Oct. 25, 2025

EXPERIENCE 141 | Building a Team, Conducting the Process & Growing Together with Evan Worsley, Founder & President of Conduct All Electric, Inc.

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Season 5

I reconnected with Evan Worsley this spring, when I dropped him a note on LinkedIn, in congratulations of 9 years in business and what I’d seen as steady growth in the numbers of Conduct All Electric trucks around the region.  Turns out, I had helped him register his LLC and obtain his EIN at the Small Business Development Center those 9 years before, and though the name was familiar, it was easy to remember Evan once we sat down over whiskey in the podcast studio. 

From humble beginnings, out of his garage and with half a paycheck from his previous employer in the bank, Evan took every small job he could land, and in a year and a half, hired another electrician and some admin support and moved up to a storage unit, and hired more and moved up to a larger storage unit, and today he owns his own real estate and employs a team of about 45.  Steady growth throughout, and Evan has sat in every seat in the business over time.  

Evan’s journey is one of building a loyal team, developing consistent processes, and investing in his own leadership and team skills along the way.  He’s a good ol’ boy type, and an easy conversation, so please join me in getting to know Evan Worsley, President and Founder of Conduct All Electric, Inc.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:06.469
I reconnected with Evan Wesley this spring when I dropped him a note on LinkedIn in congratulations of nine years in business.

00:00:06.740 --> 00:00:10.519
And what I'd seen is steady growth in the numbers of conduct all electric trucks around the region.

00:00:11.570 --> 00:00:13.490
Turns out I had helped him register as LLC.

00:00:14.119 --> 00:00:18.620
And obtain his employer ID number at the Small Business Development Center those nine years before.

00:00:19.100 --> 00:00:23.870
And though the name was familiar, it was easy to remember Evan once we sat down over whiskey in the podcast studio.

00:00:24.890 --> 00:00:40.609
From humble beginnings out of his garage and with half a paycheck from his previous employer in the bank, Evan took every small job he could land, and in a year and a half, hired another electrician and some admin support and moved up to a storage unit and hired more and moved up to a larger storage unit.

00:00:41.195 --> 00:00:48.725
And today he owns his own real estate and employs a team of about 45 steady growth throughout, and Evan has sat in every seat in the business over time.

00:00:50.195 --> 00:00:57.454
Evan's journey is one of building a loyal team, developing consistent processes, and investing in his own leadership and team skills along the way.

00:00:58.204 --> 00:01:00.335
He's a good old boy type and an easy conversation.

00:01:00.484 --> 00:01:05.015
So please join me in getting to know Evan Worsley, president and founder of Conduct All Electric.

00:01:44.314 --> 00:01:46.204
Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

00:01:46.504 --> 00:01:48.424
My guest today is Evan Worsley.

00:01:48.754 --> 00:01:51.334
And Evan is the president of Conduct All Electric.

00:01:51.424 --> 00:01:51.575
Yep.

00:01:52.114 --> 00:01:57.334
And as it turns out, I helped him set up some, like new business paperwork, uh, nine plus years ago now.

00:01:57.545 --> 00:01:57.875
Yeah.

00:01:58.084 --> 00:01:59.795
Uh, it'll be 10 years in February.

00:01:59.825 --> 00:02:00.245
Okay.

00:02:00.545 --> 00:02:02.015
Well, big plans.

00:02:02.015 --> 00:02:05.314
Are you gonna do, uh, uh, open house party?

00:02:05.314 --> 00:02:06.995
Like 10 years is like, nine years.

00:02:06.995 --> 00:02:07.805
Feels kind of awkward.

00:02:07.805 --> 00:02:07.864
Yeah.

00:02:07.864 --> 00:02:10.685
You maybe have a birthday party every year, but nothing, not a blowout.

00:02:10.895 --> 00:02:11.164
Yeah.

00:02:11.164 --> 00:02:16.865
We just find an excuse to have some good food around the office, but, uh, 10 years we should probably do something.

00:02:16.865 --> 00:02:24.724
But yeah, 10 years ago we came in to, uh, I believe you were at the Larimer County Workforce, um, area.

00:02:24.814 --> 00:02:25.294
Oh, okay.

00:02:25.324 --> 00:02:26.044
Helping us.

00:02:26.044 --> 00:02:27.604
And so we made an appointment, came in.

00:02:27.604 --> 00:02:29.375
'cause I really didn't know what I was doing.

00:02:29.375 --> 00:02:31.264
I knew what I wanted to do, but didn't know how to do it.

00:02:31.264 --> 00:02:31.865
Yeah, yeah.

00:02:32.104 --> 00:02:36.229
I, I imagine you were probably like a, a master electrician already and you wanted to like.

00:02:36.995 --> 00:02:39.215
Tell your boss to pack sand and yeah.

00:02:39.215 --> 00:02:40.354
Uh, start something of your own.

00:02:40.444 --> 00:02:51.574
So coming outta high school, I went to play college baseball, realized I was homesick and came back and, um, my friends were electricians and my dad was a lineman, so he was pretty much in the electrical world.

00:02:51.574 --> 00:02:51.784
And

00:02:51.905 --> 00:02:52.085
yeah,

00:02:52.294 --> 00:02:57.004
he said, uh, electricity, something technology would never replace, so it'd be a good career path.

00:02:57.004 --> 00:02:59.224
And so I immediately got into it.

00:02:59.344 --> 00:03:05.944
Um, got my journeyman's by the time I was 21, and I was running a big project in downtown Fort Collins.

00:03:05.944 --> 00:03:10.625
And the, the general contractor at the time said they, like, they think electricians make great superintendents.

00:03:10.625 --> 00:03:14.495
And so when I got my journeyman's license, I went in, I was all excited.

00:03:14.495 --> 00:03:15.514
It's a big accomplishment.

00:03:15.514 --> 00:03:17.284
It takes four years, a big hard test.

00:03:17.284 --> 00:03:20.525
And they gave me a 50 cent raise and I was deflated.

00:03:20.764 --> 00:03:24.425
And so at that same time, I'd got that job offer.

00:03:24.425 --> 00:03:27.004
And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna take this.

00:03:27.004 --> 00:03:33.514
So I went from being an electrician to a superintendent, and I was building big buildings all around Fort Collins.

00:03:33.514 --> 00:03:33.965
Oh, okay.

00:03:33.995 --> 00:03:35.164
Did, did a lot of work for Brick.

00:03:35.224 --> 00:03:35.555
I suppose

00:03:35.914 --> 00:03:36.340
that, that, that.

00:03:37.069 --> 00:03:39.379
Skill of project management translates.

00:03:39.409 --> 00:03:41.030
Yeah, whatever industry a little bit,

00:03:41.030 --> 00:03:44.625
you're still, you're still reading drawings and communicating with subcontractors and stuff like that.

00:03:44.625 --> 00:03:45.050
So you were early days

00:03:45.050 --> 00:03:46.129
of Brinkman probably had noticed.

00:03:46.129 --> 00:03:46.159
I

00:03:46.159 --> 00:03:49.460
was, I think I was right around employee number 12 and so Oh, wow.

00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:53.599
When I left there was 120 some, so it changed a lot.

00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:55.129
I'm very grateful for what they did for me.

00:03:55.129 --> 00:03:56.060
I learned a lot and, yeah.

00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:56.330
Yeah.

00:03:56.449 --> 00:03:56.960
Um,

00:03:57.020 --> 00:03:58.789
well, it's another one of those spawn companies.

00:03:58.819 --> 00:03:59.120
Yeah.

00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:00.409
Like back in the day, like.

00:04:01.219 --> 00:04:02.509
Delta was one.

00:04:02.539 --> 00:04:02.810
Yes.

00:04:02.810 --> 00:04:07.280
And Nina has spun it off so many companies from that organization over the years.

00:04:07.310 --> 00:04:07.460
Yep.

00:04:07.460 --> 00:04:11.689
And you know, even HP when they do layoffs and those smart people don't wanna leave Absolutely.

00:04:11.689 --> 00:04:13.159
Until they start a company of some sort.

00:04:13.490 --> 00:04:13.669
Yeah.

00:04:13.669 --> 00:04:14.240
Very grateful.

00:04:14.240 --> 00:04:15.020
They taught me a lot.

00:04:15.020 --> 00:04:17.600
I have a really, a lot of really good relationships still from there.

00:04:17.600 --> 00:04:17.930
And Cool.

00:04:18.259 --> 00:04:23.029
Ultimately that's kind of what helped start my company is I just realized I missed doing it.

00:04:23.029 --> 00:04:26.509
I was still doing some electrical work and on nights and weekends Gotcha.

00:04:26.509 --> 00:04:29.629
For family and stuff and just kind of wanted to electric, electric

00:04:29.629 --> 00:04:30.199
guy at heart.

00:04:30.259 --> 00:04:30.680
Yeah.

00:04:30.680 --> 00:04:32.629
I just wanted to kind of be in charge.

00:04:32.629 --> 00:04:35.149
I wanted to be the bus driver instead of a passenger.

00:04:35.149 --> 00:04:35.930
And so, yeah.

00:04:36.170 --> 00:04:38.420
Um, ended up starting my own company.

00:04:38.449 --> 00:04:40.910
And you know, obviously with your help and got going.

00:04:41.180 --> 00:04:43.910
Talk about like your stage of life a little bit.

00:04:43.939 --> 00:04:46.370
Like were you married kids, did you have a.

00:04:46.654 --> 00:04:48.185
Big pile of money to Yeah.

00:04:48.245 --> 00:04:50.019
Buy some trucks with and stuff right off, off the bat.

00:04:50.019 --> 00:04:50.285
I would not

00:04:50.285 --> 00:04:51.935
recommend doing it the way I did it.

00:04:51.935 --> 00:04:51.964
Okay.

00:04:51.995 --> 00:04:55.475
Um, I was married and we had two young girls.

00:04:55.954 --> 00:04:59.495
Um, and I had no nest egg, no plan, no nothing.

00:04:59.495 --> 00:05:00.514
I didn't, not even a retirement account

00:05:00.514 --> 00:05:01.295
to tap hardly.

00:05:01.324 --> 00:05:01.475
Not

00:05:01.475 --> 00:05:01.894
really.

00:05:02.074 --> 00:05:03.785
And spent all that money to get married.

00:05:03.814 --> 00:05:04.144
Yeah.

00:05:04.144 --> 00:05:06.365
The stuff that I did have, he wouldn't let me touch.

00:05:06.365 --> 00:05:10.235
I had a good financial advisor still do, so, um, he wouldn't let me touch it.

00:05:10.235 --> 00:05:16.894
And so pretty much, it was a big leap of faith and I would do a job and then ask them if I could get paid the same day.

00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:19.740
Granted, these are small jobs at the time when I was first starting.

00:05:19.740 --> 00:05:26.879
But you know, if I did something for$400 that day, I would try to get a check that day for$400 so I could pay the bill and then have a little bit of money.

00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:31.439
And so really, I just had one, uh, one paycheck in the bank when I left.

00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:31.680
Wow.

00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:34.019
When I left Brinkman and started doing work.

00:05:34.019 --> 00:05:36.509
And then I would turn one job into two and two into three.

00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:38.639
And you know, it kind of just got going.

00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:41.310
And the connections you made probably through Brinkman helped a lot.

00:05:41.339 --> 00:05:41.490
It

00:05:41.490 --> 00:05:41.910
did.

00:05:42.060 --> 00:05:42.420
Yeah.

00:05:42.810 --> 00:05:49.620
And when you're that little guy, there's a lot of little scraps that the real quote unquote, real electric companies don't wanna mess with you.

00:05:49.620 --> 00:05:50.100
Absolutely.

00:05:50.100 --> 00:05:51.930
If you can be that guy for a few different folks.

00:05:51.930 --> 00:05:51.990
Yeah.

00:05:51.990 --> 00:05:52.259
Things,

00:05:52.259 --> 00:05:54.329
things that aren't truly all electrical.

00:05:54.329 --> 00:05:54.569
Right.

00:05:54.569 --> 00:05:56.759
Maybe it's like, Hey, this heater's not working.

00:05:56.759 --> 00:05:59.279
I don't really do that, but I'll take a look at it.

00:05:59.279 --> 00:05:59.459
You know?

00:05:59.550 --> 00:05:59.819
Right.

00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:11.754
It was borderline handyman work for a while, but, um, you know, progressively, I think I was, I was my own, my only employee for three or four months, and then I hired somebody just outta your house or did you rent a space and stuff?

00:06:11.774 --> 00:06:11.995
Yep.

00:06:11.995 --> 00:06:12.810
Just outta my house.

00:06:12.810 --> 00:06:13.029
And then.

00:06:13.504 --> 00:06:19.204
Uh, hired another guy that I'd previously worked with, and at that time I upgraded to a storage unit.

00:06:19.264 --> 00:06:21.185
So things were really looking up at that point.

00:06:21.185 --> 00:06:22.235
I didn't have shelves.

00:06:22.235 --> 00:06:23.254
It was just all on the floor.

00:06:23.254 --> 00:06:23.404
Were

00:06:23.404 --> 00:06:25.115
you in Windsor already?

00:06:25.115 --> 00:06:26.404
Is that your home base or?

00:06:26.404 --> 00:06:26.615
Uh, we

00:06:26.615 --> 00:06:29.074
were, we started in Greeley, so we were west.

00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:29.524
West Greeley.

00:06:29.584 --> 00:06:29.855
Okay.

00:06:29.944 --> 00:06:31.504
Uh, when I started my business.

00:06:31.504 --> 00:06:36.545
And so, uh, kind of just working outta my house, finally got a storage unit, which I thought was pretty cool.

00:06:36.545 --> 00:06:42.365
I couldn't afford the shelves in there yet, but, um, we had enough stuff in there to, had some storage bins that needed.

00:06:42.365 --> 00:06:42.665
Yeah.

00:06:42.754 --> 00:06:46.144
We could kind of at least see what we had in a few ladders and stuff like that.

00:06:46.144 --> 00:06:51.125
And so, um, progressively just started picking up work and figuring it out on the fly.

00:06:51.185 --> 00:06:51.605
Wow.

00:06:51.725 --> 00:06:52.024
Yeah.

00:06:52.324 --> 00:06:55.805
What, uh, like as you added team, was it.

00:06:56.810 --> 00:07:00.439
All electric or did you add admin to the conversation soon?

00:07:00.529 --> 00:07:02.089
It was, was your wife involved with the business?

00:07:02.089 --> 00:07:02.449
She,

00:07:02.509 --> 00:07:03.199
she was.

00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:10.009
And so she helped me with, you know, I was my all ad I was the bookkeeper, I was the estimator, I was everything.

00:07:10.009 --> 00:07:12.139
And yeah, I had no idea what I was doing.

00:07:12.139 --> 00:07:13.160
I was making mistakes.

00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:18.680
And the problem is I would go do the work and I, I'd get home late and I was tired and then I wouldn't bill.

00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:22.009
And so we had these crazy peaks and valleys of cash flow and some

00:07:22.009 --> 00:07:24.560
jobs you didn't make any money'cause you just forgot something.

00:07:24.560 --> 00:07:25.009
Yes,

00:07:25.009 --> 00:07:25.730
I'm sure I did.

00:07:25.910 --> 00:07:42.319
I didn't have very good systems at the time and yeah, you know, ultimately it was, it was quickly obvious that if my marriage was to survive, we needed to, um, separate that part of it because, you know, it's stressful and Totally, you know, I, I was.

00:07:42.805 --> 00:07:45.444
Pushing on her to do things that she didn't know what she was doing.

00:07:45.444 --> 00:07:46.435
And so it's like, you know what?

00:07:46.435 --> 00:07:48.084
Let's just find somebody that could help us.

00:07:48.084 --> 00:07:48.144
Yeah.

00:07:48.144 --> 00:07:53.274
So, um, ended up finding a really great lady named Nicole Watkins, who you may know.

00:07:53.634 --> 00:07:53.694
Oh yeah, I do.

00:07:53.875 --> 00:07:54.235
Yeah.

00:07:54.235 --> 00:07:58.884
So she was kind of a, I guess you would call it like a remote bookkeeper.

00:07:59.095 --> 00:07:59.334
Yeah.

00:07:59.365 --> 00:08:07.524
So we would send her things, she would have access to our stuff and um, that kind of got me going for a while and until we started needing to hire more staff.

00:08:07.584 --> 00:08:08.365
Kind of full time.

00:08:08.514 --> 00:08:08.875
Yeah.

00:08:08.875 --> 00:08:08.884
Yeah.

00:08:09.055 --> 00:08:10.350
Well eventually like,'cause you're.

00:08:10.964 --> 00:08:12.704
Like what's that evolution now?

00:08:12.704 --> 00:08:13.814
What's your team size?

00:08:13.995 --> 00:08:17.985
We're right around 50 with everybody between field and and office staff.

00:08:17.985 --> 00:08:18.254
Yeah.

00:08:18.259 --> 00:08:18.300
Yeah.

00:08:18.345 --> 00:08:20.144
And how's that breakdown for your company?

00:08:20.144 --> 00:08:25.425
As far as like is there admin and then like sales and business development or do you do bid work mostly or A little

00:08:25.425 --> 00:08:25.694
bit.

00:08:25.694 --> 00:08:29.564
So I've got two full-time estimators who are also full-time project managers.

00:08:29.564 --> 00:08:29.954
So

00:08:30.045 --> 00:08:30.345
Okay.

00:08:30.404 --> 00:08:35.144
The model I kind of have is if they estimate it and we get the job, they will also project manager.

00:08:35.144 --> 00:08:37.245
You better be willing to manage it, get it done for that price.

00:08:37.274 --> 00:08:37.485
Yeah.

00:08:37.485 --> 00:08:40.004
'cause sometimes estimators like, oh cool, we won, here's this.

00:08:40.004 --> 00:08:40.455
Good luck.

00:08:40.575 --> 00:08:40.845
You know?

00:08:41.235 --> 00:08:42.404
Well now like an architect sometimes.

00:08:42.404 --> 00:08:42.914
Yes.

00:08:42.914 --> 00:08:43.815
Now it's their baby.

00:08:43.815 --> 00:08:45.825
So I have two full-time guys there that are great.

00:08:45.884 --> 00:08:52.815
Um, we have a service manager, um, we have who also kind of doubles as our HR and office manager.

00:08:52.815 --> 00:08:53.414
It's of fixing stuff that

00:08:53.414 --> 00:08:54.825
broke that you guys didn't install, right?

00:08:54.855 --> 00:08:55.365
Yes,

00:08:55.455 --> 00:08:56.024
exactly.

00:08:56.355 --> 00:08:56.985
That's Karina.

00:08:56.985 --> 00:08:58.764
So we have a service division and a.

00:08:58.914 --> 00:09:00.054
In a construction division.

00:09:00.054 --> 00:09:01.764
Karina runs that along with Scott.

00:09:01.764 --> 00:09:05.304
And so yeah, he's kind of the full-time service estimator and things like that.

00:09:05.335 --> 00:09:05.394
Yeah.

00:09:05.394 --> 00:09:05.784
We have two.

00:09:06.325 --> 00:09:06.384
Yeah.

00:09:06.384 --> 00:09:06.480
Shout out to Karina.

00:09:06.485 --> 00:09:08.784
She was running the Best Western during the COVID days.

00:09:08.784 --> 00:09:08.904
Yes.

00:09:08.904 --> 00:09:09.024
Yep.

00:09:09.115 --> 00:09:09.894
She remembers it.

00:09:09.894 --> 00:09:12.985
Uh, when we got kicked out of all of the government places we Yep.

00:09:12.985 --> 00:09:14.784
Crashed at, she was like, Hey, you crash here.

00:09:14.815 --> 00:09:15.085
Yep.

00:09:15.414 --> 00:09:17.769
She was, uh, she was a great hire for us.

00:09:17.769 --> 00:09:20.004
And so service team has four people.

00:09:20.004 --> 00:09:22.524
Karina Scott, um, and two service techs.

00:09:22.554 --> 00:09:22.855
Okay.

00:09:23.365 --> 00:09:26.455
We have a, uh, field operations manager.

00:09:26.549 --> 00:09:26.840
Okay.

00:09:26.845 --> 00:09:31.434
We have a operations manager, we have a, uh, controller.

00:09:31.825 --> 00:09:31.914
Mm-hmm.

00:09:32.394 --> 00:09:39.924
And Lindsay is business development, social media marketing and project specialists.

00:09:39.924 --> 00:09:40.450
So I like it.

00:09:40.615 --> 00:09:40.884
Yeah.

00:09:40.884 --> 00:09:43.914
She's the Swiss Army knife that kind of does a lot of that stuff as well, so

00:09:43.919 --> 00:09:44.049
Yeah.

00:09:44.054 --> 00:09:44.125
Yeah.

00:09:44.125 --> 00:09:46.705
When you were wearing 17 hats, now she's got 11 of those.

00:09:46.705 --> 00:09:46.975
Yeah,

00:09:47.335 --> 00:09:47.875
pretty much.

00:09:47.875 --> 00:09:49.735
Everybody wears quite a few hats in the office.

00:09:49.914 --> 00:09:50.004
Yeah.

00:09:50.004 --> 00:09:50.424
So, um, that's pretty

00:09:50.424 --> 00:09:51.654
streamlined organization.

00:09:51.654 --> 00:09:53.274
And then, then what does that leave about?

00:09:54.004 --> 00:09:56.044
40 ish, 35 ish.

00:09:56.105 --> 00:09:56.465
Yeah.

00:09:56.554 --> 00:09:57.065
Pretty field.

00:09:57.065 --> 00:09:57.335
Much

00:09:57.335 --> 00:09:58.294
depending on the day.

00:09:58.294 --> 00:10:05.404
You know, some guys will have their cat's, daughter's wife's kid has a quinceanera party to go to and they can't come to work.

00:10:05.404 --> 00:10:08.345
So depending on the day, we have 30 some guys.

00:10:08.345 --> 00:10:12.365
But, uh, yeah, we've, we've been fortunate to have a really good staff.

00:10:12.365 --> 00:10:21.095
I made a decision a long time ago to kind of invest in good people first and then create good electricians instead of just looking for good electricians.

00:10:21.095 --> 00:10:21.730
And sometimes So you do a lot of

00:10:21.730 --> 00:10:23.254
apprenticeships and stuff like that?

00:10:23.254 --> 00:10:23.644
We do.

00:10:23.860 --> 00:10:24.845
And great electricians.

00:10:24.875 --> 00:10:25.384
Yeah.

00:10:25.445 --> 00:10:28.115
It was a, it was a painful investment early on.

00:10:28.144 --> 00:10:30.965
'cause they don't, uh, they don't always know as much, but they're great people and

00:10:31.235 --> 00:10:32.825
Well, and you probably didn't know how to train'em that good either.

00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:34.804
I didn't, and I, I knew my way.

00:10:34.804 --> 00:10:35.164
Right, right.

00:10:35.164 --> 00:10:37.144
And who knows if my way was even the right way.

00:10:37.144 --> 00:10:44.105
And so we've got a lot of great people now, um, who have turned into great electricians and they've all been here a really long time.

00:10:44.105 --> 00:10:45.245
So I'm very, very fortunate.

00:10:45.304 --> 00:10:45.575
Yeah.

00:10:45.575 --> 00:10:45.634
Yeah.

00:10:46.294 --> 00:10:46.835
Um.

00:10:47.195 --> 00:10:48.875
Let's, can we zoom back a little bit?

00:10:48.875 --> 00:10:48.934
Yeah.

00:10:48.965 --> 00:10:56.075
To those formative years, so, so you added just another electrician right away, and then what was the first non-electric?

00:10:56.975 --> 00:11:01.654
Role that you filled outside of your wife doing whatever you needed her to do?

