Adam Torres and Donald Booth discuss Nondestructive Testing.
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Show Notes:
The American Institute Of Nondestructive Testing (AINDT) is providing opportunities for those looking to learn a trade and advance their careers. In this episode, Adam Torres and Donald Booth, Founder & CEO of American Institute Of Nondestructive Testing (AINDT), explore AINDT and Donald’s entrepreneurial journey.
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About Donald Booth
Before founding AINDT, Donald worked as an NDT technician and API inspector for more than 8 years, performing various types of NDT inspections for refineries, pipelines, and other industrial clients. He has also been involved in providing technical instruction and mentoring to other NDT professionals and students, sharing his expertise and passion for this challenging and rewarding career. Donald’s mission is to empower the NDT community with the best training, resources, and support they need to succeed and advance in the NDT industry.
About American Institute Of Nondestructive Testing (AINDT)
AINDT offers the most convenient and affordable NDT training program available.
Our blended learning program offers you the convenience of online NDT training from wherever you may live, followed by hands-on NDT training at Baxter, MN facility. The combination of their online NDT curriculum, followed by 18 days of hands-on training using the most up to date NDT equipment will give you the skills needed to enter into a rewarding career in nondestructive testing.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of mission matters. My name is Adam Torres. And if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters. com and click on, be our guest to apply. All right. So today’s guest is Donald Booth and he is founder and CEO over at American Institute of non destructive testing.
Don welcome to the show. Hey, good seeing you again. Glad to be here. All right, Don. So excited to get into today’s topic. So as I’ve been getting to know you better, I’ve learned a whole lot more about non destructive testing and, and also your Institute. So I want to get into that. I know you also have a book coming up that you’re in the middle of writing.
We’re going to talk about that too. My audience knows that I love to support and, and promote authors. And then of course, we’re going to get into some of the, I think last time I talked to you were in Costa Rica and you’re working on some projects out there. So we got. We got a lot to cover today, Don, but we’ll start this episode.
The way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So Don, at mission matters, our aim and our goal is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s what we do. Don, what mission matters to you? Probably one of the biggest missions that I had is spreading the word about non destructive testing in our school.
When I started the school, I had been in the career of being an, an inspector, a technician for non destructive testing, but I really enjoyed. You know, teaching, you know, my assistants when people enter into the career and I enjoyed teaching and I kept getting assistants and then they become inspectors.
And then finally, I just saw this opportunity where I thought there was a need for education and a better way to deliver it for our industry and just to amplify the skilled trades, which we know is a big topic these days. Yeah, it’s great. And great having you on one of my passions. For my long term listeners, they know I’m from Michigan originally.
So I come from a skilled trade family. And I mean, that’s what, that’s all I knew growing up as well. I thought I was going to enter the skilled trades as well, ended up working out in some other ways. But big fan of the Midwest, big fan of, of actually producing things. So I’m in for all of that. And I guess I want to stay kind of earlier in your career for a bit.
Like, when did you get introduced to this and like, how did this become a career for you even before the Institute and everything else, like how’d that start for you in, in 2016? Well, previous, I had been an entrepreneur and I had owned a few companies, a marketing company and various companies. And, and I.
Old one and not to go too far back, but at that point I took a couple of years off and I traveled in Jamaica and I traveled around Europe a little bit and spent some of that money. And then, you know, a couple of years later. I had to decide what to do with myself. And a friend of mine was working in Alaska for not doing non destructive testing.
And I was like, that’s so interesting. What is non destructive testing? Of course, everyone knows HVAC and plumbing and electrical and roofing. And, and so I went back to school at 38. And I said, Oh, I’m going to go. I I’ve had a good time being an entrepreneur with some wins and losses over my young, but I started, I went back to school for a year and I got hired in Alaska and I spent eight years up there.
I’d work 21, 12 hour days in a row and then one day is off. So. It was quite an adventure. And then towards the end of that career is when I finally said, you know, I want to get back into, you know, running a business, being an entrepreneur. And this is my passion. I enjoy teaching this. I think there’s a need.
