EXPERIENCE 213 | Zak George, Head Coach and Owner at Zak George Landscaping

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My guest today was Zach George, founder and owner and head coach at Zach George Landscaping, L-L-C-Z-G-L as the trucks around town, say on the side is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

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Zach has a strong history of growth in the residential and commercial construction and the commercial maintenance segment, plus a substantial snow removal operation to keep the guys busy in the winter.

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Zach has an interesting business model in that he relies heavily on long-term HB two Visa employees who return seasonally, mostly from Mexico and Guatemala.

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We discussed his concerns about labor force in 2025 and how ZGL was almost taken down by an HB two visa shortage in 2017 amid overreliance on seasonal workers.

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Zach has a big beard and a big heart is a fellow Rotarian and is a joy to have a conversation with.

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So I hope you enjoy as I did my conversation with Zach.

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George, let's have some fun.

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Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond.

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Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy.

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And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained.

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These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits.

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So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest.

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Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast.

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My guest today is Zach George and he is the head coach at Zach George Landscape.

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Welcome Zach.

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Thank you.

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Thanks for having me in.

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So, um, just about everybody in Northern Colorado has seen the ZGL trucks running around.

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Um, maybe, but for those that don't really know what that means.

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Sure.

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Do you wanna just kind of set the stage, uh, what are you guys up to?

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Yeah.

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Zack George Landscaping, uh, celebrating 20 years, starting this month.

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Oh, congratulations.

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Um, yep.

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Started in 2005 up here and, um, just kind of been working timeless landscapes.

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And you didn't even mention that when I booked you for this podcast.

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It's kind of wild.

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Yeah.

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20 year anniversary, like just totally lined up.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So I worked out pretty sweet.

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But, uh, yeah, going on 20 years and, um.

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Really just, uh, doing a lot of growth and, um, just keeping, keeping going.

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And commercial, residential install maintenance, we're 50 50 maintenance and construction.

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Okay.

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And we do high end residential construction, commercial construction, and then commercial maintenance.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So no residential maintenance.

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So pretty near, um, kind of the same.

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General market offerings as, uh, one of my previous guests.

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Yep.

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Uh, the linns.

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Yep, yep.

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Most scalable landscape companies kind of take that same path.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's kind of the recurring revenue model plus, yes.

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Um, good project work.

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'cause we can Yep.

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We don't wanna maintain crappy projects.

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Yep, yep.

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Yeah, for sure.

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For sure.

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So, um, and like, what's your market territory?

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Uh, we do the occasional job in Cheyenne and then we sprawl down to Longmont.

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Okay.

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Uh, foothills out to Evans.

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So kind of a decent square.

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Yeah.

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Kind of the, the northern Colorado where all the people live footprint.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Don't go south of Longmont much occasionally for a certain client.

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Yeah.

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Um, do a couple jobs in Steamboat.

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Couple jobs in Estes Park.

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Yep.

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Kind of that just gives you a reason to go up to Steamboat for more.

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Uh, it's, yeah.

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It's not bad at all.

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I don't mind.

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I happen to manage those projects when we go up there.

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Fair enough.

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Yeah.

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Um, and, and what's your like team?

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Uh, I, I don't have any.

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Are you?

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Yeah.

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30, 50 guys, uh, depending it goes up and down.

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Seasonal, probably peak season we're a hundred.

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Oh wow.

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Okay.

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Yep.

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We run about a hundred at full staff, guys and gals probably.

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Yep.

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Full gamut of people running about 45 visa workers now.

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Oh wow.

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Okay.

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Um, so we, you just, at the end of the day, we can't make the lawn the grass grow in the winter months.

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Yeah.

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So we need seasonal people to come in, help us.

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That gives us a legal workforce.

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Yep.

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And it allows us to, um, and have guys that just show up every single year.

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And do you help them with that and stuff too, or is that they they kind of go get the process?

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Yeah, it's a, it's a Visa program.

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Um, it doesn't save us any money.

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A lot of people think that the Visa program is cheap labor and it's, yeah.

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It's ultimately more expensive, but it's about client experience.

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So how do we give better client experience every single year instead of trying to hire new people every year and stuff like that?

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Exactly.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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I mean, you'd be surprised how many commercial clients are like, I want the truck to park here at the exact same time.

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I want it mowed every Friday.

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I want it looking like this.

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Mm-hmm.

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You have to stripe it like that.

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And in order to do that, you need guys that are consistent and understand the work.

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Right.

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Well.

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Communication systems that helps everybody know what we're supposed to do.

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Yeah.

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And, and the grass grows no matter what.

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Right.

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So we gotta make sure everybody shows up to work every single day.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Cool.

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Yeah.

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Um, and so, so you've got different teams, I imagine, like, uh, a truck with a trailer and four guys is kind of a normal maintenance or service team, or maybe install teams.

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Yep.

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And then certain amount of office admin kind of.

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Yep.

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So we use, um.

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We use two, two man teams all the way up to four or five man teams on the maintenance side, depending on the size of the properties and the routing on the construction side, we found that three is the smallest and we go up to five or eight depending on how big the commercial job is.

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Um, and the location vicinity of that.

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And do you do mostly in-house, like your, if there's heavy equipment that you need to dig big holes and things like that, you're doing it or are you contracting some out?

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Yeah, we don't sub out much.

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We use a few snow subcontractors and, um, a few other small skills that we don't do in-house.

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Concrete masonry, stuff like that.

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Yeah.

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But for the most part we do, we do a lot of it in-house, A lot of the pavers, planting, irrigation systems, all that stuff.

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So this is the man stuff for, for your whole property?

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Yeah.

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The irrigation or the, uh, the, the world of landscaping's a little bit like the mechanic world where in the eighties you just kind of pulled up underneath a tree and worked on your car and anymore Yeah.

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Everything's really automated and really high tech.

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And you know, we're using electric mowers and automated mowers and electric, uh, equipment.

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And so it's, it's pretty high tech stuff.

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These irrigation controllers require pretty smart people to run them.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, we're using central control, well planning the amount of water and there's probably sensors that you gotta program and stuff like that, I reckon.

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Yeah, yeah.

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There's a lot, there's a lot of moving parts to it, so it's really takes, uh, people with a lot of, a lot of smarts and uh, yeah.

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That passion for the industry is, is the water one of the biggest challenges, like moving the water to the right places to make the, make the landscape do its thing, you know, ultimately Colorado people love green grass, right?

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Right.

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So we Well, and green plants, green plants, plants you with, with wood chips in between is okay too.

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Yeah.

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A hundred percent.

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Yeah.

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So, you know, and, and there's been kind of a, a target on our back as an industry for the last probably 10 years, really trying to Why are you planting all this grass?

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Save water.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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It's a resource we can't make more of.

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So, um, ultimately we're seeing more moving and they wanna see, uh, less water consumption.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Well, and that's, I mean, it's expensive too.

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Even 15 years ago in Colorado, it was a lot cheaper to fill your bathtub than it is today.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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And that, I don't know if you've seen in Southwest, uh, Fort Collins, they're looking at 30% rate increase per year for the next five years.

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Oh, really?

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Uhhuh.

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Oh dang.

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Yeah.

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Infrastructure's not cheap.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Interesting.

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Yeah.

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So, so you've got a number of both service and, and construction teams out there.

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Then what's the rest of of your business model consist of?

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Kind of the ar, AP kind of billing, office management stuff, maybe some sales?

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Uh, yep.

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Um, you know, I like to ultimately find people that are passionate about the industry as well and let'em just do their thing.

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So we've got, uh, managers that, uh, oversee.

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The entire maintenance team, the operations team, hr, um, accounting, things like that.

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And then we have a couple sales guys Yep.

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That do, uh, design, um, design work, design sales.

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Oh, cool.

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Yeah.

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So they're both kind of designers plus sales reps.

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Yeah.

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'cause they're selling their project anyway.

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Yeah.

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You're ultimately Oh, that's way better than having like a, just a sales person that's like, let me connect you with our designers.

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Yes.

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Ultimately, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Sorry to say.

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Yeah.

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It keeps you, they're ultimately the point of contact from the start of the project all the way to the end.

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Yeah.

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And clients like that, right?

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I mean, that gives them a face and someone that they know and they can trust and work with them all the way through the whole project.

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Sure.

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Um, we also have account managers, commercial account managers.

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Okay, sure.

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And those guys, uh, happen to have three guys right now and they.

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They massage those relationships with our commercial clients and ultimately make sure that, you know, if we're under contract on something, people get what they're looking for.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I just had Pete Galey on, he had a janitorial business.

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Yes.

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Uh, you know, Pete maybe.

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Yep.

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Yeah.

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Um, and kind of a little bit similar, right?

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Like especially on the service side, the maintenance side.

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It's like, well, what do you want?

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I can make your grass look perfect and I could cost this much, or, you know, whatever.

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I used to think that, uh, what we did was difficult until I met Pete and he told me that all of his people were in at night.

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Right.

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He's like, all my work gets done in the middle of the night.

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Yeah.

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And I was like, oh, that's a whole level of complexity that I never thought about.

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Yeah, a hundred percent.

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Yeah.

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But otherwise there's a little bit of a customization to every maintenance experience.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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And that's ultimately what we do is we try to sell people.

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Not sell, but we, we offer the ability to customize a plan.

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And I think that's the difference between, you know, a local service versus a national service is we're not a one size fits all, and we just kind of, we'll allow people to adjust based on their needs and fit their budget and we'll, we'll make up a plan that works.

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Yeah.

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Well for them ultimately, um, like when you've got these designers selling projects, like they're estimators too, basically, right?

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Yep.

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Like they've just built enough experience, probably almost an apprenticey kind of thing for a while.

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Yeah, yeah.

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We ultimately have to take'em in, um, usually.

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We like'em to have a little bit of industry experience before we just kind of take'em in, because you gotta really know the ins and outs of the, uh, of the industry and it's not something you want to dabble with.

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So we want people that understand the industry know what they're getting into, and then we kind of start to teach'em and educate'em on, you know, some design principles if they need some tuning up on that.

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And then we teach'em how to do the estimating.

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And we use an all encompassing software for our organization from the time they make a phone call in until the final invoice.

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It's all tracked, uh, time, labor, uh, materials, equipment, pos, everything comes in and outta one.

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So the nice thing is we've kind of set it up to help them in work in their favor where they can, um.

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Uh, you know, use this software to help them.

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Yeah.

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And so is this an industry specific software or something that you've developed over time?

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It is, it's more tailored towards, towards our industry.

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It's a software company outta St.

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Louis, Missouri, and they built this software originally for a landscape contractor out there a long time ago.

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And it's morphed into landscaping.

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And then they also do some, uh, port of entry stuff and some other things, but Oh, interesting.

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They ultimately tailored this one software specifically for the landscape industry.

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Oh yeah.

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And um, it's not cheap, but it ultimately helps us keep everything organized.

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Yeah.

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Well I imagine that's.

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Like the customer journey can be, especially when you're talking residential or commercial.

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And who's the decider, who signs the contract.

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Yeah.

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And ultimately what it does is it gives us history too, right?

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So we can see past invoices, we can see when services were completed.

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We can see who did the service time of day, the service was done.

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Um, and so, you know, as, as there for a while when labor was an interesting factor for a lot of organizations yeah, we, we had to be able to plug and play as, as people shifted.

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Mm.

00:11:44.369 --> 00:11:52.019
And um, this gives people history so we can go back to, since we started and ultimately pull up how much everyone spent on what and where and how.

00:11:52.019 --> 00:11:52.349
Fascinating.

00:11:52.558 --> 00:11:52.798
Yeah.

00:11:52.798 --> 00:11:55.019
Warranty items, it's helped us clean up a lot of things.

00:11:55.019 --> 00:11:58.438
And that's almost your whole source of knowledge for the whole team.

00:11:58.769 --> 00:11:59.038
Yeah.

00:11:59.068 --> 00:12:01.798
Like I imagine you might use QuickBooks or some other systems.

00:12:01.828 --> 00:12:02.969
In the back of the house.

00:12:02.969 --> 00:12:05.219
But as far as all your employees are concerned, this is my thing.

00:12:05.278 --> 00:12:05.578
Yeah.

00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:05.818
Yeah.

00:12:05.818 --> 00:12:12.239
I would say 80% of the organization runs out of there and then we have some kind of side, side softwares and some other things that we use as well.

00:12:12.239 --> 00:12:14.009
But that's where majority of everything happens.

00:12:14.038 --> 00:12:14.099
Yeah.

00:12:14.158 --> 00:12:15.178
And it's cloud based too.

00:12:15.178 --> 00:12:20.729
So when Covid hit, we were able to pivot really fast and everyone could work from their truck work from home.

00:12:20.729 --> 00:12:21.028
Yeah.

00:12:21.028 --> 00:12:22.109
Any place you got wifi?

00:12:22.708 --> 00:12:22.860
Yes, sir.

00:12:22.974 --> 00:12:23.094
Interesting.

00:12:23.094 --> 00:12:23.095
Yep.

00:12:23.188 --> 00:12:24.119
Made it happen, huh?

00:12:24.149 --> 00:12:24.479
Yeah.

00:12:24.778 --> 00:12:27.328
Well, and you were probably essential'cause the grass keeps growing.

00:12:27.568 --> 00:12:28.708
Grass grows.

00:12:28.708 --> 00:12:29.068
Yep.

00:12:29.068 --> 00:12:29.818
Doesn't stop.

00:12:30.269 --> 00:12:36.568
Um, on the like leadership side, what's your kind of leadership team look like, if, yep.

00:12:36.688 --> 00:12:39.239
So our executive leadership team, there's four of us.

00:12:39.298 --> 00:12:50.009
Um, we have an HR manager, our operations on the construction side, and then, um, our, uh, our, our, uh, operat customer service delivery almost on that maintenance side.

00:12:50.009 --> 00:12:50.333
Yeah, yeah.

00:12:50.339 --> 00:12:50.879
Makes sense.

00:12:50.969 --> 00:12:51.208
Yep.

00:12:51.208 --> 00:12:55.438
So the four of us kind of run the whole organization and HR is really such an important thing.

00:12:55.499 --> 00:12:57.989
'cause even though you've got a lot of returning people, they're still.

00:12:58.543 --> 00:13:00.283
A lot of hiring and Yeah.

00:13:00.374 --> 00:13:00.524
Yeah.

00:13:00.524 --> 00:13:01.244
It's tough to do every year.

00:13:01.274 --> 00:13:01.514
Yeah.

00:13:01.514 --> 00:13:09.494
You got, uh, your hiring, your, uh, recruiting, you know, compliance, you know, with all these new rules and regulations too.

00:13:09.494 --> 00:13:12.958
You got sick days and all these things, paternity leave and stuff, paternity leave.

00:13:13.094 --> 00:13:14.114
Yeah, it's crazy.

00:13:14.293 --> 00:13:16.604
So hrs really kind of helped us.

00:13:16.724 --> 00:13:20.323
He came on five years ago and he's really helped us kind of elevate the organization.

00:13:20.443 --> 00:13:20.923
Right.

00:13:20.923 --> 00:13:23.958
Well, and understanding what your input costs are.

00:13:24.178 --> 00:13:24.469
Yeah.

00:13:24.469 --> 00:13:27.989
You know,'cause ultimately you're kind of a labor selling and design organization, right?

00:13:27.989 --> 00:13:28.499
A hundred percent.

00:13:28.499 --> 00:13:28.979
We sell labor.

00:13:28.979 --> 00:13:29.038
Yeah.

00:13:29.038 --> 00:13:35.519
So the full, full ticket price, you know, it's not just their$25 an hour kind of thing or whatever.

00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:35.578
Yeah.

00:13:35.578 --> 00:13:37.589
But it's also this and this and this and this.

00:13:37.619 --> 00:13:37.918
Yeah.

00:13:38.068 --> 00:13:38.249
Yeah.

00:13:38.249 --> 00:13:38.879
A hundred percent.

00:13:38.908 --> 00:13:39.208
Yeah.

00:13:39.448 --> 00:13:41.698
You know, we wanna retain good talent too.

00:13:41.698 --> 00:13:45.958
So ultimately you need good benefits and you need, you know what, you gotta have all the things.

00:13:45.958 --> 00:13:46.019
Yeah.

00:13:46.019 --> 00:13:48.568
And that's ultimately where, where he comes in line.

00:13:48.568 --> 00:13:49.708
And he does a great job.

00:13:49.708 --> 00:13:57.509
He's, he's more of a COO for us and really, um, helps just train the organization, move the organization in the right direction and keep us going.

00:13:57.658 --> 00:14:00.839
So when did you start Zach?

00:14:00.839 --> 00:14:01.828
George Landscaping?

00:14:01.889 --> 00:14:03.178
2005.

00:14:03.178 --> 00:14:04.469
So that's 20 years.

00:14:04.469 --> 00:14:04.859
20 years.

00:14:04.859 --> 00:14:05.578
We just talked about that.

00:14:05.578 --> 00:14:05.908
Yeah.

00:14:06.119 --> 00:14:06.839
Um, so.

00:14:07.499 --> 00:14:10.168
Like a hundred ish people, peak season.

00:14:10.499 --> 00:14:13.379
Like what's your like, growth place from here?

00:14:13.379 --> 00:14:16.859
Do you just get more market share that box that we were talking about?

00:14:16.859 --> 00:14:23.249
Or do you go to other communities and offer, or do you just like try to stay the same size and yeah.

00:14:23.249 --> 00:14:24.208
Know what that look like for you?

00:14:24.214 --> 00:14:25.168
I think it's, you know, it's interesting.

00:14:25.168 --> 00:14:28.469
That's kind of been the journey the last couple years is what does that look like, you know?

00:14:28.798 --> 00:14:28.859
Yeah.

00:14:28.859 --> 00:14:37.139
We, it was five years ago is how do we get to where we're at now and now it's kinda what's the next step and where's the real growth gonna be happening in northern Colorado?

00:14:37.438 --> 00:14:47.938
You know, for us, I see us probably, uh, picking up more market share in the Longmont area, uh, on the maintenance side, probably also in northern Colorado on the maintenance side, construction's pretty agile.

00:14:47.938 --> 00:14:50.129
They can move and shake and go wherever.

00:14:50.129 --> 00:14:50.219
Mm-hmm.

00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:53.369
But that maintenance, you gotta be close to your destination every day.

00:14:53.369 --> 00:14:57.509
So ultimately they'll, they'll probably start to just continue to pick stuff up.

00:14:57.688 --> 00:14:59.578
Do you maintain stuff that you haven't built?

00:15:00.163 --> 00:15:01.538
So you're open to that?

00:15:01.538 --> 00:15:01.539
Yes.

00:15:01.798 --> 00:15:02.053
Yep, yep.

00:15:02.384 --> 00:15:10.933
We do a lot of maintenance on stuff that wasn't built, you know, and the HOA model, um, has only been around for about 40 years or so.

00:15:10.933 --> 00:15:11.264
Right.

00:15:11.264 --> 00:15:16.514
And so that kind of whole model's pretty new the metro district's even newer than that.

00:15:16.514 --> 00:15:21.614
And so, uh, we do, we do everything from car washes all the way up to.

00:15:22.844 --> 00:15:27.524
Huge, huge, you know, HOAs complexes, green metro districts, different things like that.

00:15:27.524 --> 00:15:27.884
Yeah.

00:15:27.884 --> 00:15:28.364
Interesting.

00:15:28.514 --> 00:15:28.724
Okay.

00:15:28.813 --> 00:15:29.953
Yep, yep.

00:15:30.014 --> 00:15:39.043
So there's a lot of opportunity probably just capturing, like I was thinking to myself between, between you and Lindgren, there's a couple of kind of bigger companies.

00:15:39.043 --> 00:15:43.063
Maybe there's some big nationals or is there, what, what else is the competitive landscape?

00:15:43.124 --> 00:15:43.543
Yeah.

00:15:43.548 --> 00:15:46.094
The, the big nationals are definitely trying to play in our area.

00:15:46.183 --> 00:15:49.783
Um, they've tried a couple times in the past have failed.

00:15:49.933 --> 00:15:49.964
Okay.

00:15:49.994 --> 00:15:54.703
Um, our market's just not quite big enough one, I remember one of'em, uh, read something.

00:15:54.764 --> 00:15:55.063
Yeah.

00:15:55.124 --> 00:15:55.964
Valley Crest.

00:15:55.964 --> 00:15:57.014
Valley Crest, yes.

00:15:57.014 --> 00:15:57.134
Yeah.

00:15:57.134 --> 00:15:58.573
They tried hard a few years ago.

00:15:58.573 --> 00:15:58.783
Yeah.

00:15:58.783 --> 00:16:00.104
That was their second time.

00:16:00.224 --> 00:16:00.644
Oh, is that right?

00:16:00.644 --> 00:16:01.423
Uh, yeah.

00:16:01.423 --> 00:16:02.024
They, they, good job.

00:16:02.024 --> 00:16:03.644
I love David Goliath's stories.

00:16:03.778 --> 00:16:05.683
They, they tried to come back in.

00:16:05.984 --> 00:16:07.453
They want come back in a third time.

00:16:07.499 --> 00:16:07.788
Okay.

00:16:07.793 --> 00:16:07.994
Okay.

00:16:08.024 --> 00:16:11.984
Um, but they're kind of doing some restructuring right now, so we'll see what happens.

00:16:11.984 --> 00:16:13.033
They're distracted by other.

00:16:13.678 --> 00:16:16.048
And their stock's getting all kind of chopped up.

00:16:16.139 --> 00:16:16.318
Right?

00:16:16.379 --> 00:16:22.979
Uh, and they're, they're, they got a whole new CEO and they're trying to shift and, and do things well, and they have to be all concerned about all that kind of stuff, right?

00:16:22.979 --> 00:16:27.298
They do like actually being strategic about how do we enter this market, like that's low on their list.

00:16:27.359 --> 00:16:27.658
Yeah.

00:16:27.749 --> 00:16:28.259
Yeah, it is.

00:16:28.259 --> 00:16:30.058
And they, it's really interesting.

00:16:30.058 --> 00:16:34.259
Their, their stock prices are driven by things that don't.

00:16:35.818 --> 00:16:37.349
Increase client satisfaction.

00:16:37.349 --> 00:16:37.649
Right.

00:16:37.649 --> 00:16:45.298
And so it's kind of on, it's kind of interesting from the outside how important talk more, uh, because that sounds like there's some business insight there.

00:16:45.538 --> 00:16:45.899
Yeah.

00:16:46.198 --> 00:16:50.698
It's, you know, at the, we're a service level organization, right?

00:16:50.698 --> 00:16:54.178
We're a service industry and we wanna ultimately make sure the client's happy.

00:16:54.178 --> 00:16:59.308
And what they have to do is they're not worried about the client, they're worried about their shareholders.

00:16:59.339 --> 00:16:59.698
Sure.

00:16:59.759 --> 00:17:05.368
And so they ultimately are trying to drive shareholder value and stock pricing.

00:17:05.729 --> 00:17:13.979
And so what's important to them isn't necessarily what's a winning recipe for clients and that can have some backlash.

00:17:13.979 --> 00:17:21.598
And so we're kind of seeing it up and down the front range that, you know, they'll have a real strong presence in one area and then they may lose some of that presence.

00:17:21.598 --> 00:17:28.949
And yeah, they're good in, they're good at some of the things that they do, um, but then there's other things on the maintenance side that they probably leave.

00:17:28.979 --> 00:17:29.098
Yeah.

00:17:29.159 --> 00:17:30.118
Leave some of the market open.

00:17:30.179 --> 00:17:31.828
Then outside of that, there's probably.

00:17:32.324 --> 00:17:44.233
Lots of five and 10 and 20 person companies out there that do mostly service in some like construction or whatever, but they're maybe a little more affordable, but less dependable kind of thing.

00:17:44.233 --> 00:17:45.884
Is that kinda the marketplace or, yeah.

00:17:45.884 --> 00:17:48.673
You know, we're seeing a big hole in the middle right now.

00:17:48.733 --> 00:17:49.064
Okay.

00:17:49.094 --> 00:17:51.913
Um, that, so it's onesie, twosies, and then the biggies.

00:17:51.943 --> 00:17:52.423
Yes.

00:17:52.513 --> 00:17:52.933
Yeah.

00:17:52.933 --> 00:18:00.644
From my perspective, you're kind of seeing that under five seven and is a good number, and then you're seeing big, you know, over 50 people.

00:18:00.733 --> 00:18:01.094
Interesting.

00:18:01.124 --> 00:18:03.223
Um, that middle just gets real hard.

00:18:03.703 --> 00:18:10.874
That was probably the hardest years for us, was that lots of overhead managers and you just don't have enough revenue to cover it all.

00:18:10.874 --> 00:18:11.265
Right, right.

00:18:11.269 --> 00:18:19.574
And so you've really gotta push through that ceiling through either acquisitions or big growth plans or the right people or whatever that looks like to kind of get there.

00:18:19.604 --> 00:18:20.084
Yeah.

00:18:20.173 --> 00:18:20.503
Yeah.

00:18:20.624 --> 00:18:20.864
Yeah.

00:18:20.894 --> 00:18:28.334
I wanna zoom back to that period in your life at, at some point, but, uh, yeah, like, so to refocus on the looking ahead part like.

00:18:28.874 --> 00:18:31.094
So capturing some more market share.

00:18:31.304 --> 00:18:31.513
Yep.

00:18:31.604 --> 00:18:43.304
Um, but if it's just a couple of bigs and onesie twosies, you'll have to either geographically expand or just be satisfied being, you know, a dominant business and looking for other things.

