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The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 200 | Nate Hines - Philosopher, Historian, and President of Hines, Inc. - Sustainable Design Solutions for Water and Life and Business
Nate Hines is the President of Hines, Inc., a global leader in design solutions for irrigation water management. He is a husband, father, armchair historian, philosopher, and business enthusiast. He received his secondary education from Oxford University, with degrees in History and Ancient History.
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Logistics Co op is a proud sponsor of the Loco Experience Podcast. We started Logistics Co op to help Northern Colorado local businesses compete with the big box, big tech monopolies that have put tremendous strain on the family business. If you want to raise your level of competition with service, Logistics Co op can be your solution. We deliver anything from Colorado Springs to Wellington for easy to understand fees that are far less than the national carry. If you are looking to raise your services with delivery to compete with the national behemoths, Logistics Co op is your solution. We're here to help people shop and ship local. Visit logisticscoop. com to find out more. Nate Hines is the president of Hines, Inc. A global leader in design solutions for irrigation water management. He is a husband, father, armchair historian, philosopher, and business enthusiast. He received a secondary education from Oxford University with degrees in history and ancient history. Welcome back to the Loco Experience podcast. My guest today is Nate Hines and he is the president of Hines Inc. So tell me Nate, um, what kind of catch ups do you guys make? We make the kind that don't make us billionaires. You don't make it, you catch up on projects. Sometimes we catch up on projects. So, but for the uninitiated, uh, Heinz does what you all water, mostly all water related stuff. You're kind of. National water experts of sorts. Yeah, we're reasonable to say and An engineering company we focus on irrigation system design Okay, and so 20 years ago, you're just designing irrigation systems and so like here in for like for regular old farmers Well, we do some AG. Yeah center pivot work and things like that for AG groups Most of what we do though is municipal. Oh like City of Fort Collins having gorgeous flowers all all around Summer long, exactly. Or every major regional park in the city. We've done the irrigation systems, the play fountains where the kids play and mechanical and water quality and things like that. What's the like special sauce around that? Like, I'm assuming, especially for a city like Fort Collins, like don't use too much water, like make it as efficient as possible. I mean, really just good hydraulic engineering is important and there's a certain magic to. analyzing water demand for different types of plant materials. Okay. So if you're thinking today about How much water a plant is going to need 10 years from now and how to size the system for that So that you're not over building or under building a system. There's there's some magic there We don't quite know what the weather is gonna be. We don't quite know how the system's gonna be maintained Yeah, so we've we've built quite a bit of intelligence into answering that question and you do this for Places all around the country like not just Fort Collins. Those are some of the visible nearby ones Yeah, we we are we have 30 people now in 13 states. Oh, wow with six primary offices across the country Okay. Okay, so it's an odd little niche industry But water is getting very very expensive around the country. Yeah, and if water is not expensive construction costs are And we've spent a bunch of time analyzing how much people pay for these systems around the country. And we can, we save them a bunch. It's not something typically that, that hydraulic engineers pay attention to, right? Um, because of its kind of small niche, um, place in the world. Oh, okay. So you're like hydraulic engineers, but working on more of a micro, not micro, but small scale stuff where the real hydraulic engineers don't really spend too much time. They're doing big stormwater. distribution systems, water treatment plants, things like that. Right. And, and your biggest things are like drainage passways and parks and stuff like that. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And your smallest things are little drip lines that go to all the little pots in the city. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And what's funny about it is, you know, irrigation is this sort of not unimportant, but small and recognized part of site development. Yeah. Yeah. Water being as expensive and hard to get as it is today. Yeah. Um, that part of the industry is changing because 50 to 70 percent of the water we use in the city goes on plant material. You know, I just thought of an invention for you if you can come up with the technology. But if you had, like there's, there's always relative humidity of like 30, 40 percent even around here, right? Oh yeah. You know the the South even in some places where they kind of have dry conditions a lot. It's always really humid Yeah, if you could have a little tiny solar powered water extractor To like gather up the water and oh, yeah push it onto the plants that would be pretty useful Yes, it's a solar panels. I get enough water I mean on, on, uh, like multifamily projects in a place like Texas, we can get, uh, almost all their summer irrigation water off of the cooling system, off condensate, just pulling the evaporated water off of their chillers. Yeah. Cause otherwise that just drips down, right? Yeah. It runs out to storm sewer or sanitary. So there's a lot of cool things we can do there with water harvesting, reduction of water use. Interesting. Um, we were on a project overseas that I can't, um, say the name of because we have all these NDAs, wacky NDAs, and that sort of thing. But a lot of work was put into that. Looking at technologies like that. How do we evaporate water like where they're trying to build huge cities? In the desert and stuff like that is those kind of big long element cities. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I've been reading about those a little bit. Well, and what an interesting Like you've got all the energy you need. Yeah Right? Like you got solar coming out the wazoo. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Um, and if you can shield the living space properly and use water effectively, it's an interesting lifestyle. It is. Yeah, it's pretty cool. And we look at probably 15 to 20, 000 systems and how they operate a year. Oh wow. Um, and we get data from some of the big water conservation groups in the country that are analyzing these things. And about half of the irrigation systems in the country over water by a hundred percent on average, we over water by about 65%. Oh wow. So it's great to go in and, um, change landscapes, fully support that, but, um. People then just overwater their drought and tolerant landscapes and kill them. Oh, wow. So the important thing to do, I think, is to start managing the water responsibly as you're making changes to landscape. And, um, and then I get the sense that there's plenty of water to go. Oh yeah. You put all these water. drought tolerant plants in and stuff like that. And then people are just like, well, the thing runs Tuesday through Friday from these times or whatever, all their plans. Well, and you notice in our office here, uh, we've got a pretty good plant selection, including a fairly healthy money tree. And the big thing with keeping good plants is don't overwater them. Yeah. You know, once a week is plenty for almost every plant. You know, paying attention to where they're at. Um, do you use technology like that as well? Um, where you can actually have sensors about how dry things are, so you can know how much water to use? Yeah, absolutely. That's part of being efficient with the delivery, I imagine? Yeah, it's, and, and the technology to really manage an irrigation system as tightly as you'd like has been, is one it's there. Um, two, it's modernized cloud based. Yeah. I think about smart homes and stuff. If I can turn my heater on in different rooms and stuff, I can do water flow kind of automations. Yeah. The, the, the, the technology part doesn't tend to be the problem. The problem tends to either be poor planning and design and then poor construction and long term management. Those are the two. Big issues. Okay, and we see a lot of money poured into great technology that just never gets used now Are you strictly design or do you actually build stuff too? We don't do any construction guys work with paper Yeah, we're designers and then we're computers. We're on site papers for stuff Okay, like we we see ourselves as being like the the white lab coat wearing. Yeah Scientists with dirty work boots. Yeah, we're out in the field doing quite a bit, but We put the shovel down a long time ago. You're mostly making sure they're building it to the specs that your designs portent. And so then you're working with architects a lot of times? Is that who hires you ultimately? Or existing property owners also a lot of times retrofitting doing things? 60 percent of our clients are either landscape architects, architects, or engineers. Okay. So they hire us to do a job. Yep. And then 40 percent are direct for land owners. Hmm. And they're the end user. Yep. Um, and that, that percentage has been growing a lot for the last five years, like you had a big municipal chunk for a long time and you know that process, but then people just want more of this from a private basis. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah, most of that, what we see, we'll see a city come to us directly. We'll see a developer come to us directly and they'll say, Uh, getting water is the most expensive, getting water for irrigation specifically is the most expensive part of developing this site. And so they want us to run due diligence to see if their project even can pencil. So if we're in Colorado. Texas, California, some of these expensive New Mexico high water states. If you don't have water, your land value is zero. Well, and like I read some of the articles in that, uh, Montava project up north. I don't know. Is that something you've been involved with? Um, super cool guy. I like that developer a lot. I don't know where it's at. I love that guy so much. I need to reach back out to him. He was on the yes, but soon list for the podcast here a while back. But the way that the, that development was treated about like how much water had to be delivered and what times and like, frankly, the, all the, it seemed to me at least that 70 percent of the complexity around that project was. Related to water? Absolutely. No question. Yeah. And there's a bunch of, uh, complexity in water rights. There's a bunch of complexity in infrastructure design. Um, it's been probably five years since we did this cost analysis for max, but potable water for irrigation on that site would have cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred million dollars for the water rights. So figuring out how to get non potable water to be able to have plant life in this development. Huge. I mean, you cut your costs by 70%. And so where did that non potable water come from in that circumstance? Well, Was it capturing runoff from that development or, or how? They've got quite a bit of, um, uh, of existing wells. Yeah, yeah. On the property. Okay. Yep. And so we did a projection on, um, Uh, if you look at the decreed volume, those wells could use and have been using for agricultural purposes. Nope. And then we look at no change of use. So you're fine. Yep. All the irrigation water they would ever need. Was, uh, like a 70, 75 percent discount or reduction over what has been used. Oh, right. Right. So really smart planning there. Um, and, and I don't know all of the details. They're going through a water court process for how they build their system and do all of these things, which is, which is great. Um, and Max will, you know, Max will get that done. Yeah. Uh, but the amount of water they're saving is extraordinary and they'll do everything they can non potably. Yeah. Um, residential lots, open space, everything. They won't need to use drinking water for anything from a, from a business structure standpoint, you're more like a, a Northern engineering, civil engineer or something like that. Then, um, or an architecture firm a little bit, but especially more like an engineering firm where it's, you know, we bid projects, we charge time and time, mostly time. It's a service hourly billing kind of thing. Huge mistake getting into the service business where I sell my time for money. At least you got white coat. It's been great. And if you got muddy boots. That's right. That's right. Um, and then probably just a pretty light administrative kind of headquarters team. How do you generate. Leads and sales, is there a marketing function of significance, or is it mostly turning in bids and more of that kind of work? Um, traditional approach in our industry that, that I've seen is that you have people who do design work in the space for many years, and as they do that, they rise to a principal level. And when you get to a principal level, that means that you're overseeing a lot of project work, you're participating in project work and then on your nights and weekends, you're trying to jump and drum up business. Yeah. And especially if the pipeline's a little low. Oh yeah. And you know, the many, many solid businesses, excellent rec reputations, uh, word of mouth. All good things. Um, the inherent problem that I see with that is that you, you, you turn and you face your client. You say, Hey, remember me? I'd love to do some work with you. Let's do some work project comes along, you get it. And then you turn around and you do the project. And then six months later, you turn back around and you ask your client, Hey, is there a project? And maybe there is, or maybe someone else has gotten the project or maybe one will start. In another six months. And so, um, I didn't like that very much. And so we started, um, I think in 2017, 2018, we started hiring principals in the company whose sole function was client relationships and winning work. Oh, interesting. Um, and so Matt Hall was our first principal who came on board. He runs our Texas office now he's down in Dallas. And, um, and then we added. Some principals over time. Each office basically has a principal or more than one, but right now we're regional, right? So we have one in Florida, we've got one in the Midwest, we have one in Texas, and then I just hired, um, a principal here in the Colorado office three months ago. All right. Uh, shout out Meredith Larson, you're killing a girl. Um, and, um, and then what we started doing, so, so that is working and has been going well. And then to feed. Um, we hired in a business development function last year, beginning of this year. Um, and so Kind of from the headquarters for all these different regions and stuff like that. That's probably at least in part why you've been more popular on LinkedIn lately. I've been seeing all your thoughtful posts. My team is helping me so much. I am not a, I'm not naturally drawn to social media. I have zero accounts. Um, I tried to sell something on Facebook marketplace and they shut me down. I'm still blocked and banned. I'm like, please buy my motorcycle. Have a nice day. Flagged, shut down. I can't access anything. So it's, um, but they, they do have me on LinkedIn and, um, and then our, our BDR