2023 GEAPS/KSU Conveyor Training Recap with Multiple Guests

GEAPS teamed up with Kansas State University and the IGP Institute to offer Hands-On Training for the Operation and Maintenance of Conveying Equipment.  

This episode takes listeners behind the scenes of the grain industry, exploring the nuances of Hands-On Training for the Operation and Maintenance of Conveying Equipment. This is an exclusive look into a two-and-a-half-day GEAPS program hosted by the IGP Institute at Kansas State University, where industry experts, instructors and participants converged to share knowledge, insights and experiences. 

Unlock the mechanics of grain conveying equipment and join the conversation with industry veterans Marcus Neal, Greg Lehmann, Tim Erkenbrock and Jeff Schwab as they share the inside track on operation and maintenance. This episode is a goldmine of seasoned expertise where safety takes center stage along with practical troubleshooting tips that can avert costly repairs. Hear firsthand experiences from student professionals like Sean Skorbohach, Oren Goetz and Mike Ames who illuminate the profound benefits of continuous learning and hands-on insights in the grain industry. 

Hear insights from Grain Elevator and Processing Society (GEAPS) and the IGP Institute at Kansas State University. Mike Ames testifies to the enduring educational value of their programs, while Carlos Campabadal presents an overview of the diverse range of offerings that cater to both industry greenhorns and seasoned pros. This episode not only showcases the dedication powering the global grain industry but also serves up a hearty portion of practical wisdom, perfect for anyone aiming to hone their skills and make an impact in their line of work. This episode is the perfect resource to share with your team members. 

GEAPS Hands-on Training for the Operation and Maintenance of Conveying Equipment 

Module 1: Distributors 

Module 2: Screw Conveyors and Bin Sweeps 

Module 3: Chain (Drag) Conveyors 

Module 4: Belt Conveyors 

Module 5: Bucket elevators 

Learn more

GEAPS was happy to work with Kansas State University to offer Hands-On Training for the Operation and Maintenance of Conveying Equipment. We hope to offer this in-person training on a regular basis. Email GEAPS’ Director of Training and Education, James Lenz at james@geaps.com to be notified about future availability and to communicate your ideas and preferences for in-person training. 

Grain Elevator and Processing Society champions, connects and serves the global grain industry and its members. Be sure to visit GEAPS’ website to learn how you can grow your network, support your personal professional development, and advance your career. Thank you for listening to another episode of GEAPS’ Whole Grain podcast.

