Ty Stoller – From 1.4 million Turkeys to Caulking Tycoon

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show where we inspire and encourage the next generation of blue collar leaders by telling the story of those that have been there, done

that and often are still doing it.

So today we are honored to have Ty Stoller joining us.

Ty founded and built Sawtooth Cawking into a regional powerhouse serving Oregon, Washington, Idaho.

and venturing into other surrounding states.

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

And I'm extra excited to have Ty on the show today.

He's been a bit of a hero of mine for a while, although uh not personally connected.

He and I have operated in adjacent circles for a long time.

We have a lot of common friends, and even two of my brother-in-laws have worked for Ty at one point or another.

ah And just in the last few years, Ty and I have connected and even worked together to do one job together last year.

So uh Ty, welcome and thank you for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

This is quite an honor.

uh I forgot about Dylan working

for us too.

Yeah.

Yeah, both Dylan and Dalton at one point or another.

yeah, well, we'll dive right in.

yeah, we like to start just diving into your background.

So can you tell us a little bit about where you came from, how you grew up?

ah How does someone grow up to be Ty Stoller?

That's great.

Okay.

It's like so many of my generation just grew up in a small town, uh little town of Dayton, Oregon, and grew up on a what would be considered now a sizable farm.

At the time, we never knew it was big, but dad was kind of ahead of his time at

the...

Back in the eighties and, uh, we were the largest turkey farmer in the, dad was the largest turkey farmer in the Northwest.

So it's, it's, Uh, at his peak, we, dad

was raising 1.4 million birds per year and, uh, was 64 % of the whole Northwest.

So it was, it was a big, it was a big operation and, and I

just,

you know, he's just popped, you know, he's just dad and started working on the farm when I was 11, 12, mainly

to get out of school.

would, birds are shipped out in the

night at starting at 11 p.m.

and so that it's less stress on them.

And so I was always the representative for the farm and I'd be out there moving the birds and on when they're loading them out to take them to market and.

uh

just kind of excelled at that and just grew up farming.

They do it younger now even, but started combining when I was 15 and took it over when I was 16.

So I was the only guy running the combine for the whole farm then and obviously swathing and.

Never did much dirt work because I always go back to school by

then, but learned a lot of lessons working for a dollar an hour.

uh you know, kind of realized when I was thinking about it this morning that

it's, I'm kind of the last of the generation where we, I worked during the summer, whereas a lot of kids or a lot of

Parents we we choose to have our kids do sports now and say that they'll work Later if that makes sense, they have plenty of their life to work and it was so I didn't get to

play baseball during the summer or do any of those things I was always but you know, I always had more toys than anybody else if

that makes sense and you know had had the cooler cars and and you know with that dollar an hour it was

learned a big lesson to, uh,

dad took me in, in September and,

I got to go buy a CR 80, Honda CR 80, uh dirt bike.

And, and I thought I was the stuff You know what I mean?

Like it was.

That was a pretty good moment.

anyway.

um

I had the 50R, similar story, so.

yeah.

And

then went off through high school.

Just went to a little tiny high school.

Graduated with a class of 45.

um Student body president, little bit of sports, never very athletic.

um But...

uh

thought, you know, one of the first lessons I learned in life was went off to college to try to impress other people and picked a college down in California, University of

Redlands, and because it was ranked number two on the West Coast, and I was like, oh, got to go impress people and went down there and absolutely hated it.

Came home at Christmas and with a, uh, this, this will probably be a record for your podcast of a, had a

GPA of point, point five two.

So, uh, yeah, I got a, I got an A in political science and skipped all the rest of my classes.

So, uh, flunked out and, and, came

home and kind of just joined the workforce work for a couple of different outfits and, and, uh,

Decided to do it again, go to uh Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario and uh went into farm business management and absolutely loved it and uh thought that's what I was

going to do.

And to this day, if I could pick a dream job, that's what it would be.

It's just uh like our friend Ben Van Dyke, is absolutely love the

I don't know, the strategy, the moving chess pieces around on the farm, you know, just the, you know, not the mom and pop farm.

mean, I'm talking, you know, what bends up to five, 6,000 acres now.

And we were, were 1,500, which was big at the time.

But that's all I would do was be in farm business management and, uh,

Came home that summer and worked on the farm again and I'll never forget, this was the turning point of my life, was in that barnyard, had a 65 Mustang at the time, and dad had

just had his mechanic uh redo the brakes and he's kinda given me that talk of like, hey, know, drive safe, and, it's like a seven hour drive, and he looks at me, looks me in the

eye, and he just goes, son.

I just, I'm going to need you to try harder this year.

It's up until this point, you've been a piss poor investment.

And, and those are his exact words.

I, and it rocked me because,

he was right.

mean, it was, even though I was using some of my own money, you know, we had money.

it was like, it's, he was right.

I was just living the...

living the party boy uh life.

mean, just drinking beer and hanging out with everybody and having a great time.

uh that's when I went and first big change in my life was uh decided to join LSU, which is Les Schwab University.

And uh most of your listeners will know what Les Schwab is, uh big tire center.

tire company throughout the West and it was the best thing for me because over that two year time period it was, it taught me how to grind, it taught me how to be a man, be

accountable and at the time we got paid way more than anybody else in the workforce if that makes sense, significantly more and

and did that for a while and then just kind of started chasing a little bit more opportunity, trying to get into sales.

um Always could talk, always could be relatable to people.

And so I ended up getting into the rental business, met my wife here at uh our local college, her at a country bar uh in the big city of Carlton.

know where that's at.

Ha ha.

And

we got married over in, she wanted to go back home, uh which was over in Vail, Oregon.

And so we settled in Meridian, Idaho, which is, the time, 30 years ago was just a little ghost town.

And now it's the biggest growing city in all of Idaho.

uh

Went to work for CAT, Western States CAT, and that was another big, again, blessing.

Cause I got into sales, found out what I was really actually good at, which is logistics, putting people in a position to win, dealing with people on an everyday basis.

I wasn't very good at it.

I'd piss a lot of people off.

oh

the people I worked with.

I wasn't a leader at the time, but I found out that I excelled at that, if that makes sense, at logistics and whatnot.

then became an outside salesman and really did well.

That's when I made my connections with all the contractors.

That's when I really started to meet contractors and...

uh

and then uh had a falling out at Western States.

And it was the first time I've ever been fired in my career, first and only time, uh over a misunderstanding.

uh it, again, God had a plan and uh made two phone calls and ended up going to work for my best customer.

And...

She was the biggest glazing contractor, still is, uh in Idaho, DNA Glass.

And uh she goes, hey, come on board.

I need an outside salesman, which was, I was way too young to be an outside salesman for a commercial contractor at the time.

I can look back and see that.

But at the time she bought a, she had just bought a brand new building.

Just this cute little brand spanking new building from a, from,

that another contractor was building and he unfortunately lost his life uh in a snowmobile accident.

And he was the biggest caulker and caulking company in Idaho.

And uh she goes, hey, I don't know what I'm going to do with this company.

just run with it.

gonna keep, you I bought the company because it came with the building I wanted the building and run with it.

So I taught myself how to read the plans.

She didn't, nobody knew a thing about the caulking industry.

ah I just kind of ran with it.

And a year later, thought I was doing the right thing.

I...

I had an opportunity to buy uh another competitor.

And so I went into negotiations to buy that guy out and go on my own as a, as coking contractor.

And that guy absolutely, you know, when you, when you go to buy a business and they call it blue sky, it comes with all the contracts and whatnot.

And I'll never forget this, this guy.

This guy put it all together and I get the whole list of the jobs, biggest one being a brand new Walmart.

I take over the company on day one and I'm out there just grinding, doing the thing.

And we hadn't signed paperwork yet because the, again, God bless me and the attorney was out on vacation.

uh

And I figure out by the third day I go something is not right.

And I'd never looked at paperwork, never done any billings, never done, you know, I never even opened the box that he gave me.

And I opened it up and I figure out that out of the, you know, a hundred thousand dollars worth of work that the blue sky that I was buying jobs that were unbilled that that son of

a bitch had decided to go and build them all.

And.

So I would have been left on the hook for doing all of those jobs.

um so that was an interesting Monday morning when I rolled up to his place and his father-in-law actually owned the company, let this guy run it.

And he goes, I show him the paperwork and Kurt looks over at his son-in-law and just goes, did you really do this?

and Michael just hangs his head in shame.

And then I have a, I'm 10, 15 miles away from civilization out there in CUNA, Idaho, and had to call the guy from CAT that had actually fired me and have him come pick me up.

And at that time then, Dad and I um and my grandfather,

Grandfather uh had loaned me the 35 grand to buy that caulking company and they just go, well, you burn that bridge and you might as well just go out on your own.

so Reba and I went to a little uh bar that night uh to get dinner, to get wings and a beer and just came up with the name Sawtooth because that's the Sawtooth Mountains are in

Idaho.

and unfortunately named it Sawtooth Caulking and because I and

I say unfortunately because that narrowed us down quite a bit right and so wish I would have named it waterproofing but I didn't have the force of it.

It only took me 25

years in business to finally change the name but which we just did last week but

Okay.

It, uh, that was the start and incorporated, uh, I don't know, June, June 12th, something like that of 2000.

And I didn't know a thing.

I mean, I, I knew how to estimate.

I knew how to get sales and.

And again, just a couple of breaks got my first guy right around Christmas.

and then it was off to the races and, and,

Dad, in that time, dad had unfortunately lost the farm and the turkey business tanked and everybody in this area switched over to the chickens and dad was too big to go into the...

Foster Farms wouldn't give him a contract for the chickens because he needed to, they only had room for a couple sheds and dad had eight sets of sheds.

Next year, dad comes on as an estimator for me and it blows up over in Western Oregon and in Boise, we were just okay.

And on year three with my wife, nine months pregnant,

We make the decision or we make the move and come over here to Western Oregon and uh it saved the company because we were literally just fledgling.

mean, was all three caulking companies in Idaho were within a one mile.

The whole state of Idaho, we were all within a one mile radius of each other.

And it was just bloody.

I mean, it was just pennies on the dollar.

uh

Yeah, it was way worse than the roofing business.

come over here and then you have population, right?

