EXPERIENCE 200 | Nate Hines - Philosopher, Historian, and President of Hines, Inc. - Sustainable Design Solutions for Water and Life and Business

Nate Hines is the President of Hines, Inc., a global leader in design solutions for irrigation water management.  He is a husband, father, armchair historian, philosopher, and business enthusiast.  He received his secondary education from Oxford University, with degrees in History and Ancient History. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
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Nate Hines is the president ofHines, Inc.

(00:43):
A global leader in designsolutions for irrigation water
management.
He is a husband, father,armchair historian, philosopher,
and business enthusiast.
He received a secondaryeducation from Oxford University
with degrees in history andancient history.

(01:34):
Welcome back to the LocoExperience podcast.
My guest today is Nate Hines andhe is the president of Hines
Inc.
So tell me Nate, um, what kindof catch ups do you guys make?
We make the kind that don't makeus billionaires.
You don't make it, you catch upon projects.

(01:56):
Sometimes we catch up onprojects.
So, but for the uninitiated, uh,Heinz does what you all water,
mostly all water related stuff.
You're kind of.
National water experts of sorts.
Yeah, we're reasonable to sayand An engineering company we
focus on irrigation systemdesign Okay, and so 20 years

(02:16):
ago, you're just designingirrigation systems and so like
here in for like for regular oldfarmers Well, we do some AG.
Yeah center pivot work andthings like that for AG groups
Most of what we do though ismunicipal.
Oh like City of Fort Collinshaving gorgeous flowers all all
around Summer long, exactly.
Or every major regional park inthe city.
We've done the irrigationsystems, the play fountains

(02:39):
where the kids play andmechanical and water quality and
things like that.
What's the like special saucearound that?
Like, I'm assuming, especiallyfor a city like Fort Collins,
like don't use too much water,like make it as efficient as
possible.
I mean, really just goodhydraulic engineering is
important and there's a certainmagic to.

(03:03):
analyzing water demand fordifferent types of plant
materials.
Okay.
So if you're thinking todayabout How much water a plant is
going to need 10 years from nowand how to size the system for
that So that you're not overbuilding or under building a
system.
There's there's some magic thereWe don't quite know what the

(03:24):
weather is gonna be.
We don't quite know how thesystem's gonna be maintained
Yeah, so we've we've built quitea bit of intelligence into
answering that question and youdo this for Places all around
the country like not just FortCollins.
Those are some of the visiblenearby ones Yeah, we we are we
have 30 people now in 13 states.
Oh, wow with six primary officesacross the country Okay.

(03:47):
Okay, so it's an odd littleniche industry But water is
getting very very expensivearound the country.
Yeah, and if water is notexpensive construction costs are
And we've spent a bunch of timeanalyzing how much people pay
for these systems around thecountry.
And we can, we save them abunch.
It's not something typicallythat, that hydraulic engineers

(04:09):
pay attention to, right?
Um, because of its kind of smallniche, um, place in the world.
Oh, okay.
So you're like hydraulicengineers, but working on more
of a micro, not micro, but smallscale stuff where the real
hydraulic engineers don't reallyspend too much time.
They're doing big stormwater.

(04:30):
distribution systems, watertreatment plants, things like
that.
Right.
And, and your biggest things arelike drainage passways and parks
and stuff like that.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
And your smallest things arelittle drip lines that go to all
the little pots in the city.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what's funny about it is,you know, irrigation is this
sort of not unimportant, butsmall and recognized part of

(04:53):
site development.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Water being as expensive andhard to get as it is today.
Yeah.
Um, that part of the industry ischanging because 50 to 70
percent of the water we use inthe city goes on plant material.
You know, I just thought of aninvention for you if you can
come up with the technology.
But if you had, like there's,there's always relative humidity

(05:14):
of like 30, 40 percent evenaround here, right?
Oh yeah.
You know the the South even insome places where they kind of
have dry conditions a lot.
It's always really humid Yeah,if you could have a little tiny
solar powered water extractor Tolike gather up the water and oh,
yeah push it onto the plantsthat would be pretty useful Yes,

(05:37):
it's a solar panels.
I get enough water I mean on,on, uh, like multifamily
projects in a place like Texas,we can get, uh, almost all their
summer irrigation water off ofthe cooling system, off
condensate, just pulling theevaporated water off of their
chillers.
Yeah.
Cause otherwise that just dripsdown, right?
Yeah.
It runs out to storm sewer orsanitary.

(06:00):
So there's a lot of cool thingswe can do there with water
harvesting, reduction of wateruse.
Interesting.
Um, we were on a projectoverseas that I can't, um, say
the name of because we have allthese NDAs, wacky NDAs, and that
sort of thing.
But a lot of work was put intothat.
Looking at technologies likethat.
How do we evaporate water likewhere they're trying to build

(06:20):
huge cities?
In the desert and stuff likethat is those kind of big long
element cities.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah Yeah, I've been readingabout those a little bit.
Well, and what an interestingLike you've got all the energy
you need.
Yeah Right?
Like you got solar coming outthe wazoo.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Um, and if you can shield theliving space properly and use

(06:43):
water effectively, it's aninteresting lifestyle.
It is.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
And we look at probably 15 to20, 000 systems and how they
operate a year.
Oh wow.
Um, and we get data from some ofthe big water conservation
groups in the country that areanalyzing these things.
And about half of the irrigationsystems in the country over

(07:06):
water by a hundred percent onaverage, we over water by about
65%.
Oh wow.
So it's great to go in and, um,change landscapes, fully support
that, but, um.
People then just overwater theirdrought and tolerant landscapes

(07:27):
and kill them.
Oh, wow.
So the important thing to do, Ithink, is to start managing the
water responsibly as you'remaking changes to landscape.
And, um, and then I get thesense that there's plenty of
water to go.
Oh yeah.
You put all these water.
drought tolerant plants in andstuff like that.
And then people are just like,well, the thing runs Tuesday

(07:49):
through Friday from these timesor whatever, all their plans.
Well, and you notice in ouroffice here, uh, we've got a
pretty good plant selection,including a fairly healthy money
tree.
And the big thing with keepinggood plants is don't overwater
them.
Yeah.
You know, once a week is plentyfor almost every plant.
You know, paying attention towhere they're at.

(08:12):
Um, do you use technology likethat as well?
Um, where you can actually havesensors about how dry things
are, so you can know how muchwater to use?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's part of being efficientwith the delivery, I imagine?
Yeah, it's, and, and thetechnology to really manage an
irrigation system as tightly asyou'd like has been, is one it's
there.
Um, two, it's modernized cloudbased.

(08:35):
Yeah.
I think about smart homes andstuff.
If I can turn my heater on indifferent rooms and stuff, I can
do water flow kind ofautomations.
Yeah.
The, the, the, the technologypart doesn't tend to be the
problem.
The problem tends to either bepoor planning and design and
then poor construction and longterm management.
Those are the two.

(08:56):
Big issues.
Okay, and we see a lot of moneypoured into great technology
that just never gets used nowAre you strictly design or do
you actually build stuff too?
We don't do any constructionguys work with paper Yeah, we're
designers and then we'recomputers.
We're on site papers for stuffOkay, like we we see ourselves
as being like the the white labcoat wearing.

(09:17):
Yeah Scientists with dirty workboots.
Yeah, we're out in the fielddoing quite a bit, but We put
the shovel down a long time ago.
You're mostly making surethey're building it to the specs
that your designs portent.
And so then you're working witharchitects a lot of times?
Is that who hires youultimately?
Or existing property owners alsoa lot of times retrofitting

(09:38):
doing things?
60 percent of our clients areeither landscape architects,
architects, or engineers.
Okay.
So they hire us to do a job.
Yep.
And then 40 percent are directfor land owners.
Hmm.
And they're the end user.
Yep.
Um, and that, that percentagehas been growing a lot for the
last five years, like you had abig municipal chunk for a long
time and you know that process,but then people just want more

(10:01):
of this from a private basis.
Is that correct?
Correct.
Yeah, most of that, what we see,we'll see a city come to us
directly.
We'll see a developer come to usdirectly and they'll say, Uh,
getting water is the mostexpensive, getting water for
irrigation specifically is themost expensive part of
developing this site.
And so they want us to run duediligence to see if their

(10:22):
project even can pencil.
So if we're in Colorado.
Texas, California, some of theseexpensive New Mexico high water
states.
If you don't have water, yourland value is zero.
Well, and like I read some ofthe articles in that, uh,
Montava project up north.
I don't know.
Is that something you've beeninvolved with?
Um, super cool guy.

(10:43):
I like that developer a lot.
I don't know where it's at.
I love that guy so much.
I need to reach back out to him.
He was on the yes, but soon listfor the podcast here a while
back.
But the way that the, thatdevelopment was treated about
like how much water had to bedelivered and what times and
like, frankly, the, all the, itseemed to me at least that 70

(11:06):
percent of the complexity aroundthat project was.
Related to water?
Absolutely.
No question.
Yeah.
And there's a bunch of, uh,complexity in water rights.
There's a bunch of complexity ininfrastructure design.
Um, it's been probably fiveyears since we did this cost
analysis for max, but potablewater for irrigation on that

(11:26):
site would have cost somewherein the neighborhood of a hundred
million dollars for the waterrights.
So figuring out how to get nonpotable water to be able to have
plant life in this development.
Huge.
I mean, you cut your costs by70%.
And so where did that nonpotable water come from in that
circumstance?
Well, Was it capturing runofffrom that development or, or

(11:50):
how?
They've got quite a bit of, um,uh, of existing wells.
Yeah, yeah.
On the property.
Okay.
Yep.
And so we did a projection on,um, Uh, if you look at the
decreed volume, those wellscould use and have been using
for agricultural purposes.
Nope.
And then we look at no change ofuse.
So you're fine.
Yep.

(12:11):
All the irrigation water theywould ever need.
Was, uh, like a 70, 75 percentdiscount or reduction over what
has been used.
Oh, right.
Right.
So really smart planning there.
Um, and, and I don't know all ofthe details.
They're going through a watercourt process for how they build
their system and do all of thesethings, which is, which is
great.

(12:31):
Um, and Max will, you know, Maxwill get that done.
Yeah.
Uh, but the amount of waterthey're saving is extraordinary
and they'll do everything theycan non potably.
Yeah.
Um, residential lots, openspace, everything.
They won't need to use drinkingwater for anything from a, from
a business structure standpoint,you're more like a, a Northern

(12:53):
engineering, civil engineer orsomething like that.
Then, um, or an architecturefirm a little bit, but
especially more like anengineering firm where it's, you
know, we bid projects, we chargetime and time, mostly time.
It's a service hourly billingkind of thing.
Huge mistake getting into theservice business where I sell my

(13:14):
time for money.
At least you got white coat.
It's been great.
And if you got muddy boots.
That's right.
That's right.
Um, and then probably just apretty light administrative kind
of headquarters team.
How do you generate.
Leads and sales, is there amarketing function of
significance, or is it mostlyturning in bids and more of that
kind of work?

(13:34):
Um, traditional approach in ourindustry that, that I've seen is
that you have people who dodesign work in the space for
many years, and as they do that,they rise to a principal level.
And when you get to a principallevel, that means that you're
overseeing a lot of projectwork, you're participating in
project work and then on yournights and weekends, you're

(13:55):
trying to jump and drum upbusiness.
Yeah.
And especially if the pipeline'sa little low.
Oh yeah.
And you know, the many, manysolid businesses, excellent rec
reputations, uh, word of mouth.
All good things.
Um, the inherent problem that Isee with that is that you, you,
you turn and you face yourclient.

(14:16):
You say, Hey, remember me?
I'd love to do some work withyou.
Let's do some work project comesalong, you get it.
And then you turn around and youdo the project.
And then six months later, youturn back around and you ask
your client, Hey, is there aproject?
And maybe there is, or maybesomeone else has gotten the
project or maybe one will start.
In another six months.

(14:36):
And so, um, I didn't like thatvery much.
And so we started, um, I thinkin 2017, 2018, we started hiring
principals in the company whosesole function was client
relationships and winning work.
Oh, interesting.
Um, and so Matt Hall was ourfirst principal who came on

(14:58):
board.
He runs our Texas office nowhe's down in Dallas.
And, um, and then we added.
Some principals over time.
Each office basically has aprincipal or more than one, but
right now we're regional, right?
So we have one in Florida, we'vegot one in the Midwest, we have
one in Texas, and then I justhired, um, a principal here in
the Colorado office three monthsago.

(15:20):
All right.
Uh, shout out Meredith Larson,you're killing a girl.
Um, and, um, and then what westarted doing, so, so that is
working and has been going well.
And then to feed.
Um, we hired in a businessdevelopment function last year,

(15:44):
beginning of this year.
Um, and so Kind of from theheadquarters for all these
different regions and stuff likethat.
That's probably at least in partwhy you've been more popular on
LinkedIn lately.
I've been seeing all yourthoughtful posts.
My team is helping me so much.
I am not a, I'm not naturallydrawn to social media.
I have zero accounts.
Um, I tried to sell something onFacebook marketplace and they

(16:06):
shut me down.
I'm still blocked and banned.
I'm like, please buy mymotorcycle.
Have a nice day.
Flagged, shut down.
I can't access anything.
So it's, um, but they, they dohave me on LinkedIn and, um, and
then our, our BDR function,Cameron, he's an, he's a
rockstar.
Cool.
He calls 300 people a week.

(16:26):
Oh, dang.
Sometimes in a day.
He'll work through 300 peopleand just, hi, I'm cam.
I want to talk to you aboutirrigation.
And he turns.
Perspective clients into peoplethat are interested in having a
value based conversation withme, Matt or Meredith.
Yeah.
Yeah And he's been awesome.

(16:47):
I mean, it's just incredible Iwonder how look with a big look
with think tank would be rightnow if I had somebody calling
300 people a week And theywanted to be in it.
Yeah Get more facilitatorsfaster, too.
That's right.
But I'm sure Cam would callthem, too.
Well, and you want to make surethey're people you want to talk
with.
Well, and a miserableexperience.
Yeah, exactly.
That's one of the reallychallenging things about my

(17:08):
business.
Like, anybody that wants to payyou a bunch of money to do some
irrigation, water design stuff,like, unless they're like, you
know, a satanic temple, you'regonna be like, Sure.
That's right.
Whereas, you know, being amember of local think tank, it's
like, I don't know, are youcool, not sure if I want you in
my thing yet.
Yeah, sure.
Um, so, well, that's cool.

