East Bound & Down with Kevin Hohe

Hello.

All right, it is Wednesday and we got a special guest on today. You're coming to you live from I'm in Florida. That's why it's eastbound and down today. What's up, Kevin? What's up, man? I'm in Wyoming. Wyoming. I was just up there. Nice. I was up in that uh at the summer bash for uh it was like a week ago, man. And it was I went straight from there to the airport basically to come down to Florida. Yeah. Beautiful, man. It was just windy as hell. Yeah. Yeah. There's Well, yeah. There's parts of the state that are beautiful and there's parts of the state that are barren. What's that? Yeah. But what a beautiful area. It was a fun It was a fun event. Fireworks and uh Yeah, they put Mark put on a good show. Yeah. So, how you been, man? I know uh you got a lot going on, but let's let's tell everybody about who you are first, man. Tell us a little bit about your background in the industry and uh where you come from. Yeah. Uh thanks. Uh Kevin Hoey. I'm born I'm native to Illinois. My my soul is in the mountains. I just freaking love the mountains. But uh my business is in Chicago. Complete fence. We run about I don't know 120 120 people putting in fence. Love the industry. Um and yeah, I uh we we did we started our own some I didn't mean to compete with you so please, but we started Atomic Construction. That's a podcast trying to kind of promote really I'm trying to mirror what you did or trying to do or whatever. I'm hoping we dive into that with FWA across the trades. I think elevating the voice of the trade similar to what you're doing is like really important. I think like man it's such a shame. Such a beautiful industry and I and I don't think it gets the credibility it deserves. It's it's coming back around. I don't know if you feel that too but it's like when I was in college like construction was like ew and now it's like yeah computer development ew. So I think we're making a comeback. But uh yeah man I appreciate you having me on. I'm like super exc I don't know if you've got an agenda, but I have I just would love to talk to you about all the crap like you were you were spitting wisdom to me the other day when I was like on the on the UL like I'm going to call it the UL 325 cabal whatever that is and then I really I I'm sure you've told your story numerous times and I don't know if it's beneficial to your audience but like I'm curious to know as you know I'm participating in the AFA reluctantly. I want everybody to know that it's important for the fence guys. Like I'm reluctantly pro AFA, right? Because I think AFA needs to do better and I think we share a lot of values and I've been just I've been just dying to talk to y'all about like what you guys are doing and like what's best for the industry. Um and yeah, like when you were talking to me, you tal like you had said that like there's really nobody's really affiliated like in a large way. It's just you and Susan. I didn't know that. I thought it was like I really thought you had a big board of directors and like so I Yeah, I'd love to know more about the FWA. Um enlighten me and I'd love to know more about this like the regulatory environment as you see it but I I'm on your show and I've never done a live stream so this is my first time so this is like really I figured you were all over that's funny yeah and and and going back to what you said I mean starting podcast I'm I don't believe any of this is a zero sum game except when we're out bidding a job only one of us is going to get that job sometimes right if it's a thousand feet of fence around a building that's a whole another subject one of us is going to sell that job one supplier is going to get that material things like this on one particular job but the rest of this stuff, associations, trade shows, podcasts, magazines, you name it. This is not a zero- sum game. You could go to all the shows, you could go to two, you could go to one. You could you could watch your podcast and watch three other podcasts. It doesn't mean that they're only going to watch one podcast or go to one trade show or go to one association. So, I you know, I don't look at it as competition. And I think that if we're going to take our industry to a whole new level of being professional, I I personally don't believe it's done with policy and regulations and laws. I personally believe it's done through training and access to the information and access to

Materials and and things like that. So, it's just two different perspectives and and you know, even if you take a look at, you know, you're you're with AFA and you know, now you're the chapter and stuff and you know, and I'd love to get into what led you to get involved in the on the chapter leadership side, but uh um I think that, you know, it's it's I agree with 90% of the stuff. So it's, you know, I I think that 90% of the stuff that AFA did and how they started off trying to solve problems when it was a bunch of fence companies, that was great. You know, I mean, do I think that it strayed off, you know, after a while, complacency kicks in everywhere, doesn't it? I mean, in our companies, in us, in everything. So, I think that uh, you know, we just kind of kicked it in the butt and made everybody realize that, uh, you know, it's it you better step up or you're going to get kind of get passed up by people trying to do something. But, uh, you know, I'd love to hear what what led you to get involved in in the chapter leadership. Yeah. Um, happy to share. I mean, I, yeah, I was like, uh, I'd say for my first 10, well, man, I don't know, maybe 15, 12, 13 years, I was like, I don't I don't even know if we paid into the AFA. I was like, what is it? It doesn't deliver value. Like, um, and I was kind of like, I would say the chronic AFA sucks guy, right? And I was like, you know, I don't remember what convicted me. I think it might have been Travis out in Colorado. Somebody was like, you know, I I don't know. Somebody was like, you need to get you should get involved. Like, you can't. And I was like, man, that's pretty convicting. So kind of the token showed up at a meeting, started running my mouth and like next thing you know you're duly elected and trying to make a difference. So yeah, and I just want to say as like as I speak to my criticalness of it like it I know there's a lot of I don't know I feel like there's a bit of a versus AFA and I don't I don't see you promoting that by the way but I do see that as an undercurrent. Um, I I really am I think I think they're trying to do the right things and that's where I think it's really interesting if we can dive in on like where where your schism came and like what's going on. Like I I'm I'm very proud of the leadership like um and uh I this is what I'll say. I mean I run 120 person company like dude running a 2000 I don't even what you're doing what they're doing like forget it man. Kind of like forget it. It's not easy. So um yeah I don't know if that's good. Well, how long the chapter you're in now, how long has it been active? I mean, I don't remember it there being a lot of presence up there for a while. It's kind of like the California one. It just kind of faded away after a while. What? And I'm on the West Coast. There was almost nothing going on on the West Coast. So, you know, I mean, I consider myself the West Coast, Nevada, you know, as well. So, what how long is the your chapter, which is uh going up Illinois, right? Yeah. So, Chicago land. So, Wisconsin, we just invited uh the Wisconsin folks to start coming to our meetings. This this we just literally just had our meeting. But um yeah, I think the history of the chapter would be vibrant maybe 20 years ago and then just declining for the last um yeah, probably the last 10, 15, 20 and now we're like we're building momentum. So, uh we're getting a cadence together, getting a calendar. But yeah, I'd say historically I think it was a I think they 20 years ago they did really good and then they just kind of just fallen off. I think I wasn't around for those. How long has it been kind of reactivated? I mean, there wasn't much if you were in Chicago, you had to have went to the national level or something, right? If you wanted to Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, for all of my I don't know. I can't speak to it because I wasn't pursuing it, but I don't think there's been much of a presence for the past 15 years. I I think it's in the last two or three we kind of started upshifting and trying to do some stuff about when FWA came on the on the I can promise you it's unrelated. I can promise you I don't want to say that. I there was a day where I was like I it was I think you probably came on the map right after and I was like huh is this guy doing everything that I was hoping to do and and that's why I'm super curious because I know very little about it and um yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. No, I mean

