EXPERIENCE 262 | Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop Starting New Companies - Featuring Kyle Bentley, President &

My guess this week was Kyle Bentley. I connected with Kyle on LinkedIn back in 2019, and saw him growing his business Bentley Welding ink through the years, and then more recently saw him a new set of businesses arise. Coyote tanks, blue northern constructors, and seros industrial, and Bentley Welding becoming Bentley Mission Critical. I thought he might have a problem, and so I reached out to see if you wanted to join me in studio for a conversation on the local experience. In studio, I found out he's also the VP of the District 6 School Board in Weld County, President of the Board of Directors at the Greeley Family House, and on the Foundation Board for UV Tech in his native Vernal Utah. In recent years, Kyle's business has shifted from primarily oil and gas now into tech, building modular data center units in shipping containers. This one's wild ride with a fascinating Northern Colorado employer, so please join me in enjoying my conversation with Kyle Bentley. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the local experience podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits, so pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. My guest today is Kyle Bentley, and he is President or CEO or whatever he chooses to call himself at Bentley Welding Inc., Coyote Tanks, Blue, Northern Constructors, and Saros Industrial. I squeezed him for what else do you do to keep you busy? He's the Vice President of the District 6 School Board, the President of the Board of the Greeley Family House, as well as on the Foundation Board for UB Tech in his hometown of Vernal. Any hobbies? Yeah, that's not much time. Sometimes I like to sleep. And he's a scratch golfer. I wish. Yeah. It'll bring that make just a little closer if you're absolutely cool. So tell me, I guess Bentley Welding was, I noticed you and LinkedIn talking about different projects and stuff years ago. It was like, this guy seems pretty sassy. So I've been watching since then. Can we talk about what that started as and what it is today? Yeah, it was kind of an accident to be honest. I didn't really ever have like business aspirations, so my dad is in a businessman. Okay. I worked for a local company there that I grew up with that did Welding or something. Yeah, the oil-filled construction and head welders that were employed by him. That's where what I ended up being is coming as a welder. And I come over here now, 2013, just for an opportunity to make more money. Yeah, the oil fills were pretty hot at that time, they were moving their budget over to here. And so I came over and just kind of unbeknownst to me the owner that I worked for in this big kind of family company was exiting since he had a divorce with the other owner's daughter. And so I got stuck over here and one day they came to me and they said, hey, I was running operations now. I kind of moved up from Welding and they wanted to basically bring me in-house instead of subcontracting at a third of what I was making. I was like, I can't afford that. That's not so much will I or won't I? It's I can't. Right. So I got a big truck with them. We parted ways and I was kind of panicked and made a couple phone calls and was promised a project and kicked off and talked to me about what a project is. Yeah, so we were doing all sorts of different things. Then you had a welder with a truck, I guess. Yeah, that's what I had. And then so I was going to be like a shop fabrication project. They were a piping basically a header of sorts and just prefabricated it, assembled it, pressure tested it and then painted and shipped it to the field. So that was probably a million, a million and a half dollar project per year. Okay. That's pretty good. Just for me and a couple guys. And so I kind of got kicked off on that and other little project coming through from another like your take was a million dollar project. No, no, it was gross. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I, you know, that was just your part was whatever. Yeah, presented. Yeah, depending on performance, you know, but oh, yeah, right. So I got like a the job that I was promised to start venting the welding with was was a million and a half roughly a year. So oh, regular work, regular work. Oh, okay. That's kind of like my foundation. A couple of people kind of thing. It's going in stuff and then it just it grew and the from that from that day when I got made that call, got promised that project to when I actually that kicked off was about two weeks. And in that time frame, my friends who worked for me over the other company, they came over and they're like, Hey, we want to come with you. Yeah, flattering, but I only have enough for two, two labors. I'm not sure. And these were like, and it's not going to pay as much as your existed job. And so they went, they unnotes me went to the customer and said, Hey, it's not working. You know, Kyle was like the magic car. We're either going to go home or we want to go to work with Kyle. And it was so busy back then. The customer literally said, we don't care what names on the invoice. We just need you guys here doing the works when get a project done on time. Oh, wow. And so day one, I started with 19 employees and I took took over an existing construct some of the some of the not all of it. We had about 85 over there, but about 20 of them made this jump with a 26 year old kid that they didn't know. But that first day, you might have seen us on LinkedIn. I've kind of posted some of these stories the other day, but that first day, 19 guy staring at me, you know, and I'm 26, a lot of older than me. Sure. And I had $3,000 in the bank account. And I didn't know how I was going to pay them in three, I had roughly 20 days to tell their next paycheck to do you. And I was everything I could do just keep from crying. Well, I was like, you know, scared out of my mind. I'm thinking about everything from finding a bookkeeper to having some level of HR and stuff for my handshakes. I had an accounting firm helping me do payroll. And that's good. It was just me in a really rudimentary, crappy set of quickbooks that, you know, online I started it up. Yeah, I didn't even know how to set up a chart of accounts or any of that stuff. You know, an item list. And this is 2013, 2014 June, June 9th, the 14th is when we kicked off that first. Okay. So I actually, well, you're coming up on that local thing thing, just turn 12. We started in February of 2019, or 2014. Yep. So yeah, 12 years of summer for us too. So we, luckily, I literally, you know, I'd heard rumors of people factoring invoices. I had no idea what it really meant. It was fast, right? So I, after we're going after I typed in like Google invoice factoring. And I clicked the first one that come up and it just happened to like, get hooked up with this sweet heart. Her name's Diana Carter from Sterling Commercial Credit. And they're in out of Chicago, Illinois. Okay. And we get through it. And she's like, yeah, we'll get you fixed up. And then we kind of, we hit a bunch of hiccups. And just the way that they wanted to get things approved, didn't jive with the customers approval process. And she ended up getting a whole bunch like the, there's their credit company or not company, but committee got them comfortable with the way that the invoicing worked. And I got my first wire Thursday night before payroll was due on Friday morning. And I had a right 70, a hand wrote $70,000 in between subcontractors and employees at payroll checks the next morning and just been cruising over. Did you get out of the factoring before 2017? Yeah, so it's expensive. It was a percent per 15 days. So they'd front me 85% hold the 15 back when they got paid, depending on how long it was, they'd pull their fee out of that. But it's a percent per 15 days. And you know, it'll be like 36%. Sure. It's crazy. You know, but so you started with just a tiny bit of capital. No, like $150,000 probably. Like I borrowed 15 from one guy, but 15 for my father-in-law. And then I put my last two or three paychecks from that old company into it and then credit cards and auto loans and whatever access to credit you could find. Yeah, yeah. One time we were actually, because those two trucks, those two guys that came over, I wasn't planning on, like, budget for that or anything, right? I did not have a vehicle. I did not have to go get a vehicle and tools. And we're sitting there. I'm literally in lows, getting like, you know, end wrenches and hammers and stuff. And I did the math in my head and I was like, shoot, I'm going to put something back. You know, I don't have enough money for all these tools. And my ex-wife now, but she pulls out this and she's like, well, I didn't want to tell you, but I have an old Navy credit card. I got 10% off two years ago. It's got, I think it's got $2,000 on it. And I was like, perfect. You know, so I'm buying tools with an old Navy credit card that she just signed up for to get a discount. That's sweet. Yeah. So she was, uh, along for the ride too. Had you been married? Yeah. Were you married at that time? Yeah. Yeah. We, we got married in 2006. So we'd be together, you know, you're not kind of proven to her that I wasn't going to, you know, bankrupt. She trusted me that way. She was good about that sort of stuff. That's cool. Not a lot of fighting that way as long as I, you know, I would sit down and, hey, this is with the math. This is what I'm thinking at you. Yeah. You know, I proved her. I proved myself right enough times that she trusted me that way. And in the lead up to this, you had never, like, put on entrepreneurial podcasts when you were driving down the road or anything like that. Nothing. I mean, no podcasts are big in 2012. I guess they probably weren't. Yeah. Yeah. Not yet. Like 16, 18 is what I learned about it. Yeah. So nothing like that. It didn't read business books. You know, you said you didn't come from an entrepreneurial family. Did you fall in love right away or like, I like the math side of it. So math's always been big. Okay. You know, like I like doing the estimating and counting the dollars and then at the end of it, you know, figuring out where we're at and stuff. So that stuff always interests me. But more or less, I just like the opportunities and the excitement and the freedoms it kind of offers you. It's kind of a weird like, you know, you hear kids that talk about being an entrepreneur and the, you know, make my own schedule as these. Yeah. You kind of make your own schedule. You get to pick where you're taking 20 phone calls from. You end up going from one boss, your manager to 20 customers who are, you know, you're boss ready to fire you at any second. So, um, but, but that's side of the world. Just, you know, there's never a dull moment. It's something going on. And, you know, I get bored pretty easy. We can go back into the time machine a little bit later. But I want to hear about like the next one. Coyote tanks. Yeah. So is that in chronological? Yeah. Yeah. So that was last year was all those. So there's a big, there's a big, oh, just Bentley one welding for quite a while. Yeah. Until, until last year, yeah. And then, um, that, that popped up and, um, it was just kind of divine intervention. Also, I got a, I got a few moments in my life that were definitely, you know, I don't know if you're spiritual or not, but I am. So like, there's definitely a couple of spots I can see. Providence a few times. Yeah. So that's easier to spell later. Um, so they, that one was one of those where I just, I was kind of lost after the post divorce now. My kids are getting older. Kind of not, you know, I'm in a kind of weird stage of life. I'm 30, I turned 40 this year and I'm almost done. My kids are almost grown. My, my youngest is 16. You know, I know. So I'm like, almost an empty nester at 39, 40 years old and don't know really which way to go. And I never sold my house when I moved from Utah. I kept it. And so I'm just kind of like trying to sell it won't sell. It's got a lot of equity. I'm just, it's driving me crazy because I'm thinking of all the things I could do business-wise with it. And so I literally prayed for six months. Probably this is 24. Um, and then fall of 24. This opportunity falls in my lap. And this guy just wants to retire. And he, he's like sold to the earth. We sit down his office, hashed out. What about this? Money prepared. Also, you didn't start cavity tanks. You bought it for it. Yeah. And what does it do? They build a oil-filled production tank. So like the, you go like the tank batteries. They build the tanks to hold the oil on. Sure. Sure. Sure. Who's that here too? It's in Vernal. It is. So now I go back to the earth. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, I don't know how my boys keep your house up there. I kept my house. That's how God answered that prayer as well. I'll give you a reason to go back and forth. So, you know, I'm going to tell a quick story while I'm here in that one of, and he wouldn't mind me sharing, but Brandon Avery was an early local think tank member and then a facilitator, still a friend of the organization. Um, and he's from, uh, Bunevista. And he sold his insurance agencies except for like one in Bunevista and one down in South Park or whatever somewhere down there. Yeah. And now those agencies have grown and he's able to give ten or some thousand dollars a year to the school and to the marching band and all these things. And he's like, re-found his love of business in some ways by being able to be generous in his hometown. Yeah. That's, I mean, uh, I think everybody kind of searches for purpose in there. For sure. It's kind of our motivating factor. And early on, it was always my kids and my wife, you know, my family. That's what was providing for them. They're, they're okay. They're going to, you know, my oldest is working for me now. He's going to be all right. He's smart. And the youngest same, same way, my next wife's taking care of, she's re-engaged and, you know, well in her way to having a good life. And, um, for me, I could go live in a one bedroom cabin on the mountain and be just as happy as I am in a big house, you know, the big house isn't really for me. So you kind of have to like go through that soul search and process again as you, at least for me. What am I doing now? What am I doing now? And, and I came to the, the realization or, you know, I settled on the fact that, you know, I really think God blesses people, certain people with different abilities or blessings or whatever you want to call it, but, um, you know, I feel responsible for the financial blessings he's given me to go impact as many lives as I can. So, you know, it's a big part for us. Many of them, but a lot of paycheck. Paychecks, you know, you think about, I think a roughly 150 guys across the organizations, you know, times by four, you're touching 600 people. Right. You know, not counting your vendors or the charities or, you know, indirectly all the other stuff that you're supporting. So, um, yeah, it's a big deal, you know, trying to, I don't know, I get, I think if he broke it down, we're here to try to make the world a better place. I think that's kind of, yeah, stand at the pearly gates, you know, I think that's going to be the, the gist of it. Did you, did you, did you improve or did you, did you, you were a drag on the show? Yeah. I think there's some, some merit in that, in that notion. And, and that combination that you're talking about, of kind of having a knife for money and finance and stuff, and I'm guessing you've become subsequently an expert on like balance sheet management, even in cash flow and different things. Um, and then also having the leadership skills that a, a group of 19 people see this 26 year old guy that's wiggitt, it doesn't know quite how he's going to make payroll. Exactly. But still wants to be a part of it. Yeah. You know, I think that's pretty special. Pretty, pretty wild for sure. So, go ahead. Yeah, it's just, it's kind of, it's a, it's humbling and it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's a good job stepping into it. Yeah. Uh, frankly, um, Blue Northern constructors. Yeah. So that boss I told you about that, um, yeah, it was divorced and that he ended up becoming like a second dad and we kept in contact. He had a non-compete. So when he sold his shares, he, he had to like step out of the oil for two years. That's kind of why he, he backed out and then why I went on my own. So he went, he stayed in Utah, started another company. And then when the coyote tank, they'll come up, he'd been wanting retired. And so he'd been, you know, asking me to buy it from him. And so, um, I kind of just paired them both. So those two companies do the same services that Bentley welding does over here. They have like mobile ross about crews and oil field construction and then a big fabrication shop. So those, those two companies together mere Bentley welding. Oh, I got you right. And so Bentley welding has become exactly. So I got the same services, both places, just two different geographical locations or you know, different oil basins. Sure. 400 miles. Well, I got a lot of money to ship a big set of equipment that far right. And there's just a lot of like just on the ground boots on the ground labor that you need to do and stuff. Right. Um, so anyway, like when I, the coyote deal was, was pretty solid. Um, it hadn't happened yet. It was happening. We just were waiting on lawyers basically. Uh, I got with him and I was like, Hey, I'll, you know, do this deal with you. Let's work it out. So December of 24, I started going over every other week. And, uh, helping get oriented with his stuff. And then January 2nd, I, I took it over officially. We had a handshake in place. And then, uh, tragically February 4th, they had a brain area. It was in the past away at like 63. Oh damn. We got to retire for a month. Oh damn. And, uh, so then we, but at least it didn't leave us company in chaos. Well, we just had a handshake. Oh shit. So everything automatically went back into his trust. We had to restart negotiations and kind of get back to it. But, uh, it all worked out. The family knew what he wanted and knew where we headed. And they knew enough of the deal that we got it done. It cost the structure was a little different. I had to give it bigger down payments than some stuff. But we got it done. And, and so now they're all in the same office and kind of running. Okay. They complement each other well. Yeah. Yeah. And, and Sarah some dust real. Sarah, Sarah says a deal that, um, it's kind of, kind of going with where we're going, eventually welding. But it was a guy that, um, had an opportunity. He had to work the relationships. Just didn't have the means to kind of get a business off the ground. So he was looking for like investor slash, uh, partner, partner, you know, to kind of help with the back office. The stuff he didn't know, he knew the work and, uh, he roughly had like a two or three million dollar PO verbally awarded to him if you get the deal done. So there's a lot of heart handshakes and, you know, relationship-driven business out there. I would rather do business that way. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And now not so much because I want the business done that way because I want to sit across from a person that I can, I know that I can handshake with. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I've had, I've had the opposite where, you know, they pulled out the fine details of section three. You're like, I didn't want to read that contract. Yeah. They did. They did. Well, they wrote it that way so they can get you if they do too. Yeah. One of my kind of, it's prouder element. I kind of want prouder is a right word. But I have a chief of staff here with low code. That's kind of my keeping you out of trouble kind of person and whatever. But, um, she was like, well, you know, you got to have your contracts updated with your facilitators and these things and this and that. And I was like, well, but it's really kind of a handshake kind of business, you know, if they don't want to be here, I don't really think they should stay, you know, and all that. And I shared with her how my dad has a roughly 10,000 acre farm that he started when I was first grader. Yeah. Like he came from no money kind of thing too. And he's going to, he's going to a good chunk of it and then he's got maybe eight landlords and only one of his landlords who has probably built gates. Yeah. Does he have paperwork? Yeah. The other seven are all handshake deals. Yeah. And always have been, you know, just to how everything used to work. Right. Right. You know, I don't know. I think there's some statistic that 75% of the world's lawyers are in the United States and 95% of all lawsuits in the world are in the United States. Yeah. And it's just, yeah, I'd rather not, you know, fair enough. And what does what does this seros and this real? Seros, they specialize in like rigging and material handling. So like tipping up the thing, lifting equipment and setting equipment. Okay. So but they focus just in data centers that do a lot of work up in Cheyenne at that data center. Okay. And it's been going good. They've, they've, you know, we think we've got eight guys over their work in and, you know, they're on track to do more meetings and whatever else. Yeah. They've got some relationships established where they just kind of bounce from project to project. Yeah. It's going good. Let's go back to Bentley welding a little bit because that's your, how many, how many folks you got there? Currently like 80s. Okay. So it's a little over half of your total employee. Yeah. What was that kind of evolution? Like in the beginning, you kind of got this one big project that carried you through and then jumped up to a big crew. Yeah. Yeah. It's been just about like any stock market chart you could see. You know, it's just pretty rocking with the industry. So 2020, 2014 was, you know, six months, seven months in business. We did three, three million dollars that year. Okay. And then we popped clear up to six million and then the crash of 15 hit and then we went clear back to three and a half million. You know, okay. I mean, it dropped, but not as much as some did. But by then, I'd had a couple buildings ran it and I was, you know, overhead, it started creeping in. Gotcha. Gotcha. Losing 50% of your revenue at changes and then right. Actually, did you have to act on that? Like, I have around stuff, obviously. It's the first time I ever had a lady, anybody off. I had 30-ish guys then and laid almost half from 12 of them off or something. Okay. So that was that was eye opening to have to go through that for the first time was is it so that's that's my least favorite part of business. Yeah. Another man and a person telling me, I can't figure it out. I don't know how to keep you busy. Right. So there's times when you get to fire someone that you're excited about, that you're not excited about, but layoffs are just never funded. Yeah. It's a percent. You wave in the white flag, you know, you're giving up to a degree and you kind of. Yeah. And I mean, ultimately, you're the steward. And sometimes the business just isn't there. And, you know, maybe this person will have a business to come back and work more again down the road if you keep it alive. For sure. So then we then 17 happened with the boom and Trump and actually the house blowing up in Firestone was one of the big catalysts for 17 just because the state changed a bunch of regulations and it just generated a tunnel work. Oh. And so the basically all the oil companies here had to do a bunch of work to get their stuff up to. Oh, okay. Luke's old kind of thing. It just generated a tunnel work. So there was a big explosion for some 16 to 17. We went from like three million three and a half to 11 million. Whoa, tripled in one year. Yeah. And then we did like 16 and 18, 60 million and 18. And then in 19, we did right at 20 million. And by then I got a little big for my bitches and started a trucking company too. We moved drilling rigs. Blitzkrieg trucking is what it was. Okay. Wordplay kind of, you know, like a NFL Blitz. Yeah, yeah. We're we're fast. Yeah, exactly. If you pay us enough. Right. And so I named it Blitzkrieg. I didn't want to just call it Blitz. But so we kind of went that way. And then that just was not ever a good business. The markets changed. And I kind of missed the boat on that. It used to just the way that the industry's changing behind it. Padwells. And so there's not as much work and they don't rigs don't move as often. And the competition was oversaturated and prices fell out. And I lost like basically every penny I made in 19 with BWI I plugged it into lids to keep it going. Wow, cover lost it over there. And so I had like a break even year overall. Yeah, even though Blitz did five million in work, we we lost probably a million bucks at here. Damn. And then 2020 happened. Yeah. COVID hit. And then I decided to open a branch in Vernal again. I've been trying to get back to Vernal for a while. Okay. And then all that hit at the same time. And I had to close Blitz up. I, you know, made a like executive decision. I did the math. And I had a, you know, my payables and my receivables and loans and stuff. And I made a deal with Richard Brothers. And they bought all my trucks and I had to cash in a bunch of my personal investments. And wow, actually I'd take equipment from BWI that had paid off. Just give Richard Brothers a feel that gap between what I owed. And I was like, it's all right. Yes. So you were like on paper. You were like a five or ten million dollar net worth guy a couple years before. And then you went down to not much. Not much. Yeah. Interesting. We, I was like, it's all right. We'll just we'll get going. We'll get shut it down the bit. The welding company was doing close to two million dollars a month back then. Oh, damn. And gross revenue. Good margins. And I was like, it's all right. We'll shut that down and just go back to what we're good at. Well, so I sold all the equipment on February. And that's been then COVID hits, right? Right. And so like, save like March, March at 24 or 2020, I still did two million dollars that month. And then April hit and they just stopped everything. It was like 400,000. I did 300,000. 