GreyCast w/ Chuck Kuhn

Chuck Kuhn, Virginia native and self-made entrepreneur who founded JK Moving Services at the age of 16 and has grown it to one of the largest privately owned moving shops in the country. Chuck talks about the struggles of starting his own business and eventual rewards including moving 4 different U.S. Presidents in / out of the White House.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We have. We've moved for presidentsand are out are during their term in
the White House, which has beenreally exciting. Hello. This is Ari
Fuzabody. I am the CEO ofGray Steel. Gray Steals, a national
boutique top fifteen commercial real estate capitalmarket services from I want to welcome and

(00:23):
also thank you for joining Graycast today. This show is an open and light
conversation around entrepreneurship, life and thelessons we learn along the way. When
I was younger, I was alwayslooking for folks I could find inspiration from
and to inform my path. AndI hope that the young people that are
listening to Greycast today find value inhearing the experiences our guest share. I

(00:45):
would love to hear from any ofyou that are listening in. Feel free
to reach out to me on LinkedIn, my social media channel of choice.
Joining me on Greatcast is Chuck Quan, A graduate from the School of Hard
Knocks. Chuck is a self madeand self taught entrepreneur. He is the
CEO of JK Moving and chairman ofCaprilo, a leading moving and relocation firm
headquartered in Loudon County, Virginia,which, as you may know, is

(01:07):
the data center capital of the world. JK and Chuck are notable for their
work for the US government and inparticular moving presidents in and out of the
White House. Chuck is additionally knownfor being a maven in the data center
industry, as well as for preservingthousands of acres of land in Virginia from
future development. Chuck and I hada great conversation around his life, career

(01:29):
and lessons he's learned along the way, so I hope you enjoy it and
take something away from it. Mytakeaway was there's really no substitute for hard
work and integrity, both of whichChuck has and he's had amazing success.
And in any event, I hopeyou enjoy it and feel free to reach
out to me as always on mysocial media channel of choice LinkedIn. Thanks
so much. Hi, this isAri Fruz about your host of Great Cast.

(01:57):
I'm the CEO of Gray Steel,where a top fifteen commercial real estate
transaction services firm throughout the United States. Great Steel handles investment sales of commercial
properties, mortgage banking of commercial properties, and we do that for a wide
variety of clients throughout the United States. As I mentioned, a moment ago
on today's show, I've Got I'vegot Chuck Qune, CEO of JK Moving,

(02:17):
on the line with me today.Chuck is a very dynamic entrepreneur who
I've gotten to know and I respectgreatly, and I thought it would be
interesting to have an informal chat withChuck about his life about business and to
kind of hear him and for himto share his thoughts with our audience today.
So thank you Chuck for joining me, and I appreciate it. So

(02:38):
I guess i'd start with this,Chuck. You know, if you don't
mind, I mean, I havea good understanding of your background, but
if you could kind of kick usoff with, you know, give us,
give us a little background, youknow, where'd you grow up,
where'd you go to school, andthen maybe lead into how you got into
your business. Great, all right, Well, thanks for having me on
today again. Chuck Kune, Presidentand CEO of JK Moving Services were headquartered

(03:00):
in Sterling, Virginia, and Igrew up in the area are I was
born and raised in northern Virginia.I went to W. T. Woodson
High School and I started JK inFairfax, Virginia back in May of nineteen
eighty two, when I was sixteenyears old. So quick background. My

(03:23):
parents both worked in telecommunications for BelleAtlantic and we were transferred over to Iran
prior to the revolution to help withtelecommunications, and so we were transferred over
there when I was seventh grade.And while we were over there, the
shaw was overthrown and we got shippedback prematurely. But that was really my

(03:46):
first introduction to the moving and storageindustry. And my parents were moving from
Fairfax to Iran, and I rememberit clearly without getting into too much detail.
The mover showed up late, itwas snowing, They got into my
parents' liquor cabinet, A fist fightbroke out between the moving crew. The
police were there, an ambulance wasthere, and that was my introduction.

