Building Community to Belong with Tara Rasmuson of Greeley Lifestyle Magazine

0:00 In today's episode, I sat down with Tara Rasmussen, owner-publisher of Greeley Lifestyle Magazine and VP of Land for Bear Lake Resources. I've gotten to know Tara a little bit over the last few months and suspected there was a story there, and she did not disappoint. The star of her recent journey has been the Greeley Lifestyle magazine, which she purchased in the fall of 2020 and launched in early 2021 with 40 pages. When she began, she was in an open book season of sorts. She'd been working as a landlady in the oil industry for over a decade, but wanted something new, and had recently moved to a town her new husband was well known in. but she lacked community. Creating the magazine and building community through that conduit was her answer, and her 100th year anniversary edition for the Greeley Stampede cemented her spout in the community.

0:49 Before all this, though, Tara had a long and challenging chapter as the stay-at-home mom of four kids with a husband who didn't want to work despite the family near starving on welfare. Long hours spent in education and rapid career advancement enabled a new chapter, and I'm confident you'll be both inspired and entertained by the story. So please join me in enjoying my conversation with Tara Rasmussen. Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest.

1:32 Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Tara Rasmussen. She is the owner and publisher of Greeley Lifestyle Magazine, as well as the VP of land, just of land, land acquisition, land stuff for Bear Lake Resources. Currently land acquisition. Yes. Are you looking right now? We're looking for projects. What's that mean? Can we talk about oil stuff? We can. Before we talk about magazine stuff? Yeah. Yeah. So I have a company called Bear Lake Resources. We also have a sister company called Bear Lake Management. We also have a company called Freestone, all kind of under the same umbrella. Okay. And we have a great financing partner, so we have dollars to spend in the oil and gas industry.

2:13 To buy mineral rights? Yes. Yes, mineral rights. But we're also looking for projects, like maybe... kind of like we're open to oil and gas fields. Maybe they've been abandoned and still have reserves sitting there that nobody wants to mess with. Okay. So our sweet spot is kind of in that 20 to $30 million range. That's really too small for a lot of big operators. Okay. And too big for a lot of the little mom and pops. Yeah. Yeah. So if anyone happens to have anything, send it over. I don't know how many of my listenership are. You never know. But we do not ever know. I've actually had an oil field appraiser guy on my podcast whose daughter went to CSU.

2:53 He's down in Austin, I believe. Oh, nice. But that might be an introduction for you, as a matter of fact, because he knows everybody's going to value their resources all the time. I imagine some of the stuff you could buy are stuff that the big guys don't actually decide that they don't really want anymore. They don't want to fuck with it. Exactly. That's perfect for us. We've got to build up Venezuela, for God's sake. Yeah. It's going to take some... Resources and capital down there. Yeah, projects they want to offload that they just don't want to mess with. That's interesting. My early career was as a credit and management trainee with Community First National Bank. And that was basically a collection of banks that what was then Northwest Bank and pre-U.S. Bank.

3:35 I think it was First Bank. didn't want anymore, like in all the little towns across the Dakotas and southern Minnesota and places like that as the banks were consolidating in kind of the, I guess, late 90s kind of. And yeah, those good resources that needed to exist, you know, all those towns still needed banks. Yeah, absolutely. But they didn't really fit what was going to be Wells Fargo model or the U.S. Bank model. Yeah, I love that. And that happens in oil and gas all the time. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. So we've got our feelers out. We're hopeful. How do you know when you got a good deal? Like, do you get an appraisal kind of like? Or how do you, do you have geologists on your team and stuff like that? Like, tell me about the company-ish.

4:17 Historically, you use reservoir engineers. And you pay a good amount of money and they can go through things and they can look and give you a whole report. Think of it a thump or two and see the vibrations through the big rocks. And they're like, oh, it's got 800 billion gallons. Yeah. You pay a lot of money and they give you a dollar value for what they think projects would be worth. But nowadays, and this is really new technology, AI. So our company has an AI consultant, which happens to be my 21-year-old son, who is building a system that is helping us value projects and put a number to them.

4:58 Like, oh, there's some data here that suggests there could be a lot more because when the production started going down, it was also because there was... lower prices at that time and they had a bunch of broken pumps and they didn't really feel like they wanted to update the pumps when they had low prices. So all kinds of things. Yeah. And it is all about the data too. And that's where he's really getting excited as a kid and learning to build AI. systems is that you can gather all this data and then what can we do with it in oil and gas it's exciting does he get a is he like a low price consultant or is he gonna get in the game he gets paid yeah he gets paid from our company and also now he's working for mineral owners that have years and years and years of statements and they don't know whether they were paid correctly there's they're getting bills that they don't know what they're for So he's building systems for mineral owners to be able to track things that they've always been overwhelmed by intentionally.

5:55 Right. Well, I can only imagine with those royalty things, sometimes they've got a hundred or a couple hundred investors, and just the tracking of all that data was really hard in the past. And oil companies that pay big, big dollars for software that manages and tracks all of that. And now anyone, any mineral owner, and we have a lot of those in northern Colorado – can build a little system that tracks and manages and make sure they're paid correctly. For the last however many years, they are collecting royalties. It's really neat. And I actually did that the old-fashioned way years ago. And so it's really fun to watch my kid do it with...

6:35 You know, no oil and gas background. Just now he's learning about data. And he's like, hey, mom, look, this is so cool. I'm finding all this money that was missed. I was like, I used to do that back in the day, but it was a whole lot harder. Yeah, with a calculator and digging through records and spreadsheets. The old tape calculators. Oh, I'm not that old. You aren't? No. My mom used to have one I never But it was cool Because Like as you were going through They used to use it actually Even at the The vending concessions And stuff When they were balancing the books Because then you'd have a paper trail That somebody actually Balanced it out right And they counted the candy bars Or whatever Yeah Right? And so anyway, it was like pre-printer and computer kind of stuff, but you could have a record of the receipt.

7:18 Yeah. Anyway, I digress. Makes sense. Let me insult your age again. Let's start there. Can we talk about the Greeley Lifestyle magazine? Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for the lovely gift. Souvenir edition. The 100th anniversary of the Greeley Stampede. Yes, 100th anniversary. So I think that was 2022. Greeley Stampede approached me. I was a brand new magazine, only been around about a year, but they loved my paper and the product that I had. So they came to me and they said, hey, do you have the ability to print our program? For the Stampede, you're a local company. You have a great team.

7:59 Do you have that ability? And I said, well, I don't know. Let me check. I'm not really sure. Yeah, I'm not really sure. So I went to our CEO and I said, hey, I know this is kind of out of the box, but can I print a program outside of – our monthly magazine? And they said, no, you can't do that. I said, well, okay, what can I do? Let's figure it out. And I said, can I, for our June issue, can I make our June issue the program? And they said, well, here's all of the hoops you have to jump through and it has to make sense for the business. Are you going to get new advertising partnerships out of this? You're like, I'm sure I'll get a lot. I'm like, I need you just to trust me. This is a partnership that you want me to have.

8:41 This is, this is almost the number one event no it is the number one event and in the Greeley community like this is it this is our culture and our community is oh and a top 10 in Colorado annually yeah right like I don't know what Boulder even does or Colorado Springs even does no they don't do anything like that nothing you know it's like Frontier Days and the Stampede are a little bit competitive against each other yeah and also very different because Cheyenne Frontier Days has state funding Greeley Stampede doesn't so The fact that Greeley Stampede does what they do is miraculous. And even in a regional standpoint, they're a big deal. And so articulating that to our corporate office. So the magazine's a franchise. Over 250 magazines across the U.S.

9:22 Okay. So when I went to them and I said, hey, listen, like... I need you to trust me. This is what I really want to do. And they said, well, you still have to make sure you keep all the pieces of the Lifestyle Magazine. You've got to have a recipe and you have to have fashion. But I was like, okay, we got Rodeo Queens. We got the funnel cake recipe. And I really wanted to showcase the history. Um, historically how that program is funded through the Greeley Stampede is advertisers buy ads in the program. Very typical. Yeah. So just, just pages or something. Yeah. So Justin connected me to all of his people that bought ads and this is so cool how this, how it all happened. So I have very tight deadlines. And so we were fast and furious building content, um, um, Trying to create this beautiful legacy issue.

10:06 And you say we. Was it we had a team already in that? Yes. 10 months after you started? Yeah. Yeah. So I had a team, photographers, an editor, assistant. So my team is working as fast as we can. And the Greeley Stampede team is busy. Like they're like – Coming up hard and fast on the stampede. So they can't really help us. So we're trying to figure it out. So finally, I was like, hey, I go to Justin. And I was like, I need like the old black and white photos, like the really good ones. I need those for the magazine. And they're like, well, we'll come and sit in the office and you can go through like thousands of photos in the archives. So I was like, I'm willing to do anything. So I show up at the office and I'm sitting there going through all of these photos.

10:48 And they're amazing. Yeah. I mean, you have generations of families. Right. And the Stampede just has an incredible journey of community. And so I'm going through all these photos, just like feeling really moved. Behind me, I hear a commotion, people coming in the room and setting up. And they're setting up like cameras and lights, like in the same room as me. And they start, they are bringing in the Hall of Famers for that year. Like the Rodeo Hall of Fame? The Greeley Stampede. Oh, yeah. hall of famers like the people that have been integral they've been on the board they're like 70 80 years old they've been involved in the greely stampede their whole lives like started as children so they're sitting behind me telling the stories of growing up in this community and their involvement in the stampede and i'm looking at all of these black and white folks i'm just crying i'm like feeling like i'm being told dictated the stories of the stampede while i'm sitting here going through just decades of beautiful photos it was the most amazing experience I'm just kind of like I've been a member of the Rotary Club for 15 plus years and we meet every week for an hour and stuff.

11:56 That Stampede family you're describing is a little bit like a Rotary family, except for them it's like nine miserable, wonderful weeks leading up to this miraculous conception. And then we do it again next year. Yeah. Kind of. But that bonding time of going through hard things together, it's got to be actually a really – that's why they have a Hall of Fame, right? They have recognitions for all these contributors to it. Yeah. What a cool thing. I've never really thought about it from their perspective. It's a really special thing. So then I continue to build the editorial of the magazine, and I'm building ads as they come in. And the thing with the magazine is it's 50% content, 50% ads. Yeah. So I don't really know where we're going to land page-wise. So I started out, like back then in 2022, I was probably 44 or 48 pages, like every month.

