What He Learned From Successful Startups with Ace Lane

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weidel and let's get started. All right. I am here with Ace Lane and what a privilege it is to talk to such a local success story and pioneer in a lot of areas right now. You know, he's. He's kind of like a lot of us. He's too dumb not to take on bigger and bigger challenges and make his life even more complicated. But you know the reward when you get a chance to do amazing things and you've had success in your life and you enjoy winning, you never back down from a challenge. And that's Ace. He's not only a native, he's a former ski racer. He's got three sons growing up here in the mountains. They've done everything you can possibly do. He's had for I don't know how long, a boating facility down Valley, about 20 minutes. And now he's turning it into a multi purpose development that's really going to transform the whole area and make magic happen and take this kind of a backwoods type area and really make it first class. And of course, he's had to battle regulatory people to, you know, anything that's good, you know, they're gonna want to try and stop you. And so, you know, he survived that and now he's underway. Ace, you don't know, but I drove by there last week and I saw heavy equipment everywhere. And it just looks exciting because I started out my career building houses in Atlanta, Georgia and had a degree in building construction, so from Georgia Tech. So it was, you know, it's always exciting for me to get out there and smell the earth and see the big equipment moving around and know that, you know, things are being created. That's going to be the center of all kind of life experience and families growing up and, you know, be a special place for lots of people. Of course that's what you're doing. So welcome, Ace. Thanks for being on.

Hey, thank you. I'm honored to be on your show. Thank you.

Well, Ace, tell people a little bit about where you came from and the earliest things that drove you and your earliest experiences with winning and losing.

Well, it started pretty young. I came from a family of six and I was the youngest. Must have been a spaghetti dinner deep in the marriage, because I came along way behind, which was fine, but it made me feel like I had to make me feel like I had to get going and get some shit done. So I started out in a sport with some great success and also with Great success in sport comes a lot of loss, too, where you lose, but you learn from all those times that you lose. And I. I've heard many people say that they learn more from their losses than they do from their wins or they don't learn much from their wins. Actually, I feel like I learned from both. But. So it started very, very young. I would start bringing home awards to my dad and he would laminate them and put them in a book and. And then I had a. About with rheumatic fever, which took me out for about a year. And they.

What age?

I was six.

Really.

And they had some grim ideas of what might happen to me. But I ran track in college and I played lacrosse at a high level and ski raced. So I have a good heart. I'm grateful. So I fought back from that. And then I was in a pretty rugged fire where I got burned pretty bad. And over 40% of my body, and I've had over 40 surgeries, and I've had.

What are you talking about, 40 surgeries? 40% of the body.

I think I've had somewhere around 43 plus surgeries, but some of them were orthopedic.

Wow.

So I'm definitely familiar with recovering, getting myself back on track, but it has taught me to charge ahead, not just physically, but emotionally. Was very challenging on multiple levels. But I'm grateful. I've had such supportive coaches that have just believed in me, and it's made a huge difference to me. And I feel like I've learned a lot. Well, I continue to learn. I learned how much more I need to learn and how little I know.

Yeah, the thing is, Ace, you know, when we start out, you know, we're always the. Either the youngest, the smallest, or the newest person in whatever sport it is we're starting in. And I could remember, like, we, you know, being out there, whatever the sport was, they picked teams, you know, and I just wanted to get picked, you know, I just wanted to get to where I could get good enough to not be the last one picked up. And then I could be one of the, you know, your dreams are very small, you know? You know, then you want to get to where you're the first picked, and then you want to. Then you start thinking about winning things and taste winning. Where. Where did you get the taste of winning? Because coming back from being shut down for a year as a kid, going through surgeries, being have disasters happen, it. It helps when you've got that taste of winning. And in. In your mind where you, you know, where that feels like you. You've tasted it.

Yeah, no, I definitely. Before the fire, I. I definitely tasted winning on variety levels in sports. And so when that accident happened, you know, what age was that? That was almost 12.

Wow.

Wow. So I went to a school that. Which at the time was sort of ahead of its. On its football program. It started very young, and so I was, you know, I was the. I was the quarterback. And then all of a sudden I wasn't. And I wasn't in school. I lost another year of school being in the hospital, you know, fighting for my life for the first part of it, and then, you know, then I was fighting to find my way back, you know, because I had this dream of being a top end athlete. So I got this work ethic, you know, that developed, I think a lot of it through having to fight through the surgeries and recovering and just how people treated you in school. And. And so when I came back after my first long stint in the hospital, it was time for me to. I didn't think I would play football again, but I sat on the edge of the hill watching all the teams play, and I thought, wow, I got to get back out there. So I went back out there. It was pretty scary because I had lost a lot of weight and my confidence was so low, and I had an absolutely horrible year. And the next year I came back. I had an awesome year. I took everything I had learned from the prior year and I just thought about all summer and how I could practice and how I could demonstrate it better. And it came back in a great way. And again, the coaches. Throughout my life, I've had awesome coaches that have believed in me, and it's made a huge difference in my life.

