Ep. 81 | Building Safety, Engineering, and Panama’s Future - Emilio Chi

Jack sits down in Panama City with Emilio Chi, the co-founder of Consultores IND, an engineering firm specializing in non-destructive testing and structural diagnostics. They break down how critical maintenance is in a market that loves to build fast but rarely budgets for long-term health. The conversation expands into Panama’s unique advantages, from logistics and finance to a skyline boom that keeps technical inspection in constant demand. They explore cultural realities, the entrepreneurial mindset gap, and the shift from small hustles to scalable, system-driven businesses. At its core, the episode is about identifying risk early, using geography as a lever, and acting on ideas before the market passes you by.

https://www.instagram.com/consultoresind/

https://www.instagram.com/emiliochi/?hl=en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emiliochi/

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Host: Jack Moran
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Transcript

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Welcome to Shakin’ Hands, where we provide the platform for entrepreneurs and thought leaders to share their stories in order to hopefully influence others to get out of the rat race and chase their own dreams. If you have any recommendations for guests or questions that you want to be asked, please don't hesitate to reach out. Anyways, if you enjoy the podcast, please like, comment, subscribe and share in order to keep the podcast growing. Otherwise, I'm your host, Jack Moran and this is Shakin’ Hands. So yeah, tell me about what you got going on right now to start. Okay. Well, at first, and to Bruno from our beautiful country, Panama. I guess you are enjoying already, you know. Yeah. It's the Mecca here. Yeah, yeah. And, like, I, I'm a very curious person. I love to create. I love to build. I love to create solutions to to community. That drive me to study civil engineering. Through the love, the mental challenges. In my journey, I end up being the co-founder and CEO of in Spanish consulting in LA in English. It will be nondestructive engineering consulting. We diagnose the structures of buildings, through nondestructive testing to get, like, the, the to know the health of the building without altering it or damaging it. Gotcha. It's like we are like the doctors of buildings. Or always, I would say, like the CSI of buildings to find hiding problems. Did you see in Miami when that building collapsed? This is, around us. Yeah, that's the main problem. Because here, like here in Panama and all part of the world, the the people like to build, but they don't like to maintain the building. You know, they have like, this mindset to build, build, build. It's also important to your investment to get to know your building from inside out. You get to check what's happening through the years. Normally one build to 15 years or 100 years, but in the middle of that life span, you have to check what is happening. And and normally the, the people with the money, they say like, let's save that money. The building will stand. They done the best in checking or trying to get that. What's happening about the one crack in the in the building? Yeah. How do you determine, if a building is safe and sturdy or not? Yeah. It's like. Like I will say this business is very technical. Because here in front of us, we have some norms as well as in United States. We use a lot of norms of United States. And, basically we try to to check if it the, the US build the building. We are checking they are good with these norms, but also it comes with a lot of, experience of knowing, like seeing something I know it like a that's something that is mess up. Like, do you see that? Water there. That's a leaking of some some one of some to, It can cause more damage than that. The looking damage that you can see. Have you guys stepped into a building and done your tests and then, like, this could fall down? Yeah. One time. One. No. One time. I saw some brothers contact us. They are like this Venezuelan use brothers that came with a lot of money. And they came here to buy them. They build a big, a residential business, residential building. And in the front of that building, in the next land terrain, they saw this building that is like only three stores. And this in concrete is not finished. The bank owned that, structure, and they buy it to the bank, but they don't check if they complain to to the plans. If it equals to the plans, and they call us to like, hey, let's check if it's good because we want to build a 21 store hotel there. And we go like, okay, let's check. We go, we check the bars, we check the concrete. We we do all. What do we do? I then the we we are like a and this is not the same as Dubai. That's not the same as the plans is everything. But, it's like like all the bars are like, you want to build that 21 building in there. You want to be, in the five years. And they will also like. Oh, well, let's to the bank. Wow. And they, I don't know why haven't this the building still there? Yeah, but I knew that we in that UK, we save them a lot of money. Yeah. And that's why we like. Well, we want to educate the people. Like. Like you can, like investing some money in this, testing can save you a lot of more money if you don't test the what you are doing. How did you get into this business? Well, that's a huge story. I, I was, like, I started I started working in this kind of business, like, in 2018. There was, this lady, this old lady called Sia. Elena Lee. She's like this. She was like this, Magnificat. Send lady in the engineer community here in Panama. She, like, 16 years ago, they bring from United States this technology that's in the ultrasonic testing to concrete. And they start that the business. She dedicated his life to the business she doesn't have. Like a husband. She doesn't have kids. And she dedicated his life. And in 2018, she we get to know, she needed some help because she was already she was in, like, in wheelchair and all the stuff. I started helping her with some project, like money in the people. Like, money