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Ep067: Highest and Best Use with Mike D'Onofrio
Every business transaction has hidden tax opportunities waiting to be discovered, if you know where to look.
This week on the IC-DISC podcast, I spoke with Mike D'Onofrio from Engineered Tax Services, who's spent 17 years helping business owners maximize their tax strategies through engineering-based specialty tax services.
Mike joined ETS after working in corporate M&A and private equity, where he first recognized the critical need for specialized tax expertise during business transitions, and what struck me about Mike's approach is how his firm combines professional engineering expertise with tax strategy to deliver comprehensive solutions.
They handle everything from cost segregation studies and energy incentives to insurance optimization, processing hundreds of cost segregation studies weekly across every property type imaginable.
Mike's philosophy centers on what he calls "HABU" - highest and best use - focusing on their core expertise while partnering with specialists like us for complementary strategies that create immediate opportunities for businesses to improve cash flow.
The conversation reinforced something I've noticed across successful advisory relationships: the best results come from specialists who stay in their lane while building collaborative teams. Mike's emphasis on maintaining human intelligence alongside technology adoption resonated with my own experience that relationships still drive business success.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Contact Details
LinkedIn - Mike D'Onofrio
LINKS
Show Notes
Be a Guest
About IC-DISC Alliance
About Engineered Tax Services
Mike D'Onofrio
About Mike
About Mike
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dave: Good morning, Mike. Welcome to the podcast.
Mike: Good morning, Dave. Great to be here with you today. Definitely.
Dave: So where are you located at the moment? What part of the world are you in?
Mike: Yeah, well, I'm in my home base today in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dave: Okay.
Mike: Yeah. I've always liked Charlotte, a pretty part of the country. Charlotte's a beautiful place, man. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Great school, high school, college, so I know the Midwest and I still love Cleveland, of course, a Browns fan and a Indians guardians fan and Cavs. But moved to South Florida right after that, right after college and was living in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and we're still based there. Our corporate acres is there, but my wife and I had originally met in Charlotte, and we love the seasons. I love the ability to, I see those mountains in your background. I love the ability, we don't have the same type of mountains as you do, but love getting out to the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, seeing the fall, the leaves, and can get to the beach, can drive down to Wilmington or Charleston in a couple hours. So we're right in the middle. We're bus to be here and have the
Dave: Options. Yeah, it's a great location. You have four seasons and a slightly milder winter than Cleveland,
Mike: That's for sure. It seems like winters have softened up a little bit in Cleveland, but man, I remember the mornings going out to the bus when I was a little kid with snow piled up over my head and the drifts up on the side of the house. I'll never forget those days. That was awesome. That was a real winter. But now in Charlotte, if we get a dusting of snow or a little bit of ice, it's usually gone by noon.
Dave: Yeah. I was born and spent the first 13 years of my life in northwest Iowa and was the oldest of two boys. So I remember having to get up an hour early to go shovel the driveway just so mom and dad could get to work in that. So yeah, my saying is the worst Texas summer is still better than the best Northern Winter is my theory.
Mike: You got it, man. High five to those of us that have shoveled snow driveways, walkways, figured out a snowblower with the chains on the wheels and all that fun stuff that comes with winter.
Dave: So by some people's interpretation, we come from the same place because I've discovered people not from the Midwest, they think Ohio, Iowa, and Idaho are all the same place.
Mike: Yeah,
Dave: They're just all somewhere up there. Yes. It's up
Mike: Somewhere up there in the Midwest. Folks like myself grew up in Ohio and Cleveland and Detroit and Chicago. I mean, definitely they think that's the heart of the Midwest, but they forget about the Midwest. Goes pretty far west. Right.
Dave: It does. All the way to the mountains. So, well, let's get into it. So when did you join engineered tax services?
Mike: Wow, it's been a big part of my life. Exciting journey. Like I said, after college I moved down to South Florida and my background was in more corporate m and a private equity working on the finance side of things in transactions, in private equity back in the day, they would call it kind of strategic intermediary work where we would either work on the buy side or sell side with the client. So I worked with a lot of clients and business owners that were maybe interested in transitioning out of their business. Maybe they were a food manufacturer or distributor. And interestingly enough, one of my mentors in life, his name is Bruce. Bruce was one of the first international CEOs with McDonald's corporation. Oh, really? Yeah, one of Ray Croc's, first five or six right hand key people. Before McDonald's had any international business, the first place that they went outside the US was to Latin America and the Caribbean.
And I met Bruce in South Florida my early career, and we really saw an opportunity together, old school style, to go through his Rolodex and be like, man, I have a lot of relationships within the McDonald's and the finance ecosystem. So we started working with many different company owners, like I said, distributors, producers of different things, and we had some great success. And along the way I saw that there was really a need to understand specialty tax credit and incentives and strategies depending on who the client was, whether it was the seller of a company or a property or buyer of that was really to dig into the details of, Hey, what's the best way to make this transaction as tax efficient as possible? Tax was always the first pain point, either from the seller's point of view, maybe there was a big potential cap gain situation, how to structure that deal or from the buyer or investor's point of view, how to maybe capture some additional credits and incentives that they hadn't thought about, like research and development tax credits, or maybe there was a big piece of real estate or property involved in the transaction, like a manufacturing facility or office buildings or retail locations.
So while digging in deeper in some of those transactions, I met Julio Gonzalez in Engineered Tax Services. She's going on 17, 18 years ago, and it was a small boutique firm at the time, engineered tax, and we were very focused on serving CPA firms nationally as that specialist. And I saw a great opportunity to really become a more diverse, focused specialist, and not only help CPA firms, but help private equity, the real estate investor, anything in that transaction to really help understand the tax code for the bonus depreciation or energy credits and incentives. Sure you do. Maybe they do domestic or international type of trade in that business, and there's a structure that might be a little bit more savvy than they're familiar with. So man, 17, 18 years ago is when I started with ETS, and we've grown substantially over the years from a handful of people in a small boutique firm in downtown West Palm Beach, Julio, and myself and Kim and Heidi and others, though I think pretty well, and we've really expanded, and so now not only still working with those CPA firms nationally, to be that specialist working with other professionals like you of really just how to maximize each transaction, understand the inevitable changes in the tax code with the different administrations.
There's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump 1.0, 2.0, what happened just now in July with a big beautiful bill, but the CARES Act, the Path Act, the previous tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, whatever the stimulus plan or new tax incentive of the day was. That was our job to really dig into that, be a great job educating around that and bringing it as proactively and transparently to the CPA community as well as the investors and owners.
