Episode 149: Matt Leis Returns

Back in September 2021, we interviewed Matt Leis, and in Episode 149 we’re catching up with him again to hear about his transition from the golf course to sports fields. Matt is now the Manager of Fleet & Irrigation at the Papago Baseball Complex for the San Francisco Giants Baseball Club in Phoenix, AZ. The 40-acre complex is home to player development and Minor League operations, featuring six full fields, auxiliary surfaces, and a 15,000 sq. ft. facility. As the solo technician in the shop, Matt oversees a Toro fleet, preventive maintenance, and the RainBird irrigation and pump systems while supporting the Field Operations team. We dive into the unique challenges of sports fields—precision grading, grooming artificial turf, finding cleats in mowers—and how the players’ calendar drives cultural practices. Matt also shares how refereeing college football fits into his busy schedule, along with his professional growth through the GCSAA EMCP and CTEM programs and the Toro Grounds Leadership Academy.

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Transcript

Trent Manning: 0:56

Welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we'll learn tips and tricks. I'm your host, Trent. Manning let's have some this episode are real turf techs on golf course industries Superintendent radio network is presented by Foley county a strong supporter of equipment technicians and golf course maintenance departments everywhere Foley county offers a proven solution for above and below the turf for turf professionals To learn more about Foley company's line of real grinders bed knife grinders and the air to G2 family of products or to find a distributor visit www dot Foley C o.com Foley Ready for play

Trent Manning, CTEM: 1:57

welcome Matt to the Realtor Turf Text podcast. Thank you for coming on.

Matt Leis: 2:02

I appreciate it, Trent.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 2:03

Yeah. Welcome back. So we don't have too many return visitors, but your story is a little bit different. So you started at a golf course and now you're at Sports Fields. Right.

Matt Leis: 2:18

I that is correct. Now with the San Francisco Giants at our player development facility based still down here in Phoenix, Arizona.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 2:25

Okay, awesome. Yeah, I can't wait to hear more about that. But before we get into that, let's remind the listeners how you got into the turf industry.

Matt Leis: 2:38

Well back this would've been 2018. I had left the business aviation industry when I was down here in Phoenix and wanted to get back into more the grounds game. I did that back in college for my local parks and rec department. So at the time, my wife and I lived on the golf course, the Western Kierland Golf Club in North Scottsdale. I just started off as a greenskeeper. And then after a few months of that, the head mechanic at the time saw I had a mechanical inkling for, for what he was doing. He invited me in to try out the shop and it didn't take very long. And then I was like, Ooh, this is kind of what I want to go. And then, so I went in as an assistant in the shop, and then it was about six months later after that he decided to leave. I put together my thoughts and how I wanted to run the shop and go from there and was offered on an interim basis and then got the role full time. And so from there I was then, not only did I do stuff for our golf course, but we were part of Tru Golf. And then there was some opportunity where I assisted some other properties both here in Arizona and a couple across the country. Kind of some triage work, some reopening of a clubs post pandemic that were under the Tru umbrella now. And, but from there you know, I really was thankful for my time. I had with Tru and Anna, Carolyn, I had a great superintendent that I worked for. But it was just reaching a time where. I wasn't directly looking for a change, but then I had a former assistant superintendent I worked with who then reached out about a potential opportunity here with the Giants. And so, went and checked that out. Kind of vetted that, had some conversations then with not only my superintendent in seen maybe where things could lead with them long term, but I felt like this was the right time. You know, we, they opened this facility in February of 2022. I got here in October of 2022. So just after construction and everything was totally wrapped up. So, then that's how I landed here. And then got to open up to kind of do a whole new world. Very similar. There's some differences obviously, but from my side of things the role I took was manager of Fleet and Irrigation. That's my technical title with the club. And we're a 40 acre facility here in Phoenix for those familiar with the Phoenix Metro area. It's a heavy and spring training baseball. So half the clubs are down here, obviously the other half are in Florida. And so they the Giants they play their major league games for spring training at Scottsdale Stadium and a partnership with the City of Scottsdale, and they've done that for a very long time. And besides that, then they used to be in a partnership with the city for their player development facility, which is what we are. So the Giants made a decision where they took over a land lease with the city of Phoenix. There was a previous facility on this site, but they knocked everything down completely rebi rebuild it. So that's where we land now. We have a gorgeous 15,000 square foot maintenance facility. We work out of, we're a total, as I said earlier, 40 acres. We have six full fields. We have a half field. We have an indoor infield and hitting area kind of what we call an agility field for strength and conditioning. So it's a unique property to be a part of. And we stay busy all year long even when baseball season isn't going.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 5:59

How many people do you have staff there?

Matt Leis: 6:03

So we have on our team a total of 13 in field operations. So if we kind of break it down in the golf world to understand it a little bit better, we have our senior manager of field operations he'd be like our director of agronomy. And then we have our he's site coordinator. I can't remember what Brad's technical title is. That's who I used to work with at the golf course. He'd be like our golf course superintendent. And then we have two assistants we call field coordinators and there's teams of four underneath them. And we do have a full-time horticulturist on staff as well. That takes care of all our landscape areas.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 6:36

Oh, nice. That's awesome. Super cool. And, but your primarily focus is on the equipment and the irrigation system.

