From Reno to Hat Creek: How Weston Hutchings Helped Transform a Family Construction Company

Summary

Weston Hutchings is a co-owner of Hat Creek Construction and also the current AGC president for the North Region. He grew up in Fall River and went to Chico State for college, where he switched his major from agriculture to construction management. He interned at Hat Creek Construction in 1999 and then worked at Granite Construction and Sierra Nevada Construction before joining Hat Creek in 2009. Weston has always been a big dreamer and his drive and work ethic help him achieve his goals don't build near major fault lines, strong winds are difficult, vehicle maintenance for your workers is important, do basic winter maintenance, standardize work to prevent mistakes, structures for extreme temperatures are difficult, vertical construction is the building of high-rises, it requires knowledge of different fields, Sierra Nevada Construction was challenging, worked a lot more than at Granite Construction, Sierra Nevada Construction expects more from project managers, Granite Construction was more regimented. The guest is from western Colorado and got his early experience working for a small excavation company. After working for them for a few years, he heard about an opportunity to work for a rapidly growing company in Reno, Nevada. He ended up moving there in 2007 and worked for this company for about a year and a half before he decided to move back to Colorado for personal reasons. He was then offered a job to work for a large excavation company in Western Colorado and accepted the offer. The Westcon was working in an office in 2001 making over a million dollars per month. He worked with big clients. He talks about starting what became known as the biggest wind farm. He worked on it for a few years and loved being out in nature. He describes how hard they worked (rain, snow, mud, etc). They made a lot of money from this project. Eventually, they needed to invest in GPS technology. Later, in 2009, Westcon started working: We wanted to start a paving company, so we bought a hot plant from Jim Miller. We didn't have any experience with paving, but we thought we could figure it out. On the first job, we lost $100,000 in three days, which was a huge blow to us financially. This was a difficult time, and we doubted whether we could make it as a paving company. The podcast host talks about leadership and managing a paving company. He and his team worked to grow the company, and things were difficult at times. However, they always strived to improve and make the company better. He also shares a story about bidding on a large job and leaving millions of dollars on the table but still managed to win the bid. Initially, the company had a lot of debt and took on high-risk projects to survive. In 2004, they bought a used plant and set it up near Reno, which opened a new market for them. This led to several profitable projects and the opportunity to attract top talent. In 2012, they bought another plant in Northeast California, finalizing their presence in the region. The company's core values were identified by its members and are now a key factor in hiring decisions. The The speaker discusses his journey as a co-owner and CEO of a successful construction company. He talks about his personal challenges and struggles, as well as the importance of setting goals, having a great team, and a supportive spouse. He emphasizes the need for hard work, drive, and passion in order to achieve success in any field. The CEOs discuss their journey, facing challenges and coming out strong. They discuss the importance of teamwork and having a supportive partner. They also touch upon the sacrifices they made to get where they are today and the importance of surrounding yourself with like-minded people when pursuing your dreams. They also express their gratitude for each other and reflect on their strong partnership.

Full Transcription

Speaker 1 [00.00.00]

Hi everybody. Really excited about this episode of the North State Rocks podcast. Have Weston Hutchings, who you're going to see here in a moment. He is the co-owner of Hat Creek Construction. He is my cousin. Uh, he has an incredible construction background. He's also even though we didn't talk about it in this, he's also the current AGC president for the North Region, uh, Associated General Contractors, uh, president doing an amazing job in that realm as well. Um, this company is is special because of Weston. And, uh, we're really excited for you guys to get to know him a little better in this episode. 

Narrator

Welcome to the North State Rocks podcast. Discover the hidden gems and extraordinary people of California's North State region. Join Perry Thompson, CEO of Hat Creek Construction Materials, as he explores the vibrant communities and interesting neighbors that make our region a great place to live, work and play. Tune in, be inspired and rediscover the North State. This is your community. This is your story. 

Speaker 1 

Hey, thanks for being here, because thanks for having me. So. North State Rocks podcast Perry Thompson Weston Hutchings, the co-owner of Hat Creek Construction. It's been a while getting this put together so we could actually have our schedules align and get this done. So really appreciate your time and being here. So, um, want to start with just a little bit of your background? Weston, I think a lot of people know a lot about our company, know a lot about, you know, kind of what I do, what you do. But I don't think as many people really know your background. And I want an opportunity to kind of just tell us a little bit about how you came from fall River. We went to school. Uh, we're eight years apart. So you're eight years younger than me. We're cousins. So you're my mom and your dad are siblings. So? So one of the things I kind of wanted to let everyone remind everybody that we're this is a family owned business, and we're really proud of that fact. Um, and then, uh, you interned with us. Do you remember what year that was? Because, uh, uh, 22,000? 

Speaker 2 [00.02.21]

 No, 1999, I think 

Speaker 1 [00.02.23]

1999 crapper really generously. Yeah. Now you're getting in the 90s. Yeah, but you can still stick me with your eight years younger. Yeah, right. Yeah, that's the good news. All right, so let's give us your background. Where did you go to college and then start maybe with that intern experience and then. Run. Run through for us. 

Speaker 2 [00.02.41]

Perfect. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, as you alluded to, born and raised here in fall River. Graduated in 96 from fall River. Uh, I thought I went to Chico State. Um, I thought I was going to go into. Really was into agriculture. Had a big ag background with my father being an ag teacher, but really was intrigued by the engineering side of it. And, uh, got into my first year, my general ed at Chico State. And after a year of kind of being in the engineering department and seeing what engineers do and was going to be a lot of cubicle work, and then I saw that construction management division that was, uh, folded in with the engineering department, and they they sure looked like they were a lot of fun and kind of my kind of people. And so from that, I switched over into construction management, my first year of general editor at Chico State. And the rest is kind of been history took. Uh, graduated in 2000 and 2001 from Chico State. Okay. And then from there went on to with the construction management degree, uh, was hired by Granite Construction in Reno, Nevada, um, and worked there from 2001 to 2007 and then took a stint over to a company called Sierra Nevada Construction and in Reno, Nevada, and worked there from 2007 to 2009. And then the rest is history came here and in February of 2009. So we're what is that, almost 20. I've done having trouble doing the math here. 20. 

Speaker 1 [00.04.10]

Yeah. So is it 17 years? Yeah 17 years. 

Speaker 2 [00.04.16]

Yeah yeah yeah. God damn. I can't believe it's been. 

Speaker 1 [00.04.17]

Yeah. Yeah. So here we are. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Okay. So, um. Yeah, a lot of people don't really. You know, you and I were always really close growing up. In fact, I remember I still take credit for, um, 

teaching you how to ride a bike. I remember that pretty. At my parents house. Like going down the slope towards the creek. Uh, and then kind of that mutual love of all things motorsports and motorcycles and did a lot of riding together. But I think our friendship really blossomed kind of in the whole. Um, I 

hadn't really been exposed to sand dunes before, and you actually had exposure to it younger, like, even high school years. And then, um, again, we love the forwarders. We love motorcycles. We loved all those things. But you. I can't remember how. I think it was sand Mountain was the very first time I got exposed to sand. So kind of talk through that a little bit. Just give us a little bit about that, because I'm kind of going down memory lane here myself. 

Speaker 2 [00.05.27]

 Sure. I think uh, it was probably 2003, 2002 somewhere in there, I think I called you up on a whim and said, you you were getting into the four wheelers and you guys were riding in the dirt and kind of, uh, you know, I said, hey, you really need to come over and check out Sand Mountain. It's only an hour and a half. Two hours outside of Reno, there outside of Fallon. And, uh, I think you came over and brought your your enclosed trailer and you, myself and my brother John all jumped in together and did a weekend trip out there where we just slept in sleeping bags and, uh, kind of kind of Road warrior did out there and, and had a blast and played in the sand. And I think some of the dreaming started that trip. We talked about how nice it would be to, you know, someday have, you know, own our own company and, uh, you being a part owner and, you know, us working for granite. Would it be cool to, you know, have have bigger toys and have the fun things and come out here and play and, you know, just, you know, being fresh out of college. You you've spent your whole life in debt and excited to get a job. And then, you know, not being real smart with money. I was a deeper in debt because I finally graduated and now I had a paycheck that I could afford those toys. So everything was going into toys and having fun and and being a kid and, uh, yeah, that's where I think a lot of the dreaming and the and the you know what? If we could put our forces together, that was the infant stage, in my opinion. From from memory, 

Speaker 1 [00.06.46]

I would agree. Yeah. And then you've always been I mean, you just even quoted right there, you've always been an incredible dreamer. What do you what do you contribute that to? 

Speaker 2 [00.06.58]

You know, I,  I think it was a lot, a lot of being around people, especially in college that, uh. Always had 

awesome things. And they I think twofold. One, some of them had it because they were born into it and they didn't appreciate it. And then two, I saw other people that were very driven and had set huge dreams. And the ones that were driven are like, why can't I, you know, and and being surrounded by some of those people in college and then early in my career, you know, uh, had granted some, some entrepreneurs that took off and then watching them kind of set goals and obtain them, I'm like, anybody can do it with, with with a dream. But it starts with a dream and make and make your dream big. And then then it's the work ethic and the grind and the and the willingness not to quit. And I think, um, a lot of people get stuck in, I can't do this, I can't do that. That'll never be me. And, you know, it starts with a dream. You can always shoot for the stars. If you come a little short. Look at how much better you are, you know. Right?

