October 23, 2024 • 49 mins
Matt Marciniak, President of the Golf Business Network, joins Rich to discuss what drew him to golf, GBN's impact on the game, the programs the network supports, and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Rich Cornwall Golf Show. This week we're
bouncing back from note well, I actually I had a
kind of a kind of a guest last week with
with uh with my marketing expert on. But this week
we're going to dive right back into the world of
golf and with a very very very good guest this week.
(00:21):
His name is Matt Marciniac. Matt is the president of
the Golf Business Network, and Matt's got a really interesting
golf story and has some really interesting views on the
world of golf, and I'm really kind of excited to
have him here. So Matt, first off, thanks thanks for
coming on today.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Absolutely Rich, thank you appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
No problem at all. So, as I do with everybody, Matt,
go ahead and give us your start. How you how
you kind of got started in golf as it You know,
I don't know if he plays a young kid or not,
but you know, kind of give me that outline.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, well, I did start young. I was fortunate to
grow up in a very small town that had a
nine hole golf course in Watkins Glen was still there,
Watkins Glen Golf Club, and my my start was again
early ended up playing with some older guys. At the time.
(01:16):
Me was like I was in junior high and these
kids were in high school, and they were they were
kids that kind of call it idolized to because they
played better golf than obviously than I did. And I
ended up, you know, just kind of trailing along with
them and helping me be just become you know, a
better you know, call it little amateur player. My real
(01:38):
athletic focus so was wrestling, and so I did a
lot more in wrestling than I ever ever diet in golf.
My wrestling board, you know, was something that got me
into West Point because I aways had a fair amount
of success in high school there and uh from there
(01:58):
that you know led me uh to continue to wrestle
at later times. But you know, kind of coming back
to my golf story, it was really kind of a
after a long wrestling season, it was fun to go
do something completely different, non combative, really a lot more
the mental aspect of honing your performance, right, which is
(02:21):
really something that I really enjoy about golf today. It's
not so much the physicality of it, but is can
you really kind of control your emotions and focus your
attention to you know, execute what you what you you know,
plan on doing, and that's for me that probably the
most fun part about golf now, being now fifty two
(02:44):
and enjoying the game that way.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So okay, So okay. So that's Watkins in New York,
same place as the NASCAR or race.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, the race tracks there, I guess,
you know, I don't I don't know who's really notable there,
but probably the most notable person coming out of there
is Russ Myers. I don't know if you know who
Russ Meyer is, but he used to be the superintendent
at Southern Hills and La Country Club, had I think
(03:14):
spent time at Augusta. But he's a real famous individual
in in the agronomy space, and I believe he's now
doing some independent work, but has been with somebody that
you know, just used to motographs at this nine hole
golf course and it's really one of the top guys
in the country.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And when it comes to agronomy, that's that's that's that's
called that's called the very very humble beginnings to a
very very very famous world. That's pretty cool. So okay,
So you mentioned a little bit so First of all,
I got to tell you up front, massive respect for
anybody who who who engages in that type of wrestling.
You know, a big Dan Gable guy. I never met
(03:56):
Dan Gable, but but I gotta tell you that's a
that's a mindset I've never understood. I've never understood. I've
never understood that wrestling, that wrestling mentality. I've never understood it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That's a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
No, it's a lot Let's be really clear. Here's a
lot different, Matt, It's a lot different. Let's just let's
just say it. It's a lot different. It's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Oh yeah, it's it's a little bit different. It's a
little bit different. Yeah, you you really, you know, I
have to have a mindset that that most people don't have.
It's a lot of self sacrifice to start with, just
to do the sport. And but those that you know,
that turn it into a passion get a lot of
(04:41):
reward from that. Obviously you mentioned you know, Dan Gable
and many others. Actually, it's always funny to me because
I was, you know, I had an opportunity to be
with a lot of high level and well respected and
well accolated wrestlers like Dan Gable. But you know, you'd
be in an airport and I knew it was Dan
Abele sitting over there, and here's a you know, world champion,
(05:04):
Olympic champion, and and nobody knew that that guy's sitting there.
It's kind of amazing, you know what these people, you know,
have accomplished in their careers and to let nobody really
knows about them. So yeah, and it was a privilege
for me to be part of it.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That's pretty neat. So so you utilize that to go
to the United States Military Academy. Correct Where else were
you thinking about going? Ah?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, you know I at the time, I was maybe thinking, uh,
Cornell because that's nearby Watkins Glen. My my father was
a graduate of that. But the reality was for me
to want to wrestle Division one, I would need a scholarship.
And then, you know, really West Point offered me that opportunity,
(05:51):
and I took it. It was a little different, you know,
my reasons for going were very different than for my
reasons of standing. But you know a lot of guys
get there in a lot of different ways, and that
was my path there.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
That's neat. That's really really neat. That is and I
have I have two children and they both went to
Ohio State University. And I was never ever, ever smart
enough nor brave enough to go to the United States
Military Academy, but massive respect for that. As matter of fact,
my my my shining moment from my childhood as a
(06:28):
as a child watching pit football was to watch Leman
Hall throw football around Pitt Stadium. That was the coolest
name in the world to me. And he played quarterback
for West Point and like, and to this day he's
the biggest human being I've ever seen in my life.
I've seen bigger guys, but in my nine year old brain,
you know what Leman Hall was, that was everything. Yeah,
that guy was everything. Yeah, So that guy was everything.
(06:51):
So all right, So you go to the.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Story about Ohio State Tom Ryan, he's the head coach there. Yes,
And I'm at Tom Ryan. Actually when I was in
high school as a kind of a camp demonstrator for wrestling,
and the first time I so called got an on
top of Tom Ryan, put my head on his back
(07:15):
and it felt like a turtle shell. This guy was
so so rigid and tough, and he was he was
transferring I think to Iowa that year and so on.
But you know it was he blew me away relative
to how tough a person could be.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
That's that's awesome. So you go to so you go in,
I say's military kind. I mean obviously you graduate and
you and you have your commitment. So so talk to
me a little bit about what you did after after
you graduate.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah. So after I graduated, I got a little bit
off cycle. I was a graduate assistant coach actually for
the wrestling team, and I ended up, you know, being
captain of the team. Had some success as a wrestler,
didn't didn't make an All American. That was one of
my goals that that I wanted to do. Unfortunately didn't
do that, won an e I W A champion chip there.
(08:01):
But ultimately, right with West Point, you know your your
the sports are there to develop you. Uh, they're not
the endgame. And so one of the big decisions I
made was to branch army engineer and soon after doing
about a you know, six months stand of the graduate
assistant coach, I headed out to Missouri to do my
(08:23):
officer basic training in Portland or with Missouri there and
had an opportunity where some guy team in one days
that anybody wanted to be an army diver come talk
to me after after you know the day's events. And
so I went to the guy's office and he said,
meet me at O dark thirty at this running trail.
(08:45):
So I went and in the middle of the night,
guys there, he says, Okay, I'm going to have you,
you know, run this five k trail in the middle
of the night, and if I beat you, you know,
we're not going to be signing up for to be
an army diver. So I took off running in the middle
of the night and ended up you know, getting through that.
He was you know, he was just testing me to
(09:06):
see if I was worth his time, and then kind
of from there really took me under his wing to
prepare me become a diver heart hat diver. And I
spent the next couple of weeks really just training to
be in the water and holding my breast and all
these things so that I could just go to the
training the training facility at the Naval Diving in Salvage
(09:33):
School in Panama City, Florida, of which you spend you know,
about six to twelve weeks depending on what you're studying,
to go through school, school and hard had school and
things like that. Eventually then coming to my army unit
in Fort Eustas, Virginia, and and you know, performing my
duties as a military officer and platoon leader at that location.
(09:59):
And then from the did various call it deployments, mainly
to you know, South America, the Caribbean, couple things like that.
I served prior to nine eleven, so my my period
of time was not during necessarily war time, but I
didn't have the opportunity to do some interesting deployments as a
(10:20):
hardhat diver.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Okay, so you're a really good wrestler and and you
do that and so yeah, so yeah, this is You're
you're a pretty impressive character. I gotta tell you that
right now. That's that's either that or your.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Different career path.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
That or crazier than hell. So you get to pick
which one you are. I'm gonna go with impressive, but
you know some would say the other way. So all right,
so you transmission transition from there, and so how do
you how do you get to I mean, I know
that you went to graduate school. You get an NBA
from duke correct. Yeah, okay, so so not only are
(10:59):
you all that, but you're also pretty smart too, So
you're kind of a role here. This is pretty good.
So how do you how do you transition away from
that and get to the golf business.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, yeah, that's still a little bit of a journey.
