EXPERIENCE 224 | Dwight Sailer, Owner of HighCraft Builders. Integrated Designs, Aligned Teams, and Strong Relationships - The LoCo Experience

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
In this episode of the LocoExperience Podcast, I sat down
with Dwight Sailor, the owner ofHigh Craft Builders based in
Fort Collins, Colorado.
We discussed Dwight's backgroundin the early days of his
business, including his journeyfrom Apprentice Craftsman in
Monterey Bay to a fresh start inColorado, and how he started the
company with his longtimebusiness partner, Brian.
So Dwight shared insights intothe unique challenges and

(00:22):
opportunities in theconstruction industry.
Including their fixed pricemodel and the importance of
building strong clientrelationships.
We also delved into theevolution of their office space
on Mulberry Street, which servesas a physical testament to their
commitment to quality andcreativity in their projects.
Dwight's passion for his workand his team's dedication to
excellence were evidentthroughout our conversation.

(00:44):
We touched on various aspects ofDwight's life from his family
and personal background to hisexperience in builder 20
business groups that have helpedrefine their business practices.
The conversation was bothinformative and engaging,
highlighting the highs and lowsof running a successful
construction business.
from the humorous story of abarroom altercation during a
business trip to a tenderdiscussion of Dwight's family

(01:05):
and future aspirations.
This episode offers acomprehensive look at what makes
high craft builders tick.
Whether you're an aspiringentrepreneur or simply
interested in the constructionindustry, this episode is packed
with valuable insights andstories, so please enjoy.
As I did my conversation withDwight Sailor, PS I booked this
conversation with Dwight aftercongratulating him on high

(01:25):
craft, being recognized with ABBB Torch Award for Business
ethics.
In his humility and myforgetfulness, the topic never
even came up in ourconversation, so I thought I
should at least mention itduring this intro.

(02:15):
Welcome back to the LocoExperience Podcast.
My guest today is Dwight Sailor,the owner of High Craft Builders
here in Fort Collins,celebrating 27, just going into
our 27th year.
Okay.
So we're, we're we just wrappedup your 26 and keep moving
forward.
How many.
Clients have you gotten, justbecause they noticed your really

(02:38):
cute place on Mulberry Streetthere?
Over there a lot.
A lot.
The, uh, the office hasdefinitely had a, a really
great, um, uh, expression of whowe are and for what, what the,
what the, I guess what we, whatwe enjoy, what we're trying to
build Yeah.
Focus on.

(02:58):
It's worked out real well.
Yeah.
How many years in was that?
Um, the history of that officewas there?
Was there was a chiropractor.
There was a chiropractor inthere for Okay.
Just a, I, I don't know.
Um, Mr.
Walker was his name.
He's, he's, uh, passed now.
Um, I got the town in 99.

(03:20):
Yeah, originally, yeah.
Nine in, he was so 90 nine'sabout when we got.
We started renting that officefrom there.
Oh, really?
Okay.
And he was down in the basementstill doing chiropractor work,
and he was probably in hiseighties at that time.
Okay.
Uh, and it was, it was full ofold equipment from the, uh,
military surplus x-ray machineswere down there.

(03:41):
And I mean, it was, it was old,old school.
It was quite the all the way oldschool.
Yeah.
It was kind of had a horror vibeto it downstairs.
Okay.
Um, we just don't go down there.
We don't let our clients see it.
And, my, um, my partner who we,we started the company together
and we were partners for thepast 24 years, or the first 24
years of the company.
Yeah.
Before he retired.
What's his name again?
Um, his name's Brian.

(04:01):
Brian.
So Brian.
Um, but, uh, Brian had aconnection with the walkers and
they had us come out and welooked at it and we said this
would make a great office.
Prior to that, we were behindthe St.
Pete's on harmony.
Hmm.
Yeah.
There's a little two storystorage shed and we, that was
home and we were just thrilledto have our own corner.

(04:24):
Yeah.
And, uh, so yeah, 99.
And then, uh.
Uh, it's been there for a longtime and so I guess just for
those that don't know, highcraft builders, and I feel like
I kind of do, kind of don't, Ihave never been a client, you
know?
Sure.
So it's not from the inside.
Um, describe kind of who yourclients are and maybe a little

(04:45):
bit about the kinds of projectsthat you are most bested at.
You bet.
You bet.
So, well, uh, like mostbusinesses, you evolve over a
period of time and high craftstarted by, doing a, uh, uh,
small addition in our basementand then our renovation.
And we really were just aremodeling company just at the

(05:07):
beginning.
Okay.
Small.
Um.
Then what it's grown to now iscustom homes, remodeling, and
the overall design process all,all within our facility.
Um, so design build under, underone roof Residential customer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Design build architecture's donein-house.

(05:27):
Okay.
Interior design's done in-house.
So everybody's working towards acommon goal.
Mm-hmm.
And then one source ofaccountability.
Interesting.
So, uh, has that been your modelfrom the start?
Kind of?
No.
We, we found the need on the,the architectural side started
when we couldn't get anybody todraw a set of plans.
Right.
For nobody less than eightweeks.
Nobody was really excited todraw a set of plans on, uh, a

(05:50):
remodel or a basement or, uh, alittle addition.
Mm.
Um.
And it was, you know, it takessome time and, you know, the,
there's not, it's not atremendous amount of money to
draw plans for a small remodel.
Right.
Uh, so, you know, outtanecessity is born creativity.

(06:12):
So you figure out, we gotta getsome plans drawn.
Okay.
And, uh, what started out at thebeginning was sitting on a
computer and trying to teachyourself how to get it done.
And then, and then we, um, alsosaw the, really, for us, we just
kept seeing the need to where wewere working in unison with the
client to build those plans towhat they, what they were

(06:34):
wanting, both in how was thehouse was gonna work, the
overall design, but, um, equallyif not as much importance, um,
was that their overall budget.
Was, was being, we're veryconscious of that all the way
through.
So every time we were, everytime we were meeting, we were
going, going over budgetsbecause prior to that, we were,

(06:56):
we would just have a tremendousamount of people come into the
office and say, Hey, we gotthis, we wanna meet with you.
And we got these plans.
And then we'd go through andtalk to'em about what it was
gonna cost.
And they were just absolutelyflabbergasted.
They, they had never had thatconversation before.
Right.
So we just knew.
Well, a lot of times designersaren't really price conscious.
They're, well, it's, I wanted todo this, and the clients said

(07:18):
they wanted to do all this, andso I drew that.
Yeah.
And, and they're doing their,they're doing their job of
creating the, the design.
Usually that's all they're askedto do.
Um, and, uh, so if somebody camein and said, I, I want to do a,
I wanna do a podcast, you know,like, great.
I, that's, that's, that's mywheelhouse.

(07:39):
But, uh, I.
If you, if they afterwardsneeded to figure out how
something associated with itcost and you had no idea, then
you just did your job.
Now it's their job to go figureout what that is.
Right.
Right.
And that's really where itstarted.
I don't think it was any, it wasnot a, it wasn't really a foul.
It was finding people who could,um, who wanted to do it and then

(08:00):
also aligning more of the budgetYeah.
For the clients.
So that's, that's really where,where the, the, the birth of the
design build Yeah.
Process.
So call it, uh, like integrateddesign plus general contracting
Yeah.
Is the model.
Yeah, exactly.
And then that way, you know, ina typical situation, you'll see,
uh, in the traditional sense of,of contracting in residential,

(08:26):
you'll see it gets to a point towhere you see the first problem
shows up and the.
Contractor does this and thearchitect does this, and the
homeowner does this right.
And the designer does this, andwho's, who owns it.
Right.
And we really like theaccountability of owning all
the, everything except for the,it's, it's all on our shoulders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Every bit.

(08:46):
That's really interesting.
And there's nobody else's faultexcept for our fault.
Something goes wrong.
So what has, what has high craftgrown into as far as a team size
and like, can you maybe describelike, departments a little bit?
Like who does what around there?
Sure.
So we, we uh, uh, the overallcompany right now is right at
20.
Okay.

(09:06):
Um, you know, if you excludemyself and you don't really work
there anyway, of course you justkind pop in once in a while,
right?
No, of course I do.
Uh, but, uh, the, um, you getabout half of that is our
production team.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
So the production team is outthere.
Uh, make things happen, dailyactivities on our, on our

(09:29):
projects.
Um, and then from there you'vegot, can, can you is like, like
project management, likeoversight?
Yeah.
Kind of project management,making sure it's coming together
the way it was designed andarchitected to be.
Yep.
And we've always had workingproject managers so they're, um,
less likely to be sitting intheir truck on the cell phone
and more likely to be in thehouse taking care of what needs

(09:52):
to be taken care of, as well ason the cell phone too.
What punch listing while it,it's coming together almost.
Yeah.
Just getting everybody to showup, you know, coordinating, um.
And then, uh, you got a, a smalloffice staff Yeah.
Of a, of a couple to take careof the administration side and
all that, all the materials.
And are you that, that's thedesign side.

(10:13):
They're okay.
They're, we have two in thatdepartment and they, they not
only put together all theinterior design, but they also
make sure everything that youcould probably ever see that's a
product, um, that's, that'sordered as well.
Yeah.
So, um, and then, uh, thearchitectural team, which is,
there's two in that departmentas well.

(10:34):
Okay.
So, and then.
How do you generate business?
Do you have like people that areout there advertising,
marketing, like how marketingaside from having a cool
location that's marketing alwaysfalls into the role we have.
Uh, we're, um, because mypartner and I were, we're, we
understood partnership and howthat works.

(10:55):
Mm-hmm.
Um, uh, had a little bit of adifferent take on how we see the
overall leadership of a company.
Um, we had opposite skill sets.
Okay.
Um, we had, we looked at theworld very differently.
Okay.
Amazing partnership.
Uh, and, um, spent those 24years really shaping, um, off of

(11:18):
each other.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so, and can you describethat a little bit?
Like what were you doing andwhat was he doing and then how
did you account for that when,when Brian left?
Yeah, so we, we, um, we spenttime, uh.
You know, I always, I always ranthe operational side.
That was more my background.

(11:38):
Okay.
More, more, you know, uh, uh, mygifting, I guess, would be that
I, I really enjoyed the, theconstruction side.
Mm-hmm.
And I enjoyed the physicality ofit.
Kinda enjoyed working withclients.
Okay.
Um, the, uh, my partner, uh,Brian, he, he came out of, you

(12:00):
know, he had his MBA.
Mm.
Uh, he remodeled a house.
Uh, him and his wife at thetime, they remodeled a house.
And, uh, he never done thatbefore and he loved it.
Okay.
And so, so budgets and stufflike that.
Workers, he, he moved a sweetspot.
Moved.
Yeah, he moved to Fort Collins.
Um, and we, we met and, uh, it,it just, it was a, it was a

(12:24):
great connection for, Hey, let'sstart this business in
remodeling, which at the time,if you go back to 98, it was.
A lot of track housing was thenew construction here in
northern Colorado.
It was not, the custom marketwasn't even really, hadn't
developed the same way either.
Yeah.
So we, yeah.
After all those creativeoriginal houses in Old Town,

(12:46):
there was a, a season of notmuch interesting happening.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, and part of that is time.
I mean, if you look at, if offof that comment, if you look at
Old Town, I mean, the majorityof Old Town was all bought out
of a Sears catalog.
That's as track home as it getsfair.
Right.
For 3,500 bucks you would ordera house and they'd deliver it.

(13:08):
Yeah.
Um, to the train station.
Yeah.
And you'd figure out how to getit from the railroad tracks to
wherever an old town you wereand into a plumber.
Yeah.
And you, and it, so, you know, Imean, it's, it's as cute as a
Queen Anne is.
There's, how many of'em in, uh,in Fort Collins fit that same
bill?
Yeah.
You know, so it's, um, so.

(13:30):
But the nineties, the nine earlynineties Track House of Fort
Collins, I didn't really have acalling to at all.
I didn't really have a passionwithin that, nor did, I mean,
what, what were you up to, uh,before this?
I, I was starting my careerreally, really, uh, um, my
career, um, started, uh, in 89.

(13:54):
I I grew up out in a small townin about the middle of the
Monterey Bay.
Okay.
Yeah.
And in, uh, September, Octoberof 89, I can't remember what the
exact date was now, and notanymore.
Uh, there was the, uh,earthquake that happened during
the, um, world Series.
Yeah.
If you remember that.
Uh, yeah.
Bridges fell San Francisco.

(14:15):
Yeah.
Had a bunch of problems.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that was about two hoursnorth of where I was.
A Hayes fan, kind of, yeah.
Yeah.
AEs.
Yep.
So, uh, that was about two hoursnorth of where we grew up.
Okay.
Um, and, uh, uh, in that, uh, itwas the epicenter of the
earthquake was in our hometown,so, oh.

