EXPERIENCE 215 | Igniting Passion for Business through DECA with Edward Rinehart - Graduating Senior at Rocky Mountain High School and Future Business Leader - The LoCo Experience

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I met Edward Reinhardt at myRotary Club where he was sharing

(00:03):
his journey with deca, theDistributed Education Clubs of
America, an organization thatprepares emerging leaders and
entrepreneurs and marketing,finance, hospitality, and
management through educationalprograms and competitions.
Colorado had 9,000 participantsin DECA programs in 2024 with
the top competitors advancingthrough district competitions to
state and international.

(00:24):
Edward has been involved in DECAfor all four years of his high
school journey.
Made it all the way to theinternational competition his
freshman year, and has served onthe leadership team ever since.
He won the state competition inentrepreneurship this February,
and we're wishing him luck atinternationals in May.
This is a different journey thanmost of our local experience
episodes just getting started,but I learned a lot and enjoyed

(00:46):
a wonderful conversation, andyou will too.
So especially if you've gotkiddos still in school or
grandkids going to high schoolsoon, or if you might want to be
a volunteer judge for thedistrict or state competitions,
I hope you'll tune in and enjoymy conversation with Edward
Reinhardt.
Let's have some fun.

(01:12):
Welcome to the Loco ExperiencePodcast.
On this show, you'll get to knowbusiness and community leaders
from all around NorthernColorado and beyond.
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.

(01:40):
Welcome back to the LocoExperience Podcast.
My guest today is EdwardReinhardt and he is a student
here in Fort Collins at Rocky.
So let's do jump right intolike, um, DECA as a program.
So the, the purpose of it isreally for kind of practical
experience for business studentsYeah.
Ish.

(02:00):
In, in a way get them thinkingbigger Uhhuh.
So I think what the best thingthat DECA provides is kind of
get to dip your toes in a littlebit.
Get to see, is this somethingthat I want to do in my future?
Do I want to be a financeperson?
Do I want to do marketing?
Do I want to be an entrepreneur?
All those kinds of things.

(02:20):
And it, it lets you.
Test it out before you have togo and get that degree or, or
even pick a degree co Right.
Course for college, whatever,all those things.
Yeah.
Because that can be very costlyor to make that kind of
decision, especially reallyearly on in life, and it
provides those kinds ofopportunities to say, yeah,
yeah.
Do I like this?
Do I, do I like these conceptsof marketing?

(02:40):
Do I like entrepreneurship?
Do I like working on these 20page reports?
Yeah.
Is this something that I couldsee myself doing for the rest of
my life?
Well, and even getting a chanceto probably interact with a
number of business people andthings like that.
Is that true?
Yeah.
At the, at the, especially atthe international level, you get
to meet a lot of people, uh, butalso in the local level.
Like I, in my experience, I'venetworked and talked to a bunch

(03:03):
of business leaders Sure.
Around here.
Yeah.
You weren't scared to come onthe local experience podcast.
Right.
I got to meet you.
Yeah.
So there's a lot of differentopportunities involved with
that, and it's, it's a verylower, low stakes experience.
Mm-hmm.
But it, it.
You know, in a way providesavenues for, okay, this is what
I might be doing as a sportsmarketer or as a marketing

(03:25):
professional.
Yeah.
As a finance individual.
Is this a, a, a nonprofitorganization or is it like a
four H kind of thing almost, ora Rotary club?
I think they're a 5 0 1 C3 iswhat they're officially listed
as.
But so they're an international,uh, nonprofit with associations

(03:45):
listed around the world.
Oh, right.
Like almost like chapters orwhatever.
Right.
Yeah.
So there's 50 50 associations inthe United States.
Okay.
And then there's, I don'tremember the exact count, like
14 international associations,so, okay.
Germany, Japan, uh, Mexico,Canada, yeah.

(04:05):
Are some of the big ones wherethey can get enough traction.
India, uh, all have pretty biginternational associations where
they have also, similar to theway it runs in Colorado, for
example, they also do it.
In those countries.
And are you doing the same thingat the district level, say the
pitch competition, the casestudy kind of, um, analyses, if

(04:26):
you will, and then I guessthey're judged by somebody.
Yes.
They're judged by either a lotof time, like parent volunteers,
but also business people.
Sure.
So yeah, there's, there's kindof a, a lot of different forms
of competition.
So there's the, there's theofficial DECA competition.
So you go to your districtcompetition, which qualifies you
for the state, which qualifiesyou for the international

(04:46):
competition.
Okay.
So those are the three steps up.
And then in Coloradospecifically, and in a couple
other states, there are theseinvitationals, which are kind of
practice, almost like club team.
Right.
And they're a lot, they're a lotmore low stakes, a lot more fun.
But like anyone can sign up for'em, but you have to pay for'em.
And it's like, does your, doesyour school, so does Rocky
Mountain High School want to goto.

(05:08):
X, Y, Z.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Invitational.
And it's more optional.
Yeah.
So like everyone has to go tothe district competition, and
then if you qualify fromdistricts, everyone has to go to
state.
And if you qualify for state,everyone has to go to
internationals.
Like that's like kind of likethe, everyone does that.
Yeah.
And then the internationals ismore like, oh, do we want to go
for the weekend all the way downto Denver to go due to that one?
Yeah.

(05:29):
Yeah, yeah.
Is international still upcoming?
It was a state conference thatjust happened.
Kinda, yeah.
So state just happened.
We had the biggest statecompetition ever, actually.
Okay.
It was, that was so much workfor at least me and my team.
Okay.
And then internationals will bein May, it'll be the third week
of May in the us Yeah.

(05:49):
It'll be in Orlando, Florida.
Okay.
Yeah.
Orlando's good at hosting largegroups.
And how many people will takepart in the internationals?
23,000 plus.
Wow.
It's one of the larger highschool competitions, like all
students.
And then there's othersupporting people, or that's all
the people.
So that's, that's all.
Competitors.
Okay.
So then, so that's all students?
That's all students, yeah.
And then that's not evencounting the, there's 10,000

(06:11):
other people, the, the judgesdoing stuff.
People behind the scenes, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred thousand other people.
Probably.
Probably, yeah.
Interesting.
If it was like a Legocompetition, it would be, uh,
you maybe more fun to watch, whoknows?
But depends on if you likebusiness a lot or not.
Yeah.
Um, wow.
That's what a big, uh, and howabout at the state level in
Colorado here?
How many people it done that?

(06:31):
So we have 9,000 members reallyacross the state.
And does everybody make it tostate?
So not everyone makes it tostate.
Yeah.
So everyone gets to compete atdistricts.
Yeah.
And actually in some districts,so we have 13 districts around
the state at some really bigdistricts.
So Cherry Creek has.
500 members in their chapter.
Okay.
Like, it's massive.

(06:51):
And that's just con, that's justin making up juniors and
seniors.
They only let juniors andseniors.
Wow.
And that's 500 members.
Oh.
So they get to send more thantwo kids to state, right.
Or whatever.
Right.
So they do a pre districts.
Mm.
So you have to qualify fromthere.
So, so you have to, they decidewho goes to districts and then
they send from districts toqualify to state.

(07:11):
So they have four different waysthat they get to go.
Yeah.
So we had almost 2,750 people atour state competition
participants.
Yeah.
Oh wow.
Colorado is the ninth.
Is the ninth largest.
It's in the top 10 ofassociation size.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we're a very sizable state.
And then how many people get togo to international outta that

(07:32):
2,750 at State?
I mean, it depends.
Uh, I didn't tell you to gatheryour statistics side of time.
Um, it kind of depends.
So.
Most events send six people inColorado.
Oh, wow.
And I think there's 30 something40 around 40 events.
Okay.

(07:53):
Okay.
And how do they tier them?
Are there, it depends on parttechnology, this, or different
industries or, so there's likedifferent, so they do it based
on like cluster.
So there's marketing,entrepreneurship, finance is
sports, no sports on its ownmarketing, finance,
entrepreneurship.
I, I should be able to name allthese.

(08:15):
That's all right.
So there's several different,there's, there's several
different clusters.
And then depending on the amountof people that participate in
each individual event, get togo.
So no one does accounting,right?
So if you wanna get tointernationally, you go
accounting track, you might, noone does the accounting events.
So they send five people andusually there's like.
Different stages at the statecompetition.

(08:37):
So there's like a, there's likeinitial and then there's a final
and you have to, you have toqualify through, get through the
qualifiers almost to, to thefinal, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kind of like tiered.
There's no final, you just, youdo your one thing, the final,
and then you know itautomatically if you make it to
international, because no onedoes accounting well.
But the most popular one is likeapparel.
Everyone wants to do apparelmarketing.
Okay.
'cause like, that's somethingreally interesting.

(08:59):
Yeah, for sure.
You get to talk about clothingand like, doing very every day
stuff.
Maybe even bring some fabric andRight.
That's a lot more fun.
So that one has, like, there, I,I don't know exactly how many,
but judging off of the 300people that were in my event,
I'm gonna guess over 500 peoplein the state and that one event.
Oh wow.
So that's a lot more people.
A lot.
Totally.
More ways that you have to goaround.

(09:20):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, describe like.
Uh, like is it, is it thepitches and the case studies
and, and it's just kind of, isit different design kind of
things?
And is that of curricula that'skind of across the whole
spectrum or do differentchapters and things kind of
design, like, let's do this.

(09:42):
Yeah.
So there's like a DECAcurriculum Okay.
That DECA gives out.
Yep.
At the national level.
And not everyone does that.
It kind of depends.
And then you're learning stuffthat's applicable in your class.
So the whole idea is, okay, soyou're learning.
Marketing concepts Yep.
In your classroom.
So I'm, I'm in marketing 1 0 1right now.

(10:03):
Okay.
For example, right.
I'm in Marketing 1 0 1, I'mlearning the, the four Ps,
right?
Price, price, place, promotion,and product.
Yep.
Okay.
And I sometimes people define itdifferently.
Sometimes there's five.
So, so those are, those are thedeck of four Ps.
Right?
Right.
Those are the things that youneed to know for Deca.
Oh, right.
Cool.
And I can learn that in mymarketing class, and then I can

(10:25):
see that on my marketing roleplay, and I can say, oh, wow, I
learned this in class.
Let me, let me talk about this.
Right.
Okay.
So like, my, my role play isgonna ask me to come up with a
promotional campaign.
How do I talk about the four P'sthat I learned about in class?
And apply that to, to this?
Yes.
In this role play.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I'm asked to make apromotional campaign for this

(10:46):
ice cream parlor.
Right.
'cause I'm the head ofmarketing.
Sure.
For example.
And then I have 10 minutes tocome up with that.
So, so it's designed to work intandem, and then how do I do
that better than the otherpeople?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
So how am I a little bit morecreative?
Or do you're a little moreinsightful about your
marketplace, right?
Your customer demographic, allthose things that I can come up
with.
And probably gatheringinformation on your customers

(11:07):
and things like that becomespart of Well, you're, you're
kind of just making that up asyou go.
Gotcha, gotcha.
But, uh, you're storytelling abit, right?
You're making assumptions, butthey're valid, you know,
grounded in some reality.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like, if, if it says like,okay, you're head of marketing
for this ice cream place andit's in a mid-size city and you
want to target like teenagers,right?

(11:28):
Okay.
So I have to come up with thispromotional plan.
I come up with a promotionalplan.
I talk, I talk about my four Ps,and then I come up with my
target market and I do all, Igot the best plan.
It's, uh, ice cream promotionswith teenager produced music in
the park.
Perfect.
Right.
And I'm your judge and I likethat a lot.
Boom.
I give you, you know, a 90 pluson your role play and you do

(11:49):
really well in your exam thatyou have to take beforehand.
Yeah, yeah.
You win and then you get to goon a state and then you do that
again.
You go on internationals, you dothat again.
King of the world, like that'scool.
Cool.
So it's like both subjective andobjective based on, right?
Yeah.
So not probably just your plan.
But also your pitch, yourcharisma, your connection to the
judges.
How many judges are typical?

