Grants Pass VIP Podcast

Matt Lund - CEO at Grants Pass Family YMCA

With programs to serve our youth, to young and middle aged adults, to retiree's, Grants Pass Family YMCA is here to help everyone in our community.

Tune in as CEO Matt Lund talks about the important role the Y plays in our community, some thoughts on the impact of COVID-19 and a special announcement on their expansion in the area.

Head on over to the Y's website for more on current news and events - http://www.grantspassymca.org/

Stay updated by following them on Facebook also - https://www.facebook.com/GrantsPassFamilyYMCA/

Transcription

Brian: Matt Lund has been married to his wife Stephanie for 11 years. He has four kids, ages ten, nine, six and five. Matt loves being active spending time with his family, serving the community and discovering how he can make a bigger impact on people's lives serving a higher purpose.

Matt Lund, welcome to the Grants Pass VIP Podcast.

Matt: Thank you, I enjoy being here.

Brian: Yeah. So why don't you just let us know a little bit about who you are and where people would know you from?

Matt: Sure. I don't know how many would know me locally. Although I've been here for a little over a year and a half now.

I grew up in Central California. Most of my childhood life obviously.

Then for college, I left and went to New Mexico, actually was an athlete played basketball in college at Florida basketball scholarship.

From there, I moved out to the Midwest and I played Semi Pro basketball in the CBA.

This is now going on 21 years ago.

So it's been some years, but after playing I fortunately came across an injury and was it not able to play anymore.

Ended up having to decide what to do in life for career, right?

What do we do to support ourselves?

How do we do it and what's our passion?

I decided to go in and work with youth and work with families and do it around what I loved, which was playing sports, and so I ended up getting a job at a YMCA in Wisconsin and started out as a sports coordinator, did it for about two and a half years.

Then I ended up going to work for the Chicago Metro YMCA as an operations director.

I was running one of the largest sports programs in the country for YMCA's, ended up having about 6,000 kids that came through my sports programs and running another YMCA as well.

I was able to then take my career and go down to work for the Wichita YMCA. I became an executive there in Wichita, was there for a few years and then moved on to the Twin Cities and worked in downtown Minneapolis, for the YMCA as well.

Was able to really get a well rounded background working in the YMCA and understanding different aspects doing governmental work, doing, obviously nonprofit work for the why learning to work with youth learning to work with older adults, learning to work with families and business ventures.

It just really gave me a well rounded background.

So I ended up wanting to do more around working with people and understanding how do we help people become more balanced in their life.

How do you become healthy spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally?

So I ended up becoming the Executive Director for the National Wellness Institute, which is one of the oldest nonprofit wellness organizations in the world.

Did that for about three and a half years, we really focused around the mindfulness and resilience and behavior change.

Again, more of the holistic approach, but not so much the physical and nutrition side of it. I got a lot of that information and a lot of that background from the YMCA. Again it was, how do we go about this in the spirit, mind, body?

Having that education and that background working at the National Wellness Institute along with the YMCA. When I left the Y to work for the National Wellness Institute, I learned a lot enjoyed my time there.

And then I got to a point where it was time for me to come back to where my first love was, which was working for the YMCA, and making impact in the way that I thought I could do best, which was serving the community.

I wanted to get back into the Y but I was trying to figure out where was the best place for me, and how can I take my background to then serve a bigger and better purpose in the type of community that fit myself in my family.

That was where it led me to Grants Pass. And I grew up actually again in California, but I grew up coming out to the La Pine and Bend area, to do hunting and fishing with family that I had lived in Bend and also had family up in the Portland area.

We come up and visit and we go hunt and fish and I just I fell in love with Southern Oregon.

When I saw the opportunity down here, that was why I applied, they got me here to this area. And again, I've been here now a little over a year and a half.

Having my four young kids and my wife, we are truly enjoying it. I think there are a lot of great things here.

It's unfortunate that we're going through the pandemic right now.

But you know, I see a community that is still coming together to do more. I'm just myself grateful to be a part of it, and hoping that we can continue to come together and really thrive together as a community as we all come through this pandemic.

