In this episode, we discuss:
- How AI and Blockchain are changing the Accounting industry
- How future accountants can remain valuable in this new future
- the impact of PE on firm valuations

Links:
Whitley Penn
Larry on LinkedIn

Topics:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:01:24) - Thoughts on the state of the world
(00:18:07) - Inquiry into the influence of early life experiences on career choices.
(00:36:35) - Growth rates and defining moments in the firm's history.
(00:42:02) - Strategies for dealing with an aging population within the firm and sustainability.
(00:44:16) - Private Equity and valuations
(00:48:00) - The future of the accounting profession.
(00:50:45) - The impact of blockchain and AI on the industry
(00:57:44) - The mindset of younger generations regarding career progression and firm loyalty

We discuss:
- Hot topics in 2024
- George's upbringing
- Building ParkHub
- The future of Technology

Links:
ParkHub
George on LinkedIn

Topics:
(00:02:00) - Immigration, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, and inflation

(00:08:07) - George’s upbringing

(00:11:40) - The Parking industry

(00:16:49) - Building ParkHub

(00:27:41) - Defining moments

(00:33:07) - Getting comfortable with selling the company

(00:34:36) - Empathy, humility and being lonely at the top

(00:38:15) - The future of technology

(00:41:46) - Selling the business

(00:44:02) - What’s next for George

(00:45:15) - Advice for entrepreneurs

(00:48:00) - What’s something few people know about you?

(00:50:00) - Fatherhood

On this episode, we discuss:
- Growing up with Best disease (vitelliform macular dystrophy)
- The changing landscape of NIL in college sports
- Mike's real estate career, thoughts on the market and entering the cannabis industry from a real estate perspecitve
- Building a real estate investment platform

Links:
Mike on LinkedIn
Morningside Capital

(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:03:27) - Dealing with Best disease as a child
(00:20:23) - The evolving landscape of NIL
(00:24:01) - Mike's career
(00:41:29) - Lessons learned and setbacks
(00:44:40) - The real estate opportunity in the marijuana industry
(00:52:33) - Building an investment platform

Experienced in a wide range of corporate transactions, Philip specializes in domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions and has advised on many high-value and complex corporate transactions.

Philip’s experience covers UK and international transactions across a wide range of sectors, including building products, house building, oil and gas, manufacturing, healthcare, sport, and technology. Philip also has strong experience in equity capital markets and private equity transactions, group reorganizations, shareholder and joint venture agreements, and general strategic corporate matters.

Additionally, Philip has a strong international practice and experience, with a particular focus on the US market and supporting US and European corporates, individuals, and law firms.

In this episode, Michael and Philp engage in a deeply vulnerable conversation centered around Philip discovering the truth behind his family's past.

Topics:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:24 - Philp’s background and career

00:11:34 - How a Brit perceives the state of affairs in the USA

00:17:38 - Philip’s journey to discover his birth parents

01:12:26 - What do you want people to know about you?

Links:
Michael on LinkedIn
Philip on LinkedIn

On this episode, Michael and Anna discuss:
- Anna's upbringing in an immigrant family and the American Dream
- Developing her sense of adventure and risk-taking
- Her career with Texas Capital Bank

Links:
Upward Bound
Texas Capital Bank
Anna on LinkedIn

Topics:
(00:01:00) Introducing Anna

(00:02:24) Anna’s upbringing

(00:17:40) Thoughts on the immigration crisis

(00:23:48) College and Law School 

(00:38:10) Anna’s early law career

(00:45:51) What’s something nobody knows about you?

(00:53:51) Anna’s career with Texas Capital Bank

(00:58:20) What do you want people to know about you?

A strong force not only in the entrepreneurial world but also in shaping future generations, Nancy is the founder and creative vision behind JAMAH, an American luxury, Made in the USA bespoke handbag brand, featuring the finest customized Italian lambskin and exotic handbags, men’s bags and accessories.

She also founded AMBITION, a nonprofit entrepreneurial program for disadvantaged youth. Its mission is to reframe their potential and to provide students with the support, access, and resources necessary to reach their goals.

Links:

Nancy on LinkedIn

ambition.org

info@ambition.org

Jamah.com

Topics:

(00:00:31) Introducing Nancy

(00:03:39) Southfield, Michigan

(00:05:43) Solving a murder, and dealing with the aftermath of loss 

(00:36:02) Nancy’s Foundation & the non-profit world

(00:54:52) Nancy’s handbag business

(00:59:06) What do you want people to know about you?

On this episode, Michael and CT discuss:

• The familial dynamic between generations of Charlton leadership
• Teaching love and empathy within the business
• CT's passion for flying and how that's translated to becoming a better leader

Links:
The Charlton Group
CT on LinkedIn
Michael on LinkedIn

Timestamps
(00:01:29) Colorado, Coach Prime, Family, the Armed Forces 

(00:07:19) The Founding of Charlton & growing the business

(00:19:39) The Charlton family dynamic between generations

(00:27:49) Pivoting during the Pandemic and over the next 20 years

(00:33:00) Teaching love and empathy

(00:36:59) As your company becomes more global, what excites you and what worries you?

(00:40:23) CT’s flying hobby

(00:43:51) How does learning to be a pilot translate to your leadership at work?

(00:46:37) What is your true north when you feel lost?

(00:49:24) What do you want people to konw about you?

On this episode, we discuss Tony's upbringing as the 2nd of four brothers and how that impacted his career today. We also spend a lot of time discussing how Tony has dealt with the hard times we face in life, specifically with his wife having to overcome breast cancer shortly after the birth of their child. We also reflect on why we get fired from jobs, the challenges of running a business and how to implement company values. Enjoy the Climb!

Links:

Tony on LinkedIn

BIG Construction

Imerman Angels

YPO

Bob dives deep into the history of the Ranch, from the beginning in 1853, when Captain Richard King purchased a creek-fed oasis in the Wild Horse Desert of South Texas, to the current day where the ranch is still owned by the 8th generation of the King family. We also discuss life in Austin back in the 50s and 60s, Bob's career, and more. Enjoy the Climb!

Links:

King Ranch

King Ranch: A Legacy in Art

Topics:

(1:56) - Bob’s background, career, and family

(12:20) - How Austin has changed since the ’50s

(16:50) - The legacy and history of the King Ranch

(54:31) - The introduction of King Ranch Inc. and taking the Ranch global

(1:09:05) - What were some of the challenges that the family has gone through?

(1:16:00) - What does the King Ranch look like 100 years from now?

(1:20:58) - Summer in the 1950s and 1960s in Austin

(1:26:25) - What do you want people to know about you?

Topics:
(0:14) - Drew’s background and career

(3:55) - What do you think inspired your entrepreneurial curiosity?

(5:39) - Drew’s family dynamic

(7:27) - How did you qualify for your first loan?

(8:50) - What was your first deal?

(9:19) - What would you tell new investors looking at getting into Real Estate?

(15:22) - Are there things about RE investing that don’t change as you’ve done this over 17 years?

(18:24) - How’d you end up on HGTV?

(20:25) - The Keep it Simple Investing Philosophy

(25:18) - What did you learn from working for a MF developer?

(33:58) - What were some sacrifices you made when starting your own organization?

(36:19) - How do you develop the ability to see 3-4 steps ahead in a competitive space like Real Estate?

(43:19) - Where do you see home ownership vs. renting over the next decade?

(50:14) - Drew’s journey as a podcaster

(51:40) - What’s something that people don’t know about you?

(55:13) - What do you want people to know about you?

Links:

Sons of the Flag

American Extreme

Birds Eye View Project
Ryan Birdman Parrott on Instagram
Sons of the Flag book by Ryan Parrot

Topics:

(2:13) - Ryan’s background and upbringing

(10:26) - What resistance did you face from family and friends during this time?

(12:08) - What fire was lit inside you in the aftermath of 9/11?

(16:40) - Ryan’s experience at BUD/S

931:37) - What are your thoughts on the nature vs. nurture aspect of being able to become a SEAL?

(35:03) - Hell Week

(44:51) - Is there something you learned about yourself during that time?

(45:44) - Appreciation for the folks who choose to serve

(46:57) - The nature of being a SEAL & traumas of the military

(58:08) - Why don’t we do a good job of taking care of our veterans?

(1:02:45) - What can listeners do to help?

(1:06:45) - What’s something that no one knows about you?

(1:10:47) - What do you want people to know about you?

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Katrina Ghazarian

Gameday HR: https://gamedayhr.com/

Katrina's Podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/hrsucks/

[00:00:00] Katrina Ghazarian: Look at 2020, how much time did everybody spend defending their labels, defending labels that they don't even firmly believe. Not everybody's all the way Democrat and not everybody's all the way Republican. One of the greatest examples I heard, I think it was Andy Frisella who said it on his podcast, but he talks about 9/11, and he was like, “do you think they cared if it was Republicans or Democrats, when they flew those planes into the World Trade Center? No, they were going after Americans”. No one else around the world cares about these labels that we here in the United States want to defend all the time. And so, that really sticks with me how people are so quick to carry these labels with them and they'll go to the ground dying, defending these labels, they'll end family relationships and friendships trying to defend these labels that aren’t real, they're all lies. They’re not real things, so I want to create content that really helps people navigate through that identity and showing them we're very complicated creatures, you know?

We’re complex. And even then, who we are now, we're not the same person in a year from now, we evolve. We change; who I was last year, pre-pandemic, I'm a completely different person now. 

Michael Moore: Today on The Climb, Bob and I are joined by Katrina Ghazarian, and you don't have to go too much further than her landing page on LinkedIn to understand that she does shit that matters. She is voted the funniest in fifth grade, Forbes’ top social media influencer of 2020, a Gen Next member, CEO of Game Day HR, and so much more.

 Katrina, we’re excited to have you today and welcome. 

Katrina Ghazarian: Thanks. [00:02:00] Gosh, I am such a bad ass. 

Bob Wierema: I was going to say, you sound pretty important.

Katrina Ghazarian: You’re not supposed to read the voted funniest in fifth grade part as my bio – that's just a joke that I have on LinkedIn!

Michael Moore: Maybe let's start there. Your sense of humor developed early. Why were you so funny in fifth grade? 

Katrina Ghazarian: Well, chubby people have to be funny. You can't be chubby and lame, it's against the law. So, I learned at a very young age, if I was little huskier than the rest of the kids, I was going to have to at least make people laugh so they didn't call me fat girl names and it totally worked. 

Michael Moore: You know, I might've had a little experience in that too. 

Katrina Ghazarian: Were you chubby? Were you a chubby kid? 

Michael Moore: I'm still chubby, but I was funny, and I had a pretty good right hook too. So, if I couldn't make them laugh, then I got tired of it, it was go time.

Katrina Ghazarian: Oh yeah, same here. I was definitely beating up like the boys. 

Michael Moore: Okay. So funny in fifth grade, give us the background, give us the “you”. 

Katrina Ghazarian: Why would fifth grade even have these superlatives? We're way too young to have something like that. But for some reason, our trendy – I don't know who she was – teacher decided to put these titles in there and there were others; ‘friendliest’ and ‘best dressed’, which sure as hell wasn't me. Most athletic, which wasn't really me either. And so, I weighed all the options and I thought ‘funniest’ was the one I could actually go for.

And so, I started lobbying all the kids to vote for me. And it worked. I ended up winning and they put a picture of me in the yearbook wearing a Santa hat, and I'm going like this  [00:04:00] in the picture, it’s very flattering. So, I think I always enjoyed making people laugh. It was something that was very special to me.

There were tons of other things that I did in class or outside of class to be very disruptive and get in trouble, but at the end of the day people were laughing at me and that's all I really cared for. You struggle with your identity a lot when you're a young adult and you're in your twenties, and you have all of these influences telling you who you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to act. I really entered the corporate world very quickly. I was 18. I got a job at Washington Mutual. So, I was in retail banking at a pretty young age, and I would say all the things that were on my mind and coming out of my mouth, and management would tell me, “you're can't say those things”.

Bob Wierema: You can’t talk like that.

Katrina Ghazarian: I was like very perverted; someone said “balls” and I'd giggle. I was that person – the words like ‘percolate’, how do you not laugh at that word? Or ‘moist’, come on, come on. So, I think I started to go into a box at that point of trying to be what everyone said I was supposed to be. And so, I tried to be more proper and professional. And then I was just depressed trying to be something that I wasn't; I always felt ashamed because I would say something that I felt was like funny or was even the truth.