2023 GEAPS/KSU Conveyor Training Recap with Multiple GuestsDetails

Jim Lenz: 0:46
IBT Industrial Solutions is your one-stop solution for grain products and services to keep your business running smoothly. For the last 75 years, IBT has been a trusted go-to partner for custom conveying solutions, motion amplification or just consulting on how to get your business to run more efficiently. Come visit IBT Industrial Solutions at one of their 37 locations where they keep the most popular inventory from over 1200 suppliers. To learn more, go online to www. ibtint. com forward slash grain. IBT Industrial Solutions, your trusted grain industry partner. Today we’re diving into the exciting episode that takes us behind the scenes of the hands-on training for the operation and maintenance of conveying equipment. We have an exclusive look into the two-and-a-half-day program hosted by the Grain Elevator and Processing Society and the IGP Institute at Kansas State University, where industry experts, instructors and participants converge to share knowledge, insights and experience. Let’s get started. Hello and welcome to the show. Welcome to the Whole Grain Podcast. My name is Jim Lenz, your host and producer of the show and the director of Global Training and Education at GEAPS, where the mission of the Grain Elevator and Processing Society is to champion, connect and serve the global grain industry and our members At GEAPS. We work to be the global community and thought leader for the grain industry, which feeds and fuels the world. Thanks for listening today and for joining the network of thousands of other grain handling and processing professionals across the globe taking strategic steps to grow professionally. The Whole Grain Show will give you the competitive advantage to win at work so you can make more of an impact. Hey, we want to hear from you Wherever you are in this world. Let us know how the Whole Grain Show brings value to you. We may even arrange to have your voice on the show. We welcome voices from all over the world, as we now have listeners from 60 different countries. It’s easy. All you need to do is email me at james@geaps. com, that’s J-A-M-E-S, at G-E-A-P-S dot com. We look forward to your responses as we work to advance the grain handling and processing industry. Now, recently, I participated in the GEAPS hands-on training for the operation and maintenance of conveying equipment. It’s a program put on by the Grain Elevator and Processing Society, GEAPS and the International Grains Program, IGP, at Kansas State University. In this episode of Whole Grain, we’ve gathered a diverse array of voices, each offering a unique perspective on the value of professional development in the grain industry. Our guests include seasoned instructors, eager participants and even the on-site manager of the Jeeps and Kansas State University and IGP Institute program. Together, they provide a rich tapestry of insights, covering everything from equipment maintenance tips to the importance of industry collaboration. First up, we hear from Marcus Neal, an agricultural engineer with over 27 years of experience. Marcus shares his expertise on conveying equipment, delving into key components, safety considerations and maintenance strategies. Listen in as Marcus paints a vivid picture of the hands-on training, revealing the unique experience it provides for both novice and experienced industry professionals. Next we sit down with Greg Lehmann, a seasoned elevator worker from Midway Co-op in Osborne, kansas. Greg sheds light on safety considerations when working with Drake chain conveyors, emphasizing the importance of lockout takeout procedures and best practices to mitigate risks. Moving on, we connect with Tim Erkenbrock, a technical sales professional from KWS Manufacturing Company. Tim takes us through the challenges and troubleshooting involved in screw conveyors and bin sweeps. He highlights the benefits of small group interaction during hands-on training, providing a more engaging and personalized learning experience. Our fourth voice is Jeff Schwab, an instructor from the program he’s at Aco GSI. He shares insights into the world of distributors. Jeff discusses critical factors often overlooked in maintaining and optimizing the performance of distributors in green handling systems. He also touches on the impact of technology on distributor design and functionality. Following the conversation with some of the instructors, we turn our attention to some of the learners and participants of the program Sean Scorper-Hatch from AGI, warren Getz from Greenfield Contractors and Mike Ames, the maintenance supervisor at Michigan Agricultural Commodities. Each share their unique takeaways and experiences from the hands-on training. And finally, we wrap up with a conversation with Carlos Campa-Badel, the on-site manager for the program. Carlos provides a holistic view of the training, from the facility’s background to the diverse spectrum of participants and the networking opportunities that arise during the program. Buckle up grain enthusiasts. This episode promises a dynamic journey through the hearts of the grain industry, offering insights, tips and stories that showcase the dedication and passion driving this vital sector. All that and more on this episode of the Jeeps Whole Grain Podcast. All right, we are right now with Marcus Neal. Marcus is one of the instructors here. He’s also a consultant. He’s going to talk about some of the areas that he worked on for the program. In case our listeners have not come across you, if you could just provide a little bit of your background and what area you focused on here.

Marcus Neil: 6:12
Yeah, so my company is MN Ag Solutions LLC and I consult in strategies around operations, business operations in particular, generalized operations, efficiencies, those kind of things, dhs for environmental, health and safety, as well as project management. I’ve been in the industry about 27 years. I’m an agricultural engineer from the University of Minnesota. I’ve worked all over the US and all over the world Asia, mexico, canada. I did module four, which is open and enclosed belt conveyors. We taught key components that I was hoping the students or learners would take away from this module, and some of those are around how to properly square up a belt, square it to itself, which provides for proper splicing, which is a key element in this. If we don’t get that right, it’s a relatively simple thing, but if we don’t get that right from the beginning, then we will chase that belt forever and it will never track properly. So we start with that as a strategy. We walk through the safety devices installation, the different components that are similar and different between an open belt conveyor and an enclosed belt conveyor. So we walk basically from the head all the way through the tail. We talk about the different safety devices that are on the equipment that we’re using. The key one for me, if I was only going to put one on a device, it would be the slow down device, or speed sensor as they’re also known. We talk a little bit about the difference in nomenclature between an idler or a reducer, in how those names are the same, but some people use them preferentially in different regions of the country or the world. Again, like speed sensor or a slow down switch, those are the same thing.

Jim Lenz: 7:58
So that’s good. It’s back up just a little bit. Broadly speaking, who is this hands-on training experience for?

