Dec. 6, 2025

EXPERIENCE 247 | Diverse Experience and Strong Relationships Drive Business Success - A Conversation with Brett Kemp & Aaron Eide, President & Risk Advisor at Flood & Peterson

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Season 5

Brett Kemp is the President of Flood & Peterson, a family and employee-owned insurance brokerage since 1939, and the strongest market share among property & casualty insurance brokerages in the region.  With career chapters in the Air Force, pharmaceutical sales, and manufacturing, Brett was a darkhorse candidate for ascendance to leadership. 

Aaron Eide visited Fort Collins almost exactly 25 years (to the day!) before we recorded this podcast.  He’s a UND graduate and came through the same Credit and Management Training program at Community First National Bank as yours truly - only a few semesters later.  Aaron had come out to scout out an apartment and see the town before moving to Fort Collins weeks later.  I gave him the nickel tour, took him out to see some live music at Lucky Joe’s and then to Elliot’s Martini Bar - and we don’t remember much after that!  

But/and - though we only worked together for about a year and in different offices - we’ve maintained a professional relationship through all these years, and that’s part of the theme of today’s podcast.  Brett’s prior experience in the military, and in manufacturing, and likewise Aaron’s career in credit and banking gave them added perspective on business and risk - and especially, people - that propelled their career growth.  

Lot’s of great business and relationship sales content in this one, and a bit of inside-baseball on the insurance industry, and three guys who all moved to the region in a short span of time - giving us a shared perspective - and so please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Brett Kemp and Aaron Eide.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:36.960 --> 00:00:51.151
Brett Kemp is the President of Flood and Peterson, a family and employee owned insurance brokerage since 1939, and the strongest market share among PNC companies in the region with career chapters in the Air Force, pharmaceutical sales and manufacturing.

00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:54.030
Brett was a dark horse candidate for ascendance to leadership.

00:00:55.216 --> 00:01:01.695
Aaron Idy visited Fort Collins almost exactly 25 years to the day before we recorded this podcast.

00:01:02.146 --> 00:01:10.635
He's a UND graduate and came through the same credit and management training program at Community First National Bank as yours truly only a few semesters later.

00:01:11.656 --> 00:01:23.176
Aaron had come out to Scott out an apartment and see the town before moving to Fort Collins, and I gave him the nickel tour, took him out to see some live music at Lucky Joe's and then to Elliot's Martini Bar, and we don't remember much after that.

00:01:23.266 --> 00:01:35.775
And though we only worked together for about a year and in different offices, we've maintained a professional relationship through all the years, and that's part of the theme of today's podcast, Brett's Pryor experience in the military and in manufacturing.

00:01:35.835 --> 00:01:43.936
And likewise, Aaron's career in credit and banking gave them added perspective on business and risk, and especially people that propelled their career growth.

00:01:45.061 --> 00:01:55.740
Lots of great business and relationship sales content in this one and a bit of inside baseball and the insurance industry, and three guys who all moved to the region in a short span of time giving us a shared perspective.

00:01:55.891 --> 00:02:00.001
And so please enjoy as I did my conversation with Brett Kemp and Aaron Nike.

00:02:00.224 --> 00:02:02.233
Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

00:02:02.504 --> 00:02:06.073
My guests today are Brett Kemp and Aaron Idy.

00:02:06.524 --> 00:02:11.954
And they are President and Risk Advisor at Flood and Peterson Insurance.

00:02:12.463 --> 00:02:13.723
Flood and Peterson, period.

00:02:14.443 --> 00:02:15.283
Flood Peterson's, the

00:02:15.283 --> 00:02:15.913
DBA name.

00:02:15.913 --> 00:02:20.024
Yeah, that's what you're known as of Uh, so what's the, what's the real name?

00:02:20.804 --> 00:02:22.873
Flood and Peterson Insurance Inc.

00:02:23.294 --> 00:02:23.563
Oh.

00:02:23.774 --> 00:02:25.243
Is the corporate file name.

00:02:25.304 --> 00:02:25.663
Yeah.

00:02:25.813 --> 00:02:28.058
It would be a long email if, uh, very long email.

00:02:28.058 --> 00:02:30.584
If it was Brett K at Flood and Peterson Insurance, Inc.

00:02:30.764 --> 00:02:31.243
It would be.

00:02:31.334 --> 00:02:31.544
Yeah.

00:02:31.813 --> 00:02:32.054
Yeah.

00:02:32.593 --> 00:02:43.633
So we were talking, Aaron and I, uh, before we came in to the, to the studio before you got here, Brett, about, this is literally like, he came to Fort Collins 25 years ago, veteran's Day weekend.

00:02:44.218 --> 00:02:49.709
To find a place to live after having gone through the same banker training program that I did in Fargo, North Dakota.

00:02:50.848 --> 00:02:52.378
And so were you an NDSU graduate too?

00:02:52.498 --> 00:02:53.519
Oh, don't swear it at me, Kirk.

00:02:53.549 --> 00:02:54.688
Oh, you were UND guy?

00:02:54.688 --> 00:02:55.443
IND guy.

00:02:55.473 --> 00:02:55.764
Yeah,

00:02:55.769 --> 00:02:56.519
yeah, yeah.

00:02:56.519 --> 00:02:56.968
Go Sue.

00:02:57.118 --> 00:02:57.389
Yeah.

00:02:57.389 --> 00:03:00.989
They they played tough against the bison this past weekend, didn't they?

00:03:01.049 --> 00:03:01.288
Yep.

00:03:01.348 --> 00:03:02.338
Lost in the fourth quarter.

00:03:02.579 --> 00:03:02.609
Oh.

00:03:02.669 --> 00:03:03.179
Well the

00:03:03.209 --> 00:03:06.329
bison are pretty good at, uh, coming back if they need to.

00:03:06.389 --> 00:03:07.558
They really rarely have to.

00:03:07.618 --> 00:03:07.919
Yep.

00:03:08.308 --> 00:03:14.248
But, but good job on UND for putting up that much of a fight against the bison team that beats everybody by a bunch.

00:03:14.308 --> 00:03:14.549
Yep.

00:03:14.699 --> 00:03:15.118
Usually.

00:03:15.628 --> 00:03:22.588
So, um, maybe you'd like to describe the setting you were freshly graduated out of business school at UND.

00:03:22.649 --> 00:03:22.949
Oh

00:03:22.949 --> 00:03:23.368
yeah.

00:03:23.549 --> 00:03:24.269
Um, yeah.

00:03:24.269 --> 00:03:24.538
Give,

00:03:24.538 --> 00:03:26.308
gimme, lay the, lay the stage for me a little bit.

00:03:26.308 --> 00:03:26.489
Young man.

00:03:26.489 --> 00:03:26.938
The stage

00:03:26.938 --> 00:03:28.049
25 years ago.

00:03:28.348 --> 00:03:29.669
Um, yeah.

00:03:29.669 --> 00:03:34.588
So we went through the same management training program in, in Fargo Community First Bank C, first National Bank.

00:03:34.588 --> 00:03:34.919
Yeah.

00:03:34.919 --> 00:03:35.008
Yep.

00:03:35.188 --> 00:03:35.758
Um.

00:03:36.493 --> 00:03:42.389
And, uh, after our six months there, they shipped us to one of their a hundred and whatever branches that they had.

00:03:42.389 --> 00:03:42.549
Yeah.

00:03:42.549 --> 00:03:43.033
180 by that

00:03:43.033 --> 00:03:43.693
time or something, I think.

00:03:43.693 --> 00:03:44.054
And,

00:03:44.054 --> 00:03:53.144
uh, I got plopped here in Fort Collins and came out, um, Hadden, you know, dinner in Denver with leadership and whatnot.

00:03:53.144 --> 00:03:53.924
And the following.

00:03:54.223 --> 00:03:54.283
Yeah.

00:03:54.283 --> 00:03:54.308
Keith Dickman.

00:03:54.493 --> 00:03:55.574
Keith Dickerman, yeah.

00:03:55.633 --> 00:04:03.044
And then the following day I came up to Fort Collins and met you and Dave Marcy, and a couple others.

00:04:03.044 --> 00:04:05.144
And so, got to see you around town.

00:04:05.399 --> 00:04:10.919
Um, check out some apartments and then you took me, uh, to dinner in a CSU football game.

00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:11.188
Yeah.

00:04:11.459 --> 00:04:12.568
The Fargo of Colorado.

00:04:12.568 --> 00:04:12.989
Really?

00:04:13.079 --> 00:04:13.558
Yeah.

00:04:13.633 --> 00:04:14.368
It, it

00:04:14.579 --> 00:04:20.668
surprisingly, uh, Fort Collins, uh, reminds you a lot of Fargo or Fargo reminds you a lot of Yeah.

00:04:20.723 --> 00:04:21.014
Yeah.

00:04:21.019 --> 00:04:21.269
They have a

00:04:21.269 --> 00:04:22.079
lot of similarities.

00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:22.259
Yeah.

00:04:22.408 --> 00:04:23.519
Especially did it that time.

00:04:23.519 --> 00:04:25.528
I don't know if it's stayed that way as much.

00:04:25.949 --> 00:04:26.189
Yeah.

00:04:26.249 --> 00:04:31.108
Not Fort Collins has lost kind of part of its agrarian background culturally since then,

00:04:31.168 --> 00:04:31.649
but yeah.

00:04:31.678 --> 00:04:32.579
25 years ago.

00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:32.879
Yeah.

00:04:33.209 --> 00:04:39.494
Moved out, got my apartment, you know, right behind the mall now, uh, or the, whatever they call Foothills Fashion Mall.

00:04:39.494 --> 00:04:39.533
Yeah.

00:04:39.634 --> 00:04:40.619
It still the mall.

00:04:41.158 --> 00:04:42.059
Um, it's something.

00:04:42.149 --> 00:04:42.569
Yeah.

00:04:42.749 --> 00:04:44.278
And, um, kind of left.

00:04:44.278 --> 00:04:44.369
And

00:04:44.369 --> 00:04:46.408
how was your hangover after that night out?

00:04:46.408 --> 00:04:46.559
It was

00:04:46.559 --> 00:04:47.038
long lived.

00:04:47.038 --> 00:04:47.278
Kurt.

00:04:47.278 --> 00:04:49.228
I had to drive back to Denver to get on an airplane.

00:04:51.298 --> 00:04:55.168
And Brett, you were just saying, or we just uncovered that you got here basically.

00:04:55.199 --> 00:04:57.389
So I had, I had moved here in July of 99.

00:04:57.389 --> 00:04:58.139
Aaron, this was.

00:04:58.468 --> 00:05:02.028
January of oh one, January 1st,

00:05:02.028 --> 00:05:02.608
2001.

00:05:02.608 --> 00:05:03.418
I had moved out here.

00:05:03.418 --> 00:05:03.629
Yep.

00:05:03.869 --> 00:05:06.269
And then you were right in between us kind of somewhere.

00:05:06.778 --> 00:05:06.959
Yeah.

00:05:06.959 --> 00:05:08.728
First week of January Of 2000.

00:05:08.728 --> 00:05:09.298
2000.

00:05:09.298 --> 00:05:09.358
Yeah.

00:05:09.358 --> 00:05:10.829
So you beat by just a year.

00:05:10.829 --> 00:05:11.668
And where did you come from?

00:05:12.478 --> 00:05:19.319
Y you know, I, uh, after I got outta the military, I went back to school in Wisconsin and, uh, had then moved to Princeton, New Jersey.

00:05:19.649 --> 00:05:19.949
Okay.

00:05:19.949 --> 00:05:25.139
And, uh, sold for a multi-billion dollar packaging company up and down that east coast between Manhattan and DC.

00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:25.588
Okay.

00:05:25.769 --> 00:05:33.059
And, uh, as luck would have it, they were selling a division of the company I worked for, and I had an opportunity to stay with the new company.

00:05:33.088 --> 00:05:36.778
Uh, in the meantime, I had several friends that I grew up with that lived in the Denver area.

00:05:37.439 --> 00:05:38.848
And so took an opportunity.

00:05:38.848 --> 00:05:41.608
I was coming out here just to have fun ski things like that.

00:05:41.608 --> 00:05:42.358
You'd been out before?

00:05:42.358 --> 00:05:43.379
I'd been out before, yeah.

00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:49.468
And, uh, you know, just got a little bit tired of traffic and uh, and you know, just the lifestyle out.

00:05:49.468 --> 00:05:50.338
There's lot of people.

00:05:50.399 --> 00:05:50.548
Yeah.

00:05:50.699 --> 00:05:56.548
And took an opportunity to come out here and moved out here 25 stuck years ago without knowing a single soul.

00:05:56.863 --> 00:05:59.204
Yeah, I think we all have just about the same story.

00:05:59.324 --> 00:05:59.384
Yeah.

00:05:59.389 --> 00:05:59.923
Did you know anybody

00:05:59.923 --> 00:06:01.244
in Colorado, Aaron?

00:06:01.334 --> 00:06:02.233
Uh, no.

00:06:02.233 --> 00:06:03.283
I mean, I knew other than that guy at the bank

00:06:03.283 --> 00:06:04.634
that went through the same program as you.

00:06:05.384 --> 00:06:05.593
Yeah.

00:06:05.593 --> 00:06:14.204
And I didn't find out that I had a bunch of, uh, college, uh, teammates that played baseball with at at UND that were in Denver, but I didn't know until, okay.

00:06:14.264 --> 00:06:16.184
I don't know, four or five months since we got out here.

00:06:16.244 --> 00:06:16.454
Yeah.

00:06:16.454 --> 00:06:18.283
You know, MySpace was the thing back then, right?

00:06:18.973 --> 00:06:19.334
I never

00:06:19.334 --> 00:06:22.184
did get a MySpace page feel a little left out.

00:06:22.394 --> 00:06:22.723
Yeah.

00:06:22.783 --> 00:06:23.024
Yeah.

00:06:23.024 --> 00:06:25.543
I had friends in Denver, but Brent still using his MySpace page.

00:06:25.634 --> 00:06:25.694
No.

00:06:25.694 --> 00:06:25.754
Yeah.

00:06:25.754 --> 00:06:26.119
Right, right.

00:06:26.119 --> 00:06:26.863
Yeah, right.

00:06:27.343 --> 00:06:29.863
I still have an a OL account too, just, you know, what the heck?

00:06:30.403 --> 00:06:31.783
Uh, but yeah, no, I moved on.

00:06:31.783 --> 00:06:37.033
I had several friends in Denver and it's, look, what have I ended up, uh, getting a job offer from Fort Collins and moved up here.

00:06:37.303 --> 00:06:37.634
Okay.

00:06:37.694 --> 00:06:41.024
Um, and left all them 60 miles behind and didn't know anybody.

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And here I am 25 years later.

00:06:42.764 --> 00:06:42.944
Cool.

00:06:42.944 --> 00:06:43.033
Mm-hmm.

00:06:43.634 --> 00:06:47.624
What an interesting, uh, kind of, uh, but you went to the military first?

00:06:48.074 --> 00:06:50.774
Yeah, I spent 87 and 95 in the military.

00:06:51.074 --> 00:06:51.463
Oh, wow.

00:06:51.494 --> 00:06:51.824
Yeah.

00:06:51.884 --> 00:06:53.053
So you're older than I think

00:06:53.204 --> 00:06:53.593
I am.

00:06:53.983 --> 00:06:55.303
Well, I think that's a compliment.

00:06:55.303 --> 00:06:55.314
Yeah.

00:06:55.314 --> 00:06:58.059
Good for how old, old you're, yeah.

00:06:58.634 --> 00:06:59.204
Fair enough.

00:06:59.413 --> 00:07:04.334
So, um, I think we should set the stage with, with a little bit of a insurance business.

00:07:04.334 --> 00:07:05.624
We're gonna jump in the time machine.

00:07:05.624 --> 00:07:07.694
I, what's, what's your town where you grew up?

00:07:07.694 --> 00:07:08.084
Aaron?

00:07:08.293 --> 00:07:10.934
Uh, little town in Minnesota called Brainerd.

00:07:11.053 --> 00:07:11.473
Brainerd.

00:07:11.504 --> 00:07:11.894
Oh yeah.

00:07:12.223 --> 00:07:13.634
I was actually just through Brainerd.

00:07:14.519 --> 00:07:25.199
Three of, so my dad remarried and he's got three step kids now, and each of them married into a family with a lake cabin in the Brainerd Otter Tail, Detroit Lakes area.

00:07:25.199 --> 00:07:25.288
Yeah.

00:07:25.293 --> 00:07:26.069
Could, could be worth

00:07:26.069 --> 00:07:26.519
places.

00:07:26.548 --> 00:07:26.908
Yeah.

00:07:26.908 --> 00:07:27.088
Yeah.

00:07:27.088 --> 00:07:27.718
It's pretty awesome.

00:07:27.718 --> 00:07:32.278
I've all of a sudden got a, a eastern branch of the family with lake cabins.

00:07:32.668 --> 00:07:33.988
Uh, but Brainerd's a cool place.

00:07:33.994 --> 00:07:34.134
Mm-hmm.

00:07:34.379 --> 00:07:35.129
I mean, pretty nice town.

00:07:35.129 --> 00:07:37.139
20, 30,000 it is now.

00:07:37.139 --> 00:07:37.228
Yeah.

00:07:37.408 --> 00:07:38.369
Oh, then it wasn't,

00:07:38.728 --> 00:07:38.908
yeah.

00:07:38.999 --> 00:07:40.228
About half that size, whatever.

00:07:40.228 --> 00:07:40.379
And how

00:07:40.379 --> 00:07:41.009
about you Brett?

00:07:41.098 --> 00:07:43.619
What, uh, what was your actually original hometown?

00:07:43.769 --> 00:07:47.848
Well, most of my childhood years were spent in a town called Manasa, Wisconsin.

00:07:47.939 --> 00:07:48.178
Okay.

00:07:48.209 --> 00:07:57.809
Uh, where Nina Manasa, Kimberly Clark was headquartered in Nina and biggest town next to it is a town called Appleton on the Interesting, off the Fox River, just on the north side of Lake Winnebago.

00:07:57.814 --> 00:07:57.853
Yeah.

00:07:57.853 --> 00:07:58.499
I actually, uh, yeah.

00:07:58.814 --> 00:08:01.124
Went partied in, uh, apple River a couple times.

00:08:01.153 --> 00:08:01.274
Okay.

00:08:01.274 --> 00:08:03.103
And saw concerts up there somewhere.

00:08:03.103 --> 00:08:04.843
I forget what the, the venue was.

00:08:05.204 --> 00:08:05.293
Well,

00:08:05.293 --> 00:08:05.803
there's a lot.

00:08:06.074 --> 00:08:06.524
Yeah.

00:08:06.764 --> 00:08:09.973
You know, you're talking heavy German, Polish, uh, European descent.

00:08:09.973 --> 00:08:12.733
So there's a lot of music and slash drinking festivals.

00:08:12.733 --> 00:08:12.884
That's

00:08:12.884 --> 00:08:13.213
the cool

00:08:13.213 --> 00:08:18.163
thing about Wisconsin is that like, you don't even really know people live there.

00:08:18.163 --> 00:08:20.413
They're all like living out in the trees and stuff.

00:08:20.413 --> 00:08:20.593
Right.

00:08:21.074 --> 00:08:24.913
But every 10 miles there's another roadhouse that's always busy.

00:08:25.363 --> 00:08:25.543
Yeah.

00:08:25.723 --> 00:08:26.444
Or at least it was.

00:08:26.444 --> 00:08:27.913
The few times I've traveled through there, I don't

00:08:27.913 --> 00:08:28.694
think it's changed much.

00:08:28.814 --> 00:08:28.874
No,

00:08:29.863 --> 00:08:35.923
they haven't, uh, lost their appetite for community and drinking together in Wisconsin as much as they have here.

00:08:35.923 --> 00:08:38.624
Probably no different than Brainerd is though, to be honest with you.

00:08:38.774 --> 00:08:39.104
Yeah.

00:08:39.163 --> 00:08:39.913
Never Midwest.

00:08:39.913 --> 00:08:41.774
There isn't that many other options.

00:08:41.774 --> 00:08:41.864
Right.

00:08:41.864 --> 00:08:45.464
You know, that whole healthy lifestyle and stuff is like, what in the freezing cold?

00:08:45.464 --> 00:08:46.124
What are you talking about?

00:08:46.214 --> 00:08:46.303
Right.

00:08:46.394 --> 00:08:46.573
Yeah.

00:08:46.933 --> 00:08:51.854
So Flood Peterson, long time, uh, insurance brokerage, right?

00:08:51.854 --> 00:08:51.864
Mm-hmm.

00:08:52.078 --> 00:08:55.033
Uh, not a, not an agency, but a brokerage and.

00:08:55.754 --> 00:09:01.903
For how long and how many, how many agents are you these days and is it just up here, Northern Colorado?

00:09:02.264 --> 00:09:03.974
Well, we, A lot of questions.

00:09:03.974 --> 00:09:04.303
Well, I was gonna

00:09:04.303 --> 00:09:06.884
say that the, the company was founded actually in 1939.

00:09:06.974 --> 00:09:07.274
Okay.

00:09:07.798 --> 00:09:09.808
And lovely, uh, Greeley, Colorado.

00:09:09.899 --> 00:09:10.229
Okay.

00:09:10.288 --> 00:09:14.668
And, uh, uh, uh, Barney Flood and Pete Peterson were two childhood friends.

00:09:14.849 --> 00:09:15.208
Okay.

00:09:15.208 --> 00:09:17.009
That started the agency in 1939.

00:09:17.009 --> 00:09:30.688
And then, um, interesting enough, in 1941 when Pearl Harbor happened, both the founders decided, one listed in the Army, one in the Navy, and left their brand new company two years in and left it in the care of a woman named Anna Johnston, who was their office manager.

00:09:30.719 --> 00:09:31.048
Wow.

00:09:31.078 --> 00:09:32.369
Who ran the company while they were gone.

00:09:32.969 --> 00:09:33.149
Cool.

00:09:33.599 --> 00:09:33.839
Yeah.

00:09:33.839 --> 00:09:35.639
So then they, they came back and ran it,

00:09:35.668 --> 00:09:39.058
which shows you that insurance agents aren't really necessary for the machine to function.

00:09:39.239 --> 00:09:39.568
Yeah.

00:09:39.599 --> 00:09:41.548
Well, they were probably could just call pretty small back then.

00:09:41.548 --> 00:09:41.788
Yeah.

00:09:42.239 --> 00:09:47.698
Anyway, they came back and ran it into the 1960s, late 1960s.

00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:48.089
Okay.

00:09:48.298 --> 00:09:54.568
And have, uh, I think what we're, what we talking about, Aaron, the fifth generation, I think we would call it as a, as private ownership.

00:09:54.568 --> 00:09:59.458
I think we're somewhat of an anomaly in the industry, uh, and the fact that we're not family owned.

00:09:59.999 --> 00:10:06.058
Oh, like Aaron and I are, are both shareholders and partners in the company and, and, uh, we're not related to each other.

00:10:06.058 --> 00:10:10.019
And there's nobody from the founding family in the company for the last 50 plus years.

00:10:10.019 --> 00:10:14.009
Is it employee owned only or are there other private owners as well?

00:10:14.129 --> 00:10:14.519
Employee

00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:14.698
owned.

00:10:15.178 --> 00:10:15.479
Okay.

00:10:15.479 --> 00:10:16.168
Internally, yeah.

00:10:16.198 --> 00:10:16.499
Okay.

00:10:16.589 --> 00:10:19.078
So that some point, that transition happened.

00:10:19.078 --> 00:10:22.168
So if you're there long enough, you might get a chance to be a partner too, kinda.

00:10:22.198 --> 00:10:22.318
Mm-hmm.

00:10:22.979 --> 00:10:23.188
Yeah.

00:10:23.308 --> 00:10:26.339
And is that like by formula or how do you, how, how would you decide?

00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:29.548
Well, that's like how many octopus tentacles are there?

00:10:31.139 --> 00:10:31.318
Yeah.

00:10:31.318 --> 00:10:32.033
You know, uh, it.

00:10:32.653 --> 00:10:40.033
It's, it's, yeah, there's a way to, to, uh, to earn your way in based on, you know, your role and, uh, and your performance in that respective role.

00:10:40.183 --> 00:10:40.484
Sure.

00:10:40.663 --> 00:10:40.874
Yeah.

00:10:41.173 --> 00:10:42.583
And how long have you been there?

00:10:43.274 --> 00:10:47.864
I've been there, I just celebrated my 18th anniversary, so I guess I'm technically in my 19th year.

00:10:47.923 --> 00:10:48.224
Okay.

00:10:48.494 --> 00:10:49.754
And Aaron, you joined?

00:10:50.083 --> 00:10:52.423
Uh, it'll be 14 full years on December 5th.

00:10:52.514 --> 00:10:52.933
Okay.

00:10:53.083 --> 00:10:53.323
Yep.

00:10:53.894 --> 00:10:54.433
Nice job.

00:10:54.438 --> 00:10:54.719
Yeah.

00:10:54.884 --> 00:10:55.244
Yeah.

00:10:55.514 --> 00:10:57.553
Longer than you stuck around in banking longer.

00:10:57.553 --> 00:11:04.453
We both had a different, we had a similar, well, I, I got out of banking I guess later than you did.

00:11:04.514 --> 00:11:05.803
You jumped into insurance.

00:11:05.803 --> 00:11:15.644
But both of us had that experience of, you know, I left Community First National Bank in part because I could tell that they were trying to sell the thing and it was gonna be to somebody that I didn't wanna work for as much.

00:11:15.644 --> 00:11:22.063
So I worked for Bank of Colorado in Windsor, uh, which is at the time when they acquired.

00:11:22.708 --> 00:11:24.269
Lyndon Bartel's, no.

00:11:24.274 --> 00:11:24.474
Mm-hmm.

00:11:24.553 --> 00:11:24.563
Mm-hmm.

00:11:24.958 --> 00:11:28.469
Uh, and spun up Pinnacle Insurance or what's now become Pinnacle Insurance.

00:11:28.678 --> 00:11:28.798
Yeah.

00:11:28.889 --> 00:11:31.589
And you probably know John Hessman well, I know John very well.

00:11:31.589 --> 00:11:35.068
And is how far away from your town in Wisconsin is, is his, is Menini right?

00:11:35.068 --> 00:11:35.908
Or is that Menominee?

00:11:35.913 --> 00:11:36.313
Menominee.

00:11:36.318 --> 00:11:36.629
Menominee,

00:11:36.629 --> 00:11:36.928
yeah.

00:11:36.958 --> 00:11:39.778
Ah, it's a little bit of ways, but the key piece is Johnson Packer fan.

00:11:40.019 --> 00:11:40.288
Oh.

00:11:40.288 --> 00:11:41.158
So that makes him okay.

00:11:41.158 --> 00:11:41.399
But that

00:11:41.399 --> 00:11:41.879
makes him Okay.

00:11:41.969 --> 00:11:42.058
Fair.

00:11:43.198 --> 00:11:44.908
I beg to differ as a Viking fan.

00:11:45.778 --> 00:11:47.578
Packers haven't lost this week yet, Kurt.

00:11:47.879 --> 00:11:49.379
Oh yeah, Vikings.

00:11:49.379 --> 00:11:50.068
Have we, we got a few

00:11:50.068 --> 00:11:50.879
hours to test.

00:11:50.879 --> 00:11:52.318
Which team's gonna show up tonight?

00:11:52.438 --> 00:11:53.308
I need, uh,

00:11:53.489 --> 00:11:55.948
I need Devante Smith to go off big actually.

00:11:56.458 --> 00:12:00.448
Uh, and my opponent in fantasies only got the Green Bay defense left.

00:12:00.653 --> 00:12:01.073
Oh yeah.

00:12:01.073 --> 00:12:01.589
So, oh, it's a

00:12:01.589 --> 00:12:02.639
good defense night for us.

00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:03.298
No offense, but

00:12:04.889 --> 00:12:16.528
so, um, so yeah, so, so privately owned, which is important frankly, in the world of insurance or finance or any of that, because you don't have to be beholden to.

00:12:17.474 --> 00:12:22.153
The market whims in a short run and you can kind of make strategic decisions over time.

00:12:22.604 --> 00:12:28.183
Um, what, what number is your, like agent count up to and, and locations too?

00:12:28.183 --> 00:12:32.803
Are you just the main big shop still or is there other offices that I'm not familiar with?

00:12:33.734 --> 00:12:35.173
Uh, there's three offices, Greeley.

00:12:35.173 --> 00:12:35.293
Okay.

00:12:35.683 --> 00:12:38.653
You know, home office, Fort Collins in Denver.

00:12:39.193 --> 00:12:41.984
Uh, what, 125 employees today?

00:12:42.614 --> 00:12:43.245
125.

00:12:43.245 --> 00:12:44.264
Yeah, we've hired 2022 this year.

