Okay, so on today's episode we had Jodine who is a contractor. Is there anything that you wanted to say about this episode? Yeah, I mean, Joe is a local contractor and construction professional. He's been around a long time and so he's got a lot of insights. Um, he brought some stories that were impactful and inspirational. But one of the interesting things, Hilton Head Island, which is our local island to hear that many people may be familiar with, he was one of the first. fire marshals on or he was the first fire marshal on Hilton Hill Island. So that that was interesting. And just what is a fire marshal? What was his relationship? How did that come about? So I thought I thought it brought a lot of impact. And then some of the personal stories that he talked about about his father and how that impacted his life and how that related back to construction. So those were all interesting things to me. That's really cool. Sounds like it was a good episode. It was Joting, Joding, Joding. Yeah. You've been waiting to say that your whole life. Actually, my older brother made that up one time when you were talking about contractors and you mentioned him and Jesse sang it. So that was really funny. And it's what what popular artist does that mimic? Dolly Parton. Jolene. Which is your favorite, right? She's up there. Up there pretty good. Not not your favorite anymore? I don't know. You c once you listen to an artist on repeat when you're twelve, they don't really appeal to you when you're eighteen. Yeah, okay. Very good. Awesome. Well, hey everybody, maybe you'll learn about Jodine or maybe Jolene. But we but we won't learn about J Dolly Partn in this episode, but you will learn about some things that are inspirational that will hopefully entertain you and educate you. That's what we're all about on the enhanced podcast. My name is Andy Richardson. This is our producer, Madeline. Let's jump to the intro. Welcome to Enhance, an AEC podcast, where we learn the why behind AEC professionals so that you can learn your why. Well, hey Joe, welcome to the Enhanced Podcast. Well thank you, Andy. And good to be here. Definitely glad to have you in today and you know I I wanted to bring you in. You have a a lot of experience in construction, building codes, just all kind of different things. which I I'm sure you've seen a lot of things, so I wanted to ask you, I like to start out with just a a fun opener, but sure. Um what's the most interesting, ingenious repair or fix you've seen in the field over the years? Lord, that's a broad list of stuff, I guess. narrow it down. Um I'm gonna do repairs on old historic buildings and all because you gotta go when you finish you have to it has to look exactly like it looked before you started. And like some of the old buildings down on the waterfront here, what used to be a waterfront, now it's a waterfront park. their foundations got old and dilapidated over the years and centuries and So sometimes you have to go in there and fix all that and then the some floors get aged over time and you have to go in and do that and then they wanna open up and get back into business as fast as possible. So you gotta do that and sometimes you have to be creative. Sometimes you have to call a structural engineer to help you out with what kind of foundation to replace that two hundred year old one. Right, right. But that's kind of that's One of the neat things that I've enjoyed i is um older buildings. I've I've done some of these older homes, turned them into medical offices and and business offices and and all downtown and um over the years and yeah, and that's one of the interesting things about doing some of the stuff on Hilton Head back in the back in the day being the fire marshal and all over there was everything was new. Mm there wasn't a whole lot of old stuff on the island. It's a little bit on the north end, but pretty much everything was new and so that was fun. Just seeing new construction, new things. Yeah. And we have people that listen in from different parts of the country. I mean obviously we have our our Bufertonian and Hilton Head group, but you know, so you you're in a from a smaller town outside of Buford Hilton Head, right? Well, I live in Barnville now, which is about forty seven miles from here. Yeah. A little forty two acres out in the boonies and I like that. But I was b born right across the bay over there at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. Okay. Long time ago when it was just a little brick building. Right. And over okay. Yeah, well yeah, started out at the end of North Street. And then we moved over to Ladies Island, had a little farm over there for six or eight years and then moved back into town and then moved my teenage years were in Port Royal. Mm-hmm. And was was a great old house that uh my parents bought for a watt and thirty four hundred dollars and wow. And My father never hired anybody to do anything. We did it all ourselves. Sure. And of course we had family help and and all the in rehabbill. It was built in the mid eighteen hundreds or so and uh it's pink now. It was white then and um But yeah, and Port Royal was about eight hundred people lived there when we moved there. Sixty five. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a lot different today. yeah, for sure. A lot different. And I mean Hilton Head's probably more popular than Buford about Buford and all these cities have have grown. Yeah, to a d to a degree. Um, not with me anymore, but that's just because of the growth. I mean um it too crowded for me, but the first time I went over there you had to go over on a ferry. yeah. My father worked on the uh bridge crew that built the bridge in fifty six and he was uh one of the crew superintendents for some period of time when all over there so um So so fifty six they built the bridge to Hilton Head, before that it was just straight up straight. Charlie Fraser just started Seed Pines Plantation. So you sea funds was you had to get f use a ferry to get there. no they had an old they had an old an old bridge that was there. I think there's um if you look close enough when you go across the bridge you can see some of the old remnants that started out as a ferry dock and they built a bridge, kinda like what we have here with the Woods Memorial Bridge that was originally a ferry link to get to Ladies Island and and um and all and then they built a wooden bridge, it was actually a wood bridge, and then replaced that in fifty nine with the bridge that we have today. And then my cousin got killed and they named it after him in sixty nine. Okay. Yeah, Richard Woods. That's one of the things with having family here for a long time. You're kinda inbred everywhere. Yeah. Well I'm sorry to hear about your cousin, um and I didn't know that. That was a long time ago. Yeah. But that the bridge w many people have seen on T V, right? Yeah. On the movies. yeah. That one and Broad River Bridge, you know, it's movies they sh the which is always fun because they usually show people coming into Bufort, but they're going out on the bridge in the movie. And then if they're and then if they're leaving, they're actually coming in. okay. Just 'cause the camera angle is better for I guess. And so that's the way they do it. That's funny. Yeah. Well and the poor scum is the wheel the the steel bridge. Right there. Yeah, Forrest Gump was the part. That's actually they were doing Forrest Gump when I moved back here from California. I spent ten years out in California, eighty three to ninety three, and when I came back they were filming Forrest Gump. Yep. So Hilton Head that I wanna go back talk about Hilton Head some more, I'm interested in that because you when did you become the fire marshal? Actually and um I'll give you a little the little quick history and July of seventy three they hired uh they had two public service districts. So it a Seapines Public Service District and a Forest Beach Public Service District. And that was the only government over on Hilton Head at the time other than within the county. And they established a fire department, hired a chief July of seventy three, and then They hired the first six of us January of seventy four. And about a year later I became fire marshal and um Like, by the way, Had a lot fun with that because there were um initially I was the only person doing any kind of inspections or anything on Hilton Head. The county didn't really have anybody. and I got to be the person to monitor the ten story Haya hotel as one of those cutting your teeth on something, and which is why there's nothing over five stories in Beaufort County now. they passed an ordinance after that ten story one got in on And, you know, the fire department s uh throughout the county basically said, you know, we don't have