(12:10):
Um, one to two.
Okay.
You can have up to three.
Okay.
Okay.
But it's like one to two.
So it could just be one decider.
Yeah.
Their nephew automatically wins.
That's, it's actually happenedbefore that you get someone that
you're related to or, you know,and there's, there's issues with
that, but, right.
Maybe invite a second judge justto validate a little bit.

(12:30):
I, I like in a finals, so ifyou, if you have a second role
play where they kind of use thatto determine, like amongst
finalists.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They, they usually have twojudges.
And were you too busy organizingthis year to participate or did
you also enter into thecompetition?
So I did participate this year.
Okay.
So, uh, I participated inentrepreneurship.

(12:50):
Okay.
Uh, which was my role play.
And then I did a pitch, whichwas international business plan.
Okay.
I did not do well ininternational business plan this
year.
There are.
Like a lot of that one's reallycompetitive position.
Yeah.
So, so that one's like theCherry Creeks valor's, uh,
really good, good, good programsof the world.
Okay.
And they spend a lot of time onthat.

(13:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fortunately I did not do verywell this year, but uh, I came
in first place.
You got the state?
Yeah.
Well, everyone goes to state forthe written actually.
Okay.
You automatically qualify forthe written because there's not
enough that do writtens.
Okay.
So you automatically qualify tostate, there's no preliminary,
but for districts you have toqualify.
So I came first in districts forentrepreneurship.
Okay.
All right.
I came first in the state forentrepreneurship.

(13:33):
Okay.
So I was state champion forentrepreneurship and now I'm
going to internationals.
Oh.
Well, I thought you said youdidn't do that well for
International Business plan.
Oh, so you did both?
Yeah, you can do bothsimultaneously.
Oh, I see.
So sorry.
I was in addition to running thestate conference, so.
Gotcha.
So you went to, you're going tointernational in the
entrepreneurship side?
I am.
And tell me about like.

(13:54):
Your pitch or your case study orwhat you were, what?
And is it the same?
Will you go to internationalwith the same effective plan
with some polish?
So, uh, a little bit going alittle bit deeper into like how
it works.
Yeah.
You, you get, you show up toyour call time, you have a
little time, and it says, okay,Edward needs to show up at eight

(14:15):
50.
So I show up at eight 50, I sitdown and then there's like
someone waiting for me, and thenwe all wait for everyone to show
up.
Okay.
And at the same time, someoneelse is going like, giving their
pitch.
Yep.
And then we get taken to a room,and then they tell us to wait.
Okay.
And in front of us is our, isour like plan that we have to

(14:36):
come up with.
So it, it gives us our summary,like, and our challenge that we
have to solve.
Oh.
And we have, and then they'relike, okay, wait, don't flip it
over yet.
Oh.
Like this is, this is the thing.
Like, don't flip it over.
So they wait, they're like 3, 2,1.
You get 10 minutes.
So you flip it over, then youhave 10 minutes to read it over.
So then I read it over and it'slike, okay, you are to assume

(14:57):
the role of CEO of X company,your Jo Wow.
Your, your goal is to, you know,increase sales by 10%.
How do you do that?
And then it's like, and then itgives, gives me, and then it
gives me, like, it gives me likefour objectives Yep.
That I have to hit at the sametime.
And then I have 10 minutes andone sheet of paper to draw
everything up.
Like, you know, do I wanna drawmy graphs?

(15:18):
Do I wanna draw a marketingplan?
Do I wanna draw anadvertisement?
Do I wanna draw a T-shirt andpretend like that's my product?
Whatever I wanna do, I have 10minutes to do that.
Okay.
And they say 10 time's up.
Drop your paper, drop yourpencils.
Wow.
Okay.
Collect your notes.
And everybody's got the samequestion every, everyone's in
different events.
Okay.
And then they take us back.
You find your judge.
So I find ENT, which is theshorthand for my event.

(15:40):
I shake my hand, not judge him.
Hi, I'm Edward Reinhardt, I'mthe CEO and I'm meeting with my
CFO, but I've never met thisperson before, but I'm supposed
to as like pretend.
Yep.
Here's what we're gonna do.
This is my CFO.
And be like, I'm really excitedto speak with you.
My CFO wink wink on thisopportunity.
So this is how we're gonnaincrease sales by 10%.
And I have 10 minutes to explainthat.

(16:01):
And then I show her my notes.
This is how we're gonna do it.
Yep.
And then.
And then someone goes on the,did they get to ask you some
questions?
Do you have to defend?
They have to ask me twopredetermined questions.
Okay.
They ask me my two questions,and then some judge comes on the
loudspeaker says, you have oneminute remaining.
So then I'm like, oh, crap, Ihave to hurry up.
And then I finish it up, shaketheir hand, walk out, and then

(16:22):
that's it.
That's the whole thing.
Wow.
And I'm sorry, but I'm kind ofimagining like a diving judge
where you're like, okay, didthey execute the dive?
No, that's the whole thing.
How hard was it?
You know, this kind of thing.
And they're, the judges arelike, no.
Yeah, because they're talking tohow many kids?
20 over the day, each person,each person comes, all comes up
with something else huddle.
And something boils out ofthere.

(16:43):
Right?
Yeah.
And then, and then they decide,okay, who's making it to
tomorrow?
Yeah.
And then tomorrow.
Okay.
Everyone sees the same judge.
Oh, okay.
So, so we're in like differentsections.
So it's kind of like a.
Kinda like bracket style.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so everyone, everyone triesto make it out of their bracket.
Yeah.
Yeah.
More like heat style, right?
Kinda like heat than bracketbecause you're not facing just

(17:05):
one person.
I guess more like round robin.
Round robin heat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So then everyone tries to makeit out their heat.
Yep.
To then face one all, all eachother against the same judge.
Okay.
And then the judge is like,okay, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Interesting.
And then that's it.
And is that judge familiar withthese other kids already?
No.
Or is it a fresh judge?
Fresh judge.
Okay.
That's good.
Brand new, fresh judge.
That's pretty cool.

(17:25):
And then in addition to the casestudies, everyone takes a test
and the test accounts for asmaller portion of the score,
but it can be the determiningfactor.
Sure.
In some cases.
So I.
Recently at the stateconference?
Yep.
I did not have the highest roleplay score.
I actually had the third highestrole play score.
Oh.
But I had the highest testscore.

(17:45):
Okay.
So I ended up winning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
Just by that.
Congratulations.
That thin, thin margin.
And did number two get to go tointernational too?
So top six.
Okay.
So, so you'll have to face'emagain?
Potentially kind of, uh, or inthe heat form.
They'll, so they, so it's, it'sregion protected.
Oh.
So I won't see them in my heat.
Yeah.
Again, um, unless you make it tothe final finals.

(18:06):
Unless we all make to thefinals.
Right, right.
Those Cherry Creek kids areprobably there too, which is
when I'll see them again.
Yeah.
Assuming I even make it there.
So I've been once before.
Okay.
I did not make it to the finals.
I was immediately eliminated.
Right.
Right then and there.
So I made it to internationalsand then just cut.
But that was like your freshmanyear or something?
That was my freshman year.
That's what I thought.
Yeah.
Um, and was that inentrepreneurship as well?

(18:27):
Or what were you, what did youmake international in then?
So there's a special event,special type of event called
principles.
Okay.
For first year DECA members.
Okay.
Yeah.
So principles of marketing, kindof foundations level stuff.
Yeah.
Marketing, management, financeand entrepreneurship.

(18:47):
Yep.
And I did the management one andI made it, I was state champion
my freshman year.
Uh, and then I made it all theway there.
But my very first round got cut.
Okay.
Didn't make it outta heat.
Did not make it outta my heat.
Yep.
But, you know, it's okay.
Were you competing against kidsthat were sophomores, juniors,
seniors.
So any or just freshmen in yourcase?

(19:08):
Case?
Anyone who could, anyone who's afirst year I a member?
Could be.
Oh, so like a senior that justsigned up could also be
competing against a freshman.
Yes.
Interesting.
Yeah.
But as long as they're fresh.
Yeah.
They had to be freshies.
Yeah.
Or fresh to the program.
Brand new to Deca.
Yeah.
And is there any place to gowithin Deca?
Like you're graduating, I assumeyou're gonna go to college

(19:28):
somewhere or something.
Is there an extension of that atthe next.
It's phase.
Yeah.
So there is collegiate deca.
Okay.
I It's lame comparatively.
I mean, I like to don't have tosay it.
I, ill say it.
I think so.
I'm more prefer I, I'mpreferential to high school Deca
'cause that's what I've done mywhole life.
Fair.
Um, it's smaller.

(19:49):
Yeah.
There, but it, it's morespecific.
Right.
So I don't know if you'refamiliar with like college case
study competitions?
Not particularly.
But I've met, you know, peoplewithin the CSU faculty at
different levels and theentrepreneurship and business
programs.
And there's a lot of differentkind of opportunities.
Right.
And the college kind of wants tocurate some of it.

(20:10):
I assume.
It's, it's, it's a lot more akinto a collegiate case study
competition where it, it's moregeared towards like maybe a
consulting interview wherethey'll.
Give you a lot more data in themoment where you're like, okay,
what's turnover ratio?
Not quite the 10 minute exercisedrill.
It's because they're funnelingso many people mm-hmm.

(20:30):
Through in your case, right?
Yeah.
Like, it's almost like a battleroyale.
Well, and at the end of the dayit's, it's also like we're high
schoolers, right?
Fair.
So like, what can you really beasking of us?
Like, I mean, you seem about assmart as most people I talk to
in this room, so, you know, butlike, you're not gonna be asking
a high schooler about like debtratios.
Yes.
You haven't got that deep yet.

(20:50):
Yeah.
Like you have, you have notlearned that in any of your
finance classes.
Fair.
But like, that's what you'regonna be asking in collegiate,
DECA, it's gonna be a bit more.
Specialized before we like jumpback to learn how you got so
smart.
By this time, let's talk aboutwhat's next for you a little
bit.
Like, uh, do you have a collegepicked out?

(21:11):
Have you been accepted to someIvy League Choice financial
school or something like that?
Um, so I'm actually wearing itright now.
Oh, that's Villanova.
Uh, Virginia.
Virginia, yes.
The University of Virginia.
Cavaliers.
Cavaliers.
Yes.
Wahoo wa Wahoo wa That's theirwhat?
They tight song's.
What?
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, that's, is that a familyhistory or anything like that or

(21:32):
just, uh, they gave you a nicefat scholarship, let you in.
Um, yeah.
Pretty decent family history.
And my mom went, my dad went, myaunt went, oh wow.
My uncle got his MBA.
I think my other uncle wentthere for something great uncle
went.
Okay.
Um, is there a Reinhardt Hall oranything?
No, we don't have names onbuildings.

(21:53):
All right.
Yeah.
Not that kind of family.
Quite, no, no.
All right.
Uh, but just excited about itsounds like I loved, loved the
school.
Very excited.
Um, loved it forever.
Yeah.
Growing up watching UVAbasketball 2019 was about, were
you kind of a shoo in because ofall that family history, or did
they have to use like, minoritypoints to get a lot of white guy
in there?
I think, well, they actually,they actually got rid of that.

(22:15):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Yes.
There's no more, no more legacystuff.
Yeah.
Um, you Virginia's one of thefew states, uh, one of five,
including Colorado actually, tooutlaw legacy admission.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
Oh, your school.
I'm, I just, you know, havinggone through the whole process.
Right.
So you were a little bit scaredyou might not get in.
I've learned, I've learned aboutthis stuff.

(22:36):
They actually sent my parents,the, the alumni association sent
my parents just flies a letter aweek before I was supposed to
get my.
My notice, um, if I got in ornot.
They sent a letter and they'relike, Hey, by the way, we have
no, just so you know, like, likewe don't have any, we can't
control anything.
Like, yeah.
Sorry.
If doesn't, doesn't matter howmuch you donate, sorry.

