EXPERIENCE 56 | Heidi Ganahl, Founder of Camp Bow Wow & Candidate for Governor of Colorado

My guest on today's episode was Heidi Ginal. Heidi is the Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado. She's a region at the University of Colorado and she's the founder of Camp Bawao as well as other ventures. She's also a mom of four and married to the top barbecue guy in the state. So today's podcast is going to be different than a lot of the sessions she's been in lately during her candidacy. We really focus on who Heidi is, how she came up with the ideas for Camp Bawao, what that early business growth looked like. What were some of the principles and values that she instilled in that organization to really help it be one of the fastest growing franchises in America for many years. And so we talk a lot about that. We always get into our faith family politics and she shares a little bit of her why in regards to running for governor. And I guess I would just say we really hit it off. So I caught Heidi's eye on LinkedIn. Or she caught mine rather. And I asked her to be on the podcast. And I was just really honored that she would share this time. So thank you Heidi and good luck and enjoy listening to this latest episode of the local experience. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the local experience podcast. I'm your host, Kerr Bear. This show is produced by me and my team and sponsored by my small business, local think tank. And sometimes others episodes feature a range of local and regional business and community leaders as guests in a conversational interview format. Our guests are interesting and successful people with unique business journeys. And the more business education and unbarnished truth, we can uncover the better. You'll feel like you really know our guests after each episode. And if I'm doing my job well, listeners will find business principles and tips from their journey and a greater appreciation for each of our guests. Woven into these long format experience episodes are occasional thoughtful episodes. Topically focused snippets of five to fifteen minutes where our guests unfold important and timely business truths. And also I'll read the local perspective blog posts because I'm lazy to infer to listen and read. And maybe you do too. Thanks for tuning in. And if you'd like to show a please subscribe, review and share it with your favorite people. Welcome back to the local experience podcast. This is your host, Kerr Bear. And I'm honored today to be joined by Heidi Ginal. And Heidi is the Republican candidate for governor. She's a regent at the University of Colorado. She's the founder of Camp Bowelwell and other ventures. And she's a mom of four, which is the most important. So Heidi, let's just talk about your place in life right now. Thanks Kerr. Well, it's a crazy place in life right now. I'm traveling the state running for governor and trying to balance being a mom and a wife and a friend and the wife of the top barbecue guy in Colorado. That's right. Jason's a great barbecue cook. He has restaurants called GQ barbecue. And did I pronounce your name right? I didn't even check. Yeah, yeah, you'd perfect nailed it. So what prompted you to run for governor? Boy, I'm really worried about the direction the state's going in, especially our kids. 60% of kids right now are not reading, writing or doing math at grade level. We have the sixth highest suicide rate among children in the country. 60% are not reading at grade levels. Yep. Well, and we have the second highest drug addiction rate in the country as well. In Colorado, where everybody gets to go, we've been a sunshine and stuff like that. It's shocking. And it's not just because of COVID. This was happening beforehand. Yeah, and aggravated by COVID, I'm sure. Yeah, the isolation and not being with their friends, their sports and school did not help the situation at all. So you're another one of those dreaded kid-driven political entrants. I am. I'm a mom on a mission. I like to say right. Right. Lots of other things that I'm passionate about, like small business owners and rural Colorado. I'm a daughter of a police officer. So I'm I'm pretty sure we need to get better online order right now in our state. Crime is skyrocketing. But my passion is for our kids. Well, so I want to tell the business journey. But let's go in the way back and let's just talk about like third grade Heidi. Where did you come from? Are you from Colorado? Originally grew up in Orange County, California. Oh, really? Yep. They're transplant. I am. But I transplanted at age 12. So it's been a while. And my dad was a police officer out there and saw the riding on the wall. Didn't like what was happening. So he packed up our baby blue Pinto station wagon and moved us to monument Colorado back in 78. There were about 3,000 people back then. And I grew to love this beautiful state. Learn to hike and fish and learn to understand that what kind of shoes I was wearing or how else we were living in wasn't the most important thing. Yeah, the measure of characters is your style. So what did you do? Were you like an athlete? Were you all into the straight A stuff like that? What was your style? Well, I was always a kid who was doing lots of things. I was student government. I was a cheerleader. But I also helped found the soccer program in monument. My parents brought soccer from Southern California through AYSO. Awesome. And monument was the first league. And then they helped establish that in the high school and build the stadium. So soccer was a big part of my life. My four kids are so funny. Like the first three, I was like, come on, somebody play soccer. And when I'm finally my little one, Jenna, one of my twins that's nine is a big soccer player. She plays goalie. And she's tiny. We call her tiny, but mighty. But yes, that finally a kid that's following my passion. Right. Yeah. I love soccer. Like I love watching it. I'm from North Dakota, where I never, like I never even learned the rules of soccer until I was in Colorado. Yeah, it was probably a little cold to play soccer outside. A lot of the season, a lot of it or windy. Yes. Yes. So so your dad was still a police officer, I guess. Well, he was a reserve police officer. So he did it as a volunteer. Oh, wow. And then when we moved to monument, he became the volunteer marshal for Palmer Lake. He still loved it. I love I'm a motorcycle so that those rows like between monument and Palmer Lake, I've, I've exceeded the speed limit a couple of times. Don't tell me that. I'm sorry. You don't have to endorse it. You can just go. So, um, so would you go off to school then? So I graduated from Lewis Palmer. I wanted to go to college, wanted to go away to college. So I worked really hard at the local dairy queen raised money and got a scholarship to go to SMU in Dallas. My dad was originally from Texas. Okay. Went there for a year, very