00:18:43.304 --> 00:18:46.213
Would you ever add other services to your client collection?

00:18:46.394 --> 00:18:50.683
Yeah, I think for us the, you know, we've kind of figured out what's.

00:18:51.088 --> 00:18:58.318
What works and what goes well outside of that, we'd start playing in other people's market, whether it's tree care or some of these other things.

00:18:58.348 --> 00:18:58.528
Right?

00:18:58.528 --> 00:19:00.929
And that, that just gets super hard for us.

00:19:00.929 --> 00:19:03.898
So right now it's probably a three-prong approach for us.

00:19:03.898 --> 00:19:06.148
One, can we squeeze the turnip just a little bit more?

00:19:06.328 --> 00:19:07.618
Tighten up on what we got?

00:19:07.679 --> 00:19:07.919
Yep.

00:19:07.949 --> 00:19:10.469
Grow with our existing re uh, sources.

00:19:10.828 --> 00:19:15.088
Ultimately as our team, as we believe that our desire or demand for our.

00:19:15.249 --> 00:19:17.469
Services is higher than we can offer right now.

00:19:17.499 --> 00:19:17.528
Mm.

00:19:17.528 --> 00:19:17.858
Okay.

00:19:18.068 --> 00:19:19.628
So we can grow through that way.

00:19:19.628 --> 00:19:23.769
And then, uh, possible acquisition, you know, there's this big baby boomer push, right?

00:19:23.769 --> 00:19:23.858
Sure.

00:19:23.858 --> 00:19:25.328
Everyone's looking at retiring.

00:19:25.328 --> 00:19:30.278
Well, if you're one of those seven employee landscapes firms and you're 62 Yep.

00:19:30.519 --> 00:19:31.538
That sounds pretty nice.

00:19:31.538 --> 00:19:31.628
Yep.

00:19:31.689 --> 00:19:34.898
And some guys, you know, have been running really good businesses for 30 years.

00:19:34.959 --> 00:19:35.019
Yeah.

00:19:35.019 --> 00:19:36.999
And, um, they just never got real big.

00:19:36.999 --> 00:19:37.659
And they're good with that.

00:19:37.659 --> 00:19:38.769
And they still have good accounts, so.

00:19:38.769 --> 00:19:39.368
Right, right.

00:19:39.459 --> 00:19:39.578
Yeah.

00:19:39.578 --> 00:19:41.528
The acquisition is never off of the table for us.

00:19:41.528 --> 00:19:41.739
Yeah.

00:19:41.739 --> 00:19:44.318
Well, in, in some cases you can even give'em a soft landing.

00:19:44.348 --> 00:19:45.669
They can have a job for a while.

00:19:45.669 --> 00:19:46.269
Absolutely.

00:19:46.269 --> 00:19:47.199
And stay busy, you know?

00:19:47.199 --> 00:19:47.378
Yeah.

00:19:47.409 --> 00:19:50.078
'cause I know we're so healthy now.

00:19:50.318 --> 00:19:50.679
Yeah.

00:19:50.739 --> 00:19:51.098
Right.

00:19:51.098 --> 00:19:52.959
Like when me and you were little kids.

00:19:53.294 --> 00:19:55.094
62 year olds were pretty old.

00:19:55.153 --> 00:19:55.604
Yeah.

00:19:55.784 --> 00:19:59.114
Now they're like going to Acapulco and stuff like that.

00:19:59.114 --> 00:19:59.354
Yeah, totally.

00:19:59.354 --> 00:19:59.648
You know?

00:19:59.648 --> 00:20:00.048
Totally.

00:20:00.048 --> 00:20:05.443
And they, they don't necessarily wanna sell their business at 62 and just be like on the golf course all the time.

00:20:05.534 --> 00:20:06.314
Yep, yep, yep.

00:20:06.314 --> 00:20:08.713
They wanna still keep contributing, right?

00:20:08.923 --> 00:20:09.193
Yeah.

00:20:09.193 --> 00:20:13.064
But they just, they don't wanna carry some of that risk and they probably make great account managers and Absolutely.

00:20:13.213 --> 00:20:13.814
Things like that.

00:20:13.814 --> 00:20:16.034
Maybe designer sales people and stuff like that.

00:20:16.124 --> 00:20:16.608
Yep, yep.

00:20:16.614 --> 00:20:16.933
Okay.

00:20:16.933 --> 00:20:17.804
That makes a lot of sense.

00:20:17.804 --> 00:20:17.953
Yep.

00:20:18.284 --> 00:20:20.624
Have you worked with, uh, Hines Irrigation at all?

00:20:20.834 --> 00:20:22.903
So we've worked a little bit with Hines.

00:20:22.903 --> 00:20:24.284
We've done some of their work.

00:20:24.284 --> 00:20:24.644
Yeah.

00:20:25.183 --> 00:20:26.534
Um, you the installer for some of their designs?

00:20:26.534 --> 00:20:27.554
Installers, some of, yeah.

00:20:27.554 --> 00:20:29.054
So they typically get picked up.

00:20:29.233 --> 00:20:34.153
What I see is they get picked up by, um, the architect, firm, engineer firm.

00:20:34.213 --> 00:20:34.423
Yep.

00:20:34.453 --> 00:20:37.394
As a leg for a major project or some sort of project.

00:20:37.394 --> 00:20:37.483
Yep.

00:20:37.483 --> 00:20:42.193
And then we'll come in under the GC level or the hard bid level.

00:20:42.199 --> 00:20:43.423
Here's the specs that and pick it up.

00:20:43.423 --> 00:20:43.604
Yeah.

00:20:43.604 --> 00:20:45.013
Heinz put through or whatever.

00:20:45.019 --> 00:20:45.048
Yeah.

00:20:45.074 --> 00:20:45.403
Yeah.

00:20:45.403 --> 00:20:46.394
Great business man.

00:20:46.394 --> 00:20:46.817
They've been around a long time.

00:20:46.821 --> 00:20:49.663
Seems like he's a really interesting philosophical guy as well.

00:20:49.874 --> 00:20:50.233
Yeah.

00:20:50.233 --> 00:20:50.234
Okay.

00:20:50.324 --> 00:20:50.683
Um.

00:20:51.374 --> 00:20:51.973
So, yeah.

00:20:51.973 --> 00:20:52.903
Anyway, I digress.

00:20:52.903 --> 00:20:53.324
Nice, nice, nice.

00:20:53.713 --> 00:20:53.983
Yeah.

00:20:54.013 --> 00:20:56.894
But, uh, so, so yeah, I think that makes sense.

00:20:57.013 --> 00:21:00.314
And then like, how old are you?

00:21:00.318 --> 00:21:00.808
44.

00:21:00.808 --> 00:21:01.933
44, 45.

00:21:01.993 --> 00:21:04.334
Oh, you look, you look as old as me, kind of was.

00:21:04.334 --> 00:21:04.963
Just'cause you're hair.

00:21:04.963 --> 00:21:05.534
I'm 50.

00:21:05.594 --> 00:21:06.044
Okay.

00:21:06.048 --> 00:21:06.528
I'm getting there.

00:21:06.528 --> 00:21:06.729
Sorry.

00:21:06.729 --> 00:21:07.648
You know I'm getting there.

00:21:07.753 --> 00:21:07.903
Yeah.

00:21:07.903 --> 00:21:10.693
You've been, so you've been running this thing since you were.

00:21:11.144 --> 00:21:12.223
Just a puppy kind of, yeah.

00:21:12.284 --> 00:21:12.973
25.

00:21:13.003 --> 00:21:13.544
Okay.

00:21:13.544 --> 00:21:13.545
Yeah.

00:21:13.634 --> 00:21:13.814
Yeah.

00:21:13.814 --> 00:21:14.564
Some hard years.

00:21:14.564 --> 00:21:15.314
That's what you're looking at.

00:21:15.318 --> 00:21:15.409
Yeah.

00:21:15.413 --> 00:21:15.703
Yeah.

00:21:15.703 --> 00:21:17.413
What was the, what was the impetus?

00:21:17.413 --> 00:21:18.644
How did, no, I don't think so.

00:21:18.644 --> 00:21:24.193
You look, you look pretty, pretty young underneath that beard, but, uh, the beard adds 10 years usually.

00:21:24.314 --> 00:21:24.763
Yeah.

00:21:24.854 --> 00:21:25.124
Yeah.

00:21:25.124 --> 00:21:27.403
It makes me look a older, uh, so how do we get going?

00:21:27.403 --> 00:21:27.703
Yeah.

00:21:27.703 --> 00:21:32.473
We, um, when I started, I grew up in east of Colorado Springs.

00:21:32.473 --> 00:21:35.773
I was in the tree business, worked for a land, a nursery down there.

00:21:35.804 --> 00:21:36.193
Oh, okay.

00:21:36.403 --> 00:21:39.824
Went to CSU, graduated, had no idea what I wanted to do.

00:21:40.153 --> 00:21:48.104
Um, and came up here, worked for another landscape firm for a short stint, and just thought, man, there's gotta be a better way to do this.

00:21:48.163 --> 00:21:48.344
Huh.

00:21:48.493 --> 00:21:49.663
And, uh, here we are.

00:21:49.663 --> 00:21:50.294
Just, here we are.

00:21:50.324 --> 00:21:50.624
Yeah.

00:21:50.624 --> 00:21:50.923
28.

00:21:50.923 --> 00:21:53.443
And so, like, what was the first steps?

00:21:53.443 --> 00:21:53.804
Like, did you.

00:21:54.239 --> 00:22:00.239
Uh, just like make a flyer, knock on doors, like steal customers from your boss.

00:22:00.269 --> 00:22:02.398
Like luckily, no, none of that.

00:22:02.398 --> 00:22:02.939
None of that.

00:22:02.939 --> 00:22:07.648
Luckily my dad, uh, my dad was kind of a, a business guy himself.

00:22:07.709 --> 00:22:08.009
Okay.

00:22:08.068 --> 00:22:14.759
And, uh, he worked for Midas for 30 years and, you know, he had seen what's good marketing, what's bad marketing, and Hmm.

00:22:14.969 --> 00:22:18.479
They gave me an old farm here locally, uh, in Colorado Springs area.

00:22:18.598 --> 00:22:18.989
Yeah.

00:22:18.989 --> 00:22:18.990
Okay.

00:22:19.078 --> 00:22:19.409
Okay.

00:22:19.439 --> 00:22:21.269
So that's where you started, Zack Sarge, yeah.

00:22:21.269 --> 00:22:21.568
Yeah, yeah.

00:22:21.568 --> 00:22:27.419
And then I, we popped up here right after, um, right after my wife, now girlfriend.

00:22:27.419 --> 00:22:29.669
At the time she was going to school, she wanted to go to CSU.

00:22:29.669 --> 00:22:30.599
That's how we ended up back up here.

00:22:30.868 --> 00:22:31.318
Okay.

00:22:31.318 --> 00:22:32.459
So, yeah.

00:22:32.459 --> 00:22:37.199
And, uh, so you kinda went home after college at CSU and went to figure it out.

00:22:37.199 --> 00:22:38.068
Dad helped you kind of.

00:22:38.358 --> 00:22:39.798
Get something off the ground.

00:22:39.804 --> 00:22:40.084
Yeah.

00:22:40.249 --> 00:22:40.519
Yeah.

00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:44.509
So Dad kind of gave me, here's an old farm truck, it's worth a couple hundred bucks.

00:22:44.568 --> 00:22:44.689
Yep.

00:22:44.689 --> 00:22:49.219
And here's$400, uh, to run an ad in the Colorado, one in Fort Collins.

00:22:49.219 --> 00:22:49.278
Yeah.

00:22:49.278 --> 00:22:50.659
And you can have these old shovels.

00:22:50.689 --> 00:22:50.929
Yeah.

00:22:50.989 --> 00:22:52.159
That's pretty much what happened.

00:22:52.159 --> 00:22:52.729
Yeah.

00:22:52.729 --> 00:22:52.730
Okay.

00:22:52.788 --> 00:22:53.058
Yeah.

00:22:53.058 --> 00:22:56.959
And then it was kind of just, uh, you know, keep, keep the foot on the gas.

00:22:56.959 --> 00:23:01.699
And you already had the skillset from having worked for this, uh, tree farm and stuff, or parts of it?

00:23:01.878 --> 00:23:02.443
Parts of it, yeah.

00:23:02.604 --> 00:23:04.878
A lot of it was over promising and then delivering.

00:23:04.909 --> 00:23:05.328
Yes sir.

00:23:05.388 --> 00:23:05.568
Yeah.

00:23:05.568 --> 00:23:05.808
Yeah.

00:23:05.808 --> 00:23:06.949
That was totally what it was.

00:23:06.949 --> 00:23:09.288
It was, I had some of the skillset along the way.

00:23:09.469 --> 00:23:09.528
Yeah.

00:23:09.528 --> 00:23:15.048
Learned some of it, but it ultimately needed, uh, much more honing in, let's put it that way.

00:23:15.048 --> 00:23:18.259
So 2005 was still a pretty salty time.

00:23:18.259 --> 00:23:19.548
There was probably an.

00:23:19.888 --> 00:23:24.659
Over demand and under supply of landscape construction especially.

00:23:25.348 --> 00:23:25.469
Yeah.

00:23:25.469 --> 00:23:32.009
Like the housing market was in that oh four to oh seven ish time burning pretty good.

00:23:32.068 --> 00:23:32.548
Yeah.

00:23:32.548 --> 00:23:36.778
You know, when I first got started red, I didn't have much of a name and I was a transplant, so I didn't know.

00:23:36.778 --> 00:23:37.078
Right.

00:23:37.378 --> 00:23:40.769
I didn't know realtors, I didn't know other contractors.

00:23:40.769 --> 00:23:42.449
I didn't know GCs.

00:23:42.449 --> 00:23:43.409
I didn't know anybody.

00:23:43.409 --> 00:23:47.009
And so as a transplant, you kind of just are grassroot in it, right.

00:23:47.009 --> 00:23:47.669
Getting it going.

00:23:47.669 --> 00:23:47.729
Yeah.

00:23:47.804 --> 00:23:47.884
Yeah.

00:23:47.888 --> 00:23:51.959
So nowadays you got enough connections you can, you can put things together.

00:23:51.963 --> 00:23:54.328
Were were you like residential focused at first then?

00:23:54.328 --> 00:23:55.138
A hundred percent yeah.

00:23:55.138 --> 00:23:56.519
A hundred percent residential focused.

00:23:56.519 --> 00:23:56.804
Yeah.

00:23:56.804 --> 00:23:59.459
And uh, mainly just renovations.

00:23:59.459 --> 00:23:59.759
Right.

00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:00.989
Started doing renovations.

00:24:00.989 --> 00:24:01.078
Mm-hmm.

00:24:01.318 --> 00:24:04.588
Teamed up with a local designer up system and Yeah.

00:24:04.618 --> 00:24:04.888
Yep.

00:24:04.949 --> 00:24:05.909
Started doing that.

00:24:05.909 --> 00:24:14.864
And then, um, there was a kind of a higher profile guy in town asked me to come over to his house and look at it, and I was there one day and he goes, I need you to mow my lawn.

00:24:14.864 --> 00:24:16.709
And I was like, I don't mow lawns.

00:24:16.709 --> 00:24:17.308
And he was like.

00:24:18.028 --> 00:24:20.699
Go down to Sears and buy a lawnmower tonight and come back tomorrow.

00:24:20.759 --> 00:24:21.598
And I was like, okay.

00:24:21.898 --> 00:24:23.884
So there I was, started mowing.

00:24:23.909 --> 00:24:24.568
Mowing lawns.

00:24:24.628 --> 00:24:25.048
Okay.

00:24:25.108 --> 00:24:30.509
So, and like, is that some of the, did you share that story?

00:24:30.509 --> 00:24:31.884
Like who, who that person was?

00:24:32.023 --> 00:24:33.568
It was Pat McGuffin at the Rio.

00:24:33.659 --> 00:24:34.199
Oh really?

00:24:34.229 --> 00:24:35.398
Yeah, I know Pat.

00:24:35.459 --> 00:24:40.798
Uh, my connection with Pat started when, uh, black Bottle Brewery was looking for a home.

00:24:40.919 --> 00:24:41.009
Okay.

00:24:41.009 --> 00:24:41.788
I was the banker.

00:24:41.788 --> 00:24:45.719
That was my very last banking transaction was financing Black bottle.

00:24:45.778 --> 00:24:46.078
Yeah.

00:24:46.078 --> 00:24:47.068
May it rest in peace?

00:24:47.074 --> 00:24:47.364
Yeah.

00:24:47.368 --> 00:24:47.878
Yeah.

00:24:47.878 --> 00:24:50.909
And Godspeed verboten because it's nice to have a neighborhood brewery in that neighborhood.

00:24:50.913 --> 00:24:51.044
Yeah.

00:24:51.209 --> 00:24:51.358
Yeah.

00:24:51.388 --> 00:24:59.249
But it was, uh, I got to know Pat because he was effectively interviewing potential tenants for his space there next door to El Monte.

00:24:59.308 --> 00:25:00.028
Yes.

00:25:00.179 --> 00:25:06.538
And uh, what I, I hate to say this story'cause Pat needs to come on this podcast one of these days too.

00:25:06.628 --> 00:25:06.898
He should.

00:25:07.499 --> 00:25:11.249
You know, he, he struggled with El Monte for years to try to make that thing work, right?

00:25:11.249 --> 00:25:11.308
Yeah.

00:25:11.308 --> 00:25:13.709
Like it was always just, it was so good.

00:25:13.709 --> 00:25:13.798
Yes.

00:25:13.828 --> 00:25:15.148
But it just was never very busy.

00:25:15.929 --> 00:25:20.009
And I'm sure he never made any money and sorry for that, you know?

00:25:20.009 --> 00:25:23.429
Um, and I'm sure he blamed it on the location a lot.

00:25:23.848 --> 00:25:26.788
And then black bottle opened and it was like busy as shit all the time.

00:25:26.788 --> 00:25:28.203
Right away it was, I know.

00:25:28.344 --> 00:25:31.348
To me it was like, oh, that was probably a nice slice of humble pie.

00:25:31.709 --> 00:25:32.098
Ah, man.

00:25:32.098 --> 00:25:36.479
That corner of town was just, it wasn't there until a little bit later.

00:25:36.568 --> 00:25:36.868
Yeah.

00:25:36.898 --> 00:25:37.318
Yeah.

00:25:37.318 --> 00:25:37.320
You know?

00:25:37.439 --> 00:25:37.679
Yeah.

00:25:37.679 --> 00:25:41.338
Had he hung on just a little longer, but I don't think it was so it goes, it was a tough, he's fine.

00:25:41.368 --> 00:25:41.578
Yeah.

00:25:41.759 --> 00:25:42.719
It was a tough too.

00:25:42.959 --> 00:25:44.219
Pat's doing just fine.

00:25:44.249 --> 00:25:44.519
Yeah.

00:25:44.523 --> 00:25:44.604
Yeah.

00:25:44.848 --> 00:25:45.898
Um, but cool.

00:25:45.898 --> 00:25:49.108
So he was your first little maintenance client?

00:25:49.114 --> 00:25:49.324
Yeah.

00:25:49.499 --> 00:25:49.769
Yeah.

00:25:49.769 --> 00:25:51.209
He was like, Hey, I need you to mow my lawn.

00:25:51.209 --> 00:25:52.199
I was like, all right, here we go.

00:25:52.199 --> 00:25:53.878
You probably made a lot of introductions after that.

00:25:53.878 --> 00:25:53.969
Sure.

00:25:54.058 --> 00:25:54.209
Yeah.

00:25:54.209 --> 00:25:55.709
I figured it out and just kept going.

00:25:56.098 --> 00:25:56.459
Yeah.

00:25:56.489 --> 00:25:57.598
So I started mowing lawns.

00:25:57.604 --> 00:25:57.644
Interesting.

00:25:57.644 --> 00:25:58.078
And I was like, interesting.

00:25:58.078 --> 00:26:00.269
Well, I got one lawn, now I need to get more.

00:26:00.358 --> 00:26:00.628
Right.

00:26:00.628 --> 00:26:01.108
So I started lawn.

00:26:01.108 --> 00:26:02.038
I'm gonna have a lawnmower.

00:26:02.038 --> 00:26:02.308
Yeah.

00:26:02.368 --> 00:26:03.689
Like, I kinda just run it once a month.

00:26:03.719 --> 00:26:03.898
Yeah.

00:26:03.898 --> 00:26:04.858
I started picking up more.

00:26:05.294 --> 00:26:08.443
So, and then you eventually dropped the residential maintenance though?

00:26:08.473 --> 00:26:10.483
We did, uh, what year was that?

00:26:10.483 --> 00:26:12.044
2013 I want to say.

00:26:12.104 --> 00:26:12.344
Okay.

00:26:12.344 --> 00:26:13.663
We dropped the residential maintenance.

00:26:13.663 --> 00:26:23.653
We used to do residential service work, residential maintenance, and it's just hard to offer that real specialized, hands-on approach in a scalable size.

00:26:23.743 --> 00:26:25.453
Yeah, you can definitely do it.

00:26:25.634 --> 00:26:28.993
There's great companies in town that do residential service work.

00:26:28.993 --> 00:26:33.344
We just, for us on the scale side, it just wasn't, wasn't, uh, makes sense.

00:26:33.348 --> 00:26:33.969
Attainable makes sense.

00:26:33.973 --> 00:26:35.653
I mean, that's one of the challenges of scaling, right?

00:26:35.653 --> 00:26:44.503
Like you have kinda these different layers of costs and equipment and overhead and you can do most of your own things in the construction side, but that all comes with it.

00:26:44.759 --> 00:26:45.723
A cost, you know?

00:26:45.723 --> 00:26:46.203
Yeah, yeah.

00:26:46.223 --> 00:26:50.189
And you can't be as nimble as that one man sprinkler maintenance operation.

00:26:50.189 --> 00:26:53.159
That a hundred percent keeps a hundred clients and keeps'em all happy.

00:26:53.249 --> 00:26:53.788
A hundred percent.

00:26:53.788 --> 00:26:54.209
Mrs.

00:26:54.209 --> 00:26:57.209
Smith or you know, Joe Schmo homeowner.

00:26:57.209 --> 00:26:58.858
They have a specific way they want it.

00:26:58.858 --> 00:26:59.189
Right.

00:26:59.189 --> 00:27:09.898
And that's, that's ultimately what gets hard is how do you take that information outta your brain, put it down on paper, and then make that to where the tech or whoever's going there can do it exactly as they want it.

00:27:09.898 --> 00:27:11.308
And ultimately it's their home.

00:27:11.308 --> 00:27:14.669
So if they want the lilac cut at the wrong time of the year, yes ma'am.

00:27:14.669 --> 00:27:16.439
That's not what I recommend, but I'm here to help you.

00:27:16.439 --> 00:27:17.459
We always could'em in May.

00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:17.909
Yeah.

00:27:17.909 --> 00:27:18.598
Yeah.

00:27:18.659 --> 00:27:21.628
So it's, it's whatever, whatever we had to do.

00:27:21.628 --> 00:27:24.388
So that was, that's kind of why we Oh yeah.

00:27:24.388 --> 00:27:27.598
And I imagine your blame was probably overflowing first, right.

00:27:27.598 --> 00:27:30.269
As you're building this collection of what people want.

00:27:30.509 --> 00:27:30.838
Yeah.

00:27:30.959 --> 00:27:31.199
Yeah.

00:27:31.199 --> 00:27:33.148
It was, uh, gets tough quick.

00:27:33.328 --> 00:27:40.259
So what was your, what was your scaling journey like in the first few years you grew up to a pretty mid-size.

00:27:40.348 --> 00:27:41.368
What was your, your.

00:27:41.953 --> 00:27:45.403
Struggle spot you mentioned was kind of in that, uh, tweeners.

00:27:45.554 --> 00:27:45.794
Yeah.

00:27:45.794 --> 00:27:52.273
I ultimately just lacked, uh, understanding and that's kind of how we ended up somewhat to the size we were.

00:27:52.634 --> 00:27:56.294
And then we started to pull the reins back and go, okay, now we have a little bit better understanding.

00:27:56.294 --> 00:27:58.874
But it was just, I gotta do more work.

00:27:59.023 --> 00:28:00.614
Just take, solve, solve my problems.

00:28:00.614 --> 00:28:01.153
And yeah.

00:28:01.153 --> 00:28:07.153
So we ultimately were, if it meant more revenues, regardless of whether it was a fit or not, uhhuh, it was bad revenue, some of it for sure.

00:28:07.153 --> 00:28:07.483
Yeah.

00:28:07.483 --> 00:28:07.814
Yeah, yeah.

00:28:07.814 --> 00:28:13.394
So we ultimately, um, started, yeah, just slowly getting bigger and bigger.

00:28:13.394 --> 00:28:16.693
Oh seven obviously hit, that was kind of a weird year for everybody.

00:28:16.963 --> 00:28:22.723
We just kind of held flat, did some weird things that through that year, and then oh eight picked up a little bit more oh nine.

00:28:22.753 --> 00:28:23.114
Oh wow.

00:28:23.203 --> 00:28:25.273
And then we just kind of kept going.

00:28:25.273 --> 00:28:25.784
Yeah, cool.

00:28:25.933 --> 00:28:27.044
Outgrew our space.

00:28:27.044 --> 00:28:27.943
I was running it out of.

00:28:28.489 --> 00:28:32.898
I mean, I started it like most people out of a, my dad's rental, my mom and dad's rental in Fort Collins.

00:28:32.898 --> 00:28:38.058
And then we moved across town, had a half acre, ran outgrew that, moved across town.