Dave: Yeah. I became acquainted with ETS and about the same time you did, and Julio invited me to South Florida and gave you the tour of the cool office building that you all rehabbed.
Mike: Yeah. Then he was
Dave: Kind
Mike: Enough to, was that the one on a Vernia Street when he had just purchased it? Was it,
Dave: I forget the street. It was like maybe a six story old building
Mike: That's still his building and our corporate headquarters on the corner of Vernia and Olive for any of you that are down in West Palm Beach, and we'd love to show you around. It's a cool building.
Dave: And then he was kind enough to host me at a Dolphins football game.
Mike: I remember those days. Right.
Dave: And for whatever reason, he was considered a bit of a VIP by the Dolphins, so I was able to go down on the field before the game, and I think I even had a photo taken with a Dolphin's cheerleader on each side of me that for whatever reason, it never made it up on the wall in our house. I'm not sure why, if that would've been a problem with my wife or now with a photo of two Dolphins cheerleaders hugging me,
Mike: Dave, I think I have different versions of the exact same picture with myself and some friends. I have a great one with myself and my dad. Maybe we'll use some technology and pop some of those pictures up for others to see when you publish this podcast, or maybe we'll just keep those private for ourselves. But yeah, we used to Julio's involvement with the Dolphins and the family behind the scenes. We did. We did some amazing, not only professionally working with those types of property owners and venues, we did the cost segregation study on the Miami Dolphins Stadium when it was renovated.
Dave: Oh,
Mike: Yeah, I remember that. And a lot of others, Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins. I did some work on the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, the Superdome in New Orleans, the Raiders facilities, the Buffalo Bills not allowed to give out any confidential information, but everybody's looking to save in tax and take advantage of whatever strategies are available in the code. But personally, obviously, we love sports and entertainment and being able to build the relationships with our clients, so we had a very cool double founder suite there in those early days that we used to all meet in West Palm Beach, have some fun on the Saturday, take the bus down on the Sunday morning. Yeah. We did that for years, and we still do some of that in Miami and in some different cities. I'll be doing some of it in Charlotte. But yeah, man, those were fun times. We really built amazing relationships still with clients today that actually, I saw a client yesterday that said, Hey, Mike, I was at the Green Bay game. I remember when we were down on the field and one of the Green Bay players said, hi. He is like, Hey, man. That was a childhood legend of mine that I'd always wanted to meet. And then of course, that's really cool. Sometimes we got to meet what Dan Marino and folks down in the tunnel in the Dolphins.
Dave: Well, the other cool thing was Julio intentionally picked a Monday night game that he invited me to, so that made it even more fun. National game.
Mike: Oh, yeah. Makes for a late evening getting home, that's for sure.
Dave: It does. And so I just have to warn you, Julio was a guest on the podcast about three or four years ago, so he set the bar pretty high, so no pressure my
Mike: Oh, yeah, none at all. But I
Dave: Know being a former athlete, you're probably a little bit competitive, so I'm sure you'll want to point out to Julio that you think you did a better job.
Mike: Yeah, just a little bit, Julio, and we spend a lot of time together. We were together yesterday in Fort Lauderdale at an event with a great mix of clients and we're real competitive from a business aspect, obviously wouldn't be great for our clients. He was a wrestler in his younger days. That was also a wrestler, really just to stay in shape for baseball. I was a baseball player. I think you had asked me before, I always keep a couple baseballs around my desk. I like to futz with them when I'm working here in the office, but think about the different strategies, whether you need to throw the curve ball or the fast ball or the riser, whatever it is. I think about just those different grips and strategies. So yes, I'm a bit competitive, to say the least.
Dave: Sure. I know the firm has grown. What's your elevator pitch today? When people ask who ETS done, who ETS is and who do they serve?
Mike: Well, engineered Tax and Advisory had the advisory portion of it as well, because that's engineered tax services been around a long time. We're really good at doing the specific engineering based services that the CPAs or the property owners need to get the bonus depreciation or the energy credits and incentives onto the tax return. So that's doing the cost segregation study as a licensed professional engineering and specialty tax firm, we've been doing those for going on 24 years or doing the energy analysis or helping with, like you do, calculate the construction costs, the transfer costs, the sales tax, the property tax. That's what engineered tax services is excellent at doing as that specialist as that.
Dave: I'm sorry, that's more than just cost segregation though, right?
Mike: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's cost segregation and bonus depreciation available on real estate, new construction purchases, renovations. So we're very involved. We do hundreds and hundreds of cross segregation studies a week across the country on all different types of assets from smaller single family investment properties and VRBO to manufacturing facilities and multifamily and apartments and hospitality and everything you could imagine up to different sports and recreation stadiums. But that's one subset of what engineered tax does that. Then there's the energy incentives and credits, the 1 79 D, the 45 L, the investment tax credits for renewables like wind and solar and geothermal and turbines and other types of things. But on the advisory side, we work it backwards. That's more the consultative approach with the clients to figure out what is the need. Maybe there's a liquidity event with a business owner that's selling a business. Maybe there's a capital need from an acquisitions point of view or an expansion point of view where some of the IC disc strategies might come in.
Maybe they're wondering about opportunity zones or enterprise zones or historic tax credits or preservation and conservation type strategies, or buying equipment or a jet and aviation strategies. Because all of those things that I just mentioned, there's either a specialty tax component with bonus depreciation or section 1 79 or an actual tax credit, like research and development tax credits. We help bring it all together as a very experienced and comprehensive specialist around the tax code, anything available, federal, state, local incentives, credits, rebates, working with the CPAs, working with professionals like you, working with the high net worth or the company owner. That's what we pride ourselves in, is being very comprehensive depending on what the opportunity and the need is for the client.
Dave: Okay, and speaking of clients, do you think of the CPA firm as your client or the actual end user or both? I think because done a really good job cultivating those CPA firm relationships.
Mike: Yeah, Dave, that's a good question. I first and foremost see the CPAs as our client, but also our strategic partner because remember, we're a specialist. We don't do the full accounting audit and tax filing work for the client. We sit in the specialist seat. I explain it all the time to my friends and new clients when they're trying to figure out what we do. If I was in the medical profession, we would be a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon or some other type of specialist within medicine that works together with the general practitioners and others in medicine on the tax code and helping with the tax literacy, the tax strategy, the specialty credits and incentives like icdisc. How do we bring up those types of situations and opportunities? Usually it's working with that CPA firm to identify the client need and then being comprehensive and entrepreneurial with that client.
