All right. Well, I'm here. I'm joined by Andrew Roberson of Dark Threat Fabrication out of Heber Springs, Arkansas. Did I say that right? You said it right. Yeah. Perfect. Better than Google. Yeah, exactly. And Andrew and I met at, was it Fabtech? I think. Orlando. That's correct. Yeah. Was that, I think, a couple years ago. And did you have others there from your team as well? Yeah, we normally like to take a few different people from our team, even some guys from the floor, you know, if they... you know, got the availability just so they can kind of see what's going on in the industry, things like that. Yeah. Do you go to those every year or do you just pick certain ones? We typically do. Um, we, we haven't, I don't think we've been back since 25 just because we've been so busy with different activities, but we do plan to go again. And I think this coming year is in Vegas. It is. And we went a long time ago. That may have been our first Fabtech, and it was a lot of fun. We really liked it. Oh, really? So we're planning on taking a few of our crew there, and hopefully we can make it a long weekend. Everybody can kind of have a little vacation. Right, right, yeah. Do you go to any other shows besides Fabtech? Is it IMTS, the machining show? Oh, yes. Now that's every two years, so that's coming back up this year, and we went two years ago as well. Okay, yeah. do NASCC, which just happened, I think that was a couple weeks ago. I was in Atlanta this past year. So those are the two shows that we do. And we find them great. I mean, it's great to be there. We don't get to walk around too much and see all the different things. I mean, Fabtech, the size of that show is just like on a different level. Yeah, especially at Vegas. Yeah. It's huge. I know. I can't. Yeah, we're excited to go. But it's good for us, though, because it gives us some exposure. I mean, meeting guys like you, we don't have the outreach to meet these people on a regular basis. So it kind of affords us the opportunity where people stop by because they don't know what Brazos is and what we do. So many times we get comments from people that stop by and like, oh, my God, this software is amazing. How come I've never heard of this? So it's a really good way for us just to kind of get. get our name out there, let people see it in person. And like our relationship, it usually leads to something longer term, which is great. Yeah, here we are two years later. I remember it really well. And of course, I'm going to tell myself, I'm very food motivated, right? So we were walking to the food court and that year, your booth was like right on the corner by the food court. So we take a pause and I think I turned around and I was like... what is this? He probably harassed you. He probably approached me, right? And I'm a nice guy, so I don't want to blow you off. Sure. And we looked at this. My wife looked at it. We're like, we need to contact these guys. So I took it with me in my bag and give you guys a call or emails and immediately started doing work with you. Yeah, that's great. That's great. And before we started this, you had mentioned that you use it quite a bit. Just for a lot of the quoting and estimating that you do. I do. Yeah, I use it on a daily basis. So we do a lot of quotes. We're using cloud-based quoting software. We're doing everything we can on the software side to help us be more agile because that's what our customers need. A lot of times, by the time they send us a quote, they're already in desperate need for these parts. in a lot of the projects and we, we like to help them out. I understand what it's like, you know, things happen. Um, I've been in that world in engineering for a long time, so I get it. And so it really helps to have a tool that's on my desktop that I can pull up next to my quoting software and I can figure out, okay, what is this 14 gauge EGAL going for right now? Because that's when I need it. And, um, but I don't have enough time to, you know, necessarily contact multiple steel suppliers, wait for responses, hours to days to get a response back. I just, I don't have time. My customer doesn't have time. And so it's, it's really handy. Yeah. I'd love to hear that. Love to hear that. So walk me through, um, you know, how you got into engineering and fabrication. Let's just kind of hear some of your, your background. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully I don't go too long. So I want to give credit where credit's due, so... I've got an amazing family is what I want to point out first. You know, parents, grandparents, my wife, my son, you know, everybody's, you know, obviously supported me, encouraged me. A lot of the people, I grew up in church, and there's a lot of elders, you know, in the church, people that I respect that, you know, a lot of them are gone now. But as a young kid, you know, they would just, you know, be encouraging, you know, along the way. And as a little kid, you know, I didn't get it. You know, like, why are you telling me I'm smart and I can do all these things, right? But, you know, it turns into, you know, real confidence that I think everybody needs, especially when they're young. And so both my grandparents, my grandfathers, my mother's dad, he lived to be 91. My father's dad lived to be 93. He passed away not just two. many years ago, it feels like I could still go by his house and go see him, right? And these are just amazing men, good Christian men that cared about people, had amazing Ð sorry, what am I thinking of? Just reputation. Sure. Everywhere when I go in town, if somebody hears my mom's dad, they had a farm, and so they had two chicken houses. By the time when my mother was growing up, hundreds of cattle. I think they've had hogs at one time, milk cows. So her and her brothers, they worked this farm as they were growing up. My grandmother, she really worked the farm a lot herself because my grandfather was also a teacher and