April 22, 2026 • 45 mins
What happens when a real estate developer who built 75 storage facilities teams up with a former race car driver who once competed against A.J. Foyt and Mario Andretti? You get Garages of America, one of the most unique and fastest‑growing concepts in the automotive enthusiast world.
In this episode, iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth Region President Chris Long sits down with co‑founders and co‑CEOs Jack Griffin and Fred Gans for a conversation that moves from suburban office buildings in the 1970s to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and ultimately to building a thriving business around one simple truth: hobbies are social.
Jack shares how a post‑career leap into professional racing shaped his approach to risk, community, and the car culture he knows inside and out. Fred talks about surviving the S&L crisis, building dozens of storage facilities across the country, and why replicable design and disciplined development became the backbone of their partnership.
Together, they break down how Garages of America grew from an idea discovered in Denver into a multi‑market business built on community, camaraderie, and the booming collector‑car lifestyle. They discuss navigating COVID‑era construction delays, learning to manage outsourced teams, and why their buyers often regret only one thing: not getting a bigger garage.
Plus: the first concerts that set the tone for two very different career paths (Kansas for Fred, The Lettermen for Jack), the surprising social science behind car collecting, and what it means to launch a company at 69 and still be improving it every day.
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
In this episode, iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth Region President Chris Long sits down with co‑founders and co‑CEOs Jack Griffin and Fred Gans for a conversation that moves from suburban office buildings in the 1970s to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and ultimately to building a thriving business around one simple truth: hobbies are social.
Jack shares how a post‑career leap into professional racing shaped his approach to risk, community, and the car culture he knows inside and out. Fred talks about surviving the S&L crisis, building dozens of storage facilities across the country, and why replicable design and disciplined development became the backbone of their partnership.
Together, they break down how Garages of America grew from an idea discovered in Denver into a multi‑market business built on community, camaraderie, and the booming collector‑car lifestyle. They discuss navigating COVID‑era construction delays, learning to manage outsourced teams, and why their buyers often regret only one thing: not getting a bigger garage.
Plus: the first concerts that set the tone for two very different career paths (Kansas for Fred, The Lettermen for Jack), the surprising social science behind car collecting, and what it means to launch a company at 69 and still be improving it every day.
CEOs You Should Know DFW features candid conversations with leaders shaping business in North Texas and beyond, hosted by Chris Long, Region President of iHeartMedia Dallas/Fort Worth. Follow, Rate, and Subscribe on the podcast platform you are listening on!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is CEOs you should know with Dallas market president
of iHeartMedia, Chris Long, I.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Want to welcome everybody to an episode of CEOs. You
should know.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
This is Chris Long, Dallas market president for iHeartMedia, and
I'm very lucky to have my two friends, Fred Ganz
and Jack Griffin, co CEOs and co founders of Garages
of America.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Welcome, gentlemen, Welcome, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
Great, welcome to you.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, thanks for welcoming me into the studio.
Speaker 6 (00:32):
This is great. No one ever welcomes me to my
own studio.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Amanda, you already welcomed me.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
All right, gentlemen, I have to start with our opener,
and you know, with iHeartMedia being the country's largest audio
platform with radio stations across the country eight hundred and
sixty of them, podcast streaming anything and everything audio, I
would be remiss if I did not ask you these
(00:58):
two really important questions.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
To start the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
First, what was your first concert? And I'll fill you
in on your predecessor's answers. Second, what podcast are you
listening to?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Fred?
Speaker 6 (01:08):
Do you want to go? First?
Speaker 4 (01:09):
First concert was Kansas?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Of course it was Kansas is a good one.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
We had Boston recently. It was a good one. Pink
Floyd Good.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All right, let's go Jack.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Okay. So, being an old dude like I am, you
probably have never heard of this group. Try me the Letterman.
Oh wow, that gold letter The Letterman, and that would
be in the sixties, so I was. I was at
Baker Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So we did have the Beach Boys and Jane and
Dan open for him. So similar, I'm going to be
really rude and you can hit me here. We might
put that in the Old Timers Committee vote, kind of.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Like they do in the in the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
That's great. The Letterman. All right, So what about podcast?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Here's the question.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What podcast are you listening to right now?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
The CEO Meet the CEOs again.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
This is everybody's first podcast experience.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
So oh yeah, okay, okay, all right, So the Jackson
pro Fred, you just want me to direct all the
questions at him, watch him work.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
It'll work it, okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So we're going to jump in here, and I think
because you're a first on the podcast, I'm going to
jump ahead a little bit. But I do want to
hear from each of you to start, and then I
want to really talk about coming together as experienced bid
business leaders individually and doing it together.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So just give me, you know, you know, Jack will
start with you.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Give me your background. Where did you coming out of Baylor?
You got into real estate?
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Yeah, I went to work for travel Crow. I was
twenty six years old, and I knew I couldn't even
spell real estate. And my entry to the travel Crow
organization was that I was a tennis player. Believe it
or not, I was a college tennis player and travel
This was true story. His deal back then was to
hire athletes. I hired the SMU tennis coach, same time
(03:22):
I was hired an Olympic swimmer, and so you either
had to have an NBA or you had to be
a good athlete, one of the two. So anyway, I
was hired to start the suburban office a new idea,
A new idea in real estate. Suburban office buildings okay,
because they didn't really exist then. This is in nineteen
(03:43):
seventy one. So I started and ran the suburban office
building business development wise for twelve years, and I kind
of reached a point where sort of been there, done that. Unfortunately,
got a divorce, and kind of took its toll and
so forth. And I had always been a car fanatic.
(04:04):
My dad was an auto mechanic and I was always
you know, around cars, and so I had an opportunity
and decided to go with it to be a race
car driver. So I went to school to be a
race car driver.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Wait, this is.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
After a twelve year career in real estate.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Yes, yes, so yeah. So my first car race I
raced against aj Fought and Mario Andretti. No way, very fair.
I'd never sat in a race car before, had no experience,
no experience whatsoever. Bad idea, bad idea.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah I'm not I'm not thinking that was a great idea.
But keep going. You're still sitting here, so it must
have worked out, okay.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Yeah, well it did not work out okay, but I
persevered and a year later I had an opportunity to
drive in the biggest race in the world, twenty four
hours of Lamon's. So after one year of I only
raced in five races, I embellished a lot of my
experience and had an opportunity to drive on a French
race team at Lamon Ones. And I shouldn't have done it.
(05:02):
I didn't have enough experience. It was dangerous, but I said,
you know what, I don't want to be that guy
that says I could have done it. You know, I'm
going to do it. I may die, but I'm going
to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So okay, never outsaw this one coming. You raced twenty
four hour Lamond two times?
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Yeah? Wow, Yeah, I did it. I raced with this
French team the first year. We didn't finish the race,
and they asked me to come back the next year
and drive with him again. So I was able to
do it two times and raced at Daytona, Seabring all
of the big, big races. I didn't race for very
many years, but I raced in the super Bowl right
(05:41):
right off the bat.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So I warned you that we would go off track.
No pun intended off track pretty quickly.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
I've been there.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So Ford versus Ferrari all of that very.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Great movie, realistic, really a great movie. A lot of
it was very authentic, and especially the uh uh the
depiction of the track and so forth was very authentic
because it's changed a lot since then. Of course, when
I drove the race, it was very similar to Ford
Versus Ferrarik. What is really you know, you have to
(06:13):
as a driver, you have to sit back and laugh.
It shows them looking at each other going two hundred
miles an hour, and you know, grimacing and all that stuff. No,
you're looking straight ahead at the road. You're not looking
at the other guy. And so that's kind of a funny,
funny thing. But it was a great movie.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, good, So we'll skip over me lettering in basketball
my senior year of high school because it really doesn't compare.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
And Fred, let's let's talk about it.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I know you went to the University of Kansas, which
will skip over being a Missouri graduate.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Let's uh, let's talk about how you got started.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I started with Cohle banker okay here in Dallas, and
went out on my own three years later, started my
own land brokerage company and and survived the eighties with
the SNL crisis, and got into the development business. In
the early nineties, started building self storage and I built
(07:09):
seventy five self storage facilities in twelve states and.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Never looked back.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And then so, so you were a founder at a
young age, I mean a couple of years in banking
and then you like, all right, I got this lid.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Did you know, like college, beginning of your career you
were going to want to go out on your own.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Well, I knew I wanted to go into real estate, Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And when I got into real estate, I realized that
the only way I could make the kind of money
that I was wanting to make was to work for myself.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
So I did that, probably earlier than I should have. Yeah,
but it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
It's it's interesting, but it is interesting. Founders are a
certain breed in terms of confidence and belief. You know,
We've had a lot of your contemporaries and peers who
founders and CEOs and the ones that are founders right
out of college they knew and it's amazing because I
(08:06):
you know, not everybody's that way, I mean, and the
belief that they had was singular and you have to
have it, and you know, it's it's it's fascinating. So
thinking about we have a race car driver and a
builder and you guys.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Met in what two thousand and eight, No, we met
before that.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
We met in the early eighties through our accountant.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, my CPA was his best friend, okay, and his
best friend was the guy that got him into the
race card.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Right, is that really a best friend? Well, trying to
tell you something.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
It worked out okay, but there was kind of issue
there for a while. Yeah. He cost me a lot
of money.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So when I found the concept of these garages, I
found it in Denver in two thousand and seven, and
I realized it was a auto enter for sure product
and not being a car guy. The first person I
thought of was Jack. So when I came back from
(09:08):
Denver wanting to look at Dallas Market as a potential
place to start, first person I called was Jack.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Were you guys in regular contact or was he like, Hey,
I need to reach out to Jack because we.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Run it to each other a few times a year. Sure,
but not running buddies. Yeah, socially more socially yeah yeah.
