Transcript
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Speaker: We just looked at each other and said, let's start a business. Worked 10, 12 hours in the field, then come home and try to figure out how to do the accounting. I realized that I was the sole provider for this family and I needed to build this into something.
Speaker: And we grew Santa Rita in a down market. Being around people that were growth focused helped me and realize that, hey, maybe I'm not doing all I can.
Speaker: We were going gangbusters. The market was frothy. It was like almost overnight that the economy shut down. When you're small, you can find niches and get it done. When you get large, you are the market.
Speaker: You need to close or not close. We sold, closed, got the money in the bank on February 7th, and COVID was one week later. Do those hard things every day.
Speaker: They gave me what I wanted at that moment, and I'm happy with what I got, and I'm happy to see them succeed, and they're still succeeding today.
Speaker: That was probably the most scared I've been, for sure. So, Brian, from barn to boom. I know that you started this company, Santa Rita Landscaping, back in was it the early 80s? Mid 80s. Mid 80s. Yep.
Speaker: And I know that you had some initial start down in Saorita, Green Valley area. Correct. You had a ah barn that was your your mom's or something that you had your office in. It was our barn that we were raising, you know, animals in, in 4-H and FFA.
Speaker: And that's what, that became our office, our first office. And so what was it that made you think about going into landscaping? That's not really a sexy industry, is it? It's not, um but that's what I knew. um While I was in high school and college, those that I worked for the retired people in Green Valley, taking care of homeowners associations, cleaning up their backyard, planting plants for them, whatever it was. So it was kind of what what you knew and ah got out of college and
Speaker: And my wife got a a job opportunity here in Tucson that, okay, I'm staying here. I guess I'm not going to grad school. um My brother was also, he had done the same thing I had um through high school.
Speaker: And we just looked at each other and said, let's start a business. And ah so what did you study? you went to U of A? Yeah, studied watershed hydrology. Okay. So you it was a familiar world to you. Yeah, lot of lot of soils and plants and because it was it was in from the School of Renewable Natural Resources. So it was um I had a lot of that background. see That's crazy. You just decided to do it. Yeah.
Speaker: What was it about? yeah i mean, you were doing the work yourself, right? you were Oh, yes. Yeah. For three, four years, five years. I mean, it was Garrett and i you know, every day work, work 10, 12 hours in the field, then come home and try to figure out how to do the accounting on the, you know, the double entry books that you used to have back then. And yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And then in the morning, get up and take, pick up my materials in Tucson, head to Green Valley with them. And yeah, so it was long days, hard work to start. And at what point did you think, you know what, this could be something?
Speaker: Yeah, there was kind of two turning points. um i I realized Green Valley was a limited market, and I thought about, let's let's see what we can get going in Tucson. And so I was able to get a a contract with U.S. Homes then, which was a home builder, and they needed somebody to grade the yards and plant the plants in the front yard, kind of a landscape package. And I got that. They liked our work and obviously they had other communities and quickly we were doing a lot of communities in, you know around around Tucson. So that was probably one big turning point. The second one was probably when my wife decided to quit her good job and I realized that I was the sole provider for this family and I needed to build this into something.
Speaker: So those were the two turning points, I would say. That second turning point about when was that? Oh, that would have been around the late 90s. Late 90s. Yeah.
Speaker: And so, did you would you say that before that, it was more like you were doing the business, just kind of running the business, and you know it wasn't like a big thing, and then afterwards you were laser-focused on growing it? Or is that not?
Speaker: I guess we were running the business. we were It was a profitable business. We were doing well. We were growing, but we... our upside was kind of limited. Um, probably weren't hiring people smarter than us to do certain tasks and that kind of stuff. And, and there was just a turning point where we said, okay, we need better quality staff to get this done and help it, help us grow it. Right.
Speaker: Cause it was kind of the two of us pulling all the chains and, Yeah. And how did you and your brother sort of split the work? So. Or split responsibility? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, typical brothers, you know, we can get along and then we can squabble like all brothers. Right. But, um, yeah older one of the younger I'm the older one.
Speaker: and um I've always had an interest in business, the numbers, that kind of stuff. And Garrett had a a better affinity for sales.
