The Deal Table

"If we owned this company, we wrote the $50 million check to control this business, is that who you would hire to put in that job?"

Bill Rowe is founder, chairman and CEO of Rowe Global, a retained executive search firm that recruits CEOs, CFOs and presidents for private equity portfolio companies, PE funds, family offices and private companies. He went into retained search straight out of SMU in 1991, spent almost 10 years at Foster Partners and 11 as a founding partner of Pearson Partners International, and launched Rowe Global in 2013 so the principals would make the calls and meet the candidates themselves.

He asks his team the $50 million question about 20 times a week, usually when a search is down to two or three qualified finalists. After nearly 25 years recruiting for private equity, he says he thinks more like a PE investor than a recruiter: where the fund sits in its investment cycle, what the debt looks like, and what kind of leader a leveraged portfolio company can afford. The market has shifted against the buyer of talent. Private equity has grown so broad that "there's more leadership needs than there is proven operators," the best candidates are weighing two other deals or waiting out a payday at their current portfolio company, and the industry average search runs 122 days from go to yes.

Executives who move from Wall Street or a Fortune 50 company into a family office fail, he says, when they arrive without the mentality of "I'm here to serve." And he remembers every placement that did not work: "I still can remember like a death of a child, every placement that wasn't good. And it eats at me."

Also in this episode: executive search for private equity, how a retained search firm defines a role, hiring a CEO for a portfolio company, recruiting executives into Texas and to secondary markets, a search that ended with a hire in Ghana, what moves a candidate besides compensation, and the question his three kids asked him at Thanksgiving.

Hosted by Ryan Harper and Andy Swartz. Produced by Harper Belmont Media.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

2:28 Sponsors

3:50 The forever pledge at Old Parkland

13:06 The client is the company

13:41 A boutique, not the next Korn Ferry

15:54 Fill the job, don't survey the market

18:36 11 years building Pearson Partners

20:14 The emergency call to New Orleans

23:51 A scared SMU senior reads Forbes

27:07 Coaching a new leader in

28:43 Every bad placement, remembered

29:42 "We wrote the $50 million check"

31:30 Partner versus transaction

33:57 Thinking like a PE investor

37:39 Why executives fail at family offices

41:25 Forget the job description

42:12 How long a search really takes

45:07 More PE jobs than proven operators

46:30 Waiting out the payday

49:02 Two smart decisions

50:44 A third of the work is recruiting into Texas

52:05 Recruiting to West Texas

53:13 A search that ended in Ghana

57:08 What moves a candidate besides money

59:46 The left and right side of the page

1:01:31 A landmine field

1:03:15 The Old Parkland spring cocktail

1:06:12 The Rowe Global Ranch Party

1:07:49 "Dad, do you even like what you do?"

1:09:58 10 years at the Indy 500

1:11:55 SMU's next 35 years

1:19:05 Sam Susser, filming next

SPONSORED BY

Capital Southwest | https://capitalsouthwest.com

Security National Bank | https://securitynational.bank

Blockchain.com | https://www.blockchain.com

IMA Financial Group | https://imacorp.com

Rowe Global: https://www.roweglobal.com

The Deal Table: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

Ryan Harper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryansharper/

Lane Carrick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/b-lane-carrick-65a728/

Lane's book, The Optima Advantage: https://amzn.to/48nLElW

"People thought I was crazy 12 years ago. You're going to ask people to spend $99 to ride a bus. They thought I was nuts. And I thought I was nuts a little bit."Alex Danza is the founder and CEO of Vonlane, the premium motorcoach company he launched in Dallas in May 2014 with two coaches and a single route to Austin. Twelve years on, Vonlane runs more than 500 weekly departures across Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia, has carried 1.8 million passengers over 36 million miles, and has never taken a dollar of institutional capital.

The original plan was a regional charter business. Danza killed it once he saw the industry competed on nothing but who bid lowest, and a coach salesman offered him a way out: an empty shell he could finish however he wanted. What came back is closer to an airline than a bus line. Terminals in downtown Dallas, Austin, Houston, and Nashville rather than an airport twenty minutes out. Twenty-two first class seats, an attendant on every trip, Starlink, meals included, and a library voice policy enforced with a discreet card and a piece of chocolate. Net promoter score runs at 90, and the first two coaches he bought are still on the road and still earning.