00:28:38.449 --> 00:28:49.759
Um, so we just kind of started there and ultimately, you know, surrounding yourself with smarter people that can kind of help you navigate some of those, those questions of which direction should we go.

00:28:50.449 --> 00:28:59.598
What would you say, like, why did you choose that name head coach as like what you call yourself on your LinkedIn profile, um, and what would.

00:29:00.854 --> 00:29:05.443
What would some of your key people say on that context as well, I guess, if you can imagine.

00:29:05.594 --> 00:29:05.834
Yeah.

00:29:05.834 --> 00:29:08.743
I mean, ultimately it's a, it's a position of servitude, right?

00:29:08.743 --> 00:29:11.564
I'm there to, I'm there to help other people show'em.

00:29:11.804 --> 00:29:14.413
Um, but I'm not the one out there making the plays.

00:29:14.473 --> 00:29:14.683
Yeah.

00:29:14.683 --> 00:29:24.374
You know, so I'm kind of on the sidelines and I'm helping call out some different things and, you know, looking for blind spots and looking for areas that we need to get better and things like that.

00:29:24.374 --> 00:29:28.453
And that's ultimately the position where, you know, I'm responsible when things go good.

00:29:28.453 --> 00:29:32.173
I'm responsible when things go bad, but I'm not on the field making the plays every day.

00:29:32.179 --> 00:29:32.743
Yeah, yeah.

00:29:32.743 --> 00:29:39.644
And so it's kind of a, you know, I felt the metaphor fit and if I'm there, I gotta be able to one, you know, taking the good, taking the bad.

00:29:39.648 --> 00:29:39.759
Yeah.

00:29:39.759 --> 00:29:39.959
Yeah.

00:29:40.064 --> 00:29:42.673
But also also calling out when there's issues coming up.

00:29:42.794 --> 00:29:44.653
When was that transition for you?

00:29:44.653 --> 00:29:52.993
When, like at what employee count, if you will, when you no longer had a lot of your time in front of your customers?

00:29:52.993 --> 00:29:53.054
I.

00:29:53.534 --> 00:29:56.473
You know, every year it's gotten a little better for me.

00:29:56.564 --> 00:30:10.153
Um, I would say in the last couple years is probably the best, but once we hit 50 people, it ultimately, I had to start making a decision and relying on others and saying, these, we trust these people.

00:30:10.153 --> 00:30:11.894
We know they're part of the team.

00:30:11.894 --> 00:30:14.624
They understand our mission, they know where we're going.

00:30:14.683 --> 00:30:14.953
Yeah.

00:30:15.013 --> 00:30:23.054
They understand that, you know, it's not about the mighty dollar, it's about clients and it's about the name, and it's about what we're ultimately trying to do in the community.

00:30:23.203 --> 00:30:23.443
Yeah.

00:30:23.864 --> 00:30:31.814
What, uh, have you done some of the, the, the deep work, you know, the mission, vision, values, calming it to your front lines and stuff like that?

00:30:31.844 --> 00:30:32.743
Yeah, a hundred percent.

00:30:32.743 --> 00:30:37.094
We've done a bunch of that stuff and we, we can get.

00:30:38.249 --> 00:30:40.318
You know, really wrapped up in some of that stuff.

00:30:40.318 --> 00:30:46.259
But our, our big tagline is we make people's lives better through landscaping, and that's it.

00:30:46.888 --> 00:30:48.959
We're not cops, so people don't get mad at us.

00:30:49.048 --> 00:30:49.348
Right.

00:30:49.378 --> 00:30:51.044
Uh, we ultimately, people want us there.

00:30:51.044 --> 00:30:52.618
We don't care if you're growing weed in your backyard.

00:30:52.648 --> 00:30:53.128
We don't care.

00:30:53.368 --> 00:31:00.929
I mean, my, so my landscape guy is, uh, also the, the creator of the, uh, lightning mini golf in Old Town West.

00:31:00.929 --> 00:31:02.459
I don't know if you know Matt Gettig or not.

00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:02.878
Okay.

00:31:03.058 --> 00:31:04.679
Um, right at Whitcomb and LaPorte.

00:31:04.679 --> 00:31:08.219
So there's, there's like 10 different free mini golf holes scattered around there.

00:31:08.219 --> 00:31:08.608
Yes.

00:31:08.669 --> 00:31:14.878
And my neighbor built them during Covid just to give people a reason to like be together and be outside and stuff.

00:31:14.909 --> 00:31:15.148
Yep.

00:31:15.298 --> 00:31:20.368
But he builds'em in his, mostly his irrigation and landscaping clients, front media and things.

00:31:20.398 --> 00:31:20.969
Nice.

00:31:21.239 --> 00:31:23.848
Um, without city permission or anything like that.

00:31:23.848 --> 00:31:24.118
Love it.

00:31:24.479 --> 00:31:31.439
Um, but anyway, um, his, um, his opinion is that like he.

00:31:32.009 --> 00:31:37.558
45% of yards seem to have some homegrown going on these days.

00:31:37.558 --> 00:31:41.038
Or maybe it's only 25, but he's like, every time I go in Mrs.

00:31:41.038 --> 00:31:45.838
Johnson's backyard, if it's not in her backyard, it's in the neighbors across the street or over the next fence.

00:31:45.868 --> 00:31:46.169
Yeah.

00:31:46.169 --> 00:31:47.519
You, we certainly see that.

00:31:47.519 --> 00:31:52.318
I would say we probably have a handful of clients that had, um, operations just in the house.

00:31:52.409 --> 00:31:52.558
Yeah.

00:31:52.558 --> 00:31:56.638
So you're always smelling the fans even before it was even, uh, legit, perhaps.

00:31:56.638 --> 00:31:56.640
Yeah.

00:31:56.653 --> 00:31:57.509
Yeah, yeah.

00:31:57.509 --> 00:31:58.048
I imagine.

00:31:58.048 --> 00:31:58.288
Yeah.

00:31:58.528 --> 00:32:01.648
So you're not the police, you're here to make your life better through landscaping.

00:32:01.648 --> 00:32:02.068
That's it.

00:32:02.068 --> 00:32:02.249
Yeah.

00:32:02.249 --> 00:32:03.328
I mean, people are happy, right?

00:32:03.328 --> 00:32:10.888
They, they engage with us so we're not doing cold calls and, um, well that communicates such a good consultative approach, you know?

00:32:10.888 --> 00:32:13.048
Do you want raspberries in your backyard?

00:32:13.138 --> 00:32:13.409
Yeah.

00:32:13.558 --> 00:32:14.398
You know,'cause you just.

00:32:15.104 --> 00:32:18.374
Remember picking raspberries from your mom's tree when you were a kid?

00:32:18.374 --> 00:32:20.534
Well, we could probably make that happen or whatever, right?

00:32:20.534 --> 00:32:21.314
Yeah, a hundred percent.

00:32:21.314 --> 00:32:21.614
Yeah.

00:32:21.703 --> 00:32:22.784
We're here to make your life better.

00:32:22.784 --> 00:32:26.534
And so, you know, again, people aren't mad at us very often, which is nice.

00:32:26.564 --> 00:32:26.864
Yeah.

00:32:27.013 --> 00:32:29.503
And I think that's why a lot of people flock to the industry.

00:32:29.624 --> 00:32:29.953
Yeah.

00:32:30.074 --> 00:32:30.403
Yeah.

00:32:30.913 --> 00:32:38.773
Um, what would your, your kind of longtime employees say about, um, you as a leader, but also the, the culture generally?

00:32:38.773 --> 00:32:39.614
I mean, beyond that.

00:32:40.153 --> 00:32:41.054
A tagline, if you will.

00:32:41.084 --> 00:32:41.263
Yeah.

00:32:41.263 --> 00:32:44.203
I think they're ultimately thankful I've matured over the years.

00:32:44.203 --> 00:32:45.223
Right, okay.

00:32:45.223 --> 00:32:45.224
Yeah.

00:32:45.230 --> 00:32:46.933
A little bit of a wild guy back in the day.

00:32:46.993 --> 00:32:47.324
All right.

00:32:47.384 --> 00:32:54.193
And, uh, so I think they're, they're thankful that matured over the years and, um, yeah.

00:32:54.193 --> 00:33:00.913
I think that they're thankful, you know, I think they're ultimately also, uh, I don't micromanage much.

00:33:00.943 --> 00:33:01.153
Yeah.

00:33:01.213 --> 00:33:07.574
Um, you know, we just kinda set our goals for the year and we, we strive to hit'em and we all work pretty hard to get there.

00:33:07.634 --> 00:33:07.903
Yeah.

00:33:08.084 --> 00:33:08.503
I dig it.

00:33:08.709 --> 00:33:09.108
I dig it.

00:33:09.134 --> 00:33:10.304
Kind of a camaraderieship Yeah.

00:33:11.263 --> 00:33:11.804
A hundred percent.

00:33:11.894 --> 00:33:14.114
Without it sounding Marxist or anything like that.

00:33:14.144 --> 00:33:14.473
Yeah.

00:33:15.013 --> 00:33:19.273
So, um, and you and I know each other at least a little bit through Rotary Club.

00:33:19.423 --> 00:33:19.753
Yeah.

00:33:19.874 --> 00:33:23.713
You are a member of the, the Wednesday group, Fort Collins Wednesday group.

00:33:23.713 --> 00:33:23.923
Yep.

00:33:24.044 --> 00:33:26.263
The downtown group, I think they call themselves.

00:33:26.263 --> 00:33:26.503
Yeah.

00:33:26.534 --> 00:33:28.094
We are the 1918 club.

00:33:28.124 --> 00:33:28.334
Yep.

00:33:28.334 --> 00:33:29.653
The OGs.

00:33:29.653 --> 00:33:29.743
Yep.

00:33:29.749 --> 00:33:29.759
OGs.

00:33:29.773 --> 00:33:30.074
Yep.

00:33:30.088 --> 00:33:30.308
Yep.

00:33:30.493 --> 00:33:36.344
So been a member now for, whoa, quite a while back when they were at the Drake Center is when I joined.

00:33:36.463 --> 00:33:36.854
Okay.

00:33:36.854 --> 00:33:39.223
Man, that might've been seven, eight years ago now.

00:33:40.199 --> 00:33:40.439
Yeah.

00:33:40.439 --> 00:33:41.969
At least, I bet at least, yeah.

00:33:41.969 --> 00:33:43.019
They've kind of hopped around.

00:33:43.019 --> 00:33:46.739
Covid kind of forced their hand to move a couple times and cost and things like that.

00:33:46.739 --> 00:33:46.798
Yeah.

00:33:46.798 --> 00:33:50.068
I visited the club a couple times back in the day when they were in the Lincoln Center.

00:33:50.068 --> 00:33:51.749
I don't know if that was before Drake Center.

00:33:51.868 --> 00:33:54.045
They were at the Lincoln Center before, probably before the Drake Center.

00:33:54.045 --> 00:33:54.898
Probably both before and after maybe?

00:33:54.898 --> 00:33:55.199
Yes.

00:33:55.199 --> 00:33:56.338
They're back at the Lincoln Center.

00:33:56.368 --> 00:33:56.909
Oh, they are good.

00:33:56.909 --> 00:33:59.338
Yes, they can, more likely for me to visit.

00:33:59.338 --> 00:34:03.989
We could do a, we could do a swaperoo sometime on, we should, uh, Thursday mornings at Ginger and Baker, so.

00:34:04.048 --> 00:34:04.409
Okay.

00:34:04.528 --> 00:34:05.939
We're not far out of each other's.

00:34:05.939 --> 00:34:06.298
Uh, okay.

00:34:06.298 --> 00:34:06.749
That's good.

00:34:06.808 --> 00:34:09.059
So it's lunch at the Lincoln Center.

00:34:09.088 --> 00:34:09.268
Yep.

00:34:09.568 --> 00:34:10.949
Lunch, catering, lunch.

00:34:10.949 --> 00:34:12.268
It's Wednesday noon.

00:34:12.329 --> 00:34:13.108
Wednesday noon.

00:34:13.108 --> 00:34:13.349
Yep.

00:34:13.409 --> 00:34:15.838
Be there 10 minutes before so you can That's 20.

00:34:15.838 --> 00:34:16.739
Yeah, 20 is better.

00:34:16.798 --> 00:34:17.039
Yeah.

00:34:17.039 --> 00:34:17.250
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:17.255 --> 00:34:17.548
Okay.

00:34:17.699 --> 00:34:18.208
All right.

00:34:18.208 --> 00:34:18.358
Yeah.

00:34:18.358 --> 00:34:18.360
Yeah.

00:34:18.418 --> 00:34:22.259
That's an open invitation for anybody that wants to check more out about Rotary.

00:34:22.259 --> 00:34:22.858
A hundred percent.

00:34:23.068 --> 00:34:23.998
Um, a hundred percent.

00:34:24.389 --> 00:34:29.818
I, I considered the Foothills Lunch Club when I was first joining when it was like, it's so far away, but yeah.

00:34:30.028 --> 00:34:31.708
Um, so are you breakfast?

00:34:31.858 --> 00:34:32.608
Breakfast, yeah.

00:34:32.639 --> 00:34:32.969
Yes.

00:34:32.998 --> 00:34:33.329
Okay.

00:34:33.389 --> 00:34:37.528
Yeah, we were kinda a small club when I joined, but it's gotten, we're 85 now or something.

00:34:37.528 --> 00:34:37.858
Wow.

00:34:37.949 --> 00:34:38.159
Yeah.

00:34:38.188 --> 00:34:38.398
Okay.

00:34:38.398 --> 00:34:38.969
Getting up there.

00:34:38.969 --> 00:34:39.329
Yeah, pretty.

00:34:39.989 --> 00:34:45.088
So I have a pretty, uh, my Rotary, my impact is I'm part of the Peach Fest.

00:34:45.389 --> 00:34:45.599
Okay.

00:34:45.603 --> 00:34:46.168
So I helped put that.

00:34:46.199 --> 00:34:46.679
Oh you are?

00:34:46.708 --> 00:34:46.949
Yeah.

00:34:46.978 --> 00:34:47.219
Good.

00:34:47.219 --> 00:34:47.309
Yes.

00:34:47.369 --> 00:34:50.458
So you work with Dave, Dave Haas, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:34:50.518 --> 00:34:50.789
Awesome.

00:34:50.789 --> 00:34:52.108
And Steve Lane.

00:34:52.259 --> 00:34:52.559
Oh, good.

00:34:52.588 --> 00:34:54.389
And a couple other key.

00:34:54.389 --> 00:34:57.028
That's your main kind of shoulder that's into the wheel.

00:34:57.059 --> 00:34:57.300
That's, yep.

00:34:57.389 --> 00:34:57.659
Yep.

00:34:57.719 --> 00:35:00.778
I was doing it before Covid, so I figured I just gotta keep going.

00:35:00.778 --> 00:35:03.478
Well, I was thinking about sponsoring Peach Fest this year, actually.

00:35:03.478 --> 00:35:03.509
Okay.

00:35:03.539 --> 00:35:06.389
But I should probably let Dave get that win, not you.

00:35:06.389 --> 00:35:06.628
So.

00:35:06.628 --> 00:35:06.688
Yeah.

00:35:07.018 --> 00:35:07.559
Good, Dave.

00:35:07.559 --> 00:35:09.179
I'll talk more with him about it instead.

00:35:09.208 --> 00:35:09.690
Yeah, yeah.

00:35:09.838 --> 00:35:11.639
Um, I've been, so for years.

00:35:12.509 --> 00:35:15.539
So it's my birthday weekend typically Uhhuh Peach Fest.

00:35:15.628 --> 00:35:20.668
And so I usually go on a big long camping trip and it's Realities for Children Ride.

00:35:20.699 --> 00:35:21.148
Oh yes.

00:35:21.179 --> 00:35:29.818
The last couple years has been conflicting too and I've taken part in that a bunch of times and I'm a member there Uhhuh, and so it's like, but this year they're both on different weekends.

00:35:30.208 --> 00:35:30.239
Uhhuh.

00:35:30.239 --> 00:35:30.568
Yes.

00:35:30.628 --> 00:35:30.838
Yeah.

00:35:30.838 --> 00:35:33.088
Uh, but I might still be gone with one for my birthday.

00:35:33.119 --> 00:35:33.449
Yeah.

00:35:33.509 --> 00:35:36.478
Luckily Dave's kind of kept the torch going, which is awesome.

00:35:36.478 --> 00:35:36.989
He's great.

00:35:36.994 --> 00:35:37.273
Yeah.

00:35:37.278 --> 00:35:37.588
Yeah.

00:35:37.619 --> 00:35:39.599
He's pretty passionate about it, which is really nice.

00:35:39.659 --> 00:35:39.958
Yeah.

00:35:40.108 --> 00:35:44.398
Well, the event has evolved over the years to really become, uh, a neat thing.

00:35:44.518 --> 00:35:44.909
It has.

00:35:44.909 --> 00:35:44.969
Yeah.

00:35:44.969 --> 00:35:46.949
Easier to say yes to supporting and things like that.

00:35:47.009 --> 00:35:47.068
Yeah.

00:35:47.068 --> 00:35:49.199
And it's not as crazy as it used to be.

00:35:49.289 --> 00:35:52.139
I mean now it's just good bands music, beer.

00:35:52.813 --> 00:35:54.554
People can't complain about that.

00:35:54.554 --> 00:35:54.768
Not, not so many things going on.

00:35:54.768 --> 00:35:55.431
Doesn't have many crazy, not many things.

00:35:55.436 --> 00:35:55.693
Yeah.

00:35:55.813 --> 00:35:56.083
Yeah.

00:35:56.168 --> 00:35:56.869
I'm a exactly.

00:35:57.103 --> 00:35:59.023
My, I'm a sergeant at Arms.

00:35:59.054 --> 00:35:59.414
Okay.

00:35:59.474 --> 00:36:03.373
Uh, is kind of where I give much of my efforts these days.

00:36:03.373 --> 00:36:03.403
Okay.

00:36:03.403 --> 00:36:04.184
To the Breakfast Club.

00:36:04.184 --> 00:36:06.614
So I introduce all the visiting guests and Okay.

00:36:06.614 --> 00:36:06.914
Good.

00:36:06.914 --> 00:36:12.733
Kind of, you know, if people need to shut up and listen to the program and I raise heck and that kind thing.

00:36:12.733 --> 00:36:12.885
There you go.

00:36:12.885 --> 00:36:12.949
There you go.

00:36:12.949 --> 00:36:19.934
But it's, uh, allows me to, uh, do some good benefit, you know, without being overburdened.

00:36:19.963 --> 00:36:20.143
Yeah.

00:36:20.143 --> 00:36:22.543
And plus my attendance is way better.

00:36:22.844 --> 00:36:23.414
Ah, yes.

00:36:23.414 --> 00:36:24.733
That is that having something to do every month.

00:36:24.733 --> 00:36:29.534
My attendance does struggle a lot of months during CI was like, Ugh.

00:36:29.893 --> 00:36:30.284
Yeah.

00:36:30.284 --> 00:36:32.173
I've had all the Zoom meetings I can handle.

00:36:32.219 --> 00:36:32.509
Yeah.

00:36:32.713 --> 00:36:32.954
Yeah.

00:36:33.014 --> 00:36:37.364
Uh, coming back and we, we, we were at the.

00:36:38.173 --> 00:36:38.954
Oh, the Marriott?

00:36:39.494 --> 00:36:39.884
Yes.

00:36:39.943 --> 00:36:44.443
Um, and then like came back into in-person meetings at Ginger and Baker.

00:36:44.474 --> 00:36:44.893
Okay.

00:36:45.313 --> 00:36:49.153
Ginger and Baker is basically exactly between my house and my office here.

00:36:49.213 --> 00:36:49.634
Okay.

00:36:50.023 --> 00:36:50.728
That works out perfect.

00:36:50.728 --> 00:36:54.554
Which like, oh, my whole life is like contained within 1.3 miles now.

00:36:54.583 --> 00:36:55.213
That's amazing.

00:36:55.213 --> 00:36:55.634
Thank you.

00:36:55.634 --> 00:36:56.143
That's nice.

00:36:56.173 --> 00:36:56.534
Yeah.

00:36:56.623 --> 00:36:57.764
I should be riding my bicycle.

00:36:57.768 --> 00:36:58.088
I was about that.

00:36:58.088 --> 00:36:59.804
So drive from that big old ambulance out there.

00:36:59.804 --> 00:37:01.543
But do you, do you ride a bicycle?

00:37:01.548 --> 00:37:02.233
That was my next question.

00:37:02.233 --> 00:37:02.768
I do, yes.

00:37:02.768 --> 00:37:03.208
Okay, good.

00:37:03.213 --> 00:37:03.494
Yes.

00:37:03.494 --> 00:37:05.744
I actually just went for a nice 10 mile ride on Saturday.

00:37:05.744 --> 00:37:06.463
Okay, nice.

00:37:06.463 --> 00:37:09.403
So, uh, but I've grown out of that habit.

00:37:09.434 --> 00:37:09.764
Yeah.

00:37:10.304 --> 00:37:21.943
Um, I wanted to acknowledge, um, this nice gift, um, I got from Zach here, A ZGL coffee cup.

00:37:22.003 --> 00:37:23.864
A nice hand molded clay.

00:37:24.583 --> 00:37:27.704
From It says M something.

00:37:27.914 --> 00:37:28.543
Mk.

00:37:28.903 --> 00:37:29.653
Mk.

00:37:29.804 --> 00:37:30.704
Michael Kreisberg.

00:37:30.704 --> 00:37:31.664
That's our buddy Michael.

00:37:32.204 --> 00:37:32.414
Yep.

00:37:32.474 --> 00:37:33.884
He handmade those this year.

00:37:33.884 --> 00:37:40.153
So I had a certain number of those made and gave them out to some of our good clients and Wow, I'm really honored.

00:37:40.153 --> 00:37:42.193
I thought, uh, forgot coffee drink.

00:37:42.193 --> 00:37:45.164
I got like four of these left and I got this podcast thing with Kurt.

00:37:45.164 --> 00:37:46.369
That's great.

00:37:46.373 --> 00:37:48.344
I wanna make sure they go to good people ultimately.

00:37:49.063 --> 00:37:56.534
So you don't know enough about me yet, but, um, oh, I'll tell you the story about, oh, by the way, I had some Chinese company make that glass with our brand on it.

00:37:56.773 --> 00:38:01.364
Hey, but I did have, uh, Zoe's Bakery create the, the hot sauce.

00:38:01.393 --> 00:38:02.443
I appreciate it for you.

00:38:02.443 --> 00:38:02.929
So that's awesome.

00:38:02.954 --> 00:38:03.914
That's a local product.

00:38:04.003 --> 00:38:04.273
Thank you.

00:38:04.483 --> 00:38:08.534
Um, so my story I mentioned when you told me Michael made this cup on the way in.

00:38:08.594 --> 00:38:08.864
Yep.

00:38:09.103 --> 00:38:09.673
Um.

00:38:10.333 --> 00:38:13.574
So green ride, uh, Colorado before groom.

00:38:13.693 --> 00:38:14.143
Yes.

00:38:14.143 --> 00:38:16.873
That was one of my more successful banking startups.

00:38:16.873 --> 00:38:23.143
I financed that back in the day in like 2009 with like seven old buses or vans basically.

00:38:23.143 --> 00:38:23.233
Yep.

00:38:23.384 --> 00:38:24.853
And a little bit of working capital.

00:38:25.454 --> 00:38:34.903
Um, but they introduced me to Michael and said, Hey, this guy, all of our vans for us, he can sell stuff, do stuff.

00:38:35.324 --> 00:38:41.083
And the bank had repossessed a, a mobile home down by like Evans.

00:38:41.143 --> 00:38:41.653
Okay.

00:38:42.014 --> 00:38:46.364
Like out in the country down south of Milli and Evans, somewhere down in there.

00:38:46.903 --> 00:38:52.634
And so I had at the time, a 1995 Audi S six.

00:38:52.664 --> 00:38:52.994
Okay.

00:38:53.173 --> 00:38:55.273
Um, uh, I don't know if you're familiar.

00:38:55.273 --> 00:38:55.364
Yeah.

00:38:55.364 --> 00:39:01.063
But a nice, uh, and it had some extra boosty, uhhuh and some Porsche breaks and free flow exhaust and all that.

00:39:01.664 --> 00:39:02.114
Ed.

00:39:02.458 --> 00:39:08.699
So we go down and look at this place and he is like, I don't know man, you know, maybe 4,500, you know, sold.

00:39:08.699 --> 00:39:11.039
And I don't even really remember.

00:39:11.309 --> 00:39:12.688
I think he did sell it for us.

00:39:12.748 --> 00:39:13.018
Okay.

00:39:13.018 --> 00:39:13.798
He made a little money.

00:39:13.798 --> 00:39:31.018
We made a little money, but leaving that place, it was like raining and I'm like going on to Highway 34 from this county road exit and I did like this amazing, like 20 to 75 mile an hour drifting acceleration.

00:39:31.079 --> 00:39:31.708
Oh, that's sweet.

00:39:31.739 --> 00:39:33.179
Uh, merging onto the highway.

00:39:33.239 --> 00:39:33.659
Okay.

00:39:33.869 --> 00:39:35.458
And Michael didn't flinch.

00:39:35.518 --> 00:39:35.909
Really?

00:39:35.909 --> 00:39:36.748
He was in the car with you?

00:39:36.748 --> 00:39:37.289
Yes.

00:39:37.318 --> 00:39:37.648
Okay.

