EXPERIENCE 35 | The Wild West of Small Businesses with Marchel Morningstar of Consolidated Resource and L&L Fabrication

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is your host Kurt Bear and I'm here today with Marshall Morningstar. Marshall is a LOCO Think Tank member that I've never met in person before, so this is going to be an interesting conversation for both of us. Hey Kurt, Marshall owns and founded Consolidate Resources and L&L Fabrication, and I'll just let him set the stage. Marshall, what's your roles within those companies, but especially who do those companies serve and how in the world today? So, consolidated. I started that company in 2011 and started with a couple welders and four guys and that was in Northeast Pennsylvania. That was a series of events that led to starting and forming that company. We'll flash back there after a bit. What are you doing today? So, today we operate and have operated some areas we aren't active in, but we've operated in North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, West Virginia, Ohio, and Southwest PA and Northeast PA. Doing some work in New Mexico and some in Texas. Doing what? We do oil and gas work. We do a facility, construction, pipeline construction and maintenance. We do facility maintenance, optimization projects, meaning if they have something that's already operating and they need to optimize it to do to be more efficient, to make it a better process for them. We have done projects like that, done some maintenance items for them. We do some trucking and then we've got a small hydraback division that was kind of like everything but for the oil field operators. Service company. Yeah, but like a lot of spectrum of services really. More emphasis on the midstream construction and then we've also got a commercial division that is here in Colorado and that's just, that has been born more or less out of the demand that's in the front range. There seems to be a heavy demand for commercial and moving dirt, water lines, storm sewer, digging the last stuff going on right now under under supplied capacity for that marketplace. Yes. Cool. And then LNL fabrication. So I bought that company in August of 2018 and that was essentially an acquisition because I saw in the space that we were working at with all of our customers. More things were arriving to the site that were prefabricated and the premise of that acquisition was to be able to have a shop that can fabricate the prefabricated components. I guess I should have put my ring around silent. Thanks, Alma. So it was an acquisition to really support the consolidated resources. Vertical. Vertical. Yeah. Within we were already doing the fabrication. So there's been a shift for on oil and gas sites to try to move to a more shorter duration for the construction crews on site. So things are showing up prefabricated meaning we were out there with rig welders, weld nut pipe and doing all the connections in the field. It's like kind of like a modular home building company or whatever. I'd be able to think about it. Yep. Yep. So now it's pipes are showing up. There are already paintings are already done already ready to go. Kind of like the straight walls that they used to build shopping centers or whatever that are already pulled someplace else and all then. You know, we used to set, you know, there was some things that were set on concrete pads and now they're coming in on skids with flanched connections and so you're just piping two of them. Whereas before you were having to build a foundation, set it, then run field piping to it. And so there's more skid skid packages that are out there. They're a pretty young guy. Like how did you get the skills to be able to add value in all these places? I just started doing it. We just, it's opportunity has presented itself and we've learned how to capitalize on it. Tell me about like your teams within these two, Alan Ellis up in Wyoming somewhere, isn't that right? So that's where our manufacturing plan is. It's up in Douglas Wyoming. Yeah. And our our team there is it consists Jeff Taylor. He runs our, he runs the manufacturing the general manager for the company and then he's got a fabrication manager that that oversees the shop and the production schedules and making sure that he's coordinating with procurement because we also are an ASMU in our stamp. So we're doing a lot of vessels, pressure vessels. So we're able to do pressure vessels and pressure vessel alterations. And that's part of like measuring for gas and stuff like that too. Separation, separation. Yeah. Yeah. So we're building treaters, separators. We've done skid packages with different separators and piping components on them. You know, lack skids, knockout skids. Oh, you just skid this machine right in there kind of hook it to the stuff and skid the vessels inside of there and house it. Yeah. And then that way it's it's insulated and ready to rock. Yeah. Yeah. And out. We're doing some, you know, some piping packages. I think about like a rector sets except for it's all the stuff that can put together and make gas move around an oil store and whatever. Yeah. Yep. So that's a good way to think about it. We, you know, so Neil, he's our guy that runs the fab shop and then we've got a couple engineers and Greeley. Our guy that runs our engineering, our VP of engineering. He's Zach. He's doing all of our drawings, shop drawings and designs and calculations because everything we build has to be proven by calcs through solid works and we are there's the authorized inspector, authorized inspector that's our jurisdiction, making sure that all of our vessels that we're building, then putting out in the field are qualified. Right. So it's almost like getting your blueprints approved in the construction industry that I'm familiar with or whatever. It is. It's mixed code. So every, every vessel that goes out on oil and gas pad has a stamp on it and in order to put that stamp on it, there's a third party inspection company that makes sure that it's designed to handle the pressure that it's built to that it has all the components in it have documentation stamp. There's different kind of thing. Different, different kind of thing. Yeah. Same kind of concept, you know, once all the calculations and the paperwork's all in alignment, he'll give us the authority to stamp that vessel and say, hey, this, this vessel was approved for service. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And then I guess on the, so the consolidation, consolidated resources is really the service company that does some of these kids and assembles some of this stuff. Right. So we, we're doing it out on site. Right. So we're taking these prefabricated components and we have the ability to install ones that are, you know, our sister company or other companies built or ones that have been provided to us from somebody else. So you can optimize people's systems and stuff like that too. Yeah. So did you grow up in? Yeah. So a little bit of us. Yeah. I did. Well, no, I grew up in Michigan, but the consolidated team, that's a different team. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we've got, I've got a guy, Kevin. Okay. He's a, he's a great guy. He runs, he runs our Northeast operations. So Kevin phenomenal job at it. I've got Ashley. She runs our, she runs all the office. We call her the boss. Right. She's the everything associate. She keeps, she keeps all of us in line. And then there's Matt that runs our Colorado operations here in the, Rocky's region for the consolidated team. And those are almost like project managers over the actual, they're, you know, they're, they're the area managers that they're looking over what's going on. And what's the big, how big a crew you got right out there? Uh, we're, we're a little over 100 guys. Wow. And then we've got, and then Caleb, he's our HSC and operational support guy. You know, he's, it seems like whenever you're blown and going, you've got those outlier special projects type scenario that just need to be kind of short up and, and he, we talked right through the train. I don't know. Yeah. Awkward about whatever. And he, he, uh, he's great at making sure that we're a greased machine. Yeah. He's the greased sometimes that you need, right? Because everybody's strong out like, hey, can you just, like, can you handle this? And he's, he's, uh, he's there for us when we, easy but, right, the being able there to support, to support us all. Yeah. Yeah. Works out great. That's awesome. Well, sounds like a good, pretty long term core team too. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, Kevin's been around since 2013. And, uh, he's the longest 10 year. Yeah. You know, on that, on that company. So, well, let's get into the, into the founding story a little bit and then, uh, we'll venture forth. But to talk to me about growing up in Michigan, moved to Pennsylvania, like, um, where, where did you come from? Like, what kind of a family? You got a lot of brothers and sisters. Morning stars are really interesting name. I guess British or something as we talk about German German. Yes, sir. His Morgan Stern. Yes. We talked about that. Yeah. And it's, and it is morning starting language, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was changed over at Ellis Island. Really? Yeah. Just to make it more Americanized, what are they? I guess. I wasn't there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You just hear old stories. Right. But, uh, so your family was all like the Midwestern region. Um, yeah. So my mom and dad, they both grew up Northern Indiana. Okay. Uh, they, uh, met in, I want to, I think it was Indiana. Yeah. They met in South Bend, Indiana. And then one thing led to another and, uh, Grand Rapids, Michigan. That's where I was born. Which is a pretty special place as well. From what I hear, it's like kind of one of the nicer spots out there. It is. You know, it's, uh, I had a great childhood growing up. You know, there was opportunities. There was places to fish. You know, you had hills and woods and, and I, I really enjoyed fishing, you know, in my, uh, growing up and we would go back and forth. My grandparents lived down Northern Indiana. My brother lives in Northern Indiana. My other brother lives in, uh, Fayetteville, Arkansas. And then my sister and her, uh, her family, they, uh, they lived, or they lived down in Florida. And was your family business owners as well? So my, my dad was a CPA. Okay. Um, he's got about 45, 50 years in accounting. Okay. My mom was a stay at home mom until I was in high school, uh, middle school. No, high school. And she took, she, she got, uh, I forget what her degree was in, but she worked at a lot of doctor's offices, kind of office managers. Was your dad like a CPA with one helper or part of a larger firm kind of thing? Or he, he had an array of experiences. Yeah. I'm not saying that like he job hopped as just it seemed. He was at places five to ten years. Yeah. And whenever you've been in the business for 50 years, you get a lot of different, totally. A lot of different. Yeah, it's real five and 10-year chunks. Yeah. Um, I know at the height of his career, he had 300 people working for him. And whenever he was working for, he worked for simplicity pattern company whenever, whenever the building or so in your own clothes was a big deal. Yeah. Interesting. And he worked at a pattern company that they had the presses and they would, and the, the paper mill that would go through and print the patterns. I remember those little kits my grandmother had. And the kits, yes. They, they made those kits and then those kits would always change and, and it's just talking with them through the process and what that looked like. To figure out which ones made the most money, at least. Yeah. Well, that's, we were talking about that the other day because with the manufacturing shop, we're looking at software packages and, and getting into an ERP platform and what that looks like. Because we've already got an ERP platform, but we're just, you know, whenever you shopping around, whenever you learn how to use it, you know, it's kind of a, it's an inundating process to, yeah. Yeah. To be able to, uh, to coordinate your, you know, and make sure that everything interfaces correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Not have too much inventory of materials too far ahead of time because that costs a lot of money, but not run out, because that costs a lot of time. Yeah. Right. It's even more advanced than that. It's like, okay, so what's our historical buying? Looking like because with the market the way it is. I mean, you can't, you can't trust where the numbers are at and like, okay, so we bought this last month here and this month, it's projecting to be, right, you know, another 15% higher. I mean, steals and the costing we need to make sure we baked it in when we collect on this progress payment. Well, you know, oil and gas companies, they're, they're always so nice to give you all this time to bid a project, right? Half the time they drop it in your lap and they're like, hey, can we have a price tomorrow? And, you know, it's like, what's a little bit more complex than that, right? Yeah. You know, sometimes they give you a couple weeks, which is nice, but, you know, by the, it's just, we're trying to get a system that's in line that's a lot more efficient to where we're not wasting other people's time because going on the quoting process and then having to track the inventory I mean, you build a, well, nothing cost you more than quotes that, you know, win, you know, right, right? That win loss percentage, you know, it's, yes, it weighs heavy on the heart. I believe it. I believe it. What am I? Well, you know, John Shah, he's, uh, if it she signs into one of your fellow members and it's not altogether different than building a custom sign for somebody. Yeah, you're building a custom project for somebody with this giant erector set that does all these things and you've got these other parts to stick on there and whatever. And it's, but it all has to be approved and stamped and verified and all that. Yeah. So we grew up Grand Rapids. In seventh grade, we moved from, well, we lived in Rockford and we moved from Rockford to Holland. It was actually Zeeland, sorry, we moved from Rockford to Zeeland. Zeeland and Holland, they, they, the town's bordered, but we were technically Zeeland. And, uh, that was right on the beach and West Coast or West, West Michigan. Yeah. So it was, I mean, I grew up going to the, going to the beach in the summers and swimming in Lake Michigan and fishing in the channel. The, uh, the, the divorced family. I would, I don't know if you've heard of the divorced family. That's he. Yeah. So her house that they always talk about that's on Lake Michigan. Yeah. I fished right across the channel from it growing up. The massive, massive home. I think it's like 46,000 square feet. It's huge. Notable. Yeah. It's, it's not small. It's got its own little peninsula coming out of McIntel Lake. So were you good student? Me, you know, it depended. In math, I was an A student, you know, and everything else, I was a, not an A student. Yeah. Whatever it took to get it. I just passed it. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I didn't wouldn't have guessed necessarily that math was. So is that your special talent in a way, the, just business savvy and math sense, uh, but you had to build a bunch of team of 100 guys and gals working for you too. So there's gotta be some, well, we've been as big as, I think, 330 people was as big as we've been. Whoa. Yeah. It was, it takes an appetite for risk. It was a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So tell me about like the first company, uh, getting off on your own a little bit. Like you talked about Pennsylvania is where you got started for real. Is that right? Yeah. So I was going to school to, to back that up a little bit. I was going to school in Arkansas. Okay. And was working as a roused about for a guy. And he wanted to expand his business. Which is a roused about his what? So it's essentially the, uh, the guys that are out in the field. Yeah. That are doing kind of, they're, they're all around, uh, service labor to get, you know, skilled service labor to get a variety, an array of things. Gotcha. Completed out in, uh, in the oil and gas. The jack of all trades. Pretty much. Yeah. Like almost like a union gig jack of all trades. Some, some days you're out there and you're taking specific measurements and, you know, they've got to be within an eighth of an eighth of an inch to make sure that all the pipes fit. And, uh, other days you're driving along the least road picking up trash, right? Pulling mud out of a hole or the next day you might be out fixing a fence, you know, right? The next day it's you're pulling a cattle guard or the next day it's, oh, so and so, they got a cow stuck in the ditch and we got to go dig them out or something. So that was your first taste of this oil industry. Yeah. So it was pretty much, uh, this like a college shop. You got to think on your, think on your feet. Yep. It was a college job. So I did it. Uh, I kind of made my college schedule to where I was able to work, uh, about a little over half a day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which was super nice. I'd back, I'd have all my classes in the afternoon and I'd go out to work in the field in the mornings. Yeah. And, uh, kind of grew that into being a welder out there in the field, being able to go out in the mornings and, and weld up what the, the routes about is needed. Yeah. For the, uh, for the day or for the next couple days. Yeah. And then if I didn't get it done that I'd go in on the weekends and make sure that I stayed out in front of them because we kind of had a schedule of where we were going and, and what we were doing and I didn't need a whole lot of direction. I just needed to know where the job was. Make sure the pile of stuff that needs to be well at the next spot. That's right. I kind of knew what needed to be there. And since I had, uh, that was kind of after I had worked there for, and I had some 10 years. So I kind of had been the guys putting it together before and then I upgraded into being in the welder. Yeah. Yeah. Guess if that was an upgrade. Well, you probably paid a little more. It did. It wasn't too bad. So, um, take me through like the rest of that educational time and, or what might be where did it go from there? Yeah. So I went to school for mechanical engineering. Okay. And, uh, whenever the opportunity afforded itself to help my, uh, well, he's, he's my ex-partner now, uh, help him grow his business. I took, uh, took an opportunity that was in Pennsylvania and kind of started down the path. Okay. And, uh, that, that was, uh, that was under a different company name than consolidated. And we sold a lot of safety supplies. Oh, interesting. We were selling to, uh, no Mac and Patterson. And I was, uh, at the ripe old age of, what was I, 22? Okay. Doing, uh, I think there was, no, it was 37 rigs. I was chasing 37 rigs and filling them all with safety supplies, doing about a