Mississippi to Mug: A Riverboat Pilot's Unexpected Path with Chris Nance

#156 - Chris Nance's life reads like an adventure novel where dropping out of school at 13 somehow leads to piloting massive ships down the Mississippi River and co-founding a successful coffee company. Growing up just south of New Orleans in a family of riverboat pilots and commercial fishermen, Chris's education took an unexpected turn after Hurricane Katrina when his mother discontinued homeschooling. Shortly after, his father was imprisoned for tax evasion, pushing Chris into the challenging world of commercial fishing before he could even drive.

The heart of Chris's early journey involves "koonin oysters" – a grueling harvesting method where he crawled through deep mud on hands and knees, using specialized tools to collect oysters from tidal flats. By day's end, he'd be pushing 1,500 pounds of oysters through mud. This backbreaking work built the foundation of grit and determination that would define his future success.

What makes Chris's story truly remarkable is his educational trajectory. Despite having only a GED and significant insecurities about his academic abilities, Chris was encouraged by mentors to pursue higher education. In a decisive moment aboard a tugboat, a captain convinced him he could succeed at Texas A&M Maritime Academy. Within days, Chris had relocated to Galveston and begun classes, ultimately completing his degree in just three years while taking up to 31 credit hours per semester.

Today, Chris navigates massive international vessels along the treacherous Mississippi River as a riverboat pilot and has co-founded Backbone Coffee Company with fellow outdoorsmen. The specialty coffee company roasts to order and aims to honor hardworking Americans building the country. For Chris, adventure must be both difficult and unknown – a philosophy that has guided his extraordinary journey from the muddy oyster beds to the helm of international shipping.

Ready to try premium coffee from someone who understands hard work? Visit backbonecoffee.com and use code JOURNEYWITHJAKE for 15% off your order.

Want to be a guest on Journey with Jake? Send me a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/journeywithjake

Visit LandPirate.com to get your gear that has you, the adventurer, in mind.  Use the code "Journey with Jake" to get an additional 15% off at check out.

Visit geneticinsights.co and use the code "DISCOVER25" to enjoy a sweet 25% off your first purchase.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What if the twists and turns in life led you from
dropping out of school topiloting massive riverboats on
the Mississippi and then toowning a coffee company?
Chris Nance's journey isanything but ordinary.
From navigating powerfulcurrents to mastering the art of
cooning oysters, his story isfilled with hard work, adventure
and unexpected opportunities.

(00:20):
Get ready to dive into theincredible journey of Chris
Nance.
Welcome to Journey with Jake.
This is a podcast aboutadventure and how, through our
adventures, we can overcome thechallenges of life that come our
way.
While I expect you will learnsome things about different
adventures, this show willentertain you.
Each episode will feature adifferent guest or guests, as
they share experiences andstories from the different

(00:43):
adventures they have been on.
Not only will you beentertained, but you will also
hear the failures and trialseach guest faces and what they
have done or are doing toovercome the hardships that come
their way.
My goal is to take each of uson a journey through the
experiences of my guests, withthe hope that you'll be
entertained and inspired toovercome your day-to-day

(01:03):
challenges.
After all, it's not all aboutthe destination, as it is about
the journey.
Hello everyone, and welcomeback to the show.

(01:24):
I'm Jake Bushman, your host ofJourney with Jake and I'm so
glad you're here.
I'm especially excited for youto hear my conversation with
Chris Nance.
It's a story of resilience,hard work and unexpected twists.
Before we dive in, just acouple of quick things.
First, if you haven't already,be sure to subscribe to the show
wherever you listen to podcasts, so you never miss an episode

(01:46):
of Journey with Jake.
Second, if you'd like toconnect with me and see clips
from past, current and upcomingepisodes, follow me on Instagram
at Journey with Jake podcast.
It's also a great way to get toknow me on a more personal
level.
And finally, Journey with Jakeis proud to be part of the
Podmatch podcast network.
If you're looking forincredible shows on just about
any topic, check out podmatchcomforward slash network.

(02:08):
You'll find a fantasticdirectory of podcasts across all
kinds of categories.
Now back to my guest, ChrisNance.
His journey is nothing short ofremarkable.
From dropping out of school todealing with his father's
incarceration, Chris had tofight for everything he's
achieved Today.
He's a successful riverboatpilot and part owner of Backbone

(02:30):
Coffee.
For those of you watching onYouTube, I want to acknowledge
that the video quality for Chrisin the first half isn't great.
We both noticed it, but let'sjust say my tech skills weren't
quite up to speed at the moment.
Luckily, it does improve in thesecond half, so I appreciate
your patience.
All right, let's jump into myconversation with Chris Nance.
I'm excited.
Today I have Chris Nance.

(02:50):
You go by Chris or Christopher.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
I go by, chris yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Chris, all right Perfect.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
A lot of people call me Nance.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, okay, all right .
A lot of people go by the lastname.
They say hey Nance, hey Nance,what's going on, nance?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
I don't know why, I guess I don't know.
Even when I was a kid, theycalled me Nancy for years.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
You had the nickname Nancy.
All right, perfect, chris.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I just embraced it and it stuck.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Yeah, that's funny, I love that.
Well, hey, welcome to Journeywith Jake.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Yeah, man, thanks for having me on, I'm excited.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Me too, I'm excited.
Me too, I'm excited to talk toyou.
I was reading your profileabout who you are and what
you're all about and I wasstruck because I'm like all
right, I've never had ariverboat pilot on the podcast,
so I'm excited to talk to youabout that.
You mentioned something aboutKoonin oysters.
I have no idea what that evenmeans, so we're going to talk
about that a little bit.

(03:41):
Before we dive into all that,if you don't mind, chris, give
me a little background on whoyou are, where you're from, just
so we have a little backgroundon who Chris is.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, so I grew up just a little south of New
Orleans, homeschooled.
My dad was a riverboat pilot,my granddad was a riverboat
pilot, my dad was a commercialfisherman before he drove ships
and so was my granddad.
So I guess I followed in thosefootsteps as my dad and my
granddad and mom stay at home.

(04:12):
Mom, she's a really wild human,very abnormal, homeschooled
like five kids in a time thathomeschooling was not the thing,
although I feel likehomeschooling is kind of coming
back around.
Yeah, dropped out ofhomeschooling quote, unquote
after Katrina I think I was like13.

(04:33):
My mom was just overwhelmed,just stopped school altogether.
After that, dad went to prisonfor tax evasion, oddly enough.
Yeah, and so that's actuallyhow I ended up working in the
oyster fields.
Mom was overwhelmed, dad was inprison and I wasn't going to
school, so I just went on a boat, did that for a couple of years

(04:56):
, then started driving tugboatsor working on tugboats.
Wanted to follow my dad'sfootsteps on ships, and that led
me to go to Texas A&M Maritime.
I got a degree in maritimetransportation.
Finished that came back, was atugboat captain for a couple of

(05:16):
years, got into the pilots,which is kind of a miracle.
It's extremely hard to get intothe pilot association and I got
really lucky, got into thepilots.
I've been driving ships forabout five years now, yeah.
Other than that, what I didgrowing up was driving boats,
working on oyster fishing boatsand shrimp boats, and I hunted

(05:37):
and fished a lot, and in thepast couple of years I just
spear fish a bunch and I huntelk.
And now I got three kids andI'm married, so that takes up a
bunch of my time too.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Wow, okay, how old are your kids?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
I got a three-year-old, a one-year-old
and a three-month-old.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, two of my kids are like 11 months apart.
So, irish twins, yeah, irishtwins, you got your hands full.
Oh yeah, yeah, chris, okay,wild stuff from you first of all
.
So you said one of five kids,is that right?

