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Episode 31: Mike Holland on helping in Haiti, recruiting young people, and tent innovations
117 Plays8 days ago
Mike Holland, president at Chattanooga Tent, sits down with the guys to talk about all sorts of things! He debunks a recent article he read about hard work, they talk about the camaraderie of tent crews and sleeping in truck beds.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Under the Vinyl' and Industry Context
00:00:00
Speaker
This is Under the Vinyl, a rental management media podcast. I'm Nate. And I'm Kyle. And this is what we talk about, tents and everything tent-related. Let's dive in. I'm the one you call when you need a tent up or down.
00:00:14
Speaker
I'm a tent rental man, I'm working all day. Getting mistakes in the ground no matter what they say. From sunrise to the night, make sure everything's right. Yeah, I'm tent rental man, I'm working.
00:00:28
Speaker
Kyle, we're back again. How you doing, buddy? I'm good, Nate. It was pleasure seeing you last week. Yeah, was good time. It's when we can get together. Yeah. Absolutely. I think we we had a good group of people, good turnout for the safe tending launch, and think it's going a good thing for the industry.
00:00:44
Speaker
It definitely is. I'm glad we got to be a part of it and be there for that. Yeah, really cool. It's pitching the same ideas that you and I speak about all the time, so I like it. Yeah, I think think once we roll it out there, get a little bit more literature on it to ah too, I think it'll be great for everybody to see. and And so hopefully we can start really pushing it as an industry.
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to be good. don you get Well, i I'm excited for today's guest, Nate. I know. It's going to be a good one. It's a long time waiting. We've been needing to get him on here for a little while.
Meet Mike Holland: Industry Insights and Personal Journey
00:01:14
Speaker
So today we're excited to sit down with Mike Holland, a true industry leader and innovator from Chattanooga Tent.
00:01:19
Speaker
With decades of experience in building one of the most respected tent and event companies in the country, Mike brings a wealth of knowledge, stories from the field, and insights into what it takes to grow ah and sustain a family business and his ever-changing industry.
00:01:33
Speaker
Get ready for a great conversation with Mike Holland. Mike, how you doing, buddy? I'm good, gentlemen. How are you? Good seeing you all again. it's It's been a week. It's almost like it's a convention season.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah. We wish it was. was a nice midweek break. Yeah. Yeah. It was a good midweek break. That's for dang sure. Uh, so thanks for having me on.
00:01:56
Speaker
Go ahead. I was just going to say, thanks for having me on here. Um, you know, I've listened to every single podcast. I think it's great what you guys are doing. I love the insights of people who've been in it for a while and and some of the new thoughts and, uh, uh, whatever it does is it brings just more to our industry, which I'm proud to be a part of.
00:02:14
Speaker
So love it. Love it. And yeah, we're glad to finally have you on here. And if you can just share with us a little bit about your journey into the tent and event industry how the hell you got here.
00:02:26
Speaker
Well, do I have an hour? No, um I think if you know, and if I, if i speak too fast, tell me slow down. If you know my son, you know, he didn't fall far from the truth as far as talking. Well, that being said,
00:02:41
Speaker
Family owned business. My grandfather started the business in 1934. We did tarps and not tar awnings and Phoenician blinds. World War II, we made tents and carving cases. We had 300 employees in our manufacturing.
00:02:58
Speaker
Then for some reason after the war, we thought we were going to build pants, meaning jeans and like overalls that didn't go over so well. So we got, we continued to do the awnings and and blinds. But then in 1952, my grandfather bought some gala fabric and made an experimental rental tent, a hundred by 200.
Chattanooga Tent's Evolution and Milestones
00:03:19
Speaker
Asked me where he started at a hundred by 200, but that's the story I'm giving. Experimental. yeah Yeah. So we started renting tents and traveling across the Southeast that time. Chattanooga is a small market. So the story I used to was told is that he put his golf clubs in, in a case of Jack Daniels in the trunk of his car. And he,
00:03:39
Speaker
go around seeing all the fare managers in the Southeast drumming up business. We got out of Tartt. He and his brother split in 1960, and we went strictly to tents. So move fast forward to probably 1976 was the first summer that i got I got to put up a tent. So next year will be almost 50 years of ah being in the rental business. It wasn't full-time.
00:04:05
Speaker
I graduated in 78 and came to work. mostly because i didn't know what i wanted to do so i thought this would be a good opportunity from work a couple of years i did the college entrance exams but i was working 100 hours a week and i had more money than any of my friends at two dollars and 65 cents an hour um so uh things were different at that time when i came to work here my uncle andy which the industry knows uh had bought the business from his father i think sometime around 82
00:04:38
Speaker
So that's who I worked for a number of years. um I didn't really start thinking that this was going to be a career till probably early eighty s The more I traveled, we were doing a lot of special event work in Atlanta, which was a yeah it was a good vibe.
00:05:02
Speaker
But enjoyed doing that. And then that is kind of where this whole the first time I got a taste of, of wanting to be a professional tent man, a lady called me a car and we were putting a party tent up at her house and she called me a car and I was all of like 20 years old.
00:05:21
Speaker
And I said, ma'am, I am not a car and I'm a professional tent man. So maybe, maybe that was the time. yeah So you were ahead of the time on that one. Well, it's, it's, it's been a good career.
00:05:36
Speaker
You know, When you want to ask, what just jump in here because I mean, I could probably talk for ah too much. That being said, um you know, for young man, I started my family in 1982, got married, had our first son, Michael.
00:05:53
Speaker
1985, had our second son, Josh. And then about 87, we had really experienced some good growth. Andy took me off the road and made me sales and operations.
Technological Advances in Tent Manufacturing
00:06:06
Speaker
That's kind of where it took off from there. We were doing mostly pole tents and as many of you know, we we manufacture, but everything on a pole tent we made. We would buy the fabric, but we would have the all the plates. We would sew the ropes in. We would buy the steel and cut the stake bars. We would weld the uprights, the center poles, everything. So the margins were really good in the 80s.
00:06:30
Speaker
And then pole tents went away. But we were excited, you know, To our industry, another thing that probably helped me drive this home for career. I went to my first at that time, IFA tent show in 1983 in Clearwater, Florida.
00:06:47
Speaker
And got to meet a lot of these old guys that people have talked about, like Bruce Wadenski and Harry Oppenheimer and Bernie Ombriester and all these guys got to have dinner with them. And they were cool individuals. And I was just enamored at it, at being 23 years old.
00:07:02
Speaker
or maybe even 22 at that time, on what the industry did. With that said, that was the first year I'd ever seen a clear span. We got to help erect a clear span there at the convention, and I remember one of the boys from, it was Pat Ritchie from O'Neill Tent, that he and I were probably the youngest cats on the scene. We were helping install that tent. They also installed air conditioning, never seen an air conditioning, never knew it could be in structure.