Speaker 1 [00.07.56]

Right. Well, yeah. And you've really brought that. You brought that here even, um, always been kind of the biggest dreamer on our team. And why can't we. And, uh, um, it's just been, it's just been an awesome asset for this whole organization. When I say this whole Hat Creek. Right. Um, you know, like, why can't we do that? Why can't we have that? Um, it's it's been an awesome thing. Well, so, uh. I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, 2009. So you came here in 2009, and I remember there was a pretty hard press by me to get you here. Mhm. Um, and you know, you were, you were in a Reno market that is at that time 

was really flew really high when things were going really great and, and also would, would just absolutely crash and burn when things started going bad and uh, you kind of, I call it kind of the canary in the coal mine, the wood watch. Watch what happens over in Reno. And we would know would always joke in this rural northeastern California where we're all we're always in a recession, right. That's it seems like it seems like we're always, you know, there's no Home Depot's moving to this community. There's no 300 lot subdivisions coming to this community. So it always kind of felt a little bit like a recession. I won't say depression ever, but recession, even when times were good in places like Reno. But I remember you really communicating early about. You know, things are things are really changing over here. I mean, we're what we're having to do bid wise. And so can you kind of talk about, you know, what it was like at granite when things were high flying and then and then you're moved to SNC and, and and also that moved to SNC was uh, I think we had we were hopeful you were still going to come here. And it was kind of well, I could stick on for two more years with a couple more years of granite, or I could go learn a whole different perspective. So can you talk about the granite mentality and granite regime versus, you know, very safe, very I mean, incredible company, just an incredible company. And then contrast that with SNC, also a very incredible company, but just really contrast the dramatic differences between the two. 

Speaker 2 [00.10.16]

Sure, sure. Yeah I think granite I attribute, you know, a lot of my core learning and construction, you know, from granite, obviously, I, you know, going through college, I interned for some companies while I was at Chico. I worked for a vertical company and realized I didn't like vertical construction really quickly. But I learned a lot. So for our audience that doesn't know vertical construction, like so, we call what we do horizontal construction, which is underground, grading, paving and then vertical construction. Kind of elaborate on what that means for the audience. So, you know. Buildings. Uh, you know, high rises. And the company I worked for was a company called Slater and some great company. I mean, I learned a ton. Uh, but we at the time were building, and they were out of Chico, and they they were awesome. They let me intern with them while I was going to school. Um, and we did, uh, we did. We built Craig an auto parts stores and, uh, big tires up and down California, and we managed a lot of subs. Self performed a little bit of work, but really was just kind of a, a general manager for the, for the owner. Yeah. Um, and would move up and down the state doing that work. And so I got a real quick, uh, fast paced learning curve with how to deal with subs and, and, you know, your, your block, your Mason subs and your and your roofers and your plumbers and your electricians and and, you know, you had to know all the business to, to kind of run hurt on them to make sure they weren't taking your fair ride. And then the and then the best part was the, the, the site guys, they were the wild ones that showed up and had all the toys in the diesel and, you know, smoke burning and dirt moving and grading and paving and and I really learned quickly that I was really more, uh, attracted to that, that heavy civil side, the earthmoving and the grading than the paving. So fast forward that on the granite, um, you know, granite construction hired me. Uh. Over to go over to Reno and great company. They they are really good at recruiting talent and, uh, sure. Um, I found myself, you know, coming out of Chico thinking I was pretty, well, one of the top candidates in the heavy side, uh, out of my class and realizing when I got to granite, they were they quickly reminded me that I didn't know anything. And, uh, and kind of, kind of had to break me. They said they liked the military. They'd break you down and build you back up. You go to boot camp, and, uh, I got surrounded with some really good, uh, project managers, uh, had some good peers that were within 3 to 6 months of getting hired when I did, um, you know, one of them is now the branch manager of granite, uh, Chris Burke. He was. He got hired on granite branch manager of the Reno division. He got hired on, uh, within six months of me getting hired on. So they were really good at training and and building us up, and they're they're very regimented, their processes. Hey, you're going to do take off for six months to a year, and then you're going to move on, you know, to an office engineer where you're just managing the paperwork of a job site and the filing and such, and then a field engineer where you're working with the foreman and you're measuring quantities. So they were, you know, to be a project manager where you're running your own project and financially responsible for it, that's a that's a 7 to 10 year process at granite, you know, um, and I. I was very fortunate to work with a lot of talented people in the field. That taught me a lot, and I absorb it like a sponge and put in the extra hours of being out there with them to learn the field side of it, and then then on the back side would then go work long hours in the office after everybody went home doing the paperwork side of it and was kind of like, hey, I'm ready. Give me the reins. And I was like, yeah, you think you're ready, but you're not ready, you know? And so I think some of my it just wasn't moving fast enough. And that's looking back, that's typical for granite. You know they're really good at hiring type a blow and go I want to you know I'm ready to run the show people. And you know if they hire ten of them and and, you know, seven of them leave. They call it the seven year itch. But within seven years, they, they either they, they're, hey, you need to promote me or I'm going to go do my own thing. Excuse me. Um, you know, that's that's what they're good at. So, uh, about year seven, 2007. So 6 or 7 years into my career, uh, you know, start talking to you, kind of, you know, we're getting ready to have our first child. 2007 Haley. Uh, I'm looking at the you know, we had our first school shooting over in Reno. Happened a year or two before that. Uh, we're starting as they were starting to talk about, you know, security guards and metal detectors and and I, you know, I know where you and I grew up. Beautiful area here and grade school. And it was really important that I raise my kids, if not here in an environment like that. And so that that was probably, that was probably the biggest push was, you know, working backwards and then, you know, talking to you and, you know, how do how do I get home and how do I grow up where we grew up, you kind of got to go away and to, to really, you know, because I said, I'm never coming back to this town, you know, this was Mayberry. And there's a huge world out there by. Yeah. And then you go out. You go out on your own for a while and you realize, you know, where we grew up with special. Yeah. And what's really incredible is being able to live where we grew up and make a living, like we make, you know, and build a to do that. It's like winning the lottery. It really is. It is. So that was what, you know, kind of transitioned into going to Sierra Nevada construction. Um, you know, hey, I'm, I think I got it all figured out, but am I this is me self coaching myself, and my only is as good and successful as the people that I'm surrounded by. You know, the the foreman's the superintendents that that are, that are supporting the projects that I'm managing. Um, and Sierra Nevada construction was to, uh. Two. Two managers of granite left Granite in Reno and bought Sierra Nevada construction. I don't I'm not the exact year, but I'm going to say 2004, 2003 somewhere in there and took it from an $8 million a year company at the time to 120, 350 million, and like a 5 or 6 year span, I mean, just incredible growth. And so they were recruiting a lot of the granite people, granite managers, to come over and work for them. They were, you know, they ran like granite, but they were way more aggressive in how they ran. And they ran leaner, and they gave a lot of young people quick responsibility. And so that to me was attractive. Um, and then also and, you know, do I know this business well enough to be able to run with way less support and make those decisions on my own? So it was a good challenge for me. Good stepping stone that, you know, I thought someday I would end up at Hat Creek. Did I know it was going to be, you know, two years of SLC and then and then we'd end up here or five years or ten years. There wasn't really a timeline. We just you and I were just discussing that. And then that crash of, you know, when the economy kind of crashed in 2009. And I think that that really put a full court press on. You know, they were laying off people right and left. Um, you know, you guys had an opportunity here, a need. And we just started talking. And I think that's what came full circle. You know, I wanted to make sure that I stepped down and SNC to come over here and hopefully give someone a position that they didn't have to lay another person off. And so it was a win win. But I, I two great companies, two totally different companies. But I attribute a lot of what I, what I have in my toolbox is attributed to Granite construction and Sierra Nevada construction, both great companies. 

Speaker 1 [00.17.22]

Yeah. When you're talking about support. Right. So you're saying, you know, it's less support over at SNC. So kind of elaborate on that for the people that don't really understand what that means. Um, I in my mind, SNC expects a lot of their project manager. They expect you don't really have a project engineer and a field engineer and you don't. And maybe a you know, your foremen aren't quite as good as they. When I say good as full, well rounded as they are at granite. I mean, they're all good, but, um, requires more effort from. So kind of contrast the hours you were working at granite and then kind of what you rolled over and just a little bit about that SNC life because, you know, I feel like it really as, as foundational as granite was for really building you. Right? Right. Um, I think your aggressive and entrepreneurial spirit really came a lot from SNC also. Right? So. So can you just talk us through that just a little bit, please? 

