Bob Zimmerschied – Built the Hard Way: Work Ethic, Faith, and the Making of an Entrepreneur

if you've got the right attitude and you've got integrity, I says you can take that to the bank and cash it.

You give me a horse, I could break a horse, you know, I can milk a cow and you know.

In farm machinery, by the time I was 12, 13 year old, I was running the farm hand.

Those were good.

good learning seasons.

My dad had a 49 Chevy pickup and that may be what I learned to drive in.

I woke up and went to the Christmas tree and there was a Pinto colt in the living room and he had my attention big time.

Every kid has asked for a pony for Christmas.

Not very many of them have actually gotten one.

Yeah, and especially in the living room.

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show, the show where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free-thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have

been there, done that, and are still getting it done.

Building a life that they love with their hearts, their hands, and their hustle.

I'm your host, Erick Loden.

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If you are on podcast and would like to see the video version it is available on YouTube as well from the ground up show.

As you guys probably noticed, we are in a new studio today.

We're pretty excited to have this up and running and not be sharing another space.

But with that transition, there's been a few adjustments.

We're still figuring things out.

So if you guys would have some patience with me, I know there's a few quirks in the video and have some weird focus boxes popping up and stuff.

We'll get that all taken care of over the next week or so.

And we should have a lot.

better quality audio, better quality video, and much cooler space.

So if you guys just have some grace with us this week, we are super excited to welcome you to the new studio.

And this will be our first show here.

So today I am really excited to be joined in our new studio by Bob Zimmercheid.

Bob is a local businessman that has owned a number of different businesses in a number of different fields.

He's a bit of a serial entrepreneur, owning restaurants, hardware stores, and real estate holdings.

Bob is a husband, a father, and a follower of Jesus.

So Bob, thanks for joining me.

Thank you, Erick.

I'm glad to be here, but I'm still uh very nervous because I haven't done anything like this.

And since I am supposed to be retired, I've tried to kind of, you know, I got rid of some of my books and things when I moved.

so this will be a new experience for me.

Good deal.

Well, we're glad to have you here.

and we can.

dive right in.

So Bob, the first thing we usually do with all guests is just learn a little bit about you.

Can you tell us about your childhood and life growing up?

Well,

Well, I'm sure there's some things that I shouldn't say, but these things that I'm going to tell you probably are filtered out of many memories and some of are not too fresh.

I was born into a ranchers family.

I was the first child out of four.

And I was also the first grandchild.

My dad's parents had passed on before I was born, but my mom's dad and mom were very influential in my life and great supporters.

And being the first grandchild, I think I had uh a bit of sweetness in my relationship with them.

ah As I say, my folks were ranchers and...

They'd only owned the ranch for about two years before I came along.

And back in those days, now you're a little farther on when I was about in the first grade, we got electricity at the ranch.

So this goes back a ways.

Yeah.

The REA pulls in the ground and get power in there.

And that made a big difference for us kids growing up there.

But for the first six years or so, I didn't have that advantage.

And it's probably kind of why I ended up choosing the career path that I was thinking I was on.

But anyway, we raised cattle and we used uh saddle horses to make that happen.

And one of my first memories of real, really fond memories was a Christmas.

And I've seen pictures of it, but I can't tell you exactly how old I was.

But I was probably in either the five years old or maybe six.

And Christmas morning,

I woke up and went to the Christmas tree and there was a Pinto colt in the living room and he had my attention big time.

I named him Teddy Bear and he was with me all the way through growing up and even when I met my wife and took her to the ranch to meet my parents, I took her for a ride on Teddy

Bear and give her a little...

cruise across some of the ranch property with

her on teddy bear.

And it was uh so memorable for me, but I enjoyed that that particular memory really good, especially as I was thinking about doing this podcast for you, Erick.

Every kid has asked for a pony for Christmas.

Not very many of them have actually gotten one.

Yeah, and especially in the living room.

So, and I think of not only that, but I think of Christmases.

And there were several things in my growing up years that Christmas

gifts, meant so much and actually kind of started me on a different, on a career path.

And so I'd share some of those with you.

uh One of the ones was a, let's see here, I'm gonna find that.

of course Teddy Bear and then I got a BB gun which was really kind of special.

Most boys love BB guns but I've got a grandson that has got one but he is real hesitant to get a hold of it but if I get enough time with him I think we can start making it work for

him.

My four-year-old has been begging for for while now.

Okay Dad.

And another thing that came along was a microscope.

And I might have been maybe just starting into high school or something like that when I got the microscope.

But I remember a hatching shrimp with a microscope.

And that was so cool.

And growing uh little bacteria and that kind of thing.

You go out and pick up a bale of hay or something like that and grab the stuff underneath it.

And then you put it in some warm water and watch what happens to it over several days.

The other thing that is a big deal in my life and still is, if you were to step into my man cave, you would see I've got a stack of guitars and it all started with this Roy

Rogers guitar.

And I played that thing when it was still in the box under the Christmas tree.

pretending and pretending, and finally I got the thing out of the box after Christmas.

And I had a teacher come along who played the piano.

And so he taught me how to play some chords.

And so then that started me on that path.

My youngest sister, or my oldest sister, she was two years younger than me.

She was taking piano lessons then later on in grade school.

And so we would start jamming a lot.

And so that was one of the things I remember.

We had

lots of things that my parents uh Did for us and they didn't have a lot of resources.

So uh my dad He he worked hard.

My mom was always creative and trying to figure out ways to bring in some extra money

But they got us kids into 4-H.

They got us into swimming lessons in the Keyhole Reservoir.

And we...

we just had a great growing up season.

uh so I got through that childhood and got ready for grade school.

It turns out my first grade teacher

I thought she was the cutest and loveliest and the sweetest person I'd met yet.

And uh I still think that, but she ended up marrying my dad's hired man.

And so, but that was after several years and she only taught one year for me, for my first grade year.

And she's still living.

ah So she is a, she's a sweetheart.

man.

Well, I've known you for a long time.

I did not know that you played the guitar.

you play publicly ever?

That's in my past.

There was a, you know, that's interesting you'd ask me if I still do.

I do, I do, but I do with, I play with my sister and I used to play with my best buddy that we used to jam together and we used to travel different country, different states.

We traveled to Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota and played uh mostly in bars and

dance halls and that kind of thing.

So.

and then I played some when I was in college too.

But and actually I made enough money to kind of get through college with that.

Wow.

Along with some other things too.

But anyway, I you know, it's one of those things I kind of when I got married, I had a tough tough call because I had been playing and there were so many people in that culture.

If they play music and you start jamming, I was always getting calls to jam.

And so I finally says, is going to affect my marriage.

So I sold everything except my old basic electric guitar.

OK.

And I still have it.

But then I've upgraded a little bit since then.

Collected a few more along the way.

And I just lost one of my best man that was in my wedding.

And he and I were such good buddies all the time going up.

uh We lost him at the Veterans Hospital there at Fort Meade.

two summers ago.

we would jam together.

He, my sister, and I would get together and have some really great times in the last few years.

But I did have to get back into it and bought some used equipment.

I can make noise anyway now.

What's your favorite guitar that you've owned?

Have you had any really cool ones?

Oh, yeah.

One I have cool is a 335 Gibson.

And I found that on

on Craig's list, I think it was.

And a guy that had served in Vietnam and his wife, and he was playing in a band when he was in the service, and his wife went to Gibson and said, hey, would you build this guitar

for my husband?

And so they said, okay, and they built him one.

And it turned out the quality control was not where it should be on that guitar.

And so she complained to the company and the CEO of Gibson sent her a letter and apologized and says, we're going to make you a special guitar for that mess up.

Wow.

And so I have this special order Gibson that I bought over a Craigslist and it's sitting there in my man cave.

And I love it.

It's just very cool.

That's great.

And then and then my my wife's siblings.

discovered that uh her mother used to a uh steel guitar, lap steel, and it turns out that it just kind of got stored away and they wanted me to kind of check it out so I got it out

and the tuning knobs had just completely deteriorated.

They just turned to dust.

It was one of those Don Ho jobbers, you know from the Hawaiian days when he was playing on TV and but So I got it refitted finished and stuff, but that's not my flavor I don't do

this but I still have it and you know, somebody will need it someday and I'll figure out where it should go But I don't have my old Roy Rogers guitar anymore, but anyway after

eighth grade

They consolidated the school district where I was because when my mom was teaching there and My first grade teacher was there it was a one-room schoolhouse and she taught whatever

needed to be taught in one through eight grades, okay, and The year I graduated eighth grade is when they consolidated and moved all of the country schools into town and they

bused us So we had to ride 30 miles into town every day on the bus

So how many of you were there in that?

Well, I think there was about eight of us seven or eight depending on you know because when I was there there was a seventh grader eighth grader and they moved on and I remember

those guys give me so much hard time, know Elvis Presley was big in those days and uh They started teasing me that I was Elvis, know and that I needed to shake shake around when I

was playing and stuff So that was kind of weird

So anyway, but the schoolhouse was uh there.

And in fact, my first grade teacher, she bought an old schoolhouse and moved it over to her place and refinished it and kind of refurbished it to make it look like it would have

50 years ago.

And it's still standing there somewhere, but she's gone on her ranches.

oh Now it's about eight, 10 miles from where our ranch was.

It was over on edge of the Black Hills, the Powder River side of the Black Hills.

So what was the town that you got bussed to go to school?

Moorcroft.

Yeah.

And I didn't know.

I mean, I'd been around 4-H kids and stuff like that, but we just pretty much played among ourselves and relatives.

And so that was most of my social with peers until I went to high school.

And that was kind of...

That was kind of a big step for me.

I know that uh high school was big and seemed awful big.

