As Told By C.S. Beaty
Interesting People: Corporate Executive and World's Biggest Husker Fan Guenther Dziuvenis
Descripción
Your email needs more than just Amazon delivery notifications. Today’s guest is a mentor and hero of mine who convinced me to give up on a career (00:00:36): as a structural engineer in order to follow him to the dark side of sales. (00:00:41): We talk about that along with a bunch of his favorite stories from a three-decade (00:00:44): career in corporate leadership, (00:00:46): including his interactions with Walter Scott, (00:00:49): Tommy Frazier, (00:00:50): Indomitian Sioux, (00:00:51): Warren Sapp, (00:00:52): Donald Trump, (00:00:53): and King Kong. (00:00:55): I’m very excited to present Gunther DeVanus. (00:01:01): So you can do like, (00:01:04): if you just wanted this particular type of mic, (00:01:06): you can plug straight into your laptop. (00:01:08): So you could like get started for like a couple hundred bucks. (00:01:12): How do you find time to do all this crap? (00:01:14): Seriously. (00:01:15): I don’t know. (00:01:16): I just, well, I don’t go into the office anymore. (00:01:18): Yeah, that’s nice. (00:01:20): Yeah. (00:01:20): So before I forget, so I was at Prep Today yesterday and today, and I’m coming back in the fall. (00:01:29): And I’m bringing Dean Perez and Tony Villan, do you know who that is? (00:01:33): Tony Villan’s on our board. (00:01:35): He’s an ex-Husker player, was on the 94-95 championship team, so he wears a big championship. (00:01:43): So I took my grandson to the Colorado-Nebraska game two years ago when we beat them in Lincoln. (00:01:50): My grandson lives in the shadow of Boulder. (00:01:53): He’s taking basketball camps on campus. (00:01:55): So he was kind of a Colorado fan. (00:01:58): So I said, I got to fix this. (00:02:00): It was a night game. (00:02:01): Before the night game, I toured him through the new Keywood Hall building. (00:02:05): I haven’t been in that yet, but I saw it under construction. (00:02:10): Dean Perez’s office is on the top floor of that thing. (00:02:12): I forget how many stories it is. (00:02:14): He’s got a balcony. (00:02:16): By C.S. (00:02:16): Beaty (00:02:46): But he’s got this big ring on it. (00:02:48): I see Owen staring at his ring. (00:02:50): Yeah. (00:02:51): Because he’s got to be what? (00:02:52): Is he 18 yet? (00:02:52): No, no. (00:02:53): He’s like, he just turned 13. (00:02:56): 13. (00:02:56): Okay. (00:02:56): Yeah. (00:02:57): Okay. (00:02:57): So he was, and at that time he was 11. (00:03:00): Okay. (00:03:01): So he’s staring at Belen’s ring and I said, it’s a pretty cool ring, huh? (00:03:05): Owen? (00:03:05): And he goes, yeah, that’s really cool. (00:03:08): He said, what is, what kind of ring is it? (00:03:10): And so Tony takes it off and Tony’s got big fingers so he gives it to Owen. (00:03:13): He says, put it on. (00:03:14): So Owen puts it on. (00:03:15): Big red (00:03:16): Yeah. (00:03:17): Jewel in there. (00:03:18): National Championship. (00:03:19): And Owen goes, wow, how did you get this? (00:03:21): And he explained it to him. (00:03:23): He goes, I have two of those. (00:03:25): And then Owen goes like, wow. (00:03:26): And he goes, you know what else I have? (00:03:29): And he says, no. (00:03:30): He says, I have a Super Bowl ring, too. (00:03:32): Oh, wow. (00:03:33): But anyway, I’m bringing him, Tony Villan, and Perez to prep. (00:03:40): But I’d love to have you come because I’m pitching Nebraska Engineering. (00:03:44): And (00:03:45): Most of the kids that go to prep, 99.9% of them all go to college. (00:03:50): You can’t go to, I mean, it’s called Creighton Prep, prep you for college. (00:03:53): And you have to take an entrance exam and all this other crap. (00:03:56): But, (00:03:57): so, (00:03:58): a bunch, (00:03:58): and they’re really, (00:04:00): their robotics team, (00:04:01): their high school robotics team came in fourth in the world. (00:04:04): Did they go to the, they have like a national competition in Iowa. (00:04:08): This was international. (00:04:08): Oh, international, yeah. (00:04:09): They came in fourth in the world. (00:04:10): That’s crazy, yeah. (00:04:11): And the kid that leads the team is, (00:04:15): He’s been offered to go to Harvard and all these other places. (00:04:21): And a lot of those kids that graduate from there, (00:04:23): their parents have money, (00:04:24): which my parents never had. (00:04:26): I had to take a bus up there. (00:04:27): But anyway, so a lot of them go to Ivy League schools or Notre Dame. (00:04:33): And Perez graduated from Notre Dame. (00:04:35): Did you know that? (00:04:36): No. (00:04:36): So Dean Perez has got his undergraduate and his Ph.D. from University of Notre Dame. (00:04:40): Okay. (00:04:41): He has Notre Dame football tickets, season tickets. (00:04:43): Oh, come on. (00:04:44): No, and he goes to the games. (00:04:45): I mean, he’s a huge Notre Dame fan. (00:04:47): Well, there’s more to root for than Nebraska at the moment. (00:04:49): Yeah, yeah. (00:04:50): So, (00:04:50): but anyway, (00:04:51): so my pitch to these kids is going to be, (00:04:54): so I know a lot of you have parents that can afford to go to these great schools (00:04:59): like Notre Dame and Carnegie Mellon and places like that. (00:05:03): I said, but in my case, when I went to school, my parents didn’t have that kind of money. (00:05:08): And maybe some of your parents don’t have that kind of money. (00:05:11): And there’s a golden, there’s a gem of a school right here in Omaha and also in Lincoln. (00:05:18): And so (00:05:19): I’d like to pitch Nebraska engineering in general, (00:05:23): and I’d like to have you talk about going to school here. (00:05:26): Sure. (00:05:26): I mean, you’re not from Omaha. (00:05:28): No. (00:05:29): Right? (00:05:29): And how your career’s just launched off. (00:05:33): Tell them some of the cool things you’ve done. (00:05:34): I’ve been to Guam, this and that, you know. (00:05:36): Because we’re just not getting our fair share of those kids. (00:05:38): What put the icing on the cake for me is, you know, I was a kid from Grand Island. (00:05:43): I knew about the engineering program here. (00:05:45): I didn’t know much, but I met, if you remember... (00:05:49): You recorded? (00:05:50): Yeah, we’ve been recording for a while. (00:05:51): This is good grade A content, if I can get my microphone to stop moving. (00:05:55): If you remember Alma Ramirez, (00:05:57): she was the main recruiter at, (00:06:00): for Peter Kiewen Institute, (00:06:01): for all the College of Engineering in Omaha. (00:06:03): Her father-in-law is actually Johnny Rogers. (00:06:06): She’s Alma Ramirez Rogers. (00:06:07): Oh, really? (00:06:08): So the Rogers is her, Johnny Rogers is her father-in-law. (00:06:11): But she was the first person who told me about the AE program, (00:06:14): the architectural engineering program. (00:06:15): And the way she sold it was, (00:06:17): She’s like, what do you want to go to school for? (00:06:18): I’m like, well, I’m leaning towards engineering, but I don’t really know what. (00:06:21): She’s like, (00:06:21): oh, (00:06:22): you go to architecture engineering, (00:06:23): you don’t have to know what you’re going to do. (00:06:24): I’m like, really? (00:06:25): And so she kind of explained how it works. (00:06:26): And I was like, we don’t want you to declare until your junior year. (00:06:29): So then I went to the visit at PKI, the Peter Keywood Institute Open House. (00:06:33): And then I was like, I was sold. (00:06:35): It was fairly new then. (00:06:36): Yeah, it was. (00:06:38): So I think the building opened around, it was less than 10 years old. (00:06:41): So my freshman year was the 10-year anniversary of the architecture engineering program. (00:06:46): And I think it was the first year, (00:06:48): I don’t know if