00:07:29
Speaker
That was a hawker and Joe hawker was there at that time when put that up. Um, that, that, that was probably something else that lured me in. In 1985, Chattanooga tent bought its first structure.
00:07:42
Speaker
We bought two 20 meter by 35 meters and put them up for the national peanut festival in Dothan, Alabama. So, um, and was that good for him?
00:07:52
Speaker
but Were those tents specifically bought then just for that? And how did, How did they convince that customer to go from pole tent to a structure and pricing back then? How did that work? Well, I think the fair manager was a friend of Andy's and and he said, we were bringing these into our inventory and this would be a good fit for you.
00:08:12
Speaker
So i I couldn't, maybe then we were in a dollar a square foot, you know, plus all. um But you know, the the frames weren't as expensive either. And again, we made our own tops.
00:08:26
Speaker
So there was some expense savings there. Those were blue and white tops and blue and white sidewalls sticking with that old fair and festival stuff. But so they liked it they knew the the inventory was coming in no matter what. it wasn't he didn't So he took a chance to buy that inventory, not specifically for that festival, or did he have a plan that, hey, I'm going to convince him to go with this for that festival, and that's how I'm going to get this to roll out?
00:08:52
Speaker
I would say – our competitors at that time, you know, Mahaffey had gotten into it, American Pavilion. Those, those were all other companies that were family owned that traveled the Southeast in the country.
00:09:04
Speaker
They were getting them. So we knew it we he felt like we felt like it was the next step in our industry. I think he went to the festival and said, look, I'll give you a little better price, but we want you to try these. And it was a good place to start it.
00:09:19
Speaker
And, um, you guys would have loved it back then. flatbed was not in our language. So our hawker stayed in an electronics van trailer with doors down each side.
00:09:33
Speaker
Everything had to be hand lifted out of the trailer. And all these guys complaining nowadays about how they have to carry shit and move shit around. if only they knew. And at one time we had four four or five of those electronics vans.
00:09:51
Speaker
So we were you still using machinery to put it up or you're putting up a hand? No, we, we pushed them up by hand. That's one thing I will go back and I will certainly give my uncle Andy credit. I know back when he burn bought our first Bobcat, his father told him, my grandfather told him he going break the company, but we had five later on. It's kind of like we have five, 10 oxes now, but we also had Wacker steak drivers. Now,
00:10:20
Speaker
And that was in the middle of the 70s, mid-76. We had state drivers. I don't know that I'd stuck around if we had sledgehammers only. And to think, there's still guys out there today that would take a sledgehammer over a jackhammer.
00:10:34
Speaker
Yeah, that not this not this guy. but Those are those rough and tough guys that are on the road every day. Those aren't the part sales, part tent putter-upper. Kyle, that's you.
00:10:46
Speaker
You know, what was one of the cool things about kind of splitting that, that, that era there, you know, going from the clear span and and by right around the mid eighties is when the industry went from canvas to vinyl as well.
00:11:00
Speaker
So all these things were changing, but you know, when you got to go out with some of these older guys and you, and maybe the wacker wasn't working or there wasn't enough wackers and it was kind of fun hammering a stake down with four or five guys around, you know, there's, yeah there's something there's something feeling good about that.
00:11:19
Speaker
Um, I would argue the camaraderie you had back in the eighties with your crew was a lot better than camaraderie cruise field and find today.
00:11:30
Speaker
You would get no argument out of me. I would agree. Now, uh, I know you all have heard this story, but you know, when I started and before I started up until probably maybe the mid to the late eighties, we slept in the back of the truck.
Traditional Techniques vs. Modern Innovations
00:11:43
Speaker
So the end of the day, you would go get your dinner. You might pick up a six pack. Everybody have a beer. We lay in the back of the truck in our sleeping bag and chat about the day. And maybe that was our toolbox meeting before we even knew it.
00:12:01
Speaker
Finding over a six pack and some tent bags. Exactly. And you get up the next morning and and you go back at it again. So, um you know, as another, I can't remember when the first ratchet came out, but everybody's probably heard the story you know you put up a pole tent with ropes well 10 to 10 always use chain and we had we had chain that was you know bigger chain on the corners and lace lines and smaller chain on the rest of the parts on 60 day we went all the way up to 110 foot round pole tents that we built and installed for for parties and explain harder not explain the visual on the chains for everybody and how how the chains worked on
00:12:44
Speaker
as the rope and then why the chain instead of the rope? Well, so as you know, when you do a rope tin or or in our case a chain, you would set the side pole in. You didn't have all this pre-measurement stuff. You set the side pole in, couple of guys would yank the tension down to the guy tightening the rope or in our case, our chain and they'd snap that tight. And then you push the side pole up and you had a good feel whether it was tight or And if it was a quarter pole tent, you got a little bit more tension with the quarter pole. So the problem was, is when you tied the rope, not only did the rope pinch, but it also slid up the stake.
00:13:26
Speaker
So the chain might slide if you had a slick stake, but you could wrap the additional, you could do the same thing on the rope, wrap the additional access around the top keep them sliding up.
00:13:39
Speaker
But after it'd been up for like a day or two, Rust started to set in, so the rust would help hold that chain for moving up and down.
00:13:49
Speaker
us We never saw chains break. We saw the connection point at the tent, either the clevis or the or the safety link that we used on the small chains.
00:14:00
Speaker
But there was some, don't get me wrong, you know, you go to what the guys are doing out there on the field today and the glass and the floor and the wall, there is a lot of talent to that. No one had to put up a pole tent and which way to pull it.
00:14:15
Speaker
There was a lot, it was a different talent, but they took a lot of talent at that, you know, we would do these tents 500, 800 feet long. And there was just absolutely no way you could pull a slack on the ground out to know how to set the stakes. So you, yeah if it was supposed to be at spot a you might give it another four to five feet. So when it got up in the air, it lined more in place.
00:14:39
Speaker
Well, I think there's a lost art with pole tents, especially in the industry now. I think that a lot of people, I mean, even these really skilled labor guys that are out there, not a lot of them know how to do pole tents, period. I mean, it's like, I feel like that's something that everybody should know if you're in the industry, is how to tie ah how to tie a rope on a pole tent and everything like that.
00:15:00
Speaker
Well, you just see all these guys talking in these groups. you know They're going go from a 40-wide frame tent to a structure. That's how... the progression is going down. No one's going to buy a pole tent. And which is why I like keeping our inventory so heavily potent because there's still plenty of work out there for them.
00:15:17
Speaker
Yeah. the And I would, in my feelings, it was harder to put up a 20 by 20 acre 20 by 30 pole tent than it was a 40 because you could pull them out of whack so easy, you know, and and we did a lot of round intents and, you know, it took,
00:15:35
Speaker
If somebody didn't give anybody training on how to install those, you know many times those things twisted and fell to the ground before they got the center poles up. You have to, you have to cross the lace lines at the middle the end to keep it from twisting and falling over. I, I was, you know, imagine doing a, a rounding pole tent on 12 foot side poles and forgetting to cross.
