From West Point to Fueling CEO: Drew Williams' Business Buying Journey

Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Still Searching with Jed Morris. I'm your host, Jed Morris, and today, we are speaking with Drew Williams, president and CEO of Harper Fueling Solutions, based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. Drew is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he went on to be a cavalry officer in the world's best army, and then afterwards joined the University of Notre Dame for his MBA at the Mendoza College of Business. So, Drew, happy to have you on the show. Thanks, Jed. Appreciate it. Awesome. Well, let's get started just by hearing a little bit about your background, preferably the pre-Military Academy days. Like, where are you from and who are you? Sure, yeah. So, I'm a Michigander. I was actually born in D.C., but my dad is an automotive engineer from the University of Maryland. And, you know, back in the '80s, '70s, and '80s, not a lot of automotive engineering going on at D.C. It's probably different now with a lot of the defense

contractors. So, the only place to go is to Detroit. And so, that's where I spent my growing up years in high school. So, you know, and I think that's given me a lot of kind of my mechanical and engineering background as having lived in D.Town and always appreciated cars. And it's actually funny. My dad was a Jeep engineer. So, always had Jeeps in the family. And I think that's what spurred me on to go in the Army and drive around on tanks is that mechanical inclination. Now you're speaking my language. I'm a Jeep Wrangler owner myself in a prior life. There you go. That was my first car. And so, it's, I feel like I've graduated. So, now I've got a Grand Cherokee, so. All right, fair enough. Maybe one day you'll graduate even further and move on to the Rubicon. Yeah, maybe. I, well, it's a side note. I don't know if I could drive on the highways anymore with that wheelbase and not hearing anyone and having any conversations in the Wrangler,

but they sure are fun to have at the beach or the mountains. That's right. Yeah. Comfort definitely takes precedence and priority the older you get. You're like, "Yeah, I'd like to hear my radio." I want my lower back to work when I get out of the car. So, I'm gonna have a nice leather seat in the Grand Cherokee. When I was a young staff sergeant, it was always about taking off the doors, taking off the roof and just enjoying the sunshine. And now I've got a four-year-old and a two-year-old and the idea of taking off the doors isn't quite as exciting. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, but yeah, so that landed me and then off to New York for four years. And I did five years after graduation in Colorado Springs and then did the five-and-fly service cadmium-wise and decided I wanted to go do engineering in the real world. I used the JMO recruiting firm, Cameron Brooks, to get me a role as a maintenance and reliability engineer for a little while up in the Midwest and then decided to go pursue the MBA at Notre Dame. So, putting me in the Midwest

and South Fender in the middle of it. Wow. All right, well, hey, back up just a little bit there, because, okay, so you went to the Military Academy at West Point and then served as Calvary Officer, you said in Colorado for about five years, got out, did some more manufacturing before ultimately ending up at a University of Notre Dame. Now, you and I were veterans, you know, you went to the Academy, I did not, but I trip over people who went to the Academy all the time. And so, for the normal layperson, like, what made you want to actually go to the Military Academy, especially at West Point? Do you have a family history of service? Sure. So, sort of, probably like a lot of folks, grandfather was a World War II vet. Actually, I should say World War II vet and a military retiree. So, that's where that's why my family was in D.C. is he worked at the Pentagon for his entire career, where the rest of his career after being demobilized from World War II. So, but beyond that, I had no other family that's in the service. But again,

on my dad's side, actually, my dad's the exception. All the other, all my aunts and uncles are all federal employees, or were, I should say they're retired now, but we're all pretty much federal employees on it. So, yeah, so not a lot of service connection. Like, you know, I didn't have a brother or sister or even, you know, my parents serve. But it's funny, when I was making the college decision, it really came down to I wanted a good engineering education, which any of the service academies had. And the civilian schools I applied to, I got into a couple engineering schools. The other ones I got into the just general like University of Michigan, I got into their LSA, or so I was going to do economics or something, but I really felt called to do engineering. And obviously, West Point famously is the first engineering college in the U.S. And so I thought it was good. Now, I will tell you, here's the funny part is, so I spent a weekend

at Colorado Springs. I spent, I did the summer seminar at Annapolis. And then the last visit I made was to West Point. And I'm sure the guy I stayed with, the plea that year that I stayed with, he's got to be like a pharmaceutical sales guy. I'm sure he's a multi-millionaire, you know, high executive or enterprise executive at Microsoft or something, making almost a million dollars a year. He said, "When you go to Annapolis, when you go to Colorado Springs, what do you see?" And I'm like, "Hey, you see B-52, there's a phantom at Colorado Springs. There's torpedoes and a mast and stuff at Annapolis." He's like, "Well, do you see any tanks here at West Point?" I was like, "Well, you're right. There is it." He's like, "What do you see?" I was like, "Statues?" He's like, "Statues, a few who?" And I'm like, you know, "Generals." He's like, "That's right, because Army is about leadership of people, and that's what matters." And I was like, "Okay." So,

so anyway, so we try, you know, beyond that sales pitch about leadership, which, you know, not to minimize, you know, any other service. I mean, the military overall is the best leadership development organization out there. You know, it's been doing it for 200 and whatever many years, so they've got it down to perfection. But so yeah, so engineering, leadership, and that's why I ended up choosing West Point. Okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Sounds like the Cleveland had quite an impact on your career choices there. Can't remember his name, but I'm like, I swear he's got to be, he's got to be some high level medical device sales guy. So don't fly high. Don't sail the seas. No, no, complete people. Well, it's funny. So I look back on that, and when I was up in Ohio working for the chemical company, I hired so many Navy nukes and Air Force avionics folks because they had real skills, right? And so like, if I hired an infantryman from the Army, I'm like, yeah, you have no skills that

I can, you know, put, you know, I got a bunch of training, whereas I can still a Navy nuke or a machinist mate or, you know, avionics guy from the Air Force and from the work the very next day. See, you demonstrated your skills there because, yeah, they may have had those specific technical skills, but now here you are building the team. So yeah, leading people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it was good. So I mean, and I also think that being on the armor side and not on the infantry side, just, you know, you have a certain level of, you know, mechanic skills that you need, you know, when you're through a track on a tank, you know, it's, it's not rocket science, but you do need to have a little bit of a mechanical ability so you don't hurt yourself and get your, get your track back on your tank. So you spend five years mostly in Colorado as a cavalry officer. And yeah, one of the, yeah, one of those years was a deployment. Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, that makes sense. So I say that because, you know, because nowadays is there's no ones, you know,

people are going to Poland for nine months, which I'm jealous. Obviously with you, you're an eyes time, you know, if there wasn't at least one deployment in there, then you'd be shocked. Yeah, don't even get me started. I deployed twice as an Air Force finance troop. And at the time, my brothers, both in the Marines, both Avion, like one of them was Avionics technician. The other did communications and they did deployments, but they went on these like Pacific tours, but they go to the island during all these exercises and, you know, experience the fun stuff. Whereas like, I was like, you know, I'm sitting in Qatar for six months, like sweating my butt off. So anyway, yeah, it's, yeah, different strokes for different folks. But the, but yeah, anyways, I say that just because it's crazy nowadays that there's not this constant, you know, that people don't have patches anymore. It's weird. Yeah, it is. And it's funny how like, you know, when I first got in, it was the opposite. Most of the older guys, none of them had patches at all, you know, and I remember going through basic and my instructor had told me, he's like,

you guys are probably, you need to be prepared to deploy within six months of getting your first duty station. And I was like, there's no truth to that. And sure enough, I was gone within two months. Yeah, I think any '03 or any like E6 were above that didn't have, or even E5 above that didn't have a patch back in 2006, you know, to 2010, it's like, you know, what were you doing? Exactly. So, okay, so Farron, you're in Colorado for those years, home duty, one of those years deployed. It sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you went to the West Point because you wanted that engineering school experience, and the military was a way of doing that. And so you never, you never considered doing being a 20 year guy, you always knew you're kind of going to do your one term and then kind of get out, right? I think it was a play by ear, right? More or less. I mean, I think the decision, so I was also kind of, we were on the surge. So we were Iraq surge folks, and we got home and