Speaker 2 [00.18.25]

Yeah. You know, you nailed it. Granite was very regimented. Um, you know, a typical work week at granite was when we were really busy. You know, you might work. 60 hours a week, you know, maybe. Maybe 70. I mean, when we're really busy. Yeah. You had to. You know, and you had to go in on the weekends once in a while to do some paperwork. SAC's motto when they hired me was, hey, you are a project manager. You're going to run multiple jobs. Uh, maybe you'll have an engineer part time, maybe an intern. So you got to be able to do everything from the ground up as far as the management. Um, and we expect you to bid to go find, bid and build a minimum of 15 million a year. And that was your that's your, your your goal for the company. So if they, you know, each project manager is giving. You know, finding bidding and building 50 million a year and this isn't. This is in 2007. I was just going to say 15 million then would probably equate to 25, 30 million now. Yep yep yep. Okay. And so, um, the difference, you know, you know, granite, you might be on a job that's, you know, I was on a job prior to that. That was 35,000,000 in 2005. It's probably, like you said, 70 million a year. You know, 70 million in today's market. But, you know, we were camped on that job for three years, and you just rinse and repeat, do the same thing until you see it through. At Sierra Nevada Construction, you had a, you know, you had a job. I had a job and, and, uh. Spanish Springs building a water tank. I had a job in Carson City doing a straight road rehab, and then I had to be. And then I had the I had the South Lake Tahoe airport. And so you would be literally, you know, you wake up at five and, you know, 435, you're on the road by six, you're hitting the jobs, visiting with one one foreman, superintendent. We would make sure everything's lined out. Then you'd be on down to the next one. The next one was running at night. So you'd be talking to them, trying to catch them, you know, either in the afternoon later and then talk to them night. You'd be splitting your shifts at night with them and you South Lake Tahoe dealing with that. And so and that's a, you know, one way that's a 2.5 hour drive to Salt Lake Tahoe, not counting all the stops along the way. So yeah, you're, you're, you're you're going to work at five, six in the morning and getting home, taking a power nap and then going to check on the crew of Carson City at night until midnight, one in the morning, you know, and then eventually that catch up with you and then you you might have the third day you sleep in for a little while, but you're still up by 7 or 8 and, and then on the weekends, you know, you're, you're bidding. And so everybody would come in and it was nobody told you how to be on a Saturday, but you knew if you were going to produce, you were in there on Saturday estimating. But but the cool thing was, is you were doing it with the team. Right? So it wasn't just you in there by yourself. Poor me. You know, the whole team was in there doing it. And so it just became a culture. And we we are with a bunch of ass kickers. And this is what ass kickers do. And then the owners are in there and they're in there grinding away right along with you. You know, they're in there watching. They got everybody headed. You know, the owners have TVs in their offices. Not everybody, but they had a couple of TVs in their offices, and they were huge NASCAR fans. And they'd have the NASCAR race going and they'd be in there just ripping on a Saturday. Ripping on a Sunday. Um, and that's, you know, but that's how you take a company from 8 million to 100 and 50,000,000 in 5 years. 

Speaker 1 [00.21.43]

That blows my mind with how they scaled so quickly, because just just in the growth challenges we've had, just the the systems and processes and those things that they're not sexy. They're not fun. No, they're it's like, um, nails on a chalkboard to me getting those systems and processes and SOPs and those things that are so critical. I, I'm just blown away at what those guys accomplished with, with, with such a short time. 

Speaker 2 [00.22.17]

And I, you know, it was it perfect? No, it was a lot of the things that were you know, I saw a lot of similarities in our growth. Yeah. That they were going through. You know, I've seen a I've seen a grown man that I respected very well. I mean, 6:00 at night, sitting at his desk bawling his eyes out. You know, just he's just he's just at his. He's at his wit's end. He keep. Right? He's frazzled. Right. And I think that's part of part of the growth pattern, is that some of the stuff you deal with and the the attrition and the fallout along the way. But once again, how big of a dream do you have and how hard do you want to chase it? Right. Right. And the owners there, the one thing they did well was they they let us all see the, you know, the goal and the dream. And along the way, they made it fun. Yeah, we worked our asses off, but, you know, hey, we they put us on buses and took us all down to NASCAR and Vegas and, you know, 

rented in, you know, the inn filled out and turned to and had RVs set up and we camped and all expenses paid. And, um, you know, you want to talk about dream and watching one of the owners flying off, you know, from the wind, come in on a helicopter and land, you know, and get out and and then come over and visit with us and hang out with us for the day at a NASCAR race, and then get on the helicopter and fly back to the wind casino. Um, I'm just wired that way. I'm like, I want to be that guy. How? How he did it, right? He's no different than me. He puts his pants on just like me and one leg at a time. And he. I watched him. I watched him go from, you know, working to granite, being a manager to buying a company, taking risks, laying it all out on the line, working their ass off. And he's flying in on a helicopter, you know, 7 or 8 years later. That that that is a motivate you, then then you're probably in the wrong. She's probably not an entrepreneur. I'm not saying there's other ways to get motivated, but that's one example of it can be done, you know? 

Speaker 1 [00.24.08]

Yeah. And there's people that that see that and are willing to risk it all. And the flip side of that people don't talk about is, you know, for every guy that that comes true, there's a handful or more that, that go up in a ball of flames. Sure. Right. It doesn't there's there's that mindset that's absolutely critical. There's a lot of luck that goes along the way. There's a lot of knowing how to attract and have people buy into that dream and also make the dream. The dream can't be about just him. Right. So what he was good at and his other partner was good at, is making the dream. Everybody's being lifted, right? Correct. Um, the rising tide raises all boats type of thing. And I think that's what separates the the good from the great. And so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So great. That was a, that was that was great lesson on your background. Thank you. Um, so 2009, I still remember, uh, we were bidding, uh, a wind farm job. There was no work. There was no work anywhere. And for those young'uns that follow this, follow this podcast, 2009 is probably the closest thing to a real depression that this country has had since probably the the depression in the 30s, and they don't realize how bad it was. I mean, just incredible foreclosures, people losing their homes, people losing their jobs, people, uh, really, really struggling like. Since 2009. I don't think we've seen anything close to that. Was that fair? Fair? Fair? Yeah. So 2009, you come over, there's very little work. There was a big wind farm project that we're we're working on, so kind of talk us through. I remember we were estimating that, uh. And the good news is we were not non-union. We were bidding against a couple of union firms. And I remember specifically talking about the margin that we thought we could get on the project and the internal team that you were fairly new to. Uh, we were having the discussion that, you know, we thought that our advantage was ex and what we really needed this work. And we say advantage, the advantage on labor dollars is what we're really talking about. And we had an estimating program. And so we knew what our total labeled labor dollars were. And the delta between union wages and non-union wages. And we felt like we could maybe get half of that. And we were talking about putting half of that into the bid at the time. And I remember you going, guys, uh, I just left Reno. I we should be just grateful. I don't think we, I think we should like, put zero on on that because we just need the work so goddamn bad if we don't get that right, what's going to happen? And I remember. Really? Um. Really agreeing with your assessment, but also we hadn't seen it yet like you had. You'd been blood in the water over there at SNC. In fact, I think you did SNC a real solid when you stepped out because they were starting to to lay people off dramatically, and you saw your friends being laid off every week and you're like, hey, I'm going to accelerate moving to Hack Creek and save one of my friends for at least, you know, a few weeks. That was part of your motivation. Is that accurate to say fair? Yeah. And so anyway, the good news is you came over here with that fresh perspective. Um, you know, I, I think we ended up doing that half part and because not really realizing how bad it was, and probably lucky that we did, we needed every dollar on that job. But holy crap, what a. We're looking at our yearly revenues. I think our biggest year prior to that was 22,000,000 in 2009. We did. 22 million. By the way, it was our worst year ever. That was our biggest year and worst year financially. Um, didn't know what we didn't know. Thought just getting big for the sake of getting big was going to make us money. Learn the hard way. That's not true. Uh, but, um. 2009 all said. When. When did you arrive into it? Was it spring? Right. 

Speaker 2 [00.28.33]

February. February 2009. 

Speaker 1 [00.28.35]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So kind of right when the middle of that bidding and then going and executing on that, can you kind of just talk us through your first year in 2009, what that was like versus coming from where you're coming from? 

Speaker 2 [00.28.46]

Well, I mean, you hit the nail on the head when you guys were talking about putting margin. You know, you know, your advantage. You think you you know, you had an advantage and you were thinking about taking 50% of that advantage and adding it to your, hey, here's our flat number we want on the job for profit. Um, the world I came from, we were putting negative. So if if the job was 2 million was our cost. And in a normal markup year, when things are good, you're putting 10% on it for round numbers. So you're putting a $200,000 markup on that. Right. We were bidding in a -2%. -3%. So if our direct cost was 200 or 2 million, we were bidding at 1.8 million. In hopes that we could go get change orders and and get make that up and change orders and things and hopefully turn it into a break even job or hopefully, you know, if you killed it, a little bit of profit. That's how bad the market was that I came from. And, you know, that's after equipment rates have been cut. That's after, you know, they're starting to just put the fuel in the equipment going. We own the equipment for the short term. We're just not going to pay ourselves for the equipment. I mean that that's how bad it was in Reno. Um, and a lot of companies went bankrupt. I mean, a lot of them. And, um. So, yeah, it was very hard for me coming from that world of you guys are very shielded and isolated up here from what the real world seen out there. And you, you know, you you coined the phrase we're always lagging behind. And you know, this region, and you are, um, and it just hadn't it hadn't hit you yet, but it it came shortly after. And, uh, so, yeah, you know, we were very fortunate to land that windmill project and then that the good and the bad. The great was. I'm off the freeway. I'm off the big 395 I-80 night work. Working. Beautiful woods, true smell of trees. And I mean, just pinch me. Oh my gosh, I can't believe that we get paid to be out here doing this from working on the, you know, the big city work that I was on. The flip side is we were always behind on that project. They wanted to work seven days a week. And I, I don't think I've ever worked harder than that year. Year and a half we did on the windmills, all of us. I mean, it was it was, you know, I don't care if it was snowing rain and mud. They wanted it stripped off, plowed. They wanted the base rock done. We got tower showing up. We got windmills that need to go up. We got foundations that need to be poured. You're holding us up. Why isn't the road built? And I don't, you know, two feet of snow went down. Plow the snow off. Let's go. Um, I I've never met a company or an owner that literally pushed so hard as those guys did.

Speaker 1 [00.31.25]

Yeah, and the whole time they're pushing to their, um. It wasn't. Hey, we'll pay you whatever you want to get paid. They were simultaneously push, and we're not paying you anything extra. Yep. Right. I don't care that it's snowed. I don't care that you have to plow. We paid you. I don't remember how we were getting paid. Were we getting paid? I think we were getting paid by the. Because I remember on the base rock, we were we we put in GPS because they were they would core the depth to make sure that the rock that they paid for was there. Um, so we were using GPS to make sure that we weren't overrunning on rock, but we also couldn't under run on rock because they were going back and checking our depth. So must have been paying us by the mile. And they didn't pay by the mile or by the foot.