Then COVID erased two and a half years. He was two weeks from launching Nashville when March Madness was cancelled, went dark for six weeks, took Vista Bank's first Main Street lending loan, and did not reach Tennessee until 2023. On the fare he is plain: it started at $99, it is $129 today, and it will never be dynamically priced. "It is an airline on the ground, this business." The pricing is the one part of the airline he refuses to copy.

Also in this episode: how Vonlane picks a route and why it runs to Buckhead instead of Hartsfield, why he will not hire a driver without two years on a 45 foot motorcoach, what he actually wants from autonomous vehicles and the DOT, raising capital in one ten minute phone call, why he would sell to private equity or a family office but never go public after Andersen and Enron, and what solving ground transportation for NetJets taught him first.

Hosted by Ryan Harper and Andrew Swartz.

Produced by Harper Belmont Media.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

2:01 Sponsors

3:17 Starting a thing that should already exist

3:53 The 200 to 250 mile problem

6:50 Downtown terminals, not airports

10:01 $1.2 million a coach, and why the IRR works

11:21 The first two coaches, 12 years later

11:56 The original plan was charter

13:18 "I'll just sell you one that's empty"

15:07 Competing on productivity, not price

16:59 How a route gets chosen

18:35 Buckhead instead of Hartsfield

20:00 COVID cost them two and a half years

21:29 Two weeks from Nashville, then March Madness died

26:14 Six weeks dark

26:32 Vista Bank's first Main Street loan

27:53 Maintenance and a 0.04% month

29:27 Two years on a 45 foot coach, no exceptions

35:51 "People thought I was crazy"

39:35 Sixty percent book inside seven days

41:48 Fifty-fifty business and leisure, NPS of 90

42:37 The shutdown sent them 30% more riders

43:37 He wants DOT hours, not a driverless bus

48:56 Raising the money: one call, ten minutes

50:42 No institutional money, ever

51:57 $99 to $129, in very small steps

54:01 The library voice policy

56:21 225 employees, and Miles the AI agent

1:00:16 When a coach goes down in Waco

1:04:30 The endgame: an exit, not an IPO

1:06:35 Andersen, Enron, and staying private

1:09:48 Events are the business

1:14:15 Before Vonlane: Y2K and the road

1:15:31 Solving what NetJets could not

1:19:39 What people get wrong

1:21:31 Close

SPONSORED BY

Capital Southwest | https://capitalsouthwest.com

Security National Bank | https://securitynational.bank

Blockchain.com | https://www.blockchain.com

Vonlane: https://www.vonlane.com

The Deal Table:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

Ryan Harper:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryansharper/

Lane Carrick:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/b-lane-carrick-65a728/

Lane's book, The Optima Advantage:

https://amzn.to/48nLElW

His P&L was measured in lives, not dollars. Allen West commanded 650 soldiers in Iraq, then carried the same leadership system into Congress and into business.

More on Allen West and this episode: https://www.thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/allen-west

West spent 22 years in the U.S. Army, commanded an artillery battalion out of Fort Hood, and advised the Afghan National Army in Kandahar. He then spent two years in Congress on the Armed Services and Small Business committees. Most of this conversation is him teaching.

The five C's of leadership: courage, competence, commitment, conviction, character. Commander's intent broken into purpose, method and end state, and why an operation briefed that way survives the plan falling apart. Why the 100 percent plan always gets beat while the 65 to 70 percent plan wins. Why every company should run a weekly after action review, good, bad and ugly. Why the leader's job in an ambush is to get off the X and decide, and why refusing to decide is the worst option available.He is direct on what government owes a business owner, which is conditions and a level playing field rather than a definition of success. He is just as direct on quarterly earnings myopia, on why a company aiming at the 25 yard target loses to an adversary thinking in 50 to 100 year cycles, and on why the military is bad at helping veterans translate what they did into a resume a hiring manager can read.