12:42 Already right away? Yeah. So that was my page count. Did you buy a magazine that was established? No, I started from scratch. In a year, you were 44 pages? Yeah. I'll tell you why after this story. Okay, sure. So we're building this content and it's coming together and literally we're like a day... Oh, wait, like days. I mean, every day we're putting stuff together, adding stuff because the magazine's growing. And I'm like, okay, we can, we can grow this another page and this make this story longer. We could use double space type. Yeah. And we're trying, we're adding in maps and like everything about the current committee and history. More recipes. We have like the old rodeo clowns. We have all the renderings for the stage that's now built, but back then it wasn't.

13:24 It's like a very well-rounded, beautiful issue. So we're coming up fast on the deadline. And all of a sudden, we're like at the deadline. I'm getting the last ad put in, and it bumps us to 100 pages exactly. Completely not intentional. I was like, you have got to be kidding me. This issue is magical. So – Then we got two more calls, and we said, nope. We're full. We actually didn't. It lands at exactly 100 pages, and I just like... Couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. But it's a true testament. Providence is pretty special once you start to recognize it. Yeah. Agreed. It was wonderful. And it's only been up from there with the magazine and all the things we've been able to do.

14:07 So let's talk about, like, since we're kind of close to that already, let's go back to, like, what was your stage in life when you bought this magazine franchise? And then... Talk to me and to anybody listening about apparently getting a really fast launch. I was impressed that you already had a staff 10 months in doing stuff. Usually people struggle to try to do all the things until they just can't do all the things anymore, and then they... Yeah. Make a bad hire and then they give up. No, I'm just kidding. Well, I feel like there's a couple of things that were... Have you read the book Outliers? No. Malcolm Gladwell?

14:48 But I know of that author and I've heard him talk about that book. It's about right place, right time. Yeah. And like things coming together at the right moment to create. Well, it's kind of like the great man versus the right time. theory of history a little bit kind of right yeah yeah so i um i was dating my now husband at the time you want to give him a shout out Craig Rasmussen. Hi, Craig. Favorite guy in the world. You should have him on here. He's way more interesting than me. I will. Okay, good. You could have brought him with you. I should have, yeah. It might not have been as fun. Me and Craig will drink more bourbon and you won't compete for time. Yeah. I'll be like, okay, I'll be over here for you.

15:30 It's fine. You guys go ahead. So you're dating Craig. I guess, let's see. Let me back up a little bit. Sure. So I was in the oil and gas industry. full-time, and I worked in Windsor. So I was in the Windsor community for three years, and I didn't really know a whole lot about Greeley. But I'd heard a lot of kind of negative things, and not a lot of positive. Okay. For whatever reason. Maybe my circle of friends or whoever I was around, but not a lot of, I hadn't really heard anything. There's a little bit of community-like snobbery around. Maybe a little. You know, Loco Think Tank tries to be like, we're all about no-co, even though we're here in Foco.

16:10 Yeah, and you see that with, like, there's so much pride in all of our communities. And they're all so different. And they all are worthy of... Yeah, my wife and I were in Windsor right when it was becoming cool. Oh, nice. Like, we lived there 2003 to 2007. Oh, nice. And it was just like, it was coming into a... So when the Eagles had happened, Pelican Lakes was there and growing, you know. So, anyway, I digress. So I'd lived in Windsor in... When Craig and I met, he started telling me, he's like, you know, Greeley's actually a really great place. Because he's living in Greeley and... Well, he'd been in Greeley for over 20 years. And he actually came to Greeley as the UNC basketball men's head coach.

16:54 Oh, really? That's what brought him to Greeley. He's a pretty short guy for a basketball coach. Just kidding. Just kidding. He played back in the day. 6'2 was a very tall. Right. No, it's true, actually. Yeah. In the 90s, 6'2 was a big guy. It's true. So he did play back in the day. The center of my high school basketball team was 5'11". It was a tiny school. But anyway. So he was a player and then he became a coach and he was recruited to come out and coach UNC. Cool. So he has a long history in Greeley. And then he moved out of the coaching industry into oil and gas in Weld County and built incredible relationships and got to see really a lot of the behind the scenes culture in Greeley and the community and really how...

17:37 supportive, how tight-knit the community is, and just down-to-earth, good, generous people. I'm a little more... I'm from North Dakota, so my natural inclination is a little more agrarian. I like the smell of cow stuff. The smell of money. I know. You know, not always. I'm not. But even like elevators and like the other day I was driving past on 85 and there's that big line of trucks that's lined up on the side of the road doing something, loading and unloading cattle, I suppose, or dropping them off or whatever. And like when I see that kind of stuff, the economist in me is like, man, there's a lot of… revenue happening here. That's a lot of trucks of stuff that's moving from one place to another and employing people to cut those cows up or whatever they're doing with those trucks, right?

18:24 Yeah. It's pretty neat. It is neat. Even busy grain elevators get me excited that way. I love it. I love it. And that's really the heart of America. And that's how we're fed. And lately in the magazine, if you follow along, we've been doing a lot of ag stories, a lot of focus on agriculture and farming, because I don't want people to forget how important that is to our culture. Yeah. I was talking with Gia a little bit about that when we met, who you introduced me to, how I think that's really part of Greeley's the cool city with egg roots. Now, with a music scene and good restaurants, and it's one of the best coffee shops in northern Colorado, and CeCe's over there.

19:06 Cocos. Cocos, sorry. I'm going to correct you, because I love her. It's amazing. Yeah. The first time I went in there, I was like... This is like the coolest coffee shop I've been in a while. Yeah, it's great. And here it is in West Greeley. You know, it's killer. Yeah. Good job. I didn't do that. No, you didn't do it, but she did. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah, good job to her. It's just demonstrating Greeley coming into its own. Oh, and there's so many neat places that, yeah, that are popping up. So anyway, let's get back to the story of you, this magazine. So you met this guy, Craig. Oh, yes. I got distracted. Yeah, it's okay. It happens. Yeah. And you're not drinking your wine fast enough. I'm going to be empty way sooner than you at that pace.

19:46 Sorry. Call you out on that. So I meet Craig. He tells me what a great place this is. We end up moving in together and he wants to move to Greeley. He wants to go back to Greeley because he had gone to Denver to work downtown when his company moved down there, oil and gas company. And then his oil and gas company sold. And he's like, okay, now I've got to find what I'm going to do now. And he says, I really want to go back to Greeley. I love the community there. I love the people. They're so supportive. It's such a great network of friends. Well, and he had great credentials for being a citizen because of his time at UNC and stuff, I imagine. Yeah, people still call him coach.

20:27 Some places they don't just welcome outsiders as easily. Yeah, yeah. Colorado Springs was one of those. Really? Like, for me, when I moved down there, people were like, why are you here and what are you trying to get out of it? Dang. Kind of. Yeah. Compared to Fort Collins was, like, really accustomed to people moving here by that time. So I was, like, right in the middle of the waves of incoming kids, right, at the time. Yeah. That makes sense. We do see that in Greeley because people are very protective and supportive of each other. Yeah. So they are kind of giving that side eye to people like, okay, are you here for good? Are you going to contribute to the community? Are you going to give back? Are you going to be generous? Like, are you going to support us? Right, right. Like, they're very...

21:09 I think probably you've probably shared it already, but part of that success your first year was you were coaches. Yeah. Girlfriend and wife. Instant trust. That's why I started with him. Instant trust. Right. Transferred credibility. Yes. And he taught me about the culture in the community. And he said, Tara, you have every single word. that goes in that magazine, you need to make sure that it accurately represents Greeley and what this community is all about. Wow. You need to be careful about the people you put in there. Like everything has to be spot on. And he held me accountable to that.

21:50 And we had some fights because I messed up a few times. And I put some things in there that I wasn't careful enough about. And he let me know. And I learned early on. That's awesome. I love those kind of relationships where there's that sincere respect. And you desire the best for someone so much that you're willing to get out of your own comfort zone to confront them, kind of. yeah yeah that's not comfortable he and that's where his coaching background comes in is like he's he's gonna be tough when he knows i can do better and he's gonna push me to be better and he's gonna push me to build a beautiful product and almost six years later like he's so proud of what we've built together with this magazine yeah do you think craig should be a loco facilitator Over there?

22:39 Yeah. You've heard me talking about it? Okay, yes. I think so, too. He's a great coach. Based on first impressions. And a great mentor. And he knows a lot about business. He does. As well. A lot about business. So we can talk more about that or Craig, you and I can grab some coffee. Sorry, Craig, you just were voluntold. Well, I mean, it's not a volunteer job. I'd pay him. I know. But he would love it. Yeah, he would. Yeah. I mean, right now, he's the perfect coach and mentor for our six kids that are like in the throes of life. Yes. So good practice for him. We'll come back to the family and talk more about that as well. We keep kind of going off. Oh, I'm a squirrel chaser. I'm a world-class squirrel chaser. So he convinces you through being awesome to move to Greeley.

23:22 Yeah, move to Greeley. To Mariam. In the middle of... Yeah, that comes later. So in the middle of the pandemic, everything shut down. Oh, really? Yeah. Was this in process ahead of time or was it accelerated by... The pandemic stuff? No. So we were shut down. I mean, kids are being homeschooled. Right. He gets a job in Greeley. And so he's like, you know, our choices were either come to Greeley or go to the mountains. We had some opportunities in Granby and Winter Park. for development and we have an Airbnb up there. So we had some connections. So we were like, okay, do we move to the mountains and the kids can ski every day? Or do we go to Greeley where at least Craig's heart is?

24:04 And so we made the right decision going to Greeley. And when we got there... Um, so my, I mentioned I have a family oil and gas company, Fairlake Resources. And at the time we didn't have a lot going on. And so I was working maybe six hours a month. It was just very low key. Now we're banging. We hired my brother full time and my other brother is a big investor and it's very family company and we're doing a lot there. But, um, yeah. At the time, so I had all this time on my hands and I got kids there online school because no one's going to school. And so we got to Greeley and Craig's like, do you want to do anything else besides just like hang out with the kids? Right.

24:45 And, you know, my thought really was is I would like to do something because I don't want to move back to Craig's hometown as the new woman on his own. Right. That nobody knows. That nobody knows. And I don't want that to be my label, like Craig's lady. Right, right. I want my own thing. And that's just me. And so I was just very stressed looking for the next opportunity. And I'm like, okay, in oil and gas, I literally started at the bottom answering phones. I... I went to Oklahoma City University online while I had an internship in oil and gas, like trying to learn everything I could about land while I'm answering phones for $13 an hour.

25:25 And I worked my way up from the very bottom. And I thought, you know, I can do that in any industry. It doesn't matter what it is. So I need to chill out and just trust that. a door is going to open. Because I was very like, I'm a planner. Like, I need to know what the next chapter is. Sometimes when you press and try to make things happen, then the right things don't. And once you relax a little bit, then they do. The second I just told myself to just have peace, the door will open, and... you'll know and just stop trying to force it. I've heard so many conversations with people about getting pregnant that way. Like we were trying so hard, trying so hard, trying so hard for two and a half years that we finally gave up and then we got pregnant.

