EXPERIENCE 213 | Zak George, Head Coach and Owner at Zak George Landscaping - The LoCo Experience

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
My guest today was Zach George,founder and owner and head coach

(00:03):
at Zach George Landscaping,L-L-C-Z-G-L as the trucks around
town, say on the side iscelebrating its 20th anniversary
this year.
Zach has a strong history ofgrowth in the residential and
commercial construction and thecommercial maintenance segment,
plus a substantial snow removaloperation to keep the guys busy
in the winter.
Zach has an interesting businessmodel in that he relies heavily

(00:24):
on long-term HB two Visaemployees who return seasonally,
mostly from Mexico andGuatemala.
We discussed his concerns aboutlabor force in 2025 and how ZGL
was almost taken down by an HBtwo visa shortage in 2017 amid
overreliance on seasonalworkers.
Zach has a big beard and a bigheart is a fellow Rotarian and

(00:46):
is a joy to have a conversationwith.
So I hope you enjoy as I did myconversation with Zach.
George, let's have some fun.
Welcome to the Loco ExperiencePodcast.
On this show, you'll get to knowbusiness and community leaders
from all around NorthernColorado and beyond.

(01:08):
Our guests share their stories,business stories, life stories,
stories of triumph and oftragedy.
And through it all, you'll beinspired and entertained.
These conversations are real andraw, and no topics are off
limits.
So pop in a breath mint and getready to meet our latest guest.
Welcome back to the LocoExperience Podcast.

(01:31):
My guest today is Zach Georgeand he is the head coach at Zach
George Landscape.
Welcome Zach.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me in.
So, um, just about everybody inNorthern Colorado has seen the
ZGL trucks running around.
Um, maybe, but for those thatdon't really know what that
means.
Sure.
Do you wanna just kind of setthe stage, uh, what are you guys

(01:51):
up to?
Yeah.
Zack George Landscaping, uh,celebrating 20 years, starting
this month.
Oh, congratulations.
Um, yep.
Started in 2005 up here and, um,just kind of been working
timeless landscapes.
And you didn't even mention thatwhen I booked you for this
podcast.
It's kind of wild.
Yeah.
20 year anniversary, like justtotally lined up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I worked out pretty sweet.
But, uh, yeah, going on 20 yearsand, um.

(02:14):
Really just, uh, doing a lot ofgrowth and, um, just keeping,
keeping going.
And commercial, residentialinstall maintenance, we're 50 50
maintenance and construction.
Okay.
And we do high end residentialconstruction, commercial
construction, and thencommercial maintenance.
Okay.
Yeah.
So no residential maintenance.
So pretty near, um, kind of thesame.

(02:38):
General market offerings as, uh,one of my previous guests.
Yep.
Uh, the linns.
Yep, yep.
Most scalable landscapecompanies kind of take that same
path.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's kind of the recurringrevenue model plus, yes.
Um, good project work.
'cause we can Yep.
We don't wanna maintain crappyprojects.
Yep, yep.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
So, um, and like, what's yourmarket territory?

(02:59):
Uh, we do the occasional job inCheyenne and then we sprawl down
to Longmont.
Okay.
Uh, foothills out to Evans.
So kind of a decent square.
Yeah.
Kind of the, the northernColorado where all the people
live footprint.
Yep.
Yep.
Don't go south of Longmont muchoccasionally for a certain
client.
Yeah.
Um, do a couple jobs inSteamboat.
Couple jobs in Estes Park.

(03:20):
Yep.
Kind of that just gives you areason to go up to Steamboat for
more.
Uh, it's, yeah.
It's not bad at all.
I don't mind.
I happen to manage thoseprojects when we go up there.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
Um, and, and what's your liketeam?
Uh, I, I don't have any.
Are you?
Yeah.
30, 50 guys, uh, depending itgoes up and down.
Seasonal, probably peak seasonwe're a hundred.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Yep.
We run about a hundred at fullstaff, guys and gals probably.

(03:41):
Yep.
Full gamut of people runningabout 45 visa workers now.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Um, so we, you just, at the endof the day, we can't make the
lawn the grass grow in thewinter months.
Yeah.
So we need seasonal people tocome in, help us.
That gives us a legal workforce.
Yep.
And it allows us to, um, andhave guys that just show up
every single year.
And do you help them with thatand stuff too, or is that they

(04:03):
they kind of go get the process?
Yeah, it's a, it's a Visaprogram.
Um, it doesn't save us anymoney.
A lot of people think that theVisa program is cheap labor and
it's, yeah.
It's ultimately more expensive,but it's about client
experience.
So how do we give better clientexperience every single year
instead of trying to hire newpeople every year and stuff like
that?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I mean, you'd be surprised howmany commercial clients are
like, I want the truck to parkhere at the exact same time.

(04:25):
I want it mowed every Friday.
I want it looking like this.
Mm-hmm.
You have to stripe it like that.
And in order to do that, youneed guys that are consistent
and understand the work.
Right.
Well.
Communication systems that helpseverybody know what we're
supposed to do.
Yeah.
And, and the grass grows nomatter what.
Right.
So we gotta make sure everybodyshows up to work every single
day.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
Um, and so, so you've gotdifferent teams, I imagine,

(04:48):
like, uh, a truck with a trailerand four guys is kind of a
normal maintenance or serviceteam, or maybe install teams.
Yep.
And then certain amount ofoffice admin kind of.
Yep.
So we use, um.
We use two, two man teams allthe way up to four or five man
teams on the maintenance side,depending on the size of the
properties and the routing onthe construction side, we found

(05:08):
that three is the smallest andwe go up to five or eight
depending on how big thecommercial job is.
Um, and the location vicinity ofthat.
And do you do mostly in-house,like your, if there's heavy
equipment that you need to digbig holes and things like that,
you're doing it or are youcontracting some out?
Yeah, we don't sub out much.
We use a few snow subcontractorsand, um, a few other small

(05:30):
skills that we don't doin-house.
Concrete masonry, stuff likethat.
Yeah.
But for the most part we do, wedo a lot of it in-house, A lot
of the pavers, planting,irrigation systems, all that
stuff.
So this is the man stuff for,for your whole property?
Yeah.
The irrigation or the, uh, the,the world of landscaping's a
little bit like the mechanicworld where in the eighties you
just kind of pulled upunderneath a tree and worked on
your car and anymore Yeah.

(05:51):
Everything's really automatedand really high tech.
And you know, we're usingelectric mowers and automated
mowers and electric, uh,equipment.
And so it's, it's pretty hightech stuff.
These irrigation controllersrequire pretty smart people to
run them.
Mm-hmm.
Um, we're using central control,well planning the amount of
water and there's probablysensors that you gotta program

(06:12):
and stuff like that, I reckon.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a lot, there's a lot ofmoving parts to it, so it's
really takes, uh, people with alot of, a lot of smarts and uh,
yeah.
That passion for the industryis, is the water one of the
biggest challenges, like movingthe water to the right places to
make the, make the landscape doits thing, you know, ultimately
Colorado people love greengrass, right?
Right.
So we Well, and green plants,green plants, plants you with,

(06:34):
with wood chips in between isokay too.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
So, you know, and, and there'sbeen kind of a, a target on our
back as an industry for the lastprobably 10 years, really trying
to Why are you planting all thisgrass?
Save water.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a resource we can't makemore of.
So, um, ultimately we're seeingmore moving and they wanna see,
uh, less water consumption.

(06:56):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, and that's, I mean, it'sexpensive too.
Even 15 years ago in Colorado,it was a lot cheaper to fill
your bathtub than it is today.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And that, I don't know if you'veseen in Southwest, uh, Fort
Collins, they're looking at 30%rate increase per year for the
next five years.
Oh, really?
Uhhuh.
Oh dang.
Yeah.
Infrastructure's not cheap.

(07:16):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So, so you've got a number ofboth service and, and
construction teams out there.
Then what's the rest of of yourbusiness model consist of?
Kind of the ar, AP kind ofbilling, office management
stuff, maybe some sales?
Uh, yep.
Um, you know, I like toultimately find people that are
passionate about the industry aswell and let'em just do their

(07:38):
thing.
So we've got, uh, managers that,uh, oversee.
The entire maintenance team, theoperations team, hr, um,
accounting, things like that.
And then we have a couple salesguys Yep.
That do, uh, design, um, designwork, design sales.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
So they're both kind ofdesigners plus sales reps.
Yeah.
'cause they're selling theirproject anyway.

(07:58):
Yeah.
You're ultimately Oh, that's waybetter than having like a, just
a sales person that's like, letme connect you with our
designers.
Yes.
Ultimately, yeah.
Yeah.
Sorry to say.
Yeah.
It keeps you, they're ultimatelythe point of contact from the
start of the project all the wayto the end.
Yeah.
And clients like that, right?
I mean, that gives them a faceand someone that they know and
they can trust and work withthem all the way through the
whole project.

(08:19):
Sure.
Um, we also have accountmanagers, commercial account
managers.
Okay, sure.
And those guys, uh, happen tohave three guys right now and
they.
They massage those relationshipswith our commercial clients and
ultimately make sure that, youknow, if we're under contract on
something, people get whatthey're looking for.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just had Pete Galey on, he hada janitorial business.

(08:39):
Yes.
Uh, you know, Pete maybe.
Yep.
Yeah.
Um, and kind of a little bitsimilar, right?
Like especially on the serviceside, the maintenance side.
It's like, well, what do youwant?
I can make your grass lookperfect and I could cost this
much, or, you know, whatever.
I used to think that, uh, whatwe did was difficult until I met
Pete and he told me that all ofhis people were in at night.

(08:59):
Right.
He's like, all my work gets donein the middle of the night.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh, that's awhole level of complexity that I
never thought about.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Yeah.
But otherwise there's a littlebit of a customization to every
maintenance experience.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's ultimately what we dois we try to sell people.
Not sell, but we, we offer theability to customize a plan.

(09:20):
And I think that's thedifference between, you know, a
local service versus a nationalservice is we're not a one size
fits all, and we just kind of,we'll allow people to adjust
based on their needs and fittheir budget and we'll, we'll
make up a plan that works.
Yeah.
Well for them ultimately, um,like when you've got these
designers selling projects, likethey're estimators too,

(09:43):
basically, right?
Yep.
Like they've just built enoughexperience, probably almost an
apprenticey kind of thing for awhile.
Yeah, yeah.
We ultimately have to take'emin, um, usually.
We like'em to have a little bitof industry experience before we
just kind of take'em in, becauseyou gotta really know the ins
and outs of the, uh, of theindustry and it's not something
you want to dabble with.

(10:03):
So we want people thatunderstand the industry know
what they're getting into, andthen we kind of start to teach
'em and educate'em on, you know,some design principles if they
need some tuning up on that.
And then we teach'em how to dothe estimating.
And we use an all encompassingsoftware for our organization
from the time they make a phonecall in until the final invoice.

(10:24):
It's all tracked, uh, time,labor, uh, materials, equipment,
pos, everything comes in andoutta one.
So the nice thing is we've kindof set it up to help them in
work in their favor where theycan, um.
Uh, you know, use this softwareto help them.
Yeah.
And so is this an industryspecific software or something
that you've developed over time?