(17:29):
That's a really interesting, andthen can you turn, turn it up
and turn it down at all, as faras like, uh, based on how, with
your pipeline and stuff likethat.
Cause that's part of thechallenge, right?
Like, how do you take, take yourfoot off the gas pedal for a
while.
Yeah.
Right now, Cameron, we'resending you on a trip.
We don't need any more leads fora while.

(17:50):
We're going to pay youeverything.
Just stop doing the project inSaudi.
Yeah.
It's, um, we're learning a bunchabout timing right now.
So it's, it's, um, uh, we didour strategic planning in
September.
So we look back at.
2024, how it's been going, howwe think it's going to finish up
and then start building plans.

(18:11):
So January 1st, we are ready togo.
Um, uh, you know, in the newyear.
Yeah.
And, um, it takes an average of202 days from the day we write a
proposal to getting thatproposal signed.
To starting the project andsending a first invoice and then

(18:32):
receiving a dollar back.
So we spend a certain number ofdollars every day, the first 200
days, and we don't get anythingback for six, over six months.
Um, first check.
covers most of what you've spentso far.
That first check could be, we,we could get paid for a hundred
percent of a project or we couldget paid for 10 percent of a

(18:53):
project.
So you've got to have a certainamount of projects going
organized to quality.
I mean, it's a, it's a, it's acool problem to solve.
Um, and so what we've learned iswe've learned how much each
principal can manage from anumber of clients.

(19:14):
And then a dollar value ofproposals written, proposals
signed.
Yep.
And we can generally tie that tothe number of people they're
with.
Well, and how many, like thedollar value of a proposal is to
some extent, man hours ofengineer people doing math and
drawing lines on their fancyprogramming stuff.
Yeah.
Every project we write, we'vegot a man hour budget.

(19:36):
We've got, when is this workgoing to hit?
Yeah.
Um, so we can hand that everyweek as we're signing projects
every week, we hand that to theengineering team.
Uh, complexity, region of thecountry, man, our budget, what
kind of team do you need to havein place to execute this?
What schedule?
Work is remote.
Some of it does require muddyboots, all that kind of stuff.

(19:57):
Did you, is that, did you createsomething proprietary to the
team?
figure out all these kind ofscheduling and hour estimations?
And is it a big whiteboard thingor is there like industry
software that helps to figureout that stuff?
So we've gone, we've run thegamut, right?
When, when, uh, Heinz wasstarted.
So Heinz is a family businessfor 30 years old.
Yeah.

(20:17):
Yeah.
I bought it eight years ago.
Oh, is that okay.
And, and eight years ago, youknow, we had a great spreadsheet
we were using.
It was, it was good.
And our revenue was, Um, likeone and a half million dollars a
year.
So awesome family business.
Really, really good reputation.
Really great client base,largely in Colorado and Arizona.

(20:38):
Seven employees or 12 orsomething at that time.
We were six or seven folks atthe time.
Um, and today we have someproprietary softwares we've
built.
Um, and then, and then we'vewritten the process flows and
the workflows that we need forto make our stuff work.

(20:59):
And then we've paired that withan off the shelf software.
So like we use HubSpot for ourCRM.
And then we write all the customsequences and workflows we want
to track.
Um, we're using, uh, Kantana.
It used to be called Maven link.
Okay.
They were bought out and that'sa project management software.
Okay.
And so our engineers, when wehand something to them, they

(21:21):
can.
That's where they're uploadingall those files that all the
specs that need to be in there.
Cause I'm sure it's a big datahandling game too, right?
Yeah.
We, where do you find truth?
According to this project.
Yeah.
So, so that runs all of ourhours, budgets, contracts,
stuff, tasks, deliverables, andthen Dropbox is where they house
all of our files, AutoCAD.

(21:41):
They do all their design.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so it's, and, and Meredithactually is running for us in
2025.
She's looking at, we're comingto a tipping point for our size
and complexity.
So we need to go through ananalysis of how many pieces of
software are we using?
Um, How many informational handsare we changing from from in our

(22:05):
customer journey from the day?
Someone hears about Hines, youknow to hopefully year 30 of
working with Hines.
Yeah Yeah How many differentpieces of software are we using
to support them?
Yeah, because every change insoftware is a handoff that
you've got to make sure youdon't drop something.
Yeah.
Yeah And so so Meredith isrunning that initiative Although
there's a lot of things likemakes and stuff like you can use

(22:28):
to pass off Information from onesoftware to the next, but yes,
you're, you're a hundred percentright.
That's interesting.
Do you have, like, in additionto yourself and the, the other
principals, is there, do yougot, like, a super tech
operations software personthat's putting all this together
for you guys, or you're just abunch of engineers hacking it
together, figuring it out?

(22:48):
That's you?
Yeah, so we've got, um, we havea very gifted, uh, Station
builder.
Okay in Fort Collins.
So he builds out our laptops andcomputers for us does that very
very well But we we analyzesoftware and train in that and
figure that out That's youryou're kind of a prime point

(23:08):
person there.
You know a couple people I'm ina place where I've handed off
most of Yeah.
And I can do workflow and, andhelp do some of the thought work
around, are you having to enterthat piece of information more
than once?
Yeah.
If so, is this the right processor the right piece of software?

(23:29):
Well, and that's such aninteresting thing, like in going
from where you started as a sixor seven person firm, you It
didn't make any sense to spendthat effort.
No, probably, you know, but whenyou get to be a 30 person firm,
it's like, okay, well, this isworth it now.
And if we go to be a hundredperson firm, it's totally going
to be worth it.

(23:49):
Yeah.
You know, all that margin is allright there.
Yeah.
Uh, especially in a servicesbusiness, right?
Where, you know, I don't know,you're, you're.
You're probably average employeeprobably makes a hundred bucks
or 80 bucks an hour or something70.
I don't know maybe 50 So there'sdifferent levels.
Yeah, there is so we could havea Designer a young designer come

(24:10):
in that just yeah, they may havean associate's degree They might
have a CAD drafting degreesomething like that Yeah, and
typically market is somewherebetween 55 and 65 right that
person, right?
And we would go all the way upinto, into the high six figures.
Well, probably the low sixfigures, 900, 000.

(24:30):
So I was, I was pretty closethat 52, a hundred bucks an
hour.
Oh, you mean.
Like some people make a coupleof hundred bucks an hour.
Yeah.
We would have, we would havesome folks that are, 200 bucks
an hour is 400 a year.
Okay.
So our principles, um, betweenbase salary and commission, they
can do quite well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a, that's a rolethat if you get to that level at

(24:53):
Heinz that you can retire onthat role.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which has been part of our goal,right?
It's an important industry.
No one pays attention totypically a sweatshop
environment.
typically underpaid, typicallyundervalued.
That doesn't work for managingarguably the second most
valuable resource in the world.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(25:14):
Well, and probably for everyhalf million dollars that people
spend on Heinz, they save a halfmillion dollars a year or
something, or some, maybe it'sonly a third of that or
whatever, but it's, it's somebig number.
If you spend 250 an acre onHeinz, you'll save 30, in

(25:35):
construction costs.
Yeah.
It's pretty good.
Yeah.
I mean, so the value propositionis strong and so being able to
extract a reasonable, I, I, I'vesaid in the past, like it's easy
to add value to the world.
Yeah.
It's sometimes hard to extractsome value for yourself as a
business, you know, when ittakes.
You know, sometimes 30 years ofreputation building of skill

(25:58):
building, of building 7,000systems or whatever.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's enormous.
And right now, I mean, we'remanaging, I think we probably
have 1500 projects undercontract.
Wow.
And in progress, And there aremultiple deliverables for each.
Interesting.
So we have to have a scheduleand a deliverable for 4,500.

(26:20):
deliverables that will hit inthe next 24 months.
You could do my job more easilythan I could do your job.
I'm just saying, I'm justspeculating here.
I got a lot of people.
You got a good team.
Yeah, I could just kind of hangout at the corner and just wait
until real problems arise.
Well, my, my Gather the factsand make a decision.

(26:41):
I figured that my, my skill setis in, um, I build process
because I hate doing somethingmore than once.
I really, really don't like it.
And, and then I also have a, um,uh, I don't really like asking
people, other people to do stuffthat I think is, um, not great

(27:03):
work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I, I have a hard time hiringpeople to do something that I
don't think, um, is worth medoing.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've done all sorts ofstuff.
I've worked in restaurants andbike shops, and I was a hide
carrier for brick mason.
I worked on farms.
I work, I mean, yeah, it's notbecause stuff is below you.
There's just certain work thatshouldn't be done because it
doesn't make sense in light ofthe the Yeah, it's useless,

(27:26):
stupid work that no, no humanshould do.
I like to call it make work.
Oh Lord.
Yeah.
It's brutal, you know, breakingrocks with a, with a freaking ax
or something like that.
Um, well that's a good habit tohave as an executive.
Um, what would you say, likeyour, how many reports do you
have?
How many people report to youdirectly?

(27:47):
Um, uh, head of finance andadministration, head of
engineering, And then I'mcurrently acting as VP of sales
in the company.
So I interact with 1, 2, 3, 4,5, 5 sales and sales ops, most
of which are in that principalrole.
Yeah.
So there's seven folks that I'm,but if you get it figured out,

(28:10):
you'd like to have a sales.
Manager kind of role and thenyou can go back to writing your
motorcycle more.
Yeah, we yeah, that'd be niceWhat would those direct reports
say is your special sauce asidefrom what you've already
observed as far as like Kind ofthat process building so I don't
have to spend time doing dumbstuff I'm a pretty aggressive

(28:31):
driver Okay.
Um, that helps in the businessperspective from a growth
standpoint and justaccountability.
So, so you're a, a demandingcaptain.
Yeah, there's an unwillingnessto accept, um, to accept, uh,
status quo.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, I'm pretty good at, um,bending.

(28:58):
current reality to my will.
I don't know.
That's a silly, stupid thing tosay.
Cause there's a lot of, uh,things that I'm being, uh,
conformed and changed into, youknow, just being, uh, being
humbled and well, but variety ofdifferent, I mean, we, uh, are,
are, are Value is a local thinktank.
We, we, I changed them thisyear, this time, about this time

(29:20):
last year, cause they had gottenkind of fluffy and long and
stuff, but I went to, uh, besmart, be kind, be true, uh, be
local, be the change, be you,and the, be the change is kind
of what you're talking aboutthere.
You know, you can't besatisfied, um, as a business
leader with the status quo,because if you get.

(29:43):
Too much satisfied than threeyears from now, then all of a
sudden you're the third placeguy in the marketplace or
whatever.
You know, and you can't getthose same kind of margins.
You can't hire the good people.
Yeah, yeah.
And that kind of, um, motivationof not.
Yeah, there's, there's a, um,there's some intrinsic things

(30:03):
about me, um, that just have tobe built into the DNA of our
company.
Yeah.
And so as I got more comfortablewith that, um, what emerged is
Heinz has got to be a prettyentrepreneurial place.
Everyone in the organization'sgot to have a little bit of an
entrepreneurial pull, um, andum, come to work on the balls of

(30:28):
their feet.
Yeah.
I dig it.
I dig it.
I mean, that's how you get thebest people because, because the
really best people don't want tobe around complacency.
Yeah.
And it's, it's the best peoplefor us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's a, um, Um, youknow, it's not necessarily the
best in the world, right?
Yeah, yeah.
We'd love to be the best in theworld at what we do, but we also

(30:50):
do it in a particular way.
And, um, uh, I've gottenincreasingly comfortable with
the idea that I'm going to havea particular effect on, you
know, Yeah, yeah.
And this industry in generalseems like.
What's your, what's your target?
Are you, like, do you want to bea hundred person firm three or

(31:11):
five years from now?
Or do you kind of like theboutique, uh, engineering
consultancy place that you're atnow?
Yeah.
Our, our current, uh, ourcurrent mission is to be, um,
probably a 60 to 65 person firmin 2027 by the end of 2027.

(31:31):
And there's some thingshappening in the world of, of
water, environmentalengineering, um, plant soil,
water chemistry, that we need tohave some, uh, size and some
intellectual, got to be able toget there to be able to impact
those things.
So do you want to talk aboutthose things?

(31:52):
Is that, yeah, sure.
It seems like now's the righttime.
Otherwise we might.
Not come back to them, but like,I'm really, I'm a farmer kid,
you know, and, and so very much,you know, conventional farming
methods, you know, wheat farmersnow, corn, soybeans in North
Dakota, but also I'm intriguedabout things like Fertilization,

(32:12):
like watering, like, uh,biochars and different, uh,
things of, uh, plant lifecreation, especially.
Like, for me, that's the mainreason I have water.
Like, we can drink it, butmostly we just need food.
Well, like, nobody wants to liveon the surface of Mars.
And it's not good for people.
And it's not good for animals.

(32:32):
And this idea that we can, um,you know, put in rock and
astroturf everywhere and nothave some pretty detrimental
environmental, mental, emotionalconsequences.
Yeah, paved paradise, but noparking lot, right?
Crazy.
Um, but there are some prettyincredible ways to take much

(32:54):
better care of, uh, soil, water,plants.
And that'll take better care ofpeople.
And so kind of the typical, thisis not true everywhere, but if
we were going to paint theindustry with kind of a broad
brush, um, we go in, we scrapehealthy topsoil, we sell it,

(33:15):
then we set up houses.
we plant landscape on clay.
Then we throw down a bunch ofwater and chemicals to try to
keep it alive.
And then they're surprised whenit dies, unless we pour a lot of
chemical and water on top of it.
And then we maintain and managethose urban gardens, um, with

(33:39):
poorly resourced, oftenuneducated work, uh, workforce.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, there's a, uh, Andthere's change happening and
there are good companies workingagainst this.
And so this is not to paint allof this with a bad brush.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, and there's a lot of greattechnical expertise out there
working on this and we're justwanting to, you know, to, to

(34:01):
find some solutions in therealso.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, uh, a great guest actuallyfor you would be Clinton Sander
over at A1 organics.
Oh yeah.
Awesome soils guy.
fellow motorcyclist.
And, uh, I mean, he's, he isjust the great and powerful
Clinton Sanders.
It's an animal.
All right.
He does.
Um, and so you really have a,you know, kind of below blue

(34:24):
collar workforce taking care ofour environment.
And, um, you know, then we're alittle bit surprised when we're
killing our topsoil.
we have a lot of chemicals andnasty crap in the water that are
doing some pretty detrimentalthings.
And our solution is to tear outall of the plant material.
So it's a little bit of an oddsuicide project in my mind that

(34:46):
I think, I think that if wedevelop a highly educated
workforce that are essentiallybeing urban gardeners for us,
building healthy living soil,allows you to reduce plant
material.
Thank you.
or sorry, allows you to reducedependence on water, reduce or

(35:07):
eliminate harmful chemicals thatwe're putting in the soil and
water table.
Um, you increase biologicalactivity in the soil.
Sure.
Living soils attract moreanimals, plants, pollinators,
birds, bees, wildlife, all ofthose things increase.
Yeah.
Human health is better.
We've done some cool studies inDallas with Texas Trees

(35:27):
Foundation around respiratoryillnesses in public schools,
relating that to tree canopy.
Interesting.
This can relate to food deserts.
Um, you know, people can grow upnever experiencing natural
landscapes.
Like some people grow up onlyeating food from gas stations.
Not great.
It doesn't make healthy humans.
So there's some things therethat I would like to, as we get

(35:50):
a handle on our planning andengineering side, Start thinking
about how we, I mean, we touchbillions of square feet of soil
every year.
How do we make that a littlehealthier with what we do right
now?
Right.
Well, and what you're talkingabout is like when you scrape
that topsoil off, you know, theonly way to keep grass green

(36:10):
after that virtually is to sprayregular chemical fertilizers on
there.
And then some percentage of thatwashes off.
Uh, in the process of overwatering by a hundred percent
and all that stuff kind of goesdown and has to be either taken
out of the water or makes thewater less healthy.
Oh yeah.
You know, downstream for whoeveris, is downstream.