(22:56):
If he doesn't get in, likedonate a bunch.
But it doesn't, but continue.
Give us money if he doesn't getin.
Right.
He's, but like when I saw theletter, I was like, whoa, are
they telling him that I didn'tget in?
I'm sure it was terrifying.
'cause it was like just one weekbefore and I was like, did I not
get in?
Like, why are they, why are theysending a letter right now?
Before I expected it, this wasstrange, but fortunately That's

(23:17):
hilarious.
I got in and when was that?
Uh, early December.
Okay.
mid-December.
So I guess it came in likeDecember 17th was when we got
the, December 7th was when wegot the letter and I found out
on the 13th.
Okay.
Was, was when I got in.
Cool.
Well, congrats.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Uh, when will you be moving outthat way?
Mid October or Midgut or Soorientations like July.

(23:38):
Oh, wow.
And then, uh, move in days likeAugust something.
Okay.
If I'm not mistaken.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you have family out that waytoo, or your folks, do they grow
up in that region and thenColorado?
So my dad's from Baltimore.
Okay.
And then my mom's fromLouisiana.
Oh.
Uh, but I have two extendedfamily members, or I guess an

(24:00):
aunt and another aunt.
Okay.
And then their families, they'rein Richmond, Virginia.
Yeah.
So this is, so the UVA's inCharlottesville.
Okay.
And that's in Richmond.
I don't know if you're familiarwith Not really.
Like take me the map a littlebit.
So, so they're just an houraway.
Oh, sure.
So, uh, yeah, I think it'sEaster.
That's nice.
That's perfect.
It's just an hour.
That way they won't just beshowing up on you.

(24:20):
Right.
But you can go for a weekend andhang out.
Have some nice, yeah.
If I really need to get a lagdinner, you know, that kind of
thing.
Oh, by the way, do you wannaopen your, uh, your short gift
here?
Yeah.
Normally it's like stimulus wineglasses.
Oh.
I'll get you some hot saucebefore we leave here too, but,
uh oh, thank you.
I love hot sauce.
Yeah.
You've got, uh, that's of ping ppong balls.
Yeah, ping pong balls and someloco think tank cups.
I thought that would be likeyour beer pong starter kit.

(24:42):
Kinda not for another threeyears.
Well, you go to collegeofficially.
Officially then.
Uh, well, and a and then alittle travel kit.
Oh, nice.
I figured very much.
You seem like you're gonnatravel a lot in your world.
Probably will be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, um, I guess, uh, ifthere were, you know, two, three
things that you were gonna saythat you learned from your

(25:05):
decade experience so far, um,what would be the, like, I know
I've got in my past Yeah.
In business, just a few likepivotal things where it just
really changed how I thought ofthat.
No, that's a really goodquestion.
Um, and maybe it's just one.
Don't, no, I, no, I, I can, Ican come up with some stuff.
All right.
Um, number one I'd have to sayis like, just the power of

(25:29):
networking and connection.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Um, deck is great for meetingpeople.
It's such a massive club,especially, you probably know
people all over the state andall over the world at this
point, especially in, inColorado.
Yeah.
You get to meet so many people,so many amazing people.
You get to do such amazingthings.
Um, I always like to say.

(25:52):
Um, like with everything, and Ithink this is true with
everything in life, you get outwhat you put in.
And that is so true.
With Deca, it could just be aclub.
Yeah.
Like you, you could, itliterally could have a couple
friendships be like, you justshow up to the meeting, you
learn a couple little things.
You just go to some of thecompetitions, like you just do
it to learn a couple things.

(26:13):
Like, and that's great.
Like I, like, that's literallywhat it could have been for me.
But, um, and actually freshmanyear, that's what it was going
to be.
I used to like, so I used tothink that the people on stage
doing what I did this year, likeas a state officer Yeah.
Were the lamest, lamest peopleever.
Like, well, they are justkidding.
Like, no, no.

(26:34):
It's kind of true.
It's true and not true.
Like, like I used to think likedrinking the Kool-Aid was the
lamest thing ever.
Yeah, yeah.
Like.
But as, as time went on, I waslike, it's not cool.
Huh?
The teachers are encouragingthis stuff, right?
Because it's really good for us.
It's good for you.
Yeah.
Like to, to put everything in,like go all in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Love it.
Like dig it.
Really go.
If you're gonna be in the band,learn how to play that clarinet

(26:55):
Exactly.
To the best of your ability.
Exactly.
So I think Deca going, I kindalost my message there.
Yeah.
Networking.
Yeah.
Meeting people, like going allout, expanding your horizons,
expanding your horizons, I thinkwas one of the best things that
I learned from Deca.
I've met so many amazing people.
I've made so many great friends.
I don't know if my ex team isever gonna watch this episode,

(27:17):
but if you are Yeah, they will.
I, I'll, I'm gonna send this tothem.
I love them so much.
They're some of my greatestfriends of all time.
That's cool.
I've learned so much from them.
They're amazing people like yourteam to put on the district
event kind of thing.
Is that what you're talkingabout here?
That, uh, the state officers.
Cool.
So the former state officers, doyou wanna give a shout out to
anybody?
Shout out to Ramo.
Shout out to Alan Kayden.

(27:37):
Devin Charise Braxton.
I, I have so many people I totalk to.
Sophia Hadley.
Uh, Abby.
Abby.
Uh, oh my God.
We're at 10.
I need a couple more tech.
Uh, I'm sorry if I'm forgettingyou.
I'm sorry.
You still loved Yeah, butmeeting them and meeting so many
other people, especially in myschool.

(27:58):
Yeah.
I would not be where I am todayif it weren't for Yeah, yeah.
Those opportunities.
Yeah.
One of those, those kids' Dadmight give you a job somewhere.
Yeah.
You just don't know.
Who knows?
Yep.
Um, and so studying what at, uh,Virginia Cavaliers.
Um, so that's kind of acomplicated question.
Okay.
So right now I'm in the Collegeof Arts and Sciences.

(28:20):
Okay.
Uh, and I th what I think I wastechnically admitted to.
Economics.
Okay.
So I think I'll be an economicsmajor.
Alright.
And I might stay there, but I haI can apply to the business
school next year.
Oh, I see.
So you can't just get right intothe business school.
Mm-hmm.
No.
So hopefully, well it'sactually, it's actually

(28:41):
commerce.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
'cause it's a commonwealth andstuff.
They use those kind of oldenglishy terms and stuff.
So I'll be, I'll be studyingcommerce with a specialization
in quantitative finance.
Is Virginia like thicker withBrits than other of the New
England states?
Uh, kind of just based on like.
Who decided they were the bigboss state in the early days and

(29:04):
stuff.
I mean, I guess so.
It feels, my last name Bear isa, is a old English name.
Okay.
And there were bears in NewYork, like in 1715 or something
like that.
Uh, and we were veryunsuccessful'cause there's still
only like 50,000 of us in thewhole country.
You know, we had an early start,but we didn't, we're breeders
very good apparently.
Um, but I just, curiosity wise,I was just, I was watching a

(29:27):
video the other night aboutwhere the Scandinavians settled
in the US and different places.
And I'm, I guess Virginia'sprobably a melting pot now'cause
everybody gets sucked to thehoney neck or Washington DC
Yeah, you got, you got Nova,which is wild.
You got Arlington and all thatstuff.
Right.
All that too.
But even just Washington DC islike a magnet.
It's a melting pot of sorts.
Right?
Mm-hmm.

(29:48):
Um, and how far away from DC areyou then?
Uh, I know the train ride islike three and a half hours.
Okay.
Which is really nice.
So it's like Richmond is below.
DC and then like C Charlotteover then Cville to the west.
Yeah.
Okay.
Little go.
Cool.
So is it up on a river overthere or something like that?
Or where's, why isCharlottesville where it's at?
Um, it's right by Monticello.

(30:09):
Okay.
Oh, so, so this is, so they saythis is Thomas Jefferson's
University.
Gotcha.
So he, he built, and that's kindof a complicated thing to say,
right.
He more or less instigatedinstated because he was
basically broke himself most ofhis life.
He, he developed, got richpeople to make that he developed
the university.
Oh, interesting.

(30:30):
Cool.
And he created the idea Yeah.
Of the, of the University ofVirginia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was gone before it got nearlyas cool as it has become.
Right.
Presumably.
Um, interesting.
Okay.
Well, Godspeed there.
That seems like a, uh, a goodpath to pursue.
And like any notions, are you.

(30:51):
Like, have an emphasis infinance and business, or do you
wanna be an entrepreneur?
Do you wanna be a marketer?
Um, I mean, it will kind ofdepend on a couple of things.
Uh, I'm not usually it's early.
I'm not usually a math guy.
Okay.
Um, so if I end up learning the,like learning how to do the
math.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I'll do finance, but I have,I have to like the math Yeah.

(31:14):
To be successful.
Yeah.
So, uh, if I learn, if I learnhow to, like the math, I'll do
finance Well and even deepereconomics.
Right.
Or like economic theory or go,I'll go deep into economics.
Yep.
If I hate the math.
Yeah.
I'll do marketing Fair.
Yeah.
So, you know, I got two paths.
I get it.
Yeah.
Um, you seem like a psychologyguy a little bit too.

(31:37):
Uh, I've been told that I shouldbe a therapist.
My mom, my mom wants me to be atherapist.
Wow.
Or like a psychologist orsomething.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, well, marketing makes a lotmore money and basically uses
the same principles, so Right.
Just take a ex, get an extraemphasis on psychology during
your marketing journey.
Yeah.
It wouldn't be a bad idea.
So, um, let's, uh, let's kind ofzoom back.

(31:59):
We always zoom back in the timemachine to little Edward of
wondering, uh, like you kind ofsaid, you know, you thought the
deca nerds were for dorks earlyon, right?
Like, describe your, your earlyyears, uh, and maybe your family
background just a little bittoo.
What are your folks up to?
Where'd they come from?
Yeah, so I, you said Baltimore,Louisiana.

(32:20):
I guess we'll go.
How'd they get here?
We can, we can go way back.
Let's go with way back.
Where were you born?
So I was born in Dallas, Texas.
Oh, okay.
And my dad back then was aconsultant with.
Bain.
Okay.
I think.
Yep.
That was one of like the bigfive shop.
Yeah.
So he was, he was kind ofhopping around.
Okay.
He was doing a bunch ofdifferent stuff.

(32:41):
At some point he was consultingon stuff, stuff, being smart.
Yeah.
I, I'm not sure what project hewas with back at Bain.
Um, I do know at some pointbefore I was born, he was with
Pricewaterhouse Cooper.
Okay.
Working on the B two bomber.
Oh, interesting.
And he found out that we wereinvading Afghanistan three weeks
before we invaded Afghanistan.
Oh wow.

(33:01):
And that was kind of a mind blowfor him.
Yeah.
Um, but, uh, so my parents metat Virginia.
My dad always likes to say thatif he wasn't so stupid, he
wouldn't have met my mom.
'cause he took a fifth year tofinish college Fair.
All right.
Um, I did that by election.
I was like, if I get outtacollege, then I gotta go get a
job.
Like this is pretty fun here.

(33:23):
So they met, um.
My mom was finishing, actually,I think my mom, my mom graduated
early and my dad graduated late.
Okay.
So it's kind of funny.
Yep, yep.
Um, they met, uh, then my dadwent to go work for a little
while.
Then he got his master's at Tuckat Dartmouth in Master's of
Business Association.