And why is this decision I could have ever made
not being a car guy? Because I can build him.
And I called Jack and I said I can build him.
Can you sell them? He said, I can absolutely sell them.
So that's how we start.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
So looking.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So thinking about putting together a company, tell me what
that process is like, I mean, you did it on
your own. You were a singular vision.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You did what you needed to do. Now you have
a partner.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Well, by that point in time, I built sixty sixty
five cell storage facilities, so I knew what the building
process was all about. And I liked doing things that
you can perfect and replicate, okay, And I just wanted
to stay totally focused on the development and the building side.
And because of Jack's strong position in the car world,
(10:18):
I knew that he had that front cover and I
didn't have to worry about that. I just had to
worry about building the product. And it was a perfect marriage.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
So did it really come down to Jack's the face
read you're the creator totally and everybody's okay with that.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I didn't want thee to be the face guy because
he's the face guy. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Yeah, it was kind of. I didn't necessarily I didn't
want to. I didn't want to take all of the glory.
I get all the glory, and Fred was doing the
heavy lifting as far as I was concerned, because all
I do was call my friends. Yeah, and so when
when I see I said, my retired from Crow. When
I was thirty eight, drove race cars and then for
(11:03):
years all I did was have fun. Yeah, I played
in tennis tournaments, uh, and traveled around doing car events
all over the country, and so I knew everyone in
the car world. Jerry Seinfeld's a friend of mine. He's
been to my home before. Jay Leno I've met, and
you know, I know all the and as far as
all the local car people, you know, I knew them all,
(11:25):
all the significant ones. And I was on the board
of the Porsia Club and I was in the Ferrari
Club and all this stuff. So I knew where to
go to sell the garages. But I wanted I mean,
Fred was doing the heavy lifting, sure, you know, and
I was just having fun, you know, and selling garages.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Fred, do you look like he was going to five
car events a week no matter what before we started this.
So then he started going to those car events and
selling garages and making a lot more money.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So was there any cell that had to be done
on Jack to get him to come in and do it?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Or was it?
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (11:59):
He said, do it?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
We didn't battery it, and we didn't know what we
were going to build. That's what's unique about it because
the first project we built was based on a unit
mix from a Denver project. But the demographics in Denver
are different than Dallas.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
They built it for RVs mostly.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, they were skinny, long, narrow faces, and now they're
wide and short for the car world. So we went
into it full speed, not knowing exactly what we were doing,
and we sold in the first project sixty nine garages
before we finished construction.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Oh wow, you don't do that in the real estate world.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
That's when we knew we had a concept that might
be something.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And this is in eight.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
This is in twenty fourteen, because in two thousand and
eight I got my teeth kicked in and I had
to grow him back.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
So it took us till fourteen got it.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The economy wasn't say it okay, garage.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
It took us a while to get okay.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
So see, you have a company now, and you've got
to now start delivering from a leadership perspective. And I know,
I appreciate how you both recognize each other's skill set
and expertise and you let them do it. And that's
important because I think we I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
You as know people.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I know people who oh, it'll be great, and then
you get into it and they can't get out of
each other's way.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Now all of a sudden, you've got demand that you've
got to deliver on. How did you build a company
around that? Well, we uh as you saigh deeply.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, we just dug our heels in and we kind
of growed during COVID, and COVID threw a really interesting
dimension dimension and wrench into it because when we were
still learning what to build and how to build it,
(13:48):
it was taken twenty four months to finish a garage
project that should have taken twelve because of COVID lack
of materials, delays, GC's having problems, having problems, and that
we we ramped up and continued the effort because COVID
raised our demand. People needed a place to get away
(14:11):
and ring out, and it was amazing. We sold some
of these projects out twice because.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
It took so long to complete.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
We lost half our buyers and we had to sell
them again. So it wasn't easy. It really took a
lot of perseverance.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
You could almost do.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
What I'm learning is COVID experience has come up a
couple of times in these in these episodes that we
do and how you pivot and adjust on the fly
is really interesting because every business had to, and like
some did it better than others, and that's why they're
still there. So going through that thinking about you know, Fred,
(14:53):
you ran project teams, right, you know, start to finish,
design to completion, you know, and your world's racing teams.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
You know, teams are teams.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
You know, did they all have to figure out how
to work together? How did you integrate that thought process
coming together as partners and running a team?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Like, how how do you look at that?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Well? Jack was the director of the sales effort.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
We had my son and a very close friend to
his joined the team as salespeople. And they were young,
and they were somewhat inexperienced and not car people and
not car people, and Jack and I worked real hard
to get them groomed and up to speed on understanding
(15:39):
what our objective was when our mission was and it
took a while, but again, our demand was high, so
that helped a lot, and they came around quickly and
learned the process quickly. And today, you know, it's critical
to have the right sales team because you can build
the right product in the right location, But if you
(16:01):
don't have the right sales team to kill, you're still
going to be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, Jack, do you have something on that?
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Well? Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because we did
a lot more analysis after the project was built than before. Okay.
We reflected more on how did it happen versus should
it happen?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Okay, more of a postmart which.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Is a reverse of what it should have been. Well, sure, yeah,
we didn't do really any market research, but we did
market research after it happened, because we said, how do
we do that?
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Sometimes ignorance is blessed.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
And that's really the truth. And I'll tell you what
when you if you really think about it, and we
have most hobbies, eighty percent of the attraction of a
hobby like car collecting or golf or tennis or anything else,
voting eighty percent percent of it is socializing. Twenty percent
(16:57):
is the actual hobby. Really, if you think about Okay,
for example, I grew up plan tennis in a public park.
You go play tennis and you leave, and there's no socializing. Okay.
All of a sudden, somewhere along the line, someone had
the idea, we need to socialize, let's build tennis clubs. Okay, Sure,
that's the social element of that hobby. Okay, it's not
(17:19):
the hobby itself, it's the social part. And so what
we realized is cars have become a legitimate hobby and
that there's no place to do the hobby. Okay, we
created the play the social layer of the car hobby,
and we didn't even realize what we were doing, but
(17:39):
in reverse engineering realized that's how we did it. Because
and that's how that's why during COVID, for example, people
came from a social and we're social animals, you know.
Of course, they came from an office where there's some socializing,
and they came home where there was no socializing. They
wanted to play. They needed that social part in their lives.
(18:01):
We had that, Okay, interesting in our sales skyrocketed during COVID.
They you know, they wanted to get out of their
home and back to where there are people. Well, the
garage is a perfect situation.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And if you put fifty car guys in the same
community of garages, it's amazing how much fun they can have.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know, It's interesting because that that word community has
become more and more prevalent over the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
And as I was, you know, digging.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
In a little bit on you all before.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You talk a lot about bringing the community together, and
I would tell you, like, I think the average person.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Doesn't really realize that about the car world.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
They may drive, they may drive by on a Saturday
when there's a Corvette show and a big parking lot
somewhere and think, oh, that's interesting, then just drive on,
but not realize. I mean, you two are a great
example of like the bonds and the ties, and they
get absolutely.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
And monetized it. Yeah, but twenty years ago that wasn't
the case. Twenty years ago there were no car shows.
There were very few car shows, if any. Okay, really
it's a new phenomenon twenty to thirty years ago. If
you had a really special car, you'd sell it and
get another one, okayle people have I have seventeen cars,
(19:21):
which you know, I need therapy for sure. But the
other garage people are in the same boat, you know,
and so we were. I'm located. I have five of
our garages, okay, and other people have similar number of
garages and cars and so forth. And you know, we
(19:42):
have lunch together. We I mean, if I have to
get work done, I got to lock my door because
people are coming in my garage all the time. And
it's the social part and and the other crazy thing.
We started this venture. I was sixty nine years old
and I'm eighty one.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Now stop it. Yeah, So driving that first twenty four
hour Lamons, did you think you were going to make it? No?
Speaker 6 (20:07):
No?
Speaker 5 (20:08):
No? So so you know in friends, nor Spring Chicken either.
So we started this kind of later in life. And
I think it gives encouragement to people that are seventy
It's like, oh, you know, what am I going to
do now? And you know, sit home and watch gun
smoke all day or something like that, you know, throwback.