Speaker 2 [00.32.16]

but it wasn't by the time, obviously  

Speaker 1 [00.32.18]

It wasn't by the ton, obviously. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, that was that was a wild, wild project. Yeah. A lot of people don't. And then I want to say that our total revenues that year was like 9.9 million. And like 9.5 of it was from that wind farm. Yep. And if we wouldn't have that wind farm, even though it was. You're right. It was an absolute bitch. I'm not sure what would have happened to this company. 

Speaker 2 [00.32.47]

 I don't know. That was a the stars aligned. And, you know, a funny story of the wind farm. I love the story of your dad. You know, I remember when we were out there, it was so cold. I mean, we're we're in coveralls. We got face masks on, and and it's, you know, we're plowing snow off and we're sticking off the mud so that we can pull a fabric and dump base and. It's eight, 9:00 at night, I think, just for a morale booster. Your dad jumped in one of the belly dumps and, uh, come down the hill. And as he went by the whole crew, he's got his hat hanging out the window, waving it, going, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. And he's cheering everybody on like Patton, you know, and uh, and I mean, we all laughed our butts off and, and and that's, that was a huge morale booster that, uh, that's a perfect example of leadership where, you know, you're you're really kind of feeling sorry for yourself and out there kicking rocks and and then here comes the owner of the company driving a belly dump. Excited as hell that we're just we're just doing something, you know? Right. Realizing that we're in probably the worst economic time that he's probably ever seen in his career, and he's seen some bad ones since 1972. And just he's just grateful that we have a chance to actually go, maybe even fight for some money or build them. Right. So. Um, just different perspective that, you know, was was really good to, to witness and be a part of. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that I'm very glad we bought GPS. You know, that was back when GPS was relatively new. I mean, I've probably been out 5 or 6 years, and it was really starting to catch on over with the companies we were working with. And funny story for the for the viewers that what sold us was we were pretty skeptical. And the, the, the salesman came out and he buried a quarter in the dirt and then he. He toppled it basically marked the spot, and then he busted everything down, reset up on the control points and walked over. I don't know, 500 yards and then walked back and found the quarter in the dirt and I went. Holy moly. Yeah, we've got to get up on this technology. And so being able to transition that and and staying up with technology that was a that was a big I think that was a big shift of for this company, you know, being used to kind of set in your ways and the old school ways that the world is changing. And we need to we need to stay up with technology. I think that was a that was the start of the big shift. We need to invest and really invest in technology and get ahead of this. 

Speaker 1 [00.35.07]

Yeah. So let's talk about um, so for the viewers, we  this East side where we're here now, we're here at the Bernie at the Bernie office right now. And we prior to Weston coming here in 2001, we got our first permit for an asphalt plant. Concrete plant. First EIR environmental impact report done in Shasta County took seven years to permit this facility. Uh, absolutely. Ridiculous amount of money. Unbelievable amount of money. The ironic thing is, because we had aggregates as why we got the wind farm. Yep. And the bass rock came from here. The concrete came from here. Uh, because the economy was so bad. We rented a bunch of 3D trucks. 3D concrete trucks out of Reno. Yep. And we were sending. That's blows my mind now, but we we rented a, um, a big high production concrete plant, a portable concrete plant out of Battle Mountain, out of Battle Mountain and rented a bunch of trucks from those guys. I mean, the amount of risk that we took is just incredible. Uh, and then rented a bunch of trucks, and we were sending those. Those foundations were around 450, 500 yards per pour and one monolithic pour. All had to be there in one day. And. They tried to set up a plant up on the project. The owners did. And again, Shasta County, because the ears and all the stuff that they required said, no, you hatchery Casa has a permit for a concrete plant. You their parkway. Those are your two options, right? And so in one way it protected us. But in the other way we learned that's a terrible way of getting permitting from the ground up is tough. And you better have a huge bankroll, which we didn't have at the time. Uh, it saved us. But then in comes Weston, uh, in 2009 and kind of tell them our tell them your Millers custom work story.

Speaker 2 [00.37.25]

Well, I think it starts with, you know, I, I challenged myself when I came in to Hack Creek that, you know, I, I don't know their work. I know the work that I've done in Reno. I've worked in Nevada, I've worked for MnDOT, I've worked for RTC. A lot of my work's been downtown city work. You know, our bread and butter here at the time was PG and E work. It was, um, rows and rows of logging, roads, forestry, Forest Service, you know. Um, and then obviously the wind farm, I think the wind farm was probably a pretty big project for us to take on. You know, prior to, to me coming here. Um, and so just learning the crews and learning. Learning the people and and I realized  that. 

Speaker 1 [00.38.07]

Well, and I'm actually going to stop you. The year that we lost you, we did $22 million. Oh, yeah. And we lost our ass. So that was the biggest job in company history. I want to say that was 12 or 13 million on highway 44, and it was a Caltrans job, and we had just gotten our nuts kicked in on that project. It didn't go well. I mean, we lost a lot of money on that job, and that was another moment. We nearly lost the whole company. So there was a lot of, uh, you know, the the rock here is, um, not ideal for making high level aggregates for Caltrans projects. And so, um, there was a lot of fear around jumping into back into Caltrans work. Yeah. Yeah, that's rightfully so. Right. Rightfully so. Yeah. 

Speaker 2[00.38.56]

Um, and so coming here and realizing, you know, we had we had talented people. We just needed to move the needle, in my opinion, to that Caltrans work that, you know, a world you came from when you were Teichert, a world that I, I knew very well from my tenure at SAC and at granite. And then I had people. 

That I can network with that. You know, we could slowly start plucking, but we had to get the work. So it's the chicken or the egg, right? If you land a Caltrans job, go find the people. If you don't have the job, the people won't come. Right. And I remember discussing with you the, you know, the first Caltrans job we landed was on, ironically, highway 44, Poison Lake. And, uh, yeah. Um, you know, we picked that job off, and, and I and we were the talk of the North State. We were the hot creek just bought off another another job. We beat Steve Manning, who at the time was the player of players up here, and nobody could beat him. And we beat him and and he was and I  think did he have the pit set up of the demo and the portable set up? The team already moved that in later.

Speaker 1 [00.40.01]

 Um, I think he moved in in later as a sub dust and he. Yeah, I think uh, no, I think he landed the big 44 overlay job was what got him there. So I'm trying to remember

Speaker 2 [00.40.12]

 he said to us for paving. That's what it was. 

Speaker 1 [00.40.15]

 Yes. 

Speaker 2

[00.40.21]

Okay. Yes. So we got big Steve Manning up here who's literally like, he could literally hit the job from where he's setting up his portable ass plant with a rock. And we beat him. Right. It shouldn't have happened. No. You know, um, you know, were we a little hot? Sure, I'm sure we were. But that job, um, allowed us to kind of reach out to some of the people I knew over in Reno and go, hey, I got I got a good job, because, remember, Reno is still just kind of coming back. It's still bleeding. It's not even coming back yet. You know, I think we picked that job up in, like, 2010. Somewhere in there. Mhm. Uh, the next year after we'd kind of finished the windmills. And so there's a lot of people that aren't working and you know, very talented people. And so being able to recruit some of those guys to come over and help us and then you know, in my opinion Caltrans work in that work. It's it's a different spec book, but it's still kind of the same. It's still kind of the same animal. And then um, and so I think that was kind of the start to, you know, that's that's  the world that I, I knew and let's have a hybrid of, hey, let's continue to do the logging roads, let's continue to work for Roseburg and the PGE. But let's diversify a little bit. Let's go. Let's go dabble back into this, this, this Caltrans market. And uh, some of these big public entities and, um, and, you know, that's the world that I came from. And, and so then, you know, take that we're I remember we were driving  to, to Reno one day, I think we were going over to meet a client or something. And actually, we're on our way back. We've been over to Reno and met a client. You and I wanted to pick up driving back, and I asked you, you know, how old do you know Jim Miller? Uh, Miller's. Miller's custom works in Susanville. And he's like, hey, actually, we know him pretty well. We've done a you said we've done a lot of work with them. And, uh, my, my father knows him real well. And we we get along great with him. I said, well, when I work for granite, we just scratch our head. Why, we would be able to pave in downtown Susanville when he has a plant sitting right there, you know, by the prison off of Center Road.  Um. And we're trucking the asphalt all the way from Reno and beating him. Why? How is that happening? And I think that once again, you and I started. Hey, maybe we should swing in and visit with him and just, you know, see what he's planning on doing with it. And so we just, unannounced, showed up to his office, and I remember, just like it was yesterday. I walked in there and he took our took our meeting, and we asked him, what are you what are you going to do with the place? And he said, you know, I'm interested in talking about selling it. And uh, that kind of started the whole step, next step into getting into more of the materials that we knew was good rock, that could support the work that we wanted to chase with the Caltrans work and the paving. And, you know, back to dreaming. Another good person that lives over in Reno has his own company been very successful. Rich Bunning, at the time owned RHP, and he would show up to to bid openings in a yellow Ferrari. And his license plate said, I pave and and I remember telling you you want to you want to turn cash fast. We got to get into the paving market every time you pave. I mean, nowadays it's a quarter million a day changes hands in revenue. Um. It's high, high reward, high risk. But if you want to start really low margin and

Speaker 1 [00.43.23]

 low margin, but a lot of dollars turn in a day. And so even though it's low margin, it's a lot of margin. Yes. On a daily basis. Yes. That's what that's what a lot of people don't understand. They think that it's laced with an incredible amount of money. And I would say that it's actually some of the lowest margin work we do. But you're right, it's that turn in that big amount of cash,  uh, again, percentage wise, low margin, but growth wise on a daily basis, pretty big numbers. Right? Right. 