26:08 And then I got pregnant with a magazine. Right. Yes, absolutely. And that happens with a lot of things in life. Yeah. I mean, you just slow down, have 100% faith that we can't, I could not have written books. how my life would be today like there's i there never could have imagined i couldn't have sat down and said someday i'd like to own a magazine and i'd like to be a top publisher and and i'd like to do this and this you just can't well you can't write the script for your kids either yeah stuff right like you have to hold that relationship loosely in the same kind of way even of your own uh-huh so the second i did i i remember exactly where i was sitting i was sitting in the dentist office lobby while my kid gets his teeth cleaned looking at linkedin jobs and i go through everything every day everything that was posted that day not just oil stuff but anything yeah i get to the end and and i'm like okay there's nothing again today and then half an hour goes by and i'm like I feel like I just need to look one more time.

27:15 I opened up LinkedIn jobs one more time and I went back through it and I reread the job posting to buy the Greeley market for a magazine. And I just had this thought all of a sudden I thought, what better way to tell the whole world what a great place Greeley is that doesn't have a great reputation, even on South Park. Like everybody makes fun of Greeley. What if I could help change that narrative through the pages of a publication? And it just was like an aha moment. And also at the very bottom of the ad, it said no experience necessary. I thought, perfect. I've got that. I have no experience. So I just knew in that moment that that's what I wanted to do. And I text Craig and I said, OMG, I think I found my dream job.

27:57 And he was like. What are you talking about? Like a magazine? A franchise magazine? Since when was that on your list of dreams? Right. Yeah. And he was like, right off the bat, he says, you know, nobody has any money. All the businesses are shut down. There's, I don't know if this is going to work. And I said, you know what? Businesses are closing left and right. Like everybody is feeling disconnected from each other. Also, people are realizing that if they don't support local businesses, they will close. And so all of a sudden, we have this opportunity. Yeah. And a bunch of free money was flowing around. I didn't get any of that. I don't know why. You didn't get any of it? No, I got none of that. Oh, me and Jill got- I was too focused.

28:38 Me and Jill got two $1,200 debit cards with Uncle Sam's money. And we used that for, we took a 4,700-mile road trip in a 33-foot camper with our exchange student. Oh, cool. Down to, like, California and, you know, Grand Canyon and all the way up to North Cascades National Park. Nice. So I don't know what... Opportunity. So 4,700 miles at approximately seven miles to the gallon. Are you good at that? So 700 gallons of diesel fuel. What was gas prices? They were pretty low because remember, because the oil price went down to like minus zero. Yes, because our profits were down that year.

29:19 Way down, I'm sure. So gas prices were pretty... I think we were paying like maybe $235 a gallon or something like that, but still 700 gallons. So we spent... A good amount. Close to two grand on fuel for that trip. Worth it. Yes, totally. Anyway, I digress. But I did get a subsidy. Nice. I thought everybody got it. I thought like no matter how poor. Well, I didn't really have a business. I had a little LLC and it was kind of just me. Oh, no, but like just for the people. Like regular humans. Oh. Like every citizen got like a $1,200 debit card just about. Oh, maybe that money's still sitting in an account somewhere and I could clean it. Is it too late? Maybe. Statue of limitations. But yeah, so that was why some businesses had good spending like landscape companies and remodel people and stuff because people were spending all this time at home.

30:01 But also the government was sending $1,200 checks effectively to people to... Spend more. Well, I was focused on. Yeah. Anyway. But I mean, there was some increase in discretionary spending out there in the consumer economy in some places for some businesses. Yeah. Is all I was reflecting on. Yeah, totally. So anyway, so you're like, we got to get things moving out here. Yeah. So you launched right in the teeth of COVID? Yes. Yeah. So November of 2020 is when I started selling. December of 2020 is when this podcast started. Oh, nice. So, yeah, people were home listening. They needed something to listen to. They wanted nothing to do. Our listenership has only gotten down from there. Now they're busy working.

30:43 Yeah. So 2020, November of 2020, I started selling and then launched. March 1st was my first issue. Okay. So... It was actually really great timing because I think businesses, they needed a way to communicate to our community. Hey, we're still open. Hey, this is what we're offering. We're still here. We need you to support us. So businesses were actually very anxious and excited to get in the magazine. And also... Because at the time, we have a lot of regional magazines that have done very well and been here a long time. But Greeley always felt like they were left out of those. Or they were in the back or they didn't get as much...

31:24 page space. And so when I showed up with a mock magazine, I said, Hey, we could have our own magazine. And they're like, well, would it be like a hundred percent Greeley? Like just Greeley? I said, yeah, just Greeley. And so, so many people were in instantly like, a magazine that's just for us i will support that all day and so i have i have businesses that are like well i don't even need to really advertise but i love what you're doing and so i want to be a part of it i want to support this community publication i think that's cool that's part of why you and i resonate is because that local community whatever community you're in you should really be proud of that community and that was like part of your dna from the start here Yeah, absolutely. And becoming proud of it.

32:05 Like, I tell you what, you were probably reluctant to move to Greeley, but after a year of interacting with these business owners and these inspiring members of society, frankly, like, I'm sure you were way more proud of it six months in, and then it just kept going up from there. Oh, it just grows and grows, and you just have such a love for the business owners and people that I work with. I've worked with probably 200 businesses in Greeley, and, like, I've been... amazing people like all of them like it's just been an incredible experience do you want to shout out or talk about what it takes to put a magazine together do you want to shout out your team i met one of your people yes i did yeah she's great and i've fired a lot of people so to finally have like my person is fantastic.

32:53 She's like the person I always needed, and I kept firing people looking for her. But, you know, timing really just lined up with her, and I hope someday to sell the magazine to her down the road. And is she your kind of... She's my editor. Okay. And kind of right-hand, like, her and I just do all, like, the bulk of the work together. Then you subcontract for, like, the photography things and maybe some content creation, some writing, whatever else kind of stuff. But she's like the... the real employee. Yeah, all hands on deck. Fully invested all the time. Yeah. Ride or die. Ride or die, buddy. Yeah, totally. And we just enjoy working together. We enjoy our time together. Cool. And we both love what we do.

33:33 So it just makes it fun. We have a good time every day. Well, I imagine because she's awesome at her job, it gives you time to do some gallivanting, looking for land deals and... Stuff like that I do have other businesses Besides even oil and gas So there's always something And six kids Do you want to Can we talk about the other businesses? They're not as substantial Just little things Little land investments We have an Airbnb in our park Yeah, stuff like that More capital focused businesses That do a little bit maybe But don't require a bunch of employees Or things like that Yes, yeah, totally Dig it This episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank.

34:13 Loco Think Tank provides peer collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage of the business journey, and we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features gift-back-minded business veterans in the role of Loco facilitators, And we're always looking for abundance-minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, local community, or to feature on this podcast. Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Loco Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the Loco Experience podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at locothinktank.com. That's L-O-C-O thinktank.com.

34:53 What I wanted to go to is, so you talked about you had like this, what, maybe like four months, probably three months of really selling and then a month of putting together that first episode? Yeah. Or not episode, issue. Issue, I think I put it together in six days. Okay. So you just sold hard until you couldn't sell no more. Well, you sell until you hit a certain dollar amount and it's like, I think it's like $16,000. Oh, and then you can publish? For the cost of publishing a 36-issue magazine. six years ago, five years ago. Okay. So as soon as you hit that number, you're like, go to print. So if you've got a 22-page magazine, you can't go to print yet. No. It's like, oh, that's interesting. So you have to be able to cover the cost of a 36-page magazine.

35:34 The second you do... Then you start building it. But we are six days away from the editorial deadline. So I remember the Goat Sports Bar. Have you been there? Yes. They were just opening. And I was like, hey, can I come in and take pictures with my cell phone? Like do a story? And they're like, sure. And so we were really kind of scrambling. And I grabbed a photographer. And we did actually a really neat story with Ryan and Sarah Woodland at the house that they built. Local think tank member. Yeah. Yeah. I just saw they were on. But the house that they were living in a couple houses ago that Ryan built. And so when it took a photographer in there and said their dining room is our very first cover photo.

36:15 Oh, what? Way back when. I did not know that. And there's some neat pictures of them in there. You'll have to go look it up. Oh, yeah. But they were my first big lead story. And then we were off. Boom. I didn't realize. So my main competition, Vistage, or not my main competition because they're... a hundred times as big or a thousand or something. But, but where I kind of learned parts of local think tanks DNA from, in addition to kind of the, the Rotary club, the Matthews house and my nonprofit influences, but they like you pay them a franchise fee kind of thing. Maybe you would do the same. And then, um, to my understanding at least, until you get like eight members, you just do the work for free.

37:02 So you're having the meetings and stuff like that as the chair or whatever, but until you get eight or maybe it's nine, you don't get paid. Yeah, to cover costs. Yeah. And so it's a little bit similar. Oh, very similar. You've got to pass a barrier to entry that shows you can perform. Yeah, you're not making money for a little while because that first one you're just covering your cost of production and you're just so thrilled to have gotten there. Yeah. it's a pretty interesting model. So they have like kind of some superior kind of printing abilities and layouts and a lot of formatting background. And they, they probably have a heart for community as well. I suspect is why they do this kind of thing.

37:42 Yes. So we're not all just subscribing to us news and world report or whatever. Right. Like there are differences and welcome differences between all of our regions and communities. Yeah, absolutely. And we see that right here in northern Colorado. Huge difference between Greeley, Fort Collins, Loveland, Windsor. Totally. And so it's neat that we're able to just really dial in straight down to the culture of that community and build a publication just around that culture. And I think that's one of the reasons that Greeley Magazine has grown. We're now... 78, 76 pages. Oh, dang. So we've grown so much. You're almost up to the stampede size. Almost back to the 100. I know that was an anomaly, but someday maybe I'll get there. But 100 pages a month is a lot of content to put together.

38:23 Maybe I'll get there. Yeah, you might have to have a bigger team or hire an assistant for Kennedy. Yeah, we'll see. Or maybe that'll be her problem after she buys it back. Yeah, with just the team we have, I'm like, oh, we have a lot of people. It's good problems to have. But so the model and, you know, a lot of people even years ago were saying like Prince on its way out. Not really sure why you guys are doing this or investing or, you know, our main guys. It's very much a family company. No, not sure why you guys are looking to grow like Prince dead. But it's actually been the opposite. Our distribution is bigger than Vogue distribution. We are very big. Right.