Matt Leis: 6:46

Yeah, mainly the system itself, not I'm not going out and hand watering regularly. I'm not doing head adjustments and replacements. Our staff in general is all trained on that and they take care of those things. More managing the preventative maintenance of our pump system. Also then our, all of our software, we are a rainbird system that we have here. So that was a learning curve for me. I had experience with Art Toro system at the golf course previously but mainly doing all of our preventative maintenance items. And, definitely just take take in every year we go through a full audit of all the information in the software program. We also then, you know, exercising valves, things things of that nature that kind of go by the wayside regularly. I've actually just incorporated all of that into my equipment, preventative maintenance

Trent Manning, CTEM: 7:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 7:34

And so I use my turf for it as well, that Toro product that they have. So it's all in there so it can remind us and go from there. And so we haven't had, thankfully too many snafus. There's, we've had a couple pump, a little pump emergencies, nothing too crazy being a newer site that we are. But mainly still focused on the equipment side. And we have a pretty robust fleet for the size of what we have. So it's been it still keeps me busy being solo in the shop right now.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 8:02

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 8:03

and, but it's the right amount. At the same time, we wouldn't need somebody else assisting in this role in its current capacity. But I still get out. I operate a lot to I try to always get out on a piece of equipment once a week, if it's mowing, if it's dragging, if it's anything like that. But that's that, that's mainly my kind of big picture on what I do here. And we just you know, we kind of keep on rolling from there. We're based off of baseball activity. That's what it is what the team needs. Those are our end user. So there's many days where we really don't know what we're gonna get coming in until we get a schedule of what they require for the day. And so with that it, I can jump in and assist'cause I have the bandwidth a lot of the times too if they get pinched where we have a lot going on in one area, they just need somebody to get out and mow a surface. Before we would start, for example then I would end up assisting with that.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 8:55

Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. No, that's super cool. And we're definitely gonna dig into that a little deeper, but before we do, what's your favorite tool? Is it still the same?

Matt Leis: 9:06

I think it's different. I'm trying to, when I went back, I think I said the shim, not the shim, but the feeler gauge for,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 9:13

Okay. Real? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 9:15

for real, the bed knife. And that still is, I a big, huge believer in that. And for those looking online over my shoulder, when I, early on when I got here, I got this Dayton lift cart and it's a 880 pound capacity lift cart. Even fortunately, I have a golf lift. I have also golf lifts table as well. And even when you sink that thing all the way down to the ground, if you're picking up a, you know, a real master 3,132 inch cutting unit onto that little, you know, we're talking only six inches, but. There's still enough little torquing and moving when, if you're not doing it right, you can hurt yourself. And so one thing I'd asked for that and the club was a no brainer to them. And so setting, you know, getting, cutting units from the ground up into the air and actually, you know, very, I can take, use that and I can carry a cutting unit directly from the table all the way in and set it right in the grinder, just like how Foley has their electric based lift that they have. And I know SIP and others have that as well. This is just, it's a foot little foot pump pedal you know, hydraulic cylinder. It's kind of my second hand. I've used it. I'm pulling transmissions outta workman's. I've used it lifting heavy components off of our Procore 8 64 recently. It's just been kind of my extra hand if I can't holler and get somebody to help me. And it's kept me safe for sure. So

Trent Manning, CTEM: 10:33

oh, yeah.

Matt Leis: 10:34

gone up on my list for sure.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 10:36

What I just was telling you,'cause we were talking about it before we started recording here, but my good friend Howard Horn, that he's a, the em at Bear's best down the road from me. He just got that very hoist that you got back there and he said it doesn't talk back and it's never late for work. I mean, and it's kind of the same thing. He's only had it for about a week, but he is like, man, this is the best investment I've ever made. I use this, you know, for all kind of stuff.

Matt Leis: 11:07

And the only thing I did to modify it is I drilled a couple holes in the forks of it so I could stick some pins in there, so cutting units wouldn't roll off of it.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 11:14

Okay. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 11:15

besides that, it's, it was ready to go right away and pretty sure we ordered it just through Grainger and showed up like a couple days later. And things have been great.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 11:23

Yeah. That's awesome. That's good stuff. Well, how do you relax or find your balance?

Matt Leis: 11:31

Well, we talked about it last time I was on, but I still do this advocation called sports Officiating Referee. So I referee college football now at the division one FCS level, the former AA level, which I was kind of breaking into that the last time we had we had spoken and still doing that. It's been treating me very well. But you know, that was also one thing looking at when I made my job change. It actually the calendars mirrored up very well.'Cause baseball season is starting to wind down as football season is starting to take off. So my requirements with travel and things for that I'm supported very highly here from the club and my direct manager and everything. And it's always a fun topic of conversation for guys that when I get back from a football weekend, wanting to hear maybe some stories from my game or my reaction to certain things that might happen across the country and football land as well. So, but it's still a very good thing for me. It keeps me very busy all year long with that. Because, you know, right now we were, we're in off season mode still for football, but we're gonna blink in two weeks. We're gonna be going to practices and scrimmages, and then it's gonna be Labor Day weekend. And then suddenly 13 weeks are gonna go by and we're gonna blink and the season's gonna be done and we're gonna be in the postseason. So it all happens very fast and it's a busy time of year, but it's still an outlet for me. All my best friends are officials. I do a little bit of basketball still, just some high school stuff during the week, but the main focus still is football. With that,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 13:00

Yeah. That's awesome. That's so cool. That's gotta be fun. I lost my train of thought, but that's okay. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 13:07

I'm gonna hit while you're thinking. I'm gonna hit this button again and give us another 30 minutes.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 13:12

Oh, okay. Yeah. What's going off there?

Matt Leis: 13:14

The my lights are on automatic timers, but with motion sensors, but that I'm sitting here, it's after 30 minutes they turn off and I'd been sitting for a bit, probably before I got on here.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 13:25

Gotcha. Well, tell me some differences or some similarities in between golf and sports field management.

Matt Leis: 13:35

Well, there's a lot of walking into it. You know, it's still grass, it's still dirt. It's those kinds of things. But the biggest difference I. I saw was traffic. Traffic is such a different animal when it comes to sports fields. And I've not only seen this at our facility, but other sports fields and other people I discussed this with across the industry as well. But managing traffic is very difficult'cause athletes are very routine coaches are very routine, so they kind of want to do the same things in the same places over and over again. We have the ability at our facility where we can move them from field to field and rotate it. And our coaching staff is very good where they accommodate us when we make those kinds of requests. And so, but you still, like on our main game field, we have here we have struggles, especially in transition, coming outta oversee back into Bermuda time are areas that struggle the most, are not only traffic related to. Participants, but then we have a lot of self-induced traffic from us as well.'cause our areas where you mow and turn and do other things like that is just the footprint's so much smaller. So you have to be very diligent about it. But that's the bigger thing. cause we talk about traffic on greens all the time, right. That's why we put so much effort into maintaining greens and all the cultural practices that we do, and then coming over here into, on the sports side of things, and especially baseball, that same amount of effort and labor and time that goes into a green well. Our guys put into that in the infield dirt and we call'em infield skins. That's the common term

Trent Manning, CTEM: 15:21

Proper name.