(14:36):
Uh, found myself, um, in highschool.
My, I was a senior year in highschool, uh, and I don't even
know how I graduated.
I got picked up by a couple ofcontractors.
I start realizing, wow, I can,if I work all day, I can make,
because there was all this workto do.
Yeah.
All the, there was workeverywhere.
Right.
I didn't really know much aboutconstruction at the time Yeah.

(14:58):
Other than laboring.
Yep.
So, uh, got picked up by acontractor and he said, Hey,
here's, here's the deal.
You, if you work a half day, youget$50, you work a full day, you
get a hundred bucks.
Yeah.
And I, I couldn't even believethose kind of figures.
That was big.
That was big dollars.
You, I mean, minimum wage wasprobably 4 25 an hour at the

(15:20):
time, so, right, exactly.
So, um, I went for it and itwas, it was, uh, you know, that
was back in the days wherecontractor would give you, uh, a
roll of quarters.
And you made your phone callsfrom the payphone.
Uh, and I remember being atschool, checking in on
drywallers to make sure they'reat the job sites, sneaking outta

(15:41):
school to race, race to a jobsite because they weren't
answering the payphone at thetime that we had lined up for
them to call to be able toreceive that call at the gas
station.
So you had different gasstations with different payphone
numbers.
Right.
And you were calling those to beable to do your communication.
Wow.
Um, yeah.
You're just that little bitolder than me.
Like when I got my first job atthe bank, they gave me my first

(16:02):
cell phone.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So my professional career hasalways had that kind of cell
phones didn't show up for, for alittle bit Yeah.
In 10 years almost.
Yeah.
So, so, um, but I graduated onhigh school.
I graduated high school on aSaturday and had lined up with a
remodeling custom home companyon to go to work for them on

(16:24):
Monday.
Okay.
And here I am.
I barely graduated.
Somehow I got selected to speakat our graduation, uh, and I
was, you know, speaking to theclass and all I was thinking is,
is you guys are all suckers.
There is so much money you canmake 50 bucks and a half a day
and a hundred bucks in a wholeday.

(16:44):
The world, world showed itselfreally quickly to me on what
that actually really look like,right?
And what, uh, what, uh, a truejob at eight bucks an hour looks
like, and, uh, um, Septembergame and all the friends were
gone.
And the reality of, okay, I I, Ireally need to lock in here and
yeah, I need to be focused on a,on what the path that I chose.

(17:08):
Well, California dried up withwork about a year and a half
later, and I found myselfdriving a two hour one way
commute up to San Franciscoevery day, um, working on
incredibly expensive homes and,um.
But four hours a day in a, in apickup.
Yeah.
And that job was, if you wantthis work, it's here.

(17:32):
Hmm.
We don't care where you're fromand we don't care what you gotta
do to get here.
Right.
You can clock in it, you canleave at 4:00 AM seven 30'cause
traffic's louy.
Exactly.
Nobody care.
Four, six.
Anyway.
And that does two years reallytaught me in working in, uh, an
environment of homes that werebig, expensive, the, the care

(17:52):
that has to go in and working inthat environment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then, um, yeah, luxury isluxury'cause it's really nice.
Yes.
Right.
It's really nice.
It has to be really, reallynice.
Then a then a, a crazy thinghappened.
Um, uh, a man that I knew whowas a contractor, I knew him
pretty much my whole life anddidn't really know him very

(18:14):
well.
He, uh, reached out to me and,and he was building a house on
the ocean.
And I, I thought that waspretty, pretty neat.
I mean, that's, yeah.
And he, he was a, uh, a one mancontractor who did everything
himself.
Wow.
Dug his own, dug his own, uh,footings d uh, poured his own

(18:35):
foundations.
Did electrical flow?
No, he subbed out a couple ofthe trades, but as far as all of
the carpentry aspects of Yeah.
Built his own cabinets, all, allof that side of things.
Wow.
And, uh, I met him and he said,why don't you, why don't you
come to work for me?
Uh, and now, now we're, um, uh,probably around 94.

(18:58):
Okay.
Somewhere at 93.
All right.
And, uh.
He started picking up work inMonterey.
So now the commute went theother direction.
Oh, okay.
From where I was from.
All right.
And the commute was shorter, itwas less than an hour.
Yeah.
And I was getting work down inPebble, pebble Beach.
Okay.
Pacific Grove, Monterey.
Yeah.
And another beautiful, fancyhouses.
And these are how close this wasto where I grew up.

(19:20):
I never really went down there.
Sure.
Right.
We just grew up in just a, well,the ball field was just down
here and the park was over thereand whatever, you know, and my
parents were hardworking.
Uh, and you, you just didn't gofor a, so it opened my eyes.
I didn't even know this existeddown here.
Yeah.
Um, and that's where I gottalearn what quality was.
Um, I gotta, you know, uh,getting to work on small square

(19:44):
footage homes in the earlynineties we're, we're talking,
you know, a 2,500 square foothome that at the time to build
was about a thousand dollars asquare foot.
Yep.
Those numbers are still big.
Yeah.
Back then they were, they weretremendous.
Yeah.
And it was, it was, uh hmm.

(20:05):
That was an exercise of qualitythat I really did not know what
existed.
And we really, as a generalcontractor.
Right, because you're nowsubbing out quite a few of these
things or were you still doingNo, all this stuff was, you're
craftsman.
This thing.
I was, I was, I was digging,digging foundations, whatever.
I, what I got was a, about athree year, two to three year

(20:27):
full immersion, craftsman,apprentice Wow.
Experience that I, I wish thateven my own son could, could
find out.
Right.
Um, and he paid you a little bittoo.
He paid me a little bit and heworked me, and we, I learned
foundations, uh.
Uh, worked in difficult sites.

(20:48):
Um, it was not flat like here.
Sure.
So it was, it was definitelysteep and muddy.
Yeah.
And, uh, it just, it showed mehow to, uh, this career process
was birthing itself.
That, but I did not know.
And then when I moved toColorado, my mom was from here,
so I'd been coming back andforth seeing my grandparents and
mm-hmm.
Um, my mom born and raised rightdown the road.

(21:10):
And, uh, so when I moved, feltthis natural side of me to
really, what do I know?
I know.
Remodel.
Maybe we can get one of those.
And when I met Brian and Right.
We sold one and then that, herewe go.
That started off.
Yeah.
He's like, you know what, I knowthe numbers.

(21:31):
And you're like, oh, well Idon't know that very good, but I
got all the skills.
Yeah.
So we relied on each other heavyfor sure.
Through it.
So it was great.
It was great.
Yeah.
That's neat.
Um, and that was kind of pre.
Premium construction stuff, likeeven the big houses weren't that
premium.
Yeah, probably.

(21:51):
Well we, not that you probablygot into it right away'cause you
were doing basement remodel andadditions and stuff.
It, it all took time.
I mean, we, you couldn't do athousand dollars a square foot
right away.
No, no, no.
Well, we, I don't think we'veever hit that, uh, even since
then.
But, uh, um, it, uh, yeah, it isone small, just prove yourself.
Take care of the client.

(22:12):
Yeah.
And, and maybe it'll open up thedoor to another one and it and
it did.
Yeah.
It did one after another afteranother.
And, um, it was great for, greatfor a little while until you
have to really learn howbusiness works.
Was there any, uh, like, uh,either real opportunity projects
that, you know, sprouted a wholebunch of other opportunities for
you or like miserable failuresthat had your wife questioning

(22:36):
your sanity in getting intothis?
Uh.
Business early on, you know?
Yeah.
I mean there's definitely somefailures in there.
Um, and there's, uh, there wassome opportunities that showed
up where we, um, there was, uh,one family in particular that
when that work came, it wasabout 10 years into the

(22:57):
business.
We knew if we, nah, maybe it wasa little less than that, but we
took this job.
Personalities were strong.
We knew if we don't crush this,we probably need to go ahead and
move our families out of thistown.
No pressure.
They know everybody.
Right.

(23:18):
They have influence.
If we screw this up, we're done.
But Right.
And sometimes people withinfluence wield it.
If we home run this thing Right.
If we home run this thing, yeah.
It'll be amazing for us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a little over 20 yearsago.
And, uh, uh.
Great dynamic working with thatfamily.

(23:40):
It was amazing.
I did that one myself.
And, um, uh, it was, it was anincredible situation.
Did you, like, were you doinglike all the things early on or
did you hire people to do someof the things we brought, we
learned really quick.
We really learned really quickto bring in the, the proper
trades for the proper jobs.
And then we just took care ofthe carpentry.

(24:01):
Yeah, fair enough.
So that, that was what I wastrained in.
That's what my partner's lovewas.
Gotcha.
So we're gonna take on whatwe're, is that still the case
that that high craft does thecarpentry?
You don't about as much of that?
Um, like I said, we have workingproject managers, they will be a
part of it.
Uh, we sub out all, there's justno way to get it all done.
Yeah.

(24:21):
So we'd have to have an army andI will tell you, there's build a
pencil for me.
It's just ama there's someamazing trades out there.
Yeah.
So, uh, if you can, if you canline up with.
Uh, a couple of them as, as a,uh, contractor really, really
supports you properly.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
So we, but yeah, we had, we hadour share of, uh, our, our

(24:44):
difficulties.
I mean, we, yeah.
We found you didn't make moneyon every single project, you
know.
No, no.
You, we, we found that it wasreally hard to find.
We grew and grew and grew, andwe had this, our reputation at
the beginning was just so strongand so good.
Mm.
And it was amazing.
I just started walking with thispride that I didn't even know

(25:07):
that I could have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then, uh, the company grewand a couple things happened.
Wow.
We have quite a few mediocrepeople working here.
We're not making any money.
Right.
We're going the other direction.
Mm.
That's now fun.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and, uh, I remember.

(25:29):
We were, we were at our desksand we, we had to give, we were
putting a proposal together andwe were like, Hey, we gotta give
a reference.
And we were going back to thesame old references that we had.
And this is pretty early on.
This is over, this is probably23, 24 years ago.
Okay.
Because the company's only abouttwo and a half, three years old

(25:50):
at this point.
Okay.
And I, we did have ourstandards.
I remember interviewing a guyat, uh, Starbucks, uh, we, and
he showed up.
He had a big turban and no shirton.
Oh, for the interview.
And we did not hire him.
Maybe that was his shirt.
He just had maybe wearing hishairpiece.

(26:10):
So that, that, that was ourstandard.
Like I, I'm, I'm proud of myselfin the moment that at least I
said no to somebody that wasworking for us.
Yeah, yeah.
At that time.
And, uh, we, we really realizedwe need to re bring this thing
in for how we, we gotta growthis thing properly.
Yeah.
And, um, I'll never forget theday we just sent, sent a lot of

(26:34):
people home.
Oh, really?
And said, this is it.
We're not, we're not doing itthis way anymore.
We, we, there was one reallygreat thing with, uh, in our
partnership was there was alwaysa real strong conviction for
doing it.
Right.
And when we found ourselves notdoing it Right, um, which can
happen.
Yeah.
Um, we made that adjustmentreally quick and we made it

(26:55):
pretty, pretty harshly.
So, yeah.
That, that was a growth point.
I think the first time I reachedout to you about being on the
podcast.
Um.
Was shortly after Mandy Mullenwas on it the first time.
Hmm.
Was she one of those slackeremployees that you rid of back
in the day?
No.
No.
She, she was a superstar.
Okay.
We were sad to see her go.
I'm glad I wouldn't have hopedto ask that question.

(27:15):
No, she was, she was great.
That was, that was, uh, muchmore recent than that.
Yeah.
That timeframe.
Yeah.
That was a, that was a toughperiod of time.
And then you, but with lookingback, um, and the encouragement
that we had give is the, whenthings don't go right and you
make those, those hardconviction statements, it really

(27:36):
propels you forward in thefuture for how, how much better
business can be.
Yeah.
How much, how much who you fistart finding who you are and
what you wanted.
And, uh, I mean, our core valuesthat we have now are really,
really come down to what wentwrong at a different point.

(27:57):
Yeah.
Interesting.
And you take that, I mean,that's what systems are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Most systems in any startupcompany.
Are established because ofsomething going wrong.
Yeah.
Right.
No, rarely does somebody go,we're doing this.
Right.
But I got a system over herethat's totally different, right.
That we're gonna do.
It's usually something's goingwrong.
Yeah.
We gotta have a system, weprevent that this going wrong.

(28:17):
So you create that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And how do you guys, uh,communicate?
Do you use certain softwares?
Is it industry specific?
Uh, what's that look like, um,for your project management?
Yeah, Brian, we, we have thesame, the same one that we've
had for a lot of years.
Uh, um, I, I would say about 20years ago we were, we were
playing some different softwareand, uh, Brian, uh, came to me

(28:45):
and he's like, I got an idea of,uh, how we can do this better.
Um, that's when Software forBuilders was not really
developed that well.
We got into one and they were,we were actually one of the
first ones and they wouldn'tshape it to what we actually
really needed.
So we just dropped it.
And Brian.
Uh, hired an IT guy and Okay.