So when I finished up kind of my leadership role
as a diver the Army, you know you kind of
did they tell you what job you're going to do next,
And unfortunately, the next job they had for me, I
was going to kind of be waiting a lady and
waiting for almost two years for the job they wanted
(11:33):
me to put it in, so it'd be kind of
a staff role for a period of time, and that
wasn't necessarily interested in doing that. So I looked around
and said, well, what maybe else I can do for
for the Army, and ended up Army has what's called
the World Class Athlete Program, and I went back to wrestling,
and I ended up so called interviewing at the unit,
(11:56):
which was was a wrestle off. I hadn't wrestled in
two three years. And then I go up to Colorado
Springs at Fort Carson and do a wrestle off with
the team there. Fortunately i'll call it, had a good
interview and was offered a spot on the team. And
then I spent the next two years at Fort Carson
(12:17):
in the Olympic Training Center out in Colorado, training to
you know, try to make the Olympics in two thousands,
and that was a very interesting time, unique time as
a military officers. So there was training and then there
was obviously recruitment, so we'd go, you know, to the
various high schools and work to you know, recruit people
(12:38):
for the army, utilizing the world class athlete program as
a as a showcase of what, you know, what you
can be in the army. So my whole claim to
fame actually of being at the Olympic training centers, I
was ended up just being the workouts demmy for you know,
the guys that actually went. And the guy who won
(12:59):
the Olympic both medal in two thousand was Brandon Slay.
He's currently at uh UH at pen Training Center, but
he won the gold medal and h you know he
really I just spent two years with him beating me
up every day. I think I may have scored one
or two penalty points in those complete two years. But
(13:20):
really that was something I'm actually very proud to be
part of. To help somebody, you know, achieve their goals
and be tremendously successful in the sport.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That's incredible. That's incredible. Wow, that is really that's really cool.
So obviously, you know, as you downplay, you're pretty good
at that. You're you're you're you're good, You're a good wrestler.
Let's just let's just do that. You're really good, You're.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Really good enough to give him a splat. Let's put
it out.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, that's that's that's fair enough. So all right, so
now I'm going to go back to my other question.
My last question is okay, so now you're done with that,
So what's next?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, so what's next? Though, while I was you know,
doing that, I ended up, you know, was educating myself.
So I got a master's degree in engineering, era and
aerospace space operations. I wanted to actually become an astronaut,
and I asked the Army to, you know, can I
go down to Houston to be part of manned spaceflight
(14:14):
and they denied that. At the same time, you know,
my life is progressing. I met the love of my life,
my wife Julia, and we ended up getting married, and so,
you know, I wasn't necessarily getting what I wanted from
the army from a career management standpoint, and decided to
(14:34):
get out and started working in the civilian world. My
first first role was with Alcoa in Greenville, South Carolina,
and really had to transition, you know, from military mindset
to civilian mindset. And that's for me, it was, you know,
(14:55):
a significant transition to do that and start to learn
to be you know, business oriented, process oriented. Some things
do translate well from the military, just a level of
discipline and hard work, and from at least an army
training standpoint, right, a lot of planning and being able
to see into the future and make good decisions. Right,
(15:17):
that's in armies a lot about doing that. And so
I did have some good skills that translated, but a
lot of skills I had to develop. A lot of
that came down to learn how to use computers properly
and process information and all those kinds of things. So
I spent a fair amount of my time in just
large scale manufacturing, going from one company to another and
(15:42):
really just turning into a global I ended up working
for tea connectivity for almost ten years and spent a
lot of that traveling around the world, living around the world.
So I've had the opportunity to work and live in
Germany and work and live in China for a couple
of years and really have a chance to you know,
(16:05):
just see the entire world and bring my family with that,
and it's very exciting and rewarding, albeit challenging opportunities along
the way.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Wow, that's incredible. That's incredible. Okay, So we're going to
go to a break and then we come back. Then
we're going to get you from that transition to to
the world of golf and this is and then and
then Yeah, because I know that and I obviously can
sense your passion, and I think anybody could send your passion.
But so I really want to kind of get into
(16:37):
that and we're going to see what see where that
takes us. Okay, great, thank you, all right, Great, this
is the rich Comwall Golf Show. Welcome back to rich
Conwall Golf Show. We're spending time with Mett Marciniac today.
Met is a very very very impressive career and impressive
lineage and growing, I mean, going through college in the
(16:59):
United States Military care out of me and in his
service in the military. And when we left off, we
had transitioned into some major manufacturing positions in all over
the world, all over the world. And so then Matt,
I got to ask you, how do we get to
how do we get to the golf business from here?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah? How do we get there? So in my you know,
civilian career, right, it was important for me to you know,
get better educated on business. Then you mentioned, you know,
going to Duke University and get a business degree. While
I was doing that and actually just finishing it up,
my good friend and business partner now Patrick Ceeter, was
(17:43):
living in Raleigh, and you know, being an efficient guy,
I thought, I, you know, spend the night there, save
myself some hotel fees, and we would reminisce about, you know,
what we used to do with kids in the past
when growing up together. You know, we would you know,
go out to Soaring Eagles golf Club in Almira and
play for five dollars, you know, after five pm and
(18:04):
try to get eighteen holes in, which you can do
in upstate New York to like you know, you late
in June, you can kind of make those kind of
things happen, which we did, and again we just had
a long history of being friends. Patrick, however, took a
very different career path than me. He stayed he went
and studied in the golf industry through the PGM program
(18:28):
and became a head golf professional, uh tied into you know,
private golf and country clubs, and and really had an
opportunity to gain and experience and and hone his career
in that. What happened simply is, you know, I'm staying
in his house and I'm I'm kind of looking at
my life. You know, I'm running around the world and
(18:49):
been in various you know, dirty manufacturing environments, traveling in
in planes, you know, from China and back in the week,
and I'm like welling at his life and saying, you know,
you're on a golf course and getting you know, you
have a you know, I remember looking at him. He's
got these you know, suntan lines with sun from the sunglasses,
(19:10):
and I'm like, you know, that's a very different lifestyle.
I'm really kind of curious, you know, what is it
like and and you know, what does it mean to
be a golf pro? And so we just started having
discussions around what that was, and I was, you know,
kind of interested in realizing, hey, it's you know, yeah,
it's not necessarily a glamorous lifestyle. It's really something about
(19:33):
providing service to the club members. And then I started
getting really curious as to, you know, how do you
do all that because you have to remember a tremendous
amount of information about individuals, and that was, you know,
a skill set that you know, I really didn't have.
I was much more into kind a lean manufacturing and
process orientation and so on. So when he really started
(19:56):
describing me what he's doing, and he pulls out at
like a hand notebook where he's writing all these notes,
is to you know, had this interaction with this person
and they wanted to you know, get some you know,
new shirt or new club or whatever. And I'm like, well,
what happens if you lose your notebook? You know, what
does that turn into an experience for you know, your
club member and things like that, where you know, I'm
(20:18):
looking at it from a high quality, high process approach,
and I'm looking at what he's doing and saying, wow,
there's really an opportunity here to improve the quality of
your process. And so we started collaborating honestly on a
kind of a CRM system or private golf and country clubs,
(20:40):
and we piloted it really were at his club where
he was working at the club at the time was
Hazan Try and developed kind of this access database interface
around special orders and demo golf clubs and a really detailed,
cliant profile to the point where you know, he really
(21:04):
improved his golf shop sales and improved his service levels
and was you know, making you know, real gains with that. So,
you know, I having just completed business school, I figured, well,
you know, I got this business to grammar as well
start a business. So started a business with my budding
Patrick around this software solution I think we called it
(21:27):
GEMS Golf Experience Management Solutions at the time, and started
you know, trying to get that to be an online service.
And we did that and started selling it to clubs,
and you know, Patrick was really the salesman or all
for all of that, and that was just the back
end management and organizer and sometimes developer for that stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Wow, that's okay. So obviously, as we could probably tell,
when you dive into something, you go all the way in.
We're just don't dip our tone the pool. We're going
to go all the way into the pool. So you
went from very large manufacturing to the private club world,
which is obviously a serious paradigm shift. So so that
(22:13):
so that was pretty successful for you. So then you
just kept growing that that.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, we grew that. I mean, I wouldn't say it
was you know, turned into anything nothing like you see
out of Silicon Valley or anything like that, you know,
but you know, relative we had a modern level success.
The thing that I realized we were kind of in
over our heads is we started, you know, gaining clubs
(22:40):
with some very high profile club members and recognizing that
you know, information management and information call it privacy and
secrecy and security was all very important. We were starting
to maybe take risks that were not appropriate. And fortunately,
(23:01):
I would say, we were approached by golf Genius Software
to purchase our software, and we made arrangements to make
that happen and from there, you know, it's kind of
At the same time, we had an opportunity to buy
this brand, Golf Business Network, and we chose to do
that as well. So we transitioned out of software and
(23:22):
then started moving into pull just couscultative services in the
golf industry. And in the meantime, I'm still kind of
traveling all around the world. I'm not full of time
with Golf Business Network yet. That takes a couple more
years to get there, because we started the software business
in two thousand and nine and acquired Golf Business Network
(23:42):
around twenty fourteen, So now we're and sold I think
the software around twenty twenty twelve. I think going from
memory here.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So okay, so all right, so now you kind of
know you're bopping around the world, but in reality you're
kind of you're starting to focus solely on the Golf
Business Network. So tell me what the mission of the
Golf Business Network is.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, you know, that's that's an interesting thing. It's it's
something that has evolved over time, and you know where
we're where we're really at now is you know, our
mission is to really continually improve the business performance and
acumen of our members. That's really what we're trying to do.