So I started this school. Let’s set the stage, go a little bit further into what non destructive testing is and maybe some use cases. So for the audience that haven’t heard of it, they’ll, they’ll kind of get a better feel. Yeah, absolutely. Because everyone tilts their head and looks at you funny when you say non destructive testing.
So I’ve noticed that over the years. So non destructive testing is utilizing radiographs, x rays. ultrasound, magnetic particle, visual inspection methods, among many others to inspect spacecraft, aircraft, bridges, pipelines, refined nuclear facilities. You know, when, when SpaceX is building a rocket, right.
And they’re welding the parts together and, and, and casting parts and all these different ways of manufacturers, casting, rolling, forming, forging. There’s all these ways to manufacture things prior to assembling them. You want to inspect them without hurting them. Undestructive testing, right?
Undestructive. You’re not going to hurt the part. We’re going to take an x ray. We’re going to look inside and make sure that there’s no void in there. That’s going to break. Right. In the middle of launch. So prior to launch or prior to putting a product into service during the manufacturing process, we look at it and we inspect it and we ensure its integrity.
Then we put it into use. Now that pipe is for the pipeline that’s been inspected prior to use. Now it has fatigue, vibratory fatigue, corrosion, erosion, thermal fatigue, all these different damage mechanisms. And so after it’s in use, we inspect it to make sure it doesn’t fail. So that’s an undestructive testing.
We like to say creating a safer world. And so for you, like, does this lead to a lot of travel or does this lead? Cause it sounds like all the different use cases you’re saying, like you’re going to different sites, right? Well, yeah. I mean, the pipeline’s not coming to you. The nuclear facility is not going to come to you, but you know, you’ll work out of a hub like Houston and there’s a lot of day work or out for a week.
And then there is sometimes where you go, we call a turnaround. And that’s what they call a TAR, a turnaround, and it’s where a nuclear facility shuts down for a month and everybody swarms in and inspects it and you’re working seven days a week, 10 hours a day, and you’re getting a lot of overtime. But, then there’s people like Gulfstream, right?
The aircraft manufacturer. They come to our school to hire our graduates and they have a factory. That they just need people there Monday through Friday inspecting the parts they manufacture. So there is a lot of travel, you know, there’s probably more of that, but there are stationary jobs for people who want to be home at night as well.
And so now you’re in your career. You love it. You understand that this is going to be one of your passions. At what point do you feel that like you make that crossover to be an entrepreneur and you’re like, okay, I’m going to start an Institute. I’ve, I’ve, I see some ways that I can add value here. Like, when did you get that bug for this particular niche?
You know, I think it was from my past to being an entrepreneur for years, it drug you back in, didn’t it? You couldn’t, you couldn’t be well enough alone. Could you know, because I think the goal of every entrepreneur is to have financial freedom, time, freedom, right? We value, we value our time. You can always make more money, but you can’t create more time.
And then, but I want to remind people when you decide to go back in, Yeah. You’re giving up all your time and all your money, usually, right? Let’s get, let’s be honest. You know, that’s what we talk about all the time. So I love that you say that. Yeah. And you, and Don’s golden rule. Yeah. You know, it’s going to be harder, take longer and be more expensive than you think.
And if you’re not willing to accept that, don’t even get started. But that’s, I just, I just wanted to get back in. Right. I kind of enjoyed going home at night and saying, I don’t care how the company runs. They pay me. I go do my job. Yeah. I sleep, I sleep at night, but then that entrepreneur crept back in.
It was like, I’m done. Come on, you want to do it. You know, you do. And so then back in and, and it’s been a real great ride since 2013. So fast forward a bit here. Give us some updates on the, on the Institute. I understand you just got, I believe this was newer, a new property and some other things, a hotel you purchased and some other things.
