Ryan Bjorn

Jeremy Perkins 0:00
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Ryan Bjorn 0:13
All right. On this episode of bucket talk, we're here with Ryan Bjorn. He's the field superintendent for the New England Patriots. Gillette Stadium, the New England Revolution. Welcome. Thanks for Thanks for being here. So this is, this is a pretty prestigious job. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's only, there's only 30 of them in the world. When you think about it, as far as NFL stadiums, there's 30 NFL stadiums. And we're pretty unique in that, in that world as well, because we've got the stadium, we have the practice facility for the football team and the practice facility for the soccer team as well. Holy cow. So I want to, kind of, you know, we're here, we're going to be talking about this, but I kind of want to, you know, pull back the curtain on, you know, how you got, how you got here. You're originally from Maine. Originally from Maine, yep, born and raised in Old Town Maine, which is up in Central Maine. My mom's side of the family is from up in potato farming country up in, up in Easton, up in the county. And then, yeah, my most my family has moved down to Southern Maine now, but yeah, grew up in, grew up in the paper mill town, okay, all right. And then through high school you were doing. What were you doing for work? Yeah, my first ever job was painting the houses with my basketball coach in the summers. That didn't last very long for me. And then I actually jumped on at a hardware store in Old Town. That was my first real job. Worked on that while I was in high school. And then I jumped on at Bangor municipal golf course, little Muni up in Bangor, 27 holes, just as a summer job. I liked being outside, like working with my hands, and you know, was just working part time shifts there, working summers there, and that's kind of where I found out about turf management in general, yeah. But then, you know, school didn't go directly into turf in school. But yeah. So then when you graduated high school and you were kind of looking to advance your career, you know that whole landscaping, working with your hands. Stuff piqued your interest. What was your degree in? Yeah, so I, after I left school, I went to a small college in Vermont, Vermont Technical College and the you know, for a couple different reasons. One, because I could continue my quote, unquote, basketball career. I was able to play hoops there, and I originally went there for landscape design and ornamental horticulture. My buddy and I had grand plans to open our own landscaping business after college, and so I ended up getting my associate's degree in landscape design and ornamental horticulture. While I was at Vermont, though, I went to a big landscaping trade conference in Boston. It's called New England grows, and one of the keynote speakers was Dave Miller, who, at the time, was the head groundskeeper for the Red Sox, and his presentation was really interesting. Kind of piqued my interest. Obviously, I've been a Sox fan my whole life, and kind of seeing behind the curtain of what they do there opened my eyes to the sports turf side of things, because I'd known about the golf course superintendents and agronomy on that side, but I didn't really think about it as a sports turf career. So learning about that, and I ended up transferring to UMass after I got my Associates in Vermont and did four years at UMass, I went to the stock Bridge School of Agriculture to get my associate's degree in turf management, yep. And then they have a cool program there where you could transfer into the four year program at UMass. And so I got a four year plant and science, Plant and Soil Science bachelor's with a concentration in turf management. So, yeah, kind of been wildered the college experience a little bit, but it was, it was well worth it. Wouldn't change anything. So forgive me for saying this. You said something that I have no idea, but all that could come to mind was, like bonsai trees, ornamental hortic horticulture. What is that? Yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's, that's one aspect ornamental horticulture is just kind of like the, you know, the artistic side of landscape design. And so it's like when we would have classes on, on, you know, woody ornamentals, IDing plants, but we'd also have art classes and design classes, architecture classes. So it's really just kind of all encompassing when it comes to the design and everything that comes with the landscape plan. Cool, cool. So, UMass, you You graduated, and then, you know, what was, what was the first job? How did you apply? Yeah. So, while I was at UMass, I ended up, you know, you do an internship. You joined the Turf Club as freshmen. And, you know, they give you all these internship opportunities of upperclassmen that have experience, and there are a lot of golf course guys, and it's still in our industry. It's primarily golf course superintendents, but I did my first internship at Fenway that was always my goal is to get right into sports surf. Had a great connection with the assistant superintendent at the time, Jason Griffith, a fellow county boy from Maine. He's from caribou, so I think he that's how I kind of slipped my way in there and got that internship, and ended up working there all four years. While I was at UMass, we'd work summers, and there was a group of us from UMass, both turf students and not that would drive back and forth on weekends, spring break, and we just worked there the whole time. So I stayed on it. Fenway after I graduated UMass, finished a baseball season in 2010 and didn't have a.