(20:29):
That's the beauty of our garages. It's a thing. We
have a lot of people that are solar companies and
they buy garages and it's it's something for them to
do and have the camaraderie and the social part that
they wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And they don't just buy these garages to store the
cars they have. They want to have more cars, so
they buy multiple garages so they can grow their collection.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Do you guys get involved in that at all?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
We sell them garages well.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Or you just suggest to sell them a bigger garage
because you know you're gonna want to buy that.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Everybody makes the mistake of thinking they want to garage
that's too small.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And when or what they have versus what they're gonna
have to talk them into.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
A bigger garage. They're thankful.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
Well, our our standard line is regret is a horrible thing,
and you're gonna regret not having a bigger garage. And
it's like, oh yeah, and see, you buy these garages,
you don't rent them. Okay, So it's a long term
situation and you know, whatever you do, you know you're
not going to be able to expand, so you better
(21:33):
think about the future. But I have I'm very active
in the Porsche world. That's mostly what I have. And
I have people call me all the time and they
want to come over and look at the cars. And
I have everything from a fifty five Porsche to new ones. Okay,
it's like a museum and so and I met doctor Porsche,
you know, at the factory, and yeah, so big Porsche
(21:55):
history and so I people call me all the time
that have garage and so forth, and I say, I'm thinking
about getting a Porsche. What should I get and where
should I get it? So we do kind of counsel
them to some degree.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
You know, Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think it's interesting you bring up your age when
you got started, because to your point, it would have
been really easy to say, yeah, I'm done. And I've
mentioned this a couple of times. There was a mentor
of mine early in my career, and it was when
radio stations were consolidating in the nineties, and you know,
you'd read the headlines and the payouts that some of
these executives got, and I was just a young kid,
(22:33):
and one of these get people that you would see
in the trends ended up being a regional vice president
for my company. And I was having dinner with him
and I'm like, twenty five, what do I know? And
you know, I'm like, why did you come back to work?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
And he goes, Chris, I'm gonna tell you something.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
You can only play so much golf and the phone
stops ringing pretty quick, and when you've had it, like
I mean, there's a certain subset of people I'm sure like,
go off and fish.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And leave me alone, and I'm good. So it's interesting
that you say this.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
One of our our guests talked about, you know, he's
in his seventies, and he said he was sold on
a vision that really excited him. And this is someone
like yourselves that had a lot of success. And I
think that, you know, it's fascinating you guys did this
and you do it with such an energy.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I mean, Fred, you're staring at me, the smile on
your face.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
The thinking about what you guys have done, and you're
probably also thinking, I got to do this certain thing
to get done.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
When I'm done talking to Chris.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, what's what's unique about this product that made us
also able to get to where we are right now
is that we were able to pre sell a high
percentage of these garages before they were finished, sure, which
in hard times and difficult lending times, makes it much
more doable.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Sure so we've.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Gotten tremendous cooperation from our lenders that has made our growth,
you know, easier to accomplish.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So how many how many people do give in the
company now?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Twelve? Well?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, if that that's a good question, Crystal, get back
just enough.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Like a lot of companies, you know, we outsource a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
For sure, So you're running different people that are outsourced
at any given moment, depending on.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Contrajector and architects and engineers.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
That's a lot of juggle.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
I'm working harder today than I was tenured.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Okay, that's that's a great point. So so here you
are founder CEOs of your company, you and that you're
dealing with a lot of people, like you said that
are contractors.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
They work for you, but they don't. That's a different
management skill set.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
It's a challenge.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I mean, how do you how do you manage that?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Thinking you're like I would guess on any given project
if you say this, you've got a contractor who's an
architect in one place, You've got a contractor's the contractor
and one and then maybe one of your employees or
one of you guys, and you're trying to pull all
these people together.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
That was part of the learning curve. Yeah, because when
we first built the first project that we'd never build
that same project again.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
We we're learning, and now.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
We're on our thirteenth or fourteenth project and we're still
learning either or not, we're still getting better and we're
still perfecting better.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Meeting yesterday and talked about making some changes.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Right because costs have gotten so exorbitant, you know, ten
years ago, we were selling the same garagers for seventy
five percent, wow, lower than what we're selling for right now.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
So it was a new market. Also, of course introducing
it to people, it was a new thing people had
never done, never had one of these.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Before, and so making the markets an interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I'm yeah, the architects didn't understand what we were trying
to create, so we had difficulty finding the right architects,
finding the right contractors.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
You know, it's all.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Been challenging, and it's taken this long to get to
the right team, the right consultants. We're finally at a
point where we know what we want to replicate.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Almost and that's the siding part of it.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's what keeps you getting up in the morning and
driving is knowing that you can get better.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's you know, one of my favorite terms and and
and in leadership roles you always do this, but I
think you guys epitomize it the I like to say
juggling chainsaws, because you're juggling people that don't I mean,
they're contracted to you, but they don't work for I mean,
all of that dynamic and I'm sure those relationships, each
one of them is different and trying to do that
(26:26):
and as you said, like you're trying to get better
and trying to figure out you've made a market.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Well, I want you I'm gonna ask you.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Guys to answer this individually. Don't don't confer. If you
stop down today.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And look over your shoulder and look back, what is
the one thing you would not do again in the
business in the business.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
Well, and I don't know that we would agree on this, Okay,
I'm hoping you don't. We probably built our projects were
too large okay, too large?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Uh and uh.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
In retrospect, if we had done more smaller projects, it
would produce the risk and it would you know, because
it was pretty scary. Our first project was sixty nine
garages and in product no one had ever heard of, okay,
and we were faced. It didn't happen, but we were
faced with the idea of having what are we going
to do with these storing things? Sixty nine? If you
(27:22):
have thirty of a bad idea, it's a lot better
than sixty nine of a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
But the reason they sold out is because he sold
thirty eight of them to his personal friends.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Well, and I bought two of them myself. That was huge.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Well, because you can sit there and say, hey, I'm in, I'm.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
In, I'm in. And if you want to hang out
with Ba Palell, you got to buy a garage, you know.
If you want to hear my racing stories, it's a price.
There's a price because of it, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So it's funny again thinking about our founders, like yourselves,
massive believers and you have to be in your own
product it, you know, in terms of I think it
was it was doctor Harrison at Mint Dentistry was like
he was talking about a procedure and you know, talking
about having it done, and it's like, you know, you
(28:10):
have to be out in front say you know, I
believe in this. That's why I'm selling it. I'm not
just slinging some idea that somebody brought to me.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
That's exactly right. And see here's the thing backing up.
I lived in Dallas right out of college, and but
so most recently before the garage is my home. I
had a three thousand square foot garage. Oh wow, yeah,
that's sixteen cars and three thousand square feet. But I
was there by myself. How much fun is that? And
(28:41):
I realized, Okay, I got the cars, big deal. I've
seen the cars one hundred times. I can drive any
of them whenever I want to. The fun is sharing, Okay.
Some people will call it showing off. We call it sharing. Okay,
it's a nicer way to say it. But it's like
a it's like a table or a swimming pool.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I'm just thinking the big screen TV when it came
out or whatever.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
If you're there by yourself, it's like, it's the value diminishes. Okay.
So I knew that to get maximum enjoyment of the
car hobby, you gotta have you gotta socialize. Okay. So
so I sold my house, moved to a patio home
which was the right living area, and bought two garages
(29:27):
and had my cars in my two garages. And other
people would say, wow, that's a pretty cool way to live.
I said, well, there you go.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
You know, so, how far was your patio home from
I mean the garage was it on five minutes?
Speaker 5 (29:40):
So you just it'ged two miles?
Speaker 6 (29:42):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Yeah. So the well, our first project was in Plano,
but I lived in Dallas, you know, on the edge
of Preston Hall. Had had three quarters of an acre,
a pool, four thousand foot house, three thousand foot garage
and I'm single. Now that makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, the math doesn't work real well, I.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Know that makes no sense, and so it got to
be a huge headache. So the garage idea was the
perfect solution to my dilemma. I wanted to hang out
with people backed cars, and I wanted to downsize my
living area. So it worked out just perfect. And it
turns out that's the perfect solution for many of the
(30:24):
car people that later in life they realized what they
should have realized earlier. They don't need that much living space,
but they need a place for their hobby. Interesting just
gives it. That's the social aspect.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Of course.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
We started having a Monday lunch, a Friday lunch with
all the gear heads, and if you don't show up,
they call, hey, are you okay?
Speaker 3 (30:44):
You know, I mean, it comes back to community like
it is, and that's that's really fascinating and awesome.
Speaker 6 (30:52):
So thinking about where.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
You are today, you both had individual careers that were
very successful and came together a lot of success, seen
a lot of things. What would you tell someone at
twenty four who's getting ready to found whatever it is,
What would be they're going to be a founder of something.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
An idea they have, what would be the thing you'd.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Tell them, don't talk about it? Do it?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Wow?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Well with me? With me, I can trace back most
of the things experience wise that happened to me that
led me in certain directions, were professionally, personally and so forth.
Was showing up. Yeah, I can. I can point to
one particular day or one particular event. If I hadn't
(31:39):
gone to that event, none of that would have happened. Yeah, racing.
I was at a party, met a guy that started
the whole thing. If I didn't go to that party,
I would have never done any of the racing.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
It's some of you here, I think they hear Like
on NFL podcasts, you know they talk about sometimes the
best ability is availability, you know, and just to your point,
just being there.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
It gives fate a chance to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah wow.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
But follow your passion. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
My passion is storage, his passion is cars. Between the two,
it was a perfect marriage.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Well but it didn't. What's funny is and I don't
know so so when we first got together and we're
doing car events, okay, okay, And and I actually organized
a car event at the Cooper Aerobic Center. The Coopers
are good friends of mine and anyway, so I had
a car event that that that I did there every year.
This was several years ago, and uh uh so Fred
(32:34):
was talking about, uh, this product we're doing is car storage.