immediately, Afghanistan surge was happening. And, but this was also at the time when the army was like, hey, we also need to remember how to fight the Russians on the Chinese. And so we know you're on the patch, you're going to go walk, you know, the Argandam Valley in Afghanistan. But by the way, we want you to do a full and high intensity conflict train up and do gunnery because you're tankers, and that's what you guys need to know, and we can't forget about it, which I get. But that just meant that our entire year that we're supposed to be home, we are now on the field doing gunnery, right? And I had my wife and I, who's also was in the army. We had both our boys, Nathan, my youngest was just born. And so we had two small kids. And I remember we were lucky, we lived at an Air Force base. So we learned on where the good living was. And so we lived at Shriver Air Force Base. And the kids were going to the Child Development Center there. And we ended

up having to ride a waiver, because we're both officers for our kids to be in daycare for 60 hours a week. And my wife and I looked at each other and said, you know, our kids only have one dad, our kids only have one mom, I love the service that we did. But like, this is not the life that we never want for our family. And so yeah, so it was more or less played by the air. You know, wife and I had a lot of detail thought, because we thought like, maybe she gets out and then I stay. She hated, she didn't hate. She knew she was out after five. Wasn't the right fit, is the right fit? Yeah, yeah. She enjoyed it, but she knew she was done, you know, where I was kind of, you know, on the fence post. So anyways, well, I guess the moral of the story is, you know, I enjoyed the engineer, I enjoyed engineering, I actually almost branched engineers who are going to go in the core of engineers, you know, after I did kind of my combat time as a junior officer. But you know, I had always, my dad had given me Harvard Business Reviews.

And I remember being a Chrysler guy, he gave me Lee Iacopa's book, right. And so I got a little taste of the business side of the world. And he was also a subscriber of Business Week for, I don't know, forever. And so I'd always read those type of articles. And it kind of spurred me on that I said, Hey, you know what, let me go try my hand in the greatest economy of the world. So that was kind of what the poll was. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a story that resonates personally with me. And I think with a lot of people, you know, when you're kind of in that six to 10 year spot in your service time, and, you know, you're married, you probably have a couple of young kids, and you're looking at, Hey, do I want to keep my kids in the CDC for 60 hours a week? Or do I want to take advantage of this a little bit and step back and put the family first? Yeah, it's a big decision. I see a lot of people making that same choice, because it's tough. And, you know, I don't know how dual military couples do it. We had a couple of mentors that

were both lieutenant colonels. And I didn't see it. I mean, they made it work. You could argue that they were kind of before all the deployment times. But, you know, God bless them and, you know, to the military brats that are halfway successful, if not, you know, great kids out of it with both parents serving. But yeah, it just wasn't something that we did. And I just felt like that the economy was calling. Yeah, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. It's what's right or wrong, you know, for you and your family in that specific situation. Sure. And also hindsight is, you know, I was asked, you know, to consider coming back and teaching at West Point, which is a good, at that point, was a good way to kind of, I call it taken to me, but, you know, although, yeah, that's pretty credible. Yeah, well, I mean, so, so that, I mean, there's also a lot of other things in the army that I guess I didn't fully appreciate that you could do that wasn't like, you know, that, well, I guess part of the problem, and you probably saw this in the Air Force, and

I'm sure it's the same in the Navy is, you know, everyone has to end up, you know, commanding a battalion, everyone has to command a brigade, you know, you need to strive to be a division commander, right? I'm sure in the Air Force like, hey, you know, if you're, if you're an NCO, you need to be a superintendent, you need to be a squadron superintendent, right? You have to be, you know, your group superintendent, stuff like that, right? Whereas there's some people that like, no, I just want to be an ITI, you know, or I just want to be, you know, a planner or a strategist or whatever else, or a teacher at that academy or a teacher at the war college or something. So, you know, I probably didn't, you know, I probably didn't fully appreciate or talk to more folks about it. That may have what kept me, because I just knew that I was like, yeah, maybe I'll do a company command, but I was honest, and I said, I have zero desire to be a battalion commander. And so that was like, if I don't want that, and the big army is telling me like, that I should want that, I think that

disconnect, you know, also led me to think about going to the outside. Yeah, it's a misalignment of where you want to go. And, but that's actually really good insight, though, because, you know, we never make decisions with perfect information. It's really important to kind of see, all right, well, if I go this route based on what I know, you know, what career path am I setting myself up for. And when you can see, you know, the Lieutenant Colonel 10 years ahead of you and say, all right, that's my future, that's where I'm headed. And then you get to make a decision, do I want that? And there's no guarantee you're going to get there. But that is, that is kind of the milestone, that flag in the sand, you know. And so, you know, you may not always have the right information or all the information, but you just make the best decisions you can with what you have. And I would like you, I remember looking up one day, I was a 10 year Master Sergeant, and I was like, all right, well, I can either keep moving down towards this chief road and be like, this individual 10 years from now, or I can commission and, you know, go down the Mustang route, be like this captain in a few years, you know, but I knew it was very clear what those paths looked like. There's nothing wrong with that, but not for me. Sure. Yep, yep. And to each their

own. And, you know, God bless the people that want to make it occur and do well with them. Yeah, exactly right. All right, so you've decided to get out. As you're transitioning out, what was that process like? Do you feel like you were prepared for it? You feel like, you know, it was just bumping your head in the dark, left and right, you know, looking back on your previous self, what's one or two pieces of guidance you would have gave yourself? Sure. I wish I would have talked more with the folks that had gotten out a year or two ahead of me, some of my buddies. I wish I would have picked their brain more. You know, I guess 20, so I got on 2011. You know, there wasn't a lot of LinkedIn had just come out. Some of those mentor opportunities were still kind of new, like veteranity, which I think just closed out, but some of those other like ACP was just developing. I think it would have been nice to have a mentor to help guide me on some of it, I think would have been better. But I'll tell you what, I was also, my exit was pretty fast because, like I said, my

unit was going to Afghanistan when I told them that I was resigning. It was, you know, get Captain Williams off the books as quick as possible because we mean, you know, someone in that seat to deploy. Yeah, and it's like, you know, I would be selfish. You'd be like, well, I should have taken my time, but the reality is, you know, the big army and the world needed, you know, some of the film, backfill me. So, and so I will tell you, like the camera Brooks, their development program that they have, right, that's kind of their proprietary reading list and workbooks that they have did a great job of getting me ready to transition out. You know, they had us read like lean thinking. It's another one, like financial intelligence from managers, which is a Harvard business school book, strategic selling anyways, kind of like your fundamental,

if someone gave you 10 books and say, read these, it's like a mini MBA is, you know, what some people call, but if you read these 10 books and get these, you know, five or six items per book, you'll be able to speak the language and talk intelligently at interviews, then you'll be a success. And so going through their process, I think really helped me to get at least my mind right and be able to talk the lingo that folks at the numerous, and I'll be real, like I spent two days at 12 interviews in two days. I mean, that time of, you know, compressed timeline, you can only get through those type of their model, right? And I was in front of Goldman Sachs, I was in front of Ernst & Young, the company that I ended up signing with, the Lindy Group is the largest industrial gas manufacturer in the world. So I mean, they Boston Scientific, I don't remember who else I had, but anyways, I had some really great,

large companies that were looking for talent. And I had 12 interviews, ended up having three kind of follow-up interviews after that, out of those 12. And then, yeah, then end up signing to go be a maintenance reliability engineer up in Wisconsin with Lindy. So yeah, so anyways, that really prepped me, I think, did it. Nowadays, you know, with the internet and job boards and LinkedIn and stuff, could you do some of that yourself? I think you could a little bit easier. But again, a lot of, like the Amazon pathways for, like Johnson & Johnson has the military rotation program, those are still in the infancy, right, on it. So I mean, you could probably figure out the sales, but in 2020 or 2011, the Cameron Brooks program was great. Yeah, the fundamental process remains the same, like finding somebody who can be a solid mentor for you, you know,

whether free or paid, and identifying somebody who's like, you know, just a few steps ahead of where you want to go. And that really takes, you know, a responsibility on the service member to think, all right, well, you know, where do I want to go after this? You know, and say, hey, you know, because there's a thankfully now, you know, we have things like LinkedIn and, you know, countless nonprofits and other organizations right out there to help you. But they can only help you do the things that they're designed to do. And so if you don't take the time to, like, critically think through, like, where do I want to land after this? I see a lot of veterans go to the MBA program just so they can try to figure that, figure that part out. There's nothing wrong with that makes a lot of sense. And I hear that a lot. And again, if I've written a couple posts on LinkedIn about the MBA as a way to transition out, and it is a way, it definitely is a way, it's also an expensive way, it's also a time consuming way to do it. It's not for everyone, because I've definitely seen people,

you know, realize that they probably didn't need it, right? And again, you know, it's something to be said about, you know, if that's what you want to do. But if you're not going to the business, then right, there's, you know, you end up teaching or coaching or something. Yeah, you don't need it. But yeah, I think, I think my two cents is, you know, to veterans that are getting out. My advice is to talk to talk to as many folks, whether that is your buddies that have gotten out, you know, six months to a year or two years ahead of you, and have successfully gotten out, right? Don't talk to the guy that's still on his, you know, parents, you know, parents' basement. But also, then use ACP or some of those other mentor stuff and grab people's. And it's something that's not natural to veterans, right? Because we're all typing, you know, go getters, we want to do well.

