Four houses? Mm-hmm. Which one of these would you have gotten? I unknowingly grabbed Gryffindor. Right. So I don't fancy myself Gryffindor. But which one would you have gotten? Gosh, I would say, I don't know. I mean, everyone leans towards Gryffindor, right? You want to be brave. But I like Ravenclaw. What's kind of their brand? More like cunning, I would say. I don't think I'm that cunning. Just like smart and nerdy a little bit. Who was in Ravenclaw? Like in the books? Yeah. I mean, I didn't read the books, the movies. Sure. I don't know any of the main characters. Like no one really comes out of Ravenclaw, just Raveena. They live in the shadows. Yeah. Like they're kind of just like lurking and observing and I'm kind of like that, I guess. hufflepuff yeah no one wants to be a hufflepuff what's their maybe you you're like you're uh with your background and like chemistry and biology and all that stuff well what is a what are they what's their scoop they're like more uh smart in those realms like potion not like potions and um like they do plants and they're just they're kind of like the nerdy a little nerdy yeah well nerdy yeah and then slytherin is slytherin yeah You know, my husband and I, we try to name the kids. The kids are like, which one am I in? And my youngest, Tony, is just like, oh, yeah, he's a Slytherin for sure. Like he's lurking. He's going to be trouble. Yeah. I mean that in the nicest way possible. Well, hey, a lot of successful people are Slytherin. Well, they are Slytherin. Yeah. So, Emmy Ross, thank you for coming in today. I appreciate it. And I think that we've probably just covered the most important. part of what we need to cover, which is our house and Harry Potter. But okay, Emmy Ross, you're here from Astro Metalcraft, right? You're in Hanover, Minnesota, almost in Minneapolis, but in Minnesota, which is about 40 minutes northwest of Minneapolis. And you are the director of business development at Astro Metalcraft. So tell me a little bit or a lot bit, whatever you feel is right. about Astra Metal Craft. Sure. So we're a custom metal fabricator, like you said, based out of Minnesota. We actually have two other locations. One is in Norwood, Young America, and the other is in Cologne, which are just southwest of the Twin Cities. We have two divisions, basically. One is an architectural division where we do architectural metals. We do guardrails, fencing, decorative panels. Architectural metals. So give me, like, you just rattled off a couple, but like, What is an architectural metal? When I'm walking through an airport, what is an architectural metal? What can I notice next time I walk through an airport? Sure. So our StellarCraft product line is all about, we have guardrails, so anything that's on a staircase or something like that or up on a balcony, any elevated surface where you have a guardrail. We do all sorts of guardrails, but we specialize in perforated metal. We do a lot of fencing. So any metal fencing or privacy screens, those are really big, like enclosures around electrical units and things like that. And then we kind of do miscellaneous decorative metals as well. So we do decorative metal panels on exterior and interior. And then things you wouldn't think about, like radiator covers or column covers, just little. decorative metal pieces. So these are like, at a high level, these are things that are not required for the building to stand? Correct. No, we don't do any structural metal. Okay. All right. So sorry to interrupt. You're talking about StellarCraft, which is the architectural, I guess, arm. Are they actually, is it like a subsidiary or are these separate businesses? They are separate businesses now. So we have recently split off StellarCraft from AstroMetalCraft. And so Stellar Craft is really our architectural arm. That's what we've been using to get in front of architects and specifiers and things like that. And then Astro primarily works in industrial equipment. So we do things for water treatment. We do things in food processing, bulk handling, you know, really big tanks and spirals and slats for conveyors, all sorts of things like that. Okay. So tell me a little bit about recently. And you can choose that time frame. But what are some of the projects that you guys have done that people can go check out or take a look at? You were just telling me about the airport. in uh minneapolis yep so tell me a little bit about some of your flagship projects sure we do a ton of work out at the airport um you can check out our social media you can see some of the fun things that we've done uh we did the delta sky lounge uh the roof we did a mirror paneling on there uh we do a lot of like i said radiator covers fencing um currently we In addition to working at the airport, we are now doing the Minnesota State Office Building. And that's been a really interesting project because we are doing some exterior stars that are actually cast. And then they're cast into these aluminum. I don't know, extrusions, aluminum extrusions. And those are going around the envelope of the building. And so that's been a really interesting project, trying to figure out how we were going to get these cast stars made. How big are the stars? The stars are probably, I don't know, like two and a half feet, like two and a half foot diameter. Okay. And then the extrusions are probably like four feet. So you guys are going through some aluminum. Yes. On that project. Yes. I mean, how many stars do you have to make? That one, I believe we have 15 stars. Okay. Yep. What does a star cost? Like, what's that going to cost to make a star? You know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. That is a very big project that we've been working on with our general contractor that is on the project. So like that total project with everything else that we're doing, we're doing a lot of like brass handrails as well. That one is about a $4 million project. Okay. So when you say you're doing brass handles, so how involved are you guys when you say you're doing? Are you guys meeting with the client? And they're showing up with their plans and saying, we want this. Or are you an EPC where you're helping with the engineering and, you know, from scoop to nuts? Like how involved are you guys in the project? So we kind of have different levels of involvement with some of our projects. So the biggest level that we want to do are like tier one is where we are actually. Meeting with the architects