I was nervous about that too, but uh I started loving science projects or science classes.

uh Didn't of course have physics or anything like that, but we had science.

had...

chemistry and organic chemistry and of course algebra and trigonometry those were things that I really liked math and science and so it wasn't long before teachers were pulling me

and another one of my classmates to head to the School of Mines in Rapid City and so I signed up to do electrical engineering and

started off in Rapid City then there and the thing that would have changed my life if they wouldn't have had any 3-2 beer.

I found that and that put a pretty heavy drag on my school and I made it two years and by that time the Vietnam War was really roaring and they were drafting people right and left

and my mother she says

you are not going to get drafted.

Let's go and talk to the recruiter.

And we went to National Guard there in Spearfish and I signed up for the National Guard.

then I ended up staying seven and a half years in the National Guard.

And it really helped me uh financially because weekend drills, they paid pretty good.

And over the years, uh I took my MOS, the type of

skill that I learned was construction and dynamiting and I love that C4 and all of those dead cable and stuff like that so that was a good gig for me and I enjoyed it a lot.

I'm learning all kinds of new things today.

So did you end up in Vietnam?

No, I didn't.

I wanted to go so bad.

And you know, when I went to the School of Mines, one of the requirements there was to oh be an ROTC.

And so I had some experience with that, you know, just the basic drill formations and things, and some classes.

And I liked that.

Okay, that was fun.

And then when I got to boot camp and doing guard duty and stuff during the middle of the night and stuff, you know, your mind wanders.

And I kept thinking, man, I want to get into this and do

my part but I got started thinking I'm stuck here so I just make the best of it and it wasn't long before I was able to you know time just moved by slowly then but it seems like

fast now but the I got to ride that old bus home and that was quite a treat uh riding all the way from Fort Leonard Wood Missouri to uh back to Moorcroft that was a real treat

looking at the country and and dreaming about being back home.

Yeah.

So, and that was only, you know, what, four months or something like that.

I had to be in five, maybe six months, maybe for the boot camp and AIT.

Okay.

But anyway, that was another one of those little gigs and it turned out okay.

You know, I was able to get some income off of it and

did I mention about the time my dad went to the, uh this was when I was in grade school, he went to an auction and uh there was some brown Swiss milk cows and he ended up bringing

them home.

along with a hand cranked cream separator.

Oh boy.

And so that turned out to be a good thing for the family because it brought in some extra bucks and we ended up having to ship the cream either down at the post office, six miles

to the post office, but we'd take the cream down there and the mailman would pick it up sometimes.

Or the other way was to take it on the bus with us when we rode to town and the school bus driver would drop it off.

beans on the table.

Yeah, yeah.

But so anyway, my folks really did find ways to make it happen.

After I graduated from high school, my sister and I, of course, were playing music.

And so we decided we would put in for a summer job.

And we ended up looking at dude ranches down in a Durango, Colorado area.

But one of the ones that really hooked us

was the one up at Dayton.

And right at the mouth of the river, there was a dude ranch there.

And so she became a

in the kitchen and in the laundry and I become a wrangler.

And then of course we'd play music for the dudes in the evening.

So that was a really fun, fun time.

The first year I was a wrangler and learned about the horses and that.

And so then they hired me back the second year because the Corral boss, main, the main guy decided he didn't want to do that anymore.

so they made me the corral boss.

But I you know had experience with teddy bear and you know lots of horses in 4-H and that kind

of thing and so I knew all 50 head and I could pretty well match the rider with the horse and that worked out pretty well.

I only lost one one time when we were headed back and horses, know, they kind of some of them especially like to uh head to the barn and this old buckskin horse I had a young kid

on him

and we started back heading and this is up on the foothills of the mountains right above Dayton and

he wanted to head right home.

And that kid, and that horse took over that kid, and I had to really hustle to catch him, but I couldn't catch him until the kid had already got.

He'd fallen off and so had to go through all of the uh Well, how bad are you hurt and all of that stuff?

So that was kind of a rough ride right there.

Yeah Yeah, I bet so that might be a tough one to explain to the parents when you get back

Yeah, well and the parents were probably there so that was okay, but But that was one of my worst problems the other thing that happened when I was at the dude ranch is that I was

uh Bringing some horses that needed to go to the sail ring.

I was back in the days

when you can sell them for different things besides being used.

Is that the diplomatic way to word it?

I think so.

But as I was driving this truck, it's a straight truck, and I probably had about four or five, six horses in there.

I don't remember how many, but I was headed to the sale barn in Sheridan.

And right there at Ranchester, there was a long driveway, and it had kind of a blind corner for driving out.

And darn if this 15-year-old kid didn't have his dad's Jeep, Jeep pickup, and he was getting learning to drive, I guess.

And I don't know, he pulled right out in front of me.

And so I had to take the borrow pit with that truck and those horses.

took the bumper off of his jeep but the horses they only one of them got cut real bad but it threw me through the windshield oh and i got a brain concussion out of it and so i

don't remember too much about the very accident itself but i woke up in the hospital and through that whole episode i was okay everything came out all right i got a settlement out

of it and five hundred dollars so i could buy a fifty nine shivvy

and that was my first car.

Okay.

Because otherwise I wouldn't have had a car.

And so then that was a good experience at the Dude Ranch really when the bad things turned out better.

Yeah.

And so I imagine that was just a summertime job.

It was.

Yeah.

I worked two summers there.

And so that was while you were in college you worked that?

Yeah.

That was.

Well, that kind of takes us up to my time with the National Guard and that.

And so I wanted to finish school.

There's something in me that is, I was just trying to think of the right word, but I know there is a right word for it, but I couldn't remember it.

But it's, I just like to finish things once I start.

And it turns out that was something that was just eaten on me.

I got two years under my belt.

and then had this interruption with the National Guard.

So I got situated so that I could go back to school and I ended up buying a mobile home in Laramie and the idea was to...

live in part of it and rent out part of it.

So that would help make the payments.

And so my dad co-signed with me and that was really helpful.

And my parents, my gosh, they were so helpful.

Just all the way through my life.

They're just the best parents you could ask for.

So uh I started back to school and I worked road construction and I went to work for the Forest Service some in building roads up around Hog Park.

and...

then I worked on the interstate uh when they were building I-80 across there out there by Qualey Dome.

And that was a brutal winter job I had working on the rock crusher and the dust and stuff.

And it just was not a healthy situation.

But I survived it and made some good money and got back to school.

And along with all of my other music and stuff like that, I took a job uh bartending.

and at the country club.

And it wasn't long before I was managing the country club bar.

And so it just worked out for me.

I got in the right time and all of that.

And that was a pretty good job.

It really was.

ah The clientele were so helpful.

Many of them, know, and my goodness, you know, you kind of learn to be a counselor when you're in that business.

And a lot of those folks uh took me under their wing and just really helped me out.

ah

as far as making my way through school.

in fact, they tried to hire me.

One guy, the guy was managing the country club, uh he owned a bunch of liquor stores and they wanted to build a motel.

And so the Holiday Inn in Laramie, if you ever stay there, they tried to hire me to manage that before I graduated.

And I decided, no, I'm gonna stick with what I've been doing.

And besides that, I was starting to feel like, oh man, I need to settle down here.

I was 26 years old and I'd the love of my life.

And I'll tell you what, God placed the perfect person in my life when Jen and I got married.

You've heard behind every successful man, there's a very important woman.

Well, that is my wife of 54 years now.

Going

Congratulations.

Going on 55 here.

Wow.

not many people that can say that

well, it's been a ride I'll tell you that so it's been good.

It's been really good She backed me in all the pursuits of my dream to be my own boss and you know, I this little session with you Erick has been helpful for me because it's caused

me to be a lot more thankful about what I put her through because

she stuck with me the whole way.

And it's amazing.

She had a different point of view on most things than I did.

But you know, the thing that really helped

me a lot later on is that she has this ability, and she had that with me.

She could read me.

I think you call it intuition or something like that.

And she could just tell if I needed to do this or that.

So she just kind of kept me focused.

But anyway before uh we got really organized and of course I

talked about, I, that I went to work for the power company as soon as we got married.

No, I think so.

Maybe not.

I don't know if I did or not.

I made these notes and sometimes I kind of lose my focus on this.

But anyway, I went to work for the power company.

and I loved that job.

They gave me a company car, they hired me for a special project.

And so I got to be based in an engineering office in Casper.

And my job was to travel all through their territories that they served.

And that was central Wyoming, northern Wyoming, and to study what the distribution system was like.

What are the challenges that

going to happen in these different circuits over

the next five years.

And so it was a very interesting job.

But I didn't work there too long.

And then pretty soon I realized that this job, and I was around the other engineers, and I could see the way this career was going to go, is that they promote you and move you.

They promote you and move you.

And so I could see myself landing in Portland, Oregon, or someplace in the West Coast.

And that wasn't going to set well with me.

Jan was born in Wyoming.

I was born in Wyoming.

Her parents lived in

Pine Bluffs and then after we got married they ended up moving down to Colorado Northern Colorado, but my folks were on that ranch and I'll tell you my dad He lived and breathed

that ranch.

It was his baby and he really I wanted I know he wanted me to take over that ranch, but I just I just had this inclination to

make my own way.

And so that's kind of the way I kept pushing.

But when I was with the power company, it wasn't long until I saw that promotion thing that was going to make it some place where I didn't want to live.

And my job uh at the Dude Ranch, I got attached to the Bighorn Mountains real good.

And I did not want to have to leave that part of it.

even when I was in Casper, I would come up here on weekends a lot and went into Seven Brothers and all of that.

So I just thought, I'm not going to move too far from the Big Horns.

And I knew my job with the power company was not going to be compatible with that plan.

But one of the guys that I was working with, he was big on

tracking the stock market and he made a lot of investments and he was in the, wasn't in the office a ton of time, but I was probably half of the time and he was always talking

about the stock market and he got me kind of interested in that.