And honestly it's nice to see people get involved. I get, you know, I'm I'm I don't want to say I'm I'm skeptical, but I I mean, I guess I I've been around long enough to know a lot of the tactics and stuff, you know, about how to, you know, when you get a lot you get noisy people. Let's face it, you're a strong personality. When you when you when you believe something or you you have a question, you question things and that's really hard for um associations and groups or other people that are trying to move in a direction, you know, they don't like the noise. So, you get something like that and then to go and put you in charge of uh you know, in charge of one of the chapters is kind of a big deal. So it means that they're either listening or it's a, you know, a tactic to kind of distract you, right? So I hope that I hope that it's not that way. But I think that you are probably banning a lot of people together, you know. C can we live out can we live out the if I if I said like the I don't want to say conspiracy but can we live out like the I know you don't I know you do a really good job like and I've seen others do this that are you're very politically appro like you don't but like I really I like and I know that we're on a live stream but like the break I really want to dig into the break I I and I think I I think I have approval from Mike like I don't think you're going to get chastised for like I want to understand because like you're speaking to like I want to really dig in to what what made you leave because you were a participant and you're like kind of disgusted and it's like I you know more or less I don't want to put words in your mouth but what you were speaking to me is like it's enlightening. I think it's enlightening and I want to explore it like I'm going I'm going to go to midyear and I want to like I want to know about it. It's like well where does this come from? Like and like I don't know man like you know the Hunter Biden laptop story that the Trump you know we can't everything's hiding behind smoking mirrors. So, like if you're willing, man, I would just love to know like what you saw and what you believe and like why it was necessary, but I don't want to put you on the spot if that's not something we can go to. Yeah. And I think you know what, Kevin, I think what's what's you know what the hard part about everything is is I'm one of those people that tries to always leave leave an opening, right? So, even if somebody goes and attacks me, even if somebody does, I'm not saying mentioning any particular thing, but if it does, you'll find that I give people room a year later. You don't even have to come make some huge apology. You could just get back in, right? start start participating again and start joining. I'm really good at at making sure I leave an olive branch out there for people. And the problem is if you dive into stuff too far sometimes you end up saying stuff you can't take back, you know, and there's a lot of stuff. It's a little bit, you know, what what what I got vested into this and what the members and what people, you know, at our staff and stuff invested into this is a little more than just a chapter shutting down. We're talking about 150 people that that would lose health insurance. And we're talking about uh you know, we pushed you know, we pushed the industry in a different direction. We're talking about access to, you know, the supply. If you like if you like what's happening right now about, you know, the new new attention to the small contractors are getting, unfortunately, whether people like it or not, you can thank FWA in a way, you know, and it's it's pushed everybody to realize that that we're going to support small contractors almost at all costs, you know. I mean, if you like the more training, if you notice, there's more training going on now than there's ever been. And it's hands-on is just everywhere now. And and it's not just training for established people that have been around for a while that can afford to go and and and pay for expensive hotel rooms or or expensive classes. There's more going on from everybody now that's available. And that's, you know, that's that was the pressure that we kind of created, you know, and it's it's just this this is the stuff that that kind of disappears. So it's different than us just shutting down a chapter or not being to go golfing or not getting to go boating or whatever. It's not just that, you know, it's a lot at stake. And even us, I mean, a lot of people don't realize what we put at stake on this thing, you know,

To do. We don't, like you said, we don't have a big board. This is I mean, everyone, if you went to the fence show, every almost every single person you ran into was one of my employees. We shut down for two weeks, you know, in order and every one of those people that was right, the guy that was checking your tickets at the door, that was a that was a fence installer, you know. I'd say over half my staff works almost the whole year on uh just like some of the resources and even the show and stuff. So, it's a you know, it's a big investment we did uh you know to to do all this stuff and the FWA health and all the other benefits that we're doing. Um, so I guess it's tough when you ask, hey, can we just be honest, you know? So I'm interested and if and I'm going to keep crying, but like feel free, please. Like no, I'm like you're interested to like I'm a big truth will set you free guys. So you're and I I just want to to convey what you believe to be true is going to the you think the AFA will put more pressure and shut you like you feel that they're going to come and suppress your voice or how does it feel? I feel there needs to be a there needs to be FWA and AFA coming together and supporting each other's uh training events and all the other stuff out there. And I think that if if a war between AFA and FWA can be manifested, not by AFA and FWA, but all the people that believe there's a line between the two. And you know, and yes, did I start FWA because I didn't feel like I would be able to be as included in AFA and get and and get and and move quick enough to do the stuff that I wanted to do for the industry because it was bottled down by, you know, boardrooms and decisions and manufacturers and suppliers and policy and why, you know, and do I feel that they are influenced by by the people the by the largest sponsors? Absolutely. every everybody would be, you know, and and would that would that hinder my ability to to actually push and move in the direction that I wanted to move? And yeah, I mean, I was I remember I was at one of the shows and and here we go. Showed up at the first show that I went to, everybody's in Las Vegas fence shirts and this has changed and you asked Michael Reed, I told him the same story, you know, back then. And uh you know, one my my father-in-law, which is my sales guy, if you ever met him, you know, was a lot of family people that worked there. He walks up with an uh Las Vegas fence shirt and he goes up to grab a hat or something on the counter and they pull it back and they said, "Who are you?" And I'm sitting there going, man, I don't know. This could just be a fence guy that went 2,000 miles to come to your show. And I told myself, and this is just a, you know, just a scenario. I'm like, this is not how we treat small fence companies. And if you were to talk to a lot of people, it, you know, the shows are changing now. And you're feeling, you know, you can feel it. Everybody's kind of saying, "Hey, we got to support these small fence companies." But there was a time, and whether it still exists or not, I can't tell you where if you were small, you felt like you went to um events and if you weren't one of the big guys, you didn't get the attention or they wouldn't did want to sell to you. things like this and you know this happened during the co stuff even gates were locked almost you couldn't get materials unless you already had established uh relationships and stuff so you know I I guess that's kind of when I said well we can do better and not just me I said we the whole industry so so do I want to dive down to a you know into a point where I can say something that that you know that's going to make it to where they can never they can never have that bridge between the two associations and there's absolutely no reason that we're not promoting fenc and fence is not promoting the fence show two opposite times a year even, right? And these are the same exhibitors, the same vendors, and we owe those exhibitors and those vendors and those people in this industry, um, we owe them the courtesy to not try to to drive traffic away from each other's events because those same exhibitors that are going to be exhibiting at our show later. And it's irresponsible for us to say we're representing the industry in the shows if we're not promoting each other. Even the trainings, you know, and the and the resources when it comes to the um the gate safety standards and things like this, you know, we have to be responsible and and let's face it, I think you've said it before, we're only