00:39:37.648 --> 00:39:41.009
Because I took him down to see this trailer and I'm like, dude, I like that guy.

00:39:41.039 --> 00:39:42.809
'cause he trusts that I know what the fuck I'm doing.

00:39:42.809 --> 00:39:43.588
That's, and I do.

00:39:43.619 --> 00:39:44.034
That's, that's awesome.

00:39:44.253 --> 00:39:45.628
Um, and not everybody.

00:39:46.018 --> 00:39:51.208
When they first meet, a person really wants to do this, like multi gear shifting drift.

00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:51.659
Yes.

00:39:51.659 --> 00:39:52.813
In this supercar from That's funny.

00:39:52.844 --> 00:39:53.494
From, that's awesome.

00:39:53.494 --> 00:39:53.938
From mid nineties.

00:39:54.059 --> 00:39:55.168
That's a wild story of Michael.

00:39:55.168 --> 00:39:55.349
Yeah.

00:39:55.349 --> 00:40:03.869
He's, uh, he's in our Rolodex of, um, of vendors and support for us because ultimately he can, he's an amazing artist and creator.

00:40:03.898 --> 00:40:04.108
Yeah.

00:40:04.108 --> 00:40:05.849
It's wild what he's doing with all those pots.

00:40:05.849 --> 00:40:06.119
Yeah.

00:40:06.119 --> 00:40:09.809
And just helping us get vehicles and, um Oh, sure.

00:40:09.838 --> 00:40:10.048
Yeah.

00:40:10.048 --> 00:40:10.708
All that stuff.

00:40:10.713 --> 00:40:10.893
Yeah.

00:40:10.893 --> 00:40:11.369
Yeah, yeah.

00:40:11.398 --> 00:40:11.639
Cool.

00:40:11.639 --> 00:40:12.568
I was next door to him.

00:40:12.568 --> 00:40:14.789
I, I was in the America building there for a while too.

00:40:14.849 --> 00:40:15.778
Got it.

00:40:15.778 --> 00:40:16.048
Okay.

00:40:16.048 --> 00:40:16.708
In downtown.

00:40:16.753 --> 00:40:17.293
In downtown, yeah.

00:40:17.293 --> 00:40:19.318
When, when local think tank was like first a thing.

00:40:19.409 --> 00:40:19.829
Got it.

00:40:19.889 --> 00:40:20.309
Okay.

00:40:20.398 --> 00:40:20.728
Yeah.

00:40:20.728 --> 00:40:24.329
So yeah, he's not down there anymore, but he's still, he's still going strong.

00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:25.168
He is, yeah.

00:40:25.168 --> 00:40:25.469
Okay.

00:40:25.528 --> 00:40:25.708
Yeah.

00:40:25.708 --> 00:40:26.998
I haven't run into him a couple years now.

00:40:26.998 --> 00:40:27.059
Yeah.

00:40:27.088 --> 00:40:32.219
So, uh, anyway, Michael, if you listen to this, uh, uh, he should be on the podcast.

00:40:32.219 --> 00:40:32.639
Let's hang.

00:40:32.639 --> 00:40:33.809
Yeah, let's talk sometime.

00:40:34.018 --> 00:40:34.199
Yeah.

00:40:34.199 --> 00:40:34.259
Yeah.

00:40:35.909 --> 00:40:36.719
I knew him.

00:40:37.289 --> 00:40:41.668
This is embarrassing, but I knew him for like maybe four years or something.

00:40:42.344 --> 00:40:46.813
And then like somehow we brushed against a faith conversation and he said he was Jew ish.

00:40:47.713 --> 00:40:49.454
And I was like, oh my God.

00:40:49.454 --> 00:40:51.373
So many things make so much more sense.

00:40:52.543 --> 00:40:53.114
Love you Michael.

00:40:53.534 --> 00:40:54.463
Uh, it's funny.

00:40:54.463 --> 00:40:55.184
Anyway, I digress.

00:40:55.213 --> 00:40:56.443
Yeah, no stereotypes around here.

00:40:56.503 --> 00:40:57.134
Yeah, it's all good.

00:40:57.134 --> 00:40:57.403
Sounds good.

00:40:58.063 --> 00:41:06.733
So, um, so we kinda learned kinda your special sauces, the kind of the comms finding your lane finding opportunities.

00:41:06.733 --> 00:41:10.514
Were you, how long before you made the commercial uh, jump?

00:41:11.623 --> 00:41:18.313
Yeah, so I think it was probably 2012, I think.

00:41:18.373 --> 00:41:20.264
Um, Larimer County.

00:41:20.818 --> 00:41:28.858
Wanted, uh, a general contractor here in town to do a project and the county recommended that they reach out to us to give'em a bid.

00:41:29.159 --> 00:41:29.699
Okay.

00:41:29.699 --> 00:41:33.898
And, um, because of some cer certifications and some things that we were doing back then.

00:41:33.898 --> 00:41:40.918
And, um, so that's kind of how we got into the commercial world is this guy called me up and he's like, Hey, the county wants me to give you a, you know, give you an opportunity at this bid.

00:41:40.918 --> 00:41:43.858
And I was like, oh, okay, well we got the project you were still in.

00:41:43.858 --> 00:41:45.989
Do whatever mode still in, do whatever mode.

00:41:45.989 --> 00:41:46.559
Yep, yep.

00:41:46.619 --> 00:41:48.329
So we did the project.

00:41:48.329 --> 00:41:54.659
It was a success and, um, still doing work with those guys and, uh, it's been a good, it's been a good partnership for us.

00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:59.278
Do you have like commercial types of clients that are more your fit than others?

00:41:59.338 --> 00:42:00.628
Um, is it kind of more.

00:42:01.858 --> 00:42:05.128
Basic or generic, or do you get fancy pants or?

00:42:05.159 --> 00:42:14.938
We did, we've done everything all the way from real small commercial rehabs on a single building all the way up to huge multimillion dollar projects.

00:42:14.998 --> 00:42:19.469
Uh, we just finished a big project out in City of Greeley on a restoration project.

00:42:19.474 --> 00:42:19.534
Mm-hmm.

00:42:19.614 --> 00:42:22.978
We're doing a u big project at UNC in front of the Blue Bear right now.

00:42:22.978 --> 00:42:23.188
Mm-hmm.

00:42:23.458 --> 00:42:24.059
Um, they.

00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:25.918
They're doing a huge turf conversion.

00:42:26.099 --> 00:42:28.768
They're removing all the grass in front of the blue bear.

00:42:28.858 --> 00:42:29.338
Oh wow.

00:42:29.369 --> 00:42:33.929
Um, it's the most prominent corner in town, so we're completely redoing that right now.

00:42:34.289 --> 00:42:36.358
That's a water minimization element.

00:42:36.358 --> 00:42:36.809
Yeah.

00:42:36.809 --> 00:42:38.219
And what do you replace all that grass with?

00:42:38.219 --> 00:42:42.059
Uh, it's gonna be native, it's gonna be sidewalks, it's gonna be retaining walls.

00:42:42.059 --> 00:42:42.929
Pergola.

00:42:42.929 --> 00:42:43.199
Hmm.

00:42:43.289 --> 00:42:45.659
Um Oh, interesting Bunch of structures.

00:42:45.659 --> 00:42:46.829
Yeah, it's actually pretty wild.

00:42:46.833 --> 00:42:47.034
Yeah.

00:42:47.278 --> 00:42:47.398
Yeah.

00:42:47.398 --> 00:42:48.028
Cool project.

00:42:48.034 --> 00:42:48.673
So that's, yeah, that's cool.

00:42:48.673 --> 00:42:50.699
So that's seeing a lot more turf conversions.

00:42:50.728 --> 00:42:54.838
Um, a lot of restoration work kind of all over for us too.

00:42:54.958 --> 00:42:56.188
Is that a specialty area?

00:42:56.188 --> 00:42:57.568
Even the turf conversion?

00:42:57.568 --> 00:43:01.018
Kind of like we put the grass in, but we can also like change it up later.

00:43:01.108 --> 00:43:02.128
It is, it is.

00:43:02.128 --> 00:43:05.969
And um, I think it kind of came on on accident.

00:43:05.998 --> 00:43:10.199
Um, but getting turf converted successfully is not.

00:43:10.918 --> 00:43:14.998
As easy as it sounds, um, it takes a lot more management.

00:43:15.418 --> 00:43:22.739
You know, everyone knows with blue grass, you put the irrigation on it, you turn it off, you mow it, you turn it back on, and we kind of get into this cycle.

00:43:22.739 --> 00:43:29.548
And with, uh, turf conversions, it's, or with native grass, it's, it's quite the challenge'cause you got the left hand and the right hand.

00:43:29.548 --> 00:43:30.389
Don't really communicate.

00:43:31.168 --> 00:43:38.789
So you have code compliance that's telling you you need to mow the weeds and you've got the people that own the project that say, well, I can't mow the native grass yet.

00:43:38.878 --> 00:43:47.369
So there's a, this combination of how do we get this thing to full establishment, which ultimately has to get to establishment because someone's money's on the line.

00:43:47.398 --> 00:43:47.818
Right?

00:43:47.818 --> 00:43:51.119
So there's a bond, there's some sort of money put up and Yeah.

00:43:51.119 --> 00:43:51.389
Interesting.

00:43:51.389 --> 00:43:55.168
Until it's at a 70% establishment, they have erosion control issues.

00:43:55.199 --> 00:43:55.679
Yeah.

00:43:55.739 --> 00:44:04.978
So all that to kind of say is we, well, and the grass has to be kind of allowed to push through and crowd out the other weeds and stuff, but some of the weeds are stronger than the grass.

00:44:04.978 --> 00:44:05.068
Right.

00:44:05.068 --> 00:44:08.009
So how do you kind of, it's a, it's a juggling act of, yeah.

00:44:08.293 --> 00:44:09.614
Getting that establishment.

00:44:09.614 --> 00:44:15.914
So we've kind of become, um, real strong at it and we work with a lot of the municipalities.

00:44:15.943 --> 00:44:15.974
Okay.

00:44:16.213 --> 00:44:19.724
Um, other companies we can kind of help wherever help people.

00:44:20.384 --> 00:44:26.534
I'd say once a year we have a project where we're trying to help someone get their money back from the city, and so do we do.

00:44:26.563 --> 00:44:29.264
D does it get no water after that?

00:44:29.264 --> 00:44:32.414
If you go to back a, a native grass kind of style or just way less?

00:44:32.563 --> 00:44:34.693
Um, it's a, you keep the equipment there.

00:44:34.873 --> 00:44:36.554
It's a multi-year phase.

00:44:36.554 --> 00:44:39.974
So the first year there's not a lot of water savings in my mind.

00:44:39.974 --> 00:44:42.463
I not scientific here, but Right.

00:44:42.494 --> 00:44:44.563
You have to establish it, you have to get it going.

00:44:44.563 --> 00:44:46.304
Year two, you're gonna use water.

00:44:46.784 --> 00:44:49.634
Year three, you're gonna start to see a cut way back.

00:44:50.054 --> 00:44:55.123
Uh, you ultimately can get it to where it's only gonna water for probably five or six times, you know?

00:44:55.153 --> 00:44:56.713
'cause you don't need anything in the spring.

00:44:56.773 --> 00:44:56.983
Yep.

00:44:57.014 --> 00:45:02.474
You probably just need a couple waters in July, August kind of in there and then it, it does its own thing.

00:45:02.474 --> 00:45:02.563
Yeah.

00:45:02.563 --> 00:45:02.565
Yeah.

00:45:02.623 --> 00:45:02.893
So.

00:45:03.373 --> 00:45:06.498
Ultimately you, once it's established, you can ultimately cut off's.

00:45:06.498 --> 00:45:07.184
The grass grows in Peyton.

00:45:07.304 --> 00:45:07.778
Yeah, true.

00:45:07.784 --> 00:45:10.724
And in Ray and different places out there, right?

00:45:10.724 --> 00:45:10.844
Yep.

00:45:10.903 --> 00:45:11.173
Yep.

00:45:11.324 --> 00:45:13.123
That's how the, the real grass grows.

00:45:13.213 --> 00:45:13.664
Yeah.

00:45:13.664 --> 00:45:13.784
Yeah.

00:45:13.784 --> 00:45:14.139
The native grass.

00:45:14.378 --> 00:45:14.458
Interesting.

00:45:14.474 --> 00:45:14.684
Yeah.

00:45:14.684 --> 00:45:16.333
So we do a lot of turf conversions.

00:45:16.514 --> 00:45:17.563
It's more and more popular.

00:45:17.563 --> 00:45:19.724
We're starting to see it on the residential now as well.

00:45:20.023 --> 00:45:20.114
Mm-hmm.

00:45:20.143 --> 00:45:25.244
Um, just people saying, Hey, I don't use this area of my yard anymore, let's just convert it to native grass.

00:45:25.393 --> 00:45:25.664
Yeah.

00:45:25.724 --> 00:45:28.693
And, uh, so smart conversions I think make a lot of sense.

00:45:29.563 --> 00:45:34.603
And do you guys do like patios and concretes and like all the stuff?

00:45:34.603 --> 00:45:35.713
Or do you sub out some of that?

00:45:35.804 --> 00:45:38.293
We do all the hardscapes in house.

00:45:38.293 --> 00:45:39.733
We don't pour concrete ourself.

00:45:39.764 --> 00:45:41.443
Um, but we do a lot of pavers.

00:45:41.534 --> 00:45:43.333
Um, segmental, concrete pavers.

00:45:43.333 --> 00:45:43.603
Yep.

00:45:43.873 --> 00:45:45.313
I got into those, man.

00:45:45.313 --> 00:45:47.653
We were probably one of the first companies in northern Colorado.

00:45:47.954 --> 00:45:48.793
Um, we had a vendor.

00:45:48.824 --> 00:45:49.543
Those are like the things that.

00:45:50.143 --> 00:45:51.134
Fit with each other, kinda.

00:45:51.134 --> 00:45:52.813
You put him on a sand bed kind of thing.

00:45:53.173 --> 00:45:53.233
Yeah.

00:45:53.233 --> 00:46:09.313
It ultimately is the only option in northern Colorado, in my mind, in Colorado, uh, with our freeze thaw cycle and the salt and all these things, it's the only product where you don't have to, it's not cracking heaving, sping, it doesn't do any of that.

00:46:09.673 --> 00:46:13.693
My, uh, I've got some old city of Fort Collins sidewalks Yep.

00:46:13.693 --> 00:46:15.373
Is most of my back patio.

00:46:15.373 --> 00:46:18.614
So they're big, big old chunks of slate and stuff, and it's awesome.

00:46:18.643 --> 00:46:18.943
Yep.

00:46:19.273 --> 00:46:19.753
And.

00:46:20.878 --> 00:46:21.898
It ain't what she used to be.

00:46:21.898 --> 00:46:26.699
You know, it used to be I could lay my yoga mat on a few of those bricks and just like do that.

00:46:26.699 --> 00:46:26.759
Yeah.

00:46:26.759 --> 00:46:29.759
And now it's not, you know, things have changed a lot in the last 10 years.

00:46:29.789 --> 00:46:30.208
Yeah.

00:46:30.298 --> 00:46:30.599
Yeah.

00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:34.289
The concrete's not nearly as, uh, a durable of a product.

00:46:34.289 --> 00:46:35.518
And so we do a lot of pavers.

00:46:35.518 --> 00:46:39.059
And two, you know, our, when we talk with clients, we tell'em all the time.

00:46:39.239 --> 00:46:40.588
We live in a concrete jungle.

00:46:40.708 --> 00:46:42.358
You go to Target, everything's concrete.

00:46:42.358 --> 00:46:43.648
You go to Home Depot, everything's Target.

00:46:43.648 --> 00:46:45.148
You go to the hospital, everything's concrete.

00:46:45.148 --> 00:46:45.869
You go downtown.

00:46:45.898 --> 00:46:45.958
Yeah.

00:46:45.958 --> 00:46:46.768
Everything's concrete.

00:46:46.768 --> 00:46:49.498
So we wanna give people an oasis in their backyard.

00:46:49.498 --> 00:46:53.248
And when you kind of open up your back door, you want that kind of softer feel.

00:46:53.429 --> 00:46:53.668
Yeah.

00:46:53.668 --> 00:46:57.809
And pavers really give you that comfortable, soft, welcoming feel.

00:46:57.869 --> 00:47:00.628
And that kind of helps bring people down on the weekends.

00:47:00.719 --> 00:47:02.954
Again, making people's life better through landscaping.

00:47:02.954 --> 00:47:04.588
Well, it probably drains better too.

00:47:04.588 --> 00:47:10.409
Like is it for the city's perspective on the impervious versus pervious, is that there's a whole.

00:47:11.128 --> 00:47:12.478
System behind that.

00:47:12.478 --> 00:47:15.329
You know, the city's got their theories and they, we don't worry about that too much.

00:47:15.329 --> 00:47:16.108
Nah, we don't worry about it.

00:47:16.108 --> 00:47:26.608
You know, in some, some states, yeah, the water does percolate down through faster, but ultimately in Colorado we have clay, so it's really not gonna move that far.

00:47:26.608 --> 00:47:26.938
Interesting.

00:47:26.998 --> 00:47:27.418
Yeah.

00:47:27.418 --> 00:47:27.420
Okay.

00:47:27.425 --> 00:47:27.778
Yeah.

00:47:28.318 --> 00:47:36.418
Um, so when you, not to shift back, but um, when you first got started, like what were the first few hires for you?

00:47:36.418 --> 00:47:39.239
Just more people to help you with bigger projects that you sold.

00:47:39.358 --> 00:47:39.719
Yeah.

00:47:39.719 --> 00:47:42.539
Labor, um, foreman foreman's, always.

00:47:42.539 --> 00:47:44.244
No one Pats grass or did you have to grass?

00:47:44.443 --> 00:47:44.724
I did back.

00:47:44.744 --> 00:47:46.289
You did yourself a long time.

00:47:46.289 --> 00:47:49.139
Yeah, probably a couple months or a year, I don't know.

00:47:49.619 --> 00:47:52.318
Um, yeah, but it ultimately.

00:47:53.293 --> 00:47:56.594
It was, it was that area foreman, um, craftsmen.

00:47:56.744 --> 00:47:57.043
Right.

00:47:57.043 --> 00:47:58.393
You want, you want craftsmen.

00:47:58.543 --> 00:47:58.634
Yeah.

00:47:58.634 --> 00:48:00.704
And that's on the, on the construction side.

00:48:00.704 --> 00:48:10.454
You need guys that have that artist mentality and they see it as this is an art form, how the boulder goes in, how the trees and the shrubs compliment each other.

00:48:10.454 --> 00:48:11.264
The plants.

00:48:11.293 --> 00:48:11.384
Mm-hmm.

00:48:11.384 --> 00:48:12.733
The mulch, everything.

00:48:12.733 --> 00:48:14.173
It just has to compliment each other.

00:48:14.173 --> 00:48:17.744
And so when we do a design, it's diagrammatically.

00:48:17.744 --> 00:48:21.884
It gives people, our team and the clients a way to kind of see it in a 2D.

00:48:22.123 --> 00:48:27.373
But once that boulder shows up, once those plants show up, it can shift and adjust just a little bit.

00:48:27.434 --> 00:48:28.844
So did you do design a lot?

00:48:29.074 --> 00:48:30.994
We did, I was doing napkin you individually?

00:48:30.994 --> 00:48:33.333
Yeah, I was doing napkin sketches for a long time.

00:48:34.054 --> 00:48:34.054
Okay.

00:48:34.059 --> 00:48:34.204
Alright.

00:48:34.204 --> 00:48:41.103
Um, and then, you know, AutoCAD come, kind of came along and became more affordable and that's when we started hiring people with that skill set to kind of bring in house stuff.

00:48:41.284 --> 00:48:41.704
Gotcha, gotcha.

00:48:41.943 --> 00:48:45.184
Um, you, you're like, oh, look how much better that is in my napkin system.

00:48:45.304 --> 00:48:45.903
Way better.

00:48:45.994 --> 00:48:46.324
Yeah.

00:48:46.414 --> 00:48:46.684
Yeah.

00:48:46.684 --> 00:48:50.554
And so ultimately, you know, that that foreman level position is always key, right?

00:48:50.583 --> 00:48:52.563
'cause they gotta see it as the same, in the same light.

00:48:52.563 --> 00:48:52.684
Yeah.

00:48:53.344 --> 00:48:55.324
Um, what else?

00:48:55.324 --> 00:49:02.554
Like if you had some business, uh, most important learnings along the way, um, that you wanted to share with.

00:49:02.998 --> 00:49:05.068
People scaling their small landscaping firm.

00:49:05.068 --> 00:49:09.239
Is there anything that, uh, or otherwise, you know, their painting business, whatever else?

00:49:09.329 --> 00:49:09.809
Yeah.

00:49:09.929 --> 00:49:11.818
Uh, there's a, a lot of little things, right?

00:49:11.818 --> 00:49:13.528
Analysis by paralysis, right?

00:49:13.528 --> 00:49:18.449
You hear some of the guys that have been doing it a long time, you gotta step away, you know, you gotta get out of it sometimes.

00:49:18.478 --> 00:49:22.978
'cause you can, you can go literally crazy when you're so passionate about something.

00:49:22.978 --> 00:49:28.918
And, you know, if you're just constantly focused and focused and focused and focused and focused, it's, it's just not good for you.

00:49:28.918 --> 00:49:35.338
So finding something to kind of give you an outlet, whether it's fishing, going to the gym, hiking, something to kind of pull you outta there.

00:49:35.338 --> 00:49:35.398
Yeah.

00:49:35.398 --> 00:49:37.438
Well, and even like that and.

00:49:37.949 --> 00:49:41.128
Like a business coach, a peer advisory group, something like that.

00:49:41.128 --> 00:49:41.998
Sores headed next.

00:49:41.998 --> 00:49:42.239
Yeah.

00:49:42.239 --> 00:49:43.768
Peer advisory's key.

00:49:43.798 --> 00:49:47.369
Uh, people that know, you know, no one loves an asshole.

00:49:47.489 --> 00:49:51.179
So, you know, I typically, no one loves a what an asshole.

00:49:51.628 --> 00:49:53.518
You know, it's someone that asks for, oh, an asshole.

00:49:53.668 --> 00:49:54.208
An asshole.

00:49:54.568 --> 00:49:58.588
Someone that asks for, you know, for advice and then they don't take it kind of thing.

00:49:58.588 --> 00:50:05.338
So you gotta, you, you definitely want to have people, um, that you can, you can ask questions to and bounce ideas off of it.

00:50:05.548 --> 00:50:05.969
That's key.

00:50:05.974 --> 00:50:06.014
Yeah.

00:50:06.014 --> 00:50:08.608
That'll call you to account when you're not doing your stuff kinda thing.

00:50:08.639 --> 00:50:09.030
Yeah, yeah.

00:50:09.389 --> 00:50:09.539
Yeah.

00:50:09.539 --> 00:50:10.739
I heard a quote a long time ago.

00:50:10.798 --> 00:50:13.438
Everyone knows what needs to done, needs to be done.

00:50:13.679 --> 00:50:15.134
The difference is just actually getting it done.

00:50:15.268 --> 00:50:15.599
Yeah.

00:50:15.778 --> 00:50:16.889
There's something to that for sure.

00:50:16.918 --> 00:50:17.188
Yeah.

00:50:17.579 --> 00:50:25.318
Um, and sometimes for some of us, like I'm somebody that's more accountable to others than to myself sometimes, you know, some people are really internally motivated.

00:50:25.409 --> 00:50:25.679
Yep.

00:50:25.708 --> 00:50:27.898
Me, I'd rather just not let down my friends.

00:50:27.958 --> 00:50:28.349
Totally.

00:50:28.619 --> 00:50:29.159
Uh, totally.

00:50:29.219 --> 00:50:33.449
And so that's kind of, you know, uh, for me that was part of the whole peer advisory element.

00:50:33.599 --> 00:50:33.958
Yeah.

00:50:34.259 --> 00:50:36.449
Other, uh, business gyms.

00:50:37.813 --> 00:50:39.699
Um, I like the asshole a lot.

00:50:40.039 --> 00:50:47.324
The way it's gonna take, it's gonna take way more, it's gonna take way more energy and way more time than you ever think it's going to, to build something.

00:50:47.353 --> 00:50:48.614
Everything, everything.

00:50:48.614 --> 00:50:48.884
Right.

00:50:48.884 --> 00:50:50.503
You want to get a new product off the ground.

00:50:50.623 --> 00:50:51.313
Way more time.

00:50:51.373 --> 00:50:52.063
Way more energy.

00:50:52.063 --> 00:50:52.393
Yeah.

00:50:52.514 --> 00:50:57.583
You want to get, you know, you want a new system for bidding a new way more time, way more energy.

00:50:57.583 --> 00:50:59.353
When did you put your fancy pen software in?

00:51:00.074 --> 00:51:08.744
Two, well, we, we tried another software, um, that was a major fail, so we messed around for two years, I think from 2015 to 2017.

00:51:08.744 --> 00:51:08.804
Okay.

00:51:09.043 --> 00:51:10.693
We messed around with another software.

00:51:10.994 --> 00:51:12.193
Could not get it to work.

00:51:12.193 --> 00:51:12.239
Try to make work.

00:51:12.554 --> 00:51:13.123
Wouldn't work.

00:51:13.123 --> 00:51:13.364
Yeah.

00:51:13.364 --> 00:51:14.623
The software was just antiquated.

00:51:14.623 --> 00:51:17.534
It was basically an Excel spreadsheet that was fancy.