Brian: Oh, that's great. That's really, really cool to hear. That's quite a background and you've kind of seen a little bit of everything.

So what led you into this line of work versus anything else?

I know it's kind of been your background up until this point. But why why do you think you're more drawn toward this versus other things?

Matt: There are very few people that actually get to do what they're passionate about. I think a lot of people go to work to have a paycheck to support either themselves or their families. Whether it's their immediate family or their extended family.

But there are a lot of people that unfortunately don't love the work they do.

I'm one of those on the other side that, I get a chance to come to work and do what I love to do. And, you know, we say serve the community. And really what does that mean?

Do we physically make an impact?

Do we set up programs and operations that we can specialize in that then make an impact?

I think there's a lot that comes to this is I do take a business approach. I look at the numbers, and I say, well, how do we make sure we're sustainable?

How do we make sure that we're going to be around longer than just now when you know that we're going to be here in 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 100 years from now?

What does that look like?

And so for me, you have a lot of people that are left brain or right brain or A personality, B personality, I have a good mix of both. I'm a builder. I may not physically do with my hands, but it's more strategic thinking, strategic planning, sometimes decisions that are tough to be made.

My position has to make those. All of them may not be popular, and I'm okay with that because the way my personality is and at the same time, I can also be a big kid, you know, I love Disneyland and I love going out and doing things.

So for me, the alignment of what I enjoy is that this allows me to balance. I think that's what everyone's looking for is they're doing their passion that they want to do for work, but they also trying to find their balance in life.

For me, this work allows me to have my family time, it allows my kids to come in and be a part of what I'm doing.

It allows my wife to come be a part of what we're doing here in the community. She also works at the Y.

It allows me to actually interact with all different people really diversifying those that I interact with and understanding different backgrounds, whether it's a wealthy background, or a poverty background, and understanding that we all need to come together and we all need to see how we can make that alignment to thrive as a community, especially again in these times.

I know that's kind of a long winded answer, but it really focuses in on, where's your passion?

Where's your strengths?

How does it best play to where you can balance your life filled with this position allows me to have all that.

Brian: Would you recommend this type of position to someone else that had a similar background?

Matt: To be honest, that's a tough answer.

There are people that I know that do not want my position. Yeah, they just say no, I couldn't do it, there's too much to it.

The reality is, is that there are good parts of my job or my career, and there are parts that just aren't very good. We have to sometimes in my position, make unpopular choices or unpopular decisions.

And then we have to live with them and we have to see who they affect.

My hope is that when those decisions are made, that they're made to serve more of a population or an area that needs it more than another and so people get upset by that and so you need to be a little tough skinned with it.

Although emotions I think, always take over in one way or another, so making recommendations to people at all depends on what your temperament level is, depends on what your capacity of dealing with stresses, depends on your desire.

Are you an extrovert?

Are you an introvert?

And what do you like to have as part of your own life?

If you're an extrovert, this life fits you very well. You have to be in the you are in the public eye. You have to be able to present to people you have to be able to have conversations, awkward conversations with people.

If you're an introvert that doesn't like that, and doesn't want to be the front face of things. This is not the career for you.

I think it's looking at again, where your passions align. And where you see yourself thriving as a individual to then better your life around you.

It's tough to say I recommend or don't recommend it. I would have to know the person and know what their long term goal

Darin Fowler - Josephine County Commissioner

Josephine County Commissioner Darin Fowler has been a Grants Pass native for nearly all of his life.

Join us as Darin talks about his life and times in Southern Oregon, to leaving his successful electrical business to run for office. As well as current events such as COVID-19 and the importance of getting kids back to school.

Transcription

Brian: Darin Fowler has lived in Josephine county for 47 years. Starting a successful business and raising his family here. For 25 years he has volunteered as a coach, Sunday school teacher and in local government. Darin Fowler, welcome to Grants Pass VIP.

Darin: Good morning. How are you?

Brian: Doing good, doing good. Really appreciate being here, just so the rest of you know, we're in the end of July of 2020, still dealing with the effects of the COVID crisis.