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, I'm the fourth in line of five.
I got one little brother.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Okay, you're the fourth in line of five.
Katrina happened.
You said your mom gotoverwhelmed and just kind of,
was it mostly?
Was it her stop in teaching orwas it you deciding I don't want
to do this anymore?
Kind of what was the how was it?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
it was.
No, it was really like my mom.
My mom had difficultdifficulties with school in our
area growing up because my, myolder brother, my sister, went
to school when we were growing,when they were young.
The school systems around uswere pretty bad and she just had
so many problems with theschool system that she decided

(06:52):
to homeschool.
And my dad, you know, didpretty well driving ships.
So she's like I don't need towork, you know if I'm going to
take care of these kids.
She said she wanted good,hardworking kids and she was
like I'm not, I feel like theeducation will come after and
and honestly, she was prettycorrect.

(07:14):
We still did schoolwork growingup but it wasn't the main focus.
Like kind of work and yeah,just being, you know, good moral
people was more of a focus formy mom than necessarily
schooling.
And when Katrina hit it waskind of weird because Katrina
hit and our house was fine it'sthe only hurricane my family's

(07:35):
ever evacuated for and we aresouth of New Orleans but
everything else around the citykind of went south.
As most people know, katrinawas pretty bad and my dad after
Katrina, my dad was responsible,my dad and my now association
we were responsible for all theship movements on the

(07:57):
Mississippi River from NewOrleans to Baton Rouge.
I mean, he just worked formonths straight and she had five
kids.
She was living in Birmingham orwe were living in Birmingham
with my grandma and I don't know.
I guess just all of it was alittle overwhelming and she was
just like school's on you and atthat time I was really young.

(08:21):
It was a strange thing for herto do.
It worked out.
She did exactly what she neededto do.
I think my siblings are awesome.
They're all very productivefamily people, very hardworking.
Yeah, so it worked out.
Four of the five of us all havecollege degrees.
So I mean she was kind ofcorrect.

(08:42):
The schooling kind of came.
None of us can spell worth adamn, but other than that I mean
we're doing all right.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, no for sure.
The fact that you said you gota degree, the other thing that
happened to you when you wereyoung.
You said your dad went toprison for tax evasion.
How long was he in prison?
How long was he in prison?
How did that affect you?

Speaker 2 (09:04):
You know it's funny, out of all of my siblings, I I
kind of thought it was funny.
I was just like you know it'slife, I we just took it on the
chin Like my little brother.
It affected him, you know.
He was, you know, three yearsyounger than me.
It definitely affected hispersonality a little more.
It put a lot of stress on myoldest brother, cause I mean, he
more or less had to step in andtake more of the weight.

(09:29):
But my older brother didn'tlive with us.
My older brother and my sister,they were gone.
So it was me, one of my olderbrothers, the one right before
me, and my little brother.
This was a couple of years afterKatrina, but me and my older
brother, matt by the time my dadwas in prison, all of us had
left.

(09:49):
I was 15 or 14.
My older brother, matt, was 16,17.
My sister and my brother hadbeen gone for years.
So really the only one thatstayed in the house was my
little brother.
But I mean, I was a 15 year oldand I spent in three-year
period.
I spent over 800 days three orfour-year period.
I spent over 800 days on ashrimp boat.

(10:09):
I mean I kind of lived on theshrimp boat.
But yeah, so he went to taxevasion or he went to prison for
tax evasion, because I guess hethought it's kind of a funny
story, but not really.
Yeah, he didn't pay taxes for15 years.
My position as a riverboatpilot we're kind of under a
microscope politically inLouisiana and when my dad went

(10:34):
whenever I don't know thedetails of exactly how it
happened, but essentially thejudge that trialed his case made
an example of him.
So she threw the book at him, Ithink primarily to deter any
other riverboat pilot from doingit again.
It worked.
It worked I mean all mybusiness partners, although some

(10:57):
of them may or may not have taxissues.
Nobody's gone to prison sincethen, so that's good.
But yeah, so they threw thebook at him and they gave him
two years for tax evasion.
Yeah, and it was kind of funny,the same month that he went to
prison for a fraction of the taxbill, the guy Blade, the actor

(11:18):
that played Blade I don't knowif you've ever seen that movie.
It's not Wesley Snipes, is it?
I don't remember.
I just remember that he owedlike 40 million and he got four
months in the same two-monthperiod.
So we were like I know my daddidn't know 40 million, so it
was just the judge just threwthe book at him and he was gone
for two years and we had a blast.

(11:39):
We'd go visit my dad in prisonand go back to you know, go back
to work in in new orleans.
We didn't.
I didn't mind it, most of usdidn't mind it, my little
brother minded it, mom didn'tlike it yeah, I'm sure your mom,
I'm sure your mom didn'tappreciate it.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Oh, wow, wow.
What a, what a crazy childhood,the fact that you, at 15, are
going off on these oyster boats.
For you know, I mean, I have a15 year old daughter.
You know it's like she's notgoing anywhere, she's still at
home every night.
You know it's just it'sdifferent.
You know the way you wereraised and stuff is just
different.
Your mom raised you to be ahardworking, productive citizens

(12:18):
.
Yeah, that's what you weredoing.
So on the oyster boat Kuna.
Yeah, so on the oyster boatkuna.
Yeah, what is kuna and oyster?
Because I saw you know that'swhat it says.
You said you were kuna andoysters before you could drive.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
What the heck does that mean literally?
I'll just tell the like thewhole commercial thing.
So you know, I was prettyindependent, but my mom didn't.
Just, you know, let me go livewith random people.
My dad went to, you know,summer camp I forget what he
called it camp fed.
He went to a federal prison sohe went to summer camp.
I forget what he called it,camp Fed, he went to a federal

(12:53):
prison.
So he went to Camp Fed.
Right after he left, my dad'shigh school buddies, who he grew
up with and we hunted with andfished with, saw that we needed
somebody to take us do stuff.
And so I mean it was one or twomonths after he had left they
took me to go goose hunting atthe at the mouth of the
Mississippi river.
I had a blast and I guess Ijust saw that I worked really

(13:14):
hard.
Goose hunting in Venice can bephysically demanding, you know,
and I guess they just saw that II I worked hard.
At the end of the hunt it wastwo or three days at the end of
the hunt they're like hey, Iknow you're not in school, do
you want to come work on aleisure boat?
And I was like, yeah,absolutely Growing up, I had

(13:37):
heard stories of these guys andthey were very manly manly how
do you say that.
They had some wild stories offighting.
It was crazy.
The oyster field like theoyster industry, and when you're
working oysters people getreally touchy-feely about

(14:01):
boundaries.
And so there was all thesestories about fighting and just
working hard and I had admiredthese guys and just thinking
they were the most you know badto the bone guys ever.
You know commercial fishingguys are just gnarly guys and so
when they invited me to go workfor them, I I jumped on the
opportunity.
Yeah, it started from there,and and and they they started me

(14:24):
out.
Coon and oysters and and theterm coon and oysters.
There's two types of oysterfishing, like two types of ways
that you harvest oysters.
Here in Louisiana you dredgeoysters, which is, you know,
you've got a fairly large boat.
They come in all differentsizes, but big enough to have an
engine.
Um and uh, they drag, uh, arake, a dredge, and so it's.