I mean, there's what?

At the time, like a million people in Idaho is all, and, and you come to Oregon and there's, I mean.

There's three, four million with Southwest Washington and everything.

And so it's like, just grow and all of a sudden one guy becomes two and three and go through the early 2000s.

We don't even know that there's a recession.

The West Coast is so far behind the East Coast.

and didn't even know times were good.

uh We're up to, I don't know, nine guys, eight or nine guys, and we build our first house and we move everything in January of 10.

And this is another critical part of the story and move everything into the house in January 10.

I...

go to put all the job files in and I go, oh crap, we literally will run out of work by Valentine's Day.

that's, and it's, know, there's the first lesson in business is taking your eye off the ball.

It's, you know, you see it so much now on YouTube and Instagram and it's, oh what's the next business you're gonna start or?

How can you spread out your time and do this and that?

And it's like, when you take your eye off the girl that brought you to the party, right?

And just crapped the bed.

And then all of a sudden, you become desperate and you start making deals that you just wish you'd never made.

And we go four years where everybody made money.

during those that that recession everybody all my guys all my guys bought houses that tells you all my guys are making money reba and i are just making wages dad's making wages

we carried a hundred thousand dollar line of credit at the time and it was maxed out the entire recession i didn't get it

I maxed it out in June of 10 to oh go on a vacation that I'd bought the year before so I couldn't get out of that.

And

it took until 17 to pay it off, to get off that 100 grand.

I mean, that's just the grind.

mean, that is, I mean, it's...

Let that be the success story for anybody listening is that take your eye off the ball and it will bite you in the ass bigger.

I'll get out.

Anyway, what I then learned through uh those hard years is the grit, is the grind.

The next significant event happened on April 14th of 2013, we call that Sawtooth Independence Day.

And that's the day when my lead guy, I'd finally just...

for lack of better terms, grew a pair.

And I just went, Doug, I can't deal with the cancer that you are, with the way that you steal from me.

Because again, just, so often as business owners, if the guy's just doing his job, if we're still making money, you'll turn the other cheek and just accept unaccountable.

Or you'll just be, you won't hold them accountable.

You won't uh keep a standard of character that you want to be surrounded by.

And uh so we went from 11 guys that day to

uh four.

uh which is not, I say that

story now and I'm like, it's not that much, but it's a hell of a lot, to lose that many guys all in.

in a week.

uh

But what it did, um and this is where our adjacent circles come into play, what saved my ass is I was in a Bible study that our friend Jim Ramos had put together, which it was

called Great Hunt for God, which now he's expanded into Men in the Arena.

um

And I had all those guys surrounding me at that coffee shop for all those weeks and praying for me and just standing with me.

I mean, what could they do to help me, right?

um But they were with me.

then we just kind uh of...

The luckiest thing, and I was telling you this earlier, then I found the Dave Ramsey Entre Leadership podcast from way back then.

And we talked about that with Ken Coleman.

And those changed my life.

Because again, I don't have the degree, the education, the background.

um I didn't have a mentor to lean on.

uh

And so often self-help books just kind of piss me off because it's just regurgitated.

I don't know.

But all of a sudden there's that podcast.

now, you know, we look back and it's, know, 12 years later, they're a dime a dozen and where you can go get it if you're just searching for it.

But back then there just wasn't much.

But what it taught me is it taught me that culture is first, that hiring character.

I still don't hire the way they do where it's, you know, the, the Ramsey way is, is five interviews.

was like, basically, you know, I'm like, Oh, you can,

you know,

I developed a hiring strategy and it was so veer off.

This will be the first time we truly veer off.

And I, I developed cause maybe this will help

the right guy.

It doesn't work for us all the way anymore at our size.

But at the time I, I, uh, I call it the Labrador mentality.

And what I wanted, I would interview guys and I'd bring them in and I literally would sit them on the back patio around the fire pit.

Cause again, the office is just up above the garage.

You know what I mean?

It's just a fledgling.

We're a mom and pop.

And I bring them in and these aren't guys that have applied per se.

It's all of our hires and...

or just somebody brought a buddy, if that makes sense.

That's our whole business.

We're always recruiting.

ah If this guy's buddy is, if this guy's good enough to work for us, then we figure he'll bring his buddy and we ask him to.

And we say, hey.

And so often they don't want to do that because they're like, oh

if my buddy screws up, it's going to make me look bad.

And I'm like, no, if your buddy screws up, that's on him.

And you just got to be honest up front.

But I created this Labrador mentality, which is I just wanted young athletic guys, guys that played sports.

And I would ask them, like, what sports did you play?

Because I wanted to create a locker room.

often, guys are just like me, where they went to a little bit of college and they found out college wasn't for them.

and but they can look back on high school and the best times of their life were actually on the field or in the locker room and they just wanted to be with their boys again right

they just wanted to do something that mattered and so that's what we chased after and and and you know and if anybody's done any duck hunting you know from the the labrador it's

that dog will sit there and stare up at the sky

And he'll hear the shot and then he'll go get the duck, you know, come back and all he wants to do is be told, good boy.

That's it.

And that's what I hired.

And I had, and it just grew.

And it was, you know, then it was, you know, we're at eight guys, then we're at 12 guys, and then we're at 17 and then we're at 20.

And it's, we're rolling now and we come out of the recession and, I've developed this culture of.

of I mean at one time this is we had six all-state running backs working for us and and and uh it is just

It was a special time of learning about me, of learning about giving guys opportunities and letting them grow, letting them fail, coaching them through the failures.

And then we just started chasing work.

by 16, the economy is fully flowing and we start doing more and more stuff in downtown Portland.

kind of take the next steps and fully get into waterproofing, doing big buildings.

first big hire I made was in spring of 16.

Hired a kid that had worked for me since he was in high school and he finished up down at Oregon State.

He played a little football at Oregon State and came to work for me and.

just to relieve the bottleneck that all business owners have of my bottleneck at the time was um you know I'm I wake up in the morning I'll answer the emails and and then

And then dad was our estimator.

And so then here come the takeoffs.

And I'm doing the takeoffs.

Or I mean, I'm doing the bids and the proposals.

I'd send those out.

And then by 11, I'm in the truck.

And we have a, you know this from being around here, we have an hour to get to any of our jobs.

I mean, that's nothing compared to what you have to deal with.

But go spend.

ah

go spend three or four hours just checking on jobs, you the ones that are, that haven't started yet to the ones that go see our guys, get back to the shop, go pick up material

and, and then line up the guys.

Another, another big thing we did was, um, and again, this will work for some of the guys listening.

It won't work for it.

It work for everybody.

And some guys will be flat out offended by this, but it's, it's, uh,

You know, the shop was just down at my dad's in his garage and dad's a dad is a hell of a beer drinker and.

ah And we just started offering it to the guys and and in the sense of.

I wanted the guys to come home and tell me about their day.

And and help me schedule for the next day and put us in a position to win.

But so often in our work lives, it's just the guys will come in, punch the clock, and they'll go get in their car and they'll bounce.

And so we created this family atmosphere of the guys would just have a beer, dad had buy pepperoni sticks, and we'd have ice cream during the summer and Otter Pops during the

summer.

And it's just creating this just...

family atmosphere and it is crazy out of those guys.

uh That core group, so many of them are our leaders now from back when we only had 20 guys and uh those guys are now running the company and AJ came on in 16 and my bottleneck was

emails.

I just was horrible on emails and uh

answering people because I just didn't care.

It just wasn't what I was good at.

He just took that bottleneck and I remember sitting there going, my wife going, hey, if you come to work for us, we're doing 3 million at the time.

And he's like, and we're like, if you come to work for us, we have to do four in order to afford you to come on board salary wise and whatnot.

And it is amazing.

Again, another lesson that I want people to hear is just.

you know, hire your hire for your weakness, hire the right guy, but hire for your weakness because uncorking that bottleneck, we we do four and a half in a, uh you know, the year he

starts, which he doesn't even start till summer.

And then it bumps to six and then eight and then ten.

And it's, we've hardly hired anybody else.

It's just this kid taking care of all of my weaknesses and I'm still doing the scheduling.

I'm still doing a ton of the sales.

He's just handling so much of the paperwork side that I just struggled with to where I couldn't get out, see the guys, um, et cetera.

And, uh, so, and then, uh, the next big phase was, uh

2020, uh we move into, for our retirement, we built some commercial buildings and your father-in-law was the electrician.

oh we built some buildings and moved in officially in, this is how busy we were.

The buildings are ready in February of 20 and we couldn't even move the management went there, but we couldn't even move the company until May, like the first of May.

oh We were just that busy with just assholes and elbows just going and going and going and uh then COVID hit.

uh as we all know,

anybody that's in the

construction business, that did not even matter.

Like all that changed was the fact that all that changed was the fact that all of a sudden instead of going to lunch, we were going and picking up lunch.

and then

being in Oregon, you know, the communist state of Oregon, it's, you you don't get to go to church anymore.

And, uh, that's it.

That's all that changed.

We're busier than we've ever been.

Right.

and

And, uh, and a big, big God moment came when, Raven and went and picked up a motor home in Phoenix in, in August of that year.

And, uh, that's when all the riots are happening in downtown Portland and we're doing some masonry restoration stuff on a, a, on a building down there and.

And our porta potty gets taken like two blocks away.

I don't know why they thought they needed a porta potty.

And uh our scaffolding gets, it's dismantled and they start using it for weapons and different stuff and, and I remember driving through Salt Lake and I looked over anybody

who's been on, on, on the freeway there.

And you look over in Salt Lake is just right there.

And I see, I count 11 cranes and I go.

Why can't we take the show on the road?

And that was the big moment for me of I went and visited uh Texas and got intimidated.

Texas, the Dallas market was just huge.

And there's no hills, so you can't ever tell what's actually happening there, if that makes sense.

ah Everything's flat.

uh

and visited Salt Lake and did research on Denver and Phoenix.

And I remember my banker left here and moved to Boise and uh meeting him at Christmas over there in Boise.

And uh he goes, why don't you just come to Boise and use it as uh a...

know, a leap pad to get to Salt Lake or wherever else you want to go.

But you already have experience here.

You have connections.