(10:45):
It is, it's more tailoredtowards, towards our industry.
It's a software company outtaSt.
Louis, Missouri, and they builtthis software originally for a
landscape contractor out there along time ago.
And it's morphed intolandscaping.
And then they also do some, uh,port of entry stuff and some
other things, but Oh,interesting.
They ultimately tailored thisone software specifically for

(11:06):
the landscape industry.
Oh yeah.
And um, it's not cheap, but itultimately helps us keep
everything organized.
Yeah.
Well I imagine that's.
Like the customer journey canbe, especially when you're
talking residential orcommercial.
And who's the decider, who signsthe contract.
Yeah.
And ultimately what it does isit gives us history too, right?
So we can see past invoices, wecan see when services were

(11:28):
completed.
We can see who did the servicetime of day, the service was
done.
Um, and so, you know, as, asthere for a while when labor was
an interesting factor for a lotof organizations yeah, we, we
had to be able to plug and playas, as people shifted.
Mm.
And um, this gives peoplehistory so we can go back to,
since we started and ultimatelypull up how much everyone spent

(11:50):
on what and where and how.
Fascinating.
Yeah.
Warranty items, it's helped usclean up a lot of things.
And that's almost your wholesource of knowledge for the
whole team.
Yeah.
Like I imagine you might useQuickBooks or some other
systems.
In the back of the house.
But as far as all your employeesare concerned, this is my thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would say 80% of theorganization runs out of there
and then we have some kind ofside, side softwares and some

(12:11):
other things that we use aswell.
But that's where majority ofeverything happens.
Yeah.
And it's cloud based too.
So when Covid hit, we were ableto pivot really fast and
everyone could work from theirtruck work from home.
Yeah.
Any place you got wifi?
Yes, sir.
Interesting.
Yep.
Made it happen, huh?
Yeah.
Well, and you were probablyessential'cause the grass keeps
growing.
Grass grows.
Yep.
Doesn't stop.
Um, on the like leadership side,what's your kind of leadership

(12:35):
team look like, if, yep.
So our executive leadershipteam, there's four of us.
Um, we have an HR manager, ouroperations on the construction
side, and then, um, our, uh,our, our, uh, operat customer
service delivery almost on thatmaintenance side.
Yeah, yeah.
Makes sense.
Yep.
So the four of us kind of runthe whole organization and HR is
really such an important thing.
'cause even though you've got alot of returning people, they're

(12:57):
still.
A lot of hiring and Yeah.
Yeah.
It's tough to do every year.
Yeah.
You got, uh, your hiring, your,uh, recruiting, you know,
compliance, you know, with allthese new rules and regulations
too.
You got sick days and all thesethings, paternity leave and
stuff, paternity leave.
Yeah, it's crazy.
So hrs really kind of helped us.
He came on five years ago andhe's really helped us kind of

(13:19):
elevate the organization.
Right.
Well, and understanding whatyour input costs are.
Yeah.
You know,'cause ultimatelyyou're kind of a labor selling
and design organization, right?
A hundred percent.
We sell labor.
Yeah.
So the full, full ticket price,you know, it's not just their$25
an hour kind of thing orwhatever.
Yeah.
But it's also this and this andthis and this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.

(13:39):
You know, we wanna retain goodtalent too.
So ultimately you need goodbenefits and you need, you know
what, you gotta have all thethings.
Yeah.
And that's ultimately where,where he comes in line.
And he does a great job.
He's, he's more of a COO for usand really, um, helps just train
the organization, move theorganization in the right
direction and keep us going.
So when did you start Zach?

(14:00):
George Landscaping?
2005.
So that's 20 years.
20 years.
We just talked about that.
Yeah.
Um, so.
Like a hundred ish people, peakseason.
Like what's your like, growthplace from here?
Do you just get more marketshare that box that we were
talking about?
Or do you go to othercommunities and offer, or do you
just like try to stay the samesize and yeah.

(14:23):
Know what that look like foryou?
I think it's, you know, it'sinteresting.
That's kind of been the journeythe last couple years is what
does that look like, you know?
Yeah.
We, it was five years ago is howdo we get to where we're at now
and now it's kinda what's thenext step and where's the real
growth gonna be happening innorthern Colorado?
You know, for us, I see usprobably, uh, picking up more
market share in the Longmontarea, uh, on the maintenance

(14:43):
side, probably also in northernColorado on the maintenance
side, construction's prettyagile.
They can move and shake and gowherever.
Mm-hmm.
But that maintenance, you gottabe close to your destination
every day.
So ultimately they'll, they'llprobably start to just continue
to pick stuff up.
Do you maintain stuff that youhaven't built?
So you're open to that?
Yes.
Yep, yep.
We do a lot of maintenance onstuff that wasn't built, you

(15:05):
know, and the HOA model, um, hasonly been around for about 40
years or so.
Right.
And so that kind of wholemodel's pretty new the metro
district's even newer than that.
And so, uh, we do, we doeverything from car washes all
the way up to.
Huge, huge, you know, HOAscomplexes, green metro

(15:26):
districts, different things likethat.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yep, yep.
So there's a lot of opportunityprobably just capturing, like I
was thinking to myself between,between you and Lindgren,
there's a couple of kind ofbigger companies.
Maybe there's some big nationalsor is there, what, what else is
the competitive landscape?
Yeah.
The, the big nationals aredefinitely trying to play in our
area.

(15:46):
Um, they've tried a couple timesin the past have failed.
Okay.
Um, our market's just not quitebig enough one, I remember one
of'em, uh, read something.
Yeah.
Valley Crest.
Valley Crest, yes.
Yeah.
They tried hard a few years ago.
Yeah.
That was their second time.
Oh, is that right?
Uh, yeah.
They, they, good job.
I love David Goliath's stories.
They, they tried to come backin.
They want come back in a thirdtime.

(16:07):
Okay.
Okay.
Um, but they're kind of doingsome restructuring right now, so
we'll see what happens.
They're distracted by other.
And their stock's getting allkind of chopped up.
Right?
Uh, and they're, they're, theygot a whole new CEO and they're
trying to shift and, and dothings well, and they have to be
all concerned about all thatkind of stuff, right?
They do like actually beingstrategic about how do we enter
this market, like that's low ontheir list.
Yeah.

(16:27):
Yeah, it is.
And they, it's reallyinteresting.
Their, their stock prices aredriven by things that don't.
Increase client satisfaction.
Right.
And so it's kind of on, it'skind of interesting from the
outside how important talk more,uh, because that sounds like
there's some business insightthere.
Yeah.
It's, you know, at the, we're aservice level organization,

(16:50):
right?
We're a service industry and wewanna ultimately make sure the
client's happy.
And what they have to do isthey're not worried about the
client, they're worried abouttheir shareholders.
Sure.
And so they ultimately aretrying to drive shareholder
value and stock pricing.
And so what's important to themisn't necessarily what's a
winning recipe for clients andthat can have some backlash.

(17:13):
And so we're kind of seeing itup and down the front range
that, you know, they'll have areal strong presence in one area
and then they may lose some ofthat presence.
And yeah, they're good in,they're good at some of the
things that they do, um, butthen there's other things on the
maintenance side that theyprobably leave.
Yeah.
Leave some of the market open.
Then outside of that, there'sprobably.
Lots of five and 10 and 20person companies out there that

(17:37):
do mostly service in some likeconstruction or whatever, but
they're maybe a little moreaffordable, but less dependable
kind of thing.
Is that kinda the marketplaceor, yeah.
You know, we're seeing a bighole in the middle right now.
Okay.
Um, that, so it's onesie,twosies, and then the biggies.
Yes.
Yeah.
From my perspective, you're kindof seeing that under five seven
and is a good number, and thenyou're seeing big, you know,

(17:59):
over 50 people.
Interesting.
Um, that middle just gets realhard.
That was probably the hardestyears for us, was that lots of
overhead managers and you justdon't have enough revenue to
cover it all.
Right, right.
And so you've really gotta pushthrough that ceiling through
either acquisitions or biggrowth plans or the right people
or whatever that looks like tokind of get there.

(18:19):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I wanna zoom back to that periodin your life at, at some point,
but, uh, yeah, like, so torefocus on the looking ahead
part like.
So capturing some more marketshare.
Yep.
Um, but if it's just a couple ofbigs and onesie twosies, you'll
have to either geographicallyexpand or just be satisfied
being, you know, a dominantbusiness and looking for other

(18:42):
things.
Would you ever add otherservices to your client
collection?
Yeah, I think for us the, youknow, we've kind of figured out
what's.
What works and what goes welloutside of that, we'd start
playing in other people'smarket, whether it's tree care
or some of these other things.
Right?
And that, that just gets superhard for us.
So right now it's probably athree-prong approach for us.

(19:03):
One, can we squeeze the turnipjust a little bit more?
Tighten up on what we got?
Yep.
Grow with our existing re uh,sources.
Ultimately as our team, as webelieve that our desire or
demand for our.
Services is higher than we canoffer right now.
Mm.
Okay.
So we can grow through that way.
And then, uh, possibleacquisition, you know, there's
this big baby boomer push,right?
Sure.
Everyone's looking at retiring.

(19:25):
Well, if you're one of thoseseven employee landscapes firms
and you're 62 Yep.
That sounds pretty nice.
Yep.
And some guys, you know, havebeen running really good
businesses for 30 years.
Yeah.
And, um, they just never gotreal big.
And they're good with that.
And they still have goodaccounts, so.
Right, right.
Yeah.
The acquisition is never off ofthe table for us.
Yeah.
Well, in, in some cases you caneven give'em a soft landing.
They can have a job for a while.

(19:45):
Absolutely.
And stay busy, you know?
Yeah.
'cause I know we're so healthynow.
Yeah.
Right.
Like when me and you were littlekids.
62 year olds were pretty old.
Yeah.
Now they're like going toAcapulco and stuff like that.
Yeah, totally.
You know?
Totally.
And they, they don't necessarilywanna sell their business at 62
and just be like on the golfcourse all the time.
Yep, yep, yep.

(20:06):
They wanna still keepcontributing, right?
Yeah.
But they just, they don't wannacarry some of that risk and they
probably make great accountmanagers and Absolutely.
Things like that.
Maybe designer sales people andstuff like that.
Yep, yep.
Okay.
That makes a lot of sense.
Yep.
Have you worked with, uh, HinesIrrigation at all?
So we've worked a little bitwith Hines.
We've done some of their work.
Yeah.
Um, you the installer for someof their designs?

(20:26):
Installers, some of, yeah.
So they typically get picked up.
What I see is they get picked upby, um, the architect, firm,
engineer firm.
Yep.
As a leg for a major project orsome sort of project.
Yep.
And then we'll come in under theGC level or the hard bid level.
Here's the specs that and pickit up.
Yeah.
Heinz put through or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Great business man.
They've been around a long time.

(20:46):
Seems like he's a reallyinteresting philosophical guy as
well.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um.
So, yeah.
Anyway, I digress.
Nice, nice, nice.
Yeah.
But, uh, so, so yeah, I thinkthat makes sense.
And then like, how old are you?
44.
44, 45.
Oh, you look, you look as old asme, kind of was.
Just'cause you're hair.
I'm 50.
Okay.
I'm getting there.
Sorry.
You know I'm getting there.

(21:07):
Yeah.
You've been, so you've beenrunning this thing since you
were.
Just a puppy kind of, yeah.
25.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some hard years.
That's what you're looking at.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What was the, what was theimpetus?
How did, no, I don't think so.
You look, you look pretty,pretty young underneath that
beard, but, uh, the beard adds10 years usually.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It makes me look a older, uh, sohow do we get going?
Yeah.
We, um, when I started, I grewup in east of Colorado Springs.

(21:32):
I was in the tree business,worked for a land, a nursery
down there.
Oh, okay.
Went to CSU, graduated, had noidea what I wanted to do.
Um, and came up here, worked foranother landscape firm for a
short stint, and just thought,man, there's gotta be a better
way to do this.
Huh.
And, uh, here we are.
Just, here we are.
Yeah.
28.
And so, like, what was the firststeps?

(21:53):
Like, did you.
Uh, just like make a flyer,knock on doors, like steal
customers from your boss.
Like luckily, no, none of that.
None of that.
Luckily my dad, uh, my dad waskind of a, a business guy
himself.
Okay.
And, uh, he worked for Midas for30 years and, you know, he had
seen what's good marketing,what's bad marketing, and Hmm.

(22:14):
They gave me an old farm herelocally, uh, in Colorado Springs
area.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So that's where you started,Zack Sarge, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And then I, we popped up hereright after, um, right after my
wife, now girlfriend.
At the time she was going toschool, she wanted to go to CSU.
That's how we ended up back uphere.
Okay.
So, yeah.
And, uh, so you kinda went homeafter college at CSU and went to

(22:36):
figure it out.
Dad helped you kind of.
Get something off the ground.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Dad kind of gave me, here'san old farm truck, it's worth a
couple hundred bucks.
Yep.
And here's$400, uh, to run an adin the Colorado, one in Fort
Collins.
Yeah.
And you can have these oldshovels.
Yeah.
That's pretty much whathappened.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then it was kind of just,uh, you know, keep, keep the
foot on the gas.

(22:56):
And you already had the skillsetfrom having worked for this, uh,
tree farm and stuff, or parts ofit?
Parts of it, yeah.
A lot of it was over promisingand then delivering.
Yes sir.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was totally what it was.
It was, I had some of theskillset along the way.
Yeah.
Learned some of it, but itultimately needed, uh, much more
honing in, let's put it thatway.
So 2005 was still a pretty saltytime.

(23:18):
There was probably an.
Over demand and under supply oflandscape construction
especially.
Yeah.
Like the housing market was inthat oh four to oh seven ish
time burning pretty good.
Yeah.
You know, when I first gotstarted red, I didn't have much
of a name and I was atransplant, so I didn't know.
Right.
I didn't know realtors, I didn'tknow other contractors.