And so uh he talked about McDonald's a lot and.

So I started looking at it.

yeah, that would be fun That's something I could do and be my own boss and decide where I wanted to be and so Jan and I We started making appointments to investigate different

franchises because I thought you know don't have a background in that and if they just give me the Layout all execute, know, they got the strategy all execute Well, we ended up

going to Denver and meeting with the Sambos people.

I don't know if you remember Sambos restaurants

that's before your time.

Yeah, probably they didn't survive too long, but Then we met village in people I'd already investigated McDonald's and Burger King and Goodness sakes back in those days Erick.

You still had to have a million dollars net worth to uh get the door open

And so I could see that just wasn't going to work.

And Jan and I, we were thrifty.

Our marriage was going great, but we lived off of our cash in envelopes.

So we knew where everything was going and how much it was going to be.

So.

Ramsey would be proud.

but even I was participating in the power company's stock purchases and stuff like that.

But anyway, that was a little exposure that uh later on turned into something

I was very interested in.

was that the first time you kind of got an inclination to become self-employed?

Well it was kind of a process there.

You know what happened?

I realized that I wasn't going to get to live where I wanted to and there was a meeting, I was in a meeting, there was a bunch of, uh I say a bunch, there was probably half a dozen

local managers and they were the guys that ran the

the retail office, you know, in the markets.

And so they were having a meeting and they started talking about different things and the thing that really hit me, and I don't know, I think it's God's way of just uh cracking the

door open or something, and they were talking about hiring engineers.

And you know, I thought I was a hot shot.

ah I'll just be honest, you know, God had a way of humbling me on many occasions.

But at that time, and what happened,

is I got this gut feeling that I was a commodity.

And if they needed an engineer, all they got to do is just put one on the budget and let him go.

And so it wasn't something that I felt like I had any say in the way things would go or anything.

So that was kind of an inkling there.

I'll never forget that.

that wasn't your plan?

I mean, when you guys first got married and you took the job at the power company, you didn't have a plan to start your own business at that point in time?

I didn't.

But I didn't know I needed to.

But as we went along, it wasn't very long until I could see the bureaucracy in a big company.

And it's who you know and what they need.

And so I just felt more like a pawn, I guess.

And so that made me really start looking.

And then, of course, him talking about McDonald's and then me.

wanting to look at in the franchises and stuff like that.

So and lo and behold, one day I was just looking through the classifieds in Casper paper.

Here's a little A &W Root Beer stand in Buffalo.

OK.

And of course, I'd been on the Bighorns and up there and yeah, we got to go look at this.

So we bought this little 700 square foot concrete building and on leased ground.

and we had to mortgage everything we had.

I felt like we had to be all in on this.

And so I met a banker uh on Sunday afternoon and he financed us for it and away we go.

We bought it at the end of the season and then we struggled all I went all through everything used my skills to get the equipment up to snuff and all of that during the

winter and We would come up to Buffalo and we were so

so Scotch, didn't stay in a motel.

We actually slept in the restaurant.

Of course, there was no heat there or anything.

So we would bring blankets and just sleep in the restaurant while we were working on the weekends.

This is always on the weekend.

then we actually we had to go, we needed to, Jan was in on this.

mean, bless her heart.

We ended up staying in the Occidental one night.

And that was pretty uptown, really.

And we had to share a bathroom.

But uh that's how we got started.

that was an experience, for sure.

OK.

So it was not open during that winter.

You just spent the weekends through the winter getting it ready to go.

um And then that next summer.

launched and started going.

Did you you quit your job to come run?

I did.

Yeah.

And Jen uh had been putting in for a teacher's job.

And so she ended up having to quit her job down there.

And uh and then we had a mobile home that I had bought in Laramie.

And so I moved it to Casper and then we moved it to Buffalo.

Okay.

And so we were on a shoestring big time.

Yeah, but

We made it, made the leap.

All of the guys in the engineering department, so many of them, and say, oh, I always wanted to go on my own, always wanted to.

But he says, it just takes guts.

I don't know if it takes guts or grit or what, but we did it.

We did it.

uh we were on a shoestring, seriously undercapitalized, but the banker liked us, and that performed a...

uh

really long term relationship with the bank because I realized that you really had to have a good banker if you're starting out and geez I was 26 years old you know so that I didn't

have much and I drove Volkswagen's and you know finished pinch the miles out of that thing as best I could

So

what what were those early years like did that first season

prove productive?

Did it take off pretty well?

Oh, was awesome.

made uh one of the things that happened in there, and I don't remember exactly.

I had to go to because of the franchise requirements.

I had to go to a training school in California.

And I think I did that the second year.

uh And I'd go to two-weeks uh A &W school in Santa Monica.

And that was a pretty big step.

But the first year, we just kind of shoestringed it through.

I went up and worked in the, just observed the kitchen.

operation uh before they closed it that first year.

And so I kind of knew what was going on.

But I never cooked a hamburger like that.

I didn't know how to mix a root beer.

uh And I didn't know what a soft serve machine looked like.

so, but.

That first year was great and especially when we when he opened it and it's busy and man the cash register was ringing and we had we had cash and it accumulated and Because it was

a seven-day deal, you know, and so at the end of the first year we were feeling pretty positive about it We ended up uh Looking for some property to build a house.

Okay, and so at the end of our second year then we

property and got Dave Ennis to build the house for us and during that time we ended up going to the Westland Church and so that we were living next door to a couple that was

going to the church and they invited us one Sunday so we ended up going there and

liking it.

uh Jan grew up under the Missouri Senate Lutheran churches.

And so it was kind of a freewheeling feeling for her.

we enjoyed

But we enjoyed it and it turned out that all we had so much time so many good times with A &W and and the Sunday School program there at the Westland Church.

We'd run promotions you know you bring a guest you get a free hamburger and stuff like that so it was just fun.

Yeah yeah that sounds great.

But we did, the second year after the first year we closed and then I began plans for add-in on.

And so we doubled the size of the building and this is on leased land, know, so the lease was cheap but still any investment we made into it was gonna, you you're not gonna get a

return on it.

But we doubled the size in it and you know, Erick, the thing that is, it just makes me shudder.

We were not on city ground there.

We were in the county and we had water from the city, but we had a septic tank.

And so the first thing you know, you've got lots of water coming in with water, cool compressors and all that kind of stuff.

And the septic tank was not designed for that at all.

So I knew the clock was ticking that my survival in that location was going to have to have to change.

So that's when I started planning to buy that property next to us.

And I had to figure out how we were going to get sewer and water into that, because that was in the city.

But

without city water and sewer and and as a developer I guess I had to do the heavy lifting there and that was a big big chunk because we had to follow up down by the county shop and

go all the way across the highway into the north side of uh 16 right there.

yeah.

So that was a chore but and the agreement the city made with me it says okay if anybody hooks onto it down the road then we can get a proration and reimburse you some but

uh...

i never saw anything from that but that's just well at least we got the store got the new new store open

And that was a stretch.

And it was interesting when I listened to your dad talking about the roofing job on that building.

That was just awesome.

And that roof is still serviceable.

I know it is.

That was great.

That Hypalon is good stuff, I can tell you.

It is.

We often have joked that maybe we made a mistake installing too good of a product.

41 years in, just in the last few years, I've started to get to redo some of his earliest projects.

Well, uh it was a really good, and so I didn't know it was his first project.

Commercial project.

didn't know that, and it didn't matter.

I was way in over my head.

But the thing that really helped me build that building, and I'm not sure if I could have got it done otherwise, was uh when I was dreaming about all of this, buying the property

and building this store.

I Met Steve

Gonzale and Marge.

he was Steve, they had just moved from Oregon.

His parents, ah he had taken over and run a drive in there.

And he was building his house and when he got, and he says, when I get this house done, how about if I come and help you build that restaurant?

I said, oh, that would be great.

And so that helped me enormously.

And so between Steve and I, we got that thing built in pretty good time.

And I know we planned it all.

One of the things, a big mistake, I didn't know what the soil conditions were underneath that building.

Turns out it's an old river bottom and there's still a lot of river in it.

And so we had the track hoe out there and we're going to build a basement under that for the walk-in coolers.

Well, it turns out that the track hoe would pick up the rocks and stuff and the water would just follow the thing right up.

So there was a huge amount of water there.

So that through that plan we had to redesign the building then because we had to move the walk-in cooler upstairs.

Yeah and so this is year during year four?

This would be probably year four.

Oh man so that was in

A little later than that, was uh in 1978.

That's when it was.

So yeah, was probably year three, maybe.

Year four.

Yeah, so it did take off pretty quick.

Yeah, I had a good banker.

everything you have into it the first year and build a house the second year and expand the business the third year.

Well, I had a good banker.

Yeah.

I mean, and that's...

You know, I never was afraid of uh too much debt ah because I felt like I was going to make it pay.

You know, I just knew I could do it.

I just had the confidence in it.

You know, and one of the things that happened when Steve and I was getting started working together is that we found out about Zig Ziglar.

and I have to give a shout out to him because he changed my philosophy.

You know and when you're in your late 20s and 30s early 30s it's kind of hard to I mean your head gets kind of hard you know I was kind of hard-headed but I found out about him

and I read his book See You at the Top and and I bought and went to several of his seminars.

and I bought his cassette tape stuff and I brought that with me right here.

to stay motivated.

And I'm not kidding you.

This inspired me and it even my mom suffered from asthma.

And I bought one of these for my mom and it really gave her a big lift just to uh hear that.

uh Hear that encouragement and hear it often.

You know, it's just one of those things.

And that was kind of his.

his theory, you need motivation and it's like bathing.

You have to have it off often, motivation off.

That's good.

But one of the things in this package here you get about how to live longer and love it.

And he talks about running.