(33:43):
Okay.
MBA?
Yeah, he got his MBA at Tuck,and then I was born Okay.
Uh, in Dallas.
That's when they moved downthere.
And then my dad stayed aroundthere shopping around a bunch of
different consulting groups, Ithink.
Interesting.
And then did he have aspecialty?
Was he a finance guy?
Was he an idea guy?
So he has a background in, uh,it's always interesting to me

(34:03):
engineer people that come outtacollege and then they just like
become consultants.
So he is, he's a background in,uh, eng.
Oh my God.
What kind of engineering?
Mmm.
Systems engineering.
Yeah.
Or industrial, that kind ofprocess.
Engineering kind stuff.
System engineering.
So he's, he's a really goodthinker.
Yeah.
He's really good at math.
And then he added some businesssense to that.
Yeah.
And my mom was a nursepractitioner for a while.

(34:24):
Okay.
So, and she was practicing for awhile.
Um, and then my dad got calledup to Honeywell to do strategy
for them.
Okay.
Uh, and that moved us toLouisville.
Oh, Kentucky.
Interesting.
So, so we were there for alittle under a year.
Alright.
So at that point I was six.
Okay.
Yep.
Dallas.
And that's where you startremembering things.
Kind of Dallas for five years.
Then we moved to Louisville forsix.

(34:46):
And in that span, both mysisters were born.
Okay.
So I'm five years older than myyoungest sister.
Two or, uh, just under threeyears older than my middle
sister.
Okay.
And did your mom leave hercareer?
At some And my mom, my momstopped working, uh, right as we
left Dallas.
Gotcha, gotcha.
As far as I understand, I thinkish.
Right.
Timeline.
Little, it's not like adocumentary project.

(35:06):
It's fine.
Um, so then moved up toLouisville, but your dad was
doing well enough in his career.
Right.
But even though he had a couplemore ankle biters, he could
still swing it with your mom athome, right?
Yeah.
So moved and then moved again.
He got pulled over to Hawk Oh,water company.
Yeah.
Over here in Loveland.
Led Dan in Loveland.
Yeah.
And then he was doing mergersand acquisitions for them for a

(35:26):
while.
Oh yeah.
And then, yeah.
'cause they were rolling upquite a few other companies for
a while.
Mm-hmm.
Before they got rolled up.
Right, right.
It was like a tumbling cascade.
And then that, that was so that,so he was with owned by Danaher,
which is like the big industrialconglomerate.
Yep.
Outta Finland or something?
No.
Where's Danaher?
Sweden?
It's over there somewhere.
I don't, I don't really know.
I don't think it's Germany.

(35:47):
I feel like it's one of thoseother Nordic countries instead.
I think so, yeah.
And it doesn't matter.
Um, it's not the Swiss at least.
Yeah.
So he's doing, it's the signs ofit issues.
That's, that goes back to beforewe started this conversation.
Anyway.
So he was doing, uh, strategyand mergers and acquisitions for
them.
As for, again, as far as Iunderstand, kind of rolled up

(36:07):
with Right.
The, the water company here intothe Uhhuh water and all that
stuff.
And then he moved to Trojan,which is the Canadian system,
the condom manufacturingbusiness?
No, Trojan Technologies.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Uh, the Water UV filtrationcompany, which is a sister
company to Hawk.
Oh, also owned by Danaher.
Okay.
Yep.
And then he got moved into moreof a strategy role at Danaher

(36:33):
after that.
So he did marketing there.
Okay.
And then he got moved to astrategy role at Danaher and he
kind of.
Headed the combining of all ofthe water companies into one.
Oh, interesting.
And he did that faster than thetimeline assumed for.
Yeah.
And in that time, Dan, her CEOleft and got replaced, and when
he was done, there was nowhereleft for him.

(36:54):
Wow.
So he left.
Yeah.
Or he kind of got forced out,kind of left.
Yeah.
It, it was just kind of over.
Yeah.
Um, it was time for him to go,it's not you.
It's not me.
It's just time.
It's time to go.
Yeah.
So he left and he looked,shopped around for a job for a
while, and then, and this isyears ago now?
No, this is, was two, six monthsago.
Two, three years ago now.
Okay.
And at that point in time, anold friend ended up at KKR, the

(37:17):
private equity firm.
Yeah.
Yep.
And he said, Hey, we'reacquiring private, or we're,
we're acquiring industrialphysics.
Okay.
Which is another industrialfirm.
Yep.
Uh, they do packaging liketesting.
Okay.
Yep.
So if you want, so like, haveyou ever wondered like why.

(37:39):
The can is that thick.
Sure.
That's what they do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so they like test thethickness of cans and like
exactly why it is the way it's,yeah.
Yeah.
What's it gotta be If you'relooking for cheap, if you're
Apple, you're like, what's itgotta feel like to be just next?
Right?
Yeah.
You know, when I get that newiPhone Right.
All those things, how much do Ihave to spend in that box?
Right.
To get it to feel just nice.

(38:00):
So, so they do like packagingand stuff like that.
Interesting.
All right.
They're like, we need a COO.
Do you wanna be our COO?
And my dad was like, sure.
So now he's the CEO, he is likekicking guard Jason.
So that's what he's doing rightnow.
Alright.
Um, so I've been Sounds like ajack of all trades, right?
So he's just like a COO forhigher at this point.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I've been following his businessstuff my entire life.

(38:21):
You're kind of a fanboy a littlebit, one would say.
Yeah.
Um, so I've been kind of moreinclined to that.
Yeah.
Um, that adventurous kind of,uh, corporate ladder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kind of.
You know, fixing things.
Although he, he's an interestingcase because he kind of, you

(38:42):
know, he was in corporations,but doing consulting, which is
almost kind of a one man bandkind of a role a lot of times.
Yeah.
But now he's found ways to fithimself well into actual C suite
kind of roles and stuff.
Yeah.
I mean, he's worked his way up.
He does, he does a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
Fair.
But a big battery guy.
Yeah.
But, uh, so like, it's alwaysbeen something that I'm like,

(39:04):
oh, I'm just gonna do what mydad does.
I'm gonna be a businessman, likeas a kid.
So I've always, I've alwaysfound myself like.
Oh, like, I'm, I'm just gonna bea businessman.
Like why not that?
And, and then at one point intime, like, oh, I wanna be a
doctor.
And then I took AP biology.
Okay.
And I started volunteering at ahospital.
Yeah.
And AP biology taught me that Icould not get through med

(39:24):
school.
And I, volunteering at ahospital taught me that I hate
hospital.
You wouldn't wanna be very APcould, could hospitals.
Right.
Um, so then I'm like, okay,yeah, definitely not this, let's
go back to being a businessman.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I found that I love decaCool.
Freshman year.
Well, it gives you such a chanceto experience probably brushing
up against people in all kindsof different industries too.

(39:46):
Right?
Like, you don't have to followyour dad's footsteps.
Exactly.
'cause you're probably wireddifferently than him in some
ways.
Oh, I'm not as much of a mathguy as he.
Right.
Maybe you could follow up withmath.
Maybe at my age he was doingcalculus three and I barely
passed Calculus one.
Yeah, fair enough.
Well, that was part of myencouragement and my engineering
pathway.
It was like, ugh, CAL two was.

(40:06):
Brutal.
You know?
And, uh, and I job shadowedsomebody that was like a civil
engineer and talked to a guythat was like a mechanical
engineer.
I was like, Ugh.
Like, yeah, you like sit in acubicle and draw stuff most of
the time, or you go, you know,on the job sites and make sure
they're building the bridgeright.
And stuff.
It just doesn't seem thatexciting.

(40:27):
Right.
So I digress.
Well, I mean, like my dad.
So it's good to get out thereand get experience.
Right.
Bumping into people that do lotsof stuff.
No, I, I think that's been likemy favorite part.
But like, my dad tells me hisfavorite part of college was
when he took Q Theory.
Okay.
And he learned about, he didsimulations, learning about how
lines work and like, what's themost efficient way to get people

(40:48):
into an airplane.
Mm.
And like all that stuff.
Yeah.
And I'm like, you find that fun,like zipper traffic and stuff
like that.
Like that's, that's fun for you.
And he's like, yeah, I love it.
And I'm like, okay.
Like, uh, you know, things mightclick together for you.
Whatever.
Whatever floats your boat dad.
Like what gets you excited?
I like the, the large scaleproblems.

(41:08):
Okay.
Like, like that's why I lovedoing entrepreneurship as an
event because you can getliterally any kind of like
different kind of role play.
Yeah.
Or that's what we call like thecase studies, like role play
because, uh, for example, likeat the state conference I got
one which was apparel based.
Yep.
Which, which felt like amarketing one.
And then the next one I got wasoperations focused.

(41:30):
Okay.
So it was literally back to backlike totally opposite ends.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Come up with a promotional plan.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now come up with a way that youcan fix these, this
rubbernecking in this, in thisbusiness.
Be a fast thinker kind of.
Right.
Like it's, it's totallydifferent.
Yeah.
You know, I think just off myquick sense, uh, because you
know, if anything, one of myskill sets is recognizing

(41:52):
talent, and especially with yourmom saying that she thinks you
should be a therapist or apsychologist or whatever, like
moving people getting.
Teams to accept change.
You know, that kind of stuff isone of the most important things
in business always.
But even more so in today's kindof cynical, what's in it for me

(42:12):
world.
Right.
Um, so that might be at least anemphasis that you consider,
well, my dad says I should be anorganizational leadership.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That seems, but he, he's like,that's 30 years down in your
career.
I'm like, right.
Well, but that doesn't mean youcan't kind of emphasize that
study along the way.
Right.
You know, get some deepprinciples.
I think they have a, I thinkthey have a leadership add-on
that you, like a minor inleadership seems likely at my

(42:34):
school.
Yeah, I know, I know.
Uh, I was looking at CU for awhile.
I know that they have a reallygood leadership school.
That was if, if Virginia didn'tlet you in Yeah, that was kind
of the back, basically that wasback option.
I actually found out myacceptance from CU and Virginia
on the same day.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I I found out Virginia like fivehours bef No, not the five

(42:55):
hours, like three hours beforecu.
Yeah.
And.
It was kind of funny becausealso that same day we had family
like Christmas card pictures.
Yeah.
And my mom's like, Edward, youcannot cry if you don't get in
because we can't take thesepictures with your eyes being
right.
And I'm like, okay.
Wow.
Thanks mom.
Way to be supportive.
It would've been pretty funny totake a family, uh, picture for

(43:15):
Christmas with your CU sweateron that day.
Your made the decision.
Your uncle.
No, but even if you were goingto Virginia, but all your uncles
and aunts and stuff and be like,oh, he must not have got into
Virginia.
That stupid policy.
They changed because legacy.
Right.
Anyway, I digress.
Yeah.
Um, what else would you wantpeople to know about your kind

(43:39):
of deca experience, I guess?
Well now we've gotten into me inhigh school.
I guess we kind of talked aboutall my childhood.
Yeah.
Um, so now I guess we got intome in high school.
Yeah.
So the reason why I joined DecaYeah.
Was because I, we had, we weregoing to move.
Oh.
Um, I used to live, we used tolive on the south end of town.
Okay.
So I was going to Preston.

(43:59):
Okay.
Middle school.
Yep.
And we were gonna move to thenorth end of town and I had no
desire to do InternationalBaccalaureate.
Okay.
So I was like, I'm not going toputter.
Okay.
So what's the next closestschool?
Okay.
Rocky.
Okay.
And we already knew some peoplegoing to Rocky, so we're like
Okay.
So you School of choice to RockyCamp.
So we got Lucky School Choice inRocky, um,'cause we now live in

(44:22):
Old Town.
Um, where do you live?
Uh, just by Lee Martinez.
Uh, we're, my wife and I liveat, uh, LA Porte and Whittcomb,
basically.
So I see, I see your bus all thetime.
My, my ambulance camper.
Yeah.
Um, but so we're like, okay.
Yeah.
Like, might as well, you know,go to Rocky.
Yeah.
So we went to Rocky.
I knew nobody except that onefamily.