homesick. So I came back and finished my degree at CU Boulder. Okay. And then got a masters in health care administration from University of Denver. Interesting. So was health care the target the whole time? Or are you just kind of? No, I fell into it. I got a job in pharmaceutical sales out of college and really liked it. It wasn't my like passion, but I enjoyed learning how to advocate for, you know, folks that were sick or ill or need help. And let you can make a grip, you know, some of the smartest kids I knew kind of went that way because you could make six figures like not too far out of college almost. Yeah. I like to say that it's called the golden handcuffs. Like it's such a great job. And even if it isn't your passion, you're like, oh, you know, I can't give this up. Right. I want to make half as much money and, you know, have less vacation and travel and all that stuff. So, um, where did that take you from there then? So I got my masters because we were moving into formularies and lots of managed health care that was becoming a thing back in the early 90s back when health care was getting turned on its head. Right. But at the same time, I met my first husband, Byin. And we were both very entrepreneurial and we would go to our favorite restaurant down the street and hang out, have a beer and some Mexican food and write up business ideas on the back of the napkins. And we had this whole stack of napkins that we had ideas for. But his 25th birthday was coming up and our family got him a gift to go up in an old steerman, a biplane that does stump planes with a family friend that was United Airlines pilot. They did all the stunts in front of my folks and it crashed into the ground and killed Byin and the pilot. I knew the story, but I didn't know it was like a surprise thing. I assumed he was like a pilot that crashed or something, you know. So he was rarely in that kind of position of risk. I mean, he was definitely put himself at risk. He liked to do lots of crazy stuff like helicopter skiing. I mean, all kinds of that's why we thought he'd like that. And he did. But the yeah, they don't they don't know what happened, but it was a tragic event and changed the trajectory of my life. And you have all the littles at that time? Nope. I had no kids. No kids. Okay. How to couple dogs that ended up getting me back into life. And one of those business ideas that was written on the napkin was for a dog daycare that was just starting on the scene. I remember when there was my wife and I moved to Colorado Springs in 2004. And we used Camp Bowel. And it was must have been one of only a 10 or 15 locations at that time. That's right. Colorado Springs was one of our first franchises. Castle Rock was the first one. Okay. And I didn't start out to franchise the company. Yeah. But I opened the first one, then a second one. And one of our clients was in franchising and said, no one's doing this in the pet space. So I want to pump the brakes a little bit. Yeah. Talk to me about the first one. It was so fun. You know, here I'd been through this, you know, horrible time in my life. And I ended up remarrying and having a child and that marriage didn't didn't end up lasting. So five, six years later, I'm a single mom. I've got this little girl and I'm lost my mojo. Right. As the brother said. And he's like, why don't we take out that old restaurant with the business idea that you wrote up? See if we can't get it started. So we found an old Veterans of Foreign War hall. Okay. To South of downtown, Denver on antique row, cleaned it up, put up a logo on the wall and started inviting people to come see what it was all about. What logo? The Camp Bawa logo. It was very rough back then. Oh, I thought you were going to start a restaurant, but you took an old space over and made this thing. Yeah, we took this old space over and got the idea or the business plan for Camp Bawa that by and I had written up and put it into play and I had a little bit of the settlement left that I'd gotten from the plane crash. Spent that on, you know, investing it into the business. And we, I would take Tori, my little one down to Wash Park or Platt Park and we'd walk around with a bucket of milk bones and I'd hand out coupons for three days at Camp. Wow. That's how our first marketing went for Camp Bawa. Oh, I love it. I love it. How old was she at this time? Oh, she was little three or four. Wow. Yeah. And so, like, did it just take off or was it a slow start? I mean, the people that were the hardest to convince were the veterinarians believe it or not. I'd been in pharmaceutical sales, so I used that model to go call on veterinarians and talk to them about the idea and they're like, you're nuts. You can't put a big group of dogs together in a room. Something bad is going to happen. I'm like, they really like it. They're a dog park together. Well, now we didn't have dog parks back then. Yeah. It was nuts. And so, as people started to see how fun it was for the dogs and then my brother thought of this brilliant idea to put a webcam up in one of the playards and nobody had done that in the pet care space. And so, we'd have this webcam that would take a picture every 60 seconds and post to the internet. That was high definition video streaming back then. Yeah, that was cutting it. Could I tell you something? Maybe it's a little threatening. Of course. One of your employees encouraged me to to fib because we had a border collie golden pit bull. Yes. She was half pit bull, but she didn't look at it at all. She was the sweetest-hearted dog. And after like five visits, the front desk person like asked, well, kind of she is. And I got into the third category because we just put retriever mix or something on there. And she's like, don't tell people that here because she's not really going to be allowed. Yeah, that was a policy of the city of Denver. Like we, I can't bow out, we were fine with it. We were open to having any kinds of dogs because we had a pretty stringent interview process that we put him through so we could screen out any problems. And I kid around with people, the most dangerous dogs were the Chihuahua's and Jack Russell's. Totally. So yeah, a lot of the cities had restrictions at that point. Denver, Rora, I can't remember that's a while ago, but I think those are gone right now. I actually considered it, I credit it to her. I didn't, I thought it was actually a very transparent and authentic thing. She's like, this dog is enough threat. You know, it's very sweet dog. She's been here. And so some of the, some of the bolteriors are some of the sweetest dogs on the planet. They really are. So how long before location two, like, and what's like the, what's the model, I guess, before we even get to that, is it just like hiring hourly people to watch dogs and just that simple or? No, it was actually pretty complex. I mean, we had to figure out first how to protect the dogs, keep them