The Cargo Aircraft Medical Module Business - Bianca Rhodes is CEO of Knight Aerospace - Unusual Profits ep 18

Hey, Michael here. You will now hear some episodes of the Michael Girdley Show that we had branded differently, called Unusual Profits or some such like that. Same show, same person, just me interviewing people and producing content that could be helpful on your journey and mine as well. So with no further ado, here's the episode. Hey, Michael here. Sponsor for today's show is actually a product that I'm a part of called DM Bridge. And what DMBridge is, uh, is a service that we built, uh, to solve the problem that Twitter's direct messaging functionality is a total mess. So we built DMBridge to help you fix that. Um, a lot of the other solutions, uh, do things like requiring you to install a whole nother inbox. We didn't want another inbox, so we created DMBridge. And what it does is it takes all of your Twitter DMs and has them appear inside of your email inbox. So you can reply to them just like it's a regular email. You see them just like it's a regular email. You can search them later like it's one of your regular emails, all just by using DMBridge. So, uh, we're currently live with the product. Uh, would love for you to sign up and become a customer, uh, and check it out. So you can find that at dmbridge.app, uh, and go on there, put in your name, uh, and be either part of the beta or join us as part of the live use of the product. And again, check it out, dmbridge.app. Good morning and welcome to the latest edition of Unusual Profits. I am your host, Michael Girdley. We are back for another episode and one I'm super excited about because our guest today is Bianca Rhodes, uh, who is a dear friend of mine, also located here in San Antonio and has a fascinating business in the aerospace industry. Industry and particularly a niche in it that is super cool and a business and a person that I'm like a super fanboy of. So I'm so excited Bianca has made some time today and, uh, we'll get a chance to dig into everything that she does, her journey to get here and how the business works. Cuz it's just a fascinating one. So Bianca, thanks again for being here.

Oh my gosh. It's my honor. I am, um, thrilled and it's so much fun. This is, um, something fun for us to do. I'd love it.

It's awesome. It's awesome. Okay. Well, cool. So let's start with like, what does Knight Aerospace do? Like, what is the mission of the company? What kind of business are you guys in?

Okay. So we build structures for cargo aircraft to safely transport people and patients. So, you know, most people think of a cargo aircraft, a C-130 or a C-17, it's just a big empty ship. And it has nothing inside of it, and it was intended exactly for that, for cargo. So it was never intended for people to fly in it, but people fly in it all the time. And since, really since Vietnam, we've just loaded soldiers and patients. And, you know, when we have a hurricane in Louisiana, we just fill it up with people. I think everybody saw images over the last couple of weeks of, you know, a C-17 flying out of Afghanistan with you know, 800 people standing inside of it. So we use it for people all the time, but needless to say, that's not safe. So even cargo has to be tied down and secured to the aircraft because especially during taxi, takeoff, and landing, which are the most threatening parts of the flight, there's just a lot of risk of people shifting around and getting injured or hurt. Needless to say, if something more serious happened with the aircraft, it would not be very good. So what we do is we build these structures, and it's really like an aircraft within the aircraft. We build these structures to the same standards that the aircraft is built. We use the same materials, and we use the same military standards, uh, or FAA standards to build the structure. And it rolls onto the aircraft, it locks into the aircraft. The only thing it takes off the aircraft is power. So we just plug into the aircraft power and then it's able to, you know, run a mission. And so we have modules like this that could be biomedical, they could be medical, they could be VIP transports. There's a lot of reasons to do each one of those. We also have structures that are not enclosed. These are palletized systems, but again, they have the same floor structure that's built to tie into the aircraft. And so it doesn't need any kind of tie-downs or panes or anything like that. And it's completely safe during taxi, takeoff, and landing. So people can be inside of it or on the systems while the aircraft is flying. So then the aircraft lands, you roll this thing off, and we're talking about 45 minutes to an hour to roll it in and be ready to go, or to roll it off and the aircraft is ready to go. And then you can actually use the units on the ground. You just have to hook them up to a power source. But the point is that it, It safely transports people. It improves the medical outcomes because now instead of a back of a cargo aircraft, which is dark and dirty and not temperature controlled and all of those things, you're more like in a hospital room. And so you're going to improve the medical outcomes. The medical staff can now, like, hear what the patient says and talk to each other without headphones. They can take all the equipment off the patient and put it on the walls so they have access to injuries. Which doesn't happen today on the back of a cargo. These are the kinds of things that, you know, nobody really thinks about, but it's a pretty austere environment today. And so, you know, it's— it's— so it helps the patients, it helps the caregivers, and it helps separate the medical crew from the air crew and the aircraft from the medical environment. So if you have people that, you know, during Ebola, for instance, which it's a hemorrhagic event, you're not going to have to decontaminate the aircraft when it lands. You're going to be able to just repurpose it immediately. So it leverages the aircraft to be able to fly a lot of different kinds of missions back to back.