00:12:44.474 --> 00:12:44.714
Yeah.

00:12:44.774 --> 00:12:45.193
Wow.

00:12:45.403 --> 00:12:51.764
Yeah, so, and then my peers in the agency, there's 14, 15 I always get.

00:12:51.769 --> 00:12:51.859
Yeah.

00:12:52.214 --> 00:12:52.423
Yeah.

00:12:52.423 --> 00:12:55.994
We keep hiring, um, new sales folks, risk advisors.

00:12:56.234 --> 00:12:56.504
Okay.

00:12:56.533 --> 00:12:57.104
Um,

00:12:57.524 --> 00:12:58.634
well, what do the rest of the people do?

00:12:59.144 --> 00:13:00.734
Oh, it's all service and support staff.

00:13:00.854 --> 00:13:01.303
Oh, really?

00:13:01.303 --> 00:13:03.254
So there's only 15 actual, well, there's

00:13:03.254 --> 00:13:06.703
actually probably technically 19 producers.

00:13:06.943 --> 00:13:07.663
Yeah.

00:13:07.663 --> 00:13:13.693
There's several different layers of that, but there's 19, but probably 15 to Aaron's point that are out actually knocking on doors.

00:13:13.698 --> 00:13:13.778
Yeah.

00:13:13.778 --> 00:13:13.899
Okay.

00:13:14.173 --> 00:13:14.504
Yeah.

00:13:15.269 --> 00:13:17.609
The agency doesn't work or the brokerage doesn't work.

00:13:17.609 --> 00:13:20.729
We always interchangeable a bit in that sense.

00:13:20.729 --> 00:13:30.403
But without the, the account management and support staff, um, Brett and I can't be out and about and meeting clients all the time if, if that account management team claims Yeah.

00:13:30.403 --> 00:13:33.599
If somebody's calling you to ask about their policy thing and stuff like that.

00:13:33.658 --> 00:13:33.839
Right.

00:13:33.928 --> 00:13:38.519
So that Anna Johnston reference to flooding, Pete is the most critical mm-hmm.

00:13:38.519 --> 00:13:41.668
Component, you know, to 1941.

00:13:41.759 --> 00:13:43.948
I mean, if she wasn't around and Yeah.

00:13:43.948 --> 00:13:47.278
Didn't stay, um, around while Barney and Pete were off.

00:13:47.283 --> 00:13:47.729
Yeah, yeah.

00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:49.019
We wouldn't be flooding Pete.

00:13:49.024 --> 00:13:49.558
Right, right.

00:13:49.563 --> 00:13:51.749
And so yeah, they're the, they're the glue.

00:13:52.078 --> 00:13:52.528
Interesting.

00:13:52.533 --> 00:13:52.703
So,

00:13:52.918 --> 00:13:56.879
so do they have, uh, like, talk to me a little bit about the structure if you would like.

00:13:56.938 --> 00:14:00.688
Do you have dedicated service people for all your accounts and the other risk advisors?

00:14:00.688 --> 00:14:00.778
Mm-hmm.

00:14:00.778 --> 00:14:02.519
Have dedicated service people for theirs.

00:14:03.119 --> 00:14:05.788
Um, maybe take care of that one, but, well, Aaron Aaron's

00:14:05.788 --> 00:14:13.349
got Aaron Aaron's book, uh, and the clients he worked with has gotten to a space and and size of complexity of where he works with.

00:14:13.349 --> 00:14:25.318
He's probably got more of a tighter team around the accounts he works on relative to the space he works in because he works on complex, large, uh Right.

00:14:25.318 --> 00:14:26.999
I think that's how I describe your world.

00:14:27.028 --> 00:14:27.089
Yeah.

00:14:27.658 --> 00:14:27.989
Thanks.

00:14:28.048 --> 00:14:28.379
Yeah.

00:14:28.379 --> 00:14:28.389
Yeah.

00:14:28.769 --> 00:14:28.979
A lot of

00:14:28.979 --> 00:14:30.028
construction industry stuff.

00:14:30.028 --> 00:14:30.958
Is that Construction?

00:14:30.958 --> 00:14:31.019
Yeah.

00:14:31.469 --> 00:14:40.048
Manufacturing, distribution, larger accounts that generally, you know, spend if you will, or invest whatever term you wanna use into their insurance program.

00:14:40.798 --> 00:14:45.058
Um, quarter million dollars or higher is where I usually focus my attention spend premiums.

00:14:45.089 --> 00:14:45.328
Yep.

00:14:45.418 --> 00:14:45.719
Okay.

00:14:45.778 --> 00:14:46.019
Yeah.

00:14:46.048 --> 00:14:46.469
And so.

00:14:47.038 --> 00:14:51.599
Um, but the team, the team from an agency perspective is set up in verticals.

00:14:51.778 --> 00:14:51.928
Yep.

00:14:52.019 --> 00:14:54.359
So, uh, there's a construction vertical.

00:14:54.629 --> 00:14:54.928
Okay.

00:14:55.048 --> 00:14:59.969
So account managers and or, uh, risk advisors that focus in that work alone.

00:15:00.298 --> 00:15:00.568
Right.

00:15:00.568 --> 00:15:04.528
Niche business, uh, construction and oil and gas kind of go hand in hand.

00:15:04.739 --> 00:15:04.828
Mm-hmm.

00:15:05.129 --> 00:15:08.369
Very similar in how they build, right?

00:15:08.428 --> 00:15:08.668
Yeah.

00:15:08.818 --> 00:15:14.879
Contractors build up oil and gas guys drill and build down, um, different nuances in the insurance Yeah.

00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:15.553
Element to it.

00:15:15.553 --> 00:15:15.673
Yeah.

00:15:15.673 --> 00:15:17.594
And a lot of insurable risks on both directions.

00:15:17.594 --> 00:15:18.114
Uh, yeah.

00:15:18.114 --> 00:15:27.568
And then there's a, a diversified business which is manufacturing, distribution, tech companies, um, kind of the non-construction related, um.

00:15:28.394 --> 00:15:32.354
The bulk of insurance business is driven by construction.

00:15:32.354 --> 00:15:33.073
Unfortunately.

00:15:33.073 --> 00:15:37.033
That's just kind of the way it is because there's the, the pre the premium.

00:15:37.033 --> 00:15:37.274
So you're the

00:15:37.274 --> 00:15:41.589
reason our houses cost so much and buildings cost, well, materials and labor and all those things.

00:15:41.729 --> 00:15:42.193
All those things.

00:15:42.193 --> 00:15:43.124
But part of it is,

00:15:43.153 --> 00:15:44.869
part of, it's the, the insurance component.

00:15:44.869 --> 00:15:45.374
The risk of it too.

00:15:45.673 --> 00:15:46.004
Yeah.

00:15:46.214 --> 00:15:50.264
And so, and then, so there's, um, those are the big verticals.

00:15:50.264 --> 00:15:56.923
We have an agribusiness team that all they focus is on is the agribusiness component from food manufacturing to dairies.

00:15:57.163 --> 00:15:57.374
Yeah.

00:15:57.433 --> 00:15:58.573
Um, on that side.

00:15:58.573 --> 00:16:01.543
And we have a trucking division, which is over the road.

00:16:01.839 --> 00:16:04.028
Uh, long haul trucking and short haul.

00:16:04.089 --> 00:16:04.359
Right.

00:16:04.359 --> 00:16:05.769
Large and small fleet business.

00:16:05.828 --> 00:16:05.918
Mm-hmm.

00:16:06.249 --> 00:16:12.099
Personal lines team that takes care of our clients from A-A-V-I-I-P kind of personal lines component.

00:16:12.099 --> 00:16:12.188
Sure.

00:16:12.188 --> 00:16:14.828
If you, if you're buying your commercial stuff, we must as well take care of your personal needs too.

00:16:14.828 --> 00:16:14.979
Yeah.

00:16:15.219 --> 00:16:16.928
And then, um, employee benefits.

00:16:16.928 --> 00:16:18.908
So we have a whole team that just focuses on Oh, right.

00:16:19.328 --> 00:16:21.908
Um, you know, employer health sponsored program.

00:16:21.908 --> 00:16:24.188
So helping those folks through that process.

00:16:24.668 --> 00:16:30.009
And then tied to the construction component is the surety side for, uh, payment performance bonds.

00:16:30.009 --> 00:16:31.058
Oh, bondings and stuff like that.

00:16:31.058 --> 00:16:31.328
Yeah.

00:16:31.333 --> 00:16:31.384
Yeah.

00:16:31.389 --> 00:16:34.298
So that's, that's the core, core of it.

00:16:34.298 --> 00:16:38.769
And so yeah, it takes a lot of, a lot of help to put it all together.

00:16:38.798 --> 00:16:39.369
Yeah.

00:16:39.428 --> 00:16:39.698
Yeah.

00:16:40.178 --> 00:16:40.479
And are

00:16:40.479 --> 00:16:47.979
you kind of the conductor almost of making, or you've got somebody that's your detailed person that's making sure all the, the loan files are put together, if you will pro

00:16:47.979 --> 00:16:49.028
profiling me already.

00:16:49.058 --> 00:16:49.208
Thanks.

00:16:50.139 --> 00:16:50.624
Uh, but yeah.

00:16:51.418 --> 00:17:06.358
Yeah, so my job is to go attract and retain clients for the agency and then help or, um, with our ops team figure out who's the right account management, uh, team to support them, whether they're in construction or uh, manufacturing, distribution from that.

00:17:06.358 --> 00:17:07.048
And do they figure out

00:17:07.048 --> 00:17:08.278
the carrier and stuff like that?

00:17:08.278 --> 00:17:09.868
You don't have to worry about that too much or?

00:17:09.868 --> 00:17:11.338
Well, we get involved in team project.

00:17:11.398 --> 00:17:11.759
Yeah.

00:17:11.848 --> 00:17:18.568
Kind of a team project, but we have a whole marketing division that works, uh, with us to negotiate those deals.

00:17:18.689 --> 00:17:21.088
Uh, well placements with the, with the carriers.

00:17:21.088 --> 00:17:22.354
Brett, a lot to do it.

00:17:22.354 --> 00:17:22.394
Yeah.

00:17:22.394 --> 00:17:22.483
Talk about

00:17:22.483 --> 00:17:23.608
carriers and stuff a little bit.

00:17:23.608 --> 00:17:24.898
'cause that's part, part of the sauce, right?

00:17:24.898 --> 00:17:25.138
Yeah, I was

00:17:25.138 --> 00:17:25.679
gonna add too.

00:17:25.679 --> 00:17:31.554
You know, the other thing is, and because we, we stood it up on its own vertical a couple years ago, three years ago, probably is, uh, human services.

00:17:32.294 --> 00:17:33.193
Oh yeah, the division.

00:17:33.193 --> 00:17:37.814
So, you know, from the beginning of our company, we've been very philanthropically based.

00:17:37.814 --> 00:17:44.594
And part of that is we work with several not-for-profits, and then we do a lot, uh, in the, uh, intellectual development and disabled space.

00:17:44.743 --> 00:17:44.773
Mm.

00:17:45.074 --> 00:17:48.104
So we actually have a, a vertical there that we specialize in the region on.

00:17:48.108 --> 00:17:48.259
Okay.

00:17:48.433 --> 00:17:56.203
And I'm gonna go back to an earlier, uh, question that you asked is, we've got three offices as Aaron referenced, where their locations are, but we do business in all 50 states.

00:17:56.354 --> 00:17:56.653
Oh, wow.

00:17:56.923 --> 00:17:57.044
Yeah.

00:17:57.044 --> 00:18:04.844
We, we've got a lot of business in this region, and then we've got business all over the country and actually have several placements of several types around the world.

00:18:04.848 --> 00:18:05.019
Mm-hmm.

00:18:05.834 --> 00:18:08.114
You know, a lot of it decision making driven out Colorado.

00:18:08.114 --> 00:18:12.644
But as time has gone on and people have moved on, we, we write business all over as Colorado

00:18:12.644 --> 00:18:16.979
policies drive business away from the state and move, or people move, keep the insurance

00:18:16.999 --> 00:18:17.219
guy.

00:18:17.398 --> 00:18:20.203
We, we work with several companies domiciled in other states.

00:18:20.209 --> 00:18:20.378
Mm-hmm.

00:18:20.558 --> 00:18:25.903
And I think based on the, you know, market and things of that nature, you're gonna see us continue to expand that presence.

00:18:26.249 --> 00:18:27.509
Regionally and nationally.

00:18:27.509 --> 00:18:27.778
Yeah.

00:18:27.784 --> 00:18:28.074
Yeah.

00:18:28.259 --> 00:18:39.749
So how is the, the industry these days, we hear a lot about, um, like in the p and c markets, especially homeowners insurance and stuff, hail and costs way up.

00:18:40.169 --> 00:18:47.459
Is, is the market more stable in the commercial lines stuff, or those hailstorms also wreck buildings in progress and stuff like that too?

00:18:47.459 --> 00:18:47.909
Or what?

00:18:47.939 --> 00:18:49.199
Yeah, I, I, yeah.

00:18:49.199 --> 00:18:49.499
It's funny.

00:18:49.679 --> 00:18:52.828
We just did a market update about a month ago at our sim, our annual symposium.

00:18:52.919 --> 00:18:53.009
Oh.

00:18:53.009 --> 00:18:53.729
I couldn't make it to that.

00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:54.074
I was outta town.

00:18:54.074 --> 00:18:54.084
Yeah.

00:18:54.273 --> 00:18:58.828
And, and so, you know, it's interesting about insurance at its most basic concept is a risk sharing pool.

00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:04.378
And so the same insurance carriers, for example, uh, write commercial and home and auto.

00:19:04.528 --> 00:19:04.888
Right.

00:19:05.038 --> 00:19:07.798
And so when there's property losses, so they're tempted to raise the rates

00:19:07.798 --> 00:19:09.929
on your customers even when it's just their homeowners.

00:19:09.929 --> 00:19:10.078
Yeah.

00:19:10.078 --> 00:19:17.159
When, when there's, when there's losses in Hale hail hits both businesses and Hits auto is one of the most unthought of losses in, in a hail firm.

00:19:17.159 --> 00:19:17.578
Oh, sure.

00:19:17.729 --> 00:19:17.969
Yeah.

00:19:18.028 --> 00:19:22.288
Uh, a as well as, uh, you've, you've got your residential damage on that as well.

00:19:22.378 --> 00:19:22.618
Sure.

00:19:22.679 --> 00:19:28.558
Uh, so the market's been pretty stressed as a property, um, market across the country.

00:19:28.588 --> 00:19:41.638
You know, if you just went back historically and looked 10 to 15 years ago, um, the industry averaged 50 to$55 billion a year in what they call catastrophic losses, which is weather related property losses.

00:19:41.669 --> 00:19:41.969
Okay.

00:19:42.148 --> 00:19:47.489
Uh, the last five years, the average has been 110 billion or more depending on the year.

00:19:47.848 --> 00:19:51.989
And so when you more than double what the market was built around from a loss standpoint.

00:19:52.409 --> 00:19:53.999
That's why we had such big rate increases.

00:19:53.999 --> 00:19:54.269
And every

00:19:54.269 --> 00:19:57.868
one of those fires, like the one in Palisade in California is just like a

00:19:57.868 --> 00:19:59.489
Palisade Marshall Fire, fire, no.

00:19:59.489 --> 00:20:04.229
Marshall Fire changed the dynamic, uh, I think across the country because it was not in a wooded area.

00:20:04.229 --> 00:20:10.919
It's just basically an extra field that caught on fire and an unfortunate circumstances of wind, heat, dry conditions.

00:20:11.159 --> 00:20:11.519
Yeah.

00:20:11.638 --> 00:20:13.979
You know, took a thousand houses out inside of an hour.

00:20:14.098 --> 00:20:14.368
Yeah.

00:20:14.669 --> 00:20:15.058
Crazy.

00:20:15.088 --> 00:20:15.358
Yeah.

00:20:15.959 --> 00:20:19.138
Um, and how do you prevent against that, right?

00:20:19.138 --> 00:20:33.239
Like, is that part of the, like I think about your industry, especially in the brokerage space, a big part of it is trying to find the right carrier that will best understand your customer's risk profile and knows that industry and stuff like that.

00:20:33.239 --> 00:20:36.959
But then there's also how do you de-risk your clients.

00:20:36.959 --> 00:20:37.048
Mm-hmm.

00:20:37.193 --> 00:20:40.288
Do you guys provide support in that space?

00:20:40.288 --> 00:20:45.449
Like, it kind of seems counterintuitive because you're like, you're gonna pay me less, which means I'm gonna make less.

00:20:45.509 --> 00:20:48.028
But I, I have tools.

00:20:48.034 --> 00:20:51.568
I, I'm an, I'm a collector of knowledge, so I can help you de-risk some things.

00:20:51.598 --> 00:20:51.689
Yeah.

00:20:52.394 --> 00:20:55.634
I think the, the piece about commission never crosses my mind.

00:20:55.723 --> 00:20:55.903
Mm-hmm.

00:20:55.933 --> 00:20:58.334
Ever in the whole process of it.

00:20:58.334 --> 00:21:04.243
So the whole part of it, people get upset about their insurance program when they have claims.

00:21:04.513 --> 00:21:04.753
Sure.

00:21:04.963 --> 00:21:14.023
Claims drive the, drives your market access down into a more limited pool, because if you have bad performance, if this is our insurance company Yeah.

00:21:14.023 --> 00:21:16.784
Why would we want to take a bet on a really bad risk?

00:21:16.784 --> 00:21:16.874
Right.

00:21:16.874 --> 00:21:17.084
Right.

00:21:17.084 --> 00:21:17.384
Right.

00:21:18.013 --> 00:21:18.554
So that's, yeah.

00:21:18.554 --> 00:21:18.884
You have some

00:21:18.884 --> 00:21:23.384
claims and you go shop in your insurance, you're like, oh, I can pay actually more than what I've been paying or

00:21:23.384 --> 00:21:24.223
not have options.

00:21:24.253 --> 00:21:24.523
Yeah.

00:21:24.824 --> 00:21:25.213
Right.

00:21:25.213 --> 00:21:26.953
And so that is the goal, which means you

00:21:26.953 --> 00:21:27.943
might not have a business.

00:21:28.513 --> 00:21:28.663
Yeah.

00:21:28.808 --> 00:21:35.413
So the whole goal of our, I mean our whole value proposition is around what you just described in helping our clients manage their risk.

00:21:35.443 --> 00:21:35.773
Right.

00:21:35.773 --> 00:21:40.723
And it's, uh, not just the insurance pool of risk, it's the whole piece of it.

00:21:40.723 --> 00:21:41.054
Right.

00:21:41.144 --> 00:21:45.523
So I always split it up into three, just major components of risk.

00:21:45.523 --> 00:21:47.324
It's the operational risk or the business.

00:21:47.788 --> 00:21:48.509
Exposure of it.

00:21:48.868 --> 00:21:53.128
And how do we help our clients increase human capital, reduce their human error, right?

00:21:53.128 --> 00:22:00.628
So if you take construction and if you have people, you have workers' comp claims, if you have bad work comp claims, you don't get on job sites.

00:22:00.628 --> 00:22:02.788
And this thing just kind of spirals out control.

00:22:02.969 --> 00:22:03.209
Mm-hmm.

00:22:03.749 --> 00:22:16.558
So our job is to help, uh, our clients build and design a safety program and a, and a process and a culture for them to de-risk their business, to make'em more, uh, marketable if you will, to the insurance marketplace.

00:22:16.949 --> 00:22:19.828
Drive down premium and, and stabilize premium.

00:22:19.828 --> 00:22:26.788
So if you we're all bankers, so would you, uh, right, so you price a credit better than you price.

00:22:26.788 --> 00:22:27.598
C credit, right?

00:22:27.604 --> 00:22:27.634
Sure.

00:22:27.638 --> 00:22:31.798
So the insurance world is the same kind of concept in that perspective.

00:22:31.798 --> 00:22:39.568
So we don't, we want, we want to help our clients get a credit all the time and, and best insurance pricing, is that right?

00:22:39.568 --> 00:22:44.759
So the market swings up and down, but if you're the best of the best, you're always gonna get the best of the.

00:22:45.523 --> 00:22:48.223
Pricing at the time of the market that's, that's be available kinda, right.

00:22:48.223 --> 00:22:50.263
So, um, that's the whole thing.

00:22:50.263 --> 00:22:56.233
So the business risk is there, and then the strategic component of the exposure of the business is where are you going in three to five years?

00:22:56.503 --> 00:23:02.233
Helping them manage the balance sheet, protect the balance sheet, uh, from an insurance perspective.

00:23:02.233 --> 00:23:10.094
And I always, you know, use the comments like, who, who this afternoon can come in and really disrupt your business and potentially shut it down.

00:23:10.544 --> 00:23:12.733
And the acronyms start to come out, right?

00:23:12.794 --> 00:23:14.834
OSHA comes out, DOT comes out.

00:23:15.223 --> 00:23:16.423
Those elements of FBI.

00:23:16.723 --> 00:23:16.933
No.

00:23:17.023 --> 00:23:17.834
Well, we don't want those.

00:23:18.284 --> 00:23:21.038
Well, it could, that the EPA or the, you know, a lot of those, yeah.

00:23:21.614 --> 00:23:24.044
Those regulatory burden that comes into a business.

00:23:24.044 --> 00:23:30.104
We can help with resources, whether we have teammates that can help with it and or we can help find folks to help.

00:23:30.479 --> 00:23:31.618
Manage that component.

00:23:31.648 --> 00:23:35.638
And then the insurance piece is just the hazard element of the business, right?

00:23:35.669 --> 00:23:36.898
The three major components.

00:23:37.229 --> 00:23:39.778
Well, the insurance, that's just the insurance placement, right?

00:23:39.778 --> 00:23:41.098
It's how many vehicles do you have?

00:23:41.098 --> 00:23:44.489
How many people do you have, payroll, sales, property, right?

00:23:44.489 --> 00:23:45.449
Here's the specs.

00:23:45.479 --> 00:23:45.689
Yeah.

00:23:45.689 --> 00:23:52.679
And so that's, that's just the, the one third of the component of, of helping'em manage it.

00:23:52.798 --> 00:23:53.848
And so Interesting.

00:23:53.848 --> 00:24:04.229
Our, our whole goal is to get engaged and be a part of the team with them so we can manage three, you know, the whole pie versus just managing that one element of the risk.

00:24:04.229 --> 00:24:04.919
So, yeah.

00:24:04.949 --> 00:24:05.189
Well,

00:24:05.398 --> 00:24:12.628
yeah, and you know, to Aaron's point, it's, um, I, I can tell you both, as, both of us would say the same thing as career transition people.

00:24:12.689 --> 00:24:16.798
We, we, we often hire people who are coming of other careers for several reasons.

00:24:16.798 --> 00:24:17.009
Yeah.

00:24:17.009 --> 00:24:17.019
Yeah.

00:24:17.368 --> 00:24:17.818
Um.

00:24:18.433 --> 00:24:25.814
But it may sometimes specializations somebody out of the ag world comes in and they're great with ag'cause it helps to understand how business works.

00:24:26.144 --> 00:24:30.163
Know like Aaron coming in and understanding how banking works was a critical piece of his success.

00:24:30.673 --> 00:24:34.273
I came outta the manufacturing world so I could understand and relate to manufacturers.

00:24:34.574 --> 00:24:38.594
I think the biggest surprising thing, and we've had everybody from somebody transitioning careers.

00:24:38.999 --> 00:24:40.828
Two attorneys coming on board mm-hmm.

00:24:41.068 --> 00:24:41.909
Would say the same things.

00:24:42.148 --> 00:24:48.808
Uh, a the insurance policy itself, the insurance carrier world and the market in general is much more complicated than people anticipate.

00:24:48.898 --> 00:24:48.989
Mm-hmm.

00:24:49.318 --> 00:24:54.719
You know, if you go back and watch your TV commercials these days or any commercial, it's about hitting an easy button.

00:24:54.719 --> 00:24:55.979
It's about saving 15%.

00:24:55.979 --> 00:24:56.638
It's all those things.

00:24:57.058 --> 00:24:58.409
Reality evidence is, don't worry about all the side

00:24:58.409 --> 00:24:58.828
effects.

00:24:58.919 --> 00:24:59.578
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

00:24:59.578 --> 00:25:12.148
But reality is, if you look at the different verticals that Aaron mentioned earlier, each of those verticals may have very, um, narrow marketplace as far as carriers who have the appetite to write business in that space.

00:25:12.209 --> 00:25:12.628
Yeah.

00:25:12.689 --> 00:25:22.618
But there's some very specific things that they do from an underwriting standpoint, risk management standpoint, and more importantly from a policy structure standpoint that's structured towards that business.

00:25:22.709 --> 00:25:28.888
So, for example, somebody writing an ag policy in an agricultural environment is gonna have different.

00:25:29.219 --> 00:25:33.328
Endorsements and possible exclusions on than somebody in the construction market.

00:25:33.568 --> 00:25:33.659
Mm-hmm.

00:25:33.898 --> 00:25:40.769
So I, one of the things I think we're really, really good at is identifying what the risks are and lining them up with the right partner.

00:25:40.919 --> 00:25:41.009
Mm-hmm.

00:25:41.249 --> 00:25:45.239
From an insurance carrier standpoint, knowing that all markets and all carriers are not the same.

00:25:45.689 --> 00:25:55.739
That's one of the interesting things about just being in industry and, and in my place, even having conversations with so many interesting businesses, I can be kind of a collector of knowledge, right.

00:25:56.038 --> 00:26:05.368
For you guys, you can be like a one person insurance broker could not possibly collect the knowledge that they would need to serve Well, a complex client.

00:26:05.818 --> 00:26:08.759
Well they can in the niche that they wanna be in, in that one niche.

00:26:08.818 --> 00:26:09.148
Right.

00:26:09.148 --> 00:26:09.778
But, but an

00:26:09.778 --> 00:26:12.028
organization built up to serve multiple niches.

00:26:12.148 --> 00:26:21.659
I wanted to ask, um, from a little bit ago, you, you detailed kind of those, those verticals or whatever, but like, do you do like regular little businesses?

00:26:21.659 --> 00:26:25.409
Would you do a general thing for local think tank or a retailer or HVAC

00:26:25.409 --> 00:26:28.648
company or, well, Flint Peterson is a reflection of.

00:26:28.814 --> 00:26:30.074
O of our communities.

00:26:30.104 --> 00:26:30.193
Mm-hmm.

00:26:30.614 --> 00:26:30.884
Right.

00:26:30.943 --> 00:26:31.094
Okay.

00:26:31.124 --> 00:26:33.523
Which is everything from your sole sur sole proprietor.

00:26:33.824 --> 00:26:35.983
We have a division of the company's actually called Main Street.

00:26:36.374 --> 00:26:36.523
Okay.

00:26:36.523 --> 00:26:41.503
And it's named that because the company was built on that main street business that you drive by or engage with every day.

00:26:41.534 --> 00:26:41.804
Yeah.

00:26:41.864 --> 00:26:50.624
So everything from sole proprietors do we have clients with more than 5,000 employees, uh, that have people, uh, work all over the, uh, all over the country and sometimes all over the world.

00:26:50.894 --> 00:26:52.034
So we can do anything.

00:26:52.243 --> 00:26:57.284
It's a matter of aligning someone up with the right specialized division and the right talent.

00:26:57.463 --> 00:26:57.614
Yeah.

00:26:57.854 --> 00:27:05.683
Well, and those, like the, the insurable risk of a retailer, for example, is pretty easy to figure out.

00:27:05.773 --> 00:27:06.013
Right.

00:27:06.223 --> 00:27:21.733
You know, and so there isn't a lot of benefit to being a really smart guy in the risk advisor space because really I've got x amount of inventory, here's, you know, my margin costs, here's my fire risk, I should put a sprinkler in up on the ceiling to get a lower price.

00:27:22.394 --> 00:27:23.443
And it's about like that.

00:27:23.834 --> 00:27:26.804
Well, it's interesting you say that because we all are consumers.

00:27:27.509 --> 00:27:29.398
I have my own personal home and auto policy.

00:27:29.398 --> 00:27:29.999
So does Aaron.

00:27:29.999 --> 00:27:35.519
I have teenage kids and believe me, uh, price has become more of a component on it that I'd ever thought.

00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:41.009
But the thing we both have realized through our careers is there's a price and there's a cost.

00:27:41.699 --> 00:27:41.999
Yeah.

00:27:42.058 --> 00:27:46.558
There's how much something costs you, but, or sorry, how much the price of something, but how much something cost you.

00:27:46.558 --> 00:27:49.169
And sometimes the cost is those things aren't, aren't included.

00:27:49.288 --> 00:27:49.439
Mm-hmm.

00:27:49.739 --> 00:27:51.838
There's policies that have exclusions on it.