(23:40):
I didn't know GCs.
I didn't know anybody.
And so as a transplant, you kindof just are grassroot in it,
right.
Getting it going.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So nowadays you got enoughconnections you can, you can put
things together.
Were were you like residentialfocused at first then?
A hundred percent yeah.
A hundred percent residentialfocused.
Yeah.
And uh, mainly just renovations.
Right.
Started doing renovations.

(24:00):
Mm-hmm.
Teamed up with a local designerup system and Yeah.
Yep.
Started doing that.
And then, um, there was a kindof a higher profile guy in town
asked me to come over to hishouse and look at it, and I was
there one day and he goes, Ineed you to mow my lawn.
And I was like, I don't mowlawns.
And he was like.
Go down to Sears and buy alawnmower tonight and come back
tomorrow.
And I was like, okay.

(24:21):
So there I was, started mowing.
Mowing lawns.
Okay.
So, and like, is that some ofthe, did you share that story?
Like who, who that person was?
It was Pat McGuffin at the Rio.
Oh really?
Yeah, I know Pat.
Uh, my connection with Patstarted when, uh, black Bottle
Brewery was looking for a home.
Okay.
I was the banker.
That was my very last bankingtransaction was financing Black

(24:45):
bottle.
Yeah.
May it rest in peace?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Godspeed verboten becauseit's nice to have a neighborhood
brewery in that neighborhood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it was, uh, I got to knowPat because he was effectively
interviewing potential tenantsfor his space there next door to
El Monte.
Yes.
And uh, what I, I hate to saythis story'cause Pat needs to
come on this podcast one ofthese days too.

(25:06):
He should.
You know, he, he struggled withEl Monte for years to try to
make that thing work, right?
Yeah.
Like it was always just, it wasso good.
Yes.
But it just was never very busy.
And I'm sure he never made anymoney and sorry for that, you
know?
Um, and I'm sure he blamed it onthe location a lot.
And then black bottle opened andit was like busy as shit all the
time.

(25:26):
Right away it was, I know.
To me it was like, oh, that wasprobably a nice slice of humble
pie.
Ah, man.
That corner of town was just, itwasn't there until a little bit
later.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Had he hung on just a littlelonger, but I don't think it was
so it goes, it was a tough, he'sfine.
Yeah.
It was a tough too.
Pat's doing just fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, but cool.
So he was your first littlemaintenance client?

(25:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was like, Hey, I need you tomow my lawn.
I was like, all right, here wego.
You probably made a lot ofintroductions after that.
Sure.
Yeah.
I figured it out and just keptgoing.
Yeah.
So I started mowing lawns.
Interesting.
And I was like, interesting.
Well, I got one lawn, now I needto get more.
Right.
So I started lawn.
I'm gonna have a lawnmower.
Yeah.
Like, I kinda just run it once amonth.
Yeah.
I started picking up more.
So, and then you eventuallydropped the residential
maintenance though?
We did, uh, what year was that?

(26:10):
2013 I want to say.
Okay.
We dropped the residentialmaintenance.
We used to do residentialservice work, residential
maintenance, and it's just hardto offer that real specialized,
hands-on approach in a scalablesize.
Yeah, you can definitely do it.
There's great companies in townthat do residential service
work.
We just, for us on the scaleside, it just wasn't, wasn't,

(26:32):
uh, makes sense.
Attainable makes sense.
I mean, that's one of thechallenges of scaling, right?
Like you have kinda thesedifferent layers of costs and
equipment and overhead and youcan do most of your own things
in the construction side, butthat all comes with it.
A cost, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
And you can't be as nimble asthat one man sprinkler
maintenance operation.
That a hundred percent keeps ahundred clients and keeps'em all

(26:52):
happy.
A hundred percent.
Mrs.
Smith or you know, Joe Schmohomeowner.
They have a specific way theywant it.
Right.
And that's, that's ultimatelywhat gets hard is how do you
take that information outta yourbrain, put it down on paper, and
then make that to where the techor whoever's going there can do
it exactly as they want it.
And ultimately it's their home.
So if they want the lilac cut atthe wrong time of the year, yes

(27:14):
ma'am.
That's not what I recommend, butI'm here to help you.
We always could'em in May.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's, it's whatever, whateverwe had to do.
So that was, that's kind of whywe Oh yeah.
And I imagine your blame wasprobably overflowing first,
right.
As you're building thiscollection of what people want.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, uh, gets tough quick.
So what was your, what was yourscaling journey like in the

(27:36):
first few years you grew up to apretty mid-size.
What was your, your.
Struggle spot you mentioned waskind of in that, uh, tweeners.
Yeah.
I ultimately just lacked, uh,understanding and that's kind of
how we ended up somewhat to thesize we were.
And then we started to pull thereins back and go, okay, now we
have a little bit betterunderstanding.
But it was just, I gotta do morework.

(27:59):
Just take, solve, solve myproblems.
And yeah.
So we ultimately were, if itmeant more revenues, regardless
of whether it was a fit or not,uhhuh, it was bad revenue, some
of it for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So we ultimately, um, started,yeah, just slowly getting bigger
and bigger.
Oh seven obviously hit, that waskind of a weird year for
everybody.
We just kind of held flat, didsome weird things that through

(28:19):
that year, and then oh eightpicked up a little bit more oh
nine.
Oh wow.
And then we just kind of keptgoing.
Yeah, cool.
Outgrew our space.
I was running it out of.
I mean, I started it like mostpeople out of a, my dad's
rental, my mom and dad's rentalin Fort Collins.
And then we moved across town,had a half acre, ran outgrew
that, moved across town.
Um, so we just kind of startedthere and ultimately, you know,

(28:42):
surrounding yourself withsmarter people that can kind of
help you navigate some of those,those questions of which
direction should we go.
What would you say, like, whydid you choose that name head
coach as like what you callyourself on your LinkedIn
profile, um, and what would.
What would some of your keypeople say on that context as

(29:04):
well, I guess, if you canimagine.
Yeah.
I mean, ultimately it's a, it'sa position of servitude, right?
I'm there to, I'm there to helpother people show'em.
Um, but I'm not the one outthere making the plays.
Yeah.
You know, so I'm kind of on thesidelines and I'm helping call
out some different things and,you know, looking for blind
spots and looking for areas thatwe need to get better and things
like that.

(29:24):
And that's ultimately theposition where, you know, I'm
responsible when things go good.
I'm responsible when things gobad, but I'm not on the field
making the plays every day.
Yeah, yeah.
And so it's kind of a, you know,I felt the metaphor fit and if
I'm there, I gotta be able toone, you know, taking the good,
taking the bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But also also calling out whenthere's issues coming up.
When was that transition foryou?

(29:44):
When, like at what employeecount, if you will, when you no
longer had a lot of your time infront of your customers?
I.
You know, every year it's gottena little better for me.
Um, I would say in the lastcouple years is probably the
best, but once we hit 50 people,it ultimately, I had to start

(30:06):
making a decision and relying onothers and saying, these, we
trust these people.
We know they're part of theteam.
They understand our mission,they know where we're going.
Yeah.
They understand that, you know,it's not about the mighty
dollar, it's about clients andit's about the name, and it's
about what we're ultimatelytrying to do in the community.
Yeah.
What, uh, have you done some ofthe, the, the deep work, you

(30:27):
know, the mission, vision,values, calming it to your front
lines and stuff like that?
We've done a bunch of that stuffand we, we can get.
You know, really wrapped up insome of that stuff.
But our, our big tagline is wemake people's lives better
through landscaping, and that'sit.
We're not cops, so people don'tget mad at us.

(30:49):
Right.
Uh, we ultimately, people wantus there.
We don't care if you're growingweed in your backyard.
We don't care.
I mean, my, so my landscape guyis, uh, also the, the creator of
the, uh, lightning mini golf inOld Town West.
I don't know if you know MattGettig or not.
Okay.
Um, right at Whitcomb andLaPorte.
So there's, there's like 10different free mini golf holes
scattered around there.
Yes.
And my neighbor built themduring Covid just to give people

(31:11):
a reason to like be together andbe outside and stuff.
Yep.
But he builds'em in his, mostlyhis irrigation and landscaping
clients, front media and things.
Nice.
Um, without city permission oranything like that.
Love it.
Um, but anyway, um, his, um, hisopinion is that like he.

(31:32):
45% of yards seem to have somehomegrown going on these days.
Or maybe it's only 25, but he'slike, every time I go in Mrs.
Johnson's backyard, if it's notin her backyard, it's in the
neighbors across the street orover the next fence.
Yeah.
You, we certainly see that.
I would say we probably have ahandful of clients that had, um,
operations just in the house.

(31:52):
Yeah.
So you're always smelling thefans even before it was even,
uh, legit, perhaps.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I imagine.
Yeah.
So you're not the police, you'rehere to make your life better
through landscaping.
That's it.
Yeah.
I mean, people are happy, right?
They, they engage with us sowe're not doing cold calls and,
um, well that communicates sucha good consultative approach,
you know?
Do you want raspberries in yourbackyard?

(32:13):
Yeah.
You know,'cause you just.
Remember picking raspberriesfrom your mom's tree when you
were a kid?
Well, we could probably makethat happen or whatever, right?
Yeah.
We're here to make your lifebetter.
And so, you know, again, peoplearen't mad at us very often,
which is nice.
Yeah.
And I think that's why a lot ofpeople flock to the industry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, what would your, your kindof longtime employees say about,

(32:35):
um, you as a leader, but alsothe, the culture generally?
I mean, beyond that.
A tagline, if you will.
Yeah.
I think they're ultimatelythankful I've matured over the
years.
Right, okay.
Yeah.
A little bit of a wild guy backin the day.
All right.
And, uh, so I think they're,they're thankful that matured
over the years and, um, yeah.
I think that they're thankful,you know, I think they're

(32:56):
ultimately also, uh, I don'tmicromanage much.
Yeah.
Um, you know, we just kinda setour goals for the year and we,
we strive to hit'em and we allwork pretty hard to get there.
Yeah.
I dig it.
I dig it.
Kind of a camaraderieship Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Without it sounding Marxist oranything like that.
Yeah.
So, um, and you and I know eachother at least a little bit

(33:18):
through Rotary Club.
Yeah.
You are a member of the, theWednesday group, Fort Collins
Wednesday group.
Yep.
The downtown group, I think theycall themselves.
Yeah.
We are the 1918 club.
Yep.
The OGs.
Yep.
OGs.
Yep.
Yep.
So been a member now for, whoa,quite a while back when they
were at the Drake Center is whenI joined.
Okay.
Man, that might've been seven,eight years ago now.

(33:40):
Yeah.
At least, I bet at least, yeah.
They've kind of hopped around.
Covid kind of forced their handto move a couple times and cost
and things like that.
Yeah.
I visited the club a coupletimes back in the day when they
were in the Lincoln Center.
I don't know if that was beforeDrake Center.
They were at the Lincoln Centerbefore, probably before the
Drake Center.
Probably both before and aftermaybe?
Yes.
They're back at the LincolnCenter.
Oh, they are good.
Yes, they can, more likely forme to visit.
We could do a, we could do aswaperoo sometime on, we should,

(34:01):
uh, Thursday mornings at Gingerand Baker, so.
Okay.
We're not far out of eachother's.
Uh, okay.
That's good.
So it's lunch at the LincolnCenter.
Yep.
Lunch, catering, lunch.
It's Wednesday noon.
Wednesday noon.
Yep.
Be there 10 minutes before soyou can That's 20.
Yeah, 20 is better.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's an open invitation foranybody that wants to check more
out about Rotary.

(34:22):
A hundred percent.
Um, a hundred percent.
I, I considered the FoothillsLunch Club when I was first
joining when it was like, it'sso far away, but yeah.
Um, so are you breakfast?
Breakfast, yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, we were kinda a small clubwhen I joined, but it's gotten,
we're 85 now or something.
Wow.
Yeah.
Okay.
Getting up there.
Yeah, pretty.
So I have a pretty, uh, myRotary, my impact is I'm part of

(34:44):
the Peach Fest.
Okay.
So I helped put that.
Oh you are?
Yeah.
Good.
Yes.
So you work with Dave, DaveHaas, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Awesome.
And Steve Lane.
Oh, good.
And a couple other key.
That's your main kind ofshoulder that's into the wheel.
That's, yep.
Yep.
I was doing it before Covid, soI figured I just gotta keep
going.
Well, I was thinking aboutsponsoring Peach Fest this year,
actually.
Okay.
But I should probably let Daveget that win, not you.