Ryan Bjorn 5:00
Full time job, yet he was good friends with the current superintendent here at Gillette, and so he brought me on here as a part time field crew member for the end of the football season in 2010 Yeah. So I had some really good experience. Loved working with John in that short period of time. And then when the football season ended, it was a temporary position. And luckily, there was a full time position opened in Maryland at a soccer complex called the Maryland Soccer Complex. Yep, and it's a 24 field facility, massive complex, 21 natural grass fields, three artificial fields, and I started on there. They hired me as assistant manager in training, so kind of bottom rung as far as full time, and was able to work my way up over the next three or four years. And when the director of agronomy there left, they hired me on as director, and stayed on as director there until I came up here in 2019 cool. So walk me through a day in the life with the Red Sox, and then how it compares to the Patriots in the revolution. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, at least when I was there, you know, I don't know how much things have changed, but in general, baseball is a grind. 82 home season home regular season games is just a huge amount of work in itself. But then most stadiums, just like ours, are now event based stadiums, so you have concerts, you know, softball, corporate events, all that stuff too, but a day to day, you know, on a game day, you're in pretty early, seven o'clock first pitch, or whatever you're probably in, you know, there's sometimes they split crews. So you might be on the early crew, six, 7am prepping the mound, prepping the plate from the night before, mowing, painting lines, you know, just doing everything that you normally would do to get a field ready. Then you get into the game day stuff where you're setting up BP. You know, if, if the visiting team wants to take BP, you have to take that into account. And then game time is, obviously, you're out there doing all the pre game work, your third, fifth and seventh inning, doing your drags during the game, and then post game cleanup as well. So, you know it's, it could be 1215, hour day, no problem. Awesome, awesome. So, you know, turf and grass? Yeah, what is, what is preferred by most athletes. I mean, it's so hard to say, you know, I think the general consensus, if you ask most people, that they prefer natural grass. But I'll say, you know, I prefer natural grass. It's what I went to school for, it's it's everything that I learned about. And so when we have our three natural grass practice fields for football, three natural grass fields, practice fields for the soccer scene. That's where I spend most of my time, and that's where we focus a lot of our efforts as a crew. But at the same time, the artificial field, the game field, and also the auxiliary soccer field we have, they need to be in good shape. They need to be safe, they need to be playable, and they need to look good, especially obviously the stadium field, whether it's a revs game or a Patriots game, you got millions of people that are watching at home. And then obviously my thing, and the thing that I love, is that experience of the person who's never been to a game here before, and they walk into the stadium, and they walk out the concourse and they see that field, we want it to look good and present Well, for those people to make an impact when they get here, that's cool. So you handle everything from, you know, striping to, you know, up here. We get, we get weather so, you know, snow removal and all that stuff down to, you know, just making sure that the grass and the turf look fantastic. So that's a full time job seven days a week. Yeah, I would say most, most weeks, at seven days a week, in some capacity, and maybe just especially during the summer, when things are hot and dry, or if you have high disease, pressure, or whatever it is, you may have to commit and do some checks, make sure irrigation ran, make sure there's no issues. But yeah, like this week, for example, we had a Patriots game this past Sunday. We started scrubbing the logos throughout the week, because we have revolution, revolution two games. So today's Thursday, we have revolution two game. On Friday, we have to make sure the football lines are all gone, the soccer lines are there. For that. We have a revolution, first team game Saturday night at 730 and then we have a Patriots game the next day at one o'clock in the afternoon. So that means we're here overnight. As soon as that soccer games over, we're flipping that field out. We're getting all the soccer elements off, we're scrubbing those lines, and then we start painting football. And we have to turn the field over to the league at 9am on Sunday. And you do this with a crew of how many. We have a full time staff of seven. So I have myself. I have two assistant superintendents, one that oversees the football training fields, one oversees the soccer training fields, and then four other full time guys. Wow, wow. So these guys must be dialed Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, I say it a lot, and it probably, probably not enough at the end of the day, but we have an incredible crew here. You know, we've still, we've stolen both of our assistants from the golf world. So, you know, we're trying to open people's eyes to the fact that sports surf is a really great opportunity. And you know, the other full time guys we have, we have a couple who were, you know, part time employees at the stadium that had just expressed interest in what we did at the field crew, and we brought them on, and they've been rock stars. Yeah, we had two full time guys that had no turf background whatsoever, really fell in love with it. We brought them out to the national sports surf conference, and they really kind of have, have bought in, yeah, and so they, we actually provided them to be able to get their winter turf school certificate. So they went to winter turf school with Ohio State, got their certificate, and.