00:27:53.159 --> 00:27:54.868
No policy is probably written the same.

00:27:55.108 --> 00:27:55.378
Yeah.

00:27:55.739 --> 00:28:04.169
You know, a small business may have some similarities in how they structure their policy, but some of the clients Aaron talks about, they're very, very complex risk transfer.

00:28:04.173 --> 00:28:04.364
Mm-hmm.

00:28:04.523 --> 00:28:04.644
Interesting.

00:28:04.644 --> 00:28:21.689
Because at the end of the day, you know, one of our main roles is to create education about what the, you know, the risks are is Aaron articulated earlier in those three categories, and bring them a ability to transfer that risk to an insurance policy and let'em make a business decision on what they want to transfer and what they don't.

00:28:21.929 --> 00:28:22.229
Yeah.

00:28:22.828 --> 00:28:24.659
I think that, um.

00:28:26.054 --> 00:28:28.483
We Insurance isn't designed to cover everything.

00:28:28.544 --> 00:28:28.814
Mm-hmm.

00:28:28.903 --> 00:28:29.233
No.

00:28:29.413 --> 00:28:31.243
Well, that's why our health system is so broken.

00:28:31.334 --> 00:28:31.634
Right?

00:28:31.634 --> 00:28:35.858
Uh, that's a whole nother job of insurance thing a pnc.

00:28:36.568 --> 00:28:38.548
Conversation, but it's not designed that way.

00:28:38.554 --> 00:28:38.683
Right.

00:28:38.699 --> 00:28:38.999
Right.

00:28:39.088 --> 00:28:42.328
Uh, if, if it was like, I'll just go back to COVID.

00:28:42.328 --> 00:28:49.679
If co if insurance was designed to cover everything, when we lived through that experience of COVID, the insurance business would be out of Yeah.

00:28:49.679 --> 00:28:50.219
Out of business.

00:28:50.548 --> 00:28:50.919
It would've been done.

00:28:50.919 --> 00:28:51.239
It would've been gotten Right.

00:28:51.598 --> 00:28:53.818
And so that's, that's the hard part.

00:28:53.818 --> 00:28:58.858
And I think the expectation for a lot of people when they spend that much money, it's all, it's a lot.

00:28:58.888 --> 00:28:59.159
Right?

00:28:59.159 --> 00:28:59.429
Yeah.

00:28:59.459 --> 00:29:01.469
It doesn't matter if you're starting up or Sure.

00:29:01.469 --> 00:29:05.338
Paying your homeowner's policy or you, you're doing$50 million a year in revenue.

00:29:05.669 --> 00:29:06.449
It's a lot of money.

00:29:06.509 --> 00:29:10.679
And so understanding what it covers and doesn't cover is a, is a big thing.

00:29:10.679 --> 00:29:21.808
And at this attorney tell me one time, he's just like, he tells his clients all the time, do you want to do it the right way first or, or hire me on the back hat on an hourly basis.

00:29:21.838 --> 00:29:21.898
Yeah.

00:29:21.898 --> 00:29:23.669
And I charge 1500 bucks an hour.

00:29:23.673 --> 00:29:24.148
Right, right.

00:29:24.148 --> 00:29:25.979
So, um, yeah.

00:29:26.189 --> 00:29:28.439
It's an art to the whole process.

00:29:28.618 --> 00:29:28.769
Yeah.

00:29:28.798 --> 00:29:30.088
Uh, when placed in a policy.

00:29:30.118 --> 00:29:30.388
Yeah.

00:29:30.449 --> 00:29:33.058
Brett, you know the two things that insurance companies hate, right.

00:29:33.673 --> 00:29:34.604
What would that be, Kurt?

00:29:35.084 --> 00:29:37.064
Accepting risk and paying claims.

00:29:38.443 --> 00:29:43.064
You know, so, hey, you know, that's a, that's an interesting, right, because that's one of those stereotypes that exists out there.

00:29:43.064 --> 00:29:51.328
And it, what's interesting about that is when you really dig into that insurance carrier and that insurance care relationship with its client mm-hmm.

00:29:51.824 --> 00:29:59.203
The right client, with the right insurance carrier, I actually, we see carriers go outta their way when the policy's built Right.

00:29:59.203 --> 00:30:00.433
To actually pay claims.

00:30:01.003 --> 00:30:04.483
When discovery's been done, the underwriting process has been thorough.

00:30:04.483 --> 00:30:09.973
They, they would step up, I think, you know, back to our staff, you know, above, beyond sometimes even obligation.

00:30:10.153 --> 00:30:10.304
Yeah.

00:30:10.304 --> 00:30:11.713
And I think that's one of our roles, right?

00:30:11.713 --> 00:30:15.253
What insurance is a fascinating pol uh, yeah.

00:30:15.314 --> 00:30:17.413
Piece of, uh, is a, is it a service?

00:30:17.413 --> 00:30:20.084
Is it what we call it a promise, right?

00:30:20.084 --> 00:30:22.903
It's apol, it's a promise in some ways that it'll be there when something happens.

00:30:23.384 --> 00:30:25.394
Uh, but what happens when a claim happens, right?

00:30:25.394 --> 00:30:26.534
Because think about it.

00:30:26.534 --> 00:30:28.243
You pay all this money in for insurance.

00:30:28.949 --> 00:30:30.298
For something you never want to use.

00:30:30.328 --> 00:30:30.598
Yeah.

00:30:31.019 --> 00:30:31.169
Right.

00:30:31.169 --> 00:30:32.638
You don't want anything bad to happen to you.

00:30:32.638 --> 00:30:32.939
You Right.

00:30:32.939 --> 00:30:35.909
You don't want a work comp injury, you don't want your, an auto accident, anything like that.

00:30:35.909 --> 00:30:37.378
But when it is there, what happens?

00:30:37.798 --> 00:30:43.888
I think one of the things that we do very, very well is upfront, we've got a couple safety professionals on staff Yep.

00:30:43.919 --> 00:30:45.749
That help form safety teams.

00:30:45.749 --> 00:30:50.398
They advise, uh, they, their advisor on how to handle OSHA visits, those things.

00:30:50.788 --> 00:30:50.848
Yeah.

00:30:50.848 --> 00:30:53.114
What, how to put, um, good auto policies in place.

00:30:53.374 --> 00:30:53.788
Put these things in your

00:30:53.788 --> 00:30:55.273
training manual for your field crew.

00:30:55.273 --> 00:30:55.679
How do training, they do a

00:30:55.679 --> 00:30:56.459
lot of field training.

00:30:56.459 --> 00:30:57.449
They're in the field all day long.

00:30:57.479 --> 00:31:02.368
And then when something does happen, we have, we have claims professionals on staff Yeah.

00:31:02.368 --> 00:31:07.979
That help advocate on the clients, on behalf of the insurance carrier to help facilitate that conversation.

00:31:07.979 --> 00:31:16.979
Well, and that's, I was just thinking that part of the value of, as a guy, that kind of roots for the little guys usually, and f and p is one of the bigger guys, right.

00:31:16.979 --> 00:31:26.249
In the, not really your middle market size really compared to some of your peers, but like compared to that three person or 10 person office or whatever.

00:31:27.193 --> 00:31:37.124
If the carrier is being a butthead about paying out a legitimate claim and my three person office calls them and pesters them and whatever, that they can kind of be like, whatever.

00:31:37.693 --> 00:31:48.854
If Brett's on the phone saying, listen, this is one of our best clients, you need to pay this, or I'm just gonna have to not use you as a carrier anymore, dickhead, you know, you probably won't say it that way.

00:31:48.854 --> 00:31:53.203
I know, but I mean, you do have some leverage to get the outcomes you want, especially if you can justify it.

00:31:53.233 --> 00:31:54.824
Well, it's all contractual, it sounds.

00:31:55.334 --> 00:31:55.784
Oh, really?

00:31:55.874 --> 00:31:56.804
It's all contractual,

00:31:56.894 --> 00:31:57.193
right?

00:31:57.193 --> 00:32:02.203
I mean, you pay premium for a policy that's an insurance contract and it says, we'll pay if these things.

00:32:02.203 --> 00:32:03.523
So no promises in that space?

00:32:03.763 --> 00:32:05.173
Uh, no.

00:32:05.173 --> 00:32:07.723
Not, not necessarily, but um,

00:32:07.723 --> 00:32:08.878
I would say this though.

00:32:08.878 --> 00:32:18.749
I, I think our, our claims team does an unbelievably good job of engaging and facilitating the conversation between the client, the claims adjuster, and the carrier.

00:32:19.348 --> 00:32:20.249
'cause at the end of the day.

00:32:21.239 --> 00:32:23.308
It's about an interpretation of policy language.

00:32:23.314 --> 00:32:23.534
Yeah.

00:32:23.644 --> 00:32:24.118
Yeah, yeah.

00:32:24.118 --> 00:32:30.239
And so I think our team does as good a job as any team, um, of interpreting that policy and advocating on behalf of clients.

00:32:30.689 --> 00:32:30.898
Yeah.

00:32:30.929 --> 00:32:31.078
Fair.

00:32:31.078 --> 00:32:33.028
And I, and I think, you know, it's like anything else in life, right?

00:32:33.028 --> 00:32:35.489
I mean, it's a foreign language in some ways.

00:32:35.638 --> 00:32:35.878
Sure.

00:32:35.878 --> 00:32:37.318
Insurance, there's tons of acronyms.

00:32:37.318 --> 00:32:38.788
And I mean, how many people, I mean, I've

00:32:38.788 --> 00:32:45.298
got the same commercial general liability policy as I've had since Brandon sold it to me way before he sold, uh oh, Brandon Aver.

00:32:45.358 --> 00:32:45.749
Yeah.

00:32:45.749 --> 00:32:45.759
Yeah.

00:32:45.808 --> 00:32:47.249
Way before he sold to IMA.

00:32:47.253 --> 00:32:47.818
Right, right.

00:32:47.818 --> 00:32:48.719
You know, so I don't even.

00:32:48.979 --> 00:32:53.298
I, I look at it, you know, but does it have the same things as other policies would?

00:32:53.568 --> 00:32:54.048
I don't know.

00:32:54.048 --> 00:32:54.348
You know?

00:32:54.348 --> 00:32:55.848
So if you had a claim, would you look at it?

00:32:56.179 --> 00:32:56.628
Oh, sure.

00:32:56.719 --> 00:32:57.348
Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:57.499 --> 00:32:59.628
But I don't, I don't really even know what I'd have a claim for.

00:32:59.628 --> 00:33:02.568
Like a microphone shocked somebody to death in the podcast studio.

00:33:02.868 --> 00:33:06.078
I, he did, actually, he did help me early on.

00:33:06.108 --> 00:33:06.713
So when we first.

00:33:07.314 --> 00:33:09.713
Started doing applications for local think tank.

00:33:10.163 --> 00:33:15.594
One of the things it was like, well, you need this in there to basically say your decisions are your own.

00:33:15.594 --> 00:33:23.094
You know, the fact that you came up with this brilliant idea in a local think tank chapter and it cost you a fortune does not mean you're coming after lo think tank.

00:33:23.574 --> 00:33:26.634
Uh, you know, we're here for this purpose kind of.

00:33:26.634 --> 00:33:26.693
Yeah.

00:33:26.993 --> 00:33:39.923
Uh, so he advised me on how to kinda shift potential risk away from kind of a, a, what's that insurance when you, if you're a doctor, like malpractice kind, all professional errors and admissions errors and admissions kind of thing and whatever.

00:33:40.374 --> 00:33:45.653
Um, so we did talk a little bit about that, but you know, I just do stuff here in the office.

00:33:45.653 --> 00:33:52.314
There isn't really, you know, I'm not going up or down or driving cars and race cars or anything like that.

00:33:52.314 --> 00:33:53.844
So, or maybe you have big a differ.

00:33:53.874 --> 00:33:56.064
Aaron doesn't my, oh, maybe Aaron doesn't want my account.

00:33:56.064 --> 00:33:57.114
It's not big enough for him.

00:33:57.594 --> 00:34:00.233
You put one of your junior guys on it if we wanna talk next.

00:34:00.683 --> 00:34:02.213
Um, but that's a fair statement.

00:34:02.213 --> 00:34:04.523
One of the things I also wanted to ask about is pricing.

00:34:05.394 --> 00:34:05.784
Like.

00:34:06.223 --> 00:34:07.544
Do you.

00:34:08.114 --> 00:34:13.813
Like I assume kind of this carrier, okay, we got all the information, we got the profile, got the thing, here's our price.

00:34:13.813 --> 00:34:20.594
And then do you have discretion on how much margin you charge over and above what that carrier prices it?

00:34:20.594 --> 00:34:21.733
Or is that like a

00:34:21.824 --> 00:34:23.083
carrier's defining price?

00:34:23.143 --> 00:34:23.324
Right.

00:34:23.503 --> 00:34:23.833
Okay.

00:34:23.833 --> 00:34:24.193
Yeah.

00:34:24.193 --> 00:34:24.793
So you take.

00:34:25.594 --> 00:34:28.773
Take a, you get a standard, well, any whatever share

00:34:28.773 --> 00:34:29.554
of the house,

00:34:29.643 --> 00:34:38.914
any company, doesn't matter what niche you're in, there's, there's a rating basis that's usually sales or payroll, um, from a general liability perspective.

00:34:38.914 --> 00:34:40.594
And what is the rate, right.

00:34:40.594 --> 00:34:44.014
So say, so the general liability, so they're the ones that decide the rating kind of.

00:34:44.014 --> 00:34:44.403
Exactly.

00:34:44.403 --> 00:34:51.123
And they have their own rates and tier, and so we will negotiate that price from one carrier against others.

00:34:51.123 --> 00:34:51.724
Right, right.

00:34:51.994 --> 00:34:55.983
You know, kind of from a marketing to multiple carriers per, but you can't give a higher

00:34:55.983 --> 00:35:01.623
price to a customer that's more of a butthead and harder to work with, uh, if it's got the same rating otherwise.

00:35:01.653 --> 00:35:01.983
Right.

00:35:02.554 --> 00:35:02.764
Yep.

00:35:02.793 --> 00:35:03.813
Yeah, fair enough.

00:35:03.873 --> 00:35:04.594
That seems reasonable.

00:35:05.103 --> 00:35:05.403
Yeah.

00:35:05.409 --> 00:35:07.983
And you know, so much of it in today's market we talked about before, so you can't

00:35:07.983 --> 00:35:09.574
gimme the hookup even if I deserved it.

00:35:09.664 --> 00:35:09.844
Yeah,

00:35:09.903 --> 00:35:11.793
well, you know, in today's market we talk about is really tough.

00:35:11.793 --> 00:35:13.474
So much of it's about the underwriting process.

00:35:14.224 --> 00:35:19.353
I think as much as anything we, you know, there's, there's two parts to the application process, I would say.

00:35:19.623 --> 00:35:20.583
I think Aaron would agree.

00:35:20.614 --> 00:35:21.813
There's what's on paper.

00:35:22.184 --> 00:35:22.393
Okay.

00:35:22.423 --> 00:35:30.193
Which is what we're capturing your payroll and your exposures and you know, several questions around what your safety practices are and what risks that you take on every day.

00:35:30.673 --> 00:35:33.103
There's that part of it, but the other part of it's the story.

00:35:33.704 --> 00:35:34.454
Who's your company?

00:35:34.454 --> 00:35:35.324
How do you see risks?

00:35:35.324 --> 00:35:36.103
How's your culture?

00:35:36.103 --> 00:35:38.023
What, what makes you better than in your competitors?

00:35:38.023 --> 00:35:38.954
What makes you different?

00:35:38.983 --> 00:35:39.344
Yeah.

00:35:39.373 --> 00:35:41.204
What service you providing in the marketplace?

00:35:41.713 --> 00:35:48.373
I think our team does an exceptional job of explaining the company and our client base, the carrier market.

00:35:48.373 --> 00:35:49.664
And that does make a difference, right?

00:35:49.668 --> 00:35:49.739
Mm-hmm.

00:35:49.744 --> 00:35:51.853
Because there's a subjective component of underwriting.

00:35:52.244 --> 00:35:52.454
Yeah.

00:35:52.514 --> 00:35:59.114
That I often say that they, they, they underwrite based on what they see on the application, but they rate based on the things they don't understand.

00:35:59.833 --> 00:36:00.014
Right.

00:36:00.014 --> 00:36:03.733
Because I don't really, really understand this, so, and they have a rape ban and it's all filed.

00:36:03.733 --> 00:36:03.974
Right?

00:36:03.974 --> 00:36:04.094
Right.

00:36:04.094 --> 00:36:04.664
I mean, sure.

00:36:04.668 --> 00:36:10.423
The, the admitted market is, you know, governed by the, uh, insurance commissioner in the states, and the rates have to be filed.

00:36:10.423 --> 00:36:10.673
There is a.

00:36:11.233 --> 00:36:13.423
Excess in surplus market, which is higher risk.

00:36:13.454 --> 00:36:13.543
Sure.

00:36:13.543 --> 00:36:16.753
Which we, we see a lot now in our marketplace.

00:36:17.143 --> 00:36:25.153
Um, but it's about does your broker understand your business and can they represent you to the marketplace to get your best terms and pricing?

00:36:25.153 --> 00:36:27.074
And so much of that is understanding your business.

00:36:27.398 --> 00:36:27.478
Hmm.

00:36:27.764 --> 00:36:31.873
And which carrier market and do we need to approach on your behalf?

00:36:32.173 --> 00:36:32.264
Mm-hmm.

00:36:32.264 --> 00:36:32.833
Because they're not all the same.

00:36:33.224 --> 00:36:39.014
One of the things that I reflected upon in my, in my banking career that I didn't really realize Right.

00:36:39.014 --> 00:36:40.393
Until I was almost out of it.

00:36:40.393 --> 00:36:40.574
Right.

00:36:41.023 --> 00:36:48.943
Was that, and, and you reflected on this, you were kind of over it with the banking thing of loan, good loans getting not approved by your peers kind of thing.

00:36:49.483 --> 00:36:51.704
But Reno Caesar told me this way back, he said.

00:36:52.378 --> 00:36:55.528
Your, your loan presentations are, you're such a good writer.

00:36:56.068 --> 00:37:04.623
Like you addressed all of my questions in an eloquent way to tell me the story of why this business was not only viable, but about ready to grow and mm-hmm.

00:37:04.704 --> 00:37:07.978
Need to borrow more money and keep a lot more money in the bank, in the not too distant future.

00:37:08.429 --> 00:37:09.869
And it was telling that story.

00:37:10.349 --> 00:37:16.889
What you're saying is instead of telling that story to the loan committee or whatever in the bank, you're telling it to the, to the carrier a little bit, which is like

00:37:16.889 --> 00:37:18.809
25 different loan committees sometimes.

00:37:18.838 --> 00:37:19.108
Yeah.

00:37:19.273 --> 00:37:20.099
Right, right.

00:37:20.099 --> 00:37:20.188
That,

00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:30.929
that's probably the one thing that, um, I've enjoyed in ba in insurance, um, is because if I get a No, I know I can find another, yeah.

00:37:30.929 --> 00:37:31.139
Oh, this

00:37:31.139 --> 00:37:32.849
load committee said no, but I got 20 more.

00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:34.199
There's, there's a market,

00:37:34.318 --> 00:37:38.128
there's a market to be, to be found for every risk.

00:37:38.128 --> 00:37:38.278
Yeah.

00:37:38.489 --> 00:37:38.849
Right.

00:37:38.909 --> 00:37:41.759
And it's, it's just a matter of, um, yeah.

00:37:41.909 --> 00:37:44.009
Finding it, what's the right costs.

00:37:44.248 --> 00:37:46.048
Um, so yeah.

00:37:46.139 --> 00:37:46.798
Very interesting.

00:37:47.039 --> 00:37:48.958
Yeah, and we have a, we have an entire team.

00:37:49.634 --> 00:37:51.344
What, what we call centralized marketing.

00:37:51.344 --> 00:37:55.123
Marketing as in engaging with the insurance carriers as as the market.

00:37:55.634 --> 00:37:58.333
And, uh, that team keeps a pulse on what's going on.

00:37:58.333 --> 00:38:02.054
Everything from small business to large construction to ag to personal lines.

00:38:02.054 --> 00:38:02.264
Right.

00:38:02.264 --> 00:38:03.853
It's, it's very specific

00:38:03.884 --> 00:38:03.974
mm-hmm.

00:38:04.244 --> 00:38:04.483
Uh,

00:38:04.483 --> 00:38:07.454
to the industry and the size of the company, what your history looks like.

00:38:07.949 --> 00:38:09.898
Well, and those carriers are all publicly traded.

00:38:09.898 --> 00:38:18.268
And so if, if they get a little hungry to have some volume so their stock price doesn't get limited, they might go into some verticals with better pricing for a while than otherwise they would.

00:38:18.268 --> 00:38:19.559
And you need to stay aware of that.

00:38:19.798 --> 00:38:21.028
Well, they, they go in and out.

00:38:21.088 --> 00:38:21.298
Right?

00:38:21.329 --> 00:38:21.509
Right.

00:38:21.509 --> 00:38:21.688
Yep.

00:38:21.809 --> 00:38:22.918
Um, like right.

00:38:22.918 --> 00:38:23.369
Two years, they might be

00:38:23.369 --> 00:38:24.929
like, we're taking no new restaurants.

00:38:25.018 --> 00:38:27.659
Oh, we actually need more restaurants now, or whatever.

00:38:27.809 --> 00:38:31.918
Not to pick on a particular vertical, but apartments are very difficult to insure these days.

00:38:31.978 --> 00:38:32.099
Yeah.

00:38:32.099 --> 00:38:32.938
In Colorado especially.

00:38:32.998 --> 00:38:38.458
Um, and it's, it's not just the hail exposure that exists.

00:38:38.458 --> 00:38:47.849
There's a lot of liability claims attached to apartments for, uh, the slip strips and falls, or the, the person who forgot to, you know, shut the oven off and let the pizza in overnight.

00:38:47.849 --> 00:38:47.938
Right.

00:38:47.938 --> 00:38:49.378
Well, poor people live there a lot of times.

00:38:50.009 --> 00:38:52.273
And so they're looking for ways to the standard market, stick it to

00:38:52.273 --> 00:38:53.009
the man and get a payday.

00:38:53.938 --> 00:38:57.298
You know, a lot, a lot of the standard market won't write apartments these days.

00:38:57.389 --> 00:38:59.579
Not because they're bad risks.

00:38:59.608 --> 00:39:02.878
It's'cause they've lost and they don't wanna lose again in the right sector.

00:39:02.909 --> 00:39:03.179
Right.

00:39:03.208 --> 00:39:04.349
So they just go in and out.

00:39:04.349 --> 00:39:04.679
Right?

00:39:04.679 --> 00:39:16.048
I bet you, uh, this is a beer bet with Brett in the next five years, you'll see all those standard markets come back because they'll be going a man, we're missing out on all this premium and people gotta live in a place, right?

00:39:16.048 --> 00:39:16.918
Because that's, yeah.

00:39:16.918 --> 00:39:21.358
It's an economics piece more so for them it's premium and Yeah.

00:39:21.389 --> 00:39:22.318
Loss ratio versus risk.

00:39:22.708 --> 00:39:22.978
Yeah.

00:39:22.978 --> 00:39:26.878
And, and profit from, from a, you know, publicly traded carrier.

00:39:26.878 --> 00:39:27.088
So

00:39:27.329 --> 00:39:27.539
yeah.

00:39:27.539 --> 00:39:32.608
And, and then the tough part here, uh, locally, say you're talking to a company local and they're with the right carrier.

00:39:32.608 --> 00:39:38.909
They've had a great long-term relationship and yet something in that specific industry they're in, there's been challenges in other part of the country.

00:39:38.938 --> 00:39:39.088
Mm-hmm.

00:39:39.329 --> 00:39:39.449
Yeah.

00:39:39.494 --> 00:39:42.509
It, it could impact them where they get out of underwriting business in there.

00:39:42.539 --> 00:39:44.188
Nothing to do with that specific company.

00:39:44.188 --> 00:39:45.268
It's just an appetite.

00:39:45.688 --> 00:39:49.228
They, they no longer have the ability to take on that much risk in that industry.

00:39:49.259 --> 00:39:49.568
Yeah, yeah.

00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:50.309
Yeah.

00:39:50.309 --> 00:39:57.119
We, we, a big storm in the Caribbean wrecked the whole, uh, shrimp fishing fleet.

00:39:57.268 --> 00:40:00.509
And so we're not insuring shrimp boats in Florida either.

00:40:01.289 --> 00:40:01.498
Yeah.

00:40:01.619 --> 00:40:01.889
Whatever.

00:40:01.918 --> 00:40:03.813
Well, and it's lot of it to make a forest come kind of ference.

00:40:03.893 --> 00:40:05.188
I, well, and a lot of, and

00:40:05.188 --> 00:40:09.929
then the other thing is I, I, I, you know, I think we're gonna have some pending challenges in the liability marketplace as well.

00:40:10.378 --> 00:40:10.528
Mm-hmm.

00:40:10.768 --> 00:40:16.619
Um, I, there's been several things that have happened over the last few years, you know, coming out of COVID.

00:40:16.829 --> 00:40:17.068
Yeah.

00:40:17.099 --> 00:40:17.728
Talk to me about that.

00:40:17.728 --> 00:40:19.139
There were, there, there were claims that came in.

00:40:19.139 --> 00:40:19.409
Right.

00:40:19.409 --> 00:40:22.559
And so the court systems were shut down, so these cases built up.

00:40:23.128 --> 00:40:29.159
And so, um, as those claims are working their way through the system, still we're seeing some.

00:40:31.003 --> 00:40:35.173
Um, claims grow in what they were initially reserved for.

00:40:35.173 --> 00:40:35.384
Right.

00:40:35.384 --> 00:40:38.414
Because an insurance carrier gets to the end of the year and then they close their books out.

00:40:38.414 --> 00:40:38.503
Sure.

00:40:38.503 --> 00:40:39.403
Based on reserves.

00:40:39.733 --> 00:40:46.514
Well, they've seen dev development in the liability market on previously closed years on claims that are growing.

00:40:46.574 --> 00:40:46.963
Oh.

00:40:47.384 --> 00:40:48.284
Cost wise.

00:40:48.284 --> 00:40:48.914
Then what?

00:40:48.914 --> 00:40:50.474
They shut, they closed the year out for.

00:40:50.563 --> 00:40:50.893
Oh.

00:40:50.893 --> 00:40:52.393
So there has been some pending.

00:40:52.844 --> 00:40:56.594
Liability challenges, um, based on posterior.

00:40:56.594 --> 00:40:59.713
So like based on what, what, what are the Well, there's been several things.

00:40:59.954 --> 00:41:00.313
Yeah.

00:41:00.313 --> 00:41:01.364
There's been several things.

00:41:01.364 --> 00:41:04.724
I, you, you see more what I would call nuclear verdicts these days.

00:41:04.724 --> 00:41:04.934
Right.

00:41:04.934 --> 00:41:07.934
Which is any claim settle over$10 million.

00:41:07.934 --> 00:41:09.619
We're seeing larger claim payouts on stuff.

00:41:11.143 --> 00:41:19.813
Um, we're seeing some claims that came back in some big nationally known claims that have come back in, that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars in, in settlements.

00:41:19.813 --> 00:41:20.204
Wow.

00:41:20.233 --> 00:41:25.034
That the carrier may have closed their books out 20 years ago, and now here they have this claim payout.

00:41:25.244 --> 00:41:25.753
Oh, damn.

00:41:25.753 --> 00:41:30.458
And, and, and the other thing is, you know, the carriers by law have to keep so much in reserve.

00:41:30.704 --> 00:41:31.664
Like, what are we talking about, like

00:41:31.664 --> 00:41:33.494
train crashes and stuff like that?

00:41:33.494 --> 00:41:36.074
Or when you say liability, or is it more like product

00:41:36.074 --> 00:41:36.793
liability stuff?

00:41:36.793 --> 00:41:39.853
Well, it could be product or it could be an auto claim that takes five years to settle.

00:41:40.634 --> 00:41:43.213
And so they're closing out their books for this year.

00:41:43.273 --> 00:41:43.574
Right.

00:41:43.574 --> 00:41:44.414
This claim is open.

00:41:44.414 --> 00:41:44.623
They put

00:41:44.623 --> 00:41:46.634
allowance in there, kind of an estimate kind of thing.

00:41:46.634 --> 00:41:46.903
They're reserved,

00:41:46.903 --> 00:41:49.184
but then as time goes by people Right.

00:41:49.184 --> 00:41:49.693
There's a statute.

00:41:49.693 --> 00:41:49.994
Well, everything

00:41:49.994 --> 00:41:51.614
costs so much more now too.

00:41:51.619 --> 00:41:51.778
Yeah.

00:41:51.778 --> 00:41:52.018
Right.