Besides that, let's get straight into who you are and what you're all about. Where would everybody know you from Darin?

Darin: Well, I've lived here almost my whole life.

My parents moved here when I was four in 1970. A lot of people I know from school, found my wife at the schools here. And then my kids went to the same schools. I bought the house across the street from the one I grew up in.

My kids ended up with the same school, same teachers. And now my grandson lives six blocks away and he goes to the same school so it's been really fun.

So you might know me as a soccer coach or a soccer referee, along the way I did a lot of that. Basketball coach for kids.

And then I've been electrician for 33 years. So most people would know me from my electrician profession. And I still have that business. I like to put in a few plugs on the weekend.

But then 12 years ago, I started getting involved in local politics.

So some people know me because of that. I was on the city council, right after they recalled five city councilors, you know, around '08 or '09, right in there.

My two fellow Commissioners in this county office, were part of this group that got in on that five recalled city councilors, and we got in and I spent 10 years over at the city three as a city councilor, and six and a half as mayor.

Now I have this full time job as Josephine County Commission. Now I've met new people that just know me as a county commissioner.

It's been interesting staying in the same community, find a way to make a living, and then serving my community as a public servant. It's been really fun.

Brian: So ever since originally moving here, have you lived here the whole time?

Darin: Almost. Yep. After high school here, you kind of get that itch, I wonder what it's like outside of Grants Pass? And I got to get the heck out of here.

I was fortunate enough to friend was going to San Diego. So I moved in with him in San Diego and learn how to be an electrician down there in San Diego was a pretty fun place to be 18 to 21.

We did have some fun, but when it's time to have a family and settle into the normal family unit like I did, I found out they were actually paying more for electricians in Grants Pass and they weren't San Diego, because there's a very restrictive licensing law in Oregon that California didn't have.

I came up here and was making good money for a young man. And it's been a really excellent trade. It's fun to know something.

Brian: other than the career, what other reasons is there to come to Grants Pass and stay in Grants Pass?

Darin: Well and I always say that if you could find a way to make a living here. Who wouldn't want to live here?

It's just beautiful. The weather, it's the climate. The coast is close. Mountains and rivers are all around you.

If you can find a way to make a living here, you would love to live here and I have enjoyed it because your kids feel safe out in the street in front of your house. There's the Boys and Girls Club in the basketball and the soccer and baseball and all those sports.

The kids do that very small townie and but I've watched this town grow from 12,000 folks back then to the full 36,000 we have now and a lot of people live right outside of Grants Pass and come in to Grants Pass for their livelihood or or just for supplies.

You get to know folks, especially if you stick around that long. So I also taught Sunday school for like 15 years. So I know a lot of people through church as well.

Brian: Oh, good deal. So what led you to becoming an electrician to begin with?

Why did you go into that field?

Darin: I met my wife in between sixth and seventh grade at a Christian school. We met over in the First Baptist Church parking lot right across the street here. And I went out with her then and ninth grade and 11th grade, we ended up getting married when we were 21.

But her father was an electrician and he had these estimating schools. He was teaching injured workers how to do estimating and construction.

He's like, well what do you plan to do with your life young man?

And I said, I don't know, they didn't prepare me for anything at that school over there.

He's says, I'll tell you what, I'll teach you how to be electrician take about a week. I'll get you a job.

Where do you want to go?

I said, I'm heading to San Diego. He said, oh, I got friends down there, we'll get you a job.

Took a week and we learned some paper stuff. We learned how to roll up extension cords how to sharpen a drill bit and how to put a plug in a switch in I went down San Diego with his recommendation and got a job and he call every couple of months and say, so when are you going to start courting my daughter again?

Those guys are so cute with that age. So I think he wanted to have me around and then we did get married and lived in this very town. Had most of our holidays at his house, and birthdays and stuff.

So got to know him very well. He's he taught me how to be an electrician, how to be a father and how to be a grandfather.

Brian: Wow.

That field of work, would you recommend it to others?