the building was built yet or not, (00:06:50): but it might have been. (00:06:51): But yeah, I was about 10 years old. (00:06:53): I mean, (00:06:53): and I will say I did a visit at Lincoln and part of the main reason I didn’t go to (00:06:56): Lincoln is because I thought their engineering building was terrible. (00:06:58): I mean, compared to the two. (00:06:59): You should see this new one. (00:07:00): Yeah, but I’m sure the new one would have been, you know, it’s completely different. (00:07:04): And that program has grown because of that new building. (00:07:08): Yeah, I bet. (00:07:09): So did you ever hear the story about how that school was started up, PKI started? (00:07:14): I mean, vaguely, you hear rumors about it. (00:07:17): So I was on the board, worked at Johnson Controls. (00:07:21): One day I’m in Kansas City and I get a call. (00:07:24): It’s from a lady named Winnie Callahan. (00:07:26): I knew who she was. (00:07:27): So she was the outgoing director when I came in. (00:07:31): So people talked about Winnie, but I never met her. (00:07:33): So Winnie, (00:07:34): very aggressively energetic, (00:07:37): aggressive energy about trying to make that school happen because it was in its (00:07:41): infancy. (00:07:42): Sure. (00:07:43): And so I get a call from her. (00:07:44): I’m at my desk in Kansas City and she says, hey, Walter Scott would like to talk to you. (00:07:50): I said, really? (00:07:51): He said, yeah. (00:07:52): Wouldn’t it be a good time? (00:07:52): So we set up a time and Walter calls me and he says, hey, I’d like to go to Milwaukee. (00:07:58): Can you set up a meeting with your CEO? (00:08:02): And the CEO at that time was Alex Mulneroli, a personal friend of mine. (00:08:05): We grew up together in the company. (00:08:07): Well, (00:08:07): and this is back when Johnson Controls was like, (00:08:10): I would always tell people that had never heard of us, (00:08:12): we are one ahead of the Disney Corporation on the Fortune 500 list. (00:08:16): And we were actually at Fortune 100. (00:08:17): Yeah, it was. (00:08:19): Well, yeah, Disney was like 76 and we were like 77 or 75. (00:08:23): It was, you look at the list and I’d always point out like, look where Disney is. (00:08:27): Oh yeah, we’re ahead of Disney. (00:08:29): Yeah. (00:08:29): We’ve spun off a lot of those companies. (00:08:31): But anyway, so (00:08:32): So Walter says, can you set up a meeting with your CEO? (00:08:36): And I said, yeah, I suppose. (00:08:38): I said, what do you want to talk to me about? (00:08:41): And he goes, (00:08:42): I’d like to talk to him about naming rights for our new architectural engineering (00:08:46): school. (00:08:47): I said, really? (00:08:48): And I was on the board. (00:08:50): And he said, yeah. (00:08:51): He said, do you think they’d be interested? (00:08:52): I said, I don’t know. (00:08:55): I said, if we can position something in it for Johnson, it might be. (00:09:00): So long story short, they set up the meeting. (00:09:03): I set up the meeting with Alex and we fly up there. (00:09:07): So I’m in Kansas City. (00:09:09): Walter picks me up in his corporate, in his jet, in Kansas City. (00:09:12): Because he was the, was he the CEO of Keywood at the time? (00:09:16): He probably just retired. (00:09:17): I can’t remember if he either just recently retired or was still the CEO. (00:09:21): But he’s a billionaire. (00:09:21): I mean, he owns half, his name was on half the things in Omaha. (00:09:24): Were you a Scott Scholar? (00:09:25): Yeah, I was a Scott Scholar. (00:09:26): Yeah, so he paid for all my school. (00:09:29): He paid for Ryan’s school. (00:09:30): Yeah, (00:09:31): I met him a couple of times and it was just, (00:09:32): you know, (00:09:33): I have a picture of me with him and his (00:09:36): His wife, (00:09:36): who both of them have since passed away in my office, (00:09:38): my home office, (00:09:39): a picture of the three of us. (00:09:40): Yeah, it was just, it was a, it was an honor. (00:09:43): Yeah, just being an affiliate with the guy. (00:09:45): So they picked me up in Kansas City and fly on his jet to Milwaukee. (00:09:49): Now, as we’re, as we, and on that jet was Ken West from DLR, Dr. (00:09:56): Waters, Winnie Callahan, and a couple other Nebraska dignitaries. (00:10:01): There’s a small group of us, like six or eight of us. (00:10:03): And so Ronald Walters flying to Milwaukee. (00:10:06): And Walter was kind of saying, you know, bragging about his plane, how nice it is. (00:10:10): And I had just flown a bunch of customers like a couple months earlier on Johnson’s (00:10:15): plane, (00:10:15): which goes to China. (00:10:19): And I didn’t want to tell him that. (00:10:24): But it was still nice. (00:10:25): So we fly into Milwaukee and meet with Alex and other dignitaries at Johnson Controls. (00:10:35): When he does a pitch about... (00:10:37): It was going to be called the Johnson Controls School of Architectural Engineering (00:10:41): and Construction. (00:10:42): Did you know that? (00:10:43): I think you told me this story before. (00:10:44): But yeah, (00:10:45): it’s just so funny because it’s now the Durham School and it’s just like, (00:10:48): how different. (00:10:49): Yeah. (00:10:51): So long story short, they... (00:10:54): We leave and a couple days go by and I get a call from Max. (00:10:58): He says, Gunther, you know, we’re really impressed with that school. (00:11:02): We don’t really want to spend the money to have naming rights, but we will donate. (00:11:06): They donated like $100,000 to PKI and then within a few months of that it became (00:11:13): the Durham School of Architectural Engineering. (00:11:16): I don’t know what it is. (00:11:17): I remember somebody telling me the Durham School endowment before and it’s insane. (00:11:21): It’s something like (00:11:23): I don’t know the exact figures, (00:11:24): but I remember they said like the endowment sheds like a million dollars a year. (00:11:27): It’s just crazy. (00:11:28): You know, whatever it is. (00:11:29): So Ryan’s told me that as a Scott scholar, he got to visit Walter’s party house. (00:11:36): Yeah. (00:11:36): Hunting lodge or whatever. (00:11:37): Yeah. (00:11:38): So they call it the bar. (00:11:39): I went there four times. (00:11:40): He would have a party every year and it’s just this party house. (00:11:43): They call it the barn and he had his own like embossed napkins that just say the (00:11:47): bar and like stamped on the bottom. (00:11:49): But yeah, (00:11:50): he didn’t live there, (00:11:50): but it was a functional, (00:11:52): I mean, (00:11:52): relatively a functional barn, (00:11:54): but like he had a giant horse showing like track in the middle of it. (00:11:58): And so like you would go in and there’s, (00:12:00): you know, (00:12:00): it’s in the middle of kind of, (00:12:01): it feels like the middle of North, (00:12:02): but far North Omaha. (00:12:04): So if you go like 72nd Street North, (00:12:06): eventually you kind of run into this area where there’s not really kind of almost (00:12:09): up towards Blair and you, (00:12:11): there’s this long meandering driveway and you see horses like fields with horses (00:12:14): and those are all his, (00:12:15): but then this house, (00:12:16): it’s just this giant property. (00:12:19): Like a lodge? (00:12:19): Yeah, kind of, but it’s a little more modern. (00:12:21): It doesn’t really have a rustic vibe. (00:12:23): It’s fairly modern looking. (00:12:26): But like you walk in the first thing you see is this giant bar and he hires a (00:12:29): bartender so he would have all the Scott Scholars for all four years there once a (00:12:32): year and at that point it’s probably about 80 of us or so each Scott Scholar class (00:12:37): had about 25 of us and then they would always you know you get it’s a four year (00:12:40): renewed