(29:06):
I didn't see him for threemonths.
Yeah.
And what came out of it was asoftware program that we still
use today.
Interesting.
So it's a homemade CRM.
Yeah.
Uh oh.
So CR got your clientinformation, everything does the
bids, does the estimates manageor whatever.
Some of that, the management.
Yeah.

(29:26):
Um, and then as far as, uh, andkind of a place to upload kind
of progress and whatever.
Yeah.
Yep.
Interesting.
So that, that's, that's apretty, uh, it was, it is pretty
cool that it's still going too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Might need refining once in awhile, but the basis of what's
there is still Yeah.
Still very, very wellestablished, very strong, very
intriguing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've actually just recently hada guest on that does, it's

(29:49):
basically his business is himplus 11 guys in India, Uhhuh.
And he does a lot of customsoftware.
Yeah.
Things like what you're talkingabout here and.
It was hard at first for me toreally understand why that was
better than just, you know,using monday.com or Salesforce
or you know, whatever thingsthat you can get off the shelf.

(30:10):
But every business is so muchdifferent that the, the, the
value proposition of having whatyou need and not what you don't
is pretty intriguing.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
So, and probably has been a, youknow, you probably saved tens of
thousands of dollars by now onhaving that instead.
Uh, I'd like to think so.
Yeah.
Uh, it's, it's because it's allexpensive.

(30:31):
The, the one thing, the onething that, um, when it was put
together was it needed to besimple and simplicity was the
big let's go after simple.
Yeah.
And everything gets so overcomplicated in that world.
So it's very basic.
Yeah.
And it gets the job done and,yeah.
Um.

(30:52):
Yeah.
Ha.
Happy with that side of it.
I started asking, um, or youstarted answering perhaps, but
as Brian transitioned out of thebusiness, like, have you, how
have you, have you educatedyourself on being better at the
numbers side?
Have you built the team that youand I would, I would say that,
that I, I would say that thatreally, um, became passionate

(31:20):
for, for me.
Okay.
Quite a while ago.
Okay.
So, um, but, uh, in workingthrough, you know, everything
from how we do our accountingall the way through, uh,
understanding what the, thenumbers in the business need to
be, right.
That, yeah.
You go through a couple roughyears, you get, you get real
close to your books.

(31:40):
Yeah.
And, um, and it's, it's notsomething that's, uh, uh, very
far from you.
So yeah.
That was there.
Uh, one of the.
One of the really amazingaspects is a about, uh, probably
six or seven years before Brianretired, seven years, something

(32:02):
like that.
We, we had, uh, uh, two peoplein our company, um, Scott, who'd
been with us since a year afterwe started.
So he's been along this wholeYeah, yeah.
Crazy town train that we were onin the early years, all the way
into being a more refined and,uh, boutiquey.

(32:22):
Boutiquey style.
Right, right company.
Right, right.
Um, and then Kira, who's beenwith us for 17 years now, so
somewhere around her.
10, 11th year of being alongsideof us.
They really came forward and,um, in a critical time in my
life and my partner's life andsaid, Hey, we, we, you guys have

(32:47):
been working your butts off,right?
You guys have gotten the companythis point.
We'd really like to come in andsupport you on a, on a deeper
level within, uh, generalmanagement.
Mm-hmm.
And that's what I was sayingearlier Yeah.
About being partners.
So we understood they hadsimilar thing, opposite,
opposite, uh, skill sets.
Um, really complimented eachother.

(33:08):
Mm-hmm.
That's really cool.
And they came in and, um, soScott, uh, it's pretty unusual
to, to hear about two generalmanagers, but Scott is general
manager of all of ouroperations.
Okay.
And, uh, KIRO is a GM over allof our business development
administration.
Yeah.
And, um.

(33:29):
Basically Yeah.
Front of the house, back of thehouse in a way.
Indoor outdoors.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of our office.
So, um, yeah.
Front of the house being Yeah.
Out there serving the people,whatever.
So, and, uh, so that allowed youand Brian even before he
retired, to eventually have lessof a burden in terms Yeah.
We had, we had to, we had toreacclimate some, some things

(33:49):
Yeah.
Per life, life happens.
Yeah.
And when it happens, it's, ithappens.
Yeah.
It's, it is, uh, sometimes itcan be pretty harsh, so having,
having people that have beenwith us Yeah.
Who recognize that was, Hey,can, this is our opportunity for
them.
Yeah.
I love it.
I'll, anybody with ambition anddesire, boy, I'm, I'm usually

(34:12):
attracted to'em pretty quick,you know, uh, they didn't sit in
a corner and wonder and worry,they came forward and said, Hey,
can we, can this be ouropportunity?
Yeah.
And, uh, so they, you know,they're, they are, um.
They're today running all theday to day of, of high craft.
Nice.
And, uh, I work very closelywith them and, uh, it, it is,

(34:37):
it's great.
And so we just celebratedScott's 25th.
Wow.
And, um, uh, it's mind blowingto me that Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm that old.
Right.
But, right now, I'm very, veryhappy with what we have, what
we're being able to do in thecommunity.
Yeah.
Who, the people that we have.
And, um, my plan is to, uh, dothis for some time and Yeah.

(35:00):
And enjoy this process of, of,it's a, it's, it's great.
And we're getting to do somethings that we've never done
before, that we always wanted toas goals.
Yeah.
Right now.
And, uh, man, it is awesome.
So what's your mix now in termsof like, custom homes and, uh,
that's great remodels and thingslike that?

(35:20):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Um, it's, you know, uh,typically in the past several
years, we've had two or threecustom homes going on per year.
Okay.
And the rest are remodels.
Gotcha.
So you're, you're, you'relooking at, uh, a about 15% of
what we do is in the customhome.

(35:42):
Yeah.
And the rest is all the remodel.
Yep.
Yep.
Which have all gotten bigger andmore complicated.
Right.
Seems like how, how can thiscost as much as an entire house?
How have the, like the land usecode changes, uh, changed stuff
for you guys around, or has it?
Yeah.
I, I think, I think, uh, um.

(36:04):
Code and regulations, uh, haveall changed.
Right.
And it's, I mean, if we, itcould be airtight these days.
Let, let's, if we, if we go backto, uh, when we, when we
started, we weren't even reallyan official company.
It's just, you know, you're justselling some work.

(36:24):
Right.
And I know there's plenty of,there's plenty of people out
there doing this right now.
And all sides just keeppounding, man.
Just keep pounding, but, uh, andkeep learning too.
Yeah.
There was no Home Depot onHarmony, right?
That was all RV Park or likemodular neighborhoods?
Uh, there was the one littlearea by the Sam's Club, but the

(36:45):
rest of it was not developedyet.
And there was a builder squarethat was like where you could
go.
Okay.
The version of a, uh, of a HomeDepot.
Okay.
That the town even had.
Okay.
Uh, Sears Trussel was up in the,uh, well, it's not even a, um,
up at the, uh, up across thestreet from Mosson now.

(37:09):
So the code process and, andlicensing.
I mean, Larimer County, I, I gotan invite from them probably.
A little over 15 years ago andsaid, would you like to sit on a
a, we're inviting a couple ofcontractors.
Yeah.
We're building a licensingboard.
Mm-hmm.
And we'd like for to do a sixmonth to one year process with a

(37:31):
study of, should we have, how dowe have licensed contractors?
Right.
In Larimer County.
Went through that process with,uh, um Oh, so before 15 years
ago, that wasn't true.
No.
There was no, there was no,there was no license of, other
than you went down and you gaveyour information.
Okay.
It wasn't, it wasn't like atesting process like city of

(37:52):
Fort Collins.
Gotcha, gotcha.
It was much more developed thatway and City of Loveland was
much more developed.
Oh.
But the county was not, thecounty was not.
Okay.
You know, um, yeah.
When, even the first time wepulled a permit in Greeley, 30
years ago, I filled out a, uh,index card.
Handwritten index card.
Gave that to, and they gave me abuilder number.
You know, it wasn't really alike contractor's license, just

(38:14):
here's your builder number, uh,and if we get too many reports
of you fucking shit up, thenwe're gonna call you.
Yeah.
And then Loveland, I took that,that test in 96 and, and, uh,
it, it was just a differentenvironment, you know?
Uh, so, um, but the regulationsand the, um, amendments that the

(38:36):
different cities have.
And the codes.
It's, yeah, it's, it's who doesthat?
It's completely changed for youguys.
Is that you or who?
Your GM of construction.
Like who has to stay up to dateon what Even Bill?
Well, that's, yeah, that'sScott.
The Scott.
Scott.
Scott on over operations.
He's, he's he's got that, yeah,he's got that now.

(38:57):
It sends in and I'll call him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we might have, it might bea, a conflict inside, you know,
the con conversation might becolorful for what we're trying
to do.
In fact, I was just with Scottat the Big Builder show in Vegas
this year.
We hadn't been in quite a fewyears, and we said, let's, let's
go see this.
Yeah.
And, uh, we took, um, uh, Zach,who's, uh, he's the one who puts

(39:20):
all of our projects together.
He oversees how they all cometogether.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, and uh, we went and we'rewalking around and 80% of the
glass.
That we're looking at.
I mean, these are, this is a bigshow.
Yeah.
It's one of the biggest ones inthe country.
Yeah.
For a, like a convention styleshow.
And we were struggling to findthose big beautiful patio doors

(39:43):
that everybody wants mm-hmm.
That will work within our codeshere in really Colorado.
They, none of them will meet theenergy code.
Oh, really?
So our energy code is pretty,pretty high.
Well, that's so dumb.
Honestly, because like, not, mywife and I basically turn the
heat off in May, turn it back onin September and live within

(40:04):
whatever the world wants to makeour temperature during that rest
of that season.
Yeah.
This is a very temperate climatehere.
We don't have to be, so likeNorth Dakota should insulate to
R 50 maybe and have super duperduper good patio doors, but we
don't really have to here.
It's nice.
I I understand what, what you,what you're saying with that.

(40:25):
And I, I'm, I've always beenreal, had real.
I, I love seeing how efficientthe homes can be.
Sure.
And how well they can be puttogether.
Um, with that, what people areseeing out there, it's, it's not
what the, what people are seeingis what's advertised.

(40:45):
What's advertised is a lot ofreally great patio doors in that
one category in Florida.
Right.
Uh, when you look at thearchitectural magazines Yeah.
You're looking at something inCalifornia Yep.
Or Texas or San Diego.
Yeah.
And you're like, oh, I wantthat.
Who, who doesn't?
Right.
How, how does that look?

(41:05):
So Well that's why houses cost200,000 in Texas.
That would cost 400,000 inRight.
Colorado part of it, you know.
Um, so, uh, we just can't takethat product here anymore.
So really adjusting ourselves tothe regulation.
We actually, I will tell you at.
Uh, I craft what our mindset isto embrace the regulation.

(41:28):
Okay.
Embrace.
Alright.
The amendments embrace thedifficulty of what's gonna build
better than against it, Isuppose.
Yeah.
And it is a, it is a separation.
I mean, this is an industrywhere, um, it used to be easier
to get into than it is now.
Yeah.
I had no business with, Brianstarted this company with Brian
all those years ago.
Did you guys have any capitalwhen you first started?

(41:50):
No.
We, we had nothing.
We had two pickups that he ownedhis truck.
I owned my truck.
And what was your state of lifeat the time you were married?
I, I anything?
Uh, I had just got married inJune Okay.
Of 98.
Okay.
And we were up and running.
I, I didn't even know Brian yet.

(42:10):
I only knew Brian.
I met Brian.
I probably knew him a monthbefore we started the company.
Okay.
I.
Uh, and like I, the stars lined.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a great year for me.
96.
My wife and I, uh, uh, have beenhappily together all these
years.
Yeah.
Cool.
The company happily together allthese years too.

(42:32):
Yeah.
So it was a great, 96 is a goodvintage for, uh, the sailors.
Do you have like, uh, kind ofthings you wanna do different or
more, or regions you want toexpand to, or you just kinda
want to do more of what you'vebeen doing as, I guess a
boutique integrated design buildfirm?
I, I think when, when we askourselves that question, we

(42:55):
actually have a, um, thisquestion is like pretty close,
especially right now when, whenyou see like, uh, the, the
market conditions or something,something's, it's a little wacky
doodle right now.
Yeah.
Something we can't, we can'tquite get our hands around it.
Um, uh, we just want.
To go into doing what we'redoing right now on another level

(43:18):
of that much better, that much,that much better for the client,
that much better for our staff,um, the people around us.
Yeah.
Um, uh, and it, it, uh, that,that really, if, if the market's
gonna, we can't do anythingabout where the market is.
Yeah.
Just keep doing our best.
Right.
But with what we've been given,how do we do it that much

(43:40):
better?
Well, you might get to thatthousand dollars square foot.
Uh, I don't want to, I don'twanna Sooner than you wanna, in
fact, I, I'm sorry I even toldyou that.
'cause now that's gonna be stuckin your head.
Um, I think people think that'swhere it's at, but, uh, you
know, um, high crafts, we we'revery front, front loaded.
Figure out what these projectsare gonna take.