00:41:52.273 --> 00:41:52.603
Yeah.

00:41:52.603 --> 00:41:53.173
Interesting.

00:41:53.233 --> 00:41:53.443
Yeah.

00:41:53.474 --> 00:41:53.684
Yeah.

00:41:53.833 --> 00:42:03.853
And I won't get into the specific cases, but if you looked at national news, there's been some big national claims that have come out, um, against some well-known organizations.

00:42:03.914 --> 00:42:10.934
Why won't you get into a specific case for, well,'cause I don't wanna to dive into the rabbit hole of all those, but you may just take the, uh, claims against USA gymnastics.

00:42:11.804 --> 00:42:12.434
Oh, right.

00:42:12.733 --> 00:42:20.563
There were several, several, um, you know what, what an unbelievably sad case to uncover all those years later.

00:42:20.594 --> 00:42:20.983
Yeah.

00:42:21.043 --> 00:42:23.983
But those, those cases have worked their way through the court system.

00:42:23.983 --> 00:42:24.074
Mm-hmm.

00:42:24.313 --> 00:42:26.414
There were significant claim settlements on those.

00:42:26.414 --> 00:42:27.403
Right, right.

00:42:27.403 --> 00:42:30.673
Things that you just don't think of in your everyday life that impact the entire risk sharing pool.

00:42:30.679 --> 00:42:30.958
Right.

00:42:31.333 --> 00:42:31.724
Right.

00:42:32.278 --> 00:42:38.998
I was thinking about, uh, Trump's uh, settlements he's been getting with CBS and whatnot to build his library.

00:42:38.998 --> 00:42:39.298
Right?

00:42:39.298 --> 00:42:44.398
Like, they didn't necessarily have that earmarked, but they're like, uh, might as well just do this.

00:42:44.969 --> 00:42:45.179
Yeah.

00:42:45.179 --> 00:42:47.128
Anyway, it's a different story, but kind of similar.

00:42:47.728 --> 00:42:55.829
Um, I think, uh, what else would you like to share with, with our, you know, we've got mostly a business owner, demographic listeners.

00:42:56.068 --> 00:43:11.608
Do you wanna give a few tips on, you know, other than call Flood and Peterson for the best risk advisors and the best company, but like what are the tips on becoming a tier as an insurance client and having kind of your pick of, of where you get it?

00:43:11.639 --> 00:43:11.909
Yeah.

00:43:11.909 --> 00:43:12.838
This is where I would start off.

00:43:12.838 --> 00:43:14.338
I mean, obviously I'm biased, right?

00:43:14.338 --> 00:43:14.608
Sure.

00:43:14.728 --> 00:43:22.679
Being one of the partners and, and with the talent we have on staff, I'm biased, but I, I, I say this all the time, I'll never say anything negative about another insurance agent and another broker.

00:43:23.128 --> 00:43:24.688
I think there's great people that work at.

00:43:25.333 --> 00:43:29.114
Our competitors, there's great people that work at the small, local, regional, national places.

00:43:29.143 --> 00:43:29.384
Sure.

00:43:29.684 --> 00:43:37.574
Um, we have chosen to continue to invest, uh, in, in, in our talent and what we provide to clients.

00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:44.054
I, I think with the private equity money coming into our marketed place and so many mergers and acquisitions and, and the sale, a lot of

00:43:44.054 --> 00:43:46.719
temptation to trim a bunch of staff and shitty service.

00:43:46.719 --> 00:43:47.384
Well, and it happens,

00:43:47.384 --> 00:43:47.623
right?

00:43:47.623 --> 00:43:51.974
I mean, if you, you pay a certain multiple for a company and you've gotta cut expenses.

00:43:52.273 --> 00:43:54.403
In our, in our business, number one expense is staff.

00:43:54.583 --> 00:43:54.853
Sure.

00:43:55.003 --> 00:44:02.443
And so we've seen the erosion of service in our marketplace and we look back and say, part of our promise is that we're gonna continue to be here.

00:44:02.773 --> 00:44:05.324
And like I mentioned earlier, we've hired 22 people this year.

00:44:05.954 --> 00:44:09.554
Uh, we continue to work on focus on creating jobs and opportunities.

00:44:09.853 --> 00:44:18.884
And we see opportunities in this marketplace to deliver something that has been an industry standard for years that we've seen eroded by, um.

00:44:19.543 --> 00:44:23.923
The private equity purchases of, of several of our competitors, and we're seeing it all over the country.

00:44:23.983 --> 00:44:24.793
Wouldn't you agree?

00:44:25.393 --> 00:44:25.634
Yeah.

00:44:25.634 --> 00:44:25.643
Yeah.

00:44:26.293 --> 00:44:26.653
Why is

00:44:26.653 --> 00:44:29.623
private equity coming into those industries?

00:44:29.804 --> 00:44:34.514
It doesn't seem like, it seems like insurance is too boring in state, or maybe they're just overstaffed.

00:44:34.543 --> 00:44:35.503
You're, after all this

00:44:35.503 --> 00:44:39.643
conversation so far where you're calling us boring, it's gotta be the best podcast you've ever had.

00:44:40.748 --> 00:44:41.039
Yeah.

00:44:41.458 --> 00:44:43.034
It it's annuity business.

00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:43.199
Yeah.

00:44:43.204 --> 00:44:43.634
Yeah.

00:44:43.664 --> 00:44:45.793
It's a very reoccurring type business.

00:44:45.793 --> 00:44:45.974
Right.

00:44:45.978 --> 00:44:46.278
Recurring revenue stuff.

00:44:46.278 --> 00:44:52.664
You take a look at it, at, at its core, the average client stays with a broker seven to eight years.

00:44:52.963 --> 00:44:53.353
Wow.

00:44:53.534 --> 00:44:54.884
I would've guessed almost longer even.

00:44:55.094 --> 00:44:57.103
Uh, that, that's industry standard.

00:44:57.284 --> 00:44:57.853
Um,

00:44:58.543 --> 00:45:00.974
Aaron's like, I punched way above that, but whatever, you know.

00:45:01.034 --> 00:45:02.483
Well, I'm only 14 years.

00:45:02.483 --> 00:45:02.998
Only in the 14.

00:45:03.398 --> 00:45:03.599
Yeah.

00:45:04.094 --> 00:45:06.643
Um, but that's just the, that's the average, right?

00:45:06.643 --> 00:45:06.733
Yeah.

00:45:06.733 --> 00:45:11.233
And so, um, it's just a very desirable Yeah.

00:45:11.264 --> 00:45:12.043
Business to be in.

00:45:12.134 --> 00:45:17.954
I mean, if you take a look at any of the publicly traded companies that are out there, PR premiums haven't gone down.

00:45:18.494 --> 00:45:18.733
Yeah.

00:45:18.824 --> 00:45:19.184
Right.

00:45:19.184 --> 00:45:25.724
I mean, I started in the business 17 years ago and we were in a soft market, and I haven't seen one since.

00:45:26.173 --> 00:45:31.903
I'm, we're, we're, we're starting to see signs that the market is softening.

00:45:32.023 --> 00:45:32.204
Oh.

00:45:32.384 --> 00:45:35.204
But I joke with people, it's increasing at a decreasing rate.

00:45:35.353 --> 00:45:35.653
Right.

00:45:35.713 --> 00:45:41.233
And so, you know, two years ago we were talking 14, 15, 20% rate increases.

00:45:41.233 --> 00:45:43.184
Sometimes they're crazy.

00:45:43.364 --> 00:45:53.804
Uh, more, and I mean, I just had, you know, a handful of renewals today for 12 one, uh, one, one type business, and it's starting to be in that three to five.

00:45:53.804 --> 00:45:54.974
It's flattening out a bit.

00:45:55.063 --> 00:45:55.333
Okay.

00:45:55.423 --> 00:46:00.824
But you got, we can sit down and have a macroeconomics conversation about how the reinsurance works.

00:46:00.824 --> 00:46:00.974
Yeah.

00:46:01.333 --> 00:46:04.184
Uh, in the insurance world, which is the driving factor.

00:46:04.184 --> 00:46:04.333
Sure.

00:46:04.333 --> 00:46:08.949
To the whole thing, whether you buy your homeowner's policy or whatever, it's, yeah.

00:46:08.978 --> 00:46:11.233
It's the reinsurance market that drives the whole.

00:46:11.909 --> 00:46:13.588
Uh, our whole industry.

00:46:13.594 --> 00:46:13.708
So, so

00:46:13.708 --> 00:46:16.559
Warren's getting after a little bit, getting a little more aggressive in that.

00:46:16.559 --> 00:46:17.969
Doesn't wanna put his money in anything else.

00:46:18.148 --> 00:46:18.688
Well, but yeah.

00:46:18.688 --> 00:46:18.929
Well

00:46:19.199 --> 00:46:21.148
there's some truth to the capital investment in that.

00:46:21.148 --> 00:46:27.179
But, you know, reinsurance is really, again, its most basic concept is insurance carriers are buying insurance on their portfolios.

00:46:27.184 --> 00:46:28.199
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:46:28.708 --> 00:46:31.798
And as the price of that goes up, the price of the underlying insurance has to grow up.

00:46:31.798 --> 00:46:32.128
Because

00:46:32.188 --> 00:46:34.289
I had, uh, Jack and Ginger Graham on Oh yeah.

00:46:34.289 --> 00:46:38.204
106, six months ago and Jack was kind of a pioneer in that reinsurance space for a while.

00:46:38.204 --> 00:46:38.213
Yeah.

00:46:38.213 --> 00:46:39.688
Especially in the catastrophic loss space.

00:46:39.688 --> 00:46:40.289
Yeah.

00:46:40.289 --> 00:46:40.309
Yeah, yeah.

00:46:40.889 --> 00:46:42.659
Um, I'm gonna call a short break.

00:46:42.688 --> 00:46:42.719
Okay.

00:46:42.719 --> 00:46:46.889
Because, uh, the insurance is just getting me too bored.

00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:47.639
No, just kidding.

00:46:47.639 --> 00:46:48.628
It's, it's very sexy.

00:46:48.778 --> 00:46:52.259
But then we're gonna come back and jump in the time machines to Wisconsin and Brainerd.

00:46:52.289 --> 00:46:52.528
Okay

00:46:54.119 --> 00:46:54.329
man.

00:46:54.329 --> 00:46:54.688
Manasa

00:46:54.778 --> 00:46:55.199
Manasa.

00:46:55.199 --> 00:46:55.469
Yeah.

00:46:55.858 --> 00:46:57.478
Manasa Wisconsin and Brainerd, Minnesota.

00:46:57.478 --> 00:46:59.818
And, uh, we'll, we'll compare Journeys.

00:47:00.028 --> 00:47:00.208
Alright.

00:47:53.070 --> 00:47:53.789
And we're back.

00:47:54.809 --> 00:47:56.550
That was a very refreshing bathroom break.

00:47:56.579 --> 00:47:59.730
You guys, you enjoy that Sure.

00:48:00.114 --> 00:48:03.059
As much as can for a bathroom break with a short bathroom break.

00:48:03.059 --> 00:48:03.239
Yeah.

00:48:05.039 --> 00:48:12.570
Um, so what we, what we like to do at this time, a lot of times is, uh, jump into the time machine.

00:48:12.989 --> 00:48:28.739
Um, Brett, one of the things I heard you say earlier was one of the things you look for in your company, especially for producers or risk advisors, is having done something else first, having some background of knowledge that reinforces your, your role.

00:48:28.739 --> 00:48:34.139
So, um, you're much older than Aaron, so I'll let you go first.

00:48:34.530 --> 00:48:36.900
Take me to take me to Wisconsin.

00:48:36.900 --> 00:48:37.619
Was that where you were born?

00:48:38.400 --> 00:48:40.889
No, I was actually born, uh, just outside of Detroit, Michigan.

00:48:41.010 --> 00:48:41.340
Okay.

00:48:41.340 --> 00:48:41.550
Yeah.

00:48:41.880 --> 00:48:42.300
All right.

00:48:42.360 --> 00:48:45.090
And then, uh, when did you move to.

00:48:45.824 --> 00:48:46.275
Wisconsin.

00:48:46.425 --> 00:48:46.664
Uh, so

00:48:46.664 --> 00:48:48.525
we moved to Wisconsin.

00:48:48.599 --> 00:48:50.235
I was, uh, about six and a half years old.

00:48:50.474 --> 00:48:50.655
Okay.

00:48:50.655 --> 00:48:50.960
When I moved to Wisconsin.

00:48:50.960 --> 00:48:51.159
Yeah.

00:48:51.159 --> 00:48:51.420
So that was a

00:48:51.420 --> 00:48:52.364
place you really grew up?

00:48:52.394 --> 00:48:52.664
Oh yeah.

00:48:52.664 --> 00:48:52.965
That was

00:48:53.534 --> 00:48:54.434
my formidable years.

00:48:54.434 --> 00:48:54.614
Were there.

00:48:54.614 --> 00:48:54.824
Yeah.

00:48:55.125 --> 00:48:57.855
Gimme your, gimme your family background.

00:48:57.855 --> 00:49:02.445
Was your dad in the auto industry or how did you choose to move to Wisconsin?

00:49:02.565 --> 00:49:07.034
Uh, bringing the, uh, the dad thing in it is a complicated Okay.

00:49:07.065 --> 00:49:07.724
It's a complicated thing.

00:49:07.724 --> 00:49:08.985
I don't really know.

00:49:08.985 --> 00:49:10.155
My dad has seen Oh, sos your mom?

00:49:10.335 --> 00:49:10.934
Uh, yeah.

00:49:10.934 --> 00:49:15.764
My, my, my mom primarily raised us and took us to, to, uh, Wisconsin

00:49:15.945 --> 00:49:16.545
and us.

00:49:16.784 --> 00:49:17.295
How many siblings?

00:49:17.295 --> 00:49:17.385
I've

00:49:17.385 --> 00:49:19.034
got a, I've got a younger brother.

00:49:19.155 --> 00:49:19.574
Okay.

00:49:19.724 --> 00:49:20.054
Yeah.

00:49:20.144 --> 00:49:21.360
A few years younger than I'm, so, yeah.

00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:21.480
Yeah.

00:49:22.034 --> 00:49:27.434
So, um, she worked and raised you boys and, uh,

00:49:27.525 --> 00:49:34.994
she did, you know, I, I will tell you, um, it's interesting to go back and look at your parents and, uh, you know, at the time it's painful.

00:49:35.054 --> 00:49:36.105
It's in some levels.

00:49:36.105 --> 00:49:36.405
Right.

00:49:36.465 --> 00:49:39.465
Uh,'cause you don't, maybe don't see her as your parent as much as you want to.

00:49:39.469 --> 00:49:39.519
Yeah.

00:49:40.094 --> 00:49:44.025
Uh, you get a deeper appreciation when you get older and have your own kids.

00:49:44.369 --> 00:49:45.690
Um, of how hard she worked.

00:49:45.690 --> 00:49:46.710
You know, she, um, yeah.

00:49:47.190 --> 00:49:49.050
Did she leave him to move to Wisconsin?

00:49:49.050 --> 00:49:50.849
It's a, it's a super, it's a long story.

00:49:50.849 --> 00:49:54.630
It's a super complicated story that's concluded years of therapy Fair.

00:49:54.900 --> 00:49:56.369
We, I'm not a therapist, so, and, and, uh,

00:49:56.369 --> 00:49:59.699
Aaron's on the other side of the couch, otherwise I'd lay down for you to do the couch session.

00:49:59.789 --> 00:50:00.840
But, uh, yeah.

00:50:00.840 --> 00:50:01.440
You know, it's interesting.

00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:07.110
My mom went through a, uh, in today's world would be known as a project, self-sufficiency.

00:50:07.230 --> 00:50:07.829
Oh, wow.

00:50:08.039 --> 00:50:12.510
You know, um, she did take some state assistance and realized, Hey, I need to, I've got two boys.

00:50:12.510 --> 00:50:13.980
I gotta raise up skill if I'm gonna Yeah.

00:50:13.980 --> 00:50:14.610
I'm gonna raise it.

00:50:14.610 --> 00:50:22.679
And so she, she got trained and then, um, got placed in a job and she worked at that same company through its various, uh, ownership changes for 38 years.

00:50:22.679 --> 00:50:23.010
Wow.

00:50:23.369 --> 00:50:29.429
And so I think the one thing I really got from my mom is just that commitment to responsibility.

00:50:29.610 --> 00:50:29.849
Yeah.

00:50:30.119 --> 00:50:31.739
You know, she was really young.

00:50:31.980 --> 00:50:32.130
Yeah.

00:50:32.190 --> 00:50:34.679
And had two young kids and had to figure out how to make it.

00:50:34.679 --> 00:50:35.610
And a time, which.

00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:37.530
You know, a lot of, um, it was, it wasn't very common.

00:50:37.530 --> 00:50:38.280
It wasn't very common.

00:50:38.280 --> 00:50:38.670
In fact, my dad's

00:50:38.670 --> 00:50:41.400
parents got divorced, uh, when he was 13.

00:50:41.400 --> 00:50:41.460
Yeah.

00:50:41.519 --> 00:50:45.119
Which made him like the one kid in school with divorced parents in the early

00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:45.480
seventies.

00:50:45.480 --> 00:50:47.849
I was still the one kid whose parents were divorced.

00:50:47.849 --> 00:50:47.940
Yeah.

00:50:47.940 --> 00:50:51.960
And so I wa my mom and my mom worked, which was, you know, a lot of my classmates didn't have their mom work.

00:50:51.960 --> 00:50:52.320
Right.

00:50:52.500 --> 00:50:53.789
But, uh, and I didn't understand it.

00:50:53.789 --> 00:50:57.750
'cause the other thing we all know is regardless of your circumstances growing up, you don't know anything different.

00:50:57.869 --> 00:50:58.769
Yeah, totally.

00:50:58.980 --> 00:51:00.210
You know, so I didn't know anything different.

00:51:00.210 --> 00:51:00.329
Yeah.

00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:05.820
Um, and so, but I just really, um, you know, admired just her hard work.

00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:06.269
Yeah.

00:51:06.570 --> 00:51:06.840
Yeah.

00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:07.619
That's actually cool.

00:51:07.619 --> 00:51:11.489
Even though when you're a kid, there's days you hated it'cause you know, what's the term?

00:51:11.489 --> 00:51:12.210
Latchkey kid.

00:51:12.389 --> 00:51:12.750
Right.

00:51:12.780 --> 00:51:15.480
And I've been letting myself into my house for all my life.

00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:16.409
I don't know anything different.

00:51:16.409 --> 00:51:16.800
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:16.800 --> 00:51:23.940
Um, but looking back on it as a parent, it took tremendous resilience and dedication for her to actually go to work and do those things.

00:51:23.945 --> 00:51:24.195
Yeah.

00:51:24.360 --> 00:51:24.599
Yeah.

00:51:24.780 --> 00:51:26.070
She could have had a lot tougher.

00:51:26.130 --> 00:51:26.670
She could have done.

00:51:26.670 --> 00:51:26.820
Yeah.

00:51:26.820 --> 00:51:28.114
She could have done a lot of other things or.

00:51:28.724 --> 00:51:28.934
Yeah.

00:51:28.940 --> 00:51:30.764
And, and she decided to work hard, right?

00:51:30.764 --> 00:51:30.855
Yeah.

00:51:30.885 --> 00:51:33.074
I mean, there's other things she could have done, and that's really cool.

00:51:33.255 --> 00:51:38.565
Uh, she, you know, she took assistance but then realized, I, I don't want to live my life like this when she went out and got a job.

00:51:38.594 --> 00:51:42.764
So tell me about little Brett, like, uh, eight, 10, 12-year-old little Brett.

00:51:42.764 --> 00:51:45.375
Were you a baseball player like Aaron?

00:51:45.375 --> 00:51:47.954
Were you a, uh, rambunctious kid?

00:51:48.255 --> 00:51:48.704
I played a lot

00:51:48.704 --> 00:51:49.155
of sports.

00:51:49.155 --> 00:51:50.835
Like any other kid, I wanted to play anything.

00:51:50.835 --> 00:51:57.855
And, you know, there's parts of my life that are pretty complicated and all serious sisters spent a lot of therapy time working through a lot of that.

00:51:57.855 --> 00:51:59.925
But you know, it as like anything else, I love sports.

00:52:00.315 --> 00:52:13.934
You know, I, uh, you know, I lived in, uh, Wisconsin and so there was just this love of the Green Bay Packers and sitting with a couple Vikings fans, I can actually, you know, emotionally tie to the fact of watching a team lose every year until Right.

00:52:14.204 --> 00:52:16.485
I became a, I became an adult in the worst word.

00:52:16.485 --> 00:52:16.815
Uh, yeah.

00:52:16.815 --> 00:52:17.835
But I like anything else.

00:52:17.835 --> 00:52:18.014
Right?

00:52:18.014 --> 00:52:21.675
I, I, I loved, uh, I loved sports probably more than I loved school.

00:52:21.675 --> 00:52:23.655
And, uh, and, and, and, uh, that

00:52:23.655 --> 00:52:25.724
game against New Orleans where Brett Fav got.

00:52:26.130 --> 00:52:27.840
Beat to crap and they should have went to the bowl.

00:52:27.840 --> 00:52:28.469
Oh, with Minnesota?

00:52:28.469 --> 00:52:28.889
Yeah.

00:52:28.894 --> 00:52:28.934
Yeah.

00:52:28.940 --> 00:52:29.969
The bounty gate theme.

00:52:30.960 --> 00:52:31.019
Ugh.

00:52:31.019 --> 00:52:31.030
Rough.

00:52:31.030 --> 00:52:31.215
Right.

00:52:31.219 --> 00:52:31.829
Rough times.

00:52:32.190 --> 00:52:32.550
Brett's.

00:52:32.610 --> 00:52:39.000
Brett's, uh, arguably, well in my life, top five most competitive people you'll meet.

00:52:39.179 --> 00:52:39.480
Hmm.

00:52:39.809 --> 00:52:40.260
Interesting.

00:52:40.769 --> 00:52:41.969
Well, you know, except pickleball these

00:52:41.969 --> 00:52:42.300
days

00:52:42.300 --> 00:52:42.570
then.

00:52:42.989 --> 00:52:43.349
No

00:52:43.349 --> 00:52:44.159
tennis.

00:52:44.244 --> 00:52:44.534
Okay.

00:52:44.539 --> 00:52:45.719
Well, alright.

00:52:46.829 --> 00:52:47.849
No, I play tennis, man.

00:52:47.849 --> 00:52:50.130
I, well not, you know, it, it, it's hard.

00:52:50.280 --> 00:52:52.380
I, I try to play golf, but here's how I put it this way.

00:52:52.380 --> 00:52:56.190
It's, if you don't start a sport as a child, it's hard to suck at several things at one time.

00:52:56.400 --> 00:52:59.429
So I try to narrow it down, but, um, yeah.

00:52:59.429 --> 00:53:06.449
Competitive, you know, I think that's driven from when you're a kid and you see all these things that other people have that you don't have.

00:53:06.454 --> 00:53:06.465
Yeah.

00:53:06.510 --> 00:53:06.659
Yeah.

00:53:06.659 --> 00:53:10.829
I was just driven to, uh, create a life for myself.

00:53:10.829 --> 00:53:16.559
And then more importantly, if I was gonna be married and have kids create a life for my kids that they didn't have to understand, that's cool.

00:53:16.559 --> 00:53:17.550
But some of that meant right.

00:53:17.550 --> 00:53:19.860
And so it drove me my whole life and sometimes.

00:53:19.889 --> 00:53:23.789
C competitiveness can be a blessing and a curse all at the same time.

00:53:23.789 --> 00:53:24.179
For sure.

00:53:24.300 --> 00:53:24.480
As

00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:26.250
I'm sure you've talked with your therapist about there too.

00:53:26.489 --> 00:53:26.789
Yeah.

00:53:26.909 --> 00:53:27.150
Oh yeah.

00:53:27.150 --> 00:53:27.989
We talk about it all the time.

00:53:28.005 --> 00:53:29.760
It's, it is not like, Aaron's not competitive.

00:53:29.764 --> 00:53:31.530
I, I, I think No, Aaron's very competitive.

00:53:31.530 --> 00:53:31.829
Well, yeah.

00:53:31.829 --> 00:53:32.610
Oh, a hundred percent.

00:53:32.610 --> 00:53:34.889
I mean, you, you know, to do anything alive, you know, that's why

00:53:34.889 --> 00:53:35.489
you left begging.

00:53:35.489 --> 00:53:37.500
He knew he could never be as good a banker as I was.

00:53:37.500 --> 00:53:38.099
That was it.

00:53:38.159 --> 00:53:39.869
You know, we talked about that before we took that.

00:53:39.869 --> 00:53:43.920
It's like, Hey, are you ready to come and be in that, that, that old PTSD ts moment?

00:53:44.489 --> 00:53:45.599
He was a better baker than me by the time I left

00:53:45.599 --> 00:53:45.929
actually.

00:53:46.590 --> 00:53:47.250
Probably.

00:53:47.940 --> 00:53:49.110
But, uh, yeah, I mean.

00:53:49.769 --> 00:53:50.010
Yeah.

00:53:50.489 --> 00:53:53.309
Childhood in several ways can drive, create driving.

00:53:53.309 --> 00:53:54.179
Well, high performers

00:53:54.179 --> 00:53:56.190
rarely have an easy path Yeah.

00:53:56.369 --> 00:53:56.969
To that.

00:53:57.269 --> 00:53:57.525
So, but

00:53:57.525 --> 00:53:58.739
it's, but I don't know any other path.

00:53:58.739 --> 00:53:59.579
So to me, yeah.

00:53:59.880 --> 00:54:03.000
I don't say my life's any better, worse, or harder than anyone else's.

00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:03.179
Right.

00:54:03.179 --> 00:54:05.730
It's all about what we do with the circumstances that we're dealt.

00:54:05.820 --> 00:54:10.110
I'm gonna swing back to you and talk about the military decision after we get Aaron some Yeah.

00:54:10.110 --> 00:54:11.309
A hundred, some maritime in Brainerd.

00:54:11.309 --> 00:54:14.579
But tell me about your, your family setting.

00:54:14.639 --> 00:54:16.500
Were you born, raised there?

00:54:16.559 --> 00:54:16.920
Yep.

00:54:16.980 --> 00:54:22.710
Mom still lives, uh, in the house that I was, I can't say I was born.

00:54:22.710 --> 00:54:23.019
Came back too.

00:54:23.019 --> 00:54:24.030
Came back to from the hospital.

00:54:24.090 --> 00:54:24.269
Yeah.

00:54:24.869 --> 00:54:24.960
Came,

00:54:25.050 --> 00:54:26.039
um, yeah.

00:54:26.039 --> 00:54:26.880
So Cool.

00:54:27.539 --> 00:54:28.829
Your dad has passed on, I guess, or?

00:54:28.860 --> 00:54:28.980
Yep.

00:54:29.130 --> 00:54:29.309
Dad

00:54:29.309 --> 00:54:31.739
passed, uh, will be five years here in March.

00:54:31.769 --> 00:54:32.280
Yeah, sorry.

00:54:32.519 --> 00:54:35.309
Um, but yeah, I grew up in Brainerd.

00:54:35.460 --> 00:54:39.000
Um, my grandma grandpa lived like right next door.

00:54:39.000 --> 00:54:41.760
It was one of those over the rivers built babysitter kind of things.

00:54:41.760 --> 00:54:42.719
Through the woods kind of things.

00:54:42.750 --> 00:54:43.679
No, it's a lot like.

00:54:44.565 --> 00:54:47.085
Um, we grew up in the eighties, right?

00:54:47.085 --> 00:54:47.324
Yeah.

00:54:47.329 --> 00:54:50.054
We're all, yeah, I was free range too, like you talked about Last Creek kids.

00:54:50.355 --> 00:54:50.625
Yeah.

00:54:50.625 --> 00:54:50.684
I

00:54:50.684 --> 00:54:53.804
mean, my mom was there, but it didn't matter if she was there or not.

00:54:53.804 --> 00:54:54.974
I was just running, you know.

00:54:55.184 --> 00:54:58.545
Um, my grandpa's, uh, was military.

00:54:58.545 --> 00:54:59.715
He was in World War ii.

00:54:59.775 --> 00:55:01.815
My dad followed in his path after Okay.

00:55:02.264 --> 00:55:04.905
He graduated high school and went into the National Guard.

00:55:05.534 --> 00:55:08.684
Um, and then he was a National Guard employee for 37 Wow.

00:55:08.684 --> 00:55:09.824
Years before he retired.

00:55:10.364 --> 00:55:12.945
He was a two job guy, so nights and weekends.

00:55:12.945 --> 00:55:16.605
He was a general contractor with, uh, one of his, uh, buddies in town.

00:55:16.605 --> 00:55:18.195
So I was on a home site.