scholarship so he’d invite all of us and so there’s probably about I think (00:12:45): about 80 of us there and then you’d have the first thing you do when you walk in (00:12:50): you see this giant open bar and it has a bartender they’re making you I mean all (00:12:53): non-alcoholic drinks because we’re all college students but (00:12:55): One of my favorite memories of that was they had a shoe, just a big old shoe. (00:12:59): And it was a Shaquille O’Neal shoe that was autographed by Shaquille O’Neal. (00:13:03): And they took a linen napkin and shoved it in there and kind of forced it in there. (00:13:07): And they filled it up with pretzels. (00:13:09): So we’re all eating out of Shaquille O’Neal’s shoe while waiting for our Roy Rogers (00:13:14): or Shirley Temple or whatever it was. (00:13:16): Walter Scott was so iconic. (00:13:17): I mean, what a great guy. (00:13:19): And then he would take every single, (00:13:20): so like I said, (00:13:20): there’s about 80 of us, (00:13:21): but if you’re a freshman, (00:13:23): he made sure that you got a one-on-one picture with him and his wife for every (00:13:26): single one. (00:13:27): So it was about, (00:13:27): you know, (00:13:28): and you take about a minute to two minutes with each individual person. (00:13:31): So, you know, he would spend probably about half an hour, 45 minutes. (00:13:34): Just in a photo line. (00:13:35): And then after that, he would take a group photo with everyone. (00:13:38): So every single Scott Scholar got a personalized photo with him with this really (00:13:42): nice, (00:13:42): I still have mine too, (00:13:43): a gold leaf certificate autographed by him. (00:13:46): And then, you know, he shook his hand and everything. (00:13:47): And then we got this group photo. (00:13:49): So yeah, I still have mine in my office. (00:13:51): I’ll show it to you later. (00:13:52): And then you would have a (00:13:54): This big barn would have all this random memorabilia like he had this picture of (00:13:58): like they went and saw Elton John just like his autograph like whatever was poster (00:14:01): of Elton John and their ticket stubs and random stuff he just kind of accumulated (00:14:06): and then he the same meal every single year he would have tacos because he said he (00:14:11): quotes likes Mexican food he’d like get this little speech and dilly bars (00:14:15): Yeah. (00:14:16): And I think it’s good. (00:14:16): Dairy Queen. (00:14:17): Yeah. (00:14:17): Yeah. (00:14:18): I mean, he was on the board for Berkshire Hathaway, which was the own Dairy Queen. (00:14:21): Yeah. (00:14:21): Yeah. (00:14:21): So I feel like maybe he’s just, you know, inflating a stock price buying dilly bars. (00:14:24): But yeah, (00:14:24): they would walk around with a thing of dilly bars, (00:14:26): just like at the, (00:14:27): if you ever go to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting, (00:14:28): they have dilly bars everywhere because Warren likes them. (00:14:31): But Walter liked them too. (00:14:32): So you just hand out just, (00:14:33): they would have these people, (00:14:35): these caterers and tuxedos walking around with things of dilly bars. (00:14:38): We’d all be eating dilly bars. (00:14:39): Yeah. (00:14:40): So two stories I want to share with you that resonate in my mind as we’ve been talking. (00:14:46): So on the flight on Walter’s jet from Kansas City to Milwaukee, (00:14:51): in that time period, (00:14:52): Frank Solich had just become the head coach at Nebraska within a year or two. (00:14:57): So this would have been like, because 99 is when they won the Big 12 Championships. (00:15:01): So probably around early 2000s or so. (00:15:03): Yeah, somewhere in that time frame. (00:15:05): But Solich was on the hot seat because we’d lost a couple games. (00:15:08): So... (00:15:09): I’m a huge Husker fan, so I’m trying to create conversation with Walter. (00:15:15): A bit multi-billionaire, right? (00:15:16): Yeah, what do you talk about? (00:15:18): Exactly. (00:15:19): And I’m sitting across from him on his jet. (00:15:21): I said, so Walter, are you a Husker fan? (00:15:23): He goes, oh, I’m an absolute Husker fan. (00:15:26): And at that time, Solich was on the hot seat. (00:15:28): I said, so what are your impressions of Frank Solich? (00:15:32): And his comment to me was, Frank needs to learn how to become more of a CEO. (00:15:37): Coming from one of the best CEOs in the... Yeah. (00:15:40): At least in the construction industry, yeah. (00:15:42): They were actually shipping Frank in from Lincoln to Omaha to meet with... (00:15:46): I can’t remember who the CEO of ConAgro was. (00:15:49): Oh, wow. (00:15:49): At that time? (00:15:50): Yeah, I don’t remember. (00:15:50): Because if you remember, Frank was the running backs coach. (00:15:55): Well, he was a fullback as a player. (00:15:57): Yeah. (00:15:57): And then, yeah, he became the running backs coach. (00:15:59): Under Osborne, but had never been the head coach. (00:16:02): He’d never even been a coordinator because Osborne called all the plays. (00:16:05): Exactly. (00:16:06): Yeah. (00:16:06): So... (00:16:08): So Walter tells me that we’re working on making Frank more of a CEO, (00:16:14): but we’re not sure he’s going to make it. (00:16:16): And I’m like, whoa. (00:16:18): And he says, but we’re not giving up yet, right? (00:16:21): So fast forward like four months, Frank gets fired. (00:16:26): And I’m convinced that Walter Scott and those that he hung around with had (00:16:34): something to do with Frank getting eliminated. (00:16:37): But can you imagine Chip and Frank from Lincoln, Omaha to meet with the ConAgra CEO? (00:16:42): No. (00:16:43): To learn how to be more all-encompassing in terms of your leadership. (00:16:47): Yeah, (00:16:48): and I mean, (00:16:48): I don’t know if Frank sold each other any more than anybody else, (00:16:50): but just thinking about his personality, (00:16:52): it’s like, (00:16:53): yeah, (00:16:53): you’re not really a CEO. (00:16:55): You’re more of a football guy, you know? (00:16:56): But I think Tom Osborne was the same way. (00:16:58): I thought he was just kind of a good old football guy, but... Yeah, it was interesting. (00:17:01): I mean, literally, I’ll never forget that conversation. (00:17:06): He shared with me that they were shipping Frank in to Omaha to meet him. (00:17:12): He needs to be more of a CEO and not the running backs coach. (00:17:14): Yeah, which he’d never been. (00:17:16): Like I said, he wasn’t even a play caller until he got the head coaching job. (00:17:19): And what that said to me was the political influences that money has on that (00:17:24): football program is incredible. (00:17:26): Yeah. (00:17:27): There’s got to be stuff like that where you just... (00:17:30): when they fired Frost and all of a sudden he had this five million dollar buyout (00:17:33): and people are saying just don’t worry about it you know like we’ll figure we’ll (00:17:36): take care of it if they had waited three more weeks they would yeah the buyout (00:17:39): would have been less yeah it would have been at least half I think I don’t remember (00:17:42): I don’t remember the numbers either but three more weeks yeah and they could have (00:17:46): they could have saved millions yeah and Trev Albers is just like I don’t worry (00:17:49): about it you know like they so you know if somebody was in his ear saying we’ll (00:17:53): take care of that we just he’s got to go you know (00:17:55): Yeah, so I’ll never forget that. (00:17:57): You know, I specifically asked Walter, so what’s your view on Frank? (00:18:03): I mean, do you think he’s a good coach or a bad coach? (00:18:07): And he went in this whole discussion about Frank Solich. (00:18:11): I thought, whoa, he’s obviously in the know, right? (00:18:15): It was really interesting. (00:18:17): So that was an