June 13, 2025 • 57 mins
This week we sit down with our pal, Nate Smithson, and unpack the “Masonic experience”: proactive community engagement, the infinite mindset required for long-term success, our obligation, and more.
“It’s always easy, isn't it…for us to assign somebody else's priorities without understanding what's going on in their life.”
How does one balance being a VP/Risk Manager, family man, and civic leader? Fire up the commodity market ticker, it’s an all new Minnesota Masonic Histories & Mysteries.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello again, everyone.
Welcome back to another episodeof Minnesota Masonic, histories
and Mysteries.
Today's guest was born inKirksville, Missouri, moved
around that state a few timesahead of his family.
Later moving to St.
James, Minnesota, where heattended and graduated from St.
James High School in 1995.
It's a year of a reunion.
(00:21):
Welcome, Nate Smithson.
Thank you.
30 years outta high school.
How does that feel?
Well, it doesn't really feellike it, that's for sure.
What do they always say?
You're only as old as you feel.
I mean.
Maybe still 19, 20.
Yeah.
At least we, we, we strive forthat.
Yeah.
You attended the University ofMinnesota Twin Cities.
You were a member of thefarmhouse fraternity bachelor's
(00:42):
degree in agricultural educationand emphasis on adult education.
First job outta college withCHS.
You started out in the energybusiness and then moved into oil
seed processing in 2006.
Moved to Mankato around thattime, relocated to New Prague in
2012.
So you left CHS, you came to acompany called Moving Parts.
(01:06):
You do commodity risk managementand vegetable oil brokerage.
I have so many questions.
You know what we do it, uh, tous it just seems like it's just
kind of second science, but to alot of people, they look at it
and they're like, wow, that isreally fascinating.
So, in my time with CHSI was inthe, in the oil seed processing
business and for those who don'tknow, we.
(01:27):
Crushed soybeans and crushedcanola seed and you get
vegetable oil and, and uh,animal feed out of that.
And so my job was sellingvegetable oil and over time I
kind of got a little bit tiredof the corporate structure and,
and just maybe some of us are alittle more entrepreneurial
minded and, and kind of wantedto try something different.
And so in 2017 I left to, uh,join moving parts and, and it's
(01:50):
a small business and uh, thatI'm now in the purchase of, uh,
or process of purchasing thatbusiness.
And what we do is kind of likeyou mentioned, it's a commodity
risk management.
So we basically help, if youthink about a bottle of salad
dressing on the grocery storeshelf doesn't change in price,
but all the ingredients goinginto it, like soybean oil, they
vary in price every day.
(02:11):
The price market goes up anddown.
So we help those companiesmanage that, that price
relationship between whatthey're buying it for and what
they're selling it for and, andmanaging that margin.
And then in the vegetable oilbrokerage side, we also.
Purchase vegetable oil for a lotof large food companies.
So we, we buy about three or 4billion pounds a year of, or, or
are involved in touching threeor 4 billion pounds a year of
(02:32):
vegetable oil.
Who would some typical clientsbe for that?
Uh, some of our customers arelike Hidden Valley Ranch.
they're a big customer of ours.
Uh, there's companies that youmay or may not have, like
Ventura Foods.
Uh, they, they make the, uh,Marie's salad dressing, a lot, a
lot of the French friedmanufacturing companies,
restaurant chains, uh, grocerystore chains.
So, there's so much more behindthat product on the shelf than
(02:57):
we ever think about.
Oh, yeah.
And, and, and, In the last sixmonths, um, we've, we've been
dealing a lot with tariffs and,and, and how that impacts our
customers.
We buy a lot of vegetable oilfrom Canada.
And so when there was the wholediscussion on was there gonna be
tariffs on Canadian products ornot, and then off and on, and it
creates a lot of uncertainty forthe food companies.
(03:18):
And so dealing with that and,and how, how we navigate through
that whole process.
But then also, uh, this wholediscussion with, uh, the whole,
you know, healthier eating and,and some of that movement and
the public perception of seedoils and, and what's healthy,
what isn't.
And there's a lot ofmisinformation out there.
And, and unfortunately now withsocial media, you or I could go
(03:41):
post something and it goes viraland well this person said this,
therefore it's true, it's gospeland with, with no science out
there, right?
Mm-hmm.
And so, um, I'm also, I serve,I'm vice president of, uh, the
National Institute of Oil SeedProducts.
It's an industry association.
Um, we probably have four or 500members, and part of our time is
(04:01):
spent on figuring out how do we,have a response to the narrative
on some of these kind of things?
And how do we help grow theindustry?
So.
Uh, that's been been consuming alot of time here the last few
months.
Can you very briefly sharewhat's a misconception about the
seed oil versus reality?
Uh, one of the misconceptions isthis whole notion that when you
(04:23):
put a blanket comment around,you know, seed oils are
unhealthy and that it just stopsright there, there's a broader
discussion that needs to happenaround, there's a ratio of omega
six and Omega-3 fatty acids, andyou know, your body needs fat,
your body needs a lot of thesethings, so it, it, it's, you
can't just cut it out.
And so what does that ratio looklike?
(04:44):
And then you start looking atcertain oils and you say, well,
avocado oil looks like theperfect oil.
Well it does, but the problem iswe make about, I mean, it's a
thimbleful compared to what wehave available of soybean oil
and canola oil and palm oil.
So while there are certain oilsthat olive oil that may be, is
more ideal, we just don't makeenough of it.
(05:05):
So it isn't necessarily.
You can use canola oil andsoybean oil in a lot of the
foods we eat maybe isn't thenecessarily the oil, but what
are you doing with it?
So in other words, if you'refrying french fries or onion
rings or tater tots and that'syour diet, that might be more of
the issue necessarily than justare you eating soybean oil or
canola oil?
So it's, it's all aboutmoderation.
(05:26):
And so it isn't necessarilywrong to say some of these
things may not be the best foryou, but there's a broader
discussion around moderation andwhat are you eating?
And you know, if you'reingesting a ridiculous amount of
anything is Oh yeah.
I mean, it's too much.
It's, it's, it's ridiculous.
But so, you know, so that's,that's been, uh, consuming a lot
of our time the last few months.
(05:49):
And speaking of time on top ofyour career, you are also a
member of the York W right?
In Farmington, the RochesterValley of Scottish Rights.
You're a member of both Osmondand Zurich Shrine.
Hobbies, camping, riding a TV,shotgun sports.
I think you mentioned you helpedcoach the new Prague shotgun
Team Scouts.
(06:09):
You were raised a master Masonin 2007 at Mankato Lodge.
Number 12, served as master in2011 and 12.
District rep 2014 to 17, andagain from 2021 to 2024.
Now serving the area deputy forthe southern area of the state.
family, legacy Dad andgrandfather were both masons.
(06:31):
So much to pack in that marriedto your wife Robin since 2005.
She's a physical therapist.
Two kids.
Ben 16 and LD 13.
Two dogs.
I have a serious question.
How do you manage all of that?
Well, I think that.
I think that, that this wholediscussion around time is, is a
(06:53):
valid one.
And, and when you, when you lookat the membership of, of the
Grand Lodge of Minnesota or justMasonry as a whole today, it all
comes down to that.
How do you have time to do allthese things?
And, and to me, part of it hasbeen a decision that I, I love
the whole cons.
I mean, for me, masonry is aboutthe fraternal piece of it.
(07:14):
It's, it's getting to knowpeople like you and, and, you
know, our grand grand secretaryand, and Clint Christensen, our
former area deputy.
it's that friendship and thatfraternal piece of it.
So that's kind of what I, whatwhat I thrive on being a member
of the shrine.
I love doing the parades andbeing out there with our, our
other nobles interacting withthe community.
And I feel like we've been givena skillset and talents
(07:39):
individually that, uh, by ourcreator.
And it's what you do with those.
I think that that is our job.
And so if, if, if I just sit athome every night and just watch,
you know, watch a baseball gameand, you know, have a cocktail
and, and don't really doanything with my time, I feel
that I'm not being a goodsteward of the skills that I
(07:59):
haven't given or the talentsI've been given.
So, to do some of these things,even though you look at it on
paper, as I was writing that biofor you, I was like, holy cow,
that's a lot.
Am I, am I making a, a good useof my time?
But it's that whole, and I thinkit's that, you know, what we're
taught as a mason too, the whole24 inch gauge and you divide
that time up and for a, for anon mason share what that is,
well, dividing our time into,into three equal parts.
(08:19):
Eight hours for your job, eighthours for your, you know, rest
and relaxation and, and eighthours for, I think, what is it?
It's service to service to,yeah.
And maybe I'm out of balance inthat sometimes my wife might
tell you that maybe I spend toomuch time involved in other
things, but it's, it's fun to doand, and it's, um.
(08:41):
But I think it's also importantthough, I think as Masons, when
we look at this and we seebrothers and we say, well, this
guy is the senior warden of hislodge, or he's a master of his
lodge and he missed a couplemeetings.
Or, how come he is not at thispancake breakfast or whatever.
Don't criticize him for notbeing there until you understand
why isn't he there.
(09:01):
It might be that his kids have abaseball game that he doesn't
wanna miss.
It might be that, you know, he'sinvolved in something with his
church, or it might be.
It's just there's other thingsgoing on in our lives and it
isn't like it was probably 30 or40 years ago where, you know, it
was more the norm for yourspouse not to work.
Um, you and I talked beforeabout youth sports.
I mean, now if you're.
(09:22):
Kid plays in baseball orbasketball, it's a year-round
commitment.
It's not just the three monthsduring that baseball season.
So there's a lot going on and Ithink it's, it's important for
us to, to at least acknowledgethat our membership base has
shifted a bit.
Yes.
And we can't criticize peopleif, if we don't think they're
dividing their time wisely, wemay not know what else is
(09:43):
pulling on their, their needs.
Hmm.
It's been said so many differentways that you have enough time
to do anything.
It just depends on where youdecide to devote your time and
your energy.
when We hear people say in everywalk of life, well, I just don't
have the time.
But where are those priorities?
(10:03):
And to your point, when we don'tsee someone in lodge, it's very
crucial to ask the questionfirst.
How are you?
How's life, what's going on withthe family?
And not just make thatassumption, well, he's not very
dedicated.
He missed our fundraiserbreakfast.
Or he abruptly maybe didn't havea chance to alert someone that
he's not going to attend aparticular event.
(10:26):
There's a backstory there, butwe're still quick to, to jump on
that.
It's always easy, isn't it, forus to assign somebody else's
priorities without understandingwhat's going on in their life,
right?
Yes.
I mean, it's, it's, I don'tknow.
It's, it's a dangerous,dangerous assumption to make
because like we have a member,of our lodge that he's going
through a lot right now in hislife.
(10:47):
And, but not everybody knows thethings that are going on in his
life.
And so they're quick to pointout how come he wasn't here?
And it's not my place tonecessarily tell them this is
what's going on.
But, um, you just, you realizethat part of being a mason is
also that whole notion of, of,you know, giving your brothers
some, some assistance if theyneed it.
And, and, and.
(11:08):
Hey, how are you doing?
What's, what's going on?
Support is a word that comes upfrequently as members share how
much that means to them.
To know somebody has my back.
I'm balancing and juggling somany different things.
The thing you mentioned aboutkids in sports, we've talked
(11:30):
about that on this podcast alot.
It's so different than when wewere kids.
You played for a season and thatwas it.
You hung up the skates.
You baseball was a a summerevent and it's a year round
crucible.
It feels like also what you saidabout just a few years ago, that
time commitments have changed.
(11:51):
Frequently, we look back, wayback, 70, 80 years and, well,
life obviously very differentthen.
But even if we jump back 30years, we talked about you've
been on okay, how to high schoolfor 30 years now.
But even in the nineties timecommitment for activities, for
hobbies, for anythingextracurricular, and our jobs
we're so connected almost toomuch.
(12:12):
Well, think about it, I mean, 30years ago, if you left your job
at five o'clock and you wenthome, you, you really didn't
have any connection to thatuntil the next morning.
Now, like last week, I was inWisconsin for a week.
We went an a TV trip, my wifeand I and some, and two other
couples had that iPhone in myhand, right?
(12:34):
So even though you're away fromwork and you're supposed to be
spending time with your, yourfamily and your friends, it was
very, very easy to pull that outand.
Start looking at emails.
Yeah.
And now you're, you're callingcustomers doing these things?
We are, we are tied to our worklife now.
So much different than it, thanit was before.
(12:55):
And while the convenience isgreat, we talk about AI and
chat, GPT and technology on thispodcast a lot.