(44:43):
Mm.
So I'm like, oh gee, this iskind rough.
Right.
I might as well, I'm not good atbaseball.
Or maybe you are.
I dunno.
I'm not good at baseball.
I used to play lacrosse.
I'm re I'm retired now.
Retired.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, but, uh, I, I used to playlacrosse.
Okay.
Uh, but I'm like, oh geez, Idon't know anybody.
Um, how, how do I make friends?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, join some clubs, I guess.

(45:05):
So I went to like five differentclub meetings.
Okay.
And I'm like, hate this one.
Hate this one.
Hate this one.
Let's hear.
Which, which clubs did youvisit?
Uh, I went to like, you don'thave to, I don't even remember.
I went to, I went to Deca.
I went to like an, an art club.
I don't even, what am I, whatwas I even doing?
You were bored and lonely.
I, I guess so.

(45:26):
I went to, I admire your Splunkthough.
'cause a lot of times peoplejust kind of suffer.
Yeah.
You know, they're like, uh, I amhere new in this school, I don't
know anybody and I'm just gonnalike, be here and kind of
suffer.
But you're like, no, this isn'tgonna work.
I good.
I went to, I went to like, um, achess club meeting.
Okay.
Which I didn't hate.
I've always kinda liked chess.

(45:47):
And then I went to like this,this like general like board
game, like lunch club meeting.
Okay.
It was more just like, you know,get together, meet some people.
And that wasn't bad either.
Yeah.
But I, I went to, uh, I went toDeca and I was like, this is
weird.
Like, this is strange.
It felt like a cult.
And, but I met some peoplebecause they're too.
It, it's, you gotta drink theKool-Aid.

(46:08):
Like, like, I'm like, why areyou so excited about this?
Yeah.
But I was like, okay, whatever.
I'll, I'll keep going.
Like, it seems like a decentopportunity to get to meet some
people.
And I met some friends and so Ikept going freshman year.
Right.
Kept going, went to thisdistrict competition.
'cause like why not?
Turns out I won.
I came in third place, barelyqualified by the skin of my

(46:29):
teeth to state.
I'm like, okay, wow.
I guess I'm good at this.
Yeah.
At that point I had made somefriends, so I went to state, did
not, had no expectations, barelystudied.
I was like, okay, this freshmanyear I'm just gonna go have fun
and see what it's about.
Yeah.
I ended up winning the wholething in my event and I was
like, okay, wow.
This is crazy.
I'm going to internationals.
I have some great friends now.

(46:50):
Like, let's, let's go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And at this point I had metsomeone that is going to have a
lot of impact on me.
Um, hew, I don't know if you'rewatching this Henny.
Woo.
Yeah.
Okay.
Henny.
Um, had a lot of impact on me.
Uh, we both ended up going tointernationals together that
year.

(47:10):
She, uh, and I both gointernationals and we're making
fun of the people on stage.
This is where the whole, thedoor deck is a cult come from,
comes from and we're like, oh myGod, we could never do that.
Like, that looks so weird.
And at this point, I had appliedto study abroad in Switzerland.

(47:30):
Mm.
Yeah.
So I'm like, oh man, I can'treally do DECA again.
So I was like, okay, I'm gonnago study abroad in Switzerland.
I leave, um, August, so fallsemester, sophomore year I leave
August and I, I go and I have agreat time.
I meet 50.
Do they have DECA in Switzerlandtoo?
They don't, they don't have DECAin Switzerland.
Okay.

(47:50):
Um, I meet, uh, some amazingpeople.
Sure.
I make 52 best friends.
Uh.
Again, fantastic experience.
Yeah.
I ski and hike every single day.
We travel, we see someincredible things.
Like we study, I take arthistory while I'm there.
Mm.
We study artwork in the class.

(48:12):
We travel all over in theclassroom and then we go and we
see the actual pieces.
Well, not just in Switzerlandeven.
Yeah.
Like, it was like, that's likein one of the most insane
experiences.
Yeah.
So I come back and I decide thatI'm gonna do a written
presentation.
So, so those are the things youcan join up midyear.
I'm gonna do a pitch competitionso you can do those kind of

(48:32):
late.
Okay.
So it's not a role play or acase study.
It's one of those where you cango in, it's a qualifier kinda
Right.
You go straight to state, yousubmit a 20 page presentation.
Oh, wow.
So, so I do that, um, zeroexpectations for that.
Again, I, I turn out that I'm afinalist, but I don't make it
to, to internationals.
I'm like, okay, whatever.
Yeah.
I didn't have any expectationsfor this.

(48:53):
So I continue on, make morefriends, you know?
But, but what that, what thattaught me in, in Switzerland,
what Switzerland taught me washow to drink the Kool-Aid.
'cause you're with 50 people insuch a course.
Experience it.
I didn't have a phone.
Oh, wow.
Like there's no technology.
Oh, dang.
So I, I handwritten, I handwrote everything.

(49:13):
Like I, I learned to love stuffand, and like to really get into
things.
Yeah.
So that like, kind of taught mehow to drink the Kool-Aid.
So fast forward, yeah.
We're gonna skip kind of over myspring semester'cause nothing
really happened.
Yeah.
We're now into junior year andHenny, who's a year above me,
also learned how to drink theKool-Aid.
Okay.

(49:33):
She's now running and she she'sbeen involved that year you were
gone.
Right.
She is now running for thatposition.
Okay.
That I thought, thought was,that I thought was ridiculous.
The super dork or No, she nowhas it, she now has the super
dork position and she wants youto join her team.
Well, and and I'm like, okay,well now he's doing it.
I might as well do it.
'cause I trust her and like she,she's inspired me to do all

(49:54):
these things.
She's not a dork.
So maybe it's, she's not a do,maybe it's not dork.
Like she's doing all these coolthings and inspiring all these
people and, and doing amazingthings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm like, I'm gonna do it.
So I decided to go out there anddo it.
I compete in my, in all my usualevents.
I do entrepreneurship, I do badat it.
I, I don't even, I, I qualifyfor state, but I don't even make

(50:16):
it as a finalist.
Yeah.
I don't make it tointernationals, but I get the
super dork position.
Right, right.
And I, I, now you're anorganizer.
I start to drink the Kool-Aideven more.
And, and Heni, she goes on to doamazing things.
She's at UCLA right now.
Okay, fantastic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh.
Do you have a crush on her, bythe way?
No, I do not.
Okay.
Checking.
She's just, she's a mentor.

(50:36):
Right.
Fair.
We'll, we'll give it that.
Yeah.
Um, I, I go on, I get the superdork position, and now I'm
organizing, and over the summerI learn some amazing things, you
know?
Yeah.
Like, they teach me how to be aleader and organizational stuff,
how to delegate all those greatthings.
And then we move on to, uh,through the school year.
Okay.
Now I'm leading competitions.
You have your successor comingup to now, now my successor is

(50:58):
coming up and I'm actuallymeeting with her this weekend.
Yeah.
I'm giving her my Instagrampassword and Yeah.
Yeah.
Gonna, here's the torch, right?
Yeah.
Kind of.
And then I'm stepping away, thenI'm done.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm actually kind of gladthat it's over.
Yeah.
But it's a lot of work.
How many hours do you think youput in this last, say, 12 months
from right now?

(51:18):
Probably seven a week.
Seven hours a week.
For a year.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's not unsubstantial.
And then during the events andstuff, it's.
I mean much more.
It was probably 16.
Right?
That's a lot for each day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a lot of work, but, uh, alot of emails, lot of, yeah.
Lot of un responded.

(51:39):
Communications a lot ofunresponded to emails.
Yeah.
Um, hopefully I wasn't one ofthose people.
No, not yet.
Okay.
Good.
Um, mostly, uh, other people.
Yeah.
But like, you learn a lot ofthings.
You meet all these people andyou, you do all this stuff and
you have great experiences.
Yeah.
And then you go on and then youpass on the torch and now I'm
done.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's it.
And that's how I'm here.

(52:00):
I dig it.
I dig it.
Well, thanks for being here.
I think we should take a quickbreak.
Yeah.
And then we'll come back intosome of our closing segments and
uh, go from there.
Okay.

(52:59):
And we're back.
Um, so I guess a first questioncoming back from the break is,
uh, what questions do you havefor me?
Like, I've been peppering you,I, you know, you know my
background a little bit.
I was a banker for a long time.
Yeah.
But small business, not bigbusiness.
Uhhuh kind of on the oppositeend of the spectrum of what your
dad's been involved with, forexample.

(53:19):
Um, what questions do you havefor me?
Maybe about small business ingeneral?
Um, I, you kind of asked thisquestion a lot about your
people, so I'm gonna ask you,what's your kind secret sauce?
What do you My secret sauce?
Yeah.
What do you like to do?
Like, what, how do you find yoursuccess?
How do I add value to the world?
Yeah.
Um huh.
That's an interesting question.

(53:40):
You know, I think probably I'mdiscerning about people.
Um, you know, as a banker, Icould tell who had that
combination of like personalhorsepower and a good idea that
they could make money on so thatthey could pay the bank back.
Mm-hmm.
Um, and within my role at LocoThink Tank, you know, finding
people that will fit well andadd value to chapters, um, my

(54:04):
special talent is identifyingspecial talent I've said before.
Yeah, that's good.
You know?
Yeah.
And I've always had an easiertime recruiting smart people to
work for me or with me, or inthe case of our chapter
facilitators, you know, to bepart of the team even though I
don't pay'em that much, youknow?
Right.
But they're awesome and I lovethem.
Yeah.
No, that's, yeah.
That's great.
Yeah, so that's probably.

(54:25):
Where I probably add the mostvalue to things.
Yeah.
Okay.
And then I guess kind of myother question is, if you
weren't doing the Loco thinktank right now, what would you
be doing right now?
Like, if I had to go get a job,if, if, let's say everything
didn't work out the way that itwas working out.
Yeah, yeah.
How would it be working out?
Mm-hmm.
You know, I guess my emergencyplan would probably to become a

(54:49):
banker again.
Yeah.
Right.
Like I, I know I could be apretty good banker without too
much, you know, I know the, Iknow the job, right?
I know a lot of people.
You got the background, I gotthe background and I got most of
the skillset.
You know, I don't really wannado the spreads anymore, so make
sure we've got a credit analystor something to do some of that
kind of leg work.
But, you know, I coulddefinitely do that.

(55:10):
I wouldn't be eager about it.
Right.
Um, oh yeah, I have to give allthis up and go back to, yeah.
Yeah.
What numbers?
You know, sadly, I.
In the last five years or so,my, uh, my voice has gone
downhill so I can no longerexpect to win.
Like America's Got talent for myimmaculate singing skills or
anything like that.

(55:31):
Don't have the range anymore.
I mean, you were just, you sangfor us earlier, that was pretty
bad.
Well, I, I'm not saying I don'thave mad skills, but it just
isn't quite into the makingmoney territory, right?
Yeah.
Uh, plus all the travel andstuff.
My wife would be like over itpretty quickly on that, um,
Twitter media sensation, youknow, something like that.

(55:51):
I could, I could see you as aninfluencer.
Yeah, just like find videos ofpeople doing dumb things and add
my commentary on top of thosevideos.
You got that radio voice.
Have Ava be my producer and belike, you guys, you'll never
guess what happened today.
Uh, no, that's probably not metoday on the internet.
I don't really like criticizingpeople, honestly.
Like even when they're dumb.

(56:12):
Like, I just kind of like, oh,you're being dumb.
Uh, but I don't prefer to pointit out directly.
You wouldn't really add muchvalue in that way?
No, not really.
I mean, well, I could recognizespecial UNT talent when I see,
there we go too.
Go.
So I guess I could just use thereverse polarity of my special.
Yeah.
Well what if you were to just belike a, like a scout or
something?

(56:33):
Like a scout, like a, like atalent scout.
Oh yeah.
Maybe.
But if you're good, if you're,but there's no media anymore.
Hardly.
That's true.
I guess in Hollywood's reeling,like, I don't think they got
room really for a startup talentscout with no experience, I
guess.
Yeah.
I could start my own firm.

