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Casey Flood: Steadfast Construction Services, Timber-Framing, Apprenticeship, and Christian Excellence in the Trades

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Casey Flood: Steadfast Construction Services, Timber-Framing, Apprenticeship, and Christian Excellence in the Trades

January 22, 2025
For The King
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Transcript

Hello, For The King listeners. I am not your host, Rocky Ramsey. My name is Will Drzymski, a brother in Christ and friend of Rocky's, whom he has generously invited onto the show in order to verbally showcase my artwork to you in 50 seconds.
As an artist, I strive to accurately reflect the glory of God and everything that I paint, and through that process, I hope to flood as much of the earth as possible with paintings, which accurately proclaim the undeniable fact that Jesus is Lord and the creation which he made commands us to worship him. So, if you would like to join with me in distributing clean, refreshing artwork showcasing the creativity of the God who made us, I would be overjoyed to have your help. I run my own website called Reflected Works, where I showcase the artwork I've done in the past, sell original paintings and prints, and take requests for unique commissions.
Once again, that's ReflectedWorks.com, all one word,
and I'm looking forward to helping you further the kingdom of God right now here on this earth by putting some of your free wall space to productive use. Thank you very much for your kind attention, and now, enjoy the show. Friends, welcome to the For The King podcast.
This is your host, Rocky Ramsey,
where we proclaim the edicts of the king, namely and chiefly, that Yahweh reigns. Welcome to another episode, and I'm not flying solo. I have a co-pilot.
I have a guest. I'm interviewing a close dear friend,
family friend, church friend, known this fellow for quite some time now, and he's joining us today. So, Casey, how are you doing? Doing all right, brother? I am doing fantastic.
It's great to be here with you today, Rocky.
Thanks for hopping on. I'm sure you've been dying to be a guest on the podcast.
You've been waiting for this moment, your moment of fame. Yeah, something like that, something like that, for sure. Well, Casey is a general contractor.
He's going to tell us about that today and walk us through what he does as a business owner,
how he manages his business, and he's also going to walk us through some unique things he does with this business that I think Christians need to be more aware of, and especially if you're at a stage in your life where you want to build a home. I think Casey's the body that I want to present to you that you should consider. If you go on the sub-stack page, I have Christian business owners, like a parallel Christian business owner page, and Casey's business is on there.
So, if you live in the Indianapolis area, keep that in mind as we talk and I interview Casey. If you're in Indiana, he'd be happy to work with you. So, Casey, start us off by just detailing the history of your company, how long you've been a company, kind of where you come from.
What are you all about, dude? Yeah, absolutely. I'll try to keep the history portion of this brief. So, you know, coming up through high school, obviously my generation, I guess sort of your generation too, Rocky, we're not that far apart.
But, you know, what's preached at us was like, you know, do what you love and find your fulfillment in your work and go to college. Like, that was always just drilled into my head, go to college. Well, just on the surface, man, going to college seemed like the worst bargain ever, you know, in my mind.
Just not a good business deal at all. Basically, trading a tremendous amount of resources for really, you know, no guarantee at the end. Fortunately, I think it was my senior year in high school, a guy from actually the union carpenters came and did a presentation.
And he's like, hey, look, here's this apprenticeship model that I had never even heard about. Why don't you join up with the carpenters? The deal is we train you. You work and learn and make a very good wage benefits and go through this apprenticeship program.
And at the end of it, on top of all this, at the end of it, you get an associate's degree from Ivy Tech. I'm like, yeah. So I get paid to learn and you pay for a degree.
I mean, it was a no brainer. I'm not a big union guy like on the on the face of it. I'm not a big union guy.
That's probably a whole nother podcast. But but, you know, the benefit that was offered was fantastic for my family. You know, I will say that learned a tremendous amount.
And so that kind of jump started things like I knew that I loved working with my hands. I'd been building pull barns and stuff in the summers with a local guy here. As soon as I could drive, I started doing that.
So I knew I'm like, hey, you know, I like working with my hands. I don't know exactly what I want to do for a living. But I do know that I want to, you know, avoid a tremendous amount of debt and at least gain some skills while I figure it out.
I got into construction and man, you know, did my four year apprenticeship. I became a journeyman carpenter stayed with that same company for for that. The whole time of my apprenticeship wrapped up that apprenticeship program and, you know, I'd sort of established myself there at that company.
And that associate's degree, you know, came my way. I'm like, hey, I've got an associate's degree. What like what can I do to kind of take this a step further? At that point in time, I knew construction was pretty much, you know, that was going to be where I was going to plant my flag.
And I was going to make a career out of it. So I rolled that associate's degree into a track towards a bachelor's degree at IUPUI. I got my construction management, a CEMT, Construction Engineering Management Technology degree at IUPUI, and was able to work my way into a management position with a pretty large general contractor in the commercial realm in the Indy area.
And I stayed with them for a total of 10 years, actually. Now, in this span of time, this was big commercial construction, right? Where you, there is very little, I guess, appreciation for any sort of artistry or even quality. Like quality isn't really necessarily top of mind.
It's much more production based. And so I was very satisfied with some of the complexities of the commercial realm, and certainly the scale was exhilarating in some ways. But I found myself wanting more.