I had an email from someonesaying, well, we can't just go
back to the dark ages, Rita.
And that's not what I'madvocating, but where do we find
the balance?
Because once you check thatphone once and one e I'm just
(13:15):
gonna reply to one email andthen you walk off into the
corner and your wife and yourfriends are like, Hey Nate, you,
you coming back?
And it just, it pulls you in.
Yep.
That's really difficult.
I wish I could see more clearlyaway.
I.
That we wouldn't completely gooff the grid, but could still
maintain the balance of, okay,this is family and friends time.
(13:37):
Now this is, you're on vacation.
Mm-hmm.
But work calls that text chime.
Here it comes.
Well, because there's that,there's that feeling in your gut
that if I don't respond to thisnow, it's just gonna get worse
before I get back.
And honestly, what I've found isa lot of your customers, at
least in in, in my business, alot of our customers, if they
know you're gonna be onvacation, they don't, they don't
(13:59):
want you to respond.
They want you to take that timeaway.
Yes.
I think we internally feel like,oh, but I have to do this.
I have to respond to this.
I have to be a part of this.
And, and, um, it is a bigchange.
And, and what does that mean?
What's it gonna look like, toyour point with ai?
What's that gonna look like in10 years, 15 years?
So as these young kids that areplaying sports year round now
that are in seventh, eighth,12th grade, whatever, as they
(14:22):
get older and they become ourdemographic for joining a
fraternity like this, what isthat experience gonna look like
for them?
Yes.
And that is the bigger takeawaythat AI does a lot for us.
Technology, you name it, but thehuman to human connection, the
brotherhood we speak of sofrequently cannot be substituted
(14:43):
by a computer.
Well, you've mentioned a coupletimes, I heard it at the, uh,
Southeast Area Conference lastyear, and you mentioned at one
of the other podcasts earlier,this whole, this replica, this
app.
Yes.
The, the fake friend orwhatever, the AI thing that
blows my mind to think thatthere are that many men that
(15:03):
said, what was it like one infive or whatever the number was
that didn't have a close friendor, yeah, there's a couple
things.
So the last time I checked thereplica app that serves as a
virtual friend or sibling hadsomething like over 25 million
users.
the other point brought up wasthat I believe the Wall Street
Journal did a study.
(15:24):
Of men over the age of say, wasit 25 if they're not married or
in a relationship, said thatthey have no close friends at
all.
Zero.
Wow.
And yet that's not surprisingbecause it's acceptable now to
sit in our apartments, to sit athome alone.
(15:47):
Netflix is on ordering fromAmazon, food can be delivered.
and that is something that youngpeople, I'm sure your kids,
that's the only world they know,right?
Yeah.
How, how do we sow the seeds offinding the value in
relationships to human, to humanconnection?
It's alarming to me when we seethat number of an app, a virtual
(16:11):
friend or sibling with millionsand millions of users that are
probably paying for that too,Which often leads to another
conversation within the Masonicframework.
People are lonely, they'reisolated, they're looking for
connection.
Here we are in the relationshipbusiness of brotherhood, of
(16:31):
helping those in need.
And I harp on it a lot,brotherhood being authentic,
being meaningful, and not just abuzzword.
you and I had an interestingconversation over lunch recently
about our obligation.
Mm-hmm.
(16:52):
Tell us more.
Well, to me, and, and I guessI've been amazed now for almost
20 years, so it feels likeyesterday, but, um, I don't view
myself and maybe back up alittle bit.
I was raised in a lodge that Iguess would technically be
called outstate, right?
Mankato is not part of the metroarea, and so your, your
(17:13):
experience in that environmentis a little bit different
because you don't have a lot ofnearby lodges to help you do
things, right?
And so as you come up throughthe officer line and serving as
master, and there's all thesethings that we're being told
that, well, as a, as a, as aperfect lodge, you need to do
this, this, and this.
(17:33):
You know, there's ritualstriving to be right.
Ritual is very important.
And I'm not saying that, thatthese things aren't important,
but I think that we get in ourhead that, that this is what
makes a mason a mason.
But then if you just stop andthink about it for a second,
it's our obligation.
That's what, when we sit thereand we take that obligation that
I'm gonna help Aidan assist youif you need help.
(17:56):
I mean, if, if, if you say,Nate, I need to help here.
I need money, I need whatever.
It's my job as a master mason tohelp you, your, your widows,
your orphans.
You know, and, and, and justthat whole notion that that's,
that's the, the common bond thatwe have, it doesn't say in our
obligation that, that I, youknow, that I promise that I'm
gonna be, you know, perfectlyproficient on the second degree.
(18:18):
Not saying that that isn'tsomething that we should strive
for, but when you start lookingat, at what we do as Masons,
that's really what kind of setsus apart from, from other org
is, is that obligation that wetake for those things that, that
we're gonna do.
And, and, um, you know, and I'mnot a member of a lot of other
organizations.
(18:39):
I'm, I'm very involved inscouts.
My, my kids are in scouts, soI'm, I'm, I'm a part of that.
And you see glimpses of thisnotion of of, of helping others,
right?
But that's kind of what we liveon.
I mean, I think that that waskinda the discussion we had.
I.
Yes.
We want to do our ritual or thefoundation of what we do
(19:00):
perfectly.
We wanna execute it in ameaningful way.
we are committed to providing.
This blueprint of how to becomea better version of ourselves
through our ritual to do sowell, to make it meaningful and
impactful.
we strive to do it toperfection.
We want to get the words right.
(19:21):
We want to make sure that we'renot cutting corners and being
lazy about how that ispresented.
Now that said, we're human.
We make mistakes.
I find it frustrating after adegree has completed that has
been very impactful for both newmembers and existing ones.
(19:43):
The the first piece of feedbackis to run over and tell the
person who delivered it, theymissed two words, or they missed
statistically an insignificantamount.
Are we in a competition for whocan recite the words better than
the other?
Because that would make us atheater troupe, right?
(20:04):
Can, can we, can we find a placewhere the brother that delivered
the lecture or that presided onour degree who got 90 to 95% of
it, right?
Could we at least start withsaying, great job in bringing
these timeless core values tolife and touching the hearts of
our members, and then maybelater we'll nitpick about the
(20:25):
versus thou.
Yeah.
I, I, that's always been, and,and within our membership we
have, we have a lot of brotherswho, who strive, who are driven
by different aspects of masonry.
We have some of our brothersthat, like worship brother Clint
Christensen, who I mentionedbefore, who is our past area
deputy in the south.
Fantastic Ritualist.
(20:46):
I mean, how he can re rememberall this stuff just blows me
away.
Is in Yeah.
Him.
I mean, I, I, but I, I can't, I,I'm not wired that way.
I can't just sit down and, andmemorize, say I can't, maybe I
don't have the time.
Maybe I need to spend more timememory, but it's hard.
It's difficult, but it's hard.
But I guess the, the point I'mtrying to make is lodges can't
be perfect at all things.
(21:06):
And you might have a lodge thatis really, really good at, at
community service and, andgiving back in the community or
really, really good at, atcharity, but maybe struggles a
little bit on the ritual thatisn't necessarily a bad thing.
I think when you look at thiswhole notion has been brought up
before, I think I've heard it ina couple of the past episodes,
um, well, rural, rural lodges.
(21:29):
The notion of a rural lodge isthat they're gonna struggle.
Times have changed.
People in outstate areas justdon't wanna belong to
organizations.
There's not as many people todraw from and they're leaving
the area that, and they'releaving.
Yeah.
And therefore.
these lodges are just doomed andOkay, I'll give you a little bit
of that.
I will admit, I grew up in asmall town in southwest
Minnesota.
Things look different.
(21:49):
Main Street looks a lotdifferent than it did when I
lived there.
But at the same time, thatdoesn't mean that men don't need
an experience.
And when I was working at CHSIwas traveling to North Dakota,
uh, like once a month, and I gotput in con in contact with Past
Grand Master for North Dakota,Tony Kin, who I, you and I
talked prior that yes, we have acommon connection there.
(22:13):
And Tony and, and I and hiswife, we would meet probably
seven months in a row.
We met, had pizza and beer or sBut you you were in town from
work?
When I was in work.
Okay.
Yep.
And, and we'd get together andgreat experience and, and just
loved talking to Tony.
And, uh, one of the concepts westarted talking about was this
whole notion of rural lodges.
(22:34):
And I said, well, Tony, I mean,North Dakota is the rule.
And for those of you who don'tknow, I membership at Masonry
has been declining.
But for some reason, northDakota's decline wasn't matching
what we were seeing here inMinnesota.
And it just, so I asked him, Isaid, Tony, what, what are you
guys doing different here?
What, what's the secret sauce?
And of course there is no secretsauce, but he said, you take a
(22:55):
rural lodge in one of thesesmall towns in North Dakota that
maybe only has a handful ofmembers left.
And it takes two guys to say,you know what, we're gonna try
to fix this.
And he, so they, they reach outto the Chamber of Commerce and
say, Hey, the town celebrationthat you're having, what do you
need for help?
What can we do?
Uh, maybe they go to the schooland say, what do you guys need
(23:16):
help with?
Do you need help with, you know,some different things.
Go to the local scout troop andsay, do you need some merit
badge counselors?
Do you need some guys to help goon camp outs?
What do you need?
And it's amazing.
All of a sudden, people in townstart recognizing that the
Masons are there to help in thecommunity.
One of the things that we'vetalked about in the past is this
notion of we want to get back towhere.
(23:39):
your civic individuals in thecommunity were members of the
lodge, your bankers, yourlawyers, your, you know, those
people were, those were membersin the lodge.
Maybe one of the ways for us tokind of fix this is to spin that
backwards and maybe the Masonsneed to become more prominent in
the community.
(23:59):
And we've seen it in somecommunities in St.
Peter, uh, Nicolette Lodge.
Um, and then St.
Peter's not a small town, butit's smaller than the metro
area.
Uh, Nicolette Lodge hasestablished a relationship with
the ambassadors in St.
Peter.
They're kind of like your, yourChamber of Commerce.
It's a group of business peopleand they have a October Fest in
September, and they've.
(24:20):
They've asked the masons, Hey,will you help us by working the
door and taking tickets andhelping with security?
And, this next week we'reworking at, uh, we're gonna be
selling burgers at John Denverdays, or whatever it is in St.
Peter.
They're having a, a new musicfestival this, this next
weekend.
They've recognized Masons asbeing a group that we can help
them achieve their goals.
(24:42):
We're not really asking formuch.
They give us a few bucks tohelp, but it's more or less us
being present.
And so I think when you look atthat whole notion of our
existence in rural areas, usbeing present, and then through
that people start askingquestions, well, what, what do
you guys do?
You know?
And, and I love your comment.
(25:03):
You know, we're always quick tosay we make men better.
And I think you said it.
A few weeks ago.
We don't, we don't make peopledo anything.
We don't make, yeah.
There's that line of what domasons do?
We make, make, we make good menbetter.
We don't make anyone anything.
We are trying to provide theblueprint for how to become and
how to make the effort in orderto become a better version of
(25:23):
ourselves.
But this is, you make a greatpoint.
Community involvement requiresat times us to insert ourselves
into a collaborative arrangementwith another community group.
Mm-hmm.
All working together.
And then we're right back intothe fold.
Yeah.
Sometimes it takes a first step,not waiting for that group to
(25:45):
come to us, but who should we becollaborating with?
City Council, chamber ofCommerce, another civic group
with schools, scoutingorganizations.
I mean, scouts.
Look at scouts.
I mean, it's here you have agroup of, of young people that a
lot of what they are doingmirrors to a certain degree,
(26:06):
some, some of what Masonry isabout.
So why not align ourselves withthem and, and to see if they
need help?
how many parent adults arevolunteering with those
organizations that might seesome of what we're doing and,
and recognize and say, man, thatwe have a a, a Brother Master
Mason, a new Prague that wasvery, very involved in scouting.
And he said, what's thisFreemason thing you always are
(26:28):
talking about?
And he ended up joining and nowhe's, he's an active member of,
of the lodge and Savage.
So there it is.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it, it does comefull circle, but you have to,
you have to, like you said, youhave to take that first step and
insert yourself.
People aren't gonna insert itfor you.
and I think that's part of, Youmentioned before, the notion
that we don't make anybodyanything.
(26:49):
We give them the tools to becomebetter.
And I think Grand Lodge inMinnesota now has given
outstate, lodges the tools toimprove themselves through this
new structure of having theregional directors like yourself
and Marcus and, and Ethan.
just because prior, I can tellyou from being a master of a
rural lodge, being a DR forrural lodges and now being an
(27:12):
area deputy for the southernregion or southern area, um.