Speaker: So that was kind of the break when we decided, okay, I'm going to run the business. You're going to run the sales. Not that I didn't do sales and not that he didn't help. He was a good manager of people. And so, um,
Speaker: And I was more the visionary, the guy looking ahead and making the plans and into the future. That's great. Yeah. So it worked well. Now, I know a lot of your business from, i mean, I've known you for a long time and and all that. And I remember a lot of your business was referral-based.
Speaker: It was. And there's a difference between just handing somebody a name versus being an advocate. Yes. You customers. Yes. What was it about what you and your brother did at the time?
Speaker: that would convert people from just like, yeah, this is a exchange of a business card from being true advocates. Yeah. So there was probably a few things, but probably the main thing is if we ted told you something as a customer, we did it and we would bend over backwards to do it. And so from the, from the commercial side, the home builder side, meeting schedules was like huge.
Speaker: They, And they, if you hit their schedule, that saves them dollars because that's the longer, the shorter time that house, you know, is in the build phase for them and they're not turning their money. So being able to hit schedules and doing everything in our power to hit schedules was probably the biggest thing from the commercial side.
Speaker: From the residential side, it was the same thing. If we tell them we're going to do... this job, it's going to take 10 days. It took 10 days. We didn't, we did whatever we could to meet our expectations. And I think that's the difference. And that's why people refer to us so strongly.
Speaker: I know that from understanding your business, at least from the outside, so we were part of that CEO group together for many years. And obviously you you are you're go to these groups as I did to get peer advisory, to share, to commiserate. You know, it's a lonely place. yes You had your brother, which is good. yes But also you needed to have a different kind of perspective.
Speaker: Correct. Was there something that was told or advice in that group, the VISTAs group, that you would say was pivotal for your your career in general?
Speaker: I would say just being around people that were growth focused helped me and realize that, hey, maybe I'm not doing all I can. So I think just learning in general from the others was probably, and just seeing the excitement they have and and to grow um was probably the best thing I got out of it.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I meet other business owners that maybe don't have that same mindset. Yeah, if you're siloed, it's it's not good. Just, you realize there's creative people doing things, creative things in their industry, and and you can't help but be creative.
Speaker: No, for sure. i croti so As part of that growth that you had, when did you realize that you were limited not only by sales, but by operations?
Speaker: You know, there's this tug and pull, at least in your service industry, right? It is. You're selling stuff and you have to have ah boots on the ground to to do the work. And so how do you manage all that? That was hard. um That was hard. you hire you know You hire people to get the job done, and then that puts that puts pressure on the sales staff. And then the sales staff gets going, and all of a sudden you can't meet your expectations because you haven't hired enough people. So really, that was that was a big, big part of the job, was balancing those two.
Speaker: Um, in some departments you had flexibility and I think that's what helped us probably the most is we had, you know, landscaping is very varied. You have maintenance, you have construction, you have commercial, you have residential. And so we were always able, although they weren't the best people for the job because maintenance people think they're very different than construction people.
Speaker: But if sales got out ahead our production team, we could usually take a couple guys from another department and add them there to help meet the schedule.
Speaker: um So that was probably... we had a little bit of flexibility to there. It sometimes hurt the bottom line because those guys aren't used to doing that work every day. But it was worth that to us to meet our the expectations we set with our customer.
Speaker: It's actually a really good segue because I think it's important to to kind of talk about the way that your business was split up. Because it wasn't, you know, not being in the landscaping business and not having, mean, I know now, because you've said it many times during our meetings and all that, but, you know, from the outside in, you don't know. You see these trucks rolling around. You don't know there's construction. So you had four divisions, is there? Correct.
Speaker: Yeah, you had ah a maintenance division, you had a commercial construction division, a home builder division, and then we started a solutions division division, which actually, and a design build division. So um design build, you know, you people come to you, they've been referred to you because you you landscape somebody else's backyard, they would like you to design it and install it. And so that's most of the residential work we did was design build.
Speaker: Commercial, there's an architect building a plan and you just bid the plans. And then if you get the job, you you go execute based on those plans and the spec book. So that's really different. Homebuilder even different yet because you're doing the same thing on every house.