Darin: I would, but you kind of got to have a God given talent for a lot of these trades. Because if you don't like crawling under houses, and wedging yourself in the corner, where the spiders are with a drill in your hand, while you're dragging a wire with your other hand, might not be the trade for you.

You got to get up on ladders a lot. So if you don't like that might not be the trade.

But I think it's all those trades in construction are not only honorable, but there's a void of talent heading into those fields.

All the wages have gone up, and it is a good way to earn a living. And you don't have to go to college to do it. You don't have to go on debt to do it. You could start working tomorrow.

I do encourage people to try it. It's a good place to spend a month and decide if you like it or not. And you know, I don't like this. So it's good to have an internship or something on that and see if you have a talent.

Brian: Running for city council, was that your first political position?

Darin: It was, I had got on a few advisory committees and I was on the urban area Planning Commission at the time. But that was my first step in front of people and asked you to vote for me. I didn't even get on Student Council in school ever.

But I've always been kind of a natural leader in the room. And that comes with pros and cons.

But once I started serving at the City Council over there, I just found that I really enjoyed it.

And our pastor said, if you've got a talent, and you love it, that's one thing. But let's say it's guitar, you want to pick up a guitar and start playing and singing in front of people well, you may be having the time your life but if you get up in front of people and they don't like it. That may not be your gift.

I found that other people enjoyed me being in the room. And that would get to a conclusion, I could help the group get somewhere, let's make a decision.

I think that's how I got to be mayor over there as I was good to get in the groove, Okay, remember why we're here? Let's get to the end of this one.

And so I really found it was what I thought about most of the time, then, you know, it's taken over slowly, and you get the bug.

They call it you know, you get the bug of politics or public service.

You either embrace it and try it and I've had people yell at me, I've had people really mad, I've had people really happy. And you just got to have an even keel, and realize tomorrow still comin. Let's not all die on this hill today. We've got stuff to do next week.

So just stay calm and carry on. And so far, it's worked for me and I think it's worked for our community as well.

Brian: Why Commissioner, why did you decide to go into that office?

Darin: It was the same feeling I had when we took over that city council that the city didn't trust their leaders. They want new ones.

If you have good trusted leaders, then you gain and over the next few years, you gained some ground with the voters. And I felt this commissioner's office had really gained a lot of ground, with my two fellow city councilors coming here first Dan DeYoung and Lily Morgan.

But then there was one office up and Simon Hare was not going to run again. So there was a void.

I looked at the field, and none of them had experience in government and I had 10 years across the parking lot. And I'm all, I don't want to see the county slip backwards at all, I'm going to go for it.

I remember going home the day I kind of decided that it was a real possibility. And my wife who is the most practical, logical, smartest person I know, I knew she'd say it was a bad idea. And so I was counting on her and I got home and I said, Hey, I think I was supposed to run for county commissioners.

She said, you should.

I'm like, I Oh no! You were supposed to e the one that stopped me.

It is the most interesting job I've ever thought of....

Kyle Akin is a veteran, business owner and a Grants Pass native.

Listen in as Kyle openly shares his successes and challenges during the pandemic and his encouraging words to business owners in the community and those who want to own a business in the future.

To learn more about Crescendo Spirits and their fine products ➡️https://www.crescendospirits.com/

Also, be sure and head over to your liqueur store in town and pickup some of their fine products. 😃

Transcription

Brian: Kyle Akin is a marine veteran who went to school to be a civil engineer. He fell in love with the Rogue Valley back in 2008 and knew he needed to create an opportunity greater than that of an employee if he wanted to live here. So he started Crescendo Spirits and then a few years later, Double Taps and Grants Pass.

He's been living in the Rogue Valley on and off since 2008 with the goal of eventually living here full time when Kyle married his wife, a GP local six years ago, he's been living here since.

On top of all that they'll be having their first son in the upcoming weeks ahead. That's exciting.

Kyle Aiken, welcome to Grants Pass VIP.

Kyle: Thanks for having me on the show.

Brian: Good deal. So other than what I already mentioned, is there anything else that you'd like to say about yourself and where people might know you from?