Lodges need help, but it's verydifficult because they don't
know what to do next.
I mean, it's, if, if you'resitting there and you're master
of a lodge and you haveroutinely four or five guys that
show up and you have 20 members,you're sitting looking around
saying, what do I do?
(27:34):
And I think by us changing thestructure and having these
regional directors, we'resuddenly now we're gonna have
tools available for these lodgesat a more regional level to get
in there with them and figureout how to, how to improve this.
I think it's, it's gonna, frommy perspective, having been at
Dr and now, now an area deputy,it's gonna give these lodges
the, the tools that they need toat least, you know, they're
(27:56):
gonna have to take the step towant to implement'em.
Yes.
This isn't gonna be the, themagic bullet, you know?
You mean you can't do all thework.
We can't do all the work.
I'm, I'm kidding, right.
Yeah.
It is gonna require the lodge tosay, we're committing to this,
we're willing to do the work wefocus on the infinite
perspective of progressingslowly, celebrating the small
victories, and looking at thisin a long-term perspective,
(28:19):
sky's the limit.
Why do, why do we always havethis feeling that if we try
something and if it wasn't ahuge smashing success, that it's
like, well, we're not gonna dothat again.
Can never do that again.
No, we got, I mean, put it onthe scrap heat.
Yeah.
Try it a few times and see if itworks.
And even if it's a smallsuccess, it's still something,
right?
It's still, you're still out inthe community, you're, or you're
(28:40):
still, giving money to thisevent or, or whatever it might
mean.
Not everything can be a homerun.
Some of the home runs that wewitness within our fraternity
are lodges that startedfundraiser events at a picnic
table many years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And they just, each year justgrow a little bit more and a
(29:01):
little bit more.
And yes, we all want thatsuccessful event, and the
patience involved.
We talked about that in a recentepisode of patience is it's
tough in this virtual worldwhere we can get an answer to
anything or something deliveredit.
It's, it's instantaneous.
It's tough to find the balancebetween Okay, there, there's
(29:23):
that.
But then the patience of growingindividually, working together,
collaborating, doing thingswithin the community that
require a lot of conversations.
And at times, yes, it can be alot of work, but it's so worth
it every time.
But you have a team that winsthe World Series, well, they're
not just gonna come back nextyear and win the World Series
(29:44):
again.
Again, unless you're theYankees, maybe.
Yeah.
But, but if you're a lodge thatis successful and having a
successful event, you gotta keepputting in the effort to keep
that fresh and, you know, and,and to keep it successful
because people rotate through.
You have different volunteersand, it, it, it isn't easy to
keep things going.
So I think it's, you people haveto realize that the effort has
(30:07):
to keep happening.
I keep going back to the pointyou made about community
involvement, identifying othergroups within, in, in this case,
in some rural lodges, who we canwork with and help make an event
successful together as wecollaborate, that's where the
conversations begin.
(30:27):
Like you just mentioned, you,you, you're a Freemason.
What's that all about?
Instead of just going out andblindly saying, well, we just
need more members.
There's a certain amount ofeasing into this building.
The we, we are in therelationship business.
We are the original socialnetwork.
But think about that though.
(30:47):
If you have 10 people that showup, 10 men that show up at the
lodge door and say, I wannabecome a Freemason.
They came there for a reason,but understanding why did you,
what, what drew you to us?
What is it that you want to getout of this?
Because I think sometimes it'salso a, if you don't give people
what it is that they want,they're gonna become disengaged.
(31:07):
You know, we talk about deitzand, and declining membership
Uh, I think we don't very oftenget a deit from a brother who's
actively en lodge and say, wow,that's a surprise.
It's we're getting a deit.
And then sometimes you have togo back and look and say, well,
who, who was this?
Do you remember this guy?
Yeah.
And, and so sometimes decliningmembership, we need to be
careful and not look at that asa, as a failure.
(31:31):
But it's maybe more just arationalization of what reality
is.
Right?
When we had 43,000 masons backin the sixties or whatever that
high point was, forties,fifties, whatever, after World
War ii, a lot of those men cameback from the war and joined
Freemasonry.
Maybe not because.
They wanted the free, theFreemason experience, it was
more or less they needed to havethat, that brotherhood bond
(31:55):
after the war.
you know, and, and, and so it's,things have changed since then.
But are, are we giving them whatthey want?
But then also too, we can't havehold ourselves to a level of
expectation that we're gonna getback to 20,000 members because
that's, that's not real.
It's a different world.
Now, in that early 20th centuryaspect, we hear that quite a
(32:17):
bit.
Well, everybody was a joinerback then, but it really wasn't
that simple.
I bet you if you went back in atime machine and you interviewed
a master of, you know, a lodgein the 19, 19 25, 19 25.
Okay.
And you asked, what are thebiggest issues you're dealing
with today?
I bet, I bet a lot of the issuesthey're dealing with probably
(32:38):
wouldn't look a whole lotdifferent.
I.
Than what we're talking abouttoday.
In fact, they had more members.
Maybe they, they probably hadmore issues to deal with.
Mm-hmm.
why do we always look backhistorically and look at things
in the past and say, oh, thingswere perfect then, you know, we
were both born in the seventies,right?
Yes.
We look back at the eighties andwe say, man, that was just a
(33:00):
perfect time, wasn't it?
The eighties were just, I betyou the eighties weren't as
great as we think they were, butbecause we were young, we
didn't, we didn't know anydifferent MTV and Oh yeah.
Summer activities and barely,but that's true.
But maybe it's because we equateand we think about a concert
that's sold out versus a concertthat's half full in the venue.
(33:23):
Right.
We latch that thought processon.
Well, if the lodge isn'tbrimming with members to the
rafters, we.
Are we failing?
Are we not doing good enough andwe, you can have a meaningful
lodge experience with a dozenmembers.
Sure.
(33:43):
Wouldn't it be great to see 50,a hundred members in attendance
Ask Grand Master, DonaldSeaverson said recently when he
was grand circa 1979.
1980.
Yeah.
We had more members then, but wealso had a lot of problems as
well.
It's funny you mention thatabout going back in a time
(34:05):
machine as a lodge recently thatwas embarking on the scanning
project mm-hmm.
To take some of their archivesand preserve them.
We're reading some of theminutes and did in fact find
exactly what you described.
A lot of the, if there was anissue, something slightly
escalated.
very much mirrored today.
(34:28):
Yep.
we just would, would neverassume that though.
How do you feel about thatnotion of a quality lodge
experience can be had with asmaller group of members?
I've witnessed it.
I've seen it in, in, in play.
I mean, you, you don't have tohave a lodge of 150.
(34:49):
Well, Mankato, for example, uh,where I was master, I'm a member
today.
We absorbed another lodge,Bethel Lodge in Lake Crystal,
and our membership grew.
So now we're at 150 members.
Is that experience any differenttoday with 150 members than it
was that when, when we had 95?
No.
you see other lodges that maybethey have 20 active members, but
(35:11):
they're, they're active andthey're able to, to, to do the
things that need to be done.
Just because you have morepeople that are on your
membership list, sending in duesdoesn't mean that you're a
better lodge.
Right.
It's, it's those members thatare active and, and giving
people what they want.
So, I mean, it's, it's not a, anotion of more is necessarily
(35:34):
better, but it's, it's the, Idon't wanna say quality, but it,
it, maybe it is the quality,quality experience.
It's the quality of theexperience, what are you doing
and are people finding a valuein, in that?
I'm a member of a lodge inMissouri, small town of about
1500 people.
Where?
La Plata, Missouri.
my grandfather's lodge.
and it's, it's a whole differentexperience than what we have up
(35:55):
here.
But here's a lodge that maybehas 35, 40 members.
They're not, you know, great atRitual.
They aren't bringing in lots ofnew members, but they're active
in the community and they'rehelping each other out.
So I think to your question, doyou have to be a big lodge to
be, uh, successful?
I, I don't think so.
(36:16):
We've seen a change with theyounger men seeking to learn
about Freemason Ry and possiblyjoin that are in fact looking
for an experience.
we get asked all the time, whatis Freemason Ry?
What do you, what do you guysstand for?
Authentic friendship, personaldevelopment and building
(36:37):
community.
Our new members especially havean expectation that at least two
of those three will be executedquite well.
So when we have a largesituation that's become lazy,
apathetic may be inventingexcuses to avoid what they need
(36:58):
to do in latching onto anothercommunity group, getting out
there and getting involved.
I've used the analogy time andagain, would you continue going
to your church?
I.
If it wasn't feeding you, if itwas just nothing going on, you
would likely be less inclined totithe to your house of worship.
(37:20):
Mm-hmm.
You look at those massivemegachurches, and this isn't
about any particular religion,it's just the concept of a
megachurch that fills a 15,000seat venue.
Why is that full?
Because the people that aregoing are willing to battle the
traffic to get up and Dr to gothere, but they're getting
(37:43):
something out of it.
They're getting something out ofit.
Yes.
In their heart, they're gettingfed something that's helping
them in their lives.
We have that opportunity toprovide our members with that
blueprint how to make oneselfbetter.
For me personally, I look atwhere we are today.
I have such an optimistic viewof the future of Freemasonry,
(38:08):
maybe compared to what some ofour other members, you know,
they look at and they're like,oh, well we lost another,
however many members last year.
Yeah.
I don't want to see us losemembers.
Right.
I mean, that's, that's awful.
But at the same time, when youlook at where we are today with
the life that we live and, andwhere we're positioned, we are
absolutely setting ourselves upfor success, for giving men
(38:34):
something that they're gonnaneed in their lives.
We just need to find that way tohelp a communicate that this is
who we are.
Right.
And also following through onthat, I mean, the work Now, 15
years ago, we didn't talk aboutour, contribution and the
partnership that we have withthe University of Minnesota.
Right.
People would see the Shrinersand they'd say, oh, you're the,
(38:56):
you're the Shrine Hospitalpeople with the little kids, and
you give the care.
Yep.
The Freemasons, what do you,what do you guys do?
We didn't, we didn't talk aboutwhat we do publicly because that
just wasn't what we, you know,we don't talk about those
things.
We humbled to a fault.
Yeah.
But now that we're, we're morepublic about it and we're
talking about it, and MasonicCharities is, is really getting
(39:18):
out there and, and publicizingthis.
to me that, that sets the stagefor us now.
Oh, you're the Freemasons.
You're, you're helping with theMasonic Children's Hospital.
You're helping with, you havethe scholarships.
I heard the, heard thatcommercial about the Southwest
Scholar.
I mean, people know who we are.
(39:39):
We aren't a mystery anymore.
You know, they always view usas, oh, you guys are the ones
that meet upstairs and you gotthe curtains all pulled and what
are you doing up there?
So mysterious.
Oh yeah, yeah.
We're not myster.
Well, we maybe we're stillmysterious a little bit, but.
The mystery has kind of goneaway a little bit about what is
it you guys are about?
In a good way.
In a good way.
We still have the secrets ofmasonry, but masonry shouldn't
(40:01):
be a secret.
Right.
And I think we're, we're fixingthat a little bit.
And you know, I had a, I had afriend of mine that that texted
me.
He was going to the event youhad here, was it a couple weeks
ago?
Yeah.
By the time of recording we hada Meet the Freemasons event at
the end of May.
Yep.
buddy of mine from college, andhe knew I was a Freemason, but
we'd never really talked aboutit.
And he texted me and hadn'ttalked to him for a while and he
says, Hey, are you a Freemason?
(40:22):
And he ended up coming to thatevent.
And, and again, it's somethingthat probably where he's at
right now in his life is, isthis would be a good fit.
But it's, it's, it'srecognizable that, that name
Freemason isn't something that'screepy.
We're actively seeking to makethat synonymous with building
(40:44):
community.
Embracing timeless core values.
we live in a world that iscraving all of the things that
we stand for and have stood forfor hundreds of years.
Religious tolerance.
We strive to be apolitical.
what's important.
(41:04):
What are we doing with our timewhile we're here?
you had to pick one thing thathas been your favorite aspect of
being a Freemason, what is it?
Hmm.
I mean, I could take the easyway out and I could say, oh,
it's the great people I've metand you know, the places I've
(41:25):
traveled and all that.
But while those things are alltrue, I think for me personally,
the one thing that I've takenaway from this is perspective.
Meaning I joined the lodge whenI was 28 years old, and you're
(41:45):
sitting there in a lodge roomand you're surrounded by people
in their forties, fifties.
At that time there was a fewWorld War II vets sitting on the
sideline.