That's super cool. So like, it sounds like there's different categories of these things. And do you guys sell only to government? Is that pretty much the only consumer that's buying these type modules at this point?

No, today it is because that's who owns cargo aircraft.

Okay.

So, you know, it's mostly militaries and we have, we have product in 34 countries. So including the United States, but most of our sales are into foreign countries. I believe that, that we will move towards commercial. There are a lot of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief organizations that especially after COVID realized they need a way to be able to, you know, to repatriate, you know, citizens, to move patients. And so I think we're going to be more, you know, expanding into, into the, you know, the non-government types of organizations as well.

It's great. Cool. So, yeah. And for those of you on YouTube, I pulled up some pictures from the Knight Aerospace website of kind of these three different types. So there's the medical modules, which are, you know, what we had before, which was what we talked about earlier, which is kind of before they were just strapping patients into like a gurney, it looks like, inside the plane and duct tape and baling wire. And, and after your module gets rolled into the plane, you actually have a full hospital, enclosed hospital thing that looks professional and first world and all that kind of stuff. So there's medical modules and then there, there, the second kind are, you talked about these palletized systems. Is that the second category of, of things that y'all make?

So in the modules, we have medical, and under medical, we have biocontainment and just what we call universal. And then we have VIP modules. And so those are generally for heads of state and senior level government. Sometimes we have, so we have a couple of modules, for instance, that fly people incognito. So they don't want anybody to know who's on the aircraft. But the, but the person needs to be able to fly safely, to have full communications, you know, with everybody else. And when he lands or she lands, they need to be able to get off the airplane and, you know, be ready to go and present and talk and stuff. So they need to be able to sleep. They need to be able to shower and things like that. So VIP modules, medical modules. And then the second category is pallets, and that's just the same floor structure, but it doesn't have the enclosed room. It's just it's just open. So we can do that. We can put, we put medical modules together. We can, so those will have, like you said, litter stanchions or ICU beds. They can have seating, they could have lavatories and galleys because a lot of cargo aircraft do not have galleys and lavatories, which has been like a serious problem. No, seriously. C-130, most of the legacy aircraft, had what they affectionately called a honey pot on the back of the aircraft. And it was a literal bucket with a little curtain around it. And that's what people used for a restroom. So our air transportable galley lavatories are super popular. People love having a lavatory on the aircraft. When you're flying a 16-hour mission, it's like really a nice luxury. And then, you know, there's galley. So, you know, instead of people just bringing in their, their own stuff and trying to, you know, eat leftovers literally on the aircraft. Our galleys have ovens, microwaves, coffee pots, you know, hot water, refrigerators, you know, chillers, freezers, you name it. You know, it's like flying commercial. Wow. So, you know, it really transforms the aircraft into something that's just more suitable for humans to be traveling in. And then the third category we have is ground support equipment. So, Because we're so familiar with the cargo aircraft, we build structures to support the cargo aircraft. So we build all kinds of cranes, mobile engine test stands. So we erect these things so they can take the engine off the aircraft, test it separately, and not have to bring it back to the manufacturer. All kinds of dollies to transport wings and radomes. So that's a mobile engine test stand that your folks on Facebook or, you know, who are YouTubing can watch. So, you know, just a lot of different kinds of ground support equipment. But again, you know, this is kind of our smaller part of the business. The modules are really the backbone of the business.