00:55:18.525 --> 00:55:19.514
Since third grade.

00:55:19.664 --> 00:55:20.114
Oh, wow.

00:55:20.144 --> 00:55:22.309
Picking up trash and you know, it was,

00:55:22.724 --> 00:55:22.815
wow.

00:55:22.875 --> 00:55:26.414
One of the, this is like summertimes mostly, or whatever, or summertimes, yeah.

00:55:26.414 --> 00:55:26.954
After school.

00:55:27.255 --> 00:55:27.405
Yep.

00:55:27.405 --> 00:55:27.465
If,

00:55:28.304 --> 00:55:29.684
you know Minnesota right?

00:55:29.684 --> 00:55:31.664
In the summertime the sun goes down when?

00:55:31.724 --> 00:55:32.235
10 o'clock.

00:55:32.235 --> 00:55:32.775
Yeah, about 10 o'clock.

00:55:32.775 --> 00:55:33.045
Yeah.

00:55:33.045 --> 00:55:33.375
10 30.

00:55:33.974 --> 00:55:40.784
So it was funny, he was like, um, he gave me one of those little, um, pocket protector kind of portfolios.

00:55:40.784 --> 00:55:40.994
Right.

00:55:41.295 --> 00:55:45.494
And it was like spiral and it was, I had a red one, my, or a green one, I can't remember.

00:55:45.494 --> 00:55:48.135
My brother had the same, we had collars of ours.

00:55:48.135 --> 00:55:48.195
Yeah.

00:55:48.195 --> 00:55:50.684
And he is like, the only way you're gonna get paid is if you track your hours.

00:55:50.684 --> 00:55:56.324
So, uh, every night we would go out, we'd clock in, clock out, and he'd pay us$5 cash.

00:55:56.414 --> 00:55:56.715
Yeah.

00:55:56.775 --> 00:55:57.164
Right.

00:55:57.195 --> 00:56:03.525
So third grade all the way through college, that's how he put me through school actually is, um, the four.

00:56:03.585 --> 00:56:06.494
Well, I spent five years in college, thanks to the flood of 97.

00:56:07.094 --> 00:56:12.250
Um, but yeah, he, 10 99, me and my brother for my college career and Oh wow.

00:56:12.525 --> 00:56:14.744
Was my college banker, banker, for lack of a better word.

00:56:14.750 --> 00:56:14.889
Yeah.

00:56:14.894 --> 00:56:15.105
Yeah.

00:56:15.105 --> 00:56:17.085
My scholarship was working nights.

00:56:17.804 --> 00:56:19.184
Weekends building houses,

00:56:19.335 --> 00:56:19.514
huh?

00:56:19.574 --> 00:56:20.054
Um,

00:56:20.324 --> 00:56:21.105
yeah, yeah,

00:56:21.105 --> 00:56:21.114
yeah.

00:56:21.375 --> 00:56:22.155
I worked for my dad.

00:56:22.155 --> 00:56:23.324
It as my first real job too.

00:56:23.324 --> 00:56:25.965
We, uh, we, he had a spray coop.

00:56:25.969 --> 00:56:26.985
You know what a spray coop is?

00:56:27.014 --> 00:56:28.034
No, tell me more.

00:56:28.034 --> 00:56:33.764
It's, it's those old, like before they had big field sprayers, they had this, this little like three wheel things and they'd drive around there.

00:56:33.824 --> 00:56:34.034
Yep.

00:56:34.364 --> 00:56:36.855
But they, you can't tell where you've been and where you haven't been.

00:56:36.855 --> 00:56:44.324
And so my brother and I would both be flaggers, so we knew exactly how wide the spray coup was, and we had to walk that many steps.

00:56:44.505 --> 00:56:50.715
And then he would, like, he would head at me and then once he got close enough, I would walk and then he'd drive straight at my brother Andy.

00:56:51.105 --> 00:56:52.905
And he paid us 5 cents an acre.

00:56:53.235 --> 00:56:53.534
Yeah.

00:56:53.894 --> 00:56:53.954
Wow.

00:56:53.954 --> 00:56:54.045
And

00:56:54.045 --> 00:56:56.684
he got paid like a buck and a quarter an acre or something like that.

00:56:56.684 --> 00:56:56.744
Yeah.

00:56:56.775 --> 00:56:58.815
To apply chemical to these fields.

00:56:58.815 --> 00:57:07.425
And so that's part of how I explain my personality is walking through a lot of poisonous chemicals, uh, while out flagging fields in my Explains a lot.

00:57:07.425 --> 00:57:08.699
Kurt explains a lot.

00:57:08.699 --> 00:57:10.994
Fourth, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade years.

00:57:11.000 --> 00:57:11.139
Yeah.

00:57:12.344 --> 00:57:12.414
Um, yeah.

00:57:12.414 --> 00:57:17.085
But that, I think that kind of in sitting, that work ethic is a, an important thing and yeah.

00:57:17.909 --> 00:57:18.389
Um, cool.

00:57:18.389 --> 00:57:19.800
It was a big thing for me.

00:57:19.829 --> 00:57:20.820
You got just one brother?

00:57:21.090 --> 00:57:21.960
I have an older brother.

00:57:21.965 --> 00:57:22.105
Okay.

00:57:22.105 --> 00:57:23.159
Uh, a younger sister.

00:57:23.250 --> 00:57:23.550
Okay.

00:57:23.789 --> 00:57:26.039
Um, they both live back in brainer.

00:57:26.099 --> 00:57:26.369
Yeah.

00:57:26.460 --> 00:57:26.730
Yep.

00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:27.510
Same here by

00:57:27.510 --> 00:57:29.099
all my extended families back there too.

00:57:29.340 --> 00:57:29.489
Yeah.

00:57:29.670 --> 00:57:30.929
So I was gonna say

00:57:30.929 --> 00:57:32.730
I had to honor meeting Aaron's dad.

00:57:33.210 --> 00:57:33.480
Oh.

00:57:33.630 --> 00:57:39.449
And it probably took about 10 minutes, uh, uh, uh, with him to understand Aaron's extreme discipline.

00:57:39.449 --> 00:57:41.429
He may be one of the most disciplined people I've ever met.

00:57:41.429 --> 00:57:41.610
Yeah.

00:57:41.760 --> 00:57:42.659
Especially in a sales role.

00:57:42.659 --> 00:57:44.489
He is one of the most disciplined salespeople I've ever met.

00:57:44.940 --> 00:57:46.650
Uh, if I gotta hire him to work from Tank Oh.

00:57:46.650 --> 00:57:46.889
Of time.

00:57:47.105 --> 00:57:47.945
I'm, I've a big business.

00:57:48.000 --> 00:57:50.219
I'm just talking about discipline in every aspect of life.

00:57:50.219 --> 00:57:53.699
But I've got honor of meeting his dad and, and, uh, you spend any time around him.

00:57:53.699 --> 00:57:57.510
It, it didn't take very long from first impression and conversation.

00:57:57.510 --> 00:58:02.460
He was just, your dad was just a very disciplined guy that did things for the right reason.

00:58:02.610 --> 00:58:02.909
Yeah.

00:58:03.000 --> 00:58:03.239
Yeah.

00:58:03.300 --> 00:58:03.869
That's really cool.

00:58:04.199 --> 00:58:05.130
How was your.

00:58:05.579 --> 00:58:06.480
School experience.

00:58:06.480 --> 00:58:09.329
You're probably good student and stuff as well.

00:58:09.570 --> 00:58:11.789
I know you played baseball even in college, right?

00:58:12.300 --> 00:58:12.449
Yep.

00:58:12.449 --> 00:58:12.599
Did you

00:58:12.599 --> 00:58:13.409
do that in high school too?

00:58:13.619 --> 00:58:13.889
Yep.

00:58:14.130 --> 00:58:15.539
Um, so yeah, I,

00:58:16.139 --> 00:58:21.869
or probably all the way through, starting in third grade, my mom started my peewee baseball team actually when I was in third grade.

00:58:21.929 --> 00:58:22.320
Yep.

00:58:22.409 --> 00:58:27.150
Uh, played ball with my brother for a lot of years'cause we were Sure close enough age group together.

00:58:27.150 --> 00:58:30.750
And then, um, yeah, played ball through high school.

00:58:30.960 --> 00:58:32.670
Um, what was your spot?

00:58:32.699 --> 00:58:33.449
I caught.

00:58:33.780 --> 00:58:34.079
Oh, you were a

00:58:34.079 --> 00:58:34.409
catcher?

00:58:34.469 --> 00:58:34.739
Yep.

00:58:34.800 --> 00:58:35.280
Interesting.

00:58:35.280 --> 00:58:36.449
And so funny.

00:58:36.539 --> 00:58:39.599
Uh, 30 year anniversary state championship was this summer.

00:58:39.750 --> 00:58:40.260
Got to go.

00:58:40.260 --> 00:58:41.789
Oh, go see state.

00:58:41.820 --> 00:58:44.670
Uh, a lot of my co my high school teammates that I hadn't.

00:58:44.969 --> 00:58:46.380
So you were a state champion baseball team?

00:58:46.380 --> 00:58:46.590
Yep.

00:58:46.679 --> 00:58:46.920
That's cool.

00:58:46.920 --> 00:58:47.369
95.

00:58:47.369 --> 00:58:51.090
We uh, we pulled a rabbit out of a hat, so Nice.

00:58:51.094 --> 00:58:51.224
Nice.

00:58:51.230 --> 00:58:51.929
It was a lot of fun.

00:58:51.934 --> 00:58:52.184
Yeah.

00:58:52.190 --> 00:58:52.440
Yeah.

00:58:52.440 --> 00:58:54.150
And then went to my first year out at.

00:58:54.570 --> 00:58:55.800
Uh, high school.

00:58:55.800 --> 00:58:57.360
I went to Minot State for quick.

00:58:57.389 --> 00:58:57.599
Okay.

00:58:57.960 --> 00:58:59.494
Because they would like to play baseball Forint.

00:58:59.760 --> 00:59:03.690
Uh, long story there, but the head, head coach, uh, was from Brainerd.

00:59:03.900 --> 00:59:04.110
Oh.

00:59:04.110 --> 00:59:08.250
And Minot was a reverse Title IX situation, so they actually brought the baseball program back.

00:59:08.340 --> 00:59:08.614
Oh, interesting.

00:59:08.614 --> 00:59:14.340
So it was the first year kind of situation and quickly learned that Minot was not the place for me.

00:59:14.340 --> 00:59:14.699
And then, you know,

00:59:14.699 --> 00:59:15.119
why not?

00:59:15.119 --> 00:59:15.510
Why not?

00:59:15.659 --> 00:59:16.050
Yeah.

00:59:16.079 --> 00:59:18.570
Because freeze's the reason,

00:59:18.659 --> 00:59:19.530
freeze's the reason go.

00:59:20.130 --> 00:59:20.940
That makes sense.

00:59:21.059 --> 00:59:23.639
Uh, so I went to Grand Forks North Dakota instead.

00:59:23.639 --> 00:59:24.570
Oh, you can freeze there instead.

00:59:24.570 --> 00:59:24.869
Yeah.

00:59:25.139 --> 00:59:30.719
Uh, so spent, spent four years at UND and graduated there and, uh, played baseball.

00:59:31.170 --> 00:59:31.710
Uh, my

00:59:31.949 --> 00:59:32.579
still catcher

00:59:32.610 --> 00:59:33.210
still caught.

00:59:33.239 --> 00:59:33.539
Yep.

00:59:33.989 --> 00:59:34.289
Catcher's

00:59:34.289 --> 00:59:36.090
a really interesting position.

00:59:36.449 --> 00:59:43.409
Um, I mean, you gotta be kind of the smartest guy on the team and the most like, willing for bad shit to happen.

00:59:43.409 --> 00:59:43.650
Like, I

00:59:43.650 --> 00:59:44.550
don't know, you gotta be stubborn.

00:59:44.550 --> 00:59:45.360
I love that bats

00:59:45.360 --> 00:59:45.719
and

00:59:46.139 --> 00:59:48.210
I love the, the strategy of the position.

00:59:48.239 --> 00:59:48.480
Yeah.

00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:48.900
So it was.

00:59:50.114 --> 00:59:52.905
Growing up I called my own games with my pitchers.

00:59:52.905 --> 00:59:53.204
Right?

00:59:53.204 --> 00:59:53.235
Mm.

00:59:53.414 --> 00:59:55.724
And so you never, you don't get to do that today.

00:59:55.724 --> 00:59:56.744
Coaches are Mm.

00:59:56.775 --> 00:59:58.784
Calling the game from the bench and Yeah.

00:59:58.784 --> 00:59:59.534
Or wherever.

00:59:59.534 --> 01:00:01.275
So I really had a lot of fun.

01:00:01.275 --> 01:00:10.394
I, I mean, heck, my, when I was 15, I had to have mom and dad sign an amateur baseball contract to allow me to play, uh, amateur baseball.

01:00:10.454 --> 01:00:10.755
Mm.

01:00:11.175 --> 01:00:13.304
So, which happens a lot in Yeah.

01:00:13.304 --> 01:00:15.855
Central Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota.

01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:18.449
Iowa, a big amateur baseball system back.

01:00:18.449 --> 01:00:18.510
Yeah.

01:00:18.570 --> 01:00:19.199
What do they call that?

01:00:19.199 --> 01:00:19.530
League

01:00:19.530 --> 01:00:19.590
B?

01:00:20.099 --> 01:00:23.579
Well, it's, it's, I mean, there's a whole amateur Yeah.

01:00:23.610 --> 01:00:24.119
League around.

01:00:24.119 --> 01:00:24.449
We had a big

01:00:24.449 --> 01:00:25.199
stadium actually.

01:00:25.199 --> 01:00:29.190
The, they're an Erstad stadium in Jamestown now, but they play a lot of those, those were

01:00:29.190 --> 01:00:31.469
professionals, just to be clear.

01:00:31.469 --> 01:00:36.150
So the amateur baseball team is, is, uh, just non, non-paid.

01:00:36.150 --> 01:00:37.769
They're like non-profit baseball teams.

01:00:37.829 --> 01:00:38.190
Okay.

01:00:38.340 --> 01:00:41.820
So you raised advertising and just to get to, yeah.

01:00:41.820 --> 01:00:42.059
To play.

01:00:42.059 --> 01:00:46.619
But I caught my, um, two of my, uh, high school baseball coaches.

01:00:46.889 --> 01:00:47.250
Okay.

01:00:47.400 --> 01:00:48.269
It was a ton of fun.

01:00:48.449 --> 01:00:48.809
Very cool.

01:00:48.809 --> 01:00:51.985
Uh, at 15, you know, catching rides with your coaches.

01:00:53.070 --> 01:00:54.329
Little Falls and St.

01:00:54.329 --> 01:00:55.320
Cloud and Yeah.

01:00:55.320 --> 01:00:55.329
Yeah.

01:00:55.329 --> 01:00:55.340
Yeah.

01:00:55.349 --> 01:00:55.920
How fun.

01:00:56.070 --> 01:00:56.519
Yeah.

01:00:56.670 --> 01:00:59.400
Um, small little towns in, in Brainerd.

01:00:59.400 --> 01:01:00.809
Buxton was another one.

01:01:00.809 --> 01:01:02.190
I mean, they were all over the place.

01:01:02.219 --> 01:01:02.400
Yeah.

01:01:02.639 --> 01:01:04.739
Um, playing baseball, that's one of the cool things about

01:01:04.739 --> 01:01:06.210
Minnesota as compared to North Dakota.

01:01:06.210 --> 01:01:06.269
Yeah.

01:01:06.269 --> 01:01:07.559
And Wisconsin too, probably.

01:01:07.559 --> 01:01:08.010
But yeah.

01:01:08.070 --> 01:01:15.840
There's just so much population density of all those small towns out there that there's, you know, I, I had to drive 80 miles to play basketball in high school.

01:01:15.869 --> 01:01:16.079
Yeah.

01:01:16.409 --> 01:01:18.030
Because to find another school that small,

01:01:18.034 --> 01:01:21.119
well, well, Manas Max was the team in our town that Aaron's talking about.

01:01:21.119 --> 01:01:21.179
Yeah.

01:01:21.179 --> 01:01:24.090
And one a, a, a mutual friend of ours played for that team.

01:01:24.150 --> 01:01:24.329
Yeah.

01:01:24.329 --> 01:01:25.500
Small enough that lives here in downtown.

01:01:25.500 --> 01:01:25.800
Well, yeah.

01:01:25.800 --> 01:01:26.820
Thomas Aarons, yeah.

01:01:26.820 --> 01:01:27.780
Played, he played for him.

01:01:27.780 --> 01:01:27.929
Manas

01:01:28.139 --> 01:01:28.860
Max, my hometown.

01:01:28.860 --> 01:01:28.920
Oh.

01:01:28.920 --> 01:01:29.550
That's why.

01:01:29.934 --> 01:01:38.394
Well in small, like my high school, um, uh, assistant baseball coach for high school was from Pecka.

01:01:39.175 --> 01:01:39.414
Oh yeah.

01:01:39.505 --> 01:01:41.425
And which is not far from where Breck up.

01:01:41.425 --> 01:01:41.485
Yeah.

01:01:41.605 --> 01:01:45.715
So you always, we took our amateur team to Akka to play.

01:01:46.135 --> 01:01:46.224
Wow.

01:01:46.224 --> 01:01:47.425
I don't know, three, four games.

01:01:47.485 --> 01:01:48.505
That's quite an endeavor

01:01:48.505 --> 01:01:50.034
as a 15-year-old or whatever.

01:01:50.034 --> 01:01:52.224
Well, I mean, it's pretty, I mean, later after that, were a little

01:01:52.224 --> 01:01:53.275
bit later, but Yeah.

01:01:53.695 --> 01:01:57.684
Um, the amateur baseball system in the Midwest is just there.

01:01:57.744 --> 01:01:59.125
It doesn't exist out here.

01:01:59.155 --> 01:01:59.574
Yeah.

01:01:59.579 --> 01:01:59.610
Mm-hmm.

01:01:59.724 --> 01:02:06.235
Um, so like high sch, the, the best thing that's probably going on here for amateur baseball is what?

01:02:06.235 --> 01:02:06.565
Um.

01:02:07.304 --> 01:02:08.715
Like the Fork, Collins Foxes.

01:02:08.835 --> 01:02:09.105
Yeah.

01:02:09.135 --> 01:02:15.405
And what they, they have been able to create bringing the foxes back and all the other teams that Preston.

01:02:15.405 --> 01:02:16.905
And have you stayed baseball at

01:02:16.905 --> 01:02:17.385
all, you,

01:02:17.414 --> 01:02:18.644
me or softball?

01:02:18.644 --> 01:02:19.605
Anything, any of that?

01:02:19.605 --> 01:02:19.664
No.

01:02:19.724 --> 01:02:27.105
I, I played softball until I was 40 and I took the guys to Old Seas my last game and I said, all right, I'm out.

01:02:27.105 --> 01:02:27.764
Have a great time.

01:02:27.764 --> 01:02:27.885
Really?

01:02:27.885 --> 01:02:28.545
They're like, you're quitting.

01:02:28.545 --> 01:02:34.875
I'm like, yeah, I don't need to give, uh, you know, I don't need knee surgery any faster than I'm gonna get it right now.

01:02:35.175 --> 01:02:35.655
That's fair.

01:02:35.659 --> 01:02:35.820
Yeah.

01:02:35.840 --> 01:02:36.059
Yep.

01:02:36.255 --> 01:02:40.545
Hung up the fair, hung up the cleats, grabbed the golf club, grabbed the shotgun in the fall.

01:02:40.605 --> 01:02:40.965
Yeah.

01:02:41.114 --> 01:02:41.385
Yep.

01:02:41.445 --> 01:02:41.835
Dig it.

01:02:41.954 --> 01:02:48.764
I, uh, I watched a couple of the World Series games and it really reminded me how much I really, actually just really enjoy the game though.

01:02:48.764 --> 01:02:48.945
Yeah.

01:02:48.945 --> 01:02:49.605
I miss it.

01:02:49.875 --> 01:02:50.355
It's fun.

01:02:50.355 --> 01:02:55.815
Um, but so it goes, so Brett, you made a decision to enter the military.

01:02:56.175 --> 01:02:57.195
What was that like?

01:02:57.255 --> 01:03:00.135
Lead me into that space that you were at.

01:03:00.704 --> 01:03:02.684
Well, decision's an interesting term,

01:03:02.954 --> 01:03:03.255
or did

01:03:03.255 --> 01:03:04.545
you get in big bad trouble?

01:03:04.635 --> 01:03:06.539
They said, no, that wasn't go to jail, go to the military.

01:03:07.039 --> 01:03:09.315
So I started, we were talking about childhood jobs earlier.

01:03:09.315 --> 01:03:11.474
I, I actually started working at 13 for my uncle.

01:03:11.474 --> 01:03:14.019
He, um, installed and refinish hardwood floors.

01:03:14.175 --> 01:03:14.505
Okay.

01:03:14.744 --> 01:03:16.545
In fact, at this time, that's also work.

01:03:16.755 --> 01:03:16.965
Yeah.

01:03:16.965 --> 01:03:17.625
It's a lot of work.

01:03:17.625 --> 01:03:17.835
Right.

01:03:17.835 --> 01:03:19.635
A lot dust, a lot of heavy lifting.

01:03:19.635 --> 01:03:19.815
Right.

01:03:19.815 --> 01:03:19.934
Yeah.

01:03:19.994 --> 01:03:23.804
Uh, so great thing is I didn't have to do offseason workouts for football or I was lifting all time.

01:03:23.809 --> 01:03:25.420
Just carry logs around here, boards around.

01:03:25.514 --> 01:03:26.054
It's crazy.

01:03:26.054 --> 01:03:30.704
I mean, now that it's company, my cousin run it now, but, uh, they do half the NBA floors in the.

01:03:31.079 --> 01:03:31.590
Oh wow.

01:03:31.590 --> 01:03:31.920
Right now.

01:03:31.920 --> 01:03:32.130
Yeah.

01:03:32.190 --> 01:03:32.400
Wow.

01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:32.909
That's impressive.

01:03:32.909 --> 01:03:33.360
Yeah.

01:03:33.360 --> 01:03:33.369
Yeah.

01:03:33.369 --> 01:03:40.110
They, the company's really grown, but I decided I, I really didn't want to do that and tried to, uh, went to college, played a, you know.

01:03:40.650 --> 01:03:43.980
Like a lot of our guys on our team, uh, got a chance to play athletics.

01:03:43.980 --> 01:03:45.809
I played in a okay, junior college basketball

01:03:45.989 --> 01:03:46.289
Alright.

01:03:46.320 --> 01:03:46.409
For

01:03:46.409 --> 01:03:46.679
a year.

01:03:46.679 --> 01:03:49.585
And fi uh, creatively found a way.

01:03:49.585 --> 01:03:50.130
What was your spot?

01:03:50.369 --> 01:03:50.744
You forward?

01:03:50.744 --> 01:03:51.539
I played a guard.

01:03:51.599 --> 01:03:52.829
I played guard forward.

01:03:52.829 --> 01:03:53.010
Yeah.

01:03:53.099 --> 01:03:54.840
Like what would be the three position guard?

01:03:54.844 --> 01:03:54.945
Yeah.

01:03:54.949 --> 01:03:55.110
Yeah.

01:03:55.110 --> 01:03:55.800
Three today.

01:03:55.800 --> 01:04:02.639
And, um, but yeah, unique and creative as I was at that time, I found a way to have the school tell me not to come back.

01:04:03.869 --> 01:04:04.050
Yeah.

01:04:04.050 --> 01:04:05.099
'cause your grades were amazing.

01:04:05.099 --> 01:04:05.309
Yeah.

01:04:05.309 --> 01:04:06.269
That, you know, they were awesome.

01:04:06.275 --> 01:04:08.639
I, I was lighting the world on fire and, you know, I, um,

01:04:08.730 --> 01:04:10.440
paying all the attention to my classes, you

01:04:10.440 --> 01:04:15.030
know, I was really, really fortunate to grow up to a a, a next door to a neighbor.

01:04:15.030 --> 01:04:19.320
He's like my older brother, um, who, uh, was in the Air Force.

01:04:19.679 --> 01:04:20.010
Okay.

01:04:20.070 --> 01:04:24.510
And, uh, you know, unfortunately he was home on leave when I was a senior in high school and broke his neck.

01:04:24.599 --> 01:04:25.650
He's been paralyzed

01:04:25.769 --> 01:04:26.219
Oh, wow.

01:04:26.429 --> 01:04:29.489
From the neck down, uh, for what'll be 41 years here.

01:04:29.519 --> 01:04:29.610
Wow.

01:04:29.610 --> 01:04:30.179
Next month.

01:04:30.179 --> 01:04:37.769
And, um, what's amazing about that is that was another shaping moment in my life because reality is he, in all these years, I've never heard him once complain.

01:04:37.769 --> 01:04:38.219
Right.

01:04:38.699 --> 01:04:49.409
And so when things academically weren't going right, I mean, you know, it's pretty bad when you're playing sports and they won't let you say, uh, he, you know, convinced me like, Hey, go try the military out.

01:04:49.409 --> 01:04:53.760
And I joined the Air Force in the fall of, uh, in 1987.

01:04:54.090 --> 01:04:54.570
It's coming up.

01:04:54.599 --> 01:04:54.900
Yeah.

01:04:55.139 --> 01:04:56.670
Which seems like a lifetime ago.

01:04:56.670 --> 01:04:57.329
I mean, what was it?

01:04:57.329 --> 01:04:58.349
Almost 38 years ago.

01:04:58.349 --> 01:05:01.889
And made a, a, a decision to enlist.

01:05:03.224 --> 01:05:07.034
Which in many ways was some of the most formative years of my life.

01:05:07.094 --> 01:05:07.425
Yeah.

01:05:07.605 --> 01:05:10.184
Uh, you know, I, I went into accounting and finance.

01:05:10.184 --> 01:05:10.275
Well,

01:05:10.275 --> 01:05:14.204
I'm only imagining you, I mean, you didn't have a lot of male influence in your No, not necessarily.

01:05:14.204 --> 01:05:17.744
Like, aside from the elective ones with your neighbor and friend and stuff like that.

01:05:18.764 --> 01:05:19.094
Yeah.

01:05:19.094 --> 01:05:22.934
And my mom got remarried, but there, like I said, there's not enough room on complicated that counted at the moment.

01:05:22.940 --> 01:05:23.070
Complic.

01:05:23.074 --> 01:05:23.085
Yeah.

01:05:23.085 --> 01:05:23.715
It's complicated.

01:05:24.105 --> 01:05:26.144
So, uh, anyway, I ended up in the military, but way,

01:05:26.144 --> 01:05:26.655
either way.

01:05:26.655 --> 01:05:30.164
Now all of a sudden you've got like buckets full of male discipline going on.

01:05:31.065 --> 01:05:31.335
Yeah.

01:05:31.364 --> 01:05:31.565
So I, uh, yeah.

01:05:31.565 --> 01:05:32.204
So I ended up in the military.

01:05:32.204 --> 01:05:34.215
I went up going, going into accounting and finance.

01:05:34.230 --> 01:05:35.804
I, I, I still have my recruiter's card.

01:05:35.804 --> 01:05:38.264
I should track him down and say, Hey, it's not what you thought it would be.

01:05:38.864 --> 01:05:43.724
Uh, so what's interesting about that is, you know, I spent eight years, I spent a couple years stationed.

01:05:44.655 --> 01:05:46.304
Uh, just north of, uh, London.

01:05:46.815 --> 01:05:47.114
Oh wow.

01:05:47.114 --> 01:05:47.264
About

01:05:47.264 --> 01:05:47.925
60 miles.

01:05:47.925 --> 01:05:51.795
A little base called, uh, RF Berry, which is next to a town called Huntington.

01:05:51.945 --> 01:05:52.304
Okay.

01:05:52.514 --> 01:05:58.485
And, uh, you know, it was, uh, it was fantastic, you know, played a, got to play full contact football a couple years.

01:05:58.724 --> 01:05:58.994
Cool.

01:05:59.025 --> 01:06:00.614
You know, back in the day, if you ever seen the old

01:06:00.614 --> 01:06:02.175
MASH movies, well, plus, but ahead.

01:06:02.235 --> 01:06:04.815
Those guys didn't know how to play football nearly as good as the Americans.

01:06:04.815 --> 01:06:06.135
No, I mean, it was all Americans on base.

01:06:06.164 --> 01:06:06.704
Oh sure, of course.

01:06:06.704 --> 01:06:06.764
Yeah.

01:06:06.769 --> 01:06:06.869
Yeah.

01:06:06.869 --> 01:06:07.070
So it

01:06:07.070 --> 01:06:07.215
was cool.

01:06:07.215 --> 01:06:08.264
So we got travel, so Oh wow.