I said, Fred, forget that word storage. We're not in
the storage business. We're in the active use business.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Your storage.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
And I said, you know, a boat dock is storage
a boat and marina is what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
So that's when Fred stopped going on sales calls.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Yeah, you got me out from mind the table.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
But it's a different mindset.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Of course.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
This is active use, you know, absolutely, and people people
love to bring their families. And I'm going to a
party later later today. There's a party at one of
the garages. It's a watch party watch meaning wristwatch. They're
inviting everyone to bring their wristwatches and we're gonna have
a trade saf sail whatever.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And you charge to do you charge just for like
a party space or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Don't charge the thing.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
No, you know, people they have they have parties for their.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
U're just getting people hooked on the space and then
they're begging you to build something for them.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
When you look at terrible under the interior of these garages,
you'll understand why they want to hang out there, because
it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Okay, so I'm gonna do it now. I looked at
some pictures. We want to get all the past and
future CEOs together for a happy already.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Think we could you at one of your locations.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Absolutely in New York.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Second, all right, I have a witness Amanda here, heard it.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
He'd love that. That's the kind of thing we love.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
And in my garage. Fred walks in my garage and
he shakes his head. Oh my god, you know you
got so much stuff? Yeah, and I do. I have
a lifetime of car activities. I have a big twenty
foot long mural on my hanging on my wall of
me standing by my race car. You know. Sure. And
I've had one guy walked in and says, Jack, can
(34:32):
you possibly have another picture of yourself? Is there a
room for another picture of yourself?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
You know, Hey, we need a life size cutout over
there in the corner. If we can make it work.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Yeah, So but here again, stuff that would not well.
Jerry Seinfeld came to my home one time, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
And that was after he stopped by my place.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, I wondered where he comes from. And
so he didn't want to brag that he was hanging
out here. He had his warm up comedian with him,
and j Gerry knew me and knew I was single
and so forth. But this is before the garage business.
And it came to my house and I have a
horror memorable everywhere, you know. And so Jerry's guy comes in.
(35:12):
He starts looking around, and he said, you're not married?
Are you.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
A little too much clutter?
Speaker 5 (35:19):
I said, well, what gave you that idea?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I haven't asked.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
I assume the answer.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
But friend of you a big car guy, I mean,
do you have a collection as well?
Speaker 4 (35:27):
No, I drive a.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Truthfully, it just doesn't drive me crazy like it does Jack.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
And and I can't. You can't pretend to be a
car guy.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
No, you can't know either are or you're not.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
And it drives him crazy.
Speaker 6 (35:43):
A Ford guy.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
I'm a Ford guy, me too.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
He's a Ford pickup guy me too, okay.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
And truthfully, I'm not a very good driver, So I
try to stay in the vehicles that are safe, right Jack, So.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
I've written with him many times.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
We pretty much found the opposites attract story. Yeah, right here,
So you don't have you you have a Ford truck.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I mean I do too, like you're so.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Although I love the cars, yep, but it's just safer
if I stay out of them.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Hey, you know it, really stay in your lane, so
to speak. No pun intended.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I think runningto curbs all the time, and they don't
work well with porsches.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
Oh gosh, they're a launching jack.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I'm assuming Fred does not drive any of your cars.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
No. As a matter of fact, no one draws one.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Okay, got it?
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
A lot of people want to say no, no, okay, okay,
all right, my kids don't.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
So okay.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Let's talk about your locations in Dallas and you're expanding
in some other markets.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
You want to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Yeah, we're up to what yeah, thirteen thirteen.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
We've got eight completed in Dallas, one under construction and
three in the pipeline.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Then as you're going down to Houston too, we're in Houston.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
We have two projects completed in Houston and one sold
out and the other ones in the process of selling out.
We have a project in Austin that selling our last
garage this month in March, i should say. So we're
out of product down there and it's been fun.
Speaker 6 (37:25):
So the future looks pretty good, it does, okay.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
But we're again we're building closer to the right product
that we have been looking for.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
We're building smaller.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Projects and we're challenged today trying to keep them affordable,
you know, because construction costs are just really a tough battle.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
So that's our challenge today.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And while we're building smaller projects, just to make it
more affordable as possible, because this is a discretionary buyer,
of course, and we just think that long term, we've
figured out where the sweet pot is spot is size wise,
and so it's.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
Gonna be a lot of fun. We're going to do
more that are smaller, okay, But the demand is all
over the country. I mean everywhere, I mean all over
the world. I mean the fascination with cars. If you
think about like people talk about muscle cars, and that
really refers to back in the sixties, a few car
(38:31):
companies made fast cars and those were muscle cars. Okay,
Now every single brand has their muscle car, their fast car. Okay,
so I mean whether it's Porsche, Ferrari, MacLaren and Aston Mar.
I mean there are dozens Mazda. I mean, there are
so many high performance cars, you know, as opposed to
(38:53):
twenty five or thirty years ago. And these people want
they don't want just one, they want one for the track.
They want this model, that model, a convertible. Blah blah blah.
Red ran into a guy last night or in his car. Well,
this is a great story. Even pickups. They make muscle
(39:14):
car pickups of course, the Ford Raptor you know. Okay, fair,
I mean, so it's like high performance is the name
of the game. We had a guy. Once a month
we have an event called Garages and gear Heads having coffee. Okay,
at our Carrolton location. We have three hundred people show
up with that event. Okay. People open the garage doors, share,
(39:35):
they don't show off, they share their cars and garages.
Last month we had a guy show up in a
five million dollar car. He just got it just it's
been under production for three years. It's called a Konig Sag.
It'll go two hundred and seventy five miles an hour. Okay.
He has two more in his garage. Okay, so we
(40:00):
didn't even know he was coming. We didn't know he's coming.
He shows up and is like, oh my god, there
is a coneage. Say it's called Wow Sweden.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
You know, it's funny act.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
I'm going to share this just briefly because you're talking
about the community, and I just started thinking about it
when I was a kid in Kansas City in the
early eighties going over to my friend Steve Kacharski's house
and his dad would have you know, his brother had
a muscle car and they'd have it out in the
driveway and everybody'd be staying around. Mister Kacharski be showing
everybody how to change the oil and do all the stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
It was community then too, It really was.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
It's a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
But there was nowhere to gather together like the golf courses.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Have yeah, correct have correct Now.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
We've created marinas for car guys.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
Correct. Well. Great to be doing what I'm doing. It's
so much fun for me at my age. I'm eternally
grateful to Fred or given me this, having this opportunity
to do this, you know, because before we had coffee
that day and talked about doing this venture, you know.
(41:04):
I was like, you know, what's Matt Dillon doing today?
You know? And so.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I got the reference to see now.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Sheriff Dylan. But I used to do car events in Colorado, Arizona, California,
and so forth. By virtue of that I met. So
I've met so many people that have become valuable resources
when we need if we have a question about an event.
One guy was the co chairman of the Pebble Beach Concord,
which is the biggest car event in the world. This
(41:37):
guy that I've met on a Colorado event was a
week long driving tour. He was the co chairman of
that event. I can call him and talk to him
and whatever like that. Those relationships and so forth are
just I mean, it's so important doing what we do. Yeah, so,
(41:58):
and you never know it at the time. All Right.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I got to peel back the end in just a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Because everything you guys sitting here smiling at me, staying
in your lanes, everything's worked the way we've wanted it to.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I have to know a little dark side.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Is there ever been a time you guys disagreed as
leaders of a company, and how did you resolve it?
Speaker 4 (42:19):
I don't think, so really, I really don't think.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
So Jack's talked me into doing things that my gut
didn't tell me it was the right thing to do.
But I trusted his instincts being in the car world,
so I did them anyway.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Yeah, and they worked out well.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
The big word there being trust, Yeah, and sometimes there
is that just blind like I gotta trust my partner
here and this is I could do this for a
lot longer, but Amanda's got a little sign and she
showed me we got to start wrapping it up. So
I got to take you through one last exercise that
we do. And you see the four envelopes sitting here.
(42:56):
They have random questions in them.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
So we found out that you guys like beef turkey.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
There was a little bit of research done that our
team did. So what we will do here is I'm
gonna let Jack, I'm gonna let you pick the envelope
and we'll let Fred read the question and you guys
can answer it.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
All right, maybe this.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Will cause the first disagreement in the history.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Of the company.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
What's your walk up song?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Oh boy, my walk up song?
Speaker 3 (43:29):
If you're walking, if you were going to be in
a race today and they had to play music, kind
of like a baseball games when the players walking out
in music plays.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Would there be a song that would they would play
the speak to you?
Speaker 5 (43:43):
Uh yeah, well actually there there is a song by
Cheryl Crowe and it was I remember, I'm not sure,
I didn't know the name, but it was Steve McQueen.
And during the drive machine you know what, yes, I do.
And Steve McQueen is the iconic you know, he did
the produced or whatever did the movie Lamon's, of course,
(44:07):
and that was one it planned to see. He did
it in nineteen seventy and in nineteen eighty four when
I first drove it Lamon's. The opening scene of that
movie was a clock ticking down in the second hand
was ticking down and it had to boom his heartbeat. Okay, yep.
When I got strapped into this two hundred and fifteen
(44:30):
mile an hour race carp, I looked up and there
was the very clock it was in that movie. Oh wow,
it freaked me out.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
So Steve, miss, what you're saying is you've traveled in
some pretty heavy circles. You would fanboy over Steve McQueen
if he walked in if he were able to come
back and walk in.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Here, yeah, we'd we'd go off and have some stories
to tell.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Only Fred and I hear, I see how it is.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yeah, all right, Jack, Fred, this is a lot of fun.