and the specifiers, we're getting specced directly into their project. That way we know we're going to get in the project. The next level, which we do a lot of work in, is with working with the GCs, the general contractors. So, you know, if we are specced, that's great. A ton of them reach out to get numbers for their bids. If we're not specced, we have a lot of relationships with... the local general contractors in the area so they know to come to us get some numbers and then our third tier is uh where we actually do some outsourcing for other fabricators so um like we have a lot of relationships with structural fabricators and they want to take on a bigger part of the scope yeah and so they'll reach out to us to do the decorative side of it okay so you guys will outsource kind of sub assemblies or full assemblies or whatever it is. So you have a network of your own when you bring in a project that you can. Yeah. And we actually we primarily do all the work in house. Sure. But then they're outsourcing to us. Got it. That side of the scope. I understand. OK, so tell me about the name, if you would. Astro. You know, I think Astro. It reminds me of sort of the. the space age a little bit oh totally right i'm thinking like you have the jetsons the dog's name was astro yep sure was right so sort of kind of the cosmonaut era yeah so what's what's the uh origin of the name uh the letter a is the origin of the name and when my in-laws we're talking yellow pages when my in-laws bought the company they wanted to have uh a company name that was right at the front started with an a and astro is what they came up with What year was that? So they bought the company. The company was started in 1987 and they bought the company in the early 2000s. And they renamed it? Yes. They did. OK. Yeah. Got it. Do you know what it was beforehand? I don't. Not off the top of my head. Wow. Yeah. But. And it was just a real small unit. They basically had like one main customer that they were working on. And it was just a really small shop out of Plymouth, Minnesota. And they had one laser, a welder. Like it was super small. And so is it fair to say that you guys being Astro, can I say Astro for short? Oh, yeah. So is it fair to say that Astro, you guys have... You guys tend to do municipal type, your bigger projects at least. You're talking about the building, the government building, and then you've got the airport. I don't know exactly who on the government side is getting these organized, but those sound municipal to me. You guys have the architectural spec, so you guys can work directly with the architects, engineers. And make it sort of a modular experience for them. Yes. That's sit there and painstakingly like, no, just throw our spec in for this and then you can move on to your next rendering. Yep. Just get on down the road. Exactly. Yeah. We really pride ourself and kind of being a one stop shop for that. So we. do a lot of outreach to architects and specifiers um and on our website all of our products have specs cad files revit files technical drawings they can literally plug and play um and that is kind of like the first step for them but literally almost 100 of what we do is custom so okay like we rarely have an architect that's like okay this is the spec straight up we need you know 100 linear feet of this it's like okay i like this but i want to make this really cool custom pattern or do an image perf nothing would make us happier right and you know a lot of times people think it's going to be more expensive and it depending on what the pattern is and if we have the tooling already um it's not and so the other thing with decorative metals is that we also get value engineered out a lot and so having that relationship with the architect in the beginning to say, okay, you want to make this vision happen. If you do it this way, it's going to be expensive, but we can work with you to make it manufacturable much easier. Still going to be expensive, but not as expensive. Exactly. But the other thing we can help you do is make it happen. Yes. You know, there's nothing worse than spending a lot of money and having it not happen. Right. Yes. That's the biggest bummer. It is. And it happens a lot. There's the old saying, it's like, if you think we're expensive, go add up the cost of not using us. Yeah. Right. Type of thing. Or those memes that are like, this is what I envisioned and this is what the budget came for. And it's like a hand drawing of like a stick figure. Yeah. No, there's there are those differences that exist. So you're the director of business development. Tell me about your role specifically, how you spend your time. Sure. Sure. So when I started at Astro, my husband and I had just gotten. married. We're a family-owned business. And I was really helping my mother-in-law, who was the owner at the time, just doing some marketing things, emails, outreach. But it was very part-time because I actually owned my own business in the wedding and event industry. And so I was helping her with those things. And then when I came on in 2023 full time, I had sold my business and really took the marketing to the next level. And then doing a lot more outreach on our industrial side as well, because it's easy to market the architectural things because it's pretty and it's cool. And all the architects are like, show it off. Like, we want to take a million pictures. That's the easy side. The industrial side is a lot harder because there is a lot of proprietary information that we can't show. And so we have to get really creative in ways to market to those type of buyers in that realm. Yeah, so it's not quite as emotional as, you know, it's a very nuts and bolts sort of thing. And like you said, there's a proprietary component. And so you're sitting there, kind of pull your seat up to this task, and you're like, how the hell are we going to do this? And there's so much trust in time, meaning that everything's time sensitive. And there has to be a trust that if things go sideways, for whatever reason, that you guys are going to step up and handle it. And how can they know that? You know, if you guys are fresh to one another. So what have you come up with so far? Well, I am really lucky that I have a marketing specialist on my team who is a Gen Zer. And she really finds really creative ways for us to do videos and take some really interesting content that kind of gets on people's radar. Is she going to like what we're doing