So long-winded answer to that is both. I see the CPAs as both our client and our strategic partner in situations, but definitely once I work with the company owner or the investor, they're also ultimately our client. So I need to deliver at a high level to both the CPA and both the client, or if I meet the client directly and you are the company owner that's asking us questions about a situation or a strategy, we push to be introduced to the CPA to make sure that we're collaborative, attacking that strategy from the beginning and become a great compliment to the CPA service so they can focus on what they do best, the accounting audit or tax type or bookkeeping type work that they do, and then just like you really helping to layer in that specialty strategy that maybe they're not as familiar with or really just need some help from a bandwidth perspective.
Dave: Sure. I've come across other firms that do some of the same services you all do. And what do your clients and CPA firms tell you that makes ETS different and why they have chosen to partner with ETS over another firm?
Mike: First of all, I think about that all the time. That's a question that comes up often. When we started 24, 25 years ago, there was very few firms that were doing some of the things that we do there. There were CPA firms that did cost segregation studies, but usually that was the higher level firms, the Deloitte, the KM KPMGs, the E and Ys, excellent high level firms, but they were really only doing it for their higher level corporate type clients as we democratize the tax code and brought that tax strategy to middle market type businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, the strategy there was really to work as comprehensively with different types of as possible. And the difference to me is first of all, our longevity and our professionalism and our diversity of the type of services that we're doing uniquely as a licensed professional engineering firm that also does specialty tax credits and incentives.
That's one of the biggest differentiators to me is we are a licensed professional engineering firm. The type of engineering that we do is cost engineering, looking at the cost of an acquisition, the cost of a purchase, the cost of a new construction of a property, and be able to break that down into accounting and tax format that the CPAs can then use. So that's where the hybrid of the engineering expertise and specialty tax expertise, so that unique structure of our firm, that unique ability to do multiple things and also have the energy incentives team in-house where if it's a new construction of a property or a big value add, repositioning, not only can we do that cost segregation study, we can comprehensively do that energy tax credit and incentive analysis. We have to do energy modeling. That's pure engineering type work, doing the energy incentive modeling to see what the energy efficiency of those components are.
Or on a renewable energy project. We have a client that's building a really big mixed use project that has some geothermal investment tax credits there. Those are pure engineering and energy efficiency type knowledge that we're able to bring comprehensively. So it's really the comprehensive approach of bringing engineering specialty tax energy incentives and credits. We also have an insurance division, which is very unique for our industry because I knew years ago that the second biggest painful point for our clients after tax figuring out tax minimization strategies is how do they lower costs and make sure they're protected from an insurance standpoint? And we do have a part of our firm that is engineered insurance services to compliment engineered tax services. We already have all the,
Dave: Yeah, tell me about the insurance company because I'm less familiar with that, and when did you start it? Are you licensed in all the states?
Mike: Yeah, we are. We've been quietly developing that over the last couple of years. I said, my background's from Cleveland, Ohio. Coincidentally, the firm that we partnered with is based in Cleveland, Ohio. When we formed a new entity together, engineered insurance services, went back to all the different carriers and got relicensed with all the top national carriers, all the names that folks would know well. So now as a nationally licensed insurance agency and brokerage firm, we focus on property casualty liability, cyber risk, flood, E and O, D and O, all the things that every company and every property owner needs. But we can do it comprehensively and uniquely because we're already doing the cost segregation studies on a lot of these properties. So we know what the cost basis is, we know what kind of roof it is, we know where it's located. We know the age of the electrical system and all the situations with the property, and also that owner, how they operate that property. That's what, just like the IRS with cost segregation study, they want to see the details and then yes, you can capture the benefits of bonus depreciation. The insurance carriers, they want to write insurance policies at very competitive rates, but they want to see it in detail. They want to understand that building. They just don't want an estimate that a broker submits to them. So we've had amazing success over the last year and a half of rolling out that program, doing it comprehensively with what we're already doing for that client.
Dave: That's really,
Mike: That's the other reason that we're very unique compared because there are some great firms that do cost segregation or that might do an energy analysis or that might do a research and development tax credit study, but very few firms, if any, that know about really take that comprehensive approach to be able to do tax energy insurance and the specialty consulting with engineered advisory with what we're doing,
And it resonates. It really resonates with clients because I feel like they really need someone that is, first of all, thinking entrepreneurially like them, because sometimes they're not getting it from maybe their legal team or their CPA team or their other advisors that they're working about taking that entrepreneurial approach, taking that proactive approach before the end of the year or before that renewal term for that insurance policy or before that building gets purchased or before the renovation happens, what should they be thinking about? And that's what I really try to work on with our team and our clients is be very proactive, be very transparent of the good, the bad, the ugly of different situations that clients should consider and then always be thinking entrepreneurially like our clients do because they appreciate it with your business and what you do with IC disc. Sometimes folks just haven't heard about it or they don't understand it, or they didn't do something proactively and now they're trying to unwind a situation, but I'm really excited about what we do. If you can't tell, I think,
No, it definitely comes, the future is very strong, especially with the passage in July of Trump's, I call it the big beautiful bonus depreciation tax bill because bonus depreciation and section 1 79 enhancements for equipment and other things and other things that will be, I think, expanded with opportunity zones and research and development tax credits. The way that they also just enhanced that program as well. Many folks don't understand it yet because there was a requirement to amortize some of the expenses of r and d over five years, but now you get the research and development tax credit plus a hundred percent of the qualifying expenses being able to be captured year one, so that's very powerful for US companies.
Dave: Yeah, no, that is great. And one of the other things that I appreciate about you all is that you all really stay in your lane. I feel like on the tax side, there's other firms that do cost and r and d that have just broadened their tax focus even more broadly, pick up things like the IC disc. So it's hard for me to get excited about referring a cost segregation study to a firm that does IC disc, so I've always,
Mike: Yeah, it's a bit of a competitive overlap in those situations.
Dave: Yeah, yeah. It's a less comfortable introduction.
Mike: We have a saying within our organization, we call it habu, right? Highest and best use, what is my highest and best use? What should I be focused on doing for that client? My highest and best use is not trying to understand and replicate your service around icdisc.
The best situation is for me to recognize opportunities and then bring in David and his team to implement a strategy for the client and the CPAs like that as well, because we're not trying to do what they do. We're just trying to compliment different situations, be a specialist at what we're really good at, and in our engineered advisory platform. That's where I can bring in you for the IC disc. I might have someone else that I'm working with if that client's buying an aircraft, for example, of how to legally structure it correctly, how to maximize the tax benefits, and I want to be an amazing, whether you want to call it an offensive coordinator or quarterback, that I might be throwing the ball sometimes. Other times I might be passing it off to somebody else, but I want to build a great team so that we're successful at the end for the client.
