EXPERIENCE 241 | Building a Team, Conducting the Process & Growing Together with Evan Worsley, Founder & President of Conduct All Electric, Inc.

I reconnected with Evan Worsley this spring, when I dropped him a note on LinkedIn, in congratulations of 9 years in business and what I’d seen as steady growth in the numbers of Conduct All Electric trucks around the region.  Turns out, I had helped him register his LLC and obtain his EIN at the Small Business Development Center those 9 years before, and though the name was familiar, it was easy to remember Evan once we sat down over whiskey in the podcast studio. 

From humble beginnings, out of his garage and with half a paycheck from his previous employer in the bank, Evan took every small job he could land, and in a year and a half, hired another electrician and some admin support and moved up to a storage unit, and hired more and moved up to a larger storage unit, and today he owns his own real estate and employs a team of about 45.  Steady growth throughout, and Evan has sat in every seat in the business over time.  

Evan’s journey is one of building a loyal team, developing consistent processes, and investing in his own leadership and team skills along the way.  He’s a good ol’ boy type, and an easy conversation, so please join me in getting to know Evan Worsley, President and Founder of Conduct All Electric, Inc.  

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Transcript

Speaker 4: 0:00

I reconnected with Evan Wesley this spring when I dropped him a note on LinkedIn in congratulations of nine years in business. And what I'd seen is steady growth in the numbers of conduct all electric trucks around the region. Turns out I had helped him register as LLC. And obtain his employer ID number at the Small Business Development Center those nine years before. And though the name was familiar, it was easy to remember Evan once we sat down over whiskey in the podcast studio. From humble beginnings out of his garage and with half a paycheck from his previous employer in the bank, Evan took every small job he could land, and in a year and a half, hired another electrician and some admin support and moved up to a storage unit and hired more and moved up to a larger storage unit. And today he owns his own real estate and employs a team of about 45 steady growth throughout, and Evan has sat in every seat in the business over time. Evan's journey is one of building a loyal team, developing consistent processes, and investing in his own leadership and team skills along the way. He's a good old boy type and an easy conversation. So please join me in getting to know Evan Worsley, president and founder of Conduct All Electric.

Speaker: 1:44

Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Evan Worsley. And Evan is the president of Conduct All Electric. Yep. And as it turns out, I helped him set up some, like new business paperwork, uh, nine plus years ago now.

Speaker 2: 1:57

Yeah. Uh, it'll be 10 years in February. Okay.

Speaker: 2:00

Well, big plans. Are you gonna do, uh, uh, open house party? Like 10 years is like, nine years. Feels kind of awkward. Yeah. You maybe have a birthday party every year, but nothing, not a blowout.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Yeah. We just find an excuse to have some good food around the office, but, uh, 10 years we should probably do something. But yeah, 10 years ago we came in to, uh, I believe you were at the Larimer County Workforce, um, area. Oh, okay. Helping us. And so we made an appointment, came in.'cause I really didn't know what I was doing. I knew what I wanted to do, but didn't know how to do it.

Speaker: 2:31

Yeah, yeah. I, I imagine you were probably like a, a master electrician already and you wanted to like. Tell your boss to pack sand and yeah. Uh, start something of your own.

Speaker 2: 2:40

So coming outta high school, I went to play college baseball, realized I was homesick and came back and, um, my friends were electricians and my dad was a lineman, so he was pretty much in the electrical world. And

Speaker 3: 2:51

yeah,

Speaker 2: 2:52

he said, uh, electricity, something technology would never replace, so it'd be a good career path. And so I immediately got into it. Um, got my journeyman's by the time I was 21, and I was running a big project in downtown Fort Collins. And the, the general contractor at the time said they, like, they think electricians make great superintendents. And so when I got my journeyman's license, I went in, I was all excited. It's a big accomplishment. It takes four years, a big hard test. And they gave me a 50 cent raise and I was deflated. And so at that same time, I'd got that job offer. And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna take this. So I went from being an electrician to a superintendent, and I was building big buildings all around Fort Collins. Oh, okay. Did, did a lot of work for Brick. I suppose

Speaker: 3:35

that, that, that. Skill of project management translates. Yeah, whatever industry a little bit,

Speaker 2: 3:41

you're still, you're still reading drawings and communicating with subcontractors and stuff like that. So you were early days

Speaker: 3:45

of Brinkman probably had noticed. I

Speaker 2: 3:46

was, I think I was right around employee number 12 and so Oh, wow. When I left there was 120 some, so it changed a lot. I'm very grateful for what they did for me. I learned a lot and, yeah.

Speaker: 3:56

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:56

Um,

Speaker: 3:57

well, it's another one of those spawn companies. Yeah. Like back in the day, like. Delta was one. Yes. And Nina has spun it off so many companies from that organization over the years. Yep. And you know, even HP when they do layoffs and those smart people don't wanna leave Absolutely. Until they start a company of some sort.

Speaker 2: 4:13

Yeah. Very grateful. They taught me a lot. I have a really, a lot of really good relationships still from there. And Cool. Ultimately that's kind of what helped start my company is I just realized I missed doing it. I was still doing some electrical work and on nights and weekends Gotcha. For family and stuff and just kind of wanted to electric, electric

Speaker: 4:29

guy at heart.

Speaker 2: 4:30

Yeah. I just wanted to kind of be in charge. I wanted to be the bus driver instead of a passenger. And so, yeah. Um, ended up starting my own company. And you know, obviously with your help and got going.

Speaker: 4:41

Talk about like your stage of life a little bit. Like were you married kids, did you have a. Big pile of money to Yeah. Buy some trucks with and stuff right off, off the bat. I would not

Speaker 2: 4:50

recommend doing it the way I did it. Okay. Um, I was married and we had two young girls. Um, and I had no nest egg, no plan, no nothing. I didn't, not even a retirement account

Speaker: 5:00

to tap hardly. Not

Speaker 2: 5:01

really. And spent all that money to get married. Yeah. The stuff that I did have, he wouldn't let me touch. I had a good financial advisor still do, so, um, he wouldn't let me touch it. And so pretty much, it was a big leap of faith and I would do a job and then ask them if I could get paid the same day. Granted, these are small jobs at the time when I was first starting. But you know, if I did something for$400 that day, I would try to get a check that day for$400 so I could pay the bill and then have a little bit of money. And so really, I just had one, uh, one paycheck in the bank when I left. Wow. When I left Brinkman and started doing work. And then I would turn one job into two and two into three. And you know, it kind of just got going.

Speaker: 5:38

And the connections you made probably through Brinkman helped a lot. It

Speaker 2: 5:41

did. Yeah.

Speaker: 5:42

And when you're that little guy, there's a lot of little scraps that the real quote unquote, real electric companies don't wanna mess with you. Absolutely. If you can be that guy for a few different folks. Yeah. Things,

Speaker 2: 5:52

things that aren't truly all electrical. Right. Maybe it's like, Hey, this heater's not working. I don't really do that, but I'll take a look at it. You know? Right. It was borderline handyman work for a while, but, um, you know, progressively, I think I was, I was my own, my only employee for three or four months, and then I hired somebody just outta your house or did you rent a space and stuff? Yep. Just outta my house. And then. Uh, hired another guy that I'd previously worked with, and at that time I upgraded to a storage unit. So things were really looking up at that point. I didn't have shelves. It was just all on the floor. Were

Speaker: 6:23

you in Windsor already? Is that your home base or? Uh, we

Speaker 2: 6:26

were, we started in Greeley, so we were west. West Greeley. Okay. Uh, when I started my business. And so, uh, kind of just working outta my house, finally got a storage unit, which I thought was pretty cool. I couldn't afford the shelves in there yet, but, um, we had enough stuff in there to, had some storage bins that needed. Yeah. We could kind of at least see what we had in a few ladders and stuff like that. And so, um, progressively just started picking up work and figuring it out on the fly. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker: 6:52

What, uh, like as you added team, was it. All electric or did you add admin to the conversation soon? It was, was your wife involved with the business? She,

Speaker 2: 7:02

she was. And so she helped me with, you know, I was my all ad I was the bookkeeper, I was the estimator, I was everything. And yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. I was making mistakes. And the problem is I would go do the work and I, I'd get home late and I was tired and then I wouldn't bill. And so we had these crazy peaks and valleys of cash flow and some

Speaker: 7:22

jobs you didn't make any money'cause you just forgot something. Yes,

Speaker 2: 7:25

I'm sure I did. I didn't have very good systems at the time and yeah, you know, ultimately it was, it was quickly obvious that if my marriage was to survive, we needed to, um, separate that part of it because, you know, it's stressful and Totally, you know, I, I was. Pushing on her to do things that she didn't know what she was doing. And so it's like, you know what? Let's just find somebody that could help us. Yeah. So, um, ended up finding a really great lady named Nicole Watkins, who you may know. Oh yeah, I do. Yeah. So she was kind of a, I guess you would call it like a remote bookkeeper. Yeah. So we would send her things, she would have access to our stuff and um, that kind of got me going for a while and until we started needing to hire more staff. Kind of full time.

Speaker: 8:08

Yeah. Yeah. Well eventually like,'cause you're. Like what's that evolution now? What's your team size?

Speaker 2: 8:13

We're right around 50 with everybody between field and and office staff. Yeah.

Speaker: 8:18

Yeah. And how's that breakdown for your company? As far as like is there admin and then like sales and business development or do you do bid work mostly or A little

Speaker 2: 8:25

bit. So I've got two full-time estimators who are also full-time project managers. So

Speaker: 8:30

Okay.

Speaker 2: 8:30

The model I kind of have is if they estimate it and we get the job, they will also project manager. You better be willing to manage it, get it done for that price. Yeah.'cause sometimes estimators like, oh cool, we won, here's this. Good luck. You know? Well now like an architect sometimes. Yes. Now it's their baby. So I have two full-time guys there that are great. Um, we have a service manager, um, we have who also kind of doubles as our HR and office manager. It's of fixing stuff that

Speaker: 8:53

broke that you guys didn't install, right? Yes,

Speaker 2: 8:55

exactly. That's Karina. So we have a service division and a. In a construction division. Karina runs that along with Scott. And so yeah, he's kind of the full-time service estimator and things like that. Yeah. We have two.

Speaker: 9:06

Yeah. Shout out to Karina. She was running the Best Western during the COVID days. Yes. Yep. She remembers it. Uh, when we got kicked out of all of the government places we Yep. Crashed at, she was like, Hey, you crash here.

Speaker 2: 9:14

Yep. She was, uh, she was a great hire for us. And so service team has four people. Karina Scott, um, and two service techs. Okay. We have a, uh, field operations manager. Okay. We have a operations manager, we have a, uh, controller. Mm-hmm. And Lindsay is business development, social media marketing and project specialists. So I like it. Yeah. She's the Swiss Army knife that kind of does a lot of that stuff as well, so

Speaker: 9:43

Yeah. Yeah. When you were wearing 17 hats, now she's got 11 of those. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 9:47

pretty much. Everybody wears quite a few hats in the office. Yeah. So, um, that's pretty

Speaker: 9:50

streamlined organization. And then, then what does that leave about? 40 ish, 35 ish. Yeah. Pretty field. Much

Speaker 2: 9:57

depending on the day. You know, some guys will have their cat's, daughter's wife's kid has a quinceanera party to go to and they can't come to work. So depending on the day, we have 30 some guys. But, uh, yeah, we've, we've been fortunate to have a really good staff. I made a decision a long time ago to kind of invest in good people first and then create good electricians instead of just looking for good electricians. And sometimes So you do a lot of

Speaker: 10:21

apprenticeships and stuff like that? We do. And great electricians.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yeah. It was a, it was a painful investment early on.'cause they don't, uh, they don't always know as much, but they're great people and

Speaker: 10:31

Well, and you probably didn't know how to train'em that good either.