He still carries the worn 3x5 cards he carried as a battalion commander. Cool heads always prevail. Soldiers don't care what you know, they want to know that you care. Issues come with two recommendations. Leaders take responsibility, never credit.

ABOUT THE GUEST

Lt. Col. Allen West (Ret.) is the executive director of the American Constitutional Rights Union, founded by Ronald Reagan's attorney general Ed Meese. He served 22 years in the U.S. Army and led 650 soldiers in Iraq. Elected to Congress in 2010, he was the first African American Republican to represent Florida since Reconstruction. He is a former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, hosts the weekly Steadfast and Loyal podcast, and is the author of three books.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Intro

04:05 The five C's of leadership

08:23 Commander's intent, in three parts

20:13 Get off the X and decide

24:00 Why quarterly thinking loses

33:58 The weekly after action review

36:40 The perfect plan always gets beat

51:39 What government owes small business

1:13:09 Hiring veterans, and why it works

LINKS

American Constitutional Rights Union: https://theacru.org

Steadfast and Loyal: https://allenwest.substack.com

Guardian of the Republic: https://amzn.to/4iMJO4r

We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway: https://amzn.to/4xw3QnjThe Law, Frederic Bastiat: https://amzn.to/3UW2F2S

Deal Table newsletter:

https://share.hsforms.com/1Tfx_WobCTPuXWenG1-69EQoavsd

FOLLOW THE DEAL TABLE

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedealtablepodcast

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedealtablepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedealtablepodcast

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedealtable

X: https://x.com/thedealtablepod

Produced by Harper Belmont Media:

https://www.harperbelmont.com/

Sponsored by:

Capital Southwest: https://www.capitalsouthwest.com/

Security National Bank: https://securitynational.bank

Blockchain.com: https://www.blockchain.com

"Private equity rarely loses." George Baker says it as a director of the company he founded, watching his own shareholder value climb. Lane Carrick, who sells founder-owned businesses to private equity for a living, pushes back: you think it's about the math? "I know it's about the math."

George Baker Sr. is the founder of ParkHub, now JustPark, and the founder and managing partner of 2 the Moon Ventures in Dallas. He swept his father's commercial parking lots downtown at 12, founded ParkHub in 2010 to attack cash leakage in a $40 billion industry that had seen almost no technology, and built it into a B2B parking and mobility platform serving stadiums and airports. Jerry Jones was an early investor. LLR Partners put in $100 million of growth equity. More than 20 bolt-on acquisitions followed, then a merger with UK-based JustPark and an FTV Capital recap that moved Baker from chairman to director.

The mechanism was boring and enormous: digitize the cash. Parking operators saw revenue lifts of 30 to more than 50 percent. Inside the venue the transaction fell from over 20 seconds to under five, congestion dropped and food and beverage sales rose 19 percent. In 2014, reading the consumer window closing, he shut down his own reservation engine, called Ticketmaster, and rebuilt the entire company as B2B software. Growth ran 400 percent, then 300, then 200.

What he gave up was not the money. "We were a band of brothers. I don't think I will ever have that much fun." He has not seen much private equity put weight on culture or job creation, and he does not believe founder culture survives the invitation. He has made peace with that, and he is specific about the trade: four years of school runs and family dinners after a decade of not being around.

Also in this episode: why an operator turned investor now buys Texas consumer brands instead of software, why western wear is a $130 billion market, how he judges a founding team in a single conversation, and the advice he gives anyone entering a transaction, which is to write down what success looks like in one sentence, date it, and seal it in an envelope, because the deal will take two to three times longer than the LOI says.

Hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick.

Produced by Harper Belmont Media.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

1:40 Sponsors

3:35 Sweeping his father's parking lots at 12

6:02 The problem statement was cash leakage

18:29 Revenue lifts of 30 to more than 50 percent

20:07 Destroying his own business model

21:12 Shutting it down and calling Ticketmaster

21:39 Jerry Jones invests, then 400, 300, 200 percent growth

22:20 EOS, traction, and a band of brothers

23:26 A $40 billion market with zero technology

28:28 Twenty seconds to five, and what it did to the venue

30:06 More than 20 bolt-on acquisitions

31:17 The JustPark merger

31:52 The FTV recap, chairman to director

32:27 Founders backing founders at 2 the Moon

36:23 From parking software to boots and cookies39:12 Western wear is a $130 billion market

44:20 "You think it's about the math?"