Marcus Neil: 8:04
It is really for anybody. If you’ve been in the industry in maintenance or in operations for a short amount of time six months a year you will glean something from it. If you’re an experienced maintenance person or operator, you will also glean something from it. In some cases people are seeing equipment that they haven’t seen in the past, they’re not used to. Somebody that’s coming in, that’s new to the role or the industry maybe the equipment because it’s big and it moves, it’s intimidating. It takes some of that intimidation away Because you get to see it, you get to operate it. You get to actually put a wrench on bolts and nuts and touch the equipment, understand how it operates. So for somebody that’s new, there’s a whole bunch of information that’s going to come at you. For somebody that’s experienced, you may find some tips and useful tools in terms of. Well, I didn’t know about that. There was a guy in this session that had been doing splices for 10 years and had never done used the template to actually align the bolts once they were pulling the two pieces of belt together, and so he was able to take that away from this course. Same thing with when we’re actually squaring up a belt. We teach three different ways to do that that are, again, relatively simple, but they also act as ways to confirm that the belt is truly square, that your edge is truly square. And then we talk about a couple of tricks that, well, what happened if you had an edge of a belt that that was frayed or had a piece cut off of it or something like that, but you didn’t have enough belt to change out the whole thing? How would you go about doing that? So we talked through that.

Jim Lenz: 9:41
So this is really a unique experience. Did you have anything that earlier in your career? As a resource? I mean, it seems like you know people coming from different geographic regions here at this one we have from US and Canada in a variety of roles. You get to ask questions. Instructors are finding out what their background is and doing some customization there in terms of hands-on things, but also in those conversations. How unique is this?

Marcus Neil: 10:10
So, as I said earlier, I’ve been in this industry for 27-ish years or so. I really wish that there had been a program like this when I was in the beginning stages of my career. Experience is the best teacher, but if I had had the opportunity to be a part of a class like this, it would have allowed me to jump forward in that experience level. This truly is hands-on. There’s instructions to it, but when the instruction is happening, it’s happening at the equipment that you’re dealing with. It’s not just classroom, you’re actually in the facility, at the piece of equipment, and you’re talking through the instruction, so people are able to put hands on it, they’re able to ask questions about it and then see it in operation.

Jim Lenz: 10:49
It’s great Listeners. If you’re here, you’d see five different groups working together, led by an instructor such as Marcus, and then they rotate every half day. Let’s focus a little bit more now on some takeaways here, or just some tips if you could provide our listeners here. When it comes to open and enclosed belt conveyors, marcus, what do you believe are the key maintenance strategies that can prolong the lifespan of the equipment and minimize downtime?

Marcus Neil: 11:18
One of them I just talked about, which is making sure that, when a splice is done, that that belt is square. And how do you do that? Finding the center point and making sure that, as we cut that end, that it’s squared up, and then marrying those two ends together in order to create the best splice. The slowdown devices or the I should say, the safety devices that are on the equipment how do you use them? How do you test them? How do you calibrate them? How do you make sure that they are truly doing what you’re expecting them to do, that they operate when you need them to? If you’re having an issue with the belt tracking if it’s tracking to the left, what do you do with it? If it’s tracking to the right, what do you do with it? If you’re having an issue at the tail pulley, how do you address that? What’s the proper reason to have lagging on that drive section of a belt? So different styles of take-ups, screw take-ups, gravity take-ups, those kind of things, different type mechanical splices, vulcanizing those kind of things. We cover all of those things in this course, at least in terms of showing somebody how to do them. It may just be a sketch, but in the equipment that we have here, whatever we’re able to do, we do.

Jim Lenz: 12:23
That’s great. I was part of the group going through the program and I just picked up a couple of things that took notes on that you mentioned to your and you asked or stated, if you could only have one safety sensor, a conveying belt, what would it be and why it?

Marcus Neil: 12:38
would absolutely be the slowdown, the bice or the speed sensor which reads the RPMs and the difference between the drive section and the tail section, or tail pulley, drive pulley of the belt, Because when the belt slips it creates friction. Friction creates heat and heat is bad in any of our material handling applications. So if I could have just one on a device, it would be a slowdown device or a speed sensor.