Speaker 2: 10:32

I didn't, and I, I knew my way. Right, right. And who knows if my way was even the right way. And so we've got a lot of great people now, um, who have turned into great electricians and they've all been here a really long time. So I'm very, very fortunate.

Speaker: 10:45

Yeah. Yeah. Um. Let's, can we zoom back a little bit? Yeah. To those formative years, so, so you added just another electrician right away, and then what was the first non-electric? Role that you filled outside of your wife doing whatever you needed her to do? I think

Speaker 2: 11:02

the first one was kind of like a, a in-house bookkeeper, just because it got to be too much for kind of remote work and so, yep,

Speaker: 11:08

yep.

Speaker 2: 11:09

Added a bookkeeper who did one, Nicole

Speaker: 11:10

had multiple clients, was kind of her thing.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Yeah. And so, you know, she doubled as bookkeeping and helped with the billing, which was a big thing. Yeah. That we talked about. And also dabbled, got the phoenixes and whatever. Dabbled in hr, which I had no idea what we were doing with that. And so kind of inventing process we go

Speaker: 11:27

And what do you do now in hr? Do you have somebody? Yeah, Karina

Speaker 2: 11:29

is fully trained and certified in hr and she kind of, she handles all of that, leaves

Speaker: 11:32

that department. Yep, fair enough.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Yeah, so that was probably our first big hire office wise. And then, um, it kind of moved into project manager slash estimator. Yeah. Because I quickly learned that, you know, I was in the field all day and then estimating at night. And what that did was lead to some not great estimates too. It was like, ah, this should be good enough. Right. And we either weren't winning because it wasn't giving good details, or Yeah. We were winning because we were extremely low, which is not a good plan also, so. Agreed.

Speaker: 12:02

Yeah. Cool. Well, that's been fun. Um, what, uh, like in the five year plan, do you have, uh, major changes to the organization? Is, are you happy, you sort, I assume like kind of Denver up to Cheyenne and east and west of ways, or is beyond that too?

Speaker 2: 12:18

So we're just wrapping up. Um, the biggest job in our, in our company's history, it's in Fort Morgan. It's a big cold storage facility out there, but I really try to keep us home because I care about the guys and their family life. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, as much time as I spend going up and down the interstate for my kids in basketball, I realize that it takes a toll on people. Yeah. And at some point people are gonna be like, I don't want to do this anymore just because of the drive. So I kind of have a rule of trying to keep things between 45 minutes to an hour from the, from the shop for the guys. Now the Fort Morgan one is farther. I've got a couple farther ones,

Speaker: 12:52

but at least you're not up and down. I 25. It's a a lot nicer roll in the fort

Speaker 2: 12:55

and uh, I do pay the guys to sleep in the car while while driving. So, uh, that's an added perk. Hopefully not the driver is sleeping. Yeah, I was gonna say. Um, so yeah, we try to stay close, but you know, we've scaled all the way from just myself and that. I think that first year we did 325,000 in sales and then, you know, now we're gonna be just over 9 million this year. Oh wow. The plan is to kind of settle in that$10 million mark for sales. Um, I feel it's a good area between the small guys and the big guys. Yeah. And it's an area that we're really good at the, the size projects and

Speaker: 13:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:31

Our processes and procedures and the manpower we have is, is just perfect for that area to, to grow

Speaker: 13:36

another stage. Yeah. You gotta try to turn into a 50 million company. Right.

Speaker 2: 13:39

The next jump is a pretty big one, rather than with a real

Speaker: 13:41

CFO and a real Yep. HR changes when you get over

Speaker 2: 13:45

50 people and everything else like that. Oh, yeah.

Speaker: 13:48

Interesting. Okay.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Yeah, there's a lot of different things that happen. So I, uh, you know, all along I said I always wanted 12, 10 to 12 guys. That was my plan. And then all of a sudden I've got this and people ask me, how did you get here? And IS I'm, I don't know, it's essentially like a train with no breaks. And so the plan is to just stay on the train as long as we can. So well,

Speaker: 14:07

and do good work. Yeah. You know, hire good people. Keep doing that. What would your, like longest term employees say about why they. Have been there for a long time. I would hope

Speaker 2: 14:19

that it's, uh, the way that I treat'em and the way that I treat'em, like family. You know, I know all of my employees wives and kids, and you know, for me, family comes first. So I, you know, the guys, I'm like, Hey, your kids have sports. I want you guys at your kids' games. It's not a big deal that you're kicking off a little bit early and yeah, you know. I used to be very against, uh, taking time off because I'm like, we have work to do. We gotta work, work, work, work, work. Right, right, right. And now, uh, with my kids getting older and I, I realize I've got one summer left with my oldest. It's like that time is very important and you guys have earned it. And it's, it also recharges their batteries for sure to, you know, nobody can grind all year long with, with no recharge. And so we really push on people to take their time off. We have volunteered paid time off where they get to go to kids' schools and different things like that. Oh, cool. So I would hope that it's the way that they're treated and the family atmosphere, even though we've got big, we've never lost touch with that, so.

Speaker: 15:15

Yeah. Yeah. How about your customers?

Speaker 2: 15:18

Customers like Your Steady Eddie.

Speaker: 15:20

Why is it

Speaker 2: 15:20

We have some great customers. We still have customers that, you know, we're the ones I did by myself a long time ago and all the way up to big general contractors. And I think what they know, what they'll get from us is good service. Right? And so things are always gonna happen. People can call and say, Hey, I forgot to tell you we're gonna need you next week. And you know, some companies are like, well, we're three or four weeks out and I'll always find a way to make that happen. Our safety is, is top notch and I think our quality is important. But you know, what we really focus on is our relationships. Yeah. So, yeah, we live by, by the quote that you don't get a second chance at a first impression. And so that's what I, I tell the guys all the time. And those relationships lead to more and more work where there's a lot of hard bid work going on out there. Mm-hmm. But we also do a lot of negotiated work with people that, because of our relationships, and they know what they'll get. So,

Speaker: 16:09

and for listeners that might not be familiar, like. Can you describe kinda the difference between a hard bid and negotiated it?

Speaker 2: 16:15

Yep. So a hard bid is, you know, it goes out on the internet to a, here's the plans a million people and Right. A million general contractors. And so if you think, you know, say Fort Collins is building a new pool in town, there's 10 general contractors on it, well, they all go out to their electricians. Typically three per general contractor. You could have 30 electricians on this job. And so if you think about it, the chances of you winning it is not very good. And if you do, there's a reason why your number's low, you probably miss something. And so hard bid work is, is a fine line of do we really want it, you know? Gotcha, gotcha. What are the risks here? And you're in a much bigger pool, right? Negotiated work. It's like, Hey pal, we've got this church, I want you to do it. Here's our budget. How can we make this work? Right? And so it's kind of more of a partnership than, than it would

Speaker: 17:04

be. Yeah. More comparable to the. Was that construction kind of thing. That was Neededs thing. Right? Absolutely. We, we kind of build it as we figured we need where they had everything in-house and Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:13

Yeah. That's a lot. You know, we get in early with a lot of our general contractors and help with the design and say, well, if you put it over here, this would save some money. Or Right. This would lead to better expansion for you if you wanted to do that in the future. So. Yeah,

Speaker: 17:25

exactly. You're right. Yeah. I know you think you only need 50 amps, but Really Correct. What about here? What we just put this here for now. Yes. You got it. Yep, yep. I get it. Yep. Being part of the process more. Absolutely. Instead of uh, well, and I think that what's cool about that process, whether it's architects or general contractors, they all learn more about what it takes to build good pieces of property, you know, and the electric side of that, through having even those conversations, it's not like. Deliver the hard bid dude. Correct. It's like, oh, how does this really work? Well,

Speaker 2: 17:54

and you know, the hard bid contractors, sometimes we call'em chuck in a truck because it's just a guy working out of his truck. Right. Right. He doesn't, he can work

Speaker: 18:02

as many nights as he needs to. Correct. He doesn't have

Speaker 2: 18:04

the overhead as, as we do, and they, they find ways to cut corners and the quality you're getting, especially in the places you can't see a lot of electrical is buried. Right. You don't see it. Right. It'd be, it would scare a lot of people to see some of the things that people do to cut corners and different materials used in methods that keeps, that keeps it cheaper. That's curious about,

Speaker: 18:22

there's probably like, whatever, it's 12 amp wire or something, but then there's, you know, good, better. Best premium Correct. Within that, that you can buy? Yep. And what's the real need of the property owner?

Speaker 2: 18:34

Yeah. A a prime example is typically in areas that we know may need some sort of expansion. We try to run pipe in those areas so that we can pull more wire through it or bigger wire or whatever. Right? Right. Instead of running a flexible conduit with wire already in it, that you can't go back. And so then that's what leads to, you know, conduit being run on walls and, you know, stapled to the ceiling and all the things that everybody sees on the internet and cringes. So we try to think ahead and do a lot of that stuff. So we, we pride ourselves on being different.

Speaker: 19:02

Who's your leadership team, uh, as, as far as you consider it now? Um, yeah. So would you say,

Speaker 2: 19:08

so I kind of headed up, um, I've had a lot of training. I've had a really good mentor that I worked with at Brinkman for a long time. Okay. And then she's,

Speaker: 19:14

you wanna give her a shout out?

Speaker 2: 19:16

Yeah. Ashley HOAs. Do you know Ashley Haas?

Speaker: 19:18

I don't think I do.

Speaker 2: 19:18

She's, she's amazing. You need to get her in here. Okay. But, uh, she was a consultant for me for a long time. Okay. And, um, she kind of helped me develop my processes, my procedures. She helped me with my leadership style. She helped me. Cool. It's just one of those people that you meet when you work with, you're like, you're so smarter than me. Like, I need all of everything you have. And so. Um, and she's like,

Speaker: 19:40

yes, but I don't know how to wire buildings. Yeah. So we, she's like,

Speaker 2: 19:43

well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna help you and you're gonna pay me and we'll get it figured out. And so now the business is humming, but she gets a lot of that credit for that. That's cool. But she's kinda helped me with my leadership style. So really I, I try to lead it and then, uh, you know, our controller is involved and then the, the operations manager and our field operations manager Okay. Kind of work hand in hand with, with the two, uh, project managers and estimators as well as Lindsay and Karina. So it's kind of a, I I'm not a big, it's kind of a

Speaker: 20:10

collaborative team. Yeah. Everybody's got their lane.

Speaker 2: 20:12

I'm not a big title guy. I would go no titles if I could get away with it, but gets confusing. It's hard hire for some of the employees. They are like, well, what is my role and who do I re respond to? And so, yeah. I eventually gave in and had to do it, but I'm not a, Hey, I'm the boss. Listen to me. It's more like we're teammates. So I, you know, I'm a basketball coach and I coach a ton of basketball and so I treat it like a team. And so, you know, you're the point guard. You bring this part, I'm, I'm the post, I bring this part. And so

Speaker: 20:40

did you, uh, did you have a kid that was a, a little taller and didn't have quite the swing for baseball? Or how did that go down? You know,

Speaker 2: 20:46

I always thought I was gonna have boys and that, uh, they would play baseball and they, they'd live out my dreams, right? Oh. And that's the way it always goes. And then I got dealt two girls. And so I'm like, well, what am I gonna do with this? And, um. We tried all the sports and I really didn't have a preference one way or the other, but somehow basketball stuck and uh, they're both really, really incredible. Is that right? Yeah. Talented basketball players, so that interesting.