And when you're 28, even someonein their forties looks a little,
seems a, oh, are you kidding?
Oh yeah, it's old.
And, but when you sit there andyou realize, you know, Oliver
Mulford was the one of the guysin the sideline of Mankato.
(42:09):
And at first you're like, oh,that guy's kind of grumpy.
But when you get to know him andyou're talking to him, it's like
he is no different than me.
He just has more miles on him.
And that perspective, not justin age, but just in backgrounds,
has completely changed my mind.
Not just in Masonry, but alsowhen it comes to if I'm involved
(42:29):
with scouting or in my personalwork experience, don't judge
first of all people by theirappearance, but also
understanding that everybodycomes from a different
background and, and they allwant the same basic things in
life.
Right.
And, and so that's been the onething for me, I guess we always
(42:52):
talk about subduing ourpassions, right?
And, and kind of, for me, hasbeen just to kind of, I.
Pull myself back a little bitand take time as you're looking
at the situation or, and, and alittle bit is maybe my own
natural tendency is to get, ifyou're in a work environment or
(43:13):
whatever, and, and not lose yourtemper, but just get excited
about something and be verypassionate about your response.
I've really learned that.
Look, just slow down, calm down,take a minute.
Practice the pause.
We don't, yeah.
why be so quick to jump onsomething?
I still have work to do on that,but I'm getting better.
Um, for me, that's whatfreemasonry I, I would say my
(43:35):
big takeaway has been, I don'twant to forget to say thank you
for all that you do as an areadeputy, for the southern part of
the state and the involvementthat you have.
I, I could list it all and I, Iwon't go into the great detail,
but I too am excited about ourfuture is we distill down the
(43:59):
member experience, not just forthe new guys, but for the
existing members.
It's easy to fall into patternsand it's even easier to not make
tough decisions when the timecomes, but with the
collaboration of all of theseresources and as we roll out the
regional lodge support teamslater this year, I, I'm, I'm
(44:20):
really pumped.
Well, yeah, and, and I thinkit's, it's worth noting though
that, again, like you said, thisisn't gonna be a, a, a silver
bullet, right?
We're not gonna, can't flip aswitch.
No, we can't flip a switch, butwe're setting the, the, the
stage here for what I feel likeis, is a fantastic opportunity
(44:40):
and I would not have agreed tobe area deputy.
If I didn't think that the rightpeople are at the table now for
us to make a difference, becauseI'm as critical as probably a
lot of us in that, look, I'm, toyour point earlier, I have a lot
of places to spend my time,right?
And, and as much as I love freemasonry, if, if I say, okay, I'm
(45:05):
going to devote some more timeto this, I wanna make sure it's,
it's meaningful.
And so that's why I agreed to dothis, because I feel like we can
make a difference.
I mean, it's easy for us to sitback and, and, and see the,
those things within ourorganization that are, I don't
wanna say the trouble spots, butjust the negative, right?
(45:26):
You have lodges that aren'tmeeting a quorum, or you have,
just all whatever these thingsare, or just the latent
malcontent, right?
But instead of letting thatconsume our time.
The understanding that, look, wecan fix some of these.
And we have to, we have toacknowledge and say, some of
these, we're just not gonna winthese battles, right?
We're, we're gonna have some ofthese situations where we're
(45:48):
gonna have to make some toughdecisions to your point, but
looking at it down the road, aslong as we have our eye on this
is what we want it to look likein the future, and we're gonna
defend this going forward,there's, there's a bright future
here for us.
And I, and I, I drew, I really,truly do feel that way.
(46:10):
I was asked recently, how, howdo you maintain a healthy
culture in a hierarchicalarrangement?
And I had to stop and thinkabout that for a second.
You used the pause.
Well, that was, that was a long,long discussion.
But one of the ways in whichthat happens is with.
(46:34):
Selfless servant leaders likeyou, There are so many, too many
to be called out specificallyright now, it's our brothers and
their spouses and their familieswho see the value in what we're
doing as an organization andwant to ensure its healthy
future for generations to come.
(46:55):
It's not just about the rightnow.
You touched on this a momentago.
It's that infinite perspectiveof seeing our organization
evolve and maintain its healthand strength.
Well, and that's a veryimportant thing to touch on and
to call out is we talk aboutdividing our time.
(47:16):
You know, and as a member of alodge, your, the desire by the
master or by the membership isthat you're gonna make regular
attendance or lodge meetings.
So that's one, one or twomeetings a month, right?
We ask somebody to be a districtrepresentative.
Now, it's not just going to yourown lodge one or two times a
month, but now if you have threeor four lodges that you're a DR
(47:38):
for, you're going to their lodgemeetings and their pancake
breakfasts and you're doing thisaward ceremony, award
ceremonies, you're submittingreports to the Grand Lodge.
You know, and likewise, ifyou're an area deputy, it's,
it's this other ask.
So I think those, thosevolunteer leaders we have in our
organization, it's very, veryimportant that we remember that
they're volunteers and thatthey're not, it, it's easy to be
(48:02):
critical and it's easy, I think,sometimes to, to ask a lot of
them.
And that's another reason why Ithink the work that, that you
and Ethan and Marcus are doingis not just.
Very needed.
But I think it's, it's, it's, tome, it's very exciting because
we're gonna remove some of thosethings from the drs.
I mean, I'll be honest, thereason I stepped down as a
(48:23):
district rep was I startedlooking at the job duties and I
said, look, I don't have time todo all of this to be a dad, to
be a business owner, to beinvolved in my church and
scouts.
I, something has to go.
And unfortunately, I looked at,I'd been at DR for three years,
and then I was off, and thenthree years again.
And I said, I can't keep doingthis if I can't do it to the
(48:44):
level that I think it needs tobe done.
And so I stepped away for awhile and I was asked to come
back as an area deputy.
But when I see these changesthat are taking place to me,
this is, this is setting thestage for some great things to
come.
We're acknowledging that wecan't ask people to just keep
doing, doing, doing.
So.
It's a great point.
(49:04):
And in our roles as regionaldirectors, the goal is to lessen
the burden of our district reps,our area deputies.
Take a few things off yourplate.
I'm quite sure Ethan is alreadysick of hearing from me.
Well, no, that's good.
We, the phones have been, wehave been very busy and a lot of
things behind the scenes thatare offline that helping with
(49:25):
resources.
We are office staff.
Nobody reports to us.
We, we work for you Well.
Right.
And, and I don't think that,that if you're a master of a
lodge or a warden, if you're anofficer of a lodge, I don't
think you realize I didn't, whenI was lodge officer kinda lived
in our own little world downthere.
You don't realize how much goeson from a volunteer standpoint
(49:45):
behind the scenes to kind ofkeep this whole thing moving,
you know?
And, and so the fact that weadded three staff positions,
it's a little bit shocking.
We didn't have these.
15 years ago, because it's justa lot of ask to keep this thing
afloat and to keep, to keepthese lodges running.
Well, in those 15 years, wedefinitely took an example from
(50:09):
other jurisdictions that have asimilar setup and had many
anecdotes of success and ofcollaboration and it, it just,
it made so much sense.
It was definitely time.
Speaking of time, your busyschedule, big picture, what do
you enjoy doing that you don'tget to do often?
(50:34):
Hmm.
Well, there's so many things Icould pick from there.
Um, I would say for me, one ofthe things that I've, I've
enjoyed doing over the years is,is golfing.
And I mean, now I'll golf threetimes a year at industry events
(50:54):
or, you know, customerfunctions.
I.
And, and when I say golf, itisn't going out.
Sitting in a golf cart anddriving around 18 holes quickly.
Get a pole cart, go out and walknine or 18 holes by yourself.
And just that time to enjoy thegame, but also to just to think.
Right?
And, and, and that, that time ofjust decompressing on my own,
(51:17):
not having that, but someday Isee it as on, on the horizon.
It's, it's coming, it's outthere.
What's the most difficult thingyou've ever done?
(51:39):
Well, that's an interesting one.
You know, there's, there's thosethings in.
In your career that you look atand you say, boy, that was a,
that was a tough lift.
Or you look at from a personalstandpoint, things that you've
done.
Um, I think for me, the mostdifficult thing, just from an
(52:00):
emotional and stress standpointwas, you when you look at your
family and you start to makingdecisions on, you know, I worked
for CHS, they were a, you know,fortune 100 company.
The paycheck comes in the mailevery two weeks.
You know, not, I mean, you, youstill had work to do, but there
was that safety net, the idea ofwalking away from that life and
(52:24):
going to work for a smallcompany where it's very much eat
what you kill, right?
I mean, it's revenue comes in.
That's where your compensationcomes from.
While there is an allure tothat, there's also a huge fear
level of, am I putting my familyin jeopardy?
You know, are, is, is this gonnaall work out?
A lot of lost sleep over that.
(52:46):
But also there was the, supposea little bit of the, the faith
in knowing that, okay, if, ifthis opportunity is here and I
had the skills to do this, it's,it's gonna work out.
And you just say, you know what,I'm gonna take this leap here.
And, and, and it all worked out.
I mean, it's, it's been great.
I've, I've really enjoyed it,but it was, it was probably, you
(53:08):
know, and I'm sure there'sprobably other things in my life
that were more difficult,physically challenging or, you
know, mentally, but from anemotional standpoint of just
fear that, that probably was oneof the biggest ones because I, I
knew prior to making thatdecision that the, who I was
when I came home at night andthe stress that I brought home
with me, I was taking it out onmy, you know, not physically,
(53:30):
but just taking it out, beingshort with my wife and my kids
and downloading your day, right.
You know, you go to bed at nightand you lay there and you're
thinking about, you know.
This whole corporate struck, andI apologize for those of you who
work in corporate America andyou just love that environment.
I can't believe it, but just, Iapologize if this is offending
(53:51):
you, but um, I'm sure they'resaying preach on brother.
Oh yeah.
But this whole notion of havingmeetings to schedule another
meeting, oh God.
And you're sitting in meetingsall day long and, and it's like,
what are we getting done here?
And, and, um, it was, I couldtell that it was, I was not
gonna probably be in a goodplace if I stayed there.
But, so don't you love the,let's have another meeting in
(54:11):
the future to cover all thethings that we didn't cover
today, which basically is likecorporate success theater.
There are people in corporateAmerica that their job is to
perpetuate the corporatestructures.
So, so they have a job.
I mean, it's, you know, how manycorporate buzzwords can you
throw in there?
And the, the movie office space,I mean, you go back and watch
it.
Timeless.
Classic.
(54:31):
It's, it is so true.
Yeah.
It, uh, I, I watched it againhere a few weeks ago and just
had to laugh because it's, I'msure when it came out, people
looked at it and said, that wasa stupid movie.
Yeah.
But, but now it's, it, there'sso much truth to it.
It's the, well, you see Bob's, Igot three bosses.
What do you actually do here?
(54:52):
Okay.
I won't go down that.
But the, the yes.
But corporate America forleaders that don't appreciate
that meeting for meeting foranother meeting is glorified
party planning.
Yeah.
This meeting could have been anemail.
just real quick as we get closeto kinda wind things up here,
(55:14):
thank you for what you've donewith this podcast.
I mean, I, uh, have some drivetime back and forth to work, and
I like the fact that, you know,they're not two and a half hours
long, but I've learned so muchabout Freemasonry, but also
about my fellow Freemasons.
There's guys that you've, you'veinterviewed that I know well and
(55:35):
I learned stuff and I'm like, Ididn't know that about you.
And I, I, when I go to lodges,I, I tell'em, Hey, you need to
take a listen to this becauseit's, you're gonna learn
something.
You're not gonna say, boy, thatwas 30 minutes.
I wish I never would've wasted.
Oh, thank goodness.
But, um, but there's some great,you know, lodge education topics
that have come out of this anddifferent things.
So thank you for taking yourtime to do this.
Um, it's, I've learned a lot.
(55:58):
I appreciate that and it's mypleasure.
This is a really fun aspect ofthe role.
This is probably my favoritepart of the week that we get to
interview members like you andothers that you've mentioned,
that you think you know someone,maybe you've been in that
contact with someone for 10years, but then you really peel
back a few more layers of theirlife story, where they've been,
(56:19):
their hobbies, their lifeexperience, and it's just been
such a pleasure to do this andshare a little more of who that
brother is behind the.
Behind the apron.
That's right.
It's not the well, and let's behonest, a former radio guy, you
get to, you get to sit here andplay.
Well play radio.
That's true.
I do.
This is the part of the radioindustry that I do miss, but it
(56:42):
is not a time to be interrestrial radio.
That is for sure.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
Nate Smithson.
