EXPERIENCE 188 | Reasonable, Affordable, Sustainable - A Conversation with Ben Aste, Founder & CEO of Uncle Benny’s Building Supplies, and Candidate for Larimer County Commissioner for District 3

Ben Aste is a conservationist, first and foremost, also an Eagle Scout and the son of a Swiss immigrant.  Ben started Uncle Benny’s Building Supplies from a small rented shed, because he couldn’t stand to see the waste in the lumber supply industry in which he’d been working for some years.  Uncle Benny’s grew quickly, and is growing still, despite an interruption in retail operations you’ll hear about in the business journey segment.  And - Uncle Benny’s will soon reopen bigger and better than ever, and fully under 2nd generation management, with Ben’s son Ben taking the reins.  

Because…Ben the senior expects to be busy.  My guest today is CEO of Uncle Benny’s, but also running for Larimer County Commissioner for District 3, a seat he ran for and narrowly lost (to the current occupant) last time around.  With many of the same philosophies as his building supply company, Ben is running on a platform of Reasonable, Affordable, and Sustainable, and you can learn more on his campaign page at Vote4Aste.com.  

I like Ben a lot, enough that I put a “Uncle Benny for Larimer County” sign up in my yard, and I even gave him a little chip-in on his campaign.  He’s a win-win-win-win kind of guy, and his combination of business sensibilities and conservationist principles should be (and is) appealing to voters of all stripes and flavors.  And - when I learned in this conversation how much Larimer County Commissioners make I wondered aloud - maybe I should be a Larimer County Commissioner!  Stay tuned on that topic! - and please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Ben Aste.  

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Transcript

0:41

Ben Oste is a conservationist first and foremost, also an Eagle Scout and the son of a Swiss immigrant. Ben started Uncle Benny's building supplies from a small rented shed because he couldn't stand to see the waste in the lumber supply industry in which he'd been working for some years. Uncle Benny's grew quickly and is growing still despite an interruption in retail operations you'll hear about in the business journey segment and Uncle Benny's will soon reopen bigger and better than ever and fully under second generation management. With Ben's son, Ben, taking the range because Ben, the senior expects to be busy. My guest today is CEO of Uncle Benny's, but also running for Larimer County Commissioner for District 3, for and narrowly lost to the current occupant last time around. With many of the same philosophies as his building supply company, Ben is running on a platform of reasonable, Affordable and sustainable and you can learn more about his campaign at voteforoste. com I like Ben a lot enough that I put an Uncle Benny for Larimer County sign up in my yard And I even gave him a little chip in on his campaign He's a win, win, win, win kind of guy and his combination of business sensibilities and conservationist principles should be, and is appealing to voters of all stripes and flavors. And when I learned in this conversation, how much Lerner County commissioners make, I wondered aloud, maybe I should be a Lerner County commissioner. Stay tuned on that topic and please enjoy as I did my conversation with Ben Oste. Welcome back to the Loco Experience podcast. My guest today is Ben Aste and Ben is the founder and CEO of Uncle Benny's Building Supply, and he's also the Republican candidate for the second time for Larimer County District 3. So, uh, how's the race going so far? Do you have any sense? Is there polling in a district race like this? We've had it before. I don't know that we're going to do that. There's. Possibility someone may pull it, um, uh, along the way here. We're less than two months away, of course. Yeah. So you're not like necessarily polling is, I mean, it's kind of hard to know where you're at, right? It is, but I always say, listen to the people, I mean, listen to them. And, and it's been very positive. Uh, I've shared that really for the last. Uh, since I lost in 2020 by, by only a hundred and well, there was only 11, 000 votes, uh, almost got 100, 000 for the first time running. So I was really happy about that as a businessman running and, um, never been in politics before network there, totally not really just listen to the folks and, and, and giving them my ears and, uh, really focusing on what, what their needs are. And, uh, and that's what a county commissioner is, is supposed to be a firewall between government and, uh, And so, uh, we're hearing, uh, I'm hearing just personally so many positive things and, uh, party, all parties are putting actually funds and donating to my campaign. I did not see at all this degree. All parties. You mean the Democratic Party? Democratic. Yeah. You mean people from, from all three parties, you know, you're such a libertarian. Independent kind of minded person because you're like, A conservative that cares about the environment. Totally. You know, I say, they say both cancel you for that shit. I mean, totally. And I actually consider myself a conservationist. I say that to people and I, I can serve anything I'm given stewardship over, whether it be climate, water. And so, uh, I, I am an Eagle Scout. And so if you leave your, if you leave your water, not completely drank, I will dump that in my plans right then down to thank you. Thank you. You know, that's, I mean, it all matters. It really does. I mean, dad, I'll go back to dad, Swiss man, you know, very conservative guy. And, uh, on everything, he was a mountain climber and loved the outdoors, of course. And so, uh, being raised by dad, uh, we were only given a certain amount of time to shower, Um, I mean, he came from Switzerland, so water and power and everything else was more conserved there. Really? I would think the melting snow would create all the water you wanted. You had a lot. You had a lot of hydroelectric power, of course, there with all the gravity and the mountains and efficiency and the trains are all run by electric. But you know, if you would stop, I lived there for about three months. If you would stop somewhere for any kind of a traffic jam or construction, you were, you had to turn your engine off. Hmm. Or you were ticketed. And that's, that's 40 years ago. Right. I mean, that's, that's pretty on time. Right. Right on time. You know what, you know, they had it together. Yeah. They were ahead of times. Right. Well, we'll, we'll dip into the why of the race and things like that, but I'd like to really start with the business journey and, uh, you know, I've, I've shopped at Uncle Benny's a couple of times. It's been quite a while, honestly. I just, uh, You're quite a ways away from me and I don't do as many projects as I used to. I hire people. Uh, but, uh, tell me about like the current state of affairs at Uncle Benny's. Okay. Current state. I'm going to teach you a little bit. We, we can't say where we're going to land here in the next few months and reopen till the inks dry on the contract. But the way we're set now, we're actually in position to sell and under contract to sell our land where we were going to rebuild, actually build a new build out by candlelight in Johnstown. Yeah. Through a, uh, uh, chain of events are, we lost our civil engineer unexpectedly about 85 percent through the civil engineering. And I had to wait until another civil purchased his office and took, started to basically took off and went with where the other one left off. And so that's all finished. Um, we recently found out that big. Big power, three phase, four 80 transformers are out two to three years. Oh, short supply and you need that. And we need that. And so we had someone offered to buy our land. Um, and it, this is all just transpired recently. So it's kind of cool that we have this interview now because time wise, there's been a lot of change in the last, 30 to 60 days. So when you're saying reopen as uncle Benny's closed right now at the moment in time, or thank you for asking that detail. We are still open, but not a storefront. Okay. Not a full time storefront. We're running a sale operator. Kind of. Yeah. But also we are handling folks, but where we are as a temporary location for the last two years, right. Okay. And it's our door shop. And we're, we moved into cabinet and custom cabinet manufacturing now. Oh, I didn't know you did any of that. Really wild stuff for custom builders and people with, you know, whatever their ideas are. Oh, okay. My son, my son Benny Jr. just, he takes always been a craftsman of a different type. He's totally just, he's just going. Give him my regards, by the way. Thank you. I got to know him a fair bit, like, uh, when I was running my food truck and he was trying to figure out that little farm kind of art. Center thing down there in Loveland. Yeah, that's still kind of happening. And I was going to ask you how I knew you and him first connected before I got to know you. Yeah, we were both kind of in the kind of local food movement and different kind of spaces around that and whatever else. So wild. Yeah. We've spent a little time together. That's still happening. So there's even more to the story on that. Okay. Back to now, what we're in the next several months, it's all kind of clicking. The ducks are quacking and we're doo doo. Actually close on one sale and buy the same property with power that you need. And in fact, it does have everything, you know, and it's, it's quite a bit larger than what we had here probably. And probably about the same price as building a new thing that's smaller. It's so much easier to make a buck when you can sell, let the people come see the goods. It's kind of doing it by phone. Let me send you pictures. It's been, it's been a rough road, man. It's no doubt challenging. This can be Tell me about like, uh, like the business model, like where, because it started as kind of a, a recycler of materials, but you're, you're sourcing new things, building cabinets and stuff, but tell me about the, I don't know, overall, how it really will be, but you can tell me, yeah, you can, we can start where it started. I can, I can expedite pretty quick cause it's, it's a bit of a story, but. I was assistant buyer for several companies in the last one before I started Uncles, where I launched from that corporation. We were actually disposing of about 12 to 15 percent of two million a month. Oh, dang. Now, when you do the math and that was a new product, new building materials. When you do the math at that time, 29 years ago, that was an income for six families. We had 200 people on the floor at that time. And so I had a hard time just seeing that go to waste the way I've been brought up and so forth. I've been around the world, several different countries and seeing poverty and I just, I just couldn't handle anymore. So I said, well, I'm gonna do something about that. So, um, I asked my boss if I could sell it to somebody that was a recycler at that time. And that's how I started, kind of launched it actually with, uh, Coppers in Loveland, then he passed on. And then I went over, I was doing work with, uh, Resource 2000 out of Boulder. Okay. And so we had kind of a collaborative effort going. And so anyway, uh, I started hanging a shingle. And we had this little shed. It was like an old grocery store, like the HP start, you know, you get a packer start seriously, classic eight by 10 shed had a generator outside the heat had to, had no, had to bring a phone in. It was just prehistoric, but a hundred bucks a week was a good week. Right. And it was in Loveland. Okay. And so we started there out grew that quick within a year. We're like, okay, we're on to something. In fact, Mr. One of the Dynas brothers came over and said, Hey man, would you consider a partnership? I said, I'm not interested. I appreciate it. That's I really do appreciate it. I don't know who the Dynas brothers are. Well, they had a huge lumberyard for me. Oh, I see. Okay. And, uh, I was flattered, but I said, I, at this point, I don't feel that vibe, you know? So I said, no, thanks, but we moved on. And then, uh, went from there to the place where we were down on 13, you met us, we became aware of us. The red kind of barn looking property. Yellow, then it went yellow and then, you know, yellow and green or something. So we outgrew that some years ago, that'd be probably now timeline, we, we really outgrew five or six years ago. And you're sourcing still from like single source almost or lots of different places? Corporations, and I mean, out of state, I mean, we're bringing stuff in from, you know, All trucks, semi loads, mainly semis. We've grown to that. So we're kind of, you know, one hand we're kind of shrunk down in the, in the retail side, but we're trucking in and brokering large Kwan of semi loads. In fact, we've got a semi today. We'll have one come in. Yeah. And one go out. Because you take a few things off of it. Oh, okay. Well, we'll have like every other semi load. It'll be for folks that need 50 bundles of shingles or 70. Yeah. Yeah. And then, but you can't, you just can't, you got to kind of help everybody out. The big hitters are there. Yeah. Yeah. Then you have the do it yourselfers that need three bundles. Right. It all adds up. Yeah. Yeah. So we're trying to accommodate all the All the needs, right? So you're just kind of buying the, the, the leftovers from projects a lot of time, but from the yards themselves. So like what? But oftentimes mostly new, which is amazing, bro. And it's just, it's a nuisance. It's a nuisance to go to a job. If you can imagine 300, uh, apartments, right. And we're just closing one up now. We did one up on 402. We just closed one down two months ago and they're like, we got to blow. We're out of here. They're going back to Texas. Right. And whatever. We're Whoever