The backbone of the business. Got it.

Okay.

Well, and then so in terms of the business model, it seems like mostly selling B2G and whatever we call kind of some of the foreign government folks. So they're B2G too. And so then the business model is you, I guess, sell these in response typically to an RFP. Is that how it goes down? And then there's maintenance afterwards, or how does the model work in terms of the sales process?

Yeah, so, you know, that's really interesting. It takes a lot for us to socialize this. For instance, the medical module, we've been socializing since Ebola. And, you know, this is a paradigm shift because this has never been introduced before. Up to Vietnam, everybody, like I said, was totally happy throwing patients on the back of cargo aircraft. So we started talking about when Ebola happened, it was really when I got started with Knight. I went out to people like the CDC and, you know, just talk to them about what is, what is the, you know, the market feasibility for a product like this. And, you know, interestingly enough, they said, well, a pandemic will happen. It's just a question of when and how extensive it'll be before we control it. And, you know, as you know, we were able to control Ebola pretty nicely, but COVID was a whole different animal. So we said, you know, I believe this is gonna happen. I also went out to a couple of people in the US military. So I have a couple of advisors that are just fantastic. One of them is the former Transcom Commander, 4-star, had just retired to San Antonio. And I said, "Does this make any sense? TRANSCOM is responsible for the worldwide movement of people and equipment." And he said, "Absolutely, there are so many places where we have a hard time getting into. There are so many places that don't have medical facilities." The continent of Africa is an example. And it's a real problem when we have to extract people. We don't have good plans for extracting people out of our embassies. We saw that in Afghanistan. You know, one of the biggest issues is we had a whole— and by the way, the US Embassy in Afghanistan is the biggest in the world, and it's a campus, and we didn't have a safe way of repatriating the Americans that were stranded there. So he thought it was a great idea. He wanted to jump on board. And then the other person that advised me and who has been phenomenal is P.K. Carlton. He is the former U.S. Air Force Surgeon General. And so he actually designed the system that exists today for the medical team that gets deployed to do extractions and, and, and to repatriate our soldiers and to move our soldiers. And he said, you know, I've been thinking about this for a long time because when I designed the team, the optimal team for, for the medical deployments. My next step was to work on the equipment set, and I had a vision for something like this. And he was actually at the Pentagon on 9/11 pitching this concept when 9/11 happened. And he ended up kind of being distracted that day and saving people, setting up triage on the lawn. But he's— he always had the dream to, you know, to get the equipment set done for, you know, for that medical team. And so, you know, together with people like that and other SMEs, we decided there is a real market for this. There's going to be a time when the world needs and realizes how much it needs to do this. But so all of that was to say that this is like a huge paradigm shift because people, you know, and we do such a good job, we really do, transporting soldiers and people on the back of cargo aircraft. And we haven't had You know, the major disasters that we've had, some that have been bad. We actually had a C-130 crash that had our seating pallet on it, and the aircraft was totaled, but our seating pallet and the people sitting in it were all perfectly okay. So it just tells you, you know, it's the law of probability. It's just a question of time. So we've been socializing this for a long time. So when COVID hit, you know, we just fast forwarded on a lot of conversations. And then we talked to, you know, some of our customers For instance, you know, one of our customers in the Middle East, Kuwait, had their emir was critically ill and was needed to be brought to the United States to the Mayo Clinic. And they literally, the US literally sent a C-17 and they put him on the back of a C-17 on, like you described, Michael, just a, you know, a litter stanchion for lack of better words. And transported him to the United States. And we got a letter that week from the government saying this cannot happen again. Like, this was— it was unsafe. It was, you know, it was unsanitary. It was just not how we are expecting to transport our Amir. And so we're in negotiations with them for a unit. You know, that's what happens is people realize the, you know, after the fact, it's kind of like putting your alarm system in your house after after you've been burglarized. But you know, that is what happens. But COVID really helped that discussion. Everybody now realizes it's not a question of, is it ever going to happen? It will happen. And, you know, having the right equipment set really makes a difference.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because it sounds like, you know, in looking at the website, you guys only really got into the medical modules 6, 7 years ago. But it sounds like hearing you talk, it sounds like you're almost still early in terms of the government making this part of their regular buying process. Process, right? It's not like, you know, I think we have some other mutual friends that are in the government contracting business, and it's just like the RFPs show up and they respond to those. It sounds like your sales process still is very much an evangelical one where you're having to go in and show this is an opportunity not only to the U.S. government but to foreign ones, or is that, is that kind of not— do I have that wrong?