(04:11):
We moved over to Iran, andas I mentioned earlier, the shawl was
overthrown and we got shipped back.When I got shipped back, I lived
with my aunt and uncle who hada small moving and storage company in Rockville,
Maryland. So that's where I learnedthe trade, learned the industry of
moving and storage. And then whenmy parents came back, it was another

(04:31):
disastrous relocation, moving back from Iran, missing items, broken items, and
service delivery issues. And so whenI turned sixteen and got my driver's license,
I started a moving and storage company. I knew we could do better
than what I'd seen in the industry. It was a good physical job,
and it was I thought a goodbusiness to start in an industry we could

(04:54):
make a difference in. And so, you know, I thought I knew,
but I didn't know. That storysuch an interesting story. I mean,
I think you know I'm an immigrant. I came here when I was
five because the same reason your parentscame back. I mean, we we
left after the revolution, and uh, and that's that's super interesting. So
I did not know that. Andso also I know you and I share
the Northern Virginia roots. I wentto George Mason, and my folks live

(05:17):
in Clifton, which I know youand I've talked about because you lived in
Clifton for a period of time aswell. That's very very interesting. So
do you have recollection of your timethere? It was it sounds like it
was rather brief, But do youdo you remember it? I do.
We were on a three year tourand I think we probably wound up in
Iran and Tehran for probably sixteen toeighteen months before we were shipped out.

(05:38):
So I mean, it was abeautiful country and we had great experiences until
the end and then it got alittle hairy, but all in all,
it was a great experience. Howinteresting And so you know, clearly you
go into the business at a youngage, what is that as a young
man? Like truly a very youngman. You know, I'm entrepreneurial I

(06:00):
started, I mean I started inbusiness in my teens as well. I
did smaller things and then ultimately Ifound my way into commercial real estate,
which you know, I started rightout of college. I went to George
Mason and Fairfax. But you know, how was that as a young man
building a business? How did youfind credibility? You know, I know
how I found it. I hadto kind of outthink and you know I

(06:21):
built my confidence through knowledge. Howdid you build your confidence? Because that's
a big part of being an entrepreneurat a young age. Absolutely, So
when I first started again, Iwas sixteen. I bought one used truck
that I had saved up from workingfor my uncle's moving company. I was
sixteen. I probably looked fourteen,so you're right, there was some challenges

(06:44):
to overcome. I named the companyJK JK was my father's initials. I
had, I still do a wonderfulparents, and they were very supportive and
very helpful when I was starting thecompany. They were a little concerned,
of course, they wanted me togo the traditional route but going off to
college, and they saw me startinga business and most likely not going to

(07:04):
college route. So they had typicalparental concerns, but they were very supportive.
And really we didn't have a marketingbut I say we, I didn't
have a marketing budget, and everymove we just kind of earned. And
when I was not in school,I would go out with business cards.
I would look for homes for salesigns on them. I would literally knock

(07:27):
on the door, introduced myself andasked if they'd be interested in a free,
no obligation estimate for their upcoming move. And that was the extent of
my marketing budget. And I wouldearn one move, which would lead to
the next move, which would leadto some repeat and referral business over time.
That was thirty eight years ago.Today we're the largest independently owned and

(07:49):
operated moving a storage company in thenation. We employ approximately eleven hundred people.
We have over two hundred and fiftytrucks in our fleet that are doing
over six million miles a year.That's amazing, It's very inspiring. So
I have a similar you know,it's say, how I scaled My commercial
real estate practice was not too dissimilarin a sense that, you know,

(08:13):
we'd approach property owners to provide thema complementary opinion of value, and that
opinion value would lead to in yourcase, a move. In my case,
it would essentially lead to a potentialengagement that would then potentially lead to
a consummation of a transaction and thenand then a snowball effect. Thirty eight
years is a very long time,and you had the you know, you

(08:35):
had the benefit of starting very early, and I guess I did too.
I've been in the business for justunder twenty Where did it click for you?
How did it click? That's agood question, and what a lot
of people ask me is when didyou feel the business that made it?
And when did you feel the businesswas on autopilot, which is a little
bit different than when did it click? So I'll kind of talk to both.