the general is right? Yeah. And what are they going to do? You know, they can't bear to throw it away. Thank God. I mean, it used to be years ago, there was no sourcing and they wouldn't even look. They didn't know there was anybody that could help them. Right, right. So Uncle Benny's is here to help. And, and, and we were, and we are, and we still will, because Benny, when I get the job as commissioner, he's going to keep rolling with it. Sure. Which is cool. Right? So how can you use your, uh, county commissioner status to really, uh, Benefit your business. Is there any, uh, shadiness that you can work into? Well, I don't know, man. It's pretty, yeah, it's pretty deep. It's pretty deep in there. There's a lot going on. It's a 650 million plus budget. Right. But it's all the principles are there. I know how to take money and be frugal with it. Period. Go back to conserve conservationist. I'll conserve, but I want to get in there and get alongside everybody and appreciate the professions. Appreciate the people and work with them. Not come in there and say, I would be the last person to come in and say, well, I'm going to tell you how to do your job. They've already been doing the job for, for many years in some cases. All I want to do is come in and say, is there anything I can do to help? And I look upon it. Listening more. Yeah, exactly. That's what we started talking about is listening about how people do stuff. And ultimately, that's, that's what we do. Like listening with attention or paying attention is how you even uncovered the model for this business. You're like, there's all this waste. Now we just got to figure out who wants it and give them an opportunity. And it started with just, you know, handyman Jack working on a garden shed and really expanded a lot from there. Sure. And every needs is as important as the next, whether it's a, like I say, a bundle or a two by four or a whole semi loaded, it doesn't matter to us. Serving is. Is our total motivation. Yeah. Is our motivation, helping the people. What's the, what's the new location going to afford to you to do that you haven't been able to do either historically or in this temporary, man, I'll tell you, we've been. We, we, we left a building at 3, 200 square feet as the main building. We had some outbuildings in the back, but we've been in a 4, 000 square foot shop right now we're leasing, which is difficult for us being owners and now leasing, it's been tough, right? We will have, we're looking at almost 15, inside square foot warehouse, and which is cool. It fits our model of it's good bones, right? It's a good building. It's an old building, but it's, it's great because we don't have to wait and build a new one. And I've always been a proponent of why do they, why are they pushing that building? It looks like a good building. Let's go in there and refit it, turn it into something else and produce something else. There's gotta be somebody else that can utilize it. Right. So we're, we're looking forward to having a storefront front and then being able to display the goods again. Like who wants to go buy a Christmas tree without being able to go look at the lot, pull it out and look at it, turn it around. Well, that's the same principle with doors, lumber, windows, hardware. I mean, we are just so excited about getting back into our game plan. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and obviously, uh, the custom cabinetry and different things like that is a lot more space to grow to potentially is that stuff coming from just base wood? Or is that also like base wood that you've sourced? And so you have a kind of a competitive price advantage on your stock material. Well, yeah. We're kind of all it's we're so our bandwidth is wide. We do so many different things. In other words, today we actually, last night we picked up 45 slabs, live edge slabs from a, from a customer out of Fort Collins that was selling his house. He's putting it on the market the 17th of this month. And he was kind of having to boogie sooner than he wanted to. So we just came up, picked up slabs and he consigned them with this slab slabs of, of different kinds of wood. Like, you know, they take these big Lucas mills and beautiful slabs, Russian olive and pine and maple and, and walnut, you name it. For tables and stuff. Ryan Baldwin makes a bunch of stuff like that. He's, he's a good friend of ours, a customer and he's, we've used his kiln before in his service. So we do some back and forth with Ryan too. And so it'll be fantastic to do that. So there's one source. Then we have lumber that we buy from Paxton, lumber out of Denver to, for our new builds. You know, builder wants four inch thick, solid Oak treads for his stairs. And he's doing floating stairs and the platforms are four feet by eight foot. And they weigh 750 pounds a piece though. We're building that kind of craziness. We've done a second house just finished two months ago. So we're getting in stuff that you would never, it's the people that come up with the ideas. If they have an idea, they come and talk to Benny, and he goes, Yeah, I'd love to do that, because he likes the challenge. Yeah, yeah. Um, what's your team? It's gotta be quite a bit of stuff, like you're moving a bunch of materials around, or especially you will be in the future, but also sourcing all these things. Or is it like, is there like a Craigslist for material sourcers, or like how is, are you bidding on like auctions and stuff, or how do you, what's the flow look like? It's, a lot of folks, you know, do it yourselfers, contractors, um, commercial and residential, so we do dabble in the commercial as well. Okay. Some of the commercial's not as easy to, to, to actually turn. But we do have the connections now. We didn't have these before. Again, we're building off, we're coming off for 29 years and Benny's outsold me. Probably. I had a buddy say, a good friend of mine said, Ben, I don't want to hurt your feelings or don't take this wrong because I think your son's going to outsell you three to one. Uh, and I go, actually, I take that as a compliment because as I get older, I'm thinking, you know, the kids hopefully take care of their plan. They're basically all love each other. So that's cool. But, um, no, it's, it's, um, yeah. The sourcing is just from so many brokers. Word of mouth, people looking at our website, people go on Craigslist and kind of, I think marketplace and Craigslist are kind of fizzling a little bit, but there's just the word of mouth is still the best, right? And this may sound funny, but we, we've actually. Played it down that we've moved in this place because it doesn't have sufficient parking and we don't want to frustrate our people. You know, it's kind of, we've just, it's intentionally contracted for a while. Yeah. We have seven people now and we had 18, so we've, we've downscaled. Just to, just to make it work and we're doing well. And now it's on the uptick for the last few months as the, as the economy, by the way, uh, gets to be more difficult, which is what we're seeing. It forces people to find us and the discount sales folks. And so after six economic challenges in this County that we've been through. We always did just fine. And in fact, we almost felt guilty because we didn't race our prices. May there be a big recession. You know what I'm saying? By the way, you have a very long torso. I'm noticing that the money tree leaf is tickling you if you want to reach up and grab that bottom leaf there, you should be able to just that one right there. That's the one. Just try to pull it right off of there. All right. Yeah. Hate to do that. Well, you know. I'm a horticulturalist, well, if you know that plant, it'll grow a lot of new leaves in the future. It'll come back. It'll be just fine. Um, it's not bothering me. Sure. OCD was like, oh, that leaf is tickling the top of you. If it drops money, that's, that's okay with me. I'll just catch it. That's a prosperity plant right there. Oh, I like that. Um. Um. So like what kind of margins, uh, if you, if you're willing to share, do you, do you run on, on, on a business like this? It's not a secret to most of us in this business, even, you know, my, my end users, my, my buyers, my customers, they know that we would like to double our dollar. We have to, um, it's, it's actually, we find that to be more than that nowadays because of the increased costs of, um, Everything. I mean, right now it's everything, right? Yeah. Insurance for your people, people need to pay our property taxes are higher. We have things that legislation has passed that, you know, we have to pay a more sick leave and all that. And we already do pay. We already were paying for vacations. People earn their, we do that. Right. And we want to do that because the people are giving the life some of their time and that they'll never get back. Yeah. So I respect that. Um, yeah. So, when you say Benny, that's your son that's mostly running the business now, is that right? That's kind of partly what gives you enough time to pretty much lollygag around and well, and I haven't had that much time I haven't had that much time because we're so lean right now I'm trying to honor him and the business this time uh, we're, we're, it's been more difficult for us because we haven't had our retail like last time I ran for a year and a half, just for a comparable, right? Okay. During the pandemic, um, the, the business was, had more cashflow. Yeah. We had 18 people, but they would say to me, get the heck out of here because you're getting on our nerves. We can tell you're Joneson to go out and go to events and talk to people. Interesting experience this time. Totally. So I guess while I'm thinking that thought in my head, if you're listening to this and you're like, I think Ben Ostei is a really cool guy forward this podcast to somebody you know that might be on the fence or has never heard of him. Really appreciate that. Cause it's about you, the people, you know, um, it's. Serving is, is my heart. I mean, if you look at my background and we, we had the honor to be able to send containers and fill containers that would go to Philippines and Mombasa and other countries where churches and businessmen and women would pay for the shipping. All we had to do was put whatever we could in those containers. We just turned them onto it, whatever it was, because there were some things they couldn't get in their countries. And so that's what we would ship there, which was really unique. And, uh, so it's just been our model, right? I mean, when you're in retail, you're, you're serving, you should be right. Right. Well, selling is helping. If you're not, then you're doing it wrong. Right. And so we're, we're thankful that, that we're still alive. I mean, a lot of businesses don't make it this long. And so we're really appreciating that our people and they're Jones and hardcore. I mean, they're so, so ready for us to reopen. We hear it every day, every day, many times a day. So it's, it's a pressure that's, that's, you know, Understood, recognized, but we take it seriously and we want to get reopened. Is there a desired timeline? Like, could it be next spring open again? Thanks for asking. Uh, I've told people you get all of me or none of me, because in this job as a county commissioner, when I win in November 5th, I'm not seated until January 14th. Okay. So it's all clicking and we're, we've been geared for this all along to get the move done. And in place and Benny rocking and rolling with my crew and we're going to hire, we're already starting to rehire already. It's already upticking. So the closings, like I shared on the front end of this time was simultaneous, like we sell one by one and we start to rock and roll. So it's all set. So I'm not distracted because I told Benny. I'll be your lifeline. Occasionally you want to call dad and I'll be there for you. But this is full on full time here. So I want to be able to focus, concentrate, man, and give this, this first four years, all my full on a hundred percent attention. Well, you should really encourage him. I've been. Chasing him for local think tank in the past, but now it's more appropriate than ever, you know, to have 10 other business owners in a room, plus a business veteran to just be there. So he doesn't want to, you know, either make hard decisions without getting in with that or elsewise, you know, anyway, sure. I know that, uh, I'd welcome that conversation. Yeah, I'm sure he would be. He's such an intelligent young man. He's got so much, uh, fuel in the tank, but with three kids, Grant, you know, all in different things. Oh yeah. Well, it's going to be a whole new business trip. In six months than it is right now even yeah, not a whole new business But a lot more of it a lot of things to build, you know And scaling a team from seven back to twenty right and whatever else, you know, there's a lot There's a lot of head and then he also has a thing that that shop that I talked to you about the custom action He's calling he's already he's already put a name on it Um, architectural route. It's freaking, it's awesome. Uh, root architectural. I'm sorry. So it's, he's already got the, the emblem and everything. So his, his brand and his ideas and creativity is just off the chart. Yeah, it's his, it's totally his. And so he wanted to, I said, I don't want you to resent mom and I. Are you sure you want to do this? Cause when I run, man, this is the second time run and I've, I'm, there's a lot more momentum this time, you know? I said, I've been working on this. He knew I, he knew I had been working for building boats, man. Was your first run kind of an impulsive one? Not really. I wanted, for some reason it was late on my heart. I don't know why it's like, I've had that in Kenya. I said, who would ever want to go to Africa? And all of a sudden, boom, it hit my heart. And I was like, all of a sudden in Africa, I went there twice to Kenya. And it's