0:01 - Madeline
So in today's episode, we had a guest that hits close to home, his father and my grandfather, Rich Richardson, who we know as Peapop. It hits really close to home that he was here and that we were able to pick up on his life and record that and have kind of that connection, you know, kind of see where you came from with your dad being an engineer and all these things. You know, I liked how you pointed out that he was a hard worker, so that encouraged you to be a hard and just things like that.

0:32 - Andy
Yeah, it's interesting because I had Charlie on. He's my son. He didn't go into engineering, but he was the son of an engineer, and I was the son of an engineer. I did go into engineering. He never got a P.E., but he was the engineering of the phone company Bell South in South Carolina, so we'll learn all about that, of course, but yeah, Yeah, so it's just an interesting episode in that regard because it's close to home. I mean, it's my dad. I think the listeners will enjoy that. Also, I think you're going to get a lot of education on things because I do buildings. Most of the people involved in this AEC, in this podcast, or listen to it, are mostly building type of things, whereas this is the phone company. And it's a different realm so you're going to really learn some new things about fiber optics and sound and binary versus analog sound. It's actually quite intriguing and it was a type of thing that I remember being intrigued with growing up. I didn't necessarily ever intend on going into engineering per se but in other words I went there through a different path But I do think that that osmosis of engineering in my life, that having that in my life helped me realize that engineering was something I wanted to do. So, you know, we don't really get into that in the episode, so that's more of a contextual aspect. One funny thing about my dad that we didn't also get into the episode is his name. You know, kind of a funny thing. I mean, I know an example was, I was like asking him after the episode because we really didn't get into his name. Richard, Richard Richardson, which might, might be like, are you serious? It goes by Rich too. Yeah, it goes by Rich. So Richard Richardson, and growing up, he had this funny story that, that he shared after the episode, which is when he was, in the first grade, his teacher said, what's your name? And so he said, my name is Richard Richardson, and I live on Richardson Circle. And she said, go to the principal's office. Because he was just trying to be silly. He was telling the truth, but he was also being silly.

3:12 - Madeline
I think it was more like, this is so cool that my name is Richard Richardson, and I live on Richardson Circle. And she was like, there's no way that's true.

3:19 - Andy
which he grew up in a town called Hartsville, South Carolina, and we just worked on a project there, and they, for Cochran College, they have this porch called Richardson Porch, and so I was thinking, well, what if he was on Richardson Porch? He could say, I'm Richard Richardson that lives on Richardson Circle, and I was on Richardson Porch, but, so anyway.

3:41 - Richard
Let's see how many Richardsons we can fit in this one.

3:44 - Andy
Yeah, funny little fun fact about my father. But so, yeah, this is a hopefully you enjoy this episode. I did. And hopefully you did. So hopefully our listeners will as well. So my name is Andy Richardson, and this is the Enhanced Podcast. This is the producer, Madeline, and also my daughter. So I've been doing this 26 and we're just on a journey to learn about architects and engineers and construction. Professionals and what they do and also why they do it. So if that's something that you're interested in, come check it out. All right, let's jump to the intro.

4:31 - Madeline
Welcome to Enhance, an AEC podcast where we learn the why behind AEC professionals so that you can learn your why.

4:39 - Andy
So welcome to the Enhance podcast. Well, thank you. You ever been on a podcast before? All right. Well, it's just a good time to share a little bit about yourself. You've been listening to the podcast a little bit though, right? Very interesting. Well, you know our format then. So, the first thing I like to do is throw a bit of an interesting curveball, I guess. So, if your career a movie or a TV show, what would be the movie or TV show?

5:20 - Richard
How about that?

5:21 - Andy
Yeah, you have to say, what is Jeopardy?

5:25 - Richard
Oh, Jeopardy is a game show.

5:26 - Andy
Yeah, I know, but you have to say it in the form of a question, right?

5:29 - Richard
Oh, okay. Well, I was answering your question.

5:33 - Unidentified Speaker
Yeah, you're right.

5:34 - Richard
What is Jeopardy?

5:35 - Andy
What is Jeopardy? So, no, I'm just kidding. Okay, so why would you say that?

5:41 - Richard
Well, in life of jeopardy, there's always a hazard in whatever you do. But there's positives and there's negatives, right? The daily double and you don't get it.

5:55 - Andy
Yeah, was there any in particular that come to mind? I guess career, life, or any other aspects that makes you say that?

6:05 - Richard
um well I mean I went through a change in life when I became a christian okay everything everything in my life changed a little bit I mean so I went from one aspect uh underachieving under motivated to uh achiever a highly motivated person.

6:37 - Andy
Okay, so and what age were you when that change occurred? Okay, 25. What were some of the biggest things that were going on before that versus after that? I mean obviously we're a PG, but what kind of aspects? I'm not sure I want to publicize it before Or, you know, you can share what you feel comfortable with.

7:05 - Richard
Yeah, well, I was in the Navy and a typical enlisted sailor. And then I got married right before I got out of the Navy. So, I changed a little bit when I got married. The commitment, the physical commitment and the emotional commitment but then, you know, I was always, I still was satisfied with doing just enough to get by at work and stuff, so.

7:43 - Andy
Right, but you had a family to support and you wanted to do what you had to do to support the family, but then you became a Christian and that changed, you had some other changes in your life. There that was significant? I mean, was it just more spiritual aspects, or was there other aspects as well that folks that tied into your career?

8:06 - Richard
Well, it's do all things as unto the Lord. So, I started being, you know, if you go out on a job site, construction job site, and you see guys with shovels, the most typical scene is when, with his hands, I mean, and when the boss comes, you get busy to work. So, who's your boss? And, you know, you don't have to worry about who's watching, because you always know that the Lord is there watching. So, anyhow.

8:46 - Andy
I mean, that's a great work ethic right there. And I can say, obviously, we'll give little bit more primer on this but you're my father for the for the audience and I mean I saw your work ethic growing up so that was one of the things that I learned and also one of the things that we talked about when Charlie my son was on here as well was work ethic so and I could share that as well so just seeing that was never never something that I felt like you were ever not working hard. I always saw you as a hard-working man, and I definitely appreciate that, teaching me that and helping me understand the value of that. So, you went to the Navy, and what prompted that, exactly?

9:39 - Richard
The Vietnam War. I went to Clemson when I graduated from high school, and I was there Now, is there a P in that, by the way?

9:50 - Andy
That's the way you pronounced it.

9:53 - Richard
Well, it depends on where you're from, right?

9:57 - Andy
There's a P in there, sounds like, if you look at the way it's spelled or not, but anyway, that's a fun little thing. So, you went to Clemson. How'd that play out?

10:07 - Richard
I was not real motivated. My parents paid for my college, and I enjoyed my year and a half. I was going to get drafted, so it was the first year of the draft lottery, and I was going, my number was like two or three in the draft lottery, so I was going to get drafted because I was behind in hours.

10:37 - Andy
So, they would have pulled you out of school?