Kenneth Cooper was the doctor that talked about that.

when Ziegler would have these seminars, then he would talk about staying in shape or getting in shape and what your body needed to do to do what God designed you to.

And so Ziegler was way overweight.

And he started running.

And his story is uh a success story for running.

But I listened to Cooper.

And I'm not kidding you.

I decided, OK, I'm going to start running.

And so that was a big part of my, I think, success because it gave me a way to deal with stress, frustration, and uh patience.

And those were some things that I really had to work on.

uh

Thanks to him and you know, there were so, just like him, there are so many books that ah I would, and I use that to train my managers.

know, I take a book and then I would go through and then would make an outline and then I would.

assign uh chapters so that they could start reading about it and I just think that those things really helped me so many times.

I couldn't have done it without it.

No question.

You might have a hard time finding a way to play those Zig Ziglar tapes now.

I've got some boom boxes.

And I take the batteries out so that they don't get all corroded.

but uh...

uh...

appliance store there and fixing TVs and fixing eight track tape decks.

I tell you, those things were a nightmare for people because they would work good when they're new, but they didn't last very long.

So I got to work on those things a lot.

There's a reason they were only on the scene for a short period of time.

That's right.

Well, you had quite the varied background before you ever started in business then doing engineering, construction, dude ranch, ranching.

electronics repair.

Is there any industry that you didn't work in until you started a restaurant?

Oh I'm sure there is.

I stayed away from the medical field, can tell you that for sure.

It seems like about the only thing you hadn't done by the time you started a restaurant was food.

Yeah, yeah that's exactly right.

You give me a horse, I could break a horse, you know, I can milk a cow and you know.

In farm machinery, by the time I was 12, 13 year old, I was running the farm hand.

Those were good.

good learning seasons.

My dad had a 49 Chevy pickup and that may be what I learned to drive in.

And of course it, maybe a fence post didn't get out of the way quite in time, but a few times, but, but it was a great, a great time to grow up.

I was just blessed.

That's all the rest of it.

Options were everywhere.

Opportunities.

Do you think there are opportunities for a young person today as there were for you back then?

I think so.

know, over the years we had lots of teenagers and going back to the A &W, we had so many young people work for us and they were just great kids, great kids.

And then of course, so we were in it long enough that we ended up having their kids work for us too.

But yeah, I think one of the things that was such a big thing and it even worked for my kids.

And I think that one of the things that I uh ran across, and it was just blessed my heart to remember, you know, my son had plenty of difficulties in making his transition.

And I like, and he picked up some of that from me because I'm a slow learner.

And I just had to, I was so curious about everything.

But this little thing here about attitude, Charles Swindoll.

uh

had that and I put that in in all of my

store manuals.

I shared it with everybody that worked for me because nothing is more important than your attitude.

And I think if you go at life with an attitude of, hey, I'm here, I'll do whatever, ah that it's gonna work for you.

I used to tell kids that

if you've got the right attitude and you've got integrity, I says you can take that to the bank and cash it.

because it's, uh so I really feel that that's uh still, that would still work.

I agree.

I think the opportunity might look different today, but uh man, the industries that are opening up and I think.

uh I wasn't there, so I can't speak to your generation, but it seems like my generation is lacking.

more of those people that have creativity, have a drive, uh have that integrity, and want to get out and do something themselves and make it.

And so I think somebody that takes a little bit of integrity, creativity, and hard work, man, the industries, the opportunities that are available right now.

are limitless.

And you get a little grit.

If there's something you want to do, you're able to push through and running.

that's a uh great analogy, because when you're uh in a race that you've prepared for, and you get there, and you want to beat your time, you're not running against anybody else.

You're running against yourself.

Yeah.

and so that you got to develop that grit to push through those hard times

I listened to one of your podcasts about your relative in Sheridan that's on the police force there, sheriff's uh office.

You know, it takes grit to get through those things.

And I can remember running in, I ran a lot.

uh

I challenge myself to run a thousand miles in a year.

Okay.

And I remember that.

And then I challenged myself to run a hundred miles a month, you know, so, you know, those things you got to push to get, but you have to figure out a way to motivate yourself and

then going back to the restaurant, you know, keeping track of what's going on.

That was really important to me.

I didn't know,

how important it was to know, to have the right people at the right time.

And if you track your sales on the hour, and I learned that at A &W Training School.

That was one of the things that say, you you make your schedule, you forecast your sales, and then keep track of that because it's so amazing.

And this worked in ACE Hardware too, in Coast to Coast.

your uh things that happened on a yearly cycle, it's just amazing how they just keep happening.

And you think, how do people, they just follow

the same rhythm?

And that works.

So it's important to keep track of what's happening now so that you can look back on a year and anticipate because that's the whole clue.

mean you got to have the stuff in the on the shelf and everything so that you can deliver.

Yeah yeah well would would you mind right reading that quote?

I would love to this is this is just the longer I live the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude to me is more important than facts.

It is more important than the past than the education

than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It's more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

It will make or break a company, a church, a home.

The remarkable thing is that we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We cannot change our past.

We cannot change

the fact that people will act in a certain way.

We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is attitude.

I'm convinced that life is 10 % what happens to me and 90 % how I react to it.

And so it is with you.

We are in charge of our attitudes.

Charles Swindoll.

That's good.

I tell you, I just...

I use that so many times and to be honest with you, I thought where did I leave that?

so in coming up with this, but man, I go to my computer and start looking at that.

I used to send out almost every paycheck.

And of course, I told you before, we've done payroll for 50 years.

every two weeks, we've done payroll.

And so, so many times, I've put in stuff like that in every paycheck.

Just, you know, like.

Ziegler says, you gotta have motivation and you gotta have it regularly.

I've heard said that you're not the CEO, you're the CRO, the Chief Repeating Officer.

That's exactly right.

About 50 % of your job as a leader in a small business is repeating yourself.

that's exactly right.

You know, and one of the other things that I, before we got into the hardware business, is I started teaching Sunday school.

and teaching adult Sunday school and that really challenged me because

you're talking to peers you know and but it was God used that to help me develop so much confidence and like in staff meetings and just encouraging my crew and that so that was a

blessing really.

Yeah and then the pastors along the way you know goodness sakes they're great.

Yeah awesome well you've

kind of brought us up through A &W and you just mentioned a couple of hardware stores that you owned.

Can you tell us the transitions that you made through the various businesses you've owned?

I know there's quite a list there.

uh

Actually, before we leave the A &W, I just have to give a shout out to Steve and Marge Gunzali because without their help, I would have never been able to succeed at that

restaurant.

But after we built that, we were able to compete on a national level with the rest of the ANWs.

And there's something I learned in just getting ready for this time with you that I want to share because it's so fundamental, I think, in America.

uh And it goes like this.

After we built that store, the first year we received

the regional ANW top recognition out of all of the ANWs in the country.

And at one time there was 2,200 in the states.

know, Canada has had a number of ANWs and it's a kind of a separate organization.

But we got the National Operator of the Year award in May of 1981.

And so that was just...

I wasn't expecting it and it was just one of those things that they recognized how much we had done.

We had went from sales of about 70,000 a year, that was our annual take, to sales of almost half a million.

Wow.

And then we did that in whatever it was, five years or something like that.

So.

we got, we recognized for that.

That was a real bonus.

But the thing that I didn't know, and I just discovered this, is that the CEO of ANW spoke at that convention where, and it was in Reno, I think.

And this is the information that he shared.

And this is just as important.

now, I think, as it was back then, is to realize that we are on a very changing

world around us.

I I talked about having electricity in my house when I was six years old and not having it before that.

But this is how it was.

In the beginning of the 80th, in the 80s, the average American is 30 years old, but the forecast

the forecast for the decade of 80s, the teens, the teen segment in our population will decrease by 17%.

The 25 to 34 year old segment of our population will increase by 19%.

The 35 to 44 year old will increase by an astounding 51%.

Those over 65 will increase by 23%.

So that was the forecast in early part of 1980.

And the other thing that happened is that

over 1 million working women will enter the workforce, and average household income will increase by 70%.

Those were huge forecasts of change.

And it blew right past me.

I had no clue.

If I had paid attention to that, I would have had a much more successful financial experience.

Okay.

What would you have done differently?

I think being aware, it's like, I'm not sure exactly the things I would have done,

there's another thing that I would have done.

When I bought the Coast to Coast store, and that goes on with my story here, let me just tell you a little bit about that.

the American consumer was on the move in the 80s.

I think the American consumer is still on the move.

But what happened in 1980 was that I had been shopping at the Coast to Coast store.

In fact, I was there all the time because I was building and doing stuff, you know?

And so I realized that the folks that owned that were getting close to retirement.

And so Steve tells me, he says,

why don't you check in with them and see if the place is for sale?

And so I did.

And I talked to Glenn, the store owner, and I said, would you be thinking about selling any time?

And he said, well, you're the seventh guy to ask me that.

So it was not just my observation.

So anyway, I said, well, Glenn.

I think I'm the right guy.

And I want to be the guy.

And so I visited with him and he felt like I was the right guy.

So the problem was, and this is what I would have changed and realized, is I had to pay 18 % interest when I bought the Coast to Coast store.

Now that is insane.

Insane.

Talk about shoot yourself in the foot.

I mean that.

could wound you.

My generation is complaining about four and five percent.

Exactly, eighteen percent.

I don't know how I survived.

I really don't.

But anyway, that's what happened.

And so even though it was a very foolish thing for me to do, I just did it and

At that particular time in my life, I was learning to do spreadsheets and cash flow and all of that stuff, and I did it by hand, you know, on columnar pads.

But then uh the small uh personal computer was coming along, and so I started learning how to do that.

And uh one of the early programs, and I talked with my neighbors, the grocery store, the Dobbins, and so they were into uh learning.