01:06:08.264 --> 01:06:08.715
It was great.

01:06:08.715 --> 01:06:09.974
I mean it was, it was an interesting Oh, cool.

01:06:10.034 --> 01:06:11.385
Different, a long time.

01:06:11.385 --> 01:06:12.284
The military is not the same now.

01:06:12.284 --> 01:06:12.704
And what's your

01:06:12.704 --> 01:06:13.635
football position?

01:06:13.724 --> 01:06:14.894
I played safety when I was there.

01:06:14.894 --> 01:06:15.224
Okay.

01:06:15.224 --> 01:06:15.855
That sounds about right.

01:06:16.605 --> 01:06:22.994
And so, uh, so a lot of sports going back to, I mean, we've all in some ways, shape or form try to, you know, maintain that competitive thing of some kind.

01:06:23.324 --> 01:06:25.125
Now would you say it was a pickleball guy?

01:06:25.425 --> 01:06:26.144
I was just, pickleball is hard.

01:06:26.144 --> 01:06:26.925
Have you played by the way?

01:06:26.925 --> 01:06:27.434
I have.

01:06:27.465 --> 01:06:27.614
Yeah.

01:06:27.614 --> 01:06:27.724
It's very hard.

01:06:27.724 --> 01:06:28.244
It's harder than you think.

01:06:28.485 --> 01:06:29.235
It's very harder than you think.

01:06:29.235 --> 01:06:29.385
And

01:06:29.385 --> 01:06:33.315
the cool thing is like the old guys can beat the young guys more often than not.

01:06:33.369 --> 01:06:33.429
Wow.

01:06:33.579 --> 01:06:38.199
Uh, because it isn't really about, there's some speed and stuff, but there's a lot of strategy in that game.

01:06:38.199 --> 01:06:39.429
A lot of strategy in the game.

01:06:39.429 --> 01:06:45.789
And so anyway, so I left England and got stationed in the panhandle of Florida, Fort Long Beach, Justin area for five plus years.

01:06:45.789 --> 01:06:50.110
And, you know, back to a mentor, I had a, uh, you know, we've all been shaped by a mentor in our life.

01:06:50.110 --> 01:06:57.639
I had a mentor who was a Chief Master sergeant, uh, who came to me one day and said, Hey, look, I'm getting ready to retire after 33 years.

01:06:58.059 --> 01:07:00.429
This is a guy that enlisted in 1960.

01:07:00.550 --> 01:07:00.909
Yeah.

01:07:01.119 --> 01:07:04.389
And said, uh, I've gotta go find another career now.

01:07:04.840 --> 01:07:09.159
Uh, it'd be great for you to get out and go pursue something now.

01:07:09.519 --> 01:07:09.730
Yeah.

01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:10.989
And follow your dream and do something.

01:07:10.994 --> 01:07:11.590
Don't do what I did.

01:07:11.590 --> 01:07:12.940
Go back to school and, and everything.

01:07:12.940 --> 01:07:14.469
So, you know, I left.

01:07:14.469 --> 01:07:18.280
I mean, I, I got out in 1995, uh, following his advice and, um, interesting.

01:07:19.000 --> 01:07:22.449
You know, did you go through a plan that allowed them to, like a GI bill or something?

01:07:22.784 --> 01:07:23.744
A GI bill to school bill and whatnot?

01:07:23.744 --> 01:07:24.025
Bill?

01:07:24.030 --> 01:07:26.710
Yeah, it's, I, I have a GI bill and, uh, you know, it's crazy.

01:07:26.710 --> 01:07:27.070
Is.

01:07:27.434 --> 01:07:30.164
You know, I think the GI bill back then was 350 bucks a month.

01:07:30.255 --> 01:07:30.614
Oh, wow.

01:07:30.644 --> 01:07:38.534
Uh, and if you look now, people probably don't realize this, but CSU, it's vet program is either number one or number two every year in the country.

01:07:38.594 --> 01:07:39.105
I didn't know that.

01:07:39.105 --> 01:07:43.454
Have an unbelievable veterans program at Colorado State, uh, to give a plug for them.

01:07:43.454 --> 01:07:48.945
But they've done a great job of recruiting what would be considered non-traditional students coming outta the military.

01:07:48.945 --> 01:07:49.215
Yeah.

01:07:49.425 --> 01:07:54.135
And, and, and bringing them back to, uh, and bringing'em back to a campus environment.

01:07:54.135 --> 01:07:55.394
They've got a veteran center over there.

01:07:55.394 --> 01:08:00.735
I think they do a great job, work it, you know, and, and then Aaron knows, uh, you know, from, you know, life with his dad.

01:08:00.764 --> 01:08:06.434
Um, the military probably teaches you as much, if not more than school does every day.

01:08:06.614 --> 01:08:07.034
Oh, for sure.

01:08:07.034 --> 01:08:17.805
I had to work with people from every walk of life, you know, whether it be British civilians or people from, and I had roommates that were ranchers in Oklahoma from kids from the inner city of la, that thing a little bit.

01:08:18.314 --> 01:08:22.215
So when you get that kind of diversity in your day-to-day life, you literally.

01:08:22.619 --> 01:08:28.109
Are forced into a, a, a situation and an environment where you have to learn how to work with people of every, every walk of life.

01:08:28.170 --> 01:08:28.470
Yeah.

01:08:28.470 --> 01:08:28.479
Yeah.

01:08:28.560 --> 01:08:32.130
I think that's probably helped me as much every day in my life than, than school or anything else.

01:08:32.189 --> 01:08:32.460
Yeah.

01:08:32.609 --> 01:08:32.819
Yeah.

01:08:32.880 --> 01:08:33.239
Agreed.

01:08:34.020 --> 01:08:37.619
Um, and so you went, finished your college in Wisconsin?

01:08:37.619 --> 01:08:37.800
I went

01:08:37.800 --> 01:08:42.425
back to University of Wisconsin Oshkosh'cause you know, like have it my brother, that's a poor name.

01:08:42.430 --> 01:08:50.250
And, uh, my brother, yeah, my brother and, uh, and his wife at the time, uh, had a young child and, and uh, was able to go back and spend a couple years with them.

01:08:50.250 --> 01:08:54.060
I knew, I was like, if you went back to Minnesota right, I mean, you know, you're not gonna stay, so you're

01:08:54.060 --> 01:08:55.590
like almost 30 at this point, right?

01:08:55.619 --> 01:08:57.689
Yeah, I was 30, man, I was 30 when I got out.

01:08:57.689 --> 01:08:57.930
Right.

01:08:57.930 --> 01:09:02.385
And so yeah, I was that, uh, that that guy that sat in the front row and Yeah.

01:09:02.390 --> 01:09:02.670
Yeah.

01:09:02.699 --> 01:09:03.689
Never missed a class.

01:09:03.689 --> 01:09:08.430
And, but lemme tell you, after spending eight years in the military, going back to college, it was pretty easy at the time.

01:09:08.430 --> 01:09:08.520
Your

01:09:08.520 --> 01:09:10.050
discipline had to developed a little bit.

01:09:10.079 --> 01:09:10.260
A

01:09:10.260 --> 01:09:10.649
little bit.

01:09:10.859 --> 01:09:13.649
And I'm still at that point was never as disciplined as Aaron is today.

01:09:13.649 --> 01:09:15.149
But, but, uh, yeah.

01:09:15.180 --> 01:09:19.619
No, I mean, you know, you were raised in the military family, it, it changes and shapes your life.

01:09:19.739 --> 01:09:19.979
Yeah.

01:09:20.310 --> 01:09:20.670
Yeah.

01:09:20.675 --> 01:09:20.744
Mm-hmm.

01:09:21.125 --> 01:09:21.345
Um.

01:09:22.694 --> 01:09:29.774
So in your world, I think you told us you went to the East j, New Jersey kind of thing and Yeah.

01:09:29.774 --> 01:09:37.425
When, when you came back here and, and came into employment at Flood and Peterson, were you what Aaron is now when you started?

01:09:37.425 --> 01:09:37.694
I did.

01:09:37.694 --> 01:09:38.625
I started, yeah, I started.

01:09:38.625 --> 01:09:39.795
What was your path to leadership?

01:09:40.814 --> 01:09:41.295
Um,

01:09:42.345 --> 01:09:43.515
talk me about the why of it a little bit too.

01:09:43.515 --> 01:09:46.784
See, I, I, you know, I've worked in not that good of a producer and so they're like, maybe this guy manage.

01:09:46.784 --> 01:09:47.774
That's pretty much what it is.

01:09:47.774 --> 01:09:48.914
They're like, your numbers are terrible.

01:09:48.914 --> 01:09:49.305
Let's find

01:09:49.305 --> 01:09:50.024
you another spot.

01:09:50.595 --> 01:09:57.284
No, you know, I, um, it, did you ever read, uh, what is it, outliers, Daniel?

01:09:57.284 --> 01:09:58.064
No, I have not.

01:09:58.064 --> 01:09:59.204
Yeah, the book Outliers, right.

01:09:59.204 --> 01:10:01.545
Malcolm Gal, well, I think it is the author of Outliers.

01:10:01.545 --> 01:10:01.635
Right?

01:10:01.635 --> 01:10:02.175
Not the author.

01:10:02.175 --> 01:10:03.010
I've read it a couple books.

01:10:03.010 --> 01:10:11.414
It's about time and place and I just, you know, I had a mentor, uh, that had hired me, um, and uh, a guy named Russ Michaels that was in town for a long time.

01:10:11.414 --> 01:10:11.425
Okay.

01:10:11.425 --> 01:10:13.635
And, and, and just the circumstances lined up.

01:10:13.635 --> 01:10:15.045
There was an opportunity with some.

01:10:15.630 --> 01:10:17.489
Other partners retiring at that time.

01:10:17.699 --> 01:10:18.029
I see.

01:10:18.060 --> 01:10:28.770
Um, and, you know, I had a diverse and different background than other people, so I had a chance to fill a void within the Fort Collins office to, to, uh, to be a leader in that space.

01:10:28.770 --> 01:10:30.779
And then, um, and unfortunately,

01:10:31.050 --> 01:10:32.670
was that like a big move right away?

01:10:32.670 --> 01:10:35.220
Or were you like a, a junior leader for a while?

01:10:35.220 --> 01:10:37.170
Did you have a, a intermediate role?

01:10:37.529 --> 01:10:40.260
Yeah, I was, we were structured a little bit differently back then.

01:10:40.260 --> 01:10:40.289
Okay.

01:10:40.289 --> 01:10:43.619
So I was somewhat, what you call the leader of the, for Collins office, whatever that means.

01:10:43.649 --> 01:10:43.920
Okay.

01:10:43.949 --> 01:10:44.159
Sure.

01:10:44.159 --> 01:10:45.960
I probably know official title, like the branch manager.

01:10:46.020 --> 01:10:46.229
Yeah.

01:10:46.229 --> 01:10:46.979
Something like that.

01:10:46.979 --> 01:10:47.279
Right.

01:10:47.310 --> 01:10:51.090
We were run a little bit different back then, but, um, you know, but here's the thing, right.

01:10:51.960 --> 01:10:55.500
Anybody who's in a leadership position of any way, shape, or form, right.

01:10:55.560 --> 01:10:58.050
First and foremost, you, you try to be a leader of your own life.

01:10:58.109 --> 01:10:58.319
Yeah.

01:10:58.739 --> 01:11:02.250
Second of all, I was unbelievably blessed and, and fortunate.

01:11:02.909 --> 01:11:09.659
It's not hard to leave a team of any kind or be in a leadership role'cause at the core of it, right, we're servants.

01:11:09.664 --> 01:11:09.795
Mm-hmm.

01:11:10.079 --> 01:11:14.010
And when you have people like Aaron and other members on our team, I mean, are you.

01:11:14.864 --> 01:11:18.435
You're there to assist and collaborate and be partners, right?

01:11:18.435 --> 01:11:21.194
I don't see leadership in a hierarchical space.

01:11:21.194 --> 01:11:22.215
I see it as a hundred percent.

01:11:22.454 --> 01:11:23.354
Are you a collaborator?

01:11:23.354 --> 01:11:28.725
Are, are you, are you somebody who's gonna be partners with anybody regardless of title or position?

01:11:28.784 --> 01:11:29.185
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:11:29.354 --> 01:11:29.444
Mm-hmm.

01:11:29.444 --> 01:11:30.404
You know, I think that's, uh,

01:11:30.734 --> 01:11:36.555
I'm just gonna echo, not even echo, just plug Brett as that person, right?

01:11:36.555 --> 01:11:36.614
Yeah.

01:11:36.645 --> 01:11:48.960
So, um, he probably doesn't say this much'cause a lot of people, he's a very humble person, but, um, you know, the servant leadership by definition, you're looking at, he's over it.

01:11:48.960 --> 01:11:49.875
You're looking at him.

01:11:50.055 --> 01:11:50.324
Yeah.

01:11:50.715 --> 01:11:51.435
Um, don't doubt it.

01:11:51.704 --> 01:12:00.585
And I mentioned my dad earlier, but five years ago, or, you know, coming up on that anniversary, um, big deal for me.

01:12:00.585 --> 01:12:10.154
But he was by my side down as a friend, uh, as a friend, but also, you know, as somebody at, at work, um, that just helps you through the whole thing.

01:12:10.154 --> 01:12:13.095
So he's, he probably gets, he, uh.

01:12:13.604 --> 01:12:14.774
I shouldn't say probably.

01:12:15.135 --> 01:12:19.604
I know he gets joy from watching and helping others succeed.

01:12:19.875 --> 01:12:21.854
Um, and that's my experience.

01:12:21.854 --> 01:12:25.510
I can't speak for anybody else at the office, but, um, yeah, he does.

01:12:25.510 --> 01:12:26.069
That's pretty cool.

01:12:26.289 --> 01:12:36.645
He gets it and he gets a, this, uh, just loves this, this strategy about helping people win and, um, that competitive nature.

01:12:36.649 --> 01:12:36.829
Yeah.

01:12:36.835 --> 01:12:37.095
Yeah.

01:12:37.095 --> 01:12:53.444
Comes out and, and that's how he and every chance, like if I call for help, I know there's 14 other people that are calling Brett for help on a particular, uh, account, whether it's, you know, getting them over to the office, to the agency or, or just closing it.

01:12:53.444 --> 01:12:55.425
So, yeah, he's, he's always there.

01:12:55.635 --> 01:12:56.949
Um, so I dig that

01:12:57.060 --> 01:12:59.085
well, and I, I appreciate that.

01:12:59.085 --> 01:13:02.024
But you know, I, I, I am gonna go back to that chief master sergeant that grabbed me.

01:13:02.145 --> 01:13:02.385
Yeah.

01:13:02.414 --> 01:13:02.984
Said get out.

01:13:02.984 --> 01:13:08.055
I, I said, uh, know about a year after I got out and I was back in school, I said, I, I called him and I said, Hey, um.

01:13:09.300 --> 01:13:10.079
W why me?

01:13:10.109 --> 01:13:11.279
What, what, what made you help me?

01:13:11.279 --> 01:13:11.789
What could I do?

01:13:11.789 --> 01:13:12.810
What, how do I repay you?

01:13:12.810 --> 01:13:13.079
Right.

01:13:13.109 --> 01:13:13.380
Yeah.

01:13:13.385 --> 01:13:13.414
Yeah.

01:13:14.369 --> 01:13:17.399
And at the end of the day, he said, listen, I had somebody help me out years ago.

01:13:17.970 --> 01:13:22.949
Uh, and the only thing that person asked me, if you get an opportunity to help somebody, take the opportunity to help somebody.

01:13:22.949 --> 01:13:23.100
Huh.

01:13:23.279 --> 01:13:25.170
And so that's kind of always stuck with me, right.

01:13:25.170 --> 01:13:28.920
Because, you know, at, at, at the end of the day, work is something that we do.

01:13:28.920 --> 01:13:30.300
It's not necessarily who we are.

01:13:30.720 --> 01:13:36.329
Uh, how we engage and, uh, how we live our values is really shapes who we are.

01:13:36.329 --> 01:13:42.569
And I'm, I'm, I'm fortunate and blessed to work with people who live our values every single day.

01:13:42.630 --> 01:13:42.750
Mm-hmm.

01:13:43.260 --> 01:13:46.739
And an industry that's really, really challenging and stereotype not to have values.

01:13:46.800 --> 01:13:47.159
Yeah.

01:13:47.369 --> 01:13:47.729
Yeah.

01:13:47.734 --> 01:13:47.944
Yeah.

01:13:48.420 --> 01:13:51.750
Um, do you know Doug Woods, either of you?

01:13:52.289 --> 01:13:55.859
He was my most recent boss, uh, before I left banking.

01:13:55.859 --> 01:14:06.180
And, um, he had a little plaque behind his desk that said something along the lines of, it is only as we develop others that we truly succeed as leaders in life.

01:14:06.704 --> 01:14:07.725
Or something like that.

01:14:07.725 --> 01:14:21.314
And it, it, it reckons and, and what you're doing in, in your space of servant leadership, Brett may not sound like developing others, but it is, it's kind of creating that space for other people to learn, helping them overcome hurdles.

01:14:21.914 --> 01:14:30.765
And you don't like developing people doesn't, it isn't like putting ingredients in a food processor, you know, it's a whole different kind of thing.

01:14:30.765 --> 01:14:34.454
It's about building relationships and drawing to the right kinds of things.

01:14:34.454 --> 01:14:34.725
So,

01:14:34.814 --> 01:14:38.324
well, yeah, I, you know, I'm, I'm gonna put Aaron on his spot here.

01:14:38.324 --> 01:14:44.024
He is gonna hate this, but I don't know if I've met anybody as good at any career as he is at what he does every day.

01:14:44.475 --> 01:14:51.104
Um, so at the end of the day, part of it is looking around and saying, Hey, wow, you have exceptionally talented people.

01:14:51.494 --> 01:14:52.604
So what, what's your role?

01:14:52.604 --> 01:14:53.409
What do you need to do to unlock that?

01:14:53.409 --> 01:14:53.685
What's your role?

01:14:53.685 --> 01:14:57.435
I mean, well, no, I mean, your role sometimes is to be supportive, be a listener.

01:14:57.645 --> 01:14:59.324
You know, we talk about being a therapist, right?

01:14:59.534 --> 01:15:02.055
Sometimes people just need to vent and get things off their chest.

01:15:02.385 --> 01:15:07.154
Ultimately, people will solve and identify solutions for their, what they're dealing with.

01:15:07.335 --> 01:15:07.545
Yeah.

01:15:07.965 --> 01:15:12.015
If you're there to listen sometimes, and at the end of the day, I think we underestimate the power of listening.

01:15:12.074 --> 01:15:12.435
Yeah.

01:15:12.465 --> 01:15:13.185
I don't really do anything.

01:15:13.484 --> 01:15:15.255
I sit there and listen and they get off the phone.

01:15:15.255 --> 01:15:16.935
Everybody solve their own problems and move on.

01:15:17.055 --> 01:15:28.904
That's funny actually, that I, Ben and I had a, an extended meeting earlier and just conversational about topics that we could do different workshops and stuff next year with local think tank.

01:15:28.994 --> 01:15:29.954
And you talked insurance?

01:15:30.284 --> 01:15:31.515
No, we didn't talk insurance.

01:15:31.515 --> 01:15:32.265
No, it's too boring.

01:15:32.265 --> 01:15:32.475
I know.

01:15:32.475 --> 01:15:32.895
Come on, man.

01:15:32.895 --> 01:15:42.375
Um, but what we did do is like had back and forth listening conversations and one of my superpowers is, is having ideas.

01:15:43.020 --> 01:15:44.670
You know, that's always been one of my ideas.

01:15:44.670 --> 01:15:49.890
And so if he can set the stage properly for me, well maybe I'll come up with an idea, but I can, can't have an ideas if I don't listen.

01:15:50.130 --> 01:15:50.340
Right.

01:15:50.489 --> 01:15:50.819
You know, if I

01:15:50.819 --> 01:15:53.699
don't make time to, to listen and consider.

01:15:54.270 --> 01:16:04.829
So, Aaron, did you, were, were you pointing at like a banking job coming outta college or did you not really know and Community First had this training program done in Fargo?

01:16:05.430 --> 01:16:07.619
Um, tell me about that kind of segue.

01:16:07.649 --> 01:16:16.050
Well, I kinda, I'll say, fell into it a little bit, but during my college career I did intern as a teller for the local bank.

01:16:16.079 --> 01:16:16.109
Okay.

01:16:16.109 --> 01:16:16.529
Alright.

01:16:16.619 --> 01:16:21.270
In Brainerd, uh, during the day and then in the, looks like these loan

01:16:21.270 --> 01:16:22.710
officers have a pretty cush job.

01:16:22.710 --> 01:16:23.369
Maybe I should.

01:16:23.460 --> 01:16:23.789
Yeah.

01:16:23.789 --> 01:16:24.689
Or then in the evenings.

01:16:24.689 --> 01:16:25.109
Evenings

01:16:25.109 --> 01:16:30.359
we, I hammered nails and, and then the, the nights off of work I played baseball.

01:16:30.420 --> 01:16:30.750
Yeah.

01:16:30.840 --> 01:16:38.789
Um, so coming outta graduation, I had, um, I had the, the, uh, living through the.com era mm-hmm.

01:16:39.119 --> 01:16:39.899
Of college.

01:16:39.899 --> 01:16:41.250
I had this dream to be a stock.

01:16:41.774 --> 01:16:42.164
Broker.

01:16:42.164 --> 01:16:42.734
Right, right.

01:16:42.734 --> 01:16:44.145
So because everybody investment made

01:16:44.145 --> 01:16:45.645
so much money back in those days, investment

01:16:45.645 --> 01:16:54.345
management in, uh, was a class we took, they, you know, give you that fake a hundred thousand dollars of money and, and go see how much you can grow it through Yeah.

01:16:54.345 --> 01:16:55.274
For this semester.

01:16:55.274 --> 01:17:03.074
Well the, the, the computer system was five minutes behind the ticker symbols on, uh, you know, during the.com era.

01:17:03.164 --> 01:17:08.595
So you just played the game and I was like, man, if we can make a million bucks and Right.

01:17:08.595 --> 01:17:14.114
Took, took your a hundred to make a million and you're like, oh, this is what I want to do when I grow up.

01:17:14.204 --> 01:17:17.024
And um, yes.

01:17:17.024 --> 01:17:32.984
When I came outta school, I had a job offer from Edward Jones and that was one of those tough careers of knocking on doors and friends and family or, um, there was a handful of guys from UND that got the, uh, were in the management training program before me.

01:17:32.984 --> 01:17:33.465
Oh really?

01:17:33.520 --> 01:17:34.904
Oh, oh, it had been, yeah.

01:17:34.904 --> 01:17:35.265
Gotcha.

01:17:35.414 --> 01:17:36.135
And, um.

01:17:37.125 --> 01:17:38.145
I don't think there was anybody in my group.

01:17:38.324 --> 01:17:39.375
Uh, a year and a half.

01:17:39.375 --> 01:17:42.914
So anyways, he's got my resume over to, uh, the manager.

01:17:42.920 --> 01:17:43.220
Was it Kim?

01:17:43.319 --> 01:17:44.295
It was Beth still hiring.

01:17:44.295 --> 01:17:45.494
Beth Feld was the Yep.

01:17:45.555 --> 01:17:46.904
That's who was, yep.

01:17:47.385 --> 01:17:50.234
And, uh, got the interview, got that job offer.

01:17:50.265 --> 01:17:56.060
'cause at the time, community First wanted to be, wanted you to be a banker and a financial planner and Yeah.

01:17:56.114 --> 01:17:59.859
And a mortgage lender and a open new accounts and cvs.

01:17:59.859 --> 01:18:10.694
And I got, you know, I, I studied passed by 7 66 Life Health and then got out into the real world and, um, that investment component Yeah.

01:18:10.694 --> 01:18:13.814
At the bank was, you know, calling on CD due customers.

01:18:13.814 --> 01:18:14.505
They were terrible at it.

01:18:14.564 --> 01:18:19.664
And so I was like, man, banking, uh, I sold a couple of floating rate trusts.

01:18:19.694 --> 01:18:20.234
Yeah.

01:18:20.324 --> 01:18:21.284
Uh, when Prime

01:18:21.284 --> 01:18:23.234
was like 7% or something like that.

01:18:23.234 --> 01:18:25.185
And then, and annuities and, uh, yeah.

01:18:25.819 --> 01:18:25.899
Terrible.

01:18:25.899 --> 01:18:25.920
So, BA

01:18:26.085 --> 01:18:27.435
banking, um.

01:18:28.005 --> 01:18:30.824
I don't wanna say call came easier, but felt better.

01:18:31.034 --> 01:18:31.244
Yeah.

01:18:31.305 --> 01:18:34.484
Um, and so that's wasn't as ethically

01:18:34.484 --> 01:18:35.770
compromised in that time.

01:18:36.225 --> 01:18:37.154
Um, so yeah.

01:18:37.154 --> 01:18:39.975
So Cayman, you know, got, that's how my banking career.

01:18:39.979 --> 01:18:40.130
Yeah.

01:18:40.244 --> 01:18:40.305
Yeah.

01:18:40.305 --> 01:18:53.864
Started, um, you know, Gerard Les was the bank president at the time, still, uh, somebody I get together with every other month at, at, uh, just for coffee, just to kind of catch up with Gerard.

01:18:53.864 --> 01:18:57.135
But, um, gave me my first job as, as a lender.

01:18:57.255 --> 01:18:57.885
And so

01:18:57.944 --> 01:18:59.595
Oh, so he was the president by that time?

01:18:59.654 --> 01:18:59.805
Yep.

01:19:00.074 --> 01:19:00.614
Um,

01:19:00.854 --> 01:19:03.284
so,'cause you told me that story that, uh, yeah.

01:19:03.375 --> 01:19:04.574
Keith Dickerman shared that

01:19:05.085 --> 01:19:05.354
Yeah.

01:19:05.385 --> 01:19:09.734
The president that had been was no longer gonna be by the time you got there, correct?

01:19:09.795 --> 01:19:09.854
Yeah.

01:19:09.854 --> 01:19:12.345
So when I got here, Gerard was, uh, the bank president.

01:19:12.345 --> 01:19:13.064
We had such a,

01:19:13.064 --> 01:19:17.324
so I, when I came to work at the bank, uh, Kelly Calper was the.

01:19:17.625 --> 01:19:18.375
Bank president.

01:19:18.404 --> 01:19:18.734
Yeah.

01:19:18.795 --> 01:19:19.484
Don't know that name.

01:19:19.604 --> 01:19:22.904
Because he left two weeks after I got there to go work for Centennial Bank.

01:19:22.904 --> 01:19:24.225
'cause they were, oh yeah.

01:19:24.284 --> 01:19:28.095
They were paying big bonus fees and stuff for anybody that could produce loans.

01:19:28.095 --> 01:19:36.255
And so I spent five, six months unsupervised, basically complete, which is perfect for a guy like me.

01:19:36.255 --> 01:19:37.965
I like that kind of ish.

01:19:38.295 --> 01:19:47.564
Um, but then John became the president a little while later, but he was down at the South branch and so it wasn't until Dave Marcy came on board, maybe eight months later that I actually had a boss.

01:19:47.595 --> 01:19:47.835
Yeah.

01:19:47.895 --> 01:19:53.625
Like I spent the first, most of the first 10 months of my career without any supervision.

01:19:53.744 --> 01:19:54.000
Yeah.

01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:54.404
At all.

01:19:54.854 --> 01:19:55.034
Yeah.

01:19:55.034 --> 01:19:56.324
So that's how banking came about.

01:19:56.385 --> 01:19:56.444
Yeah.

01:19:56.444 --> 01:20:01.185
And then moved to First National after, uh, community First sold the Bank of the West.

01:20:01.814 --> 01:20:01.875
Yeah.

01:20:01.875 --> 01:20:05.234
Um, and then made the jump to insurance in, what was it, 2009 or whatever.

01:20:05.234 --> 01:20:05.505
And had you

01:20:05.505 --> 01:20:10.005
been being courted by Flood and Pete, was it Brett courting you or what was that all about?

01:20:10.005 --> 01:20:10.520
No, um, you were?

01:20:10.875 --> 01:20:12.345
No, I went, um.

01:20:14.324 --> 01:20:19.574
Not to take up the whole timeframe, but No, uh, NOCO 2030.

01:20:19.755 --> 01:20:20.175
Oh, sure.

01:20:20.250 --> 01:20:20.539
Yeah.

01:20:20.539 --> 01:20:21.500
You were early part of that.

01:20:21.500 --> 01:20:22.845
I was one of the, yeah, one of the,

01:20:22.904 --> 01:20:26.020
I was almost too old already by the time it started, so I didn't get in.

01:20:26.020 --> 01:20:26.220
Yeah.