Matt Leis: 15:22

Yep. And like the amount of, we have full water management plans for what we gotta do and keeping certain amounts of moisture in it. We do all of our grading in house here. We have a seven foot grading box and we also have a BI Z 23 force, which is a b i's kind of multi-tool, very similar to Toro's Field Pro 60 40 that that's on the market currently. And. It has all those multi attachments to stand on zero turn style unit. So we have a grade box for that. So we'll rough grade with our big seven foot box pulling on a Toro outcross with a full dual pull laser setup. And then we'll take that a BI out afterwards and kind of do a finish grade down to about a 10th of an inch. Accuracy is what we shoot for.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 16:09

Wow,

Matt Leis: 16:10

it with a, we do it with a conical laser set that in the middle of the mound just for drainage purposes. And

Trent Manning, CTEM: 16:17

What kind of percentage?

Matt Leis: 16:19

It, well, there was a set percentage, I don't remember it off the top of my head,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 16:23

okay. I was just curious.

Matt Leis: 16:25

What happened over time as we continue to top dress the turf? Well then that ends up. You know, obviously we're raising the profile of of the soil for the turf, and then also if we might've went heavy on the outfield and not as heavy on the infield. Like, so we kind of every year are guesstimating it. But it's very common in the sports field world after 4, 5, 6 years of a surface, especially if you're maintaining that high university or college level or professional level, it's pretty common. You strip everything down, you regrade everything all over again, and then you start from scratch. But that's obviously a big big expense that sometimes it's hard to swallow, but if it's usually part of the general capital improvement planning with that. But, so, but our, it's interesting, our conical laser, it's just a little dial that's on that's setting the percentage. So, usually our boss he goes out and he's the one who sets it every time and he's just making little tiny different adjustments on it. We're getting the laser receiver out there and we're kind of trying to get it as close as we can. But that, that's been a new thing for me. I never had done any precision grading stuff before. So that's been that's been cool to be a part of. And that's kind of an annual thing, and we might do a mid-season one on higher use fields as well. But you know, that's the big thing, just going back, like the effort we put into edging dirt you know, grooming, dirt you know, heavy dragging dirt and then trying to keep that surface as smooth as possible. And that's a huge huge part of it. And maintaining the edges and lips and everything like that is just because we're, our number one goal for what we're doing in a field operations department is trying to provide the safest plane surface. For our athletes because they're big investments and especially at our level where where we're currently at and what we host those are the beginning of those prospect's career. And so if something detrimental would happen early on, it can not only be a negative for the player, but then for us as an organization.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 18:31

Oh

Matt Leis: 18:31

that's why we take that aspect of it very seriously. But you know, from a turf standpoint, you know, I went from a golf property that had 140 irrigated acres of turf, 13. So it there's a lot less demand from that point. And so that also has changed too, where, like a riding mower, for example, like we primarily use real master 31 hundreds. But a fairway mower that we would use at a golf course would put 6, 7, 800 hours annually on itself. Here we're lucky if we get to 300 hours annually, A riding unit. But and same with same with our walk behinds. We use greens master 16 hundreds for our infield. Those don't, you know, they're not seeing the square footage that you're seeing doing a greens mow route every single time.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 19:18

Right, right, right.

Matt Leis: 19:18

So, so from that aspect there's some benefits of that. Obviously, if your equipment isn't getting hammered away on how many hours you're putting on it it, it can, it's longevity can be a lot longer. And then maintaining things. I've actually adjusted most of the recommended preventative maintenance schedules down in hours, just because I was finding like a workman,'cause we use workmans as our primary transport and utility vehicle. I wasn't seeing one of those like it. Six, seven months, I would, nothing was even popping up to come check anything in the shop because,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 19:53

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 19:54

our guys are driving, you know, they're not driving very far, and then they're turning'em off because they're working on a field, they're not running the whole time. So, you know, that's been a difference of shortening up the intervals for a lot of things, just mainly. So I forced myself to be able to get things on the lift take a little deeper look at stuff. And so it's allowed us to avoid issues from that point. But the you know, but the turf the turf activities are similar to what we do on a, we do on a golf course. And our whole facility is actually USGA specs for the soil profile.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 20:30

Okay.

Matt Leis: 20:30

So that's very unique. We have some common areas that are kind of, push up just sand capped areas, but so that's also been we kind of are maintaining our soils similar to what we would do on a green, but what we're mowing at and our intervals on aeration and other things like that are very similar to what we do on a fairway at a golf course.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 20:51

So, yeah. Do you, is it hard with the player's schedule working in cultural practices?

Matt Leis: 21:00

Not really, because actually that's a good thing to explain, just like our general calendar of kind of how our facility operates. So if we start in spring training, that's the heavy duty time. We got about 40 to 45 days of. Go time. And that's during that time. Our staff and including myself, we pretty much work every single day. They're not extremely long days. We're not talking 12, 13 hour days. They're just pretty normal days. But we're here all the time. So once we get out of that that 45 day window and teams start to go report to the affiliate, so, you know, aaa, high, low, single what's left is at our facility. Then we go into extended spring training, they call it. And so the minor league players that are left we go through a little bit of a mini season to, that's in April. And then from there, we start what now is called the Arizona Complex League. Historically it was referred to as Rookie Ball, and that starts in May. And that runs till about, we have a few more weeks, about to the end of July, first week in August. But, so during that time we only really have one team on site. So that allows us, is where we did our cultural practice in that may through kind of end of July window and we just will, bebop team will bebop what field is available around, which is very convenient. And another thing we've done too is we've actually not over-seed a couple of our surfaces as well. So then that's allowed us to kind of force activity as the Bermuda wakes up to those surfaces, we can focus on some mechanical practices, cultural practices for transition on those other surfaces. Gives us some of that flexibility. And then obviously as we get into the fall. The baseball season's wrapping up in general, but as the affiliate teams finish their seasons, those players report back to our facility. They continue to work out. And also in that time, draftee, I think the draft was last weekend from when we're talking now, draft ease will report and there's kind of a development league that goes on in the fall. Not many games, but that happens. And then kind of end of October as the World Series ends, then activity here really dives off. There's still some guys who are gonna be coming in and doing some medical rehab things. Some voluntary workouts, but no, the months of November and December are very slow here just from a player activity standpoint. And then once we get into January, we'll have some development camps. We'll have strength and conditioning camps, and then we blink. Pitchers and catchers are reporting and we're back into spring training from there again. So that's our typical calendar. But we fit those cultural practices in pretty easily. We're fortunate with that, just'cause we have the space. Our whole thing is if we don't have to do anything in that 45 day spring training window and we're pretty much just making sure the grass is cut, the fields are ready, that's our main focus. Then we can really hit all that other stuff at other times. But going back to the not overs, seeding a couple surfaces that we kind of had that little bit of a brainchild, if you want to call it.'cause we had one of our fields that we only got used during that 45 day period. So we're like, we think it could survive if we just didn't oversee it. We paint and pigment it for the color aspect and then it would transition obviously. A hundred percent very quickly.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 24:20