Thank you for all that you do.
It is not lost on me.
You have an incredibly busyschedule for taking the time to
be with us in studio today.
Thank you, Reed.
And this has been anotherepisode of Minnesota Masonic
Histories and Mysteries.
Hello again, everyone.
Welcome back to another episodeof Minnesota Masonic, histories
and Mysteries.
Today's guest was born inKirksville, Missouri, moved
around that state a few timesahead of his family.
Later moving to St.
James, Minnesota, where heattended and graduated from St.
James High School in 1995.
It's a year of a reunion.
(00:21):
Welcome, Nate Smithson.
Thank you.
30 years outta high school.
How does that feel?
Well, it doesn't really feellike it, that's for sure.
What do they always say?
You're only as old as you feel.
I mean.
Maybe still 19, 20.
Yeah.
At least we, we, we strive forthat.
Yeah.
You attended the University ofMinnesota Twin Cities.
You were a member of thefarmhouse fraternity bachelor's
(00:42):
degree in agricultural educationand emphasis on adult education.
First job outta college withCHS.
You started out in the energybusiness and then moved into oil
seed processing in 2006.
Moved to Mankato around thattime, relocated to New Prague in
2012.
So you left CHS, you came to acompany called Moving Parts.
(01:06):
You do commodity risk managementand vegetable oil brokerage.
I have so many questions.
You know what we do it, uh, tous it just seems like it's just
kind of second science, but to alot of people, they look at it
and they're like, wow, that isreally fascinating.
So, in my time with CHSI was inthe, in the oil seed processing
business and for those who don'tknow, we.
(01:27):
Crushed soybeans and crushedcanola seed and you get
vegetable oil and, and uh,animal feed out of that.
And so my job was sellingvegetable oil and over time I
kind of got a little bit tiredof the corporate structure and,
and just maybe some of us are alittle more entrepreneurial
minded and, and kind of wantedto try something different.
And so in 2017 I left to, uh,join moving parts and, and it's
(01:50):
a small business and uh, thatI'm now in the purchase of, uh,
or process of purchasing thatbusiness.
And what we do is kind of likeyou mentioned, it's a commodity
risk management.
So we basically help, if youthink about a bottle of salad
dressing on the grocery storeshelf doesn't change in price,
but all the ingredients goinginto it, like soybean oil, they
vary in price every day.
(02:11):
The price market goes up anddown.
So we help those companiesmanage that, that price
relationship between whatthey're buying it for and what
they're selling it for and, andmanaging that margin.
And then in the vegetable oilbrokerage side, we also.
Purchase vegetable oil for a lotof large food companies.
So we, we buy about three or 4billion pounds a year of, or, or
are involved in touching threeor 4 billion pounds a year of
(02:32):
vegetable oil.
Who would some typical clientsbe for that?
Uh, some of our customers arelike Hidden Valley Ranch.
they're a big customer of ours.
Uh, there's companies that youmay or may not have, like
Ventura Foods.
Uh, they, they make the, uh,Marie's salad dressing, a lot, a
lot of the French friedmanufacturing companies,
restaurant chains, uh, grocerystore chains.
So, there's so much more behindthat product on the shelf than
(02:57):
we ever think about.
Oh, yeah.
And, and, and, In the last sixmonths, um, we've, we've been
dealing a lot with tariffs and,and, and how that impacts our
customers.
We buy a lot of vegetable oilfrom Canada.
And so when there was the wholediscussion on was there gonna be
tariffs on Canadian products ornot, and then off and on, and it
creates a lot of uncertainty forthe food companies.
(03:18):
And so dealing with that and,and how, how we navigate through
that whole process.
But then also, uh, this wholediscussion with, uh, the whole,
you know, healthier eating and,and some of that movement and
the public perception of seedoils and, and what's healthy,
what isn't.
And there's a lot ofmisinformation out there.
And, and unfortunately now withsocial media, you or I could go
(03:41):
post something and it goes viraland well this person said this,
therefore it's true, it's gospeland with, with no science out
there, right?
Mm-hmm.
And so, um, I'm also, I serve,I'm vice president of, uh, the
National Institute of Oil SeedProducts.
It's an industry association.
Um, we probably have four or 500members, and part of our time is
(04:01):
spent on figuring out how do we,have a response to the narrative
on some of these kind of things?
And how do we help grow theindustry?
So.
Uh, that's been been consuming alot of time here the last few
months.
Can you very briefly sharewhat's a misconception about the
seed oil versus reality?
Uh, one of the misconceptions isthis whole notion that when you
(04:23):
put a blanket comment around,you know, seed oils are
unhealthy and that it just stopsright there, there's a broader
discussion that needs to happenaround, there's a ratio of omega
six and Omega-3 fatty acids, andyou know, your body needs fat,
your body needs a lot of thesethings, so it, it, it's, you
can't just cut it out.
And so what does that ratio looklike?
(04:44):
And then you start looking atcertain oils and you say, well,
avocado oil looks like theperfect oil.
Well it does, but the problem iswe make about, I mean, it's a
thimbleful compared to what wehave available of soybean oil
and canola oil and palm oil.
So while there are certain oilsthat olive oil that may be, is
more ideal, we just don't makeenough of it.
(05:05):
So it isn't necessarily.
You can use canola oil andsoybean oil in a lot of the
foods we eat maybe isn't thenecessarily the oil, but what
are you doing with it?
So in other words, if you'refrying french fries or onion
rings or tater tots and that'syour diet, that might be more of
the issue necessarily than justare you eating soybean oil or
canola oil?
So it's, it's all aboutmoderation.
(05:26):
And so it isn't necessarilywrong to say some of these
things may not be the best foryou, but there's a broader
discussion around moderation andwhat are you eating?
And you know, if you'reingesting a ridiculous amount of
anything is Oh yeah.
I mean, it's too much.
It's, it's, it's ridiculous.
But so, you know, so that's,that's been, uh, consuming a lot
of our time the last few months.
(05:49):
And speaking of time on top ofyour career, you are also a
member of the York W right?
In Farmington, the RochesterValley of Scottish Rights.
You're a member of both Osmondand Zurich Shrine.
Hobbies, camping, riding a TV,shotgun sports.
I think you mentioned you helpedcoach the new Prague shotgun
Team Scouts.
(06:09):
You were raised a master Masonin 2007 at Mankato Lodge.
Number 12, served as master in2011 and 12.
District rep 2014 to 17, andagain from 2021 to 2024.
Now serving the area deputy forthe southern area of the state.
family, legacy Dad andgrandfather were both masons.
(06:31):
So much to pack in that marriedto your wife Robin since 2005.
She's a physical therapist.
Two kids.
Ben 16 and LD 13.
Two dogs.
I have a serious question.
How do you manage all of that?
Well, I think that.
I think that, that this wholediscussion around time is, is a
(06:53):
valid one.
And, and when you, when you lookat the membership of, of the
Grand Lodge of Minnesota or justMasonry as a whole today, it all
comes down to that.
How do you have time to do allthese things?
And, and to me, part of it hasbeen a decision that I, I love
the whole cons.
I mean, for me, masonry is aboutthe fraternal piece of it.
(07:14):
It's, it's getting to knowpeople like you and, and, you
know, our grand grand secretaryand, and Clint Christensen, our
former area deputy.
it's that friendship and thatfraternal piece of it.
So that's kind of what I, whatwhat I thrive on being a member
of the shrine.
I love doing the parades andbeing out there with our, our
other nobles interacting withthe community.
And I feel like we've been givena skillset and talents
(07:39):
individually that, uh, by ourcreator.
And it's what you do with those.
I think that that is our job.
And so if, if, if I just sit athome every night and just watch,
you know, watch a baseball gameand, you know, have a cocktail
and, and don't really doanything with my time, I feel
that I'm not being a goodsteward of the skills that I
(07:59):
haven't given or the talentsI've been given.
So, to do some of these things,even though you look at it on
paper, as I was writing that biofor you, I was like, holy cow,
that's a lot.
Am I, am I making a, a good useof my time?
But it's that whole, and I thinkit's that, you know, what we're
taught as a mason too, the whole24 inch gauge and you divide
that time up and for a, for anon mason share what that is,
well, dividing our time into,into three equal parts.
(08:19):
Eight hours for your job, eighthours for your, you know, rest
and relaxation and, and eighthours for, I think, what is it?
It's service to service to,yeah.
And maybe I'm out of balance inthat sometimes my wife might
tell you that maybe I spend toomuch time involved in other
things, but it's, it's fun to doand, and it's, um.
(08:41):
But I think it's also importantthough, I think as Masons, when
we look at this and we seebrothers and we say, well, this
guy is the senior warden of hislodge, or he's a master of his
lodge and he missed a couplemeetings.
Or, how come he is not at thispancake breakfast or whatever.
Don't criticize him for notbeing there until you understand
why isn't he there.
(09:01):
It might be that his kids have abaseball game that he doesn't
wanna miss.
It might be that, you know, he'sinvolved in something with his
church, or it might be.
It's just there's other thingsgoing on in our lives and it
isn't like it was probably 30 or40 years ago where, you know, it
was more the norm for yourspouse not to work.
Um, you and I talked beforeabout youth sports.
I mean, now if you're.
(09:22):
Kid plays in baseball orbasketball, it's a year-round
commitment.
It's not just the three monthsduring that baseball season.
So there's a lot going on and Ithink it's, it's important for
us to, to at least acknowledgethat our membership base has
shifted a bit.
Yes.
And we can't criticize peopleif, if we don't think they're
dividing their time wisely, wemay not know what else is
(09:43):
pulling on their, their needs.
Hmm.
It's been said so many differentways that you have enough time
to do anything.
It just depends on where youdecide to devote your time and
your energy.
when We hear people say in everywalk of life, well, I just don't
have the time.
But where are those priorities?
(10:03):
And to your point, when we don'tsee someone in lodge, it's very
crucial to ask the questionfirst.
How are you?
How's life, what's going on withthe family?
And not just make thatassumption, well, he's not very
dedicated.
He missed our fundraiserbreakfast.
Or he abruptly maybe didn't havea chance to alert someone that
he's not going to attend aparticular event.
(10:26):
There's a backstory there, butwe're still quick to, to jump on
that.
It's always easy, isn't it, forus to assign somebody else's
priorities without understandingwhat's going on in their life,
right?
Yes.
I mean, it's, it's, I don'tknow.
It's, it's a dangerous,dangerous assumption to make
because like we have a member,of our lodge that he's going
through a lot right now in hislife.
(10:47):
And, but not everybody knows thethings that are going on in his
life.
And so they're quick to pointout how come he wasn't here?
And it's not my place tonecessarily tell them this is
what's going on.
But, um, you just, you realizethat part of being a mason is
also that whole notion of, of,you know, giving your brothers
some, some assistance if theyneed it.
And, and, and.
(11:08):
Hey, how are you doing?
What's, what's going on?
Support is a word that comes upfrequently as members share how
much that means to them.
To know somebody has my back.
I'm balancing and juggling somany different things.
The thing you mentioned aboutkids in sports, we've talked
(11:30):
about that on this podcast alot.
It's so different than when wewere kids.
You played for a season and thatwas it.
You hung up the skates.
You baseball was a a summerevent and it's a year round
crucible.
It feels like also what you saidabout just a few years ago, that
time commitments have changed.
(11:51):
Frequently, we look back, wayback, 70, 80 years and, well,
life obviously very differentthen.
But even if we jump back 30years, we talked about you've
been on okay, how to high schoolfor 30 years now.
But even in the nineties timecommitment for activities, for
hobbies, for anythingextracurricular, and our jobs
we're so connected almost toomuch.
(12:12):
Well, think about it, I mean, 30years ago, if you left your job
at five o'clock and you wenthome, you, you really didn't
have any connection to thatuntil the next morning.
Now, like last week, I was inWisconsin for a week.
We went an a TV trip, my wifeand I and some, and two other
couples had that iPhone in myhand, right?
(12:34):
So even though you're away fromwork and you're supposed to be
spending time with your, yourfamily and your friends, it was
very, very easy to pull that outand.
Start looking at emails.
Yeah.
And now you're, you're callingcustomers doing these things?
We are, we are tied to our worklife now.
So much different than it, thanit was before.
(12:55):
And while the convenience isgreat, we talk about AI and
chat, GPT and technology on thispodcast a lot.
I had an email from someonesaying, well, we can't just go
back to the dark ages, Rita.
And that's not what I'madvocating, but where do we find
the balance?
Because once you check thatphone once and one e I'm just
(13:15):
gonna reply to one email andthen you walk off into the
corner and your wife and yourfriends are like, Hey Nate, you,
you coming back?