Ryan Bjorn 10:00
Now. Now they're they're turf people, so Wow. You know, we love that how bought in our staff is. And as long as these weeks and as long as these days can be, we try and make it fun. We try and keep it light hearted, and do our best to have a good time. Now, you you lightly touched on it, but the makeup of the guys, you know, some people have college background, some people come from the landscaping and hard scaping industry, and then some just have no experience and just want to try it out. So you got a good mix of people exactly, and that's, that's what it's all about. For me, with a crew is, like, you want to make sure that you have a wide variety of people on your staff. Yeah, you have 10 guys are all the exact same. It's going to get monotonous. People are going to get on each other's nerves and, like, I mean, obviously that happens anyway when you work an 80 hour week. But you know, you want to have different strengths, different strengths, different weaknesses. You want to be able to have somebody that has a strength in one thing, that can pick up a weakness of someone else and help them learn and improve. And our guys are really good about that. Cool, cool. Now talk us through just like grass in general. So it's you had made mention that a lot of athletes like grass because it's easier on the joints and, you know, it's a little bit more safer, obviously, though, they'll play on turf, but, you know, practicing 567, days a week, they want to, they want to do it on grass. What does it take to maintain a field to their standard kind of from step one? Yeah. I mean, that's a loaded question. There's a lot that goes into it. I mean, it starts with a good base, a good construction of your fields. And we've been lucky here. Last fall, we were able to rebuild our two main football fields, practice fields. And you know, grading is super important because you got to be able to move water, you know, on a day like today, obviously it's pouring down rain here, they could practice outside if they wanted to, because of the work that we've put in. But you know, then you pick your grass variety, you've got blue grasses, rye grasses, all kinds of different varieties of grass that you can choose from. Those are the two that we use primarily here. You know, our soccer facility is almost 100% bluegrass. Football, we start with 100% bluegrass, and we'll throw some rye grass into the mix in the fall, because it germinates and will grow in colder weather and is very quick. So when the guys are out there beating the Fields up, you know, five, six days a week, like you talk about, our goal is to always have new plant material generating all the time. So we're over seeding, or just taking a push spreader and pushing seed, what we call it, down the gut, so essentially, in between the hashes, yeah. And so we're always getting new seed into it, so that it's always germinating, so that we don't completely wear out the fields throughout the year. Yeah. But then you talk about fertilization, cultural practices, you know, chemical applications, whatever it is, you know, we do a lot of soil testing here, so we're figuring out what the soil needs from a nutrient standpoint, and applying our fertilizers and anything else that we're doing based on that, rather than just, you know, whether it's a gut feeling or sticking on a schedule, you know, we'll base what the plant needs, and we'll give it what it needs, rather than just, you know, throw in some fertilizer out, yeah, and then irrigation. So I'm sure it's not unique to this stadium, but you guys use a ton of water to irrigate, and that was kind of built into this plan. You guys have your own reservoir, basically, yeah? So in 2019

Ryan Bjorn 13:00
as part of the construction of a new revolution training facility, they install two new irrigation pumps, which is a massive help for us, because up until that point, we're using a VFD pump on a well, which is just not enough water for, you know, 15 acres of grass. And so we installed two dedicated pumps, one that handles the revolution side of things, one that have handles the Patriot side of things. And they also put in the irrigation pond. So it's a great thing because now we're filling it up on a day like today, and we won't have to use any well water, but we do have a dedicated well just for irrigation if we need it. So in the summer, if we do get really dry and that pond starts to dry out, we can fill that pond with our well water. So we're not we're not using any public water. We're not doing anything like that, but we have everything self contained here at the site that's crazy. And then we when we did our walk and talk, you were talking about how when they installed the revs practice field, that it's heated two natural grass fields that are dedicated just for the first team. One of those has a hydronic heating system, so like a radiant heating, radiant floor at your house, right? It's just that, but on a much larger scale. So we've got 33 miles of Peck swinging that run into that field. And we can keep the soil temps. We measure our temperature at three inches deep in the soil, and we can maintain whatever temperature we want all year. Doesn't matter what the what the ambient air temperature are, we can melt. We've melted 12 to 15 inches of snow in 36 hours. Wow. And it's just trying to get the moisture down through the profile after that. Yep. So what's the what's the thought process behind a heated field? Why not dome? It kind of walk me through that. Yeah. So the the Genesis, and it was all the decisions were made before I got here in in 2019 the insulation was happening when I started. But the background is the soccer season, MLS season in the US is a long season. Starts. Teams report in January. The championship, generally is until December, so it's almost a 1212, month season. Now in New England, obviously we're not getting a lot of grass growing in January, so generally, the team will always go to a warm weather climate for pre season and spend a couple weeks either.