(44:02):
Hmm.
What, what?
We don't do it during theproject.
So ev for us, everything's fixedprice.
That's what I was gonna ask nextactually is, is how do you, how
do you do it?
Yeah.
We, we, we don't know how to, wenever could figure out how to do
a time of material that workedout well for a client or a cost
plus project.
Yeah.
Um, because you just, you didn'tfigure it all out on the front

(44:26):
end.
You just kind of start working.
You can start sooner.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You can start sooner, but with afixed price, you better have
everything figured out.
Right.
And you have to be willing totake the risk.
I mean, well, yeah.
That's part of it.
Like when you've got a risingcost environment like you got
now, it's like, well, I quotedthis fixed price, but I'm not
sure I can still honor it 60days from now.

(44:46):
Yeah.
I mean, no.
How fast do your projects What,what the turn fixed price.
Fixed price for us.
I mean, we didn't, we didn't goback to one client under
construction during COVID.
Hmm.
We've never gone back to aclient and just said, Hey,
something just cost more now.
Right.
Now we did, we were doing anexcavation job.

(45:07):
About two years ago, and as wewere digging the, the addition,
yeah.
We found, um, what we think waslike a Studebaker station wagon
buried in the backyard.
Like okay.
As we were digging, we had totalk to the client about that,
you know?
But, um, that's because nobodyknew.
Uh, sure.
But for what our responsibilityis, what's on that set of plans

(45:28):
when we tell the client that'sthat's what it's gonna cost,
that's what it can cost unlessthey drive it because they want
more, more things in theprocess.
Right.
Um, and it's, they can upgradealong the way, but that's
transparent.
For sure.
For sure.
I mean, we did, we did.
Uh, we have one home that wedid, uh, and it's great whole

(45:48):
house.
All said, all done.
Not one change order, not onescope adjustment.
Not one really not one.
Nothing.
That house went.
Exactly.
And I'll tell you, our teamloves that.
I'm sure we're happy with thatprocess.
Yeah.
You just grinding the, but wejust get, build it.
Um, but, uh, uh, and then wehave others where.
There, you know, you go, youknow, clients trying to figure

(46:10):
out what they want as it's goingtogether.
Yeah.
'cause the visual side for thatindividual might've been harder
or they, they just wanna keepadding to make it that much
more.
Right.
You can bougie these houses outas much as you want, but the,
uh, uh, the process of, um, theprocess of the cost plus for us

(46:35):
seemed to be a failure pointwhere we couldn't control the
final outcome.
Uh, because it was just here,here's an example.
Mm-hmm.
I took a phone call from FirstNational Bank, I don't know how
many years ago, and they said,Hey, we have a, we were in a
fixed price that we were in thatzone.

(46:56):
We, we live in that, we've livedin that zone for over 20 years
now.
And, uh, but they said, Hey, wehave a cost plus project here.
Um, can you come in and meetwith us?
We need some support.
Okay.
And um, I went up and he said,we have, uh, the contractor is
completely under contract.
Like he, this, this gentlemanhas not done nothing wrong and

(47:19):
our client has done nothingwrong other than trying to
figure this out.
And the bank's done nothingwrong.
But here's where we are today.
The project, 70% of the waydone, the money is out a hundred
percent of the way Funded.
Yeah.
Close to a hundred percentfunded.
Right.
70% done.

(47:39):
And now it won't appraise forthe final 30%.
Oh, it was wild to watch thatmeeting go on.
And it's a breakdown.
So again, once again, this putsall the accountability on high
craft.
Yep.
That we have to hold to what wesaid this is gonna cost.
Now in design, things can changein design'cause we could be

(48:02):
going down one path.
Somebody finds that.
Yeah.
Per perfect bathtub.
And I can't tell you who, Imean, we, we, we had a Sure.
We, we, well, they seesomebody's shower head that they
just gotta have insteadwhatever.
Yeah.
Uh, we, we were, we were workingfor a gentleman in, uh, his, him
and his wife on a house in QuaHills in Loveland.
Okay.
It's West Loveland.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really cool neighborhood.

(48:22):
Yeah.
That's a really nice road there.
Yeah.
You kind of big views.
And, uh, this guy's kind of abadass in the government.
Okay.
Like his, his, his life is,he's, he's not totally Thomas,
like he was an undercover agentfor the FBI or like, we still
don't know.
Like one day he's here, the nextday he's, he's, yeah, he's in

(48:45):
the desert.
Desert wants the inside.
He's in the desert someplace.
I'll just put it that way.
Okay.
And we're, we're, we'redesigning his house and he comes
into the design meeting.
He's like, it's really importantto me for my life, where I find
my sanctuary is I like, I want abig Soaker hot tub or bathtub.
Because I like to just go take abath for like three hours and

(49:07):
eat popcorn.
Okay.
All right.
I couldn't have planned this oneout, but if that's what you
want, then we will figure thisout.
You are not the guy that Ithought would be that that would
be right.
And you really learn on theinside of these.
I really like how I exfoliateafter so quickly.
Yeah.
The uh, the, um, watching thesedifferent personalities and

(49:29):
people within the design side,it doesn't shock me anymore.
What, with what is veryimportant to somebody.
Yeah.
And it's, it's hard to gauge atthe beginning, but that's why
you walk through the design.
You Right.
I can't imagine.
And the appraisal might notcatch it.
I, yeah.
I can't imagine walking throughthat during construction with
somebody where you didn't makethose decisions upfront and now

(49:54):
you're trying to figure out, I.
Boy, they don't, we're, we'regonna just keep making
decisions.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and the, the, the registerkeeps going.
Rarely is anything ever come inless than what we thought.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it, it's pretty hard tofind that in your life in any
category.
Sure.
Um, well, and ultimately highcraft accepts a lot more risk in

(50:15):
building this.
For sure.
For sure.
And presumably you catch alittle bit more margin than you
would if you were a cost plusbuilder sometimes, you know,
here and there.
I think, I think it, I think itcomes down to, um, when it's all
done, most, most builders areall working on the same
category.
Yeah.
In that end.
Um, I, I think it's just the waythe business gets done.

(50:37):
Yeah.
You, it's really to get what youwanted, wanted when you, the
whole thing.
That way you have to be veryefficient.
Yeah.
The other side of it, I mean, Ijust, the other side is you hear
in, in the cost plus side, Ijust had, uh.
Uh, a landscaper talked to meabout, uh, a cost plus project
that he, he did, we refer him ona lot and came to me and he
said, Hey, there's a cost plus,um, builder.

(51:01):
I was asked to, I was asked todo this bid, um, for him as he's
putting this budget together fora cost plus.
Um, and then, uh, I was asked onthe backside, if we get this
work, here's how much money Ineed to give him on the
backside.
Oh.
Fixed price contract, you don'thave any of that.

(51:21):
You're just trying to figure outhow do we get the job right?
Right.
You're trying to keep all yourcosts down.
Right.
And once you sign off on it, yousign off on it.
Yeah.
So you're just as motivated tokeep the cost down as, and
there's, I mean, hear me, hearme properly, there's some
fabulous contractors that knowhow to do it that way.
I just don't Fair, I've justnever been able to figure it
out.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know how to control thecosts in a cost plus project

(51:44):
where it's, but the ones thatcan do good, they, they know
their lane.
I know my lane.
And same with, same with, uh,um, fixed price contract as well
as guaranteed schedule.
We guarantee our schedules.
Mm.
Uh, that's big.
We know that our clients, it'sgonna run'em, uh, if, if

(52:05):
they're, especially if they'removed out of a house, it's gonna
run'em, uh, about three grand amonth to rent a place if a lot
of our clients move out andthey'll, they'll rent a place.
Sure.
And we guarantee the schedulesby that amount, by de by the
day.
Oh, is that right?
So if we, if we don't hit ourschedule Yeah.

(52:25):
Then we're, we're in trouble.
And the other side of that isconstruction loans that mm-hmm.
People are paying interest on.
So if that project runs twomonths longer or three months
longer, you, you can see whathappens And all of a sudden
you're to, to their bank.
You take up mortgage doesn'twork.
Right.
Their fees, their bank fees arehitting'em pretty hard.
That'd be their rent's hitting.
No.
So we, another thing that wecouldn't control, our projects

(52:46):
in the early years, were goinglonger than they should.
You know, we were, we were, wewere closing out a project and
then, wait, why am I still herea month later meeting the client
again?
Well, and the damn paintersdidn't show up for three weeks
after.
Yeah.
We thought this was gonna bedone.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I thought our job was donehere.
Why are we still here working?
So the process came, let's havea fixed price contract.
And what came outta that wasabsolutely beautiful.

(53:07):
Yeah.
People know that when we saywe're gonna be done, we're gonna
be done.
Yeah.
And, uh, we go after that prettyhard, so.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
That's just, yeah, I get it.
I I, I'm not pressing you on it.
I'm just curious really aboutthe decision.
You, you brought me in here tounderstand just our, our
business.
These are your questions of forsure.
What, you know, before westarted this whole thing is
what, what makes high craft tickand it's just high

(53:28):
accountability.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That seems like that's kind ofat the foundation, the whole
thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Is that like a, a core valuehire for and stuff too?
Is that kind of how you buildthat into the DNA?
Yeah, there's, there'sdefinitely, I mean, we, we
don't, we don't, we don't hiresomebody and say, uh, how do you
feel about fixed priceschedules?

(53:49):
Right.
So, uh, but what we, what we dois look for people that are
going to be, um, I.
Passionate about the differentcategories of how we do
business.
And they're gonna know thatbefore they come in, you know, a
project manager orsuperintendent that comes into
high craft that doesn't want tobe a part of really diving into

(54:13):
a schedule and reallyunderstanding how a schedule can
be done.
Yeah.
Which is hard.
Yeah.
Um, they probably aren't gonnawork out that well.
So we, we spend time in thatcategory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Something that's lackadaisicalabout those details like that is
just not gonna really fit andYep.
And then on the backside ofthat, we, you know, quality, the
quality side, that's where weput the, you know, a five year

(54:35):
warranty on everything we do.
Yeah.
And, but the team was up at aclient's house, uh, from 12
years ago.
Uh, doors were whacked out in abasement we did, which can
happen, you know, and, uh, yeah,a little lifting, a little bit
less, uh, Scott and.

(54:55):
One of our other projectmanagers went over there and
just said, let's don't, don'tworry about it.
And they just popped all thetrim, rehung the doors, put the
trim back on.
Yeah.
Painter went in behind and we'vealready got one referral from
that time.
That's what I was gonna say.
You probably get a referral.
All, all I can say is, uh, yeah,you, you, um, do the best you
can with what you got and takecare of people the best you can.

(55:16):
Yeah.
And it works out pretty well.
Long-term relationships soundslike a big part of your business
too.
How much do you get fromreferral these days?
Or pa or our second time?
Quite a bit.
Yeah.
Quite a bit.
Yeah.
It's a big, it's a big part ofwhy we have work today.
Yeah.
If we were just waiting foreverybody to feel good about
what they read in the paperRight.
We wouldn't have, there's enoughenough.

(55:36):
Yeah.
I mean, what the click sellthese days.
Yeah.
So, um, I want to call a shortbreak.
We'll have a potty break..
And also, uh, getting some latersegments.
Okay.
Cool.

(56:39):
We're back.
Uh, one of the things I wantedto get back to is that location.
Tell me about that location anddid you do like a full remodel
on that?
Yeah.
And and like I was sayingearlier, the chiropractor
Walker's office or whatever yougot.
Yeah.
If you, if you ever look atthat, at that building, look on
the, on the, uh, there'll be thewest side, the parking area

(57:00):
side.
Okay.
Yep.
And you'll just see a tremendousamount of like electrical boxes.
Okay.
Uh, and that was becauseeverything came from some kind
of, I, I don't know, world Warii, uh, but what was he dealing
with all that?
That's his x-ray machines andOkay.
Yep.
Uh, there was lead blanketshanging all like this useful.

(57:21):
Yeah.
And uh, it was big screens andthe basement was just filled
with this stuff.
And a chiropractic chair thatwas not like a chiropractic
chair you have now was somethingyou like strapped yourself into.
And I would just see this stuffand just.
It, it was, uh, I just think I,I would never, I would never go

(57:41):
to a chiropractor, uh, if, ifthis was the environment, go to
the basement and strap yourselfinto this, uh, into this table.
But we, he wanted, him and hiswife wanted to, they, they
raised their family in thathouse.
Oh, wow.
Had their business there.
Uh, uh, the towers, the towerswere, um, being built.

