Connect with Michael and Bob

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Brett Kaufman

Brett Kaufman

https://brett-kaufman.com/  

Twitter: @bkaufman125

IG: @brettkaufman

LinkedIn: @Brett-Kaufman

Founder, Kaufman Development 

https://livekaufman.com/

IG: @livekaufman

https://gravityproject.com/  

IG: @gravityproject

Host, Gravity Podcast

https://brett-kaufman.com/podcast/ 

IG: @thegravitypodcast 

[00:00:00] Brett Kaufman: [00:00:00] You know, I think you said that this kind of defining, letting your past to find you, you know, to me, that's really a choice and it's not an easy one. I mean, these are very, very complex things, but it is a choice to rewire. Repattern kind of how you think, how you act and how you create your life and your future.

[00:00:23] And most people are unconsciously just recreating their past over and over again. And. You know, at a certain point, I just decided I didn't want to do that. And it wasn't without hell 

[00:00:36] Bob Wierema: [00:00:36] today on the climb, crossroads and 

[00:00:39] defining moments, we had mr. Brett Kaufman and join us. Brett joined us and  shared with Michael myself, so many good nuggets and takeaways. We have, I think you could write a book with the quotes that we have taken away from this one. He talks about his passion 
for sharing and giving back and where he started coming from his childhood to where he is [00:01:00] today. And just a great conversation around. Who he is as a person and how he's continuously striving to be better each day and talks a lot about just being a work in progress and what that means to him and how he's going to continue moving forward.

[00:01:25] Well, well, Brett, welcome to the climb podcast with myself and Michael. We appreciate you joining us this morning. 

[00:01:33] Brett Kaufman: [00:01:33] Yeah, thanks for having me happy to be here with you. 

[00:01:35] Bob Wierema: [00:01:35] Well, your know, a, you're no stranger to 

[00:01:38] podcasts yourself, 

[00:01:39] so, you know, let's make sure we get you a plug for your gravity 

[00:01:42] podcast 

[00:01:43] and maybe share a little bit, let's start there with what you're looking to accomplish 

[00:01:46] there so we can let everybody 

[00:01:48] know, about your podcasts as well.

[00:01:51] Brett Kaufman: [00:01:51] Sure. Yeah. We, launched our podcast last year and have recorded. I think we're over 40 episodes. They're kind of getting released once [00:02:00] a week and really the purpose behind the podcast is really to get people, to tell their life journey, their full life. Journey all the kind of childhood experiences good, bad or otherwise, and how that's shaped their lives.

[00:02:18] As they've gone on to have varying levels of success in different areas. And really the point is the hope that the listener will see themselves in these people and in their journeys and take some comfort and get some inspiration to continue forward in their own in their own lives. 

[00:02:38] I 

[00:02:38] Bob Wierema: [00:02:38] know when we talked kind of the first time when I was thinking about launching the podcast with Michael and what we were looking to 

[00:02:45] accomplish 

[00:02:46] a little bit of a different bend to it, but, but not too dissimilar, which is, I think there's a lot of different points within your life that are, you know, as we say, the crossroads, the defining moments of 

[00:02:56] when you make a 

[00:02:57] certain decision or certain things that, that make you go [00:03:00] left instead of right.

[00:03:01] So it's kind of cool to see how those, you know, your piece and ours intertwined a little bit. 

[00:03:07] Brett Kaufman: [00:03:07] Yeah, I think it's great what you guys are doing. And, there's definitely some similarities there. I think, you know, these kind of stories need to be told and, you know, at the end of the day, we're all the same.

[00:03:18] We're all kind of grappling with the same things in bearing degrees. And, it's really helpful for people to kind of be together and learn from each other. 

[00:03:29] Bob Wierema: [00:03:29] Yeah, absolutely. So what's Brett's story, like where does that 

[00:03:33] start? And maybe bring us 

[00:03:34] to 

[00:03:35] today and then 

[00:03:36] Michael, and I'll pepper you with some questions in between.

[00:03:39] Brett Kaufman: [00:03:39] All right. Well, yeah, that's a, could be a really long answer. So I'll try to condense that, you know, as it is with most people, you know, our lives are full and that's been the case for me. I grew up in Akron, Ohio for the first 10 years of my life. my parents had [00:04:00] kind of a, a pretty chaotic, marriage.