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 24:20

we tried that one year, we did another service this past year. We, and the organization has responded very well to it. They've been very happy with the result. And so we're gonna keep looking at that and how we can maybe expand that.'cause we really want just similar to the golf course, we want green all year long. We want the ability for recovery all year long. But with the transition and when it happens, that's the heart of this regular season for baseball. So then with that, then we run into some of that compaction issue, that traffic issue. And so suddenly you transition and. There's not a lot of turf left in certain areas, and that's not a good look. So we we continue to try to adapt and learn what, especially this facility is giving us every year. And, you know, obviously a lot of weather dependent and everything like that, but, you know, we I'm just thinking of other kind of similarities and differences as we I, I deal with more debris in cutting units here than I did at the golf course.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 25:20

Wow. Okay.

Matt Leis: 25:21

little metal spikes off of baseball cleats are not my friend.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 25:25

Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 25:27

And they're just tough enough that they will do some good damage. And it's that, that's been the kind of, my big enemy when it comes to, obviously, security in our job and position, that's why we're here. But that, that's been a common thing where we'll probably go I think at least once a month we'll find one.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 25:47

Oh wow.

Matt Leis: 25:48

it's and it usually, it's never that drastic. It's a quick touchup grind and we're back out and going again. But like this past week we, we had one where it caught one mower. We searched for it, we couldn't find it. Couple days later. Then when we were re mowing it again, it caught another one. So, but thankfully we found it on the second go. But we, but outside, out, outside of that it's just are, the schedule is so based on what the teams need. But we're also very flexible wi with us. And actually one thing going from you know, typical golf course schedule, you're starting at 5:00 AM in the summer months and you're done early in the day, things like that. Well, with we play night games for our team that we host here. So our crew doesn't come in until 10:00 AM. So I match that. I come in around the same time and so working that, having the morning at home is, was different and it was good to get used to. You're able to knock out some stuff which is convenient in the mornings and especially here down in the Phoenix area. Obviously we get very hot in the summer months. We had a one 20 day last week.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 26:57

Wow.

Matt Leis: 26:58

But getting getting stuff done in the morning at my house, even just mowing the lawn or getting in the pool, going get in the pool cleaned up or whatever it would happen to be. It's nice having that in the morning. And then and I'm very fortunate. I have a fully climate controlled shop here. That, so I kind of live life at 75 degrees, 365. So it works out too.'cause even when it's obviously very hot outside I can still get things done in here no problem. Which is a huge thing. And it's obviously a very huge benefit. I'm very thankful that somebody put that in the construction

Trent Manning, CTEM: 27:33

Yeah, for sure.

Matt Leis: 27:34

But we but yeah, outside of that, it's similar and different, but like I said earlier, the traffic is the big thing that that I've seen where it just, so we do more spot verification. That's the biggest difference. We do a lot of needle timing. We do, we pull cores more often on our heavier traffic areas. And so it's just kind of more continuing doing that on a continuing basis versus just, you know, big major events at one time. And that's more what we focus on is we do cultural practices more often, just less aggressive. Where when you're at the golf course, we would have our five day closure and we would, you'd go to town on everything. We're here, we kind of just throughout the year, just kind of pick pick at things to still get to the same end result. But it's just more on that little bit more often kind of schedule.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 28:25

Right, right, right, right. So I did spend four years building sports fields before I ended up back at the golf course. And when you were talking about dialing in the cone laser yeah. With that little knob and there's no graduations really. Yeah. And yeah, just tweak it a little bit, tweak it a little bit so I know exactly what you're talking about. That was cool to think back on. And the guy I worked for, he said The worst thing you can do for the grass on a sports field is paint a line. And you're talking about traffic because if there's a line there, that's where the coaches line the players up. You know, this is where we're gonna do this drill. This is the worst thing you could do. And then we used to fight it a good bit'cause we also maintained fields at the time with the marching band. They would get out there with all the lines on the field and march up and down the lines. Yeah. So anyway stuff that we don't really think about, you know, on a golf course.'cause we don't have many lines out there.

Matt Leis: 29:33

Yeah. And the, actually now one thing I thought of difference wise is we do have one artificial surface here.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 29:40

Okay.

Matt Leis: 29:40

so, so one of our full fields is a, is an artificial artificial field and it's full artificial outside of the pitching mound. So that's been a learning curve as well, because if you really do artificial turf, right, there's a lot of labor that's involved in it.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 29:56

Oh yeah, for

Matt Leis: 29:56

And that's kinda lost on people sometimes. And our artificial surface doesn't get heavily trafficked, like say a high school would or public parks would. But. It's still like weekly grooming more monthly heavy grooming. And then we do have a Verti top 1800 made by Red Dum, which that's one of those machines that has the rakes, has the brush, a vacuum. It pulls all those infill up, sifts through it, gets the trash out of it, lays it all back down. And two, like you gotta kind of water it too to get the surface settled back in. So we have these big water cannons that are set up on that field. They're pretty impressive. They shoot like 140 feet.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 30:39

That is

Matt Leis: 30:39

and so, but like, yeah, that, that's been a learning curve as well. Something I would've not even like considered at first. You just kind of think it's there, but if you want to do it right, there's a lot that goes into it.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 30:52

Well, I remember hearing about people having to spray the field for like staph infections and, you know, different stuff like that you can get from the synthetic field because there's no organisms in there eating the bad stuff.