a principal for quite a while and fed into a lot of people's lives. And he was really involved in the Gideons, and they were both involved in church. In fact, when their little country church started to... of get smaller and smaller numbers, I can really respect what they did. They all talked amongst themselves and they said, we can just let this thing implode, but why don't we do something with it? So they literally donated their entire church to a recovery ministry. And then they not only did that, they split off and did their own second phase recovery ministry and invested in another community. Oh, wow. Apart. And that's my grandmother still kind of helps with that. Oh, really? Teaching people. Yeah. So she's my only, you know, grandparents still living right now, but they were all just, uh, you know, very, very impactful, very loving. And, uh, I got to spend a lot of time with my mother's parents on that farm, you know, growing chickens. So I know what dirty hard work looks like. Right. Yeah. It's not fun. You know, you get paid, uh, when you're in the house, uh, you're getting paid a penny per fly, you know, to kill the flies. Right. You know, so we Ð but I was always blessed, you know, provided for. And my mom and dad always worked really hard. You know, they spoiled us. We didn't have a lot, or at least it made me think we were poor, you know. Sure. And taught me to, you know, want to work for what I want and to provide for myself and my family. I'll kind of switch over so my dad's parents. So that's where, you know, we lived closely to them, and they always grew up in that area. And so I got to be around them a lot more. And so my dad's dad, he was in the building industry, right? So he built custom homes. And their family, And I'm not just as clear on this as my father is, and I need to study up on the genealogy book that they've got. So the custom home building went on for at least 110, maybe more like 115 years in our family, in that area. And so it's really interesting. And, of course, my dad's entire life, that's what he did with his two brothers and his father. And then as the grandkids, myself and some of my cousins, we got to work with them a lot. So summer breaks, Christmas breaks. When I was in high school, they let us work from like four o'clock till nine or something to make gas money and food money. And we ticked off some neighbors and we had a lot of fun. But we got to learn a lot about work ethic and safety and things like that. And most importantly, I guess... What helped lead me in this direction was, so they did a lot of metal work in a lot of the projects that they did. In my lifetime, a lot of the homes that they built were second homes. And so these houses would take most of the time from two to three plus years to build. They did all the work themselves. They had a few subcontractors like an electrician, a plumber. you know, sheetrock guy that they trusted, you know, they exclusively use them on these jobs. And so, you know, we were, you know, mixing mortar in a wheelbarrow with a hoe. We were, you know, hand cleaning out the ditches for footings. Every, every stud that was put in on a house was hand drilled, pre-drilled in a certain way. And then hand nailed with 16 penny nails. And then. set with a nail punch so that we were not using pneumatic. They had pneumatic nail guns for building headers and things like that. But what was the reason for that? They didn't want to split out the studs. So a lot of times if you're just, you know, using a nail gun and just firing away, then you're just blowing chunks out of the bottom of a stud and you really don't have any strength there. And there was always a saying at the local hardware store, they'd say, well, if the Robertson builders built it, if it needed four nails, it got 10. And they even had a cabinet company say, a lot of times they built their own cabinets, but when somebody else had the other cabinet maker install, and they would have to go in this 30-year-old house that my father and his brothers may have built, they were so angry because it was so difficult to pull these cabinets out of the house. The demo was not fun. No, it was not fun. It was not fun, but they really cared about what they did. These are good Christian men. It was just the best possible work environment that I could ever imagine. It was clean, and you don't think of that with a construction site, right? And so one year when I was in high school, they got a little bit slow for the first time ever. They just had a little gap between projects. And so I had to go find something to do to make gas money, right? So I went and got a job building motorcycles and ATVs and stuff like that at a Honda dealership in the town that I live in. And I quickly realized, I was like, hmm, the real world is a little different than I thought it was. Which, I mean, I wasn't totally naive. Right, right. But still, I've got so much respect for those guys. Obviously, my father's a partner with myself and my wife. Oh, okay. And then my uncle, my dad's next oldest brother, he's been instrumental in helping us from day one. He's just such a good man and so intelligent. He just can do whatever he puts his mind to. A lot of times we'll have projects at the shop, and I'll just say, Kendall, can you just tackle this? Because I don't have time to make a drawing. Try to figure out how to do it, and he'll go, okay, I'll go do it. And just has a fantastic attitude, just a very good man. I respect him a lot. And my grandfather was the same way, just so nice and kind. But, you know, when he wanted something done, it needed to get done. When it's time to get serious. That's right. When it's time to get serious, it's... It's serious. But, yeah, he was always super great and just smiling. That's what I remember about him. And, you know, when I would go around town as a kid, I would tell someone my name, and they would immediately say, oh, you're Hilton's grandson. And you could just see it on their face. They just had so much respect and admiration for this man. And, you know, of course, he lived there his whole life. But that just says a lot to me. You know, I think life and business, too, is how you treat people. Yeah. You know? I just hope I can try to live up to him and my father and me and my uncles and, you know, try to treat people, you know, in the same way. Right. Yep. The golden rule. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So I worked with him in school and everything. And, you know, as a kid, I liked off road. I liked going fast. My first truck, you know, I bugged my dad to death when I was like 15. And we rebuilt this old square body truck. And, you know, he didn't have time. He was exhausted. We didn't have a shop at work in. We just drag our tools out in the dark, a piece of plywood on the gravel, crawl underneath it and yell at each other all night. Try to get these gas tanks out from under it and things like that. And so we get that thing running. first engine doesn't last 28,000 miles and set of tires is gone. And, you know, thankfully, you know, by God's grace, I never got arrested or I've never even got a ticket. I don't know how that happened, but God was watching out for me. And one time my next door neighbor, he actually bailed me out. I was going pretty fast and got pulled over in the driveway, kind of not necessarily trying to get away, but anyways, I made it to the driveway. My neighbor was the chief of police, and he walks over, and he said, he's a good kid. Just let him go. No way. Yeah. So I get up to the house, and, of course, Dad pulls up right after, and he's in the middle of all this. And he comes up to the house, and he said, they said, you need to slow down, son. And, of course, he's shaking his head because he Ð I can't imagine this about my own father because he's such a careful, wise man. Yeah. But when he was younger, he had a problem with driving too fast too. Same thing. Yeah. So he was like paying for my raising or whatever. He gets it. Yeah, yeah. He gets it. Yeah. He's just such a good guy. But hopefully I'm not trailing off too much here. So how did you get into Ð because your degree is in engineering, correct? Yes, mechanical engineering. Okay. So I'd have to say Ð so I like Ð Riding four-wheelers, things like that. And Legos, obviously, you know, all that kind of stuff. Mom and dad wouldn't let me have video games at the house, which I really respect now. And, you know, so lots of playing outside, you know, dragging lumber out of the brush pile up in the trees, coming to my dad, my uncle in the workshop saying, you got any nails? Yeah. You got a hammer? And then they'd look around and go, wait, what are you doing with this? And then they follow us and we've got all these boards, you know, 40 foot up in a tree, you know, building a tree house or something. And they're like, hmm, maybe we should help with this a little bit. So we were, you know, obviously trying to emulate what we saw in our, you know, father's building stuff. Right, right. So in my childhood, we were no stranger to putting a fort together or tearing apart an RC car that we broke in or whatever. And so that's, I guess, where my interest lied. And, you know, at school and even my parents were like, you know, what do you want to do? The college point, you know, I never really tried in school, you know, especially middle school and high school. I was just more interested in my truck and how loud I could make it and how fast I could go and, you know, how much money I could spend on it that I didn't know how I was going to get. And I'll never forget. So, you know, when 9-11 happened, you know, it was just a terrible time. And everybody likes to think, you know, where were you when that happened? I was in. I think it was chemistry class had just started. And, you know, it was really sad, but, you know, I'm not trying to make light of that at all, but I was thinking I was, because I left school that day, and then there was like lines of cars, you know, going up to the gas station. I'm like, what in the world is happening? Because everybody just panicked. And I had just put my first truck in the body shop, and I was thinking. This is how shallow just a 15-year-old kid is. I'm like, I hope I get my truck back. I mean, I'm sad that all this stuff happened, but I hope I get my truck back. It's really shallow. You look back and you go, I don't even care about that stupid truck. It's $500, right? But anyway, so I did a lot of work with that truck. It would set off car alarms when I went through the parking lot at school, and I thought that was really cool. Did it in parking garages too. They would set off every car. Because it was so loud? Yes, yeah. In fact, when we first put the new engine in it, the guys that did it were like these circle track guys, and they knew that I wanted it loud. So we had headers on it, and they just put straight pipes on this thing. Of course, it sounded awful, but I'm a kid. It was so loud that the neighbor, that chief of police, he walked over, and he's like, man, that's really cool. And he's like, man, that sounds good. He said, well. But, you know, the cops in town, you know, I don't care, but they might say something about it. And so, and I don't want to, you know, offend anybody or whatever. So I go put exhaust, you know, mufflers on it. But I put the Flowmaster, you know, 40 series, which I love. And I dumped them over the axle. So it's just, I don't know, that just sounded like a dump truck, you know, with the big block in it. And that was, I still have dreams and I wake up and I find that truck under a shed and I'm like, I'm going to drive this thing. But it's long gone. It's long gone. But anyway, so I think that's really what led me kind of in the engineering direction was just this love of motorsports, I think. And so I had to pick something. And I'm thinking, I like to