44:49 "Private equity rarely loses"

44:55 Can founder culture survive private equity?

46:26 Contact tracing and reopening Live Nation

47:07 The capital he had to give back

47:41 Making peace with it not being his baby

48:19 The trade: four years of school runs and dinners

52:09 Write it down, date it, seal the envelope

1:02:10 It is not the company, it is the entrepreneur

1:03:40 Book recommendations

1:07:03 Close

SPONSORED BY

Capital Southwest | https://capitalsouthwest.com

Security National Bank | https://securitynational.bank

Blockchain.com | https://www.blockchain.com

2 the Moon Ventures: https://2themoon.ventures

The Deal Table:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

Ryan Harper:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryansharper/

Lane Carrick:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/b-lane-carrick-65a728/

Lane's book, The Optima Advantage: https://amzn.to/48nLElW

Private equity principals do not say this out loud: "We need to sell this company before something bad happens." Ralph Manning did it for years, not because the market was right, but because he could not see far enough into his own businesses to know what was hiding.

Edward Crawford and Ralph Manning are co-founders and co-CEOs of Coltala Holdings, a permanent capital holding company in Fort Worth and Dallas. Since 2017 they have deployed more than $400 million across 24 transactions in aerospace, home health, water, and engineering. No fund sits behind it, so there is no seventh-year clock and no forced sale to raise the next one.

What replaced the fear is the Coltala Enterprise System, a lean operating playbook out of Danaher and Toyota by way of Larry Culp, who took Danaher's market cap from $3 billion to $30 billion and now chairs GE Aerospace. The proof is their aerospace business. Lead times sat at 164 days. Two weeks of kaizen on three bottlenecks, one an $80,000 paint shop, brought it to 32 days. Every employee at every Coltala company, forklift operator included, gets a quarterly check from 8 to 10 percent of after-tax profits.

Crawford came to private equity from the Peace Corps, where he built a 300-farmer coffee cooperative, and from naval intelligence in Afghanistan, where he earned a Bronze Star with SEAL Teams 2 and 4, by way of Goldman Sachs. He is blunt about the fit: "If you want a guy from New York who has a Harvard MBA who's going to tell you how great they are, then you can maybe go work with them. But if you want a real partner, we're your guys."Also in this episode: why mission and margin are not opposites, what mission critical means after the pandemic, how defense tech changed once Ash Carter stood up Unit X, the knower versus learner test they run on every founder, and why yellow lights never turn green. The last twenty minutes go elsewhere, to Andrew Jackson at New Orleans and the banana peddler who overthrew a government.

Hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick.

Produced by Harper Belmont Media.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Intro

1:44 Sponsors

2:59 Ralph in the hot seat

4:46 Where the name Coltala comes from

7:48 The nonprofit that was going under

9:34 Why mission and margin are not opposites

13:18 What "mission critical" actually means

19:31 Unit X and Ash Carter

23:21 Where founders hit the ceiling

25:03 The Coltala Enterprise System

26:25 The $80,000 paint shop

26:47 164 days down to 32

27:08 The best ideas come from the people doing the work

29:39 Profit share for the forklift operator

31:45 Meeting Larry Culp

34:09 Process is speed, not bureaucracy

37:23 Three credit cards to $400 million

39:22 "We need to sell before something bad happens"

40:47 No fund, so no forced sale

41:27 Growth makes complexity, complexity kills growth

43:05 Going deeper beats being a generalist

44:26 The MRO moat, $1.2 million and three years

47:44 The anti private equity pitch

48:27 30,000 subscribers and fifty relationships

49:40 They are Luke Skywalker, we are Yoda

52:37 Knower mindset versus learner mindset

54:19 If the seller wants top dollar, it is not for us

59:58 "Yellow lights don't turn green"

1:00:49 Peace Corps, intelligence, and ground truth

1:03:19 Andrew Jackson goes to the gemba

1:06:16 Seabiscuit and walking the track at 2 a.m.