It's like, well, but what about what about the beauty aspect? What about this aspect of craftsmanship and quality that everybody preached it, but it wasn't really there, you know? It was, let's just say it was... Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then it was maybe defined differently, right? The quality was defined very differently in that commercial realm. Oh yeah, okay.
So 2021, right during COVID, a lot of things were changing in the world. Steadfast was coming into fruition too, man. That's exactly right, yes.
So, you know, things get pretty wily, especially in that, I don't know, corporate commercial world. They make you mask up when you're out there? They were trying for sure. Yeah, they were trying to shove a lot of stuff down my throat at that point in time.
And I was just feeling like, what's next? Because these people that... I thought I was with a company that, you know, I really aligned with from a value standpoint. You know, as a Christian man, I thought, man, this is a family owned company. They claim to be pseudo-Christian at least, you know, at the core.
And they may be, but I certainly was wanting to make some very different decisions at that point in time. Especially revolving around COVID and how much control they had over my livelihood. Based on some of those decisions.
So, all this culminates with me basically sitting down with my wife. And it's like, okay, I can continue on this track and we'll be very comfortable. We'll be very comfortable, you know.
I was on track to be a project manager. I had, as an assistant PM, I had managed some really large key projects in the area. And, you know, we can stay on this track.
But I think God's calling us to do something different. Something that is much more in line with what we value as a family and as Christians. So, I put in my two weeks and really without any substantial work lined up.
Basically a truck and some basic tools and word of mouth, man. Steadfast construction services was born and it was literally me and a truck and lots of prayers. Full send.
Yep, it was. It was absolutely full send. I mean, burn the ships, you know, kind of mentality.
We're going all in on this thing. So, yeah, that was 2021. I feel like now looking back, you know, obviously God was preparing me along the way.
Still don't have it all figured out for sure. Learning every single day do's and don'ts and different, you know, business management practices and things like that. But the fact that I got the practical skills and being able to swing the hammer and I was trained in that, in that apprenticeship model.
And then I didn't just go back to school and do that full time. I worked full time as a project manager and went to school again. It was like I got like an apprenticeship in the hands on.
And then I got an apprenticeship in the office in the management side of it. I mean, it was truly God was like, okay, I'm going to just pack you full. It's plethora of skills to prepare you to start steadfast construction.
So anyway, that was maybe more than two or three minutes elevator speech there. But that's the history. That's how we got to where we are today.
Yeah, that's glorious. I guess a few things to highlight from your story for those listening. I love your emphasis and you're like actually an example of the apprenticeship model, like the glories of the apprenticeship model.
That was historically how professions were passed down. It was usually even in house in the family. You know, you would just kind of be your father's apprentice.
But that's not always the case. Maybe your father passes away like regardless. It wasn't always a family endeavor, but the apprenticeship was always a thing.
And to see how much success you had in that, that you walked away, no debt. Associates agree you were paid to work, but while you were learning. So I just want to emphasize that for everybody.
And then the second thing is we hear a lot of in the kind of circles, me and you run in that we're going to hear a lot of men tell us like, you know, we want to recover a biblical masculinity. We want to take risks. We want to not just be, you know, followers.
We want to be leaders, you know, but like your story kind of shows how important it is to have all the things you laid out the end there. You got to be prepared. You don't want to be an idiot.
Like if you're going to start a business, don't start a business. When you're an idiot and you don't know anything about the industry, you're trying to start a business. A business in right.
That'd be foolish. That'd be folly. Like excel at your trade.
Get really, really good at whatever you're doing. And then when it makes sense, you're still going to have to take a risk. That's that's inevitable.
God has made the world inherently risky. Every day you wake up and go drive on the road. You know, you're in a risk of getting in a car accident.
So there's going to be risk, but you can't take too much of a risk. Don't take us. Don't take a silly risk, you know.
So I think I just want to highlight those two things in your story. But that was cool for me even just to hear more history from you. So I appreciate that brother.
Let me tag on to that just real briefly here. Another aspect that's another beautiful aspect of the apprenticeship model is I was able to be married young and start a family young because I wasn't tied to that college debt or even that college lifestyle. You know, I was I was able to make enough money to support a family by a house.
You know, all the things that really everyone's kind of struggling to do right now, or maybe they don't necessarily value it. But the world is not set up for that. That college track is not set up to be able to be married and start a family in your prime, in your in your physical prime.
When you have the energy and the and the gumption to really like invest, you know, to really invest in your children and then compounding to your grandchildren. You're a young grandpa with energy still for that next generation. So there are so many aspects of why the apprenticeship model is so, so beneficial.
And that's a huge one. I didn't want to just gloss over that piece of my story as well. It's important for people to know who you are.
You've been doing this for so long. Yeah, your college was being apprenticed in the trade. It's awesome.
Okay, so I want to push the conversation a little further now. Now we know like, you know, you own this company. You've started this company.
We know the origins of it. I guess where are you at now? And what are some of your favorite builds for clients? What are you? There were some things you saw, you noted in the commercial side of things that, you know, you liked how intricate it was. And there were some really big projects you were on.
But what do you, you know, it wasn't quite doing it for you. So what do you really, really enjoy right now about where you're at and just catch us up to speed and start telling us about some of your builds? What are your favorite builds? What are clients like? Yeah, I guess the first thing to note is that we are intentionally not track home builders. We do not do any sort of production work at all.