safe and healthy and happy because, you know, nobody had really done this before. There were a couple other daycares places, but I was really about systems and processes. So keeping the place clean, keeping the employees safe, keeping the dogs safe. Having the webcam that shows you your dog is safe. Yep. And that meant the world to the customers. They, they really bought in because of that. And they loved it. To this day, I'll talk to customers. I'll meet them in the airport or somebody they'll say something and they'll pull up their phone and show me the webcams where their dogs are playing. I love it. I love it. And was that like all there from the start, or were you just kind of receiving feedback and this and that? Yeah. One of my, one of my favorite things to do, even as I built the franchise, was to host yappy hours in the front lobby. And we put out some wine and crackers and dog treats. And I just talked to customers and say, what, how's it going? What do you like? What don't you like? I mean, at that point, we were doggy day care and boarding. And then we added behavior buddies, which was dog training because that customer's wanted that. And then we added home bodies, which was in home pet care. Once that started to become a thing. Interesting. See, I don't think you had the behavioral stuff or the in-home. We bless now my wife and I have a little place and get the double drag doggy door and we just have friends that take them and stuff like that. So I haven't used the daycare as in a while, but I've loved the experience when we were customers down there. Well, thank you. It was, it was magical. It was just, it was such a treat to be able to build a business around something I'm so passionate about. And the other passion, it's not just the dogs. It was helping other people start a business that they love that they were passionate about. That's the beauty of franchising. And I think it's a wonderful model and a great way for folks that, you know, don't necessarily want to start something on their own. They want to buy a model and they want to know that there's other people that are going through what they are. Totally. Well, and people are all wired differently. You know, some people have all the ideas. Others are all about systems and processes and things like that. And others, you know, if you show me the plan, I can execute it. That's right. And we, I mean, we had amazing franchises all over the country. One of my favorite things about Camp Bawa that a lot of people don't know is the franchises and myself and some of the leaders that are company built a foundation called the Bawa Buddies Foundation. And it was all about rescuing their fostering dogs. And we rescued over 10,000 dogs and rehomed them over the 10 years or so that we had the foundation. That moment of, like, was a boom. We are going to definitely be a franchise or and here's the franchise packet. I mean, that takes a lot of money and effort to pull that together, right? Like that's a lot of legal fees, a lot of lots of lots of stuff. Yeah, that's one of the hard parts about franchising is it's gotten so regulated and it's so burdensome to be able to grow. I don't know if I could have done it the way we did it today. Yeah. It's one of my frustrations. And one thing I'm passionate about and running for governor is unleashing small business owners to be able to take care of their customers and their employees, you know, and trust them to make good decisions. Yeah. Yeah. So did it spread national right off the bat? Or did you have a regional growth strategy? Well, we should have, but we didn't. We had people from all over the country calling us. So our first out of state franchise was in Troy, Michigan. Okay. And it was the middle of winter. I had to go to seven different zoning and planning work committee meetings in the middle of winter in Michigan. Love Michigan, but it is cold. And you're like, Travel, I'm imagining how this plays out is like every time somebody calls you and they've got a thousand dollar deposit. You're like on your way there and like not quite that way. We had them come to Colorado and we would do discovery days. And one of the most important things we did is have them hang out in the play arts with the dogs. Yeah. To see if they were really comfortable with them. We'd better really be a dog person. Yeah. And also just, you know, if they could take the overwhelming nature of some of these camps that have a hundred dogs hanging out, barking, playing, you know, having fun, you may love dogs, but that's a whole different experience. It's probably a lot of training involved even with like health things and stuff like that, right? You can't have kind of cough running around your place all the time and stuff like that. No, you've got to keep it very clean. You've got to make sure the animals, you know, are healthy. And that's part of the screening process for when the dogs come in or stay with us or when we when I had camp out. But I love that it's still here. I got a very special place in my heart. And they've done great things with the brand. I sold it to VCA, the veterinary chain. Okay. And then they sold to Mars, the big chocolate company, also owns pedigree and bandfield. Interesting. Yeah. And how like, what was that trend? How many stores did you have when you sold it? And did you keep a little slice or anything like that? I sold it in late 2014. I can't remember the exact number, but we had probably 125 open or so. And then another 40 or 50 in the process of opening and had built it to about a hundred million dollar brand overall. So that's all the franchise franchisees together revenue wise. Right, right. And about that time I got, well, a few years before that, a couple years before that, I got set up on a blind date with Jason. Oh. And we ended up hitting an off, getting married and wanted to have some kids. So I had my teenager, Tory, who was 12 or 13, had Holly. And then we tried for one more and got twins out of the deal. Nice. So here I am with a teenager, a three year old, twin babies, camp ow I was taking off. I'm like, some's got to give here. Right. That's why we're not given up the babies. So I guess we'll make a different plan. And so was that hard to come to that decision? And what was that? Can you, like for people that can't really imagine selling a business or franchise, like, what were the key and most important things to get ready to sell? Oh my goodness. Pick your suitor and stuff like that, right? I mean, when it's your baby, you want to make sure it lands in good hands. And so we interviewed a lot of different people in the process. And we started out looking at strategic partnerships and ways that we could work together with some companies. And I built a relationship with Bob who was the CEO of BCA and really liked him a lot. And liked the priority they had on safety and health and thought that would be a good match. But you