I am going to hold you to an evan at
your location. We'll get that figured out. Be a lot
of fun, and I think our CEOs would enjoy it
a lot, and I'd be really excited to see it.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
So, gentlemen, thank you.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Appreciate you coming by, as hard as it was being
a University Missouri graduate. Fred New and I could be
friends even though you're a Kansas grad. All right, absolutely,
all right, gentlemen, thank you, thank you,
This is CEOs you should know with Dallas market president
of iHeartMedia, Chris Long, I.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Want to welcome everybody to an episode of CEOs. You
should know.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
This is Chris Long, Dallas market president for iHeartMedia, and
I'm very lucky to have my two friends, Fred Ganz
and Jack Griffin, co CEOs and co founders of Garages
of America.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
Welcome, gentlemen, Welcome, well, thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
Great, welcome to you.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, thanks for welcoming me into the studio.
Speaker 6 (00:32):
This is great. No one ever welcomes me to my
own studio.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Amanda, you already welcomed me.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
All right, gentlemen, I have to start with our opener,
and you know, with iHeartMedia being the country's largest audio
platform with radio stations across the country eight hundred and
sixty of them, podcast streaming anything and everything audio, I
would be remiss if I did not ask you these
(00:58):
two really important questions.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
To start the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
First, what was your first concert? And I'll fill you
in on your predecessor's answers. Second, what podcast are you
listening to?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Fred?
Speaker 6 (01:08):
Do you want to go? First?
Speaker 4 (01:09):
First concert was Kansas?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Of course it was Kansas is a good one.
Speaker 6 (01:14):
We had Boston recently. It was a good one. Pink
Floyd Good.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
All right, let's go Jack.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
Okay. So, being an old dude like I am, you
probably have never heard of this group. Try me the Letterman.
Oh wow, that gold letter The Letterman, and that would
be in the sixties, so I was. I was at
Baker Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
So we did have the Beach Boys and Jane and
Dan open for him. So similar, I'm going to be
really rude and you can hit me here. We might
put that in the Old Timers Committee vote, kind of.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Like they do in the in the Hall of Fame.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
That's great. The Letterman. All right, So what about podcast?
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I don't.
Speaker 5 (02:02):
Here's the question.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
What podcast are you listening to right now?
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
The CEO Meet the CEOs again.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
This is everybody's first podcast experience.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
So oh yeah, okay, okay, all right, So the Jackson
pro Fred, you just want me to direct all the
questions at him, watch him work.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
It'll work it, okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So we're going to jump in here, and I think
because you're a first on the podcast, I'm going to
jump ahead a little bit. But I do want to
hear from each of you to start, and then I
want to really talk about coming together as experienced bid
business leaders individually and doing it together.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
So just give me, you know, you know, Jack will
start with you.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Give me your background. Where did you coming out of Baylor?
You got into real estate?
Speaker 5 (02:58):
Yeah, I went to work for travel Crow. I was
twenty six years old, and I knew I couldn't even
spell real estate. And my entry to the travel Crow
organization was that I was a tennis player. Believe it
or not, I was a college tennis player and travel
This was true story. His deal back then was to
hire athletes. I hired the SMU tennis coach, same time
(03:22):
I was hired an Olympic swimmer, and so you either
had to have an NBA or you had to be
a good athlete, one of the two. So anyway, I
was hired to start the suburban office a new idea,
A new idea in real estate. Suburban office buildings okay,
because they didn't really exist then. This is in nineteen
(03:43):
seventy one. So I started and ran the suburban office
building business development wise for twelve years, and I kind
of reached a point where sort of been there, done that. Unfortunately,
got a divorce, and kind of took its toll and
so forth. And I had always been a car fanatic.
(04:04):
My dad was an auto mechanic and I was always
you know, around cars, and so I had an opportunity
and decided to go with it to be a race
car driver. So I went to school to be a
race car driver.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Wait, this is.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
After a twelve year career in real estate.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Yes, yes, so yeah. So my first car race I
raced against aj Fought and Mario Andretti. No way, very fair.
I'd never sat in a race car before, had no experience,
no experience whatsoever. Bad idea, bad idea.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Yeah I'm not I'm not thinking that was a great idea.
But keep going. You're still sitting here, so it must
have worked out, okay.
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Yeah, well it did not work out okay, but I
persevered and a year later I had an opportunity to
drive in the biggest race in the world, twenty four
hours of Lamon's. So after one year of I only
raced in five races, I embellished a lot of my
experience and had an opportunity to drive on a French
race team at Lamon Ones. And I shouldn't have done it.
(05:02):
I didn't have enough experience. It was dangerous, but I said,
you know what, I don't want to be that guy
that says I could have done it. You know, I'm
going to do it. I may die, but I'm going
to do it.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So okay, never outsaw this one coming. You raced twenty
four hour Lamond two times?
Speaker 5 (05:19):
Yeah? Wow, Yeah, I did it. I raced with this
French team the first year. We didn't finish the race,
and they asked me to come back the next year
and drive with him again. So I was able to
do it two times and raced at Daytona, Seabring all
of the big, big races. I didn't race for very
many years, but I raced in the super Bowl right
(05:41):
right off the bat.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So I warned you that we would go off track.
No pun intended off track pretty quickly.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
I've been there.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So Ford versus Ferrari all of that very.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Great movie, realistic, really a great movie. A lot of
it was very authentic, and especially the uh uh the
depiction of the track and so forth was very authentic
because it's changed a lot since then. Of course, when
I drove the race, it was very similar to Ford
Versus Ferrarik. What is really you know, you have to
(06:13):
as a driver, you have to sit back and laugh.
It shows them looking at each other going two hundred
miles an hour, and you know, grimacing and all that stuff. No,
you're looking straight ahead at the road. You're not looking
at the other guy. And so that's kind of a funny,
funny thing. But it was a great movie.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, good, So we'll skip over me lettering in basketball
my senior year of high school because it really doesn't compare.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
And Fred, let's let's talk about it.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
I know you went to the University of Kansas, which
will skip over being a Missouri graduate.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Let's uh, let's talk about how you got started.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I started with Cohle banker okay here in Dallas, and
went out on my own three years later, started my
own land brokerage company and and survived the eighties with
the SNL crisis, and got into the development business. In
the early nineties, started building self storage and I built
(07:09):
seventy five self storage facilities in twelve states and.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Never looked back.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
And then so, so you were a founder at a
young age, I mean a couple of years in banking
and then you like, all right, I got this lid.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Did you know, like college, beginning of your career you
were going to want to go out on your own.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Well, I knew I wanted to go into real estate, Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And when I got into real estate, I realized that
the only way I could make the kind of money
that I was wanting to make was to work for myself.
Speaker 5 (07:39):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
So I did that, probably earlier than I should have. Yeah,
but it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
It's it's interesting, but it is interesting. Founders are a
certain breed in terms of confidence and belief. You know,
We've had a lot of your contemporaries and peers who
founders and CEOs and the ones that are founders right
out of college they knew and it's amazing because I
(08:06):
you know, not everybody's that way, I mean, and the
belief that they had was singular and you have to
have it, and you know, it's it's it's fascinating. So
thinking about we have a race car driver and a
builder and you guys.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Met in what two thousand and eight, No, we met
before that.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
We met in the early eighties through our accountant.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Yeah, my CPA was his best friend, okay, and his
best friend was the guy that got him into the
race card.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Right, is that really a best friend? Well, trying to
tell you something.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
It worked out okay, but there was kind of issue
there for a while. Yeah. He cost me a lot
of money.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
So when I found the concept of these garages, I
found it in Denver in two thousand and seven, and
I realized it was a auto enter for sure product
and not being a car guy. The first person I
thought of was Jack. So when I came back from
(09:08):
Denver wanting to look at Dallas Market as a potential
place to start, first person I called was Jack.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Were you guys in regular contact or was he like, Hey,
I need to reach out to Jack because we.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Run it to each other a few times a year. Sure,
but not running buddies. Yeah, socially more socially yeah yeah.
And why is this decision I could have ever made
not being a car guy? Because I can build him.
And I called Jack and I said I can build him.
Can you sell them? He said, I can absolutely sell them.
So that's how we start.
Speaker 6 (09:40):
So looking.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
So thinking about putting together a company, tell me what
that process is like, I mean, you did it on
your own. You were a singular vision.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
You did what you needed to do. Now you have
a partner.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Well, by that point in time, I built sixty sixty
five cell storage facilities, so I knew what the building
process was all about. And I liked doing things that
you can perfect and replicate, okay, And I just wanted
to stay totally focused on the development and the building side.
And because of Jack's strong position in the car world,
(10:18):
I knew that he had that front cover and I
didn't have to worry about that. I just had to
worry about building the product. And it was a perfect marriage.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
So did it really come down to Jack's the face
read you're the creator totally and everybody's okay with that.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
I didn't want thee to be the face guy because
he's the face guy. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Yeah, it was kind of. I didn't necessarily I didn't
want to. I didn't want to take all of the glory.