is from projects. Passing by the year 2018, 2019, I mainly was, like, directing the business for her. She was like receiving the money. Because. But I was, like, talking with the clients, foreign people, the contracting people, getting new, new projects. Suddenly it came the pandemic. Obviously, they all stop. And then in 2021, we started again to to some some projects, in 2023, basically, I was running the business, but she suddenly died from. And heart attack in the, in the hospital. She doesn't left any anything like Old Testament. Like I need to write. It was like a huge thing because she told us in life that she want us to continue the business. And with all the equipment, all the stuff, and suddenly is gone. We're like, oh, let's, I told my my friend that was working with me. Life is going to become mafia because it's it's like like, I know a lot of people want to to that business, you know? Yeah. I was like, like, okay, I need to go and get to know the other owner because there were three owner. She the his mother onboard, the one where that, is he left one more. I was like, I got to know him. And in the funeral, I know by a dog in the funeral of the of the, of so. And, yeah, I wasn't. I, she was my mentor. She was a my friend. She was a, like, a lot like I we were there with her in the in his company. So only when I came down, they came. This Chinese man, old man there was, he said a lot. And a big lawyer here in Panama. He gave to me like, hey, I'm dao I got to get a meeting with you because we had to talk. We go. Okay. Let's go. Like, in two weeks, I go to the his accused office. He told me like, hey, I going to get out the the the here. But Panama, we say social anonymous. You know, to say the LLC. If you want to stay stable. So the the company will get with any owner and the company will blur out, you know. Yeah. So he told me, start your new company, get the equipment, and continue. I was like, okay, we are in the middle of a project in colon, a big project I was I have to talk with, with the client like, hey, you can't buy this a condo because the one to manage the account is not right here. We had to pay a mean to my person on account. Oh, yeah. I was a lot of a thing, but at times, God is like. Like that. That's the, They pay us with the money. We start the the new business, we all the legal stuff. We get the, the equipment and we keep, like, since 2023, we keep the business running. Obviously was like, I, I get to step up in the organizational ladder. I told my, my, my coworkers, like, hey, now I going to take care of the finance. I got to take care of the strategic. I got to take care of the clients. So I need help. I need to and all the years now, since 2023 to now, was that like making the A team to the business? Trying to get all the operational system, all the operational process to, to grow, to, to get to more people, to to get to mega-projects. We have to get clients that, that were, were very big. But, that's the story of why, very like fascinated the story. Yeah. It's crazy. Like a legacy. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah, yeah, that's some crazy adversity to get thrown your way randomly. Yeah. It's amazing. I, I all just it's like a gift from her to us. Yeah, we got to maintain it. Most of your clients, Spanish speaking or they international throughout the or mainly Spanish, mainly Spanish. They always there's 1 or 2. Like like today we have the team in the residence of the Qatar ambassador. So he's speaking English. But mainly mainly. It's fine if we go mainly Sprague here in Panama. We want to go outside internationally, but mainly here in Panama. I was wondering because, like, obviously Panama is such a melting pot, where does all the like, infrastructure and money in Panama like, you see so many high rise buildings and like yeah, here. But it's is curious because one day, I see I read in internet, like, you can see the development of a country if you see, night picture makes a little picture of a country and you can see the lights of, of the country, the lights represent development. And when you see Panama, we are a maritime country. Yeah, they mainly focus here in the city. We got, like, where time Province is probably half is down, but the main like mega police that you see with a lot of buildings is here in Panama City. So it's like like the money flows here in the city mainly if you if you want, if you want like, like be where the money's moving, you got to be here. The, the benefit of Panama is that you can go to the other extreme of the, of the country in less than five hours. So it's not that like long distance to, like, live in the countryside and work here. I also did in the, in the pandemic. I live in the countryside. My, my business were here. But, but mainly the main money style here in Panama City. Does it come from Panama or is it coming from the rest of Latin America? Like our people investing. And there's a lot of investing here. There's a lot of like, we got that, a booming infrastructure like in 28. It finished in 2018. It's almost like 2020 10 to 2018. That year, like you can see photos of Panama City before of the skyline, after, and you get like, like, wow. Is is like the photo of, of, Dubai that you saw on the street. And then as a server with a lot of, of building, you happened kind of here, but you also like someone came here and they. I want to build a bit, island, artificial island. And they build it. And there is a lot of artificial island with a lot of mansions there. So normally it came with, with international, the basement that I went to to in Bethune, Panama. Do you know why? Why were they coming here? It's like. Like here. But I always say we got some pros, some benefits, mainly with our geographical, position, because it's like we always say, like we are in the center of the world. You know, we're in the center of North America and South America, a lot of, flights came by Panama to transfer to another country. Historically, like, since the colonial time here in Panama. Panama was a way from to take all the gold from Peru. We crossed Panama to take to Europe. And we the Panama Canal is still the same, like, so take point. So I think like being here in Panama, have your headquarters here in Panama, you get you a lot of arms to geographically get to on our part of the world. That's one part of the part. Europe like, the other part is like the laws here in Panama. The banking here in Panama. It's like, very serene, like very, like you, you get you you can get, with less than $3,000, you can get the company here, you know, and it's like, like very easy. We we have not a lot of taxes. There's not many problem with the government try to get you if you are investing a lot. So it's very a very nice game. And, it's a good landscape. Yeah, a good landscape. Yeah. Is, is a good play playground. You know, you were talking about earlier before we started the episode, kind of that entrepreneurial culture here and how you gave some, some data. As far as, like, there's this a massive boom of startups in Panama. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. There's a, the globe and the monitor that they do a survey in, in the world about data entrepreneurship. And they get to Panama. One is the most the countries that have the most starting businesses in the whole world. And it's like like we we you can see it in when you are in the street because you can see this big business, but you can see a lot of little store, a little entrepreneurship and a lot of, like delivery. And guys, you know, and it's like, like, like we as, people, we as community, we help a lot of of us, like, like if we if we have a friend, that is starting their business, we got to help him. It's not a lot of competition, you know, like, if you are in United States, you started something in Miami, and it can be starting the same thing in California, you know? Yeah. Here. But it's not like that. We have a lot of, like, main businesses, agricultural, like transportation. What happened that the the the people with a lot of money invest in those business interpretation like that we have here the, one of the main airlines in whole America, Copa Cuba. The the airport also is one of the main, all that cover the the airport, one of the main bank here in Panama, is, store, distribution store, all is on it, but the same guy, really. And and it's like that the people with money can get to a lot of these big businesses. But also in the downside, the people with not a lot of money also can get to the market, but in a different way. The problem is, when you want to grow, do you want to compete or get some one of the big businesses out of of the of the market or compete a lot with that business, it became a problem because we are taking a very long gap of of wealth. Yeah. And that's the like the main reason we have like three, one of every three people here in Panama is studying business. That's it that they know that the, the numbers that get the survey. So when you get to know that number three, one of every three you like, If I have ten friends, three at least have to be studying business. But Jesus doesn't listen to them like I'm starting that business. I, they were working in a company, is like, that is like, it's very difficult here to to get that mission, to start something and get to that mission that you want to get, because you get the point to the competition, get very hard. Where do you see the biggest opportunities are here in Panama LA. Is this the main the main Brittany here. But it's very changing market because like we are very small, as we are very small, you get to get like this view from, from, from above. And one of, of the main, opportunities I always tell like, like if you, if you get something to sell, like Amazon or like Alibaba, you know, they have their main headquarters in Asia or the United States, but like, they have to pass through Panama to go to a unit to the Unesco. They have to come to Panama to go to another way. So the logistic business here in Panama, there's a lot of opportunity here because it will be easy for the wealthy to the one that is starting to get something from here to the Pacific. And take it to the Atlantic. It's the same length, you know, the infrastructure that you use is a difference. But, Ivelisse is the same, like, as well at that logistical part here, roughly. We have a lot of tourists, business that if we compared to Costa Rica, there are a lot above in organization or in organization, I mean, promotion of the tourist part here. One of my we have got to like we are here in Panama. We are here in the city you go to outside the window and you see the the bay, you see the ocean. Like this Sunday I went to to Ocean Reef. They give we rent a kayak and we kayak all the bay. I was like, man, I went to Aruba one on one time. I saw a lot of, sailing. A lot of people in the water. Here in Panama. You don't see it. There is one company there that is doing it. I wasn't here. This is mine of gold. If someone. I get a port and get some water sports things, and get to the people to go to the water and enjoy the water in Panama, that we are a lot of water that is is an opportunity. So I think here is a lot of, of opportunity to get. Yeah, it's surprising to me that Panama is kind of neglected as a tourist destination. You know, a ton of people go to Costa Rica, tons of people go to Colombia, but they don't think about Panama. And Panama has all this incredible infrastructure in this. It's on the US dollar. It has a much higher quality of life. It's a lot safer, a lot safer. Yeah. People don't think of it as a place to go visit. Yeah. And well, I told you before that Libo Castro was one of the main tourist places here in Panama. I get to know people that they came to. They take a airplane to Panama City, and they doesn't go to Panama City. They don't visit Panama City. Straight to go straight to Burgas. And when they came back straight to the airport and go to to their country. Yeah. That's mainly the promotion of our country, the promotion of here. And in Panama City, we have a lot of things to do, a lot of historical things, here. Like like you say that we use the dollar. We are not that, we are not a cheap country, but we are also not, expensive country. You know, where, like, in the middle, I was I was reading last time