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Scott Liess is the owner of Eco-Flow Plumbing, a 24 hour plumbing company serving the Santa Cruz area.
A native of New Jersey, Liess grew up in the plumbing industry while helping out at his uncle’s plumbing company. At the age of 20, Liess began working for his uncle and stayed for two years. He later moved to California, where he freelanced and traveled while doing plumbing work. At 23, Liess moved back to New Jersey, where he attended plumbing trade school for three years.
Liess struggled with school and by the age of 26, as he describes it, “disconnected from mainstream reality” and focused on meditation, travel and healing work. Less continued to do occasional plumbing jobs and eventually realized that plumbing was his forte.
Eventually settled in Santa Cruz at age 30 and got his plumber’s license. In 2008 he started his business Eco-Flow Plumbing with just a truck and a few tools. Outside of his career, Liess finds his passion in music and what he calls “the human potential”. He enjoys sports and, as he puts it, “flow sports” such as surfing and snowboarding.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Training
- Completed an internship in preparation for a plumber’s license in New Jersey
- Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors Association (PHCC) of California
Lookout: What is your job and can you explain what it is?
Scott Liess: I own a plumbing company. I offer plumbing work and hire people to provide this service.
Lookout: How did you get into the plumbing industry?
Liess: My mother was an accountant in my uncle’s company and just took us to work. My brother and I got into the groove and learned crafts from a young age. I probably started doing adult plumbing jobs when I was about 5 or 6. I was just a little helper, handing out tools and holding things. Customers were also happy to have children on the job. You know it’s a cool thing. Like the Yoo-hoo [drink] The factory was right there so you went to the factory and they gave you Yoo-hoos.
Lookout: Can you describe how you became the owner of Eco-Flow Plumbing?
Read: Reluctantly. I’ve tried different things. I wanted to become a yoga teacher or take the healing path of psychotherapy. School just wasn’t my thing at all and I had big problems at school. I tried and it didn’t work. It was also difficult for me to take advantage of someone else’s pain or suffering. But plumbing just came to mind. Nobody had to explain it. Anything other than history or geography just seemed alien to me.
After some travel, I just said [to myself], “Look, here’s the deal: you know this craft and you know you can do it.” Also, there was no way I could have worked for anyone, so that was really my only option. You must be willing to sacrifice relationships and fun. That’s not to say you can’t have those things, but when people depend on you for a paycheck, it becomes a priority.
Lookout: What was it like opening a store during such a tough economic time?
Read: It was hard. I drove all over the Bay Area to find work, but it was nice because I didn’t have overhead. it was just me I had a truck with tools and equipment. Then I just kind of slowly walked on. I worked alone for five years. As I said, I didn’t want to start because I didn’t know if I wanted to be all-in. I wasn’t sure I wanted to give him that much energy. But then life happens and you find yourself [saying], “I’ve gone so far, let’s keep going.” They start hiring people and getting pay stubs, get a little bigger, buy more trucks and equipment. Life goes on.
Lookout: Can you describe what a typical day at work looks like for you as an owner?
Liess: The typical day for me is usually a sauna or jacuzzi, then a cold bath and coffee. Then I make sure the guys know where to go and that they are prepared and know what materials and equipment they need to take with them. I am currently wearing several hats. I answer the phone, I’m busy scheduling appointments, preparing estimates and looking for new employees. Then I answer questions throughout the day [that] the guys might have, and [they] FaceTime me about the problems at work. At around 12 o’clock I go to CrossFit. I will come back [to the office] Sometimes go into the field and check on the staff, do quality control and make sure they are doing what they promise. One thing about the trades is that you constantly do quality control. I finish around 3-3:30pm
Lookout: What was a typical day like for you when you were a plumber?
Liess: It’s a grind, that’s a trading thing. You start at 7 or 8 in the morning and you’re out all day. The beauty of our work is that you travel the world. So if you want to have lunch, get it at your favorite place. You meet different people and are never stuck in one place for more than a few hours. For someone like me, there’s no way I can work in a booth behind the screen for more than a few hours a day.