And we're so used to, I think there's also some nervousness too. We're so used to, like, if you're an NCO or a commission officer, you know, and you go to, you know, basic non-commissioned officer school or, you know, squadron officer school or work college or any of those, like, at that point, you're used to more often than not passing, right? We're doing great. Where you have NCOERs or OERs that are, you know, middle of the pack, we're better, right? Well, when you go into the civilian world and you're applying for jobs, like, you know, nine out of 10 times, you're gonna get declined. It's just, it's the nature of the beast. Like, it's just like folks that are in sales, like, you just get used to kind of getting, not failure, but I think you view any nose as a failure. And so I think there's some nervousness of veterans that as they're trying to get out, they don't want to ask for help. And they're a little nervous to ask for help. Because you've

never had to ask for help, you know, your entire military career, really, right? Because your team leader or where your, your first sergeant or someone was always there to, whether it was, you know, a slap upside the head or not, but even someone was there to help you out. Yeah, and not just there to help you out, but you're on a defined path, right? So like, that's one of the great things about being in the military, we all talk about the structure. Well, there's structure, it's a defined path. And so you may need some guidance on that path, but at least you know you're on the path. And the great thing about America and capitalism and being on your own is that you can just do whatever the hell you want. You really can. And it's amazing how the world is kind of your oyster that way. But at the same time, you know, if you haven't taken the time to really think through the opportunities, the possibilities, and you can, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and just not make a decision. So yeah, it's, it is good though. I'm excited about seeing, you know, veterans transition out and then being able to take advantage of a lot of the freedom that they worked so hard to help protect. Like, look, there's a lot of freedom out there.

Go, go enjoy some. Yep. Yeah, I, it's funny you talked about, I think one of the learning curves that I had is, you know, you're so used to the military having an instruction manual, and it touches on your point that you were just talking about, it's, you know, where the world's your oyster is. Yeah, and there is no instruction in, right? I would go to these large chemical plants, and I was expecting an SOP. Well, you know, there's certainly much that they had them, but, you know, there's a lot of things that didn't have an SOP. Whereas in the army, everything had an SOP, right? There was, there was an R-TEP or an FM or something that was always out there. And I always had to remind myself is, you know, the army's been doing it since 1776, right? So, you know, you could document over 300 something years, you know, you can, you can document something. We're 250 years, you can document something. And not just that, the military is, is required to document that at the lowest level possible, because we're, we're bringing in people from all over the place. We have to take

anybody and train them up to that level. So very different from having a private enterprise where I get to hire, you know, who I think is the best fit. Sure. And, and also by the way, the military has a bunch of contractors and guess, guess who gets to write all these things is all these, you know, government contractors that are out there in addition to it, right? So, you know, and so, so, but when you come to like the industrial gas business, I mean, the technology is always emerging. You know, the plant I was in was built in '96, which, which, you know, is, you know, compared to some aircraft. Yeah, it's like actually, you know, somewhat modern, right? And then, I mean, and we were building new plants with, with, you know, the same basic technologies, but, but, you know, there's a lot of advances. And so, in every plant was customizable, it wasn't like every, you know, ship is, we're at 16, you know, models, all the exact same, right?

We had various, you know, anyways, we had 24 plants and I think only two or three of them were, were twins to each other. And so, right, there wasn't all these processes. And so, that, that, that took a little while. Learning curve is okay. When I'm trying to learn something, again, in the army, there was a book on how to, you know, an FM or something that I could say, you know, counterinsurgency, right? General Petraeus famously wrote the counterinsurgency FM in the army. Well, let me go learn about it, right? And so, I went to, you know, the, whatever, the digital library and I could pull that out. But when, when you're in the civilian world, yeah, when you get investment banking, like there is no playbook, right? Yeah. And it's great, because I think you're touching on something, because this is, we're talking about your time at Lindy. You were there for about seven years after getting out of the army, industrials. And if the, I don't know a whole lot about Lindy, what they do, because I'm not in the space, but you're working industrials. Is it oil and gas or is it just gas? Chemicals. Chemicals.

Okay. So, you're in chemicals. And, but one of the things you just touched on is what I think is, well, at least can be one of the best superpowers of a lot of veterans who transition, because if you're in, again, some people are good, some people are bad, but the ones who are good, they're used to going from duty station to duty station, from special duty to special duty. And regardless of what your job is, they have to learn something brand new at every single one of those stops. And basically quickly, that'd be very, very quick, you know, to get up to speed. And so that's one of the advantages of having somebody like yourself where like, all right, now I'm at Lindy, now I'm working in chemicals. And I don't have all the SFPs I used to have, you know, but there are people, there are some processes, now it's up to me to get up to speed as fast as possible. Having that kind of experience in being flexible and self-education is vitally important. Well, and we were a 24/7, 365 plant that was tied to a steel mill, right? And penalties were, for every hour we were down, it's about a million dollars of a

penalty for, yeah, for non-performance. And so one thing I implemented, and I brought this in from my military time, is battle drills. And so we had, you know, if a breaker was thrown, what are step one, two, three, four, five, six, do we do? And if, you know, if it's freezing weather, weatherization, what's our weatherization battle drill? So if we've got, you know, this is up in Ohio, so if it's negative, you know, 20 degrees outside, what do we need to do before that winter storm comes? And so yeah, so we end up building a battle, you know, just like any talk head, or any sort of CIC head, is we had the battle drill book. And so it was sitting on the desk in the control room, and guys could flip it open and be like, okay, it's 2am, I'm here by myself,

Drew, my boss is racked out at home. Let me try to go through this before I give him a call, right? And that was one of the things I told the guys is, you know, hey, I'm never gonna get pissed off if you can explain at the time what you're thinking was and why you thought that was the best course of action, right? And that's just like any other good commander would in the military is, you know, you get shoot out, but if you sit then you explained, hey, this is what I was looking at, boss, this was the context I was working in, this is what I thought was best. And so anyways, proud to have brought that kind of leadership development mentality, you know, to the to the chemical business. Yeah, it sounds like it was beneficial for everybody, because you're able to bring a little bit more, a little bit of structure, a little bit of contingency operations, a little bit more of those written SOPs to Lindy, and at the same, and so that helps them obviously, but at the same time, it helps you because now you're able to test your army experience in the private sector, like, hey, how does this actually translate to a business environment? What does,

what doesn't? Yeah, you knew who the most frustrated with that transition was, was the navy nukes on hire, because they're so used to having everything documented and triple checked in QC QA, which, you know, they have to, right? And that's why they're make amazing employees afterwards. But, but they were the ones that were like, why don't we have an SOP for this? I'm like, you're right. Right one. Yeah, let's, let's go, let's go, let's go work on it. So yeah, that makes sense. I mean, especially the navy nukes, it's nukes, they have to have a step by step, it makes sense. Have a step by step. Yep. What was one of your, so you spent seven years at Lindy, and then you spent another, what, five years or so at Matheson after that, right? Yeah, so I use the MBA to pivot. I stay in the same industry, right? You know, there's a, there's a lady that was a career services at, I think, Penn. Anyway, she named Dr. Don Graham.