(14:52):
They're usually about,depending on the size of the
boat, but they're usually aboutthree feet wide and four foot
long and they're they're shapedlike a triangle and at the
bottom of the triangle there's abunch of teeth and these teeth
they break off, the teeth dragdown and so you're dragging

(15:14):
these teeth across the bottomand the oysters pop off and into
a basket that's on top of thatrake.
It's hard to explain that anybetter than that, but
essentially, just drag it acrossthe bottom and it picks up the
oysters, and then you use awinch, you winch it up, you dump
it on a table, you throw therake back in the water, keep

(15:35):
dragging it and then you cleanthe table.
And then you clean eachindividual oyster, you throw it
in a basket, you sack it up, yourepeat until you've loaded the
boat.
The other, the way that youwould harvest oysters is kunin.
When you dredge it's in deepwater.
So you need at least two feetof water at least Depending on

(15:56):
the size of the boat.
Like there's styles of boatsthat have three or four foot of
draft, so you need six foot ofwater.
It just depends on what type ofbottom you're working.
The coon and oysters is whenyou have beds that are dry half
the year.
So when the tide goes out, theoysters are pretty much sticking

(16:17):
up out of the mud.
When the tide comes back in,they're on the edge of that
tidal range where, like half theyear, they're, or half the day
they're, out of the water, theother half the day, you know,
depending on where the tide's at, they're under the water.
Well, you can't drive a dredgeboat up in there, so the only
way to harvest those is to getlittle flat boats about 10 to 15

(16:37):
feet long.
You put your chest waders on oryour wetsuit on.
You get a chip and hammer whichlooks like a tomahawk really.
And yeah, you just go out thereand you crawl around on your
hands and knees.
You can't stand up,no-transcript, because if you
stand up you're going to go toyour crotch in mud.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Do you start sinking?
Is that what you do for?
Stand up yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
The muds.
Yeah, there's no, there's.
I say there's no bottom,there's pretty much no bottom.
So I mean you stand up, you'regoing to your crotch pretty much
at any time.
Now, if you get closer to thebank, where the, where the marsh
grass is, you you know you canobviously stand on the marsh
grass, but where most of theseoysters are it's just deep mud.
The term coonin is like.

(17:21):
If you drive through themarshes down here you'll see
these guys pulling these little10 foot boats and they're
crawling on their hands andknees and they're cleaning
oysters with a hatchet and itlooks like from afar like a
really big raccoon cleaning hisdinner Gotcha like from afar,
like a really big raccooncleaning his dinner.
Gotcha Right, yeah, and so you,just you pull this little boat

(17:46):
around.
It starts out light, but by theend of the day you're you're
pushing 1500 pounds of rockacross flat mud.
So it was pretty laborintensive.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, and was it kind of first light to when it got
dark?
I mean, is that kind of howlong you're out there doing this
?

Speaker 2 (17:58):
No, you had to get the oysters on the truck by the
end of the day and the truckswere usually loaded by like
three, four o'clock.
You got to start loadingbecause you you know oysters.
You really want to get oysterson ice pretty quick.
In the winter you can leaveoysters on the boat for two days

(18:19):
and they're going to be fine aslong as the temperature is low
enough.
Oysters will be fine on theboat for max two days.
Two days you're kind of likeprobably don't want to go to
market with that one.
In the summer the law is yougot to get them on ice or in
refrigeration within four hoursand that law was there when I
was working oysters back in 2008.

(18:42):
I don't even remember, I don'tremember the date, but it's
always been that way.
So in the summer months, whenthe temperature, the wild line
fishery, they'll test thebacteria in the water.
When the bacteria gets to acertain point, which usually has
something to do with thetemperature, they'll pretty much
just put out a notice like,okay, all oysters has to be on

(19:03):
ice or in refrigeration afterfour hours at a certain point,
and when that goes, when theyput that requirement in there,
you pretty much stop.
We stopped oyster oyster fishingbecause it wasn't worth it.
It we didn't.
You have to build refrigerationon the boat, which was, you
know, just a lot of overhead,and you got to run generators

(19:26):
and it, you know, it was justtoo much.
It was too much work.
So, luckily, in the summermonths, shrimping would kick off
.
So we would work the wintermonths oyster fishing and then
when the summer months hit, wewent to shrimping.
Yeah, we, that's kind of thecycle.
And then when the summer monthshit, we went to shrimping yeah,
that's kind of the cycle.
And then we would shrimp intothe winter.
When we weren't shrimping, wewere spearfishing, and when we

(19:49):
weren't crooning oysters, wewere shooting ducks.
And that's pretty much how thefirst couple of years of my life
yeah, it was so funny becausethese bad Northwesterns would
come in and it would be toorough or just too nasty to go
oyster fishing, so we'd go duckhunting and then, you know, the
weather would kind of cool off alittle bit, or, you know, we'd
get a bluebird day I'm like, allright, we're going to go to

(20:10):
work.
And we kind of worked thatcycle where we duck hunt and
then we, oh, weather's nice,let's go back to work.
And then what?
Because when the weather comesin, the duck hunting gets better
.
So nasty weather, duckhunting's better, so it's like
it was a perfect.
It was so perfect.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
I was going to say the duck hunting for you then
was the duck hunting like oh,this is like our leisure fun
thing to do is duck hunt.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it was.
It was just and my bosses thatI worked for like I was their
right hand guy, so we werealways working or we were
hunting I love it and I never.
I mean I would go home.
You know I would go home,really not.
I hardly ever went home.
It was kind of funny becauseyou know I'm 15.

(20:52):
You know by the time I wasfinished I was 18, 19, you know,
when I was finished workingwith them.
But over those years they wouldalways laugh because my mom
would never call.
We'd go two weeks and my bossesare like, hey, man, you talked
to your mom and I'm like I know,is she okay?
They're like man, your momloves you, but she's got a funny

(21:14):
way of showing it.
But we'd always laugh.
They were like your mom is verystrange, she was an interesting
character.
She is an interesting character, she's awesome.
But when we were growing up itwas so funny because I was never
allowed to go sleep over atsomeone's house ever growing up

(21:35):
I would sleep at my house andthat was it.
But I was allowed to drivearound with a four wheeler and a
shotgun and go miles away frommy house.
So it was like she was reallycool with abnormal things that
we did, but she was not coolwith the normal 11 year old, 10
year old activities of likesleepover.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
People in Louisiana.
I mean, cause Louisiana, toianato me?
I look at you know people likeyou who are from louisiana it's
almost like a foreign countrywithin our country.
Oh, because the way you guysare, the way you guys were
raised, you know, on the river,in the swamps, and you know it's
just, it's, it's amazing and Ithat's why I'm so excited to
talk to you and I love hearingthis yeah, and you know another

(22:15):
way.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Another way that it's almost a foreign country is on
the.
In a maritime industry wecommunicate with radios.
It's the only way you talk toother vessels.
If you're working the Westcoast, you're working the East
coast, you might get accents.
But if you come from the, fromthe East coast or West coast,
and then you come work in theGulf or you come up the
Mississippi river, it's almostimpossible to understand some of

(22:41):
these guys on the radio.
It's almost like anotherlanguage.
And every time I've got someonethat's coming up or training
underneath me or just trying toget on the river and we're
listening to the radio half thetime they're like what did that
guy say?
You know, it's just that theaccent here is is very wild as

(23:02):
well.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh for sure I would love that, and I can't even.
I can't hardly tell that youeven have an accent, I mean yeah
, you know I did that on purpose.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
Yeah, I did, I really did when I left, so I used to
have a really thick accent.
Obviously, when I wascommercial fishing that was the
only accent I heard, so I mean,that's the accent I spoke in.
I got on the tugboat and then Idecided to go to A&M and when I
did that I just made aconscious decision to like not

(23:37):
have that accent, cause I meanthere's always some who love it
and then some that don't.
And then, you know, sometimespeople you know question your
intelligence with that accent.
You know, I was trying to goget a higher education degree.
I didn't and I was alreadystruggling with spelling and I
didn't do a whole lot of, youknow, classical education

(23:58):
growing up.
And so I I just decided, likethat's a hurdle that I don't
want to have to deal with, so Ijust cleared up my accent.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Good for you.
Wow, that's that's impressivein and of itself.
The other thing that'simpressive is the fact that you
went to A&M after dropping outof homeschool.
You know you stopped going toschool at 13 or 14.
How did you, how did thathappen?
Because that I mean, how do youall of a sudden get to A&M?
Did you end up getting a GED?
What did you do?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Yeah, so I was working.
I was working on the oysterboats with my bosses.
My bosses were Puggy and Henry,puggy's kind of a unique name I
don't even know how to spell it, to be honest, puggy, I'm not
sure but yeah, so I was workingwith Puggy and Henry.
I mean they were awesomementors for me.