Our target market is the private golf and country club
(24:31):
golf professionals that are running the golf operations, and that's
what we focus on. We believe that there's a consisten
set of problems to solve in that market, and we
continually offer education. We offer events from a you know,
a facilitate networking and improving of your golf game, as
well as job services through our job board and retain
(24:55):
search services.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
So I got to ask, you can just kind of
tell what the answers the question is going to be.
But you enjoy this, correct.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I do. Yeah. It's a complete shift from you know,
kind of where I spent a good fifteen years of
my life and call it a large scale, high volume manufacturing.
But to apply a lot of what is really good
about lean manufacturing and process into the service world is
(25:30):
a challenge. But also I see rewards in it and
seeing that there are ways to make improvements from what
I consider kind of a best effort. And people do
this every day. They come into work. They give it.
They're all and they mean, they mean well, and they
you know, they want to provide and do the best
(25:51):
job that they can. But if you don't have a
foundation of process and standards, you have nothing to build
off of and you end up having a very variable
experience for the end customer, which in many cases is
the club member. So we want to create a consistent,
high valued experience, and we help try to teach that
(26:16):
through you know what we offer a GBN.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
So kind of like eliminate the hit and miss.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Just yeah, it's it's you know, we all interact with
people and sometimes we're we're you know, we're excited and
really appreciative of how a service person can anticipate your needs.
But also you know, in the service world, you've had
bad service and you know why is that right? And
(26:42):
what we're trying to do is to you know, make
as few you know, errors as possible in that service
route such that you know you're getting a great experience
every time.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
That's really neat. That's really neat because because okay, so
obviously you know the service indust tree and and I'm
a I'm a PGA professional and we're all about growing
the game and and and so I know that the
Golf Business Network is as well. So so tell me
a couple of the things that you're that you're doing. Obviously,
you're growing the profession by by helping us helping golf professionals,
(27:16):
helping your members become better at what their day to
day tasks are, let's put it that way. But but
how you how you how do you see your operation
coupled with let's say my operation or your members operations
to grow the game.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, that's well to a certain degree, I almost look
at it a little bit different, you know, just something
I'm always trying to look out into the future and
see and anticipate what's going to happen. From my perspective,
golf is in a great spot right now, you know,
well it a number of rounds played is really higher
(27:59):
than ever in the US. And from my standpoint, it's
let's not get complacent, guys. Let's let's be village, you know,
vigilant associated with Hey, we're in a good place right now.
How do we keep and maintain that moving into the future.
And you know, my experience with businesses, you know, good
(28:22):
profits can hide bad inefficiencies, and that's you know, always
the concern is, hey, when things are good, what are
we doing to stay on top? And that's really what
I think we're trying to facilitate at this point in
time with Golf Business Network and our membership to making
sure that they're going to stay on top of the
game in case conditions change or really you know, want
(28:45):
to make sure that they're taking a hard look at
some efficiency metrics at this point in time, you know,
looking at you know, what is the members spend to
call it service units ratios? Right, what are they doing there?
Are they really offering more value to the member or
is it that they're just charging more for the same
level of service? Right? And that's not necessarily wrong when
(29:09):
you're in a situation where capacity is you know, hasn't
grown and demand is increased. Right, that's simple economics where
the prices go up in that situation. Right, But you
really want to be aware of, hey, are we adding
more value to what we're offering? And if you're not,
you're probably not innovating and being prepared for the future.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, so you have to be ready to You have
to give them a reason, give them a reason to
come in, you have reason to show up, give them
reason to play nine more holes, give them a reason
to enjoy what?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Right? And that's there's others, you know, there's others that
are offering that whether it's golf or not golf, Right,
there's you know a lot of things people can choose
for their entertainment. I think golf is a great option
and probably one of the best options out there for
health for all sorts of reasons. Right, you know, golf
is a great means to meeting people, creating relationships and
(30:03):
and staying healthy.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Right right, But but but to your point though that
there's everybody has a has a couple of choices. I mean,
you know, we've seen it. I've seen it with like,
for example, pickleball. A lot of people just want to
play pickleball. And that's perfectly fine, it's great, it's wonderful.
But everybody golf grew Africa with COVID because it was
the thing, it was the thing to do. But I
(30:27):
I cautioned, I cautioned a lot of people all the time,
like one day that is gonna it could it could
go away. You know, you've got to You've got to
be you have to capture and retain, you know, not
just just not sit there and say, well, you know
what we're us. You know, why wouldn't you come here?
(30:48):
You know, why wouldn't why wouldn't you come here? You
know it's it's like, you know, it's it's almost almost
to the point where when you start thinking about it,
like like like college is like college is like they
always got to get better. They got to get to
get you know this, this degree has to be more
diligent and more efficient and more and more impressive, because
(31:10):
if it's not, then you're taking away reasons to attend
your school. You know, I'm taking away reasons for you
to to come to my facility because I'm not capturing you.
I'm just kind of being complacent. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Oh? I agree completely? And and what you know again,
I recommend or when I consult with anybody, it's you know,
are you? Are you? How do you turn that from
a discussion and qualitative feeling right into something quantitative? Right?
That's the that's the hard thing to do, and it's
(31:48):
going to be different for really every club. That's where
you know, creativity as a manager and leader in your
business is going to come from. Is how are you
able to identify that and objectify it such as it
becomes a problem that you can provide solutions to, right,
And And that's that's always the challenge of any leader
manager in a business is showing people, hey, here's here's
(32:12):
where the issue is and and then able to you know,
garner the resources through whether that's you know, your own
leadership attributes, right? Why people follow you and things like
that to hey, I just got to procure more time
and money to solve this problem. Those are the things
that I think the golf professional can do in their
(32:34):
operations to really be a key resource for the club.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That's yeah, that's that. I'm going to listen to that
several times because that's exactly what what what we all
need to be doing. Okay, So when we come back
from this break, I want to talk a little bit
about or a lot about some of the programs that
I know that you're involved in, and and we'll see
how how this is all playing out. But I'm really
(33:03):
interested for this next segment. But I've been interested in
all of it, but really interested in the next segment
because we're going to talk about a couple of programs
I know are close to you and I want to
talk about those. And so when we get back, we'll
do that. And this is the rich Comwell Golf Show.
Welcome back to the rich Comwoll Golf Show. We are
speaking with Mett Marciniac, the president, co founder all sorts
(33:27):
of nifty titles. But the fact that this is the
Golf Business Network and Matt's mission with the Golf Business
Network is to actually just increase service and increase interaction
and increase satisfaction members at private clubs and things like that,
and around around that. You know that we could we
(33:51):
could talk all day about the brass tacks of you know,
what time we open the golf shop and how we're
taken care of the ladies and all this stuff. But
there's some really really really neat program m is that
that GBN is involved in, and and so am I.
But the first one I want to talk about, Matt,
I probably get you to talk about this for three days.
But the whole program, the PJ of America Hope Program. Yeah,
(34:16):
I think I got to tell you. I've done two
sessions with the whole program at my facility, and I
would tell you that I don't care what kind of
day you're having, if you get to be involved in
a whole program, even for an hour, it makes your dale.
It just turns it all the way around. It's just
(34:38):
an incredible honor that we get to do that. And
I know that you're that you're involved in it with
with Golf Business Network, but so so kind of tell
me your view of the whole program.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Well, just to make everybody aware. Right. PGA Hope is
a branch of the philanthropic arm of the PGA reach
UH organization. Right, it's affiliated with the PJ organization, and
so PG Hope is one of four call it strategic
thrusts that PJ reach has, Hope standing for help our
(35:15):
patriots everywhere. And obviously having my military background, we're also
very fortunate to have Bob Ford. Bob Ford may not know,
but you professional olk modern seminole and you know a
great career in golf right as as a as a
(35:36):
professional just somebody who's you know, we we value very
much his support with GVN and you know we partnered
this year. We we at GVN have the Bob Ford
Pro Pro actually just had that in September, and the
(35:56):
tournament has grown, and you know, we've sat early in
the year from kind of a strategy planning session to say, hey,
we need to add, uh, you know, a way to
get back and obviously, you know, PGA Hope was an
obvious choice for us to do, and we've you know,
just really started our journey of being a good supporter
(36:19):
of PG Hope from a fundraising standpoint, obviously, the program
itself and what it does for veterans, in my mind,
speaks for itself, and we can we can probably have
better people talk about that than I can. But obviously
what we're trying to do is to gain awareness for
our military veterans that you know that have been in
(36:41):
combat downrange, have suffered you know, physical disabilities and survived
and mental disabilities and are coping with that, and golf
is a great way to you know, re engage with
the world. For many of them, it's it's a challenge,
and you know, we want to make this something that
(37:02):
you know, anybody, anybody can do, you know, coming out
of the military and take advantage of these programs. So
you know, they do need support, and they need support
of the PGA professionals who can be educated and trained
to you know, help somebody learn how to slay a
golf club that you know may have lost an arm
or or some other function in their body, or just
(37:24):
you know, the peace of mind of going out on
the golf course on your own and just hitting shots
and call it the mental rehabilitation. Something like that can
do for somebody is very rewarding.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, that's because you know, as a pg professional, you know,
I dove into you know, I was trained and I
started started the whole program at Wheeling Country Club. So
we had I had as I said, I had two sessions,
and I could see twenty four twenty four veterans over
(37:58):
two sessions. And obviously you go for for six weeks
and and it is absolutely just you don't realize how
much that game helps those folks. You really don't, and
and you and and you kind of it kind of
puts everything in perspective, and honestly, it just does. You know.