here today? Oh, yeah. She's loving it. She's been texting me all morning. Like, we're very excited. Okay, good. Good. I hope we pass. Yes, yeah. You know, Gen Zers, they can be a tough audience now. Oh, totally. Yeah, and it's funny because she comes up with some of these ideas to go down to the shop guys, and she gets a little nervous to talk to them because, I mean, they can be a little intimidating. But I'm always like, hey, we're all just people. Let's just go ask them. And a lot of times they're like, yeah, no problem, or yeah, this is going to be really dumb, but yeah, we'll do it. So just got to get out there and ask. You know, it kind of breaks the ho-hum of things. Absolutely. And I think that people like... First of all, just being helpful in general. And also, I mean, they're part of a team. So it's kind of fun, Vic. I got to do something today that I don't normally get to do. Right. We're actually implementing a new program. We're going to call it the Astro Emmys. And at our mid-year quarterly meeting, we're going to have... That's not lost on me that your name is Emmy. Yeah, yeah, right. That was not me. That was not me. That was Maria. Okay. So we decided to do these Emmy Awards where whoever gets the most engagement on our socials is going to get these little Emmy Awards for engaging with us. So hopefully that will help. And has that already kicked off? Yeah. So we're tracking everything that we post, obviously. And so we'll just be getting all the numbers together mid-year and then awarding those Emmy Awards. That's a great idea. Yeah. you know, also sort of delegates the task. Yeah. Right. Everyone gets to contribute and it makes creating a lot of content very doable. Yeah. And I, you know, what we're hoping is that in addition to what we're kind of thinking of and creating and getting inspiration from literally. everywhere we're hoping that they also are seeing things that they're into and they're like yeah maybe we should try this like this will be funny this will be cool um so that's kind of hopefully driving some engagement so um it sounds like you guys are getting your finger on it as far as how to to market into this industrial group uh but the job is never done right and so kind of where are you as far as how How much have you hit your stride with it? Are you guys still just really like, nope, that didn't work. Nope, that didn't work. We're throwing a lot of stuff at the wall when it comes to social media marketing in particular. Some of our other marketing strategies as far as engaging with the industrial customers have been a bit more effective. We've been doing a lot of more case studies that have more technical information. We've always been doing blogging to kind of get that SEO or AIO or whatever. But doing more technical information, white papers and things like that, so that the engineers are like, oh yeah, they really know their shit. They're on top of it. They know what they're doing. And then from there, doing more engagement with those companies, really vetting them out to see if they're a right fit for us and if we're a right fit for them. It's an interesting kind of stichotomy of operating a business and growing a business, right? And your customers and customers that we reach out to, as much as they may want. to build out more vendors or more whatever people are so damn busy operating their business right that they're like yes i love what you guys are doing i there's nothing i'd love more than put this down and start doing this but i i literally cannot yeah i've got to get this done and so particularly in supply chain businesses like what you guys are in we're in You know, carving out the time to grow and create new resources is it's really unusual. Yes. So every all these companies in supply chain at the beginning of the year, and this will sound familiar to a lot of them, which is, you know, when I was in distribution each year, you sit down in January or at the end of the previous year and you start talking about what your initiatives are going to be for the next 12 months. three years five years and then you're like okay this sounds great we're doing a great job we carved out the time to even talk about this so we're really doing well and then you start talking again in january and everything's going great and then by february 15th everything gone to hell it's just like okay we're we're back we're back in the crossfire and uh We're getting we've just taken our first step towards failing on all of those. Totally. Yes. Yes. Feel that 100 right now. We have on the industrial side kind of two main customers in the water treatment industry. And so we are doing quite a bit of work in the shop for those two customers all the time. And right now we are getting near capacity of what we can even take on. And that is a really difficult position for me, who is taking a lot of time to cultivate these leads and cultivate relationships with people. And then we don't have the time to quote things or like even entertain. Oh, my God. It's it's really tough. And it I my director of industrial. equipment um chris we spent a lot of time together kind of working through what we can manage and what we can bring on um like we just got an opportunity for a nuclear tank um that's totally up our wheelhouse it has design work which we really try to sell because we have a really awesome design engineer team yeah um but they want it done in may which is right around the corner it's 16 weeks like it's not possible to do not like i don't even know how they're gonna do it but we have to pass on it Because we can't do it in our shop. Ouch. And so it's like, gosh, that really sucks because this is like the ideal customer that we want to be going after. And we don't have capacity to take it. And so it's a constant struggle. And then you've got the, which I've done before, which is do we have a capacity problem or a utilization efficiency problem? Right. You know, and is it the people or is it the process? And so it's like those are all very disruptive thoughts to even have. Because, you know, if you've got to break down and just go start evaluating how things are being done. Because you look at it, you're like, well, we've got this many people here. How is it possible that we're as efficient as can be? Right. You know, and those are hard. Those are dangerous thoughts to even start having because once you have them, now you got to do something with them. And if you're kind of a closely