just kind of one of those, it just was there. It hit me about. Uh, in 18 and I watched, I watched Tom Donnelly or heard him speak somewhere. I'm like county commissioner with what's a county commissioner, man. What are they? Yeah. But I was impressed with that for some reason. And I said, I don't want to run against an income, but he's, he's in there. He's people are happy with him. I'll just hang. So I waited until he served his last four years. Um, so let's, uh, go to what's next, like down the line, will you, like, you're kind of looking to dance out of uncle Benny's building supply almost entirely, and just kind of be the chairman of the board almost, uh, in two years time or something like that? Yep. Oh yeah. Totally. I'll just be there as a, I'll be a totally silent partner, you know, non, non present owner. Um, okay. In fact, because Benny is an owner. I'm sure. You know, uh, through tax ramifications, I have to hold a certain amount of percentage of ownership, right? But, but yeah, it'll be more of a silent and we'll kick more income over to him. That's another reason he wants me to get this job. Yeah. There's more potential income for him. And I want to share that with him and the crew. What's the salary? They raised the salary for city council a bunch, uh, recently. Is the commissioner's, uh, uh, Did they get, I was kind of amazed. I met with the county manager two weeks ago and it's 150, 000 for a county commissioner, 150, 991 to be exact, which is crazy. I actually looked into that. Like, cause I, I, I made noise about running for city council like 10 years ago or something. And I was like, I can't afford it. Like, but the county commissioners at that time. I think they made like 75 or so. It could be because I noticed in four years, it jumped from one 30 something, almost 20 G's. Wow. And it's statutory. They get a 3 percent raise every two years, which I, all this, I didn't even know when I ran, you know, maybe I'll run against you. You might want to try this. Kurt, big salary. You got the momentum. bring it back. Maybe, maybe a 2028 if you don't do a good job. You could be running for district two possibly. Oh, I see where you live. I live in Fort Collins here. Yeah. Just over in the west side. So if you, the cutoff is John Cofalas. Oh, John, I'd have to run district one. I'm not sure where you're at. I think he's my guy actually. He's been on my podcast before too. If he is, then that would be easy. He's not going to run after 26. He's shared that with me. He's made that known. All right, John. If I can get your endorsement, I could probably win. Consider him, John. Please. I like, you know, I'm a libertarian. You know, I'm not too crazy conservative. I'm a, I'm a conservationist. Why not? Why not? I learned a lot from Johnny. He always had this little notebook and I told him that at earth day, I'm part of the, um, sustainability group, you know, Kelly Falbo and Tony. Hi guys. Um, He would carry this little notebook and I had one on me that day at the earth day. We had a booth and I said, John, one of the key things I learned from you was writing down what everybody said on this little spiral notebook. I was impressed. I would a good listener. You were, you know, and are, and I said, so here it is from you, man. This is from you four years ago, because I shadowed all three of the commissioners for a year and a half back in the pandemic days when we had more heavier cashflow, I did have a lot more hours. So, I mean, I went. They're like, Hey, keep it at six feet, man. No, I know, man. Well, that was later, but at first it wasn't there. Right. And so I'm, I'm going to Fort Lupton, all these MOP meetings. I mean, I'm everywhere because I really wanted to make sure I could do the job. Yeah. Right. Cause I really didn't know exactly what it was. Yeah. And so I'll tell you that. There's probably not anybody to really teach you. No. Right. There isn't like a commissioner trainer, the other commissioners, hopefully there are people that will teach you. Talk to you and stuff, but yeah, hopefully they'll be cool. I mean, because they have, they're all liaisons to like one commissioner is a liaison to this area. One's got a passion for highway and road construction or another one's into the ranch and medical, you know, healthcare, you know, so everybody's got a different, different passion, right? Which is cool. And they cover each other. So do you imagine this as like, you can do two four year terms? Is that three up to three, three, four? So it could be a last chapter. I'm healthy, healthy. I mean, I'm 66 and I'm not going to start any other businesses. No, I have no intention. Do you want to facilitate a loco think tank chapter as a possible side hustle? I don't know. I might, I might like 10, 15 hours a week, a month. Take a look at it. Okay. I'm always open. I'm always open to what. What's out there because I'm, I do like to learn. I don't like to go stagnant and spin wheels. So I'm very active. I mean, one thing about me is I'm so go, go, go that it's more concerning about me, not overdoing it then, then sitting around too much. I'm not that guy. I I'm a producer. I have to. Well, and that's the thing. If, if that's one of the reasons that local think tank exists is for when Uh, smart business veterans sell their thing, and they run out of purpose fulfilling things to do. They can take up golf, and they can take up chasing younger women, and you know, most of it isn't that good for them. Right. Right. Uh, but doing something like that is actually useful, so. Right. Oh, and while I'm thinking about it, listeners, uh, ThinkerFest is October 17th, uh, and you should come. I'll give you a free ticket if you want. It's a kind of an all day business learning event. Um, I mean, yeah, I mean, tickets are only 1. 97 with a discount. So anyway, uh, check it out out there and, uh, oh, let's, I'm going to set up a new, uh, promo code. It'll be, uh, Oh, this podcast wouldn't come out until right before it, but we'll call it, uh, experience 100 for 100 off your ticket. Nice. Yeah. Why not? Why not? I learned a lot at your, at one of your meetings down in Loveland, I think two years ago, I didn't know you. I Was happy to see you had come this direction, uh, yeah, we've had some Loveland members, but yeah, we've got there, uh, at the, at the chamber. Uh, we've got three groups that meet at the better business bureau in Windsor. So we've always been kind of regional. But my gravity is the heaviest here in Fort Collins. And so we do have. 60 ish percent, 55 percent of our members are Fort Collins located. I'm surprised how many people I knew, know, when I see your pictures of folks, like, you know, the William Oliver and he's he's he was on the podcast, but he hasn't, he hasn't in a chapter yet. I really should call on him properly. Uh, cause I was impressed by him. I like the way he did business and we collaborated during the pandemic. I talked to a lot of different business sectors. Just what else could you do? I was trying to just encourage people and connect people, like we're all going through this. So, Hey, I'd talked to some bankers, my attorney and other attorneys and connect them, the farmers with the restaurants, uh, farmers with grocery stores. And we had like, I was running about an average of 80 zooms. I didn't even know what a zoom was or how to really function until I got my Mac going and got a big screen going. And we were just. Learning as we went, right, right. And we would zoom people for, I think we're doing 20 a week, average 15 to 20 a week, several months. Like, well, because you, you had, what were the beer guys doing? They were, they were loading up, man. Their vats were full. Their beer was totally spoil. So I connected some, some all of a sudden had those, uh, the cans. What are the big cans? Growlers. Some had a heavy stock of crawlers. Some had the 22 ounce glass bottles. And so we were just trying to, Everybody really, you have that dude, you know, bring me a truckload. So they were trading, they were helping each other out, right. To save their beer. That's just one example. Yeah. Uh, steers were, were, you couldn't go to the feed lots. They were slam packed. So we were having problems with, um, the farmers. Where do I go to butcher my steers because they're getting too big. You're supposed to butcher steers generally about 1, 200 pounds. Some of these bad boys were getting up to 700 pounds. I mean, you talk about that's not cool. That's not a good thing because it's a lot harder to work with. I mean, I've done it before. Butcher doesn't know how to deal with that. Farm slaughter. It's tough work. I've done it. Move that quarter of beef around as a one person when it started that big. And then hang the quarters. It takes two or three guys to hang the quarters in the cooler. I've done it all, man. So I got an appreciation. That you don't get a broker steers to not really. Well, we horse trade, we just traded into some beef. If somebody needs some doors and we have something, they, and they're heavy on beef. Sure. We, we, we love trading. That's part of the, that's free market, man. For sure. I love that. For sure. Um, so I feel like it's probably a good time to jump in the time machine and learn about little, Uncle Benny. Little Benny? Little Benny. That's funny you say that because it really did start as Little Benny. Is that right? It was this thing with the recycling trip. It was really bizarre. We lived in, okay, Dad came over from Switzerland on the Queen Mary as an immigrant. And as a Swiss immigrant. Swiss, but kind of on the French y side of Swiss, right? Ah, he was in Zurich, central, central. Yeah? Okay. Yeah, it wasn't the French side. Not the Geneva side. Or the, or, or Or Lozano, the Italian, no. Well But that is a Swiss name, not a French name. You're catching that. It's Austrian first. Oh. Then it It became Italy. I've been to Aste. There's a, there's a village there and I've been there twice. Took my kids there. I wanted to have them walk the ground and they're beginning as far back as I could go with a couple of generations back. Right. That, that means a lot to me. So we did that, man. It was so cool. And then, um, but they came over as blue collar workers and we had a construction company in Zurich and, uh, dad's parents left Zurich dad, dad left. Well, they didn't want my dad to work as hard. Yeah. As the other general, the previous generation. So they said, look, we're going to send you to lose Lucerne and you're going to be getting an apprenticeship in architecture. Okay. And I will say this dad said that I'd rather shovel shit than push a pencil because he really wanted to farm. I was talking about manure. Interesting. He wanted to farm. But in those days, your parents made your decisions for you. Yeah. That was not, that was not a, an option. Right. It was basically, we know what's best for you. This is what we're going to do. Yeah. So dad came over here with that apprenticeship, right. In 57, as an immigrant and somebody put up two grand US at that time, it was comparable to 2000 bucks as a, Oh, it was, uh, It was kind of a, not a, really a bond, but, but almost like they'll be good or whatever. I'll help take care of this person or whatever. You have to get a job in a certain period of time. And if you're not an asset to America, that is used to send you from whence you came right back. And that was the way it was. That seems like a pretty sensible immigration system. That's pretty wild. If you know somebody that, that wants to vouch for you, then you can get in, otherwise, uh, you can't. It's just. That's the way it was. Look where it is today. It's a lot more sensible than it is today, but we'll get into it more if you want to. It's pretty, well, it was very interesting to me and, and, and Dad loved America. Well, at least then you know that there's like, add value. If you don't add value, bye. Sure. And I don't know the deets, Dad's gone now. There's probably a lot of abuses of that kind of power and system and stuff too, but. No doubt. I have the letters from dad being signed by governor lamb at that time. Cause I remember when I was 12, dad got his American citizenship and he worked like, yeah, tell me what, what happened when he bounced from his apprenticeship and he started a farm land. Somehow he goes to, he has a job possibility in Detroit, Michigan of all places. He goes there, he can't hardly speak English. He can't drive because you couldn't, most people couldn't afford to have a driver's license. Uh, or in a car, first of all, over there, it's all street cars and walking, whatever, and trains. So, uh, dad just got on with this firm in Detroit and then he met my mom and they just fell in love. And that was over, man, within three or four months, they were married and I was born in Detroit. They came out here and we landed in Evans for about three years. First trailer park, lived in trailer park. That's all they could afford. How did, what drew him to Colorado? Uh, he, they had been, that's a good one. He, they'd been out to Estes Park. He was a mountain climber. Okay. So he loved mountains. Yup. So he saw those mountains and, uh, it drew, drew him. He belonged to a mountaineering club in Boulder for a little while. When we first got here and, uh, they would do snow caves and whatever, but he used to say, uh, he knew his number was almost up, which meant he had lost several friends, mountain climbing. And he felt like when he got here, he started up again. And he's, he just got this bad vibe. I need three more. I'm done anymore. Yeah. So that was smart. But anyway, so he came over to Evans. Then we lived there for a little bit and then they moved us to Lafayette, lived in the second trailer park, came back up here and lived in the third final park, uh, trailer park in on 57th and Loveland. So we came over in about 71. So that's what we've been here for over 50 years in. And what was he doing for employ during this time? Well, he'd