BPI and some of these early accounting programs and things so I knew all about that because I was doing it and X 123 Lotus and Excel spreadsheets and stuff.

I mean that was all later, but anyway That I had to really adapt

constantly to the changing

where I was at.

And certainly running two stores, different stores, same market, but different stores, that required a lot of uh innovation on my part.

And I learned it from Peter Drucker and uh all these guys, Henry Cloud and...

my gosh, there were so many of those.

I brought a list of them here too.

I resurrected some of those books just because they were so important to me.

I just used one of them that comes to my mind Steve got for me and it's called the 13 fatal errors managers make and how to avoid them.

And that book, I broke that into pieces and I used it hundreds of times teaching.

people how to work in my store.

And the deal was, it's kind of like you tell somebody to go paint the barn red, but there's a million colors of red, you know?

What do you mean?

And so that's a trick.

that's where I say running was my release from frustration and just kept me centered, really.

So if I hadn't started running, I don't think I would have.

survived.

I really don't.

So you were running ANW and Coast to Coast at the same time?

At the same time, And I let Steve run the ANW and then I learned the Coast to Coast because it was the same process.

I had to learn how to do that stuff, you know?

Yeah.

How long did you have both stores?

Long time.

The A &W, we ended up converting to a Hardee's and I think that might have been in the late 80s.

And part of the reason was I felt like we were going to have some serious competition and I wasn't prepared for that.

I'd done some investigating and I felt like our market was such that it would support a fast food breakfast.

And so I really leaned into that and that's why I ended up going with the

and that was kind of a struggle.

That was one of my biggest mistakes that I have ever made and was choosing to remodel the ANW into a Hardee's.

And the reason why it was something I did not understand was my customer base.

It's a totally different, well not totally, but it's a different customer base.

And so I almost had to rebuild all of my customers.

And it was hard.

They had a very complicated system.

And as you can tell, the one that we have now is closed.

I mean, it just, it takes a big market to support those guys and they're complicated, way more difficult than A &W was.

And there's just, it's a complex menu.

have a lot of, and the other thing is too, the franchise.

They just nail you for everything.

They nail you for the franchise fee, and then you gotta pay the royalty.

And you're supposed to get, and then you have to, they nail you for advertising, because they wanna do all of this.

That's why they see the whole big picture that you're gonna start supporting the whole chain.

It's a...

It's tough, really tough.

And so I'm not surprised that the folks, and what happened is kind of like in the ranching business too.

And I hate to say this, but I see small ranches turn into bigger ranches and bigger ranches and bigger ranches.

And theoretically, I guess it's for productivity.

You're going to get more productivity, but it uh changes the landscape constantly when that's happening.

But it's just a way.

America works, guess, you you always want to get bigger and I'm not so sure and I learned that bigger isn't always better, you know, and it depends on your personality how how how

serious you are about delivering the very best you can because you're gonna You just can't

scale up as easy as it sounds.

You you hear about all these murders and stuff like that, but it's tough in a small business.

It's tough.

it is.

Especially small communities.

Yes.

A lot of trust with small businesses that the new big thing that doesn't always transfer.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Yeah.

Huh.

So what was it that caused you to decide to sell what then became Hardee's and focus specifically on the hardware store?

Well, I could tell the longevity of the hardware store was better.

although there were some really difficult times, I tell you there was times the coast to coast store uh is a co-op.

And there's a difference between co-op and a franchise.

As a co-op you had to buy stock in the company to take the benefits that they had to offer.

For example, like the warehouses and deliveries and even the marketing and that kind of thing.

uh And Coast to Coast had a great philosophy.

uh They wanted to be very customer oriented.

And when uh the Menards...

and when the Home Depots and the Lowe's and all of those big boxes started becoming a thing, uh

the small operators started getting panicky because this was gonna take away their store.

And so they convinced the Coast to Coast group was a sitting, and they had merged over the years with several other small chains.

And so it was not something new, but when the big,

push was...

for True Value, which was a much bigger chain or bigger uh organization, bigger co-op than what ours was.

They convinced this coast to coast, we all had to vote, but they carried the vote.

uh So we ended up merging with True Value.

And it was two different philosophies and two different uh accounting systems, two different ordering system.

Everything's different.

And you'd have this situation where you'd have a True Value store on one side of the street and a coast to coast on the other side.

And that just didn't work very good.

So I don't know, let's see here.

uh Coast to coast was a great great enterprise uh for quite a few years, but then when that all started happening, I think that was about in the in the late 80s uh and uh We

they called the new part of true value true serve and uh It just the I couldn't the merchandise was poor.

How can you sell?

oranges that are not fresh and good to eat.

The duct tape that we used to get from TrueServe, it was junk, just junk.

how can you even go to work and try to sell stuff like that?

Because it reflects on you.

anyway.

uh

I could see the trouble and Ace was out there, totally different company, ah but they came knocking on my door and they says, come join Ace.

And I said, you know, because one of the things that I always did when I was uh in the restaurant is loyalty is a real important factor.

I like a loyalty with my team, and I like to stay loyal to, and there's gotta be a good reason to not be loyal.

So uh they convinced me that they wanted me to listen to their program.

So a lot, and I...

gotta back up here a little bit because along the way I decided that we I needed something to do when I sold out the business.

Okay.

And this is a long time ago.

Yeah.

And so I said I'm gonna invest in the stock market.

And so I, but I got interested in AIC, which is a national association of investment clubs.

And they had a philosophy and provided uh training and software and that.

So I talked to a number of people and we got an investment club going.

And so we had some software we used to evaluate the quality of enterprise.

And with ACE, I plugged their numbers in.

I was so impressed.

I says, okay.

Tell me what you got.

So they said, we'll take you to Orlando and put you up, you and your wife.

And all you have to do is just listen to our program.

So I did that.

I was there for maybe 30 minutes and I was convinced in my mind that this was the direction I should go.

Jan wasn't even, I mean, we were on the ropes.

I was so nearly bankrupt that it was, it was not even, I didn't have anything I hadn't mortgaged.

Everything I had.

So I went back later for lunch with Jan and I said, honey, we got to do it.

So Ace came in and they saved my hardware business.

They really did.

They bought all my paint because you, mean, the paint is very specific for whatever you have and you got your stuff.

And if you can't use what you got, what are you going to do?

Just pour that down the drain, you know?

So that was a hassle.

anyway, Ace said, we'll buy your paint.

And they'd already taken us to uh Orlando and it was on Mother's Day weekend.

I will never forget that.

that Omni Hotel put on a spread Jen and I had never seen before.

My gosh, it was beautiful.

uh so, but we, I came back and I had a staff meeting and I told the kids, all of the kids, all of my team at the Coast to Coast store.

I says, I got some good news and I got some bad news.

I says, the bad news is that we're gonna get a divorce.

And they, whoa.

Says we're gonna divorce true serve and we're gonna join and get married to ace and That's the good news and so they came in with a team and repriced everything or retagged

everything in the store When they could they could didn't have exact matches on a lot of it because they didn't have junk They had quality stuff and that's what it takes.

You can't make a living selling junk.

That's just all there is to it

but

and that's when I learned in retail, it's like a three-legged stool.

You've got to have service, quality, and price.

You cannot be best in any one of those things.

You've got to be best in two.

You can't be best in all.

That's the right words.

So, and that's kind of way it was.

We had quality and we had service.

And so we had to charge whatever it took and, you know, and listen to some of your podcasts and roofing.

mean, that's exactly the way you operate.

You had to have quality and quality gets you, gives you survival.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's a point.

hadn't thought about that.

That's kind of been our approach to businesses, uh quality and service.

And if you want quality and service, you got to be willing to pay a little bit more.

Well, it's going to pay you off in the long run.

Yeah.

And if you want the lowest price, you're going to give up either quality or service.

Yeah.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

That's good way to look at it.

So but I learned that through uh the time with ACE Hardware.

You know, what was kind of interesting to me, at least, was the

CEO of Coast to Coast of course when the merger happened they booted him he was gone and Then it wasn't too long and when I went to ace he was already a VP at ace And he was such

a great guy all and then he went on to become CEO of ace hardware, okay

yeah, so you're working with the same people.

Yeah, they had the philosophy, you know, and the philosophy really is that we are there to serve the customer.

When you buy something, we've got your back, you know, uh because if and what we had to what Ace could do is then make the connection all the way back to the person that made it,

you know, the manufacturer and in the distributor and stuff.

we were in a

that to the customer.

So the customer was in the link.

in the circle of products.

And so it was when you went, when you switched from coast to coast to ACE and went all in on ACE, that's when you sold Hardee's and focused solely on building an ACE hardware?

No, we switched at the existing store we had, which was the old Safeway store where Rewrite is now.

And so that's where we switched.

After we bought Coast to Coast, we expanded Coast to Coast.

I rented the building from Glenn, but I...

saw building across the street that was bigger and

so I started working with it and He wanted to rent it to me.

said I don't want to be under the thumb of a landlord So I said you got to sell it to me So I ended up buying the thing and of course he had to say I want the the caveat here is

you got to buy or he said I'll buy it you put it up it's got to have a Plackered on the front of the building because it belongs to that it started out from his mother, you know

So I think if you go down

on Main Street and look at cross, you'll see that placard that

bronze things is this is the Nepper building or something like that.

Okay so at what point was it that you decided you needed to be done with Hardee's?

Well I wanted to build a new store.

wanted to a new Ace.

Yeah.

I wanted to build an Ace hardware store and I just...

oh

tried to do it downtown.

I really wanted to do it downtown because I wanted to support the downtown merchants and that.

But I tried to buy buildings next to me and that just was really cost prohibitive.

And so I ended up, I said, but I'm not doing it until I get rid of the restaurant.

so Erick, probably took me 10 years to get rid of the restaurant.