(35:06):
So.
Yeah.
Good, Dave.
I'll talk more with him about itinstead.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, I've been, so for years.
So it's my birthday weekendtypically Uhhuh Peach Fest.
And so I usually go on a biglong camping trip and it's
Realities for Children Ride.
Oh yes.
The last couple years has beenconflicting too and I've taken
part in that a bunch of timesand I'm a member there Uhhuh,

(35:26):
and so it's like, but this yearthey're both on different
weekends.
Uhhuh.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, but I might still be gonewith one for my birthday.
Yeah.
Luckily Dave's kind of kept thetorch going, which is awesome.
He's great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's pretty passionate about it,which is really nice.
Yeah.
Well, the event has evolved overthe years to really become, uh,
a neat thing.
It has.
Yeah.
Easier to say yes to supportingand things like that.

(35:47):
Yeah.
And it's not as crazy as it usedto be.
I mean now it's just good bandsmusic, beer.
People can't complain aboutthat.
Not, not so many things goingon.
Doesn't have many crazy, notmany things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm a exactly.
My, I'm a sergeant at Arms.
Okay.
Uh, is kind of where I give muchof my efforts these days.
Okay.
To the Breakfast Club.
So I introduce all the visitingguests and Okay.
Good.
Kind of, you know, if peopleneed to shut up and listen to

(36:09):
the program and I raise heck andthat kind thing.
There you go.
There you go.
But it's, uh, allows me to, uh,do some good benefit, you know,
without being overburdened.
Yeah.
And plus my attendance is waybetter.
Ah, yes.
That is that having something todo every month.
My attendance does struggle alot of months during CI was
like, Ugh.

(36:29):
Yeah.
I've had all the Zoom meetings Ican handle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, coming back and we, we, wewere at the.
Oh, the Marriott?
Yes.
Um, and then like came back intoin-person meetings at Ginger and
Baker.
Okay.
Ginger and Baker is basicallyexactly between my house and my
office here.
Okay.

(36:50):
That works out perfect.
Which like, oh, my whole life islike contained within 1.3 miles
now.
That's amazing.
Thank you.
That's nice.
Yeah.
I should be riding my bicycle.
I was about that.
So drive from that big oldambulance out there.
But do you, do you ride abicycle?
That was my next question.
I do, yes.
Okay, good.
Yes.
I actually just went for a nice10 mile ride on Saturday.
Okay, nice.
So, uh, but I've grown out ofthat habit.
Yeah.

(37:10):
Um, I wanted to acknowledge, um,this nice gift, um, I got from
Zach here, A ZGL coffee cup.
A nice hand molded clay.
From It says M something.
Mk.
Mk.
Michael Kreisberg.

(37:30):
That's our buddy Michael.
Yep.
He handmade those this year.
So I had a certain number ofthose made and gave them out to
some of our good clients andWow, I'm really honored.
I thought, uh, forgot coffeedrink.
I got like four of these leftand I got this podcast thing
with Kurt.
That's great.
I wanna make sure they go togood people ultimately.
So you don't know enough aboutme yet, but, um, oh, I'll tell

(37:51):
you the story about, oh, by theway, I had some Chinese company
make that glass with our brandon it.
Hey, but I did have, uh, Zoe'sBakery create the, the hot
sauce.
I appreciate it for you.
So that's awesome.
That's a local product.
Thank you.
Um, so my story I mentioned whenyou told me Michael made this
cup on the way in.
Yep.
Um.
So green ride, uh, Coloradobefore groom.

(38:13):
Yes.
That was one of my moresuccessful banking startups.
I financed that back in the dayin like 2009 with like seven old
buses or vans basically.
Yep.
And a little bit of workingcapital.
Um, but they introduced me toMichael and said, Hey, this guy,
all of our vans for us, he cansell stuff, do stuff.

(38:35):
And the bank had repossessed a,a mobile home down by like
Evans.
Okay.
Like out in the country downsouth of Milli and Evans,
somewhere down in there.
And so I had at the time, a 1995Audi S six.
Okay.
Um, uh, I don't know if you'refamiliar.
Yeah.

(38:55):
But a nice, uh, and it had someextra boosty, uhhuh and some
Porsche breaks and free flowexhaust and all that.
Ed.
So we go down and look at thisplace and he is like, I don't
know man, you know, maybe 4,500,you know, sold.
And I don't even reallyremember.
I think he did sell it for us.
Okay.
He made a little money.
We made a little money, butleaving that place, it was like

(39:17):
raining and I'm like going on toHighway 34 from this county road
exit and I did like thisamazing, like 20 to 75 mile an
hour drifting acceleration.
Oh, that's sweet.
Uh, merging onto the highway.
Okay.
And Michael didn't flinch.
Really?
He was in the car with you?
Yes.

(39:37):
Okay.
Because I took him down to seethis trailer and I'm like, dude,
I like that guy.
'cause he trusts that I knowwhat the fuck I'm doing.
That's, and I do.
That's, that's awesome.
Um, and not everybody.
When they first meet, a personreally wants to do this, like
multi gear shifting drift.
Yes.
In this supercar from That'sfunny.
From, that's awesome.
From mid nineties.
That's a wild story of Michael.
Yeah.
He's, uh, he's in our Rolodexof, um, of vendors and support

(40:01):
for us because ultimately hecan, he's an amazing artist and
creator.
Yeah.
It's wild what he's doing withall those pots.
Yeah.
And just helping us get vehiclesand, um Oh, sure.
Yeah.
All that stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Cool.
I was next door to him.
I, I was in the America buildingthere for a while too.
Got it.
Okay.
In downtown.
In downtown, yeah.
When, when local think tank waslike first a thing.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
So yeah, he's not down thereanymore, but he's still, he's

(40:23):
still going strong.
He is, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I haven't run into him a coupleyears now.
Yeah.
So, uh, anyway, Michael, if youlisten to this, uh, uh, he
should be on the podcast.
Let's hang.
Yeah, let's talk sometime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I knew him.
This is embarrassing, but I knewhim for like maybe four years or
something.
And then like somehow we brushedagainst a faith conversation and

(40:45):
he said he was Jew ish.
And I was like, oh my God.
So many things make so much moresense.
Love you Michael.
Uh, it's funny.
Anyway, I digress.
Yeah, no stereotypes aroundhere.
Yeah, it's all good.
Sounds good.
So, um, so we kinda learnedkinda your special sauces, the
kind of the comms finding yourlane finding opportunities.

(41:06):
Were you, how long before youmade the commercial uh, jump?
Yeah, so I think it was probably2012, I think.
Um, Larimer County.
Wanted, uh, a general contractorhere in town to do a project and
the county recommended that theyreach out to us to give'em a

(41:28):
bid.
Okay.
And, um, because of some cercertifications and some things
that we were doing back then.
And, um, so that's kind of howwe got into the commercial world
is this guy called me up andhe's like, Hey, the county wants
me to give you a, you know, giveyou an opportunity at this bid.
And I was like, oh, okay, wellwe got the project you were
still in.
Do whatever mode still in, dowhatever mode.
Yep, yep.
So we did the project.
It was a success and, um, stilldoing work with those guys and,

(41:52):
uh, it's been a good, it's beena good partnership for us.
Do you have like commercialtypes of clients that are more
your fit than others?
Um, is it kind of more.
Basic or generic, or do you getfancy pants or?
We did, we've done everythingall the way from real small
commercial rehabs on a singlebuilding all the way up to huge

(42:12):
multimillion dollar projects.
Uh, we just finished a bigproject out in City of Greeley
on a restoration project.
Mm-hmm.
We're doing a u big project atUNC in front of the Blue Bear
right now.
Mm-hmm.
Um, they.
They're doing a huge turfconversion.
They're removing all the grassin front of the blue bear.
Oh wow.
Um, it's the most prominentcorner in town, so we're
completely redoing that rightnow.

(42:34):
That's a water minimizationelement.
Yeah.
And what do you replace all thatgrass with?
Uh, it's gonna be native, it'sgonna be sidewalks, it's gonna
be retaining walls.
Pergola.
Hmm.
Um Oh, interesting Bunch ofstructures.
Yeah, it's actually pretty wild.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool project.
So that's, yeah, that's cool.
So that's seeing a lot more turfconversions.
Um, a lot of restoration workkind of all over for us too.

(42:54):
Is that a specialty area?
Even the turf conversion?
Kind of like we put the grassin, but we can also like change
it up later.
It is, it is.
And um, I think it kind of cameon on accident.
Um, but getting turf convertedsuccessfully is not.
As easy as it sounds, um, ittakes a lot more management.

(43:15):
You know, everyone knows withblue grass, you put the
irrigation on it, you turn itoff, you mow it, you turn it
back on, and we kind of get intothis cycle.
And with, uh, turf conversions,it's, or with native grass,
it's, it's quite the challenge'cause you got the left hand and
the right hand.
Don't really communicate.
So you have code compliancethat's telling you you need to
mow the weeds and you've got thepeople that own the project that

(43:36):
say, well, I can't mow thenative grass yet.
So there's a, this combinationof how do we get this thing to
full establishment, whichultimately has to get to
establishment because someone'smoney's on the line.
Right?
So there's a bond, there's somesort of money put up and Yeah.
Interesting.
Until it's at a 70%establishment, they have erosion
control issues.
Yeah.
So all that to kind of say iswe, well, and the grass has to

(43:58):
be kind of allowed to pushthrough and crowd out the other
weeds and stuff, but some of theweeds are stronger than the
grass.
Right.
So how do you kind of, it's a,it's a juggling act of, yeah.
Getting that establishment.
So we've kind of become, um,real strong at it and we work
with a lot of themunicipalities.
Okay.
Um, other companies we can kindof help wherever help people.

(44:20):
I'd say once a year we have aproject where we're trying to
help someone get their moneyback from the city, and so do we
do.
D does it get no water afterthat?
If you go to back a, a nativegrass kind of style or just way
less?
Um, it's a, you keep theequipment there.
It's a multi-year phase.
So the first year there's not alot of water savings in my mind.
I not scientific here, butRight.

(44:42):
You have to establish it, youhave to get it going.
Year two, you're gonna usewater.
Year three, you're gonna startto see a cut way back.
Uh, you ultimately can get it towhere it's only gonna water for
probably five or six times, youknow?
'cause you don't need anythingin the spring.
Yep.
You probably just need a couplewaters in July, August kind of
in there and then it, it doesits own thing.
Yeah.

(45:02):
Yeah.
So.
Ultimately you, once it'sestablished, you can ultimately
cut off's.
The grass grows in Peyton.
Yeah, true.
And in Ray and different placesout there, right?
Yep.
Yep.
That's how the, the real grassgrows.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The native grass.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So we do a lot of turfconversions.
It's more and more popular.
We're starting to see it on theresidential now as well.
Mm-hmm.
Um, just people saying, Hey, Idon't use this area of my yard

(45:23):
anymore, let's just convert itto native grass.
Yeah.
And, uh, so smart conversions Ithink make a lot of sense.
And do you guys do like patiosand concretes and like all the
stuff?
Or do you sub out some of that?
We do all the hardscapes inhouse.
We don't pour concrete ourself.
Um, but we do a lot of pavers.
Um, segmental, concrete pavers.

(45:43):
Yep.
I got into those, man.
We were probably one of thefirst companies in northern
Colorado.
Um, we had a vendor.
Those are like the things that.
Fit with each other, kinda.
You put him on a sand bed kindof thing.
Yeah.
It ultimately is the only optionin northern Colorado, in my
mind, in Colorado, uh, with ourfreeze thaw cycle and the salt
and all these things, it's theonly product where you don't

(46:04):
have to, it's not crackingheaving, sping, it doesn't do
any of that.
My, uh, I've got some old cityof Fort Collins sidewalks Yep.
Is most of my back patio.
So they're big, big old chunksof slate and stuff, and it's
awesome.
Yep.
And.
It ain't what she used to be.
You know, it used to be I couldlay my yoga mat on a few of

(46:24):
those bricks and just like dothat.
Yeah.
And now it's not, you know,things have changed a lot in the
last 10 years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The concrete's not nearly as,uh, a durable of a product.
And so we do a lot of pavers.
And two, you know, our, when wetalk with clients, we tell'em
all the time.
We live in a concrete jungle.
You go to Target, everything'sconcrete.
You go to Home Depot,everything's Target.
You go to the hospital,everything's concrete.

(46:45):
You go downtown.
Yeah.
Everything's concrete.
So we wanna give people an oasisin their backyard.
And when you kind of open upyour back door, you want that
kind of softer feel.
Yeah.
And pavers really give you thatcomfortable, soft, welcoming
feel.
And that kind of helps bringpeople down on the weekends.
Again, making people's lifebetter through landscaping.
Well, it probably drains bettertoo.
Like is it for the city'sperspective on the impervious

(47:07):
versus pervious, is that there'sa whole.
System behind that.
You know, the city's got theirtheories and they, we don't
worry about that too much.
Nah, we don't worry about it.
You know, in some, some states,yeah, the water does percolate
down through faster, butultimately in Colorado we have
clay, so it's really not gonnamove that far.
Interesting.
Yeah.