1:07:27 The Banana King of New Orleans

1:11:39 Jim Collins on being in frame

1:14:43 Jiu-Jitsu, do not white knuckle everything

1:16:58 Give and Take, givers, takers, matchers

1:18:07 Close

SPONSORED BY

Capital Southwest | https://capitalsouthwest.com

Security National Bank | https://securitynational.bank

Blockchain.com | https://www.blockchain.com

Coltala Holdings: https://coltala.com

The Deal Table:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-deal-table/

Ryan Harper:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryansharper/

Lane Carrick:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/b-lane-carrick-65a728/

Lane's book, The Optima Advantage: https://amzn.to/48nLElW

At 20 she was teaching high school Spanish. Today she runs Bank of America in North Texas and an $86 billion practice for foundations.

More on Jennifer Chandler and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/jennifer-chandler

Jennifer Chandler holds two jobs most banks split between two executives: North Texas president, with roughly 14,000 colleagues, and head of the bank's national endowment and foundation practice, the largest outsourced chief investment office in the world at approximately $86 billion for family foundations, hospital systems, and college endowments.

She finished the University of Texas in two and a half years and graduated at 20. Too young, by her own account, for a big institution, so she taught high school Spanish instead. Then Dean Witter took a bet on her, put her through an interview where a room of psychiatrists made her sell a pen over the phone, and sent her to the Twin Towers.

The through-line is a claim most philanthropy executives soften, and she does not: capitalism and giving are one flywheel, not opposing forces. She is blunt about the rest of it too. Giving money away well is harder than making it, she says no roughly 90 percent of the time, giving is up while the number of givers falls, and sometimes the honest advice to a nonprofit is to merge or close. Her practical warning to anyone approaching an exit: set up the family foundation before the liquidity event, not two months before closing.

Jennifer Chandler is the North Texas president of Bank of America and leads the bank's national endowment and foundation practice, which manages approximately $86 billion. A first-generation college student, she graduated from the University of Texas at 20 and began her career as a high school Spanish teacher. She is the incoming chair of the Dallas Regional Chamber.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 I'm a big capitalist

06:01 Which is harder, making or giving

07:02 Why she started out teaching

08:27 Selling a pen to psychiatrists

10:14 The largest OCIO in the world

12:38 Set up the foundation first

18:09 Where the wealth transfer goes

41:48 Saying no 90% of the time

43:45 Giving is up, givers are down

44:47 When a nonprofit should close

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

Bank of America: bankofamerica.com

Books from this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/books

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Follow The Deal Table: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Sponsored by Capital Southwest, Security National Bank and Blockchain.com.

Google's AI answers took 60 to 80% of the clicks businesses used to get. Rex Kurzius rebuilt his entire company around the thing that did it.

More on Rex Kurzius and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/rex-kurzius

Kurzius founded Asset Panda in 2012 to solve the least glamorous problem in business, knowing where your stuff is. It now tracks assets for customers including Amazon, Toyota, Dyson and Carnival, and runs in 67 languages. Eighteen months ago he tore the platform down and rebuilt it around AI, and he calls that stretch the most stress he has ever endured.

His framing is that the product went from a noun to a verb. It used to be a container you filled in. Now a movie studio asks it which props in inventory fit a 1901 to 1925 production, a utility technician asks which tools and training he needs before he leaves the yard, and an inspector photographs a generator instead of filling out a form. When he could not find a tool to replace the search traffic AI took away, he built a generative engine optimization studio in house, and he is about to sell it as a product.

Then the part nobody expects from an asset tracking founder. His father was a German immigrant who named a bakery in Albuquerque after his two sons, Dan Rex Bakery, and died of a heart attack when Rex was 10. The family was nearly homeless and moved in with grandparents in Dallas. That older brother, Dan Kurzius, went on to co-found Mailchimp. Rex's daughter picked the name Asset Panda off a list as a kid and now works there as an account executive, alongside her brother who runs AI. He is blunt about the rest: career silos dissolve, he hires athletes rather than job titles, and if you are not replaced by AI you will be replaced by someone who uses it.