knit bunch and now you're walking around measuring shit. Oh, yeah. It's disruptive. And I'll tell you what is even more fun is when you add a brand new ERP system that launches at the beginning of the year. Like as in a month ago? Yep. Yep. So we've been working on it for almost a year prior, but it hard launched January 1st. And so there's so much that goes into that of working out the kinks and how everything is streamlined in the process. Which one do you guys go with? Odoo. Okay. Yeah. My husband, Tony, the president, he did quite a bit of evaluation of a couple different options, but settled on Odoo because we could integrate literally all of our systems from our CRM and marketing efforts all the way down to manufacturing. Yeah. It's pretty slick, but it's a lot. It is a lot. When I was in distribution, when I started there, we had just an old UGI type system. It was all keyboard. And you could fly through this thing. But there was no HTML. It was almost DOS-based kind of thing. And it was like press X to print and control. But once you memorized it, it was the fastest system ever. And then we upgraded. uh somewhere along the line and that was part of the integration implementation and just getting all that data ported over and then you're like i didn't realize what bad shape our data is in yeah because now we got to normalize all of our data right so it fits in the buckets and that new thing yep you know and where i'm going is that i think we had two dudes who were kind of they were sales guys they were older they've been selling steel forever but they're like bucket yep I'm out of here. They're like, this is all I need. Yeah. This is all the reason I needed. Yeah. And they literally retired because of the ERP implementation. Oh, man. Don't tell me that. Yeah. What's interesting is our past ERP system, my husband actually built himself. Okay. And so what's funny is when people come in, they start using us, and they're like, what is this? And then as soon as we switch to Odoo, they're like, oh, yeah, man, Link was pretty sweet. We're like, cool. Yeah. But we got to use this now. And it gives you real insight when you make those switches as to why other people don't switch to like, you know, like Astro or like, like we love the systems we love. Yeah. And we learn how to use it. We don't really give a shit how much, how good or bad it is because we know how to use it, you know, and it's, it's just such a human thing. Right. It's, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. We've, we've had some difficulties, that's for sure. But. Ultimately, I think it's going to be really great for us in the long run, especially as we're managing our other branches and kind of communicating with them and integrating them into our manufacturing system and how do we do that. So it'll work out. Cross your fingers. No, it will work out because ultimately it's like, okay, we've been nice about it. We're done hearing about how much it sucks. Just start using it. Just doing it. You know, like just get over it. Right. And in six months, you know, it'll be fine. Yeah. It'll be totally fine. Yeah. It'll wash through. So looking back to the marketing piece, what's the person, Maria, is that what you said? Yes. Okay. So you've got the contest that you're putting out for like the Emmy, the Astro Emmy. And then what are the other ways you guys are approaching industrial marketing? Just of interest because this is, I think, marketing companies in general, I don't care who you are, are all scratching their heads a little bit on how do you market to a supply chain? Yep, totally. Yeah, we do a lot of stalking, actually. So we kind of have our ideal customer that we've kind of vetted out. And like, these are the people that we want to go after. And then we just do a hard research on who are the companies. And then once you identify the companies, it's like, OK, who are the people? And that takes a lot more work to try to stalk and find out who the people are. And then it's like, OK, how do we approach them? Because we don't want to come off spammy and like, OK, hey, like we're Astro and we can do all this stuff for you. It's like, no, we are people and people do business with people. You know, how can we help you solve a problem and approaching it like that? How can we convince you to leave those people and come with these people? Right. You know? Yep. And like I said, I think it's just like. 90% of that is I don't even have time to think about it. The reason they're still here, I know I overpay for them. I know they're late. I know they're all this. It's because they're already in our ERP system. They're already set up. And if I want to set them up, I got to go down to so-and-so in whatever department and wait three days and get the inquisition as to why I'm switching. So it's all of those things. And how do you really become turnkey? That's the trick to me. And I think that it's... pretty much universal that for any given thing, a person's evaluating time, cost, and quality. Yes. They're always evaluating those things. I don't care. Yeah, like if it doesn't, like when I bought these pencils, I think I bought them at Walgreens. You're welcome, Walgreens. You know, I'm sitting there looking at all these pencils and I don't know it, but I'm looking at time, cost and quality without even knowing it. Yeah, it's crazy. And that honestly, when we get leads in, that is the first question that I ask people is like, OK, of these three things, what is your top two and what is the one that you can give on? Because we're going to give you the top quality. That's for sure. We can work with you on lead time most times, but we're not going to be the cheapest. I can almost guarantee it. And so what? What do you want of those top three? And then we'll see if we're a good fit for you. Yeah, it's like a three-channel mixing board. It's like we can move these around, but they can't all three be pinned at the same time. Nope, can't get it. They just can't be done. You can usually get two of them, but optimizing time, cost, and quality, they just don't seem to want to do that. They are repellent. Yeah. That way. And usually it's those, the two actually, cause we were now starting to get known for our quality. We do really good quality. Um, now we've got to keep that up. I know. Right. Um, but it's the other two that are trade-offs that are really important. Like, and often they're like, well, lead time. Like I need to have the lead