Dave: Sure. No, that's certainly been my experience with you guys. What do you love most or enjoy most about your current role with ETS? What really gets you excited?
Mike: Well, my title, I'm not big on titles, but it's managing Director of Engineered Tax and Advisory. So technically what that title means is I direct and I manage, I direct high level client relationships and strategic partnerships and strategies and new product development. I also help manage our, I work together with our executive team to help manage our executives across the country, either if they're in business development, some of them obviously are in engineering or other specialties within our firm or the legal team that does some structuring work for clients, but that's what I do. My favorite part of what I do is the relationships that I'm building with the clients. It might be a brand new relationship. It might be one from 15, 20 years ago, but it's watching that. Yeah, it's watching that CPA firm grow or helping that CPA firm grow and expand or diversify their services or meeting that entrepreneur that has a business and they're trying to understand the tax code, how to lower taxes, how do I increase cashflow?
What are the risks or pitfalls, and really working with that entrepreneur or that business owner together with that ccp. That is my most favorite part of what I do, because I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I got it from my family, my mom and dad. Were always very entrepreneurial, but it's hard. You can't do it yourself. It takes a great team. I mentioned a couple of mentors that I worked with. I hope that one day I can be a mentor to some of these people that we've worked with over the years, and maybe it is the specialty tax or the energy incentives or the structuring or strategy, but also personally, we learn a lot about our clients and we share a lot personally with them. But that's absolutely my most favorite is the relationships that we've built, the stories and the journeys that we've had together.
And if we do a good job, we actually do very little marketing and advertising out there. Of course, I speak at some events and do some sessions around the country, but largely our business has expanded very successfully because of those relationships and those referrals and that organic growth. Like, Hey, have you heard about engineered tax? And do you know what Mike does? You should give him a call. I watch my emails every day, and that's what makes me so happy is I remember that relationship. I remember that Miami Dolphins game, whoever it was, or the dinner that we might've had, or the beer that we might have shared somewhere where we personally built that relationship,
And that's something that I'm even more so focused on right now because our world is now moving very fast in terms of technology and ai, and I think that's great, and we are a tech enabled company that we utilize those things to deliver our services and strategies as efficiently as possible for the client. But I think even more so right now, it's all about, hi again, human intelligence. We want to talk, just like you and I are doing right now, folks want to meet, yes, they want tech enabled strategies and AI to help us do things better. I think that's great, but I have, and we have a renewed focus on the human intelligence, the human relationship, the human strategy together, because I think we can do so much more if we get back to the old school relationship building strategy, building together at the human level, and then of course we'll utilize technology to make that better, faster, stronger.
Dave: Yeah, no, and that's certainly that. Those relationships are certainly my favorite part of the business. The clients, the CPA firms, the other advisors, lawyers, you guys. So man, I can't believe how the time has flown by. So as we're rounding the home stretch, I have just a couple more questions.
Mike: All right.
Dave: If you could go back in time and give advice to your 25-year-old self, what advice might you give?
Mike: Continue to surround myself with people much smarter than me.
As I look back, the biggest opportunities that I had was being in what I thought at the time was uncomfortable situations with people that like, wow, this person really knows what they're doing with real estate, or This person really knows what they're doing with finance. But now looking back those situations of surrounding myself with really smart or savvy people or someone much more experienced than I was, that's where I really learned the opportunities around real estate development, around relationship building, around strategy, and structuring. Those mentors that I spent time with. I would tap myself on the shoulder and say, do more of that. Do more of that. If there's people that are wasting my time or going down avenues that really aren't good for me professionally or personally, don't waste time with that. Put myself in the room at the table in uncomfortable situations with people much smarter than myself. And even today, I try to do that every day is with some of the new technologies around AI or crypto or finance or strategy or real estate. Who are the innovators? Who are the people that really seem to be leading? I try to put myself in those situations, so that's what I would remind my young self is to take advantage of mentors, because you can really learn, and sometimes it's not until years later that you realized what you learned.
Dave: Yeah. I think that's great advice, not only for your 25-year-old self, but any 25-year-old and probably any business professional who's still trying to learn and grow.
Mike: Yeah. One other thing.
Dave: Yeah,
Mike: One more thing. As Steve Jobs used to say, don't focus on, I would tell myself not to focus on what I think the path is at that point, because the path is going to change the strategy, the job course of action, the winds are going to change. Ebb and flow, I always say is my personal mantra. The tide comes in, the tide comes out, but you can always learn to surf. You can't stop the waves, but you can always learn to surf. So don't try to be too tactful in the direction that you're going, because things will change. Companies will change and expect that change is what I'm trying to say. So expect the change that will continue to happen in our lives.
Dave: Okay. Well, yeah, I like that. Thank you very much. So as we wrap up, I really just have one more question, and that is, is there anything I didn't ask you that you wish I had asked V? Anything we didn't talk about that we should have?
Mike: You asked some really good questions. It sounds like we could talk all afternoon if we wanted to. The only thing you didn't ask me is about my family, and actually the thing I'm most proud of, I mentioned I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. My wife Laura, has been an amazing force in our relationship for stability and really helping me to do what I do because being on the road, it's very challenging. But my son Rocco and my daughter Lucia, are getting old and driving now as later stage teenagers. It's having those rocks behind me that really help with this ability to allow me to do what I do with our clients nationally. So I really appreciate them, and that's my other, that is my most favorite accomplishment in life of what I've been able to achieve with my family and do this professionally with engineered tech services and advisory.
Dave: Yeah, understood. Yeah, because ultimately it's about relationships, both professional and personal at the end of the day. Well, anything else we didn't cover or shall we go ahead and wrap it up?
Mike: I think we covered enough for now. I think we might have more to talk about. Again, I have some other ideas of topics we should talk about coming up here in the fall. There'll be some new things that we're doing.
Dave: Let's do that. We'll have you back, not too distant. Future for a part two.
Mike: All right.
Dave: Well, Mike, I really, really appreciate the opportunity to work with you and the whole team, and you guys have taken great care of our clients. We really appreciate that and we appreciate the trust you all have placed in us to serve some of your clients as
Mike: Well. Thanks, Dave. I appreciate you.
Special Guest: Mike D'Onofrio.