Speaker 2 [00.44.01]

Yep. And so fast forward we figured out, you know, how to how to get Millers, uh, to come to the table, came up with a with an offer that we could agree with. And, you know, ironically, like you tell you know, their bank and our bank with the same bank and everybody was hurting and I think our bank, we had no business buying a no business buying a Korean, uh, asphalt plant. We didn't we didn't even have a hot plant operator. We didn't have anybody we didn't have a paving crew. I don't even think we had a big enough paver to pave with the main line. I think we just had a little boy paver, eight foot boy paver. So. So in 2009, 2010 when we buy mowers, 2010, 

Speaker 1 [00.44.40]

 uh, very end of 2009. Okay. Yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 2 [00.44.43]

In 2009 was, you know, nowhere

Speaker 1 [00.44.45]

Step one because we ended up buying them in multiple steps. We're just going to buy just the asphalt plant. That was the first thing. So we purchased just the asphalt plant. And then he's like well I really need to sell the quarry. Also. You know, the quarry is going to be less valuable without the asphalt plant. And and the prices were very good. I mean, that is the one. The great thing about the bad thing about bad economies is people are losing jobs. There's a lot of horror going on and everybody's running for the hills. The flip side of that is there's also a lot of tremendous opportunity. Um, and we were able to get that acquisition, you know, significantly less than if it was in a great economy. But the flip side of that is we also had no we were leveraged already, crazily leveraged, um, we, uh, had a line of credit that we was like virtually always tapped. Um, I remember holding checks to make payroll, and now we're going and buying a, you know,  uh, a business that's a multi-million dollar business. And the only reason the bank agrees to it is because our bank was his bank at the time. And they're like, well, pretty certain he's not going to make the payment here in the next few months. And Hack Creek. Don't know if they're good, but they haven't missed a payment yet. So I think we're going to take a bet on them. That's probably the only reason. But then quickly that became very quickly. So. Kind of talk about I remember I think our first real paving job out of there, Richmond Road. Right. The the county  job.

Speaker 2 [00.46.35]

No The first real paving job, uh, was over in Portola., 

Speaker 1 [00.46.44]

Oh. Oh God. How could I forget that? Yeah, I tried to forget it. Uh, so. Yeah, let's talk about. Let's talk about that. 

Speaker 2 [00.46.53]

Well, backing up one step. We we buy that plant we don't have. We don't have a person that can operate it. 

Speaker 1 [00.47.01]

Okay. So help me with that. I thought we hired Steve Forti before we even had the plant. 

Speaker 2 [00.47.12]

We were looking. We. Okay, I'm getting my stories mixed up. So we were talking about buying that plant and taking it over to the 97 job. Right. That fell through. And then we hired C40 anyways. And then we ended up buying the back yard. So we bought it. We bought a jockey before we had a horse.

Speaker 1 [00.47.25]

We had a guy that was really good at operating operated plants without a plant. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 [00.47.31]

So okay. You are correct. But we didn't have a  paving crew. No, we didn't have the pavement. So we went on a full court press and uh, and then now that we have full court press of getting a pavement crew, we kind of went around and gathered up some of Jim Miller's old pavement crew and then hodgepodge some of the guys here that had a little bit of pavement experience and put together what we thought was a paving crew and. How hard can it be? We used to do it all the time over in Reno. I managed lots of paving. I thought I was the paving guru. Yeah. Little did I know. Uh, we we, uh, you know, at this time, we we'd landed a a couple good public work jobs. You know, a Caltrans job and then some other ones. And then we were working on a portfolio job and some of those talented people that that we'd gotten from Reno that were working for us, Martin Davies, some of them, uh, went over and helped us build that portfolio job. And we were we were doing really well. I mean, the dirt side of it, the underground side of it, the concrete side of it, it's all going really well. The job was was ahead of schedule and making, making good money, you know, and uh, and I think in three days of us paving it, uh, from, from Susanville to Portola, we were sent in trucks. Uh, if I remember correctly, we lost about $100,000 in three days to trying to pave it ourselves. But I was in charge of, uh, just because, you know, I, I literally, I literally attacked it like I would with a seasoned veteran granite Reno crew or SAC crew. And, and I think at one point the owner got mad, threw his hands in the air. It was like 9:00 at night. And we'd had I think we had like 20 trucks sitting on the ground and been sitting there for 3 or 4 hours, and the first day, the first day of paving, went into the night. We didn't have lights for the paver. Everybody was just using their flashlights and their cell phones. We were towing the paver with the with the greater and a chain because it was getting stuck, because we were trying to pave 18, 20 foot wide, um, didn't have extensions, didn't have auger auger extensions of feet out there. Um, and I think we got off the road at two in the morning the first night, and then trucks loaded at six to be back, paving again at 730 the  next day. So that was kind of the first the first deep dive for Weston and in paving. And I remember I remember thinking, man, it wasn't this hard. And you know, I don't understand why this is so hard. So, uh, some of that was me being a little aggressive, and a lot of it was we just didn't have the right people in the right seats. And then after a little bit of, you know, scratching our head and, you know, there's back to that dream I knew I wanted to pave. I knew we wanted to pave. We have a hot plant. Right. Are we going to let a $100,000 speed bump to terrace? No, no.

Speaker 1 [00.50.13]

 Yeah. And it's hard for people to understand. I mean, $100,000 is a lot of money for anybody. I don't care who you are. Um. And I don't ever want to say, like today, if it was $100,000 that it wouldn't be, you know, horrible thing. I mean, you and I are our whole team is oriented around, you know, not making mistakes. It costs a company money, but to put $100,000 in perspective back then for us, like trying to get our feet off the ground debt, leverage out to our ass, finally have a job that's making money up to that point. And we say making money. I mean, maybe we were 100 and a quarter ahead, you know, and then we pretty much gave it all back on those three days, right? Like that. And we were just devastated. I mean, just like a chance to get maybe a, a step ahead of the drought. You know, I remember just you just feel like the water is here and, you know, you're just about to start drowning. You're like, you just feel like you're there all the time. And it's it's hard for people to really understand what it felt like then. And I remember you calling me, um. Like and tears like, dude, like I this is the end of the world. You know, it's. This is a fucking. This could be. I could say game over. But like, we finally are getting ahead, and it's just like somebody just fucking kicked the stool out from underneath us. And then we're just back to square one, back to almost drowning again overnight. 

Speaker 2 [00.51.56]

Very disheartening. Um, very much, uh, you know, sit, sit, sit on a Sunday in a in a hammock and lay there and look at the sky as the clouds are flying over, going, do I got what this what it takes to, you know, and it wasn't just me. It was. It was all of us. But I'm the one that was like, we can do this. That really wanted to chase this dream and, you know, got you and your dad revved up that this is where we need to go. And then now it's kind of like, shit, all eyes on me. You're the one that said you could do this. You know, everybody was. You were helping, too. You came from that world, too. But you guys were in your own little niche. You guys had your little mark. You know, they had the market. You had your your repeat clientele. And I'm like, we should pivot. We should pivot. I want to go chase this. And I want, you know, you could have said no, but I think I think we all knew that. Um. That to grow that we needed to diversify. And so yeah, I just remember sitting there going, man, is this is this ever going to work? It's like one step forward, two steps back, one step forward, two steps back. And then fast forwarding from that to the Richmond Road project you were talking about. I remember calling you because we, you know, then we'd recruited some some better talent, help with the paving. Needed a really good lead foreman that had some paving experience that could lead some greener guys. And um, um, I remember we took off paving and I remember sending you a video and I just had tears running down my face because I'm like, we're finally doing it. Like, this is, look at this. We are paving right now, and I'm, oh, such a, I mean, months and months and months of, you know, beating your head against the wall and trying to figure out how to get the right people and everything lined up and then and then and to see it actually happened. It was such a cool feeling. So awesome. And then, um, you know, and then just fast forward that, you know, that grows from there on as, as the company evolves and, you know, start attracting more and more talent. And, you know, people come, some retire, some decide they want to go work for a different company. But it seems like every time we. Someone left the company for a retirement reason or they decided to do something else. We always upgraded. We never downgraded. We had a few come in that didn't work, and we figured that out quickly. But I'd say for the most part, whenever someone came on, we stepped up. And I think a lot of that was seeing us grow and be successful and and creating that attraction and then and then continuing to get work. And, you know, we're still coming off of the down economy. Everybody's hungry and and want to chase chase it. And here we are aggressively getting after it. And I will say back in the day, you know, we did a lot of aggressive things, some things by design and some things didn't know what we didn't know and learned the hard way. And, you know, so you definitely one thing this business teaches you how to do is if you miss something or you screw it up, you learn how to get really, really creative to go fix it. You know, you know, go, go cover up that mistake and not or figure out how to rob Peter to pay Paul. Hey, we missed that in the bid. We're going to lose 50 grand. But if I work really hard over here, I'm going to make that 50 grand back on this item, you know? And so instead of just feeling sorry for yourself and writing 50 grand off. Yeah. So I think that's one thing that the, you know, this company and, and all of us do really well is we're, we're always trying to figure out how to go faster and make more money and do it safely, you know. 