Speaker: And, you know, like to make back in the day to make $3,000, I had to touch that house five times, which is if you think about it,
Speaker: um When you're mobilizing $150,000 worth of equipment, a dump truck and a tractor and a pickup truck, you know, to make people and people, you know, to get $3,500 out of that sale was very, very challenging, but we figured it out and that's what made us successful. So it's very different. And those guys, those builder guys think completely different than the commercial guys, the commercial guys, it's plan and spec builder is kind of, okay, we got to get it done. It's pretty simple, but but we have to repeat it each each day. And design build, you've got a plan, but you're really trying to make a customer happy with the final product. And so those guys are kind of will move plants around. This would look better. And, you know, so that's why that's where the guys don't overlap too well is just how they think about completing a job. But yeah.
Speaker: would Would you say that, and I don know the answer to this, but our audience doesn't, they each had their own profit margins or scale, right? They did. They did. And um it varied based on the market, um which division they...
Speaker: I guess over the history of the company, i I wouldn't, there's probably not a couple points different, but at a certain point of time, you know, if home builders real strong, they could have high margin if there's a lot of sales there and we could add a little when we bid the job because there's lots of demand. um So over the, in general speaking, though, I would say maintenance is a lower margin work. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Um, but a buyer will pay you more for, for maintenance mert because it's reoccurring. um So you make it at the sale. You don't make it during as much during the job commercial, higher risk plants, you know, plants die, um, materials costs go up while you're, while you've got the job. So, so you get paid a little bit more for that risk.
Speaker: Yeah, I can see that. Um, I mean, you led your company through a lot of change literally from two guys in a pickup truck or two. Correct.
Speaker: And you led it all the way through an acquisition, which we'll get to. Yes. But there's a certain inflection point in the middle, roughly. Yes. 2008. That was pretty rough.
Speaker: why Why was it rough? Well, we at that time had built the company to about, I think, 187 employees if or close to that.
Speaker: And we were going gangbusters. The market was frothy. You could put the margin you needed in the job to get it done. And it was like almost overnight that the economy shut down. Homebuilders quit building houses. I had just went out and bought $350,000 worth of new trucks, new tractors.
Speaker: And it felt like the next day where we were getting a hundred starts a month from a home builder, it went to 20. Just boom, you know? So, um,
Speaker: that was That was a very tough time in business. But we we, because I had good people around me that made great decisions, both in the field and accountants, controllers, it you know operations guys, we made good decisions and we got through it. there was We didn't have a lot of debt as a company. So the only debt we had was on equipment.
Speaker: That one you bought? All that equipment I just bought had debt on it. um But normally back then we were putting about 20% down and and then you know making the payments. So if you looked at all of our equipment, the the great thing about that for us and probably say saved us from losing money for several years was the fact that China was hot and they were buying up all the equipment in the United States, shipping it over to China. So those tractors that I'd use for two years, one year, one month, when I sent them to auction, because we couldn't see a future for them here, um the price we got for them more than paid almost.
Speaker: I wouldn't say every time, but if you looked at the average, the price we got for them paid off the debt. So that was a blessing that, that China was hot at that moment. Um, and so we were actually, because the, though ah the work we had in backlog, even though the the sales picket turned off, we had millions of dollars in backlog and that took about two and a half years to go through. Some of the jobs got canceled. Some of them got postponed. Some of them, um, just continued on. And so,
Speaker: the work that we had in the backlog was relatively high margin because the market had been so frothy. So that was, that was also a blessing. So we got through that time lot better than our, our competition. It wasn't fun. We went all the way down to 37 employees. From 187. 187 37. Over two half years. It it was an ugly time. the beauty of it,
Speaker: over two and a half years it was it was an ugly time and the beauty of it if there if you can find you know any beauty in it, is when we got down to 37, obviously they were the dynamite employees. They were the absolute best employees. So as the market started to turn, we again became profitable really fast because we had a really good team, 37 people. We figured out You know, we figured out two of the right people could do what we were sending three of the wrong, you know, three people to do before. So it was, um, it was a good learning, learning experience. We wouldn't want to do it, but if you did it, you know, and we did.
Speaker: you made you made it that's that's all you can do yeah and then we built the company again over the next what uh 10 years back up to over 200 employees so that's amazing yeah yeah yeah i'm always uh kind of blown away that certain certain fruits they do better whether if they're stressed right strawberries are sweeter and yeah grapes are better exactly yeah and uh I have had my own challenges as well, and I know that people are really what makes the difference. It is.
Speaker: And mindset. So as far as your mindset, you and your brother as leaders of the company, was there ever a time when you were like, forget it, I'm done, and you wanted to throw in the towel?