unbelievable opportunity. (00:18:20): What a great man, you know? (00:18:21): I mean, just a great man. (00:18:22): I met him a few times at his thing. (00:18:24): There was one... (00:18:25): it was probably two years his wife had already passed so it was between his wife (00:18:28): passing and him passing he was at some event at the school and I was there as an (00:18:32): alum just probably doing a recruiting thing he’s just walking around you know he’s (00:18:35): got this posse you know just probably bodyguards but just people kind of handlers (00:18:40): and I just went up to him I mean he’s just walking I just went straight to him not (00:18:43): through his people and I just all these people just got like on edge like what’s (00:18:46): this guy doing approaching Walter Scott and I just (00:18:49): I very simply said hey I was a Scott scholar I just want to personally say thank (00:18:52): you I mean the impact you had I mean it literally changed my life so I just want to (00:18:56): shake your hand and he you know he’s like oh so we shook shook his hands and I (00:18:59): didn’t stick around I got in and got out but it was just it was it was such a cool (00:19:04): opportunity to give him a personal thanks and he passed away a couple years later (00:19:07): but I just I’ll never forget just seeing all these faces like why is this guy (00:19:12): coming up to him and talking to him and then they saw you know I gave my little (00:19:15): thank you and they (00:19:18): He was on the Durham School Board when I was on there for a number of years when he (00:19:22): retired from that. (00:19:24): The whole demeanor of our board changed because Walter was super aggressive when it (00:19:31): came to the financials. (00:19:34): Being a board member, we review the financials every quarter. (00:19:38): I felt sorry for the people that managed our accounting system. (00:19:42): Because Walter would invariably find some issue with some number in the data that (00:19:49): was presented to us. (00:19:50): And he’s now long since been off the board and several of us had tried to pick that up, right? (00:19:57): But, I mean, the guy has such a keen mind. (00:20:00): And, (00:20:00): you know, (00:20:00): he was always one to not shy away from challenging the state of Nebraska because we (00:20:05): would see the financials and why does the state drop their coverage of our costs by (00:20:11): X number of dollars and (00:20:13): Walter jump in there and say, we need to go see so-and-so because he was so connected. (00:20:18): And my sense was a lot of times he would make a call. (00:20:21): Oh, I bet he would. (00:20:22): Right to legislators and say, hey, you can’t cut these finances for engineering. (00:20:27): You’re killing the state of Nebraska. (00:20:29): You’re probably tuned in to, (00:20:30): because I’ve been on the board for over 20 years and universities have gone through (00:20:34): a lot of cuts. (00:20:36): Last year, (00:20:37): we’ve got to eliminate faculty and they were going to eliminate the School of (00:20:42): Architecture. (00:20:43): Just shut it down. (00:20:44): Thank God it didn’t happen because somebody jumped in and helped finance that. (00:20:48): But the university is under a lot of pressure right now because of state funding. (00:20:53): It’s been cut. (00:20:54): So speaking of talking to billionaires, (00:20:56): I remember you told me once you negotiated with Donald Trump and worked at Tampa? (00:21:00): Not directly with him. (00:21:01): What was that story? (00:21:02): So I was living in Tampa. (00:21:04): Johnson Controls did a project somewhere on the east coast of Florida. (00:21:08): And I (00:21:09): We finished the project. (00:21:10): The project was done. (00:21:13): To my knowledge, there were no issues. (00:21:15): But Trump was the developer. (00:21:17): Okay. (00:21:18): And we were looking to get our retainage. (00:21:21): I’ve heard stories about Trump’s negotiations. (00:21:23): Yeah. (00:21:24): So we’re trying to get it closed out on the project, get our final money retainage. (00:21:29): And the offer that came back from the developer, (00:21:33): that’s like 50 cents on the dollar or something. (00:21:35): Might be even less. (00:21:36): I don’t know. (00:21:38): And so immediately we responded and said, so what have we done wrong? (00:21:42): I mean, why would you take money away from us? (00:21:45): And the response was, we have no beef with your performance. (00:21:50): We just don’t think we should have paid so much to begin with. (00:21:55): And Trump was never in these project meetings to my knowledge. (00:21:58): And I personally was never, but my guys that worked for me were. (00:22:03): And Trump always had lawyers there. (00:22:06): So they kept wanting to negotiate for something less than a dollar for a dollar. (00:22:12): And we stood strong. (00:22:13): And if you continue to do this and hold our attention, we’ll disable the JC 8540 system. (00:22:20): So you won’t have any temperature controls in your building anymore. (00:22:22): No, exactly. (00:22:24): So, but that was really interesting. (00:22:26): The other place that, (00:22:26): that’s the only time I can remember where we had construction meetings where (00:22:30): lawyers were present. (00:22:32): Trump had lawyers there. (00:22:33): And then the other place was Disney. (00:22:36): We did a lot. (00:22:37): Yeah, (00:22:37): Disney always had, (00:22:39): my recollection was Disney had lawyers sit in on our project meetings, (00:22:44): right? (00:22:44): Where normally there’s construction people, (00:22:46): but Disney had a construction manager or two there, (00:22:49): but they always had a lawyer there. (00:22:50): Interesting. (00:22:51): And so it was, they were another really difficult client. (00:22:54): I think at Disney, (00:22:55): like all the secretive for like their intellectual property, (00:22:58): and I had friends that worked at Disneyland, (00:22:59): and I had, (00:23:00): when I was in high school, (00:23:02): our band went and played at Disneyland, (00:23:04): and you know, (00:23:04): so we had to go. (00:23:04): You were a band guy? (00:23:05): Oh, yeah. (00:23:08): Did you ever think about playing for NU? (00:23:10): I thought about it, yeah. (00:23:12): I thought about it. (00:23:12): Honestly, if I wouldn’t have gone to engineering in Omaha, I would have at least tried out. (00:23:17): But at the time, UNO’s band just wasn’t. (00:23:21): The time commitment for the perks of being involved in the band just weren’t there. (00:23:26): I remember my first day going to the dorms and seeing the band out practicing, whatever it was. (00:23:30): Early in the morning. (00:23:31): Yeah, I’m like, I’m done with this. (00:23:33): Now, (00:23:33): if I was in Lincoln, (00:23:34): it would have been worth it just to go to the games and have that experience, (00:23:37): but (00:23:38): I yeah that was that was a big factor in choosing to go to Omaha over Lincoln it’s (00:23:43): like well I can’t try out for the band but uh I had a I had some friends that were (00:23:47): in the band actually did you ever see the Jim Carrey movie Yes Man yeah or know (00:23:50): what it is so he goes to Jim Carrey the whole premise is he just has to say yes to (00:23:55): everyone so he has this girlfriend that like is real outgoing and adventurous (00:23:59): they’re like we’re gonna go to the very first plane that’s you know the very first (00:24:02): flight out that’s where we’re going it was to Lincoln Nebraska so we’re like all (00:24:05): right let’s go to Lincoln and (00:24:06): There’s a shot with Jim Carrey going to a Husker game. (00:24:09): And then they like pan across the crowd. (00:24:11): There’s one shot of the marching band and front and center. (00:24:14): Like, (00:24:14): you know, (00:24:14): for me to you, (00:24:15): there’s a guy playing the