39:03 But it doesn't feel like that because it is so local. So how many households get your magazine nowadays? Yeah. So I direct mail to 8,000 houses in Greeley, 800 businesses. In those businesses, people are putting them out in waiting rooms, so people are picking them up all day. Right, so we're getting two or three copies even. Yeah, yeah. And then we're in copy shops and racks. Drop-off points. Yeah. Yeah, cool. And then we have a great digital copy shop. And I get actually a ton of reads on LinkedIn where people can just literally flip right through the magazine on my LinkedIn page. So, you know, people consume media lots of different ways.

39:46 And so – and we've – as I shared with you earlier, we've now combined print and digital together. Yeah. because print has a very high trust rate and digital does not. So when we take the trust that we have with print and then combine it with meta ads, it increases the meta ad effectiveness and the print effectiveness by almost 400%. Like it's insane. So we have this really cool product and really... We haven't seen anybody else doing that anywhere in the country. And it's working really, really well because still, and I don't know if this will always be the case, like with my kids who are 20, they may not read magazines when they're 50 or, you know. But right now we still have a very strong readership of people that love to hold that magazine in their hand.

40:32 And then we reach the younger generation on Instagram and Facebook that way. So we are still touching all the bases on that. Well, in many cases, even that Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn magazine, we just bought a two-year-old iPad instead of a 14-year-old iPad, which is what me and Jill had before, but we bought it from our exchange student so that he could buy a brand new iPad where they're half as much to buy here as they are in Germany kind of thing. Wow. So anyway, so now I have like – a not ancient iPad works and stuff. And it's actually a really nice, like it's going to be my new reading books thing and stuff more instead of.

41:14 Yeah, you can just flip right through. And a phone is just too small for me anymore. I'm quite a bit older than you. No, I'm already on the reading glasses track. Oh, did I show you my, oh, I don't have it with me. I have a little reading glasses that clip onto the back of my cell phone case. I've seen that. Oh. I'll get there someday. You always have them. You don't need them yet. No, I still, yeah, I'm really into glasses now just recently. But I like to have the little ones perched on the nose. I'll get there. It's a fashion accessory for ladies especially. Okay, good to know. You can have different colors. You got some good blue tones going on right now, some bright blue. Yeah, I like to have the little ones perched on the nose. It makes me look smarter. Let's talk about your family a little bit because that has been kind of a key part of your story.

41:57 We're drinking mom juice here. I didn't bring it out, but this is mom juice Pinot Grigio. Mom juice brand wine. I'm mom hard, that's for sure. Do you want to – sometimes we do a name and one word description for kids, even the bonus kids. Would you like to attempt that exercise? Yes. I'm going to say no. Too hard. Because I am very anti-label. Yes. And that is from my religious background, where I was exiting a religion that I was raised in. Okay.

42:37 And I met someone who had walked the same path, and I was asking him questions, and he was like, no, I'm just Matt. Like, I don't do labels. I'm Matt. Yeah. And I was like, oh, huh. All right. Okay. And so that kind of always stuck with me. And so I met with someone this morning that was like, oh, I'm a domestic violence survivor. And I was like, oh, that's a label. Why would you label yourself that? Why are you going to... This is... Why would you identify with any kind of label? Because my story... Of my different chapters in life are substantially different. Well, you've played different characters in each of those chapters even.

43:20 Yeah. And you close a chapter and you leave it and you close a business and you leave that and you move to different industries. So. Okay. And with my kids, man, like. Okay. Let's do something different. Like, I don't ever want to give them. Let's have you tell me, uh, one or two favorite things about each. Is that reasonable? No. Yes. So my kids have- For you. From your perspective, of course. Oh, favorite things about the kids? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Individually, though. Oh, my God. Not just as a block. They're all so cool. Okay. Child number one. She's 29. She is in Spain right now. Very cool. Living her best life. She is an adventurer. She packed up- Sounds like a label. Just kidding. Oh.

44:01 It's a positive label, though. This chapter of life, she is adventurous. Is that better? Yeah. Yeah, she is adventurous. She's being adventurous. No, this is a good exercise for me. She went to PA school out in California. Awesome. Didn't know anybody. Just decided she was going to move out and go to school after applying and applying until she finally got into a good school. It set the tone for all five of our other kids. They watch her go and do that. I can do it. Oh, she just went to another state to go to school. So then the next daughter packed up and said, I want to go to school in Arizona. Moved to downtown Phoenix, didn't know a soul, and went to Phoenix College.

44:43 And now she's at ASU. Like, just there they go. And then our son moved to Scottsdale and went to flight school. And he just got an airline pilot job. Nice. So all the kids are doing great. And then, let's see, next. The next son. So we have Ella, Mitch, Addie, Ethan. Okay. Ethan just decided to follow his heart. Okay. He finally, so he's been at junior college and JC wrestling. And his dream was to come back to Greeley and wrestle at UNC. Okay. That was his dream. It's all he wanted. You know, something about he wanted to be that hometown kid that came home.

45:25 Well, he got a spot on the team. Cool. So he moves into this wrestling house and full guys. He's just having a great summer. Is this the 21-year-old that's also programming AIs for you? No, not yet. No, not yet. So Ethan is 23. Okay, gotcha. So he's a senior at UNC. He comes to me a couple weeks ago and says, hey, I have had a lot of success in judo, in judo competitions. He went to Denver as like a brand new, like... He just started training judo a couple months ago to be more well-rounded in wrestling. And he goes to Denver, wins a tournament. Oh, dang. And everyone's telling him, like, oh, you've got some real potential here.

46:06 And we think that you're going to be really good. Are you worried he's going to go MMA or something? He's been saying that for a long time. Is he mean? He's not mean, but he's one of those kids that doesn't feel pain. To do MMA, you've got to have a screw loose. And he has one loose in the best way. He's just my kid. When he was 18 months old, he was always trying to push me down. He grabbed me by the knees and gave it all he got. He was born different. Born to wrestle. Born to wrestle, born to fight. Yeah. But he's a very gentle, protective kid.

46:47 One of the things that I think the Joe Rogan podcast has done, having done a lot of things, but he brings these MMA guys on there. Maybe once every two or three months, he'll have a MMA star on there. And they come from wildly diverse backgrounds. There's Brazilians and there's freaking, not actually Russians, but some of those other nearby there, Azerbaijans and stuff like that. But they're all like... students of life and intellect and focused energy and they're kind and they're smart and they're yes they will mess somebody up in the right circumstance but they're not violent at all they don't want to hurt people if anything they don't they want to not hurt people Yes, exactly.

47:34 That's so weird. So yeah, my son, so he, um, he's a philosophy major. Right. Exactly. And he's studying Japanese because he wants to learn the culture of judo. And he just got his brown belt after a few months of judo. So he comes to me and he's like, he gets his brown belt and there's all these competitions that his coaches want him to do. And he says, mom, I can't do both UNC wrestling and judo at the same time. And me, I said, you know, I'm just going to say, like, I don't want you to do things for other people. I want you to do what your heart tells you to do. But also, are you going to regret years down the road this opportunity that you wanted so badly?

48:15 But the commitment that Division One Wrestling takes is, like, your heart has to be in it. Yeah. And the coach came to him and said, work. came to the team and said, we have 38 guys in the room and we're cutting to 30. So he knew eight people were going to go and he didn't want to take that spot from someone that really wanted it and was willing to do what it took. Put all the work in. Yeah, and had their heart in it. So that's my next step. Well, when something is new and shiny and exciting like that and he's already excelled so dramatically. Yeah. Oof, Mama, I'm sorry, but that's tough. No, that's a tough... I think he's going to have a lot of fun. I met with his coaches this morning. First time I've ever met with them. And we're going to do some stuff with the magazine. For sure. Because I'm like, you're changing my kids' lives. Right.

48:55 In a good way. Hopefully, yeah. And lots of other people. And so I want to tell your story. So stay tuned for the Farm Brazilian. So now we're on to the AI oil field software designer guy. So this kid came out of nowhere. Okay. So he was my kid that was a little bitty. And if he didn't have a toy that he wanted, he figured out how to build it with stuff he already had. So I knew he had this inquisitive brain that was going to figure things out and figure out how to achieve his goals no matter what it took. So I always saw that for him. What's his name? Caleb. Caleb. Hey, Caleb. Yeah. So that's Caleb. It's okay. So he, yeah, he went to... school at utah tech and he had a great freshman year partied like crazy had a good time made lots of friends stayed up late and then he said mom you know i just don't know if i want to go back to school like i just i took stupid classes like music history and like that doesn't make sense to me just to waste my time taking stuff i don't want to take yeah Well, I made him go back anyways.

49:52 And I said, school is not about those classes. It's about the relationships that you make and the skills that you learn in school. So go back without mindset. Just take the business classes that you want to take and nothing else. So we did. He took one business class and his professor was a professional who was only teaching one class. Those are my favorites. Yeah. They do it because they love it. I kind of wanted to be a professor someday, but as a business guy, right? Yeah. You'd be really good at that. So they do it because they love it. So he became very close with this professor and another professor who was like an executive for Blue Bunny Ice Cream. Okay. So now he's connecting the dots. Like, okay, I'm here to really learn, to make connections.

50:35 And so he would stay after class and talk to these professors and ask them about their experiences and just... Absorb. Absorb. Yeah, absorb as much as he could. So he gets into Claude, starts learning AI while he's in school, and connects with this professor who's also running a full-time life insurance agency. Okay. And they're talking, and my son's like, well, what if we did this to help you and built this? Hmm. Well, fast forward, like... Eight months later, and they've built all of these systems for life insurance agents that manage all of their clients, all of their marketing.

51:16 So they're building all of these really neat systems. Caleb develops this product that helps people who are almost uninsurable and can't find insurance. He builds a product to connect them to agents all over the country that will insure them. Wow. So he's doing really cool things. And then he's like, oh, I could do this in other industries. So he builds that for our oil and gas company. So now we have all of our wells, all of our investors, all of our production. And then he meets mineral owners, starts building it for them. And then he meets guys that own – storage units and he's building systems for them. So he's, and then he met this guy who has this, like, this technology. Yeah, we want to be a software seller these days.

51:57 Oh, no. Bye-bye. Right. You want to pay me $150 a month forever? No. Yeah. I don't. Or $500 or whatever. Like, especially, I guess the enterprise softwares and stuff, but even them have to be under some significant threat. The ERP type systems, you know, the real sophisticated systems. Yeah, and they are hiring AI consultants like crazy to try to get ahead of it. Right. It's very interesting. And so I'm really enjoying watching him. And so as you can imagine, he did not go back to school this fall. Yeah, too busy. He's got way too much work. Right. And I said, you know, my generation is like, oh, you got to get your degree. I might want to hire him if he's still affordable before he's overpriced. Yeah, do it now.