And it just, it pulls you in.
Yep.
That's really difficult.
I wish I could see more clearlyaway.
I.
That we wouldn't completely gooff the grid, but could still
maintain the balance of, okay,this is family and friends time.
(13:37):
Now this is, you're on vacation.
Mm-hmm.
But work calls that text chime.
Here it comes.
Well, because there's that,there's that feeling in your gut
that if I don't respond to thisnow, it's just gonna get worse
before I get back.
And honestly, what I've found isa lot of your customers, at
least in in, in my business, alot of our customers, if they
know you're gonna be onvacation, they don't, they don't
(13:59):
want you to respond.
They want you to take that timeaway.
Yes.
I think we internally feel like,oh, but I have to do this.
I have to respond to this.
I have to be a part of this.
And, and, um, it is a bigchange.
And, and what does that mean?
What's it gonna look like, toyour point with ai?
What's that gonna look like in10 years, 15 years?
So as these young kids that areplaying sports year round now
that are in seventh, eighth,12th grade, whatever, as they
(14:22):
get older and they become ourdemographic for joining a
fraternity like this, what isthat experience gonna look like
for them?
Yes.
And that is the bigger takeawaythat AI does a lot for us.
Technology, you name it, but thehuman to human connection, the
brotherhood we speak of sofrequently cannot be substituted
(14:43):
by a computer.
Well, you've mentioned a coupletimes, I heard it at the, uh,
Southeast Area Conference lastyear, and you mentioned at one
of the other podcasts earlier,this whole, this replica, this
app.
Yes.
The, the fake friend orwhatever, the AI thing that
blows my mind to think thatthere are that many men that
(15:03):
said, what was it like one infive or whatever the number was
that didn't have a close friendor, yeah, there's a couple
things.
So the last time I checked thereplica app that serves as a
virtual friend or sibling hadsomething like over 25 million
users.
the other point brought up wasthat I believe the Wall Street
Journal did a study.
(15:24):
Of men over the age of say, wasit 25 if they're not married or
in a relationship, said thatthey have no close friends at
all.
Zero.
Wow.
And yet that's not surprisingbecause it's acceptable now to
sit in our apartments, to sit athome alone.
(15:47):
Netflix is on ordering fromAmazon, food can be delivered.
and that is something that youngpeople, I'm sure your kids,
that's the only world they know,right?
Yeah.
How, how do we sow the seeds offinding the value in
relationships to human, to humanconnection?
It's alarming to me when we seethat number of an app, a virtual
(16:11):
friend or sibling with millionsand millions of users that are
probably paying for that too,Which often leads to another
conversation within the Masonicframework.
People are lonely, they'reisolated, they're looking for
connection.
Here we are in the relationshipbusiness of brotherhood, of
(16:31):
helping those in need.
And I harp on it a lot,brotherhood being authentic,
being meaningful, and not just abuzzword.
you and I had an interestingconversation over lunch recently
about our obligation.
Mm-hmm.
(16:52):
Tell us more.
Well, to me, and, and I guessI've been amazed now for almost
20 years, so it feels likeyesterday, but, um, I don't view
myself and maybe back up alittle bit.
I was raised in a lodge that Iguess would technically be
called outstate, right?
Mankato is not part of the metroarea, and so your, your
(17:13):
experience in that environmentis a little bit different
because you don't have a lot ofnearby lodges to help you do
things, right?
And so as you come up throughthe officer line and serving as
master, and there's all thesethings that we're being told
that, well, as a, as a, as aperfect lodge, you need to do
this, this, and this.
(17:33):
You know, there's ritualstriving to be right.
Ritual is very important.
And I'm not saying that, thatthese things aren't important,
but I think that we get in ourhead that, that this is what
makes a mason a mason.
But then if you just stop andthink about it for a second,
it's our obligation.
That's what, when we sit thereand we take that obligation that
I'm gonna help Aidan assist youif you need help.
(17:56):
I mean, if, if, if you say,Nate, I need to help here.
I need money, I need whatever.
It's my job as a master mason tohelp you, your, your widows,
your orphans.
You know, and, and, and justthat whole notion that that's,
that's the, the common bond thatwe have, it doesn't say in our
obligation that, that I, youknow, that I promise that I'm
gonna be, you know, perfectlyproficient on the second degree.
(18:18):
Not saying that that isn'tsomething that we should strive
for, but when you start lookingat, at what we do as Masons,
that's really what kind of setsus apart from, from other org
is, is that obligation that wetake for those things that, that
we're gonna do.
And, and, um, you know, and I'mnot a member of a lot of other
organizations.
(18:39):
I'm, I'm very involved inscouts.
My, my kids are in scouts, soI'm, I'm, I'm a part of that.
And you see glimpses of thisnotion of of, of helping others,
right?
But that's kind of what we liveon.
I mean, I think that that waskinda the discussion we had.
I.
Yes.
We want to do our ritual or thefoundation of what we do
(19:00):
perfectly.
We wanna execute it in ameaningful way.
we are committed to providing.
This blueprint of how to becomea better version of ourselves
through our ritual to do sowell, to make it meaningful and
impactful.
we strive to do it toperfection.
We want to get the words right.
(19:21):
We want to make sure that we'renot cutting corners and being
lazy about how that ispresented.
Now that said, we're human.
We make mistakes.
I find it frustrating after adegree has completed that has
been very impactful for both newmembers and existing ones.
(19:43):
The the first piece of feedbackis to run over and tell the
person who delivered it, theymissed two words, or they missed
statistically an insignificantamount.
Are we in a competition for whocan recite the words better than
the other?
Because that would make us atheater troupe, right?
(20:04):
Can, can we, can we find a placewhere the brother that delivered
the lecture or that presided onour degree who got 90 to 95% of
it, right?
Could we at least start withsaying, great job in bringing
these timeless core values tolife and touching the hearts of
our members, and then maybelater we'll nitpick about the
(20:25):
versus thou.
Yeah.
I, I, that's always been, and,and within our membership we
have, we have a lot of brotherswho, who strive, who are driven
by different aspects of masonry.
We have some of our brothersthat, like worship brother Clint
Christensen, who I mentionedbefore, who is our past area
deputy in the south.
Fantastic Ritualist.
(20:46):
I mean, how he can re rememberall this stuff just blows me
away.
Is in Yeah.
Him.
I mean, I, I, but I, I can't, I,I'm not wired that way.
I can't just sit down and, andmemorize, say I can't, maybe I
don't have the time.
Maybe I need to spend more timememory, but it's hard.
It's difficult, but it's hard.
But I guess the, the point I'mtrying to make is lodges can't
be perfect at all things.
(21:06):
And you might have a lodge thatis really, really good at, at
community service and, andgiving back in the community or
really, really good at, atcharity, but maybe struggles a
little bit on the ritual thatisn't necessarily a bad thing.
I think when you look at thiswhole notion has been brought up
before, I think I've heard it ina couple of the past episodes,
um, well, rural, rural lodges.
(21:29):
The notion of a rural lodge isthat they're gonna struggle.
Times have changed.
People in outstate areas justdon't wanna belong to
organizations.
There's not as many people todraw from and they're leaving
the area that, and they'releaving.
Yeah.
And therefore.
these lodges are just doomed andOkay, I'll give you a little bit
of that.
I will admit, I grew up in asmall town in southwest
Minnesota.
Things look different.
(21:49):
Main Street looks a lotdifferent than it did when I
lived there.
But at the same time, thatdoesn't mean that men don't need
an experience.
And when I was working at CHSIwas traveling to North Dakota,
uh, like once a month, and I gotput in con in contact with Past
Grand Master for North Dakota,Tony Kin, who I, you and I
talked prior that yes, we have acommon connection there.
(22:13):
And Tony and, and I and hiswife, we would meet probably
seven months in a row.
We met, had pizza and beer or sBut you you were in town from
work?
When I was in work.
Okay.
Yep.
And, and we'd get together andgreat experience and, and just
loved talking to Tony.
And, uh, one of the concepts westarted talking about was this
whole notion of rural lodges.
(22:34):
And I said, well, Tony, I mean,North Dakota is the rule.
And for those of you who don'tknow, I membership at Masonry
has been declining.
But for some reason, northDakota's decline wasn't matching
what we were seeing here inMinnesota.
And it just, so I asked him, Isaid, Tony, what, what are you
guys doing different here?
What, what's the secret sauce?
And of course there is no secretsauce, but he said, you take a
(22:55):
rural lodge in one of thesesmall towns in North Dakota that
maybe only has a handful ofmembers left.
And it takes two guys to say,you know what, we're gonna try
to fix this.
And he, so they, they reach outto the Chamber of Commerce and
say, Hey, the town celebrationthat you're having, what do you
need for help?
What can we do?
Uh, maybe they go to the schooland say, what do you guys need
(23:16):
help with?
Do you need help with, you know,some different things.
Go to the local scout troop andsay, do you need some merit
badge counselors?
Do you need some guys to help goon camp outs?
What do you need?
And it's amazing.
All of a sudden, people in townstart recognizing that the
Masons are there to help in thecommunity.
One of the things that we'vetalked about in the past is this
notion of we want to get back towhere.
(23:39):
your civic individuals in thecommunity were members of the
lodge, your bankers, yourlawyers, your, you know, those
people were, those were membersin the lodge.
Maybe one of the ways for us tokind of fix this is to spin that
backwards and maybe the Masonsneed to become more prominent in
the community.
(23:59):
And we've seen it in somecommunities in St.
Peter, uh, Nicolette Lodge.
Um, and then St.
Peter's not a small town, butit's smaller than the metro
area.
Uh, Nicolette Lodge hasestablished a relationship with
the ambassadors in St.
Peter.
They're kind of like your, yourChamber of Commerce.
It's a group of business peopleand they have a October Fest in
September, and they've.
(24:20):
They've asked the masons, Hey,will you help us by working the
door and taking tickets andhelping with security?
And, this next week we'reworking at, uh, we're gonna be
selling burgers at John Denverdays, or whatever it is in St.
Peter.
They're having a, a new musicfestival this, this next
weekend.
They've recognized Masons asbeing a group that we can help
them achieve their goals.
(24:42):
We're not really asking formuch.
They give us a few bucks tohelp, but it's more or less us
being present.
And so I think when you look atthat whole notion of our
existence in rural areas, usbeing present, and then through
that people start askingquestions, well, what, what do
you guys do?
You know?
And, and I love your comment.
(25:03):
You know, we're always quick tosay we make men better.
And I think you said it.
A few weeks ago.
We don't, we don't make peopledo anything.
We don't make, yeah.
There's that line of what domasons do?
We make, make, we make good menbetter.
We don't make anyone anything.
We are trying to provide theblueprint for how to become and
how to make the effort in orderto become a better version of
(25:23):
ourselves.
But this is, you make a greatpoint.
Community involvement requiresat times us to insert ourselves
into a collaborative arrangementwith another community group.
Mm-hmm.
All working together.
And then we're right back intothe fold.
Yeah.
Sometimes it takes a first step,not waiting for that group to
(25:45):
come to us, but who should we becollaborating with?
City Council, chamber ofCommerce, another civic group
with schools, scoutingorganizations.
I mean, scouts.
Look at scouts.
I mean, it's here you have agroup of, of young people that a
lot of what they are doingmirrors to a certain degree,
(26:06):
some, some of what Masonry isabout.
So why not align ourselves withthem and, and to see if they
need help?
how many parent adults arevolunteering with those
organizations that might seesome of what we're doing and,
and recognize and say, man, thatwe have a a, a Brother Master
Mason, a new Prague that wasvery, very involved in scouting.
And he said, what's thisFreemason thing you always are
(26:28):
talking about?
And he ended up joining and nowhe's, he's an active member of,
of the lodge and Savage.
So there it is.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it, it does comefull circle, but you have to,
you have to, like you said, youhave to take that first step and
insert yourself.
People aren't gonna insert itfor you.
and I think that's part of, Youmentioned before, the notion
that we don't make anybodyanything.
(26:49):
We give them the tools to becomebetter.
And I think Grand Lodge inMinnesota now has given
outstate, lodges the tools toimprove themselves through this
new structure of having theregional directors like yourself
and Marcus and, and Ethan.
just because prior, I can tellyou from being a master of a
rural lodge, being a DR forrural lodges and now being an
(27:12):
area deputy for the southernregion or southern area, um.
Lodges need help, but it's verydifficult because they don't
know what to do next.
I mean, it's, if, if you'resitting there and you're master
of a lodge and you haveroutinely four or five guys that
show up and you have 20 members,you're sitting looking around
saying, what do I do?