Ryan Bjorn 15:00
Florida or California or wherever it is. The thought behind putting the heating system in on the field was that we could knowing that we can grow grass and keep our maintain our soil temperatures where we need to, that they can stay here and practice in January, and they've done that. They still do go away for some preseason exhibition matches and a couple weeks here and there, but we we're essentially mowing grass and snow storms, if we need to, because we can maintain our soil temperature. It's essentially just a giant heated floor. Yeah, it's just a radiant heating system that's 10 inches below the surface, yeah? And we can maintain that that soil temp anywhere from 6570 degrees, if we need to. So it's awesome, but yeah, so the heating system is it's a really amazing thing. It's taken us a couple years we got it turned on and fired up, literally and figuratively in, like, right after Christmas 2021 Yeah. And it took us a good season, season and a half, to really figure out our maintenance practices when it comes to it, because we've never grown grass here 12 months a year. So our nutrient like, how do we fertilize? How do we maintain our plant growth regulator throughout the winter season, when everything else is dormant. Yeah, the air temperatures are really cold, but the grass is still actively growing. It's it's throwing kind of a wrench into how we do things, but it's been a fun challenge for us to try and figure that out. It sounds like one big science experiment. It is. It really is. I mean that when you when you're talking about turf management and Plant and Soil Science and going to school for that, the background is heavily based in science and some mathematics as well. But it's nice to be able to use a lot of that education that we got and kind of put it, put it into use here when we're talking about stuff like that. Now, I know you got a small group of guys, and sometimes when you have a small group of guys, and you're only focused on your specific area, you know you have institutional knowledge of that, place, in that place only do you do all the groundskeepers, field superintendents talk among teams, and, hey, I got this going on. What do you think I should do here? I mean, is it one big like brotherhood? Big time. It's one of my favorite things about this industry. And it's not even sports field specific. Obviously, we have a lot more. We being sports or advantages. Have a lot more, like you said, institutional knowledge of how to maintain this specific type of grass in these conditions. But even just golf course superintendents, local golf course superintendents, we're sharing equipment. We're talking about challenges like we haven't had. It looks like it's, you know, it's boring today, but we've been in almost a drought situation for the past couple months. Yeah. So like different ways to combat that. And we also have trade organizations. So there's the national sports field Managers Association, which connects all sports field managers of all levels, from, you know, Parks and Rec to schools to public universities professional sports. And then there are local chapters of that too. So there's a New England chapter, New England sports field Managers Association. And even you can get sports specific. Now we have the professional football field managers Alliance, which is a mouthful, but that's all professional football field managers in the country. And we actually hosted the meetings this year here in Foxboro. We had 160

Ryan Bjorn 17:55
Guys, guys and girls that work on the fields in the NFL and other professional sports that are here, and we're bouncing stuff, bouncing ideas, having good talks, and it's a great it's a great kind of brotherhood, like you said, and I know that if I need advice or if I'm having a challenge, there's 1520 guys I can pick up a phone and text or call, and they feel the same way. So So obviously, this is our home team. We love the Patriots, and there's nothing better than Gillette Stadium and what goes on here, but take that out of the equation. What is your favorite from, from your perspective, what is your favorite stadium out there? Whether it's baseball, football, like, what is the one that you're like, ah, that's, that's nice. I wish I could do some of that stuff here. Yeah, I think there's, there's two answers to that question. You know, I think just from my heart, it's probably Fenway, okay, you know? It's just, there's so much history there. I spent a lot of time there, kind of, like developing in my career. And it's just, it's an amazing place. It's pretty special place. But from, like, my turf nerd side of things, it's, it's Arizona and Las Vegas right now because of the way they have their turf systems. So both of those stadiums, they're natural grass fields, but they're in a giant tray, and they can roll that tray outside to maintain so that, if they have events in the stadium, they can take that grass outside, grow and maintain the grass field outside, and then roll it back in on game days. Interesting, yeah. So