10:41 - Richard
Well, I just dropped out because I knew I was going to get drafted. So, and then I joined the Navy. It was December of and so I sort of goofed off for a couple months and joined the Navy in March.

11:04 - Andy
Okay, and what was your major in school while you were there? Okay, that's not what you normally say though, right?

11:16 - Richard
Well, you said it's PG, right? Yeah, well, you can... Party, pool, and poker.

11:22 - Andy
Yeah, so, but you, you know, I mean, you say that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but, I mean, you really did spend some time doing those things, right? But at the same time, what we started this conversation with is, you know, the other side of the coin, the man you became, not the man you were, right? So, that's the light at the end of the tunnel is, you know, you can have that moment and then also change and become something respectable. So, you majored in the three Ps, you went to the Navy, and how was the Navy? Was there anything there that shaped your life?

12:02 - Richard
Well, I really got a lot of benefit out of the Navy. And I was not very military, but I was a fireman, an interior communications fireman. I was an E3 after boot camp, and I was an IC man. I went to A school in Chicago, 13 weeks of electronics and and uh electrical theory and stuff like that so that was a good basis for me and then um I went to like about a year and a half later I went back to 13 of uh c school which is a advanced school and I was a gyro technician ship's navigation system for the I was on ddgh the USS Sims out of Charleston, and I was a gyro tech on that ship.

13:10 - Andy
So you did that, you were deployed a lot during your time there?

13:17 - Richard
It went on two mid cruises, a couple of Caribbean cruises, a North Atlantic cruise with NATO. We were the only American ship in that cruise. And then we went to dry dock in Charleston, and then we took a cruise to six weeks at Gitmo in Cuba, which is the East Coast training ground where after you come out of the shipyard, you run testing. They got all kind of test runs out there in Cuba.

13:54 - Andy
Did that time with the electronics, did that impact your career at all?

13:59 - Richard
Yeah, well we, interior communications was anything communicating internal to the ship. Telephones, intercoms, sound powered phones, which was the backup when the power was off in a battle condition. Telephones and anything to do with communications. A lot of intercoms and stuff.

14:27 - Andy
uh when I got out of the navy I went to work for the telephone company and uh southern bell at that time so okay um so my background helped me with that with the telecommunications right um so before we go to bell south or it was called southern bell and then eventually bell south I guess uh but before we go to that uh back to the Navy, so it impacted you, it gave you some foundation, it sounds like,

15:01 - Richard
Technical skills, how to diagnose stuff.

15:05 - Andy
And then also, I guess, the soft skills, if you will, was there anything there learned? Leadership, management, or other aspects? Discipline, maybe. Was there any other soft skills learned?

15:17 - Richard
Yeah, I was on the receiving side of the discipline a little bit. No, not really, but Yeah, I mean, we were a small organization and most of the time I was in the Navy. My friends were over me and it was, you know, I did my job. I did a good job, so I didn't ever have a problem. I found that, you know, if you do your job, you can achieve and you don't get in trouble, pretty much.

15:53 - Andy
So, it was just steady cruising, no pun intended, during the Navy with your work aspects.

16:00 - Richard
Yeah, I got a promotion. I C3, I C4, and then I passed the E5, and they wanted me to extend and to take it. I had to extend. You had to have a year left, and I didn't want to extend, so I turned that down. Kind of foolhardy. The time but yeah so you didn't want to stay in no no too much time on the waters or just ready to move on well well it was it was the late 60s early 70s 72 so the whole whole the country and everything was in turmoil um vietnam and you know that when people were spitting on soldiers and sailors and stuff when they came back into the airports and stuff. I mean, and I wasn't a military person, so.

17:03 - Andy
Yeah, well you were. I mean, you spent, you did your, what, four or five years?

17:07 - Richard
Yeah, but I mean, I didn't want to do 20.

17:10 - Andy
Right, right. You didn't want to make it a career, so to speak.

17:15 - Richard
Although, looking back, it's probably It probably is not a bad thing for people to do, is make a career. I mean, I think they were going to give me re-up $20,000 for four years. Because I was in a critical rating at the time.

17:31 - Andy
That would be a nice bonus to get now.

17:35 - Richard
Well, back then, in 72, that was a lot of money. Yeah, that's a big bonus.

17:43 - Andy
Well, I guess with the, like you were mentioning, people viewed the military, and in general, I mean, the general public, there was obviously a polar difference between them, but there was a lot of the public that had a negative connotation, and then, of course, the other side as well. But you mentioned your major, the three P's, did those extracurricular activities carry on through into the Navy at all?

18:14 - Richard
I told you I was a typical Navy guy.

18:17 - Andy
Yeah, so what's the most, was there any particular aspect of that that rings a bell that the audience might enjoy? Like a little story or something?

18:32 - Richard
Maybe not.

18:34 - Andy
Yeah, okay. Well, one thing about it, maybe you can tune in on a different level or catch up with him on a private level, he'll tell you a few stories from the Navy. Or catch up with me, I'll tell you a few, too. But nonetheless, there was one thing about the Navy that I really appreciated, which is a lifelong friend that you gained. So that's really cool. I mean, some people don't ever have that type of friend, but you did. You had a lifelong friend. Would you like to explain that or describe that a bit?

19:13 - Richard
Sure, um, name was Pat Van, and uh, we went, you know, totally different people when we, when I hit, he had been in the Navy about, about six months longer than I had been on the ship, so he was an old hand when I came on board, and he thought I was from a foreign country, uh, so I came in with college my khaki pants and press shirts and from, you know, you know how they are at Clemson with the khaki pants, right? So, anyhow, those are leftovers from Army ROTC.

19:57 - Andy
Yeah, okay. So, you guys clashed at the beginning?

20:00 - Richard
Well, not clashed, but he just thought I was kind of strange.

20:03 - Andy
Yeah, like a preppy kind of guy. Yeah, preppy, yeah. Yeah, that's funny. Because a lot of people probably think Clemson, they probably think we're wearing a bunch of overalls or something up there. So, uh, Stoney would probably suggest that.

20:15 - Richard
But he was, he was the telephone technician on the ship. He became, he went back to C school, A school and C school, he was a telephone tech. So, um, and he lived in Columbia, his family did, and we were both in, both on the same ship. And so we went to Columbia a lot, almost every night. From Charleston? From Charleston, yeah.

20:44 - Andy
Yeah, that's a pretty good hike, probably what, an hour and a half?

20:47 - Richard
Yeah, we had a lot of ladies up there, but anyhow.

20:55 - Andy
Some of those extracurricular activities were in Columbia? And what did you do?

21:05 - Richard
we'd do different things. A lot of times we'd hang out at one of the girls' houses and stuff, and we'd be back the next morning for muster at seven o'clock.

21:19 - Andy
We got two people, so we could pair off driving.