I mean, it been 20 years, but and that was the best advice we, you know, that I ever got.

um, within a couple of months, we started landing work in Boise and, and did it the wrong way, which again, another lesson, if anybody's listening, is just

Don't go buy work.

It is not worth trying to just pour the market just because when a job goes wrong, you are more than buying the work.

ah You are owning it.

ah it's ah learned a lot of lessons there.

But um the craziest part in looking back is that Boise market now.

uh

20 years to the week of me leaving, we were back there caulking.

I mean, it's the irony, God's irony and all that was pretty cool.

then we, just over a three year time period, slowly just with consistency and because we know what we are, we know who we are, we uh run everybody out of business.

take out all the competition and not intentionally, just doing our thing.

And then the mega projects come.

And a lot of the people in Boise, the contractors just weren't even prepared for these mega projects.

And we were.

Have you seen the micron job when you've come through Boise or do you fly

in?

not seen it, but I've heard a lot about it.

It's uh stirring some stuff up in my world as well.

it's the biggest thing I have ever

seen in my life.

um is the biggest thing.

uh And we land the contract for that in July of 23 and actually do the work right around Thanksgiving for the first bit of waterproofing on that thing.

And now we're caulking on it, but it's...

The Boise market now has, we're doing more in Boise than we are in Portland.

Just from that leap of faith.

And I remember doing the drives over to Boise just, you know, going, what am I doing?

I don't want to do this.

You know, the fears of putting myself out there, of failure and whatnot, and just.

you know, falling back on the story of Jonah and how often he turned on God and went the other direction.

I'm explaining that to my wife and she just finishes just playing his day.

She goes, don't be Jonah.

Go do what God told you to do.

And it's like, OK, all right, God told me to go.

I'm going to go.

And it's...

It's absolutely worked out.

It's, it's, uh, we have 25 guys there every on the ground and every week we send another 20 probably just to do work in, the Boise market and, uh, have positioned ourselves

incredibly to, um, to win.

So that's been a game changer.

And then, uh,

and then really gotten into the data center world.

Because to get to Boise, we got to go through a little town of Boardman, Oregon.

And you keep seeing all these data centers popping up there.

And we see the first ones.

And we're like, who's doing them?

And that was kind of a feat to be able to figure out how to get in with these national general contractors and doing that sales.

the business development side of all that and then AJ lands them.

it's um at one point we were doing 16 of them all at once basically.

And it's, that's been really good.

The Hermiston market, Hermiston Boardman market has been really good doing the AWSs.

And so, and we've grown, we did...

I think 22 last year, we did 23 and we'll do 24 this year.

of had some jobs go wrong, which everybody's gonna have jobs go wrong.

But kind of hurt us a little bit this year, so we didn't grow as much as we should.

But then we should bump up, we should be close to 30 for next year.

That's kind of sawtooth in a nutshell and then rebranded.

Just officially went live with the website and all the rebranding after 25 years and uh being sawtooth coking and everybody just thinking that that's all we're doing is just

coking bathtubs and coking

windows and it's like, no, we are the...

We are blessed to be the biggest waterproofing company in the Northwest and the biggest caulking company in the Northwest.

And now we have fire stopping and masonry restoration and traffic coding and seismic expansion joints, which you have on your roofing stuff and traveling to Wyoming and Nevada

and Utah and.

Yeah, it's been a ride.

uh

the Northwest and headed throughout the mountain region, huh?

and it's pretty cool.

yeah, we changed the company name to Sawtooth Fortified to just kind of bring, and it's such a reach, but it's how we bring everything under roof and unite all the different guys

and all the different teams so that we're all just one instead of just Sawtooth.

We're just Sawtooth Fortified.

uh

And it was, that was, that was a cool, that was, was taking a chance rebranding like that, but it, uh it turned out it was, it was pretty cool to be able to tell the designer and

the team like, Hey, we're bold, we're, we're professional, but we want a little swagger and,

and, you know, just kind of a little bit of outlaw and, that's, and that's what we are.

And

And uh so it's that's been a ride.

yeah, yeah.

So that is the Saw II story.

Well, uh you mentioned a couple things there I've got to hear a little bit more about.

So you said 1.2 million turkeys.

Or was it 1.4?

1.4 million turkeys.

uh I've never spent a lot of time with turkeys.

The couple bird places I've been around.

Man,

12 chickens is...

chaos with noise and smell and the cleanup.

1.4 million turkeys that had to be just insane.

What was, I mean, what did an average day look like with 1.4 million turkeys?

It's very organized.

mean, it's...

uh

Dad had the sheds, know, grandpa started it back in on the, on the main place in 47, which is now, if anybody looks it up on the map is, uh, our cousin bill bought the, bought the

homestead, uh, out of bankruptcy when dad, when dad went under and, so it kept the family name and it's now it's Stoller winery and, and

And he's built it up into, he just passed away in June, I believe.

But Bill built it up into an empire in the wine business.

then, which for anybody listening, that's where we're at.

We're in wine country ah out here in Oregon.

I mean, it's nothing like the Portland that anybody sees.

It's beautiful out here.

ah

The turkey sheds, there's the brooder house and the birds come in.

There's 36,000 would come into a brooder house and half would be toms and half would be hens and they're separated.

And then once they get six, eight weeks old, then we move them into the grow out sheds and...

uh

The toms would get two and then the hens obviously being smaller would have one.

Dad took it from 26 weeks to grow them out.

Dad had it down with the feed program.

This is all before all the supplements and the injection, all the nasty stuff that we shouldn't eat.

This is just feed.

uh

And dad did all of his own feeding.

mean, that we, had a guy that every single day would drive the semi to Portland just to unload rail cars and bring the semi back with, with the bone meal and the soy and the corn

and the wheat and everything else.

And so the birds, dad had it down to like 16, 17 weeks, I think 17, 18 weeks.

And, and then in three days they'd flip a shed and the, and the,

and the Polts would come in and, but there were eight different farms across the county.

So, and

dad had 25 guys, I think, 25, 30 guys, which is a lot for 1988.

So,

Yeah.

Well, I'm thinking just cleaning up the waste.

That's a job.

that was, speaking of 1988, that was

my first shot of entrepreneurship.

uh That's a great story is that there is so much turkey waste coming out of those sheds.

mean, just mountains of, because they just push it out, out the back and then let it just kind of compost a little bit.

And then come this time of year.

uh

uh I'd be combining still and I would, well not this time of year, but this is more like into summer.

I'd be combining and uh from seven until nine thirty, I'd go visit other farmers and I'd sell the turkey manure.

And I remember plan is day, it was like $55 a load.

then I would, and then as soon as we were done,

combining than I would for the season, then I would, it was my own operation that, you know, dad had supported.

I mean, it was all dad's money.

wasn't, but he just let me go sell.

And I'm sure the other guys would call dad and, and, know, wink or whatever, but it's, but I'm just hauling Turkey waste with, you know, I got the, I got a big front end loader just

loading up the truck and you know, I'm, I'm 16 driving a

I don't know, like a 10 speed, like just some beat up old farm truck just going and spreading turkey crap throughout the county.

And I remember pulling into a convenience store and walking in and the old boy behind the counter just goes, my God, get out, get out.

What do you want?

And I'm like,

I just want a Coke and a burrito.

And he's like, you stay there.

I go get it.

And those are the days.

So yeah, you know.

that's quite a way to grow up, I'm sure.

You know, oh it was good times.

You also mentioned that you built your own hiring system and you were looking for kind of a particular personality, the Labrador you called it.

Can you tell me a little bit more about that system?

How many interviews do you do?

What specifically were you looking for?

How do you identify those people that fit your culture and your company?

So basically by the time they were, um it'd be a, it'd be a text or a phone call.

you know, somebody, um, one of my guys would, would say, Hey, I got a buddy.

And so it'd be a text or a phone call or vice versa from them.

And, and, and I'd bring, like I said, I'd just bring them in either, either to the shop or to my house.

Um, wanting to be very personable.

wouldn't be.

you know, in an office.

I just wanted it to be very low key.

And then I just, I literally just started asking a series of questions and my guys still use it today.

And it's, it's, we just start out with, you know, tell me about yourself.

Cause again, we're hiring younger guys.

They, you know, we're not hiring.

I mean, do we have 35, 40, 50 year old guys?

Absolutely.

But.

for the vast majority of the fellas out in the field, they're just dumb ass 20 year old kids like we were, you know what I mean?

They're just, they don't know anything.

And uh so you just go, hey, tell me about yourself.

Where'd you go to high school?

Where'd you grow up?

And then if they say that they grew up in Willamina, then I make fun of them and uh tell them nothing good ever came out of Willamina and...

you

You find out if they played sports, you find out what their interests are.

If a kid's coming to work for me and all he does is play video games, it's probably not gonna be a good fit because he's never done anything outside.

oh You get to know the guy.

Nothing was ever written down.

Do I ever write anything down?

I'm just letting the conversation feed me.

or feed itself and and You know and then you just kind of because again, I didn't hire guys And it's the same thing for your business.

It's you're not hiring talent Because so often if you hire a guy that actually has done it in the field They bring so many bad habits.

They bring there's a reason they're not working at the place that they were at anymore I

I was hiring, I learned in that, in the rebrand or not the rebranding, but just the, you know what, we're at 25 years in the business.

It took me to the halfway point to figure out how to be a leader, if that makes sense.

And so that becoming of a leader in 13, 14, 15, that's when I, you know, that's when I started hiring character.

Did I ever do two, three, four interviews?

No.

If the guy...

I would close the interview with, we're gonna know in two weeks, both of us are gonna know in two weeks whether you are gonna work here or not.

Do not have hard feelings.

If we...

If we decide you're not going to work here, it's best for the both of us.

And it's okay.

You're not failing.

It's just best for the both of us if you go find something else.

But we'll figure it out in two weeks, whether you have it or don't.

And again, all we want was hustle.

We wanted...

Resourcefulness, that's a big word.

That's something absolutely missing in this new age right now is resourcefulness of just...

And when I see it, I absolutely give accolades because it's...

If you don't know how to do something, the craziest part is it's on YouTube.

Just stop putting it on YouTube.

and somebody has done it.