make things. I can build things. So why not go that route? So I was blessed to do well in school. Got a full ride to Arkansas Tech. in Russellville. Okay. And I had a scholarship to U of A too, but, but I chose to go to tech. It was a great experience, made some amazing lifelong friends there. And, uh, and I was able to, you know, keep my scholarship by God's grace through the whole thing and, uh, got a, got a good education in that and a, you know, a groundwork and a basis. And my first semester I was exposed to solid works and I was like, Ooh. This is where it's at. This is what I've been missing. I need to, this is how I can come up with this stuff. And so that got me started. And so I've been using SOLIDWORKS primarily ever since. So lots of years of SOLIDWORKS experience. And that really helped me, you know, in the job market coming out of college. Of course, I graduated in 07. The economy was just in shambles. Get ready to tank. Yeah, we watched it all just implode. And I'll never forget, you know, these. these guys that were fixing to retire that I would go work with, I mean, their lives were just destroyed because they lost everything in their retirement. And I just, I felt so bad for these guys. And, but I got to work with some amazing people there. One of my first engineering jobs, I worked for a company that made construction lasers and machine control equipment. Okay. This company, I think has since been sold maybe several times. Kind of dissolved. But at the time, they were doing some really neat things, all in-house vertically. There was a really nice man there that was, I think his title was, I guess he was like a machine shop manager over there, machine shop. Okay. And the machining that they did, his name was Carl Taylor, just such a wise and patient man. Man, I wish I could talk to him today. He passed away several years ago from a brain tumor, and it was terrible. I hated to hear that because I always dreamed that I would get to work with him again someday. He's just such a nice man. He was patient with me. He would look at my designs on the computer, and he'd say, Landry, I've never seen it done like that. But we'll try, you know, and he would tell me, you know, when we set up a machine, we'd like to measure from the left and the back because that's where our stops are on the vice. And, you know, just really work with me to, you know, teach me those things that, you know, in carpentry, we were worried about at least a 32nd to a 64th. And I would say that my dad and my uncles were more particular. than anybody else was. They were using, you know, carpentry tricks to make things fit tight no matter what. But still in machining, now you're worried about, you know, thousands and tens, you know, tens of thousands. And so he taught me a lot about that. And, you know, machining, all different kind of aspects of things. So it was neat getting to work with him in that area. And I also got to learn to be an employee a little bit, right? So I had a boss there at that facility, and she was very intelligent, and she was in a position to launch a product, and they were already, you know, like a year behind. And here she takes this risk on myself right out of school. I'm definitely, like, super excited. You know, I can. talk the talk. Right. But I have no experience really in that field. And, you know, she had to, she had to push me and some others, you know, to get these projects done. And she, and she did. And at the time I remember, and I think I told this to her, to her face, I had the chance to catch back up with her a couple of years ago. It was really cool. Super nice lady. And you know, one time I took a problem to her and I said, I found this issue. And then that was kind of it. I'm not really, maybe I was, looking for direction or something and you know she kind of was I was just so young right and delicate that you know I was like oh man but what she said to me was you know when you when you find a problem try to bring me at least two solutions with it and and so you know that just really stuck with me and and it's just because you know she was not just trying to you know put up a roadblock or anything she was trying to teach me to think yeah right you know and it's important And you've got to, if you can think on your feet, you know, and try to just have that mindset of finding solutions, because I think that's a lot of what we, you know, encounter in life and businesses, you're going to come up against roadblocks. You can either stop or you can look around and see what can I do. Right. And there's probably something. And if you need help, you know, ask for help. Yeah. And so anyway, that was really cool. So I appreciate, you know, that job. After that, I went and I worked for Husqvarna in research and development down in Texarkana. And that was a lot of fun. I worked on the leaf blower development team. So they did weed eater, pulling pro, all those different lines and some husky, domestic husky lines. And that was like an 08. And they were doing really well because there had been a hurricane and they were selling tons of chainsaws, just selling them like crazy. And so I worked in this R&D office. I want to say there was like... I'm probably going to get this wrong, but it was like in the 60s, 60-something people in there, like engineers, lawyers, drafters, machinists, you know, a really solid group of smart people. And I got to work for a guy who was really young. Like he was in his probably late 20s, I would say, an engineering manager. Love this guy. One of the best bosses ever. He has such a good attitude. He was very intelligent. Just great to work for. And the guys I got to work with, it was fun. We got to, you know, finish basically the weed eater leaf blower project. And so, like, I believe it's still the same today. Like, if you go to Walmart, you buy a weed eater leaf blower. It's basically the same mold, same parts. So that was a lot of