(24:47):
They were just, they are.
I mean, they're still part ofmy life, but they never really
let me partake with some of theignorance that was going on in
the industry.
I worked with a lot of uniquecharacters, from Hondurans to
crackheads to that was prettymuch it.

(25:10):
I worked with a lot of.
South American guys who wereawesome and a lot of crackheads
who were also awesome.
They were just on crack.
It's hard to get somebody towork oysters and they're not all
crackheads and they're not allHondurans.
If you make it in the oysterfield and you got a half a head
screwed on, you're going to dookay, there's good living in the

(25:32):
oyster industry.
But if you're working forsomeone else, the likelihood of
it is like that's not entirelytrue.
That's not entirely true.
I know a bunch of great guysthat were working, but either
way they didn't let me partakein any shenanigans and they were
always like making sure that Iwas doing something else and
that I saw the other side of theindustry, that it wasn't just

(25:52):
work, that you know there wasadministrative things.
Know, there was administrativethings in that.
One of the reasons that theywere successful was it was they
weren't just using their back tomake money, but they were, you
know, using their head to makemoney.
And they were kind of the onesthat were like you really need
to go get a GED, bare minimum.
Yeah, they told me to go get aGED when I was I think I was 16.

(26:14):
I think 16 in Louisiana you canget a GED, and it was probably
part of my mom too.
My mom too was probably like,hey, you got to go get a GED
just because you got to havesomething.
And so, yeah, I got a GED whenI was 16, 17.
I was not really planning, Inever really planned on going to
college, I was just going towork.

(26:36):
But after about four years ofreally hard labor and my mentors
kind of like, hey, this is areally hard life, you want to
make sure that you can survivewithout breaking your back for
40 years, I started thinkingbeyond just working oysters or
working commercial fishing orjust driving a tugboat.

(26:57):
I started working on tugboatsthe day I turned 18.
Actually the day after I turned18, on a Sunday, and my dad's
birthday present to me was a jobon a tugboat.
It was the same company that mygranddad worked for my dad and

(27:19):
all my uncles worked for mybrother.
When I left this company, allfive of my siblings, myself
included, worked for thiscompany and the four of them
still work there.
It was kind of like you didcommercial fishing which I was
the only one of my siblings toreally do commercial fishing and
then you go work on tugboats.
And then you know, hopefullyyou can drive ships, hopefully

(27:43):
you can.
You know pilot ships on theriver.
And so I was working on atugboat for a couple of years
and in my head I was going to no.
I was telling people likethey'd ask me like, hey, are you
going to try to be a pilot?
I'm like, hey, are you going totry to be a pilot?
I'm like, yeah, I want to be apilot.
Let me back up a little bit.
When I was working on thetugboats I had never been on a
ship and I was real young whenmy dad went to prison.

(28:08):
When my dad got out of prisonthey forced him to retire.
So he was retired but he wasn'ta pilot anymore.
So I never had anyopportunities to see what it was
like on the other side of thatfence and to look at the river
from the wheelhouse of a ship.
I only knew it from thewheelhouse of a tugboat, and my
dad wasn't there to want to.
You know, you want to come do aride along and come ride a ship

(28:30):
with me.
At that point I wasn't sure if Iwanted to be a pilot, because
there was a bit of bad bloodtowards the pilot association.
You know I kind of forced mydad out and you know that was

(28:51):
here nor there and water underthe bridge.
By now I wasn't really sure ifI wanted to be a pilot, but I'd
never seen a ship bridge.
So I was like yeah, I'd love to.
And I remember the day I got ona ship with Captain Billy
Lanterns I was like this is whatI'm doing.
I was like I don't care ify'all murdered my old man, this

(29:12):
is what I'm doing.
And so I was like I love this.
And from that point on, likethat was, my goal was to be a
riverboat pilot and I'm about 18at the time.
I have my GED.
My initial plan was I was goingto do what they call hauspiping.
Hauspiping is a term that youpretty much work your way up in

(29:34):
the industry.
Before there was programs likeA&M and they got.
They got six more schools inthe US where you can go for a
four-year degree, get abachelor's in maritime
transportation and when yougraduate you're an officer on a
ship.
You're the lowest officer, butyou're an officer on a ship and

(29:54):
you kind of jump that hauspiping period to, where you're
never a subordinate, you jumpright into the officer position.
I didn't want to really do that.
I wanted to work on boats andthen work my way into the
pilotage.
But the industry was changing alot at that time and we were,

(30:15):
as an association and as a pilot, specific in the industry.
Everybody was shifting towardsmaritime grads.
There was no set rule that youcouldn't hos pipe at the time,
but there was a couple of seniorcaptains on the tugs and a
couple of senior pilots thatwere like hey, you're 18 years
old, you have no dependence, youhave a lot of of freedom.

(30:37):
You really need to go get adegree, because there's no
telling how long it's you'regoing to take to get into the
association and there's noreally no telling what what
rules are going to change in thecoming years.
I grew up very insecure about myeducation.
I've always well.
Back then I was very insecureabout my education.
I I've always well.

(30:58):
Back then I was very insecureabout my education.
I was like there's just no way Ican make it.
There's no way I'm going to beable to get through college.
You know, I I didn't do school,I barely.
I thought I should have.
You know, it's funny, I shouldhave failed my GED.
The only reason I didn't failis because the administrator

(31:20):
forgot to set the clock and hegave us an extra two hours to
take it.
So, like I mean, obviously Icould just go back and take it
again, but the time that Ipassed it, like the only reason
I passed was because I got anextra two hours, which is bad.
It worked out great for me, butyeah.
So I was really insecure aboutgoing to college and there was

(31:40):
one particular captain that Iwas working under on the tugs
and he I mean I don't think itwas a whole lot of convincing we
were sitting on the tugs.
I was at the time takingdevelopmental classes at a
community college in Louisiana,which is.
There's a funny story when Istarted that community college

(32:04):
about my very first classes.
But I was, so I was, I wasalready taking developmental
classes because my bosses said,hey, you might as well start
taking classes.
I was like, okay, I'm sure youknow it seems productive, but it
wasn't really for the pilotage,I just was taking it because
they had said it Just to do it.
Yeah, and but I'm on this tug.

(32:24):
I was on the point clear.
The captain's like what do youplan on doing?
You know, what are your plans?
I said I want to be a riverboatpilot.
He's like how do you plan to doit?
I was like why I'm going tocause pipe and I'm going to
college.
Where do you say this?
He's like you need to go to A&M.
I was like I can't make it atA&M.
He's like sure you can.

(32:45):
He's like I went to A&M andplenty of people went through
A&M and he's like you coulddefinitely do it.
And so I was like oh, okay, Ijust accepted.
He said I could do it.
I was like yeah, sure I can doit.
And right there, he's like wewent online on the boat computer
.
He put my application in.
We wrote like five essays rightthere on the computer.

(33:06):
We sent it off.
I called my mom.
I said hey, mom, I'm going togo to college at A&M.
She's like awesome, I'll startsaving up for your college fund.
I'm like, mom, I'm 18.
You should have did that a longtime ago.
We all we just laughed at it.
She's like yeah, but I neverthought you would go.