Speaker: 21:09

Yeah. What, uh, what positions,

Speaker 2: 21:11

so Gracie is, Gracie can kind of play the two through the five. She's played a lot of five. Okay. So she's, she's as tall as I am and, um, probably stronger, which is crazy. So she, uh, she has a lot of success and then Haley is a lot smaller. Haley is, uh, Gracie's the older, I guess that's older. Yep. Gracie's the older, so she's a junior in high school at Windsor. Okay. And so Haley is in eighth grade and, um. If she had Gracie's body, she would probably be headed to the WNBA because of her hearted work ethic. Gotcha. Um, but, uh,

Speaker: 21:42

doesn't quite have the, uh, the height factor. Nope. Doesn't have

Speaker 2: 21:45

the height or the strength yet. But she doesn't realize it. She thinks she does. She, she plays like she does the heart of a life. Oh yeah. Everybody's like, what's that little girl doing? Some being so mean out there.

Speaker 3: 21:54

She just tried her hardest. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:57

But I, I try to, I try to lead my team the same way I coach basketball and, you know, I would never ask my team to do anything. So Are you the head coach for these? I'm the assistant coach at Windsor High School, and then I coach a couple club teams in Denver. So. Good.

Speaker: 22:08

My, uh, my wife's, uh, brother and his family live in Windsor, but they, their kids all went to re Gotcha. But, uh, the Johnson boys Isaiah was the state champion wrestler for two 15. Oh, oh, wow. Uh, and they, they have some good wrestlers go through that program. They do. It's been pretty amazing. Yeah. There was a few of'em this year that. Well, I think they sent eight to state Yeah. Or something.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Yeah. And their boys won two years in a row. The, the basketball state championship too. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. No, it's been fun. They got some good kids go through. I

Speaker: 22:36

haven't been around youth sports for a long time and now it's kind of winding up'cause they're mostly getting out school going off to college now. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:43

It's uh, I, I like to say it's not our identity, but it's real close.'cause if I'm not working, rarely hunting, which I love to do, I'm, it's all sports. So is

Speaker: 22:52

Gracie is the younger and

Speaker 2: 22:54

Gracie's the oldest? The older Haley's younger. Haley's

Speaker: 22:56

the younger. And how old is Haley now?

Speaker 2: 22:57

Haley's in eighth grade, so I think she's 14. She's gonna get mad. So you got

Speaker: 23:01

five, four more, five more years really of Yeah. High school sports at least to, uh, be super dad in. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Gracie's got one more summer of club basketball, um, to wrap up her recruiting process and, and kind of two years left of high school basketball. So,

Speaker: 23:15

so what's the, what's the world of electric instruction like these days? Like, is there abundant work? Like you've grown sounds like. Throughout, right? Like Yeah. Can you gimme an idea of that arc? You mentioned three and a quarter are now up to almost come on 10 million next year probably. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:33

And I don't, I don't remember all of the years Sure. And all of the places, but we, we've been in the Mercury 100, you know, kind of fastest growing companies, and we keep changing tiers, which is good. That means we're scaling. Right. And so it's been, yeah. Um, it's been good. We're, I feel like we're in a bubble here. And, you know, we're not recession proof and I don't wanna say that, and I'm gonna knock on wood here, but you both

Speaker: 23:53

knock on wood. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:54

Um,

Speaker: 23:55

you know, the work, but there's still work out there. Even though,

Speaker 2: 23:57

even, even during COVID we were, I was hiring during COVID with people that were laying people off. And I felt the COVID Ripple almost two years later, which is kind of interesting. The backlog of work dried up. Yeah. And stuff like that. But, you know, we are, we live in an area where there's always stuff happening. And so people are like, how are you still building? You're running outta land. It. People are right when they say that, but people are also tearing things down to build new things where things work. Right? Right. So we have incredible economy in this area, you know, traveling like we do for basketball and stuff. I see other areas and it's not like this. Yeah. And so I feel very fortunate that, that we are as busy as we are here, but there's always work to be done. And, you know, worst case when things slow down a little bit, like the, the election time was a little bit tough. People were uncertain of what rates were gonna do and who was gonna be in office and,

Speaker: 24:47

and how do, can your, your employee expense scale from then? You just don't pay as much overtime and stuff? Or do you actually downsize your team if you need to? We cut

Speaker 2: 24:56

back on overtime and I take a lot of pride in the fact that I've never laid anybody off due to work in nine years. And so it comes at a cost. Right. I think, uh,

Speaker: 25:04

I've lost some money some months. We did have, a couple years ago, I think

Speaker 2: 25:08

I paid a$150,000 for landscaping in my house. That probably would've cost a landscaper 10,000. But we had electricians out there doing some amazing work. But, um,

Speaker: 25:18

it's called flagstone.

Speaker 2: 25:20

Yes, exactly. So they're like, Hey, we broke all of this. Can you get more? I'm like, sure guys, just keep on and working. So, uh, we've done a good job of keeping them busy, but it, you know, things that, things that you do as you just take on different projects. Like, I can remember a time on, or our service department was slow and we started hanging Christmas lights right in one, you know, fourth quarter of a year to, to stay busy and keep the guys working.'cause really it's not about me making the money. It's, I want those guys to be able to buy Christmas presents and not, not worry about how they're gonna afford rent and all those other things. So

Speaker: 25:54

let's talk about like. Operations and systems a little bit like, are you like an EOS guy or have you built your own systems along the way to get the estimates out, to keep the projects on time, to have the team know what everybody's doing.

Speaker 2: 26:07

It's funny you asked me about EOSI. I have some mutual friends of a guy named Justin who keeps emailing about, oh, Justin Bowling. Yeah. Yeah, about EOS. He's persistent. I am absolutely embarrassed to admit I have no idea what EOS is. Oh, really? So let me tell you about what I have, and I probably should talk to Justin. Justin, if you're listening, I'm sorry I haven't got back to you. But, uh, I'll give you the cliff notes. Yes. I should probably learn what EOS is. But we, through trial and error, we have a pretty good, uh, software system we use called Nullify, and that's what tracks all of our proposals. It's what we use for our billing, we use for our time management. You can see how far your

Speaker: 26:41

pipeline

Speaker 2: 26:42

is. Yep. Stuff like that. Yeah. And Lindsay does a good job. She takes a lot of that stuff and puts it into kind of a forecast tracker and Okay. Different things like that, that, you know, projects we've won, what's in the pipeline that we think we're gonna win. Right. Different things like that. And what's,

Speaker: 26:55

what, what do we think we're not gonna win. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:57

And so we meet once a month, uh, as a team on that to see where we're at, where are gaps. Because if you're looking at the gap, if you're looking one or two months ahead, you're in trouble. It's, it's the five and six months.'cause if you think in construction, if I do work in the month of October, I bill it in November, I'm, I usually don't see it for 60 days. Right. The payment. So it's a very. Interesting cycle, and you gotta really pay attention to where the money's gonna run out and when. So

Speaker: 27:26

cashflow management is such a interesting business in that space. That's

Speaker 2: 27:29

been the hard part for me. And so, you know, I didn't go to college. I learned a lot of things, obviously the hard way. I've made a lot of mistakes, but

Speaker 3: 27:35

yeah,

Speaker 2: 27:36

I've had great people around me and I'm committed to hiring people much, much smarter than me that Yeah. That can teach me and drag me along and Yep. Get me to stop eating the crayons and, and use them. So

Speaker: 27:46

one of my best, uh, banking customers back in the day was Royce and Merit Electric. Oh yeah. And so I had firsthand experience with electric companies and, and seeing them build those systems and they would, you know, show like, here's how we track our pipeline and here's how we know this and this and that. And, you know, during the recession days it was like, you know, basically our profit is. The net 30, right. That we get back during this season. Yeah. And we're just trying to cover our overhead. The way construction works.

Speaker 2: 28:14

The way construction works is, you know, you bill, you bill, you bill, and then your retainage is your final payment. Right? And so retainage comes once all the work on the jobs done, all the punch lists are done and the owner's satisfied. And then you got whatever, and the bank finally

Speaker: 28:26

pays that last little bit. And

Speaker 2: 28:28

so, you know, a lot of times that's your profit. Everything else that you're, you're being paid is just paying the guys and the suppliers and everything else totally cover the cost. Yep. Yeah. It can get tough, you know, at times we've had, we have a really expensive estimating software and at times there's been years where we're like, instead of paying for two licenses for 16,000, can you guys share a login for 8,000? Right. Right. And so sometimes you gotta get creative and get, and get skinny in certain ways, but we've been able to do that and keep everybody working, which is very, very important. Talk about

Speaker: 28:57

the finance, uh, banking and like stuff like that. Did you. Like have growth capital along the way, or did you just bootstrap the whole way and eventually probably got a line of credit or something? Yeah. Never bonding or stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 29:10

Never took out a loan, never did anything like that. It was kind of just created our own cash and figure it out. I didn't even have a credit card at the time, other than a personal one, which I found out is the wrong thing to do for business. But um, yeah, eventually you start to create a relationship and then you have enough, you know, data to show a bank that, hey, I'm not gonna disappear with your money. Right, right, right. And you know, I think in 2014 when I kind of got going, and 2014, 2016, during that time, there was still that hangover from the 2008 where people were getting money and they shouldn't have been. Right. And so banks were still extra tight. They checked a lot of things. Totally. And so it was difficult. And

Speaker: 29:49

that was why I got the hell out of it. Right. It was like, it was fricking, I I thought it was thrilling to make bets with other people's money. Right. And I was really good at it. Right. But when that became no longer part of the banker. Job description, right? It was like, well, yeah, whatever. There was a lot

Speaker 2: 30:03

of different check systems that put got put in place after that. And so it became hard and it's like, Hey Evan, you haven't been in business very long. We are, we're not sure if you're gonna make it. You know, we're really not interested. And so it was tough

Speaker: 30:15

bursting at the seams. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 30:17

it was tough. So, you know how long

Speaker: 30:18

in the storage unit.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Um, probably three years, maybe different storage units, but, you know, slightly larger, bigger and bigger storage units. Yeah. Longer you get longer'cause I had more stuff Right. That I probably didn't need. So, and shelving now, yes, I did get shelving. It was a big day. Um, but yeah, you finally find somebody that believes in you and, uh, and gives you that chance. And so Don Davis at First Bank was a, was a big mentor of mine when I first got started. She told me that, just go and you'll be great. And um, you know, she helped me and just different things like that. But finally, well, having

Speaker: 30:52

good numbers, people on your team the whole time helps too, right?

Speaker 2: 30:54

Yeah, yeah. And, and when you can show backlog and contracts and different things like that, it helps. And so eventually we built up enough data that people were like, okay, we trust you. You're not going anywhere. And you get a small line of credit and you kind of use that back and forth and, yeah. Um, yeah. And now we have a great relationship with our banker and

Speaker: 31:11

Well, you own a building too, right? That you Yep.

Speaker 2: 31:13

And so Occupy Yeah. You, you helped us also set up a different LLC, so, uh, kind of did a, a real estate LLC, that, that we own the buildings in. So I have two buildings that I lease back to conduct all Okay. Um, through our LLLC. And then I also bought a basketball gym in Denver. I built out Yeah. That I, that I rent out. So through the same LLC or? Yeah, through the same LLC. So, but it's a real estate holding company, doesn't, yeah. It was my kids as trainer and, uh, he's just a great guy and he was wanting to do it full time and I said, well, and he couldn't, uh, didn't know he didn't have the means or whatever or whatever. And so I said, I'll do it. And you know, okay. When you pay this off, I'll just hand you the keys. I don't need to make anything off of it. Oh, that's wild. Yeah. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. Well, and

Speaker: 31:54

the, the cost of buying a basketball gym. Is way less than trying to build one. Yeah. Like half as much probably these days. Yeah. So what I did is

Speaker 2: 32:02

I got one of those kind of man cave spaces, uh, that was just built, it's right across from the Broncos training facility. Okay. And so put floors and hoops and stuff in it. Cool. And so we have another one in Loveland that I have with a couple partners, so I Oh, cool. Had a little bit of experience with it, but

Speaker: 32:15

that was my, uh, sport in high school. Was it like I wasn't that good at it. I was, I was four foot 11 until the end of my, no. Five foot one until the end of my 10th grade year. Whoa. And then I became like six foot two, a hundred and thirty two pounds in college.