Really?

Yeah.

And so that's one of the things.

And I know one of the things on your questions is uh what advice do you have for getting rid of?

Sorry.

anyway, I knew I had to get rid of that.

so my advice is it can take longer.

and probably have to give more up on your price than you want.

There's just not that many buyers out there.

Depends on what it is.

I know.

But if you don't have a really good profit margin, and that was the problem with...

that it's hard to sell.

Yeah.

It's just like trading horses.

If you got a bad horse, you don't want it.

You know, you got to take the hit.

You know, he's only going to live so long.

And at some point, you're going to have to put him down.

Yeah.

And you can't sell it.

I actually bought a horse that should have been put down.

And so I took it back and got my money back.

But it took some doing.

So were you able to get what you wanted to out of the store?

Did you have to give up quite a bit on price when you finally

sold it?

Hardee's?

The Hardee's.

I was willing to take about whatever I could get.

And so I got pretty much what I wanted, but it was a struggle.

know, I had to, I still owed on it, you know, so I didn't have a lot of uh cash to take out.

Gotcha.

But, uh.

And it would have been an OK kind of a business for somebody who wanted to run it themselves, but you couldn't afford to hire a manager and run it.

I think that's a trend I see a lot in the small town communities that we live in is, you know, the people that own a lot of the businesses downtown, rather than owning a business

they own their business.

cannot.

oh

themselves to run it and also pull a profit.

They either work for free and make a profit or they pay themselves and the business breaks even.

And it puts them in a tough spot when they're ready to exit.

That's right.

Or move on.

because there's not a lot there to sell.

I

was basically just running it to uh train managers, know?

And I had some great people working for me.

I love the people.

That was one thing.

You got to love people if you're going to do this kind of stuff.

Yeah.

Well, that is very evident with you.

You've always been uh very outgoing and just love people and cared for people and really poured into people, even those that don't work for you.

So, yeah.

Well, and it turns

out, know, I still go back to Ziegler, you know, you have to you have to be friendly and you have to look friendly.

And that was in my handbook.

I said, if you got somebody that walks within 10, 15 feet of you, you've got to you got to recognize them and speak to them.

yeah and and you got to look friendly you know so that's not always easy to do but you got to do it.

I'm not sure I would be cut out for that business.

So yeah, we've talked about you had a lot of different jobs, careers.

You worked in engineering, construction, ranching, food ranching.

You've run two different restaurants, a number of hardware stores in different locations.

uh What was the most difficult thing you faced in your various careers and various businesses?

Well, I had a lot of them, so it'd be a little hard to sort out which was the most difficult.

I you know, I go back to the thought occurred to me about the A &W When we first started it was just a that we just got going we went from a little 700 square foot building and

into a 3,000 foot building and I had this vision of a nice drive-in restaurant

with the canopy.

You pulled in under the canopy.

You had the menu there.

You could order from your car.

We'd bring it out to you.

It wasn't very long uh where there was a virus going on or something, and all of a sudden, a lot of the teenagers got sick.

And so we didn't have the staff to deliver the food out to the cars.

So I had this beautiful canopy.

I don't know how many, we say how many car canopy it was, I don't know, 20, maybe 18, 16.

I decided to tear it down.

And so I ended up giving it to my dad and he built a nice big machine shed out of it.

That was one of the toughest things I decided to do.

I just built the thing and then have to tear down and start a whole different direction.

and go to the drive-through window and Because we had the foresight to put a drive-through window in but that's when we went total drive-through

So that was one of the toughest ones.

There were some other really tough ones, know.

uh Letting people go that didn't need to be there.

That was a tough situation, always hard.

But I enjoyed listening to some of your podcasts from before.

and you look out for those that are even uh not fit for where they are in your organization, but...

to do it to help them out in a sense.

Encourage them to go this direction, a different direction.

Yeah,

yeah, I think that's something that helped me a lot.

There is uh somebody that's not successful in your organization.

They're not magically going to become successful.

Right.

And so, you know, nobody likes to be underperforming.

Nobody likes to always be uh criticized or kind of, you know, under the gun.

And so limping them along, you know, there might be another organization, another job, another industry where they could be very successful.

There might be the opportunity.

for a lesson to be learned along the way.

And so by keeping somebody that you know is never going to be a fit, it's actually a detriment to them.

It is.

And you're just increasing frustration all around.

You are.

And that was a hard thing for me to get.

Yeah, it's a hard thing to do to let someone know that they don't fit in the job and are going to have to find somewhere else to go.

And man, I'd always look for any opportunity I had to do anything other than that.

Trying to put them in a different job, give them some training, talk to them, remind them, train them, train them, train them.

And, you know, like you said, often I knew long before I finally let them go that this wasn't going to work.

Exactly.

uh Drug it on a little too long.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things that I

necessary ending that's a good one

Yeah, I think Henry Cloud's probably the person that first started or he's the first one I've heard of that was really pushing that idea of you're not doing someone a favor by

keeping them somewhere they don't fit.

That's exactly right.

Yeah, I think he was really on to something.

I know.

gosh it was quite a few weeks ago we had a guest on that told the story about letting someone go and a few weeks later he walked up to him and kind of confronted him and hey I

need to talk to you and thank you.

Since you let me go I went to find something that I'm passionate about, I'm thriving and if you hadn't have fired me I would have just stayed and been miserable.

Yeah, those stories are rare, but I think there's some truth to them.

That's right.

Yeah.

Well, and you know, that's how you uh always tell young people, particularly, you don't get respect, you earn respect.

And when you're respecting someone that is needing uh encouragement in and in to find a different job, that's that's uh that's how you earn it.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's a right way to do it, to do it in a respectful way and somebody that can have difficult conversations and maintain that respect is a valuable skill.

One of the things that I remember back when the economy really tanked and I don't remember if it was the financial crisis or the dot-com crisis.

don't remember which one of those it You've been through a few of those ups and downs and bubbles and busts.

But anyway, this church member said that he was looking at his staff and how much

I going to Eliminate this and what he did as he sat down and listed all of the staff and he listed Okay, how much am I willing to pay them to leave?

and that kind of gives you a kind of a monetary uh perspective at least on what's it costing you or yeah

yeah that's a good way to do it

Well, as you mentioned, hey, you've been through a lot, a lot of ups and downs.

uh Can you think of a moment when you were most afraid as a leader?

No, I can't.

I think I lost a lot of sleep over...

having my kids work for me.

That was a difficult time there.

Jan, bless her heart, she's been with me through all of this.

And you know, we leaned on each other a lot.

And I think that our faith has been huge in getting through those really, really tough times, you know?

The times when I had everything mortgaged to the limit.

That was scary.

I'll never forget this situation when I was with my accountant and I was just telling him about how the challenges I was facing and he says and this is when I had to to go in

businesses and And he says I don't know anybody that wished they were Bob Zimmerstein And so I I know that things were tough then

You know, if I didn't know it, it was showing.

Yeah.

man.

And how long did it take you to dig out of that when you had two going businesses and everything mortgaged and things just weren't going well?

What did it take to fight out of that hole?

Well.

I'm not sure how that all came about uh to get out of that hole.

mean, just steady, uh making sure, you know what, I'll never forget one of the air conditioners on the roof was acting up and I worried me because how can you have a

pleasant dining experience when it's, you know, 95 degrees inside your restaurant?

And so.

I just tried to make things work the best I could, you know?

And I just didn't give up, you know?

Comes back to that grit you were talking about earlier.

Yeah, absolutely.

Somebody that's willing to spend their weekend sleeping on the floor in a restaurant to start a business.

That's not somebody that gives up easily.

No, didn't.

Speaking of that, Angela.

Duckworth, think is the name of the author that wrote the book, Grit.

Okay.

Yeah.

It was not a John Wayne book, but it's book about grit.

I might have to check that out.

I've not heard of that one yet.

Was there something that significantly delayed the growth of any of your businesses that you would handle differently if you could go back?

I was seriously under-capitalized.

You know, that was the hole to dig out of,

And so once I did that, I'm telling you, the sky gets bluer.

Well, when you're not paying 18 % interest.

Yeah.

You got to make a heck of a profit margin.

You do.

18 % interest.

do.

Yeah.

Well, know, Jan had taught enough years that she had some retirement saved up.

and we took that out and put it against the principle of our house.

So we had our house pretty well taken care of.

And that was our, and we both had degrees, you we felt, and I think that really, that was kind of arrow in our quiver, so to speak, thinking, ah, I could always go back to work

somewhere, you know?

But that never really, that wasn't on my mind much at all.

I was just getting ready to tough it out, do what I had to do.

And if I had to talk to my banker a lot, I'd do it.

Oh, I hated to go in and talk to him.

Oh, that was terrible.

But they stuck with me.

I was going say, at least you had a banker that was willing to work with you through it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I shared everything with them.

That was one of the things that they knew I was all in.

in that, John, I think when you're

playing football or whatever you're doing, if you're uh in a team, they know you're all in.

That makes a big difference.

that was with my employees too.

They were so with me.

I just appreciate that so much.

I couldn't have done it without them, that's for sure.

I know a lot of them are still uh are the ones you've had in the last few years are still down at the ace.

Absolutely.

Well, with the new owners.

that was a transition there,

you know, and it didn't work for everybody.

And they have a little different philosophy.

But, uh you know, you've to be adaptable.

And this doesn't matter.

And going back to the illustration about the uh way America is on the move, you know, you've just got to be adaptable and change, change, change.

But I had

several people that worked for me over 20 years, know, and 30 years.

And so that's precious.

Those people are gold.

So I've found in the six months or so we've been doing this and interviewing people.

there's two things that come up in almost every story is the grit or sticking with it.

Almost every entrepreneur I talked to the thing they're most proud of is the fact that they didn't give up.

And then there's always a significant pivot.