That is absolutely correct. Um, you know, so during COVID the U.S. government took, um, you know, hired out somebody to take shipping containers Chinese-made welded structures and put medical equipment and roll, you know, put them on aircraft and strap them and chain them down. And that's what they used to move COVID patients. So we're having discussions with them about, okay, now that you've done that, and that was a great bandaid, but let's go with something that is a long-term sustainable solution that is airworthy. And, you know, that is much more like a hospital room and that is going to, you know, really have negative pressurization, really gonna contain the germ's really gonna protect the aircraft and the air crew from what's happening inside the medical module and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, it's still trying to convince people that this is needed, but it's a whole easier sell now and easier conversation now than it has been for sure.

Yeah, so how mechanically does that sales process work then? Like the whole, you know, general services agreement, RFP stuff like that, that's all, makes total sense to me. Like the government says, we want this, you give them a bid and then they award the bid and then a bunch of red tape happens. Okay, I understand that model, but this evangelical sale, like, so how does that work in, in practice? Like, do you have a team? Is it you? Like, how are you guys identifying leads and then turning those eventually into contracts?

Yeah. So, you know, very difficult. So through P.K. Carlton, we've had meetings with the Surgeon General offices at at US TRANSCOM, at Air Mobility Command, you know, and through Will Frazier, we've had, you know, the same kind of meetings on the aircraft side. So that's the other, you know, kind of complicated part of our sale is that we're selling the aircraft people. We're also selling the medical people. And, you know, those are two different organizations. But we have somebody that helps us at a high level have those conversations and set up those meetings. And then we socialize, you know, with the people throughout, the contract officers, the people that write the requirements. We also use other, other platforms. So the government has instruments like they have a thing called a CRADA. It's a cooperative research, you know, type of arrangement where we can work collaboratively to develop a product that we think that they're going to need and they think that they might need, but they want to— they want to have buy-in and what the design looks like and stuff. So we're working on right now I don't want right now for Special Forces. So they come out and say, you know, these are kinds of things that we're thinking about. So we, you know, we get that kind of information from them right now. There is a concept going through the U.S. government that that's talking about we really need a flying surgical suite. So we said, great, let's, let's do a CRADA. Let's, let's cooperate together. So the CRADA does not pay you anything and it does not necessarily lead to a sale of anything. But we feel like if we can work with the government, understand what they want, and develop and design something like that, you know, obviously the chances get, you know, very high for us to deliver a product that is meaningful and well-designed for them. So there's a lot of different angles and ways to go about doing that. We do have somebody on our team that is absolutely 100% dedicated to the U.S. government. Because at some point we think that that should be our biggest customer. And so, you know, that's all he does all day is, you know, socialize. We go have meetings, we take products to show them, we send them information, you know, a lot of different levels because there's not really a— there's not a system like you just described. Here's an RFP, you respond to it, etc., etc. When you're before that, it's really having to It's really having to socialize the concept throughout a lot of layers and levels.

It's the— what you described to me is how I like— first of all, something I'm terrible at, like I'm not good at the evangelical consultative sale. But like what I just heard from you is that's like the apex of when somebody says this is a consultative evangelical sales model. Like it plays to all my weaknesses, but like, I'm glad you guys are good at it.

I'll remind you not to hire you anytime soon as my lead salesperson.

Oh no, please do not. Please do not. No. Yeah. Not unless you want sales to go this way. Anyway, so how long, you know, how long is the typical sales cycle then? It sounds like it's really indefinite in terms of, you know, it could be 9 months, it could be 19 months, it could be 49 months.