snare drum and that’s one of my best friends. (00:24:18): Oh, really? (00:24:18): He was our section leader in Grand Island. (00:24:20): And so, I mean, it’s a shot of the whole band, but he’s right there in this movie. (00:24:23): So I remember going, I knew they had a camp. (00:24:25): I didn’t know he was in the movie, but I knew they went to Lincoln in the movie. (00:24:28): And I’m at this theater going, that’s Andy! (00:24:31): Did you go to the same high school that Scott Frost went to? (00:24:33): No, he went to Wood River. (00:24:35): But the Disneyland thing, I remember when our high school band went, they call it backstage. (00:24:40): So it’s like they kind of treat everything at Disneyland like the outside of the (00:24:44): park is on stage and then you go backstage, (00:24:46): kind of like a theater type of environment. (00:24:48): And the underground environment there, do you know about that? (00:24:51): Very little. (00:24:51): But I just remember that was the only, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. (00:24:53): And I mean, it was, like you said, security wise, like we just (00:24:57): We got like ushered into one little room and that was it. (00:25:00): We couldn’t take pictures. (00:25:01): They’re real hardcore about that. (00:25:03): We got dressed. (00:25:03): They shipped us off there and just like everything was so tight knit. (00:25:07): And I have friends that worked at the park just for a summer gig, (00:25:11): you know, (00:25:11): and they still won’t, (00:25:12): you know, (00:25:13): they can’t talk about certain things. (00:25:14): I think they’re under NDAs and whatnot. (00:25:15): And there’s things like they coach them on how to answer certain questions. (00:25:18): Like if you ever ask anybody how many Mickeys there are, (00:25:21): they always say, (00:25:21): oh, (00:25:21): there’s only one Mickey. (00:25:22): Because they coordinate the person, the Mickey Mouse outfit. (00:25:25): There can only ever be one Mickey Mouse outfit out of the park at any given part in time. (00:25:29): And so the question is if he’s in a whatever, an Uncle Sam outfit or a jungle, whatever theme. (00:25:35): It’s just that there’s always ever one. (00:25:37): And if somebody asks you how many Mickeys are there, (00:25:38): they always say, (00:25:39): their coach just said, (00:25:39): oh, (00:25:40): there’s only one Mickey. (00:25:41): When I was in Florida, we did the Universal Studios Islands of Adventure. (00:25:46): That park’s awesome. (00:25:47): It was seven different venues within Universal. (00:25:50): It was being built in Florida. (00:25:52): And we were the constant. (00:25:54): So there were seven different general contractors. (00:25:57): We were those constant HVAC. (00:26:00): So each park had its own general. (00:26:01): They just contracted separately. (00:26:03): And that was like managing that was very difficult because each GC had a different (00:26:09): Well, yeah. (00:26:10): I’m sure they had different schedules and different, you know. (00:26:13): One of the cool things was, (00:26:14): so one of them was the King Kong Pavilion or whatever they called it. (00:26:20): And I can remember we put in the fire alarm system in all the pavilions, (00:26:25): but that one was a real challenge because if you’ve ever been in that facility, (00:26:29): King Kong is there. (00:26:30): He’s like, (00:26:32): You know, three stories tall. (00:26:33): He’s fighting airplanes, fires everywhere. (00:26:36): We had to put a fire alarm system in that looked for temperature and CO detection. (00:26:40): And so we ended up, (00:26:43): we couldn’t find a place to put the temperature, (00:26:45): fire temperature sensor in that venue because it kept setting it off because there (00:26:51): wasn’t really no fire other than the fires that were there for the exhibit, (00:26:54): right? (00:26:54): Yeah, of course. (00:26:55): So I can remember we decided to put the fire sensor under King Kong’s left armpit. (00:27:03): That was the only place we could put it where fires wouldn’t set the damn thing off. (00:27:07): You’re worried about body odor. (00:27:09): Exactly. (00:27:10): So it’s left armpit. (00:27:11): We put the fire sensor. (00:27:13): It was crazy. (00:27:15): Man, (00:27:15): I can’t imagine that coordination meeting trying to figure out where to... (00:27:19): We were the constant between all seven venues. (00:27:22): Universal Studios. (00:27:23): Well, that park is crazy because one was Dr. Seuss, another one was like... (00:27:27): They’re all different. (00:27:28): Yeah, they’re all different. (00:27:29): The King Kong venue because of the flames and fires that happened with that. (00:27:33): As he’s fighting these airplanes. (00:27:34): Yeah. (00:27:35): So, all right. (00:27:35): So you’re from, you’re born of South Omaha, right? (00:27:37): You always made the distinction, not Omaha, South Omaha. (00:27:40): Was it a different city when you were a kid still? (00:27:42): No, it was at one point in time in its history. (00:27:44): Yeah. (00:27:45): I remember Warren Buffett. (00:27:46): That was his thing. (00:27:47): He was from, (00:27:48): if he wasn’t from South Omaha, (00:27:49): he at least got to start like selling newspapers to the people at South Omaha. (00:27:54): That could be. (00:27:54): I’m not familiar with that. (00:27:56): But at one point in time, South Omaha was its own city. (00:27:59): But, uh, (00:28:00): I’m not exactly sure when it became integrated into Omaha, kind of like Elkhorn now. (00:28:05): But yeah, it was basic. (00:28:07): Basically, when I when I grew up was meatpacking plant. (00:28:10): We’re the world’s largest stockyards. (00:28:12): I laugh and kid my wife’s wife and I’ve been married 52 years. (00:28:16): Right. (00:28:17): Dated her in high school at Creighton Prep and she went to Mercy, which is the all girls. (00:28:21): I was going to say, how’d you meet your wife in high school? (00:28:23): Go to all boys school. (00:28:25): And I dated some other girls in high school. (00:28:27): And we lived within, we lived on 33rd and T Street, six or eight blocks from the stockyards. (00:28:32): And when the wind blows south, the whole neighborhood smelled like the stockyards. (00:28:36): Manure. (00:28:37): Yeah. (00:28:37): So I would bring home dates from, (00:28:40): I dated a girl from Benson High School and bring her home to meet my folks. (00:28:45): And she’d go, man, it really smells bad here. (00:28:50): And I go, yeah, that’s just part of living here. (00:28:53): My dad worked in a meatpacking plant. (00:28:55): So that dating didn’t work out, right? (00:28:58): You had to go to their place, huh? (00:28:59): Yeah. (00:28:59): My wife, Judy, she’s a Polish descent. (00:29:02): So her grandparents were Polish immigrants. (00:29:05): My parents were Lithuanian German immigrants. (00:29:08): So I’ll never forget bringing her home to meet my folks and never complained about (00:29:13): the smell because she was from South Omaha. (00:29:15): This is the one. (00:29:16): Yeah. (00:29:16): Well, and the other thing was my father never spoke English. (00:29:19): He spoke Lithuanian because our entire family (00:29:22): St. Anthony’s Parish Community was all Lithuanian. (00:29:25): St. (00:29:25): Anthony’s would sponsor people from refugee camps in Europe after World War II to (00:29:30): come to the U.S. (00:29:31): You had to have a sponsor to come. (00:29:33): And so our whole neighborhood was Lithuanian. (00:29:36): We did Catholic Mass in Lithuanian. (00:29:39): I went to grade school at St. (00:29:40): Anthony’s and we did, (00:29:41): we’d sing the U.S. (00:29:43): National Anthem and we sing the Lithuanian National Anthem. (00:29:45): Can you speak Lithuanian? (00:29:47): I was really fluent because my dad, that’s the only way I could speak to him. (00:29:50): But my father has