I have intentionally stayed out of that sphere. The production side is, you know, the residential production side has all the same issues that the commercial production side of construction has. The scales are different, but I think that really the implications are potentially greater on the residential side.
So we really focus on custom builds. What I have found that we're doing quite a bit of here lately is we've been doing a lot of home additions because the market kind of demands it for a lot of families. I see that there are families that bought a home and they have a three-point whatever percent interest rate.
Yeah, they want to stay there. Yeah, they're like, man, I'm never leaving here. I'm not going.
But I'm going to add on to it, you know. So we'll do a really nice, you know, home addition and expand the space. Or oftentimes it's a space expansion with a remodel of the existing floor plan to make it all tie together.
So we're doing a lot of that. We're also just broke into doing some log cabins with a company out of North Carolina. That's really been cool.
We are right in the middle of our very first log cabin build seems to be going well. And, you know, we'll do we've done some brand new stick built homes as well. But really my favorite, my absolute favorite projects thus far.
And also one thing that makes steadfast construction very unique, especially in this the pinnacle of yeah, the pinnacle of quality, craftsmanship, artistry, beauty, and architecture is just fused together in this beautiful conglomeration of sweat and blood and tears and architecture and carpentry. All of it. It's amazing.
Yeah, it's very cool. By far the most fun and rewarding way to build that we've done so far. So you would say, yeah, those are your favorite builds.
And you find clients that have a timber frame home. What's the reception when they're in there and they, you know, see what that's like? Yeah, we just earlier earlier last year we did a timber frame outdoor living space for a client. And he kind of summed it up.
He said, I asked him, hey, you know, what do you think your space we were just about finished with it. You know, we put on all the beautiful cedar trim pieces to tie it all together. And he had just put his brand new patio furniture out there underneath of it.
He's got a beautiful backyard. And he said, the thing that I didn't expect was how much I was going to look at this structure. I thought I was going to sit out here and look at my yard and look at the street.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he said, but I just sit here and I noticed something unique and cool about how it's joined together. Or I think about how it's like there's not a there's not a single nail or screw in the in the in the base structure of this thing.
Like you guys literally joined the pieces together. He said, just it's surprising. He said, he said, I didn't even when he said timber frame, I didn't even really know what I was getting.
But I'm so glad that I agreed to it. That's awesome. Yeah.
So I guess like, yeah, can you describe it a little more about, I guess, like the construction method itself? Like how timber frame structure is designed, you know, can you get into the nuts and bolts? Yeah, I won't go too deep because I can obviously really get out on this. But bare bones, bare bones. Exactly.
Yeah, bare bones.
Yeah. The basic structure here.
So timber framing is is construction and it is based on posts and beams. OK, post beams and braces like those are the the basic pieces of a timber frame structure. Posts are the upright verticals.
Beams are the horizontal members and then your braces are what provide additional strength to the frame. Let's just say, again, trying to keep it basic here. But what's unique about it? So conventional framing, normal framing that you would see house a house done today.
It's made up of thousands of tiny members nailed together. All right. And then there's a cheating on the outside of that.
And that is what provides its strength. A timber frame is joined together. So the basic joinery in a timber frame is mortise and tenon joinery, where there is a slot cut into a large member.
And then the tenon slides into that slot. And then once the two pieces are joined together, a hole is bored all the way through both pieces and a peg, usually of a harder wood like oak, is used to fasten the members together. So literally, in an entire structure, you could have the whole frame standing there under its own strength, not needing any sort of sheeting or cladding or anything, standing there braced, extremely strong by itself without a single nail or screw in it.
So they're stronger. Is that kind of what you're – they are structurally stronger than – like a nail is like a point of failure that's so small. It can rust.
It can whatever. But you're saying the mortise and tenons are structurally stronger than like a nail?
Well, not only is it structurally stronger, but it's time-tested. Some of the oldest structures that we have in this country over on the East Coast were timber framed.
I mean, a lot of guys coming from – coming across the ocean on these ships, they were shipwrights. So a ship is made of giant timbers, and it has to be seaworthy, right? So these structures are extremely strong and well-braced, and they would sort of basically take a ship. And if you imagine turning it up upside down, they took a lot of the skills that they used in those shipyards and used them for timber framing.
And then multiple other cultures have timber framing as well, where joinery – joining the members together and actually locking them with an actual true joint versus just sandwiching them together and then trying to mechanically fasten them. The pieces are working together versus just having these opposing forces that you're trying to essentially use friction to hold together. Yeah, so they're tremendously strong.
I'm sorry. Keep going. Yeah, they're tremendously strong.
And then they're also beautiful.
So the frame of a conventionally built home is intentionally covered up, right? It's covered up on the outside with siding and all that, which a timber frame home would also be covered up on the outside. But then it's also covered on the inside.
Originally, it was lath and plaster to cover the framing, and now we're using drywall or sometimes even worse products than drywall to cover up the ugly framing that we do. Where a timber frame – the frame is so beautiful, it's left exposed intentionally. I didn't know that.
And it just – absolutely, yeah. The inside of a timber frame home or barn or whatever it is is intentionally left exposed. And the warmth and the beauty and the craftsmanship and the – I don't know if you've ever been in a timber frame home or not, a true timber frame home.