(08:56):
It clicked right away, and clickedright away because I really enjoyed what
we were doing. I enjoyed thephysical aspect of moving. It gives you
a great sense of accomplishment, andyou know when your day is over.
As you know when you're working inan administrative job or a desk job,
your day's never over. You justelect to leave and then you go back

(09:20):
in the next day and pick upwhere you left off. When you're working
on a moving truck and you're movingsomeone home, you know when the house
is delivered, you know when everything'sput in the right room, when everything's
put together, and you know whenthe customer is satisfied and it's time to
leave. And it was a greatfeeling of accomplishment to take the stress out
of moving and to move people intoa new home. Typically it was a

(09:43):
positive experience and then everyone was happy. So from a clicking standpoint, it
clicked right away. From an autopilotor success standpoint. To be honest,
thirty eight years later, I stilldon't feel we're on autopilot and feel feel
we have to watch our performance everyday to secure success. You know,

(10:07):
every day is a new day,every day is a challenge, every day.
We have customers out there that wehave to serve, employees that we
have to support, and I've yetto feel that yet everything's on autopilot.
I can kick back and let ithappen. Yeah, I mean I can
that That resonates with me as well. You know, I'm not a trained

(10:28):
manager. You weren't a trained managereither, but you have scaled your business.
You run the largest privately on movingbusiness in the country. From a
managerial perspective or management style or managementprogram, how did you form your management
program? You know? Some youknow right now for an example, we're
going through an internal overview as tohow we're approaching our goal setting within our

(10:50):
business and the managing of information.So we're going through a managerial process,
if you will, in terms oftrying to direct the growth of our business,
and we're doing that by leveraging atype of management plan called attraction.
Do you employee management style? Howdid you drive it? And how are
you dealing with that? You know, very early on it was a lot

(11:15):
of trial and error. Very earlyon, we adopted our brand promise of
you will be treated with care andrespect. So JK operates by adhering to
our core values on a daily basis. We truly do our best every day
to live up to our brand promise. And when you think about it,

(11:35):
it doesn't cost anything. It doesn'ttake a lot of skill sets to treat
everyone you interact with with care andrespect, whether it's a coworker, whether
it's an employee, whether it's acustomer, whether it's someone coming in and
out of a convenience store. Sofrom a management standpoint, it's been a
lot of trial and error, alot of learning, a lot of reading,

(11:58):
a lot of watching. But atthe core, the care and respect
has always been there. And reallyit's it's simple, it's logical, it's
free, and it takes you along way in business, it takes you
a long way in life. Iagree. I mean. So, so
it sounds like you've developed I mean, which which you know you get to
scale that way. It's not byaccident. You develop a culture that's scalable

(12:20):
if you will interesting, So youknow, I guess, I guess moving
moving into your personal life a littlebit, I mean you, I think
it sounds to me like you takethat philosophy and you and you and it
leads into your philanthropic endeavors. Isee the efforts that you're you have.
I think it's the farm that youhave that produces food and gives it back
to the community. You're you're hugeand uh conserving land and protecting it from

(12:43):
the development approachment. Talk to mea little bit about that. How did
you choose? You know, youhave a very large business that touches a
lot of people literally, and thenyou've you've elected to do some other things
in your personal life that I thinkcorrelate to the careers that aspect that you
just talked about. Thanks And youknow early on, and you know this

(13:05):
from from founding and starting your businessearly on, it's all you can do
to pay your bills, right,and then as you grow your business a
little bit, you can pay yourbills and you can pay your staff and
you can actually make a little bitof money. It's not easy, as
you know, it takes it takesa lot of effort to get there,

(13:26):
and it's very rewarding when your businessgets there. And what I found is
once we were able to get overthose initial hurdles right, which took a
lot of time and effort, gettingto the point where your company can give
back to your employees was incredibly rewarding, and probably approximately twenty five years ago,