00:51:17.594 --> 00:51:17.893
Sure.

00:51:17.893 --> 00:51:22.364
And it was, uh, also industry specific, but industry outdated by a while.

00:51:22.364 --> 00:51:23.353
Very outdated.

00:51:23.353 --> 00:51:23.534
Yeah.

00:51:23.534 --> 00:51:28.514
It would've been, I tell everyone it's, it would've been better to light$50,000 on fire on a table, I'm sure.

00:51:28.603 --> 00:51:28.903
You know?

00:51:28.903 --> 00:51:32.864
'cause that's what our, well, that's probably a conservative because think of all the time that Yeah.

00:51:32.923 --> 00:51:35.293
You guys spent besides all plus the dollars.

00:51:35.293 --> 00:51:35.534
Yeah.

00:51:35.534 --> 00:51:37.903
So that was a horrible, um, software.

00:51:37.903 --> 00:51:42.673
And then we went back to our second choice, uh, which is where we're at now.

00:51:42.704 --> 00:51:43.454
Oh, is that right?

00:51:43.514 --> 00:51:43.693
Yeah.

00:51:43.693 --> 00:51:44.623
They were our second choice.

00:51:44.713 --> 00:51:48.284
Only because you couldn't own the software subscription based.

00:51:48.284 --> 00:51:48.974
Oh, right.

00:51:49.018 --> 00:51:49.239
And.

00:51:49.643 --> 00:51:51.204
Fast forward eight years now.

00:51:51.204 --> 00:51:52.463
Everything's subscription based.

00:51:52.463 --> 00:51:52.554
Right?

00:51:52.554 --> 00:51:53.574
So really didn't matter.

00:51:53.574 --> 00:51:54.623
I probably should have started there.

00:51:54.954 --> 00:51:55.103
Yeah.

00:51:55.134 --> 00:51:56.199
So it goes, so goes.

00:51:56.199 --> 00:51:56.199
Yeah.

00:51:56.199 --> 00:51:57.264
You know, at least you can confess it.

00:51:57.414 --> 00:51:58.134
Yep, yep.

00:51:58.224 --> 00:51:59.094
We own the problem.

00:51:59.094 --> 00:52:00.233
So, um.

00:52:00.793 --> 00:52:05.503
This is kind of the point in the show where we usually like Zoom back to like little Zach.

00:52:05.563 --> 00:52:05.833
Okay.

00:52:06.224 --> 00:52:09.523
Uh, up somewhere a little town north of Peyton, Colorado.

00:52:09.523 --> 00:52:09.614
Yep.

00:52:09.643 --> 00:52:10.934
Grew up in Black forest.

00:52:10.934 --> 00:52:11.023
Yep.

00:52:11.023 --> 00:52:11.503
Black forest.

00:52:11.534 --> 00:52:11.864
Okay.

00:52:11.864 --> 00:52:11.923
Yeah.

00:52:11.983 --> 00:52:13.364
Parents had a little farm.

00:52:13.664 --> 00:52:14.054
Yeah.

00:52:14.054 --> 00:52:17.083
Um, so I was in four H from kindergarten all the way into college.

00:52:17.173 --> 00:52:21.164
Little farm being like an actual farm or a hobby farm.

00:52:21.164 --> 00:52:21.853
Hobby farm.

00:52:21.853 --> 00:52:22.273
Yeah.

00:52:22.278 --> 00:52:22.289
Okay.

00:52:22.333 --> 00:52:24.284
Yeah, we had, we raised dairy goats.

00:52:24.373 --> 00:52:24.614
Okay.

00:52:24.643 --> 00:52:28.634
Um, and we, I think we showed dairy goats in like 15 states.

00:52:28.664 --> 00:52:29.293
Oh wow.

00:52:29.353 --> 00:52:29.684
Yeah.

00:52:29.688 --> 00:52:31.724
Like so very passionate hobby farm.

00:52:31.753 --> 00:52:32.173
Yeah.

00:52:32.293 --> 00:52:32.563
Yeah.

00:52:32.563 --> 00:52:34.003
It was, uh, from California.

00:52:34.003 --> 00:52:34.693
All money making.

00:52:34.699 --> 00:52:34.969
Did they?

00:52:35.469 --> 00:52:38.469
Have regular day jobs too, or are they just like sold goats?

00:52:38.498 --> 00:52:39.639
No, they had day jobs.

00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:39.818
Yeah.

00:52:39.878 --> 00:52:40.088
Okay.

00:52:40.148 --> 00:52:47.438
Mom stayed at home with raising the kids and, um, she, she had a little, she did some part-time stuff with the four H organization.

00:52:47.498 --> 00:52:47.768
Okay.

00:52:47.768 --> 00:52:49.748
And then my dad worked for Midas for 30 years.

00:52:49.838 --> 00:52:50.798
Oh yeah, you mentioned that.

00:52:50.798 --> 00:52:51.068
Yeah.

00:52:51.128 --> 00:52:53.949
And was he the passionate about dairy goats or both of them?

00:52:53.949 --> 00:52:55.719
That was like, my mom was more passionate about the goats.

00:52:55.719 --> 00:52:55.929
Okay.

00:52:55.989 --> 00:53:00.039
So you guys chased goats around for her kind of to have some fun interesting thing.

00:53:00.039 --> 00:53:00.039
Yeah.

00:53:00.099 --> 00:53:00.159
Yeah.

00:53:00.159 --> 00:53:06.998
But also got you in four H and got us in four H, gave us a work ethic, gave us some scholarships to get through college.

00:53:07.028 --> 00:53:07.088
Yeah.

00:53:07.088 --> 00:53:08.048
So it wasn't all bad.

00:53:08.048 --> 00:53:08.561
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:53:08.708 --> 00:53:09.518
And how many of you.

00:53:09.914 --> 00:53:11.744
Uh, just me and my brother, he is five years older.

00:53:11.923 --> 00:53:12.284
Okay.

00:53:12.313 --> 00:53:12.494
Yeah.

00:53:12.494 --> 00:53:12.853
Okay.

00:53:12.914 --> 00:53:13.574
Veterinarian.

00:53:13.844 --> 00:53:14.293
Alright.

00:53:14.353 --> 00:53:14.623
Yeah.

00:53:14.833 --> 00:53:21.373
And, uh, describe like little Zach, uh, you got your, you're seven and he's 12 or something like that.

00:53:21.373 --> 00:53:21.434
Yeah.

00:53:21.434 --> 00:53:24.103
Like what's the lot of housework?

00:53:24.164 --> 00:53:29.713
Um, we never really had a lot of time for sports, so there was no travel sports in our, in our household.

00:53:29.893 --> 00:53:31.273
Was there a school up there?

00:53:31.273 --> 00:53:33.103
How big a school we went to?

00:53:33.103 --> 00:53:35.054
So Falcon was our school district.

00:53:35.054 --> 00:53:35.443
Oh, okay.

00:53:35.443 --> 00:53:35.503
Yeah.

00:53:35.773 --> 00:53:42.719
Um, and my parents, when they moved out there, there was one stop sign and one stop light between my dad's office and the house.

00:53:42.719 --> 00:53:43.079
It's pretty lonely.

00:53:43.438 --> 00:53:43.719
17 miles.

00:53:43.719 --> 00:53:44.759
It was a long ways out there.

00:53:44.778 --> 00:53:46.603
Now there's Walmarts and King Soup.

00:53:46.634 --> 00:53:50.534
My wife and I lived in Colorado Springs from oh four to oh seven.

00:53:50.594 --> 00:53:50.923
Okay.

00:53:51.014 --> 00:53:54.494
So that's why I speak with some familiarity for most listeners in Northern Colorado.

00:53:54.494 --> 00:53:55.903
Here they're like, where is this?

00:53:55.903 --> 00:53:57.943
So this is like basically like.

00:53:58.289 --> 00:54:00.869
What, like 25 miles north and east of Colorado Springs.

00:54:00.869 --> 00:54:01.679
Kind of 20 ish.

00:54:01.708 --> 00:54:01.918
Yep.

00:54:02.278 --> 00:54:05.969
Where my parents were, and I think it extended all the way up to 25.

00:54:06.478 --> 00:54:06.719
Sure.

00:54:06.778 --> 00:54:07.903
But yeah, it was there about 20.

00:54:07.903 --> 00:54:08.063
Sure.

00:54:08.063 --> 00:54:10.469
Frank Town is up just north, out of the trees, kind of there and whatnot.

00:54:10.469 --> 00:54:10.559
Yep.

00:54:10.588 --> 00:54:11.458
Yeah, it's a big area.

00:54:11.458 --> 00:54:12.748
It goes all the way from I 25.

00:54:12.748 --> 00:54:13.858
I mean, it's probably, it's really cool.

00:54:13.858 --> 00:54:15.179
It's geographically unique.

00:54:15.208 --> 00:54:16.108
It is very right.

00:54:16.108 --> 00:54:17.818
And culturally probably pretty unique.

00:54:17.818 --> 00:54:19.498
Can we, do you wanna talk about that a little bit?

00:54:19.498 --> 00:54:23.728
Was it all like, California's hippies escaping to the forest somewhere?

00:54:23.728 --> 00:54:27.059
Uh, you know, my parents' theory was everyone lives here for a different reason.

00:54:27.063 --> 00:54:27.074
Okay.

00:54:27.074 --> 00:54:28.318
My parents were from California.

00:54:28.349 --> 00:54:28.409
Yeah.

00:54:28.409 --> 00:54:31.048
So, um, everyone lives out here for a different reason.

00:54:31.048 --> 00:54:32.159
My parents had goats.

00:54:32.338 --> 00:54:33.869
The neighbor built race cars.

00:54:34.228 --> 00:54:36.208
Um, the next guy did trees.

00:54:36.509 --> 00:54:38.248
One guy rai raised dogs.

00:54:38.248 --> 00:54:39.688
So, I mean, it's pretty much, yeah.

00:54:39.719 --> 00:54:40.498
You name it out there.

00:54:40.498 --> 00:54:41.878
Wild, wild of sorts.

00:54:41.969 --> 00:54:46.469
It was pretty normal out in the black forest until that fire came through.

00:54:46.978 --> 00:54:47.009
Mm.

00:54:47.009 --> 00:54:51.088
And once that fire ripped through the houses they built out, there were.

00:54:51.373 --> 00:54:52.514
Ginormous.

00:54:52.543 --> 00:54:52.813
Mm.

00:54:52.873 --> 00:54:54.793
Because it was five acres, it was people's piece.

00:54:54.793 --> 00:54:54.884
Right.

00:54:55.454 --> 00:55:01.813
And so it kind of burned out a huge section of the f of the black forest, and they came back in and just built these monstrosities.

00:55:01.818 --> 00:55:01.869
Mm.

00:55:01.929 --> 00:55:13.543
So it's, um, so it had been kind of a, almost like a hippie village, and then all of a sudden became like a, where you can build your big ass house, you can,'cause they're five acre parcels to ac acre parcels and it's all trees so you don't see your neighbors.

00:55:13.543 --> 00:55:13.784
Right.

00:55:13.844 --> 00:55:16.454
I think Covid a exasperated that Right.

00:55:16.454 --> 00:55:19.423
Where it made it even more where people are like, I want my own space.

00:55:19.423 --> 00:55:19.873
Interesting.

00:55:19.873 --> 00:55:22.184
And so it, uh, so it ain't what you used to be?

00:55:22.333 --> 00:55:22.543
No.

00:55:22.844 --> 00:55:23.143
No.

00:55:23.204 --> 00:55:23.443
Yeah.

00:55:23.443 --> 00:55:24.313
So, I mean, it's a bummer.

00:55:24.554 --> 00:55:24.853
Yeah.

00:55:25.273 --> 00:55:25.844
It's all right.

00:55:25.844 --> 00:55:28.543
I mean, it's, it's part of the, part of the movement.

00:55:28.753 --> 00:55:29.353
It changed.

00:55:29.353 --> 00:55:29.355
Yeah.

00:55:29.503 --> 00:55:29.773
Yeah.

00:55:29.773 --> 00:55:31.543
You know, there's nothing static in this world.

00:55:31.574 --> 00:55:31.844
Nope.

00:55:32.324 --> 00:55:32.443
No.

00:55:32.443 --> 00:55:33.733
So, um.

00:55:35.054 --> 00:55:40.574
So you're motivated, it sounds like, uh, kind of that outdoorsy, small town youth kind of geter.

00:55:40.574 --> 00:55:40.994
Done.

00:55:40.994 --> 00:55:41.054
Yeah.

00:55:41.083 --> 00:55:44.114
Did you have a, a lawn mowing business or anything before Pat?

00:55:44.233 --> 00:55:44.713
No.

00:55:44.773 --> 00:55:45.043
No.

00:55:45.043 --> 00:55:52.063
Pat, I, uh, yeah, I went to school at, uh, NJC, um, didn't know what I wanted to do.

00:55:52.063 --> 00:55:53.414
Really Didn't even sign up for school.

00:55:53.414 --> 00:55:56.233
My dad came home from work one day and I was like, Hey, I signed you up to go to school.

00:55:56.233 --> 00:55:56.954
I was like, oh, okay.

00:55:57.014 --> 00:55:57.914
This is interesting.

00:55:57.914 --> 00:55:59.893
So signs me up for NJC.

00:55:59.898 --> 00:56:00.188
Okay.

00:56:00.284 --> 00:56:03.733
Um, wasn't, uh, wasn't a straight A student, I'll put it that way.

00:56:04.123 --> 00:56:07.063
And, uh, went to NJC best thing that ever happened to me.

00:56:07.063 --> 00:56:12.673
Small school, uh, was able to meet up with some tutors and all the things became an ra.

00:56:12.793 --> 00:56:12.943
Hm.

00:56:13.099 --> 00:56:13.389
Cool.

00:56:13.483 --> 00:56:15.103
Kind of started some leadership there.

00:56:15.134 --> 00:56:15.523
Wow.

00:56:15.643 --> 00:56:17.264
And then, um, so you were kind of a.

00:56:17.653 --> 00:56:21.494
Slack ass in high school to, to not the smartest, not too critical.

00:56:21.554 --> 00:56:21.673
Yeah.

00:56:21.704 --> 00:56:26.923
Well, not the smartest, but it sounds like also didn't really apply or engage, maybe apply.

00:56:26.954 --> 00:56:27.253
Yeah.

00:56:27.313 --> 00:56:30.793
I lacked, lacked engagement and lacked, lacked, uh, application.

00:56:30.793 --> 00:56:36.344
Just'cause too many fun Other things going on, or what was your I just didn't see the value in it, I don't think.

00:56:36.344 --> 00:56:36.614
Okay.

00:56:36.643 --> 00:56:36.974
Yeah.

00:56:37.123 --> 00:56:38.414
Just didn't, it wasn't for me.

00:56:38.503 --> 00:56:38.623
Yeah.

00:56:38.623 --> 00:56:38.954
I don't know.

00:56:39.074 --> 00:56:41.684
So never really loved school.

00:56:41.744 --> 00:56:41.804
Yeah.

00:56:41.804 --> 00:56:46.153
Then, uh, went to NJC graduated, didn't know what I was gonna do, so then I transferred to CSU.

00:56:46.574 --> 00:56:48.103
Got a degree in business management there.

00:56:48.224 --> 00:56:48.434
Yeah.

00:56:48.733 --> 00:56:49.259
So it's good.

00:56:49.278 --> 00:56:50.143
And then, okay.

00:56:50.143 --> 00:56:50.864
Here, here we are.

00:56:50.864 --> 00:56:51.463
And here we are.

00:56:51.523 --> 00:56:51.733
Yeah.

00:56:52.034 --> 00:56:52.873
We came back full circle.

00:56:52.903 --> 00:56:53.233
Yeah.

00:56:53.414 --> 00:56:57.853
Um, I think it's a good time to take a short break and then we'll come back for scene two.

00:56:58.003 --> 00:56:58.304
Sweet.

00:56:58.543 --> 00:56:58.873
All right.

00:56:59.023 --> 00:56:59.324
Sweet.

00:57:48.764 --> 00:57:50.775
What did you do in peer advisory realm?

00:57:50.775 --> 00:57:51.434
Did you join it?

00:57:51.764 --> 00:57:57.795
Landscaping industry group, or have you been in other, not local think tank, peer advisory things?

00:57:58.755 --> 00:57:59.744
All the above.

00:57:59.744 --> 00:58:00.074
Right.

00:58:00.554 --> 00:58:00.585
Okay.

00:58:00.585 --> 00:58:03.914
Um, so we work with different consultants, um Okay.

00:58:04.244 --> 00:58:05.175
Who have kind of helped us.

00:58:05.175 --> 00:58:05.835
Are we back on?

00:58:06.014 --> 00:58:06.730
We could be back on the show.

00:58:06.735 --> 00:58:07.514
We can be if you want to.

00:58:07.514 --> 00:58:07.934
Okay.

00:58:07.934 --> 00:58:08.385
All right.

00:58:08.594 --> 00:58:09.074
It's up to you.

00:58:09.284 --> 00:58:10.844
Um, sure.

00:58:10.844 --> 00:58:11.954
Let's just be okay.

00:58:11.985 --> 00:58:12.164
Yeah.

00:58:12.164 --> 00:58:14.894
'cause you mentioned that in your kind of tips and then I didn't explore it with you.

00:58:14.894 --> 00:58:15.795
Yeah, yeah.

00:58:15.795 --> 00:58:19.934
So we've worked with a handful of different, uh, consultants over the years.

00:58:20.025 --> 00:58:20.204
Okay.

00:58:20.204 --> 00:58:31.635
Um, you know, it's, it's good to get outside's pers perspective ultimately local and national level because, you know, people see what's going on.

00:58:31.635 --> 00:58:31.695
Yeah.

00:58:31.755 --> 00:58:34.125
They see what's successful, they see what's not working.

00:58:34.125 --> 00:58:40.514
And so it's given, uh, we've worked with some different consultants that have helped us kind of give us that.

00:58:40.875 --> 00:58:40.934
Yeah.

00:58:40.934 --> 00:58:43.094
And they be kind of concentrations of knowledge too.

00:58:43.664 --> 00:58:47.414
Like I suspect maybe that trend of there aren't that many mids.

00:58:47.414 --> 00:58:48.855
Sizers Yes.

00:58:48.855 --> 00:58:49.635
Is true.

00:58:50.114 --> 00:58:52.335
More than just in Northern Colorado, I would say.

00:58:52.335 --> 00:58:52.574
Yeah.

00:58:52.574 --> 00:58:54.974
I would say it's probably across the country.

00:58:54.974 --> 00:58:58.215
I mean, only 1% of landscape companies get over a million dollars in revenue a year.

00:58:58.244 --> 00:58:58.724
Oh, wow.

00:58:58.905 --> 00:58:59.954
Yeah, it's a small number.

00:59:00.045 --> 00:59:00.465
Wow.

00:59:00.525 --> 00:59:01.179
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:01.574 --> 00:59:01.844
Makes sense.

00:59:01.844 --> 00:59:06.974
So they, we worked with some consultants that have ultimately put us into, um, some groups.

00:59:07.980 --> 00:59:13.170
You know, calls, emails, kind of stuff like that, but nothing, nothing overly consistent.

00:59:13.170 --> 00:59:21.780
You know, we want to drill down when we're, we feel like when we're working on a problem, we wanna drill into it so deep and so heavy that we're just kind of in that problem for that.

00:59:21.780 --> 00:59:21.869
Right.

00:59:22.230 --> 00:59:23.639
Until we can kind of get it solved.

00:59:23.639 --> 00:59:26.969
Is that you and that consultant are parts of your leadership team as well?

00:59:27.000 --> 00:59:27.300
Yeah.

00:59:27.300 --> 00:59:28.230
Parts of the leadership team.

00:59:28.235 --> 00:59:29.130
The group team, yeah.

00:59:29.159 --> 00:59:29.429
Yeah.

00:59:29.429 --> 00:59:31.349
And you know, we love to do fly-ins.

00:59:31.349 --> 00:59:42.030
Our industry's real good about doing fly-ins, so they'll kind of do these opportunities where you can fly to different states and see different organizations and they walk you through and let you talk to everybody and they tell you, Hey, this is what we do.

00:59:42.030 --> 00:59:47.369
And you know, you can kind of do a little rob and repeat like, Hmm, that seems to work good or that doesn't work good.

00:59:47.369 --> 00:59:49.619
You know, kind of brings some ideas back to That's cool.

00:59:49.650 --> 00:59:51.719
And because you can really only deliver service.

00:59:52.320 --> 00:59:57.599
To of the people right around you, like they're not scared you're gonna come hundred percent break into the Salt Lake City market.

00:59:57.659 --> 00:59:58.530
No, a hundred percent.

00:59:58.590 --> 00:59:58.829
Yeah.

00:59:58.829 --> 00:59:59.460
That's really cool.

00:59:59.460 --> 01:00:02.130
That's kind of an abundance mentality as an industry in general.

01:00:02.130 --> 01:00:02.190
Yeah.

01:00:02.190 --> 01:00:03.570
We serve the people who are around.

01:00:03.690 --> 01:00:03.900
Yep.

01:00:04.409 --> 01:00:17.190
My blog this month is, uh, which I know I need to finish Ava, um, is, uh, so I was reflecting on, on JFK, the ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

01:00:17.219 --> 01:00:17.489
Yep.

01:00:17.909 --> 01:00:23.579
But then I, I, so I rephrased it, ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for your community.

01:00:23.699 --> 01:00:24.179
Yes.

01:00:24.510 --> 01:00:27.750
Because we all get kind of too big focused sometimes, and we just, just.

01:00:28.260 --> 01:00:29.639
Work on what's right in front of us.

01:00:29.670 --> 01:00:30.000
Yeah.

01:00:30.119 --> 01:00:30.480
Yeah.

01:00:30.780 --> 01:00:37.320
That's why I think, you know, when you have a organization or you're part of an organization, you gotta find something else to kind of keep you occupied too.

01:00:37.320 --> 01:00:37.590
Right.

01:00:37.590 --> 01:00:42.269
Whether it's working out, whether it's doing, again, some of these things where you not swimming in that the whole time.

01:00:42.300 --> 01:00:43.199
Yeah, a hundred percent.

01:00:43.260 --> 01:00:43.380
Yeah.

01:00:43.380 --> 01:00:48.659
And that's where the community comes in, and ultimately you gotta get to a level where you can, you can make that happen.

01:00:48.659 --> 01:00:49.559
Are you a workout guy?

01:00:49.559 --> 01:00:50.519
Is that one of your things?

01:00:50.519 --> 01:00:52.079
Yeah, I got some pretty good pipes there.

01:00:52.139 --> 01:00:52.704
I try to hit the gym.

01:00:52.710 --> 01:00:54.030
I joined a gym about a month ago.

01:00:54.090 --> 01:00:54.449
Okay.

01:00:54.449 --> 01:00:59.280
You know, really for the first time since I was like 22, I've been pushing weights, so.

01:00:59.280 --> 01:01:00.510
Okay, nice.

01:01:00.510 --> 01:01:03.510
It's the, I don't build strength as fast as I did when I was 22.

01:01:03.630 --> 01:01:04.380
Oh, no, no.

01:01:04.385 --> 01:01:10.050
It, it does not, nothing, nothing goes on or comes off nearly as fast as it did when you were young.

01:01:10.050 --> 01:01:11.159
Noticing, I'm noticing.

01:01:11.164 --> 01:01:11.264
Yeah.

01:01:11.264 --> 01:01:11.425
Yes.

01:01:11.489 --> 01:01:14.820
Yeah, no, I, the gym keeps me, uh, keeps me sane, that's for sure.

01:01:15.480 --> 01:01:15.780
Yeah.

01:01:15.780 --> 01:01:15.869
Cool.

01:01:15.929 --> 01:01:15.989
Yeah.

01:01:15.989 --> 01:01:16.619
Um.

01:01:17.025 --> 01:01:23.175
Well, we typically transitioned to the faith, family politics, like the can't talk about subjects here.

01:01:23.175 --> 01:01:23.505
Sure.

01:01:23.775 --> 01:01:25.664
Um, do you have a preference of where we start there?

01:01:25.724 --> 01:01:26.025
Nope.

01:02:09.900 --> 01:02:11.280
Um, let's talk about your family first.

01:02:11.369 --> 01:02:11.639
Yeah.

01:02:11.699 --> 01:02:14.849
Uh, you're wearing a ring, but we haven't met your, your wife.

01:02:14.909 --> 01:02:15.059
Yep.

01:02:15.059 --> 01:02:16.019
In this conversation so far.

01:02:16.019 --> 01:02:21.304
My, uh oh, but we did a little bit because she moved back up to Fort Collins or something.

01:02:21.304 --> 01:02:21.425
Yeah.

01:02:21.425 --> 01:02:22.679
Or you came back up to chase her.

01:02:22.739 --> 01:02:23.070
Yeah.

01:02:23.130 --> 01:02:23.340
Yeah.

01:02:23.340 --> 01:02:27.510
She wanted to go to CSU and, uh, so we've been married.

01:02:28.019 --> 01:02:29.460
17 years now.

01:02:29.579 --> 01:02:29.849
Okay.

01:02:29.909 --> 01:02:32.639
Um, so yeah, she's been there kind of from the beginning.

01:02:33.150 --> 01:02:34.110
Where did you find her at?

01:02:34.110 --> 01:02:34.500
Where were you at?

01:02:34.559 --> 01:02:35.250
Four H.

01:02:35.369 --> 01:02:35.849
Oh really?

01:02:35.880 --> 01:02:36.090
Yeah.