(58:06):
Mm-hmm.
Uh, when he was there.
So he, he he added quite thehistory.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, in fact, when, and so yourented it from him for a while?
We did.
And he was a colorful guy.
Okay.
That, that's my nice way.
Very colorful.
Yep.
Um, in fact, the, well, 80somethings they get them.
Right.
Know, they could be like theywant.
Well, and after he, you know, hefought in the war and, uh, um.

(58:30):
But yeah, he let us know thatthe, you got the, the, uh, when
we met with him, he's like, Hey,I just wanna make sure you guys,
you guys aren't, uh, communistsand okay.
Like, he goes, you know, are youguys Russian communists?
And I said, no, we're not likejust Americans.

(58:51):
Yeah.
Uh, that's good.
Uh, freedom loving Americans.
And, uh, and we, we, we couldn'tunderstand what he was talking
about.
He goes, okay, so I'll tell youwhy.
'cause the Russian communistshad been trying to buy this
little place for me for years.
I was like, wow, what's hetalking about?

(59:11):
Who would wanna buy this?
What, what?
I don't even understand.
I couldn't get where he wasgoing.
Right, right.
You, you're smiling and, butyou're sir Mr.
Walker.
What, what, what's, what's,where is this going?
Is this just a colorful,colorful guy or what?
And, uh.
What he was referring to is ParkLane Towers.

(59:32):
Oh.
And he s had us walk.
Oh.
'cause they wanted to buy thatproperty.
He, he had us walk to the edgeof the sidewalk in the driveway
and he pointed the tower.
'cause that tower goes straightup outta that back of that
house.
Right.
And he said, that's Sovietarchitecture.
Oh.
And I said, well, okay.
Actually, I see your point.

(59:53):
Uh, right.
And he goes, and they've beenwanting to buy it and I'm not
gonna let'em tear this housedown and build another one of
those, which they couldn'tanyways.
Right.
But that gave you an insight towho this gentleman was.
Yes.
Yes.
He did not want Sovietarchitecture over his house.
And uh, um, if you look nexttime you drive by there and look
at the, look at the little housewith the tower behind it, you

(01:00:16):
can see a little insight of whothis guy was.
Yeah.
And, uh, so we promised him wewould never tear it down and
build a tower.
Good.
Um.
And ultimately our goal was, iswe'll never have a model home.
We, we weren't, again, we're nottrack house builders.
We're not, we're not productionbuilders.

(01:00:37):
Right.
Uh, and we're not gonna, countryspace is unique ultimately.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we're not gonna havemodel home, and we couldn't
think of a better place for usto have kind of a showroom of
what we do than a little oldhouse.
Hmm.
And we had looked at a fewaround.
Yeah.
And that was back when house wasa one-way street.

(01:00:59):
Right?
Yeah.
And Mulberry was a two lane,there wasn't a big middle lane
for turning left or right.
Mm-hmm.
Like it was, everything was alittle, uh, quieter at that
time.
Mm-hmm.
And that street wasn't exactlyas heavy traffic as it is now.
Right, right.
Well, and I live on La Porte.
Which at that time was two laneseach way, and they downsized

(01:01:23):
that, so that's awesome.
Yeah.
Good for you.
Thanks Mulberry, for taking thatextra traffic from us.
But, uh, um, we knew it'd beseen there on Mulberry, and we,
you know, the, the brick therewas hardly any cement between
the brick.
Uh, it was worn out.
The roof was as old as the housewas.
Yep.
Uh, and there really was next tono landscaping.

(01:01:44):
Um, the driveway was, uh, sunkenbecause of a water issue from
the tower that w just dumped allthe water onto that property.
Mm.
And, um, the, so the drivewaysink down about foot fricking
communist foot, foot and a halfonce you drove in, it's a
communist fault.
His driver was sunken like that.
So, but Brian and I walked itand we're like, this is amazing.

(01:02:06):
Right.
And then, uh, um, Earl, Earl,uh, decided to, he's like, well,
I'll sell it to you guys.
So we, uh, we let'em know onceagain that we, we didn't have
any money tear down.
I don't know how we're gonna getit.
I don't know how we're gonna payfor it.
Went to the bank, right?

(01:02:26):
Went to, uh, went to the bankand the bank's like, you guys
have no money.
You guys just started a companyand Right, you're paperwork.
We really are looking for adifferent color of, of a, uh,
financial spreadsheet than thecolor you guys have.
Um, you have no capital, so youreally have no equity in what
you've started.

(01:02:46):
Uh, we're not gonna lend you anymoney.
So we went to Earl and Earlsaid, well, it's'cause the banks
are run by communists.
By the government Communists,yeah.
All of that.
And I could go into more of whathe said, no we shouldn't.
And he said, I'm going to, uh,I'll carry that up for you guys.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna carry youguys.
Yeah.
So, um, and we told the bank andthe bank's like, you better sign

(01:03:07):
that as fast you can.
So, and it was great.
It was just a little story ofhow we Yeah.
How we ended up with the place.
But, um, did you remodel itright away?
Took a period of time.
Yeah.
And, uh, and have you remodeledit since we've been remodeling,
kinda.
We show off new stuff here andthere from period of time, do a
room.
And it's when you, when you,when you are involved in a

(01:03:30):
creative, uh, you're justinvolved in a creative business
for or, or something, you reallydrive a lot in a creative, you
find yourself that you loveanother creative that surrounds
it.
For me, that was landscaping.
Mm-hmm.
And Brian was the same way.
Mm.
We, we were like, Hey, we, wegotta, let's do something

(01:03:52):
amazing with this place.
Yeah.
And then let's landscape it.
So, and now the landscape'sfully matured and Yeah.
You know, it took a lot of yearsand, um.
Uh, it, it, it's, it's great.
But yes, the inside has beendone a few times.
Yeah.
Um, mainly updating though, notreally full heavy remodeling.
Okay.
Um, the ma, so, well, there'sonly so much like so many walls,

(01:04:17):
right.
You do colors and Right, right.
Countertops or whatever.
We, we did have to do some, somestuff in the early years.
There was a, there was, therewas a, I think we had over 50
patches we had to do in thewalls.
Oh.
Um, the history of that house.
Plaster walls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The history of that house was,it was the, it was a mayor of

(01:04:38):
Fort Collins.
Oh, is that right?
It was his home.
It was crooked.
Okay.
And, uh, no, not a crookedgovernment official.
Yeah.
The, so the crooked mayor, thisis all for Mr.
Walker.
So if, if I'm, if I'm wrong inany of this or Yeah.
A family, I'm accusing if Iheard somebody's family for Mr.
Mayor, you know, it just, thisis just for Mr.
Walker.
I, I love these stories though.
And he says, uh.

(01:04:58):
He says, the reason why there'sholes all over in here is
because I found some moneyunderneath a vanity when I was
fixing a sink that was hiddenOh.
From the old mayor.
And then he became obsessed thatmaybe there might be some more
money.
Right.
But then it was Oh, for 90 afterthat.
Oh, for 90 There were, there's,there's, there was nothing more

(01:05:22):
to be found.
Um, but we wanted to remodel itwith the, with the original
character.
Yeah.
Uh, we got, we, we went to thecity when the city code was
changing on windows, and thecity was awesome.
Uh, and said, keep the oldwindows that you guys have, uh,
just make'em as efficient as youcan.
Yeah.
Well, no, we couldn't change.
Oh, you can't even change theglass.
We, we decided we didn't want tochange the glass.

(01:05:45):
Um, but we put in, you know, weredid the boiler system to be
where it would be, uh, meet thatat the best we could.
Yeah.
Uh, and then, uh.
You know, you're updatingeverything on that, on that old
building.
But there's a few cool things.
If you go in the, in the littlegarage where we, we do our Stu
studio work, we converted thewhole thing to commercial.

(01:06:07):
So the city was heavily involvedwith us at that stage.
Oh, gotcha.
Um, but if you go into the old,the old Garage, which is a
design studio where, you know,people are making their
decisions on what they want theinteriors to look like.
Sure.
Uh, there's two indentions onthe back wall from their, the
family Buick, just going alittle too far forward and, and

(01:06:27):
dented the brick and, uh, thebrick masons, when we're having
to redo all the tuck pointing,said, do you want us to fix
this?
Definitely Not just, just groutit in, because I, I like those
two indent that's here, rightthere.
Yeah.
So the, uh, um, but we knew thatthat would be a place where we
could, uh, show our work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, create the.

(01:06:48):
Um, energy that we want for ourclients to feel when they come
in and sit down with us, thecalmness of what a home is and,
um, yeah.
Yeah.
And so we've really kept it inthat, in that kind of a, um,
environment.
Is the mulberry pool between youand the Lincoln Center, or are
you right?
No, we're close to the, we'recloser to the Lincoln Center,
the Mulberry Pool's right.
On the other side.
Okay.

(01:07:08):
So probably the Lincoln Center,uh, proximity has sold you as
many houses as the Mulberrytraffic hope going by.
Right.
I hope like, because it's, it'sthose like people that go to
shows at the Lincoln Center alsosometimes do fancy remodels
Yeah.
And custom homes and stuff.
Right, right.
Yeah.
And then when you, uh.
You know, we got, we got on someboards in the early years, we,

(01:07:30):
we wanted to be a part of thecommunity.
Sure.
So, um, Brian, Brian went to,uh, the Symphony Oh sure.
And he was on the board there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we picked him really close tooffice.
I went to open stage theater.
I knew nothing about acting,nothing about running a theater.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I got asked what I like, butit was very convenient by the
locations to our office forthose meetings.

(01:07:51):
And, uh, that's, uh, that's myworld right now, this office
and, and my house is on LaPorteand Whittcomb roughly.
Okay.
And then, uh, my rotary club isat Ginger and Baker, which is
roughly half from my house to myoffice.
Yeah, that's gr That's great.
So pretty easy living.
Your uh, your footprint ispretty small.
It is.
I like it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I like you can drive that bigold ambulance out there.
My, my carbon footprint is stillpretty small.

(01:08:12):
I, I couldn't find a place topark'cause that ambulance takes
up three parking spots.
It's just about, just about.
So, but um, yeah, so that's,that, that's how the, uh, the,
the office has been.
Um, yeah.
Wonderful.
You're probably hybrid now witha lot of people in the field and
stuff, or can you fit all thepeople?
Yeah.
No, we in the room together ordo you do that sometimes?
I think if, uh, if you were toask Kira, she would say, I, I

(01:08:35):
love that we're in this office'cause it won't allow us to grow
so many people.
Right.
You have to stay a boutique.
Yeah.
We integrated, I sent her adesign build uh, a couple years
ago.
I sent her a.
Um, an ad.
It was a, it was a, uh, interiordesign ad my, a company in Japan
for a small office space inJapan.
Mm-hmm.

(01:08:55):
Right.
And I said, Hey, we could dothis.
And it was, it was literally fitlike 45 people a day.
Like little, literally.
It was so creative.
But your personal space, very,very small.
Back to back at each chair.
Yeah, it's double desk.
Double.
It was a double desk system withlike a little Yep.
Like bunk bed, but desk.
Yeah.
Perfect.
And, uh, she, she said, uh,that's, that's really funny.

(01:09:18):
But, um, I, I really like thesize we are now, but No, we, we,
um, yeah, I mean, you, you takewhat we need to get done outta
the office and everybody itworks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Works pretty well.
Most of that work is field workanyway stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It works real well.
And what's your like, teamengagement?
Do you have like a monthly fullstaff meetings and things like
that?
Or how do you connect with theteam about the stuff we're

(01:09:40):
doing, the new staff, ours, oursis quarterly.
Quarterly, okay.
Um, uh, and, um, it's.
It, it, it's so interactive withthe team every day.
Right.
And how that works that we findkind of shortlist anyway.
We find, we find quarterly workspretty well.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, um, it, it's, you know,you.

(01:10:04):
You try to not be adysfunctional family.
You want to, but it is a familybusiness.
Right, right.
So, and in that there's a lotof, just a lot of interaction.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
So quarterly works great for,for trust, a lot of long term
employees.
And if, if we need to have oneearlier than that, if you're
great, it's later than thatemergency quarterly.
Yeah.
We're not, we're not, it doesn'thurt anybody's feelings if we're

(01:10:24):
like, Hey, it's not gonna be inJune, it's gonna be in July.
Yeah.
Everybody's like, great.
Nobody wants a breakfast burritothat bad.
So.
Fair enough.
Um.
Okay, so now is the time We gotour ping pong ball challenge,
and I heard from Dwight duringthe break that, uh, the winner
can stop by high craft builders,uh, to get their swag.

(01:10:45):
So it could be a hat, could be amaybe not a hoodie.
That hoodie looks prettypremium, but we see, I'm not
gonna tell.
It might be, it might, we mightsurprise you what you get at
Love Thermos.
You guys, you got pretty goodswag.
Yeah, we swag.
We love swag.
We love swag.
Cool.
So, um, the, the, the game isthat you gotta pull three of
these balls and answer all threequestions and then I'm the
decider of which answer to thequestion wins the prize.