(13:48):
we put a profit sharing plan inplace, and what we would do
each year and we still do ittoday, is we would set a budget,
we would set goals, and wewould come to an agreement with our
employees that if we reach this levelof profitability, we will then begin sharing
the profits back with the employees whohelped make the profits. And fast forward

(14:11):
to today. For twenty nineteen,we've put approximately two million dollars into the
employee profit sharing plan. For theyear twenty nineteen, we've put approximately twenty
five million dollars into the employee's profitsharing plan since inception, So that was

(14:31):
huge for us, and it takesour employees and really turns our employees into
vested partners in the business and they'refocused on customer service and repeating referral business
and watching waste, watching damage justlike an owner would be because they're sharing
in the profits. When we gotbeyond that, we started doing all the

(14:52):
things in community giving that a lotof businesses do, supporting important charities and
cutting checks. But we felt weweren't doing enough, and we were working
together as an executive team to talkabout community giving and how do we support
the community better. At the sametime, my daughter Samantha was going to

(15:13):
school in Tennessee and she was volunteeringat a community farm and she was extremely
impressed with it and it was givingback to the community, it was supporting
people in need. So in oneyear, I have my executive team saying
we need to do more to getback in the community. And my other
here, I was hearing my daughtertalking about the great things she was doing
in Tennessee. So JK got togetherwith my daughter Samantha when she graduated and

(15:39):
we formed the JK Community Farm.And the JK Community Farm is a five
oh one C three and what wedo is we took one hundred and fifty
acre farm in western Loudon. Weplaced the farm into conservation easement to protect
the open space. And this wasformed in two eighteen and two eighteen till

(16:02):
today, we have provided three hundredthousand pounds of organic vegetables and meat proteins
to the food and secure in theregion and it's been extremely rewarding. It's
been very beneficial to a number ofpeople. We've had great volunteers. Approximately
three thousand volunteers have supported US sincetwenty eighteen, and the farm today is

(16:26):
the largest nonprofit community farm in thecountry. That's inspiring then, No,
especially right now with what's going onwith the coronavirus and what it's done to
the most needy, you know,the you know, the most effected in
our nation. I think it's youknow, it's very very inspiring. That's
really cool. Starting and building thebusiness has been exciting and rewarding and challenging.

(16:47):
Giving back to the employees has beenreally a really neat experience, and
watching the involvement of the employees givingback to the community has probably been one
of the most reward aspects of microreer. I bet it has. I mean,
I like I said, it's veryinspiring. I think it's a you
know, malnutrition and and really likelack of food. I mean there's even

(17:11):
in this country, where the richestcountry in the world, and we still
have a lot of folks that gohungry at night. And you know,
Virginia and Latin County are some ofthe richest county. You know, we
have one of the richest states inthe nation and one of the richest counties
in nation, but we still westill have a highly affected part of our
community that that's left without food.So I think it's really it's really,
it's really admirable. So pivoting intoreal estate a little bit with you,
how did you get involved in realestate? I you know, you clearly

(17:33):
you are in you're in a derivativebusiness of the real estate industry in the
moving space. But how did youget involved in you know, either residential
commercial real estate. You started inthe RESI space and moving business, and
I know that you've I see yourtrucks all the time, and I know
you have a commercial business as well, I believe, and I guess how
how did you go from RESI thecommercial? How did that all influence your

(17:59):
kind of entry and of being inthe real estate business in itself? You
know, we started off JK startedoff doing local moving, and then from
local moving we started doing long distancemoving. All of that was primarily residential.
From there, we started doing workwith the Department of Defense, the
GSA, a number of government entities, corporate entities. We started getting into

(18:25):
corporate relocation, moving employees, youknow, at all points around around the
globe internationally, and we started doingoffice moving shortly after starting the business office
moving as you can imagine in theDC marketplace, Richmond, Baltimore, etc.
Was quite busy as as these citieswere developing and growing and changing,