Speaker: I don't think so. um I don't think so. I think um other when other than when we decided we were ready to exit, I think we probably felt it a little bit, you know, two or three years before we kind of committed to market the company and sell it. But I don't think I wanted to throw in the towel. I've i always...
Speaker: enjoyed the business, um, and enjoyed what it provided for my family and, and, and my employees. So, um, yeah, that's a good question, but there was probably times, but.
Speaker: Well, I know you're a, I know you're a hunter. Yes. And so your hunting mentality and mindset probably, interplay with your business mindset and back and forth. Yes. You see something from far away, you're glassing and you're like, we're going to go there and get it.
Speaker: Exactly. If you get there and it's not there, you're going to go back to camp and you're going to figure out how to do it the next Exactly. That's crazy. That's exactly right. Yeah. Walk us through the period of time when you decided to exit and then maybe two or three years afterwards, because there's a whole arc there of identity. it yeah it's crazy. It's a rough time or it's an interesting time um and sometimes rough. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, i think I think we were all kind of sensing that, hey, there's a little bit of burnout here. It's kind of time. We're getting older. It's it's time to exit. but But you don't really have a buyer when you have, except for private equity or some other very big landscaping company that can acquire you. so So you really have to start thinking about, okay, how can I make this company not about me and the owners and about the employees? so
Speaker: um We probably started that process two or three years before we actually put the company up for sale um and started marketing it. So, yeah, that was about building systems, making other managers step up and do certain roles, you know, without our input. um Because when you've got the owner sitting there, the questions come to the owner a lot of the time.
Speaker: So um we kind of had to slowly start stepping away. We had a system that allowed us to do it. It would have been difficult if we didn't, but we we were following the entrepreneurial traction book that I'm sure many of your audience have heard about.
Speaker: And that that system gave me comfort that if I took my eye off the ball, the person, there's somebody looking at it other than me. So um I felt like there was a lot of people pulling the company uphill and not just the ownership with that system. And we were able to check in through a dashboard or whatever, and it didn't really require day-to-day.
Speaker: um management And that was a process. Obviously, we didn't flip the switch overnight, but over a couple of years, we were able to accomplish that. And then I felt good about marketing the company to a buyer and that they could say to buy to ownership and and take off, take on the company because there was good team players there.
Speaker: And that buyer, how did you hang the shingle out? Did you use a broker? Did you use investment bankers? Did you do it on your own? Yeah, we used an an investment banker. yeahp And they went out and found a... So, yeah, they basically come in, they they look at your company, they they have you do um some accounting, um what is it, earnings, something of earnings. um Make sure your earnings are correct and and make sure your books are correct. Then they build a marketing packet about your company.
Speaker: and they send it out to their list of 100, 200 people. It's a funnel. It's a sales funnel, and they get 10 people. you know It goes from 100 to 10. 10 people are interested, and in those 10, you're trying to get two, three, five buyers who are willing to offer a price, you know a ah bid, basically, for your company.
Speaker: And then once you get those bids, you have to decide which one you want to dance with, basically, for the sales process. Is that how it happened for you? How many did you have? Yeah, I think yeah i think they they sent out to 100 people and maybe I think let's just say 20. I don't know the exact number. Companies wanted to see the book, you know the marketing packet on the company um and then maybe
Speaker: Ten followed up with questions to them, and then we ended up with three. Okay. Yeah, three three buyers, three bidders, basically. And I'm sure they each had their own package that here's how much we're offering. Correct. But there was other intangibles, too, right? I mean, you got to meet them or not really? You do at some point. Um, those three come in for interviews and they really, they're interviewing us more than we're interviewing them. Although you are getting a feel for them. Um, and then they come back with, with a hard number and a letter of intent if they're interested. Um, but you got a pretty good feeling from the questions they were asking if
Speaker: they knew anything about this industry or they were, this was the first time they'd ever been interested in a landscaping business. So, so we got a pretty good feel for them.
Speaker: And, um the one that offered the most is, the is also the one we liked the best. It worked out. It's so it worked out. Yes. When this happened, what year was it Started in 2019.
Speaker: So we started marketing the company in early 19. And I think we've got a letter, got kind of into that letter of intent. Um,
Speaker: mid-19, let's say, later. And then then you have to go to contract, and there's a whole month of going back and forth between the lawyers. and then you set a closing date, right? And I think our first closing date was October 30th?