function, Cameron, he's an, he's a rockstar. Cool. He calls 300 people a week. Oh, dang. Sometimes in a day. He'll work through 300 people and just, hi, I'm cam. I want to talk to you about irrigation. And he turns. Perspective clients into people that are interested in having a value based conversation with me, Matt or Meredith. Yeah. Yeah And he's been awesome. I mean, it's just incredible I wonder how look with a big look with think tank would be right now if I had somebody calling 300 people a week And they wanted to be in it. Yeah Get more facilitators faster, too. That's right. But I'm sure Cam would call them, too. Well, and you want to make sure they're people you want to talk with. Well, and a miserable experience. Yeah, exactly. That's one of the really challenging things about my business. Like, anybody that wants to pay you a bunch of money to do some irrigation, water design stuff, like, unless they're like, you know, a satanic temple, you're gonna be like, Sure. That's right. Whereas, you know, being a member of local think tank, it's like, I don't know, are you cool, not sure if I want you in my thing yet. Yeah, sure. Um, so, well, that's cool. That's a really interesting, and then can you turn, turn it up and turn it down at all, as far as like, uh, based on how, with your pipeline and stuff like that. Cause that's part of the challenge, right? Like, how do you take, take your foot off the gas pedal for a while. Yeah. Right now, Cameron, we're sending you on a trip. We don't need any more leads for a while. We're going to pay you everything. Just stop doing the project in Saudi. Yeah. It's, um, we're learning a bunch about timing right now. So it's, it's, um, uh, we did our strategic planning in September. So we look back at. 2024, how it's been going, how we think it's going to finish up and then start building plans. So January 1st, we are ready to go. Um, uh, you know, in the new year. Yeah. And, um, it takes an average of 202 days from the day we write a proposal to getting that proposal signed. To starting the project and sending a first invoice and then receiving a dollar back. So we spend a certain number of dollars every day, the first 200 days, and we don't get anything back for six, over six months. Um, first check. covers most of what you've spent so far. That first check could be, we, we could get paid for a hundred percent of a project or we could get paid for 10 percent of a project. So you've got to have a certain amount of projects going organized to quality. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a cool problem to solve. Um, and so what we've learned is we've learned how much each principal can manage from a number of clients. And then a dollar value of proposals written, proposals signed. Yep. And we can generally tie that to the number of people they're with. Well, and how many, like the dollar value of a proposal is to some extent, man hours of engineer people doing math and drawing lines on their fancy programming stuff. Yeah. Every project we write, we've got a man hour budget. We've got, when is this work going to hit? Yeah. Um, so we can hand that every week as we're signing projects every week, we hand that to the engineering team. Uh, complexity, region of the country, man, our budget, what kind of team do you need to have in place to execute this? What schedule? Work is remote. Some of it does require muddy boots, all that kind of stuff. Did you, is that, did you create something proprietary to the team? figure out all these kind of scheduling and hour estimations? And is it a big whiteboard thing or is there like industry software that helps to figure out that stuff? So we've gone, we've run the gamut, right? When, when, uh, Heinz was started. So Heinz is a family business for 30 years old. Yeah. Yeah. I bought it eight years ago. Oh, is that okay. And, and eight years ago, you know, we had a great spreadsheet we were using. It was, it was good. And our revenue was, Um, like one and a half million dollars a year. So awesome family business. Really, really good reputation. Really great client base, largely in Colorado and Arizona. Seven employees or 12 or something at that time. We were six or seven folks at the time. Um, and today we have some proprietary softwares we've built. Um, and then, and then we've written the process flows and the workflows that we need for to make our stuff work. And then we've paired that with an off the shelf software. So like we use HubSpot for our CRM. And then we write all the custom sequences and workflows we want to track. Um, we're using, uh, Kantana. It used to be called Maven link. Okay. They were bought out and that's a project management software. Okay. And so our engineers, when we hand something to them, they can. That's where they're uploading all those files that all the specs that need to be in there. Cause I'm sure it's a big data handling game too, right? Yeah. We, where do you find truth? According to this project. Yeah. So, so that runs all of our hours, budgets, contracts, stuff, tasks, deliverables, and then Dropbox is where they house all of our files, AutoCAD. They do all their design. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's, and, and Meredith actually is running for us in 2025. She's looking at, we're coming to a tipping point for our size and complexity. So we need to go through an analysis of how many pieces of software are we using? Um, How many informational hands are we changing from from in our customer journey from the day? Someone hears about Hines, you know to hopefully year 30 of working with Hines. Yeah Yeah How many different pieces of software are we using to support them? Yeah, because every change in software is a handoff that you've got to make sure you don't drop something. Yeah. Yeah And so so Meredith is running that initiative Although there's a lot of things like makes and stuff like you can use to pass off Information from one software to the next, but yes, you're, you're a hundred percent right. That's interesting. Do you have, like, in addition to yourself and the, the other principals, is there, do you got, like, a super tech operations software person that's putting all this together for you guys, or you're just a bunch of engineers hacking it together, figuring it out? That's you? Yeah, so we've got, um, we have a very gifted, uh, Station builder. Okay in Fort Collins. So he builds out our laptops and computers for us does that very very well But we we analyze software and train in that and figure that out That's your you're kind of a prime point person there. You know a couple people I'm in a place where I've handed off most of Yeah. And I can do workflow and, and help do some of the thought work around, are you having to enter that piece of information more than once? Yeah. If so, is this the right process or the right piece of software? Well, and that's such an interesting thing, like in going from where you started as a six or seven person firm, you It didn't make any sense to spend that effort. No, probably, you know, but when you get to be a 30 person firm, it's like, okay, well, this is worth it now. And if we go to be a hundred person firm, it's totally going to be worth it. Yeah. You know, all that margin is all right there. Yeah. Uh, especially in a services business, right? Where, you know, I don't know, you're, you're. You're probably average employee probably makes a hundred bucks or 80 bucks an hour or something 70. I don't know maybe 50 So there's different levels. Yeah, there is so we could have a Designer a young designer come in that just yeah, they may have an associate's degree They might have a CAD drafting degree something like that Yeah, and typically market is somewhere between 55 and 65 right that person, right? And we would go all the way up into, into the high six figures. Well, probably the low six figures, 900, 000. So I was, I was pretty close that 52, a hundred bucks an hour. Oh, you mean. Like some people make a couple of hundred bucks an hour. Yeah. We would have, we would have some folks that are, 200 bucks an hour is 400 a year. Okay. So our principles, um, between base salary and commission, they can do quite well. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a, that's a role that if you get to that level at Heinz that you can retire on that role. Yeah. Yeah. Which has been part of our goal, right? It's an important industry. No one pays attention to typically a sweatshop environment. typically underpaid, typically undervalued. That doesn't work for managing arguably the second most valuable resource in the world. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and probably for every half million dollars that people spend on Heinz, they save a half million dollars a year or something, or some, maybe it's only a third of that or whatever, but it's, it's some big number. If you spend 250 an acre on Heinz, you'll save 30, in construction costs. Yeah. It's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, so the value proposition is strong and so being able to extract a reasonable, I, I, I've said in the past, like it's easy to add value to the world. Yeah. It's sometimes hard to extract some value for yourself as a business, you know, when it takes. You know, sometimes 30 years of reputation building of skill building, of building 7,000 systems or whatever. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's enormous. And right now, I mean, we're managing, I think we probably have 1500 projects under contract. Wow. And in progress, And there are multiple deliverables for each. Interesting. So we have to have a schedule and a deliverable for 4,500. deliverables that will hit in the next 24 months. You could do my job more easily than I could do your job. I'm just saying, I'm just speculating here. I got a lot of people. You got a good team. Yeah, I could just kind of hang out at the corner and just wait until real problems arise. Well, my, my Gather the facts and make a decision. I figured that my, my skill set is in, um, I build process because I hate doing something more than once. I really, really don't like it. And, and then I also have a, um, uh, I don't really like asking people, other people to do stuff that I think is, um, not great work. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I have a hard time hiring people to do something that I don't think, um, is worth me doing. Yeah, yeah. And I've done all sorts of stuff. I've worked in restaurants and bike shops, and I was a hide carrier for brick mason. I worked on farms. I work, I mean, yeah, it's not because stuff is below you. There's just certain work that shouldn't be done because it doesn't make sense in light of the the Yeah, it's useless, stupid work that no, no human should do. I like to call it make work. Oh Lord. Yeah. It's brutal, you know, breaking rocks with a, with a freaking ax or something like that. Um, well that's a good habit to have as an executive. Um, what would you say, like your, how many reports do you have? How many people report to you directly? Um, uh, head of finance and administration, head of engineering, And then I'm currently acting as VP of sales in the company. So I interact with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5 sales and sales ops, most of which are in that principal role. Yeah. So there's seven folks that I'm, but if you get it figured out, you'd like to have a sales. Manager kind of role and then you can go back to writing your motorcycle more. Yeah, we yeah, that'd be nice What would those direct reports say is your special sauce aside from what you've already observed as far as like Kind of that process building so I don't have to spend time doing dumb stuff I'm a pretty aggressive driver Okay. Um, that helps in the business perspective from a growth standpoint and just accountability. So, so you're a, a demanding captain. Yeah, there's an unwillingness to accept, um, to accept, uh, status quo. Okay. Yeah. Um, I'm pretty good at, um, bending. current reality to my will. I don't know. That's a silly, stupid thing to say. Cause there's a lot of, uh, things that I'm being, uh, conformed and changed into, you know, just being, uh, being humbled and well, but variety of different, I mean, we, uh, are, are, are Value is a local think tank. We, we, I changed them this year, this time, about this time last year, cause they had gotten kind of fluffy and long and stuff, but I went to, uh, be smart, be kind, be true, uh, be local, be the change, be you, and the, be the change is kind of what you're talking about there. You know, you can't be satisfied, um, as a business leader with the status quo, because if you get. Too much satisfied than three years from now, then all of a sudden you're the third place guy in the marketplace or whatever. You know, and you can't get those same kind of margins. You can't hire the good people. Yeah, yeah. And that kind of, um, motivation of not. Yeah, there's, there's a, um, there's some intrinsic things about me, um, that just have to be built into the DNA of our company. Yeah. And so as I got more comfortable with that, um, what emerged is Heinz has got to be a pretty entrepreneurial place. Everyone in the organization's got to have a little bit of an entrepreneurial pull, um, and um, come to work on the balls of their feet. Yeah. I dig it. I dig it. I mean, that's how you get the best people because, because the really best people don't want to be around complacency. Yeah. And it's, it's the best people for us. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's a, um, Um, you know, it's not necessarily the best in the world, right? Yeah, yeah. We'd love to be the best in the world at what we do, but we also do it in a particular way. And, um, uh, I've gotten increasingly comfortable with the idea that I'm going to have a particular effect on, you know, Yeah, yeah. And this industry in general seems like. What's your, what's your target? Are you, like, do you want to be a hundred person firm three or five years from now? Or do you kind of like the boutique, uh, engineering consultancy place that you're at now? Yeah. Our, our current, uh, our current mission is to be, um, probably a 60 to 65 person firm in 2027 by the end of 2027. And there's some things happening in the world of, of water, environmental engineering, um, plant soil, water chemistry, that we need to have some, uh, size and some intellectual, got to be able to get there to be able to impact those things. So do you want to talk about those things? Is that, yeah, sure. It seems like now's the right time. Otherwise we might. Not come back to them, but like, I'm really, I'm a farmer kid, you know, and, and so very much, you know, conventional farming methods, you know, wheat farmers now, corn, soybeans in North Dakota, but also I'm intrigued about things like Fertilization, like watering, like, uh, biochars and different, uh, things of, uh, plant life creation, especially. Like, for me, that's the main reason I have water. Like, we can drink it, but mostly we just need food. Well, like, nobody wants to live on the surface of Mars. And it's not good for people. And it's not good for animals. And this idea that we can, um, you know, put in rock and astroturf everywhere and not have some pretty detrimental environmental, mental, emotional consequences. Yeah, paved paradise, but no parking lot, right? Crazy. Um, but there are some pretty incredible ways to take much better care of, uh, soil, water, plants. And that'll take better care of people. And so kind of the typical, this is not true everywhere, but if we were going to paint the industry with kind of a broad brush, um, we go in, we scrape healthy topsoil, we sell it, then we set up houses. we plant landscape on clay. Then we throw down a bunch of water and chemicals to try to keep it alive. And then they're surprised when it dies, unless we pour a lot of chemical and water on top of it. And then we maintain and manage those urban gardens, um, with poorly resourced, often uneducated work, uh, workforce. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, there's a, uh, And there's change happening and there are good companies working against this. And so this is not to paint all of this with a bad brush. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and there's a lot of great technical expertise out there working on this and we're just wanting to, you know, to, to find some solutions in there also. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, a great guest actually for you would be Clinton Sander over at A1 organics. Oh yeah. Awesome soils guy. fellow motorcyclist. And, uh, I mean, he's, he is just the great and powerful Clinton Sanders. It's an animal. All right. He does. Um, and so you really have a, you know, kind of below blue collar workforce taking care of our environment. And, um, you know, then we're a little bit surprised when we're killing our topsoil. we have a lot of chemicals and nasty crap in the water that are doing some pretty detrimental things. And our solution is to tear out all of the plant material. So it's a little bit of an odd suicide project in my mind that I think, I think that if we develop a highly educated workforce that are essentially being urban gardeners for us, building healthy living soil, allows you to reduce plant material. Thank you. or sorry, allows you to reduce dependence on water, reduce or eliminate harmful chemicals that we're putting in the soil and water table. Um, you increase biological activity in the soil. Sure. Living soils attract more animals, plants, pollinators, birds, bees, wildlife, all of those things increase. Yeah. Human health is better. We've done some cool studies in Dallas with Texas Trees Foundation around respiratory illnesses in public schools, relating that to tree canopy. Interesting. This can relate to food deserts. Um, you know, people can grow up never experiencing natural landscapes. Like some people grow up only eating food from gas stations. Not great. It doesn't make healthy humans. So there's some things there that I would like to, as we get a handle on our planning and engineering side, Start thinking about how we, I mean, we touch billions of square feet of soil every year. How do we make that a little healthier with what we do right now? Right. Well, and what you're talking about is like when you scrape that topsoil off, you know, the only way to keep grass green after that virtually is to spray regular chemical fertilizers on there. And then some percentage of that washes off. Uh, in the process of over watering by a hundred percent and all that stuff kind of goes down and has to be either taken out of the water or makes the water less healthy. Oh yeah. You know, downstream for whoever is, is downstream. I was just, so, uh, you know, I offered you that, uh, that, uh, joint of the homegrown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the reason I have the garden beds where I have them right now is because I had to, I moved my chicken coop last year. Yeah. And. Underneath that chicken coop was like two generations of mulch nice I've been throwing my leaves in there for eight years And I always use the chicken poop to fertilize my gardens and stuff But I built this particular set of garden beds because I had all this mulch Amazing topsoil, and I wasn't just going to lose it. I had to move it to somewhere good. And so that's where my my backyard Homegrown plant grew was in that kind of multi generational Super rich soil and even today I still keep chickens and like all the leaves that fall They just get mulched and torn up and all the garden the the kitchen scraps just go out Into there and yeah And that soil, like 30 years from now, when somebody buys my house from my widow, you know, they're going to be like, Ooh, this like, cause there'd be like three feet of soil underneath that chicken coop yard. That's just going to be like beautiful. It'd be like gold, black gold, black gold. Yeah. Old town gold. We call it. That's cool. Uh, around there. And like, just seeing like where I grew up in North Dakota, we don't get much more rain than Eastern Colorado. Yeah. Um, but the soil over generations just had so much more organic material and matter in it's a lo, a clay loam instead of a sandy clay. Yeah. And they just grow way more voluptuous crops because there's way more organic materials like the Red River Valley soils. Yeah. You know that soil can get one inch of rain a month. And still produce a big corn crop. That's awesome. Cause it just locks that water in there except for everything but the plant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? And so, yeah, it's an interesting, it's cool. Dynamic and soil has been stripped of so much of its vibrancy. If we can start building that back, we can use less chemicals, less herbicides, less everything. Yeah. It's wild. Uh, and, and, and again, like a guy like Clinton would, would be able to speak to this in a far deeper manner, but, You spray these chemicals onto the soil, you kill all of the natural biology, the natural bacteria, the things that help keep soil healthy and allow plant roots. to access water easily and access nutrients. The fertilizer kills the soil's ability to do it. Yeah. And then does a, um, a pretty amazing job for a while growing crops. Well, it's like we're living on, it's like living on fat. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like, uh, this kind of quick squirt of energy, but you don't actually, the plant doesn't even try to go get to the, some of the actual bound nutrients because it's got this. Nitrogen is right there. Easy for looking up. Yeah, it's like steroids. Yeah, a little bit like that. And uh I think what I want to do now is you mentioned that you purchased the business eight years ago It was your father's company before that. Did you work in the company before then or did you come in and You Get out of here dad. I'm buying your company or like talk to me about maybe about that Transition much smaller business at the time you mentioned. Yeah, we um My dad started Heinz when I was in high school. Okay, and I worked in and out of the business a little bit before I went to college and college was a Lengthy affair. Okay with a variety of starts and stops for me. Okay Um Like you weren't going to go into engineering kind of stuff you've done some other stuff and then well I started Um, I was thinking that direction in high school. And so I did all my college maths in high school And then enrolled in CSU starting down that track and just, yeah, it just didn't, it just didn't stick at the time. Um, so I had a couple of different college experiences in the States and then dropped out and, uh, snowboarded and worked as a bouncer for about a year and a half, two years up in like Vail or something like that. I was, uh, I was here in town, had a pass and then I would just go up and ski three or four days a week. I like it. And where were you bouncing? Um, so at that time in Fort Collins, you had Old Chicago. Oh yeah. You had, um, Crown Pub. Sure. Yeah, what's the tiny little bar? Oh the Tom pump. Yep town pump, you know, and then I think I've always been a trailhead guy myself mostly. Yeah, they had trailhead and then the really rowdy place I worked some was over by the Transport Depot. It's a they've turned it into a Washington. Yeah, Washington's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I worked around Gotcha gotcha. Duval just make pretty good money. You know, I was great. Yeah Yeah. You share, you, you generally shared the take from, uh, tips from the bar, right? And, um, it was fun. Unless you let somebody in and beat somebody up, then that's trouble. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. We're friends with everybody. Right. That's the best way to balance. Yeah, everybody wants to be your friend. To be friends with everybody. Yeah, for sure. But it was wild. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, um, you know, saw all sorts of things. Well, I, I actually, as a matter of fact, just Saturday night, I, I, uh, Went out and met some friends and then I met my wife and one of her girlfriends and we went to the trailhead for a little while and on the way out of there at like 11 o'clock, 1130. The, the bouncer had been punched. Oh yeah. By this dude. Uh, this dude that had been flirting with my wife's girlfriend earlier. I was like, dude, did you give him your number? Um, anyway, and the police were like there and interviewing this guy and the bouncer was back on duty with like a, a cut around his nose, you know, he was wiping a little eye thing, but he was, he was a trooper. Um, but, uh, anyway, so I'm sure it was a pretty interesting job. So you. Eventually go back to school, get out of your party days, and then get serious, or? Yeah, I, um, I went and lived in Europe for about a year and a half. Okay. And, uh, lived and worked there, odd, odd jobs. Um, and then, uh, while Bouncing and stuff. Well, uh, I actually worked in an art school. I did live in Italy, and um, I mean, I guess I, I, I, um, yeah. So I worked in a couple of different art schools in Florence for about a year and a half. So were you a budding artist in this season of your life? Or are you just like Not at all. You're like No, I modeled for You're like applying for this art school or, uh, to work there, and you're like, I've been a bouncer at this. Yeah. Whatever. In one of the colleges that I went to, I'm, I worked in the art department and one of the visiting professors said, Hey, if you ever want to come and live in Europe, let me know. Oh wow. And so I went over and then I got 50 bucks a week and free room and uh, I worked about eight hours a week, learned Italian, traveled a bunch, like a bum, I really traveled like a bum. That's cool. And, um, while I was there. Um, what I hadn't liked about college very much was all of the structured class time. And, uh, even then it felt like there was a bunch of nonsense. Yeah. Um, I knew how to read, I knew how to write. I didn't want to spend electoral credits taking PE classes. I wanted to get busy getting a degree and be done. Yeah. And some friends in Italy said, Hey, you should look at Oxford. Oh, okay. Keep going. So I, um, looked at Oxford and, uh, Oxford runs on a tutorial system. Yeah. And so you get a degree in three years, and you don't have to go to any classes. Every week, you're set a term paper, effectively a term paper for every class. What? So every class you take, I would just go to my mail, my little mailbox on, on a Monday morning, and I'd have, uh, a little note from each of my tutors, and they would just have a question. So if I was studying Alexander the Great, they would just have a question. And I'd go build a reading list. I could pick lectures around the university to go see. And a week later they wanted a 8 10 page paper arguing about that question. Wow. And, uh, the first year you're just getting the shit beat out of you. I'm sure. Um, and then by year 3 Because it's such a different way of learning than we've ever been introduced to. Oh, it's brutal. It's absolutely brutal. Yeah. Um, and by the end of the year, end of year three, the hope is, is you're able to actually argue, debate, discuss, write well, communicate well, um, and all of your grades that you do not have to go to class. There are no grades for three years. At the end of three years, they set seven cumulative exams and you have one thesis paper. Wow. And you sit down in a room and you've got three hours to answer three questions on your subject. And you perhaps have not, I mean, it's from year one, right? And, uh, that was sufficiently engaging. And so I came back to the States from Italy, worked in the business to save money, to go do that, applied, worked in your dad's business, my dad's business, got in, which, which, which was, uh, I don't know how that happened. Um, and, uh, while I was over there, Uh, I actually, my wife and I met two months before I moved to England. We got engaged three days before I left. And, um, we were engaged. While I was living over there the first year that we got married and moved over there together okay, so the two of us started a little office for Heinz in England Oh and Marketed that way you can write our trips back and forth and started off the trip start working on the global for school Presence or whatever, right? Like nobody can carry that flag better than the son of the founder kind of thing. That's right That's right. So in a way, I mean I was interested in it, but it started a bit as a how are we gonna pay for school? right, we I mean, I paid for my own braces in college, you know, we weren't flush with money, so I had to pay for all my schooling and, uh, this was a great way to do it. Yeah, yeah. What an interesting route and I was beating myself up a few weeks ago because I haven't ridden in a while. Read hardly any books in the last couple years. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I used to listen to audio audible books a lot more and Occasionally read shorties and stuff, but but these podcasts that I have with really interesting people every week Yeah, yeah, you know just kind of feeds me a lot I got my thinker going for a couple of hours every week with somebody that's usually smarter than me Present company. I'm sorry Drag it down here. You study like Ancient history or some weird thing? You mentioned Alexander the Great. Yeah, ancient history was my favorite. That must have gotten you ready for being the high biller at the, uh, Heinz. Irrigation company. Well, if you think about it in, in ancient history, you get to study people that controlled some of the largest empires in the world there. And, um, so if you pair that kind of expertise with the rather limited IQ and competence of a guy like me, maybe you can build a small to midsize company in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. If you study the, the masters, shoot low, young man, That's an interesting, uh, like, were you passionate about history and stuff before this season? Or like? Yeah, very much. I mean, I, I probably come from the, um, I come from a educational perspective that looks something like, um, spend time developing how you look at and see the world, learn to think about it critically. Uh, learn to speak and write about it. Mm hmm. Um, that's more important than learning. skills. Yeah. Um, learn technical skills as necessary. Learn technical skills as necessary. Um, and, and if you look at our time now, you know, you can go into a four year degree in computer science and by the time you're done, you're three and a half years behind. Totally. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so maybe do an apprenticeship program for six months. Right. Yeah. But that doesn't teach you how to be a citizen or a father. Um, or to, um, you know, deal with a whole variety of a philosopher first, uh, by nature. I think that's probably the case. Yeah. And I liked history. I did take some philosophy classes. I liked history the most because, um, that seems to be the story of what people have actually bet their lives on. Yeah. So you can come up with a lot of philosophies. or sophistries. You know, you can argue for almost anything, but if someone asked you to put your life on the line for it, you'd probably walk yourself back from that position. Um, and so what I like about history is it is for better, for worse, these are the things people actually bet their lives on. Yeah. Right. You know, I think we're, we can get into the political segment of our podcast later, but when I think about sophistry, I think about, you know, some of the results of this most recent election, you know, did people really care what Beyonce had to say? Yeah. Uh, you know. Anyway, I digress, but it's like what is really important, you know, and to a large extent this last election, like the single binding issue on the democratic party seemed to have become an abortion. That was their big, an orange man, a big place to stand, an orange man really bad. Um, and Especially on the abortion issue, it actually only affects hopefully only one or two out of 100 people each year, you know, on a regular basis, it certainly affects humanity and stuff and whatever, but it isn't like a prevailing issue that's actually important to everybody a lot. The notion that it is, is, you know, election fodder primarily in my perception. I certainly have not had to make a decision. Agreed. About whether or not I'm going to. Fair. And we can cross that political bridge when we come to it. But the truth is, it just doesn't affect that many people. You know, my wife hasn't thought about the question of abortion for a long time. Oh yeah. Right? And neither have I. And my wife and I are past that place as well. Exactly, right? Yeah, yeah. There's only, you know, a certain bandwidth of relationships and people that are really in that. But I can see what you say. Well, it's What generations thereafter, but anyway, I digress. Uh, we can talk about other stuff history. Well, then it's I mean Those are questions people have been dealing with as long as humans have been alive. Sure and and and there was a time when a humans be a hue it seemed like a human beings life was about developing into a certain type of person And it was thought that you did that by observing reality and conforming yourself to that external reality in a meaningful and virtuous way. And some of what qualified as meaningful or virtuous might change a little bit culture to culture. But there was something about looking outward and becoming more like something better. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and I think that our present moment. has a healthy dose of reality doesn't exist out there, reality exists inside of me. And it can change moment to moment based on, uh, a variety of factors or whims or beliefs, you know, depending on, on how seriously you take some of that stuff. Yeah. And, um, So I think it's an interesting time to think about history, philosophy, how you live in the world, why you live in the world. Well, when you were talking about leaders of empires, I was thinking about the Orange Man. Oh yeah. Right? Aro. Hard to say, uh, how he fits into that congregation of That dude's a wild guy. For sure, for sure. Yeah. Um, so, so tell me, I guess, so you, you Go do your Oxford tour, you get married, did you guys start a family right away so you got littles and stuff too? No, we um, so we, we lived in Europe for two years together, and then we decided to move and open an office for Heinz in Arizona. Okay. Um, And so we relocated to Arizona, started an office there, built that up. And in a very, I mean, in a year and a half, we doubled the size of Heinz from, Oh, wow. Basis. Okay. And so I started thinking maybe this is something that I could be before I make that company worth too much. I should consider. Oh, I wish. Um, um, and then that far ahead, the 2007, eight recession hit. And, uh, our. Company shrank by 75 percent in under a year. And that was not something that, um, company, the company was prepared. Familiar with weather. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so you had to do layoffs a lot sooner than you did, uh, manage to scrap together enough money to not go out of business kind of thing. Do you want to like, what were the, like, what were the shots across the bow where you really had to make? Serious action. Well, the, the, the lessons that, that I took away were, uh, don't run on debt ever as a company, uh, financial modeling and cashflow management has to be really probably the premier skillset in the business. Especially in a, in a service company with unpredictable ish forward revenues, like unpredictable forward revenues. I mean, in a way we're like a barber shop. It's very consistent. These relationships. Yeah. Yeah. It takes 200 days to get a haircut, but it does take 200 days to get that haircut So so that was really important and then the other was really be able to cut quickly Hmm, and that's so hard to do because you're forming relationships with your friends, you know And I'm just bought his house two years ago. Yeah, he's got a little guy. Oh, yeah, right So we we have conversations about that Like I have a plan right now for if we have a 20%, 40 percent and 60 percent drop in revenue for some reason. Wow. I already have the plan and our leadership team knows about it. And as a team, we talk about how do we build not just technical fluency, but business acumen fluency at every level of the it. Yeah, yeah. So that we kind of know what the levers are to pull. Yeah, yeah. That make Heinz indispensable. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like that's a, so if you want to come work at Heinz, we'd like you to have an interest in just learning about how business works. Um, because I can understand things happening that are outside my control and needing to make hard decisions. I don't like the idea of refusing to pick up responsibility to learn, teach and train. And then when hard things happen that we could have mitigated, I don't like that dynamic. I don't like coming to people and saying, You know, we really didn't pay attention to this. We've always known it was coming. We got totally caught off guard here, but sorry you're late off. See you later. You know, and that's a, um, that doesn't match well with my personality or template or whatever, so we, we try to avoid that. Well, and hopefully it also works. You know, when people, do you run a fairly open book kind of financial then too? Yeah. I figured because then also your team can help you notice expenses that don't need to be in this project or, you know, softwares that we haven't used for nine months as it turns out, even though we still got this subscription. Oh yeah. All that kind of stuff. Push the button. Yeah, shut that baby off. Exactly. So that's a lot of empowerment and as well as being a little scary, right? Like, oh, yeah I assume you weren't an open book type company when not too much. I mean my My dad has an awesome Openness and And so he I think instilled a lot of this in me I think some of the areas that I have strength in is You is doing that financial modeling, being willing to make some of those decisions based on the data that we're getting. Um, being a little bit more structured and having, having some requirements of the team that are a little different. Um, but I learned a lot of the, just how do you treat people? And, um, you know, from, from my dad, my granddad, you know, from guys like that, that just worked really well with people. So you had this big downsize, big downsize, uh, you were able to keep your job at a lesser salary. Sharon and I moved to Colorado. We, we moved back up to Colorado, uh, we kept a satellite there and some staff down there, but we. I mean, I shrank that division within a couple of months. I mean, I had land development guys saying, Hey, you're about six months from all your projects being turned off. So I started scaling very quickly. The Colorado office didn't scale as quickly. But what was neat about Colorado, pretty insulated. So we had a house in Phoenix that we bought for 215, 000. It appraised for 110, 000. in the depth of the recession. Right, right. So, and we were not quite as bad as Vegas, but not much better. Well, and we were, we were basically in the old town of Phoenix. So houses that were out, you know, 45 minutes from downtown, that 300, 000 house was worth 60. I mean, people were just walking away. So that market was hit hard, Colorado, not so much. So we came and built a really nice, um, client base around public work because they have tax dollars coming in. And so we did a lot of great park work, streetscapes, um, that was kind of a pivot at that time. Yeah. We really built that part of the company up. Interesting. Okay. That saved our bacon. Yeah. Yeah. And then everyone's always got money to spend. They do. And there were always. There was just always that next unusual project. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Um, we do a lot of luxury project work up in the mountains. Sure. And so we had, uh, uh, uh, one of the largest landowners in, in a city in Pitkin County. Um, and they came and had a couple of years of work, fully renovating, you know, a lovely 25 acre property. Yeah. I mean, that saved our bake. Covered your overhead for a while. Oh yeah. It was really great. Um, And that's in there that started the process of, of dad thinking about, you know, the number one failure in family businesses is that generational transfer change in vision, change in values. Some of those sorts of things are so tough. And so we started planning 10 years ago. How are we going to do this thing? How is this going to work? We were having conversations before that. I had earned 30 percent equity in the company. Oh, okay. Um, and so we just started working that transition. You effectively kind of took that equity in lieu of pay. Yeah. So you lived more frugally than you might have. Didn't have as fast of cars or motorcycles for a little while. That's right. But you also had something to take to the bank or whatever, when it came time to finish up that transaction with that. That's right. That's right. Yeah, and we continue to live that way. Yeah, you know, try to keep it pretty Pretty, uh, tight and simple. I like to say most people try to out earn their expenditures rather than under spending their revenues. That's rough. I know, but unfortunately it's become a cultural norm, and which when you come into times of inflation and harder to find jobs and things like that, that You can see the fruits of that pretty fast. It's a stressful way to live. Yeah, for sure. Um, do you want to talk about that actual transaction of coming into ownership? But was there, is there anything of interest in that or is that kind of more private? In that regard? Let me think about that. I think that, I don't think we did anything too complex. Okay. Uh, in Phoenix, my wife and I started Heinz Inc. Okay. So Heinz irrigation was typified by. Uh, providing irrigation system design. So you're working in that construction document world. So for people not familiar with what we do, imagine that you're having a house built, you go to the architect, say, draw that house. And, and it's not the fluffy picture that they're drawing. It's the actual. Structural design, every board, every outlet, every wire, every fitting, everything's detailed out, right? So Heinz has big expertise in that. Something we started doing in Arizona was the upfront water planning. So if you're developing a thousand acres, And you need to buy 10 million in water. Yep. You're going to need to get that water from somewhere. What are the water rights? Do you need groundwater wells? Do you need storage ponds? Do you need potable meters? Are you building a wastewater treatment plant? And if you are wrong about that irrigation water demand, you're over building all of that infrastructure by 50 percent or a hundred percent. So Sharon and I, with, in coordination with Heinz Irrigation, we started Heinz Inc. to do that financial modeling and water planning up front, give that to cities and developers, they map that into their pro forma, and now they know how much to spend every year for the next 15 years to get this project out. Well, they can also potentially design a system that doesn't require so much water. And that then, we, we set that water plan in place and then they go to construction documents with Heinz Irrigation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so what that allowed us to do then was, um, buy Heinz irrigation essentially over time. Yeah. And so we set a, and there's some ways that we structured that with our accountants that were beneficial from a tax planning perspective for my family. Um, we, we did have a, um, a couple of valuations done. We picked the highest valuation. Um, we've, I've got kind of three siblings. So it was really important that they never feel like, you know, they got aced out of exactly the situation. Although certainly from their perspective, they recognize that you. Made dad's business worth a lot more too. By the time he exited or you helped to do so. Anyway, I was just reflecting how, oh gosh, forever ago, number 47 or something was a gal, Emily Kincaid, that was a former member of loco. Um, sadly she passed on from an aggressive cancer. She built a company doing frack water. Yeah, finding, brokering, moving, pumping That's cool. And that was like it's interesting that your puzzle is a little bit similar to hers They were like, oh we need this many cubic feet per minute of frack water for this well and You know, you can get it from wherever you want. Yeah, but where are you gonna get it from? Yeah, you know, there's these farmers that have ponds and these farmers that have water rights on the canal And you know, where are you gonna get it from? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's fantastic. Oh, she was a dynamo Yeah, it was a really really superb and she built a 200 employee company. I was like a 31 year old gal in Weld County, you know, and just no fear. Just a lot of just, uh, joy and love. And one of the people I'll miss forever. Kind of. That's amazing. Yeah. There's so many amazing people out there. There really are. And I'm in a blessed place that I get to meet a lot of them, you know? Um, I feel like we've covered a lot of the business journey. We haven't grown, you know, we kind of went back to high school, but let's, let's talk about little Nate. Little, little six year old Nate. You were. A town townie, is that right? Your dad was around here already, or did you guys move here? So I was born in, uh, Decatur, which is a suburb of Atlanta. Okay. And my dad's people all come from Kentucky and West Virginia. Okay. Very. Yeah. I mean, I have a, I had a great uncle who, you know, went to federal prison for some alcohol during prohibition thing, transportation or development or something like that. Yeah, I like that. Moonshiner kind of bootlegger kind of style thing. Okay. Yeah, but definitely, um, a, um, You know, a rambunctious group and my mom's family, they're all French Canadian lumberjacks. Oh, also a rambunctious group. Her side of the family was all about feats of strength and, you know, drinking and knocking people out. I like it. Um, and we, um, yeah, born in Georgia, born in Atlanta. And when I was three, we moved to Nashville. My dad's family was there. And, uh, we were in Nashville, Tennessee till I was 11. So, 89, we relocated to Fort Collins. And my dad was working as a mechanical. How was that? Oh, it was awesome. You thought it was awesome coming from Tennessee to Colorado? It was, changed my life. I mean, I've always been a, um, can't sit still, want to be outside kid. Yeah, yeah. So, I started, um, We lived in a part of Nashville, now it's lovely, Sylvan Park, um, you know, million dollar homes, awesome place to live. Right, now that it's been gentrified properly. Properly gentrified. When I was growing up, it was, it was, it was rough. Yeah. And, um, um, but I was just out. Running around with a BB gun 18 hours a day. Yeah. Yeah. And um, so coming to Colorado meant just, and Fort Collins at the time, pretty small. A lot of dirt roads. Totally. We just, we just lived, like, had a bicycle. Tom Sawyer knew how to use it. It was awesome. They should pull on a bicycle and I knew how to use them. Oh yeah. It was incredible. And to this day, um, you know, we've lived in a bunch of different places. Um, but coming back at you, flying to DIA and you see the mountains there, it is the best. You don't have a place that you dream of moving to here. I just, I love being, not yet. It's getting a little busy. You know, it's getting a little busy. I mean, before the California started moving to Montana, that was really nice. Idaho has still got some decent spots. I don't know. Yeah. If it was just me, I'd probably be in Idaho or somewhere like that, you know, a little bit quieter and Collins is great. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Um, so you were, Rambunctious kid. Did you get good grades and stuff? Were you trying? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always hated school. I mean, I loved, it was a tortured relationship. I always felt like I could do it three hours, what school was trying to do in eight Yeah. And so I've just had an inborn resentment for needing to take eight hours to do what it TA takes. Yeah. Most people I think three hours to do. Yeah. Yeah, and unfortunately, yep So I kind of flipped back and forth between homeschooling and going to school Okay, and I don't know if that was my parents plan, but it was just kind of a necessity Yeah, homeschooling with your mom. Yeah, your mom's direction mostly. Yeah, and even that was She would get up, and I was usually done with most of my schooling. So, pretty self directed. And I'm not sure that they knew what to do with me. So, it was a lot of running around. Um, High school jobs and stuff too, I suspect. So you had a little pocket money to chase girls with her. I started mowing lawns when I was five or six school jobs, dude. My, um, the lawnmower at our house was a nasty old thing that you pushed in front of you. I mean, it was, it was a pretty significant hazard. Yeah. Um, and then I started when I was eight or nine going out and working at a ranch for a family friend on weekends. Okay. And that was awesome. And so I was. fixing fences, catching horses, shooting guns. I mean, it was, it was awesome. And so I had a lot of fond memories of that. My granddad was a really hard worker and owned businesses and things like that. So I worked for him in Nashville. Um, and, uh, enjoyed that a bunch. And, um, and then when we moved to Colorado, I got, I used to deliver the Colorado and newspaper. I was 13, 14 summers. I would mow lawns wintertime. I would, um, uh, Deliver papers and, and, um, the big reason for, I think some of that is we just didn't have any money growing up. Yeah. I mean, we, um, we were, your dad had started his business, but it was not till 96, 94, sorry, 93 is when he started and it took a couple of years to get a taxable income and they had four kids. Yeah. Um, but when we, when I was little, The number of times that my sister who's three years younger than me, we had to push start the car so mom could jumpstart it to get to work and school. She'd drop us off at school and go to work. And we, uh, there were periods of time where, um, people in the community were bringing food to us. Didn't have a lot of money. Yeah, no. I mean, I, I, my, my, uh, my mom discovered, gosh, about the time I graduated high school, that my dad had cashed in the savings bonds that her parents had bought for me when I was born, you know, a couple of hundred dollars of savings bonds or something like that. Um, but that was, that was how desperate times were at times for our family as well. I mean, we were free school lunch for many years and all that. So, which is good. Like honestly, like when I got out of banking and, you know, Um, you know, my income went from 85, 000 a year to 15, uh, and, you know, Jill and I had to navigate that journey, you know, we, we certainly negative cashflow for a while, but we'd grown fat and happy, you know, and, and going through some periods and it keeps you humble when you're talking to others that don't have as much right now either. So I think I consider it a blessing usually as long as you get your way out of the other end of it. Yeah, you teach you, you have to learn a lot about who you are. Yeah. And if you're going to. What sort of person you're going to be in hardship? Yeah, yeah. And, um, so there was, um, there was some healthy and some unhealthy, uh, perceptions that I had of myself and of our family coming out of that. Yeah, yeah. One of them was. Um, you're, you're going to have to raise and provide for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which can, can provide some, uh, positive results from the outside and some positive results, period. Yeah. But also it can give you some stuff that may have you look at the world in other people and stuff like that. Yeah, no, I can feel that for sure. I, uh, you know, when I got to, Even when I got to college, you know, as a very rural, I grew up high school class of five, right? So in North Dakota, everybody thinks they're kind of losers because you have to live in North Dakota already And but you know, I want to go to college and I'm kind of got this kind of, you know, less I'm less Capable, even though I did all my schoolwork in three hours and everybody else took eight too. And it took me a couple of years to really acknowledge to myself that, Oh, I'm actually just as capable, you know? And then part of that is the, and then that's poverty too, right? Like poverty is more social relational than it is financial. And in most, Places. I mean, it's always really financial too, but it's that, that feeling of hopelessness that you can't get there. Sounds like your family didn't quite get there, but you definitely had some scars. Yeah. There was a sense of, and this probably didn't come from the poverty part, probably just came from family dynamics, but just, uh, some undealt with chaos. And, um, that along with poverty, I think it's pretty, it's pretty rough. Fair enough. Um, I think that, um, I'm gonna call a short break, and then we will have a closing segments. I love it. And then we'll wrap up. Sounds great. All right, it's been fun. Yeah, buddy. Um, we always talk about faith, family, and politics. Uh, so obviously, like, you know where you could get weed if you wanted to. You didn't have to wait nine years, but you're, so you're not opposed to it. But you're, I sense that you're a, a high performance focused individual. Is that right? And that this is not a performance enhancing drug. And so therefore, It's off the table. I mean, it's not that it's off the table. I just, um, Don't want to be habituated toward it or whatever. Yeah, and, and, and I think people, well, I know everybody responds to all the things that happen in life in a variety of ways. And, um, mine has been, um, Taking responsibility for everything. And managing is at as high a level. I can managing stress and otherwise through mostly physical effort kind of thing. And then on the mental side, I suspect you meditate, yoga, all that kind of stuff too. Yeah. Um, So I guess from a, from a political standpoint, which of those, like, I, I was just listening to Tucker Carlson talk about how he would like to see the U S become Saudi Arabia, rid of all the drugs, you know, chop off fentanyl dealers, hands, like just stop all of it. Because as Americans, we're all on something just about like between pills, alcohol, weed, and sugar. X sugar. Yep. I mean, sugar is, you know, activates all of the, uh, a bunch of the networks in the brain that cocaine does, um, big dopamine hit. It is a powerful mood, uh, mood stabilizer. Um, obviously I don't think it is cocaine, right? There are a bunch of, a bunch of us that can't keep it on the road unless we have a lot of sugar. You fall, you know, you fall apart. You a sugar addict then? No. No. No. No, you're, I mean, you would, you would pin it. My, um, my propensities would be to get addicted and rely on things that make me look better in public. Stronger, prettier. So that's a big risk there, but do you want more of that or should I put that out? No, I'm good to go. You're good? Okay. Yeah. Um, I mean, you just, uh, you just smoked weed on the local experience. That's right. Your public persona takes damage. You know, I'm, I, uh, It's pretty good already, so you'll be fine. Yeah, I have no idea. And there's just probably not time to care a whole lot about it. We don't have that many listeners anyway. Oh, no. It's ridiculous. You guys are great. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, I don't know that I do a whole lot of good caring too much about public persona. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, that's a good reason to be on. I've had a couple of failed episodes and it was always people that were like employees of some visible local company. And either it was just a sucky episode or in one case they, they wrote an email the next day and said, Hey, we can't publish that. That's not in line. That's why I'd like to talk to business owners. Cause you can choose for yourself what you want to talk about. And I think that's. Like, I don't know if we want to drift into this part of the politics, but we just had an election. Yeah. We can go anywhere, man. You know, I think that this election certainly was heavily impacted by the, the 2020, um, COVID scene and the BLM scene and the kind of reverse reaction in some ways to the law fair against Trump in the subsequent years and things like that. Yeah. Um, I guess my question is, is how. should we structure society? Like, like how much liberty should people have? Um, how much, you know, you hear, I mean, it isn't really a liberty versus not liberty, um, environment anymore. Yeah. You know, the Democrats are my body, my choice, except for get your vaccine, you communist or fascist or whatever. And, and, you know, we need to police online. free speech is kind of, for when you're talking to somebody in person, it never supposed to apply to the internet or something. Right. And gun rights. And then the other side is, you know, the, the conservative basis is at least accused of restricting rights in some ways. Um, you know, I tend to put my, I'm, I'm actually really proud of the anti war pro liberty pro liberty movement. inclusion of others in the tent kind of movement that happened for Trump this year. But what's your thoughts on that big picture stuff? Like where, where are we going? What's our, what's our culture willing to become? Are they willing to put in the work to become strong? Yeah. It seems like, I feel like, um, the war has, the culture war has been, um, magnified by the internet. Sure. And so I think I think there are whole arguments, uh, that look very divisive that if you just walk down a street in Fort Collins, everyone would, you know, pretty much agree and be happy about it and let's get together and have a barbecue. Um, but the, the, I think the media presented war seems to be a war against competence. Yeah. Um, or of the, um, the idea that, Uh, I'm most responsible for myself. Um, you know, that, that seems to be something that has shifted a bit. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote a blog about that, uh, a while back that, you know, the first thing you got to be responsible is for yourself. And if you're there, then you can start caring about other people's stuff more. But if you're irresponsible in yourself, you kind of lose your, like, should we, Should we restrict voting rights in that capacity? Well, I've heard I think Vivek put that notion forward that if you're not a taxpayer at some level I've um, you don't get to vote if you're just if you just receive benefits. Yeah, and you've never paid taxes You don't get a vote. I don't know what I think about that There's a part of me that likes it that that likes the idea I think probably what I would do I think what you should tie that to if you do that is Make everyone pay taxes. Mmm. In some capacity. In some capacity. Yeah. Um, even if it's, even if it's, even if it's just a little bit. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I don't know what to do if, if someone's born with, with some severe incapacity. Down syndrome or whatever. Right. Yes. Or you're a military veteran and or your military family and you Lose the spouse when they're overfighting. You got five little kids. The government doing something like the, and maybe not even saying the government, the American people electing people who will write policy to figure out how to take care of people in need like that. I am all for it. And then I'm probably really all for, uh, people giving. privately outside of, out of the government too, that, that even probably is better for Americans to take ownership of. Have we, uh, have I shared my motto with you from LOCO here? No. I had it for a couple of years before I formed LOCO even actually. It's, uh, ask of your needs and share of your abundance. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it's really, it's kind of a, a more complicated motto because, um, like, don't ask of your wants, because I don't want to provide for your wants. Um, you know, but do ask of your needs and including like business leaders and, you know, people that try to hide their fears and, and whatever, sometimes, uh, their shortfalls or weaknesses, there's, there's, there's scary spots. Um, and then the share of your abundance also implies don't take it from me, you know, but be gracious to share. And I think that's a better way to, to, to, Create a strong society. Oh yeah. You know, especially with AI coming along, AI can be like, well, we should down, downsize funding for respite care. Cause there isn't as much need, we should upsize for United Way. But we do have a lot of nonprofit organizations that are funded by generosity in this country. And there's a, there's a great book on this subject. The title escapes me. It might just be called giving or something like that and it was written by a more left leaning person who went he talks about this He went in to write the book believing that what he would find is is that other Western nations like European countries Take far better care of the poor and of their societies. And that comes through government largesse. Um, and what he found is, I think the book is called who cares. What he found is America's the most generous country in the history of countries, the amount of small, private and large, but small private donations that go to needy people, uh, is, is extraordinary off the charts, both in our country and around the world. And, um, and when you go look at European countries, there is almost no charitable giving in comparison because they just assume the government is going to take care of it. Um, so pulling that and separating that out from, uh, Individual community responsibility, I think is really not good. And so I love the, um, I love the, the, the, concept of hyper localization. There's a specific word for that, that concept, subsidiarity. So subsidiarity is the idea that you drive responsibility down to the lowest, not lowest, but smallest possible unit. So if I, if my wife and I are making a decision about how much meat we need to buy for the family for the next day, week, or month. It's best for us to make that decision rather than somebody in Washington D. C. saying the Heinz family needs 17 ounces of protein a day. Now let's direct every decision between here and there to try to make sure they get it. It's crazy. Subsidiarity would say, drive responsibility down to the smallest possible unit. So individual, family, family. Village community, community, city, state, you know, keep fire trucks low as possible in that, in that hierarchy. Uh, and I'm a big, a big fan of that. So Trump, he just announced that, uh, the department of education is on his chopping block. Good. You feel good about that? Oh yeah. That's, um, you know, in light of that principle, well, competition among states and among regions. 