Rex Kurzius is the founder and CEO of Asset Panda, the Dallas-based asset intelligence platform he founded in 2012, used by customers including Amazon, Toyota, Dyson and Carnival and running in 67 languages. Asset Panda reached number 104 on the 2018 Inc. 5000 with 3,552 percent three-year growth. He previously founded Timberhorn IT Solutions and sold it to the Ettain Group in 2015. He has been named to the D CEO Dallas 500 and was an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 We track endangered chickens

06:16 Google's AI took 80% of the clicks

07:27 "It's underhyped"

09:46 A studio asks for 1901 to 1925

12:37 The survey that got the model wrong

24:44 Building the tool nobody sold him

25:46 His brother founded Mailchimp

38:24 The most stressful 18 months

53:13 "I call them athletes"

01:05:37 Losing his father at 10

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

Asset Panda: assetpanda.com

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Follow The Deal Table: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Sponsored by Capital Southwest, Security National Bank and Blockchain.com.

Every buyer says culture is everything. No buyer puts culture in diligence. Tony Bridwell has spent 25 years inside that gap.

More on Tony Bridwell and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/tony-bridwell

Lane Carrick opens with the paradox he has watched his whole career on the sellside: every buyer says culture makes or breaks an acquisition, and no buyer ever builds a process around it. Bridwell ran people strategy for 60,000 team members across 1,600 Chili's and Maggiano's restaurants at Brinker International, then did the same at Ryan LLC.

What follows is a working manual for the part of a deal nobody underwrites. Why toxicity only surfaces after the letter of intent. Why 3 percent of an organization moves 90 percent of its culture, and why it is never the 3 percent you would guess. What breaks the day the founder who was the de facto mission hands over the keys.

Then Frank, the brilliant jerk everyone tolerates because he produces, and the four options: tolerate, isolate, eliminate, rehabilitate. All four carry a cost. Chasing Frank sent Bridwell into a doctorate, where the research turned out not to be about leadership at all. Roughly $60 billion a year goes into leadership development in the United States. There is no comparable number for followership.

Dr. Tony Bridwell is Chief Talent Officer at The Encompass Group, where he leads the organizational consulting practice and the E3 Leadership Academy, and Adjunct Professor of Executive Leadership at SMU Cox School of Business. He was previously Chief People Officer at Brinker International and at Ryan LLC. He is the author of eight books, including The Follower Effect (Wiley, 2026), and is a living organ donor.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 The deal that died 30 minutes out

08:08 Culture never shows up in diligence

11:10 Brint Ryan: tighten the lug nuts

20:21 3% of a company moves 90% of it

25:21 When the founder is the mission

34:35 What you hear in the word follower

38:41 $60 billion on leadership, zero here

49:40 Tolerate, isolate, eliminate, rehab

01:12:00 30% logic, 70% emotion

01:17:57 Why he gave a friend a kidney

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

The Follower Effect: amazon.com/dp/1394375034

The Courage to Be Disliked: amzn.to/45s5Npo

Man's Search for Meaning: amzn.to/4xxm4VK

What to Make of a Life: amzn.to/4gy5JdK

Dr. Tony Bridwell: drtonybridwell.com

Southwest Transplant Alliance: organ.org

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Follow The Deal Table: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Sponsored by Capital Southwest, Security National Bank and Blockchain.com.

A private jet is not a luxury purchase, it is a time-value-of-money decision. Here is what flying private actually costs, all in.

More on David Henry and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/david-henry

David Henry spent 18 years at CBS Radio in Dallas-Fort Worth, ultimately as senior vice president, before he started selling aircraft. He is not a pilot. He left after a student in the class he taught at SMU asked a question he could not answer: what happens to all those radio towers once phones are 5G?