Speaker: So we probably started in February. It took till October 30th to basically get the the final contract done. nine r twenty Of 19 or 20?
Speaker: Of 19. Okay. Yeah. So you're eight six, eight months in it before you're kind of, and then they say they're getting ready to close on October 30th and didn't close.
Speaker: So that was disappointing, but you kind of knew because they weren't asking a lot of questions. Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know how you want to look at it. Our buyer, um there was a senior partner and a junior partner. And this, our deal was the first one, as I understand it, that the junior partner got to do by himself without the senior partner.
Speaker: So he was crossing all the T's, dotting all the I's, asking a lot of questions. Um, you know, he wanted his first deal to be good. So I don't, I don't blame him. I understand, but it was kind of, um, when they didn't close on October 30th and then it turned on November 30th, they didn't close. And then we were all excited for an end of year close and it didn't get closed.
Speaker: Um, Not only do you have to kind of do the dog and pony show for the buyer, but you also have to do it for the lender. So the lender comes into town and he wants to see everything and then he's got questions and, you know, so it's, um, it's a big job.
Speaker: And really, um, we had i had two employees that we let know that we were marketing the company and we kind of set up a i would guess i would call it ah a program where they they win with a sale the same as we win with a sale and if they stayed with the new with the new company they would win again so we would give them some money um to stay with the company, basically. And we thought that would up our value because they would have obviously less risk because we've got some key employees that are going to stay with the company. It turned out this buyer wanted...
Speaker: them to use those funds to buy shares or equity in the business, which was which was kind of the same thing because they would have the same motives as as the private equity buyer. so So anyway, they didn't close on December 30th. It was very dis disappointing.
Speaker: About mid-January, um they were still firing questions and at us, and I just lost my patience, basically. And somehow they had let word get out that they had several hundred thousand dollars of legal and accounting and fees already wrapped up in this deal.
Speaker: So i I figured they were pretty pregnant. They weren't going away from this. There was nothing about those months that would, you know, sales weren't falling off a cliff or anything like that. There's no reason why they wouldn't move forward.
Speaker: So um I basically told them no more questions, no more answers, because you're not getting them from me. You need to close or not close. And that's kind of what it took. I probably should have done that six weeks earlier, eight weeks earlier. But it seems like every time you answer a question, it leads to three more questions. And it's just this this tunnel that you just keep digging. and And, you know, I was running quarterback and I had these two employees that were trying to run the company.
Speaker: and also help me answer all the questions every day so they were spending half their day almost think it's a stress test by the buyer right right can this company function if we take this much time from the ownership and the management answering all these questions and ah guess we passed so they closed on february 7th of 2020 so it was almost one-year process um from the day we kind of contacted the mna guys and until we got closed and it was really probably because of the gravity and the money in the situation and it was probably the hardest year one of the hardest years of running the business and getting it done there's just a lot a lot riding on it right long was coveted And COVID was one week later.
Speaker: So we sold, closed, got the money in the bank on February 7th, and COVID hit, you know, February 20th, let's say, yeah when pretty much we knew that this COVID thing is going to become a problem for the country.
Speaker: So it was like, oh, it was a relief, but you felt bad for the buyer too. And, and they did have a little bit of, you know, Arizona, fortunately was pretty low key on COVID. They didn't, we were considered an essential business. So,
Speaker: So there was a couple weeks when everybody had to stay home. And then what was that in March, probably, I think, early, late February, early March, everybody had, but then Arizona was pretty easy going on essential businesses and they were really able to get their job done. So it really didn't affect them, you know, in any any large way, but.
Speaker: And the the company that, that bought Santa Rita, i and As I understand, they also expanded to Phoenix. They're still in operation, obviously, right?
Speaker: um No. So that private effort equity company sold Santa Rita about three years later. Oh, interesting. Okay. so But they did, just like you said. we were kind of late in our career to decide.
Speaker: We always thought about, let's go to Phoenix. Let's start a Phoenix division. But we just were kind of late in our career to want to do that. so um But they, new buyer, fresh, they basically took the profits that Santa Rita was making.
Speaker: And instead of taking those profits out to support the owner's lifestyle, they they took those profits and bought companies in Phoenix, mostly landscape maintenance companies, and um grew those companies along with Santa Rita.