(36:31):
I was just, so, uh, you know, Ioffered you that, uh, that, uh,
joint of the homegrown.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the reason I have the gardenbeds where I have them right now
is because I had to, I moved mychicken coop last year.
Yeah.
And.
Underneath that chicken coop waslike two generations of mulch
nice I've been throwing myleaves in there for eight years

(36:54):
And I always use the chickenpoop to fertilize my gardens and
stuff But I built thisparticular set of garden beds
because I had all this mulchAmazing topsoil, and I wasn't
just going to lose it.
I had to move it to somewheregood.
And so that's where my mybackyard Homegrown plant grew
was in that kind of multigenerational Super rich soil and

(37:17):
even today I still keep chickensand like all the leaves that
fall They just get mulched andtorn up and all the garden the
the kitchen scraps just go outInto there and yeah And that
soil, like 30 years from now,when somebody buys my house from
my widow, you know, they'regoing to be like, Ooh, this
like, cause there'd be likethree feet of soil underneath

(37:39):
that chicken coop yard.
That's just going to be likebeautiful.
It'd be like gold, black gold,black gold.
Yeah.
Old town gold.
We call it.
That's cool.
Uh, around there.
And like, just seeing like whereI grew up in North Dakota, we
don't get much more rain thanEastern Colorado.
Yeah.
Um, but the soil overgenerations just had so much
more organic material and matterin it's a lo, a clay loam

(38:03):
instead of a sandy clay.
Yeah.
And they just grow way morevoluptuous crops because there's
way more organic materials likethe Red River Valley soils.
Yeah.
You know that soil can get oneinch of rain a month.
And still produce a big corncrop.
That's awesome.
Cause it just locks that waterin there except for everything
but the plant.

(38:23):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know?
And so, yeah, it's aninteresting, it's cool.
Dynamic and soil has beenstripped of so much of its
vibrancy.
If we can start building thatback, we can use less chemicals,
less herbicides, lesseverything.
Yeah.
It's wild.
Uh, and, and, and again, like aguy like Clinton would, would be
able to speak to this in a fardeeper manner, but, You spray
these chemicals onto the soil,you kill all of the natural

(38:45):
biology, the natural bacteria,the things that help keep soil
healthy and allow plant roots.
to access water easily andaccess nutrients.
The fertilizer kills the soil'sability to do it.
Yeah.
And then does a, um, a prettyamazing job for a while growing

(39:10):
crops.
Well, it's like we're living on,it's like living on fat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's kind of like, uh,this kind of quick squirt of
energy, but you don't actually,the plant doesn't even try to go
get to the, some of the actualbound nutrients because it's got
this.
Nitrogen is right there.
Easy for looking up.
Yeah, it's like steroids.
Yeah, a little bit like that.
And uh I think what I want to donow is you mentioned that you

(39:32):
purchased the business eightyears ago It was your father's
company before that.
Did you work in the companybefore then or did you come in
and You Get out of here dad.
I'm buying your company or liketalk to me about maybe about
that Transition much smallerbusiness at the time you
mentioned.
Yeah, we um My dad started Heinzwhen I was in high school.
Okay, and I worked in and out ofthe business a little bit before

(39:57):
I went to college and collegewas a Lengthy affair.
Okay with a variety of startsand stops for me.
Okay Um Like you weren't goingto go into engineering kind of
stuff you've done some otherstuff and then well I started
Um, I was thinking thatdirection in high school.

(40:17):
And so I did all my collegemaths in high school And then
enrolled in CSU starting downthat track and just, yeah, it
just didn't, it just didn'tstick at the time.
Um, so I had a couple ofdifferent college experiences in
the States and then dropped outand, uh, snowboarded and worked

(40:38):
as a bouncer for about a yearand a half, two years up in like
Vail or something like that.
I was, uh, I was here in town,had a pass and then I would just
go up and ski three or four daysa week.
I like it.
And where were you bouncing?
Um, so at that time in FortCollins, you had Old Chicago.
Oh yeah.
You had, um, Crown Pub.

(41:01):
Sure.
Yeah, what's the tiny littlebar?
Oh the Tom pump.
Yep town pump, you know, andthen I think I've always been a
trailhead guy myself mostly.
Yeah, they had trailhead andthen the really rowdy place I
worked some was over by theTransport Depot.

(41:21):
It's a they've turned it into aWashington.
Yeah, Washington's.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I worked around Gotchagotcha.
Duval just make pretty goodmoney.
You know, I was great.
Yeah Yeah.
You share, you, you generallyshared the take from, uh, tips
from the bar, right?
And, um, it was fun.
Unless you let somebody in andbeat somebody up, then that's
trouble.

(41:42):
Yeah.
Anyway, I digress.
We're friends with everybody.
Right.
That's the best way to balance.
Yeah, everybody wants to be yourfriend.
To be friends with everybody.
Yeah, for sure.
But it was wild.
Yeah.
I mean, it was, it was, um, youknow, saw all sorts of things.
Well, I, I actually, as a matterof fact, just Saturday night, I,
I, uh, Went out and met somefriends and then I met my wife

(42:02):
and one of her girlfriends andwe went to the trailhead for a
little while and on the way outof there at like 11 o'clock,
1130.
The, the bouncer had beenpunched.
Oh yeah.
By this dude.
Uh, this dude that had beenflirting with my wife's
girlfriend earlier.
I was like, dude, did you givehim your number?
Um, anyway, and the police werelike there and interviewing this

(42:23):
guy and the bouncer was back onduty with like a, a cut around
his nose, you know, he waswiping a little eye thing, but
he was, he was a trooper.
Um, but, uh, anyway, so I'm sureit was a pretty interesting job.
So you.
Eventually go back to school,get out of your party days, and
then get serious, or?
Yeah, I, um, I went and lived inEurope for about a year and a

(42:45):
half.
Okay.
And, uh, lived and worked there,odd, odd jobs.
Um, and then, uh, while Bouncingand stuff.
Well, uh, I actually worked inan art school.
I did live in Italy, and um, Imean, I guess I, I, I, um, yeah.
So I worked in a couple ofdifferent art schools in
Florence for about a year and ahalf.
So were you a budding artist inthis season of your life?

(43:07):
Or are you just like Not at all.
You're like No, I modeled forYou're like applying for this
art school or, uh, to workthere, and you're like, I've
been a bouncer at this.
Yeah.
Whatever.
In one of the colleges that Iwent to, I'm, I worked in the
art department and one of thevisiting professors said, Hey,
if you ever want to come andlive in Europe, let me know.
Oh wow.
And so I went over and then Igot 50 bucks a week and free

(43:30):
room and uh, I worked abouteight hours a week, learned
Italian, traveled a bunch, likea bum, I really traveled like a
bum.
That's cool.
And, um, while I was there.
Um, what I hadn't liked aboutcollege very much was all of the
structured class time.
And, uh, even then it felt likethere was a bunch of nonsense.

(43:53):
Yeah.
Um, I knew how to read, I knewhow to write.
I didn't want to spend electoralcredits taking PE classes.
I wanted to get busy getting adegree and be done.
Yeah.
And some friends in Italy said,Hey, you should look at Oxford.
Oh, okay.
Keep going.
So I, um, looked at Oxford and,uh, Oxford runs on a tutorial
system.
Yeah.

(44:14):
And so you get a degree in threeyears, and you don't have to go
to any classes.
Every week, you're set a termpaper, effectively a term paper
for every class.
What?
So every class you take, I wouldjust go to my mail, my little
mailbox on, on a Monday morning,and I'd have, uh, a little note

(44:36):
from each of my tutors, and theywould just have a question.
So if I was studying Alexanderthe Great, they would just have
a question.
And I'd go build a reading list.
I could pick lectures around theuniversity to go see.
And a week later they wanted a 810 page paper arguing about that
question.
Wow.
And, uh, the first year you'rejust getting the shit beat out

(44:59):
of you.
I'm sure.
Um, and then by year 3 Becauseit's such a different way of
learning than we've ever beenintroduced to.
Oh, it's brutal.
It's absolutely brutal.
Yeah.
Um, and by the end of the year,end of year three, the hope is,
is you're able to actuallyargue, debate, discuss, write
well, communicate well, um, andall of your grades that you do

(45:19):
not have to go to class.
There are no grades for threeyears.
At the end of three years, theyset seven cumulative exams and
you have one thesis paper.
Wow.
And you sit down in a room andyou've got three hours to answer
three questions on your subject.
And you perhaps have not, Imean, it's from year one, right?

(45:42):
And, uh, that was sufficientlyengaging.
And so I came back to the Statesfrom Italy, worked in the
business to save money, to go dothat, applied, worked in your
dad's business, my dad'sbusiness, got in, which, which,
which was, uh, I don't know howthat happened.

(46:02):
Um, and, uh, while I was overthere, Uh, I actually, my wife
and I met two months before Imoved to England.
We got engaged three days beforeI left.
And, um, we were engaged.
While I was living over therethe first year that we got
married and moved over theretogether okay, so the two of us
started a little office forHeinz in England Oh and Marketed

(46:27):
that way you can write our tripsback and forth and started off
the trip start working on theglobal for school Presence or
whatever, right?
Like nobody can carry that flagbetter than the son of the
founder kind of thing.
That's right That's right.
So in a way, I mean I wasinterested in it, but it started
a bit as a how are we gonna payfor school?
right, we I mean, I paid for myown braces in college, you know,

(46:51):
we weren't flush with money, soI had to pay for all my
schooling and, uh, this was agreat way to do it.
Yeah, yeah.
What an interesting route and Iwas beating myself up a few
weeks ago because I haven'tridden in a while.
Read hardly any books in thelast couple years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I used to listen to audioaudible books a lot more and

(47:12):
Occasionally read shorties andstuff, but but these podcasts
that I have with reallyinteresting people every week
Yeah, yeah, you know just kindof feeds me a lot I got my
thinker going for a couple ofhours every week with somebody
that's usually smarter than mePresent company.
I'm sorry Drag it down here.
You study like Ancient historyor some weird thing?

(47:35):
You mentioned Alexander theGreat.
Yeah, ancient history was myfavorite.
That must have gotten you readyfor being the high biller at
the, uh, Heinz.
Irrigation company.
Well, if you think about it in,in ancient history, you get to
study people that controlledsome of the largest empires in
the world there.
And, um, so if you pair thatkind of expertise with the

(47:55):
rather limited IQ and competenceof a guy like me, maybe you can
build a small to midsize companyin the United States.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like it.
Yeah.
If you study the, the masters,shoot low, young man, That's an
interesting, uh, like, were youpassionate about history and

(48:19):
stuff before this season?
Or like?
Yeah, very much.
I mean, I, I probably come fromthe, um, I come from a
educational perspective thatlooks something like, um, spend
time developing how you look atand see the world, learn to

(48:40):
think about it critically.
Uh, learn to speak and writeabout it.
Mm hmm.
Um, that's more important thanlearning.
skills.
Yeah.
Um, learn technical skills asnecessary.
Learn technical skills asnecessary.
Um, and, and if you look at ourtime now, you know, you can go
into a four year degree incomputer science and by the time

(49:03):
you're done, you're three and ahalf years behind.
Totally.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and so maybe do anapprenticeship program for six
months.
Right.
Yeah.
But that doesn't teach you howto be a citizen or a father.
Um, or to, um, you know, dealwith a whole variety of a
philosopher first, uh, bynature.

(49:25):
I think that's probably thecase.
Yeah.
And I liked history.
I did take some philosophyclasses.
I liked history the mostbecause, um, that seems to be
the story of what people haveactually bet their lives on.
Yeah.
So you can come up with a lot ofphilosophies.
or sophistries.
You know, you can argue foralmost anything, but if someone

(49:46):
asked you to put your life onthe line for it, you'd probably
walk yourself back from thatposition.
Um, and so what I like abouthistory is it is for better, for
worse, these are the thingspeople actually bet their lives
on.
Yeah.
Right.
You know, I think we're, we canget into the political segment
of our podcast later, but when Ithink about sophistry, I think
about, you know, some of theresults of this most recent

(50:09):
election, you know, did peoplereally care what Beyonce had to
say?
Yeah.
Uh, you know.
Anyway, I digress, but it's likewhat is really important, you
know, and to a large extent thislast election, like the single
binding issue on the democraticparty seemed to have become an

(50:29):
abortion.
That was their big, an orangeman, a big place to stand, an
orange man really bad.
Um, and Especially on theabortion issue, it actually only
affects hopefully only one ortwo out of 100 people each year,
you know, on a regular basis, itcertainly affects humanity and
stuff and whatever, but it isn'tlike a prevailing issue that's

(50:50):
actually important to everybodya lot.
The notion that it is, is, youknow, election fodder primarily
in my perception.
I certainly have not had to makea decision.
Agreed.
About whether or not I'm goingto.
Fair.
And we can cross that politicalbridge when we come to it.
But the truth is, it justdoesn't affect that many people.
You know, my wife hasn't thoughtabout the question of abortion

(51:13):
for a long time.
Oh yeah.
Right?
And neither have I.
And my wife and I are past thatplace as well.
Exactly, right?
Yeah, yeah.
There's only, you know, acertain bandwidth of
relationships and people thatare really in that.
But I can see what you say.
Well, it's What generationsthereafter, but anyway, I
digress.
Uh, we can talk about otherstuff history.
Well, then it's I mean Those arequestions people have been
dealing with as long as humanshave been alive.