You know what I mean?

Like, just you have all the tools, boy.

Just use them.

And then the next phase of hiring was...

was starting to hire leadership.

oh this will be the next lessons is just, please do not hire, do not put your best.

skilled guy, you're in my world, your best caulker, your best waterproofer.

uh Just because he's the best at that craft does not mean he's going to be the best at managing or leading that craft.

And I absolutely...

uh

stagnated the company for several years because we just, you know, it's absolutely common.

You want to reward the guy that has been with you the longest is your best guy.

And it's just natural.

Everybody thinks that that's the natural progression and it's not.

It's crazy that it's just let them just do what they're good at, pay them absolutely well.

And it's crazy.

The kids that now schedule everything and lead the teams are, you know, were just above average.

They weren't the best.

You know what I mean?

But they are really good at uh organizing and details, whereas so often the skilled guys aren't, if that makes sense.

So

Yeah,

big lessons there.

Totally different.

Yeah, we, we find that.

So as some of your guys age out or are looking for a upward trajectory, what kind of a path do you put the really skilled guys that are not going to be a good fit in the office?

What's the end goal for them?

Do they stay in the field and just earn more?

Is there a middle management position available for them?

Where do they move as they move up?

a

little bit of both and even though we're at 25 years, it's, and we've had, we have guys that have been with us 15 plus years.

ah One's probably approaching 20 now.

It's, it's, uh

Really the best is just leaving them in the field and paying them very well and giving them.

ah

a lot, lot, lot more rope leash, if that makes sense.

Like just let them run with, they know how to do the damn work.

Just leave them alone.

ah

Give them the guys they want and they'll go make you a ton of money.

ah

Some of them have gone into more, like you said, middle management where it's, it's uh one of my famous lines is just, I don't need you to do the work.

In fact, here's a fricking lawn chair.

You sit here on the job and just tell everybody what to do.

I don't need you.

oh You have all the wisdom, just point, tell them what to do.

oh

It's when we do bring them inside and it's they got to do the emails and the scheduling of everybody and all that.

That's when the wheels come off.

And we have not, yeah, we're still young enough that nobody's retired yet.

I don't have to answer that question yet.

I don't know what that looks like.

Okay.

That's something we wrestle through uh frequently is providing a continually upward track, especially when, like you said, the top skilled guys don't necessarily transition into the

office.

And that's probably not where they would want to be anyway.

They'd walk into the office and a week of sitting in front of the computer, they're ready to get back out in the field.

So.

And sometimes

you just gotta give them, we use, mean, it's, it's, uh, yeah, with, with our most recent guy and he, and he's a young guy.

It's, we use the same philosophy that we used when we were hiring.

It's just, you come in for, you know, we bumped it up to more like you come in for 30 days and then we'll make that decision in 30 days between the both of us.

So, yeah.

What else you got?

interesting.

Well, you've been through some pretty difficult things.

I'm sure you talked a little bit about your dad losing his business.

That was probably a hard time as a family.

You lost a job yourself.

You went through kind of a significant recession and then Sawtooth Independence Day.

What's the most difficult challenge you faced to date?

Okay, I questioned whether I was going to bring this up.

um So I got to pause with my words because I don't want to...

offend anybody.

oh

The union has been, that was the most difficult time for me was the summer of 2015.

we, everybody's pretty much figured we are a non-union company and there is nothing wrong with the union except with the union that would fall, that we would fall under.

that makes sense.

um, and it started out with a phone call of, of, of them asking us to, to, to join the union.

And I'm like, well, tell me all about it.

And cause again, you're like, Hey, it may bring more opportunity.

And again, in our world, and you know this from your world, um, we don't really need the union.

Whereas obviously with, with Merv.

you know, to be an electrician, you have to join the union.

That's what like, if you're a plumber, more than likely, you're gonna be you're gonna go union.

ah It's

We go through the process and uh this guy literally calls me out and I'm in the thick of my new culture of being a leader.

And he goes, you don't take care of your guys.

And I'll never forget that.

And I'm like, what do you mean I don't take care of my guys?

And he goes, you don't pay them enough.

And I'm like, you don't fight for them.

You don't do anything.

And I'm like, well.

And it made us really uh look inside and.

and get away from, you know, and...

not listen to his words, but listen to more of what he was saying and

and go, you know what, they were right.

We discovered really quick that we paid more out of the gate.

If we're gonna put this in high school terms, freshman year sawtooth was we paid more and we took care of the guys.

Sophomore year, because we are running on merit, not on time.

And you know exactly what I mean.

There would be a jump ahead.

But by the time they were juniors and seniors, by then...

I've already given them company trucks and company credit cards and leadership positions and pay, and we've far exceeded what they were doing.

And then the final straw was, uh I go, okay, so if I need like four guys tomorrow, so I just call the hall.

I how do you find guys?

And he goes, we don't.

I mean, you still do all the hiring and you develop them.

And I went, what in the heck are we talking about here?

I mean, And when I turned him down and I said, I go, I go, so you're telling me we had one guy, go, Herbie, because they were going hard after this guy, I go, Herbie, you would have

found him hucking freight.

on the graveyard shift at Cabela's down in Springfield, Oregon, you would have found him and you would have brought him into the union and developed him.

And he would be a product of the bricklayers union.

And he goes, well, no, you would have found him.

And then he would have joined the union.

And that's how it would have worked.

I'm like, what do I need you for?

And he goes, well.

Yeah.

And that ended that conversation.

And then what made it difficult.

this is.

And again, the union is fine for some people.

It's it's just.

I saw no benefit.

They needed sawtooth way more than I needed them.

And what ended up happening is they started sending their union recruiter to every single job site and and just ripped our company apart for.

60, 75 days and it all came to a head and they had one of my most loyal guys absolutely spooled up like he was just leading the charge for everybody and luckily I got some good

advice to to go retain a lawyer up in Portland and and one of those awkward where you get on an elevator go to the 15th floor and go to some conference room and

And luckily they told me exactly what was going to happen next and we were prepared for it.

we sat everybody down one Friday afternoon on our back patio and I cooked up food and we had a company meeting and we just laid it all out for them of like, some of you may want

to go do it and it's okay.

We understand, but others, you know, it's, we're a family here and we believe in each other.

We turn you into uh who you are now, and we don't want to lose that.

And it all kind of came to a head in August of 15.

And uh the team all decided to stay with us and Stephen.

Steven stood up in that meeting and he goes, hey, all of you foremen, the union says if we go, if we leave right now, we go right to the union contractor and everybody gets a

company truck and everybody gets everything we have now, plus a bonus.

Come on, let's just go do it.

And everybody, everybody just kind of hit pause.

And uh two weeks later, Steven's gone.

He decided to quit, which was a blessing because I couldn't, obviously I can't fire him.

uh

And in a month after that, my guys run into him up on a job and he's working for that union contractor driving a commuter rig, just like the union guys drive and having to

commute from Salem to Portland in his commuter rig, no company truck and doing work that.

doing some pretty laborious stuff that we would never put him in.

And he just kind of hung his head in shame and we're just like, okay, that was a blessing.

So that was the, and again, I hope that doesn't turn any of the guys off that are listening.

It just killed me that the union wanted.

It's very reminiscent of what we're dealing with sometimes with the society today of the union just wanted my company without putting

in any of the work required to get it to where it's at.

it just, that was tough of just the tricks and the...

The bullcrap that they put us through for those two months was just, I mean, talk about sleepless nights and just, it was tough.

That was the toughest moment.

I hadn't, hey, a lot.

I hadn't thought about that

in years.

Well, it sounds like it turned out well, but yeah, that had to be pretty scary having all of your guys kind of on the chopping block all at once.

Having that meeting and not knowing which direction it was going to go.

That was probably pretty scary.

I knew I had one guy that was it at that in that meeting.

I had one guy that was because he'd been in the union and he goes, I mean, he stood up in the, know, and he said, hey, this is this is what it's all about.

But yeah, to lose.

at that time, we were probably 20, roughly 20 guys.

So, yeah, yeah, that was the toughest.

That was

Yeah, and then the next toughest and it's I can joke about it now but but it's you know, I told I told you already that we moved here from from the Boise market back home and To

link it all together with with you know, pop was doing so well estimating here but we got here in June and Mom had left dad after 35 years in April

And so we get here, move the whole family, and Pop's going through his second, you know, right there.

It's his most difficult time, you know, but this is what, three years after losing the farm, maybe four.

And, oh and, you know, mom left and, and, but we get here and

None of the jobs, like nobody had been to the jobs.

Nobody was returning phone calls.

Like it was a, you want to talk about a app, like your whole future is in shambles and you just start just trying to make people happy.

Like you just are, you just gotta be transparent and tell everybody like we'll be here.

I can't be there tomorrow.

I'll be there on Wednesday and

What a mess.

Absolute mess for about three months to get that all under control.

But we made it.

We survived.

Yeah.

And thriving now.

I know you guys have been growing steadily for quite a few years and have ramped up quite a bit.

Do you have a particular strategy or anything that you feel has worked best for growth?

Two sides of that, the immediate, no, I don't have a strategy, Eric.

It's another big God moment was.

uh

um We started to grow

in in 21 and and I remember playing his day playing his day.

I'm We had 35 guys total and and I remember going You know, it's one of those prayer sessions where m

things are so at peace and we've all had them.

And you're just like, don't even know what to pray for.

You're grateful.

You're just kind of doing your prayers of gratitude.

And then you just kind of go, what do you want me to do next, God?

And it was just so just bam.

He goes, take the company to 100 guys.

Bless 100 guys.

Bless 100 families.

And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I mean, and wrap your mind around that 35 to 100.

Wrap your mind around that statement.

But again, and this is, uh, we had, we had made our first venture into Boise, but I mean, this was, this was even bigger.

And, and I tell my guys, my, my management team, I'm like, this is God said this and, uh, and my guys don't ever.

Don't be Jonah.

and Toby Jonah.

But my guys don't even doubt it anymore.

If I say in my prayers, God said this, my guys are like, okay, we've seen what God can do.

They're not even fully Christ followers.

And they're just like, well, we've seen what God does for Ty, we're just going to do it.

So all of sudden we're at 50.

