The LoCo Experience EP283 | Sheri Ridgeway, CEO of Ridgeway Group Innovations

In today's podcast, I sat down with Sherry Ridgeway, CEO of Ridgeway Group Innovations, or RGI for short, which she runs alongside her husband, Ross. And she's also the current board chair at the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. RGI has two divisions, one, a contract provider of technical services to the government agencies, and the other, a consulting business helping other small businesses do business with the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, the U.S. federal government. As our conversation unfolded, I came to understand how Sherry's background in journalism prepared her for what is effectively a translation business. Sherry speaks and communicates fluently in governmentese and nerdeese languages and in normal American English, which helps her navigate regulations and requirements and communicate deliverables and help others do the same. Today's episode is full of navigation of a strange territory for me, the government, but I had a wonderful translator and we shared many laughs and a few tears near the end. So please tune in and enjoy, as I'm sure you will, my conversation with Sherry Ridgeway. Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Here we go. Welcome back to the Look of Experience podcast. My guest today is Sherry Ridgeway, and Sherry is the CEO of Ridgeway Group Innovations, better known as RGI, and also the current president of the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce Board. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm officially the chair. Oh, you're the chair. Yes. Yeah. My bad. I don't know. Some boards get like picky about it. I don't know. I'm not sure who is or isn't, but I think. You're familiar with HMFIC? Maybe. What does that stand for? I think it's a military term, but... Is this going to get real awkward now? Because she has to be like, T you? Head mother effort in charge. There you go. So at both RGI and Fort Collins Area Chamber, Sherry is the HMFIC. In some ways, perhaps. Yes, not at all in the applied. Oftentimes it takes me a few minutes to get people to laugh on this podcast. Thanks for making it easy for me. Yeah, for sure. Would you like to describe RGI? Sure. It's a local, small business, family-owned business. So we often tease that our... Your husband was invited. He was invited. He declined. Ross is... I say all my best material comes from him, so it'd be nice if he were here, but he prefers to not be in the spotlight if given an option. So, yes. Sorry to interrupt you. You're good. Hey, Russ, I'm sure you're listening. Yeah, you will be. Will be. So, yeah, we're... Small business doing two things. So we help small businesses win federal government contracts. And then we also have federal government services contracts that we perform on. To do stuff. To do stuff, yeah. And when I was in Colorado Springs, I experienced some companies doing that kind of stuff. What kind of stuff do you do? Are you specialized in certain areas? Yeah. So when you're small and you're starting off, a lot of it is just executive experience. So it's sort of what Ross or I have done in the past and could kind of demonstrate an ability to oversee or recruit for. But as you get bigger and more experienced, then you have things that you can point to that sometimes expand that. that sphere of influence. So we, um, business operations and technical support services are kind of where we're focused now. So you're almost like business consultants to the government to do stuff better? I don't know. Let me give you a few examples, and maybe that'll help. So we have a- And this is just one side of your business, I understand. Yeah, it's kind of half of it. It's the consulting is kind of where things started, and then the federal government services is sort of the place that we're looking to grow. It's going to be the scaling component. Okay. So we have at the FAA in Oklahoma City at a place called CAMI, which is kind of their medical institute, we do some technical writing services for them. Okay. So we help out with 508 compliance and reviewing research documentation. So that's an example. We've had a National Park Service, a help desk, been part of a help desk contract there. You speak governmentese, kind of. You can help people speak governmentese. So, yes. A lot of it, honestly, is translation. When it comes from helping small businesses win contracts, a lot of it is just... Um, understanding what it is. Yeah. All the forms. Yep. How you say things in ways that make sense to the government, how you, um, interact with the, um, the requirements that they have, the things that you're going to have to attest to or submit, or, you know, just how do you function in the process? Have you heard government ease before? I have. Oh, you have? Okay. I'm sorry. I thought I was original. You might be. I don't know. I don't know those circles. Yeah. It's a lot of jargon, like a lot of things. So your technical writing, that's one of your contracts right now. It's kind of translation stuff as well. It's really more looking at the research and then doing some light editing and then doing 508 compliance. So making sure that when they publish it, it will be accessible to be read. 508 being... The, um, so could someone with an assistive device interacting with this document understand it in a meaningful way? I see. Sometimes it might be audible. Right. Read this website to me. Yes. Or whatever this, this research paper. Right. Yeah. Or I suppose, I don't know. Or like colorblindness. If I see this graphic, will that make sense to me? Will I be able to discern, you know, if you have a bar graph, am I going to be able to see what's on the bar graph? Will that make sense to me? Yeah. Is it going to need more explanation? So are you an expert in that? field or do you hire the people that are and then they... A little bit of both. You're becoming an expert. Yes. I think you have to be very good at understanding what can we do and what are the edges for where we need help. Yeah, fair. Very interesting. And then let's talk about the other side. And then do you... So you have... Do you have... people that work for that side of the business then and they're doing contracts yeah yeah they're doing editing and overseeing other teams so in in some cases there are pieces that we are self performing there can be places where we have like for the help desk we had an employee in philadelphia that reported to the park service office in downtown philly every day so it okay and then you get whatever 30 of the The cut off of that employee's cost or something like that. That would be delightful if it were that. But yeah, I mean, you do. It's like a temp agency a little bit in that regard. There's some G&A and overhead. Yeah. Okay, interesting. And probably a lot of interesting navigations. Do you like puzzles? Yeah. I do like puzzles. It doesn't surprise me. Yes. Yeah. I like solving problems. I like figuring things out. I like having, I don't know if MacGyvering is like a legit term, but I like MacGyvering things. What are the boundaries of government appropriation? Yeah. I like to think about, are there different, unique, you know, kind of creative approaches to things? Yeah. Yeah. I like optimizing things. And probably my suspicion is that in some circles of the government, there are lots of opportunities for better doing things. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting environment now. I think that the – right now, there's perhaps this push for – Kind of a bull in China shop almost. Well, there's this push for thinking about how do we do things more like commercial kind of general industry does. Yeah. And so you have some places where there's, you know, a desire to and even a push for how do we make sure that commercial best practices are making their way into the government. And then sometimes your contractor doesn't install the pool liner properly. You know? And it falls apart right away. I digress. We'll stay after that for the moment. We'll listen you up with half a glass of wine first. So the other side, the consulting side, is helping because you've been navigating. You started in that space of the government contracting, and then you started helping other people do it or co-created it. No, it's interesting. It's funny because my dad's an engineer. So you would think that like you start – you go to college for a thing and then you get a career in the thing and then you retire 30 years later and that's how this works. That was kind of the life experience. These are some of the projects I worked on and whatever. For me, it's – I have a journalism degree, which is kind of interesting. I guess it makes me – curious. That's probably the thing that carries through. And then my career has been a little, you know, I worked in IT consulting for a very long time, not as a technologist, but as kind of an interpreter, somebody who understood. You speak nerdies too. Yeah. Like I know enough about that. I could play an IT person on TV. And so I was the interpreter and I thoroughly enjoyed that. And eventually was working for a local company that had both a commercial and a federal practice. And there was sort of this, hey, your way of approaching things would resonate in a federal government environment. You'd have the patience and the stick-to-itiveness and the kind of relationship focus that would make you work in the federal side. So then I started working in the federal space, and that's kind of how that started for me anyway. Okay. I love it. For Ross, Ross started off – he – And what was, can you tell me, when was this inception? Of the company? Yeah. When all good things happened, which was 2020. Oh, so it was a young company. It is a young company. Yeah, so we had kind of officially started in 2027, but it wasn't a significant invested all-in effort. 2017, you mean? 2017, yes, until 2020. Okay, interesting. So yeah, in 2020, I had carefully orchestrated a transition from one company to another company. in March, March of 2020, very carefully architected transition. And I literally left on a Wednesday. And on that Monday, when I was going to start my new job, I had no job to go back to, and I had no job to go to. And so that gave us the very real moment. Oh, because you were dabbling a little bit. We were dabbling. And we had this real moment of do... Do we do this? Am I going to panic search for a job now? We have thought about starting our own thing and we've always been too chicken to do it. Is this the moment to just go for it? I love it. And so by the time everything kind of came back online, we were like, we will never have more momentum than we have right now. Well, and plus, the demand for a lot of different things was strong. It was easier to deliver services if you were technology forward like you were. You hung up with nerds before you got hung up with a couple of people. So what does a consulting contract look like? For you and what are some of the kinds of clients that you take in on that side of your business? Small is funny because if you say small business, that means like all kinds of things. It can be up to like 500 employees. Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. Or even larger than that depending on – When I talk about small, I'm talking about the federal government would think that you're small. And so that is a very large spectrum where you have companies that could be less than 35 million in a specific item. And yeah, you're still small. And so we do have customers that are thousands of people. Yeah, almost all of our members at Local Think Tank are what – government calls small businesses. Yeah, yeah. But we put them into three different tiers because there's so much difference between running a 100-person company and a two-person company. Yes, yes, yeah. And I think in that, in the kind of less than 200 probably, you have a lot of... It is a very different life experience to have less than 10 or even two than it is to have... 25 or 50 or 100 for sure yeah you start to lose kind of touch with the front line you know one person can manage five or ten people right yeah you start to get up to 20 25 even that's pretty tough yeah yeah so yeah so you're so that small business you mean this but i guess do you have a kind of a favorites who you work with best kind of things like that or it does it not really matter it depends on what they're doing yeah i guess let's talk about industries what does the government need more of Oh, so many. So they need so many things of all of the things. But we tend to – I mean, they're the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world. They're buying everything from lavender to Learjets, right? Vomited in my mouth. It's true, though. It's true. And so, I mean – It's better than Amazon, I suppose. It's like all over the place in terms of what they need. We probably are – You know, a lot of our customers are services contractors. A lot of them have sort of a technology orientation. Okay. But we also have like a manufacturing company here locally. So there's, you know, it kind of just depends. Oh, Jason Page from Manus Manufacturing. They make like wing struts for Boeing and stuff. Yeah. Probably some government stuff too, I would guess. But I think it's just for private industry. Yeah. But for them to, like, be able to make, I guess, what is the government? Patriot missiles. Sure. They don't have the tech, but those kind of gears. And so you would help them kind of navigate the forms, the contacts, the connections. Is it, like, open bids? Do you go on a website here? Like, talk to me about, like, what is it? I don't think local think tank does anything that the government needs, probably. I could facilitate conversations between divisions or something. It used to be. So I would say prior to the current administration, you had a lot more kind of federal curious people. So I think you had a lot of people who saw the federal government and felt like there's a lot of money in the federal government. I'm interested in that. I would say that you have less dabbling now. You probably have more people who are in the space right now are committed and kind of they're on purpose because you kind of have to be. You have to be – Like, do you have to, like, Trump to get contracts in the current government? No, no. It's a big federal government. They're doing a lot of things. There's a whole bunch of people. They need a lot of stuff. He can't be in charge of every port-a-party. Sure, yeah. Well, and there's a lot of, you know, just – Like all the Cheyenne Air Base construction and stuff like that? Is that even kind of in that span of services? Or do they have more like a general that's taking care of the big contract there? the you mean missile base kind of work they're doing it over the next 10 years so are you talking about the sentinel project i suppose so yeah so they're doing like a billion dollar project up there right yeah up at f.e warren yep so they um yeah those are things that defense department of defense or the air force would come but even cleaning those buildings for example sure yeah and providing the toilet paper and right you know watering the grass and just like all the things Or even at the USDA research centers around here or things like that. Yeah. Like even just having contracts to do stuff. Yeah. Mechanical contracts or stuff like that even, right? Yeah, yeah. All the things. The government owns the building, but they still have people that do all the things that other real estate requires. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes you have special projects or projects that are limited in scope that make sense to have a contractor do instead of a federal authority. a federal government employee yeah for lack of expertise a lot of times i suppose or just um flexibility the we're going to do this we know we're going to do it for a season but it has a scope right yeah yeah that's what i'm saying kind of a yeah there's a a thing that needs to be done but there isn't really a full-time job forever and ever here and kind of the government is built on full-time jobs forever and ever hey it could be but yeah historically before yeah Okay, so I guess, and tell me what Ross does. Like, I guess, and both, what's the CEO do in this environment? Also, what's Ross's space? What's his space? What's his space, yeah. We have, we are interesting. I think that the... It's unique to be partners in all things. So we're partners in business. We're married. We have children together. And so it's very fun to get to interact with each other in all of those spaces. there necessarily has to be a lot of things that we are on the same page about. But I think it's helpful that there, in the Venn diagram, there's enough space that there are things that he loves to do, and I love that he loves that. And there are things that I love to do, and he's like, I love that you love to do that. So, you know, I think we have enough overlap that we get each other. But there's some spaces. Is he, like, finance and stuff like that? So he, yeah, he has a math and philosophy degree. So, oh, yes. All of the numbers things are delightful. What do these numbers mean? If we need a spreadsheet, he's very excited to do that. He's very – he and I both, but he has kind of a unique process way of thinking about things. So he's very process-oriented. You're more of a kind of visionary relational person. I am, but he is also. So I think that we kind of share enthusiasm about that. It's interesting because there are some places where he – I think we challenge each other. So there are some places where he will sometimes push in ways for new lines of business or new things that we would think about that make me uncomfortable. Yeah, yeah. So definitely kind of a – you're describing kind of a paired horse's yoke together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In that fashion. What's his title? So he's president. President. Yeah. And then – And did you flip a coin or how – did you start it on the side and you were dabbling and so you automatically – or – become a studio or how did you decide? Yeah, we, in part, the... Well, women-owned business, probably. You're probably a higher majority owner as well. We are an SBA-certified women-owned small business, so that's helpful. Yeah, 5149, is that there or how does that work? 55. 55, so it's obvious, kind of. Yeah, yeah. But the, I think that in terms of some of the, part of the pieces that I enjoy, I enjoy the... um, you know, kind of people management component. I enjoy the customer relationship management, not to say that these things are things that only I enjoy. Um, but I, I enjoy the, um, you know, kind of the sales piece of things, the being out talking to people, kind of front man stuff. And so I think that that, that made me kind of the, the CEO type. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. What would he say that you do the best? The best. Yeah. So you'll often hear people say, I wish I could be the kind of person that my dog thinks I am, right? I actually, I wish I could be the person that Ross thinks I am. That's awesome. And so, yeah, I don't know what he would say, but he's... A lot of nice things. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There are places where I... I appreciate that there are places that, you know, we'll be doing something. And I'm not sure I can do that. But Ross thinks I can. And so I believe you. Therefore, I can. Yeah, I believe you. I will step out and I will move forward because you think I can and I trust you. That's super cool. We're going to have two power partnerships on Back to Back here. Well, Ross isn't here, but we're talking about him. But Nima and Valeria were just on last week. Awesome. Awesome. And so a pair of paired partners in business. Yeah. Talk to me about the chamber. So were you involved with the chamber at any level before you did this? Yeah. So for a long, long time, I've been involved in or around the local legislative affairs committee. Okay. And so that was something that I did. Even as like a working in tech kind of person? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So once upon a time when I was just doing kind of local IT consulting sales, I was part of the local legislative affairs committee at that time. But why? And you could maybe ask the same question now. Curiosity? I guess... I love... Because you don't hear that very often, not to challenge you, but kind of employee rank and file folks don't that often get involved in that kind of obligation. It's probably because I'm curious. Isn't it once a week? It is. It's once a week, so it's at 7.30 in the morning on a Friday. Right. Normal people don't just sign up for that, you know? Yeah, I don't know. I hang out with all these people who do. So to me, all the normal people do. But I think it comes down to being very curious. So I'm a very curious person. I like to know how things work. And you want to make things better. I want to know what's going on in our community, and I want to make things better. I do like having – for me, it's one of the very best places to know about what's happening in our community. So I'm the kind of person, for example, we were at Spring Park yesterday with the kids. We're playing. The fire station is there, right there by the park. And they're always so gracious to, like, let the kids come see all the things. And, you know, but I'm the person who does that. And then I'm curious about... I wonder what they're doing with their drones, you know, to go investigate things. And I wonder what's happening with, you know, so I download the PulsePoint app because I want to be able to be like, Siren, what is that? So, I mean, I. You've got kind of fear of missing out on almost anything. I just think I'm just curious. I like to know what's going on. So, yeah, if I had I actually gone into journalism, I probably would have been like a beat reporter. I would have been the person