(51:34):
Sure and and and there was atime when a humans be a hue it
seemed like a human beings lifewas about developing into a
certain type of person And itwas thought that you did that by
observing reality and conformingyourself to that external

(51:57):
reality in a meaningful andvirtuous way.
And some of what qualified asmeaningful or virtuous might
change a little bit culture toculture.
But there was something aboutlooking outward and becoming
more like something better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, um, and I think that ourpresent moment.

(52:19):
has a healthy dose of realitydoesn't exist out there, reality
exists inside of me.
And it can change moment tomoment based on, uh, a variety
of factors or whims or beliefs,you know, depending on, on how

(52:40):
seriously you take some of thatstuff.
Yeah.
And, um, So I think it's aninteresting time to think about
history, philosophy, how youlive in the world, why you live
in the world.
Well, when you were talkingabout leaders of empires, I was
thinking about the Orange Man.
Oh yeah.
Right?
Aro.
Hard to say, uh, how he fitsinto that congregation of That

(53:02):
dude's a wild guy.
For sure, for sure.
Yeah.
Um, so, so tell me, I guess, soyou, you Go do your Oxford tour,
you get married, did you guysstart a family right away so you
got littles and stuff too?
No, we um, so we, we lived inEurope for two years together,
and then we decided to move andopen an office for Heinz in

(53:25):
Arizona.
Okay.
Um, And so we relocated toArizona, started an office
there, built that up.
And in a very, I mean, in a yearand a half, we doubled the size
of Heinz from, Oh, wow.
Basis.
Okay.
And so I started thinking maybethis is something that I could
be before I make that companyworth too much.
I should consider.
Oh, I wish.
Um, um, and then that far ahead,the 2007, eight recession hit.

(53:50):
And, uh, our.
Company shrank by 75 percent inunder a year.
And that was not something that,um, company, the company was
prepared.
Familiar with weather.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, so you had to do layoffs alot sooner than you did, uh,
manage to scrap together enoughmoney to not go out of business

(54:14):
kind of thing.
Do you want to like, what werethe, like, what were the shots
across the bow where you reallyhad to make?
Serious action.
Well, the, the, the lessonsthat, that I took away were, uh,
don't run on debt ever as acompany, uh, financial modeling

(54:34):
and cashflow management has tobe really probably the premier
skillset in the business.
Especially in a, in a servicecompany with unpredictable ish
forward revenues, likeunpredictable forward revenues.
I mean, in a way we're like abarber shop.
It's very consistent.
These relationships.

(54:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It takes 200 days to get ahaircut, but it does take 200
days to get that haircut So sothat was really important and
then the other was really beable to cut quickly Hmm, and
that's so hard to do becauseyou're forming relationships
with your friends, you know AndI'm just bought his house two

(55:15):
years ago.
Yeah, he's got a little guy.
Oh, yeah, right So we we haveconversations about that Like I
have a plan right now for if wehave a 20%, 40 percent and 60
percent drop in revenue for somereason.
Wow.
I already have the plan and ourleadership team knows about it.
And as a team, we talk about howdo we build not just technical

(55:37):
fluency, but business acumenfluency at every level of the
it.
Yeah, yeah.
So that we kind of know what thelevers are to pull.
Yeah, yeah.
That make Heinz indispensable.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, like that's a, so if youwant to come work at Heinz, we'd
like you to have an interest injust learning about how business
works.
Um, because I can understandthings happening that are

(55:58):
outside my control and needingto make hard decisions.
I don't like the idea ofrefusing to pick up
responsibility to learn, teachand train.
And then when hard things happenthat we could have mitigated, I
don't like that dynamic.
I don't like coming to peopleand saying, You know, we really
didn't pay attention to this.

(56:20):
We've always known it wascoming.
We got totally caught off guardhere, but sorry you're late off.
See you later.
You know, and that's a, um, thatdoesn't match well with my
personality or template orwhatever, so we, we try to avoid
that.
Well, and hopefully it alsoworks.
You know, when people, do yourun a fairly open book kind of

(56:42):
financial then too?
Yeah.
I figured because then also yourteam can help you notice
expenses that don't need to bein this project or, you know,
softwares that we haven't usedfor nine months as it turns out,
even though we still got thissubscription.
Oh yeah.
All that kind of stuff.
Push the button.
Yeah, shut that baby off.

(57:02):
Exactly.
So that's a lot of empowermentand as well as being a little
scary, right?
Like, oh, yeah I assume youweren't an open book type
company when not too much.
I mean my My dad has an awesomeOpenness and And so he I think
instilled a lot of this in me Ithink some of the areas that I

(57:27):
have strength in is You is doingthat financial modeling, being
willing to make some of thosedecisions based on the data that
we're getting.
Um, being a little bit morestructured and having, having
some requirements of the teamthat are a little different.
Um, but I learned a lot of the,just how do you treat people?

(57:48):
And, um, you know, from, from mydad, my granddad, you know, from
guys like that, that just workedreally well with people.
So you had this big downsize,big downsize, uh, you were able
to keep your job at a lessersalary.
Sharon and I moved to Colorado.
We, we moved back up toColorado, uh, we kept a
satellite there and some staffdown there, but we.

(58:10):
I mean, I shrank that divisionwithin a couple of months.
I mean, I had land developmentguys saying, Hey, you're about
six months from all yourprojects being turned off.
So I started scaling veryquickly.
The Colorado office didn't scaleas quickly.
But what was neat aboutColorado, pretty insulated.
So we had a house in Phoenixthat we bought for 215, 000.

(58:32):
It appraised for 110, 000.
in the depth of the recession.
Right, right.
So, and we were not quite as badas Vegas, but not much better.
Well, and we were, we werebasically in the old town of
Phoenix.
So houses that were out, youknow, 45 minutes from downtown,
that 300, 000 house was worth60.
I mean, people were just walkingaway.

(58:53):
So that market was hit hard,Colorado, not so much.
So we came and built a reallynice, um, client base around
public work because they havetax dollars coming in.
And so we did a lot of greatpark work, streetscapes, um,
that was kind of a pivot at thattime.
Yeah.
We really built that part of thecompany up.
Interesting.
Okay.
That saved our bacon.

(59:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then everyone's always gotmoney to spend.
They do.
And there were always.
There was just always that nextunusual project.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Um, we do a lot of luxuryproject work up in the
mountains.
Sure.
And so we had, uh, uh, uh, oneof the largest landowners in, in
a city in Pitkin County.
Um, and they came and had acouple of years of work, fully

(59:37):
renovating, you know, a lovely25 acre property.
Yeah.
I mean, that saved our bake.
Covered your overhead for awhile.
Oh yeah.
It was really great.
Um, And that's in there thatstarted the process of, of dad
thinking about, you know, thenumber one failure in family
businesses is that generationaltransfer change in vision,

(59:59):
change in values.
Some of those sorts of thingsare so tough.
And so we started planning 10years ago.
How are we going to do thisthing?
How is this going to work?
We were having conversationsbefore that.
I had earned 30 percent equityin the company.
Oh, okay.
Um, and so we just startedworking that transition.

(01:00:20):
You effectively kind of tookthat equity in lieu of pay.
Yeah.
So you lived more frugally thanyou might have.
Didn't have as fast of cars ormotorcycles for a little while.
That's right.
But you also had something totake to the bank or whatever,
when it came time to finish upthat transaction with that.
That's right.
That's right.
Yeah, and we continue to livethat way.
Yeah, you know, try to keep itpretty Pretty, uh, tight and

(01:00:43):
simple.
I like to say most people try toout earn their expenditures
rather than under spending theirrevenues.
That's rough.
I know, but unfortunately it'sbecome a cultural norm, and
which when you come into timesof inflation and harder to find
jobs and things like that, thatYou can see the fruits of that
pretty fast.
It's a stressful way to live.
Yeah, for sure.
Um, do you want to talk aboutthat actual transaction of

(01:01:05):
coming into ownership?
But was there, is there anythingof interest in that or is that
kind of more private?
In that regard?
Let me think about that.
I think that, I don't think wedid anything too complex.
Okay.
Uh, in Phoenix, my wife and Istarted Heinz Inc.
Okay.
So Heinz irrigation was typifiedby.

(01:01:26):
Uh, providing irrigation systemdesign.
So you're working in thatconstruction document world.
So for people not familiar withwhat we do, imagine that you're
having a house built, you go tothe architect, say, draw that
house.
And, and it's not the fluffypicture that they're drawing.
It's the actual.
Structural design, every board,every outlet, every wire, every

(01:01:48):
fitting, everything's detailedout, right?
So Heinz has big expertise inthat.
Something we started doing inArizona was the upfront water
planning.
So if you're developing athousand acres, And you need to
buy 10 million in water.
Yep.
You're going to need to get thatwater from somewhere.
What are the water rights?
Do you need groundwater wells?

(01:02:09):
Do you need storage ponds?
Do you need potable meters?
Are you building a wastewatertreatment plant?
And if you are wrong about thatirrigation water demand, you're
over building all of thatinfrastructure by 50 percent or
a hundred percent.
So Sharon and I, with, incoordination with Heinz
Irrigation, we started HeinzInc.

(01:02:29):
to do that financial modelingand water planning up front,
give that to cities anddevelopers, they map that into
their pro forma, and now theyknow how much to spend every
year for the next 15 years toget this project out.
Well, they can also potentiallydesign a system that doesn't
require so much water.
And that then, we, we set thatwater plan in place and then
they go to constructiondocuments with Heinz Irrigation.

(01:02:51):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And so what that allowed us todo then was, um, buy Heinz
irrigation essentially overtime.
Yeah.
And so we set a, and there'ssome ways that we structured
that with our accountants thatwere beneficial from a tax
planning perspective for myfamily.
Um, we, we did have a, um, acouple of valuations done.

(01:03:13):
We picked the highest valuation.
Um, we've, I've got kind ofthree siblings.
So it was really important thatthey never feel like, you know,
they got aced out of exactly thesituation.
Although certainly from theirperspective, they recognize that
you.
Made dad's business worth a lotmore too.
By the time he exited or youhelped to do so.

(01:03:33):
Anyway, I was just reflectinghow, oh gosh, forever ago,
number 47 or something was agal, Emily Kincaid, that was a
former member of loco.
Um, sadly she passed on from anaggressive cancer.
She built a company doing frackwater.
Yeah, finding, brokering,moving, pumping That's cool.

(01:03:55):
And that was like it'sinteresting that your puzzle is
a little bit similar to hersThey were like, oh we need this
many cubic feet per minute offrack water for this well and
You know, you can get it fromwherever you want.
Yeah, but where are you gonnaget it from?
Yeah, you know, there's thesefarmers that have ponds and
these farmers that have waterrights on the canal And you

(01:04:16):
know, where are you gonna get itfrom?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah, that's fantastic.
Oh, she was a dynamo Yeah, itwas a really really superb and
she built a 200 employeecompany.
I was like a 31 year old gal inWeld County, you know, and just
no fear.
Just a lot of just, uh, joy andlove.
And one of the people I'll missforever.

(01:04:37):
Kind of.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
There's so many amazing peopleout there.
There really are.
And I'm in a blessed place thatI get to meet a lot of them, you
know?
Um, I feel like we've covered alot of the business journey.
We haven't grown, you know, wekind of went back to high
school, but let's, let's talkabout little Nate.
Little, little six year oldNate.
You were.
A town townie, is that right?

(01:04:58):
Your dad was around herealready, or did you guys move
here?
So I was born in, uh, Decatur,which is a suburb of Atlanta.
Okay.
And my dad's people all comefrom Kentucky and West Virginia.
Okay.
Very.
Yeah.
I mean, I have a, I had a greatuncle who, you know, went to
federal prison for some alcoholduring prohibition thing,

(01:05:20):
transportation or development orsomething like that.
Yeah, I like that.
Moonshiner kind of bootleggerkind of style thing.
Okay.
Yeah, but definitely, um, a, um,You know, a rambunctious group
and my mom's family, they're allFrench Canadian lumberjacks.
Oh, also a rambunctious group.
Her side of the family was allabout feats of strength and, you
know, drinking and knockingpeople out.

(01:05:40):
I like it.
Um, and we, um, yeah, born inGeorgia, born in Atlanta.
And when I was three, we movedto Nashville.
My dad's family was there.
And, uh, we were in Nashville,Tennessee till I was 11.
So, 89, we relocated to FortCollins.
And my dad was working as amechanical.

(01:06:01):
How was that?
Oh, it was awesome.
You thought it was awesomecoming from Tennessee to
Colorado?
It was, changed my life.
I mean, I've always been a, um,can't sit still, want to be
outside kid.
Yeah, yeah.
So, I started, um, We lived in apart of Nashville, now it's
lovely, Sylvan Park, um, youknow, million dollar homes,
awesome place to live.
Right, now that it's beengentrified properly.

(01:06:22):
Properly gentrified.
When I was growing up, it was,it was, it was rough.
Yeah.
And, um, um, but I was just out.
Running around with a BB gun 18hours a day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And um, so coming to Coloradomeant just, and Fort Collins at

(01:06:42):
the time, pretty small.
A lot of dirt roads.
Totally.
We just, we just lived, like,had a bicycle.
Tom Sawyer knew how to use it.
It was awesome.
They should pull on a bicycleand I knew how to use them.
Oh yeah.
It was incredible.
And to this day, um, you know,we've lived in a bunch of
different places.
Um, but coming back at you,flying to DIA and you see the
mountains there, it is the best.

(01:07:05):
You don't have a place that youdream of moving to here.
I just, I love being, not yet.
It's getting a little busy.
You know, it's getting a littlebusy.
I mean, before the Californiastarted moving to Montana, that
was really nice.
Idaho has still got some decentspots.
I don't know.
Yeah.
If it was just me, I'd probablybe in Idaho or somewhere like
that, you know, a little bitquieter and Collins is great.