00:11:01.745 --> 00:11:02.105
I think

00:11:02.105 --> 00:11:08.794
the first one was kind of like a, a in-house bookkeeper, just because it got to be too much for kind of remote work and so, yep,

00:11:08.799 --> 00:11:08.820
yep.

00:11:09.304 --> 00:11:10.684
Added a bookkeeper who did one, Nicole

00:11:10.684 --> 00:11:12.215
had multiple clients, was kind of her thing.

00:11:12.245 --> 00:11:12.815
Yeah.

00:11:12.904 --> 00:11:17.705
And so, you know, she doubled as bookkeeping and helped with the billing, which was a big thing.

00:11:17.705 --> 00:11:17.855
Yeah.

00:11:17.855 --> 00:11:18.695
That we talked about.

00:11:18.695 --> 00:11:21.220
And also dabbled, got the phoenixes and whatever.

00:11:21.519 --> 00:11:24.429
Dabbled in hr, which I had no idea what we were doing with that.

00:11:24.429 --> 00:11:27.159
And so kind of inventing process we go

00:11:27.370 --> 00:11:27.610
And what do you do now in hr?

00:11:27.610 --> 00:11:28.389
Do you have somebody?

00:11:28.389 --> 00:11:29.019
Yeah, Karina

00:11:29.019 --> 00:11:32.924
is fully trained and certified in hr and she kind of, she handles all of that, leaves

00:11:32.924 --> 00:11:33.279
that department.

00:11:33.309 --> 00:11:34.179
Yep, fair enough.

00:11:34.299 --> 00:11:38.019
Yeah, so that was probably our first big hire office wise.

00:11:38.019 --> 00:11:42.039
And then, um, it kind of moved into project manager slash estimator.

00:11:42.309 --> 00:11:42.370
Yeah.

00:11:42.370 --> 00:11:47.919
Because I quickly learned that, you know, I was in the field all day and then estimating at night.

00:11:47.980 --> 00:11:51.340
And what that did was lead to some not great estimates too.

00:11:51.340 --> 00:11:53.470
It was like, ah, this should be good enough.

00:11:53.710 --> 00:11:53.919
Right.

00:11:53.919 --> 00:11:58.240
And we either weren't winning because it wasn't giving good details, or Yeah.

00:11:58.269 --> 00:12:02.259
We were winning because we were extremely low, which is not a good plan also, so.

00:12:02.289 --> 00:12:02.679
Agreed.

00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:03.039
Yeah.

00:12:03.429 --> 00:12:03.759
Cool.

00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:04.600
Well, that's been fun.

00:12:04.690 --> 00:12:12.519
Um, what, uh, like in the five year plan, do you have, uh, major changes to the organization?

00:12:12.519 --> 00:12:18.850
Is, are you happy, you sort, I assume like kind of Denver up to Cheyenne and east and west of ways, or is beyond that too?

00:12:18.940 --> 00:12:20.139
So we're just wrapping up.

00:12:20.554 --> 00:12:24.184
Um, the biggest job in our, in our company's history, it's in Fort Morgan.

00:12:24.184 --> 00:12:31.894
It's a big cold storage facility out there, but I really try to keep us home because I care about the guys and their family life.

00:12:31.909 --> 00:12:32.200
Yeah.

00:12:32.495 --> 00:12:32.674
Yeah.

00:12:32.674 --> 00:12:38.554
And you know, as much time as I spend going up and down the interstate for my kids in basketball, I realize that it takes a toll on people.

00:12:38.615 --> 00:12:38.855
Yeah.

00:12:38.914 --> 00:12:42.485
And at some point people are gonna be like, I don't want to do this anymore just because of the drive.

00:12:42.485 --> 00:12:48.695
So I kind of have a rule of trying to keep things between 45 minutes to an hour from the, from the shop for the guys.

00:12:48.934 --> 00:12:50.674
Now the Fort Morgan one is farther.

00:12:50.674 --> 00:12:51.995
I've got a couple farther ones,

00:12:52.774 --> 00:12:52.934
but at least you're not up and down.

00:12:52.934 --> 00:12:53.644
I 25.

00:12:53.644 --> 00:12:54.995
It's a a lot nicer roll in the fort

00:12:55.625 --> 00:12:59.855
and uh, I do pay the guys to sleep in the car while while driving.

00:12:59.855 --> 00:13:01.504
So, uh, that's an added perk.

00:13:01.504 --> 00:13:02.945
Hopefully not the driver is sleeping.

00:13:02.945 --> 00:13:03.304
Yeah, I was gonna say.

00:13:04.294 --> 00:13:10.684
Um, so yeah, we try to stay close, but you know, we've scaled all the way from just myself and that.

00:13:10.684 --> 00:13:18.875
I think that first year we did 325,000 in sales and then, you know, now we're gonna be just over 9 million this year.

00:13:18.879 --> 00:13:19.080
Oh wow.

00:13:19.529 --> 00:13:23.159
The plan is to kind of settle in that$10 million mark for sales.

00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:27.000
Um, I feel it's a good area between the small guys and the big guys.

00:13:27.004 --> 00:13:27.125
Yeah.

00:13:27.129 --> 00:13:31.110
And it's an area that we're really good at the, the size projects and

00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:31.470
Yeah.

00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:36.149
Our processes and procedures and the manpower we have is, is just perfect for that area to, to grow

00:13:36.149 --> 00:13:37.019
another stage.

00:13:37.019 --> 00:13:37.409
Yeah.

00:13:37.409 --> 00:13:39.269
You gotta try to turn into a 50 million company.

00:13:39.330 --> 00:13:39.629
Right.

00:13:39.690 --> 00:13:41.789
The next jump is a pretty big one, rather than with a real

00:13:41.970 --> 00:13:43.289
CFO and a real Yep.

00:13:43.889 --> 00:13:45.450
HR changes when you get over

00:13:45.450 --> 00:13:47.669
50 people and everything else like that.

00:13:47.669 --> 00:13:47.965
Oh, yeah.

00:13:48.044 --> 00:13:48.164
Interesting.

00:13:48.164 --> 00:13:48.365
Okay.

00:13:48.450 --> 00:13:50.340
Yeah, there's a lot of different things that happen.

00:13:50.340 --> 00:13:55.259
So I, uh, you know, all along I said I always wanted 12, 10 to 12 guys.

00:13:55.259 --> 00:13:56.070
That was my plan.

00:13:56.070 --> 00:13:59.820
And then all of a sudden I've got this and people ask me, how did you get here?

00:13:59.820 --> 00:14:04.169
And IS I'm, I don't know, it's essentially like a train with no breaks.

00:14:04.169 --> 00:14:07.440
And so the plan is to just stay on the train as long as we can.

00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:07.769
So well,

00:14:07.769 --> 00:14:08.490
and do good work.

00:14:08.610 --> 00:14:08.879
Yeah.

00:14:08.879 --> 00:14:10.080
You know, hire good people.

00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:10.860
Keep doing that.

00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:16.769
What would your, like longest term employees say about why they.

00:14:17.375 --> 00:14:18.455
Have been there for a long time.

00:14:18.695 --> 00:14:19.325
I would hope

00:14:19.325 --> 00:14:22.804
that it's, uh, the way that I treat'em and the way that I treat'em, like family.

00:14:22.804 --> 00:14:28.774
You know, I know all of my employees wives and kids, and you know, for me, family comes first.

00:14:28.774 --> 00:14:31.804
So I, you know, the guys, I'm like, Hey, your kids have sports.

00:14:31.804 --> 00:14:33.335
I want you guys at your kids' games.

00:14:33.335 --> 00:14:37.264
It's not a big deal that you're kicking off a little bit early and yeah, you know.

00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:42.620
I used to be very against, uh, taking time off because I'm like, we have work to do.

00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:43.970
We gotta work, work, work, work, work.

00:14:43.970 --> 00:14:44.284
Right, right, right.

00:14:44.600 --> 00:14:50.240
And now, uh, with my kids getting older and I, I realize I've got one summer left with my oldest.

00:14:50.240 --> 00:14:54.139
It's like that time is very important and you guys have earned it.

00:14:54.259 --> 00:15:01.129
And it's, it also recharges their batteries for sure to, you know, nobody can grind all year long with, with no recharge.

00:15:01.129 --> 00:15:04.580
And so we really push on people to take their time off.

00:15:04.580 --> 00:15:08.870
We have volunteered paid time off where they get to go to kids' schools and different things like that.

00:15:08.875 --> 00:15:08.965
Oh, cool.

00:15:08.970 --> 00:15:15.740
So I would hope that it's the way that they're treated and the family atmosphere, even though we've got big, we've never lost touch with that, so.

00:15:15.889 --> 00:15:16.159
Yeah.

00:15:16.164 --> 00:15:16.174
Yeah.

00:15:16.370 --> 00:15:17.659
How about your customers?

00:15:18.289 --> 00:15:19.460
Customers like Your Steady Eddie.

00:15:20.059 --> 00:15:20.480
Why is it

00:15:20.990 --> 00:15:22.009
We have some great customers.

00:15:22.340 --> 00:15:28.639
We still have customers that, you know, we're the ones I did by myself a long time ago and all the way up to big general contractors.

00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:31.730
And I think what they know, what they'll get from us is good service.

00:15:31.730 --> 00:15:32.000
Right?

00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:33.950
And so things are always gonna happen.

00:15:33.950 --> 00:15:38.029
People can call and say, Hey, I forgot to tell you we're gonna need you next week.

00:15:38.029 --> 00:15:44.419
And you know, some companies are like, well, we're three or four weeks out and I'll always find a way to make that happen.

00:15:44.419 --> 00:15:48.019
Our safety is, is top notch and I think our quality is important.

00:15:48.019 --> 00:15:51.649
But you know, what we really focus on is our relationships.

00:15:51.649 --> 00:15:51.659
Yeah.

00:15:51.659 --> 00:15:56.779
So, yeah, we live by, by the quote that you don't get a second chance at a first impression.

00:15:56.779 --> 00:15:59.000
And so that's what I, I tell the guys all the time.

00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:04.174
And those relationships lead to more and more work where there's a lot of hard bid work going on out there.

00:16:04.174 --> 00:16:04.495
Mm-hmm.

00:16:04.575 --> 00:16:09.259
But we also do a lot of negotiated work with people that, because of our relationships, and they know what they'll get.

00:16:09.259 --> 00:16:09.500
So,

00:16:09.740 --> 00:16:12.080
and for listeners that might not be familiar, like.

00:16:12.335 --> 00:16:15.725
Can you describe kinda the difference between a hard bid and negotiated it?

00:16:15.725 --> 00:16:15.965
Yep.

00:16:16.174 --> 00:16:20.825
So a hard bid is, you know, it goes out on the internet to a, here's the plans a million people and Right.

00:16:21.034 --> 00:16:22.504
A million general contractors.

00:16:22.504 --> 00:16:31.475
And so if you think, you know, say Fort Collins is building a new pool in town, there's 10 general contractors on it, well, they all go out to their electricians.

00:16:31.865 --> 00:16:33.754
Typically three per general contractor.

00:16:33.754 --> 00:16:36.065
You could have 30 electricians on this job.

00:16:36.575 --> 00:16:40.325
And so if you think about it, the chances of you winning it is not very good.

00:16:40.355 --> 00:16:45.154
And if you do, there's a reason why your number's low, you probably miss something.

00:16:45.154 --> 00:16:49.715
And so hard bid work is, is a fine line of do we really want it, you know?

00:16:49.715 --> 00:16:49.919
Gotcha, gotcha.

00:16:49.924 --> 00:16:51.065
What are the risks here?

00:16:51.065 --> 00:16:53.075
And you're in a much bigger pool, right?

00:16:53.075 --> 00:16:53.975
Negotiated work.

00:16:53.975 --> 00:16:58.264
It's like, Hey pal, we've got this church, I want you to do it.

00:16:58.534 --> 00:16:59.404
Here's our budget.

00:16:59.404 --> 00:17:00.695
How can we make this work?

00:17:00.725 --> 00:17:00.995
Right?

00:17:00.995 --> 00:17:04.055
And so it's kind of more of a partnership than, than it would

00:17:04.055 --> 00:17:04.144
be.

00:17:04.144 --> 00:17:04.204
Yeah.

00:17:04.714 --> 00:17:06.515
More comparable to the.

00:17:07.174 --> 00:17:09.244
Was that construction kind of thing.

00:17:09.244 --> 00:17:10.055
That was Neededs thing.

00:17:10.059 --> 00:17:10.069
Right?

00:17:10.339 --> 00:17:10.420
Absolutely.

00:17:10.420 --> 00:17:13.265
We, we kind of build it as we figured we need where they had everything in-house and Yeah.

00:17:13.744 --> 00:17:13.984
Yeah.

00:17:13.984 --> 00:17:14.585
That's a lot.

00:17:14.615 --> 00:17:21.035
You know, we get in early with a lot of our general contractors and help with the design and say, well, if you put it over here, this would save some money.

00:17:21.035 --> 00:17:21.575
Or Right.

00:17:21.724 --> 00:17:25.265
This would lead to better expansion for you if you wanted to do that in the future.

00:17:25.265 --> 00:17:25.325
So.

00:17:25.355 --> 00:17:25.474
Yeah,

00:17:25.505 --> 00:17:26.015
exactly.

00:17:26.015 --> 00:17:26.375
You're right.

00:17:26.375 --> 00:17:26.555
Yeah.

00:17:26.555 --> 00:17:29.045
I know you think you only need 50 amps, but Really Correct.

00:17:29.045 --> 00:17:29.555
What about here?

00:17:29.615 --> 00:17:31.204
What we just put this here for now.

00:17:31.265 --> 00:17:31.625
Yes.

00:17:32.015 --> 00:17:32.464
You got it.

00:17:32.615 --> 00:17:33.095
Yep, yep.

00:17:33.154 --> 00:17:33.515
I get it.

00:17:33.664 --> 00:17:33.904
Yep.

00:17:33.904 --> 00:17:35.075
Being part of the process more.

00:17:35.075 --> 00:17:35.345
Absolutely.

00:17:35.345 --> 00:17:50.075
Instead of uh, well, and I think that what's cool about that process, whether it's architects or general contractors, they all learn more about what it takes to build good pieces of property, you know, and the electric side of that, through having even those conversations, it's not like.

00:17:50.599 --> 00:17:51.859
Deliver the hard bid dude.

00:17:51.859 --> 00:17:52.160
Correct.

00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:53.779
It's like, oh, how does this really work?

00:17:53.779 --> 00:17:54.019
Well,

00:17:54.019 --> 00:18:01.190
and you know, the hard bid contractors, sometimes we call'em chuck in a truck because it's just a guy working out of his truck.

00:18:01.190 --> 00:18:01.400
Right.

00:18:01.404 --> 00:18:01.494
Right.

00:18:01.579 --> 00:18:02.329
He doesn't, he can work

00:18:02.329 --> 00:18:03.589
as many nights as he needs to.

00:18:03.589 --> 00:18:03.980
Correct.

00:18:03.980 --> 00:18:04.549
He doesn't have

00:18:04.549 --> 00:18:12.710
the overhead as, as we do, and they, they find ways to cut corners and the quality you're getting, especially in the places you can't see a lot of electrical is buried.

00:18:12.710 --> 00:18:12.920
Right.

00:18:12.920 --> 00:18:13.759
You don't see it.

00:18:13.789 --> 00:18:14.089
Right.

00:18:14.630 --> 00:18:21.920
It'd be, it would scare a lot of people to see some of the things that people do to cut corners and different materials used in methods that keeps, that keeps it cheaper.

00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:22.700
That's curious about,

00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:29.269
there's probably like, whatever, it's 12 amp wire or something, but then there's, you know, good, better.

00:18:29.815 --> 00:18:31.045
Best premium Correct.

00:18:31.045 --> 00:18:32.394
Within that, that you can buy?

00:18:32.424 --> 00:18:32.634
Yep.

00:18:32.634 --> 00:18:34.855
And what's the real need of the property owner?

00:18:34.944 --> 00:18:35.454
Yeah.

00:18:35.454 --> 00:18:39.775
A a prime example is typically in areas that we know may need some sort of expansion.

00:18:39.775 --> 00:18:44.184
We try to run pipe in those areas so that we can pull more wire through it or bigger wire or whatever.

00:18:44.184 --> 00:18:44.454
Right?

00:18:44.454 --> 00:18:44.694
Right.

00:18:44.755 --> 00:18:48.444
Instead of running a flexible conduit with wire already in it, that you can't go back.

00:18:48.444 --> 00:18:57.265
And so then that's what leads to, you know, conduit being run on walls and, you know, stapled to the ceiling and all the things that everybody sees on the internet and cringes.

00:18:57.265 --> 00:18:59.934
So we try to think ahead and do a lot of that stuff.

00:18:59.934 --> 00:19:02.065
So we, we pride ourselves on being different.

00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:07.049
Who's your leadership team, uh, as, as far as you consider it now?

00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:07.619
Um, yeah.

00:19:07.619 --> 00:19:08.295
So would you say,

00:19:08.295 --> 00:19:11.039
so I kind of headed up, um, I've had a lot of training.

00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:14.160
I've had a really good mentor that I worked with at Brinkman for a long time.

00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:14.190
Okay.

00:19:14.190 --> 00:19:14.910
And then she's,

00:19:14.910 --> 00:19:15.779
you wanna give her a shout out?

00:19:16.109 --> 00:19:16.259
Yeah.

00:19:16.259 --> 00:19:16.775
Ashley HOAs.

00:19:16.829 --> 00:19:17.819
Do you know Ashley Haas?

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:18.660
I don't think I do.

00:19:18.720 --> 00:19:19.799
She's, she's amazing.

00:19:19.799 --> 00:19:20.549
You need to get her in here.

00:19:20.549 --> 00:19:20.730
Okay.

00:19:20.730 --> 00:19:23.190
But, uh, she was a consultant for me for a long time.

00:19:23.250 --> 00:19:23.640
Okay.

00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:28.200
And, um, she kind of helped me develop my processes, my procedures.

00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.299
She helped me with my leadership style.

00:19:30.299 --> 00:19:30.960
She helped me.

00:19:31.440 --> 00:19:31.710
Cool.

00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:36.480
It's just one of those people that you meet when you work with, you're like, you're so smarter than me.

00:19:36.480 --> 00:19:39.000
Like, I need all of everything you have.

00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:39.420
And so.

00:19:39.490 --> 00:19:40.539
Um, and she's like,

00:19:40.539 --> 00:19:42.130
yes, but I don't know how to wire buildings.

00:19:42.130 --> 00:19:42.430
Yeah.

00:19:42.430 --> 00:19:43.180
So we, she's like,

00:19:43.180 --> 00:19:46.690
well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help you and you're gonna pay me and we'll get it figured out.

00:19:46.690 --> 00:19:50.349
And so now the business is humming, but she gets a lot of that credit for that.

00:19:50.349 --> 00:19:50.559
That's cool.

00:19:50.589 --> 00:19:52.990
But she's kinda helped me with my leadership style.

00:19:52.990 --> 00:20:01.359
So really I, I try to lead it and then, uh, you know, our controller is involved and then the, the operations manager and our field operations manager Okay.

00:20:01.630 --> 00:20:07.569
Kind of work hand in hand with, with the two, uh, project managers and estimators as well as Lindsay and Karina.

00:20:07.569 --> 00:20:10.474
So it's kind of a, I I'm not a big, it's kind of a

00:20:10.474 --> 00:20:11.140
collaborative team.

00:20:11.140 --> 00:20:11.319
Yeah.

00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:12.430
Everybody's got their lane.

00:20:12.460 --> 00:20:13.750
I'm not a big title guy.

00:20:13.779 --> 00:20:17.440
I would go no titles if I could get away with it, but gets confusing.

00:20:17.529 --> 00:20:18.579
It's hard hire for some of the employees.

00:20:18.579 --> 00:20:22.029
They are like, well, what is my role and who do I re respond to?

00:20:22.029 --> 00:20:22.490
And so, yeah.

00:20:22.984 --> 00:20:26.944
I eventually gave in and had to do it, but I'm not a, Hey, I'm the boss.

00:20:26.944 --> 00:20:27.575
Listen to me.

00:20:27.575 --> 00:20:28.865
It's more like we're teammates.

00:20:28.865 --> 00:20:34.174
So I, you know, I'm a basketball coach and I coach a ton of basketball and so I treat it like a team.

00:20:34.174 --> 00:20:36.214
And so, you know, you're the point guard.

00:20:36.214 --> 00:20:39.394
You bring this part, I'm, I'm the post, I bring this part.

00:20:39.394 --> 00:20:39.815
And so

00:20:40.115 --> 00:20:45.545
did you, uh, did you have a kid that was a, a little taller and didn't have quite the swing for baseball?

00:20:45.545 --> 00:20:46.565
Or how did that go down?

00:20:46.595 --> 00:20:46.865
You know,

00:20:46.865 --> 00:20:51.664
I always thought I was gonna have boys and that, uh, they would play baseball and they, they'd live out my dreams, right?

00:20:51.694 --> 00:20:51.724
Oh.

00:20:51.994 --> 00:20:53.045
And that's the way it always goes.

00:20:53.045 --> 00:20:54.605
And then I got dealt two girls.

00:20:54.934 --> 00:20:56.944
And so I'm like, well, what am I gonna do with this?

00:20:56.944 --> 00:20:57.605
And, um.

00:20:58.119 --> 00:21:07.269
We tried all the sports and I really didn't have a preference one way or the other, but somehow basketball stuck and uh, they're both really, really incredible.

00:21:07.269 --> 00:21:07.509
Is that right?

00:21:07.509 --> 00:21:07.569
Yeah.

00:21:07.569 --> 00:21:09.099
Talented basketball players, so that interesting.

00:21:09.130 --> 00:21:09.430
Yeah.

00:21:09.700 --> 00:21:10.960
What, uh, what positions,

00:21:11.170 --> 00:21:14.980
so Gracie is, Gracie can kind of play the two through the five.

00:21:14.980 --> 00:21:16.269
She's played a lot of five.

00:21:16.269 --> 00:21:16.279
Okay.

00:21:16.279 --> 00:21:21.549
So she's, she's as tall as I am and, um, probably stronger, which is crazy.

00:21:21.549 --> 00:21:25.690
So she, uh, she has a lot of success and then Haley is a lot smaller.

00:21:25.690 --> 00:21:27.704
Haley is, uh, Gracie's the older, I guess that's older.

00:21:27.704 --> 00:21:27.785
Yep.

00:21:27.865 --> 00:21:30.309
Gracie's the older, so she's a junior in high school at Windsor.

00:21:30.460 --> 00:21:30.759
Okay.

00:21:30.759 --> 00:21:33.424
And so Haley is in eighth grade and, um.

00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:40.259
If she had Gracie's body, she would probably be headed to the WNBA because of her hearted work ethic.

00:21:40.259 --> 00:21:40.619
Gotcha.

00:21:40.680 --> 00:21:42.390
Um, but, uh,

00:21:42.450 --> 00:21:45.059
doesn't quite have the, uh, the height factor.

00:21:45.089 --> 00:21:45.180
Nope.

00:21:45.180 --> 00:21:45.539
Doesn't have

00:21:45.539 --> 00:21:46.680
the height or the strength yet.

00:21:46.680 --> 00:21:48.240
But she doesn't realize it.

00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:49.109
She thinks she does.

00:21:49.234 --> 00:21:51.299
She, she plays like she does the heart of a life.

00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:51.690
Oh yeah.

00:21:51.690 --> 00:21:53.160
Everybody's like, what's that little girl doing?

00:21:53.160 --> 00:21:54.539
Some being so mean out there.

00:21:54.990 --> 00:21:56.069
She just tried her hardest.

00:21:56.069 --> 00:21:56.430
Yeah.