million dollars a month and safety supplies. Well, kind of margin after, oh, it was, it was, it was good margins. It's back whenever natural gas was super high and there was all that development up in Northeast Pennsylvania. And if you had a heartbeat in a pulse, you got a job. Right. I'm similar to, I'm sure what North Dakota was for sure. Yeah, for sure. If you get a release from my dad to hire farm workers. Yeah. I mean, it, uh, it was, I don't know, I remember one time walking across the street to the gas station said, Hey, I need three guys in the first three guys that leave the gas station with me. It's hired. I just walked out of there with three guys. And you got those guys are running around delivering safety supplies and stuff like that. Yeah. I just, I needed, I needed people to drive and deliver stuff. I needed people to unpack boxes. I needed, uh, we did all their fire extinguishers. Uh, we paid $22 an hour. Yeah. 32 or something. Who knows? Yeah. And we, uh, we did all their fire extinguishers inspections. Oh, wow. You know, so we had to, uh, so I had to go to a fire extinguisher training school and learn how to, we had like the, I mean, call it like the, uh, the drug weight, right? Yeah. We were able to set the fire extinguisher on there and measure it to the gram. Right. And, uh, make sure that it had, cause you have to put the fire empty it out with a vacuum on a fire extinguisher. I don't know. And you know, this is, this is actually Dalmatian fire, Dalmatian fire products. And, uh, well, now an alt, uh, or eaten rather, uh, as a past client of mine, and they re rehabilitated, uh, firemen's suit extingu- uh, stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So I've learned a little bit. Yeah. It's, uh, it's more, it's very technical pulling the trick. Oh, yeah. So you vacuum out all the powder, then you basically zero out your scale and then you use that vacuum pressure that you created inside of the fire extinguisher. And then it, it will use that vacuum and it will refill really. Yeah. With that vacuum. So interesting. We had the, we had that set up in a truck. So we were able to go out on site and do all these refills out on site. So that's pretty cool. And then, and then you've got a, you know, if you can tell, if it's been refilled, there's a plastic, like, ring that goes around the base between like the red part and the aluminum handle. Yeah. And if there's a, my fire extinguisher is there behind all those boxes. So if you look to see if, if it's actually been, if somebody says, Hey, we took your fire extinguisher and we tore it apart and re-certified it. Yeah. A telltale is if it has a brand new ring around it, because the only way that rings it actually pulled apart is because you took the handle and actually pulled the handle off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So we did that for, and each rig had anywhere between like, so he had a $12 million business. Oh, it was off the bat. Yeah. I mean, it was like, I didn't want you to make it within $4 million a year or something like that. No, I went up there making my salary was 60. Oh, because you were a client of it. Are you an employee? But if I was an employee, yeah. So my salary going up there was 60,000 a year. Okay. That was my, starting, starting wage was 60,000. I got bumped up from 50 to 60. Nice. So I went up there and we were managing that and yeah, in four months, we grew it to a million bucks a million bucks a month. It was, I mean, it was nuts. It was absolutely nuts. Sounds like a curve that nobody, like a tiger by the tail. It really was. It was seven days a week. It was just trying to source everything you could, because you could, you could sell everything you could sell, but then you had to be able to deliver it. Right. Right. And I want to preface this with, I went up there in June of 2010 into Northeast Pennsylvania. And I got married in May. Oh, that's unless your wife. What's your name? Tracy. Well, uh, well, Tracy and I, we were getting our marriage license down in Oklahoma City because she's an Oklahoma girl. Okay. And we were getting our marriage license. And I said, Hey, got a job opportunity in Pennsylvania. I think I'm going to take it. We're going to look at it. And she was like, Oh, okay. Well, let's go look at it. So we looked at it. And then it was like a month later, I was up there living in a 78 dollar weeks working in a FEMA can or working out of a FEMA camper that my ex that my owner had bought. It was a $3,200 FEMA camper from from whenever that hurricane hit Louisiana. And we went up there and there was five of us living in it. Oh, boy. Yeah. Five of us living in that. It was a guy, his wife, her, their kid, and then his cousin and me. And we were all living in there. I was living in the bunk in the back. I was living in the top bunk for like, for the first month of your marriage. For the first two months of your marriage. Yeah. That sounds pleasant. What did you do? What did your wife come up and visit? You know, first couple of months. She didn't. You know, she didn't. She, uh, she's told me that she ought she laid there after, you know, after she got off work and would be back at the house. And she'd be like, is this what marriage is really like? She's the saint. I tell you that. She's still married to me. So she's, uh, she's, uh, she's good people. And was she back in Arkansas? Is that where you were living when that happened? And, uh, you, so you're up there for a while. And then, and you mentioned a couple of times already, former partner. But so like, take me through that transition because you said in 2011, you started to consolidate resource. And so we must spend some drama in between times, maybe some learnings. Well, that, that business had five partners. Okay. And if I've learned anything in business, you know, it, and this doesn't apply all the time. But, you know, and in my experiences, you know, partnerships, their partners are good to dance with. And that's about where the, because the partners that I've had in the past, you know, they, uh, you know, they weren't, I guess, uh, they were the reasons they were helping me out. You know, I'm not going to discredit that. Um, I was definitely getting help, you know, and that I'm talking back in 2010. But, you know, there's, there is such things growing too fast. And I mean, we went up there and blew the top off of it. And being able to keep track of that from a business perspective, I just, I, I had a lack of experience. And you know, I was just, I was saying, yes, I was right. Yeah, I know. All right. I was, I was just filling orders and saying, yeah, we'll get it done. We'll get it to you. And then calling me, hey, we need to order all this stuff. And then it'd show up like semi, I'm talking semi loads of stuff showing up and taking it out. And then I was going to find our experience or refill. And I'm like right from down chicken scratch. And I'm just going like, uh, yep, that's what we sent out there. He, uh, here you go. Can you sign this? And, you know, and then send it back to the office. And I, they hated me. Oh, they hated me. And I, I wasn't, I wasn't bashful about saying, yeah, I need some help up here. Right. You know, like the kid that's raising his hand like, hey, can I have some help on this homework? Cause I, I don't know. I haven't studied calculus before. Right. I just learned addition and we're in calculus right now. I don't know what this integral sign is. So, so how's that play out? Uh, well, there was five people in that business. Uh, I was part owner of it. And, uh, long story short, you know, we grew too big, too fast, you know, as opposed to getting, uh, more refined from the business perspective, um, there, uh, the, the ownership group felt like getting an additional manager was the answer. And so having two people managing the exact same place, but you know, that doesn't work. No, no. So we had two people managing the exact same place. And, and I, I made them nervous. I mean, I'm just, I'm not going to lie. There was, I mean, I was 22, 23 years old at this juncture of my life. And rightfully so I, if I had a 22 or 23 year old that was doing that, they would make me nervous too. Right. So, you know, looking back, I can, I can empathize with where they were at. So they hired a more seasoned guy to, yeah, to be the mansion on this. Yeah, handle on it. And, you know, that, that's a tall order. You know, you walk into a place that, you know, well, almost all those customers are there because of you. Oh, we've right. Well, and that's, I mean, I was, I think that was a selling point for me. It, there was about, I'm going to call this the transition point. Yeah. Uh, they told me they just wanted me to go out and do business development and, uh, and sell. And I, and I was, you know, I was kind of frustrated because I was doing the selling and the, uh, and the work and, you know, more. If you were 30, you'd have been like, sweet, that sounds good. I've right now. That would be appetizing, right? Yeah. Uh, and I'm not going to lie. I mean, it was a good summer. There wasn't a whole lot of stress associated with it. Um, uh, but I went on baking. I went, I took my first vacation in 2011 in September. And, uh, we went up to Lake Placid with some friends. And I came back and my office chair and all my stuff was sitting outside in a cardboard box in the rain. And I'm like, and the locks were changed on the door. And I made a phone call. I'm like, Hey, what's this all about? And they're like, Oh, you're out. I'm like, Oh, sweet. It's not what, you know, and we had, at this point, I