(01:07:27):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's great.
Um, so you were, Rambunctiouskid.
Did you get good grades andstuff?
Were you trying?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I always hated school.
I mean, I loved, it was atortured relationship.
I always felt like I could do itthree hours, what school was
trying to do in eight Yeah.
And so I've just had an inbornresentment for needing to take

(01:07:49):
eight hours to do what it TAtakes.
Yeah.
Most people I think three hoursto do.
Yeah.
Yeah, and unfortunately, yep SoI kind of flipped back and forth
between homeschooling and goingto school Okay, and I don't know
if that was my parents plan, butit was just kind of a necessity
Yeah, homeschooling with yourmom.
Yeah, your mom's directionmostly.
Yeah, and even that was Shewould get up, and I was usually

(01:08:12):
done with most of my schooling.
So, pretty self directed.
And I'm not sure that they knewwhat to do with me.
So, it was a lot of runningaround.
Um, High school jobs and stufftoo, I suspect.
So you had a little pocket moneyto chase girls with her.
I started mowing lawns when Iwas five or six school jobs,

(01:08:36):
dude.
My, um, the lawnmower at ourhouse was a nasty old thing that
you pushed in front of you.
I mean, it was, it was a prettysignificant hazard.
Yeah.
Um, and then I started when Iwas eight or nine going out and
working at a ranch for a familyfriend on weekends.
Okay.
And that was awesome.
And so I was.
fixing fences, catching horses,shooting guns.

(01:08:58):
I mean, it was, it was awesome.
And so I had a lot of fondmemories of that.
My granddad was a really hardworker and owned businesses and
things like that.
So I worked for him inNashville.
Um, and, uh, enjoyed that abunch.
And, um, and then when we movedto Colorado, I got, I used to
deliver the Colorado andnewspaper.

(01:09:20):
I was 13, 14 summers.
I would mow lawns wintertime.
I would, um, uh, Deliver papersand, and, um, the big reason
for, I think some of that is wejust didn't have any money
growing up.
Yeah.
I mean, we, um, we were, yourdad had started his business,
but it was not till 96, 94,sorry, 93 is when he started and

(01:09:43):
it took a couple of years to geta taxable income and they had
four kids.
Yeah.
Um, but when we, when I waslittle, The number of times that
my sister who's three yearsyounger than me, we had to push
start the car so mom couldjumpstart it to get to work and
school.
She'd drop us off at school andgo to work.
And we, uh, there were periodsof time where, um, people in the

(01:10:06):
community were bringing food tous.
Didn't have a lot of money.
Yeah, no.
I mean, I, I, my, my, uh, my momdiscovered, gosh, about the time
I graduated high school, that mydad had cashed in the savings
bonds that her parents hadbought for me when I was born,
you know, a couple of hundreddollars of savings bonds or
something like that.

(01:10:27):
Um, but that was, that was howdesperate times were at times
for our family as well.
I mean, we were free schoollunch for many years and all
that.
So, which is good.
Like honestly, like when I gotout of banking and, you know,
Um, you know, my income wentfrom 85, 000 a year to 15, uh,
and, you know, Jill and I had tonavigate that journey, you know,

(01:10:49):
we, we certainly negativecashflow for a while, but we'd
grown fat and happy, you know,and, and going through some
periods and it keeps you humblewhen you're talking to others
that don't have as much rightnow either.
So I think I consider it ablessing usually as long as you
get your way out of the otherend of it.
Yeah, you teach you, you have tolearn a lot about who you are.
Yeah.
And if you're going to.

(01:11:10):
What sort of person you're goingto be in hardship?
Yeah, yeah.
And, um, so there was, um, therewas some healthy and some
unhealthy, uh, perceptions thatI had of myself and of our
family coming out of that.
Yeah, yeah.
One of them was.
Um, you're, you're going to haveto raise and provide for

(01:11:30):
yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which can, can provide some, uh,positive results from the
outside and some positiveresults, period.
Yeah.
But also it can give you somestuff that may have you look at
the world in other people andstuff like that.
Yeah, no, I can feel that forsure.
I, uh, you know, when I got to,Even when I got to college, you
know, as a very rural, I grew uphigh school class of five,

(01:11:54):
right?
So in North Dakota, everybodythinks they're kind of losers
because you have to live inNorth Dakota already And but you
know, I want to go to collegeand I'm kind of got this kind
of, you know, less I'm lessCapable, even though I did all
my schoolwork in three hours andeverybody else took eight too.
And it took me a couple of yearsto really acknowledge to myself

(01:12:15):
that, Oh, I'm actually just ascapable, you know?
And then part of that is the,and then that's poverty too,
right?
Like poverty is more socialrelational than it is financial.
And in most, Places.
I mean, it's always reallyfinancial too, but it's that,
that feeling of hopelessnessthat you can't get there.

(01:12:36):
Sounds like your family didn'tquite get there, but you
definitely had some scars.
Yeah.
There was a sense of, and thisprobably didn't come from the
poverty part, probably just camefrom family dynamics, but just,
uh, some undealt with chaos.
And, um, that along withpoverty, I think it's pretty,
it's pretty rough.
Fair enough.
Um, I think that, um, I'm gonnacall a short break, and then we

(01:13:02):
will have a closing segments.
I love it.
And then we'll wrap up.
Sounds great.
All right, it's been fun.
Yeah, buddy.

(01:13:50):
Um, we always talk about faith,family, and politics.
Uh, so obviously, like, you knowwhere you could get weed if you
wanted to.
You didn't have to wait nineyears, but you're, so you're not
opposed to it.
But you're, I sense that you'rea, a high performance focused
individual.
Is that right?
And that this is not aperformance enhancing drug.
And so therefore, It's off thetable.

(01:14:13):
I mean, it's not that it's offthe table.
I just, um, Don't want to behabituated toward it or
whatever.
Yeah, and, and, and I thinkpeople, well, I know everybody
responds to all the things thathappen in life in a variety of
ways.
And, um, mine has been, um,Taking responsibility for
everything.

(01:14:34):
And managing is at as high alevel.
I can managing stress andotherwise through mostly
physical effort kind of thing.
And then on the mental side, Isuspect you meditate, yoga, all
that kind of stuff too.
Yeah.
Um, So I guess from a, from apolitical standpoint, which of
those, like, I, I was justlistening to Tucker Carlson talk

(01:14:57):
about how he would like to seethe U S become Saudi Arabia, rid
of all the drugs, you know, chopoff fentanyl dealers, hands,
like just stop all of it.
Because as Americans, we're allon something just about like
between pills, alcohol, weed,and sugar.
X sugar.
Yep.
I mean, sugar is, you know,activates all of the, uh, a

(01:15:19):
bunch of the networks in thebrain that cocaine does, um, big
dopamine hit.
It is a powerful mood, uh, moodstabilizer.
Um, obviously I don't think itis cocaine, right?
There are a bunch of, a bunch ofus that can't keep it on the
road unless we have a lot ofsugar.
You fall, you know, you fallapart.
You a sugar addict then?

(01:15:40):
No.
No.
No.
No, you're, I mean, you would,you would pin it.
My, um, my propensities would beto get addicted and rely on
things that make me look betterin public.
Stronger, prettier.
So that's a big risk there, butdo you want more of that or
should I put that out?
No, I'm good to go.
You're good?
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, I mean, you just, uh, youjust smoked weed on the local

(01:16:02):
experience.
That's right.
Your public persona takesdamage.
You know, I'm, I, uh, It'spretty good already, so you'll
be fine.
Yeah, I have no idea.
And there's just probably nottime to care a whole lot about
it.
We don't have that manylisteners anyway.
Oh, no.
It's ridiculous.
You guys are great.
Um, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, Idon't know that I do a whole lot

(01:16:25):
of good caring too much aboutpublic persona.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Well, that's a good reason to beon.
I've had a couple of failedepisodes and it was always
people that were like employeesof some visible local company.
And either it was just a suckyepisode or in one case they,

(01:16:45):
they wrote an email the next dayand said, Hey, we can't publish
that.
That's not in line.
That's why I'd like to talk tobusiness owners.
Cause you can choose foryourself what you want to talk
about.
And I think that's.
Like, I don't know if we want todrift into this part of the
politics, but we just had anelection.
Yeah.
We can go anywhere, man.
You know, I think that thiselection certainly was heavily

(01:17:06):
impacted by the, the 2020, um,COVID scene and the BLM scene
and the kind of reverse reactionin some ways to the law fair
against Trump in the subsequentyears and things like that.
Yeah.
Um, I guess my question is, ishow.

(01:17:27):
should we structure society?
Like, like how much libertyshould people have?
Um, how much, you know, youhear, I mean, it isn't really a
liberty versus not liberty, um,environment anymore.
Yeah.
You know, the Democrats are mybody, my choice, except for get
your vaccine, you communist orfascist or whatever.

(01:17:50):
And, and, you know, we need topolice online.
free speech is kind of, for whenyou're talking to somebody in
person, it never supposed toapply to the internet or
something.
Right.
And gun rights.
And then the other side is, youknow, the, the conservative
basis is at least accused ofrestricting rights in some ways.

(01:18:11):
Um, you know, I tend to put my,I'm, I'm actually really proud
of the anti war pro liberty proliberty movement.
inclusion of others in the tentkind of movement that happened
for Trump this year.
But what's your thoughts on thatbig picture stuff?
Like where, where are we going?
What's our, what's our culturewilling to become?

(01:18:32):
Are they willing to put in thework to become strong?
Yeah.
It seems like, I feel like, um,the war has, the culture war has
been, um, magnified by theinternet.
Sure.
And so I think I think there arewhole arguments, uh, that look

(01:18:53):
very divisive that if you justwalk down a street in Fort
Collins, everyone would, youknow, pretty much agree and be
happy about it and let's gettogether and have a barbecue.
Um, but the, the, I think themedia presented war seems to be
a war against competence.
Yeah.
Um, or of the, um, the ideathat, Uh, I'm most responsible

(01:19:17):
for myself.
Um, you know, that, that seemsto be something that has shifted
a bit.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wrote a blog about that, uh, awhile back that, you know, the
first thing you got to beresponsible is for yourself.
And if you're there, then youcan start caring about other
people's stuff more.
But if you're irresponsible inyourself, you kind of lose your,

(01:19:40):
like, should we, Should werestrict voting rights in that
capacity?
Well, I've heard I think Vivekput that notion forward that if
you're not a taxpayer at somelevel I've um, you don't get to
vote if you're just if you justreceive benefits.
Yeah, and you've never paidtaxes You don't get a vote.
I don't know what I think aboutthat There's a part of me that

(01:20:02):
likes it that that likes theidea I think probably what I
would do I think what you shouldtie that to if you do that is
Make everyone pay taxes.
Mmm.
In some capacity.
In some capacity.
Yeah.
Um, even if it's, even if it's,even if it's just a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, I don't know whatto do if, if someone's born

(01:20:25):
with, with some severeincapacity.
Down syndrome or whatever.
Right.
Yes.
Or you're a military veteran andor your military family and you
Lose the spouse when they'reoverfighting.
You got five little kids.
The government doing somethinglike the, and maybe not even
saying the government, theAmerican people electing people

(01:20:46):
who will write policy to figureout how to take care of people
in need like that.
I am all for it.
And then I'm probably really allfor, uh, people giving.
privately outside of, out of thegovernment too, that, that even
probably is better for Americansto take ownership of.
Have we, uh, have I shared mymotto with you from LOCO here?

(01:21:08):
No.
I had it for a couple of yearsbefore I formed LOCO even
actually.
It's, uh, ask of your needs andshare of your abundance.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and it's really, it's kindof a, a more complicated motto
because, um, like, don't ask ofyour wants, because I don't want
to provide for your wants.
Um, you know, but do ask of yourneeds and including like

(01:21:29):
business leaders and, you know,people that try to hide their
fears and, and whatever,sometimes, uh, their shortfalls
or weaknesses, there's, there's,there's scary spots.
Um, and then the share of yourabundance also implies don't
take it from me, you know, butbe gracious to share.
And I think that's a better wayto, to, to, Create a strong

(01:21:51):
society.
Oh yeah.
You know, especially with AIcoming along, AI can be like,
well, we should down, downsizefunding for respite care.
Cause there isn't as much need,we should upsize for United Way.
But we do have a lot ofnonprofit organizations that are
funded by generosity in thiscountry.
And there's a, there's a greatbook on this subject.

(01:22:12):
The title escapes me.
It might just be called givingor something like that and it
was written by a more leftleaning person who went he talks
about this He went in to writethe book believing that what he
would find is is that otherWestern nations like European
countries Take far better careof the poor and of their

(01:22:32):
societies.
And that comes throughgovernment largesse.
Um, and what he found is, Ithink the book is called who
cares.
What he found is America's themost generous country in the
history of countries, the amountof small, private and large, but
small private donations that goto needy people, uh, is, is

(01:22:55):
extraordinary off the charts,both in our country and around
the world.
And, um, and when you go look atEuropean countries, there is
almost no charitable giving incomparison because they just
assume the government is goingto take care of it.
Um, so pulling that andseparating that out from, uh,
Individual communityresponsibility, I think is

(01:23:17):
really not good.
And so I love the, um, I lovethe, the, the, concept of hyper
localization.
There's a specific word forthat, that concept,
subsidiarity.
So subsidiarity is the idea thatyou drive responsibility down to

(01:23:40):
the lowest, not lowest, butsmallest possible unit.
So if I, if my wife and I aremaking a decision about how much
meat we need to buy for thefamily for the next day, week,
or month.
It's best for us to make thatdecision rather than somebody in
Washington D.
C.
saying the Heinz family needs 17ounces of protein a day.

(01:24:02):
Now let's direct every decisionbetween here and there to try to
make sure they get it.
It's crazy.
Subsidiarity would say, driveresponsibility down to the
smallest possible unit.
So individual, family, family.
Village community, community,city, state, you know, keep fire
trucks low as possible in that,in that hierarchy.

(01:24:24):
Uh, and I'm a big, a big fan ofthat.
So Trump, he just announcedthat, uh, the department of
education is on his choppingblock.
Good.
You feel good about that?
Oh yeah.
That's, um, you know, in lightof that principle, well,
competition among states andamong regions.
200 years ago, a kid couldn'tstart school.

(01:24:45):
Kindergarten, what we would callkindergarten until they were
fully fluent in reading,writing, and basic arithmetic.
From the parents?
Yeah, the parents would teach.
And, and educational studiesshow that a motivated person
will learn to read and writewith fluency in under 100 hours.
Wow.
And so the idea that, um,anyway, Department of Education

(01:25:09):
was established in the 80s.
Yeah.
And.
There's not a single metric ofAmerican education that is
approved.
Yeah since then agreed What wehave done is spent millions and
trillions of dollars Building anadministrative class.
Yeah, too That could be thedeciders over how everybody
needs to do their tests and blahblah blah.

(01:25:33):
It's insane Yeah, it's almostworse than the homelessness
efforts in California but eventhere it's the same thing like
You If education gets fixed,then why do we need the
department of education?
Oh yeah.
They would run themselves out ofbusiness.
Same thing.
If you fix homelessness, how arewe going to pay all these high
paid bureaucrats to fixhomelessness?