01:02:36.119 --> 01:02:36.510
Okay.

01:02:36.510 --> 01:02:39.389
She's, uh, bring it back to four H Uhhuh, bring it back to four H again.

01:02:39.389 --> 01:02:42.929
So she was in the same four H Club as us, and she's a little bit younger than I am.

01:02:42.929 --> 01:02:46.170
And her parents were also amazing dairy goat razors.

01:02:46.739 --> 01:02:50.940
Uh, quite that close, not quite on the level where my family was on my, my mom took it to another level.

01:02:50.940 --> 01:02:55.889
They were amateur during go people, but they, they want, they were part of the organization, so, yeah.

01:02:56.070 --> 01:02:56.849
Um, yep.

01:02:56.909 --> 01:02:58.440
17 years, two boys.

01:02:58.590 --> 01:02:58.860
Okay.

01:02:58.889 --> 01:03:04.260
Uh, Holden is 15 and Bo is 12.

01:03:04.260 --> 01:03:05.144
Two boys.

01:03:05.164 --> 01:03:08.820
Do you often try to do a one word description of the individual children?

01:03:09.059 --> 01:03:09.300
Okay.

01:03:09.300 --> 01:03:11.789
Would you like to attempt that with Holden and Bo?

01:03:11.820 --> 01:03:14.789
Bo Holden is extremely smart.

01:03:15.900 --> 01:03:17.250
Uh, we can put a dash in there.

01:03:17.280 --> 01:03:17.664
Yeah, it's fine.

01:03:17.670 --> 01:03:18.090
It's dash.

01:03:18.090 --> 01:03:19.739
And then Bo is courageous.

01:03:19.739 --> 01:03:20.519
He's a wild guy.

01:03:20.519 --> 01:03:21.119
Oh, interesting.

01:03:21.179 --> 01:03:21.480
Yeah.

01:03:21.480 --> 01:03:21.481
Yeah.

01:03:21.869 --> 01:03:25.139
Who, uh, who, who takes after who more?

01:03:25.530 --> 01:03:29.369
Um, Holden six four already wear a size 14 shoe.

01:03:29.460 --> 01:03:29.670
Oh, dang.

01:03:29.699 --> 01:03:30.239
15.

01:03:30.300 --> 01:03:30.570
Yep.

01:03:30.690 --> 01:03:31.650
So he's a big guy.

01:03:31.949 --> 01:03:35.820
Um, and then Bo probably takes after his mom a little bit smaller, more petite.

01:03:35.824 --> 01:03:36.065
Yeah.

01:03:36.065 --> 01:03:36.184
Yeah.

01:03:36.244 --> 01:03:36.809
So, yeah.

01:03:36.809 --> 01:03:37.889
And what's your, what's your wife's name?

01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:38.460
Robin.

01:03:38.514 --> 01:03:39.144
Hi, Robin.

01:03:39.204 --> 01:03:39.534
Yeah.

01:03:39.594 --> 01:03:40.614
You'll probably listen to this.

01:03:40.614 --> 01:03:41.304
She will for sure.

01:03:41.304 --> 01:03:41.784
I suspect.

01:03:41.844 --> 01:03:41.994
Yeah.

01:03:42.235 --> 01:03:45.715
Um, what, uh, like what was the connection point?

01:03:45.715 --> 01:03:48.775
Just be beyond like she was the cutest girl at four H.

01:03:48.894 --> 01:03:55.434
Uh, were the things that either drew you to her or vice versa in that early, you know, she's early time, she's got a strong personality.

01:03:55.675 --> 01:03:56.155
Okay.

01:03:56.215 --> 01:04:00.445
And, you know, that's, that was key for me back then.

01:04:00.775 --> 01:04:03.114
Um, as she was strong, she could hold her own.

01:04:03.264 --> 01:04:04.315
It's key for me now.

01:04:04.344 --> 01:04:04.675
Yeah.

01:04:04.679 --> 01:04:04.710
Yeah.

01:04:04.735 --> 01:04:09.355
Um, you know, she doesn't need me to kind of hold her up and Yeah.

01:04:09.594 --> 01:04:10.585
Make decisions for her.

01:04:10.675 --> 01:04:13.344
I've said before, I don't really want a woman that needs me.

01:04:13.344 --> 01:04:14.755
I want a woman that wants me correct.

01:04:14.755 --> 01:04:18.804
You know, if she could tell me to f off once in a while, that's even better probably.

01:04:18.835 --> 01:04:19.164
Yep.

01:04:19.525 --> 01:04:19.945
She, that's her.

01:04:20.005 --> 01:04:21.355
Um, but use nicer language than that.

01:04:21.414 --> 01:04:21.684
Yeah.

01:04:21.690 --> 01:04:21.789
Yeah.

01:04:21.864 --> 01:04:22.105
Yeah.

01:04:22.195 --> 01:04:24.054
Um, and how about, uh, for her?

01:04:24.054 --> 01:04:25.644
What was her draw to you?

01:04:25.704 --> 01:04:32.005
Just the, um, different, I was different, uh, different guy that she was normally used to.

01:04:32.125 --> 01:04:32.454
Okay.

01:04:32.454 --> 01:04:36.744
Um, you know, she ultimately was with, uh, probably much, uh.

01:04:37.425 --> 01:04:41.474
Better athletes and, uh, different, different types of guys.

01:04:41.474 --> 01:04:41.894
So, yeah.

01:04:42.105 --> 01:04:43.664
Um, I think I was different.

01:04:43.664 --> 01:04:49.934
Had a little bit more drive than most for her and, um, you know, she's probably, probably liked that.

01:04:49.965 --> 01:04:51.914
But you didn't really have much going yet.

01:04:51.914 --> 01:04:52.605
I mean, no, I had nothing.

01:04:52.605 --> 01:04:55.394
Pickup truck and four oh dollars worth of pads.

01:04:55.605 --> 01:04:55.815
Yeah.

01:04:55.965 --> 01:04:57.164
My future assets.

01:04:57.164 --> 01:04:59.175
That's all she was, that's why she was in it, I think.

01:04:59.204 --> 01:05:00.644
Well, it's a special intuition, right?

01:05:00.644 --> 01:05:09.795
Like that's a, it's an interesting thing culturally, uh, now that people are coupling so much later.

01:05:09.974 --> 01:05:10.275
Yep.

01:05:10.635 --> 01:05:11.025
Right?

01:05:11.025 --> 01:05:18.675
Like when, when girls married, boys when they were 18 or 20 or 21, they had to kind of be future prognosticators, right?

01:05:18.885 --> 01:05:21.074
They're trying to play the market here a little bit.

01:05:21.105 --> 01:05:21.434
Yeah.

01:05:21.465 --> 01:05:27.644
Who's got not just kindness and sensitivity, but also strength and perseverance and the ability to go get her.

01:05:27.795 --> 01:05:30.014
Yeah, and I was, I mean, I was young when we started dating.

01:05:30.014 --> 01:05:33.824
I was 23, I was outta college and, uh, I mean, I didn't know.

01:05:34.454 --> 01:05:35.684
I didn't know what I was doing at all in life.

01:05:35.684 --> 01:05:35.894
Yeah.

01:05:35.900 --> 01:05:35.920
Yeah.

01:05:35.925 --> 01:05:37.184
You know, it's interesting.

01:05:37.184 --> 01:05:47.715
It's almost like it's taken power out of women's hands in some ways to try to marry at 30, because now they already know who's a loser, who's not a loser as far as like, you know, pretty much by 30.

01:05:48.195 --> 01:05:48.494
Yeah.

01:05:48.585 --> 01:05:49.094
The cards are on.

01:05:49.094 --> 01:05:50.295
You're headed one direction or another.

01:05:50.295 --> 01:05:51.974
Your cards are on the table a little bit.

01:05:51.974 --> 01:05:56.505
You know, they can kind of stack rank then and they still don't now they just choose old guys.

01:05:56.565 --> 01:05:57.434
Yeah, right.

01:05:57.434 --> 01:06:03.525
The 30-year-old girls, like are with 40-year-old guys in their second marriage, and all the 30-year-old guys are all single.

01:06:03.614 --> 01:06:03.795
Yep.

01:06:03.824 --> 01:06:04.094
Like.

01:06:04.469 --> 01:06:05.730
Doing porn or something.

01:06:05.730 --> 01:06:06.675
It happens, I don't know, happens, I don't know.

01:06:06.675 --> 01:06:08.159
It's unfortunately a cultural trend.

01:06:08.164 --> 01:06:08.275
Yeah.

01:06:08.340 --> 01:06:08.699
Yeah.

01:06:08.760 --> 01:06:09.420
I digress.

01:06:09.449 --> 01:06:10.500
Yeah, it's all good.

01:06:10.889 --> 01:06:16.739
I'm a, I'm a student of uh, x.com and too many, uh, cultural things probably.

01:06:16.739 --> 01:06:16.800
Yeah.

01:06:17.159 --> 01:06:21.210
What was the, uh, the family environment for you like?

01:06:21.750 --> 01:06:22.230
Um.

01:06:22.630 --> 01:06:24.250
Like, do you have grandparents around?

01:06:24.250 --> 01:06:25.960
They were back in California and stuff.

01:06:25.960 --> 01:06:26.590
Your wife?

01:06:26.590 --> 01:06:27.219
Things like that.

01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:29.530
Half of the grandparents were in California.

01:06:29.619 --> 01:06:31.300
Half of the grandparents were Australia.

01:06:31.480 --> 01:06:32.050
Oh wow.

01:06:32.050 --> 01:06:33.099
My mom's Australian.

01:06:33.190 --> 01:06:33.730
Oh wow.

01:06:33.730 --> 01:06:33.849
Yeah.

01:06:33.940 --> 01:06:34.300
Okay.

01:06:34.300 --> 01:06:37.420
So that was, didn't see them very, very often either side.

01:06:37.420 --> 01:06:37.840
Really?

01:06:37.900 --> 01:06:38.199
Yeah.

01:06:38.260 --> 01:06:45.340
Um, mom and dad moved out there when I was five, so my dad was, and they didn't have siblings necessarily nearby or things like that.

01:06:45.369 --> 01:06:46.809
My mom's brother was in Australia.

01:06:46.809 --> 01:06:48.730
My dad's sisters were in California still.

01:06:48.730 --> 01:06:49.090
Interesting.

01:06:49.125 --> 01:06:49.505
So, yeah.

01:06:49.630 --> 01:06:51.130
So they were a little island kind of.

01:06:51.130 --> 01:06:52.000
And you guys were too.

01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:54.130
And so a little bit of a self-sufficient island.

01:06:54.130 --> 01:06:56.320
That's part of your character development probably.

01:06:56.324 --> 01:06:56.344
Yeah.

01:06:56.619 --> 01:06:57.550
Yeah, probably.

01:06:57.550 --> 01:06:57.610
Yeah.

01:06:57.610 --> 01:06:58.539
Have you been to Australia?

01:06:58.809 --> 01:06:59.710
Yep, couple times.

01:06:59.739 --> 01:06:59.920
Okay.

01:06:59.920 --> 01:07:00.219
Yeah.

01:07:00.280 --> 01:07:00.460
Yeah.

01:07:00.460 --> 01:07:03.610
Got to see family actually after I graduated college, I went over there for a month.

01:07:03.909 --> 01:07:04.210
Oh cool.

01:07:04.210 --> 01:07:05.469
Just kind of traveled around.

01:07:05.739 --> 01:07:06.250
Yeah, it was good.

01:07:06.250 --> 01:07:07.300
What part of the country?

01:07:07.389 --> 01:07:10.150
Um, you know, most of the population's congregated, right?

01:07:10.150 --> 01:07:10.871
Because of way.

01:07:10.871 --> 01:07:10.871
Yeah.

01:07:10.876 --> 01:07:13.659
All the little, few clusters here and there between the desert chunks.

01:07:13.659 --> 01:07:13.719
Yeah.

01:07:13.719 --> 01:07:18.130
But basically from Brisbane all the way down, um, to.

01:07:18.894 --> 01:07:19.855
Oh, there's one another.

01:07:19.855 --> 01:07:20.364
Sydney?

01:07:20.394 --> 01:07:21.139
No, not on the other side.

01:07:21.139 --> 01:07:21.804
You got, you got through Sydney?

01:07:21.804 --> 01:07:24.445
Yeah, there's kind of three big cities on one side.

01:07:24.445 --> 01:07:26.275
So one of my former facilitator moved there.

01:07:26.364 --> 01:07:26.815
Oh, nice.

01:07:26.815 --> 01:07:27.625
To that realm somewhere.

01:07:27.625 --> 01:07:28.675
I think Brisbane even actually.

01:07:28.675 --> 01:07:29.005
Okay, nice.

01:07:29.815 --> 01:07:32.304
So I've studied the Australia map not too long ago.

01:07:32.335 --> 01:07:32.514
Yeah.

01:07:32.514 --> 01:07:33.594
Reorienting myself.

01:07:33.594 --> 01:07:34.375
You better go over there.

01:07:34.405 --> 01:07:45.295
Yeah, I would love to actually, my, so my, my grandfather growing up, he was a bachelor for many years, and then married my grandmother on his second marriage or her second marriage.

01:07:45.715 --> 01:07:55.224
Um, but he, at like the age of 19, in 1922 or something, went to Australia for a year.

01:07:55.344 --> 01:07:55.824
Whoa.

01:07:56.215 --> 01:07:56.905
And just moved there.

01:07:57.715 --> 01:07:57.925
Whoa.

01:07:58.195 --> 01:07:58.644
Yeah.

01:07:58.644 --> 01:08:04.494
And I don't know, you know, he did some stuff and then he came home and like, he like worked on a ranch, you know, did this and that.

01:08:04.500 --> 01:08:07.045
Um, that's, wow, that's a long, that, that's a different time.

01:08:07.105 --> 01:08:07.434
Yeah.

01:08:07.434 --> 01:08:09.684
Well, and for a, I'm a North Dakota kid, you know?

01:08:09.684 --> 01:08:09.894
Right.

01:08:09.894 --> 01:08:11.454
And so nobody did stuff like that there.

01:08:11.454 --> 01:08:14.425
You know, people just were born there and raised there.

01:08:14.425 --> 01:08:16.194
Then they'd die there kind of mostly, yeah.

01:08:16.725 --> 01:08:17.805
Um, so anyway.

01:08:18.404 --> 01:08:18.645
Yep.

01:08:19.034 --> 01:08:23.805
Let's say that sometime that's mom, dad, that's what I, they did and uh, my wife's family's similar.

01:08:24.074 --> 01:08:25.274
Uh, they were from Texas.

01:08:25.425 --> 01:08:25.784
Okay.

01:08:25.784 --> 01:08:33.795
My father-in-law was an electrician and uh, he moved, they moved up to Colorado'cause he just enjoyed the mountains.

01:08:33.824 --> 01:08:34.005
Yeah.

01:08:34.095 --> 01:08:34.664
Okay.

01:08:34.664 --> 01:08:37.364
So, so you got that family support now kind of on the, in-law side.

01:08:37.395 --> 01:08:37.574
Yep.

01:08:37.664 --> 01:08:37.935
Yep.

01:08:37.935 --> 01:08:41.085
He passed away in 2011, but my mother-in-law's in Fort Collins now.

01:08:41.114 --> 01:08:41.295
Okay.

01:08:41.385 --> 01:08:41.595
Yeah.

01:08:42.194 --> 01:08:42.284
Yeah.

01:08:42.314 --> 01:08:56.354
Um, when you think about family, like were there certain outside of the kinda work ethic and the passion pursuits of your mom and stuff, was there things that your family really maybe transmitted, like your parents to your next generation, to you and your wife?

01:08:56.414 --> 01:08:58.545
Yeah, I mean, both of my parents worked hard.

01:08:58.725 --> 01:09:00.645
Um, so I think it was hard work.

01:09:00.854 --> 01:09:06.824
My dad was always calm, uh, methodical and uh, you know, my mom was a go-getter.

01:09:07.199 --> 01:09:10.229
Uh, raising the boys and just kind of keeping us in line.

01:09:10.229 --> 01:09:14.130
And, um, she was kind of the fire, he was the stabilization in some ways.

01:09:14.135 --> 01:09:14.164
Yeah.

01:09:14.170 --> 01:09:14.430
Yeah.

01:09:14.430 --> 01:09:15.090
A hundred percent.

01:09:15.090 --> 01:09:15.119
Okay.

01:09:15.119 --> 01:09:19.470
So it's kind of kept, you know, I think it, it probably has helped along the way in business.

01:09:19.470 --> 01:09:19.829
Right.

01:09:19.829 --> 01:09:25.364
One, the one side's all foot on the gas and the other side's kind of cool, calm and collected, so, yeah.

01:09:25.364 --> 01:09:25.409
Yeah.

01:09:25.409 --> 01:09:27.180
Is your, is your wife involved with your business?

01:09:27.180 --> 01:09:27.930
She is now.

01:09:28.020 --> 01:09:28.199
Okay.

01:09:28.260 --> 01:09:28.920
Um, yeah.

01:09:28.920 --> 01:09:31.529
So she stayed at home with the kids for 10 years, I think.

01:09:31.529 --> 01:09:31.800
Okay.

01:09:32.130 --> 01:09:36.689
And then kind of once the kids were, um, growing and established, we brought her back in to do some stuff.

01:09:36.725 --> 01:09:43.199
Let's talk about like, how do you, like, did, did you know what you wanted her to do or did you let that kind of navigate a little bit?

01:09:43.199 --> 01:09:45.569
Like how do you reintroduce, uh, in that way?

01:09:45.630 --> 01:09:47.729
Um, she's on the accounting side now.

01:09:47.789 --> 01:09:48.060
Okay.

01:09:48.090 --> 01:09:52.529
And, um, it was, it was out of need at the time.

01:09:52.649 --> 01:09:53.010
Okay.

01:09:53.164 --> 01:09:56.670
And, uh, you know, so in that kind of growing through phase Yeah.

01:09:56.699 --> 01:09:58.649
Like, Hey, I need a super good.

01:09:59.220 --> 01:10:01.289
Very cheap accounting person.

01:10:01.319 --> 01:10:01.979
Reliable.

01:10:02.069 --> 01:10:02.880
Reliable uhhuh.

01:10:03.175 --> 01:10:03.465
Yeah.

01:10:03.539 --> 01:10:03.869
Yeah.

01:10:03.930 --> 01:10:07.409
So she jumped back in just a couple years ago, I think.

01:10:07.439 --> 01:10:07.619
Okay.

01:10:07.619 --> 01:10:09.869
And, um, oh, so you had kind of grown through that?

01:10:09.935 --> 01:10:10.649
Yeah, yeah.

01:10:10.920 --> 01:10:11.130
Yeah.

01:10:11.130 --> 01:10:12.810
So she helped us out a ton.

01:10:13.170 --> 01:10:14.310
Um, she's been great.

01:10:14.310 --> 01:10:16.470
She kind of just keeps everything in order in line.

01:10:16.470 --> 01:10:20.189
And do you have need really of a, like a controller level?

01:10:20.939 --> 01:10:23.699
Person or is that her or do you not really need it necessarily?

01:10:23.704 --> 01:10:25.229
We have, we use a CFO for hire.

01:10:25.319 --> 01:10:25.800
Okay.

01:10:25.800 --> 01:10:26.789
Kind like, like a fractional CFO.

01:10:26.789 --> 01:10:26.939
Yeah.

01:10:26.939 --> 01:10:27.869
A fractional CFO.

01:10:27.869 --> 01:10:27.960
Yep.

01:10:27.960 --> 01:10:36.779
To kind of jump in and just make sure all the t's are crossed, all the reconci settlements are done, all the things are tight, there's no, no, no.

01:10:36.779 --> 01:10:39.899
Employees are stealing where they're supposed to be Dropbox and whatever.

01:10:39.904 --> 01:10:40.064
Yeah.

01:10:40.140 --> 01:10:40.470
Yep.

01:10:40.470 --> 01:10:42.149
And just watching for those weird things.

01:10:42.149 --> 01:10:46.800
So we kind of have a, a fractional CFO kind of jump in and kind of help out where we need it.

01:10:46.800 --> 01:10:48.960
Help you with like designing budgets and stuff like that too.

01:10:48.960 --> 01:10:49.050
Yep.

01:10:49.109 --> 01:10:49.529
A hundred percent.

01:10:49.619 --> 01:10:49.710
Yeah.

01:10:49.710 --> 01:10:49.949
Cool.

01:10:50.010 --> 01:10:50.250
Yep.

01:10:50.279 --> 01:10:57.119
Yeah, that's a nice, like there's no reason for a company your size to have a$175,000 a year CFO.

01:10:57.479 --> 01:10:58.199
No.

01:10:58.350 --> 01:10:59.010
Um, no.

01:10:59.010 --> 01:11:02.819
But it's also risky to not have anybody that's got a higher level of experience.

01:11:02.850 --> 01:11:03.329
A hundred percent.

01:11:03.390 --> 01:11:03.720
Yeah.

01:11:03.720 --> 01:11:08.130
And so that was where, and our, this fractional CFO has been real strong, helpful for us.

01:11:08.220 --> 01:11:13.680
You know,'cause they just turn over stones and again, you know, she works with other landscape contractors.

01:11:13.680 --> 01:11:13.739
I.

01:11:13.979 --> 01:11:15.149
Throughout a couple states.

01:11:15.149 --> 01:11:18.689
And so she kind of can say, Hey, we're seeing this over here.

01:11:18.810 --> 01:11:20.069
We're seeing this over here.

01:11:20.220 --> 01:11:23.585
Or you know, are you sure you're not having some theft or what's going on?

01:11:23.585 --> 01:11:23.704
Right.

01:11:23.704 --> 01:11:25.560
Some materials theft, different things like that.

01:11:25.560 --> 01:11:25.680
Yep.

01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:25.979
Yeah.

01:11:26.039 --> 01:11:26.279
Yep.

01:11:26.279 --> 01:11:31.500
I mean, you're not dealing with copper wires, but you're dealing with a lot of materials that are easily sold to Joe with a pickup.

01:11:31.680 --> 01:11:31.890
Yep.

01:11:32.310 --> 01:11:32.550
Yep.

01:11:32.550 --> 01:11:32.729
Happens.

01:11:32.729 --> 01:11:33.300
That makes sense.

01:11:33.840 --> 01:11:36.840
Um, politics or faith?

01:11:37.199 --> 01:11:37.649
Faith.

01:11:37.649 --> 01:11:38.039
Yeah.

01:11:38.069 --> 01:11:39.720
Uh, family of Christ.

01:11:39.720 --> 01:11:44.640
And, um, you know, we're going back to your parents, not my parents a ton.

01:11:44.640 --> 01:11:44.670
Okay.

01:11:44.699 --> 01:11:46.199
I went to a Baptist high school.

01:11:46.319 --> 01:11:46.500
Okay.

01:11:46.560 --> 01:11:49.289
Um, so I think I kind of started my journey on my own.

01:11:49.649 --> 01:11:55.305
And, uh, like they didn't choose the high school for you or like, was that the high school that was there or whatever?

01:11:55.444 --> 01:11:59.430
No, they didn't, my parents didn't love the high school Falcon High School.

01:11:59.460 --> 01:11:59.880
Okay.

01:12:00.029 --> 01:12:03.420
And so they sought out other options for my brother and I.

01:12:03.420 --> 01:12:03.750
Okay.

01:12:03.885 --> 01:12:06.720
Um, and there was a Catholic high school and a Baptist high school, and I.

01:12:06.965 --> 01:12:08.534
Baptist one was we him with the Baptist.

01:12:08.685 --> 01:12:09.060
Okay, yeah.

01:12:09.090 --> 01:12:09.329
Yeah.

01:12:09.390 --> 01:12:18.810
So my brother went to District 20, so they had to truck him in, and then some of the district rules changed and, um, so they planted me in a, at a Baptist high school.

01:12:18.810 --> 01:12:20.609
And so that's kinda where my journey started.

01:12:20.609 --> 01:12:29.670
They, they went to church some, um, but with the farm it was just super hard, super tough on the weekends, so, so they weren't anti faithful, they just weren't really very engaged, if you will.

01:12:29.670 --> 01:12:30.210
Yeah, a hundred percent.

01:12:30.210 --> 01:12:30.449
Yeah.

01:12:30.510 --> 01:12:33.750
And then, uh, for your wife as well?

01:12:33.750 --> 01:12:35.279
Same, same perspective or different?

01:12:35.279 --> 01:12:36.689
I would say same perspective for her.

01:12:36.689 --> 01:12:41.069
Her parents weren't, you know, against faith, but, you know, found, found other things.

01:12:41.399 --> 01:12:44.310
Uh, yeah, keeping her busy, so, uh, keeping them busy, but yeah.

01:12:44.369 --> 01:12:49.949
Then you guys keep an active, like attendance and stuff here at one of the, the local organizations?

01:12:49.949 --> 01:12:50.880
Not as much as you always want to.

01:12:51.119 --> 01:12:51.479
Yeah.

01:12:51.484 --> 01:12:51.694
Yep.

01:12:51.755 --> 01:12:52.335
You got one?

01:12:52.515 --> 01:12:53.399
Yep, we got one.

01:12:53.399 --> 01:12:56.970
So I was, uh, we go to the Crossing church, my wife and I.

01:12:57.029 --> 01:12:57.390
Okay.

01:12:57.390 --> 01:13:05.670
Uh, down at Shields and, and, uh, I sent one of, one of our lay pastors is a, is a SY guy, like CD, C.

01:13:06.119 --> 01:13:08.250
Virus scientists that, he's one of my favorite guys.