Speaker 2: 32:30

Wow.

Speaker: 32:30

But I was always a good baller. I was a point guard, kinda like your, your elder daughter where you can play the, for me, I was the one to the. Four by the time I was in intramural ball, you know,'cause I was a pretty good point guard.'cause what else are you gonna be when you're five foot one playing varsity? Yeah. You better be good at handling the ball. Right, exactly. And shooting. Yep. Like, and, and, and fake. Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Um, but then I got tall, but I still, you know, somehow managed through that with pretty decent ball handling skills. Good. But no mass. Yes. So I'm not a real center and, you know, not Yeah. Maybe in high school. Yeah. If I could still move like I could back then,

Speaker 2: 33:04

I know how that goes.

Speaker: 33:05

But, uh, but that's pretty impressive to have a, a, a full, uh, spectrum Yeah. Position. Right. It's like LeBron almost. It, it's been good.

Speaker 2: 33:14

I, I feel very fortunate that I've had good advice. So my, uh, my insurance agent also happens to be one of my very best friends, Matt Greenwald with Federated Insurance. And so he's got. He's just got a wealth of knowledge and different people that he's talked to and great businesses that he's worked with for a long time. And so I get people that I get to live their experiences and their lessons through Madden. So Matt is the one that was like, you need to get these real estate buildings put into a different, and put things into a family trust and you know, different things like that. We've Sure. Smart stuff. We've, I've had very, very good mentors that kind of set things up. Do you have

Speaker: 33:50

a banker now that uh, or is it still Don or? Oh, it's

Speaker 2: 33:54

not Don. No. We're with First Interstates Bank. Okay. Who, uh, who is kind of, I think they're merging and selling to another bank, but I can't keep track. The banks keep changing, but we've been with them for a long time. If you're

Speaker: 34:05

listening out there, Evan might be in the market for a new banker down the road here. Yes.

Speaker 2: 34:08

Don't email me and don't schedule a meeting, Kirk and a test I will probably forget about it. But, uh, but if you got a sharp pencil, uh, yes. And good rates.

Speaker: 34:17

And good rates. Exactly. That's what the sharp pencil means. Yeah, that's right. And, and

Speaker 2: 34:20

high line of credit. That'd be great too.

Speaker: 34:22

And flexible, uh, credit underwriting. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:25

And tickets to Broncos games and yeah. Lots of tickets to Broncos

Speaker: 34:28

games and stuff like that. Yeah. But yeah,

Speaker 2: 34:30

they've been great to us. Uh, I think we're going on four or five years with them. Okay. They've been really good.

Speaker: 34:35

Uh, Windsor Bank or Greeley Bank or, um, they have Greeley

Speaker 2: 34:38

and Loveland. Fort Collins? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it originally I there as much with them. We, uh, I can't remember who first Interstate. Oh, they, the ones before that.

Speaker: 34:46

Is that who bought what was like great Western home State. Oh, great Western. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So right down there at off a horse two. Yeah. Uh, and whatever.

Speaker 2: 34:55

Yeah. We had a relationship with a guy there that, and he's not there now, but yeah.

Speaker: 34:59

I actually almost went to work for that bank when I, I went back to Fort Collins. Yeah. In 2009 or oh seven or something. Yeah. They,

Speaker 2: 35:05

they seem to be pretty big in other states, so. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: 35:07

So I mean, back then they were pretty cool organization. I don't know. Oh, actually, yeah. They're actually the dominant bank in Wyoming. Yeah. Yeah. They're the big player up there, so, so they're real big in Montana too, so it's probably a pretty organization if they're, you know, good old boys that money keeps flowing so well. They do a good job in Wyoming and, and Montana. That's true. They're kind of good boys. That's true. The ranchers would've taken care of that a long time ago. They're not New York style. That's right. That's right. There's not suit

Speaker 2: 35:31

and tie guys, which I appreciate.

Speaker: 35:33

So, uh, so banker, insurance person,

Speaker 2: 35:36

those are the big things. You know, you gotta get a banker that you trust and that believes in you. Insurance is very important because it's no different than you would in your personal if you skimp on your insurance because you, you wanna save a little bit of money. When you look at your insurance proposals, it's a big number and you're like, wow, I don't wanna pay this. I could cut 10 grand off by just getting rid of this, you know, inclusion.

Speaker 3: 35:58

Yeah. This whole, yep.

Speaker 2: 35:58

That inclusion could end your entire business, right? Yeah. And so, um, having somebody you trust that says, Evan, that's not a good idea. I realize you wanna save some money, but that's not the place. Right.

Speaker: 36:09

Rather have a higher deductible on your fleet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:12

Exactly. And so, learning that

Speaker: 36:15

at fleets, they only crash one at a time.

Speaker 2: 36:15

Exactly. Exactly. So learning that banking, insurance, um, what else has been very, very important. Bookkeeping and CPA work has been very important for us. Yeah. So

Speaker: 36:25

how's your, how's your numbers acumen? Are you getting pretty good at understanding your finances and stuff? After

Speaker 2: 36:30

I'm getting there, I tell everybody this. I'm really, really good at making money, but after that I don't know anything about money. I'm like. For before I brought Ashley in that I was telling you about, she goes, well, are you, are you making money? How are your profits? And how's it compare to your budget? And I just looked at her like, what are you talking about? And I said, the lights are still on and the guys are still paid. We're doing good. Right? And she goes, oh my gosh, we have so much work to do. So, um, I'm, I've started to figure it out. Yeah. I can't, I, I can't look at a p and l sheet and just whiz through it and be like, oh, this, this, and this. But I, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker: 37:05

Well, when the estimates are accurate and the projects get done and the overhead isn't too much. Yeah. Um, it should just kinda work.

Speaker 2: 37:13

It does. And we do a, we do a really good job of that. Ashley really helped and, and so have our project managers. Um, we do job costing monthly as we're going. Right. Nice. So we, we pay attention to the job. I used to just figure it out, but by then it was too late that I had too many guys on the job or that we misordered something. But yeah, we, uh, we job cost a lot and

Speaker: 37:35

well. Even when you got good, loyal employees and stuff, it's still. Would, would people realize that there isn't quite enough work for them to do? They don't always raise their head and be like, correct, I should go.

Speaker 2: 37:47

And as an employer it's a fine line. You don't wanna let them know that we don't have a lot of work, but you're like, Hey, instead of working eight hours today, you guys wanna work six. Just'cause I'm feeling generous. You know, they don't, they don't realize this'cause you'd rather just scale back a little bit or Right. And they

Speaker: 38:00

could probably, damn, you get everything done today, eight or six hours.

Speaker 2: 38:03

Or if it's snowing and I'm like, Hey, you guys are going out here to work on this underground job tomorrow. They're like, you know what, we have four more days in this building. I'm, I don't, I forgot to tell you. I'm sorry about that. So.

Speaker: 38:13

Right.

Speaker 2: 38:14

We kinda, we

Speaker: 38:15

stay, we had some unexpected delays. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:17

In this warm building over here. They, they wanted some more things, so, oh, imagine that. Uh, we stay on top of it pretty good. And you know, knock on wood, again, we are almost all the way through 2025 and I think we've had one loser that was, when I say loser, it was, you know, we didn't, we didn't pay to do any work, we just didn't make our profit margin. So I'm very, very proud of that. That's awesome. Our guys are amazing.

Speaker: 38:39

As you, uh, scale that team. I mean, that's part of the learning curve. Sometimes it is, Ooh, we had to eat this. Yep.

Speaker 2: 38:45

And sometimes you gotta get skinny. Sometimes you gotta just to keep the guys busy, you gotta go in at very low margins, if any, and Yeah. Yeah. And just try to, that's where your bid work comes from. Yep. Probably. Yep. And just try to get through it to keep the guys busy until some of your other work pops up.

Speaker: 38:59

You're like, oh, six months out, we don't have much. Yeah, let's, let's go get something, or

Speaker 2: 39:02

let you know, maybe, uh, here what happens in construction a lot is, is tough, is we bid something. They're like, Hey, we wanna work with you. Here's your contract to sign you up. And you're like, great. And you start making all these plans and they're like, oh, the permit is delayed 400 years. So, um, we'll probably start in 2040 and I need you to honor that same number. And I know you hired all those guys for this, but, um, I don't know what to tell you. So that, that is the constant, uh, the constant battle for us in the office is

Speaker: 39:31

hopefully that's a little bit of hyperbole. Yeah, it is. A little bit, but yeah. But it isn't that far off sometimes. Sometimes that's what it feels like. And so,

Speaker 2: 39:39

uh, it's, you know, sometimes we gotta go find a quick hitter. Well,

Speaker: 39:42

and it's beyond their control. Yeah. Right. A lot of times you're like, why did you give me this permit? And then follow that with a stop work order because somebody in your development depart forgot to take this. Absolutely. Oh, you guys forgot

Speaker 2: 39:54

that you're in a flood plane and didn't apply for the FEMA permit that takes the revised

Speaker: 39:58

flood plane that we forgot to check before we gave you your Exactly. And they're

Speaker 2: 40:01

like, we hope to start next year. And I'm like, I hope to never see this project again, is what I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a song and dance all day long that we're moving pieces around.

Speaker: 40:12

How about, uh, like business community? Have you have developed, like,'cause business being business owner is like a. Unusual role in the world, kind of. Do you have like a friend group or you don't have a local think tank or a peer group, anything like that? I don't.

Speaker 2: 40:27

So the funny thing about me and that nobody believes this, but I'm actually extremely introverted. You are. And so, yeah. And so like you do a pretty good

Speaker: 40:35

job in here. So things

Speaker 2: 40:36

like this, like if I know I have to do it and I didn't have to do this, I'm not getting paid out there listening. No. But uh, no. Well,

Speaker: 40:41

you got a pair of sunglasses. Yes, I did Little loco cups and some hot sauce stickers. I excited about that. Stickers some hot sauce. But I

Speaker 2: 40:47

wanted to do it for you since you did so much for me a long time ago. So, um. I don't, I don't typically do a lot of that. I have great people in my office that do. Yeah. Um, but I do talk to other business owners as you know, about my struggles and their struggles and what they're seeing. And I try to stay on top of the trends. You know, typically you can talk to the general contractors and see, you know, they see the trends first. Yeah, sure. Because the RFPs coming from the owners and they'll, they'll know before I know that the slow down's coming. And so we kind of talk, there's a, there's a select few group of guys that I talk to that I trust that, you know, they're realistic. You just ring'em up once in a

Speaker: 41:23

while. Yeah. Like, Hey, I,

Speaker 2: 41:25

I haven't won any projects in a while. Are you guys winning anything? What are you seeing? And you know, Matt being in the insurance industry, you know, when you get a new job, you have to issue a new certificate of insurance. And so I'm like, Hey, are you issuing a lot? Are people busy right now? Right, right, right. I have different ways of kind of checking it, but, uh, no, I don't, I don't have a group and I probably should, it'd be better for me, but we talk more

Speaker: 41:46

about it. Yeah. We've got a lot of introverts, so, uh. We can talk more about it. Probably. I think when people

Speaker 2: 41:50

drag, drag it outta me, it's better. I, you know, and I am a natural leader. I like leading. It's just getting me to the, yeah. To the event and to the table. So my

Speaker: 41:59

impression is, is you're like, have a high sense of responsibility. Mm-hmm. Kind of. And like, if you make yourself responsible for it, you'll figure out how to make it happen. A hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 42:10

You know what, I'm a, I'm also a procrastinator. So if I know that, if you wait

Speaker: 42:13

until the last minute, it only takes a minute.

Speaker 2: 42:15

That's right. I like that. I'm gonna have to make a assured about that. If I know something's due on 1215, I'll get it done probably on 1214. Mm-hmm. Um, but you know, if, if they're like, that's

Speaker: 42:25

for you in your personal life, not for your contracts necessarily project. Correct. Everything's done thoroughly and extensively, everyone.