passed away like 25 years ago, so I haven’t spoken it. (00:29:55): Now, I’m actually taking an online course to refresh my Lithuanian. (00:30:00): It’s coming back really quick. (00:30:01): That’s the thing about language I’ve learned even just having kids that spoke Spanish. (00:30:06): It’s all in there somewhere. (00:30:07): You just have to refresh it. (00:30:10): My mother was German. (00:30:12): So my father fled the Soviet Union (00:30:15): I mean, fled Lithuania when the Soviet Union invaded Lithuania and took it over. (00:30:20): And he was in his 20s at the time. (00:30:22): And men in their 20s in Lithuania at that time tried to resist the Soviet invasion. (00:30:28): And the Soviets had tanks and armament. (00:30:31): Lithuanians had sticks and they didn’t have much ammunition. (00:30:35): So when it became obvious that the Soviets were going to succeed in taking over (00:30:41): Lithuania, (00:30:42): my grandfather said to my father, (00:30:45): You need to leave. (00:30:45): Because if they capture you, you’re going to be put in a prison in Siberia. (00:30:50): So my father fled Lithuania and went to a refugee camp in Germany. (00:30:55): This is right after World War II. (00:30:57): And the refugee camp was managed by the United States Army. (00:31:01): And my father lived in that refugee camp for four years. (00:31:04): He met my mother. (00:31:05): My mother was a cook in this refugee camp. (00:31:08): She was German. (00:31:09): So that explains my name, right? (00:31:10): My first name is German. (00:31:11): My last name is Lithuania. (00:31:13): And so... (00:31:14): So they met there and they waited three years to immigrate to the United States. (00:31:19): You had to have a sponsor to immigrate to the U.S. after World War II. (00:31:23): And St. Anthony’s Parish here in South Omaha sponsored Lithuanians to come to the U.S. (00:31:29): So our whole neighborhood is Lithuanian. (00:31:31): So that’s how they got here and was born in South Omaha. (00:31:34): And so I make the distinction only because the culture in South Omaha, (00:31:38): there’s like a four-mile square area of South Omaha that’s Catholic. (00:31:44): St. (00:31:44): Anthony was Lithuanian, (00:31:45): St. (00:31:45): Stanislaus within flocks was Polish, (00:31:48): St. (00:31:49): Peter Paul was Croatian, (00:31:51): St. (00:31:51): Mary’s was Irish. (00:31:52): There’s like 10 Catholic churches within some small square mile area, (00:31:57): all ethnic, (00:31:58): that primarily were made up of immigrants. (00:32:02): Was it all around like the same kind of thing post-World War II? (00:32:06): I believe so, yeah. (00:32:06): Sponsoring just different parts of the country? (00:32:08): My recollection. (00:32:09): Different, I guess, countries. (00:32:11): Now today, (00:32:11): if you went to, (00:32:12): so the dioceses of the Catholic Church here in Omaha has since shut down St. (00:32:18): Anthony’s. (00:32:19): It’s the parish I grew up in. (00:32:20): As president of the Altar Boys, I mean, just gave me a great education. (00:32:23): And so today that neighborhood is mostly Hispanic. (00:32:26): Yeah, we go there. (00:32:27): There’s an amazing ice cream place. (00:32:30): I take my kids there all the time. (00:32:31): If you want great Mexican food, South Belmont is a place to go. (00:32:34): Oh, yeah. (00:32:35): You can’t compete. (00:32:35): Yeah, so it’s just amazing how that’s all changed. (00:32:38): And the Lithuanian Bakery, have you ever heard of that? (00:32:41): It’s on Pacific Street. (00:32:44): So that’s the Muscavich’s family that when I was a kid, (00:32:47): they started to make bread in the basement, (00:32:50): their basement. (00:32:50): When you go into their house, the whole house smelled like yeast. (00:32:54): But they started to make bread in the basement and they sell it to the neighborhood. (00:32:59): And from that, (00:33:00): it became so popular, (00:33:01): they decided to open up their own bakery, (00:33:03): which is on 33rd Avenue and Q Street, (00:33:06): the original one. (00:33:08): And now they’re out on Pacific Street. (00:33:10): But they ship their torts all over the world. (00:33:14): I’ve had them, yeah. (00:33:14): I think I’ve had them in like, I’m pretty sure I’ve gone to like Minnesota. (00:33:19): My sister lives up there and (00:33:20): had a tort there from the Lithuanian bakery in Omaha. (00:33:23): It started in their basement. (00:33:24): That’s crazy. (00:33:26): And so Miscavich’s family started that. (00:33:30): Within the Lithuanian community of St. Anthony’s, they were pretty prominent. (00:33:34): So did everyone go to Creighton Prep then? (00:33:37): No. (00:33:38): So when it came time to graduate St. (00:33:41): Anthony’s grade school, (00:33:42): eighth grade, (00:33:42): I’m leaving to go to high school. (00:33:44): And most of my friends went to either South High School (00:33:49): Or Ryan High School, which doesn’t exist anymore. (00:33:51): Not Brian. (00:33:52): Not Brian. (00:33:53): It was a Catholic school, and it has since closed down. (00:33:57): And so I did not want to go to Creighton Prep. (00:34:00): So Al Muscavages, the senior boy in that family, went to Creighton Prep. (00:34:07): And the Muscavages family, and he played for Nebraska. (00:34:11): He played for Prep. (00:34:12): He played for Nebraska. (00:34:13): He was a great football lineman. (00:34:16): Just awesome. (00:34:17): And I don’t know how many years he played for Nebraska, (00:34:19): but he was like all state and all that stuff. (00:34:22): So the word had gotten through our community that the best place to get a Catholic (00:34:26): education for boys was Creighton Prep. (00:34:30): And it was expensive back then. (00:34:33): I just asked today, what’s the tuition here? (00:34:36): $18,000 a year. (00:34:38): That’s more expensive than UNO. (00:34:40): Exactly. (00:34:40): You go to college for less. (00:34:41): Yeah. (00:34:43): When I went, it was $450 a semester, so $900 a year. (00:34:48): And I used to have to work the switchboard in a Jesuit priest residency to reduce (00:34:54): some of my tuition. (00:34:56): That was like a student job that they had? (00:35:00): Yeah, to help relieve some of the costs. (00:35:04): So I wanted to either go to Ryan or South because that’s where all my friends were going. (00:35:08): And my parents said, (00:35:09): no, (00:35:09): you’re going to get the best education we can provide, (00:35:12): even though they couldn’t afford it. (00:35:14): And you’re going to prep. (00:35:15): And so we didn’t have a car. (00:35:17): And I would take a city bus from South Omaha to downtown Omaha and then transfer (00:35:23): from a bus there to the crossroads. (00:35:25): Crossroads was 72nd and Dodge. (00:35:27): And then I would walk like the three-quarters of a mile from 72nd and Dodge to (00:35:32): 72nd, (00:35:33): came around the street up to prep. (00:35:35): And my freshman year, that’s how I got to school. (00:35:38): How long did that take? (00:35:40): It was a few hours. (00:35:41): I mean, yeah. (00:35:43): My sophomore year, (00:35:46): I had a friend, (00:35:47): St. (00:35:47): Anthony’s grade school graduate, (00:35:50): that had his driver’s license and a car. (00:35:52): So my sophomore year on, I got rights because he had a license. (00:35:56): And our first car, my family’s first car came when I was 17. (00:36:02): My parents scrounged up enough money to help me get a driver’s license. (00:36:05): They bought a 1963 Chevrolet Impala. (00:36:10): It had rusted through the floorboard. (00:36:15): I put some floor mats in so you couldn’t see the road. (00:36:19): And it didn’t have air conditioning. (00:36:20): And no power steering. (00:36:22): Well, my first car didn’t have power steering, but it did have everything. (00:36:25): It had a floor. (00:36:27): But the exterior of it, I polished that