Interesting People: Corporate Executive and World's Biggest Husker Fan Guenther Dziuvenis
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Today’s guest is a mentor and hero of mine who convinced me to give up on a career
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as a structural engineer in order to follow him to the dark side of sales.
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We talk about that along with a bunch of his favorite stories from a three-decade
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career in corporate leadership,
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including his interactions with Walter Scott,
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Tommy Frazier,
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Indomitian Sioux,
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Warren Sapp,
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Donald Trump,
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and King Kong.
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I’m very excited to present Gunther DeVanus.
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So you can do like,
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if you just wanted this particular type of mic,
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you can plug straight into your laptop.
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So you could like get started for like a couple hundred bucks.
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How do you find time to do all this crap?
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Seriously.
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I don’t know.
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I just, well, I don’t go into the office anymore.
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Yeah, that’s nice.
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Yeah.
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So before I forget, so I was at Prep Today yesterday and today, and I’m coming back in the fall.
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And I’m bringing Dean Perez and Tony Villan, do you know who that is?
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Tony Villan’s on our board.
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He’s an ex-Husker player, was on the 94-95 championship team, so he wears a big championship.
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So I took my grandson to the Colorado-Nebraska game two years ago when we beat them in Lincoln.
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My grandson lives in the shadow of Boulder.
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He’s taking basketball camps on campus.
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So he was kind of a Colorado fan.
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So I said, I got to fix this.
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It was a night game.
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Before the night game, I toured him through the new Keywood Hall building.
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I haven’t been in that yet, but I saw it under construction.
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Dean Perez’s office is on the top floor of that thing.
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I forget how many stories it is.
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He’s got a balcony.
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By C.S.
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Beaty
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But he’s got this big ring on it.
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I see Owen staring at his ring.
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Yeah.
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Because he’s got to be what?
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Is he 18 yet?
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No, no.
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He’s like, he just turned 13.
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13.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So he was, and at that time he was 11.
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Okay.
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So he’s staring at Belen’s ring and I said, it’s a pretty cool ring, huh?
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Owen?
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And he goes, yeah, that’s really cool.
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He said, what is, what kind of ring is it?
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And so Tony takes it off and Tony’s got big fingers so he gives it to Owen.
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He says, put it on.
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So Owen puts it on.
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Big red
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Yeah.
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Jewel in there.
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National Championship.
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And Owen goes, wow, how did you get this?
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And he explained it to him.
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He goes, I have two of those.
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And then Owen goes like, wow.
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And he goes, you know what else I have?
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And he says, no.
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He says, I have a Super Bowl ring, too.
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Oh, wow.
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But anyway, I’m bringing him, Tony Villan, and Perez to prep.
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But I’d love to have you come because I’m pitching Nebraska Engineering.
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And
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Most of the kids that go to prep, 99.9% of them all go to college.
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You can’t go to, I mean, it’s called Creighton Prep, prep you for college.
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And you have to take an entrance exam and all this other crap.
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But,
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so,
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a bunch,
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and they’re really,
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their robotics team,
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their high school robotics team came in fourth in the world.
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Did they go to the, they have like a national competition in Iowa.
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This was international.
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Oh, international, yeah.
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They came in fourth in the world.
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That’s crazy, yeah.
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And the kid that leads the team is,
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He’s been offered to go to Harvard and all these other places.
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And a lot of those kids that graduate from there,
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their parents have money,
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which my parents never had.
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I had to take a bus up there.
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But anyway, so a lot of them go to Ivy League schools or Notre Dame.
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And Perez graduated from Notre Dame.
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Did you know that?
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No.
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So Dean Perez has got his undergraduate and his Ph.D. from University of Notre Dame.
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Okay.
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He has Notre Dame football tickets, season tickets.
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Oh, come on.
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No, and he goes to the games.
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I mean, he’s a huge Notre Dame fan.
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Well, there’s more to root for than Nebraska at the moment.
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Yeah, yeah.
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So,
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but anyway,
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so my pitch to these kids is going to be,
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so I know a lot of you have parents that can afford to go to these great schools
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like Notre Dame and Carnegie Mellon and places like that.
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I said, but in my case, when I went to school, my parents didn’t have that kind of money.
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And maybe some of your parents don’t have that kind of money.
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And there’s a golden, there’s a gem of a school right here in Omaha and also in Lincoln.
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And so
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I’d like to pitch Nebraska engineering in general,
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and I’d like to have you talk about going to school here.
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Sure.
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I mean, you’re not from Omaha.
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No.
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Right?
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And how your career’s just launched off.
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Tell them some of the cool things you’ve done.
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I’ve been to Guam, this and that, you know.
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Because we’re just not getting our fair share of those kids.
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What put the icing on the cake for me is, you know, I was a kid from Grand Island.
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I knew about the engineering program here.
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I didn’t know much, but I met, if you remember...
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You recorded?
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Yeah, we’ve been recording for a while.
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This is good grade A content, if I can get my microphone to stop moving.
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If you remember Alma Ramirez,
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she was the main recruiter at,
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for Peter Kiewen Institute,
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for all the College of Engineering in Omaha.