01:13:08.250 --> 01:13:18.539
I should have him on here sometime, but I sent him a little short video that was like all, like 14 of the major denominations of Christians explained Okay.

01:13:18.630 --> 01:13:19.890
In like 14 minutes.

01:13:19.949 --> 01:13:20.340
Wow.

01:13:20.520 --> 01:13:24.029
And, uh, determined we were, our church was kind of a.

01:13:24.704 --> 01:13:29.595
Um, pres Baptist, like Presbyterian hybrid with Baptist.

01:13:29.625 --> 01:13:29.835
Huh?

01:13:29.895 --> 01:13:32.024
A little bit of Reform Baptist kind of element.

01:13:32.024 --> 01:13:32.055
Okay.

01:13:32.055 --> 01:13:34.335
We're, we don't really hang any of those flags.

01:13:34.364 --> 01:13:34.904
Yes.

01:13:35.024 --> 01:13:36.494
But it's in that realm.

01:13:36.585 --> 01:13:36.975
Okay.

01:13:37.095 --> 01:13:37.635
If you will.

01:13:37.694 --> 01:13:38.024
Yeah.

01:13:38.444 --> 01:13:38.805
Yeah.

01:13:38.864 --> 01:13:42.045
So we, we uh, we attend church.

01:13:42.104 --> 01:13:42.345
Yeah.

01:13:42.350 --> 01:13:42.750
Sometimes.

01:13:42.755 --> 01:13:43.125
Sometimes.

01:13:43.185 --> 01:13:43.364
Yeah.

01:13:43.420 --> 01:13:43.710
Yeah.

01:13:43.939 --> 01:13:44.229
Yeah.

01:13:44.925 --> 01:13:46.185
Business is tough, you know?

01:13:46.215 --> 01:13:46.695
Yeah, yeah.

01:13:46.695 --> 01:13:46.698
Fair enough.

01:13:46.829 --> 01:13:50.024
Landscaping, so the kids are familiar and stuff too.

01:13:50.029 --> 01:13:50.069
Yep.

01:13:50.074 --> 01:13:50.175
Yep.

01:13:50.204 --> 01:13:52.064
Our kids actually go to a Christian school.

01:13:52.244 --> 01:13:52.545
Okay.

01:13:52.574 --> 01:13:52.845
Yeah.

01:13:52.935 --> 01:13:55.335
So, um, resurrection or They do, yeah.

01:13:55.335 --> 01:13:55.574
Okay.

01:13:55.664 --> 01:13:55.875
Yep.

01:13:55.875 --> 01:13:56.654
Boys go to resurrection.

01:13:56.654 --> 01:13:58.064
You probably know how old is the older one?

01:13:58.244 --> 01:13:59.354
15 freshman.

01:13:59.475 --> 01:13:59.835
Okay.

01:14:00.135 --> 01:14:02.475
So Simon Johnson, do you know Simon Johnson?

01:14:02.864 --> 01:14:03.435
Yes.

01:14:03.435 --> 01:14:07.510
Uh, Greg Johnson is my brother-in-law and uh, Isaac just won Isaiah.

01:14:07.694 --> 01:14:09.675
Isaiah just won the state wrestling championship.

01:14:09.675 --> 01:14:09.975
Yeah.

01:14:10.064 --> 01:14:10.515
Yes.

01:14:10.545 --> 01:14:11.385
Strong.

01:14:12.314 --> 01:14:13.395
Strong kids.

01:14:13.484 --> 01:14:13.904
Oh boy.

01:14:14.204 --> 01:14:14.444
Oldest.

01:14:14.444 --> 01:14:15.420
It's been wild to see him.

01:14:15.420 --> 01:14:17.114
Our oldest, our oldest really looks up to him.

01:14:17.265 --> 01:14:17.715
Is that right?

01:14:17.715 --> 01:14:17.954
Yeah.

01:14:17.960 --> 01:14:18.380
Good kid.

01:14:18.380 --> 01:14:20.505
Yeah, I mean, he's, he's been my favorite.

01:14:20.564 --> 01:14:21.345
Uh, he's a good kid.

01:14:21.555 --> 01:14:21.795
Yeah.

01:14:21.795 --> 01:14:24.975
So me and Isaiah have been kind of pals for a lot of years now, actually.

01:14:25.005 --> 01:14:27.404
Good to see that he got a wrestling scholarship.

01:14:27.494 --> 01:14:27.824
Yeah.

01:14:28.395 --> 01:14:29.805
Right before he won the state.

01:14:29.835 --> 01:14:30.405
Yeah, yeah.

01:14:30.734 --> 01:14:31.064
Yeah.

01:14:31.154 --> 01:14:33.345
He could have maybe got a better scholarship if he'd have waited a little bit.

01:14:33.350 --> 01:14:33.659
I dunno.

01:14:33.904 --> 01:14:35.204
I waited a couple weeks.

01:14:35.475 --> 01:14:42.675
He would've got something different, but yeah, no, so I've been, uh, you know, Jill and I go down for the fundraiser, for the, the Res Gala, gala and things like that every year.

01:14:42.675 --> 01:14:50.114
It's pretty, pretty neat how they run that operation, you know, and really involve a lot of local business people and supporting the sports teams and things like that.

01:14:50.114 --> 01:14:50.805
So, yeah.

01:14:51.045 --> 01:14:51.704
Good for them.

01:14:51.710 --> 01:14:51.939
We like it.

01:14:51.944 --> 01:14:52.335
We love it.

01:14:52.425 --> 01:14:53.265
Our kids love it.

01:14:53.385 --> 01:14:54.975
Um, I've told the res church is more of a.

01:14:56.085 --> 01:15:00.435
Not a dumpster fire, but not quite as well operated as the, the school perhaps.

01:15:00.439 --> 01:15:00.609
Correct.

01:15:01.359 --> 01:15:01.850
Correct.

01:15:03.015 --> 01:15:03.494
Yes.

01:15:04.244 --> 01:15:05.414
Anyway, we don't need to talk about that.

01:15:05.564 --> 01:15:05.625
Yeah.

01:15:06.345 --> 01:15:07.545
'cause your face is already a little bit red.

01:15:07.574 --> 01:15:07.845
Yeah.

01:15:08.685 --> 01:15:09.645
Uh, politics.

01:15:09.765 --> 01:15:10.484
Politics.

01:15:10.484 --> 01:15:10.694
Yeah.

01:15:10.694 --> 01:15:10.695
Yeah.

01:15:10.701 --> 01:15:17.354
We're in, uh, we're we what day 37 or something like that of the, of the Trump presidency.

01:15:17.414 --> 01:15:18.314
Lot of changes.

01:15:18.345 --> 01:15:18.704
Yeah.

01:15:18.885 --> 01:15:19.425
A lot, lot of changes.

01:15:19.425 --> 01:15:22.364
Are you squeamish yet on the doge and this and that, or?

01:15:22.369 --> 01:15:22.529
Nope.

01:15:22.534 --> 01:15:22.755
Nope.

01:15:22.814 --> 01:15:23.595
Needs to happen.

01:15:23.595 --> 01:15:24.015
Yeah.

01:15:24.074 --> 01:15:28.814
You know, um, I think it's just, you know, everyone has their opinion, right?

01:15:28.845 --> 01:15:40.664
And we, we gotta turn over all stones and I think if, if businesses are required to show a profit and we are judged on our productivity on a daily basis, I, I don't think that's too much to ask.

01:15:40.994 --> 01:15:46.454
Um, you know, I think that there's some different layers and some different things that probably.

01:15:47.520 --> 01:15:50.039
We just don't mess with secret service stuff, some of that stuff.

01:15:50.039 --> 01:15:54.210
But man, at the end of the day, well maybe, but we might wanna mess with Secret Service a little bit.

01:15:54.210 --> 01:15:57.359
Like they didn't have a big successful year last year.

01:15:57.359 --> 01:16:03.300
I mean, they true lucked into not letting the president die Joe candidate, uh, get assassinated twice.

01:16:03.300 --> 01:16:03.569
Yes.

01:16:03.630 --> 01:16:03.989
Yeah.

01:16:04.079 --> 01:16:05.100
Uh, mess.

01:16:05.340 --> 01:16:06.000
It's a mess.

01:16:06.090 --> 01:16:08.460
I'm glad the election is behind us.

01:16:08.520 --> 01:16:08.760
Yeah.

01:16:08.819 --> 01:16:10.470
Um, the people spoke, right.

01:16:10.470 --> 01:16:18.329
And so I think at this point we, well, and it's interesting here in Northern Colorado where this people spoke like 67% Harris.

01:16:18.390 --> 01:16:18.720
Yeah.

01:16:18.840 --> 01:16:19.109
Right?

01:16:19.109 --> 01:16:24.015
And so, and I've never been a Trump guy necessarily, but I'm pretty like, I'm been a libertarian guy.

01:16:24.015 --> 01:16:25.199
We're like, yes, yes.

01:16:25.260 --> 01:16:27.539
You know, and so I think most of us are, yeah.

01:16:27.539 --> 01:16:30.390
Business people is more characteristically especially.

01:16:30.479 --> 01:16:30.659
Yep.

01:16:30.899 --> 01:16:37.229
But like HP has probably laid off more people in northern Colorado than the federal government will over the next 12 months.

01:16:37.710 --> 01:16:38.039
Huh.

01:16:38.130 --> 01:16:38.399
Interesting.

01:16:38.404 --> 01:16:39.210
You know, if you think about it, yeah.

01:16:39.210 --> 01:16:41.100
They've had downsizings over the years and stuff.

01:16:41.100 --> 01:16:41.819
Oh yeah, totally.

01:16:41.819 --> 01:16:42.479
You know, it happens.

01:16:42.479 --> 01:16:45.960
But you've never heard of a no downsizing at any level of government?

01:16:45.960 --> 01:16:46.305
No, no.

01:16:46.470 --> 01:16:56.970
You know, the, the city economic development office has grown from five to 12 employees over the last six years, and to me, it's not discernible what their impacts have been.

01:16:57.779 --> 01:17:01.050
Well, and we, but I'm gonna have'em on sometime soon.

01:17:01.050 --> 01:17:04.529
Actually, I have a, if you guys are listening, you know that I'm not criticizing yet.

01:17:04.859 --> 01:17:05.970
I have a.

01:17:06.585 --> 01:17:10.125
Direct tie to the government and using this Visa program.

01:17:10.125 --> 01:17:13.364
So I do a ton of lobbying'cause of the importance of it.

01:17:13.364 --> 01:17:16.814
And so, so you're freaked out a little bit by the immigration kind of conversation.

01:17:16.814 --> 01:17:21.944
I mean, I see that the, the accountability issue, it's a little bit like the IRS right?

01:17:22.449 --> 01:17:26.949
You have to turn in paperwork, but you don't know which paperwork, what time to turn in the paperwork.

01:17:26.949 --> 01:17:33.310
How to turn in the paperwork, because there's just, there's no, but you know, there's, you're in trouble if you don't turn in the paperwork in at the right time.

01:17:33.310 --> 01:17:33.850
A hundred percent.

01:17:33.939 --> 01:17:37.600
So in 2024, we got stuck in the wheel of death.

01:17:37.600 --> 01:17:41.109
Our paperwork just sat there and sat there and sat there and sat there until all the visas were gone.

01:17:41.350 --> 01:17:41.890
Oh, no shit.

01:17:42.130 --> 01:17:42.430
Yeah.

01:17:42.460 --> 01:17:45.010
So then we have no visas and then now what?

01:17:45.550 --> 01:17:48.189
And then it was, oh, we have more questions for you.

01:17:48.189 --> 01:17:48.760
And it's like, whoa.

01:17:49.210 --> 01:17:52.569
What happened to our application that's been sitting there for 45 days?

01:17:52.600 --> 01:17:52.659
Wow.

01:17:53.050 --> 01:17:58.479
And so we, it just kind of, we have a firsthand connection when we see that lack of clarity.

01:17:58.479 --> 01:18:04.060
And so when I see that we're trying to clean these things up and make some more transparency and Yeah.

01:18:04.060 --> 01:18:07.479
Accountability and all these things, it, it seems okay.

01:18:07.479 --> 01:18:08.859
It's like going to the dmv, right?

01:18:08.859 --> 01:18:14.829
I mean, you, you pay for productivity at the dmv and you'd have as many people in the building.

01:18:15.159 --> 01:18:15.520
Yeah.

01:18:16.739 --> 01:18:25.920
So, you know, I, I, I, the office, uh, like for whatever reason, old office clips really is, so, Bob, what do you do here?

01:18:26.130 --> 01:18:26.550
Yes.

01:18:26.550 --> 01:18:32.430
And I just wonder, you know, how much, uh, we're gonna flip over could change a lot.

01:18:32.550 --> 01:18:39.720
And the real ultimately, you know, there's gonna have to be big changes to entitlement stuff too.

01:18:40.050 --> 01:18:40.289
Yep.

01:18:40.409 --> 01:18:48.300
You know, and like if make America healthy and can actually make Medicare and Medicaid cost less come down over, over the next 10 years.

01:18:48.359 --> 01:18:48.449
Yeah.

01:18:48.449 --> 01:18:50.340
You know, because we're not Yep.

01:18:50.489 --> 01:18:53.010
Doing all these dumb things to ourselves anymore.

01:18:53.100 --> 01:18:54.300
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:18:54.300 --> 01:18:56.579
We gotta, we gotta tighten up some of the spending, right.

01:18:56.579 --> 01:19:01.800
I mean, I think that's where a lot of us see it is like, Hey, okay, we can't keep taking this bus over this cliff.

01:19:01.805 --> 01:19:02.045
Yeah.

01:19:02.050 --> 01:19:02.220
Yeah.

01:19:02.220 --> 01:19:04.409
I mean, the T is a big number.

01:19:04.680 --> 01:19:15.239
I'm writing my blog right now and it's, it's, uh, I think I mentioned already, it's what you could do your community, but like, well, Elon just wants to send people to Mars and if the US goes bankrupt.

01:19:16.005 --> 01:19:20.175
Nobody's gonna have enough discretionary income to do a Mars program.

01:19:20.295 --> 01:19:22.335
And then here we are.

01:19:22.425 --> 01:19:22.664
Yep.

01:19:22.904 --> 01:19:26.024
So he is like, I guess I could just go in there and do some stuff.

01:19:26.055 --> 01:19:26.385
Yeah.

01:19:26.654 --> 01:19:28.994
Uh, but yeah, it's been a pretty interesting thing.

01:19:29.055 --> 01:19:29.895
It has been wild.

01:19:30.015 --> 01:19:34.965
But I went to a, uh, H two B symposium in Vegas a couple weeks ago.

01:19:35.055 --> 01:19:37.154
H two B, uh, that's the Visa program we use.

01:19:37.274 --> 01:19:37.305
Okay.

01:19:37.694 --> 01:19:45.435
And, um, in the first five minutes, the guy that was running it stood up and said, there's no more executive orders than normal.

01:19:45.645 --> 01:19:48.435
There's nothing crazy that he's doing.

01:19:48.734 --> 01:19:52.064
All of these things are right in line with what we expected.

01:19:52.064 --> 01:19:52.244
Hmm.

01:19:52.425 --> 01:19:55.185
And so I was much calmer after that.

01:19:55.185 --> 01:20:02.564
'cause I'm like, man, you know, this seems to be like a lot of moving parts already, but they said it's just what he's focusing on, how he's focusing on it.

01:20:02.744 --> 01:20:05.234
And uh, it's just playing out.

01:20:05.354 --> 01:20:13.664
Well, and from what I hear in your perspective, like we need migrant labor forces to really do effective work.

01:20:14.010 --> 01:20:16.350
Or at least it's beneficial to them and us.

01:20:16.439 --> 01:20:16.920
A hundred percent.

01:20:17.069 --> 01:20:18.569
It's a, it's a requirement of our country.

01:20:18.600 --> 01:20:18.930
Yeah.

01:20:19.380 --> 01:20:27.149
And like the whole, like, we have a few million people here, of which we have no idea who they are is hard.

01:20:27.270 --> 01:20:27.750
It is.

01:20:27.750 --> 01:20:32.550
And you know, it's, there's not gonna be, I don't think Trump's gonna.

01:20:32.939 --> 01:20:34.380
Have mass deportation.

01:20:34.590 --> 01:20:38.609
I mean, he understands that the organ, the, the country runs with immigrant workers.

01:20:38.609 --> 01:20:40.739
And so I just don't see that happening.

01:20:40.739 --> 01:20:43.560
But who doesn't want the bad apples outta here?

01:20:43.649 --> 01:20:43.979
Right.

01:20:44.244 --> 01:20:44.595
Right.

01:20:44.600 --> 01:20:50.460
And the theft, I mean the, the amount of stuff we've had stolen in the last five years is so outta control.

01:20:50.460 --> 01:20:50.729
Really?

01:20:51.180 --> 01:20:53.699
Oh, skid steers, mini skids, gasoline.

01:20:53.880 --> 01:20:54.810
They cut our fence.

01:20:54.810 --> 01:20:56.189
They steal our copper wire.

01:20:56.189 --> 01:20:56.310
Oh, damn.

01:20:56.489 --> 01:20:57.539
They break into our trucks.

01:20:57.539 --> 01:20:58.470
They steal trucks.

01:20:58.710 --> 01:21:00.475
They on and on and on and on and on.

01:21:00.600 --> 01:21:00.960
Oh, damn.

01:21:01.215 --> 01:21:03.300
Weekly, I would say for a while there.

01:21:04.289 --> 01:21:04.350
Wow.

01:21:04.350 --> 01:21:04.500
And so.

01:21:04.500 --> 01:21:08.390
His new law says if you've been picked up for theft Right.

01:21:08.420 --> 01:21:09.319
You're detained now.

01:21:09.324 --> 01:21:09.494
Right.

01:21:09.595 --> 01:21:12.649
So hopefully that kind of cleans up some of those things.

01:21:12.654 --> 01:21:12.694
Yeah.

01:21:12.699 --> 01:21:12.710
Yeah.

01:21:12.710 --> 01:21:16.520
Because I think ultimately we all, you know, we, we want it to be a little bit cleaner.

01:21:16.640 --> 01:21:18.590
Needs to be a, a nation of laws ultimately.

01:21:18.649 --> 01:21:18.920
Yeah.

01:21:19.340 --> 01:21:23.630
So, so you're optimistic at least a little bit right now and uh Yep.

01:21:23.720 --> 01:21:24.380
See what happens.

01:21:24.409 --> 01:21:26.569
I'd love to see our visa program get fixed.

01:21:26.600 --> 01:21:27.350
Um Okay.

01:21:27.409 --> 01:21:33.454
We got 365 days for that to possibly happen, but then if that doesn't happen, we'll be faced with some Oh, really?

01:21:33.574 --> 01:21:33.774
Obstacles.

01:21:33.954 --> 01:21:34.550
Oh, interesting.

01:21:34.670 --> 01:21:34.819
Yeah.

01:21:34.819 --> 01:21:38.119
'cause once you hit year two right, they say, ah, less gets done.

01:21:38.149 --> 01:21:39.739
'cause now you're looking at midterms.

01:21:39.739 --> 01:21:39.829
Sure.

01:21:40.130 --> 01:21:56.989
Then year three usually things switch so Well, and that's the interesting thing about like, I'm kind of a utilitarian of sorts kind of as well, and it's like a lot of people want to come to America and a lot of'em are discouraged from this like 10 year process for actually becoming a citizen stuff.

01:21:57.020 --> 01:21:57.140
Yep.

01:21:57.649 --> 01:22:03.649
Like, we should have a super license, you know, if you got 50 grand.

01:22:05.055 --> 01:22:10.800
Money solves most problems and you're smart and capable of learning and doing the citizenship test and stuff.

01:22:10.829 --> 01:22:10.949
Yeah.

01:22:11.189 --> 01:22:12.930
And if you don't have 50 grand, that's fine.

01:22:13.319 --> 01:22:13.470
Yeah.

01:22:13.470 --> 01:22:15.750
Go through the regular process, it's still 10 grand.

01:22:15.779 --> 01:22:16.109
Yeah.

01:22:16.229 --> 01:22:19.380
You know, I don't disagree with that.

01:22:19.380 --> 01:22:22.500
And, and let's do a vetting process of who would add the most value.

01:22:22.590 --> 01:22:22.649
Yeah.

01:22:22.710 --> 01:22:31.619
You know, when, when I'm looking for members of local think tank, I'm like, who brings value and who's a dumpster fire that I don't want part of this organization, you know?

01:22:31.625 --> 01:22:31.949
Yeah, yeah.

01:22:31.949 --> 01:22:32.460
Totally.

01:22:32.970 --> 01:22:33.239
Yeah.

01:22:33.239 --> 01:22:33.779
It's uh.

01:22:35.220 --> 01:22:35.729
It's a need.

01:22:35.734 --> 01:22:35.895
Yeah.

01:22:35.909 --> 01:22:36.479
It's a need.

01:22:36.479 --> 01:22:42.539
So I'm glad to see, I mean, if you've been to DC before, you see the number of buildings and the number of people out there, it's just staggering.

01:22:42.539 --> 01:22:43.079
It's wild.

01:22:43.085 --> 01:22:43.215
Yeah.

01:22:43.220 --> 01:22:43.289
Yeah.

01:22:43.289 --> 01:22:44.489
And some of'em are just sitting empty.

01:22:44.489 --> 01:22:44.729
Right.

01:22:44.729 --> 01:22:45.390
Or, or Oh yeah.

01:22:45.420 --> 01:22:48.375
Limited people because they've done remote and work from home, all that kind of stuff.

01:22:48.375 --> 01:22:48.654
Yeah.

01:22:48.654 --> 01:22:48.774
Yeah.

01:22:48.774 --> 01:22:48.854
Yeah.

01:22:48.854 --> 01:22:51.239
So it's kind of, I'm glad to see'em clean it up.

01:22:51.359 --> 01:22:56.729
Um, don't think it's, you know, I don't think it's gonna be as bad in the end as we, as everyone's made it out to be.

01:22:56.939 --> 01:22:57.359
That's good.

01:22:57.569 --> 01:22:57.630
Yeah.

01:22:57.630 --> 01:22:58.380
I hope that's true.

01:22:58.409 --> 01:22:58.619
Yeah.

01:22:58.680 --> 01:23:10.079
Uh, what's the, the podcast I listened to recently, uh, Doug Wilson is, and he said, uh, the squealing that you hear is, uh, what happens when somebody gets between the hog and the trough.

01:23:12.210 --> 01:23:12.810
Yeah.

01:23:13.350 --> 01:23:14.175
So what's happening?

01:23:14.274 --> 01:23:15.569
Anyway, I digress.

01:23:15.659 --> 01:23:15.840
Yeah.

01:23:15.840 --> 01:23:15.841
Yeah.

01:23:15.885 --> 01:23:22.560
He's, uh, well, good little political segment there, but you're kind of from that libertine bent, let people do what they want.

01:23:22.560 --> 01:23:23.039
A hundred percent.

01:23:23.159 --> 01:23:23.310
Yeah.

01:23:23.310 --> 01:23:24.810
Don't, don't go into debt too much.

01:23:24.810 --> 01:23:25.710
Don't fight wars.

01:23:25.800 --> 01:23:26.010
Yep.

01:23:26.279 --> 01:23:26.550
Yep.

01:23:26.699 --> 01:23:28.050
Tell me, how do we fix Ukraine?

01:23:28.050 --> 01:23:28.109
I.

01:23:28.814 --> 01:23:34.664
Uh, just like they're saying kind of, well, uh, the, the most recent one is, um, they need to pay us back.

01:23:34.664 --> 01:23:34.994
Right.

01:23:34.994 --> 01:23:36.465
So that's a, that's a good start.

01:23:36.465 --> 01:23:37.664
We noticed you got a ton of cobalt.

01:23:39.255 --> 01:23:44.085
We noticed that you have 15 of the 25 most precious rare earth metals.

01:23:44.085 --> 01:23:44.564
Metals.

01:23:45.314 --> 01:23:48.345
We'll go ahead and take half of those and that'll secure our problems.

01:23:48.404 --> 01:23:51.645
Yeah, it's an interesting, um, yeah.

01:23:51.885 --> 01:23:59.970
I just, I mean, ultimately there, they're, they just have to stop killing each other and we can't have World War iii, so a hundred percent let's, hundred percent.

01:23:59.970 --> 01:24:00.375
Let's just do that.

01:24:00.435 --> 01:24:01.484
How do we Yeah, I agree.

01:24:01.484 --> 01:24:09.765
And, you know, I don't think anyone's against helping'em, but I think the fact that a large percentage of the money or some of the money is unaccounted for Yeah.

01:24:09.765 --> 01:24:11.505
I think is really part of the issue now.

01:24:11.564 --> 01:24:16.244
Well, I mean, that's all of our government too, so I can't really blame them too much.

01:24:17.354 --> 01:24:17.475
Yeah.

01:24:17.505 --> 01:24:23.685
Um, would you like to do the dreaded, uh, awkward question ping's call quick.

01:24:23.925 --> 01:24:24.409
Let ping call.

01:24:25.079 --> 01:24:25.369
Okay.

01:24:27.194 --> 01:24:31.935
So three balls and then I'll read the questions that are associated with those numbers.

01:24:34.185 --> 01:24:34.604
All right.

01:24:34.604 --> 01:24:35.925
First up, number four.

01:24:36.104 --> 01:24:36.975
Number four.

01:24:37.755 --> 01:24:39.135
And we'll choose the order.

01:24:40.274 --> 01:24:44.685
What would you estimate your burp to Fart ratio is?