21:21 - Richard
Yeah, so anyhow, and so we, you know, something about the service is you are put in work situations that you do depend on each other, no matter what branch. You depend on each other. So you learn to depend on each other. And so we became close. Because the most we ever had in our crew was maybe seven guys in our little shop that we did on the ship. And I mean, there were about 300 guys on the ship, 250 to 300 on the ship. But our little area was about seven. And so we worked very close with all the guys on the ship. And he ended up getting married. And he introduced me to my wife. She was a blind date. And so, we just, he went to work for the telephone company, and I got out about nine months after he did, and I went to work for the telephone company.

22:41 - Andy
Same place?

22:43 - Richard
Well, he was doing a different job. He was an installer, and I went to work as a lineman. I was climbing poles and doing the heavy construction stuff.

22:54 - Andy
Were you pressing your hands on the shovel or were you working?

22:57 - Richard
No, I was climbing poles.

22:59 - Andy
Well, I didn't know if you dug them in the ground or something. See, I don't know much about the phone. I don't know much about the phone. I do structural, so this is a different realm. I'm just kidding a little bit because I know they probably drove those in with a pile driver.

23:12 - Richard
Well, they bored them out. Yeah, okay. But we didn't do that. We had contractors that placed all the poles.

23:18 - Andy
So you climbed it up and did work up on the top of the pole?

23:22 - Richard
Yeah, it's structural. There's a lot of structure to a pole line.

23:28 - Andy
Yeah, for sure. Guys and yeah. Wind loads.

23:33 - Richard
Pull on the pole and measure the pole to see how much cornering, you know, if it's over three feet of pull.

23:42 - Andy
Now did you have to do those calculations or was that something that was like prescriptive?

23:48 - Richard
Well, they would take, the engineer, we'd have drawings the engineer would put down on there where to put a guy, how to place it. Then they would go out and stake where the pole went and stake where the guys went. And they would put the rods, the contractor would put the rods in, and the line crew would place the strand, the overhead strand, and then the down guys to keep the pole from pulling over. And then you have dead end guys. And then, well, later, I started to work for a telephone company. And about a year in, two years in, I went back to, I had forgotten more than I ever do at Clemson, so I just opted to start all the way over again, and I went to Midlands Tech, and I started off in electrical engineering, associates in electrical engineering, and I was working the day and going to school at night, and then I had to change jobs because I couldn't get all the classes I needed at night. So I took a night job with a telephone company. You could bid on jobs and move around. So I took a night job and worked 12 to 8, midnight to 8. And then went to school in the daytime. And I had to change my degree. I got an associate's in general So, so I didn't have a specialty, but I had a lot of, I took, um, I took surveying classes, I took some thermodynamics, all kind of different courses to get my degree, um, associate's degree, and mostly was in electrical, but, um, so anyhow, I got my associate's degree, um, and then I I was still working for the telephone company in a craft. A craft is a union position. You don't have to be a union shop in South Carolina, but it was a union job, but you didn't have to be union. So I bid on getting back outside to work in installation repair. And kept on having problems getting outside. And then, so I went to ESP, which is Engineer Selection Program. And so they saw my credentials, associate's degree. So I was given a job as a junior engineer. And uh so and so I started a got out of got out of the construction phase and into engineering okay so they saw so really your goal I guess it was your goal to go over to engineering or is that why you went into the engineering program well yeah I wanted to be a engineering program but I thought I would at the time now you can go to middle school to get an associate's degree in engineering and transfer as a first semester junior directly to Clemson or Carolina with the South Carolina Technical Schools. But they wouldn't let you do that back then. They would only transfer. I was going to have to go in as a first semester sophomore. So I was going to lose a whole year's of school. In the engineering program. So, I went to Carolina. I don't like to say this. Then I went to Carolina. I lived in Columbia, was married, was working, and so I went to Carolina and I went into a B.A.I.S. Bachelor of Arts in Independent Study. And that's in the school of hospitality, and I don't know why they got it that school, but the program's no longer in existence, but mature students could take that program, and I had to have a counselor and come up with 120 hours. I got 60 hours of it to start with, and then I came up with a course of study. I couldn't take engineering courses, but so I management courses, computer science, and safety courses. So, safety engineering courses and stuff that suited my view. At that point, Bell South, it was Bell South then, or I think it just turned into Bell South, but they were more concerned about me having a degree than what the degree was. Because I was already, I had been promoted to an engineer. And I don't have a PE, obviously. The telephone company, AT&T, Southern Bell was a subsidiary of AT&T back then. And then in 1984, they had the split of seven regional companies, and AT&T was the long distance company. And so it became Bell South. South Central Bell and Southern Bell combined to be Bell South. So it was Bell South back then. I forgot where I was going with that.

30:27 - Andy
Well, I was kind of intrigued by the Ma Bell thing a little bit. I think we were going into about your degree. You needed a degree.

30:39 - Richard
So at Bell South at that time, I had been promoted to engineer before that. So AT&T had a unique position. With everybody. I operated as an engineer under the seal of the engineer of AT&T, the local, the statewide engineer. Okay, everything we did was prescription. So, it was already engineered and designed. We put in manhole that were pre-engineered so if you you could put one in if you put it in a prescribed manner you didn't have to have a seal on it it would already been designed and so everything we do pole placement, strands, tensioning, stress on the poles is all tables and charts and you could look everything up and Yeah, so if they just go put in a phone line over here, they don't have to have that engineered per se.

32:00 - Andy
It's already engineered in a book somewhere.

32:03 - Richard
Well, I mean, the field conditions change all the criteria, but the prescriptions are all figured out.

32:13 - Andy
Yeah, so nobody signs that particular site per se.

32:16 - Richard
Well, the individual that designed it but it's sealed under our auspices, the AT&T auspices.

32:24 - Andy
Yeah, at a high level. That makes sense. So back then, you were doing a lot of foam lines in the air. Was there much in the ground at that time, or?

32:41 - Richard
Yeah, yeah.

32:43 - Richard
Well, it depends on- Poplar? Subdivisions and stuff like that, you put in buried, okay.

32:52 - Unidentified Speaker
Buried cable.

32:53 - Richard
Buried cable, yeah. That was the preferred method is to bury it. You don't have the weather effects, corrosive environment like down here. If you put it in the ground, you don't have to deal with the corrosion of the air. You don't deal with hurricanes and aerial storms, but then there's a whole different set. You deal with water companies, electric companies, marionettes, gas companies, so you have a lot of cut cables, so it's a different kind of, but you, yeah, so we tried to design, and I was an engineer, and then my next job was, I worked was a, I don't even know what the title was anymore, but I was a project manager and my job was to design all the large customer special applications in the state of South Carolina. So I was on the state staff. It was a regional area in South Carolina. Before that, and then I was on the state staff and I had special projects.

34:16 - Andy
Okay and that's that's where you would you say ended up at the end or you kept? There's more steps to this. Okay what was?

34:25 - Richard
Well that was at the very beginning uh putting a lot of we began fiber optic before anybody else did.

34:35 - Andy
Meaning anybody else other states or other companies?

34:39 - Richard
Any other companies. Bell South. Bell South. AT&T Bell South. Western Electric came up with the design, which was AT&T, of fiber optic cable. You know, Western Electric came up with transistors. So, they're the ones that introduced transistors into the world. And the fiber optic cable, lasers, LEDs, all those things came out of Bell Labs, Western Electric.

35:15 - Andy
Bell Labs, Western Electric, what does that mean? I mean, it's a part of...

35:19 - Richard
Yeah, you had the regional, under AT&T, you had regional companies, Southern Bell, Southwestern Bell, regional. Then you had the laboratories, Bell Labs, and then Western Electric was the manufacturing facility for AT&T.

35:35 - Andy
And that was, that was out of the Silicon Valley? Was that where that was located?

35:41 - Richard
There was a lot of it in New York. Mars Hill, New Jersey is where the labs, biggest lab part, I mean, of course, it was nationwide stuff.

35:55 - Andy
I was just listening to something about Bell Labs. So, they came up with the fiber optic cable. Did that start becoming something you started installing?

36:08 - Richard
Well, it started back in the mid-70s, but developing it, but my real first thing, we started putting in, you have local facilities and you have inter-regional facilities, we call them trunk cables. So connecting Charleston and Beaufort would be a trunk cable. Then you have stuff tying the network together locally. So we would put in from Columbia to from Columbia to Newberry. Those were the first fiber optic cables that went in for the long haul because the economics and the transmission characteristics of it. It's a lot more complicated than...

37:22 - Andy
Why did they go to fiber optics? What's the advantage of it? It over copper, because copper was the way it was done before, correct?

37:29 - Richard
Yeah, well, um, you can take, we put these copper cables in, 3600 pair cables, and they weigh about five pounds a foot.

37:45 - Unidentified Speaker
A linear foot?

37:46 - Richard
A linear foot. Okay, it's pretty heavy. Yeah, and you got to put them in somewhere, so we had to build Okay, and you had to put manholes between the conduit to terminate the cables because you can only get them so long because you can only pull them through the conduit friction-wise.

38:07 - Andy
Now is this braided wire or is this like one big round piece of copper? It's twisted pair.

38:12 - Richard
They're pairs of wires. So you'd have 3,600 twisted pairs. You can have, I mean there are lots of sizes, but in a main hall It's 3600 So then they discovered digital transmission. In the old days, everything was analog. Okay, then they found digital transmission.

38:38 - Andy
What's analog mean? I mean, I think a lot of our listeners know, but just...

38:42 - Richard
Analog means it's got a sinusoidal wave to it.

38:47 - Andy
Yeah, okay.

38:50 - Richard
It's either on or off. It's a one or a zero, or in the case of fiber optic, it's either a light or no light.

38:58 - Andy
Yeah, so that's called, some people call it binary, right?

39:02 - Richard
Yeah, okay. Okay, so they went to digital, and there's something called Poisson's Law, and the human voice goes from between 400 hertz and about 3,000 hertz, okay. So, they discovered that if they could sample something at 4,000 times a second, that they could take a picture, a derivative of the human voice. They could take a picture if they could sample it that many times. Then they took, they had these electronic devices that they invented that would do that, would take the picture, and you could take it apart, put it in on one end, tear it down to digits, and they used 128-bit words, and they put markers on either end, and then at the other in, you could take it and pull it back off. So, and you could take and you could put, I don't know if you've ever heard of a T1 or a DS1.

40:26 - Andy
Yeah, I mean, I've heard of it. T1 line is like top of the line, right?

40:29 - Andy
Well, no.

40:30 - Richard
Used to be? Used to be, yeah. So, you could put 24 voice channels Okay, so now I can over over two twisted pairs, four wires, I can get 24 channels out of it. That was when it was copper. Now you you can shoot it through the fiber cable and you'd have two fibers, a transmit and receive, and we'd actually have four because we'd have a transmit and receive and a backup. We had a redundant So now you could put two fibers in, in the very earliest things, and get 24 channels. Okay, but then they started multiplexing that. Okay, so the first ones were a DS2, and I've even forgot how many, how many, but so a DS3 is 45 megabits. So in a DS1 is 1.54 megabits. So you these first real good fiber optic systems were running at 45 megabits.

41:58 - Andy
Yeah now just to make sure because you're you're not misrepresenting megabytes it's megabits right? The bits are different.

42:07 - Richard
Bits is a word. Bit is a single on or off.

42:14 - Andy
Yeah, but I just wanted to make sure of that because maybe bits is usually used in this connotation with regard to transmission of signals, right? Is that a fair way to say it?

42:27 - Richard
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get so...

42:30 - Andy
No, no, that's very interesting. No, I mean it's very interesting to me. So, because I wanted to talk about this a little bit. I mean, we've talked about copper, fiber optic. I mean, I imagine they've definitely made some advances in the technology of the cable. But what's really intriguing to me, of course, we have these. I wanted to get into that a little bit. And also, data is so key right now. I mean, with the internet, obviously, and AI. Centers, but so those are some things I wanted to get into a little bit, but I guess the next thing on that thing would be the internet, which I guess the internet and the cell signals both kind of seem to come about at the same time, right?

43:19 - Richard
No, probably the internet came about a good bit before cell phones.

43:25 - Andy
Okay, so the internet was what, 80s, 70s?

43:30 - Richard
80s, yeah.

43:31 - Andy
Right about the same time this fiber optic that internet was coming in.

43:34 - Richard
Yeah, but the internet was something that colleges, that was a college, more of a... I think, I'm not sure who did it, I think maybe Stanford had a lot to do with it.

43:45 - Andy
Yeah, different west coast schools. Well, like Steve, Steve Jobs, not Steve Jobs, the other Steve, the Microsoft Steve. Or Bill Gates, sorry, Bill Gates.

43:57 - Richard
Wadiak, Steve Wadiak.

43:58 - Andy
Oh, Steve, the Waz and Steve Jobs. Jobs were Apple, but Bill Gates, he went to Washington, but they had the mainframes and all, but now I've gotten off track, what was I, the internet, and...

44:14 - Richard
Yeah, the cell phones were developed totally different from the internet.

44:20 - Andy
Right, but I mean, I guess the tie-in with your work is the necessity for the telecommunications is key to the internet. You're interconnecting computers. You have to have these wires to do it.

44:35 - Richard
Well, the trunk cables I told you about.

44:37 - Andy
Yeah, I mean that's connecting all the way from here, and now we have these data centers and things, so when I put my gmail and send it out, it's storing it somewhere, right? And it's really not here. It's in the cloud, which means I'm actually accessing some data center somewhere, but that would you say that all this technology makes that available, right?

44:59 - Richard
It makes that possible. Yeah, oh yeah. You used to call 911, right? Okay, so 911 was very rudimentary to start with. You had an operator that you called and hopefully you got through, but now it's all so sophisticated and enhanced. And, you know, I thought about cut cables and stuff, right? Well, in the early days, a man out there in the back of where that guy got the shovel like this, he steps down on it too hard, he's cut the cable that goes to the 9-1-1 center. So, you call 9-1-1, it's not going anywhere. Now, everything is redundant. So, they look at different routes with no I mean, uh, and that's something that the power company, the big power companies do. They have that, not to your individual house, but to the neighborhoods. They, most of them, have redundancy on the power lines. So, you'll see a little flash and it'll come right back up. It automatically switches to the alternate route. So, to hit one pole, a lot of times you won't, won't you'll just see a flat flash, and you won't be out for a long time. Down at the very end of the neighborhood, you might lose service for a long time.

46:32 - Andy
Yeah, I mean, we live in the country, so our internet can definitely be sketch.

46:40 - Richard
So I worked on special projects, so I'd get all these weird requests from customers. The marketing people were in We had a SWAT team, and I had the outside plant engineering stuff, anything in the outside, and they had electronic switching and all the other components of electronics, but we'd build special projects for people, and so that was very interesting because it was always something different, and you had to get brainstormed with the other engineers as that has specialized fields of engineering, and you come up with a solution. And when they had the Olympics in Atlanta, I think that was, what was it, 98?

47:33 - Andy
That was 96.

47:35 - Richard
We went down there and saw a match.

47:37 - Andy
Yeah, yeah.

47:38 - Richard
But so TV, digital tv you know it's old analog tv but um now you got um 4k and all that stuff well the first enhanced tv was done at the in america at the olympic bell south put it on at the at the Olympics in 1996.

48:14 - Andy
Okay, as a presentation or?

48:16 - Richard
Well, they had it broadcast in key venues, but they would go to, they had the camera, Sony made the first cameras, and so, but I was involved with helping to design the fiber network to run that. I was on the task force that we go down there to Atlanta once a week and fly down there in the morning and come back at night. But they had certain venues, like some big hotels and stuff, where they'd have, there were only like 10 cameras and they only had a few TV sets. I mean, these had been manufactured in Japan and brought over. So these were the first of the first in America and they did a transmission of a launch from Cape Canaveral.

49:16 - Andy
What was significant about a digital TV that was different about it?

49:19 - Richard
Well, it went from an analog signal and a low pixel content. They weren't pixels, it was a signal. The thing about analog If you get a good transmission with digital, it's either it's on or it's off. I mean, you know, when you lose a cell tower, right, you lose the whole thing. But with analog, you had a problem with quality of transmission.

49:54 - Andy
But you might get a transmission, but it just might be touchy.

49:58 - Richard
Noisy, and yeah, you get, You get all kind of things. The twisted, if you just have a regular pair of wires with no twist in it, you get what they call harmonics. And it causes ice and Eli, current leads, voltage in a capacitive circuits and vice versa in an inductive circuit. So if you have pairs of wire, they tend to create a capacitance. So the further you go with them, you have a shift in the phases. So you get more distortion with analog in that case.

50:57 - Andy
Now with the fiber optic cable, I mean, you mentioned light, so it's basically shooting light. How does that, I mean, how far can it do that?

51:10 - Richard
Well, it can do it a long way now. There's multi-mode cable, which was a bigger dimension internal to the little, I mean, these things are like hairs. With the regular fiber itself. I mean, they got a coating on them and all. But the original multimode cable was a bigger inside dimension. And so you would have refraction of the light off the inside of the glass. And so you'd lose the signal quicker, right? Single mode is a smaller diameter cable. And they keep getting better and better. They treat it. They learn that they start off with a big tube and they spray all kind of different chemicals in there to help the refraction, reduce the loss from refraction. So, the quality of the cable continues to improve, but then also the quality of the laser started off with LED. The lasers are much different, you know, they have a lot better quality, so you can shoot a laser longer than you could an LED. Now they do it, they multiplex the lasers with different frequency of light, so you might have four or five or a hundred signals going down the same fibers.

52:53 - Andy
Like one fiber is getting different signals?

52:55 - Richard
Yeah, they're a different frequency. They can strip it off. Oh, wow. They put it in four or five different signals at one end, and then they strip it off, and they know what they're looking for at the other end, so.

53:09 - Andy
So it's really sending multiple signals down one fiber.

53:13 - Richard
Well, it's a transmit and a receive.

53:17 - Andy
And it's doing both? At the same time as well. That's amazing. So, every time we pick up the phone or every time we type an email or something, all that's being done. If I email somebody in Korea, South Korea or anywhere, that's what's happening. Yeah, pretty much.

53:42 - Richard
But it's a lot faster than it used to be. I mean, you know, uh you you get these little uh hard storage devices what what do you get now uh I mean terabyte it used to be terabyte I haven't even bought one in a while but I mean you used to be you get 10 my first computer I was oh I was I was a also the uh support engineer at one time so I did all the budgeting for for a district, and all the administrative work for the district, for all the engineering people. But my first computer, my first PC, was a 10 computer.

54:29 - Andy
Now, is that megabit or megabyte on that one?

54:34 - Richard
Well, the computer is megabit, right?

54:36 - Andy
Well, normally those are bytes, usually bytes, yeah. Like terabyte or megabyte.

54:41 - Richard
Okay, megabyte. But 10 megabyte. It was 10 or whatever was in that.

54:47 - Andy
Yeah, not much.

54:49 - Richard
No, but I thought I was the hot, I mean, I was the first one in the office to get one like that.

54:56 - Andy
Yeah, yeah.

54:56 - Richard
So, I remember Texas Instruments, 1k. And you didn't have any storage, no RAM, no...

55:05 - Andy
1k, wow. That was a calculator, basically.

55:09 - Richard
It was the first PC. Personal computer for it was a texas instrument it was 1k and you had when you cut the power off you lost everything you had to reprogram I mean it was when you use cards right I remember one time I saw you had a stack of cards you brought home yeah well that was the mainframe yeah okay that's different yeah that was it doing fortran at carolina okay that was for school right okay Okay, so a lot has changed in the phone industry, and then the cell phones came along in there.

55:51 - Andy
Did you have any involvement with the cellular phones, cellular towers?

55:54 - Richard
Towers, yeah.

55:56 - Richard
I mean, I didn't put the towers in, but we provided the communications from the towers, too. You know, they can use microwave, too, but we landlines are more dependable than, secure and dependable than transmission through the air.

56:22 - Andy
So now that's basically the standard, right?

56:26 - Richard
Yeah, but there's a lot of encryption now and stuff that they weren't at one time. I mean people used to, back in the early cell phones, they could steal your calls.

56:38 - Andy
Well, they could do that on a landline, too.

56:41 - Unidentified Speaker
It's a little harder, though.

56:42 - Andy
In fact, that's one thing that, speaking of Steve Wozniak, he talked about that. When he was young, he would do, they called it ethical hacking. Have you ever heard of that? It's like you go in and you hack things, telecommunications or otherwise, computer mainframes, for the purpose that he would, it's ethical in the sense that Once he hacked it, he would call them and say, hey, I hacked your system. You might want to fix it.