(47:27):
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, so when you, not to shiftback, but um, when you first got
started, like what were thefirst few hires for you?
Just more people to help youwith bigger projects that you
sold.
Yeah.
Labor, um, foreman foreman's,always.
No one Pats grass or did youhave to grass?
I did back.
You did yourself a long time.
Yeah, probably a couple monthsor a year, I don't know.

(47:49):
Um, yeah, but it ultimately.
It was, it was that areaforeman, um, craftsmen.
Right.
You want, you want craftsmen.
Yeah.
And that's on the, on theconstruction side.
You need guys that have thatartist mentality and they see it
as this is an art form, how theboulder goes in, how the trees
and the shrubs compliment eachother.

(48:10):
The plants.
Mm-hmm.
The mulch, everything.
It just has to compliment eachother.
And so when we do a design, it'sdiagrammatically.
It gives people, our team andthe clients a way to kind of see
it in a 2D.
But once that boulder shows up,once those plants show up, it
can shift and adjust just alittle bit.
So did you do design a lot?
We did, I was doing napkin youindividually?

(48:30):
Yeah, I was doing napkinsketches for a long time.
Okay.
Alright.
Um, and then, you know, AutoCADcome, kind of came along and
became more affordable andthat's when we started hiring
people with that skill set tokind of bring in house stuff.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Um, you, you're like, oh, lookhow much better that is in my
napkin system.
Way better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so ultimately, you know,that that foreman level position
is always key, right?
'cause they gotta see it as thesame, in the same light.

(48:52):
Yeah.
Um, what else?
Like if you had some business,uh, most important learnings
along the way, um, that youwanted to share with.
People scaling their smalllandscaping firm.
Is there anything that, uh, orotherwise, you know, their
painting business, whateverelse?
Yeah.
Uh, there's a, a lot of littlethings, right?
Analysis by paralysis, right?

(49:13):
You hear some of the guys thathave been doing it a long time,
you gotta step away, you know,you gotta get out of it
sometimes.
'cause you can, you can goliterally crazy when you're so
passionate about something.
And, you know, if you're justconstantly focused and focused
and focused and focused andfocused, it's, it's just not
good for you.
So finding something to kind ofgive you an outlet, whether it's
fishing, going to the gym,hiking, something to kind of

(49:34):
pull you outta there.
Yeah.
Well, and even like that and.
Like a business coach, a peeradvisory group, something like
that.
Sores headed next.
Yeah.
Peer advisory's key.
Uh, people that know, you know,no one loves an asshole.
So, you know, I typically, noone loves a what an asshole.
You know, it's someone that asksfor, oh, an asshole.
An asshole.

(49:54):
Someone that asks for, you know,for advice and then they don't
take it kind of thing.
So you gotta, you, youdefinitely want to have people,
um, that you can, you can askquestions to and bounce ideas
off of it.
That's key.
Yeah.
That'll call you to account whenyou're not doing your stuff
kinda thing.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I heard a quote a long time ago.
Everyone knows what needs todone, needs to be done.
The difference is just actuallygetting it done.

(50:15):
Yeah.
There's something to that forsure.
Yeah.
Um, and sometimes for some ofus, like I'm somebody that's
more accountable to others thanto myself sometimes, you know,
some people are reallyinternally motivated.
Yep.
Me, I'd rather just not let downmy friends.
Totally.
Uh, totally.
And so that's kind of, you know,uh, for me that was part of the
whole peer advisory element.
Yeah.
Other, uh, business gyms.

(50:37):
Um, I like the asshole a lot.
The way it's gonna take, it'sgonna take way more, it's gonna
take way more energy and waymore time than you ever think
it's going to, to buildsomething.
Everything, everything.
Right.
You want to get a new productoff the ground.
Way more time.
Way more energy.
Yeah.
You want to get, you know, youwant a new system for bidding a
new way more time, way moreenergy.
When did you put your fancy pensoftware in?

(51:00):
Two, well, we, we tried anothersoftware, um, that was a major
fail, so we messed around fortwo years, I think from 2015 to
2017.
Okay.
We messed around with anothersoftware.
Could not get it to work.
Try to make work.
Wouldn't work.
Yeah.
The software was justantiquated.
It was basically an Excelspreadsheet that was fancy.
Sure.
And it was, uh, also industryspecific, but industry outdated

(51:21):
by a while.
Very outdated.
Yeah.
It would've been, I telleveryone it's, it would've been
better to light$50,000 on fireon a table, I'm sure.
You know?
'cause that's what our, well,that's probably a conservative
because think of all the timethat Yeah.
You guys spent besides all plusthe dollars.
Yeah.
So that was a horrible, um,software.
And then we went back to oursecond choice, uh, which is

(51:41):
where we're at now.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
They were our second choice.
Only because you couldn't ownthe software subscription based.
Oh, right.
And.
Fast forward eight years now.
Everything's subscription based.
Right?
So really didn't matter.
I probably should have startedthere.
Yeah.
So it goes, so goes.
Yeah.
You know, at least you canconfess it.
Yep, yep.
We own the problem.
So, um.
This is kind of the point in theshow where we usually like Zoom

(52:03):
back to like little Zach.
Okay.
Uh, up somewhere a little townnorth of Peyton, Colorado.
Yep.
Grew up in Black forest.
Yep.
Black forest.
Okay.
Yeah.
Parents had a little farm.
Yeah.
Um, so I was in four H fromkindergarten all the way into
college.
Little farm being like an actualfarm or a hobby farm.
Hobby farm.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, we had, we raised dairygoats.

(52:24):
Okay.
Um, and we, I think we showeddairy goats in like 15 states.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Like so very passionate hobbyfarm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was, uh, from California.
All money making.
Did they?
Have regular day jobs too, orare they just like sold goats?
No, they had day jobs.
Yeah.
Okay.
Mom stayed at home with raisingthe kids and, um, she, she had a

(52:44):
little, she did some part-timestuff with the four H
organization.
Okay.
And then my dad worked for Midasfor 30 years.
Oh yeah, you mentioned that.
Yeah.
And was he the passionate aboutdairy goats or both of them?
That was like, my mom was morepassionate about the goats.
Okay.
So you guys chased goats aroundfor her kind of to have some fun
interesting thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But also got you in four H andgot us in four H, gave us a work
ethic, gave us some scholarshipsto get through college.

(53:07):
Yeah.
So it wasn't all bad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And how many of you.
Uh, just me and my brother, heis five years older.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Veterinarian.
Alright.
Yeah.
And, uh, describe like littleZach, uh, you got your, you're
seven and he's 12 or somethinglike that.
Yeah.
Like what's the lot ofhousework?
Um, we never really had a lot oftime for sports, so there was no

(53:27):
travel sports in our, in ourhousehold.
Was there a school up there?
How big a school we went to?
So Falcon was our schooldistrict.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Um, and my parents, when theymoved out there, there was one
stop sign and one stop lightbetween my dad's office and the
house.
It's pretty lonely.
17 miles.
It was a long ways out there.
Now there's Walmarts and KingSoup.
My wife and I lived in ColoradoSprings from oh four to oh

(53:50):
seven.
Okay.
So that's why I speak with somefamiliarity for most listeners
in Northern Colorado.
Here they're like, where isthis?
So this is like basically like.
What, like 25 miles north andeast of Colorado Springs.
Kind of 20 ish.
Yep.
Where my parents were, and Ithink it extended all the way up
to 25.
Sure.
But yeah, it was there about 20.
Sure.
Frank Town is up just north, outof the trees, kind of there and

(54:10):
whatnot.
Yep.
Yeah, it's a big area.
It goes all the way from I 25.
I mean, it's probably, it'sreally cool.
It's geographically unique.
It is very right.
And culturally probably prettyunique.
Can we, do you wanna talk aboutthat a little bit?
Was it all like, California'shippies escaping to the forest
somewhere?
Uh, you know, my parents' theorywas everyone lives here for a
different reason.
Okay.
My parents were from California.
Yeah.
So, um, everyone lives out herefor a different reason.

(54:31):
My parents had goats.
The neighbor built race cars.
Um, the next guy did trees.
One guy rai raised dogs.
So, I mean, it's pretty much,yeah.
You name it out there.
Wild, wild of sorts.
It was pretty normal out in theblack forest until that fire
came through.
Mm.
And once that fire rippedthrough the houses they built
out, there were.

(54:51):
Ginormous.
Mm.
Because it was five acres, itwas people's piece.
Right.
And so it kind of burned out ahuge section of the f of the
black forest, and they came backin and just built these
monstrosities.
Mm.
So it's, um, so it had been kindof a, almost like a hippie
village, and then all of asudden became like a, where you
can build your big ass house,you can,'cause they're five acre
parcels to ac acre parcels andit's all trees so you don't see

(55:13):
your neighbors.
Right.
I think Covid a exasperated thatRight.
Where it made it even more wherepeople are like, I want my own
space.
Interesting.
And so it, uh, so it ain't whatyou used to be?
No.
No.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's a bummer.
Yeah.
It's all right.
I mean, it's, it's part of the,part of the movement.
It changed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, there's nothing staticin this world.
Nope.
No.
So, um.

(55:35):
So you're motivated, it soundslike, uh, kind of that
outdoorsy, small town youth kindof geter.
Done.
Yeah.
Did you have a, a lawn mowingbusiness or anything before Pat?
No.
No.
Pat, I, uh, yeah, I went toschool at, uh, NJC, um, didn't
know what I wanted to do.
Really Didn't even sign up forschool.
My dad came home from work oneday and I was like, Hey, I

(55:55):
signed you up to go to school.
I was like, oh, okay.
This is interesting.
So signs me up for NJC.
Okay.
Um, wasn't, uh, wasn't astraight A student, I'll put it
that way.
And, uh, went to NJC best thingthat ever happened to me.
Small school, uh, was able tomeet up with some tutors and all
the things became an ra.
Hm.
Cool.
Kind of started some leadershipthere.
Wow.

(56:15):
And then, um, so you were kindof a.
Slack ass in high school to, tonot the smartest, not too
critical.
Yeah.
Well, not the smartest, but itsounds like also didn't really
apply or engage, maybe apply.
Yeah.
I lacked, lacked engagement andlacked, lacked, uh, application.
Just'cause too many fun Otherthings going on, or what was
your I just didn't see the valuein it, I don't think.

(56:36):
Okay.
Yeah.
Just didn't, it wasn't for me.
Yeah.
I don't know.
So never really loved school.
Yeah.
Then, uh, went to NJC graduated,didn't know what I was gonna do,
so then I transferred to CSU.
Got a degree in businessmanagement there.
Yeah.
So it's good.
And then, okay.
Here, here we are.
And here we are.
Yeah.
We came back full circle.
Yeah.
Um, I think it's a good time totake a short break and then

(56:56):
we'll come back for scene two.
Sweet.
All right.
Sweet.

(57:48):
What did you do in peer advisoryrealm?
Did you join it?
Landscaping industry group, orhave you been in other, not
local think tank, peer advisorythings?
All the above.
Right.
Okay.
Um, so we work with differentconsultants, um Okay.
Who have kind of helped us.
Are we back on?
We could be back on the show.
We can be if you want to.
Okay.
All right.
It's up to you.

(58:09):
Um, sure.
Let's just be okay.
Yeah.
'cause you mentioned that inyour kind of tips and then I
didn't explore it with you.
Yeah, yeah.
So we've worked with a handfulof different, uh, consultants
over the years.
Okay.
Um, you know, it's, it's good toget outside's pers perspective
ultimately local and nationallevel because, you know, people

(58:30):
see what's going on.
Yeah.
They see what's successful, theysee what's not working.
And so it's given, uh, we'veworked with some different
consultants that have helped uskind of give us that.
Yeah.
And they be kind ofconcentrations of knowledge too.
Like I suspect maybe that trendof there aren't that many mids.
Sizers Yes.
Is true.
More than just in NorthernColorado, I would say.

(58:52):
Yeah.
I would say it's probably acrossthe country.
I mean, only 1% of landscapecompanies get over a million
dollars in revenue a year.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's a small number.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Makes sense.
So they, we worked with someconsultants that have ultimately
put us into, um, some groups.
You know, calls, emails, kind ofstuff like that, but nothing,
nothing overly consistent.