(18:47):
and governments were moving in and out, and an office moving became a very
big part of our business line.Today were the largest office mover in the
DC area, and I think todate we've done approximately two thousand office moves
in twenty twenty during COVID, whichis pretty interesting considering what's going on in

(19:10):
the office moving arena. But toyour question on real estate, real estate
has always been an interest of passion, always intrigued me. I purchased my
first residential rental property was a townhousein Burke, Virginia. I purchased in
rented out when I was seventeen,and early on when I would earn enough

(19:32):
money to make an investment, Iwas typically investing in residential real estate,
primarily residential rental properties. And thenas the business grew and we were out
growing the warehouse space we are in, I purchased the building i'm actually headquartered
in today in Sterling, Virginia.The market had turned down in the builder

(19:53):
that built the building had gone bankrupt, and I purchased this building at a
bankruptcy approximately five years ago, andthat was my first introduction into commercial real
estate. And then over the yearsas the business grew, we've always owned
our own facilities, So as weoutgrew one warehouse, we would build or
buy another warehouse, and that's howwe wound up with warehouses in northern Virginia

(20:18):
and Montgomery County, Maryland. Andthen as the fleet grew, we wound
up buying more and more commercial ground, primarily to park our tractors and trailers
and straight trucks. As you canimagine, we take up a lot of
space. And that's kind of howmy residential and commercial real estate focus grew

(20:38):
for the most part. So,if I'm not mistaken, you have moved
the President of the United States,or maybe more than one president. Am
I write about that? We have. We've moved. We've moved for presidents
in or out or during their termin the White House, which has been
really exciting. That's so cool.So you don't and I don't know if

(21:00):
you can share what are the protocols, like, what's how does that?
How is that different from some ofthe other work that you've done. You
know, it required being on someof the GSA schedules. Obviously, they
came out and and vetted our organization. They did background checks on the executive

(21:21):
team, and did background checks onthe crew that would be working in the
White House. But what was reallyneat is how involved, how down to
earth, how humble the presidents havebeen interacting with our moving crews in their
level of involvement during the moves.And I can show you photographs and share

(21:41):
feedback with you. We're literally oneof our long term movers and packers.
A gentleman named Johnny Harris was sittingdown Indian style on the floor packing a
record collection of President Clinton's when PresidentClinton sat down beside him and they started
going through the albums and talking aboutthe music and the likes of music between

(22:04):
the two of them. I meanliterally that humble. I'll share another quick
one. We were delivering President Bushafter his term down to Texas, and
when the trucks arrived down there,first, Lady Missus Bush was up here
doing with the moving crew and PresidentBush was receiving the moving crews in Texas
when they arrived, Well, hewasn't there, and Missus Bush had gotten

(22:27):
on the telephone with him. Hewas fishing on a pond on the farm
and was yelling at him to getover the house. And except this delivery
no difference than your spous or mystyles might yell at us to get back
and take care of our responsibilities.So all of our experience moving to Presidents
have have been a delight and involvedin respectful and kind and engaged with our

(22:51):
movers, and it's been a greatexperience. That's again, it's another achievements,
and it's an inspiring achievement in termsof the fundamentals of the business.
I mean, I think COVID came, we all looked around and said,
my goodness, what is this thing. I think there was a dip in
activity because we were we were underthese lockdowns, and then things freed up
and then all of a sudden,you know, we saw this frenzy of

(23:12):
moving. So I imagine things havegone, you know, bonkers for you
in terms of volume. Already thisyear we've done two thousand office moves in
the Washington DC area alone, andso in the resume market as well.
So I mean, I imagine thingshave gone. You know, you're seeing
just a tremendous run up in demand. But in terms of just the overall

(23:33):
fundamentals of the job itself. Howare you approaching COVID. What has that
done in terms of the way you'reyou're doing your business? Has it?
I imagine it's affected your business interms of the way that you know,
precautions are taking, things like that. But maybe you can elaborate. I
say, COVID has been an interestingand challenging ride, to say the least,
and when it first hit, movingall but stopped for us. So