And then we're at 80.

And I'll never forget we were in...

uh

We were on vacation somewhere uh in June of 23.

And all of sudden I get a text from my daughter and she goes, she's our accounting, uh she runs our accounting department.

uh And she goes, we just hit 100.

And I went, And it's just that, okay, I wasn't even really.

We're not hiring just to have a hundred guys.

It's just, you're hiring just like you were hiring if you only had 12.

You just need one more guy.

um But back to the strategy.

It's...

It's a lot of prayer time.

It's a lot of quiet time.

know, the drives, and you have enough drives on any of, you know, going to any of job sites.

It's turning off the podcasts, turning off the radio, and just that quiet time of just, you you don't have any kids around you anymore, and you're just, you get to think.

And it's just, again, the growth strategy has always been,

to bless more families.

are you gonna bless them all?

No, but we're gonna bless 80 % of them that come through our doors.

We have a very high retention level.

And so then all of a sudden, you already talked about it, what do you do with your guys that have been in the field a while?

And it's just going back to sports.

It's...

It's there's only so many seats on the varsity bench.

And so you have to grow in order to have more seats on the varsity bench to give guys more opportunity to do what they're built to do.

And so otherwise you just become complacent and you're going to do.

You know that that.

We made money at 10 million.

You know what I mean?

We were fine.

I had a nice house I had.

Ha ha ha.

I had the nicest truck.

The whole night, like we went on vacation.

It's just, I just hit this point of like, I don't want to be complacent.

I cannot.

I feel like a failure if I'm complacent, if that makes sense.

And that's

the whole basis of my...

leadership style is going all the way back to year one, know, the morning shave um and just staring at the guy in the mirror and just going, you know, back then there's three

families that depend on me and I got to do what I have to do in order to support those three families.

And then now it's...

I think we're 118 guys now.

Wow.

You mentioned the weight of being responsible for supporting so many families.

I know as a leader, that's probably the most stressful thing that I feel and also the most rewarding.

Do you have anything to speak into that?

Maybe some times that it was most rewarding or what that weight feels like.

I'm sure it often feels pretty lonely being the guy at the top that's responsible for 118 families.

It's changed.

mean, understand it is as we've grown, there's a full leadership team now.

We have a VP of operations, AJ is VP of sales, Josh is VP of operations.

And, you know, we even have a safety guy now.

I mean, it's just who would have never, I mean, like I said, that we're a little outlaw.

I never thought we would have safety guys and, uh

You

At 80 guys, I quit doing the hiring.

We brought a consultant in and best worst thing we ever did.

um So unfortunately I have lost track of, so when we have the big company meetings, uh I unfortunately don't know.

30 guys, if that makes sense.

I just, don't even know.

I, if somebody goes, Hey, this is Devin or this is uh Carter, this is Chris.

Okay.

I've heard of them, but I like it.

It's that has changed.

But again, the, decisions, the, the weight of, of where the company's going of, of where God is taking it, where God wants it to go.

uh

You're right.

That doesn't change.

Because you don't want to let anybody down.

don't.

If that means they're hanging Christmas lights on your house or painting the interior of your house or doing things to stay busy, you know, I don't believe in unemployment.

You know what I mean?

Just whatever, whatever it takes to.

But you talk about the, you know, the relationships were so so I mean, they're still deep.

with the core guys.

You know, the fatherly coaching advice, you know, walking him through relationships of, you know, walking him through buying a house, their first houses and what do we do, tie on

this?

You know, and it's when I first found Christ and I'm going through the Bible for the first time and, you know, I believe I'm in Kings and Solomon asks, you know, the only thing he

asks of God was just the blessing of discernment and wisdom, right?

And I remember, I distinctly remember where I was at when I read that and I go, that's all I want.

That's powerful.

And so that was always my blessing.

so that's, and then I look back on that now 20 years later and I go, ah, that is what God blessed me with is just this.

I am blessed with wisdom.

I am blessed with the gray hair that we talk about with elders.

I have seen a lot and done a lot.

I can coach them through their moments and whatnot.

But when you talk about a highlight, it's...

uh

We had our 25 year summer bash in August.

And we just tell them all, your family.

And it was the cutest thing that the 20 year old guys that are still living at home brought their mom and dad.

And they're so proud to come introduce me to, you know, Harold and Susan and this is my mom and dad.

And then you know, okay, you got something going on.

You got something, a culture where guys want to be here.

You know what I mean?

You're like, we got it.

We have something very, very special.

It's not about the money.

It's not about the...

It's not about the revenue.

It's not about the how big we are or it is it's about It's about Yeah, that consultant I talked about He's like you need to create a mission statement and I go, okay And I go that

is the dumbest like he sends me one like as a demo or as a like he it's it's like this and I started reading it and I'm like

This is like every stupid corporation out there.

Like this is all false crap And I go, okay, what is mine?

And I'm driving and we're just coming into Moab from Colorado.

And I go, I got it.

I go, we take boys and we turn them into men.

And we turn them into pillars of their community.

We turn them into fathers, into better sons, into better friends.

And by the way, we're pretty freaking good at waterproofing.

And he didn't like that, but that's it.

That's our mission statement.

Yeah.

A core piece of our mission statement is developing great people.

Cause same thing, we're all about developing people.

If you just want to punch a clock and get a paycheck, this isn't a place for you.

We're, looking to grow.

I don't care where you start or where you're going, but we're going to grow together.

So that's awesome.

Awesome.

I know you said you started working in caulking.

underneath a glazing company and you kind of had no idea what you were doing and then tried to buy a caulking company when you had no idea what you were doing and launched your

own caulking company before you really knew what you were doing with caulking.

I get the impression you're more of a leader, a developer, a business person than a practitioner.

How has that shaped your business and do you feel that that's an advantage or a disadvantage?

Again, we talk about the self.

said, I think self-help books are kind of crazy or just kind of just regurgitated information.

week two of starting my company, I'm getting the oil changed in my truck.

And, uh, I don't know why I didn't change it myself because I, had everything to do it, but I'm getting the oil change and, I'm reading a book and I, I would love to know what

this book is, but

The guide describes there are three types of business owners.

There's the tradesman.

There's the bean counter.

And then there's the entrepreneur, the leader.

And I went, and he goes right down the, he goes, if you're going to be a tradesman, you're going to be so worried about how your work is in the field.

And.

and you're gonna be so worried about staying on task that you'll never be able to build your company.

If you're an accountant, if all you worry about is the numbers, you're never gonna take chances.

always going to, you're gonna have zero ability to handle risk.

You're gonna treat people like crap.

And it just became very evident to me at the time that I'd rather be an entrepreneur.

And...

And that's what sent me on my path.

The other side of that is um back to the farm.

And dad and I talked about this one night when we first started the business.

uh

He goes, Ty, promise me you're never going to learn how to caulk because the minute you learn how to caulk, you'll be just like me.

And he goes, I don't want you to, I don't want you to have the marriage that I have.

This is when mom and him were still together.

He goes, I, I literally would wake up at the crack of dawn and go check birds show up in the barnyard.

at seven, get the guys all set up on what they're supposed to do for the day.

And we'd all go about our day.

And then at six o'clock when the guys would bounce, then I go jump in the tractor because we still needed to break down this field.

And I would go until one or two in the morning.

And he goes, that's exactly what you'll do is that you'll

You guys are going to be done on Friday night and you're going to go out there and you're going to be there first thing in the morning on Saturday.

You're going to be there first thing in the morning on Sunday and you'll literally ruin your family by worrying about what's happening in the field and just focus on the

business, focus on leading the guys and that will win in the end of the day.

So that's what I did.

So, um, I know how to waterproof.

Let that be known.

I can waterproof.

I just can't talk.

Yeah.

I think there's a good lesson in there for a lot of business owners saying, I can't pinpoint kind of a single moment or a transition, but I know that's definitely a

transition I've made in our business moving from more of a practitioner to what I'd like to think as an entrepreneur.

And I like the way you articulated that.

again, we will put the weight of the company on our shoulders, and then all of a sudden, and again, now maturing, the other aspect of that is just, it's a windshield view.

That's all you're seeing.

You're not seeing the whole company.

And so the minute I could fly at 10,000 feet and see where we're heading, and now I'm at 30,000 feet of just...

Now I can really see where the company's going.

can, I can swoop down coach where I need to coach.

And I may go days without having to coach, but, um, but that's the change is, is just so many of my guys even get caught up in the day to day windshield view and they don't step

back and go, okay, what's actually best for themselves, for their families, for, um, and for the company, because they're just so focused on the, that one job.

So.

Yeah.

Is there something that has significantly changed the way you view it or the way you look at it in your leadership journey?

I know there's a few things that when I first started in business, I was pretty judgmental of other contractors, other business people.

And as my business has grown, as I've matured, my view of those things has changed pretty significantly.

Is there something like that you can think of?

Give me an example.

uh

Ah, well, know, too, that spring to mind is, yeah, I started more as a practitioner and less of a business person.

And I used to look down on somebody that wasn't in the field as much, that they didn't have uh a feel for everything.

And you're going to lose control, lose quality.

If you're not in the field doing it, you just don't know what's going on.

And as my business has grown and that just hasn't become a reality, I think that shifted where I think...

building an appropriate culture, you can still maintain the quality and the control.

can still know what's going on without being the guy that's doing it every day.

So, I'll go opposite of that.

And you'll know where I'm going, is just as I've grown, as we've grown, and we've grown substantially in the last five years, it is sometimes hard to look down and, not hard,

it's very easy to be judgmental at someone who hasn't grown.

Hmm.

But then with...

books I've read, with the podcasts, with wisdom, I can also look into their situation and go, I can pinpoint why, I can understand why.

And again, you just said it that's what triggered me was the, it's control at the end of the day.

It is just this, oh it's this fear of not having control of the situation.

And again, we talk about comfort, you know, I talked about comfort zone, complacency.

oh

And it's just, so I...

Just try to help people.

mean, it's pretty awesome to, I mean, that's how you and I met was...

oh

is God's put me here to start passing on this information and to help in any little way, one little anecdote, one story, one saying, to help you or help whoever's listening.

oh That's, it's a...

That's what I enjoy doing now.