work as an architect, Stearns Rogers first. Okay. And then he came up here and he got on with, uh, Russ Miller was the only structural engineer. The Rocky Mountain Bank building. Foco. Okay. When dad started here. All right. That was just one and maybe one more. Chuck Robinson. There was two structural engineers. That's it, man. Now you know, we have probably 50 to a hundred or more here now. Yeah. I just ran into Blake Larson the other day. I've heard that name. Yeah, I've heard that name, but I don't know him. But, so dad had a comparable apprenticeship degree that was, it was comparable, they said to a structural engineer. Okay. Had he pushed it a little bit more, he could, could've gotten his stamp. Interesting. But he decided to work for Russell Miller and, um. And they did that, and then he went, uh, his final years, he actually retired with David Neenan. Well, David Neenan was still here. Gotcha. So he worked for, uh, David for a while as a structural detailer. Okay. So, so we have a lot of roots here. And did you have other siblings, too? Yeah, brother and sister. That came along after He's, uh, my brother is five years, uh, three years younger, and my sister's five years younger. Okay. Yeah, all still living around here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, tell me what was, uh, what was little Benny like when he was, uh, say 12 years old in, what, Loveland High School by then? Is that right? Yeah, he was a good, good kid. Yeah. Um, he, uh, he was always Were you big already? Tall? Yeah, I was pretty tall. I'm a 6'1 6'1 12 and uh, we lived in the country, we've been living where we are now for almost 40 years. Oh, is that right? So he, he grew up in Larimer down there. And where is that? South, south end. Southwest Loveland south of Loveland, uh, south of Uncle Benny's up in the hill. Okay, sure, yeah. We've got a small acreage there. Oh, there's some great properties over there. Like in the, in the farther away future, those will be some of the prime time properties. View lots. Our view is not, we'll never, we'll never lose it. I mean, where we are, we kept seven acres. I chiseled three, four and a half out and sold them. In fact, I, that's one of the motives of what I'm, why I'm pursuing commissioner, uh, position is I worked with, uh, I don't know if you know, Darryl Clawson, if you remember Darryl, he used to own Caleb years ago and Scripps and Howard radio station, he was a commissioner here back in the 85. Okay. I went in for a subdivision process. And Darrell was one of the three commissioners and I had to defray cost on a little development there. And, uh, so I was asking for another lot, which was not really supposed to happen. Right. Right. But I went ahead and asked anyway. And so I went in planner says, no, I'm going to have to say you can't do that. And I said, that's fine. I went in there and two of them said, ah, I don't know if we should let Mr. Roste do this. And Darrell goes, wait a minute. What he's saying is makes sense. I think we should reconsider this. So it was really cool that. That's when I've learned that things can be made easier. And that's one of my three points. Here we go. Here's my three points. Things need to become more. Reasonable affordable and sustainable then they have, you know, they used to be like that, but they've we've lost that Yeah, and I want to get that back. Those are three of the points that I like Well, they all feed on each other kind of too many businesses have left Kurt. Yeah. Well, how many times do we raise the world? They're more affordable if they're more affordable or more sustainable all those things kind of feed together, too So they're on this on this level of County Commissioner. There are many things that I could do that would help Cut the red tape and, uh, without sacrificing health, without sacrificing, uh, climate, uh, you know, what roofs are, are 60 now, uh, I think is what I've heard recently in Fort Collins, the insulation, which is, I get it, but that's a lot of cost, a lot of, uh, you know, premium product. It ain't that cold here, Jack. Like, I'm from North Dakota. Right. You know, if you're gonna put an R 60 on your roof in North Dakota, well, yes, you're smart. Right. But it just isn't that cold here. No, there's some things that are just really, I mean, I, we added two and a half inches of insulation poly iso to our house, and then stuccoed over that because we had put, We had built it out two by fours years ago. Yeah. Yeah. you know? Right. And so we have in fact enjoyed the tightness, you know, the, it's lovely insulated factor on the outside walls. But we don't have 60 in the, in the attics yet. You know, I mean, I, I wanna blow some more in there and beef that up, so I get it, like you said. But is that affordable choice? Is that It's a choice. Choice. It is. Thank obligation. Thank you. You know. Thank you. Um, is the way I see it anyway. Right. Oh, so, okay. So good little Benny getting good grades, uh, tall kid. He's doing basketball or anything like that. Did some sports and squirrels in the property. Yeah. He liked the four H and we had horses and so he'd ride. Uh, as a matter of fact, we, we go out counting, we take mules and horses in and we go in and we're kind of like outfitters. We go way in. It's pretty serious. It's brutal. It's actually brutal, but, uh, we come back appreciating and our wives and our kids and our, you know, If you're looking for a pathway, let me know sometime. Cause I went on a couple of occasions when I first got to town and I haven't really enjoyed that yet. But I'll keep that in mind. I'd jive with it. Cause it would be good. It'd be good to have some more help and have other people go in. We do try to bring in some, some company once in a while. I don't, uh, I could find a four wheeler, but I'm not sure if I can, I probably find a horse too, if I ask around, if you've got a horse, somebody out there listening wants to, uh, How old are you? I'm 50. It just turned 50. So when I turned 50, I said, that's the last time I carry my own carcass. And I'm, I want, I want to ride a mule one. Right. Right. So I bought my first mule when I was 50. Perfect. I like it. So I've been listening to a Bear Grylls podcast and some other mule riders, Clayton, uh, there's a few out there now. Oh, that sounds good. Yeah. You can learn about mule riding and breeding online these days. That'd be great. I fortunately got one that was trained and then second and third ones were trained too. So they, our grandchildren ride them. They're so. I love mules, man. They're so cool. I've interacted with a few, it's pretty fun. So, uh, did you go off to, like, college after? Or any big changes in your life in the high school years? Yeah, I went to, uh, NJC. Actually, let's start with, uh, back in the day, I went to, um, Larimer County Vo Tec. Front range. All right. So I did two years there, uh, ornamental horticulture. So at that time, it was a cool program. They would do half the day at the high school and half a day in, in the county boutique vocational, uh, tech school, which was really great. Yeah. We had a greenhouse there and I grew like, I don't know, 90 tomato plants and you had to record them. And I mean, so it was a very, very, uh, it was an awesome experience there. Um, that's, that's actually also an FFA. Is what, uh, your, uh, your, uh, Yeah. What your dad wanted to be. Did your dad, was he a hobby farmer? It's funny. You catch that, Kurt, because good listening. Um, because you caught that. We feel like we feel like we were living out my dad's life that he, he actually got to enjoy it watching us. Yeah. You know what I mean? So that it, it came to fruition, which is kind of amazing. I have a, we have a quarter acre over off of LaPorte, uh, here in old town Fort Collins, but I've got, you know, a chicken coop and a, like I've, I've literally got Two and a half gallons of tomatoes that I'm gonna process this weekend that have come off my garden I've raised seven butternut squashes and a bunch of pumpkins and so it's like a little farm in the city Yeah, you know, but I can walk to the coffee shop. That's great. You got it all but my dad's a farmer in North Dakota you know, and so I got the green thumb and stuff and it is a bit of a Homage, I suppose, to, cause it's a pain in the ass to turn all that soil over and keep those chickens and clean the chickens. I've got a Finlish, a Finnish exchange student. Now the chickens are his job. Well, I heard you say you have somebody with you for a year, for a year. Yeah. He moved in a month ago. Well, he moved about 10 months total, but through the school year, you shared that at the Rotary. And, uh, when my. Um, when me and Jill were Zooming with his folks before he arrived, uh, his mom said, Well, we've been thinking about getting chickens for our summer cottage, and so we want to make sure Lenny knows how to, you know, Handle chickens when he gets back. And I was like, sweet, I can do that. And he's totally scared of them. The broody ones, you know, where they, Are you familiar? Where they sit on the eggs and they don't want to leave. I was like, dude, just let them peck you. They can't even break your skin. They won't hurt you. And he's like, I can't, I can't. I'm just going to use the stick and like chase around. I know, I know. It still freaks me out reaching in there when they're broody, man. He's a city kid. They're little, they're little bitches. They are little bitches, especially some of them like Buff Orpington. Some are more ornery. Yes, that's uh, exactly. A little hotter, run a little hotter. A little protective. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Um, so, uh, So you went to the vote tech for the vote tech for two years there. And then I went to NJC North Northeastern junior college. I saved up a couple of grand and I went out there to take diesel mechanics. Thought I wanted to become a diesel mechanic. I was kind of a wrench with some friends of mine. They, they would run stock cars, cars out of Neary, you know, Colorado national speedway. That was our, that was kind of our weekend church experience. Right. Get the car ready and, and, and go out there and race the next day. And I was, I didn't race. I was just one of the pit crew. Right. We did that. Num. So I did about, I did a year there, came back and then I just, uh, started working. And then this hit me again. I just started, what did I start doing? Gosh, after I left, I was working at Kodak, Kodak for a couple of years. And, um, I actually had a job interview at HP and I was down in that basement at, in Loveland. And I was like, I just don't think I can work. And it's, I can't sit in a desk or a production counter place. That's not me. You know what I mean? I was in school for engineering and then I got some kind of a work shadow thing. And I realized like most engineers, they just put you in a little box, mostly. And I was like, nah, not you. Well, in calculus was really hard for me too, but it didn't flow. Didn't, didn't, I couldn't do it without doing the homework at least. Right. I needed to do that. That doesn't, Benny, on the other hand. He understands he could have been college would have been just a whiz for him and his mother and I both we don't we don't Flow that way. We're not wired that way. Yeah, we have other experience passions and and Professionalism but did that so you started to say the school bug bit you again? So then I bit me and I and I had to I went to Ames for a little while Was Mrs. Benny around yet? Yeah, Sandy came along. She was around. Yep, she had graduated from CSU in 1980. And, um, with a Bachelor in Psych, Psychology. And I said, don't you start using me. Don't, don't ask me to lay down on that couch and start using that on me. You know, just giving her a hard time, right? She goes, oh, you know, I'm not going to do that, you know. But it has come in handy. I'm sure. One of the, one of the most useful skills for a woman is to understand men and how to manipulate them to do what they want. Yeah, it's there. And they're smart. And if they're a good woman, that's perfect. Because they're better at instructing us around usually than we are instructing ourselves around. Oh my gosh. Married to her 43 years, thank God for her. She's been, she's been, she's been so supportive of this political world. Because we're not politic. We're not politic. We don't, we don't consider ourselves that, but you're in the, we're political junkies yet. You know, I mean, we're, we're into the people, that's the funnest part. It's just meeting all these people. You would like this job of mine too, this podcast job, uh, having two hour conversations with really interesting people all the time learning their life. Yeah. It's really interesting. Yeah. Um, I can see that. So, uh, Where did you come across Sandy, by the way, she, I met her at a church, uh, gathering that we were going to in Loveland at the time. That's where we first met actually. And, uh, just started to fall in love with her. She, her and I were done with the gate dating game scene. And we were like, kind of without any kind of relationships for about six months or a year. It was just nice. Yeah. So we just got, you know, focused in life and we just waiting for the right person and done with the mind games and all that, to be honest with you. Sure. And, uh, this is the one, you know, this is really the one because it's just, it's just been that way in our communication has been so good. And so, um, then I went from, uh, what was my next goal? Then I went to Ames and then I went back, then I went to CSU, not back to CSU, but to CSU for the first time. And I was there for about a year in married housing with Sandy. We were married and we had our first Benny was actually born. at Poudre, I think, while we were going to married housing. And, uh, then I hit the, the work bug just hit me. I said, you know what? What were you going back to school for at CSU? I was taking, believe