had eight hot shot trucks that were running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I had two containment crews that were out putting. That you owned, you had the title or whatever, or you were just running that to those teams. Those are the, that was, that was what you, the assets that you had deployed for these partners. More or less, yeah. Uh, and it had two containment crews out and we were, we were laying hundreds of thousands of square feet of containment and, uh, had guys that were trained in doing it. And then we, also had the safety division. I took a store and I had taken, I had taken an old smoke shop, our notes are an old appliance building, RC appliance. RC Smith was the guy's name. He actually was my neighbor where I lived. And we took and completely remodeled his space, put a, you know, for the time, a state of the art training facility where it had like surround sound and overhead projection because we wanted to grow the training side of it because, because we were a safety company, uh, with a service side. And, uh, so we had a state of the art, like I said, at that time, training facility that was in enclosed room. We had a store. I'd built a store. I'd hired a store manager to manage the store. Um, and then I had a inventory space that had all of our inventory on pallet racks and shelves. And then I had our service side that was down in a, like, that was doing the containment and the hot shot. Sure. And, uh, that was down at a, at a separate yard, at a five acre yard, actually. So how long did you work with this manager guy that they had hired? It is about four months, four to five months. Gotcha. It's about five months. And I was just got a little sour. You went on vacation and came back and found out that frankly outside looking in there was one, um, there was one partner there that, uh, you know, I felt, I think looking back, I felt like he truly felt that my success was based upon his relationships. And so therefore, I shouldn't be able to be compensated off of that. You know, so there was, uh, I have heard that, I've heard a lot of different things. And to the day, I think that other manager was hired to learn what I was doing. And well, and are you glad it was, are you glad that that's what happened? I totally, because I'm where I'm at today because of, it was a failure. I can tell you that. If I've learned anything that the more times, you know, you, you want to, you want to win more than you fail. Yeah. But as long as you learn from your failures, they're, they're not really failing. Control failures too. Control lead to your success. So, um, there was a, we're just going to call it the middle ages in between some transition period and November. High level, we started building tank batteries for Williams exploration, uh, which was ultimately why I went to Pennsylvania in the first place was to, because that's what I was doing in Arkansas was, I was building, I was building, uh, tank batteries, uh, tank batteries, like, so where you set the tank and the separators and, oh, okay. So we were doing that. Uh, and I mean, we had a jam up crew that was able to do that. And, um, I went up to Pennsylvania to, to try and, and grow that, uh, side of it is just all the other stuff that fell in my lap along the way. Yeah. I guess where I saw a need we filled it. And, uh, so anyways, I got back into the tank battery side, finally, uh, for that call it middle ages. Yeah. And the, uh, one thing led to another, the guy that I was working for that company, not as an owner, just as a supervisor. I was basically his manager running the, running, uh, that side of it for him. And, uh, he came up one day and handed us, he came up in a safety meeting and all handed us two checks and said, well, guys, I'm tired of living the big life. I'm going to go back to my double-wide in Oklahoma. We all were standing in the room. There was probably about, uh, 25 of us standing in a room and we're all looking at each other like, what's that mean? All right. And, uh, and then some of the, let's call it more seasoned guys that have been through something like that before I said, well, guess this company's done. We all been done run off. I'm like, huh, I never run off in my life. So, uh, yeah, he literally came up and packed up the shop and, uh, interesting and went south. And so my, uh, opportunity is about opportunity was a bound. I called the guy. And what's Tracy think about all this ride the last six months? Well, this, she's a very supportive wife, you know, she, I think she had an opinion on it. But, uh, end of the day was about moving forward, right? And she, uh, she kept, she kept, uh, my mind, right? I guess on that is I could have went down a very, yeah, well, think if you were a single guy and some of that stuff, you know, how destructive you might have been to yourself without her responsibility. Well, there was, yeah, kids by then or do you have kids now? Oh, we do. We have three, three very energetic children. Awesome. We'll touch on them in a, in a little bit. Yeah. So, uh, or whenever. I mean, I can talk about my kids. Yeah. Well, let's, let's get through some of the rest of the business journey and kind of how, how consolidated resources have all done, especially how you got here to Colorado. Yeah. So, uh, I'll speed it up a little bit. Yeah. We're going to have to. Otherwise, we'll run out of time and we'll, we'll talk about your kids. So, uh, I called the guy we were working for said, kind of gave him the rundown of what happened. He said, can you show up tomorrow? I said, yeah, I can show up tomorrow. So I, uh, approached one of my, uh, past, one of the five past business partners that were in that other business and said, hey, this is, this is what I've got. We struck a deal end of the day. Consolidated resource was born and, uh, it was 2011. So, it'll be 10 years in November and doing business wherever we're right from the start. Yeah. So, we were, we were, we were pigeoned hold with one customer up in Northeast PA when we started. Okay. Which was a Williams exploration and I was right there whenever they transferred from Williams Explorations to WPX. Okay. And so I was right, right at that because I, my first MSA was Williams Exploration. Then it was like a month later. I got a WPX. They needed an easy button kind of company and you kind of became that for them in a lot of ways. I was. I was their soul roused about company. So I took care of, they had three rigs running and we did anything and everything for them. Yeah. We took that and then we started working for another company as the soul company kind of felt that kind of fell into my lap. Crazy story. I was opening a gate to a well site and this, this older gentleman came up and he didn't have, he was sitting there and he didn't have the combo. I said, I got the combo. What do you need? He's like, I'm looking at a pipeline right away over here. Okay. I'll let you in. So I let him in and I said, I can show you around too. It was a pad that we were fixing to get started on and I was going out there to mark my lines for doing a one call and we got talking and he said, hey, can you come down to my office tomorrow? I said, sure. I, he's like, I need to talk to you about a few things. I was like, okay. And so I went down to his office and he said, hey, so this company that's working for me has been double-billing me. I've got proof of it. I've called the owner and he said, well, if you don't like me double-billing, you'd then find somebody else, but I need to make money. And he said, so if you're willing to hire this whole crew over here and not double-billing me, you can have all my work. I was like, I looked down. I said, just because I opened the gate for you. He's like, nah, there's more to it than that, but that was a nice touch. I was like, all right. That was a good, that was a good way to be, you know, your business there. Yeah. Yeah. I found like, how many employees were added to your team? That was, I was like, I think 12. Yeah. 12, like literally overnight. I showed up one day with three trucks, three trucks at Gooseneck, a backhoe, a skid steer, and they had a couple welders and some helpers that had their own rigs and I gave them a couple of JSAs and some ticket books, and we were rolling like the next day. Interesting. Well, when you look back at those moments, you're like, I didn't know how much, you know, at that moment, things were going to change. Yeah. Yeah. So that, you know, fast forward a little bit. We did that getting into 2013 range. That was kind of end of 2011, 2012 coming into 2013. We got into reclamation work and our first reclamation job was in Northern Pennsylvania up and through the mountains doing about 35 miles, or about 30 is about 30 miles of pipeline right away for a pipeline outfit up there. And we we, so after they put a pipeline in, you make it kind of look nice around there. Yep. Plant trees and grasses or whatever. Yeah, just grass and get the grass growing. So we, we broke into doing some of that and then that led into us laying our first pipeline that we were in. We were still working for the other couple companies from the routes about perspective. We had the reclamation work going and then the opportunity afforded itself for us to put our first pipeline in. And I mean, I tell you something. Yeah. You know, you know, the saying of being in over your skis, that job we were in over our skis, we, I call that the pipe grave job because we dug pipe graves. We didn't dig pipeline. We dug pipe graves. We would go down the right away and dig, you know, a section of pipe