00:21:57.119 --> 00:22:02.875
But I, I try to, I try to lead my team the same way I coach basketball and, you know, I would never ask my team to do anything.

00:22:02.875 --> 00:22:04.019
So Are you the head coach for these?

00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:08.279
I'm the assistant coach at Windsor High School, and then I coach a couple club teams in Denver.

00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:08.490
So.

00:22:08.490 --> 00:22:08.579
Good.

00:22:08.970 --> 00:22:14.460
My, uh, my wife's, uh, brother and his family live in Windsor, but they, their kids all went to re Gotcha.

00:22:14.464 --> 00:22:19.319
But, uh, the Johnson boys Isaiah was the state champion wrestler for two 15.

00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:19.884
Oh, oh, wow.

00:22:20.339 --> 00:22:23.099
Uh, and they, they have some good wrestlers go through that program.

00:22:23.099 --> 00:22:23.640
They do.

00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:24.779
It's been pretty amazing.

00:22:24.839 --> 00:22:24.960
Yeah.

00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:26.049
There was a few of'em this year that.

00:22:26.484 --> 00:22:28.224
Well, I think they sent eight to state Yeah.

00:22:28.285 --> 00:22:28.855
Or something.

00:22:28.974 --> 00:22:29.184
Yeah.

00:22:29.184 --> 00:22:30.984
And their boys won two years in a row.

00:22:30.984 --> 00:22:33.355
The, the basketball state championship too.

00:22:33.355 --> 00:22:33.444
Yeah.

00:22:33.444 --> 00:22:33.954
Is that right?

00:22:34.015 --> 00:22:34.285
Yeah.

00:22:34.285 --> 00:22:34.914
No, it's been fun.

00:22:34.914 --> 00:22:35.994
They got some good kids go through.

00:22:35.994 --> 00:22:36.085
I

00:22:36.085 --> 00:22:43.345
haven't been around youth sports for a long time and now it's kind of winding up'cause they're mostly getting out school going off to college now.

00:22:43.375 --> 00:22:43.615
Yeah.

00:22:43.615 --> 00:22:47.515
It's uh, I, I like to say it's not our identity, but it's real close.

00:22:47.515 --> 00:22:52.704
'cause if I'm not working, rarely hunting, which I love to do, I'm, it's all sports.

00:22:52.704 --> 00:22:52.914
So is

00:22:52.974 --> 00:22:54.160
Gracie is the younger and

00:22:54.430 --> 00:22:55.315
Gracie's the oldest?

00:22:55.375 --> 00:22:56.029
The older Haley's younger.

00:22:56.035 --> 00:22:56.394
Haley's

00:22:56.509 --> 00:22:56.724
the younger.

00:22:56.724 --> 00:22:57.654
And how old is Haley now?

00:22:57.744 --> 00:23:00.115
Haley's in eighth grade, so I think she's 14.

00:23:00.115 --> 00:23:00.714
She's gonna get mad.

00:23:00.714 --> 00:23:00.984
So you got

00:23:01.105 --> 00:23:03.474
five, four more, five more years really of Yeah.

00:23:03.474 --> 00:23:06.654
High school sports at least to, uh, be super dad in.

00:23:06.684 --> 00:23:06.894
Yeah.

00:23:07.045 --> 00:23:14.424
Gracie's got one more summer of club basketball, um, to wrap up her recruiting process and, and kind of two years left of high school basketball.

00:23:14.424 --> 00:23:14.724
So,

00:23:15.174 --> 00:23:21.625
so what's the, what's the world of electric instruction like these days?

00:23:21.625 --> 00:23:23.545
Like, is there abundant work?

00:23:23.545 --> 00:23:24.894
Like you've grown sounds like.

00:23:25.265 --> 00:23:26.375
Throughout, right?

00:23:26.375 --> 00:23:26.825
Like Yeah.

00:23:26.974 --> 00:23:28.474
Can you gimme an idea of that arc?

00:23:28.625 --> 00:23:32.585
You mentioned three and a quarter are now up to almost come on 10 million next year probably.

00:23:32.615 --> 00:23:33.035
Yeah.

00:23:33.095 --> 00:23:35.644
And I don't, I don't remember all of the years Sure.

00:23:35.644 --> 00:23:43.295
And all of the places, but we, we've been in the Mercury 100, you know, kind of fastest growing companies, and we keep changing tiers, which is good.

00:23:43.295 --> 00:23:44.255
That means we're scaling.

00:23:44.255 --> 00:23:44.494
Right.

00:23:44.494 --> 00:23:45.250
And so it's been, yeah.

00:23:45.589 --> 00:23:46.894
Um, it's been good.

00:23:46.894 --> 00:23:49.115
We're, I feel like we're in a bubble here.

00:23:49.174 --> 00:23:53.555
And, you know, we're not recession proof and I don't wanna say that, and I'm gonna knock on wood here, but you both

00:23:53.555 --> 00:23:54.184
knock on wood.

00:23:54.184 --> 00:23:54.275
Yeah.

00:23:54.305 --> 00:23:54.845
Um,

00:23:55.414 --> 00:23:56.914
you know, the work, but there's still work out there.

00:23:56.920 --> 00:23:57.329
Even though,

00:23:57.664 --> 00:24:02.884
even, even during COVID we were, I was hiring during COVID with people that were laying people off.

00:24:02.884 --> 00:24:07.865
And I felt the COVID Ripple almost two years later, which is kind of interesting.

00:24:07.865 --> 00:24:09.154
The backlog of work dried up.

00:24:09.154 --> 00:24:09.214
Yeah.

00:24:09.394 --> 00:24:10.204
And stuff like that.

00:24:10.204 --> 00:24:14.704
But, you know, we are, we live in an area where there's always stuff happening.

00:24:14.704 --> 00:24:17.134
And so people are like, how are you still building?

00:24:17.134 --> 00:24:18.244
You're running outta land.

00:24:18.305 --> 00:24:18.394
It.

00:24:18.859 --> 00:24:23.599
People are right when they say that, but people are also tearing things down to build new things where things work.

00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:23.930
Right?

00:24:23.930 --> 00:24:23.940
Right.

00:24:24.140 --> 00:24:29.690
So we have incredible economy in this area, you know, traveling like we do for basketball and stuff.

00:24:29.900 --> 00:24:31.880
I see other areas and it's not like this.

00:24:31.880 --> 00:24:31.940
Yeah.

00:24:31.940 --> 00:24:38.029
And so I feel very fortunate that, that we are as busy as we are here, but there's always work to be done.

00:24:38.029 --> 00:24:42.980
And, you know, worst case when things slow down a little bit, like the, the election time was a little bit tough.

00:24:42.980 --> 00:24:47.569
People were uncertain of what rates were gonna do and who was gonna be in office and,

00:24:47.720 --> 00:24:51.980
and how do, can your, your employee expense scale from then?

00:24:51.980 --> 00:24:53.569
You just don't pay as much overtime and stuff?

00:24:53.569 --> 00:24:55.700
Or do you actually downsize your team if you need to?

00:24:55.700 --> 00:24:56.059
We cut

00:24:56.059 --> 00:25:01.430
back on overtime and I take a lot of pride in the fact that I've never laid anybody off due to work in nine years.

00:25:01.430 --> 00:25:03.589
And so it comes at a cost.

00:25:03.589 --> 00:25:03.859
Right.

00:25:03.859 --> 00:25:04.670
I think, uh,

00:25:04.819 --> 00:25:06.200
I've lost some money some months.

00:25:06.769 --> 00:25:08.059
We did have, a couple years ago, I think

00:25:08.059 --> 00:25:11.420
I paid a$150,000 for landscaping in my house.

00:25:11.420 --> 00:25:13.670
That probably would've cost a landscaper 10,000.

00:25:13.670 --> 00:25:16.910
But we had electricians out there doing some amazing work.

00:25:17.539 --> 00:25:18.289
But, um,

00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:19.940
it's called flagstone.

00:25:20.029 --> 00:25:21.049
Yes, exactly.

00:25:21.170 --> 00:25:23.119
So they're like, Hey, we broke all of this.

00:25:23.119 --> 00:25:23.720
Can you get more?

00:25:23.720 --> 00:25:26.150
I'm like, sure guys, just keep on and working.

00:25:27.170 --> 00:25:34.130
So, uh, we've done a good job of keeping them busy, but it, you know, things that, things that you do as you just take on different projects.

00:25:34.130 --> 00:25:44.240
Like, I can remember a time on, or our service department was slow and we started hanging Christmas lights right in one, you know, fourth quarter of a year to, to stay busy and keep the guys working.

00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:47.450
'cause really it's not about me making the money.

00:25:47.450 --> 00:25:54.440
It's, I want those guys to be able to buy Christmas presents and not, not worry about how they're gonna afford rent and all those other things.

00:25:54.440 --> 00:25:54.710
So

00:25:54.980 --> 00:25:55.454
let's talk about like.

00:25:56.150 --> 00:26:07.250
Operations and systems a little bit like, are you like an EOS guy or have you built your own systems along the way to get the estimates out, to keep the projects on time, to have the team know what everybody's doing.

00:26:07.339 --> 00:26:09.200
It's funny you asked me about EOSI.

00:26:09.380 --> 00:26:14.690
I have some mutual friends of a guy named Justin who keeps emailing about, oh, Justin Bowling.

00:26:14.690 --> 00:26:14.990
Yeah.

00:26:14.994 --> 00:26:15.769
Yeah, about EOS.

00:26:15.775 --> 00:26:16.355
He's persistent.

00:26:16.940 --> 00:26:20.809
I am absolutely embarrassed to admit I have no idea what EOS is.

00:26:20.869 --> 00:26:21.259
Oh, really?

00:26:21.319 --> 00:26:24.380
So let me tell you about what I have, and I probably should talk to Justin.

00:26:24.380 --> 00:26:26.515
Justin, if you're listening, I'm sorry I haven't got back to you.

00:26:27.255 --> 00:26:28.545
But, uh, I'll give you the cliff notes.

00:26:28.634 --> 00:26:28.904
Yes.

00:26:28.904 --> 00:26:30.644
I should probably learn what EOS is.

00:26:30.644 --> 00:26:37.994
But we, through trial and error, we have a pretty good, uh, software system we use called Nullify, and that's what tracks all of our proposals.

00:26:38.204 --> 00:26:40.815
It's what we use for our billing, we use for our time management.

00:26:40.815 --> 00:26:41.625
You can see how far your

00:26:41.625 --> 00:26:42.134
pipeline

00:26:42.134 --> 00:26:42.315
is.

00:26:42.345 --> 00:26:42.555
Yep.

00:26:42.555 --> 00:26:43.154
Stuff like that.

00:26:43.184 --> 00:26:43.394
Yeah.

00:26:43.394 --> 00:26:44.474
And Lindsay does a good job.

00:26:44.474 --> 00:26:49.335
She takes a lot of that stuff and puts it into kind of a forecast tracker and Okay.

00:26:49.365 --> 00:26:54.105
Different things like that, that, you know, projects we've won, what's in the pipeline that we think we're gonna win.

00:26:54.375 --> 00:26:54.464
Right.

00:26:54.464 --> 00:26:55.365
Different things like that.

00:26:55.365 --> 00:26:55.634
And what's,

00:26:55.640 --> 00:26:57.015
what, what do we think we're not gonna win.

00:26:57.045 --> 00:26:57.555
Yeah.

00:26:57.555 --> 00:27:02.954
And so we meet once a month, uh, as a team on that to see where we're at, where are gaps.

00:27:02.954 --> 00:27:07.515
Because if you're looking at the gap, if you're looking one or two months ahead, you're in trouble.

00:27:07.515 --> 00:27:09.194
It's, it's the five and six months.

00:27:09.194 --> 00:27:17.865
'cause if you think in construction, if I do work in the month of October, I bill it in November, I'm, I usually don't see it for 60 days.

00:27:17.894 --> 00:27:18.134
Right.

00:27:18.224 --> 00:27:18.855
The payment.

00:27:18.855 --> 00:27:20.444
So it's a very.

00:27:20.494 --> 00:27:25.805
Interesting cycle, and you gotta really pay attention to where the money's gonna run out and when.

00:27:25.805 --> 00:27:25.984
So

00:27:26.105 --> 00:27:29.075
cashflow management is such a interesting business in that space.

00:27:29.134 --> 00:27:29.375
That's

00:27:29.375 --> 00:27:30.244
been the hard part for me.

00:27:30.335 --> 00:27:32.404
And so, you know, I didn't go to college.

00:27:32.404 --> 00:27:34.505
I learned a lot of things, obviously the hard way.

00:27:34.505 --> 00:27:35.765
I've made a lot of mistakes, but

00:27:35.884 --> 00:27:36.154
yeah,

00:27:36.214 --> 00:27:40.819
I've had great people around me and I'm committed to hiring people much, much smarter than me that Yeah.

00:27:40.819 --> 00:27:42.994
That can teach me and drag me along and Yep.

00:27:43.144 --> 00:27:45.785
Get me to stop eating the crayons and, and use them.

00:27:45.785 --> 00:27:46.115
So

00:27:46.474 --> 00:27:50.914
one of my best, uh, banking customers back in the day was Royce and Merit Electric.

00:27:50.944 --> 00:27:51.214
Oh yeah.

00:27:51.275 --> 00:28:02.555
And so I had firsthand experience with electric companies and, and seeing them build those systems and they would, you know, show like, here's how we track our pipeline and here's how we know this and this and that.

00:28:02.555 --> 00:28:06.634
And, you know, during the recession days it was like, you know, basically our profit is.

00:28:07.234 --> 00:28:08.674
The net 30, right.

00:28:08.674 --> 00:28:10.595
That we get back during this season.

00:28:10.595 --> 00:28:10.984
Yeah.

00:28:10.984 --> 00:28:12.545
And we're just trying to cover our overhead.

00:28:12.575 --> 00:28:14.134
The way construction works.

00:28:14.224 --> 00:28:19.984
The way construction works is, you know, you bill, you bill, you bill, and then your retainage is your final payment.

00:28:19.984 --> 00:28:20.255
Right?

00:28:20.255 --> 00:28:25.775
And so retainage comes once all the work on the jobs done, all the punch lists are done and the owner's satisfied.

00:28:25.775 --> 00:28:26.980
And then you got whatever, and the bank finally

00:28:26.980 --> 00:28:28.265
pays that last little bit.

00:28:28.295 --> 00:28:28.474
And

00:28:28.474 --> 00:28:31.055
so, you know, a lot of times that's your profit.

00:28:31.085 --> 00:28:36.305
Everything else that you're, you're being paid is just paying the guys and the suppliers and everything else totally cover the cost.

00:28:36.305 --> 00:28:36.515
Yep.

00:28:36.755 --> 00:28:36.994
Yeah.

00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:48.634
It can get tough, you know, at times we've had, we have a really expensive estimating software and at times there's been years where we're like, instead of paying for two licenses for 16,000, can you guys share a login for 8,000?

00:28:48.634 --> 00:28:49.085
Right.

00:28:49.085 --> 00:28:49.095
Right.

00:28:49.305 --> 00:28:57.575
And so sometimes you gotta get creative and get, and get skinny in certain ways, but we've been able to do that and keep everybody working, which is very, very important.

00:28:57.575 --> 00:28:57.815
Talk about

00:28:57.815 --> 00:29:01.714
the finance, uh, banking and like stuff like that.

00:29:01.714 --> 00:29:02.285
Did you.

00:29:03.065 --> 00:29:09.275
Like have growth capital along the way, or did you just bootstrap the whole way and eventually probably got a line of credit or something?

00:29:09.275 --> 00:29:09.605
Yeah.

00:29:09.694 --> 00:29:10.924
Never bonding or stuff like that.

00:29:10.954 --> 00:29:13.505
Never took out a loan, never did anything like that.

00:29:13.505 --> 00:29:16.414
It was kind of just created our own cash and figure it out.

00:29:16.414 --> 00:29:20.914
I didn't even have a credit card at the time, other than a personal one, which I found out is the wrong thing to do for business.

00:29:20.914 --> 00:29:31.384
But um, yeah, eventually you start to create a relationship and then you have enough, you know, data to show a bank that, hey, I'm not gonna disappear with your money.

00:29:31.390 --> 00:29:31.880
Right, right, right.

00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:44.765
And you know, I think in 2014 when I kind of got going, and 2014, 2016, during that time, there was still that hangover from the 2008 where people were getting money and they shouldn't have been.

00:29:44.765 --> 00:29:45.035
Right.

00:29:45.035 --> 00:29:47.105
And so banks were still extra tight.

00:29:47.105 --> 00:29:48.065
They checked a lot of things.

00:29:48.484 --> 00:29:48.694
Totally.

00:29:48.694 --> 00:29:49.535
And so it was difficult.

00:29:49.535 --> 00:29:49.744
And

00:29:49.835 --> 00:29:51.035
that was why I got the hell out of it.

00:29:51.035 --> 00:29:51.214
Right.

00:29:51.214 --> 00:29:55.265
It was like, it was fricking, I I thought it was thrilling to make bets with other people's money.

00:29:55.265 --> 00:29:55.275
Right.

00:29:55.275 --> 00:29:56.285
And I was really good at it.

00:29:56.285 --> 00:29:56.464
Right.

00:29:56.464 --> 00:29:59.224
But when that became no longer part of the banker.

00:30:00.035 --> 00:30:00.815
Job description, right?

00:30:00.815 --> 00:30:02.615
It was like, well, yeah, whatever.

00:30:02.615 --> 00:30:03.244
There was a lot

00:30:03.244 --> 00:30:06.154
of different check systems that put got put in place after that.

00:30:06.154 --> 00:30:11.105
And so it became hard and it's like, Hey Evan, you haven't been in business very long.

00:30:11.105 --> 00:30:12.694
We are, we're not sure if you're gonna make it.

00:30:12.755 --> 00:30:14.194
You know, we're really not interested.

00:30:14.194 --> 00:30:15.785
And so it was tough

00:30:15.785 --> 00:30:16.775
bursting at the seams.

00:30:16.775 --> 00:30:17.015
Yeah,

00:30:17.404 --> 00:30:17.974
it was tough.

00:30:17.974 --> 00:30:18.845
So, you know how long

00:30:18.845 --> 00:30:19.410
in the storage unit.

00:30:20.164 --> 00:30:27.214
Um, probably three years, maybe different storage units, but, you know, slightly larger, bigger and bigger storage units.

00:30:27.214 --> 00:30:27.275
Yeah.

00:30:27.275 --> 00:30:29.914
Longer you get longer'cause I had more stuff Right.

00:30:29.914 --> 00:30:30.904
That I probably didn't need.

00:30:30.904 --> 00:30:32.974
So, and shelving now, yes, I did get shelving.

00:30:33.154 --> 00:30:33.815
It was a big day.

00:30:34.535 --> 00:30:39.755
Um, but yeah, you finally find somebody that believes in you and, uh, and gives you that chance.

00:30:39.755 --> 00:30:44.855
And so Don Davis at First Bank was a, was a big mentor of mine when I first got started.

00:30:44.855 --> 00:30:47.615
She told me that, just go and you'll be great.

00:30:47.615 --> 00:30:51.515
And um, you know, she helped me and just different things like that.

00:30:51.515 --> 00:30:52.144
But finally, well, having

00:30:52.144 --> 00:30:54.575
good numbers, people on your team the whole time helps too, right?

00:30:54.634 --> 00:30:55.444
Yeah, yeah.

00:30:55.444 --> 00:30:59.105
And, and when you can show backlog and contracts and different things like that, it helps.

00:30:59.105 --> 00:31:03.244
And so eventually we built up enough data that people were like, okay, we trust you.

00:31:03.244 --> 00:31:04.144
You're not going anywhere.

00:31:04.144 --> 00:31:07.210
And you get a small line of credit and you kind of use that back and forth and, yeah.

00:31:07.970 --> 00:31:08.900
Um, yeah.

00:31:09.049 --> 00:31:11.299
And now we have a great relationship with our banker and

00:31:11.305 --> 00:31:12.619
Well, you own a building too, right?

00:31:12.619 --> 00:31:13.220
That you Yep.

00:31:13.309 --> 00:31:14.660
And so Occupy Yeah.

00:31:14.660 --> 00:31:22.849
You, you helped us also set up a different LLC, so, uh, kind of did a, a real estate LLC, that, that we own the buildings in.

00:31:22.849 --> 00:31:25.549
So I have two buildings that I lease back to conduct all Okay.

00:31:25.579 --> 00:31:27.380
Um, through our LLLC.

00:31:27.380 --> 00:31:29.720
And then I also bought a basketball gym in Denver.

00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:30.799
I built out Yeah.

00:31:30.799 --> 00:31:32.059
That I, that I rent out.

00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:33.680
So through the same LLC or?

00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:34.910
Yeah, through the same LLC.

00:31:34.910 --> 00:31:36.619
So, but it's a real estate holding company, doesn't, yeah.

00:31:36.710 --> 00:31:46.819
It was my kids as trainer and, uh, he's just a great guy and he was wanting to do it full time and I said, well, and he couldn't, uh, didn't know he didn't have the means or whatever or whatever.

00:31:46.819 --> 00:31:47.809
And so I said, I'll do it.

00:31:47.809 --> 00:31:48.440
And you know, okay.

00:31:48.559 --> 00:31:50.359
When you pay this off, I'll just hand you the keys.

00:31:50.359 --> 00:31:51.890
I don't need to make anything off of it.

00:31:51.954 --> 00:31:52.454
Oh, that's wild.

00:31:52.644 --> 00:31:52.934
Yeah.

00:31:52.934 --> 00:31:54.589
So it's, it's been a lot of fun.

00:31:54.589 --> 00:31:54.769
Well, and

00:31:54.894 --> 00:31:57.470
the, the cost of buying a basketball gym.

00:31:58.039 --> 00:31:59.630
Is way less than trying to build one.

00:31:59.839 --> 00:32:00.109
Yeah.

00:32:00.109 --> 00:32:01.339
Like half as much probably these days.

00:32:01.339 --> 00:32:01.400
Yeah.

00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:02.269
So what I did is

00:32:02.269 --> 00:32:07.460
I got one of those kind of man cave spaces, uh, that was just built, it's right across from the Broncos training facility.

00:32:07.490 --> 00:32:07.819
Okay.

00:32:07.849 --> 00:32:10.160
And so put floors and hoops and stuff in it.

00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:10.250
Cool.

00:32:10.250 --> 00:32:13.759
And so we have another one in Loveland that I have with a couple partners, so I Oh, cool.

00:32:13.789 --> 00:32:15.200
Had a little bit of experience with it, but

00:32:15.289 --> 00:32:17.509
that was my, uh, sport in high school.

00:32:17.569 --> 00:32:18.980
Was it like I wasn't that good at it.

00:32:18.980 --> 00:32:22.609
I was, I was four foot 11 until the end of my, no.

00:32:22.609 --> 00:32:24.470
Five foot one until the end of my 10th grade year.

00:32:24.500 --> 00:32:24.920
Whoa.

00:32:25.309 --> 00:32:30.079
And then I became like six foot two, a hundred and thirty two pounds in college.

00:32:30.140 --> 00:32:30.500
Wow.

00:32:30.529 --> 00:32:31.670
But I was always a good baller.

00:32:31.670 --> 00:32:36.529
I was a point guard, kinda like your, your elder daughter where you can play the, for me, I was the one to the.

00:32:37.880 --> 00:32:42.109
Four by the time I was in intramural ball, you know,'cause I was a pretty good point guard.

00:32:42.140 --> 00:32:44.809
'cause what else are you gonna be when you're five foot one playing varsity?

00:32:45.049 --> 00:32:45.230
Yeah.

00:32:45.230 --> 00:32:46.549
You better be good at handling the ball.

00:32:46.700 --> 00:32:47.450
Right, exactly.

00:32:47.450 --> 00:32:47.960
And shooting.