[00:04:03] My father was, an addict and, abusive and, and struggling quite a bit. And, that led to a divorce and eventually, moved to Columbus where I live today. Live most of my life. And, you know, I like to kind of tell the first part of that story because you know, it really did eventually end up informing who I am in a very positive way.

[00:04:27] I have a lot of gratitude for that time, despite how difficult it really was. I got to learn a lot about me. I got to kind of do that in a challenging way. As I went into high school and college, I may...

Connect with Michael and Bob

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Chris Powers

Follow Chris on Twitter

Listen to Chris' Podcast

Check out Fort Capital

[00:00:00] Chris Powers: [00:00:00] I mean, just fundamentally. I think it's how some people are wired and not everybody's wired this way. But I remember when I bought my first house, I thought, well, if I can just get to 10 houses, like I'm set and then you get to 10 houses and, and as you get there, you enjoy, like, I don't even know if you enjoy it because now that you have 10, you need 20 and is like, you never really arrive at where you think you're going to arrive to that.

[00:00:24] The journey kind of is the destinations. I figured that out pretty early on that every time I kind of set my life is like, if I can just get to this point, everything will be okay, or I will have done what I needed to do you really just realize that that's just another step in the journey. I think if, if the journey ended, we wouldn't see companies like Amazon and Apple and all these things they would have ended way before.

[00:00:49] Right. and that's kind of the entrepreneurial spirit is like it never really in.

[00:00:57] Michael Moore: [00:00:57] Welcome to the climb. I'm your cohost [00:01:00] Michael Moore. Today we will dive deep inside the mind of a man transforming the real estate landscape of Fort worth and beyond meet Chris powers, founder of Fort capital. An amazing family man with quotes like we're just going to need faster horses. Don't buy all the land first and humility is the ultimate super power.

[00:01:23] This podcast is one you will listen to more than once. Listen to the Climb.

[00:01:36] Chris powers, welcome to the client. 

[00:01:38] Chris Powers: [00:01:38] Thank you for having me. It's been fun watching this get started. 

[00:01:43] Michael Moore: [00:01:43] Well, I can, I think I can speak on behalf of our cohost Bob, where I'm, you know, he and I came up with this idea about 90 days ago. But I was preparing for this this morning and look back in my notes and it was the fall of 2019 [00:02:00] that I started really listening to your podcast and set a meeting with you.

[00:02:03] And so, you know, I think. From both of us, you're kind of the spiritual founding father of our podcast. So we're excited to have you on and look forward to an engaging conversation this morning. Yeah. Back in and talk about, you know, Chris and not so much where you are today and where you're going, but let's, let's dive back a little bit.

[00:02:23] Born in El Paso came to TCU, kind of walk us through the beginning stages of, of Chris power. 

[00:02:30] Chris Powers: [00:02:30] Yeah, so I was born in El Paso, Texas. My mom lived there, her whole life. My grandfather had lived there pretty much his whole life. So El Paso runs very deep in my family, lived in Lubbock for a few years. My dad was a, a practicing attorney for 13 years.

[00:02:50] And then at 37, decided he wanted to become a doctor. So stop practicing law. We moved to Lubbock, so he could attend a medical school [00:03:00] at Texas tech. We moved from one year to Connecticut to do his first year of residency, moving Texans up to the Northeast. Probably wasn't the best decision we did one year.

[00:03:12] And we moved back to El Paso to finish and I finished high school there. I graduated, high school a year early. So I accepted my, my letter to TCU. when I was 16, came to TCU and I was 17, played a lot of golf in high school. I cherish El Paso. It's where I get a lot of, probably my values. And, it's an awesome place.

[00:03:35] Came to Fort worth in 2004 to go to TCU. And I've been here ever since. TCU was incredible for me. Like it is for a lot of people college. I met a ton of people. I started my business. I have to stay in Fort worth. After where I met my wife, been married for six years. I have a three and a half year old and a she about to be one year [00:04:00] old, two daughters.

[00:04:00] So yeah, life's pretty good. 

[00:04:03] Bob Wierema: [00:04:03] I just wanted to ask one question, cause it was 

[00:04:04] really intriguing to me. 

[00:04:06] So tell me 

[00:04:07] real quick, your father 

[00:04:10] just says, okay, I'm done with, with being a lawyer. I want to go be a doctor. Like what made him do that? I mean, that's, that's like pretty wild. 

[00:04:18] Chris Powers: [00:04:18] That's about as wild as it gets.