and bury it. And then we'd move all the equipment down to another section and dig a grave over there and bury that person. And then we'd go over dig a grave and there was, there was no flow in what we did. And if you would have done it that way for very much longer, it would have buried your pipe beds. This kind of made much money doing it. You're coming up to like, I'm not even, I mean, I'm, what was I 20, 2013, so I'm 25-ish at the point. And I've got, you know, 40 guys out on this right away plus the other, you know, we're at, we were over, we were over a hundred, we were over a hundred people at that point. Wow. And how do you manage all this? Were you doing, like, you just hired like a office bookkeeping staff and my dad role and, oh, your dad? My dad. Oh, yeah, he plays into this. Yeah, my dad was, he was, he was a part owner. Oh, and it was me, my dad and another business partner. And he ran all the back office and I ran the field. So, okay, call it CFO, COO. Right. CEO that was COO too, I guess. Yeah. But how about your former partner? What was his role in that? He was the money man. Yeah, fair. Whenever we needed money, we shot an email or text and it showed up. Yeah, actually, that was about, that was, that was literally about what it was. Yeah, he would come out, you know, once or twice a year and we'd go for a drive and talk about projects we're on and guys we need and whatever. No, no, I don't even, I don't even think we, I mean, I'd tell him about projects we were on, but yeah, we'd talk on the phone. Yeah, I mean, we were, we kept an open line of communication. But he was more of a, of a silent partner that liked the yield off of his. Oh, not more of, he was a hundred percent silent partner. Yes, that's what he provided was the money. Um, we, uh, so we got into doing pipelines. We did a, so I mean, we're in Northeast, Pennsylvania and our first pipeline job is this is 12 inch and 16 inch, which, and it's going up and over and through the woods and down on a side hill. I'm talking the side hill. One grave at a time. Yeah, the side hill was like a 30 degree side hill. So we had to do, we had to double bench over here. No, we had to put benches. So we had to like cut down, cut down like 15 feet into the mountain side going on the top. And this is all heavily wooded like 30 inch trees. Um, the one side, we had to bore through this road and we're 27 feet deep on this board. And we had to hammer it out because it's solid bluestone up there. And I, we're in way over our skis. We had a, we had like a 16 or like you're doing it for that much. Sweet, you could have that kind of track. Funny, funny. You mentioned that, you know, that was actually, whenever I remember I was in my brother in law's house in Edmund, Oklahoma, and I got the phone call like call it the short list phone call on the short list of the bid and he said, uh, so we're going over your bed. We just, we just really want to hear it from you that you're comfortable with your price. And I'm like, at the time, I'm like, yeah, I'm comfortable. I can do that. It's easy. They're like, do you have, and they asked me, they're like, do you have profit built into that? I'm like, oh, all kinds of profit. I work, we're good. We're golden. So, oh, man, you want to talk about a, they tried to talk you out of it. You're glad, tried to talk you out of date. They really did. They really did. How much do you think you lost on that project? Uh, well, I, I know how much we lost a $1.2 million project. Yeah. I was your money man about that one. Um, well, you know, there's this thing called cash flow. Yeah. And we had some other things that was able to, uh, we started that job. And then that was back whenever, and then right in the middle of that job, it was like over pipelines now. So going back to saying yes to everything, we'll work a budget on the next one a little better. No, no, no, we had to start the next one before we finished the first one. Did you buy it at the same rate? That was that, uh, that was down in South, uh, Southwest Pennsylvania, South of Pittsburgh down in Houston. We had two projects there. And that's back whenever Mark West was, uh, Mark West was able to pay you 70% up front. So let's say you bid, you bid, uh, a million dollars on a job before you even step foot on the job, you had $700,000 check in your bank account. I mean, all it was, it was the craziest thing ever. And so, uh, while we were finishing that job, we started working for Mark West and we had, we were afforded the opportunity of getting the 70% up front. And then whenever we finished that job, we had another job. And by the time you loop all the jobs together, we didn't make, we didn't really make a whole lot of money, but we were able to cash flow it and, yeah, got through it. Yeah. So, um, take me from there to more present day, like when did you get to Northern Colorado? Yeah, so, uh, let's, so that's 2013. This is all going on. Yeah. Fall of 2013, 2014, uh, the guy that I had called in 2011 to get started with Williams. Yeah. He had just moved out to Colorado and became a, he was a construction manager out here and said, Hey, uh, this was a Wednesday afternoon. He said, Hey, I need three crews, uh, three crews of three guys, three welders and you Monday, morning, six a.m. in Colorado. I was like, Oh, okay. So, so you know how I said, like whenever I just got married that I went and this time, Tracy wasn't quite as upset. Oh no, our daughter was born in January and she was about two or 14 or January 8th and this call was at the end of January and we came out to Colorado the end of January, um, of 2014, about three weeks after my daughter was born. So I came out to Colorado, was out here for, uh, it's like six or eight weeks before she came out. So she's at home dealing with our newborn. And you know, we did the classic thing, right? We got the room and we painted it yellow and we did all the, all the things you do for a newborn, right? By the time you have your third kid, you're, you know that they're going to sleep. They're going to sleep next to your bed for six months at a minimum before they even make it to their room. And the other reason you use the rooms to change their diaper because you spend all that time in the room. We have a quiet spot or rock them in the chair. At least that's been our experience. They sleep next to the bed. But uh, no, so moved out here. The wife was real impressed. Again, by me, you know, well, I mean, the location was good, but the abandonment less good. Yeah, yeah, we'll go with, I like how you worded that. Perfect. So we're out here, um, a couple of months go by and we're out and we start growing. Um, and right before I left, that's whatever Kevin was working for me. And uh, he was our, he was our mechanic at the time. And I, and uh, we joke about this, but I went over to him. I said, Hey, here's the deal. Out of everybody here, you have the best head on your shoulders. And we're in a heavy construction business and you know how to get, make sure that things are fixed and they're out on the job. So uh, uh, uh, sink or swim, buddy, you're now the manager of this whole area. And uh, to this day, he is still the manager of that area and has grown it to another, uh, grown it to another division. And he's, he's done great over the years. Uh, and uh, it's, it's, so we, we get out here, uh, leave Kevin and charge back there. My, my dad is still back there running books. I come out here working, uh, and one thing leads to another, grow it up. Um, wasn't really in a, wasn't really the favorite. We'll call it that. And so it was kind of one of those. That was in 2014 and people were kind of starting to hedge their bets on oil, starting to, right, right. You know, so, uh, was one of those last in first out kind of categories. Right. And so was able to go out and work for another company. And, um, so you're gonna put a solid resource on, no, no, this is all with, but another company. I mean, we were, we came up on a new, yeah, we had a customer. We were for the customer. Not again. Yeah. Last in first out with that customer. Uh, about two weeks between that customer and the next customer we started working with. And whenever I went out there, we, we were the premier one for them, uh, and turned it into almost 200 guys started an electrical company and was doing electrical and automation and doing heat trace and insulation and tank batteries and had over, I think I had 25 welders at one point. Interesting. Working out there. We are the sole welder provider and, and these are all like big companies that are hiring you mostly. Mm-hmm. The Antigarcos or this or that or whatever. It's really, it reminds me a little bit about some of the government contracting companies would do in Colorado Springs or things like that where there's just, there's bids and, and, and people bring different teams of service workers and, and just hiring and keeping good people was a big part of the equation and, and bidding right. Yeah. Yeah. So Kevin was working on growing our Eastern division and I was working on growing our Rockies or our Colorado division. Yeah. And, uh, you know, 2015 comes, 2015, you know, was, that was a great year. 2015 was a great year for us. It was, uh, I, if I could go back to 2015 days, I would, um, flash us through since then. Yeah. So 2016, uh, that main customer, like I kind of saw the writing on the wall because oil was in the crapper and, um, they were looking to, yeah, downsize. And so we, and to 2015, we got our bonding capacity. And so we started doing commercial work and, uh, took the electrical company