anything to attack a ten story building and so they put a height restriction on five stories and all that. But Yeah, I had a little had a little part to do with that, you know. Uh so there's no i there i that one got built at ten stories. That's the only building over five stories in Buford County. Still still effective ordnance. Okay. Yep. And and what's can you explain the fire aspect of that? Like why Well yeah, well certainly. I mean the there was it was it was kind of twofold. Number one, it was a very big building and so you could have a very large number of people occupying that building at a particular time, as opposed to your normal little Marat hotel with with a hundred rooms or or so where you've got a ten story monstrosity that is uh that's got the potential for having a lot of people in there. We just didn't have the manpower to deal with rescuing people out if you had a problem in that building. You know, just being able to just the manpower alone to to take care of the people in the building to get out or whatever would would have been over taxing. But also, ten stories is, you know, that's over a hundred feet. Just doing ten foot of flooring a lot of them The first couple of floors were almost fifteen feet. They had a eight big atrium in there that stood higher and and also, I think, if I remember correctly, the top of the building was about 110 feet. And we there were no aerial ladder trucks in Buford County at the time. And so basically from an outside standpoint, you would only be able to on a ladder. And didn't have ladders to do that. And so you basically would have to go inside. And uh and so not having the equipment, the manpower, and ever I mean if at that time, basically if we pulled everybody, I mean Buford, the city of Buford was not even a paid department at the time, it was all volunteer. And so and Port Royal was all volunteer. Um but if you pulled all those together, we still didn't have the manpower to attack a a large what they would call maybe like a five alarm fire in there because we would run out of trucks and people real quick. And so that was something why everybody that was in power county council and so forth. Everybody took a uh took a look at that and said, Yeah, we need a limit. And then This time, more so long. y um having a limit of five stories makes um for limited requirements for manpower and equipment and so that saves everybody money taxpayers and so forth you'd have to have a different fire department than than say you know downtown New York you know they got all kinds of stuff but also in what they what today is a high rise, the ten stories I don't think we really even qualified as a high rise building at the time. But you know, high rise is a whole different structure. You did that's all built um and designed for interior rescue and and but even back in the day when in places like New York, you know, when in the when they first started building taller buildings and all they didn't think about that kind of stuff. So time marches on and we all get smarter and more experienced with stuff and we figure out what we need and um then we figure out how to get the money to buy it. And of course all that equipment, everything is a lot more expensive today than it was back then. But but yeah as as fire marshal, my job on that it was at at a request from the Chairman of County Council, Arthur Homer, asked me to just kinda monitor it for the county and and I did and and it was great. I don't remember all the people that were involved in building it, but they were uh very accommodating for helping me because I mean I was a young pup, twenty-two years old. You know, and so I had very little direct experience in Doing that kind of inspections and and construction supervising and all that sort of stuff. Um and so they worked with me on, you know, trying to make sure they were following the code. But of course they had architects and engineers that designed all that stuff that weren't from here. You know, they were from places where they that's a everyday thing for them. A ten story building was no big deal. Yeah. Um and so They knew what they were doing and I my job was just to make sure that I understood what they were doing. And uh and so we could pre-plan. that's one of the things the fire departments do is they do a lot of pre-planning. And we did that also. And um so yeah, it was actually in Palma Dude, it was actually outside of our jurisdiction. See Binds for a speech to the two public service districts that we work for. that was on the north end of the island that I'm gonna do in well it's kinda center of the island. Um, and so nobody really had the the jurisdiction there other than the county as a whole. Um, and so uh yeah, they put me a work over there and I went back and forth and they uh sent me a set of plans to review. Of course they were already started building it at the time, but um I got it. three rolls of plans and each roll was about that big around. Okay. And I had to pull the fire trucks out of the fire station and lay the stuff out in the bay where the trucks parked to to look at all of it. And I spent a lot of time just looking at all that stuff. And that which was totally a new experience for me. Yeah. But you know, I was on a learning mission. I did that and that helped me a lot for you know, when you're gonna learn having something big like that thrown at you. That means you gotta learn a lot of stuff and you gotta learn it fast and um That's a of responsibility too. But it it was fun, yeah, but yeah, there was a lot of details of me 'cause I'd never e even looked inside a set of plans for a commercial building or something like that. You know, I just didn't have that experience. I came out of the air force and to the fire department. How did how did you end up in that position of the fire marshal? Well actually, yeah, we d um when they hired the original six of us, Wendell Wilburn who was retired fire chief from the city of Beaufort and he combined Port Royal into City. So you have that's the reason you have Beaufort Port Royal Fire Department. Okay. Wendell worked through that with the city managers and town manager in Port Royal and that worked really well for them, still does. Um but we started out Wendell and I were two volunteers in Port Royal back in the s sixties and we drove the fire truck, put out fires and stuff when and as teenagers and 'cause there wasn't anybody else to do it. And and then we moved on. Wendell got a job at uh airport on Hilton Head and then I was getting out of the Air Force and he said, Hey, I just talked to this new chief over there and They're starting a farting a paid department over there. He wants to talk to you. So I went over there to talk to him, Dave McClellan, wonderful person, great chief. And uh He hired me as the number six of the original six. And then six months later we hired some more. Um and I became uh we did a test for the three to three shifts. We did twenty-four on forty-eight off. And so they split it up into three shifts, and I became one of the lieutenants in charge of a shift. And um And then we had one of our lieutenants became a fire prevention officer and great guy, good friend, and he got tired of that and being on the fire department and went off into being an electrician and started his own business. And basically Dave, fire chief, asked the rest of the guys, you know, we need a fire prevention officer and nobody else wanted it. And I I thought about it. I thought vehicle um eight to five, which translates into twenty four seven because I was kinda like um number two in charge of the department and then command on the fire scenes and stuff. and and then after about six months or so we changed the title to fire marshal. Um because under the state laws everything would the state laws were written as fire marshal and so I became and I was a captain then, my rank was captain and I was the only one at the time, only captain. but the department grew and we did a lot of training. I was the I was a fire service instructor. I was head of uh I was president of the Fire Service Instructors Association in South Carolina. I was president of the Arson Investigators Association in South Carolina and then we created the South Carolina Fire Academy. Um I worked with USCB and Midland Tech to they helped me or I pitched to them and they took it and ran with it oh to create the um fire science technology degree program. to be available here. I mean it was already available in different parts of the country. Um but to start it here to make it available for people in South Carolina, we did that. and we created the Fire Academy up in Columbia out at Midland Tech. and we did a lot of staying and then you know FEMA came along, got um and the National Fire Academy was