EXPERIENCE 226 | Partners in Construction - Brothers in Life & Business & Faith - Chris & Patrick Elder and Austin Dodder of Elder Construction, Inc.

In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I sat down with Chris Elder, Patrick Elder, and Austin Dodder, respectively the CEO, President, and COO - and Partners in Elder Construction, Inc.  We start by delving into their roles at Elder Construction, along with their roots in Northern Colorado - and previous to that, Colorado Springs.  Friends since birth and 1st grade, respectively, we explore together the history of their friendship and the founding and evolution of the company.  We touch upon their emphasis on building strong community relationships and focus on commercial construction projects - and the poor results when they dabbled in residential construction!

The trio shares fascinating anecdotes from their youth, including adventures and misadventures, and highlight the challenging yet rewarding path to their current success. We also discuss their personal lives, relationship-building, and deep-rooted faith, which plays a significant role in their company's ethos and leadership style.  So please join me in enjoying my conversation with Chris, Patrick, and Austin, partners in one Northern Colorado’s most highly regarded commercial construction companies, Elder Construction.  

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In this episode of the Loco Experience Podcast, I sat down with Chris Elder, Patrick Elder and Austin Dotter, respectively, the CEO President and COO and Partners in Elder Construction Inc. We start by delving into the roles at Elder Construction, along with the roots in Northern Colorado. And previous to that, Colorado Springs Friends, since birth in first grade respectively, we explored together the history of their friendship and the founding and evolution of the company. We touch upon their emphasis on building strong community relationships and focus on commercial construction projects and the poor results when they dabbled in residential construction. The Trio shares fascinating anecdotes from their youth, including adventures and misadventures, and highlight the challenging, yet rewarding path to their current success. We also discussed their personal lives, relationship building and deep rooted faith, which plays a significant role in the company's ethos and leadership style. So please join me in enjoying my conversation with Chris, Patrick and Austin Partners in one of Northern Colorado's most highly regarded commercial construction companies, elder construction. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. I'm joined today by Patrick Elder Austin Dotter and Chris Elder in that order. And they are the market president for Fort Collins Northern Colorado, as well as the C-O-O-C-E-O and together the partners of Elder Construction here up in, uh, I guess what would you say, Windsor, when people ask where your off headquarters are at? Well, I think we say Northern Colorado Crossroads. We're, we're located in. Do you just try to be ambiguous? Yeah. Community ambiguous. The nature of our work takes us everywhere, so. Fair. Yeah. We have, while we have a headquarters, I, I'd say every job site's its own office in a sense. True. That's why you have all those little trailers that say Elder construction site. That's right. And then we also have a location in Colorado Springs, which Okay. Is where we're from and where the company was founded, which is why the distinction of the market president in Northern Colorado. Correct. And who's the market president in Southern Colorado? Uh, gentleman by the name of Steve Dewe. Okay. Runs our office down in Colorado Springs and has for the last four years. Okay. And was he around for a long time before that? Just not running it? Or has he, was he added to the team? No, he was added to the team. Okay. Um, he and I had known each other through a Vistage relationship. Okay. And, um, so stars aligned and, and we were looking for, uh, some real veteran leadership in that office. Gotcha. And well,'cause you started down there, right? Right. And your dad, your dad. The elder dad started the company. Elder dad started, founded the company in 94 down in Colorado Springs. Okay. And, um, you know, we, from there, we kinda grew up in the business. Austin, I think what makes this story fun is the relationship that the three of us have had for, gosh, going on, what is it? 35 plus years. Okay. We, uh, we met in first grade Oh. Is ever since Okay. Have done life's journey together ever since then. And this was in Colorado Springs, I presume? In Colorado Springs. Okay. Neighborhood. And what, uh, like could you tell these guys apart right away, Austin? Was that one of the reasons they became friends with you? I don't know if it was right away, but, um, pretty quickly you learn to tell'em apart. Right. I mean, you know, I think one of the things that people always ask me is they're like, can you tell'em apart by looks? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, can you tell'em apart by their voice? And I'm like, now I can. Right, right. I generally, in a public outings, it's kind of like on track right now. Like Chris, you're generally in a little nicer shirt, sometimes even slacks, you know, Patrick's more polo ish, not quite as frequently shaven, you know, uh, perhaps. Is that an accurate, uh, descriptor or is that just my experience? I think it depends on the days. The, the really tricky ones are when they dress the same. Do you do that sometimes intentionally? No, not intentionally. Just that joke is we have spare shirts at the office.'cause every now and then we'll show up with the same shirt on or, or one that looks a lot alike. And it's like, okay, who's changing? Somebody's s changing. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. So, um, so talk to me about like, why Northern Colorado do you, I'm, I'm think I remember maybe you came up for college. Is that true in all of you? Is that true also? We did, we did. So, um, you know, throughout the story, I, I wish it was more intentional than it was. But yeah, we came up here, um, CSU to go to school. Uh, how we picked CSU is, uh, I think a funny story. It was brilliant early admission. I mean, we, we all, I think both our families come from a value of education. And so there was this expectation, you're gonna go to college. Okay. Um, and, uh, I remember CSU came down to Eric Academy High School. That's where we went to school. Okay. Okay. And a sophomore and junior year, I guess it was. And, and basically they, I, I, people don't believe me when I say this, but they, they had a assembly and pitched CSU and. Said, Hey, if you raise your hand now, well we got this early admittance program. You don't have to take the SATs. You just, oh, you kind of, you get a free, free pass right in. And kind of all three looked at each other like, Hey, that sounds pretty good. Let's, interesting. Let's go. And we knew, uh, I don't think before we went to CSU, but we, we had heard of the construction management program. Well, I was gonna say, were you planning on being like in the construction trades anyway? Was that what you went to school for? Well, pat, you wanna tell that story? I would like to have Pat talk. Well, I'd love to. I think, um, you know, we're both from, from, uh, a family of builders. Austin is from a family of builders. I think that's just innately who we are. And I, I don't think I ever envisioned, that's why they give, uh, like, like shoemaker names and stuff like that. You know, you guys would've been opolis if you're Greek or something like that. Right? Well, probably not Opolis. It's probably something more complicated, but, or deck your engineer probably should have been in our last name, but yeah. You know, I think that's just in our blood. And, and CSU was a great fit for that. And we came up to CSU and, um, I, I very vividly remember early on my, my parents saying, Hey, this is great. You're going to CSU, they've got a great construction management program. Uh, we'll help you pay for college, but you can't go through it. And we kinda looked at each other and, and, and, uh, well, why not? That's what we want to do. And, you know, I think wisely at the time, my, my dad specifically said, Hey, you've gained. A lot of experience in construction, just growing up in it. Mm. Uh, where, where you can really close, try finance or something like that. Business or a business, try business leadership. And, uh, so went down that path and ultimately ended up in construction day one out college. But am, uh, very thankful that he pushed you specifically, or everybody kinda was more of a business general, not construction management. Well, I was in the same position where my, my dad was like, I'm not paying for you to get a construction management degree. Um, is that right? Yeah. That's so funny. He was like, you want a construction management education to come work for me? What if you said psychology or something like that? I don't know. Because yeah, psychology was not on my radar. Yeah. Fair. Um, but you know, for me, I actually came to CSU on an Air Force, ROTC scholarship. Oh. And construction management wasn't even one of the programs that they provided scholarships. So you had a list that you kind of had to choose from and I was like, well, civil engineering's kind of adjacent to construction management. So that's originally what I went to, uh, CSU for, was for civil engineering and. You know, to make a long story short, after two years in ROTC decided that wasn't what I wanted to do with my life, you can keep your scholarship. I'll do what I want. Yeah. And so, um, he doesn't take direction. Well, no. Um, and so I ended up transferring to construction management after a couple of years as civil engineering. Gotcha. So, and was dad in on that or he, yeah, after two years they were kind of like, well you paid for the first two years in college, so we'll pay for the second two. Fair. And how about you Chris? Uh, you had leadership business kind of same track. I did, I was really interested. Were you guys, like, were you guys like twinsies taking the same courses and stuff most of the time too, know? Uh, you know, strangely enough, Austin and I probably took more business classes together than Pat and I did. Um, I know Pat you were down kind of the management track. Marketing management track. And I went down more the real estate finance. Oh, I see. Yep. Sure. And then Austin, I only how you, we managed to take accounting classes together and, uh, but. We probably spent more time together in class than Gotcha. During those days than, than the two of us. But yeah, we did, um, our freshman year there was a class, uh, called Rocks, Oxford Jocks, and it satisfied the science credit. Okay. And uh, like a geology class or something. Yeah. And I remember the, uh, showing up for the final, and it was, did they say you guys don't, look, here's the backstory. So we, we did construction growing up for my dad. So that meant you're rolling out at 6 45. You were pushing concrete around sometimes or whatever. You're up early. So that first semester you look at the syllabus and you're like, rocks we're jocks. 7:00 AM That's not bad. We we're up at six. And then you get to college and then you're up until 1:00 AM and then it's harder to get up at six. It was, uh, it was one of those Tuesday, Thursday classes and, and, uh, we showed up for the finals. There's two of you.'cause we, one would go Tuesday, one would go Thursday. Shared notes and Yeah. Easy peasy. Easy peasy. I, uh, actually I stopped buying textbooks, um, after my second year of college because I was terrible at attending class and stuff. And I thought, oh, I'll just read the, the book and catch up, kind of. And then I never really did. And that's not how they test anyway. Yeah. But then I, like, I couldn't skip class anymore and I was pretty much dean's list the rest of my, my college and I saved a bunch of money on textbooks. Yeah. I, I'm with you. So I, I, I was like an audible learner. I'm too, and like I had to pay attention if I was there and paying attention. Shit was pretty easy. You know, it turns out like relying on brute strength to read book by osmosis when it's sitting on the shelf didn't work very good for me. That's that's this guy right here though. Yeah. Chris, there were many a times where we would trade off who had to take notes in classes and we'd get to the point where we're gonna study for a test and, you know, we both boy cope in our notes and inevitably I didn't have any, you'd have three lines including like a little drawing of the pretty girl up front. Yeah, exactly. And he's like, um, where are your notes? And I'm like, yeah, they're up here. Yeah. And he was the guy that asked me the question You want Yeah. The guy that didn't buy the book and we just, you know, the night before the test be like, well, can I borrow your book and stay up all night reading the dang thing? Yeah. And, and set the curve. It used to drive me crazy. I worked so dang hard. Well, it's nice to have those giftings. Um, let's, uh, let's, before we go into the whole long journey, let's set the stage on, on elder construction and what it is. Who, who, who you work for. I, I can see you more of a commercial focus, but also some tenant finish, but mostly vertical construction of medium, small to medium size, sometimes big buildings. Yeah, we, I don't know. Yeah, we, um, talk to me about it. So it, it, uh, company started obviously as mentioned in 94 and we've just steadily grown over the years. Um, okay. Our portfolio, we, we stay in the commercial space. Um, so what that looks like is, uh, we do a lot of K through 12 charter schools, a lot of financial institutions, some light medical dental, uh, has been a big part of our portfolio over the years. So like nice buildings especially it sounds like. Yeah. Nice. And, and I think it's not so much industrial manufacturing. We do that too. Um, not, not heavy manufacturing. Um, and I think it's, it's very interesting. You look at the two markets that we serve and they dictate a lot of the work that we do. So, Northern Colorado, for example, I think it's newer, it's growing. We do a lot more ground up. Um, in Colorado Springs, that's a very established market, a lot of large real estate because of the, the size of companies that, that occupy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh, we, we do a lot of large tenant finishes. Okay. So I think it's a, it's, it's really market driven. Okay. But we like to pride ourselves in, in being able to tackle any kind of commercial, um, construction project, uh, and, and get very personal. And it's a general contracting firm. General contracting firm. Um, do you do like public bid stuff as well? I must do with, you're doing schools and stuff like that, or is how, how you get a lot of your work? Or is it more, uh, relationship driven kind of, and people say, Hey, I need to build this building for my business? Yeah, it's definitely more relationship driven. I think that's a, a key tenet of, of what we enjoy doing. Um, we don't participate in the, the public hard bid market. Uh, very often, sometimes market conditions dictate that we do, but we really enjoy working with clients early on in the process. So before drawings are, are completely finished partnering with the design team, the ownership group, uh, helping really provide a, a deep pre-construction process that helps with budget construction. So not truly a design build firm, but kind of right in between with trying to get as close as you can without actually having a big design team on the, in, on the payroll. And, and we do a, a few design build projects, um, by bringing architects into the, to the project with us. Mm-hmm. But predominantly we, we work in what they call a, a, uh, construction manager at risk, where we're brought on when designs maybe 20, 30% complete. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we've really enjoyed that. It allows us to, to really engage, uh, in a relationship. It's less transactional for us and feel like we can really add a lot of value to the, to the process that way. So. Okay. Uh, it's been fun to see slower in Colorado Springs, but Northern Colorado really adopted, I think that early procurement method with, with Nan years ago. Mm-hmm. Um, and so it, it's, it's us getting involved early and, and, uh, really building the relationship and, and even the procurements in public have really shifted that well and when everything keeps increasing in price, like the month before, you know, every month it's a, it's, it's nice to get your stuff right away. Right. Nobody likes prices. Yeah. You lock in your price now. Yeah. So that, that's a big part of it is just helping the, uh, the owner and the design team design a budget. Yeah. Fair. Um, and talk to me about the team a little bit. Like, uh, maybe both contrast Northern Colorado and, and southern Col. Did you call it Southern Colorado or Colorado Springs office or That's, we call it Colorado Springs. It's interesting. Northern Colorado and then Colorado Springs. Right. It's, well'cause nobody wants to be like, it's not just Fort Collins Right. You know, Fort Collins is 35%, but probably not even 20% of your actual market.'cause Fort Collins is built out so much. Right, right. And Colorado Springs is, it's big. Yeah. I don't think people realize that. Jill and I lived down there for three years. If you haven't, if you haven't made that, that trip, uh, south of Denver. Yeah. And over Monument Hill, that's, it's uh, uh, it rivals Northern Colorado the size of Northern Colorado. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's, yeah, just a sprawling monster. And it grew for a long time in kind of concentric circles. But is there more growth happening on the fringes or is it more growing north toward Denver now? Or what's going on with that? I think we're seeing growth northeast. Yep. Okay. Uh, and then we're also starting to see a lot of growth south. Oh, fountain. Okay. Yeah. Area just cost wise or I think the real estate. Yeah. The lands there, there isn't land that has, doesn't have big rocks in and everything. And I think that's, that's what Colorado Springs has for it. It's got space to go. Right. I mean, obviously you. It's got the s ex peak that kind of limit growth to the Yeah. The circles are kind of like, like seas, like inverted seas of growth down there. Yeah. I 25 used to split the city. Right. And now it's, say I 25 is really on the, the, the far, the far edge of Yeah. Yeah. Of the springs. Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting, uh, perspective. Uh, so yeah, so, so like how big a team? So size wise, I, I, operationally, um, our staff's about the same size. We're running anywhere from, uh, 28 to 35 people in each office operationally. Okay. Okay. Uh, that's our construction crew. Okay. And then in Northern Colorado is where we, uh, you could call it our hq. Okay. And so we have, so there's an administrative team kind of there too, right? Sure. We've got, we've got about, uh, 10, 12 people on our admin team. Okay. Uh, accounting, marketing people. Is the C suite, is this the whole C-Suite or is there a CFO or anything like that in the mix? No, we've, um, we've got a, a director of finance and accounting. Okay. Um, with us, uh, Dana Baner. Oh. Oh yeah. I've known Dana forever. Oh yeah. Wonderful. She, she, I didn't know what she was doing after, uh, leaving her building company. Dana, if you're listening, you should come back to Rotary Club. You love it. You're such a good rotary girl. Uh, and, and you'd be welcome back with open arms and Elder would probably pay your dues. We would, uh, she's been, she came on board, uh, she's coming up on three years now and. Has really taken that side of the business. And you know, Dana, she's a wonderful addition. A, a grinder when things Yeah, I'm not, and she's kind a brilliant thinker. Well, yeah, for sure. Uh, yeah. And passionate about her work, whether whatever might happen to be so, Hey Dana, if you're listening, so, okay, so, so about a dozen, what'd you say? 10 or a dozen or something on the kind of headquarters team, right? And that's like taking in all the invoices and making sure every, all the spending's allocated to the right projects and like, tell me what that team does for a contractor company. The accounting and finance team that Dana leads really, I mean, yes. Is a part of it. Is AP a part of it is AR that's going on. But you know, the biggest responsibility is just preparing financial statements, reviewing and analyzing that handling, you know, taxes. Making sure liquidity is good and the payroll taxes are paid. Yeah, exactly. Well, probably most importantly, making sure we all get paid. Um, that would be the number one priority. The, the non partners especially. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, uh, elements of treasury management that, you know, sure. What do we do with, with cash? Yeah. Which matters, you know, when it was a half percent it didn't really matter, but like, if you're floating in some liquidity and you're not getting 4% on a CD or something, you're being kind of dumb these days. Yeah. Yep. Well, and there's a huge risk side to our business to manage through insurance programs. So, um, gosh, that, that is an animal in of itself. Just the, the amount of policies, bonding and different things, all bonding and Yeah. GL and, and, uh, you know, the cyber policies now that have become Right. So important. So talk to me about the operations teams then maybe, uh, aside from the, the HQ kind of administrative monster, what, what talk is it project managers and then overseeing teams of,'cause do you do some of the, some of the, some of the work too? Like portions of must have to have that big accrue, right? We do. We, we self perform, um, a few scopes of work. Okay. I mean, traditionally about 85% of the work that, that we put in place is through trade partners. Yeah. Uh, in our subcontracting groups. Um, you know, we have project managers that run the, the financial side of a project. Mm-hmm. Um, handle a lot of the communication superintendents are the boots on the ground. Yep. Coordination and safety, uh, project engineers, which is a unique term to, to construction. It's basically an assistant project manager. Okay. We, we have fancy terms for everything. Right. Maybe aren't so fancy. Well, we did in banking too, but Yeah. So they're a part of the team. Project coordinators do a lot of the project accounting. Uh, estimators. So that's a communicator almost with the, with the headquarters office a little bit, or is that where that comes in somewhere? So our project coordinators, um, they handle a lot of the paperwork, the insurance, uh, project specific between subcontractors. Yeah. Uh, the payout. It's a lot to keep track of. I reckon there's, there's a lot of paperwork, a lot more than there used to be. Yeah. It's pretty heavily regulated. And a lot of, you know, the risk management steps that the project coordinators are responsible for, driven by, you know, either corporate risk teams for some of the clients or, or in a lot of cases, lenders, um Oh sure. Require, you know, lien releases and, you know, all the stuff to make sure that Right, right. Oh, there's not going to be some, nobody gets a hundred grand without, without actually having the proper invoice for it. Exactly. Yeah. Or encumbrances at the end of the project. Sure, sure. Nobody likes encumbrances. Um, so I guess, uh, from a, uh, uh, process standpoint, can you take me through like a customer journey? Say I'm, I'm a business owner, I've got a 40 employee, uh, professional services business, uh, that's been growing, and I wanna build a nice office building where I can also lease out half of it, you know, some nice office park where, where, where's that process start? Who am I talking to? Yeah, no, great question. Is there like a sales rep, Sean, right? Is one of your guys, least Sean Alban's with us. He's been with us almost a year now. He does a phenomenal job of, of kind of, uh, getting out and understanding a customer need. And, and I think, you know, every journey's a little bit differently. A lot of the journey starts with, uh, an architect that's already been brought on board. Oh, okay. Uh, a banking relationship, a broker relationship. Sure. Okay. And sometimes, so I might have already started by talking with an architect or whatever, and I've got at least the foundation of a plan. You, you know, you've got a, I'm shopping it around a little bit. I might be talking to Don, I might be talking to Elder, whatever. Yeah, yeah. You know, you've got a need. And, and generally the, the first questions are, uh, when I have a need, I'm usually, I need it now. And, and how much is it gonna cost? Uh, and so that's where we, we come in early to, to help analyze, uh, alongside an architect partner. Mm-hmm. You know, what is the space plan and what are the, the constraints, uh, what are the true needs that you have for this new facility? And, and, and then throughout the process, we will help navigate the, the municipal process. That's a significant function, uh, that, that's a significant, we've gotten a little bit more complicated permits and regulations, or it's a little bit more complicated. Uh, and just navigating that, uh, it's not like building a house where you can just run down to the, the building department and pull it right. And start tomorrow. So. There's quite a bit to, it's a long time between first conversation and first revenue for you guys, isn't it? You know, on a typical ground that it's, I would say you're probably anywhere from 10 to 14 months from, from the time the, the architects really engaged in starting the, the planning process with the city to shoveling the ground. Right. And then from there, it can be up to another eight to 10 months of, of construction. Right. Right. You know, it, it's a 24 to 36 month process and we're, we're plugging in, uh, just about everywhere in between Yeah. Helping out. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the stuff that you guys self fulfill, what, what, what is that stuff, if I may? Sure. There's, there's always scopes of work that, uh, kind of fall between the cracks. You gotcha. Uh, a plumber doesn't handle this, electrician doesn't, so we do a lot of self perform around, um, rough carpentry. Mm-hmm. A lot of demolition, all the scopes that are really hard to, to, to quite understand the scope. Sometime on a bid portion, understand the scope or, or there's not a dedicated, uh, company out there that can do that. So we fill in the gaps and Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So there's just a, you know, you got hammers or whatever, like, okay, crew, we do have hammer. Go take that stuff out. Yeah. Yeah. I think as a company we have, oh gosh, ten eight. Eight or 10 carpenters. Oh, wow. And they're good. Okay. You know, they're, they are true carpenters that, that. Uh, haven't been pigeonholed into one thing. Yeah. They, they're kind of Jack Wall trades. Gotcha. And so whether it's filling in the gaps or it is choosing on, on smaller projects to selectively go in and say, you know what? It would be way too complicated to bring in. Yeah. We could build up a lot of, lets, we're gonna put a mezzanine in here, or we can just do that. We don't need to bid somebody in there for that. And then there's always the end of the project, right. Where you're trying to wrap up and punch list and mm-hmm. Um, it's hard to get, you know, you think about maybe on any given project you're hiring 20 to 30 subcontractors. Yeah. You gotta get'em all back within a short amount of time to fix little things. Right. Well, and your budgets that the banker has put in front of you and is required without encumbrances and stuff, they just really are based on the function. Right. So co if Elder wants to go execute this portion of that budget because they can't get the damn framer over or the plumber over in time or whatever, then they can do that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I think that's been the challenge for us is often that has been cost. We eat right. We Right. And so it's like, okay, how do we, how do we make the self perform profitable? Right. Not just a. A way to a competitive advantage? Well, or just a way to, to maintain or, or hold the schedule. Mm-hmm. Or delivery date. Mm-hmm. Okay. We got some bodies. Let's throw it at it instead of mm-hmm. Should we really have been doing that? Or should we have held others a little bit more strongly accountable for finishing? Right. Strong. Right. But when you're at the end, you just gotta, yeah. You gotta finish strong and push until you need to get there and make the deadline. So you gotta have those folks that can help you do it. Talk to me about, like starting, you said it started in 94, what your, was your father's company and then like starting up here, talk to me about that experience was like, or did you go back after college and be part of it there? Or like how do you, how do you set a tap route, you know, to get, get a launch and, and it takes a lot of capital, right. Like to, or a decent amount even just to get a insurance policy. You know, I think that, I guess that's, it was already established a little bit. Yeah. And that's, so our journey up here, um, I think we touched on a minute. We went to school here, obviously then Pat and, and Austin both went and worked for g Johnson Construction. Oh, okay. Um, pat on the estimating side, Austin, uh, traveling superintendent took'em all over the country. Yep. Yep. And, um, there was a desire, there was always a desire to do something together. Yeah. Uh, we just didn't know what it was and how we were gonna do it. So we, uh, famously joke about we, we got pretty burnout in our careers about five years in. And, uh, and what were you doing? I was doing appraisal finance work for Okay. Uh, hotel HVS. Oh, okay. Oh yeah. What's that guy's name? Rod. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rod Clo or something. Yeah, I got to, I got to kind of travel the US with him. Oh, cool. And it was a fantastic, he had a quite a fascinating business was, and, but maybe he still does. I don't know. I haven't seen him in 10 years. Five he does. And, and tremendous, tremendous leader. I mean, he's wonderful man. And, and I learned so much from, from him and how, how to treat people. Yeah. Cool. I mean, and, uh, long the short though, we, we got bored, uh, decided to take a trip to Arizona together, hashed out a terrible business plan. Um, and our options were do we, do we start something on our own Right. Or do we, uh, see if, if pops is interested in, in, uh, like, Hey, you could be rn, we'll be your out kind of thing. Right, right. And Austin, what was, what was your dad involved with? You said you were also from a builder family. Yeah, so he was a, a high-end residential contractor. Okay. Down in Colorado Springs doing work down in the Broadmoor. Gotcha, gotcha. Um, big remodels. Big. Yep. Yep. Homes that we'll never be able to afford, so. Right, right, right. Um, and I think that was part of the conversation is we both had parents that were in, in the construction business, and I think the first thing was, do we want to do residential or commercial? Yeah. Was that part of the business plan part in Arizona or you already knew? Yeah, I mean, we, we pretty quickly came to the decision that we wanted to do. Commercial and why? Uh, may I, well, yeah, I mean, maybe a quick story is once we, we started the office up here as Elder Construction. We got the opportunity to do a couple of residential projects and we spun off an LLC and we're like, Hey, we'll go and do these residential projects as long as we got'em. Yeah. And, and they were miserable failures. Well, we joke that we, we would've had more fun buying two Ferrari and Smashing. Well, I probably would've been, I just had, I just had Dwight from High Craft on, uh, you guys will be right close proximity here. So you guys would probably glad you didn't run into each other's Ferraris. Well, and it, you know, it, it's just different. Okay. And what did you do wrong? Was it your fault? Whose fault? Well, I think what you're not prepared for is the end client user in residential as a commercial contractor and everything while it's still construction. I mean, the subcontract groups are very different. How you deal with, you know, authorities having jurisdiction are very different. Mm-hmm. Um, the sales process and, and the starts of builds. Um. It unless you do it all of the time. I mean, there are great residential contractors around, right. And they understand how it works. And we come from a perspective of commercial and it just, you know, our people weren't trained in it. Um, we didn't have the right subcontract base to do it. We didn't understand, you know, how to properly time out. Had you done some commercial projects first? Oh, yeah. Already. And then you got these couple of land, these couple of residential. A good idea at the time were, they were running concurrently. And I think that's exactly it. You're looking at the residential company and you're like, man, we're struggling here, but the commercial's going so well. Right. And I think we were pretty early in our leadership careers. Sure. And it was the classic case of chasing a, a shiny object. Yeah. Yeah. Normal. A hundred percent normal. And, you know, you sit back and look at it three years later and you're like, uh, never again. Yeah. So take me back. So you, so you decide to approach dad and be like, Hey, you want to, you want a good exit plan? Yeah. Pops. Yeah. And, and so Pat, so what we did, I think get right was our timing. Um, we, pat struck out and opened an office for, uh, my dad up north in 2008. So before GE Johnson or, uh Oh, you struck out independently? Yeah, independently. Oh, I see. Really. I mean, I, I'd probably have to jump in and say the catalyst was really, uh, my wife and I got married. Uh, in 2008 and she decided to do a residency program at Northern Colorado. Okay. Colorado Medical Center in Greeley. And so that really pulled us back to, to Northern Colorado. Okay. Uh, I hadn't since left g Johnson and was working with, uh, the director of pre-construction who'd spun off and started his own consulting business. Okay. But that lasted until about October of 2008 when, when the Great Recession. Right, right. Started to, to rumble up and he decided it was time to, to probably go back and work with the, the corporate machine. Gotcha. And you're like, no way, man, I'm not doing that. I'm, I am not doing that. I, I've been commuting to Colorado, or not Colorado Springs, but Castle Rock at the time. And, and, uh, so it was, it was the conversation of, boy, this seems like a pretty, uh, pretty fortuitous time to, to ask Dad if he's, uh, he's interested in Northern Office. And he was gracious about it and, and awfully excited. And, and so, you know, I even though probably you knew you were coming into some kind of a weird recessionary time or whatever, you know, I think we, I think we sensed something for sure. Um, I think there's a resilience having been a builder for, for so many years. Yeah. Especially for, for my dad owning his own business, um, you know, 2001 wasn't a great time with the.com bus. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in Colorado Springs with as much, uh, yeah. Kind of reliance in that space. That was a, that was a big space down there. He'd lived through the eighties, um, right. As a contractor. So I think we all looked at 2008, not knowing what it was really gonna become. Mm-hmm. And, uh, just blessed that he'd always run a very financial, financially, uh, conservative organization. Yeah. Keep the overhead low. And, and he, he said, sure, let's do it. And, uh, he really helped kind of get, get things started. I had some relationships. I'd been in Estes Park for about 18 months prior, prior, with g Johnson doing, doing the hospital up there. So I had some relationships and, and it gave us a great opportunity to kind start slow. Yeah. Uh, the market was down. It was pretty scrappy. Yeah. Um, and was it just you or did you ring Austin up right away? Or like what, tell me about that evolution. This would, this would've been, uh, January of oh nine. And I think we did our, uh, Arizona Summit probably in April. Okay. Guys, uh, the shingles, Hey, I got this thing off the ground. Did you have any clients established yet? I'm not doing this. Uh, you had, you were six months open or whatever, right? No. And in fact, uh, that was one of the conditions that I, I love my dad'cause he's always made us earn, make us earn it. But he said, you, you can come on the payroll, but you gotta have your contractor's license and your first project that, you know, signed up before you, you do that. So, oh. It, it was a, it was a grind from Oh, so he like rented the office for you? Kind of. But you didn't get to be on the payroll until you landed a deal? Oh no. We were in the basement. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. There was no office for, for at least 18 months. Gotcha. Uh, but, uh, by, by April, uh, landed our first client, uh, we got our license in, in Fort Collins. And, uh, it was about a year after that that Chris joined, and then a year after that, that Austin joined. And talk to me about that first client, if you're allowed to, or Yeah, yeah. Do they let you Great guy. Uh, uh, Dr. Meki in Mullin. Okay. And, uh, you know, he was, he was super gracious. It was a small boy, 800 square foot, 10 finish for Okay, okay. For a 10 of 10 something that most people really didn't want. No, nobody wanted. I, I couldn't even tell you what the, the contract value was, but hey, it was, if I told you you'd go, well, you can't even put carpet in a place right. These days for that. Couldn't have even buy those shoes that Austin's wearing for that margin. I loved it. Margin. Yeah. It was, it was, it was great. My wife was, you know, 36 hour shifts in residency and Right. I had a pot of coffee in the, in the basement on a card table and Yeah. Estimating and invoices at night. I, and, and, uh, superintendent by day. And, and we did that for, you know, a number of years, but overhead was low and Right. And, uh, we were having fun doing it. Uh, and then what did you guys come on doing and what was the, was there other people already on or with these of number two and number three employees? Number two and number three up north. Yeah. Okay. I think that's one of the, the things I think I'm. I think we're so blessed with is we, we all have very different skill sets and giftings. Yeah. Uh, I really enjoy the pre-construction work acquisition side. Mm. Austin's phenomenal on the operations and, and construction side. Mm-hmm. Chris has got the finance and, and business mind background and Yeah. So I think, you know, it wasn't really early on, we kind of, you, you kind of fell into your lanes. You didn't really even have to talk about it too much or like you'd go to Arizona multiple times. That was, that was why we went to Arizona and I gotta, gotta hit him on this because we're sitting down in Arizona and we're playing golf a couple of days and, you know, you'd sit down afterwards and you're having a beer and you're like, okay, how are we gonna do this? And we know what our natural strengths are. And, um, you know, like, like Patrick said, you know, Chris had finance, Patrick had pre-construction estimating and I was in, in operations, but then there are the ancillary parts of the business. Sure. Like HR and it. Right. And we all kind of look at each other and Patrick's like, well, I'll take that, but you, you gotta realize the, the iPhone had just come out. Yeah. And so it, with the iPhone, like, how hard is this? Yeah. Just buy an iPhone, sign up for the Apple Plus plan or something. He, he has yet to sign up for that function of business charge. So HR and technology have never actually landed on his plate. It was a total beaten and stretch, right. That was yours? Or? Well, it started with me until I threw my hands up, like, I don't want this anymore. And we have great people in that area of the business now. Well, you've grown enough now you can actually have a proper HR person. How do you guys handle that function? Or do you have a full-time or more than one even maybe hr? Yeah, so we have hr, we have a, um, director of training and development. Okay. Because that's one of the tenants of, there's a bunch of OSHA and things like that. And safety and Well, yeah. And you know, one of the, the core values that we have is we want constant curiosity. Mm-hmm. And so for us, um. You know, construction is what we do. It's not why we do it. Yeah. And I think a big piece of the, the why for us is, you know, we build purpose into people and the idea is that we leave the world better than than we found it. Hmm. And so, for company our size to have a director of training and development, most other companies that I, that I'm in peer groups with are like, you're crazy. Yeah. But it's foundational to who we are. Yeah. And we want our people to grow. Right. Um, so we've got Alicia Reddy, who's our, our training of, or our director of training, um, and development. And then we have an HR manager, um, that handle handles more of the compliance related aspects and the compliance. And when you fire somebody, how to fire'em without getting sued and stuff like that. And trying to keep up with the state of Colorado's legislative changes is a full-time job. Yeah. Just about how much harder is it to do business in Colorado than it was 10 years ago or when you started, like, not to like poop on Colorado, but it seems like every year, and especially the last few years, they, they make it harder and harder. And even for the really, it used to be just picking on the 50 or a hundred employee companies. Now it's like if you got five or 10, here's a bunch of new stuff you gotta do. Yeah. I, I think it's, it's definitely harder. I think what we struggle with is as we grow in size, we start to fall into those mandatory requirements, those bigger buckets. Bigger buckets, and, and it's this balance between what we feel is right and how we want to run the business and, and, and never wanting to feel like the state is running the business. Yeah. Our business. So we have those conversations quite a bit because we do wanna stay compliant. Sure. We want, we wanna honor the, the law, even though we disagree with a lot of them. Uh, and the logic behind them. Um, I, I think it's twofold. You've got the state, but I think what has also probably made business more challenging, particularly in Northern Colorado liability is probably, well in Colorado, is just the, the changes in the municipalities. Mm. So you think about if we were just working under state requirements or, uh Right. Legislation or, um, whatever. Yeah. If there was just one set of rules for building things, and it was for Colorado, but in Northern Colorado there's 10 different rules. Yeah. Rule books. Yeah. And everybody has their own nuances on how, okay, they're on this code, they're on this, and oh yeah, you only put R 36 insulation in it. It needed R 38. In this, we've now adapted and got above and beyond. We want to be this. And, and so I think. Uh, keeping up with that and especially in the education with our clients that they go, well, I, is that like a keeping up with the Joneses kind of a thing almost among city staffs and regulatory bodies, like try to show who's got the bigger rule book. I think there's an element of that. My, my carbon sensitivity is bigger than yours. Yeah, exactly. Your SWAT is as big as mine anyway. Well, and I think, you know, we, there are parts of our business, because we work in so many different municipalities, as Chris alluded to, like every project, you know, we could work in Who does that? Like, who like checks it out. Like when you get a new job in Omaha, you're like, shit, we haven't built anything in Omaha in like four years. Like, we gotta go and like figure out what we gotta do now. Well, we really try to stay in the state of Colorado. Oh, do, okay. But that's fair. We occasionally sneak up into Southern Wyoming. Okay. So you don't go that far anyway. Yeah. But I think there are a couple of places that, that have highlighted this and without getting thrown out of the room, I mean, COVID was a great example of how difficult it was to operate our business. And I think everybody faced that, that challenge, but, oh, like what are you supposed to actually do? Well, health wise and stuff, or what we ran into was, there was a point where every single municipality, whether it was, you know, Broomfield or Brighton or Fort Collins or Greeley or Loveland or Right. Colorado Springs or Fountain or Monument, they all had different rules. Sure. And so literally you have 30 projects running across the state. Right. And you're trying to navigate the rules of 30 different municipalities. And you know, I think COVID was a good example of that. But you weren't that it was just very invisible in that case. Yeah. Right.'cause it was like, like, one thing I remember was like, Greeley, there was no such thing as COVID pretty much, right? Yeah. Fort Collins, if you walked in a store without a mask, you were getting ostracized, chased out, or, or at least side, side glance or you know, what are they little cast a spell or something? A pex on you. And then Windsor was a, was a shit show you didn't know. Right. Because some were like, super, don't wear that mask in here, young man. Others were like in between. Yeah. Weld County and Larm County. Right. So winter was kind of pickle, but it wasn't like they didn't settle in the middle. You'd think they'd just be like kind of, well, it's just gonna be chill either way. Since we're halfway between. It was like, some stores were like, super, get that mask off your face, you fool. And some were like, where's your mask? Asshole, asshole. You know? Yeah. And ironically we were deemed essential workers. Sure. So we got to keep going. Which of course. Which was wonderful. We, I mean,'cause we have, I didn't even know if I was essential or not. I didn't really ask. I just kept going. They would've shut things down. I don't know that the craft, we, we made a commitment from the very beginning that we weren't gonna let anybody go. Yeah. And we, we had the resources to protect for a while. Yeah. Um, but a lot of the workers in our industry, I mean, they live paycheck by paycheck. Sure. So not working would've been devastating for them. I. Um, and it was just so interesting, right? A lot of'em were paid by the hour besides, right. So if you're not actually working well then Yeah. Right. And, and what we quickly came to recognize was our, what was gonna shut us down fast, faster than anything was building inspections. Hmm. So we are, we could only go as fast as, as building inspectors would come out and inspect the work at critical points in time. Sure. And it, that's where we saw the bottleneck was he spent, I guess, I don't know, it felt like a whole year, every morning you were looking at different, all the different municipalities and saying, okay, here's their, their requirements. So, uh, for, for their inspectors to come the Yeah. We, we gotta check, check all, all these boxes. If the inspector shows up when we don't, and we does, we've got four people in this building that could only have three we're gonna be screwed. Well, or like, okay, he's gonna show up, the inspector's gonna show up, he's gonna honk his horn twice. That means everybody's gotta get off the site. And then he could go, gonna go inspect and, and then he's gonna get back into his truck and honk again. Then everybody can go back to work. And how do you, how do you I'm maintain the five, not five feet minimum. It's funny, sad, not funny. Ha ha. From a safety aspect, right. Lifting material. Yeah. Like it was just, it was. Baffling. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was, I can imagine that's an interesting thing as you're trying to ride on this guy to get him out to do his inspection and he's terrified or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're wiping down handrails or sending somebody ahead of him just Right. Hiring a commercial cleaning service to go in there and clean the place before the inspection. Yep. And, and it was interesting because the, the workforce that, that we rely on, they really didn't buy into it. They're from Greeley, and they didn't really, well, they just, I mean, a blue collar Yeah. Didn't really buy into it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so that was challenging because you're, you're trying to walk this fine line, but the bankers mostly did, you know, they're maybe not, I don't know. Yeah. So, uh, anyway, challeng are also, you know, uniquely suited for that environment. I remember the, the whole conversation work from home and, and not being able to go to a physical office. And, you know, one of the, the beauties to that for us is we have 30 different offices at any given point, right. They're all remote in, in a sense. So from a technology standpoint, from a communication standpoint, uh, I think we're really blessed in working in an environment that was disruptive for sure. Yeah. But not completely out. The network was still connected, kinda, yeah. We typically do, do you guys use like starlink stuff now on some of those sites? Oh, yeah. Yeah, seems like that'd be pretty handy. Yeah. Starling, I, I just saw Moses, my, uh, my landlord, Moses Horner, he's got a starlink right on the top of his Dodge Ram pickup truck. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great technology. We've got, I think eight or 10 of them now, uh, that go out to job sites. In 2001, there were 1 million star links a year, 13 months ago, there were 3 million star links, and now there's 6 million. Wow. So they doubled in 13 months from 3 million to 6 million subscribers. Pretty amazing technology and so convenient. Yeah. I mean, that used to be a critical pinch point for us as we started a job was how quickly can we get internet service to the job? Right. How can we get that landline from Quest? Yeah. Comcast is like, whatever. These guys are just a small peanut customer. Yeah. We've got it on the ambulance, camper, and, uh, it's bomb. Like when you're like in the middle of nowhere and like Jill's working, you know, from the truck while we're going down the road. It is really so cool. Yeah. Anyway, I digress. So what are, what is, what is the why around there? Like, and how do you communicate that? That's one of the things I wanted to, to zero in on is like, what's your pattern in communicating with the Northern Colorado team? Do the, do the Northern Colorado and Southern Colorado or Colorado Springs teams feel like. They're connected to one another. You know, culturally do you do things to intentionally do connect them? Um, so yeah, talk to me about that general topic. Whoever wants to, to chime in the why. This is one that I think we innately have always shared the same why, probably from when we were kids. Okay. I mean, I think over the years, having lots of conversations and being forced to articulate it as you're doing vision casting or you're working on core values and, uh, it starts to be more clear. You start to put, you start to name it Okay. That, that feeling you always had. And, and I think ours, ours from the very beginning was, um, just this, this idea that we're, we're all, um, have a deep faith and there there's the, uh, I'd almost call it like a kingdom building mission or why behind a, a lot of what we do, we don't openly, um, you know, you don't put it on your forehead or anything, don't put a forehead, but it, but it is in our why and it's that, you know, like Allison had talked about, it's this idea that, uh, I think all of us have been gifted with a God-given talent and it's our responsibility to, to use that talent for good in the world. Yeah. Uh, and then it's the responsibilities of those around you to help you if you don't know what it is or you can't see what it is to expose it. Yeah. Yeah. And either get you in the right seat. Or get you off the bus and into a different seat that's, that's tailored for your why. And so that was at the core of who we, who we are. And, and you know, we were talking about do you, your teams know about your faith? Mm-hmm. And do you talk about that? And how do you Yeah. But it is not required to be a Christian, be on your team. Like, no, I think it comes out, out articulate that. I think it comes out just in, um, probably the way we speak. The way we show up. I would like to think so. Anyway, you don't have Bible studies on Thursday mornings necessarily or anything like that? Uh, but we're not afraid to talk about it either. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then, you know, we were talking about Stan Everett. Sure. Yeah. And, uh, part of the legacy project Yep. As we came on here. And, um, you know, he, he kind of, we all went through that at, at a, at a formative time. Yeah. And we were trying to wrestle with these questions and you know, this idea that you don't get to live life in this neutral, uh, position, you're either giving Yeah. A blessing. You're a blessing. Yeah. Or you're taking, or, or you're taking, yeah. Yeah. Uh, you can leave good or bad. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so weaving that into, to the, the vision casting that we had. So, um, you know, the, the core values at, at first felt like, uh, kinda that check the box exercise that you gotta do for the bank, for the business plan, but then you really start to see the application of it. And, um, you know, pat Austin, so many others that. Uh, that when we started to try to articulate it, uh, my, my father always, my father's got devalues. Sure. But they were, they were, well, you keep them quiet, you hold it in the vest in those days. Right. And so as we started to come on board, there was this opportunity to, to, and he, as he handed the company over to us, it was this opportunity to say, okay, what, let's put, let's name it. Yeah. What is important? Um,'cause your values really set the culture. And I think culture gets a really bad rap now. Mm-hmm.'cause it's, it's a trite word. It's a buzzword. Yeah. Right. Uh, but really is simply, it's just the attitudes, beliefs, it's how you show up, it's how you communicate, it's how you, what you value. Yeah. Hire what you tolerate. Hire reward. Yeah. Um, yeah. What you tolerate. And so getting really clear, really early, the three of us on how my dad did it, and then what's important to us. Then you start to build stories around those values. And then it's a lot easier in, um, orientations to say, this is who we are and this is how we're gonna show up and this is how we're gonna be. These are our non, were these are a good part of that kind of gets baked in on the front end. Yeah. These are our non, these are our non-negotiables. Yep. Yep. Um, we interview towards those. I mean, we have a, a list of questions. I think people are surprised after they get hired because they, they go, well, I didn't know you were interviewing for that. And you go, yeah, that's what this question was trying to tease out. Yeah. Yeah. And, and culture's important. Do we get it right all the time? No. We struggle with it. And I think that's been one of the challenges that we've, we've had over, I. The, the last 15 years is, um, while what we believe is the same, our core values are the same. They're a slightly different culture in Colorado Springs versus Northern Colorado. Sure, yeah. You can't be the same company that the demographics probably are different hundred percent in the office. Yeah. The, um, just the community itself is, is more conservative. It's, uh, you know, so it's, and not good. It's not good. Yeah. But in Colorado Springs, it was kinda like, which church do you go to? Yeah. Like if, like, in a business setting even really, it wasn't quite that way, but it was pretty, yeah. And it's less of that I think now, but cliquey and when I was there, I was there oh four to oh seven. Yeah. Um, as a relatively young Christian, I'd only been a Christian for a year or two, and I was like, this is weird, you know, in Park Collins, it'd be like, I've known somebody eight years and I just found out they're a Christian. You know, they actually go to the sister church of our church. I don't, you know. Yeah. In compare, in contrast, in some phase. Anyway, not to circle it around there, but No, I mean it's, it's, it's a true observation. And, um, do you know what our motto is at Loco Think Tank? Probably not. I don't if the bus was here or the ambulance. We could, we could read it, but it was actually my personal motto first. But I think you'll resonate with it. Each of you probably, which is, uh, ask of your needs and share of your abundance. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Uh, and the implication is is that like, don't ask me of your wants. Yeah. Like the answer is no, but I will help you if you have needs. Really? And what are they actually? Yeah. You know, and then the share of your abundance, both in a. In a, in a philanthropic or giving back kind of ad standpoint, but also of your talents, you know? Yeah. As a member of local think tank, you, you're here at least in part because you've got certain talents or abilities or skills or experiences that are beneficial to this group. Yeah. And share it. Share it into there. Don't be, don't be shy. Well, I love how you say it. I, I think of it as time, talent and treasure shame. Yeah. Right. Like, and, and there's different moments when Yeah. Whatever that abundance is. Whatever that abundance is. Yeah. And the need. So that's good. I like that. Good. I'm glad. Yeah. Oh, and the side of the tank, so have you seen the tank Ambulance Camper? Well, I saw when it was an ambulance, so it's got seen, so it's got a tank silhouette on the side. Okay. And it's an ambulance. So both of those things are kind of morbid. Right, right. And so to alleviate it some, I've got like one of the old Bugs Bunny like flags hanging down outta the barrel of the tank and it says Build, do not destroy. Yeah. Uh, which I think resonates with what you were encouraging Austin, you know, leave the world better than you found it. Yeah. And I, and I think, you know, when we look at our, when we look at our business, oftentimes you, you get pigeonholed sometimes in what do you want your business to be? Sure. Um, you know, and, and do you want to be an uber efficient, uh, business model, or are you more of a lifestyle company? You know, and I, and I don't. Think we fit in either of those boxes. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think one of the tenants that, you know, we've alluded to is we are a people first company. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when it, like, Brinkman was kind of a grinder. Like, yes, you could be our sub, but we're gonna grind the crap outta you. Get the best price, you know, work. Maybe, maybe I'm fibbing about that, but, well that was at least the market impression I had maybe. Yeah. And I, uh, whereas you're like, we're not gonna like rip you off, but we would never grind ourselves like that. Well, in the same, and I, and I think our perspective is as the company, as the leaders, the shareholders in the organization are. Role is to take care of our people. Hmm. And then our people take care of the company and they take care of the company by taking care of the clients and, and the relationships. Treating yourselves with respect and all that. Well, yeah. Exactly. And I think that's a huge part of businesses. Without the design firms that we work with, without the trade partners, the subcontractors that we have, our business wouldn't exist. Right. Right. Without the communities that we build in. Yeah. We wouldn't exist. I just posted on LinkedIn the other day, uh, this year we should celebrate interdependence day. Yeah. Um, because you, nobody can do crap by themselves. Or even, you know, elder construction can't build anything. Barely. Like you could build a nice shed in the back, or, you know, even probably cooler than that, but, but you can't build a 200,000 square foot building. He's gonna compensate us then let's Right. And who's gonna inspect it? Who's gonna, you know all that. Well, anyway, continue asking. Please. And I think there's just a, you know, foundation and business there that we believe in that, you know, when you treat people the right way, they're going to like working with you. And it's not the short game, you know, we're not here for the next year or two. We want to build a company that exists beyond, you know, the current leadership. Yeah. And that's really our mandate. Cool. And, and so the way you treat clients, the way you treat your, your subcontractors, the way you treat your designers and architects. Yeah. You know. Has to be the long game, you know? And it doesn't mean that we don't hold people accountable, but we also show grace where we can. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, and oh, by the way, we work there, it's our life, right? We want it to be fun. We like, I think Austin sum up the mission really well. Uh, it's look really, if, if we can check three boxes in life with around work is so awesome. Do meaningful and challenging work. Do it with people you, you respect and enjoy and make a little money doing it. Yeah. Like, if we can do that, which we have to this point, like life is so fulfilling. Yeah. A big part of our life Yeah. Is so fulfilling. Well, you, it's like you spend more time with your coworkers than you do with your spouse usually. Right? So yeah. Why would we want to engineer a environment or a culture that we have to live in Right. That we don't like, so, yeah. Well, and I think Tom, you know, Patrick and Chris's dad said it really well. One of the first projects that we did up here, um, was this project called the Arts Hub. And it was the first time we were like, Hey, let's try out this marketing thing and we should actually like do a video and we should interview some people. And out of that, um, there's one line that Tom used. Oh. You know, says in there where he is like, you know, I've chosen to do business in a way that allows me to sleep good at night. Hmm. And I think that's what it's all about, you know? For sure. Yeah. Like, can I sleep with the decisions that I made? Right. Well, and, and your industry is a challenge. One, you, there's always, you know, a corner that you can cut and probably get away with it or this or that. And so that's, and and there's so many, I mean, frankly, business is that way. Yeah. I was gonna say in a lot of aspects, I don't, again, agnostic, most of business has, uh, that kind of conflict in there somewhere where you have to just do the right thing, you know? But when you start to, to adopt this mindset of business really should be a force for good. And I think most people, yourself included, that's why you have local think tank, right? Sure. Like that is what you're promoting. It is a ministry for me. You know, like this is business gets a bad rap and I understand why. Yeah. Because of the bad apples. Yeah. Yeah. That the platform that, that business leaders get to speak out upon the influence that they have, what they can do for, well, we're the only, is we, we should be using that power and that influence for good. Yeah. Um, and that's kind of the only independent voices. Yeah. Right. Like we were just talking about COVID Nation and whatever, like nobody that worked for Hewlett Packard could speak up and say, I'm not sure we should be manding these shots. You know, a few people did and they got fired. You know? Right. Well, or, or you just think about how lonely the office is. Right. I, I, I can while. I've never been in that situation. I feel like I can relate to, well, I would never go to work and give of my life if, if it was, if I went to downtown Denver, took an elevator up 11 stories and was in a cubicle for eight hours and didn't, wasn't connected to anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just typed away it's like, that's not for me. I wanted to not forget about talking about peer advisory a little bit. Yeah. Uh, you mentioned Vistage and Osage, you said something about a peer group as well. Is that like a builder 20 group or something like that, or, yeah, I'm in a, a national peer group that's hosted by FMI, um, FMI as a, they are a consultant in the a EC industry. Um, okay. So it's a group of, uh, six contractors throughout the United States, and we come together twice a year. Okay. Like in person, kind of in person, big gathering, kind of industry focused speakers and different things, whatever, or, yes. Cool. Okay. And how are you longtime member of Vistage? I don't know if you've ever really talked about it. Yeah, I'm going on six years now. Okay. So I, I'd consider that long time. Yeah, it seems like, yeah. Is that with Nancy or with another group? Ron? There's another group. Ron. Yeah. I forgot I, yeah, I, Ron, if you're listening out there, we should grab coffee or something like that because I was introduced to you long before COVID, and then I just never really followed up properly. Yeah, he's been, he's been a huge. Mentor in my life. Yeah. And it sounds like the network of Vistage in general has also benefited you that it has fair. It has. You know, I think too, in my group particularly, they're, they're, I'm one of the youngest in this group. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the wisdom that comes down Sure. Is pretty powerful. Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, uh, you better think about this.'cause I ran into this at your, was that your first experience? It was with peer advisory. It was, yeah. And why didn't you ever return my calls before you signed up for that? Gosh, I don't know. Yeah, because I'm a gun now, Patrick. That's a long time. Have you been in one yet? Patrick? What are you, are you going on 10 years? 11 years this last year. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. So it's been a little while. Yeah. But I was in a Vistage group before. Okay. Like, I, I basically stole Vistage's best stuff and left their crappy stuff behind, you know? Um, but, but yeah, I was a, I was a member of a trusted advisors group and had, was recruited into Bill Hunter's Vistage Group when I was running the bank for a year. See? And Bill courted me for years. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I don't know what it was about Ron. He just showed up one day and was there at the right time. And, and we struck it off and Cool. And it was just, yeah. It's been good. Well, anyway, Ron, you can look me up. I, I'll be you a coffee. Uh, I'm easy to find. Patrick, have you experienced any of that yet? I have, I, I've been able to, uh, to be a part of a really group, great group of guides. It's a little bit less formal than Vestige or Sure. Austin's group. It's, it's, uh, 10 of us locally here in northern Colorado. And kind of an unorganized group, if you will, or somebody organizes it, but it's not affiliated, if you will. It's, it's unaffiliated. It's, it's actually really well organized. You've had a number of the guests on, uh, in the past. Yeah. So it's one of the super secret groups. Yeah. It's not super secret, but you know, you have to know the handshake. You got a handshake and, and you gotta, you gotta have bourbon now. Well, I do have bourbon. We do have bourbon. We could have some bourbon after the break. It's a, it's a really good group of guys and, and, uh, we, we meet once a month, and I tell you what, for anybody that, uh, has an opportunity, whether it's Vistage or with you guys or Sure. Just a peer, I, there's so much wisdom and power that is gleaned, and I think as a business owner, everybody should have it. Everybody should, business owners need it a hundred percent. Think like almost every, you know, anybody that wants to be in our H ho A could use it. Yeah. But, but like, we won't go to HOAs, but for that decider role or, you know, you guys are, because you're equally yoked, is that right? Like we are 33 and a third each Yeah. Despite the attorney's advice. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think, you know, we're in a really unique position because I look at what Austin's dad did, uh, what our dad did, uh, what so many other business owners do is they strike out on their own. And, uh, boy, I can't even imagine or fathom what it would be like to do this work by myself being the one decider. Kinda, you know, you think of the, the, the times and, and we've had some pretty. Up and down years in terms of COVID and just a lot of disruption and a lot of stress. You've got a lot of people that you're shoot, that you're, uh, shepherding. What's your payroll now? Uh, between the two offices? Yeah. Like those are not all low paid people, almost none of them anymore. Uh, and, and, but to be able to do this together is something that's pretty unique. Uh, but I think that's where, you know, even a peer group is so important is it puts like-minded individuals together. Yeah. That you can just share, Hey, I'm really struggling with this or that, and I can't share that with my number two guy and Yeah. Yeah. Anybody within the business, maybe a spouse doesn't understand. Yeah. Uh, and so it, it's a really powerful, um, way to just create community and live life together. Appreciate that. Yeah. Austin, you were gonna say something about something, I don't know. You're probably gonna give specs in the payroll and that was gonna scare everybody and No, I actually don't know what they are these days. Right. Fair enough. Well, if you got 60 of'em, I mean, those are probably mostly, I'm imagining there's a lot of six figure earners within your whole company. Most of'em are six figure earners. Well, no, I'd say half. Half. Yeah. But you know what's interesting? It's, uh, the craft is becoming more and more valuable. Hmm. And they're getting, I mean, it is really, we're seeing compression from the bottom. Hmm. Uh, not interesting, you know, the professional wages have really. Started to like those carpenters and stuff is Yes. Carpenters more in demand. Yeah. Carpenter, even laborers you, I, I joked, uh, I know Fort Collins was Oh, debating the, uh, the minimum, yeah. The minimum wage rule. And I'm like, when was the last time we paid? Yeah. For carpenter less than$20 an hour. Like, why do we, why do we have this conversation? The market is setting itself a hundred percent. I mean, I, like, I, I hire interns at 18 bucks an hour a lot of times.'cause that way you can get a good one. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and I think, I think truly what's happening is their values being recognized. I mean Yeah, yeah. You know, it's not that they weren't valuable before, it's just that, you know, one of our beliefs is you should be able to live on a wage. Right. Right. You, and I think that's one of the things when we look at compensation and benefits and things like that, is, you know, they're given the same amount of effort and work in what they're doing. Their work and my work looked different, but yeah. Like, you know, with the rising costs of healthcare and groceries and I mean, you name the basket of goods. Yeah. I think it's incumbent on us to say, look, we gotta pay people fairly. Right. Um, well, and we all know, frankly, that like a high performing person gets. Two or three times as much work done as a low performing person. So if you can buy a high performing person for a hundred grand or a low performing one for 70, you're probably better off on the first category usually. Yeah. Yeah. So, and sometimes people don't even know if they're high performing or not, and so honoring it when you find them is useful. Yeah. Well, and even teams when you, when you look at assembling teams mm-hmm. Um, high performers wanna be with high performers. True. Yeah. Yeah. They don't, no, nobody wants this dead weight around here, that's for sure. Yeah. Do you guys get any help in that space or is that kind of your training development person setting the culture and do you use like DISC or other systems to kinda understand your team dynamics? Y yeah, we use a variety of different things. Um, DISC is the one that's probably, you know, the simplest to understand. And I think it's more about communication style, and that's one of the things that we often do with, um, new team members that are joining. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, one of the initiatives that I'm excited about that Alicia's been putting a ton of hard work into is a skills and behavior framework. Okay. And, you know, it really starts with. You know, core values and you know, what are the competencies that we expect our people to have? And then what do those competencies look like in your individual role? Yeah. How can you tell when you have acquired that? Yeah, exactly. Because I think particularly for young people or people that are, that are new into a role, um, they just want to know how they're performing. A hundred percent to your point. Like they don't know if they're high performers or not, right?'cause you know, we've asked them to do a job and there's a scoreboard, but there's something covering the scoreboard, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so trying to create, you know, transparency onto, you know, not only what are the technical skills that you need to perform this job, but you know, what soft skills do we Yeah. Do we expect? And then, you know, how do we go about training and developing those skills? And, you know, what does what, what could your career look like? And I hesitate to use the word career ladder because I think when you look at the organization, it's more of a lattice. And it doesn't mean just because you're doing this job today. Yeah. You don't want up to this one necessarily. We might figure out that you're actually be better over here. Well, and I think that aligns with kind of our. Part of our culture of like, when you find what you're passionate about, if that isn't what you're currently doing, look over do. Maybe we ought to look over here and move you into a different seat because, um, this more, more naturally aligns with the talent that you have and the passion that you want to pursue. That's cool. Yeah. Other, like, while we're kind of here in the business, I think we'll take a quick break and jump in the time machine and find those little first graders, um, pretty quick here, but is there other kinda main business principles that you guys try to try to live by? Or, or how do you guys connect as a team? Do you have like a once a month meeting and I guess the, the, the Southern Colorado guy has zoomed into there too, or whatever? We, we definitely do that. I think this is, this is fun for me'cause we don't often get to spend time together. Just the three of you? Kinda Just the three of us. Yeah. It's, uh, as the business has grown and personal lives have changed, but, uh, we definitely are very intentional. Uh, Chris and Austin do a great job of, of, of pulling us in from a, from a cadence of monthly, even to a weekly check down mm-hmm. Huddle and, and you know, I think it's finding those cadences that's important. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, the, the, the planning season of business and, and Austin can speak to this a lot better than I can, but just making sure that you're keying the rhythm of strategic planning with. You know, an assessment of people health in general. How's the organizational health look? Yep. Uh, the performance of projects and, and performance of, you know, forecasting of, of next year. Um, believe it or not, we're in a very, uh, psych cyclical business. I know. And, and you know, I, I always celebrate when we finish a project, but then we gotta go get another one. Right. Right. And we gotta get another one. Um, no different than loans and, and banking, right? Sure. Yeah. No, hopefully they, they one tough to do and you're, they pay off, you know, they, they, that's what I was supposed to do. Find somebody else to borrow some money. And so there's a, there's always a cadence in their, a rhythm to, uh, to our business and, and trying to, you know, make sure that we accurately time it and, and stay ahead of it.'cause I think as leaders in the business, that's the most important thing that we can do. If you're adding a bunch of people to the team only to lay'em off eight months later.'cause you just really can't afford'em. Right? That's not right. Yeah. And that's never been, you know, as a people for first organization, never something that, that Yeah. That we have done. And, and I think it is, you know, important to, to spend the time to think what is beyond the next six months, the next year, the next five years. Um, that strategic, strategic thinking is, you know, we ask our team to, to do that on a project, but it's, you know, it's a little bit closer. We've gotta, we've gotta be the ones that are out there a little bit further. And so it takes dedicated time to, to spend as, as an intentionality kind of to do that. Yeah. We try to connect with the team. Uh, we. We try to, to communicate, uh, every Friday with them. Companywide, like a, a email, email, video. What's going on? What's going on? Yep. Yep. Uh, we have a standing, uh, a Thursday company, monthly company meeting. Okay. Where we company-wide. Okay. Um, and where we share the same content, we use that as an opportunity to, to teach the team about business. Sure. We share our financials. Okay. Um, like all the way Yeah. Down to profit really. Um, and well, I think it's important for people to see the scorecard. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's hard to, to ask somebody to, to, you know, when, you know, we see that a lot just because we are, uh, doing a lot of projects or we're pushing a top line revenue number doesn't mean we're profitable. Right, right, right. We could be, just remember the, the residential project back in the day. Yeah. It's, we could go get out gobs of work with no fee and Sure. We could be ha hair on fire screaming busy. True. And everybody's like, man, totally. This is gonna be a big Yeah. You can double the size of your company just making no money. And so a lot of education about how we make money where we spend money. Mm. And we have a pretty rich profit share pool. Mm. Um, that we use, uh, that we, we share with'em every month. Here's where we're at. Cool. Um, and I do think it's important for them to understand what they can do Yeah. To impact it. Yeah. Yeah. Because they, it's a question you always get. Sure. What can I do to help? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so show'em the, show'em the scorecard. Have you ever regretted that and have you done that for a long time? Uh, we've done it now for five years. Okay. Um, have we ever regretted it? Yeah. Was it Harry at any time or did I think we've learned some lessons on how to communicate it more effectively? Sure. Um, I think, you know, whenever you roll out something new, there are always some missteps. Um, but I think at the end of the day, what, what we're trying to show people is like, here's, here's where profit sharing starts. Like when we Yeah. This point, right. You know, it's like the margarita glass. This month it was this and this month it was that. And you know, part of that is we also want people who we don't want them. Getting the accountability that's built in is pretty cool though. Well, I think, I think there's some accountability that is really cool around it. And also you don't want people saying, well. Am I gonna go spend$8,000 on this trip? Right. Counting on a profit sharing. Right, right. You know, check, I mean, it reminds me of change. Right? It's the vacation. I was thinking the same thing. Exactly.$50 or whatever it was. Maybe it was nothing. A coupon. Right. Well, we actually had that happen, right? Yeah. And I think that's where, what do you mean? Well, we had a, we were rolling along really good before this, had a cracker, we don't call it bonus intentionally. It's not a bonus. Yeah. It's, it's profit share. It's dollars you've earned. Yeah. Guys. And so, but before we had profit, we had a bonus and it was, Hey, we weren't, we weren't sharing the books. It's, yeah, it's discretionary. It's like, okay, it's December. Hey, we're doing pretty good. We, we, we feel obligated to share that. Right? It's just part of who we are, uh, and being good stewards of, of God's money. And then you go, well, what's the formula? And you kind of go through and you're like, well, that guy's been here a long time. That guy's been here. Right. And then you, and then you just quietly hand out checks. Right. And you something good about it. And then you get into rhythm. And then you have a bad year, but you're busy. Right, right. And then you're like, look, we. We can't profit share this year. And, but people have come to expect it. Right. And so, and they've been working hard trying to get working project done. They've been, and the projects one of the reasons you're not making any money.'cause the projects have been a struggle. Right. And the inspectors aren't showing up, or it's just a, or it's just a different market. Yeah. You know, I think the market sometimes you gotta just settle for a little lower margin if you wanted to get any work. That's absolutely it. And it doesn't, it doesn't mean the team's working any less hard. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I, I think we're one step away from farmers, right? In the sense that you can sew a perfect crop, but there are so many things that can impact the outcome. Yeah, yeah. And, and effort's. Not one of'em. Uh, yeah. So it is, it's important to communicate and I think it goes kind of even beyond, you know, just that aspect to can we help grow the financial acumen and maybe the business acumen of our team. Sure, sure. We would love, uh, the team to stay with us forever, but we've had so many instances where, uh, folks have broken off and done their own thing. And hopefully when they do that, they have been more prepared. Yeah. You leave'em smarter than you found them and kind. And that's, that's that whole purpose piece. Or they leave you smarter than they found you both has happened. Yeah, hopefully both. Right? Like, and, and it's something to be celebrated, not something to, you know, be upset about. That's, you know, that's important. So I think it's, it's that education around the financial acumen and, and you know, just understanding. Business. Yeah. Uh, and then how business transit transitions into life. I think that's why we're so, uh, passionate around teams and leadership. And not only does it help us as a business, but how can, how can that concept or the leadership concepts, man, what do you do? Yeah. My money tree is raining on You talk about money, that's a good sign. Right? Right. I hope so. I don't know. It looks like those are pretty dead though. That's normal. What, I dunno know what that omen is. You think, you think about business especially and, and the leadership skills that we learn in business through peer groups or through conversations. Sure. How often we don't apply that to our personal lives, you know, with personal missions and visions. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. And stewardship of a p and l versus a personal budget. And, you know, I think that's where we have a lot of fun is can we bring these concepts down? Can we implement totally as a business, but is it gonna make our project manager a better coach? Yeah. Or a, or a husband leader. Or a husband dad. Can he, can he, can he walk his, his his family through? Or can she walk her family through, you know, a, a visioning exercise that creates some core values and helps set a culture of a Yeah. Of a family unit. So I, that's pretty cool. I think it all comes together in, and the financial piece is just one element of that. I dig it. Let's take a break. Let's do it. I'm gonna have a bourbon. So, um, kind of, this is part of the show where we typically, uh, jump in the time machine. So we back to Colorado Springs. All of you born there? Yeah. First grade or whatever. Yeah, I was born there. Born there? Yeah. So were we born there? Born there, yeah. Okay. Probably all in the same hospital as a matter of fact. Most likely Memorial, right. 19 time, 19, uh, 1981 Memorial Hospital. Pat and I were actually, we were not. Oh, where were you? Penrose Penrose. Oh, the second, second, uh, level hospital. Right. And the way that my parents tell the story, at least my dad tells the story. We were the, they had just created a new needle natal unit Oh, okay. At Memorial. So Pat and I were the first twins born. Oh. Uh,'cause who was first? First I was 18 minutes. Okay. Yeah. My wife is a twin. We think we're not. My wife was, uh, born one minute before her sister, um, identical or fraternal? Fraternal. Okay. And, uh, 45 years ago, yesterday as a turns zone. Wow. Yeah. Happy birthday babe. See you a little bit. And my wife's a twin as well. Oh, is that right? That, that's the story for the time machine sped up a little bit. Right. Yeah. We just don't have time for that time machine probably. Yeah. He involved with that. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, first twin, so yeah, set the stage first. Twin, first twins in the hospital and born at, uh, the new needle. Needle. So my dad didn't really get a front row seat'cause there were so many people in that room. Your dad's been running the construction company for a while at this point? Kind of. Well, no situation or he was, well he was in construction at that point. Okay. But not actually running his own business yet? No, it was, uh, we were middle school when he struck out on his own. Oh, wow. Okay. And so he was working in construction, but as a foreman or as a whatever. Project manager. Yeah, project manager. Estimator. And then he was working for a family company and really kind of saw the, what writing on the wall. Their kids were coming up and, and, uh, he wasn't, they were the past of the future. He was not kinda, I mean, and he was. Uh, he, he's told us often, he's like, you know, nobody's gonna turn the lights out on me but me. Hmm. Uh, and that was pretty important to him. Yeah. Yeah. And he had a work ethic. Yeah. That was incredible. And a desire and, uh, a will and a skill that Yeah. I'm glad he did. My dad founded a farm, uh, when I was in first grade, um, that now is 10,000 acres and, you know, as a first generation wealth creator up in North Dakota. Um, and like I, he could whoop me still, like he's 70 years old and that he outworks me. Yeah. Well, he works out 45 minutes every morning pretty much. And stuff like that's, he's always got dad strength. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. It would take two of me to whoop my dad, maybe three. Yeah. To put me in my place. My dad still makes me go cycling occasionally. Oh really? And I'm like, Ooh, slow out. I can't keep this pace going. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. So Pinrose for you. Yeah. And what was your, are you first born, only child? What you got? I, I am first born of four. Okay. Um, so I have a brother that's two years younger than me that lives in Denver. And then I have a brother who's 13 years younger Oh. Than me who lives in Colorado Springs, and a sister who's 15 years younger than me and lives in the spring. Same mom and dad. Just a same mom and dad. 10 year gap year. Yep. Interesting. Yep. Unusual, I guess, kind of getting the business going and stuff. Was that the circumstance or? Yeah, it, you know, my dad had an interesting journey. Um, I. In the, in the 1980s, he owned an interior trim and door supply company. Okay. Um, and down in Colorado Springs, 1987 ish. It got really rough. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, and probably one of the greatest lessons that I, that I tell people that, you know, one of the things I learned from my dad was when that downturn happened, um, he could have declared bankruptcy on that business. Mm-hmm. Um, and he chose to, he didn't think that bankruptcy was the right answer, and so he assumed all of that debt. Mm. And, you know, following, uh. That he went out and worked on the road and he did interior trim, um, for a couple of large, just like paying half of his income toward that debt. Yeah. And half his income toward keeping a family alive. Exactly. Dang. And it took going out on the road for many years to go out and, and earn the income to be able to, um, yeah. Pay off the debt well and probably built the skills that he needed to be a next stage guy. Right. Well, and then to some extent, yeah. And he moved on from that and went to do, um, spent a little bit of time doing some real estate, um, appraisal type stuff. We moved to Oklahoma City so that he could help one of his college friends, um, get a business up and going, and then eventually got drawn back to Colorado, um, and really entered kind of that high-end general contracting, uh, business. Just kind of out of happenstances. Yeah. My, all of my uncles are in construction as well. They're all in interior trim. And what was the cons? What was the company name? Is it I recognize? No. Okay. It's skeet daughter construction. Okay. I mean, so y But what happened was he had two brothers that were doing interior trim on this big house, and the owner ended up firing the general contractor and, and. You know, came to them and was like, do you know anybody? And they're like, well, actually, my brother might be interested in running this. And so he actually started flying back from, uh, Oklahoma. Oh, fascinat. Wow. Back to Colorado and running his job, owners of the project, his job. And you know, we eventually then moved back to Colorado Springs and Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, he's been doing kinda the residential construction since then. Yeah. Yeah. Um, he's trying to retire. And what kind of a, a first grader were you when you were getting ready to meet these, these brothers and what school? Uh, Woodman Roberts Elementary School. Woodman. So that's up north side of town there, or North? Yeah, north, northeast, Northwest, kind of. Yeah. I worked at Garden of the Gods Road. Okay. Uh, with Bank of Colorado there when I was down there. That, that's Wait, with Adams Bank and Trust? No, with Bank of Colorado. What am I talking about? Yeah. Uh, that's where our office is. Garden of the Gods. Oh, okay. So yeah, that was a great road. I used to go across over You went to Yeah. Yeah. And then roll up whatever that clever road was over there. Oh man. I mean, every time I drive to our office in Colorado Springs, when you get off I 25 and you're, you're heading west on Garden of the Gods and you've got Pikes Peak just in, you know, it's full beauty right there. That's one of the few places that Colorado Springs beats. Fort Collins is for many people, the drive to the office is pretty sweet. Oh, just dessert. Just enormous. Yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. You know, um. And yeah, so we all started first grade at Woodman Roberts Elementary, and, um, lived in the same neighborhood. We lived in the same neighborhood. Oh, okay. That was probably the, the big connection is Yeah. Yeah. You know, we lived what, quarter mile from each other. Okay. Um, and so we became the local bike gang. Okay. I dig it more of a kind of a Goonies, uh, style thing. Exactly. Yeah. Patrick, why don't you, uh, gimme a little bit of a summary of your family dynamic there at the same time period? Family dynamics. Yeah. Was it just you two, were there other siblings? No. So, uh, you know, my parents were, were originally from Kansas and uh Okay. Like rural Kansas or City of Kansas, or City of Kansas. Okay. In, in, uh, Topeka. Okay. Um, got married and, uh, they had a hard time having kids. Ooh. Um, and so, you know, married seven or eight years before Chris and I came along. Okay. You know, towards the end of that they, they said, you know, if we're not going to be able to have kids, let's, let's go do something that we've always wanted to do. And, and Colorado was in that. Okay. That, that picture. So, uh, I came out to Colorado and then Chris and I showed up. Okay. You know, something about that mountain error, huh? I, I don't know what it is about twins. I, I think you have a set of twins and you really consider whether you want to have kids after that.'cause it's a, it's a really rough journey at first. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's definitely the two on one when dad's off doing stuff is, uh, can be a challenge. Uh, I I think it's a, it's a blessing, uh, when the kids get a little bit older. I agree. I think as, as infants, that was challenging. But no, it just ended up the two of us and, and, uh, you know, pretty nice to always have a, a best friend to go do stuff when, yeah. Yeah. I joke with my parents now that I have two kids that are, um, different ages, different sports, different activities. You know, Chris and I were always on the same team. They barely hang out. Like literally you go one place and it's a twofer. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, but not, not the case for most people. So I grew up in Central North Dakota. Uh, graduated with a high school class of five. So a very rural, very rural okay. Environment. Um, and my, so my dad's dad, um, divorced from his mom when my dad was like 13 and then remarried. His older brother. My dad's mom remarried. My dad's dad's older brother. Wow. And had three, two more kids, the youngest of, which was my uncle Jim, who was eight months older than me, and in my same class. So my uncle was my best friend all through my growing up years. There you go. And he was like really big and I was like, really tidy. And so he was like my protector for my sassy mouth sometimes. He failed a few times. Anyway, I digress. Uh, but, uh, but he, but Jim was always there. Yeah. Like he and I were best friends and I would go to his house for birthday parties and stuff like that and, and we were just, it was just baked in. Um, my next youngest brother was two and a half years younger. So far enough to not have the same Yeah. Yeah. I don't know any of his friends hardly. Right. And vice versa. It was just a different kind of thing than that, that twins or even one year apart, you can kind of have that same experience. You guys Same age too. Same grade. Yeah. Yeah. And, and talk to me about like, were you smart kids? Were you sporty kids? Were you troublemakers? You said you were a bike gang, but not in maybe a bad way. Not in a bad way. I agree. I think we, I think we run the spectrum of smart, uh, you know, just tough enough to, to get along. And so like, Subaru's kind of, you're a seven and a half or whatever and everything. Like, not that smart, but pretty smart. Not that tough, but pretty tough. No, I, I, I struggled with school. I really was not. Oh yeah. Uh, just not. My thing. Focus or, uh, no, I think I had, I definitely struggled with reading and writing. Okay. It was not fun. Like dyslexic or something? Yeah, dyslexic. Okay. Yep. Um, sorry to call. It's fine. I'm, uh, I'm, I'm happy to talk about it, but,'cause it doesn't define who you are, it's just Totally. It's just, uh, I mean, for me, I was reading like, it was a challenge. I was reading huge books when I was like 5, 6, 7 years old. You know, my dad was like, what the hell you gonna read Bones of Plenty for 10? You know? I'm like, I dunno. It seems interesting. And plus I get book it points for pizza, A Pizza Hut, you know? Gosh, no. Like, I look at people that enjoy reading and I, that's something I've always longed for. I'm like, God, I wish I enjoyed it.'cause it's exhausting for me. But, um, enjoyed just being outside, I guess. We played outside. Yeah. All the time. We had a creek in front of our house, both of our houses. Monument Creek. Okay, sure. We had land around us. We built terrifying forts. Right. Not according to Code. Oh God. No. No. Dug, dug way too many tunnels and without reinforcing the walls. Yeah. Uh, we built a tree house that was so bad and so dangerous that it was the impetus of, of our dads finally saying, okay, we're gonna do this. Right. And we built, oh, the most outrageous wall we built. I say we, they built the most outrageous, the dads mostly two story, mostly tree house. Okay. That we then tinkered on for. I, I think we, we would, we would build. From the time we were little, we, the three of us built. Yeah. And we'd have other kids come over and play. And we were more, whether it was the Ford or the tree house or whatever, we, we cared more about building the thing than actually playing in it. Ramps for the bikes. And everybody else was like, we're done building now let's plan. And we're like, yeah, no, we don't plane things. You build, build something else. Yeah. It was, it was great. I mean, I could see, I'm like imagining this first tree house. Oh yeah. That's like the slums of India. And they're just like built onto, you know, when they got the lean to, attached to the lean to attach to the lean to that, that was the point when, when, uh, you know, you couldn't use dad's tools. So like, you literally just have to lean to it up and, and then we got somet twine and sub duct tape. Maybe when that thing fell down, they rebuilt it. I, you know, I, I appreciate'em.'cause they, they, they gave us a lot of leeway. They, they said, here's the skill saw, we're gonna accidentally leave it. You know, they got tired of it. Well, and the cool thing is they've got access to job site, excess materials all the time. Right. Bringing stuff home. And, um, I think they got tired of coming home every night and we'd, we'd lay out boards for'em to cut and they were like, you know, I'm just gonna accidentally leave the extension cord and the saw out. You're 11 when they get home. You're nine now. And they're nine. They can, they've seen it done enough. Maybe they can just cut their own board. Yeah. Well, but I was running a combine when I was like, 11. There you go. You know, you know, I couldn't, I had to pull on the steering wheel of the combine to push the clutch in. Like,'cause I couldn't just push it and I wasn't, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Yeah. I mean, like north the Dakota, yeah. They were coming back in a couple hours, you know, the truck would be back from the elevator and, you know, whatever. Just don't die or fall into the dumb thing. Just stay in the cab, don't do anything, don't do anything stupid. You're 11 now, so we're gonna trust you to not do anything dumb. Right. Yeah. And there were, I