It's it's like, hey, you know what, the they need
(38:21):
this game so much and this game is so good
for those folks that it's just like awesome to be
around them. And and and they have this they have
a different you know you talked about you know, now
you play golf and it's different than wrestling because it's
less combative, but it's more mental. It's amazing to me
(38:41):
the mental strength of the people that were in my
Hope program, absolutely amazing. The mental strength. I mean, it
has nothing to I mean, obviously some can some pretty
good players, some aren't real good players, and some are
very very very beginners, and some of them have to
overcome physical and and and emotional and mental obstacles. But
(39:01):
the fact of the matter is their strength is overwhelming.
I mean, they show up, they're happy to be there,
they're grateful, and they're just it's just they just want
to be involved.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
And it's just absolutely and like you said, it's a
it's a very it's it's humbling, it's rewarding, it's purposeful,
you know, all these things that you know, we strive
to be, you know, helps helps bring it all and
you know, that's that's just just a strategic thrust for
Patrick myself in golf business network. Right, We're we're both
(39:38):
very fortunate people and we want to make sure that
you know, we spend the time and help help those
that you know, they have not had the same set
of cards dealt to them in life that we've had
and but really have that opportunity to enjoy the game
like we do.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, that's that's that's that's the best way. Yeah, just
kind of like you're right, dealt a little different hand,
but we can all kind of get there in the end.
It was Yeah, So all right, so talk to me
about a little bit more of the what you foresee
the future of Golf Business Network, Like, like, what do
(40:17):
you what are your plans for growth? I mean, obviously
you're going to get trying to get more members and
I understand all that, but talk to me about like
what you see is the next thing in the golf
business if and I don't want to give away trade
secrets at all, I'm not asking for any of that.
I'm just asking you to kind of kind of look
down the road.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
No, I mean from a it's a it's a it's
a pretty simple approach. I believe, like you mentioned, you know,
being here today, right is me trying to communicate the
value proposition of GVN and getting out to you know,
to more PJ professionals, more you know, vendors in the
market that are trying to access this this private golfing
(40:58):
country club market for their products and services. Right. That's
you know, it's really important for us as GBN to
be to vet some of these new ideas and services
and products and and then you know they passed kind
of the vetting process, start really introducing it to the
head professionals. That's a real value that I think we
(41:18):
create to the professional because obviously they're getting bombarded with
all sorts of choices and if we can help in
that decision making process, making that more efficient and being
a trusted partner with them. I think that's that's obviously
a value we still have. I think lots of opportunity
with the GVN. I think we do a fair amount
(41:42):
of call it, you know, the membership model, We know
what that is. We want to grow that. We have
our consultative model with the job services that we offer. Again,
we can expand that just kind of organically and basically
do more transactions. But you know, we're we want to
go from a business standpoint, and we have a tremendous
(42:04):
amount of access to all sorts of clubs across the country,
you know, but we're expanding our online education. So we
just recently launched the Golf Business Golf Business Network University
Education Platform, which is an online at scale platform for
people to need to educate themselves and maintain their PGA
(42:26):
credentials as cycle seventeens that's coming up in June next year,
so that the procrastinators might need to get a couple
of credits in.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
So that was that a shot? Was that a shot
at me? Did you see did you see the email.
Did you see the email I got from the PGA
of America that tells me I'm behind it? Was that
what the whole thing's event about? Has it even waited
like forty six minutes to hit me with that one?
I love that.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
They Let's just say, I look at human behavior and
you know there are procrastinators out there, so you know,
understand that that's an opportunity.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
I like that. I understand that.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Uh, you know, kind of coming back to where we're going,
there's a lot more we can do. Uh. You know,
just in the golf space, we mentioned PJ. Hope, and
that's a that's an effort on the call it, you know,
the giving backside and and helping others. But from a
business standpoint, you know, we're we're working to go into
(43:20):
a little bit more of the event and corporate event
you know, set up and and bringing in resources because
again with my access to UH kind of military leadership,
one of our advisors retired Colonel Spencer Kulot, who has
a great career in UH in the military. He's a
(43:42):
prior West Point grad. He's a night Stalker member that
unit N Stalker. People might not know, but those those
are the aviation assets that bring all the special forces
you know, in and out of the hot zones, and
you know, they go anywhere that they're asked. And so
(44:04):
he's got a great storied career UH in the military
and has himself They've got a PhD in leadership from
UH from his education background, and has also been the
lead economic advisor and advisor excuse me, but the head
(44:25):
of the economic department at West Point now as well.
So he's just somebody that we're happy to have as
part of the organization and help bring, you know, leadership
principles UH to through the corporate world because I you know,
I've seen it where it's a lot different being a
caretaker of the livelihoods versus being a caretaker of lives.
(44:49):
And I think, you know, take understanding the leadership qualities
to take care of lives and translating that into call
it the civilian sector is a good thing. And that's
kind of a mindset that that I try to take
into everything is you know, how do I take care
of things? And I know it's a lively lad it's
(45:09):
maybe just a golf game, but you know, at times, right,
you know, the the qualities and capabilities and the leadership
principles associated with leading people in in tough environments is
a good standard to try to meet.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Did you well, let me ask let me go backwards
then to Watkins, Glenn. Did you always want to be
a leader?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
No? And I would say I would rate myself maybe
uh B the C plus from a leadership standpoint. Having
met the people I've met, that's really kind of like
I realized in certain domains, you know, I might be
in a in certain domains and other domains I'm not.
(45:57):
But that's the advantage of of seeing some really excellent
people and then just knowing what it takes for them to,
you know, to be who they are and to be
that leader they are. You'll, you know, you recognize these
people in your life every day. You're just amazed by them. Yeah,
And when I compare myself to that, you know, I
just got to be honest, and they're they're better at
(46:18):
it than I am. And that's why I try to
associate with them, just to maybe I can get pulled
along a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Maybe maybe some of them maybe something that falls on
to you, you know, just maybe maybe just maybe they're
their table scraps are going to help.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
You exactly right, if I can just learn a little bit.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, it's helped me out a lot. You know. It's
funny you say that, because I've been fortunate enough to
like you meet you know, obviously, I'm in the same
sections as Bob Ford, and so I've known them for
a long time. And and and I've known I've been
able to meet some interesting people that have done some
interesting things, kind of like you have, not to that extent,
but like I was speaking with Jack Ham, the guy
(46:54):
who won four Super Bowls of the Steelers, the other day,
and he came to one of our events and I
was talking to him a little bit, and he was like,
you know, he goes, it's amazing to me because he's
in the Hall of Fame. And I'm like, you, unbelievably
good football player. He goes, you know, he goes, it's funny.
He goes, the better the players around me were, the
better I was. He goes, They look, they look at me,
(47:15):
and they go, well, you're really good. So we're gonna
try and be really good. And I look at them
and go, no, you're really good. I'm just gonna try
and hang with you, you know. And it was just
like a different mindset, just like you're saying, you know, yeah, okay,
I'm I'm probably not as good as as Billy over there,
as this as I, but maybe maybe if I hang
out with him a little bit, you know, maybe I
(47:36):
can start to grow towards that. And and it was
just and it's it's a it's a decent amount of
humility it takes to do that. But the other thing
is it's pretty intelligent to do that, you know. Is
it's always okay to be the least knowledgeable guy in
the conversation as long as you're trying to grow your knowledge.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, Well, for me, it sends all the way back
to just the rest. Who are the wrestlers in the room.
You get in a good room, don't make you better?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's funny. One of the things I
did want to mention, because we're talking about hope real quickly,
and was when I had my when I had the one,
my one session, the first session we had there is
a retired general from Wheeling. His name, his name is
Austin ren ren Forth. Excuse me, I always messed that up,
(48:26):
and he he actually came. He lives in Arizona now,
but he was in Wheeling for something and with the
Chamber of Commerce or something. He came up and talked
to those guys and like he he walked in the
room and this is the guy who's in charge of
all the Marines in Iraq. At one point he walked
in a room and and you know he said to
all of me, is that thank you say, thanks for
coming out here today, thanks for doing what you did.
(48:48):
And I went, WHOA, Like that's that's a guy who's
in charge. But at the same time, he understands where
all the energy is coming from. You know, it's coming
from coming from the.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Guy very humble people. Yeah, so it's amazing to see it.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
So all right, Matt, Well, I got to tell you something.
I told you this would fly by in a hat. See,
so you're down to your last few seconds with me,
but I just wanted to tell you. I can't tell
you how much I appreciate you spending time with me.
I will, obviously, I'll stay in touch. I'll get back
in touch with you January and February and we'll kind
of catch up and see how everything's going.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
And I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
I just wanted to say thanks. It was really kind
of thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, I excited to be able
to do things like this. It puts me out of
my comfort zone for more, to be kind of behind
the scenes on most things. So interesting for me to
get a chance to do it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
So thank you, thank you, And like I said, we'll
be in touch and and you know, we'll get an
update probably January February next year.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Okay, awesome, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Thank you. This is the Rich Como Golf Show.