Speaker 1 [00.55.16]

Yeah. And I, you know, I think you did a really good job of kind of describing that, that first kind of SS curve at that. Oh nine 1011. You know, where the company really got a foundation around consistently paving well, grading well, doing things well, doing more and more Caltrans work, kind of phasing out of the at that time, you know, Spotted Owl and pressures in the forest were lumber pricing and everything else was, um, kind of pushing us out of our niche. And there was more stability, I guess, in the more the Caltrans world and more growth opportunity in the Caltrans county grading, paving type of stuff. And, uh, and then slowly Ward Lake, that's what we call our Susanville operation. Ward Lake quickly yet slowly became kind of the golden goose of the whole company, you know? And to this day, it's probably the most important location that we have. So now talk a little bit about so there's that's curve right. So it's real crazy. And the growth is killing us. And then I feel like we kind of did that normal s and things starting to stabilize. And and then you know from. Probably say 2017, where we start really concentrating internally. And I'm always I think that that year of that was around oh seven that we did 22 million, which is our biggest year. And at the end of that year, we owed a paving contractor $2 million and we had no money to pay them. Wow. And so I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, but through a very, very rough time to fast forward to, you know, things are comfortable. Um, I would say good, but not yet great. We started talking about, you know. Right.Right, people. Right. They're just kind of reinforcing that. Right people. Right seats. We had, you know, sometimes we'd have the right people just they want to do their they core value fits, uh, everything that's having been the wrong seats and had some toxic people, I would say, you know, high performers, but kind of toxic to the culture. Uh, so can you talk a little bit about kind of the last. I'd say from are we great? No, I would say our company is very, very good. I would put us in that great category. Most times, uh, what I love about our company is we are always everyone on this team wants to be better. It's that continuous improvement mindset. But I am pretty proud of the last several years, going from, I would say, good to a lot of times great and with with still improvements to be made. What do you contribute that to uh, this next S-curve that I'd say the company is going through right now? 

Speaker 2 [00.58.43]

Well, I think I think you missed an S-curve, in my opinion. Okay. Um, and we'll touch on that quickly. We we we got Susanville going, and then we really were looking at the market on the map of, hey, if you're going to pave north of Susanville all the way to the Oregon border, that asphalt is coming from Reno, Redding or Oregon, right? And we bid a job on 139. Around a pit. 

Speaker 1 [00.59.13]

Oh, my God, you're so right.

Speaker 2 [00.59.16]

around the pit That was very, very underdeveloped. Had been used in forever. Yeah. And kind of thought. There's no way we'll get it. Remember that? Oh, yeah. Uh, I want to say it was like, 18 million, 16 years. 

Speaker 1 [00.59.29]

I was.. 

Speaker 2 [00.59.31]

 it's 16 or 18 million. It was more. It was because of the time. 

Speaker 1 [00.59.34]

I thought it was like 20 million, but, uh, it was massive. Massive. 

Speaker 2 [00.59.38]

And we we bid it around a plant we didn't know. Yep. A pit that was hadn't been. How long had been. Did anybody come out of that pit? It was County pit. 

Speaker 1 [00.59.48]

Yeah. So we acquired it from the county. We had to. It was called. We called our shop pits above lookout. Um, Bob Shaw, an incredible, incredible old man, uh, had big dreams for that pit. Um, would call me. He called me, like, once a week for a year to come look at that pit. Long story short, I, you know, went up there and looked at great Rock. That's what we've learned through this process. It starts with great rock, but in the middle of frickin nowhere. Like, look out, California. I'm like, wow. There's like, there's no work up here. There's there's no work. Anyway, long story short, we. We ended up acquiring that pit. We just basically took it over from Modoc County because there they had an unsafe bridge. Super unsafe bridge. And they're like, if you guys will take over the reclamation plan and all the responsibility of reclaiming this pit, you know that we want out. The owner wants us out and they want to the new lease. So so we move into that pit. But so basically we just had it. But we didn't really we hadn't have didn't have an asphalt plant there. We just kind of had an aggregate source and hoping someday something would come along the way. 

Speaker 2 [01.00.55]

So now go ahead and move on with your story. 

Speaker 2 [01.01.09]

Yeah, we have, we have, we have, we have a pit that we, that we've taken over 

from the county that Bob Shaw owned. We release it from him. Yep. Um, and we bid a  don't hold me to it. 16, $18 million job. Caltrans job. Uh, had rubberized asphalt on it. We've never done before. Yep. Um, had cold foam finishing. Never done before. Yep. Um. And thought, you know, way. There's no way with that that Rocky Mountain is an or Eagle Peak. Those two are those two are going to drop bombs on each other and we're going to be third. 

Speaker 1 [01.01.40]

Eagle peak can really be cheap at the time. And Alturas and we really thought it was kind of their job to lose. And then if they happen to be high or not bid it, which all indications were, they were bidding and bidding it aggressively, that, um, Rocky Mountain construction would be, would be tough to beat because There. Very inexpensive operating costs in Oregon. Coming right across the Oregon border down into California, which they had done and done well, really thought we would struggle to get that job. 

Speaker 2 [01.02.17]

Yeah. And lo and behold, we were low bid. 

Speaker 1 [01.02.19]

And not just low bid. How much money do we leave on? I remember. 

Speaker 2 [01.02.25]

I don't know. I know it was in the millions. It was over a million.

Speaker 1 [01.02.27]

It was right under $2 million. Rounded up $2 million is what we left on the table. So for audience, leave it on the table. Means if we were 17 million, the next bidder was 19 million. And that was $2 million that we don't have that we could have had. We could have had another 1.8 million on there. Right? Yep. And to revamp we have no asphalt plant. Right. We were going to we were going to go find one and move it in. Yeah. And so we didn't have an asphalt plant, didn't have the the pit really  ready for an asphalt plant. No. Didn't have a lime plant. Lime tree plant. No. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 [01.03.11]

Had to put a bridge in toget all this equipment across the river. Yep, yep. And all this had to happen in about. Four months. 4 or 5 months, I think getting ready for the summer. And it was a full court press. Um, to find an asphalt plant, which you guys flew down to Southern California. Found one and purchased it. 

Speaker 1 [01.03.30]

Yep. Used. Used Gen Corp 400 plant from Skanska. Yep. 

Speaker 2 [01.03.34]

Yep. Uh, get it up here. Get the bridge in to get the plant over the river. Uh, and set up. Get the floor space made to set the plant up. You want to. You want to talk about, like you said, take cash lighted on fire and throw it out on the woodpile and wheelbarrows. We were doing that. I mean, none of we thought we had that accounted for in the bid. We were. We were not even close. 

Speaker 1 [01.03.57]

Well, and that's I think we're really good at estimating what it costs for to, to build work. Right. So but that is assuming the quarry is all set up. But so we, we put together what we thought it would, would cost to, you know, build the floor by the plant, move the plant up or about the only thing that was within budget was what we paid for the plant. Right. But what we didn't know, we got up. The plant had massive electrical problems. The control systems wouldn't work. We had a third party electrical, uh, subcontractor, electrician, subcontractor up there that we were just we were spending. I don't know, 20 or $30,000 a week with them on trying to gut all the electrical and redo the electrical. Fortunately, we had a the other S curve we had going on the exact same time 

Speaker 2 [01.04.50]

 we were down south 

Speaker 1 [01.04.51]

Because we were doing a federal highways job to do the amount of risk that we were, that we would take on. We really analyze risk differently now, uh, now that we have something to to protect. Yeah. At that time we did have we just had a lot of debt and a lot of ambition. But, uh, so on that federal highways job, we'd gotten a single quote for asphalt that was just obscenely expensive. I mean, like, double what it should cost. You know, we thought it should be, you know, if they were, what we could produce it for, even at our market value would be a $65 a ton mix. And I think our quote was like 125 130 and we, you know, this, Tony, give Tony credit for this. He found an asphalt plant that hadn't been running for three years,  chased down who owned it and met with the owner, flew down, met with the owner and talk them into leasing us their  plant. And we sent our operator and another guy down to help get that plant going, and decided to make our own asphalt for a federal highways job, and from Ridgecrest and truck it up to Lone Pine. That was happening while we were buying this plant, moving it up there. So the good news is, what I joke about is that we were making great money. Uh, that fortunately went our way. A lot of things could have gone not our way on that. That went well. Tony managed it well. Our teams managed it really well. And I would joke that we would load dump trucks full of cash on that job, haul it up to the shop, hit back up to light it on fire and burn it and burn it down at, uh, at the shop, hit, uh, getting the plant up and running. And then when we were finally get it running, we would run for laid up, load up on the trucks like trying to have 20, 25 trucks lined up. We're finally ready to go. Start paving. Hour into it. Plant would take a shit. We'd sign all the trucks out. Fortunately, the economy was still not great at that time. If you remember, truckers were getting pissed. Yep. Uh, they were just trying to make money. Totally had, um, empathy for that. But all of us were trying to survive. So we kept this start stop thing. Start stop thing. Oh my gosh. An obscene amount of money. 

Speaker 2 [01.07.30]

Yeah. And it, you know, and then the rubber plant caught on fire. I mean, we could go on and on in that whole vast hub that we had, but that, uh, that, that project, you know, if you look at the market that we kind of control now, that project allowed us to set up a resource that, for lack of a better term, put an outpost that, hey, we just blocked off. Ready? Yeah, we just blocked off Reno, and now we just got work and 

Speaker 1 [01.08.01]

blocked off and blocked off Reno. Um, and and that plant could reach clear to Bernie now pretty competitively and really solidified a whole corner of this state, right? Yep. Yeah. Huge, huge S-curve moment there. Yep. Yeah. 