00:32:48.019 --> 00:32:48.289
Yep.

00:32:48.380 --> 00:32:49.730
Like, and, and, and fake.

00:32:49.910 --> 00:32:50.180
Yep.

00:32:50.869 --> 00:32:51.440
Exactly.

00:32:51.769 --> 00:32:52.339
Exactly.

00:32:52.549 --> 00:32:57.349
Um, but then I got tall, but I still, you know, somehow managed through that with pretty decent ball handling skills.

00:32:57.349 --> 00:32:57.650
Good.

00:32:57.680 --> 00:32:58.519
But no mass.

00:32:58.579 --> 00:32:59.000
Yes.

00:32:59.059 --> 00:33:01.640
So I'm not a real center and, you know, not Yeah.

00:33:01.670 --> 00:33:02.660
Maybe in high school.

00:33:02.660 --> 00:33:02.720
Yeah.

00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:04.549
If I could still move like I could back then,

00:33:04.609 --> 00:33:05.480
I know how that goes.

00:33:05.480 --> 00:33:11.390
But, uh, but that's pretty impressive to have a, a, a full, uh, spectrum Yeah.

00:33:11.390 --> 00:33:11.720
Position.

00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:11.930
Right.

00:33:11.930 --> 00:33:13.220
It's like LeBron almost.

00:33:13.279 --> 00:33:14.240
It, it's been good.

00:33:14.390 --> 00:33:17.089
I, I feel very fortunate that I've had good advice.

00:33:17.089 --> 00:33:24.289
So my, uh, my insurance agent also happens to be one of my very best friends, Matt Greenwald with Federated Insurance.

00:33:24.289 --> 00:33:25.880
And so he's got.

00:33:26.240 --> 00:33:32.509
He's just got a wealth of knowledge and different people that he's talked to and great businesses that he's worked with for a long time.

00:33:32.509 --> 00:33:38.029
And so I get people that I get to live their experiences and their lessons through Madden.

00:33:38.029 --> 00:33:46.789
So Matt is the one that was like, you need to get these real estate buildings put into a different, and put things into a family trust and you know, different things like that.

00:33:46.964 --> 00:33:47.434
We've Sure.

00:33:47.434 --> 00:33:47.835
Smart stuff.

00:33:47.835 --> 00:33:50.390
We've, I've had very, very good mentors that kind of set things up.

00:33:50.390 --> 00:33:50.720
Do you have

00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:53.960
a banker now that uh, or is it still Don or?

00:33:53.990 --> 00:33:54.289
Oh, it's

00:33:54.289 --> 00:33:54.769
not Don.

00:33:54.769 --> 00:33:55.009
No.

00:33:55.009 --> 00:33:56.599
We're with First Interstates Bank.

00:33:56.660 --> 00:33:56.690
Okay.

00:33:56.690 --> 00:34:02.210
Who, uh, who is kind of, I think they're merging and selling to another bank, but I can't keep track.

00:34:02.210 --> 00:34:04.849
The banks keep changing, but we've been with them for a long time.

00:34:04.849 --> 00:34:05.000
If you're

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:08.599
listening out there, Evan might be in the market for a new banker down the road here.

00:34:08.599 --> 00:34:08.690
Yes.

00:34:08.719 --> 00:34:12.900
Don't email me and don't schedule a meeting, Kirk and a test I will probably forget about it.

00:34:14.155 --> 00:34:16.579
But, uh, but if you got a sharp pencil, uh, yes.

00:34:16.610 --> 00:34:17.360
And good rates.

00:34:17.420 --> 00:34:18.139
And good rates.

00:34:18.139 --> 00:34:18.619
Exactly.

00:34:18.619 --> 00:34:19.909
That's what the sharp pencil means.

00:34:19.909 --> 00:34:20.295
Yeah, that's right.

00:34:20.300 --> 00:34:20.570
And, and

00:34:20.570 --> 00:34:21.380
high line of credit.

00:34:21.380 --> 00:34:21.980
That'd be great too.

00:34:22.940 --> 00:34:25.219
And flexible, uh, credit underwriting.

00:34:25.280 --> 00:34:25.639
Yeah.

00:34:25.789 --> 00:34:27.869
And tickets to Broncos games and yeah.

00:34:27.869 --> 00:34:28.550
Lots of tickets to Broncos

00:34:28.550 --> 00:34:29.659
games and stuff like that.

00:34:29.659 --> 00:34:30.019
Yeah.

00:34:30.559 --> 00:34:30.860
But yeah,

00:34:30.889 --> 00:34:31.849
they've been great to us.

00:34:31.909 --> 00:34:33.934
Uh, I think we're going on four or five years with them.

00:34:33.934 --> 00:34:34.135
Okay.

00:34:34.135 --> 00:34:34.789
They've been really good.

00:34:35.449 --> 00:34:38.840
Uh, Windsor Bank or Greeley Bank or, um, they have Greeley

00:34:38.840 --> 00:34:39.320
and Loveland.

00:34:39.320 --> 00:34:39.949
Fort Collins?

00:34:39.954 --> 00:34:40.065
Yeah.

00:34:40.065 --> 00:34:40.304
Okay.

00:34:40.429 --> 00:34:42.349
Yeah, it originally I there as much with them.

00:34:42.469 --> 00:34:45.139
We, uh, I can't remember who first Interstate.

00:34:45.530 --> 00:34:46.789
Oh, they, the ones before that.

00:34:46.820 --> 00:34:49.489
Is that who bought what was like great Western home State.

00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:50.449
Oh, great Western.

00:34:50.510 --> 00:34:50.630
Yeah.

00:34:50.690 --> 00:34:51.110
Yes.

00:34:51.110 --> 00:34:51.530
Okay.

00:34:51.650 --> 00:34:51.949
Yeah.

00:34:52.010 --> 00:34:54.050
So right down there at off a horse two.

00:34:54.079 --> 00:34:54.320
Yeah.

00:34:54.409 --> 00:34:55.429
Uh, and whatever.

00:34:55.639 --> 00:34:55.849
Yeah.

00:34:55.849 --> 00:34:59.025
We had a relationship with a guy there that, and he's not there now, but yeah.

00:34:59.025 --> 00:35:01.849
I actually almost went to work for that bank when I, I went back to Fort Collins.

00:35:01.909 --> 00:35:02.179
Yeah.

00:35:02.420 --> 00:35:04.400
In 2009 or oh seven or something.

00:35:04.579 --> 00:35:04.849
Yeah.

00:35:04.894 --> 00:35:05.184
They,

00:35:05.210 --> 00:35:07.099
they seem to be pretty big in other states, so.

00:35:07.144 --> 00:35:07.425
Yeah.

00:35:07.550 --> 00:35:07.880
Yeah.

00:35:07.909 --> 00:35:09.889
So I mean, back then they were pretty cool organization.

00:35:09.889 --> 00:35:10.550
I don't know.

00:35:11.239 --> 00:35:12.139
Oh, actually, yeah.

00:35:12.139 --> 00:35:14.119
They're actually the dominant bank in Wyoming.

00:35:14.269 --> 00:35:14.630
Yeah.

00:35:14.809 --> 00:35:15.019
Yeah.

00:35:15.019 --> 00:35:22.760
They're the big player up there, so, so they're real big in Montana too, so it's probably a pretty organization if they're, you know, good old boys that money keeps flowing so well.

00:35:22.760 --> 00:35:25.190
They do a good job in Wyoming and, and Montana.

00:35:25.190 --> 00:35:25.489
That's true.

00:35:25.489 --> 00:35:26.150
They're kind of good boys.

00:35:26.150 --> 00:35:26.420
That's true.

00:35:26.480 --> 00:35:28.519
The ranchers would've taken care of that a long time ago.

00:35:28.519 --> 00:35:29.539
They're not New York style.

00:35:29.570 --> 00:35:29.989
That's right.

00:35:29.994 --> 00:35:30.264
That's right.

00:35:30.710 --> 00:35:31.369
There's not suit

00:35:31.369 --> 00:35:32.719
and tie guys, which I appreciate.

00:35:33.139 --> 00:35:36.199
So, uh, so banker, insurance person,

00:35:36.590 --> 00:35:37.519
those are the big things.

00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:40.730
You know, you gotta get a banker that you trust and that believes in you.

00:35:40.730 --> 00:35:48.260
Insurance is very important because it's no different than you would in your personal if you skimp on your insurance because you, you wanna save a little bit of money.

00:35:48.559 --> 00:35:53.449
When you look at your insurance proposals, it's a big number and you're like, wow, I don't wanna pay this.

00:35:53.449 --> 00:35:58.309
I could cut 10 grand off by just getting rid of this, you know, inclusion.

00:35:58.429 --> 00:35:58.550
Yeah.

00:35:58.550 --> 00:35:58.655
This whole, yep.

00:35:58.820 --> 00:36:01.880
That inclusion could end your entire business, right?

00:36:01.880 --> 00:36:01.940
Yeah.

00:36:01.940 --> 00:36:06.500
And so, um, having somebody you trust that says, Evan, that's not a good idea.

00:36:06.739 --> 00:36:09.530
I realize you wanna save some money, but that's not the place.

00:36:09.530 --> 00:36:09.769
Right.

00:36:09.769 --> 00:36:11.659
Rather have a higher deductible on your fleet.

00:36:11.719 --> 00:36:12.295
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:12.349 --> 00:36:12.920
Exactly.

00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:14.135
And so, learning that

00:36:15.079 --> 00:36:15.679
at fleets, they only crash one at a time.

00:36:15.710 --> 00:36:16.250
Exactly.

00:36:16.670 --> 00:36:17.119
Exactly.

00:36:17.639 --> 00:36:22.260
So learning that banking, insurance, um, what else has been very, very important.

00:36:22.260 --> 00:36:24.989
Bookkeeping and CPA work has been very important for us.

00:36:24.989 --> 00:36:25.050
Yeah.

00:36:25.050 --> 00:36:25.230
So

00:36:25.409 --> 00:36:27.389
how's your, how's your numbers acumen?

00:36:27.480 --> 00:36:30.329
Are you getting pretty good at understanding your finances and stuff?

00:36:30.329 --> 00:36:30.449
After

00:36:30.449 --> 00:36:32.369
I'm getting there, I tell everybody this.

00:36:32.369 --> 00:36:37.019
I'm really, really good at making money, but after that I don't know anything about money.

00:36:37.019 --> 00:36:37.650
I'm like.

00:36:37.969 --> 00:36:43.219
For before I brought Ashley in that I was telling you about, she goes, well, are you, are you making money?

00:36:43.219 --> 00:36:44.210
How are your profits?

00:36:44.210 --> 00:36:45.860
And how's it compare to your budget?

00:36:45.860 --> 00:36:48.199
And I just looked at her like, what are you talking about?

00:36:48.829 --> 00:36:51.260
And I said, the lights are still on and the guys are still paid.

00:36:51.260 --> 00:36:51.889
We're doing good.

00:36:51.889 --> 00:36:52.130
Right?

00:36:52.130 --> 00:36:54.320
And she goes, oh my gosh, we have so much work to do.

00:36:54.320 --> 00:36:57.320
So, um, I'm, I've started to figure it out.

00:36:57.349 --> 00:36:57.650
Yeah.

00:36:57.710 --> 00:37:02.809
I can't, I, I can't look at a p and l sheet and just whiz through it and be like, oh, this, this, and this.

00:37:02.809 --> 00:37:04.070
But I, I get it.

00:37:04.159 --> 00:37:04.949
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:05.090 --> 00:37:11.570
Well, when the estimates are accurate and the projects get done and the overhead isn't too much.

00:37:11.599 --> 00:37:11.780
Yeah.

00:37:12.079 --> 00:37:13.429
Um, it should just kinda work.

00:37:13.670 --> 00:37:14.179
It does.

00:37:14.210 --> 00:37:16.340
And we do a, we do a really good job of that.

00:37:16.340 --> 00:37:19.670
Ashley really helped and, and so have our project managers.

00:37:19.699 --> 00:37:22.880
Um, we do job costing monthly as we're going.

00:37:22.880 --> 00:37:23.090
Right.

00:37:23.090 --> 00:37:23.179
Nice.

00:37:23.179 --> 00:37:25.250
So we, we pay attention to the job.

00:37:25.940 --> 00:37:32.750
I used to just figure it out, but by then it was too late that I had too many guys on the job or that we misordered something.

00:37:32.750 --> 00:37:35.570
But yeah, we, uh, we job cost a lot and

00:37:35.630 --> 00:37:35.960
well.

00:37:36.695 --> 00:37:39.695
Even when you got good, loyal employees and stuff, it's still.

00:37:40.505 --> 00:37:43.684
Would, would people realize that there isn't quite enough work for them to do?

00:37:43.684 --> 00:37:46.715
They don't always raise their head and be like, correct, I should go.

00:37:47.375 --> 00:37:49.114
And as an employer it's a fine line.

00:37:49.114 --> 00:37:55.445
You don't wanna let them know that we don't have a lot of work, but you're like, Hey, instead of working eight hours today, you guys wanna work six.

00:37:55.445 --> 00:37:56.704
Just'cause I'm feeling generous.

00:37:56.704 --> 00:38:00.605
You know, they don't, they don't realize this'cause you'd rather just scale back a little bit or Right.

00:38:00.605 --> 00:38:00.815
And they

00:38:00.815 --> 00:38:03.545
could probably, damn, you get everything done today, eight or six hours.

00:38:03.574 --> 00:38:08.045
Or if it's snowing and I'm like, Hey, you guys are going out here to work on this underground job tomorrow.

00:38:08.045 --> 00:38:10.744
They're like, you know what, we have four more days in this building.

00:38:10.744 --> 00:38:12.304
I'm, I don't, I forgot to tell you.

00:38:12.304 --> 00:38:13.114
I'm sorry about that.

00:38:13.114 --> 00:38:13.414
So.

00:38:13.414 --> 00:38:13.775
Right.

00:38:14.344 --> 00:38:15.335
We kinda, we

00:38:15.335 --> 00:38:16.804
stay, we had some unexpected delays.

00:38:16.835 --> 00:38:17.224
Yeah.

00:38:17.465 --> 00:38:18.844
In this warm building over here.

00:38:18.844 --> 00:38:21.364
They, they wanted some more things, so, oh, imagine that.

00:38:21.454 --> 00:38:23.465
Uh, we stay on top of it pretty good.

00:38:23.465 --> 00:38:36.364
And you know, knock on wood, again, we are almost all the way through 2025 and I think we've had one loser that was, when I say loser, it was, you know, we didn't, we didn't pay to do any work, we just didn't make our profit margin.

00:38:36.364 --> 00:38:37.744
So I'm very, very proud of that.

00:38:37.744 --> 00:38:38.074
That's awesome.

00:38:38.105 --> 00:38:39.065
Our guys are amazing.

00:38:39.514 --> 00:38:41.284
As you, uh, scale that team.

00:38:41.284 --> 00:38:42.605
I mean, that's part of the learning curve.

00:38:42.605 --> 00:38:45.215
Sometimes it is, Ooh, we had to eat this.

00:38:45.394 --> 00:38:45.635
Yep.

00:38:45.905 --> 00:38:47.315
And sometimes you gotta get skinny.

00:38:47.315 --> 00:38:52.179
Sometimes you gotta just to keep the guys busy, you gotta go in at very low margins, if any, and Yeah.

00:38:52.505 --> 00:38:52.684
Yeah.

00:38:52.684 --> 00:38:54.425
And just try to, that's where your bid work comes from.

00:38:54.485 --> 00:38:54.574
Yep.

00:38:54.605 --> 00:38:55.175
Probably.

00:38:55.204 --> 00:38:55.474
Yep.

00:38:55.534 --> 00:38:59.074
And just try to get through it to keep the guys busy until some of your other work pops up.

00:38:59.074 --> 00:39:00.934
You're like, oh, six months out, we don't have much.

00:39:00.965 --> 00:39:02.614
Yeah, let's, let's go get something, or

00:39:02.614 --> 00:39:08.224
let you know, maybe, uh, here what happens in construction a lot is, is tough, is we bid something.

00:39:08.255 --> 00:39:09.755
They're like, Hey, we wanna work with you.

00:39:09.755 --> 00:39:11.074
Here's your contract to sign you up.

00:39:11.195 --> 00:39:12.125
And you're like, great.

00:39:12.125 --> 00:39:16.474
And you start making all these plans and they're like, oh, the permit is delayed 400 years.

00:39:16.474 --> 00:39:21.905
So, um, we'll probably start in 2040 and I need you to honor that same number.

00:39:22.460 --> 00:39:25.760
And I know you hired all those guys for this, but, um, I don't know what to tell you.

00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:31.010
So that, that is the constant, uh, the constant battle for us in the office is

00:39:31.159 --> 00:39:32.840
hopefully that's a little bit of hyperbole.

00:39:32.840 --> 00:39:33.980
Yeah, it is.

00:39:33.980 --> 00:39:34.849
A little bit, but yeah.

00:39:34.849 --> 00:39:36.710
But it isn't that far off sometimes.

00:39:36.710 --> 00:39:38.210
Sometimes that's what it feels like.

00:39:38.210 --> 00:39:38.840
And so,

00:39:39.320 --> 00:39:42.079
uh, it's, you know, sometimes we gotta go find a quick hitter.

00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:42.170
Well,

00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:43.550
and it's beyond their control.

00:39:43.699 --> 00:39:44.000
Yeah.

00:39:44.090 --> 00:39:44.449
Right.

00:39:44.449 --> 00:39:48.320
A lot of times you're like, why did you give me this permit?

00:39:49.099 --> 00:39:53.030
And then follow that with a stop work order because somebody in your development depart forgot to take this.

00:39:53.030 --> 00:39:53.539
Absolutely.

00:39:53.570 --> 00:39:54.559
Oh, you guys forgot

00:39:54.559 --> 00:39:58.550
that you're in a flood plane and didn't apply for the FEMA permit that takes the revised

00:39:58.550 --> 00:40:01.460
flood plane that we forgot to check before we gave you your Exactly.

00:40:01.460 --> 00:40:01.639
And they're

00:40:01.639 --> 00:40:03.260
like, we hope to start next year.

00:40:03.260 --> 00:40:06.380
And I'm like, I hope to never see this project again, is what I hope so.

00:40:06.409 --> 00:40:06.619
Yeah.

00:40:06.625 --> 00:40:06.664
Yeah.

00:40:06.889 --> 00:40:12.469
Um, but yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a song and dance all day long that we're moving pieces around.

00:40:12.530 --> 00:40:15.380
How about, uh, like business community?

00:40:15.380 --> 00:40:20.550
Have you have developed, like,'cause business being business owner is like a.

00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:22.940
Unusual role in the world, kind of.

00:40:22.940 --> 00:40:27.380
Do you have like a friend group or you don't have a local think tank or a peer group, anything like that?

00:40:27.380 --> 00:40:27.679
I don't.

00:40:27.679 --> 00:40:32.989
So the funny thing about me and that nobody believes this, but I'm actually extremely introverted.

00:40:32.989 --> 00:40:33.079
You are.

00:40:33.079 --> 00:40:33.889
And so, yeah.

00:40:34.340 --> 00:40:35.329
And so like you do a pretty good

00:40:35.329 --> 00:40:35.599
job in here.

00:40:35.599 --> 00:40:36.019
So things

00:40:36.019 --> 00:40:41.389
like this, like if I know I have to do it and I didn't have to do this, I'm not getting paid out there listening.

00:40:41.394 --> 00:40:41.414
No.

00:40:41.414 --> 00:40:41.750
But uh, no.

00:40:41.750 --> 00:40:41.840
Well,

00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:43.489
you got a pair of sunglasses.

00:40:43.519 --> 00:40:46.050
Yes, I did Little loco cups and some hot sauce stickers.

00:40:46.050 --> 00:40:46.574
I excited about that.

00:40:46.574 --> 00:40:47.300
Stickers some hot sauce.

00:40:47.329 --> 00:40:47.539
But I

00:40:47.539 --> 00:40:50.210
wanted to do it for you since you did so much for me a long time ago.

00:40:50.210 --> 00:40:51.559
So, um.

00:40:51.980 --> 00:40:54.469
I don't, I don't typically do a lot of that.

00:40:54.469 --> 00:40:56.239
I have great people in my office that do.

00:40:56.300 --> 00:40:56.360
Yeah.

00:40:56.389 --> 00:41:03.139
Um, but I do talk to other business owners as you know, about my struggles and their struggles and what they're seeing.

00:41:03.139 --> 00:41:04.820
And I try to stay on top of the trends.

00:41:04.820 --> 00:41:10.969
You know, typically you can talk to the general contractors and see, you know, they see the trends first.

00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:11.150
Yeah, sure.

00:41:11.150 --> 00:41:16.219
Because the RFPs coming from the owners and they'll, they'll know before I know that the slow down's coming.

00:41:16.219 --> 00:41:22.400
And so we kind of talk, there's a, there's a select few group of guys that I talk to that I trust that, you know, they're realistic.

00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:23.239
You just ring'em up once in a

00:41:23.239 --> 00:41:23.659
while.

00:41:23.690 --> 00:41:23.960
Yeah.

00:41:23.960 --> 00:41:24.590
Like, Hey, I,

00:41:25.219 --> 00:41:26.599
I haven't won any projects in a while.

00:41:26.599 --> 00:41:27.860
Are you guys winning anything?

00:41:27.860 --> 00:41:28.639
What are you seeing?

00:41:28.639 --> 00:41:35.150
And you know, Matt being in the insurance industry, you know, when you get a new job, you have to issue a new certificate of insurance.

00:41:35.150 --> 00:41:36.829
And so I'm like, Hey, are you issuing a lot?

00:41:36.829 --> 00:41:38.570
Are people busy right now?

00:41:38.630 --> 00:41:38.844
Right, right, right.

00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:46.565
I have different ways of kind of checking it, but, uh, no, I don't, I don't have a group and I probably should, it'd be better for me, but we talk more

00:41:46.565 --> 00:41:46.764
about it.

00:41:46.909 --> 00:41:47.150
Yeah.

00:41:47.150 --> 00:41:49.010
We've got a lot of introverts, so, uh.

00:41:49.429 --> 00:41:50.210
We can talk more about it.

00:41:50.210 --> 00:41:50.389
Probably.

00:41:50.389 --> 00:41:50.989
I think when people

00:41:50.989 --> 00:41:52.880
drag, drag it outta me, it's better.

00:41:52.880 --> 00:41:54.440
I, you know, and I am a natural leader.

00:41:54.440 --> 00:41:55.130
I like leading.

00:41:55.130 --> 00:41:57.320
It's just getting me to the, yeah.

00:41:57.320 --> 00:41:58.849
To the event and to the table.

00:41:58.849 --> 00:41:59.090
So my

00:41:59.090 --> 00:42:03.349
impression is, is you're like, have a high sense of responsibility.

00:42:03.380 --> 00:42:03.469
Mm-hmm.

00:42:03.710 --> 00:42:04.130
Kind of.

00:42:04.309 --> 00:42:08.570
And like, if you make yourself responsible for it, you'll figure out how to make it happen.

00:42:08.570 --> 00:42:09.079
A hundred percent.

00:42:10.010 --> 00:42:12.079
You know what, I'm a, I'm also a procrastinator.

00:42:12.079 --> 00:42:13.610
So if I know that, if you wait

00:42:13.610 --> 00:42:15.199
until the last minute, it only takes a minute.

00:42:15.409 --> 00:42:15.949
That's right.

00:42:15.949 --> 00:42:16.489
I like that.

00:42:16.489 --> 00:42:17.929
I'm gonna have to make a assured about that.

00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:22.400
If I know something's due on 1215, I'll get it done probably on 1214.

00:42:22.489 --> 00:42:22.579
Mm-hmm.