(59:13):
You know, we want to drill downwhen we're, we feel like when
we're working on a problem, wewanna drill into it so deep and
so heavy that we're just kind ofin that problem for that.
Right.
Until we can kind of get itsolved.
Is that you and that consultantare parts of your leadership
team as well?
Yeah.
Parts of the leadership team.
The group team, yeah.
Yeah.
And you know, we love to dofly-ins.
Our industry's real good aboutdoing fly-ins, so they'll kind

(59:34):
of do these opportunities whereyou can fly to different states
and see different organizationsand they walk you through and
let you talk to everybody andthey tell you, Hey, this is what
we do.
And you know, you can kind of doa little rob and repeat like,
Hmm, that seems to work good orthat doesn't work good.
You know, kind of brings someideas back to That's cool.
And because you can really onlydeliver service.
To of the people right aroundyou, like they're not scared

(59:54):
you're gonna come hundredpercent break into the Salt Lake
City market.
No, a hundred percent.
Yeah.
That's really cool.
That's kind of an abundancementality as an industry in
general.
Yeah.
We serve the people who arearound.
Yep.
My blog this month is, uh, whichI know I need to finish Ava, um,
is, uh, so I was reflecting on,on JFK, the ask not what your

(01:00:14):
country can do for you, but whatyou can do for your country.
Yep.
But then I, I, so I rephrasedit, ask not what you can do for
your country, ask what you cando for your community.
Yes.
Because we all get kind of toobig focused sometimes, and we
just, just.
Work on what's right in front ofus.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's why I think, you know,when you have a organization or
you're part of an organization,you gotta find something else to

(01:00:35):
kind of keep you occupied too.
Right.
Whether it's working out,whether it's doing, again, some
of these things where you notswimming in that the whole time.
Yeah.
And that's where the communitycomes in, and ultimately you
gotta get to a level where youcan, you can make that happen.
Are you a workout guy?
Is that one of your things?
Yeah, I got some pretty goodpipes there.
I try to hit the gym.
I joined a gym about a monthago.
Okay.
You know, really for the firsttime since I was like 22, I've

(01:00:58):
been pushing weights, so.
Okay, nice.
It's the, I don't build strengthas fast as I did when I was 22.
Oh, no, no.
It, it does not, nothing,nothing goes on or comes off
nearly as fast as it did whenyou were young.
Noticing, I'm noticing.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, no, I, the gym keeps me,uh, keeps me sane, that's for
sure.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah.
Um.
Well, we typically transitionedto the faith, family politics,

(01:01:20):
like the can't talk aboutsubjects here.
Sure.
Um, do you have a preference ofwhere we start there?
Nope.

(01:02:09):
Um, let's talk about your familyfirst.
Yeah.
Uh, you're wearing a ring, butwe haven't met your, your wife.
Yep.
In this conversation so far.
My, uh oh, but we did a littlebit because she moved back up to
Fort Collins or something.
Yeah.
Or you came back up to chaseher.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She wanted to go to CSU and, uh,so we've been married.
17 years now.
Okay.

(01:02:29):
Um, so yeah, she's been therekind of from the beginning.
Where did you find her at?
Where were you at?
Four H.
Oh really?
Yeah.
Okay.
She's, uh, bring it back to fourH Uhhuh, bring it back to four H
again.
So she was in the same four HClub as us, and she's a little
bit younger than I am.
And her parents were alsoamazing dairy goat razors.
Uh, quite that close, not quiteon the level where my family was
on my, my mom took it to anotherlevel.

(01:02:50):
They were amateur during gopeople, but they, they want,
they were part of theorganization, so, yeah.
Um, yep.
17 years, two boys.
Okay.
Uh, Holden is 15 and Bo is 12.
Two boys.
Do you often try to do a oneword description of the
individual children?
Okay.
Would you like to attempt thatwith Holden and Bo?

(01:03:11):
Bo Holden is extremely smart.
Uh, we can put a dash in there.
Yeah, it's fine.
It's dash.
And then Bo is courageous.
He's a wild guy.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Who, uh, who, who takes afterwho more?
Um, Holden six four already weara size 14 shoe.
Oh, dang.
15.
Yep.
So he's a big guy.

(01:03:31):
Um, and then Bo probably takesafter his mom a little bit
smaller, more petite.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
And what's your, what's yourwife's name?
Robin.
Hi, Robin.
Yeah.
You'll probably listen to this.
She will for sure.
I suspect.
Yeah.
Um, what, uh, like what was theconnection point?
Just be beyond like she was thecutest girl at four H.
Uh, were the things that eitherdrew you to her or vice versa in

(01:03:52):
that early, you know, she'searly time, she's got a strong
personality.
Okay.
And, you know, that's, that waskey for me back then.
Um, as she was strong, she couldhold her own.
It's key for me now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, you know, she doesn't needme to kind of hold her up and
Yeah.
Make decisions for her.
I've said before, I don't reallywant a woman that needs me.

(01:04:13):
I want a woman that wants mecorrect.
You know, if she could tell meto f off once in a while, that's
even better probably.
Yep.
She, that's her.
Um, but use nicer language thanthat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and how about, uh, for her?
What was her draw to you?
Just the, um, different, I wasdifferent, uh, different guy
that she was normally used to.
Okay.
Um, you know, she ultimately waswith, uh, probably much, uh.

(01:04:37):
Better athletes and, uh,different, different types of
guys.
So, yeah.
Um, I think I was different.
Had a little bit more drive thanmost for her and, um, you know,
she's probably, probably likedthat.
But you didn't really have muchgoing yet.
I mean, no, I had nothing.
Pickup truck and four oh dollarsworth of pads.
Yeah.
My future assets.
That's all she was, that's whyshe was in it, I think.

(01:04:59):
Well, it's a special intuition,right?
Like that's a, it's aninteresting thing culturally,
uh, now that people are couplingso much later.
Yep.
Right?
Like when, when girls married,boys when they were 18 or 20 or
21, they had to kind of befuture prognosticators, right?
They're trying to play themarket here a little bit.

(01:05:21):
Yeah.
Who's got not just kindness andsensitivity, but also strength
and perseverance and the abilityto go get her.
Yeah, and I was, I mean, I wasyoung when we started dating.
I was 23, I was outta collegeand, uh, I mean, I didn't know.
I didn't know what I was doingat all in life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's interesting.
It's almost like it's takenpower out of women's hands in
some ways to try to marry at 30,because now they already know

(01:05:43):
who's a loser, who's not a loseras far as like, you know, pretty
much by 30.
Yeah.
The cards are on.
You're headed one direction oranother.
Your cards are on the table alittle bit.
You know, they can kind of stackrank then and they still don't
now they just choose old guys.
Yeah, right.
The 30-year-old girls, like arewith 40-year-old guys in their
second marriage, and all the30-year-old guys are all single.

(01:06:03):
Yep.
Like.
Doing porn or something.
It happens, I don't know,happens, I don't know.
It's unfortunately a culturaltrend.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I digress.
Yeah, it's all good.
I'm a, I'm a student of uh,x.com and too many, uh, cultural
things probably.
Yeah.
What was the, uh, the familyenvironment for you like?
Um.
Like, do you have grandparentsaround?

(01:06:24):
They were back in California andstuff.
Your wife?
Things like that.
Half of the grandparents were inCalifornia.
Half of the grandparents wereAustralia.
Oh wow.
My mom's Australian.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that was, didn't see themvery, very often either side.
Really?
Yeah.
Um, mom and dad moved out therewhen I was five, so my dad was,
and they didn't have siblingsnecessarily nearby or things

(01:06:45):
like that.
My mom's brother was inAustralia.
My dad's sisters were inCalifornia still.
Interesting.
So, yeah.
So they were a little islandkind of.
And you guys were too.
And so a little bit of aself-sufficient island.
That's part of your characterdevelopment probably.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
Have you been to Australia?
Yep, couple times.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Got to see family actually afterI graduated college, I went over
there for a month.
Oh cool.
Just kind of traveled around.

(01:07:05):
Yeah, it was good.
What part of the country?
Um, you know, most of thepopulation's congregated, right?
Because of way.
Yeah.
All the little, few clustershere and there between the
desert chunks.
Yeah.
But basically from Brisbane allthe way down, um, to.
Oh, there's one another.
Sydney?
No, not on the other side.
You got, you got through Sydney?
Yeah, there's kind of three bigcities on one side.
So one of my former facilitatormoved there.

(01:07:26):
Oh, nice.
To that realm somewhere.
I think Brisbane even actually.
Okay, nice.
So I've studied the Australiamap not too long ago.
Yeah.
Reorienting myself.
You better go over there.
Yeah, I would love to actually,my, so my, my grandfather
growing up, he was a bachelorfor many years, and then married
my grandmother on his secondmarriage or her second marriage.
Um, but he, at like the age of19, in 1922 or something, went

(01:07:54):
to Australia for a year.
Whoa.
And just moved there.
Whoa.
Yeah.
And I don't know, you know, hedid some stuff and then he came
home and like, he like worked ona ranch, you know, did this and
that.
Um, that's, wow, that's a long,that, that's a different time.
Yeah.
Well, and for a, I'm a NorthDakota kid, you know?
Right.
And so nobody did stuff likethat there.
You know, people just were bornthere and raised there.

(01:08:14):
Then they'd die there kind ofmostly, yeah.
Um, so anyway.
Yep.
Let's say that sometime that'smom, dad, that's what I, they
did and uh, my wife's family'ssimilar.
Uh, they were from Texas.
Okay.
My father-in-law was anelectrician and uh, he moved,
they moved up to Colorado'causehe just enjoyed the mountains.
Yeah.
Okay.

(01:08:34):
So, so you got that familysupport now kind of on the,
in-law side.
Yep.
Yep.
He passed away in 2011, but mymother-in-law's in Fort Collins
now.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, when you think about family,like were there certain outside
of the kinda work ethic and thepassion pursuits of your mom and
stuff, was there things thatyour family really maybe
transmitted, like your parentsto your next generation, to you

(01:08:56):
and your wife?
Yeah, I mean, both of my parentsworked hard.
Um, so I think it was hard work.
My dad was always calm, uh,methodical and uh, you know, my
mom was a go-getter.
Uh, raising the boys and justkind of keeping us in line.
And, um, she was kind of thefire, he was the stabilization
in some ways.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
Okay.
So it's kind of kept, you know,I think it, it probably has

(01:09:18):
helped along the way inbusiness.
Right.
One, the one side's all foot onthe gas and the other side's
kind of cool, calm andcollected, so, yeah.
Yeah.
Is your, is your wife involvedwith your business?
She is now.
Okay.
Um, yeah.
So she stayed at home with thekids for 10 years, I think.
Okay.
And then kind of once the kidswere, um, growing and
established, we brought her backin to do some stuff.
Let's talk about like, how doyou, like, did, did you know

(01:09:39):
what you wanted her to do or didyou let that kind of navigate a
little bit?
Like how do you reintroduce, uh,in that way?
Um, she's on the accounting sidenow.
Okay.
And, um, it was, it was out ofneed at the time.
Okay.
And, uh, you know, so in thatkind of growing through phase
Yeah.
Like, Hey, I need a super good.
Very cheap accounting person.

(01:10:01):
Reliable.
Reliable uhhuh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So she jumped back in just acouple years ago, I think.
Okay.
And, um, oh, so you had kind ofgrown through that?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So she helped us out a ton.
Um, she's been great.
She kind of just keepseverything in order in line.
And do you have need really ofa, like a controller level?
Person or is that her or do younot really need it necessarily?

(01:10:23):
We have, we use a CFO for hire.
Okay.
Kind like, like a fractionalCFO.
Yeah.
A fractional CFO.
Yep.
To kind of jump in and just makesure all the t's are crossed,
all the reconci settlements aredone, all the things are tight,
there's no, no, no.
Employees are stealing wherethey're supposed to be Dropbox
and whatever.
Yeah.
Yep.
And just watching for thoseweird things.
So we kind of have a, afractional CFO kind of jump in

(01:10:45):
and kind of help out where weneed it.
Help you with like designingbudgets and stuff like that too.
Yep.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Cool.
Yep.
Yeah, that's a nice, likethere's no reason for a company
your size to have a$175,000 ayear CFO.
No.
Um, no.
But it's also risky to not haveanybody that's got a higher
level of experience.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
And so that was where, and our,this fractional CFO has been

(01:11:06):
real strong, helpful for us.
You know,'cause they just turnover stones and again, you know,
she works with other landscapecontractors.
I.
Throughout a couple states.
And so she kind of can say, Hey,we're seeing this over here.
We're seeing this over here.
Or you know, are you sure you'renot having some theft or what's
going on?
Right.
Some materials theft, differentthings like that.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.