57:14 - Richard
He was just lucky he didn't go to jail.

57:16 - Andy
Yeah, of course. But I mean, I think he learned a lot from that. But I was reading about the Waz about how he does ethical hacking. But I guess the point was anything could be hacked pretty much, right? Now, of course, cybersecurity is so important now because of how much we're using communications and things.

57:37 - Richard
Right, and everything, all your financial records and all your personal data is on there too.

57:43 - Andy
Right, right. How do you feel about that?

57:46 - Richard
Your personal data?

57:48 - Andy
Or hacking?

57:49 - Andy
You like to keep it offline pretty much, right? Your data as much as possible.

57:54 - Richard
I'm not a cloud guy.

57:56 - Andy
Yeah, okay. So, has there anything I mean, I think we've talked a lot about what's changed in the industry, old ways, new ways. Those have been really, we've really hit a lot of the high points today. I wanted to maybe get into, was there any, I guess just a few more things, because I really want to get into this, the enhanced world around us. That's one of the main themes of the show. Do you feel that what you've done, like, is there ever a time you're like, you know what, that really helped enhance the world? Because you're retired from the phone company now, right? But was there anything that you could say you're proud of during that time?

58:50 - Richard
Well, a lot of the, you know, when I did the special project stuff, we were very in We came up with a lot of solutions for different customer applications and stuff that were cutting edge, that hadn't been done before. I mean, we didn't get patents on it. We pieced together existing technology that was used in a way that was not applicable. I mean, I did a lot of research. A lot of stuff, I don't know, I mean, when I was on the project management staff, people were putting stuff in the roads, but they were very limited in what they could do. Now you can go out and you'll see these fiber handholds, right? I'm the one that got with the highway department and got the engineering done. I mean, I didn't do the engine. I went to the company that manufactured it and gave them all the specifications. So, those things were not allowed in the highway right away until we got it approved from Bell South with the state highway department.

1:00:12 - Andy
What do you mean handholds? What does that mean?

1:00:14 - Richard
That means rather than a big manhole where the man gets in it, you take the cover. If you're anywhere out here, you You'll see electrical, cable TV. There will be a vault, and it's a handhold. It's not big enough to get a man in, but you can put the wires down, and then they'll pull them out. And if you ever seen on the side of the road, you'll see these trailers, and you'll see a piece of cable going into the back of them. They're splicing fiber cable in that trailer and they'll put them back in that manhole and store them down there.

1:00:55 - Andy
But it's actually a handhold or it's a manhole?

1:00:57 - Richard
It's a handhold, yes.

1:00:59 - Andy
And is that better, the handhold?

1:01:03 - Richard
Well, it's a lot cheaper. And if you put in a lot of places, you know, anything you should cost and speed installation, I mean, putting a manhole in is very technical, not just from the installation, but the operations. If you go into a manhole, you've got to test it for gas. You've got to blow it. You've got to have lights or whatever. If you're working down in that manhole, you've got to have an environment that's safe to work in. And, you know, so all the other implications around the safety, where if you pull that hand hole up, you get it out the road. It's not in the road, but it's like on the sidewalk. But you couldn't put them in the sidewalks back then.

1:02:07 - Andy
So that's something to be proud of You can look around and you see all that.

1:02:12 - Richard
And how they've been utilized by everybody now. But, I mean, I didn't invent it, but I got it standardized in South Carolina. So, you know, I mean, just little things like that. When I was a first engineer, y'all talk, yeah, I've heard y'all talking about the buildings and stuff. And, you know, I go in, I could still ride down the street in West Columbia and look at stuff that I designed in 1976. And it's still in service.

1:02:51 - Andy
What is it that you're looking at though? It's like the manhole?

1:02:54 - Richard
Well, the pedestals or the poles or the cable that's on the pole. We have cross spot. You have trunk facilities between offices, electronic switching systems. From the offices out, you radiate with feeder cables. And then you have interconnection points where you spread out into local neighborhoods. So it's a cross box is what it was. Now we have electronical. We do it electronically. But so there's cross boxes that I put in in I could see that same design. Is still functional and still operating.

1:03:43 - Andy
And those people are able to talk on the phone and send emails and do AI because of that, right? Would you say that's a fair?

1:03:52 - Richard
Yeah, I mean there's limitation on how much you can transmit over those wires, okay? Depending on where you are. On a twisted copper pair, you're limited about 3,000 feet from an electronic interconnect device. So, it's not going to be too far and you don't you probably even notice them there on the side of the road all over the place, but that's what's making your phones work.

1:04:28 - Andy
Yeah, awesome. Well, I think we got a full education on fiber optics and phone and also a lot of So it's been quite interesting. I guess one thing is just, didn't really get into some of the obvious thing with you being my father. I wanted to touch on that briefly. So was there anything about your career as an engineer that impacted your life as a dad or as a family man? Did that impact you at all? Or how did that affect how you raised your family, I guess, is what I'm saying.

1:05:11 - Richard
More about my Christianity than my business. I placed my faith in everything I did. I would get up early, go to work, and I would try to be home to take y'all to any kind of practice or sporting event in the afternoon after school and stuff.

1:05:45 - Andy
So you got to work early so you could do that stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you rarely missed, I don't think you ever really missed anything that I can remember, but so no, I definitely appreciate that and appreciate your, you know, not only hard work but also the hard work of getting up and balancing that life. You know, this day and age, we hear so much about work-life balance, but really that is the balance, is you work hard and get up early so that you can spend time with your family. That's the lesson I'm hearing.

1:06:15 - Richard
I wouldn't take regular breaks. You had breaks, and I didn't take a break. I mean, sometimes I'd go get a cup of coffee or something, down at the coffee pot, but I'd go right back to work. Doing it, and then sometimes I'd go to lunch, but most of the time I'd grab something and be back, whatever I was doing.

1:06:37 - Andy
So, hashtag no breaks.

1:06:39 - Richard
Yeah, you like Dilbert, too, don't you?

1:06:45 - Andy
Yeah, yeah, I like Dilbert.

1:06:48 - Richard
You know, that's the telephone guy, right? Was it Bell South? No, he was out in California. Scott Adams. All that comes from telephone company management.

1:07:02 - Andy
Okay, so can you relate any of that?

1:07:04 - Richard
Oh, everything, everything.

1:07:06 - Andy
Comics that he did and everything? Yeah, that's funny. And then, so, now I became an engineer, and what did you think about that when I started going into engineering school and went off to be a structural engineer in civil engineering school?

1:07:23 - Richard
Yeah, I was very proud of you, and still am. Oh, well, I appreciate that.

1:07:28 - Andy
I mean, that wasn't necessarily what I was looking for, but I appreciate that. But were you surprised, or was it like, yeah, that makes sense, or what did you think?

1:07:39 - Richard
Yeah, I was surprised. At first, at first. I mean, I don't, my memory of your high school career was that you weren't really motivated in the classroom as much as you were to do in football and wrestling and other extracurricular.

1:08:06 - Andy
I guess I had a few of my own extracurricular activities that I was interested in, right?

1:08:10 - Richard
Yeah, and you, you know, what was your motivation, you know?

1:08:15 - Andy
Yeah, I mean, I think we definitely share, you know, some experience in that because you know, I didn't necessarily value school or anything like that until I realized getting out. Obviously I had a change of life as well with my faith, and also I saw some of the co-workers that I had, you know, like working in the restaurant industry. I just saw some of the lifestyles and realized, you know, I wanted to do something else besides that, so that's when I started looking at other options.

1:08:50 - Richard
But you've done a great job. You've raised a good family and so I appreciate it.

1:09:00 - Andy
Well, a lot of what I learned, I learned right from you. I mean, as far as how to raise a family, how to work hard, and also, I mean, just, I mean, you're a sharp guy. I mean, you were good with good with numbers. I mean, you went into the math field. So, I learned a lot from that from you. I mean, you're a good problem solver. So, would you say that's important in your career?

1:09:30 - Richard
No, I didn't finish my career.

1:09:33 - Andy
So, yeah, I mean, what are you up to these days, by the way?

1:09:36 - Richard
Well, I mean, I went from being a supervising engineer to an area manager.

1:09:43 - Andy
Okay, yeah, we kind of got sidetracked onto that.

1:09:46 - Richard
So yeah, all the electronics and everything, but I ended up having engineering, construction, and installation and maintenance. That's everything except the computer, the inside office and stuff. So I had all the functions in an area, and I had half of Columbia at one time. So I had all the guys that drove the trucks and girls that drove the trucks, but mostly guys back then.

1:10:19 - Andy
We have to call them ladies now.

1:10:22 - Richard
Excuse me. I don't want us to get in trouble. So I did develop. And of course, at my peak, I had 100 people. And uh 12 supervisors and so um working for me to cover that area and um I developed a lot of operational skills because my job went from being a task worker to a problem solver and uh even a supervising engineer I was a task worker in the way because I was checking the guy drawings and making sure that all the design criteria was right. But this was, my technicians knew what to do, my supervisors knew what to do, but when it got to where they couldn't handle it, then I had to get involved. And you know, major outages, you got half of Columbia out of telephone service, managing that and those kind of things. I've developed a lot of skills that I've used throughout my life.

1:11:42 - Andy
Management skills and stuff.

1:11:44 - Richard
Yeah, assessing, prioritizing, you know, so I use those every day now. I went through a very traumatic time with the telephone company. I was a top performer, always got That's when you get a raise, but if you were really a good performer, you get bonuses on top of that. And I always got bonuses and everything. One year, they had a, my boss went on a temporary assignment, and another guy came in, and we had a conflict. And at the same time, they went, they did a of downsizing, and he put me on the black list, black ball list. And so I was going to, for about 18 months, I was going to get downsized. Didn't know when it was going to happen, but I was the one, there were like 15 or 18 in the state, and there were two of us that would get gone, and I got on the black list. I was going to lose my job. And I was always all about the telephone company and everything, super rah-rah. And I realized that there was more to life than, I mean, I was a Christian, and I knew there was more than life. So it made me reevaluate my worth to the telephone company and my worth to God. And so I went through a process and I was going to, you know, they would give me a year and a half pay to sign a retirement package. And I said, no, that ain't right. And so I told them, no, I'm not taking that. So I got to 30 days to being terminated with no, I mean, I'd gotten a retirement package enough time but uh and so you sorry you were going to get that in lieu of or in addition to in addition to my retirement package a year and a half another salary for plus retirement yeah okay yeah but um but I didn't think it was right at the time and um so I went through a desert spiritually and emotionally during that time and um prayed, and 30 before I was going to get terminated, one of my peers decided that they were going to retire. And I was the only one qualified to do that job, the retiree. I had been in that job before, and she had taken it when I changed jobs. I was the only one in the state that could do that job. I went from nothing to indispensable and just like that. But it didn't change my attitude. I still wanted to do the best job I could do, but I was not going to sell out as much for them. And then that was about I sat around a few more years, but the Lord said, How much is enough? How much do you need? And so, in 2007, I retired. I could have stayed another 10 years, another 35 years. And so, I wanted to do volunteer work. And so, I've been doing that since 2007.

1:15:45 - Andy
So, you've been out almost 20 years.

1:15:49 - Richard
but you're still getting retirement or no okay yeah so you've been working a little bit though well I I took a lump sum pension okay I had a 401k and I took a lump sum pension way it works is uh with a pension um if I'd gotten monthly payments um I'd have gotten my pension um if I wanted survivor benefits then They reduce that by 10%. And if you die, then your spouse only gets 50% of the original amount. So I was 50. I retired when I was 57 and a half. And so if I'd have died when I was 58, my wife would have gotten half of what I was entitled to as a pension, whereas I got all of my pension, it's time value of money. So, it didn't get as much if I'd have lived 20 years taking a monthly pension, but I got it all that day I retired. So, I put it in IRA. So, that is my pension, my IRA.

1:17:13 - Andy
the way you wanted to.

1:17:15 - Richard
I still have the same amount as when the day I retired in my IRA.

1:17:21 - Andy
Yeah, that's awesome, and I know you get up and you look at that that spreadsheet and you got that old computer you use. So, what program do you use for that? It's like Excel or something?

1:17:35 - Richard
Well, I use, I do use Excel, but I got a accounting that goes back before Parsons Money Counts is the accounting software.

1:17:47 - Andy
Okay, and that's the same software you've been using for 25 years? Still using it. Parsons, that's a phone company thing too, isn't it?

1:17:56 - Richard
No, Intuit bought them out. They bought them out because Parsons was too good for them.

1:18:04 - Andy
Okay, but you're still using the same program. I do.

1:18:10 - Richard
Well, you can connect it to that.

1:18:12 - Andy
But the program you're using is offline. It's hard drive.

1:18:15 - Richard
It's hard drive, yeah. I'm about to... That's a 32-bit. I got two computers, by the way. I got a laptop and I got two desktops. But that one is still on Windows 7. Windows 7 and a 32-bit processor. Not a 64-bit. Now, what is the reason for that?

1:18:39 - Andy
You just have a...

1:18:41 - Richard
Well, that...

1:18:43 - Andy
Cheap or what?

1:18:45 - Richard
No, I got a new computer. I don't want it hard to use.

1:18:48 - Andy
I'm being a little hard on you, but what's the reason for that?

1:18:50 - Richard
Because Parsons takes a 32-bit processor, and you can't upgrade. All the new computers run 64-bit.

1:19:01 - Andy
And you like that program, basically. But you're pretty good with money. I mean, obviously, you said you hadn't touched it. And also, you... No, I've touched it.

1:19:10 - Richard
I've just hadn't touched the principle.