it or not, radio, like going into, uh, communications, broadcasting, voice. I had the voice because you got a nice voice. You sing, you play guitar. You should do that. You know, I was like, and human development, actually. Were you in like bands and things or the worship group? Yeah. I don't know if you know Dave Beagle and he'll listen to this, but Dave and I played together as kids. We had a childhood neighborhood, uh, band, which is just a trip because he went off dude, like skyrocketed. Right. I mean, I just kind of put the ax down, the guitar down and I just didn't play much, right. For years until I went to church and then I started picking it up again, but I have no, I'm nowhere near the. The degree that he's at, the level he's at, right? He's got thousands and thousands of hours of playing. Thank God he's doing well after his accident after the mountain coming down, falling off that mountain. So, but, uh, so yeah, that's what happened. And you know, this just found this groove. I couldn't, like I said, I couldn't watch this stuff be disposed of and thrown away. So we've diverted at least over well over 4 million tons of new and usable building materials from the landfill. So through this business. So you kind of left CSU to get, start working, you work for this kind of building materials company, corporate kind of enterprise start seeing my launch that kind of takes us back around to where we started back. Sorry. It's just kind of, no, that's okay. A good segway. You were there, you were there. Um, what, uh, what else, what was some of the, the, the big, Major people that bumped you in one direction or you mentioned your dad already and some influence there and whatnot but along that say junior high high school changing colleges finding direction where there's some either mentors or Just influential teachers things like that. Did you'd like to shout out while we're here? I think I met one of them I did meet one of the astronauts, um, Erwin and, uh, got to shake his hand and he was impressive to me. I mean, I think, I'm not sure he may have been an Eagle as well. I looked into who became Eagle, who were Eagle scouts, how many presidents, and in fact, only one Gerald Ford. But when it came to astronauts, there was quite a few astronauts that became Eagle scouts. And so he impressed me. I kind of followed him a little bit. And the scouts in general and 4 H seems like major elements of your Outdoors, hiking, you know, conservation of, of, uh, you know, the forests and, and land and water and fishing and appreciation. You go there, you, you, you, you want to leave it cleaner and you found it. Yeah. Somebody drops a wrapper, you pick it up. I mean, if somebody left some cans, you pick them up, take them out with you if they're, you know, that's what they decided to do. How, uh, how old were you when you started Uncle Benny's? I was, that's a good question. We're 29 years old might take 30 off of 66 right now. So 35. And what was your situation? Did you have more kids as well? Did you have a huge savings? Did you get a bank loan? It was a side hustle. You kept your day job for how long? Um, let's see, did I just jump right in? I mean, I left somewhere and it was interesting because I, I leased this little corner. It was funny. My friend Juan Maris had this corner for 45 bucks a month is all he was paying. This old plumbers that owned this corner down in Loveland. And he goes, Ben, yeah, if you want this corner, let's do it. You know? And so I tagged it. My tag was Uncle Benny from NJC. It's where I got the tag. Okay. Uh, a friend of mine was a Southern guy and he was, uh, I ain't real slow talking. I just love this guy. Donnie is his name. And he said, Hey, uncle Benny, how you doing? And it just started, it was just uncle Benny and it just flowed. And people just started calling me that for a year. And I thought, you know what? I think I'm just going to call this uncle Benny's building supplies. Right. And it flowed, people dug it and they still dig it today. So, right. Well, you can trust uncle Benny. Yeah, it's weird. I just dispatched to uncle Benny. Now I feel it's funny. It's weird to say, my name's Ben Austin, cause they look at me and then they say, I don't know. Uncle Betty's your uncle, Benny, I got about doors from you, man. When are you going to reopen? I mean, this is honest to God. I hear it every day and all these events I go to, right. I'm hitting Foco hard right now. I just did CSU all day for the Aggies. Cause I am a tech, an alumni, my wife and I, my brother in law, sister in law, we're all alumni is walking around. Seeing people saying hello, did the game. We were there for eight or nine hours, just eating it up. Right. It's fun. When you, the people make it fun and give you the wing, the wind under your wings, because you know, people go, how do you do all this? It go all these places and work. I go, the people are my fuel. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that helps a lot. I don't know what else to say. That's it. You know. I would say that's true of me as well. Um, I'm going to call a short break and, uh, we'll come back and, uh, do some of our closing segments. All right. Cool. uh, we were just talking about kind of the, the notion of priority and common sense and so in our, in our local process, I was just getting ready to explain, but I thought I might as well record. We, we ask a question, step two is clarifying questions only from the other 10 people in the room, uh, 15, 20 minutes of that. And then the third step is suggested solutions. So now these 10 people are going to say, Hey, I think you should do this and you make it 10 or 15. There's the thing. Suggestions. Yeah, this is the think tank. And then step four is, is kind of what's relevant here is okay. You just heard 15 things to do, but we don't want you to leave with 15 things to do. Cause you might not do any of them. What are the two or three things you want to be held accountable to do? And don't come back next month without doing it. That's not overwhelming. Yeah. I like that. Exactly. And then you have priorities and, you know, a very few number of priorities, not 31 priorities, City of Fort Collins Council. It's more doable. Right. Containable. I wonder how many of our 30, of their 31 priorities are not. Uh, have been accomplished, uh, from that initial, uh, city council when they, uh, yeah. There's a forum coming up with Spoka in this, uh, Fort Collins City Council. Oh, is that right? For all of us, all candidates, on, in all parties. Yeah. Coming up shortly. Um, so after we come back from the break, our tradition is to talk about, uh, Each of faith, family, and politics. Uh, but I do dealer's choice on where you want to start with that. We've touched on politics, but we'll go broader. Maybe more about broad politics than your race, I would say, in some cases. But, uh, where do you want to start? You want to talk about Sandy? Talk about your kids? You want to talk about politics right away? Get that out of the way? Well, faith is huge. That is kind of the order I've come in. I live by, you know, God, family, uh, business, and politics, I mean, in that order, right? I mean, um, I've been a Christian for many years, and uh, I don't push Grew up that way, too? I grew up that way. Your dad wasn't a Christian? Yeah, pretty much. I mean, I remember confirmation and stuff in Lutheran. What kind ofare the Swiss Lutherans? Yeah. Yeah, they are kind of Lutheran. Uh, they lean that direction. Then we went into some Methodist. visitation and, and, uh, gotten into some different churches. You might call mine more of a spirit filled interdenominational meaning instead of non denominational it's inter meaning we, we welcome everyone. Just, just come in and meet Jesus or love Jesus with us or whatever. It's pretty interesting, pretty open. I don't look at, I'm not religious. I don't really. That's why I use that word of faith. I'm anti religious, actually. I do not want religion as bondage. If you want me to dance the way you want me to dance, yeah. It's not freedom. I mean, go to Africa and then try to dance with the I mean, dancing with the African people when I went to churches there, all those mission trips, man, was just so freedom. So freedom. I even, I had the pleasure of dancing with Watusi's. Oh, cool. And that was an experience that not many have. I mean, you, when you do that, they get right in your face and you have to jump and look in their eyes and you try to jump higher than they do. Oh, well, good thing you're so tall. And it worked. It helped a lot. I didn't have the right shoes, but I stayed up with this dude. And what they do is they come in and they try to intimidate you. Interesting. And they're making this guttural noise while they're doing this. They're And they're getting, it's, it's a total, it was, uh, it's a rush and a half. It was a rush and a half. And I even bought a, I even bought a horn, like what we call a shofar here. The, uh, Israelis and the Jewish people use shofars. They blow these horns. These are the same horns from the kudu, from the mighty kudu, they call it, but they cut it, they cut a mouthpiece on the side of the, of the side of the horn down on the, far neck down in with their machete and I could not master how to blow that freaking horn. I have it. It's a wall hanger now, but I got a regular, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I couldn't make it work. I mean, I just, my, my son's good with the didgeridoo and, uh, and I can't do that one either. It's so freaking awesome. It's so bizarre. It's a, it's a very, it goes right to the core of my spine. Yeah, that started to get to me. So, uh, so you, so you kind of grew up that way. Did you have a, did you have a faith, uh, question point in your life? Yeah, I was, I, I, I, I went into dabbled in the drug world a little bit as a kid. Oh, I forgot to even offer you that. And uh, and uh, but we, we did the, uh, I had a buddy that his, his brothers were all bolder. They were all just into psychedelics and they were coming out of Woodstock. And so we had some of that influence there, right? Okay. And we were the kids, we were the young kids. He was a young brother. So you were the test subjects. So we were, we, we tested some things. Let's see how strong these mushrooms are. And it never worked. Mushrooms, none of that stuff got me what I was looking for. You know what I mean? Or what you anticipated at least. And so, uh, I, I did, I did accept crisis of my savior back when I was like 18 or something very young on early on, went to college and, you know, kind of drifted a little bit, but then came back, met my wife. She said, if I'd have known you, I'd have run as if I'd have known you back when you were who you were out of run as far away as you could have. I wasn't like that bad, but I was not who I was by the time she met me. So that's what happened. And, um, well, you're kind of, it seems like you were kind of. Old for a young guy. Probably first born. You know, that's in, in a father that was pretty strict, you know, European, seriously, uh, the Swiss, the Swiss influence man was, was pretty heavy, right? I mean, yeah. Are there trains all on time? Yeah. All that stuff. Oh yeah. There was some of that actually. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't abuse, but you know, it was there and it was needed. I always had the threat of spanking. I don't really remember being spanked. You may not. There was a significant threat of it. I was scared of it. Yeah. Mine happened to be a belt, you know, we knew which belt it was because each one was a Western belt with a different pattern. It was either moms or dads, you know what I mean? Moms was a little lighter. Yeah, but it was, you know, wasn't the bare bottom stuff, but I mean, it made an impression and didn't take very much. It never really did. Well, I mean, it's interesting that the, I mean, not to get political in that space, I guess necessarily, but Like, if you watch dogs raise, you know, grown up dogs raise puppies and things like that, like, there's, there's some violence, or at least threat of violence, involved, and I think, you know, will create Soft humans, if they never get nipped, right? There's like some protocol action going on there. I think, and I'm not advocating staying out there, but I do think by and large, get away with way too much. Oh, we're going to take your cell phone away for a day. Well, there's positive and negative for reinforcement and, you know, Spock even kind of questioned himself after, you know, his book came out and, you know, there were writings about that. And he was like, I don't know if I really was on to this. He changed it up a little bit. Let's just say it that way. Right. Fair. So, um, so, uh, on the faith side, uh, Anything like you'd like to elaborate on, uh, what church do you go to? If you go to a church, that's called message of life ministries. I'm a trustee down there and I've been in that church for over 40 years. I had a pastor that we, I did lose. He was a friend of mine, not only just my pastor, but also a dear friend. And so we lost him to a heart attack about six years back. So he was a heavy influence on my life. I had a couple other ones too. Steve Anselmo was a pastor of Rez and just older gentlemen, my dad and a couple other guys, you know, I've lost. A lot of my mentors, actually, because they were in their eighties, I'm rebuilding that. I'm actually, that's a safety net for me actually to, to have accountability. Accountability only works as, as far as you're willing to ask someone to you, you ask them to ask you questions and you give them the line. This is what I want you to ask me. You know what I mean? Yes. Okay. So that, but it has to be agreed upon, right? Yeah. Like on two, two way street, like, you know, what do you, what do you want of me? There's a pastor in Wellington that I've asked this question before. And so it's like, well, how far are we going with this? Because there's five levels of relationship in general, you know, you can be acquaintances and he's my friend and then there's covenant is you and your wife, you know? And so that's heavy. That takes a long time to get there. That's level five, totally level five. And so, um, between that and one is like, dad used to say, it's, you'd say you, you're always, you always sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schwarzenegger. I loved his accent. He'd say, you're always talking about all these friends. Who are these friends? Are they the ones that come to you at two in the morning? If you call and you say, come get me out of jail. And I go. No, I guess you're right. I couldn't. I got one. I can do that. Yeah. You know, that was early on when I was 18. Well, I quit calling everybody my friends. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, that's a pretty flippant word. Yeah. It's used without really thinking it through. We like each other quite a bit, but I wouldn't call you a friend. We're not there yet. You know, we're acquaintances. We're above acquaintance. I think even we're 1. 5. We're gaining. We're gaining today. Why? Because we're having time to learn about each other's lives. That just takes, like we used to be singles pastors actually, Sandy and I would minister to singles that had been divorced. Some of them one, two, three times, you know, and we'd always counsel the people and this was on a lay basis, right? Just sure. We'd not charge. Just. Yeah. Volunteer stuff, people in our church, out of our church, whoever wanted help. And still to this day, we actually have a couple of couples that are having troubles now. So we do that because that's giving back. And we would say to people, you know, gosh, why don't you just take a year off, man, from anybody because there's four seasons. Right. And somebody is going to go Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sometimes. Yeah. Every winter man about, you know, Christmas, the week before Christmas, this, this guy just, I don't know who this guy is. He's totally changed whatever, you know? So we've heard enough of that to know that's a pattern of human nature. And so we would counsel people. And then if you got divorced the second time around, maybe you need a little more time, you just pray about it. It's your choice. We're just saying from what we hear, It'll work better the more time you take off to heal. It's interesting that the, the culture has gone in some ways from, uh, almost too much codependency. Like, like leaning on each other and, and people that can't really, like I've known so many people in my lifetime that, that if they broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, it was because they had another one lined up already. Or if they didn't, it was like a week. Right. And like, I was always, I was 26 when I started dating my wife. Now we've been married 21 years. Preceding that I dated some girls, one girl, almost six months, you know, a few girls, like three, four months. But as soon as I knew it wasn't the one, I was like, it's the best thing for us if we just move this along, you know, I would love to spend more time with you and stuff, but it's not fair to you and it's not fair to me. And But you communicated that. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is cool. Yeah. When that's not done. Um, and I think that's potentially cowardice and it's, it's hard, it's hard on that well and who the other person, yeah, no, and I, I mean, I got my heart broken and I broke a couple and you know, I'm really glad that I found the girl that I was supposed to be with and that cool. And we, we've had opportunities, Sandy and I both, we'd be out in the early parts of our marriage now, 43 years, as I said, but we'd see people and we're like, you know, saying I'd go Sandy that, I did not, I was not nice to that lady right over there. I need to go talk to her and make it right. She goes do it. And I do it. And you get released because you know what? You release that person too. Totally. That's freedom. Yeah. That takes guts. Keep those lists. Not comfy. Flesh doesn't dig it, but it's something that needs to be done if possible. A box of tissues underneath this, uh, underneath this table here for that kind of thing. Um, I appreciate you sharing that. Um, Did Sandy come from the same kind of a faith background? Yeah, yeah, she did. We, we both, you know, kind of were Dating people, as I shared earlier, and it just wasn't working in a lot of cases. And we finally got to the point where we said, we're done with that. You know, we need to just hang tight and wait for the right one because this, this, this brain damage is not worth it. It's a tough thing. It's a matter of the heart. Well, and hearts fall in love pretty fast, even with the wrong person, kind of like at least a little bit. Right. Like they go up to that three level and when everybody else is at a one or a two, you're like, Ooh, I got a three going here. Right. Maybe it's real. Right. And when, you know, people get together and they start, I just, I'm just going to say it, you know, start playing house and sure. It's before the, the, the commitment of covenant marriage and stuff. And we weren't perfect, Sandy and I, but we tried to stay out of that game plan, you know, the playing house deal. And, and, you know, because it just. It starts out, if it starts out in disrespect and dishonor, it never really goes away until it's dealt with. And that, that, that, that takes time. That takes a little repent of action. You know, it's, it's like, it's, I, we call it the dog chasing the tail continuum, you know, you dishonor, you didn't really love me because you, you went to bed with me. And then the other one says, yeah, you don't love that. You really don't love me. Cause you'd really love me. You would have respected me and hung tight. Yeah. Yeah, you know, so this I mean we hear those I feel yeah, bro We we've heard this a lot through the years mom. Jill and I were intimate You know, pretty early in our relationship before we were engaged, but then we did do, and I'm really glad we did, which it sucked. Uh, we did 60 days of no intimacy sound like me before we got married. That's what we kind of, to refresh, we got married. Yeah. Yeah. We like. Straightened out, you know, for us out, it was like a sacrifice for a, a bit of a sacrifice toward what we'd already done wrong. Right. But a recognition of totally the right way was this, and I can honor you by this restraint. Oh man, that's so important, brother. I mean, we, because we talked to people that have been married for older than us was just kind of bizarre counseling people that are older than us and married longer, but they're, they're, they're coming to us and go, we're just miserable. Right. And this is why, and we go, we'd just go, let's go back. Just repent, man. It's cool. It's easy. Just look her in the eyes or him and say, you know, for you, I've been a dumb ass, whatever it is. And all of a sudden they come out of it, there's some tears. It's a tough place to go because you don't, you fear what you don't understand. Totally. Right. I call it 2020. You want 20 more years of this misery, or can you deal with it in 20 minutes? Just, just give up 20 minutes and go there. It's going to be a little scary. I guarantee you, but to persevere and push through that. Uh, the end results like, well, you and I are both kind of confront the dragon kind of people. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I don't need a plan. Just give me a sword. Well, I think that's, that's innate. And, and, and I think we're supposed to be that way to a certain point, you know, we're, you know, not really divide and conquer in a bad way, or I'm not a domineering husband at all. I'm so respectful of my wife. We're in agreement on everything we do. You know, we pray stuff through. It's like, you know, if we don't, If we're not in agreement, I'm buying this car truck or I don't even care. Maybe not something that big. Maybe it's just, I don't know if we want to go spend the money on this TV or whatever, hang tight, let's hang when we're ready, when we're cool, we're going to do it because we don't want to resent each other. It's pretty basic to me, to me anyway. Um, so we were shifting into family already from politics. Well, we shifted kind of from faith to, to, to family here. Um, how many kids, you got three kids? Is that right? And how many grandkids do you got? So we have two, we have two children, two children, three grandchildren, and our other daughter and her husband are working on more grants, Devon Haney children. All right. So my son, what's interesting, we wanted four to six kids. We were not really supposed to have even one. Uh, doctors here in Fort Collins actually, five of them probably said my wife would never have a first child. Oh, wow. And that's okay. Doctors, we love them. They're entitled, they're just giving their, they're practicing medicine. Yeah, yeah. And they, they, they just inherited what they saw. They don't, they, they, God had the final word. So Benny was born. He's our first miracle. And then we were working for eight years on where's our second, where's our sweetie. And we, and, uh, our hand, it came along. So we have two eight years apart and, uh, we're good with, you know, we talked about maybe, you know, filling the gap with adoption and it just wasn't there. And, and, um, now our, our daughter's working on having more. And so, um, We, I did fall in love with two sweet twins in Africa and Kenya my first trip and I got the little safari phone and I called my wife. It's like two bucks a minute and I'm saying, honey, these two sweeties, I want to bring them home. For only 40, 000. So bad. We couldn't. This is what was true. A trip is, um, we found out. Especially by the second trip that you, they, they want the children in there till they're 18, they will not release them from orphanages till they're 18 in Kenya, Africa. Okay. That was what it was then. To keep them there almost virtually. You said that, it's, it's, it's a, it's an income for the people, right? Sure. Work the work. So. That's actually what happened, Kurt was, uh, we just had to say no. And I mean, I just wept. I was, I was actually in physical, it was heavy. Yeah, I don't doubt it. Cause, uh, I hadn't even been around him very long, but you know, it's just weird how that happens. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like you wish you would have tried harder somehow or something? Maybe it was kind of a little bit of a regret there. And I, I mean, people, when I was in Detroit, mom. When I was born, she had a beautiful, loving, uh, what happened to be a black woman named Del that took care of me while she was working for Northwest Orient Airlines. And, um, I just loved her. She sang over me. I'm sure she was a Christian woman. Cause I'll tell you what, if I, if I hear any music right now, that's old time gospel stuff that she sang over me, I just get goosebumps. I know something was, uh, imparted to me. Right. Yeah. And, um, and was your dad a musician and stuff? No, no, no. Cause you talked about, he didn't even yodel. Everybody thought he'd yodel cause he was Swiss. He just said, I don't yodel. But, uh, yeah. She, when I started calling her mom, mommy, mom came home. That was the last time she worked until, um, she got back here. And I think when we got through almost high school, about most of the high school, she went to HP and became a, she, she went to, um, cast tech in Detroit. And, uh, she came here and became a chemical, chemical mix operator. She ran like five departments for HP and all at once, man. I mean, she was very intelligent lady, but she gave up the work deal to be home for the kids. But dad then worked a second job or so. Or more. All right. And he had to study for his citizenship. And you never saw him almost. I saw him pretty often. I mean, we, we didn't watch, we were not allowed to watch football on the weekends, unless all the work was done. He didn't understand that. The American side of football and sports. He was all about not competitive. Only to be timed to take a mountain. Like he would time himself to climb whatever the Matterhorn is one, the North face or whatever, Yugoslavian mountains, he would time that, but there was never a competitive sport thing within no sport ball. It just wasn't there in their culture where he was raised. Right. So he had a hard time understanding or justifying having us sitting on our asses for three or four hours, watching a football game where your mom and dad Quite a while into your marriage and oh, yeah, there's not still around. No, there's still mom still alive. She's 89 She lives in that we did build a an ADU and a dwelling unit home on my seven acres. Oh, yeah So we take care of her. She takes care of us. Thank God. My wife really is her caregiver I mean, she's had some mini strokes and some some issues A little bit of memory thing going on, but, um, for the most part, she's still with us. Dude, it's such a blessing for her and for you to have her there, I'm sure, but especially for her to not be kind of strapped into some thing, although it's It happens, right? People It happens. And they build community there too, in those assisted living homes and different places. Uh, memory care facilities, we'll call them, and whatever else, but it's sure nice to be around family. Oh, we're so thankful, and she's right there. I mean, she watches the place, and the kids can come, grandchildren, great grands can come see her there. So, it's, it's been a blessing. One of our, uh, uh, Uh, practices on this podcast is to do one word description, often of the children or sometimes just we go straight to the grandchildren. Would you like to try that, uh, drill? Sure. um, what would you say about your son? Benny is, um. Amazing what he can do, what he's producing right now. Just so he's so multitaskable. Um, I remember even only one thing I ever did that was close to what he's doing is, is I would have sometimes two phones. One on each ear like kind of like trying to broker a deal while you're buying it. Yeah, they kind of called me the Benny the Broker and I was actually calling for pro numbers for a truck coming in. Right, right. I can tell you that answer in just a second here. I'll get right back to you. Hold. I'm on this one. It was just kind of like on the floor, like multi tasking. Yeah, the stock exchange. But I loved it because I'm an adrenaline junkie to a point. And so I think Benny likes it, but, uh, he, he is, he is a very, very much of a people person. Yeah, very much easy to listen. I mean, they love him and what's cool is that he, he, he crosses all, um, demographic. Age groups. I mean, he, he doesn't appeal just to the people of his own age, but no, the oldies, like he just, he just, he just, he just gets in flows and gets in whatever they're into. He, he, he, he can zero in on it. He gets the pulse quick. I dig it. I dig it. I, I want your daughter's name again, Hannah, Hannah, and she's my sweetheart. Yeah, she's. She's working on that and she's a mini me of my wife. Okay. Their voice print and their look. Oh, interesting. She's the tender one and, and she's, even more doctors said that my wife would not have her. Oh, wow. So she was such a, a miracle that, um Big surprise, but after eight years, too, I'm sure. It was amazing. In fact, the doctor is retired now from this, from Loveland. Um, his name was, um, Sandy. His nickname was Sandy, which is my wife's name, Sandy. And, um He said, I don't really want to jeopardize this pregnancy, but can, can, would you consider, um, my wife going to Denver to university hospital? Because what they were witnessing with my daughter coming. Oh, that she was developing properly was a surprise. Was not even medically. It shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't be happening. It's what, what is this? Well, we would say it's, it's, it's, it's beyond, you know, explanation. It's a miracle. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a God thing, you know? But so we'd pray about it. We're like, yeah, we don't want to jeopardize this man. But is this you Lord? I mean, you want to do this? You want to, I mean, you want some more glory. We'll do it, but we don't want to jeopardize this pregnancy. So we, uh, we had a piece about it and we, we went to Denver and they got to see it and the doctors were just astounded. And we're like, you know, we don't know what this effect is going to have on them. Right. I mean, I'd really don't even know. Maybe we'll, we'll know someday, but, um, we were obedient. It's better than sacrificing it. So we did that. That is true statement right there, huh? Yeah. That's like the, the, the shift from Jewish. Culture to Christian culture in some ways. Yeah. Uh, or even from Catholic to Christian in some ways. Sure. Uh. Sure. But I won't go there just yet, or, uh, one more question on the family side. We're going pretty deep on a lot of other stuff. Oh yeah, there's no questions off limits in this show. That's why it's a crazy experience. I'm impressed. I did not know. So, uh, why do you suppose Sandy, um, said yes to that second date, third date, fourth date? It just felt right for her too, do you think? Yeah, we, we shared pretty heavy, I mean, She stood up and shared in the church at the time we were going to, and she shared about a miracle of how she had been healed. Actually she had medically been checked up here in Fort Collins and then she was healed. She went back in, the doctor said, what happened to that? She had endometriosis. I don't see at all what was going on here before. So it was a miracle. And so she was standing up, sharing this in the church, you know, that we were going to and the church at that time, no, No criticism, just didn't embrace it. And I stood there and listen, I mean, I sat there and listened to her. I didn't know her that well yet. And I listened to her and I just fell in love with her, her boldness. And, uh, It's pretty brave. Yeah, to share that. It was pretty heavy. And then she, I was considering going to the Philippines on a world mission, mission trip. First one I'd ever gone on. Okay. And she said, she came up to me and talked to me in the hallway and said, Hey, I don't know what's going on with you. And this was the actual, one of the initial meetings with her. Okay. But I've been praying for you. And she just kind of read my mail. She just like, was getting some intel. You know, spiritual intel on me. I'm going, this is kind of freaking me out. Because she is really zeroed in, right? And we weren't attracted to It wasn't a physical thing. I'm telling you, we were like, whatever. She's not even good looking, right? We saw each other, she is. But we saw each other and we were like, like, whatever. Yeah. Attitude, right? Initially, which was good because you were checked out because we didn't want to be we were done with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, she, that just was like, well, that got my attention because nobody's ever done that or said that to me like that. So she's tuned. She's tuned in. So I was attracted to the spiritual, her spiritual, uh, her faith, her, her, where she was with the Lord, what she'd been through, which I didn't even know half of intellectual relationship spiritually, but there's also just that kind of tuned in part, right? Like you can read every book and understand every principle, but it doesn't always go all the way. It was heavy. Like you were really drawn to her and her boldness and things like that But I'm not really sure that you answered my question about why she really Wanted to be with you as good so you were giving her attention. No, I think that was um, she She had a list and you made a list actually what she was looking for I mean she had heard this from somebody in some seminar teaching. Okay, all right thing or whatever and Because she had been She had been, uh, asked him, somebody asked him her to marry her three different times, three different guys. Oh, wow. And some of that occurred up here at the CSU Fort Collins area, actually, in those days, which is wild about our roots, which we'll get back to that more of that because she's fourth generation when their streets were dirt or her family, let's see on college. So we'll get back to that, but, um, back into this thing, she had that list and I was, and she was checking it off. She's going, geez. This guy's he's, this could be the guy, you know, but she didn't want to rush in. Like we shared with her, we're, we're, we're, we're, we don't go there right now. We're enjoying this dependence on God and just building this relationship right here. Um, and not be the flea on the dog, which is that co dependence thing. Yeah. Yeah. Talked about earlier. And, uh, because we were both that way, we were just having a hard time being by ourselves, which is okay. It's healthy. It's all right. So embrace that if you can, but, um, and enjoy it. Um, but, um, so we, we, we, we, the, the list came along and she started to, you know, I respected her and she went through some pretty crazy stuff as a young lady. And I had changed my whole behavioral pattern. Towards women period. And so she appreciated the fact that I was taking care of her. And I think I've become more, uh, through just being married to her for 43 years and hearing her testimony and what she's been through. I've become very sensitive to, to women and abuse. Yeah. Um, I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't that. In that whole world, that serious in a serious manner. But, but just know how many women have been, uh, violence either done or threatened, or they've done things that they, you know, the rape scene and stuff. I never got into that. Thank God. But the point was, what I'm saying to you is. When you, when you're married to somebody that's been through that stuff. I don't even let myself get pinned in. I always respect women so much for space. I mean, I tell my people, my salespeople, I said, no, don't ever corner a woman. Period. My man. Or my, my, my ladies to men, I mean, it's, it's a two way street. Don't just give people their space, respect their space and, and, and until you really understand the hurt people really feel, uh, and you can't totally a hundred percent, if you didn't do it, you didn't go through it or whatever. Totally. But you sure get a good indication of it. Those who abuse power are like some of the most terrible people in the world. Right. And it's one of the easiest things to do. And it can almost be done unintentionally or like, I mean, that sounds really weird, but like even just being appreciative of my. Role as an employer, right? And, and, you know, I've, I've worked hard to cultivate, I hopefully you see a respectful dialogue between me and Alma and stuff like that. But, you know, she depends on me for her paycheck, you know? And so to actual cultivate, uh, a culture where she's feels very comfortable to challenge me on significant decisions, I'm not talking about like rapey rapey or anything inappropriate. But no, I know where you're going. All around the board with power. You know, it doesn't mean because I've got the power that I'm all the decider. If you don't involve people in kind of decisions that affect them and stuff, that means you're actually not doing it right. Totally. I get what you're saying because If you have a strong personality and I do, it took me a while to understand how influential, who and how influential I was unintentionally where people want to please you and they, and they'll say, yes, I'll do that. Or, and, and you don't give them that, that freedom, bro, where you're saying, you know, you need to just talk to me, man. If I've, if I've, if I stepped over the line and I'm, I'm really not being sensitive to your needs or whatever, give them that space, but it's taken me. There was a Years! I'm not there yet! In my second year, or maybe first year of banking, there was a young lady that worked at the bank with me, uh, Holly Deserick. Deserick was her name. Mm hmm. Really, bright gal. And I was Asking her to do something or something, you know, something banking related. Sure. She's like, Kurt, you're, you're so damn persuasive that I'm going to find myself saying yes, but I don't want to. I told you I didn't, it's not part of my job. What the heck? Good for her. And she had a strength of personality. I mean, all the boys, uh, appreciated her and, but it, but it was one of the first cues, uh, and, So in, in, in local we've been studying this thing called HALOS relational intelligence, and I'm a green and white. The green is social relational. I'm both more empathetic, persuasive, encouraging, drama queen than most men, especially, but um, and then the white is Like full of ideas and innovation and philosophical conversations. Uh, and then my third part is kind of a drive, achieve or entrepreneur. I could tell we're probably of a very similar wiring, just based on our conversations, sharing this. In Loveland. Oh, yeah. At that, at that event there. At the district. Yeah, yeah. I remember, I was like, what is he talking about the colors? I, I caught on. Yeah, yeah. But I was a little bit on. We'll talk more about it in the future. But, uh, but like the intuition to recognize that not just you're, I mean, in your case, you're, you're, you're a big, tall guy, you know, over 200 pounds, um, you're, you know, And you're, you're a business owner and things. And so just recognizing that I'm both a, this person, but also be, I have these strengths that I might've, you know, it's like the Hulk accidentally squeezing his little cat to death. Right. Right. Like, Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to insult your intelligence by the way I am connected with you in that or whatever that was. You don't like to stand over people. Do you? Yeah, no, you catch yourself. I'm, I'm like, people are sitting down like last night. We were, we were at a gathering. Oh, I could never. And I get on a knee. Especially if it's a, a lady, an older person, or I can sense, I can feel, I can feel them. I can feel the, I can see in their eyes, there's, there's like some intimidation possibly or whatever. It's like, so, so close the gap. Which means get on your knee, stop standing over, don't be, it's just, I am so sensitive to that. I don't like that at all. Right? I mean, and that's taken a while to get that in my, in my. Yeah, well it takes just awareness of yourself. In my behavioral patterns, right? We better hit the politics. Sure. Uh, why should people vote for you? November seven, man. I just, it's what's crazy is since 2020, it never stopped this question. Ben, are you going to run again? Ben, are you going to run again? And in business, you're vulnerable. You're like, you're right there. You're out in the open and they know where to find you. If you had too many skeletons, we'd be throwing them around the streets. There you go. And every day. Well, six days a week when we were six days a week, you hear are you going to run again? And then really this last, probably this last year, I've been sharing with people at different events that truthfully, people are going, Ben, you've got to run again. Watch my eyes, hear my voice. It's like, it's become more intense. It's, it's, it's a, it's not a. Demand, but it's a, it's a, you, you feel and you see in their countenance, a desperation. And that's really what I've observed because I'm a good observer of people. I watched their body lingo. I listened to them very carefully. I hear their voice and the tone and it, it has been Um, I didn't, I'm not doing it because of that, but it's part of it. It feels like if I, if somebody else, if I would have trusted anyone else to do this job, I would have got behind them. And I tried. It reminds me so much of, uh, when I was on the board of the Matthews