Jim Lenz: 13:07
Marcus, thank you so much for being a leader at this program and for the crane industry in general. Appreciate you joining us. Thank you, appreciate it All right. Thank you for joining us. If you don’t mind, go ahead and tell everybody your name and your role that you play in the green industry.

Greg Lehman: 13:22
My name is Greg Lehman. I work at Midway Co-op in Osborne, Kansas, right now. I’ve worked elevators from the ages 16 all the way up to now for the most part. I’ve learned a lot about maintenance and upkeep here in green and everything else.

Jim Lenz: 13:36
What do you see are the key safety considerations that operators prioritize when working with drag chain conveyors that’s what you help people with here at the program here this week and how can they implement best practices to mitigate risk.

Greg Lehman: 13:52
The best way to be able to mitigate anything with the drag chains is to make sure you follow your lockout, tagout procedures, make sure that every possible lead is followed, make sure nothing gets bypassed or anything like that when you are working on them. Because, as I’ve stated here to everybody, to me drag chains are one, if not the most dangerous pieces of equipment, because they are just so unforgiving. They can be used in so many different aspects, from grain moving in fertilizer and even, as stated also here, they can be used for moving water. They can be so many different possibilities with the loading putting grain or anything onto them to unloading them and different ways that it can be finagled, I guess, or however you want to use the word, to be able to fit into your facility, to make it work.

Jim Lenz: 14:42
We thank you for joining us, appreciate your time, spending time with the big group that came in here this week from all over the United States, in Canada. Thank you for your time. Thank you All right, we’re connecting with one of the structures that led to ScrewConveyor and Ben Sweep. If you could share with everybody your name, your organization, a little bit of your background.

Tim Ercanbrack: 15:00
Yeah, my name is Tim Erkinbrack. I work for KWS Manufacturing Company. I’ve been working there about 12 years now. My role there is technical sales and to problem solve troubleshoot.

Jim Lenz: 15:12
You’ve had an opportunity, now that the course is just completed, if you were to reflect back. So some of those conversations that you had surrounding your content area, that you heard from folks, where are some of those challenges? What kind of things did you hear from the students?

Tim Ercanbrack: 15:29
Well, as far as challenges, you know it’s a lot of troubleshooting on these ScrewConveyor and Ben Sweeps. You know, and that’s one thing we definitely cover in the class is what to look for. Troubleshooting wise Misalignment was always a big one that came up in every class, because that’s typically the issue that’s most prevalent in the industry wherever you go. So yeah, that’s probably the biggest challenge is just trouble conveyors that they don’t understand what’s going on with it.

Jim Lenz: 16:02
So we had five different groups going on at the same time. They rotated every half day and that means it’s a smaller group. And what did you see was gained amongst those interactions with a small group and you and them against each other? What are the advantages of having a small group where they’re doing hands-on training?

Tim Ercanbrack: 16:21
Oh, the smaller group is definitely better, in my opinion. You get more undivided attention from the guys. You get to work with them a little closer compared to if you had eight people or 10 people, four or five guys that they’re very engaged and you can be very engaged with them as well. So the smaller groups are definitely a huge help. I think it’s the way it should be. Yeah, but yeah, it’s undivided attention. They’re paying attention to you. You know you don’t have eight guys and number eights in the corner because everybody else is doing something and you know he’s not able to do anything.

Jim Lenz: 16:55
It’s a comfortable environment. Yeah, I can see that they’re asking you questions. There’s a lot of interaction. You took the time to understand where they came from so you can offer some customization in your delivery for what you’re doing. So, on behalf of Jeeps, I really appreciate your role in this program, absolutely. I appreciate you having me All right now. We’re going to bring it to distributors. We have the instructor here. If you could introduce yourself to the whole grain audience, provide a little bit of your background.

Jeff Schwab: 17:23
My name is Jeff Schwab. I currently work for Ag Code GSI. I’ve been in the grain industry for 40 plus years.

Jim Lenz: 17:31
It’s not possible.

Jeff Schwab: 17:33
You’d think yeah, since I’m only 30, that would seem impossible.

Jim Lenz: 17:38
All right, maybe it’s at Wisconsin thing.

Jeff Schwab: 17:41
Mostly it’s not so young.

Jim Lenz: 17:43
That’s where I’m from too, by the way. So you led the discussion or action hands-on piece for the program on distributors. Can you describe what you want to accomplish here?