00:42:22.909 --> 00:42:25.434
Um, but you know, if, if they're like, that's

00:42:25.434 --> 00:42:27.980
for you in your personal life, not for your contracts necessarily project.

00:42:28.074 --> 00:42:28.195
Correct.

00:42:28.195 --> 00:42:31.070
Everything's done thoroughly and extensively, everyone.

00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:35.210
So, um, but if I don't have a deadline, I'll be like, oh, I'll get to that.

00:42:35.210 --> 00:42:36.260
I'll get to that, I'll get to that.

00:42:36.264 --> 00:42:36.275
So.

00:42:37.385 --> 00:42:39.485
Same with, same with networking and things like that.

00:42:39.514 --> 00:42:39.934
Right?

00:42:40.085 --> 00:42:40.235
Yeah.

00:42:40.235 --> 00:42:42.125
It's not an urgent kind of thing.

00:42:42.155 --> 00:42:42.485
Right?

00:42:42.664 --> 00:42:42.994
Yeah.

00:42:43.114 --> 00:42:43.385
Yep.

00:42:43.565 --> 00:42:45.425
My friend, do you know Michael Labate by chance?

00:42:45.425 --> 00:42:46.264
It seems like you might.

00:42:46.505 --> 00:42:47.585
I don't think that sounds

00:42:47.585 --> 00:42:47.795
familiar.

00:42:47.795 --> 00:42:48.094
He's an old

00:42:48.094 --> 00:42:51.875
hippie guy that actually was the guy that said, Hey Barry, you should start a think tank.

00:42:51.934 --> 00:42:54.605
'cause he had been in Vistage, which is like the big corporate thing.

00:42:54.610 --> 00:42:54.730
Mm-hmm.

00:42:54.809 --> 00:42:55.474
Of what we do.

00:42:56.105 --> 00:43:00.934
Uh,'cause I knew everybody'cause I was a banker for 15 years and that's what Banker's jobs is to know everybody.

00:43:00.934 --> 00:43:01.474
Absolutely.

00:43:01.894 --> 00:43:05.315
And, uh, anyway, he, when I was.

00:43:06.139 --> 00:43:09.530
Super broke after leaving banking to become whatever I am now.

00:43:09.650 --> 00:43:09.800
Yeah.

00:43:09.860 --> 00:43:14.630
He was like, it's all right, Barry, you'll, I didn't get super motivated until I was super broke either.

00:43:16.519 --> 00:43:18.349
Yeah, you probably navigated the lot.

00:43:18.349 --> 00:43:18.769
No one,

00:43:18.769 --> 00:43:20.659
no one hunts harder than a hungry man.

00:43:20.659 --> 00:43:23.119
So I can, I can certainly understand that.

00:43:23.119 --> 00:43:23.539
Yes.

00:43:23.630 --> 00:43:26.300
But what's, the leopard has been starved for a couple months.

00:43:26.389 --> 00:43:26.809
Yeah.

00:43:26.809 --> 00:43:27.889
They're not as good a hunter.

00:43:27.889 --> 00:43:28.130
So I

00:43:28.130 --> 00:43:40.010
think the other thing that, that scares me about those type things is when I was very young into business, I don't remember where I was, but I was, maybe I was getting gas or something and this person came up to me like, Hey, you're an electrician.

00:43:40.099 --> 00:43:41.150
And I'm like, yeah.

00:43:41.150 --> 00:43:50.840
And they said we would, you know, I have this group of people I meet with weekly and we, we don't have an electrician and we have all these, it was probably B and i, yeah, it was business networking.

00:43:50.840 --> 00:43:53.059
We have all these leads and different things.

00:43:53.059 --> 00:43:54.019
And I'm like, oh cool.

00:43:54.019 --> 00:43:55.010
That sounds great.

00:43:55.070 --> 00:44:01.550
Uh, and they're like, okay, why don't you meet me at whatever the holiday in at 11 and then I show up and it was.

00:44:02.344 --> 00:44:04.989
Yeah, I call local think tank, the anti B Nni.

00:44:05.014 --> 00:44:05.405
Okay.

00:44:05.405 --> 00:44:10.949
Then I might be interested because it was a dog groomer and like a hairstylist and a right.

00:44:10.969 --> 00:44:14.405
And if you, if anybody finds out, you refer a mortgage lender.

00:44:14.585 --> 00:44:14.735
Yes.

00:44:14.735 --> 00:44:17.284
Isn't the mortgage lender in this group you're gonna be dead?

00:44:17.315 --> 00:44:17.465
I'm

00:44:17.465 --> 00:44:20.344
like, why am I talking to a guy who's has a character business?

00:44:20.344 --> 00:44:21.005
You know what I mean?

00:44:21.005 --> 00:44:25.385
Like, this is not helping me, and I don't, I need to get back to work guys.

00:44:26.389 --> 00:44:30.094
I don, I don't want to use three random words from my brain that you guys can, what?

00:44:30.425 --> 00:44:32.465
All the games and stuff I was not for me.

00:44:32.465 --> 00:44:36.844
So to answer your question, that's why I've never followed through on anything like that.

00:44:36.844 --> 00:44:36.934
Well,

00:44:36.934 --> 00:44:41.525
that's part of that kind of experience is part of why I nicknamed Loko, the anti B nni.

00:44:41.675 --> 00:44:43.235
I like it because it's just kind of yucky.

00:44:43.324 --> 00:44:44.074
Yeah, it is.

00:44:44.074 --> 00:44:46.204
And no offense to the B Nni fans out there.

00:44:46.204 --> 00:44:46.565
Like no.

00:44:46.744 --> 00:44:50.284
There's some people that have done very well in their business.

00:44:50.284 --> 00:44:56.989
My, my, my friend Jody, one of my oldest friends is a financial advisor who helped us start the local Fort Collins chapter.

00:44:56.989 --> 00:44:57.364
One of them.

00:44:57.454 --> 00:44:57.695
Yeah.

00:44:58.389 --> 00:45:00.309
Half his business trails back to that.

00:45:00.340 --> 00:45:00.699
Wow.

00:45:00.789 --> 00:45:03.159
And he makes way more money than I do.

00:45:03.159 --> 00:45:04.090
Working way less.

00:45:04.150 --> 00:45:04.420
Yeah.

00:45:04.750 --> 00:45:06.010
Um, but he's a financial advisor.

00:45:06.010 --> 00:45:06.579
That's not a

00:45:06.579 --> 00:45:07.000
real Right.

00:45:07.059 --> 00:45:07.449
Real,

00:45:07.449 --> 00:45:08.260
real job, you know?

00:45:08.260 --> 00:45:08.380
Yeah.

00:45:08.380 --> 00:45:09.670
Just a few clicks of a button.

00:45:09.670 --> 00:45:13.599
Well, but, and, and if you can learn how to really activate referrals really good, which.

00:45:14.164 --> 00:45:14.795
Hey, dumb ass.

00:45:14.824 --> 00:45:21.635
Probably local Think Tank should be a member of b and i, Ben, if you listen to this podcast, I think we need you to become a member of a B and I.

00:45:21.664 --> 00:45:22.235
Exactly.

00:45:22.235 --> 00:45:23.525
We're gonna have to sign some things.

00:45:23.764 --> 00:45:24.335
I can't do it.

00:45:24.664 --> 00:45:25.474
I'm not gonna do it.

00:45:25.985 --> 00:45:26.434
Yeah.

00:45:26.434 --> 00:45:36.965
Uh, that has scared me away, but I If you're anti that, that doesn't drink me because that sitting around a conference room table with the Holiday Inn with people I would never normally talk to does not exactly excite me

00:45:36.965 --> 00:45:39.304
so Well, unless they're smart and cool.

00:45:39.364 --> 00:45:39.875
That's right.

00:45:40.085 --> 00:45:41.824
Which so far you're passing the test and the

00:45:41.824 --> 00:45:48.454
Holiday Inn is, uh, the only place you could meet because otherwise they're like, you can't be in here except for three people in a big room.

00:45:48.485 --> 00:45:49.054
Exactly.

00:45:49.054 --> 00:45:53.195
And they probably got it for free, which I probably, I probably even had to pay to go to the BNI thing.

00:45:53.195 --> 00:45:53.735
I don't even remember.

00:45:53.735 --> 00:45:54.155
Oh, yeah.

00:45:54.184 --> 00:45:56.255
It's almost as expensive as local members.

00:45:56.465 --> 00:45:56.764
Yeah.

00:45:57.364 --> 00:45:59.554
Um, I want to take a short break.

00:45:59.614 --> 00:45:59.824
Okay.

00:46:00.034 --> 00:46:02.885
Uh, partly because you're way behind on your delicious bourbon.

00:46:02.914 --> 00:46:03.335
You're right.

00:46:03.425 --> 00:46:05.074
And I'm almost empty with mine.

00:46:05.074 --> 00:46:10.025
And so I'm gonna give you a chance to catch up and then we're gonna jump in the time machine and meet little.

00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:11.389
5-year-old Evan.

00:46:11.539 --> 00:46:12.199
All right, let's do it.

00:47:01.789 --> 00:47:02.420
And we're back.

00:47:02.989 --> 00:47:03.199
Yep.

00:47:03.559 --> 00:47:04.730
Oh, I guess we're already back.

00:47:04.730 --> 00:47:05.900
Probably in that first part.

00:47:06.500 --> 00:47:11.900
Um, we said we would jump into the time machine, but before we do, um.

00:47:12.469 --> 00:47:17.300
You kind of sell yourself a little bit like me, just smart electric guy that got okay.

00:47:17.300 --> 00:47:18.260
Business going.

00:47:18.440 --> 00:47:29.179
Uh, but what would your, like team, you, you've, uh, got, you know, kind of a whatever, six or eight person leadership team, but what would they say are your particular special talents if they would?

00:47:29.480 --> 00:47:37.670
Um, I think they would say, you know, I, I'm smart in the sense that if I don't know something that I'll be honest about it, but I'll always figure it out.

00:47:37.849 --> 00:47:38.030
Yeah.

00:47:38.389 --> 00:47:42.019
Uh, pride myself on a, a lot of, no one will ever outwork me.

00:47:42.170 --> 00:47:51.440
And so whatever it takes, if I need to keep us busy, if I need to find a new software, if I need to, you know, make a change with the team, that's sometimes uncomfortable.

00:47:51.619 --> 00:47:51.800
Yeah.

00:47:51.829 --> 00:47:54.019
I'm always up for, for whatever.

00:47:54.019 --> 00:47:56.960
And, you know, no one, no one works harder than I do.

00:47:56.960 --> 00:47:57.019
Yeah.

00:47:57.019 --> 00:48:03.289
And so hopefully that I, I set a good example for them, but I'm not a, I'm a leader from the front, but I'm also.

00:48:04.235 --> 00:48:05.704
Not out front all the time.

00:48:05.704 --> 00:48:10.864
I, yeah, I like to give, it's not about I people, their space and, you know, empower them and make their own decisions.

00:48:10.864 --> 00:48:12.005
And if they need me, I'm here.

00:48:12.005 --> 00:48:15.485
But for the most part, I'm not over their shoulder saying, what are you doing?

00:48:15.485 --> 00:48:16.264
Why'd you do this?

00:48:16.264 --> 00:48:16.565
So,

00:48:16.864 --> 00:48:21.184
do you remember, uh, you mentioned earlier that you never laid anybody off, but you fired.

00:48:21.755 --> 00:48:22.594
Oh, I fired plenty.

00:48:22.780 --> 00:48:22.860
Yeah.

00:48:22.865 --> 00:48:23.045
Yeah.

00:48:23.400 --> 00:48:23.619
Do

00:48:23.619 --> 00:48:25.295
you remember the first person you fired still?

00:48:25.295 --> 00:48:26.434
Or every person you fired?

00:48:26.434 --> 00:48:26.855
Almost

00:48:26.855 --> 00:48:27.815
for the most part.

00:48:27.815 --> 00:48:28.114
I do.

00:48:28.175 --> 00:48:28.565
Yeah.

00:48:28.625 --> 00:48:28.864
Yeah.

00:48:28.864 --> 00:48:42.244
Usually it was performance based or, you know, I, I think I had a guy one time show up to a house that he had sleeveless shirts, uh, sleeveless shirt on, and it, I think it said f the police on it or something like that.

00:48:42.605 --> 00:48:42.644
Oh, okay.

00:48:42.644 --> 00:48:43.985
And so I was like, yeah, you gotta go.

00:48:44.434 --> 00:48:46.144
I'll, I'll drive you back to your house.

00:48:46.505 --> 00:48:47.644
Just things like that.

00:48:47.644 --> 00:48:50.704
But, uh, yeah, I've been pretty fortunate to have some great people.

00:48:50.795 --> 00:48:51.215
That's cool.

00:48:51.275 --> 00:48:51.514
Yeah.

00:48:51.784 --> 00:48:54.635
Um, let's, uh, let's jump in the time machine.

00:48:56.494 --> 00:48:58.985
Um, born, raised in Northern Colorado.

00:48:59.045 --> 00:48:59.284
Yep.

00:48:59.344 --> 00:49:03.875
I grew up in birthed, so I was born in Denver, but pretty much, uh, grew up just.

00:49:04.295 --> 00:49:08.224
Three or four years of my life in Longmont and then grew up in the country in Ed.

00:49:08.315 --> 00:49:08.585
Okay.

00:49:08.585 --> 00:49:10.360
So, um, small town living, what

00:49:10.360 --> 00:49:13.199
was your family setting that you got to grow up in the country in?

00:49:13.445 --> 00:49:15.394
So, uh, we grew up on five acres.

00:49:15.454 --> 00:49:23.704
Uh, my parents bought a place there and I'm convinced they had children so that they had free workers, um, slash slaves.

00:49:23.704 --> 00:49:24.605
They had water on that.

00:49:24.605 --> 00:49:25.144
Five acres?

00:49:25.144 --> 00:49:25.565
Yeah.

00:49:25.565 --> 00:49:26.074
Oh yeah.

00:49:26.164 --> 00:49:30.815
It was like, hey, there's weeds and horses need to be fed and, you know, all these different things.

00:49:30.815 --> 00:49:32.315
The garden needs to be planted Absolutely.

00:49:32.315 --> 00:49:33.605
And harvested and yeah.

00:49:33.605 --> 00:49:34.534
So it was fun.

00:49:34.534 --> 00:49:35.465
Grew up in the country.

00:49:35.465 --> 00:49:36.440
And was they like Denver people?

00:49:36.510 --> 00:49:38.375
Like did, how did they earn their income?

00:49:38.675 --> 00:49:39.454
Uh, nope.

00:49:39.454 --> 00:49:44.164
My mom was, uh, engineer, so she was big into AutoCAD and did all that stuff.

00:49:44.164 --> 00:49:44.195
Okay.

00:49:44.195 --> 00:49:45.065
So she traveled.

00:49:45.489 --> 00:49:46.989
Uh, she was in the Boulder area.

00:49:47.019 --> 00:49:47.349
Okay.

00:49:47.530 --> 00:49:47.889
Interesting.

00:49:47.889 --> 00:49:51.280
And then, uh, my dad was a lineman, so he worked for Sturgeon Electric.

00:49:51.460 --> 00:49:51.760
Okay.

00:49:51.760 --> 00:49:53.170
They were kind of out of the Denver area.

00:49:53.409 --> 00:49:57.159
I'm not really sure why we lived in hood with both of them going that way, but that's the way

00:49:57.280 --> 00:49:59.949
ended up well, they wanted to be out in the country, you know, made a choice, I guess.

00:49:59.949 --> 00:50:00.010
Yeah.

00:50:00.010 --> 00:50:00.250
And I'm

00:50:00.250 --> 00:50:00.760
okay with that.

00:50:00.760 --> 00:50:02.679
I'm glad I grew up out in the country at the time.

00:50:02.679 --> 00:50:06.579
When you're a kid, you're growing up in the country and all your friends are in town, you're like, this sucks.

00:50:06.670 --> 00:50:09.039
Like, everybody's doing this, gonna movies.

00:50:09.099 --> 00:50:09.460
Yeah.

00:50:09.519 --> 00:50:11.829
And I'm three miles away and can't get there.

00:50:11.829 --> 00:50:13.510
And parents are working and, you know.

00:50:13.900 --> 00:50:14.139
Yeah.

00:50:14.199 --> 00:50:14.800
So it goes.

00:50:14.889 --> 00:50:15.159
Yep.

00:50:15.369 --> 00:50:19.030
Um, and, uh, like once you get into the school years, were you.

00:50:19.315 --> 00:50:20.065
Big early.

00:50:20.485 --> 00:50:20.844
Nope.

00:50:20.994 --> 00:50:29.335
I was, that was actually part of the problem with college baseball is I graduated high school at, you know, five foot, 11, six foot, but only 155 pounds.

00:50:29.335 --> 00:50:29.905
And so, okay.

00:50:30.144 --> 00:50:31.284
I was a catcher in high school.

00:50:31.284 --> 00:50:31.344
Yeah.

00:50:31.344 --> 00:50:32.364
And I was really, really good.

00:50:32.364 --> 00:50:32.545
If your

00:50:32.545 --> 00:50:35.994
hands were that big when you were a senior in high school, you'd probably, uh, yeah.

00:50:36.114 --> 00:50:37.764
And so had some higher bat speed

00:50:37.824 --> 00:50:39.175
going to play college baseball.

00:50:39.175 --> 00:50:44.664
They were like, Hey, you're a great catcher, but you're way too small for a college catcher and you're gonna go to the outfield.

00:50:44.664 --> 00:50:50.034
And the reason I was a catcher, it kind of plays to my personality, is I became a catcher.

00:50:50.034 --> 00:50:51.269
Because you're involved in every play.

00:50:51.269 --> 00:50:52.224
It's like the assistant coach.

00:50:52.255 --> 00:50:52.525
Yeah.

00:50:52.614 --> 00:50:55.014
Basically you're calling plays like your basketball role.

00:50:55.014 --> 00:50:57.565
You're, you know, you're touching the ball every single time.

00:50:57.565 --> 00:50:59.070
You're not just standing in the outfield mm-hmm.

00:50:59.150 --> 00:51:00.385
Waiting for a hit that may never come.

00:51:00.385 --> 00:51:00.565
Well,

00:51:00.565 --> 00:51:03.264
and when the pitcher needs to settle down a little bit, you're the guy usually.

00:51:03.264 --> 00:51:03.474
Yeah.

00:51:03.474 --> 00:51:07.014
And you can talk a little smack to the hitter and everything else, so, right.

00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:08.550
It, uh, it suited me.

00:51:08.550 --> 00:51:12.630
And so when they were like, you gotta go to the outfield because you got a great arm, but you're just too small.

00:51:12.630 --> 00:51:13.829
I was like, I'm not doing that.

00:51:13.829 --> 00:51:15.780
And I was in my defiant years, so,

00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:16.260
okay.

00:51:16.260 --> 00:51:18.480
That's why, uh, that's why that ended.

00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:24.179
And so, you know, two years later I got man muscles and all of a sudden I'm like, where were you guys two years, years ago.

00:51:24.179 --> 00:51:24.389
I did you?

00:51:24.394 --> 00:51:24.485
Yeah.

00:51:24.485 --> 00:51:24.844
Dammit.

00:51:24.914 --> 00:51:25.204
Yeah.

00:51:25.920 --> 00:51:27.300
So I got bigger and, well,

00:51:27.300 --> 00:51:32.730
these days you would've started when you were at 10 in the gym and you would've got mad muscles when you were 14 something.

00:51:32.735 --> 00:51:32.764
True.

00:51:32.769 --> 00:51:32.820
True.

00:51:32.820 --> 00:51:33.239
My girls

00:51:33.239 --> 00:51:36.059
have trainers and their trainers have trainers for my girls.

00:51:36.059 --> 00:51:36.659
You know what I mean?

00:51:36.659 --> 00:51:42.690
It's just like they have these opportunities that I never had and, uh, you know, it, I turned out okay.

00:51:42.690 --> 00:51:43.860
And so, yeah, I'm grateful for it.

00:51:43.949 --> 00:51:44.010
Yeah.

00:51:44.010 --> 00:51:44.940
Things are okay.

00:51:44.940 --> 00:51:45.239
Yeah.

00:51:45.300 --> 00:51:48.179
But, uh, so where, so you.

00:51:48.664 --> 00:51:52.985
Were undersized, but capable baller through school.

00:51:52.985 --> 00:51:54.244
And where that was birthed too?

00:51:54.335 --> 00:51:54.545
Yeah.

00:51:54.545 --> 00:51:55.324
Birthed high school.

00:51:55.355 --> 00:51:55.534
Okay.

00:51:55.534 --> 00:51:59.105
And then, um, you know, grew up in the country, which I'm thankful for.

00:51:59.105 --> 00:52:00.275
It created good work ethic to me.

00:52:00.275 --> 00:52:01.054
Do you have siblings too?

00:52:01.054 --> 00:52:01.925
Yeah, I have two brothers.

00:52:01.929 --> 00:52:02.764
Two younger brothers.

00:52:02.764 --> 00:52:03.364
Younger brothers.

00:52:03.364 --> 00:52:03.579
So he

00:52:03.585 --> 00:52:04.534
was a big brother too.

00:52:04.534 --> 00:52:06.425
So that kind of goes with that assistant coach role.

00:52:06.454 --> 00:52:06.784
Yeah,

00:52:06.905 --> 00:52:09.514
it, it left me in charge for a lot of different things.

00:52:09.514 --> 00:52:13.594
And so, you know, I guess at an early age I took on that persona.

00:52:13.594 --> 00:52:17.195
Like we would be going on a family camping trip and I would pack everything.

00:52:17.945 --> 00:52:19.744
I would, I would go find it and I would pack it.

00:52:19.744 --> 00:52:19.835
I do it.

00:52:19.920 --> 00:52:21.139
That's that responsibility sheet.

00:52:21.139 --> 00:52:23.735
It would be all Tetris perfectly in the back.

00:52:23.735 --> 00:52:26.675
And I'm like, a Friday we're going to eat this, and Saturday we're gonna have this.

00:52:26.675 --> 00:52:28.204
And if somebody gets sick, we have this.

00:52:28.204 --> 00:52:29.554
And so, and your mom was like.

00:52:29.824 --> 00:52:30.514
I love you.

00:52:30.514 --> 00:52:31.739
Yeah, they were so good.

00:52:31.775 --> 00:52:33.815
They were just like, all right, what time do we leave captain?

00:52:33.815 --> 00:52:34.144
You know?

00:52:34.655 --> 00:52:35.644
So I love it.

00:52:35.704 --> 00:52:36.905
That's kind of how I grew up.

00:52:37.144 --> 00:52:37.594
That's cool.

00:52:37.625 --> 00:52:37.925
Yeah.

00:52:38.105 --> 00:52:39.304
Um, and then where did you go?

00:52:39.335 --> 00:52:40.505
Did you get a scholarship or something?

00:52:40.505 --> 00:52:41.494
Or where did you play baseball?

00:52:41.500 --> 00:52:41.704
I, I was

00:52:41.704 --> 00:52:44.405
a preferred walk on to Lee Summit in Missouri, so.

00:52:44.465 --> 00:52:44.795
Okay.

00:52:44.824 --> 00:52:47.945
Um, you know, it was like, Hey, come out, we like you.

00:52:47.945 --> 00:52:51.485
We got a spot on the, we got a spot for you with 437 other dudes.

00:52:51.485 --> 00:52:53.405
We really think the world of you just like them.

00:52:54.005 --> 00:52:57.304
And so it was, uh, it was a lot of that.

00:52:57.304 --> 00:53:05.704
And then, you know, my friends were all making money back home and, you know, girls obviously were a big thing, and so you come back and you're like, I think I just want to be an adult.