know, I think a lot of entrepreneurs know they get to the point in their business where they're like, I think it needs a different set of skills or a different set of factors to take it to the next level. And I was really, really focused on giving back at that point. And I wanted to start my own charity. I wanted to figure out a way to get more engaged in public policy. I had learned how important policy was as I was building my business and seeing how, you know, government decisions were really affecting the our ability to grow. The regulatory tangle, you're like packing away with a machete and these various states and civil, you know, civic legislatures and stuff. It's so bad. I mean, they just don't folks that haven't owned a business or run a business or signed the front of a paycheck, sometimes don't understand the implications of the policy decisions they're making. So I got involved with a group called Job Creators Network, which is Bernie Marcus, the founder of Home Depot started it. And it's really teaching small business owners to advocate for themselves and their businesses. And it was fabulous. They taught me so much about how to do that. And so I'm still a warrior for small business owners. Well, the kind of small business is kind of the silent like major. It's not they are the majority really, the really small ones. But even like with the chambers or economic development corpse or things like that, they're paying a lot more attention to those bigger guys and the in the medium size guys, because they're the ones that always sponsor the events and things like that, you know, and so the those five and 10 employee businesses like your franchisees were really having some of the biggest struggles sometimes. That's right. And I mean, that was the good part about being part of a franchise is we had a more powerful voice when we were all together. But we were, you know, we weren't a huge franchise like a McDonald's. So you've got McDonald's and some of the other big brands taking the heat for a lot of the smaller players. So that was that was some of the training I did for running for what I am now and for advocating for small business owners. They've been really hard in Colorado over the last couple of years. Well, let's talk about those transition years then, then once this sale is consummated and what did you kind of focus on momming some for a while, you got a bunch of little or were you right into the other cause based efforts and well, I stayed on a CEO for Camp Bawa for a couple of years. So I was still pretty involved there. But at the same time, family member went through a really tough situation, a sexual assault and I went through the justice system with her and it was pretty bad. Yeah, it didn't work well. And so I got pretty fired up. And I thought, where do you go to talk to about stuff like this with other moms or dads? And I realized, you can't just post on Facebook about that. So I started a foundation called the mom's fight back. And it was a way for moms to deal with really tough stuff like teen suicide, sexual assault, drug addiction, things that our kids were facing that you don't, you know, just post about you need people that have really been through some of those experiences. And worked on that for a couple of years and did some really good stuff on that. So your passion for some of these kids causes and mental health and stuff like that, that's not like angry mom. This is informed by a lot of research and effort and like trying to fix it. It is. And that earned me a seat with Governor Hickenlooper on the Governor's School Safety and Youth and Crisis Committee. And there I learned a lot about school safety, but also what was happening to our youth, you know, they are in a crisis specifically teen suicide and what was happening there. So were you starting to think about like some political ambitions in the future? Are you just were passionate and people kept asking you to serve in these various capacities? It was that. I mean, I think I definitely was getting more and more politically involved and getting involved on ballot initiatives and some other things that were happening. But it's not like I said, hey, I'm going to run for X, Y and Z at this point. In seven years, I'm going to be governor. Right. Yeah. So I grew to love, love, love, love, the founding principles of our country and like how America has built up and why we have so much opportunity here. And how, you know, our country has done more to solve or address poverty than any other nation on the planet. And so I started to study that and how do you actually use government for the good and make good decisions and invest the dollars the right way? And that became a passion of mine. And so all these worlds collided. And at some point, somebody was like, hey, you're really involved at University of Colorado, any like politics. And you've been opening charter schools. You're really involved in education reform. You should run for regent. And I was like, what was that even do? I know I and I was on the CU Foundation board. I was like, I know the regents, but what exactly do they do? And I found out that the regents are the board of directors for the CU system. Oh, and it's not just CU Boulder. It's UCCS, CU Denver, CU Anchutes. It's a five billion dollar budget now. Wow. And it's the third largest employer in the state. Wow. And we have nine regents in Colorado, one for each congressional district. And then two at large, my at large seat is going to the eighth congressional district. So there will be one at large after this. Okay. Okay. And like, how are they doing? Like, you mean, see you? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's been this big health crisis and all that, you know, a lot of challenges around that and education and masking and the people want to pay the full price when it's remote education. Oh, it's been quite a learning experience. Whether it's keeping tuition flat or dealing with cancel culture. Right. Making sure that kids have a voice. I've been a firm staunch supporter of free speech and academic freedom and getting rid of safe spaces on our campuses. So that that's been really important in my journey to running place to be challenged. Right. That's what college and university are supposed to be for in my humble opinion. You're not alone. So, so it wasn't really through that that really. Okay. So I ran in 2016, which was quite a political year. It was very interesting. Ran against a very formidable Democrat, Alice Madden, and one in a year that not many other Republicans went in Colorado. And what do you think you did that helped people notice you and and check the R on that ballot? You know, I'm a problem solver. I'm a mom. I'm an entrepreneur. I just I just am worried that the government's doing too much. Yeah. And I think that we've got to be careful about trying to solve every problem with the government. I think