When you step in, there is an immediately – it's just a warm, inviting environment. It really is. It's just a beautiful, wonderful way to build.
Yeah. So you got me thinking. Tell me if you agree with this statement.
Timber framing – because you kept – I guess here's my train of thought here. You kept using the word joints, okay? And when I hear the word joint, it immediately makes me think of the human body. The human body has a bunch of different joints the way God has designed us.
So I'm immediately starting to think of 1 Corinthians that we're all one body built together, you know, the body of Christ. You know, there's the head, there's the knee, there's the foot, there's the eye, and there's a bunch of joints that bring us together, you know? And that – in the Christian faith, the joints that bring us together, that's the idea of covenant, right? You're covenantally bound to your family, to your church, to – you know, you make membership vows at church, right? The nation, you know, you're a citizen that has duties, like – and then we're all built up into the body of Christ. Okay.
So would you say, would you agree with the statement that timber framing is humane because it has joints and it's built together?
It's one continuous structure like the way God designed the body. It accords with humanity. It's a humane way of building, but the modern form of building, you would say, would you agree that it's like less intuitively human? Do you kind of see what I'm getting at? Is that – is there any part of you that would want to agree with that statement? Do you think I'm onto something? Well, I think you're onto something.
I think what you're – what I would be most comfortable saying is that the way that we are trying to build today, where it's fast and it's cheap and we know it's not going to last, it's expendable, you might say. It's only here for maybe this generation and that's pretty much what you're going to get out of it. That inherently is not good for humanity.
Okay. And then there's all kinds of health implications with building materials we're using. And the premise of building a conventional home, a conventional track home, let me qualify that.
There are some wonderfully built, wonderfully conventionally built custom homes that people have taken great care and craftsmanship to build. I don't want to dog on all conventional framing at all by any means because I do it. I conventionally frame as well.
But the premise of building a conventionally framed track home versus a timber-framed home, one of them is short-sighted and completely geared towards – not even efficiency. It's geared towards – it's just cheap. That's just all there is to it.
It's short-cuts. It's quick.
It is not geared towards that family that's going to live in it.
It's just geared towards the bottom line.
So yes, you take away the human aspect of that type of build. It's not built for the people.
It's built for the system at that point in time.
Whereas timber framing is built for people. It's built for – the craftsman has a love for what he's doing.
The owner has a love for what the craftsman is doing. The children that are raised in that beauty suddenly also have a love for good architecture and well-built things. It's a rippling effect of – the entire process was based on the premise of humanity and built for the people, for the family.
Timber framing is a very communal thing historically. Everybody knows the Amish barn raisings. Well, the Amish didn't come up with that, right? Like barn raisings where a community comes together and builds a barn or a house.
That wasn't the Amish's idea. That was just – that was how it was done. Yeah, that's just what they – the Amish are the only ones still doing anymore is the thing.
And they were – those are strictly – almost strictly timber framing. Those barn raisings are almost – so there's a communal aspect to a lot of these timber framing. But yeah, I don't want to go – I guess I don't want to go too far into it.
But yeah, one way is completely built and geared towards the people.
And what's healthy and what's good and what's beautiful and what's long-lasting and what is not only good for this generation but for generations to come. And then the other side is what is good for today, what's good for the bottom line, what's good for the company that's building it.
And really, the client is sort of left out of the factor. Yeah, if I could add a little bit to that. I recently read a book called Strong Towns.
I forget the guy's name. It's like something Mahone Jr. or something like that.
He's like a city planner.
And he was talking about how in the book how a town – so strong towns – how do you build a strong town versus a weak town –
how towns naturally and organically have developed all throughout human history. And I think it wraps in very nicely with what you're saying. A timber frame home is an investment that is necessarily geared towards future generations because you're hoping the structure lasts.
The desire is for it to last so that your grandkids can live in it or one of your grandkids can own it and the other ones have to go find something else. So it was organic growth in the town. And then infrastructure like, for instance, a sewer or running electric or gas or whatever, that was a liability that was taken on by the community.
Now, what is he talking about in the book? Modern-day development is not based on what you're saying, the humane aspect of it. There's now subsidies that cities will give for a – like, okay, hey, we're expecting this big, huge – those warehouses that are not timber framed, those big, huge Amazon warehouses, okay, that's going to provide 250 jobs. So we need a neighborhood built within five miles of this big, huge warehouse complex.
Okay, so they subsidize a general contractor to come in and to build this neighborhood and who takes on the liability? It's the public sector. It's not a family that is trying to build a home and then they're going to invest in it. They're going to plant fruit trees.
They're going to do all of the utilities and all of that and building up the property. They're not doing that. The public sector takes the liability on themselves.
They take the risk and they build, let's just say, a hundred-home neighborhood and they get all the infrastructure built into there. And then what do you have happen with that? People – it's transient, like you're saying. It's going to – it's not built to last.
It's a transient community. So you have people that might come in for the Amazon warehouse, but eventually there's more development elsewhere and people move out of this suburb. And now we have all these dying suburbs where there's all these homes in neighborhoods, these, you know, $250,000 cookie-cutter homes and all this infrastructure, all this sewer and gas ran that now all the utility companies have to, you know, take this money and upkeep and nobody's even using it, right? It's just empty infrastructure because it's not built to last.