like that, that type of technology. And then you go into overseas, like Real Madrid's new stadium, they have that. But even on steroids, where it's in, I think it's five panels. The panels run length wise. They split apart, and there's a giant elevator system. So one panel will go down all the way to the bottom. They'll have grow lights and irrigation and everything that goes over top of that. The next one goes down. And it's like a giant like sheet pan in the field that goes down however deep it needs to. And they can maintain that grass. They mow it, irrigate it. They have grow lights underground. So if they have some other event, like an NFL game and at Tottenham, they'll do the same thing, where they can have an artificial field for the game, or if they have, you know, trade show, or whatever other event they have, they can be maintaining the grass either underground or outside.

Ryan Bjorn 20:00
So that you're not damaging the playing service. That's kind of crazy that these elaborate systems that are, you know, constantly changing and evolving, are more cost effective and and maintainable than just like, you know, rolling out new turf or whatever that that they would invent this elevator system and have all this stuff, and that would be more cost effective than I don't, I mean, I can't speak to the finances. I don't know that it's more cost effective. Yeah, I think it's more they're, especially when you're talking about the Premier League, their primary focus is playing surface quality. Yeah? So they're going to spend, they, you know, they would potentially spend more money to maintain that quality, regardless of, you know what it means, operationally, yeah. You know, it's probably, I would say it's almost definitely cheaper to just roll out new sod, but the quality of that field is not going to be as good as if they maintain it the way they do. Yeah, and you went, you went pretty deep into turf management and grass and all that stuff. And I, you know, that's kind of the thesis of why we're sitting down. But you talked about, you guys are an event venue. What kind of challenges does that throw at you? Because that's completely separate of what you went to school for, what you do on a daily basis, and now you throw Garth Brooks in the mix, or Taylor Swift, like, what does that do? Yeah. So that's the, probably the biggest advantage of having an artificial turf stadium field is, you know, the event load that they can put out there without, you know, increasing the risk of field failure or issues on the field is massive. And so our football season with if we have a year where we have two preseason home games, you know our maximum amount of games is probably nine or 10 football games. We have more concerts than that every single year. We have graduations, we have monster trucks, we have super cross we have all these other events that are massive revenue generators, which is key to be able to do what we have to do here, but at the same time, from from a field standpoint, our goal is always safety and playability. So we'll do a lot of work leading into those events to make sure that the field is as prepped as it can be before they start putting the flooring in. And then as soon as they're pulling that flooring out, we're out there with magnets, with sweepers, with grooming brushes to make sure that, you know, we collect any debris that's out there, get the field safe as priority number one. And then esthetics and playability that comes next, with all the grooming that we do and then getting it painted and but we'll have, we had multiple times this year where we would have a concert on a Thursday night. Load out starts immediately after the show. So production comes out, steel comes out, stage comes out, then flooring starts coming out, probably Friday evening, we get access to the field 6am on Saturday, and we've got a revs match Saturday night. So it's our windows of maintenance get smaller and smaller, but our goal is always the same, is to have the best possible service that we can after those events. So you guys just had a super cross event that was super wet and super rainy, you know, tons of dirt moved in here. Now, when you talk about flooring, like, what is the makeup of this flooring to be able to handle the impacts of of Monster Trucks jumping over jumps to, you know, 1000s of people in a pit, you know, enjoying themselves at a concert? Like, it's got to be some pretty yeah, there's two different styles. So for the dirt events, the monster jams, the super crosses, they'll actually bring in essentially just like plastic sheeting, just vinyl plastic sheeting. They'll roll that out, and then they'll put two layers of three quarter inch plywood, and then they'll put the dirt on that. Okay, so it's just in. You're talking 300 to 350 dump truck loads of dirt going out there. It's a massive amount of weight. It's a massive amount and the dirt actually acts as protection for us, in a way. The thing with Monster Jam, that's always everybody, at least field managers, are worried