Kyle: Oh, just that I've been going to Club Northwest and I'm sure a lot of people know me from there and obviously from working at Double Taps for two years, a lot of people have come through and we've had a lot of events and we raised a lot of money for local efforts and events.

With Double Taps we really tried to integrate ourselves into what Grants Pass was doing. Might knw me from there.

Brian: Very cool. So, how did you end up here? What's your life story up until this point?

Kyle: Well, I grew up in Northern California and native Mendocino County, five and a half hours from here.

Still have a mother that lives down in Laytonville, then joined the Marine Corps at 17.

Traveled the world a bit, was a Marine Embassy Guard was in the Marine Corps for five years overseas for about seven. After I got in the Marine Corps. I drove to Panama, went to Florida State there because I wanted to go back to Panama after the Marine Corps and worked on getting my degree.

My Dad always kind of had that plan for me growing up, "you're going to go serve your country, you're going to earn the right to vote and do right by your country. Then after that you're going to use those benefits and go to college and get a degree."

That was the life path I had for me for years. Got my civil engineer degree from Florida State to work for a large civil engineering firm there, Jacobs Engineering.

Then I transferred back to the Pacific Northwest.

So I went back to Bellevue Washington. And while I was up there working doing a lot of construction management stuff, civil engineering, since that's my emphasis, discovered the Rogue Valley because I had a childhood friend that was living down in Talent and came on down there and discovered what a summer was like again.

You know, because living in Seattle, you don't get a you don't get a lot of summer and going from places like Florida, where it's sunshine all day, and then go on and work at night for six months in Bellevue, Washington. In the middle of winter, kind of a bit of a contrast.

That summer I was rolled on down here on my motorcycle and saw my buddy and that was 2007 and fell in love with the place and decided I need to learn how to be down here. You need to figure it out.

So I got a civil engineering job down in a Rogue Valley and moved down shortly thereafter.

Unfortunately, the market crashed, shortly thereafter, right around 2008-2009. But I was in my master's program got an MBA from Southern Oregon University.

In the meantime, I got laid off from my civil engineering job because all the construction kind of disappeared, got picked up by another company. Actually worked for a lot of companies in the interim as a civil engineer and went to Yosemite worked as a civil engineer doing the Historic Ahwahnee Upgrade and Yosemite lived there for about a year and got another opportunity to come back to Grants Pass, come back to the Rogue Valley and work on another construction project that was nearby.

Discovered Club Northwest, meet my wife and I fell in love.

Shortly thereafter the project ended and I had to go to Eugene and my wife and I pursued a long distance relationship while I was in Eugene working on another construction project and decided it was time.

I was in my mid 30s by then, and decided it's time for me to raise a family, you know, meet a wife settle down and wanted to do all that.

So I made a stand in Eugene because I was tired of relocating because I had had over 20 addresses and 14 years. So I made a stand, bought a house in Eugene, and that's where I started Crescendo Spirits.

I had a lot of people who believed in me that were willing to work with me and invest in my company and we now have 60 investors and Crescendo Spirits, over the years since then that was 2013 that I started it.

It started up in Eugene and all time I wanted to still be down here in the Rogue Valley.

My wife and I finally decided to go for it. She's a fourth grade Elementary School Teacher in Rogue River.

It's just been great move back down rented out my house and Eugene and on December 15, 2017 started Double Taps, because I wanted to have something to do here and I wanted to contribute and be part of the Grants Pass community professionally.

I mean, I was with Crescendo Spirits, you know, via bars and restaurants and liquor stores carrying my Distilled Spirits doing different shows and events, but I wanted something more personal more local, and that's where Double Taps came from.

So we decided to start that, right there in the Grants Pass Shopping Center, here we are two years later. And unfortunately, Double Taps didn't really survive the COVID thing with me because I found that Crescendo Spirits has kind of exploded on a different scene.

Also we're about to have a baby, and Double Taps, probably about some 75% of my workload was working with Double Taps.

So while it was fascinating and great to meet everybody, a lot of customers really loved our spot. I really found that between COVID and reopening, and so forth, it just it was time for somebody else to take up that torch.