time. And it's like, okay. We can get you anything is possible. Yeah. But what are you going to pay for it? Like, what are you going to pay to get this expedited so that we can fit it in our schedule and get it done for you? Yeah. You basically have to pay off these other projects that are in the queue. Exactly. If you want to get those done. Yeah. Because we only have so much capacity. Yeah. You know, it's like sales guys coming back. I need to get this shipped today. And you're like, that's fine. Here are your other orders. Which one don't you want to ship today? Yeah. That's our director of ops. He definitely is that kind of guy where it's just like, okay, I can do anything for you, but you need to tell me what you're going to give up. Yeah. I don't really give a shit. I mean, this is your customer. You just tell me like we have, there's a five gallon bucket. We can't put more than five gallons in it. And I can't do a full process audit today. So just assume it's full. Yeah. And it feels really sort of rigid and bureaucratic to say that. But most of the companies in the supply chain are so like past the five gallons. Like they are absolutely burning every bit of capacity. Totally. They have been by and large are efficient in the usage of capacity because many people are doing things that have nothing to do with why they thought they were being hired. Yes. Yep. Definitely. All kinds of shit. Yeah. Well, and especially in a custom fab shop, like we don't do anything standard, really. Like we don't do OEMs. Everything we do is custom and it's all different. And like even the things that are kind of not custom, like we do a bunch of frames. Like we are doing frames for big water treatment facilities. And you would think that would be really easy to like just. plug and play all these frames, but each frame is slightly different, slightly different size and slightly different spacing of the bars. And so that has to go through engineering and drafting and then the actual fabrication. And it's just like, we are starting to get efficient in it because we do so many frames that it's like, okay, we can identify. you know, what we need to do and how to make it better. But, um, yeah, it's all different. So I'm sitting over, over here pretending like I know what a frame is. So what is a frame as in the water treatment world? Like what are we talking about? Sure. So a frame would hold like at the actual water treatment equipment. Okay. So the actual, like, like they call them skids. Okay. Um, and so the actual equipment that goes inside of this frame. Um, so we do all the metal part essentially of the outside and then other people come in and they do the stuff. Yeah. Okay. So water treatment is something none of us think about that much and is probably one of those, probably the most important things, especially when we were growing up because we didn't walk around with water bottles that were like this shit wasn't a thing when I was growing up. Yep. You know, but I don't think I could work. at one of those companies and still, I would just be so disillusioned by all the stuff that actually came up in the water that had to be removed. Yeah. You know, the amount of shit that probably flows in to that place is probably like really off-putting. It is insane. did we bid a project uh for a customer that has a really big problem right now is corrosion okay and within the water treatment industry is that just because the aging like things have gotten older or things have gotten older there's also uh like microbes in the water that are literally eating everything and everything is this a newer phenomenon uh i think it's just being identified okay um and so corrosion is a huge thing and so we actually get quite a few calls about okay we have to do a lot of replacement stuff like replacement lids or replacement troughs and we had a huge potential client call us and they showed us the pictures of this corrosion like literally the aluminum was like a cheese grater like it was insane the amount of corrosion that was in there and so we had to come up with a solution to replace these lids we couldn't do it in aluminum um and so we had to do like super duplex and it was astronomical the amount and this stuff is so expensive It's so expensive. And in the end, they decided that they couldn't do that, and they had to figure out a different coating option for the aluminum. We don't need lids. It's just going to keep happening, right? So it's a huge problem, the corrosion. So we get quite a few leads off of that, and we're trying to be a little bit of an expert to try to help companies figure it out. Yeah, that's just something people, myself included, I don't think about when I flip on the faucet in the kitchen. Yeah. You know, water coming out, there's totally drinkable. It's clean. It's good. You know. Yep. You know, and by the way, the water bills in general are not that expensive. You know what I mean? Compared to other like your gas bill, your electric bill shows up and you're like, oh, it must be wintertime. Yeah. You know, it just got really expensive. Yeah. So there's something else you talked about, which I thought we needed to talk about, which is the. business you had prior, right? You just said you had a wedding. How did you phrase it? A wedding planning business? Yep. Tell me about that. Let's wind it back. Tell me about and when did that start? So I went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison and I went for entrepreneurial management. I always wanted to own my own business. Kind of came from a line of business owners in my family. And I When I was supposed to graduate in 2008, that was when the big downturn happened and no one was hiring. Yeah, that's really bad timing. Yeah, so I ended up staying at school to get a second degree in marketing. And when I graduated, I took a part-time job doing whatever. you know, administrative stuff because again, no one was hiring. And I started my own business and just started doing weddings for people that I knew and growing my business and doing, started moving into corporate events and nonprofit events. Meaning like doing like, someone wants to get married, you help them pull the vendors together, organize it, make sure everything's good, stay on budget. Yeah. Which is... hard to do. It is. Yes. Yeah. So just growing that network of vendors that I knew that I could allocate to different people's budgets, you know, setting up the timeline, being in contact