established in 74 um I believe and somewhere along in there. Uh no. Yeah, I was a part of all that just because I was there at the right time. There wasn't anything really special about me. Well You were w you you raised your hand. Well that was it. Yeah, I d well and that's one of the things my father stuff and one of the things that he taught me was that, you know, never be afraid of a challenge. You know, that's how you go places in the world is, you know, be the one that raises your hand and says, Yeah, I'll go for that. And I did because uh nobody else was doing it. And it was new. I got to create my own job description, everything, you know, I mean and Um then we started our dispatch cert um there at the fire station and and the dispatch worked under me. I thought I was a I had that. and as we grew we had more and more guys from Port Royal that ended up over there. Uh Jay Harder was became our assistant chief over there. He was one of the Port Royal boys that came over, wonderful person, passed away a few years ago, good friend, miss him still. and I I talked to his kids on the Facebook every now and then just to touch space with him. lovely lovely family. He had a great story, he was a shrimper. And he had a shrimp boat and it started out as the two Js, Jay and Janet, his wife, and it was the six J's by the time he stopped shrimping. With the kids. Four kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, nice. But yeah, growing up in a town like Port Royal, it was so small and everybody knew each other, you know, we had and our we had volunteers back in seventy two, just before I was due to go into the Air Force, 'cause I got one one of those little draft notices that said, you're one A and it was was tail end of Vietnam, so um I joined the Air Force but I had a six month delay. And um during that time period um there was a thing that came along. Uh you could become a um an emergency medical technician, an EMT. And we held a class there at the Port Royal Fire Station and um well up until we actually created not say we but but Buford County created the EMS. Um everything was the funeral homes had the ambulances and so it was time for Buford County to move in. We had volunteer rescue squads in different places, but but I did that um ENT program and um I think my number was 430. And the people that had the class before our group basically was the doctors and nurses that went through it and then they taught it. And so we were either the first or one of the first in the state to have the ENT class. and so, you know, it's just having all that stuff and just everything was interesting to me and I wanted to learn and bring more stuff in and all the during that um you know, when when my parents bought that house in sixty five and there was so much to do, um, like I say we didn't We didn't hire anybody to do anything, we did it all ourselves and so I learned electrical plumbing, sewer systems, oyster shells and clay tiles and felt paper and for a drain field. Yep. Okay. So built our own re You build a drink so some people don't know how septic works. Yeah box. you have a t you have a basic box and your solids stay in half of the box and bacteria basically eats those and then the liquids flow over into the second compartment of the box. Back then you only had one compartment in a box and the liquids that floated to the top would filter off down, drain down into the drain field. Yeah. And You made your own drawing field. Yeah we built yeah. There was no sewer system in Port Royal back then. Yeah, you did clay pipe, yeah, terracotta pipe on top of oyster shells. Wow. Yeah. E you eat them and then you throw in the back of the Well you know, you can get for free. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah, I mean that's using your available material. But yeah, we learned you know, plumbing, you you name it. I did it, painting. Uh we demoed a bunch of parts of the old of the old house. The house was built in two parts originally in the eighteen hundreds. They didn't build the they didn't have the kitchen was not attached to the house back then. The kitchen caught on fire, you didn't want it to burn the house down. And so in the I wanna say early nineteen hundreds, they built in between the kitchen and the house, they created a dining room and another bedroom um and another bathroom and to tie it all together. And uh it's kind of fun to see that old house and every now and then um that yeah, a lot of memories there. It's pretty hot down here too. I think keeping it. we have helps. We have home. Two air conditioners, one in the living room in the window, and one in um mom and dad's bedroom. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that was the way it was and and the electrical the in the attic for those elect those electricians that might might see this four forty on glass insulators. w was the electricity that served the house. And so we had to take all that out and then rewire the whole thing with real electrical panels and everything. So yeah, 'cause now it's one ten. Okay. And what does that mean f like why was it four? Well, 440 was that was main power lines and everything. They didn't do transformers and bring it down. They just went right into the house. And so yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, if you cross those two wires. Ouch. I you you that's There were lethal dead squirrels and stuff up there that had been there for a long time. Wow. Yeah, they crossed the thing, but So I wanna talk about the f a little more about the fire marshal and and how it ties to the building department. Um can you can you explain that a little bit? How does the fire marshal and building department go? Actually I did not get involved with the building department other than when the county started hiring building officials. The first one got fired. Uh we won't go into that that was a personnel issue. but um when they started hiring inspectors they they came over, two or three of the guys came over there and I took them around and introduced them to builders and commercial businesses and all, they didn't normally do inspections of existing buildings. So it was just, you know, stuff that was under construction. And the builders, um, the residential builders especially, were not used to having inspectors over there, you know, and so one of the another one of those things that my father taught me was tact and diplomacy. And so one of the things that I mentioned to the guys was you know, don't go barging in and say, hey, you can't do that, you gotta do it this way, don't you? Because it at the time you might have been driven back off of the island. And so they but yeah the the the guys that that the county hired were really good good guys. They were um you know experienced electricians, experienced builders and and and also they knew what they were looking at. And I just helped them get introduced. around and and then Arthur Cummings became building official for Beauford County. Wonderful person. Um I still enjoy seeing him every now and then out and about. but yeah we had I I just kinda helped with that just because I was there first and um and so uh part of what I did also was the fact that there were not a lot of places with building codes and so at the time there wasn't the international codes. This was way before international codes. We had the Southern Building Code Commerce in Birmingham. And I used to go over two or three times a year with proposed changes and modifications to the building code. Then they created a fire code. And so I I was a part of adding and changing things in that. And then the county adopted the versions of the building code and and then we got plumbing code. This was new stuff for our area here and but everybody adapted well. They they learned everybody, you know, nobody really f fought against it or anything. They knew it was it was good. but um One of the things that I noticed, and it's a little bit the same even today, is with the international uh code. you don't you you see engineers, architects, lawyers, government officials and all that to go to the meetings and talk about stuff, but but you rarely see as much um as I think there should be. Um uh everyday citizens that are gonna be affected by all these codes because the international codes, while they are good and they they're they're sort of built for one size fits all. They w they want that book to cover everything. You know, you have the International Building Code is about that thick. The international residential code is about that thick. And um but they all also refer to hundreds of different standards that are used to apply to different sections of the code. Um and so I I like the international codes. They're they're great because Believe me, you need information sources