So I don't know what you think about all that, but I think that ties in somehow. I think it did. So let me know if I'm wrong, but those are just some thoughts.
It does. I do want to – I do want to be careful as we're talking, though. You know, there could be a lot of your listeners that they live in, you know, a stick-built home in a subdivision, right? And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Like, go and build Christendom right where you are, you know, and praise God for it. So just to – just want to qualify that. Oh, that's good.
No one is inherently, like, more holy. I don't live in a timber frame house, you know, I wish I did. Maybe someday I will.
No one's inherently, like, more holy because you live in a certain type of house, of course not. And obviously, that's not what we're saying at all. But at the same time, these things are true.
These things are true. And I think that – I don't think that anyone would necessarily argue that you look around at maybe a subdivision that's 15 years old. You drive through there, and these homes are deteriorating at a very fast pace.
And then maybe you drive downtown, an older town, I think of, like, Knightstown or Greenfield. Every one of these older towns has what they would consider a historic district. And look at those homes.
Like, most of those homes, I would say most, if they've been – if the upkeep has been taken care of, even to a small degree, they are just absolutely beautiful. You know, they're beautiful. And you can just look at them and say, wow, there's craftsmanship there.
Wow, there's quality there. Wow, that home's got to be more than 100 years old. And the feel is completely different.
The feel is completely different when you're in that. So, yeah, I mean, absolutely. You're onto something there for sure, where when – again, when the whole premise is about the people in the community, versus about the profit or the – or kind of like the system.
Again, however you want to define the system, you know, there is a whole other type of community that's built. One is transient, and the other is more rooted. One is usually more thinking about the next generation and taking care of that next generation.
You know, scripture talks a lot about leaving an inheritance for your children. You can leave all kinds of inheritances. Spiritual inheritances, I would say, are primary.
Like, you should really be focused on leaving a spiritual inheritance, a godly culture. But that spiritual inheritance can – an outpouring of that can be the type of community that you're building, the type of homes you're building, the type of institutions that you're building and investing in, on and on and on. Yeah, absolutely.
We're kind of getting off track of the timber framing and the construction and all that. But there are certainly many, many aspects of why. Again, why do I – like, why go through the travel of timber frame? Can't you just nail it together and be done with it? Well, of course I could just nail it together and be done with it, right? Absolutely.
And it'll pass code, and the inspector will be happy with me because it's not something new and – well, not new. New to him, but, you know, something that's not normal, I guess. So – but, yeah, I mean, if I could build every single day, if I could timber frame every single day and never nail two 2x4s together again, oh, man, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Yep. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.
And I – back to your initial qualification, I totally agree with that. It wasn't a – it was more of a vision casting thing or kind of like a goals or aspirations, but you've got to build one brick at a time. So we can't just jump to, you know, everybody having glorious timber frame homes.
You know, that's not the intent of my – I guess my thought on, like, how towns develop. You know, it's just timber framing accords nicely with the biblical principles, like you're saying, of leaving an inheritance. A home is an inheritance, and viewing time like God views time where we're viewing the world.
God wants all the families of the earth. He wants the generations, right? He's going to be faithful to a thousand generations. Like, if we – if we're going to view – have God's eyes and how we're viewing time, then, you know, I agree that our structures should emulate that, but it takes time to get there.
Certainly. Yeah. I got – so our – I think we've pretty much hit a lot of what I wanted to look at.
I prepared a few scriptures, if you don't mind me reading them, and maybe you could just comment on them briefly on how you think, you know, the niche of timber framing or just the way that you do business in general as a general contractor accords with the principles in the scriptures. So does that – does that sound fruitful? Is that okay with you? I'm never – I'm never going to pass up the reading of some scripture. Let's hear it.
All right. So Christ says in Matthew 7, 24 through 27, Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain descended, the floods came, and the wind blew, and beat on the house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these things of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand, and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the wind blew, and beat on that house, and it fell, and the great – and great was its fall.
How do you – I think Christ is laying out a pretty amazing principle there about his words being like a well-built house. How does that tie into what you're trying to do at Steadfast? Well, I mean, the company's name is Steadfast. Yeah.
Because you see the principle of steadfastness all throughout scripture. Then as I was pondering, okay, what do I name this construction company? And there are other steadfast constructions in the country I've learned, because I get a phone call occasionally from various states, and they're like, hey, it's a steadfast construction. But why steadfast, right? So steadfastness, it's all throughout scripture, and it describes the character of a Christian, right? You should have a steadfast character, a steadfast belief in God, a steadfast rootedness in God's Word, which means that you're not going to be tossed to and fro.
You're not going to just be driven wherever the wind blows. You're going to be steady. You're going to be steady for your family in times of turmoil and trouble.
You're going to be steady for your church and the members of your church. When cultural difficulties come up, you're going to stand on your principles. So steadfast construction, I didn't want to only describe the structures that we were producing, even when we just stick frame conventionally frame.
Of course, I'm thinking, I want to build this to the glory of God and make it last for the next generation, for generations to build it to the best of my ability. I want my frames to be great. I want my timber frame structures to be beautiful and last for multiple, multiple generations, hundreds of years.