Jeff Schwab: 17:53
The important concept to me was that people knew about the different types of distributors that were available. What were the advantages and disadvantages of each style? Why they would fit in their system, why they wouldn’t. How they vary from a maintenance and repair standpoint.

Jim Lenz: 18:10
And just to provide some additional description for our audio listeners out here, because it was very visual and very hands-on. What did you have these small groups go through each day?

Jeff Schwab: 18:22
Each of the groups had to perform a couple of tasks. They had to do a duct lining exercise on one, the point being they could experience different types of lining, and then we had discussions about what to use and what not to use. Another task was removing an outlet duct to gain access to the interior of a distributor to do a repair. And then we also had an exercise where students had to build a transition from a square to a rectangle with a twist. That’s always a lot of fun.

Jim Lenz: 18:52
Yeah, that was exciting. Creativity, ingenuity, sign planning, discussion, interaction, sometimes rework that’s all great stuff. We have a couple of questions, a few questions I wanted to ask. What are the critical factors that operators often overlook when it comes to maintaining and optimizing the performance of distributors and the green handling systems?

Jeff Schwab: 19:17
If you’ve set up your system correctly to begin with and it’s what you wanted it to be there really isn’t a lot of maintenance or periodic work that has to be done on a distributor. The absolutely critical part is that you inspect it regularly, because they’re really hard to repair after they wear out. So you want to make sure that you get to your lining system and keep it in good shape before it wears out.

Jim Lenz: 19:39
Good point. Thank you for sharing. How do advancements in technology impact the design and functionality of distributors? And I guess we’ll start there. What do you think?

Jeff Schwab: 19:51
So technology has really only changed a couple of things that I’ve seen. One of them is in electronic technology, where people now are more prone to have a main PLC that automates their entire facility and then how that PLC system gets interfaced with the distributor. Control has made great advancements in recent years, going from more primitive systems to Ethernet and that kind of thing in modern age has been a big change in the industry.

Jim Lenz: 20:21
And continuing on with that thought, what should industry professionals be aware of to stay ahead?

Jeff Schwab: 20:27
Totally separate from the new technology piece. People, if they’re looking to install a new system, really need to be talking to their dealer, to the manufacturer, about getting the stuff that fits their system, making sure that they have the control package that you need, that the liner package matches what they’re going to do, the controls are right, it’s built to the right configuration because you can get things that better fit your system than what you might have thought.

Jim Lenz: 20:54
Thank you so much for your dedication for this week here and coming out all the way from great state of Wisconsin. Folks, if you have not been there, make sure you come there, especially in the summer.

Jeff Schwab: 21:04
I’ve loved that. It’s been a great experience. A lot of spirited interaction this week, enjoyable experience, absolutely.

Jim Lenz: 21:11
Thank you for your time. Have yourself a great day. Thank you All right, we’re bringing in a few of the students, the great professionals who have joined us for the Sands on Training, if you could just state your name and your role and reasons for taking the training?

Oren Goetz: 21:26
Yep, my name is Oren Getz. I’m with work with Greenfield Contractors. I’m a project superintendent and we’re looking at building several new facilities, and so this was a great opportunity. To come and learn some of the details of installing equipment and maintaining alignment and just the different things to look at is really great to work with some really good professionals and get some insight into important aspects of running this equipment.

Jim Lenz: 21:50
Any highlights you want to talk about briefly?

Oren Goetz: 21:52
I think the biggest thing was, just like the biggest problems I run into alignment of equipment and then just the preventive maintenance and just kind of the biggest takeaways for me.

Jim Lenz: 22:01
Well, we thank you for joining us. It’s a pleasure to meet you and look forward to seeing how you continue to grow in your career and with your organization, greenfield Contractors. So you’ve got big, big projects coming up, so excited for you. Again, thank you for joining us here. If you could share with our listeners your name, organization and reason for doing this, and also if you could touch on a couple highlights from the hands-on program.

Sean Skorbohach: 22:24
My name is Sean Squirble Hatch. I work with AGI in the Inside Sales and Engineering Department. A few highlights this training really were just a lot of great conversations with the different experts in our field and learning about the equipment, seeing every different piece of equipment, and then the interaction between the people within the group and also the instructors and the questions that came up during that as we were taking apart the equipment and fixing it and troubleshooting problems that are typical or standard that happen quite often.