00:53:05.885 --> 00:53:08.855
Because for some reason in high school you're like, I want to graduate.

00:53:08.855 --> 00:53:09.875
I just want to work.

00:53:09.875 --> 00:53:10.684
I just want a job.

00:53:10.684 --> 00:53:11.179
I hate school.

00:53:11.179 --> 00:53:11.494
Couldn't wait to get your

00:53:11.494 --> 00:53:12.905
driver's license and all that.

00:53:13.114 --> 00:53:14.914
It's so different than today's culture where they're like.

00:53:15.380 --> 00:53:15.769
Ew.

00:53:15.769 --> 00:53:17.090
I don't want a driver's license.

00:53:17.239 --> 00:53:18.170
My friends can pick me up.

00:53:18.199 --> 00:53:18.619
Yeah.

00:53:18.619 --> 00:53:18.829
Why

00:53:18.829 --> 00:53:19.820
would I want to drive?

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:21.349
And I got my driver's license.

00:53:21.349 --> 00:53:22.860
The day I turned 16, it was, I was

00:53:22.860 --> 00:53:25.130
14 years in a couple weeks.

00:53:25.159 --> 00:53:27.409
I mean, I was driving Dakota though when I was 12.

00:53:27.409 --> 00:53:30.510
My parents would let me drive their cars on the back road to my job that I had.

00:53:30.510 --> 00:53:30.800
I love it.

00:53:30.889 --> 00:53:33.139
And so I worked for Pioneer.

00:53:33.139 --> 00:53:33.619
You balanced

00:53:33.619 --> 00:53:34.699
a couple years into your.

00:53:35.090 --> 00:53:35.780
College education?

00:53:35.780 --> 00:53:36.260
Uh, no.

00:53:36.380 --> 00:53:36.409
A

00:53:36.409 --> 00:53:37.130
couple months.

00:53:37.219 --> 00:53:37.820
Oh, no doubt.

00:53:37.849 --> 00:53:38.150
Yeah.

00:53:38.155 --> 00:53:38.534
A couple months.

00:53:38.750 --> 00:53:38.900
Yeah.

00:53:38.929 --> 00:53:39.139
Okay.

00:53:39.650 --> 00:53:40.969
Came back and started working.

00:53:40.969 --> 00:53:49.940
So, I mean, at age 12, I would take the back roads of my mom's car to the Pioneer Sand and Gravel, and I was driving the big loaders that would load trucks and like

00:53:50.030 --> 00:53:50.960
you were working for them.

00:53:51.019 --> 00:53:51.170
Yeah.

00:53:51.260 --> 00:53:52.340
Really nice trucks.

00:53:52.340 --> 00:53:56.780
And I had to papers or something, I had to put mulch in their truck with this giant loader and they trusted me.

00:53:56.780 --> 00:53:58.280
And that was just my thing.

00:53:58.280 --> 00:54:05.030
So, um, yeah, I, I realized I really liked working and I liked money and I just liked responsibility, so.

00:54:05.030 --> 00:54:05.239
Yeah.

00:54:05.389 --> 00:54:09.710
Well, and you seem like you have a natural business instinct, even if you're not a Harvard MBA.

00:54:09.710 --> 00:54:10.039
Yeah.

00:54:10.045 --> 00:54:12.349
You, I'm not, you know, people, what makes sense of people talk about

00:54:12.349 --> 00:54:13.250
entrepreneurs.

00:54:13.375 --> 00:54:14.989
I, I don't know that that fits me.

00:54:14.989 --> 00:54:18.320
I think I just, I just worked hard enough to make it work.

00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:18.440
Yeah.

00:54:18.454 --> 00:54:18.574
Yeah.

00:54:18.574 --> 00:54:22.099
I'm just, I'm kind of a caveman that just keeps hitting it until it works, you know?

00:54:23.074 --> 00:54:23.614
It falls.

00:54:23.914 --> 00:54:24.494
Yes, exactly.

00:54:25.224 --> 00:54:32.094
Um, so somewhere along the way, you, you met this wife that you're very fond of, but I don't know if you've named her yet.

00:54:32.275 --> 00:54:32.664
Sorry.

00:54:32.664 --> 00:54:34.224
Her name is Fawn, so Hey fa.

00:54:34.315 --> 00:54:34.675
Yeah.

00:54:34.735 --> 00:54:43.135
Fa gave me, uh, two amazing girls and, um, yeah, we connected uh, probably in our mid twenties.

00:54:43.164 --> 00:54:43.974
I hope that's right.

00:54:43.974 --> 00:54:45.849
I'm probably gonna get in trouble for that, but, uh, you're

00:54:45.849 --> 00:54:48.474
like working in the electric business, working for Brinkman.

00:54:48.474 --> 00:54:49.344
By that time I was working for

00:54:49.344 --> 00:54:49.704
Brinkman.

00:54:49.704 --> 00:54:49.974
Yep.

00:54:50.215 --> 00:54:51.505
And so, um.

00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:53.639
You know, we kind of did things backwards.

00:54:53.639 --> 00:54:58.320
It's, we were, we started dating and she got pregnant right away and Okay.

00:54:58.949 --> 00:55:02.130
I don't know how that happened, but, um, it's a mystery still kids.

00:55:02.130 --> 00:55:02.550
It is.

00:55:02.550 --> 00:55:02.789
Yeah.

00:55:02.789 --> 00:55:03.929
Hopefully they solve it someday.

00:55:03.929 --> 00:55:04.110
Day

00:55:04.199 --> 00:55:05.010
girls never Yeah.

00:55:05.010 --> 00:55:05.880
Explore that mystery.

00:55:05.909 --> 00:55:06.239
Right.

00:55:06.840 --> 00:55:15.179
And so, uh, and you know, once you have a child on the way or a child that's here, you have immense responsibility to make money.

00:55:15.179 --> 00:55:19.289
And, you know, at that point then I was like, okay, I've gotta advance my career immediately.

00:55:19.289 --> 00:55:20.489
So I went from.

00:55:21.184 --> 00:55:22.474
Assistant superintendent.

00:55:22.894 --> 00:55:25.864
And this was during the, the 2008 recession.

00:55:25.864 --> 00:55:25.954
Oh, wow.

00:55:25.954 --> 00:55:30.304
And brinkman was, we were laying people off and they said, Hey, we've got a big project in Arizona.

00:55:30.755 --> 00:55:32.045
It's, it's a go.

00:55:32.074 --> 00:55:33.364
We need you to go.

00:55:33.364 --> 00:55:37.025
And it was, you know, I was a young, you're like, I don't really know what I was doing.

00:55:37.025 --> 00:55:37.894
I was a young father.

00:55:37.894 --> 00:55:44.675
I didn't really know what I was doing, but they, you know, I was basically sold this, this impression, well you're showing up that it would accelerate my career.

00:55:44.675 --> 00:55:50.465
And it did, it, it, it probably cut three years of growth here off of my career that quick.

00:55:50.614 --> 00:55:50.795
Right.

00:55:50.795 --> 00:55:52.885
So went down there for a year and a half.

00:55:52.885 --> 00:55:53.045
You just screwed it all

00:55:53.045 --> 00:55:53.195
up.

00:55:53.195 --> 00:55:54.394
At least you were in a side market.

00:55:54.425 --> 00:55:54.965
Not That's right.

00:55:55.025 --> 00:55:57.844
Nobody could tell how bad it was'cause they weren't visiting.

00:55:57.844 --> 00:56:00.125
So, um, but yeah.

00:56:00.125 --> 00:56:00.454
Interesting.

00:56:00.514 --> 00:56:00.905
Okay,

00:56:01.054 --> 00:56:05.585
so, uh, father and I have two girls and, um, you know, right now she's.

00:56:05.914 --> 00:56:06.574
Full-time.

00:56:06.635 --> 00:56:08.344
Full-time mom running them around.

00:56:08.344 --> 00:56:10.534
Taxi Gracie can drive, which, which helps.

00:56:10.534 --> 00:56:14.795
But you couldn't pay me enough money to do her job, so, fair enough.

00:56:14.795 --> 00:56:15.425
Thankful for that.

00:56:15.429 --> 00:56:15.519
How,

00:56:15.525 --> 00:56:18.005
how, when were you able to fire her from conduct all?

00:56:18.304 --> 00:56:25.360
Uh, I think we fire, we, we broke up, we mutually parted ways in business, uh, a year and a half in or something like that, so.

00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:25.519
Gotcha.

00:56:25.625 --> 00:56:27.934
That was about, uh, it made home life much better, so, yeah.

00:56:28.144 --> 00:56:28.864
Me, me too.

00:56:28.864 --> 00:56:33.695
Like in my business, I need somebody to keep my poop in a group kind of Yeah.

00:56:33.695 --> 00:56:35.344
And keep track of stuff and whatever.

00:56:35.914 --> 00:56:37.954
But I don't want that relationship with my wife.

00:56:38.014 --> 00:56:38.525
No.

00:56:38.525 --> 00:56:45.454
And I related a lot'cause I coach both my daughters and sometimes I feel bad for them because not only am I their dad, I'm their coach.

00:56:45.485 --> 00:56:54.244
And so when I say something, my tone automatically goes to their eardrum like he's criticizing me to where a normal coach, they would be like, okay coach, I got you.

00:56:54.244 --> 00:56:56.554
And to me they're like, dad, why are you so mean?

00:56:57.065 --> 00:56:59.164
It's very similar when you work with your spouse.

00:56:59.164 --> 00:57:03.155
It's like, kinda, if I ask you to go get me a pencil, she'd be like, what is the attitude?

00:57:03.155 --> 00:57:04.469
And I'm like, I just needed a pencil.

00:57:04.750 --> 00:57:04.869
I

00:57:04.869 --> 00:57:05.630
thought you might have a pencil.

00:57:06.755 --> 00:57:07.175
So

00:57:07.414 --> 00:57:11.614
we decided early on if, if we're gonna make it, we gotta, we gotta get somebody else in here.

00:57:11.614 --> 00:57:12.755
And so we did.

00:57:12.755 --> 00:57:13.835
And it, and it's been great.

00:57:13.835 --> 00:57:14.105
So

00:57:14.164 --> 00:57:21.844
tell me about, uh, like, like you were kind of pushed into a situation where you're like, uh, are we gonna get married here?

00:57:22.054 --> 00:57:25.864
I mean sure there's option of not have a kid together with somebody you've just started dating.

00:57:25.864 --> 00:57:25.925
Yeah.

00:57:25.925 --> 00:57:26.434
Maybe not.

00:57:26.434 --> 00:57:32.045
You know, talk to me about that there and then maybe just brag on why she's awesome.

00:57:32.375 --> 00:57:32.675
Yeah.

00:57:32.764 --> 00:57:33.425
So.

00:57:34.309 --> 00:57:40.969
My parents' family, um, well they're mostly from the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon, California area.

00:57:41.420 --> 00:57:41.449
Okay.

00:57:41.449 --> 00:57:43.789
And so we didn't grow up with a lot of family.

00:57:43.820 --> 00:57:52.159
And so something that really intrigued me when I was young is I wanted a family and I wanted this big Thanksgiving dinners that we typically didn't have.

00:57:52.159 --> 00:57:53.840
And I wanted these big Christmases.

00:57:53.840 --> 00:57:58.039
And yeah, so once I started to get my own family, I'm like, this is great.

00:57:58.039 --> 00:57:59.119
I gotta figure this out.

00:57:59.119 --> 00:58:05.750
And so, uh, we had Gracie and you know, things were fine and then we had Haley still don't know how that one happened either.

00:58:05.750 --> 00:58:08.269
Two times in a row was very strange phenomenon.

00:58:08.269 --> 00:58:09.590
But, um.

00:58:10.025 --> 00:58:14.164
Pretty soon the girls got older and they're like, mom and dad, why are you guys not married?

00:58:14.570 --> 00:58:15.784
Oh, and Oh,

00:58:15.784 --> 00:58:16.204
interesting.

00:58:16.235 --> 00:58:21.784
Yeah, and Fawn was, fawn never wanted to get married unless she was certain that it was like a one and done.

00:58:21.784 --> 00:58:23.764
She'd ne she's never wanted to be divorced.

00:58:23.764 --> 00:58:27.695
And so she, she was hard on me because I needed to grow up.

00:58:27.844 --> 00:58:30.215
And so I didn't grow up till I was in my thirties.

00:58:30.275 --> 00:58:31.744
It, that it took me a long time.

00:58:31.744 --> 00:58:31.804
I'm

00:58:31.804 --> 00:58:35.525
51 and my wife would say it's, I'm still a work in progress too.

00:58:35.614 --> 00:58:36.215
I'm slightly

00:58:36.215 --> 00:58:37.235
house trained at this point.

00:58:37.235 --> 00:58:39.875
So, um, that was a lot of it.

00:58:39.875 --> 00:58:41.375
Fawn was waiting on me to grow up.

00:58:41.554 --> 00:58:45.335
Um, the girls, the girls were like, why are you guys not married?

00:58:45.335 --> 00:58:46.684
And Mike, that's a great question.

00:58:46.684 --> 00:58:48.335
The, we'll, we'll fix that.

00:58:48.335 --> 00:58:50.585
And so we just kinda did everything in reverse.

00:58:50.585 --> 00:58:51.695
And when, when did you, when did you get there?

00:58:51.695 --> 00:58:52.534
2014.

00:58:52.655 --> 00:58:53.105
Oh wow.

00:58:53.164 --> 00:58:53.554
Okay.

00:58:53.764 --> 00:58:54.724
When the girls were, how old?

00:58:55.355 --> 00:58:59.344
Let's see, Gracie would be, uh, six at that point and Hailey would be three.

00:58:59.405 --> 00:58:59.824
Yeah.

00:58:59.945 --> 00:59:00.304
Yep.

00:59:01.144 --> 00:59:03.184
What did, are they the flower girls?

00:59:03.215 --> 00:59:05.014
They were in that situation, I suppose.

00:59:05.045 --> 00:59:05.224
Yep.

00:59:05.284 --> 00:59:06.364
They were flower girls.

00:59:06.364 --> 00:59:07.684
They were ring bearers.

00:59:07.684 --> 00:59:08.704
They were, yeah.

00:59:08.704 --> 00:59:10.235
Stars of the show is what they were.

00:59:10.235 --> 00:59:11.914
They were little cuties, so, yeah.

00:59:11.914 --> 00:59:11.974
Yeah.

00:59:12.184 --> 00:59:12.605
So,

00:59:13.235 --> 00:59:18.545
um, what else on the family front, is there anything else that you'd wanna share?

00:59:18.545 --> 00:59:21.664
You, you working toward those big Thanksgiving tables?

00:59:21.695 --> 00:59:21.965
Yeah.

00:59:22.025 --> 00:59:23.824
Does Fawn have family around here too?

00:59:23.855 --> 00:59:24.485
Her family's

00:59:24.485 --> 00:59:27.155
kind of, uh, her family's kind of separated a lot.

00:59:27.155 --> 00:59:28.414
They're in different areas and yeah.

00:59:28.925 --> 00:59:29.105
You know.

00:59:29.105 --> 00:59:29.284
How about

00:59:29.284 --> 00:59:30.815
your siblings, your brothers?

00:59:30.905 --> 00:59:32.855
So one brother went into the Navy.

00:59:33.184 --> 00:59:37.235
Funny about my brother, uh, clay, he was, we always called him space cadet.

00:59:37.235 --> 00:59:43.925
He was like, he would walk into walls and he would forget to get on the bus at school or whatever it was.

00:59:43.925 --> 00:59:45.034
He was just always something.

00:59:45.034 --> 00:59:45.480
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:45.545 --> 00:59:50.255
You know, he was kind of that kid that never really cleaned his room and I'm like, how is this kid gonna survive in life?

00:59:50.869 --> 00:59:57.019
He, after high school, he went to Fort Lewis College and he was a whitewater raft guide and just did whatever.

00:59:57.019 --> 01:00:02.780
Well, one day he took the Navy aptitude test and they called him and were like, you need to get in here now.

01:00:03.289 --> 01:00:06.559
And he was immediately signed to the nuclear engineer program.

01:00:06.739 --> 01:00:07.250
Interesting.

01:00:07.324 --> 01:00:10.474
To a kid that I wasn't even sure if he knew how to brush his teeth.

01:00:10.474 --> 01:00:10.835
Right.

01:00:10.925 --> 01:00:15.635
And so, uh, he had a great career in the Navy, made a lot of money, did great for his family.

01:00:15.635 --> 01:00:18.364
And so he's transferred out of the Navy into the government sector.

01:00:18.364 --> 01:00:21.755
He kind of controls the power grid for the whole western half of United States.

01:00:21.755 --> 01:00:21.764
Oh.

01:00:21.784 --> 01:00:26.614
Oh, I bet he knows my brother-in-law because he works for the Department of Energy and was a nuclear engineer.

01:00:26.644 --> 01:00:26.704
Yeah.

01:00:26.704 --> 01:00:27.215
In the submarine.

01:00:27.275 --> 01:00:27.545
Yeah.

01:00:27.545 --> 01:00:29.255
That's where Clay was too, so, oh, is that right?

01:00:29.255 --> 01:00:29.315
Yeah.

01:00:29.315 --> 01:00:31.085
He decommissioned some ships and different things.

01:00:31.085 --> 01:00:31.409
Well, I'll ask him

01:00:31.409 --> 01:00:32.315
about Greg Johnson.

01:00:32.434 --> 01:00:32.675
Okay.

01:00:32.735 --> 01:00:39.409
Uh, Greg and his family live in Windsor as well, and he works for, makes sure all the dams work and stuff like that.

01:00:39.414 --> 01:00:39.574
Yeah,

01:00:39.905 --> 01:00:40.204
yeah.

01:00:40.204 --> 01:00:40.744
Kind of cool.

01:00:40.744 --> 01:00:41.105
So.

01:00:41.375 --> 01:00:42.275
That's what Clay's doing.

01:00:42.275 --> 01:00:44.255
My brother Steve, uh, lives in Zi.

01:00:44.255 --> 01:00:50.614
He's kind of into the maintenance, uh, area of some production facilities and stuff like that, so.

01:00:50.735 --> 01:00:50.885
Okay.

01:00:51.125 --> 01:00:56.864
Um, you know how it is, you get a family and you start growing up and you, you know, you kind of just talk on holidays and different things like that.

01:00:56.864 --> 01:00:57.215
They don't have

01:00:57.215 --> 01:00:58.385
kids families yet.

01:00:58.445 --> 01:00:58.655
Uh,

01:00:58.655 --> 01:00:59.195
they do.

01:00:59.315 --> 01:01:01.894
Um, but they're kind of, they do their own things with their family.

01:01:01.894 --> 01:01:03.125
So it's weird.

01:01:03.125 --> 01:01:08.704
I wanted this big family, but I've also kind of just created this small circle with our family and our own traditions and, and

01:01:08.704 --> 01:01:11.045
45 employees that are kind of like family too.

01:01:11.105 --> 01:01:11.315
Yeah.

01:01:11.315 --> 01:01:12.304
That takes a little effort and

01:01:12.304 --> 01:01:24.304
between, you know, the business and basketball, um, it's, it's tough to find time for the family and so we've kind of created our own traditions and do different things like that, but it, it's turned out just the way I like it, so I dig it.

01:01:24.485 --> 01:01:24.784
Yeah.

01:01:25.025 --> 01:01:27.065
Um, do you wanna do our ping pong ball challenge?

01:01:27.065 --> 01:01:27.394
Lets do it.

01:01:27.394 --> 01:01:28.894
Have you, uh, do you know what that is?

01:01:28.900 --> 01:01:28.909
No.

01:01:29.719 --> 01:01:32.059
It was, uh, Lindsay sent me the email and I forgot to read it.

01:01:32.570 --> 01:01:32.840
It's okay.

01:01:33.260 --> 01:01:35.329
So these are kind of totally random questions.

01:01:35.360 --> 01:01:35.599
Okay.

01:01:36.019 --> 01:01:43.940
And, uh, what we want you to do is grab three ping pong balls, and then I will ask you the questions associated with them.

01:01:43.940 --> 01:01:44.480
Do you have three?

01:01:44.780 --> 01:01:45.050
Yep.

01:01:46.610 --> 01:01:47.480
Take this back out of the way.

01:01:48.050 --> 01:01:49.190
Six is the first one.

01:01:49.250 --> 01:01:50.449
Six is the first one.

01:01:52.969 --> 01:02:01.940
If you could only eat one color of food for the rest of your life, what color would you choose and why?

01:02:02.150 --> 01:02:02.719
Just for fun.

01:02:03.079 --> 01:02:03.469
Pardon me.

01:02:03.469 --> 01:02:07.579
Wants to say green because of my company colors, but I don't want to eat vegetables the rest of my life.

01:02:08.090 --> 01:02:08.780
Um,

01:02:09.829 --> 01:02:11.900
I And you got moldy chicken.

01:02:12.530 --> 01:02:13.190
Good point.

01:02:13.670 --> 01:02:14.210
Good point.

01:02:14.480 --> 01:02:18.039
I, I, I guess I have to say pink because my favorite meat is steak.

01:02:18.039 --> 01:02:19.039
Like medium rare is steak.

01:02:19.039 --> 01:02:21.139
You know, I, I probably have to go pink.

01:02:21.139 --> 01:02:21.389
Do you have to

01:02:21.389 --> 01:02:21.400
eat?

01:02:22.235 --> 01:02:23.614
Almost ripe strawberries.

01:02:23.675 --> 01:02:23.885
What else?

01:02:23.885 --> 01:02:24.275
Almost ripe

01:02:24.275 --> 01:02:25.114
strawberries.

01:02:25.144 --> 01:02:25.715
Watermelon.

01:02:25.744 --> 01:02:26.434
Radishes.

01:02:26.440 --> 01:02:26.940
Watermelon.

01:02:26.945 --> 01:02:27.184
Watermelon.

01:02:27.184 --> 01:02:28.655
Qualifies for pink a lot of times.

01:02:28.684 --> 01:02:33.125
Maybe some raspberries, but steak, like steak, not quite ripe, but steak.

01:02:33.155 --> 01:02:33.275
I'll

01:02:33.275 --> 01:02:33.905
just eat steak.

01:02:33.934 --> 01:02:34.204
Yeah.

01:02:34.474 --> 01:02:35.554
I'll be good with just steak.

01:02:35.585 --> 01:02:35.824
Yep.

01:02:36.034 --> 01:02:37.385
That would probably be my answer to you.

01:02:37.385 --> 01:02:37.565
Yep.

01:02:38.375 --> 01:02:38.885
Next one.

01:02:38.974 --> 01:02:39.094
All

01:02:39.094 --> 01:02:39.425
right.

01:02:39.425 --> 01:02:40.715
We've got 29.

01:02:43.625 --> 01:02:47.344
What's been the most surprising thing about running your business for you?

01:02:48.005 --> 01:02:48.425
Hmm.

01:02:50.764 --> 01:02:57.724
The most surprising thing is, is, uh, the part I never planned for in my business, which is fighting for my money.

01:02:58.295 --> 01:02:59.074
It is.

01:03:00.110 --> 01:03:02.195
You'd be surprised at some of the things work.

01:03:02.195 --> 01:03:02.474
You've

01:03:02.474 --> 01:03:03.139
earned work.

01:03:03.139 --> 01:03:03.980
I've earned getting paid work.

01:03:03.980 --> 01:03:05.809
I've paid my guys for work.

01:03:05.809 --> 01:03:07.250
I've paid our vendors For your

01:03:07.250 --> 01:03:08.360
suppliers, all that.

01:03:08.449 --> 01:03:08.900
Yeah.

01:03:08.900 --> 01:03:15.050
Because if I don't have a good vendor that trusts me and I pay them on time, that would really be a problem.

01:03:15.050 --> 01:03:18.139
You know, we do$4 million a year with CED.