Speaker 2 [01.08.20]

And then fast forward again, you know, buying Pitch Road. You know, buying the Eagle Peak was

Speaker 1 [01.08.25]

And that really what a lot of people don't understand is that move moving that plant into lookout put a lot of pressure on Alturas. Absolutely. Now there's another player in that market we've been trying to buy Fitch Road for. What year do we buy it? I think 23. Right. 20 I know. 22. Yeah. 22 into 22. Right. 1221. 22. But we've been prior to that. We've been talking to them for 12 years. Yeah, 12 years before that happened. But I think that landing that that plant there put a lot of pressure where they weren't just the only game in town. Um, but yeah. So great. Uh, great point there. So then that led to a lot of projects coming out around that plant. Not just that wasn't a one and done job. Um, there was a, you know, like these rural areas, there's a 10 to 20 year time frame from the time they do a bunch of paving and work. And it seems to kind of the roads seem to kind of, I don't know, degradation at the same pace. And then they kind of have to come and do all that work. We've kind of done all of that paving in that area now, and it's been been kind of a long, slow wait for. That work to come back, but that was a great catch. On your point with that. That S-curve. And then that led to the Eden projects and, you know, a lot of other really profitable jobs for us. 

Speaker 2 [01.10.03]

Yeah, that had we not had those resources set up, we wouldn't have we wouldn't have been competitive. Um, and when you get that kind of work, when you're turning that kind of volume A that attracts talent. Yep. Um, and be it requires us to get talent because otherwise we're going to be spread so thin that we're going to have holes so big in the net that money's just fallen out of it. And so we we had the the ability to kind of cherry pick the best of the best. And I think on the field side and the management side and continue to grow our team and and then when when people see that you're growing as a company, you know, each year you're, you're getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Um, you know, it's attractive. And then knowing that you have a, you know, a kind of an isolated market up here, that that makes it harder. It's guaranteeing that every year we're going to get some work in that market. It's just dictated on how much work Caltrans puts out  Because we've got a fence built so big now, it's hard to beat us unless we screw up. We show ourselves in the foot. 

Speaker 1 [01.11.06]

 Right. So. Right. 

Speaker 2 [01.11.08]

And that was by design and kind of dreaming. So kind of going back to that day with, you know, when we went to War Lake, that was, that was putting the anchor of the fence down, was getting Susanville. And then we just started building the fence up around and just kind of cornered off this north northeastern state that now you say our competitor referred to as Hacker Land. Yes. Yes. Hacker land. Yes. So yeah. 

Speaker 1 [01.11.31]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well yeah that was a great that was a great. So and then from that uh, the owner of uh Eagle Peak called and said, hey, I'm finally ready to sell. And he had some great opportunities going on up in Montana and was kind of trying to manage it from afar and was ready to sell. And opportunities like that. It's usually timing right for, for Jim. You know, Jim Miller, it was timing for him. It's timing and it's just whether or not 1 in 1 moment we're not ready. But dreaming this moment, I would say we were ready for for them. We were ready, really excited to buy that operation. Um, so I want  to say very into 22. We bought we bought the Pitch Road operation. Um, and yeah, really kind of tied up this kind of northeastern, northeastern California area, which we call home. We love this whole area. We we love it up here. Uh, we call that level one work, but we still don't have enough level one work in this whole corridor to kind of keep the the team that we've built to keep everybody employed in a way that's important. So we still have to travel to go get work. Um, okay. So I asked you about kind of that. Do you think, um, we talk about core values all the time now. What do you think a little bit about? What do you think that effect has had on on the company? 

Speaker 2 [01.13.20]

I think it's made it real easy to. That people quickly know. Number one, if you don't check all five of the core value boxes. No matter how talented you are. We know for a fact you won't be a fit here because it's that important to the company. Yeah, I think I think identifying those core values and those core values were identified by the members of the company, not by you and I, not you. And I taught them what we think hackery stands for that was brought from within that we all. I think that everybody, um, had a voice in that and agreed it aligned us. And based on that alignment, I think they're very proud of those core values. And and they they believe in them. So therefore they protect them and they protect the company based on those core values. 100%. Um, and so, you know, now, it's more  important to me that if you have those core values and a and a good work ethic and a willingness to want to learn, and then bonus if you can dream, dude, we can. We'll take that. I'll take that guy any day over a guy that's been doing this for 30 years, that has a resume a mile long, but you can't check the core values books 100%. Um, you know, I, I just think about this. You know, if you're looking at your dream house, you  got one, 2 or 1 ways to look. Two. Two ways to look at it. One is babe. That's my dream house. I'm going to get it. I don't know how we're going to get it. We're never going to be able to afford it. But I'm going to get it right. Or you go, man, I'd love to have a house like that someday. I'm never going to be able to afford it. So I don't even know why. We're looking at who's going to get the house, who's got a better chance of getting the house? The dreamer right here. Because you've already beaten yourself before you started. That you can never afford it. You're never in that market. So why even put the effort out there, right? Well, there's no difference in what we do with this. You know, why can't we? Somebody did it. Why not? We're not reinventing the wheel here. We're not about the wheel. We're not. We're not doing rocket science. We're not trying to have a race against Elon Musk and be the next guy to take him on or come up with the next greatest thing. What we've done is pretty simple. It's dirt, rocks, mixing oil, cement. They've been doing it for thousands of years, right? So so so set your goals, set your dreams and go, go align them and figure out how to do them. And and so back to the people. I think that's infectious to people I think people. When you when you get around people that think like that, I notice for me. I get excited and I think they get excited. I think they start dreaming. And then it carries over to your personal life. Yeah. Well, you know, if you're around people that that take wild and set wild hairy ass goals and then they and they go and then you watch them attain them, then you go, well, why can't I do that in my own life? You know. Right. And I think they I think that attracts people and and it makes it really obvious when, when someone's here that isn't a line that way or doesn't check those core value boxes there, they stand out very quickly and like, you know, and I always say we don't have to let someone go. Usually the team lets them go for us, and we just are the ones that deliver the message. 

Speaker 1 [01.16.24]

100% we have to do the dirty work, give them the two checks and fire them, but the team fires them long before you and I give them the two checks. And and I love that about our team. And, um, it makes coming to work every day. I'm excited to come to work every day because of this team. Right. And, you know, speaking of team what I wanted, one of the things I wanted to talk about in this podcast is how. Uh, you know, I'm in a vintage group. There's a lot of CEOs in that vintage group. And, you know, one of the things that's common with most CEOs is it's it's lonely at the top, right? Really lonely. And one of the things I wanted to share with you is just how much fun I have with you being a co-owner and us kind of doing this together. Uh, it it really, um, I know we're really good at at being devil's advocate for each other, and we call it yin and yang, uh, back and forth. Well, what about did you think about this? And we're really good about putting our shoes on. Whoever we're whatever challenge we're dealing with, looking at it from kind of a 360 perspective and really being able to process, uh, those really difficult, lonely decisions that you have to make as, as leaders of a large organization, including letting go of really talented people that are your friends, that are really talented, but they're, they're toxic. And, uh, and those very difficult things that you have to have to deal with, which, you know, knock on wood, we haven't had to deal with in a long time. But there was a time there when, when we're really growing and and you're seeing, uh, as the company grows, sometimes the company outgrows. The talents of the people that helped it get to a certain level, if that makes sense. And and oftentimes you can reposition those people if they don't have ego. But most people do have ego, and it's really hard for them to transition. Um, anyway, so I just wanted to say how much fun I've had doing this with you. I, I get excited to come to work every day. Um, and there was a time I remember. So we're still sitting in my, my office, a very different office has been remodeled, but there used to be a couch that sat right there, and and I remember taking turns. One of us, like, like tears in her eyes, like, is this ever going to happen for us in it? And, you know, what are we doing here? And we're working so frickin hard and we're not getting anywhere. It's what it felt like so many times. And and again, do we have it all figured out now? No. But what I will tell you, there was a time that I was. Under and you were too under so much stress and so much anxiety that there wasn't a lot of fun. No. It was. It was massive stress. Are we going to get to the other side of that? And I will tell you. Um, I feel like we've whatever the other side of that looks like, I I'll tell you what it means to me. It means I have a lot of peace. Right? And I didn't have that for the longest time. Uh, anywhere. You know, it doesn't matter if, like, you're in the grind. I work for Tigard. You work for granite, you're living paycheck to paycheck. You're, you know, uh, you're wanting more out of life. What does that look like? Um, that was stress. But it's a whole different level of stress when you're responsible for other people's livelihoods and and really wanting this to go well for the team more than you. I think that's what that's what separates great leadership from good leadership is I think a lot of people are what's in it for me and not what's in it for the team. If you want the whole team to win. Um, and I that's what I love about you. You've figured out a way to be a great leader. Let's do it and have some fun along the way. And in fact, uh. For the longest time, this company never even set goals, right? And. And now we have retreats. We set goals. Let's just contrast a little bit like what we have done just in the last year. We've taken almost 40 people up to the dunes to go screw off for one full week. Uh, rented side by sides and just do team building. And thank you for being such an amazing team. We have had a three day strategic retreat in Reno where like, hey, we've done this the last couple of years, but, um, but I'm just talking about the last year we've taken 45 ish people to that retreat and just said, here's the work that we have. Um, the elephant in the room is we've got about half of what we need. We need to figure out how to go get the other half. It's not as close to home as it normally is. You're going to have to travel more. Uh, so have a three day retreat planning that we just took. 40 ish people down to Con Expo, which is the largest construction expo in. It happens every three years, the largest construction expo in the world. Took 40 somewhat people to that. Um, how different is what we do than what we were doing? 