And so, I ended up gaining a ton of weight because I was so depressed about how I was [00:06:00] supposed to act. I was out of school at that point, so I was 18 or 19 years old. I go to the doctor and I had been there a couple of months before and he was like, “do you know how much you weighed in the last time you were here?”

And I said, “yeah, like 145lbs”, and he said, “do you know how much you weigh now?” And I'm like, “150lbs, 155lbs, and he was like, “you weigh 170lbs”. So, I had put on 25 pounds in a very short period of time and that was very unnatural for me. I worked out, I went to the gym throughout high school… And so I ended up getting back on track, and then it started to identify, why am I so unhappy?

Why do I just want to lay around and eat? And it really started to come out that people were just telling me who I was supposed to be and I ultimately was not happy being that person. It also wasn't really getting me anywhere. And so, I was supposed to get a promotion and I didn't. And so, I realized, why am I being everything you're telling me to be and it's not really getting me anywhere? And that was the start of the rebellion I would say. 

I was in banking for quite some time. The financial crisis hit in 2008, and so half of the branches where I was working were closed down. I ended up doing an internship for the Detroit Pistons and couldn't find a job for 10 months, which is an extremely long period of time when you've been working since you were 14. And so, I started to find odd and end jobs here and there. Ultimately, I landed a recruiting job, and then I was also coaching high school girls’ basketball. I think that reall...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Raleigh Green

Raleigh Green: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raleighgreenv/

Emerald Consulting: https://www.emerald-cp.com/

[00:00:00] Raleigh Green: If I was telling anybody, you got to start with yourself, you got to start with being real, and being honest, and you have to be happy. And you've got to have a smile on your face because nobody wants to deal with a dick. You’ve got to humble yourself because a lot of the times for you to build relationships, you have to get through a gatekeeper. And sometimes the gatekeeper is the toughest person to get through to get to the person that you want to really impress, or you want to do business with. 

I watched my father go into offices for five or six years and would walk in, sometimes with a meeting scheduled, sometimes without a meeting scheduled and would say, “I'm here to talk to the office manager. I want to do your office supplies”. And they'd be like, “Raleigh, we already told you we're using staples and we don't want to use you. We’re totally happy”. And he's like, “if anything comes up, just let me know. I'll come back next week”. And they were like, “no, no, no, don't come back next week,” and he never took no for an answer. And that was something that he really taught me early on is you can't take no, there is no such thing as no when you're selling yourself or selling a product – if you have the desire to talk to somebody or to meet somebody, then you have to become very creative in the way that you get to that person.

And a lot of times it was just persistence and not giving in to the word ‘no’.

Michael Moore: Welcome to The Climb Crossroads and Defining Moments. Today, we're joined by Raleigh Green, [00:02:00] founder and managing member of Emerald Consulting. Happy to have you here today.

Raleigh Green: Happy to be here. Thank you. 

Michael Moore: So, before we dive in in – because I've just got a lot of questions and Bob does too, with what we do for a living and our backgrounds, what you do we find incredibly interesting. Just tell us a little about you; where are you from, where you've been, where you're headed? 

Raleigh Green: Yeah, so born and raised here in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Bob Wierema: Great. I'm outnumbered again by design.

Raleigh Green: Born and raised here in Fort Worth. Went to Arlington Heights High School, went to the University of Texas on a track scholarship and came back to Fort Worth after four years of fun down at Texas, and actually finished my degree at TCU and then got married early on and thought I was mature and had the world by the balls and was ready to go conquer everything that was in front of me and after about 10 years, realized quickly that you don't have anything figured out and you're not mature and you better start figuring it out pretty quick. So, lived here in Fort Worth with my wife at the time, and ended up, unfortunately, getting a divorce. I have a beautiful boy from that marriage – he'll be nine in February. 

I moved after my divorce to Dallas and lived in Dallas for seven years. During that process, I put myself through business school and SMU and decided that it was time for a major change in every aspect of my life. And I met my current wife, my beautiful [00:04:00] bride as of July this year, in Dallas and moved her back to Fort Worth, which was a shocker for her, but she's a trooper and she's getting to love the community and love our neighborhood. We’re both entrepreneurs by trade; she just launched a business herself in March of 2020, she actually launched it two weeks before COVID hit and was in the process of starting her fundraising campaign, which was a very rough ride. And I had started Emerald Consulting a few years back, but really started picking things back up full-time with it. I would say in early 2018. So that's kind of where we are today. 

Michael Moore: On the theme of your wife – because Bob, Chris Powers, who we've had on the podcast and introduced us to Johnny, she was actually on his podcast. So, you sat in this room before – tell us a little bit more about the business and what she's got going on, because it's really neat. 

Raleigh Green: So, her name is Meagan. Megan Green. And she started a company called The Dowery. It's an online platform that connects local artisans from all over the country to grooms and brides that she created a wedding registry for.

So, she was also in a previous marriage and during her experience of registering for things, she found that things were very limited on what she could register for, and everybody went to the same big box retailers. And so, everyone for that year's home looked the same. They all had the same Pottery Barn or the same Bed, Bath, and Beyond or whatever it was. And she found [00:06:00] a hole in the market and said, “man, there's a ton of local artisans all over the country in the United States that only sell through their local retailers. And that's really their only channel. And these people aren't good businesspeople. They’re artists by nature, and so, they don't have the skillsets to push their products out onto some platform, a different platform than their local retailer”. So, she started doing a lot of research and we worked on her business plan for months on end. And we decided that now is the best time to dive in and try to tackle this 10,000-pound gorilla that's out there, and the business has been great. You can find her on www.dowery.com and it is not only a wedding registry gift site, but it's also just a standard platform that you can buy anything on. 

So yeah, it's been a rough year for fundraising for her business and for my business. But I feel like we finished the year pretty strong and she was actually able to raise a little over a quarter of a million dollars from friends and family, and we'll continue to raise capital this coming year. 

Bob Wierema: Well, I will definitely be sending this over to my fiancé here. We're hopefully getting married here in May.

Raleigh Green: There we go, congratulations. 

Bob Wierema: Yeah, we were supposed to get married last May and had the push and if she sticks around for another five months, this two-and-a-half-year engagement, we're going to get this deal done. I'll send it to her for sure. It's funny you say like that because I've talked to her and she's like, “yeah, well there's only like Crate and Barrel and West Elm and all the other ones” and whatever's kind of in style then is what everybody else [00:08:00] has. So that's exciting. I'll definitely send that over to her. That's great. 

Raleigh Green: It's a really cool concept and most guys aren't into it. We usually don't care what our wives pick and choose for what pottery we...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Brian Ferguson

Brian Ferguson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-ferguson-arena-labs/

Arena Labs Website

Brian Ferguson: You're at a level one trauma center in Washington, DC. We're in there on a Saturday night at one o'clock in the morning. This is typically when, because of people being out of bars et cetera, you get a lot of trauma. And one time there were two people in there screaming and another person moaning. Just hearing that as I was standing there, I thought ‘it's insane what this does to the human emotion and cortisol levels.’ 

And what's crazy is if you were to observe that and you think about this whole body of knowledge that's come out of the military in the last 15, 20 years about post-traumatic stress and about the implications of people who are in very high stressed emotional environments, either combat or otherwise, we've put a massive amount of resources into helping those people. And yet we ask these trauma nurses and ICU nurses and physicians to go home and have dinner with their families. And no one thinks twice about it because they're not deployed. 

So, we think about this as the environment is different. You might not be deploying overseas to Afghanistan or Iraq, but you are doing consequential, heavily emotional work that has a chronic element of stress. And when you look at the implications of chronic stress on human beings, that leads to higher levels of cortisol over time, not being able to focus, not being able to sleep. There's a second and third order, long-term impact that has. 

Michael Moore: Today on The Climb we are joined by Brian Ferguson, founder and CEO of Arena Labs.

I'm excited about this one. I don't know Brian as well as some of our other guests, but we were introduced towards the end of last year, both being Gen Next members and got a chance to get on the phone with them for about an hour. And I don't know, 30 seconds in, I thought, dang, dang, dang. We got to get this guy on the podcast. What an interesting background. 

He'll talk more about Arena Labs, but I think it's an interesting time to have him on because of the passion of what Arena Labs does, and the work that it's doing for our frontline [00:02:00] workers right now, which is so important.

Brian, welcome to The Climb. We're excited to have you. 

Brian Ferguson: Thanks fellas. I appreciate it. 

Bob Wierema: I can't believe he agreed to come on after talking with you for the only 30 minutes. I mean, that was some, you must have a lot of faith, right?

Brian Ferguson: Yeah. We actually need it. Well, I certainly do, but we should also give a shout out to our friend Janeel Alonzo and Michael Davidson. Michael's one of your previous guests and is one of my dear friends and been a huge part of my life. And then Janeel who works with Michael is who I think set this up. So super grateful to her.

Michael Moore: Yeah, Bob as they say down in Texas, ‘even the sun shines on a dog's ass every once in a while’, I was on that day. My bullshit was flowing, and we had a great conversation.

Brian Ferguson: Michael sound cooler in a Texas accent, by the way. If I said it, it wouldn't sound as cool. 

Michael Moore: We try. So, Brian, before we jump in, I got a little taste of this, but just give us the background. I mean, who is Brian? What shaped you? How have you gotten to where you are today?

Brian Ferguson: This is a random way to answer that question. But I have over the course of probably the last 20 years tried to refine an annual process where I just review the last year, think about the year ahead. And then I come back to what I call my life plan, which is really just my best efforts to aggregate everything I've learned in my life in the past and where I want to go in the future. The front of that document – I don't let myself go beyond one page – but the title of that first page is ‘who am I?’ And it's my best effort to get outside of a resume or  the way that we often introduce ourselves in these kinds of conversations to remind myself of who I am, but it’s interesting, I'm coming to you guys from Cleveland, Ohio. before we started recording, we were talking a bit about that, but I grew up in the Midwest, which I think at this chapter of life, because I'm [00:04:00] back here, I spent the last 20 years away from the Midwest living in Cleveland, Ohio where I think a lot of the things I value in life come out of having been raised in this blue collar community outside of Cleveland, Ohio. And I was super fortunate. I had this amazing upbringing and community;  my family and I grew up with the town that I grew up in.

When we moved there, there was just starting to be this push into the suburbs of Cleveland where we were, but I had this idyllic youth. Our house was right on woods and my brother and I grew up in the woods outside all the time. And then, my mom was a nurse, my dad worked in the energy business, and I just had this amazing youth in the sense of the neighbors, the community, my friends, and I was a product of a public school system. That was extraordinary. 

I think my mom being a nurse, I never appreciated how much that ideal of service was seeded in me from a young age and my brother and I both were always drawn to service in ways that just were natural to me. But now in retrospect, I think are more prominent.

And then, beyond growing up in that town, I went to college in Ohio and then I'm pretty fortunate to bounce around. I lived in Washington DC for a while. And the first part of my life was in public service, mainly in national security. So, defense and intelligence diplomacy – that realm.

And that was right after 9/11. So, I was an intern actually. I had a really crazy sequence of events. I ended up as an intern in the white house right after 9/11. And that was an insane way to see the world through the lens of ‘how do we think about the future of America after a consequential event like that?’

And I stayed in that realm for quite a bit, lived in London for grad school. And then later in life, I went into the military and spent seven years in the military. And that was all part of what I consider that chapter in the national security public service arena, and in the course of that I just increasingly had this desire to build something.

 [00:06:00] When I do any type of psychometric or character test, I tend to register high on creativity, autonomy, and I was really ready to leave the public service life and go build. And that led me to my current chapter, which is Arena Labs. But I think in all of that, the really important elements in my life, like any of us, the things that matter: I've got a daughter who's two years old now, so I'm experiencing life through her eyes, which is beyond rich, and Lindsey, my wife – we’ve actually known each other since sixth ...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Brendan Deely

Gabriel's Light: https://www.gabrielslight.org/
Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bdeely/
Banner Solutions: https://bannersolutions.com/

TheClimb_BrendanDeely

[00:00:00] Brendan Deely: Let me tell you a problem. You go from 2.6 billion to 1.1 billion in a year in sales. That's a problem. 

Bob Wierema: Wow. 