to do open apartments. And that was, that was not good. There's no, there's no money in open apartments. We had at one point, we had 1200 apartments. We were open with the electrical company. And that is, that is one of the failures that has, had as, definitely I have learned from. And that is, uh, uh, staying in land. If you, you know, I was staying in your land or if you're going to be a business owner, make sure that you're doing business that you know, you know, and I'm not an electrician. So I probably should know an electrical company type, type thing, you know, do, do, do, do, still only like, no, no, no, we shut it down. Okay. We shut it down. No, it was, it was hemorrhaging cash. Yeah, we, we learned a lot, yeah, learned a lot. It is, it, it has helped me in a lot of areas. So it's kind of ups and downs. I imagine through the 15 to 16, 16, 17 season was, uh, I mean, those were, uh, I mean, I'm not going to say that they were star years. They weren't bad. But, you know, we, we were doing some commercial stuff. We did a really cool project up in Netherlands, which is a porous asphalt road. So the whole road, we had to dig down about three and a half feet and then we had to put in different layers of the terrain almost or whatever, exactly what it was. It was a French drain type system sand, coarse rocks, how much water comes running on this road. It actually just kind of, yeah, threw it instead of washing it away. Correct. So it doesn't go outside. So it's supposed to normally put a crown on a road. Yeah. This road was completely flat, huh? Because they wanted all the water to go to the road to pull in the road to go down into the road and, and then go down through the, uh, through the ground. And then we had to put a drain at the end of it. And it's apparently the first porous asphalt road in Colorado that we did. That was actually, it was actually a really cool job. Yeah, you make any money on it? Uh, no, no. We like to do the first thing. No, we didn't make a dime on it. But it was really cool. I mean, it's up in New Zealand. You know, we got to send you guys a frozen dead man race and, you know, the, we joked around. We needed to get some, uh, all these, the project that all had to be native. And it's just, it was one of the, it was really neat. It was a really cool job. I, you know, we learned a lot on it. Um, we were doing, uh, we did this job for, uh, if you ever go by Frederick, uh, going into Frederick, you know, on Colorado Boulevard there, going into Frederick, they've got that Frederick sign. I've seen it. Yeah, the, uh, so we did that job. The gateway job has the fountain and a stamped con. So you do a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily oil-filled services. Yeah. So commercial division. Yeah. I see what you're saying now. Commercial construction. Yeah. So it's kind of our commercial or civil division. Is that a third or something of your organization at this point? Um, of the consolidated, obviously, not the amount of 20% of what we do. Okay. 20 to, uh, yeah, that's about 20 to 2025. COVID nation. It was more for a while. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was a COVID nation. We, we built that back up again. I was that for you guys. Uh, you was pretty rough. You know, we're here today. Yeah. We can live to talk about it. You've, you've taken a quite a few shots. It sounds like, uh, yeah, it's, it's had its, it's had its ups and downs, for sure. Um, you know, and I think it was looking back. Some of it was some of it was, you know, I built a, I didn't build a very diversified business. Yeah. We had very large customers. We did anything and everything they wanted us to do. Right. And, you know, there's some of which you didn't know how to do. Right. And there's, there's a, there's a duration to some of that. And you know, whenever I'm just going to say, whenever it wasn't our turn, then it wasn't our turn anymore. And we had to figure out something else to do. So, um, the, uh, 2017, we got back into oil and gas. We wrapped up our commercial obligations that we have. Okay. Finished all those projects. And then we, then I took a hard shift back into oil and gas again, um, started building tank batteries. And then we got that opened up our Wyoming branch was in 2017. Yep. And then that led to the acquisition of Alan L. Yep. In 2018. And then 2018 was a, was a great year. 2019 was a good year for us too. Um, and then, uh, and kind of going into 2020. It was, it was kind of weird because it was like, there was this, well, we were all fighting over the oil stuff with Saudi Arabia at that time. Well, that was only a week before COVID. Right. So I'm just saying prior to that, like, it was like a dead winner. Uh, that for us. And which was, I'm not going to say not standard, but it was kind of a dead winner. So we went through, uh, we went through 2020. Uh, it was, it was, uh, I've got a great team. That's all I can say. My team got me through it. Um, you know, they, they had a positive outlook. They were willing to do anything and everything it took. Uh, COVID didn't exist in our office. So we never had any masks. We never did any of that. Did you get sick at all? No, I've never gotten COVID or anything. So you're in World County, though. It doesn't exist in World County. Um, I know it's like, uh, I follow, uh, David, uh, Rompstein would, yeah, I started following him. Like, like, I just thought he's gonna be on my podcast. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I like how he says he identifies as vaccinated. I identify as vaccinated. It's all of you with that too. Let's talk about, uh, we've started touching on faith, uh, our family family already. Some, let's let you talk about your family a little bit. Yeah. So I've got, uh, I like to do one word descriptions of the kids. Oh, one word descriptions. Yeah. You can talk more about them after that, but the one word is always. So I've got Avery Emmett and, uh, Mason. Okay. And Avery's our oldest. She's, uh, she's seven Emmett six and Mason is going to be two on the 23rd of June. So he's almost two coming right up. Yeah, coming right up and Avery and Avery, one word she is, uh, her love language is quality time. She really likes quality time. Um, dramatic would be one word, I guess. Yeah. She's, uh, you know, when she's in a good mood and, you know, when she's not, oh, she's, yeah, she's, she's got a memory that, uh, she, she's got a better memory than me whenever it comes to things. She gets that from her mom. Her mom's got a better memory than me. EJ. Oh, shoot. EJ would be, uh, he is, he's self-driven. Nice. I see a lot of me. They'll serve him well. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's kind of a loner. Yeah. He's a little bit of a loner. Like whenever you see kids kind of plan, like he was at his birthday party at a bowling birthday party. This is like, uh, his birthday was last week. Okay. His, his actual birthday was Tuesday. This week about his birthday party was last week. All the kids were bowling and, uh, he's over shooting bullets. He was, he was doing his own thing. I mean, there's like 20 kids there and he's overdoing his own thing. Like not even hanging out with him. Yeah. So he's a little bit of a loner. Uh, Mason, man, he's our, he's our wild man right now. Right. The terrible twos are real. I talked to, uh, talk to Tracy here earlier today and she was upstairs getting something done and he decided to turn the, uh, she had the sink. We've got a fruit sink in our island. Yeah. And it was plugged and she had fruit in it and he decided to turn the water on and so that flooded over. And bananas are in the counter flooded into all the cabinets, flooded on the hardwood floor, flooded. As she was upstairs, apparently for a few minutes, for she heard the water. She came down, had to take all the cabinets out, just drying everything out. And while she's doing that, he went into my office and he completely ripped everything off of the, oh boy, all the shelves and took all the paper out of the copy machine and string it all over the place. And then he went up into the bathroom and emptied all the drawers out of the, this is just today. Something a puppy. Oh my goodness. Oh, she was fit to be tied today. She was not happy. But he's one word for him. He is, uh, man, I tell you, his, his personality is just starting to really develop, you know, so, uh, developing. He's, he's, he's a little bit, uh, he's a little, he's a little bit of a thinker. Yeah. He kind of looks and sees what's going on. He doesn't talk yet, which are other, our, our daughter, she was, she was walking it into seven months, call it eight months. Uh, she was talking in full sentences by the time she was two. And this kid, he's like a mute. Right. He just, he just, he has decided that he doesn't need to talk yet. Yeah. And so he, well, it's hard to kind of know what his personality is without that too. Points and screams at everything. Yeah. But I know of those things. I'll, I'll tell you that, uh, he'll stand there and he'll watch you open a gate and you'll shut the gate behind you. And then you'll hear this noise and it'll turn back around. He's walking the gates open. He's like, okay, you, so he's, uh, I've got a nephew about like that too. Yeah. So he's, he's not, I mean, he's, he's sharp as a tack. He can, if he sees it done, he's going to do it. So talk about Tracy, just a little bit, uh, that romance, maybe, uh, before the quick move up to Pennsylvania, a month then. So we've met in college. Okay. Um, down it, uh, we both went to Christian University. Okay. Down in Arkansas, Cersei