85% of my revenue in one month, right? Right after I just cashed in basically every paid off piece of equity I had to just get out of that debt. And, you know, luckily the PPP loans, you know, they did their thing for me. And that, I mean, that was the kept you alive. The reason, you know, between that and how long was that? Because I remember the like it was a little while. And then we realized that you still got to move stuff around, you know, pump oil, whatever. I don't remember what was the turn when the price started creeping back up. Yeah, probably by September, they they'd started doing kicking projects back on and everything. It kind of settled down. So from like, you know, April to September was pretty scary. Pretty light. Yeah. Summer was, you know, like it's a weird feeling to just not have anything to do. You know, you must have shrunk again on Bentley welding. Yeah. So we PPP kept everybody in place for a while. And then, you know, probably July, we ended up shrinking code back probably to 40-ish people. Okay. You know, we had a hundred before that. We had a hundred in Bentley welding, 30 in the trucking company. And then we went clear back down to probably 40 guys from like 130 or so total down to 40. Yeah. So that's some big math to come to those and big relationships. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, spring at 21, I started through the divorce process. Oh boy. Right. So you want to talk about that now or later? It's up to you, man. Right. Like it's, well, it's a lot easier to stay in love with somebody when finances aren't super tied. I've obviously seen that in my own life. And as I escape being a good banding, a $90,000 your banker and into a $12,000 your food truck business and whatever local think tank was back 14 years ago. Um, and, uh, you know, mine's so far at least thanks, Jill, a success story. Where she kind of bound to me tighter, you know, as we marched through the, and she got a way better job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that mine wasn't the finances so much. I mean, I'm sure it has an effect. I don't want to like, we're not me and her in a good place now. Um, it was rough, but the we just grew apart, you know, and then I kind of, we just wasn't paying attention. You know, hindsight's 2020, right? I can go back. Yeah. I mean, you were probably paying so much attention to these businesses that were all struggling. I mean, definitely in validator feelings, you know, like there's times where I'm just like, what the, you stay at home, I'm just, you know, I'm going to work, you know, and that's not, that's not how it works. You know, um, when you're 35, you know, everything. Well, and I know, I'm never harder on myself than when things aren't going well. You know, I think I'm a worthless sort of, you know, why would I want me drinking a lot? I was out of shape. You know, go, go back and look at all that. And so she, she ended up having an affair and, um, we tried to work out for a little while. Just, you know, it didn't work out. And so we split up officially in June, July of 21. So then I had a year of divorce and then you COVID, a year of divorce. And then she was like, I should have cashed out like three years earlier. She would have left me a 19. I'd be bankrupt. Sure. That's another one. It's funny. It's, it's funny now. Um, there's, there's a saying that I like, it says, uh, crisis plus time equals comedy. So, you know, anything's funny after the wrong enough. Um, but they, uh, yeah, she left me 19 months of those books. I would, I would literally be bankrupt. Right. I would have had to file bankruptcy during 2020. No, I wouldn't have been, I just, I mean, we just skated through just barely by the skinnier. Anyways, you know, if I would have had that debt on top of that, I would have been, you know, super rich. So, um, that's one of those divine things where it's just like, man, the timing terrible for her. But she wouldn't have got any money anyways. Yeah. Right. So it worked out. She's, she's taking. So how about, uh, like, is that like at the end of the room, there is, did you decide I need to be a professional board member at volunteer board? That's, so that was the same year I got on the D6 board. But I was like, uh, was that same, same, same fall? It was 21. I was like, I don't know what the heck I'm going to do for seven days without my kids, you know, like just, uh, I was trying to just stay busy and fight off depression. And so I, I was like, what may I run for city council? And so I had some friends in Greeley and they kind of, you know, referred me to talk to this guy, and he knows about the politics. Yeah. Tom Norton used to be the mayor there. And he runs a political fundraising organization now. He's like, now, uh, school board, school board needs conservative guys are conservative people. And, uh, your award isn't enough. It's a lot easier. It's, you know, dip your toes in the water of politics, you know, two meetings a month. That's all. And I was like, oh, that'd be all right. You know, yeah, it's like two or three things a week. It's really a five hour. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a part time job. But it's, it's very rewarding. So that's, yeah, that's exactly what got me going there. I was like, I got to stay busy. I don't, I don't have any friend. Basically, my friends were my wife's friends, right? They all took her side. The last of the divorce, you know, so, um, yeah, I just was trying to stretch my, my social wings and got into that. I'm, I'm very thankful and happy I did. It's been very rewarding. And, and I even tell those people, I just got reelected this last fall for my second term. But I, cool. Um, you know, I got more out of that than I can ever repay. Well, you probably learned a ton too. Just learned it done socially and like, and mentally and emotionally, like, just having like a good people to be around and like a reason to stay, you know, kind of headed in the right, right? Yeah, because they, they record them and they're on YouTube and I'm like, man, I don't want to be out, I just lost 50 pounds. I don't want to be out of shape and, and have to be on YouTube and enshrined on forever, you know, so I, I stayed, you know, out of the bars as much as relatively possible. And then you hadn't quit drinking at that time. Yeah. No, but I quit at 24 January 7th, the 24 was kind of, it was like the, it's woke up one morning. I'm like, dude, I don't like this. Yeah. Good. I flirted with it a little bit where I do like six months or do the 75 volume. Yeah. Yeah. And finally, I just woke up one morning. I'm like, no, it's come good. And then I didn't like, at that time, I hadn't planned on like never drinking again and just morphed into like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, the Greeley family house, I'm gonna hear about that a little bit. Yeah. So that one was just more, um, I went to, I've got in Rotary. Oh. And they, they can fill a Rotarian breakfast club here in Fort Collins. Yeah. So it got into that and they, they, she did a presentation, the executive director did, and they needed members and I was like, yeah, you know, it's got time. So I looked into that and then, any special connection to homelessness prevention? I mean, we got homeless guys, family people, not guys, but you know, there's homeless around my shops and I've never really had any issues. But then once in a while, we'll get something stolen, but it's usually not them. It's somebody in a pickup truck that knows where he's talking about what's useful about it. Yeah, they can't have out and stuff, but I've never had any issues or any, any, um, real ties to it. It's just, yeah. What, how can you help? I have time and the ability and the mean. So, yeah. And then, the, the text school. Yeah. So that would tell me about Vernal. Like, can we? Yeah. Can we talk about that? Sure. Yeah. It's born and raised. Yeah. Um, um, it's far north Utah, right? Northeast. So it's just it's in the corner of like Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah. Okay. Yeah. So flaming gorgeous, like the biggest geographical place. A lot of people know that for the fly fishing and stuff, but, um, it's kind of small. I think the city is probably 10,000. The area is probably 30,000 in the county. They've got one high school now that's okay. This is 5A. It's roughly close to Colorado sizing. So it's it's pretty big. Yeah. And then just for only having one. But yeah, it's just born, raised there and just kind of work my way up and then end up just having to come here, you know, to set us necessities. So what are you doing now? Um, like outside of for president CEO and three board positions, like, um, are you dating? Are you on the market? Yeah. I guess. Yeah. You could say. So I just don't have it's really hard with, uh, I literally like my boys and schedules Tuesday, Tuesday. So Tuesday night, I took same school Tuesday morning, the young one night, the older ones on his own kind of in my basement. And if you call that on your own, yeah, he doesn't have a schedule, right? With the with the custody anymore. But the young one, I dropped him off at school on Tuesdays and then Tuesday nights, I drive to Vernal. And then, oh, so you spend a week in Vernal almost weeks when I don't have him. And then, okay. And then I come back that Tuesday to pick him up from school. So you need a Vernal girlfriend, really? Well, the problem is it's like 50, 50 either way. Yeah, it's hard to have a girlfriend. Two people have your kids here. Kids are in Greeley. Right. One business is in Vernal. So I'm there and back and that is and but I end up spending more time here for sure, just with all my commitments. Sure. But when you got a lot more interest here, a lot more employees, all that. Yeah. And the boards and everything. So the foundation board, the UB Tech is, uh, that's their aims, right? Ames is probably the closest, uh, yeah, technical education. And it's it's in conjunction with the high school. So it's actually there's a road under a walkway under the highway. Okay. And um, it's been like that for a while. It's like a Votech almost additional, but the next level to the welding program. I took welding classes in high school through these people. Okay. So I guess I'm technically in a long I didn't an after school or an after work program one time too. But, uh, yeah, it's just a they've they've really catered to what the that area needs, whether it's, you know, oil field or truck drivers or, you know, they just they're really good about putting, putting back to directly working with the community to do good. And now coyote is a giant pipeline for them to place welders. Oh, cool. Right. Cause uh, right. And you're always hiring probably much, almost all was hiring. So what's the jobs market like out there and contrast it with Northern Colorado here? I'd say it's similar, uh, just on a smaller scale. There's there seems to be plenty of jobs right now and pay rates are comparable to a little lower out there. Like you toss minimum wage is 715. Oh dang. Yeah. Uh, cost living cheaper. It's creeping up just like everywhere. But, you know, I think there's, you know, most of my guys are still in the $20 an hour range anyways. You know, so it's pretty comparable as far as like what I'm paying. Yeah. Maybe a little less, but yeah. And then talk to me about the the leadership structure of these businesses, especially Bentley welding. Do you have like some proper CFO and stuff these days? Yeah. I have a controller that kind of plays that part. Okay. Then I have a COO. I got really lucky and hired a great guy last year. Um, kind of in the middle of a tragedy with, you know, guy abruptly resigning on me took a better job at my old COO. Okay. And I end up like just miraculously making the right phone call at the right time and he was available and he's been, he's been a God send. Okay. Big deal. You can tell his name if you want. Joey Floyd. Yeah. What's up, Joey? Yeah. What's up, Joey? I appreciate you. Yeah. For sure. He's, uh, you know, transformed the business. Uh, I told you earlier, we're kind of transitioning into the mission critical space. Yeah. That's him. Okay. For sure. He's leading that charge. That's his, that's his bread. Just taking it right now. So, um, but then I have a CCO chief customer officer, Bo Ramsey. Basically, you know, VP sells or whatever you want. We call CCO relationships. Not just, just sells. He's relationships and taking care of anything that customer wise and supposed to be their go-to guide to kind of just solve their problems. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier, like, you got 20 customers that you might take a phone call from at any time or whatever is that kind of not a huge customer base, but big a lot of work from the number. Yeah. Yeah. We have, like, traditionally, we've probably had three to five big customers. And then 20-ish, like, just, yeah, all together, you know, not counting. The three to five is at least half of the revenues. Yeah. But then you got probably 80-20. Right, right. Gotcha. Um, we used, like, say, those big customers, like, big time, like BP or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Chevrons and extraction or civitasces and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but now, now we're transitioning into the, the mission critical market and, you know, we're working with, we probably have eight to 10 large accounts that are like fish on the hook, you know, nibble in a little bit. We got two, two giant peos in order. Okay. But yeah, so, and so I had the, there's like kind of an exact team. How's the differentiation as far as, like, the mission critical versus, like, the different set of customers even? Yeah. Yeah. There's a mix of different customers. It's basically anything data center oriented, kind of like that. Oh, okay. Mission critical just is more high quality and on time delivery. Right. Um, they don't deal a lot more of a brand than it is. Yeah. It's, it's like, hey, we've got to be online, like, on this date, hell or high water. And guess what? You got a bunch of liquid data damages if you aren't because we're missing our time. And then, and so what, what the, most of the time, the, the pilling part for like a guy like me is they don't come and nickel dime you on every price. Right. Hey, do you need to work some overtime? Do you need an expedite fee? Like, you know, what can we do to get this job done on time? And it's not a blank check, but it's also not like the, you know, in the oil field, when it goes down, it's just like, okay, you got to, it's got to be perfect. It's got to be on time. Or you don't get paid. Also, we're taking the cheapest bitters. Right. Right. And rush to the mark to the bottom and it sucks. And so, do they bid a lot of this workout, even if you've been their guy or whatever. Yeah, definitely. They have budgets and stuff. So it's all sat and but, you know, it's just usually not like, they're not open to 10, they make partnerships instead of, yeah, yeah, instead of just vendors. That's an interesting, I've just kind of come into real, I was thinking to myself, like, why don't I kind of go and BP and stuff have like their own people to do what you do? But then they would have to be the ones that lay it off a bunch of people one times or tough and whatnot. Yeah, it keeps the accidents and the safety. Right. It's for the same reason that Amazon has distribution contractors instead of it's all liability mitigation. Yeah. You know, some lawyer somewhere told him this is the best way to go. Right. So what's the secrets to success in your industry? And who do you compete with? Especially I'm thinking with BP. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so in the like we're we're almost out of the oil and gas, but just just just just because the data centers is so much opportunity so much opportunity and better margins and just kind of the way that really is. So you're like, I didn't realize it was that much. It was like, you know, 80, 20. So I you know, I've been like 97% oil and gas in 2020. I really tried trying to branch out. It's been hard. I tried construction. We did a big geothermal plant last year. But it's always just still my it's my history, you know, that's where I'm comfortable. So I got to talk that language well. Yeah. Yeah. And you got a bunch of relationships there in history. But this this year these last three to six months, we've we've really kind of cracked the cracked code and got some good connections and some good customers that interesting, you know, and so we've been transitioning that way. And, you know, two or three jobs, but the dollars is the the scale's tipping and in the mission vehicle area. So interesting. We actually just filed a DB8 and kind of transitioned into we're calling it Bentley mission critical instead of Bentley welding. Yeah. So that's kind of I just acquired a new building in Greeley. Okay. 46,000 square feet. Oh dang. So between three buildings, I have 150,000 square feet of fabrication facility. And what are you building in those spaces now? Because I was imagining pressure tanks and different things and pipelines and stuff but now it's a lot of piping in the day centers. They have okay. I don't know how familiar you are. So I really don't know. So maybe people listening aren't either. So tell us about a data center. I've been on a crash course learning all this in the last six months with Joey. But, you know, basically there's the servers and the computers and then they've got to cool them because it generates heat right with the electricity and stuff. So tell you put them up in space. Yeah. Yeah. Even then, but that is colder. It's just colder up there. But they, uh, so they got to be cooled and they cool with liquid. And so there's a lot of piping running, you know, they used to be air cooled most everything, but that's inefficient. Okay. So now they're doing like, yeah, a lot of quicker transfer from liquid to metal. We could straight to the chip, right? And so they're getting a bunch of water, you know, the, the fluid takes the heat off faster. Yeah. But then it also generates air. So there's like a mix and then there's immersion cooling and stuff. But a lot of piping, a lot of structural still and just a lot of the thing. Just a lot of quantity of piping. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. So. Gotcha. Oh, damn. It's just, it's crazy. So you've got a hundred thousand plus square feet just dedicated to fabrication of these systems. Yeah. Yep. A hundred thousand here. So I think we're, our product line is like hard containment. We're doing prefabricated modular buildings. So basically like it kind of like rebuild and shipping container, but custom built for like, you know, we'll build up a bundle of 16 of them and they'll bolt together and make a one building that is a data center. Wow. Like we can basically prefabricate an entire data center in our, in our building and ship it to site. Oh, dang. Go bolt it together. Okay. Yeah. It's pretty wild. It is like, were you, is this what Joey brought you to the table partly? This is Joey's background. Okay. So that's how I met him. I did a, I did a, it was a Bitcoin mining job for him. I, I was, he was my customer. And that's how I met him originally back in 2001. Okay. And then he moved on from that company. And I just had his number and I, man, Joey might know somebody. So I called him, you know, I was like, Tuesday when I was hot driving home, my old COO calls me up. He's like, hey, I tried to catch you for a leave. But he's like, man, I got to, I got to give you my notice. And I was like, Chad, what the hell do you think? I was like, you, I, the only reason I went and took this guy, he's in Coyote deals already going. I was like, right, because I had you here running that right. Right. And so I went, like, Tuesday night, I'm just going crazy. I called Joey, you know, to go to, yeah, so I got a six hour drive to Utah. Think about how bad this sucks. And I called him and he's like, well, I might send me the details. I might know somebody. So I sent him the details. We texted a couple of times. And me and him weren't close at all. Just to do Quatton's basically like that, that one job. And the next day he texted me, he's like, yeah, I'm interested. I'm a gear interested. And I, like, and he's, he's here, right? So I was like, no, I was hoping he had a reference or some play. He could refer me. And he's like, I mean, between, it just finished a project looking for something. And I was like, well, it's in, really? He lives in Phoenix. He's like, I know, that's, you know, so we went through and I told him all the bad things, you know, trying to talk him out of it, kind of make sure, like, I didn't want to, like, I don't want to sugar cut this because like, you're getting my hopes up. So I told him, you know, this, this, this, yeah, no problem. Here's what I'll do to fix it. Here's what I, you know, and I was like, so Tuesday and I went from not being able to sleep, because I'm like, what in the hell am I going to do? To Wednesday, and I, I can't sleep because I'm so excited. I'm pretty wild flip flop. We're about to cross a year with Joey, and it's been, I mean, we're totally different company, like, literally and figuratively. That's wild. Yeah. And like, you trusted him through that, obviously, too. Right? Like, is there a risk or a downside to these data set of products projects instead? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, if you get the wrong customer with the right liquidated damages, they could, they could make more of your company. Right. Because there's, there's an element of press there, but also sounds like relationships on his part. Yeah, for sure. So, um, he, he didn't, most of these we've cultivated ourselves. So he kind of gave us the technical, you know, confidence to kind of go talk the talk. Yeah. You know, we bring him in and he can do the design. Oh, you've done all these. Well, it's one thing about, um, I've had a handful of oil field industry folks on the podcast over the years. And, uh, generally there, you know, many of them want to eventually just, uh, get out of concentration, at least in that industry or leave all together. Yeah. And, uh, but then the rest of the world is easier. After you've been doing oil fields stuff for a while, then like real life was just a data center. Yeah. Well, that's, and, and I, you don't want to say that to the data center people, right? They might listen to that. Sorry. It's, well, and it's true though, because like, but some things about it are more straightforward. The complexity is way less like the welding is actually easier. I can take, Joey, Joey's got a training program in the house where we could take like a kid working at McDonald's. And with two or three weeks, we could have him to a point where he can work on a data center for us welding, right? You know, and tested and, and going. So, right. Yeah, the skill level required, you know, the risk level is lower. You know, some data chips overheat or something, but it's not like people dying of a, well, well explosion. And then that's down the road and not even really on me. You know, the, the biggest risk for me is like not hitting the timelines and, and getting charged. Right. So, um, the people are kind of combatting that with, there's just so much demand that there's, there's, there's checks and balances. Yeah. It's been, it's been, they've been just very like, hey, you want to work? Yeah. And I was like, right. Hell yeah. That's all I wanted. Yeah. So, your restricting factor right now is like how many people can you train and just bring on in the best way. Yeah. Cash flow, just like normal. Right. Right. So, it's trying to fund these big jobs. Yeah. That payroll gets bigger and bigger. Yeah. What's that payroll now? Bentley welding runs about 200, 200, $250,000 every two weeks. Okay. Coyote does about 80. And then, you know, there's so I'm almost half million, almost, or four or something. Every, yeah, every two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a lot of, it's a lot of more experiments and a lot of, you know, trips to Safeway for all those folks, groceries. Yeah. A lot of contribution to the local economy. Yeah. Do you have a vision for like, you've had so much change the last even 18 months. Yeah. Do you have a vision for like, other things you want to do? Is there opportunities in the market that you see that you could address? Just, just right now, just growth, you know, a lot of it's just capacity based and just, being there's some, there's some solutions we're trying to solve. Especially in the mission critical side, there's probably going to be data centers blown up for, for 10 years. Yeah. 10 years. Five years. Yeah. Five to 10 years. And so there's, there's like product solutions where like, you know, the A and B from different places and you can combine them or, you know, it's a speed to market thing for the customer. So they're just always trying to compress their, their Gantt chart and their schedules, right? And so we're trying to stack things on top of, and that's what the