Brendan Deely: That was a problem. So, we had to go from 5,500 people to 2,100, close a hundred facilities, and just try to stop the cash burn. And so that was the business – fight or flight. I'm all in and it said online, the Dragon Slayer, you ever see that Teddy Roosevelt speech  about people just basically saying, “if I die, I'm going to die knowing that at least I was in the arena.” All these naysayer and bullshit sideliners who don't do anything. 

Bob Wierema: Welcome to The Climb: Crossroads and Defining Moments. Today, Brendan Deely joins Michael and myself for conversation about business, about his family, about some of his personal trials and tribulations and how he got through them.

Brendan's an amazing friend of mine, a mentor, and just a hell of a guy. You’re definitely going to enjoy this episode of The Climb. Thanks for joining us.

Brandon Deely, welcome to The Climb. We appreciate you joining Michael and me today. 

Brendan Deely: And to be here. 

Bob Wierema: You know, this is a fun one for me. Brendan, you and I started in working together through business and since, it’s turned into a personal relationship. That means a lot to me in a lot of different ways. We'll talk about that a little bit, but I think a good way to kind of kick things off is giving us the overview of who is Brendan Deely? 

Brendan Deely: Well, thanks Bob. It's been a hell of a relationship that we've built and continue to build. I'm glad to be here and tell you a little bit about me and maybe how I think about [00:02:00] things.

So, Brendan Deely, I'm a husband, and I'm a father to five first and foremost. I really liked building things, businesses, teams, to good outcomes. I don't have all the answers and I don't want to. And so, I think it's how do you leverage people? How do you deal with things truthfully? And I think I've learned over the years that it's just hit things head on and be real and there's always a way out, and to never, ever give up, I think I've found out over time that there's that fight or flight. I don't run. And I think I always want to win. I don't always win, but God damnit I go into everything wanting to kick ass and win. And so, there's just a mentality. I see people that just meander through their careers and  just incredibly boring for me. I think the only thing you'd do to wreck a business is do nothing. 

Michael Moore: Sounds like he's got a little Texas in him. 

Bob Wierema: I was hoping that we were going to be able to avoid the Texas comment, but it took all of about two minutes for it to come into the conversation from Michael. 

Michael Moore: Just born and bred, baby. 

Brendan Deely: I was born an army brat. I was an army captain for a couple of years. And then I've been in kind of building materials for 30 years almost. So, some of those toolkits have helped me kind of move through my career. 

Bob Wierema: When you're an army brat, Brendan, as you say, what does that mean? Were you guys traveling a lot when you were a kid, were you guys all over the place? Give maybe a little background there and growing up in that type of world? 

Brendan Deely: I was the youngest of six, and we're six and a half years apart, so good Irish stock. So [00:04:00] my dad did three tours in Vietnam. I didn't really know him until I was five. Didn't have that as a problem, but it just what it was. I was born in the U.S., moved to Germany, moved to Brazil, moved to Panama, left the U.S. when I was three, came back when I was 12, 13. I don't watch a lot on TV because of that, because it was never in my language.

And I think if you're in an environment where you move a lot as a kid, I think you're going to go two paths: introvert or extrovert. And so, I've always found it pretty easy to talk to people. I've always found when you moved into a new place, you meet the dorks first because they're starving for friends, and then you move it forward. But I mean, I didn't know any different, but I think that's helped me. When I went to college, it was kind of a non-event, but the people that lived in their same town just went crazy, I had my versions of fun too, but it's a good background. And I think it gives me a perspective that most Americans don't realize that there's other countries that have far worse issues, and we have two sons adopted from Ethiopia. So, it's just the whole perspective is healthy. I think a lot of times people see poor countries and they're frankly, some of the happiest people I've met because they don't have anything but faith and  food. We can break an ATM card and everybody's triggered for a day.

So, it's just keeping balanced, I think is good. 

Bob Wierema: You mentioned you're one of six. So where is everybody today? And were you close brothers and sisters? You mentioned some people down in Texas.

Brendan Deely: My mother's still alive. She's 86 in Philly. My twin sister is in Philadelphia as well. And then I have a sister and a brother in the Dallas area. And then two brothers outside of DC in Virginia. So, we've gone West [00:06:00] as it were, but still very close. And it was kind of cool with you’re a kid when you move in – I had three older brothers. I'm six foot. They're both six foot four. So, we came in, we took over the neighborhood. We had every kind of coverage. And if you want to bug me, I got some big guys behind me. It was pretty cool, but it was really close now. But one of the things that's come out of this whole COVID gong show is we do a weekly zoom calls with my mother, with all of us. So, it's how you do immediate bingo with my wife's mother and family.

We never did that, so we're talking a hell of a lot more than and seeing each other more than we ever did. So, there's always good that comes out of bad. 

Bob Wierema: And then you mentioned you did some time in the army, right? Was that after college? Before? Where did that fall in that spectrum?

Brendan Deely: It was after college. I went to ROTC. I had a four-year scholarship and I went to basic training when I was 18. So, I was in the reserves while I was in school, but I got commissioned in 1988 and I'm an infantry officer and – at 22 years old – here's 40 guys for ...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Chet Scott

Built To Lead: https://builttolead.com/

Chet Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chet-scott-0440559/

[00:00:00] Chet Scott: I would tell them prepare like their life depends on whatever it is that they want next. Prepare now as if they're doing it now and it's really hard and you've got to really love it. And you're going to have to suck it up for a period of time. And life won't be this comfortable while you transition. 

Bob Wierema: Welcome to The Climb crossroads and defining moments today. Mike and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chet Scott, the founder and builder at Built to Lead. This was definitely a special conversation for me because Chet is not only my leadership coach and builder, but he's also a good friend. Over my years in working with Chet, he's transformed not only my work life, but my personal life. And like I said, become a good friend, and by far, one of my best truth tellers. Built to Lead’s goal is simple: to awaken, challenge, and transform individuals, teams, and leaders. Enjoy today's podcast, and thank you for joining us.

Chet, welcome to The Climb. We appreciate you joining us today. 

Chet Scott: It's good to be with you. 

Bob Wierema: So we'll start off with one of our first questions that we like to ask some of our guests, as we talk about some of your passions in your life. When we talk about passion, say number one and two, a lot of people respond with their family and their friends is their passions. If you go to your third and fourth passions, what would you say those are? 

Chet Scott: I don't know if it would be third or fourth. My work and life are my passions. And so, I don't really think about a one, two, three, or four. I don't do anything [00:02:00] that I don't want to do. So, when somebody asks me, “what are your priorities?” I'm like, “I don't really have any”, “what are your passions?” Well, just hang out with me. You'll see. I'm passionate about everything I do. So, this morning I was working on the driveway where I saw a young client of mine recently epically fail. I was out to a bunch of old 60-year-olds and we were purposely failing building our course and trash talking.

One guy threatened to hit me, which was great. 

Bob Wierema: Now I've been out on that driveway for the workouts. I don't think I threatened to hit you. Did I?

Chet Scott: No, you didn’t. You were crumbling too quickly. 

Bob Wierema: I had no straight threat! 

Chet Scott: But I'm passionate about that. And then I had a practice at 7.15am right after with a business owner that's struggling and I'm passionate about helping him. And I just had a team practice with another team. And then I spent a little time having a meal with my bride and I'm passionate about that. And now here I am with you folks and I wouldn't be here if I didn't want to be. 

Bob Wierema: To give everybody a little background, maybe start with kind of where you came from to your start of your career and then get to where you are now today, and then we'll definitely dive in a lot deeper to where you are today. 

Chet Scott: How far back do you want me to go? 

Bob Wierema: As far as it helps to tell the story. I know the story. So, enlighten our listeners. 

Michael Moore: Start from the beginning. 

Chet Scott: Well, so I grew up in Kansas, born and raised. Probably the start of this journey was leaving high school, and I remember I went to a private school in Indiana. I didn't know anybody. All my buddies were going to [00:04:00] KU I was going to go to KU and play golf. Last minute, I decided to take a flyer and go to this little private Christian school called Taylor University in Indiana. I just thought I needed to get a new circle of friends even though I had great friends. I just felt like I needed to do something a bit different. And so, I did not knowing a soul. And before I left, I remember my mom sitting me down and telling me – she was a really great role model – she said, “Chester, go out there, have fun, meet new friends, learn some new stuff. And just remember you're not coming back”, and I knew she meant it. There was no opportunity to come back. So, it was a great defining moment that I was going out and I was out on my own, and I grew up. And so, when I played golf for four years, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just knew I loved competing. And so, IBM was the place to work as far as technology.

I thought “I want to compete in the technology field because that sounds interesting to me”, even though I wasn't technical, it just seemed like the future. And so, I interviewed, and I shockingly got the job. And after a year they introduced this thing called the PC, 1982, and I was joining them to sell them big iron, the big gear. Millions of dollars. It's computers. That's where all the money was and where all the fun was. The PC was like a $1,200 consumer product and they told all us newbies that we were going to go work in a retail store, selling those as part of our training. I didn't want to do it. 

Then they wanted to move us. I've been moved. They asked us to move. I didn’t want to do that. They said, “well, if you don't want to do that and you don't want to move, you're fired”. And so, [00:06:00] my mom gave me a wakeup call in the end of high school. My first job, one year in, I had my first wakeup call from our first employer. It didn't matter what I wanted to do. They had a plan to either buy into the plan or you’re fired. And so, I joined this startup called the CompuServe who I'd been interviewing with because I had kind of smelled this coming from IBM. And the next day I started there, and I'd spent 20 years living and working with a bunch of young people, and we basically grew up together. We sold electronic mail before there was such a thing, we sold networking of computers together before there was such a thing.

I remember going into Wendy's. My first big client was Wendy's. I sold them electronic mail. They thought it was the best thing since the cheeseburger. I mean, they had never sent an electronic mail message until we walked in there and showed them how to do it, got their executives doing it. Then Dave Thomas wanted to know if he could get sales data from every store every day. We’re like, “yeah, you can do that, we'll show you how”. And so, we were selling technology, but we were solving problems really. And I enjoyed that. So, I learned quickly that you don't have to sell – I didn't sell anything really. I just went in and competed by simply telling the truth, working hard for the client, and delivering them something of value.

And I remember Red Roof Inns was my second, really big client. They were also in town here and I had been calling on a company called Atria L...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Michael Davidson

Gen Next: https://gennext.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpdavidson/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mpdavidson

Michael Davidson: From the founding of our country up to the eighties was like conflict after conflict and adversity after adversity. Like we really had to fight to be free over and over and over again. And first in the sixties, and then in the nineties, you just started to see the lack of pressure combined with the complacency that comes with comfort wealth; you started to see a deterioration of these institutions that drew people together and then technology through fire at them. And threw gas on. 

And so now I think you're seeing this sort of collective temper tantrum, and that's happening today. And so, it's a time for  renewal, which is a good opportunity, but we just don't take a little too kata. When you're at sort of like lowest common denominator, That person's identity is associated with their politics.

And that's not true. Human beings are complicated. 

Michael Moore: Bob and I are joined this afternoon on The Climb with a new really good friend of mine, Michael Davidson. I got the honor to meet him this summer up in Telluride. And it has been a whirlwind journey since getting to know him, getting to know Gen next, becoming a member of Gen Next.

And we'll talk all about the mission of Gen Next around education, economic growth and global security. Bob and I are really excited. Michael's one of the most dynamic individuals I've ever met. So, we're going to dive into a lot of different categories and life and pursuits and happiness.

Listen to the client.

Michael Moore: We’re just thrilled to have you today, Michael. Welcome. 

Michael Davidson: I love it. Thank you. Thank you. 

Bob Wierema: You got a lot to live up to with that intro there. 

[00:02:00] Michael Davidson: No pressure. ‘Pursuits’? I mean, you end with, ‘pursuits and happiness’… 

Michael Moore: We’re gonna set the bar high. 

Michael Davidson: Right. America’s on the line! 

Michael Moore: Then just go higher before we jump into your passions around Gen Next, we want to know about you. So just give us a little background where you grew up, what defines you along the way and got you to where you are today? 

Michael Davidson: Now I thought I was going to get away. I’ll give you a simple, quick bio. 

Michael Moore: No softballs here. 

Michael Davidson: Let me give you your current state.

My wife and I are living in Southern California. She's from North Carolina. I lived in Texas for a while, but I split between California and Texas. I always felt like I was the bumper sticker. I wasn't born in Texas, but I got there as fast as I could. 