(33:26):
I'm like thanks for theconfidence.
Mom.
You know she's like no, I justthought you were going to be
successful elsewhere.
I said, hey, I'm, I'm gonna, uh, I'm going to go to college at
A&M.
I already submitted myapplication.
Semester starts in two weeks.
And I said I'm going to get offthis boat on Tuesday and I'm
going to go to Galveston and I'mgoing to start taking classes

(33:49):
at the community college next toA&M.
Yeah, I did so.
I was on the boat for anotherthree or four days.
I got off on a Tuesday morningor four days.
I got off on a Tuesday morning,drove to Galveston, signed up
for classes, got an apartmentand I lived in Galveston with
less than seven days fromdeciding to go to A&M Wasn't
accepted.
But I just saw another thingthat I had known and this this

(34:12):
captain had told me it was likeif you take classes at this
other school, the transfer intoA&M was much easier, which
really isn't true.
But at the time that that wasthe information that I was going
off of.
So, yeah, I had my applicationin an A&M.
I mean, the other school was acommunity college, so they

(34:34):
accept you no matter what.
And I mean I lived in Galveston.
That following Friday I wasn'teven accepted and I didn't get
accepted for another semester.
Yeah, and looking mean, I livedin Galveston that following
Friday I wasn't even acceptedand I didn't get accepted for
another semester.
Yeah, you know, and looking back, like one of the things I
learned, it's like I learnedthrough A&M that really all you
got to do is work really hard.
Like I couldn't spell, I couldbarely read.

(34:54):
I was good at math, but thatwas primarily just because I was
just always naturally good atmath but I couldn't spell and I
could hardly read.
When I got to A&M, but I justworked really hard.
I treated it like a 12-hourshift job.
At one point I was taking 31hours in one semester.
Most of my semesters I wastaking 25 to 28.

(35:18):
And what I learned was I wasjust like I just work harder.
I networked really well, like Imet friends and they would tell
me like hey, you could takethis, take a class over at
Southwestern, southeastern Texasor West Texas College and
community colleges here and Icould just transfer classes.

(35:39):
And so I, uh, I did it in threeyears.
I did two and a half semesters,two and a half years of
semester, and then I had onefull semester at sea.
I just worked really hard andobviously if you work long
enough like, you'll learn how toread, you'll learn how to write
.
You know you'll learn.
And another thing I showed uprealizing was that you don't

(36:01):
there are.
No, there was no expectationfor you to know very much.
It was like if you're here,like the point of this class was
to teach you, you don't have toknow anything.
I mean, obviously, if you're in, you know higher physics class,
you might want physics one andtwo before you went to advanced
physics.
But I mean, for most of myclasses there was no expectation

(36:25):
for you to know very much.
But it was kind of funny.
My very first class at A&M Ialmost failed it because I
misspelled the word captain likeseven times.
There was a captain there thatwas very hard on the new cadets,
the new students at A&M, butonce he found out I wasn't
completely incompetent, he laidoff me.

(36:47):
But he failed me halfwaythrough the semester because I
kept misspelling words which I'mlike Cap, I'm not in spelling
school, I'm in captain school.
I'm like I'm in maritime school.
I want to learn how to drive aboat, not spell the word captain
.
And he's like no, you got tolearn how to spell.
But yeah, so my A&M time it wasgood.

(37:09):
I really loved it.
I learned a lot and it was kindof hard.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
But really, looking back, I remember sitting there
thinking like man this is reallyhard, but it's a lot easier
than pushing 1500 pounds ofoysters across a mud flat, and
so I kind of kept rememberingthat.
Yeah, just kind of look at that.
Something you talked about thatI think important through all
of this I've kind of caught ontoit is you've had good people in

(37:36):
your life who've kind of helpedguide you along the way oh my
gosh what'd you say, poogie?
what was the guy, poogie and theother guy?
And then, yeah, I mean, thefirst time you went, yeah,
poogie and henry, the first timeyou went onto that boat and
you're like this is what I wantto do.
The the captain there, yeah,the tugboat captain, you know,
saying hey, you could do this.
When you're in your mind youwere like no, I can't, I, I

(37:59):
couldn't even graduatehomeschool, I had to get my GED.
He's like no, you can go to A&M, you can do this.
So I've been impressed by,you've had great influences
along the way.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
I've been extremely blessed with strong men that
spoke life into me and was justencouraging in whatever stage I
was in.
Poogie and Henry was thebeginning for sure.
Without them I don't know what.
You know, there's no tellingwhat direction.

(38:31):
They definitely cultivated thisfoundation in which I picked a
direction.
When I picked a direction, therewas multiple captains Billy
Lanner's, my dad's good friend.
He was one of those guys thatwould call me about once a
semester and say, hey, how areyou doing?

(38:51):
Are you eating?
Are you making it throughschool?
How do you feel about thisdirection?
There was another accountant,Mitch Oakley, who right when I
decided I was going to A&M, hewas a part of the tugboat
company but he was a part of theunion that I was in for the

(39:15):
tugboat and he was a.
He taught like safety and hetaught a bunch of classes for
the tugboat and he taught safetyand he taught a bunch of
classes for the union and he haddone a bunch of executive work
for an oil company up in theNortheast years before.
Fantastic teacher, fantasticmentor, and he also was one that

(39:36):
would call what's yourdirection, how do you want to
get there?
And it wasn't that they called.
I didn't talk to these gentlemenvery often, but every time I
talked to them they made sure,like, hey, what's your focus?
What are you focused on?
How do you want to get there?
Is there anything like, isthere a step that you need help
from me?
And I guess that was just.

(39:56):
They helped cultivate adirection for me and helped me,
like, see through the weeds oflike where do I want to go, and
then talk life into me and thenmake sure that I was a good
human being at the same time.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
And it's nice that you had that.
You had that influence, andyeah, it doesn't need to be
every week where you, like yousaid once a semester, you were
getting that help along the way,which I think is huge.
And I look at that because I'vehad people who've done that for
me along my life and it's like,hopefully I can repay that and
do that for others as well as wemove forward.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
Yeah, I'm very to think that that definitely
rubbed off in a way that when Ihave people coming up with me
that are just training like, Iremember people just being very
helpful, no matter what, likethey were in it for no benefit
to themselves I definitely enjoythat part.
Now that I'm a seasoned guy inthis industry, it is very

(40:59):
enjoyable.
I see the enjoyment that they Iguess the only thing that those
guys got were they just helpedsomebody that was already
working in a direction and theyhelped them along and that's an
enjoyable thing and I'm verythankful that they did it for me
and they taught me how to do it, hopefully, I guess.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
Yeah, no, I think I'm okay For sure At teaching.
I would imagine you would befor sure.
I want to talk a little bitabout the riverboat pilot I want
to talk about and you'rewearing a shirt right there that
says backbone coffee company,which I definitely want to talk
about.
But before we do that, you're,you are currently a riverboat
pilot, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, I got to hear at least astory or so, one or two stories

(41:38):
about any kind of crazyexperiences as a riverboat pilot
.
And when I think of a riverboatpilot, are you driving like
those, those barges, like whatis it that you drive?
What is it that you'recaptaining?