Speaker 2: 42:31

So, um, but if I don't have a deadline, I'll be like, oh, I'll get to that. I'll get to that, I'll get to that. So. Same with, same with networking and things like that.

Speaker: 42:39

Right? Yeah. It's not an urgent kind of thing. Right? Yeah. Yep. My friend, do you know Michael Labate by chance? It seems like you might. I don't think that sounds

Speaker 2: 42:47

familiar. He's an old

Speaker: 42:48

hippie guy that actually was the guy that said, Hey Barry, you should start a think tank.'cause he had been in Vistage, which is like the big corporate thing. Mm-hmm. Of what we do. Uh,'cause I knew everybody'cause I was a banker for 15 years and that's what Banker's jobs is to know everybody. Absolutely. And, uh, anyway, he, when I was. Super broke after leaving banking to become whatever I am now. Yeah. He was like, it's all right, Barry, you'll, I didn't get super motivated until I was super broke either. Yeah, you probably navigated the lot. No one,

Speaker 2: 43:18

no one hunts harder than a hungry man. So I can, I can certainly understand that.

Speaker: 43:23

Yes. But what's, the leopard has been starved for a couple months. Yeah. They're not as good a hunter. So I

Speaker 2: 43:28

think the other thing that, that scares me about those type things is when I was very young into business, I don't remember where I was, but I was, maybe I was getting gas or something and this person came up to me like, Hey, you're an electrician. And I'm like, yeah. And they said we would, you know, I have this group of people I meet with weekly and we, we don't have an electrician and we have all these, it was probably B and i, yeah, it was business networking. We have all these leads and different things. And I'm like, oh cool. That sounds great. Uh, and they're like, okay, why don't you meet me at whatever the holiday in at 11 and then I show up and it was.

Speaker: 44:02

Yeah, I call local think tank, the anti B Nni.

Speaker 2: 44:05

Okay. Then I might be interested because it was a dog groomer and like a hairstylist and a right.

Speaker: 44:10

And if you, if anybody finds out, you refer a mortgage lender. Yes. Isn't the mortgage lender in this group you're gonna be dead? I'm

Speaker 2: 44:17

like, why am I talking to a guy who's has a character business? You know what I mean? Like, this is not helping me, and I don't, I need to get back to work guys. I don, I don't want to use three random words from my brain that you guys can, what? All the games and stuff I was not for me. So to answer your question, that's why I've never followed through on anything like that. Well,

Speaker: 44:36

that's part of that kind of experience is part of why I nicknamed Loko, the anti B nni. I like it because it's just kind of yucky. Yeah, it is. And no offense to the B Nni fans out there. Like no. There's some people that have done very well in their business. My, my, my friend Jody, one of my oldest friends is a financial advisor who helped us start the local Fort Collins chapter. One of them.

Speaker 2: 44:57

Yeah.

Speaker: 44:58

Half his business trails back to that.

Speaker 2: 45:00

Wow.

Speaker: 45:00

And he makes way more money than I do. Working way less. Yeah. Um, but he's a financial advisor. That's not a

Speaker 2: 45:06

real Right. Real,

Speaker: 45:07

real job, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:08

Just a few clicks of a button.

Speaker: 45:09

Well, but, and, and if you can learn how to really activate referrals really good, which. Hey, dumb ass. Probably local Think Tank should be a member of b and i, Ben, if you listen to this podcast, I think we need you to become a member of a B and I. Exactly. We're gonna have to sign some things. I can't do it. I'm not gonna do it.

Speaker 2: 45:25

Yeah. Uh, that has scared me away, but I If you're anti that, that doesn't drink me because that sitting around a conference room table with the Holiday Inn with people I would never normally talk to does not exactly excite me

Speaker: 45:36

so Well, unless they're smart and cool.

Speaker 2: 45:39

That's right. Which so far you're passing the test and the

Speaker: 45:41

Holiday Inn is, uh, the only place you could meet because otherwise they're like, you can't be in here except for three people in a big room.

Speaker 2: 45:48

Exactly. And they probably got it for free, which I probably, I probably even had to pay to go to the BNI thing. I don't even remember. Oh, yeah.

Speaker: 45:54

It's almost as expensive as local members. Yeah. Um, I want to take a short break. Okay. Uh, partly because you're way behind on your delicious bourbon. You're right. And I'm almost empty with mine. And so I'm gonna give you a chance to catch up and then we're gonna jump in the time machine and meet little. 5-year-old Evan.

Speaker 2: 46:11

All right, let's do it.

Speaker: 47:01

And we're back. Yep. Oh, I guess we're already back. Probably in that first part. Um, we said we would jump into the time machine, but before we do, um. You kind of sell yourself a little bit like me, just smart electric guy that got okay. Business going. Uh, but what would your, like team, you, you've, uh, got, you know, kind of a whatever, six or eight person leadership team, but what would they say are your particular special talents if they would?

Speaker 2: 47:29

Um, I think they would say, you know, I, I'm smart in the sense that if I don't know something that I'll be honest about it, but I'll always figure it out. Yeah. Uh, pride myself on a, a lot of, no one will ever outwork me. And so whatever it takes, if I need to keep us busy, if I need to find a new software, if I need to, you know, make a change with the team, that's sometimes uncomfortable. Yeah. I'm always up for, for whatever. And, you know, no one, no one works harder than I do. Yeah. And so hopefully that I, I set a good example for them, but I'm not a, I'm a leader from the front, but I'm also. Not out front all the time. I, yeah, I like to give, it's not about I people, their space and, you know, empower them and make their own decisions. And if they need me, I'm here. But for the most part, I'm not over their shoulder saying, what are you doing? Why'd you do this? So,

Speaker: 48:16

do you remember, uh, you mentioned earlier that you never laid anybody off, but you fired.

Speaker 2: 48:21

Oh, I fired plenty. Yeah. Yeah. Do

Speaker: 48:23

you remember the first person you fired still? Or every person you fired? Almost

Speaker 2: 48:26

for the most part. I do. Yeah. Yeah. Usually it was performance based or, you know, I, I think I had a guy one time show up to a house that he had sleeveless shirts, uh, sleeveless shirt on, and it, I think it said f the police on it or something like that. Oh, okay. And so I was like, yeah, you gotta go. I'll, I'll drive you back to your house. Just things like that. But, uh, yeah, I've been pretty fortunate to have some great people. That's cool. Yeah.

Speaker: 48:51

Um, let's, uh, let's jump in the time machine. Um, born, raised in Northern Colorado.

Speaker 2: 48:59

Yep. I grew up in birthed, so I was born in Denver, but pretty much, uh, grew up just. Three or four years of my life in Longmont and then grew up in the country in Ed. Okay. So, um, small town living, what

Speaker: 49:10

was your family setting that you got to grow up in the country in?

Speaker 2: 49:13

So, uh, we grew up on five acres. Uh, my parents bought a place there and I'm convinced they had children so that they had free workers, um, slash slaves. They had water on that. Five acres? Yeah. Oh yeah. It was like, hey, there's weeds and horses need to be fed and, you know, all these different things. The garden needs to be planted Absolutely. And harvested and yeah. So it was fun. Grew up in the country.

Speaker: 49:35

And was they like Denver people? Like did, how did they earn their income?

Speaker 2: 49:38

Uh, nope. My mom was, uh, engineer, so she was big into AutoCAD and did all that stuff. Okay. So she traveled. Uh, she was in the Boulder area. Okay.

Speaker 3: 49:47

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 49:47

And then, uh, my dad was a lineman, so he worked for Sturgeon Electric. Okay. They were kind of out of the Denver area. I'm not really sure why we lived in hood with both of them going that way, but that's the way

Speaker: 49:57

ended up well, they wanted to be out in the country, you know, made a choice, I guess. Yeah. And I'm

Speaker 2: 50:00

okay with that. I'm glad I grew up out in the country at the time. When you're a kid, you're growing up in the country and all your friends are in town, you're like, this sucks. Like, everybody's doing this, gonna movies. Yeah. And I'm three miles away and can't get there. And parents are working and, you know.

Speaker: 50:13

Yeah. So it goes. Yep. Um, and, uh, like once you get into the school years, were you. Big early.

Speaker 2: 50:20

Nope. I was, that was actually part of the problem with college baseball is I graduated high school at, you know, five foot, 11, six foot, but only 155 pounds. And so, okay. I was a catcher in high school. Yeah. And I was really, really good. If your

Speaker: 50:32

hands were that big when you were a senior in high school, you'd probably, uh, yeah. And so had some higher bat speed

Speaker 2: 50:37

going to play college baseball. They were like, Hey, you're a great catcher, but you're way too small for a college catcher and you're gonna go to the outfield. And the reason I was a catcher, it kind of plays to my personality, is I became a catcher. Because you're involved in every play. It's like the assistant coach. Yeah. Basically you're calling plays like your basketball role. You're, you know, you're touching the ball every single time. You're not just standing in the outfield mm-hmm. Waiting for a hit that may never come. Well,

Speaker: 51:00

and when the pitcher needs to settle down a little bit, you're the guy usually. Yeah. And you can talk a little smack to the hitter and everything else, so, right.

Speaker 2: 51:07

It, uh, it suited me. And so when they were like, you gotta go to the outfield because you got a great arm, but you're just too small. I was like, I'm not doing that. And I was in my defiant years, so,

Speaker 3: 51:15

okay.

Speaker 2: 51:16

That's why, uh, that's why that ended. And so, you know, two years later I got man muscles and all of a sudden I'm like, where were you guys two years, years ago. I did you? Yeah. Dammit. Yeah. So I got bigger and, well,

Speaker: 51:27

these days you would've started when you were at 10 in the gym and you would've got mad muscles when you were 14 something. True. True. My girls

Speaker 2: 51:33

have trainers and their trainers have trainers for my girls. You know what I mean? It's just like they have these opportunities that I never had and, uh, you know, it, I turned out okay. And so, yeah, I'm grateful for it. Yeah.

Speaker: 51:44

Things are okay. Yeah. But, uh, so where, so you. Were undersized, but capable baller through school. And where that was birthed too?

Speaker 2: 51:54

Yeah. Birthed high school. Okay. And then, um, you know, grew up in the country, which I'm thankful for. It created good work ethic to me. Do you have siblings too? Yeah, I have two brothers. Two younger brothers. Younger brothers. So he

Speaker: 52:03

was a big brother too. So that kind of goes with that assistant coach role. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 52:06

it, it left me in charge for a lot of different things. And so, you know, I guess at an early age I took on that persona. Like we would be going on a family camping trip and I would pack everything. I would, I would go find it and I would pack it. I do it. That's that responsibility sheet. It would be all Tetris perfectly in the back. And I'm like, a Friday we're going to eat this, and Saturday we're gonna have this. And if somebody gets sick, we have this. And so, and your mom was like. I love you. Yeah, they were so good. They were just like, all right, what time do we leave captain? You know?

Speaker: 52:34

So I love it.

Speaker 2: 52:35

That's kind of how I grew up. That's cool. Yeah.

Speaker: 52:38

Um, and then where did you go? Did you get a scholarship or something? Or where did you play baseball? I, I was

Speaker 2: 52:41

a preferred walk on to Lee Summit in Missouri, so. Okay. Um, you know, it was like, Hey, come out, we like you. We got a spot on the, we got a spot for you with 437 other dudes. We really think the world of you just like them. And so it was, uh, it was a lot of that. And then, you know, my friends were all making money back home and, you know, girls obviously were a big thing, and so you come back and you're like, I think I just want to be an adult. Because for some reason in high school you're like, I want to graduate. I just want to work. I just want a job. I hate school. Couldn't wait to get your

Speaker: 53:11

driver's license and all that. It's so different than today's culture where they're like. Ew. I don't want a driver's license. My friends can pick me up. Yeah. Why

Speaker 2: 53:18

would I want to drive? And I got my driver's license. The day I turned 16, it was, I was

Speaker: 53:22

14 years in a couple weeks.