Speaker: And so that first private equity company made and exited almost three years, a little out more than three years after they bought it. and did quite well because, you know, they were selling the way it works, you know, you're selling EBITDA and the bigger the EBITDA, the higher multiples you get on it. So they basically increase increased EBITDA, got a higher multiple and.
Speaker: How many employees do you have when you sold? We had about 200. 200. And I think when they sold the second time, they had grown it to 700 employees. Wow. Yeah. That's quite a growth. Yeah. So they really did well. They knew what they were doing and they did well. Well, you know, we're happy as ownership that we, you know, not, not jealous of their success at all. Happy for them, really. And happy for the employees that, that were able to buy in and get, get some of that win also. So. I think that mindset, the one you just spelled out is so important because I've seen ah owners that have a company that have this, this wouldn't call it a jealous streak, but almost like, like a vindictive yes anger. yeah And if somebody else succeeds after them, they hold a grudge. i don't understand that at all. I don't either. um But I've seen it too with my friends that have sold businesses and my equipments. I've seen the same thing. And I'm like, no, I'm happy for
Speaker: They gave me what I wanted at that moment. And I'm happy with what I got. And I'm happy to see them succeed. And they're still succeeding today. it's all right yeah So this podcast is about the market.
Speaker: So all things business, operations, sales, all that stuff. Right. And all things mind, mindset. How much of your success, Brian, would you attribute to market conditions, market features, and mindset features for you personally?
Speaker: Well, I think you can be successful in a down market and we grew Santa Rita in a down market. Um, but we were just, you know, we didn't even know that in general sales weren't, you know, in the early eighties, things were tough or the mid eighties when we started Santa Rita.
Speaker: But hard work can overcome that to a certain point. But when you combo come so large, it's really hard to buck the market, right? um When you're small, you can find niches and get it done. When you get large, you are the market.
Speaker: You know we had probably, we were probably the biggest landscaping company in Tucson amongst all of our when you combined all our, So it's pretty hard to buck the market when it when it happens, um when it goes down.
Speaker: um But I still think you can be successful. You just have your top line shrinks and you just have to make sure the bottom line doesn't shrink. So... um Success was big for my brother and I and our partners and our employees. So, um you know, you just have to work harder in those down markets and make it make it work.
Speaker: I mean, you were, what, 20-plus million in sales, right? Correct, yeah. And that was the biggest. I mean, landscaping, again, isn't sexy, but right it's a lot of money. It's a lot. It's a big company. A lot of moving parts, but um definitely challenging every day.
Speaker: What would you say to a young entrepreneur who's considering going into business, maybe is making the transition from a day job to their side hustle? And I mean, hard work is one feature. What else would you tell them?
Speaker: Get used to doing something hard every day. because business is hard. And, you know, i I'm looking at my grandkids now and I'm trying to instill just do something hard every day, whether it's 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, whatever it is. Because if you get used to doing something hard every day,
Speaker: um when you hit those challenges in business, and you'll hit them, doesn't matter who you are or what business you're in, you're going to hit them. But sometimes you just have to do something hard that day and that you don't want to do.
Speaker: And so just do those hard things every day. And i think success will follow. Yeah. Comfort is a killer, man. Comfort is a killer. And, and you can, you can feel yourself get comfortable as the market gets good and your margins are increasing, but you still have to go in there and do something hard. I guarantee you there's something broke in your company every day and you just can't, can't sit there and not do it. Yeah.
Speaker: So tell us what you've been doing over the past, what, six years now? Six years. It's actually been a great six years. I've um been hunting around the world, which is my passion. I've been working on some conservation projects, wildlife conservation projects. I've been helping mentor a couple kids that, I so i see kids, but they're mid-20s that want to break away and go start their own business, kind of coaching them a little bit.
Speaker: Got three new grandkids over the last six years, so that's been great. And, um, just really enjoying life, obviously investing, following investments, that kind of stuff is kept me quite busy. And, uh, I did for the first two years miss not the business, but business like I would drive down the road and come up with a business idea and i was like, okay, I gotta to go start this. I gotta do this. I gotta figure this out. And I'd slap myself and I'd go back to, you know, but it, it, it took two, two and a half years for that desire to go start something new or do something, um, to fade off. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I see that as well in people that I know that have exited. They struggle because it becomes their identity, right? there They go from being to the CEO, being the leader as a person to them not being that. Yeah, I think i think it's more about opportunity. You see opportunities and you just naturally want to go capitalize on those ah opportunities. But...