View all episodes
By David SprayEvery business transaction has hidden tax opportunities waiting to be discovered, if you know where to look.
This week on the IC-DISC podcast, I spoke with Mike D'Onofrio from Engineered Tax Services, who's spent 17 years helping business owners maximize their tax strategies through engineering-based specialty tax services.
Mike joined ETS after working in corporate M&A and private equity, where he first recognized the critical need for specialized tax expertise during business transitions, and what struck me about Mike's approach is how his firm combines professional engineering expertise with tax strategy to deliver comprehensive solutions.
They handle everything from cost segregation studies and energy incentives to insurance optimization, processing hundreds of cost segregation studies weekly across every property type imaginable.
Mike's philosophy centers on what he calls "HABU" - highest and best use - focusing on their core expertise while partnering with specialists like us for complementary strategies that create immediate opportunities for businesses to improve cash flow.
The conversation reinforced something I've noticed across successful advisory relationships: the best results come from specialists who stay in their lane while building collaborative teams. Mike's emphasis on maintaining human intelligence alongside technology adoption resonated with my own experience that relationships still drive business success.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
Contact Details
LinkedIn - Mike D'Onofrio
LINKS
Show Notes
Be a Guest
About IC-DISC Alliance
About Engineered Tax Services
Mike D'Onofrio
About Mike
About Mike
TRANSCRIPT
(AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors)
Dave: Good morning, Mike. Welcome to the podcast.
Mike: Good morning, Dave. Great to be here with you today. Definitely.
Dave: So where are you located at the moment? What part of the world are you in?
Mike: Yeah, well, I'm in my home base today in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dave: Okay.
Mike: Yeah. I've always liked Charlotte, a pretty part of the country. Charlotte's a beautiful place, man. I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Great school, high school, college, so I know the Midwest and I still love Cleveland, of course, a Browns fan and a Indians guardians fan and Cavs. But moved to South Florida right after that, right after college and was living in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and we're still based there. Our corporate acres is there, but my wife and I had originally met in Charlotte, and we love the seasons. I love the ability to, I see those mountains in your background. I love the ability, we don't have the same type of mountains as you do, but love getting out to the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, seeing the fall, the leaves, and can get to the beach, can drive down to Wilmington or Charleston in a couple hours. So we're right in the middle. We're bus to be here and have the
Dave: Options. Yeah, it's a great location. You have four seasons and a slightly milder winter than Cleveland,
Mike: That's for sure. It seems like winters have softened up a little bit in Cleveland, but man, I remember the mornings going out to the bus when I was a little kid with snow piled up over my head and the drifts up on the side of the house. I'll never forget those days. That was awesome. That was a real winter. But now in Charlotte, if we get a dusting of snow or a little bit of ice, it's usually gone by noon.
Dave: Yeah. I was born and spent the first 13 years of my life in northwest Iowa and was the oldest of two boys. So I remember having to get up an hour early to go shovel the driveway just so mom and dad could get to work in that. So yeah, my saying is the worst Texas summer is still better than the best Northern Winter is my theory.
Mike: You got it, man. High five to those of us that have shoveled snow driveways, walkways, figured out a snowblower with the chains on the wheels and all that fun stuff that comes with winter.
Dave: So by some people's interpretation, we come from the same place because I've discovered people not from the Midwest, they think Ohio, Iowa, and Idaho are all the same place.
Mike: Yeah,
Dave: They're just all somewhere up there. Yes. It's up
Mike: Somewhere up there in the Midwest. Folks like myself grew up in Ohio and Cleveland and Detroit and Chicago. I mean, definitely they think that's the heart of the Midwest, but they forget about the Midwest. Goes pretty far west. Right.
Dave: It does. All the way to the mountains. So, well, let's get into it. So when did you join engineered tax services?
Mike: Wow, it's been a big part of my life. Exciting journey. Like I said, after college I moved down to South Florida and my background was in more corporate m and a private equity working on the finance side of things in transactions, in private equity back in the day, they would call it kind of strategic intermediary work where we would either work on the buy side or sell side with the client. So I worked with a lot of clients and business owners that were maybe interested in transitioning out of their business. Maybe they were a food manufacturer or distributor. And interestingly enough, one of my mentors in life, his name is Bruce. Bruce was one of the first international CEOs with McDonald's corporation. Oh, really? Yeah, one of Ray Croc's, first five or six right hand key people. Before McDonald's had any international business, the first place that they went outside the US was to Latin America and the Caribbean.
And I met Bruce in South Florida my early career, and we really saw an opportunity together, old school style, to go through his Rolodex and be like, man, I have a lot of relationships within the McDonald's and the finance ecosystem. So we started working with many different company owners, like I said, distributors, producers of different things, and we had some great success. And along the way I saw that there was really a need to understand specialty tax credit and incentives and strategies depending on who the client was, whether it was the seller of a company or a property or buyer of that was really to dig into the details of, Hey, what's the best way to make this transaction as tax efficient as possible? Tax was always the first pain point, either from the seller's point of view, maybe there was a big potential cap gain situation, how to structure that deal or from the buyer or investor's point of view, how to maybe capture some additional credits and incentives that they hadn't thought about, like research and development tax credits, or maybe there was a big piece of real estate or property involved in the transaction, like a manufacturing facility or office buildings or retail locations.
So while digging in deeper in some of those transactions, I met Julio Gonzalez in Engineered Tax Services. She's going on 17, 18 years ago, and it was a small boutique firm at the time, engineered tax, and we were very focused on serving CPA firms nationally as that specialist. And I saw a great opportunity to really become a more diverse, focused specialist, and not only help CPA firms, but help private equity, the real estate investor, anything in that transaction to really help understand the tax code for the bonus depreciation or energy credits and incentives. Sure you do. Maybe they do domestic or international type of trade in that business, and there's a structure that might be a little bit more savvy than they're familiar with. So man, 17, 18 years ago is when I started with ETS, and we've grown substantially over the years from a handful of people in a small boutique firm in downtown West Palm Beach, Julio, and myself and Kim and Heidi and others, though I think pretty well, and we've really expanded, and so now not only still working with those CPA firms nationally, to be that specialist working with other professionals like you of really just how to maximize each transaction, understand the inevitable changes in the tax code with the different administrations.
There's the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump 1.0, 2.0, what happened just now in July with a big beautiful bill, but the CARES Act, the Path Act, the previous tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the CHIPS Act, whatever the stimulus plan or new tax incentive of the day was. That was our job to really dig into that, be a great job educating around that and bringing it as proactively and transparently to the CPA community as well as the investors and owners.