fun. Yeah. the economy continued to downturn, right? So they started talking about voluntary furlough, and I'd already kind of ran away from something that might collapse because of the economy. And so I called my dad, and I was like, Dad, I don't know what to do, but if I quit this job and I move back and I do construction with you, can we build that shop we've always dreamed about? you know, and, and do something. I don't know what, but do something. And then I could live upstairs in the front and I'll, I'll, I'll pay for the building. Um, you know, with, with my income, you can just help me, help me get it built. And like, I think he probably immediately was like, yeah, let's, let's do it, son. So I'm, so I quit, moved back home. moved back in with, with mom and dad and we start this project and it was immediately pretty stressful for him because I mean, we're talking a big investment and, and then he gets me involved and I'm a dreamer. So I'm dreaming it bigger and bigger and more and more expensive. And so we, we go get this, this loan to be able to do this. Him and my mother have to do it right. And dad is so kind of stressed out because he's never taken a leap that big before that he just kind of... It steps back in a way, and it just kind of lets me do what I want. So I basically came up with a floor plan of how this whole thing's going to go together. I put a wash bay in it because I'm thinking I'm going to live upstairs. I'm going to have my own car wash inside, all this other stuff. It's crazy. It's crazy. But my dad's going along with it. And I even was like, I want a storm shelter. So we start digging this storm shelter. We can't dig. deep enough because we've just got his backhoe and then one of my uncle's backhoes and they won't go deep enough and the ground's this like super hard clay so i get this idea i'm like we'll lower dad's tiller down in this hole and i'll till it up and then we'll just shovel it out for the next like foot that we need to go down that was A stupid idea. Of course, I think my dad's just letting me do this watching, just like smile in the back. Let's see how this goes. So, and at this time, you know, I'm, I'm probably in better physical shape than I've ever been because I was doing a lot of physical labor, but we get this, this big heavy duty tiller. We drop it down in there. I start it up, and the tines, as soon as they hook up into the ground, that thing shoots across this hole into the wall, and I'm like Superman behind it holding on. It was so funny. My dad's just laughing. He's just shaking his head, going, I told you it wouldn't work. So we pull it out of the ground, and now my cellar is just Ð it just feels a little bit short. It's like seven-something, but we just deal with it, right? But anyway, so this, we built this shop and I ended up kind of dreaming it bigger than what my dad, like he was like, Oh, let's make a 60 by a hundred. I just love to have that much room. And, uh, we ended up making it, I think 80 by one 50. So like I dreamed it bigger. We, um, we were doing construction, right. And, uh, we start, we actually pull the trigger. So we've got a metal building coming. And so we quickly realized like the two of us. we're going to have to take off work to get this foundation ready because we were going to do every bit of ourselves. So I think we did for maybe two months at least, two or three months, because it was a big project, and we didn't have just a whole lot of heavy equipment. And then my uncle Kendall, he came and helped. Even my other uncle, my grandfather, they all came out and helped some when they weren't on the job site. And then the night that we poured the slab, I think that day we worked over 28 hours straight because the pump truck was showing up at 2.30 a.m. and we had to be ready. And I'm like next to death, tying rebar. I've made it two-thirds of the way down this slab because we finally started laying it in there. A lot of my family and my friends even came out. They're helping in the middle of the night. They just have to tail off because they've got to go to work. Well, the concrete crew shows up, and this young kid, he's probably 17 or 18. I mean, he was just full of energy just bouncing. He was like, man, this is the best day of my life. He's just so excited, and he's like, we're fixing to pour some concrete. I'm just like looking dead. And the guy just says, here, can I have that rebar tire? And I just hand it to him and just stagger off. And me and Dad just sat there and watched him pour. And he took over? He took over, yeah. There was like 16 of them. And, yeah, they just got in there having the best day of their life. I think it was Ð Dad, he's got such a better memory than me, but I want to say it was like three hours and 50 minutes from when they started pouring to they were finished and off of it. It was 12,000 square feet. It was impressive. I was impressed. We were both impressed. They did a phenomenal job. It was a company called Command Construction out of Searcy. A guy named Jason Woody, I believe he still owns that company. He's the nicest man you ever work with. But anyways, and we were really blessed too because on that project, so growing up in construction, I kind of had some of these other like... subcontractors that kind of became family too right so there's this this uh this painter and i'm i don't want to be disrespectful but i always call him this old painter because to me he was kind of like my grandfather. His name was Orville Hegel. He's just the nicest man you ever meet. I feel like he was one of my grandfathers. Well, anyways, his son-in-law was pretty high up at Razorback Concrete, which is a pretty big operation in Arkansas. And we didn't ask him to do this, but apparently he told his son-in-law, he said, you give those boys a good deal. Oh my gosh. They gave us a phenomenal deal. We needed it at the time, right? Dad was having to help and myself do a lot of this