Tim Colquhoun

Guiding conversations with community leaders.

In this podcast, we'll explore the human journey of leaders, their stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks and lessons learned. Come join us as we journey together and uncover the questions you've always wanted to know. This podcast is brought to you by the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, perhaps providing resources, connections and belonging for business professionals.

And Rocket Space, an event and meeting venue in the heart of the East Valley with a full service four person podcast studio. Everybody, welcome to the show today. We are so excited to have our guests and Sarah's with us too.

I am, I'm here. And today we have an amazing leader in our midst. I'm excited to dive into this.

Happy to introduce today, Tim.

I think it would be more fun though, if you also said my last name as part of the introduction.

There is no way I'm going to.

Try that because every time I say it's Tim Colquhoun.

Oh, there you go.

It's just Tim Colquhoun.

My last name's Kaulkman and I always think it sounds like it resonates with my name too, when I say it. Maybe it's because I'm used to my not at all, but not even close. Where are you from, Tim?

State company. I'm from El Paso, Texas, but I live here in Gilbert, Arizona.

All right. So, Tim, you help Arizona business every day as the vice president at national bank of Arizona. Gilbert. Leadership graduate. Avid boater.

Yeah.

Community volunteer. Husband and dad to up three kids and two dogs.

That's right.

That's you. You ready, Sarah?

Yeah. Here we go. All right, we are going to do rapid fire. Round. Rapid fire.

Star wars or Star Trek?

Star Trek.

Favorite color?

Blue.

Winter or summer?

Depends where I'm at lately. Summer. But if I'm in Arizona all year, winter.

Okay.

What did your mom call you as a kid?

Timmy.

Not Tiny Timmy, Just Timmy.

No, no, my sister. That's a different. You know.

We can come back to that one.

All right.

Favorite holiday?

Christmas.

What is the last book you read?

The last? I'm reading a book right now, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight about creating Nike.

Oh, that's awesome.

Pretty interesting.

Would you ever go on a vacation by yourself?

Yes.

Have you?

No.

Camping or glamping?

Camping. But if I'm with my family, my wife's gonna say, no way. Glamping.

So. Intro music. What would your song be for your intro?

I always think back to going to Suns games as a little kid. You know, I can hear it in my head. Exactly. So that would be my theme Song.

Last question. Glass half full or half empty?

Half full.

Nice.

Well, if I'm looking at it from necessarily the banking side though, might have a different approach, but no, in life it's half full.

Thank you to Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport for their support.

With non stop service to 60 plus cities, Gateway Airport makes traveling just plain easy.

Visit GatewayAirport.com for more information. All right, so Tim, you have traveled to 27 countries, is that what I understand? Yeah, talk to me about that if you're like never taking a vacation by yourself.

So I grew up traveling a decent amount here in the United States. We'd spend, you know, we'd leave in May and just travel up the coast and camp all the way up to, you know, Washington, Oregon. And that's just what we did. And when I graduated college I, I didn't really do a lot of vacationing in college. So when I graduated I said, you know what, I want to go international. And and so I got my first corporate job, so to speak, and in 2013 decided I'm going to cash in my two weeks of vacation. I think that's what I had then and went to Europe and did. I think you're 14 countries in 12 days to start.

Wow.

Yeah. With a group of 30 people that I didn't know.

Tell me about that experience. What did you gain from that two week time frame?

Yeah, so I think a lot of it and this is kind of resonates with life in general. Sometimes the best answer is to say, yeah, I'm going to go do that. You know, I'd planned or I'd thought about doing it and thought about it for years and then finally just said I'm going to go do this. And I think if I recall, I booked the trip and two weeks later I left. That's about how quick it was. So there wasn't a lot of prep and planning to get to Europe. And then once I was there, it's hitting, you know, one new country each day. That kind of just carried me through and you know, pre Covid we were trying to do an international trip every other year, just get out. And then in the off years, you know, I have a goal right now to take my kids each year to a national park. So travel is definitely ingrained in our family and something we're going to carry forward.

How many parks have you got in so far?

5. So by the time my kids are 18, we'll have visited all of them. I'm casting that vision now.

That's great. Have you been to all of them.

Yourself? No, no. Gosh.

This is for you, too.