(01:11:08):
Great.
So it's our way of making surepeople listen all the way
through the podcast and, youknow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So grab three of these.
You can keep that right overthere if you, alright.
And then I got three, I've gotthis list of questions that
match up to the numbers.
Okay.
Associated.
So your first number please.
Eight.

(01:11:29):
What, what music or artistreminds you of your childhood?
Do you have a genre, a favoriteband from back in the day and
back in Cali?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there'squite a, i I, I definitely grew
up in a mixed, mixed culture.
Um, anything, anything on, uh,Spanish radio, really anything?

(01:11:56):
Yeah, I grew up our town, thetown I grew up in doubled and
shrank twice a year inpopulation.
Oh, wow.
So it was a, it was a, it was amigrant workers type.
Uh, yeah.
So it was, it was, are youSpanish speaking?
It was a migrant town, uh, of,and, uh, Spanish speaking.
Uh, I'd like to think so.

(01:12:17):
If, uh, if you talk to, uh, mySpanish or Mexican compadres,
they would tell you, they'relike, yeah, you're terrible.
You think gr go greggo Spanish.
But my mom, my mom saw a hundredpercent full fledge.
Uh oh, is that right?
Mexican girl from gr fromGreeley.
So, okay, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My dad's as white as rice.
And where's he, what's hisfamily heritage?

(01:12:38):
He's, uh, German.
German.
German.
Irish English.
German English, you know.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Mixed white bread mix.
Mixed European.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
So, um, but, uh, uh.
So anything on Spanish radio.
Interesting.
And then from there, you, I grewup in the eighties and it was a
cool time.
So it was a cool time for music.
Yeah.
I guess I, I was a little bitafter, but like, guns N Roses

(01:13:01):
and Poison the hair bands.
It was before that.
No, it wasn't hair bands.
It would be, it would be more,uh, more like, uh, more
alternative stuff.
Rolling Stone.
It would be more like REM.
Okay.
Yep.
You'd throw me, throw me in thatcategory.
So, and then, uh, you throw insome, uh, you know, uh, some
classic country of that time, soyou, you pick it, the old Hank
Everyth things.
But we went to everything wewent, you know, uh, it was, it

(01:13:23):
was, it was all good.
I, I, I, I, I love culture.
I love, I love people.
And when that's the case, youtend to like a lot of different
music, but yeah, I do.
Yeah.
You, you play some, uh.
Play some, uh, into kale on, uh,LATI.
Yeah.
Uh, radio station.
And I'm, I'm with you.
I actually, I actually enjoy theSpanish radio stations and I'll
stop on them sometimes when I'mtraveling with my wife.

(01:13:46):
Yeah.
And she's like, why are youstopping here?
I'm like, I don't know.
I'd like it, you know, I can'tunderstand it.
I don't, you know, but I likeit.
No, it's good.
It's good.
That's a Friday, every Friday.
Uh, that was what was blasted.
Working construction on the jobsites growing up, you know,
everybody wanted to listen,whatever the, you know, whatever
the radio station was.
Yeah.
But Friday, that was reservedfor the, the, let's lat gra.

(01:14:07):
Got it.
Got it.
I dig it.
All right, next.
Number nine.
What's the strangest way you'veever inju injured yourself?
That's the first time for thatquestion.
Uh, well, he was, I was just ata, uh, a year ago I was dancing
to a, uh, I was.

(01:14:29):
Lab?
Not really.
It's aggressive.
I was, I, I was at, I was athome and, uh, we were, uh, just
a year ago tore my MCL, uh,really, uh, dancing to, uh, the
song Laona with, uh, uh, myfriend's wife who's of, uh,
Mexican descent.
And she wanted, I love it.
She wanted to run, uh, shewanted to lead our dancing, and

(01:14:50):
I wanted to lead dancing.
I'm the one that with the tornMCL.
Okay.
But, uh, no.
If, um, my, uh, left, I wouldsay my left foam Okay.
Is, uh, from the days of framingis, uh, I, I did, uh.
It took a, it took a beating.
Be front.
I've, I shot it a couple timeswith a nail gun.

(01:15:10):
Yeah.
And, and I, I just hit it with ahammer a few times.
There's a reason why I didn'tplay a whole lot of sports in
high school.
I just didn't have thatcoordination.
It took me a little bit tofigure out, spill harder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I, uh, my thumb is just healing.
I cut the end off of it with thechef knife.
Yeah.
Uh, which is rare.
'cause usually I cut the end offof this finger.
Okay.
I've cut the end off of thisfinger like five times with my

(01:15:31):
chef knife.
Well, you and I, you and Ishould not late.
You and I should not be withtools together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, question 3 25 25, what'sone thing on your bucket list
that you're determined toaccomplish?
Um, it's, it's, it's really easyfor me.

(01:15:57):
It goes right.
I mean, my mind goes right toit, but, uh, uh.
My wife and I love, we lovetravel.
Okay.
And, um, we've, uh, we were ina, I've been in a builder group
that traveled together, youknow, to different locations.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Twice, twice a year.
Okay.
A peer group.
Yep.

(01:16:17):
O open book, tough love.
Yeah.
We haven't really talked muchabout that.
Mainly mainly east coastcompanies, so lot of tough love.
Right.
Uh, they're very direct outthere.
Um, and feel really fortunate byhow much of the United States
we've been able to see in thatprocess.
Uh, the, the, there's just the,the beauty around, um, the

(01:16:38):
different, the landscapes tojust beautiful diversity of this
country.
Right.
Like we're, yeah.
Just, just seeing so manydifferent places.
But in all of our travels thatwe've done, and, uh, my
father-in-law's from Denmark andwe gotta go see, you know, we've
seen a little bit of Europe andwe've, we've done some travel
through there and, um.

(01:16:59):
But I will tell you, we, welove, absolutely love hitching
our trailer behind the truck.
I don't know if it's becausewe're terrible packers.
Like a camper trailer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just like a little, a little,little tiny.
And it's not too tiny.
It's it just a little, littlecamp camper trailer for you
guys.
And Yeah, I was saying I, Idon't know if it's because we're

(01:17:19):
terrible at packing and mywife's terrible at trying to
figure out how much groceries weneed so we just can load it up
or Right.
We just have our home on wheelsor we just don't like bathrooms
at gas stations.
But we, we love that.
And huh.
Uh, we really would.
We, it, it's a, it's a life goalto drive up into Alaska.
See Northwest Territories.

(01:17:39):
My wife's a Canadian girl fromVancouver.
Oh, is that right?
Okay.
So spend some time in that, thatWestern Canada side and take the
two month drive to Alaska andback or something like that.
I mean, that's, that's it.
Burns.
It burns pretty easy.
Yeah.
In my heart for, for somethingthat I know that that's a,
that's a life goal right there.
I should have you talk to mydad.
Uh,'cause he went up about threeyears ago.

(01:18:01):
He bought like this big, burlydriving truck that's four wheel
drive and on nice 36 inch tires.
Good for him.
Or some baloney, like it's abig, big dog and they.
Fought the roads and the thisand that, and got detoured and
detoured again.
Yeah.
And got to Alaska and, but notto where they were gonna go.

(01:18:22):
Like they were so sick oftraveling that they like turned
around and went back home.
But that's my dad.
My dad's a homebody like a week.
He's ready to go home usually.
Yeah.
I, I, I just can't.
But anyway, I think it's, it's,it's two parts to where no day
really matters.
Yeah.
You know, when, when you're inbusiness, it's a hard part.
You go on a trip Yep.
And you're trying to do it all.
Yep.
Especially when the kids arelittle, you know, every day has

(01:18:44):
to count.
Yep.
Because you got limited amountsof it.
Totally.
Yeah.
We got a long weekend a lot oftimes.
So I think that the, the, theAlaska or Northwest Territory
Drive really comes down to, uh,not just seeing and driving.
It's the fact that you've takenyour life to where Yeah.
Yeah.
If we don't get anything donetoday, no problem.

(01:19:06):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm very, I'm very envious ofthat situation and I, I do that
as a life goal to hit.
Is there a season in high craftbuilders, uh, where you're less
busy?
No.
If it is, it's in the wintertime when you're can't really
drive to Alaska and winter time.
Every Yeah.
Everybody's, everybody's,everybody's cranking and just, I
mean, I mean, and you can be,you can be less busy with what

(01:19:33):
you think we should be doing.
Yes.
We can't paint in the exteriorhomes, or we can't pour
foundations in January.
Right.
Real easy.
But there's always something,you know, I mean, it's, uh, if I
was gonna say this year, thisyear, the busyness was all
centered around, uh, lining upwhat our insurance company
requires, what our tradeinsurance company requires.

(01:19:56):
Mm-hmm.
What the attorneys require.
And getting everybody on thesame page so that we can sit
down and just do business.
Yeah.
That's not even with a client,that's just with working with
trades.
The insurance world has changedso much.
Uh, and this year, you know,earlier we were talking about
regulations.

(01:20:17):
At least we know what we'refighting with there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Alright.
We just need to do this When webuild houses now it might cost
more money.
We'll have to educate theclient.
We'll work through it, but wejust have to do it.
That's just what it's, it'sreally challenging.
Yeah.
To you have to, the concern isyou haven't done anything wrong,
but No, no.
The marketplace is punishingyou.
Yeah.
But you have to, at this point,you cannot, and this is where,

(01:20:42):
um, uh, a, a homeowner reallyneeds to be aware.
You cannot just hire somebody topour a foundation for an
addition anymore.
And not know everything abouttheir insurance and not have
your insurance Totally approveit and go through it because,
uh, the insurance companies allhave their ways that they want

(01:21:05):
to do business and it isn't upto you.
Yeah.
So, and we got a greatpartnership there, so don't get
me wrong, but it was a, a lot ofwork to go through that.
So that was, yeah.
There's always, there's alwayssomething.
Even, even if you're not pouringconcrete Sure.
Or you're, or painting walls.
Yep.
Drawing designs.
In my role, there's alwaysdrawing plans.
There's always work.
Yep.
Um, I give so much credit to Kiand Scott, uh, for how much they

(01:21:29):
have on their plate.
I mean, it's, it's a tremendousamount.
Yeah.
And, uh, so, uh, wintertime, ifsomebody, if we hit winter and
somebody catches a cold, I thinkenjoy it.
Enjoy that cold.
Good time out.
That's great.
A few days lay on the couch.
That's amazing.
By the way, for the, thelisteners out there, the Spanish

(01:21:50):
music will say is the, thewinner of the first question
that Dwight answered.
Okay.
And, uh, so write us on eitherLinkedIn or on our Instagram
channel for the Loco experience.
And with that answer, firstwinner will get introduced and
uh, we'll send you down there toget some sway.
That's great.
You say it very nicely.
The Spanish music.
Yes.
In the town I grew up in, all ofour friends, they were just, it

(01:22:13):
was, it was Mexican cowboymusic.
Oh, well, straight up Mexicancowboy.
I like it.
I'm a, it was fun.
North Dakotan Cowboy.
So, pretty fun.
Let's talk about your, yourfamily.
Um, you've mentioned your wife acouple times, but we haven't
gotten too much in Where did,where did you find her along the
journey?
Uh, I, when I moved to Colorado,um, I just threw it all in a

(01:22:33):
truck looking for, there waswork here.
Yeah.
Um, in a cyclical market.
You said your mom was here too,right?
Well, my mom, my mom and dad,they, they, they've been married
for.
55 years now, but, um, they gotmarried right outta high school
and raised us where my dad wasfrom, but my mom was from here
in Greeley, so.
Oh, I see.
We knew the area for going backand forth, um, in that the, uh,

(01:22:58):
uh, so we, we, yeah.
This is the, a interesting, um,background there, but it pretty,
pretty cool.
My mom's family goes all the wayback to the, uh, Spanish
settlements of the San LuisValley.
Oh, wow.
San Luis Valley and Yeah.
How they, my wife and I werejust down there in, in, uh, that

(01:23:19):
Tao Santa Fe.
Yeah.
And different, and, and in SanLuis Valley.
And we met a young couple, andone of the things I think I
observed is that there's, andnot just them, but some others,
is that there's kind of the,like the old Spanish Cowboys
Yeah.
And stuff.
And so they're Oh yeah.
Tend to be more.
More Spanish in appearance, lessindigenous, if you will.

(01:23:41):
And then a lot of, yeah,indigenous intermixing as well,
but that cowboy culture, yeah,that's, that San Luis Valley is
pretty heavy, so, yeah.
Um, yeah, my mom was from her,her family goes backdate there.
Yeah.
Quieter ways around 1800.
And then, and then, uh, and theyended up in Greeley, um, because
they were in, um, irrigation.
Okay.