(27:34):
And I think by us changing thestructure and having these
regional directors, we'resuddenly now we're gonna have
tools available for these lodgesat a more regional level to get
in there with them and figureout how to, how to improve this.
I think it's, it's gonna, frommy perspective, having been at
Dr and now, now an area deputy,it's gonna give these lodges
the, the tools that they need toat least, you know, they're
(27:56):
gonna have to take the step towant to implement'em.
Yes.
This isn't gonna be the, themagic bullet, you know?
You mean you can't do all thework.
We can't do all the work.
I'm, I'm kidding, right.
Yeah.
It is gonna require the lodge tosay, we're committing to this,
we're willing to do the work wefocus on the infinite
perspective of progressingslowly, celebrating the small
victories, and looking at thisin a long-term perspective,
(28:19):
sky's the limit.
Why do, why do we always havethis feeling that if we try
something and if it wasn't ahuge smashing success, that it's
like, well, we're not gonna dothat again.
Can never do that again.
No, we got, I mean, put it onthe scrap heat.
Yeah.
Try it a few times and see if itworks.
And even if it's a smallsuccess, it's still something,
right?
It's still, you're still out inthe community, you're, or you're
(28:40):
still, giving money to thisevent or, or whatever it might
mean.
Not everything can be a homerun.
Some of the home runs that wewitness within our fraternity
are lodges that startedfundraiser events at a picnic
table many years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And they just, each year justgrow a little bit more and a
(29:01):
little bit more.
And yes, we all want thatsuccessful event, and the
patience involved.
We talked about that in a recentepisode of patience is it's
tough in this virtual worldwhere we can get an answer to
anything or something deliveredit.
It's, it's instantaneous.
It's tough to find the balancebetween Okay, there, there's
(29:23):
that.
But then the patience of growingindividually, working together,
collaborating, doing thingswithin the community that
require a lot of conversations.
And at times, yes, it can be alot of work, but it's so worth
it every time.
But you have a team that winsthe World Series, well, they're
not just gonna come back nextyear and win the World Series
(29:44):
again.
Again, unless you're theYankees, maybe.
Yeah.
But, but if you're a lodge thatis successful and having a
successful event, you gotta keepputting in the effort to keep
that fresh and, you know, and,and to keep it successful
because people rotate through.
You have different volunteersand, it, it, it isn't easy to
keep things going.
So I think it's, you people haveto realize that the effort has
(30:07):
to keep happening.
I keep going back to the pointyou made about community
involvement, identifying othergroups within, in, in this case,
in some rural lodges, who we canwork with and help make an event
successful together as wecollaborate, that's where the
conversations begin.
(30:27):
Like you just mentioned, you,you, you're a Freemason.
What's that all about?
Instead of just going out andblindly saying, well, we just
need more members.
There's a certain amount ofeasing into this building.
The we, we are in therelationship business.
We are the original socialnetwork.
But think about that though.
(30:47):
If you have 10 people that showup, 10 men that show up at the
lodge door and say, I wannabecome a Freemason.
They came there for a reason,but understanding why did you,
what, what drew you to us?
What is it that you want to getout of this?
Because I think sometimes it'salso a, if you don't give people
what it is that they want,they're gonna become disengaged.
(31:07):
You know, we talk about deitzand, and declining membership
Uh, I think we don't very oftenget a deit from a brother who's
actively en lodge and say, wow,that's a surprise.
It's we're getting a deit.
And then sometimes you have togo back and look and say, well,
who, who was this?
Do you remember this guy?
Yeah.
And, and so sometimes decliningmembership, we need to be
careful and not look at that asa, as a failure.
(31:31):
But it's maybe more just arationalization of what reality
is.
Right?
When we had 43,000 masons backin the sixties or whatever that
high point was, forties,fifties, whatever, after World
War ii, a lot of those men cameback from the war and joined
Freemasonry.
Maybe not because.
They wanted the free, theFreemason experience, it was
more or less they needed to havethat, that brotherhood bond
(31:55):
after the war.
you know, and, and, and so it's,things have changed since then.
But are, are we giving them whatthey want?
But then also too, we can't havehold ourselves to a level of
expectation that we're gonna getback to 20,000 members because
that's, that's not real.
It's a different world.
Now, in that early 20th centuryaspect, we hear that quite a
(32:17):
bit.
Well, everybody was a joinerback then, but it really wasn't
that simple.
I bet you if you went back in atime machine and you interviewed
a master of, you know, a lodgein the 19, 19 25, 19 25.
Okay.
And you asked, what are thebiggest issues you're dealing
with today?
I bet, I bet a lot of the issuesthey're dealing with probably
(32:38):
wouldn't look a whole lotdifferent.
I.
Than what we're talking abouttoday.
In fact, they had more members.
Maybe they, they probably hadmore issues to deal with.
Mm-hmm.
why do we always look backhistorically and look at things
in the past and say, oh, thingswere perfect then, you know, we
were both born in the seventies,right?
Yes.
We look back at the eighties andwe say, man, that was just a
(33:00):
perfect time, wasn't it?
The eighties were just, I betyou the eighties weren't as
great as we think they were, butbecause we were young, we
didn't, we didn't know anydifferent MTV and Oh yeah.
Summer activities and barely,but that's true.
But maybe it's because we equateand we think about a concert
that's sold out versus a concertthat's half full in the venue.
(33:23):
Right.
We latch that thought processon.
Well, if the lodge isn'tbrimming with members to the
rafters, we.
Are we failing?
Are we not doing good enough andwe, you can have a meaningful
lodge experience with a dozenmembers.
Sure.
(33:43):
Wouldn't it be great to see 50,a hundred members in attendance
Ask Grand Master, DonaldSeaverson said recently when he
was grand circa 1979.
1980.
Yeah.
We had more members then, but wealso had a lot of problems as
well.
It's funny you mention thatabout going back in a time
(34:05):
machine as a lodge recently thatwas embarking on the scanning
project mm-hmm.
To take some of their archivesand preserve them.
We're reading some of theminutes and did in fact find
exactly what you described.
A lot of the, if there was anissue, something slightly
escalated.
very much mirrored today.
(34:28):
Yep.
we just would, would neverassume that though.
How do you feel about thatnotion of a quality lodge
experience can be had with asmaller group of members?
I've witnessed it.
I've seen it in, in, in play.
I mean, you, you don't have tohave a lodge of 150.
(34:49):
Well, Mankato, for example, uh,where I was master, I'm a member
today.
We absorbed another lodge,Bethel Lodge in Lake Crystal,
and our membership grew.
So now we're at 150 members.
Is that experience any differenttoday with 150 members than it
was that when, when we had 95?
No.
you see other lodges that maybethey have 20 active members, but
(35:11):
they're, they're active andthey're able to, to, to do the
things that need to be done.
Just because you have morepeople that are on your
membership list, sending in duesdoesn't mean that you're a
better lodge.
Right.
It's, it's those members thatare active and, and giving
people what they want.
So, I mean, it's, it's not a, anotion of more is necessarily
(35:34):
better, but it's, it's the, Idon't wanna say quality, but it,
it, maybe it is the quality,quality experience.
It's the quality of theexperience, what are you doing
and are people finding a valuein, in that?
I'm a member of a lodge inMissouri, small town of about
1500 people.
Where?
La Plata, Missouri.
my grandfather's lodge.
and it's, it's a whole differentexperience than what we have up
(35:55):
here.
But here's a lodge that maybehas 35, 40 members.
They're not, you know, great atRitual.
They aren't bringing in lots ofnew members, but they're active
in the community and they'rehelping each other out.
So I think to your question, doyou have to be a big lodge to
be, uh, successful?
I, I don't think so.
(36:16):
We've seen a change with theyounger men seeking to learn
about Freemason Ry and possiblyjoin that are in fact looking
for an experience.
we get asked all the time, whatis Freemason Ry?
What do you, what do you guysstand for?
Authentic friendship, personaldevelopment and building
(36:37):
community.
Our new members especially havean expectation that at least two
of those three will be executedquite well.
So when we have a largesituation that's become lazy,
apathetic may be inventingexcuses to avoid what they need
(36:58):
to do in latching onto anothercommunity group, getting out
there and getting involved.
I've used the analogy time andagain, would you continue going
to your church?
I.
If it wasn't feeding you, if itwas just nothing going on, you
would likely be less inclined totithe to your house of worship.
(37:20):
Mm-hmm.
You look at those massivemegachurches, and this isn't
about any particular religion,it's just the concept of a
megachurch that fills a 15,000seat venue.
Why is that full?
Because the people that aregoing are willing to battle the
traffic to get up and Dr to gothere, but they're getting
(37:43):
something out of it.
They're getting something out ofit.
Yes.
In their heart, they're gettingfed something that's helping
them in their lives.
We have that opportunity toprovide our members with that
blueprint how to make oneselfbetter.
For me personally, I look atwhere we are today.
I have such an optimistic viewof the future of Freemasonry,
(38:08):
maybe compared to what some ofour other members, you know,
they look at and they're like,oh, well we lost another,
however many members last year.
Yeah.
I don't want to see us losemembers.
Right.
I mean, that's, that's awful.
But at the same time, when youlook at where we are today with
the life that we live and, andwhere we're positioned, we are
absolutely setting ourselves upfor success, for giving men
(38:34):
something that they're gonnaneed in their lives.
We just need to find that way tohelp a communicate that this is
who we are.
Right.
And also following through onthat, I mean, the work Now, 15
years ago, we didn't talk aboutour, contribution and the
partnership that we have withthe University of Minnesota.
Right.
People would see the Shrinersand they'd say, oh, you're the,
(38:56):
you're the Shrine Hospitalpeople with the little kids, and
you give the care.
Yep.
The Freemasons, what do you,what do you guys do?
We didn't, we didn't talk aboutwhat we do publicly because that
just wasn't what we, you know,we don't talk about those
things.
We humbled to a fault.
Yeah.
But now that we're, we're morepublic about it and we're
talking about it, and MasonicCharities is, is really getting
(39:18):
out there and, and publicizingthis.
to me that, that sets the stagefor us now.
Oh, you're the Freemasons.
You're, you're helping with theMasonic Children's Hospital.
You're helping with, you havethe scholarships.
I heard the, heard thatcommercial about the Southwest
Scholar.
I mean, people know who we are.
(39:39):
We aren't a mystery anymore.
You know, they always view usas, oh, you guys are the ones
that meet upstairs and you gotthe curtains all pulled and what
are you doing up there?
So mysterious.
Oh yeah, yeah.
We're not myster.
Well, we maybe we're stillmysterious a little bit, but.
The mystery has kind of goneaway a little bit about what is
it you guys are about?
In a good way.
In a good way.
We still have the secrets ofmasonry, but masonry shouldn't
(40:01):
be a secret.
Right.
And I think we're, we're fixingthat a little bit.
And you know, I had a, I had afriend of mine that that texted
me.
He was going to the event youhad here, was it a couple weeks
ago?
Yeah.
By the time of recording we hada Meet the Freemasons event at
the end of May.
Yep.
buddy of mine from college, andhe knew I was a Freemason, but
we'd never really talked aboutit.
And he texted me and hadn'ttalked to him for a while and he
says, Hey, are you a Freemason?
(40:22):
And he ended up coming to thatevent.
And, and again, it's somethingthat probably where he's at
right now in his life is, isthis would be a good fit.
But it's, it's, it'srecognizable that, that name
Freemason isn't something that'screepy.
We're actively seeking to makethat synonymous with building
(40:44):
community.
Embracing timeless core values.
we live in a world that iscraving all of the things that
we stand for and have stood forfor hundreds of years.
Religious tolerance.
We strive to be apolitical.
what's important.
(41:04):
What are we doing with our timewhile we're here?
you had to pick one thing thathas been your favorite aspect of
being a Freemason, what is it?
Hmm.
I mean, I could take the easyway out and I could say, oh,
it's the great people I've metand you know, the places I've
(41:25):
traveled and all that.
But while those things are alltrue, I think for me personally,
the one thing that I've takenaway from this is perspective.
Meaning I joined the lodge whenI was 28 years old, and you're
(41:45):
sitting there in a lodge roomand you're surrounded by people
in their forties, fifties.
At that time there was a fewWorld War II vets sitting on the
sideline.
And when you're 28, even someonein their forties looks a little,
seems a, oh, are you kidding?
Oh yeah, it's old.
And, but when you sit there andyou realize, you know, Oliver
Mulford was the one of the guysin the sideline of Mankato.