churches, charities, communities can do a beautiful job of addressing a lot of these things. Yeah. And so that's the approach I take. And I think it resonates with a lot of people that, you know, the younger generation, it sometimes makes me scratch my head that weird those kids in the 60s and 70s that didn't want government running their lives go. Well, like this Neil Young thing was trying to cancel Joe Rogan. Come on, Neil Young. Where did you go? He was one of those right kids. Great. Yeah. That's that's a gosh, that's been just a shame that that's happening. And yes, it sure is. And it's a I'm from North Dakota. And so candidates like a brother, you know, and it's been fascinating to see. It would have been really easy for Toyota to save some face and like make it go away. Yeah. It feels like there's something more going on here. Yeah, for sure. So before we get to our faith family politics. So your region, you're getting more and more connections. I'm imagining them to these important people in the state and when's that decision point to run for governor? Well, I chaired several ballot initiatives over the last few years. So know our PropCC to protect table. I chaired the initiative or the amendments Y and Z to make for fair maps redistricting maps. And then I chaired the effort to protect the electoral college and stop the national popular vote. Right. So through those efforts, I got pretty engaged, pretty involved and pretty networked and come to find out or not find out but realize last year that I was the only statewide elected Republican left. In the regions? In Colorado. No, overall Colorado. What? Yeah. Oh my goodness. So that prompted a lot of conversation about well, what are you going to do? I was so happy in purple Colorado, but it's not very purple anymore or it can be, it can be, it can be right again. Is that what we're working on? Well, at least balanced. We need some balance. I think people have seen what one party rule does. It doesn't work very well. No, sure. They're supposed to be a counterbalance against each other. Yeah. So I guess we might as well jump into that faith family politics. Do you want to start with politics? Since we've wandered in there a little bit. Sure. And you were asking about my decision making last year in or in 2020 or let's see, gosh, it's been 18 months is when I started to think about it and I got diagnosed with a brain tumor at that point. Yeah. I've had a lot of crazy stuff happen in my life and it wasn't cancer, but it's called an ingenoma, but it was affecting my balance and coordination. Oh, wow. So I had to have brain surgery and I had to sit on the couch throughout the whole election of 2020 and I sat watching just like, oh, this is not good. And I kid with folks that they took my filter out when they took out the tumor and I'm feistier than ever. That was one of the things I thought was so interesting, you know, with the whole election fairness and stuff. And I because of the male and ballots and it was just so easy to hate Donald Trump based on the media and stuff that I don't really doubt that the election count was pretty pretty close and whatever, but like, are we okay with the whole media apparatus? Like choosing who's terrible and who's like awesome, super vibrant Joe Biden or whatever. That's a great point and the media did weigh in in a big way in that election. And that's something I deal with every day is trying to find a way to get my message out because of the mainstream media. It's a challenge. It really is. Yeah. Have you been on any like mainstream networks, news channels, things like that? A couple. A little bit here and there. Yeah, it didn't go great. Yeah, you know, I think it works better to get in front of people, travel the state, have one-on-one conversations, speak as much as I can, do radio interviews, podcasts, you know, with people who are really focused on what the heart and soul of Colorado is and how we fix some of these problems. So how would you describe your politics in like a couple paragraphs or less overall? My key is that I trust you. I trust you to make good decisions for your life, your business, your family, your kids. We've got to trust the people at Colorado. That's the color of a way of life. And people see that slipping away right now. They don't feel like they have control over a lot of things in their life. And it's really frustrating for business owners, for parents, for a lot of us folks. Well, if you can't say what kind of what you think for fear of being canceled by your employee or like employers are scared right now, they're like, if I correct somebody on something that I trained them on three times already, they like get all but hurt and quit. Well, that's not America. Like we love feisty debate here. And education, we should be teaching students how to think, not what to think. It's just, gosh, what are we so afraid of? You know, the best ideas come from bringing people together from all sides and mashing it out, working it through. And then usually something brilliant comes out of that. I agree. I agree. I think without that, without that contending, contesting of ideas, we're bound to just have terrible decisions for a long time. That's right. And things aren't going well right now. So anything more you want to say about politics or you want to jump on faith or family a little more? Well, you know, I think it's all connected. For sure. I think people that haven't been involved in the past and politics are getting involved because of what's happening to their family. You see the moms and dads speaking up on the school board races and you see small business owners, restaurant owners, you know, pushing back and saying, don't you trust me to take good care of my customers and my staff? It's silly. Like no one's going to come eat or if I don't take do that. I don't need your mandates. Are you telling me how to do it? I can figure it out. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. It was pretty fascinating to see the, the San Francisco school board stuff happen. Right? Like, it's a foretelling potentially of how important the family and, you know, feeling that listen to is happening. Yeah. I mean, parents, parents saw what went on during COVID, whether it was walking by the zoom with their classroom, seeing what was taught in their classroom, what in the class, the zoom class, or, you know, having to try and balance work and life and and just it was very frustrating as a parent as a mom of three little ones and one older one. It was tough. It was a lot, it was a lot to deal with. And I think parents have come out of it more emboldened, more enlightened about what happens in the schools and with their kids' mental health. Yeah. That took a big hit. Well, in community, I was just reflecting that like in the olden days or whatever, like we had these little villages and stuff and there's church organizations and all these things. And today, even pre-COVID, we kind of splintered into these people that drive home and go into our garage and walk straight into our living room and then everybody looks at their own phone until we watch a movie together and then they look at their own phone for a while. They're all separate. When I was talking to a friend of mine, Rob, who runs an organization called Humans First and it's about how technology affects our families, our communities, our lives. And he talked about this vicious cycle that we get in, right? We go home, we close the garage and then we get on social media to check our phone and we feel isolated. It's isolating to not have dinner with our family or go talk to our neighbor and so it's this pattern that gets deeper and deeper and the more you're on social media, the more isolated you feel and the more separated you are from your community. And I truly believe building community is how we're going to get back to some semblance of normalcy in this country. And faith is a huge part of that. It's a huge part. This episode is sponsored by Locoh Think Tank. Locoh Think Tank provides peer collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage of the business journey and we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features gift-back minded business veterans and the role of Locoh facilitators. We're always looking for abundance minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, local community or to feature on this podcast. Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Locoh Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the Locoh Experience Podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at locohthinktank.com. That's l-o-c-o-thinktank.com. So talk to me about that for you. Like it was faith important as a small child and things like that or what was your... Yeah, I mean I grew up... I went to church my family. It wasn't a huge part of our lives. But after my first husband died, I did a lot of soul searching and really got much closer to God and a much stronger faith. And then with the brain tumor, that definitely revived that connection. And I just... Gosh, it makes me so sad to see how churches were shut down during the pandemic and that connection to our faith and our pastors and our church community was cut off in a lot of ways. And I think that the more we can speak out and talk about our faith, no matter what your faith is, we're a melting pot here in America. We've got to be accepting of all people, all views, all faiths. That's how you get back to normal. Well, it's just reflecting how during that time when a lot of churches were shut down and things like that, that was actually, as it turns out, some of the safest time. There wasn't any virus really circulating hardly at all until months later. And I don't think that's because of the lockdowns. So, I guess, from that transition in the family section, I like to get one word descriptions of the children. Beachamikens? Yes, would you like to try? Yes. And share their name and their age too so we can help. So Tori's 26. And she's just just a caring, lovely human being. I can't think of one word, but she just cares so much. It oozes out of her and it's beautiful. Holly is my 12-year-old. Holly has this innocence and this sweetness to her. It's just, I mean, her smile is beautiful. She just is so sincere. Just and happy. I mean, I can only imagine like people that exude that sweetness. It's because they're always smiling in part. Holly is definitely always smiling. She's just such a sweet art and always a friend to everyone and always there to cheer her friends up and be there for them. I love it. The Jack and Jenna, my twins. Jack and Jenna? Yep. They're nine. Jack is a sweet heart. He's very smart. He's probably going to be an engineer or something using math and science. I think he talks about joining Space Force or something. Very thoughtful kind of guy. Yes, very thoughtful. He's very intense about sports. He plays lots of different sports. He's really competitive. So he's a sweet little guy, but then you get him on the basketball court and he's an animal. Driven, driven too. Yes, like his dad. Nice. And then Jenna, Jenna runs the family. She's nice. She's large in in charge. We call her tiny, but mighty. She's just taking care of business for you guys to replace. Mom, you said you were going to get milk and you did all the things like that. But she's also, she's always right there for me. She pays very close attention to what's happening in the family. She has a very strong emotional intelligence. She's a servant leader. Yes, that's a great way to put it. Yeah. So tell me about the love story with with Jason, because you've been through a lot of this challenge and stuff going on and and yeah, where did that come from? Well, I had kind of I was exhausted from like I was busy building the business and I dated a couple guys that it didn't go so well. And I was like, ah, I'm just going to check out for a little while. And my friend, Rebecca, who worked for me as my general counsel came out, said, you know, this doesn't have to be anything serious, but there's this cute guy that moved in next door to me. And he loves sports. And I know you love sports. And that's just weird to me. So you guys might like to hang out. And I'm like, all right, Becca. So we went on a blind date. It last I mean, she literally went to Central with us and Boulder and said, hey, you guys meet each other. Have fun and laugh. I'll think of it six hours. Yes. And we had it off. We had a great time. Jason makes me laugh. He's funny. He's really smart. And very ambitious. And so our third date was to the Rocky's Red Sox World Series game in 2007. Whoa. Yeah. We got beat very badly, but Jason and I had a ball and we got kicked out of the club section for being too rowdy. At believe it or not. He was like, I'm from St. Louis. That doesn't happen. Right. Come on. A little rowdy. I know. I actually had tickets to game five of that world series. Oh, no. Yes. The next game. Well, but they lost them before straight. So I had I had sold them. I had sold two of them. I mean, my buddy, we're going to go and I sold two of them for enough to like cover all my costs and stuff like that. And then boom, I had to give the guys money back because it was the right thing to do. That was a bummer. But it was good for us. We hit it. That was when we kind of knew that we were going to be a thing. And circle back to, was it last year, I got to throw out the first pitch at the Rocky's at home open area. Oh, how cool. It was one of the highlights in my life. It was so fun. And I didn't actually get to do it on the field because of COVID. I had to go film it with with Dinger, but it was great fun. It was a blast. So do you play softball or have you and things like that? No, they were just they wanted someone who had done a lot in the community and was a leader and had been through