She wrote a book on switchers and, and basically her book about is how to pivot. And so she always says the hardest type of pivot in a career is a double pivot, where you're changing industries and you're changing functions, right? So I use the MBA to do a single pivot. And so I stayed in the same industry in the chemicals industry, but then I got out of operations, general management, logistics type job into a century marketing. So product management is what the industrial gas and chemicals business calls the strategic marketing department. So pricing, placement, you know, all your kind of fundamental marketing things that you would see in an MBA are done by the product management. And so networking got me into the role, and they were building up the department. And so I was product manager number one. You got to got to come down to Texas and, and start off that department.

Okay, so this makes sense. So the time from seven years in Lindy, and then you used your time after Lindy had Notre Dame to get your MBA. And then after that pivoting into Matheson, where you moved away from operations and more towards product makes a lot of sense there. You know, based on your career development, like, you came to the point of towards the end of your time at Lindy, that you knew you're ready for an MBA, because you're ready to do that single pivot. And so a couple of questions then. So why Notre Dame? I assume other than the fact that you're already in the Midwest. And, you know, why did you decide to do the single pivot? You know, and how did you kind of see your long term, like, if you're only doing a single pivot, do you think long term, I'm going to stay in Chemicals for a whole career and may, may move around. But I see my guy, I see myself as that chemical leader, you know, 15, 20 years from now. Sure. Yeah, so being in the Midwest was great. Like, you know, I looked at the Michigan program, I looked at Ohio State, I looked at Michigan State, I looked at Indiana programs. And, you know, when, when I was in operations, I was casually

having conversations with customers about additional projects, right? You know, sure, I took like engineering economics when I was undergrad, which, you know, teaches you payback period and IRR and the fundamentals of finance. But I really didn't have that more of the business sense to do business plans. And that's what I wanted to get into. So, so, so I felt like, and I will say, you know, I had some pretty good mentors at Lindy, who were former war veterans, who got MBAs and were in positions where I wanted to be in 10 years. And so I saw that, I was like, okay, well, if they're in these positions at Lindy, they, they, you know, our former army were Navy folks, then I should probably go get one. So, so, so I knew that that was happening. And so the other side is Lindy provided tuition assistance, as long as I did it on a part time basis. And so I ended up going into the executive program at Notre Dame. So it wasn't the full time

two year program. And in absolutely loved it. And I think the executive format for veterans, who also have some real world civilian experience, I think is great. Because my perception is that my teammates were all directors, VP's, and I had some chief executive officers that were my, in my small group. And yeah, I may have had just a senior manager title. But I was functioning as a general manager. I mean, essentially, right? You know, I had like a $60 million P&L had, you know, 40 or 50 some employees. And so anyways, I felt like going to a full to were a full time two year program where there's a lot of folks that you know, maybe spent a year or two at Ernst and young as accounts and then going back to get an MBA. I really wanted to learn from folks that were in the know, and that executive program at Notre Dame fit it. And then, you know,

so why they're over Michigan, where Michigan State, where Ohio State, where Indiana. Now you're going to start the battles. Yeah. And so I mean, I felt like Notre Dame was home. I mean, that was when I visited it, like you, you, it's some, you know, anyone tell you that Notre Dame is a magical place. Just just walk around campus on it, just the feeling of the vibe I got on it. And, you know, there's, there's two teams that beat Navy every year, and that's Army and Notre Dame. So I had to, I had to, had to keep beating Navy. So, but yeah, no, I just felt like Notre Dame was the, was the right place for me. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I really like how you touched on the fact you went to the executive program, because this comes back to our conversation earlier, just about awareness in general. And a lot of people, veterans included, are generally unaware of the options in front of them. You know, like you said, if you're already, if you've already got a bunch of work experience, if you already have kind of a career trajectory that

you know you're going to be on, then taking two years out and going to a full-time program with maybe, you know, people who are a little bit more junior in their careers, who are looking specifically to do on-campus recruiting into things like investment banking or consulting, may not be the right fit for you. Whereas you can go to an executive program where you can be on the weekends or, you know, one weekend a month or whatever the program structure happens to be, get 99% of the same experience, just without the on-campus recruiting, and be able to continue on with your career at the same time. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, that's exactly what I did. I went to NYU Stern, did the executive program, and I was already like one of those senior government officials, I don't think it was a GS14 at the time, and so I thought that I was going to be a DoD forever, and I ended up pivoting into big tech, but it had nothing to do with the degrees, but you know, it made sense, you know, finding the right format that fits for you. The other thing, and you know, and you can appreciate this, Jed, you know, it's the same thing probably, you probably thought about it at Stern, is opportunity cost. So, right, taking,

you know, and at the time, you know, I had two, two, what, a seven and six-year-old kid that needed insurance, and a wife that needed insurance, and my company was willing to put forward some tuition assistance, right, and so, you know, I was, you know, I was blessed that my parents had had saved money for me for college that I didn't use because I went to the academy, but like, you know, offsetting that and keeping that in my back pocket where the company will pay you know, obviously GI bill will pay, and so I was able to piece together a financial thing that I was a century, you know, no money out of pocket and still keep some of the savings that my parents had, you know, passed along, and so, you know, and opportunity cost is, you know, your benefits and, you know, pay, you know, I had an awesome salary from Lindy, and I was like, why would I give that up when, you know, I can do, you know, and they were willing to let me go for the Thursday or the

one week in a month, two, four weeks a year that the program is, you know, and, you know, we live two hours away, so it was an easy drive from, from South Bend, but it's, so anyways, so I think that my main point, though, is when people are thinking about MBA programs, you know, two things is think about the opportunity cost, and that means what you're sacrificing from a salary and working while you go to school is there's a lot of really good programs, and you don't miss much, you know, I always tell people, unless you really want to go into investment baking, we're consulting, like, you don't have to go to a two-year program, and we'll consider Notre Dame as a one-year, which is intense, and you've got to have a good STEM background to be able to do it, you know, a decent math background, but like, if investment making and consulting are, are not why you want to go, then consider a part-time or one-year or something, you know, kind of non-traditional,

and think through the money piece, I mean, it costs money. Yeah, well, I'm a huge fan of understanding the outcomes, and look, there's no getting around it. If you want to, you know, if you want to go to McKinsey or Goldman or JP, you know, you have to go to that two-year, and not just the two-year, you've got to be in, like, a top 10, 15 program, like, that just makes sense. But if that's not your outcome, like, if your outcome is much like yours, then there's a lot of other opportunities in there. The opportunity costs can be really mitigated by being able to maintain your salary, maintain your career trajectory, you know, offsetting with things like the GI Bill and lots of tuition assistance. There's lots of things that can also help you there, but then the other piece that I think that I always harp on is that, you know, if it's an MBA, you can get that education almost anywhere. So if you're going to actually go get an MBA, make sure it's got the name and pedigree that's going to help you, you know, wherever you're headed. So, like, for instance, you know, when people look at your, you know, they're going to see, all right, know your name, you're part of that community. And that's really great. And you found the program that fit your

schedule and helped fit your family. Whereas, like, you know, a local state school, a lot of times isn't going to turn a whole lot of heads, isn't going to help people, you know, pay attention to your career path. But again, you know, it's just the way I see it. If I'm going to spend 50 grand a year on an MBA program, you know, regardless of how I mitigate that cost, I want to make sure that it's one where it opens up a maximum number of doors for me and for my future. So it does. The only thing I will caution is that, well, I mean, it just goes down to why you're doing it, right? I mean, I think people do put too much emphasis on, like, okay, so, I mean, if you're going to a no name place, I always use the, one of my professors at West Point, he always called it bird shit state. I know that's, so he wasn't naming a particular place, but he was just saying, you know, some place of, you know, kind of have a 99% acceptance type of place, right? Like, then, then, you know, we're a for profit school. Then, then, you know, and anyways, I think the point is,

you do need to go to some place that has a solid academic, you know, beyond accreditation, right? I mean, nowadays, just by any place has accreditation, but you need some place where the professors are legit, right? Where, you know, your other students are of some, you know, level of competency, you know, to make sure that you get the outcomes because graduate school, and this isn't just MBA, you know, this is all graduate schools, you know, I talked to buddies that went through becoming lawyers and at law school and, and even just, you know, masters in international relations. Graduate school is all about your small group, right? And so, when you are choosing, you know, a higher level school, whether it's a state flagship school like UT Austin, or Michigan, or Ohio State, or, you know, Notre Dame, or Boston College, or Stern, or Northwestern, like the students that are going there are going to be, you know, decent smart, smart folks. And so,