prefabrication does. It takes that construction for one site. You can do it while you're like, you can even build up an inventory. Exactly. And get ready to launch. They're, they're doing their permitting and their, their dirt work and their buildings basically done built and they're just waiting for the green light and we ship it and it assembles real quick. And is that something others have been doing? Yeah, it's building up. It's kind of about becoming an industry standard almost. It's getting getting more and more popular. It's kind of modular, right? It makes a lot more sense than a, we're going to put the, it works in some areas and some it doesn't. Yeah. So there's has its niche and its place and it, and there's just some place that won't work all the way or sometimes it's a hybrid model where we're prefabricating 75% of it and then going to site and doing the last 25 there or someone else or something. But there's a thousand ways to get a cat. Are there like other folks like you either in Colorado or around that are kind of producing these kind of things or is that a pretty small marketplace right now? There's people that are doing pieces. I would, I would, I would happen, I dare say that you're one of the few that are actually doing the full building stuff. Yeah, yeah. I think there's one I won't mention their name because I'm not a fan of them but there's another one that we're kind of kind of similarly. They're business models different. They outsource everything. So yeah, I'm not that you're just a logistics coordinator. Right. So I don't really want to just play in spreadsheets and stuff. I actually like building things. Well, and having relationships with people that you pay to do a good job and stuff like that. I'm just a welder at heart anyway. So I jive with those people. I don't, I don't get, you know, like I can't sit in a room full of engineers and MBAs and uncomfortable, right? It's not that I'm uncomfortable. It's just, yeah, I'm a tradesman. How do you spend your week? Like what's a week in the life? When you're here, let's say when you're in Greeley. Man, I have a pretty structured routine. The days are different depending on the meetings that we have scheduled but like, you know, my normal day I get up at 3.45. I mean, the cold plunge at 4.15. Okay. Then I have to go get the sauna warm up a little bit and then I live from 5 to 6. I hang out with, I got some gym moms at my gym in Greeley workout west. They've adopted me. There's a group of three older ladies that I met there and so I have to like go check in with them every morning and they check on what girls in my life and what I'm doing and you know, they've like unofficially adopted me. So they're my, they're legit gym moms. And then I'm home by 6.30 cooking the boys breakfast and taking them to school. The youngest one of school now. I lost my driver. He goes to work now instead of school. So I'm back to run in taxi. I actually rolled him and eaten because they had a little bit better athletics for him. He's he's very talented that way. Okay. And so it's an hour trip back and forth by the time I get up there and sit in that silly line to drop people off and then it's just on to the meetings as needed. You know, it's whether school board stuff like today. Thank you relationships. I met customers. Yeah, we had a, we had a, I had a smorgasbord today. I had an executive meeting today where I met with those four guys I talked about and we talked about just kind of our, we do that weekly lunch. We had a presentation with the customer, a potential customer. We're working on a like a partnership with they provide one of those things as to any like a solution here. They're like, hey, we got a need here, but we don't have the capacity to, or nor the expert T. So let's team up. And so we're working on a collaboration with them to kind of offer a more complete package in a certain area of the data center world, not not so much our prefabricated modular stuff, but more of the traditional type data centers on the hyper skills side. And then at two I went met with a potential board member for the Greeley family house to interview her. She's expressive. We need board members if anybody's interested. Okay. And then drove an hour up here and then I'm going to have to go back and I still would like catch one more workout. I'm kind of trying to trim up. I got a cruise on one day, right? Yeah, I've lost 15 pounds since since January one. I got my diet and check. Okay. But yeah, they get what's your, what are you pushing up these days on the bench press? Oh, man, I showed them to give me some fit, but uh, three 15s, my max. I mean, yeah, not today. Yeah, not today. Hi, this is Clint Jasperson, managing partner at Purpose Driven Wealth. We believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Our mission is to guide clients through the complexities of wealth management, retirement planning and legacy using a values driven stewardship based approach focused on provision, contentment and enjoyment. With more than a century of expertise through thriving, we offer tailored strategies to help individuals and families achieve their goals and embrace generosity. Whether you're navigating a life or business transition or planning for the future, we're here to partner with you every step of the way. To learn more about Purpose Driven Wealth, call 970-330-741. And we're back. We're back. While I'm here thinking about it, I want to say thanks to seed and spirit distilling for providing my spirit engagement with the evening. Do you like mezcal when you were drinking? It was a bourbon whiskey guy. Okay, they have a high right whiskey out here too that they provide for us. And this is basically a mixture of kind of young whiskey plus mezcal. They get in a gava kind of spirit thing and so it's kind of the smoke of a mezcal with the heat of a young whiskey and so far people really like it. Good, I'm becoming a fan. There's a lot of good breweries up here for sure. These guys like grow their own corn and everything. Yeah, they're like super hyper local. Also hyper local is the crazy ginger hot sauce which you have agreed to sample as we lead in. So I'm going to just give us a little drizzle on some of these chips and we can have a have a sample as appropriate. I'll slide it over to you. I've had another hot sauce that ran out but I wanted some a little more punchy for my guests and soon you'll be able to get this at Madador Mexican Grill and perhaps that's good. That ginger is fun in there. Yeah, I like that. I like it. So it's all meant to change your attitude adjustment. I used to do that at the I used to work at the bank kitty corner from Madador. Yeah. And my Wednesday habit at least once a month but sometimes two more. They had the smothered burrito, smothered chicken burrito for whatever $5.99 some of the time. And I would get the ghost sauce on the inside and smother it with the hot green chili. Nice. And like drink like three cups of lemonade or something and just be like freezing because I drank so much cold drinks because I was so hot. And then you know just really like cold and sweaty headed back to the bank in this summer day. Yeah, it just changes your spirit for the rest of the afternoon. So what we'll do now actually before we get into a little Kyle and Vernal. I want to talk about we've got a new segment sponsor that I should mention Purpose Driven Wealth and Windsor existing member Clint Jasperson and his team do financial planning and all that kind of stuff and we've got a Purpose Driven segment. So I've got a list of questions here that I like to choose from. Okay. And I'm going to shoot with the top of the pile. How would you say your beliefs and values show up in the way that you run your business sits in your case or the culture of the team? Yeah. Man, so full disclosure, I'm LDS obviously from Vernal. All right. You don't have right in the Mormon, right? All right. Oh, but you were hard drinking Mormon. I took a 20-year break. Okay. Yeah. So that correlates pretty accurately with my marriage. But she was not. She was not. I see. But one of the questions they ask when you're going through your temple recommend if you're looking for is are you honest in your business dealing? It's literally a question they ask. And it's just like, and I just always have had this kind of, you know, some would call an indoctrination. I would call it a guiding compass, a moral compass. But one of the things that LDS people say when you're when you're in the younger ages is there was like WWJD, right? What would Jesus do? For sure. And it's just always ring really true. It's like a lot of times you come to these crossroads in a business deal or a personal deal or any deal. Right. And it's just like what's the most right thing to do here? You know, trying to just do the right thing all the time. So I would say that that's probably the. And your team would know that about you. Do you communicate that out there? I tried to, yeah, try to be good stewards of our relationships, you know, when we can. And yeah, I think most people would agree. Cool. I think that. Yeah. Do your whole crew and stuff you wear your faith and your sleeve or as you come back to faith, has that been an interesting transition or maybe among your leadership team? I have Bose LDS. He's also from Utah. Okay. And I'm vocal about, you know, you know, being thankful and and credit do. Yeah. And we pray before, you know, meals and stuff at work and stuff for meetings. So yeah, try to be. I probably could do a lot better in that aspect. But that's actually a working program. Not the same. But but local think tank. The earliest sprout of what became local was I became a Christian kind of late in my late 20s. And soon joined something called Bible study fellowship where they just study the Bible. There's no commentary. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing. And then a couple years in, they asked me if I'd become a discussion leader. I was like, well, I don't really know anything about the Bible. You know, I just got here. But they were like, well, we'll teach you the art of facilitation. Basically, like you don't have to know the answer is to find the truth. And that's kind of at the core of what we do in our in our local think tank. For sure. So that notion of kind of discerning what the right thing is. I'm going to hate you with another one because that was fun. Can you make a business or can you describe a business decision that didn't make sense on paper in the outcome? Which one? I don't know. Well, the trekking company I'm guessing did make sense on paper at least when you started it. It just wasn't on paper. It was a problem. It was in my head. Right. So I, yes. Yeah. So that one not even the napkin treatment in that case. Yeah. I mean, I did the math and stuff in my head and was going off of like old numbers. And yeah, if we did this much and this and that and kind of justified it to myself. But there was definitely a time where I I hired a CFO back then in 19 and that was the first thing. And so this is June of 19 and he's like kind of like BTI. He's like, just full disclosure. I don't like it. You know, it's your company. Do you want? He's seen the numbers and reading them deeper. And I was like, no, if any, I can figure it out. We're on one point of the edge. We're doing a company no time. Yeah. And I was like, just got to do a little more revenue. And then we do more revenue and have more services. That one. And I forced it all of 2019. And then and then what happened was the deciding factor one day was I finally like this is probably December. My guys in Utah, I went to go ran a piece of equipment and the truck drivers where it was common ownership. The the bank had tied our credit cards all basically at the same credit. Like, right, we had $200,000, right? But it's the max of all. Yeah. So they hit that limit in two weeks. And it shut them off. And he had to go call customer. And he was my guy in Utah. I actually quit over it. And I was like, if this like, I'm not going to let bad money ruin my good, you know, we was doing good things with that. And that was like, finally, it took me from June a higher in the CFO who I hired to tell me these things. And it's on paper then. He's telling me, hey, I don't like it. I don't like it. So I come home and from from him quitting and trying to wrap up all those problems in Utah. And like, all right, shut shut it down. And he's like, well, let's think about this. I was like, you've been telling him for six months. Like, no. Yeah. And I might make a decision. And so, but yeah. Yeah. Well, good job eventually. Yeah. I'm not slow right now. I love everybody learns. Yeah. So I guess I want to, can I go back to your faith conversation just a little bit? Yeah, buddy. So did you did you step away from LDS, but also any kind of faith engagement during and was both your early years of marriage, but