(23:57):
at the end of March beginning ofApril, we started off having a tremendous
twenty twenty, January and February we'regreat months for us, which is a
little unusual for the season. Andall of a sudden, the breaks came
on in late March and April,and I was extremely concerned, and we

(24:18):
were meeting and strategizing on what todo and how to do it and when
to do it, and we navigatedthat very well. We agreed that we'd
keep our brand promise of care andrespect as we made employment decisions and staffing
decisions, and I think we navigatedthat very well. And all of a
sudden and about May, business volumesstarted coming back and coming back at unseasonally

(24:45):
high levels, and from May June, July, August, September now in
October, we are at record levels. I mean when I say record levels,
we're seeing forty plus percent increases andbusiness volumes right now, we are
experiencing business volumes in October that we'venever ever come close to. And it's

(25:07):
very interesting because the traffic patterns havechanged. I've spent most of my career
moving people from all points in theworld into major cities around the world,
and what we've been doing since lateMay is moving people out of these cities,
moving them out of New York,New Jersey, DC, Chicago,

(25:30):
LA, etc. Pick a picka major city, and we're moving them
out of the major cities, andwe're moving them into more suburban, more
rural marketplaces. And we've been movinga tremendous number of families into Florida,
Texas, Colorado, out of majorDC, Chicago, New York, etc.

(25:52):
That's exactly what we're seeing. SoI would say, yeah, it
was a melt down and then amelt up, if you will. And
then in terms of the trend linethat you're seeing, it's consistent with the
trend lines that we're seeing across theUnited States. I mean anecdotally. I
read an article this morning in Bloombergand it's consistent with what we've seen.
You know, apartment rents in SanFrancisco or down upwards of thirty percent.

(26:12):
We've seen apartment rents in New YorkCity down double digits. You know,
Baltimore, Washington, the hyperdense youknow, twenty four hour cities are no
longer twenty four hour cities. SoI think folks are looking around in saying,
Gali, you know this, youknow this, Maybe this four hundred
or five hundred score foot flat isa lot less desirable if I can't leave

(26:33):
it to go out and enjoy theamenities and the lifestyle. And uh.
And we've seen places like Richmond,Virginia, parts of Florida, Jacksonville,
Tampa, Dallas. It could bea larger city, but but it's not
an urban city per se. We'veseen an influx of new residence and we've
seen growth, you know, rentgrowth, whether it's you know, residential

(26:56):
or industrial rent growth. I mean, retail is still challenged and a hotel
is still challenged, but but we'veseen we've seen we've seen growth in the
other in the other segments. Now. You know, one of the things
that it interests me about you is, you know you are also a pilot.
When I was a little boy,I flew planes. Uh or my

(27:18):
dad put us on, you know, he was he was into the airline
business and me. He insisted onthe kids, you know, learning how
to fly. And I flew alittle bit, but I but I have
assigned this issue. So my my. You know, when those little cockpits,
you know, it can get prettyuh, it can get pretty tight
in there. And so I didn'tdo it too much. And I flew
these little you know, these littlesingle engine and two engine planes maybe maybe

(27:41):
like eight to ten hours or somethinglike that. You're an active pilot,
And how did you find yourself?You know, that's a cool hobby.
How did you get involved in that? You know it was um, I
wasn't a kid at the airport lookingthrough the fence at airplanes, dreaming about
flying. I had moved out toa to a farm in Faulkire County,

(28:02):
Virginia, and one of my neighborshad a grass landing strip and I'd gone
over to Annapolis and this coincidentally raninto this neighbor and the traffic was terrible
getting to Annapolis, and I said, boy, it's good to see you.
I said, traffic was terrible gettinghere today, and he said,
not for me. It took mefifteen minutes, as it took you fifteen

(28:23):
minutes. How'd you do that?And he said, Oh, I've got
an airplane in my backyard. Iflew from the farm right here to the
airport in Annapolis. It took mefifteen minutes. And that triggered a thought
in my mind about what a timemachine an any plane could be. And
from there I went to the airport, looked into one of the aviation schools,