52:38 He's still very affordable. Because I've told him too, like, don't you worry about what you're charging people because that will take care of itself. Yeah. I met a kid at the food truck rally last week that has built a hacky sack business. He's a third-year CSU student, and he's got these hacky sacks that are just money. They're just perfect size, perfect padding, perfect stitching, and they're $18. And he's selling his shit on them. He's got them in a couple of local retailers and stuff already. And I was thinking to myself, I should have grabbed that kid's contact info. He'd be a fun... Kind of spirit of entrepreneurship at a young age kind of thing, right? Absolutely. In a product way. Uh-huh. Because there's a lot of people who try to sell services and doing, I'll do your marketing and stuff like that.

53:21 But we still develop products like we used to. Yeah. Everything's so digital. Oh, by the way, while we're talking about your family, I have a gift for you and your family. Oh, yeah. The gift for you, the standard gift, is the crazy ginger hot sauce. Oh, nice. And because it reinforces our theme of ask of your needs and share of your abundance, I have a beautiful Swiss German tomato from my garden. And a zucchini. I've been giving zucchinis away like crazy. Oh, that's a beautiful tomato. Thank you. Wow. Yeah, my garden was not good this year. Well, I'm glad that you were enjoying it. Thank you for sharing. Did you like tomatoes even?

54:02 Yes. Good. Very much. Thank you. Let's, you good? Should we keep going? Yeah. Anything else we should touch on in the family? Wait, we got one more kid. Oh, yes. The 17-year-old. He's the sleeper. Yeah, he's a senior this year and a wrestler and. His coaches said he's also very good at judo, so he'll be fun to watch. That'll be fun. Yeah. Actually, back to Craig first. And... We'll say this. Since I kind of ask about your age with the calculators with tapes before, I'll say, Craig seems relatively maybe older than you. Yes. And what was your draw to him and the circumstance? Were you online introduced, friends of friends?

54:44 You worked in the industry together, maybe. We did. Yeah. Yeah, we were both in a lot of time. Workplace romance? No. No. No. It's actually a very cool story. So I worked for an oil and gas company and we were officed in Highlands Ranch. And he was working out of Platteville office. And both of our companies, I was actively leasing neighborhoods in Windsor. for oil and gas development because we found out that all those neighborhoods, those minerals were not reserved. And so I was sending letters as fast as I could. To homeowners, basically. And tiny little, like one third of an acre, quarter of an acre, tiny little houses. Okay. And so people are getting these letters and they're like, what is going on?

55:26 Yeah. What in the world? Is this a scam? I don't know what to do with this. They're going to mail me a check for $100. Or no. Like the oil field company? It has to be related there to the? So it was actually... No, he didn't... Some of his neighborhoods, he failed to reserve the minerals. Oh, I see. He has a lot of mineral rights, but somehow there were stages of deeds that- Yeah, but the company that you worked for, was that his company? No. No, some other oil field. So I worked for an oil and gas company called Tecton Energy. Okay. But Tecton is the company that drilled a lot of the wells on Martin's properties. And they kind of sniffed out the fact that some of these properties still had some rights or something.

56:07 Yeah, so Tecton Energy is drilling up- A lot of what's horizontally drilling through Windsor. Yeah. Through Martin's properties, through other neighborhoods, through most of Windsor. Tekton Energy is the developer now. Yeah. So I work for Tekton, and so I'm actively leasing all of these neighborhoods. Yeah. Well, come to find out, there was an employee that lived in one of those neighborhoods for Craig's company that got one of my letters. Okay. She took it back to her company and said, hey, they're leasing in these neighborhoods. We should look into this. Okay. So they started chasing us and sending letters and offering just a little bit more money than us to all these neighborhoods. And people didn't know they get two letters.

56:50 They don't know what's going on. So they signed both leases and send them back to us. Oh, dang. So it became like... And we're talking about what? Like they get a couple hundred bucks a month or something if they're in a good... Yeah, it might pay their cable bill once the production starts. But for now, it's like $100 for the lease. So I'm getting leases back, and I'm recording them with the county, and all of a sudden, I'm noticing like... this other company is recording leases in the same neighborhood. And then it became a race and literally whichever lease was recorded first, got it. Oh, sure. And so I'm like, and I see this name on, on all these leases.

57:31 It's Craig Rasmussen. I'm like, who is this guy? Like, get out of my neighborhood. I was there first. I didn't know they had an employee that like was kind of the mole. Right. So I was mad. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, yeah. I was here first These are my neighborhoods And literally Because they're so tiny I have to get the whole neighborhood For it to be To make sense So I'm just like Irritated by this guy Yeah If you have one person That doesn't sign Then you just Can't really move forward You can And so there's a Stipulation called Force pooling Okay So you give them notices like, hey, you're going to be force pulled. If you don't. Here are your choices. Yeah. If you don't do anything, this is what happens. If you want to do this, you can do this.

58:12 If you want to do this. So they still essentially have three choices as a mineral owner. Makes sense. Okay. And that was the fun part about that job is teaching people that. Yeah. So I'm like, who the heck is this guy? Like, get out of here. So that was my first exposure to him. But that was years before I actually met him. Okay. So, but I kind of planted the seed of like, I knew his name. So fast forward. maybe two years later, I don't know, a couple of years later. Um, so I'm working in Windsor now. So I had the incredible privilege of being on the Windsor project with three companies. So I started with Tecton, I went to extraction and then Martin Lynn hired me out of extraction to come and manage all of his minerals, surface and subsurface.

58:54 Um, and production and construction. Oh, but mostly related to the rain dance-y thing? I remember something from a... Yeah, that's another really, really cool story is the rain dance project. So I'm working for Martin in the offices right in Water Valley. And one day I just worked through lunch, and I just decided to go over and get a salad at the... what's that bar downstairs? The restaurant down there. Sandbar. Yeah. So I walked down the sandbar at like two o'clock in the afternoon. There's one guy standing, sitting at the bar and like the rest of the place is empty. And I go and pick up my salad that I called over for. And I look over at this guy and he's got a shirt on and it says extraction oil and gas on the shirt.

59:37 Yeah. And I'm like, is your name Craig by chance? It wasn't actually get this. So it wasn't. So I said, do you work for extraction? And he says, no, no, no, no. I just had this polo in my car and I wasn't sure what the dress code was because it's a golf club. So I threw it on. What do you do? Like, what are you doing down here? Tell me about working for extraction. He just was instantly like, where did you come from? Because he's an oil and gas guy. I worked for Liberty Oilfield Services. So we strike up a conversation and we're talking and I'm telling them my story and how I ended up managing the oil and gas assets for this developer. And he looks at me like a few minutes later and he's like, what are you doing in an hour?

1:00:18 I said, working. He said, can you come back? I want you to meet somebody. And he had me come back in an hour and introduced me to Craig. Interesting. Yeah. Because he had in mind what you had in mind. Yeah. Or what Craig had in mind after he made it. Doesn't matter now. It worked out. It worked out really, really well. What a neat thing. Well, and I'm wondering to myself, is the pathway to working for Martin and his oil and gas assets partly because of you found so many kind of gaps in his game from earlier and stuff with his tech did work and stuff? Or how does that conversation come down? Well, when I got to extraction is when I really started to see a lot of errors in And I had become friends with Martin's team because Tekton was very close with him.

1:01:06 That was their primary project. All of their surfaces were on Martin's properties. So they had very tight-knit, close relationships with Martin's team. And so I knew them. And so when I started seeing all of these discrepancies and extraction was growing so fast, they were making acquisitions every week. And maybe not every week, but... A lot. Every month. Every month. And huge multi-million dollar, I mean, 200 million dollar acquisition. Tens of millions, 20s of millions, 40s of millions. Yeah, 200 million dollar acquisitions is what they started with. I don't know what they grew to. So, and they were bringing on like insane amounts of accounting people and switching accounting programs and trying to manage all of this like data dump.

1:01:50 And Extraction hired me because they needed someone who knew the project to come with the project that they purchased Tecton's project for. So I ended up going and working for Water Valley because they were dealing with eight operators and thousands of minerals. And it was a very fun job. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure. So that was my kind of alluding to my son, Caleb, now kind of using current technologies to do the job I was doing about a million times better and faster. I love it. If we're going to cover all our normal segments, we better jump to the next one. Where are we at now? I think the time machine.

1:02:31 What's that? Where we zoom back to your earliest memories. You ready? Okay. If you need a break or a wine refill, let me know. No, it's good. It's good. Yeah, tell me. I feel like I remember you told me, were you from Texas or something? I lived in Texas. You lived in Texas before you came back or something. I lived in seven states. Tell me about three-year-old or two-year-old or whatever-year-old Tara that has a first memory. The earliest memory. I was three, and I remember holding my baby brother. in the hospital oh yeah what a sweet memory yes tell me about the scene uh let's let's jump forward to say first grade you've got now a three-year-old brother or so your folks are doing what are they in the oil and gas industry is that where you learn the craft a little bit okay yep yeah Yes, my dad's a geologist and interesting dynamic with like the reason I remember my brother being born is because I had a sister that died.

1:03:36 And we had a rainbow baby that we wouldn't have had. Yeah. If she hadn't passed away. And you knew about that? Like when you were two or whatever, you knew mom had lost a baby kind of thing? Yeah, because I was 18 months old when my sister passed away. But she was born and then... She was four years old. Oh. So she wasn't an infant. I see. Yeah. So my sister died when she was four and I was 18 months old when she died. So I knew at three years old that what this baby represented for our family. Yeah. So it was a very. You were a pretty smart three-year-old to take all that in. I mean. Well, you just saw the trauma. It made an impression. It's like, yeah, it's like that. Why was that moment so special?

1:04:17 And that's probably why you asked that question. It's like, why is that your earliest memory? Why was that? ingrained in your brain. Well, sometimes, you know, and sometimes I'm just amazed by some people are like, I don't really remember anything before I was eight. And other people are like, when I was in the womb, I have these kind of memories. And so it's kind of my own kind of research project of sorts, I think. But I do, it's intriguing to me what resonates, what clicks. So, yeah. So now you're back again to a two-child family. Well, I have an older brother. You did already. Okay. Yeah. So there was three of us, and then there was two, and then there was three. Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. And your mom was a stay-at-home mom, or did she do stuff outside the home?

1:05:01 Yeah. She always, she worked most of my life, which taught me that. She always told me, like, it's really good for women to work. You always have your own identity. You get dressed up. You have your own money. Friends, money. Yeah, your own life. You're not dependent upon this. Yeah. Okay. And then, like, tell me about that, say, third, fifth grade, like, you're... becoming yourself a bit? Were you academically gifted? Did you get into basketball or cheerleading or anything like that? Like what were your, what were your pursuits? That's a pretty good guess. I was in the gifted and talented program for being creative and I did play basketball.