So, we have four kids. I have a son who's almost 11 and I have two six-year-old girls and I have a one-year-old, baby boy. And so, I think one of the biggest things about me is I've always wanted to be a dad. I've always wanted to be an awesome dad. One of the greatest purposes in life is if you care about the world, care about doing good things, it's just an incredible opportunity.

So, I'm very blessed. And then before that though, I grew up doing wrestling, judo, pretty competitively. I have five siblings. I moved to Texas sort of abruptly when I was 16-years-old. And then I got to work and live on a ranch. And so, in Texas, I did a lot with draft horses, almost everything you can imagine to a horse I did. And that was just awesome. I mean, super awesome. That was a tough time in my life, or it was at least leading up to it, and just working with your hands and working with the animals – that was incredible. And I had some great experiences in Texas. I got into ranching. I wrestled at Arlington High School for a year, transferred to Richland High School and I made a massive turn, did some theater. And then I got really into theater. I was [00:04:00] ranching, wrestler, judo, jock, martial arts, and then this theater there. I got exposed to people I never thought I would have been exposed to in my time in Texas, just all across the board. 

Bob Wierema: Where do you fall in the lineup of five siblings?

Michael Davidson: I'm number four. 

Bob Wierema: Okay. So wrestling and judo was probably really important in the lineup of the kids, right?

Michael Davidson: It was a dominant role in the family growing up. It was very, very dominant. I thought for the bulk of my life, that was all I was going to do for my entire life. I never even considered anything different, to be honest. 

It goes, girl, boy, girl, me, and then girl, boy. I think from the oldest to youngest, about 20 years apart and it was super cool. I'm very blessed. I have got awesome siblings. but what was interesting for me is for a long time, I was the youngest and I guess I take on some of those qualities. And then I was the middle-ish for a period of time. Then I was like the oldest of the youngest, especially when we moved to Texas. I moved with my mom and little brother and sister, and so, took on sort of a large role in my younger siblings’ life at that time. So, getting to experience – I think if you're into family of origin stuff, there were a lot of ups and downs, but I'm super blessed because I experienced so much of family of origin from so many different angles.

I guess one of the things is after getting into theater, and then I did a program at TCC that was in the Tarrant County College in the humanities and just the power of ideas and leadership and the role that a person could play in other people's lives and in bending history, it just captivated me. And [00:06:00] so that became a real seed that was planted or maybe watered. When I was wrestling, I'd have this experience in Russia. I got to go compete in Russia. I went twice. We went to Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan – and we went before and after following the birth of the Soviet Union. And so being exposed at a young age to people who had no freedom, no idea of freedom, and here I am homesick and obsessed with this idea of going to McDonald's and Red Square. And this is something that was just totally removed from their reality. That really blew my mind. And then I was wearing some Russian warmups and I'm in the Red Square walking around, and this military officer was asking, he says ‘Americanski’ and he's asking something in Russian. I asked the translator, ‘what's he asking me?’ And he says, ‘he wants to know if you're an American’. I'm wearing my Russian digs. How did he know? And he says, ‘Americans get t...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Eric Hyman

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-hyman-8861658/

Eric, welcome to The Climb. We appreciate you joining us today.

Well, thank you for having me. 

And this is a fond one for Michael and I in that we have a great relationship with your son. Ryan is a partner of ours and a close and dear friend of ours. So, we’re looking forward to the conversation. We won’t spend too much time talking about Ryan because there’s probably not enough time here to record all the issues with him, but we appreciate the time and have heard and learned a lot about you. I think maybe for the audience, just start with, what’s the background, where’d you come from and then, walk us through today and Michael and I’ll just bother you and interject with some questions.

Sure. I’d be glad to give you a little bit of a background. I was in college athletics for 40 some years and as an athletic director for 28 of those 40 some years. But anyway, prior to that, I lived all over the country. My dad was in the service and I was recruited NAF out of Northern Virginia and went to the University of North Carolina as a football player and I was there until I graduated.

And then I started from a university and I got my master’s degree. At one time I wanted to be a superintendent of school systems, so I’ve got my administrative master’s in administrative education. And then while there I coached football and then I coached for women’s basketball with my wife on the college level, and so one thing led to another. So, I ended up coaching football for nine years, got my degree, and then was a full-time coach. Very fortunate, wonderful experience for me. Then I went into administration. For a couple of years, I worked with the individual that was going to be the President of the one athletic directors’ association. I worked with him at Furman for two years. He was AD and then I became – at the ripe old age of 33 – an athletic director. I learned what to do and what not to do. That’s what I always say to young people. Life is full of experiences for success and people learn from them. 

So, I learned a lot, I made a lot of mistakes and I learned from those mistakes. And then I went to NC state and worked there for five years as the number two person, and then AD at Miami of Ohio and the athletic director at TCU, where I was fortunate to hire Gary Patterson, but I was also fortunate to hire a guy named Jim Schlossnagle who is a baseball coach. 

So, then I went to South Carolina as the AD ­– I was the AD at TCU for seven years, South Carolina for seven years, and then I went to A&M and I was athletic director there for about four years. So that’s been my professional path. I’ve done a lot of things, have been associated with a lot of people. I’ve had a wonderful, wonderful life, wonderful professional experience. Has it been easy? No. It has been challenging, obviously, because from a political standpoint and just the changes that are going on in college athletics, not only when I started but today. I feel that’s probably the most challenging time being an athletic director ­­– today, because of what’s taking place. 

To a certain extent I’m glad I’m not AD anymore. I can sit back and armchair quarterback, ‘why didn’t you do this? What did you do that?’ I feel for the athletic directors today. So anyway, that gives you a little snapshot of my professional career. That’s a very Reader’s Digest, condensed version.

And Eric, are you still consulting?

Well, I was consulting until COVID. Then it came to a dead stop. If you’ve seen what’s taken place in college athletics and obviously having to deal with the budget issues they’re having to deal with is a major, major challenge. So, there’s not a lot of financial flexibility to hire consultants and those kinds of things. 

Being a consultant was very enjoyable. I enjoyed doing it, I had a lot of fun doing it, but then again, I could walk away from a situation. I did this in a couple of places as walk in, and the problems are somebody else’s problems after I was finished. So, in answer to your question, no, that’s really backed off an awful lot and rightfully so, based on the economic challenges that college athletics are faced with. 

I want to go back. I do want to come back to some of that stuff. One of the things you had mentioned earlier was, did you say you coached with your wife?

Yeah, it was a really interesting story. When I was getting my masters at Furman, back in those days as a DA you made, you’re going to laugh when I say this, $1,800, and then I was a Dean, we’ll make it $3,600 a year, and that was $5400. I felt like I was rich. My wife was a college professor. Well anyway, she played college basketball and they didn’t have women’s basketball. They didn’t have any women’s sports. So some of the girls came to my wife and started up the team and she came to me about it and asked me, you know, I played high school basketball and I’ve been involved in coaching and those kinds of things, and she asked me if I would be willing to help her out. I said, ‘yeah, I would be glad to’. 

And we started a team from scratch, but I said ‘you deal when you deal with women, you deal with the socialization, the relationships with people – I’ll do the coaching’. So I read Bobby Knight’s book Help Side Ball Side and I read Morgan Wooten – who is a very famous basketball coach at the math of high school and Washington DC called The Red Book. I read those two books, and so we started the team from scratch and the last year, and this is back in the AAW days, which is before the incident of late days for women’s athletics, we went all the way to the final four. In the third year of the program, we finished seventh and it’s a little bit different. They brought 16 teams from around the country and it was in Temple, Texas. It was an interesting story. 

The school didn’t have money towards women’s athletics, so we had to do a lot of the fundraising ourselves. So, we drove two station wagons from Greenville, South Carolina to Temple, Texas which is a long way. We had two station wagons with a full women’s basketball team and a manager, and we just packed everybody in. So we got to the Mississippi River, and one of our players had a panic attack. She didn’t want to go over the river and she was a starter. I said, ‘Debbie, you’re going over to the river. We didn’t work this hard to go this far and for you to not’. And she said, ‘well I want to go back home’. And that was Travelers Rest, South Carolina. She says, ‘well I’m going back home. I’m going to walk home if I have to.’ And here we are at the Mississippi River, hundreds of miles away from Travelers Rest. And I said, ‘gosh, what are we going to do?’ I’m panicked because not only is she panicked, but she panicked me. 

So what we ended up doing was my wife and I got together and we put her down on the floorboard and put the wint...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Keaton Turner

Website: https://turnermining.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keaton-turner-b400a34b/

[00:00:00] Keaton Turner: Behavior is a super tough thing to change as businesses grow, right? Because when you're small, you're scrappy, you fight for every dollar you get big and you make some money people first spending money like crazy, right. Everyone's got platinum Amex cards and they're, you know, there's just behaviors, really tough to change.

And so I'm, I'm looking at like, okay, I'm coming in as an outsider. What are the things I'm changing? It was just clear. It was super clear. And, and when it's that clear that that are some people changes that need to be made, regardless of if three of your buddies are not like. We're not running a nonprofit, like we're not running a church mission.

Like this is a business and I have stakeholders that I'm going to make a return for. I'm going to make a return for myself. I'm going to treat the clients the way they should be treated. And. If there are people that are in the way of that, as much as you love them, you just got to make those tough changes 

Bob Wierema: today on the climb.

Michael and I had the pleasure of sitting down with Eaton Turner. Keaton is the founder and CEO of Turner mining and is, is out there to make mining sexy. Again, we had an. Awesome conversation with Keaton. He has an absolutely infectious personality and unbelievable passion, not just for life, but for his business.

He's gracious, humble. And I think you guys are gonna really enjoy this one. You're going to hear it throughout the, uh, the podcast, but Keaton is definitely on fire. Thanks for joining us today.

welcome to the climb. We appreciate you joining Michael and I today. 

Keaton Turner: Absolutely guys, thanks so much for having me looking forward to it 

Bob Wierema: is we reached out to you. We actually reached out to Tracy. And she connected with us phrase sees what, she's your head of [00:02:00] marketing, 

Keaton Turner: correct? Yep. Yep. She's our chief marketing officer and she's phenomenal.

It's been great. 

Bob Wierema: And you know, the reason the emphasis behind us reaching out was, you know, we've seen amazing social media presence from you guys on LinkedIn, Instagram, and a few others and said, man, we got to talk to this guy. He's doing some really cool things. So looking forward to, we want to dive into that a little bit more, but maybe first let's start with.

You know, who is, who is Keaton Turner, and maybe bring us back a little bit and bring us up to when Turner mining started and then we can kind of go down that path. 

Keaton Turner: Yeah, absolutely. So when you ask, who is Tina Turner? I tell everyone I'm a normal guy. I'm just like you guys. You know, I love football. I love drinking beers with buddies and hunting and fishing and all that.

I happen to be a guy that, you know, when I was 27, I realized how short life is. I would just woke up one day getting close to my 27th birthday. And I'm like, man, you know, the stats show my life's a third of the way over. So I took the leap and I was with a family company at the time. And we can get into that later.

But, you know, I took the leap of faith to start a company and start a business. I had a couple of small young kids, but you know, I talked to people all the time about. Life is short. And I just don't. I just had a conversation with a kid the other day. I just don't think people really grasp, you know, how short it is and how much you're going to regret, not doing crazy things.

So I do crazy things. I was in a hot air balloon the other day. That was like, I took my wife out for her 31st birthday and I just, I love living life up. You know, I know this has been a weird year with COVID and everyone's. You know, emotionally razzled I get that, especially the stay-at-home moms, but man, I just like enjoying life.

I like living it up. 

Bob Wierema: That's awesome. 

Well, 

I've never been in a hot air balloon, but you're talking to the right guys. When you talk about hunting and fishing [00:04:00] and drinking beer in college football. So, you know, this will be a good conversation, 

Michael Moore: checking all the boxes, Keaton and all the boxes 

Keaton Turner: last week was some clients, uh, night vision machine began is it was like, These are the right kind of clients.

If you can take them shooting hogs. 

Bob Wierema: Well, I'm sure we can. We can talk after this. We can get that all set up with Michael Dan outside of Fort worth. Absolutely. 

Michael Moore: No, just keep coming back and eradicating this problem that we have down here, because I mean, the hogs are not going 

Keaton Turner: away. We made a, we made a small dent in that last weekend.

Michael Moore: Thank you. 

Bob Wierema: Well, and so did you, you're Indiana 

Keaton Turner: born and raised. Born and raised Bloomington Indiana. 