to listen to the police scanner and just like, what's happening? Let's go figure it out. It gives kind of an indicator to me of why we had so much resonance when we had that cup of coffee. Because I love all the stories, right? As a podcast and the local think tank chapter meetings over the years. And as a banker, hearing those stories about learning those business lessons is really significant. So you eventually rose through the ranks and became on the board. And then everybody's like, hey, you... You're a real business owner now. That's cool. Or really talk to me about that transition. So for a local legislative affairs committee, I was an attender for a long time. And then I was part of the leadership team for that committee. So I was – and when you are the chair for the local legislative affairs committee, then you are – you have a seat on the board as part of that. So that was – I guess two or three years ago I was cheering that. And so that was my first foray into being on the board. Because the committee. And then they spotted you on the board and Ann was like, oh, I think I see a president after. I don't know. After Miles or after Josh. Josh. Josh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I am honored and delighted and happy. Truly happy to serve. So I'm grateful to be part of something important for our community. It's fun to look at the legacy that the Chamber's had over the years. Do you want to do a minute or two commercial for the Chamber? Give listeners... Because a lot of us know the Chamber upside down. I've been a member for, I don't know what, eight or ten years probably. But a lot of people aren't even business owners. And a lot of my listeners aren't business owners. So what is the Chamber actually good for anyway? Yeah. I think it is always, in all communities, a great meeting place for businesses to interact with each other and to learn how to do things better together. I think that being a small business, being an owner, can be a very lonely space. And so it's nice to have people that you journey with. It's nice to have friends that you can band together with, that you can have... honest and difficult conversations with. So I appreciate the opportunity to work alongside people in different ways that I have tremendous respect for and to learn from them. So I love that. I love the, just the engagement. I think a unique thing that we do at Fort Collins is the engagement with the elected environment. So the, you know, city council and county just staying informed about what's going on there and then advocating on behalf of the business community. I think that's been a really important piece and that's been cool to see. Do you have any stats? Sorry to interrupt. Yeah. Do you have any stats on the express lane thing? Because the chamber really spearheaded the whole third lane all the way to Fort Collins kind of thing. I don't. I don't. You mean like how many people used it and then when we started charging for it? Are we paying for it? I don't know. I don't know. Because I used it all the time when it was free, but I don't really use it anymore now. I would like to launch a formal inquiry into the chamber. No, I don't know. As a consumer of that roadway, I think... It felt to me like the express lane was the thing that was attainable. Yeah. You know? No, I think it was good. But I think that the... We really needed three lanes anyway. We might even need more than that if you're looking at capacity. But, you know, I think that making incremental steps forward is important. It's the only way to do it, really. Yeah. Right. I actually used the express lane the other day because I bought a dishwasher. Yeah. My old trusty dishwasher crapped out after 15 years or something. I bought one at the appliance factory outlet, but it was down in Broomfield. And of course my wife wanted it sooner than it could be delivered in a couple more days and whatever. And so I drove down to pick it up, but I kind of got a late start. And then traffic was way heavier when I left than it had been. So it saved my butt because I got there at like, $6.52 and then it closed at $7. Yeah. And, you know, for an extra $5.60 or something, I missed the worst of the traffic. Yeah. No, it's – well, and, yeah, there's a – having grown up here, it's funny because in my head, like, everything is 15 minutes away. And so it's not true anymore. Yeah. But you also go down I-25. It's a very different experience than it was once upon a time. And I think that I don't travel I-25 regularly. a tremendous amount. And so as a result, when I do, I'm like, when did all of this happen? And where is everybody going? In my head, everything is kind of 15 minutes away as well, because my wife and I live just, I don't know, 20 blocks west of here or something. So I'm riding my bike around all the time. Going to the chamber, me going to the chamber, which is across town for me, at 7.30 in the morning is not a good calibration tool because it reinforces this like things are 15 minutes away. And that is not true. Good point. So, well, I appreciate your service there. I know that's not a highly paid position, you know, unless you're dirty or whatever. It's free. There really isn't any ways to be. Poor Ross has to do more billable as a result. Exactly. Do you want to, I feel like it might be wise for us to take us all the way back in the time machine and then kind of unfold this woman becoming an entrepreneur, this journalist. Is that the right way to do it or why? Would you like to further talk about what RGI does, what you're planning on scaling into in the future? You are the podcast mastermind. Well, I want to know what you want to do. Is there things you really want to share that are important? Maybe three tips for contracting with the federal government if you've been thinking about it? Outside of call me, I'll help you or whatever because I don't want people slinging their services on here. Yeah, no. But yeah, what – Yeah, I mean, I could give you three tips. I'm also happy to do origin story or whatever is of interest. Well, we'll go back for the origin story, but we're going to go all the way back to five years old Sherry. Okay, sounds good. And then we'll fold kind of back. I had my first solo then. Your first solo? Yeah, for singing. Yeah. Really? Really. Oh, so you have a... Apparently I nodded at the piano player. You didn't happen to listen to my podcast with Kelly Sage, did you? I did not. Because we acapellaed the Star Spangled Banner together. Oh, did you? Together. Well, there you go. We had to swing the microphones way out because... But I did not know that. Did we discover that? I don't know that we have. I also, I did not, well, I attended a school of like 50 kids, like 7th through 12th. Yeah. I was the outstanding boy in the chorus. Yeah. You know, by 10th grade. Mm-hmm. But that didn't really matter. Nobody ever sent me to stage or soloed. So you soloed in church? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What were you singing? Surely Goodness and Mercy. Do you know that song? I don't know. I don't think so. Surely goodness and mercy shall fall. Sounds like a... Oh, I do. I do know that one. Yeah. Yeah. So was that during like a scheduled children's program? I don't know. I don't know. Honestly, the most vivid memory that I have is somebody made, and nobody on the pod who's listening will know this, but somebody made the like okay hand symbol for me, like when I was going back to my seat, and I didn't know what that meant. So I got back to my seat, and I was like, Mom, what does this mean? That's awesome. They were like, good job. We'll explain later. All right, it's good. So stage me, set the stage. Are you oldest child, youngest? I am oldest. Are you here in Colorado? Yep. So I grew up here in Fort Collins, actually. So I was born in Poudre Valley Hospital and grew up here in town and- What were your parents doing when you were five? Yeah, so my dad, classic tale, came out west to work for Hewlett Packard. Oh, yeah. Heard that story before. Yes, yes. And from where? Virginia. So they both were at Virginia Tech back east. Do your families still have parents? Family roots back there. They do. The uncles and cousins are more there than they are here. Yeah. And then my dad also recruited one of his brothers to make him into it. Oh, and Virginia, besides. So that's where the government connections are, probably. You probably got some... I have a little bit of that. So my grandfather worked for the National Security Agency, like before it became NSA. And he worked on supercomputers. And so he had air conditioning in the 50s and 60s. And, you know, he was perfect to work for NSA because he wouldn't – Doesn't like to talk about anything. That's how you can talk to the nerds. Because you're kind of from a family of nerds a little bit. I kind of am, yeah. Okay, so engineer, nerd, dad. And your mother is also an engineer? What's her? She has a clothing and textiles degree, obviously. So fashion. Oh, fashion and engineering. Okay. And can we get their names? Yes, Don and Liz. Hi, Don and Liz. Yeah. So they come out to HP in the, I guess, what, late 70s or something? She had an accounting minor, and so they were both working at HP in the Loveland plant and then moved up to Fort Collins when they opened that location. Okay. So, yeah. And other siblings come along after? I have a brother, so he's two and a half years younger than me. Okay. Yeah. And then talk to me about eight-year-old Sherry. Like, what kind of a young lady are you becoming other than bold enough to sing in the church? And talented enough, presumably. Now, my dad... CSU, for example, has an engineering and music combo, right? Because you often have these mathematical people who are also musical. So my dad was like choir director and sang in New Virginians. And so that was part of the reason that I had. They were sort of like, hey, you have some natural ability, some inclination. We'll give you opportunities and a space to kind of cultivate and grow in that. And eventually you were like, well, yeah, that's all great, but journalism, not the math and sciences. I started at CU. Oh, we can talk about it. It's fine. You started at CU? Yep. Before we get to the CU part, let's begin with- Let's talk some more about teenager. Yeah. Well, I have to give the disclaimer of when you go to Fort Collins High School and you were a baby fetal lamb that can't even walk yet, you can go to CU and it's fine. That's what I say. I don't really understand. I'm a North Dakota transplant. So if you're a Lampkin that becomes a Fort Collins High person. So the Fort Collins High School, you are the Lampkins. Oh, right. And so it's keeping on the. So CSU would be the natural progression of the Lamp. To become the Ram. Oh, and so you didn't want to. Well, I just – I wanted to do something different and to be, you know, far enough away to be far but close enough to be close. So CU was good for that. Makes sense to me, honestly. Yeah. I think that's probably – there's probably 1,000 kids from Fort Collins. For sure, yeah. Signed up at CSU. Our graduating class was like 50-50. Really? In terms of those who stayed in state, you had a lot that went – Wow. Either place. Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, it's a normal thing to want to get at least 20 minutes away from your parents. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I was like, how much am I going to fully embrace the college experience if like, you know... But was it for journalism by then? So I did start with a double major. So I had journalism and then vocal performance. I started off my first year doing that. Oh, really? Okay, so you blossomed in your singing career, perhaps. I guess so. That was more for fun. And I think that when you get into music at that level, it becomes really, really scientific, to be honest with you. There are places where I felt like the study of the music... both was challenging for me and it also, in some ways, kind of the wonder and awe of it was a little bit too prescriptive. So I didn't enjoy listening to something and noticing the chord progressions or being able to anticipate something based on what it should normally do based on the rules. And so I discovered that I kind of enjoyed listening you know, an untrained listen to music and enjoyment of music versus some of those kind of little pieces. Oh, interesting. So you kind of escaped from it to avoid having to learn too much about it. Well, and CU didn't have a minor. They just had a major. And so it was a demanding major. As a person who didn't play piano, it was very hard. Yeah. There were places where the kind of that nitty gritty knowledge turned listening to music into more of an exercise of analysis versus listening to it just to enjoy it. Yeah. So. I can imagine. I was thinking when you were talking about some of the great songs, you know, and for me also sounds perhaps for you, some of the faith driven songs that are like, yeah. like how great the art, or there's a Christmas season, Oh Holy Night, like sung really, really well. That could make your hairs and your arms. And it's probably almost a scientific... things some of the transitions sure yes yeah not just the word right right even though the words are awesome sure um so anyway i was just imagining well and i think some of that though is just the unexpectedness of it sort of the like the if you think about oh holy night kind of the some of what's interesting about that is just the like oh i didn't anticipate that we were going there you know and it just keeps building and building and yeah yes exactly or some of the great uh even the songs yeah it's a surprise i'm all my most of my classical music knowledge is from like book bunny right and cartoons that are around or the where's the beef commercials yes right around there you know but sometimes i can call it a mozart or whatever you know or wait is that no yeah i was gonna say it's rembrandt no He's a painter. So you can listen to him. There you go. Yeah. Or can you? Well, it depends on how much acid you've been eating. That's true. So you go to CU and how much acid do you have? No. But you did shake your heels off a little bit probably. Yeah. I think college is great for – it's life on training wheels, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, can't get in too much trouble. It's a pretty small region there. Hard to kind of get away from Boulder. It's one of the beautiful things about it as a college town. Yeah, your whole life is like six blocks from itself. Right, and you can adventure up to Nederland or you can go down to Boulder or something if you want to. But why would you really most of the time, right? Like it's just easier if you just stay around the nest. Yeah, I mean, Pearl Street, I think, was a pretty kind of a mainstay at that point. Oh, for sure. That was always when we would come down to Boulder. Yeah. You know, when I first moved here, that was where we'd go. So you dropped the music eventually. Mm-hmm. And, like, talk to me about first job, like. Yeah. So I worked for a company here in Fort Collins. So I had met my first husband back on like Christmas break. And so I had gotten an internship to work for a local IT consulting company. Okay. I guess before that even though I worked for a marketing company because I had gotten – I was thinking, oh, journalism, I'll probably do something that's like marketing and public relations I think was where I thought I was headed. I actually thought about switching to advertising. You're still writing especially kind of – Yeah, and so I was working for this marketing company. One of their customers was an IT company. And so I think there was sort of, that was maybe the place that I discovered, oh, I have this ability to translate. I can understand what we're saying technically, and then I can say it in ways that make sense to people. And especially in more technical fashions. Yeah. Like straight marketing is a little bit of translation, but it's... There's so many different demographics, different niches, different people. Whereas in your case, you're kind of thinking about the general person receiving from the nerd or the government tease translation. Yeah. Interesting. So... No. I almost started asking you how old you are. How old I am now? Circa B, as you're progressing through your IT career, is this like early 2000s in Fort Collins by now? So, yeah, like early 2000s. Okay. I moved here in 99. Yeah, yeah. And I think you're probably just five years younger than me. I'm decidedly middle-aged, so there we go. Yes, for another 10 years at least. And so... Now let's go back to dabbling, right? Because that was kind of, you were on a career path, you got into the legislative affairs kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, like, I get, was it partly because of the chamber influence, the interaction with government kind of thing, or? It was really more working for... So a local company called ITX, they're now, yeah, Stratus Information Systems is what they go by now. But I was doing IT consulting for businesses, and then they had a federal government side of the business. Yeah. So they had contracts with USDA and NOAA. And so Mai, who is the CEO there, was encouraging me to think about federal government and So then I joined, you know, kind of dabbling in that space after they, I think it was after the acquisition. So he had graduated from the 8A program, which is the economically and socially disadvantaged minority owned historically kind of designator. Yep. And had sold that federal side of the business to the Cherokee Nation. And so I've been working for Cherokee, the Native American tribe. In Colorado Springs, there was a ton of Cherokee Nation-owned construction companies and things like that. Yeah, and there's a lot. Cherokee has a lot of just citizens. And so you have things that are associated with the nation. And then you have Oklahoma and then the Eastern Band. Well, and sometimes they would like... acquire a construction company or a controlling interest in a construction company, but they get all the employees and get all the capabilities and stuff. Sure. But then here's the ability to 10 X your business by getting a bunch of government contracts. Yeah. You have some interesting, um, That's its own unique little space within the federal government is the tribally owned, be it lower 48 or Hawaiian owned or Alaskan native. Interesting. I imagine there's like targets for we want to have at least this much kind of commerce because they're like, it's an interesting dynamic. Like, I guess are Native Americans full citizens? Do they vote in our elections and stuff? So sometimes you have dual citizenship most often, right? Okay. But you do have, in terms of the... Like not a county election because usually the reservations... I'm not sure how all of that works. Well, because like you have Tulsa, for example. So the Cherokee's kind of jurisdiction, they don't have a reservation. They have kind of a jurisdiction and it's over basically like portions of Tulsa. Oh, really? And so, you know, that would be a place where you would have the... So they're the local law enforcement instead of the sheriff. You would have spaces where there's kind of some interesting interplay. Oh, so it's not geographic overlap. It's more these kinds of cases. This is something I don't have vast understanding of. Sorry, I don't know much about it. There are definitely places where you have this overlay of Tulsa operating and doing its thing as a normal municipality and then having this... You know, Cherokee having jurisdiction and some of its own capabilities. State interactions. I'm just kind of interested in the kind of, I guess, the general interaction between the federal government especially and the tribes. Yeah. Well, and they're two sovereign nations interacting with each other. Right. So that kind of creates a unique contracting space because it's more a – You know, it's two sovereign nations who've come to an agreement about how to interact with each other versus, you know, the way that industry would interact with the federal government. It's just a different kind of relationship. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Get it. Where did we jump? Oh, so this fellow, your mentor, it sounds like of sorts or at least somewhat inspirer. Sure. What's his name? Mai Tran is who kind of moved me into the federal space. Hope you're doing well. Yeah. And so that really got you – dabbling on the side for a while, getting contracts to do some of this translation into government-ese kind of thing? Or the earliest stuff was to do what? Yeah, so at that point I was... How do you dabble? Well, and I had kind of transitioned from local commercial IT sales into federal government sales. Oh, I see. And so there was this movement over. So you had this network, a growing network of contacts. And then this opportunity to both care for the customers that we had already in certain segments and then look to grow those segments. Oh, I see. It was a little bit like, I don't really want to mess with this, but somebody should take care of these. People that we've installed for? No, no, no. Not even that. Just as we grew. So Bruce and Mai, Bruce Hopman and Mai Tran started ITX. And then they came from WAPA, the Western Area Power Administration. Okay. And so that was kind of a natural tie back into federal government and understanding how that worked. Yep, yep. And so they had both sides of the business, commercial side and the federal side. And as you scale and you grow and you get bigger and you get to a place where you've graduated from this program and you're moving forward, you're scaling at a place where it makes sense to have more people that are engaged in order to make that work. And they didn't necessarily want to have you on their payroll doing that kind of stuff. Yeah. Oh, so I was an employee at this point. Oh, so you were doing that for them on the payroll. Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so that was the dabbling, but you were making them money kind of dabbling in it. I guess the probably cleaner way to say it was that was my first entree into federal government. But it wasn't, like RGI didn't necessarily... Yeah, RGI didn't. Collecting revenues, it didn't exist. Yeah, right. Okay, that's what I, I thought he inspired you to start it and get some contracts. And I'm like, why didn't he just get those contracts or whatever? He did get those contracts and I got some experience and then, yeah. You're like, oh, this is pretty easy, actually. I should probably get my experience. Yeah, I don't know it's easy, but I know a lot more about how it works. Fair enough. I get it. Yeah. Okay, so then, and did RGI launch actually before the 2020 launch? Change job layoff whole scene? We had – so prior to – And was Ross involved already? Yeah. Yeah. So prior to that, we had some consulting work that we were doing. So helping people with what the federal government space would call capture, which is like business development. So finding opportunities and then – You know, figuring out how to position for those opportunities, how to deliver solutions, and then proposal. And so be it either request for information responses or RFP responses. And so that's kind of what RGI was in the 2017 to 2020 space. Got it, got it. And then we eventually had enough that we were like, well, I guess we should both go all in on this. If we're ever going to do it, this would be the time to do it. So he quit his job? Because I assume he didn't get laid off at the same time as you. Right, yeah. That's really right. So what was he up to? He was the primary deliverer of some of this kind of RFP response stuff. So you were kind of like, I got a guy. Right, yeah. Ross is your I got a guy. Yeah. Like the most, the best, the best guy. The best guy I can give you. But he was also doing something else too, or he was your got a guy. He was your, he was your contact guy doing that stuff. Yeah. He was kind of the, the, um, the primary driver for RGA. And you're like, Hey Ross, if I get a few more contracts, you can work even harder. Yeah. There you go. And I'll even help you sometimes. And then I'll work at the chamber at halftime. What do you say? I love it. Would you like to tell me about your children? Sure. And when did they come along? Where did you find him? You had a first husband. I did, yes. Is that part of your children's? Nope. So Jeff died in, let's see, it'd be 2012. So died by suicide in 2012. Oh, wow. Is that something you prefer not to talk about, sometimes do? I wouldn't say it's my favorite topic, but I think it's an important part of my story. It's certainly I am who I am in part because of that journey. I'm sure. I can't imagine the shock. I'm sorry. Yeah. Sorry that would happen. So 2012, took you a little while to recover. Yeah. And then so Ross and I started off as just, you know, he was a single guy, somebody that I had known from once upon a time. So we'd worked together at ITX and then he had left and I had continued on and we had stayed in touch. But he... And it started off as he was a friend to me. A safe guy that you could hang out with. And I am not a – I prefer to be with people person. So there are people who can be like, I'm going to go to a movie by myself. I'm going to go to dinner by myself. I am not that person. So I was – in that season, I had friends. I had friends that were couples. I had friends that had children. But I didn't have a lot of people that were just – Yeah, so if you wanted to be like, hey. Third wheeling is almost worse. Yeah, so we developed a friendship. And then at some point he was like, we're dating. We're dating. Like, you know that, right? I was like, I do know that. We've been dating for a while. Yes, no, I see that. Do you want to go upstairs? That is the next one. No. Sorry, Ross, I didn't do that. but it was obviously once those feelings were expressed, it was mutual. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think as you being a more mature adult, you have a clear sense of what your priorities are, what's important to you, what's going to work well for you. And so we, we very clearly had great alignment in that. And when did you remarry? In 2014. 2014. Yeah. Yeah. And then kids are what ages and, So we have a 10-year-old and a newly minted 7-year-old. So she just turned 7 a little bit ago. And you can share their names if you'd like, but you can also just share with me a one-word description of each child if you'd like to take that challenge. Oh, gosh. Well, Everly's is easy. She's exuberant. exuberant yes yeah you know if uh i think i was preparing for interviews at some point and i was like one word for me gosh i don't know but i was like man everly it would be exuberant enthusiastic about life yes yes yeah yeah yeah clara is um uh i don't know strategic maybe or she's i don't know she's very seven-year-old or the 10 she she's the seven-year-old but she is very um That's a big word for a seven-year-old. Take that as a compliment. Full of thought and observant and just discerning. Did we talk about halos when we had coffee? I don't think so. I don't think so. We've been studying this thing. It's a little bit like DISC. It's developed in Brazil, and they've got the thinker with lots of free thoughts and ideas. I just did a couple of trainings on this, and so I'm kind of fresh. And then the logical, analytical is the organizer, planner kind of person. The social relational person is the green type. Yeah. The orange is the achiever, entrepreneur, high performance, high order. And then the integrator is the brown type that is always kind of thoughtful, always wants a little bit more information. Yeah. So they're kind of a clean half and half, I would say, where they, not exclusively, but I think they have, we actually have delightful dreams that they might, you know, someday do even this, you know, RGI together. And I think they'd be skilled to do that. The Hallows theory is that each person is kind of a yin-yang of two things. Yeah. I'm the white and the green. Mm-hmm. You're probably green and orange, I suspect. I don't – you'd have to run me back through it. Orange is the achiever entrepreneur. Uh-huh. White is the thinker, idea person. That might be you as well. Blue is the organizer, planner. Ross has probably got some of that. He has a lot of that. The green is the social relational. Yeah, I have a lot of that. Yeah, I thought so, more than me. The orange is the achiever, entrepreneur. I think innovation, you're green over white. I'm white over green. Okay. And Ross is probably... Well, the chief of our entrepreneurs. The orange, the deep thinker guy. But also some white things. Well, everybody's a little bit of everything kind of. Yeah. Anyway. And that was Clara. Yes. Yeah. Clara is probably a brown type. Yes. Yeah. The founder's theory of Hallow says no business will kind of grow from like a million dollars to $10 million without having an integrator round type in their team. So you might have some big things. There you go. Yeah. And purpose. Purpose. We have a sponsor for the Local Experience Podcast. Thank you to Purpose Driven Wealth of Thriven for sponsoring our Purpose Driven Questions segment. At Purpose Driven Wealth, they believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Their mission is to help guide clients using a values-driven, stewardship-based approach focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment. With more than a century of experience, Thriven helps individuals and families navigate life and business transitions and prepare for the future while creating space to live generously and give back in meaningful ways. To learn more about Purpose Driven Wealth, please call 970-330-7411 for a complimentary initial consultation. And now, on to the questions. It is purpose-driven wealth in Windsor, and so we have some purpose-driven questions. Okay. And we'll take a break after that, but we'll ask a couple of these. Thanks, Clinton team. Let's do this one. Can you describe a business decision that you made that didn't make sense on paper? Oh, yes. And the result. Okay. Um, yeah, no, I think if you are in an early startup, you know, kind of whitewater phase, you make lots of decisions that are decisions that don't necessarily make sense on paper. Um, the, uh, have you... You can change your mind, too, is the important thing to remember sometimes. Yes, that's true. Um, I'm trying to remember this book that it's the, um... Oh, shoot. What is this book called? Predictable Success. That's what it is. Are you familiar? No, but the book by Fred Rogers, the founder of True Space, basically says that if you can predict your revenues, you can be successful and grow as a company trying to scale. So this is kind of talking about the, you know, you have kind of startup phases and then you get up to a predictable success kind of. sweet spot where everything's humming along it's all working like you've got um you're still scrappy enough that you're taking care of customers and you're mindful of that and you're attuned to that um but you you're big enough that you have to have processes and procedures but it's not overly process heavy and so there's this like sweet spot here and you can fall off either side of the edges um but yeah i feel like when you're in that building space they they have a section that they call whitewater And I'm like, a lot of entrepreneurship feels like whitewater. Right. Yeah. It doesn't feel predictable right now. It feels like get to the shore or back to the boat. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I think that the – it's interesting because – Because my dad and my mom both are very logical, very pragmatic. Dad had this 30-year success at HP. That's one kind of experience. And so it's interesting having tremendous respect and appreciation and desire to hear their perspective on things and having things that are – our appetite for risk has to, you know, just is different. Much different understanding. Yeah, yeah. And so that's been interesting just to, you know, to kind of just figure out what Ross and I, what our appetite is for pushing things and how hard and how fast do we move into spaces. Well, and some of those contracts... like you can lose them too, right? Sure. Like you have it for a year or two and then somebody else can like underbid you a little bit or have more preference points somehow or something or more skill or what. Yeah. There's some P win is kind of a big thing that people tie, the percentage win is something that they use a lot in the federal government space. But they, and you have a wide range diversity of opinions about how you would calculate such a thing. But I take a pretty conservative approach of if it's your contract and you're doing a great job, it's still you versus the field. Yeah. You know, because it's – If you don't get renewed, it's your fault. Well, but also there are things that can – you can get undercut. They can change the way that they're – the government sometimes is interested in – we want to make sure that we're having the lowest price technically acceptable. And if you are operating in like a best value environment, I may not be willing to say to my employee, hey, you should take a haircut or feel like it's smart for my business to take on that risk. Well, because sometimes it's the – the willingness of the labor to do the thing too, right? Well, and just my risk tolerance for if I need to find a new person to do this, how easily could I recruit for this position at this price? Interesting. I never really thought about it in that way of like, I like to say like local think tank is kind of a supply driven business because we can only grow as much as we have like facilitators that are running chapters and doing a good job and whatever. And so I need to find those people first to grow. Yours is a little bit that way too. Like your skill in actually finding people to do some of these contracts is an integral part of the business, I imagine. Yeah. Yes. Interesting. Let's talk about faith a little bit. Sure. You mentioned early 50s. five years old. Yeah. What kind of church was this? It sounded a little bit kind of not like the Episcopals or the Catholics or something like that, a little more happy, happy kind of style. But yeah, talk to you. Yeah. So a Baptist church is what I grew up in. Very good. Yeah. And you remain in that kind of space. I do, yeah. So we go to LifePoint, and LifePoint is, you know, we used to be First Baptist. That's what it was called when I went and did my Bible study fellowship classes at that church. So I've been in the hallways there a lot of times over the years, which was actually the earliest route of Loco Think Tank. Okay. They invited me to become a discussion leader for, what was it called? BSF, Bible study fellowship. Sure. they taught me how to facilitate over the course of a year. I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. Ten people are smarter than one person. And check you out now. Yeah, look at me now. That's awesome. So that was one of the areas of kind of an invitation to discuss faith. Has that been easy for your children to want to be a part of as well? Yeah, yes. They do have a very – I've actually gone to a service there before, and they've got a pretty nice – band, worship band, I guess you'd call it. Yeah. Let's do one more of these. Kurt, sometimes I'm even singing as part of that group. Do you have a certain rotation, like first Sundays? No. Whenever Landon schedules me. Really? Okay. I like it. I felt like I could sing for our church choir, but as a dude, like the dude that always leads worship plays guitar too, and so now they've got to like. You just can't really have a dude singing with that. Like, if you're a vocalist and you're a female, we're usually looking for more of that. You don't have to. You can shake the tambourine or something. But if you're a dude, you're almost expected to play the guitar. I am not multifaceted in, like, the... You don't have it either? I cannot snap. I can barely... Like, if it were for clapping, it's like, oh, my goodness. I need to find somebody who's a good clapper that I can count on to be my metronome. It's like, I can sing. And if you're asking me to chew gum also... I've thought about trying the harmonica because it feels like it's kind of like singing through an instrument more so than actually playing it. Because I have the same trouble. My fingers are dumb. So anyway, Cole, if you're listening, I will sing for the worship band sometime, but you have to put me behind something. So I wouldn't know what to do with my hands. That's why I hold the microphone, Kurt. Duh. Yes. There you go. Sorry. What are your thoughts? You mentioned that I hinted at it already, but, you know, if your kids or one of the kids would want to be part of your business in the future. But what are your thoughts on legacy in general? Yeah. Both with the business and with your family. Sure, sure. Yeah, I'm very interested in the kids doing... you know, fulfilling their purpose and living with purpose. And so, you know, I view that through my faith. And so I'm giving them opportunity to view it in that way too. They don't have to decide what their purpose is. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I would love for them to be part of the business, but I don't – that's not something that I'm – that I would force or that I would hold them to. You know, I think there's... Do you plan on doing this for the rest of your adult working life, probably? For now? As long as you keep getting contracts? Yeah, I mean, our current plan would be to kind of keep doing what we're doing. And I would love for... It would be super fun if the kids at some point wanted to be part of that and kind of, you know, start joining in. But I think that there's also a... And yeah, I don't know where God will leave them in their lives. And I'm excited to see what it'll be. And I don't want to be a damper on where – I don't want to have restrictions about what they do or how they do it. How about for you? For me. Beyond just the business, but like – you're kind of like a it person gets involved in a legislative affairs committee, joins the board. And, you know, is there like other things that you aspire? Maybe a politics seems like something that you could do really well. Is that something that's curious? I'm curious about it. I, um, yeah, I don't, I don't know. Um, I don't know when or in what way, but it, um, I'd vote for you for county commissioner. I enjoy... You're not thinking 20-feet. I love this community. I love the legacy of this community, the history of this community. I love the people in this community. Sounds like you're well-connected in the overall region and things like that. Yeah. I think so. I don't know. So not yet, though. You've got some work to do on... RGI first. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I got some momming to do. Momming. So maybe 10 more years. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But it is a curiosity. I think that I certainly know that helping people is important to me. And so there are a variety of places that could take me. Fair. What are the most important things right now for Northern Colorado from your perspective? For business especially. Yeah. For families, obviously, as part of having successful business. Yeah. I think maybe part of the reason that I, you know, between serving on LLAC and the chamber board, I appreciate that I get to dig into things that I do think are important issues for our community. So I, you know, when I think about housing and workforce talent and jobs and economy and Kind of the infrastructure things, roads and energy and water and all of those things are things that I see the chamber either getting smart on or investing in trying to improve and – You know, those are things that I'm like, those feel like the things. The water impact fee has been kind of an item of discussion on LinkedIn recently. I don't know if you've seen some of that and why there's so few ADUs being built. Yeah. And the main reason is because to hook into the water system would cost you 50 grand if you're lucky. Sure. Or maybe quite a bit more. Mm-hmm. You know, and so the cost, but the cost of actually attaching is like 500 bucks. And so the permission to buy water from the city costs 100 times what the actual physical connection does. Well, there's a wide spectrum of what water connectivity and delivery looks like in the region. And that's really interesting, especially when you look at competitiveness. I mean, I think there's a place where it's a – As a region, how do we think about ourselves regionally? And how do we also think about creating solutions that make sense regionally? Do you have any knowledge on the water project, the NISP thing? I am familiar, but if you're going to ask me what's happening. Well, because Fort Collins, like a year ago now or something like that, Fort Collins basically backed out. Sure. They were like, hey, the costs have blossomed from $50 million to $200 million, and it's just too much. Yeah. And I wondered to myself at the time if them backing out was going to make it not work, or is there enough demand for these other communities to do? That's been a really dynamic space, right? So do you have any inside updates from your chamber work or otherwise? I mean, we're keeping a close eye on it. We're very interested. And certainly, I think NISP will be a really important project for us. It'll be interesting to see. So you're pro-Glade? Yeah, I mean, I think we – I would love to see that project go. And Fort Collins to jump back in. I would love to see Fort Collins be part of that. And it'll be interesting to see. I think that water is the lifeblood of growers ultimately in this region, and we've got to have a chunk of that. Yeah, well, and it's – I think about – so I am super nerdy when I think about – you know, energy or water. I think about the, you know, if you look at the Adams tunnel or, you know, like CBT, if you look at the decision to bury power lines underground, you know, these are things that we, such foresight and wisdom to make these decisions. And so I, you know, in this time and moment, I think about what are those legacy things that we have opportunity to consider now? And how do we, How do we do that well? How do we have something that 50 years from now our kids' kids are like so brilliant that they did this thing? Even 20 years from now. Yeah. So I would love for us to make as many of those brilliant decisions as we can. And I hope to discern them. You're not championing a specific policy or horse in that space yet. Yeah. I just want us to be thoughtful and, yeah. considering, you know, just thoughtful and deep thinkers about these things. Yeah, for sure. I do love that, you know, our power doesn't go out when it gets really windy. Yeah. That's nice. Yes. When it's really hot and windy. Yeah. Ross grew up in Oklahoma, and they, you know, when you're watching the TV, you can have like a Generac generator commercial every segment. And I love that as somebody who grew up in Fort Collins, I can count on... a few fingers how many how many times the power's gone out at all um certainly not for any length of time um and so i love that i live in a community i'm like why would you ever need a generator that seems ridiculous and not everybody has that feeling no it's true we're very fortunate to to um and i hope that we are aware of you know just how fortunate we are um I'm inclined to take a break. Okay. Sounds good. We'll be back in a few. Okay. This episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank. Loco 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 in the role of LOCO facilitators, and we're always looking for abundance-minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, LOCO community, or to feature on this podcast. Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of LOCO Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the LOCO Experience podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at locothinktank.com. That's L-O-C-O thinktank.com. And we are back. Awesome. Since we both washed our hands, I think now would be a good time to try your podcast special guest sauce, the crazy ginger. Oh, nice. Now I want to look at this. You can get your crazy ginger at Matador Mexican Grill. Those guys whip it up for us and went through a number of taste testers before we locked on our favorite, which is about to be testing your palate. I'd love to have your comments. You can move the microphone away from your face. Cheers. Oh, there. I took the bigger one. I'm just crunching right into my microphone. It's better. I had tortilla chips. They took a lot longer. These little just regular sea salt. So it's very flavorful to start. But I am familiar enough with habanero to know that it grows on you. It will creep a little bit. There's a little ghost pepper in there as well. Yeah, that's very good. Any particular notes, what would you put it on? I like the sweetness. I like that it has some sweetness to it. It's a good fish taco sauce, perhaps. So get your crazy ginger at Mattator Mexican Grill. And if you would, please, Sherry, would you describe for me a crazy ginger in your life or history? A crazy ginger. Yeah. And he's kind of a redheaded person that's... Ross is kind of a strawberry blonde. Oh, he is. Yeah. But he's not very crazy. He's kind of organized and analytical. He does challenge you. He does, yeah. And he thinks you hung the moon. Right. That's a little crazy. Right. It's real crazy. That's straight crazy talk right there. So no particular ginger. I had to actually, I texted Ginger Graham when I came up with the name of this sauce. I was like, just so you know, I was not thinking of you at all. Unless you wanted me to be. Yes, but you could carry it in your restaurant. It would be pretty funny. We haven't made the connection yet. Yeah. um talk to me about like favorite things like you got these kiddos you said seven and ten uh what do you do with them what do you do with them yeah they um uh we love playing games together okay they we love musical things we love particular game endorsements you would like to share Um, so Rook is one of our oldest's favorites. Um, and then. Is it a chess related game perhaps? It's kind of like spades. Oh, interesting. Okay. So it's kind of a, uh, yeah. I've been spending the weekend playing both Wist and Pinochle and I taught my mother Euchre. Okay. Yeah. If you've ever played that. I have played Euchre. I don't remember all of the rules about Euchre. It was the first game that she had learned in like 40 years or something like that. Yeah. Which was pretty cool. Yeah, we grew up playing a lot of games. Really? Yeah. So Rook is a favorite. Triple E is a favorite. Zingo is probably Claire's favorite. Zingo, Rook. Zingo is, it's a, it's like bingo, but for, you know, it's pictures. So I think it's kind of an early elementary kind of game. Yeah, yeah. We taught Killer Bunnies. Have you ever played that game? Yeah. No, but one kind of like that name I've had. Something about exploding cats. Yeah, right. Exploding kittens, is it? Exploding kittens, perhaps. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is perhaps. So I prefer Killer Bunnies to Exploding Kittens, personally. Oh, really? Okay. I haven't played Killer Bunnies. Yeah, it's a fun game. I like it. I used to actually enjoy – I'm not used to. I still would enjoy it if I saw them, but it's been a while. Fierce Bad Rabbit. Okay. Have you seen – music locally here. I'm so bad. I sat at Mishawaka in front of like all the moms of the like then 17 or 19 year old Fierce Bad Rabbit band members that were playing at Mishawaka. They were like so proud. It was such a cool thing. That's so cool. So anyway, I have a very particular memory of that. Yeah. Yeah. The only, what did you say? Killer rabbits? Killer bunnies. Killer bunnies. Yep. Yeah. You can see why I drifted over to Fierce Bad Rabbit. Would you like another chip, by the way? Sure. Okay. I'll have one too. Oh, see, I grabbed a double, double bite. What's your favorite place in Colorado? Hmm. Maybe, so if you backpack up over Flat Top and you drop down into the valley coming into Grand Lake. Yeah. There's a campground there called July. And they have, you get kind of tucked enough into the mountains that the, you see more stars than you ever knew existed in your whole life. And it's amazing. So it's shielded from the lights of Grand Junction. Well, and all of the – it's kind of shielded from all of the front range. And I don't even know if it's necessarily one of the kind of dark sky places of the – Yeah, but one of the things. Yeah, I mean because you go to Estes Park and you're like, oh, you can see the Milky Way just looking. Sure. And so that was just a distinct memory I have of really seeing the stars where you're like, there are so many. Love it. Yeah. So I'm nerdy enough that I have the What's Up podcast that I received from NASA that tells me what's happening. And I have a telescope. And any time the Northern Lights happen, we are out there looking at it. I get notifications on my phone. That was cool. Was it just last summer? Yeah. They were like crazy if you drove North of Town a little ways. We've had a few times, you know, kind of in recent history. Have you ever been up to Long Draw Reservoir? I have. That's kind of my darkest sky kind of space almost. Although, yeah, you can kind of get the front range light is drifting in because you're so high up there. Yeah. Well, and even on Trail Bridge, you have to be really careful about where you're – if you're stargazing. Is that right? Because you can – you have a lot of the front range little drifting. Yeah, ambient light drifting over kind of thing. Yeah. I wasn't aware. What's your favorite food? Mexican things. I don't know. Tacos. Tacos. Perfect. It's a good setup. Because this is kind of a Mexican thing. This is WizCal. We eat tacos and tortilla chips and... Fresh salsa. Tortillas with all the things pretty regularly. Do you have hobbies? Oops, this one will be mine because you said I want a small one. Reading is a newly rekindled hobby that I have. Good. So... So this is from our spirit sponsor. Thank you to Seed and Spirit Distilling. It's WizCal, available at many local liquor stores. And soon, maybe less than a month out, the former Funkworks will be a tasting room as well as like Oyster Bar and different things over there. So yeah, check that out soon. And then share your thoughts. Are you supposed to smell? How do you taste? Yeah, just a little smell. Nice cow. Just have a little sip. Like wine? You're not shooting it necessarily. I mean, you could shoot it if you wanted to, but it's a... You know, not everybody drinks straight whiskey or mezcal. And so for the relatively less initiated, it can be kind of abrupt, I suppose. We went to a whiskey tasting, and they were basically saying that the first sip, your body is like, what is this? Get this out of here! And so you have to wait for second and third sips to really, like, discern what you're tasting because you have to get over it. That's a shock. Yeah. Well, especially for people that don't really drink straight alcohol. Yeah, yeah. Or whatever. We went to a rum tasting in Barbados. Mm-hmm. And Jill went in in the first one or two samples. She was like, Ew. And by the time we left, she was like, I love rum! It might have been an internal processing part of the conversation as well. But even still, I can still buy Mount Gay rum. And she's like, sweet. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that there's – having an association with something can be very useful. Yeah. So, yeah. Do you have any tasting notes? We were talking outside about sommelier things and our rudimentary sweet sour. Yeah. Can you taste the smokiness? I can. Yes. Yes. And being a – I am a firm, wood-burning fire believer and lover, and so I – I appreciate a little smokiness. You guys have one at home? We do. Oh. Yeah. A fireplace or a wood stove? Yep. And I get a quart of wood every year for my birthday. Nice. We also have a wood-burning stove in our old town home. Thankfully, I've got all kinds of sources of, oh, you want to help me clear my property of deadfall? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where firewoods, sure. Yeah. It's so nice. Yeah. I like the life, you know, kind of the breath of a real fire and the crackle and just the character of it. Like a kettle sitting on top of it and spewing a little moisture into the air and slow-cooked short ribs. Are you a foodie as well? I enjoy food. I don't know. We are so eclectic in what we cook that I – I thought it was all Mexican mostly. Well, we do a lot of that. But I'm fearful that my children won't have – so like with my mom, we have very specific things that are like – mom made these things, right? And I'm kind of like, wait, I'm not sure that we're going to – I'm so eclectic with what we do. Yeah, that I'm not sure. Oh, you know what? Bonnie mentioned this thing. I'm going to try it. Yeah, probably like biscuits and gravy. Or like we do biscuits and chocolate gravy, which is – Yeah, see, this is the reaction I always get. I had biscuits and gravy over the weekend. My sister-in-law, Jamie, is – arguably the best biscuits and gravy maker I know. And she served them up and they were awesome. I ate four. Yeah, so we do a lot of biscuits and gravy. That's probably, although my children, so Ross's family, that's where the chocolate and biscuits came from. Yeah, talk to me about chocolate and biscuits now. So you'll have to try it. Because if you try to explain it, then you're like, what are we talking about here? We talk about regular biscuits, like from a pan, bake them, just the same ones. Or drop biscuits. Or make your own. Yep. Either way. And then the... It's kind of like... Have you had... Like chocolate cream pie. Yeah. So it's the kind of the flavor of that, but it's the consistency of gravy. So we call it chocolate gravy, but it has the flavor of a chocolate pie feeling. And it's warm. Okay. But if you ask my kids, do you want biscuits and gravy? They assume we're talking chocolate biscuits and gravy. Like, can you... Is it like... Like kind of a butter and flour and then cocoa powder kind of situation with some milk probably? Yeah. Yeah. Vanilla, butter. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. Vanilla. All right. I think I can make it. I can try it. Text me. Just give me the rudimentaries. I don't follow recipes, but if I know how dark the root needs to be before I put it in the chocolate, it'll be all right. Yeah, so it's kind of pie-filling-like, but a little more like gravy consistency. Well, my family ate a lot of stuff, creamed stuff on toast. Yeah. So cream sausage on toast, cream spam on toast, cream hamburger on toast, cream... What's the chipped beef on toast? This is a vast... Gravy with stuff in it. It was a common denominator for a lot of meals. Yeah, yeah. Fair. Let's do the local experience. Are you ready? Sure. Sure. craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners. And your children will probably listen too. So don't get too crazy. You probably often get like a, oh, that's so funny, or wow, that's so great. Sometimes near-death experiences or traveled in Europe for a semester or weird things. Right. Truthfully, the... My husband died by suicide is the thing that I think about as being like, that's probably the craziest thing. For sure. Do you – how much do you want to share here? Is that – Annie? Sure, yeah, we can talk about it Like, I was Thinking about, I didn't even think about Like, saving it for the local experience If I'm honest, but I was thinking 2012 Maybe, like Affected by the economy Or something like that, the stockbroker Things or something, or maybe just Like, my Family has had some mental illness sometimes One of my friends Just died by suicide about Two months ago, Matthew Fugate Yeah. And it sucks. I'm so sorry. It does suck. Yeah. I've cried over his death more times than I'd want a person to know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think it's hard because if you're healthy, it doesn't make sense to you. You're like, I do not understand. And I think that's a really good thing. But it's hard because you're like, I don't understand. Trying to explain how I explain this thing. I don't understand. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also hard because there's this... And wrestling with the, you know, kind of the crazy bouquet of emotions because there's sort of the, you know, I love you. I care about you. I miss you. I'm so angry. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And it's kind of all of those things. How long have you been married? So about 10 years. Oh, wow. Not quite. So, yeah. Yeah. And, like, had he been erratic for a while? Was your relationship challenged? He was very incredibly smart and incredibly capable and was kind of this self-made man, bootstrapped, you know, kind of... In business for himself? No. So he put himself through auto tech school and was doing that. And then he pursued a degree at CSU and went through construction management and was working in that field for a while. Yeah. had done some entrepreneurial type things and had gone back to construction and doing estimating and, you know, just very, very meticulous and detailed musical. And, you know, so he held himself to a very high standard and held the people around him to a high standard. And so there were places where that was was great. And there were places where that was hard, hard for him and hard for other people, too. And I think just struggled in ways that he, you know, wasn't... you know, maybe struggled in ways that he didn't feel comfortable struggling. And so I think he mostly struggled to ask for help. So he, I think... Like almost culturally it wasn't allowed for him to ask for help. Yeah, I think he had a tremendous amount of pride, which is wonderful in the right applications. But I think in this case it was, there are places where I think he would have really benefited from a willingness to receive help, a willingness to acknowledge a need for help, Um, so it's hard to, uh, hard to watch a grownup, um, struggle with those things and to know I can love and support, but I, you have to want to change and I can't, I can't do it for you. I can't change you. Um, you know, and that's a, that's a, um, a tough place to have to. So he was kind of in a depressive state kind of for a while, struggling with relationships, whatever. Yeah. Well, and he, he would, um, uh, yeah. He was not always – you would not always be aware of him being somebody who struggled with depression because he could be very, very outgoing, very energetic. No, I think there was definitely some self-medication in lieu of receiving help to deal with things. I think there were some places where he – You know, he would look to, you know, to kind of... Opiates? No. Like, you know... Because that's... Or SSR. Drinking or smoking pot. Whatever. These kinds of things. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But no, like, over-the-top kind of stuff and that necessarily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just... I think for him it was just the kind of the escapism of this is hard. It's overwhelming. And, you know, kind of the escapism of things. How did you, like, find out? I am grateful to have not been there. But I, you know, or to, you know, I wasn't – It stinks to be a first responder, but they were the ones who found him. So I'm grateful that none of his friends or family have to carry that. And yeah. My dad found a dead body. Yeah. I forget. He was, like, looking for an easement to try to get, like, some farm, like, drainage tile past. And he went to this guy's house. And it, like, he met this guy, like, once when he talked to him the first time about it kind of thing. And it shook him. Sure. Yeah. And so I can... And yeah, so I sympathize with that finding somebody, but more so like, gosh, you're just, here we go. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, you think about the, I think we've all had experiences in life where you have that kind of like tunnel vision, you know, kind of experience. And yeah, I mean, I think that that... How did you do with it? Did you go get counseling and things as well? Oh, yeah. And I think that for me, that was when, as a grown-up, my faith became real because I needed it. You know, I think that up until that point, life was – I had always kind of encountered things that I could handle or I felt like I could handle. I had the – you know, the, uh, uh, you know, just the, I got this, the ability. Don't really need your help. God. I'm pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So that, that, that was one where I was like, I just, I decidedly don't got this. Um, and, uh, so I think there, there's, uh, um, you know, there's beauty in, you know, in stepping in faith and then experiencing, you know, God's provision and presence in that space. So there, you know, there's beauty in that. And then there's also just in growing, I think that the, a lot of smart, strong people become smart, strong loners and don't, you know, maybe don't learn to rely on people, to open up to people. That was me for a lot of my life, I would say. Yeah, and I think a lot of people are that way. And I think that a season like that, you're sort of like, I don't got this. I can't do it. I need help. You know, you have to be very open about that. And then to get to experience – You know, kind of how sweet that is to rely on people, to need them and to rely on them and to have them truly want to be there for you. I experienced probably the 10th really significant silver lining event of my life this spring. My neighbor complained about my chicken coop being too close to his fence. And so I had this whole thing where I had to move my chicken coop. But now I've built this beautiful grassy side yard that my 12-year-old dog just loves and rolls around every day. And I've got little dwarf albuda spruces and all these plants around it. And so this... Thing that I was super annoyed, like, asshole, like, my chicken coop was there a long time before you put your hot tub, Jason, you know. But now I've got this amazing new yard space. Yeah, yeah. And the silver lining of that, and there's, you know, a dozen more important things than that, but, like... you guys, I don't know if you were trying to have kids or never really were, but the silver lining, unfortunately, of his passing is you've got a whole second chapter in some ways. A new career, starting a business, you've got two littles, an awesome husband that... Thanks, you hung the moon. No, I am grateful for just the restorative and redemptive work that God does. And I've certainly experienced that. It would have been easier if he was hit by a train or something like that, I imagine. But perhaps different in a way that wouldn't have you be the same person you are. So I guess we can... What's that? I think there's an interesting – I think remembering is kind of an interesting practice. I think when you – in the throes of something, sometimes you – I remember I was going through grief counseling and they wanted me to – one of the exercises was like paint your emotions. Yeah. And I remember thinking like, this is the dumbest exercise ever. And I really protested with, but I had for weeks I'd been talking about, I just have this like, this like yuck, this muck that's like lingering. And I don't even know how to like verbalize it or what to do with it, but it's there. And I feel like it's sucking the hope out of my life. And I don't know what to do about this yuck. And so I finally was like, fine, I will paint my emotions. But it was this very meaningful, you know, kind of exercise of connecting with that. But in that moment, you know, a lot of that just felt like yuck. The way that I would describe those feelings is just the like, if you drain upon, unfortunately, we've had, well, I guess it's been so dry, you don't have these like mucky things. Well, I've got a pond, a fish pond in my side yard in the back, right adjacent to my beautiful new garden space where I keep goldfish and stuff. And then on the top of that, I've got another pump that flows into this little bowl and it overflows. And that's where my little stone froggy is. He's sticking out the top. Yeah. And when the filter needs cleaning, I can take my finger on the inside of that bowl. That sludge. And that yuck. Yes. And that muck. Yes. That black oozing goo. Yeah. That was the feeling. And that felt like the prevailing feeling. But it's interesting... you know, in years and seasons from that to be able to see, you know, to see God's protection, his provision, his presence, you know, even in those places where at the time I would have been like, there is nothing good in this situation. But it's interesting, you know, you get years out and you can see very clearly there were places that... God was present. He was faithful. He was good. Five years later, you had a new little baby. Yeah. So I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for the – God bless his soul. In journeying back that you can see that. So probably like the worst loco memory of time. Actually, I can't wait to send this to the fiance of my friend that committed suicide. It'd be like, listen, if people go through this, you can do it too. You're awesome. It's been a while since I've been this teary-eyed at the end of the show, but I think that's what gets all the good ratings. Thanks, Sherry. I think you're very special. And I'm thankful for sharing your time here today. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much. Godspeed. Hi, this is Kurt Baer, host of the Loco Experience podcast and founder of Loco Think Tank. Every week, I explore intimate conversations with business founders and leaders. And so I hope you'll join us this week and every week for the new episode of the Loco Experience.