Give us a lay of the land of where you’re at now with the project. You have really. Just actually in our 13th year coming up on our 13th year, I, man, congrats. Some of my, some of my visions have come to fruition, right? I had this vision a year before I started it to have private student housing and training complex all on one footprint.
I’m not aware of any other NDT company in the world that has their own private company. So in 2020, after seven years in business, right in the middle of the pandemic. There was a hotel for sale and I said, I got to buy it. This is my chance. It’s it’s on sale. It wasn’t cheap, but it was an older hotel and it need a lot of work.
And so we did that. I bought it. We closed it down to the public and created our first. It’s private student housing. And then now fast forward four years in 2023 in June. I said, we’re building, we’re building the training facility adjacent to it. I have a 21, 000 square foot building across town that, you know, people would stay in our private housing and then shuttle over to our facility.
And I said, I want it on the same footprint. I pulled the trigger and we just finished a 6, 000 square foot training facility adjacent to the housing. Pretty cool to see a vision from 12 years ago take place, but that’s a lesson that entrepreneurs need to know is that just stay focused, stay the course it’ll come, but you know, but you have to navigate life too and, and economic forces and everything, what keeps you going as an entrepreneur, like everybody has their ups or downs, everything like the sideways, you know, the unexpected thing, what keeps you going and motivate and keeps you in the game?
I like creating things. I like, I just, the challenge, the creating, I love my employees. They’re great people and I appreciate them a lot for what they do and that feels good to provide for six families. I get six, if it’s six employees, it doesn’t seem like a lot even though we do global training. But we’re a really efficient company and, and that’s nice.
And I mean, we do training for Lockheed Martin, Boeing, SpaceX, Blue Origin, the U S air force, and a lot of companies and entities around the world. As well as our training program for people. But what keeps me going is just my love of creating, you know, it’s like I come to Costa Rica. I think when you’re younger, you.
You dream of being wealthy. And when I do, I’m just going to sit on the beach with the margarita and surf all day. And, and that sounds great. But after about three weeks, when you’re a little older, you’re like, I got to do something. Yeah. I got to get back to work. And, and it’s that freedom of being able to go to work when you want to, not cause you have to, I think is what the life changing event for me.
Yeah. To me, it’s always like this thing of purpose. Like you got to wake up in the morning and want to do something or feel like you’re a part of the, you know, the world, right? Like in whatever it is, and you got to feel like you’re contributing. Everybody wants to be a value and give some value to something, whatever their version of that is.
So. Once you lose that, it’s like yeah, it’s true, you know, and when you’re younger, there’s always exceptions of the rule, but you don’t, you don’t notice that you’ve dream of those other things that you can’t afford to have. And I still like a margarita on the beach. Don’t get me wrong. But I do, I love coming back to, like you said, purpose.
That’s a, that’s a huge, you nailed it. And that’s what it’s all about. Really having a purpose. Yeah. Speaking of purpose, like one of mine is, is to shine more light on this, on the skilled trades on the Midwest, on other manufacturing and just, just opportunities for people, just because I feel like the media doesn’t do it quite as much as it can.
Sometimes I feel like all that gets the big media attention is Going to be, you know, your influencers, what’s going on in the coast, LA movies, New York, what’s going on there, or even globally, what’s going on there, but like shining a light on opportunity for people that are looking for it. Somebody is watching this and they’re one of those that next generation, or they’re entering the workforce and otherwise, why would you say that, that this particular field of non destructive testing could be something interesting that they’d want to look into or pursue?
Like, talk about the opportunity. First of all, I’m going to, I’m going to preface this a little bit. I’m going to say a bunch of stuff that might be just like, Woo. What’s he talking about? And, but it’s okay because we’ve had people from 18 to 50 years old come in. I’ve had a, I remember Brad Bryant, a 38 year old bartender that just said, I just want to get a career and.
It’s not like he was a math whiz or a technical person, but he loved it. Once he got, we’re going to get you through it. That’s our job. We teach, we make the light bulbs come on. So if you trust us with your education, believe us, we will, we care, and we’ll take care of you. Now I like this trade because nobody knows what it is.
Yeah, it’s, that’s kind of the double edged sword, right? Everybody knows electrician plumber, like I said earlier in our conversation. And, but how do we let people know about non destructive testing? It pays well, it’s rewarding. There’s a lot of upside to it because the more skills you learn, ultrasound, radiographic, magnetic particle, liquid penetrant, eddy current, the more skills you get, the more you get paid and you can control your, your earnings.
Just be dedicated, go get some more education. And then after you’re in it for four or five years, you can become an API. 510, which is an American Petroleum Institute Pressure Vessel Inspector, or an API 653, which I was, a Tank Inspector. You can become a corrosion specialist, you know, as a cyclical fatigue, vibratory fatigue, you know, people don’t know you can’t put chlorine in a stainless steel pipe, it’s gonna eat it.
People will call you if you’re an API 571 and say, Hey, my piping system’s falling apart. And you’re going to say, all right, what are you running through it? What’s it made of? What’s the temperature? Is it cyclical? Is it vibratory? You know, so you can never stop learning and moving up in this industry if you want.
And that’s the beauty of it. You know, you get tired of doing pipelines, go to aerospace, go to manufacturing. It’s really broad and deep. I mean. People don’t really understand. Nobody hears about the bridge that stayed up or the aircraft that didn’t fall out of the sky. True, true. But yeah, but that’s what we do.
And there’s millions of flights a day that don’t fall out of the sky. And that’s because of NBT technicians is a big part. Yeah, that’s amazing. So you’re also playing a role in society and keeping us safe. Absolutely. That’s a big piece of this. Absolutely. Every day. So Don, I want to jump around a bit here a little.
So I know last time we talked, you were at, you were at, speaking of entrepreneur pursuits, last time we talked, I think you were in Costa Rica. Like you got some other projects going to let’s let’s jump around here. What else are you cooking over there? What else are you looking at? I am in Costa Rica right now, and my wife and I here, we have a small real estate company and book luxury vacations because my wife has been in Property management for five, six years, you know, managing vacation properties for companies.
And then, you know, then people, because of her reputation, the people with the 5 million mansions, 2 million mansions, these beautiful homes, million dollar homes mountains are calling her to say, Hey, can you fill my property? We rented out, you know, and, and, and so we do a lot of that. We book luxury.
Vacation. We’ll send a Mercedes van to pick you up. We’ll bring you to your house. You can have a private chef every morning if you want. So that’s a service we do. And then we also list properties as a real estate agent. My wife has her, she belongs to the CCBR and all the associations here. And she’s the expert on that.
I’m kind of the marketing. CFO, I’m the financial guy behind it and help negotiations and so forth. But she knows all the regulations down here and that’s what we do down here. Back home, you know, I started getting into real estate, just more out of I think every entrepreneur should. Take his profits and divest and do assets.
And so I bought our first building instead of leasing from somebody. Right. And it was a 21, 000 square foot building and we leased out part of it and used it. And then I bought the hotel and then I built the building and I bought a The 10, 000 square foot commercial building in town. And, and so you just kind of grow your portfolio.
And I think people, I think that’s a great thing for anybody. Yeah. What drew you to Costa Rica? Like, and kind of like that, that, that side of things, what drew you there? It’s really a safe. I’ve never been by the way. That’s why I’m asking. I’ve never, yeah, it’s, it’s a beautiful country. It’s got a lot, you know, mountains and rainforests and, and great national parks and different temperate zones.
If you want to be down to the beach, there’s, you know, a lot of humidity. I look over here cause I’m looking out at some palm trees, but you know, down on the beach, it’s hot and humid, but the ocean’s beautiful. Then you get into the mountains and it’s more temperate and there’s a lot of beautiful rivers and, and waterfalls.
And it’s just nice. It’s a, it’s a good, safe, easy country to invest in. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, the banking, everything else, like pretty stable, like historically, like the economy overall. So I think it’s, it’s interesting out there and to see you developing and doing other things out there is pretty cool.
I opened up this interview talking about a book and bringing up a book. So you’re a creative as well, a writer, a creator, like, like talking about some of this, this side of it, like the The book, I don’t know how many words you’re in or where you’re at, but I’m bringing it up because I’m going to be looking back at this video, like, Hey, is that book out yet, Don?
And you didn’t, you think I’m playing, but the last person I did that to, he just came out with this book two and a half years after our first interview. And I kept, I was bugging him every six months. Is that book out yet? So we can bring you back on the show. So what’s going on with the book? What inspired it?
All right. Well, I just, I’ve always wanted to write a book about business. I think maybe. Last few years, it came to that when I was younger, I wrote comedy and wrote three plays and, you know, did performance stuff, short stories, fiction, and you’re a writer, writer. Yeah. Yeah. I like creative. I mean, I’ve never been paid for it.
So you know, I don’t know. So then you’re definitely a writer, right? No, exactly. But I Felt, you know, as I got into business and learned a lot from mistakes and, you know, what advice I could give to somebody else. And, and I started to just form this thing. It’s like, I wish I would have known the answers to these things when I was younger.
Of course, everyone says that, but then I thought, you know, but I didn’t even have the right questions. So I didn’t know what to ask. So how can I get the right answer? So really the basis of my book, you know, I’m about 10, 000 words in and it’s about, you know, the beginning, I even say at the big, you know, at the end of the beginning of the chapter and stuff, I just go to, you know, after the intro, it’s like, this might sound daunting.
It might sound negative. It might sound like I’m saying you can’t do it. No, that’s not. The point of it, the point is, is there’s hard questions you need to ask and you better be honest with yourself and don’t fool yourself because if you are honest and you ask the hard questions, you will have a stronger foundation on, you know, where you’re going to go and why you’re doing it and why do you want to be a business owner?
Is it for financial freedom? Fine. But be prepared, because that, you know, you always hear about the overnight successes 20 years later. Or five years later, right? You know, why do you want it? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be wealthy? Do you wanna leave a legacy for your children? Those are great, great reasons, and it’s a very personal, you know, the whole first part of the book is really in depth, personal questions about where you are.
Do you have the support of your spouse? How are you gonna handle the stress so it doesn’t affect your health? Sounds like a lot of practical information too. Like this isn’t like, just like pie in the sky. Like what ifs like you’re giving super practical things to, am I off on that? Well, no. And I think I even get more into that.
The latter part of the book is now let’s talk about accounting. Let’s talk about marketing. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about finance. You know what, let’s talk about insurance and then those are going to be real practical things to consider. You know, marketing is not, not an easy animal. You can spend a lot of money sometimes and get no results and that hurts.
And so how do you target your market and who is your market? And are you trying to find a market for your product or are you trying to create a product to serve a market? You might come up with a widget and say, man, I love this thing, but nobody else does. And so it’s a lot easier to find a market and try to solve a pain point for them and offer a service to feed that market, then create a market.
Yeah. Right. So just, just some things to really think about. And like I said, the first part of the book is really in depth, personal, more philosophical, and everybody’s answers are going to be their own. And then there’s the time tested, true things that. You can learn from, you know, rich dad, poor dad, and grow rich.
And Peter Thiel zero to one and all these books that I would suggest people read and learn more about it. And those are some things that are time tested marketing, business philosophies, leaderships, and so forth that there’s true answers to right. So obviously when, well, I shouldn’t say obviously, but for me, every time I go into a book project, I’m thinking about like the, the audience and what I hope they’ll get out of it.
And obviously there’s going to be many things that you hope the audience and your readers get out of the book, but if you want to narrow it down to one or a few, like, what do you hope the readers walk away with when they’re done, when they’re done reading your book? A better understanding of themselves.