Bob Wierema: Okay. So you who's here then? No, you went to Indiana state. I saw it, right? 

Keaton Turner: Yeah. You know, it's funny everyone that grows up in Bloomington, most of the people either go to ICU or they're the they're, they're like the weird theater kids that move off to LA and do the whole loss, you know, Los Angeles thing.

So I, I was one that was kind of in between. I wanted to get a little bit further away from home. Uh, my dad played basketball, Indiana state with Larry Bird way back in. Wow. Yeah. And, and you fortunately, or unfortunately they didn't have any construction programs back then. And so Indiana state did, I went to Indiana state.

It was an awesome, had a blast there. 

Bob Wierema: What drew you to the construction space? 

Keaton Turner: Uh, like I said, I'm one of those guys. I'm like, I'm a guys guy. Like I love being outside. I'm not that smart of a guy. I'm not a numbers guy. I just kind of wing it. I'm not super organized. I think of something and I want to go do it and I want to see some results.

And so I've, I really wanted to be in commercial construction. You know, I wanted to build buildings. Uh, I thought real estate was cool. I worked for a real estate mogul, so to speak in high school, a big developer. And I thought that was really cool. And then I, [00:06:00] you know, I got to, I got to college and went through a bunch of estimating classes on how to cost projects, how to manage projects.

I did some business stuff. And so,...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Chris Lee

Website: https://www.rtcpartners.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-lee-97816344/

[00:00:00] Chris Lee: There can be multiple approaches to accomplish the same goal. And you can also learn a lot from people from different backgrounds and experiences, because it's so easy to get caught up in, Oh, this is what happened to me. This was my experience. Everyone else must be treating something the same way. And even when you know, that's not true and there's always the almost need to, you know, fight that projection.

Oh, because I would behave like this in a certain situation. That must be that, you know, whether it was you, the one going back to the simple things in Italy, like not asking for substitutions and the plates, or, you know, it might take a little longer for the food to come out, or it's not for you to start eating when the food's there because it's hot.

And instead of waiting for it to be there for everyone, but just all these kinds of different nuances and the way people are addressed, the way you treat other people. That really, I think have been helpful for me in understanding different perspectives. 

Robert Wierema: Welcome to the climb this afternoon. We have the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Lee from Round Table capital.

Chris is a friend of mine that I've gotten to know over the years. And, Michael and I are really excited to have the conversation with Chris today. He shares a lot of good things that are going on, not just in a business climate, but also some of the challenges we're facing across the country these days.

And Chris is just a fantastic guy that has. It's an absolute love for what he does a real love for life. And, it's just such a good conversation and so great to have Chris join us today, Chris. Thanks for joining us.

Robert Wierema: good afternoon, Chris. Thanks for joining Michael and I on the climb today. Well, this is a, this is [00:02:00] a fun one for me, Chris and I have gotten to know each other over the last number of years of doing work together. met through some God. I don't even remember how we met probably five, six years ago now, but, our paths have crossed many times.

We've become good friends over the last couple of years and you know, so this'll be a good conversation. And, you know, Chris, I think maybe just for everybody to get started, tell us a little bit about who Chris Lee is, where you're from and, and we'll just kind of direct the conversation from there.

Chris Lee: All right. Sounds good. Thanks Bob. I grew up in Southern California, originally outside of the San Diego area where I was raised by my single mom, but also fortunately lucky enough to live with my aunt and uncle at the time as well. So those were the early years growing up in Southern California. Great family background in that regard, but never really had the chance to travel much and really get out of Cal.

So one of the things that I always wanted to do was explore, right? 

Robert Wierema: We know you like to do that. 

Chris Lee: Yeah, definitely. And so other than well, Las Vegas, of course, because that was easy drive going off to college was really my first time outside of California. And ended up going to Harvard and Cambridge first exposure to the East coast, first of all, exposure to the winter and the snow and the jacket, but really loved the experience.

And one of the best parts about it was, you know, at that time I was studying history and history of art architecture. No two things I thought were really interesting. And so I had the opportunity to do my junior year abroad. the first semester grown and the second semester in Paris, that was my first, I was a country.

It was really a life changing experience. I had the opportunity to live with a bunch of Italian guys in Italy and really exposed to the country. And then, you know, Paris was great as well. And so the number since that really established her love for travel, and then, you know, senior year of college rolls around looking at kind of the [00:04:00] options that are out there for art historians, and that really jumped to mind.

So decided to go straight through to law school. Any vote in full disclosure, that was without really fully understanding what it entail. I thought I wanted to be able to put a Gator be in the courtroom and much of that was based on, you know, but I had seen on TV, not very many people in my family had professional careers and that sense.

And so I was kind of on that law school path. Got to law school realized litigation was not for me, just a bit too adversarial, not the Courtney drama that I was kind of expected. And so after doing it first internship to go the MMA route, which I really enjoyed. I had a great mentor at Melvin when I do make somebody's internship there and really liked the aspects of M and a, and kind of putting a deal together.

And just because there's so many ways to look at it, is it a bit adversarial? Yes, but it's not a zero sum game. You know, sometimes it's about maximizing the pie as it will be say. So you're making the circle bigger for everyone. 

Robert Wierema: Chris, let me, let me interrupt there because, so with Harvard, you didn't, did you study business at all while you were at Harvard?

Chris Lee: no. There's a couple of classes here and there. You know, the Harvard at that time, the undergraduate curriculum was pretty interesting. So I believe it was, you know, 16 courses you had to take half of them would be in your major. But then the other half had to be in the areas that were furthest removed from your major.

Oh, interesting. Because I was doing, you know, modern architecture history. The other classes I took were introduction to investments, biological sciences, and some other aspects like that to try to get the full well rounded picture. 

Robert Wierema: Yeah, no, I just wonder, cause like, if you think about a [00:06:00] lot of the people in your business, right?

A lot of them go back and do that traditional track of business school or in school study business, come out, do the analyst role. I was banking on going back to school and then, I mean, that's just a very different path. So it's, I think an interesting one. 

Chris Lee: Right. And I actually found it really helpful in, you know, throughout my career because a lot of times when people think of.

You know, history, they're just thinking, Oh, you're reading a book and memorizing a lot of facts and regurgitating it, or same thing with a, you know, a painting. You're just taking a look at it and describing what it looks like when really what you're doing is you're trying to construct your own historical narrative about what happened.

Right. If you're looking at, you know, the fall of Constantinople, You're reading so many primary sources of different accounts and actually trying to f...

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Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
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Connect with David Crombie

https://nineenergyservice.com/about/our-leadership

https://www.linkedin.com/company/nine-energy-service/

[00:00:00] David Crombie: I'll never forget. I'll mention, there were some guys, I went over to some friends of mine. I said, Hey, you know, we got all these, well, I said, I'm just a nervous wreck. You know, we've got at the time, 18 cement pumps out and I laid down at night and I don't know what's going to happen. They said, well, your problem is you need to think about how much money you're making, not what's going to happen.

Michael Moore: On today's episode of the climb. Bob and I are joined by my good friend, David Crombie, chief operating officer of nine energy from humble beginnings in Jacksboro, Texas to the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. He has definitely lived the climb. His wife used one word to describe him. And that was devoted.

Listen to The Climb,

David Crombie, welcome to The Climb. 

David Crombie: How are you? Thanks for having me, 

Michael Moore: Bob and I are super excited about this one as, as we launched this thing and we talk about crossroads in defining moments. I've gotten the tag along in your career, in the oil field services industry, and there's no better climb. And so, um, I'm going to go ahead and throw this out there.

I got on the phone with Cara this morning. Cara is not only one of the most beautiful women you've ever seen in your life. She's put up with his shit since first grade they met in Jacksboro, Texas. 

Bob Wierema: So this is going to be, this is going to be good. I like it. 

But before we dive into that, Crombie just, we're all kind of scratching our heads. Right. I [00:02:00] mean, at the same time COVID was hitting. We get negative oil prices, which still I have and figured out the math on that, but I'm not very smart or just tell us in the industry, like, what's the sentiment what's going on?

Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Does wall street come back around? What are we looking at? 

David Crombie: Well, what I would say is, from my standpoint, the way I view it as there's two problems, I mean, Oh, you know, we, we get very good at what we do and we, we have too much oil and that's, that's one problem. And then the Covid is another problem.

That's separate from that. And so I think when we come out of COVID, we still have an old oil and gas problem. That's not solved. And it's to me, you know, I don't want to be negative, but I think it's a three, three year deal three to four years or something like that before it turns around. And it's just all supply and demand and that's, that's kind of where we're at, but I think there's some that can blame more on COVID.

But to me, it's just a supply and demand situation. And I think that that's, that's where we're at. 

Michael Moore: And so really that's a, that's a global issue. I mean, until we can figure out independence. 

David Crombie: Yes. 

Michael Moore: And so having been overseas, we'll get into that Saudi Arabia. I mean, give us, uh, your, your global perspective on that too.

David Crombie: Well, I mean, I think those guys, their economy depends solely on that. And they're going to, they're going to do whatever they can to make that be in their favor. The United States has gotten so good at what they do in the, in these shell plays that I think that basically, you know, is not what they counted on.

And so I think they're doing things to make it back in their favor, every chance they get. So until it, there just has to be a correction in general, in the whole one gas industry, until there is it's going to stay the way it is. 

Michael Moore: And so when you think about Saudi Arabia, you think about Russia, you think about Venezuela, and then you think about the United States.

Like I'm not going to say when, but how do we, how do we change the game a little bit? [00:04:00] Because we seem to repeat. This supply demand problem on a, not necessarily every five years. Like you can't plug it like that, but it's, it's a cycle that we seem to not always be able to figure out. 

David Crombie: Yeah. But what I would say now is you, is the shell plays have changed that again to where.

Now it's a matter of turning on the tap or turn it off. So until, you know, I don't think Saudi Arabia is necessarily going to run out of oil anytime soon or Russia, but I don't think that Saudi Arabia has what they. Claim they have anymore. And I think that, uh, as soon as it starts to turn around a little bit, we're going to get, we're going to get right back after to start adding rigs.

And then, you know, here you go, the problem starts to come in the next few years and it's just a matter, but if supply demand comes back and we can, we can balance that better, which I believe there's a happy medium. 

Michael Moore: So as, as COO of nine energy vertically integrated oil field services company, what divisions have surprised you in the way that they've done in all of this and what divisions are suffering because of this?

David Crombie: Well, surprisingly my old company that, you know, mine and Cody and Cole's old company, uh, depends on drilling a hundred percent and it has, it has survived probably the best of any of them right now. Uh, and that's very surprising to me, but we also are in a class there that we're competing with the Halliburton’s of the world and people like that.

So I think that. While it's surprising. I think that as, as what, we've lost a lot of competitors that were not very good. And when it comes back, we're going to be in a better shape, but there's really nothing. There's no rhyme or reason as to what's going on from my competitive landscape, because it's just, you don't know who's going to the next private equity is going to put money in this company and that company is supposed to go broke.

And then all of a sudden they have another. They get another laugh [00:06:00] line and here where they go and eat an anticipate they were going to be in the competitive landscape anymore. And so it's just not what you expected. So it's basically, it's, it's very hard to figure out, I would say private equity. Keeps pumping money in different different service lines.

But at the same time, there's gotta be an end to that at some point where there's a moment where they just quit doing that. 

Michael Moore: You 

Bob Wierema: mentioned private equity. I know there's been a lot of involvement in the industry there lately. How is that? How do you think that's affected the industry in general? 

David Crombie: In some cases, I don't think it's good because there's companies that.

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Greg Gordon and Richie Greth

Website: https://www.gordonhighlander.com/
Greg Gordon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-gordon-aa55945/
Richie Greth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-greth-992b9a3/

[00:00:00] Greg Gordon: I felt the temptation to make kind of a monolithic statement. I just feel like I'm trying to like, be right about my statement and put it in a way that it works, you know? And I'm like, Oh wait, this is just, this is just really complicated. Brian Thompson is one of my project managers. He's the guy that I feel.

Fortunate to get to work with he's wise and kind he's a deep spiritually. And so instead of making a statement, we just had a conversation and I want to grow. I feel like. I have biases and I don't really know where they are and sometimes I don't even want to see him. And when they're revealed, they're usually pretty ugly and I try to cover them up with the good deeds I do.