I get all the glory, and Fred was doing the
heavy lifting as far as I was concerned, because all
I do was call my friends. Yeah, and so when
when I see I said, my retired from Crow. When
I was thirty eight, drove race cars and then for
(11:03):
years all I did was have fun. Yeah, I played
in tennis tournaments, uh, and traveled around doing car events
all over the country, and so I knew everyone in
the car world. Jerry Seinfeld's a friend of mine. He's
been to my home before. Jay Leno I've met, and
you know, I know all the and as far as
all the local car people, you know, I knew them all,
(11:25):
all the significant ones. And I was on the board
of the Porsia Club and I was in the Ferrari
Club and all this stuff. So I knew where to
go to sell the garages. But I wanted I mean,
Fred was doing the heavy lifting, sure, you know, and
I was just having fun, you know, and selling garages.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Fred, do you look like he was going to five
car events a week no matter what before we started this.
So then he started going to those car events and
selling garages and making a lot more money.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
So was there any cell that had to be done
on Jack to get him to come in and do it?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Or was it?
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (11:59):
He said, do it?
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
We didn't battery it, and we didn't know what we
were going to build. That's what's unique about it because
the first project we built was based on a unit
mix from a Denver project. But the demographics in Denver
are different than Dallas.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
They built it for RVs mostly.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, they were skinny, long, narrow faces, and now they're
wide and short for the car world. So we went
into it full speed, not knowing exactly what we were doing,
and we sold in the first project sixty nine garages
before we finished construction.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Oh wow, you don't do that in the real estate world.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
That's when we knew we had a concept that might
be something.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
And this is in eight.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
This is in twenty fourteen, because in two thousand and
eight I got my teeth kicked in and I had
to grow him back.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
So it took us till fourteen got it.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The economy wasn't say it okay, garage.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
It took us a while to get okay.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
So see, you have a company now, and you've got
to now start delivering from a leadership perspective. And I know,
I appreciate how you both recognize each other's skill set
and expertise and you let them do it. And that's
important because I think we I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
You as know people.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
I know people who oh, it'll be great, and then
you get into it and they can't get out of
each other's way.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Now all of a sudden, you've got demand that you've
got to deliver on. How did you build a company
around that? Well, we uh as you saigh deeply.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, we just dug our heels in and we kind
of growed during COVID, and COVID threw a really interesting
dimension dimension and wrench into it because when we were
still learning what to build and how to build it,
(13:48):
it was taken twenty four months to finish a garage
project that should have taken twelve because of COVID lack
of materials, delays, GC's having problems, having problems, and that
we we ramped up and continued the effort because COVID
raised our demand. People needed a place to get away
(14:11):
and ring out, and it was amazing. We sold some
of these projects out twice because.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
It took so long to complete.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
We lost half our buyers and we had to sell
them again. So it wasn't easy. It really took a
lot of perseverance.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
You could almost do.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
What I'm learning is COVID experience has come up a
couple of times in these in these episodes that we
do and how you pivot and adjust on the fly
is really interesting because every business had to, and like
some did it better than others, and that's why they're
still there. So going through that thinking about you know, Fred,
(14:53):
you ran project teams, right, you know, start to finish,
design to completion, you know, and your world's racing teams.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
You know, teams are teams.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
You know, did they all have to figure out how
to work together? How did you integrate that thought process
coming together as partners and running a team?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Like, how how do you look at that?
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Well? Jack was the director of the sales effort.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
We had my son and a very close friend to
his joined the team as salespeople. And they were young,
and they were somewhat inexperienced and not car people and
not car people, and Jack and I worked real hard
to get them groomed and up to speed on understanding
(15:39):
what our objective was when our mission was and it
took a while, but again, our demand was high, so
that helped a lot, and they came around quickly and
learned the process quickly. And today, you know, it's critical
to have the right sales team because you can build
the right product in the right location, But if you
(16:01):
don't have the right sales team to kill, you're still
going to be in trouble.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, Jack, do you have something on that?
Speaker 5 (16:08):
Well? Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting because we did
a lot more analysis after the project was built than before. Okay.
We reflected more on how did it happen versus should
it happen?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Okay, more of a postmart which.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Is a reverse of what it should have been. Well, sure, yeah,
we didn't do really any market research, but we did
market research after it happened, because we said, how do
we do that?
Speaker 6 (16:35):
Sometimes ignorance is blessed.
Speaker 5 (16:37):
And that's really the truth. And I'll tell you what
when you if you really think about it, and we
have most hobbies, eighty percent of the attraction of a
hobby like car collecting or golf or tennis or anything else,
voting eighty percent percent of it is socializing. Twenty percent
(16:57):
is the actual hobby. Really, if you think about Okay,
for example, I grew up plan tennis in a public park.
You go play tennis and you leave, and there's no socializing. Okay.
All of a sudden, somewhere along the line, someone had
the idea, we need to socialize, let's build tennis clubs. Okay, Sure,
that's the social element of that hobby. Okay, it's not
(17:19):
the hobby itself, it's the social part. And so what
we realized is cars have become a legitimate hobby and
that there's no place to do the hobby. Okay, we
created the play the social layer of the car hobby,
and we didn't even realize what we were doing, but
(17:39):
in reverse engineering realized that's how we did it. Because
and that's how that's why during COVID, for example, people
came from a social and we're social animals, you know.
Of course, they came from an office where there's some socializing,
and they came home where there was no socializing. They
wanted to play. They needed that social part in their lives.
(18:01):
We had that, Okay, interesting in our sales skyrocketed during COVID.
They you know, they wanted to get out of their
home and back to where there are people. Well, the
garage is a perfect situation.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
And if you put fifty car guys in the same
community of garages, it's amazing how much fun they can have.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
You know, It's interesting because that that word community has
become more and more prevalent over the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
And as I was, you know, digging.
Speaker 6 (18:32):
In a little bit on you all before.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
You talk a lot about bringing the community together, and
I would tell you, like, I think the average person.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Doesn't really realize that about the car world.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
They may drive, they may drive by on a Saturday
when there's a Corvette show and a big parking lot
somewhere and think, oh, that's interesting, then just drive on,
but not realize. I mean, you two are a great
example of like the bonds and the ties, and they
get absolutely.
Speaker 5 (18:57):
And monetized it. Yeah, but twenty years ago that wasn't
the case. Twenty years ago there were no car shows.
There were very few car shows, if any. Okay, really
it's a new phenomenon twenty to thirty years ago. If
you had a really special car, you'd sell it and
get another one, okayle people have I have seventeen cars,
(19:21):
which you know, I need therapy for sure. But the
other garage people are in the same boat, you know,
and so we were. I'm located. I have five of
our garages, okay, and other people have similar number of
garages and cars and so forth. And you know, we
(19:42):
have lunch together. We I mean, if I have to
get work done, I got to lock my door because
people are coming in my garage all the time. And
it's the social part and and the other crazy thing.
We started this venture. I was sixty nine years old
and I'm eighty one.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Now stop it. Yeah, So driving that first twenty four
hour Lamons, did you think you were going to make it? No?
Speaker 6 (20:07):
No?
Speaker 5 (20:08):
No? So so you know in friends, nor Spring Chicken either.
So we started this kind of later in life. And
I think it gives encouragement to people that are seventy
It's like, oh, you know, what am I going to
do now? And you know, sit home and watch gun
smoke all day or something like that, you know, throwback.
(20:29):
That's the beauty of our garages. It's a thing. We
have a lot of people that are solar companies and
they buy garages and it's it's something for them to
do and have the camaraderie and the social part that
they wouldn't have otherwise.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
And they don't just buy these garages to store the
cars they have. They want to have more cars, so
they buy multiple garages so they can grow their collection.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Do you guys get involved in that at all?
Speaker 4 (20:57):
We sell them garages well.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Or you just suggest to sell them a bigger garage
because you know you're gonna want to buy that.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Everybody makes the mistake of thinking they want to garage
that's too small.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
And when or what they have versus what they're gonna
have to talk them into.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
A bigger garage. They're thankful.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
Well, our our standard line is regret is a horrible thing,
and you're gonna regret not having a bigger garage. And
it's like, oh yeah, and see, you buy these garages,
you don't rent them. Okay, So it's a long term
situation and you know, whatever you do, you know you're
not going to be able to expand, so you better
(21:33):
think about the future. But I have I'm very active
in the Porsche world. That's mostly what I have. And
I have people call me all the time and they
want to come over and look at the cars. And
I have everything from a fifty five Porsche to new ones. Okay,
it's like a museum and so and I met doctor Porsche,
you know, at the factory, and yeah, so big Porsche
(21:55):
history and so I people call me all the time
that have garage and so forth, and I say, I'm thinking
about getting a Porsche. What should I get and where
should I get it? So we do kind of counsel
them to some degree.
Speaker 6 (22:10):
You know, Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
I think it's interesting you bring up your age when
you got started, because to your point, it would have
been really easy to say, yeah, I'm done. And I've
mentioned this a couple of times. There was a mentor
of mine early in my career, and it was when
radio stations were consolidating in the nineties, and you know,
you'd read the headlines and the payouts that some of
these executives got, and I was just a young kid,
(22:33):
and one of these get people that you would see
in the trends ended up being a regional vice president
for my company. And I was having dinner with him
and I'm like, twenty five, what do I know? And
you know, I'm like, why did you come back to work?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
And he goes, Chris, I'm gonna tell you something.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
You can only play so much golf and the phone
stops ringing pretty quick, and when you've had it, like
I mean, there's a certain subset of people I'm sure like,
go off and fish.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And leave me alone, and I'm good. So it's interesting
that you say this.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
One of our our guests talked about, you know, he's
in his seventies, and he said he was sold on
a vision that really excited him. And this is someone
like yourselves that had a lot of success. And I
think that, you know, it's fascinating you guys did this
and you do it with such an energy.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
I mean, Fred, you're staring at me, the smile on
your face.