00:15:57
Speaker
And it goes, it's a sailcloth method now. I mean, that's how the sailcloths are. if you don't If you don't know how to do a sailcloth now, it's the same damn thing. It's water. And I do feel that the the ratchets are one of the best inventions to our industry.
00:16:15
Speaker
I mean, yeah, it tookly takes away a little bit of the art. You you measure where the side pole's supposed to be You know you've got attention right when the side pole's perpendicular to the ground. And so...
00:16:27
Speaker
It takes out some of that guesswork, but it is really safe for the industry. Yeah. I get it. The industry has got to evolve, but I'm just, I'm stuck in this mentality of how cool it was and just learning how to tie a knot and how fast you could tie a knot and get it done. And, uh, just the fact that nobody will know that.
00:16:44
Speaker
The big tents that we built 80 and a hundred and 110 pole tents, we built them as bell ring. Now we never installed them as a bell ring. And if there's listeners who don't know what a bell ring is,
00:16:55
Speaker
You put the center poles up first, you lay the fabric, it's like a circus tent, you lay the fabric out around the center pole and then it's cranked up. So we built those tents that size so we could sell them to evangelists or whoever, because that was who was big in buying those type things.
00:17:12
Speaker
So they wouldn't have to have, they didn't have a bobcat push them up. We would use the, we would just use a couple pieces of cable to make it into a push pole push it up and and we climb up and put a rain cap on top of the, to keep it from raining in.
00:17:29
Speaker
Climb up there, Mike. Climb up top. Oh my God. Well, listen, you know, we're going to go back in two things. First off, this industry, and it has always been, and you're not going to change it. Thank goodness that we are pushing into safety, but it's a get it done. It,
00:17:47
Speaker
it's a get it done industry and they find ways. And sometimes you just go, la la la la la don't we go but anyway, you climb up the lace line and yes, there was an older tent we sold one time and my knee went through twice and I came down i told guy, I said, they don't pay me enough to die.
00:18:04
Speaker
I'm like, I'm not getting back up there. He upset me and I went up and passed the holes and swore I'd never work for him again. And I didn't. But, but That was also canvas. And this is, ah this is, you'll love this story too.
00:18:18
Speaker
So we had a canvas ADF at a job in South Carolina and it was leaking. And back then when you manufactured them, you used the felling machine to weld, not weld, but sew the fabric together.
00:18:31
Speaker
You lay down on the ground or table and wax with microcrystalline wax the seams. So the first time the sun hit, the wax would go into the needles and needle holes and help it from leaking.
00:18:43
Speaker
Well, this tent was leaking like crazy. So Andy had this brilliant idea. was an 80 by 110. So it had 30 foot middle in it, 40 foot ends. And he said, well, we're going to pull another top over that one.
00:18:55
Speaker
So he and I, Andy's got to be in his late 40s at that time. And I'm in my 20s. Maybe he's in his early 40s. We climb up to on top of the tent and proceed to pull this canvas 80 across the middle while it's in the air.
00:19:09
Speaker
We took the quarter poles out. Now I'm petrified of heights. So I took one of those chains and tied it around my waist and tied it around the pin of the center pole so wouldn't fall off.
00:19:20
Speaker
That was probably the first time I was on the tent. Jesus. So jumping back, jumping back to 85 here, you got the 220 meter, but you got the 220 meters, right?
00:19:31
Speaker
and At what point then did you start to expand that inventory? And what point did it really become, hey let's travel with these things more and more and grow this. Um, its It's kind of hard to say. We we bought a lot of, you we bought a couple of new structures, but there were a couple of people who had gotten into it at that time in the industry that didn't want them. I bought a ah used 20 meter by 20 meter from Steve Frost at Stanford Tint.
00:20:02
Speaker
Me and a driver drove up and this is when he said, I don't want to do structures. Now, obviously that's changed for him, but we bought that used hiker from him.
Expanding Inventory and Tackling Complex Projects
00:20:12
Speaker
The Long Island Boat Show was a show that was doing boats and got out of it and they had probably two 25 by 75 meters that we bought used. So the inventory was growing.
00:20:28
Speaker
started Started using it and pushing it in the party industry. At that time it was probably 15, 20 and 25. That's all we were doing.
00:20:39
Speaker
Then they wanted three meter legs. well In my opinion, that structure at that time was not made to be on three-year leg. It was being done, and if you did do it, you had to have a rapid leg braces.
00:20:53
Speaker
We all know there's a 30 by 30 in the industry. That was probably the weakest link at one time, and this was probably not a good structure to do at that time. We started doing a fishing show, the FLW tour.
00:21:08
Speaker
It was probably a 25 by 50 meter, fifty meter and all over the country, you know, all the way up into Wisconsin, out to Kansas city. And we do that about nine times a year.
00:21:19
Speaker
And they wanted a 30 meter. We didn't really want to do a 30 meter. Uh, so we met with Andy and I drove up to Nashville and met at the Shoney's with William French at Mahaffey and talked about them doing our 30 meters.
00:21:34
Speaker
That didn't last very long. Uh, so, so we bought ah a, uh, a hocker, uh, What profile was that? 225? Anyway, it was it was their 30-meter profile.
00:21:47
Speaker
And went together. The regular hawkers use a bayonet latch. This profile used pins much like a rotor. And that was our first 30-meter. We're not going to go any bigger. We're not really going to go bigger.
00:21:59
Speaker
That's what everyone says. Yeah. So fast forward to 2010. We got a call to help out in Haiti after the earthquake.
00:22:12
Speaker
And we sold all of our Hawker profile 30-meter. And we're that's when we went P1, and we replaced it all with P1 in the beginning of 2011.
00:22:27
Speaker
Did you guys do the work in Haiti as well? You sent the staff over? Yeah. Michael, a lot of people know Ben Sur, and another gentleman that named Odessa was a military veteran and all that.
00:22:41
Speaker
So these three guys, well, two of them made sense to send, but it was an eye opener for Michael. You know, he'd never been to a third world country. Odessa had been in the army, been around the world.
00:22:54
Speaker
Then Sir came from Bosnia as a refugee. So he he knew about all that conflict, but we got to put the tent up. They had NATO, as Michael called me. I remember the true story. He's freaking out. There's a guy here with a gun.
00:23:09
Speaker
And about 30 seconds later, he took his jacket off and he had a NATO patch on. So they were sent there to watch over us while we were installing these tents. And they were just used for food stack. I mean, guys, they had rice stacked up from the floor to the ceiling. Those were on four meter uprights.
00:23:29
Speaker
And this is how they do things in Haiti. They've been up for a while and they called and said that we didn't do something right with the legs. Well, they were unpinning the bottom wall bars and they were also pulling the pin out of the bottom of the leg.