Matt Leis: 31:11

Yeah. And we haven't had we have testing done on our surface every single year. And that is actually one thing they test for is situations like that. But yeah, there's especially like I had said at, when you're talking about school districts and public parks and all that, there's all, there's so much more mitigation things you gotta do than you'd even consider.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 31:33

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, back to the oversee, when do y'all do that practice?

Matt Leis: 31:39

Si similar when we did at the golf course, kind of in that October window when I was at my previous golf course was a 27 hole property. So our oversea window was pretty spread out. But we get the whole facility done in during a week. We do kind of a surface a day kind of, kind of situation. And then that's one reason we have the artificial field is so there is an available surface for players to work out on and to get some training done on. And, you know, similar groins, very similar. All that's very similar to when it was at the, when we were at the golf course here in the in the Phoenix area. But we but like I said earlier, now that we've taken. And two additional surfaces. We haven't over-seed, so we have half the site available for players to use. So we've actually seen an uptick in voluntary workouts during that time because guys can actually work out on grass

Trent Manning, CTEM: 32:31

Oh, nice.

Matt Leis: 32:32

it over the artificial. So that's that's been a big thing in the past past year that with oversee that we've seen has been a positive with going that route of overseeing less surfaces.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 32:43

I don't, have you got any pushback, I guess from. Like the city of Phoenix and overseeing and water use and all those things.

Matt Leis: 32:55

You know, that's a, you know, interesting topic when it comes across the whole state of Arizona. I'm not, I will preface this with, I'm no expert in this. This is just kind of my observation and what I've heard. The Arizona Department of Water Resources has made a little bit of a push and trying to keep golf and sports fields and municipalities more accountable for their water use and things that need to be reported. And that's for us. We are connected just to city water for our irrigation. So we're not as scrutinized because the city has full documentation on what we're using. They more are focusing on, you know, facilities that have their own wells and also facilities that pull out of, directly out of the canal for Central Arizona project and the Arizona Canal as well. And so there, that has, that was a big hub of a couple years ago. But it has kind of, the conversation is not as hot as it was a few years ago. We've had some good winters the past couple winters. So reservoirs are a lot more full in the state of Arizona. So the topic is not as widely discussed as it was for a while.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 34:04

Okay. Yeah I know that was hot topic there for a while, so I was just curious. Yeah. The, what was happening now I, well, tell us about, you're still pursuing your EMCP and CEM certification.

Matt Leis: 34:21

I am, and that's when I first made the transition I maintained my GCs a membership that first year.'cause I had some time left on it, and I just kind of let it peter out. I, you know, I was, had some things I was focused on here. And then I had looked into, there is a sports field you know, the SFMA, sports Field Management Association very similar to G-C-S-A-A, but just for the sports fielding ground side of things. They offer certification similar to superintendent certifications, but they're obviously, they have nothing based directly for equipment. And that's actually one thing quick to discuss is that my role being directly affiliated with a organization is. Kind of unique because a lot of the clubs across Major League Baseball, for example, they partner with a municipality and they rent or lease facilities for spring training and for their player development facilities. So they might somebody who would be either in a head equipment manager role or a head mechanic role, they would more than likely be a city employee and not only overseeing equipment for sports fields, but then probably for all of the parks and recreation department. Or they'd be a subset of the street department that's focused on the parks and rec or, so something similar to that. But, so that kind of got me thinking. I still wanna, wanted to pursue that. I, you know, you never know where the road takes you. You might end up back, I might end up back in golf someday whatever it happened to be. So I had reached out to GCSA and I just inquired like, oh, can I. Still be a member. I just started with that and you know, looking through the criteria, oh yeah, I could still be an equipment manager member. I still met the criteria of my role and the duties I had. So I continued with that. And then I had inquired about the CMP and then cem if I could do that. And they're like. Yeah, I don't see why you couldn't. And that's actually stated in the criteria is that if your role is still similar in nature you can still go and pursue that. So, currently in the process of trying to do my CMPs, I want those done by the end of 2025. With football season it's gonna get a little busy, but then hopefully kind of that slower time here in our off season in November, December, I'm really gonna focus on that. And then for 26, that's my goal is to get CT EM certified. And you know, the G-C-S-A-A, when we talked about it, they had said that if I get this done probably pretty soon here, I'll be the first CE outside of golf.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 36:51

How cool would that be?

Matt Leis: 36:52

that,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 36:52

be awesome, man.

Matt Leis: 36:53

And I think too, just from a advocation standpoint, like when we talk about getting, people into the industry, new people into the industry you know, that maybe you could see that there's another opportunity again, if you wanna, if you do wanna work on equipment, but, and maybe golf isn't your cup of tea, like we still could maybe get somebody to get experience into a place such as our facility or another type of sports field and grounds across the country, and that could lead'em back into golf or if it's with a distributor or any way other forms. So when I kind of started those discussions, it kind of reignited that fire and drive wanting to do that.'cause when I had left the golf course, that was right when I was hopping into it, I'd study guides and all that stuff. And then I came here and I, you know, I mean, rightfully so, you want to dedicate yourself to your, whatever new place you go to. I'm really fortunate the organization has a continuing education program where those costs are gonna be able to be covered. And, you know, they're very nominal costs, you know, as well for getting study guides, taking the tests and everything else. So, the organization was very excited for me when I had put my proposal together to get the funds to do that. And so, yeah, I'm really looking forward to pursuing and getting this done. Hopefully in the next next year here.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 38:09

No, that is awesome. And I remember when, you know, all of us was talking about it and, you know, creating the EMCP exams and that stuff. We definitely kept a position like yours in mind, you know,'cause we didn't want to just, you know, pigeonhole into golf. You know, and same thing with, we didn't want it just to be something that only a technician in the United States could get. You know, we wanted it to be open to Canada and the UK and to the whole world. It is kind of confusing a little bit with, it's the. Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, but they are a national association and you know, we wanted to keep all that in mind. So I think it's awesome that you're doing that. And I'm really pulling for you. I hope you, I hope you're the first one for sure. Yeah, and you definitely have to let me know'cause I'll go back on the episode and change your title and

Matt Leis: 39:14

Oh, there.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 39:15

put those pretty letters on there. I try to keep up with that every time I, like if I've interviewed somebody Yeah. And they get their C 10 later I try to go back and put that on the website and on the episode. Let's talk about the Toro Grounds Leadership Academy that you got to go to. What was that all about?

