The LoCo Experience

Rick Gardner - Bull Rider, Roofer, Rocket Scientist, Professional Walleye Fisherman, Serial Entrepreneur, Venture Hub Founder, and EOS Implementer

Rick Gardner is an EOS Implementer in our Northern Colorado region.  He grew up in Leadville, Colorado, and had his dreams of a long professional bull-riding career ended by injury.  He’s gone on to a series of interesting professional and entrepreneurial ventures, and his previous chapter was founding and growing an Venture Accelerator and Investment Hub aligned with University of Buffalo in New York, which served over 150 companies and raised over $100M in capital.  

Disclaimer - We forgot to talk about the professional walleye fisherman chapter!  

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Logistics Co-op | https://logisticscoop.com/

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

In today’s conversation, I’m joined by longtime Producer of The LoCo Experience, (and continuing as Operations Manager of many hats at LoCo Think Tank) Alma Arellano, along with our newest employee and incoming Producer of the podcast, Ava Munos!  We dig into Ava’s background a bit - which revolved around competitive dance for years - and explore some of the changes coming for Season 5 of The LoCo Experience.

Also, Alma breaks down our top 5 most-listened episodes of 2024 and we talk about some of the most inspiring - and the most LoCo - experiences shared during season 4. If you’re a fan of the show, you won’t want to miss this one!

Disclaimer - We lost the first hour of our conversation due to a tech glitch, during which Ava shared deeply about the joys and the traumas of her dance career.  We tried to start over and re-create the conversation, but it was admittedly difficult to remember what we’d covered in the lost conversation, and what was still left to unfold in the fresh one.    

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Nate Hines is the President of Hines, Inc., a global leader in design solutions for irrigation water management.  He is a husband, father, armchair historian, philosopher, and business enthusiast.  He received his secondary education from Oxford University, with degrees in History and Ancient History. 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Becky Lauridson is the Founder of IOME Self Care, a LoCo Think Tank member, a fan of Lens Neurofeedback, a wife, mother, and elk hunting guide on her family ranch near Craig, Colorado.

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

My conversation today was with Ryan Reed-Baum, CEO and Owner of TruLog, a company founded by his father, Ted, but that Ryan basically re-launched years later.  To set the stage, we need to add some context.  

In the mid-80’s, Ted worked for Knudson Manufacturing, building and servicing gutter and steel siding manufacturing machines.  By the mid-90’s, he’d started his own business (R & B Home Improvement) doing every kind of siding, additions and remodels, and also building log homes from scratch.  Logs look great - but they’re a pain-in-the-butt to maintain, and very expensive to build with.  So - Ted invented and patented a technique to create roll-steel log-look siding, and installed the product on several local projects while Ryan was studying business and marketing at CSU.  By 2011 however, the product had not caught traction, and TruLog was effectively hibernating - it was too complicated for lumberyards and home improvement stores to carry with sufficient margin, and the home improvement business carried on.

Enter Ryan in 2012, when he invested $16,000 of his own money for a direct-to-consumer marketing campaign on Facebook, and sold a project for delivery to New Mexico - and executed every step of the customer journey!  Custom fit, box-shipped with instructions, log-look siding, to cover up or replace your lap siding or finish your new construction project with a fire resistant and maintenance-free finish.  

Growth was rapid from there, 10x for 2013 and well into 8 figure revenues today.  Still a family business, and still built on the values they had from the start:  High quality products, honesty, hard work, customer service, and family.   

Quite a journey, and quite a guy, and I’m proud to introduce our listeners to Ryan Reed-Baum and TruLog, the best natural look metal siding on the market - built right here in Northern Colorado, brought out of hibernation and grown by innovative marketing and customer service.  

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I met Matthew Fugate circa summer 2017, when LoCo Think Tank was really starting to become a thing, and Matthew was a fresh-in-town Realtor.  I remembered him well for two reasons 1) He was enthusiastic about LoCo Think Tank but could never remember my business name or my name - he’d shout from across the street in Old Town - Hey LoCoNoCo Guy! and 2) He made a big splash with a bus bench purchase, featuring himself in a suit with a suggestive pose, and the message “For a Good Time, Call Matthew Houston Fugate” with the phone number below.  He’s grown his business and his skills since, and in 2023, he started his own brokerage and property management firm.  

Gabrielle Judge, I met more recently, in that when I suggested to Matthew that he should share his story on the show - he said “Dude, you gotta have my girlfriend on too - she’s like blowing up on tik-tok and Instagram!  

And indeed - this is so.  In less than 2 years, #antiworkgrilboss Gabrielle has over 220K followers on Tik-Tok, over 300K followers on Instagram, a growing Substack following - and a book coming out!  Hopefully, her followers will spur new listeners and followers of @thelocoexperiencepodcast! - follow and share today!  Despite the clicky-bait hashtag though, this girl is anything but opposed to work - if it’s work of the right kind, and honoring to both employer and employee.  

This conversation gets very real, very early, with Gabrielle and Matthew both sharing their upbringing with alcoholic, abusive, and mentally unstable home environments - and both moved early into their own struggles with substance.  In 5th grade, Matthew traded a Pokemon card for a stolen bag of weed, rolled it into joints at 5 bucks per, and began a series of substance abuse peaks and valleys that eventually left him on the streets - until it was time for a change.  Matthew came to his new life in Northern Colorado straight out of rehab - and he’s been sober and growing his business ever since.  Gabrielle’s journey is no less dramatic or inspiring - but you’ll have to listen to get it - because she’s the #antiworkgirlboss and she’s here sharing with Matthew and me on The LoCo Experience! 