I would say 15 to 60% of grad school is about your small group, right? That's where the real learning that it's much less about the lectures, it's much less about the professors, it's much more about your small group. And so, you know, so you want to try to go to a place that has good people that you can learn from. And again, the executive program for me at Notre Dame, you know, I had amazing, I had two, like I had a CFO, I had a chief sales officer and a CEO in my group, right? And it was, you know, it was amazing, right? And watching the CFO work through finance problems, it was like watching, you know, a maestro, right, on it. And then watching the CEO work through business plans on a whiteboard as we were talking was just like, you know, I was dumb founded. So that grad school is ultimately about your, it's all about your small group. And like I said, is watching the CFO work through finance problems, watching the CEO that was in my group,

you know, work through business plans, it's like watching Mozart produce music. And so anyways, I was, I was making the joke before we got disconnected was that the one operations class, right, that I could contribute to, and show my Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt training, no one was oppressed. So it makes sense. But you're right, though, like the cohort makes it, makes it or breaks it, because like it does, you, you can sit in finance and finance statement analysis and, you know, manage managerial finance and learn all the nuts and bolts. But when you have an actual CFO in your small group, and he's like, so this is how it's applied in the real world. That's the game changer, even if you're never going to be in that seat, because like you're saying, you know, you know, you're managing a P&L at that point, you're managing employees, but you know, you knew that you were lacking some of those skills, understanding IRR, understanding the projects you're going to undertake, and then be able to have somebody who literally does that on a day-to-day basis sitting next to you. And it can help translate from the instructor

on the projects for you. That's what it's all about. That's learning from your peers. And that peer group, that's really hard to put in place. Now, and I don't know what your experience at Sturmo is. The downside of that, though, is that, and again, Notre Dame does a great job about making it. And I will say, there was no ladders. No one was trying to push each other off to try to get a GPA, to try to make whatever the honor society is for MBA type stuff. But you do have, because you have people that are directors and VPs in C-suite, you do have a lot of personalities. And so sometimes, I know folks, and it goes back to that is, if you're a CFO, but yet you're debating a professor on a paper, right? The professor's got to have right or wrong, even whether it's just theoretical versus practicality. So you do have some of the

personalities. And when you come to group projects, when you have a someone in a C-suite or VP that's busy, like right now, I don't know how I could try to do a part-time MBA while I was doing this job. You have folks that have to pick up the slack just because of how busy people were with the nine to five. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it definitely comes with its own set of baggage, that's for sure. But all in all, it is definitely on the plus side. You just build relationships that you wouldn't have found anywhere else. And I know for me, and I'm sure for you as well, like you build those relationships that carry with you for years. Yep, we still meet up and go to football games. So, well, and we won't touch too much into that, but I'm a Georgia fan. It's an underdating being in Georgia just a couple of days ago. That was rough, but congratulations. I'll just wait for when we're national champs. Yeah, well, don't wait too long.

All right, so moving on from there, you have a great experience at Notre Dame. Pivots you into Matheson, where you spend the next five years doing as a product manager, as a senior manager, and you're there until 2023. And then you leave. So kind of touch on a little bit of your time at Matheson, kind of how that kind of developed your career going forward and why you decided to make a pivot afterwards. Well, like I said, it's that product manager role. So in the chemical world, product management is the in-house strategic marketing reported in through the CFO. So allowed us some freedom, just like any other FP&A, we're a finance department, we're a county department, freedom to call the balls and strikes while operations were sales or whoever else had their own turf. And so allowed us to provide a real feedback on business results. So we were on the few folks that not only did we see cost, but we also saw price, really where those two sides

came into it. And so stood up to the department. It really transformed from being a contract administration. So most of the business, most of the business that Matheson's on contract. And so because of that, then that department's usually working on things like fees and surcharges and prices and all those things. And so, but really wanted to build out and make it more of a long-term department. And so Matheson was really the only one of the five major industrial gas companies, not to have a product management department. And so they felt like it was a need. And so that's why they brought me on. And I had actually been planning to go into product management at Lindy. And I'll be clear, it was go be a product manager at Lindy based in New Jersey, or be a product manager at Matheson based in Texas. And I love the East Coast,

Wipe and I got engaged in New York City, but New Jersey had been one of the most expensive places to live. Whereas I can move the DFW and live in Texas and have a lot of better cost in tax structure. I said, let's make the change and go down to Texas. And so yeah, so we really, like I said, high level kind of strategy, consulting, internal consultant type thing, strategic marketing, pricing. So that's what we did. So we ended up running, you know, kind of on the day to day we would run proformas for the sales department on proposed contracts and work the approval process to get contracts signed to, you know, what's our customer's capacity, what do we think market pricing is as a benchmark to like business intelligence type things. And then what I worked on

is finding gaps in our network for products and look where whether we wanted to do a joint venture with someone, whether we wanted to do the business grant to build a plant or if we just want to buy long term from a competitor sourcing deal where we just go pick up the product kind of make those decisions on what we want to make sure we got our network supported for the customer. See, I'm hearing you describe this and you basically stood up product, product management as a function for Matheson. And because I know what the next step happens to be, I'm looking at this, I'm like, all right, so I've got a guy here who, you know, he's got his, he's got his army experience, he's got his MBA knowledge, he's got seven plus years of true operations experience in Lindy. Now he's got five years of standing up product. Is there anybody more qualified to jump into ETA, you know, than this guy, you know, especially in the industry? As if, you know, like to be

clear, you know, at this point, you'd already manage a fairly large P&L, lots of people, you're dealing with customers, you're setting up product, and it doesn't matter if you've done that or you've not done that. Life is a lot different when you're the guy in the seat and you own the business. However, however, you, you practice the way you want to play, you know, you train the way you fight. And I can't think of a better training ground for somebody who wants to move into an ownership role, you know, inside of that type of industry. So kind of, kind of speak to, you know, how you, how you ultimately decided to make that kind of pivot, because I imagine at this point, you're very well queued up for senior management within, you know, whether it's Matheson or going back to any of these other chemical businesses, you're well set up for a senior manager role. So what kind of made you decide, hey, you know, maybe now's the time, you know, to work with some other people and take down a business on my own and be the, be the guy? Sure. Well, I mean, I think, you know, having deployed in the Army and been away from the flag

pole, I think I had, I had wanted to get away from the flag pole. And so, you know, I considered, I had actually, you know, engaged a business broker to look for a business that I could buy fully myself on it when, when the recruiter called and said, hey, there's some, you know, private partners that are looking for an operator, an operating partner to come on and run the business that they just bought. And so, you know, and so I think having mentors that were, that ran their own firms, you know, particularly one of my classmates from Notre Dame, who is the, the CEO of insurance brokerage, you know, he had made a comment, he's like, you know, there's something to be said about working for the man, there's something to be said about working. And so, and so, and I think I wanted to get back to the peer leadership, team leadership and that I had back in, back in Lindy,

right? Back when I was, when I had the operational region. I truly enjoyed, it comes with its own pains and buts, right? HR is always something nagging, right? You're getting some text message that someone was mean to someone else, you know, you know, all the time. But, but I think I've liked going from frontline leadership and then going into the corporate and being able to, that you're only responsible for yourself or a small team in the corporate world and then now coming back and stressing out over weekends and getting phone calls at 2am and, and, and the like. So, you know, I think it was time to move out of the headquarters and the flagpole and, and, you know, do something where, where, you know, I'm my boss on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It's one of the reasons why a lot of people decided to reach out to a business broker and, you know, start stepping into the ETA space. I imagine that since you're still in the DFW area,

you had a few, you had a geographical restriction. You know, tell me a little bit about, you know, before you find a harbor fueling. What was that search like? Like, did you actually do a very in-depth search or, you know, kind of, what was the process and what kind of things were you looking for? Yeah. So, I mean, I knew I wanted a service related business, right? Because maintenance and repair had always been kind of what I was under. So, it wasn't, it may be manufacturing. You know, I knew I wasn't going to, you know, buy a accounting firm or we're a franchise. I really didn't want to work, you know, with a franchise type thing. And so, you know, I had been on, it was a business buy sell. I had a business broker who's a veteran that said, you know, I'll give you the veteran discount, right? So, I'm not going to require any money up front, but, you know, and I'll give you a smaller, you know, I'll take my cut on closing if we find something. And so, yeah. And so, I was looking at DFW, but, you know, when I come to learn again from another