But not only that, I want my business practices to be steadfast. I want my integrity to be steadfast. I want to be driven by my belief in scripture, my belief in God and what he commands of me, a love for his law and his gospel, that every aspect of the business, this holistic approach to life where I don't have a compartment of my life that's church and a compartment of my life that's Christianity.
And then my business is over here somewhere and I can kind of shirk some of those things, some of those Christian values. Well, they don't quite apply to business. No, no, absolutely not.
A steadfast approach to your life means that all of those things come together and you try to live them in one accord to where it drives the way that you approach every single situation. A saying that I'm trying to drill into the heads of all of our employees are, is that the steadfast way? Is that the steadfast way? You know, when they ask, is that good enough? I often don't say yes or no. I say, is that the steadfast way? And usually it gets redone or done differently, right? Because when you live your life through that lens, your standards are high.
Your standards are really, really high at that point in time. And so that's, you know, I actually don't remember what your original question was. Well, I read that verse and I think you... Yes, yes.
So when we're talking about the house built on the rock versus the house built on the sand,
which I've always loved that because being a construction guy, you know, I love it. You see those types of comparisons all through scripture. It's a steadfast house versus what's the antithesis of steadfast? How would you describe that? What's a good word? Loose, unsound, frail, maybe frail.
Frale, yeah, yeah. But it's more holistic than what, you know, there's a holistic idea behind it. Yeah, I love that.
I mean, steadfastness is a Christian virtue.
Certainly. So you literally just named your business a virtue and then made that a part of the way you actually like physically do your skill, you know, your trade.
I mean, it's awesome. And it's cool to know like steadfast Casey on the job is steadfast Casey at church, and steadfast Casey in the home, you know, when you're playing with your kids, you know, all that. You're always trying to be steadfast.
I mean, that's a virtue every Christian needs to cultivate. So that's great. So second verse here, maybe not one to comment on.
Just Casey's talked to me before about, you know, what he does. So as I was reading scripture at one point last year, I sent this to him because I thought it was cool. But we see timber framing in the Bible in Exodus 26 verses 17 and 19.
When God is talking about the design and the structure of the tabernacle, it says two tenons shall be in each board for binding one to another. Thus you shall make for all the boards of the tabernacle and you shall make the boards for the tabernacle. Twenty boards for the south side.
You shall make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards. Two sockets under each of the boards for its two tenons. So you already taught us earlier what a tenon is.
And I've always wondered how the Israelites were able to deconstruct and construct the tabernacle so quickly when they would move around by, you know, fire by night and the cod by day. It's like, how were they able to move this thing around? It was pretty big. Well, it's because it was timber frame.
All they had to do is just take out the joints and then all the joints were ready to go.
You know, once you take out a nail, you've permanently altered the wood. You can't, you know, once you can only nail something in one spot so many times before the woods all screwed up.
But you can tear down the tabernacle and take it with you. So I don't know if you find that cool, but I think that that's cool that it's, you know, your trade is like in the scriptures pretty clearly, which is very. Any thoughts there you want me to move on? I mean, just a brief note, you know, you can build an entire you can literally you can build an entire frame timber frame with nothing but a saw, a chisel.
And a drill and a hammer, like, that's it. You just need that you need literally the most basic of tools to. And I guess if you're if you're actually going to hue every single tree yourself, an axe would be helpful to.
But, you know, like the most basic of hand tools and you can you can build a frame. So it's cool that even in these ancient times, and I'm not saying that they had, you know, they weren't sophisticated back then because, of course, they were. But the most basic of tools and you can build a beautiful frame like like we see, you know, describe in scripture, potentially the most beautiful structure ever built.
Yeah. Yeah, it's immaculate. And hopefully that can also display how tried and true this method of construction is that you're doing.
Another vert if you if you look at Exodus thirty one and verse six, talking about the construction of the tabernacle. We have a man named a holy ab, the son of Hasamak of the tribe of Dan. He and God said that he has, quote, put wisdom in the hearts of all the gifted artisans, including this man, that they may make all that I've commanded you.
The tabernacle of meeting, the Ark of testimony and the mercy seat that is on it and all the furniture in the tabernacle. So God has given filled him with his own spirit. The ability to, you know, do this kind of woodworking because it is an art, you know, we see all throughout scripture.
Haggai one eight is talking about going up a command to the people of Israel to go up to the mountains and then bring the wood to build the temple, which was without a doubt timber framed as well. To some extent, besides the masonry work, the stones, it would have been temper framed, whatever they may be the scaffolding or the actual frame itself. But I find that one pretty cool.
Jesus was the son of a carpenter. In Genesis six, we see Noah building with Gopher wood. He was a carpenter.
And we also see in second Samuel five eleven, the cedar trees, carpenters and masons that were built in to build the house, David a house. So it's all over scripture. Those are the ones I had prepared.
I just kind of rattled off for there. But I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. But more more evidence of the scriptures that carpentry is an ancient ancient practice and it's it's glorious.
Yeah, absolutely. Also, you see each one of those structures, again, they were built for a purpose. And that purpose was was for the people or for the Lord or both.
There's there was nothing nothing described in there that you would say, you know, oh, well, that was that was only built for. A very short term, a very, I guess, like pointed short span of time, only to fulfill a like fill a gap of some sort. No, this is these things are are in scripture and clearly built for for the for the long haul for the for the.