00:23:47
Speaker
So when wind came up, so it was like, well, that wasn't us. That was, that was you all. They also didn't have very good brakes on their truck and they backed into those tent legs a lot.
00:23:59
Speaker
So I know that we had them up for a long time and they called and asked us to engineer it to hundred hurricane winds. So, Got with engineering and if we got to put a roof cable and wall cable every we single day.
00:24:15
Speaker
So this is a side story, but it's still a good story. So then Surfly's down there. at This time, you know, Port Prince is not a great place to be and they're putting up all the workers on on a cruise ship. So he gets down there and the cables are in customs, but they won't give them to him.
00:24:30
Speaker
And I said, go to the guy give him a hundred dollar bill. Just give him a hundred dollar bill. So the guy accepts and he starts out with the cables on his forklift. It's about 50 feet from the gate. His boss runs out and says, no, no, no, we're closed till Monday.
00:24:44
Speaker
It was a Friday and kept the money and kept the cables and we didn't get them till Monday. Oh Third world country. Hey, good for them. Apparently man. Um, okay. So 2010 then 2010, you started buying more structure and then was that right around, right around when you started to buy the business or come into buying the business?
The Chattanooga Tent Legacy: Business Values and Ethics
00:25:06
Speaker
2000, we had talked about it. Andy had been approached by, you know, and and some people may know this story too. We opened up an office in Atlanta in 1992.
00:25:17
Speaker
We were already doing a lot of work. It was called Tense Unlimited. We named it that. And the Olympics were there in 96, did a lot of work in Atlanta. um And my other uncle, Dan Nolan, was ready to come back to Chattanooga. So somewhere around 98, give or take,
00:25:34
Speaker
Uh, we hired his son to run the store Atlanta and he did, he did very well with that. So he also opened up event rentals unlimited. So at that time, think classic and approached us maybe in 2008, 10 to 10 event rentals unlimited and tents unlimited. And I think we had event rentals unlimited Birmingham.
00:25:56
Speaker
We decided not to do that. I think it was a wise decision. Not everybody knows that by now. So. That's probably 2010 when I thought, okay, we want to do this. We started talking about it a little bit more in 2012, and then we finally got to it in 2014.
00:26:12
Speaker
And so then at that point, what made you want to just dive headfirst into buying the company? And and what did you envision as you know as a visionary for the company moving forward then?
00:26:26
Speaker
Well, having grown up in the industry and family means a whole lot to me. personally and then the business. So I really wanted, I know I can't see the business go 150 years old, but that was what I told Andy and his attorney. I said, I'm not buying a business to make a a whole lot of money, but I want to see the business grow older. I'm proud of what it's done and it's and its growth over the years.
00:26:54
Speaker
um And and you as we all know, and many people talk about this, It was, in for a long time, many years, a lifestyle business. I mean, that's it provides jobs. We have roughly 75 employees right now. And, you know, we've had employees with us 60 years, 40 years, 30 years.
00:27:14
Speaker
So it's not just the owner's lifestyle business. It's a lifestyle for the employees as well. We've had second third generation outside of our family work here. So I wanted to see that continue.
00:27:28
Speaker
um I don't think, Nate, that I had any aspirations to say, by gollies, I want to take it from point A to point B. um A lot of that just came through blessings and and luck and playing the card right timing and all that. And reputation, for sure.
00:27:47
Speaker
i mean that just i mean, what do you think at that time set Chattanooga 10 apart from you know the the others in the industry and just being competitive in the industry? Oh, well being the cheapest works. No, I'm kidding.
00:28:02
Speaker
Um, you know, we've all got friends that'll say they're that I'm the cheapest and I'll say they're the cheapest, but, um, no, I, everybody can say i got great crews. Everybody can say I got good quality, but I think the number one thing is your integrity. And if you will always do what you say you're going to do and you got to eat humble pie sometimes, you know, uh,
00:28:28
Speaker
Nate, you know this story. Our leg into Nashville, before we opened up the office there, Tom Husband, who was part of the hunt the Husband family in Nashville, that old Nashville tent, worked for us for 20 years and retired.
00:28:41
Speaker
So it was kind of, we we did a little bit of work up there, but not much. It was kind of like, we don't go in their backyard, they don't come in. Well, he'd been retired for a few years when I bought the business, and we were getting calls, and I thought, you know, we've got all this structure. By this time, we're now at 40, 50 meters.
00:28:57
Speaker
in the inventory and I wanted to be a big brother. So I went up to see classic and I went to people in class and I said, look, you guys are bringing this stuff in into Chicago and Arizona. Just get a 30 meter for me. You can put it up. It's just going to be cheaper.
00:29:11
Speaker
Went to some other businesses and they kind of blew me off. And, um, we, we got our, our first job there. The job was a success, but we had some hiccups in the setup.
00:29:25
Speaker
Um, And it rained anyway, long story short, made her happy is for me to give her some money back. She's been our best salesman. You know, it wasn't, I couldn't control the rain, but she didn't think we handled it properly.
00:29:39
Speaker
So what will make you happy if you'll just pay for the cleaning fees that I paid? I said, okay, we'll take that off the bill. That's what I mean by humble pie. and And, you know, do what you say you're going to do. Show up when you're going to do it We all have employees and we think they're as good as we are, but they're not.
00:29:54
Speaker
They're close. Um, I will take this point to plug. We talk about this in CEO meetings and in different industries in our bad group and I'm belonging to Vistage.
00:30:07
Speaker
One of the things that I don't know that I've ever talked on but that our crew, our team gets what the customer needs is the most important thing. Sometimes to our cost, like, yeah, I'll move that furniture for you. yeahp You know, oh but knowing that they want to make them happy. It's not something I think we can put in a book.
00:30:28
Speaker
I think that's part of culture. I know that there's cultures that we need to work on, but that's one thing that I feel like we're blessed to have is a, is a staff that gets it. They, they want to make you happy.
00:30:40
Speaker
You know, when, when you have customers, I've had to tell me that they wanted to, they want to take Poncho home because, because he was just so nice. So, Well, it's always great when the guys, Mike, understand that their paychecks are coming from that person. At the end of the day, just because you sign it, the money's coming from whoever they're working for that week.
00:31:01
Speaker
Correct. You know, Nate, one other thing, and anybody can do this, but Nate knows me because he'll say, Mike, you like the shiny things. But, you know, I always felt like Andy was always being mechanized and and having – the equipment, the tools to do thing was was part of his, and and we still try to strive on that.
00:31:24
Speaker
But secondly, you start, I'll go back and try to make this a short story. You go back, well, everybody's got pole tip. Well, let's get a clear span. Well, more people got clear spans. At that point in time, it's kind of funny when when I have good friends now who weren't in business when I was putting tents up in their city, and someone will say, we're coming to my backyard.
00:31:46
Speaker
I was putting tents up in your city before you were born. So, which is funny now because I hear all this every time i go somewhere and they're like, I'm like, why'd you do this? Why'd you do that? and they're like, well, was trying to keep Chattanooga 10 out of here. and And I'm like, oh, that's funny.