Dave: Yeah. I became acquainted with ETS and about the same time you did, and Julio invited me to South Florida and gave you the tour of the cool office building that you all rehabbed.
Mike: Yeah. Then he was
Dave: Kind
Mike: Enough to, was that the one on a Vernia Street when he had just purchased it? Was it,
Dave: I forget the street. It was like maybe a six story old building
Mike: That's still his building and our corporate headquarters on the corner of Vernia and Olive for any of you that are down in West Palm Beach, and we'd love to show you around. It's a cool building.
Dave: And then he was kind enough to host me at a Dolphins football game.
Mike: I remember those days. Right.
Dave: And for whatever reason, he was considered a bit of a VIP by the Dolphins, so I was able to go down on the field before the game, and I think I even had a photo taken with a Dolphin's cheerleader on each side of me that for whatever reason, it never made it up on the wall in our house. I'm not sure why, if that would've been a problem with my wife or now with a photo of two Dolphins cheerleaders hugging me,
Mike: Dave, I think I have different versions of the exact same picture with myself and some friends. I have a great one with myself and my dad. Maybe we'll use some technology and pop some of those pictures up for others to see when you publish this podcast, or maybe we'll just keep those private for ourselves. But yeah, we used to Julio's involvement with the Dolphins and the family behind the scenes. We did. We did some amazing, not only professionally working with those types of property owners and venues, we did the cost segregation study on the Miami Dolphins Stadium when it was renovated.
Dave: Oh,
Mike: Yeah, I remember that. And a lot of others, Broncos, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins. I did some work on the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, the Superdome in New Orleans, the Raiders facilities, the Buffalo Bills not allowed to give out any confidential information, but everybody's looking to save in tax and take advantage of whatever strategies are available in the code. But personally, obviously, we love sports and entertainment and being able to build the relationships with our clients, so we had a very cool double founder suite there in those early days that we used to all meet in West Palm Beach, have some fun on the Saturday, take the bus down on the Sunday morning. Yeah. We did that for years, and we still do some of that in Miami and in some different cities. I'll be doing some of it in Charlotte. But yeah, man, those were fun times. We really built amazing relationships still with clients today that actually, I saw a client yesterday that said, Hey, Mike, I was at the Green Bay game. I remember when we were down on the field and one of the Green Bay players said, hi. He is like, Hey, man. That was a childhood legend of mine that I'd always wanted to meet. And then of course, that's really cool. Sometimes we got to meet what Dan Marino and folks down in the tunnel in the Dolphins.
Dave: Well, the other cool thing was Julio intentionally picked a Monday night game that he invited me to, so that made it even more fun. National game.
Mike: Oh, yeah. Makes for a late evening getting home, that's for sure.
Dave: It does. And so I just have to warn you, Julio was a guest on the podcast about three or four years ago, so he set the bar pretty high, so no pressure my
Mike: Oh, yeah, none at all. But I
Dave: Know being a former athlete, you're probably a little bit competitive, so I'm sure you'll want to point out to Julio that you think you did a better job.
Mike: Yeah, just a little bit, Julio, and we spend a lot of time together. We were together yesterday in Fort Lauderdale at an event with a great mix of clients and we're real competitive from a business aspect, obviously wouldn't be great for our clients. He was a wrestler in his younger days. That was also a wrestler, really just to stay in shape for baseball. I was a baseball player. I think you had asked me before, I always keep a couple baseballs around my desk. I like to futz with them when I'm working here in the office, but think about the different strategies, whether you need to throw the curve ball or the fast ball or the riser, whatever it is. I think about just those different grips and strategies. So yes, I'm a bit competitive, to say the least.
Dave: Sure. I know the firm has grown. What's your elevator pitch today? When people ask who ETS done, who ETS is and who do they serve?
Mike: Well, engineered Tax and Advisory had the advisory portion of it as well, because that's engineered tax services been around a long time. We're really good at doing the specific engineering based services that the CPAs or the property owners need to get the bonus depreciation or the energy credits and incentives onto the tax return. So that's doing the cost segregation study as a licensed professional engineering and specialty tax firm, we've been doing those for going on 24 years or doing the energy analysis or helping with, like you do, calculate the construction costs, the transfer costs, the sales tax, the property tax. That's what engineered tax services is excellent at doing as that specialist as that.
Dave: I'm sorry, that's more than just cost segregation though, right?
Mike: Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's cost segregation and bonus depreciation available on real estate, new construction purchases, renovations. So we're very involved. We do hundreds and hundreds of cross segregation studies a week across the country on all different types of assets from smaller single family investment properties and VRBO to manufacturing facilities and multifamily and apartments and hospitality and everything you could imagine up to different sports and recreation stadiums. But that's one subset of what engineered tax does that. Then there's the energy incentives and credits, the 1 79 D, the 45 L, the investment tax credits for renewables like wind and solar and geothermal and turbines and other types of things. But on the advisory side, we work it backwards. That's more the consultative approach with the clients to figure out what is the need. Maybe there's a liquidity event with a business owner that's selling a business. Maybe there's a capital need from an acquisitions point of view or an expansion point of view where some of the IC disc strategies might come in.
Maybe they're wondering about opportunity zones or enterprise zones or historic tax credits or preservation and conservation type strategies, or buying equipment or a jet and aviation strategies. Because all of those things that I just mentioned, there's either a specialty tax component with bonus depreciation or section 1 79 or an actual tax credit, like research and development tax credits. We help bring it all together as a very experienced and comprehensive specialist around the tax code, anything available, federal, state, local incentives, credits, rebates, working with the CPAs, working with professionals like you, working with the high net worth or the company owner. That's what we pride ourselves in, is being very comprehensive depending on what the opportunity and the need is for the client.
Dave: Okay, and speaking of clients, do you think of the CPA firm as your client or the actual end user or both? I think because done a really good job cultivating those CPA firm relationships.
Mike: Yeah, Dave, that's a good question. I first and foremost see the CPAs as our client, but also our strategic partner because remember, we're a specialist. We don't do the full accounting audit and tax filing work for the client. We sit in the specialist seat. I explain it all the time to my friends and new clients when they're trying to figure out what we do. If I was in the medical profession, we would be a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon or some other type of specialist within medicine that works together with the general practitioners and others in medicine on the tax code and helping with the tax literacy, the tax strategy, the specialty credits and incentives like icdisc. How do we bring up those types of situations and opportunities? Usually it's working with that CPA firm to identify the client need and then being comprehensive and entrepreneurial with that client.