Arkansas, Harding University. All right. And, uh, yeah, she, uh, I mean, it was, it was the standard, you know, like the push pull. She would say no to me, and I'd keep chasing her. So it was the, you know, the whole chase. Nice. Um, man, we started dating in November. I bought an engagement ring in December. And I went over to, she, she did the travel abroad in Europe. And, uh, I proposed to her in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, uh, in March. Okay. So we dated for, and she said, she said, yes. Oh, well, yeah. She said, yeah. At the time, I don't know. I don't think she knew what she was saying. Yes, too. But, but I, I had the stage set, right? She couldn't say no. Right. You came all the way to Paris. Yeah. We flew, well, she was in Paris. So I flew over to Rome. I met her in Rome. Uh, we went from Rome. We went up to Florence. Then we went from Florence over to Paris. Very cool. And oh, it was a great, it was, I think, it was eight days or whatever it was a great time. Um, uh, proposed to her in Paris. Uh, we ate on the Eiffel Tower. I remember I had to prepay for his $465 to prepay to eat on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't really good. It, it was. I had duck. Okay. Don't get ducked that much, yeah. I had duck. I remember that. Uh, Tracy says that it was the most awkward dinner that we ever had. I didn't know. I was just, I put the engagement ring. I was wearing a three-piece suit, and I had no place to put it. So I put it in my pants, like under, like in between my legs. I put it under my pants, like down in the, and so whenever I proposed to her, I literally was unzipping my pants to get the ring out. This, this ring is warm. It is this box warm. I didn't want her hands to be cold. And, uh, so yeah, so I did that. We had some friends that were supposed to take pictures of me proposing, but they were outside and it was cold and, uh, they kind of forgot. They, they just took off and they're like, well, we were waiting out here for an hour and a half and you never came out. I'm like, well, you pay $500 for dinner and enjoy it. Okay. Right. So anyways, uh, why would she say that she fell in love with you? Oh, man. Other than just you wearing her down with your persistence. I was, she, she said that it was a lot of fun to hang out with me. Yeah. I think at that point in her life, I was, uh, I was a little bit different than some of the guys that she had dated in the past. Yeah. I'm a lot like her dad from a, uh, construction background perspective. So I think there was, uh, I think there was a little bit of a comfort level there. Yeah, there's other prep boys and whatever. She dated a gymnast before me and I definitely went to gymnast. Right. Um, there would be a cut that it tights like that. Yeah. Um, so I, I would say that there was, there was, there was a lot of fun that we had. You know, we, we, we did, we had a lot of long talks. Well, every day that she was in, uh, Europe, I bought a computer and we would, uh, zoom. Oh wow. Yeah. We'd zoom with each other every day. And I don't know. We just, we always had great conversations. Uh, you know, we, we both went to the same church. So that, that was faith-based wise. We were very compatible that way. We were very like minded and let's talk about that while we're there. Uh, what church is that? Yeah. So we, uh, we, we go to a church of Christ, look to church, Christ down in, uh, I grew up church of Christ. She grew up church of Christ. Um, and we go to Westview church of Christ here in Greeley. I don't really know what that means. I would do for people that don't know what church means. You know, so it's kind of, uh, you know, Bible based, Bible focused. Okay. You know, more, uh, read the Bible and do what the Bible says. Um, yeah. You know, following Christ foot steps and, uh, you know, we believe in, in baptism is, you know, part of part of salvation type, uh, you know, okay. There's, uh, it's actually part of you have to be baptized to be saved or it's not just an indication that you have or whatever that right. It's, you know, I, you know, I, you know, there's always that argument an outward sign of an inward act. You know, we, yeah, we believe that if you're going to walk in Jesus' footsteps, he was baptized. Yeah. And so you should show the world that you're baptized. I'm thinking about that line from the New Testament somewhere. It's, well, why shouldn't I be baptized then? Where they come across somebody in the road to, road to mass, maybe even. Um, we, uh, bet that way always you grew up in the faith, but also where you, uh, you weren't a a rembunctious oilfield guy or a doubter or things like that along the way. You know, there's that point in life to where you, uh, you go from your inherited faith to, I would say, what your faith is. And, uh, I'm not going to say I'm totally out of that yet. Um, I will say the last 10 years I have morphed out of that inherited faith. Um, COVID has, I, I mean, anybody that is in religion to some degree and to some aspect has gone through some questions. Sure. What is the right response? Right. It's like, oh, man, I got to go to church every Sunday. You know, if I don't go to church on Sunday, you know, I might not make it and not that that's, you got to check the box or anything, but you know, there's always that, like, I got to go to church on Sunday. Yeah. And now I'll send, you know, I grew up, you know, we went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. Oh, well, I can count on probably two hands, the amount of Sunday morning, Sunday night or Wednesday night that I missed by the time I was 18. Are you still not back in system, but pretty good? So Sunday mornings pretty still consistent. Our church doesn't do Sunday night, but we've got a small group and do that most week pretty, pretty consistent there. Yeah. Not as not as religious as I was before, but man, you go to COVID and all of a sudden now it's acceptable to like watch church on the television and do all these things. It's kind of, you know, mentally not just acceptable, but required for many folks for a while. Yeah. So there's a, you know, so I guess, I guess for me, it was, this is now acceptable. Like before it's like, you know, within call it within the body, it's like, why aren't that there Sunday morning? Where you been? I was camping like, oh, why were you camping? You should be a church. Right. And that was like, oh, we were camping and watching church online. Like, oh, great, you know, high five. Yeah. Everybody's like, oh, that's great. That's definitely a difference in our church. My church is like, they know that in the summer, my attendance in Jules is going to be, you know, 50, 50, maybe. But, you know, yeah. So there's I don't know. There's that transition period, I guess, that, that, I don't know, that I've kind of moved me and my wife. We've kind of navigated through that. I'm not going to say, I think it's, at this point, it's about growing, right? It's about growing and instilling those same virtues and values into our kids, you know, and the ethics that we believe in. So we'd like to touch on politics to cheer. What do you want to talk about there? Much as you want to or as little, you just talked about having a mask free office, which is kind of a assertive thing in today's world. For some reason, it became a partisan thing. Yeah, I, you know, whenever it comes to politics, I mean, I'm, I'm typically conservative on a lot of things. My brother's a principal and we spent, we've spent some time together and, you know, whenever it comes to some of that, I kind of, I agree with both sides on some things. I lean more heavily towards conservative thinking, but, you know, sometimes I think there's some middle ground that, you know, I think sometimes, whenever you're a politician, you, you've got to, you've got to pick something and go with it. You know, I was thinking this. I was thinking the other day. I was like, you know what? If I was to, not that I want to be, but I always try to place myself in someone's shoes and it's like, okay, you place yourself in a politician's shoes. And it's like, because I was like, okay, if I was to run for president, not that I am, but what would I do? And it's like, you know, I would want to be able to tell the truth to people because sometimes I think there's false narrative that's out there that that said in order to push an agenda, right? And so sometimes it's not that they don't feel that they're not telling the truth, but they're not telling you the parts that are going to make you question why they're doing what they're doing. They're just going to tell you the rosy picture like, oh, it's going to be great. We're going to spend all this money, right? Right, right. As opposed to, and then everybody can get on board with that as opposed to like, well, we spend all this money and then we're going to raise your taxes and we're going to raise it. It's going to go up places hidden tax. Yeah. And so there's, you know, there's, I think there's a lot of truth that's, we're just going to call it omitted for sake of conversation. I think there's a lot of omitted truth to push the narrative. And, you know, but then I also got to thinking, you're on, you try to manage, I mean, they're, the president's trying to manage the three million, 50 million people, right? So how into the weeds do you get? Right. And I'm not, I'm not siding with any president or any presidential thought. I'm just saying, put yourself in their shoes and you got 350 million people that are listening to what you say. Not everybody's going to agree