Jim Lenz: 23:00
How did the small group attribute to conversations compared to if you had a larger?

Sean Skorbohach: 23:04
group. The small group was good because it was interactive and people are coming from different viewpoints, right. Whether it’s a general contractor, an equipment supplier, somebody’s performing maintenance on site, everybody has a little bit of a different perspective of what goes into each piece of equipment and the troubles that people are running into as they run that equipment.

Jim Lenz: 23:26
Well, thank you very much, appreciate it.

Mike Ames: 23:28
Thank you. I’m Mike Ames. I’m employed by Michigan Agricultural Commodities. My role at the facility I work from is maintenance supervisor and was sent over here to learn and it’s a very well-run program. It’s very thorough, it’s very informative. All the instructors are super nice. They take the time to listen to what you have to say. They’re gaining information from you knowledge of your particular application. It’s just a very well-run program. I was actually here five years ago for the same program and I’m still learning stuff even this time. Thank you.

Jim Lenz: 24:08
All right, we’re now here with Carlos Carlos. We are just about near the conclusion of this two and a half day on-site hands-on training program at the IGB Institute as part of Kansas State University. Before we start and summarize what this training program was about and some of the key takeaways, could you provide our whole grain listeners a little bit about your background and the role, the facility we’re in right now? What is it and the IGB Institute and the program that we’re here about?

Carlos Campabadal: 24:34
Thank you, jim. I appreciate the opportunity. So this course and we’re here at the IGB Institute, which is the International Gains Program Conference Center, which is pretty much a building set up for professional development, both for the domestic grain industry and also the international. Here we have the opportunity from walking distance. We have several of our grain processing facilities. We have the flour mill where this hands-on train is taking place, then we also have our feed mill, we have grain storage bins, we also have the elevator, so very easy walk to also all of our teaching tools, let’s call it that way. So this building is where we actually just conduct this type of courses. We also have a grain grading lab here too, so pretty much a facility that was designed almost 20 years ago for that purpose. I mean, we this is a very good shape, we try to take care of it as much as we can, and, and also I take this opportunity to thank all the farmers from the grain commissions in the state of Kansas who funded this building and keep also supporting us.

Jim Lenz: 25:35
Thank you. That’s a great overview. It is an absolutely beautiful facility. It is well maintained. Now let’s focus on this program. That is concluding. What do you believe are the key takeaways from your perspective or from students that you heard from listening to them?

Carlos Campabadal: 25:51
Sure no, and I thank you for this because I’ve been the course manager for this course since it started. To be honest, I remember it was 2016 or 2017 and, of course, covid got us delay and we stopped doing it for now. So, coming back this course, we see that people are very excited about it, especially on the participants and the people around that when you start talking to them and you definitely see that a lot of the people have take advantage because they it just depends where they are in their career, but we have seen that some people are very excited and took advantage to learn more because they’re in the first stage of their career, maybe a couple years, some even on just a couple months. And then you get on the other side people are more closer to the end of their careers, very experienced, that they come here and they say well, you know, I have learned a lot of tips, a lot of things, how to do different ways, and another takeaway from that perspective is that some people come here to learn an equipment that they might install, that they don’t have, but they’re looking forward. And so, in a summary, that tells me that our grain industry still has the desire to continue doing professional development, to continue doing trainings and continue kind of like to have a need for education.

Jim Lenz: 27:08
Oh, one more last thing. I think this is going to be interesting, I think, for whole grain listeners, as they think about this program in the future and maybe enrolling themselves, registering for the program, or some of their colleagues. Right, I think folks may be surprised at the diversity that exists for those students, for professionals, who are enrolled in the program. Can you touch a little bit about the spectrum there?