00:31:59
Speaker
Cause how much work we were doing in those areas. You know, the the company you were used to work for Bryant's we've sold them pole tents over the years and they would need a structure. We'd go do a structure. Then, then all the structure people doing a good job, got more people into buying structures.
00:32:15
Speaker
So they don't need the 20 meter or the 18 meter. They need a 30 meter. And our philosophy always was, you just want us to do the tent, we'll wear your t-shirts. Whatever you want us to do, we're not going to steal your work. That's another thing of integrity. i don't think we've ever done that. And we've gone the extra mile to make sure that the customer knows that we're not going to do that.
00:32:37
Speaker
I came out of a meeting one time and the customer asked me to bid on the little tents. We were doing the structures and I said, Is there is there a problem? Are you unhappy with the other vendor? No, we're just looking for a better price. I said, well, I'm not going to give you that price. They brought me to the table.
00:32:52
Speaker
I went out and got my car and called them and I said, you need to get this order locked up. So oh that that that part of integrity. But as the more structures are getting across the southeast in the country, we had to go bigger, 30, 40, 50 meters.
00:33:06
Speaker
And then it was like, well, everybody's getting big structures. What can we do differently? Well, let's do the powder coated frame, you know. those customers have to come to you. We didn't go out and buy the powder coated frame in 2017 as a ah baby.
Innovations and Future Trends in Tent Design
00:33:20
Speaker
A customer sent a very good customer sent me a picture. So can we do this? its I don't know. I think the phone call thread the next day we're saying yes. and And we've had that thing on the on the in the inventory for almost what eight years now.
00:33:34
Speaker
And that translated into a different wood grain and then the white frame and then the garden tent. So trying to keep trying to keep things that are different in our inventory that can help put us in front of others. You know, not everybody's going to rent a Skyline tent.
00:33:53
Speaker
You know, Skyline's new to our inventory. It's a great tent. It could be bigger. We just have a 10 meter by 10 meter, but it's a handsome structure. And, you know, it goes back to the shiny things, tight things.
00:34:10
Speaker
The industry, and we all know this, I know you all get this, and anybody out there who's ever drove a stake knows this too. of It gets in there, and and there's such a sense of accomplishment.
00:34:21
Speaker
That's why this should never been called a summer job. It should always be a career, because there's that accomplishment when you walk away and say you did that. Well, I conquered this. Let's go this step.
00:34:31
Speaker
And then it's the structures. And then it's the bigger structures. And then Let's do this. Oh, and then it's two stories. you know And now you've got people out there with three and four stories. We don't do that, but that's what they do.
00:34:43
Speaker
So it's almost like adrenaline high. I said, but we would do the three and four if we needed to. yeah You know, and that's another thing.
00:34:57
Speaker
You're capable, although you might not dump out the money to buy that. If you're training your staff and getting them exposed to that, then they, when it comes along, you're ready to do that. And then people would know you can do that, even though you don't own it.
00:35:13
Speaker
we We've had people over the years help us out with some bigger projects in their off season. and And a lot of their staff had never been exposed to a 30 meter or a level floor.
00:35:23
Speaker
And they got to get that experience, getting paid to do it. The owner gets to make a little payroll and, you know, it's a win-win situation. So another way to get back to the industry.
00:35:34
Speaker
Well, like a quick story on your integrity point, Mike. COVID, you guys got that call for a job in Princeton in our backyard just because the guy had seen your 30 meter at another site. And your first call was to Brian saying, hey, there's a guy in Princeton looking for this tent. We didn't even own 30 meter. So...
00:35:51
Speaker
in your head, you could have done that. Well, they don't own one. And I know that, so I can just go do that job, but you made the call and we've been doing that job ever since. And, but it could have been yours, but you did the right thing. And there's a lot of operators in the industry. I think that sometimes don't do things like that.
00:36:07
Speaker
It's something about this industry being really small. And some of these guys just don't realize it. Yeah. true Um, Mike, what innovations have you had, have had the biggest impact on, on your business and over the years you think?
00:36:23
Speaker
Well, I've named a bunch of them, you know, the ratchet straps taking over place of the chains, the block and roll. I mean, you know, that's, I know that's a favorite for everybody, but Nick had had those out for a little while and going back to where we first started with water barrels.
00:36:40
Speaker
And this was a long time ago and it was probably before we had structure. So a customer in Pensacola wanted 60 by 120 on pavement at that time we weren't ready to tackle ballasting a pole tip.
00:36:56
Speaker
We have done that several times since then, but that time we didn't. So we put up all these 30 by 60s gutter together with water barrels. Well, guess what we didn't have on the water barrels? Tops.
00:37:08
Speaker
So we had open ended barrels and the wind blew and the barrels fell over. We lost all the water and tents blew down. It was overnight, you know, before the event. So, Hey, we've got to get,
00:37:21
Speaker
water barrels with lids. And then we saw the cables cutting into the top of the water barrel. So we put in a piece of aluminum inside the water barrel and ran the cable through that so it wouldn't pull through the plastic.
00:37:35
Speaker
We started making concrete barrels, 650 pound or 30 gallon concrete barrels. And we were doing a job over here in a park in Chattanooga Coolidge Park. And the guy was finishing up and he was loading And you know, most tailgates on a truck lift gates, they're not flat.
00:37:54
Speaker
They tilt a little bit. So here he is with a 650 pound concrete barrel plastic with concrete in it. And it starts to slide off and he grabs it like a bear hug to hold it on the truck.
00:38:07
Speaker
Oh man. I just happened to be there. i said, what are you doing to let that go? It did not fall, but I promise you that day, I came back and I ordered four molds for the block and roll. That got us into the, so the block and roll. Now we only use the three kittens in the 700s.
00:38:26
Speaker
We still use the Lego blocks or landscape blocks for everything else. That was an innovation. The carts and the way to move it was was ah a very good way. We did a job here in Chattanooga. still do the job, but we don't have to wait anymore.
00:38:41
Speaker
on a terrace and we were using those Lego blocks everything had to come up a freight elevator. We put it on a pallet jack, rolled it into place and put it on the weight plate. In order to get enough weight, we built it like a motor hoist for blocks, a tripod chain hoist.
00:38:58
Speaker
We put it next to it, hoisted the block up, pushed it over and set it down. We did that job several times. If we'd had the block and roll system, it would have been a whole lot easier.
00:39:09
Speaker
then Then marches along the 10-aux, right? Now, we'd always had bobcats, and that was a good thing. And Andy had designed a stake puller. So all we needed was a stake puller. But the stake puller he designed just ran all the auxiliary.
00:39:24
Speaker
You pulled up to it, clamped around the stake, and used arms to pull it up. It was a great tool. We had that in the 80s. But the 10-aux, and then the flex you know the other thing is the flexibility of the manufacturers.
00:39:37
Speaker
to listen to our needs and, hey, we really need this, powder-coated frames or glass or horizontal glass or vertical glass. So those are some of the things that have made. And another big one for us was is the TF2100 floor.
00:39:56
Speaker
Well, we got into that in 2016. There was that job I was telling you about. Go back to that just briefly. The reason why the rain was such trouble is we were on a strata floor.
00:40:07
Speaker
And strata floor was imperial, and it was 82 or maybe 84 by 88, something like that. And the water was hitting the floor and running underneath. of course, it rained while we were putting it up.
00:40:19
Speaker
So right after that, and then we'd also done a wedding that was for an in insurance guy, and he called me he said, Mike, I just can't sleep this floor being 20 foot tall. What can we do?
00:40:31
Speaker
And i said, well, we can wrap it around the bank and build curved tops. So we ended up doing that, which kept the floor at 12 feet. We slept a little better. Those two jobs were in October of 2015.
00:40:45
Speaker
And then in 2016, we ordered the TF2100 for a job in Nashville that we still do. And had it specifically ordered. Meantime,
00:40:59
Speaker
Lee Hutchison, Mississippi tent, called and needed an 18-meter floor before that. So we actually got another rental before that one was coming. That got us into the floor. that is probably in my opinion that style of flooring product who's ever said is but we like bill jacks is probably one of the best products for our industry just so safe so labor saving you sleep at night knowing it's all connected together it's expensive and it's not well and you got in at the right time i don't mind telling you that i got in it for 28 a square foot it's over 50 now yeah and how much how many square foot currently owned
00:41:39
Speaker
we're We're just shy of 40,000.
00:41:42
Speaker
And we could probably two times a year use another 15 to 20 of us. Absolutely. Absolutely. But you the math, it's a million. Yeah. What trends are you seeing in temporary structures that you know event professionals you think should start paying attention to?
00:42:00
Speaker
That's a good question. Well, you know you always sit here and you're looking for that next. Ooh, I like this. I don't know that there's much we can do with the design. I'm, we have a small Arkham. I love Arkham's. I think Arkham's are a cool look. I think you're going to see more of that. particular I think you'll see a lot of that next year with the world cup coming to the U S. You know, I don't know. We, we, we've come a long way.
00:42:30
Speaker
We've already, we can always, we can powder coat things the color we want them. We can make tops the way you want them. There's climate control.
00:42:40
Speaker
I just, you know, what what what can I offer that next person? I don't really have that. i I'm not sure I'm really going to tell everybody else that statement. no Yeah, I was kind of thinking that too, but I was just curious because you're always ahead of the curve, I feel like, on most of the stuff and the and the trends. so Well, he's well connected.
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah, he is. He is. I will say. Well, when you've been in it 50 years, you do that. so but But I do think the key focus in this hit us after COVID you all know this as well as i do you know our our employees are number one in our biggest asset and today's society has got a lot of young people they they want to stay away from the hard work and it's going to be up to us to draw them into this industry because it is a career and and it's a good career we all know that there's there's guys out there installing yes they work their fanny hall but they're six figures into putting tips up uh on a traveling
00:43:39
Speaker
job and you know they might be gone 150 200 nights a year but um it's not for everybody i always jokingly say a friend of mine did tom straighter it's a gypsy soul is who who that person is for traveling yeah and but again the satisfaction from that so putting time and effort into your business's culture your recruitment of people i think is probably where the industry goes it's when we started doing some of these national jobs, it got us into, um, being more safety conscious. You know, we were doing wedding jobs. You weren't wearing hard hats. You're supposed to, but it wasn't being made.
00:44:22
Speaker
You certainly weren't wearing safety vest and all that. Nobody even knew what a hot work permit was, uh, or knew that they had to have maintenance on the forklift. So as the business grew, that, that brought it into, I know you're laughing, but that's true, right?
00:44:39
Speaker
You know, ah where's your hot patch for grinding that bolt off? What? I do think that it won't be long in some states where we as an industry are going to be required to have a contractor's license of some type.
00:44:56
Speaker
In Florida, you do. I know that a line for resident Intstar, he has one. There's probably other vendors in that area. He helped me out on a job. He was trying to get help me get a uh, contractors permit, but it just got a little too arduous. So I kind I didn't have to have it. My customer had it, but that being said, people, you know, we do high school.
00:45:19
Speaker
Uh, now we go to high school and do their college fairs. It's tough to compete up against $40 an hour, um, steam theaters unions, but and all all the little ladies want to be event planners. And, uh, there's a lot, the world needs those too. I mean, know, uh,
00:45:36
Speaker
there's nothing that makes our jobs go better when there's somebody who's spearheading everything. And is good at it. And has the experience. Everything you all said, I agree 100%. So yeah, I think, I think for us, we've just got to focus.
00:45:52
Speaker
One of our things will be focused on training. I love, you know, we were all last week at the safe tenting plug that right now. And I, I tried to get this rolling back when I was at the chair and,
Industry Standards and Safety Initiatives
00:46:07
Speaker
2016 and 17 of the TRD and we we had a little bit down the road where you could do it similar to where you did the CERT program. Maybe do the testing on a program called click safety.
00:46:19
Speaker
Then you go to a show to get to graduate, so to speak. And it just kind of fell by the wayside. I'm glad to see least for now that all three organizations are working together because it is for the betterment of our industry.
00:46:35
Speaker
The more that we know, the more that guys like yourselves and myself can give back to some of these people. You go back to my uncle and some of those, those guys didn't talk.
00:46:47
Speaker
I mean, they weren't giving you a secret or a tip or anything. And i do love the way that the collaboration that we all do. We go to these bars. and We're not talking about just football. We're talking about, hey, how do you drive stakes or what do you do?
00:47:03
Speaker
How did you raise that arch with a crane? You know, you have a half bay, you've got a leg that needs to be two feet off. How do you repair that leg that the bayonet latch is broken in the air?
00:47:14
Speaker
You can learn from your peers. So think that's something we need to focus. Something will come out, Nate, to answer your question. Well, no, you're hitting on what my next question is going to be, so you're good there.
00:47:26
Speaker
I kind of wanted to hit on, you know, both of you guys came into the industry with family ties into the industry and things like that. i did not. and nobody really showed me a path. So I had to kind of make sure that I had the fight or flight mentality of, of, of growing and and keeping going in the industry.
00:47:46
Speaker
So I guess what my next question would be is what would you say to the younger person that maybe isn't involved in the family side of they're in the business, but they're not, they don't have family in the business and how, if they want to grow in this business, how, how would you tell them that they should grow in this business?
00:48:02
Speaker
The first thing that I would say, if you like this, Now start making the effort. Okay. I've seen so many young men. It's not going to fall on your lap. I read an article yesterday that 70% of the people today feel like hard work doesn't pay off like it used to.