So it's.

But recognizing how people got to where they're at, absolutely.

I can see them now.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I think that's a mark of wisdom, not just in business, but with people.

The people that have really been through hard things, have fought through hard things, have a lot more compassion and are a lot more understanding of what others have been

through, maybe why they are the way they are.

Those that have really lived some life carry stuff with them and it shows.

yeah.

scars.

It's what you do with those scars.

You know what I mean?

So.

man, yeah.

What major mistake do you wish you could have avoided?

Pfft.

When I read that...

That's the...

I'm kind of blessed and I don't have the memory of an elephant, if that makes sense.

And so I don't, I struggle with that one.

trying to, sure, I mean, I've made hundreds of mistakes, but to go, what was that major mistake?

Because I uh adopted a statement a long time ago of, I'm we, and all my guys know it, we make mistakes every single day.

It's just, we will not make the same mistake ever again.

I want to learn from it when, you know, like I was telling you last week, it's, it's, you know, we're going through a season right now with some very significant financial losses

and, um,

And I make the, I make the team come to me and we just go through it.

Like, how did we get here?

And every single one of the losses was different, but we will put in practices and protocols to where it won't happen again.

And at the end of the day, it was Overwatch.

It just, we, we, we spread ourselves too thin.

Our, our leadership team wasn't watching the jobs and

jobs just got out of hand and that's what happened this season.

But it's just giving yourself enough grace, giving the guys enough grace, not losing your temper and letting them know that it's okay to fail.

We all fail.

We fail every day.

It's just don't make the same freaking mistake again.

Learn from it.

That's it.

tell my guys all the time they they will never make a mistake that cost this company as much money as I have cost us so When we make a mistake, let's sit down.

Let's talk about it Let's put something in place so we don't repeat it and then we move on so awesome well the

never put into

play a bonus structure like so many, you know, the consultant we hired a couple of years ago is like, oh, you got to put in a performance bonus structure.

And, you know, like we're selling cars or something.

And I couldn't get it through his head that the guys don't lose you money.

You lose money.

bidding the damn job in the first place.

It's all from the management side.

We didn't put enough money, we didn't take into account that the job was gonna start in March when it rains every fricking day ah when we're bidding it in August.

You know what I mean?

We don't take into account that the material is not going to spray in January in Boise, Idaho, when the average temperature is 10.

uh But those are the big lessons.

It's all on the estimating side.

That's where you win and lose.

Huh.

See, coming from more of the practitioner side of things, I see how much is won and lost at the job management side of things and scheduling, task direction, material management.

So I guess our company probably runs on almost the opposite philosophy is we put a lot of weight on our middle managers and the decisions that they make.

Cause like you said, the biggest mistakes are made in bidding, but that

That final efficiency that can make the difference between a big win or a mediocre job is often found on the job site.

So, yeah.

Well, the flip side of that question, uh, have you ever made a mistake that I call them a beneficial mistake, a mistake that ended up helping you learn something, helping you

change something, helping you put something in place that eventually led to success or helped you grow or.

ah develop.

Again, I thought of that one.

I'm like, ha, never been asked that.

oh

That one's tough, kiddo.

uh

Ha ha ha!

It's

because again every mistake we've grown from but um No, I should have told you to cancel that one

culmination of all the little ones huh?

I mean, I can think about all the jobs that have gone wrong and the protocols we've put into play, but then I'm like, what did we learn?

Like, did it change?

We adjusted, we adapted, but oh where it was a major benefit, not so much.

You know what I mean?

Like, no, I'm sorry on that one.

All right.

Well, that it's probably a good thing, but, uh I find a lot of entrepreneurs have have a story where, man, they made some huge mistake that just got twisted into a big win.

So I love asking that question because those are interesting stories.

I know you work with your wife.

You're both in the office together and run the company together.

Can you speak to that dynamic?

How does that work?

in the office, at home, does work get brought home?

Does how you interact change when you're at home versus when you're on the job?

Is that?

uh and again, I don't know any different if that makes sense.

It's uh because it's been so long if that makes sense.

it Reba has been you know, obviously the greatest thing to ever happen to me and uh I did not know

I'll make sure I cut that out and like use that in the social media clip.

We'll make sure she sees you saying that.

ah

But I married my opposite.

that's so having your wife in the business doesn't work for everybody.

And I get it.

ah It would not work for AJ and his wife, Beth, uh or Josh and his wife, Bailey.

Reba is my opposite.

And so she's our CFO and it started out innocently enough, all of the mom and pop companies out there where I'm running the company and she's a high school teacher and a

mom and uh Sunday night she's running payroll.

And then it, and then then.

Fortunately enough, the business is strong enough and she worked her ass off enough at teaching that we paid off her student debt.

She's able to come home in 06 and she gets to come home full time and she's going to be the teacher's assistant and do all the things with the kids and she did.

It's just we kept growing and

and it really became full time.

We damn near killed her in 22 and 23 during all the growth, because she was doing it all.

And she's that perfect balance for us.

brings that we've always run the company very Midwest style, I call it, where it's, don't leverage everything in one direction in order to try to get a win.

If we can do it, if we have...

If we have cash reserves, if we're going to be able to make payroll, you know, all those things, right?

um Then we'll do it.

And she's always been that rock that, that, that steadiness that uh keeps our ship afloat.

And it's funny, the guys all talk about when, when it comes time for us to retire, it's, it's, they're not worried about me leaving.

They're worried about her.

So, but our daughter is, uh

is

starting to fill those shoes and in a couple years she'll have it and be able to run with it.

But Reba, you asked about bringing it home.

mean, we wake

up in the morning and we work out together.

We have breakfast and then we go to the office and we're there all day and then come home and

And it's, we're around each other all the time.

Business, the kids have grown up with the business is talked about everywhere.

You know what I mean?

It's just part of, it's our life.

This generation is all concerned about work-life balance.

And it's like, yeah, the way you have work-life balance is that work is always there.

And life is always there.

You just do it all at the same time.

There's no turning it off.

You know what I mean?

uh But yeah, she's the greatest blessing in my life.

Absolutely.

So you can save that one.

Yeah, that's great to hear.

And you said 30 years you guys have been together?

30 years, yeah, we celebrated 30 years ah this year and uh yeah, should get another 30.

Should get another 30, I think, if she'll put up with me.

So.

That's awesome.

That's

awesome.

What was your biggest win as a leader?

You talked a lot about, you got really fired up talking about your guys buying homes, moving their lives forward, kind of developing things.

Is there a moment that has stood out that has kind of been your proudest moment as a leader?

I think I already talked about it.

It's the proudest moment as a leader is just that when we hit rock bottom in 13, that I didn't quit.

And we all know guys that have hung it up and went and got J-O-Bs and we didn't quit.

I reinvented myself.

I figured out that this version of Thai Stolar wasn't getting it done and I needed to, and that's also when I learned that this version of Thai Stolar needs to keep growing.

so as a leader, it's just the constant, constant growth.

oh

of reinventing, not reinventing, just reps.

It's like the weight room.

It's just keep doing the reps.

Just like shooting your bow.

Keep shooting your bow.

More reps and stacking Ws on top of each other.

uh But one particular moment, Again, at this age and this long in the business, Eric, you just kind of look back and go, huh?

It just, I didn't expect to be this successful.

just, and sometimes I look back and I'm like, it's just a fairy tale.

I, I'm, I'm, I look back and I'm like, huh, how do we get here?

And it's just, cause I didn't stop.

Does that make sense?

I didn't, I didn't, I just, every day was another, you just went, you know what I mean?

You just one foot in front of the other.

I mean, I'm using all the fricking.

coach speak right there, but uh it's, it's, that's, that's kind of how I did it.

Our friend Jim likes to say, you don't have to be the best, you just have to outlast the rest.

That's 100%.

I haven't heard him say

that, but that's it.

That's how I look back on everything.

When we moved to Oregon, we were the smallest.

We were the smallest caulking and waterproofing company here.

now, you know, and I look back up at these other two or three companies and now they're just shadows of what they used to be.

And their guys all want to come to work for us.

it's, we're just, yeah, stacking W's.

It's just, we keep doing what we do and the guys will want to join you and keep doing it as well.

So, yeah.

Awesome.

What gives you the motivation to keep going when things get tough and just to keep pushing?

Where does that come from?

Again, we talked about it a little bit, which is just that absolute fear of failure of letting everybody down.

Because again, I have enough money.

You know, the house is paid for like.

I'm OK, but they're not.

You know what I mean?

And it's just.

It's just.

uh

And then you do hit an age where you're just like, I have so much to give back.

so I'd be letting God down on my talents if I didn't give back.

that's the motivation.

And then...

And then I did, you know, another difficult time we had was we had a former employee that I hired came from the manufacturer's rep.

He was a manufacturer's rep and we brought him on and he's going to be a salesman.

We give him his own division.

And I knew going in that he was...

broken soul that he didn't ah just a bad background and and

And his employment here only lasted about six months.

and, and it just, it was pretty ugly there at the end because I just, thought our culture was strong enough to turn him, but the greed was, was just too great in his soul.

And, uh, and so thus he goes off and he hooks up with another company and builds him up and, just hurts us for a period of two years.

and I mean hurts us where there is nothing worse.

I quit counting at 8 million on lost jobs where we were second place.

And I know it went double that where it was second place, second place, second place.

And we're not like in the roofing business where you'll have, I shouldn't call it roofing business, but just.

We're not in a saturated market where there's 10 guys bidding.

There's only three of us.

And this guy took it all.

And that's when I, again, going through my Bible and I run into the Psalms of David and you just.

And I learned like, like, it's OK to pray against your enemies and let God do the work.

And just get it off of your conscience and off of your shoulders and just, God, this guy, this enemy is absolutely trying to destroy your company.

I need you to take care of him.

You know that I am a righteous man.

I mean, I'm going deep and it's some guys are going to listen to this and go, are you freaking kidding me?

But it got me through of just.

listening to David's dark times in the caves when Saul was chasing him and it's just like, yeah, that's what I leaned on was just, oh was, know, if David can do it, I can do it.

Yeah.

Great.

You talked a lot about kind of coming out of Sawtooth Independence Day and developing yourself as a leader, really becoming a leader for the first time.