(56:53):
I'll get you the best.
Uh, you know, I, I guess thatwould be an interesting thing
actually, would be likeexecutive recruitment or
something like that.
Yeah, there you go.
You could be a headhunter.
Yeah.
That, that's actually would bepretty fun work.
Um, although miserable, like.
Yeah.
A lot of people, people, peopleturn you down like, nah, I'm
good where I'm at Right.
All the time.
Right.
So, I don't know, be justpoaching MDs from a, from

(57:15):
different profess.
Well, I don't know if I canrecognize talent in the doctor
perfe.
Like, it feels more like the,the managing directors are.
Oh, yes.
Well, the people I don't, I knowdon't, aren't MDs.
They're like.
General managers.
Okay.
Yeah.
You know, or owners.
Or founders and in other places.
Right.
But most of my network has ownedbusinesses for 10 to 20 years,
and so they're nearlyunemployable.

(57:36):
So I can't really rely on myexisting network.
So I don't know.
I don't know.
Um, let's go into our, uh, wetouched a little bit.
We, we always talk about faith,family, politics, right?
And that's kinda just my flavorof saying, you know, we
shouldn't have things that wedon't talk about in the world.
Um, let's talk a little bit moreabout your family, if you don't
mind starting there.

(57:57):
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, let's talk about yoursisters.
Okay.
We haven't, uh, done much, uh,but mentioned that they got
born.
Yeah.
And they're five and two and ahalf years younger or something
like that.
Yeah.
So Helen is.
Uh, oh my gosh, I'm a terriblebrother.
15.
Uh, no, 16.
Sorry.
Uh, because there's like, uh,yeah, there's a time you almost

(58:18):
just three on, just, just underthree years.
So she just got her license.
Driving with her is terrifying.
Okay.
Not that scary.
I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
Um, well, any new driver's alittle bit scary, but Nah, she's
good.
She's a good driver.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
So how, is she like a goodfriend to you or is she She's
great.
Got her own friends.
My sisters are my best friends.
Oh, good.
Honestly, I love them so much.

(58:39):
I love it.
They're great.
They support me in everything.
Um, I think that they're thegreatest people on earth.
You think they'll be moresuccessful than you?
They could be.
Honestly, we see how the fatesgo.
Yeah.
We'll see how, we'll see how itturns out.
Okay.
I I, I hope that they are.
Yeah.
I'm gonna be honest.
I like that.
I like that.
Uh.
Yeah, Helen is great.
She's doing her own stuff.

(59:00):
She just got back from studyingabroad.
Okay.
Also in Switzerland.
Oh wow.
So same program.
Same thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No phone, no computer.
Oh wow.
No technology.
So all that, she just got backfrom that.
She had a great time as well.
Super successful in thatprogram.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's a neat thing.
Glad that she's glad that she'sback home.
And was that something that yourfamily had else was been exposed

(59:21):
to or you found it and she, youhad a great time and so it's
actually a really funny, notthat funny, but like, it's funny
to us, we used to go to camp fora month in the wilderness.
Okay.
In covered wagons.
Covered like Conestoga wagons,like on trail.
We'd sleep in there for a monthand while, while we were gone,
our parents would get to beach,not have you there for a month.

(59:43):
Right.
Yeah.
So, uh, they were in Vail orBeaver Creek or something?
Yeah, yeah.
On a weekend trip or something.
And they were, there was alsothis conference.
Of like American cardiologists.
Yeah.
And they were in the hot, myparents were in the hot tub and

(01:00:03):
these two New York cardiologistsget in and they start doing the
small talk thing like, oh, doyou have kids?
Yeah.
One's just starting freshmanyear.
And that was when I was juststarting freshman year.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh.
You starting freshman year, youhave to hear about this program.
It's called Swiss Semester.
They study abroad inSwitzerland.
And my mom was like, oh my gosh,that's so great.
And they're like, our daughter'sgetting in, she's going next
year.

(01:00:24):
And like, it just was so, ohwow.
Like kind of serendipitous wherelike it just worked out.
And then my parents picked us uptwo weeks later and they're
like, Edward, this soundsincredible, you know, for this
thing, you should, you shouldresearch this.
Like, they weren't, they didn'tsay I had to do it, but like,
they gave us, they gave me thelink and I'm like, oh my gosh,
this sounds incredible.
I called like, I networked withthe.
With like the head of theprogram, I'm like, Hey, my name

(01:00:44):
is Otra Reinhardt, like, I'minterested in your program.
Can I talk to some people?
Yeah.
And he gave me like 10 phonenumbers.
I called three of'em, had greatconversations with them, and I'm
like, I'm doing it.
Done.
That's it.
And then I, well, I applied, Igot in, well, you got a Swiss
name, right.
Got tree, all that right.
And then my sister did the samething.
She found out it was right forher.
Yeah.

(01:01:05):
Applied.
Really cool.
Successful.
Do you think little sister willdo it too?
Maybe.
Um, and tell me more about her.
So she is 14.
Okay.
Nope.
Yes.
14.
No, she's 14.
All right.
Again, I, I feel like they are10.
In my mind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, she's 14 and I feel likeshe's gonna be president one
day.
Okay.
Um, she is so opinionated.

(01:01:27):
Oh, she, no.
In like, the best way possible.
Well, I mean, this playsconfidence for somebody of that
age, right?
She is so opinionated.
She's so like headstrong.
Um, she's wonderful.
Uh, she just got her firstboyfriend.
Ooh.
Which is kind of, is it scaryfor Big Brother or are you,
you're just like, oh, I dowhatever you want.
I'm worried.
Have you gone to the boy in thebackground and been like,

(01:01:49):
listen, not at all.
Do best treat what's, what's hername again?
Eliza.
Eliza.
Um, I, I think that she canhandle herself.
You're not worried about her?
No, I'm not worried about her.
I think she'll be all right.
Uh, but it is a little like,whoa.
This is kind of crazy.
Yeah.
Um, but she loves it.
Like, like being the littlest.

(01:02:11):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I like getting to seeus.
My mom likes to say she came outof the womb talking in full
paragraphs.
Right.
Because she just saw us and justbeen studying you guys forever.
Just been trying to catch upever since.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, nice example.
Uh, but she's so smart.
She's way smarter than me.
Yeah.
Like just add a could be betterat math if she wants to.
Out of base intelligence.

(01:02:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
She just core processor speed.
Just so much smarter.
Which matters a lot less thanyou think.
Right.
Just so you know, like, no, I,I'm not intimidated, like, but
you were talking about calc andstuff and be a little scared
about the math thing as youstudy, but the, there could well
be just a tipping point where itjust starts to make better
sense.
Right.

(01:02:53):
And, uh, so don't give up hopeon that.
Oh no, I'm not.
Even if you're a little slow.
I'm not, I'm not done.
I'm not, I don't think you'reslow.
I'm not giving up.
You're way over a hundred on theIQ thing.
I'm not giving up yet.
I'm, I'm still there.
But she is, she is like.
Wicked smart.
She's super opinionated.
Like catch all the things.
Um, your mom, uh, also, well,she's Betsy.

(01:03:13):
So Betsy.
Hi Betsy.
You'll probably listen to this,I suspect.
So there's Eliza and Betsy.
They're both Elizabeth.
Oh, sure.
Um, born in Louisiana, newOrleans.
Does she talk funny?
No, not anymore.
Never.
Never.
She was kind of, never did.
She was a city girl.
Uh, yes.
This not the country Creole,like I'm Yeah.
You down, down there swamp?

(01:03:33):
No, no, no.
She's, uh, just New Orleans.
Um, we, massive family on herside.
Um, uh, she.
Did really like Catholics orsomething.
I mean, we are Catholic, butthat's just, you know, big
family.
Yeah.
I was just, there's certainreligions, especially that tend
to have bigger families.
Right.
If they're from Utah, thenthey're Mormons.

(01:03:55):
If they're from, we're we'reSpanish.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
I don't know, like what thatreally entails.
Well, most Spanish are Catholic.
Yeah.
You know, so, so her, so her momwas Bonos.
Oh.
Or de bans.
Okay.
Like originating for de Bonos.
Yeah.
And then, uh, her dad was Vin,which is French.
Okay.
Um, and they, so Po Devin waslike New Orleans Yeah.

(01:04:17):
Royalty.
Right.
So they, so I don't know ifyou're familiar with Mardi Gras?
Little bit?
You know, I haven't been, but doyou know I just came from there
actually.
Oh, cool.
Do you know the, uh, the crew ofRex?
Mm-hmm.
That's like the Mardi Grasparade.
Like the Okay.
They, they call'em crews.
Okay.
Um.
I have had, I'm directly relatedto three kings of Mardi Gras.

(01:04:40):
Oh, interesting.
Which makes me New Orleansroyalty.
Interesting.
It doesn't really matteranymore.
So after you're 21, you'll likeget to ride one of those floats
or something?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It doesn't really matter.
Right.
It's all fake.
Uh, my great grandmother alwaysliked to say one day your
royalty and you're into thepaper, and then the next day
they're wrapping you up in thefishes.
It don't matter.

(01:05:00):
'cause because you're in thenewspaper and then they're using
your paper to wrap the fishesup.
You Yeah.
So it, it's really, it's that 15minutes of fame, basically.
It's all fake.
Right.
Like, enjoy it.
But at the of the day, itdoesn't matter.
Interesting.
So that's kind of like her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She grew up in this real likeNew Orleans.
Yeah.
Almost the Aristos C and this,like this New Orleans bubble.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But her, my, my grandfather hadthis really great perspective

(01:05:24):
of, this isn't everything.
Go out and see the world.
Mm mm-hmm.
So she went to the University ofVirginia.
Yeah.
She met my father there.
My dad.
Switching gears.
Sure.
Went, uh, grew up in Baltimore,just outside, uh, now, like City
and Baltimore at that time, hegrew up, was probably a fairly
prosperous town in comparisonor, uh, not 76 comparably.

(01:05:46):
So it was when he was born, so,okay.
Yeah.
It kind of was the eighties.
Think eighties, yeah.
Yeah, because the naval basethere and different things like
it was, it hadn't fallen into asmuch crime and stuff as it has
become.
I don't know.
When, when is the wire based offof?
I dunno.
Is, is that the nineties?
I think so.
It wasn't, it wasn't easy Still.
I've never seen it.
Um, but he didn't grow up inBaltimore, right?
He grew up, he grew up outsideand went to a private school.

(01:06:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, in T City, so that'slike 40 minutes outside the
city.
Yep.
So, but like Baltimore area.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, he went to a privateschool, really good in school,
also went to the University ofVirginia.
That's where they met.
And the rest is kind of history.
Were they like on like DonkeyKong right away?
Yeah.
Actually no, I don't think mymom liked my dad very much at

(01:06:30):
the beginning.
Uh, he used to have a less thanshe does now.
He used to have a ponytail andan earring.
Okay.
Uh, and he followed.
Are you, do you know Phish?
Sure.
He followed Phish for a summer.
Wow.
Like he used to be this total, Imean, he still loves.
So this Catholic g fromLouisiana, he still loves,
grabbed a fish head out andturned him into a businessman
with, uh, bane, I guess So ish.

(01:06:51):
Something must have happenedthere.
He still loves, uh, like jambands, but uh, like he cut the
ponytail off, took out theearring and Well, and the cool
thing about music and especiallyimprov music, jam bands, things
like that, it's like.
Yeah.
Almost a manner of thinking andfree flow and like his ideas
around efficient lines and stufflike that could have been

(01:07:14):
thought about while he wastripping around mushrooms at a
Phish show.
I don't, he, he actually wasn'tinto any of the recreation
stuff.
Oh.
He was just a music guy.
Only just loved the music.
Oh.
You don't see that many peoplejust saying he maybe just
doesn't tell you.
I don't know.
No, no.
He's actually very adamant aboutit.
Oh, he alright.
Interesting.
Um, and that grew up in my musictaste too.
Fair.
I like all that stuff as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Widespread once in a while,whatnot.