01:03:18.199 --> 01:03:20.059
It would be a big, big issue, right.

01:03:20.360 --> 01:03:22.010
If it's cash on delivery time.

01:03:22.099 --> 01:03:22.159
Yeah.

01:03:22.190 --> 01:03:24.320
And so fighting for my money's been tough.

01:03:24.320 --> 01:03:27.590
You know, people come up with some of the weirdest excuses and yeah.

01:03:27.905 --> 01:03:32.255
Weirdest reasons and almost make me feel bad for hunting down my money.

01:03:32.255 --> 01:03:33.034
And so, right.

01:03:33.094 --> 01:03:34.114
It's been the hardest part.

01:03:34.114 --> 01:03:38.074
It takes a toll on me mentally and, you know, it'll ruin my mood for two or three days.

01:03:38.494 --> 01:03:40.505
Luckily, I have a great team that does most of it.

01:03:40.505 --> 01:03:44.525
Every now and then I have to get involved for, you know, kind of the hammer part of it.

01:03:44.525 --> 01:03:47.585
But that's been the part that I never, nobody ever told me about.

01:03:47.585 --> 01:03:47.735
Listen,

01:03:47.735 --> 01:03:49.954
Joe, like we know you've opened these emails.

01:03:49.985 --> 01:03:50.284
Yeah.

01:03:50.494 --> 01:03:51.275
I know you've opened

01:03:51.275 --> 01:03:51.844
these emails.

01:03:51.844 --> 01:03:53.195
I know you have a new truck.

01:03:53.195 --> 01:03:55.565
I know you live in a nice big house, right?

01:03:55.684 --> 01:03:56.614
Where is my money?

01:03:57.784 --> 01:03:58.445
So, yeah.

01:03:58.684 --> 01:03:58.954
Cool.

01:03:59.105 --> 01:03:59.284
Yep.

01:03:59.284 --> 01:04:01.925
Well, not cool, but I understand.

01:04:02.554 --> 01:04:03.485
We got number one.

01:04:03.485 --> 01:04:04.144
That can't be good.

01:04:06.065 --> 01:04:09.065
It's actually pretty, I mean, it's, it's white bread.

01:04:09.065 --> 01:04:10.775
What's your favorite childhood memory?

01:04:11.135 --> 01:04:11.585
Hmm.

01:04:13.010 --> 01:04:14.239
Favorite childhood memory.

01:04:14.239 --> 01:04:19.369
I got invited to a Ken Griffey showcase in, uh, in San Francisco.

01:04:19.369 --> 01:04:21.260
So I went out San Francisco.

01:04:21.260 --> 01:04:21.769
Oh, like Ken Griff Jr.

01:04:21.769 --> 01:04:22.644
Kind of style baseball.

01:04:22.784 --> 01:04:23.005
Yep.

01:04:23.005 --> 01:04:27.829
It was a showcase that he puts on to kind of showcase different players from all over the country.

01:04:27.829 --> 01:04:33.769
And there were scouts there, and you'd break into your position groups and they would, uh, evaluate you.

01:04:33.769 --> 01:04:37.130
And, you know, I was like, oh, I'm a good catcher and I can do all this.

01:04:37.130 --> 01:04:44.150
And then I got out there and my, my throws down to second were 10 miles an hour slower than the, than these good guys.

01:04:44.150 --> 01:04:46.250
And then we hit, and this, I'm like, okay.

01:04:46.250 --> 01:04:46.969
I hit pretty good.

01:04:46.969 --> 01:04:50.780
And then this kid after me, just this hitting bombs from the right side.

01:04:50.780 --> 01:04:52.340
And he goes, can I hit left-handed now?

01:04:52.340 --> 01:04:54.045
And then he's hitting bombs left-handed and I'm like.

01:04:54.664 --> 01:04:57.545
I'm just gonna go in the outfield and shag balls at this point.

01:04:57.545 --> 01:05:00.184
So, but it was a, it was an amazing experience.

01:05:00.184 --> 01:05:03.905
I, I'm assuming some of those guys I was at camp with had pretty successful careers, so.

01:05:03.905 --> 01:05:04.175
Right.

01:05:04.204 --> 01:05:04.324
Yeah.

01:05:04.324 --> 01:05:05.704
But that was a great memory for me.

01:05:05.824 --> 01:05:10.655
It's pretty cool to, to rub shoulders with, uh, really elite athletes.

01:05:11.105 --> 01:05:11.525
Yeah.

01:05:11.525 --> 01:05:18.005
And luckily I get to be around it with my daughters, you know, they play on the, on the Adidas circuit, and so we're around some of the top players.

01:05:18.364 --> 01:05:28.295
You know, arguably the number one player in the country right now is on the Adidas circuit, and they've played her a couple times and just being around that type of people and their work, their work ethic and things like that.

01:05:28.295 --> 01:05:28.355
How

01:05:28.355 --> 01:05:29.195
old are you now?

01:05:29.869 --> 01:05:30.260
Four.

01:05:30.260 --> 01:05:32.405
I was born in 83, so I think I'm 43,

01:05:32.405 --> 01:05:32.960
42.

01:05:32.960 --> 01:05:35.809
But you were a baseball fan, so you probably know, uh, Darren Erstad.

01:05:35.840 --> 01:05:36.139
Yeah.

01:05:36.530 --> 01:05:42.079
So, uh, he grew up in the town I grew up in, and my mom actually founded our little league baseball team Oh, cool.

01:05:42.110 --> 01:05:45.650
At my eighth grade year and coached it until 11 and then 12.

01:05:45.650 --> 01:05:46.429
It was fast pitch.

01:05:46.460 --> 01:05:46.670
Yeah.

01:05:46.969 --> 01:05:49.400
And I struck Darren out twice in one game.

01:05:49.489 --> 01:05:49.889
I like it.

01:05:49.889 --> 01:05:51.260
And he betted like 800.

01:05:51.440 --> 01:05:51.739
Yeah.

01:05:51.920 --> 01:05:52.519
Eight 50.

01:05:52.519 --> 01:05:52.699
Yeah.

01:05:52.699 --> 01:05:53.239
I don't know.

01:05:53.570 --> 01:05:55.699
He was crushing already as like a 12-year-old.

01:05:55.699 --> 01:05:55.849
That's

01:05:55.849 --> 01:05:56.449
amazing.

01:05:56.599 --> 01:06:04.039
When I, when I was in high school, we played N Watt High School and they had a pitcher named Mike Mote who, uh, went on to play for the Padres.

01:06:04.099 --> 01:06:04.460
Okay.

01:06:04.639 --> 01:06:10.789
And my claim to fame is, is I wasn't a great hitter, but I would get hit by pitches a lot so I could get on base.

01:06:11.150 --> 01:06:13.219
So I'm like, I figured out the trick here.

01:06:13.219 --> 01:06:16.550
I just get hit by a pitch and I'm on base and I don't really have to perform here.

01:06:16.550 --> 01:06:21.559
So, uh, I got hit in the back by him and he was throwing high nineties at the time, and I'm like.

01:06:21.954 --> 01:06:23.275
This was not well thought out.

01:06:23.454 --> 01:06:26.635
This was not well thought out and nobody thought I was cool for that.

01:06:26.635 --> 01:06:30.085
But, uh, Mike Mote, if you're out there somewhere, I hope you had a good career

01:06:31.914 --> 01:06:33.204
and that was mean a little bit.

01:06:33.235 --> 01:06:33.534
Yeah.

01:06:34.195 --> 01:06:37.375
Um, so let's talk about Northern Colorado a little bit.

01:06:37.795 --> 01:06:39.625
Like this has been your kind of home Yeah.

01:06:39.715 --> 01:06:45.655
Um, big time evolving scene over that time.

01:06:45.655 --> 01:06:50.425
You know, when I moved here in 99, it was really much more separated communities Yeah.

01:06:50.425 --> 01:06:51.235
Of Fort Collins.

01:06:51.235 --> 01:06:54.925
I lived in Windsor soon after Loveland Greeley birthed.

01:06:55.405 --> 01:06:55.585
Yep.

01:06:55.974 --> 01:06:57.894
But now, you know, if you live in birthed.

01:06:59.014 --> 01:07:10.804
It's probably more likely that you don't work in Bertha than you do and, and even to some extent even Windsor and Greeley, but there's still big businesses in those towns and Yeah, like the number of people, it's such an interconnected region now.

01:07:11.164 --> 01:07:11.344
Yeah.

01:07:11.344 --> 01:07:16.445
When I grew up, Bertha had a, like a building moratorium essentially'cause they wanted to keep it a small farming town.

01:07:16.445 --> 01:07:23.945
And so what they did is they raised all the water tap fees and, and the building permit fees so high that nobody would build there'cause it didn't make any sense.

01:07:24.034 --> 01:07:24.425
Okay.

01:07:24.514 --> 01:07:24.880
And so.

01:07:25.355 --> 01:07:26.675
Birth had never changed.

01:07:26.675 --> 01:07:30.545
There was no new restaurants, there was no new houses, there was no nothing.

01:07:30.545 --> 01:07:31.954
And it stayed small the way they wanted.

01:07:31.954 --> 01:07:32.014
Yeah.

01:07:32.014 --> 01:07:33.815
But pretty soon people were like, we're going broke.

01:07:33.815 --> 01:07:34.804
The town is going broke.

01:07:34.804 --> 01:07:35.195
And so Right.

01:07:35.255 --> 01:07:37.054
We got all these responsibilities, no money.

01:07:37.085 --> 01:07:37.474
Yeah.

01:07:37.474 --> 01:07:42.664
About the time I got outta high school, they started changing and obviously they've lessened that and now Bertha has exploded.

01:07:42.664 --> 01:07:42.905
Right.

01:07:42.905 --> 01:07:46.445
And so it's lost some of its small town charm, but Yeah.

01:07:46.445 --> 01:07:49.655
The, these cities are, are kind of just suburbs.

01:07:49.655 --> 01:07:50.735
They're all connected now.

01:07:50.735 --> 01:07:51.635
Really from Yeah.

01:07:51.635 --> 01:07:56.405
And even Wellington felt like you were going to the boonies, but now Wellington has everything Totally.

01:07:56.405 --> 01:07:58.235
You would ever need, need nice coffee shops, all that.

01:07:58.264 --> 01:07:58.715
Yeah.

01:07:58.715 --> 01:07:59.585
Grocery stores even for college,

01:07:59.614 --> 01:08:01.625
is more like a suburb of Denver than anything else.

01:08:01.625 --> 01:08:02.105
Absolutely.

01:08:02.105 --> 01:08:02.320
I mean, in

01:08:02.320 --> 01:08:06.215
some ways it, it's the northern Boulder is, is essentially what it's like.

01:08:06.215 --> 01:08:14.405
And so, you know, growing up, my mom at the, at at one point was an engineer at Kodak, and so we'd go to Kodak and see where she worked.

01:08:14.405 --> 01:08:17.914
And I felt like we were driving to the, like we were going hunting or something.

01:08:17.914 --> 01:08:19.774
Like the middle of nowhere.

01:08:19.864 --> 01:08:20.104
Yeah.

01:08:20.135 --> 01:08:20.835
And now it's.

01:08:21.659 --> 01:08:27.720
Kodak's buildings have been engulfed by by Windsor, and you wouldn't even really know they're there because of all the other stuff around.

01:08:27.725 --> 01:08:27.864
Yeah.

01:08:27.869 --> 01:08:30.239
So part of it, part of it is sad.

01:08:30.239 --> 01:08:43.319
The growth is, is sad because you want it to stay small and you know, when you're driving down the interstate and it takes two, two hours instead of an hour, you know, it's frustrating, but at the same time, it's fueling our business and the growth for this area.

01:08:43.319 --> 01:08:52.710
And so I'm thankful and sad about it at the same time, but it, it is pretty amazing how we are in this bubble of constant growth and redevelopment.

01:08:52.710 --> 01:09:04.170
And, you know, you, you even look at Loveland the way they've redeveloped downtown Loveland and cleaned it up and it's kind of nice now people want to be in downtown Loveland and walk around and there's more bike traffic and it, it is kind of cool.

01:09:04.170 --> 01:09:04.409
I was just

01:09:04.409 --> 01:09:06.510
talking with somebody the other day about that like.

01:09:07.234 --> 01:09:18.755
You know, what number of people, if Fort Collins, uh, has parking fees for everywhere downtown saw it, like what number of people that are coming from outside of town, even if it's just Johnstown or Right.

01:09:19.145 --> 01:09:21.215
Or Wellington or Bertha.

01:09:21.635 --> 01:09:21.875
Yeah.

01:09:21.904 --> 01:09:23.944
Maybe they'll just do Loveland instead.

01:09:24.154 --> 01:09:24.604
I agree.

01:09:24.604 --> 01:09:32.465
Be, you know, when we were a young family and we didn't have a lot of money, that what we would do sometimes is go to Fort Collins and park and let my kids look, look at the lights and it was free.

01:09:32.465 --> 01:09:36.454
Look in the storefronts and you know, maybe we would get ice cream or something like that.

01:09:36.545 --> 01:09:39.649
But now, you know, it's gonna be tough if you gotta pay for parking.

01:09:39.750 --> 01:09:40.024
If it was

01:09:40.024 --> 01:09:42.395
$9 to park there for three hours, absolutely.

01:09:42.935 --> 01:09:43.354
Ah, nah.

01:09:43.354 --> 01:09:44.704
That's an expensive ice cream stop.

01:09:44.704 --> 01:09:49.685
It's almost sometimes I think people see the growth in all the people and they're like, how can we capitalize on this?

01:09:49.685 --> 01:09:50.194
Instead of Yeah.

01:09:50.199 --> 01:09:51.125
How can we, how can we milk that cow?

01:09:51.154 --> 01:09:51.425
Yeah.

01:09:51.425 --> 01:09:53.765
Instead of thinking about how we got to this point.

01:09:53.765 --> 01:09:55.385
So, yeah, it's a fine line.

01:09:55.385 --> 01:09:57.689
I, I like some of it and I hate some of it as well, so.

01:09:57.689 --> 01:09:57.850
Yeah.

01:09:57.850 --> 01:09:59.284
Well that's kind of the nature of.

01:09:59.689 --> 01:10:04.520
Nature really is that, you know, those, those great strengths are oftentimes your weaknesses.

01:10:04.520 --> 01:10:04.970
Absolutely.

01:10:05.270 --> 01:10:09.710
And you know, the, the, how do I say it?

01:10:09.710 --> 01:10:10.250
Quite right.

01:10:11.329 --> 01:10:13.399
Like everything has has its downside.

01:10:13.460 --> 01:10:13.699
Yeah.

01:10:13.760 --> 01:10:14.539
In some respects.

01:10:14.569 --> 01:10:14.930
Yeah.

01:10:14.989 --> 01:10:18.710
Things may seem great on one side, but some it's affecting somebody else somewhere.

01:10:18.829 --> 01:10:19.324
So yeah.

01:10:19.699 --> 01:10:24.319
You look at all these communities that pop up, I worry about, uh, it's probably old man things.

01:10:24.319 --> 01:10:26.960
The older I get, I'm like, where are they gonna get the water for all this?

01:10:26.960 --> 01:10:27.404
You know what I mean?

01:10:27.494 --> 01:10:29.840
Stuff I never thought about in my twenties, but Totally.

01:10:29.840 --> 01:10:32.444
You know, now that I get older, I'm like, where are they gonna get the water needs?

01:10:32.444 --> 01:10:32.840
They, now that you've

01:10:32.840 --> 01:10:38.180
been in a number of general contractor conversations where you teach them about electric and they teach you about water needs Right.

01:10:38.185 --> 01:10:39.079
And stuff and permits.

01:10:39.109 --> 01:10:39.409
Yeah.

01:10:40.114 --> 01:10:44.375
Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting world out there, but it doesn't appear to be slowing down at all.

01:10:44.465 --> 01:10:50.404
How about, uh, like you got girls now, one, you know, got five years before high school.

01:10:50.404 --> 01:10:51.814
The other one's just a year and a half now.

01:10:51.814 --> 01:10:52.055
Yep.

01:10:52.595 --> 01:10:54.305
Um, and which high school is it?

01:10:54.305 --> 01:10:54.904
Just Windsor High now?

01:10:54.904 --> 01:10:55.475
Windsor High School.

01:10:55.475 --> 01:10:55.685
Yeah.

01:10:55.925 --> 01:10:59.704
Um, what, like, are you gonna send her into the trades too?

01:10:59.734 --> 01:11:04.085
'cause the technology's not gonna take away the electricity or, she's, I'm glad you asked us basketball scholarship

01:11:04.085 --> 01:11:16.984
because I, I get, I talk to people about this all the time, so both of my girls are probably Gracie definitely, and I'm sure Hailey will too, but they're both be full ride basketball players wherever they want to go, that I support.

01:11:16.984 --> 01:11:23.345
If I, if I had boys and they were not getting a, a scholarship, I would highly encourage them to go into the trades.

01:11:23.435 --> 01:11:23.614
Yeah.

01:11:23.795 --> 01:11:31.145
And the reason is, is, you know, Lindsay for an example, has a master's in teaching and education and stuff.

01:11:31.265 --> 01:11:31.475
Yeah.

01:11:31.954 --> 01:11:32.944
It, it doesn't.

01:11:33.380 --> 01:11:38.390
It worked for her for a while and now she's moved into this role where she can accelerate her career in different things.

01:11:38.479 --> 01:11:38.659
Yep.

01:11:38.960 --> 01:11:41.390
People are getting these things for so long, probably better

01:11:41.390 --> 01:11:43.729
pay and benefits than she would in the education system

01:11:43.729 --> 01:11:44.300
for so long.

01:11:44.300 --> 01:11:47.569
People have told all of us, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college.

01:11:47.569 --> 01:11:48.949
If you want to get a good job and make money.

01:11:48.949 --> 01:11:49.970
It's just not true.

01:11:50.029 --> 01:11:55.130
I have some 20 year olds, you know, 21 year olds that are making almost$30 an hour already.

01:11:55.250 --> 01:11:55.460
Yeah.

01:11:55.520 --> 01:11:59.595
And then you start ta factoring in the benefits of a work vehicle and PTO.

01:11:59.885 --> 01:12:00.234
Right.

01:12:00.234 --> 01:12:01.520
And overtime and all this stuff.

01:12:01.520 --> 01:12:04.279
They make pretty good money and you know, in the trades.

01:12:04.654 --> 01:12:06.545
You can go as high as you want to go.

01:12:06.664 --> 01:12:08.104
The harder you work, the higher you can go.

01:12:08.104 --> 01:12:10.114
There really is no ceiling in the trades.

01:12:10.114 --> 01:12:16.295
And so if I had boys specifically, I would, and they weren't on scholarship, I would really push.

01:12:16.295 --> 01:12:17.015
You don't think girls

01:12:17.015 --> 01:12:17.885
can do electrical work?

01:12:17.914 --> 01:12:19.295
No, I do and we do.

01:12:19.354 --> 01:12:22.354
I, I've actually hired a girl because I, I want a girl in the trades.

01:12:22.654 --> 01:12:24.064
It's just, it's tough.

01:12:24.095 --> 01:12:30.154
You know, the construction world is tough for females in terms of fitting in and getting the respect that you need.

01:12:30.154 --> 01:12:34.085
But we have one that I, we hired green, her name's Addie, um, Addie.

01:12:34.414 --> 01:12:35.645
Yes, she's been amazing.

01:12:35.645 --> 01:12:36.515
She's fitting right in.

01:12:36.515 --> 01:12:36.755
And, and if you

01:12:36.755 --> 01:12:38.164
get two or three more, that's,

01:12:38.524 --> 01:12:48.244
listen, girls are so detail oriented, detail orientated, and they pay attention and they follow the, the task and the rules and the plan.

01:12:48.270 --> 01:12:51.215
I, I would have 10 more if I could find them and they wanted to.

01:12:51.215 --> 01:12:54.814
So anyone's listening and you're a female and one will be an electrician, let us know.

01:12:55.085 --> 01:12:55.265
Okay.

01:12:55.265 --> 01:12:59.765
So I'm all about girl power a great, I'm a girl dad, I'm a girl dad, and all about girl power.

01:12:59.944 --> 01:13:00.335
Awesome.

01:13:00.425 --> 01:13:00.604
Yeah.

01:13:00.604 --> 01:13:00.965
I dig it.

01:13:01.204 --> 01:13:03.274
And like, yes.

01:13:03.274 --> 01:13:04.654
And how about for your girls?

01:13:04.654 --> 01:13:08.284
Like is that kind of traditional education system then, or, yeah.

01:13:08.465 --> 01:13:09.965
Uh, both my girls get,

01:13:10.204 --> 01:13:11.614
get scholarships for basketball.

01:13:11.645 --> 01:13:12.965
Yeah, that's what I told him.

01:13:12.965 --> 01:13:13.510
Wherever you want.

01:13:14.130 --> 01:13:17.164
The NIL stuff with basketball kind of changed a lot of that, right?

01:13:17.170 --> 01:13:17.350
So.

01:13:18.335 --> 01:13:24.664
You know, even mid-level players now are, are getting 15 to$20,000 a year in their bank account.

01:13:24.694 --> 01:13:24.935
Wow.

01:13:24.935 --> 01:13:26.704
On top of their full ride.

01:13:26.704 --> 01:13:30.604
So I told my girls, I said, go have fun for four more years.

01:13:30.875 --> 01:13:35.255
Leave college with no debt and possibly a little bit of money in your right, in your account.

01:13:35.524 --> 01:13:36.635
And then we'll figure it out.

01:13:36.659 --> 01:13:36.779
I,

01:13:36.994 --> 01:13:37.654
I like that idea

01:13:37.774 --> 01:13:40.414
because then you're growing up a little bit more and they've

01:13:40.414 --> 01:13:42.965
got advantages that a lot of kids didn't, don't have.

01:13:42.994 --> 01:13:43.534
Absolutely.

01:13:43.534 --> 01:13:43.979
But, and,

01:13:44.164 --> 01:13:47.675
and pick a, pick a path than advantages in a major or whatever you want to do.

01:13:47.675 --> 01:13:50.734
And even if it doesn't work out, you didn't pay for it.

01:13:51.095 --> 01:13:54.875
And, uh, you're still better off for it, but, and then you can kind of start your life.

01:13:54.875 --> 01:14:00.965
So very fortunate in that aspect of it, um, that they have a path through athletics.

01:14:00.965 --> 01:14:01.534
You've, uh.

01:14:02.585 --> 01:14:06.125
For somebody that like dropped outta college two months in or whatever.

01:14:06.125 --> 01:14:09.305
You've turned into a pretty smart guy about the world and stuff.

01:14:09.305 --> 01:14:11.704
Where do you collect your smartness from?

01:14:11.704 --> 01:14:12.994
What news sources?

01:14:12.994 --> 01:14:15.939
What books or I, podcasts or radio?

01:14:16.085 --> 01:14:17.015
I do listen to a lot of

01:14:17.015 --> 01:14:17.555
podcasts.

01:14:17.555 --> 01:14:17.704
Radio.

01:14:17.704 --> 01:14:19.534
The, the Sean Ryan podcast is my Absolutely.

01:14:19.534 --> 01:14:20.524
I've been loving that one a lot.

01:14:20.529 --> 01:14:20.659
Uh.

01:14:21.335 --> 01:14:26.135
I, uh, I read so many different things like the coloradoan I read every day.

01:14:26.255 --> 01:14:30.305
And so I look for new articles and mostly it's about, you know, what's happening in our Sure.

01:14:30.305 --> 01:14:36.425
In our area, but it's like, oh, this new building's going in, and then we'll go and we'll find out who applied for the permit.

01:14:36.425 --> 01:14:36.604
Perfect.