1:05:43 But so fifth grade, our elementary school, and I went to a pretty big elementary school. Okay. And where is this at? In Arkansas. Arkansas. Fayetteville, Arkansas. Okay. Yeah. So this is where Walmart is. Walmart, Tyson. But there's oil there somewhere too. It's a really cool place. Yeah. So my dad's working oil fields out there in Arkansas. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So our elementary school had a big fundraiser and they decided to give fifth graders the leadership responsibilities for the fundraiser. Oh. And so they had a supply... Without our names, answer a bunch of questions about what we wanted to do, what we were good at. And I ended up, out of 100 fifth graders, getting the marketing job.

1:06:24 Okay. So I got to produce a TV commercial, a radio commercial, and design a newspaper at 11 years old. Oh, how cute. So I think that... told me that I was good at that and that I could do that if I wanted to and really planted the seed, which I mean, when you're little, those things matter. Oh, totally. And my dad told me like, someday, Tara, you're going to be really good at public relations. I was like, okay, I trust you. Yeah. You have that dad daughter relationship and you just believe everything. Tell me about your dad a little bit, like his personality character. He's amazing. So he's a scientist. Okay. And he, geologist, he is very good at what he does.

1:07:05 He still works full time at 71 years old with our company. And now he's evaluating projects coming across our desk for... oil reserves and gas reserves that have not been properly developed. And he's worked almost every basin in the country. Wow. And he figured out that if you crack the code to a basin... you will have incredible success in every basin has a code and every basin has a different code and it's really neat to watch him. And he's working on a project that could be a company maker for us right now. And it's amazing. He's telling me about all these other geologists that are like, no, that didn't work.

1:07:46 And that didn't work. And here's why. And that didn't work. And he's just like shaking his head. Like you guys totally missed it here. And it's neat because I didn't realize maybe until just recently how good, He is at Cracking Codes, where I just figured all geologists know how to find oil. Right. That's why they're geologists. You just thump the ground and you get the report. You know what kind of rocks to look for. Yeah. Here's the report. Right. It's like buying watermelons. Yeah. But it's neat to see that he really is an expert in his field. And so hopefully you can have me back on in a few years talking about this company. Amazing thing that happened.

1:08:28 I love it. I might sell the magazine. I may be working in another state on this project. Tell me about your mom a little bit more. She's amazing, supportive, so loving, always taught me. Like the super encourager. Yes. And one of my favorite things to say about her is she always taught me that there's different seasons of life. To give yourself grace and to just know that sometimes you can do these things and sometimes you can't. That's an old song. Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just remember when I was home, I stayed home for 10 years with my kids when they were little.

1:09:08 And I remember being home with them and she'd say, you know, this is your season of life to just be here with these kids. Yeah. And later you can be out in the community and giving back and doing other things, but like if this is your season, like just embrace it because it's not always going to be your season. And so that was a big lesson for me that I talk about a lot is like, especially for women and fathers and men, like just give yourselves grace and know that there, you can do certain things in certain time periods of your life and others. And you can do better when you say that to yourself sometimes too. Right. Yeah. That's the challenge. Like not too much grace for yourself. Always. Yeah.

1:09:49 Well, because that's the trap, right? Yeah. You gotta give yourself a break when you deserve it, when you... And, like, you can't always be on break. Yeah, because if you are, you're gonna miss out on opportunities. Totally. Let's take us to, like, I graduated high school. I'm wondering what I'm doing next season for you. Like, describe your circumstances. Were you in Fayetteville still? Where were you at? So I graduated from Highlands Ranch High School. Okay. So you made your way up to Colorado by then? Yes. We moved every few years, so I went a lot of places, which has been great. So I graduated, and in high school, I was president of the yearbook club. I was very much into video production.

1:10:29 Okay, so you really do have roots in this kind of stuff. Yes. Yeah, I was the... Anchor, broadcaster for our high school news channel. Yeah. If I need a guest host for the local experience, I might check you out. Yeah. I'm available. Okay. So, yeah, that's what I did. But I was very entrenched in a religious community. I went to BYU-Idaho. I was Mormon. You were raised Mormon? I was raised Mormon. I guess. Okay. I was almost destined to get married young and... So it was somewhat unusual for like even in Arkansas and stuff like that or not so much?

1:11:09 Like in a place like I consider Arkansas or Texas kind of Bible belty and maybe less Mormon friendly somehow or something? Well, everywhere you go, there are Mormon churches. Yeah, okay. So the Mormon church is very widespread worldwide. Sure, sure. So yeah, we had a great community of Mormons in Arkansas everywhere we went. Okay. So I grew up very Mormon. And so I went to BYU, Idaho. And it has to be a very, very high percentage of girls that get married after their freshman year. And I was one of them, unfortunately. So I got married at 19. All right. Yeah. I don't recommend that to anyone. Well, I mean, you have four amazing kids by that young person.

1:11:50 And it is fantastic. I am 45 years old. And at 46 years old, all of my kids will be raised. And that's pretty awesome. Right. For sure. I'm still pretty young. Jill and I miscarried a couple times. And then we considered IVF when I was like 40. Yeah. It was like. No, no. Yeah, but you've got kind of the different opposite land story of having a whole herd almost and almost free of them at a very young age. But it was tough when I was in my 20s and everyone was doing all these things and I had no idea what I was doing raising these babies. I guess talk to me about...

1:12:30 It sounds like you're no longer with the church. Correct. And was that like, it sounds like you're still though very close with like your dad and your mom or whatever. Yeah, my family is all active LDS. They've accepted your departure from? They have. And I've been very fortunate because a lot of families don't. Right. Yeah. And my family has been amazing. I've had unconditional love for me and love my kids, even though they don't do all the Mormon things. So they're really great people. Tell me about, like... So you spent basically about five years having babies, another five years kind of raising them before the split, if you will.

1:13:14 Was your departure from the church more of a departure from the church or mostly a departure from him or kind of a combination? You had to get away from both if you were going to get out of there and share only as much as you'd like to about the circumstances, I guess. That's like a whole other show. That's something I'm totally familiar with. Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with the Mormon history. Sure. I have pioneer ancestors that came across the country in covered wagons. Wow. And gave up everything. Came from England. And then went to Missouri and Illinois and then walked to Utah. Wow. So I have a lot of... Oh, so they got converted to England.

1:13:57 Yes. After it started spreading overseas a little bit. They're like, no, we're going to Utah too. We're going to Utah, to Zion. And so they were very faithful people that gave up their whole life and their whole world for God and religion and... So very, very strong Mormon culture. Sure. But there was a lot of hidden things about the Mormon history. Well, a lot of the translations that the early founders made, once they actually found the right translation, they're like, oh, he was just talking shit. Yeah. Right? There's things like that out there. I really struggled with a lot of the things with polygamy and the young women that were taken as wives.

1:14:39 Was that still active? Yeah. Or just the history of it? The history of it. Okay. The history of it. You didn't experience that kind of pressures. No. You didn't have sister wives or nothing like that. No, no, no. No pressure to have a sister wife. Thankfully, I did not. Okay. But when your relatives, your blood lived in that culture, and then I started questioning that. And if certain things happened that... or maybe different than what you're taught, it kind of just blows your whole foundation of faith. And I struggled with that. And that was almost the lead there. The divorce from your first husband was not faith-related as much? It was not faith-related.

1:15:20 Fair. Yeah. It was other things related. And we can turn it from there. Yeah. You have to say two nice things about him now. I can say whatever I want because he has passed away. Oh, I'm so sorry. No, don't be. Okay. That's one thing. I can say that. Fair. He had a side to him that was not good. Yeah. And so once I realized that, I got out and I stayed way longer than I should because it was a very abusive situation. It's hard. And when I left, it was violent and terrible. So... It's pretty incredible and sad how many amazing women I've met that have been subject to that and stayed for longer than they should have.

1:16:05 Yeah. You know, they have a story like that. And mostly it's like because they're really damn smart and they think they can fix them or something, I think. Right? Yeah. I don't know. It's tough. You want to give people the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Yeah, well, and grace. Yes. But not too much easy grace because then they just take advantage. And then you have a bunch of kids and you're trained culturally. And you haven't really developed a lot of skills yet. Yeah, to like. So what happened then? Like when you guys split up, how old are you? What's the circumstance? And like, did you go like to work right away in this kind of oil industry thing? So I decided when my 17-year-old was a baby. And my ex-husband decided not to work.

1:16:48 Oh. And I remember having my baby crying. Was he like addicted? Because he was so hungry. Problems or mental illness or something? Depression? I don't know. A lot of, probably a lot of mental illness. Yeah. So he was in a stage of life where he wasn't working, he's collecting unemployment. And I just, when your child is crying and you're waiting for welfare to give you milk to feed your baby, it was like something inside of me was like, and we're done. I am not going to let my child go hungry where I don't have any control because he would never let me work. So I had no skills. I couldn't make money.

1:17:28 I had nowhere to go. And so I told myself, I said, I'm not going to be, and I'm also not going to be the mom that has all these kids and like moves home to her parents' basement and relies on her parents to take care of her because she has never worked. I'm not going to be that person. You're such a high skill, high polish, high influence individual that it's hard to imagine that in your early approaching, early thirties, you were basically isolated from, Totally 100% isolated. And that's why I love the magazine so much, because the true value of the magazine is connection. So I needed that connection in my own world, and so that became my directing value.

1:18:11 So at that moment when my child was two years old and crying because he had no milk, I made a plan. And I didn't walk out the door right then. I made a plan that I'm going to finish school. Israel tears now. Thank you. I'm going to finish school and I'm going to get a job. And the second I get a job offer where I make enough money to take care of my kids 100% on my own, then I will leave. And it took me a couple of years. But you didn't have no project self-sufficiency or the Matthews House or anything like that either. You were just figuring it out. Yeah, yeah. I went to school. I took out student loans. I went to school online because I didn't have help with the kids.

1:18:53 So I, I, and I was just determined. And then I got an internship making $13 an hour and I'm like, I'm one step closer. And where are you at this point geographically? You're in Utah or where, like, where are you living? Oh, yeah, I was in Utah. In like Salt Lake City? Springville, kind of near Provo. Okay. So living in just a little townhome. I mean... Couldn't buy food. And so it was at that point, like, I'm going to come up with a plan. And literally the second I got offered, and that's a whole other crazy story, but I got offered over six figures for a job.