(01:07:36):
Not widespread, no.
Phish and actually now new newerband.
Goose.
Goose.
A Goose.
Oh, I've heard of that.
Yeah.
But not, it wasn't a thing whenI was like younger and going
see, but yeah, mu music's a bigpart of my family.
Cool.
So we don't actually play, butwe just love to listen.
Yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, like if, if you go to yourhouse, there'll be music in the
background.
Usually something playing a lotof times.
So, so that's like more oftenthan the tv?

(01:07:57):
More often than the tv.
Yeah.
I dig it.
So that's like kind of a.
A little bit about my family.
Yeah, I dig it.
Um, faith or politics would youprefer to talk about, uh, we'll
talk about faith a little bit.
Alright, sure.
Yeah.
Uh, baptized Catholic.
Yep.
Raised Catholic.
And I guess we'll get St.
Joe's or, uh, no.
Or here?
Not in here.
Not here.
Uh oh.

(01:08:17):
Yeah.
You didn't come here until, howold were you when you got here?
I was six To Fort Collins.
Already To Fort Collins.
Oh, I was thinking you moved tolike the second stop before
that.
'cause it was Texas.
Oh, and that was, you were sixwhen you came here.
Yeah.
Sorry.
Yeah.
I thought you came a little bitlater.
I think there was anotherchapter.
No, five when we left Dallasturned six in Louisville, then
we moved.
Okay.
I thought you spent more timethere.
Sorry, I was planting a little,little later.

(01:08:39):
Yeah.
So, okay, go ahead.
Um, so I was born baptized, orborn then baptized Catholic.
Yeah.
Um, my dad is Protestant.
Something of some sort.
He's not, he's not too invested.
Not Catholic.
Um.
And my mom was Catholic.
Yeah.
Uh, everyone on my fam my mom'sside is Catholic, basically.

(01:09:01):
But you guys haven't been tooinvolved or?
Um, not right now, no.
Okay.
Uh, we're, we're more in linewith, uh, like a lot of Jesuit
stuff.
Okay.
Uh, I'm not sure if you'refamiliar a little bit.
Um, I guess tell me more ifyou're familiar.
Uh, it's very, very big in NewOrleans.
Yeah.
And, and the whole idea is it'svery educational.
Right.

(01:09:21):
It's very schools, it's veryservice.
Very service based.
Okay.
Um, which is why they have a lotof schools.
Um, yeah.
And the, the, the motto is menfor others.
Okay.
Uh, it's very, uh, kinda actionoriented.
Action oriented.
Service oriented.
Okay.
Um, and there's not a lot ofthat around here.
Yeah.
Um, and we just aligned withthat a little bit better.

(01:09:45):
Okay.
So that's just haven't reallymade space.
Your dad weren't around that.
That's kind of, that's kind ofmy raisin.
Yeah.
Have you, have you.
Individually studied at all, orlike when you examine or you
kind of, this is the faithbackground of my family and so
I'm good.
Uh, yeah.
More, less like, have youexplored a question of faith for
yourself?
Less, more or less.
That's kind of like your dad's aProtestant, your mom's a

(01:10:05):
Catholic.
Do you see the discernmentthere?
I am a, well, the reason why mydad, my dad actually, as far as
I understand, I mean, I'm kindof speaking for him here.
Yeah.
I think that he would be aCatholic if it weren't for
transubstantiation, for transtransubstantiation.
Tell me what, I don't know whatthat is.
So the, so are you familiar withcommunion?

(01:10:25):
Sure.
Oh, so thinking the body or theEucharist, right?
Like the body is the actualbody, so, so.
Or the bread is the actual body.
Most Catholics, and I'm, I'mpretty sure the Catholic view is
the actual body and blood iswhen you, if you dip the bread
in the blood, that's the actualbody and blood.
So, so when they, so when theyperform the sacraments Yeah.
You are actually transformingthe body and blood into the

(01:10:47):
actual body and blood.
That's what the Catholic Viewis.
Yep.
And the Lutherans, right?
No, not the Lutherans.
So, so when, well, some of theLutherans, some the, I think
some of the Lutherans, yeah.
So when, because that was partof the reformation movements
within the Lutheran church too.
Oh, there was a LutheranReformation Yeah.
Of sorts.
Um, oh, I'm not familiar.
But part of it was like, that'swhat, like the Pentecostals and
the Lutherans are, I don't, I Iget confused.

(01:11:09):
I do too.
But it does, like, I, I kind ofagree with your dad.
Like it's hard for me to grabthose little piece of bread and
be like, okay, this is the bodyof Christ, you know, and eat it.
And I recognize some from,'causeI'm a non-Catholic Christian, if
you will.
Okay.
And I recognize the power andthe significance of

(01:11:30):
acknowledging.
A belief in something, you know?
And I think it's metaphor, thisis my body broken for you.
Um, so anyway, I'm kind of onyour dad's team there.
Yeah.
I, that's something that he justcan't get behind, so Yeah, I get
it.
Um, fair enough.
I don't blame him, but uh,that's something that I just,

(01:11:51):
you know, are the Swiss,probably Catholics and Lutherans
would be my guess.
I think.
I don't know if I had guess.
I think so.
I have no idea.
I don't know.
Um, I don't know.
I enjoy watching little, likevideos.
So my dad, my dad is the Swiss,my dad is a Swiss one.
Yep.
And my mom is the Catholic one.
Yep.
But I think a lot of Swiss areCatholics too.
I think so because they'repretty close to Italy there,

(01:12:11):
where the Roman Catholic churchwas pretty dominant for a long
time.
Well, and then my dad's alsoIrish.
Oh.
Which is usually Catholic too.
But no, they, they weren't, Idon't think my, they were Irish
Catholics.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
I think they were the starvedIrish, the Catholics beat the
shit out of the Protestant Irishfor a long time.
I think we were the starvedIrish.

(01:12:31):
Interesting.
Okay.
They, they came over becausethey took the potatoes.
I think that's, I think that'swhat interesting.
I think that's what we were,that's not funny.
I, I don't know exactly, but,uh, as far as I, so it goes
well, maybe in your, uh, earlyyear of college here, you can
get a little deeper into yourface study and, uh, examining
more for yourself.

(01:12:52):
Yeah.
I think that's always a worthycause.
Uh, but I'm, I'm pretty securein my faith.
Yeah.
I I So you identify pretty muchas Yeah.
Catholic, even though youhaven't had a lot of.
Like interaction with churchservices or people.
I mean, I, I go, we go Oh, youdo to for more or less.
Like, we, we try to go as muchmore than Christmas and Easter.

(01:13:12):
Right.
Okay.
Fair enough.
I Sorry, I got the wrongimpression.
No, no, it's all right.
Um, but your dad's not as much?
No, he comes with us.
Oh, he does?
He just doesn't go thing.
He just doesn't de because hedoesn't Yeah.
Buy that part.
Right.
Interesting.
Okay.
Yeah, that's, I, I don't knowit, I try to talk to my wife
about these things and she'slike, I just don't care about

(01:13:33):
any of those kind of differencesbetween Baptists and Reformed
and Presbyterians and Catholicsand Right.
It just doesn't matter to me.
We're all Christians.
That's one take.
Yeah.
Um, although Catholics disagree,generally, uh, I, I, I feel like
I tend to have a more Jesuitapproach, which is just love.

(01:13:55):
How is your service?
Love, love everybody.
Yeah.
I dig it.
I think probably the ideal, uh,approach, regardless of what
faith you adhere to, um,politics, we are, I don't know
what, maybe a month in 40 daysinto Jesus feels so much longer.
Um, I guess gimme, uh, gimme acouple things that you like

(01:14:19):
about the new administrationsand a couple of criticism so
far.
I don't know if I can do thatfirst part.
You can start with the latter ifyou'd like.
I'll keep, I wanna keep thispart brief.
Um, I feel like we're lackingempathy right now.
Hmm.
And that's kind of hard.
Um, like the, the whole federalgovernment workers Yeah.

(01:14:42):
Send your email.
What these grants are canceledthat, that lacks.
I feel like that lacks empathy.
Okay.
Um, and I, I feel like we'relacking perspective Yeah.
On some things and, and.
Are you 18?
I am 18.

(01:15:03):
Did you vote?
No, I did.
I did vote.
Okay.
So you had a vote last fall?
Yes.
It wasn't for Trump, I presume.
It was not, it was not forTrump.
Um, so I guess as a, as aneconomist myself, um, what do
you think America should doabout its kind of debt ball?
Is it like not really a problem,or do we need to I'm not

(01:15:23):
educated enough on the, no, onthe topics.
I mean, we collected about 6billion in TA or 6 trillion in
taxes last year and spent eightand a half.
Um, I mean, I, I, obviously, Iknow that that's an issue just
right, just seeing the numbers.
I characterize it to myemployee, Alma, as like, if you
and your husband made a hundredthousand dollars a year and you
spent 140 for like 10 years,you'd be in tough shape even

(01:15:49):
though you have this like,really good economy, right?
And you shouldn't run yourselfinto a, like, we were literally
at like a 31% deficit last year.
In 2020 or 2024, uh, which is somuch, it's like if you made
$2,000 a month spending 3,200,right?
No.
Like I, I, I understand.
So I, I get it that we, theempathy thing, but what do we do

(01:16:10):
about it, I guess?
Uh, uh, I don't think that itcomes from cutting money from
Bangladeshi and moms andchildren that are starving and
as, as a, as a world powerhouse.
You say that foreign aid doesgood things sometimes, and now
there's, we have a response.
I feel like we have aresponsibility Yeah.
As, as a powerhouse.

(01:16:31):
Well, or do we to do good or dowe create people dependent upon
this kind of thing and make itworse sometimes.
I I, okay.
If you wanna, I dunno if that'smy, my, okay.
If we wanna talk about likedependency.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think that there are goodthings that come with aid if we,
if we wanna talk about likeWell, yeah.
Like strategy.
Totally.
Like moving people to your will.

(01:16:52):
We'll talk, we'll talk aboutlike Marshall plan Sure.
Post World War II percent.
Yeah.
We, we had a hundred percentinfluence among the Greek and
Middle Eastern countries Yeah.
For a really long time becauseof the, in the aid that we had
for, of amongst rebuilding thosecountries.
Right.
Well, and right.
Like right now China's gottremendous influence on a lot of
African nations because of allthe infrastructure investment

(01:17:12):
they're doing.
Absolutely right.
So like, is that, is thatwasteful spending or is that
them being smart planning forthe future?
Uh, and I think that's theargument for, I, you know, what
I think is wasteful, this, Ithink spending a lot of money on
a plane that doesn't work on aplane, that doesn't work.
We we're behind on on.
Oh yeah.
I hate, hate any more spending,frankly.
So I think that, you know, wecould save a lot of money there.

(01:17:34):
Yeah.
I don't think saving$10 millionon, on that versus on a, on a
food program for Bangladesh.
Yeah.
For, for starving bangladeshianmother and children.
Mm-hmm.
When we could be saving atrillion dollars on a plane that
we gave to already overfundedmilitary contractors that aren't
doing any, you, you will not getme arguing against cutting

(01:17:57):
military spending.
Um, but it is only a small partultimately of our, of our de
deficit problems.
Um, medic obligatory spending,Medicare, Medicaid, social
Security is 61% of our budgetright now.
Um, and debt services like 12.
And, and at the end of the day,this, a lot of this is just my

(01:18:18):
opinion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I don't No, I know.
And you're not, you're not astudent.
I'm not a of politicsnecessarily yet.
But I, I think that's mychallenge is like, yes, it
always sucks.
Like some of those grants that.
Trump's cut and stuff are gonnaaffect CSU, it's gonna affect
forest service different, youknow, and those people won't buy

(01:18:39):
money at small businesses andthings like that.
And like, we gotta stop, like wegotta stop spending so much more
than we take in as a nation,otherwise we're gonna be broke
and China's gonna be the bossand then shit will be bad.
Anyway, that's my soapbox.
Right?
Um, do you wanna do the pingpong ball challenge?