01:14:36.604 --> 01:14:39.185
And then we, we get ahold of them and the, Hey, can we bid on this?

01:14:39.185 --> 01:14:40.954
And so love, there's different things like that.

01:14:41.284 --> 01:14:43.505
Um, I, I love Reddit.

01:14:43.534 --> 01:14:44.854
I learn a lot from Reddit.

01:14:44.885 --> 01:14:45.409
Okay, interesting.

01:14:45.409 --> 01:14:47.465
So you can, there's a million different things on it.

01:14:47.465 --> 01:14:52.204
You can look at, you know, from estimating to architecture, to construction.

01:14:52.204 --> 01:14:59.284
And, you know, a lot of it, I, I read you learn more not from the article, but more from the comments because it's real life stuff.

01:14:59.284 --> 01:14:59.555
Right.

01:14:59.555 --> 01:15:01.954
And so people talk about women in the trades.

01:15:01.954 --> 01:15:04.475
There's a, there's a big thing on there about women in the trades Yeah.

01:15:04.475 --> 01:15:05.225
And how they're treated.

01:15:05.225 --> 01:15:12.005
And so I did a lot of work on that and figuring out how they're treated and why they don't like it and what's, what's keeping them from doing it.

01:15:12.005 --> 01:15:12.064
Yeah.

01:15:12.064 --> 01:15:13.715
'cause there's a lot of people in the conversation, well, how do I

01:15:13.715 --> 01:15:15.795
have to train my men to be.

01:15:16.654 --> 01:15:17.015
Correct.

01:15:17.015 --> 01:15:21.305
Less assholes because'cause men can be assholes to men and, and they think it's funny.

01:15:21.335 --> 01:15:21.635
Right.

01:15:22.295 --> 01:15:22.564
Right.

01:15:22.564 --> 01:15:24.395
Or they can be crude and think it's funny.

01:15:24.399 --> 01:15:24.664
Right, right.

01:15:24.664 --> 01:15:30.784
And so what I did with my guys is, you know, I'd put a lot of work into that and I said, pretend this is your daughter.

01:15:30.784 --> 01:15:33.185
She's a 19-year-old girl who doesn't know any better.

01:15:33.185 --> 01:15:33.515
Right.

01:15:33.814 --> 01:15:40.145
I want her trained properly, but I want you to defend her and protect her like you would your daughter from these other people.

01:15:40.145 --> 01:15:40.895
It's not my guys.

01:15:40.895 --> 01:15:42.305
I worry about, it's all the other guys.

01:15:42.305 --> 01:15:42.875
That's really cool.

01:15:43.055 --> 01:15:45.425
And so, you know, just different things like that.

01:15:45.425 --> 01:15:53.015
If something pops up tomorrow and we get a job for a, you know, a reptile factory, I would get on somewhere and start reading about reptile factories.

01:15:53.045 --> 01:15:53.914
And that's just how I am.

01:15:53.914 --> 01:15:54.095
That's,

01:15:54.095 --> 01:15:56.164
well, there's unlimited knowledge available to you.

01:15:56.194 --> 01:16:03.725
Yeah, I, uh, I'm smiling partly because my wife and I are hosting an, we don't have any kids of our own, but we've been hosting exchange students for years.

01:16:03.755 --> 01:16:04.145
Oh, cool.

01:16:04.354 --> 01:16:09.064
And our, our current one, Sarah, is a junior in high school at Putter.

01:16:09.154 --> 01:16:09.425
Okay.

01:16:09.725 --> 01:16:15.064
Uh, and I dunno, a couple weeks in, I was like, you know, just so you know, like.

01:16:15.289 --> 01:16:17.720
When you're in my house, you're my daughter.

01:16:17.779 --> 01:16:18.079
Yeah.

01:16:18.109 --> 01:16:20.569
You know, from a philosophical standpoint.

01:16:20.569 --> 01:16:20.720
Correct.

01:16:20.720 --> 01:16:25.340
I'm sure it's kind of weird being in some stranger's house halfway across the world from Italy.

01:16:25.399 --> 01:16:25.729
Yeah.

01:16:26.060 --> 01:16:30.199
Um, but here, you know, that's, that's the position that

01:16:30.260 --> 01:16:30.619
Yeah.

01:16:30.680 --> 01:16:32.449
You will have and I will take.

01:16:32.479 --> 01:16:32.720
Yeah.

01:16:32.720 --> 01:16:34.640
Is that and what an honor that Oh yeah.

01:16:34.670 --> 01:16:35.869
Because there's a lot of, you know,

01:16:36.529 --> 01:16:38.329
and she's got a mom and a dad and not her dad.

01:16:38.359 --> 01:16:38.750
Correct.

01:16:38.750 --> 01:16:40.100
And you're never gonna try to replace'em.

01:16:40.100 --> 01:16:47.000
But, but there's something to be said about providing and protecting, uh, that instinct, whether it's at work or at home.

01:16:47.000 --> 01:16:48.979
It's, it's, it just runs in our blood, so.

01:16:49.100 --> 01:16:50.210
Right, right.

01:16:50.359 --> 01:16:53.930
Uh, and I won't expand from there, but you know.

01:16:54.604 --> 01:17:02.404
If I drive past CSU campus and I see a pretty girl and she's only 18, I'm probably gonna look, but when you're my daughter and you're my, my house, then it doesn't matter.

01:17:02.404 --> 01:17:02.645
You know?

01:17:02.645 --> 01:17:03.664
It's just such a, I don't know.

01:17:03.664 --> 01:17:06.755
It's a, you probably experienced the same thing even as a basketball coach.

01:17:06.904 --> 01:17:07.024
I do.

01:17:07.024 --> 01:17:08.194
Those girls are all your daughters.

01:17:08.194 --> 01:17:08.404
I see.

01:17:08.404 --> 01:17:08.555
They

01:17:08.555 --> 01:17:22.024
are, and I'm very, I'm fiercely protective of them and, you know, we travel a lot, whether it's with my family or my team and, you know, I'm typically at the back of the group because I'm making sure that all my ducklings are in a line and going in the same way, but Right.

01:17:22.340 --> 01:17:23.359
Being in the back.

01:17:23.359 --> 01:17:28.399
I see all the guys coming at us, looking at them, right.

01:17:28.399 --> 01:17:34.010
And then they make eye contact with me and I'm like, this is a 16 you team right here, sir.

01:17:34.010 --> 01:17:34.100
Right.

01:17:34.100 --> 01:17:34.670
16.

01:17:34.670 --> 01:17:36.350
You just so you know, have a good day.

01:17:37.039 --> 01:17:39.619
And so, uh, I'm very, very protective about them.

01:17:39.619 --> 01:17:40.069
Like girl dead

01:17:40.069 --> 01:17:42.074
personality is an interesting Yeah.

01:17:42.229 --> 01:17:43.550
Uh, subculture, right?

01:17:43.550 --> 01:17:44.119
Absolutely.

01:17:44.119 --> 01:17:47.989
You pick up on things that, that you, that some people wouldn't normally think of.

01:17:47.989 --> 01:17:48.050
So.

01:17:48.050 --> 01:17:48.409
Well, and

01:17:48.409 --> 01:17:50.989
plus you knew how you were when you were 17.

01:17:51.050 --> 01:17:54.800
I'm pretty sure God is punishing me for, for being a boy at some point.

01:17:54.800 --> 01:17:58.520
So here I am repenting by having two girls and keeping them safe, so

01:17:58.909 --> 01:17:59.359
I dig it.

01:17:59.779 --> 01:18:06.500
Um, you don't have to finish your bourbon if you join me in a, a weed ram of infinity shot.

01:18:07.340 --> 01:18:07.409
All right.

01:18:07.409 --> 01:18:08.029
Let's do it before the final segment.

01:18:08.029 --> 01:18:08.449
Let's do it.

01:18:08.449 --> 01:18:09.319
I I'll grab that.

01:18:09.375 --> 01:18:09.675
All right.

01:18:09.975 --> 01:18:12.649
You, you, uh, ditch that or whatever.

01:18:12.649 --> 01:18:13.369
I'll drink a little bit more.

01:18:13.625 --> 01:18:13.914
Okay.

01:18:23.710 --> 01:18:29.045
Oh, this is live action audio video stuff going on here.

01:18:29.975 --> 01:18:37.625
So, as I mentioned, this is approximately, approximately 20% tequila, 40% wait, is that right?

01:18:38.135 --> 01:18:38.614
Yeah, 40.

01:18:38.614 --> 01:18:40.354
40 rye and bourbon.

01:18:40.925 --> 01:18:41.045
Wow.

01:18:41.045 --> 01:18:42.664
I don't think there's anything else in here right now.

01:18:42.725 --> 01:18:43.649
So those things, so

01:18:43.649 --> 01:18:44.854
it's 400 proof.

01:18:45.154 --> 01:18:47.074
No, it, the proof stays the same.

01:18:47.074 --> 01:18:48.694
It's just a flavor.

01:18:48.904 --> 01:18:50.135
And actually that was way too much.

01:18:50.135 --> 01:18:50.645
I'm gonna split

01:18:50.645 --> 01:18:50.824
this.

01:18:50.824 --> 01:18:55.385
There's probably some sort of alcohol connoisseur somewhere around the world that are really angry

01:18:55.385 --> 01:18:58.625
that we're doing this, perhaps, but I bought it.

01:18:58.895 --> 01:18:59.225
I agree.

01:18:59.229 --> 01:19:01.895
It's all, it's all medium shelf or even higher shelf.

01:19:01.895 --> 01:19:03.364
Like the stuff you brought in, I put in there.

01:19:03.425 --> 01:19:03.875
I love it.

01:19:03.875 --> 01:19:04.864
I love the idea of it.

01:19:04.864 --> 01:19:05.435
I really do.

01:19:05.524 --> 01:19:13.925
Um, and then we'll just do tasting nodes and then after that, your Loco experience is the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:19:13.984 --> 01:19:16.564
It's our closing segment, but we'll do this first.

01:19:16.569 --> 01:19:16.770
Cheers.

01:19:16.840 --> 01:19:17.130
Okay.

01:19:18.034 --> 01:19:18.484
Cheers buddy.

01:19:22.435 --> 01:19:22.654
Mm.

01:19:24.274 --> 01:19:25.310
It actually's pretty good.

01:19:26.390 --> 01:19:27.289
There's a lot going on there.

01:19:27.680 --> 01:19:28.789
There is a lot going on, but,

01:19:29.899 --> 01:19:30.170
whew.

01:19:30.649 --> 01:19:34.850
It's weird, you know, it's, it's not bad.

01:19:34.850 --> 01:19:35.899
It's not like anything though.

01:19:36.079 --> 01:19:38.574
No, I don't, I don't know what you would call that.

01:19:38.835 --> 01:19:39.055
It.

01:19:39.845 --> 01:19:40.654
It's decent actually.

01:19:40.654 --> 01:19:44.284
I think the tequila as the more dominant, the adjutant, yeah.

01:19:44.399 --> 01:19:45.484
Is, is best.

01:19:45.604 --> 01:19:46.324
I love tequila,

01:19:46.385 --> 01:19:47.015
I think.

01:19:47.614 --> 01:19:54.755
I think it needs a little mezcal, maybe smoky there a little because the mezcal would be a nice, uh, finishing agent for this mix.

01:19:54.755 --> 01:19:55.055
So that's

01:19:55.055 --> 01:19:57.140
warming me all the way to my toes, so yeah.

01:19:57.170 --> 01:19:57.755
Yeah, yeah.

01:19:57.845 --> 01:19:59.104
Mine's up to the top of my head.

01:19:59.104 --> 01:20:00.274
I'm starting to get a little sweaty there.

01:20:00.274 --> 01:20:00.545
Even

01:20:00.664 --> 01:20:02.380
it reminds when I was a kid, I would go.

01:20:03.250 --> 01:20:07.329
Elk hunting with my dad and by when I was old enough starting at 12.

01:20:07.420 --> 01:20:15.550
And then the, uh, the experience they did is they would drink peppermint schnapps at night'cause it was cold and I remember it warm me up, warm me all the way to my toes.

01:20:15.550 --> 01:20:16.989
And it reminds me just of that

01:20:18.340 --> 01:20:21.729
I, uh, grandpa was my peppermint schnapps influencer.

01:20:21.729 --> 01:20:22.060
Gotcha.

01:20:22.090 --> 01:20:24.069
Uh, but deer hunting also.

01:20:24.069 --> 01:20:28.210
So, uh, that was probably like the oldie place I've ever drank.

01:20:28.210 --> 01:20:28.989
Peppermint schnapps.

01:20:29.109 --> 01:20:29.560
Me too.

01:20:29.560 --> 01:20:30.819
I don't even know if you can buy it anymore.

01:20:30.909 --> 01:20:31.600
I'm sure you can.

01:20:31.600 --> 01:20:33.850
On the bottom shelf of some shady store, but

01:20:34.329 --> 01:20:35.170
2 99.

01:20:36.039 --> 01:20:36.100
Yeah.

01:20:36.100 --> 01:20:36.550
They're like, let

01:20:36.550 --> 01:20:38.079
me dust this off for you, sir.

01:20:38.500 --> 01:20:38.739
It's

01:20:38.739 --> 01:20:40.659
gonna stick around here from 1987.

01:20:40.689 --> 01:20:41.260
Yes.

01:20:41.500 --> 01:20:46.149
Your local experience is the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:20:46.149 --> 01:20:51.489
Could be business, could be personal, could be near death, could be travel in Asia.

01:20:52.359 --> 01:20:53.949
Uh, I don't know.

01:20:55.180 --> 01:21:00.789
Whatever scene strikes you, grabs your attention as the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:21:01.670 --> 01:21:06.680
Most of my crazy stuff happened when I was younger and not grown up.

01:21:06.770 --> 01:21:10.670
And, uh, you don't really want, uh, fun or your longtime clients.

01:21:10.670 --> 01:21:11.479
Uh, it's not fun.

01:21:11.479 --> 01:21:13.789
I'm pretty sure Fond knows all of my, my stories.

01:21:13.789 --> 01:21:17.000
It's just I would hate for my kids to get ahold of this, so, okay.

01:21:17.090 --> 01:21:17.659
Um.

01:21:19.085 --> 01:21:27.335
You know, I, when I was, when I was 16, I went on some baseball recruiting trips and uh, you know, they didn't have NIL when I was being recruited.

01:21:27.340 --> 01:21:27.574
Right, right.

01:21:27.574 --> 01:21:32.074
And so I think the way they recruited was to try to make it seem like it was cool.

01:21:32.074 --> 01:21:36.574
So you'd go to a baseball practice and you'd watch'em and they're like, Hey, do you wanna jump in here?

01:21:36.574 --> 01:21:39.034
And hit, and you'd hit with the team and you're like, oh, this is cool.

01:21:39.034 --> 01:21:39.375
And then.

01:21:40.305 --> 01:21:43.814
They're like, all right, well the coaches will be, you're with the team the rest of the night.

01:21:43.814 --> 01:21:45.375
They're gonna show you around, yada, yada.

01:21:45.375 --> 01:21:48.465
And what that turned into is we're just gonna take you to some parties.

01:21:48.465 --> 01:21:56.265
And so I'm going as a 16-year-old to these 22 year olds parties, and I don't know what to do.

01:21:56.265 --> 01:21:58.335
I don't know how to drink and I don't know how to.

01:21:58.685 --> 01:22:00.005
Dance for God's sakes.

01:22:00.005 --> 01:22:04.835
And you know, they, they're like, oh, this is Susie and this is Mindy and this is that.

01:22:04.835 --> 01:22:06.635
And I'm like, I am so scared.

01:22:06.635 --> 01:22:08.675
I haven't even kissed a girl so uncomfortable.

01:22:08.675 --> 01:22:10.024
And what do I do?

01:22:10.024 --> 01:22:12.729
And you wanna be cool'cause all the guys, you're with her, you

01:22:12.729 --> 01:22:14.225
know, there's something you should be doing to be cool.

01:22:14.255 --> 01:22:14.734
Yeah.

01:22:14.734 --> 01:22:16.204
What that is, is a mystery.

01:22:16.234 --> 01:22:16.654
Yes.

01:22:16.654 --> 01:22:24.034
It led to some craziness that I'll leave it at that, but I, I hope recruiting, uh, has cleaned up a little bit since then.

01:22:24.034 --> 01:22:27.425
So I don't know why that popped in my head

01:22:27.425 --> 01:22:30.185
that that same shit doesn't work with female basketball recruiters though.

01:22:30.529 --> 01:22:30.689
No.

01:22:30.694 --> 01:22:31.024
No.

01:22:31.024 --> 01:22:39.154
I hope with my, well, and I've been on most of'em, but I hope that they're whining and dining'em and they go to Lululemon and then they go get some sushi and something else.

01:22:39.154 --> 01:22:39.604
I hope they're, they're

01:22:39.604 --> 01:22:41.015
light of a bunch of cute boys.

01:22:41.045 --> 01:22:41.494
No.

01:22:41.494 --> 01:22:42.125
And girls.

01:22:42.335 --> 01:22:43.175
No, they better

01:22:43.175 --> 01:22:43.685
not be.

01:22:44.074 --> 01:22:44.465
Yes.

01:22:44.465 --> 01:22:46.774
Otherwise we'll have to find a different sport, I guess.

01:22:46.774 --> 01:22:50.135
But, uh, or maybe I'll just go on the trip with them, but yeah.

01:22:50.164 --> 01:22:51.484
My, how the times have changed.

01:22:51.545 --> 01:22:53.435
What do you think about, uh, the.

01:22:54.029 --> 01:22:57.960
You know, white girl crash in the WNBA party with Caitlyn there.

01:22:57.960 --> 01:23:00.270
Is that a high drama in your circles?

01:23:00.270 --> 01:23:00.869
Or

01:23:01.109 --> 01:23:02.909
It doesn't surprise me.

01:23:03.029 --> 01:23:08.069
Um, just every now and then you get those freak athletes that just work harder than everybody.

01:23:08.069 --> 01:23:08.130
Yeah.

01:23:08.130 --> 01:23:21.899
She's, she's got a screw loose in her head in terms of like, she doesn't really have the pain of working out when people, when people embrace the working out and the boredom Right.

01:23:21.899 --> 01:23:22.979
Of the fundamentals.

01:23:23.220 --> 01:23:23.670
Totally.

01:23:23.760 --> 01:23:28.800
You turn into this exceptional athlete, but people, you and I are like, well, this is boring.

01:23:28.800 --> 01:23:30.840
Why are we still talking about this?

01:23:30.840 --> 01:23:31.170
Right.

01:23:31.590 --> 01:23:32.729
She doesn't get bored with this.

01:23:32.729 --> 01:23:33.210
That's me trying to

01:23:33.210 --> 01:23:33.675
learn how to play guitar.

01:23:33.720 --> 01:23:37.289
I'm like, yeah, I've been doing this for six hours and I'm not very good at it yet.

01:23:37.319 --> 01:23:37.500
Correct.

01:23:37.500 --> 01:23:37.649
I'll

01:23:37.649 --> 01:23:38.069
just quit.

01:23:38.555 --> 01:23:38.914
I'm just done.

01:23:38.914 --> 01:23:39.114
Yeah.

01:23:39.119 --> 01:23:39.989
I'm gonna try drums.

01:23:40.319 --> 01:23:40.680
Right.

01:23:40.680 --> 01:23:45.210
She's got that screw loose where she's like, I'm just gonna do it for hours and hours and hours and hours.

01:23:45.210 --> 01:23:47.220
And so it doesn't surprise me.

01:23:47.220 --> 01:23:52.529
It, it is crazy that it's turned into a white verse black and the whole league doesn't embrace her because.

01:23:52.909 --> 01:23:55.520
She's changed the league for all of them for sure.

01:23:55.520 --> 01:23:58.340
You know, they're all fighting for more money, more exposure goes break.

01:23:58.399 --> 01:23:58.789
Right.

01:23:59.420 --> 01:24:00.710
And so I love it.

01:24:00.710 --> 01:24:03.109
I just, I wish they embraced her and protected her more.

01:24:03.109 --> 01:24:03.170
Yeah.

01:24:03.170 --> 01:24:06.140
It's all, it's almost like they're all out to get her, which I, I'm not a fan of.

01:24:06.229 --> 01:24:08.029
I am right there.

01:24:08.029 --> 01:24:15.409
And it would be the same thing if it was a black baseball player trying to get into the, the, the major leagues.

01:24:15.439 --> 01:24:15.619
Yeah.

01:24:16.069 --> 01:24:18.560
You know, being embraced and protected was what?

01:24:19.130 --> 01:24:20.300
I would've hoped for that person

01:24:20.359 --> 01:24:20.420
too.

01:24:20.420 --> 01:24:20.960
Absolutely.

01:24:20.960 --> 01:24:21.199
Right.

01:24:21.380 --> 01:24:26.449
And so when somebody's doing things the right way, which I can, I don't know if she's doing everything the right way.

01:24:27.439 --> 01:24:29.569
I'm sure she's kind of a, I'm sure she's rubbing some people the wrong way.

01:24:29.569 --> 01:24:34.250
And she, she reminds me of the player you want on your team and you never want to play against, you know what I mean?

01:24:34.250 --> 01:24:38.210
You love her when she's on your team, but when she's not, you want to kill her biggest asshole.

01:24:38.210 --> 01:24:38.329
So, yeah.

01:24:38.795 --> 01:24:39.595
I know what I, yeah.

01:24:39.595 --> 01:24:45.680
Uh, I, I, I am proud of her and the reason I'm proud of her is'cause she's growing the game of basketball girls' basketball's exploding right now.

01:24:45.949 --> 01:24:46.130
Totally.

01:24:46.130 --> 01:24:48.710
So I've been to a few WNBA games now.

01:24:48.710 --> 01:24:50.989
We just went to a Valkyrie game in San Francisco.

01:24:50.989 --> 01:24:54.470
They had my daughter's youngest, my youngest daughter's team out there and Oh, okay.

01:24:54.890 --> 01:24:58.850
Um, it was sold out and that's the Golden State Warriors Arena.

01:24:58.850 --> 01:24:59.060
That's cool.

01:24:59.060 --> 01:25:00.890
And they've sold out every game this year.

01:25:00.890 --> 01:25:00.949
Wow.

01:25:00.949 --> 01:25:02.270
And it was just insane.

01:25:02.270 --> 01:25:04.039
It was a nightclub atmosphere in there.

01:25:04.045 --> 01:25:04.154
Wow.

01:25:04.154 --> 01:25:04.850
And it was rocking.

01:25:04.850 --> 01:25:07.250
And I'm like, I'm, I'm proud to be a girl dad.

01:25:07.250 --> 01:25:08.569
I'm proud of girls basketball.

01:25:08.779 --> 01:25:09.409
That's really cool.

01:25:09.500 --> 01:25:09.800
Yeah.

01:25:10.220 --> 01:25:10.520
Well.

01:25:11.045 --> 01:25:12.335
Do you have any more questions of me?

01:25:12.395 --> 01:25:13.864
I've, I've dominated the questions.

01:25:13.864 --> 01:25:15.574
No, I really appreciate you

01:25:15.574 --> 01:25:16.024
having me.

01:25:16.024 --> 01:25:22.954
It's cool that our roots go back so far and, uh, I do, I do actually look forward to learning more about the loco think tank and yeah.

01:25:23.404 --> 01:25:24.484
Possibly showing up.

01:25:24.545 --> 01:25:26.284
I'll, uh, I'll save the commercial for

01:25:26.284 --> 01:25:27.664
another, uh, conversation.

01:25:27.664 --> 01:25:28.085
Right.

01:25:28.114 --> 01:25:28.715
Thanks for being here.

01:25:28.744 --> 01:25:29.225
Absolutely.

01:25:29.225 --> 01:25:29.524
Thank you.