with everyone and then being that point person on the day of of making sure that everything's going off in the schedule. People aren't fucking up. Just making sure the day is great. So I did that for 15 years. Oh, wow. That's a long time. uh in 2000 did you have any weddings just go horribly Like stuff you're just like, I can't, like things that were out of your control, but you're just like, wow, this is really falling apart. No, because I was good at my job. Perfect. Right answer. There's always things that happen. Like I've had some skeevy moments, like working with skeevy vendors and like that's never great. And people that don't show up, that's something that's happened to me where like I've had a DJ not show up and then having to, you know, call the people that I knew and say, I need someone here, you know, in 15 minutes. Have you ever seen. the bride or groom not show up no so everything everyone got married yes yeah but I've had some weird like family issues like uh one of my brides she gave me a picture of her mom and was like she is gonna try to show up she is banished from the wedding do not let her show up and um make sure you bring security when you when you go see her I'm like security's fine but it's not free yeah right well she was she was willing to pay for it but I was like okay this is so what was that a new vendor for you Did you have to go like solve that? Like get a security person? Yeah. Or do you just tell some dudes you know to like just stand out? Usually the venue have security people. Okay. So I'm able to like kind of bring them in or whatever and kind of give you the picture. Do you know why she was banished? They just had a terrible relationship. Really? She was not interested in having her there. But she was also possibly going to try and show up. Yep. She didn't. She didn't? She knew? Yeah. She still had the muscle out front. Yeah. Right. Not worth it. I didn't bring that with me. That's right. So you did that for 15 years. And then how did you jump from doing that? Sure. To Astro or was there something between there? So in 2000, I bought another business with a friend of mine and it was we incorporated a lot more than just the planning side, which was my. In what year? 2000 or like just before the pandemic. So like. Oh, 2020. 2020. Yes. Sorry. 2020. So 2019 is when we bought the business. Okay. And it was great. So we integrated more design services. We had an inventory of different decor and things like that. And then we also integrated flowers. So I had a bit of a floral background. My partner had a floral background. And so we were able to offer more services. And then 2020 happened. And we had to shift a lot of our. weddings to be more intimate events and very conscious about COVID and everything like that. And so that was a really interesting experience. But we got past that. Interesting. What was that like? Weddings are kind of inherently togetherness. Yeah, we had to do a lot of outdoor stuff. Like my sister got married in 2020. And so she got married in my backyard. And it was just my family and his family that were there. It was probably fabulous. It was. It was amazing. If I got married again, I had like 300 people at my wedding at my in-laws farm. And it was awesome. Like it was a rager. But like if I got married again, I would do the same thing, like do something really small, like just have a handful of people. And yeah, I mean, we had a I don't know how many people were there. It was probably on the order of 250 to 300. It was fabulous. Right. But I've also been to weddings that actually went to when during COVID that was at this really cool outdoors place. Yeah. Outdoor place. And it was just so chill. And it was really just family that was there. And it was just like right on the money. It was so great. Yeah. You know, there was no, and I could tell the bride and groom, they weren't sort of overwhelmed by having to go. Talk to everybody. Talk to everybody. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's a lot. It was a real kick your shoes off kind of day. Yeah. It was pretty nice. Yeah. So COVID happens. You guys had acquired a business? Yes. So we bought a business that was basically she was selling all of her decor stuff. Okay. And so we bought it and we went. We had to go to three different storage units and just get all of her shit. out of the units to bring into our studio. So she was out. She was out. She was very a creative person and very good at the creative design and integrating things like that. But she was not a business person. She didn't know how to operate her business. And she was getting in some trouble with business things that she was just like, I can't. I got to get out of it. I got to sell what I have. So it worked out for us. So, yeah, we got everything together and we got through COVID and then we started getting really busy. And in 2023, we were doing like 200 weddings a year, weddings and events. Holy shit. And how many had you been doing like in 2019? 2019, probably like, I don't know, 50. Like, yeah, we really, really grew it really quickly because of our extra services. And that was, it was fun. It was exciting. But I also, at the time when we bought the business, was pregnant with my third. And then I got pregnant with my fourth in the middle, like in 2022. And I had told my business partner, I'm like, I can't, I'm not going to be boots on the ground anymore. I can't be the person at the weddings anymore. Right. But I'll be the back end. I'll be the business and I'll help grow and market. And like, that's my strength. Let's go for it. And it just, I don't know, it didn't work out, like, our communication of that. Sure. And I think when we got to 2023, I was just like, I can't do this anymore. Kind of run your course with it. Yeah, and she kind of thought that I'd be coming back, like, boots on the ground, and I was just like, I'm not. I can't do it. I'm not coming back. Yeah, I'm not. Sorry. Yeah, so I sold my half of the business to my director of ops in 2023, and then that's when I came on full-time at Astro. Okay. Yeah. And so that was 2023, which is been a quick three years. Yeah. Very quick. So what has it been like stepping into this other industry? Awesome. It's so fun to jump in and really like get my head in all the way. Cause like I said, I'd been doing stuff with my mother-in-law, um, for the company, you know, since we got married and, but it was very part time and it was like very kind of surface