Welcome to the Rich Cornwall Golf Show. This week we're
bouncing back from note well, I actually I had a
kind of a kind of a guest last week with
with uh with my marketing expert on. But this week
we're going to dive right back into the world of
golf and with a very very very good guest this week.
(00:21):
His name is Matt Marciniac. Matt is the president of
the Golf Business Network, and Matt's got a really interesting
golf story and has some really interesting views on the
world of golf, and I'm really kind of excited to
have him here. So Matt, first off, thanks thanks for
coming on today.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Absolutely Rich, thank you appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
No problem at all. So, as I do with everybody, Matt,
go ahead and give us your start. How you how
you kind of got started in golf as it You know,
I don't know if he plays a young kid or not,
but you know, kind of give me that outline.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, well, I did start young. I was fortunate to
grow up in a very small town that had a
nine hole golf course in Watkins Glen was still there,
Watkins Glen Golf Club, and my my start was again
early ended up playing with some older guys. At the time.
(01:16):
Me was like I was in junior high and these
kids were in high school, and they were they were
kids that kind of call it idolized to because they
played better golf than obviously than I did. And I
ended up, you know, just kind of trailing along with
them and helping me be just become you know, a
better you know, call it little amateur player. My real
(01:38):
athletic focus so was wrestling, and so I did a
lot more in wrestling than I ever ever diet in golf.
My wrestling board, you know, was something that got me
into West Point because I aways had a fair amount
of success in high school there and uh from there
(01:58):
that you know led me uh to continue to wrestle
at later times. But you know, kind of coming back
to my golf story, it was really kind of a
after a long wrestling season, it was fun to go
do something completely different, non combative, really a lot more
the mental aspect of honing your performance, right, which is
(02:21):
really something that I really enjoy about golf today. It's
not so much the physicality of it, but is can
you really kind of control your emotions and focus your
attention to you know, execute what you what you you know,
plan on doing, and that's for me that probably the
most fun part about golf now, being now fifty two
(02:44):
and enjoying the game that way.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So okay, So okay. So that's Watkins in New York,
same place as the NASCAR or race.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, the race tracks there, I guess,
you know, I don't I don't know who's really notable there,
but probably the most notable person coming out of there
is Russ Myers. I don't know if you know who
Russ Meyer is, but he used to be the superintendent
at Southern Hills and La Country Club, had I think
(03:14):
spent time at Augusta. But he's a real famous individual
in in the agronomy space, and I believe he's now
doing some independent work, but has been with somebody that
you know, just used to motographs at this nine hole
golf course and it's really one of the top guys
in the country.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
And when it comes to agronomy, that's that's that's that's
called that's called the very very humble beginnings to a
very very very famous world. That's pretty cool. So okay,
So you mentioned a little bit so First of all,
I got to tell you up front, massive respect for
anybody who who who engages in that type of wrestling.
You know, a big Dan Gable guy. I never met
(03:56):
Dan Gable, but but I gotta tell you that's a
that's a mindset I've never understood. I've never understood. I've
never understood that wrestling, that wrestling mentality. I've never understood it.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That's a little bit different.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
No, it's a lot Let's be really clear. Here's a
lot different, Matt, It's a lot different. Let's just let's
just say it. It's a lot different. It's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Oh yeah, it's it's a little bit different. It's a
little bit different. Yeah, you you really, you know, I
have to have a mindset that that most people don't have.
It's a lot of self sacrifice to start with, just
to do the sport. And but those that you know,
that turn it into a passion get a lot of
(04:41):
reward from that. Obviously you mentioned you know, Dan Gable
and many others. Actually, it's always funny to me because
I was, you know, I had an opportunity to be
with a lot of high level and well respected and
well accolated wrestlers like Dan Gable. But you know, you'd
be in an airport and I knew it was Dan
Abele sitting over there, and here's a you know, world champion,
(05:04):
Olympic champion, and and nobody knew that that guy's sitting there.
It's kind of amazing, you know what these people, you know,
have accomplished in their careers and to let nobody really
knows about them. So yeah, and it was a privilege
for me to be part of it.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That's pretty neat. So so you utilize that to go
to the United States Military Academy. Correct Where else were
you thinking about going? Ah?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, you know I at the time, I was maybe thinking, uh,
Cornell because that's nearby Watkins Glen. My my father was
a graduate of that. But the reality was for me
to want to wrestle Division one, I would need a scholarship.
And then, you know, really West Point offered me that opportunity,
(05:51):
and I took it. It was a little different, you know,
my reasons for going were very different than for my
reasons of standing. But you know a lot of guys
get there in a lot of different ways, and that
was my path there.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
That's neat. That's really really neat. That is and I
have I have two children and they both went to
Ohio State University. And I was never ever, ever smart
enough nor brave enough to go to the United States
Military Academy, but massive respect for that. As matter of fact,
my my my shining moment from my childhood as a
(06:28):
as a child watching pit football was to watch Leman
Hall throw football around Pitt Stadium. That was the coolest
name in the world to me. And he played quarterback
for West Point and like, and to this day he's
the biggest human being I've ever seen in my life.
I've seen bigger guys, but in my nine year old brain,
you know what Leman Hall was, that was everything. Yeah,
that guy was everything. Yeah, So that guy was everything.
(06:51):
So all right, So you go to the.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Story about Ohio State Tom Ryan, he's the head coach there. Yes,
And I'm at Tom Ryan. Actually when I was in
high school as a kind of a camp demonstrator for wrestling,
and the first time I so called got an on
top of Tom Ryan, put my head on his back
(07:15):
and it felt like a turtle shell. This guy was
so so rigid and tough, and he was he was
transferring I think to Iowa that year and so on.
But you know it was he blew me away relative
to how tough a person could be.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
That's that's awesome. So you go to so you go in,
I say's military kind. I mean obviously you graduate and
you and you have your commitment. So so talk to
me a little bit about what you did after after
you graduate.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah. So after I graduated, I got a little bit
off cycle. I was a graduate assistant coach actually for
the wrestling team, and I ended up, you know, being
captain of the team. Had some success as a wrestler,
didn't didn't make an All American. That was one of
my goals that that I wanted to do. Unfortunately didn't
do that, won an e I W A champion chip there.
(08:01):
But ultimately, right with West Point, you know your your
the sports are there to develop you. Uh, they're not
the endgame. And so one of the big decisions I
made was to branch army engineer and soon after doing
about a you know, six months stand of the graduate
assistant coach, I headed out to Missouri to do my
(08:23):
officer basic training in Portland or with Missouri there and
had an opportunity where some guy team in one days
that anybody wanted to be an army diver come talk
to me after after you know the day's events. And
so I went to the guy's office and he said,
meet me at O dark thirty at this running trail.
(08:45):
So I went and in the middle of the night,
guys there, he says, Okay, I'm going to have you,
you know, run this five k trail in the middle
of the night, and if I beat you, you know,
we're not going to be signing up for to be
an army diver. So I took off running in the middle
of the night and ended up you know, getting through that.
He was you know, he was just testing me to
(09:06):
see if I was worth his time, and then kind
of from there really took me under his wing to
prepare me become a diver heart hat diver. And I
spent the next couple of weeks really just training to
be in the water and holding my breast and all
these things so that I could just go to the
training the training facility at the Naval Diving in Salvage
(09:33):
School in Panama City, Florida, of which you spend you know,
about six to twelve weeks depending on what you're studying,
to go through school, school and hard had school and
things like that. Eventually then coming to my army unit
in Fort Eustas, Virginia, and and you know, performing my
duties as a military officer and platoon leader at that location.
(09:59):
And then from the did various call it deployments, mainly
to you know, South America, the Caribbean, couple things like that.
I served prior to nine eleven, so my my period
of time was not during necessarily war time, but I
didn't have the opportunity to do some interesting deployments as a
(10:20):
hardhat diver.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Okay, so you're a really good wrestler and and you
do that and so yeah, so yeah, this is You're
you're a pretty impressive character. I gotta tell you that
right now. That's that's either that or your.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Different career path.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
That or crazier than hell. So you get to pick
which one you are. I'm gonna go with impressive, but
you know some would say the other way. So all right,
so you transmission transition from there, and so how do
you how do you get to I mean, I know
that you went to graduate school. You get an NBA
from duke correct. Yeah, okay, so so not only are
(10:59):
you all that, but you're also pretty smart too, So
you're kind of a role here. This is pretty good.
So how do you how do you transition away from
that and get to the golf business.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, yeah, that's still a little bit of a journey.