guy that I have a great friendship with from Notre Dame is there's something to be said about just cold calling. Just going around and depending on what your business is, they're usually clustered together. And so, I had done some just driving around, going and calling on people in industrial areas in Dallas saying, hey, do you want to sell your business? And now for me, right, I ended up coming over here because a private equity, we're a recruiter that focuses on privately owned businesses that place veterans as operators end up connecting us. But, you know, I got into that point. So, you know, I had my thesis, I had, you know, my numbers, right, I had figured out what size business and kind of what I could afford and what I could tolerate. You know, I'd mapped out the SBA process. And I also had some folks that at least verbally would contribute some equity

towards it and that could form, I guess, a board, but, you know, whatever you want to call them, advisors and still have an equity piece. So, co-owners on it from MBA classmates. And so, you know, it was really trying to find the right opportunity. But, you know, we talked about a lot of boomers that are retiring and there's a lot of them. But you really have to develop a relationship to find a good deal. Business broker, you know, they're good. And some people will list them. And Harper fueling was listed through business broker. But like, some of the deals are just off market. It's just like trying to find a job, right? It's all about networking to try to find a job. It's not, you know, applying to one click apply on LinkedIn or Indeed or something like that is you've got to go. And so anyways, the moral of the story is I had done some cold calling. The next step I was about to do before this opportunity came up was I was going to start going to trade shows and association meetings and start meeting folks that are in kind

of the industry that I was looking for and take them out the dinner, take them out golfing to really say, hey, I'm looking for something, you know, are you interested in selling? Yeah. Well, I think you really keyed right in on it, which is this the thing that I tell everybody is it's a relationship business. It always has been and it always will be, you know, there's there's marketplaces like this by cell. There are, you know, there are brokers out there, you know, some aren't so helpful and some that are very, very good and very professional. But at the end of the day, like you said, it comes down to cold calling. It comes down to, you know, circling around the areas that have the businesses that you're looking for, you know, going to those associations, meeting people, because you can find good deals that are being represented. By the same time, you know, sometimes a small business owner doesn't know they want to sell until they meet you and then things are clicking, you know. And so it is I use this terminology and this may sound very traditional or conservative of me, but it's like you're trying to you're trying

to marry the pastor's only daughter, right? And so so that business owner is the pastor, right? And so you've got to not only prove that you go to church and you're a good, good guy, right, but not only you can take care of is one and only, you know, one and only pride possession, right? And so especially, you know, a lot of them have family that aren't working it. So you're almost like marrying and then, you know, they're handed off to you as a leader because they expect their daughter or cousin or nephew to keep working for you and have a paycheck, right? On it. And so, yeah. And so how do you do that? Yeah, you just got to impress them, you know, take them out the lunch, take them out golfing and have a deep, long conversation to make sure that what you want for the business and your morals and your values align with them. Yeah. And it's vitally important too. You know, if you think that it's just going to be a transaction and it's clean and you've wiped away and you're all done, I would tell you to run away from that deal. You want to get to a

point to where, you know, you're building a relationship with a seller where you have a firm understanding of, you know, what they're hoping to get out of the deal. Like if it's a really good deal for them, what's the best case scenario? What's their plan afterwards? You know, how much are they going to be involved? Like having that relationship, you can't, you can't fake that. You can't fake it. And the risk profile of not having that and not taking the time to build that relationship is just enormous. There's no amount of due diligence that's going to remove a bad relationship with a seller. It's just, I tell people if you ever get that sense, run, it's not a good deal. Yeah, Jen, you're exactly right. If you call, if you call to call an owner up and, and you ask them if they want to sell and they say yes and, and they give you number immediately, run away. There's, there's, there's, there's, there's problems leaking below the surface at that point. So, you know, any of the good cash flow of businesses, it's going to take a while to build that relationship. And, you know, that's probably stressful for people that are doing an ETA, you

know, even especially self-funded search. It's, it's a year or two years to try to find that. And I'll even just, you know, just for my entrepreneurial friends that, that, you know, the CrossFit gym that I used to be in, the guy, the franchise owner that I'm buddies with, he sold it to one of the members, right? And that's how they found the deal. It wasn't, you know, he didn't list it on a broker. He didn't, you know, he wasn't out there searching. He didn't, he probably didn't even respond to anyone that called him. It was just someone that had been there from day one working out the CrossFit gym. He was ready to exit and they said, "Hey, you know, we're interested in their negotiation." And that's, that's, that's how a lot of these small business deals probably happen too, is it's, you know, they sell it to, you know, one of their senior managers or they sell it to a cousin or, you know, or the like. And so it's, how do you inject yourself into that conversation? Exactly. It's, it's who they know and how they

can get to know you. You know, I remember, you know, I started off as a self-funded searcher, you know, when I decided to leave tech and I felt like it was very much a, you know, two paths. You know, one was you got to build a relationship with good business brokers. The only way you're going to know who the good ones are is if you reach out to a whole bunch of them. But you got to build those relationships because you just never know when the right opportunity may get listed. And so you want to have that top of mind. You want to be able to present yourself professionally, you know, and that's a good practice for you too. But at the same time, like if you're looking at a business, you have to have an idea of what you're looking for. And once you know what you're looking for, you need to actually go search for that business, you know. And if you're looking for, you know, like I was looking at landscaping companies for a long time. And the thing with them is that you're not going to, cold calling is hit or miss. You're definitely not going to email them. Like you're going to have to show up at like the actual supply stores with a lot of the owners are still heavily involved. And either them or their foreman is going to swing by the supply store. And it's about you getting to know the general manager of the supply store, getting to know all of you who walk in the

door. Because again, it's a small community. They all know each other. And so it's immersing yourself in that community. Same thing with that. That's how you get a lead too, is yeah, not listing and selling, but they'll tell you, Hey, you know, I'm not, but go talk to John Smith over on Fort Worth. I've known him for, you know, 10 years, and he's a competitor of mine. I know he's looking to exit, right? And that's another way to try to find that lead. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right. You have to find a way to build the relationship. And so you're out there, you're working, you're building the relationship. You get connected with this PE group who's looking for an operator and they line you up with Harper fueling solution. So tell me a little bit about like why you thought that was a good move for you to step in as the operator with joint partners and a little bit about, you know, what Harper solutions does and how you think it's a good fit and kind of what you're doing now. Yeah, sure. So Harper fueling has been around since '72. Paul Harper's dad,

Earl, started it. Paul took over in '85 and then he sold it in late 2022. And so then he stayed on. And so, I mean, very, very, you know, very traditional kind of transition, right, is that he stayed on for a year. And so finding me to do a left seat, right seat ride, time was critical, right, for an operator. And so, yeah. And so, you know, long story short is, you know, we had a lot of family members that were that were in the business. We I knew coming in, he's experienced a little bit of this up in Lindy, that when you have a major change up top, you got to worry about turnover, right. And so had to think through who was who were people that we wanted to make sure didn't leave. Who were we like, we needed role players that we needed to, you know, keep and

then who's the people that if they gave notice, you know, we wouldn't bat an eye. And, and so, you know, had to work through the personnel challenges, you know, doing it legally and making some hard decisions on it. So, yeah, so, you know, for any of the folks that are looking, it's not an easy path. You know, you're dealing with imperfect humans, including myself on a daily basis. And, you know, and then kind of bringing in your own mentality, right, is, you know, it was cash business, right, family business, you know, paid the salaries and dividends to owners. But this, you know, that and that when they were perfectly happy with it, right, but now it's more of a mandate to grow. We got growth targets. And so some folks on the team may not

be ready for that. And, and, you know, so we spent a lot of time this first year working on building and building on sustainable systems that can grow. Great example is our payroll system. Our time cards were done manually. People, the technicians would fill them out, hard copy pieces of paper that we would buy from a printer, a printing company, and they would have them fill them out. They would scan them on their cell phone, send them into an email, and that's how we did time cards. So besides control issues in terms of spotting time theft and those type of things, I'm not saying that we had a bunch of that or any of it, but moving over to, hey, the rest of the world's on digital time cards, right. And in fact, and we've run Quickbook, Quickbooks into it has its own time card system. And so, you know, with 22, 23 employees,