stuff. Um, and now that I was in it and running the marketing department, which the the marketing department um like i had to really know what i was talking about a lot more like i really had no idea what we were doing on the industrial side like i knew stuff about the architectural because i could like see it and it's just gonna be clear with everybody right you know i don't know what i'm doing yet yeah right i mean it's just like oh okay like what do we actually build here on the industrial side like what is the spiral and you know who are customers yeah so that was really fun to dive in and just learn way more about a whole different world than the wedding industry but what's been great is being able to take some of my knowledge from running my business and you know being a sounding word for my husband who runs astro like we have a lot of conversations day in and day out of just like okay what's going on in the business what can we do better you know how can we create a great culture within our business um and then just kind of running from there sounds like you're um good at orchestrating you know like you're good at you know who the players need to be, be able to get them lined up, get the pieces moving, you know, in the way that they need to be moving. Yeah. Which, you know, that's something that, you know, a lot of people can do it and a lot of people can. And it sounds, I don't know if that's a fair description, but it sounds like you're good at sort of orchestrating something that operates. Totally. I'm definitely a type A, like the amount of lists that I have on my. notebooks is like, okay, like running through all the lists. Everything's listed out. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? So yeah, I'm very type A getting things done. And then, yeah, when you have four kids, like you gotta, you gotta get people places and know what's going on in the house. So it's kind of translate. You do. That's a lot. Yeah. That is a lot, a lot. So what is, what's the next chapter for Astro and Stellar look like? Where are you guys? Trying to continue to go. Sure. Why does this keep going? I'll deal with it. Sure. So we are working on separating StellarCraft from Astro. And so Astro will kind of run as its own architectural metals company. And so then I'll be running that end of it. And so we're working on getting our women-owned certification and everything like that. So that's what I see as far as that. I hear a lot. uh women-owned certification what does that mean like so so a lot of people hear that yeah what like what what does that mean or is that what does that classification do for a business sure so it's a lot within the construction industry um and so there's like certain like dei quotas that people need to get a certain amount of women owner okay minority owned, veteran owned kind of thing. And so it's not that we necessarily are going to be getting jobs because we're woman owned, but it throws us in the ring to do that. And there's a lot of controversy about like women owned and DEI and things like that. Like some people start businesses and then they technically exploit it. Yes, to exploit it. So they technically have a woman running it, but she doesn't do anything in the company. And we're not that like I'm in it day to day. I'm out doing the work. Yeah. So if you're there doing it anyway, let's go ahead and get the classification. Yeah. Because nothing's really going to change here. Right. Other than now we can say that's the truth. Yep. So we can be involved in these things. Yes. Involved in the bidding. Like it's not even that we automatically get the award. Right. It's just like, okay, you get to be involved in this because you have this. Yeah. It's kind of like, okay, they've got an MBA or they've got it. It's just like you're now qualified to be in there. Yeah. Okay. So you guys are working on that currently. Yes. And how long is it? Is that a long process or is that just submit and wait? It's been a long process because we're trying to go about it the right way. And so we've broken out the books, and I have to kind of show that it's not an Astro business. It's not Tony actually running it. So I have to now build a relationship with other fabricators, which we have through our different relationships, and take some projects and show that I can get it fabricated somewhere else. I'm not reliant on Astro. So you guys truly need to be partitioned. Yep. As entities. Yes. And I guess sounds like also operationally. Yep. There needs to be a certain distance. Yeah. That exists there. Yep. Okay, so let me ask you this, which is if somebody who was, I don't know, 15 or 16 came up to you and said, I like what you do, and I'd like to be in kind of a similar job, how would you advise people to get to where you are? Like you have a neat job. Sure. You're around like you get to walk through the airport and see the stuff that your company's made. You get to troubleshoot how to market into what is a very difficult group. So you you have kind of all these modalities, all these things that you're doing. And, you know, I would imagine, you know what you're going to do tomorrow, but you also don't. So that's kind of fun. Yeah, right. Like flying to St. Louis to be in a podcast. Yeah, flying to St. Louis. And so how does someone do, get to like, you know, they're like, how do I get to where you are? How do you tell them to do that? Just experience. Just start anywhere and start doing things that interest you, especially like on the marketing side. Like people are always looking for help in marketing. If you're willing to contribute for. Maybe not that much money because you don't have that much experience and have fresh ideas that you could bring to someone like market that and say, hey, I can help you do this. You know, I want to get more experience in this industry or just learning how to do things. Just going out there and getting after it. Like that's kind of my biggest. I think you just pointed out like one of the biggest things that like that maybe not be heard when you just said that, which is like do it for not that much money because you don't have that much experience. Right. Sometimes that. that correlation is not made. Yes. And they're like, no, I should be sitting in that office, on that floor, in that corner. Yeah. And you're kind of lucky I'm here. Right. I don't want to get into too many politics about generations and work ethics and things like that. You do believe