Brian has just made it real safe for me to kind of open up. Yeah, we just had a wonderful conversation. I know that, I shared with him first, you know, I, I went in this whole thing, got started and it was years ago. I just, I just felt like all lives mattered. You know, that, that was part of my calling, but I just didn't really understand the context and what you mean.

It was being shared and it had to be revealed to me. I had to learn. But it took me kind of realizing that I didn't get something about it. And I wanted to avoid the temptation of being right about my opinion. And I just was actively seeking and asking 

Michael Moore: on this episode of the climb, we tell the story of Gordon Highlander, which has become the largest industrial finish out contractor in the metroplex.

We're joined by Greg Gordon and Richard Greth. 

Two really good friends of mine. 

This episode goes deep. We laugh a lot. We talk about golf, family, politics. This is one you're going to listen to more than once. Enjoy the climb.

[00:02:00] welcome to the climb. I'm your cohost, Michael Moore joined by my Partner in crime, Bob Wierema and we couldn't be more excited today. You're going to get two for the price of one. As we've got two really good friends of mine, great business minds, and Greg Gordon and Richard Greth. Richie and I have known each other since 1995.

When I was on my way up to the university of Colorado, I stopped off in Lubbock. And he was my best friend from high school, his roommate. And it's been a unbelievable friendship since then. And then through Richie, I got to meet Greg Gordon, founder of Gordon Highlander. And so gentlemen, thank you for joining us, Bob.

Thanks for coming back from Mexico for this and with that, Greg, I'll turn it over to you. Give us a little background on yourself and then Richie, you can follow him. 

Greg Gordon: I think just the quick disclaimer for the audience. you know, when, when, when guys like us know each other this well, there's, there's just going to be a lot of inside jokes, probably that people won't get. but, happy to be here. Thanks for the wonderful introduction. You guys, Gordon Highlander is a commercial construction company. We started in 2007 with a passion for serving other people and a commitment to excellence. And so I am humbled to be a founder and leader. And, we have had a lot of success in growing our business and, and I'm sure we will get to talk about that a little bit more in the, in the webinar, or, Podcast, what are we calling it? 

Bob Wierema: Podcast, too many webinars these days. 

Richie Greth: Yeah. 

Greg Gordon: What's the future state of the office. 

Bob Wierema: Yeah, exactly. [00:04:00] Richard. 

Richie Greth: Yes. Well, my name is Richard Greth and, yeah, I'm, I'm very fortunate to know Michael and, in Gordo for. For quite some time, they've both been great fans to great friends and trusted advocates throughout this crazy journey of law.

But yes, on my, I grew up in Midland, Texas. I've been living in Dallas since about 2000 graduate of The Texas tech university, you know, been in construction. My dad was a general contractor, so grew up around it swore I would never do it to the log cabin from awful after a college and got into it. It just never turned back and really blessed to be in.

Such a great industry. And, one that I never thought would be considered an essential service. So, but it's been one hell of a ride and I'm just blessed and, sound like a victory speech at the Oscars, but I just, you know, so many people have helped me along the way. So she's very blessed. 

Michael Moore: Well, Bob, why I wanted to bring these two guys on.

Hey, cause it's going to be a whole lot of fun. But when we think about our mission in telling stories and defining moments and crossroads, they get you somewhere. I just found it incredible that there can be this, this friendship that it can be thicker than blood. And these two guys. Knew each other, they were clients of each other.

And then eventually over time as things play out, now they're working together. I want to highlight that. And maybe guys, you can talk about how that all came together. 

Richie Greth: Yeah, I can take the first part of that. It was, probably mid 2001 of mutual friend of ours named Meredith. Gladys basically had introduced us.

I was a young project manager at Trammell Crow and Gordo was a project manager at commercial interior space guy was doing industrial TEI and that [00:06:00] was kind of Gordo's forte for the business he was working with. We started working together and doing a lot of jobs and quickly found out that, that we enjoyed each other's company and a shared like ideals and, you know, more than anything knew how to kind of execute some of the promises that were being made on the brokerage.

And I mean, one of my favorite quotes from a mutual friend of ours, Chris Jackson, he, my first started Trammell Crow. He, I asked him what the. Internal relationship was with between the project manager and the broker. And he says, it's very simple. I sell the dream and you live the nightmare and, and no truer words were ever spoken and Gordo helped live that nightmare with me.

And, it's been a great. 

Greg Gordon: Kind 

Richie Greth: of partnership ever since we've done tons of work together over the years, our lives have paralleled each other and some of the ups and downs and ins and outs, so to speak. And we could probably spend a podcast on those parallels, but at the end of the day, we, we've always kind of had the same focus and the same mindset, which has kept.

Kind of our planets in orbit, so to speak and campus together. And, it's really been a great partnership. And, you know, when Gordo went out on his own, I was fortunate enough. a bunch of his good friends were kind of r...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Tim Swindle

Twitter: https://twitter.com/timswindle
Pornaments: https://www.pornaments.com/

The Climb is Produced by Straight Up Podcasts

[00:00:00] Tim Swindle: [00:00:00] Hey, you know, do we think that there's other people like us that would enjoy this and then, you know, there is some element of like going around and can you share the idea before you start spending a lot of money? You know, you can go kind of just test your thesis. And so you share the idea with people and you can just tell, like, is it clicking?

[00:00:19] Do they like it? Are they laughing? Are they like stupid? This is dumb. You know? So everybody just was like, that sounds like a really funny, except for a game. And. It convinced us to keep going. And then as you keep going, and as you build momentum, you just start to feel more confident and the confidence builds and you're willing to take more risks, et cetera.

[00:00:42]but you don't have to start out, you know, you don't have to go all in out of the gate. Like you can take baby steps to start. 

[00:00:50] Bob wierema: [00:00:50] All right. Today on the climb, we had a good friend of mine joined Michael and myself that, Share some of the success that he's had as an entrepreneur talks about how he makes a shift from call it corporate America and entrepreneurship in a number of different venues and really how his whole focus is on his lifestyle and the quality light that he's going to live with him and his family.

[00:01:16] And it's just a great conversation. Thrilled to have Tim swindle join Michael and myself today.

[00:01:31] Tim. Welcome to the climb podcast. Thanks for joining us today. 

[00:01:36] Tim Swindle: [00:01:36] Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:38] Bob wierema: [00:01:38] Absolutely. Well, I think to get started for the benefit of all the listeners. Can you give us a little background on, on who Tim is and you know, where you started and kind of where you sit today?

[00:01:50]Tim Swindle: [00:01:50] Sure. Tim swindle, I live on the North side of Chicago.

[00:01:55] I'm married with a 10 month old as of today and a dog. I went to [00:02:00] university of Illinois and I've started a couple of businesses and recently exited a few of them and Mon to a new ventures as we speak, 

[00:02:10] Bob wierema: [00:02:10] maybe start with, I think your story where you came, you know, in school, I know you had an awesome time doing some travel abroad and then kind of bring us up to speed of where are you, where are you?

[00:02:21] Took that from what you learned from that?

[00:02:24]Tim Swindle: [00:02:24]  Sure. So, my junior year at university was able to fortunate enough to be able to go over to Sylvia Spain for my second semester of junior year. And, it was, I think looking back on it even today, was probably the best three months stretch of my life. I've I peaked when I was 21 years old.

[00:02:50]so we did it a little different, you know, a lot of folks that study abroad, they, they would kind of go on this journey, this solo journey and meet new friends and things like that. And ours was a little different where we just uprooted like eight to 10 of our best friends and just moved us over to, to Spain for a semester.

[00:03:10] And, it was, it was just an incredible experience to kind of be, you know, off on our own truly, you know, no parents that could drive down and show up at our dorm or anything like that. you know, we obviously were going to school, but it was, it was designed to. To get out and see Spain too, you know, your Monday to Thursday classes.

[00:03:28] And then we would go visit different spots in Spain on the weekends and things like that. So lived with a Spanish family, which was also a really cool experience and, no new new Avalon spaniel. So that was

[00:03:42] not really knowing a lick of Spanish. I know a few phrases. 

[00:03:50] Michael Moore: [00:03:50] you know,That gets you through like two or three months in Spain, right there called me a few other things and you're all right. Yeah cause Tim, if, [00:04:00] if you would've told me that, that you were fluent in Spanish, I would have been answering some tough questions at home with my fiancé to why my Spanish is not as good as it should be after six and a half years, 

[00:04:13] Tim Swindle: [00:04:13] you need to, you need to get on that.

[00:04:17] Bob wierema: [00:04:17] And so I think go into like, How you found a job after that and all that. I think that story is really interesting. Cause you know, as we were talking the other day, how that's even shaped you to kind of where you are today and there's some, some of those, as we talked about the crossroads to find moments in, in those experiences, 

[00:04:36] Tim Swindle: [00:04:36] So as I was studying abroad in Spain, I was having a really good time and I happened to talk to my dad and just mentioned to them, listen, like I'm having a really good time over here.

[00:04:48] I would prefer not to come back to the States for summer. This is summer going into senior year. And she was like, all right, let me, let me see what I can do. And he happened to right after I got off the call with him, ran into our neighbor at the time who was a partner at a trading firm. they're based in Chicago, but they had an office in London and he mentioned to him how he just, you know, talked to Tim and Tim in Spain and was looking for an internship.

[00:05:11] Do you guys have anything? So he put a call. This is all without me, knowing this puts a call on to partner over in London. And so a couple of hours later, I got a call from this guy in London. That's like, Hey, I'm Dave with Marquette partners. You know, we're going to fly you over here for an interview to London and think about, you know, have you moved here for the summer?

[00:05:29] And I'm just like, who's this I've been drunk for the past three months. Yeah. and so it worked out that I did fly over there and interviewed with the firm and. I ended up just going straight from, Spain over to London for the summer. And then that worked out well and they ended up hiring me basically right out of that program.

[00:05:53]so it was nice to kind of go into senior year, being stressed about, you know, finding a job. And I had one lined up for the [00:06:00] backend and ended up going, you know, moving back to London after graduation. 

[00:06:04] Michael Moore: [00:06:04] That's awesome. 

[00:06:05] Bob wierema: [00:06:05] And you, 

[00:06:06] you loved London.

[00:06:08]Tim Swindle: [00:06:08] I do. I did. I do. I  hope to go back there to spend some time, some significant time with my family.

[00:06:16]that's definitely a goal of mine. I just think there's just so ...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

More on Concho

Concho's blog post that dives deep into the specifics of the Billy Bob's fiasco: https://www.ulterre.com/blog/lessons-from-the-honky-tonk/
Connect with Concho: https://www.linkedin.com/in/concho-minick-62916910/

[00:00:00] Concho: [00:00:00] You know, he found himself wanting to align with the people who wanted to develop the stock yards without any sort of historical context. Right. And that was an economic opportunity, I think, in his mind. But what I didn't know at the time is that to my other partners were offering him real incentives to align, but I learned that later and.

[00:00:28] You know, there was, there was also some conflict occurred just prior with me, my stepmother and my dad, you know, through that whole process of the transition of me coming into the business and they hadn't gotten over it, you know, there were some imposter syndrome kind of things going on there. And you know, there's a whole lot to talk about.

[00:00:47] They're given time that I, it really it's probably worthwhile talking about, but they couldn't let go of not being in control of Billy Bob's anymore. And I think they felt that was. My fault in some ways that I was now the president, no, I'm the president. I gotta be the precedent, but they weren't supposed to be working there.

[00:01:07] And, you know, they were just about transitioned out and gone at the time we went through that whole real estate conflict. And, does that push them into a camp opposite of me? You know, I stood up in front of city council and argued for form basis and know some sort of developmental guidelines in control, but the stockyards, which would not have occurred had Philip benign, many other people not done that.

[00:01:33] But I guess to get back to your question, Michael, and an answer, it is, I just can't imagine this. Anything other than just someone making their best economic. Right. And he made a bet against family at the same time 

[00:01:51] Michael Moore: [00:01:51] today, the climb Bob and I are joined by Concho Minnick. Hold on for a fascinating ride, deep into the world of honkytonks politics and legal maneuvers.

[00:02:01] From growing up in Fort worth to attending Gale, to building Billy Bob's globally to now running a real estate firm. This episode is chocked full of life lessons. Enjoy the climb.

[00:02:27] gotcha. Minute. Welcome to the client. 

[00:02:30] Concho: [00:02:30] Thank you. It's great to be here, 

[00:02:32] Michael Moore: [00:02:32] Bob and I are really excited to cohost you today. Bob always laughed at always say everything's bigger in Texas, but, nothing rings truer than Billy Bob's largest honky tonk in the world. certainly a big part of Fort worth history, big part of Texas history.