Matt Leis: 39:39

Yeah, a few weeks ago I participated in that so Toro they put on down, I think this was the fourth annual if I'm correct. And so they call it the Grounds Leadership Academy, and they bring in sports field and grounds professionals from all across the country in partnership with their distributors to bring'em together. It was kind of a combination of some soft skills training, so like training and leadership activities. And then also, there was also a, you know, an equipment side a little bit in innovation where things are going in the industry. And it was just a, you know, a kind of a big networking event as well. So I was very fortunate that I was asked asked by a regional regional sales representative for Toro, Matt Anderson. He's based in Tucson, Arizona. Him and I have gotten to know each other since I've been here. And then our distributor, Simpson Norton they supported me as well going to that. And so that was a four day long event up in Bloomington and Minnesota at Toro headquarters. We had gotten in on Monday and then the first thing we did is we had went and we saw the Minnesota Vikings training facility that they have in Eagan, Minnesota. Very cool facility that they have there. And, their head of grounds for them. He not only oversees that training facility, but then he oversees US Bank Stadium as well, where they the surface there that they play on for their teams. And so I could see there was a lot of similarities in what we do at our facility here on the baseball side of things to what they have going on there in Minnesota and. So that was really unique to, to be a part of it. And then Tuesday it was more that soft skills training. And so there was a professor who came in from the University of Minnesota and spoke on kind of, making work better. And she was a behavioral psychologist and, you know, talking on different tips and tricks and communication and you know, as a leader, different ways you can communicate. And you know, what's unique for me in my role here is I don't have any direct reports. You know, I'm rolling solo. I'm supporting our team of our field operations staff staff. We thankfully have really good rapport so they can tell me when things are maybe awry. So I can make sure I can take care of those for them so everything's ready at a drop of a hat. But, so it was unique kind of seeing some more communication styles that you can utilize, especially when I may be working with some people up in the clubhouse who are more on our, more of our front office staff and how to communicate. And then there was another presentation which I actually really liked that was on more the finance side of things. And I think we kind of lose sight of that a little bit in our roles. It's just like, here's what we need. And we might pitch that to our director of agronomy and say, all right, yeah, this is what my recommendation is. And then they go from there on. The financial side of it and how to pitch it to ownership groups and general managers and whoever else. So, I have some experience with that being that I have an accounting degree from back in the day. But that was good. And really how to speak the language of finance and accounting on what you're needing and what you present to either an ownership group or if it's a park board a university purchasing, procurement department, whatever it would happen to be. So that was a unique thing and we did some some other fun things throughout the day there. And then we got to go to a St. Paul Saints game, though the AAA affiliate for the Minnesota Twins. They have a gorgeous facility in downtown St. Paul. So that was a very fun social event to go to. Then Wednesday was heavy on the more my world on the equipment side of things. They talked about you know, their, kind of the innovation and research and development process. And I had been up to Toro's technician training back in 2020, right before the world shut. That was obviously technical based. We talked electrical diagnostics, hydraulic diagnostics, those kinds of things where this more was just kinda where they believe the industry is going. You know, electrification was a big topic. Autonomy, you know, autonomous equipment is a big topic, but just seeing the timeline of when an idea starts and then when it comes to a finished product was a very fascinating timeline. It's a long time and you can understand the overhead aspect that goes into it. And then also that day we did a research and development facilities tour, which I'd been on before. It was interesting seeing a couple of the little minor changes that they had going. And then we had a field day that day where we got onto some equipment some new things, some electric things. I gotta get on a vent track for the first time. I'd never been on one of those

Trent Manning, CTEM: 44:13

Nice. Yep.

Matt Leis: 44:14

taking that thing down, a 35 degree slope straight on and stopping in the middle and being able to reverse out of it was pretty darn unique. Not we don't really have an application here for that being flat fields, but we have one little minor hill called the Pictures Mound. But. That was unique scene. And then some of the, even some of the irrigation stuff they had showed us.'cause their irrigation products are, you know, very vast. And it covers obviously all the way down to the homeowner residential, to the golf course side. But they're trying to gear a line of products that's more towards the sports field and ground side, but still has some of that controllability that we have in golf as well. So, those are very unique to see. And then on the last day it was more about kind of, kind of creating your brand in a sense. You know, how to use social media to not only, communicate to your external stakeholders if it's industry peers or anything like that, but your internal stakeholders, your ownership groups but then too, maybe soon to be employees. They found a lot of people talked about,'cause there's about 30 people who are a part of this from, we're talking university athletic grounds managers to just parks and recreation grounds managers. And, you know, some minor league baseball folks pro baseball, other pro sports, football, soccer. So it was a very diverse group on where people were coming from. But people talked about, like, I wouldn't even think about it, but like. Having a good TikTok account might get you employees for the summer

Trent Manning, CTEM: 45:49

Yeah.