and all when you're building, and you want to make sure that you're building a safe product, and you can have all kinds of memories and information in your head, but things change, technology changes and everything, and there's better ways to do things always coming. Um and so having those books available. Um I have mine in my back of my truck, which is of course my office. Yeah, you have a few of those, don't you? Yeah, a few buildings. Yeah. Yeah. Um but yeah, you have to be able to make sure that you're doing stuff. And I mean, even something as as simple as a s as building a staircase. you know, you d in the old days you just built something and and, you know, six or seven inches was about the right height, comfortable height to go up. And now there's actually codes that tell you in residential the maximum is seven and three quarters and minimum tread depth and and minimum width for the stairway and all that. And so um that way you have more of an insurance uh assurance that that when somebody buys your house Thanks They have a comfort level to some degree that your house was built to a code. And so when they buy yours and then somebody else buys another one down the road and, you know, there's still houses that were built long before the codes, drive down Bay Street. Look at all those two hundred and fifty, three hundred year old houses that were built long before there was any codes, but people knew how to build that stuff, you know. but yeah, things are things are different. But that's how I got involved in all of that and helping to to write the code by just contributing a little bit, you know. and being a part of a member of the Fire Marshalls Association of North America involved me in a lot of that also and on a national level and and I did a lot of public education as fire prevention officer and fire marshal. did a lot of talks to the s schools, kids teaching kids stop, drop and roll. Um, you know, that was fun ca that was relatively new uh for all of them. Um we had uh the Chicago fire was an October night. And so the week that contained October 9th was Fire Prevention Week. Okay. And um we started a carnival on Hilton Head to involve the community in Fire Prevention Week. And guys on the fire department can be um hilarious at times. And so we developed little skits. And a lot of it was kind of like Keystone Cops. But as firefighters. Okay. And but then we also had games for the kids to play and and all we raised money for the Island Youth Center, which was just getting started good at the time. And um but all of that stuff, fire service is a family, like a lot of industries and and all. And you know, I mean, I can go anywhere and go into a fire station and talk about fire service and how those local folks are dealing with fires and and all that, but but when you've when you've gone into A house. Like one of the first ones that I went into in Port Royal that actually began uh Wendell and and my careers in the fire service was um a friend of ours was frying French fries on their stove and we won't talk about names. Um and their house their kitchen caught on fire and we we went running down there 'cause it was they were just a few blocks away from from us and we ran down to the fire station to see, you know, about a fire truck. We had an um a big siren on top of a pole back then. And um I know this is sounds kind of silly, but it it was a fact at the time because Port Royal was a very small town and it was a beautiful town, but w we we didn't have a big need for a fire department, uh, but we had a need for a trash truck. And uh front wheel off of the fire truck was on the trash truck because it had a flat tire, and so the fire truck was useless. But Buford sent people. The air station actually sent a truck to help, got the fire out. And that's what got us interested. Then some of the adults in Port Royal went to the town and said, Hey, we need to get the fire department going and get this stuff straightened out. And so a lot of those people that later ended up working on Hilton Head were part of that volunteer reorganization, we'll say. And we had a budget of twenty five dollars a month from the town. Yeah, big time. Wow, almost know how to buy a house. We rebuilt yeah. We built we rebuilt the the engine for that same fire truck out in the uh out in the yard behind the Port Rail elementary school, threw a chain hoist over a tree limb and put up did it all ourselves, you know. And um but yeah, that um start to that stuff and and all it was a lot of fun and great group of people. Yeah. do anything for you. But we would go, Wendell and I would go, just the two of us, and put out fires all over the place because we were I mean, I could literally hear the fire the siren from Beauford High went over to Mossy Oaks. And I would get up and run out of class and go get in my car and go down and Wendell and I go fight a fire. You were in high school. Yeah. After the initial stuff, yeah, I was in high school. Initially I was only like thirteen, fourteen years old when we started. Yeah. But yeah we You were y that occurred when you were thirteen and you got interested in the fire department at that time because of And then they yeah, they invited us, the adults that decided to reorganize and and start it, invited Wendell and I to come and be a part of it. And so and we did. Yeah. And um you know, Wendell made a thirty five, forty year career out of it and did a fantastic job as far as I'm concerned. That's one of the best things Buford ever did was make Wendell permanent fire chief and did a great job. Yeah. but we were we were pretty much best friends back in the day and and still are he's one of those guys that uh you know you have a friend that you could literally be lost in Alaska and call them and say, Hey come get me he would. Same thing back and forth. You know, we just That's just the way it was. And um I got to be godfather of his three daughters. love them to death. And um but yeah, then and then as fire marshal, um the chief and I went to public service district meeting one day and reviewing five year budget and the commissioner said, you know, you guys are doing a great job. We hope you're here till you retire. And on the way back. the office, I looked at Dave and I said, I have no idea what I want to be doing the rest of my life. I was twenty-seven at the time. And um this was 1980. And I turned in my resignation the next morning. wow. And gave a month notice. And then I was interviewed by the Island Packet several times in the Savannah Morning News. Why is the fire marshal leaving? you know, thought that I've done something wrong or they had done something wrong or something and I said, No, it has nothing to do with that. It is the fact that I'm just not sure this is what I wanna be doing for the rest of my life. And so my wife at the time, Elizabeth, said, Well, why don't you go back to school? So I started a little cleaning company and came over here, went to sign up to US C B, which was only a two year campus at the time. Um, but I started going in that and then I knew I had to go to Columbia to finish and get my degree in business. And and then when I finished that I said, Now what? you know? And we were looking at places to go and I decided I wanted to be a stockbroker. Yeah. Only job I ever had in my life that I hated. I did not like that. why why did you go into business when you went to s college? Well, starting the business, cleaning business out of the fire department. I just it got it got so big I literally took a semester off from school to run the business. I had a property management company, I had a broker's license real estate broker's license, everything I was I was set up, good operation. And I was making three times what I was making at the fire department, you know, and but I I got to that point where I said, you know, I have to decide now whether I'm gonna continue and finish school because I put myself on that path. And that was another one of those things that my father taught me. If you sign up to start something, finish it. And I taught my daughter that. If you start something, if you're gonna play basketball for the school team. You sign up, you don't quit halfway through, you finish the season. Now that you may not want to do it the next season, correct. But you do that. She was a cheerleader also, and I said you do it for the whole season. Um but when I got out there and and realized after a year or less than a year that I was not cut out to be a stockbroker, um, I used my financial education and business education to do more um business and management consulting and retirement consulting retirement plans. I designed and um administered retirement plans for businesses and individuals and and so forth and I did that for about ten years