1:19:34 And I said, goodbye. That's enough to take care of my kids. Within like a two year span after starting your career, it sounds like. Yeah. I started at $13 an hour. Two years later, I get offered $130,000. You're like, okay. See you later, Brian. Goodbye. Should we start with a chip tasting? Yes. Before the purpose-driven segment? Yes, we should. Okay. So this is kudos to Matador Mexican Grill in Fort Collins. They are our sauce purveyor. Amazing. And Paul down there gave me a handful of options on what would make a proper... So I came up with the name first, Crazy Ginger. If I say crazy ginger, is a particular person come into your mind?

1:20:18 I'm curious. Is there a person in your life, a redhead, obviously? That's crazy. That's crazy. You'd be like, oh, yeah, that's crazy ginger. I don't like labels for ginger. You don't like labels? Okay. Or at least not crazy labels. Yeah, good labels. How about amazing and their eccentricity? That's right. Spicy. Spicy. Oh, yum. Well, at least you... You just turned my chip into an enchilada. That is so good. You could have another one if you'd like. That's good. There's a little dipper there. Thank you. I'm glad you like it.

1:20:58 What do you imagine you'll feature it on first? Cottage cheese. Oh. Oh. Wouldn't that be good? I think so. Like just straight up cottage cheese with some hot sauce on it. Uh-huh. It's actually pretty intriguing. Yeah, because, I mean, all day long my Instagram's like, eat cottage cheese in every meal. Blend it up. Make it into bread. Really? Here's all these recipes for cottage cheese. I didn't know it was the new crazed food. I'm like, I don't have time for that. Should I buy cottage cheese shares? Yes, you should. It's on the up and up kind of trendy. I don't have time to make cottage cheese bread. Right. I'm a business owner. I got six kids. So this is a shortcut. But I could eat half of a container of cottage cheese if I dump enough hot sauce on it. And maybe some chips for scooping it. You can afford that a little bit.

1:21:40 Yeah, a little bit of carb. Should we jump into the purpose-driven questions? Okay. Thank you to Purpose Driven Wealth of Thriven for sponsoring our Purpose Driven Questions segment. At Purpose Driven Wealth, they believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Their mission is to help guide clients using a values-driven, stewardship-based approach focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment. With more than a century of experience, Thriven helps individuals and families navigate life and business transitions and prepare for the future while creating space to live generously and give back in meaningful ways. To learn more about Purpose Driven Wealth, please call 970-330-7411 for a complimentary initial consultation.

1:22:27 And now on to the questions. These are, we're thanking Purpose Driven Wealth Management for sponsoring the local experience. Love it. Oh, and let's... Like we've been talking about faith lately, about your background in Mormon faith. And I don't know if we want to get deep into that, but like talk to me about what, I guess if you're willing, seems like you're open book, but tell me about that journey since then. Like did Craig have a faith background? Did you leave all church altogether? You raised those littles for like 10 years almost as a single mom, seven years, six, something, I don't know.

1:23:08 Five, six, seven, eight, I don't know. A long time. Yeah, a lot. Yeah. And increasingly you're a land woman, right, or whatever, and you're that detailed person, despite also being an amazing creative. That combination of skill sets is not that common. That's what I hear. You forced yourself to become a, or maybe you didn't force. Maybe you're just naturally, you're probably kind of that, you're super organized and you're super creative, which are just rare in a one-person model. Yeah, and I feel like my parents really raised me to have specific skills. I kind of joke that my dad tried to raise me to be the perfect woman. And then I got sidetracked with the wrong guy.

1:23:50 And then I didn't know who I was for a long time, but I went back to those roots of, of how I was raised and the skills I was taught as a child and that, that him in fifth grade, him telling me you'd be really good at public relations and him trying to very intentionally raise me to pursue my own interests, which was pretty unusual. I suppose in his culture, it is right. Yeah. A lot of the, a lot of the culture, well, straight up, they are encouraged to stay home. Right. That came directly from... And if you go to college, it's so that you can find the right boy to stay home and have babies with. Yeah. To provide for the family and you have as many kids as fast as you can. And we are directly told by leadership that you're, as a woman, your place is in the home.

1:24:32 And that's worthy. I have wonderful memories of being home with my kids and loved that part of me that I had the opportunity to... I think the rejection of that message is to some extent to the detriment of... American women, like the ultra rejection of it. And there's a balance, right? There is a balance. And that's what I try to teach my kids. If there's any way that you can have an equally shared parenting plan where you have flexibility in your schedule to be home with your kids for part of the time but still have a business. Yeah. And your husband the same so that he can be with the family and have a business and you can do that as a team. There's a book called Equally Shared Parenting. Mm-hmm. that I read and I didn't have the right partner for it, but he sure tried.

1:25:16 But I, I, I love that idea because there's so much value for being home with your kids. And there's so much value for being a female that, that works and has a career. It's so hard to figure out what's best for you and your family. And so I have a respect for women that do either one. It's crazy. The way the school systems treat their families these days are like, yeah, Oh, it's too hot. We're going to let school out two hours early this week. Yeah. And everybody with like a normal job. Like, what do you do? Right. You know, as an entrepreneur, I could manage or my wife works from home and a lot of people do nowadays. But not everybody. Yeah. And it's the most impactful to the least able to handle it.

1:25:58 Mm-hmm. You know, that mom that can't get a shift off of work to go, or two hours early to go pick their kids up. And doesn't have $34 just on an Uber to go pick their freaking kids up from school two hours early. Yeah, or have a nanny. I had two nannies. Right. Because I had a plan. Right. Part of having to make $100,000 meant having to be able to afford a nanny, too. Yeah, but not everyone has that luxury. Right. And, yeah, not everyone gets that. It's part of the... the blessing, it was part of my faith journey. I, so I grew up kind of going to church, but it wasn't really like a real church kind of thing. Yeah. But then when I, I kind of had this guilt over I was blessed with good intelligence.

1:26:44 I eventually got tall, even though I was 5'1", until I was 16 years old, almost 17. So I had some setbacks and some things. But mostly, things came more easily to me. And athletically, I was more gifted than many people. And I felt kind of guilty about having been blessed with so many... Good things. Talents and gifts. You know, and I, like you were too, obviously. Like you've got both physical attributes and mental attributes that make you a special human that's able to develop a plan and earn more income than a lot of people could. Maybe. Or maybe you just tried harder. Well, you know, I do credit a lot of the skills that I have to Mormonism because at, I don't know if you know this, but at four years old, they put you up in front of a room of your peers and teach you how to speak.

1:27:35 Oh, wow. So you start learning public speaking at four years old and you speak. consistently. And when you're 12, you go in front of the entire congregation of adults. So these competitions where you're like winning this, the headmaster of the school program thing or whatever at 11 years old, that's a really big deal. I'd already been trained to do that. Right. And then also in Mormonism, they create leadership roles for kids. You have presidencies and you plan, you plan at 12 years old, you're planning full on activities for your peers. You're planning service projects. And so that's a big part of the LDS culture. And that's why you see a lot of really successful Mormon adults because we were as a tiny little people.

1:28:19 Leadership was built into them. There are like CEOs and things like that around the country. There's a pretty high representation in those leadership roles too. Yeah. Because we're raised to have integrity and be honest in everything that we do. And also here's these skill sets. Yeah. And we're actually going to give you responsibilities and have you execute them. So, yeah, I definitely attribute a lot of what I'm able to do today is starting at a very young age. Yeah. It's interesting carrying both of those handles in a way of like kind of really deeply appreciating that upbringing. And also having, it seems like you hold it loosely, but yeah, choosing not to be a part of it now or whatever.

1:29:02 And I guess back to my other question, have you built a different faith community, faith background chosen? Or do you just kind of not because of the thing or... You know, I have a lot of beliefs about higher power and the influence that that has on my life. But there is still a lot of searching to decide what my God looks like. And I have a lot of trust issues because I was told and believed certain things without a doubt for most of my life. And so then it's kind of like, oh, no, I was taught that no other church is the true church. There's no other truth besides Mormonism.

1:29:44 And so then where do you go from there? So I'm still on that journey. Even my own church that I grew up in and never really heard the good news, it was basically just come to our church. You'll be good. Otherwise, you're probably fucked. Like, maybe not in so many words, but that was the tone I kind of heard. Yeah. Yeah. So. The last church I went to just kind of reiterated over and over in the sermon, like, you're broken and you need this in order to be whole. And I just kind of felt like, no, I'm whole. Like, as I am, like, I'm not broken. Yeah. And I have... joy and peace and happiness and a beautiful family in this life that I've built. And I don't have to be sitting in your congregation relying on what you're telling me to rely on to be happy.

1:30:27 And that's just part of my journey of recovering from a lot of things. I go to the crossing, it's called, and it's what I call like a reformed pres-baptist. So kind of a hybrid Presbyterian and Baptist, which is kind of more libertine. They feared the concentration of power. Well, the foundings of the Republic, really, in the Netherlands and stuff, Calvinist. They were bucking the Spanish that controlled all of Europe back then, and they formed the Dutch East Indies Company and turned Amsterdam from a nothing into an amazing city. So that's... That's neat. Like, that was always my approach is like... even when I first started kind of hearing about Jesus and I'd be curious to know what, like your perspective was like what the church's perspective is on Jesus versus like the church founders and stuff like that.

1:31:17 But like, like I can be sufficient and I'm capable and I can probably be better with the right relationship with Jesus. Yes. And that's kind of been the focus of my thoughts along that line. Yeah. That's great. Is there a relationship in your life that's been the most secure through all of this? Travels, intervails, a best friend, a grandma, an aunt, or anything like that? Oh, just my Craig. He's been a rock, and I feel like he has kind of been my personal and my kid's savior.

1:32:00 Yeah. always been that solid constant for us where literally all of my family is still in the Mormon religion and, and has struggled with me leaving. Um, and you lose a lot of friends with that too. So I think that maybe now I'm going to get emotional. Maybe that's one of the reasons I love what I've built in Greeley so much is because I've been able to start over with so many beautiful relationships of people that don't care where I came from or what my history is. Yeah. They just see me like business owner to business owner and we're all here to help each other and support each other. And of course, like Craig through all of that has been my solid and my constant and beautiful, beautiful relationship he and I built.

1:32:45 And through all of these trials and struggles and that's what's so amazing about going through really hard things is he just it's like the refiner's fire. For sure. And you come out. stronger than you ever thought possible. So, yeah. Awesome. Good question. Yay. I'm so glad I was able to make you cry at the second half of the conversation. Keep crying. I want to bet with Ben. The local experience is the closing. I love it. Should we have this taster of... Shout out to Seed and Spirit Distilling, opening soon in the former Funkworks, opening their tasting room over here in the air park.