Matt Leis: 45:50

They just see what you're doing and they find it very unique. And you know, one thing I had talked about during that session is how, like I still use Twitter for my main or ex the app former known as Twitter as my main form of kind of keeping connected a little bit beyond our WhatsApp group that we're a part of. And, but like they, they pointed out for me how I always kind of thread it where I like start with my problem. I go through my process of you know, kind of finding the cause, going through the correction and then confirming a situation. And so that was unique to share my kind of process why I do that. And some people in the room found that very interesting. But yeah, it was a great networking experience.'cause I really, before that hadn't been, I really hadn't networked with anybody in the sports field and ground side. So even there was two people who were, who I met there, who are just down the road here and would've, you know, never really would've probably made that connection because we all live in our own little worlds. It's very similar to the golf course setting. So especially for me'cause there's not, there's only a couple other. Equipment technicians on the sports field side in town, everybody else you know, is in golf. And and I really hadn't made those real connections either before I had left golf. So, it was a great thing from that aspect. And then networked with people from across the country, made some, you know, new acquaintances, new friends people, you know, you'll probably touch base and chat with,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 47:20

No, that is awesome. Will you go to the FSMA?

Matt Leis: 47:23

I've thought about it. And actually that was actually part of the discussion I had with a couple people at that Toro event is they maybe want they wanna have somebody speak more the equipment side of things. They really haven't had that especially recently. And so, we've been in discussions where I might do some classroom sessions on on more of the equipment side of things and preventative maintenance treating your equipment more as assets than just tools. And kind of, and what we had talked about too is, you know, there's a lot of sports fields that use real mowers, but there's a lot of outside of them sending them to their distributor to go get reground. That, that more regular daily cutting unit maintenance they're just kind of unfamiliar with. So maybe doing a session, more of a deep dive on general cutting, cutting unit upkeep and adjustment. That's something. Those are some things we've discussed and so I'm looking forward to it. The hard thing is when that lands is right when we got things kicking off, typically here for spring training. So it's just a little bit of a calendar dance to potentially make something like that work.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 48:30

Gotcha. Yeah, I actually spoke at SFMA in Palm Springs in January on cutting unit maintenance.

Matt Leis: 48:39

Alright. There you

Trent Manning, CTEM: 48:40

yeah, and I don't, there's probably 70, 75 people in our room and there was one guy that had a grinder. Everybody else outsourced their grinding, which is kind of understandable. And I do think a lot of those people. It's might be the head field guy slash mechanic slash irrigation tech slash you know, he's wearing all the hats at, you know, a lot of, especially municipalities and a lot of those places. So, but it was pretty eyeopening that, you know, not too many grinders out there in sports fields.

Matt Leis: 49:25

man, we, us having, we have a full, fully set here, a 6 53 and a 6 73. And that was even my perspective was skewed before I went up to Toro and got to meet those 30 people and we started talking about it and I'm like, yeah when I hit a metal cleat, I just grind it. We send it back out and they're like, oh if we do that. But depending on the time of year, it's a minimum of three days and then it could be a week if

Trent Manning, CTEM: 49:52

Oh

Matt Leis: 49:52

busy. So, and I, one thing I talked extensively with one guy was about having maintenance cutting units and making that investment and having an extra set. But yeah that's very cool that you were able to go do that for

Trent Manning, CTEM: 50:04

Yeah. No, it was awesome. I would love to do it again. Anything like that. And I probably rotary too would be something good to, I think, touch on for SFMA. Lot of opportunities there

Matt Leis: 50:18

yeah. And the other thing I thought about was kind of coming up with a a tips and tricks of how to still get the maintenance side of things done for your equipment when you don't have the space. I am very unique here. I have. 3000 square feet to myself to maintain equipment, let alone our 15,000 square foot building. Most people are working out of a closet when you really

Trent Manning, CTEM: 50:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Leis: 50:41

And so if it's all right, having a little ramp to just get your cut units up a little bit in the air so you can do a quick adjustment check and height check all, or you know, for many of the different aspects. I think there's probably a lot of really good ideas out there. And consolidating and presenting those could benefit that group a lot.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 51:00

I, no, that would be an excellent idea.'cause I remember, like when I was working with the, to distributor, I had a set of car ramps that I would carry in the van with me. So if I had to work on a triplex, like a 26, you know, 53 or old Toro two 16 you know, and back up those ramps so you get to that center cutting unit, you know, without getting it on a lift or something. Because yeah, a lot of these people, they don't have lifts, you know, especially municipalities and some of those top places. So, yeah, I mean, that would be a really good idea. Lemme know if you need help with it.

Matt Leis: 51:40

Will do. Yeah. If that all kind of comes to fruition a little bit and you know, kind of,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 51:45

ideas out there.

Matt Leis: 51:46

and kind of going back to, you know, what kind of the typically, and again unique here, you think about a typical head groundskeeper at a major league ballpark. They got the one surface, but there's so many other things that go on, not only from a game aspect, but then all the other events and everything else. Like their variety of what they deal with Huge. And that's one thing coming from golf. We have member guests, we have big charity events. We have, we, you might be a part of a club that hosts professional event, but like, it's golf. I mean, that's really what we're only dealing with, where the sports field people and grounds people across the country when they're dealing with concerts, graduations you know, they'll do the, like, setting up like a golf driving range at a baseball field event. Kind of like they got to so many different things they deal with. And that's the uniqueness here where we're fortunate we just deal with baseball and it's just baseball on a bigger scale scale. So it's interesting getting to know more people and the real problems they deal with compared to what we do here.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 52:58

Oh yeah. Yeah. So I got a guy that I've got to know, and he's here with the Georgia SFMA, and I've tried to help them out with some training stuff and it's like that. But anyway, super good guy. And he works for a private high school. And it's amazing every time I talk to him, like, what are you doing today? Oh, the creek flooded. And I mean, you know, it's just like nothing to do with sports fields. Right. You know, it's every, everything else. But I think a lot of the golf people can understand that too. And I think the sports field people are very similar, where we're kind of the go-to people if you need something done, yeah. Go over to the grounds people, they'll get it done. Whether it be sports fields or golf course or whatever.

Matt Leis: 53:45

A great like recent example in the past year with that is our two main, our two game fields we have here had concrete seating bowls. And, you know, they'd gotten quotes during construction about putting seat backs in, all that kind of stuff. And oh, so then it there was an email that went out in the organization. They were doing a seat renovation up at Oracle Park where a major league team plays in San Francisco. And so then that turned into, Hey Matt, do you think you could figure out a way if we got seats from Oracle Park, if we could install'em in our seating bowls? And it's like, all right, let's figure it out. And then next thing I know I've I've installed, like, I think I'm at 225 seats so far.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 54:25

Oh, nice. Awesome.