house and was asked to become the chair, I was like, you know, it was like, it's so intimidating and You know, I can't, I don't see anybody else in the room that could probably do that or I did. Awesome. Yeah. Good job. Four years. Good job. But it was a big growth opportunity for me and the organization. But you knew it was right. I felt like it was committed pretty quick after you committed pretty quick, you know, it was, it was daunting. I was scared. Yeah. Uh, and it was right. You know? Yeah. So, but you, but you're really in honor of the people. I'm kind of switching. Well, when your says yes, I'm interviewing you a little bit. You know, you, when, when you feel called, when your heart says yes. Yeah. Um, you have to kind reject that to say no and Right. The less you do those kind of things, the better in your life. And that was how much I love the people though, is like seriously, if there was someone else that. Could do a better job. I actually said that to one person that I knew could, and, but decided not to. And I said, okay, then that's, that's kind of my last, you know what I'm saying? Okay, Lord, I'll do it. My God, help me please. Because, you know, you know what. What's ahead for the most part, you've been through it before, it's not comfy, it's not happiness all the time, it's sleepless nights, dude, but you know, and, and, and if I lose, I will, I will have done everything I can. Yeah. Um, how did you feel about the debate last night? Did you watch that, Jim? Yeah, I, I was, uh, It was hard for me to watch and listen because I didn't feel there was a lot of untruth to me that was spoken because I know of what history and what I've heard and seen from said party, the other folks, and I, for me, my being raised that your word is your bond when you, when you, you are supposed to do what you say you're going to do and you just don't lie. You just don't tell an untruth. You say what's true and to hear. come out in some of those areas. It was really difficult to listen to. And I'm, I'm concerned about how many people. Are just buying that bill of goods. Oh yeah. This is so ever so concerned. Kamala improved her chances last night. She did better than I thought she would. For sure. I was expecting some kind of a hiatus moment or whatever. What's my takeaway and answer right now. And it's early on is I hope to God that we, people look back at the track records and do some research, but that's, that's going to take some effort. And are the people willing to exert that? Unlikely. Uh, we'll see. You know, I still. I was, I was actually an RFK guy, uh, cause I don't, I'm just kind of that kind of guy. I've never voted mainstream. I've never yet casted a mainstream vote for president. So, um, but I felt like when RFK dropped and, and endorsed Trump, I felt, thought it was just about going to be over. And then just to see the, the transformation from the worst vice president of all time to the, the most hope filled, joyous candidate that we've seen in, in history. Multiple generations. It's fascinating to me. Well, they put her in a room for several days. He did some serious homework. Oh yeah. No, they prepped her really good. I'm sure they gave her the questions. And she got, he, he got riled. He got a little bit. Oh yeah. Well, he came in angry and the three on one kind of got to him and three one. That's what I used to take it a little bit of a chill pill. Not helpful, not helpful. If they would have started with Kamala, have you been drinking? That would have. Like broken the mood a little bit, uh, Anyway, we'll see. It's up to the people. I, we'll see, I I, I, I believe in miracles. Catherine Coolman back in the day. I mean, I'm, I'm a half full guy, not half empty. So I'm optimistic in faith that there's gonna be another miracle like happened with, with Hillary. Yeah. Clinton and, and, and Donald Trump, because, I mean, it's gonna take that. How much work is being done in the voting world and all that? I don't know. Right. I don't know that. People ask me all the time, Ben, I thought you won. I mean, people thought I was a commissioner. Right. honest to God, for years after 2020, know you didn't win. You know, how could you have not won? I'm telling you, I love those people, but they really didn't know. Right? Because they didn't see anyone else. They, they, they didn't know. And that was said a lot. I'll just have to say, it was just, I had to laugh. I'd have to chuckle. I'm going, no, I didn't make it. Or, or it was, didn't you make city councilman? I'm like, no, or mayor. I mean, it was a lot of confusion, right? And people still to this day, if somebody hears this, is that everyone in this County, it's a County wide vote for County commissioners. Oh, interesting. As in other words, some people thought, well, I have to live in district three to vote for you. Right. Okay. Yeah. I had some big donors. Oh, what an interesting thing. That were confused about that. And so. So my vote counts for you. Oh, hell yeah. But, but you don't represent me necessarily. No. No, I will. Yes. That's another one. That's another misnomer. Because all three of the county commissioners on the BOCC, Board of County Commissioners. Represent everyone and they work for everyone. For some reason, this dish district one, two, three, there's a little more concentration of their efforts or their like, like, like, like you say, uh, okay. I'm Kurt bear. I live in John, Mr. John commissioner. My future endorser really having trouble with somebody, you know, future endorser that my chickens are, you know, crapping it up in the neighborhood. I got a rooster. Somebody called in that got an Kurt bear, you know, that's, or a property rights issue. Now, if that's not resolved in, by your neighbors, actually infringing on my neighbor's yard for a while, I was trying to do adverse possession. So I'm talking about, that's, that's not, it's not even funny. Cause HOAs, HOAs are big issues, right? And they, they, the commissioners hope that you would resolve those, but if they are not, then you have to subpoena, you have to ask to be heard. By all three. So if the issue is bigger than you can deal with, then you go before all three. Oh, interesting. And they all, it's a hearing. It's a commissioner's hearing. I wish we could talk for 20 minutes more about Lerner County stuff, but I'm not going to make space right now. That's all right. Cause you're awesome. Um, What were the three things it is the three points that I'm all about are that things need to be more reasonable Affordable and sustainable in this county. I dig it especially in regard to business Yeah business and property rights property real estate development things like that. Thank you. We have a closing segment It is the loco experience the craziest experience from your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners You can smoke a joint right now on the Loco Experience. That'd be pretty crazy. That would be, especially since I have nightmares of doing that. You know, I haven't done that for 44 years after the acid didn't work. Um, so craziest experience. Wow. That's really good. I know you've talked about, I'm going to give a good one. I'm going to give a good, well, that was a wild, that was a wild one too. Well, you might, you can't tease me with the good one. I'll let you be the judge. So I was in Africa and there's this awesome guy, um, that was the, the man that actually really had the vision of, of doing an orphanage, building it and bringing in countries like Sweden, bring a team. And these are Christian organizations for churches or humanitarian. Organizations. And they'd come in and do something with these orphanages or really, they would come there and spend time with the kids. What they're really wanting to do is just spend time with the kids. Because, um, what we found was that the, the, the local African people were, would rather have the support. They were living on 2 us a day, a man or a woman person per day person. And they were very happy to build the buildings. And to finish the buildings for the orphanages for the orphans. And there was like, this one was when we first went there, the first time there was 500 kids in there. Oh, we're dying from, um, uh, not, not just AIDS, but, but also the, um, the water malaria and typhoid, you name it, it was just outside of, uh, the cool room. In Nairobi. Nice job in the R roll and uh, thanks man. I've been there, you know, worked on a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, uh, I like, I like people using, saying people's names, pronouncing'em properly. I try the best I can. Love that. Uh, so. Um, we, we really twisted our, it changed our Western way of thinking because we're there to build these buildings and they're like, no, no, we want to hear from you guys. We want to hear your testimonies. We want to hear about your lives. You want to hear what you do. We want to know, because we have children here that want to become astronauts. They want to be doctors. They want to be there. They're do they're, they're, they're like, they're learning. They're serious. They're hungry. And they're teaching these kids in these orphanages. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. And so, um, that twisted my thinking. Well, we got into the spiritual thing with this doctor. Um, Oh, I forgot his, his name. Now he's, he's actually passed since now, since then, but him and I did this prayer together where I repented for the, the white man's, uh, atrocities to the black and he repented. We were on our knees praying together and did communion together. Uh, and we buried the elements. We did wine, we did bread, we buried oil in a hole and we buried them. We did a ceremonial repentance prayer. Right? It just came together. It wasn't something that was programmed. It wasn't something we read about necessarily. It was just there, right? And after we did that. prayer time. They had a calf born that was black and white. That was an, it was a total anomaly. It was a sign for the whole village. It freaked them out actually. But we gave God the glory because it was a sign from God. We, we believed, right? Oh, I really didn't say that. This is something they brought to our attention. Like, Hey, right after our black and white reconciliation prayer, this is like totally not normal. They, they knew that. Right. So it was, They took it as a sign. We're like, well, good, I dig it. So that was, that was probably one of the craziest things that happened right there, actually in my life. Um, that was not crazy in a bad way, but maybe even more impactful as well. If I could say simultaneously, start to see and appreciate Providence, you see it a lot more. Nothing's really a coincidence when you live life long enough. It's like, wow, really? Wow. Okay. I get it. You know, it took me a while to hit me upside the head, but okay. I get it now. Right. So I don't know what my other one was yet, but I might get it. We can just move on. Uh, if, uh, people want to support your campaign or learn more about your platform, um, where would you send them? I would send them to vote. The number four, ASTE. com. A S T E. A S T E. OVO for Oste. Oste. Yeah, vote for Oste. I've been saying it Oste forever. Yeah, that's alright. That's alright. I'll try. No, you know, Oste Spamante is fine Oste. It's, it's Austrian, then Italian, then Swiss. So, it's kind of crazy. Fair. If you go to Innsbruck right now, Austria, you look in a phone book. Well, we don't have many more. They say it just like that. It's Oste. It's, there's a lot of Ostes in Austria. Fair enough. So, Oste for What did you say? Aste. Go, vote. Vote for Aste. com. For Aste. com. And there's push buttons there, there's FAQ, uh, Frequently Asked Questions. It's all there. It's a very well done website. If you want to canvas your neighborhood or anything like that. We're walking, but you know, FOCO's got some situation. I don't know when this was written up, if it changed from four years ago, but they have rules that if there's a no soliciting sign, then political. Uh, Canada drops, shouldn't even be dropped there. So it's interesting. I don't see that in Loveland and Bertholdt at the moment. And I'm not picking on Foco, but we want to be respectful. I've had people come out and yell at my woman mama with five kids and swear at them. I'm like, that's not cool. And that didn't happen this time. I'm just saying four years ago. Yeah. And that wasn't very nice. Right. I mean, it's just, That took the wind out of their, they were eager to be, to have folks hear their voices and then to be yelled at and sworn at is like, not cool. I say not cool. That's from my era. And people understand that. You understand. I understand. I understand. How about Uncle Benny's? What's your, how do they find you there? If they want to find us, we're temporarily, Bertha, Colorado. So our number still works. The same old number. 970 don't show up. There's not enough people. parking just call and see if they have what you need. Call first, call first who we have and then we will announce as soon as possible when we are going to reopen. And when we do, we're going to have one heck of a reopening party. I'm going to have some local bands, we're going to get, people are going to come down. We are going to party. Uh, I used to joke about it, but I'm not really joking. I'm serious about probably two days minimal. Uh, you know, there'll be a pig roast, probably. There'll be meat. I'm a meat eater, man. I'm a meat eater. So we'll have, we're going to party because it's time to celebrate the reopening, right? It's a grand reopening and we'll have a ribbon cutting. Loveland's ready to come in the chamber. Um, so please, please invite all your friends and we'll try to, hopefully there's enough parking because we're, we have a serious following. And a free single for everyone. Every attendee. Take a shingle home. Just one. It's been fun. Thanks for being here, Ben. Thanks, Kurt. All right. Godspeed.