[00:04:19] And when you're a young kid, I was seven. When we, when we went to medical school in Lubbock. And I guess you just, your dad tells you that that's what you're going to do. And you just maybe think that's like a normal thing that people do. And, I'm now 33, I've met a lot of people and I've never met anybody else on the planet.

[00:04:36] That's on it. His dad was an attorney. so my dad grew up in the Northeast. he was, from Rhode Island. Went to Virginia then went to Harvard law and at Harvard wanted to really, always wanted to do like an intro in Texas or one of his summer deals in Texas. And he had a roommate from El Paso. He moved to El Paso and that's where he met my mom over the [00:05:00] summer and ended up moving there.

[00:05:02] But I don't think he ever really wanted to be a lawyer. I think his dad was a lawyer and I think a lot of people fall into that trap of my dad does it. I don't really know what else to do. And I honestly now looking back on it, I give him, while it's a crazy thing and it's not something I would recommend everybody do as I get older, I really admire him for.

[00:05:23] Really being willing to say, like this, isn't what I love doing. And making such a drastic change to do something that he would be happy doing. He had always wanted to be a doctor and even at 37, you know, he's just become a partner at a law firm and everything. He just said, like this isn't going to be fulfilling for me the rest of my life.

[00:05:40] And we did it. And so, again, as weird as it was, and, you know, we could have a whole podcast on what it's like to go to medical. Let's go when you're 37, it's something I really admire him for is. Really just kind of doing what makes them happy. I think there's a lot of people that probably don't ever make a big change because they're kind [00:06:00] of keep the status quo or, so not something, I knew at the time, but something I've learned as time goes by.

[00:06:06] Michael Moore: [00:06:06] Do you draw down on that though? Is his you're making decisions at four capital and you've got a pivot or maybe launch into something new. I mean, do you, do you see yourself reflecting on your dad's ability to go. This isn't the right direction for me. I'm I'm changing everything. I'm moving my fam...

Connect with Michael & Bob

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Molly

Website: https://mcshane-construction.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-mcshane-4316454/

[00:00:00] Molly McShane: [00:00:00] But what if you viewed it, you know, in a broader context of it is our responsibility to this industry and our communities to open up the doors and give somebody the chance, not only to learn the industry, but frankly put it on your resume that you had an internship with us. Cause that's valuable. And if you can give back in that context of let's, let's provide real opportunities to people who don't have a dad or an uncle in the business.

[00:00:31] You can start to make little baby steps, but it's a lot of baby steps. We got to take 

[00:00:37] Bob Wierema: [00:00:37] on this episode of the climb. Michael and I had the opportunity to sit down with Molly McShane, the COO of the McShane companies, a real estate and construction company based in Rosemont, Illinois. It's a family owned business and Molly is going to share her experience of.

[00:00:57] Rising through the ranks and not [00:01:00] only a family held business, but also being a woman in a primarily male dominated industry, Molly realized early on in her career that things don't happen on accident. And it's definitely not a straight line to the top. You'll definitely enjoy this episode of the podcast.

[00:01:17] Thanks for joining us.

[00:01:28] Molly. Welcome. Thank you for taking the time to join Michael and myself today. Appreciate you spending some time. 

[00:01:35] Molly McShane: [00:01:35] Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited. 

[00:01:38] Bob Wierema: [00:01:38] Course. Well, I think a great way to kick it off would be if you could just give us a quick little background on you and let all the listeners know, we know a little bit about yourself and you know where you were and where you're sitting today.

[00:01:50] Molly McShane: [00:01:50] Sure you got it. Maybe I'll start with where I sit today. And that is as chief operating officer of the McShane companies, the McShane companies are [00:02:00] comprised of three different companies, McShane, construction, and cadence, McShane construction are both general contractors. And Connor commercial is our development arm.

[00:02:10] So, I got to this place and probably not a straight line. I think there was perhaps more, more applicable to the real estate industry, but a lot of us get there and kind of a funny path, which applies to me as well. So I started off, I went to Boston college for my undergraduate. And when I was there, I majored in marketing and thinking at that time, advertising sounds really fun.

[00:02:37] You know, they are, it's a, it's a fun vibe. Really cool. I think that's what I'm going to go into. So I did right upon graduating, I went into marketing and advertising and after about, maybe I'll call it a year and a half of that. I very quickly realized it. Wasn't what I was meant to do in my career. You know, I found myself working really [00:03:00] long hours, getting paid just above minimum wage.