So when I finished up kind of my leadership role
as a diver the Army, you know you kind of
did they tell you what job you're going to do next,
And unfortunately, the next job they had for me, I
was going to kind of be waiting a lady and
waiting for almost two years for the job they wanted
(11:33):
me to put it in, so it'd be kind of
a staff role for a period of time, and that
wasn't necessarily interested in doing that. So I looked around
and said, well, what maybe else I can do for
for the Army, and ended up Army has what's called
the World Class Athlete Program, and I went back to wrestling,
and I ended up so called interviewing at the unit,
(11:56):
which was was a wrestle off. I hadn't wrestled in
two three years. And then I go up to Colorado
Springs at Fort Carson and do a wrestle off with
the team there. Fortunately i'll call it, had a good
interview and was offered a spot on the team. And
then I spent the next two years at Fort Carson
(12:17):
in the Olympic Training Center out in Colorado, training to
you know, try to make the Olympics in two thousands,
and that was a very interesting time, unique time as
a military officers. So there was training and then there
was obviously recruitment, so we'd go, you know, to the
various high schools and work to you know, recruit people
(12:38):
for the army, utilizing the world class athlete program as
a as a showcase of what, you know, what you
can be in the army. So my whole claim to
fame actually of being at the Olympic training centers, I
was ended up just being the workouts demmy for you know,
the guys that actually went. And the guy who won
(12:59):
the Olympic both medal in two thousand was Brandon Slay.
He's currently at uh UH at pen Training Center, but
he won the gold medal and h you know he
really I just spent two years with him beating me
up every day. I think I may have scored one
or two penalty points in those complete two years. But
(13:20):
really that was something I'm actually very proud to be
part of. To help somebody, you know, achieve their goals
and be tremendously successful in the sport.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That's incredible. That's incredible. Wow, that is really that's really cool.
So obviously, you know, as you downplay, you're pretty good
at that. You're you're you're you're good, You're a good wrestler.
Let's just let's just do that. You're really good, You're.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Really good enough to give him a splat. Let's put
it out.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, that's that's that's fair enough. So all right, so
now I'm going to go back to my other question.
My last question is okay, so now you're done with that,
So what's next?
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Yeah, so what's next? Though, while I was you know,
doing that, I ended up, you know, was educating myself.
So I got a master's degree in engineering, era and
aerospace space operations. I wanted to actually become an astronaut,
and I asked the Army to, you know, can I
go down to Houston to be part of manned spaceflight
(14:14):
and they denied that. At the same time, you know,
my life is progressing. I met the love of my life,
my wife Julia, and we ended up getting married, and so,
you know, I wasn't necessarily getting what I wanted from
the army from a career management standpoint, and decided to
(14:34):
get out and started working in the civilian world. My
first first role was with Alcoa in Greenville, South Carolina,
and really had to transition, you know, from military mindset
to civilian mindset. And that's for me, it was, you know,
(14:55):
a significant transition to do that and start to learn
to be you know, business oriented, process oriented. Some things
do translate well from the military, just a level of
discipline and hard work, and from at least an army
training standpoint, right, a lot of planning and being able
to see into the future and make good decisions. Right,
(15:17):
that's in armies a lot about doing that. And so
I did have some good skills that translated, but a
lot of skills I had to develop. A lot of
that came down to learn how to use computers properly
and process information and all those kinds of things. So
I spent a fair amount of my time in just
large scale manufacturing, going from one company to another and
(15:42):
really just turning into a global I ended up working
for tea connectivity for almost ten years and spent a
lot of that traveling around the world, living around the world.
So I've had the opportunity to work and live in
Germany and work and live in China for a couple
of years and really have a chance to you know,
(16:05):
just see the entire world and bring my family with that,
and it's very exciting and rewarding, albeit challenging opportunities along
the way.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Wow, that's incredible. That's incredible. Okay, So we're going to
go to a break and then we come back. Then
we're going to get you from that transition to to
the world of golf and this is and then and
then Yeah, because I know that and I obviously can
sense your passion, and I think anybody could send your passion.
But so I really want to kind of get into
(16:37):
that and we're going to see what see where that
takes us. Okay, great, thank you, all right, Great, this
is the rich Comwall Golf Show. Welcome back to rich
Conwall Golf Show. We're spending time with Mett Marciniac today.
Met is a very very very impressive career and impressive
lineage and growing, I mean, going through college in the
(16:59):
United States Military care out of me and in his
service in the military. And when we left off, we
had transitioned into some major manufacturing positions in all over
the world, all over the world. And so then Matt,
I got to ask you, how do we get to
how do we get to the golf business from here?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah? How do we get there? So in my you know,
civilian career, right, it was important for me to you know,
get better educated on business. Then you mentioned, you know,
going to Duke University and get a business degree. While
I was doing that and actually just finishing it up,
my good friend and business partner now Patrick Ceeter, was
(17:43):
living in Raleigh, and you know, being an efficient guy,
I thought, I, you know, spend the night there, save
myself some hotel fees, and we would reminisce about, you know,
what we used to do with kids in the past
when growing up together. You know, we would you know,
go out to Soaring Eagles golf Club in Almira and
play for five dollars, you know, after five pm and
(18:04):
try to get eighteen holes in, which you can do
in upstate New York to like you know, you late
in June, you can kind of make those kind of
things happen, which we did, and again we just had
a long history of being friends. Patrick, however, took a
very different career path than me. He stayed he went
and studied in the golf industry through the PGM program
(18:28):
and became a head golf professional, uh tied into you know,
private golf and country clubs, and and really had an
opportunity to gain and experience and and hone his career
in that. What happened simply is, you know, I'm staying
in his house and I'm I'm kind of looking at
my life. You know, I'm running around the world and
(18:49):
been in various you know, dirty manufacturing environments, traveling in
in planes, you know, from China and back in the week,
and I'm like welling at his life and saying, you know,
you're on a golf course and getting you know, you
have a you know, I remember looking at him. He's
got these you know, suntan lines with sun from the sunglasses,
(19:10):
and I'm like, you know, that's a very different lifestyle.
I'm really kind of curious, you know, what is it
like and and you know, what does it mean to
be a golf pro? And so we just started having
discussions around what that was, and I was, you know,
kind of interested in realizing, hey, it's you know, yeah,
it's not necessarily a glamorous lifestyle. It's really something about
(19:33):
providing service to the club members. And then I started
getting really curious as to, you know, how do you
do all that because you have to remember a tremendous
amount of information about individuals, and that was, you know,
a skill set that you know, I really didn't have.
I was much more into kind a lean manufacturing and
process orientation and so on. So when he really started
(19:56):
describing me what he's doing, and he pulls out at
like a hand notebook where he's writing all these notes,
is to you know, had this interaction with this person
and they wanted to you know, get some you know,
new shirt or new club or whatever. And I'm like, well,
what happens if you lose your notebook? You know, what
does that turn into an experience for you know, your
club member and things like that, where you know, I'm
(20:18):
looking at it from a high quality, high process approach,
and I'm looking at what he's doing and saying, wow,
there's really an opportunity here to improve the quality of
your process. And so we started collaborating honestly on a
kind of a CRM system or private golf and country clubs,
(20:40):
and we piloted it really were at his club where
he was working at the club at the time was
Hazan Try and developed kind of this access database interface
around special orders and demo golf clubs and a really detailed,
cliant profile to the point where you know, he really
(21:04):
improved his golf shop sales and improved his service levels
and was you know, making you know, real gains with that. So,
you know, I having just completed business school, I figured, well,
you know, I got this business to grammar as well
start a business. So started a business with my budding
Patrick around this software solution I think we called it
(21:27):
GEMS Golf Experience Management Solutions at the time, and started
you know, trying to get that to be an online service.
And we did that and started selling it to clubs,
and you know, Patrick was really the salesman or all
for all of that, and that was just the back
end management and organizer and sometimes developer for that stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Wow, that's okay. So obviously, as we could probably tell,
when you dive into something, you go all the way in.
We're just don't dip our tone the pool. We're going
to go all the way into the pool. So you
went from very large manufacturing to the private club world,
which is obviously a serious paradigm shift. So so that
(22:13):
so that was pretty successful for you. So then you
just kept growing that that.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, we grew that. I mean, I wouldn't say it
was you know, turned into anything nothing like you see
out of Silicon Valley or anything like that, you know,
but you know, relative we had a modern level success.
The thing that I realized we were kind of in
over our heads is we started, you know, gaining clubs
(22:40):
with some very high profile club members and recognizing that
you know, information management and information call it privacy and
secrecy and security was all very important. We were starting
to maybe take risks that were not appropriate. And fortunately,
(23:01):
I would say, we were approached by golf Genius Software
to purchase our software, and we made arrangements to make
that happen and from there, you know, it's kind of
At the same time, we had an opportunity to buy
this brand, Golf Business Network, and we chose to do
that as well. So we transitioned out of software and
(23:22):
then started moving into pull just couscultative services in the
golf industry. And in the meantime, I'm still kind of
traveling all around the world. I'm not full of time
with Golf Business Network yet. That takes a couple more
years to get there, because we started the software business
in two thousand and nine and acquired Golf Business Network
(23:42):
around twenty fourteen, So now we're and sold I think
the software around twenty twenty twelve. I think going from
memory here.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
So okay, so all right, so now you kind of
know you're bopping around the world, but in reality you're
kind of you're starting to focus solely on the Golf
Business Network. So tell me what the mission of the
Golf Business Network is.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, you know, that's that's an interesting thing. It's it's
something that has evolved over time, and you know where
we're where we're really at now is you know, our
mission is to really continually improve the business performance and
acumen of our members. That's really what we're trying to do.
Our target market is the private golf and country club
(24:31):
golf professionals that are running the golf operations, and that's
what we focus on. We believe that there's a consisten
set of problems to solve in that market, and we
continually offer education. We offer events from a you know,
a facilitate networking and improving of your golf game, as
well as job services through our job board and retain
(24:55):
search services.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
So I got to ask, you can just kind of
tell what the answers the question is going to be.