you know, you can do that. Well, if our growth target is 50 employees, 100 employees in the next couple of years, like, you know, that's not sustainable, right. And so, and that's just one example of numerous others that we had to think through is, you know, a company that is functioning, that is profitable year in, year out may not have the fundamental things that are ready for growth. And so had to work through a lot of that. And some of that's kind of change management 101, right. I think most MBA programs, you have to take a change management class or something to like. I mean, that's fundamental change management, you got to bring your team on, you got to listen to them, you got to sell it, you got to tell what the, what the burning platform is, why you got to change on it. So a lot of, a lot of leadership strings getting cold. Yeah. And that's actually one of the things that, you know, that a lot of, you know, potential searchers touch on with their interest in buying a business where, you know, they have this

enduringly profitable business that is profitable. It's got to get a lot of cash, but it's an older business. And it, and one of those growth levers is digitizing and updating and modernizing, which is very true. Like, like your example about time cards is very true, but it's, it erodes your margin too, by the way. Yeah. It erodes your margin and it's difficult. And, you know, you touched on it a little bit there. It's not difficult because, you know, digital time cards are inherently more difficult than physical ones, because like you said, your, your team was already taking pictures of it on their phone and then, you know, sending in those photos of time cards. So essentially it's the same thing. The real issue comes every time you change anything is just the certain amount of pushback you're going to get and the amount of, the amount of adoption period that you need to be able to get something off the ground. I was very deliberate because I had some folks that wanted to change everything immediately, and I had other folks that didn't want to change, you know, much of anything. And so, you know, really tried to keep a pulse on the team on their bandwidth and their capacity for change.

And some things we had to, I had to push through without any consensus from the team because of timing. Like there was, you know, anything from licensing when, when our license for a certain product ended and I had to make a choice to people leaving that I had to, like the time part thing, we had to make a choice because our payroll person was leaving us. And so we wanted to go do a digital solution, you know, as soon as we could while that person was still with us. And so, but, and, you know, it sounds trivial on the on a time card thing, but extrapolate that out to ERP systems, right? Out to, for us, because we're a service company, our tracking of vehicles, right? Our dispatching system. You know, the other thing to think about too, and this isn't just a small business thing, and this isn't definitely not just a Harper thing. I mean, I saw this at Lindy and at Matheson, you know, when someone's getting prepared to sell,

there's, there's, there's nowhere else to, to, to reinvest into the business. I mean, you know, and so when both Lindy and Matheson were quick on acquisitions, when you buy stuff, you know, you can tell things, I don't want to say neglecting because it sounds like it's malicious, but you just don't spend it. And so, you know, here we had to buy every, every frontline employee, every rank and file employee, I have to have a truck, right? Because it's just like an HVAC or plumbing business. And so we were spending way too much on putting in new transmissions on maintenance and repair on trucks. Again, they drive a lot of them, right? So you would expect it, but, you know, we had a lot of trucks that had over 200, 300,000 miles that probably were at their lifespan that we had to replace. And so there was a lot of capex that was spent, you know, buying more trucks just to replace, you know, and keep our fleet moving. So that's

something that people need to think about too is, yeah, you can go get your SBA loan, but if you're in the service business and, you know, you can probably appreciate this from landscape is, you, people have to move to go to the jobs, right? And you got to go pull, you got to go pull that, that lawn mower trailer, right? And those things break. And so, you know, the last owner just said, hey, run it until it dies, which is a method, but you've got a $300,000 or $300,000 mile vehicle, right? You're just going to have to go pick guys up that are on along the side of I-35 constant, right? And it's, and it just is just a Royal Payment. And so that at some point, you got to go try to find the best deal for a new vehicle. Yeah. At some point, both vehicles will break, especially like you said, service businesses, you know, the vehicles break, the trailers break, something breaks. And if something doesn't break, there might be a car accident. There are all kinds of just craziness that you have to take care of that, you know, can and cannot be mitigated by maintenance. And then there's all, there's all kinds of stuff that just, it's going to happen. It's just going to happen. And if you're an ETA searcher, right? Just,

you know, one thing to think about is what capex do you have to spend beyond the SBA loan? Because, you know, if you're tolerance for debt, you know, if you take a, you know, $2 million SBA loan, you know, within the first year, you could have, you know, $225,000 of debt because you just took out three or four, five, you know, truck loans, right? And that's what, just what you needed to replace the aging fleet that you bought, right? So that was a replacement of equipment. That was just replacement, just cost of doing business. And now, you know, your, your debt servicing is up 10%, 20%, right? You need to factor that in is that, that's, that's part of it, right? Yeah. So I love those explanations because one of the things I keep telling searchers, I speak to searchers almost every day at the point. And there's a profound difference between searching for business and operating business. And in a lot of ways, searching is like

being a startup, like trying to find, you know, trying to find that business and you're kind of a one man show or one woman show, but operating is completely different. So now that you've been operating for about a week, and granted, I mean, you've had a lot of senior management experience already, you've been operating for nearly a year now, you know, what are some of the key takeaways now from being the guy in the seat, like you said, that, you know, I think you think are critical for people who have never been in that position to have a better understanding. Yeah. I think the first thing is over communicate with your team that that's probably hindsight being 2020, I probably didn't communicate enough with the team is back to that kind of change. So you got to, you know, and so it's especially you got to do two sides is you've got to reassure the team so that they don't all jump the ship that you're not just a bull in a China shop, you know what you're doing, you're doing it in a strategic manner, you're doing it, you know,

according to a plan. And yeah, and so do that and tell them that, hey, you know, I know what I'm doing, there's some confidence. But at the same time is realized that the status quo from the days of, you know, of prior ownership, things are going to change. Right. And so it's this duality that you have to have to present is is a critical end to tightrope on it. And, and so that's been the hardest part. You know, and I like to think that that coming from, you know, being an assistant S3 officer in the army and then a project management professional and, you know, those that I got all these big planes, I probably should have put more to paper and sold that to the team ahead of time, right. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the, that's the hardest thing for an operator is, yep, you'll get all the context on your search,

hopefully, right, you've had a lot of the conversations. But, you know, when you get here, you're going to one, open up the closet, find a bunch of skeletons. So no, that's coming. And then two is, yeah, tell them that, and I assume that you're searching, you know, and your goal is growth is to walk that tightline or that tightrope between, you know, the old ways, you know, there's a new, new way to do stuff. But at the same time is you're not going to be able to try to shop in completely is not necessary turnaround situation. Yeah, yeah, exactly, right. It almost seems like you've come full circle from that original plea of advice of leading people, you know, like, yeah, right. Well, the thing I've learned is that I need to have a plan and I need to communicate that plan loudly and clearly and frequently to the point where everyone is just overwhelmed with understanding of the plan. That way they know where we're headed, or at the same time as the leader being flexible, knowing that plans change. And, you know, the situation on the ground can change, but understanding

that, you know, where you're headed and inspiring a little bit of understanding that I know what I'm doing here. Yeah. And I'll be transparent is, you know, we had some lingering HR, HR issues here, stuff that that needed to get taken care of. And so I think there was some nervousness of some of the employees that maybe their work wasn't, wasn't, you know, that I was some, you know, a whole boss solely focused on numbers and performance. But, you know, I tried to sell as like, hey, the folks that were terminated here, I didn't terminate and they terminated themselves due to issues. And so anyways, so I think there was some nervousness in it is that I was like somehow on some hunt trying to try to clean house, which is, which was the farthest room from the truth. The team was great. I mean, it was a cash flowing business. We just had some lingering

issues that needed to get taken care of, you know, that needed to get, you know, addressed. So anyway, so I think that was, and that goes back kind of the bigger strategy talk is, is, yeah, I mean, we want performance and we care about performance, we care about EBITDA, you know, even though they don't know what that means, what they do profitability means. But at the same time, you know, that's not the only thing I don't care, you know, purely about profitability, right? I realized that there's a human element to all of it. You're absolutely right. There's a strong human element involved and being able to walk the line between making decisions that you have to make as a leader and not just shy away from them because they're uncomfortable. We're at the same time reassuring the team members who are staying that, you know, we really, I really do want your involvement here. I want you to be a part of this going forward. It's a tough, tough one to walk. But it's a lot easier than going the opposite direction and just not making hard decisions. One thing I do