01:24:44.805 --> 01:24:46.244
Oh, okay.

01:24:46.274 --> 01:24:46.635
Okay.

01:24:46.635 --> 01:24:47.234
That's interesting.

01:24:47.234 --> 01:24:47.324
One.

01:24:47.744 --> 01:24:48.645
Uh, burp.

01:24:48.734 --> 01:24:50.024
More burps and farts.

01:24:50.024 --> 01:24:51.676
I eat pretty well, so, okay.

01:24:51.676 --> 01:24:51.676
Okay.

01:24:51.681 --> 01:24:52.784
Not a lot of di digestive parts.

01:24:52.784 --> 01:24:54.914
So burps are more an expression of pleasure?

01:24:55.034 --> 01:24:55.364
Yeah.

01:24:55.364 --> 01:24:57.104
After a soda water or something.

01:24:57.104 --> 01:24:57.465
Good.

01:24:57.465 --> 01:24:57.795
Yeah.

01:24:57.795 --> 01:24:57.798
That kind of thing.

01:24:57.850 --> 01:24:59.295
Uh, the farts aren't too frequent.

01:24:59.324 --> 01:24:59.595
Yeah.

01:24:59.595 --> 01:24:59.595
Nah.

01:24:59.600 --> 01:24:59.630
No.

01:24:59.685 --> 01:25:00.045
Okay.

01:25:00.045 --> 01:25:03.164
So maybe like one to three or something?

01:25:03.194 --> 01:25:04.034
That sounds about right.

01:25:04.034 --> 01:25:04.125
Yeah.

01:25:04.154 --> 01:25:04.515
Okay.

01:25:04.515 --> 01:25:04.635
Yeah.

01:25:04.635 --> 01:25:05.654
All alright.

01:25:05.654 --> 01:25:06.164
Sounds good.

01:25:06.255 --> 01:25:06.944
23.

01:25:07.364 --> 01:25:08.145
23.

01:25:08.954 --> 01:25:10.064
That was my question, by the way.

01:25:10.069 --> 01:25:10.189
Okay.

01:25:10.194 --> 01:25:10.545
Okay.

01:25:10.545 --> 01:25:11.295
That was pretty funny.

01:25:12.914 --> 01:25:13.994
You got all the silly ones.

01:25:14.234 --> 01:25:18.164
Any stupid human tricks you're ready to, uh, willing to share or show?

01:25:18.494 --> 01:25:20.324
Oh, I don't have many tricks.

01:25:20.324 --> 01:25:21.795
Uh, nothing like from the old timey.

01:25:22.694 --> 01:25:23.564
No.

01:25:23.564 --> 01:25:24.404
Nothing crazy.

01:25:24.404 --> 01:25:25.904
I have now just.

01:25:26.324 --> 01:25:26.984
Pretty normal.

01:25:27.135 --> 01:25:27.854
I don't have anything wrong.

01:25:27.854 --> 01:25:28.095
Can you?

01:25:28.095 --> 01:25:28.875
Can't cross your eye.

01:25:29.265 --> 01:25:30.734
I mean, you can do that, but nothing like crazy.

01:25:30.734 --> 01:25:31.125
Nothing.

01:25:31.185 --> 01:25:31.994
I don't have anything.

01:25:31.994 --> 01:25:32.475
Talents.

01:25:32.715 --> 01:25:33.704
I have one.

01:25:33.975 --> 01:25:35.864
I'm gonna see if I can show it on, on live.

01:25:35.864 --> 01:25:37.515
I have to take my ear things off.

01:25:37.604 --> 01:25:37.784
Okay.

01:25:37.784 --> 01:25:39.914
But this is my stupid human trick I've got.

01:25:40.814 --> 01:25:42.885
So you can do this, you can try it if you want.

01:25:42.914 --> 01:25:43.305
Okay.

01:25:43.364 --> 01:25:45.314
You're kind of, you're both a little bit like me with bigger muscles.

01:25:46.635 --> 01:25:56.265
So you're gonna have to take your, take your headphone off and then, uh, put your arms here and like, there you go.

01:25:56.324 --> 01:25:56.595
Mm-hmm.

01:25:56.835 --> 01:26:01.154
Your arms are way too big and you go like this, and then you tuck Oh.

01:26:01.154 --> 01:26:01.215
Oh.

01:26:02.204 --> 01:26:03.045
Your head through there.

01:26:03.164 --> 01:26:04.274
Oh, yep.

01:26:04.574 --> 01:26:05.835
No, I don't have You're not gonna make it.

01:26:06.045 --> 01:26:06.579
You can't do that way.

01:26:06.579 --> 01:26:06.899
I do.

01:26:06.904 --> 01:26:07.095
No.

01:26:07.125 --> 01:26:08.475
Yeah, you're way too tough for that one.

01:26:08.475 --> 01:26:08.654
Now.

01:26:08.715 --> 01:26:09.345
That's not happening.

01:26:09.675 --> 01:26:10.364
That's my one.

01:26:10.784 --> 01:26:12.164
As far as I know, that's my only.

01:26:12.944 --> 01:26:15.675
Um, third, no crazy tricks.

01:26:15.675 --> 01:26:16.095
Sorry.

01:26:16.185 --> 01:26:17.414
Um, what number did I tell you?

01:26:17.414 --> 01:26:17.954
23.

01:26:18.135 --> 01:26:19.395
Uh, that was the student human trick.

01:26:19.395 --> 01:26:19.574
Yep.

01:26:19.994 --> 01:26:20.444
24.

01:26:20.505 --> 01:26:21.314
24.

01:26:21.435 --> 01:26:22.515
I have 23 and 24.

01:26:22.574 --> 01:26:22.755
Hmm.

01:26:23.475 --> 01:26:25.215
24 is the final one.

01:26:25.574 --> 01:26:25.814
Okay.

01:26:25.875 --> 01:26:29.595
And I think, um, we'll make this one the prize one.

01:26:29.744 --> 01:26:29.954
Okay.

01:26:29.984 --> 01:26:31.154
Oh, is that what this is for?

01:26:31.154 --> 01:26:33.015
Is a prize for the lucky winner.

01:26:33.045 --> 01:26:33.675
Yeah, that's you.

01:26:33.675 --> 01:26:34.755
You definitely get the prize.

01:26:34.755 --> 01:26:36.824
Yeah, but I, well, but somebody should win it.

01:26:36.824 --> 01:26:38.145
Well, we'll, we'll have a prize for the winner.

01:26:38.145 --> 01:26:38.354
Okay.

01:26:38.685 --> 01:26:43.305
Um, what is the most durable business relationship you've had?

01:26:44.505 --> 01:26:45.494
Durable.

01:26:45.494 --> 01:26:48.704
Durable, like either a person or another business or.

01:26:49.425 --> 01:26:51.824
Something that's been around for, just about since the start.

01:26:52.125 --> 01:26:57.555
Ooh, I got, uh, two, one, um, we've been working with a consultant since 2007.

01:26:58.005 --> 01:27:00.135
Um, he's now in his seventies.

01:27:00.194 --> 01:27:00.914
You wanna shut him out?

01:27:00.975 --> 01:27:02.324
Uh, his name's Jim Houston.

01:27:02.654 --> 01:27:04.935
Um, actually a Colorado guy.

01:27:05.234 --> 01:27:05.385
Yeah.

01:27:05.414 --> 01:27:10.604
Um, good guy, uh, is really talked me off of the ledge a lot, so kudos to Jim.

01:27:10.604 --> 01:27:10.649
Good job, Jim.

01:27:10.845 --> 01:27:14.564
Uh, second one is, um, probably my good buddy Jason.

01:27:14.895 --> 01:27:19.635
I talk to him every single week, uh, for 30 minutes on Wednesday.

01:27:19.725 --> 01:27:20.055
Okay.

01:27:20.114 --> 01:27:22.545
And, um, he's definitely talked me off the ledge.

01:27:22.545 --> 01:27:26.055
Like another, a business coach, a business leader.

01:27:26.114 --> 01:27:29.654
He just, uh, friend from high school, uh, met him here in Fort Collins.

01:27:29.654 --> 01:27:30.885
He actually works for Dave Ramsey.

01:27:31.154 --> 01:27:31.814
Oh, wow, okay.

01:27:31.814 --> 01:27:32.685
The organization.

01:27:33.015 --> 01:27:33.045
Okay.

01:27:33.050 --> 01:27:34.305
Um, and, uh.

01:27:34.845 --> 01:27:36.194
He just talks to me.

01:27:36.194 --> 01:27:40.604
He's smart business guy and um, he really smart dude.

01:27:40.604 --> 01:27:41.295
Helps me out a lot.

01:27:41.295 --> 01:27:41.505
So yeah.

01:27:41.654 --> 01:27:42.914
Helps keep you on track in that goal.

01:27:42.914 --> 01:27:43.635
Helps keep me on track.

01:27:43.635 --> 01:27:47.744
And you won your business and your life on the kinda Ramsey plan Ish.

01:27:47.925 --> 01:27:48.345
Ish.

01:27:48.404 --> 01:27:48.645
Yeah.

01:27:48.704 --> 01:27:49.664
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:27:49.664 --> 01:27:49.666
Yeah.

01:27:49.725 --> 01:27:53.685
I mean, I think, uh, for a lot of years we didn't carry much debt in the organization, right?

01:27:53.685 --> 01:27:53.744
Yeah.

01:27:53.774 --> 01:27:56.654
We are always just fear of oh 7, 0 8 again.

01:27:56.895 --> 01:27:57.854
Right, right, right.

01:27:57.944 --> 01:27:58.395
No debt.

01:27:58.425 --> 01:27:58.904
No debt.

01:27:58.904 --> 01:27:59.354
No debt.

01:27:59.354 --> 01:27:59.654
Okay.

01:27:59.654 --> 01:28:07.335
Now, now to the size we are, you know, we carry some debt, strategic debt, the right debt, new trucks, debt that pays for itself.

01:28:07.395 --> 01:28:07.784
Yeah.

01:28:07.845 --> 01:28:08.055
Yeah.

01:28:08.055 --> 01:28:16.364
We ultimately, you know, we, we do these big exercise to figure out where we should be kind of pointing the ship, but ultimately, yeah, we're still debt conscious.

01:28:16.364 --> 01:28:17.055
Yeah, fair enough.

01:28:17.055 --> 01:28:17.895
In how we run things.

01:28:17.925 --> 01:28:18.284
Yeah.

01:28:18.284 --> 01:28:18.286
Yeah.

01:28:18.645 --> 01:28:33.404
So, um, if you, if your son, either of your sons, um, wanted to start a business, like what would be some of the, the both or anybody, you know, any 16, 18, 20, 22, 20 4-year-old person out there, that's.

01:28:34.244 --> 01:28:36.074
You know, maybe got a job, but Yep.

01:28:36.164 --> 01:28:37.005
Could I start something?

01:28:37.425 --> 01:28:37.725
Yep.

01:28:38.175 --> 01:28:39.255
What advice do I have for'em?

01:28:39.310 --> 01:28:39.585
Yeah, yeah.

01:28:39.824 --> 01:28:41.654
Um, or would you tell'em not to?

01:28:42.255 --> 01:28:43.364
No, no.

01:28:43.364 --> 01:28:46.034
I, I tell'em, it's, uh, it's not for everybody.

01:28:46.095 --> 01:28:46.364
Yeah.

01:28:46.454 --> 01:28:49.484
Um, you know, you, it's something you don't stop thinking about.

01:28:49.484 --> 01:28:49.725
Right.

01:28:49.725 --> 01:28:51.885
I mean, it's a, it's a all on all the time.

01:28:51.914 --> 01:28:52.095
Yeah.

01:28:52.095 --> 01:28:59.295
I mean, it's kind of how it operates, so, you know, it, uh, I wouldn't steer'em against it, but you definitely ask a lot of questions.

01:28:59.295 --> 01:29:00.345
Know what you're getting into first.

01:29:00.345 --> 01:29:00.524
Yeah.

01:29:00.555 --> 01:29:01.694
What's your why, right?

01:29:01.699 --> 01:29:01.710
Yeah.

01:29:01.715 --> 01:29:05.534
I mean, you know, if people are like, oh, I wanna make all this money, uh, you're not in the right spot.

01:29:05.654 --> 01:29:05.774
Yeah.

01:29:05.895 --> 01:29:06.914
Oh, I wanna do all this.

01:29:06.944 --> 01:29:07.755
Uh, okay.

01:29:07.755 --> 01:29:08.444
Maybe, right.

01:29:08.444 --> 01:29:11.295
You gotta have a pretty strong, you know, purpose.

01:29:11.475 --> 01:29:12.494
Um, and understand that.

01:29:12.494 --> 01:29:16.095
And so, you know, just tell, tell people, talk'em through it.

01:29:16.095 --> 01:29:23.085
Help'em, you know, and there's a lot of guys, there's a lot of guys in this community that I talk to that are small landscapers, medium sized landscapers.

01:29:23.085 --> 01:29:23.145
Yeah.

01:29:23.385 --> 01:29:26.385
Denver guys, you know, I try to offer as much help as I can.

01:29:26.414 --> 01:29:26.654
Yeah.

01:29:26.654 --> 01:29:26.655
Yeah.

01:29:26.685 --> 01:29:28.185
Uh, when, when possible.

01:29:28.215 --> 01:29:32.055
Well, and they can copy all of what you've done that they want to.

01:29:32.444 --> 01:29:35.025
Probably, and it won't necessarily work the same for them, you know?

01:29:35.030 --> 01:29:35.220
Right.

01:29:35.220 --> 01:29:35.420
Yeah.

01:29:35.420 --> 01:29:38.895
It can help'em through some of those, uh, mistakes We made free advice.

01:29:38.895 --> 01:29:45.824
I would say that part of the, the peer advisory thing with Loco is you can learn from other people's mistakes once in a while instead of just your own a hundred percent.

01:29:45.975 --> 01:29:48.765
Um, you know, hundred percent shorten that learning gap just a little bit.

01:29:48.824 --> 01:29:49.215
Yeah.

01:29:49.755 --> 01:29:53.534
The Loco experience is our final segment.

01:29:53.715 --> 01:29:53.954
Yep.

01:29:54.074 --> 01:29:56.534
It's, uh, the craziest story that you're willing to share.

01:29:57.675 --> 01:29:58.965
Crazy experience.

01:29:58.994 --> 01:30:01.635
Um, oh man.

01:30:01.694 --> 01:30:02.385
Could be a moment.

01:30:02.444 --> 01:30:03.944
Could be a week, a year.

01:30:03.975 --> 01:30:04.335
I don't know.

01:30:04.725 --> 01:30:06.104
We've had some wild ones.

01:30:06.135 --> 01:30:08.534
Um, 2017 almost broke us.

01:30:08.925 --> 01:30:10.604
Um, took us all the way to the bottom.

01:30:10.604 --> 01:30:12.314
We didn't get our H two B Visa workers.

01:30:12.314 --> 01:30:13.965
It allowed us to a hundred percent pivot.

01:30:14.385 --> 01:30:15.104
Um, that helped.

01:30:15.314 --> 01:30:15.824
What do you mean?

01:30:15.824 --> 01:30:18.765
Like, you almost broke it because of not getting your workers in or something?

01:30:18.765 --> 01:30:20.145
Yeah, we were just too relying on'em.

01:30:20.145 --> 01:30:20.175
Okay.

01:30:20.354 --> 01:30:31.274
We were just, it was so normalized for us and we just, we were a young group, we were young guys, um, and it kind of almost, you know, broke us, so they were like 70 something percent of your.

01:30:31.875 --> 01:30:32.385
Yeah, we were.

01:30:32.420 --> 01:30:34.484
Oh,'cause Trump, no.

01:30:34.484 --> 01:30:37.635
Took things down at the time or it was nothing political that time.

01:30:37.635 --> 01:30:41.175
They just ran out of v It was a total, total crapshoot in 2017.

01:30:41.175 --> 01:30:41.324
Why?

01:30:41.324 --> 01:30:44.234
We didn't get'em, we were one of the first ones that didn't get'em ever.

01:30:44.385 --> 01:30:46.034
'cause it used to be such an easy program to be in.

01:30:46.034 --> 01:30:46.425
Oh, okay.

01:30:46.755 --> 01:30:48.375
'cause they had the returning worker exemption.

01:30:48.375 --> 01:30:52.034
So yeah, 2017 almost, um, took us down.

01:30:52.484 --> 01:30:55.484
And then, uh, did you scramble and hire other workers locally instead?

01:30:55.484 --> 01:30:56.324
We did, yeah.

01:30:56.385 --> 01:30:56.685
Okay.

01:30:56.685 --> 01:30:56.895
Yep.

01:30:56.895 --> 01:30:58.635
Scramble, hire locals.

01:30:58.694 --> 01:30:59.925
Um, so we got through it.

01:30:59.984 --> 01:31:01.515
We learned, we grew.

01:31:02.055 --> 01:31:04.635
Best thing that ever happened to us on the other side of it.

01:31:04.635 --> 01:31:05.039
Right, right, right.

01:31:05.414 --> 01:31:11.324
Um, so secondary item is, um, my wife asked me before I came down here, what are you gonna say?

01:31:11.324 --> 01:31:12.585
And I was like, ah, I'm not sure.

01:31:12.585 --> 01:31:13.154
She's like, well.

01:31:13.649 --> 01:31:15.359
Most people wouldn't be su surprised.

01:31:15.359 --> 01:31:19.140
But I'm six four weigh 230 pounds in the last year.

01:31:19.140 --> 01:31:22.800
My brother and I did rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon, so Oh wow.

01:31:22.890 --> 01:31:25.140
Ran 46 miles across, uh Oh dang.

01:31:25.140 --> 01:31:26.100
The Grand Canyon and back.

01:31:26.100 --> 01:31:35.760
So I was just telling somebody about one of our chapter members today, uh, who's a former fireman, um, built like a linebacker kind of your size.

01:31:35.760 --> 01:31:35.761
Yeah.

01:31:35.789 --> 01:31:35.909
Yeah.

01:31:35.909 --> 01:31:37.289
And he ran a marathon last year.

01:31:37.350 --> 01:31:37.680
Okay.

01:31:37.739 --> 01:31:38.489
And I'm like, and he is.

01:31:39.824 --> 01:31:42.345
You know, the farthest thing from built like a Gazelle.

01:31:42.435 --> 01:31:45.015
So I appreciated his determination.

01:31:45.015 --> 01:31:45.465
And yours.

01:31:45.465 --> 01:31:50.715
Yeah, because that's uh, how long, how long of a that took us, uh, oh geez.

01:31:50.715 --> 01:31:51.795
17 hours.

01:31:51.944 --> 01:31:52.515
That's pretty good.

01:31:52.814 --> 01:31:53.295
Yeah.

01:31:53.300 --> 01:31:53.489
Yeah.

01:31:53.715 --> 01:31:54.975
Dude, it's 46 miles.

01:31:54.975 --> 01:31:56.055
Do you run a lot still?

01:31:56.265 --> 01:31:58.814
Um, or you trained up a long time for that?

01:31:58.814 --> 01:31:59.114
I did.

01:31:59.114 --> 01:31:59.505
Last year.

01:31:59.505 --> 01:32:01.574
I ran a marathon last year I was Okay.

01:32:01.965 --> 01:32:02.055
Yeah.

01:32:02.055 --> 01:32:03.795
When a marathon is part of your training.

01:32:04.064 --> 01:32:09.194
Yeah, I was running a half marathon just randomly on like Thursday mornings before work.

01:32:09.194 --> 01:32:12.404
I'd get up at two 30 in the morning and go run a half marathon and then go to work.

01:32:12.404 --> 01:32:13.725
Your knees are all good and stuff.

01:32:13.935 --> 01:32:14.805
I'm still holding on.

01:32:14.805 --> 01:32:14.864
Yeah.

01:32:14.895 --> 01:32:15.586
So far so good.

01:32:15.670 --> 01:32:16.725
So far so good.

01:32:16.784 --> 01:32:18.314
Long term, probably not.

01:32:18.375 --> 01:32:18.704
So yeah.

01:32:19.125 --> 01:32:24.465
I think this year we got our sites set on a 50 mile in, um, uh, November.

01:32:24.614 --> 01:32:24.914
Okay.

01:32:24.914 --> 01:32:28.725
So, um, one of my members is the Run Windsor organizer.

01:32:28.725 --> 01:32:29.390
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:29.390 --> 01:32:30.765
Uh, Mandy, you might know of her.

01:32:30.765 --> 01:32:30.795
Okay.

01:32:30.914 --> 01:32:31.125
Yep.

01:32:31.185 --> 01:32:32.925
Um, but they've got a weld, your medal.

01:32:33.314 --> 01:32:35.175
Is there a 24 hour race coming up here?

01:32:35.175 --> 01:32:35.475
I saw that.

01:32:35.984 --> 01:32:37.125
I might be at your style.

01:32:37.125 --> 01:32:37.604
I don't know.

01:32:37.994 --> 01:32:42.135
It's, uh, maybe I almost signed up for it, if I'm being honest.

01:32:42.135 --> 01:32:42.524
Really?

01:32:42.524 --> 01:32:42.765
Yeah.

01:32:42.824 --> 01:32:43.515
Well, there's still time.

01:32:43.515 --> 01:32:44.114
I'm pretty sure.

01:32:44.145 --> 01:32:44.475
Yeah.

01:32:45.645 --> 01:32:51.045
Uh, may is, may is not the best time to be running marathons and running a landscape business.

01:32:51.045 --> 01:32:51.975
Well, it's not a marathon.

01:32:51.975 --> 01:32:54.555
It's like, isn't it like you just gotta run like a mile?

01:32:54.899 --> 01:32:56.399
Or five miles every hour.

01:32:56.454 --> 01:32:57.015
I think it's two miles.

01:32:57.045 --> 01:32:57.534
Five per hour.

01:32:57.534 --> 01:32:57.537
Two miles.

01:32:58.260 --> 01:32:58.500
Yeah.

01:32:58.500 --> 01:33:00.239
It's a two mile loop I think is what I read.

01:33:00.239 --> 01:33:00.359
Yeah.

01:33:00.359 --> 01:33:07.409
So you run 20 minutes, you sleep for 20, you wake back up, you run good for 24 hours or something.

01:33:07.470 --> 01:33:08.220
That's a lot of running.

01:33:08.699 --> 01:33:09.630
It's more about the mental I.

01:33:10.385 --> 01:33:10.505
Yeah.

01:33:10.505 --> 01:33:13.895
Probably because it's only if it's two miles each time.

01:33:13.895 --> 01:33:15.125
That's only 48 miles.

01:33:15.154 --> 01:33:15.604
Yeah.

01:33:15.664 --> 01:33:16.595
In 24 hours.

01:33:16.595 --> 01:33:17.310
Shit, that's Yeah.

01:33:17.310 --> 01:33:17.750
It's flat.

01:33:17.850 --> 01:33:18.350
Too easy.

01:33:18.350 --> 01:33:18.750
Yeah, it's flat.

01:33:18.935 --> 01:33:19.534
It's out and eat.

01:33:20.585 --> 01:33:21.125
Exactly.

01:33:21.125 --> 01:33:22.265
The stars iss gonna be beautiful.

01:33:22.295 --> 01:33:22.414
Yeah.

01:33:22.414 --> 01:33:22.954
There you go.

01:33:23.045 --> 01:33:23.435
All right.

01:33:23.435 --> 01:33:24.814
I'll, I'll tell Mandy you're signing up.

01:33:25.324 --> 01:33:26.225
Maybe we can get Zach.

01:33:26.225 --> 01:33:27.845
George Landscaping is one of her sponsors.

01:33:27.845 --> 01:33:28.265
There you go.

01:33:28.265 --> 01:33:28.654
You'd like it.

01:33:28.744 --> 01:33:29.164
There you go.

01:33:29.435 --> 01:33:34.444
Um, do you wanna tell people how to find, uh, you, if they have deed of what you do?

01:33:34.475 --> 01:33:34.805
Yep.

01:33:34.864 --> 01:33:37.145
Zach george landscaping.com.

01:33:37.145 --> 01:33:38.435
Spelled with ZAK.

01:33:38.704 --> 01:33:42.215
Um, oh, is that Zach Zacchaeus or Zacharias or something?

01:33:42.215 --> 01:33:43.654
Or why is it Zack with a K?

01:33:43.805 --> 01:33:46.024
There's not a K in my legal name, believe it or not.

01:33:46.024 --> 01:33:46.085
Oh.

01:33:46.114 --> 01:33:48.125
But that's how I've spelled it my whole life.

01:33:48.154 --> 01:33:48.305
All right.

01:33:48.305 --> 01:33:48.965
So, alright.

01:33:49.024 --> 01:33:51.274
Um, zach george landscaping.com.

01:33:51.545 --> 01:33:55.385
Zg Landscaping on Instagram and, uh, Mr.

01:33:55.385 --> 01:33:58.595
Zg for my personal Instagram, so.

01:33:58.595 --> 01:33:58.595
Okay.

01:33:59.034 --> 01:33:59.994
Alright on Brent.

01:34:00.000 --> 01:34:00.149
That's it.

01:34:00.204 --> 01:34:00.715
That's it.

01:34:00.715 --> 01:34:05.185
Hey, any questions for me before we disband this, uh, merry conversation?

01:34:05.274 --> 01:34:06.234
No, had a great time.

01:34:06.234 --> 01:34:06.625
Thanks.

01:34:06.630 --> 01:34:07.314
All right, well thanks for being here.

01:34:07.375 --> 01:34:08.095
Yeah, cheers.