01:20:26.319 --> 01:20:31.335
So one of the, um, members in 2030, Steve Ewing was uh Oh, yeah.

01:20:31.545 --> 01:20:32.654
Had his agency.

01:20:32.685 --> 01:20:34.095
I was his banker at the time.

01:20:34.095 --> 01:20:35.534
And So you mean Levitt agency, right?

01:20:35.534 --> 01:20:35.685
Yep.

01:20:35.805 --> 01:20:41.744
And so Steve was the one that um, said, thanks for a referral one day and says, how many people like this?

01:20:41.744 --> 01:20:42.104
Do you know?

01:20:42.104 --> 01:20:42.885
I said A whole bunch.

01:20:42.885 --> 01:20:43.244
Why?

01:20:43.244 --> 01:20:48.225
And he kind of penciled out how insurance works and, and, um, you know, why being an

01:20:48.225 --> 01:20:50.475
insurance guy is way better than being a banker.

01:20:50.564 --> 01:20:54.045
Um, and then 2007, eight, you know, kind of happened.

01:20:54.045 --> 01:20:57.854
And, um, yeah, so it was one of those things that we were talking about earlier.

01:20:57.854 --> 01:21:05.234
It's just, you know, um, I was at that point in banking where it was gonna be my career forever or, yeah.

01:21:05.505 --> 01:21:06.645
Um, and I just.

01:21:07.034 --> 01:21:08.560
Took a leap of faith, I guess.

01:21:08.560 --> 01:21:08.720
Yeah.

01:21:08.984 --> 01:21:18.104
I was kind of the same college, try to, to try out the insurance gig and, um, it's been, um, at times you say, I wish I got into it earlier.

01:21:18.555 --> 01:21:18.795
Yeah.

01:21:18.975 --> 01:21:19.664
Um, mm-hmm.

01:21:19.935 --> 01:21:24.439
But on the same sense, I don't know, had I got into it earlier, I I'd be, but it's good.

01:21:24.824 --> 01:21:27.765
It's because of the, the 10 years of banking, so, well, even

01:21:27.765 --> 01:21:31.784
in my whatever local think tank guy is like without.

01:21:32.175 --> 01:21:36.345
Nearly 15 years of banking, would I have been capable of spinning this up?

01:21:36.345 --> 01:21:36.885
I don't know.

01:21:36.890 --> 01:21:36.949
Yeah.

01:21:36.949 --> 01:21:43.364
You know, how do you recognize the right kind of business leaders and the right kind of facilitators and the Yeah.

01:21:43.574 --> 01:21:46.814
Ones that are gonna be distraction and annoying to the conversation.

01:21:46.875 --> 01:21:47.175
Yeah.

01:21:47.625 --> 01:21:48.765
Bank banking was fun.

01:21:48.914 --> 01:21:50.295
Banking helped, uh, it taught me a lot.

01:21:50.625 --> 01:21:50.864
Yeah.

01:21:50.925 --> 01:21:52.335
Um, yeah.

01:21:52.364 --> 01:21:54.734
Taught me a lot about how business works.

01:21:54.854 --> 01:21:55.095
Yeah.

01:21:55.305 --> 01:21:56.475
Um, for what I do today.

01:21:57.015 --> 01:21:57.314
So

01:21:57.555 --> 01:22:06.704
we're going to, uh, usually I ask three random questions to my one guest, but we're gonna do, uh, two for each of you.

01:22:07.130 --> 01:22:13.335
Um, and, uh, depending on time allowance, we may expand, but, uh, that surprises

01:22:13.335 --> 01:22:13.484
me.

01:22:13.484 --> 01:22:15.255
I didn't think there'd be anything random about you.

01:22:15.375 --> 01:22:16.515
Oh, I'm totally random.

01:22:16.694 --> 01:22:16.994
Yeah.

01:22:17.654 --> 01:22:18.734
Say safe word Brett.

01:22:18.734 --> 01:22:19.185
Safe word.

01:22:19.185 --> 01:22:19.550
Grab the whole jug.

01:22:20.060 --> 01:22:20.954
Oh, grab the old jug.

01:22:20.954 --> 01:22:21.194
All right.

01:22:21.375 --> 01:22:22.994
Yeah, because you gotta give Aaron two balls too.

01:22:23.744 --> 01:22:25.274
Make sure you hold onto those balls tight.

01:22:25.574 --> 01:22:25.694
Yeah.

01:22:27.045 --> 01:22:27.765
Who did I meet?

01:22:28.395 --> 01:22:29.595
Oh, somebody just today.

01:22:29.595 --> 01:22:33.104
Their name in Italian means golden ball.

01:22:33.975 --> 01:22:36.704
Um, and I was like, it's, it's a shame.

01:22:36.704 --> 01:22:37.814
It's not golden balls.

01:22:37.814 --> 01:22:39.284
'cause that would be kind of cool.

01:22:39.420 --> 01:22:42.345
Uh, but golden ball is just not as interesting.

01:22:42.375 --> 01:22:42.585
Yeah.

01:22:42.614 --> 01:22:43.364
Unless you're New Year's

01:22:43.364 --> 01:22:44.534
Eve, the ball

01:22:44.534 --> 01:22:44.774
drop.

01:22:44.864 --> 01:22:45.255
Oh yeah.

01:22:45.255 --> 01:22:46.664
I guess that's, that's the right time.

01:22:46.664 --> 01:22:47.984
So, so what's the, what's the deal with this?

01:22:48.675 --> 01:22:49.784
I wanna be playing bingo here.

01:22:49.784 --> 01:22:52.574
I've got, I've got numbered questions here leading to random things.

01:22:52.579 --> 01:22:53.475
So, so each of you,

01:22:53.505 --> 01:22:56.505
we have a guy at the office that has these random questions, each of you.

01:22:56.925 --> 01:22:57.279
Yeah, we've

01:22:57.279 --> 01:22:57.975
gotta refresh'em.

01:22:57.975 --> 01:22:59.204
We'll refresh'em for next season.

01:22:59.204 --> 01:23:06.225
But in the meantime, each of you must grab ahead two balls out of there and then give you the numbers from those balls and, uh.

01:23:07.170 --> 01:23:09.359
Brett, I'll start with you since you're the boss.

01:23:09.420 --> 01:23:15.600
Oh, I was gonna ask you Aaron, I'm not boss of any, do you have to do, do you have any desire to be like Brett when he gets old enough to retire or anything?

01:23:15.600 --> 01:23:18.239
Or is that you don't wanna manage people, he's good at that.

01:23:18.239 --> 01:23:19.079
You would rather just,

01:23:19.140 --> 01:23:21.960
uh, I had that management experience in banking, Kurt.

01:23:21.960 --> 01:23:22.170
Yeah.

01:23:22.289 --> 01:23:26.819
And, um, uh, that's not my, where I get my joy.

01:23:27.840 --> 01:23:30.734
I enjoy the, the coaching, mentoring of Yeah.

01:23:30.994 --> 01:23:35.279
Of uh, um, working with my team teammates.

01:23:35.279 --> 01:23:35.670
But Did you ever

01:23:35.670 --> 01:23:36.689
meet Kel o Kelly?

01:23:36.989 --> 01:23:37.470
No.

01:23:37.560 --> 01:23:42.750
He was the president at, uh, capital West Bank after I left or gotcha.

01:23:42.750 --> 01:23:43.350
Before I left.

01:23:43.710 --> 01:23:44.100
Good guy.

01:23:44.100 --> 01:23:46.140
He came in, he hired Doug Woods, actually.

01:23:46.140 --> 01:23:46.260
Gotcha.

01:23:46.260 --> 01:23:47.340
Who was my last real boss.

01:23:47.340 --> 01:23:48.284
But he was the CEO.

01:23:49.079 --> 01:23:50.520
And Kel, to his credit.

01:23:50.550 --> 01:24:00.569
So we, I spent 11 months as the acting president, um, for which the bank, uh, kept my salary the same, but did give me a$200 gift card to Jay's to say thanks.

01:24:00.630 --> 01:24:00.720
Nice.

01:24:00.720 --> 01:24:00.989
Yeah.

01:24:01.079 --> 01:24:04.710
Uh, it was super sweet since I knew that they paid my, I miss Jay Boss 180.

01:24:04.710 --> 01:24:05.069
Miss Jay too.

01:24:05.430 --> 01:24:05.609
Yeah.

01:24:05.670 --> 01:24:13.619
Um, but anyway, Kel comes to meet with me on his second day of work and I was like, do you wanna be the bank president down here in Fort Collins?

01:24:13.619 --> 01:24:16.020
He's like, no, not really.

01:24:16.710 --> 01:24:17.250
Okay, good.

01:24:17.250 --> 01:24:19.109
We'll hire somebody for you then.

01:24:19.140 --> 01:24:19.859
'cause I wanna keep you.

01:24:19.859 --> 01:24:25.319
I was a pretty good producer and all that, but, um, anyway, number Brett's first, number nine.

01:24:28.439 --> 01:24:31.470
What's the strangest way you've ever injured yourself?

01:24:32.970 --> 01:24:33.180
Oh, boy.

01:24:33.180 --> 01:24:34.319
I'm glad I didn't get this one.

01:24:38.819 --> 01:24:39.930
That's a good question.

01:24:41.819 --> 01:24:42.750
Oh, I got a good one.

01:24:43.140 --> 01:24:44.369
You, you'll laugh.

01:24:44.880 --> 01:24:45.930
Kurt will laugh at this one.

01:24:46.020 --> 01:24:46.439
I hope so.

01:24:46.439 --> 01:24:46.859
Miami.

01:24:47.909 --> 01:24:48.510
Oh yeah.

01:24:48.840 --> 01:24:49.590
Might as well go down that

01:24:49.590 --> 01:24:52.260
path, you know, that just came up to la So this is a problem.

01:24:52.409 --> 01:24:59.430
So, uh, it's Aaron and his wife Brandy and my, me and my wife Stephanie, walking down the street in Miami.

01:24:59.729 --> 01:25:02.460
And, uh, there's some big food network thing going on.

01:25:02.489 --> 01:25:02.819
Okay.

01:25:02.819 --> 01:25:06.000
And his food network car pulls up and one of the, and then windows, windows down or whatever.

01:25:06.029 --> 01:25:10.829
And one of the celebrities is sitting in there and I look and I'm trying to figure out who's in the actual car.

01:25:11.100 --> 01:25:12.119
They're all talking.

01:25:12.180 --> 01:25:19.770
And as I am looking, I turn and face planted right into one of those big metal poles, street signs, street time.

01:25:19.770 --> 01:25:20.340
Like wham,

01:25:20.939 --> 01:25:22.289
like, and Oh, like right.

01:25:22.439 --> 01:25:22.800
Oh yeah.

01:25:23.489 --> 01:25:25.470
Square in the forehead, square in the forehead.

01:25:25.890 --> 01:25:30.689
So, so you've been device after eyes are watering, everything's blurry and dizzy.

01:25:32.175 --> 01:25:33.914
I think Aaron might've said, Hey, are you okay?

01:25:33.944 --> 01:25:36.704
My, my wife's holding her knees laughing.

01:25:36.765 --> 01:25:38.564
We're all laughing and then yeah, they're all laughing.

01:25:38.569 --> 01:25:40.484
And, and once they figured out, out, it was okay.

01:25:40.814 --> 01:25:42.225
Uh, everyone laughed even further.

01:25:42.225 --> 01:25:47.774
I had a big, big red mark down the middle of my face and we, and we met several other people for breakfast.

01:25:47.805 --> 01:25:48.104
Yeah.

01:25:48.164 --> 01:25:52.664
And then I had to explain the story over and over, which actually adds to the injury.

01:25:52.694 --> 01:25:54.314
Well, you know how face injuries are, right?

01:25:54.345 --> 01:25:54.824
Oh yeah.

01:25:55.005 --> 01:25:57.944
It could be the littlest little cut, but he is bleeding for Oh yeah.

01:25:58.185 --> 01:25:59.715
At least 30 minutes.

01:25:59.774 --> 01:26:00.614
Yeah, 30 minutes.

01:26:00.914 --> 01:26:02.024
All because of a stein.

01:26:02.685 --> 01:26:03.465
Just, yeah.

01:26:03.470 --> 01:26:03.739
Yeah.

01:26:04.395 --> 01:26:08.175
And, and literally I was trying to serve them by telling him who was in the car and it didn't work out for well.

01:26:09.255 --> 01:26:09.435
Yeah.

01:26:09.494 --> 01:26:10.694
Yeah.

01:26:11.534 --> 01:26:12.500
Well that's a good one.

01:26:12.500 --> 01:26:13.100
I forgot all about that.

01:26:13.100 --> 01:26:14.204
No good deed goes unpunished.

01:26:14.204 --> 01:26:14.984
You know that one, right?

01:26:14.984 --> 01:26:15.045
Yeah.

01:26:15.135 --> 01:26:16.635
I'm sure Gerard has showed you that one.

01:26:17.414 --> 01:26:17.954
Oh, yeah.

01:26:18.675 --> 01:26:19.064
Yeah.

01:26:19.664 --> 01:26:21.045
Uh, who's next?

01:26:21.045 --> 01:26:21.704
You are Kurt.

01:26:22.484 --> 01:26:24.225
Oh, I don't do all these, uh, well's for you.

01:26:24.225 --> 01:26:24.375
Your

01:26:24.375 --> 01:26:24.734
choice.

01:26:24.734 --> 01:26:25.814
'cause I got both numbers here.

01:26:25.845 --> 01:26:26.055
Okay.

01:26:26.114 --> 01:26:26.564
Gimme one.

01:26:26.925 --> 01:26:27.704
Uh.

01:26:28.935 --> 01:26:32.625
Two, we've done this one a lot of times.

01:26:33.765 --> 01:26:39.585
Would you rather fight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses?

01:26:43.364 --> 01:26:44.024
Geez.

01:26:44.385 --> 01:26:44.595
Yeah.

01:26:44.654 --> 01:26:46.244
I'm going with the big duck.

01:26:46.244 --> 01:26:47.055
Yeah, just one.

01:26:47.114 --> 01:26:47.685
Just one.

01:26:47.774 --> 01:26:48.104
Yeah.

01:26:48.375 --> 01:26:53.354
I And hope, hopeful that I can serpentine enough that he can't catch me.

01:26:53.984 --> 01:26:55.244
Oh, you just outrun'em if you need to.

01:26:55.274 --> 01:27:03.345
Yeah, because I wonder how fast like a horse size little, little ducks can run pretty fast, like maybe half as fast as a, as a man can run.

01:27:03.585 --> 01:27:07.335
Do you think a horse size duck could run like way faster or would they actually be slower?

01:27:07.364 --> 01:27:07.604
'cause they're

01:27:08.625 --> 01:27:09.614
Ask a swan.

01:27:10.454 --> 01:27:10.904
Yeah.

01:27:10.904 --> 01:27:12.465
Swan's probably running pretty fast.

01:27:12.524 --> 01:27:12.734
Yeah.

01:27:13.034 --> 01:27:13.305
No,

01:27:13.604 --> 01:27:16.095
do, do they get to use their wings or not as the question?

01:27:16.574 --> 01:27:17.114
Well, sure.

01:27:17.114 --> 01:27:17.744
I mean if, yeah.

01:27:17.750 --> 01:27:17.850
Yeah.

01:27:17.854 --> 01:27:18.975
So then, yeah.

01:27:18.975 --> 01:27:20.729
I mean, let's assume this horse size duck on fly.

01:27:20.729 --> 01:27:21.074
I still take

01:27:21.074 --> 01:27:21.795
one duck.

01:27:22.125 --> 01:27:22.425
Yeah,

01:27:22.454 --> 01:27:22.784
man.

01:27:23.145 --> 01:27:26.385
I've always been imagining fighting that duck on the ground.

01:27:26.970 --> 01:27:29.579
If that fucker dive bobbed you, that would be a whole different seed.

01:27:29.609 --> 01:27:29.880
Yeah, it would.

01:27:29.880 --> 01:27:31.949
If you're a horse sized duck Yeah.

01:27:32.159 --> 01:27:32.850
Coming outta the air.

01:27:33.180 --> 01:27:34.500
But I, I'm on your side.

01:27:34.500 --> 01:27:42.989
I've, I've actually come back around to that'cause it's like, I don't, I'm not scared of an ant, but a hundred biting ants on me, I would be kind of scared of.

01:27:43.020 --> 01:27:43.109
Mm-hmm.

01:27:43.350 --> 01:27:47.550
Well, uh, duck sized horses would be worse than biting hands, I'm sure.

01:27:48.180 --> 01:27:48.390
Right?

01:27:48.390 --> 01:27:48.399
Mm-hmm.

01:27:48.399 --> 01:27:48.409
Yep.

01:27:48.409 --> 01:27:49.619
Brett, would you like to do your second?

01:27:49.619 --> 01:27:49.920
Yeah, sure.

01:27:49.920 --> 01:27:50.159
Number

01:27:50.159 --> 01:27:50.729
24.

01:27:50.819 --> 01:27:51.689
24.

01:27:53.880 --> 01:27:56.789
What's the most durable business relationship you've had?

01:27:57.029 --> 01:27:57.060
Mm.

01:27:58.409 --> 01:27:58.590
Wow.

01:27:58.590 --> 01:27:59.460
You got the deep thought.

01:27:59.704 --> 01:27:59.904
I know.

01:27:59.909 --> 01:28:00.420
I got the

01:28:00.479 --> 01:28:02.939
deep, deep, durable, deep thoughts for curb bear.

01:28:04.680 --> 01:28:06.930
Um, most durable.

01:28:10.199 --> 01:28:14.699
Well, I, I tell you what, you know, we, I don't know how I, I don't know how I'd narrow it down.

01:28:14.704 --> 01:28:16.529
I, I would have to go back to the team internally.

01:28:17.204 --> 01:28:17.444
Okay.

01:28:18.104 --> 01:28:19.710
You know, uh, it's, it's interesting, right?

01:28:19.710 --> 01:28:21.585
It's low turnover team since you've Yeah.

01:28:21.585 --> 01:28:21.795
Been in the

01:28:22.185 --> 01:28:23.024
leadership role, been

01:28:23.234 --> 01:28:24.975
surround and, and, and honored.

01:28:24.975 --> 01:28:25.034
Oh.

01:28:25.034 --> 01:28:25.364
And how did

01:28:25.364 --> 01:28:28.125
you get Aaron then, because he went to you and Levit and then he, I wasn't

01:28:28.125 --> 01:28:28.755
even in role.

01:28:28.755 --> 01:28:37.064
We were like, I was just, I was doing production at the time and, and, uh, one of our colleagues, uh, knew him and, uh, and kind of recruited him over.

01:28:37.125 --> 01:28:37.454
Gotcha.

01:28:37.725 --> 01:28:49.364
But I, I, I'd say the team, because, you know, you know, it's interesting, you know, um, Aaron, me, uh, mentioned earlier, uh, you know, the passing of his father and it, it, you know, oftentimes we spend as much time at work as we do anywhere else.

01:28:49.364 --> 01:28:49.454
Sure.

01:28:49.454 --> 01:28:49.784
And right.

01:28:49.784 --> 01:28:50.625
So we live life.

01:28:51.465 --> 01:28:52.095
We live life.

01:28:52.095 --> 01:28:58.484
And for the last 18 years, I've been just incredibly blessed to live life with people who care beyond just the numbers.

01:28:58.484 --> 01:29:00.074
Care beyond just, uh, yeah.

01:29:00.345 --> 01:29:01.154
What we do every day.

01:29:01.154 --> 01:29:05.354
You know, we, we we're, one of the things we pride ourselves on is being involved in the community.

01:29:05.685 --> 01:29:10.604
And so I've been able to stand side by side with people who serve our communities, try to give back.

01:29:11.055 --> 01:29:16.699
Uh, and if we've all lived life through our own, you know, personal, um, and collective tragedies and, and yeah.

01:29:16.699 --> 01:29:17.805
And trauma we've adapt to done.

01:29:17.835 --> 01:29:29.715
And, uh, sometimes I think we underestimate those impacts on our life of, of, of being at an office every day when something personally is, uh, happened to you and having that support group around you and that, that creates durability.

01:29:29.925 --> 01:29:30.225
Yeah.

01:29:30.225 --> 01:29:31.784
Those friendships and that loyalty.

01:29:31.845 --> 01:29:32.234
Totally.

01:29:32.265 --> 01:29:34.395
Uh, and the last thing I'd say is, you know, at the end of the day.

01:29:35.414 --> 01:29:37.364
Everybody has a legacy in some way, shape, or form.

01:29:37.364 --> 01:29:45.590
Oftentimes we look at our children, but I think the, the, the ability to influence and then the people that have influenced off oftentimes shape our legacy more than we wanna Yeah.

01:29:45.595 --> 01:29:45.765
Yeah.

01:29:45.765 --> 01:29:46.425
What we recognize,

01:29:46.814 --> 01:29:49.215
I, uh, my wife and I don't have any children of our own.

01:29:49.215 --> 01:29:49.395
Yeah.

01:29:49.395 --> 01:29:52.244
You, you know, some of my nephews over there and I do re

01:29:52.425 --> 01:29:52.694
Yep.

01:29:52.784 --> 01:29:56.984
Um, and, uh, but we've hosted now a dozen exchange students.

01:29:56.984 --> 01:29:57.135
Right.

01:29:57.614 --> 01:30:03.675
And the, the young lady we're hosting now, Sarah, we hosted her brother three years ago, en Rico from Italy.

01:30:03.854 --> 01:30:04.064
Right.

01:30:04.244 --> 01:30:06.015
And he came home with a passion for cooking.

01:30:06.104 --> 01:30:06.345
Right.

01:30:06.944 --> 01:30:08.234
Uh, especially Mexican food.

01:30:08.744 --> 01:30:22.845
And I just like that one, you know, that one little nugget of knowledge that, that he's like cooking tostadas for his family and probably his friends and his future wife over there in the, you know, middle of Italy.

01:30:22.935 --> 01:30:24.975
Uh, it just makes me smile a little bit.

01:30:25.095 --> 01:30:25.244
Mm-hmm.

01:30:25.484 --> 01:30:25.664
Yeah.

01:30:25.664 --> 01:30:29.835
And, and, and I, and I would add too, within that, I mean, we both have unbelievable, incredible spouses.

01:30:29.835 --> 01:30:29.954
Mm-hmm.

01:30:30.314 --> 01:30:33.015
Understand who have stood by us and, and, and been there.

01:30:33.015 --> 01:30:33.284
Right.

01:30:33.284 --> 01:30:36.560
Because there's a lot of, of time at community events and other things like we've Yeah.

01:30:36.975 --> 01:30:38.925
We've been honored have, sometimes they want to go, sometimes they don't.

01:30:38.925 --> 01:30:39.015
Yeah.

01:30:39.399 --> 01:30:42.645
And we, and we have spouses that have supported and then been there every step of the way.

01:30:42.645 --> 01:30:47.295
And in some ways both our spouses have had bigger impacts on the communities that we live in then we've had.

01:30:47.984 --> 01:30:48.255
Yeah.

01:30:48.420 --> 01:30:48.880
That's fair.

01:30:49.244 --> 01:30:49.725
That's cool.

01:30:50.715 --> 01:30:52.064
Aaron, would you like the last swing?

01:30:53.414 --> 01:30:54.194
16.

01:30:54.734 --> 01:30:56.024
16?

01:30:56.939 --> 01:30:59.220
Oh, this is kind of a deeper thing.

01:30:59.220 --> 01:31:06.300
Who, what person has had the most significant influence on your life, other than Brett, that would be totally brown nosing at this point.

01:31:06.720 --> 01:31:07.920
No ker bear.

01:31:08.430 --> 01:31:08.640
Yeah.

01:31:08.939 --> 01:31:09.899
Other than me or Brett?

01:31:09.899 --> 01:31:10.409
Yeah.

01:31:10.470 --> 01:31:10.979
Neither of us.

01:31:11.189 --> 01:31:16.289
Um, it's an easy one for me, but we've talked about him, but my dad.

01:31:16.380 --> 01:31:16.800
Yeah.

01:31:17.100 --> 01:31:17.369
Yeah.

01:31:17.939 --> 01:31:18.479
Um,

01:31:19.140 --> 01:31:21.630
it's pretty awesome to have a hero for a dad, right?

01:31:21.689 --> 01:31:23.774
Like, I mean, you can't necessarily speak to it Brett.

01:31:23.774 --> 01:31:24.055
Mm-hmm.

01:31:24.135 --> 01:31:28.289
But it is a really remarkable thing to have that person you really look up to in that spot.

01:31:28.859 --> 01:31:29.100
Yep.

01:31:29.640 --> 01:31:30.060
It is.

01:31:30.119 --> 01:31:35.850
I can see your, your emotional right now, just reflecting on him, and I think that's a huge testimony.

01:31:35.850 --> 01:31:37.020
So thanks for that.

01:31:37.020 --> 01:31:37.140
Yep.

01:31:37.409 --> 01:31:38.010
Realness.

01:31:38.640 --> 01:31:43.109
Um, the last segment, although actually let's have one more bonus segment.

01:31:43.109 --> 01:31:45.300
We used to intentionally talk about family a little bit more.

01:31:46.050 --> 01:31:47.880
Tell me where is it Stephanie?

01:31:47.885 --> 01:31:48.810
Yeah, Stephanie is your wife.

01:31:48.814 --> 01:31:54.930
Where, where, where, along that journey that we've been talking about, did you find her and why did she say yes to date number two?

01:31:54.930 --> 01:31:55.229
I'm still

01:31:55.229 --> 01:31:56.010
figuring that out.

01:31:56.579 --> 01:31:58.920
Um, no.

01:31:59.010 --> 01:32:07.859
We met in, uh, so I, I joined a local company named Fire Block in 2002, and I met her in, uh, I think it was May of 2003.

01:32:07.979 --> 01:32:08.310
Okay.

01:32:08.850 --> 01:32:15.149
And, um, I can still take you to the place in that building where I opened the door and she was there to interview her job.

01:32:15.149 --> 01:32:17.819
I could tell you what she was wearing and she looked like that day.

01:32:17.819 --> 01:32:18.750
I mean, that's, that's 20.

01:32:18.755 --> 01:32:19.574
You did a Charlie Kirk.

01:32:19.574 --> 01:32:19.854
You're

01:32:19.854 --> 01:32:21.060
like, I'm not gonna interview you.

01:32:21.060 --> 01:32:21.574
I wanna ask you.

01:32:21.899 --> 01:32:21.960
No.

01:32:21.960 --> 01:32:22.199
And it

01:32:22.199 --> 01:32:22.500
wasn't.

01:32:22.500 --> 01:32:23.819
She was interviewing and I was, yeah.

01:32:23.819 --> 01:32:24.899
I, um, yeah.

01:32:24.899 --> 01:32:26.220
So I, I just, um.

01:32:27.539 --> 01:32:29.850
I can remember it was like, like it was yesterday.

01:32:29.880 --> 01:32:30.090
That's cool.

01:32:30.090 --> 01:32:31.350
And she's, she's been there.

01:32:31.350 --> 01:32:41.069
You know, when you go into our business, you know, as much time as we've spent in the community, which is this understated thing of, I think what we do is just try to get back in the community is it takes a team.

01:32:41.399 --> 01:32:41.670
Yeah.

01:32:41.909 --> 01:32:43.680
You know, and she's been there every step of the way.

01:32:43.680 --> 01:32:47.039
I would not have any of the success I've had in the last 20 years if she wouldn't have been there.

01:32:47.189 --> 01:32:47.609
That's cool.

01:32:47.729 --> 01:32:47.939
Yeah.

01:32:48.569 --> 01:32:49.979
Where did you find Brandy at Aaron?

01:32:50.850 --> 01:32:51.420
Uh, well,

01:32:51.630 --> 01:32:52.500
here in Fort Collins.

01:32:52.505 --> 01:32:52.725
Yeah.

01:32:52.829 --> 01:32:53.220
Yeah.

01:32:53.430 --> 01:32:55.560
Um, so I thought you were single when we went out that night.

01:32:55.560 --> 01:32:57.329
It was, I remember the girls you were flirting with.

01:32:57.390 --> 01:32:58.260
Uh, just kidding.

01:32:58.439 --> 01:33:00.539
We just celebrated.

01:33:00.600 --> 01:33:04.680
Well, we're, we're soon to celebrate our 15th year of marriage in December.

01:33:05.699 --> 01:33:07.859
12, 11, 10 December 11th.

01:33:07.859 --> 01:33:10.859
I always have to say it that way so I know which date it is.

01:33:10.859 --> 01:33:11.579
'cause I always get the

01:33:11.670 --> 01:33:12.984
Oh, that's your anniversary, are you report?

01:33:12.984 --> 01:33:13.104
Yep.

01:33:13.104 --> 01:33:13.704
12 11, 10.