[00:02:49] And under your guidance, a big part of the world's music scene. 

[00:02:53] Bob Wierema: [00:02:53] Now 

[00:02:54] Michael, hold on, hold on. I gotta interrupt because you know, from us Chicago boys, now I know what a hockey tuck is, but like let's, let's let for our other listeners, like what, what does that even mean? What is it?

[00:03:07]Concho: [00:03:07] Good point. So you're the resident an error, you know, Billy Bob's is a hundred thousand square foot entertainment venue.

[00:03:18] It's, you know, [00:03:20] driven really around. You know, live music is originally a barn that was built in, I think it was 1908 or so, and came to life as a music venue in 1981. And really, you know, I would say that it's more of a, kind of a Western culture entertainment complex, and this is the way we started thinking about it because we, you know, did bull riding and food and private parties.

[00:03:45] And. Music festivals. And then we were starting to do music festivals around the world and the United States. And so, you know, it's really a, this big sprawling music video that whole 5,000 people. It shows every single day, just about closed one day a year, you know, with food and live bull, riding inside, believe it or not, inside of the bar.

[00:04:07] And it's just, you know, it doesn't really look like a music venue. It looks like a barn that might fall in on you at any moment. You know, the ceiling's awkwardly low and in big columns in your way, depending on what kind of seat you have. But. That's Billy buzzes. It sits in the historic dish, the Fort worth historic district, which, you know, kind of sets the stage more, you know, authentic Western culture.

[00:04:33] Which is kind of how, you know, Billy Bob's is that it's authentic. It's, they're presenting Western culture through music, food experience, rodeo, you know, that's, that's Billy bouts 

[00:04:46] Michael Moore: [00:04:46] and don't forget Willie's picnic. 

[00:04:48] Concho: [00:04:48] That's right. 

[00:04:49] Michael Moore: [00:04:49] Yeah. That was huge. He had attended a lot of 

[00:04:52] Concho: [00:04:52] that. I think we, I get how many Willie's picnics, Billy Bob's is hosted, but I ha I, I put on four w during my tenure there.

[00:05:00] Michael Moore: [00:05:00] So before we jump into that though, because that is going to be the bulk of the conversation today, let's step back and just talk about  how you grew up things that shaped and defined you college, ultimately, president of Billy Bob's and now CEO of Christie's Altair here in Fort worth, Texas. 

[00:05:23] Concho: [00:05:23] How much time do I have,

[00:05:27] you know, I grew up right here, Texas and, out by Eagle mountain Lake and which was just. It was the country back then, you know, it was, it was just typical suburbia in some ways, but it was just wide open living. You know, the bite, your bicycle is the most important piece of equipment. You could own country club on one end rec center and the Lake on the other end and, you know, just tons of open space.

[00:05:53] And it was just. You know, it was good living out there. We were re in a, you know, my, my parents, divorced and remarried. Right. And so, you know, some of my earliest memories, I remember life briefly with my father, but, you know, once those families combined, there was six kids. So. You know, my two brother, my three, my two brothers, my sister was four and then two stepbrothers.

[00:06:22] Then life really grabbed me around the head and I was like, Oh Jesus, okay. This is what it's all about. This was first grade or so when we put our families together and. We, we had moved. And I remember the story I tell a lot is, it was all happening so [00:06:40] fast. I didn't even know where I lived. Cause we, I went to Eagle mountain elementary.

[00:06:43] The first day of school, I came home on the bus and I didn't know whe...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
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Connect with Brett Kaufman

Brett Kaufman

https://brett-kaufman.com/  

Twitter: @bkaufman125

IG: @brettkaufman

LinkedIn: @Brett-Kaufman

Founder, Kaufman Development 

https://livekaufman.com/

IG: @livekaufman

https://gravityproject.com/  

IG: @gravityproject

Host, Gravity Podcast

https://brett-kaufman.com/podcast/ 

IG: @thegravitypodcast 

[00:00:00] Brett Kaufman: [00:00:00] You know, I think you said that this kind of defining, letting your past to find you, you know, to me, that's really a choice and it's not an easy one. I mean, these are very, very complex things, but it is a choice to rewire. Repattern kind of how you think, how you act and how you create your life and your future.

[00:00:23] And most people are unconsciously just recreating their past over and over again. And. You know, at a certain point, I just decided I didn't want to do that. And it wasn't without hell 

[00:00:36] Bob Wierema: [00:00:36] today on the climb, crossroads and 

[00:00:39] defining moments, we had mr. Brett Kaufman and join us. Brett joined us and  shared with Michael myself, so many good nuggets and takeaways. We have, I think you could write a book with the quotes that we have taken away from this one. He talks about his passion 
for sharing and giving back and where he started coming from his childhood to where he is [00:01:00] today. And just a great conversation around. Who he is as a person and how he's continuously striving to be better each day and talks a lot about just being a work in progress and what that means to him and how he's going to continue moving forward.

[00:01:25] Well, well, Brett, welcome to the climb podcast with myself and Michael. We appreciate you joining us this morning. 

[00:01:33] Brett Kaufman: [00:01:33] Yeah, thanks for having me happy to be here with you. 

[00:01:35] Bob Wierema: [00:01:35] Well, your know, a, you're no stranger to 

[00:01:38] podcasts yourself, 

[00:01:39] so, you know, let's make sure we get you a plug for your gravity 

[00:01:42] podcast 

[00:01:43] and maybe share a little bit, let's start there with what you're looking to accomplish 

[00:01:46] there so we can let everybody 

[00:01:48] know, about your podcasts as well.

[00:01:51] Brett Kaufman: [00:01:51] Sure. Yeah. We, launched our podcast last year and have recorded. I think we're over 40 episodes. They're kind of getting released once [00:02:00] a week and really the purpose behind the podcast is really to get people, to tell their life journey, their full life. Journey all the kind of childhood experiences good, bad or otherwise, and how that's shaped their lives.

[00:02:18] As they've gone on to have varying levels of success in different areas. And really the point is the hope that the listener will see themselves in these people and in their journeys and take some comfort and get some inspiration to continue forward in their own in their own lives. 

[00:02:38] I 

[00:02:38] Bob Wierema: [00:02:38] know when we talked kind of the first time when I was thinking about launching the podcast with Michael and what we were looking to 

[00:02:45] accomplish 

[00:02:46] a little bit of a different bend to it, but, but not too dissimilar, which is, I think there's a lot of different points within your life that are, you know, as we say, the crossroads, the defining moments of 

[00:02:56] when you make a 

[00:02:57] certain decision or certain things that, that make you go [00:03:00] left instead of right.

[00:03:01] So it's kind of cool to see how those, you know, your piece and ours intertwined a little bit. 

[00:03:07] Brett Kaufman: [00:03:07] Yeah, I think it's great what you guys are doing. And, there's definitely some similarities there. I think, you know, these kind of stories need to be told and, you know, at the end of the day, we're all the same.

[00:03:18] We're all kind of grappling with the same things in bearing degrees. And, it's really helpful for people to kind of be together and learn from each other. 

[00:03:29] Bob Wierema: [00:03:29] Yeah, absolutely. So what's Brett's story, like where does that 

[00:03:33] start? And maybe bring us 

[00:03:34] to 

[00:03:35] today and then 

[00:03:36] Michael, and I'll pepper you with some questions in between.

[00:03:39] Brett Kaufman: [00:03:39] All right. Well, yeah, that's a, could be a really long answer. So I'll try to condense that, you know, as it is with most people, you know, our lives are full and that's been the case for me. I grew up in Akron, Ohio for the first 10 years of my life. my parents had [00:04:00] kind of a, a pretty chaotic, marriage.

[00:04:03] My father was, an addict and, abusive and, and struggling quite a bit. And, that led to a divorce and eventually, moved to Columbus where I live today. Live most of my life. And, you know, I like to kind of tell the first part of that story because you know, it really did eventually end up informing who I am in a very positive way.

[00:04:27] I have a lot of gratitude for that time, despite how difficult it really was. I got to learn a lot about me. I got to kind of do that in a challenging way. As I went into high school and college, I may...

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Connect with Chris Powers

Follow Chris on Twitter

Listen to Chris' Podcast

Check out Fort Capital

[00:00:00] Chris Powers: [00:00:00] I mean, just fundamentally. I think it's how some people are wired and not everybody's wired this way. But I remember when I bought my first house, I thought, well, if I can just get to 10 houses, like I'm set and then you get to 10 houses and, and as you get there, you enjoy, like, I don't even know if you enjoy it because now that you have 10, you need 20 and is like, you never really arrive at where you think you're going to arrive to that.

[00:00:24] The journey kind of is the destinations. I figured that out pretty early on that every time I kind of set my life is like, if I can just get to this point, everything will be okay, or I will have done what I needed to do you really just realize that that's just another step in the journey. I think if, if the journey ended, we wouldn't see companies like Amazon and Apple and all these things they would have ended way before.

[00:00:49] Right. and that's kind of the entrepreneurial spirit is like it never really in.

[00:00:57] Michael Moore: [00:00:57] Welcome to the climb. I'm your cohost [00:01:00] Michael Moore. Today we will dive deep inside the mind of a man transforming the real estate landscape of Fort worth and beyond meet Chris powers, founder of Fort capital. An amazing family man with quotes like we're just going to need faster horses. Don't buy all the land first and humility is the ultimate super power.

[00:01:23] This podcast is one you will listen to more than once. Listen to the Climb.

[00:01:36] Chris powers, welcome to the client. 

[00:01:38] Chris Powers: [00:01:38] Thank you for having me. It's been fun watching this get started. 

[00:01:43] Michael Moore: [00:01:43] Well, I can, I think I can speak on behalf of our cohost Bob, where I'm, you know, he and I came up with this idea about 90 days ago. But I was preparing for this this morning and look back in my notes and it was the fall of 2019 [00:02:00] that I started really listening to your podcast and set a meeting with you.

[00:02:03] And so, you know, I think. From both of us, you're kind of the spiritual founding father of our podcast. So we're excited to have you on and look forward to an engaging conversation this morning. Yeah. Back in and talk about, you know, Chris and not so much where you are today and where you're going, but let's, let's dive back a little bit.

[00:02:23] Born in El Paso came to TCU, kind of walk us through the beginning stages of, of Chris power. 

[00:02:30] Chris Powers: [00:02:30] Yeah, so I was born in El Paso, Texas. My mom lived there, her whole life. My grandfather had lived there pretty much his whole life. So El Paso runs very deep in my family, lived in Lubbock for a few years. My dad was a, a practicing attorney for 13 years.

[00:02:50] And then at 37, decided he wanted to become a doctor. So stop practicing law. We moved to Lubbock, so he could attend a medical school [00:03:00] at Texas tech. We moved from one year to Connecticut to do his first year of residency, moving Texans up to the Northeast. Probably wasn't the best decision we did one year.

[00:03:12] And we moved back to El Paso to finish and I finished high school there. I graduated, high school a year early. So I accepted my, my letter to TCU. when I was 16, came to TCU and I was 17, played a lot of golf in high school. I cherish El Paso. It's where I get a lot of, probably my values. And, it's an awesome place.

[00:03:35] Came to Fort worth in 2004 to go to TCU. And I've been here ever since. TCU was incredible for me. Like it is for a lot of people college. I met a ton of people. I started my business. I have to stay in Fort worth. After where I met my wife, been married for six years. I have a three and a half year old and a she about to be one year [00:04:00] old, two daughters.

[00:04:00] So yeah, life's pretty good. 

[00:04:03] Bob Wierema: [00:04:03] I just wanted to ask one question, cause it was 

[00:04:04] really intriguing to me. 

[00:04:06] So tell me 

[00:04:07] real quick, your father 

[00:04:10] just says, okay, I'm done with, with being a lawyer. I want to go be a doctor. Like what made him do that? I mean, that's, that's like pretty wild. 

[00:04:18] Chris Powers: [00:04:18] That's about as wild as it gets.

[00:04:19] And when you're a young kid, I was seven. When we, when we went to medical school in Lubbock. And I guess you just, your dad tells you that that's what you're going to do. And you just maybe think that's like a normal thing that people do. And, I'm now 33, I've met a lot of people and I've never met anybody else on the planet.