Representing, we talked about it, you we're not representing that much of the industry. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll let it die, but I'm like a curious kitten, so offline, you got to give me and you got to pour the tea, man. I got to know. I I want to understand it because like I like I think it's I think it's good. I can nobody can cancel me. They can kick me out of the chapter. So I just want to like I want to like the the anti- rhetoric and I don't anti-he is interesting. So now tell me help me understand because this is this is truly like I'm I'm extremely curious about this as well and I think like you're I agree FWA AFA working together is best but then where we and we might draw a different line is like do we need two do we need two associations? I generally agree with you like more rising tide, right? a competitive like I do believe I do believe and I'll say this and I'm sorry to my AFA compatriots like your launching FWA kicked them into a gear like I think it did like right they took like I think it was good but now I'm sitting here going like we've got such a fragmented voice is it do we need to associate like really associations Kevin you answered your own question at the same time if you like the direction the industry is going and heading then yeah that's why you need the momentum to keep going that's why you need FW WA I mean I I mean you answered your own question. You know that the momentum right now isn't going in a direction and yeah it it was spurred up because competition was good. Whether you want to call it competition or not it it made people kind of wake up. So you know you're not here to kind of take credit for it but we want to make sure everybody's doing better you know and and honestly I've already accomplished 90% of the stuff I set out to accomplish just by the fact that just by the fact that you're there. Look at it. you're sitting here the president of uh one of the chapters and all these chapters are firing up and whether they're firing up because they realize that we were dropping the ball in all these other states. I I I my passion is not education. My passion is definitely not the policy. I believe that uh you know the overregulation and policies it only benefits a few and and I think that it stifles innovation. I think that it creates the barrier of entry into our our industry difficult. And while it may help a few of the large people temporarily, it's going to hurt the industry in the long run because we're going to get passed up and eventually the the everything from the European Asian markets are going to come in and they're going to get in anyway. We're just slowing down the the you know, we're slowing down till it till it comes into the industry when it comes down to the materials and stuff. So, I think that uh that answered your question. I mean, you you did you said it all. If you like the direction the industry is going, you want FWA here. You just do. Yeah. I mean, I guess, okay, point point taken. I think the one I think the one thing that Well, yeah, point taken. And then, so like, how do we like I I mean, what do you And I'm really curious about your 90% what the 90% was and what's the remaining 10%. Is that something you can talk to or No, you accomplish 90%. Yeah, I mean 90% was the industry waking up. I mean, I mean, there was literally it was it was asleep. We were we were getting stale um and we were getting people were leaving our industry. The the door industry is taking over the gates. a industry spread off up into their own doing their own thing that people were leaving our industry because it was getting it was getting slow and it was stalling. We were we were going to we were going to overregulate. We're going to overregulate down to the point where the barrier of entry was so expensive and so high that it was just going to be a select few in these associations and we weren't even trying to get new members. You know, I I I I can tell you right now, uh I've been in Las Vegas for a long time. I'm not the smallest company. I'm one of probably five of the larger companies in Las Vegas, right? And I've never once been asked to join an association. So, but now I guarantee everybody's being asked. So, um I think that 90% of what I wanted was everybody to start waking up and seeing what was going on. So, advocating advocating for the best for the industry. Are you in the ideal world? Because I think like I think it's um I feel very confident in this like this

Is something like I wanted to get involved with but like responsible regulation is a requirement, right? Like and if you look at um the men who built America, if you watch that series, you can see what it looks like when there's like it's totally no regulation, right? And then and then you can look at our our government and our environment right now and you can say like we're we're over like completely overregulated. It's a disaster, right? And then like when you look at our industry, it's like so what would you like how does the AFA how does the AFDA and FWA come together and unify the voice of the fencer and and administer responsible regulation? Because like I think what we have to say is that's not easy to do. So is it is it just none or how would you like how would you orate that? Well, I mean I think that uh regulation is a tough one obviously when it comes down because we I mean we have a responsibility to the public. There's no doubt associations and uh even you know even the installers we have a responsibility to associations but we don't have a responsibility to become public consumer protection groups. That's not what associations were meant to be. We're here to represent contractors and the people that joined our you know our associations. So where where it gets blurred is when we start caring more about what the public consumer, you know, protection groups or the government and we start getting too care and we love to say that. We love to say we're working with the government, right? We love to say that it adds validity to us and the people that want to create the policy. They need associations because uh that's that's what gives them validity when they're going in. You can't you can't be a manufacturer or somebody going up saying you want to create laws. You need associations to say they're representing the industry to go in and do it. So, we have a responsibility, but the regulations have to be, you said it yourself, they have to be responsible regulations. We can't just go and roll them out and then shove them down the throat of the contractors. We've got to actually, and guess, we got to put it out there. And if we don't have a majority of the contractors that want them, you can't just go and lobby and say that we're representing the industry when we're not. Then, we can't go and say that that things are an industry standard when they're not, you know, and we we just because we're an association. It would be irresponsible of FWA to go around and do that. It would be easy for me to go up and and and literally I mean you could Google Fence Workers Association and we're everywhere, right? It's it's it's everywhere now. I could walk in somewhere and talk to senators and get a Senate committee to to sponsor a bill to get laws passed on behalf of the fence industry, but regardless of whether the fence industry wanted it or not, the problem is is when we go and we pass these laws and these regulations and then we start training the government in their in their facilities to actually go after the fence companies, but the fence companies aren't even aware of it or these are standards and laws that you you can't even you can't print, publish or share with your your employees. So, that becomes the issue with it. So, I think that it's definitely uh it's it's definitely an issue when we start doing it without irresponsibly. We start doing it without talking to the fence companies first. And I'm going to I'm going to I'll pass like it's like there's the there is a and I just hear it in your voice. There's an undertone of like they've already done it wrong and they're doing it wrong, right? like I can and you're not you're not being like overtly like and I'm like man I want to know what that is because I'm sitting in there and I'm like they don't even know what they're doing about regulation and like I believe that whatever this like the the s I'm going to call it the great sin that that really drove you away right I don't I I tend to believe whatever that was was a huge accident and it's a disaster and now I'm like how do we come together and fix it because like I I don't I I hope you would agree with this and maybe this is a reach but I'm like I'm not looking at any state going this is a environment like it's like you know because like you you I don't know so like we don't have a good regulatory climate California overly strict probably too punitive very very difficult on new business right Louisiana I've heard all about there's

All issues everywhere where there's regulation there's issues and everywhere where there's not regulation there's issues and I'm like so so it's it's and I'm not doing this because I'm like I'm like I really want to know what is at the root of like where you you know what is at the root of the schism and then I'm like but forget that for now I understand forgetting that like we don't that truth doesn't need to be agreed that I mean you there's not even an undertone I mean I think everybody knows it's Nevada where I live and Louisiana which is where um there's just a complete disaster down there when it comes to gate operators California it's funny you mentioned California because they are not a problem at all you would think that California would be the worst right Nevada is 10 times worse than California that to tell you what we've done and I've sat you know I I I went I start doing research I'm like what's going on and by the way a lot of people don't know this um you know, when it comes to UL325 and ASM standards. I've done hour and a half long presentations to the build I I was a member of the Southern Nevada International Code Council and I went to some of the uh Southern Nevada building official meetings with with the building officials from all the building departments around which have like five or six and all the code enforcement. I and I was teaching them about UL25 and ASMF2200 when it was because I was under the assumption it was still a voluntary standard. Meanwhile, being as active as I am and I'm pretty active in my own my own community. I mean, I hit on speed dial basically, my county commissioners and everybody when it comes down to this. I mean, I just the lieutenant governor's office just gave me an award, you know what I mean? I stay active with my state in there. And so, for the fact that that uh members of UL325 were lobbying, you know, while I'm doing all this to the to the Senate committee without me even knowing uh and getting this to become an actual law and then updating and amending the laws without without us any of us even knowing it's a law in my own state tells you where the problem lies. And this isn't just uh it isn't just here. Then it spread over Louisiana. Let's face it, it's been 25 years since UL has been started to get enforced here on the gate operator side of it. It's a garage door standard by the way. It has nothing to do with gates. It's just added. It was started with garage doors in the 70s. So it was they added a section for gates and we're basically have the garage door and the gate the door industry kind of controlling the standards for the fence. Again, a bunch of people have never installed fence or probably even if they have they haven't owned operator or ran a fence company in this century. Now you you alone know you've got you're dealing withund and some employees. Having these employees now is completely different than it was in the 80s. The the employees aren't the same. They're a lot more educated. Hell, they're all labor law experts now, right? So, uh it's it's a whole different ballgame. So, uh I think that that and then Louisiana, you know, that I happen stance across that that meeting where they were down there training the code enforcement officers and I'm standing up telling the fire the you know, the fire marshals down there, you can't just go after these fence companies. They're not aware of the stuff that that our associations are training you on yet and nobody cared. And I'm bothered by that, you know, because honestly, I feel that the the small fence companies and the small companies weren't represented. I'm sorry. It's if that's the case, then those, you know, and and maybe that's why you need two. Maybe you need an association that represents manufacturers and suppliers and association that represents uh the workers and the fence companies. Maybe that's maybe that answers your question because uh the line gets really blurred when you try to do both. Yeah. And I'm not I want to be sensitive to like it's like I'm Yeah. I'm interested like with the UL325 I'm like it's just very interesting for me. It's like how did it happen in Louisiana? How did it happen in Nevada? And why hasn't it happened elsewhere? And like generally most of the country is like wide open, right? I mean there's not it's like a it's there's no consolidated this is like responsible fence regulation. Like are we are we on the same page of that? Like well and and I think we'll agree that if