(01:11:26):
I mean, you're not dealing withcopper wires, but you're dealing
with a lot of materials that areeasily sold to Joe with a
pickup.
Yep.
Yep.
Happens.
That makes sense.
Um, politics or faith?
Faith.
Yeah.
Uh, family of Christ.
And, um, you know, we're goingback to your parents, not my
parents a ton.
Okay.
I went to a Baptist high school.

(01:11:46):
Okay.
Um, so I think I kind of startedmy journey on my own.
And, uh, like they didn't choosethe high school for you or like,
was that the high school thatwas there or whatever?
No, they didn't, my parentsdidn't love the high school
Falcon High School.
Okay.
And so they sought out otheroptions for my brother and I.
Okay.
Um, and there was a Catholichigh school and a Baptist high
school, and I.

(01:12:06):
Baptist one was we him with theBaptist.
Okay, yeah.
Yeah.
So my brother went to District20, so they had to truck him in,
and then some of the districtrules changed and, um, so they
planted me in a, at a Baptisthigh school.
And so that's kinda where myjourney started.
They, they went to church some,um, but with the farm it was
just super hard, super tough onthe weekends, so, so they
weren't anti faithful, they justweren't really very engaged, if

(01:12:29):
you will.
Yeah.
And then, uh, for your wife aswell?
Same, same perspective ordifferent?
I would say same perspective forher.
Her parents weren't, you know,against faith, but, you know,
found, found other things.
Uh, yeah, keeping her busy, so,uh, keeping them busy, but yeah.
Then you guys keep an active,like attendance and stuff here
at one of the, the localorganizations?

(01:12:49):
Not as much as you always wantto.
Yeah.
Yep.
You got one?
Yep, we got one.
So I was, uh, we go to theCrossing church, my wife and I.
Okay.
Uh, down at Shields and, and,uh, I sent one of, one of our
lay pastors is a, is a SY guy,like CD, C.
Virus scientists that, he's oneof my favorite guys.
I should have him on heresometime, but I sent him a

(01:13:10):
little short video that was likeall, like 14 of the major
denominations of Christiansexplained Okay.
In like 14 minutes.
Wow.
And, uh, determined we were, ourchurch was kind of a.
Um, pres Baptist, likePresbyterian hybrid with
Baptist.
Huh?
A little bit of Reform Baptistkind of element.

(01:13:32):
Okay.
We're, we don't really hang anyof those flags.
Yes.
But it's in that realm.
Okay.
If you will.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we, we uh, we attend church.
Yeah.
Sometimes.
Sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Business is tough, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Fair enough.
Landscaping, so the kids arefamiliar and stuff too.
Yep.
Yep.
Our kids actually go to aChristian school.

(01:13:52):
Okay.
Yeah.
So, um, resurrection or They do,yeah.
Okay.
Yep.
Boys go to resurrection.
You probably know how old is theolder one?
15 freshman.
Okay.
So Simon Johnson, do you knowSimon Johnson?
Yes.
Uh, Greg Johnson is mybrother-in-law and uh, Isaac
just won Isaiah.
Isaiah just won the statewrestling championship.
Yeah.
Yes.
Strong.

(01:14:12):
Strong kids.
Oh boy.
Oldest.
It's been wild to see him.
Our oldest, our oldest reallylooks up to him.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Good kid.
Yeah, I mean, he's, he's been myfavorite.
Uh, he's a good kid.
Yeah.
So me and Isaiah have been kindof pals for a lot of years now,
actually.
Good to see that he got awrestling scholarship.
Yeah.
Right before he won the state.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
He could have maybe got a betterscholarship if he'd have waited

(01:14:32):
a little bit.
I dunno.
I waited a couple weeks.
He would've got somethingdifferent, but yeah, no, so I've
been, uh, you know, Jill and Igo down for the fundraiser, for
the, the Res Gala, gala andthings like that every year.
It's pretty, pretty neat howthey run that operation, you
know, and really involve a lotof local business people and
supporting the sports teams andthings like that.
So, yeah.
Good for them.
We like it.
We love it.
Our kids love it.

(01:14:53):
Um, I've told the res church ismore of a.
Not a dumpster fire, but notquite as well operated as the,
the school perhaps.
Correct.
Correct.
Yes.
Anyway, we don't need to talkabout that.
Yeah.
'cause your face is already alittle bit red.
Yeah.
Uh, politics.
Politics.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're in, uh, we're we what day37 or something like that of

(01:15:15):
the, of the Trump presidency.
Lot of changes.
Yeah.
A lot, lot of changes.
Are you squeamish yet on thedoge and this and that, or?
Nope.
Nope.
Needs to happen.
Yeah.
You know, um, I think it's just,you know, everyone has their
opinion, right?
And we, we gotta turn over allstones and I think if, if
businesses are required to showa profit and we are judged on

(01:15:37):
our productivity on a dailybasis, I, I don't think that's
too much to ask.
Um, you know, I think thatthere's some different layers
and some different things thatprobably.
We just don't mess with secretservice stuff, some of that
stuff.
But man, at the end of the day,well maybe, but we might wanna
mess with Secret Service alittle bit.
Like they didn't have a bigsuccessful year last year.

(01:15:57):
I mean, they true lucked intonot letting the president die
Joe candidate, uh, getassassinated twice.
Yes.
Yeah.
Uh, mess.
It's a mess.
I'm glad the election is behindus.
Yeah.
Um, the people spoke, right.
And so I think at this point we,well, and it's interesting here
in Northern Colorado where thispeople spoke like 67% Harris.

(01:16:18):
Yeah.
Right?
And so, and I've never been aTrump guy necessarily, but I'm
pretty like, I'm been alibertarian guy.
We're like, yes, yes.
You know, and so I think most ofus are, yeah.
Business people is morecharacteristically especially.
Yep.
But like HP has probably laidoff more people in northern
Colorado than the federalgovernment will over the next 12
months.
Huh.
Interesting.

(01:16:38):
You know, if you think about it,yeah.
They've had downsizings over theyears and stuff.
Oh yeah, totally.
You know, it happens.
But you've never heard of a nodownsizing at any level of
government?
No, no.
You know, the, the city economicdevelopment office has grown
from five to 12 employees overthe last six years, and to me,
it's not discernible what theirimpacts have been.
Well, and we, but I'm gonna have'em on sometime soon.

(01:17:01):
Actually, I have a, if you guysare listening, you know that I'm
not criticizing yet.
I have a.
Direct tie to the government andusing this Visa program.
So I do a ton of lobbying'causeof the importance of it.
And so, so you're freaked out alittle bit by the immigration
kind of conversation.
I mean, I see that the, theaccountability issue, it's a
little bit like the IRS right?

(01:17:22):
You have to turn in paperwork,but you don't know which
paperwork, what time to turn inthe paperwork.
How to turn in the paperwork,because there's just, there's
no, but you know, there's,you're in trouble if you don't
turn in the paperwork in at theright time.
A hundred percent.
So in 2024, we got stuck in thewheel of death.
Our paperwork just sat there andsat there and sat there and sat
there until all the visas weregone.
Oh, no shit.
Yeah.

(01:17:42):
So then we have no visas andthen now what?
And then it was, oh, we havemore questions for you.
And it's like, whoa.
What happened to our applicationthat's been sitting there for 45
days?
Wow.
And so we, it just kind of, wehave a firsthand connection when
we see that lack of clarity.
And so when I see that we'retrying to clean these things up
and make some more transparencyand Yeah.

(01:18:04):
Accountability and all thesethings, it, it seems okay.
It's like going to the dmv,right?
I mean, you, you pay forproductivity at the dmv and
you'd have as many people in thebuilding.
Yeah.
So, you know, I, I, I, theoffice, uh, like for whatever
reason, old office clips reallyis, so, Bob, what do you do

(01:18:25):
here?
Yes.
And I just wonder, you know, howmuch, uh, we're gonna flip over
could change a lot.
And the real ultimately, youknow, there's gonna have to be
big changes to entitlement stufftoo.
Yep.
You know, and like if makeAmerica healthy and can actually
make Medicare and Medicaid costless come down over, over the

(01:18:47):
next 10 years.
Yeah.
You know, because we're not Yep.
Doing all these dumb things toourselves anymore.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We gotta, we gotta tighten upsome of the spending, right.
I mean, I think that's where alot of us see it is like, Hey,
okay, we can't keep taking thisbus over this cliff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, the T is a big number.
I'm writing my blog right nowand it's, it's, uh, I think I
mentioned already, it's what youcould do your community, but

(01:19:10):
like, well, Elon just wants tosend people to Mars and if the
US goes bankrupt.
Nobody's gonna have enoughdiscretionary income to do a
Mars program.
And then here we are.
Yep.
So he is like, I guess I couldjust go in there and do some
stuff.
Yeah.
Uh, but yeah, it's been a prettyinteresting thing.
It has been wild.
But I went to a, uh, H two Bsymposium in Vegas a couple

(01:19:34):
weeks ago.
H two B, uh, that's the Visaprogram we use.
Okay.
And, um, in the first fiveminutes, the guy that was
running it stood up and said,there's no more executive orders
than normal.
There's nothing crazy that he'sdoing.
All of these things are right inline with what we expected.
Hmm.
And so I was much calmer afterthat.

(01:19:55):
'cause I'm like, man, you know,this seems to be like a lot of
moving parts already, but theysaid it's just what he's
focusing on, how he's focusingon it.
And uh, it's just playing out.
Well, and from what I hear inyour perspective, like we need
migrant labor forces to reallydo effective work.
Or at least it's beneficial tothem and us.

(01:20:16):
A hundred percent.
It's a, it's a requirement ofour country.
Yeah.
And like the whole, like, wehave a few million people here,
of which we have no idea whothey are is hard.
It is.
And you know, it's, there's notgonna be, I don't think Trump's
gonna.
Have mass deportation.
I mean, he understands that theorgan, the, the country runs

(01:20:37):
with immigrant workers.
And so I just don't see thathappening.
But who doesn't want the badapples outta here?
Right.
Right.
And the theft, I mean the, theamount of stuff we've had stolen
in the last five years is sooutta control.
Really?
Oh, skid steers, mini skids,gasoline.
They cut our fence.
They steal our copper wire.
Oh, damn.
They break into our trucks.

(01:20:57):
They steal trucks.
They on and on and on and on andon.
Oh, damn.
Weekly, I would say for a whilethere.
Wow.
And so.
His new law says if you've beenpicked up for theft Right.
You're detained now.
Right.
So hopefully that kind of cleansup some of those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because I think ultimately weall, you know, we, we want it to
be a little bit cleaner.
Needs to be a, a nation of lawsultimately.

(01:21:18):
Yeah.
So, so you're optimistic atleast a little bit right now and
uh Yep.
See what happens.
I'd love to see our visa programget fixed.
Um Okay.
We got 365 days for that topossibly happen, but then if
that doesn't happen, we'll befaced with some Oh, really?
Obstacles.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
'cause once you hit year tworight, they say, ah, less gets
done.
'cause now you're looking atmidterms.

(01:21:39):
Sure.
Then year three usually thingsswitch so Well, and that's the
interesting thing about like,I'm kind of a utilitarian of
sorts kind of as well, and it'slike a lot of people want to
come to America and a lot of'emare discouraged from this like
10 year process for actuallybecoming a citizen stuff.
Yep.
Like, we should have a superlicense, you know, if you got 50

(01:22:03):
grand.
Money solves most problems andyou're smart and capable of
learning and doing thecitizenship test and stuff.
Yeah.
And if you don't have 50 grand,that's fine.
Yeah.
Go through the regular process,it's still 10 grand.
Yeah.
You know, I don't disagree withthat.
And, and let's do a vettingprocess of who would add the
most value.
Yeah.
You know, when, when I'm lookingfor members of local think tank,

(01:22:24):
I'm like, who brings value andwho's a dumpster fire that I
don't want part of thisorganization, you know?
Yeah, yeah.
Totally.
Yeah.
It's uh.
It's a need.
Yeah.
It's a need.
So I'm glad to see, I mean, ifyou've been to DC before, you
see the number of buildings andthe number of people out there,
it's just staggering.
It's wild.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And some of'em are just sittingempty.
Right.
Or, or Oh yeah.