Speaker 2 (41:50):
so a little about what I do, my my association.
We control all foreign flagship movements, so seagoing
ships from New Orleans to BatonRouge, when a foreign flagship,
meaning it was built and crewedby another nation, they legally

(42:11):
can't operate in US waters, andthat goes across industry.
If you were to go into Japan orChina, australia, the UK, they
have the same laws when you gointo their waters.
When you hit the sea buoy, arepresentation from that country

(42:33):
gets on board and helpsnavigate the ship to wherever
it's going, and so that's myprimary job is to help get the
ship safely from point A topoint B and be that
representation of the country onboard.
By the time they get to me,though, they've been with two

(42:54):
other riverboat pilotassociations, because I go from
New Orleans up to up to batonrouge, yeah, so when it gets to
us I come on board.
I share responsibility with thecaptain, but I primarily control
the movements of the ship and Idon't.
There's no steering wheel thatI'm operating like.

(43:14):
I give commands to the crew onthe ship, give rud rudder
commands and engine commands.
I do all the communication withother vessels.
When we approach a dock andwe're going to dock the ship.
I give all the commands to thetugboats that'll come on and
they'll help us come alongsidethe dock.
I'm the hub of information whenit comes to the tugs, the other

(43:37):
vessels.
When it comes to the tugs, theother vessels, the linemen that
help us, tie us up, I alwayshave a radio and a cup of coffee
.
It's kind of pointing to mycompany, but really that's what
I did.
That's all I do is I drinkcoffee and I talk on the radio,
and one of the reasons I'm nothands-on is the ship's 140 to

(43:58):
200 feet wide.
If you're going to docksomething like that, you can't
do it from the steering wheel.
You got to be out on the bridgewing, you got to be out on the
edge of the ship when you'redocking, and so it would be
really impossible for me toactually put my hands on the
throttles, as they say, tooperate the ship.

(44:19):
So I just give commands to thehelmsman who controls the rudder
, and then I give commands tothe mate who controls the engine
, the EOT, and then me and thecaptain.
You know, sometimes thecaptain's involved.
You know he wants to know howwe're meeting other vessels and
he wants me to paint him alittle bit of a picture if he's

(44:40):
not sure, but nine out of 10times I do a little interaction.
He tells me a little bit abouthis ship so that I know what I'm
driving and what I'm steppinginto, and there's some
information that I need to clearbridges or make sure I don't
run aground maybe steeringcharacteristics, stuff like that

(45:01):
.
We call that a master pilotexchange.
So I have a master pilotexchange so that I know
information about the ship.
Usually they go to sleep,they'll go do paperwork.
It's understandable too,because to get to Baton Rouge
might be 24 hours from theSeabury, so you can't expect the

(45:22):
man to be on the bridge thewhole time.
Some of them do Some, some,some of the captains.
They'll sleep on the couch onthe on the bridge.
For the most part they go backand do paperwork and then when
we go to dock the ship he'llcome out and out and you know
he'll be a part of docking wow,okay yeah, it's kind of
interesting and you've been.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
What's it been about?

Speaker 2 (45:44):
five years you've been doing this yeah, I started
training in 2020, so I guessit's been four, four full years,
right 2020.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
I finished in 21 yeah , so full four years.
We're in 25 now.
Yeah, so full four years.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
We're in 25 now.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
So right at yeah, Four years.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Okay, it's been four years, yeah, four years of me
being on my own.
I did 12 months of anapprenticeship and then I've
been four years by myself.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
So, besides the understanding everyone's accents
, what other?
Any kind of interesting orfunny stories that you have, or
just any kind of wild storiesthat you have.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
One time I almost hit a bridge, which is a big no-no
in our industry If if you'veseen any news about, you know,
hitting bridges lately.
One thing that people don'tknow too about this industry is,
like you know, if you talkabout that Baltimore issue where
they took out the bridge, youknow that Dolly ship that took
out the bridge.
You know everybody's speculatedthat, oh, it was a terrorist

(46:47):
attack, oh it was this, oh itwas that.
You know, the week that shiphit the bridge we had five ships
have this not identical failure, but the same type of blackout.
There's a lot of ships, so it'snot like a lot of the ships on
the water are blacking out a lot, it's just it happens pretty

(47:10):
often.
So I've had ships lose powercompletely.
Luckily I haven't had anythingbeyond you stressful couple
hours.
But yeah, one time I was comingdown on a bridge.
I was on a loaded ship so I hadabout 40, 45 foot of draft.
One of the things that makes ourpilotage kind of difficult is

(47:33):
the amount of turns and thespeed of the current.
You can only control a ship ifyou have water deflecting across
the rudder.
The only way you can do that isto move the ship forward
through the water.
Well, if the current is doingfour or five knots, the ship has
to move pretty damn quick forthe rudder to actually work.

(47:55):
It was a pretty normal day.
We're coming down in an areacalled Geismar or Grandview and
there was a.
There was a line tow and topaint a picture of the type of
tow this was, he had almost 10acres of barges in front of him,
of barges in front of him.

(48:16):
We'll say he had a solid eightacres of barges in front of him.
So this guy's not, he's notvery maneuverable.
He doesn't just get out of yourway, he doesn't do anything
fast and if anything, his job incertain times is extremely
difficult.
He can't just stop right.

(48:41):
That's another thing aboutships.
Like it's kind of when thecurrent's doing four or five
miles an hour, it's pretty hardto to stop.
This thing For sure it couldtake.
You know, I've I've seen180,000 ton ships or 80, 120,000
ton ships take two miles tostop, and that was going with
the current.
I mean going against thecurrent, going against the

(49:03):
current.
So I was going against thecurrent and it still took me two
miles to stop and so I'm comingdown on the bridge.
I'm probably like 10 miles fromthe bridge and the line tow is
in front of me and we hadalready made passing groomies
where I'm going to overtake thisguy before the bridge.

(49:23):
Well, as we're coming down,there is an anchorage off to the
front of us, you know, on theeast bank, and there's like four
ships in the anchorage.
Very normal, like no big deal.
Well, we're just coming down,it's a bluebird day, like
nothing crazy is happening rightnow.

(49:44):
I'm just going to overtake himbefore the bridge and we're
going to go through the bridgesingle file.
Well, the ship at the verybottom of the anchorage breaks
loose and just pulls out.
It wasn't under power, theanchors failed and the ship just
pulled out in front of the tow.
And so now for this guy to nothit the ship, he's got to pull

(50:08):
out in front of me.
So if you could imagine himjust pulling towards me and like
cutting my water off, there'snothing we could do right, he's
trying not to hit the shipthat's in the anchorage.
I'm trying to not hit him andat the same time I'm trying to
not hit the bridge pier.
And it's one of those momentswhere I remember coming down and
it was like I'm definitely nothitting the bridge, right,

(50:32):
there's no way I'm hitting thebridge.
So I'm like I'm just going tohave to take the front end of
this guy's toe off, the frontend of his barges off, and I
think we I mean I was 40 or 50feet from the bridge pier and
when I looked off the stern ofthe ship as I'm overtaking the
front end of his toe, I lookedoff the stern and I couldn't see
the barges, or I couldn't seethe front end of the barges,

(50:55):
meaning like he was rightunderneath me but a saying that
we have in this industry an inchis as good as a mile.
And he didn't hit me, I didn'thit the bridge.
It was extremely stressful.
I remember like not talking onthe bridge for like 30, 40
minutes as my like bloodpressure came down.

(51:16):
That was one incident where youcould you could see it from
from 30 minutes out.
Like you knew, like I knew,like as soon as that Brit that
that ship came out, I knew whatthe toe in front of me, the line
toe, was going to do.
I knew, I knew what he had todo and I knew that that meant
like he's going to cut my wateroff for like 30 minutes.

(51:37):
I'm like man, this is, thisisn't good, this isn't good,
this isn't good.
I don't know if that's morestressful than the other side,
which is it's a bluebird day and, like bam, something jumps out
in front of you which isprobably more of the stressors
that I get.
I was taking a ship from justNorth of New Orleans in an area

(51:58):
called Kenner Bend and come outof the anchorages and we were
going to go like four miles andwe were going to go into a dock.
It was a very congested morning.
Toes were everywhere.
There was a lot of shipmovement.
There's a small I guess it wasprobably Chinese crew or
Filipino crews language barrierthere.