Yeah, this is for me. Yeah. All right. Or my kids.

I'm just sitting here. I'm sort of feeling like a proud mom right now because I'm watching you, and I. I met you before you had. Before you were married, before you had kids, and now I look at you and the goals that you set for yourself and your family, and I just. I'm just a little proud right now.

Yeah, thanks.

She's dating herself a little bit there, but that's, you know, that's Sarah.

This is my plug for Gilbert leadership right here. Right. Like, I graduated from that in 2010, and here we are 11 years later, and it's just hard to believe. I have two kids under 2 and 3 kids in the past four years.

Kids will do that to you, man. All right. So all the traveling and Sarah kind of alluded to that. But as you think about where you are today, you. You obviously had to take some little bit of adventure there, some risk. You think that set you up for some of the stuff you're doing today?

Yeah, I think so. I think it helped me become a little bit uncomfortable. I think my nature by default is to want to plan and kind of vision cast and say, I'm going to execute this. And so the travel is the part of me that's the outlet where I say, okay, this is. I'm just going to go do this and I'm going to travel for two weeks and we're going to visit all these places and we're kind of going to figure it out on the fly. And so I think that caters to my more adventurous side where what I do in my profession and more of my day to day in the community is a little bit more planned and disciplined.

Okay. Arizona guy. Been here your entire life?

Not born here, but yeah, been here my entire life.

Where were you born?

Texas.

Okay.

Yeah.

Did not know that about you.

Yeah.

I'm curious. Since you've been here a long time, though.

Yeah.

Think about Gilbert as it was back when you were growing up. What was it like then compared to what it is now? I think a lot of people like myself, I've been here for a while, but definitely didn't grow up here. What was it like?

So people will laugh at this, but we moved to Gilbert in 1998 to Finley Farms and Greenfield and Warner was the end of the world. And you look at it now and that's, you know, that's the center of Gilbert. And so, yeah, 1998. I remember there was one restaurant in downtown Gilbert, Mahogany Run Way too nice. Would certainly succeed today. They were just early, is my belief. There was not much to do in Gilbert except smell the nice smells in the evening that weren't that great when you moved to Gilbert.

Fresh air, right?

Yeah, exactly. That fresh air. And. Yeah. Moved here in 98. And obviously the growth over the past 23 years has been explosive. And so I think that it's kind of not even comparable to what it was like when I moved here.

Yeah.

You know, if you had walked into the Gilbert Chamber in 1998, I would have been working there because I worked at the Gilbert Chamber that year, which was my senior year of high school. So I could have met. I could have met Timmy.

You know, maybe we did meet, because that first year we moved here, Gilbert was still small enough where the mayor would do the New Year's Eve ball, and. And you could go to that. And so I remember going to that.

Maybe you were there, quite possibly taking.

In all that fresh air, I'm sure.

Fresh air. That's the smell of childhood.

There you go.

It's enduring.

So now you have kids, and as we think about Gilbert, and we think about the future as we go, what do you think your kids are going to experience in Gilbert? What do you think as you kind of vision cast that?

Yeah. So if I could take a step back. I'm an Eagle Scout, which I got in Gilbert.

What was your project?

I painted 160 fire hydrants in a square mile. Know there's that many in a square mile.

Did not.

What color did you paint them?

Well, you know, yellow.

Oh, okay.

It depends, I guess. If you're in a different city, they can be different colors. So I painted them purple, and then.

They had to start all over.

Did a different.

The new trend is you, like, decorate them with, like, you know, dog faces and things like that, you know, So I didn't know.

Okay. So. So we had, you know, 25 volunteers. People I knew helped support me through that. But that kind of set the tone for my civic engagement in Gilbert. Right. And so became an Eagle Scout, graduated from high school, and thought, you know, what else? What do I do from here? And so I looked around, and at the time, I just opened a newspaper and there was a small blurb about, you know, come develop yourself as a leader in this program called Gilbert Leadership. And so I applied and went through that 2009 to 2010. And so that's just continued to carry me forward into, you know, my care for this community, after Gilbert leadership got involved in some local politics and whatnot. You know, pre family, your core values for your community are different. For me, it's like, hey, I like having nice restaurants in a nice downtown. But then you layer a family into that and then you start to, you know, think more about schools, traffic, neighborhoods, family friendly neighborhoods. Yeah, they're all those fun fits in public. There you go. Right, right. And so my vision casting forward is to continue to be engaged in this community and figure out, you know, where I can best serve my time through Gilbert leadership's coming to an end here in the next year as a board member. But I can still serve as a volunteer, right? I can do that.