(28:44):
started taking lessons, and I guessit's been over thirty years ago.
I got my pilot's license and startedto fly, and it is truly a
time machine. It's also become abig passion of mine and a number of
my children. Yeah, you said, so you have a fairly large family.
I think you have what five,five or six kids? You have
six children? My wife and Ihave have seven and h and we adopted

(29:11):
too, so we've raised nine.And of the nine, I want to
say, um, five of themfly. That's pretty cool. They're either
fixed wing or rotor aircraft. Haveyou flown yourself, I imagine all throughout
the United States? Have you flownacross across any any of the oceans?
Um? You know, I've flownall down through UM all points in the

(29:33):
US, all points and Canada forthe most part, all down through UM,
Central and South America. Put Iguess. I guess I'm approximately eleven
thousand hour pilot at this point andfly m fixed wing and UH and rotor
aircraft. Very cool. So oneof the things I tend to ask my

(29:56):
guests who joined me on this podcastis, you know it's a show about
entrepreneurship. I mean, you areyou are, in my mind, the
definition of an entrepreneur. Your storyis very inspiring. I mean you you
built your business from the ground up. You've developed an enterprise. That's that's
giving you know, that's giving backto the community. You've moved presidents.
You're at the you know, you'reyou're essentially at the pinnacle of your industry,

(30:18):
and you haven't had to take yourbusiness public and you can do it
in a very private manner and theway you want to do it within the
confines of your dynamic. You know. But I would say this. I
mean, if you're looking back,it sounds like you've achieved Italy probably all
you wanted to achieve, if notmore than you could you could imagine.
But if you were to look atyourself and say, what would you do
differently if you what's the advice you'dgive yourself if you'd look back. I

(30:38):
mean, you have boys and girlsthat are younger people, you know,
what's what's the advice you'd give tothem if if they happen to take the
time to listen to this podcast.A great, great question and one I
want to go back. I stillhave a lot of goals that that I'm
striving to achieve and accomplish. SoI've accomplished a number of but I've got

(31:00):
a lot more to ahead of me. But the answer your question, yeah,
I think it's critical that you thatyou pursue your passion. I enjoyed
the moving and storage business when Istarted it, and thirty eight years later,
I still enjoy the industry. Iam still enjoy the challenge. I
still enjoy moving people successfully, andyou know, over thirty eight years.

(31:23):
Don't get me wrong, every movedoesn't go perfect, but we always strive
for perfection and we always work hardto take the stress out of someone's relocation
so that passion thirty eight years laterstill exists. So I think it's critical
that you pursue your passion. Ithink, you know, life goes fast.
If you're doing something you're not enjoying, make a change. Make sure

(31:48):
the path that you're getting on isgoing to lead you to where you ultimately
want to be. I think alot of times you start a business thinking
about today, or you start ajob thinking about the day, or move
into a community, you really haveto think it through. You know,
where is this path going to takeme a year from now, three years
from now, five years from nowin my retirement. And if you're on

(32:12):
a path that's not going to takeyou where you want to go, get
off the path and get on theright path. Idea. It's great advice.
I mean, I share that.I think if it's fun, it
tends not to be work. Right. It's a part of what you do
and who you are. And Ibelieve that because I still have fun doing
what I'm doing and it's been nearlytwenty years, and like you, I've
done the same thing virtually all myadult life. So you know, you

(32:37):
still have goals, and maybe youdon't have to share them necessarily, But
I'm just curious. I mean,for a guy that's accomplished so much and
you're still very young, what's beforeyou? What is that if you are
looking at your ten year vision,if it's either personal or professional, what's
something that inspires you that you planon accomplishing? You know, some things
around the business. For example,if you look at our strategic plan that

(33:00):
at both JK and Caprilo, ourrelocation firm, we have a goal to
double the size of our businesses overthe next five years. So our goal
is to double it without sacrificing qualityor profitability. So that's a pretty big
undertaking to take what's taken us thirtyeight years to build to the size it