1:19:13 - Andy
The golden goose has remained intact, which is awesome. But the reason I was going over to the next point was, which is what you're... I guess you're still doing some consulting, right? What's your job?

1:19:29 - Richard
I do taxes on the side.

1:19:30 - Andy
Yeah, you do taxes. We're out of the tax season now, but I guess you do some consulting in between tax seasons?

1:19:38 - Richard
Not really anymore. I do a lot of volunteer work. I'm very active in Cairo's prison ministry. I've been doing that for 29 and another program called Jump Start, which is a transition prison ministry. It's one year in prison, and then you you can transition out of prison one year, housing, get you a job, mentor, anything you need for the first year. So, yeah, the prisons, and then when COVID hit, they shut down the prisons, and so I was looking for something to do, so I now volunteer at a one-year that week. Providence Home, I was there this morning. It's a transition home, 60 beds in Columbia, and then I'm on the board, and I teach a Bible study at another transition home called the House of Peace, and it's only 16 beds, but we're looking to expand that one.

1:20:54 - Andy
So you're putting your money, so to speak, where their mouth is with your faith, it sounds like, and really serving the community. And we can thank Bell South to give you that pension and to help you do that from...

1:21:12 - Richard
Via Bell South, through God.

1:21:15 - Andy
Yeah, and obviously you worked hard, and then you kept up with that gold goose, so, and that was definitely use of wisdom and use of your knowledge and ability to manage money well. But I wanted to go back briefly to the Bell South thing. You said years? I mean, that's a significant amount of time. That's your career. You spent 35 years. You don't see that these days. What's your thought about that?

1:21:44 - Richard
Well, that was, people came on and it was a family business. And if your family, I mean, they would hire you If your family, now my family didn't have anything to do with the telephone company, but if you were a veteran and, you know, I had credentials in the telephone fields, I was a shoo-in to get a job, okay? So, veteran, being a veteran is a good thing, even today. You get appropriate treatment by a lot of people as a veteran. It means you can, you know, get out with an honorable discharge means that you can cope with whatever comes about.

1:22:31 - Andy
Yeah, that's a significant thing. I mean, you served the country, and thank you for that. And then also, you were a service person, I guess, a lineman, and served that way. And, I mean, and then you went into the management side, so you really were able to, and now you're serving through these volunteer projects. So, that's really cool. So, thank you for your service in all fronts, but do you do anything for fun? It sounds like you're busy, but do you have any time for fun? Sure, yeah. What do you like to do?

1:23:15 - Richard
Well, I like to... I like to beat people at games.

1:23:21 - Andy
Yeah, what's your favorite game?

1:23:22 - Richard
Well, I can't get anybody to play in Columbia. I like Catan, you know.

1:23:27 - Andy
Yeah, okay. Yeah, you're pretty cutthroat, would you say?

1:23:33 - Richard
About equal with you.

1:23:36 - Andy
I'm pretty competitive.

1:23:37 - Andy
So, yeah, a lot of people don't think that about or know that about me, but I can be pretty competitive.

1:23:43 - Andy
So, awesome.

1:23:48 - Richard
Three guys usually come over on Saturday nights, and we play some kind of board game or cards or something.

1:23:57 - Richard
And then I do some other stuff.

1:24:01 - Richard
I drink coffee a lot on Monday mornings and Friday mornings, real early.

1:24:07 - Richard
Groups that meet, drink coffee and talk, share God, and then I do movie night on Wednesday night at my house and have two or three guys come over for a movie.

1:24:25 - Andy
Yeah, sounds like fun.

1:24:26 - Andy
So, if you ever want to come play Settlers of Catan, you know who to call.

1:24:32 - Andy
So, is there anything else you want to share today with the audience?

1:24:37 - Richard
Well, I mean, you've instilled that in your kids too, right?

1:24:43 - Andy
Which part?

1:24:44 - Richard
The competitive part.

1:24:45 - Andy
Yeah, competitive.

1:24:46 - Andy
I mean, you know, I don't necessarily try to do that.

1:24:50 - Andy
I think it just comes out.

1:24:52 - Andy
They definitely follow your footsteps, but you know, our kids tend to be competitive as well.

1:24:57 - Richard
You don't like to lose, do you?

1:24:59 - Andy
I do not like to lose.

1:25:00 - Richard
I don't either.

1:25:03 - Andy
Which I think, for me, I think, because I'm a very shy person actually, how do I have a podcast?

1:25:11 - Andy
How do I do the things I do, run a business?

1:25:15 - Andy
It's because I'm competitive.

1:25:17 - Andy
I want to win.

1:25:17 - Andy
I do like the podcast.

1:25:21 - Andy
It's fun.

1:25:21 - Andy
It's enjoyable.

1:25:22 - Andy
I like learning about people like you and digging deeper and sharing that with the audience, but I want to win.

1:25:29 - Andy
I want my brand to get out there.

1:25:31 - Andy
I want my name to get out there.

1:25:33 - Andy
I want the 2096 brand to get out there.

1:25:36 - Andy
That's why I do a podcast.

1:25:37 - Andy
That's why I do cold calls.

1:25:39 - Andy
work hard because I want to win.

1:25:41 - Richard
But it's all about enhanced, not that you're going to win, it's that you want better for yourself and for others.

1:25:52 - Andy
Well that's why you have to, I mean that's fair because that's why you want to have values and you know like this is kind of signifying a pointing up, a pointing upward.

1:26:03 - Andy
That's kind of what that logo is all about by the way.

1:26:05 - Andy
I don't know if anybody's ever wondered what all that is, but it's kind of a pointing up light, like kind of the light of Christ I guess you could almost say, but there's something spiritual to it, right?

1:26:16 - Andy
Like we're trying to do something better.

1:26:19 - Andy
So yeah, I mean there is a driving force of I'm competitive.

1:26:24 - Andy
I want to win, but then you have to say, well what am I trying to win for?

1:26:27 - Andy
You want to make sure your ladder is on the right side of that, like kind of what you're...

1:26:31 - Andy
you had that moment of truth in your career where it was like where am I put...

1:26:35 - Andy
which wall am I putting my ladder on?" And we all have to have that moment of truth, or hopefully we do, because you don't want to climb that ladder your whole career, and then you're like, wow, I gave this company everything I own.

1:26:50 - Richard
Well, I did give them a lot, but you know, I recognized that, and I was where I was supposed to be for those 35 but you know, he said, it's time for something So that's what I did.

1:27:10 - Andy
Well, thanks for being on the podcast today.

1:27:12 - Andy
It's been a blessing to have you.

1:27:14 - Richard
Sorry I got so far afield.

1:27:16 - Andy
No, well we can cut any of it out as extra, but no, it was good.

1:27:20 - Andy
So thank you.

1:27:21 - Richard
Thank you.

1:27:22 - Madeline
Hey everybody, thanks for listening to today's episode of Enhance, and please leave a like, or subscribe, or follow, and we'll see