Are there any key resources that you would recommend to somebody or anything that has had a particular weight in shaping your leadership?

Um

Again, the key.

uh

I already talked about it was the Dave Ramsey, Entre leadership stuff.

And nowadays what that's morphed into doesn't exactly apply to me.

And you and I talked about that already.

uh But at the time, going back 12 years was that stuff was so invaluable.

And then reading his book.

So I know it will relate to so many guys just.

Dive into that Entre Leadership book because it is literally a roadmap on how to run a company that they don't teach you in school, that your buddies and your friends can't tell

you how to go through the stuff that you're going through.

But Dave Ramsey in that silly book lays it all out just plain as day.

And I've read all the other books.

I mean, I've read Atomic Habits and all of Jaco's stuff.

um And at that point, those all just kind of stack on each other and enforce.

It's kind of like Legos.

I'm just like, building my walls of knowledge.

And so I'm always reading, you know.

always reading something that is going to better myself and then ah

Podcast wise I'm I've gotten more into the there's a great one out of Boise called ever onward uh with Tom Tommy out quest That I lean on and There's a lot of wisdom coming out

he interviews a lot of Influential people in the Boise market and I know it doesn't retain to or pertain to a lot of the guys but just the wisdom that these

Doers are, you know, they're all doing what we've done.

You know what I mean?

They're building their stuff and they've gone through the same.

They've made the same mistakes and whatnot.

But yeah, Jocko stuff is good, really good.

um And then I just finished, uh Dan Martell is a tech guy um out of Austin and he had a book in 23 called Bye-Back.

Buy Back Your Time and I wish I wish I would have read that five years ago, but I I just finished that one and we did it as a as a.

Old school like book club with with my management guys because AJ is.

absolutely has to be in control at all times.

And so our business now is in a bottleneck because AJ can't delegate and uh let other guys.

He just cannot handle somebody else failing.

even though he's watched me, where I'm like, they have to fail once in order for you to coach them through that failure.

And so we did that book as a group, as a team.

And there was so many nuggets in there of just...

tricks that you can use to just literally free up the practitioner mindset and go to more of a leadership mindset and buy back your time.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I like, I've heard it called the 70 % rule or the 80 % rule, either one.

If somebody can do it 80 % as well as you can, it's time to let them run with it.

so often through that book, I was like, I already do that.

I found that I, because of all of the things I've read and all the things that I've done, it wasn't new knowledge, but it was like, I shouldn't say it wasn't new knowledge.

It was just kind of like, I already do that.

I was already doing it.

And it's just like, okay.

But now Dan's writing it there in such a way that AJ can see it and...

uh

grasp onto it and make the adjustments we needed to.

The 80 % rule was a game changer because I'm like, that's how I've always ran it.

It's,

It's not that hard.

It's the 80 % rule for anybody that doesn't know what it is.

It's like 80 % of the task being done is worth 100 % of your time.

Am I getting that right?

That's similar to what I've heard.

That's probably Dan's version of it.

The version I heard was if they can do it 80 % as well as you can, you turn it over and let them take it.

yep, yep.

Yeah, similar principle.

So awesome.

Well, this is my favorite question.

You've talked a little bit about it.

I wanted to circle back one more time.

You've shared a little bit about your faith, that you are a person of faith and a Jesus follower.

How has that shaped your leadership and shaped the growth of your business?

The cool part is that...

The cool part is that I became a Christ follower about a year into the business.

And so I don't know any different, if that makes sense, um the business.

And it's a great story how I came to Christ was just, some people are probably gonna laugh.

It's a...

I wasn't an atheist, I just was an unbeliever, a non-believer.

And my wife grew up in the church and to prove to everybody that I was a non-believer, that when my daughter was baptized and Reba took her to our local church that she had been

attending for a couple of months and invited her whole family, I didn't go.

Because I'm like, I'm not going to church.

And then,

I was kind of a big NASCAR fan and and Dale Earnhardt died at at Daytona and And there was this like this moment The weeks after where I went You know life's life's a little fragile

and I'm this is 23 years ago.

No 24 years ago

And so Reba's getting up to go to church and I go, can I come?

And I go to church and immediately kind of taken in and uh it took about six months of just going.

uh one uh day they do an altar call and I remember, and we were all standing for some reason, ah like singing something.

And they do an altar call.

just like those old, old movies from the 20s where there's this gigantic cane where they would pull people off the stage and like this hook, I literally felt the hook pulling me

to the aisle to go, like it was just time.

uh And the coolest part from day one and then,

Half an hour, 40 minutes later, church is over.

We stop at the convenience store to fuel up on the way home.

And I felt the Holy Spirit.

I just felt everything enter me at that moment.

All the tingles, everything.

And I look back on my faith and it's...

I don't question it.

So many people struggle with their faith because they're always questioning different aspects of theology and religion and whatnot.

And it's just plain as day that Jesus gave his life for all of us.

And I don't question any of it.

And so I'm able to just move through life very innocently and diligently.

you just like one of his sheep, if that makes sense.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

What it has taught me then over the years is just patience and grace, um building the practices of Jesus, you know, my prayer time is kind of unconventional.

I'm looking out at the cold plunge and...

I guarantee you nobody prays like I do where I literally pray in the cold plunge because my mind can shut down and I just, I get to look out at our beautiful backyard and all of

nature and I just, I'm there with God and I just, and it's just, I'm free if that makes sense.

And I just start my day every day like that.

And then of course, the dopamine hits from the cold plunge and then the coffee hits and I'm just like, let's go.

What more do I need?

oh But it's, I've done church leadership, I've done back to...

oh

The other part of faith that it taught me was giving.

uh Because my faith was so simple and so many people get hung up on their money being theirs.

And I didn't.

Because I'm reading the Bible and I see plain as day that our first fruit should...

is obviously God's and should go to God to honor.

it's so I.

It was easy for me to tithe, if that makes sense.

And then and then the coolest part about tithing is just doing it.

And then you just look back and you go look at everything else that God blesses us with as soon as we do it.

And.

And it's going to take a lot for that one guy listening right now that's like, this guy is full of crap.

But the moment that you do it and you just let go and you tithe on the money that you make, it's just like, it is amazing how much more God blesses you with as soon as you are

free with that greedy heart, if that makes sense.

that stingy, stinginess that the Pharisees had, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I heard a quote.

I'm losing the reference right now.

I can't remember it, but it's one of my favorite quotes.

It says, if you don't believe money can buy happiness, you obviously haven't given enough of it away.

Solid.

Yeah.

Give giving uh giving money giving of ourselves serving others is really where happiness lies.

So yeah, I love that.

Awesome.

I am not a giver of time.

It it uh it is not, it does not make me happy oh serving, serving, but, oh but my gifts are, aren't there.

I mean, that's just not what it is.

And so I found out what my gifts were and that's what I, that's where I roll with it.

So yeah.

Well, it sounds like you do a lot of serving to the guys that work under you as well.

think serving can look like a lot of different things.

So awesome.

Well, you've mentioned the cold plunge that you work out every day, spiritual practices.

It seems like you put a fair amount of effort into taking care of yourself.

How important is that for a business leader when we're all so busy and things are going a million miles an hour and you have more to do than you can do?

How do you find time and how important is that?

And it wasn't always like this, obviously.

It's when I was first starting out, like I never even started working out until I was, you know, from high school to probably 38.

You know, I was just like the average American where, you know, we talk about dad bod and that's what I had, dad bod, you know?

Ha ha ha!

it and then when I really built the business five years ago and we started really climbing I remember I was doing CrossFit and I'm not a um there's a CrossFit gym and a great one in

our that they rent from us in our buildings and but I'm not really a CrossFit guy I I I'm more of just a lifting guy and uh

And I remember telling Faustino, I go, OK, we're going to go build this.

Reba and I decided we're going to go build this.

I don't have time to work out.

And I went like two years of, I call him fun time, where I ran the business.

The guys had come home from work, and I literally would drink beer.

I'd start drinking beer at noon.

and have beers at lunch, take a little bit of a break.

The guys that come home at three, oh drink with them, come home, watch Yellowstone or 1923 and uh have a Pendleton and Coke.

And I started counting it up and it's like, I'm up to 10 beers a day and at least two cocktails.

And...

ah

And then I had my little health scare and went in simply enough to get, uh as we all, as we get older, there's the lack of testosterone.

So I go, maybe that's what it is and go get that tested.

And, and found out my blood, my ferritin levels were absolutely off the charts, like off the charts.

none of the doctors had ever seen anything that high.

And, uh

which just makes your blood super, super thick.

And oh they're like, we're not going to give you testosterone.

And I go, give me the damn testosterone.

And the same CrossFit coach put me on a nutrition plan and it literally just, oh I just went through a four month transition or transformation where I just kind of.

just started making the habits and making the time for myself.

at the same time, I read a silly book from a Navy SEAL commander called Make Your Bed.

And again, there's nothing in that book that we haven't heard a hundred times.

But to this day, I make my bed every day.

Because it's just the, if I do that one thing and it's...

It's just stacking W's and I cold plunge because, you know, we've all heard Joe Rogan say it and it's like, don't let the inner bitch win the day.

And it's like, okay, I'm gonna go get in the cold plunge today, whether I want to or not.

And I did find, if anybody's listening that is even thinking about the cold plunge, it takes a month, but it is 100%.

It's not about the...

uh dopamine hit or it's not about the the true health benefits it is about the fight-or-flight instinct instincts that our body all has and now uh two years later I do

not get stressed out I kid you not I could have I could have major things happen in the company and I literally

I just, I can absolutely stay calm and control myself because of the brain chemistry is working the way it should.

ah but, um, again, as leaders, you have to do this stuff.

We, we, don't put in the time for it, but we have to do this stuff, um, in order to

in order to...

to get the words right, Eric.

to fulfill ourselves because the business will always be the business.

You'll have dumb employees every Monday that call in sick.

You'll have GCs that don't have the job ready when you show up and you just wasted half a day's drive to get there.

um But by taking care of yourself and having the practices in play.

literally just set you on a pathway to where, okay, I took care of myself, everything else.

My marriage is the best it has ever been.