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Her father-in-law is actually Johnny Rogers.
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She’s Alma Ramirez Rogers.
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Oh, really?
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So the Rogers is her, Johnny Rogers is her father-in-law.
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But she was the first person who told me about the AE program,
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the architectural engineering program.
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And the way she sold it was,
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She’s like, what do you want to go to school for?
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I’m like, well, I’m leaning towards engineering, but I don’t really know what.
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She’s like,
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oh,
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you go to architecture engineering,
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you don’t have to know what you’re going to do.
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I’m like, really?
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And so she kind of explained how it works.
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And I was like, we don’t want you to declare until your junior year.
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So then I went to the visit at PKI, the Peter Keywood Institute Open House.
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And then I was like, I was sold.
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It was fairly new then.
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Yeah, it was.
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So I think the building opened around, it was less than 10 years old.
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So my freshman year was the 10-year anniversary of the architecture engineering program.
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And I think it was the first year,
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I don’t know if the building was built yet or not,
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but it might have been.
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But yeah, I was about 10 years old.
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I mean,
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and I will say I did a visit at Lincoln and part of the main reason I didn’t go to
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Lincoln is because I thought their engineering building was terrible.
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I mean, compared to the two.
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You should see this new one.
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Yeah, but I’m sure the new one would have been, you know, it’s completely different.
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And that program has grown because of that new building.
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Yeah, I bet.
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So did you ever hear the story about how that school was started up, PKI started?
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I mean, vaguely, you hear rumors about it.
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So I was on the board, worked at Johnson Controls.
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One day I’m in Kansas City and I get a call.
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It’s from a lady named Winnie Callahan.
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I knew who she was.
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So she was the outgoing director when I came in.
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So people talked about Winnie, but I never met her.
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So Winnie,
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very aggressively energetic,
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aggressive energy about trying to make that school happen because it was in its
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infancy.
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Sure.
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And so I get a call from her.
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I’m at my desk in Kansas City and she says, hey, Walter Scott would like to talk to you.
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I said, really?
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He said, yeah.
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Wouldn’t it be a good time?
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So we set up a time and Walter calls me and he says, hey, I’d like to go to Milwaukee.
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Can you set up a meeting with your CEO?
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And the CEO at that time was Alex Mulneroli, a personal friend of mine.
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We grew up together in the company.
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Well,
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and this is back when Johnson Controls was like,
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I would always tell people that had never heard of us,
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we are one ahead of the Disney Corporation on the Fortune 500 list.
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And we were actually at Fortune 100.
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Yeah, it was.
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Well, yeah, Disney was like 76 and we were like 77 or 75.
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It was, you look at the list and I’d always point out like, look where Disney is.
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Oh yeah, we’re ahead of Disney.
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Yeah.
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We’ve spun off a lot of those companies.
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But anyway, so
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So Walter says, can you set up a meeting with your CEO?
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And I said, yeah, I suppose.
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I said, what do you want to talk to me about?
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And he goes,
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I’d like to talk to him about naming rights for our new architectural engineering
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school.
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I said, really?
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And I was on the board.
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And he said, yeah.
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He said, do you think they’d be interested?
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I said, I don’t know.
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I said, if we can position something in it for Johnson, it might be.
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So long story short, they set up the meeting.
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I set up the meeting with Alex and we fly up there.
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So I’m in Kansas City.
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Walter picks me up in his corporate, in his jet, in Kansas City.
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Because he was the, was he the CEO of Keywood at the time?
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He probably just retired.
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I can’t remember if he either just recently retired or was still the CEO.
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But he’s a billionaire.
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I mean, he owns half, his name was on half the things in Omaha.
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Were you a Scott Scholar?
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Yeah, I was a Scott Scholar.
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Yeah, so he paid for all my school.
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He paid for Ryan’s school.
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Yeah,
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I met him a couple of times and it was just,
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you know,
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I have a picture of me with him and his
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His wife,
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who both of them have since passed away in my office,
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my home office,
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a picture of the three of us.
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Yeah, it was just, it was a, it was an honor.
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Yeah, just being an affiliate with the guy.
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So they picked me up in Kansas City and fly on his jet to Milwaukee.
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Now, as we’re, as we, and on that jet was Ken West from DLR, Dr.
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Waters, Winnie Callahan, and a couple other Nebraska dignitaries.
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There’s a small group of us, like six or eight of us.
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And so Ronald Walters flying to Milwaukee.
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And Walter was kind of saying, you know, bragging about his plane, how nice it is.
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And I had just flown a bunch of customers like a couple months earlier on Johnson’s
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plane,
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which goes to China.
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And I didn’t want to tell him that.
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But it was still nice.
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So we fly into Milwaukee and meet with Alex and other dignitaries at Johnson Controls.
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When he does a pitch about...
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It was going to be called the Johnson Controls School of Architectural Engineering
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and Construction.
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Did you know that?
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I think you told me this story before.
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But yeah,
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it’s just so funny because it’s now the Durham School and it’s just like,
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how different.