(42:09):
And at first you're like, oh,that guy's kind of grumpy.
But when you get to know him andyou're talking to him, it's like
he is no different than me.
He just has more miles on him.
And that perspective, not justin age, but just in backgrounds,
has completely changed my mind.
Not just in Masonry, but alsowhen it comes to if I'm involved
(42:29):
with scouting or in my personalwork experience, don't judge
first of all people by theirappearance, but also
understanding that everybodycomes from a different
background and, and they allwant the same basic things in
life.
Right.
And, and so that's been the onething for me, I guess we always
(42:52):
talk about subduing ourpassions, right?
And, and kind of, for me, hasbeen just to kind of, I.
Pull myself back a little bitand take time as you're looking
at the situation or, and, and alittle bit is maybe my own
natural tendency is to get, ifyou're in a work environment or
(43:13):
whatever, and, and not lose yourtemper, but just get excited
about something and be verypassionate about your response.
I've really learned that.
Look, just slow down, calm down,take a minute.
Practice the pause.
We don't, yeah.
why be so quick to jump onsomething?
I still have work to do on that,but I'm getting better.
Um, for me, that's whatfreemasonry I, I would say my
(43:35):
big takeaway has been, I don'twant to forget to say thank you
for all that you do as an areadeputy, for the southern part of
the state and the involvementthat you have.
I, I could list it all and I, Iwon't go into the great detail,
but I too am excited about ourfuture is we distill down the
(43:59):
member experience, not just forthe new guys, but for the
existing members.
It's easy to fall into patternsand it's even easier to not make
tough decisions when the timecomes, but with the
collaboration of all of theseresources and as we roll out the
regional lodge support teamslater this year, I, I'm, I'm
(44:20):
really pumped.
Well, yeah, and, and I thinkit's, it's worth noting though
that, again, like you said, thisisn't gonna be a, a, a silver
bullet, right?
We're not gonna, can't flip aswitch.
No, we can't flip a switch, butwe're setting the, the, the
stage here for what I feel likeis, is a fantastic opportunity
(44:40):
and I would not have agreed tobe area deputy.
If I didn't think that the rightpeople are at the table now for
us to make a difference, becauseI'm as critical as probably a
lot of us in that, look, I'm, toyour point earlier, I have a lot
of places to spend my time,right?
And, and as much as I love freemasonry, if, if I say, okay, I'm
(45:05):
going to devote some more timeto this, I wanna make sure it's,
it's meaningful.
And so that's why I agreed to dothis, because I feel like we can
make a difference.
I mean, it's easy for us to sitback and, and, and see the,
those things within ourorganization that are, I don't
wanna say the trouble spots, butjust the negative, right?
(45:26):
You have lodges that aren'tmeeting a quorum, or you have,
just all whatever these thingsare, or just the latent
malcontent, right?
But instead of letting thatconsume our time.
The understanding that, look, wecan fix some of these.
And we have to, we have toacknowledge and say, some of
these, we're just not gonna winthese battles, right?
We're, we're gonna have some ofthese situations where we're
(45:48):
gonna have to make some toughdecisions to your point, but
looking at it down the road, aslong as we have our eye on this
is what we want it to look likein the future, and we're gonna
defend this going forward,there's, there's a bright future
here for us.
And I, and I, I drew, I really,truly do feel that way.
(46:10):
I was asked recently, how, howdo you maintain a healthy
culture in a hierarchicalarrangement?
And I had to stop and thinkabout that for a second.
You used the pause.
Well, that was, that was a long,long discussion.
But one of the ways in whichthat happens is with.
(46:34):
Selfless servant leaders likeyou, There are so many, too many
to be called out specificallyright now, it's our brothers and
their spouses and their familieswho see the value in what we're
doing as an organization andwant to ensure its healthy
future for generations to come.
(46:55):
It's not just about the rightnow.
You touched on this a momentago.
It's that infinite perspectiveof seeing our organization
evolve and maintain its healthand strength.
Well, and that's a veryimportant thing to touch on and
to call out is we talk aboutdividing our time.
(47:16):
You know, and as a member of alodge, your, the desire by the
master or by the membership isthat you're gonna make regular
attendance or lodge meetings.
So that's one, one or twomeetings a month, right?
We ask somebody to be a districtrepresentative.
Now, it's not just going to yourown lodge one or two times a
month, but now if you have threeor four lodges that you're a DR
(47:38):
for, you're going to their lodgemeetings and their pancake
breakfasts and you're doing thisaward ceremony, award
ceremonies, you're submittingreports to the Grand Lodge.
You know, and likewise, ifyou're an area deputy, it's,
it's this other ask.
So I think those, thosevolunteer leaders we have in our
organization, it's very, veryimportant that we remember that
they're volunteers and thatthey're not, it, it's easy to be
(48:02):
critical and it's easy, I think,sometimes to, to ask a lot of
them.
And that's another reason why Ithink the work that, that you
and Ethan and Marcus are doingis not just.
Very needed.
But I think it's, it's, it's, tome, it's very exciting because
we're gonna remove some of thosethings from the drs.
I mean, I'll be honest, thereason I stepped down as a
(48:23):
district rep was I startedlooking at the job duties and I
said, look, I don't have time todo all of this to be a dad, to
be a business owner, to beinvolved in my church and
scouts.
I, something has to go.
And unfortunately, I looked at,I'd been at DR for three years,
and then I was off, and thenthree years again.
And I said, I can't keep doingthis if I can't do it to the
(48:44):
level that I think it needs tobe done.
And so I stepped away for awhile and I was asked to come
back as an area deputy.
But when I see these changesthat are taking place to me,
this is, this is setting thestage for some great things to
come.
We're acknowledging that wecan't ask people to just keep
doing, doing, doing.
So.
It's a great point.
(49:04):
And in our roles as regionaldirectors, the goal is to lessen
the burden of our district reps,our area deputies.
Take a few things off yourplate.
I'm quite sure Ethan is alreadysick of hearing from me.
Well, no, that's good.
We, the phones have been, wehave been very busy and a lot of
things behind the scenes thatare offline that helping with
(49:25):
resources.
We are office staff.
Nobody reports to us.
We, we work for you Well.
Right.
And, and I don't think that,that if you're a master of a
lodge or a warden, if you're anofficer of a lodge, I don't
think you realize I didn't, whenI was lodge officer kinda lived
in our own little world downthere.
You don't realize how much goeson from a volunteer standpoint
(49:45):
behind the scenes to kind ofkeep this whole thing moving,
you know?
And, and so the fact that weadded three staff positions,
it's a little bit shocking.
We didn't have these.
15 years ago, because it's justa lot of ask to keep this thing
afloat and to keep, to keepthese lodges running.
Well, in those 15 years, wedefinitely took an example from
(50:09):
other jurisdictions that have asimilar setup and had many
anecdotes of success and ofcollaboration and it, it just,
it made so much sense.
It was definitely time.
Speaking of time, your busyschedule, big picture, what do
you enjoy doing that you don'tget to do often?
(50:34):
Hmm.
Well, there's so many things Icould pick from there.
Um, I would say for me, one ofthe things that I've, I've
enjoyed doing over the years is,is golfing.
And I mean, now I'll golf threetimes a year at industry events
(50:54):
or, you know, customerfunctions.
I.
And, and when I say golf, itisn't going out.
Sitting in a golf cart anddriving around 18 holes quickly.
Get a pole cart, go out and walknine or 18 holes by yourself.
And just that time to enjoy thegame, but also to just to think.
Right?
And, and, and that, that time ofjust decompressing on my own,
(51:17):
not having that, but someday Isee it as on, on the horizon.
It's, it's coming, it's outthere.
What's the most difficult thingyou've ever done?
(51:39):
Well, that's an interesting one.
You know, there's, there's thosethings in.
In your career that you look atand you say, boy, that was a,
that was a tough lift.
Or you look at from a personalstandpoint, things that you've
done.
Um, I think for me, the mostdifficult thing, just from an
(52:00):
emotional and stress standpointwas, you when you look at your
family and you start to makingdecisions on, you know, I worked
for CHS, they were a, you know,fortune 100 company.
The paycheck comes in the mailevery two weeks.
You know, not, I mean, you, youstill had work to do, but there
was that safety net, the idea ofwalking away from that life and
(52:24):
going to work for a smallcompany where it's very much eat
what you kill, right?
I mean, it's revenue comes in.
That's where your compensationcomes from.
While there is an allure tothat, there's also a huge fear
level of, am I putting my familyin jeopardy?
You know, are, is, is this gonnaall work out?
A lot of lost sleep over that.
(52:46):
But also there was the, supposea little bit of the, the faith
in knowing that, okay, if, ifthis opportunity is here and I
had the skills to do this, it's,it's gonna work out.
And you just say, you know what,I'm gonna take this leap here.
And, and, and it all worked out.
I mean, it's, it's been great.
I've, I've really enjoyed it,but it was, it was probably, you
(53:08):
know, and I'm sure there'sprobably other things in my life
that were more difficult,physically challenging or, you
know, mentally, but from anemotional standpoint of just
fear that, that probably was oneof the biggest ones because I, I
knew prior to making thatdecision that the, who I was
when I came home at night andthe stress that I brought home
with me, I was taking it out onmy, you know, not physically,
(53:30):
but just taking it out, beingshort with my wife and my kids
and downloading your day, right.
You know, you go to bed at nightand you lay there and you're
thinking about, you know.
This whole corporate struck, andI apologize for those of you who
work in corporate America andyou just love that environment.
I can't believe it, but just, Iapologize if this is offending
(53:51):
you, but um, I'm sure they'resaying preach on brother.
Oh yeah.
But this whole notion of havingmeetings to schedule another
meeting, oh God.
And you're sitting in meetingsall day long and, and it's like,
what are we getting done here?
And, and, um, it was, I couldtell that it was, I was not
gonna probably be in a goodplace if I stayed there.
But, so don't you love the,let's have another meeting in
(54:11):
the future to cover all thethings that we didn't cover
today, which basically is likecorporate success theater.
There are people in corporateAmerica that their job is to
perpetuate the corporatestructures.
So, so they have a job.
I mean, it's, you know, how manycorporate buzzwords can you
throw in there?
And the, the movie office space,I mean, you go back and watch
it.
Timeless.
Classic.
(54:31):
It's, it is so true.
Yeah.
It, uh, I, I watched it againhere a few weeks ago and just
had to laugh because it's, I'msure when it came out, people
looked at it and said, that wasa stupid movie.
Yeah.
But, but now it's, it, there'sso much truth to it.
It's the, well, you see Bob's, Igot three bosses.
What do you actually do here?
(54:52):
Okay.
I won't go down that.
But the, the yes.
But corporate America forleaders that don't appreciate
that meeting for meeting foranother meeting is glorified
party planning.
Yeah.
This meeting could have been anemail.
just real quick as we get closeto kinda wind things up here,
(55:14):
thank you for what you've donewith this podcast.
I mean, I, uh, have some drivetime back and forth to work, and
I like the fact that, you know,they're not two and a half hours
long, but I've learned so muchabout Freemasonry, but also
about my fellow Freemasons.
There's guys that you've, you'veinterviewed that I know well and
(55:35):
I learned stuff and I'm like, Ididn't know that about you.
And I, I, when I go to lodges,I, I tell'em, Hey, you need to
take a listen to this becauseit's, you're gonna learn
something.
You're not gonna say, boy, thatwas 30 minutes.
I wish I never would've wasted.
Oh, thank goodness.
But, um, but there's some great,you know, lodge education topics
that have come out of this anddifferent things.
So thank you for taking yourtime to do this.
Um, it's, I've learned a lot.
(55:58):
I appreciate that and it's mypleasure.
This is a really fun aspect ofthe role.
This is probably my favoritepart of the week that we get to
interview members like you andothers that you've mentioned,
that you think you know someone,maybe you've been in that
contact with someone for 10years, but then you really peel
back a few more layers of theirlife story, where they've been,
(56:19):
their hobbies, their lifeexperience, and it's just been
such a pleasure to do this andshare a little more of who that
brother is behind the.
Behind the apron.
That's right.
It's not the well, and let's behonest, a former radio guy, you
get to, you get to sit here andplay.
Well play radio.
That's true.
I do.
This is the part of the radioindustry that I do miss, but it
(56:42):
is not a time to be interrestrial radio.
That is for sure.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
Nate Smithson.
Thank you for all that you do.
It is not lost on me.
You have an incredibly busyschedule for taking the time to
be with us in studio today.
Thank you, Reed.
And this has been anotherepisode of Minnesota Masonic
Histories and Mysteries.
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