mean, there were times we would probably to the chagrin of our neighbors, we would go down into the creek and build dams, ice hockey, you know, we'd turn it into the hockey. Oh, that's fun. Skating rink when we were, you know, I'm, that's winter time. Like I think the EPA gets on you about that these days. Days if you build a non permitted dam existed in the nineties. Yeah. And this is more like the eighties, right? Yeah. So, um, I wanna shift the focus a little bit to family. Yeah. Yeah. Um, where did, where did you each find your, your, because you're all married, right? Yeah. And, and where, where along the journey did you find your people? Austin? I know you were the most recent'cause you were a bachelor going into COVID. Yes, I was. Um, yeah, I met my wife in November of 2019. Okay. Um. Kristen is her name Kristen, and she'll probably listen, right? Yeah. And uh, so we met on match.com. Oh, you did? Um, you know, yeah. And I was, gosh, late thirties. Okay. Um, had you just been really career focused or had you had other serious Yeah. Kind of a relationships that just didn't quite get to the finish line or some of both. Okay. Um, I think what, you know, early in my career with GE Johnson, I traveled from right. Lake Tahoe to the San Luis Valley, the veil and Steamboat. And so every 18 months to two years, you were packing up your house and you were moving, um, oh, for like a whole long time. Oh yeah. Yeah. As long, as long as the project takes kind of thing. Yep. Interesting. Exactly. And so there was a portion, you know, through my twenties where it was a very transient lifestyle. You could date a girl if you wanted to, unless she was ready to take home from mom. Like I'll see you later and good luck finding one of those and va So yeah. Anyway, just really common normal girls that just wanna find a cute guy from Colorado Springs. Yeah, exactly. Settle down. Um, you didn't find anybody in the San Louis Valley? No, no, no. There's only three girls in the whole valley. Exactly. They're all married. Yeah. And so after that, you know, after traveling, what were you building in the San Luis Valley, by the way? Ms. G Johnson building down there. I didn't know there was anything they would touch outta that nation. Yeah. So what happened in 2007, 2008 when you had the, the Great Recession is a lot of the private work that we had been doing in the mountains, um, stopped because it was all developer driven. Sure. Right. And so the state of Colorado came out with the best grant, um, and the best grant funded K through 12, um, education school projects. So you could go and get the best grants and Gotcha. So a lot of these rural communities that have Right. Schools that mean that were built in the forties or whatever Yeah. And were falling apart. Right, right. Um, had the opportunity to build new facilities, so, okay. I had spent, um, the previous six years building high-end condos and in all of these ski resorts. And you're like, we're gonna send you to San Where did you live? Where did you live? In the San Luis Valley? Like Alamosa or? I lived in Alamosa. Yeah. Okay. Well that's probably the best available option. It was tricky finding. Um, housing. We were, were just at, uh, uh, joyful journey, hot Springs, my wife and I on the way back from the anniversary, uh, trip. Yeah. Uh, so we come through there pretty regularly. It's, it's, so my dad had a good friend that lived, uh, next door to him up in North Dakota for a while, and he was like A-U-S-D-A guy and then he got transferred to San Luis Valley. And just the contrast from like,'cause we don't even have irrigation up there in North Dakota, but they got voluptuous, clay loam soils that really only need three reigns to get you through the year. And huge equipment, all of leading edge technologies. And then you, like I I, I pray for the people down there, you know,'cause it's hard'cause that aquifer's drying up and Yeah. Yeah. It's cold in California and Arizona and it's cold at night. Yeah, I've heard it's the highest, uh, what is it, the highest valley in the US altitude wise. Yeah. I think that's accurate. That makes sense mean. Yeah. It's a fascinating environment. I remember driving to work one morning and it was negative 39 degrees. Oh. I mean, and that didn't even account for the wind, right? Yeah. I mean, it was, it was brutal. Um. Well, the beautiful place to live. But it, it also, you know, the cool thing about that project after you've just built high-end condos is you get to build a K through 12 community or a K through 12 school in a rural community. Yeah. And the people, you're actually gonna make a difference in those people's lives. Yeah, they did. And the, the, the rich ass owners of your Vail project don't even care if you exist or fall off the roof and die. Yeah, exactly. And so not Dick Powell. It was, it was fun to, to interact with the board down there in the I bet superintendent of the school district and I bet. And it was a really rewarding process. So anyway, let's find this woman. So you, you, you get your mash do com account up, you get a, a pop right away and you know, yeah. I mean, it took a little while longer than that, but um, yeah, we went on our first date in November of 2019 and then as we discussed out here, COVID had happened shortly after that. Yep. And, you know, we spent a lot of time together and, um, she was here local too. Yep. She was here local, um, and, uh, had two kids from a previous marriage. Okay. So, um, we ended up getting married and have been married now for. Uh, three years and just celebrated our third. Okay. Uh, wedding anniversary. And so we've got our two boys, Connor, who's 11, Blake, who's eight. And then, uh, we've got a daughter. We, one, one together. Oh, cool. Congratulations, Madeline. Who's 16 months old. Dig it. 17 months old. Dig it. So what, uh, what was it about? Was it Krista? Kristen? Kristen? What was it about Kristen that really drew you to her after that first, uh, master.com hangout? I think part of what makes us work is how different we are. Yeah. Um, my wife and I are a lot like that. Yeah. And, and so the people that know me like I am, you know, get buried in thought. I like talking about work or politics or whatever it happens to be. And generally my conversations are not very light. And so your philosopher type. Yeah. And so she's the fun one in the relationship and she's great. Um, with people and relationships and a fantastic mother. And I think one of the, one of the things about marrying somebody that has, you know, has been married before and has, has children, is you get the opportunity to observe them as a mother. Yeah. And what kind of mother are they to their children? Yeah. And not everybody gets that experience, right. Yeah. You know, you're kind of guessing like, right, right. We have kids. What are they gonna, and you see her with her kids and you're like, dang. I like the way she mothers. Uh. I think one of the things that drew me to her is, you know, just being a single mother, you work hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is the hardest job in the world and you know, not only are you trying to be a mother to two boys, but you're also trying to hold down a job and earn an income, um, and support your family. Right, right, right. So there's amount, there was a, a grit to her. Yeah. That was really attractive. And then yeah. You know, obviously, you know, her smile's great and she's got beautiful eyes and, you know, there's all that physical Yeah, exactly. So I won't go into all the details with you. Cool. Um, so yeah, congratulations. It's great to find love. You know, I've, I, I was 26, 25 when I met Jill in 27 when I married her. So what was then, yeah, that was, that, that long ago. 22 years ago, last month. Wow. Uh, was that picture, but, uh, where'd the be beard come into play? I couldn't even grow a, a, a goatee until I was 30. Like I literally, I was, that's, I, I tell this occasionally, but like what I told you, I was Kurt, the little guy. I was four foot 11 in seventh grade, and five foot one at the end of 10th grade. I didn't grow in middle school, basically. Uh, and then I sprung up, but I still didn't really have puberty. Like, I still didn't really shave until I was 25 years old and couldn't definitely grow a beard. And then I got like 30 and all of a sudden I got the, the thickest beard ever. I don't know. And what are you, uh, six two? Um, 60? Yeah. 62. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, yeah, I'm a six two now. Six, two and a half. I used to be, but now I'm six two, you know, buck 88 this morning. Yeah. I've dropped about 10 pounds since the first of the year. You know, clean living, not too much bourbon. Um, anyway, I digress. Yeah. So, uh, who's, who's next? You married a twin. Do you wanna, do you wanna talk about that relationship, Patrick? Yeah. We met in, uh, last year at college, the U Okay. Um, Chris, the, the great story about this is Chris actually knew, uh, my wife's twin sister through, uh, business classes at CSU. Okay. Uh, I got an opportunity, or, or drug, I'm not sure which, to a, a church service on a Saturday night with a good friend of mine. And, and, uh, her twin sister was sitting literally right next to me. And, uh, okay. Talk about her An amazing God story. Uh, the, the, your wife or the twin sister? My wife. No, my wife. And Okay. I had, I had met, uh, her twin sister Right. A few times just through interactions. You're like, Sarah? No. She's like, no, I'm not Sarah, I'm Susie. You're, whatever. What's your wife's name? Uh, she's, her name's Emily and Nurse. Hi, Emily. Sister's Hillary. Yeah. And, uh, so we, we, we kicked it off there and, and, uh, she finished, uh, CSU as an undergrad and then went to Creighton for medical school. Okay. And so we dated long distance for a while and then, uh, man, she's an amazing woman that, that brought us back. You didn't wanna let her go? No way. Now that dance and, uh, got back to Colorado and, and, uh, yeah, we've been married now 17 years. Okay. Celebrated 17. Two kids. A daughter, Piper, who's 12. Okay. Will be 12 in September. And his son Luke, who's nine going on 10. Our, our sons are pretty close in age. That's been a lot of fun. That's pretty cool. And a pretty neat dynamic. So, um. And she's doing some amazing things with, she's a family practice doctor by board certification. But does, uh, oh, well that's why you could take a big risk to like start a construction company with a little seed money from dad.'cause you made her a doctor gal even though she wasn't making any money out and she got a ton of student loans probably. But, you know, there was a lot of, takes the risk out a little bit. Right. Get those out of the way. But yeah, no, it's, it's been, it's been a lot of fun. And, and she's, uh, she's in private practice now. Cool. Uh, doing, uh, then there's so few private practices out there. Yeah. What, what's she in? She's, she's a board certified family physician. Okay. But she's pivoted into more functional medicine. Okay. That's the, the, uh, the, we're, we're signed up with a direct family care office here, which very similar, which I think is a very nice Yeah. Uh, business model and like, insurance companies are the worst creatures in the business. Yeah. Oh, you, it's not even really a business entire podcast company. It's not even really a business. Like you sell a government mandated product that be like, whatever. Anyway, I digress. She's, she's amazing at what she does. And, and, uh, direct primary care was kind of the transition from, from uc Health as a family physician to what she, I might wanna learn more about that.'cause I'd like the notion of functional medicine too. And, uh, it's a great blend of, of traditional western medicine, but, uh, just a more holistic Yeah. Honor the acupuncturist and the Chinese and the stuff like that.'cause some, some of their stuff works way better. Well, and it's, and you don't have to get a prescription to. Fight the side effects of the other prescription of the thing that you took to fight the side effects of the other prescription, well, prescription, whatever the attitude is. It's, it's the concept of it's always bad. Let's understand root cause. Totally. Like I, I think she uses That's awesome. The quote of Desmond Tutu of at some point you're gonna get frustrated of pulling people out of the river. Yeah. You're gonna walk upstream and Yeah. Hey, stop jumping in here. Yeah. Yeah. Who's pushing'em in? And so, yeah. So she's been great. We've been what does she have a, a practice name that people should look up? Does she take, take clients? She does. MIT md, so MINT md. Okay. Um, I like it. Yeah. So I'm gonna check it out. Um, not that I'm not super happy with my existing direct family care practice, I just want to Well, and she doesn't do direct primary care. Okay. So it's supplemental almost in that kind of space. Yeah. She really focuses on, um, chronic disease and root cross. I, uh, I wrote a blog in I think July of 2019 that was, uh, in Austin. We probably could be friends actually. We can go get some bourbon sometime if you're buying on the elder account. But, uh, give me liberty or give me health, uh, was the phrase. And it was like, you know, don't get caught up in our healthcare system.'cause they'll keep you full of pills and visits and other reasons to come back forever if they get a chance. So just do what you need to do to stay healthy. Here's some places to start, you know, stay off the treadmill. The health treadmill. Yeah, the health treadmill. Get on the treadmill. Go on the treadmill better. Yeah. Go for a walk outside, you know, but yeah. Yeah. No, they'll, they'll, or conveyor belt with you. They'll grind you up and just keep you a long time customer. We're bringing you back many times. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, would you like to share the same kind of Yeah. I met my wife Courtney in 2010. Hey Courtney. And, uh, yeah. Wonderful woman. Got married in 13, so we're coming up on our 12th. Okay. Uh, year anniversary. We've got three kids. Jackson's uh, our oldest nine, he'll be 10 here. This, uh, next month. Okay. Same age here too, with these guys. Yeah. So, uh, Jackson and Luke Pats are five months apart. Uh, we're coaching baseball together this year and having a ton of fun. That's fun. Yeah. It's awesome. Uh, they're two, was that your sport? Uh, it was golf and baseball. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And, uh, Jack and, and Luke love to joke that they're half brothers.'cause technically they are. Oh, right. Because we're identical. Right. And, and they really are. That's pretty funny. Best friends, which is fun to see. And that's cool. Uh, then I've got a daughter that's seven and a younger son that is, uh, five. Cool. Almost five. My, uh, my closest brush with fame, actually you guys are too young probably to recognize it, but, uh, oh, and I forgot the name now from North Dakota. There is a, uh, a long time baseball player that was, he was the first player drafted in maybe 97. He kicked for. Nebraska. He was a gold glove winner for Darren Erstad. Oh yeah. Yeah. I struck out Darren Erstad two times in one little league game. There you go. And nobody struck Darren out ever. The spitball? I, no, I was just lucky I kept it up inside by the knees, you know. But anyway, I digress. But that was my favorite sport. Um, but I, I quit to go farming. Yeah. Baseball's summer storm in when farming happens. And so when I got more than like 13 and more enough to more than drive the combine once in a while, I had to just do that instead. Yeah. So it goes, I wouldn't have been a pro anyway. Look at this movie's wrist. I mean, come on. I digress. The loco experience is our closing segment. Okay. And, and I'm gonna do one for each of you. So it's the craziest experience. Oh, wait, before we do that, let's, let's dip a little bit more into faith. Have you guys all grown up in a faith background? Environment? Like started as Christians never questioned it, stayed that way. Where do you go to church? How do you keep your faith vibrant? That's a lot of questions, but there's a lot of questions. I'll, I'll start to unpack that. No, I, I think we have been blessed. We were all raised, uh, in the faith community, um, different, um, you're, you've got a lineage of. Pastors, he looks like it could be a Catholic. He's got kind of that Irish look about him. Definitely not Catholic though. Just checking. We, we actually grew up Catholic light as Episcopalians. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. My wife's Catholic. And, um, you know, I, I know for me, definitely grew up in the church. It was an important part of the, the family, uh, routine and, and, and what we did. Uh, I I would say that, you know, I don't wanna speak for you guys, but for me personally, it was, it was probably high school that really, uh, solidified it for me. We had a phenomenal young life leader. Okay. In, in a gentleman named Brian Congleton. Uh, it seems like that organization has impacted a lot of unbelievable leaders over the years. Yeah. Hugely impactful for, for me. And I bet 20 of my 200 podcasts have had a, a person impacted by young. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, just, I digress. But phenomenal, phenomenal organization and, and, uh, that really solidified it for me. And then, and then, you know, through college there was some ups and downs, uh, but then got connected with another gentleman that, that was with Campus Crusade at this at the time. Mm-hmm. Similar type organization. Sure. And haven't looked back since. And yeah, it's, it's a, it's a really big part and I think it's just a matter of, um, just perspective as we grow up and, and you say with, you know, church, I'm over in Windsor with, uh, Patrick Lightfoot and Traverse Church, which has Okay. Been phenomenal. Not familiar or, um. Is it a, an an independent organization? It's an, an independent, it was a plant church. Uh, okay. Not Episcopalian at all? No, not Catholic. Nondenominational. Yeah. Um, just a Christian organization. Okay. And, and, uh, Patrick does a great job over there and, uh, kids plug in and I think that's, as a parent, what I'm, I'm learning is, you know, that's the most important part is how do you get your kids plugged in? Yeah. Uh, they really drive, but you can't make people do stuff. Right. Like, you gotta gotta open the doors. You can, you make'em new a few, few times, but you can't make'em plug in. But you can't make'em plug in. You certainly can't make'em. Uh, you can give'em the opportunity to plug in, so, but it's hard to make. Awesome. Yeah. Um, so I grew up it, my grandfather was a pastor. Okay. Um, and started a couple of non-denominational churches. Oh. Got in Colorado Springs. Oh, interesting. The most entrepreneurial of all ventures. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think he got sick of construction, decided to be the pastor. I'm like, okay, whatever. If you think that's easier. Yeah. Yeah. Um. And then on my mother's side, uh, she's from Nashville and my grandmother was very influential in the, uh, southern Baptist community down there. Gotcha, gotcha. Um, and did a lot, did a lot of women's prison ministry and Oh, wow. Interesting. That sort of thing. Okay. It was always an interesting dynamic because, and that's like the No, Dan and no drinking, no, none of that stuff. No drinking. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No holding hands with a pretty girl. Right. And it was interesting because we lived in Colorado, we went to my grandfather's church that was non-denominational, but oftentimes we would go back to Nashville in the summer and spend an extended amount of time there. And then we would get to go to church with my Mimi and Papa. Yeah, yeah. You know, the southern bab, first Southern Baptist in Nashville or Donaldson. And it was a different feeling. So this is probably, this is like, it's funny when I think of like a southern church, I think of like a black church and it all gospel eyes and stuff, but that's probably not at all like what a real Southern Baptist is. No. That's like, they're like very serious, right. Or something. Yeah. It was very serious. It was fire and brimstone and even as like a fire, you better turn, you got burn. Well, you're wearing a, all that, you're wearing a tie and a, and a jacket to church. Gotcha. And it's like, oh, okay. Starting when you're three. Yeah, exactly. So, okay. Gotcha. The only redeeming fact was that we got to go to Shoney's afterwards, so, okay. Uh, that's how they, it's a pizza shop or a barbecue or something. No, if you're from the south, you know what Shoney's is. It's like the worst chain restaurant you've ever done. Okay. Alright. But, um, anyway, you know, so now, so you had this kind of diverse uh, yeah, a very experience, diverse background and, and so, um, you know, grew up in the faith and obviously we went to high school together, we attended young life together. We had that same experience. Um, and now, you know, we had gone to Traverse for quite a while. Um, but, and that was because my wife and her sons were at Traverse since almost after it was founded. Oh, is that right? Um, but just coincidentally, you're like, I started dating this girl and you, you're like, oh yeah, I know her from church. And so, you know, but what Patrick mentioned about having your kids engaged Yeah. Um, has kind of led us on a journey lately to find a church that, um, is closer to us.'cause we live in Fort Collins. Yeah. And going to Traverse was a 25 minute drive. Our kids weren't in school with the kids that are there. Yeah. And, and so it's just a different community. Yeah. Yeah. So you sampling, you find another one yet? Yeah. And lately we've been going to Overland, um, okay. In the irony of, I'm not familiar with it, but Overland Church is that they're Southern Baptist. So it's been, is it Southern Baptist Light or like all it Southern Baptist? No dancing light for sure. That's good. It doesn't seem like Southern Baptist full on would fly very good in Northern Colorado. No, no. It would. But, uh, our son, who's 11, graduated outta fifth grade and is headed into the sixth grade class. So last Sunday when we went was the first time he had to sit through big church with us. Hmm. Um, and the pastor there got into some fire and brimstone in Ephesians five, and my son looks at me and he goes, so I shouldn't drink. I'm like, uh, well, we'll talk through that. But like what it actually says, if you're on a podcast, it's okay. You could have one. And what it says is, do not become drunk. Yeah. You know, and so anyway, um, we, that's why you have to practice a lot so you can drink more without becoming drunk. And so we've been enjoying that for the last several months and, and really that decision is driven by, you know, how we ended up at Overland was really a lot of the kids that, that our kids go to school with. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and actually obviously whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And so that is a huge, that's cool. Huge consideration and a huge draw and Yeah. Yeah. Dig. You know, my, I dig it. My son is now at church camp for the first time in Nebraska. I dig it. Um, at Camp Maranatha, uh, till this weekend, so I love it. Yeah. Connor. Connor, yeah. I remember my first church camp. Yeah. I dig it. Chris, why don't you share the same Yeah. Similar journey. Uh, really young life in, in, uh, high school was the tipping point, you know, out outside of that it was very rich. Rich, right. It was kind of assumed, but not really thought through. And then maybe college, uh, started going to Timberline off and on. Okay. And when we, um, when my wife and I got married, we kind of went on a, she's Catholic. Yeah. Grew up an Episcopalian. Okay. So we kinda had that and, um, went around trying to find our place. That's a weird thing up at Timberline. Okay. Yeah. My parents, Jill and I, when we moved to Colorado Springs, we went to 17 different churches trying to find our spot. We went to the Catholic, we went to the Episcopalian church and, and really just, we went to the snake handlers. We went to the freaking, everybody, I don't know, it was a wild season for us. I think what drew us to Timber, the Timberline, uh, teaches on the Bible. Yeah. And growing up, both in the Catholic and the Episcopal Church, um, you were, you, you had a New Testament reading. You had an Old Testament reading. You had a sermon and it was on a, a calendar. Yeah. Very specific thing. It seemed very disjointed and I never learned the Bible. Yeah. Um, and so to, to start to find a, a truly bible believing church that, that, uh, teaches preaches series. You know, when you spend six months on Acts Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, whoa, I had no idea. I got, I'm so literate. So I mentioned that Father Evan from Saint Beon. Yeah. Greek churches. I gotta email you. Sorry. If you're listening to Father Evan, I gotta get back to you. But, um. Anyway, that church, the Greek Orthodox, I've been listening to their podcast. It actually, his voice is really nice. It puts me to sleep at night sometimes. Sorry, father, I don't listen to them all. Um, but they started, they were, last year May, they were on Luke 11. Now they're on Luke 15 or 17 or something. Like, that's how crazy. They are so rich. It's so they're, they're like so rich three lines a week to, to be able to just sit on it for a while. It really is. And then, and then find context in it all. We, there's a balance there, right. We loved it. And my parents have since moved from Colorado Springs to Northern Colorado. Okay. Um, they attend with us. And so it's, it's been real nice. It's, it's like cool days different. Well, they got all the different flavor. I mean the, the different flavor. They, they got the best worship, right. Like the best paid band in town and to these guys, the kids programming's incredible. Right, right. All that. And our kids want to go to church. Yeah. That's cool. Um, okay, let's, uh, we're gonna get you outta here in 10 minutes. Uh, but first we gotta have a low-code experience from each of you. So that's the craziest experience that you're willing to share. Maybe something your brother doesn't even know about that story, but probably not. Um, but uh, it could be a day, a moment, a near death experience, a faith conversion experience. A I saved my wife from falling off the edge of the cliff. I don't know, like whatever that experience is for you. Some kinda a crazy experience that pops to mind. Chris, you wanna go first this time? Well, yeah, I can go first. I see Austin smiling. He knows his well. I don't, we had some No, I'll just share or together. Is there a shared one? Do we have a shared one that you wanna share that's, that you're smiling about? Yeah, we probably have a few. Probably not. Uh, probably some of'em we shouldn't talk about our statutes. That's perfect. That's what this podcast is about. We don't have that many li Yeah. You're way past the statute of limitations. Well, well there's probably one we're all thinking about that happened in college. Um, we had been out, uh, we probably enjoying Old Town a little too much. Yeah. It wasn't the early days of the craft beer revolution kind of. And um, it's hard to kick a gauge on how strongly they're, sometimes you accidentally get drunk, you know, and craft beer For us that Natty Light was great. Yeah, exactly. And, and we Right. Had a especially 17 of them. Right. And so we had this situation in, in college where there were, uh, four of us guys that lived in our house and the next door was a house of four to five girls. And we had become really close friends with them. And so we always went to the bars together and we always had this huge group that came back to our houses, the Flotilla. Yeah. Because like we had two houses. Yeah. Or you know, eight or nine of us. Yeah. You'd catch up five other people or something. Now you gotta Yeah. It was a party. Well, uh, we had decided to come home and me and a couple of my friends had gotten diverted on the way home and were walking past the post office, uh, here in Old Town. Okay. And one of my buddies who I'll leave nameless, um, he's in a different state now. He's in a different state. Yeah. So he's good. Um, started hopping through the mail trucks and Oh. Flipped down the visor of one and the keys fell out. Oh shit. And so I know what I would do. Yeah. So we did what any 20-year-old slightly inebriated male would do slightly. And we, we drove the mail truck home. Sweet. Yeah. And so lucky a rock. Oh. We drive the mail truck home and we pull up in the front yard and, and our fourth roommate in college was kind of a stickler. He was a, uh, he wanted to be a doctor and took it really seriously. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, we, he went, went to class more than you and stuff. This is great. And like there are 20 people out there check it out and they're like, yeah, it's hilarious. Um, he's like, you need to take that back. Well, he came up and he was hot and he was like, get it outta the front yard. And we're like, okay, we gotta get it outta the front yard. But now whether we gotta do with it, can't just take it back. You can't just take it back. And the only logical thing to do is to leave it in the middle of the oval of CSU. It seems like a legit plan to me. So we took the mail truck and we drove down the alley along Laurel and cut across. This was before all the cameras recording everything that happened on CSU campus. Exactly. So anyway, we roll it up into the middle of the oval. We hop out, we do our best to dust the thing down from our prince because you're super worried. You're gonna figure it out. Right. And go home. And that's the end. And, and that's the end. I like it. That shut up in the campus blotter. Perfect. You hit the news. Yeah. So whoever's listening from CSU don't look us up. Um, but yeah, that was I probably the craziest college story that we all experienced. That's a pretty interesting one. Yeah. Um, and Dave and Steve, if you're out there. So Dave and Steve were in my banking training program and they came to visit me like two months after. And we, we were like weaving back and forth for some reason to walk back to my house from downtown. And you saw that post office Dave got lost. And like wandered around Old Town for like a couple of hours before sleeping in somebody's Volkswagen bug in the back of their yard. Wow. Anyway, so that's, yeah, I, that was what I was thinking. I was thinking about you, Dave. If you're out there listening, uh, that, that's a pretty good story. I like that. I would, I would, I, I think that that's a good way to share the experience. Is that the end? Just a shared local experience? Sure. If I've got one, nothing's gonna compare. Really? No. Who, who made the decision to drive it? Like, uh, his name is John Merritt. Oh, it's spelled, I thought Johnny Walker. You guys. But, but I mean, because you pull this thing down and like, somebody's gotta be like, dude, we're driving this thing. Uh, he decided to drive it. Okay. Like, we're still out on the side. We're on the sidewalk. He's got it started up. Yeah, he started out, is pulled out into the street and it was like pop in. Okay. It was just you two. Uh, there was, there was another, a few of you guys too. So you had a posse just to get the mail truck? Yep. And it was old too. You know, there's a, I haven't seen a new mail truck. Oh, it hadn't been driven in years, probably. Wow. It was like one of the 1970, I mean, it was a single front wheel and stuff. No, not single wheel. They're closed. Jeep. I like it. I like it. Well, um, you should have seen if there was two of'em, you could have smashed'em together. Like a couple of Ferraris in the parking lot. Yeah, we did that 15 years later. That was or dabble into residential construction. Yeah. Um, anybody wants to look up elder construction? Should they just go to your website? You popular on LinkedIn? You wanna get any commercials? You got any specials running right now? Any special? No, I reach out to us. Uh, we've got a website over construction.com inc.com. Uh, yeah, take it Chris. Yeah, no, that's, any questions for me? Thanks for being here. No thanks and thanks for sharing the time. Hopefully you had fun. Did you have fun? We had fun. We did have fun. And it's been, it's been fun our to see where you've gone over the last we started essentially together. Yeah, pretty similar times. Banking with you way back when. It's fun to see your journey and appreciate your time. Been fun. Well thanks for having us on. Send me your referrals for local think tanks since you're strong advocates for peer advisor already. Yeah, you bet. Don't give'em all to that national firm Vistage and stuff. Come on, get outta here with that. Anyway. Appreciate you Ron. Look me up. Cheers guys. Guys. Cheers. Thanks. Cool. Thank you. Thanks.