Yeah.

Okay, perfect.

She might let you.

You will?

Yeah. And so figuring out from here, how do we. How do we just continue to, you know, create this great sense of collaboration the community, meet with local business leaders, non business leaders, and just have a sense of belonging here? I think that's going to be my next iteration is helping this community create a sense of belonging for kind of all members.

How do you do you see that going, like serving the town, specifically an elected position? What are you thinking, Tim?

Tbd. You know, I've. I've actually thought about that in the past of, you know, running for a council position or something like that. Certainly with a young family, that's a little more challenging. So. Yeah, tbd.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, I'm excited to see what you do.

Yeah, thanks.

Looking forward to that. All right, so here's another pondering question. If you could be remembered for one thing in the future, what would you want that to be?

Probably acts of service.

Okay.

Just, you know, my wife and I talk about this actually pretty often as, you know, if someone calls and asks you for help, are you available? I think being available is also how you balance your life. Right. Your finances, your time, all of those things. And we're pretty intentional about leaving room in our lives for those things. So if someone calls and says, hey, are you free for X? Yeah, I can come help with that. Are you free to donate to this cause? Yeah, you know, we can help with that. And so, yeah, I mean, just acts of service. Was I available? Did I serve people that I use my skill set, my knowledge, the gifts that I've been given to effectively help someone else accomplish what they want in their life.

Okay, going a layer deeper into that then. So thinking about your family, are they all here in Arizona as well, as.

Far as like in laws and all that split? Yeah, I have some family here Some out of state. Okay.

How involved are they in your. Not so much your world, but in the influence that they've had on where you are today. I assume that's part of it, right?

Yeah. You know, as a kid growing up, I was always involved in Cub Scouts, which moved into, you know, Boy Scouts and all this. And so it's just kind of ingrained that something that my mom specifically impressed upon me was volunteer. You know, do good by others, Help your neighbor. And so I think that just continued to carry forward. Part of it was I had to get my Eagle Scout to get my driver's license, and so it was kind of forced community engagement as well. But, you know, once it's. It's uncomfortable at the time, but then you look back and you're like, wow, that was actually really impactful. Like, I served with 25 people to, you know, do a community project, raise the money, get the volunteers. And I was, you know, 15, 16 at the time. So if you can do that, then, you know, what else can you do if you put, you know, 25 other people together with a common goal?

Yeah.

Other than Gilbert leadership, what other causes are near and dear to your heart right now?

Yeah. So I'm involved in another organization in town called Gilbert Talks, which you guys might be familiar with, and that, you know, it's a nonprofit. And that whole mission is just bringing together people with diverse backgrounds, anyone in this community, to talk about issues of importance. You know, we've done drug talks, domestic violence talks. We have an upcoming talk on kind of multifamily housing in the community and what, you know, that looks like or what we see as we drive by certain parts of town. So, yeah, just bringing people together to have conversations is something that I'm really passionate about.

That's cool. All right, let's talk about the banking industry now. So getting into that, that's where you are today. You're basically running the show there for the most part. How'd you get there? What was the journey to get to that? Like, you have to have some steps to get there. You can just show up one day, right?

Yeah, well, kind of. No. So I worked in high school. I'd worked for Discount Tire, obviously a company most of you are familiar with. I did that for about two years, and I just remember one summer, I was like, this is. This is really hot. You know, I'm outside, and I've been doing this two years, and I was graduating high school, and I knew. I knew someone, and they said, hey, I work for this credit Union in town, you want to come check it out? And I said, yeah, I'm kind of tired of the heat. I'll go do that for a summer. I'm not really an office person, but I'll go do that. And landed with a large credit union here in town. And that summer turned into. What was that, seven years. And through that very quickly figured out I liked doing banking because at the core of it, you're just helping people, right? Someone comes in, they say, hey, I need a loan for my kids school or I need an auto loan. It's, you know, my first car. And so I figured out a way to become very knowledgeable in that space and then just figure out how to help people. And that's what it became about for me. So the credit union, you know, they were generous in the fact that they helped put me through college. So I ended up going to ASU for finance and then upon graduating, and I would have graduated in 2010, but I pushed it to 2012. I wasn't necessarily the most disciplined person at the time. I like snowboarding a lot, so I'd skip out on a few classes here and there, which ultimately I paid for that. But in hindsight, everyone knows what the world looked like in 2012. And so graduating in 2012 actually ended up being a blessing for me. And at the time, I had a handful of job offers kind of nationwide and ultimately decided just to stay in Arizona. And I took a job with a big four bank and went through kind of a corporate management program. And I always say, you know, one of the funniest things was my first day on the job, they dropped a doc on my desk and it said, hey, can you, can you work on this underwrite? And it happened to be, you know, discount tire. And so full circle there.

Right?

Full circle. And so, you know, went through kind of a two year immersive program with that institution and then just kind of continue to carry forward from there.

Okay, so as you went through that journey, talk to, by talk to us about the people that influenced you in that, because you don't do that stuff alone.

No, no, definitely not. When I was a senior at asu, someone gave me advice. It was one of my finance teachers. And he said, you know, figure out what you want to do and just go meet those people, just go talk to them. And that's effectively what I did. I remember being a senior and I'd emailed, you know, 10 bank CEOs executives in town and simply just went and met with him for coffee, met at their office and said, how did you get to where you were? What are the steps to get there? And I remember one of those executives pre graduation said, you need to get into a banking management program. You need to, you know, they're typically two or three year programs, they're formal programs. And that's where you're going to get all the knowledge you need to kind of catapult yourself forward. And so that's what I set my vision on for my entire senior year was getting into a banking management program. I remember I interviewed a handful of companies, didn't get all of them. Ultimately got the one that I wanted though, which was great. And that's what it was like. I mean, two years. I remember I would wake up, I had roommates at the time, wake up at six in the morning, drive to downtown Gilbert, park my vehicle there and take the bus to downtown Phoenix, you know, because you could just barely afford the gas to get down there. I just graduated college, get home at 6pm, 6:30, eat dinner, just to turn around and do it over again every day. It was very monotonous. I had roommates, they're having fun. I'm kind of in this corporate career and it was a little tough, but yeah, ultimately landed in that program, put my time in for the two years and then from there said, okay, you know, I'm going to continue to push forward and kind of my career, my role.

Awesome. So that was kind of a mentor for you that, in that way.

Absolutely. Just some people being very transparent. I remember meeting with this guy, was the director of corporate banking for one of the large banks in town. And you know, everyone kind of told me the same messages. You're a young guy, you've been in banking six years now, work through undergrad. You know, I remember working full time Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, going to ASU Tuesday, Thursdays. That was always a challenge, just balancing my time. But everyone I met said kind of the same core message which get into this program and put your time in and do the work. And so I think that's an important thing, right, is the opportunity can be there, but you have to step up to the occasion and do the work.

Yeah, you do, totally.

But where do you get that drive or that motivation?

You know, probably just growing up, just seeing my family, seeing the things I wanted, seeing the things I didn't want. You know, that's, that's a great thing is you can look at your family and say, I like these things, I don't want these things. And you kind of Craft your own life. And so again, you know, kind of just going back to that Eagle Scout, it's a very discipline. I mean, that's like a five year thing. You're showing up, you're doing all these activities, you're. Yeah. You're obtaining these merit badges effectively that show that you. You did the work. And so it's just that repetitive discipline behavior. And so, you know, I want great things for my life personally. I want great things for my family. And I think, you know, you're just going to have to show up every single day and do the work. My grandpa said that as a kid. He said, you know, it's called work for a reason. It's not always fun. There's a gentleman in town who was part of Gilbert leadership and, you know, family friend, and he told us when we were in high school, he said, you're going to do the same amount of work in your life. If you want to do it now and get it done, you might, you know, fare a little bit better. Or if you want to wait, you know, until you're later in life, you're just going to work to catch up. It's up to you. You're going to do the same amount of work. And I ultimately just decided, okay, I think I want to do the work now and try to balance and integrate some fun into that at the same time. Yeah.

So you can go back to your ASU days and there you go. Enjoy those. That's right, ski lodges.

There you go.

Well, if you're doing all the work now, what does Tim's life look like in 30 years?

In 30 years.

That's a long time.

That is a long time.

Well, he's so young. You gotta start.

That's true. Right. Gosh, my kids in 30 years, that'll be. You know, that's crazy to think about. You know, it's funny you asked that question. I just had this conversation with a friend yesterday. Something I'm trying to balance is being present today. Like all you have is today. Right. And so you have to live each day like today's your last day, but you kind of have to work each day like you might live a hundred years. And so it's creating an interesting thought in my mind lately. So I'm not sure. I mean, my Hope is that 30 years from now I'm fully present and still here and get to engage in all things family and friends and fun in this community. And. And yeah, that's my hope that people say, wow, he shows up and he's still doing the same thing.

It's clear you're going to be doing traveling.

Oh, absolutely.

But beyond traveling, do you have any other initiatives that you feel like right now that, let's say five years, that's a little bit better, more visible for me than 30 years? Five years. Any goals you want to accomplish by then?

Five years? Certainly. I would, you know, like to see my career progress into continuing into a leadership position. Whether that means running, you know, a larger group of people or, or, you know, a higher up position or something like that. I think I'd like to see myself influencing the cause a little bit more. You commented on banking a little bit ago. The industry is changing quickly. I mean, it's. I don't know how many people go to branches anymore, but they're obviously still important. When you want to go, you need it to be there. And so being a younger business leader, my hope is that, you know, I can bring some bright minds together and influence that a little bit. Say, hey, let's, let's make banking better, you know, for our clients and customers. So that's on the business side, you know, family side. Five years from now. It's just my kids aren't in school yet, so I'm not as challenged with this. But my hope is that we can continue to carve out time, intentional time to travel as a family and make those memories where I'm a big believer in, you know, experiences over material that kind of dominates our household. And it's not that we don't want nice things or there's nothing wrong with that, but someone told me it was actually my dad. He spent, he said, you know, spend half as much money on your kids as you think you should and spend twice as much time with them as you think you should.

I love that.

And so that's something that's kind of.

A core that's hard to do because, hell, a lot easier to spend a little money than it is to spend time, isn't it?

Yeah. Oh yeah, I'm busy. So it's easier to just be like, hey, go do xyz and here it is. But showing up is hard.

Is there a place you haven't yet traveled other than the state parks or the national parks?

Yeah. So pre Covid I was on our list to do Scotland, Ireland, Iceland. I have a Scottish heritage. You know, that's my background. And so we were really looking forward to checking that out and spending some time there. But you know, that's gonna have to wait. Now the other thing, you know, we're balancing is it's probably gonna have to wait five years because if we take our kids now, they're not going to remember it. And so we're probably just going to push a lot of the international travel a few years out, so it'll be more memorable for all and kind of focus more on the United States for the next few years.

Now envisioning you walking down the Gilbert parade with the kilt and bagpipes.

There you go.

Do you have an accent? Come on, Tim.

I don't, but I actually like the idea of the kilt. You know, I've thought about it. I'm gonna have to get one.

We have a Gilbert leadership float this year, so now we know.

All right. To show some of my, you know, heritage there.

Yeah. Well, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming in and sharing a little bit of your story and talking about those that influenced you and how you got through those, the path that you've gone down.

Yeah. I have one more question as we wrap it up. What'd your sister call you?

Oh, you know, all sorts of names. Is Timmy the tooth, Timmy the turtle? You know, she. She had lots of nicknames. She's five years older than me, and so she thought it was pretty fun to tease me as a kid.

Well, thank you, Tim, for coming in today.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

And if you like this show and the conversation we had today, you should subscribe so you can make sure you get these notifications.

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Guiding conversations with community leaders.

Ben, let me ask you a question. How do you see other community members being involved in this podcast?

This is going to be a great opportunity for so many people in the community to have a chance to be heard if they want to tell their story or if they just want to be part of this journey with us and help sponsor in a way that helps bring more people to the table with us. So I think there's many opportunities at hand. Whether you want to again be on the show. Reach out to us. Let us know what your story is and how you think you could be part of it. We'd love to hear from you. Reach out. Let us know and we'll see if we can make that connection.

Sam.