Just what you said, the adaptability and

Do you have any thoughts?

How do you determine the things that you got to put your head down and just muscle through and How do you know when the market's speaking to you and it's time to make a significant

pivot and change and adapt?

I think it goes back to and your mom probably told you this surround yourself with good people and and listen to them and You know two heads are always better than one

And we had this saying in the hardware business, it takes two people to say no.

And that means that somebody comes in and says, you got this?

And they say, no.

You don't do that.

It takes two people to say no.

Because you ask somebody else, do we have this?

So no one person can know everything.

so that's just, think, one of the things that happened in the hardware business is I joined a group called Research.

And that was a group of store owners that met twice a year.

And we actually treated each other like we were on the board.

We would critique each other's store.

We'd visit every store of the membership.

And when we were there, we treated like it was we were the owner of the store.

And what would we do differently here and what things really stood out to us.

And we shared all of our financial information with each other.

so we could, and that all came out on a nice spreadsheet so you could compare where you're at, where you wanted to be.

be, and uh somebody is doing something really special over here.

And it was just, and we did that with marketing, we did that with financial planning, we did that with payroll uh and job descriptions, and it just, it was very helpful.

Just surrounding yourself with good people.

And I noticed that in uh A &W, you know,

When we started out, those were the best owners.

We just had, they were successful.

and they were, had good quality uh ideas and philosophy.

Just, you know, good solid people.

And then when we got into Coast to Coast, that was the same way.

Good people, just surround yourself with good people.

And that was an ace.

It just kept getting better and better.

So I use that kind of as a rule of thumb.

Okay, who do you ask about this or that?

So you just learn from the best people there are.

The people that are killing it, that's the way that you go to.

Yeah.

You don't ask broke people for financial advice.

That's right.

Is there a...

an opinion that you once held strongly that you've changed your mind about throughout your career?

Yes,

I can say this.

I haven't thought about it too much, but since you asked the question, uh the fact that Jesus is Lord.

You know, I struggled with really, I was baptized early on as a child, but I struggled with that when I started in business.

so, and like I say, I used to teach Sunday school.

Well, before I taught Sunday school, I wasn't sure I wanted to do that, you know?

And so I just, I kind of had the scientific part of me was kind of a stumbling block for me.

And my pride was a big stumbling block.

And so I think the biggest change that I did was when I decided to get baptized as an adult.

And I decided, OK, I'm all in.

Yeah.

And that was uh that was a turning point for me.

Yeah.

Implicit in that statement that Jesus is Lord is I am not.

Yeah.

Exactly right.

That's right.

And surround yourself with the right people.

He's the one.

advice.

Good advice there.

Is there a major mistake that you made that you wish you could have avoided?

That

switching to Hardee's.

That was my major.

You know, I could have sold that store as an A &W.

It was it was a nice store.

mean, we had good.

feedback from customers and it was a great concept.

And I can talk to...

people any day of the week pretty much that's used to be, came through the ANW.

I wish we had an A &W.

I was just gonna say I missed out on A &W.

I think you had turned it over to Hardee's by the time I uh was old enough to be paying attention anyway.

Yeah, I probably would have frequent into a lot more if it was an A &W.

Yeah, yeah.

Well that root beer that was just delicious and then of course we had the frosty mugs and

Root rear freezes and stuff like that.

I mean, it was just that was a season.

know, America is kind of really the car.

The 60s were such a great period of time in America.

Yeah.

And that just fed right into it with the drive in.

Yeah.

It's kind of an iconic.

iconic brand, iconic look.

Even today, the A &Ws that are around.

There's not a lot that has changed as the other.

uh

fast food restaurants have updated and changed and done things differently.

ANW kind of still does it the same way.

You know, it's kind of interesting though, that the demise of the ANW was it was a franchise.

And when you owned a franchise, you had the rights to sell ANW root beer in your market.

And they defined it right in the franchise agreement.

So the

city limits of Buffalo was my market.

And then what happened is a big conglomerate bought ANW.

&W and they decided, huh, Pepsi and Coke and Dr.

Pepper and all these companies, we need to sell A &W root beer in a can.

But how can they legally sell that and infringe on the marketplace of an A &W restaurant?

And so that the franchisees banded together, I was part of it.

We all kicked in as much as we could to hire lawyers to fight to keep ANW root beer in the restaurants.

We lost, we couldn't fight the big companies.

So that's why there's canned and bottled now.

uh You can still go to, think Grable has a ANW that still probably mixes the root beer like we used to.

And it has a different carbonation.

So it's smoother and it's just a great product.

uh you can't duplicate it without the right equipment.

Have you ever made a beneficial mistake?

Something that was maybe a mistake and cost you at the time, but in hindsight ended up being a valuable lesson or something that moved you ahead?

yeah.

I'll never forget when I started the investment club.

a local gal was a stockbroker.

And so I decided I wanted to buy a certain stock.

And so says, hey, buy...

$1,000 worth of or whatever this particular ticker Well, she put it in but she ordered the wrong ticker.

She didn't understand what it was But that forced me to Steve be a lot more particular about my communication With her and I said I am NOT and so I ended up not using that

particular broker again.

Yeah so

Okay.

Communication is a valuable lesson.

boy, yeah, yeah.

So if you could go back to when you were first married before you bought first A &W, if you had the option to kind of follow the route that you have with the various businesses

and be an entrepreneur, would you do it again?

I sure would.

Yeah.

You know, that's just, m I'll never forget my dad standing up on my

mother passed away.

he said, I would have her.

I would have, I would do it all again, you know, in spite of all of the challenges in running a ranch and raising kids and, and just the ups and downs.

You, you learn through those processes and that's valuable and it can't be taken away from you.

You know, so I would do it all again.

Good answer.

would be, I'll tell you one of the things that I would have learned earlier on.

Patience.

would have learned a lot.

And especially before we uh adopted our son and daughter.

Patience was a huge vacuum in my mind.

And I learned to be more patient, but I should have learned it a lot earlier in my life.

And working with managers, I'll never forget.

I would sit and visit with them and yes and yes and we'll do this and do this and then it wouldn't happen.

And I remember how frustrated I used to get.

I'd get in my pickup and I would pound the seat beside me because I was so frustrated and the dust would fly.

So no, I wouldn't change a thing.

I think that's uh probably a trait of most entrepreneurs as well is we're anxious to...

You don't want to wait.

have a vision.

You know the path to get there and we're in execution mode.

Sometimes like you mentioned there is a God and we're not him.

That's exactly right We gotta gotta use other people wait on other people Wait on the right timing.

Yeah, and that's that's important.

So and whether you're buying stocks or whatever it is timing is a very critical issue uh Yes, it is.

I read this book by Howard Ham I don't know if you ever heard of him, but he the title of the book is game changer uh

that really developed the horizontal drilling over in the Balkan.

uh

What a good book that is.

I enjoyed that a lot.

I might have to check it out.

You've got a few recommendations today that I haven't heard of.

What has been your biggest win as a leader?

growing myself.

know, I've come into this uh into that business without any background in it.

And and I think that that's I survived.

You know, that's a win.

Yeah.

I made it to where I was able to sell the Sell all of the stores.

And now I'm not sleepiest.

I don't have any sleepless nights on that behalf.

Yeah.

It's a good feeling.

Yeah, it is.

So growing myself, I'd say I was the answer.

Awesome.

Well, I know you brought a few resources and books with you, but what has been your greatest resource to grow as a leader?

I can't say.

I think it takes a

It's like going to a buffet.

I think you have to pick up here and there and you just learn from all of the others as you go along because there's so much in there.

This afternoon before I headed to here, I told Jan, I says, I have in this bag?

And I think I have eight books or so.

And I said, if I would have sat down and read all of those, you can't retain it all.

You just have to go.

And I think those seminars were so powerful.

ah I mean, I had motivation.

I was eager ah to maybe my own detriment sometimes.

So eager, not thinking it through, really.

But that's where Jan was so helpful to me, know, to hold.

are you doing it that way?

You know, and I, hmm, I guess I did, thought that was the way to do it.

So I tell you, Zig Ziglar was huge.

I had a book called Zig Ziglar's Top Performance, How to Develop Excellence in Yourself and Others.

And that was a huge

I use that book so much in teaching my managers.

Jim Collins, Good to Great, you've probably heard of that one.

That's a huge, successful uh leaders book.

Getting the right people in the right place in the bus and stuff like that.

And whether it's any kind of an organization, whether it's a church or business or your own personal life, you just need to put the right things in the right place.

and Eat That Frog.

That was a cute little book.

used a lot.

And if you got a task, this is what it says, I did the AI here to kind of summarize things.

Eat That Frog is about discipline over motivation, prioritization over busyness, and consistent action over perfection.

It's short, direct, motivational, and full of repeatable habits that produce quick wins, ideal for anyone who is overwhelmed by to-do lists and entrepreneurs, professional

students, anyone who wants to get important things done faster and feel more in control.

Many readers report the biggest shift comes from simply identifying their daily frog and eating it first.

Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good one.

Not too long.

looks like.

Oh, yeah.

It's just a cute little thing.

And the prints big and it's got some illustrations in it and stuff.

it's just it's it's good.

And it comes with a little DVD player.

OK.

Yeah, I might have to borrow that one.

This is looking a little tired.

But and another one, Andy Stanley, the principal of the path.

All that was a good book, you know I shared that with a lot of graduates when I had an employer Relative that was graduating from high school.

I would give him that book and I had a great little email from a gal that

read that book and she just thanked me for that book.

She had it for a few years and then finally found it and read it.

know, one of those that sat on the shelf for a little while.

Yeah.

And then of course, Patrick Lincione and his the ideal team player.

That was a great book, too.

That was a good one.

We've done that one not too long ago and uh I guess not my business anymore.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a fun one to go through as a team.