also your early years of raising kids and stuff? Yeah. So I was born, raised LDS. And then I went to, I'm probably 15. My dad kind of quit forcing me to go, right? He kind of got to an age where he's like, it's your life, you know, I'm kind of there with my boys. Like, you know, they need to, they hold up to their commitments, but also like, like, like, still make your own choices, even on their own. He kind of let me fall away from the church, you know, or do it at my pace, I guess, which was zero. And then, you know, I got my girlfriend pregnant when I was 18 or 19 and had my, and she wasn't from a faith background. No, she had a zero faith background. So we just didn't really participate and yeah, it just kind of fell away from it. So fair enough. Yeah. And what was that like coming back? So I was here and LDS definitely isn't near predominant, right? Like, really is 125,000 people with Evans and there's two church houses. Great, Vernals, 10,000 people and there's probably 20 churches, right? So that yeah, it's just not as predominant. So I really, we've got at least, I would say we've got like five or six members at low code. Oh, like five to 10 percent, I would say, or the church or the temples are here in business people. Yeah, you know, unless they don't drink too much, right? Yeah, exactly. Keep better eye on their numbers anyway. Yeah. So I kind of went through like a journey where my therapist is actually kind of a religion based. And she was like, you know, I, you know, in my opinion, it's your life, but you're trying to fill a God's size hole with something that's not God and it's not going to work until you put them back in it. So I kind of went on like this many spiritual journey where I bounced around for some like non-denominational Christian church. Yeah, I wondered, yeah, that's, that's my next question. Do you have best to get other things too? With two or three and clearly with different girlfriends or different people or different this and that. Right. And just none felt familiar. I mean, I'm right. It's familiar. Just like it didn't feel right. Like it, I don't know. To me, like, if he, you know, if you believe he's the creator of the world in life and everything, that's a pretty big title. And that's pretty, yeah, pretty, you know, I just requires a a different level of reverence, I guess, you know, and so I go to like my first time at one of the churches in Greeley, it was opening weekend of the football game of football season. And literally, there was, they had to tell gate party afterwards, but some of the guys showed up with face paint to church. And I was like, face paint in church, like, I mean, come as you are, right? Like, I don't know, but also you could put the face paint on after the services. Right. So I don't know. It just, it just feels, it feels more, you know, and, and I, if you ever heard Joe Rogan, I think, said it, but he's like, you know, religions are funny thing because, you know, if you, if you have it and we die, and there's nothing, it's like no harm, no value, lived a good life. Right. But he's like, if we die and you didn't have religion, and you didn't live your life like there was a God, and there is a God, you know, really wish you would have lived your life like there was. That was, I basically told my father and law that way back the day because I, I grew up in a church in North Dakota, but not really. And so I never heard the good news, you know, I didn't really know anything about that story. But I did want to be a better person, you know, and so I studied philosophy and different things for a while before I, you know, met my wife and her family that kind of led me to that. But also like, our pastor is more like the kind of pastor that would be like, yeah, we don't have any of that Jesus is my boyfriend music here. You know, we take this seriously. And in my own, like, I'm kind of a, and you're kind of an instinctual too, where you kind of color outside the lines, or do what I want. And so I had a shift of like, like obedience isn't something that's easy for me to listen to, but surrender is basically the same thing, but is appropriate because it's a much higher power that you're surrendering to. Yeah. The faith side of that comes in heavy, especially in business and stuff when you hit one of those rough patches. And it's just, it's a lot easier to live life when you believe that God's plan's perfect. And for sure, there's a path. For sure. Well, and like I think about, and this is maybe a voodoo topic, but like the COVID thing, that's just, you know, whatever six years ago now, right? But like people with faith in their lives were so much less terrified through that whole time, even though in some ways they were some of the most persecuted, you know, closed the churches, but keep the weed stores open, right? And like they they suffered far less. Yeah. Yeah. I'd agree. I think that's probably true in all crisis situations, you know, faith kind of have rocked a hold on to or whatever. Fair enough. For sure. You ready to jump in the time machine now? Yeah, but do you want another chip or your own right? Yeah. Okay. So, so we're in, it was a 10,000 people when when you were growing up? Probably seven. Okay. So it's growing a little bit. Yeah. That's good. And what would look like for you? Like your one of many siblings? Yeah. Kind of a not messy per se sounds messy when I say it, but I have two older sisters and two older siblings from different marriages and on both sides, my mom had two daughters, my dad had two sons, but I don't know them. Is that normal? No, not so much. No, yeah. Divorce is less common, but just it's getting basically the same, but right. But then my parents got together and had me and my sister. And so my my main house is still over here, too, over there, but you didn't really have relations. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. I don't even know where the sisters are. They actually got adopted by their stepmom. And then the brothers, I think ones in Alaska and the other one I used to be friends on Facebook before I got off social media, but right. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. God love you and your sister. Yeah. A little sister. She's family. Yeah. It's me, my parents and they're still my parents still together. And I lived. Why were they there in Vernal? My dad came for work and my mom like in the well field or I think just it was like maybe construction event originally, but then it ended up being oil filled and then okay. And my mom. So they kind of both like converge from Southern Utah and then my mom was from Idaho. So they're an Idaho. And then they end up both end up in Vernal for some reason and met there and then this stayed forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I kind of grew up in like a purgatory of Utah or Vernal. There was either like rich oil filled kids, you know, or there was farmers. Right. And I lived in a subdivision in town and was neither. Right. And so I was just kind of like school wasn't fun for me. I didn't really tell my senior in high school when I started contributing to the wrestling team. Okay. I started winning matches, right? Right. The rest of the time I was just lose. I think my sophomore year of 7 and 30. Right. Right. And I took first region that year. I think my my basketball team when I was playing when I told of like 7 and 45 or something like that. So my senior year I finally got competitive and I was placing it tournaments and how can the team win and we had a good year. So I finally started fit in my senior year and then. But with your academics wasn't really your thing too much. It was easy. I would say I'm above average intelligence. But I just don't like I don't like I don't like the structure and the rat race. Right. So I did I did enough to get by my mom wanted me to keep bees and I could do my homework and pass. I would say I could coast for bees. Yeah. If I had to work hard to get it if I didn't have to work hard to get an A I would get an A. Exactly. But if I had to work hard to get an A I'll just take the B. So I didn't have any aspirations to go to college. I had to have a ride to wrestle and I was doing graphic design in in in school. And so I got like a like a mix academic art and athletic. Okay. Half ride to this school and then graphic design was going to make me 40,000 a year and I was going to have to go $40,000 in debt and I thought that was a terrible deal. So I jumped out and went in the oil field. And where was that school? It was it was called Dana. It's a Lutheran school in Nebraska. Okay. I don't think there's a round anymore. I think they went out of business. But they had a wrestling program as an A I A or division two. Oh, and you were already out of the religion kind of for whatever. So you didn't care with the Lutheran school. They got a scholarship. I'll go there. And what did you think about that because that was the first time out of hometown, right? I never went. Oh, you never went at all. No, I just I was just not to go. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I passed on that. Okay. Wrestling coach pretty disappointed because he he called in favor and he recruited you up. Yeah. Yeah. So I graduated May of 2004. You know, Friday night had our senior keger and all that same stuff. And I had a job lined up with a welder. And I got I met him Monday morning at 2 a.m. at the local cafe. And we drove to Comra City. And I was in some quarters refinery down here as a welder's helper. Wow. Monday morning. Yeah. Wow. Quite a change of pace. What was that like? Did you move to Denver? I know. We just traveled. So we were based out of Utah. And we just traveled out here for the week of St. O. Tell. Go home on the weekends. Oh, wow. Go out Salt Lake, working refinery out there. Right. School wherever they needed some welders. Yeah. Kind of thing. So it was it was pretty eye opening. I was 17. I didn't make a lot of money. Was it 13 bucks an hour? I thought I was rich. Not much, but it was a ton back then. I went from cooking in high school at 725 to 13 bucks. I thought I was hog heaven. Interesting. And yeah, so I hired on with him. He just I called him because his wife, little sister, was a cheerleader. And that's how I got hooked. She's like, my brother's hiring. And so I got called him. He's like, yeah, meet me at Betty's at 2 a.m. And so if you ever been to Vernal Betty's is like the spot for brother next time. Yeah. It's just rent on Main Street. I might have been there. It's an old art circle building, but it's just quaint and it's cute. But that's where we met and drove five, six hours. And I was there. And I was like, I was in the refinery. And I was like, I don't weigh that I'm allowed to be here at 17. I know I got to be insurance reasons. And he never had me file any paperwork. I didn't even know how I got a paycheck. Right. You know, I don't remember giving you're so security number or anything. But did that for six months. And then I took a job. I got tired of traveling so much. I took a job there. And you taught that company that I came over here with. And I was there for 10 years. And where did you meet your now ex wife? Uh, for a acquaintance there. Yeah. Okay. Kind of a kind of a wild story. Because that changes things, right? Go ahead. If you want to tell it, I don't know, your program is just, uh, just dumb kids stuff. You know, like country boy stuff, we, uh, I got in a fist fight one night. And, uh, the neck, they're from the next town over, right? So like, lovely, really, right, like our rivals. Yeah. Yeah. So the next night they brought his older brother and 20 guys over to teach you a lesson. Yeah. And because you won the first one, I guess. Yeah. And, uh, so I, I, I broke my hand and my hand is like this big. I just have, like, the first one. Yeah. For that first fight. Yeah. First. So every time I've ever been in a fist fight, I break my pinky bone. Oh, yeah. So it gets really bad genetics and badly. How many times is that for five or six? I, uh, gosh, when I was about 20, I went home and my brother was having a keg party. My dad's chop with his permission. Yeah. And I was like, this is crazy. I've ever got a permission to have a party at my dad's shop. Uh, but it was a few years later. And there was always rumors of this guy that was, I guess you'd call it domestic violence on his girlfriend. But nobody ever could prove it or whatever. And then I came out to take a leak. Actually, I went out to smoke a joint or to get high. You know, I have enough money for joint money. I just had a pipe. Yeah, a little pipe or whatever. And I see this going down and I confront them. And he's like, you need to just get the fuck out of here. And I was like, well, no, you know, and, uh, like, it gave me like a warning shot kind of clip me a little bit. I was like, well, I'd rather have you punch me than her, yeah, her. And then boom, just