thing like it was gold. (00:36:32): I waxed it. (00:36:34): Our neighbors used to tell me, Gunther, you’re going to rub off the paint. (00:36:39): You got to make up for the smell of cow s**t when you’re taking a girl on a day. (00:36:42): Exactly. (00:36:44): Our family was so proud of that car, but that was our first car. (00:36:48): Did you always want to be a Husker then? (00:36:50): You didn’t go to Creighton, obviously. (00:36:52): Graduated in 71 from high school, and Nebraska won our first tournament. (00:36:55): So that’s a good year for a Husker fan. (00:36:57): First National Championship in 70 and 71. (00:37:00): So I became hooked. (00:37:01): And what’s interesting, (00:37:03): so my father, (00:37:03): who never spoke English and was Lithuanian, (00:37:07): became a huge Husker fan. (00:37:09): I mean, he could understand English, but he couldn’t speak it. (00:37:11): And so, I mean, he was glued to the TV. (00:37:14): And so I became that too over time. (00:37:17): People at John’s Controls would swear I have a Husker tattoo somewhere in my body. (00:37:22): And a John’s Controls tattoo, right? (00:37:23): Yeah, well, I could believe it. (00:37:25): But I don’t. (00:37:26): I look back on getting you to come to Johnson Controls. (00:37:29): I still can’t believe we pulled that out. (00:37:31): I can’t either most days. (00:37:32): Because you were kind of a civil focus. (00:37:34): I was structural engineer. (00:37:35): Structural, yeah. (00:37:36): So what I remember, (00:37:37): and I don’t know if I’ve ever talked you through my perspective, (00:37:39): or maybe if you could compare notes. (00:37:41): So I was a structural engineering emphasis. (00:37:44): So we have structural. (00:37:45): Which really fits with Johnson. (00:37:46): No, yeah. (00:37:48): So there’s mechanical, (00:37:49): electrical, (00:37:50): acoustics, (00:37:51): and really like any of those would make a better fit. (00:37:54): More sense. (00:37:55): More sense working for an HVAC manufacturer or low voltage company. (00:37:59): But I was structural, but I wasn’t really like a passionate structural person. (00:38:02): It’s just we, (00:38:03): the faculty at that time was very, (00:38:05): the quality of faculty and structures was not the same as it was in all the other (00:38:09): disciplines, (00:38:09): especially like mechanicals kind of at a little (00:38:11): So, there’s this professor, Dr. Gary Krause, who is this icon, and I took every single class. (00:38:18): He retired about three or four years ago, too. (00:38:20): But he was like, (00:38:21): him and Clarence Waters were my two guys, (00:38:24): and Waters didn’t teach as much as, (00:38:26): at the time, (00:38:26): he was the director of the Durham School, (00:38:27): so he had a very low teaching load, (00:38:29): because he was doing a lot of administrative things. (00:38:31): So, I took a couple classes, but not a lot. (00:38:34): But I took every single Gary Krause class, (00:38:36): and I just felt like I understood it better, (00:38:38): because he was such a great teacher. (00:38:39): Well, (00:38:40): I started to take a couple of other classes from other professors, (00:38:42): realized I didn’t actually like structural engineering that much. (00:38:45): It was just kind of the professor was that good. (00:38:47): I got to my senior year of the program, (00:38:49): not really sure what I wanted to do with it, (00:38:51): and just assumed, (00:38:52): all right, (00:38:52): I’ll become a structural engineer. (00:38:53): And we started that Architectural Engineering National Conference. (00:38:57): And I had known you for a while from just doing... Because I was on the board. (00:39:00): You were on the board and as a student I would do... You were super active. (00:39:03): Yeah, so we had like a student advisory board and I was the chair of that. (00:39:07): ASLAC? (00:39:07): Yeah, ASLAC. (00:39:08): Yeah, still around. (00:39:09): Architectural Engineering Student Leadership Advisory Committee I think is what it stands for. (00:39:14): ASLAC, yeah. (00:39:15): I had been involved for all four or five years I was in the engineering program. (00:39:19): I was on that, (00:39:19): but I was the chair for one year and different committee leads at different points (00:39:24): in time. (00:39:24): And so I remember going like presenting to that board and (00:39:27): Doing the student update, whatever. (00:39:28): So I got to know you. (00:39:29): I got to know a lot of people, but I got to know you pretty well. (00:39:31): And I remember going to that, we started an engineering conference, a national conference. (00:39:35): We got Johnson Controls through you to sponsor a bunch of stuff. (00:39:38): You guys did some tech sessions. (00:39:40): I remember you pulling me out in the hallway. (00:39:42): I was just walking around trying to make sure everybody’s like, (00:39:44): hey, (00:39:44): you got everything you need kind of thing. (00:39:46): And you just stopped me and said, hey, what are you gonna do when you graduate? (00:39:48): And I said, well, I don’t know. (00:39:50): And he’s like, you’d be a great fit for our company. (00:39:52): And put that idea out there, just kind of left it alone. (00:39:54): Well, you were so extroverted and so energetic. (00:39:58): And I knew you were structurally focused. (00:40:01): I thought, man, we need this kid. (00:40:03): Now that you’re with Johnson Controls, I mean, that’s what you need to be, right? (00:40:07): Energetic and outgoing and that type of thing to do the job you do. (00:40:11): And I thought it was a long shot, but we’ll give it a whirl. (00:40:13): Well, you had the benefit of... (00:40:15): So 2008 was my freshman year. (00:40:19): So the economy was in the tank. (00:40:21): And so when I took my tour to PKI... (00:40:24): Just the year before as a senior, (00:40:26): they had an entire third floor of PKI just to deal with all the internship requests (00:40:30): they had. (00:40:31): A guy’s full-time job was placing people in internships and entry-level jobs, (00:40:35): and they hired him, (00:40:35): and that’s all he did. (00:40:36): My freshman year, they fired him. (00:40:37): They laid off that entire group because there wasn’t that much demand anymore, (00:40:41): and just the market fell out, (00:40:43): especially construction, (00:40:44): right? (00:40:45): And so by the time I was graduating in 2013, (00:40:48): five years later, (00:40:50): the jobs were just starting, (00:40:51): and so I had (00:40:53): You know, (00:40:53): you would hear stories about people that came before us have five job offers, (00:40:56): they’d be comparing benefits. (00:40:57): I had an internship at DLR Group as a structural intern, (00:41:01): but no commitment to not only just, (00:41:04): I didn’t even have commitment to work during the school year because they didn’t (00:41:06): have enough work. (00:41:08): And now it’s like they hire a freshman and they have to work all year round for the (00:41:11): five years that they’re in school. (00:41:12): But I couldn’t get an internship in engineering proper until my senior year or (00:41:17): between my senior and grad school year. (00:41:19): And then during the school year, (00:41:20): they couldn’t justify keeping me on because they didn’t have enough projects. (00:41:24): And then you at a career fair, (00:41:28): I was writing an article that got published in the Journal of Architectural (00:41:31): Engineering. (00:41:32): We wanted you to be a (00:41:34): By C.S. (00:41:34): Beaty (00:41:43): And so we interviewed, so Clarence and I wrote, really I wrote it, but it was Clarence’s idea. (00:41:47): He said, here’s just kind of what I want. (00:41:49): You go ahead and write it. (00:41:50): I actually got some, I got college credit for writing this paper. (00:41:54): But we interviewed you and we interviewed Todd