So long-winded answer to that is both. I see the CPAs as both our client and our strategic partner in situations, but definitely once I work with the company owner or the investor, they're also ultimately our client. So I need to deliver at a high level to both the CPA and both the client, or if I meet the client directly and you are the company owner that's asking us questions about a situation or a strategy, we push to be introduced to the CPA to make sure that we're collaborative, attacking that strategy from the beginning and become a great compliment to the CPA service so they can focus on what they do best, the accounting audit or tax type or bookkeeping type work that they do, and then just like you really helping to layer in that specialty strategy that maybe they're not as familiar with or really just need some help from a bandwidth perspective.
Dave: Sure. I've come across other firms that do some of the same services you all do. And what do your clients and CPA firms tell you that makes ETS different and why they have chosen to partner with ETS over another firm?
Mike: First of all, I think about that all the time. That's a question that comes up often. When we started 24, 25 years ago, there was very few firms that were doing some of the things that we do there. There were CPA firms that did cost segregation studies, but usually that was the higher level firms, the Deloitte, the KM KPMGs, the E and Ys, excellent high level firms, but they were really only doing it for their higher level corporate type clients as we democratize the tax code and brought that tax strategy to middle market type businesses, entrepreneurs and investors, the strategy there was really to work as comprehensively with different types of as possible. And the difference to me is first of all, our longevity and our professionalism and our diversity of the type of services that we're doing uniquely as a licensed professional engineering firm that also does specialty tax credits and incentives.
That's one of the biggest differentiators to me is we are a licensed professional engineering firm. The type of engineering that we do is cost engineering, looking at the cost of an acquisition, the cost of a purchase, the cost of a new construction of a property, and be able to break that down into accounting and tax format that the CPAs can then use. So that's where the hybrid of the engineering expertise and specialty tax expertise, so that unique structure of our firm, that unique ability to do multiple things and also have the energy incentives team in-house where if it's a new construction of a property or a big value add, repositioning, not only can we do that cost segregation study, we can comprehensively do that energy tax credit and incentive analysis. We have to do energy modeling. That's pure engineering type work, doing the energy incentive modeling to see what the energy efficiency of those components are.
Or on a renewable energy project. We have a client that's building a really big mixed use project that has some geothermal investment tax credits there. Those are pure engineering and energy efficiency type knowledge that we're able to bring comprehensively. So it's really the comprehensive approach of bringing engineering specialty tax energy incentives and credits. We also have an insurance division, which is very unique for our industry because I knew years ago that the second biggest painful point for our clients after tax figuring out tax minimization strategies is how do they lower costs and make sure they're protected from an insurance standpoint? And we do have a part of our firm that is engineered insurance services to compliment engineered tax services. We already have all the,
Dave: Yeah, tell me about the insurance company because I'm less familiar with that, and when did you start it? Are you licensed in all the states?
Mike: Yeah, we are. We've been quietly developing that over the last couple of years. I said, my background's from Cleveland, Ohio. Coincidentally, the firm that we partnered with is based in Cleveland, Ohio. When we formed a new entity together, engineered insurance services, went back to all the different carriers and got relicensed with all the top national carriers, all the names that folks would know well. So now as a nationally licensed insurance agency and brokerage firm, we focus on property casualty liability, cyber risk, flood, E and O, D and O, all the things that every company and every property owner needs. But we can do it comprehensively and uniquely because we're already doing the cost segregation studies on a lot of these properties. So we know what the cost basis is, we know what kind of roof it is, we know where it's located. We know the age of the electrical system and all the situations with the property, and also that owner, how they operate that property. That's what, just like the IRS with cost segregation study, they want to see the details and then yes, you can capture the benefits of bonus depreciation. The insurance carriers, they want to write insurance policies at very competitive rates, but they want to see it in detail. They want to understand that building. They just don't want an estimate that a broker submits to them. So we've had amazing success over the last year and a half of rolling out that program, doing it comprehensively with what we're already doing for that client.
Dave: That's really,
Mike: That's the other reason that we're very unique compared because there are some great firms that do cost segregation or that might do an energy analysis or that might do a research and development tax credit study, but very few firms, if any, that know about really take that comprehensive approach to be able to do tax energy insurance and the specialty consulting with engineered advisory with what we're doing,
And it resonates. It really resonates with clients because I feel like they really need someone that is, first of all, thinking entrepreneurially like them, because sometimes they're not getting it from maybe their legal team or their CPA team or their other advisors that they're working about taking that entrepreneurial approach, taking that proactive approach before the end of the year or before that renewal term for that insurance policy or before that building gets purchased or before the renovation happens, what should they be thinking about? And that's what I really try to work on with our team and our clients is be very proactive, be very transparent of the good, the bad, the ugly of different situations that clients should consider and then always be thinking entrepreneurially like our clients do because they appreciate it with your business and what you do with IC disc. Sometimes folks just haven't heard about it or they don't understand it, or they didn't do something proactively and now they're trying to unwind a situation, but I'm really excited about what we do. If you can't tell, I think,
No, it definitely comes, the future is very strong, especially with the passage in July of Trump's, I call it the big beautiful bonus depreciation tax bill because bonus depreciation and section 1 79 enhancements for equipment and other things and other things that will be, I think, expanded with opportunity zones and research and development tax credits. The way that they also just enhanced that program as well. Many folks don't understand it yet because there was a requirement to amortize some of the expenses of r and d over five years, but now you get the research and development tax credit plus a hundred percent of the qualifying expenses being able to be captured year one, so that's very powerful for US companies.
Dave: Yeah, no, that is great. And one of the other things that I appreciate about you all is that you all really stay in your lane. I feel like on the tax side, there's other firms that do cost and r and d that have just broadened their tax focus even more broadly, pick up things like the IC disc. So it's hard for me to get excited about referring a cost segregation study to a firm that does IC disc, so I've always,
Mike: Yeah, it's a bit of a competitive overlap in those situations.
Dave: Yeah, yeah. It's a less comfortable introduction.
Mike: We have a saying within our organization, we call it habu, right? Highest and best use, what is my highest and best use? What should I be focused on doing for that client? My highest and best use is not trying to understand and replicate your service around icdisc.
The best situation is for me to recognize opportunities and then bring in David and his team to implement a strategy for the client and the CPAs like that as well, because we're not trying to do what they do. We're just trying to compliment different situations, be a specialist at what we're really good at, and in our engineered advisory platform. That's where I can bring in you for the IC disc. I might have someone else that I'm working with if that client's buying an aircraft, for example, of how to legally structure it correctly, how to maximize the tax benefits, and I want to be an amazing, whether you want to call it an offensive coordinator or quarterback, that I might be throwing the ball sometimes. Other times I might be passing it off to somebody else, but I want to build a great team so that we're successful at the end for the client.