Speaker 2: 53:25

I mean, I was driving Dakota though when I was 12. My parents would let me drive their cars on the back road to my job that I had. I love it. And so I worked for Pioneer. You balanced

Speaker: 53:33

a couple years into your. College education? Uh, no. A

Speaker 2: 53:36

couple months.

Speaker: 53:37

Oh, no doubt. Yeah. A couple months. Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2: 53:39

Came back and started working. So, I mean, at age 12, I would take the back roads of my mom's car to the Pioneer Sand and Gravel, and I was driving the big loaders that would load trucks and like

Speaker: 53:50

you were working for them. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 53:51

Really nice trucks. And I had to papers or something, I had to put mulch in their truck with this giant loader and they trusted me. And that was just my thing. So, um, yeah, I, I realized I really liked working and I liked money and I just liked responsibility, so. Yeah.

Speaker: 54:05

Well, and you seem like you have a natural business instinct, even if you're not a Harvard MBA. Yeah. You, I'm not, you know, people, what makes sense of people talk about

Speaker 2: 54:12

entrepreneurs. I, I don't know that that fits me. I think I just, I just worked hard enough to make it work. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I'm kind of a caveman that just keeps hitting it until it works, you know?

Speaker: 54:23

It falls. Yes, exactly. Um, so somewhere along the way, you, you met this wife that you're very fond of, but I don't know if you've named her yet.

Speaker 2: 54:32

Sorry. Her name is Fawn, so Hey fa. Yeah. Fa gave me, uh, two amazing girls and, um, yeah, we connected uh, probably in our mid twenties. I hope that's right. I'm probably gonna get in trouble for that, but, uh, you're

Speaker: 54:45

like working in the electric business, working for Brinkman. By that time I was working for

Speaker 2: 54:49

Brinkman. Yep. And so, um. You know, we kind of did things backwards. It's, we were, we started dating and she got pregnant right away and Okay. I don't know how that happened, but, um, it's a mystery still kids. It is. Yeah. Hopefully they solve it someday. Day

Speaker: 55:04

girls never Yeah. Explore that mystery.

Speaker 2: 55:05

Right. And so, uh, and you know, once you have a child on the way or a child that's here, you have immense responsibility to make money. And, you know, at that point then I was like, okay, I've gotta advance my career immediately. So I went from. Assistant superintendent. And this was during the, the 2008 recession. Oh, wow. And brinkman was, we were laying people off and they said, Hey, we've got a big project in Arizona. It's, it's a go. We need you to go. And it was, you know, I was a young, you're like, I don't really know what I was doing. I was a young father. I didn't really know what I was doing, but they, you know, I was basically sold this, this impression, well you're showing up that it would accelerate my career. And it did, it, it, it probably cut three years of growth here off of my career that quick. Right. So went down there for a year and a half. You just screwed it all

Speaker: 55:53

up. At least you were in a side market. Not That's right.

Speaker 2: 55:55

Nobody could tell how bad it was'cause they weren't visiting. So, um, but yeah. Interesting.

Speaker: 56:00

Okay,

Speaker 2: 56:01

so, uh, father and I have two girls and, um, you know, right now she's. Full-time. Full-time mom running them around. Taxi Gracie can drive, which, which helps. But you couldn't pay me enough money to do her job, so, fair enough. Thankful for that. How,

Speaker: 56:15

how, when were you able to fire her from conduct all?

Speaker 2: 56:18

Uh, I think we fire, we, we broke up, we mutually parted ways in business, uh, a year and a half in or something like that, so. Gotcha. That was about, uh, it made home life much better, so, yeah.

Speaker: 56:28

Me, me too. Like in my business, I need somebody to keep my poop in a group kind of Yeah. And keep track of stuff and whatever. But I don't want that relationship with my wife.

Speaker 2: 56:38

No. And I related a lot'cause I coach both my daughters and sometimes I feel bad for them because not only am I their dad, I'm their coach. And so when I say something, my tone automatically goes to their eardrum like he's criticizing me to where a normal coach, they would be like, okay coach, I got you. And to me they're like, dad, why are you so mean? It's very similar when you work with your spouse. It's like, kinda, if I ask you to go get me a pencil, she'd be like, what is the attitude? And I'm like, I just needed a pencil. I

Speaker: 57:04

thought you might have a pencil. So

Speaker 2: 57:07

we decided early on if, if we're gonna make it, we gotta, we gotta get somebody else in here. And so we did. And it, and it's been great. So

Speaker: 57:14

tell me about, uh, like, like you were kind of pushed into a situation where you're like, uh, are we gonna get married here? I mean sure there's option of not have a kid together with somebody you've just started dating. Yeah. Maybe not. You know, talk to me about that there and then maybe just brag on why she's awesome.

Speaker 2: 57:32

Yeah. So. My parents' family, um, well they're mostly from the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon, California area. Okay. And so we didn't grow up with a lot of family. And so something that really intrigued me when I was young is I wanted a family and I wanted this big Thanksgiving dinners that we typically didn't have. And I wanted these big Christmases. And yeah, so once I started to get my own family, I'm like, this is great. I gotta figure this out. And so, uh, we had Gracie and you know, things were fine and then we had Haley still don't know how that one happened either. Two times in a row was very strange phenomenon. But, um. Pretty soon the girls got older and they're like, mom and dad, why are you guys not married? Oh, and Oh,

Speaker: 58:15

interesting.

Speaker 2: 58:16

Yeah, and Fawn was, fawn never wanted to get married unless she was certain that it was like a one and done. She'd ne she's never wanted to be divorced. And so she, she was hard on me because I needed to grow up. And so I didn't grow up till I was in my thirties. It, that it took me a long time. I'm

Speaker: 58:31

51 and my wife would say it's, I'm still a work in progress too. I'm slightly

Speaker 2: 58:36

house trained at this point. So, um, that was a lot of it. Fawn was waiting on me to grow up. Um, the girls, the girls were like, why are you guys not married? And Mike, that's a great question. The, we'll, we'll fix that. And so we just kinda did everything in reverse. And when, when did you, when did you get there? 2014.

Speaker: 58:52

Oh wow. Okay. When the girls were, how old?

Speaker 2: 58:55

Let's see, Gracie would be, uh, six at that point and Hailey would be three. Yeah. Yep.

Speaker: 59:01

What did, are they the flower girls? They were in that situation, I suppose. Yep.

Speaker 2: 59:05

They were flower girls. They were ring bearers. They were, yeah. Stars of the show is what they were. They were little cuties, so, yeah. Yeah. So,

Speaker: 59:13

um, what else on the family front, is there anything else that you'd wanna share? You, you working toward those big Thanksgiving tables? Yeah. Does Fawn have family around here too? Her family's

Speaker 2: 59:24

kind of, uh, her family's kind of separated a lot. They're in different areas and yeah. You know. How about

Speaker: 59:29

your siblings, your brothers?

Speaker 2: 59:30

So one brother went into the Navy. Funny about my brother, uh, clay, he was, we always called him space cadet. He was like, he would walk into walls and he would forget to get on the bus at school or whatever it was. He was just always something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, he was kind of that kid that never really cleaned his room and I'm like, how is this kid gonna survive in life? He, after high school, he went to Fort Lewis College and he was a whitewater raft guide and just did whatever. Well, one day he took the Navy aptitude test and they called him and were like, you need to get in here now. And he was immediately signed to the nuclear engineer program.

Speaker: 1:00:06

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 1:00:07

To a kid that I wasn't even sure if he knew how to brush his teeth. Right. And so, uh, he had a great career in the Navy, made a lot of money, did great for his family. And so he's transferred out of the Navy into the government sector. He kind of controls the power grid for the whole western half of United States.

Speaker: 1:00:21

Oh. Oh, I bet he knows my brother-in-law because he works for the Department of Energy and was a nuclear engineer. Yeah. In the submarine.

Speaker 2: 1:00:27

Yeah. That's where Clay was too, so, oh, is that right? Yeah. He decommissioned some ships and different things. Well, I'll ask him

Speaker: 1:00:31

about Greg Johnson. Okay. Uh, Greg and his family live in Windsor as well, and he works for, makes sure all the dams work and stuff like that. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 1:00:39

yeah. Kind of cool. So. That's what Clay's doing. My brother Steve, uh, lives in Zi. He's kind of into the maintenance, uh, area of some production facilities and stuff like that, so. Okay. Um, you know how it is, you get a family and you start growing up and you, you know, you kind of just talk on holidays and different things like that. They don't have

Speaker: 1:00:57

kids families yet. Uh,

Speaker 2: 1:00:58

they do. Um, but they're kind of, they do their own things with their family. So it's weird. I wanted this big family, but I've also kind of just created this small circle with our family and our own traditions and, and

Speaker: 1:01:08

45 employees that are kind of like family too. Yeah. That takes a little effort and

Speaker 2: 1:01:12

between, you know, the business and basketball, um, it's, it's tough to find time for the family and so we've kind of created our own traditions and do different things like that, but it, it's turned out just the way I like it, so I dig it. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:01:25

Um, do you wanna do our ping pong ball challenge? Lets do it. Have you, uh, do you know what that is?

Speaker 2: 1:01:28

No. It was, uh, Lindsay sent me the email and I forgot to read it.

Speaker: 1:01:32

It's okay. So these are kind of totally random questions. Okay. And, uh, what we want you to do is grab three ping pong balls, and then I will ask you the questions associated with them. Do you have three? Yep. Take this back out of the way. Six is the first one. Six is the first one. If you could only eat one color of food for the rest of your life, what color would you choose and why? Just for fun.

Speaker 2: 1:02:03

Pardon me. Wants to say green because of my company colors, but I don't want to eat vegetables the rest of my life. Um,

Speaker: 1:02:09

I And you got moldy chicken.

Speaker 2: 1:02:12

Good point. Good point. I, I, I guess I have to say pink because my favorite meat is steak. Like medium rare is steak. You know, I, I probably have to go pink. Do you have to

Speaker: 1:02:21

eat? Almost ripe strawberries. What else? Almost ripe

Speaker 2: 1:02:24

strawberries. Watermelon. Radishes. Watermelon. Watermelon.

Speaker: 1:02:27

Qualifies for pink a lot of times.

Speaker 2: 1:02:28

Maybe some raspberries, but steak, like steak, not quite ripe, but steak. I'll

Speaker: 1:02:33

just eat steak. Yeah. I'll be good with just steak. Yep. That would probably be my answer to you. Yep. Next one. All

Speaker 2: 1:02:39

right. We've got 29.

Speaker: 1:02:43

What's been the most surprising thing about running your business for you?

Speaker 2: 1:02:48

Hmm. The most surprising thing is, is, uh, the part I never planned for in my business, which is fighting for my money. It is. You'd be surprised at some of the things work. You've

Speaker: 1:03:02

earned work.

Speaker 2: 1:03:03

I've earned getting paid work. I've paid my guys for work. I've paid our vendors For your

Speaker: 1:03:07

suppliers, all that.

Speaker 2: 1:03:08

Yeah. Because if I don't have a good vendor that trusts me and I pay them on time, that would really be a problem. You know, we do$4 million a year with CED. It would be a big, big issue, right. If it's cash on delivery time. Yeah. And so fighting for my money's been tough. You know, people come up with some of the weirdest excuses and yeah. Weirdest reasons and almost make me feel bad for hunting down my money. And so, right. It's been the hardest part. It takes a toll on me mentally and, you know, it'll ruin my mood for two or three days. Luckily, I have a great team that does most of it. Every now and then I have to get involved for, you know, kind of the hammer part of it. But that's been the part that I never, nobody ever told me about. Listen,

Speaker: 1:03:47

Joe, like we know you've opened these emails. Yeah. I know you've opened

Speaker 2: 1:03:51

these emails. I know you have a new truck. I know you live in a nice big house, right? Where is my money?