What they’re trying to accomplish and just that honesty, because, you know, entrepreneurs tend to jump off the bridge because the water looks cool. Nice. Well said, well said that little blue lagoon. Yeah. And, and just realize that it may be shallow, it may be turbulent and it may be colder than you think.
And, and be honest with yourself. It’s, you know, passion is what carries us forward as entrepreneurs, but it can also be blinding. You know, just, I can do it and you have to believe you can do it, but easy, you know, like we say down here in Costa Rica, suave chico, you know, softly, you know, you gotta have that passion, but, but remember that, you know, open your eyes to the rest of it too, because, you know, I always say starting a business is like taking a thin baking sheet, cookie sheet and filling it with water.
And you’re just, and you’re walking down the road and you’re constantly adjusting, right? Yeah. And tell it gels and, and every business has its own time period before it gels. And be prepared to walk a while and keep adjusting. Don’t be so foolish to say I’m going there and I know how I’m going to get there.
Because it’s going to change. I think Joe Rogan was talking to us. Zuckerberg. And he was like talking about the Oculus and they came up with the Oculus and, and it’s, it’s totally different than it was when it started. Right. Well, that’s because he said, every project starts that way. You come up with a viable project and then you all of a sudden realized, Oh my God, we got to change.
And you can’t, you can’t sit on the couch for three years and go through that mental process and then start. You just have to start and be ready to adjust. Along the way and not just go to your death in a straight line. You need to be able to understand that it’s okay to adjust. In fact, it’s necessary.
Love it. Don, this has been great having you on the show today. I think about the knowledge that you’re giving and I can think of, I know in my life, a lot of the things you said just ring so true. Having to adjust, pivot, figure things out, you start with one idea, you move on to another, you make things happen.
So, so many things and I’m a big fan of the opportunity that you’re also giving. So providing at the Institute, that being said, if somebody’s watching this or listening to this, and they want to continue to follow your journey, learn more about the Institute, get on your list for the upcoming book. I don’t know.
How do they do that? Just go to training, ndt. com. So that’s non destructive testing us in the field. Call it NDT training. DT. com, Google non destructive testing schools, NDT schools. You’ll see the American Institute of non destructive testing on the first page of Google worldwide. It’s, you know, we’re a leader in the industry.
We care about everybody that comes to our school and it’s, it’s true. You know, I challenge anyone to call my school and they will get a live person within three rings. And they won’t go down some phone system. They’ll get someone that actually cares and they’re going to get you to the right person and we’re going to take care of you.
All right. Training, ndt. com, the American Institute of non destructive testing. Love it. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll put all the links and all that good stuff in the show notes. So you can just click on the link, head right on over and check out the website and for the book stuff down or for Costa Rica or anything else like that.
Do you have a page or email or how do people follow up about that or connect on LinkedIn? What do you prefer? Yeah, just get a hold of me on LinkedIn. You’ll can just reach out to me. We have Hakko real estate dot company is our website down here. That’s J A C O Hakko real estate dot company, and we can set you up with a vacation or a home or whatever your investments down and as far as the book.
I would suggest watch our next episode when I complete it. Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. I had to ask. I wasn’t letting you off the hook on that one, Don. And, and Gotta push a little bit. I love when someone starts a book, but I love it even more when they finish. So, I gotta give you a, razz you a little.
I’m in. I know what I’m doing this afternoon. Thanks for the push. You know, even, I always say, you know, as much as I accomplish, every entrepreneur still wakes up and says, I could do a little more today, you know, and we need to push too sometimes. Yeah. It’s tough. Your, your biggest challenge is yourself. Oh, don’t, don’t I know it.
And don’t our viewers know it too, that are honest with themselves. And speaking to the viewers, this is your first time with us and you haven’t done it yet. Hit that subscribe button. We have many more business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders. Pioneers coming up on the show. This is a daily show each and every day.
We’re releasing new episodes. We don’t want you to miss the thing. Hit that subscribe button. And Don, again, thank you so much for coming on. It’s really been a pleasure. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.