(52:18):
Right, that's actually one ofthe big troubles is there's a
lot of language barrier.
They have to speak English, butthat doesn't mean they speak
good English or understandableEnglish.
Yeah, yeah, and you get a lot ofhead noddling, yeah, and I'm
like no, not, yes, like is it?
You know, did the anchor drop?

(52:39):
Yes, no, I don't think youunderstand me.
Like what's going on?
Yes, and you're like, oh mygosh, culture differences are
kind of funny.
But yes, I'm on this ship andit's very congested.
There's a lot of toes runningback and forth.
I'm going upriver tows runningback and forth.

(53:01):
I'm going up river.
I got a really large shipthat's going to overtake me and
that, so that we're not tooabreast coming around the point,
he's going to overtake me, soI'm trying to set up for that.
And he was a really I was onprobably a 40,000 ton ship and
he was on 150,000 ton ship andso he was a much larger vessel.
And you know, and when you getreally big, they handle really
well, but you move a lot ofwater and they don't move very

(53:21):
fast.
So there's a give and takethere.
I was talking to a couple oftows that were doing some work
on the bank and there was abunch of traffic coming down and
I made all my passingarrangements.
I told the tows that were doingthe work on the bank like, hey,
I'm going to get really closeto you, you know, but you all
just keep doing your thing.
I just want to make sure youknow I'm there.

(53:42):
Well, these toes are comingdown and I go into the back of
the wheelhouse and imagine thewheelhouse is 130 foot room,
that's probably 20 foot wide andit's just got a bunch of radars
and a bunch of electronics andcommunication systems and it's a

(54:02):
big office at the same time.
And well, sometimes a radiothere's always radios up forward
, but sometimes I'll turn aradio in the back on another
channel so that I can kind ofhear what's going on in another
area.
Or if I need to talk to thetugboats, I switch channel.
Well, I remember, like lookingout the window and I'm like
everything's good.

(54:22):
It's tight but everything'sgood.
I told the helmsman to hold itin a straight line and I went
into the back, into the chartroom and I'm like fiddling with
this radio for like 30 secondsand I just remember the captain
screaming Mr Pilot, mr Pilot,barge, barge, and I was like I

(54:45):
don't know what that means, buthe sounded distressed in his
voice.
So I like popped through thecurtain.
There's a curtain between atnight, this is at night, and
there's a curtain on the chartroom so that they can have light
on the chart room but not havetoo much so you can see.
So I come through the uh, Icome through the, the curtain
and all I could see in front ofthe ship.

(55:08):
You can't see the top of thisboat.
He's underneath my belly, soclose that I could see the very
front end of his toe, like hisbar.
It was a light push boat, itwas just a push boat, so he had
no, he wasn't pushing any barges, he was just the boat itself.
I could see the very front andthen I could see the prop wash

(55:30):
the water from the back of him.
I knew I was running him over atthat moment.
If you could have just imagined, like not being able to see
something in front of your carand you're doing right and so
I'm not going to stop this thing.
I wasn't going very fast, but Iwas going fast enough that if I

(55:52):
hit him, you know, I couldpotentially be killing the five
guys that are on that boat.
Yeah, so like I stepped throughthe curtain, I said a couple of
profanities, I went hard over,stopped engines and I just
started screaming at this guy onthe radio.
I mean I don't know how, but Iended up not hitting him.

(56:14):
Wow, I'm not a smoker, but Iremember, like everybody's like
lighting up cigarettes and I'mlike, yeah, I'll take a
cigarette.
You know, I need a cigaretteright now because it was I don't
know if I'm like explaininglike the severity of that moment
, but it was essentially likethere was one second where

(56:34):
everything is fine and dandy andthen like within 10 max, 20,
max seconds, like I'm killingfive people, you know I'm about
to cause at least 10 million indamage and I'm, you know,
primarily I'm going to killthese guys.
You know no telling what thisis going to do to my career,
right?
So it's like there's a lot ofnot that, any of those things.

(56:54):
The only thing that wentthrough my head was don't hit
this thing Right.
And of those things, the onlything that went through my head
was don't hit this thing rightand do whatever you can to not
hit it.
So I get on the radio and doeverything you can on the ship
to try to not hit it Blow thewhistle, get on the radio,
scream.
I was screaming at him.
I didn't know who he was.
I didn't have time to find outwho he was.
So I just started screaming inhopes that everybody was going

(57:17):
to pick their head up.
Luckily he did.
It was so funny too.
Like I went hard over, stoppedmy engines, which doesn't when
you stop your engines, itdoesn't help going hard over,
but if I'm going to hit him Idon't want to be going full
blast on him.
So I stopped my engines, wenthard over, screamed at him, blew
the whistle, got her back undercontrol.

(57:38):
Now I'm shaking and I'm tryingto get this guy on the radio.
And he never answered the radio.
He's like he knew what he didand so I called it.
I even called his office.
I was ratted on him.
But either way it was fine.
I mean other than the threeyears of life that I lost from
the stress in that moment.
For sure, no harm, no foul.

(58:00):
But it's kind of interesting.
It's like sometimes it takes 30minutes that you're just
watching this train wreck from areally far place.
The other times, which is moreoften, it's more more more often
than not they pop out ofnowhere.
Emergencies happen.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
Well, this, okay, this pop out of nowhere,
emergencies happen.
Well, this, okay, this has beentruly amazing hearing about you
, hearing kind of your life,your story, your journey, and
it's not over yet and we've beentalking for quite a while here.
But I kind of want to talkabout the shirt you're wearing,
backbone coffee.
So what I've learned about you,chris, is that you're somebody
who's a hard worker.
You've had people in your lifewho've influenced you, who are

(58:39):
also hard workers and, if I'mnot mistaken, you came up, you
and your some other associatesof yours came up with Backbone
Coffee Company kind of for thattype of person, the hardworking
person who's, you know, puttingin those 12-hour shifts, like
you are, and has to have thatcoffee to keep going.
Tell me a little bit aboutBackbone Coffee before we end up
here.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Yeah, me, my business partners Brandon and Cameron.
We were spearfishing buddies.
It's kind of how ourrelationship started.
I drive ships.
Cam worked in the plants hereon the Mississippi River and
Brandon was working offshorestill work offshore as an
electrician.

(59:20):
I was on this long journey tobecome a pilot and I acquired
that goal.
And then I was in a seasonwhere it was like, okay, I
achieved that and that's awesome, but I don't really have
anything to focus on anymore.
So I was in a season where Iwas like I was looking to bring

(59:42):
value and I was looking to dosomething in business.
I'm an excellent operator whenit comes to the maritime and the
commercial industry, but Inever started a business.
I didn't really have a wholelot of experience in it and I
felt like that was sort of.
The next thing for me was tostart a business, and I didn't

(01:00:06):
really know.
I didn't have an idea.
I didn't have an idea of likewhat do you do?
And not only did it, I didn'treally just like want to have an
idea.
I wanted to bring valuesomewhere.
And there's two folds to thisstory, too, for why I started.
Backbone One was to like Iwanted to start a business, I

(01:00:29):
wanted to bring value.
I didn't know where that valueor what that business was going
to come to like in the beginning, when I was hanging out with
Brandon and Cameron, and thenthe other side of it was, I had
this idea that's not original tomyself at all about what
generational wealth is.

(01:00:50):
I've got three kids hopefullymore to come.
There's a philosophy of whatgenerational wealth is that I
really stuck to, and that wasyour ability to create wealth,
your ability but I guess this isthe way that generational
wealth was described.