[00:03:03] It felt like, and you know, really not making the impact that I wanted to make in the world. So I started some soul searching and moved back to Chicago. I had been living in California prior to that and started thinking about what am I going to do with my career? And I was talking to my dad about it. He said, well, you know, construction and real estate.

[00:03:27] Those are, those are really good industry place to work. Why don't you come work here? 

[00:03:32] Bob Wierema: [00:03:32] And I know your, I know your dad well enough to know that. He's a very convincing person too. 

[00:03:36] Michael Moore: [00:03:36] So yeah, 

[00:03:38] Molly McShane: [00:03:38] that is true. That is true. You know, when I told him, when I said, you know, I don't really have my degrees in marketing, I'm not sure I have the experience for this and you can figure it out.

[00:03:51] So anyway, I did decide to kind of roll the dice and join. So I joined the McShane construction first. I really felt strongly, like I [00:04:00] wanted to know the foundations of the business and understand that at a level that I really didn't at that point in time. So I spent four or five years in the trailers on the job sites, doing project management.

[00:04:13] So I did, you know, everything from senior housing to medical office to, you know, big factories. So kind of got a good perspective of the different types of products that we built at the same time. I went back to graduate school to get my MBA. So I went to Kellogg at Northwestern and I got my MBA with a real estate and finance concentration.

[00:04:39] Okay. Once I got that, I transitioned over to our development company. and there, I spent lots of years doing different product types that we developed medical office apartments, industrial, and got a wide perspective from the development side as well. So with those two things, plus my experience [00:05:00] being on our board of directors for many years, I've now transitioned into leadership of the group of companies.

[00:05:06] So, you know, cadence, Nick, Shane, and Connor, and that's where I am today. 

[00:05:13] Bob Wierema: [00:05:13] So when you came out, you got right into that project management piece. What were some of the struggles you had in that world? I know that's a challenging space to jump right into. And maybe even, what did you enjoy most about being in, in that part of the game?

[00:05:28] Molly McShane: [00:05:28] You know, it was a different environment than I was used to, you know, sitting in a trailer all day, kind of walking around, getting your boots dirty was not an environment I had worked in before. And so I think that finding the right mixture of how to act in that environment, because it's not being professional on a job site kind of has a different tone to it than being professional in an office environment.

[00:05:56] So I think navigating that. that part of it while [00:06:00] being the boss's daughter was a little tricky. What it, what it boiled down to for me was really the personal relationships that you develop over time. I think when you're, when you're on a trailer with somebody all day, every day, you get to know each other pretty quickly and those relationships and, you know, having.

[00:06:19] Mentors within that context opening up within that context really helped me to understand the business better and learn at a pretty quick pace with those one on one relationships. So that's really what I valued the most, not just internally, but you know, the relationships that we would have with our clients in those settings is really, you go out to lunch together and you have a lot of fun together, and it's a little bit more casual.

[0...

Connect with Michael & Bob

The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/

Connect with Luke Reed & Quantum/Pure
Website:

https://www.getpuresanitizer.com/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/pure_sani/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/pure_hand

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Pure_HandSani-101314821644885/?modal=admin_todo_tour

[00:00:00] Luke Reed: [00:00:00] The answer is humility. You gotta be humble enough to tell them right where we are. I think the worst thing about our industry is not necessarily the CEOs, but the executives mask problems, you know, Hey, you know, we're, everything's going great. Just get more jobs. I mean, my team will tell you, like, I'm very open.

[00:00:21] Like, Hey, finances are horrible. I would need to figure this out. We need more work. Does anybody have a plan? You got, be honest with them and you got to put them there and then you got to enable them to talk and you got to listen. I mean, I have to listen. And when, when a guy like Ben says, Hey, I think we need to make a pivot to the Northeast.

[00:00:41] This is the guy I literally picked up the phone. I was like, are you out of your mind? Have you checked the news? Do you really think that we should be getting into the Northeast in the middle of COVID? And he was a hundred percent. Right. And that's all you, you gotta listen. You gotta listen to your people.

[00:01:00] [00:01:00] Michael Moore: [00:01:00] Welcome to the climb crossroads in defining moments. 

[00:01:04] I'm your cohost Michael Moore. 