about, is like a broken axle or something, where they come out on a massive jump, the axle breaks and it drives through the ground. Because I've heard horror stories of that, getting through the through the dirt, through the plywood, through the plastic, and actually impaling into the field. Yeah, that's worst case scenario. Yeah, for concerts, it's a, it's a heavy duty drivable plastic flooring that goes out, it interlocks so that the crew that lays it will come out, will have a string line down for them so they can get the first row perfectly straight. Then they'll start locking all into place. And then we'll have, at times, we'll have two cranes and 10 to 1518 wheelers out on the field as they're offloading all at the same time. Wow, you know, and that's, that's something that you can do that on a natural grass field. You can put that flooring out. You can do all that work. But you know that once it's coming out, you got to strip that field out and reside it for us with the artificial we know that we can pull that flooring out, get it safe, get it playable within, you know, six to eight hours generally. So that helps us out. That's, sounds like a lot. It's, it's, it's an immense amount of work. It's a crazy amount of events. I mean, we're one of the busiest stadiums in the country, if not the world, and we also have the weather factor. So you know, my buddy down in Atlanta, Parker, like they do, probably some of the most events, most sporting events, most non sporting events. But the thing I always give them a hard time for is they don't have to worry about if it's raining. You know, we've got this overnight flip this weekend, where if it was going to be like this all night, we'd be in real trouble. We'd be out there with just aerosol, shaking cans of aerosol, and painting with aerosol, where, if we had a roof, we could just close the roof, and we don't have to worry about it. Yeah. I mean, there's something special about it. I mean, it was the same with with Bill stadium, like.

Jeremy Perkins 25:00
They're redoing it now, and, you know, they're gonna put some awnings in and whatnot. But the reality is, is they still want, they still want that open concept. Yeah, and the bill's new stadium is going to be an engineering marvel, from a field standpoint. From a stadium standpoint, they've got our field heating system that we have out at the revs. That's one field of glycol heat. Their field is going to be heated. Their warning track will have a separate and that this is all through the grapevine, so if I'm speaking out of turn, yeah, apologize, but my understanding is the field will be heated. The warning track will have a separate heating system that's even more intense heating system, so they can melt snow. They can always plow, and then the entire roof is heated. So when they get those massive snow storms, yeah, they're melting that snow as it's falling, so you don't get that huge amount of weight that that snow would have on it. Yeah, lake effect snow. I mean, they get, they get serious snow up there, big time. And it's so cool to see them being in natural grass field. And those guys up there are going to kill it. I can't wait to see what they do with it. Now, in your, in your opinion, and maybe based in fact or not, why? Why don't we bring the Super Bowls up north? Yeah, that's a, that's an NFL question. I you know, as far as I understand it, I think there's some pretty specific requirements that are needed from a stadium to host, you know, I don't know if it's seating capacity or hotels or I'm sure there's all kinds of stuff that goes into it. You know, the weather factor is a big one. I know they did it in New York, oh, man, I don't know how, maybe eight, nine years ago now, and I think they got really lucky with the weather that year, which is great, and they did it in Minnesota, but that's indoor, so you you always have to when you're talking about New England and Foxboro in February, you know, it could be a decent day. Could be 30 and 40 and sunny, but we also could be getting three feet of snow, yeah, in a big storm. So now I'm not well versed in soccer, but there's something major coming here, correct? Yeah, yeah, pretty big tournament coming up. We've got the World Cup next year. So we're one of 16 stadiums in the US, Canada, Mexico. There's three in Mexico, two in Canada, and 11 in the US that are hosting. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's the, I mean, it's, without question, the biggest sporting event in the world. They're expecting, you know, billions, billions, with a B, of viewers watching this thing. It's, they've expanded the field for the first time. So it's literally the biggest tournament they've ever done. Yeah, they've added more teams, and, yeah, we're super excited to host it's, I think it's truly a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to host something like that. Now, is it just another day on the job, or are there a lot of things that you guys are prepping for? New equipment, new knowledge, schools, whatever, to be able to host something like that. Or, yeah, definitely not another day on the job. It's, you know, for that tournament, we have to be natural grass field. So part of that is we have to strip the artificial field out once the football season's done in January. And we have a bunch of work to do on the field. We've done a good bit of prep work. We added our irrigation line in two years ago when we resurfaced. So we've done a lot of the prep work that we need to but the the majority of the field works going to start the day after our last football season or our last football game. And you know, we our goal is to have, our goal is to have sod down in mid February to open the MLS and we're actually hosting the NWSL, the National Women's Soccer League Boston has an expansion team. Their stadium is not going to be ready, so we're hosting them next year too. So we'll have MLS and NWSL playing on natural grass in March, and then the we have an exclusive window where we can't have any events on the field 30 days leading into the World Cup. So our first game is June 13, and our last game is July 9. Wow. Yeah, seven games. We've got five group stage games, and you gotta rip it out and go back to turf. Yeah, there's still some discussions on that, whether you stay grass, yeah, I don't. I think the plan, you know, I don't. I don't know how much I can say or can't say, but, you know, we're operating with the the attitude that we'll be going back to artificial after the World Cup, but that creates challenges, a for events during that window, right? Is that now everything we talked about just gets exponentially harder, yep. And then if you did stay then that just becomes a never ending cycle of Yeah, and listen, I mean, I think we can't have any of those extra events we talked about in the spring next year. Okay? They, they being the people that book the stadium. You know, our goal is to still host lots of events next year. So what's going to happen is, from the second that World Cup tournament is over, yeah, our fall next year is going to be loaded, wildly busy. We've already announced we've got Ed Sheeran, and I think October, I forget the date, but he's our first concert that's been announced so far. That's gonna be wild, yeah? And we're gonna have, you know, we'll have MLS, NWSL, NFL concerts, and, who knows, however many other events we're gonna slam that window that's normally from, you know, March to August or September. That's all gonna be from late July all the way through the end of October. Awesome. So now I'm gonna ask a tough question. So, you know, we've gone through everything, and everything sounds wonderful, and, you know, you got the dream job and whatnot, but what keeps you up at night? Weather? You know, weather is kind of the one thing we can't control. Yeah, you know, we our big thing is controlling as many variables as we possibly can. And when we add, when we talk about.

Ryan Bjorn 30:00
Things like drainage or the heating system. You know, we're controlling moisture content. We're controlling soil temperature, yeah. But the one thing we can't control is what Mother Nature is going to do to us. So as we get into a week like this, we know we have we've known we've had this overnight flip this weekend for months. My biggest thing is, what's the weather going to be like Saturday night? Yeah, and we don't really know. I mean, we have an idea. It looks, knock on wood, that it looks pretty decent right now, but it's New England. Things could change in a heartbeat, and we could be in the dealing with rain. So those are the things, the things that keep me up at night are things I can't control. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, obviously, for Gillette Stadium, New England Patriots and the revolution, this is the dream job. This is, there is no other place you'd want to go, but a person like you, what's next? What is there? Is there a higher level, or is this it? Yeah, it's it. That's a great question. It's one that gets talked about a lot, I think. And for me, I don't really look at it like that. I kind of look at it like, what's next for me here? And, you know, we've, we've crossed a couple milestones. One of them was, like, I talked about doing the renovation on the practice fields. You know, obviously the World Cup is a huge one, but, like, big events, kind of unique events, like we hosted the Army Navy game two years ago, yeah. And for me, that was one of those things that I'd never gotten to experience. And it was a really amazing event. And, you know, the football game aside, just all the pomp and circumstance and the extra stuff that goes on, it just kind of makes you feel a different way about an event. So those are the things that I look forward to. And, you know, they're currently trying to build a new stadium in the city of Boston for the revolution. So like to me, those are the things that I look forward to as kind of what's next. Are the big milestones, the big things that we can kind of check off on our internal resume to say, Wow, I can't believe we pulled