(01:01:10):
To me that meant the most wasit's not the zeros in the bank
account that you leave your kids, but it's your ability to
create wealth, your ability toteach how to create wealth to a
generation.
And then the third step wasyour ability to teach how to
create wealth and then teach howto teach how to create wealth

(01:01:33):
right.
So it's not just the money butit's your ability to do it, to
teach it and to teach how toteach it.
So I'm sort of and I'm still onthat journey of like how to
build wealth and how to like runa successful business that
produces some sort of value toother people.
So either way, that was likethe headspace that I was in when

(01:01:58):
Cam came to me and kind ofpitched the idea of like, really
, he didn't even pitch the idea.
We were sitting at dinner andwe're always talking about
business a little bit Likewhat's the next million dollar
idea, you know, and we'resitting at dinner and Cam, he
was driving some city a coupledays before dinner and he's like

(01:02:23):
man, I was driving I saw a bigold crane that was building this
skyscraper and he just had thethought, like I wonder if the
world really recognizes what thecrane operator does.
And does the world think aboutthat crane operator?
And does that crane operatorwho builds america right?

(01:02:45):
I mean that sort of thatcharacter who's going to work
every day, like is he gettingthe representation in society
that he deserves?
I don't know that premise oflike, how do we bring

(01:03:07):
recognition to the people who?

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
are building.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
America.
And I have honestly no clue howcoffee got involved.
We coffee was just coffee One.
We were always drinking coffee.
We were always drinking coffee.
I mean, like I said, I, we,it's in our hands every day.
And then we kind of just pitchedaround like how do you bring
recognition to America that arebuilding America, you know, one
cup of coffee at a time andbring them affordable, delicious

(01:03:44):
coffee and recognition for whatthey do, Just be a good part of
their morning.
And I think that was theinitial idea, Like like now
we're bringing a product thatpeople love and hopefully in a
way that represents them reallywell.
And from there, like weliterally were at dinner and we
just were talking about it, wedid a three-day archery shoot in

(01:04:07):
Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and thewhole way there we're talking
about like how we could do this.
And then, when we got back, myuncle ran a roastery out in
Seattle, and then Max, whoyou've emailed a couple of times
, he was a friend of ours and weflew to Seattle, figured out

(01:04:28):
how to roast coffee, figured outwhat the coffee industry looks
like, how to bring a really goodproduct I mean, obviously it
takes more than one visit toSeattle to roast coffee, by the
way and then, yeah, we juststarted on like learning how to
build a business Cause, andthat's another thing.
Cam and Brandon ran a treecutting business together.

(01:04:50):
For a couple of years they hadsold it and then, yeah, I had
zero experience.
So everything from setting upQuickBooks to how does Google
Drive work yeah, so it's been.
There's a lot of learning to dowhen you know absolutely
nothing about a very largeindustry.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
That's what's amazing , though, about you, chris.
Here's this guy who dropped outof homeschool, got his GED,
became a river.
I mean that's what's amazing.
And now you've got you knowyour backbone coffee company.
You're running this business.
I'm super impressed because forme, that's impressive.
Someone like you know you who,and you're someone who's

(01:05:32):
adventurous Journey with Jake'san adventure podcast.
It's about your journey.
It's someone you know when,what you've been through, and
you've been through a lot.
I mean, your dad was in prisonfor tax evasion, of all things.
I mean you've.
You've had some things, butyou've learned how to work hard
and you're learning somethingelse.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
You're learning about coffee.
Yeah, yeah, it's been a journey, man.
Yeah, it definitely has, andit's been fun.
And I think I think the funnestpart about the coffee, too, is
that it's that next journey.
Yeah, it's like I, Iaccomplished commercial fishing
and that was a journey and thatwas really fun and I and I
learned how to work hard.
And then that next, I guess I'mI'm also into like really long

(01:06:10):
journeys, cause it took me like15 years to to accomplish the,
uh, the, the pilotage thing.
Hopefully it doesn't, you knowwell, I guess.
Hopefully I can be doing thisone for a long time.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, hopefullythis journey is a little
different, but neither is thepilot.
I'm not going to stop drivingships.

(01:06:31):
It's too much fun.
It's way too much fun to be tostop.
Yeah, it's still a fun journeyto drive ships and it's fun to
have new journeys, for sure newthings for sure, no.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
So tell everybody if someone's like all right, you
know, this kind of fits right upmy alley.
I want to get me some backbonecoffee.
How can people do it?
Where do they go?
Is there a website?
Is there, you know, where canthey do this?

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
yeah, so.
So right now we are a hundredpercent direct to consumer
business and you can go tobackbonecoffeecom and you can
get on a subscription and we cansend coffee to your house every
week, every other week, everymonth.
And one thing I will like topoint out about the coffee that

(01:07:14):
we're producing it is specialtycoffee.
It is very high-end coffee.
It is roasted to order, so wedon't roast the beans until the
order comes in, so the coffee isextremely fresh.
We worked really hard to makethe process very seamless and
very simple.

(01:07:34):
Pretty proud of our website.
But, yeah, you just check usout online, check us out on our
social medias.
There's always a link to, youknow, our website there, until
we're in grocery stores that's.
That's the only way to get it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
And for anybody listening, you know, who wants
to get some of this coffee totry it out, or whatever I know
there's going to be, I'm goingto have a link that I'm going to
put in the show notes 15% off,I believe 15 off.
So, hey, that's a, that's agood deal as well.
So we'll, we'll, we'll, showthat before we wrap up.
Chris, my last question.
I always like to ask this toeverybody, because journey with

(01:08:06):
jake, we talked about yourjourney, some of your adventures
that you know, with coonan, foroysters and whatnot, but what
does the word adventure mean toyou?

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
the word adventure to me means it's got to be
difficult and it's got to beunknown.
And so, whatever, whatever thatis, you know, elk hunting in
the mountains in a place you'venever been is a journey, and you
know, learning to drive shipsacross the world is also a
journey.
It's just they're bothdifficult and they're both very

(01:08:37):
unknown.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
And it's an adventure .
I love it.
That's a journey.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
It's just they're both difficult and they're both
very unknown and it's anadventure.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
I love it.
That's a journey to me,definitely, without a doubt,
absolutely, chris.
We've been going for a while.
This has been awesome.
I'm super impressed with you.
I'm impressed with BlackboneCoffee Company and what you got
going on.
Thank you so much for coming onJourney with Jake.
Jake, thanks for having me.
Man.
A huge thank you to Chris forjoining Journey with Jake and
sharing his incredible storywith us.
If you want to learn more aboutChris and Backbone Coffee,
visit backbonecoffeecom andfollow them on Instagram at

(01:09:09):
backbonecoffee.
Also, don't forget to check outthe show notes or my blog post
about this episode atjourneywithjakenet.
Forward slash episode 156 foran exclusive 15% off backbone
coffee.
Big thanks to Chris for sharingthat with our listeners.
I really appreciate it.
And, of course, thank you toeach and every one of you for
tuning in and supporting Journeywith Jake every week.

(01:09:31):
For those of you watching onYouTube, I appreciate your
patience with the video qualityin the first half of this
episode.
I'm still getting the hang ofYouTube side of things, so
thanks for sticking with me.
Next week we have anotherfantastic episode featuring
David Chaffrin.
David was deep in the rat racewhen he realized something was
missing.
He needed to dance that's rightdance.
And he didn't just dabble in it.

(01:09:53):
He took his passion for salsadancing all the way to Medellin,
colombia.
It's an inspiring story youwon't want to miss.
Just remember, it's not alwaysabout the destination as it is
about the journey.
Take care everybody.