that there is a, a market here that is called the medical tourism. The health tourism. Yup. I've heard of that. Yeah. And it's like it's cheaper to someone to get a treatment here in Panama. They'll get the treatment in the US. And there's a place you can get that those people, you're going to have to fly. You're going to see, the hotel, you're organized, the, health care of the that they want to, to get they got it's going to be going to cost cheaper that, that, that and that in the United States. I think that that's the opportunity here that, that we have to, to use our tools, our benefits to, to get that leverage of those benefits. And, and try and go, and look for it, fight for it, you know, because we have a lot of leverage. Yeah. What do you think the limitations are? What makes it difficult for an entrepreneur to succeed in Panama? I think it's well, there are the main reasons is the mindset that is to, inside us since we are born, because. The entrepreneurial mindset is like a new thing here. Way before the business. The one that have the, the money now was because in the past they get to get land for send, you know, a lot of land of sands. They, they use the corruption of the government. They succeeded in the in when where we have a military government here. Now since since 90, 90, 90, 89 that that we are mainly, democratic country. So we have like 30 years of Democratic. Yeah. And in those areas where like growing and now we're seeing like this pushing to the entrepreneurial, mindset. So before that, the mindset was there, the, the mice will, you know, that goes to the get the, what the war will have a family, retire. The one thing that, when when I was young that I see, it's like the retirement here. If you go to the way that they told us, the the public hospital here is not that not great? No. But you see the US people coming to retreat here in front of, so it's what it's like. What a there's a Johns Hopkins here. Yeah, yeah, it's like like like why why they're coming here to to to get a retreat. We the leaf here kind get that kind of of retrenchment. That's why like, like is more like an educational problem. You got to, to get to the people to know that we here in Panama have leverage. We can, use that to get where the people that we see that have this mega, businesses, and get to the it's like like getting their, the, their fear out of the mindset of the people who are here. Well, it's very interesting. What do you think that takes to make that happen? This happening is happening very hard. We have, a lot of, of organization here in Panama. There's, see, there's other they say, hold a place that they focus on science, on entrepreneurship. What is that? To see that there's a where is that? The city of knowledge. City of knowledge? Yeah. We got, the government part of entrepreneurship. But they also like this, the government, they're like, pushing a lot more to get people to, to, to start their business and helping them. The banking is also like getting this line of credits to, to, to to nurse. So it's, I think this is happening right now. It will be a lot, failure because normally the one that can, get that opportunity is not me, is not the one that, the, in my life in this, level, you know, but is the one that want to sell the gummies, the one that want to sell the, the juice. They wonder what that. Want to sell something? Get to that. Get this stand. Start selling. So the manual stuff, you know, the thing of that is good, but it's not their growing base. It's not exponential. It's not scalable business. So I think is now is the moment to to start changing that mindset to entrepreneur, to more startup mindset, you know, yeah, more innovation to more technology to more to to use. Not the leverage. The geographical leverage, but the technological leverage to, here. But I like you told me, do you have a school community and a little here in Panama, you can count with the, the people that are doing business in that kind of platform or like school or, you know, is hard to to know that there's a lot of money moving. It does markets in this platform, here. But now we we can the the people are not thinking about that. What would be your single piece of advice for entrepreneurs? What have you learned through your entrepreneurial journey that you would give to entrepreneurs? It's like, don't hesitate to, to try. Like if you I always think that the ideas are like flying. They're fine. Try to find some head to create it, and I'm bringing it. I believe in that, too. Yeah. Bring it to to reality. If you say that came to your mind and you don't take action if I go to someone else. They wanted someone that is. Yeah. And it's like, you can you can failure. It's like like like like you can start your manufacturing. You can start selling whatever you want. You can sell, empanadas if you want. But if you try it, you learn about it. I just keep learning about a lot of those, tools, a lot of of thinking, you can get to that point to scale your business to, to another level using the models that you can see in our country. So, like, not focus here in Panama. No, no, no, not close your eyes to here. I try to put yourself in an honorable plane and watch from or side the the playground. Right. The same play the same game for everybody. The strategy and the and the action in the game is what changed. Yeah. The the journey of each one. That's great advice. Where if people are interested in your services or maybe connecting with you to get some advice. Yeah. Where can they find it? Yeah, you can, you can find me on Instagram. Emilio. Kai. G Emilio Chi I, and, my company also in Instagram, like console. Torres. Anyway, we have a web page download Hulu. The console. Torres punto com. So you can find out if you want to talk with me about entrepreneurship. About business. I love this this guy, stuff. And, you can text me, will be available. Hell, yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you to for sure. Thank you for being here. Panama. We're, Will. Definitely. Oh, it's, we'll definitely link the, your socials and stuff to to the guys to the end. But we'll get some pictures and. Yeah. Great job. Crash it.