(01:24:01):
So family goes back pretty goodthat way.
Um, but yeah, my, my wife Dana,and we've been, uh, um, like I
said earlier, married since 96.
Yep.
Um, and, uh, and then we have,uh, you find her here in Fort
Collins and Greeley.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When I, when I first moved here,I, I, um, needed, I, I didn't

(01:24:23):
know anybody really.
Right.
Uh, so, uh, uh.
I, I had a cousin and, uh, shewas in, in high school, and I, I
remember telling her, yeah, I'mcoming out.
Uh, I'm not gonna know anybody.
She goes, you know, I work withthis girl who goes to college,
right?
I said, really?
Can I get her phone number?
And uh, and, uh, just like that.

(01:24:45):
And she's like, oh, I'll get youher phone number.
So she gave me a phone numberand I called it, and it was, uh,
yeah, here we are.
Is that right?
Three kids later.
So, yeah.
Ah, that's really fun.
Yeah, it was great.
Is there, uh, like you werealready kind of a, a
freewheeling builder typescraping together, living in
some fashion, so starting abusiness and stuff wasn't really

(01:25:06):
that intimidating for Dana.
I I, for you?
I think, I think she saw, um,when, when we met, I had talked
a contractor out of, uh,Loveland and to let me build a
house for him.
Okay.
He, he was the, he was thecontractor.
Mm-hmm.
And he, he needed somebody to.
Frame side, put the windows into t Typical framing contractor.

(01:25:29):
Yeah.
Duties.
Um, and it was in Bonner PeakRanch.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, north of town.
Sure.
I didn't even know where thatwas.
I just said, okay, I'll do it.
Right.
And he's like, well, here's,here's what it pays.
I said, great.
Four bucks a square foot.
I'll, I'll take care of all thatwork.
And I spent the entire winter upthere on a, on a, oh boy.

(01:25:49):
Very, uh, it's windier up therethan it is here in town.
Huh.
A nice custom home.
Okay.
Uh.
That was way beyond my skillsetat the time.
Mm-hmm.
And I just had to forge throughit.
And, uh, me and a young guy who,uh, in a lot of ways that young,
young man, uh, Justin knew morethan what I knew.
Uh, we just worked up thereevery day and I remember, yeah.

(01:26:12):
It was Wendy, we worked with, I,I'd never worked with ski
goggles on before, and it wasjust because it was so windy, it
was always dusty.
Yeah.
It was the, the sawdust wasalways, so we just would work in
the wind and Dana, uh, schoolwould get out at CSU and she'd
come up and I, she swept thatjob site every day knowing that
I wouldn't get to be done untilI had that place cleaned up.

(01:26:34):
Hmm.
I always, I always was verydrawn to a clean job site at the
end of the day.
And so we kind of, in a weirdway, kind of grew up together a
little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Before high crafts.
The, the birth of high craft.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
So, um, how old are your kiddos?
You said you got three?
Uh, yeah.
Yep.

(01:26:55):
I've got, uh, our, uh, daughterMorgan.
She's 24.
Okay.
And she's, uh, she's, uh, in theranching world.
Alright.
Uh, she's a cowgirl and our son,Hayden, he's over at Mesa.
Uh Okay.
In, uh, over Grand Junction,right?
Yep.
Yep, yep.
And uh, and then our daughterJordan, and our daughter Jordan,

(01:27:16):
we actually lost her daughterJordan, uh, eight, nine years
ago.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
Uh, uh, tough situation.
Um, down at Children's.
So, uh, yeah, we hold her, uh.
Very close.
We're a pretty tight knitfamily.
I've great in-laws all the waythrough the siblings and, and

(01:27:36):
then my, my, I have threebrothers and, uh, so pretty
close family.
So we, we know what family isand we hold onto to the, we hold
to our three kids pretty tight.
What, uh, what are your, um,aspirations for grandkid timing?
Do your kids have significantothers yet?
You're, no.
You're older.
Two.
No.
You know, maybe, maybe I, maybethey need to be sitting here and

(01:27:58):
you can talk to'em about thatfor me.
Well, they could just listen tothis podcast, you know, they're
young.
They're young, so they are, um,and, uh, you know, I think, uh,
I think all kids want that, uh,or a a lot do.
Uh, it is just, um.
Uh, they, we've encouraged themto, uh, enjoy their Yeah.

(01:28:20):
Be, be, they don't have tofigure it out right away and
just let that, let that comewhen it comes on a real, on a
real natural level.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, not, not yet, butthe day it happens, I'll tell
you, we'll be, that'll be sure.
That'll be a pretty awesome day.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, what advice would you havefor, for entrepreneurial minded
people, maybe especially in the,in the building trades, um, that

(01:28:45):
would try to start somethingtoday, even like you had kind of
an apprenticeship that to someextent prepared you, but what,
what would you need to do to beable to Yeah.
Get something off the ground intoday's marketplace?
Learn.
You know, really, really dig in.
It doesn't need to be, I mean, Iwas, I was pretty anxious as a

(01:29:06):
young man to get going as soonas possible.
Yeah.
Uh, it kind of feels fairlysimilar to me talking to my kids
of Right.
And there's a big thing isthere's not more freedom in it.
I think there's a falsificationof like, Hey, if I do this, I'm
gonna have more freedom.
I get to, I get to do, say anddo what I want to do.
Yeah.
Um, be the boss man instead ofthe Yeah.

(01:29:27):
Yeah.
And they, you know, if I, Itell, I tell most of them, you
know, here's, here's the, here'sthe deal.
You know, I can't tell you howmany years when we started high
craft, I mean, it was well intothe maturity of high craft old,
our, our office, 6:00 AM And,um, I don't think I, I, I mean,

(01:29:48):
I, I literally never, neverreally ate breakfast with my
kids except for Sunday morning.
Yeah.
Um, and that was throughSaturday.
Yeah.
Saturday.
Brian and I were good aboutstaying at noon.
We're outta here.
Mm-hmm.
But six to six.
And then, you know, being on,you want to be in the community.
So you're at a, you're at aboard meeting of some type and
yeah, really think that through,um, that that's something you

(01:30:11):
want.
So, and alignment with yourspouse or significant other is
very important in that as well.
'cause they, there is somesacrifice that, that happens in
that.
And then from there, really goodpeople around you.
I mean, for me it was a buildergroup.
Yeah.
We joined our builder group.
It was the, uh, third day afternine 11, and it was in DC and we

(01:30:35):
saw the Pentagon was smoking.
Oh, wow.
And, but we wanted in this groupso bad and they said, this is
gonna happen.
You have to be there.
And we found out two days beforeand we went one of the best
decisions ever.
Um, yeah, talk to me about that.
Like, and for, to set the stagemaybe a little bit a, a builder
group is.
Kind of like what local thinkTank does in that it's pure

(01:30:56):
advisory, but in, in this case,it's all builders, but from the
country.
Yeah.
This, this one's like, likecompanies.
Yeah.
I actually, uh, as I've spenttime on local think tank, uh,
really like the format becauseit's different opinions,
different different industries,different industries.
There is something to say forthat, for the head trash that we
all carry.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In what we think business,sometimes they get industry
think going on industry think isterrible.

(01:31:18):
Yeah.
Um, but uh, yeah, the one I wasin is, uh, and in, in today, uh,
it's typically 10 to 20companies.
Uh, the one I'm in is in 10.
Um, uh, and it is twice a year,onsite meetings for three days.
And, uh, uh, a lot of swat.

(01:31:39):
Announced type.
Mm-hmm.
Go through some, so alwaystaking a good close look at
yourself and your marketplace.
Yeah.
And then, um, uh, that onethat's been really good for us.
Was that always your role ordid, was Brian also involved
with that?
Brian, can you both go?
Brian, Brian and I did thattogether.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Yeah.
When in fact, the one, the, thenight Brian retired and we threw

(01:31:59):
him a party.
I, and I was, I of course Igotta take, I gotta say a few
words, right?
Sure, of course.
Um, and uh, I calculated it andI think it was just shy of six
months that Brian was myroommate, so, and now 24.
Oh right.
All 24 years building grouptrips and stuff sitting on
sitting.
Drive into meetings or, youknow, going to a conference or

(01:32:22):
whatever.
And we always shared a room.
Sure.
All, all those years.
Yeah.
We, we never, we never, neverthought of like, Hey, you wanna
get your own room?
That sounds expensive.
We're not doing that.
What are we gonna do?
Like, be bored.
Yeah.
Separately.
So, um, um, but, uh, yeah, wewent, we did that together and
that created a lot of alignmentand allowed for us to look at
the co look at our own companyfrom 10,000 feet rather than

(01:32:44):
from you.
The, it is very hard inside thebars of it issue, if you will.
And our, our style business isvery grassroots business.
And when you're grassroots, thatmeans you're in the ground,
you're in the soil, you're inthe grass, you're in the, you're
in the weeds.
Mm-hmm.
Um, it's pretty important to,yeah.
Gotta keep your finger right.
All the way up there to getoutta that front line.

(01:33:04):
Yeah.
Get outta that.
'cause, uh, looking down, Imean, how many times have you
gotten on an airplane and it'snot even metaphorically right.
And you're flying and you cansee the cars driving around down
below and everything's so small.
And that's what really, that'sthe magic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's intriguing.
So, oh, wow.
10,000 feet.
Here we go.
Is there, uh, were there anyreally big decisions from, from

(01:33:26):
those seasons that the builders,or was it more of a slow
polishing or like going to thefixed price?
Was that something No, we didthat.
We, that ourselves, I think itwas, I think it was, um, slow
polishing.
Yeah.
I think, I think that's actuallythe benefit of it, because we
want, for the big change, wewant for the, you make a, you
make a the use button.
You make a, you make a change inyour company, right?

(01:33:48):
You make a, you make a, a wellthought out, you put together a
big plan, you think it throughand you analyze it, and you put
it together and you put it intoaction.
And it takes six months to ayear to see it for fruition.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you just sit there going,come on.
Right.
I want this today.
Right.

(01:34:08):
And one of the building thatsoftware that you were talking
about, for example Yeah.
One of the, uh, multi-month.
The, the young, the youngcontractor professional, uh, or
wanting to, I don't care if it'sa handyman service anymore.
Sure.
Okay.
I mean, in fact, they, that,that, that market is got from,
they're probably a better marketfor a lot of people.
Opportunity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.

(01:34:28):
Yeah.
They avoid, uh, a ton ofregulation, my handyman to put
this up for me.
Yeah.
They, they avoid, they avoid somany things that you have to do.
Yep.
And they're, we don't have ahandyman service.
We're pretty focused on what we,we, we like to stay in our lane,
but the, um, it, it's a, it's atremendous business, but we are
naturally optimistic.

(01:34:50):
Right.
When you start a company, you'revery optimistic.
Yeah.
Um.
You gotta think through some ofthat optimism sometimes.
Yeah, sometimes That's been ahard lesson.
So the market ISN there.
Yeah, I've, I've learned thatlesson for myself, like, man, I
was a, maybe a little optimisticin there.
Been there too.
Oh, I forgot to calculate taxes.
Talk about that next time we puta system in place, place to make

(01:35:12):
sure we catch that next time.
So, um, but yeah, I, I, uh, um,but like I said, the, the, this
next generation of, and I wastalking to my son and he's,
there's so much has been givento this generation that they,
the work ethic isn't there.

(01:35:33):
These other negatives that yousee around, I don't.
I'm not a part of that.
Yeah.
I mean, uh, your experiencedifferent high craft team is
Yeah.
There's a lot of young people onhigh craft.
They're amazing people.
They work really hard.
They are very conscious of whatthey're doing and how they're
doing it.
Yeah.
All the way through to, I I justhad, uh, a handful of college

(01:35:56):
aged boys at the, at the, uh,house, you know, and they're,
they, they all hit 21, sothey're, they're pretty Okay.
It's like your son and hisfriends or something.
Yeah, yeah.
They're all, they're enjoyingtheir, their beers and, you
know, they're, um, every singleone of'em are hard working,
devoted to good work, workethic, um, in what they do.

(01:36:20):
And it's impressive.
And then I was in a conversationthis morning with my daughter
early over.
We were having coffee and shewas, she was telling me, um,
about these, that the ranchingindustry, it's these young
girls.
Hmm.
They're in their early to earlytwenties to early thirties that

(01:36:43):
are like taking that world bystorm right now.
Is that right?
And, um, so I, I love it.
Is this a cow calf operation?
Is that what she's up to?
No, she's, well, she, it, it,it, it is.
But the, the, the greater ranchis, is usually tied to the
bigger ranches are tied tofarming.
Sure.
And every, every aspect of, ofland management as well as

(01:37:05):
animal management.
So, um, interesting.
She's, uh, so these young peoplewith that much gumption Yeah.
That much energy and that desireto work, the ones that really
want it, um, go for it.
There's a lot to learn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's mistakes are gonna behad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But mistakes create systems.