It's we can only first off it's in three states and nobody can really name the three that it's in, right? that it's actually been adopted into the state laws. So it it it's part of uh international building code says that you got to build per a electrical code and electrical code as a line item that says you need to use uh you need to use uh n listed equipment that's been through a national uh testing laboratories and even then they don't specify the UL is just the only uh it's the only listing that's for gate operators right so this is how far down it dwindles but it's managed to in this short period of time not not only that it's managed to make distributors say we're only going to carry products that have that UL325 label that's why you see some that you know some that have different ETL labels, other testing laboratories and stuff because it meets those standards. So it's it's it controls what equipment is sold in that state or even those distributors say I don't want to get caught in something. So it's uh and honestly nobody even knows I you know you could go around in my entire I'm one of the most strict states you you could find and you could drive around and there's almost nothing that you would be able to find that was completely compliant with U325 and ASMF2200. So, in 25 years, we've got three states that we think uh are are have adopted it, but but most of those aren't even enforcing it that much. And that what is that, another 350 years before we get the rest of the states on board. I'm not saying stop doing what we're working on. All I mentioned to everybody was we should pivot. You know, if you if you were a business consultant, which there's a million business consultants in our industry now, right, that are fence related, and they were doing consulting for another company and they were doing something for that long that was going to take that much longer before they could possibly make something work, they would recommend you to pivot. So, why are we not pivoting on this? And and um and I want to move from this because I like I I I don't want to move like I want to like I want to go break bread with you and like sit sit down and like sit I want to sit with it with you because I'm like what I'm I guess um I feel the the it's the AFA and the the the ad why um your fight against UL325 and it's I'm not I don't have a fight against UL325 is it and again that that gets out there. I again I could go back to show you I probably done more to push UL325 than almost anybody that's ever told you I was against UL325. I am for UL325 being a voluntary standard like it was intended with ASM. But when you start me when you start merging irresponsibly merging ASM standards with the UL325 standard and then turning that into a law without the fence companies without without responsibly throwing it out. I love UL325 and you you could find you could literally search through almost my posts. I probably promote gate safety more than almost anybody you've ever met in your life and I still do. So if that's how much I think gate safety is important. So there's definitely not a fight against you all 325. That's a narrative that some people want to put on there so that they can justify how they act. But there's definitely never been there's never been anything that I said I'm against it. I'm against them turning it into a law because it was a volunt it was created as a voluntary standard and the uh and so the so we're pro 325 um anti its adoption in the two states more the anti- merger and so irresponsibly I'm I'm I'm against it being irresponsibly rolled out. So again that and I think that that probably is the problem. I'm against it becoming a law without anybody knowing. I'm against it being uh copyrighted and I can't print, publish and share it. I looked it up. It would cost me $1.2 million to share UL and ASM with all my members. And then if I you wouldn't be allowed to print, publish, and share with the rest of your employees. And that's Oh, this is good. So, and that's that is a that is a um like um a gatekeeper that the AFA like is that the gate the gatekeeper is the American Fence Association won't or who's holding that gate? That's that's it's just a copyrighted standard. I mean, it's UL UL solutions is part of UL. Well, these are these are voluntary comm committees that actually create the laws and then it's owned by uh you know the actual standards and

Keep in mind you know I haven't tracked this thing down to the to the nut you know nuts of it but it's it's not you know the UL is not a for not a nonprofit it becomes for-profit once you start selling standards and stuff so there's two different two different sides of it so AFA is not there and honestly I don't think there's bad people at AFA that are doing anything with this I think that it's just it's just it sounds good I mean you can you can sell safety right you can get people behind safety. Even though the motives behind pushing somebody to to actually go and and push these things into law, it might might not have the best intentions, but we need it. We need these standards. We have to be respon we have to build state gates that are safer. There's no doubt about it. Yeah. Well, in the future, I mean, I've actually modeled it. I loved it. I mean, I think I've mo I think like responsible regulation like if you if you if you do it if you if you like I think like it can be done like and it should to your credit like I think you need we need to promote the best companies, right? And then I think we need to elevate the newcomers, right? And I think there should be formal there should be formal mentorship program and all of that but it's like um we'll get into that. That could be a whole another episode or we could do it offline but um and so I'll move I'll move from this if I can. And I'm just like really curious about like I'm curious about if you care to share like all the the ins and outs of the FWA. Like I I I like you probably know the ins and outs of the AFA better than I do, but it's like I I have no I have no idea. You kind of like call because I was like asked a question that I probably shouldn't have because I I just I thought like it was you Sean Kang and um Oh my gosh, I can't remember his name. Come on. The guy that was calling out Michael Reid, the Wyoming boy. He's gonna get mad at me. This live feed. Mark Olsson. Mark Olsson. Yeah. Know what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. We just at his summer bash thing. I I thought you guys were kind of the pioneers and you said like they're not really affiliated. It's really just you and Susan. Yeah. I mean the the day-to-day operations of this association is is me and Susan having probably 50 million phone calls. There's only one employee and it's Susan. So uh the everybody else is is voluntary. There's there's just it's just her. So she's the one I have contact with every day. And then um in my office I've got probably three I probably have at least three or four people that work on it that are on my payroll at Las Vegas Fence. So it's all it's all paid for basically by Las Vegas Fence. The dues probably don't even uh cover enough to cover our executive director's salary. The rest comes from me. So that's why I'm probably uh I'm probably a little less uh you know forgiving when somebody says, "Hey, what are you doing with this? What are you doing with that?" Well, you do better, right? Go out there if you you know, we've gotten 150 people healthcare. You I I challenge you to go do better, right? I I hope you're not looking at me. I've never I the only the the only I was I was mentioning other other people that I I I'm a big like anyway, I won't say if if you're talking to me, I apologize. That is No, no, no. Just in general. Yeah. It's like, you know, because every once in a while you get those people that are commenting, you're just like going. But yeah, so I mean that's the whole that I mean that's it. You know, we do uh we're constantly working on resources and uh you know, fence social that we created. We've got the show. Like I said, we pretty much had to fund that whole thing and take a lot of you know, it's different than just setting up it's different than just going to a hotel and and and setting up some tables and and you know, minimum liability or something like that. But we had to go put a lot on the line to kind of pull these shows off and pull the resources and and put through everything that we're doing. And so, uh, oh, I was, yeah, you know what you didn't do that I really was really was hoping you were going to do and I did offer like years ago, um, to help with is that like the used like the the interactive like sell your overstock thing that never took flight, did it? Wasn't that you that was started, did you?