that off. It's cool. That's cool. Now, for listeners out there that want to get into this, into the field, what's the best I know you've talked about like, three different avenues getting in. One, just not knowing anything and knowing the right people, or applying and being able to get there. What are they better suited for? Going to school, for tough management, or hitting the job and doing landscaping for a little while, understanding how to work tools and use the equipment, and then maybe going to school, like, what's the best avenue? Yeah, I don't, I don't think there's a bad one. I think it just depends on where you're at in your life at the time, right? If you're, if you're a high school student, and you're you like being outside, or you're already working on a golf course, you're working landscaping during the summers, and it's something that you like, then that's maybe school is the right option. First, if you're already out of school and you're looking for a change, and you take care of your home lawn, or you, you know, you follow any of these, like lawn Instagram or Tiktok accounts that people are like crazy about their home lawns. And you find that interesting. Maybe it's worth a try. And, you know, the great thing about our industry is that to get into it, you don't have to have a TERF degree. You can, you can join as a, you know, one of our guys was a firefighter, and he worked here part time at the stadium, and now he's a turf guy, yeah, so it's just, it's one of those things is like, just get interested, get involved. Maybe, if it's something you're interested in, jump into a part time role. Because stadiums like us, we're always looking for part time help, whether it's just during the week or on game days or whatever it is, right? See if you really like it. And then, like I said, if you're in school and it's something that you're considering, definitely go to a turf school. And if you're a turf student, do as many different internships as you can. You know, try golf, try sports surf, work at a sod farm, work at a sports surf construction firm. See what you like the most. Because that was my biggest thing, is I started in golf, and I went into baseball. And then I tried, you know, municipal complex down in Maryland, and you know, now I'm here doing soccer and football. Awesome, awesome, stupid, but fun question. All right, if there was going to be a seven on seven, meaning your field crew against other field crews, who would take first, second and third, obviously, we'd have to take first, but seriously, who would, who would, who would stack up against you guys? Oh, if you're not first, you're last, right? Are we talking athletics? Are we talking like field crew techniques? I'd say field crew techniques. I mean, you guys got diversity covered, all right? Um, man, there's so many like that. I there's so many good crew like everyone in our industry, is great, I think, oh, man, this is really tough. Other Other multi use stadiums are great natural grass stadiums. They have a whole different animal. It's so hard to say. I don't know if I can. I don't know if I could put a crew at the top. I'm gonna put our crew at the top. We're, you know, Gillette Stadium, field crew gold medal, and then everybody else is

Ryan Bjorn 34:19
competing for silver. So that's that's awesome. I'm sorry, guys, I'm sorry. I'm sorry all the other field crew,

Jeremy Perkins 34:28
no, that's perfect. I mean, my brother in law is a Giants fan, so we're gonna put them at the bottom. Sorry, Bobby, sorry. Tyler,

Jeremy Perkins 34:37
well, yeah, no, honestly, thanks for being on the podcast. It's been amazing to be a part of this organization, to be able to support you guys on the field crew. You know, there's a lot of behind the scenes things that happen. You know, when you sit down to watch that game on Sunday for a couple hours with your family, you don't realize, like, how much preparation time elements that you had to fight and.

Jeremy Perkins 35:00
And and work through and, you know, obviously we appreciate the men and women who put this stuff together and allow us to enjoy, you know, Monday night games, Thursday night games, Sunday night games, and beyond. So thank you for everything. It was great having you on and awesome. I appreciate you guys having me and like, I'll just, I've said it to anybody who asks, because obviously there's been a lot that's come out with the brunt partnership that we've had. And it's, for me, it's an easy one, like once from our initial meeting that we had up in the stadium conference room. You know, what you guys said wasn't, hey, we want to be here because of it's the Patriots. We want to be here because it's the stadium. It's like your ultimate goal is to get the right gear into the hands of the right people. And I can say without question, all of our guys love all the stuff that you guys have done, so it's been a great partnership to be a part of. And you know, we appreciate you guys taking care of us well. Thank you very much. Yeah, welcome to the family. Yeah.