(01:37:26):
That's right.
That's right.
We wouldn't have systems if wedidn't make mistakes.
Failures.
Can borderline, is it, was thistoo big of a failure or was it
not?
But it creates the, the weightof how you make your decisions
in the future.
One thing I like to say aboutlocal think tank is that it's,
uh, it's nice to learn from themistakes of others sometimes
instead of just your own.
Yeah.
You know, have that forum where,you know what, if you want, you

(01:37:49):
think this sounds like a goodidea to have that commission
system in there.
Yeah.
But I tried that and it was apiece of crap.
I did, I did enjoy.
That was one of the things wegot from our builder group was
the, uh, we were always theyoungest guys.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah.
In the room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And now I'm in a group whereturned into one of the older
guys.
Yeah.
Which is a little disappointing.
That's how it goes.
Um, and it's, uh, the, the menand women in there are just

(01:38:10):
incredible.
But it's always to have, uh.
To learn from your elders.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and the young kids pick upnew tricks faster sometimes, you
know, especially withtechnology.
Oh, they got so many, they gotso many tools and they just
learn how to do anything onYouTube.
Yeah.
Like, oh, I don't know how to dothat.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now I do.
Well, you, I, I was just on, uh,I was just doing some research

(01:38:32):
on an AI platform for, um,exterior landscapes.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And, uh, how, how that, how thatwork.
I mean.
You make a whole movie thesedays.
The tools, the tools are at yourfingertips.
Yeah.
No, that's pretty dynamic thatwe, that we had to like, I mean
it's No, you're drawing linesfor hours Yeah.

(01:38:54):
To do anything close.
It's, it's, it's, it's, no, Imean, I, I was, I was liking it
to, you know, when the originalbicycle came out, had the one
big huge wheel on the front.
Sure.
Little tiny one on the back.
Yeah.
And it was, uh, there was no,there was no gear difference.
You pedaled as it moved, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep.
And then, um, we changed thetires and then you put a

(01:39:16):
sprocket on, a train on there.
Yeah.
You start having some, you starthaving some gears in there and
now you have electric bikes.
Right.
But it's all a bicycle.
Right.
What it is still, you stillgotta pedal the thing.
Well, I mean, some of you don'thave to, but you still gotta
pedal it to go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, what a difference.
One, one will, no one will giveyou the same workout as another.

(01:39:37):
You just have to, you just haveto pedal a lot farther.
Right.
But you can, yes.
Um.
Is, is that first one more willbe much more dangerous.
You should definitely wear yourhelmet on the uni bike thing is,
oh no, that one big wheel on thefront one scares.
That one scares me.
I would, yeah.
You hit like a in the road orsomething, you just flop right
over it looks like.
Yeah.
But um, yeah.

(01:39:57):
Uh, I think the, I think theyoung entrepreneur today has
their own unique set ofchallenges that some, that I
would not want to have faced.
And then they also haveopportunities that, boy, I wish
I had that, yeah.
The toolkit they have.
Oh my gosh.
Uh, the knowledge, you know, wewere using encyclopedias when
you and I were kids to learnstuff, you know?

(01:40:18):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I, uh, yeah, for, for forsure.
And, um, uh, copying out of themwhen we got in trouble.
That's right.
I wanna move us to the locoexperience.
Yeah, go ahead.
That is the craziest experienceof your lifetime that you're
willing to share with ourlistening audience.

(01:41:21):
Near deaths or foreignescapades, Mexican prisons,
none.
That kind of stuff.
No.
No, I don't, I don't have, Idon't.
Oh, I have, yeah.
I mean, I have, I have my shareof dumb things I did as a kid.
Um, crazy experience Um, almostkilled my wife on a mountain

(01:41:50):
road on our first anniversary,four wheel drive trip.
Um, well, I know my wife wouldhave a, a handful in here.
I, I guess if I, if I went to,we, uh.
Okay.
We had this one, one experience.
We got, we got invited by Pellawindows.
Okay.

(01:42:10):
Um, to go out to Pella, Iowa andsee how to manufacture these
things because you bought enoughwindows to get a Yeah, yeah.
Invite to come and check it out.
You gotta, you gotta, you got a,uh, um.
Uh, free plane.
You've ordered enough windows toget a free plane ticket, uh,
with C 37 F and 37 D.
Right.
And gotta stay in a, uh, uh,home suite hotel.

(01:42:33):
Very nice.
So, yeah.
Or motel.
Uh, so they, they flew us outthere and we did this tour and
we go to this bar and I don'tknow if anybody's been to that
area or not, or that part of theMidwest.
I, I didn't grow up out there.
What part of Iowa?
Pella.
Oh no.
Oh, I guess, but is it centralIowa over by the Mississippi?
Is it it, I think it's, it'sjust outside the, it's maybe an
hour from the main city there.

(01:42:54):
Okay.
What is that?
Des Moines.
Des Moines?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Um, so a lot of John Deerepeople around and stuff like
that.
Yeah.
There's cool tractors everywhereand the farms are like, as neat
and immaculate as you ever see.
And, um, we, the day's over andwe go to this bar and there's a
bar of beer cans.

(01:43:16):
It looked like you were going toa liquor store.
It was just beer cans in, uh,glass coolers.
Right.
Okay.
Like, yep.
So if you ordered a beer, theyjust handed you a Yeah, they
just grab outta the glasscooler.
What can do you want?
It was, it was, it was prettyunique.
And we, we were, we were, uh,there and, you know, shooting
some pool, what you do, justkilling some time because you're
just with some, uh, work andjust work friends.

(01:43:39):
You and, okay.
So me and Brian and, uh, acouple other builders that got
invited from the local area.
Okay.
Yep.
They took, they took us and youall the window tour people, and
then you like going down to havea burger and a beer afterwards,
whatever.
So we're, we're shooting pool.
And uh, all of a sudden this,this guy walks over and he is,

(01:44:00):
he is agitated.
Okay.
We have nothing to do with thisguy.
Right.
And maybe you're at his table.
No, I, I still don't know whathe was agitated about, but he
starts, he starts getting in ourface.
Now, this is not my, uh.
You're a lover, not a fighter.
Public fight.

(01:44:20):
I've never been in my life.
Okay.
Like growing up, that was partof childhood, right?
Right.
You wanna, you wanna playbaseball today?
Yeah.
Let's play baseball.
But first let's fight.
Okay, let's fight that.
That was part of, that was partof being a little kid.
Right.
As an adult Are whatcha talkingabout?
What is this guy doing?
Like it felt that weird, surrealfeeling.
Right.
Right.

(01:44:41):
And he grabs a pull stick and hesmacks Brian.
Oh shit.
Yeah.
Up like just smacks him.
Okay.
And next thing I know, likesmacking him, trying to hurt him
or, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
And next thing I know we've got,I mean the bar, we got
bartenders jumping over.
Bar, bar tops and one's, one's awoman.

(01:45:02):
Toughest.
Toughest lady I've ever seen.
Right.
She grabs the wrong guy.
I.
Okay.
She, because mean it meant well,but she didn't know because all
of a sudden everybody's chestsare puffed out and everybody's,
you know, there's a lot ofpushing and shoving going on of
like, what are you doing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is the most clean cutgroup of people together.
Right, right.
Like Pella, Iowa is just cleancut, let alone their guests.

(01:45:25):
And, um, so this, it go, itgets, this guy was a sole
provocateur.
He didn't have buddies oranything.
Yeah.
Just a local guy.
Just a local guy.
One, one dude.
Yeah, just one dude.
Um, and no, and then that turnedinto all of a sudden there's two
guys trying to like, help himget him out of the place, but
he's not letting go type of athing.
And there's, so there's this,like, what started out with, I

(01:45:47):
thought was gonna be a majorbarroom brawl turned into just a
lot of pushing and shoving andshirt grabbing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, uh, and then the bartenderjumps over and starts, another
bartender jumps over and he's,he's run around and he yells.
You better let go.
They're touring the plant.

(01:46:10):
Okay.
And this guy, like instantlylet's go.
He's like, oh, that, that windowcompany has so much control that
that's all they had to say atthe bar to get this thing to go
away.
Like he knew like, oh shoot,that's probably somebody's
brother who, the sheriff isprobably the brother of the guy
who who runs, right?
These guys by Windows who runsthe blinds division of something

(01:46:33):
and, uh, little push and shove.
And they, they escorted himoutside and they had a big talk
and the police came and they,they just said, you know, the
bartender's like, no, it's allgood.
It was just some, we had someguests here and don't worry
about it.
And all, all kind of just wentand Brian's like, what, what,
what on my shoulder?
Yeah.
He's, he's rubbing the side ofhis face going, what the heck?
How did I get that?
And Brian is like the leastconfrontational person for that

(01:46:57):
to have like happened to, like,he's never looking for.
Yeah, definitely a physicalfight, let alone just, I want to
talk smack back and forth withsomebody.
Right, right.
Crazy situation.
Never, even, never learned fromthe police.
Like what this guy had up hispraw or anything like that?
No, they, they just shut itdown.
They just, yeah.
Just like, shut it down.
And that guy was home.
This guy's just toward Pella.
Yeah.

(01:47:17):
And he's like, oh, holy shit.
Okay.
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'mglad we got that, uh, that
little window order so we canstay outta jail.
But, uh, no, it, it was, and,and it was.
You're drinking canned beer,playing pool.
So it's not like anybody wasoverly Right.
Frothed up either.
Right.
And we're all from Fort Collins,right?

(01:47:38):
So you're at low elevation, soyou're strong anyway.
Low, low.
And we know what good beer is,right?
We're drinking 7% beer in home,in 5% in, in Iowa.
And we just drink, you know,everybody enjoys some hams or
whatever it was at the time, butyeah.
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
So, but nobody was lit up.
You did not provoke that fightas I don't, I don't think I got
as reported to the social mediafor sure.
Or the high craft builders stars brawl in tele I.

(01:48:00):
Right, right.
So yeah, that's a, I mean, Ican, I can tell you all kinds of
stories about being in client'shomes, but we, we will leave
that alone.
Um, we, we, we, we'veexperienced a lot.
We experienced a lot specialcustom requests about mirrors or
bedroom, uh, designs.

(01:48:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We did a, uh, we, we were asked,um, while we were walking it
with a couple.
That they wanted the shower tobe built for three.
Uh, and that was, that was aunique request.
Yeah.
You know, and they said, Hey,and we want, I can't imagine
why.
We gotta make sure that we can,how, how does this work for

(01:48:44):
three and that?
And then we realized, oh, there,there.
That's why the bathtub's in thebedroom.
There's an add one, there's aplus one in this relationship.
There's a plus one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we just roll.
We just roll with it.
You know, we always just, yeah.
Yeah, if that's what they want,no problem.
No, no problem at all.
You know, we've done kitchenswhere there's no cabinets.
It's all dishwashers so thatnobody ever has to, oh gosh,

(01:49:06):
unload a dishwasher.
You know, just they have thelittle signage so that they
always knew which ones weredirty, which one were clean.
They'd move that around.
That's crazy.
That was a, uh, an engineer whois really into, um.
Uh, well, why taking him out ofthe dishwasher and putting him
in the cupboard and then Yeah.
He was really into the leanprocess Yeah.
Of efficiency.
That's really, and he's like,no, we don't, I, I don't, I hate

(01:49:27):
cabinets, uh, for anythingthat's gonna get dirty.
So they had the pots and pans,dishwasher.
I mean, and just so you know,this may decrease your resale
value.
Just a stack of dish.
It looked like we were goinginto Sears when you were a kid.
Just a, just a whole line ofdishwashers.
But, uh, yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, we, we, we get somespecial requests, get some weird
stuff.

(01:49:48):
Well, I've sure enjoyed theconversation.
Thank you.
Appreciate you spending thetime, and I appreciate you
having us here and, uh, whatyou're doing in the community
for, uh, trying to build upyoung entrepreneurs as well as
take care of the ones that havebeen doing it for a while.
And, and, uh, thank you spread,spread the love and the
knowledge and the, uh, uh,abilities that you can do it
within them.
Yeah.
That you can do it.
Yeah.
And, uh, it's, uh, it's, it'sreally cool.

(01:50:10):
And this, I, I know that this alabor of love for you, so
Pleasure.
Appreciate that.
Appreciate you.
Inviting us.
I gotcha.
Next time just you can, I'vedone my turn.
You'll bring somebody else fromhigh craft and have them sit
down.
All right.
And we'd love to have you overto the over the office.
Love to see it.
Thank you.
All right.
Cheers for now.

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EXPERIENCE 224 | Dwight Sailer, Owner of HighCraft Builders. Integrated Designs, Aligned Teams, and Strong Relationships

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EXPERIENCE 224 | Dwight Sailer, Owner of HighCraft Builders. Integrated Designs, Aligned Teams, and Strong Relationships