I tried it, man, but nobody put nothing on there. I was ready, man. I I messaged I said, "I want to see this exist." Because we all got [Â __Â ] in our yards that other people Did you see that? I had it. What was it? Uh, fence auction, I think, at one point. I tried it, but nobody really kind of jumped on those things. Dude, I must have thrown, you know, I'm I'm not afraid to fail. I think that's one of one of my things. So, I I must have tried 50 things. What's funny is there there's some stuff that I spend months and months and $10,000 trying to build and this and that and and like three people like it. And then there's things that I'm like I'm just on Sunday on my couch and I start up and next thing you know there's 500 people in there. I'm like, I don't understand it. So, you you just don't know. But but you can't be afraid to fail, especially in this industry and keep trying to change things. Okay. Okay. But for my AFA family that's all curious about what Brian's up to. So you've got you and Susan pretty much. And then is she the you've got you Susan and who's the executive director? That's Susan. Oh, Susan. Okay. And then um and then basically it's funded by all your people and then there there is a board of directors though. No. Are they active or they're not? No, it's uh it's still just us. I mean we're hoping to get uh we're hoping to get some of that stuff set up but there just hasn't been uh there hasn't been time and enough interest in it yet, you know. I mean you you you're looking for a new job. I'm I'm hiring. She sounds She sounds like the miracle worker. I'm a big I'm a big believer that Yeah. Everybody has something extra extraordinary. We accomplish a lot. I mean and not just that. I mean she's about ready to close some um some stuff on some life insurance that you know and every I think what one thing you'll find interesting is even uh you know like working on some life insurance stuff. We're working on some resources some and we're always working on new accounts for small fence companies and we've opened the door with a lot of the suppliers that said hey if they're FWA members will you sign them up right and people that were saying they were having problems getting accounts and stuff with and and it's and we wouldn't maybe maybe we're not used to getting that experience but it is for some people but you know when we look at a resource you know it it's like even when you you look for healthcare you look for one of these other things there's a million there's a million companies say yeah you know we'd love to help your members out that have 10 employees or more we'd love to help your biggest you there's an 8020. They want to make 80% of their money off of, you know, 20% of your members, right? So, every resource it it takes a little longer for us to do because we won't accept it unless it unless they can actually help every single member, even if it's just one person because the average fence company is not have 10 employees. The average fence company could be it could be me and you together. It could be me and my brother, me and my uncle. That's that's that's a common fence company that's out there. And I think whether you got one employee or 10, you're still a legitimate, you know, fence company. So, our benefits are designed to be like if they say, "Well, you have to have this many employees." That's not going to work. We're not going to introduce that because I don't when you when you sign up, I don't want you getting phone call from, you know, 30 people, you know, they got a that's they got a list of the new members that says, "Hey, that's so and so calling from um XYZ Health or XYZ Investments or this or that, and then let me ask you a few questions about your company." And you're like, "Yeah, well, it's just me and my wife and and uh you know, my my brother works." Okay. Well, unfortunately, we're not a good fit for you because uh we have to have, you know what I mean? We don't we make sure that uh that the benefits are actually going to fit the the fence companies, right? Down. It's in the name. Look at the name, Fence Workers Association, right? It's right there in the name. If it doesn't uh come down and work for all the workers in it and yeah, I mean, I just I'm a huge proponent of taking care of the small guys. I think the middle class in this country is like super eroding. I'm like

I'm all on board, I guess. I'm Yeah, I'm just I'm still I remain interested. I'd love to explore it in depth of like the the benefit of the two associations versus one consolidated voice. I understand the competitive nature and putting the pressure on. It's like what? But um so would you oh this is another thing. If I got Michael to come and just show the books, turn over the books, like if I could convince him to come and like make it public, would you do the same? You're gonna find out real quick who the nonprofit really is. That's for sure. So you would you would you would turn the books? Yeah, there's I don't even know what you first off Yeah, I mean the books there is no books for the nonprofit. Like I said, it generates the the dues and stuff are limited. So, uh I I I couldn't answer that. You'd have to talk. We'd have to figure that out. But definitely not going to uh publicize a bunch of stuff like that. They say open Komodo. I mean, I'm I think I think I think Well, I mean, I believe nonprofit stuff's pretty open anyway. We're new to this, so you know what I mean. We're fairly new to this stuff, but I believe uh it's pretty nonprofits are pretty transparent. Yeah. I just think it's good to see what's actually going and so you I know I believe I saw this touted or something to the effect of like we are the biggest because the AFA is not the biggest. So what's like total members to do are we allowed to talk about that or no for you guys? Yeah, I think last time I checked it was close to 2,00 2,000. Isn't that like right about and what's the AFA similar? Susan Susan just said it's 2359 23 but and like and the difference with you is like I can be it's it's companies and individuals right like so you like only companies like somebody working for me might be an FWA member and I don't even know it right you you could be well you'd have to I mean you have to sign up so you could go and and sign up as an individual or a business or even have sponsor members so there's three yeah there's three tiers because I don't think the AFA does indiv Did can I I guess you can, huh? I guess maybe you can, but it's significantly more expens like if if somebody working for if I wasn't AFA, they could go sign up on an individual. True. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I believe I know you said I probably know more about FW. I don't. I mean, when I started this thing, I couldn't have told you who the president of AFA was. I never even heard of Tony Thornton. I never heard of anybody. So, if when I started this thing, I think Tony Thornton messaged me a few times back then or something and I saw him in my Facebook because, you know, back this when I was and I honestly I thought it was fam. I didn't even know who he was. So, that's I'm not and I didn't mean I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying I didn't know the names. You know, I think Sam Williams was probably the first person I ever really met from uh AFA and that was it. I don't think I've ever had a conversation with any of the presidents after that. So, you I'm sorry. I thought you came from within the AFA and then left. So you were never big in you were not big in AFA. I couldn't have given you the name of a single member or person of AFA. I hadn't had a single before I started FWA. I hadn't had a single conversation with a single one. I couldn't give you uh at all any insight on it. I still today No, I admired the story better when I thought you like did everything like you fought tooth and nail to fix the AFA from within, but you just said screw you guys. I'm doing my own thing. Yeah. you know, and I I made some a couple com I made a couple phone calls back then, I think, at the time, and I was just everybody and and I I I g be a little aggressive. I'm like, I want to do this, I want to do that. And people just, you know, you can become a member. I'm like, I don't want to just become a member, right? I want to actually make a difference. And I think that uh and don't get me wrong, I think it's a certain amount of time you can get a lot done before you start getting really bottlenecked down with the boards and the committees and and everything. And you watch. I mean, I think I think in 5 years, 10 years, we need another association to uh come in and and get as much done as they can. I think we have