Matt Leis: 54:26

But the really unique thing about that is those seats were original seats out of Oracle Park. So they have seen. World Series Championships. They've seen you know, all star games. They've seen they've seen, you know, even think, going back to Barry Bonds, beating the home run record, all those kinds of situations, like, they're kind of, they're historically kind of significant when it comes to the organization. So having them here is really cool that there's that piece of history with it. And two, for our players, like when they're sitting in those seats they're sitting kind of amongst the history of the organization, which is a really cool thing. But yeah that's, there's been all those little side projects we've come up with like even making different training needs for for coaches, you know, like they want to take a base and they want certain areas painted on'em. Or they want the base to be in a different position or we've had, like making a home plate with certain, like baseballs to like just have a descriptive thing they can show players and what they're trying to point, they're trying to get across. Yeah. All the, that's, and we always talk about that. We talked about the last time we talked just about how so many people say it's the, our favorite thing is that we don't know what we're gonna get every day. It's the

Trent Manning, CTEM: 55:35

Oh

Matt Leis: 55:36

day and the variability and all that. And that's still, that still is true here, where we, you get that variety all the time.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 55:44

yeah. No, that's awesome. Yeah. I wanna say one of the strangest, I mean, I've done a lot of strange stuff, I guess over the years, but sports related I was tasked with installing start. Blocks around our Olympic swimming pool that they had to be changed out. So, you know, we had to core the concrete, epoxy'em in and all. Yeah. It's like, how's this equipment manager stuff. But I mean that's, you know, it makes it fun, right? Changes the day up. Get to do, see something different.

Matt Leis: 56:19

And I know those types of projects, just like the seats, those are ones you'd go back and see later and you go, I did that. Like,

Trent Manning, CTEM: 56:27

Yeah. No, that's

Matt Leis: 56:28

cool. Like I would've never expected I was gonna do that, but I did it and it looks pretty good

Trent Manning, CTEM: 56:34

Yeah, it worked out. All right.

Matt Leis: 56:36

and those are always good, seeing those reminders from time to time.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 56:40

Well, so we got a four face clock at our putting green that I installed. I don't know if it was last year, the year before. So yeah. Anyway, every time I see that clock, I'm like, yep. Did that, that worked good. Cool stuff. You wanna do some rapid fire?

Matt Leis: 56:57

Sure.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 56:59

What's your favorite movie?

Matt Leis: 57:01

The original top gun is high up there for me.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 57:04

Oh yeah. Well, what'd you think about Maverick?

Matt Leis: 57:06

I enjoyed Maverick. I think I hyped it up too much in my head going

Trent Manning, CTEM: 57:10

Okay.

Matt Leis: 57:11

But that was that was one movie. Like I, I went and saw it in theaters on my own. I was my wife was out of town on a business trip, and I'm like, I can't I'm gonna go check this out. It was really cool still though, but I really liked it.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 57:25

That was good. Good. What would be your last meal?

Matt Leis: 57:29

Ribeye, potatoes and asparagus.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 57:32

I love it. Sounds great. And I'm really hungry too. What are you most proud of besides your family?

Matt Leis: 57:39

I think taking a leap of faith into a new kind of unknown when I got into the golf industry initially. I talk with a lot of my friends who. I kind of thought I was crazy leaving a somewhat stable job in the business aviation industry to go find something that I love and I know I'm I don't know how the same goes about. You know, you never work a day if you love what you're doing, kind of thing, actually, and I feel like I found that.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 58:07

That's awesome, man. Yeah, you can't be, I mean, what else could you be proud of? If you can't be proud of that? That is, that's super cool. Good for you. And I mean, I agree. Yeah. You find what you like. It's I mean, I enjoy going to work every day. I really do. And a lot of times I'm on there on the weekends because I enjoy it, not because. The boss says, you need to be here. You know, and I, fortunate enough at where I'm at, I get to, I got some of my stuff there, like a meal and a lay that I brought in, and I get to tinker, you know, and do other stuff. It's like my little playground.

Matt Leis: 58:44

And it's similar to me where I find myself coming in here on a Saturday or a Sunday at random times all the time, and it's about a 25 minute drive from my house, so it's not like it's right next door. But two, I'm fortunate I get to bring my get to bring my dogs with me pretty regularly to work. So when it's 110 degrees outside it's a benefit to be able to bring them down here. They can a run around in the shop, but then get'em out on the fields run around in a safe place too, that's all fenced in and everything else. I would find myself doing that way more often than I would've thought I would've.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 59:22

Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, not that it's the same, but I used to bring my girls when they were younger to the shop all the time, and they helped me do whatever they would get on the equipment lift, ride it up and down as many times as I wanted to. The buttons drive a golf cart around and around the shop. You know, I wouldn't let em go out on the course, but I'm like, you drive around the shop and I mean, like, my oldest daughter, and she was probably 12 or whatever she would do lap after lap. And then I said, all right, honey, it's time to go. So, oh, come on dad, just one more lap. I'm like, you've done 35 laps. You know what, why do you wanna do one more? But anyway and I think it helped'em driving too, like,

Matt Leis: 1:00:07

Oh, I bet it

Trent Manning, CTEM: 1:00:07

getting their license, you know, I mean, gives you spatial awareness and. You know, you learn your right from your left and all those fun things. It's good stuff man. Good stuff. Well thank you so much for being on Matt, and if you need help putting together tips and tricks, let me know'cause I want to

Matt Leis: 1:00:24

Yeah, for sure.

Trent Manning, CTEM: 1:00:24

to SFMA for sure. I'd be happy to help you.

Matt Leis: 1:00:29

All right. Well, thanks again, Trent. I was glad to touch base with you all again and again, this was great. And again, looking forward to continuing. I'm a very regular listener, obviously still stay in touch and active in the WhatsApp group. And so again, thank you so much for having me.

Trent Manning: 1:00:49

thank you so much for listening to the Reel turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don't forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you'd like to discuss, or you'd like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at Reel turf techs.