Dave: Sure. No, that's certainly been my experience with you guys. What do you love most or enjoy most about your current role with ETS? What really gets you excited?
Mike: Well, my title, I'm not big on titles, but it's managing Director of Engineered Tax and Advisory. So technically what that title means is I direct and I manage, I direct high level client relationships and strategic partnerships and strategies and new product development. I also help manage our, I work together with our executive team to help manage our executives across the country, either if they're in business development, some of them obviously are in engineering or other specialties within our firm or the legal team that does some structuring work for clients, but that's what I do. My favorite part of what I do is the relationships that I'm building with the clients. It might be a brand new relationship. It might be one from 15, 20 years ago, but it's watching that. Yeah, it's watching that CPA firm grow or helping that CPA firm grow and expand or diversify their services or meeting that entrepreneur that has a business and they're trying to understand the tax code, how to lower taxes, how do I increase cashflow?
What are the risks or pitfalls, and really working with that entrepreneur or that business owner together with that ccp. That is my most favorite part of what I do, because I'm an entrepreneur at heart. I got it from my family, my mom and dad. Were always very entrepreneurial, but it's hard. You can't do it yourself. It takes a great team. I mentioned a couple of mentors that I worked with. I hope that one day I can be a mentor to some of these people that we've worked with over the years, and maybe it is the specialty tax or the energy incentives or the structuring or strategy, but also personally, we learn a lot about our clients and we share a lot personally with them. But that's absolutely my most favorite is the relationships that we've built, the stories and the journeys that we've had together.
And if we do a good job, we actually do very little marketing and advertising out there. Of course, I speak at some events and do some sessions around the country, but largely our business has expanded very successfully because of those relationships and those referrals and that organic growth. Like, Hey, have you heard about engineered tax? And do you know what Mike does? You should give him a call. I watch my emails every day, and that's what makes me so happy is I remember that relationship. I remember that Miami Dolphins game, whoever it was, or the dinner that we might've had, or the beer that we might have shared somewhere where we personally built that relationship,
And that's something that I'm even more so focused on right now because our world is now moving very fast in terms of technology and ai, and I think that's great, and we are a tech enabled company that we utilize those things to deliver our services and strategies as efficiently as possible for the client. But I think even more so right now, it's all about, hi again, human intelligence. We want to talk, just like you and I are doing right now, folks want to meet, yes, they want tech enabled strategies and AI to help us do things better. I think that's great, but I have, and we have a renewed focus on the human intelligence, the human relationship, the human strategy together, because I think we can do so much more if we get back to the old school relationship building strategy, building together at the human level, and then of course we'll utilize technology to make that better, faster, stronger.
Dave: Yeah, no, and that's certainly that. Those relationships are certainly my favorite part of the business. The clients, the CPA firms, the other advisors, lawyers, you guys. So man, I can't believe how the time has flown by. So as we're rounding the home stretch, I have just a couple more questions.
Mike: All right.
Dave: If you could go back in time and give advice to your 25-year-old self, what advice might you give?
Mike: Continue to surround myself with people much smarter than me.
As I look back, the biggest opportunities that I had was being in what I thought at the time was uncomfortable situations with people that like, wow, this person really knows what they're doing with real estate, or This person really knows what they're doing with finance. But now looking back those situations of surrounding myself with really smart or savvy people or someone much more experienced than I was, that's where I really learned the opportunities around real estate development, around relationship building, around strategy, and structuring. Those mentors that I spent time with. I would tap myself on the shoulder and say, do more of that. Do more of that. If there's people that are wasting my time or going down avenues that really aren't good for me professionally or personally, don't waste time with that. Put myself in the room at the table in uncomfortable situations with people much smarter than myself. And even today, I try to do that every day is with some of the new technologies around AI or crypto or finance or strategy or real estate. Who are the innovators? Who are the people that really seem to be leading? I try to put myself in those situations, so that's what I would remind my young self is to take advantage of mentors, because you can really learn, and sometimes it's not until years later that you realized what you learned.
Dave: Yeah. I think that's great advice, not only for your 25-year-old self, but any 25-year-old and probably any business professional who's still trying to learn and grow.
Mike: Yeah. One other thing.
Dave: Yeah,
Mike: One more thing. As Steve Jobs used to say, don't focus on, I would tell myself not to focus on what I think the path is at that point, because the path is going to change the strategy, the job course of action, the winds are going to change. Ebb and flow, I always say is my personal mantra. The tide comes in, the tide comes out, but you can always learn to surf. You can't stop the waves, but you can always learn to surf. So don't try to be too tactful in the direction that you're going, because things will change. Companies will change and expect that change is what I'm trying to say. So expect the change that will continue to happen in our lives.
Dave: Okay. Well, yeah, I like that. Thank you very much. So as we wrap up, I really just have one more question, and that is, is there anything I didn't ask you that you wish I had asked V? Anything we didn't talk about that we should have?
Mike: You asked some really good questions. It sounds like we could talk all afternoon if we wanted to. The only thing you didn't ask me is about my family, and actually the thing I'm most proud of, I mentioned I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. My wife Laura, has been an amazing force in our relationship for stability and really helping me to do what I do because being on the road, it's very challenging. But my son Rocco and my daughter Lucia, are getting old and driving now as later stage teenagers. It's having those rocks behind me that really help with this ability to allow me to do what I do with our clients nationally. So I really appreciate them, and that's my other, that is my most favorite accomplishment in life of what I've been able to achieve with my family and do this professionally with engineered tech services and advisory.
Dave: Yeah, understood. Yeah, because ultimately it's about relationships, both professional and personal at the end of the day. Well, anything else we didn't cover or shall we go ahead and wrap it up?
Mike: I think we covered enough for now. I think we might have more to talk about. Again, I have some other ideas of topics we should talk about coming up here in the fall. There'll be some new things that we're doing.
Dave: Let's do that. We'll have you back, not too distant. Future for a part two.
Mike: All right.
Dave: Well, Mike, I really, really appreciate the opportunity to work with you and the whole team, and you guys have taken great care of our clients. We really appreciate that and we appreciate the trust you all have placed in us to serve some of your clients as
Mike: Well. Thanks, Dave. I appreciate you.
Special Guest: Mike D'Onofrio.