So we're in the middle of selling the business to a friend of mine, who is going to be reopening it somewhere in Grants Pass. So we're not telling anybody where yet because obviously, we want to make sure everything works out right.

But you'll be seeing Double Taps soon, it just won't be under my management.

But in the meantime, know that we are doing well here in Grants Pass and we're soon to have a son. And that Crescendo Spirits is still alive and well and carried in all your local spots.

Brian: That's fabulous. What a story.

So when you first started Crescendo Spirits, had you ever had any type of business before?

I know you had worked as a civil engineer at all these different places?

Or was that a completely new thing for you?

Kyle: I come from a family of entrepreneurs, there's was always that hidden kind of impetus to do something on my own. And I always thought that God had that intention for me all along, and I strongly believe in a path that's is a destiny, if you will.

I believe that things reveal themselves through different parts of your life.

And so for me, I'm construction management being a civil engineer. I love it, absolutely love being outside working in heavy infrastructure construction. We've done dams, we've done bridges. We've done wastewater plants, roads, you name it. But the problem is, is that it's very much a nomadic lifestyle for a person in that occupation.

With me wanting to start a family and have kids, and really get known in a community and develop my relationships within a community, that job profile didn't really meet that.

So it required that I think outside the box, that I learned what it's like to really strike out on your own. And don't get me wrong, there's always been…for years I've been working on putting those tools in my toolbox, you know, interviewing all the different business owners that I've worked with over the years getting my MBA from Southern Oregon.

Learning how to do the marketing and learning how to do a business plan, and so forth, taking care of my finances, developing relationships, everything has essentially been towards that end.

It's not something that you just wake up one day and go, "I'm gonna own a business."

Like, in order to properly open a business, you really, it takes time and thought, and setting up the right thing. If you want to be successful, and you just, I mean, I'm sure there are people that wake up one day and just go, you know, I want to do something and they go do it and they're successful. That's great.

That's not how my personality works. I want to be as prepared as I can.

So I take the classes and I get the life experience. But yeah, I always kind of fully expected that one day I was going to have to do my own thing. If I was going to end up getting what I wanted out of life. That did eventually come in Eugene when I made my stand, and I knew I was going to have to pay the price, and sure enough, the project ended and there wasn't anything else in that particular area that I could go to. So that necessitated the need to start an opportunity.

Brian: So why liquors, why spirits, what led you in that direction?

Kyle: A lot of it is taken a look at your life and what do you do well in your life, and what have you learned in your life, how people reacted to things in your life. And in my case, one of the things I've done for years was make homemade limoncello which in of itself is a

Born in Grants Pass, Lowell Gibson has run NiceBadge in town for the past 20 years.

An active member in the local community, Lowell took sometime this summer to talk with our host Brian Pombo about the challenges NiceBadge has faced since the start of COVID-19 and how they've adjusted.

A big thank you to Lowell for being on the show and for being our first interview on the podcast.

Checkout NiceBadge ➡️https://www.nicebadge.com/

Transcription

Brian: Lowell Gibson is president of NiceBadge.

A 5th generation Southern Oregonian. A missionary kid raised in Japan 14 years. The chair of BR&E, VP of Gospel Rescue Mission Foundation Board. Treasurer of the SOREDI Board.

He loves Southern Oregon and his community. Loves riding his Harley, fly fishing on the Rogue, golfing, floating the Rogue. He's also extremely pro business.

I'm very happy to have him here today on the Grants Pass VIP podcast.

Thanks for coming on Lowell.

Lowell: Thanks Brian. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Brian: So who are you and where would people know you from?

Lowell: Lol. I don't think I've been on the wanted posters in the post office lately, so that's good.

I bought the business here in 2000. I was born here, then I raised in Japan, came back for a while, left to go to college. Finally came back in 2000, bought the business and I've been here since.

I think the community that it is we all get to know each other in different circles. Within the business community. I've been involved with the chamber with a lot of pro business and economic development organizations, of course, Rotary and a few other places like that.

Brian: Why Grants Pass of all places in the world?