Feldman because you had- HDR. (00:41:57): From HDR, yeah. (00:41:58): So Todd was, he was a part-time faculty member. (00:42:01): So we want to talk a little bit about that experience of being a part-time faculty member. (00:42:03): We want to talk to you about the board and kind of how that works. (00:42:07): And I remember going up to you at the career fair because we’re going to pull you (00:42:11): aside and do an interview while you’re in town for the career fair. (00:42:14): And I were saying, hey, we still on for tomorrow? (00:42:16): And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. (00:42:17): Hey, what are you doing tomorrow? (00:42:18): I’m like, well, I don’t know. (00:42:19): You’re like, take an interview. (00:42:21): And so you had a sign-up sheet. (00:42:22): And I couldn’t tell you no because I just asked you to do an interview for me. (00:42:26): And you’re like, well, take an interview for me. (00:42:27): I’m like, well, I can’t tell him no because he just said yes to me. (00:42:29): So I signed up. (00:42:31): And you had already put that idea in my head of coming to work for you, (00:42:33): which it’s not that I ignored it, (00:42:35): but it’s like, (00:42:35): yeah, (00:42:36): you know, (00:42:36): whatever. (00:42:37): And then it really was in that first interview where you started talking about the job. (00:42:41): That’s when you told me about negotiating with Donald Trump. (00:42:43): I remember that. (00:42:45): And then talking about the job, talking about what it was. (00:42:48): And just like you laid out the timeline for the hiring decisions. (00:42:52): Just like I could have a job and have it figured out by Thanksgiving. (00:42:57): And going into my final semester of college, just have that done with it. (00:43:00): You didn’t have to worry about it. (00:43:01): You didn’t have to worry about it. (00:43:02): And so I ended up going, getting the interview. (00:43:04): The interview event at that time, they flew us all into Milwaukee. (00:43:07): We had this reception at Miller Park is what it was called with the Brewers. (00:43:10): Yeah, getting a tour. (00:43:11): I was a Brewers fan. (00:43:13): Oh, you were? (00:43:13): Yeah, I still am, but I’m not a diehard. (00:43:15): But that was my height of my fandom. (00:43:17): So super impressive. (00:43:18): Just seeing John’s Controls everywhere at Miller Park and getting a tour of the (00:43:21): dugout and everything. (00:43:22): The back, you know, the clubhouse and just this amazing show. (00:43:26): This kid that’s living off of ramen noodles now being treated like a celebrity and took the job. (00:43:32): You offered the job, took the job. (00:43:33): And I didn’t get another job offer until... (00:43:36): There’s three different engineering firms I was really courting. (00:43:39): HDR? (00:43:40): HDR was not on my list because they just, they never showed an interest. (00:43:43): Really? (00:43:44): I applied several times for an internship and they always had, (00:43:46): they would take one intern a year kind of thing. (00:43:50): Today, that’s not the case. (00:43:51): I know, I know. (00:43:52): It’s crazy because they would take like one and I would get the interview but not (00:43:56): the job kind of thing. (00:43:57): And that happened to me all the time. (00:43:59): But I interned at DLR and (00:44:01): And I was told after the fact they had every intention to offer me a job, (00:44:05): but they didn’t have a job yet. (00:44:07): I tried very aggressively to court HGA. (00:44:11): They had an office in Milwaukee, an office in Lincoln, or not in Lincoln, in Minneapolis. (00:44:15): In their headquarter, Minneapolis. (00:44:16): Yeah, and I actually went to their office, my family in Minneapolis. (00:44:21): And so we were up for Thanksgiving to visit family. (00:44:23): And I reached out to HGA and said, hey, can you give me a tour while I’m here? (00:44:25): And they were on our board. (00:44:27): Yeah, and that’s how I got to know them. (00:44:28): So they gave me a tour. (00:44:29): They interviewed me. (00:44:30): They (00:44:31): Laid out the spread. (00:44:32): I was very impressed, but they just didn’t have a job. (00:44:34): And then Leo A. (00:44:35): Daly at the time, (00:44:36): Ryan Curtis, (00:44:36): who’s actually the chair of the board now, (00:44:38): him and I got to know each other really well. (00:44:41): And he sent me an email. (00:44:42): I think it was six months into my job at Johnson saying, hey, (00:44:45): By C.S. (00:44:46): Beaty (00:45:11): I had all the mentors that I needed, (00:45:14): even though I didn’t know anything about mechanical engineering or anything at the (00:45:17): time, (00:45:17): really in construction. (00:45:18): It’s like I had everything I needed. (00:45:20): I remember going to the first... (00:45:22): Husker game with Tommy Frazier in our Nebraska suite yeah and you were there (00:45:28): obviously but Tommy Frazier’s in there not even paying attention to the game (00:45:31): flirting with the hostess or whatever he was doing and being like it was a it was a (00:45:35): pinch me self moment I’m like here I am this diehard Husker fan with Tommy Frazier (00:45:39): the greatest quarterback of all time in a Nebraska uniform just hanging out and I’m (00:45:43): watching this game and I’m eight you know I was eight I’m 22 years old you know (00:45:47): doing this kind of stuff and it was just a surreal thing (00:45:50): Johnson made me the executive in charge of the African American Affinity Network. (00:45:55): I would meet quarterly with 50 to 100 African American Johnson employees to be a (00:46:02): resource to help them advance their career. (00:46:04): And so once a year at that time, (00:46:07): we would hold like a conference and bring all these African American employees in, (00:46:11): try and help them (00:46:13): advanced in the company so because I was in charge of that I brought Tommy Frazier (00:46:17): in to speak he just authored his book about his career and I mean he came from (00:46:22): pretty tough beginnings his brother was in prison group in Florida right Bradenton (00:46:27): Florida yeah and so uh brought him in to speak to the to the group and it was all (00:46:32): about you know don’t worry about where you came from focus on where you’re going (00:46:36): right (00:46:36): Actually, (00:46:37): do you ever heard that when Nebraska played Miami in the Orange Bowl in Tom (00:46:42): Osborne’s first national championship, (00:46:44): who was the big tackle for Miami? (00:46:46): Warren Sapp. (00:46:47): Warren Sapp, yeah. (00:46:48): Warren Sapp, yeah. (00:46:49): So at that time, Brooke Berenger and Frazier were sharing time as quarterback. (00:46:56): Yeah, the blood clot issues. (00:46:57): Yeah. (00:46:57): Or Tommy did, yeah. (00:46:59): So because Tommy hadn’t played much, Berenger started the game. (00:47:03): And then later, we weren’t doing so well, so later... (00:47:06): Osborne brought in Tommy Frazier and so when Tommy stepped up to take snap from (00:47:12): center for the first time in the game Warren Sapp said so where you been dude or (00:47:17): something to that effect and Tommy’s response he’s told me this personally he said (00:47:22): Tommy’s response was hey badass it’s not where I’ve been it’s where I’m going I’m (00:47:27): going to the end zone (00:47:29): And he scored, right? (00:47:31): Yeah, of course. (00:47:32): But it was those exact words that Tommy shared. (00:47:35): He goes, hey, fat ass, it’s not where I’ve been, it’s where I’m going. (00:47:39): Yeah. (00:47:39): And we’re going to the end zone. (00:47:40): Yeah. (00:47:41): And we ended up winning the game. (00:47:42): Oh, yeah. (00:47:43): So I had him speak at that African-American affinity that we did in Oklahoma City (00:47:47): and flew a bunch of
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