Speaker: um you don't have the infrastructure around you to go do it now. So, um yeah, and not interested in going and building that infrastructure to do it now. So you're not interested in starting another business? No, not at all. I'm happy. One thing I find interesting, because i'm also a hunter, yeah and a lot of the world doesn't really understand hunting sometimes. Correct.
Speaker: A lot of the the the biggest conservation efforts are led by, provided by, funded by hunters. All of them were. Not a lot. Pretty much all of them. um You know, hunting is a sustainable, animals are a sustainable resource. I mean, hunting really is the first sustainable...
Speaker: business. yeah um And it's done different all around the world. In Africa, it's done different than than in North America, where we have the North American model of wildlife conservation, where you know in Africa, it's a different model, but it works. And it works because as hunters, we're putting value on those animals. If there's no value on them, they get eaten, basically poached.
Speaker: um If there's value on them, people will take care of them. So what gets you know what is valued gets protected. And that's that's how it works. I have two final questions. Okay.
Speaker: The first question is about your hunting experience. In particular, was there any time when you were scared for your life?
Speaker: Like you were like... Man, what am I doing here?
Speaker: Yes, but it wasn't because of the animal. It was because of the cliff I was hanging on, right? Or um one time, this is a short story, but it was a doll sheep hunt, archery doll sheep hunt up in Alaska in the Chudot Mountains, which is one of the roughest mountains that you'll ever hunt in.
Speaker: And we were trying to get around on this sheep to make a stalk on him with my bow. And so I had a cold on that trip. but I was, I was, um... downing cold cold medicine and just wasn't feeling good and we had to go up this cliff about 50 feet and it's not straight up cliff but it's it's it's steep and so the guide gets halfway up there and i decide to start going up and he kicks off a rock about that big and it came down and hit me right on the forehead and i was so close to falling 25 feet off the back of that cliff
Speaker: And it threw me into a total panic attack on the side of that cliff. I couldn't move a hand up. I couldn't take the next step. I couldn't, I couldn't move my feet, anything. Fortunately, the guide went on up to the top and he had a rope in his pack and he threw a rope down and was able to convince me to put that rope under one arm. You know, he tied a knot, a bow, you know, uh, uh,
Speaker: so i was able to get loose of one hand loose and it took everything i had to get one hand loose and get under that rope and then that little tug he gave me was just enough security that i went ahead and climbed to the top got to the top And it was probably a 45 degree kind of grassy slope up there. And I was just sitting there and I, I swear I could feel that slope tipping like it was going to tip me off of it. It was, so I blame it. I'm not really afraid of heights, but
Speaker: I think it was the cold medicine, you know, so they say don't drive heavy equipment. Don't, don't, don't climb any cliffs either. When you're on that stuff, it's kind of how I look at it. Cause, but that, that was probably these the scaredest I've been. What was, when was this? Oh, this was probably 15
Speaker: yeah Yeah. I think it was the last second to the last day of a 10 day hunt. We were wore out. I was sick. It just was a rough. It all came together. It all came together. Yeah. That was probably the most scared I've been for sure.
Speaker: Last question is if you had the opportunity to have a meal, spend half a day with somebody, ever, in the world that's ever lived yeah or any place, who would it be and why?
Speaker: Probably Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker: Teddy was a hunter. So I would love to hear, yeah, spend lunch with him. And, you know, he was a go-get-it guy. He gets got stuff done, right?
Speaker: To be around a guy like that who had some disabilities, physical, physical, Um, but he still managed to lead this country two and a half times or three times. Right. And plus, um, travel the world, the Amazon hunting, fishing, um, Africa many times. That's who I sit with.
Speaker: That's amazing. I still, uh, am, it's remarkable that he took a bullet during a speech. Yes. And kept talking. Looked down, kind of held his chest a bit, dip and just kept talking. yep And then afterwards, it was Delvin. Yeah, tough man.
Speaker: Well, Brian, thank thank you very much. This has been very good conversation. As always, I've always admired you and your stories. And looking forward to hearing more hockey stories and and all that.
Speaker: Appreciate it, Manny. It's been fun. Thank you.