some stuff. And I just got through my brain surgery. So they're like, come on out. So were you scared at that time into the brain surgery stuff because you had all these symptoms. You probably didn't know at first that it was cancerous or not. Yeah, I was very scared. In fact, funny thing, I kept getting these headaches behind my ear and they kept sending me to the dentist. So I had to get a root canal. Then I got a crown. And to this day, it makes me really mad that I had to get all that. Right. I got like 5000 more dental work that I did. Right. And so I finally pushed my doctor. I just said, you know, something's not right. I can't even I can't sign my name right even. She goes, I think it's dental work. I think it's dental related, but let's get a MRI and I went to a golf tournament down in Carlos Springs. I was at the Broadway and like the ninth hole out on the course with some guys that I know pretty well, but not well enough to be like, oh my god, I have a brain tumor. And I looked down. I got a message on my phone when I got back in the cart and you know how it translates into text. Yeah. And it's like, you have a brain tumor. You need to call me. Oh shit. And I was like, what? So instead of telling them, I literally took a course light and drank it and just kept golfing. I was like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. And then called her when I got in the car. Did you go nine holes for? Yeah, I did. Oh, awesome. I love it. And now I talked to I told those guys the story. And they're like, hi, why didn't you tell us? I'm like, because you hear you, you're in shock, you just deal with it. So what would you say it was about Jason that caused you to really click with him? Uh, I didn't have to work hard at the relationship. It's just easy and fun and playful. And he wanted a family and he wanted, we had a lot of the same values. He was very ambitious and entrepreneurial. Yeah. Um, he's built this, this chain of restaurants now in the barbecue world. And um, yeah, tell me about it. Tell me about the restaurants. Give us some air time here. G, GQ barbecue. Yeah. There's one in Westminster. That's the original one. Okay. And then there is one down my Park Meadows Mall outside the mall. Okay. And he's just about to open one outside Belmar in Lakewood. And then he does all the spots in Bronco Stadium during the games. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's a sweet, pretty sweet gig. What would you say is special sauces? Well, he's more dry, like the rubs. So not a special sauce. But I mean, what's, why is it, why is it becoming so popular? Like why are people falling? It's really good food. Yeah. It's the best barbecue in Colorado. And he wins all kinds of awards, especially for his chicken wings of all things. Oh, interesting. But he, he started on the barbecue circuit. Like I'm doing the competitive barbecue. You know, like, uh, have you seen barbecue pit masters? Yeah, some of those things. Yeah. So he's competed against those guys and did that just like an irregular day job at that time. We, he was helping me with Camp Bawa. We had the kids and he's like, I think I need a hobby. I'm just going to judge some barbecue contests on the weekend. And then it turned into this full fledged career and off we go. Oh, wild. How fun. Is that been like kind of the more fun adventure part of your recent years? I mean, it's definitely been stressful through COVID. It's not been easy. Yeah. And we've seen the challenges that restaurants have gone through firsthand. But, uh, you know, the businesses doing fine. They've, they've got a great team and it's, it's great food. It'll be easier again. It's interesting to me that some places have really recovered to pre-COVID numbers. And some, for whatever reason, their clientele is just not really ready to come back and strengthen yet. Or they started going someplace else. Yeah, I just read an article about how a lot of the great restaurants in downtown Denver are moving to the suburbs because of what's happening. Oh, interesting because people are more willing. And yeah, downtown Denver was kind of crappy when my wife and I were down there a couple months ago. It's a mess. It's a mess. I just toured union station and the area around there with some folks and it broke my heart. Yeah. I just, the Denver that I knew and loved isn't there anymore. Well, in the number of like vacant storefronts and stuff like that. And it's like, and like, there's no even feeling that I would ever want to put my store there. No, small businesses are shuttering down there and they're not getting much help. Like, we can, we can solve a lot of these problems like homelessness with compassion and care, but some tough love. And our streets don't need to look like that. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I feel like we've covered the faith family politics well enough. And I don't know if you remember, but the local experience is the craziest moment or week or time and, you know, it may well be the passing of your first husband or the brain tumor or whatever, but maybe there's something else that comes to mind that's really worthy of sharing. You know, I think probably the brain tumor was the biggest life like life. I mean, losing my first husband was terrible. It was tragic. Um, and coming back from that, recovering from it, you kind of think like, okay, I paid my dues. I don't have to go through any rough stuff in my life anymore, right? And then to get smack with the brain tumor was just really terrifying mostly because of my kids. Like I was just, it just rocked me to the core, the thought of losing or leaving my kids behind. Yeah. Yeah. And are you fully recovered? Yeah. Like you don't have, you can read better now and all that kind of stuff, right? You said you were getting kind of, we're writing and whatnot. Yeah. All of that's gone. I had great care at CU Anchutes with Dr. Lilahai. He's one of the top neurosurgeons in the state. And he's a character. He, he kidded with me. Like, you're going to be better and, and bigger and bolder than ever now. Awesome. And you're not going to realize how it was affecting you until you're better. And I, I, I have more energy and I'm more fired up. And it loosened your filter a little bit. It sounds like, yeah, I'm super passionate. And, and I know a lot more about the healthcare system too. And the challenges we have there. Right. From the passenger seat, it's a lot different than I wrote a blog a while back, I guess, for Fourth of July. It was a give me liberty or give me health. Oh. And just talking about how to really be free in this country, you kind of just have to be healthy and keep your ass out of the healthcare. That's a good point. Yeah. I agree. I think we've all learned a lot over the last couple years about how our own body works and how our health, you know, how we navigate that and how to take good care of ourselves. Well, it's the missed opportunity with the COVID crisis a little bit too. I wrote that and got scolded for it. But like, you know, having a boogie man that's going to get you if you get too heavy is actually, it wouldn't be terrible for human flourishing. Yeah, just working out, eating right, you know, taking, taking good care of ourselves. Yeah. Sunshine being outdoors and being with our friends and in our churches and in our communities. I think we all recognize how deeply important that is, this, the connection. So is there a person or, you know, a moment during that that brain tumor process that really was your rock or? Oh gosh, so many of my family and friends were there for me. It was amazing. And we had just started the kids at a small little school right before that. It was the school was just opening and we didn't even know these families. And there were only about, um, probably about 50 kids in this startup school. Oh, wow. And they all rallied around our family. And we are so blessed. It does that feel. Oh, they, they took care of us. When you have somebody that doesn't have a reward for it, but they just come around. And then of course, my mom, my dad, my father-in-law, my daughter, Tory was a rock. My friends, Deanna Jill, everybody, everybody pitched in and took care of us and me and my family. So is this a, it's a six-year term? Is governor two years? I don't know, it sounds like ten. Regent was six year. So I'm in my six-year of being a Regent and then governor is four years and then a second four years. Okay. So eight years, yeah. So, uh, if, if, eight years from now, um, you can like hang up your spurs and say, I nailed it. Like, what would, what would be different about Colorado after that time? That's a great question. I think all of our kids would be getting a fantastic education and have lots of opportunity and want to stay in our state and be able to afford to live here and raise a family here. And I hope that all of our seniors could stay and retire here and be able to afford to have a good life here as well. Yeah, people don't really retire here unless they're kind of wealthy and their kids live here with their grandkids. That's right. Or they have a second home in Vailer Aspen. And then I envision us being able to ski again in 90 minutes and have a clean environment. You know, we all want clean air, water, land. And make sure that we take care of rural Colorado, the beautiful small towns around our state that are the heart and soul of this, this culture that we have here. That would really be kind of if there's one lever that we could use to help like human flourishing in our countries is to have the vibrancy back in some of those small towns and stuff, especially with all the internet we have and things like that. Like there's a way to have people have like a really nice, like your monument, you know, 3,000 people in this town and you know each other and there's community. Yeah, that's right. And that's what gets you through hard times as community. And the last thing I'll mention is crime. I mean, crime skyrocketing here. I never thought we would be the highest rise in violent crime in the country. We've bragged about for years how we just leave our back door open like almost the whole year, you know, unless we're on vacation. Yeah, not anymore. No, people don't. So I want us to be safe again, to feel safe and for our neighborhoods to be safe for our kids. Yeah. And downtown Denver to be vibrant again. Right. Yeah. Is there one like, is it all about law enforcement when it comes to downtown Denver and fixing that? Because we've dodged that here in Fort Collins. Like downtown Fort Collins is still pretty vibrant. Well, law enforcement is part of it. Supporting our law enforcement officers and helping them do the right things to to keep bad guys off the streets. Right. But also to deal with the homelessness situation and be have compassion and take care of those folks. But there's nothing compassionate about letting them sleep on the streets. Yeah. Fair enough. I guess how do people find you if they want to learn more about your campaign and your principles and platforms? I wish we had another hour. I have to say me too. I can talk about this stuff all day long. Heidiforgov.com. And then we have a really robust social media effort with LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Getter. Like you name it. We're on it. And trying to share as much as we can on the campaign trail and about the issues. We do a heart to heart with Heidi once a week of video. Oh, cool. Yeah. So lots of different ways to learn about us. Lots of events going on. We have rallies around the state. Have you learned like so much about social media? Did you have to learn about all that back in the bow out days and stuff too? I did with bow out, but we didn't talk much about this or at all. But I launched a company with my daughter, my oldest daughter called Shefactor. Yes. Right before COVID. Tell me about that. Oh, it's cool. It's to help young women, mostly in their 20s, launch a life they love. And there's some quizzes they can do. It was to build community. So we launched 26 chapters around the country that were meeting live until COVID hit a few months later. And then we moved everything digital. And we've done some really cool digital events. We had a virtual graduation ceremony for young women across the country during COVID called Shegrad. Yeah. And had over 10,000 young women on it. Lots of great speakers. Missy Franklin was one of them. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah. I was just thinking to myself that in those franchisees and all those jobs that you created with Camp Bawa, I mean, that must have been, you know, thousands of jobs ultimately. But not only were you creating jobs, but you're giving people a job where they got to be with dogs. Yeah. That was pretty cool. You know, because yeah, if your options are working at Kmart or working with dogs at Camp Bawa, and it's the same paycheck, it's like, well, give me the dogs for the right people. Yep. And it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work to keep them clean and healthy and safe. But boy, it's rewarding. There's nothing better than sitting on that play yard floor and getting linked and pod. And, you know, well, I sure just want to thank you. I know you've got an event that we could take off here for here soon, but I think you're swell. And it's my great pleasure to have you here today, Heidi. Well, the feeling's very mutual. Keep up the great work. And I'm just so honored to be here. All right. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Logix Variants Podcast. If you enjoyed this program, share with your favorite people. And please leave us a review on your favorite listening platform. Subscribe to never miss a latest interview and check out thelogixvariants.com to learn more and find our library of episodes. Until next time, stay local.