(33:22):
is today and have goals to doubleboth of those businesses over the next five
years. So on the on theJK and Caprilo corporate side, that's the
goals we have there, and wecannot stray from our seven core values,
and we can't stray from our brandpromise of treating everyone with care and respect

(33:43):
to accomplish that goal. On theJK community farm, as I said earlier,
we started it in twenty eighteen.We have goals to double the production
of the JK Community Farm in thenext twenty four months, so we'll make
a major impact and food and securityin our area. But there's no shortage

(34:05):
to food and security. So whatwe're doing and a loud and Fairfax and
down the Blue Ridge, we wantto make sure we're covering a wider footprint
and we're having a positive effect onour more and more people. So it's
pretty cool that something we started intwenty eighteen is always already the largest not

(34:27):
for profit community farm in the country, but we want to double it in
twenty four months and we're going todo that. That's on the community giving.
On the JK side, as youmentioned earlier, we do a lot
with conservation easement work protecting open space. We've put pretty close to ten thousand
acres into conservation easement, meaning wegave up the development rights to protect the

(34:52):
open space and there are tax advantagesto doing this. We've done approximately ten
thousand acres. I want to takeit to twenty thousand acres. So those
are kind of some of my moreimmediate front facing goals and objectives that we
have on our strategic plans. Ilove it. I mean it's it's again

(35:12):
very inspiring. So you know you'reyou're you mentioned your daughter is in you
know, she inspired the the farmingendeavor. Are your other kids involved?
Do they have aspirations to join youin business end or in some of the
personal goals that you have. They'reall doing some some neat things. They're
all beating for their own drummer,they're all cutting their own path. My

(35:32):
son Steve, he's my partner ina project. It's the JK. It's
the Middleburg Training Center, excuse me, the Middleburg Training Center in Middleburg,
Virginia. And what that is isthat's a decline track. It's two hundred
and twenty stall barns, so it'sit's eleven barns totally, two hundred and
twenty stalls and a seven eighths prolongsaying training track in Middleburg, Virginia,

(35:59):
a ridge. We bought that propertyto place it in conservation easement to keep
it from being developed. This isthe property that the Melons developed at Middleburg
gears back. So we purchased itwith the intent of putting it in conservation
easement and keeping it from being developed. Now my son Steve is actually running

(36:19):
it as a Middleburg training track,So if you go out there, you'll
see a number of thoroughbreds out theretraining on the track every day. And
it's just become a neat business anda great community give back. My son
Scott is a true aviation enthusiast.He has started and owns a company called
QNE Aviation and they do aviation management. They manage corporate aircraft for different people

(36:47):
in the community, they buy andsell aircraft, and he's actually just created
a fixed base operation at Leesburg Airporthere in Virginia. Wow, that's also
very cool. So you've got you'vegot a brood of emerging and developing entrepreneurs
that are doing you know, thatare impacting the community. That's excellent.

(37:08):
So I I think it's you knowagain, I I enjoy I've enjoyed watching
what you've been able to accomplish.I mean, I grew up in northern
Virginia, so I grew up seeingyour trucks. I've read about you know,
your you know, your work withthe White House and uh, and
then I've also seen the impact ofyour farming and so I'm you know,

(37:30):
I'm delighted to have you on theshow today. I really appreciate you taking
the time to chat with me.I hope that you know, the folks
that listen to this podcast are inspiredby it and and do what you said,
which is find their passion and thenuh, you know, I think
carefully and then you know, acton you know, their passion to develop,
you know, an enduring enterprise.So I, you know, I

(37:50):
commend you for the work that you'vedone and that your family has done.
And again I appreciate you joining metoday, Chuck, so I, I,
you know, thank you all right, thanks a lot for having me.
And if anyone has interest, theycan they can find more information on
JK at JK moving dot com.And they can find more information on the
j K Community Farm at j KCommunity Farm dot org.