But you enjoy this, correct.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I do. Yeah. It's a complete shift from you know,
kind of where I spent a good fifteen years of
my life and call it a large scale, high volume manufacturing.
But to apply a lot of what is really good
about lean manufacturing and process into the service world is
(25:30):
a challenge. But also I see rewards in it and
seeing that there are ways to make improvements from what
I consider kind of a best effort. And people do
this every day. They come into work. They give it.
They're all and they mean, they mean well, and they
you know, they want to provide and do the best
(25:51):
job that they can. But if you don't have a
foundation of process and standards, you have nothing to build
off of and you end up having a very variable
experience for the end customer, which in many cases is
the club member. So we want to create a consistent,
high valued experience, and we help try to teach that
(26:16):
through you know what we offer a GBN.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
So kind of like eliminate the hit and miss.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Just yeah, it's it's you know, we all interact with
people and sometimes we're we're you know, we're excited and
really appreciative of how a service person can anticipate your needs.
But also you know, in the service world, you've had
bad service and you know why is that right? And
(26:42):
what we're trying to do is to you know, make
as few you know, errors as possible in that service
route such that you know you're getting a great experience
every time.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
That's really neat. That's really neat because because okay, so
obviously you know the service indust tree and and I'm
a I'm a PGA professional and we're all about growing
the game and and and so I know that the
Golf Business Network is as well. So so tell me
a couple of the things that you're that you're doing. Obviously,
you're growing the profession by by helping us helping golf professionals,
(27:16):
helping your members become better at what their day to
day tasks are, let's put it that way. But but
how you how you how do you see your operation
coupled with let's say my operation or your members operations
to grow the game.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, that's well to a certain degree, I almost look
at it a little bit different, you know, just something
I'm always trying to look out into the future and
see and anticipate what's going to happen. From my perspective,
golf is in a great spot right now, you know,
well it a number of rounds played is really higher
(27:59):
than ever in the US. And from my standpoint, it's
let's not get complacent, guys. Let's let's be village, you know,
vigilant associated with Hey, we're in a good place right now.
How do we keep and maintain that moving into the future.
And you know, my experience with businesses, you know, good
(28:22):
profits can hide bad inefficiencies, and that's you know, always
the concern is, hey, when things are good, what are
we doing to stay on top? And that's really what
I think we're trying to facilitate at this point in
time with Golf Business Network and our membership to making
sure that they're going to stay on top of the
game in case conditions change or really you know, want
(28:45):
to make sure that they're taking a hard look at
some efficiency metrics at this point in time, you know,
looking at you know, what is the members spend to
call it service units ratios? Right, what are they doing there?
Are they really offering more value to the member or
is it that they're just charging more for the same
level of service? Right? And that's not necessarily wrong when
(29:09):
you're in a situation where capacity is you know, hasn't
grown and demand is increased. Right, that's simple economics where
the prices go up in that situation. Right, But you
really want to be aware of, hey, are we adding
more value to what we're offering? And if you're not,
you're probably not innovating and being prepared for the future.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, so you have to be ready to You have
to give them a reason, give them a reason to
come in, you have reason to show up, give them
reason to play nine more holes, give them a reason
to enjoy what?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Right? And that's there's others, you know, there's others that
are offering that whether it's golf or not golf, Right,
there's you know a lot of things people can choose
for their entertainment. I think golf is a great option
and probably one of the best options out there for
health for all sorts of reasons. Right, you know, golf
is a great means to meeting people, creating relationships and
(30:03):
and staying healthy.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Right right, But but but to your point though that
there's everybody has a has a couple of choices. I mean,
you know, we've seen it. I've seen it with like,
for example, pickleball. A lot of people just want to
play pickleball. And that's perfectly fine, it's great, it's wonderful.
But everybody golf grew Africa with COVID because it was
the thing, it was the thing to do. But I
(30:27):
I cautioned, I cautioned a lot of people all the time,
like one day that is gonna it could it could
go away. You know, you've got to You've got to
be you have to capture and retain, you know, not
just just not sit there and say, well, you know
what we're us. You know, why wouldn't you come here?
(30:48):
You know, why wouldn't why wouldn't you come here? You
know it's it's like, you know, it's it's almost almost
to the point where when you start thinking about it,
like like like college is like college is like they
always got to get better. They got to get to
get you know this, this degree has to be more
diligent and more efficient and more and more impressive, because
(31:10):
if it's not, then you're taking away reasons to attend
your school. You know, I'm taking away reasons for you
to to come to my facility because I'm not capturing you.
I'm just kind of being complacent. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
Oh? I agree completely? And and what you know again,
I recommend or when I consult with anybody, it's you know,
are you? Are you? How do you turn that from
a discussion and qualitative feeling right into something quantitative? Right?
That's the that's the hard thing to do, and it's
(31:48):
going to be different for really every club. That's where
you know, creativity as a manager and leader in your
business is going to come from. Is how are you
able to identify that and objectify it such as it
becomes a problem that you can provide solutions to, right,
And And that's that's always the challenge of any leader
manager in a business is showing people, hey, here's here's
(32:12):
where the issue is and and then able to you know,
garner the resources through whether that's you know, your own
leadership attributes, right? Why people follow you and things like
that to hey, I just got to procure more time
and money to solve this problem. Those are the things
that I think the golf professional can do in their
(32:34):
operations to really be a key resource for the club.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
That's yeah, that's that. I'm going to listen to that
several times because that's exactly what what what we all
need to be doing. Okay, So when we come back
from this break, I want to talk a little bit
about or a lot about some of the programs that
I know that you're involved in, and and we'll see
how how this is all playing out. But I'm really
(33:03):
interested for this next segment. But I've been interested in
all of it, but really interested in the next segment
because we're going to talk about a couple of programs
I know are close to you and I want to
talk about those. And so when we get back, we'll
do that. And this is the rich Comwell Golf Show.
Welcome back to the rich Comwoll Golf Show. We are
speaking with Mett Marciniac, the president, co founder all sorts
(33:27):
of nifty titles. But the fact that this is the
Golf Business Network and Matt's mission with the Golf Business
Network is to actually just increase service and increase interaction
and increase satisfaction members at private clubs and things like that,
and around around that. You know that we could we
(33:51):
could talk all day about the brass tacks of you know,
what time we open the golf shop and how we're
taken care of the ladies and all this stuff. But
there's some really really really neat program m is that
that GBN is involved in, and and so am I.
But the first one I want to talk about, Matt,
I probably get you to talk about this for three days.
But the whole program, the PJ of America Hope Program. Yeah,
(34:16):
I think I got to tell you. I've done two
sessions with the whole program at my facility, and I
would tell you that I don't care what kind of
day you're having, if you get to be involved in
a whole program, even for an hour, it makes your dale.
It just turns it all the way around. It's just
(34:38):
an incredible honor that we get to do that. And
I know that you're that you're involved in it with
with Golf Business Network, but so so kind of tell
me your view of the whole program.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Well, just to make everybody aware. Right. PGA Hope is
a branch of the philanthropic arm of the PGA reach
UH organization. Right, it's affiliated with the PJ organization, and
so PG Hope is one of four call it strategic
thrusts that PJ reach has, Hope standing for help our
(35:15):
patriots everywhere. And obviously having my military background, we're also
very fortunate to have Bob Ford. Bob Ford may not know,
but you professional olk modern seminole and you know a
great career in golf right as as a as a
(35:36):
professional just somebody who's you know, we we value very
much his support with GVN and you know we partnered
this year. We we at GVN have the Bob Ford
Pro Pro actually just had that in September, and the
(35:56):
tournament has grown, and you know, we've sat early in
the year from kind of a strategy planning session to say, hey,
we need to add, uh, you know, a way to
get back and obviously, you know, PGA Hope was an
obvious choice for us to do, and we've you know,
just really started our journey of being a good supporter
(36:19):
of PG Hope from a fundraising standpoint, obviously, the program
itself and what it does for veterans, in my mind,
speaks for itself, and we can we can probably have
better people talk about that than I can. But obviously
what we're trying to do is to gain awareness for
our military veterans that you know that have been in
(36:41):
combat downrange, have suffered you know, physical disabilities and survived
and mental disabilities and are coping with that, and golf
is a great way to you know, re engage with
the world. For many of them, it's it's a challenge,
and you know, we want to make this something that
(37:02):
you know, anybody, anybody can do, you know, coming out
of the military and take advantage of these programs. So
you know, they do need support, and they need support
of the PGA professionals who can be educated and trained
to you know, help somebody learn how to slay a
golf club that you know may have lost an arm
or or some other function in their body, or just
(37:24):
you know, the peace of mind of going out on
the golf course on your own and just hitting shots
and call it the mental rehabilitation. Something like that can
do for somebody is very rewarding.
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, that's because you know, as a pg professional, you know,
I dove into you know, I was trained and I
started started the whole program at Wheeling Country Club. So
we had I had as I said, I had two sessions,
and I could see twenty four twenty four veterans over
(37:58):
two sessions. And obviously you go for for six weeks
and and it is absolutely just you don't realize how
much that game helps those folks. You really don't, and
and you and and you kind of it kind of
puts everything in perspective, and honestly, it just does. You know.