(01:19:00):
Sure, we can do that.
Ah, so this is, uh, you're gonnapull three of those balls out.
Okay.
And each one has a number on it.
And the corresponding questionis here on this printout.
Do I get a pass, um, a pass if Idon't like the question?

(01:19:21):
Yeah, if you don't like thequestion.
Okay.
It's a family show.
Seven.
It's seven.
How do you find, how do youdefine happiness?
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
They're not crazy ISTs.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
Nothing crazy.
Is this like hot seat?
No.
Yeah.
The, the politics section isdone, you know, seven.
Uh, how do I define happiness?
Yes.

(01:19:41):
Hmm.
How do you measure it?
That's kind of, I don't feellike you can measure happiness.
Like I can't put happiness in abottle and Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
Like, oh, this is, it's notquantitative.
So much happiness I have.
Yeah.
But you were glowing when youwere like, talking about your
leadership team with decaearlier and stuff.
I, okay.
I guess your dimples wereflashing heavy.

(01:20:02):
Um, if I were to measurehappiness, I, I'd say it's in
like, experiences with people.
Okay.
Um, I'd say if I were to talkabout like when I'm a, when I'm
the happiness Yeah.
Yeah.
When I'm the happiest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm with people I care about andI'm doing something.

(01:20:23):
It doesn't have to be somethinglike mind blowing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm, I'm doing something.
With someone that I care about.
Yeah.
Well, in those uncomfortableexperiences, I've, I've heard it
said before, you know, you, you,you laugh a lot during the fun
times, you know, when you'reriding a rollercoaster and
stuff.
But when you go camping and itrains all weekend and you
struggle through it with somepeople you love, you know, those

(01:20:45):
are the things you rememberfondly and even like your decade
experiences and stuff, you'rewith people and it's not a
struggle, but it's not easy.
Right.
No, absolutely.
You know, you're, I wouldn't saythat it all, any of it was easy.
Sure.
But I, I had a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Um, we, we, there was, therewere a couple tears when it was
over.

(01:21:06):
Mm.
Um, but like we, we always saidlike, oh, we can't say goodbye
because we're never, it's notgoodbye.
It's, bye for now.
It's bye for now.
It it, we'll see you later.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, like, and that was like a, abig moment of that, like, yeah.
Oh, we're, we're crying in theroom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get it.
For sure.
Cool.
Uh, next question.
Okay.

(01:21:28):
Number two being Avacollaborated on this one.
This is one of Ava's.
Would you rather fight one horsesize duck?
Oh, I love this question.
Or 100 duck size horses.
A hundred duck size horse, onehorse size duck, or 100 duck
sized horses.

(01:21:49):
Um, I'm gonna go one horse-sizedduck.
And why?
Why?
Okay.
I've, I would never, I wouldtotally go for the hundred duck
size horses outside, just likescreaming.
Um, okay.
I'm gonna go one horse size duckbecause I've spent a lot of time
with horses.
Okay.
Um, at my summer camp, I, I'vespent.

(01:22:11):
A decent amount of time ofhorses and so you try to mount
'em and ride'em.
I would ride them and, but but aduck.
So you're talking about ahorse-sized duck here.
It's gonna have a differenthandling characteristics.
So Okay.
Horses kick really hard.
True.
And even if it's a duck sizedhorse, like that's gonna come up

(01:22:32):
to like my knee, that's gonnahurt a whole bunch of little
kicks.
And there there's like a hundredof'em.
Like I'm not gonna be able totake those.
Those they gonna swarm youeventually.
I'm not gonna be able to takethose on a stampede at, at some
point stampede.
I'm just gonna get like knockedover and they're just gonna be
kicking me in the head.
Okay.
Okay.
So let's say, let's, so, solet's contrast that to the horse

(01:22:52):
size.
Duck ducks are, how are yougonna go about ducks is stupid.
Okay.
So if even like, even somethinglarge that's still stupid,
right?
So I can, I feel like I could.
And we were talking about a 1200pound duck here.
Outmaneuver it.
Alright.
And how are you gonna take itdown?
I'll like climb up on it andthen like wrangle it out.
Sl Yeah, like get around itsneck.
'cause his neck will be likekind of just choke it out.

(01:23:14):
Yeah.
Still kind of thing.
He's gonna have like a four footlong neck.
Right.
That'll be fine.
All right.
Just get on his back, ride outlike horse for a while, then
choke it out.
Tire.
Tire it out.
Yeah.
Choke it out.
All right.
Yeah, right.
That'll be fine.
That's cool.
All last question.
26.
26.
What's your go, what's yourgo-to way to unwind after a

(01:23:36):
stressful day?
Oh, that's a good question.
Especially for like old peoplethat have been like stressed out
for years and stuff.
You can hand that to me.
Yeah.
'cause I get stressed out allthe time, I'm sure.
Um, I, so I like to meditate.
Okay.
It's a big one for me.
Um.
Assisted unassisted.
Just silent.

(01:23:56):
I'm gonna just like, kind ofjust sit, just quiet.
Sit.
Um, my dad says a phrase.
Uh, sometimes I sits and thinksand sometimes I just sits.
That's kind of true.
Yeah.
Um, listen to music.
Read a book.
Yeah.
Maybe just scroll on my phone,like, just mindless.
Let my brain rot for a minute.

(01:24:17):
All right.
Um, just any, like, just, youknow, just deep, deep plug.
Just deep.
Yeah.
Take a moment.
Do you do anything?
Um, workout sometimes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You look like you've got prettybig pipes.
Oh, thanks.
Appreciate, you know, for ayoung guy, you know.
Now we're gonna do the locoexperience.
Okay.
Your craziest experience of youryoung life so far.

(01:24:39):
Crazy experience other thanvoting for Kamala.
Just kidding.
Oh my God, I'm just, don't evenget me started.
Craziest experience of my life.
My short, short 18 and a halfyear old life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um.
Hmm.
Might be just a moment.
Might be yours.
There's been a couple highlightssemester abroad, there's been a

(01:24:59):
couple highlights.
Any near death experiences,anything like that?
Um, hopefully not.
I'll go with one that I, Betsydon't listen though if No, no,
no, no, no.
She heard this story near death.
Okay.
Um, that I thought was probablyokay.
Crazy.
But, uh, it turned out to beOkay, so going back to summer
camp.

(01:25:20):
Okay.
We were, this is the month longsummer camp.
Month long summer camp in theRocky Mountain National Park.
Okay.
We were on a mountain bikeovernight, so we go on a 20 mile
mountain bike.
Yep.
You know, up the mountains,bring your tent in the backpack
kind of thing.
Well, no, they, they actuallyship our stuff.
Oh, that's nice.
Uh, but we, you know, we havemost of our stuff in our packs

(01:25:41):
and then they, they ship out thetent in the food, but that's it.
Everything else we have to bringourselves.
Right.
And we, we ride the bikes up themountain.
Then we, we meet the, we meetthe, the bus, not the bus, the
truck.
We unload it.
They get all your gear.
We stay the night and then weride it back.
The next day when we were makingdinner, we heard this blood

(01:26:01):
curling scream in the forest.
Okay.
And it was terrifying.
Like literally like sounded likea woman being murdered in cold
blood.
And then soon after we heardsomeone of your stature, like
someone with your voice, a manvoice, a man voice screaming in
cold blood as well.

(01:26:23):
Okay.
And it was, it was terrifying.
Like, like literally womanscreaming, man screaming, and
then a woman screaming again.
And we were like, what did, likewe just hear like a double
murder, suicide like crazy,right in the woods.
Like serial killer thing.
Just go off and it's me.
And like.
14 other dudes.

(01:26:43):
Okay.
And we're in the woods and we'relike, oh my God, there's no cell
service.
And what do we do?
Right?
So we do you have like a campleader or something?
We have a counselor and he's,you know, 19, right?
He's definitely not fighting offwhatever it is that killed that
dude.
And we're like, what the hell ishappening?
And we're like, everyone get allthe sharp things into one corner

(01:27:04):
and someone grab the ax andwe're gonna go all get together
at this one point and we'regonna, like, we get all our
safety protocols together.
And someone's like, where's theSAT phone?
'cause we have a, we have asatellite phone.
Hey, just in case.
So we call camp, we're like, wejust, what, what, what do we
just hear?
And camp's like, uh.
Call the Rangers.

(01:27:24):
We can't do anything about this.
So we call the rangers.
Okay.
Rangers come out, the Rangersare like, we can't do anything
about this.
Let's get the police out here.
And all of a sudden our campsiteand the surrounding like 10 mile
radius is an act of crime scene.
Okay.
Turns out they couldn't findanything.
Um, it, that's all, that's it.

(01:27:45):
It they, they nobody knows allnight.
They look, they look for stuff.
They got like dogs withflashlights and could not find
anything.
Okay.
Um, they think a dude wasmurdered by a mountain lion and
like dragged away.
Really?
At the end of it?
Yeah.
Uh,'cause like they never foundhim.
Or like some, some guy ended upgoing missing.
Okay.

(01:28:05):
But it was kind of unrelated,but we're not really sure.
So like, you maybe heard the catscream and so, so the cat cats
can do that apparently.
Yeah.
They can mimic like a woman orthey, they like can scream like
that.
So you may have heard a mountainbike.
Mountain Lion, lion killed andthen the dude getting like
mauled.
Damn.
Yeah, it was, didn't find noblood or nothing, though.

(01:28:27):
I don't think so.
Like, it seems they, they didn'treally update, they didn't
really update us and like, butthose valleys are so big
sometimes and like we kind ofall forgot about it, but that
was definitely one of them.
Like you could hear somethingfrom three miles away.
Probably some, sometimes it'sjust still and quiet.
Yeah.
In those mountain valleys.
And it's just like echo.
Well we were, we were like, wewere like all chilling out, you
know, like we were making our,like our chicken and like

(01:28:47):
chicken rice and whatever.
Interesting.
Interesting.
And then all of a sudden, likeblood curling.
Do you wish there was a littlemore closure to that or do you
think that's, you kinda forgotabout it.
It's just like, whatever,whatever.
I mean, whatcha you gonna doabout it now?
Exactly.
Be careful if you go back upthere.
There's definitely like someghost haunting us now or
something.
Well, um, I guess, you know,thanks for being here.

(01:29:09):
If anybody wants to follow.
Thanks having your journey.
Yeah.
Do you got like a LinkedIn pageor anything like that?
Uh, yeah.
Edward Reinhardt on LinkedIn.
All right.
Yeah.
I also have Instagram.
Alright.
Uh, Edward Reinhart, do youwanna see pictures from the
Cavaliers?
Uh.
Football season this fall, fallor anything like that?
Think my Instagram's on private,but Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll accept,
I'll accept most people.

(01:29:30):
As long as you don't seem weird,you should keep it on private.
Don't get my fans that crazy.
Um, anything you wanna closewith?
Um, no.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, this was a greatopportunity.
Um, love sharing my story.
I love talking about Deca as youcould tell.
Um, if you know anyone in highschool yeah, send'em to Deca.
Send'em to Deca, uh, send'emthis episode.

(01:29:51):
We were talking in the break andAva's dad told her to get into
Deca and she's like, oh, thosedorks.
I would never, you never know.
You might regret not doing it atsome point, right?
Well, you were calling'em dorkstoo before you turn into one and
now you don't think it's like,you think it's cool.
Okay.
Last message.
Drink the Kool-Aid.
Drink the Kool-Aid.
I love it.
Thanks Edward.
Yeah.
Thank you guys.
Speed.

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EXPERIENCE 215 | Igniting Passion for Business through DECA with Edward Rinehart - Graduating Senior at Rocky Mountain High School and Future Business Leader

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