Speaker 2 [01.21.56]

No not in the same. 15 years ago, I had the same zip code. And to think back then, if if someone would have told you or I that this is what you're going to be doing 15 years from now, that you're going to have a company that can, you know, is geared up to do a 100 million a year with the staffing it has and you're going to be taking, you know, 40 to 30 to 40 people on three different outings in a year and, and paying all expenses and everything. Yeah. Um

Speaker 1 [01.22.25]

paying wages during that. 

Speaker 2 [01.22.27]

Yeah. Paying wages during that. Yep, yep. And you're going to be excited to do it. Yeah. And you're going to because you understand the benefits of it. You just said no way. Yeah. What do you what do you what do you. Hi. And but the reason we do that is we've seen the, the benefits of it and how much. Um, this team. Well, they're like, you know, if you if you said a I mean, not literally, but if you told them, you know, figuratively speaking, cut your finger off, most of them would. I mean, they wouldn't literally do it, but they would, they would think about it. And, and and that's not because of a authoritative figure. That's because I don't want to let you down. Like, I feel like we've done a really good job of attracting talented people that are like minded, that are Type-A, want to kick ass, and we're going to refer to, you know, like, like the Navy Seals and stuff. They're they're just different. Yeah. You got to be wired different. This shit has to consume you. You have to you have to lay there and I and it's almost you almost have to have a sickness. My wife calls it the sickness. She's like, you get you're infected. And then she laughs and she goes, yeah. She could look at someone and go, they don't have it. Or she can look at them and go, yep, he's one of you. He's going to be a, you know, one of those guys that you're going to take on your team. Well, you know, you going back to you saying you you have a lot of peace. I remember and Lauren would tell you this, there's a lot of nights I'd be standing in the, in the bedroom in the middle of the night screaming at people, get the pipe in or where are the trucks? And I'm just dreaming and I'm full blown stressing out in the middle of the night because that's that's my subconscious, you know what I mean? Right? And she's like, babe, it's two in the morning, it's a Saturday or it's Thursday night or, you know, two Thursday morning. You're you're in your bedroom, go back to bed. Yeah. And I'm full blown. You know I don't do that anymore. It's nice, but there was a time when we were really stressed out. I thought that was a that would happen, you know? Yeah. 

Speaker 1 [01.24.23]

Yeah. Yeah. I two things I want to go back to. One, I call this team an elite operational team. Like you use a kind of Navy Seal. Obviously, it's not life and death what we do. But I feel like the logistics and the operational excellence is, is what we emulate in what the Seals do. And and you're right, not most people aren't cut out to be on a team like this. And, you know, we've hired some really amazing people and they start out going, hey, we don't want to let Perry and Weston down because they know us and they spent whatever. Um, I'll tell you, they very quickly go. I don't let team down. Right. This team is incredible. And so that's the I don't know what that secret sauce is, but I freaking love that about this team, is that everybody is got each other's back. And it's not a that's not my job or that's not my responsibility. It's like it's got to be done. It's got to be done. And I love that about this team. But you just touched on on your wife and.Your wife's incredible. My wife's incredible. One of the things that I wanted to talk about, that I don't think people think enough about when they go into business together is what is your marriage like? Right? Can you imagine if you and I were dealing with one of us, or both of us dealing with divorces or with with a spouse that didn't support you or, um, you know, was didn't understand and, and realize how hard this is and and how I'll tell you that when I'm, I can do what I do at the level I do because my wife is my teammate. And I think you and I are both lucky to have have teammates like that because, holy crap, 

Speaker 2 [01.26.21]

100% if you had to,  if  you had to deal with, uh, home life being off or sometimes it's on, sometimes it's off. Plus the stress you have to do with you, you're going to pick one or you're going to pick the other. You can't do it right. And, um, and unfortunately, your job suffers because if you're a Spartan man, you're going to make sure to take care of your wife. And so, yes, being blessed with, you know, awesome wives that support us and really sure, us shore us up on the home life so that we can be the best us here. I mean that Lauren's Lauren's exact words are my job is to make sure this home is taking care of the best of my ability so that when you get home, you can shut it off as much as you can, right? Which you never 100% shut it off. But, you know, being able to just come home and relax, not come home and go. By the way, now you got Saturday and Sunday to do all the shit around the house, right? I'm so spoiled that way. 

Speaker 1 [01.27.11]

Same, you know, my my wife spills the shit out of me. And then. And then the other thing I think both wives are incredible at is. Even though we quote unquote shut it off and probably shut it off better than we used to be able to. It's never shut off. And I know you like me or taking phone calls and dealing with it doesn't matter if it's a weekend or 9:00 at night or, you know, 5:00 in the morning. There's always that. And and what I've never gotten from my wife is. Are you kidding me? And she's never copped an attitude about you kidding me? I mean, she understands and and she. I think, like, Lauren loves this team also. Right. And feels like they're part of this team and which they are. And so anyway, I just, uh, take a moment of gratitude because thank God we haven't had to deal with any of that. Right? Thank God.

Speaker 2 [01.28.05]

No, no, we've been spoiled. And, you know, and in return, I, I look forward to, you know, being able to go home and spoil my wife when the, when the time allows it and, and you know, should we, you know, we live a great life. Um, I'm very happy with where we're at, but it was a long. There was a lot of sacrifices paid along the way to get there. And, uh, you know, I think that's a lot of what people don't realize is, you know, what are you willing to take? You know, leaving Reno, you know, we walk away from a house, so I had to short sell a house, had to wipe out our credit because things were bad to make this move here, you know, there for a while, we couldn't buy a house. We want to buy a house, you know? And so starting over with credit, some of those decisions that we made to, you know, are you willing to pay the price to then turn around and, and chase the dream, you know. Right, right. So, um, you know, and my wife wasn't born and raised in this area. Your wife knows, you know, graduated from her lawn, you know, came from Fairfield. And then, you know, just getting her to move to Reno was a was a Huck and Tonner were moving here. That was a big adjustment for her. She wouldn't trade it for the world now, because where we get to raise our kids and in this community. But, you know, 

Speaker 1 [01.29.18]

there's no Starbucks, there's no shopping. There's no there's no no. Yeah. And that that and both lives. Did that come in here and making this home. When there wasn't an Amazon. Right? 

Speaker 2 [01.29.32]

 Right. That's. I mean, you were the delivery truck. 

Speaker 1 [01.29.35]

Yes. I mean, you you want it? You're driving to Kay Falls. Reno. Reno. Redding. Yeah. Um, you know, there's an hour and a half is the closest that you're going to get to even semblance of a of something that, you know, most women. You know, that's really important to most women is to being able to anyway. Yeah. Very, very special. How lucky are we? Very lucky. Yeah. Okay. Um, what else have we not covered that we need to. We're probably. What are we doing on time here? We're probably. Yeah. Okay. So, um, probably have maybe five minutes. So anything that you can think of that we should be talking about that we haven't talked about.

Speaker 2 [01.30.20]

Not not off the top of my head. I mean, we kind of did the the full circle. I think we did. We did. Ditto. I mean, 

Speaker 1 [01.30.30]

Well, buddy, I if anything, I guess I want to get across is how much I freaking love doing this with you now.  it's just it's it's such a gift to get to have, you know. I know, I know. Beyond a shadow of a doubt. You have my back. 

Speaker 2 [01.30.51]

Vice versa.

Speaker 1 [01.30.52]

And I can't tell you. I mean, that's the biggest part of the piece is, um, we've we've cried together, we've laughed together, we partied together, we've had the best of times together, and we've had the worst of times together. And, you know, I would say, um, now that we've in this element of  of peace, I'd say we're a little better at managing risk that we were back in the day. But at the same time, I love that we have never gotten complacent. No. And we still have big dreams and we still have places we want to go and we still have, um, we're maybe a little smarter about how we go about managing risk, but we still will take on risk to get where we want to go. And there's nobody I'd rather be doing this with, so I just I can't thank you enough. 

Speaker 2 [01.31.43]

 I agree, I think you and I, I think the message out there to everybody is dream big and. Surround yourself with other dreamers. That. That are that are aligned with you. And you'd be surprised what you could accomplish. You know. 

Speaker 1 [01.31.58]

And so it starts with great people. 

Speaker 2 [01.32.00]

It starts with great people. Starts with, you know, you and I, the great partnership. I echo everything you're saying. It's nice to know that. When I go on vacation, I literally could shut my phone off. And if I choose not to answer it for seven days, I don't have to, because I know that everything is being handled. And then it's usually just out of curiosity because I can't stand it that I call the same. And then you're the same way. You're like, how could you ever call me? I'm like, I'm not calling you. You're on vacation. And you're like, but I just wanna know what's going on with you. You could call me. And then I know you're calling because you're curious, but I'm not going to. I'm not going to bug you when you're on vacation. I got it. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you know, to finalize with when you have those huge problems that you have to make a decision, it sure is nice to have someone to be processing those problems and decision making with and not, like you said, not feel like. Yeah, I don't know what to do here because there's ramifications for this bill to have that that back and forth and dialogue. And then I think we finally when we when we go through that process, we go, well, there's the answer. And we both look okay. And then it's and then it's line and that's, you know, and then that that transitions down to our team. Yeah. You know once we say this is where we're going I will say this team goes may not 100% agree with it. But those are our marching orders. And there's no more bitching than the here we go. And they just roll up their sleeves and dive.

Speaker 1 [01.33.19]

And they're 100% of line behind it. 

Speaker 2 [01.33.22]

And they're good at yeah, they're good at respectfully challenging us. Yep. But in the end, when the decision is made, they fall right into row and go right in order and go. So yeah yeah, yeah. 

Speaker 1 [01.33.32]

Amazing. Thank you. 

Speaker 2 [01.33.35]

Thank you I really appreciate you appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

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