks out, being able to do these projects and being able to work for myself. You know, I can set the schedule and set the deadlines and everything else so I don't have to rush through projects. So I really enjoy helping folks out when they need something done. Knowing that we can go in and give them a quality product, do some honest work for them, and then have a good outcome and I don't have to rush through it and worry about somebody yelling at me......

Mike Dingler:
yeah, right. Your margins are wrong or whatever the price is. And that's the best thing about fire track is when a customer downloads the app, they can select their start date or when they need it done by and they can put that in the comments. So you'll see that. And if you can't adhere to that because of your schedule at the fire department or you've got another big project going on, right then you can simply just say, you know, I can't do it and just click a no thanks button. And then the customer keeps looking. I think that's a lot better than someone like you taking on a lot of work, you know, and you can't get it done in a timely manner. And that, that basically goes to what you're saying about your previous job in construction and deadlines and everything. You know, we're able to set the customer's able to set the deadline within fire track and send it out to all the firefighters in the area and then get the one that can do it.

Mike Dingler:
Yeah. So that's a big thing, you know, with off duty firefighters is we sometimes have a lot going on. And I know myself, if I take a, you know, take on a big job, exterior cleaning a big commercial place, I could be, you know, how to service for residential clients for a week or two. So it's good to be able to uh, to work with customers that way within the app and you know, select the start date, select the, you know, finish date and be able to type comments back and well, and at this point

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Willard Harrison:
It definitely seems like the way our economy and everything else is, it's tax seasons come spring. Folks who want to do a lot of projects. Anything else definitely seems like there's work to go around because I know we stay pretty busy. Um, and that's become an issue for some cause I have, I've had to, like you said, I've had to be honest and say, well, I'd love to help you out, but I can't get to it until you know this time and that's a little late, right. I can't fault folks for that. But that's how it is. Yes. Just the way it goes.

Mike Dingler:
And you know, with good work comes more work so everybody can see your work on what's your Facebook site, Senoia Home Services.

Willard Harrison:You can find us on Facebook. They're not very tricky at all. Update and post photos as we get stuff completed. Senoia Home Services. So we'll have a link to that in your bio. Uh, within FireTrack you'll have all your information to be displayed to the customer. And, uh, once again, Willard Harrison with Senoia Home Services, thanks for being on the show.