200 years ago, a kid couldn't start school. Kindergarten, what we would call kindergarten until they were fully fluent in reading, writing, and basic arithmetic. From the parents? Yeah, the parents would teach. And, and educational studies show that a motivated person will learn to read and write with fluency in under 100 hours. Wow. And so the idea that, um, anyway, Department of Education was established in the 80s. Yeah. And. There's not a single metric of American education that is approved. Yeah since then agreed What we have done is spent millions and trillions of dollars Building an administrative class. Yeah, too That could be the deciders over how everybody needs to do their tests and blah blah blah. It's insane Yeah, it's almost worse than the homelessness efforts in California but even there it's the same thing like You If education gets fixed, then why do we need the department of education? Oh yeah. They would run themselves out of business. Same thing. If you fix homelessness, how are we going to pay all these high paid bureaucrats to fix homelessness? Well, it's, it's, I mean, it's a horrible problem in the sense that any, every institution that you start, if it exists past the period when it's providing a real, fixing a real problem in the world, then the. then it transitions into something that is only existing to try to keep itself alive. Um, and that's not healthy or good. And I don't think we should want, if we're, you know, left, right, or whatever. Um, I don't understand the argument for wanting that type of thing to be in place. I mean, I think small, local, and I would have said five years ago that that would be a far more liberal. We've grown up in Colorado with the desire for drug legalization, small CSAs, uh, localized power structure, utilizing solar and local minimum wages, local minimum wages. I mean, all sorts of where you, or you look up in steamboat or some of the ski towns where they're saying, guys, you can't buy investment real estate anymore because Our people can't live here and we don't want to employ force people from three hours away to drive up every day at work. So it's, it's those sorts of hyper local issues have a million different experiments running around the country. Let small mistakes die quickly. It's way less expensive to resource the fix. I mean, something amazing about America. I read, Sowell's economics books. Um, Uh, one of the reasons why America has such an incredible, um, resilience and innovation in business is that we can go bankrupt here. The society has decided we're going to pay for making fast, quick mistakes. And really there's an argument for, except for student loans, except with your federally managed student loans. Um, so, so it's like incentivizing fast failure. Is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. So in Japan They or China, they will fund failing businesses. It's one reason why China specifically is in big trouble financially, right? Because of their Syria, their, their tendency to honor bound, don't lose face. You know, there's some great things about that, but one problem is generationally they will fund failing businesses and that they're changing that some. Um, but in America you can go bankrupt and start again. Totally. And there's not a. I need to kill myself to not shame my family because I lost generational money. People do sad things when they fail, but the system doesn't stigmatize. We don't stigmatize in the same way. There's a, uh, there's a peer advisor organization, kind of like Loco Think Tank. I can't remember the name, but you have to have failed at three businesses and have an existing successful business before you could be a member. That's smart. You know, there's certainly a big number of people that have been there. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, you never hear the stories about the failures, but they are every day. 95 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years and then three quarters of them fail in the second five years. So it is, um, there's a ton of failure out there. And, um, So, so that's a way that the American economy has grace. Yeah, yeah. For failures, start again. Right. I love it. Well, and historically, another big advantage of the American model over other countries, especially Europe, which they're struggling with now, is turning people into Americans. Yeah. You know, you look like you might be an Italian, kind of a background guy, or No? Tante grazie, molto gentile. Um Were you going back to your roots in Italy? No, no, I just went because I had a job. But I mean, the Italians came over here in droves during a certain period. And then the Irish, right? I think I'm German French. Okay. I think German French, although Uh, I think, uh, I know on my mom's side, we have a full family of First Nations people. Oh, really? That we've learned about too. Oh, cool. So I'm trying to learn more about that. Yeah, yeah. That's neat. Um. From Canada, obviously. That's what they, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's cool. Isn't that wild? It's, it's neat. And only, like, uh, like a great grandparent. Right. So not too far removed. Right. So there's an interesting history there. Yeah, cool. Anyway. Yeah, I was hoping to find something like that for my bear family tree and get me some. College scholarships or something, I did not find any of that. Um, oh, so anyway, on to the, the notion. So, and, and most Americans are, descended in some capacity from somebody that came here out of a great need, but also great opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that's kind of a little bit in line with, with even the, the, whatever, 10 or 15 million new arrivals the last few years, it's both great need and great opportunity. No discounting. Desperate their lives are that allowed them to leverage everything and pay a cartel 15, 000 to get here. Right. Or whatever. Yeah. Um, And not a business model we necessarily want to support. Oh, absolutely not. And like the, the, the cultural norm now seems to be more like, you should just stay the way you are, uh, Yep, own private universe. Yeah, kind of yeah, everybody's your individual you're an individual and if you're a Haitian and you're eating the cats and you're eating the dog So as long as you go down to the shelter and get them for yourself, don't steal them from anybody Then you could be you Or whatever, right? Maybe that was doesn't quite that far. But but there's no pressure to become an American Yeah right now or at least right now You know, maybe, I don't know, maybe, maybe MAGA 2024 with the Big Tent, uh, is something like that? The New York Times had a map showing every county and if it moved left or right as compared to the last election. And with the exception of a few counties in the country, every single county, Didn't move less. Yes. It kind of sat flatt it. Yep, yep. Um, but yeah, some of those blue counties went from 24 point Biden wins to 12 point Harris. Yeah. Or 20, yeah. To 12 point Harris wins. Yeah. And it didn't seem be, but their margin of victory went down. Um, yeah. And it didn't seem, it seemed to be incredibly, um, uh, racially inclusive. Mm-hmm Across the voting base. For sure. For sure. So I think that people that are coming to America that want to work hard and have some. Individual independence to grow families and do the things they do outcomes. I think that, you know, uh, maybe back in the fifties there would have been a religious conservative culture that controlled everything. And I think that, that, that, um, religious type control has just, has shifted to a different set of philosophies. Um, you know, the, uh, and so I see a bunch of people that don't want to be controlled. Right. That's who's coming now. Yeah. So there's no pressure. Why would, why would we assume that somebody who's coming from an oppressive or difficult scenario somewhere else wants to come here and encounter something that's hyper controlling and authoritarian? And we've got, we have, um, one, two, three, we have five employees. that are, um, first generation immigrants to the United States. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Out of 30? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, it might be six. So I hear from people that five years ago were living in either South America or over in Europe or in the Middle East. And. see what they came from and then get their read on American politics. And, um, they don't like big government and they don't like giving government the tools that can be, um, oppressive one day in a way you like, but then some whack job wins the election and then they're using those same powers against them. And I think you're seeing a lot of that telegraphing happening right now. There's, Oh my gosh, what is this Trump guy going to do? With the legal tools we created to screw with people initially for Obama, because that's what Trump did in his first term a little bit, because he was being in cock blocks so much in the Congress with, you know, uh, impeachments and investigations and this and that. But when he by executive action took away the tax deduction of your federal taxes of your state taxes, like that was like a big old middle finger to California, New York with significant financial consequences. Yeah. Um, but it was only through power that had been afforded to Obama basically. Well, and it's, it's interesting. The, the, um, I guess the Senate has been talking about eliminating the filibuster for the last four years, which is idiocy in my opinion. And, and that makes for a very, very strong. President. Right. If a president and Senate are connected, they, they can do a lot of what they want to do. Yeah. They have immediately dropped that conversation. Right. I'm sure. They no longer think it's unconstitutional. Well, in the, there's, I think there's 16 states that were in the popular vote compact. Yeah. Where they said if, you know, they just were gonna put all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. Wow. Including California. But yeah, they haven't really, They haven't talked about that since the election, since Trump won the popular vote. Yeah, that's the other side of the coin. If you don't, if you didn't want that guy to win, um, and I would agree with make the government as weak as humanly possible. So that it doesn't really matter who gets elected if you don't like them They're not gonna be able to screw up too much, right? Right? No, I think and make that that's my argument in general as a libertarian kind of make it small So it can't be manipulated so much. You know, the main things that needs to do is defense, of course. Yep, some Fights between states and things, you know water, you know, California, Arizona, Colorado have a lot to fight about it Absolutely. Oh, yeah, for example, and then Monopoly, yeah, trust busting. Yeah, you know keep the corporations from the union of government that's strong enough to keep the corporations from Manipulating. Yeah for their own accord. Absolutely. And those are really that's pretty much it I would put I would put international like treaty sign. Oh, sure. Ocean stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair Well, and ultimately war to you have to um, I like the small standing army, isn't that nice? How many military bases should we have? You How many do we have right now? Do you know? I don't know how many, but I think it's hundreds. I think it's like 185. Woo. Almost as many as there are nations. The thing that I, that I don't know what to think about with that stuff, Kurt, is I don't, I don't get the daily briefing, right? Like, I don't know how fricking scary. Before Somali pirates actually take that shit over. Yes. Uh, agreed. Yeah. So it's like, and you look at all of the old great empires, they built incredible armies. They overextended themselves. They started to pay mercenaries to fight for them. And when you've got to depend on, on mercenary, that's like, you're just, you're on the Ukrainians. Like the Ukrainians ish, the Germanic tribes. If you're Rome, you start paying other people to do your work and you offload that responsibility. You start believing you can get away with some pretty nasty things because you don't have to see what you're doing every day. And that goes not just for warfare. I think that goes for how we create our energy, Yeah, yeah. Where we get our clothes, where we get our minerals and our cell phones. And we get away with a lot of bullshit because we're not having to kill and butcher the animal themselves. And, um, that's another argument for a bit of poverty. Um, if, if not financially of spirit and, um, we would, we would all make, I think, more conservative decisions if we were having to make the life and death decision. And so I think we're just, I think even of our food. Oh, absolutely. And, and there's the problem of how you S how you feed 8 billion people without some automation that, that, I don't understand, and we want to keep that in place. I've got an amazing uh, chicken ranch in my backyard, and it's a long ways away from creating enough protein for me and my family. You know, and a lot of garden beds and stuff like that, a quarter acre roughly. Well, only, I mean, I've probably got, I would say got a thousand square feet under cultivation, maybe, you know, ish. And then, you know, maybe about that much square footage dedicated to the chicken operations. That's awesome. Um, but that leaves a lot of space, you know, but, but the city won't let me have 200 chickens back there. Probably for good reason. We kept chickens for quite a while and loved it. Kids took care of them. We eat a lot of eggs. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Oh, they're the best. Yeah. Oh man. Um. Anyway, I digress. It's so good. But it, but it's impossible, really. Like, you really need some kind of productive I'm a big If you are very strong, you're gonna avoid a bunch of war. Yes. And, and, I mean, this does get into a bit of my wheelhouse. Um, historically speaking. Um, the more decisively you fight a conflict The fewer people die. And, um, we're a little bit more about dragging, which is kind of what, well, yeah, because it makes so much money for all the companies that build the bombs and stuff. It does that. And I think the emotional salience in diplomacy is well, and that's why Israel's in a tough spot. Cause Israel's like, we're just going to take care of business fuckers. Yeah. Kind of, that's pretty, was that the most brilliant? Uh, the, the pager bomb thing. Was that the most brilliant piece of warfare that you've ever seen in, or even virtually read about? It's the most targeted, uh, uh, attack in history. For sure. In history. A hundred percent. Yeah. And they had to build a certain type of pager and get them into the distribution network. Three, four years in advance. I mean, that's extraordinary. Two years in advance. Probably like get it into the supply chain without the supply chain actually knowing it. Yes. It's crazy. That's crazy. Yes. And I think, I mean, I think Massad's got people in the Iranian government. They've had people in each of these governments selling out. Do you think there's Massad in the American government? Oh, I'm sure. Of course, I'm kidding. Oh, good. I'm teasing. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's. I mean, I, whatever. Hopefully, we've got some people in their government. It's wild. I'm sure it's all happening. You know, we got, uh, my, my wife and family, like three out of the five of us got robbed by gypsies on the train in Rome, uh, back in the day when we were visiting over there. Yeah. And it, you know, it felt a little bit like being raped, uh, and a little bit like, you Damn, you got skills! Like, how did the two of you Did they pickpocket you guys, or did they A couple came through the train, got on in one stop, off in the next stop. They were rude and chubby, and she was really pretty. And all of her pockets were empty, virtually, after they made their way through the train, rudely. That's amazing. It was incredible. And, yeah, you know, and Israel's kind of like that too. Their influence, uh, and their, uh, intelligence about the way of the world, and, and, you know, that's part of, like, people hated Bill Clinton, um, uh, because, like, he, you know, got away with it. So much stuff. It just was kind of schmoozy and stuff like that. And, and it was mostly jealousy. The Republicans were like, well, how do we get away with so much stuff? How do we enrich ourselves properly? Get blowjobs at the freaking white house, you know, without getting impeached. All these things, right. Yeah. And it's kind of the same with Israel. That's part of why people hate the Jews is because they're just kind of better at being humans in some ways. you know, the, the, the amount of wealth that they have. And, and really the, like the Japanese, not in Japan, kind of the same, so much more successful than white people in America. Yeah. I think that, like, um, I was reading that, uh, young women that immigrate from Nigeria are crushing it. Right. Um, people that are from, uh, Asia, India crushing it. Um, yeah, it's, it's, I mean, I think a ton of it is mindset. I'm sure it's coincidence because we're a very racist nation. The most generous, uh, Immigratory nation in the world. Yeah. You know, absolutely. We've gone on a nice scroll chase in the politics segment. Anything else you, uh, care to comment on? We haven't really talked about the election in general. Would you like to commentate? I mean, I think, again, I'm a, from the business discussion, I'm a bit of a disruptor and a bit of a change person. I temperamentally lean in the direction of, um, things need to go through a fall. And a spring, right? You gotta have fall, winter, spring. Rather than have a break. Just bailouts of the auto industry in 2008, you would have been opposed to? Yeah, yeah. The banks? Yeah, and like, you know that the, I mean it was reported the banks were taken in and just said, You are going to accept this money or you're gonna be shut down. Cause a couple of banks said, no, we don't want to do this. Ford auto company didn't accept my money. And so, um, I, you know, vowed at that point that I would never buy a Chevy. Um, yeah, I'm proud of them. You know, that's, that's a good thing. Um, yeah, I think the more that you delay a reckoning or a correction, the larger and more artificial you make it. So we don't tend the forests. We have really bad forest fires. Um, so you think we're do that now? Yeah, I mean. I think that's always happening. Sure. Everywhere. We're things are, things are always aging, delay the record and corrupting a bit and trying to delay a little bit of pain every day and see if one can put it off or shift it onto another person or another, you know, whatever. Um, and you, you know, you can only outrun that for so long. Yeah. Um, so I like. So like the RFK guy. Yeah, yeah. Environmental attorney. Seems to have done some really cool things for the environment. Were you on an RFK train before? I read through a bunch of his positions and I was like, I kind of like the revivification. Yeah. I like, um, someone saying things like, I will never force you or your family to do something medically. Yeah, were you a COVID dissident? Um, yeah, again, disagreeable and I like to be outside. Yeah, yeah. So we didn't really do anything. The first few weeks, you know, we're like cleaning off the packages and what the hell is going on. And, you know, no one really knew what was going on. Yeah. And, um, sometime early, you know, a couple of months in was sort of like, This is, this is rough, but not what we thought it is. And the things that the government and, and what not. And I, I kind of like, I thought the governor did a good job in Colorado of not being an attention suck. Uh, wasn't out virtue signaling about all the stuff he was doing. So there's some, there's some things that I would have been more lax with, right? If I were in charge and had the stones to do something like that. Right. But I didn't have a huge disagreement with Colorado. Okay. I could go outside. I didn't wear masks. Nobody messed with us, our school. Uh, sent home medical waivers for masks the day that the county said that. Oh, which school is that? Liberty Common. Yeah, well that was uncommon. Yeah, you had to be in Weld County to get a little, a little more of that. Otherwise, yeah. So our, our kids were, you know, just running around. Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm not into being an experiment for pharm, pharmaceutical companies. And whether this thing. That was what I said. I was like, Well, if we're gonna, like, fast track this thing Oh, yeah. Which is like the first of its kind, like, genetic manipulation tool Yeah. Then everything should be fast tracked. Like I've heard the argument that you should just get rid of the FDA for drug approvals and just, uh, allow for some liability and, you know, take what it may. Well, I mean, it was weird to me how pharmaceutical companies are known to be some of the most cost effective. Openly corrupt country companies in the world like 40 billion dollars in fraud fines and charges over the last 10 years Oh, yeah, it's crazy some 25 or 30 percent of FDA drugs that are approved get pulled from the market because they're killing people Really? Yes So it's it's all of that stuff like five years ago. Yeah everyone agreed with, you know, Sackler family killed hundreds of thousands of people with opiates. Like these people make some great things and they're not your friends. Right. So, um, at the time we just thought, we don't know if this is going to work out or not. So let's give it a year or two. And you know, a year or two later it was like, not safe, not effective, has to be dosed many times to prevent. you can give it to others. You can get it from others. Probably not and for quite a while, if you got sick with COVID within two weeks of getting the vaccine, then you were considered unvaccinated and counted in the unvaccinated numbers, even though there's a lot of evidence to suggest that you're, you're not Resistance to COVID went down a ton in the first 10 days after taking the vaccine. Yeah, you took a big spike. And if you got COVID, they pulled that off the list. What kind of coaching is that? It's like, you're unvaccinated, you got sick with COVID. It's like, well, I got sick with COVID because I got the vaccination and it weakened my immune system for a few days and then I got it. Isn't that wild? Imagine, imagine that you were, um, imagining, imagine you just had any other health condition. Right. And the doctor came to you and said, well, we can give you this drug. Now for two weeks, you're going to have dark suicidal thoughts and you might kill yourself. But in two weeks, this will start to work and whatever will happen, you'd never do something like that. Well, it was an odd, weird time to me. Me and you were like mid fringe cases in some ways where we were, you know, I'm 50 now, you're probably 40. 47 next month, baby. Damn, you look a lot better than me. Um, but either way, we were kind of mid range. But the, the 5, 10, 15 year old children, 20 year old boys with like super duper immune systems that just took that shit and turned it into myocarditis. Dude, crazy. And were mandating it so they can go to school? Yeah. That's insane. That was just loony bins. Like they had no risk. Like, I just don't know. Or in healthcare providers. It was dark. That had already been sick. Dude, that was so dark. That was the worst. Military, military. I just, I just think you get in a really bad spot if you start telling people what to. Yeah. You can't make people do stuff. Um, I'll send you my blog, uh, from a few years ago. The Makers Marks, I'd love it. The difference between the makers that actually make things. Yeah. And the makers that are like. You do this? Yeah. I'm gonna make, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna make you Yeah. It's that, it's that diffuse leaves a mark or distributed responsibility thing that I think screws stuff up. Yeah. Do you have individual power to create and make a difference in your world and be the change? Yeah. Or, uh, are you gonna be restricted from doing that? Alright. One more thing. No, go for it. So that was politics, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Faith or family next? You pick. Let's do faith. Yeah. So I, um, I grew up in a Christian Protestant family. Okay. And, um. A non label? A non denominational? Yeah. So Presbyterian. Okay. Yep. That's as close to as, like, our church is kind of non denominational. Yeah. Yeah. But. And I went on now light. Yep. Um, uh, and yeah, so grew up in that community, uh, and especially in the south. Pretty conservative, pretty rigid. Yeah. Because till I was 11, I was in, in, uh, Nashville, Tennessee. Right, right. Um. So there's Presbyterians there too, not just Baptists. They've got Baptists. I would think the Presbyterians are perceived as kind of loose compared to the Baptists. You know, it depends. Okay. I think you've got your free will Baptists. You know, there's a lot of how strict you get there. Yeah, yeah. Just like the Lucerans, they got a left and a right fringe kind of thing. And you've got an Orthodox Presbyterian, and then, I mean, there's all so many flavors. Protestantism is so fractured, right? So, was that, like, you got raised a Christian, you stayed that way? Was there a journey of discovery for you along in that? Yeah, I've stayed, um, a believer in God and in Jesus. Um, and then I think that's changed and evolved a bunch too. Um, and so, so, I really, I mean we had, you know, a few, Hard times in in our lives. And so there have been times where I've been probably a lot less vocal and a lot more doubtful Okay. Yeah 13 years ago. One of our kids passed away and one of our kids died. Sorry, and so that's a rough time So you think about you know, why would God do this? Oh, yeah, you know, how does loving God? Right, and then I went through a period of just feeling like I wasn't gonna Um, you know, this isn't a subject I understand, and so I'm just not gonna say a whole lot about it, um, until I feel like I can honestly Yeah. Talk about what happened. Yeah. So there was a long period of time where I didn't go to church. Okay. Wouldn't pray. Yeah. And things like that. Didn't actively renounce your faith. No. Also didn't really express it in any meaningful way. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty, I've remained very convinced that, um, that I think something made the world. Sure. And, um, and that there's some type of, uh, creative. There's a prime mover, certainly. Yeah. So that didn't go away. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but I've definitely gone through periods of time where whatever that thing is probably is either indifferent or angry at me. Yeah. And so, work hard, keep your head down. Yeah, yeah. And, um, some of, so. Well, and then, like, when it comes to, like, grace, though, and forgiveness, and self examination, like I'm sure you've probably done a lot of terrible things in your life. Yeah, I've had my share. Yeah, yeah. I mean, probably less than me, you know, because I'm three years older. But like, what do you do with that if you don't give yourself some grace, I think? And also forgiveness of others. Also, I think those two things are pivotal, you know, part of the lubricant of society that's dried up. I suppose along with trust in, in our American, I mean, gosh, I wonder what would happen in American commerce if trust could be re magnified again. Oh man, I mean, if you think about eBay. Right. Have you thought about, uh, there's the story about eBay when they first started. Yeah. So eBay is one stranger on one side of the world shows you a product that you believe that it is what it is and that it's worth what you're going to pay for it. And then they believe you're going to send them the money. Right. And when eBay started, they set up a whole. Uh, escrow account, and verification third party structure to protect people's product sales and money. And what they found is they shut it down very early on in the process because they never needed it. There is something inherently trustful about American culture. You deal with people expecting not to get screwed most of the time. Um, and it is a powerful thing. Well, it was super powerful. And I think that's part of why Musk is such the champion over free speech and free commerce that he's become because he was there in those days of PayPal and eBay and the establishment of a global community that talk to each other, you know, ask questions about the eBay item, but still lived and revolved around this trust. And I think, you know, the combativeness, you know, and I don't, I don't know. Um, I've never been a real big Trump fan. This is the first time I voted for him in this past election. I voted Gary Johnson and Kanye West, uh, previously. But you know, the coalition, frankly, that Trump, well, it was the protest vote. It was like, seriously, the system is actually going to give us Trump and Biden. Yeah. Come on. Give me a break. It's pretty wacky. Yeah. And we deserve it. I guess. Yeah. We deserve what we get in some ways. But anyway. So. Where was my trail going there? It was related to, oh, so I think that's where Elon Musk kind of comes from is that kind of, no, we need to have open communications, open commerce, open platforms. If people are being bad, we need to community note them, you know, and that's the way that we develop a thriving trust based world. Because if the rest of the world could start to develop trust like America's thrived upon, Yeah. It would be easier. Oh yeah. You know, and that all comes from rule of law, property rights, all those beautiful things. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So, so in your faith journey you've kind of started coming back to church again and, like, refocused or Yeah, it was really lovely. Probably in 2017, um, my, my wife said, um, You've had some time. I think you should start thinking about taking us to church again. Okay. And she'd been going, right? And, and our kids have been going. Regularly or occasionally, but less because dad wasn't going. Yeah. And so that was, um, I mean, I think, uh, uh, you know, our kids are so lucky to have their mother. Yeah. For sure. Um. And so we started going again. We were in Dallas for a year, opening our office. So we started going to an Anglican church down the road. Oh, that's another whole business chapter that we actually talked about. That was, uh, we left out, but, uh, next time we'll talk more ancient history, um, and more giant disasters. I love it. Uh, next time you come back. Yeah, we could do, we could do several podcasts on the giant disasters I've been a part of. I've only been a part of small disasters. So. Where did we, how did we bump against that? Um, uh, we started going to an Anglican church. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It was a, you know, within a mile, that was great. And I like the part of the liturgy that I like is that, uh, no one really cares who the pastor is. And, uh, there's something kind of nice about that. Anyone could get up and, Oh, is that right? Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. I mean, someone could just get up and read it through. Somebody's sick. Awesome. Here we go. Oh, that's interesting. So I, I like the, what I like about that is every, it's like every Anglican church is all doing the same thing every week. Yeah. Almost. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Catholic mass, Anglicans do this. Oh, is that right? Greek Orthodox church is going to have a historic liturgy that it works through. Oh, interesting. And so there's a. And there are pros and cons to all of these models. Yeah. One of the things that I like about it is it's less personality focused. Yeah, yeah. It's more, this is a story that we've been telling for, you know, a couple thousand years and that's evolved and changed over time and. Our, uh, our church that's kind of non denominational, but Presbyterian Light has like four pastors, effectively, to some extent for the same reason. To water down that personality factor of, and then they all take turns and we go through Luke for, A two year period. Yeah. Or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Um, but not four years like the Greeks do. Yeah. I've been listening to the St. SPI on Oh cool. Podcast. Uh, and, uh, now it's called something else. But, uh, but I've enjoyed That's interesting. Their manner of teacher too. Yeah. I should check into that. I have a, a couple of buddies that go there. Yeah. And, uh, that's fascinating. It's, uh, it's, I've learned a lot about, like, but not enough yet about that notion, so. Well, a bunch of that stuff is, uh, you can talk about that stuff forever. Well, and that's part of the, the, you know, I think it's, a lot of times people package church history as kind of, All these bad things, but the truth is there's only a little bit of bad things, but there's a lot of really interesting things and dynamics and philosophical conversations about what should be in the Nicene Creed. Oh yeah. Right? And, uh, 99 thesis? Why don't you just get one more? I'm sure you could, I don't know. Or is it 98 thesis? I forget. 95, okay, whatever. You just needed five more things to complain about. And I have a few I could have added. Right. But it's all philosophical. Like the Anglican notion of like, that's really the, that's why England came to such strength, I think in some ways is because they're, they're parliamentary systems and the notion of battling out ideas in a public forum was the first time that Socrates is stuff had really been used on a larger scale. Oh, maybe I don't know. I just came up with that shit just now. Well, you've definitely had Western culture idolize. Greek philosophy, Greek style of government, and for that to be tested and practiced. Absolutely. But it hasn't been used that much. You know, the Socratic method of trying to find truth, usually there's, most places there's just been one decider. Not that much open discourse. But the Brits, to my knowledge, were among the of yelling and shouting in the House of Commons. Exactly. That's right. So anyway, well, you're the student of ancient history, but let's do a family. Yeah. Tell me about this woman that you, um, asked to marry you with, or maybe she asked you, I don't know, but within like two months of dating her, it sounded like the mighty and formidable Mrs. Hines, Mrs. Hines. Um, yeah, we, we met, um, Does she have a first name? Summertime, Sharon. Summertime? Oh. We met in the summer. Summertime Hines. Summertime Hines, that would be cool. That would be fantastic. Hi Sharon. Um, and we went out on a date a week or two later. Okay. And uh, And we just kept hanging out. And she only went out on the date with me because she knew I was moving to Europe in two months. And she was kind of in a spot where she was like, I don't really need a date right now. She was recovering from uh, Just, yeah, didn't need, didn't, Just didn't want to be distracted. Wasn't into it. She's about to start her masters. Oh, okay, okay. And so she's like, well, you know, hang out for a couple of months and then he's out of here. Um, but we really, uh, we really liked each other a bunch. Yeah. And so we never talked about getting engaged or getting married. Okay. We just dated. We just did stuff. We hung out with our families. We just did, we had two months, six days a week for two months, just hung out all the time. And, um, and then I, It didn't seem good to me to, um, I felt like it was probably, and she had things going on in her life, right? Master's degree. And she was going to go do AmeriCorps. So you're traveling around doing some things like that. So she had stuff going on. So it felt inappropriate for me to say, um, just hang out. I'll be back at Christmas. Yeah. Um, it felt like we either ought to break up or, um, or I should ask her. Make it official. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, And a good friend of mine asked, what are you waiting to find out about this girl before you decide to ask her to marry you? And I thought about that some and it's like, all right, yes, that's right. And, and we'd, we'd had a relationship such that if we had broken up, it wouldn't have been devastating. Yeah. So really getting to know each other well, but you know, it would, it would have been sad. You didn't hang the moon on each other yet and still don't really like, that's one thing I say about, uh, One of the most right now, but, uh, a woman or a partner that wants me, but doesn't need me. Um, and, and then both want each other. And, and yes, ultimately you should develop that need, even that it's a longing and whatever, but, but on the front end. Like I don't really want somebody that really needs me when I'm thinking about contemplating a relationship No, and it was it was neat to me to see something. I mean, she's got a life. She's got shit she's doing Yeah, you know, she doesn't need you're exactly right doesn't need this So I asked her to marry me in a parking lot at CSU at 9 o'clock one night Somewhat spontaneously, and she said, yep. You're just like talking and you're like, you're so awesome, will you, will you marry me? Will you marry me? Yeah, just like that. That was that. And she just said, yep. She said, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Alright, and four days later I flew to England. Okay. This was before Skype, FaceTime. Right. Um, so we talked once a week. Long distance calls were 80 an hour. Dude, so expensive. We had no money. Um, and, uh, we just wrote letters and we just, we, it was like, Hey, email was happening. We could do some email. Um, and we just felt like if we grew more fond of each other, that was a pretty good sign. It was going to be a thing. And if not, then. We could break up and it wouldn't be the end of the world. Um, and we got married a week after my first year. So we met and married in under a year. Love it, dude. It was awesome. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Um, it was awesome. If she was here, what would she say about how she was willing to say yes? So quickly, what were her favorite things about you? Um, I think that she really, um, likes how I, you know, just, I pick things up and, and just own them. I just get after stuff, adventure, work, relationship, whatever it is. Uh, I'm a pretty active guy and, um, I'm pretty decisive about. Making things happen and doing things. And she was really, that was something that was exciting to her. She's got a big battery too, I suspect. Yeah. I mean, well, think about what it's like to meet someone and move to Europe with them and you've known them less than a year. Yeah. I sort of, I watched 1883 or maybe it was 1923. They're the shows that come after Yellowstone and one of the guys is in Africa, he's a big game hunter and he meets some socialite and. He's like, Hey, I'm going back to America. You want to go? She chased him down and went with him. I was like, that is my wife. I mean, that's a big fucking bet to make. Yeah. Um, and, uh, so it's, it's, it's But also, what else are you doing? Oh. You know, you got something better to do? No, no, no. Um, what was It's the best thing to do. What was the, uh, what was and is, uh, the thing that you love the most about your life? So, so Sharon, the first time we talked was, um, talking about, she went pretty quickly into how she looks at the world and life. Hmm. And the sort of person that she wanted to be. That's very bold. And, uh, the way that she thinks about life and the openness she has with her ego, Um, was, uh, really interesting. Kind of refreshing. Compared to a lot of guardedness and that age group and whatever else. And that has not changed. So, just her openness of heart. Um, uh, she is a strong lady. but she is incredibly gentle and kind to people. Yeah. And so, and she doesn't have a hint of malice. Yeah. She just doesn't lie. Um, and that has not changed. You know, we've been married 23 years, I think this year, 23 or 24. And, uh, my wife and I'll be 22. This hadn't changed. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So, and you showed me the picture of the rock and tatas. Yeah, she's fantastic. I'm just kidding. I have zero. I'm just kidding, Sharon. I did not see any pictures. Yeah, I'm a lucky, I'm a lucky dude. The Loco Experience is our final segment. I love it. Craziest segment, or craziest story or experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share. Oh, do you want to talk about your kids? Let me tell you in 90 seconds. Yes, I got one word descriptions of your children is what I usually that's I'd like to have a one word description of each so my we do it fast. Yeah, my daughter Casey's 18 Okay, she's a warrior a warrior. Hi Casey. My son Jonah is 15 and He is Strong and he's kind yeah, it's two words. It's both your mom Yeah And then my daughter, Nora, she needs more than a couple words, but I've got this one memorized. She's 11, and she's like a 50 50 combination between Bruce Lee and Audrey Hepburn. I like that. So just super light and fun. Everything's always fun. Like a powerful pixie. Oh yeah. But she's the one that'll sneak up to me when I'm working in the yard without my shirt on and smack me as hard as she can on the back to see how red my handprint she can make. So it's, uh, they're, they're awesome. That's the three? Yeah. Okay. We have a daughter that was born between, um, Nora and Jonah and she, and she, she died. Born in miscarriage or childbirth or accident? In childbirth and they don't know why. Oh, wow. Sometime over the course of a couple hours. Wow, yeah, so you were like, yeah, we had a baby and then hey, our baby died. Yeah, we found out just right there. Total normal, in the hospital, no signs, no beeps, no nothing. Just, yeah, it's a sudden infant death syndrome. That was Something like that. I mean, I think oftentimes that refers to, that's for later, after it's been home and stuff. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Wow, what a hard, no closure either. Absolutely. Was that hard on your, on your wife? Yeah. More than you or less than you? No, I think hard on both. And, you know, we learned in the process, probably, I think it's 80 percent of couples that experience that get divorced. Oh, wow. I mean, it's very high. Yeah. And, um, you, you deal with a bunch of hard stuff. And we had some physical com, uh, complications. Sharon ended up being in bed and really horrific pain for a couple of years. Oh, wow. Uh, so we've, we've had a couple periods of time in our lives where it's, you know, you're kind of in a war zone and going hard. Do you want to, is one of those what you want to share in a loco experience or that seems a little private, maybe, I don't know. That's those are, I mean, those are, those are crazy though. Yeah. I mean, Jill and I miscarried. Yeah. And like, we went in for a, what do they call it, with a little scanner thing so you can see what the little critter looks like, and they're like, oh, it's not, like, moving. Yeah. Uh, that was hard. Oh, it's, it's horrible. I don't, it's, um, those are the hardest things. Yeah. Those are the hardest things. Um, and so it's, you know, you mentioned earlier, people get married, hopefully they're getting married soon. Yeah. And it's not a needy or dominating wantingness or something like that. And I think everyone gets married because that person is meeting a need. They don't perceive that they have. We all do that. Um, and if you're lucky to go through life with somebody who's committed to, um, uh, learning to love the person you're becoming, Like, like as Sharon and I are trying to mature and get healthier, I'm starting, I'll see, or she'll see a way that she's been behaving that isn't healthy for her, but it served me in some way. Right? And so like, if, if you have a chaotic life and somebody is really stable, so you're attracted to them because they stabilize some hard or broken part of you. If they've been doing that out of a sense of, of, uh, something that's not healthy, right? Then, as they get healthier, now you don't have that crutch anymore. Yeah, yeah. So, going through marriage, as those things untangle, and then loving a person when they don't meet some need that you had, that's a, that's a way to really go through some hard stuff. Well, and like, You know, when Jill married me, I was a banker and was going to be a banker for a long time and super stable and, you know, no traveling like her dad always did. And yeah, all these things. And then, you know, for her, like the demonstration of her love to walk through those early years of entrepreneurship was very galvanizing and challenging as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a broad set of shoulders in our family now between Sharon and I. Um, it's awesome. Uh, but very, very hard fought. And you feel like you can kind of take on anything because of that. Oh yeah. Do you have anything hard planned? Um, I mean, growing the company a bunch and then learning what to start doing that's meaningful when it's in a place, I mean, my goal is that, that Heinz is a healthy structure that can operate without me and I don't have plans to leave or do it, you have sell or do anything like that, but I'm not helping my people be as healthy and strong as they can be. If I'm not moving toward a goal like that. And then, like, what, how would you spend your time? I don't know. Okay. That's the, that would, that's a question I'm thinking about a lot. Yeah, yeah. You know? Fair enough. Well, you're qualified to be a loco facilitator if you'd ever like to, uh, do that role. I'm getting close to getting time. Awesome. I'm getting close to getting time. Well, I'd love to spend, uh, another couple hours with you in a while on the podcast and before that, uh, let's go get breakfast. Yeah, that'd be great. All right. Well, um, Nate, it's been a pleasure, a very, uh, nice, long and philosophical conversation as usual. And, uh, Oh, like people that have water projects, uh, you have a website or something. I presume we do find us, uh, heinzinc. com. Um, great place to go. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm not on any other social media platforms. I changed my mobile phone every six months. Oh, right. Website's a great way to get in touch. Very good. Contact us at Heinz. Yes, sir. All right. Cheers. Thanks for being here.