Speaker: 1:03:57

So, yeah. Cool. Yep. Well, not cool, but I understand.

Speaker 2: 1:04:02

We got number one. That can't be good.

Speaker: 1:04:06

It's actually pretty, I mean, it's, it's white bread. What's your favorite childhood memory?

Speaker 2: 1:04:11

Hmm. Favorite childhood memory. I got invited to a Ken Griffey showcase in, uh, in San Francisco. So I went out San Francisco. Oh, like Ken Griff Jr. Kind of style baseball. Yep. It was a showcase that he puts on to kind of showcase different players from all over the country. And there were scouts there, and you'd break into your position groups and they would, uh, evaluate you. And, you know, I was like, oh, I'm a good catcher and I can do all this. And then I got out there and my, my throws down to second were 10 miles an hour slower than the, than these good guys. And then we hit, and this, I'm like, okay. I hit pretty good. And then this kid after me, just this hitting bombs from the right side. And he goes, can I hit left-handed now? And then he's hitting bombs left-handed and I'm like. I'm just gonna go in the outfield and shag balls at this point. So, but it was a, it was an amazing experience. I, I'm assuming some of those guys I was at camp with had pretty successful careers, so. Right. Yeah. But that was a great memory for me.

Speaker: 1:05:05

It's pretty cool to, to rub shoulders with, uh, really elite athletes.

Speaker 2: 1:05:11

Yeah. And luckily I get to be around it with my daughters, you know, they play on the, on the Adidas circuit, and so we're around some of the top players. You know, arguably the number one player in the country right now is on the Adidas circuit, and they've played her a couple times and just being around that type of people and their work, their work ethic and things like that. How

Speaker: 1:05:28

old are you now?

Speaker 2: 1:05:29

Four. I was born in 83, so I think I'm 43,

Speaker: 1:05:32

42. But you were a baseball fan, so you probably know, uh, Darren Erstad.

Speaker 2: 1:05:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:05:36

So, uh, he grew up in the town I grew up in, and my mom actually founded our little league baseball team Oh, cool. At my eighth grade year and coached it until 11 and then 12. It was fast pitch.

Speaker 2: 1:05:46

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:05:46

And I struck Darren out twice in one game. I like it. And he betted like 800. Yeah. Eight 50. Yeah. I don't know. He was crushing already as like a 12-year-old. That's

Speaker 2: 1:05:55

amazing. When I, when I was in high school, we played N Watt High School and they had a pitcher named Mike Mote who, uh, went on to play for the Padres.

Speaker: 1:06:04

Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:06:04

And my claim to fame is, is I wasn't a great hitter, but I would get hit by pitches a lot so I could get on base. So I'm like, I figured out the trick here. I just get hit by a pitch and I'm on base and I don't really have to perform here. So, uh, I got hit in the back by him and he was throwing high nineties at the time, and I'm like. This was not well thought out. This was not well thought out and nobody thought I was cool for that. But, uh, Mike Mote, if you're out there somewhere, I hope you had a good career

Speaker: 1:06:31

and that was mean a little bit. Yeah. Um, so let's talk about Northern Colorado a little bit. Like this has been your kind of home Yeah. Um, big time evolving scene over that time. You know, when I moved here in 99, it was really much more separated communities Yeah. Of Fort Collins. I lived in Windsor soon after Loveland Greeley birthed.

Speaker 2: 1:06:55

Yep.

Speaker: 1:06:55

But now, you know, if you live in birthed. It's probably more likely that you don't work in Bertha than you do and, and even to some extent even Windsor and Greeley, but there's still big businesses in those towns and Yeah, like the number of people, it's such an interconnected region now.

Speaker 2: 1:07:11

Yeah. When I grew up, Bertha had a, like a building moratorium essentially'cause they wanted to keep it a small farming town. And so what they did is they raised all the water tap fees and, and the building permit fees so high that nobody would build there'cause it didn't make any sense. Okay. And so. Birth had never changed. There was no new restaurants, there was no new houses, there was no nothing. And it stayed small the way they wanted. Yeah. But pretty soon people were like, we're going broke. The town is going broke. And so Right.

Speaker: 1:07:35

We got all these responsibilities, no money. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:07:37

About the time I got outta high school, they started changing and obviously they've lessened that and now Bertha has exploded. Right. And so it's lost some of its small town charm, but Yeah. The, these cities are, are kind of just suburbs. They're all connected now. Really from Yeah. And even Wellington felt like you were going to the boonies, but now Wellington has everything Totally. You would ever need, need nice coffee shops, all that. Yeah. Grocery stores even for college,

Speaker: 1:07:59

is more like a suburb of Denver than anything else. Absolutely. I mean, in

Speaker 2: 1:08:02

some ways it, it's the northern Boulder is, is essentially what it's like. And so, you know, growing up, my mom at the, at at one point was an engineer at Kodak, and so we'd go to Kodak and see where she worked. And I felt like we were driving to the, like we were going hunting or something. Like the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 3: 1:08:19

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:08:20

And now it's. Kodak's buildings have been engulfed by by Windsor, and you wouldn't even really know they're there because of all the other stuff around. Yeah. So part of it, part of it is sad. The growth is, is sad because you want it to stay small and you know, when you're driving down the interstate and it takes two, two hours instead of an hour, you know, it's frustrating, but at the same time, it's fueling our business and the growth for this area. And so I'm thankful and sad about it at the same time, but it, it is pretty amazing how we are in this bubble of constant growth and redevelopment. And, you know, you, you even look at Loveland the way they've redeveloped downtown Loveland and cleaned it up and it's kind of nice now people want to be in downtown Loveland and walk around and there's more bike traffic and it, it is kind of cool. I was just

Speaker: 1:09:04

talking with somebody the other day about that like. You know, what number of people, if Fort Collins, uh, has parking fees for everywhere downtown saw it, like what number of people that are coming from outside of town, even if it's just Johnstown or Right. Or Wellington or Bertha.

Speaker 2: 1:09:21

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:09:21

Maybe they'll just do Loveland instead.

Speaker 2: 1:09:24

I agree. Be, you know, when we were a young family and we didn't have a lot of money, that what we would do sometimes is go to Fort Collins and park and let my kids look, look at the lights and it was free. Look in the storefronts and you know, maybe we would get ice cream or something like that. But now, you know, it's gonna be tough if you gotta pay for parking. If it was

Speaker: 1:09:40

$9 to park there for three hours, absolutely. Ah, nah. That's an expensive ice cream stop.

Speaker 2: 1:09:44

It's almost sometimes I think people see the growth in all the people and they're like, how can we capitalize on this? Instead of Yeah. How can we, how can we milk that cow? Yeah. Instead of thinking about how we got to this point. So, yeah, it's a fine line. I, I like some of it and I hate some of it as well, so. Yeah.

Speaker: 1:09:57

Well that's kind of the nature of. Nature really is that, you know, those, those great strengths are oftentimes your weaknesses. Absolutely. And you know, the, the, how do I say it? Quite right. Like everything has has its downside. Yeah. In some respects.

Speaker 2: 1:10:14

Yeah. Things may seem great on one side, but some it's affecting somebody else somewhere. So yeah. You look at all these communities that pop up, I worry about, uh, it's probably old man things. The older I get, I'm like, where are they gonna get the water for all this? You know what I mean? Stuff I never thought about in my twenties, but Totally. You know, now that I get older, I'm like, where are they gonna get the water needs? They, now that you've

Speaker: 1:10:32

been in a number of general contractor conversations where you teach them about electric and they teach you about water needs Right. And stuff and permits.

Speaker 2: 1:10:39

Yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting world out there, but it doesn't appear to be slowing down at all.

Speaker: 1:10:44

How about, uh, like you got girls now, one, you know, got five years before high school. The other one's just a year and a half now. Yep. Um, and which high school is it? Just Windsor High now? Windsor High School. Yeah. Um, what, like, are you gonna send her into the trades too?'cause the technology's not gonna take away the electricity or, she's, I'm glad you asked us basketball scholarship

Speaker 2: 1:11:04

because I, I get, I talk to people about this all the time, so both of my girls are probably Gracie definitely, and I'm sure Hailey will too, but they're both be full ride basketball players wherever they want to go, that I support. If I, if I had boys and they were not getting a, a scholarship, I would highly encourage them to go into the trades. Yeah. And the reason is, is, you know, Lindsay for an example, has a master's in teaching and education and stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:11:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:11:31

It, it doesn't. It worked for her for a while and now she's moved into this role where she can accelerate her career in different things. Yep. People are getting these things for so long, probably better

Speaker: 1:11:41

pay and benefits than she would in the education system

Speaker 2: 1:11:43

for so long. People have told all of us, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college. If you want to get a good job and make money. It's just not true. I have some 20 year olds, you know, 21 year olds that are making almost$30 an hour already. Yeah. And then you start ta factoring in the benefits of a work vehicle and PTO. Right. And overtime and all this stuff. They make pretty good money and you know, in the trades. You can go as high as you want to go. The harder you work, the higher you can go. There really is no ceiling in the trades. And so if I had boys specifically, I would, and they weren't on scholarship, I would really push. You don't think girls

Speaker: 1:12:17

can do electrical work?

Speaker 2: 1:12:17

No, I do and we do. I, I've actually hired a girl because I, I want a girl in the trades. It's just, it's tough. You know, the construction world is tough for females in terms of fitting in and getting the respect that you need. But we have one that I, we hired green, her name's Addie, um, Addie. Yes, she's been amazing. She's fitting right in. And, and if you

Speaker: 1:12:36

get two or three more, that's,

Speaker 2: 1:12:38

listen, girls are so detail oriented, detail orientated, and they pay attention and they follow the, the task and the rules and the plan. I, I would have 10 more if I could find them and they wanted to. So anyone's listening and you're a female and one will be an electrician, let us know. Okay. So I'm all about girl power a great, I'm a girl dad, I'm a girl dad, and all about girl power. Awesome.

Speaker: 1:13:00

Yeah. I dig it. And like, yes. And how about for your girls? Like is that kind of traditional education system then, or, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:13:08

Uh, both my girls get,

Speaker: 1:13:10

get scholarships for basketball. Yeah, that's what I told him. Wherever you want.

Speaker 2: 1:13:14

The NIL stuff with basketball kind of changed a lot of that, right? So. You know, even mid-level players now are, are getting 15 to$20,000 a year in their bank account. Wow. On top of their full ride. So I told my girls, I said, go have fun for four more years. Leave college with no debt and possibly a little bit of money in your right, in your account. And then we'll figure it out. I,

Speaker: 1:13:36

I like that idea

Speaker 2: 1:13:37

because then you're growing up a little bit more and they've

Speaker: 1:13:40

got advantages that a lot of kids didn't, don't have. Absolutely. But, and,

Speaker 2: 1:13:44

and pick a, pick a path than advantages in a major or whatever you want to do. And even if it doesn't work out, you didn't pay for it. And, uh, you're still better off for it, but, and then you can kind of start your life. So very fortunate in that aspect of it, um, that they have a path through athletics.