(01:25:53):
Well, it's, it's, I mean, it's ahorrible problem in the sense
that any, every institution thatyou start, if it exists past the
period when it's providing areal, fixing a real problem in
the world, then the.
then it transitions intosomething that is only existing
to try to keep itself alive.

(01:26:16):
Um, and that's not healthy orgood.
And I don't think we shouldwant, if we're, you know, left,
right, or whatever.
Um, I don't understand theargument for wanting that type
of thing to be in place.
I mean, I think small, local,and I would have said five years
ago that that would be a farmore liberal.

(01:26:38):
We've grown up in Colorado withthe desire for drug
legalization, small CSAs, uh,localized power structure,
utilizing solar and localminimum wages, local minimum
wages.
I mean, all sorts of where you,or you look up in steamboat or
some of the ski towns wherethey're saying, guys, you can't
buy investment real estateanymore because Our people can't

(01:27:00):
live here and we don't want toemploy force people from three
hours away to drive up every dayat work.
So it's, it's those sorts ofhyper local issues have a
million different experimentsrunning around the country.
Let small mistakes die quickly.
It's way less expensive toresource the fix.
I mean, something amazing aboutAmerica.

(01:27:22):
I read, Sowell's economicsbooks.
Um, Uh, one of the reasons whyAmerica has such an incredible,
um, resilience and innovation inbusiness is that we can go
bankrupt here.
The society has decided we'regoing to pay for making fast,
quick mistakes.

(01:27:42):
And really there's an argumentfor, except for student loans,
except with your federallymanaged student loans.
Um, so, so it's likeincentivizing fast failure.
Is a good thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So in Japan They or China, theywill fund failing businesses.
It's one reason why Chinaspecifically is in big trouble

(01:28:03):
financially, right?
Because of their Syria, their,their tendency to honor bound,
don't lose face.
You know, there's some greatthings about that, but one
problem is generationally theywill fund failing businesses and
that they're changing that some.
Um, but in America you can gobankrupt and start again.
Totally.

(01:28:23):
And there's not a.
I need to kill myself to notshame my family because I lost
generational money.
People do sad things when theyfail, but the system doesn't
stigmatize.
We don't stigmatize in the sameway.
There's a, uh, there's a peeradvisor organization, kind of
like Loco Think Tank.

(01:28:46):
I can't remember the name, butyou have to have failed at three
businesses and have an existingsuccessful business before you
could be a member.
That's smart.
You know, there's certainly abig number of people that have
been there.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
I mean, you never hear thestories about the failures, but
they are every day.
95 percent of small businessesfail in the first five years and
then three quarters of them failin the second five years.

(01:29:09):
So it is, um, there's a ton offailure out there.
And, um, So, so that's a waythat the American economy has
grace.
Yeah, yeah.
For failures, start again.
Right.
I love it.
Well, and historically, anotherbig advantage of the American
model over other countries,especially Europe, which they're
struggling with now, is turningpeople into Americans.

(01:29:32):
Yeah.
You know, you look like youmight be an Italian, kind of a
background guy, or No?
Tante grazie, molto gentile.
Um Were you going back to yourroots in Italy?
No, no, I just went because Ihad a job.
But I mean, the Italians cameover here in droves during a
certain period.
And then the Irish, right?
I think I'm German French.
Okay.
I think German French, althoughUh, I think, uh, I know on my

(01:29:54):
mom's side, we have a fullfamily of First Nations people.
Oh, really?
That we've learned about too.
Oh, cool.
So I'm trying to learn moreabout that.
Yeah, yeah.
That's neat.
Um.
From Canada, obviously.
That's what they, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's cool.
Isn't that wild?
It's, it's neat.
And only, like, uh, like a greatgrandparent.
Right.
So not too far removed.

(01:30:14):
Right.
So there's an interestinghistory there.
Yeah, cool.
Anyway.
Yeah, I was hoping to findsomething like that for my bear
family tree and get me some.
College scholarships orsomething, I did not find any of
that.
Um, oh, so anyway, on to the,the notion.
So, and, and most Americans are,descended in some capacity from

(01:30:36):
somebody that came here out of agreat need, but also great
opportunity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's kind of a little bitin line with, with even the,
the, whatever, 10 or 15 millionnew arrivals the last few years,
it's both great need and greatopportunity.
No discounting.
Desperate their lives are thatallowed them to leverage
everything and pay a cartel 15,000 to get here.

(01:30:59):
Right.
Or whatever.
Yeah.
Um, And not a business model wenecessarily want to support.
Oh, absolutely not.
And like the, the, the culturalnorm now seems to be more like,
you should just stay the way youare, uh, Yep, own private

(01:31:21):
universe.
Yeah, kind of yeah, everybody'syour individual you're an
individual and if you're aHaitian and you're eating the
cats and you're eating the dogSo as long as you go down to the
shelter and get them foryourself, don't steal them from
anybody Then you could be you Orwhatever, right?
Maybe that was doesn't quitethat far.
But but there's no pressure tobecome an American Yeah right

(01:31:46):
now or at least right now Youknow, maybe, I don't know,
maybe, maybe MAGA 2024 with theBig Tent, uh, is something like
that?
The New York Times had a mapshowing every county and if it
moved left or right as comparedto the last election.
And with the exception of a fewcounties in the country, every

(01:32:08):
single county, Didn't move less.
Yes.
It kind of sat flatt it.
Yep, yep.
Um, but yeah, some of those bluecounties went from 24 point
Biden wins to 12 point Harris.
Yeah.
Or 20, yeah.
To 12 point Harris wins.
Yeah.
And it didn't seem be, but theirmargin of victory went down.
Um, yeah.
And it didn't seem, it seemed tobe incredibly, um, uh, racially

(01:32:32):
inclusive.
Mm-hmm Across the voting base.
For sure.
For sure.
So I think that people that arecoming to America that want to
work hard and have some.
Individual independence to growfamilies and do the things they
do outcomes.
I think that, you know, uh,maybe back in the fifties there
would have been a religiousconservative culture that

(01:32:54):
controlled everything.
And I think that, that, that,um, religious type control has
just, has shifted to a differentset of philosophies.
Um, you know, the, uh, and so Isee a bunch of people that don't
want to be controlled.
Right.
That's who's coming now.
Yeah.
So there's no pressure.

(01:33:14):
Why would, why would we assumethat somebody who's coming from
an oppressive or difficultscenario somewhere else wants to
come here and encountersomething that's hyper
controlling and authoritarian?
And we've got, we have, um, one,two, three, we have five
employees.

(01:33:35):
that are, um, first generationimmigrants to the United States.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
Out of 30?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, it might be six.
So I hear from people that fiveyears ago were living in either
South America or over in Europeor in the Middle East.
And.
see what they came from and thenget their read on American

(01:33:57):
politics.
And, um, they don't like biggovernment and they don't like
giving government the tools thatcan be, um, oppressive one day
in a way you like, but then somewhack job wins the election and
then they're using those samepowers against them.
And I think you're seeing a lotof that telegraphing happening

(01:34:18):
right now.
There's, Oh my gosh, what isthis Trump guy going to do?
With the legal tools we createdto screw with people initially
for Obama, because that's whatTrump did in his first term a
little bit, because he was beingin cock blocks so much in the
Congress with, you know, uh,impeachments and investigations
and this and that.
But when he by executive actiontook away the tax deduction of

(01:34:42):
your federal taxes of your statetaxes, like that was like a big
old middle finger to California,New York with significant
financial consequences.
Yeah.
Um, but it was only throughpower that had been afforded to
Obama basically.
Well, and it's, it'sinteresting.
The, the, um, I guess the Senatehas been talking about
eliminating the filibuster forthe last four years, which is

(01:35:04):
idiocy in my opinion.
And, and that makes for a very,very strong.
President.
Right.
If a president and Senate areconnected, they, they can do a
lot of what they want to do.
Yeah.
They have immediately droppedthat conversation.
Right.
I'm sure.
They no longer think it'sunconstitutional.
Well, in the, there's, I thinkthere's 16 states that were in
the popular vote compact.
Yeah.
Where they said if, you know,they just were gonna put all

(01:35:26):
their electoral votes to thewinner of the popular vote.
Wow.
Including California.
But yeah, they haven't really,They haven't talked about that
since the election, since Trumpwon the popular vote.
Yeah, that's the other side ofthe coin.
If you don't, if you didn't wantthat guy to win, um, and I would
agree with make the governmentas weak as humanly possible.

(01:35:48):
So that it doesn't really matterwho gets elected if you don't
like them They're not gonna beable to screw up too much,
right?
Right?
No, I think and make that that'smy argument in general as a
libertarian kind of make itsmall So it can't be manipulated
so much.
You know, the main things thatneeds to do is defense, of
course.
Yep, some Fights between statesand things, you know water, you

(01:36:09):
know, California, Arizona,Colorado have a lot to fight
about it Absolutely.
Oh, yeah, for example, and thenMonopoly, yeah, trust busting.
Yeah, you know keep thecorporations from the union of
government that's strong enoughto keep the corporations from
Manipulating.
Yeah for their own accord.

(01:36:30):
Absolutely.
And those are really that'spretty much it I would put I
would put international liketreaty sign.
Oh, sure.
Ocean stuff like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's fair Well, andultimately war to you have to
um, I like the small standingarmy, isn't that nice?
How many military bases shouldwe have?
You How many do we have rightnow?
Do you know?

(01:36:50):
I don't know how many, but Ithink it's hundreds.
I think it's like 185.
Woo.
Almost as many as there arenations.
The thing that I, that I don'tknow what to think about with
that stuff, Kurt, is I don't, Idon't get the daily briefing,
right?
Like, I don't know how frickingscary.
Before Somali pirates actuallytake that shit over.
Yes.
Uh, agreed.

(01:37:10):
Yeah.
So it's like, and you look atall of the old great empires,
they built incredible armies.
They overextended themselves.
They started to pay mercenariesto fight for them.
And when you've got to dependon, on mercenary, that's like,
you're just, you're on theUkrainians.

(01:37:31):
Like the Ukrainians ish, theGermanic tribes.
If you're Rome, you start payingother people to do your work and
you offload that responsibility.
You start believing you can getaway with some pretty nasty
things because you don't have tosee what you're doing every day.
And that goes not just forwarfare.
I think that goes for how wecreate our energy, Yeah, yeah.

(01:37:54):
Where we get our clothes, wherewe get our minerals and our cell
phones.
And we get away with a lot ofbullshit because we're not
having to kill and butcher theanimal themselves.
And, um, that's another argumentfor a bit of poverty.
Um, if, if not financially ofspirit and, um, we would, we

(01:38:16):
would all make, I think, moreconservative decisions if we
were having to make the life anddeath decision.
And so I think we're just, Ithink even of our food.
Oh, absolutely.
And, and there's the problem ofhow you S how you feed 8 billion
people without some automationthat, that, I don't understand,

(01:38:36):
and we want to keep that inplace.
I've got an amazing uh, chickenranch in my backyard, and it's a
long ways away from creatingenough protein for me and my
family.
You know, and a lot of gardenbeds and stuff like that, a
quarter acre roughly.
Well, only, I mean, I'veprobably got, I would say got a
thousand square feet undercultivation, maybe, you know,

(01:38:58):
ish.
And then, you know, maybe aboutthat much square footage
dedicated to the chickenoperations.
That's awesome.
Um, but that leaves a lot ofspace, you know, but, but the
city won't let me have 200chickens back there.
Probably for good reason.
We kept chickens for quite awhile and loved it.
Kids took care of them.
We eat a lot of eggs.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great.
Oh, they're the best.

(01:39:18):
Yeah.
Oh man.
Um.
Anyway, I digress.
It's so good.
But it, but it's impossible,really.
Like, you really need some kindof productive I'm a big If you
are very strong, you're gonnaavoid a bunch of war.
Yes.
And, and, I mean, this does getinto a bit of my wheelhouse.
Um, historically speaking.

(01:39:39):
Um, the more decisively youfight a conflict The fewer
people die.
And, um, we're a little bit moreabout dragging, which is kind of
what, well, yeah, because itmakes so much money for all the
companies that build the bombsand stuff.
It does that.
And I think the emotionalsalience in diplomacy is well,
and that's why Israel's in atough spot.

(01:40:01):
Cause Israel's like, we're justgoing to take care of business
fuckers.
Yeah.
Kind of, that's pretty, was thatthe most brilliant?
Uh, the, the pager bomb thing.
Was that the most brilliantpiece of warfare that you've
ever seen in, or even virtuallyread about?
It's the most targeted, uh, uh,attack in history.

(01:40:22):
For sure.
In history.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
And they had to build a certaintype of pager and get them into
the distribution network.
Three, four years in advance.
I mean, that's extraordinary.
Two years in advance.
Probably like get it into thesupply chain without the supply
chain actually knowing it.
Yes.

(01:40:43):
It's crazy.
That's crazy.
Yes.
And I think, I mean, I thinkMassad's got people in the
Iranian government.
They've had people in each ofthese governments selling out.
Do you think there's Massad inthe American government?
Oh, I'm sure.
Of course, I'm kidding.
Oh, good.
I'm teasing.
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's.
I mean, I, whatever.

(01:41:04):
Hopefully, we've got some peoplein their government.
It's wild.
I'm sure it's all happening.
You know, we got, uh, my, mywife and family, like three out
of the five of us got robbed bygypsies on the train in Rome,
uh, back in the day when we werevisiting over there.
Yeah.
And it, you know, it felt alittle bit like being raped, uh,
and a little bit like, you Damn,you got skills! Like, how did

(01:41:27):
the two of you Did theypickpocket you guys, or did they
A couple came through the train,got on in one stop, off in the
next stop.
They were rude and chubby, andshe was really pretty.
And all of her pockets wereempty, virtually, after they
made their way through thetrain, rudely.
That's amazing.
It was incredible.
And, yeah, you know, andIsrael's kind of like that too.

(01:41:50):
Their influence, uh, and their,uh, intelligence about the way
of the world, and, and, youknow, that's part of, like,
people hated Bill Clinton, um,uh, because, like, he, you know,
got away with it.
So much stuff.