You moved back here in 2000, why here?

Lowell: The simple answer is, I like Grants Pass.

It's my hometown. It's a good place to raise a family. I was up in the Salem area, and just the weather up there is a little bit gray. It may not necessarily rain, but you know, down here, it's either going to rain on you or the sun shines out and I kind of like that. And like I said, it was a great place to raise my kids. And it's a small community so you get to know a lot of people. You know, there's a lot of good in that.

Brian: Tell me a little bit about why you bought this business?

Lowell: Yeah, I used to be in the restaurant business. I own the restaurant and heating and cooling, I sold insurance for a while.

This business was owned by my mom. She had bought it in 85. And by 2000, she had grown it to a business that had about 13 employees and she was wanting to retire. I was looking for something different to do at the time. She said, "why don't you to take a look at it, see if it's something you'd like."

So I did and of course, moving back to Grants Pass really appealed to me. So I bought the business, moved my family back down here and my mom retired. Here it is, you know, 20 years later still here.

Brian: You've been doing this for 20 years. Is it an industry or a position that you recommend to others at all?

Lowell: Wow. So when I bought the business is much smaller, the company was, and we make name badges. It's bulk of our business, but we do other things like promotional products and signage and sandblasting.

There is definitely a lot of that being done around the country. With the internet, we were able to start selling nationally a little bit easier with our website and you know, using SEO.

To grow it, you have to have a lot of customers because what we're selling is smaller items.

So we have over 40,000 business customers across the country. And it takes that many just to do the volume we do and keep 27 people employed.

It's doable.

I think the hardest part is to grow it from nothing….like my mom, she took it from nothing, you know, one employee, part time employee to 16 employees.

That was probably the hardest part of the company, that initial growth phase.

For me, it was taking it from that point, and expanding it and finding ways to market on a national level.

I always think it was a little easier. She says that would have been hard for her to do so it's probably just whatever our strengths are, but it's a good industry. It's a tiny little industry as far as the national landscape goes, and there's a lot of mom and pa engravers across the country last I knew there was over 5,000 within our industry organization, there's probably more than that.

So it just, not too many make it to….and not saying we're large but make it to even our size and so it is a very small, little antiquated industry.

Brian: Would you recommend it to others?

Lowell: It depends on what you want. If you want a job or you can, work out of your house or garage and maybe your significant other and you can probably make a living at it.

If you want to grow into a larger company with employees. It takes a lot of marketing.

I know that's your strength, but it takes a lot of marketing to sell engraved products on a national level.

You can saturate your community, especially in a small community like ours, rather quickly in which you need more to grow. And so for us, we had to go national, you know, a little bit international, but mostly mostly national.

And marketing has been the toughest part of that. So if you're willing to put the time in and grow at a, you know, we grew at a 27% growth rate for most of the last 20 years. But it was a lot of work to pick up customers across the country.

Brian: Earlier, you were giving me a tour of facilities here and tell me a little bit about this. Why don't you talk a little bit about how this last year has affected your life and business with COVID-19?

Lowell: Yeah, you know, I've been self employed 31 years and I thought I saw it all.

In 2008 you know….at least different years I remember it being really hard and this happened and it was like nothing any of us in business had ever seen before.

I feel like I was ready this time, in '08, I feel like I didn't quite catch on quick enough. This time I felt like I was ready.

We quickly adapted, as much as we could.

Our national business in name badges dropped by 40, 50%. And we typically do about 5,000 badges a day so that's a big drop for us. So we started making partitions you know, sneeze guards or partitions for banks and restaurants and coffee stands and something we easily can do.

We have the equipment here we make it in-house, the turnaround time is good. And my staff did amazing at transitioning from what they normally did to to some of this other stuff. Thank goodness for that.

So instead of being down 40, 50% April and May we were down about 8%.

Last month, we were up so it was just a matter of doing whatever it takes to keep everybody employed, keep the doors open and keeping our customers happy.

Brian: Absolutely.

What's your top selling product?

Lowell: Now, or prior to this?

Brian: Both.