Absolutely.

What motivates you to keep pushing when things get hard?

Like I said earlier, think desire for closure, you know, I start something I want to finish it

ah Don't leave it undone.

You know one of the guys Bookkeepers I had she talked about her dad and she said he would just give it a lick and a promise, you know

I'm more of a, want to finish it, button it up, put a bull on it, be done with it.

Yeah.

I think uh that's a trait I see in a lot of successful leaders and a lot of business owners is um you just have to, you have to finish it.

You have to see it through.

uh Because the next thing might overwhelm you, you know, and you'll never get back to it.

yeah, that's something I'm having to figure out.

now as I slow down a little bit is that not everything is on a real strict timeline.

Yeah.

Even last summer, I was working on a project around the house that had no deadline.

It didn't have to be done.

It wasn't going to keep us from using whatever it was I was working on.

It was just kind of a little maintenance project.

And I was working on it one evening and I found myself like, I'm going to get it done before dark.

I got to finish it tonight.

My wife was like, why does it have to be done tonight?

I don't know, it doesn't.

But it just like, I started it, I'm gonna finish it.

And not only am I gonna finish it, I'm gonna finish it by the arbitrary deadline that I just set for myself.

And yeah, yeah, that's motivation right there.

Pure and simple.

man.

Was there a major turning point in your career where you felt like, okay, I've made it.

I'm not.

I'm not super stressed or pushing the ball uphill anymore, but you kind of felt a comfortable place that you got to.

Well, I don't know.

think I had a totally different idea about that.

What I uh kind of uh thought about is and responding to that is uh I think when I was baptized as an adult, that's when I felt, OK, I'm not God.

I can be myself.

I can just do.

the best I can and let it be.

Yeah, that's a great answer.

A spiritual piece rather than a financial number.

Yeah.

I wrestled with the intellectual uh perception that I had and I put it to rest.

Well, I know you've now sold a few different businesses.

Are there any key lessons you learned through the process of selling a business that you might share with a young person that's building uh a business or looking to make an exit?

Well, I think one of the best things that I did was I hired an appraiser.

uh then when I because if you're in good negotiation with a prospective buyer, the

It's generally hard to put real hard facts together that say, okay, this is worth this much.

But you're the one that knows more about it than anybody.

And if you get the appraisal, and if it doesn't fit with how you sense that the true value is,

uh then you can get another appraisal.

And it's just an important part to do that, I think.

For me, it was really important.

And that way I felt comfortable.

I knew right where I needed to be.

And there was very little argument when it come time to say, okay, this is the price and this is what uh I expect to get.

And I can tell you why I think that.

Yeah.

especially that can be a pretty emotional time.

having that third party to be able to objectively look at something is probably pretty helpful.

Well, yeah, so I jumped ahead there.

That probably was an emotional process, especially your latest exit with ACE that was kind of the pinnacle of your career.

What emotions did you wrestle with or what questions did you have to answer for yourself in the process of deciding?

to sell and retire?

Well, selling the restaurant was...

My heart was with the employees that I left.

My heart was there.

And that was the way it was with the Ace Store, too.

And it's taken me to see...

We've been out of it now for a year and a half.

or so, maybe a little more than that.

was Easter morning that we sold the store two years ago.

So, uh and it's taken me a long time to just feel comfortable that I am not responsible for the store.

And the owners, they...

they wanted my feedback.

Anytime you see something going back bad, let me know.

And so that's just been important.

I knew that I had the right people because they want to hear my feedback on how it's going.

And so that's been helping the peace in my mind.

to know that it's going to go on.

so I'm, but I still go to the store and I don't have my ace jacket on now, but I go into the store and the customers will come up and, well, where's this or what's this or what do

you think about this?

I said, well, I tell ya, there's somebody right over there that can help you with that.

I bet it feels nice to be able to give them that answer.

it's wonderful.

It's wonderful.

In my mind, I started preparing.

my gosh.

Well, like I told you, I I uh bet in my mind I've been

getting ready to sell for 10 years or maybe more.

Yeah.

Because I didn't think it would take that long.

I really didn't.

But it does.

Yeah.

it can take a while.

But

if the right thing happens, you know, I had other people who tried to buy the store and uh we got into some of the weeds and the details and it just wasn't right.

So we just didn't do that.

But if you got a good business.

it's easy to sell.

I mean, you've got options.

You really do.

Now, if you run into a medical problem or something like that where you've got some issues there that you've got a, your timeframe gets shortened up.

I was so blessed not to have any of that happen.

know what?

just, Jan was ready to sell quite a while before I was.

Do you ever second guess that decision?

Not at all.

Not now.

Nope.

Good.

Good deal.

Well, this is my uh absolute favorite question.

um You mentioned your faith a few times and that you're a follower of Jesus.

ah How has that impacted your leadership journey?

I say it has everything to do with it.

You know, he promised to be with us, and he is.

And so that's just, that's huge.

You're not by yourself, you're not God, he is.

if you, it's just, uh you know, one of the things that I was really blessed with was my grandmother and her optimism.

She was the most optimistic person I can ever remember.

And...

I think that she instilled that in me.

And being a Christian, if you're not optimistic as a Christian, you need to study a little more because you've got the best of everything going for you.

The best there is.

And so I just feel that that's an optimistic point of view.

And that's why it's valuable.

And if you're...

If you're optimistic about today and tomorrow and the future is guaranteed, wow, what else can you say?

You don't want to give up that optimism, that's for sure, because it's fuel for the motivation.

It's fuel for everything you do, for life.

Good answer.

So what's next?

What do you got on the horizon?

uh

finishing up a shop to go with the new home that you guys just built and moved into.

What are your plans for retirement?

Well, I've got a camper and I love camping.

And so I've been making reservations for the summer and because I do have my shop so I can, you know, this is going to be an exciting winter next winter, because when I get done

camping, I just pull my shot, my camper in the shop.

I don't have to winterize it.

It's just going to be cozy and it's OK.

Perfect.

It grows that

camping season a little bit too if you can put other limits a little more.

Yeah, So yeah, I'm really blessed to have that shop and I...

am enjoying doing I just like working with my hands and uh it gives me a place to do that.

I mean, I have a good sized garage so I can work in my shop and my garage too.

I just and I'm optimistic, you know, and so it doesn't matter what I'm going to do.

I'm just ready to go.

Good deal.

good deal.

Well, you said you made a few reservations already.

What's the place that you're most excited to visit this summer?

ah I would say South Fork.

up there.

There's a we Jan and I really are interested in picking the spot we like the best.

Yeah.

And so I've got reservations in there and you have to make them six months in advance and you got to compete for that spot.

Yeah.

And so it wasn't that way prior to 2020.

Wasn't it?

No, you probably just show up and you could get it.

I remember it wasn't very many years ago.

You just go find the spot you want and park in it and find the camp.

Yeah.

And 2020.

just like, yeah, if you're not booking your spaces in January, you're out of luck.

uh We're going to camp in Spearfish and we're going to keep we've been camping every year at the uh

RRJ resort there in Hill City and we meet Jen's brother and his wife and sometimes their kids show up and sometimes our kids show up and so it's just a great place to they got a

great big open meadow there where we camp and

You can fly on RC airplane out there and it's just a great setting.

And then at night, if you hear the sirens go by with the ambulance or something like that, it tunes up the coyotes.

And you listen closely and you can hear coyotes.

OK.

They're very sensitive to sirens.

Yeah.

Well.

uh

Is there anybody that you'd like to see on the show?

Somebody that works in an interesting industry, has a really cool story, something you might be, might like to learn more about?

Yeah, there is.

I think before I'd throw out the name though, I might just visit with him a little bit.

But I have a guy that I think would be great on the show.

He is a Christian and he's been very successful at what he does.

And he's had a very background too in different industries.

m

Yeah, wonderful.

Well, if you chat with him, I'll chat with him.

to make an introduction.

We're always looking for interesting stories and interesting people.

And then our last question, we wrap up every show to either fuel or settle the debate.

If you have a job to do and have to use a cordless tool, which brands do you prefer?

Well, you know, I sold a lot of hand tools, cordless hand tools.

And that's one of the things about being an ACE hardware store.

And thinking about the consumer, first of all, you want to buy from a friendly person.

And you want to buy something that they've got your back.

And if it doesn't work, you can take it back.

And they're going to be good with that.

They're not going to quiz you about what you did with it.

But, and we've had a number of times when people would come in, buy something, take it home, use it, and bring it back, you know, because they got the job done.

okay.

Well, hand tools are uh kind of a wonderful invention.

Beautiful, convenient, great productive kind of a thing.

But I have changed my theory about that.

I've gone from yellow to red.

I'm a Milwaukee fan and Milwaukee has really jumped into the cordless power stuff.

I have a cordless vacuum and that's just handy as a pocket on a shirt.

uh The dust buster works really good but this baby has got some suction on it so it's really handy.

But I vote for Milwaukee, although I still have a lot of DeWalt stuff.

But I line up all the chargers and I can pick what I want.

Sounds good.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

This has been a pleasure, ah man, with the life you've lived and the very experience, varied experiences you have.

You've got a lot of wisdom to offer and a lot of great stories.

So I really appreciate you making the time and joining us.

Well, I am excited for you, Erick.

This is a great project.

and you know stories that I've listened to it's just you know started with your dad I thought that was great and so many of those podcasts you just

It's encouragement.

That's what it is.

It's kind of like surrounding yourself with good people.

so I enjoy those a lot.

And I don't know if I got subscribed or not, but I'm going to subscribe.

I might want to not subscribe to this particular one.

So I won't tell anybody about it if you don't.

Sounds good.

well thank you guys for joining us here on from the ground up show again if you like the content please like share subscribe follow all of the things if you haven't found us on

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So until next time keep grinding