Enough room for five more associations. You think that we should just have one? I think we should have five. I don't know about one. I mean, I think one strong boy like I'm listen I'm for competition, but in association land, it's like then what assoc like if we have like six associations, you got to subscribe to all of them or who's the like I'm think I'm for like a I'm for a very healthy regulatory environment. like what industries because you do that this is like across all industries. What is um like which industries do you look at that like the multiple trade like the multiple associations are doing the best like where where do you see it working really well? I mean the homebuilders association has the you know they they get into masonry they get into a lot of other stuff where you can join those. So I think that uh and the problem is in order for us to actually have one you would have to either have you'd have to more members. bottom line, we don't reach enough. We don't have enough members in our industry to act like we, you know, we we we need to we need to focus on getting more people engaged in our industry and a little less on policy because and and maybe that's the the definite difference is is I don't believe that policy is what makes us professional because the the people that are out there looking to buy a fence, they have no idea about these laws. More laws and fencing is not going to make our industry look more professional to a person looking to buy a fence. Look at the pool industry. The pool industry is a complete disaster, by the way. I mean, yeah, we're talking about one of the most overregulated industries in the world to where you can't even hardly do anything. Nobody nobody trusts them. Going to Nevada and the contractors uh contractors board, the building departments, they're so strict on them, everything because I mean it's and that's because it got so overregulated. And I'm really nervous that that will happen to us if we're not careful. And um this is good because like you I agree with what you said is like we need to focus on engagement and more membership over policy, right? And I'm like, and I I sat on the government the board, right? I'm on the board, the committee, and I was like, and Katherine, don't get mad at me, but it's like, dude, all we did this year as far as government goes, and I know she's doing other projects and whatever, but like is figure out what we might do about policy in the f like we're like the thesis of this committee, and this is how slowmoving it is to your credit. Like, this is like, you know, the the thesis of the committee is let's pursue exploring what regulation might look like in the future. So I'm just wondering where the this kind of that idea of the big bad wolf making all these policy they're all focused on policy I like I'm and I I do sit in the meetings I've been in my second midyear I'm like bro I don't I don't see that going on so I don't know where that is that is that back channel back doors or where do you see yeah absolutely you just don't follow it closely enough uh you know is what it is because it's not you know it's injustice at it at its at its core because you know you're one of the few people that says I want to know about it right but a lot of people aren't interested don't want to know about it until it affects them and then they then they they complain, "How come how come people let this happen? And how come you're not fighting for me?" Right? How come you're not fighting for? Well, you're not we're not fighting for you because you didn't fight for all of us when when it was happening. And and that that's basically what's going to happen. It's going to come to your neighborhood. It's going to come to your area one day and you're going to go, "Man, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe uh I'm spending half my time arguing with the contractor's board that I lobbyed to get." And here's how these policies work. you go and and you create these laws and it's great for like I said a limited few people. We sold some classes. We got the uh the education in there. We've now we've got to resert people. We've got to do all this stuff. It creates it's almost almost like its own little economy, right? So, we create all this and then all the contractors start start complaining about how bad it is. Go down to Louisiana. Go down. Everybody's complaining. And then we step in as an association and say, "We're going to hire a lobbyist to get

Rid of the very same laws that we lobbyed to get in there." and we and and but we're we're here to help after we created the laws because they couldn't control it. You can't control the government what the government does with it, you know, uh after you've already created it and how it grows. They create a department. That department is going to do everything they can do to stay in business and the only thing they can do is go after the people in their system and that's you. So, they go after the people doing it, right? So, and and half these people aren't even aware that it's a law yet. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I'd say because I understand I well, I don't I understand that you don't want to say anything that could jeopardize your association. Totally respect that. But what I do need is as somebody that would like to expose the truth for all of us to see because I'm telling you, I wouldn't want to sit here and say, Brian, that's not going on, right? I don't feel comfortable. I don't know what's going on. And maybe there's there's a secret agenda behind closed doors way under this evil cabal of like, got it. Maybe I would I'll expose it. I promise you I'll expose it. But you some anonymous source from your network that we're not going to name is going to have to read me like I because I like if that's what's going on. I'm just telling you I I'm I do I have resources. I will root it out because I don't want to agree with it. I'm like well it won't come from my network by the way. So if uh if anybody wants to reach out on behalf they can but it definitely won't be coming from FWA. But nonetheless because I believe there's time to fix this. I believe there's time. I mean look at the you know the gate safety stuff that we're doing this TGM500 standard. We have access to get gate safety out there if everybody worked together. If everybody worked together, everybody could go to gatesafety.com and they could share. If it was truly about safety, go to gatesafety.com and share the new standard that's on here that by the way can get adopted. It's it's literally designed to meet the international building codes uh 10411, which is uh you know, meet or exceed standards that are already out there as well. So, if we really cared about gate safety standards and not just about being policy and influence and control, then why are they so afraid? Why are people afraid to share um the TGM500 standard? That's I would love to know that. But I guess my thing is um why why isn't this on the homepage um of all the other associations websites? If if if we care so much about gate safety, if all we care about is people putting fall protection on, enttrapment zones, making sure the photo eyes are on, all the key aspects of making a gate safe, if this outlines that, and this is a checklist and this is a way to make that happen. Bottom line, if I had a way to tell you that uh we're going to put more fall protections on gate, and all I told everybody was, let's spend a year working on fall protection. Let's spend a year with the association. I I've talked to even even your association on this. Let's let's get together and spend an entire year, all the media guys, me, everybody, and we talk about fall protection. And then the next year we talk about enttrapment zones. We do this because come on. I mean, what do we got to lose? It's 25 years. We got three states and nobody even knows what's going on in those three states. Even if you took a kept working on the agenda to get UL325 adopted in every state, but we did this at the same time. It's not meant to replace UL325. It's meant to complement it. Why Why is this such a challenge to that? Why aren't they sharing this? And and I, you know, I get it. They can say AFA, FWA, they can say UL, TGM, call it whatever you want. But if you truly believe in gate safety like I do, and and by the way, you can print, publish, and share this. There's zero copyrights on this. Print it, put it in a cab of every one of your trucks. You can go to you could download the gate safety uh app. You could go to Android, iOS, and download the app. You can start doing checklists tomorrow and and have your crews doing it to make sure fall protections on there, the enttrapment zones are handled, abrupt edges, all the stuff that they show videos on everywhere saying showing how kids are getting hurt. We've got it right here. So, why is this not being shared? I don't know what it is. It's just a safety manual. You've made the What is it?