Speaker 3 (23:17):
The thinking about what you guys have done, and you're
probably also thinking, I got to do this certain thing
to get done.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
When I'm done talking to Chris.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, what's what's unique about this product that made us
also able to get to where we are right now
is that we were able to pre sell a high
percentage of these garages before they were finished, sure, which
in hard times and difficult lending times, makes it much
more doable.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Sure so we've.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Gotten tremendous cooperation from our lenders that has made our growth,
you know, easier to accomplish.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
So how many how many people do give in the
company now?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Twelve? Well?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
Yeah, if that that's a good question, Crystal, get back
just enough.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
Like a lot of companies, you know, we outsource a
lot of.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
For sure, So you're running different people that are outsourced
at any given moment, depending on.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Contrajector and architects and engineers.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
That's a lot of juggle.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
I'm working harder today than I was tenured.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Okay, that's that's a great point. So so here you
are founder CEOs of your company, you and that you're
dealing with a lot of people, like you said that
are contractors.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
They work for you, but they don't. That's a different
management skill set.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
It's a challenge.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
I mean, how do you how do you manage that?
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Thinking you're like I would guess on any given project
if you say this, you've got a contractor who's an
architect in one place, You've got a contractor's the contractor
and one and then maybe one of your employees or
one of you guys, and you're trying to pull all
these people together.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
That was part of the learning curve. Yeah, because when
we first built the first project that we'd never build
that same project again.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
We we're learning, and now.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
We're on our thirteenth or fourteenth project and we're still
learning either or not, we're still getting better and we're
still perfecting better.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
Meeting yesterday and talked about making some changes.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Right because costs have gotten so exorbitant, you know, ten
years ago, we were selling the same garagers for seventy
five percent, wow, lower than what we're selling for right now.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
So it was a new market. Also, of course introducing
it to people, it was a new thing people had
never done, never had one of these.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Before, and so making the markets an interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I'm yeah, the architects didn't understand what we were trying
to create, so we had difficulty finding the right architects,
finding the right contractors.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
You know, it's all.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Been challenging, and it's taken this long to get to
the right team, the right consultants. We're finally at a
point where we know what we want to replicate.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Almost and that's the siding part of it.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
That's what keeps you getting up in the morning and
driving is knowing that you can get better.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's you know, one of my favorite terms and and
and in leadership roles you always do this, but I
think you guys epitomize it the I like to say
juggling chainsaws, because you're juggling people that don't I mean,
they're contracted to you, but they don't work for I mean,
all of that dynamic and I'm sure those relationships, each
one of them is different and trying to do that
(26:26):
and as you said, like you're trying to get better
and trying to figure out you've made a market.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Well, I want you I'm gonna ask you.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Guys to answer this individually. Don't don't confer. If you
stop down today.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
And look over your shoulder and look back, what is
the one thing you would not do again in the
business in the business.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
Well, and I don't know that we would agree on this, Okay,
I'm hoping you don't. We probably built our projects were
too large okay, too large?
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Uh and uh.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
In retrospect, if we had done more smaller projects, it
would produce the risk and it would you know, because
it was pretty scary. Our first project was sixty nine
garages and in product no one had ever heard of, okay,
and we were faced. It didn't happen, but we were
faced with the idea of having what are we going
to do with these storing things? Sixty nine? If you
(27:22):
have thirty of a bad idea, it's a lot better
than sixty nine of a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
But the reason they sold out is because he sold
thirty eight of them to his personal friends.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Well, and I bought two of them myself. That was huge.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Well, because you can sit there and say, hey, I'm in, I'm.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
In, I'm in. And if you want to hang out
with Ba Palell, you got to buy a garage, you know.
If you want to hear my racing stories, it's a price.
There's a price because of it, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
So it's funny again thinking about our founders, like yourselves,
massive believers and you have to be in your own
product it, you know, in terms of I think it
was it was doctor Harrison at Mint Dentistry was like
he was talking about a procedure and you know, talking
about having it done, and it's like, you know, you
(28:10):
have to be out in front say you know, I
believe in this. That's why I'm selling it. I'm not
just slinging some idea that somebody brought to me.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
That's exactly right. And see here's the thing backing up.
I lived in Dallas right out of college, and but
so most recently before the garage is my home. I
had a three thousand square foot garage. Oh wow, yeah,
that's sixteen cars and three thousand square feet. But I
was there by myself. How much fun is that? And
(28:41):
I realized, Okay, I got the cars, big deal. I've
seen the cars one hundred times. I can drive any
of them whenever I want to. The fun is sharing, Okay.
Some people will call it showing off. We call it sharing. Okay,
it's a nicer way to say it. But it's like
a it's like a table or a swimming pool.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
I'm just thinking the big screen TV when it came
out or whatever.
Speaker 5 (29:05):
If you're there by yourself, it's like, it's the value diminishes. Okay.
So I knew that to get maximum enjoyment of the
car hobby, you gotta have you gotta socialize. Okay. So
so I sold my house, moved to a patio home
which was the right living area, and bought two garages
(29:27):
and had my cars in my two garages. And other
people would say, wow, that's a pretty cool way to live.
I said, well, there you go.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
You know, so, how far was your patio home from
I mean the garage was it on five minutes?
Speaker 5 (29:40):
So you just it'ged two miles?
Speaker 6 (29:42):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Yeah. So the well, our first project was in Plano,
but I lived in Dallas, you know, on the edge
of Preston Hall. Had had three quarters of an acre,
a pool, four thousand foot house, three thousand foot garage
and I'm single. Now that makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, the math doesn't work real well, I.
Speaker 5 (30:01):
Know that makes no sense, and so it got to
be a huge headache. So the garage idea was the
perfect solution to my dilemma. I wanted to hang out
with people backed cars, and I wanted to downsize my
living area. So it worked out just perfect. And it
turns out that's the perfect solution for many of the
(30:24):
car people that later in life they realized what they
should have realized earlier. They don't need that much living space,
but they need a place for their hobby. Interesting just
gives it. That's the social aspect.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Of course.
Speaker 5 (30:37):
We started having a Monday lunch, a Friday lunch with
all the gear heads, and if you don't show up,
they call, hey, are you okay?
Speaker 3 (30:44):
You know, I mean, it comes back to community like
it is, and that's that's really fascinating and awesome.
Speaker 6 (30:52):
So thinking about where.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
You are today, you both had individual careers that were
very successful and came together a lot of success, seen
a lot of things. What would you tell someone at
twenty four who's getting ready to found whatever it is,
What would be they're going to be a founder of something.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
An idea they have, what would be the thing you'd.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Tell them, don't talk about it? Do it?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Wow?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
Well with me? With me, I can trace back most
of the things experience wise that happened to me that
led me in certain directions, were professionally, personally and so forth.
Was showing up. Yeah, I can. I can point to
one particular day or one particular event. If I hadn't
(31:39):
gone to that event, none of that would have happened. Yeah, racing.
I was at a party, met a guy that started
the whole thing. If I didn't go to that party,
I would have never done any of the racing.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
It's some of you here, I think they hear Like
on NFL podcasts, you know they talk about sometimes the
best ability is availability, you know, and just to your point,
just being there.
Speaker 5 (32:00):
It gives fate a chance to happen.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah wow.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
But follow your passion. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
My passion is storage, his passion is cars. Between the two,
it was a perfect marriage.
Speaker 5 (32:10):
Well but it didn't. What's funny is and I don't
know so so when we first got together and we're
doing car events, okay, okay, And and I actually organized
a car event at the Cooper Aerobic Center. The Coopers
are good friends of mine and anyway, so I had
a car event that that that I did there every year.
This was several years ago, and uh uh so Fred
(32:34):
was talking about, uh, this product we're doing is car storage.
I said, Fred, forget that word storage. We're not in
the storage business. We're in the active use business.
Speaker 4 (32:47):
Your storage.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
And I said, you know, a boat dock is storage
a boat and marina is what we're doing.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
So that's when Fred stopped going on sales calls.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Yeah, you got me out from mind the table.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
But it's a different mindset.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Of course.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
This is active use, you know, absolutely, and people people
love to bring their families. And I'm going to a
party later later today. There's a party at one of
the garages. It's a watch party watch meaning wristwatch. They're
inviting everyone to bring their wristwatches and we're gonna have
a trade saf sail whatever.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And you charge to do you charge just for like
a party space or anything like that.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Don't charge the thing.
Speaker 5 (33:34):
No, you know, people they have they have parties for their.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
U're just getting people hooked on the space and then
they're begging you to build something for them.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
When you look at terrible under the interior of these garages,
you'll understand why they want to hang out there, because
it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Okay, so I'm gonna do it now. I looked at
some pictures. We want to get all the past and
future CEOs together for a happy already.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Think we could you at one of your locations.
Speaker 5 (34:01):
Absolutely in New York.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Second, all right, I have a witness Amanda here, heard it.