Yeah. The long term for generations and to even invoke some sense of awe or beauty. Yeah, it's it's just it's just like you said, it's just cool to see it scattered all through scripture.
And then to see men commended for their skill or to see that these are giftings that God granted men. We don't often think of some more vocational giftings as giftings from the Lord. You know, it's easy to think of more like these pastoral type gifts as being exactly the Lord.
But we don't always think about we don't always think about these blue collar guys who are out there turning wrenches or hammer nails or fitting pipes together as a plumber or even wiring a house or whatever it is. Yeah, we don't often think about those those gifts and those skills as gifts and skills from the Lord. But they certainly are.
But they certainly are. Amen. That's good.
Okay, one other bit of history besides the scriptures. The the church that Paul Revere when he was alerting the the Patriots that the British were coming by see that church is Old North Church in Boston, Massachusetts. And it was built in 1723 as a timber frame structure.
And it's a it's a famous timber frame structure. A lot of the cathedrals utilized in Europe, you know, timber framing and it's scaffolding and parts of it that were wooden. So there's a lot of really, really famous structures built this way.
So just a bit more history there besides the scriptures. But besides that, I think, brother, that's the gist of the questions. I think as we wrap up here, maybe can you spend five minutes last five minutes here? You know, what is some of your advice to somebody getting into the trades or somebody wanting to, you know, maybe come work for you at some point? And then after that, could you just give us some quick details on how somebody could contact you? And I will make sure to put stuff in the show notes.
If somebody wants to, you know, hire you for a build or something like that, I'll make sure to include that. So just can you do those two things and close us out here? Yeah, I guess the first thing that I would touch on is consider going into the trades as a viable option for your livelihood. Look into that and consider it heavily and then weigh it against the college path.
I talked briefly about that. I thought it was truly the it was it was a launching pad for for my family going the trades route versus the college route. It is viable.
Not only is it viable, but it is very profitable in many, many ways.
The other piece of it is remember that in the trades, especially the apprenticeship model, you there is a very tangible time of what I call the ashes work where you are going to be sweeping the floor and picking up the trash and doing all these little menial tasks that seem unimportant. But but don't let that discourage you in that short term because the good pieces are coming.
The skills are coming.
You have to put in your ashes work. You have to do those menial tasks on the front end to really build the to build the trust and build some just job site awareness.
And there's safety aspects there that like you have to you have to get your mind in your in your your whole being sort of used to that to that job site environment. So just don't be afraid of that. Also, remember that you're building tangible skills that travel with you everywhere you go.
Once you build a skill in a trade, it cannot be taken from you.
That skill is yours forever. If, you know, if everything went to went to hell in a hand basket tomorrow, and the whole entire grid was shut down.
Like I still have all these carpentry skills that I could I could continue to use my craft for good, whatever that is, the good of my family, the good of my neighbors, the good of my church, whatever it is, I can continue in that. And that's true for many, many tradesmen out there there's their skills, the skills of their craft go with them, wherever they go. There is also a deep satisfaction in working with your hands that cannot be replaced with any other type of work.
And I do lots and lots of computer work now because I'm a business owner, I have to do my estimates and accounting and communications and all that stuff on a computer.
But my whole being feels this pull this draw back to working with my hands and producing something very tangible, not that again not that one type of work is more holy than another. But the satisfaction of working and building with your hands, it cannot be overstated, in my opinion.
So, so consider that carefully. Don't let somebody, I guess try to, you know, force you into that college route. Look into various apprenticeship options, whether that, you know, the ideal is that you can find a Christian man to go and a Christian company to go and, you know, apprentice with apprentice under and, you know, be able to go that route, especially if you're very young unmarried maybe just driving.
Try to find that, that, you know, Christian carpenter in your church Christian plumber in your church, the electrician, and just go and, you know, and work with them in the summers or, you know, occasionally a few days a week whatever it is that you can fit into your schedule. Begin very young to explore those those things. That's good.
So yeah, there's a lot there's a lot there, you know, thinking about the trades. Everybody knows like Mike Rowe Dirty Jobs, you know, he's obviously a big advocate for the trades. Our culture sort of frowns upon that right now, but I do think we're seeing this resurgence of, Whoa, hey, we need men to actually physically build and maintain our, you know, the structures that our society is built upon.
Yeah. So, I think we're going to start seeing the shift, and maybe we already have at least certainly in our circles, we're seeing the shift way from that typical go to college for nothing, get nothing out of it. And then, you know, sort of flounder for the first you know 10 to 15 years out of high school.
We have no idea what you're doing.
And then be strapped with a tremendous amount of debt so avoid all those things young man avoid all those things. I guess I guess to add a little bit to that I have a master's degree in environmental engineering and Casey makes a lot more money than me.
Let me just put it like that. You know, going to school and getting a debt, you know, I have some student debt that is not necessarily that doesn't equal more dollar signs. It might only it only really makes sense if you're like Silicon Valley type type thing you can make really good money if you're like a computer programmer but most like 90% of bachelors and master's degrees are pretty useless.
Yeah, yeah, credentials credentials don't feed your family skills feed your family. Yeah, so build always be thinking in terms of skill building. Yeah, not in terms of one more set of letters or acronyms after my, you know, email signature.