(01:22:45):
Limited people because they'vedone remote and work from home,
all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's kind of, I'm glad to see'em clean it up.
Um, don't think it's, you know,I don't think it's gonna be as
bad in the end as we, aseveryone's made it out to be.
That's good.
Yeah.
I hope that's true.
Yeah.
Uh, what's the, the podcast Ilistened to recently, uh, Doug
Wilson is, and he said, uh, thesquealing that you hear is, uh,

(01:23:07):
what happens when somebody getsbetween the hog and the trough.
Yeah.
So what's happening?
Anyway, I digress.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's, uh, well, good littlepolitical segment there, but
you're kind of from thatlibertine bent, let people do
what they want.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Don't, don't go into debt toomuch.
Don't fight wars.
Yep.
Yep.
Tell me, how do we fix Ukraine?

(01:23:28):
I.
Uh, just like they're sayingkind of, well, uh, the, the most
recent one is, um, they need topay us back.
Right.
So that's a, that's a goodstart.
We noticed you got a ton ofcobalt.
We noticed that you have 15 ofthe 25 most precious rare earth
metals.
Metals.
We'll go ahead and take half ofthose and that'll secure our
problems.

(01:23:48):
Yeah, it's an interesting, um,yeah.
I just, I mean, ultimatelythere, they're, they just have
to stop killing each other andwe can't have World War iii, so
a hundred percent let's, hundredpercent.
Let's just do that.
How do we Yeah, I agree.
And, you know, I don't thinkanyone's against helping'em, but
I think the fact that a largepercentage of the money or some
of the money is unaccounted forYeah.

(01:24:09):
I think is really part of theissue now.
Well, I mean, that's all of ourgovernment too, so I can't
really blame them too much.
Yeah.
Um, would you like to do thedreaded, uh, awkward question
ping's call quick.
Let ping call.
Okay.
So three balls and then I'llread the questions that are

(01:24:30):
associated with those numbers.
All right.
First up, number four.
Number four.
And we'll choose the order.
What would you estimate yourburp to Fart ratio is?
Oh, okay.
Okay.
That's interesting.
One.
Uh, burp.
More burps and farts.
I eat pretty well, so, okay.

(01:24:51):
Okay.
Not a lot of di digestive parts.
So burps are more an expressionof pleasure?
Yeah.
After a soda water or something.
Good.
Yeah.
That kind of thing.
Uh, the farts aren't toofrequent.
Yeah.
Nah.
No.
Okay.
So maybe like one to three orsomething?
That sounds about right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
All alright.
Sounds good.
23.
23.
That was my question, by theway.
Okay.
Okay.
That was pretty funny.

(01:25:12):
You got all the silly ones.
Any stupid human tricks you'reready to, uh, willing to share
or show?
Oh, I don't have many tricks.
Uh, nothing like from the oldtimey.
No.
Nothing crazy.
I have now just.
Pretty normal.
I don't have anything wrong.
Can you?
Can't cross your eye.
I mean, you can do that, butnothing like crazy.
Nothing.
I don't have anything.
Talents.
I have one.

(01:25:33):
I'm gonna see if I can show iton, on live.
I have to take my ear thingsoff.
Okay.
But this is my stupid humantrick I've got.
So you can do this, you can tryit if you want.
Okay.
You're kind of, you're both alittle bit like me with bigger
muscles.
So you're gonna have to takeyour, take your headphone off
and then, uh, put your arms hereand like, there you go.

(01:25:56):
Mm-hmm.
Your arms are way too big andyou go like this, and then you
tuck Oh.
Oh.
Your head through there.
Oh, yep.
No, I don't have You're notgonna make it.
You can't do that way.
I do.
No.
Yeah, you're way too tough forthat one.
Now.
That's not happening.
That's my one.
As far as I know, that's myonly.
Um, third, no crazy tricks.
Sorry.
Um, what number did I tell you?

(01:26:17):
23.
Uh, that was the student humantrick.
Yep.
24.
24.
I have 23 and 24.
Hmm.
24 is the final one.
Okay.
And I think, um, we'll make thisone the prize one.
Okay.
Oh, is that what this is for?
Is a prize for the lucky winner.
Yeah, that's you.
You definitely get the prize.
Yeah, but I, well, but somebodyshould win it.
Well, we'll, we'll have a prizefor the winner.

(01:26:38):
Okay.
Um, what is the most durablebusiness relationship you've
had?
Durable.
Durable, like either a person oranother business or.
Something that's been aroundfor, just about since the start.
Ooh, I got, uh, two, one, um,we've been working with a
consultant since 2007.
Um, he's now in his seventies.

(01:27:00):
You wanna shut him out?
Uh, his name's Jim Houston.
Um, actually a Colorado guy.
Yeah.
Um, good guy, uh, is reallytalked me off of the ledge a
lot, so kudos to Jim.
Good job, Jim.
Uh, second one is, um, probablymy good buddy Jason.
I talk to him every single week,uh, for 30 minutes on Wednesday.
Okay.
And, um, he's definitely talkedme off the ledge.

(01:27:22):
Like another, a business coach,a business leader.
He just, uh, friend from highschool, uh, met him here in Fort
Collins.
He actually works for DaveRamsey.
Oh, wow, okay.
The organization.
Okay.
Um, and, uh.
He just talks to me.
He's smart business guy and um,he really smart dude.
Helps me out a lot.
So yeah.
Helps keep you on track in thatgoal.

(01:27:42):
Helps keep me on track.
And you won your business andyour life on the kinda Ramsey
plan Ish.
Ish.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, uh, for a lotof years we didn't carry much
debt in the organization, right?
Yeah.
We are always just fear of oh 7,0 8 again.
Right, right, right.
No debt.
No debt.
No debt.
Okay.
Now, now to the size we are, youknow, we carry some debt,

(01:28:03):
strategic debt, the right debt,new trucks, debt that pays for
itself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We ultimately, you know, we, wedo these big exercise to figure
out where we should be kind ofpointing the ship, but
ultimately, yeah, we're stilldebt conscious.
Yeah, fair enough.
In how we run things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, if you, if your son,either of your sons, um, wanted

(01:28:24):
to start a business, like whatwould be some of the, the both
or anybody, you know, any 16,18, 20, 22, 20 4-year-old person
out there, that's.
You know, maybe got a job, butYep.
Could I start something?
Yep.
What advice do I have for'em?
Yeah, yeah.
Um, or would you tell'em not to?
No, no.
I, I tell'em, it's, uh, it's notfor everybody.

(01:28:46):
Yeah.
Um, you know, you, it'ssomething you don't stop
thinking about.
Right.
I mean, it's a, it's a all onall the time.
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of how itoperates, so, you know, it, uh,
I wouldn't steer'em against it,but you definitely ask a lot of
questions.
Know what you're getting intofirst.
Yeah.
What's your why, right?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, if people arelike, oh, I wanna make all this
money, uh, you're not in theright spot.
Yeah.
Oh, I wanna do all this.

(01:29:06):
Uh, okay.
Maybe, right.
You gotta have a pretty strong,you know, purpose.
Um, and understand that.
And so, you know, just tell,tell people, talk'em through it.
Help'em, you know, and there's alot of guys, there's a lot of
guys in this community that Italk to that are small
landscapers, medium sizedlandscapers.
Yeah.
Denver guys, you know, I try tooffer as much help as I can.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, when, when possible.

(01:29:28):
Well, and they can copy all ofwhat you've done that they want
to.
Probably, and it won'tnecessarily work the same for
them, you know?
Right.
Yeah.
It can help'em through some ofthose, uh, mistakes We made free
advice.
I would say that part of the,the peer advisory thing with
Loco is you can learn from otherpeople's mistakes once in a
while instead of just your own ahundred percent.
Um, you know, hundred percentshorten that learning gap just a

(01:29:48):
little bit.
Yeah.
The Loco experience is our finalsegment.
Yep.
It's, uh, the craziest storythat you're willing to share.
Crazy experience.
Um, oh man.
Could be a moment.
Could be a week, a year.
I don't know.
We've had some wild ones.
Um, 2017 almost broke us.

(01:30:08):
Um, took us all the way to thebottom.
We didn't get our H two B Visaworkers.
It allowed us to a hundredpercent pivot.
Um, that helped.
What do you mean?
Like, you almost broke itbecause of not getting your
workers in or something?
Yeah, we were just too relyingon'em.
Okay.
We were just, it was sonormalized for us and we just,
we were a young group, we wereyoung guys, um, and it kind of
almost, you know, broke us, sothey were like 70 something

(01:30:30):
percent of your.
Yeah, we were.
Oh,'cause Trump, no.
Took things down at the time orit was nothing political that
time.
They just ran out of v It was atotal, total crapshoot in 2017.
Why?
We didn't get'em, we were one ofthe first ones that didn't get
'em ever.
'cause it used to be such aneasy program to be in.
Oh, okay.
'cause they had the returningworker exemption.
So yeah, 2017 almost, um, tookus down.

(01:30:52):
And then, uh, did you scrambleand hire other workers locally
instead?
We did, yeah.
Okay.
Yep.
Scramble, hire locals.
Um, so we got through it.
We learned, we grew.
Best thing that ever happened tous on the other side of it.
Right, right, right.
Um, so secondary item is, um, mywife asked me before I came down
here, what are you gonna say?
And I was like, ah, I'm notsure.

(01:31:12):
She's like, well.
Most people wouldn't be susurprised.
But I'm six four weigh 230pounds in the last year.
My brother and I did rim to rimto rim in the Grand Canyon, so
Oh wow.
Ran 46 miles across, uh Oh dang.
The Grand Canyon and back.
So I was just telling somebodyabout one of our chapter members
today, uh, who's a formerfireman, um, built like a

(01:31:33):
linebacker kind of your size.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he ran a marathon last year.
Okay.
And I'm like, and he is.
You know, the farthest thingfrom built like a Gazelle.
So I appreciated hisdetermination.
And yours.
Yeah, because that's uh, howlong, how long of a that took
us, uh, oh geez.
17 hours.
That's pretty good.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(01:31:53):
Dude, it's 46 miles.
Do you run a lot still?
Um, or you trained up a longtime for that?
I did.
Last year.
I ran a marathon last year I wasOkay.
Yeah.
When a marathon is part of yourtraining.
Yeah, I was running a halfmarathon just randomly on like
Thursday mornings before work.
I'd get up at two 30 in themorning and go run a half
marathon and then go to work.
Your knees are all good andstuff.

(01:32:13):
I'm still holding on.
Yeah.
So far so good.
So far so good.
Long term, probably not.
So yeah.
I think this year we got oursites set on a 50 mile in, um,
uh, November.
Okay.
So, um, one of my members is theRun Windsor organizer.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh, Mandy, you might know ofher.
Okay.
Yep.
Um, but they've got a weld, yourmedal.
Is there a 24 hour race comingup here?

(01:32:35):
I saw that.
I might be at your style.
I don't know.
It's, uh, maybe I almost signedup for it, if I'm being honest.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, there's still time.
I'm pretty sure.
Yeah.
Uh, may is, may is not the besttime to be running marathons and
running a landscape business.
Well, it's not a marathon.
It's like, isn't it like youjust gotta run like a mile?
Or five miles every hour.

(01:32:56):
I think it's two miles.
Five per hour.
Two miles.
Yeah.
It's a two mile loop I think iswhat I read.
Yeah.
So you run 20 minutes, you sleepfor 20, you wake back up, you
run good for 24 hours orsomething.
That's a lot of running.
It's more about the mental I.
Yeah.
Probably because it's only ifit's two miles each time.
That's only 48 miles.
Yeah.
In 24 hours.

(01:33:16):
Shit, that's Yeah.
It's flat.
Too easy.
Yeah, it's flat.
It's out and eat.
Exactly.
The stars iss gonna bebeautiful.
Yeah.
There you go.
All right.
I'll, I'll tell Mandy you'resigning up.
Maybe we can get Zach.
George Landscaping is one of hersponsors.
There you go.
You'd like it.
There you go.
Um, do you wanna tell people howto find, uh, you, if they have
deed of what you do?
Yep.
Zach george landscaping.com.

(01:33:37):
Spelled with ZAK.
Um, oh, is that Zach Zacchaeusor Zacharias or something?
Or why is it Zack with a K?
There's not a K in my legalname, believe it or not.
Oh.
But that's how I've spelled itmy whole life.
All right.
So, alright.
Um, zach george landscaping.com.
Zg Landscaping on Instagram and,uh, Mr.
Zg for my personal Instagram,so.

(01:33:58):
Okay.
Alright on Brent.
That's it.
That's it.
Hey, any questions for me beforewe disband this, uh, merry
conversation?
No, had a great time.
Thanks.
All right, well thanks for beinghere.
Yeah, cheers.

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EXPERIENCE 213 | Zak George, Head Coach and Owner at Zak George Landscaping

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EXPERIENCE 213 | Zak George, Head Coach and Owner at Zak George Landscaping