1:33:27 Oh, that's exciting. This is all local. I love local everything, especially local spirits, local beers. They raised their own corn and bought a combine down by Alamosa and harvested their own corn because they're crazy people. That's special. I love people like that. Cheers. Thanks for being here. That's so smooth. Good. Wow. That's really good. I'm impressed. It's really the base of a wonderful old-fashioned. Yeah. Like, have you had a Mezcal old-fashioned yet? I have. It's good, but it's a little too much. It's good. A little too smoky. A little too smoky. This is, to me, this is like a great base for an old-fashioned.

1:34:07 I almost called Jill. That's so good. I've got some Marciano cherries that I had in the office for a week or two, and then I took them home because I like my old-fashioned at home, too. I was like, babe, I don't have time, but I think Tara might like an old-fashioned. Can you bring me my cherries? But then I was like... Don't ask your wife. Where do you buy that? I bring my chairs to the office. Well, you can buy the WizCal. There's probably some liquor stores even around Greeley that carry this, but really around northern Colorado for sure, and even around the country. They've got a couple of different brands, but this is one of their flagship products. Super fun. I love that. And of course, I love supporting everything local, and that's very good. Good. Thank you.

1:34:47 Not that crazy as it turns out, even though it sounds funny, whiz-cal. That's very good. The craziest local, a.k.a. crazy experience, the craziest experience of this lifetime we've been reviewing, and frankly, somewhat surprised by it. I knew there was probably a story there. I didn't realize it was quite so dramatic and self-powered. Okay, I had something planned. I had all the ones I couldn't share. But now we've opened up that chest. Just kidding. Oh, shoot. It was the mezcal. I know my mind is like lost.

1:35:33 Is there... like a uh any near deaths or anything crazy like that no violence no oil field like explosions uh something like that how about a martin story i want a bonus local experience story i want i want one martin lynn story and one of your choice Okay, so when I was working for Martin and we were planning 50 horizontal wells to go under the Rain Dance golf course. Right. That's a lot of wells. Seems like. 50 wells is a lot. I mean. Because that whole golf course is covered in oil, basically?

1:36:15 Yeah. It's covering oil. Underneath it is completely drilled with horizontal drilling. So I don't know at that point if there... been very many 50 well well pads okay so and the thing that martin is so it's one pad well what no wait yes and no so because yeah so because we had 50 well heads you can't put 50 well heads and The equipment, tank batteries that you need all in one spot, especially if it's in the middle of a golf course. Well, normally a wellhead has those little grasshoppers and stuff, right? That's the head that's pumping it up, but there's probably concealed ones, right?

1:36:56 Yeah, you don't need that at first. Okay. So it's much... That's more of a catching... Yeah, you don't have the big pump jacks. You don't have the big pump jacks. Using vacuum to get the deep stuff later kind of thing. Yeah, so... Anyway. So what was so cool, so while we're planning all of these, so the oil and gas company was a company called Great Western Oil and Gas, and they since have sold, and they're not a company anymore, as far as I know. So we're working with the oil and gas company. and this was long before Rain Dance, any construction had been done on it, and if you've been out there, have you played Rain Dance? Yeah. Okay, so the you know, the elevation changes are insane. Yeah, I'll be out there next Friday actually, oh, two days after this podcast comes out for the Love Foco Golf Tournament, I'll have my ambulance camper out on hole one.

1:37:42 You should come. Oh, nice. Well, side note, Craig was a hole-in-one on raindance in a tournament and won a trip to Pebble Beach. Craig, you rock. Yeah. So anyways, which was really cool because my story there with raindance is kind of neat. So while we were starting plans, so I did a surface use contract. Yeah. With Great Western Oil and Gas. Okay. And, you know, Martin's worked with lots and lots of oil companies. You're basically like a paralegal here, it sounds like, almost. Well, LAMP is a lot of legal and a lot of contracts. My wife was educated as a paralegal. Oh, cool. And, like, she was with a couple of different banks as they were launching IPO-type things.

1:38:24 Yeah. Yeah. stuff and putting investor packets together and just learning so fast right out of college wow anyway yeah i mean and your legal contracts are everything right so i learned that's what she does i learned that from martin because he had had some very bad experiences with oil and gas companies in the past and that was part of the reason why i had a job with him so he needed somebody to look out for his interest why he's busy they allowed him to screw himself and he didn't like that i mean i mean not really yeah right so no for sure he you know he came to me and he's like i need this surface use agreement airtight like this is the future of windsor is building this rain dance golf course this is a dream i've had for a really long time and unless we can cause of the elevation and the amount of dirt oh yeah There's no way.

1:39:16 There's absolutely no way that he could have afforded to build that golf course without oil and gas. So while we planned these surface locations, so we actually had three locations for these 50 wells. Okay. And we had to go to the town of Windsor. We had to move the Poudre River Trail. It was a big deal. So I had to go in front of city council and people were shouting at me like, this isn't Disneyland. I'm like, it's just like... It's just a little gas location and a golf course. We're moving the trail just a little bit. But then you do that and you got to redo all the markers. It was actually a bigger deal than you would have thought. But so what was so neat about this whole project is that – While they were building the pads, so we had these three giant pads on the edge of the golf course, but we had to move an incredible amount of dirt.

1:40:06 So Martin had- Oh, so most of that elevation stuff isn't natural. No, it is. Oh. But in order- But even to get the wellhead is where they need to be. Also, you still have so much dirt and you're building a very intentionally designed golf course. So Fred Funk designed the golf course- Right. And I have worked. Well, and you got to go horizontal-ish, right? So you can't poke those horizontal things. Well, no. You're a mile down. Oh, you are? Oh, damn. So that doesn't matter. But the brilliant part of it is that you had to take, and Martin did this. He said, okay, the oil and gas company, hey, you guys are cutting in an insane amount of dirt and you have to move it? To build your pads.

1:40:46 So I'm going to have you move it and drop it where I need it. Where I need it. Greens. Right. And fairways. And bunkers. So it was the coolest thing where we're literally working every day with the golf course architect. Yeah. Like three-dimensional planning. Construction engineers. Volumetric analysis. And the oil and gas company. Dang. To literally have the oil and gas company. Yeah. pay to put the dirt exactly where we needed it for the rain dance golf course cool so cool it's like an orchestra conductor like getting it right i suppose yeah and you know you go out there golfing and you have no idea the amount of years and back to that surface use location i think it was 362 pages of legal documents that i put together with the legal team they hate the oil and gas company hated us But we needed to make sure that everything was done right.

1:41:40 Right. Every word was spelled out. Like anybody that buys a house around the rain dance golf course can have no risk of ever being impacted by this kind of stuff. Oh, that's a whole other thing. I don't think we have time. No, we're out of time. No, we have one more story, though, because the Martin story was a bonus local experience. So now you've got to give me a Tara-only local experience. Maybe it's from those early career days, right? You go from this $13 an hour girl into this $100,000 a year banger salary. Tell me about that circumstance just a little bit.

1:42:22 Maybe it's related to that. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Well, okay. Yeah. So I worked with a small company and it was financially backed by a German company. Oh. And this German company would come over and visit and have meetings and they wanted to see our projects and what we were doing. And we were a, Tecton was a tiny little company. There were six of us. Oh, that was just way back. Oh, wow. Okay. So that was in my early days. Now I've got a raise. I had to, beg and scrape to get to $17 an hour. Right. So now I'm making $17 an hour. And we're hosting these Germans. Oh, wow. So you've been with this firm since almost startup-ish. Or you were. Threw that time up to...

1:43:03 They always stayed small. Yeah. So they were a very little startup. Okay, gotcha. But they always stayed six people. Oh, cool. And then they sold to extraction for over $200 million. Six-person firms sells for $200 million? Yeah. That's significant. It was fun to be a part of. I didn't make any of that money. Right. But it was great to be a part of it. You're like, you could have paid me $13 an hour plus $1 an hour in stock at that time. Yeah, if I could add stock, that would have been helpful. Well, so the neat thing is I got to be on the ground floor and they were so good to include me. And I got to sit in every meeting. I got to sit in meetings with these German investors. We had the number one coal geologist in the world in the room with us who came from Germany.

1:43:46 Really cool experience. And so they came over to visit. And, of course, we want to entertain them. And we have all these plans and big dinners. So one of our dinners was at this really cool house in Golden by the Coors factory. And I walk in, and the president of the German group is like, I'd like you to sit by Igor. Oh. I was like, excuse me? He's like, Igor would like to sit by you at dinner time. At dinner. I think because he's German, he's like, it's okay. It's just, you're just... You, Igor, would like you to entertain him. He was very pretty and you're going to sit by Igor. Okay. I did not know this was part of the job. But like, what? So my ex-husband hears about it.

1:44:27 He's livid mad. Like, they're pimping you out. I was like, I just sat by the guy at dinner. Well, the next day... We got suite tickets at the Broncos. From Igor? No. I don't know. Igor didn't give them to me. But so Tecton buys these or gets these tickets from one of their service providers and wants to show the Germans a good time in the suite at the Broncos game. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, hey. I called home to Madison. I was like, hey, they need me to drive the Suburban. Yeah. Of the Germans to the Bronco game and like, stay for the game. And he was like, you're welcome to go to the game, but if you get home, I will not be here. And he like drew the line in the sand and pretty much said that I will leave you if you do this.

1:45:09 And I was like, I feel like that's unhealthy. And it was. It was very unhealthy. There was no freaking chance. You were raising all of his kids. Oh, come on. Yeah, but he was so scared and threatened because he was a bad guy. Right. Well, he didn't stand a chance against the real comparison. He knows that if she gets out and sees a taste of the real world, she's going to be gone. And that's exactly what happened. I went to extraction and started working downtown. And I was like, there's all these normal people. This is crazy. I could be with normal people doing normal things. I got to get out of here. And that just fueled the fire even more to... Get out. So that's my local story. Luckily, that local experience kind of propelled you into the normal world. It did. I was like, you know what? I'm going to a Broncos game.

1:45:49 I'm going to a lot of Broncos games. So I found a guy, and guess what? He takes me to a lot of Broncos games. And I'm like... Good girl. Get into this fairy tale story. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I think you're awesome. If people want to find you, is there a place where they should find you? Just LinkedIn or something like that? Or go to your magazine? GreeleyLifestyle.com. Okay. I think you can email me directly from there or LinkedIn. Cool. Yeah. Super easy. Google me. You'll be able to find me. Yeah. Same. Thanks for making the time. Thanks for having me. Godspeed. Hi, this is Kurt Baer, host of the Loco Experience podcast and founder of Loco Think Tank. Every week, I explore intimate conversations with business founders and leaders. And so I hope you'll join us this week and every week for the new episode of the Loco Experience.