Yep, that that that is, I guess that would be a good summation of all of it, build skills, build competence, make yourself irreplaceable in society at the company working for whatever it is, because of the skills that you have. Yep. Okay, so that was kind of the first part of it.
It was, it was talked about the trades and all that and then what was the second question second part of the question just just close this out here in terms of how people can contact you what's your website, you know, how do people get a hold of you.
Yeah, he froze for just a minute. Yeah, that's okay.
That's all right. So how, how do you get ahold of me so, so my direct email I'll just give it to you my direct email is Casey flood at steadfast dot construction Casey flood instead fast dot construction, email me.
I don't care whether it's just to say hey, heard you on the podcast.
That was really cool. Or, you know, you want more information about timber framing, or, you know, you just, maybe you do have a project that's coming up, and you want me to take a look at that'd be, that'd be really cool.
So yeah, steadfast dot construction is is our website our, our entire website is being rebuilt right now we're kind of revamping that.
So, I don't know exactly how they're going to redirect, you know, what the existing website is versus what the new ones going to be but I got tech guys for that I don't know how to do it so. So yeah, and I think there's like a little, you know, contact me tab there on the website that you could send me something through the website as well. But those are probably to the two of the main ways.
Obviously Rocky and I are pals so you could always reach out to Rocky is as well. And, and, you know, getting to pull me through him and Rocky's brother Bryce is my right hand man at steadfast construction so you know lots of connections here with, with the Ramsey clan.
But yeah, that's, that's kind of it man.
That's, that's steadfast construction. That's why we're steadfast construction that's what steadfast is all about.
And I guess the last thing that I would want to say is all of this for God's glory alone, you know, no pat on my back, like if the Lord did not see fit to bring me work and quality clients.
Again, if he didn't, you know, give me the skills to do these things and be able to wrap my head around it to enjoy it and love it. You know, this is all all for God's glory. It really is.
And it's, you know, I just I always want to be very cautious. I don't want to be eaten up with worms. You know what I'm saying?
I'll be very cautious to point that point that all back to the Lord.
And I know that that's the whole point of your podcast, right.
But yeah, if you're if you're a young man, start building something, you know, just to cast a little tiny bit of vision here, build skills, build skills young, try to build competencies and whatever you're doing. As much as you are able and with the guidance of wise men and women around you get married young, have lots of babies, establish households, build culture.
And if the trades are where God has called you, then let's take the trades back for God's kingdom, for sure, because right now, the bulk of the trades are very, very pagan. They just are. And and God's, you know, God's law and his law and his gospel do not reign prominent in in the trades right now.
So I would love to see a resurgence of those things in the trades.
There it is, Rocky. That's awesome.
Do you want to before you before you go, do you want to speak briefly about just how you guys dress and carry yourself and like you like to your comment at the end there about how most blue collar tradesmen are, you know, they're cussing up a storm.
They're listening to super pagan music. They're bad influences.
If your kids are home while they're working, you know, they're saying stuff they they're dressing poorly. Do you have anything there?
Yeah, I mean, well, it's it's it's kind of like you said, Rocky, like, I'm the same guy, whether you catch me at church on Sunday, you catch me on the job site, or you catch me at Menards, you know, so not I'm not wearing, I'm not wearing my Sunday best on the job site, but nonetheless, I'm representing the Lord everywhere I go. So, you know, our, our typical attire on a job site is as boots, always long pants and always a sleeved decent looking shirt, right? We're not out there and like cut offs and stuff.
Yeah, we just try to look presentable.
Yes, the way we talk, the way we communicate, it's, it's important. We, we try to be very courteous in every single aspect of what we're doing.
Again, we're representing, we're representing the Lord here.
And also, we're trying to do our best to not only represent God, and, you know, it's everybody that hires us know that we're a Christian company full of Christian men so we're, you know, it's out there in the forefront. But we also, we want to take that negative connotation away from the trades and from construction work in general, we want to, we're trying to do do our little part of reviving you know the days when the, the local master carpenter was, he was a highly sought after and respected member of the community versus the dirty old construction worker that spends his time at the local bar.
You know, and again, I'm not saying I'm not saying that's what it is. I'm saying that's the perception of society today. Yeah, right.
And so we want to, we want to shift that we want to do what we can to shift that good represent our, our God and our people and our, and the, and the culture.
I think I mentioned go build culture like I'm trying to build culture and my family, it was my company with the men I come in contact with and then rub that culture off on all the clients and all the young men that we come in contact with as we're doing these projects. Yeah.
Well, Godspeed brother. That's great. I think we can, we can wrap up there.
That was a, it was a pleasure having you on and I love it.
Thank you for having me, you really appreciate it. Yeah, I love what you're doing.
I'm going to continue supporting it. And those of you listening, if you're in the, in the area, at least get, you know, give the Facebook page a follow and a like and just kind of keep up to date with what Casey's doing and down the road.
Like he said, he'd be happy to work with you.
I know in the future, that's what I want to do. Lord willing, if I'm ever able to financially, you know, that's, I would love to own my own home.
So that, that's my goal as well.
So thanks brother for coming on. And as always, to the King of the ages, immortal, visible, the only God, we honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Thank you.

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