Why do you. What did you get out of football that made it so important to you? And what gave you the idea that you could come back? I mean, were people encouraging you around there? Did your parents say just let it go or were they behind you?

Well, I think they were sort of. I mean, it was all new to everybody, right? So I think they were trying to figure out how best to support me. So, you know, I came back from sitting on the hill, I told them my decision, and they were. They were very supportive of it. And so off I went and, you know, I learned a ton. I think I probably could have gone further with football, but I got involved with ski racing and I was told that soccer was better for my pursuit in ski racing, so I switched over. Not sure it was the best decision, but I learned a lot in soccer, too, but my skill sets in football or my personality is more geared towards football. But I did. Go ahead.

What kind of person did you.

Become?

How did. Once you came back athletically, physically, from now, were most of those surgeries during this year or during that time, or have they been ongoing?

They've been ongoing, yeah. So I probably have one in November, a pretty big one. So, yeah, it's a continuing process.

Well, I think they're opening up the Steadman Clinic just kind of to service you, to make it.

Yeah, right.

You could just go across the street or something.

Yeah. They always say welcome back when I show up.

Yeah. For those who don't know, the Steadman is the big surgery orthopedic specialty clinic in Vail, world renowned, and they are expanding into Willits Basalt area and right across the street, I believe, from your big development. Is that right?

Yeah, you're correct.

Yeah. And so you're right in the middle of a huge surge now in the community. And how did you wind up, you know, how far did you go in sports and when did you get out of sports and say, I got to go earn a living?

Well, so I was. I wanted to make the national team in skiing, and it just. It wasn't happening. I wasn't good enough. As hard as I was trying, I was just putting everything I had into it, and it was not getting there. So I decided I would go race for a college and just chill out. And I had just like a big spiritual shift in my thought. And when I went to college, all of a sudden, easing up, it was fun again, you know, and I was fast. I was much faster. So then I jumped on the pro tour, and I did that for nine years. And I. In 87, I won a pro tour, the American Western pro tour. And that was a. That was a big deal.

That's huge. That's huge.

Unbelievable.

Congratulations.

So for me, I was super stoked about that. And at the same time, I was going to college part time, and I. I played college soccer and I also ran track, and both those were. I mean, they're all great experiences, and you meet all kinds of fun people. And, you know, my brothers would ask me when I was racing on the pro tour, he'd go, ace, when are you gonna get a real job? And, you know, stop playing, playing around. I'm like, this is a lot harder than the jobs that you think are real. I said, I'll go do that other job when I'm ready. So I. In 90, I was my first son arrived in 92 and I felt like I had some good success in competing. So I started a design, architectural design landscape architectural design build company called Wood River Trees with Noble Design. And we grew to like 148 employees. And from scratch. From. From scratch.

Wow. How long did that take?

Well, to get to that level probably took about 10 years. But as I. So I found this property in 1990 and there was. It was just a two lane road and nothing across the street. So I was grateful I was able to. Seemed like a huge reach and I was able to do it. I was looking for a piece of property where I could build a water ski lake and grow trees for landscaping operation. And so we designed the lake and built it in less than a year, which would be pretty impossible to do that today. But very fortunately it's sold out. And we get over 5,000 people skiing there a year. So even though it's a private lake, it gets a lot of. Gets a lot of use. And the whole idea of the project I'm building around it because this is like my favorite place on the planet is on the lake, is to share it. And it is in my backyard. And so I'm trying to. The whole community, the tree farm community is still a tree farm. So it's not like elk run or something where there's not really any elk. There are a lot of trees, trees here. There's a heavy emphasis in the tree farm community with landscape architecture. And trees are a part of it. And that's part of what I would call the social green is the feel. So when you come home or you come to a community, how does it feel? Does it make you feel good? Just sort of naturally. And in my landscape architectural career, I found that making places feel good to people felt really good to me. Not just doing the job, but trying to take it to a level where when they came home, they could take a deep breath and feel that sense of joy. And so the project, it's heavily on the green side, but it's also heavy on the social green, which would be the joy side. So all the activities and events on the lake and outside of the lake that we have, triathlons and ice carting in the winter and rally races in the snow. And so there's a lot of activity. And with that there's what I figure is a really fun energy that I find a lot of people love to be around. I certainly do, and my boys do. So that's part of it.

Thanks so much, Ace.

Thank you, Larry. I appreciate being on the show.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Widel Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widelawnwinning. Com. I'm the Million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, Go go go.