TGM500 is an entire It's an entire gate safety design checklist. This is part of her training tomorrow with iOS apps that I've created everything iOS and Android apps. We could we could increase uh and this isn't just lab tested. I mean you could go and create you know you could go and create all the operators you want that say uh you know it's tested in a laboratory but you can't guarantee that they're installing this stuff correctly in the field and it's free. help me understand it's a complement to U325 and I guess also is that is your issue that they're not promoting that or your issue is they're promoting something else that's more evil and like the I you said the words that nobody from your network is going to be the one informing it's like if I want to go to midyear and I want to say hey this is the beef this is what we got to stop doing how do I reveal how do I come to an a clear understanding of what I sat I by the way I've emailed um UL and on behalf of fence workers association saying I would I would like permission to share the UL uh 325 and the ASM standards which is now merged together right and I think it was 2018 when they merged them together so uh no you can't share it so I'm like well how am I supposed to promote this to the members if I'm not allowed to share it so then I went to this meeting at uh Tony Thornton's event the business thing that they had that one in Oklahoma went all the way there brought down a couple of people sat there they added an extra session to discuss gate safety and I've got uh the one of the guys from uh ASM and I think he worked for Marristar. Then we had UL people there and all the other people. And I said, "Look, you guys, I I I go, you guys finally broke me. I will 100% get behind. They had this big plan and they wanted everybody to sit around and talk about how we were going to what can we do to modify the standard?" I'm like, "We're not here to modify it. Nobody understands it now. You can What are the meetings about? You're going to keep making it more complicated. Nobody nobody can access it." So, I said, "I you guys broke me." I even told him, "You broke me. I'll support it. I'll back it." And I asked them both, will you just remove the copyright and let uh and let FWA share the standards? No. Or we'll get back to you. Whatever it is, you know what I mean? That's my only beef on the whole thing is is I can't But that's not the I just want to make sure that's the UL325. That's not how does AFA govern that or do they Yeah, I'm not Yeah, I'm not Yeah, I I for some reason I'm not I'm not tying AFA into it, but they're obviously a big component of pushing this thing, you know, pushing this thing forward. A lot of the training is happening on that. I mean, I was down in Louisiana. They were the ones that were training the uh uh code enforcement officers on it. And so you're pro you I just want to because maybe I'm not a smart man on and in my defense my defense I asked you to send me the write up like send me the content so I could consume it ahead of time. Um, so you're you're pro- UL325 as a standard anti-health UL325 has been adopted and then you've developed your own gate safety manual that could be adopted by all. That's basically that you basically took UL320 is it I'm I'm so is that the wish would be that we would go I'm pro UL325 and ASM F2200. You couldn't find anybody that was more pro it than me to the point where, like I said, hour and a half long presentations on it. That's how pro I am on UL325 and I'm not pro on it uh a voluntary standard becoming an actual law unless it's rolled out correctly. And and you'll hear this a hundred times. You have to responsibly roll this thing out to the industry. You can't just go into a state and make this a law and then say um without first off we have enough reach all of us together to to flood the industry with why why is this gate safety standard not on the homepage of of the of the website of the people pushing for it to be a law and then and then um and then there's a concept that the AFA is like forcing this down irresponsibly maybe like that's kind of the thesis and then what I'm confused about is UL is protecting their codes and won't let you have access to them but you don't seem very upset with them about that But I I feel like well you can't I mean what I mean I I don't believe AFA is doing this by the way pushing down this throw. So no this

Is and I I think that they're obviously they support it. There's no doubt right they they're there's no doubt that it's it's part of their making I mean it's part of what they're trying to become. Look at the policy. They're for policy right and uh they're for policy regardless of whether the whole industry knows about it or not. It's and so if not you, you got to find me somebody that can help me understand why you say that because I haven't seen it and I want to see it. But good to go. I'll I'll let it die. But there but again there there are a lot of good people. So it's not you know it's not like I'm I'm even against uh by the way against AFA at all. I have a lot of good friends. Yeah. And then if I take if I take this um your what's the manual called the the thing you built with the apps and all the TM500. You can go to gatesafety.com and uh you can download you can take a look at it and that if you're if you're a a contractor installer click on the link for that. It'll get you already more information and again you'll see that it's pushing everything that we want to get out there. I honestly I don't care like I said make a tour we can print publish and share the other one and let's just run with that right as long as it's responsible but it's you know I I'm just not for irresponsibly rolling stuff out. And yours your version of it is just a more user friendly version or is it the same thing or it's No, it's contractor friendly. And here's what we care about. It's taken all the aspects that we want. We want fall protection, right? We want enttrapment zones covered. We want abrupt edges. We want we want the warning signs put on. We want all the stuff on there that makes these gates safe. And we want it to where it's a userfriendly so that contractors can actually go out and do it. And at the same time, we need to lower liability for our contractors. We can't make stuff so complicated that no matter what the contractor does, he's missing something and opening himself up for a lawsuit if there's an accident. And you want it to be responsibly regulate. You want it to be blah, but you want it to be done responsibly or you don't want it to be law. Well, if you can't roll it out responsibly, you can't make it a law. And so is it is your like a desired end state that it is and I'm I'm not picking I hope if it sounds antagonistic, it's not at all. I'm I'm seeking solely to understand. But you you want either UL325 or what you've built to be codified and kind of ratified in a responsibly regulated way or just not regulated but adopted more universally or I'm wondering your ultimate it needs to become yeah it needs to become an industry standard doesn't mean it's a law. There's plenty of ways that we do stuff in industry standard. I mean Starbucks is the industry standard for a latte. doesn't need to be a law that that's how all the all the lattes are are done around the country, right? And it's still the industry standard how they do it. So, we can have industry standards in our in our industry on how we build gates and we can start working on getting the information out there to the actual contractors, not the government. And I mean, I agree with you. I'm like, so if it's not a law, you don't have to do it. But those that do, how do let's say let's say I'm in let's say I'm like complete fence is done. Every gate we do is going to follow Brian. I trust Brian. What he's done is gold. We're doing it. My My assumption is I am more expensive and harder to sell to the people that just are like put a gate operator up that moves. So like I'm kind of like can we and I'm I just want to be very clear. I'm very less regul anti-regulation, but I'm like it's kind of like, you know, is is it a hope that we have better ethos across the board or how do we how would we universally adopt better gate practices if not law, would you say? And who if not the government, who administers that? Is that you're hoping the AFA and FWA are administering this? Like you can't be a certified contractor unless you do these things or how do you envision it? Yeah, I mean it comes to it comes down to people being responsible and getting together and and let's face it, I mean, you telling me we couldn't spend a year talking about fall protection. We can't have fall protection year this year and we couldn't get I mean, what what are most accident most accidents happen even at the ones you see at the schools and