want to touch on, and you said it briefly, but I'm gonna, I'm going to go back to it real fast. You said, you know, after you acquired, you're always going to find things in the closet. Now, I'm not going to ask you to unload all the dirty laundry in the company that you're now operating. I'm not going to do that. But one thing that I try to double, double tap on is that there's this misconception that due diligence, when done correctly, will reveal all things hidden in the closet. And that if I acquire a business, as long as I've done my quality of earnings and I've done my operations analysis, and I've had my legal review, and I'm doing, and I'm involved, and I've done everything I can, then I've mitigated that risk to the point of, I'm going to be totally fine. And I'm not going to dispute the fact that you need those things, depending, you know, deal specific, not every deal needs everything. But you absolutely do need to mitigate the risk. But what would you say to somebody who, you know, you're coming into this, you're coming in as a partner, as an operator, I assume you had plenty of capital to do the due diligence that you needed,

and that your team needed to do ahead of time? You know, what was it like stepping in and realizing like, how much, how many different things were there that you weren't expecting? Like, what was it, what was the difference between like, hey, this is what it looks like in due diligence on paper, this is what it looks like in real life? Sure. Yeah, I mean, I guess the first thing is, you know, for someone that's doing searching and has, and is under LOI, and you're in a due diligence period, it depends on what your bandwidth is, right? If you're working, you know, a nine to five, you know, it's going to be really hard to uncover everything, right? On there, you know, the key thing is, you know, one is how is the owner's expenses flowing through the business, right? Is he, you know, what is he or she expensing? What's the hidden cost of their, their employment, right? You know, that's one of the great things about being an owner is you can expense, you know, you can be, depending on what your account will let you do, you can run a lot

of expenses to the business. One of the great things about being a small business owner? It is, right? And, you know, every time, you know, being in Texas, every time you see a Ford Raptor that's got a wrap on it, you're like, okay. You know, is this, do you really need a Ford Raptor for your, your, you know, I don't know, for your consulting business? But that's called, you drew everybody knows that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. So, but, but yeah, I would say that one, you're never gonna, and I love your, your, your saying on it, but you're never going to be able to uncover everything. You're going to have, there's going to be accidents or lingering issues that the owner just made, not out of a sin of commission, but a sin of omission, just won't bring forward until it comes up later, right? And even if you have a new entity, you know, some of your customers that, you know, maybe it was a project you did two years ago, come back to you or want warranty on,

or they're coming back to you because you still got the same name, right? You, and they don't want to hear, and if you want to keep doing this, they don't want to hear that, like, oh, well, that's the old LLC. I'm not responsible for that, right? No, they don't care. Like, they still want to do that. They view you as Harper, right? They don't care if you're, they won't come with a new company. So, yeah, so anyway, I mean, I guess my, my comment would be for, for folks, go do, don't do, work your ass off as much as you can. You know, try to get as much as, as you can out of the owner before, before closing. That's absolutely the way to go. Just like a left seat, right seat ride you do on a deployment to try to uncover. But there's, there's just some things you just won't. Now, if you work your ass off, will you mitigate as much as you can what anything that comes up be substantial that can tank your business? Probably not, because you've uncovered it.

But, but yeah, that's where the, what's the saying, like in training, what do they say in military training? It's a, a, a drop of sweat saves a gallon of blood or whatever the same. That's, that's, that's your due diligence period on it. So anyways, I think that's, that's the biggest method where the big, big message I would say about due diligence is, I think the other, another thing about the other caution, and this was not at corporate in the least bit, but the other caution is the person that you're buying the business from. If they don't take the transition or due diligence or whatever you want to call, you know, the initial period seriously, and they just want to exit, that should be a red flag. Your, your partner, the seller should have some sort of, you know, stake in the game or some interest in making sure you succeed. If they don't, that's a red flag.

Yeah, you're exactly right. And, you know, one of the things I've been doing over the past year is reaching out to acquisition opportunities who acquired a business and ultimately that business failed. And a lot of times they can't, they can't discuss that because there's a settlement in place, there's a non disclosure, non disparagement agreement, but unfortunately there's a lot of lessons learned that there's not a lot to talk about. And so what I've been doing is compiling a lot of these stories and, you know, and, you know, making them anonymous, you know, changing critical details, but then putting them together and keeping the integrity of the story in, in, you know, together that way we can learn from those lessons. And one of the key lessons that comes up over and over and over and over 65% of these cases, not talk to nearly 25 now, is, you know, the relationship and engagement with the seller. Was that person engaged? Did they, did they work with you during due diligence? Was it in good faith? So many times, you know, either they didn't work with them, they didn't work with them in good faith, or, you know, as the buyer, they're like, they rationalized

it and said, you know, well, the seller's leaving, and then I've got my legal protections in place, and what it keeps coming back to is not having a positive relationship with a seller that's built on integrity. And if feedback has always been, you can't trust the person you're doing a deal with, then you should be doing a deal at all. Sure. Yeah, completely agree. Yeah. And again, you know, everyone goes into how you can mitigate that, right? Having a seller's note, right? So, you know, so if the business goes under that they lose out on their note, you know, and having earnouts, right, you know, after certain periods, you know, keeping them on as, as another employee for a while, like, you got all those mitigating stuff, but, you know, at the end of the day, if you feel like that relationship isn't, isn't worth it, and it goes back to what I said originally is, if the person, if you co-call a person, they say, yep, I'll sell it to you, and here's my price. Red flag, right? Yeah, big red flag, right? Well, Drew, I appreciate your candor. I appreciate you, you know, walking through your career, mainly because I feel like stories like these are valuable,

especially for veterans who, you know, we, a lot of us have only been shown like the 20 years retirement and then 20 years of defense contractor life. And so seeing how other guys and gals have gotten it done can help spark some ideas of different paths that we take as well. So I appreciate your candor there. Do you have any final thoughts or words of wisdom you'd like to leave to maybe the other young captains or, or young NCOs who are considering getting out after five years, and, you know, they're not quite sure where they want to go. But they really like hearing your story, and they're wondering what kind of words of wisdom Drew could lead to. Sure. Well, first of all, if you're doing an ETA, you don't necessarily have to have an MBA, right? So it doesn't help, sure. But, but if you're, if you're, you know, getting out as a captain, we're in E5, E6, you've got enough smarts about you to be able to do an ETA. Yeah, you probably need a mentor, right, to help you walk through what an LOI is and, and those things. But, but you don't need

the necessary have to have an MBA to do it. And, you know, I've got a lot of folks that I know that started their own business getting out. So, so that's the one word of the wisdom is you don't, you don't have to do the MBA round. Two, I will say though, you know, probably short of leading soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors, right, running a business feels the same, right, is it's that fundamental leadership, achieving goals, achieving projects, and watching other people succeed is fulfilling. So if you want to get back that kind of mission, orientation, again, it's a little bit different, but that mission orientation, that mission driven leadership, being an entrepreneur, operator, ETA, is a good path. Nothing to say about corporate, corporate has its own, it is nice that you can just go home on the weekend and not have to worry about, you know, when you're technicians, you know,

getting run over or something. But, and it has its place, but, but it's fun to be back into the seat with watching people succeed as, as a team. I love it, Drew. And I want everyone to know that that was unprompted, because one of my passions is exactly what you said, especially for mid-career veterans, you know, coming out as captains and, you know, E6s, NCOs, you find that you have a lot of experience that's actionable. But at the same time, you have a lot of youth and vigor that you're ready to go out and do something. And that and operating a small business in a lot of ways, you know, really does scratch that itch of, of mission accomplishment, especially when you're doing in your local community, because you get to step in, you get to be a team leader, you get to set direction, you're constantly learning, and you get to, and you have the opportunity at least to be a leader in your community, which I mean, quite frankly, we need a lot more of those. So thanks, Drew. I appreciate your words of wisdom. I appreciate your time. If people want to reach

out to you and get to know you a little bit better, what's the best place to find you? Yeah, LinkedIn. As Jed knows, I post regularly on there. I keep up to date my DM. So find me, Drew P. Williams, LinkedIn. And yeah. Okay, great. And we'll list that down in the show notes as well. Thanks again, Drew. Appreciate having you on. And best of luck to you going forward and at Harper Peeling. Thanks, Jeff. Appreciate it. Oh.