[00:04:36] That's on it. His dad was an attorney. so my dad grew up in the Northeast. he was, from Rhode Island. Went to Virginia then went to Harvard law and at Harvard wanted to really, always wanted to do like an intro in Texas or one of his summer deals in Texas. And he had a roommate from El Paso. He moved to El Paso and that's where he met my mom over the [00:05:00] summer and ended up moving there.

[00:05:02] But I don't think he ever really wanted to be a lawyer. I think his dad was a lawyer and I think a lot of people fall into that trap of my dad does it. I don't really know what else to do. And I honestly now looking back on it, I give him, while it's a crazy thing and it's not something I would recommend everybody do as I get older, I really admire him for.

[00:05:23] Really being willing to say, like this, isn't what I love doing. And making such a drastic change to do something that he would be happy doing. He had always wanted to be a doctor and even at 37, you know, he's just become a partner at a law firm and everything. He just said, like this isn't going to be fulfilling for me the rest of my life.

[00:05:40] And we did it. And so, again, as weird as it was, and, you know, we could have a whole podcast on what it's like to go to medical. Let's go when you're 37, it's something I really admire him for is. Really just kind of doing what makes them happy. I think there's a lot of people that probably don't ever make a big change because they're kind [00:06:00] of keep the status quo or, so not something, I knew at the time, but something I've learned as time goes by.

[00:06:06] Michael Moore: [00:06:06] Do you draw down on that though? Is his you're making decisions at four capital and you've got a pivot or maybe launch into something new. I mean, do you, do you see yourself reflecting on your dad's ability to go. This isn't the right direction for me. I'm I'm changing everything. I'm moving my fam...

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Connect with Luke Reed & Quantum/Pure
Website:

https://www.getpuresanitizer.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pure_sani/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/pure_hand

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Pure_HandSani-101314821644885/?modal=admin_todo_tour

[00:00:00] Luke Reed: [00:00:00] The answer is humility. You gotta be humble enough to tell them right where we are. I think the worst thing about our industry is not necessarily the CEOs, but the executives mask problems, you know, Hey, you know, we're, everything's going great. Just get more jobs. I mean, my team will tell you, like, I'm very open.

[00:00:21] Like, Hey, finances are horrible. I would need to figure this out. We need more work. Does anybody have a plan? You got, be honest with them and you got to put them there and then you got to enable them to talk and you got to listen. I mean, I have to listen. And when, when a guy like Ben says, Hey, I think we need to make a pivot to the Northeast.

[00:00:41] This is the guy I literally picked up the phone. I was like, are you out of your mind? Have you checked the news? Do you really think that we should be getting into the Northeast in the middle of COVID? And he was a hundred percent. Right. And that's all you, you gotta listen. You gotta listen to your people.

[00:01:00] [00:01:00] Michael Moore: [00:01:00] Welcome to the climb crossroads in defining moments. 

[00:01:04] I'm your cohost Michael Moore. 

[00:01:06] Today we will go inside the mind of an entrepreneurial spirit growing up in rural Oklahoma and eventually making the OSU polo team. Luke Reed is changing the game. Is pivoted his business in the last 90 days by taking the chemical division of his own oil and gas company and transforming it into a multimillion dollar hand sanitizer manufacturer, his faith and his family guide him, listen to the client.

[00:01:47] Luke. Thanks for joining me and Bob, welcome to the climb. 

[00:01:52] Luke Reed: [00:01:52] Glad to be here.

[00:01:53]Michael Moore: [00:01:53] Well, 

[00:01:53] I'll start it off by saying, unlike several of our other guests, where there's a super long history for [00:02:00] us to feed off of our relationship is, is in its infancy. But several months ago, which feels like years ago in the world of COVID and.

[00:02:11] Boiling gas, negative prices and all the things that have been given us black eyes for the last 90 days, when we sat down for that initial lunch, it was just this, this feeling like I had known you for a long time. And there were just commonalities in the way that we thought. I loved hearing your story.

[00:02:27] And so as is Bob and I came up with the idea about the climb and crossroads and defining moments. I couldn't think of a better guest. So thank you for joining us. And I think after our initial meeting and we'll dive into this, I would have said you're. Probably one of the most interesting people in the oil and gas 

[00:02:46] business, but, with 

[00:02:47] the pivot that you've made and, and, and I can't wait to dive into it.

[00:02:50] I'd say you're probably the most interesting person in the hand sanitizer business 

[00:02:53] now. So 

[00:02:56] thank you for, for joining us and just start out by giving us a little [00:03:00] background on you, kind of where you've been, where you are and where you're headed. 

[00:03:03] Luke Reed: [00:03:03] Yeah. So, definitely, definitely appreciate being here.

[00:03:06] Yeah. When we met, I guess it was four or five months ago, but, so my wife and I bought a company called quantum valve back in 2015, 2014. It was a valve company here in the Barnett shale specifically for XTO, you know? So for about six months, we stayed here in the Barnett. moved to Midland in January of 16, and then from January to 16 have been operating ever since an hour.

[00:03:32] We were one guy. Now we're 87 people or. All the way across the U S we've got facilities in South, Texas, Midland, the Northeast, and, yeah, we've, we've, we've got a really, really, really good core group of guys. most of us have worked together for 10 plus years and that synergy is what makes quantum, quantum, you know, we, we pride ourselves on the fact that we're super, super nimble.

[00:03:56]we're not private equity backed, so. Really the only people that we [00:04:00] have to argue with is the people we shaved with. So conversation's pretty simple, but no, we, we started in the valve, went into bop, got into horsepower, got into chemical. The deal went really well. Yeah. So we went from a one product service line company to a five product service lines and, you know, went from a.

[00:04:20] Million dollar a month, a year kind of revenue company, just small, small, small, small to North of 30. And I mean, honestly, all of that is attributed to the fact that we have. In each division, a true subject matter expert. And one of the things like our group. So between the four main executives outside of the finance, we have been together for a long time.

[00:04:44] We've done a lot of Wells. We've we've done roughly 1400 Wells in the Northeast 1600 Wells in West Texas. So we have an extensive background on downhole. And so the whole idea wasn't to like get into the service world because it's [00:05:00] sexy and you're going to make a lot of money. It wasn't that at all, it was let's bridge the gap between the bow tie in New York and the boots on the ground, in the oil field and figure out a way to make it efficient and do that at a.

[00:05:14] Cost point that doesn't kill somebody. And that truly makes a good return. I mean, it wasn't like 99% of the industry. I think whether it's ENP or OFS in the last three years, four years it's Hey, let's build something up sexy enough that we convinced some private equity that it's lipstick on a pig and they buy it with more money than you can see over.

[00:05:34] They're just not practical. I think it's fake money and it, it doesn't sustain. And so the idea was okay, let's, let's do something that's meaningful. And in the meantime, let's build an ENP company, which is our assets in the Northeast, under black friend resources and let's vertically integrate. And rather than some companies that are out there that have that vertical integration, I think they really just Rob Peter to pay Paul.

[00:05:59] And at the end of the [00:06:00] day, Peter and Paul, one of them comes knocking. And I think that's where you see a lot of downfall, especially with companies that you see there, they have a midstream component. It's a very attractive component, but you've got to treat it like it's an individual business and, and we've, we'...

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
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Connect with Molly

Website: https://mcshane-construction.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-mcshane-4316454/

[00:00:00] Molly McShane: [00:00:00] But what if you viewed it, you know, in a broader context of it is our responsibility to this industry and our communities to open up the doors and give somebody the chance, not only to learn the industry, but frankly put it on your resume that you had an internship with us. Cause that's valuable. And if you can give back in that context of let's, let's provide real opportunities to people who don't have a dad or an uncle in the business.

[00:00:31] You can start to make little baby steps, but it's a lot of baby steps. We got to take 

[00:00:37] Bob Wierema: [00:00:37] on this episode of the climb. Michael and I had the opportunity to sit down with Molly McShane, the COO of the McShane companies, a real estate and construction company based in Rosemont, Illinois. It's a family owned business and Molly is going to share her experience of.

[00:00:57] Rising through the ranks and not [00:01:00] only a family held business, but also being a woman in a primarily male dominated industry, Molly realized early on in her career that things don't happen on accident. And it's definitely not a straight line to the top. You'll definitely enjoy this episode of the podcast.

[00:01:17] Thanks for joining us.

[00:01:28] Molly. Welcome. Thank you for taking the time to join Michael and myself today. Appreciate you spending some time. 

[00:01:35] Molly McShane: [00:01:35] Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited. 

[00:01:38] Bob Wierema: [00:01:38] Course. Well, I think a great way to kick it off would be if you could just give us a quick little background on you and let all the listeners know, we know a little bit about yourself and you know where you were and where you're sitting today.

[00:01:50] Molly McShane: [00:01:50] Sure you got it. Maybe I'll start with where I sit today. And that is as chief operating officer of the McShane companies, the McShane companies are [00:02:00] comprised of three different companies, McShane, construction, and cadence, McShane construction are both general contractors. And Connor commercial is our development arm.

[00:02:10] So, I got to this place and probably not a straight line. I think there was perhaps more, more applicable to the real estate industry, but a lot of us get there and kind of a funny path, which applies to me as well. So I started off, I went to Boston college for my undergraduate. And when I was there, I majored in marketing and thinking at that time, advertising sounds really fun.

[00:02:37] You know, they are, it's a, it's a fun vibe. Really cool. I think that's what I'm going to go into. So I did right upon graduating, I went into marketing and advertising and after about, maybe I'll call it a year and a half of that. I very quickly realized it. Wasn't what I was meant to do in my career. You know, I found myself working really [00:03:00] long hours, getting paid just above minimum wage.

[00:03:03] It felt like, and you know, really not making the impact that I wanted to make in the world. So I started some soul searching and moved back to Chicago. I had been living in California prior to that and started thinking about what am I going to do with my career? And I was talking to my dad about it. He said, well, you know, construction and real estate.

[00:03:27] Those are, those are really good industry place to work. Why don't you come work here? 

[00:03:32] Bob Wierema: [00:03:32] And I know your, I know your dad well enough to know that. He's a very convincing person too. 

[00:03:36] Michael Moore: [00:03:36] So yeah, 

[00:03:38] Molly McShane: [00:03:38] that is true. That is true. You know, when I told him, when I said, you know, I don't really have my degrees in marketing, I'm not sure I have the experience for this and you can figure it out.

[00:03:51] So anyway, I did decide to kind of roll the dice and join. So I joined the McShane construction first. I really felt strongly, like I [00:04:00] wanted to know the foundations of the business and understand that at a level that I really didn't at that point in time. So I spent four or five years in the trailers on the job sites, doing project management.

[00:04:13] So I did, you know, everything from senior housing to medical office to, you know, big factories. So kind of got a good perspective of the different types of products that we built at the same time. I went back to graduate school to get my MBA. So I went to Kellogg at Northwestern and I got my MBA with a real estate and finance concentration.

[00:04:39] Okay. Once I got that, I transitioned over to our development company. and there, I spent lots of years doing different product types that we developed medical office apartments, industrial, and got a wide perspective from the development side as well. So with those two things, plus my experience [00:05:00] being on our board of directors for many years, I've now transitioned into leadership of the group of companies.

[00:05:06] So, you know, cadence, Nick, Shane, and Connor, and that's where I am today. 

[00:05:13] Bob Wierema: [00:05:13] So when you came out, you got right into that project management piece. What were some of the struggles you had in that world? I know that's a challenging space to jump right into. And maybe even, what did you enjoy most about being in, in that part of the game?

[00:05:28] Molly McShane: [00:05:28] You know, it was a different environment than I was used to, you know, sitting in a trailer all day, kind of walking around, getting your boots dirty was not an environment I had worked in before. And so I think that finding the right mixture of how to act in that environment, because it's not being professional on a job site kind of has a different tone to it than being professional in an office environment.

[00:05:56] So I think navigating that. that part of it while [00:06:00] being the boss's daughter was a little tricky. What it, what it boiled down to for me was really the personal relationships that you develop over time. I think when you're, when you're on a trailer with somebody all day, every day, you get to know each other pretty quickly and those relationships and, you know, having.

[00:06:19] Mentors within that context opening up within that context really helped me to understand the business better and learn at a pretty quick pace with those one on one relationships. So that's really what I valued the most, not just internally, but you know, the relationships that we would have with our clients in those settings is really, you go out to lunch together and you have a lot of fun together, and it's a little bit more casual.

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