Carlos Campabadal: 27:31
Oh yeah, that’s very important because here at this course, you see and I’ll divide it in a couple of ways the first one you have people that are just starting their career from a grain elevator, from a maintenance company, and then some people more at the end of that. But when you think about the industry, we have people that are from the feed industry, flour grain elevators not this time, but in the past. We also have soybean crushers. But also there’s companies here that I just focus on doing maintenance to the companies and they just work on that and they come here to be trained. So we take that with pride because their business is to do maintenance and equipment and operations and safety and they come here to learn and improve their skills. And also we actually have, in this case, equipment manufacturers that are in their technical sales or they might be in research or design. They came here to learn also how to operate and understand well the different conveying equipment that we have. And of course, this is an opportunity that, with this diverse group, people tend to have a very good networking opportunity and learn about how the different players are so very diverse. We have people that come from the agronomy side, from a co-op, now moving into the grain side, feed millers, like I said, equipment manufacturers, any other type of people on the maintenance crews that work and support businesses and companies. So very interesting and that actually makes it a great value for the whole program because you get different perspectives and points of view on how to do things.

Jim Lenz: 29:06
And just in addition to that I have to say, because I’ve gone through the program myself here this week the networking that exists during the training. There is a lot of dialogue. Obviously that goes along with instructor, but among students. So they have just grown their network. They have other people who have roles and responsibilities within that grain industry and now they have someone they can connect with in the future as well and, of course, valuable conversations. The folks that come in here are curious and they care about their personal professional development. That’s a great summary and we look forward to having more programs here. Thank you for everything you do and your team a couple of teams here working together to support the industry.

Carlos Campabadal: 29:43
Absolutely, and thank you very much. I mean we love to partner with Jeeps and continue doing this type of onsite and online courses and also participating in the activities your true believers on data. The trade being together and working as a whole is the best way to improve. Like I always say in the grain industry, even if you’re a flour miller, a feed miller, swimming crusher, we’re all in this together.

Jim Lenz: 30:06
Well said. We thank you so much. Now, on behalf of GEAPS, we want to express our gratitude to the guests and participants for contributing to this episode. We hope it provided a glimpse of some of the behind the scenes. Look at the GEAPS and KSU hands-on training for the operation and maintenance of conveying equipment program. We are looking to offer the program twice a year. We encourage you to visit our www. GEAPS. com website and select the events and meetings tab. Then click on conveyor training. After reviewing the page, you can register or you can be put on a waiting list and we will inform you when the next opportunity arises. Is this the first time you are listening to the whole grain show? If so, we thank you for joining us. Long time listeners of the whole grain show know that the show is found on your favorite podcast app. Just do a search for whole grain. You’ll find us on Apple Podcasts, google Podcasts, podbean, spotify, amazon Music, pandora and so many more. Be sure to hit the subscribe button. That’s important, as when you do that, all the episodes will be downloaded to your device as soon as they are released. Of course, you can listen to past episodes as well, and many of our listeners know that you can also connect with the show in an alternative way and catch up with ww. w. geaps. com/wholegrain episodes. That’s at . You’ll be able to access the audio player, the show notes, links and the transcripts of the episodes. At GEAPS, we make sure it is super easy for you to share with others, as each episode has its own dedicated page, and now is a good time to thank Chrissy at GEAPS for putting together many graphics and infrastructure on our website and on social media, including the whole grain channel. By subscribing to the whole grain show, you take learning on the go, listen on your drive while you work out and walk the dog A lot of different ways. By listening to the whole grain show, you join a global network of grain enthusiasts and professionals from 60 countries and counting. The whole grain show is a production of Jeeps, the grain elevator and processing society. The grain elevator and processing society is the largest organization dedicated to advancing the grain handling and processing industry. Be GEAPS. com to check out GEAPS. com. That’s . As you’ve heard in this show, whole grain offers a terrific opportunity to spotlight your business through audio ads. You can also be featured as a global thought leader by serving as a guest in the show as we work to advance the grain handling and processing industry. If you and your organization want to sponsor an episode and be a featured guest on the whole grain show, please reach out to me. Jim Lenz, director of global training and education and host and producer of the show. We have an in-house audio production studio that we can service your needs, all from the comfort of a virtual environment. Just reach out to me for details. My email is James at www. GEAPS. com. We look forward to connecting with you. You can also reach out with any questions or comments you have, or perhaps let us know what you think about the show. We could feature your audio commentary in a future whole grain podcast episode. Be sure to reach out, continue listening, share the news of the show with your friends and colleagues. Have yourself a great day and thanks for listening to Whole Grain.

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