and then it was time to move back. I came back in July of ninety three and when my first wife and I left here they were doing the big chill and so we were uh W we were here with another couple having uh dinner. Uh we wanted to have dinner, but um it was getting late and all of course all the uh the kitchens usually closed at like nine o'clock or nine thirty and we were getting hungry. And so I called over to Whitehall 'cause I I knew the guy was over there and I said uh you know, told him, you know, our situation we're looking for um you know, some place to come eat. Are you you know, are you still serving and said, yeah, come on over, Joe. And said we got we got one group in the in the dining room and we'll put you guys over the corner and y'all can y'all won't bother each other and and great. So we went over and the group of the other end of the thing was the cast from the Big Chill which was fun. And they were and for New Year's they were playing the piano and singing and they allowed us to join in there a little bit, which was kind of cool. Yeah. And then when I came back in ninety three they were filming Forrest Gum. And a friend of mine was um the bartender at Bananas. Used to be bananas, it's Luther's now. It was originally Luther's pharmacy. Um got my first soda fountain coke in there at Luther's when I was about six or seven. Well, you know, Luther's is kinda popular. Yes, it is. Very popular. Yeah. in the w in the country because of because of a certain uh case occurred. So you might know what we're talking about with regard to water. So you used to go there though, to get to get coke and such. uh But yeah, we um I was there with uh Chris and he had to go stock a load of beer down below and said, you know, asked me to watch the bar, you know, it was not really wasn't nobody anybody coming in, it was like two o'clock in the afternoon and it wasn't, you know, no or a little bit before that because they had closed for lunch and then they had a little break before anybody started coming in in the evening. And um I was sitting there having a beer and uh Sean Penn walks in, sits out at the bar, says, Who do I gotta see to get a beer? And I said, I get you. What kind you want? Well, I ain't got a beer. We sat there and talked for about 15, 20 minutes or so. Had the beer. I said, you know, what what are you doing in Buford? You know, he says, Oh, my girlfriend's in this movie. And I go, yeah, Robin. Robin Wright. You know, they were dating at the time. And So we had a nice conversation and then you know I bought his paid for his beer for I said he said, you know, who do I pay for it? And I thought, I got you, man. Yeah. Have a good time. And he was just as nice as he could be. Yeah. You know. And uh but then being back here, um I I wanted something to do and I didn't I didn't want to come back here. Uh it was a whole different setup doing financial consulting and all. I was one of the early certified financial planners. uh like my number on that one was like four thousand something and there's lots of nowadays. Um but it was just timing. I just happened to be doing what I was doing at that time. and I just didn't really want to get back into doing that when I moved back over here. I wanted to kind of soften things and so I ended up helping out and a couple of businesses to help run their uh stuff and and then my cousin called me and said, Hey, I got a lady out at Grays Hill that needs some repairs to her mobile home and um, you know, you wanna go take a look? And I said, Sure, why not? So went out and he and I started doing repairs and rehabs and painting and you name it, we did it and did more over on Hilton Head, got started doing more and more over there. And it was kind of fun being back on the island after a after a long time. Um Dave McCullin was still there as the chief and and we got to go play golf a lot, uh, which was something that we used to do a lot of back when I was on the department. Um but that grew into more construction and and more construction and then adding to houses, building garages for people and then before you know it I was building stuff and we but we started out just doing repairs and rehabs and stuff like that and painting. We did a painted a lot of houses. Charlie Frazier asked us to paint the lighthouse at Harbortown and and l and we did that. had to hang off the side because we didn't have all the fancy equipment to go up there and and it was mostly touch up area as opposed to painting the whole lighthouse. and so yeah we did that. We uh touched up the lighthouse for Charlie. Okay. No. And that's been in a few movies. I mean it's often you know, if it if it's Hilton's head's involved, that usually they bring that lighthouse in. yeah. Yeah, well that's a copyrighted thing. Uh the colors are copyrighted Sir William Serwyn Williams colors. Unless that's changed. Far as I know, those I know they were uh copyrighted for the lighthouse by Charles and and so yeah, you had to get special colors to do that. And yeah, and uh So you got you got into the construction and And and it just grew. Yeah. And more and more. And then I'd I ended up staying over here more and and it got to be more and more. I went ahead and got my builder's license and um originally it was Joseph A. Dean Builder and and then I didn't do anything for for a while because the economy went bad in eight. But and right about the time eight eight nine is when you started off on your own, didn't you? Yeah. Somewhere on in there, you know. Yeah, I got l I mean a lot of people w actually started businesses in O nine. yeah. Well coming out yeah, coming out of O eight especially and but I had the opportunity, a friend of mine uh had the opportunity to go do industrial construction out on the road and he called me and said, Hey, got some openings coming up, you know, would you like to come out and do you know, we'll we'll travel together and do stuff and um so I ended up being a mill wright for um about six years and I got certified as a bill and all that 'cause it you know, just taking the courses and had to have a certain amount of experience to be certified. and I got those two certifications so that I could do either one, but I ended up doing all Bill right stuff, precision mill right, which was fun when you're have a when you're doing putting something in a position and you have two thousandths of an inch tolerance for where it has to be. yeah. So you had to be very accurate. They use lasers to set stuff up. You have to um do things like aligning a motor to a pump. And there's a shaft that goes through and attaches and those t two shafts come together with a flange. And the two flanges have to be aligned in such a way that they don't as they spin They don't put any stress on the shaft because it'll wear out the bearings in both the motor and the pump. And so you had to be very accurate. Two tenths of two two tenths was really a lot. A lot of times they would like you to have zero and or as close to zero as you could get, but two tenths was as maximum for being out of alignment. And but It was kinda cool 'cause you'd have these big motors and and pumps and stuff and where they sat on a on a uh platform with the bolts bolting them down and you had the shim under this one like two thousandths, uh one thousandth, three thousandths, and then then and then you'd run your test over again and then okay, gotta loop lift this one a little bit. Take one out of there and you know, until you got it all just right. And that was fun. And then got involved in doing built uh Kevlar plant in Monk's Corner. and then we went to um Georgia and I went to Meridian, Mississippi, uh north of there, don't worked on a power plant and then we got the opportunity to go to Charleston, Tennessee to build a chemical plant. The chemical plant made the place called it was called Bacher uh chemicals, and they made the chemicals that are used to coat the solar panels. And theirs was dramatically more efficient than most of what was out there at the time. Um and that was a I don't know, two and a half, three billion dollar project. And it was kinda interesting being one of three or four thousand people on a job site. Yeah. It kinda puts you in perspective. Wow. but your part was just as important and I was fortunate enough to get to know the higher ups and the project manager would come by we got to know each other l uh a good bit and um he would come by and just talk to me, you know, hey, what do you think about these guys over here? You know, 'cause he knew I had fair amount of experience in different things and and and I would tell him the truth if I thought somebody needed a little bit of guidance and, you know, but most of the time those guys knew what they were doing and um and I enjoyed that and then I was about to