This is the most transparent conversation about private aviation economics the show has had. Real numbers, not brochure language. What a turboprop runs against a midsize jet. What Dallas to New Orleans costs round trip, everything in. Why ownership carries roughly $800,000 a year in fixed overhead before you buy the plane and before you burn a gallon of fuel. How charter, fractional and outright ownership actually compare, and why family offices keep choosing pay as you go over a five year fractional contract.

Then the part nobody publishes. The operator who books your jet, quietly swaps it for a cheaper one and calls it a mechanical. The catering order that never made it onto the plane in Kentucky. The liability you take on when you let a friend just pay for the fuel and pilots. Why buyers sign NDAs to keep a tail number quiet, why someone once sat at Love Field with binoculars, and why charter became the anonymous option for executives who would rather not be tracked.

David Henry is the founder and CEO of Vue Jet, a Dallas based private aviation brokerage and worldwide charter company that buys and sells aircraft and sources flights from thousands of vetted operators. Before aviation he spent 18 years at CBS Radio in Dallas-Fort Worth. He is a graduate of the SMU Cox School of Business and teaches a private aviation seminar, "Jets for Dummies," for Tiger 21 and R360.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 Three ways to fly, and the real math

05:20 What COVID did to private aviation

08:42 Charter costs, turboprop to Gulfstream

09:34 Dallas to New Orleans, all in

10:58 The industry's gotchas

17:01 The student who asked about 5G

24:44 $800,000 a year before fuel

32:28 The liability of lending your jet

38:50 Tracking tail numbers to front-run deals

50:21 The debit account model

Newsletter: thedealtablepodcast.com/connect

Vue Jet: vuejet.com

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

Follow The Deal Table: YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X

The Deal Table is hosted by Ryan Harper and Lane Carrick, filmed in Dallas, and produced by Harper Belmont Media.

Sponsored by Capital Southwest and Security National Bank.

"If the president of the United States walks in the room, what's your ask?" Bill Bradley put that question to Kneeland Youngblood decades ago.

More on Kneeland Youngblood and this episode: thedealtablepodcast.com/episodes/kneeland-youngblood

He did not have an answer, and it reorganized his career. Youngblood practiced emergency medicine for 12 years at Parkland and Plano before leaving the ER to build Pharos Capital Group, a Dallas and Nashville private equity firm focused on middle market healthcare that has now completed 33 investments and manages more than $650 million.

The turn came as a cold call to the emergency room. A nurse handed him the phone mid shift: Don Williams, the CEO of Trammell Crow, calling a doctor he had never met about a Texas tax policy committee. Youngblood took the seat, took the jet to Austin alongside the managing partner of Goldman Sachs in Dallas, looked around the cabin and understood that he had money and no leverage.

What follows is the mechanics of access. How to build an actual thesis for why someone should hand you a board seat before you ever meet them. Why he turned down the chairmanship of the Texas Medical Board to sit on a tax committee instead. How value based care went from a market of zero to roughly $300 billion, and why he expects $2 trillion inside 15 years. And why he took "M.D." off his business card on purpose.

Dr. Kneeland Youngblood is the founding partner, chairman and CEO of Pharos Capital Group. A graduate of Princeton and UT Southwestern Medical Center, he practiced emergency medicine for 12 years before moving into finance under the mentorship of Richard Rainwater, David Bonderman and Michael Milken. He has served on the boards of Gap, Starwood Hotels, Burger King, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Energy Future Holdings, Light and Wonder, the Milken Institute and Caltech, and has held mayoral, gubernatorial and presidential appointments including the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.

KEY MOMENTS

00:00 "What's your ask?"

05:00 A family built on giving back

11:43 The Princeton advice that reset it all

20:52 Twelve years in the emergency room

25:32 The Bill Bradley question

27:32 The jet to Austin: "I had no juice"

29:55 Rainwater, Bonderman, and Milken

38:07 Founding Pharos, narrowing to health

58:07 Value-based care: $0 to $2 trillion

01:21:46 The greatest lie told to young people

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Pharos Capital Group: pharosfunds.com

Lane Carrick on selling a business, The Optima Advantage: amzn.to/48nLElW

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