Speaker 5 (34:07):
He'd love that. That's the kind of thing we love.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
And in my garage. Fred walks in my garage and
he shakes his head. Oh my god, you know you
got so much stuff? Yeah, and I do. I have
a lifetime of car activities. I have a big twenty
foot long mural on my hanging on my wall of
me standing by my race car. You know. Sure. And
I've had one guy walked in and says, Jack, can
(34:32):
you possibly have another picture of yourself? Is there a
room for another picture of yourself?
Speaker 2 (34:38):
You know, Hey, we need a life size cutout over
there in the corner. If we can make it work.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
Yeah, So but here again, stuff that would not well.
Jerry Seinfeld came to my home one time, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
And that was after he stopped by my place.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, I wondered where he comes from. And
so he didn't want to brag that he was hanging
out here. He had his warm up comedian with him,
and j Gerry knew me and knew I was single
and so forth. But this is before the garage business.
And it came to my house and I have a
horror memorable everywhere, you know. And so Jerry's guy comes in.
(35:12):
He starts looking around, and he said, you're not married?
Are you.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
A little too much clutter?
Speaker 5 (35:19):
I said, well, what gave you that idea?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So I haven't asked.
Speaker 6 (35:23):
I assume the answer.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
But friend of you a big car guy, I mean,
do you have a collection as well?
Speaker 4 (35:27):
No, I drive a.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Truthfully, it just doesn't drive me crazy like it does Jack.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
And and I can't. You can't pretend to be a
car guy.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
No, you can't know either are or you're not.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
And it drives him crazy.
Speaker 6 (35:43):
A Ford guy.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
I'm a Ford guy, me too.
Speaker 5 (35:47):
He's a Ford pickup guy me too, okay.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
And truthfully, I'm not a very good driver, So I
try to stay in the vehicles that are safe, right Jack, So.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
I've written with him many times.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
We pretty much found the opposites attract story. Yeah, right here,
So you don't have you you have a Ford truck.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
I mean I do too, like you're so.
Speaker 4 (36:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Although I love the cars, yep, but it's just safer
if I stay out of them.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Hey, you know it, really stay in your lane, so
to speak. No pun intended.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I think runningto curbs all the time, and they don't
work well with porsches.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
Oh gosh, they're a launching jack.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
I'm assuming Fred does not drive any of your cars.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
No. As a matter of fact, no one draws one.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Okay, got it?
Speaker 6 (36:34):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
A lot of people want to say no, no, okay, okay,
all right, my kids don't.
Speaker 6 (36:40):
So okay.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Let's talk about your locations in Dallas and you're expanding
in some other markets.
Speaker 6 (36:46):
You want to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Yeah, we're up to what yeah, thirteen thirteen.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
We've got eight completed in Dallas, one under construction and
three in the pipeline.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Then as you're going down to Houston too, we're in Houston.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
We have two projects completed in Houston and one sold
out and the other ones in the process of selling out.
We have a project in Austin that selling our last
garage this month in March, i should say. So we're
out of product down there and it's been fun.
Speaker 6 (37:25):
So the future looks pretty good, it does, okay.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
But we're again we're building closer to the right product
that we have been looking for.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
We're building smaller.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Projects and we're challenged today trying to keep them affordable,
you know, because construction costs are just really a tough battle.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
So that's our challenge today.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
And while we're building smaller projects, just to make it
more affordable as possible, because this is a discretionary buyer,
of course, and we just think that long term, we've
figured out where the sweet pot is spot is size wise,
and so it's.
Speaker 5 (38:10):
Gonna be a lot of fun. We're going to do
more that are smaller, okay, But the demand is all
over the country. I mean everywhere, I mean all over
the world. I mean the fascination with cars. If you
think about like people talk about muscle cars, and that
really refers to back in the sixties, a few car
(38:31):
companies made fast cars and those were muscle cars. Okay,
Now every single brand has their muscle car, their fast car. Okay,
so I mean whether it's Porsche, Ferrari, MacLaren and Aston Mar.
I mean there are dozens Mazda. I mean, there are
so many high performance cars, you know, as opposed to
(38:53):
twenty five or thirty years ago. And these people want
they don't want just one, they want one for the track.
They want this model, that model, a convertible. Blah blah blah.
Red ran into a guy last night or in his car. Well,
this is a great story. Even pickups. They make muscle
(39:14):
car pickups of course, the Ford Raptor you know. Okay, fair,
I mean, so it's like high performance is the name
of the game. We had a guy. Once a month
we have an event called Garages and gear Heads having coffee. Okay,
at our Carrolton location. We have three hundred people show
up with that event. Okay. People open the garage doors, share,
(39:35):
they don't show off, they share their cars and garages.
Last month we had a guy show up in a
five million dollar car. He just got it just it's
been under production for three years. It's called a Konig Sag.
It'll go two hundred and seventy five miles an hour. Okay.
He has two more in his garage. Okay, so we
(40:00):
didn't even know he was coming. We didn't know he's coming.
He shows up and is like, oh my god, there
is a coneage. Say it's called Wow Sweden.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
You know, it's funny act.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
I'm going to share this just briefly because you're talking
about the community, and I just started thinking about it
when I was a kid in Kansas City in the
early eighties going over to my friend Steve Kacharski's house
and his dad would have you know, his brother had
a muscle car and they'd have it out in the
driveway and everybody'd be staying around. Mister Kacharski be showing
everybody how to change the oil and do all the stuff.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
It was community then too, It really was.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
It's a little bit different.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
But there was nowhere to gather together like the golf courses.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
Have yeah, correct have correct Now.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
We've created marinas for car guys.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
Correct. Well. Great to be doing what I'm doing. It's
so much fun for me at my age. I'm eternally
grateful to Fred or given me this, having this opportunity
to do this, you know, because before we had coffee
that day and talked about doing this venture, you know.
(41:04):
I was like, you know, what's Matt Dillon doing today?
You know? And so.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
I got the reference to see now.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Sheriff Dylan. But I used to do car events in Colorado, Arizona, California,
and so forth. By virtue of that I met. So
I've met so many people that have become valuable resources
when we need if we have a question about an event.
One guy was the co chairman of the Pebble Beach Concord,
which is the biggest car event in the world. This
(41:37):
guy that I've met on a Colorado event was a
week long driving tour. He was the co chairman of
that event. I can call him and talk to him
and whatever like that. Those relationships and so forth are
just I mean, it's so important doing what we do. Yeah, so,
(41:58):
and you never know it at the time. All Right.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I got to peel back the end in just a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
Because everything you guys sitting here smiling at me, staying
in your lanes, everything's worked the way we've wanted it to.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I have to know a little dark side.
Speaker 3 (42:11):
Is there ever been a time you guys disagreed as
leaders of a company, and how did you resolve it?
Speaker 4 (42:19):
I don't think, so really, I really don't think.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
So Jack's talked me into doing things that my gut
didn't tell me it was the right thing to do.
But I trusted his instincts being in the car world,
so I did them anyway.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Yeah, and they worked out well.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
The big word there being trust, Yeah, and sometimes there
is that just blind like I gotta trust my partner
here and this is I could do this for a
lot longer, but Amanda's got a little sign and she
showed me we got to start wrapping it up. So
I got to take you through one last exercise that
we do. And you see the four envelopes sitting here.
(42:56):
They have random questions in them.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
So we found out that you guys like beef turkey.
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (43:02):
There was a little bit of research done that our
team did. So what we will do here is I'm
gonna let Jack, I'm gonna let you pick the envelope
and we'll let Fred read the question and you guys
can answer it.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
All right, maybe this.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
Will cause the first disagreement in the history.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Of the company.
Speaker 4 (43:25):
What's your walk up song?
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Oh boy, my walk up song?
Speaker 3 (43:29):
If you're walking, if you were going to be in
a race today and they had to play music, kind
of like a baseball games when the players walking out
in music plays.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Would there be a song that would they would play
the speak to you?
Speaker 5 (43:43):
Uh yeah, well actually there there is a song by
Cheryl Crowe and it was I remember, I'm not sure,
I didn't know the name, but it was Steve McQueen.
And during the drive machine you know what, yes, I do.
And Steve McQueen is the iconic you know, he did
the produced or whatever did the movie Lamon's, of course,
(44:07):
and that was one it planned to see. He did
it in nineteen seventy and in nineteen eighty four when
I first drove it Lamon's. The opening scene of that
movie was a clock ticking down in the second hand
was ticking down and it had to boom his heartbeat. Okay, yep.
When I got strapped into this two hundred and fifteen
(44:30):
mile an hour race carp, I looked up and there
was the very clock it was in that movie. Oh wow,
it freaked me out.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
So Steve, miss, what you're saying is you've traveled in
some pretty heavy circles. You would fanboy over Steve McQueen
if he walked in if he were able to come
back and walk in.
Speaker 5 (44:46):
Here, yeah, we'd we'd go off and have some stories
to tell.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Only Fred and I hear, I see how it is.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yeah, all right, Jack, Fred, this is a lot of fun.
I am going to hold you to an evan at
your location. We'll get that figured out. Be a lot
of fun, and I think our CEOs would enjoy it
a lot, and I'd be really excited to see it.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
So, gentlemen, thank you.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Appreciate you coming by, as hard as it was being
a University Missouri graduate. Fred New and I could be
friends even though you're a Kansas grad. All right, absolutely,
all right, gentlemen, thank you, thank you,
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