It's it's like, hey, you know what, the they need
(38:21):
this game so much and this game is so good
for those folks that it's just like awesome to be
around them. And and and they have this they have
a different you know you talked about you know, now
you play golf and it's different than wrestling because it's
less combative, but it's more mental. It's amazing to me
(38:41):
the mental strength of the people that were in my
Hope program, absolutely amazing. The mental strength. I mean, it
has nothing to I mean, obviously some can some pretty
good players, some aren't real good players, and some are
very very very beginners, and some of them have to
overcome physical and and and emotional and mental obstacles. But
(39:01):
the fact of the matter is their strength is overwhelming.
I mean, they show up, they're happy to be there,
they're grateful, and they're just it's just they just want
to be involved.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
And it's just absolutely and like you said, it's a
it's a very it's it's humbling, it's rewarding, it's purposeful,
you know, all these things that you know, we strive
to be, you know, helps helps bring it all and
you know, that's that's just just a strategic thrust for
Patrick myself in golf business network. Right, We're we're both
(39:38):
very fortunate people and we want to make sure that
you know, we spend the time and help help those
that you know, they have not had the same set
of cards dealt to them in life that we've had
and but really have that opportunity to enjoy the game
like we do.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, that's that's that's that's the best way. Yeah, just
kind of like you're right, dealt a little different hand,
but we can all kind of get there in the end.
It was Yeah, So all right, so talk to me
about a little bit more of the what you foresee
the future of Golf Business Network, Like, like, what do
(40:17):
you what are your plans for growth? I mean, obviously
you're going to get trying to get more members and
I understand all that, but talk to me about like
what you see is the next thing in the golf
business if and I don't want to give away trade
secrets at all, I'm not asking for any of that.
I'm just asking you to kind of kind of look
down the road.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
No, I mean from a it's a it's a it's
a pretty simple approach. I believe, like you mentioned, you know,
being here today, right is me trying to communicate the
value proposition of GVN and getting out to you know,
to more PJ professionals, more you know, vendors in the
market that are trying to access this this private golfing
(40:58):
country club market for their products and services. Right. That's
you know, it's really important for us as GBN to
be to vet some of these new ideas and services
and products and and then you know they passed kind
of the vetting process, start really introducing it to the
head professionals. That's a real value that I think we
(41:18):
create to the professional because obviously they're getting bombarded with
all sorts of choices and if we can help in
that decision making process, making that more efficient and being
a trusted partner with them. I think that's that's obviously
a value we still have. I think lots of opportunity
with the GVN. I think we do a fair amount
(41:42):
of call it, you know, the membership model, We know
what that is. We want to grow that. We have
our consultative model with the job services that we offer. Again,
we can expand that just kind of organically and basically
do more transactions. But you know, we're we want to
go from a business standpoint, and we have a tremendous
(42:04):
amount of access to all sorts of clubs across the country,
you know, but we're expanding our online education. So we
just recently launched the Golf Business Golf Business Network University
Education Platform, which is an online at scale platform for
people to need to educate themselves and maintain their PGA
(42:26):
credentials as cycle seventeens that's coming up in June next year,
so that the procrastinators might need to get a couple
of credits in.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
So that was that a shot? Was that a shot
at me? Did you see did you see the email.
Did you see the email I got from the PGA
of America that tells me I'm behind it? Was that
what the whole thing's event about? Has it even waited
like forty six minutes to hit me with that one?
I love that.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
They Let's just say, I look at human behavior and
you know there are procrastinators out there, so you know,
understand that that's an opportunity.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
I like that. I understand that.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Uh, you know, kind of coming back to where we're going,
there's a lot more we can do. Uh. You know,
just in the golf space, we mentioned PJ. Hope, and
that's a that's an effort on the call it, you know,
the giving backside and and helping others. But from a
business standpoint, you know, we're we're working to go into
(43:20):
a little bit more of the event and corporate event
you know, set up and and bringing in resources because
again with my access to UH kind of military leadership,
one of our advisors retired Colonel Spencer Kulot, who has
a great career in UH in the military. He's a
(43:42):
prior West Point grad. He's a night Stalker member that
unit N Stalker. People might not know, but those those
are the aviation assets that bring all the special forces
you know, in and out of the hot zones, and
you know, they go anywhere that they're asked. And so
(44:04):
he's got a great storied career UH in the military
and has himself They've got a PhD in leadership from
UH from his education background, and has also been the
lead economic advisor and advisor excuse me, but the head
(44:25):
of the economic department at West Point now as well.
So he's just somebody that we're happy to have as
part of the organization and help bring, you know, leadership
principles UH to through the corporate world because I you know,
I've seen it where it's a lot different being a
caretaker of the livelihoods versus being a caretaker of lives.
(44:49):
And I think, you know, take understanding the leadership qualities
to take care of lives and translating that into call
it the civilian sector is a good thing. And that's
kind of a mindset that that I try to take
into everything is you know, how do I take care
of things? And I know it's a lively lad it's
(45:09):
maybe just a golf game, but you know, at times, right,
you know, the the qualities and capabilities and the leadership
principles associated with leading people in in tough environments is
a good standard to try to meet.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Did you well, let me ask let me go backwards
then to Watkins, Glenn. Did you always want to be
a leader?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
No? And I would say I would rate myself maybe
uh B the C plus from a leadership standpoint. Having
met the people I've met, that's really kind of like
I realized in certain domains, you know, I might be
in a in certain domains and other domains I'm not.
(45:57):
But that's the advantage of of seeing some really excellent
people and then just knowing what it takes for them to,
you know, to be who they are and to be
that leader they are. You'll, you know, you recognize these
people in your life every day. You're just amazed by them. Yeah,
And when I compare myself to that, you know, I
just got to be honest, and they're they're better at
(46:18):
it than I am. And that's why I try to
associate with them, just to maybe I can get pulled
along a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Maybe maybe some of them maybe something that falls on
to you, you know, just maybe maybe just maybe they're
their table scraps are going to help.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
You exactly right, if I can just learn a little bit.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
Yeah, it's helped me out a lot. You know. It's
funny you say that, because I've been fortunate enough to
like you meet you know, obviously, I'm in the same
sections as Bob Ford, and so I've known them for
a long time. And and and I've known I've been
able to meet some interesting people that have done some
interesting things, kind of like you have, not to that extent,
but like I was speaking with Jack Ham, the guy
(46:54):
who won four Super Bowls of the Steelers, the other day,
and he came to one of our events and I
was talking to him a little bit, and he was like,
you know, he goes, it's amazing to me because he's
in the Hall of Fame. And I'm like, you, unbelievably
good football player. He goes, you know, he goes, it's funny.
He goes, the better the players around me were, the
better I was. He goes, They look, they look at me,
(47:15):
and they go, well, you're really good. So we're gonna
try and be really good. And I look at them
and go, no, you're really good. I'm just gonna try
and hang with you, you know. And it was just
like a different mindset, just like you're saying, you know, yeah, okay,
I'm I'm probably not as good as as Billy over there,
as this as I, but maybe maybe if I hang
out with him a little bit, you know, maybe I
(47:36):
can start to grow towards that. And and it was
just and it's it's a it's a decent amount of
humility it takes to do that. But the other thing
is it's pretty intelligent to do that, you know. Is
it's always okay to be the least knowledgeable guy in
the conversation as long as you're trying to grow your knowledge.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Yeah, Well, for me, it sends all the way back
to just the rest. Who are the wrestlers in the room.
You get in a good room, don't make you better?
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, exactly exactly. It's funny. One of the things I
did want to mention, because we're talking about hope real quickly,
and was when I had my when I had the one,
my one session, the first session we had there is
a retired general from Wheeling. His name, his name is
Austin ren ren Forth. Excuse me, I always messed that up,
(48:26):
and he he actually came. He lives in Arizona now,
but he was in Wheeling for something and with the
Chamber of Commerce or something. He came up and talked
to those guys and like he he walked in the
room and this is the guy who's in charge of
all the Marines in Iraq. At one point he walked
in a room and and you know he said to
all of me, is that thank you say, thanks for
coming out here today, thanks for doing what you did.
(48:48):
And I went, WHOA, Like that's that's a guy who's
in charge. But at the same time, he understands where
all the energy is coming from. You know, it's coming
from coming from the.
Speaker 2 (48:59):
Guy very humble people. Yeah, so it's amazing to see it.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
So all right, Matt, Well, I got to tell you something.
I told you this would fly by in a hat. See,
so you're down to your last few seconds with me,
but I just wanted to tell you. I can't tell
you how much I appreciate you spending time with me.
I will, obviously, I'll stay in touch. I'll get back
in touch with you January and February and we'll kind
of catch up and see how everything's going.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
And I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
I just wanted to say thanks. It was really kind
of thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, I excited to be able
to do things like this. It puts me out of
my comfort zone for more, to be kind of behind
the scenes on most things. So interesting for me to
get a chance to do it.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
So thank you, thank you, And like I said, we'll
be in touch and and you know, we'll get an
update probably January February next year.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Okay, awesome, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Thank you. This is the Rich Como Golf Show.
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