out of his pocket. And so I think we got concrete for like $75 a yard or something. And they chilled it for us. I mean, it was like 26 trucks or something. It was such a blessing. I'm telling you, I just couldn't have dreamed it up. But anyway, so I feel like all these people have had so much of it. you know, a hand and, you know, getting this all started. So, so we get this building put up in the air and we still don't know what we're doing. I'm thinking maybe we're going to build cabinets or something building related, right? That's what we've been doing. Now I've got the skills to design and, you know, somewhat engineer and I can definitely do things. Right. So I thought, why not just try to dream something like that up? Well, I'm still doing construction. Of course, I meet my wife at church. We meet in a small group. And, you know, she's definitely been encouraging me from day one. Yeah. Just amazing and a very uplifting person. Her family was, you know, it was the same way. Her mom and her dad just couldn't ask for better in-laws. Her sister, you know, super encouraging, you know. And so I'm doing construction with dad and, and, and I really enjoyed it. But I wasn't necessarily using what was in my field and didn't know what I was going to do anyways. Now kind of starting a new life. And I, a job opening came up at a local company with Siemens. They were hiring a design engineer. And so I, I applied thinking. And I think there was tons of applicants thinking, well, there's going to be somebody else going to be more qualified. And I always kind of felt that. What are the chances of me getting an engineering job in my hometown? I felt like that was like the lottery, right? Well, so they ended up hiring me. And so I was a design engineer for about two years and got to work with some amazing people. I hope I don't mess this up. I hope they don't mind about me sharing some of this story. Surely they won't. They're super nice people. I think he was like a production manager. So he gets promoted to be the engineering or the plant manager. Okay. And he came and found me and he said, I want you to be the next engineering manager. because the current engineering manager was having some health issues and decided to step away. And, man, he was such a nice man too. He was great to work with. And so anyways, I thought I'd never, you know, most of my interactions with this guy were good. They weren't, you know, terrible. But I didn't know. I was like, what's it going to be like working for him? What's this? I don't know what the dynamic is going to be. It ended up being really good. Man, I felt like we clicked. He trusted me. He trusted that I cared about the company. I cared about the people there. And he definitely did. I think he was there way over 40 years. Oh, wow. From when it was family-owned business to when Siemens acquired him. And so he definitely cared about everybody there. And so he gave me a lot of leash. And I already had a lot of responsibility from the time I started. They made me like facility manager, local IT support, security officer, like you name it. They just put the hats on me. And I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was fun. Gave me kind of a look at a lot of different aspects of a business that I hadn't really thought about and the ability to work with different folks. And so I had a, you know, fairly small engineering team. Got to work with a lot of engineering co-op students out of Mississippi State. Met some really good kids. Had some that I was, you know, like, I'm not sure this is for you. But, you know, they're super smart. And a lot of them, too, you know, you can't. From somebody's first job, I learned that you can't. You got to be careful about your judgments on people, right? They can really surprise you. They can really surprise you. I had one co-op student that, you know, I've got so much respect for this kid. And I haven't followed up with him a super long time, but I actually had to pull him aside once. And I wasn't even his boss at this time. It was before I was promoted. And I said, man, everybody's watching. And we can tell you're just goofing off. You're not doing anything. We can tell you don't care about what you're doing. And I kind of... The whole time I'm saying this, I'm thinking, this kid's not going to pick up. He's not going to pick up what I'm putting down. He did a 180, became one of my favorite co-op students. Wow. And came back for another term and did it again. Dude, I bet he's a phenomenal engineer today. That's so cool. Yeah, it was so cool to watch. He just needed that talk. And I'm probably just so... stupid and prideful to think it was what I said to him, but maybe, I don't know. But, and maybe he would have done it anyways, right? It doesn't matter, but I just, I'm proud of him. You know, I think that's, that's super cool. Right, right. But you'd always, you always learn something, you know, especially in, you know, kind of look back and you see, you know, parts of yourself and, you know, how you behaved and, and how you think differently about things as you move forward is kind of cool. Yeah. But anyway, so, so I'm working at, at, at Siemens, having a good time. They gave me so many opportunities, and I was really blessed to be able to do that in my hometown. A lot of cool responsibilities. Got to be on some IEEE committees and things like that. Got to work with customers. When something, and I'm pretty sure this probably had something to do with why I was able to get promoted, was when something went really wrong. Really, really wrong. They would shoot me out into the field. And God had just blessed me to be able to talk with people, calmly look at the facts, and then instill some confidence in them that I was going to help them. And I had the backing of this company and this amazing team behind me that I knew we could help you. So we got out of some good situations. You know, anyway, so that