(Kevin Painchaud / Santa Cruz Viewpoint)
Lookout: What are your favorite things to do and your biggest challenges?
Liess: Well, my favorite part of the job is the people. The biggest challenges of the job are [also] people, but that’s partly true. The job itself is hard work. You tend to people’s feces, you crawl under houses, you work at busy intersections. Most people want to spend their money on a vacation or a brand new Tesla or acupuncture. The last thing they want to spend money on is a new water heater. We work in customer service. Me and the boys get challenged by people at work. It’s all a balancing act to keep everyone on track and moving in the right direction. You know, post-COVID people are kind of ungrounded and a little freaky, so you can do this. People get scared, they don’t know what’s going on and then they have an emergency in their house. And you must go to her house. We’ve had to learn how to navigate and make sure we’re safe, clean, healthy and that customers are comfortable.
Lookout: Did you notice a difference between your career before and during the pandemic?
Read: The difference was [challenges with] the supply chain. Certain things were harder to get or the shipping lanes were temporarily closed. I remember the San Francisco Bay was full of ships right now. All prices went to the materials. They’ve doubled, tripled and you’ve seen it in every industry. We had to be more creative in picking the jobs you wanted to do, which means letting clients know, “Hey, we’ll do our best to get this, but you might have to wait two weeks.” I think , communication was more of a challenge. As a whole, as a collective in the world, it seems like people are a little nervous.
Lookout: What type of person do you think is best suited for this type of job?
Liess: So for the plumbing service, #1, it has to be someone who just has hard work ingrained in their psyche. That’s how they were raised and it’s just a part of who they are. #2, respect and reverence for work and tools. #3, a good communicator [who] works well with others and [is] a team player. Fourth, someone who is conscious and aware, but also mechanically able to understand things. You can work here and you can’t. You could do labor jobs like digging, sweeping and cleaning but to be a mechanic or plumber you need to be able to see the plan of the job in your head as it will evolve from nothing to complete installation.
Someone in the office who is capable of being an office manager, who is able to understand these things but also understands the guys and the people in the field. You have to understand the customers.
Lookout: Are there specific requirements for your job or specifically for being a plumber?
Read: We are looking for someone who is honest, wants to learn a trade, works hard and shows up. Someone who is fair, a good communicator. Someone has to be honest and respectful about going into a client’s house. Everyone who works for me, and it’s not many, I trust.
I went to a plumbing trade school for a license and when someone goes there that’s great. I don’t think they offer much of that anymore, or if someone went to college and wanted to learn a trade, it doesn’t matter. In California you have to work for someone for four or five years and then you get your license, so you only have to take one test. In New Jersey you had to do an apprenticeship [program] to get a license and the test was much harder than here.
Lookout: How much can someone make in this field?
Read: Somewhere probably between $15 and $20 an hour [starting salary]. Depending on where you are in your career, you can make anywhere from $25 to $65 an hour, maybe even more.
Lookout: What advice would you give to a recent graduate or career changer interested in a position in this field?
Liess: Learn as much as possible, go to fairs and exhibitions. It’s about getting hours. You don’t really know anything until you have those 10,000 hours on anything. If you do the math, that’s 40 hours a week for five years, that’s your average training time.
Lookout: What does the future of your company look like?
Read: we want to grow with our speed, and what is convenient, have the best equipment to do the tasks we need to do in the safest way. I think one thing we like to do is have the most innovative equipment. We prefer using machines to human labor and the guys really like using the technology. Much of the work we do is underground, that is sewer work. So we use cameras that go into the sewers and we use locators to locate the heads of the cameras to find out what breaks there are. We have machines that dig like excavators and we have machines that clean sewers.
Lookout: What are the prospects for careers in plumbing?
Liess: I think it will always be a good industry. As my dad would say, for every toilet seat, there’s an ass. It’s just a part of being human. As humans we need sanitation.
lookout.co
https://lookout.co/santacruz/business-technology/hiring/story/2023-04-03/how-i-got-my-job-scott-liess-on-careers-in-the-trades-and-how-tech-is-reshaping-plumbing-industry