Lowell: Name badges. 80% of what we sell has been named badges and through February to March.

Right now, I think name badges is still a top seller. We do a lot of grocery chains and then all the Albertsons I think we have 300,000 employees 20 different logos, you know, Safeway, Vons and others.

So we have a lot of bank chains that makes a lot of customers and so name badges is still our… proportionately speaking their biggest seller.

But the last three months, the partitions, we've sold thousands of these partitions, and that's probably been about 37%, 36% of our business.

So it's not our biggest seller, but man it sure has helped us fill that gap on the name badges.

We also do awards, signage, sandblasting. A lot of promotional products, just different things, but the go to has always been name badges

Brian: What are you most excited about in the next six months or so?

Lowell: Like all all the other businesses out there, probably the community, you know, we'd like to know what's going to happen?

What is normal or the new normal or whatever you want to call it?

What does that look like?

From a business standpoint, we look at our numbers. I look at my numbers daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly. You're comparing it with last year, you're comparing it with your peers.

And that's how you project, that's how you determine what your needs are, where your spending is.

Then this happened and everything went out the window.

There is no norm at least there hasn't been or the new norm.

I like numbers and charts, this makes it really difficult. There's an asterix on everything for the past four months.

I would love to see some resemblance of, I don't even need consistency, I just would like to have the ability to project.

So tell me what's going to happen, are we, you know, are we going to open, are we not going to open, I just need to know what to expect, so I can plan accordingly.

And I know that people might say, I'm a bit of a control freak, because I like to plan so much. But it just makes it a lot easier to do my business if I know what's going to happen.

If there's gonna be another outbreak or a phase two or whatever, just tell me so I can plan accordingly.

But obviously, nobody probably really knows.

Brian:That pretty much comes with the position. You've got to be a little bit of a control freak.

Lowell: Lol…Yeah, you do. That's true.

Brian: If we were talking like a year from now, if you were to just guess, just kind of project, and you're gonna look back over the last 12 months.

What would have had to happen for you do feel happy with the progress in your life and business?

Lowell: I've been really apprehensive since March.

Rightly so, I should be, you know, every day. I mean, like the news, you know, we're my friends in business, we're watching the news. Something would happen, the governor says something and I get like five texts, you know, from friends of mine.

...

left to right: Kate Pombo, Allie Pombo, Tyler Pombo, Brian Pombo, Lucas Pombo

Why “Grants Pass VIP Podcast?” What’s it all mean? Grants Pass resident and podcast host Brian J. Pombo introduces himself explains the story behind this new show.

Transcription

Hi, I'd like to welcome you to Grants Pass VIP, I'm Brian Pombo.

So what is Grants Pass VIP?

Well, it's a chance for us to get to know each other.

So everybody in Josephine County, and Grants Pass and even a lot of people on the outskirts or people that just have something to do with Grants Pass and the culture around here. I want them to be able to be on the show so that we can all get to know each other.

I've never really been able to get out and network enough. And I just feel that there's a need for this type of thing where a person could network without leaving their house, especially now this is 2020.

While I'm recording this, we're still dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic and a lot of people are held up so why not have a way where we can get out and talk to each other and learn about each other and be able to do it in a passive way.

There's a lot of reasons for this.

One, I know that the more people that you know, the better off you are just in general, it opens up doors, it allows for a certain amount of security. It allows you to be able to stand out and be able to go out and reach somebody to get the help you need.

Let's see you here's somebody on the show that provides a service that you can really use when you feel like you already know them because you've heard a conversation that we had on the show.

So this is really all about conversations.

It's about breaking down barriers, and getting to know each other. And I think that'll make us all a whole lot safer too, because it reduces the divisiveness that I've seen kind of crop up in politics and everything else around the community.

And most of it comes from people just not knowing each other very well.

The people that know each other even when they disagree about things. They usually get along. They can least handle each other on a one on one human basis. Right.

So Grants Pass is a beautiful area. I chose it specifically to raise my family here. I feel very blessed to be here and I look forward to meeting so many of you out there and hopefully we could make this into something really fabulous.