was a lot of fun. Super good people. The plant manager today is a good friend of mine. Oh, nice. He was in production and had worked for the company when it was a family -owned business. He's a super cool guy, and I still Ð I try not to bother him too much because he's got so much responsibility, but I'll go. Try to pick little pieces of wisdom from him here and there. And there's tons of other people there, some of them that I've got to work with, some of them that are new to me even, but great people. And then so kind of backing up a little bit, backtrack just a hair. So the family-owned business, it was started by the Bridges family, and they moved down from Downers Grove, Illinois. to Heber Springs back in the 80s, I think. Hope I don't get that wrong. So the son, and forgive me if I don't know a whole lot about their family structure, but one of the sons, he had my father and our family build their home. So I would have been, I'm going to say I was probably like 8 to 11, 12, somewhere in that area. I know we were putting phone lines in his house, so maybe that'll date it somehow, right? So I was helping him run these phone lines like a little squirrel in the attic through his new home. And he said to me, maybe someday you'll come work for me. And I really remember that. He's a super nice man. And they were so good to our family, even on the job site, like just super nice people. And I said, yeah, maybe so. And so I had the chance to run back into them, him and his wife, at some kind of event in the past couple years and got to tell him that story. Because I think it's cool. He probably didn't care. I think it's cool. I did get to work for him. And then today I even sort of work with what him and his father did. So I think that's cool. Not just my family, but how everything just kind of gets intertwined. Yeah, absolutely. So did you start Dark Threat right after the job at Siemens? So it's a little bit messy because I was still working at Siemens. And at the time, it was a hobby, right? So what I always like to say, I want to be funny, right? I don't know. That's what every boss wants, right? On the office, you want everybody to laugh at you. Well, how do you talk to your wife? Into letting you put 43 inch tall dump truck tires on your pickup truck. Well, you find a way to make it tax deductible. And so that's what I did. I, we created, um, I actually, I had a patent, um, on, uh, ATV ramps that I came up with when I was in, I came up with it when I was in high school and actually built a prototype in the yard with just chop saw stick welder. My dad helped me as much as he could. I think we had to go find somebody that had a plasma torch. He actually invested and bought us one. Yeah, and we still have it today. Yeah, it still works. Anyway, so built that prototype, and we decided to get a utility patent on it, and I got it. But I'm in college. You know, I don't have the funds or resources to try to push this into production. And then so I thought while I was working at Siemens, it's like, well, maybe now I can kind of turn that into something and, you know, play with truck stuff because that's what I want to do anyway in my free time. So I started doing that. And I. I had some co-op students, one in particular, I'm pretty sure this guy's name is Timmy Langston, super nice guy. He would kind of come hang out with us because he's away from his family and stuff like that. And he said, you need to put this stuff on Instagram. And I was like, Instagram? What is that? I don't have time for that. I don't want to fool with that. He's like, no, no, no, do it. And so we did. And we were like Pinterest and Instagram. Maybe Facebook. I don't know if we did everything else. But it started immediately getting traction. Like people are like, I want one of these. And these are the ramp, the ATV ramps? No. So I probably went about it the totally wrong way. So I'm sort of thinking big picture, but I'm not mature enough or smart enough, not enough experience to know the right way to go about starting a business. So I was like, I'm going to make a stretch goal. I'm going to SEMA this year. And I just, like, not even eight months or so, I'm like, I'm going to SEMA. And, like, the way I had been raised and I'd been so blessed, I didn't really know what it was like to set a goal and not make it because I just worked at it and did it. And God was like, oh, man, you're killing me. You know, he's like, I guess I'll make this work for you too. Right? I was just blessed and it happened. So I do that and immediately put a ton of stress on myself, my father, my wife, all of my mom, our family. And I thought, well, I've got to develop multiple products. I can't just take one. So I came up with some headache racks and exhaust stacks. And then I was trying to still develop the ramps, but I didn't have enough in-house capability to bend sheet metal. My dad had bought a plasma table. I'm trying to think, what brand was that? Red, maybe Dynatorch? It was a pretty decent machine for the price. And we got a 6x12 because I needed the efficiency because all the width of full-size pickup trucks to be able to more cost-effectively get the frames out. And these were fabricated headache racks. So I spent a lot of time figuring that part out. So somehow we made it to SEMA, but I didn't get the ramps there. And it wasn't the end of the world. We made it into the top 10 on maybe, I think, the headache racks of the new products that year in 2014. Oh, wow. And then we made it into the top 25 with the other product that we had, which was the exhaust stack. So we got magazine articles. We got all kinds of stuff. That's cool. And we just... were just so small, right? We had a nice building, but we didn't have any employees. We didn't have, you know, any backing, a real solid plan. Like we just had orders and I guess the will to work. So we started working lots of nights and weekends and it was getting pretty