(01:42:10):
It just was kind of schmoozy andstuff like that.
And, and it was mostly jealousy.
The Republicans were like, well,how do we get away with so much
stuff?
How do we enrich ourselvesproperly?
Get blowjobs at the freakingwhite house, you know, without
getting impeached.
All these things, right.
Yeah.
And it's kind of the same withIsrael.
That's part of why people hatethe Jews is because they're just

(01:42:32):
kind of better at being humansin some ways.
you know, the, the, the amountof wealth that they have.
And, and really the, like theJapanese, not in Japan, kind of
the same, so much moresuccessful than white people in
America.
Yeah.
I think that, like, um, I wasreading that, uh, young women

(01:42:52):
that immigrate from Nigeria arecrushing it.
Right.
Um, people that are from, uh,Asia, India crushing it.
Um, yeah, it's, it's, I mean, Ithink a ton of it is mindset.
I'm sure it's coincidencebecause we're a very racist
nation.
The most generous, uh,Immigratory nation in the world.

(01:43:15):
Yeah.
You know, absolutely.
We've gone on a nice scrollchase in the politics segment.
Anything else you, uh, care tocomment on?
We haven't really talked aboutthe election in general.
Would you like to commentate?
I mean, I think, again, I'm a,from the business discussion,
I'm a bit of a disruptor and abit of a change person.

(01:43:36):
I temperamentally lean in thedirection of, um, things need to
go through a fall.
And a spring, right?
You gotta have fall, winter,spring.
Rather than have a break.
Just bailouts of the autoindustry in 2008, you would have
been opposed to?
Yeah, yeah.
The banks?
Yeah, and like, you know thatthe, I mean it was reported the

(01:43:58):
banks were taken in and justsaid, You are going to accept
this money or you're gonna beshut down.
Cause a couple of banks said,no, we don't want to do this.
Ford auto company didn't acceptmy money.
And so, um, I, you know, vowedat that point that I would never
buy a Chevy.
Um, yeah, I'm proud of them.
You know, that's, that's a goodthing.

(01:44:19):
Um, yeah, I think the more thatyou delay a reckoning or a
correction, the larger and moreartificial you make it.
So we don't tend the forests.
We have really bad forest fires.
Um, so you think we're do thatnow?
Yeah, I mean.
I think that's always happening.
Sure.
Everywhere.
We're things are, things arealways aging, delay the record

(01:44:43):
and corrupting a bit and tryingto delay a little bit of pain
every day and see if one can putit off or shift it onto another
person or another, you know,whatever.
Um, and you, you know, you canonly outrun that for so long.
Yeah.
Um, so I like.
So like the RFK guy.

(01:45:03):
Yeah, yeah.
Environmental attorney.
Seems to have done some reallycool things for the environment.
Were you on an RFK train before?
I read through a bunch of hispositions and I was like, I kind
of like the revivification.
Yeah.
I like, um, someone sayingthings like, I will never force
you or your family to dosomething medically.

(01:45:24):
Yeah, were you a COVIDdissident?
Um, yeah, again, disagreeableand I like to be outside.
Yeah, yeah.
So we didn't really do anything.
The first few weeks, you know,we're like cleaning off the
packages and what the hell isgoing on.
And, you know, no one reallyknew what was going on.
Yeah.
And, um, sometime early, youknow, a couple of months in was

(01:45:45):
sort of like, This is, this isrough, but not what we thought
it is.
And the things that thegovernment and, and what not.
And I, I kind of like, I thoughtthe governor did a good job in
Colorado of not being anattention suck.
Uh, wasn't out virtue signalingabout all the stuff he was
doing.
So there's some, there's somethings that I would have been

(01:46:07):
more lax with, right?
If I were in charge and had thestones to do something like
that.
Right.
But I didn't have a hugedisagreement with Colorado.
Okay.
I could go outside.
I didn't wear masks.
Nobody messed with us, ourschool.
Uh, sent home medical waiversfor masks the day that the
county said that.
Oh, which school is that?
Liberty Common.
Yeah, well that was uncommon.

(01:46:29):
Yeah, you had to be in WeldCounty to get a little, a little
more of that.
Otherwise, yeah.
So our, our kids were, you know,just running around.
Um, but, uh, yeah, I'm not intobeing an experiment for pharm,
pharmaceutical companies.
And whether this thing.
That was what I said.
I was like, Well, if we'regonna, like, fast track this

(01:46:50):
thing Oh, yeah.
Which is like the first of itskind, like, genetic manipulation
tool Yeah.
Then everything should be fasttracked.
Like I've heard the argumentthat you should just get rid of
the FDA for drug approvals andjust, uh, allow for some
liability and, you know, takewhat it may.
Well, I mean, it was weird to mehow pharmaceutical companies are

(01:47:12):
known to be some of the mostcost effective.
Openly corrupt country companiesin the world like 40 billion
dollars in fraud fines andcharges over the last 10 years
Oh, yeah, it's crazy some 25 or30 percent of FDA drugs that are
approved get pulled from themarket because they're killing
people Really?
Yes So it's it's all of thatstuff like five years ago.

(01:47:36):
Yeah everyone agreed with, youknow, Sackler family killed
hundreds of thousands of peoplewith opiates.
Like these people make somegreat things and they're not
your friends.
Right.
So, um, at the time we justthought, we don't know if this
is going to work out or not.
So let's give it a year or two.
And you know, a year or twolater it was like, not safe, not

(01:47:58):
effective, has to be dosed manytimes to prevent.
you can give it to others.
You can get it from others.
Probably not and for quite awhile, if you got sick with
COVID within two weeks ofgetting the vaccine, then you
were considered unvaccinated andcounted in the unvaccinated
numbers, even though there's alot of evidence to suggest that

(01:48:21):
you're, you're not Resistance toCOVID went down a ton in the
first 10 days after taking thevaccine.
Yeah, you took a big spike.
And if you got COVID, theypulled that off the list.
What kind of coaching is that?
It's like, you're unvaccinated,you got sick with COVID.
It's like, well, I got sick withCOVID because I got the
vaccination and it weakened myimmune system for a few days and
then I got it.

(01:48:41):
Isn't that wild?
Imagine, imagine that you were,um, imagining, imagine you just
had any other health condition.
Right.
And the doctor came to you andsaid, well, we can give you this
drug.
Now for two weeks, you're goingto have dark suicidal thoughts
and you might kill yourself.
But in two weeks, this willstart to work and whatever will
happen, you'd never do somethinglike that.

(01:49:03):
Well, it was an odd, weird timeto me.
Me and you were like mid fringecases in some ways where we
were, you know, I'm 50 now,you're probably 40.
47 next month, baby.
Damn, you look a lot better thanme.
Um, but either way, we were kindof mid range.
But the, the 5, 10, 15 year oldchildren, 20 year old boys with

(01:49:27):
like super duper immune systemsthat just took that shit and
turned it into myocarditis.
Dude, crazy.
And were mandating it so theycan go to school?
Yeah.
That's insane.
That was just loony bins.
Like they had no risk.
Like, I just don't know.
Or in healthcare providers.

(01:49:47):
It was dark.
That had already been sick.
Dude, that was so dark.
That was the worst.
Military, military.
I just, I just think you get ina really bad spot if you start
telling people what to.
Yeah.
You can't make people do stuff.
Um, I'll send you my blog, uh,from a few years ago.
The Makers Marks, I'd love it.
The difference between themakers that actually make
things.
Yeah.
And the makers that are like.

(01:50:08):
You do this?
Yeah.
I'm gonna make, I'm, I'm, I'mgonna make you Yeah.
It's that, it's that diffuseleaves a mark or distributed
responsibility thing that Ithink screws stuff up.
Yeah.
Do you have individual power tocreate and make a difference in
your world and be the change?
Yeah.
Or, uh, are you gonna berestricted from doing that?
Alright.
One more thing.
No, go for it.

(01:50:28):
So that was politics, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love it.
Faith or family next?
You pick.
Let's do faith.
Yeah.
So I, um, I grew up in aChristian Protestant family.
Okay.
And, um.
A non label?
A non denominational?
Yeah.
So Presbyterian.
Okay.
Yep.
That's as close to as, like, ourchurch is kind of non

(01:50:50):
denominational.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But.
And I went on now light.
Yep.
Um, uh, and yeah, so grew up inthat community, uh, and
especially in the south.
Pretty conservative, prettyrigid.
Yeah.
Because till I was 11, I was in,in, uh, Nashville, Tennessee.
Right, right.
Um.
So there's Presbyterians theretoo, not just Baptists.

(01:51:12):
They've got Baptists.
I would think the Presbyteriansare perceived as kind of loose
compared to the Baptists.
You know, it depends.
Okay.
I think you've got your freewill Baptists.
You know, there's a lot of howstrict you get there.
Yeah, yeah.
Just like the Lucerans, they gota left and a right fringe kind
of thing.
And you've got an OrthodoxPresbyterian, and then, I mean,
there's all so many flavors.

(01:51:33):
Protestantism is so fractured,right?
So, was that, like, you gotraised a Christian, you stayed
that way?
Was there a journey of discoveryfor you along in that?
Yeah, I've stayed, um, abeliever in God and in Jesus.
Um, and then I think that'schanged and evolved a bunch too.

(01:51:56):
Um, and so, so, I really, I meanwe had, you know, a few, Hard
times in in our lives.
And so there have been timeswhere I've been probably a lot
less vocal and a lot moredoubtful Okay.
Yeah 13 years ago.

(01:52:16):
One of our kids passed away andone of our kids died.
Sorry, and so that's a roughtime So you think about you
know, why would God do this?
Oh, yeah, you know, how doesloving God?
Right, and then I went through aperiod of just feeling like I
wasn't gonna Um, you know, thisisn't a subject I understand,

(01:52:36):
and so I'm just not gonna say awhole lot about it, um, until I
feel like I can honestly Yeah.
Talk about what happened.
Yeah.
So there was a long period oftime where I didn't go to
church.
Okay.
Wouldn't pray.
Yeah.
And things like that.
Didn't actively renounce yourfaith.
No.
Also didn't really express it inany meaningful way.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:52:57):
I'm pretty, I've remained veryconvinced that, um, that I think
something made the world.
Sure.
And, um, and that there's sometype of, uh, creative.
There's a prime mover,certainly.
Yeah.
So that didn't go away.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, but I've definitely gonethrough periods of time where
whatever that thing is probablyis either indifferent or angry

(01:53:20):
at me.
Yeah.
And so, work hard, keep yourhead down.
Yeah, yeah.
And, um, some of, so.
Well, and then, like, when itcomes to, like, grace, though,
and forgiveness, and selfexamination, like I'm sure
you've probably done a lot ofterrible things in your life.
Yeah, I've had my share.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, probably less than me,you know, because I'm three

(01:53:40):
years older.
But like, what do you do withthat if you don't give yourself
some grace, I think?
And also forgiveness of others.
Also, I think those two thingsare pivotal, you know, part of
the lubricant of society that'sdried up.
I suppose along with trust in,in our American, I mean, gosh, I

(01:54:03):
wonder what would happen inAmerican commerce if trust could
be re magnified again.
Oh man, I mean, if you thinkabout eBay.
Right.
Have you thought about, uh,there's the story about eBay
when they first started.
Yeah.
So eBay is one stranger on oneside of the world shows you a
product that you believe that itis what it is and that it's

(01:54:24):
worth what you're going to payfor it.
And then they believe you'regoing to send them the money.
Right.
And when eBay started, they setup a whole.
Uh, escrow account, andverification third party
structure to protect people'sproduct sales and money.
And what they found is they shutit down very early on in the
process because they neverneeded it.

(01:54:44):
There is something inherentlytrustful about American culture.
You deal with people expectingnot to get screwed most of the
time.
Um, and it is a powerful thing.
Well, it was super powerful.
And I think that's part of whyMusk is such the champion over
free speech and free commercethat he's become because he was

(01:55:04):
there in those days of PayPaland eBay and the establishment
of a global community that talkto each other, you know, ask
questions about the eBay item,but still lived and revolved
around this trust.
And I think, you know, thecombativeness, you know, and I
don't, I don't know.

(01:55:25):
Um, I've never been a real bigTrump fan.
This is the first time I votedfor him in this past election.
I voted Gary Johnson and KanyeWest, uh, previously.
But you know, the coalition,frankly, that Trump, well, it
was the protest vote.
It was like, seriously, thesystem is actually going to give
us Trump and Biden.
Yeah.
Come on.

(01:55:46):
Give me a break.
It's pretty wacky.
Yeah.
And we deserve it.
I guess.
Yeah.
We deserve what we get in someways.
But anyway.
So.
Where was my trail going there?
It was related to, oh, so Ithink that's where Elon Musk
kind of comes from is that kindof, no, we need to have open
communications, open commerce,open platforms.

(01:56:07):
If people are being bad, we needto community note them, you
know, and that's the way that wedevelop a thriving trust based
world.
Because if the rest of the worldcould start to develop trust
like America's thrived upon,Yeah.
It would be easier.
Oh yeah.
You know, and that all comesfrom rule of law, property
rights, all those beautifulthings.

(01:56:29):
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
So, so in your faith journeyyou've kind of started coming
back to church again and, like,refocused or Yeah, it was really
lovely.
Probably in 2017, um, my, mywife said, um, You've had some
time.
I think you should startthinking about taking us to

(01:56:49):
church again.
Okay.
And she'd been going, right?
And, and our kids have beengoing.
Regularly or occasionally, butless because dad wasn't going.
Yeah.
And so that was, um, I mean, Ithink, uh, uh, you know, our
kids are so lucky to have theirmother.
Yeah.
For sure.
Um.
And so we started going again.
We were in Dallas for a year,opening our office.

(01:57:11):
So we started going to anAnglican church down the road.
Oh, that's another wholebusiness chapter that we
actually talked about.
That was, uh, we left out, but,uh, next time we'll talk more
ancient history, um, and moregiant disasters.
I love it.
Uh, next time you come back.
Yeah, we could do, we could doseveral podcasts on the giant
disasters I've been a part of.

(01:57:33):
I've only been a part of smalldisasters.
So.
Where did we, how did we bumpagainst that?
Um, uh, we started going to anAnglican church.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
It was a, you know, within amile, that was great.
And I like the part of theliturgy that I like is that, uh,
no one really cares who thepastor is.
And, uh, there's something kindof nice about that.

(01:57:53):
Anyone could get up and, Oh, isthat right?
Yeah.
Oh, that's crazy.
Yeah.
I mean, someone could just getup and read it through.
Somebody's sick.
Awesome.
Here we go.
Oh, that's interesting.
So I, I like the, what I likeabout that is every, it's like
every Anglican church is alldoing the same thing every week.
Yeah.
Almost.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
Catholic mass, Anglicans dothis.