with you first off, but second off, you've only got so much time. And third, the bigger the people, the more complex the issue really truthfully is. And there's probably no right answer. I mean, even being in the small business that I'm at, sometimes moving in a direction, you know, every action hasn't made me an option to react. People happy in 20 people have said. And that's just the way it's going to be. And so you've got to empathize a little bit. Granted, I don't agree with some of the things that are being done, you know, the unemployment benefits that are there. But employment, there's, you know, it's really frustrating as an employer to have, have my guys come back to me and they're like, man, we could hire 10 guys right now. But, you know, everybody we talked to says, unless you pay me 30 bucks an hour, I ain't getting off the couch. Right. Right. Like, well, because I make 27 other companies because they can, because they're work in the system. And I mean, we're all out trying to, yeah, we're out trying to provide jobs, you know, and now, now employees that are trying to provide jobs that you really can't afford. We've got wage inflation. We've got, you know, all these things that are getting stacked against us as employers from just looking at it down the road. I mean, there's, there's going to be more tax. Sure. There's less employees. There's more tax. And so you just start taking, you just start taking all the money out of it. And then it's, it, what are we going to do? Just start paying $10 a gallon for melt because I mean, it's got to get produced somehow, which is leading to more automation, which on our manufacturing side, you know, that's, that's definitely a, that's on the foresight of what we're trying to do is become more automated and everything we do, you know, that's trying to be more technologically focused and, and savvy and robotics, you know, that's, I've, you know, our team, I've challenged the team with, hey, the next piece of equipment that we get needs to be automated or have some type of robotic feature to it. Yeah. Because I want to move towards robotics, because I can, because the tail of it's out there is, you know, it's not getting any easier. You know, there's, there's still good talent that's out there, but I mean, it's, it's not like you've got three guys knocking on the door for one job. It's like you've got three jobs and one guy knocking on the door. Right, right. And two guys you're trying to get in there, but their fun employment isn't quite over. That's right. That's right. And so I, I kind of like the states that are canceling this. I think that's going to help us out. I think so too. We'll see. What's your local experience? So I'm trying to think about that. Yeah. So I, I joined and just some, well, not, I guess February. Oh, not your local think tank experience necessarily, but just the craziest thing that's happened to you in your business got it in the business. But yeah, you can give a plug for local think tank too. If you want to, you know, why not? Yeah, right. Uh, craziest thing that's happened to me in the business or life or whatever. It might be one of those moves to Pennsylvania when you got a fresh wife at home or a fresh baby just Colorado. Man, I or maybe you, I don't know, had a near death experience and somebody pulled you out of a flaming car. I don't know. No, nothing. I would say your local experience is probably having such an amazing wife that just locked her arm in you when you were dragging her all over the place, scaring her to death with your business. You know, I put a, I put a post on LinkedIn the other day that, you know, I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of my wife. So that there's truth to that. Um, I had crazy experience. I'm trying to, I'm trying to think, you know, this isn't really a crazy experience, but it's one that my buddy joked about the other day. I'm sure everybody that knows me will probably come up with a different crazy experience. One of my, oh, this is not one of my talents is remembering crazy stuff because I'm moving on to the next thing. Right. Right. So I don't, I don't live in the past. I don't live in the past. I live in the future. Yeah. Uh, no, it's, we had a job in Kansas City one time and I got to the airport and forgot my wallet and I flew all the way to Kansas City. Um, I've got clear me now. So it does the retinal scan and I flew out there without a wallet and was able to be out there on business for two days without a credit card, a wallet because I've got my credit card number memorized. So I was able to, like, I was able to download all the apps and order food online and do all the, do everything on apps on my phone because I'm a number memorized and then, uh, was able to fly back and get interrogated by the FAA because if you try to get through TSA without your drivers license, yeah, yeah, they were not an easy task, but was able to do that and both times got bumped up to first class. See? That's awesome. It was, it was pretty good. I love it. I love it. Um, so yeah, let's do the, let's do the 90s and you joined local think tank last December. Is that what you said? So I did the, uh, I think I did the interview. Okay. Last December and then January and then I joined in, uh, February. So it's been just over a year now. Uh, under just, uh, oh, just, just a few months ago. Yeah. Oh, gosh. Time flies when you're a COVID nation. Yeah. So it's like four months or something. Yeah. So what do you think? Three answers. He's been your facilitator. Yeah. He's, he's great. He's a, he's a great facilitator. You know, the, one of the group members, whenever I join, they said, hey, don't think that this is the, uh, the solve that gonna solve all your problems. It's, it's one of those, we're here for the journey. And I know. So I would say anybody that's looking to join, I wouldn't, I wouldn't join because you think all your problems are gonna get solved. You know, don't think that it's gonna solve all your problems by being able to talk to other business owners. But what it is going to do is, is, uh, give you perspective, make you not feel like you're out on an island because sometimes in the ownership realm, you feel like you're out on an island like man. Who can I talk to about this stuff, right? Because you're, if you don't have a board of directors or, or people that you can confide in, you know, because sometimes you just want to talk to somebody outside of your organization. And Tracy's heard a lot of it. And she has heard too much of it, you know, and she yons when I talk now. Uh, and, you know, so it, it's been nice for that, um, an accountability group, you know, you can, uh, you can throw some things out there. You know, it's not the easiest thing to hold yourself, her, have other people hold you accountable. But it is nice to be able to throw some things out there and, uh, and, and be able to talk through them and have people follow up with you and check in on you. And then Drew has been great, uh, from a standpoint of, uh, he has spent time outside of the, uh, chapter meetings and, uh, has helped me think through some things and, and that's been a big help. So I'd say for the think tank, if anybody's thinking about it, I would, I would say if you're, if you're thinking that it's going to solve your problems, um, you know, you're probably not gonna solve your problems. You probably not a good fit. Um, but if you're looking for, uh, a group that you can start to grow with and, uh, being that environment and have people that are there along with you on your journey and, uh, and kind of hear from them firsthand how they've worked through some things and see what's applicable in your business because it, I think you've done a good job of making sure that the, uh, the groups have a, uh, have a blend of business owners to where it's not everybody's in the same business, but whenever it boils down to the accounting side of things, I mean, we've all got revenue and we've all got expenses and we've all got people. So, um, from a high level view, you know, working through some of those challenges, you can kind of talk to other people about see how they've done it. You know, uh, we had a great conversation in the parking lot today. One of the reasons I was late about like, Hey, what are you used for accounting software and what does it do? Cause this is what I want mine to do and what does yours do? And so it stuff like that. Yeah. You know, for sure. Well, I certainly want to just say thanks for, for sharing some of your journey. We didn't have quite as much time. I'd have to have you on again for, uh, for a longer episode. But, uh, we buzzed through you at part two. We can get into the, the fun stuff ahead. But Marshall, I just want to appreciate you making time and, uh, Tracy, uh, I want to say thanks. Keep up the, keep up the patience and the love for this young man. Uh, it seems like you're doing the right things over there and let's have some fun. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Locoh Experience Podcast. This is your host, Kurt Bear, and founder of the Locoh Think Tank. If you or someone you know would be a great guest for our show, or if you'd like to learn more about our small business owner of your advisory chapters at Locoh Think Tank, please visit our website at locohthinktank.com or email us at connect at locohthinktank.com. That's L-O-C-O-thinktank.com. If you've been enjoying this series, don't forget to subscribe. We love great reviews on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. And don't forget, always keep it local.