like right in the middle of my nose and like the whole stars and I dropped me. Yeah. But I was up into like one second. Like I popped right back to my feet after being totally knocked out. But that's the only time I've really been punched proper. And I don't know if I've ever read the clean one if I'm honest. I wanted to. It's hard to land a clean one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of grab it and pull it and stuff. I made it a couple of scraps, but never a real fight. So, so that I was at that new company, uh, working with the guy and his wife or his girlfriend had a friend and I, that's like two or three times. Like, hey, like hook me up a tasha, you know, and she's like, uh, she won't date younger guys and I'm like, whatever. So that night, I, a day like trying to trap me on the highway. I was going up to somewhere. I think another girl's house actually going out with her. And I call him. He's the only friend base of the time. And I was like, he's like, man, I've been drinking yours and I've come over here. So I'm literally like going through parking lots and overcurve to right away from these guys with like two cars, four cars chasing you in five or six cars. Damn. So we get to his house and he comes out as a department complex and I get out and there's just me and him. And then 12 guys lined up and they're like, hey, we're here to kick his ass. He beat up my little brother last night. He's like, well, all right, Kyle, you want to fight him? I was like, dude, my hands broke. I like, not tonight, dude. Right. And he's like, all right, guys are settled. And they're like, no, we ain't leaving. And he's like, no, you guys are going to leave. And this is my one friend. He's, he comment on my LinkedIn post today. Actually, he's my, I hope he's got a gun. No, no. So this wildest story, dude, there's 12, I'm not kidding you. 12 dudes probably. And he, he's got a temper and he's got one of those tempers where like you could see the fire in his eyes when it lights and it like he's just intense. And so like one of them, he's like, no, you guys need to go. His neighbors are coming out of the department complex and, and sure, we need to call the cops. And he's like, dude, if I go to jail tonight, you guys be for a good reason. One of them like, mouth off or like, what drugs? There's, you know, something stupid, just like kid something, say, and he's, you know, the fire in his eyes. And he, he like stepped up to the front one. He says, no, if I go to jail night, I'm kicking someone's fucking ass. It's going to your ass or your ass. And he walks down the line and poke some all in the chest. Yeah. Somebody's getting their ass kicked if I'm going to jail night. And they all this went, okay, sir. And they literally left me. So, so here I am, like, whip up, right? Just freaking nothing. And so I just go inside. And I didn't, like, I wasn't hanging out with him that night. And I go inside and there's Tisha. She's on a date with his other friend. And I was like, just freaking kicking me down. You almost got beat up. I had to get saved. My hands full right. I couldn't even fight back. And then freaking, I just go in like the girl I been asking to go on a date with was on a date with another guy. And then he ended up leaving. And then me and her went home together later. And we were like, separable. Yeah. We never, well, it wasn't too many months later when she was pregnant, I guess. Yeah, that was probably summer of 04. No, summer of 05. And then she got pregnant in January of 07, oh, oh, six, January of 06. I think you said when you were 18, so it hasn't been almost. Yeah. I was 19, I guess by then. Okay. Yeah. So that changed. Yeah. And then you just grow up. You cut your head and a baby. And that's, I mean, you just did kind of oil industry stuff out there in Vernal area. Yeah. So I was a welder's helper. Wherever you go to. Yeah. I was a welder's helper. And then I went there and I just started as general labor. We call him roused about. So yeah, yeah. So worked up from the rouse. You know, Marshall Morningstar. I do know Marshall. Yeah. He was in my podcast like season one. Oh, really? And how about one of my favorite people, Emily Concade? You know her too. I don't know. Okay. No. Yeah. She's, uh, she had a oil feed services industry, a business, uh, moving fluids. Oh, yeah. But she died of brain cancer like a couple years ago at like 38 and amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No Marshall first. Marshall's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think maybe you maybe he's the guy you think is a real asshole. No, no, no. I don't know. He's all right. He's got some very nice. He's good. Okay. Cool. He's good people. I think he's in Tennessee now, though. Is he? I think he moved. Okay. But he says guy's business. I saw him at a running race. Oh, really? Uh, a year ago or something like that. He was running a 10k or something like that. I don't know, but that's the last time I interacted with him. Too much cardio for me. I digress. Yeah. You get those big biceps. Yeah. It's hard to unplug those around. Yeah. So anyway. So yeah. So, uh, I took a job as a labor roused about, uh, just on a crew. And then within like six months, I ended up getting promoted to a foreman. So I had my own crew and I got a CDL and I, and then we, you know, had the baby and man, you pretty eye-opening when you, you were grocery-billed doubles because of a baby, right? The bikers and wipes and formula and running things. And so I was just kind of doing the, uh, the oh shit. Like, how do I pay for all these bills and, and uh, just trying to make as much money as I could and, and welding or truck driving was like the next logical step. And, um, I did, I didn't like the truck drivers that we worked with and, and the welders seem to be more like what I wanted to be when I grew up, I guess, you know? Back then, I just still know what I want to be when I grow up. Well, welding's got pretty special industry in its own way because it's like one of the things we don't have enough of is, like, community unification points in the world almost. And, and welding can take two entirely different pieces of metal that have never been each other and make them partners for life. Yeah. You know, it's actually a chemical reaction. Right. It's actually fusion. It's kind of like the, you know, guy's idea of marriage, frankly, like you're supposed to be one and separable. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's pretty cool. And that was just the next logical step. So I started practicing it lunch and then I talked that boss of that, that on Blue Northern, you know, his name is Ron Horrick's. Yeah. I talked to him and I was like, Hey, I want a weld. I want a weld. He's like, okay, well, you're going to have to go rig weld and rig weld and was like, you went out to a drone rig, you climbed around their mud pits or did whatever bullshit scab job they wanted you to do. And they call it midnight and you'd work for 36 hours straight until you're done. And then you go, and it just, Oh, damn. It wasn't the job I wanted. And no, I wanted to be a pipeline. Sorry. That just sounds like a miserable, miserable. It was. And so he's like, you got to pay your dues. I was like, all right, I'll do whatever you want. But I said just so you know, I'm going to pass a pipe test soon. And, you know, pipe testing in the oil filter pretty hard. That's like, that's a, you know, not just. And what can you talk to me about? Like, I've welded a tiny bit and stuff, you know, we'll pull it up good stuff. But like, what's it take to actually be good at it and make pressure as whole and whatnot? You got to know the process and your unit machine and then just the, like, a lot of it is, it's borderline and art. You have to have to have it right. Like, it's not like, you can't, I mean, you can teach people out of well, but then same time to like, there's levels to it and then some people have their hand and some don't. Yeah. Just going to recognize them. What's going on in the chemical process that's going on down there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty wild. Okay. So, so I told them, I say, hey, I'm going to pass a pipe test. I want to, you know, I'll do whatever you want. And he's like, all right. So I told him that and I've been practicing. He told me to go to a night school, the tech college. So on two days and Thursdays, I'd go to Roosevelt, which is the next town over. That's where that branch was. It did that pipe class. Yeah. It took four hours twice a week for 12 weeks. And then, you know, it's like, I'm getting pretty good. Dude, I'm probably going to pass test. Right. So he calls my bluff and says, hey, testing on Monday morning. I'm like, all right, ready. He said, you're ready. I said, I'm going to pass one soon. So I practiced all weekend and I showed up. And I hadn't been welding. I had to borrow a truck from him. You know, his company truck. And I went to went to it and passed my first test. And then he was setting me up a truck and then I had to go back to just being a roused about for three months. I'm a certified welder. You could make 35 bucks an hour. Right. But I don't have a truck. He hadn't got to set up. And so then I had to go back. And it's like, what's his name again? Ron. Ron. They were they were building it and stuff. But nobody was in a hurry except me. And you got a baby. Yeah. And so I'm making 16 bucks an hour. Why I could be making 30, 35 and just going crazy. And finally, I got in there. And, you know, I think my first full paycheck at Weldon wages was $10,000. We worked a lot of opportunity for over back then. So we worked. We worked. Yeah. That's like a quarterly paycheck for a young guy in a lot of worlds. Yeah. So touch your kids. If you would. Yeah. How many do you have? I got two boys. I got two boys. Really great kids. I'm so lucky with those two for sure. Titans. My oldest. He'll be 20 and Titan. That's a bit of a two ITA. Oh, with a Y. It kind of takes the pressure off a little bit. His mom, Tysha, with a Y. So she wanted the Y. But he'll be 20 this fall. And then Chargers. He's working for you. He's working for me. He's welding for me. Actually, yeah. So follow his dad and put the stuff kind of. Yeah. Just more just because he just put in the ass and the job, right? And so he's kind of he's kind of realizing where, you know, what I think he likes it and he enjoys it and he's he's seen a path forward. So I don't know if we're going to management or not or anything. I'm not the kind of person that would just hand him a company. Right. You know, I'd rather help him start something else. You know, go off and find your own way. Yeah. So. But who knows? Yeah. Like you can give him a testing grounds a little bit to see what he's what he's made up. Yeah. And then Chargers 15. So Titans, like my mini me, he's a little bit smaller. Looks a lot like me. A lot of acts like me. Talks like me. You know, he's got a lot of my insecurities and stuff that I had. You know, it's like I see myself from Titan. And then Charger is six one two hundred and fifty pounds. Oh, yeah. Right and huge. I'm sick. And he looks like me. And he's but he's outgoing like his mom. And he's, you know, he's just a totally different beast for me to handle than Titan. So Titan is pretty easy because it's like me. Like, what do I need? What do you know? That's what Titan needs. And Chargers is totally stubborn. Puzzle comparatively. Yeah. But it's it's it's a lot better once. Like now the Titans off on his own. And we mean Chargers kind of get some time to work better. And it's cool. That was not to overshare. But part of my my own journey was I grew up I was Kurt the Squirt. I was five foot one until the end of 10th year. Yeah, it's crazy. And then I grew a foot before I went to college. That's wild. So in a college at six foot one one hundred and thirty four pounds with a mullet, you know. And and then, you know, I kind of thickened up, got tall. And I was always pretty smart and stuff. And I and part of my faith thing was like I felt kind of guilty for having all these blessings and privilege and opportunity when a lot of people are just dumb or ugly. Yeah. I know that both, you know. Well, I could ugly, but you know, not as ugly as some beauties in the eye to be older. Right. Yeah. My wife likes me. Yeah. This doesn't matter. But that's an interesting thing to be blessed with, you know, physical prowess at whatever size and stuff. It's just I don't know. It's probably I would suspect that this bored service of yours has been some of the most formational because in your past career, you were pretty much around older or younger strong dudes and do stuff. For sure. And now of a sudden you've got a mix of people, females and academics and intellectuals and political differences. Like just I went totally like oil filled guys. Right. And a lot of it, you just do alone, you know, totally, especially when you're well, and you know, like it's put on my hood and thinking myself and right. The only thing I can see is look, the reflection. You're not talking about the eyes protests or, you know, what I get into like the school board and, you know, our board is very diverse politically and in, you know, ethnographically, ethnographically, everything. So you end up having like a discussion of about views that you don't agree with and just learning the ropes there. And it's been very beneficial. It's grown a lot in the last five years post-abortion. I don't doubt it. Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting. I remember a time when I was, I don't know, maybe 35 or someone I thought the smartest person in the room pretty much had all the right answers and everybody should just do what they said. But that's like, you know, authoritarian kind of stuff. Really, you know, smart rooms that can work together to discover things. Sure. Really are super beneficial. For sure. Yeah. What's our time check? I want to do that. We have, we got, would you like a silly question? Yeah, I'll take whatever we got. So this is our grab bags. Why don't you grab three of these and they could be either business savvy or they might be silly. Number nine. Number nine. What's the strangest way you've ever injured yourself? One time I was a butcher in an elk with my father-in-law and my ex-wife, you know, back when we were married. Big hunt, we do a lot of hunting and fishing and stuff. So he was really good at butcher them. So we'd rather do it ourselves if we could, you know, just kind of control the process. Right. We're butcher in the cell. We got ribcage laid on the on a sheet in the kitchen, right? Like full-fledged country. And, um, you throw it in there if you want to. So he, he, having me cut neck meat off for hamburger and he's doing the important, like, muscle separation and stuff. Right. I didn't know what the hell that, you know, I'm still not very good at that. But yeah, take it out the loin. Yeah. So I'm just cutting neck meat off for hamburger and, um, the ribcage is on the ground. He's got all the quarters off and it's on the white sheet. He bleaches them and we put it there just to lay it down to clean the mess. And I went to go like, he's like, hey, pull this out from underneath the table so you can kind of get out from underneath the table and I'm pulling on the sheet. And I got my flay knife in my hand. And I look up and he's standing on it. He's telling me to pull it, but I was like, hey, you know, lift your hill. And right as I tug, he lifts his heel like in one fell swoop and I freaking dig that flay knife in my calf four inches into my calf out. If you ever cut your calf, but it's miserable. You can't do my dog. I had a border collie pit bull mixed dog. Yeah. And she was awesome. And she was also a little bit dog aggressive. And the neighboring campsite had a chow chow. And my dog kind of fight with his chow chow defending me kind of or whatever. And I was able to grab his chow. And he could have grabbed my dog. She was right there in them, but then she took the opportunity to like chew the shell out of his dog because I'm holding him. He's like, dude, you got to let go of my dog. She's going to kill him. And so I let go of his dog and the chow turns around and bites me like both canines all the way into my calf. And yeah, that's miserable. It took two. That's probably why I became a runner 10 years later. And my right calf is hurt. Well, I broke my leg here. And I've always blamed it on breaking my leg when I was 918. But really, I bet that chow chow by it was more contributing to why my calf was a failure point. Yeah, it hurts. Yeah. So anyway, well, nice job. I got a whole change. That's almost like through, right? Yeah, it was. I mean, I could I could see how far it went because it clinked right. Did I do your blood off? Yeah. Hopefully they didn't have chronic ways to get it out. No, so far. Crazy. How many injuries do you think you've had? I was my mom's like million dollar child. I've been lifelike twice. Stitches, broken arms, hand surgery, ruptured screen. I can compete in the category. What other numbers you got? I got 21. 21 is what's your deathbed meal? Like they're going to kill you tomorrow when you want for dinner. Thank you. Not that you would ever do anything that was marrying of that. Yeah. But even just being too good a guy might get you killed at some point in the future. We don't know this. They just topian nightmare. They, uh, and you don't have to worry about your diet. Yeah. You could get fat if you want to. They're going to kill you. I probably do some sort of pasta. I've gotten to really like pastas as I got older. Yeah. Yeah. Like some sort like a proper Italian, like, uh, make my own. I got one. You put like little tiny vegetables in it and stuff. So I learned a couple in that restaurant I cooked in high school. I kind of recreate and everybody's a real big fan. But it's like a spicy trees will bell pepper pasta. Okay. The cream base and it's, you know, use trees on red and green bell peppers and onions. And then you know, it's my wife and I don't have any kids, but we host exchange students. And our Italian girl from last fall, like I forget the sacrosito or something. It's like when you take the same, our, our holy trinity, uh, carrots, um, celery and onion, but they dice it super small and then they cook it down with the burger until it's like cooked away to nothing almost. And that's a proper, um, like not marinara, but whatever they make, like a lasagna, salsa, bolognese or whatever they call that. And it's really just, there's so much vegetable cooked down into that. That's cool. Meat sauce. Oh, I'm loving that. Yeah. And then number 11, 11. If you could time travel, would you visit the past or the future, where and when? Hmm. I mean, if we're going permanently, I'm like a turn of the century carrier revolver on my hip type guy. Yeah, yeah. Wild West, like, uh, Marshall Dylan stuff without power. You know, I, nobody's actually powerful. No, like, electricity, pre electricity. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Yeah, like I'm, yeah, yeah. I think it's solved a lot of our problems, but it also wiped out a lot of people right now. But it just, yeah, I'd probably go 1900, turn the century and just stay, uh, right? Can I stay permanently? That's, uh, when I tell people, if like, if the world gets so weird that like Tesla robots are just like doing all the hard work and cleaning my house and cutting my hair and I just get a check from the government to live, like, I'm going to go home and sit in Alaska. Yeah. It was someplace where there ain't no power, right? No roads or nothing. I don't want no part of that life. Right. I can see the value, but it's also like, it's not how life's supposed to be. Yeah, I don't know what I think about, you know, yeah, that purpose would come in heavy right then. Well, and our, you know, the mazlov's hierarchy of needs stuff, right? Like you're getting shelter, you need community, you need hope. Yeah, but warm place, delay your head, uh, food. For sure. Well, if that's all provided for us, then what the hell are we used for? Yeah, there's, I mean, you can go deep there. That's probably it. The majority of all the problems we have are just some fabrication. Lack of purpose, lack of hard things to confront. Yeah, I think Andy for sale. I don't know if you follow him, but he's a hard 75 guy. Andy, what for sale? Oh, so yeah, I know 75 hard. I've got a number of members that have done that. Yeah, so that's kind of what kicked my, my yon to like the no drinking in the fitness post divorce, but they, uh, he said, you know, that's the basis of it. We're too spoiled. He's like, we all have $1,500 cell phones and we're complaining about what, about what? Right. No American almost has 100 percent, you know, we're pretty spoiled. 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That's the craziest experience that you're willing to describe to our listeners and it has to be more crazy than this fully-knife stabbing and still allow your employees to want to stay working for you. I mean, there's some Lyle stories. Lyle is my drunk alter ego. Lyle? You know, I'm like instead of Kyle, it's Lyle. He stayed out of jail. I've never been arrested so I got pretty lucky there. That's pretty good. Crazy story. Man, I feel boring when you say it like that. Well, maybe it was that one where those guys chase you down and say to cut you before you got there. Yeah, that was pretty wild. Man, I think a lot of it like if you put it on like what other people think is crazy is like a lot of my business decisions, you know, like that trucking company I started. I had a like three or four times before that that I'd had a million dollars in cash and one time I bought more trucks for BWI and invest it right back in. Right. And then this time I wired it to a guy who was selling his trucking company basically and so I wired him a million dollars and then he owned or financed me the other million dollars. Okay. How he started. That's how that. You know, and everybody just like, dude, you idiot. I was like, yeah, maybe, but, you know, it's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I literally like finished a project. We had a, well, so that was quite a company. You didn't just know about this trucking company, but something about like 25 trucks from him and had five already and I think we ended up with like 30 trucks. You know, so you were all in the chips in and took a beating. Yeah, probably the tune about five million bucks. That's a crazy experience. Yeah. So that was, that was crazy that way, you know, you know, but it's good to eat a little humble pie. Yeah, oh yeah, I thought I had my starch and right. It was probably some of the most important time that you went through. For sure. I, you know, you grow, this happens when you go through hard things. So, yeah, and don't do it again. No, yeah, you kind of, that's my theory of life. Philosophy is, is literally we're just compiling a list of what not to do. And after you get, you know, 40-ish, hopefully, you've learned, you know, enough that your life kind of gets better because you stop doing so much stupid shit. Part of my commercial for local think tank in general is, you know, it's nice to learn from experience. It's very useful. You know, I, I succeed or I learn kind of mentality is important for an entrepreneur. Yeah. But it's also really nice to learn from other people's mistakes. For sure. Yeah, we can all do a better job of that. Yeah, 100 percent. Yeah. Testaries mistakes and all that. Exactly. Anything you'd want to share with people listening about anything, really, like anything from really family house to, yeah, I would just say just in general, you know, like on the political front, you know, whether red, blue, purple, you know, the your nonprofits are struggling right now. All of them, the federal funding, whether you agree with it or you don't, it's not really, I don't get into any of that. Right. They shouldn't have got so hooked on in the first place. But they, you know, now that they did, there are a lot of, there are a lot of groups out there doing a lot of good things and, and they're really struggling. So those of you that can, you know, check in, don't check on them, donate if you can, and just see what you can do, you know, like just being a board member is a huge help network, network is your network, right? And that's true everywhere. So those nonprofits are really screaming for some help and really needing something. There'll be a lot of good organizations that shut down just because of, you know, you know, some of those cuts that they're doing, they are with a chainsaw, not a scalpel. So some, some goods going along with a lot of the bad. So, um, but, yeah, I mean, I think overall, just be a good person. That's, that's, if I had to tell, you know, anybody that I get to talk to is just, you know, I hopefully I encourage them to be a better person overall. So, that, that pretty all encompassing, there's a lot of a lot of ways to do that. You felt well with our, with our model router, which is ask of your needs and share of your abundance. And, uh, I appreciate you're doing that and sharing your time with me. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Godspeed. Yep. Until next time. All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Logo Experience podcast proudly produced and sponsored by Logo Think Tank, Colorado's premier peer advisory organization. This is your producer, Ava Menus. To find all of our episodes or nominee a future guest, check out our website at the Logo Experience.com. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, x.com, and LinkedIn at the Logo Experience. To support the show, be sure to follow, subscribe, and share. Until next time, stay Logo.