[00:01:06] Today we will go inside the mind of an entrepreneurial spirit growing up in rural Oklahoma and eventually making the OSU polo team. Luke Reed is changing the game. Is pivoted his business in the last 90 days by taking the chemical division of his own oil and gas company and transforming it into a multimillion dollar hand sanitizer manufacturer, his faith and his family guide him, listen to the client.

[00:01:47] Luke. Thanks for joining me and Bob, welcome to the climb. 

[00:01:52] Luke Reed: [00:01:52] Glad to be here.

[00:01:53]Michael Moore: [00:01:53] Well, 

[00:01:53] I'll start it off by saying, unlike several of our other guests, where there's a super long history for [00:02:00] us to feed off of our relationship is, is in its infancy. But several months ago, which feels like years ago in the world of COVID and.

[00:02:11] Boiling gas, negative prices and all the things that have been given us black eyes for the last 90 days, when we sat down for that initial lunch, it was just this, this feeling like I had known you for a long time. And there were just commonalities in the way that we thought. I loved hearing your story.

[00:02:27] And so as is Bob and I came up with the idea about the climb and crossroads and defining moments. I couldn't think of a better guest. So thank you for joining us. And I think after our initial meeting and we'll dive into this, I would have said you're. Probably one of the most interesting people in the oil and gas 

[00:02:46] business, but, with 

[00:02:47] the pivot that you've made and, and, and I can't wait to dive into it.

[00:02:50] I'd say you're probably the most interesting person in the hand sanitizer business 

[00:02:53] now. So 

[00:02:56] thank you for, for joining us and just start out by giving us a little [00:03:00] background on you, kind of where you've been, where you are and where you're headed. 

[00:03:03] Luke Reed: [00:03:03] Yeah. So, definitely, definitely appreciate being here.

[00:03:06] Yeah. When we met, I guess it was four or five months ago, but, so my wife and I bought a company called quantum valve back in 2015, 2014. It was a valve company here in the Barnett shale specifically for XTO, you know? So for about six months, we stayed here in the Barnett. moved to Midland in January of 16, and then from January to 16 have been operating ever since an hour.

[00:03:32] We were one guy. Now we're 87 people or. All the way across the U S we've got facilities in South, Texas, Midland, the Northeast, and, yeah, we've, we've, we've got a really, really, really good core group of guys. most of us have worked together for 10 plus years and that synergy is what makes quantum, quantum, you know, we, we pride ourselves on the fact that we're super, super nimble.

[00:03:56]we're not private equity backed, so. Really the only people that we [00:04:00] have to argue with is the people we shaved with. So conversation's pretty simple, but no, we, we started in the valve, went into bop, got into horsepower, got into chemical. The deal went really well. Yeah. So we went from a one product service line company to a five product service lines and, you know, went from a.

[00:04:20] Million dollar a month, a year kind of revenue company, just small, small, small, small to North of 30. And I mean, honestly, all of that is attributed to the fact that we have. In each division, a true subject matter expert. And one of the things like our group. So between the four main executives outside of the finance, we have been together for a long time.

[00:04:44] We've done a lot of Wells. We've we've done roughly 1400 Wells in the Northeast 1600 Wells in West Texas. So we have an extensive background on downhole. And so the whole idea wasn't to like get into the service world because it's [00:05:00] sexy and you're going to make a lot of money. It wasn't that at all, it was let's bridge the gap between the bow tie in New York and the boots on the ground, in the oil field and figure out a way to make it efficient and do that at a.

[00:05:14] Cost point that doesn't kill somebody. And that truly makes a good return. I mean, it wasn't like 99% of the industry. I think whether it's ENP or OFS in the last three years, four years it's Hey, let's build something up sexy enough that we convinced some private equity that it's lipstick on a pig and they buy it with more money than you can see over.

[00:05:34] They're just not practical. I think it's fake money and it, it doesn't sustain. And so the idea was okay, let's, let's do something that's meaningful. And in the meantime, let's build an ENP company, which is our assets in the Northeast, under black friend resources and let's vertically integrate. And rather than some companies that are out there that have that vertical integration, I think they really just Rob Peter to pay Paul.

[00:05:59] And at the end of the [00:06:00] day, Peter and Paul, one of them comes knocking. And I think that's where you see a lot of downfall, especially with companies that you see there, they have a midstream component. It's a very attractive component, but you've got to treat it like it's an individual business and, and we've, we'...

Connect with Michael and Bob
The Climb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-climb-podcast/
Bob Wierema: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-wierema/
Michael Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpmoore/