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It's the holiday season.

It actually isn't, but it was. And it was a beautiful holiday season.

And now it's time to do another recording.

It is.

Who do we have today?

Well, today we have a guest whose roots run deep in Arizona. A fifth generation Arizonan, he grew up in Mesa. His grandfather served as superintendent of Mesa Public School and his father as mayor of Mesa. From a young age, he loved aviation. This passion eventually led him to his current role as the Director of Communications and Government Relations at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. He is a proud sun devil, the father of three and stepdad to three more. He lives by the mantra make it happen. Please welcome Ryan Smith.

Welcome, Ryan.

Thank you very much. Let's hear it. Let's make it happen. That we will. Okay. At least for the next, you know, hour or so, half an hour, let's.

Just have a really good conversation. We'll just keep that one out of the way. That way we can make it happen.

Well, I think we should start with rapid fire. Here we go. Would you rather travel to the past or to the future?

I would rather travel to the past.

Okay.

I like going back and, you know, in my age now, being able to look back on the things that I thought were really great and funny and then realized that I was just really dumb and somehow I survived those things. But it would be great to go back and have some of the memories and look at them as. Look at some of the teenage things that I did or my early 20s and look at now with the wisdom of being older and say, wow, I really actually did that.

Well, I'm glad you gave us a specific timeline to talk about today, so. Sounds great.

Yeah, we're going to dig into that. Perhaps we'll find out what your hidden talent is.

My hidden talent is. I would, I would say my hidden talent. I can pretty much, in the. In the span of a second, cover both sides of an argument. I can either. I can either be with you or against you, whatever. Whatever way it needs to suit the. The moment. I think. I think being a politician was. Was in my blood. And I learned early on how to kind of straddle that rope and try and walk myself through those.

We'll test this. Are you a sports guy?

Yes.

ASU wins the game.

Yes.

Chiefs win the Super Bowl.

Yes.

Okay, we can be friends.

See, I did my research, and I knew those answers in advance.

Okay, good.

Okay, I think I know this, but maybe not. Would you rather attend a hip hop concert or a rock concert?

Rock. That's a tough one, but I was.

Gonna say I almost went the other way.

Yeah, I may be jumping ahead, but I've been to more rock concerts than I have hip hop.

Okay.

Def Leppard, Skid Row, Guns n Roses. Let's go. Have you ever lived abroad?

I have Mexico City. Yeah. I lived there for two years.

What is your go to snack?

Go to snack? Is anything chocolate?

Well, then what makes you hopeful other than chocolate?

Hopeful is the ability to kind of chart my own course. Knowing that thick, thin, good or bad, I'll figure it out and end up golden in the end.

Are you more of a thinker or a doer?

I am definitely more of a thinker. I think. I think about all of the things that I need to do, and then I look at the clock and I'm like, well, I ran out of time to do all those things.

Although he does say, let's make it happen.

Let's make it happen. Yes.

If someone were to play you in a movie, who would you want it to be?

I would love to be Ryan Gosling if I came back. Because, I mean, obviously he's gorgeous and, you know, the fact that he's funny and good looking and have everything going on hashtag mancrush. Yeah, I could make that work. Yeah.

All right, what is your favorite pastime or hobby?

Favorite hobby is mountain biking. Love mountain biking pastime. I wish it was more of a pastime, mountain biking, but finding the time is sometimes a little hard. But I really love mountain biking.

All right, glass half full or half empty?

I'm a half full guy.

Let's make that happen. Okay.

He's not gonna let it go now.

He's not.

You're gonna have to change your mantra.

But, hey, you know, like I said, I'm a politician. Whatever makes floats his boat.

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Find rebates@aps.com business rebates. Want to start your own podcast? Whether it's a business, personal, internal, or hobby podcast. Sleepytime Studios can help you with everything you need to get your podcast recorded, edited, hosted, and shared with the world. Get started on the podcast of your dreams@sleepytimestudios.com mention guiding growth and get 10% off any podcasting package@sleeptytimestudios.com well, Sarah, let's dig into this one, shall we?

Let's go. I mean, I can't wait to get to the teenage years, but I think we should start at the beginning.

Yeah, okay, fine. Where did it all start, sir?

Right here in Mesa, Arizona. Well, technically Provo, Utah. But my parents were college. I don't know if it's sweethearts, so they met in college. My mom got pregnant way too early. She was just a freshman or sophomore in college. My dad was just about to graduate.

I thought you were gonna say high school. Cause that would have been way too early.

That would have been awkward college. At least not the version that they told me. I haven't investigated this thoroughly.

Math might prove that one out, right?

Yeah, that's true. So I born in Provo, but quickly moved right back here to Mesa after my dad graduated from BYU and came back here and grew up and went to Mesa schools and basically have lived within the same square mile or two, except for a little break when I was in my early 20s. But basically I'm back within. Within a mile of where I grew up.

So what high school?

Mountain View.

Mountain View. Okay.

Okay. Talk about. I mean, this wasn't really that long ago, but I mean, how many. When was this? What did childhood look like in Mesa?

Childhood in Mesa was awesome. It was. We grew up. I grew up in, like, the Val Vista and Brown area. So it was nothing but orange groves and spread all out. And it was great because you would. You just kind of would run. It was still. Still a small, big city, you know that the Starting with Fiesta Mall and then later Superstition Springs. Spent a lot of Saturdays just getting dropped off there. My parents just, like a lot of the kids from my generation, would just let us go places. So we would rollerblade to the Wedge, which is in South Scottsdale, and somehow just find our way home. You know, a little detour through. Through ASU and through Tempe. But the beauty thing is if you could find University Drive, I knew I could always get home. Yeah, just keep going. Because it just kept on going. So we would keep swimming. We would spend a lot of time doing that. Yeah, it was a lot of fun sports.

You said you're a sports guy. Did you do any of that kind.

Of stuff in high school, swam in high school because I had a girl. I was not a great swimmer. I mean, I was decent, but really I went out for the swim team because my girlfriend was on the swim team.

Okay. Yeah, I didn't say, I didn't ask her. Good. I just said, did you do sports?

Yep, yep. Kind of fell into that and really enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun.

Do you remember what strokes you did?

Well, I did freestyle.

Okay. Okay.

So sucked at everything else. I'm gonna assume you were the firstborn. Are you the only.

I'm the oldest of three.

Okay.

Yeah. So I have a younger brother and a younger sister both. One lives in Gilbert, the other one lives in Mesa in my parents house, which they grew up in.

Okay, so there's something to this because then obviously your family's very close.

Yep, yep, we're close. We've got. That's kind of the benefit of just being three and pretty close in age. So we're only separated by three or four years.

And was your grandfather superintendent while you were in school?

He retired when I was in first grade. So every teacher, basically every teacher that I ever had, at least through high school, almost through high school, had been hired by him. He was their superintendent. So that helped a lot. And sometimes I would pull that up and say, and I'd say, well, you know, then find out my grandpa was superintendent. And they would use that against me because they were saying if your grandpa understood what a horrible student you're being right now, he would be, he would be mortified. So don't make me reach out and tell him, you know how you're sloughing off in class.

I don't think that's fair leverage.

It really isn't. But when I was early on, like in elementary school and junior high, it was great. It was like, oh, I love your grandpa, he's the greatest. He hired me and it really worked. But then when you, when you have to have some accountability, it starts to work against you.

Yeah.

And did your parents work? What did that look like?

My dad was. My mom was always a stay at home mom until my dad decided to go back to law school at 37, 38. And so then my mom went and became a nail tech and would kind of do nails out of a little salon that she set up in her garage. So I always would go down and sit down and kind of listen to the therapy sessions that my mom would have with all of her nail clients. But yeah, my dad was always working, decided to Go back to law school because he didn't like being a CPA anymore. So a lot of my memories were my dad in school or my dad working a lot.

Interesting.

Okay, so I'm not going to leave high school just yet. Let's talk about mentors and people that inspired you during that time in your life because, you know, you're still figuring things out. You were doing a little swim, you're doing all this or that. Who comes to mind?

Yeah, you know, we always had people around and there was. There was kind of professionals that were around, and I always kind of really appreciated that there were business partners of my dad that, that I would look at. And then obviously my father. My father and my grandfather were always great, great mentors. My grandpa. My grandpa spent more time. He actually spent more years retired than he ever did working. So, you know, but he always had side gigs inside businesses. And those were things that. That I always really appreciated and enjoyed. And then, you know, watching my dad and kind of juggling those things, you know, my pathway has kind of followed that a little bit. So.

Okay, Very cool.

All right. So curious because you shared a little bit of insight into maybe you didn't make some of the best decisions. If you were to go back and tell yourself something that you know now that you didn't know then, what would it be?

Do them all and enjoy it a little bit more.

Oh, okay.

So realizing that even when you make mistakes, it's not life altering and life ending. Luckily, the mistakes I didn't do didn't produce any children or lifelong things. Have a lot of lifelong scars. I got ran over by a boat when I was 18 and my own boat. My friend ran me over and then wake up wakeboarding at Saguaro Lake and then hit a tree snowboarding at Sunrise and broke my femur. So there's a. I probably would have said, hey, dodge that tree or don't let your idiotic friend drive that boat. Probably were two things that I'd go back and tell myself.

Yes. So I tell my high school children, don't take any lives out of the world or bring any lives into the world. They're more good.

That's a good baseline to set.

If I win at nothing else, that's my win for parenting.

And she doesn't know how to drive a boat either.

So you're safe. There you go. We're safe.

All right. So after high school, what does this look like for you?

So went on a Mormon mission for two years, went to Mexico City. Oh, that's what you're saying lived abroad, so did that. Learned Spanish, which was probably the greatest, I don't know if the greatest accomplishment, but the fact that I was able to learn Spanish and keep it up and remember a second language is something I never thought I would actually be able to do still today. Yeah, yeah, still. Still I'm able to speak it and understand it and listen to Spanish music just to keep it fresh. But luckily I have made a lot of lifelong friends down in Mexico City and. And so I continue to talk with them, which, which kind of keeps it all fresh. Certainly have, have forgotten a lot of words, but it's a, it's a great language to know.

Big telenovela fan, you know, so.

So a little bit more when I was down there because I could understand and follow the storyline a little better. But now when you just drop in, it's a little harder to follow.

Yeah. When you look back at that time, I'm curious what thoughts you had and who was around you at that time.

When you kind of go out and do that thing, you're just thrust into the world. And a couple of the people that I was with were a little bit older and So I was 19 and they were like 22, but they might as well have been 30 because they just seem so much wiser. And so that was a lot of fun because they coming back especially they were a few years into college and a couple of them have gotten married. And so to learn and to see kind of where they were going and then ultimately know that my path was quickly going to follow was certainly helpful.

So you came back to Mesa?

Yep, came back to Mesa, went to asu.

What'd you study?

So I started studying finance and then I got a job. I got a job doing mortgages at the time. And at that time you really didn't have a lot of flexibility. You didn't have online school. And so the finance program had a couple classes that you couldn't take during the day or you had to take them during the day. And I had a full time job at that time. By the time I had built up a mortgage company and then a home builders mortgage company had me kind of fold into there. So I was regional vice president of a national home builders mortgage company, kind of working at that and going to school full time. And they were great. Paid for part of my tuition, let me go to school. But the ASU finance program was a little inflexible on a couple of classes and so I literally had to change my major because I wasn't able to go at that time. So I switched to political science because that happened to be the. The program that I could go and do night school and then work full time.

Well, that was written in the stars.

Yes. Yeah, it worked out. It was great. It ended up being a great undergrad and kind of prepped it. And it was the door that it had opened that I didn't realize was opening. I was really upset at the time. I obviously wanted to do a finance degree. I was 25. Never in my wildest dream could have imagined that the. The real estate industry and the real estate market would completely come crashing down. And was a little naive at that. That was one of the things that I didn't learn before it happened. But my dad had started to. Had announced that he was. He had sold this company and had retired and then decided to run for mayor of Mesa. And so I thought, I'll just. I'm going to go and run his campaign with him and, and that'll be great. And then I can always go back to mortgages or we'll find something else. And the world completely crashed in 06.07,08. He was elected in 08. And at that time I was like, well, great. I love politics and I'm going to stick with this.

What did you love about it when you look back at that first campaign?

I loved talking with people who really had hope and wanted to see good things happen. Grew up in Mesa, loved Mesa, wanted what was best for Mesa, wanted to kind of help. Help do that one, you know, love my community. And, and so being able to be a part of that and kind of making some of those changes, I really liked. Yeah, and I like, I like the service aspect of it. Even back then. And it's gotten much worse now. You kind of have to be a little crazy to run for office. And so the personalities that I got to work with as I was running campaigns were great.

Yeah. I'm curious, jumping ahead just a little bit, but I'm curious how the experience has changed over the years.

Wildly. Two things. You really have to be crazy to run for public office now because the questions and the, the purpose. And really, I think social media has changed things a lot. People are involved and I think people believe the worst of things. And so a lot of the time you're spent when you're running campaigns is you're addressing negative questions and negative things instead of talking about your vision. That's probably the hardest part about it. You still have really good people that are running and people that Just want to make a difference and give back. But I think when you look at the landscape of who runs for office, there's a lot more people that run these days that they're angry and they want to fix something or they want to change something.

Running on a single issue.

Yeah. And so that I think is probably the biggest thing that's changed.

Okay. Just because I'm fascinated by this. One more question. How do you see candidates change after the first term that they serve? Do you see an evolution in who they were when they ran versus who they become in office and some of those lessons that they learn?

Yeah. A lot of times you go in and you're just like, I don't know what I'm expecting. I think I know what the job is and I think I know what it is. But when you get in there and then all of a sudden you realize that this is how the big machine works and this is what you spend hours and hours and hours in. Study sessions and council meetings and legislative meetings and you're drinking from a fire hose. And then when you're talking to a constituent, you have to barrel everything you've learned over hours of meetings into a 30 second sound bite. Some people can do it much better than others. And it takes. When you see somebody that's been there for four years, they kind of hone that a little better.

Yeah. In my very limited observation, I think people are really humbled by the job and what they learn going what they think they're walking into and what they think they know versus what they actually have to wrap their head around.

Very much so. Yeah, very much so. Especially, you know, especially on the local level when you take kind of the. You take the platitudes out and you take the feelings out and you're actually, you know, it's one thing to. It's one thing to talk about political things like, you know, hot button topics like school choice or school funding or abortion. It's another thing when you're saying, I have to charge this to pick up your trash and to sell you water. And that a lot of times is very hard. But those are the things that affect you every day.

Okay, sorry.

I was expecting you to talk about how beat up they get from these.

Campaign efforts a lot too. I think that also humbles them too. And they have to deal with a lot of mistruths and a lot of things that is hard to sit and take and not be able to defend yourself. And yeah, I mean, not to say that some of them go quite the Opposite, I think. But I think you go one way or the other, you're either humbled or you put up some walls real quick.

Probably the biggest change in 2008, I would say maybe 5% of the people that were running were running because they wanted to do that job, and the rest of the people were doing it because they really wanted to serve and they wanted to give back. There is a lot more people now today. They get into politics because it's a hobby and a passion, and they want that to be their life, and it's their religion, and it's everything, and they go to serve less for less. As I want to give back and more of. I really want the. I want the power or I want the ability to go do this, and I kind of want the attention, and I want to be the mover and shaker, and I want the job. I do it because it pays me. Yeah.

All right, so you're in the mortgage business. You got your pitchfork. You graduated. Now what?

So then I had gotten married, had three kids. I was young.

That happened pretty fast.

Yes.

Yes.

Three under three will definitely change your life quite a bit. So working full time, had the opportunity to run some really cool campaigns and national, local congressional campaigns. So a little bit of everything. And driving from the East Valley into downtown Phoenix every day is a grind. That's so fun. Yeah.

Was this your own firm, or were you working with a different group?

I worked for a firm for a public affairs firm in downtown called High Ground, and then traveling the state running statewide campaigns, had the opportunity to work for Governor Jan Breuer when she was running for reelection. I got to really work with her hand on hand. When she was trying to cut the budget, she was cutting a billion dollars out of the budget. She had taken a billion dollars in Obama stimulus, and then she was going to raise taxes by a billion dollars for education. So much different campaign than the immigration side of the campaign. That came a little later, but it was great. It was an awesome experience. You know, you get to be in. You start the morning in Flagstaff and then head to Kingman and the night in Yuma or Lake Havasu City, and you realize that Arizona is a very big and diverse place. And while we're all Arizonans, we, you know, there are segments of this state that are completely different than others. And so that was a lot of fun.

Yeah. Lessons learned during that time.

Oh, listen. Listen a lot.

Yeah.

Listen to people. And again, a lot of diverse opinions of things, the things that people were struggling with in Kingman actually were different than what they were struggling with in Yuma and different than here in Mesas. So just listening and talking at that time, that was 2010. So it's right in the middle of the, you know, we're still in the Great Recession, the economy still sucks. We haven't really come back. And you know, people are just trying to figure it out and to see them and to listen to their ideas. A lot of people had great ideas. They were just looking for people to listen to their ideas and how we can make things different.

Yeah.

And then obviously you had, at that time, you had the people that were like, you're never going to raise taxes and Obama stimulus should never happen. And so it's having those conversations and saying, okay, here's where we're at. We've got $3 billion that we have to cut out of a $10 billion budget. This is hard. Those were interesting conversations because you're trying to be upfront and honest with people and sometimes some people just didn't want to listen to that.

Again from. Well, I would assume from a politician's standpoint. It's also very difficult when people think they have the solution, but they just don't get the full picture.

And.

And how do you argue with that? That's gotta be frustrating.

It was fun for sure.

It's like Ben, every day he doesn't get the full picture.

What's she talking about?

I couldn't even tell you.

I don't know. I'm lost. Okay, so then what, what happens?

Got burnout, got divorced. That'll be a life changer. And being a single dad, raising three kids in the East Valley and commuting an hour to an hour and a half into downtown Phoenix. Every day is grind. And had always loved Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. My dad was allegiant, had just started doing service right when my dad became mayor. And so I'd kind of grown up seeing it. And I remember even before it was a commercial airport, I'd take my kids out there and we'd do it. Growing up when I was a young kid, go out to Willie days and go out to the air shows out there. From a little kid, I remembered it and so the opportunity to work there, work a couple miles from my house, not have to commute and still do somewhat political things in communications, I jumped on it. It was great. It was a great opportunity to hop there. So I did that around 2014 and made that transition and I've been there ever since.

What are some of the highlights of the job so far.

So far. So I, you know, part of the make it happen mantra. I got hired because they needed some political guidance and some help. And we're kind of a unique airport in terms of being an old Air Force base. We had a lot of infrastructure on there that needed to be changed, but there was laws that needed to be changed. There was laws that were holding them back. They had tried for years and years to get anywhere air traffic control, control tower. And so I kind of went in there and said, all right, well, we're just going to change the law. They said, oh, that's fun, Ryan. We've already tried that. Oh, no, we're going to do that. This is what we're going to do. And we just made it happen. So we were able to change laws and get a brand new air traffic control tower, which looks great. Which looks great. It's a $30 million tower paid nearly 100% by the federal government. So the law that we changed actually said that, that airports of our type couldn't spend more than $2 million on air traffic control tower construction. So we went in there, worked tirelessly for a couple years, got the law changed, and then once it was changed, we kind of kept lobbying and kind of worked for it. And FAA paid for pretty much the entire thing.

That's a highlight.

So, yeah, that's probably the first one. And then when you're done, you don't want to work yourself out of a job, so you find some other big hill that seems insurmountable. And we had this basically when the airport was growing in 2008, 2009, everybody kind of just scrambled to make it work. And so what they had done is essentially taken the old portable buildings that you had in elementary school. They had taken three of those and duct taped them together, and that was gates one through four. And so we said, and then during COVID we found out that you actually can't have four flights out of there. You can basically have one because it was a super spreader and it was starting to fall apart. The floor was literally cracking, and we have to replace the plywood. So we said, okay, we're going to work to get a new terminal. And new terminals basically never happen unless you pay for them yourselves. And so at that time, there was conversations about the bipartisan infrastructure Law, and Senator Sinema was poking around, and we just kept being a squeaky wheel and said, airports really need infrastructure help. And we have all these old terminals across the country that third world countries, some of them are so Bad. So it would be really great if. And they said, hey, we're working on this terminal idea. Well, here's the seven problems we have with our terminal. And lo and behold, thanks to Senator Sinema, those seven things were the criteria to qualify for funding in the bipartisan infrastructure law. And so we met all those and in the first year there was $15 billion of applications for $1 billion of funding. And good old Arizona, good old Gateway airport was first in line. So we got the funding for a new terminal complex. And so that was five gates. We were able to expand and then again we were able to cobble together some money, get some state money in the state budget and some other things. And what we thought we were going to have to spend $28 million on, essentially the airport got it for a couple million bucks that we put in, but the feds and the state paid for the rest.

So what I'm learning is I want to stay on your good side because you could make someone stay really good or really bad. Where does the tenacity come from?

Just that, never giving up. You try hard things and sometimes you fail, sometimes you mess up.

But are your siblings this way? Is this a family dynamic? Is this something that just is intrinsically.

You in a different way? My brother, he's the artist, he's a photographer. He's got more creative talent as Pinky than I have in my entire body. He can take a photo. I mean, we could be standing next to each other taking a picture of the same exact thing. And I look at it on his phone. I'm like, what did you do? We've got the same phone and everything, but he just has a different eye. And then my sister is a lot like me. She's a full time hairdresser. She's got four kids, set of twins, so she's working full time. She's mom and full time and managing a life. So I think we get a little bit of that. The same. Yeah, it's a little bit in our DNA.

Yeah, that's how it rolls.

When you think about the airport, I'm curious, what is it that you think maybe are best kept secrets that the public doesn't know and you wish they.

Did, you know, and this is, this is one of those things where it's a challenge because I've been director of communications now for six or seven years. And so my job is to communicate that we have 45 nonstop destinations and serve, you know, and have 2 million people that pass through there. And still today, the number of people I'll be like, yeah, we fly to 45 destinations. They're like, what, I thought you flew to Provo and Fargo. Like, that was it. And 45 destinations. And so then, you know, it's. I think probably that's the biggest surprise is that we're a growing airport. There are. It's not for everybody, you know, it's not. So an airport, you can go just like on an American flight and basically get to every part of the country. But if they're flying to a place that you want to go or you want to have grandma fly home, we certainly serve that service. And it's super easy. I think our average TSA PreCheck wait time is less than a minute, and it never averages more than like two minutes. Our TSA or our regular security non TSA precheck rarely goes over 20 minutes, but it averages like 12 even on busy.

Do you have a hidden hotel in this airport?

I wish.

Ever been to the Detroit airport?

Yes, I have.

You know what I'm talking about?

Oh, yes. Yeah.

I have a story about that hotel. I was staying there with my parents and the fire alarm went off. It's a good story.

Why did you pull it?

Hey, listen, I needed some jewels. I don't know, maybe somebody.

That's your next problem.

One of these hotels, hotels in the Southeast Valley, if you're a hotel developer and you can build one, there is a lot of demand for hotels. So one of these things.

Well, I think we have quite a few coming into Gilbert.

That's what I see. That's good.

There was a time where I thought maybe somebody just forgot to edit your newsletter because every month was record breaking passenger count. Is that still the case?

It's still the case. We'll have our busiest year ever this year. We're excited about that. They give us a schedule of the flights. They don't tell us how many passengers are on it, but you can kind of do the math. So March and April Both will have 35% more flights this year than they did last year. And last year was a record. So we expect it to continue. And we're going to keep doing our job to sell things, and then we go and talk to airlines all the time. But we'll keep pushing that and making our case of why it would be great for a new airline to come to Gateway Airport.

Well, now we have to get back to the Brady Bunch family because now you have your three kids and your. Your stepdad to three as well. Yes. So what did that journey look like for You.

So we have a very unique journey. And I tell people this, and I love the reaction, because sometimes it's like, you're crazy. That would never work out. And then other. More than half the time, people look at it like, how can I make that my life? So I got married, but I did not. We did not move in together for the first four years of marriage.

I'm sold.

Yes. It's fantastic. I would be divorced today again for the second time had we moved in together because. Because it just wouldn't have worked out. So we got married and kept our own houses. I kept living in Gilbert. She would live in Mesa. And we were 10 miles away from each other, which was the perfect time, because when I would get on her nerves, she just said, okay, it's time for you to go home. And my kids kept going to their school. Her kids kept going to theirs. There was no comingling. We'd obviously hang out a lot and have family dinners when we could, but everybody kind of kept their schedule. Our kids were real young still, so. So to be able to kind of have that, save that part of the drama, certainly was helpful. And then we decided to build a house together. After four years, we built the house, and then we all kind of moved in, and everybody had their own little space. Everybody was giving up a little bit, but everybody kept going to their same schools. And by then I had some drivers so they could drive to their schools in Gilbert. And it made it work, but it was definitely unorthodox. It added a little bit of the pressure, because now you're like, okay, I'm married. I actually have to go have dinner with my wife tonight and find date time and do those things. It wasn't as easy as just heading home, but it worked out, actually.

Do you think when you look back, that maybe the time is more purposeful?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Because I knew I had an ending point. And so you make. You know, we didn't. We. And to this day, we. A lot of people talk about, oh, what shows are you watching? We don't. We didn't. We never binge watched anything because we were always just busy doing things. So we didn't have shows to watch because we didn't have time.

And your time together was intentional.

So. And the mountain biking thing comes from her, and she liked to mountain bike. So, you know, when I was trying to impress her, I was like, I love mountain biking, too. Let's go. And she knew pretty immediately that I sucked at mountain biking, but I've grown into it, and luckily, she keeps up to me now.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And kids are older now.

Kids are older. We go from 26 to 17, and everyone kind of has their own little lives. So I'll be 46 and a half and be an empty nester, which I'm assuming won't be too bad of a thing.

Ben is literally gonna be curls in the corner. Jealous of you right now.

No, I'm gonna be young forever.

He's gonna be. When will you be an empty nester? How old will you be?

It will never happen.

70 something.

Yeah. One of my best friends got remarried and then really wanted to have kids, and so he had a set of twins at 44, 43. So his life is. Is set for at least the next 18 years.

Yeah. Wow.

Wow, that's awesome. Luckily, I did not take that path. My life is busy and hectic enough. I couldn't even imagine adding that into it.

Well, just six kids is busy at any age.

Yeah, it is. And we have completely different parenting styles. Hers are probably a little more successful than mine, but definitely different parenting styles, which is also reason why we didn't immediately move in together. Because I don't think her patience, I don't think anybody's patience could have held up to how I was raising kids. But they've all, so far, knock on wood, have turned out okay. And I'm not a grandpa yet, so that's a good thing.

Good for you.

All right, what's next? What's on the horizon?

You know, just finding new opportunities. When I was building, when we were building the house and I had a house to sell, and she had a house to sell, and then we were buying one. So I said, well, why pay all this commission? I've known real estate all my life. I'm going to go get my real estate license. And so I do a little real estate on the side just on my off time and my weekends, mainly for friends and family, which my wife calls a hobby because I typically don't charge what I should because it's friends and family. But again, it keeps me active and I love it. It's a, it's a fun, fun experience. You know, when I did mortgages, a vast majority of my clients were first time home buyers. And there's nothing, there's nothing more fun than, than helping somebody navigate the crazy process of buying a home when it's the first time you've done it. And ironically, I was, I was helping some friends out and they've lived in their house for 22 years. So it's been 22 years since they've bought or sold a home. And I'm explaining it to them like they're a newlywed couple that have never gone through this process before. And so that's fun to see people light up and kind of go through that experience. It's stressful, but it's still a lot of fun.

And you're still in the political circuit.

Still in the political circuit as much as possible. I like it. I like to be involved with that because I think it's really important to have good leaders we see across the board. And it's not necessarily a partisan one way or another, because both parties are guilty of it, of having good leaders and some not so good leaders. And so I think when you have good leadership and when you have people that are willing to give their time and do the right thing and explain and take the time to say, here's why we're doing this and here's why we're voting, and here's how it really does affect you, I think it's really important. And, you know, I look at my kids and their ability to buy a house and their ability to find a good job. When I was doing mortgages in the early 2000s, over 30% of my clients worked in the real estate industry. So you were selling a house to a mortgage guy who may have been buying a house or working in construction. And so the fact that our economy here in Arizona and here in the Valley has diversified so much that I think that number is down closer to the 10% range. I think that provides more opportunity for our kids. I think that's important. And part of that's good leadership. We've had good leaders that have gone out and said, hey, it's important that, that we're preparing our students and we're changing our economy so that 15, 20 years from now, there's jobs available. And the worst thing, early on, when my dad was running for mayor, one of the things he would talk about, he ran on a mantra of build a better Mesa and changed the way Mesa does business. And one of the big things is you saw how many people were graduating high school and maybe went to asu, but then went away, moved to Utah, moved to Colorado, went to Denver. And because that was where the jobs were. And so the effort and the ability to stay here and find a good paying job and be able to buy a house and do all those things, I think is really important. And I think that all goes back to leadership.

Totally agree. And now more than ever. It's so important because if they can find a job but can't afford a house, we're going to lose them again.

So.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have a question for you and then, and then we'll wrap it up. If you, what would you want your kids to look back and say was your legacy.

Legacy? I think just, just never giving up and just always making things happen.

I love it.

And whatever it took just to, just to make it, make it, make it successful.

Well, I am sure glad that finance degree didn't work out because you made something of that political side.

That's how it works.

Awesome. Well, thank you for spending time with us today.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing your story.

Thanks for the opportunity and if you.

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Sam.