(01:58:14):
Oh, is that right?
Greek Orthodox church is goingto have a historic liturgy that
it works through.
Oh, interesting.
And so there's a.
And there are pros and cons toall of these models.
Yeah.
One of the things that I likeabout it is it's less
personality focused.
Yeah, yeah.
It's more, this is a story thatwe've been telling for, you
know, a couple thousand yearsand that's evolved and changed

(01:58:35):
over time and.
Our, uh, our church that's kindof non denominational, but
Presbyterian Light has like fourpastors, effectively, to some
extent for the same reason.
To water down that personalityfactor of, and then they all
take turns and we go throughLuke for, A two year period.
Yeah.
Or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, but not four years like theGreeks do.

(01:58:58):
Yeah.
I've been listening to the St.
SPI on Oh cool.
Podcast.
Uh, and, uh, now it's calledsomething else.
But, uh, but I've enjoyed That'sinteresting.
Their manner of teacher too.
Yeah.
I should check into that.
I have a, a couple of buddiesthat go there.
Yeah.
And, uh, that's fascinating.
It's, uh, it's, I've learned alot about, like, but not enough
yet about that notion, so.

(01:59:20):
Well, a bunch of that stuff is,uh, you can talk about that
stuff forever.
Well, and that's part of the,the, you know, I think it's, a
lot of times people packagechurch history as kind of, All
these bad things, but the truthis there's only a little bit of
bad things, but there's a lot ofreally interesting things and
dynamics and philosophicalconversations about what should

(01:59:43):
be in the Nicene Creed.
Oh yeah.
Right?
And, uh, 99 thesis?
Why don't you just get one more?
I'm sure you could, I don'tknow.
Or is it 98 thesis?
I forget.
95, okay, whatever.
You just needed five more thingsto complain about.
And I have a few I could haveadded.
Right.
But it's all philosophical.
Like the Anglican notion oflike, that's really the, that's

(02:00:07):
why England came to suchstrength, I think in some ways
is because they're, they'reparliamentary systems and the
notion of battling out ideas ina public forum was the first
time that Socrates is stuff hadreally been used on a larger
scale.
Oh, maybe I don't know.
I just came up with that shitjust now.

(02:00:27):
Well, you've definitely hadWestern culture idolize.
Greek philosophy, Greek style ofgovernment, and for that to be
tested and practiced.
Absolutely.
But it hasn't been used thatmuch.
You know, the Socratic method oftrying to find truth, usually
there's, most places there'sjust been one decider.
Not that much open discourse.
But the Brits, to my knowledge,were among the of yelling and

(02:00:48):
shouting in the House ofCommons.
Exactly.
That's right.
So anyway, well, you're thestudent of ancient history, but
let's do a family.
Yeah.
Tell me about this woman thatyou, um, asked to marry you
with, or maybe she asked you, Idon't know, but within like two
months of dating her, it soundedlike the mighty and formidable

(02:01:09):
Mrs.
Hines, Mrs.
Hines.
Um, yeah, we, we met, um, Doesshe have a first name?
Summertime, Sharon.
Summertime?
Oh.
We met in the summer.
Summertime Hines.
Summertime Hines, that would becool.
That would be fantastic.
Hi Sharon.
Um, and we went out on a date aweek or two later.

(02:01:30):
Okay.
And uh, And we just kept hangingout.
And she only went out on thedate with me because she knew I
was moving to Europe in twomonths.
And she was kind of in a spotwhere she was like, I don't
really need a date right now.
She was recovering from uh,Just, yeah, didn't need, didn't,
Just didn't want to bedistracted.
Wasn't into it.
She's about to start hermasters.

(02:01:51):
Oh, okay, okay.
And so she's like, well, youknow, hang out for a couple of
months and then he's out ofhere.
Um, but we really, uh, we reallyliked each other a bunch.
Yeah.
And so we never talked aboutgetting engaged or getting
married.
Okay.
We just dated.
We just did stuff.
We hung out with our families.
We just did, we had two months,six days a week for two months,

(02:02:13):
just hung out all the time.
And, um, and then I, It didn'tseem good to me to, um, I felt
like it was probably, and shehad things going on in her life,
right?
Master's degree.
And she was going to go doAmeriCorps.
So you're traveling around doingsome things like that.

(02:02:33):
So she had stuff going on.
So it felt inappropriate for meto say, um, just hang out.
I'll be back at Christmas.
Yeah.
Um, it felt like we either oughtto break up or, um, or I should
ask her.
Make it official.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, um, And a good friend ofmine asked, what are you waiting
to find out about this girlbefore you decide to ask her to

(02:02:55):
marry you?
And I thought about that someand it's like, all right, yes,
that's right.
And, and we'd, we'd had arelationship such that if we had
broken up, it wouldn't have beendevastating.
Yeah.
So really getting to know eachother well, but you know, it
would, it would have been sad.
You didn't hang the moon on eachother yet and still don't really

(02:03:16):
like, that's one thing I sayabout, uh, One of the most right
now, but, uh, a woman or apartner that wants me, but
doesn't need me.
Um, and, and then both want eachother.
And, and yes, ultimately youshould develop that need, even

(02:03:38):
that it's a longing andwhatever, but, but on the front
end.
Like I don't really wantsomebody that really needs me
when I'm thinking aboutcontemplating a relationship No,
and it was it was neat to me tosee something.
I mean, she's got a life.
She's got shit she's doing Yeah,you know, she doesn't need
you're exactly right doesn'tneed this So I asked her to
marry me in a parking lot at CSUat 9 o'clock one night Somewhat

(02:04:02):
spontaneously, and she said,yep.
You're just like talking andyou're like, you're so awesome,
will you, will you marry me?
Will you marry me?
Yeah, just like that.
That was that.
And she just said, yep.
She said, yeah, yeah,absolutely.
Alright, and four days later Iflew to England.
Okay.
This was before Skype, FaceTime.

(02:04:22):
Right.
Um, so we talked once a week.
Long distance calls were 80 anhour.
Dude, so expensive.
We had no money.
Um, and, uh, we just wroteletters and we just, we, it was
like, Hey, email was happening.
We could do some email.
Um, and we just felt like if wegrew more fond of each other,

(02:04:45):
that was a pretty good sign.
It was going to be a thing.
And if not, then.
We could break up and itwouldn't be the end of the
world.
Um, and we got married a weekafter my first year.
So we met and married in under ayear.
Love it, dude.
It was awesome.
I wouldn't recommend it toanyone.
Um, it was awesome.
If she was here, what would shesay about how she was willing to

(02:05:06):
say yes?
So quickly, what were herfavorite things about you?
Um, I think that she really, um,likes how I, you know, just, I
pick things up and, and just ownthem.
I just get after stuff,adventure, work, relationship,
whatever it is.
Uh, I'm a pretty active guy and,um, I'm pretty decisive about.

(02:05:30):
Making things happen and doingthings.
And she was really, that wassomething that was exciting to
her.
She's got a big battery too, Isuspect.
Yeah.
I mean, well, think about whatit's like to meet someone and
move to Europe with them andyou've known them less than a
year.
Yeah.
I sort of, I watched 1883 ormaybe it was 1923.
They're the shows that comeafter Yellowstone and one of the

(02:05:51):
guys is in Africa, he's a biggame hunter and he meets some
socialite and.
He's like, Hey, I'm going backto America.
You want to go?
She chased him down and wentwith him.
I was like, that is my wife.
I mean, that's a big fucking betto make.
Yeah.
Um, and, uh, so it's, it's, it'sBut also, what else are you
doing?
Oh.
You know, you got somethingbetter to do?
No, no, no.
Um, what was It's the best thingto do.

(02:06:13):
What was the, uh, what was andis, uh, the thing that you love
the most about your life?
So, so Sharon, the first time wetalked was, um, talking about,
she went pretty quickly into howshe looks at the world and life.
Hmm.
And the sort of person that shewanted to be.
That's very bold.
And, uh, the way that she thinksabout life and the openness she

(02:06:36):
has with her ego, Um, was, uh,really interesting.
Kind of refreshing.
Compared to a lot of guardednessand that age group and whatever
else.
And that has not changed.
So, just her openness of heart.
Um, uh, she is a strong lady.

(02:06:56):
but she is incredibly gentle andkind to people.
Yeah.
And so, and she doesn't have ahint of malice.
Yeah.
She just doesn't lie.
Um, and that has not changed.
You know, we've been married 23years, I think this year, 23 or
24.
And, uh, my wife and I'll be 22.
This hadn't changed.
Yeah.
It's awesome.

(02:07:17):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, and you showed me thepicture of the rock and tatas.
Yeah, she's fantastic.
I'm just kidding.
I have zero.
I'm just kidding, Sharon.
I did not see any pictures.
Yeah, I'm a lucky, I'm a luckydude.
The Loco Experience is our finalsegment.
I love it.
Craziest segment, or crazieststory or experience of your

(02:07:40):
lifetime that you're willing toshare.
Oh, do you want to talk aboutyour kids?
Let me tell you in 90 seconds.
Yes, I got one word descriptionsof your children is what I
usually that's I'd like to havea one word description of each
so my we do it fast.
Yeah, my daughter Casey's 18Okay, she's a warrior a warrior.

(02:08:01):
Hi Casey.
My son Jonah is 15 and He isStrong and he's kind yeah, it's
two words.
It's both your mom Yeah And thenmy daughter, Nora, she needs
more than a couple words, butI've got this one memorized.
She's 11, and she's like a 50 50combination between Bruce Lee

(02:08:24):
and Audrey Hepburn.
I like that.
So just super light and fun.
Everything's always fun.
Like a powerful pixie.
Oh yeah.
But she's the one that'll sneakup to me when I'm working in the
yard without my shirt on andsmack me as hard as she can on
the back to see how red myhandprint she can make.
So it's, uh, they're, they'reawesome.

(02:08:46):
That's the three?
Yeah.
Okay.
We have a daughter that was bornbetween, um, Nora and Jonah and
she, and she, she died.
Born in miscarriage orchildbirth or accident?
In childbirth and they don'tknow why.
Oh, wow.
Sometime over the course of acouple hours.
Wow, yeah, so you were like,yeah, we had a baby and then

(02:09:08):
hey, our baby died.
Yeah, we found out just rightthere.
Total normal, in the hospital,no signs, no beeps, no nothing.
Just, yeah, it's a sudden infantdeath syndrome.
That was Something like that.
I mean, I think oftentimes thatrefers to, that's for later,
after it's been home and stuff.
Yeah.
Okay.
Wow.
Wow, what a hard, no closureeither.

(02:09:29):
Absolutely.
Was that hard on your, on yourwife?
Yeah.
More than you or less than you?
No, I think hard on both.
And, you know, we learned in theprocess, probably, I think it's
80 percent of couples thatexperience that get divorced.
Oh, wow.
I mean, it's very high.
Yeah.
And, um, you, you deal with abunch of hard stuff.
And we had some physical com,uh, complications.

(02:09:51):
Sharon ended up being in bed andreally horrific pain for a
couple of years.
Oh, wow.
Uh, so we've, we've had a coupleperiods of time in our lives
where it's, you know, you'rekind of in a war zone and going
hard.
Do you want to, is one of thosewhat you want to share in a loco
experience or that seems alittle private, maybe, I don't
know.
That's those are, I mean, thoseare, those are crazy though.

(02:10:15):
Yeah.
I mean, Jill and I miscarried.
Yeah.
And like, we went in for a, whatdo they call it, with a little
scanner thing so you can seewhat the little critter looks
like, and they're like, oh, it'snot, like, moving.
Yeah.
Uh, that was hard.
Oh, it's, it's horrible.
I don't, it's, um, those are thehardest things.
Yeah.
Those are the hardest things.

(02:10:37):
Um, and so it's, you know, youmentioned earlier, people get
married, hopefully they'regetting married soon.
Yeah.
And it's not a needy ordominating wantingness or
something like that.
And I think everyone getsmarried because that person is
meeting a need.
They don't perceive that theyhave.
We all do that.

(02:10:58):
Um, and if you're lucky to gothrough life with somebody who's
committed to, um, uh, learningto love the person you're
becoming, Like, like as Sharonand I are trying to mature and
get healthier, I'm starting,I'll see, or she'll see a way
that she's been behaving thatisn't healthy for her, but it

(02:11:18):
served me in some way.
Right?
And so like, if, if you have achaotic life and somebody is
really stable, so you'reattracted to them because they
stabilize some hard or brokenpart of you.
If they've been doing that outof a sense of, of, uh, something
that's not healthy, right?

(02:11:38):
Then, as they get healthier, nowyou don't have that crutch
anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
So, going through marriage, asthose things untangle, and then
loving a person when they don'tmeet some need that you had,
that's a, that's a way to reallygo through some hard stuff.
Well, and like, You know, whenJill married me, I was a banker

(02:11:59):
and was going to be a banker fora long time and super stable
and, you know, no traveling likeher dad always did.
And yeah, all these things.
And then, you know, for her,like the demonstration of her
love to walk through those earlyyears of entrepreneurship was
very galvanizing and challengingas well.
Yeah.

(02:12:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've got a broad set ofshoulders in our family now
between Sharon and I.
Um, it's awesome.
Uh, but very, very hard fought.
And you feel like you can kindof take on anything because of
that.
Oh yeah.
Do you have anything hardplanned?
Um, I mean, growing the companya bunch and then learning what
to start doing that's meaningfulwhen it's in a place, I mean, my

(02:12:41):
goal is that, that Heinz is ahealthy structure that can
operate without me and I don'thave plans to leave or do it,
you have sell or do anythinglike that, but I'm not helping
my people be as healthy andstrong as they can be.
If I'm not moving toward a goallike that.
And then, like, what, how wouldyou spend your time?
I don't know.
Okay.

(02:13:01):
That's the, that would, that's aquestion I'm thinking about a
lot.
Yeah, yeah.
You know?
Fair enough.
Well, you're qualified to be aloco facilitator if you'd ever
like to, uh, do that role.
I'm getting close to gettingtime.
Awesome.
I'm getting close to gettingtime.
Well, I'd love to spend, uh,another couple hours with you in
a while on the podcast andbefore that, uh, let's go get
breakfast.
Yeah, that'd be great.

(02:13:22):
All right.
Well, um, Nate, it's been apleasure, a very, uh, nice, long
and philosophical conversationas usual.
And, uh, Oh, like people thathave water projects, uh, you
have a website or something.
I presume we do find us, uh,heinzinc.
com.
Um, great place to go.
I'm on LinkedIn.

(02:13:42):
I'm not on any other socialmedia platforms.
I changed my mobile phone everysix months.
Oh, right.
Website's a great way to get intouch.
Very good.
Contact us at Heinz.
Yes, sir.
All right.
Cheers.
Thanks for being here.