My relationship with the kids is the best it's ever been.

I'm the happiest I've ever been.

So it's all just with little, I mean, it's a what, hour and a half a day.

So that's what I do.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, we're getting close here.

I have a few more questions.

um You've been building your business five years.

You said that it's really kind of grown up.

It's blowing up.

You're in multiple markets.

You've been doing this 25 years now.

What's next?

It is...

I'm 53 and I kind of have this landing spot of I want to go out in a perfect world.

I want to go out when I'm 60.

But even now I'm struggling with I ask guys, I ask older guys like, what do you do with your time?

Because I'm not going to golf.

Like, I love golf.

can, I can.

I can see the golf course right now out the window.

It's a mile, you know, it's right over those trees right there.

But I see the guys.

I can't do that every day.

I.

There's only so much you can travel.

There's like, I don't know what I'm going to do or, you I don't know why I would pick a date of when I'm going to get off the train.

I'm I'm I kind of picked one of it'll be when I'm 60.

ah But.

without grandkids yet.

And that's back to the, when I ask guys what they do, it's, it's the grandkids change everything is what I'm told.

Um, and I cannot wait right now.

I just have grand hounds and they, but, um, it, uh, business wise, is

It is just hammering down the message of we're going to continue to grow, to create more seats on the bus for more guys.

going to, um we made some changes, again, life lessons of, um we just implemented uh getting rid of the little jobs.

Again, this may be relatable to some fellas, but.

um

But take this number, we billed 2.5 million last month and billed 94 jobs.

and hit the point of like, that's why we started losing money is, uh or that's why we've had our losses is it's just too many jobs.

And so we kind of implemented uh a floor.

And so, you know, we were catching a couple of our PMs were uh billing $900 jobs and.

And it's like a $900 job takes just as much PME, project manager energy, as a $20,000 job.

It just does.

It takes that much.

It takes the same amount of scheduling, mind power, material, gathering, know, all the things, all the things we all know.

And so we kind of set this floor of...

15 to 20 grand and we're going to go after larger jobs.

uh the goal is that next year we will actually go brick and mortar into Salt Lake oh officially.

They're having just as much growth as Boise and we know.

It'll be a fight going down there.

I'm not expecting to have the same results as we have in our current market, but I know that we can go down there and, and uh again, just using everything that we've always done

be successful.

um And then another opportunity that's popped up that again, and that's how, at the very beginning, you talked about the job that we shared last year is that we have figured out

how to go on the road.

when so many other companies can't.

And it's, we can put guys on a plane and have them, you know, have them fly into Wyoming and we can be working on a data center in Cheyenne.

I mean, that's kind of the goal.

And, you know.

Only one guy has to drive over.

We just leave the truck over there and just fly in and out of Cheyenne.

a lot of guys just get hung up on, you know, they think that their market is just their market.

And if you're good at what you do, you take these larger mega projects and it's, just, they need us more than we need them.

And...

uh

And so when we found our margins are just incredible when we do this, obviously we pay our people very well.

pay $100 a day per diem on top of, and we get them the Airbnb and on top of that.

that's really almost a, I mean, they just got to pay for their own food at that point.

I don't want to sell the company, which is very common.

There's too many people that have been in the trenches with us.

I don't want to just pass that on to another outfit that doesn't care about the guys like we do and did.

And so I'd rather do it like you did where it's, it's, we're.

So what we ended up doing is we, uh and Josh are minority owners.

And then eventually our daughter will be, she'll start taking our shares, if that makes sense.

um And so I never thought about Legacy.

It was never a concern.

Again, this was always just a cash cow of, this was uh just a little caulking company, you know?

uh But now,

We have something pretty damn special.

And so just maintaining that culture and.

taking care of the people, but conveying the message of growth is what it takes.

I wish I could say hey.

We're just gonna take a big ol breather and we're gonna stay right here and we're just going to take care of our stuff and build our war chest but it's.

You gotta go where the opportunity comes.

You can't be afraid, you know what mean?

Yeah, that's the entrepreneur spirit there.

that's kind of the Reba is on a different plan and this will be a good Reba's on a different plan.

She started her second master's degree uh two years ago and she has about she's halfway through in divinity, I think.

And I'm probably getting that wrong, but it's through Liberty University.

uh with, and she doesn't know where God's going to lead her.

I have the business plan already drawn up.

She just won't listen to me, but she is an incredible speaker and teacher in the women's ministry world.

Very much like our friend uh Jim, where m

She can just walk into that.

She can walk on that stage and just give, tell stories and create a curriculum that just really relates to these ladies.

And I'm like, babe, you've helped me every step of the way.

It's just, I'm ready to jump in the motor home and we'll just go, you

we'll do a ladies conference in Birmingham and then run up to Nashville and we'll just take the show on the road uh and preach your message and help these ladies find their true

selves and you know, but uh we'll see where that goes.

when she decides to step away in two to three years, then you know, we'll see where it goes.

uh

But right now we're just really, Eric, we're just really happy.

We're very blessed.

Good.

That's awesome.

ah Who would you like to see on the show?

there somebody that has an awesome story or a cool industry you'd like to learn more about?

you have any ideas of somebody we could invite on the show?

uh You're gonna laugh it's it's

Yeah, there's one that would be interesting.

It's our insurance guy.

And I've yet to meet this guy.

But our insurance guy.

oh

has, like we're collaborating with this fella up out of Vancouver called Pacific, his name's Mike, owns Pacific Foundations.

uh they are in Hawaii and all over the West.

They just opened up in uh Boise and they just take these gigantic machines and they...

with the augers and they just literally build these monster.

They've been out at Micron the whole time and he did it differently than we've done it.

I mean, he came from an engineering background and it's just, I would love, in fact, AJ and I are going up there in the next month.

It's nothing set in stone, but we were just literally gonna go up and just find out how did you build it?

You know what I mean?

And then,

Yeah.

um And then exactly one year ago today.

um

Dad used to do this in the turkey business.

That's where I got the idea, is he would travel back to North Carolina or Minnesota.

Those are kind of the hotbeds of the turkey industry back in the 80s.

And uh he'd just go back and see how guys were doing it.

And again, in our world, it's so hard to go do that because guys think that you're going to steal their ideas or you're going to be competition.

And so I came across an outfit on LinkedIn and out of Southern California, out of Orange, California, called Mark Beamish Waterproofing.

And it's second generation now.

Adam runs the company.

And I knew that we would never be competition because there's no damn way Sawtooth is ever going to the great state of California.

That's the one license we will never go get.

I ah call up Adam, and we hit it off so well.

And then I load up my team, and we flew down there.

And he's right there by Disneyland.

And we spend the full day.

And we just ask him.

And again, I went down there just to.

fix our estimating program.

I'm like, we are missing opportunities.

we have, we aren't collecting any of our data worth a crap And I just, it's just one of those things as an owner, you're just like, you know, something's wrong.

And so we go down there and the coolest fricking thing happened is, is, uh

He takes us behind the scenes and we figure out really quick that even though we do a lot of the same things, we don't and it's relatable but not relatable.

uh

But he, over lunch he goes, you know, I've just, I've been doing this a long time and I ran into a tech buddy of mine and I want to start a tech company that helps

subcontractors.

And so the plug is, for anybody listening, is SubSmart is the company he created.

And we're one of his first, you we're helping him build it.

And it's literally going to be a platform that from the invitation to bid, when it comes in, it goes into the system.

Our estimators assign it to an estimator.

We run the whole proposal.

Everything's done on that platform.

Goes to the project managers to uh put their stamp of approval, goes out.

We get the job.

Then it goes to the project, the assistant project managers.

do the submittals and then it literally goes out into the field.

Everybody's able to put all their pictures, uh all the drawings are all on one platform.

Even the billings will all be on one platform.

I'll literally be able to be sitting on a beach, pull up my phone, hit the app and know what our win rate is currently on all of our jobs.

m

And it's those types of blessings where you just kind of put yourself out there, which is what you're doing right now.

But it's like, that is the game changer of that's going to separate us from that, you know, being the mom and pop of where we have all that information and we're able to just,

instead of having four different Excel programs and mistakes made, you know, all the things that we've all gone through our whole lives.

and is all going to be under one tech platform is just incredible.

Adam Beamish would be, he's flying in and uh flying in in two weeks.

We've become great friends, but just doing the same thing that you and I are doing right now.

So Adam Beamish and then uh Mike at Pacific Foundations, those would be great for you to bring on.

Yeah.

Well, if you don't mind making an introduction, I'd love to give them a pitch and get them on if we can.

That sounds great.

I want to get on that app.

That would be great.

Yep, we go live and we're already on it from the estimated standpoint, but uh it fully goes live like January 1st.

So I'll let you know.

So we're excited.

Awesome.

Well, our last question here, I don't know if we're fueling or settling the debate, but everybody argues over the best cordless tool.

What's your go-to?

In our world, uh there aren't many options uh that pertain to us.

But uh Milwaukee, they came out with a caulking gun.

And that was a game changer for us because it's all on the M18 battery system.

uh talk about taking care of your guys because...

In the caulking world, our guys have these forearms that are twice as big as their left arm.

You know what I mean?

And all of a sudden we're just flying through the material now.

so we're big red here, just like all of our trucks are all red.

So it's all Milwaukee.

Is that the right answer for you or what?

Personally, I'm a DeWalt guy, but uh I don't do caulking, so.

to each his own.

Well, thank you so much.

This really has been a pleasure.

I've looked up to you from afar for a long time and have enjoyed getting to know you over the last couple of years.

I really appreciate you coming on the show and just telling us about yourself.

We want to just give the world an eye into the guys that run blue collar businesses.

I think it can still be done today.

I think there's a lot of leaders in the next generation that have

huge opportunity to dive in and be an entrepreneur and build an incredible life in the blue collar space.

So thank you.

I really appreciate this opportunity.

This was great and uh hopefully I didn't talk too much.

And if anybody listening wants to reach out to me, feel free and you can find me at Sawtooth Fortified.

And I would love to help anybody just answer a silly little question if they got it.

Because more than likely I've made that mistake and uh I can help them through.

But stay in touch, OK?

All

Will do.

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Keep grinding.