turn sixty-two and I said, Okay, I've had enough. And while I was on the road now before that in the year two thousand and one, yeah, I I was uh I was actually supposed to build I had a connection to build the first in in early two thousand one um I I'm supposed to build the first four unit townhouse deal down next to the port property in Port Royal and um then eight hit and uh that all went away. But before that, I was doing uh d some stuff on my own and and um this guy named Eddie Powell found me and uh Yeah, a couple of things and needed some some help on and so uh I had my my guys and I went and helped and we did the we built the arches in front of what is today the Buford golf cart over there on Ladies Island. Okay. That building has arches. It didn't used to have arches, but Eddie won Eddie's the owner wanted to build arches on there and dress it up. And so Eddie asked us to help with that and we did that. And and then when we were done with that, Eddie said, I've got a house out at Dawtaw that wants some additions and remodeling stuff. How would you like to go out there and do that as uh superintendent? And I said, Yeah, okay, that sounds good. So I did that. And I was out there actually working on that project and I came into town pick up something from Graco and listening to John Boy and Billy. Yeah, remember John Boy and Billy? yeah. Yeah. And uh big show. Yeah, and they were actually talking about Russell Kelly, who was a friend of mine who used to go on the motorcycle ride with Ky Petty. And they uh John Boy and Billy and Rayford used to do the bike the motor bike motorcycle ride and um they were talking about Russell and I was listening 'cause I knew Russell and his son was Milton Kelly and Harvey Kelly and and Diane the sister and um But about that time, John Boy and Billy said, Oh, some idiot just ran into the building in New York. They didn't really know what was going on, and then like two or three minutes later they said, my God, no, it was Jet. And I I called Eddie or he called me, I can't remember which one, you know, but he said, Man, you hear about all this? So I so I went to Eddie's and we watched um at his house while this all that stuff was going on. And but then for the next four years or so I worked with with for Eddie and then I went out on my own again. You know, we had a little um break there and I said, uh somebody approached me about building a house and so I did that and I did that for a while and and you know all the way through up until oh nine and uh went off doing stuff and while I was gone um every so often I uh Eddie would call me and he'd said, Was that your truck I just I go, No, Eddie, I'm in Mississippi you know or He said, Oh, okay. Yeah, we just keep in touch, you know, and and then when I finally decided to come back, he said, Oh great. And so, um us had started my Hanna construction, I named it Hannah Construction in O five. And so I still have that kind of sitting on a shelf. And um and so I started that back up and did some stuff with Eddie. I did and then I did for a coup for a a couple of years and then um went back on my own again a little bit and basically ended up doing with Eddie project management and so forth for the last bunch of years. Yeah. And the thing about it is one of the things that um it was very Californiano to do personality reviews of and and studies of yourself and everything. So I got yeah, I got involved in one of those little organizations that did that. And actually it taught me something that I probably already knew but didn't make the connection. But because I I I never lasted very long in a job, pretty much all my life, because I would get bored with it at some point, you know, okay, I know how to do this, I've done this all And time to move on to something else. And but what that taught me and and it brought to light out there when I was going through one of those programs was that I was project oriented. And it works perfect for what we do because every project is different. It's but you get to do a project and each one is unique. you get to meet different people and you get to look back at it when it's over and go, that's pretty cool, I did that, you know. Um and that's Eddie and I every now and then, um, I don't want to speak for Eddie, but every now and then we do say, you know, yeah, you know, we're gonna take you know, another year or so we'll kind of drop back to maybe only one or two projects a year.'cause I'll be seventy three in a couple of weeks. And I'm the oldest of the crowd with in our group. I'm older than Eddie. but um but yeah, we you know and each time that we refresh that idea, the phone starts ringing again, you know, we end up doing more stuff. Yeah. Which is great. And and um and I do enjoy what I do and it's I can do it. literally forever. I know so many people in this industry in construction that have been doing it for, you know, fifty, sixty years or more. you know, and generations, you know. That's one of the reasons that I named my company Hannah Construction, because that's my daughter's first name is Hannah. And um Speaking of bananas, about third grade she got tired of listening to Hannah Banana and Hannah Montana. And so she decided that she would be Chloe, which is her middle name. Um so she's Chloe now. But um but yeah, I named the company Hannah Construction just because I figured she's gonna get it all anyway, might as well put her name on it now. Right, right. Yep. That's that's a legacy you're leaving. Yeah. And you know, my my property up in Varnville, like forty two acres and and she'll get that. She's already got plans for it. You know, she wants to in the event that she ends up back there with with her soon to be husband, she wants to do it as animal rescue thing, you know, which uh that'd be great be right up her alley. She loves animals. Got two golden retrievers and um always has loved animals and um she's a Carolina grad just like me and um So yeah, we did that and so Eddie do that. Does it perfect that's what we do, you know, and it just we landed there and Yeah. No, I like what you said about project oriented, um, because I can definitely resonate with that. I mean and also thinking back to your career, I mean, taking on fire marshal at twenty two years old and that's somebody who is wanting uh a challenge, you know. And these projects give you that challenge. The small ones and the big ones and and then the people. Um, what what are some of the biggest challenges you you've uh encountered in tur has it been the people, the project or Actually it's a combination of people with projects. there's b many tie everybody's everybody's unique, you know, everybody's different. And um there's a projects that somebody uh says uh I'm gonna add ten by ten onto my kitchen and Then they walk away and you go and add it and they're fine with that. And then there's people that you get big sets of plans and and they do the same thing. They hand you the plans, hey, you know, build this and and they'll be interacting a little bit. and then there's people that want uh The liberty of making decisions about things as they build, which slows the process down a little bit, complicates it a little bit. But at the same time, the objective is to give the client what they want. And so that's what I stay focused on. Is, and if somebody says, hey, can we change this? My response is always the same, it's yours. Now's the time. while we're in the construction phase to modify something that you want. I don't want you sitting out in the front yard two years from now going, No done so and so, you know? And so yeah, I I I do like to focus on having satisfied um because I we tend to try to have long term friendships with the people that we do things for and we have a lot of those. And um you know, I've uh I've done a lot of different things and I've enjoyed all of them. Everything has been unique and but yeah one of the one of the challenges and this'll step a little bit off of the construction thing, but one of the challenges that uh my father gave me had a friend that was a volunteer on the fire department in Port Royal. He was a Marine and they got assigned to a different place and he had this I think it was seventy no sixty eight. or sixty five Oldsmobile. Anyway, he said, you know, there's something wrong with it. I I can't figure out what it is, but you know, take it if you can fix it, you can have it. And so we had it at our house in Port Royal. And my father was one of those people that if you just tried to turn the ignition over, he would say, Okay, this is what's wrong with it. I mean he was that good. but He said, when I did that, he said, okay, it's got a blown head gasket. So uh I never worked on cars, okay. But he said, okay, you know, lift the hood. And he said, see all