00:48:19
Speaker
I disagree. You call me old school because I am, but I do believe hard work pays off. yeah I've had young men here who made it to being a foreman in six months because they didn't stand at the job site and watch you put that tent together. They were over your shoulder.
00:48:35
Speaker
putting that together. And sometimes they put together wrong, but they learn. The other thing that I see so much in a lot of businesses is they don't, the new guy doesn't want to overstep or upset the tenured guy.
00:48:50
Speaker
No, you know, you're the one paying for your family. You're the one paying your bills. You're the one who's going to grow in the company if you want to.
Family Influence and Personal Motivation
00:48:59
Speaker
That doesn't mean you'd be a butthead about it, but it means that as you put that first,
00:49:04
Speaker
you So you've got to make every effort for that supervisor, for that boss to know that you care. So don't sit back and wait. Don't worry about what the other people think as long as you're long as you' not, you know, integrity. you've got to do what you say you're going to do.
00:49:20
Speaker
But you follow that path, and I think that that that's where growth can come for people. it Now, don't get me wrong. There's going be some family businesses where the, and we've all seen them and heard them, the the grandson or the son or the daughter, they don't do squat, they get a paycheck, they don't show to work and they're going to get promoted. And well, that's going to, at some point in time, that's going to show up.
00:49:43
Speaker
It may not show up for little while, but it will show up. Hard work pays off learning everything. That's another thing that if you have the opportunity to learn any part of your business that might be outside of the normal, let's say your installer, you know, my first job was manufacturing.
00:50:03
Speaker
I was 15 when a but I was working there. Andy would not let me use scissors because he didn't want me to cut my finger, but I could use them all to smash my finger. so yeah but and Just to the point of about working harder and everything, i mean you had to have known early on when you got in here that you were going have aspirations to want to own this company or work your way to the top. Right? Yeah.
00:50:29
Speaker
I feel like for these younger people that, you know, say, you know, that maybe they're not working so hard or whatever it is they just said there, these people can get to the same mentality and get to the same spot. Just like we've reiterated several times, they just have to push themselves to get there too. I mean, you can lead a horse to water. You can't make a drink, obviously, but just having the willpower in general and and and not not just sitting back and watching.
00:50:52
Speaker
Well, you're right. I'm going to go back and say no I did not think this was going to be handed to me. And if you know my uncle and I love him for every bit of this, he's harder on this family than anybody else. And that's the way it is in a lot of families, not all, but I mean, the first time I learned to drive a truck, we're coming back from somewhere in Alabama and we're driving at 55 miles an hour on I-59.
00:51:14
Speaker
And he says, I'm tired. I need to switch. I didn't know how to drive a manual truck. So we switched at 55 miles an hour and I get off the interstate and I'm grinding gears. He's pull over. I'm driving, you know,
00:51:26
Speaker
So they taught me to drive a truck, but other things he did well before software, right? We were the software. He would quiz, literally quiz me down the road. Okay.
00:51:37
Speaker
How many side poles does a 60 to 90 take? 40. How many stakes? 44. How many center poles? Two. You know, and he did that for every tent. So it was probably Nate, he made me vice president of operations when I turned 30 in 1990.
00:51:53
Speaker
nineteen that I didn't know at that point in time, maybe is when I said, okay, this, I have a chance to run this one day. I probably told my wife sometime, Hey, I, this is something that I could do.
00:52:07
Speaker
I might be here a while. um ah We're going to be here a while. And you know, that's another thing, you know, your spouse has to be, that's where i was going to go next. Yeah. Yeah. Your spouse has to be on board with what you do.
00:52:21
Speaker
And I can remember we had our second child, I was traveling and she said, I can't do this by myself. I said, well, let me see if I can get off the road. And I went to Andy and said, man, we're having a second child and Lori needs me at home more often. and Guys, I was only going 100 nights a year, but that was our season.
00:52:39
Speaker
And he said, Mike, I can put you in the shop, but you're not going to make as too much money. But if you think you'll be happy there, I said, I don't think I'll be happy. So we were patient.
00:52:52
Speaker
Two years later, the opportunity happened for as the company was growing, um that he moved me in to do sales and operations. So where I was going, that was, it was hard working.
00:53:04
Speaker
Oh, you're the nephew's son. No, you can ask the people who work for me. that that That was never my case. And I don't think it was ever allowed of any person here. You know, that was a big family.
00:53:15
Speaker
Everybody in my family, my immediate family worked here at some point in time. My father, my mother was a bookkeeper in the sixties and then 24. forward I had to bring her in for some training.
00:53:27
Speaker
My brother is still here. My sister worked here a little bit in the manufacturing. I had two brother-in-laws work here, and that doesn't count all the other Nolans that worked here. So um it can be done. There positions, there are people here, like, here you go. You you heard him in Sarah's story, right? He's worked hard, and he's made a name for himself in this industry. Nate, you've done it with where you are.
00:53:49
Speaker
So It can be done. There's plenty of examples out there to do that, but you have to put in the work. Right. would agree with that. can't say that any differently. And again, going back to the spouse thing, she stuck with me and yeah, there's still times where answering your phone at 10 o'clock at nine.
00:54:09
Speaker
yeah We all have that on the phone. Yeah. And there's somebody else who can answer the alarm at five o'clock in the morning, and those types of things. they might They might say, well, a little bit, but they,
00:54:20
Speaker
they They get it, and I can say she's 100% behind me and has been the whole time. Thank God for that. With being 50 years in, what motivates you then outside of work to bring that energy back into the business?
00:54:34
Speaker
What motivates me outside work? um Well, family is my number one thing. So we have two sons who are both married, and we have five grandchildren, and those motivate me.
00:54:46
Speaker
I don't play golf. You know, before I went on the road, early in my age. I used to love to duck hunt, used to fish. I don't do all that. I'm not unhappy that I don't do it. It just, it's just not part of it.
00:54:58
Speaker
I am work and that's maybe a bad thing. It's a good thing, but they, as we have grown the things that we get to do connected to work, but personally i I'm going to the Kentucky bourbon festival tonight and want to get, I'm a whiskey fan. So there's going to be 240 whiskeys there me to try.
00:55:18
Speaker
Um, And you get to see our product and everything and what what we accomplished over the past two weeks while you're drinking that. And I feel like that in itself energizes you a little bit to say, this is pretty damn cool.
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. I know they worked hard. It's like when I went to the Speedway and we got to sit there and watch those races. I'm not a NASCAR fan, but it was very cool. I mean, you know, sitting in that suite at the end of the month, I'm flying out for site visit in San Francisco and I've never been in the wine country. So while we're out there, we're going to do that. Now i might not have been able to do that 20 years ago, but yeah, seeing the product, I don't like going to parties anymore.
00:55:58
Speaker
As I believe you all want to attest to this because when you're there and the wind blows, you're working, it starts ringing and your stomach gets all knotty.
00:56:08
Speaker
yeah's true That's why this weekend, speaking of the race, the IndyCar race was on and and not that I really wanted to watch the IndyCar race, but I just wanted see the pit stop so I could see how cool the pit lane structure looked on TV. and My wife was just sitting there going, you just can't help yourself, can you?
00:56:21
Speaker
And like, no, I just want to see it. First trip to Disney back in the nineties with the kids. I'm peeking behind bushes, looking at tents. What are you doing? And it's still in this, you know, so, ah you know,
00:56:35
Speaker
As an industry over a whole, I didn't know this is what I wanted to do. I do believe 100% this is where God wanted me to be. ah think it's think it's in my my blood, and I think being around it kind of helped put that, but I think I was built to do what i what I'm doing.
00:56:54
Speaker
That's why whenever I retire, it's going to be difficult, but maybe I can ease myself out, or maybe I'll just say, see you, wind. I don't know. Or Lori says you're going to be traveling Europe for the next year and a half.
00:57:06
Speaker
Yeah. I hope she's got the money for that. She's retired teacher. Absolutely. the The relationships and the friendships that I know there have been at least one other, maybe two other people on your podcast that talk about this. And I can i can echo it 100%.
00:57:26
Speaker
one hundred percent As Dave MacArthur talked about some of the people he knew and Richard Martin, these are guys that, you know, I remember meeting Richard in the 90s and meeting Dave the first time. and I remember when he was doing golf courses all that stuff. And there's so many others, like the Derry Oppenheimers and Jerry O'Connells, Steve Frost, who's been in industry 58 years.
00:57:49
Speaker
And there's probably more that have been in there. I've seen the family businesses sell and it's kind of like, oh, that was tough. maybe for a little bit, it was tough. And then they looked at the bank account. wood yeah And then they're happy.
00:58:04
Speaker
But then fast forward to meeting your age guys, right. And some of the other guys at the conventions, I got a call from somebody yesterday yesterday. Hey, where would you be on something like this or a text? And then, well, this is where we'd be in our market. So, and I know
Advice and Reflections from Mike Holland
00:58:18
Speaker
it's a new operator. That being said, just having fun, um,
00:58:23
Speaker
maybe, maybe it's time to get out when I don't feel like I'm relevant, but I feel like I'm relevant. And if I can say that and not mean anything by it, but if I can help people get back to the industry, that's what I want to do.
00:58:34
Speaker
Well, we were joking in the airport, all of us, when the four of us were sitting there that, you know, you and like Brian and there's a bunch of other guys could make a, you can probably make more money being consulting here moving forward. Yeah.
00:58:45
Speaker
Um, you know, that, could that could be happening. I know I'm going to get bored if I retire or when I retire. Um, I know that, and I've told Nate this, on my bucket list, I go back to the 90s. going laugh when I tell you this.
00:59:00
Speaker
You know, hey, I'm proud of our company. And what would be cool, we'd do a tent for PGA and the Super Bowl and a World Series and a Masters and the White House and a tent for Michael Jackson.
00:59:14
Speaker
Well, all those things that a company has done except for Michael Jackson. So, yeah. of Our we've had, we've been in the white house four times put up tents, not me personally, but all these other sporting events. So at that time, none of that was there. And and a lot of those came through the reputation, the integrity that the company has and their relationships.
00:59:38
Speaker
you know, you never know who you're goingnna meet. Uh, the first super bowl party we did in 1994 in Atlanta, we won the bid is just single tent for NFL properties. And we get on the job site, and the boss, who I didn't bid through, was on here. Her husband grew up in Chattanooga, and I went to church every Sunday with his parents.
00:59:58
Speaker
So everywhere that job went, we did what we said we were going to do, but every every year from 94 to 2002, wherever that went, we went. And it was just a single tent. They could have done something better, but we gain we were competitive with January is, you know, not a month where you do a lot.
01:00:17
Speaker
And they felt comfortable with our crew. And it just, it made sense. So again, there's that integrity and reputation. Well, before asks his last question, I've got one more. Do you have a favorite event story that always makes you smile when you look back?
01:00:32
Speaker
um There's probably a lot, but one of them more recent than anything, and that's feel the Field of Dreams. It's on the wall back there.
01:00:43
Speaker
I get emotional talking about it. but Yeah.
01:00:48
Speaker
There's a picture of me standing in the outfield looking in. I'm a baseball fan. I'm a movie fan. And it was the second year we did it. So being there and watching that six to 8,000 people, that's all that was going to be there. Right.
01:01:05
Speaker
You know, Ben Sur and the crew a been out there for a month or so. And I show up the day of, and boy, did they put my butt to work. I'm putting up tables and chairs and cleaning blocks and,
01:01:16
Speaker
That day I walked 28,000 steps, only to have to leave in the fifth inning. So watching Kevin Costner come in during the day and practice his lines, and I know the first time he did he was emotional. It wasn't that he he was kind of like, wow, this is real.
01:01:34
Speaker
you For this movie, which I think is such a feel-good movie, to it actually happening there. yeah There's some visually cool products projects that that were great, but the the feel good about that one was, was probably my best.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah. i that' what i would That's awesome. All right. Well, given a lot of great advice this episode. Do have any last piece you'd like to give to the people listening?
01:02:04
Speaker
Uh, Hmm. Yeah.
01:02:10
Speaker
It is. It can be a great business. Don't start out early looking at the shiny things. i think I think you've got to build up and then when your team, for obviously finances, you you know people come into this and they get heavily in debt and it's tough.
01:02:29
Speaker
That puts a lot of stress on you. Even though you might make it through that, it's still tough on you. I don't want to say grow organically, but I'm just saying grow as grow as your team grows.
01:02:42
Speaker
You get another guy, grow a little bit more. don't bite off more than you can chew and can't echo it or not. what you say you're going to do. It'll take you far. Well, that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And Mike, I really appreciate you coming on today. And now I can be a homer for a second after I didn't, I didn't want to be a homer during the episode, but you know, I came to Chattanooga tent back in, uh, back in 2020 and, um, weird time for me to come in and, um, when everything was closing up, but Mike still gave me a great opportunity. And, um,
01:03:14
Speaker
got me to where I am today over, you know, the past five years. And I appreciate that. And the reason why I wanted to come to Chattanooga tent and work for Chattanooga tent is exactly what Mike has said this whole episode is because it's the innovation that he's chosen in the way he's chosen to go and, and get ahead of things in the industry and, and just do what he says he's going to do um and just be a good, genuine human. So I've known Mike,
01:03:38
Speaker
for 10 plus years before coming to work for him, um maybe never had ah a really close relationship, but always respected what he did and how he did it in our industry. And I think a lot of people do. um Actually, i know a lot of people do respect you and that know you in this industry and, and hopefully you don't go anywhere even when you retire. So I appreciate you being a amazing boss, but also an amazing mentor to the industry.
01:04:01
Speaker
So thank you for coming on. And this has been another episode of under the vinyl.