Stuff because the gate fell. So, let's focus on let's be practical about it. Let's focus on the problems that we're actually having and get everybody together and say we're going to start we're going to start getting you know we're going to start getting the information out there on fall protection. So, it's more info. It's more awareness. You're for increased awareness. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's what we're missing. I think that we, you know, and and that's why I think that's why they're getting so much push back against it is because uh we're contractors, man. We're done. I mean, the reason we became fencers and we're running our own companies. We don't like people telling us telling us what to do sometimes. And we're a different breed of people. We're never going to learn, you know, we're never going to learn by people shoving stuff down our throats. In fact, we're going to push back against it or we'll just decide we're not going to get into gates at all because it's too complicated. Yeah. Well, I think Are we at time or how in a future conversation I'd love to I'd love to know how we could maximize the benefit to the smaller companies um and do some like legit mentorship because I'm all about that. Yeah. And and I'm for like I said, I think that uh you the associations I mean they don't have to be separate. I don't think they are. you know, they got to get uh they gota, you know, they got to get together and start sharing information together. Uh do you have time? What does that look like for you? Because I feel like there's a hostility underlying it all. Like they need to change something for you to be like I know you're accepting and tolerant and endorsing of them. Like how what would like the ultimate marriage look like for Well, you mean FWA and AFA? I think you'll always have a couple associations. That's like, you know, I mean there's there's just I mean how you'd merge them. I don't know what you'd do to merge them together if you if that's what you're talking about. But um yeah, I mean I I'm I'm a pretty easygoing guy right down to it. I'm not going to push stuff that I that that the people don't have access to. I think I've been really clear on that. So if you know if it's if it's going to be something I can't print, publish, and share, and I can't I can't tell thousands of our members that they have to follow a standard that they don't um have access to and that they can't train all their people to without breaking the law. Yeah, dude. That seems really I just don't understand. I'm wildly confused by that whole thing myself, but maybe it's just speaking to my intelligence or lack thereof. No, I I mean I I don't know. But I mean, I think that there's definitely ways to connect them all. Hey, hopefully uh hopefully we answered some of your questions, but yeah. Yeah. I hope I I'm apologize if this gets bad ratings because I didn't maybe I'm I hope I hope I didn't do a bad thing for you. What is it? Does it live Does it exist in a perpetuity or it's just live and then shut off? It's just live and then it goes down. Yeah. No, no. And then uh people can go back and watch it. Oh, you can. Okay. And so I look for the I look for the trade industry. Trade industry. Okay, cool. Is it all on all the Is it just YouTube or is it on all No, it's Yeah, it's streaming everywhere. Oh, nice. And again, it's going to be um I know Jeff here, he's he wants us to go into in depth and people always want to know more. You know what? It's easy for people to have anything to lose to uh say let's dig into stuff, isn't it? And uh it's like everybody loves gossip and they love to make stuff, you know, that we love the drama, right? But uh it's just it doesn't benefit the industry and it's not going to benefit the industry if if uh FWA gets weakened or if AFA gets weakened. I you know I I I need AFA and uh AFA needs us. We need everybody together. Um and it's like I if if there's a a weak show, you know, at the fence tech, it doesn't help FWA show. If there's a a weak fence show, it doesn't help Fence Tech show. There's no, you know what I mean? all the stuff that's going on our benefits. It's, you know, they've got different benefits than we have. It's it's really that we're not even competing at all. Yeah. I I followed that. I And I don't I

Just want to make clear I didn't sign up Jeff to ask to to be my fanboy, but Jeff Jeff agrees. I think I think I think what we owe the world, man, is like perspective particularly, you know, like it's like I don't I don't know. I don't know how we get like what I'm interested if like I'm just a big like So here's what I'm gonna say. Here's what I'm going to say. if like if the AFA is is as you say it is, it needs to be revealed so that the AFA can birth out of it. You know what I mean? We can't if we can't address the problem. I don't think that they're doing anything. Uh I don't think they're doing anything malicious to the industry. So there's there's nothing to reveal. So I I guess this I I think this has been created, you know, I mean this literally has been created by other people to think that I think that I don't want to dime any right. I don't want to dime anybody out. I think the one thing I would say to everybody if you see it like for anybody that's antagonizing anybody in the industry, they're invited to my show because I want to understand it. And I'm not going to use any names because I think I overstepped on the last show where I kind of like I I asked a question about you that I was uninformed and I was speaking to other people that now I realize are not involved in. So I don't want to but I think like when I see some of the posts and I'm going to say one is like you know this is going on in Louisiana, go fix it. I'm like are we just online bullying each other? What are we freaking doing? you know, it's like what is that? What is the call to action, right? And so my ask of all the people that are listening is if there's if we're antagonizing anybody, I want to come and reveal what the antagonizing intent is because I think it's very easy for me to put that out and say like, you know, f you do better, right? And this guy should get fired and like and I'm like, okay, let I'm I'm like point taken. I hear you. Let's explore that. Like that's my whole thing. That's not FWA. So I and I think that people put that together. That's not you did yourself. That's not FWA. I mean, it's it's that, you know, and that's not me. That's whatever people post out there and stuff there. I I have no influence over what people are doing out there. As much as they think the only person I have influence over on is Susan, what she says on those things. If it wasn't if it didn't come from Susan, then uh it didn't come from FWA. And I I apologize. I thought I thought it was all one one one happy family. And I just say like I'm like me. I'm like kind of like you for the small contractor. I'm kind of like I just hate online bullying and I like don't want to go and engage in online bullying. Anybody that's online bullying particularly in our industry because I'm with you. We all need to do better. It's like anybody that's bullying is invited to a conversation with me to like uncover like if you're pissed off about like because that's the thing you're like pissed off about something there's passion. Passion is good. Like let's get to the fruit of the passion because it's like I don't know where it comes from. So that's and we're quick to like we're quick to not like someone because we saw a picture of them with someone else or we think they're part of a click or something like that. But honestly, if you were to hear most of the conversations even Michael Reed and I have, they've just been nothing but great conversations. So it's uh people love people love to kind of uh you know create their own narrative and and they manifest things if they can get it to happen. But there's no rivalry between AFA and FWA. There's nothing for us to be rivals about. So it's uh it's just what what you know what I mean? What what is there to argue about? Yeah, I just Yeah, I I feel like there is something there because you're not happy with something about what they're doing with policy because I hear I hear you. I just have an opinion on what we we just we just differ in what we believe makes an industry more professional or not. That's it. But we're allowed to have our opinions in that. Welcome to America. I don't have to agree with uh you know, we got two parties, right? We got two political parties, main political parties. Some of them want That's not working very good, Ryan. That's not That's not working very good. We don't want to reference that, do we?

Oh, well, anyway. No, I'm just saying, you know what I mean? Some people want more regulations and some don't. So, I am not a big on I don't believe that makes us more professional. I think what makes us more professional are access to um training and getting the getting us out there. And honestly, we don't have enough for new companies coming in. Well, dude, I don't want to if we get shitty reviews, don't bring me back. But I do I want I want the rubric for how you started and how you like I I really meant to intend it because like I mean I think I think you got to give credit where credit's due, man. You like formed an association from nothing with two people. Like kudos. I I do I have nothing but applause for that. I think it's awesome. I just I still maintain I I hope it's okay. It's like I don't I don't I don't know that generally speaking two associations are the most effective for us to be the best version of ourselves. But I relinquish. I admire what you built, man. I admire what there's no juice to spill. So, and I think Jeff's like, "Oh, back up." What? There's no juice to spill. I don't think there's some massive conspiracy going on at uh at AFA. So, I don't think I You've said it before. I don't think it's organized to that point where uh it's a massive conspiracy happening. Well, good. Well, then I misinterpreted it because it seemed like there was even in our last phone conversation, that was my maybe I was reading between the lines too much, but um well, dude, thanks for having me on. I appreciate chatting with you. You'll have to tell me if this is like your worst performing show. I don't know how that all works, but I don't want We'll track it. Hey, but we we do uh Susan wants to bring up we got demo days coming up. Uh we'll be uh registration will be opening August 1st and that'll be um coming up on the 17th, 18th in April. So, uh stay tuned. All the det all the details will be open at uh you go to fencow.com and register for that one as well on August 1st. But she wanted me she wanted me to pull that. I don't know if I'm supposed I didn't know if I was supposed to respond or not. I don't know. No, she just pulled it up. I do what I'm told. We all got a boss somewhere. All right. All right, Kevin. It's uh late late for you. This is the latest I've been up now. I'm over in Florida, so uh I'm beat, too. We uh long flights getting bedtime, man. Thanks for making time. It was good chat with you, bro. Yeah. All right, man. We'll talk to you. Have a good one. See you next time. Later.