they exist between generations? I do, yes. I definitely have seen that. I'm going to encourage my kids and anyone that I come across, any young person, you've got to work for it. You're not just going to go out there and be a YouTube star and make millions of dollars. Do some work. Like do some research on how those people got there. Like find. someone that you idolize and want to be like and figure out how they got there and then try to go do it. Don't kid yourself. Having like a really good, successful YouTube channel, that's work. Oh, it's totally work. You know, it's it's work. So it's like there's no way out. Those people, people you see that are just fucking crushing it on YouTube. Yeah, it's they didn't just roll out of bed. So much behind the scene work and just the different monetizing different systems and how are you going to get your name out there in different avenues, different medias. I'm in a women's business owner group and there's a lot of women who have taken their regular businesses and then built on that social side of it that they're getting passive income because they're doing this extra thing on social media. Are you Gen Y? No, I'm an old millennial. You're an old millennial. Yeah. Okay. I was born in 77, so I'm a late stage Gen X. Okay, sure. I think that's what Ð did that stop in 1980? Yes, I think so. I feel like it did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So which generation Ð I mean, the kind of living generations. We've got boomers. What's the most recent one called? I mean, no. Z and then the next generation, which I think like your kids and probably my kids are alpha. That's right. Yeah. It's kind of a nice name. I kind of like that. I mean, that's kind of. You know, Alpha Dog, like, coming on top. Like, all of them? Right. Yeah. Well, and I think what's interesting about Gen Alpha, like, currently, I feel like we're going through a revolution of parents that, like, we had talked about a little bit before, about, like, how people don't know the amount of crap that's in their food. And so now people are, like, swinging the different direction of being, like, okay. I don't necessarily need convenience in my food, but I want to have good food and like finding ways to, you know, grow their own food or going to farmers markets or just like getting better food. And I think our kids are going to benefit from that. It's so funny you say that because I've said I feel like this generation, I guess alpha, is going to be sort of an enlightenment. Yes. And I think it's because, you know, we all parents, we walk around like there's a TV and you're like. But the thing that's coming out of that TV right now is a direct result of whoever paid the most for it to be said. Same thing with your phone. So there's going to be a healthy amount of, careful not to create cynicism, but skepticism. You know, trust but verify. So I think you're going to have a discerning group. of these kids that are going to be like, I think, pretty well adjusted, actually, that they're not going to kind of fall into rabbit holes as sort of readily. as maybe the generation before them. I think they're going to be hard workers because I think those of us who are raising kids right now are so sensitive to those generations that weren't workers. Yes. You know, I feel like this is going to be like a 1920s-esque group of people. I agree. That are really fucking hardworking and have good heads on their shoulders. Yeah. No, I totally 100% agree. And yeah, like with social media, like even these late Gen Zers are now cutting off social media and just like not getting into it. And so I think that's going to continue for our kids. And yeah, just like going back to the food thing, I had made a dish for my kids the other night that was. It was like noodles and hamburger and then like a handmade sauce. Yeah. And I was like, they're like, what is this? I'm like, well, it's kind of like hamburger helper. And they had no idea what that was. And I was like, yeah, when I was a kid, like we got hamburger helper. It came in a box. We had no idea like all the crap that was in it. Basically, you throw in the fresh hamburger and then you're like good to go. You just seasoned it, right? Yeah. You just like throw it all in. And it's just like, you know, that was a different time. Like our parents were busy. that seemed like the best thing to like this is awesome this is going to save me so much time and like whatever and now we're like okay i don't actually care about the time because i want you to like eat some good food and not like poison yourself yeah i think we're kind of right at that inflection point in our house which our kids are like you know what are these cheeses doing here like yeah you know they're getting like a little critical about you know all right you know uh but you do have to as all of us were when we were kids, sometimes remind them that, you know, their depth of knowledge is not quite what they think it is. Oh, sure. But that doesn't make them less convincing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're sitting there listening to the reasoning like they're giving you and you're like, that makes a little, like, no, wait. No, shut up. Shut up. Go to bed. Yeah. Like, try to talk me out of the fact you need to brush your teeth. Oh, yeah. It's just like. Oh, that's a whole thing. Microbiomes. Like, come on. Go brush your teeth, damn it. It's that simple. So let me kind of wrap this up by saying, like, how do people find your business? What's your website? Like YouTube channels, all the stuff or whatever you have. Yeah. So our website is astrometalcraft.com. Our Stylercraft site is linked off of that site, but it's stylercraftmetals.com. We're on all the socials at astrometalcraft and at stylercraft. We're trying to get a little bit more traction of getting some of our followers from Astro. on a stellar craft because we're trying to separate it a little bit. So feel free to follow us on stellar craft, go to stellar craft, help her get more traction. Yeah. Like now. Yeah. Yeah. We do a lot of YouTube stuff too. We do shop talk videos where we interview people in the shop and, um, we do some fun, some fun stuff. So Maria is really good at her job. Well, hopefully someday I'll meet Maria. Hopefully this gets a stamp of approval from Maria. Uh, but I want to say thank you for coming in today. I've really enjoyed talking to you. It's been fun. Yeah, it's been great. Yeah. So thank you. Yeah.