that stuff? Well hang out. Take all that stuff off, lay everything on the bench, keep it in order. Make sure the tools are clean and back where they go where you got them from every day. And Let me know if you have any questions or problems. And he didn't come out there and say, you're okay. It had to be if I got to a point where I needed the help. But I took up the challenge and didn't ask for help. I just I got down to that point, and as I took things apart, I just had the picture, it was almost like a movie in my head of. taking this stuff apart where it went and all that kind of stuff and took the heads off and he said, Okay, now take up there to Buford Muffler, give them Uncle Richie and have plane the heads, do the valve job, get new head gaskets, and come back and put on. And my Uncle Richie, Richard Gray, had Buford Muffler and had to shop in the back. And all um and so that's what I did. Took them up there and they did that and I took it all back, put it all back together, got it all ready, and okay, I think it's ready. And he said, Okay, crank it up. And I I cranked it up and it had a little shake a little to it, you know, just a little bit. So some something's not right. And Course my father recognized exactly what it was right off the bat and he's he stood back and he said, Look it over, see if you see anything you did wrong. And they still there for about I don't know half hour, forty-five minutes waiting on me to find it. And he he finally said, Well you think anything's connected wrong or anything? Yeah. Started looking at the distributor cap and chasing the wires down and I had a plug wire on the wrong cylinder. Turn it off. Switch those ran like a charm. Yeah. But that was challenge. Now when I was little and we had the farm, the challenge was you stand in the back of the corn crib and your sister will drive the tractor down through the cornfield and you pull the corn off and throw it in the front of the wagon. And then when you get down to the other end, Turn around and then you drive the tractor and your sister can get in the corn crib and pull the corn. And so we worked a farm as little guys. Yeah, I was seven, eight, nine years old or so, and my sister was five and a half years older than me. And so yeah, I was driving a tractor at five, six years old, you know. But that was the challenge, you know, he didn't He didn't It sounds like your dad was a was a really interesting man, an amazing man, really. And um I think about him in eighty four from a cerebral hemorrhage in the middle of the night. And um I I didn't think about it for a couple of years, but it but it dawned on me one evening just thinking about it that that it could have been rather than just by chance a cerebral hemorrhage. he was on a battleship for five years. USS New Mexico started out. He joined in nineteen forty. He was on that ship doing escort duty back and forth to England, North Atlantic. And when the Pearl Harbor happened, they went in, got some butt fits, stood a ship, went through the Panama Canal, headed towards uh Pearl Harbor and Um, but yeah, he was basically machinist mate running the engines and and the motors and everything down in there. And they had torpedoes and kamikaze and all these different explosions. They lost a hundred and something guys one one time and forty something another time and you know, lost the captain, almost everybody on a bridge at one time with a with a kamikaze and um You know, those explosions you you back in in the day you wouldn't think about the microscopic pieces of metal that could be all in your body. Father could scratch every now and then, and he would get to a point and then he would pick up a magnet and put it on his wrist or his leg or something and pull out a little piece of metal. that was that came from that shrapnel. And so it all it it has puzzled me since the late eighties as to whether or not that could have been a possibility that there was shrapnel in his head and that just finally worked a hole in there. I mean, I don't know, but it was just something that dawned on me it could have been a possibility. But um But yeah, he d you know, he he was a mill right before I ever heard of the word millright because that was part of his job was to keep those shafts properly from the motor, because you know the it's an electric motor, but big diesel engines that turned the electric motor to create the electricity that ran the ship. And um I didn't even know that until years later, a long time a lot after that. But but I found some of his tools when I was a teenager that were like micrometer and and stuff, you know, and it's like I didn't have the slightest idea what that was. But that's, you know, that's something when you're measuring, you know, micro portions of inches and that's he would mount those on a shaft and watch the needle do this until you got it to the point where it stopped doing this. And that meant that the shaft was aligned. And um and and so, you know, b being a Bill Wright and thinking back on that aligning those engines and and motors that he was doing. And, you know, you're talking he was born in twenty-one, so in nineteen forty, when he joined the Navy, he was nineteen years old and you know, went through almost six years on that battleship. And I have a book that he wrote and tells the story of each one of their each one of the campaigns and their final thing was escorting uh part of the escort of the Missouri for the surrender of Tokyo Harbor. And um you know, and then when he came home, he got a got a job, worked wherever he could work and um built bought a house on Oaklawn Street off of North Street and that's where I will that's where they were living when I was born at Beaufort Memorial when it was a little brick building. Um not too much bigger than this room. It was small back then. Um but uh but yeah that I I learned so much from him and n nothing intimidated him. I mean he took on whatever came and when we lived on the farm, it wasn't enough of a farm to make a living off of and so he and mom always worked. Um but he got a job at the post office and you had to be there on time. And at the time the old wooden bridge was not all that dependable and so we moved in over to this side of the water and um he was Worked in the post office for quite a while and I was ten years old and he came home one day and said, I got something for you. This is gonna be your 4-H project for this year. Okay. Well, there at the post office somebody had ordered 250 chicks and didn't Okay. So they did a little raffle and daddy won a raffle. And brought home two hundred and fifty chicks. And in a matter of an hour we had to build something out in the backyard to put all in, light out there for heat. Yeah. And all. And and then later we built an actual chicken coop and everything in the backyard. That was back when we lived uh on Palmetto Drive, which is behind where Chick-fil-A is out there on twenty-one now. Chick-fil-A was Mr. Bowers Hog Farm back in back in that time. And uh I used to I used to help Mr. Bowers with with his hogs and all. And uh but yeah, we've raised chickens again. Well we had done that on the farm, so it wasn't anything new to raise chickens. Um but another challenge, you know, there it was, here's two hundred and fifty chicks, if they're yours. Yeah. You know. So that those challenges, your dad just gave you these challenges on the farm, with the chickens, different things and that's it sounds like that's helped you in your career, in your life, really, to to learn how to grow, how to deal with things. It it does and and one of the things that uh I guess I was about well, you know, growing up on the farm we we got up and worked the field and, you know, did stuff d went to school and and then came home and but back out in the field and and all and and uh I one morning I forgot to close the gate after feeding the hogs before we went and got on my sister and I went and got on a school bus and Forgot about that when I got home, the hogs were out in the watermelon patch and we butchered hogs that weekend. Daddy was upset. Okay. Yeah. but yeah, those those uh those kind of challenges were were fun. And you know, like I say, he just he knew how to do anything. He ended up he retired. as the master scheduler at the air station. And because d going to work for the post office got him into the civil service stuff. And so when he got an opening out there he he went out there and had long number of years out there working at the air station and and uh but but yeah he uh he he was good at teaching me how to get out of bed and go to work. And I think I was about thirteen or so would when we had moved to Port Royal. And when I was younger, he they would take me to Merida Avenue, which is where my grandmother lived, and with a lawnmower and a can of can of gasoline and a jug of sweet tea. And For two dollars a yard, I cut three or four yards for the people on Merida Avenue. That was my weekend. but but later on when I was about thirteen or so, one day I asked him for some money and he said, You want some money? Go get a job, boy. Mm-hmm. So I walked up what is today Paris Avenue, it was Tenth Avenue back then, Port Royal, up to the Eso Station. It was the Esso then, and got a job at Bernard Smith's Esso Station, pumping gas and checking the air of the tires and checking the oil and all that sort of stuff. And um then they built a new Exxon station behind the SO station. And then bulldozed the Esso Station and I went to work at the Exxon station a couple of years later. and now there's Parker's there. Right. And uh and so uh yeah, I had and uh actually Vernon's brother George had Texago station on Boundary Street at and um I think I was about seventeen and Vernon said, Hey, go talk to George. He needs somebody to run the station. And so I went up, talked to George, and he said, great, okay, you're in charge. He went to lunch. Left me with a station. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, but yeah, that you're right. I mean that that's some of the things that that my father taught me was, you know, just go, do it. Yeah. You know, and if you wanna and I I tell young people that uh ever have a question or anything that and if and if if it feels like they need a pointer or two, I tell them if you wanna make it in life, I don't care what it is you wanna do, you will you might you will work into something, but start out by getting your butt out of bed, go get a job. N I don't care if it's sweeping a floor, emptying trash. Picking up trash in the yard or what it cutting grass or whatever it is, get a job, learn, make yourself more valuable by learning more to do more things and to do them better. And somebody will notice that, whether it's the person that you're working for at the time or somebody else, and they will invite you to come to work for or they will be you will get promoted. And if you stay on that path, even if you change. Career fields, if you stay on that path by taking things on and learning and making yourself more valuable, you will never have a problem getting a job. And if you if you get to a point where the economy doesn't necessarily have a job for you, do what I did when I left the fire department. The first thing I did was I went to What was true value at the time. Richard Gray owned the Hilton Head Auto Parts and a True Value Hardware Store. And I went down and got a back-end cleaner and some cleaning supplies and started cleaning offices. And that turned into cleaning the office cleaning offices, cleaning churches, doing turnarounds and rental condos. Um, I had both movie theaters for a while, the Pelican Pictures and Caligny Plaza Theater. And I was working till three or four o'clock in the morning doing that and coming over here to go to school at USCB at the same time. And that's how that business got built up so big that I was making two or three times what I was making in the fire department. And it just came. And you know, just I was Never be afraid to do something. Nothing is beneath you. When I got the opportunity, for example, to go on a road doing industrial construction, they my friend said, Hey, they I they don't have a position for you of in in a craft or anything. Um but if you want, you know, you can come out and start on a labor crew and you know and That way you'll be here, you'll be working. And if as soon as something comes open on you know, you you know, you can move into it. And I said, time with me. And so for about the first three months at the Kepler plant that we were building, I squeegied water off the concrete floors because it didn't have a roof on the building or anything yet. So when it rained, get water all over all the concrete floors, squeeze those off, sweep down, pick up trash, whatever I needed to be doing for the first two or three months. And then the super uh supervisor of the iron crew, who was, you know, building the steel structure for the building, said, Hey, I gotta open and you wanna work the iron crew? I said, Sure, why not? You know, it was like four dollars more an hour to go do that. And I did um took care of all the tools, kept track of everything, um, kept carry welding stuff up through the buildings and all that kind of stuff. You know, I wasn't a welder, I wasn't a steel guy or anything like that. I just was a part of that thing and then I did that until they got to the point where the steel crew was finished and the guy said um to everybody in the group Hey, today's the last day. Our steel work's done. So, you know, we'll call ya if we get another project lined up. Um, and he said, Joe, hang loose. And so everybody else left and I walked over, I said, Yeah, what what can I do? He said, Millright guy's already asked for ya. I told him that uh you were we were closing down and you were Ready to take on anything and so that's what I did. I switched the mill right and that's what I did for the next six years or so. Yeah. But if you excel, you're gonna get good opportunities. Yeah. Yeah. Well I mean you you have done I Yeah, you have and I have watched you do it. Well thank you. You know, um and and you have a beautiful big family. Talk about a challenge. yeah. You know that compared to do compared to running a business. Yeah, I know, I know what you mean. You know, I got one daughter. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, and then and one of the things that I really and truly enjoy in just life in general is watching people do that, what you have done. Started out and build something. And you know, the you know the reason that Eddie and I call you is because we know you're who we want. to be doing our stuff. And you know, it's that construction used to be go get some materials and build something. Today it's architects, engineers, electricians, building officials, you know, all the process you gotta go through just to get the permit to start building, you know, and Um and so as a builder, um I have I've had to learn to to be okay with having people tell me the way that the book says this is how you gotta do it. And um, you know, you and the folks that you have the worked with over the years have been great for us and and one of the things that I find that's that's good with with some engineers and some of them not so much, but i is the uh the willingness on the part of the engineer, just like the willingness on the part of the builder, to have an open mind at looking at ways to do things. Um Because sometimes you got a budget to deal with, you know, and so the the the brightest and best way to do something might also be the most expensive. So having somebody that can work you through that stuff and help you get it done. Hm. It's great. I mean I I really enjoy talking with you and and learning from you. That's why I wanted to bring you on. I I think you have a wealth of knowledge of construction and some aspects I haven't considered or haven't really spent as much time in with the fire. Um but but definitely a lot of really valuable lessons, uh especially just listening to you talk about your dad. It's it's inspiring to me as a dad, but also I mean like for example the leadership qualities. I mean he he's being a leader. He's Sitting there letting you f work on the car and I mean some people might say, Well that's you know, sink or swim method, right? But he was watching you, he was watching you out the window and he was, you know, I mean I'm I'm a I'm speculating, but um and he was there when you needed him and uh if you needed him he would have been there. But I think there's some leadership quality there because now we wanna we wanna spoon feed people, right? And say this is exactly how you do it. And then you don't have that challenge. Right. So it's it's a real lesson for me. Uh thanks Joe and appreciate you being on. G looking forward to work continue working with you as well. And so uh Joe, do you ever have anywhere you want people to find you, Facebook or LinkedIn or Actually I don't I well I am on Facebook, um just Joe Dean and I I have a LinkedIn thing but I don't ever I haven't used it in years 'cause I have f I get job offers sent all the time, you know, because I'm still on there and I even try to post on there, you know. No, I'm not looking for you know, they go, Are you still looking for no, I don't I don't I got a job. I don't want it. I got it. I'm doing exactly what I want to do now. And um Fair enough. Well if you want to catch up with Joe you can. and uh thanks again for coming on the podcast. It was a lot of fun learning from you. 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