Speaker: 1:14:00

You've, uh. For somebody that like dropped outta college two months in or whatever. You've turned into a pretty smart guy about the world and stuff. Where do you collect your smartness from? What news sources? What books or I, podcasts or radio? I do listen to a lot of

Speaker 2: 1:14:17

podcasts. Radio. The, the Sean Ryan podcast is my Absolutely. I've been loving that one a lot. Uh. I, uh, I read so many different things like the coloradoan I read every day. And so I look for new articles and mostly it's about, you know, what's happening in our Sure. In our area, but it's like, oh, this new building's going in, and then we'll go and we'll find out who applied for the permit. Perfect. And then we, we get ahold of them and the, Hey, can we bid on this? And so love, there's different things like that. Um, I, I love Reddit. I learn a lot from Reddit. Okay, interesting. So you can, there's a million different things on it. You can look at, you know, from estimating to architecture, to construction. And, you know, a lot of it, I, I read you learn more not from the article, but more from the comments because it's real life stuff. Right. And so people talk about women in the trades. There's a, there's a big thing on there about women in the trades Yeah. And how they're treated. And so I did a lot of work on that and figuring out how they're treated and why they don't like it and what's, what's keeping them from doing it. Yeah.'cause there's a lot of people in the conversation, well, how do I

Speaker: 1:15:13

have to train my men to be. Correct. Less assholes because'cause men can be assholes to men and, and they think it's funny.

Speaker 2: 1:15:21

Right. Right. Or they can be crude and think it's funny. Right, right. And so what I did with my guys is, you know, I'd put a lot of work into that and I said, pretend this is your daughter. She's a 19-year-old girl who doesn't know any better. Right. I want her trained properly, but I want you to defend her and protect her like you would your daughter from these other people. It's not my guys. I worry about, it's all the other guys.

Speaker: 1:15:42

That's really cool.

Speaker 2: 1:15:43

And so, you know, just different things like that. If something pops up tomorrow and we get a job for a, you know, a reptile factory, I would get on somewhere and start reading about reptile factories. And that's just how I am. That's,

Speaker: 1:15:54

well, there's unlimited knowledge available to you. Yeah, I, uh, I'm smiling partly because my wife and I are hosting an, we don't have any kids of our own, but we've been hosting exchange students for years. Oh, cool. And our, our current one, Sarah, is a junior in high school at Putter.

Speaker 2: 1:16:09

Okay.

Speaker: 1:16:09

Uh, and I dunno, a couple weeks in, I was like, you know, just so you know, like. When you're in my house, you're my daughter. Yeah. You know, from a philosophical standpoint. Correct. I'm sure it's kind of weird being in some stranger's house halfway across the world from Italy. Yeah. Um, but here, you know, that's, that's the position that

Speaker 2: 1:16:30

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:16:30

You will have and I will take. Yeah. Is that and what an honor that Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:16:34

Because there's a lot of, you know,

Speaker: 1:16:36

and she's got a mom and a dad and not her dad. Correct.

Speaker 2: 1:16:38

And you're never gonna try to replace'em. But, but there's something to be said about providing and protecting, uh, that instinct, whether it's at work or at home. It's, it's, it just runs in our blood, so.

Speaker: 1:16:49

Right, right. Uh, and I won't expand from there, but you know. If I drive past CSU campus and I see a pretty girl and she's only 18, I'm probably gonna look, but when you're my daughter and you're my, my house, then it doesn't matter. You know? It's just such a, I don't know. It's a, you probably experienced the same thing even as a basketball coach. I do. Those girls are all your daughters. I see. They

Speaker 2: 1:17:08

are, and I'm very, I'm fiercely protective of them and, you know, we travel a lot, whether it's with my family or my team and, you know, I'm typically at the back of the group because I'm making sure that all my ducklings are in a line and going in the same way, but Right. Being in the back. I see all the guys coming at us, looking at them, right. And then they make eye contact with me and I'm like, this is a 16 you team right here, sir. Right. 16. You just so you know, have a good day. And so, uh, I'm very, very protective about them. Like girl dead

Speaker: 1:17:40

personality is an interesting Yeah. Uh, subculture, right? Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:17:44

You pick up on things that, that you, that some people wouldn't normally think of. So. Well, and

Speaker: 1:17:48

plus you knew how you were when you were 17.

Speaker 2: 1:17:51

I'm pretty sure God is punishing me for, for being a boy at some point. So here I am repenting by having two girls and keeping them safe, so

Speaker: 1:17:58

I dig it. Um, you don't have to finish your bourbon if you join me in a, a weed ram of infinity shot.

Speaker 2: 1:18:07

All right. Let's do it before the final segment. Let's do it.

Speaker: 1:18:08

I I'll grab that. All right. You, you, uh, ditch that or whatever. I'll drink a little bit more. Okay. Oh, this is live action audio video stuff going on here. So, as I mentioned, this is approximately, approximately 20% tequila, 40% wait, is that right? Yeah, 40. 40 rye and bourbon. Wow. I don't think there's anything else in here right now. So those things, so

Speaker 2: 1:18:43

it's 400 proof.

Speaker: 1:18:45

No, it, the proof stays the same. It's just a flavor. And actually that was way too much. I'm gonna split

Speaker 2: 1:18:50

this. There's probably some sort of alcohol connoisseur somewhere around the world that are really angry

Speaker: 1:18:55

that we're doing this, perhaps, but I bought it. I agree. It's all, it's all medium shelf or even higher shelf. Like the stuff you brought in, I put in there.

Speaker 2: 1:19:03

I love it. I love the idea of it. I really do.

Speaker: 1:19:05

Um, and then we'll just do tasting nodes and then after that, your Loco experience is the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners. It's our closing segment, but we'll do this first. Cheers. Okay. Cheers buddy. Mm. It actually's pretty good. There's a lot going on there. There is a lot going on, but,

Speaker 2: 1:19:29

whew.

Speaker: 1:19:30

It's weird, you know, it's, it's not bad. It's not like anything though.

Speaker 2: 1:19:36

No, I don't, I don't know what you would call that. It. It's decent actually. I think the tequila as the more dominant, the adjutant, yeah. Is, is best. I love tequila,

Speaker: 1:19:46

I think. I think it needs a little mezcal, maybe smoky there a little because the mezcal would be a nice, uh, finishing agent for this mix. So that's

Speaker 2: 1:19:55

warming me all the way to my toes, so yeah.

Speaker: 1:19:57

Yeah, yeah. Mine's up to the top of my head. I'm starting to get a little sweaty there. Even

Speaker 2: 1:20:00

it reminds when I was a kid, I would go. Elk hunting with my dad and by when I was old enough starting at 12. And then the, uh, the experience they did is they would drink peppermint schnapps at night'cause it was cold and I remember it warm me up, warm me all the way to my toes. And it reminds me just of that

Speaker: 1:20:18

I, uh, grandpa was my peppermint schnapps influencer. Gotcha. Uh, but deer hunting also. So, uh, that was probably like the oldie place I've ever drank. Peppermint schnapps.

Speaker 2: 1:20:29

Me too. I don't even know if you can buy it anymore. I'm sure you can. On the bottom shelf of some shady store, but

Speaker: 1:20:34

2 99. Yeah. They're like, let

Speaker 2: 1:20:36

me dust this off for you, sir. It's

Speaker: 1:20:38

gonna stick around here from 1987. Yes. Your local experience is the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners. Could be business, could be personal, could be near death, could be travel in Asia. Uh, I don't know. Whatever scene strikes you, grabs your attention as the craziest experience that you're willing to share with our listeners.

Speaker 2: 1:21:01

Most of my crazy stuff happened when I was younger and not grown up. And, uh, you don't really want, uh, fun or your longtime clients. Uh, it's not fun. I'm pretty sure Fond knows all of my, my stories. It's just I would hate for my kids to get ahold of this, so, okay. Um. You know, I, when I was, when I was 16, I went on some baseball recruiting trips and uh, you know, they didn't have NIL when I was being recruited. Right, right. And so I think the way they recruited was to try to make it seem like it was cool. So you'd go to a baseball practice and you'd watch'em and they're like, Hey, do you wanna jump in here? And hit, and you'd hit with the team and you're like, oh, this is cool. And then. They're like, all right, well the coaches will be, you're with the team the rest of the night. They're gonna show you around, yada, yada. And what that turned into is we're just gonna take you to some parties. And so I'm going as a 16-year-old to these 22 year olds parties, and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to drink and I don't know how to. Dance for God's sakes. And you know, they, they're like, oh, this is Susie and this is Mindy and this is that. And I'm like, I am so scared. I haven't even kissed a girl so uncomfortable. And what do I do? And you wanna be cool'cause all the guys, you're with her, you

Speaker: 1:22:12

know, there's something you should be doing to be cool. Yeah. What that is, is a mystery.

Speaker 2: 1:22:16

Yes. It led to some craziness that I'll leave it at that, but I, I hope recruiting, uh, has cleaned up a little bit since then. So I don't know why that popped in my head

Speaker: 1:22:27

that that same shit doesn't work with female basketball recruiters though. No.

Speaker 2: 1:22:30

No. I hope with my, well, and I've been on most of'em, but I hope that they're whining and dining'em and they go to Lululemon and then they go get some sushi and something else. I hope they're, they're

Speaker: 1:22:39

light of a bunch of cute boys. No. And girls. No, they better

Speaker 2: 1:22:43

not be. Yes. Otherwise we'll have to find a different sport, I guess. But, uh, or maybe I'll just go on the trip with them, but yeah. My, how the times have changed.

Speaker: 1:22:51

What do you think about, uh, the. You know, white girl crash in the WNBA party with Caitlyn there. Is that a high drama in your circles? Or

Speaker 2: 1:23:01

It doesn't surprise me. Um, just every now and then you get those freak athletes that just work harder than everybody. Yeah. She's, she's got a screw loose in her head in terms of like, she doesn't really have the pain of working out when people, when people embrace the working out and the boredom Right. Of the fundamentals. Totally. You turn into this exceptional athlete, but people, you and I are like, well, this is boring. Why are we still talking about this? Right. She doesn't get bored with this. That's me trying to

Speaker: 1:23:33

learn how to play guitar. I'm like, yeah, I've been doing this for six hours and I'm not very good at it yet. Correct. I'll

Speaker 2: 1:23:37

just quit. I'm just done. Yeah. I'm gonna try drums. Right. She's got that screw loose where she's like, I'm just gonna do it for hours and hours and hours and hours. And so it doesn't surprise me. It, it is crazy that it's turned into a white verse black and the whole league doesn't embrace her because. She's changed the league for all of them for sure. You know, they're all fighting for more money, more exposure goes break. Right. And so I love it. I just, I wish they embraced her and protected her more. Yeah. It's all, it's almost like they're all out to get her, which I, I'm not a fan of.

Speaker: 1:24:06

I am right there. And it would be the same thing if it was a black baseball player trying to get into the, the, the major leagues. Yeah. You know, being embraced and protected was what? I would've hoped for that person

Speaker 2: 1:24:20

too. Absolutely. Right. And so when somebody's doing things the right way, which I can, I don't know if she's doing everything the right way. I'm sure she's kind of a, I'm sure she's rubbing some people the wrong way. And she, she reminds me of the player you want on your team and you never want to play against, you know what I mean? You love her when she's on your team, but when she's not, you want to kill her biggest asshole. So, yeah. I know what I, yeah. Uh, I, I, I am proud of her and the reason I'm proud of her is'cause she's growing the game of basketball girls' basketball's exploding right now. Totally. So I've been to a few WNBA games now. We just went to a Valkyrie game in San Francisco. They had my daughter's youngest, my youngest daughter's team out there and Oh, okay. Um, it was sold out and that's the Golden State Warriors Arena. That's cool. And they've sold out every game this year. Wow. And it was just insane. It was a nightclub atmosphere in there. Wow. And it was rocking. And I'm like, I'm, I'm proud to be a girl dad. I'm proud of girls basketball.

Speaker: 1:25:08

That's really cool.

Speaker 2: 1:25:09

Yeah.

Speaker: 1:25:10

Well. Do you have any more questions of me? I've, I've dominated the questions. No, I really appreciate you

Speaker 2: 1:25:15

having me. It's cool that our roots go back so far and, uh, I do, I do actually look forward to learning more about the loco think tank and yeah. Possibly showing up. I'll, uh, I'll save the commercial for

Speaker: 1:25:26

another, uh, conversation. Right. Thanks for being here. Absolutely. Thank you.