01:33:13.704 --> 01:33:13.994
That's cool.

01:33:14.039 --> 01:33:14.250
Well, we

01:33:14.250 --> 01:33:18.420
met on, uh, Halloween 16 years ago, just a couple weeks ago.

01:33:18.539 --> 01:33:18.750
Yeah.

01:33:18.899 --> 01:33:23.039
Um, mutual group of friends tailgating at CSU Air Force.

01:33:23.279 --> 01:33:23.550
Perfect.

01:33:23.550 --> 01:33:24.210
Old hug stadium.

01:33:24.840 --> 01:33:33.390
Like Brett, I can, um, probably find, you know, should it still exist out at Hughes Row and, and the ticket for that game.

01:33:33.390 --> 01:33:33.630
Yeah.

01:33:33.635 --> 01:33:33.824
Yep.

01:33:34.229 --> 01:33:34.529
Yep.

01:33:34.920 --> 01:33:36.479
So it was, yeah, pretty cool.

01:33:36.510 --> 01:33:37.289
16 years ago.

01:33:37.380 --> 01:33:37.439
Yeah.

01:33:37.920 --> 01:33:38.100
Yep.

01:33:38.180 --> 01:33:41.779
So here in front of us, I have, what do we call this?

01:33:41.779 --> 01:33:51.890
Oh, it's the Infinity Flask, um, which includes, glad you asked Outskirt, which includes a little bit of every distilled spirit that has come through the podcast studio over the last.

01:33:52.414 --> 01:33:53.194
Six months or so.

01:33:53.975 --> 01:34:01.505
And the cool guests, uh, have a sip with me and then do some tasting reflections before we get into the, the Loco experience stories.

01:34:01.835 --> 01:34:02.975
Would you like to start there?

01:34:03.484 --> 01:34:04.265
Sure, sure.

01:34:04.270 --> 01:34:05.119
I can pass it over to you, Brett.

01:34:05.409 --> 01:34:05.960
There you go.

01:34:07.460 --> 01:34:10.475
So I just, I would, I would consider it a sip or more their shooter.

01:34:11.164 --> 01:34:12.545
Oh, I can smell the tequila.

01:34:13.835 --> 01:34:16.024
Yeah, it's pretty, that's pretty distinct right away.

01:34:16.175 --> 01:34:16.385
Mm-hmm.

01:34:21.604 --> 01:34:22.265
So what do you think?

01:34:22.685 --> 01:34:23.585
Should I bottle that?

01:34:24.215 --> 01:34:28.654
I would pass, uh, but it's not as bad as I thought it was.

01:34:28.654 --> 01:34:28.835
Right.

01:34:28.835 --> 01:34:29.255
It's, than I thought.

01:34:29.255 --> 01:34:30.064
Yeah.

01:34:30.515 --> 01:34:33.244
Well everything's like in the mid shelf range.

01:34:33.244 --> 01:34:33.335
Right.

01:34:33.335 --> 01:34:34.654
You know, we are no slouches around here.

01:34:34.654 --> 01:34:37.024
We buy 30 and$40 bottles of stuff.

01:34:37.270 --> 01:34:37.744
My my guess.

01:34:37.744 --> 01:34:38.465
Bring cool stuff.

01:34:38.494 --> 01:34:38.675
Yeah.

01:34:39.095 --> 01:34:41.225
You can even taste the ji Can you taste the gin Little bit.

01:34:41.225 --> 01:34:43.744
There's a tiny bit of Mob Mountain Distillery gin in there.

01:34:43.744 --> 01:34:43.895
It's,

01:34:43.899 --> 01:34:45.604
it's, uh, the sip that keeps giving.

01:34:45.994 --> 01:34:46.324
It does.

01:34:46.534 --> 01:34:46.805
Yeah.

01:34:46.805 --> 01:34:47.795
It's got steak power.

01:34:47.795 --> 01:34:48.095
Yeah.

01:34:48.154 --> 01:34:48.965
It's got steak power.

01:34:49.625 --> 01:34:52.835
Oh, well, thanks for enjoying the local experience with me, but, uh, so

01:34:52.835 --> 01:34:54.515
Kurt, remember that risk transfer thing?

01:34:54.935 --> 01:34:55.234
Yeah.

01:34:55.444 --> 01:34:55.774
Yeah.

01:34:55.774 --> 01:34:59.524
And then you're giving the insurance guys alcohol on the way out the door.

01:34:59.645 --> 01:34:59.975
Yeah.

01:34:59.975 --> 01:35:02.255
Anyways, it was just, it was too easy not to

01:35:02.734 --> 01:35:03.694
Well, it's on video too.

01:35:03.784 --> 01:35:03.875
I know.

01:35:04.505 --> 01:35:05.494
Yeah, absolutely.

01:35:05.734 --> 01:35:08.345
He's serving us like nobody's drank more than about a shot and a half.

01:35:08.345 --> 01:35:09.215
You're big guys.

01:35:09.484 --> 01:35:10.324
I'm just messing with that.

01:35:10.324 --> 01:35:10.899
It was too easy.

01:35:10.899 --> 01:35:11.140
Yeah.

01:35:11.145 --> 01:35:20.524
But, uh, yeah, if, uh, Fort Collins pd, if you wanna set up around the corner from, uh, the Loco Experience Studio on Monday evenings, you might get one once in a while.

01:35:20.555 --> 01:35:22.744
Yeah, they probably are already doing it.

01:35:23.494 --> 01:35:29.045
Brett, the Loco experience is the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners.

01:35:29.045 --> 01:35:38.375
It might be ironic, it might be near death, it might be cultural, you know, signing up for the military after the background you came from.

01:35:38.614 --> 01:35:38.911
Uh, I don't know.

01:36:22.220 --> 01:36:26.449
Tell me what, what strikes you when I say, what's that craziest experience you would tell your grandkids?

01:36:27.505 --> 01:36:27.625
I,

01:36:27.979 --> 01:36:31.550
I, yeah, I'd probably go with most unforgettable experience in a way.

01:36:31.579 --> 01:36:31.819
Okay.

01:36:32.090 --> 01:36:32.390
Alright.

01:36:33.034 --> 01:36:37.114
So in, uh, 1994, I was still at Eglin Air Force Base.

01:36:37.505 --> 01:36:37.805
Okay.

01:36:38.135 --> 01:36:42.994
I was, uh, about a year, year and a half from getting out of the military.

01:36:43.024 --> 01:36:43.324
Okay.

01:36:43.534 --> 01:36:44.399
And had you decided already?

01:36:44.675 --> 01:36:53.375
Uh, yeah, I was pretty certain I was gonna get out and, uh, anyway, I had won a, um, I won this award and, uh, and, and I had an opportunity.

01:36:53.435 --> 01:36:53.975
What award?

01:36:54.515 --> 01:36:56.135
Uh, I don't know if that matters.

01:36:56.164 --> 01:36:57.395
The Super Good Soldier Award.

01:36:57.545 --> 01:37:00.064
I was Airman of the Year for the Oh, at the base for real.

01:37:00.185 --> 01:37:00.784
That's impressive.

01:37:00.814 --> 01:37:01.085
Yeah.

01:37:01.085 --> 01:37:04.145
And then, yeah, out of how many, I think we had 5,000.

01:37:04.234 --> 01:37:06.125
That's pretty, you know, one out of 5,000.

01:37:06.125 --> 01:37:06.965
It's a pretty big ranking.

01:37:06.965 --> 01:37:07.175
Yeah.

01:37:07.534 --> 01:37:07.960
Well, it pales him.

01:37:08.270 --> 01:37:10.880
In comparison to be sitting here right now on the couch.

01:37:11.180 --> 01:37:11.510
Yeah.

01:37:11.840 --> 01:37:12.829
Kurt got blessed with Kurt.

01:37:12.829 --> 01:37:13.039
Right.

01:37:13.460 --> 01:37:13.819
The Infinity.

01:37:13.819 --> 01:37:15.715
I was like, I I'm going home experience podcast.

01:37:15.720 --> 01:37:19.074
I'm going home and throwing all the plaques and trophies anyway, so I'll stop interrupting, I promise.

01:37:19.074 --> 01:37:19.274
Yeah.

01:37:19.279 --> 01:37:26.989
So anyway, so this, anyway, so I got an opportunity and this is, uh, been, this was unbelievable, but I got an opportunity to go up in an, what they call an incentive ride.

01:37:27.800 --> 01:37:32.234
Uh, and I got to go out and pick between the F 16 and F fifteens.

01:37:32.239 --> 01:37:35.000
'cause we had several fighter squadrons on our base.

01:37:35.539 --> 01:37:39.409
Uh, I picked a 16'cause they had a low canopy so you could see really well.

01:37:39.409 --> 01:37:46.819
And, um, the day of the flight, uh, the general on base, who and I had an opportunity to meet a couple times was growing up.

01:37:46.819 --> 01:37:49.850
'cause they had to have to keep their, uh, pilots, uh, status.

01:37:49.850 --> 01:37:51.020
They had to fly so many hours.

01:37:51.020 --> 01:37:51.260
Sure.

01:37:51.265 --> 01:37:51.555
So we went up.

01:37:51.560 --> 01:37:53.954
So just two of us went up and, uh, cool.

01:37:54.020 --> 01:37:55.039
I knew it was gonna be interesting.

01:37:55.039 --> 01:37:56.390
Uh, hour and a half when I went up.

01:37:56.390 --> 01:37:58.310
We did a vertical takeoff to 10,000 feet.

01:37:59.689 --> 01:38:11.090
Pulled several Gs and, um, the thing they don't tell you before the incentive award, and I knew a lot of the pilots'cause I worked in a finance office, is that, uh, they bet with themselves that the incentive rider and I, they could make it pass out.

01:38:11.090 --> 01:38:11.329
Yeah.

01:38:11.329 --> 01:38:14.420
Well I was the first one and I think they hadn't given one in about five years.

01:38:14.779 --> 01:38:16.130
And so they were all itching for this.

01:38:16.130 --> 01:38:19.850
But, uh, basically, uh, they have to make, you know, puke.

01:38:20.090 --> 01:38:20.390
Oh.

01:38:20.449 --> 01:38:25.399
And so, uh, anyway, they accomplished that pretty quickly and they give you a chance to stabilize.

01:38:25.399 --> 01:38:28.550
But it was cool'cause I, I got to go out, uh, over the gulf.

01:38:28.909 --> 01:38:30.739
We were out far enough we could break the sound barrier.

01:38:30.890 --> 01:38:31.220
Wow.

01:38:31.279 --> 01:38:34.399
And, uh, I've got a plaque with pictures on it in my wall.

01:38:34.399 --> 01:38:38.180
So it's probably one of the most extraordinary experiences I've had in my life.

01:38:38.210 --> 01:38:38.270
Yeah.

01:38:38.270 --> 01:38:40.340
That a lot of people probably don't get to experience.

01:38:40.369 --> 01:38:40.460
Mm-hmm.

01:38:40.699 --> 01:38:42.109
You didn't pass out from the GS though.

01:38:42.170 --> 01:38:43.699
You were uh, stayed conscious.

01:38:43.729 --> 01:38:45.560
I stayed conscious the whole time.

01:38:45.560 --> 01:38:48.590
It's just unbelievable the pressure it puts on your body.

01:38:48.590 --> 01:38:48.765
Oh, no.

01:38:48.765 --> 01:38:50.720
And how sore I was the next day.

01:38:50.720 --> 01:38:52.880
I mean, I was sore for days after that.

01:38:52.939 --> 01:38:55.159
I, uh, there's a video out there on the.

01:38:55.595 --> 01:39:01.984
Twitter where like somebody like comes into and out of consciousness pulling gs Oh, I could as a passenger on jet Like that.

01:39:01.984 --> 01:39:02.284
They're like,

01:39:04.265 --> 01:39:04.534
yeah.

01:39:04.564 --> 01:39:09.755
I mean, when you take off, I mean, when you, when you, when you see those planes bank and they're pulling a couple G's at that point.

01:39:09.755 --> 01:39:10.114
Yeah.

01:39:10.295 --> 01:39:13.234
But when you do that vertical take off, if you're mouse open, you're not getting it closed.

01:39:13.774 --> 01:39:20.944
And then, you know, you have to go through all this training and you've got your flight suit on, and you can just hear this flight suit kick on and push all the blood, try to push all your blood back up.

01:39:20.944 --> 01:39:21.425
Oh, wow.

01:39:21.454 --> 01:39:21.694
Yeah.

01:39:22.564 --> 01:39:24.694
It's so much more intense than most people realize.

01:39:24.694 --> 01:39:25.204
I think

01:39:25.265 --> 01:39:26.585
it was more intense than I realized.

01:39:26.585 --> 01:39:28.114
I thought I was in pretty good shape at the time.

01:39:28.114 --> 01:39:31.085
I had parts of me sore that I never thought I could be sore.

01:39:31.085 --> 01:39:31.414
Well, I did

01:39:31.414 --> 01:39:32.614
was have an airplane ride.

01:39:32.675 --> 01:39:32.944
Yeah.

01:39:33.095 --> 01:39:33.755
Interesting.

01:39:33.814 --> 01:39:34.024
Yeah.

01:39:34.595 --> 01:39:34.925
Thank you.

01:39:34.925 --> 01:39:35.314
That was it.

01:39:35.404 --> 01:39:36.845
That's, that's actually pretty cool.

01:39:36.875 --> 01:39:37.085
Yeah.

01:39:37.385 --> 01:39:44.345
Like, like one in a hundred thousand of my listeners, if I had a hundred thousand listeners, would've had a story.

01:39:44.345 --> 01:39:44.734
Well, you're gonna

01:39:44.734 --> 01:39:47.045
hear a hundred thousand listeners after the insurance part, right?

01:39:47.045 --> 01:39:47.979
Well, Aaron's famous.

01:39:47.979 --> 01:39:48.140
Yeah.

01:39:48.425 --> 01:39:48.694
Yeah.

01:39:48.694 --> 01:39:51.125
The most exciting experience and insurance.

01:39:51.425 --> 01:39:51.725
Yeah.

01:39:52.640 --> 01:39:53.779
Yeah, I should have went first.

01:39:54.199 --> 01:39:54.439
How?

01:39:54.444 --> 01:39:54.734
I don't know.

01:39:54.734 --> 01:39:56.930
I don't, can't follow that experience.

01:39:56.960 --> 01:39:57.140
No.

01:39:57.199 --> 01:39:57.680
Um,

01:39:59.149 --> 01:40:02.329
do you have any brushes with famous baseball players in your career or anything like that?

01:40:02.359 --> 01:40:02.840
No.

01:40:02.840 --> 01:40:05.989
I mean, I've met a handful of people, but you never really meet'em.

01:40:05.989 --> 01:40:06.590
You just, yeah.

01:40:06.590 --> 01:40:07.279
Acquaintances.

01:40:07.279 --> 01:40:08.720
So, and they played for the twins

01:40:08.720 --> 01:40:09.350
for like a year.

01:40:09.500 --> 01:40:09.800
Whoa,

01:40:09.800 --> 01:40:10.220
whoa, whoa.

01:40:10.220 --> 01:40:12.199
97 or 87 91.

01:40:12.274 --> 01:40:12.694
Herbie.

01:40:12.694 --> 01:40:16.789
Oh, Herbeck, Kent, Herbeck, Kirby P These guys were studs.

01:40:16.795 --> 01:40:22.699
I'll, I'll go with the experience that probably changed my, uh, or influenced my life the most.

01:40:22.699 --> 01:40:28.880
I wouldn't say necessarily changed it, but you asked Brett the question, the one of the most crazy, uh, times you got hurt.

01:40:29.539 --> 01:40:29.869
Oh yeah.

01:40:30.800 --> 01:40:45.590
Um, so I don't tell this story to a whole lot of people, but I broke my wrist in junior year of, of high school baseball season and I just broken the starting lineup and I was all into it.

01:40:45.590 --> 01:40:48.199
And we had a racket sports class in high school.

01:40:48.319 --> 01:40:48.770
Okay.

01:40:48.770 --> 01:40:50.029
So what is a high school?

01:40:50.734 --> 01:40:54.664
Boy do in racket sports when you're warming up for tennis mm-hmm.

01:40:55.385 --> 01:40:57.244
You try to jump over the tennis match.

01:40:57.305 --> 01:40:57.845
Oh damn.

01:40:58.564 --> 01:41:00.545
So I did not make it.

01:41:00.784 --> 01:41:03.574
Uh, and, uh, ended up breaking a little bone.

01:41:03.579 --> 01:41:04.319
You broke your scaphoid.

01:41:04.460 --> 01:41:05.119
The scaphoid.

01:41:05.239 --> 01:41:05.359
I

01:41:05.435 --> 01:41:09.664
broke my scaphoid crashing a bicycle trying to ride fast with no hands.

01:41:09.694 --> 01:41:09.965
Yeah.

01:41:10.100 --> 01:41:15.364
And so that little bone, um, cost me my junior season.

01:41:15.454 --> 01:41:15.604
Ah, damn.

01:41:15.694 --> 01:41:27.515
Uh, but also taught me a lot about, um, patience, persistence, work ethic, um, being a good teammate, uh, when you're not playing.

01:41:27.635 --> 01:41:27.904
Hmm.

01:41:28.234 --> 01:41:32.524
Um, so yeah, so I had my, you know, cast on for yeah.

01:41:32.555 --> 01:41:38.375
Eight or 10 weeks and then convinced the doc to take it off and rebroke it and had to have surgery the following spring.

01:41:38.375 --> 01:41:43.595
So, um, but that experience is as embarrassing as it is.

01:41:43.715 --> 01:41:44.015
Yeah.

01:41:44.194 --> 01:41:46.055
Um, really.

01:41:46.805 --> 01:41:47.645
Helped me a lot.

01:41:47.885 --> 01:41:48.125
Yeah.

01:41:48.154 --> 01:41:50.824
Um, and I have, you know, I get to look at it every day.

01:41:51.185 --> 01:41:51.545
Right.

01:41:51.755 --> 01:41:52.505
Oh, did you get a scar?

01:41:52.595 --> 01:41:52.895
Oh yeah.

01:41:52.895 --> 01:41:53.314
I had from a backup

01:41:53.314 --> 01:41:53.914
surgery, had

01:41:53.914 --> 01:41:55.079
surgery and, yeah, yeah.

01:41:55.085 --> 01:41:55.324
Yeah.

01:41:55.324 --> 01:41:55.984
The whole thing.

01:41:55.984 --> 01:41:56.944
So, see, I lived with

01:41:56.944 --> 01:41:59.645
mine for three weeks before I had it casted.

01:41:59.704 --> 01:42:00.484
Oh yeah.

01:42:00.784 --> 01:42:04.444
And, and then finally got it checked out and casted.

01:42:04.444 --> 01:42:07.994
'cause it wasn't healing, you know, I had a sprain wrist I thought from crashing my bike, but yeah.

01:42:08.194 --> 01:42:08.704
Yeah, no, that

01:42:08.704 --> 01:42:09.425
little bone's a

01:42:09.484 --> 01:42:10.805
it's a slow one to heal.

01:42:10.805 --> 01:42:11.074
Yeah.

01:42:11.104 --> 01:42:11.345
Yep.

01:42:11.675 --> 01:42:12.244
Interesting.

01:42:12.244 --> 01:42:16.444
That whole, like that was probably one of your first brushes with.

01:42:17.404 --> 01:42:18.454
Not being Superman.

01:42:18.454 --> 01:42:18.784
Right.

01:42:18.784 --> 01:42:24.274
Like with actually having to have a recovery time over things and stuff like that.

01:42:24.274 --> 01:42:24.454
Oh, I

01:42:24.454 --> 01:42:27.064
don't never put myself in the category.

01:42:27.064 --> 01:42:27.994
Well, not a Superman,

01:42:27.994 --> 01:42:29.494
but we're all, I mean, we're men.

01:42:29.494 --> 01:42:29.585
Mm-hmm.

01:42:29.824 --> 01:42:31.354
Until we're about 25.

01:42:31.354 --> 01:42:31.414
Yeah.

01:42:31.414 --> 01:42:37.085
We basically feel un un invincible until we have an injury or occurrence like that.

01:42:37.114 --> 01:42:37.204
Right.

01:42:37.449 --> 01:42:38.734
You, you know, there's certain,

01:42:38.734 --> 01:42:40.414
and then it's just like this little stupid bone.

01:42:40.414 --> 01:42:42.814
You can't heal that freaking dumb thing.

01:42:42.845 --> 01:42:43.175
Yeah.

01:42:43.204 --> 01:42:44.975
I had pins put in it, the whole deal.

01:42:45.095 --> 01:42:45.425
Yeah.

01:42:45.635 --> 01:42:45.935
Dang.

01:42:46.024 --> 01:42:52.534
But I still remember, um, our, our head coach looked at me and he goes, what did you do?

01:42:53.104 --> 01:43:00.305
And he just looked, da, I was on the gym, in the gym on the floor, and he just shook his head and walked in the locker room.

01:43:00.305 --> 01:43:01.534
But yeah, I knew,

01:43:02.284 --> 01:43:05.074
well, yeah, we have that in common to some extent in that.

01:43:05.074 --> 01:43:09.664
The, maybe you too, Brett, the, the worst things that have ever happened to me.

01:43:10.130 --> 01:43:11.359
I've done to myself.

01:43:11.989 --> 01:43:12.470
Uh, yeah.

01:43:14.779 --> 01:43:15.020
Yeah.

01:43:15.020 --> 01:43:19.760
But you know, I'm kind of thankful that like bad shit doesn't just rain down on me randomly.

01:43:19.760 --> 01:43:21.680
It's mostly because I cause it, but Yeah.

01:43:21.680 --> 01:43:25.489
But you learn so much about it in the whole grand scheme of things, so Yeah.

01:43:25.760 --> 01:43:26.000
Yeah.

01:43:26.479 --> 01:43:30.890
Which is why I ride a fast motorcycle and you guys are insurance agents that home

01:43:30.890 --> 01:43:31.189
quiet.

01:43:31.220 --> 01:43:31.819
You got it

01:43:32.029 --> 01:43:32.149
right.

01:43:32.149 --> 01:43:33.529
I haven't learned my lessons yet.

01:43:34.640 --> 01:43:41.029
Hey, uh, before I forget, thanks to Flood and Peterson, also for sponsoring local think tank events.

01:43:41.090 --> 01:43:41.270
Mm-hmm.

01:43:41.720 --> 01:43:43.039
Um, our pleasure past year.

01:43:43.039 --> 01:43:43.399
Absolutely.

01:43:43.399 --> 01:43:49.520
It's, uh, great to have you as part of that supportive community and you always know where to find us if you have good referrals.

01:43:49.520 --> 01:43:50.960
I know you have a lot of good customers.

01:43:51.020 --> 01:43:51.289
Aaron.

01:43:53.300 --> 01:43:54.829
Um, any questions for me?

01:43:55.550 --> 01:43:55.699
No,

01:43:56.600 --> 01:43:57.920
I'd just say thanks, man.

01:43:57.920 --> 01:44:00.649
You, um, 25 years funny, right?

01:44:00.649 --> 01:44:02.960
We started this that, uh, 25 years ago.

01:44:02.960 --> 01:44:03.079
Yeah.

01:44:03.079 --> 01:44:04.819
We met almost to the day.

01:44:05.390 --> 01:44:05.989
Um.

01:44:06.350 --> 01:44:11.060
It's been a pleasure to know you all those years and yeah, it's been fun to watch your journey.

01:44:11.239 --> 01:44:11.539
Yeah.

01:44:11.805 --> 01:44:26.090
Same, um, on how you've created much respect your, uh, the local think tank and, and pulling business owners together, which is a, a tough thing to do, to take their time, which is valuable.

01:44:26.510 --> 01:44:35.479
Um, having been a part of a peer group that helped me make the decision to get out of, to leave banking, if you will, I shouldn't say get out, right?

01:44:35.510 --> 01:44:35.630
Yeah.

01:44:36.079 --> 01:44:43.189
Um, to find a better place for your to, but to move industries, uh, was a big reason for me to make the change.

01:44:43.189 --> 01:44:50.119
So what you're doing is, um, very valuable to all those, all of your clients and the peer groups that you put together.

01:44:50.210 --> 01:44:54.454
Um, it's, well, I know you guys write the insurance for a bunch of'em, so it's cool.

01:44:54.675 --> 01:44:54.895
It.

01:44:55.609 --> 01:44:57.649
It's, uh, it's lonely at the top, right?

01:44:57.739 --> 01:44:58.579
Uh, it is.

01:44:58.640 --> 01:45:00.739
And, uh, no matter how big your business is, if you're a

01:45:00.739 --> 01:45:02.420
one man show or Right.

01:45:02.659 --> 01:45:04.489
A 300 person company or more.

01:45:04.609 --> 01:45:04.760
So,

01:45:04.760 --> 01:45:05.989
kudos to you, Kurt.

01:45:05.994 --> 01:45:06.085
Thanks.

01:45:06.185 --> 01:45:09.645
And, uh, thanks for inviting me and Brett and mm-hmm.

01:45:09.725 --> 01:45:10.279
Fred and Pete.

01:45:10.430 --> 01:45:10.670
Yeah.

01:45:10.670 --> 01:45:11.449
Uh, brand along

01:45:11.630 --> 01:45:11.840
Brett.

01:45:12.170 --> 01:45:12.859
Fun to have you here.

01:45:13.010 --> 01:45:13.189
Yeah.

01:45:13.189 --> 01:45:16.100
And I, I just, I think I told you that the R-C-R-C-S gala one year.

01:45:16.340 --> 01:45:16.609
Yeah.

01:45:16.609 --> 01:45:20.210
I, uh, you know, you make fun and poke fun on yourself like we all do.

01:45:20.210 --> 01:45:20.510
Right.

01:45:20.510 --> 01:45:23.840
Little self-effacing humor, but, you know, I, I You're a convener.

01:45:24.800 --> 01:45:25.010
Yeah.

01:45:25.369 --> 01:45:26.000
You know, you're a convener.

01:45:26.000 --> 01:45:34.159
You talk about having ideas and everything, but ultimately, you know, you, I think you've created this, uh, network within the community, um, that's been incredibly valuable.

01:45:34.159 --> 01:45:36.500
I think it's up there best of local podcast, right?

01:45:36.590 --> 01:45:37.130
Yeah.

01:45:37.699 --> 01:45:39.470
And we're gonna win it again this year.

01:45:39.470 --> 01:45:42.005
It's not public yet, so don't tell anybody not saying a word.

01:45:42.034 --> 01:45:42.725
It's gonna be out after that.

01:45:42.734 --> 01:45:43.104
Don't release that.

01:45:44.029 --> 01:45:45.319
It's, it is been released.

01:45:45.319 --> 01:45:47.449
It'll be released before this conversation comes live.

01:45:47.899 --> 01:45:47.989
Yeah.

01:45:47.989 --> 01:45:51.739
But that, that, that, you know, that convener that brings people together, I, they think sometimes.

01:45:52.609 --> 01:45:54.619
As any business owner can be a lonely place, right?

01:45:54.680 --> 01:45:54.979
Yeah.

01:45:55.010 --> 01:46:00.409
Uh, but when you can surround yourself with other business owners and community, that place becomes less lonely.

01:46:01.250 --> 01:46:01.369
Agree.

01:46:01.369 --> 01:46:14.750
And I think you've done an unbelievable job that most people may not think about every day, but I I bet you there's several small, medium, large business owners in this community that have stuck it up because they were part of your groups and have grown before.

01:46:14.750 --> 01:46:16.430
Because I, I just thank you.

01:46:16.430 --> 01:46:16.520
Mm-hmm.

01:46:16.760 --> 01:46:18.265
It's also we're citizens of this community.

01:46:18.439 --> 01:46:18.680
Yeah.

01:46:18.739 --> 01:46:23.600
So the businesses you help, help create jobs and help drive the economy, that helps it make a great place to live.

01:46:23.600 --> 01:46:26.539
So don't underestimate what you do Well, same back at you.

01:46:26.569 --> 01:46:26.779
Yeah.

01:46:26.869 --> 01:46:27.829
Sorry for teasing you

01:46:27.829 --> 01:46:28.250
for being

01:46:28.279 --> 01:46:28.850
Oh, no worries.

01:46:29.210 --> 01:46:32.029
Hey, we were as a badge of honor, but you are cool insurers, guys.

01:46:32.090 --> 01:46:35.000
Well, we try to be from the infinity flak with me, so that's cool.

01:46:35.779 --> 01:46:36.289
Thanks guys.

01:46:36.289 --> 01:46:36.680
Appreciate it.

01:46:36.680 --> 01:46:36.890
You bet.

01:46:36.920 --> 01:46:37.699
Alright, thanks Kurt.

01:46:37.699 --> 01:46:37.880
Speed.

01:46:37.880 --> 01:46:38.000
Be.