exhausting. And I was like, I've either got to just kind of hang this up and make it a hobby like it is, or could this turn into something? And I look back now, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. I was just so, I guess, young and maybe naive in ways and just crazy enough to do it. Yeah. And so we prayed about it. That's the time to do it. Yeah. I talked to my wife about it. She's like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this? Because I mean, I had a good job, good benefits. And so I... I left on great terms with this company, and they're just like, are you sure you want to do this? I think I am. And so in 16, I quit. So a couple years, I left there and started pursuing that. And then, yeah, it was tough, you know, just like anything. So 16 is when you were like full-time. Yeah, full-time doing it. Yeah, and my dad, I told him, I said, Dad, just keep doing your thing. We're not ready. And, of course, he's so excited to work with me and to do this stuff too. He's just like, oh, I'm in. He's gone. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. But he's so excited and he's always just ready to support and jump, dive in, right? That's cool. And, man, he works so hard, man. My dad has put in so much just blood, sweat, tears, but he just doesn't Ð he just seems to me like just such a strong man, right? Because I don't Ð he's never shown any weakness, right? He's just plowing along. Well, anyway, so he dives off there in 16. And, yeah, we were Ð so we were plasma cutting our own material. welding it together. Bending was, you know, we were having to make a lot of sacrifices in that area, doing it in really manual ways. And I'm already trained. Like, there's a world of tools out there, but they're expensive. Right? So we did as good as we could there, but we had to outsource our powder coating. So I think we tried seven different places in the state of Arkansas. and my wife would be like running for hours one direction trying to get you'd wait forever this they would say it'd be a hundred dollars you go to pick it up they give you a six hundred dollar bill like like we just and and then you i would tell them on the phone like i really need this sandblasted it's got to be sandblasted yeah yeah we're gonna sandblast it they didn't sandblast it they just washed it if that and then what happens That blued steel flakes off and your customer's mad and things like that. So I told my wife, I said, if we can't powder coat this stuff in-house, we're going to have to hang it up. If we can't control the quality going to the customer, I'm not going to do this because I just want to make sure they're happy. And so that was our first really big equipment investment. And for us, it was huge because, I mean, it was more than a house. What year was that? So, I mean, that would have been. Like 16. Oh, so right away. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm immediately running into these roadblocks of things because my standards are so high. Had you hired employees yet? You're still doing it yourself? Yeah. Just me and my dad, my wife. And so, and the whole time I did it, I'm doing it with this vision and I'm probably going too far, right? Because I was like, well, I want to grow. If I'm going to get an oven. I want to be able to fit whatever I want in there so I don't have to turn a job down. So we ended up getting a really large oven. It's like 10 by 10 by 30 foot inside. And so bigger powder booth. We've got some outdoor blasting equipment. I mean, you name it. And so it's like we're just going to powder coat and fabricate. So that's what we did. And that went pretty good. But, yeah, we quickly ran into that employee issue. I was really concerned when I was planning it because I'd done a lot of CapEx projects in my prior jobs. So I was really concerned about how much is this going to cost to run? So I kept asking and quizzing the guys with the ovens and everything. And I say, how much is it going to take in gas per hour? Because we have to use propane because we're in a rural area. And the guy just laughed and he's shaking his head. He goes, man, he's like, what are you worried about? He's like, your labor is going to outshine all of this expense. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Because, I mean, you know, I'm doing all this myself, right? And I just couldn't see it. But, oh, man, was he right. That was a nugget of wisdom. You know, labor's, you know, just a huge, huge cost. Yep. Well, so I ended up having some friends start, you know, and I had a couple guys kind of help a little bit. And then, you know, we obviously couldn't pay, you know, decent at all. And so, you know, they leave on good terms and do other things. And finally, I talked to my wife is from Cave City, which is, you know, quite a bit north of where we live today. And we would go to cookouts and stuff. with her friends. And one of her friends had a husband that was a machinist. And so inevitably we would talk to each other at these cookouts and things. I'm like, man, this guy's really smart. He's pretty sharp. So I started working on that guy. I was like, you need to come work with me. You need to come work with me. And I'm sure he's thinking, this is nuts. This guy. It's just starting something. What is he thinking? But somehow I wore him down, and he came to work with me. Oh, wow. And he's been with us now. I mean, we're getting close to 10 years, I think. He's still with you? Yes. Oh, that's cool. One of my best friends, and he's so smart and careful. I can fully trust that he has the integrity to do something the right way. Yeah. It's important. And I kind of pulled him out of that machining world and stuck him in a sheet metal world for several years. And then in the past probably three or four years, we've kind of got back. We've added machining sort of to our umbrella of things that we do. Oh, okay. So he's there now, but still, anyways, super good guy.