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Yeah.
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So long story short, they...
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We leave and a couple days go by and I get a call from Max.
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He says, Gunther, you know, we’re really impressed with that school.
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We don’t really want to spend the money to have naming rights, but we will donate.
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They donated like $100,000 to PKI and then within a few months of that it became
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the Durham School of Architectural Engineering.
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I don’t know what it is.
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I remember somebody telling me the Durham School endowment before and it’s insane.
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It’s something like
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I don’t know the exact figures,
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but I remember they said like the endowment sheds like a million dollars a year.
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It’s just crazy.
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You know, whatever it is.
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So Ryan’s told me that as a Scott scholar, he got to visit Walter’s party house.
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Yeah.
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Hunting lodge or whatever.
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Yeah.
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So they call it the bar.
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I went there four times.
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He would have a party every year and it’s just this party house.
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They call it the barn and he had his own like embossed napkins that just say the
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bar and like stamped on the bottom.
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But yeah,
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he didn’t live there,
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but it was a functional,
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I mean,
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relatively a functional barn,
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but like he had a giant horse showing like track in the middle of it.
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And so like you would go in and there’s,
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you know,
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it’s in the middle of kind of,
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it feels like the middle of North,
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but far North Omaha.
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So if you go like 72nd Street North,
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eventually you kind of run into this area where there’s not really kind of almost
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up towards Blair and you,
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there’s this long meandering driveway and you see horses like fields with horses
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and those are all his,
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but then this house,
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it’s just this giant property.
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Like a lodge?
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Yeah, kind of, but it’s a little more modern.
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It doesn’t really have a rustic vibe.
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It’s fairly modern looking.
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But like you walk in the first thing you see is this giant bar and he hires a
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bartender so he would have all the Scott Scholars for all four years there once a
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year and at that point it’s probably about 80 of us or so each Scott Scholar class
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had about 25 of us and then they would always you know you get it’s a four year
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renewed scholarship so he’d invite all of us and so there’s probably about I think
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about 80 of us there and then you’d have the first thing you do when you walk in
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you see this giant open bar and it has a bartender they’re making you I mean all
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non-alcoholic drinks because we’re all college students but
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One of my favorite memories of that was they had a shoe, just a big old shoe.
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And it was a Shaquille O’Neal shoe that was autographed by Shaquille O’Neal.
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And they took a linen napkin and shoved it in there and kind of forced it in there.
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And they filled it up with pretzels.
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So we’re all eating out of Shaquille O’Neal’s shoe while waiting for our Roy Rogers
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or Shirley Temple or whatever it was.
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Walter Scott was so iconic.
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I mean, what a great guy.
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And then he would take every single,
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so like I said,
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there’s about 80 of us,
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but if you’re a freshman,
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he made sure that you got a one-on-one picture with him and his wife for every
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single one.
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So it was about,
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you know,
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and you take about a minute to two minutes with each individual person.
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So, you know, he would spend probably about half an hour, 45 minutes.
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Just in a photo line.
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And then after that, he would take a group photo with everyone.
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So every single Scott Scholar got a personalized photo with him with this really
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nice,
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I still have mine too,
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a gold leaf certificate autographed by him.
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And then, you know, he shook his hand and everything.
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And then we got this group photo.
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So yeah, I still have mine in my office.
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I’ll show it to you later.
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And then you would have a
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This big barn would have all this random memorabilia like he had this picture of
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like they went and saw Elton John just like his autograph like whatever was poster
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of Elton John and their ticket stubs and random stuff he just kind of accumulated
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and then he the same meal every single year he would have tacos because he said he
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quotes likes Mexican food he’d like get this little speech and dilly bars
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Yeah.
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And I think it’s good.
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Dairy Queen.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I mean, he was on the board for Berkshire Hathaway, which was the own Dairy Queen.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So I feel like maybe he’s just, you know, inflating a stock price buying dilly bars.
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But yeah,
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they would walk around with a thing of dilly bars,
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just like at the,
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if you ever go to the Berkshire Hathaway meeting,
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they have dilly bars everywhere because Warren likes them.
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But Walter liked them too.
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So you just hand out just,
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they would have these people,
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these caterers and tuxedos walking around with things of dilly bars.
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We’d all be eating dilly bars.
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Yeah.
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So two stories I want to share with you that resonate in my mind as we’ve been talking.
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So on the flight on Walter’s jet from Kansas City to Milwaukee,
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in that time period,
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Frank Solich had just become the head coach at Nebraska within a year or two.
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So this would have been like, because 99 is when they won the Big 12 Championships.
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So probably around early 2000s or so.
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Yeah, somewhere in that time frame.
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But Solich was on the hot seat because we’d lost a couple games.
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So...
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I’m a huge Husker fan, so I’m trying to create conversation with Walter.
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A bit multi-billionaire, right?
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Yeah, what do you talk about?
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Exactly.
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And I’m sitting across from him on his jet.
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I said, so Walter, are you a Husker fan?
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He goes, oh, I’m an absolute Husker fan.
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And at that time, Solich was on the hot seat.
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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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