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Since he was a little boy, Forrest Cramer has always been an artist.  He was drawing recognizable profiles and pencil-shading landscapes at an age when most of us were working on stick-figures, and in his late teens he had the opportunity to apprentice with a local violin-maker.  He wasn’t ready yet to make it his lifetime craft, landed a role in antique furniture restoration - and later - as his skills improved - reproduction.   

When Forrest started his business, he did a lot of different things.  Custom and semi-custom cabinetry, tables and art shelves, interior design elements - he could figure out how to do it.  And sometimes, he figured out how to make enough margin on it to be profitable.  But his exacting craftsmanship and urge for distinctive design made it tough to compete in the volume production market, and he’s been shifting his business more and more toward the custom and heirloom quality furniture market, and in 2024 fully emerged as Forrest Cramer - Luxury Furniture Artist.

And - he’s a really interesting guy.  Many children, simple tastes, old-school values.  He’s an interesting contrast to his typical client - who might be looking for a signature piece for their 3rd home 6,000 sq. ft. “cabin” in the foothills outside Aspen.  He’s the best and only luxury furniture artist I know, I dig him a lot and you will too - so please enjoy my conversation with Forrest Cramer.  

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by:  Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I’ve known Aaron McCambridge for perhaps 15 years, as he’s been an occasional visitor to my Rotary Club, where his father is a longtime member.  I’ve known about Citadel Advisory Group for even longer, as they were a client of the bank I worked at the last stop in my career, going back to 2007.  When I left the bank in 2013, Aaron had only recently entered the industry in what was effectively an intern/analyst role, and now shares leadership with fellow Managing Partner, Matt Thomas.  

Citadel works in what is effectively a seller-side representative role for lower middle market privately held companies, helping them find an exit or a growth capital partner, depending on circumstances and the owner’s desires for the company.  These might include strategic acquisitions, minority capital injections, or 100% private equity or family office buyouts.  Citadel gets paid on the back end of each transaction - and only if it is completed.  For me, this conversation is a fun look behind the curtain of an industry I’ve only brushed against in my career, and listeners will learn a lot while I satisfy my curiosity about the kinds of deals that Aaron and his partners have seen in the marketplace.  

Aaron’s journey is an inspiring one, in that he marched through several years of challenge before starting from scratch in a new career.  He’d had a very successful career in mortgage, and then wholesale mortgage before the financial crisis evaporated those opportunities, and then founded and floundered in his own commercial capital venture before checking in with Citadel about an entry-level job.  

At the core, Aaron is something of a hybrid between business analyst, life and business coach, and equity industry expert, and he does a great job of storytelling while keeping his clients anonymous.  I learned a lot, and you will too - so please tune in and enjoy my conversation with Aaron McCambridge, Managing Partner of Citadel Advisory Group. 

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by:  Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

Brian Kerlin had a successful sales career of over 2 decades when the first cornerstones of Optitude were laid, and he became enamored with the entrepreneurial lifestyle while dating his now-wife, who had a successful professional services company - but was struggling to build the systems for predictable growth.  Brian helped her discover and overcome those challenges to growth, and soon started sharing his insights with her entrepreneurial friends.  He continued in his corporate sales role for many seasons while also volunteering for Denver Startup Week and incubators in Boulder and Fort Collins, including Innosphere. 

Brian launched Optitude in 2018, and is focused on helping professional services companies grow from the place of the founder being the primary rainmaker - usually up to $1MM annual revenues - and grow toward middle market scale and systems and push through the revenue plateau that often hinders growth and hampers morale.  

Brian chose the name Optitude as a hybrid of optimization and attitude, and if you can get those ingredients right, you’ll be ready to grow.  He shares abundantly from his experience and principles during this conversation, and perhaps the best part is the unfolding realization that “Hey, I’ve got something here that I can turn into a business!” and then hitting the ground running to bring value to the market.  There are abundant insights in this conversation for anyone who cares about predictable revenue growth, and so I hope you join me and enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Brian Kerlin. 

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by:  Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain

I met Ty Dannebring at church one Sunday, when he hunted me down and said “Can we have a conversation about possibly being on your podcast, with regard to our new book?”  Knowing nothing, I said, “of course” - and then after a coffee and conversation I was eager to spend time in the podcast studio with Ty and his co-author, Jeff Dillon.  Ty is a financial advisor with a big idea, and Jeff is a Pastor at Redemption Church in Loveland, and his skill and expertise in writing helped give shape to Ty’s ideas with proper grammar and sentence structure!  

From the Go-Fund-Me Page for Party In The Front! - 

There is an epidemic of loneliness in our culture today.

The U.S. Surgeon General says lacking social connection is more dangerous than smoking 15 cigarettes a day. More dangerous than obesity or air pollution.

Yet most of us live separate lives - distant from the people who are literally right outside our front door.  We believe it's time to change that story. And it doesn't take a lot.

All it takes is being yourself and bringing the good things of your life out into the open for others to see.

Instead of a party in your backyard, why not bring it to the front yard, where people can see and be invited in?

This is what it means to Party in the Front. To overcome loneliness and create community right where you are.

My conversation today is with a pair of smart and thoughtful guys, who spent a bunch of time putting together ideas and structure around a big challenge - why are so many people lonely, when we’re surrounded by people every day? - and how can we fix that? 

So please, join me to share in some ideas and visions for a more-connected future, and get to know the authors behind a new book sparking change in our cultural revitalization - Party In The Front!  

The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by:  Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more

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Music By: A Brother's Fountain