Yeah.

Yeah. How long is that typical cycle for you guys?

So it's, you know, we showed Canada During Ebola, we showed Canada the concept that we had for biocontainment, and they said, man, we— Canada is very, very intense on airworthiness. They have very high standards for what they fly, and they absolutely insist on the best quality products. And so they said, gosh, we would love to have that. When Ebola kind of died down and went to the back burner, and they said, we just can't find the budget. When COVID hit, they called us and said, "We want a unit right away." So, you know, that seed was planted 5 or 6 years ago, but when they called, you know, we had a contract within 30 days. And so, you know, on the other hand, I described Kuwait. So when they flew the Emir, we got a letter that said, you know, "We need y'all to work on a VIP transport unit immediately." And then they shut down the country And they had a— they don't do Zoom. So they were like, we had a couple of Zoom meetings with the medical teams, but they were like, yeah, we're just not comfortable. You really need to come in country and talk to us. And that's how they negotiate. So we literally could not back it— get, get back into the country until last week. And, you know, we had a team there last week, you know, advancing the ball on this. And I think we'll go to contract here sometime very, very soon. but again, it required being there in person, even though this was an urgent need for them. So every country has a little bit of a different nuance, and we just have to work through all of them.

Yeah, super interesting. Well, and I, I saw looking at the website, so you've, you, you just mentioned that, you know, you've sold to the, to Kuwait, and then the Brazilian government is listed on, on your website publicly, and then Canada. And, but it was interesting, you said that America, despite being the world's largest economy and the world's largest military by far, isn't your, isn't your largest customer. Curious, you know, and of course you can duck this question 'cause I know you're trying to sell to the US government, but you know, that's just, it just seems off to me that you're a US company and that's that. What is going on with, you know, our military and our government that we haven't really caught the light yet compared to some of these other countries?

Yeah, I mean, Michael, so the company started selling to foreign governments, you know, it just so happened at the beginning. So part of it is that's where they found traction. And so that's kind of where, And we have pockets where we have really strong relationships, like I said, in the Middle East and, you know, down in the Malaysia-Philippine area. So, you know, those pockets ended up growing into bigger relationships. So some of it was that, you know, I will tell you that the business that we got from the US government was sole source to us. So it was never, you know, a competitive environment. It was, we need— so we have a VIP module that flies in the US government. We don't talk about it much because it's classified, so we can't say who within the US government. But we do have a product that's been flying for 17 years. But I will tell you, it's— there's just not an easy process. I think everybody would agree that does business with the US government that it's just not an easy process. And unfortunately, you know, it's shocking to me. So when President Obama flew to Cuba, you remember that? Mm-hmm. There was a big article written about how— because when the, when the US president flies anywhere, they, they secure a hospital or a portion of the hospital in case he or she gets injured or ill. So that was not possible in Cuba. Right. So, so they took an extra C-17 and they erected a tent in the back of it. And there was— there were articles in the newspaper about we're ready if he gets ill. Here's how we're going to treat him. And it was literally a tent on the back of a C-17. And that was, that was the medical fallback, you know, and, and we just were shocked by that. We were like, you know, the U.S., of all places, like you said, we should not be doing it that way.

Right.

And, and so I think it's just a matter of time. And, and hopefully when it clicks to the right, the right group that wants to make the decision and be the forward-thinking, you know, early adopter. And really, we're not even talking about early adopters now that other people have, you know, have the systems first. I think it'll catch on. I'm confident because it makes sense and that's what we should do. We have people in embassies all over the world. We've had several embassy issues in the last few years where we had a hard time extracting people. You know, we're really good. We can send a private aircraft for one person. That's what we did during Ebola. But when you have more than one, And when they're contaminated or contagious and you need to separate the air crew, like there, there's not a good solution out there.

Yeah, it totally makes sense. Totally makes sense. Well, I, we've got the—

what do you think though?

That's the point. With you, with you. Well, I mean, what has me super optimistic about it is your clarity of thought on where we should be and how to get there is super inspiring. And like, that's a level of like, gives me faith that we're gonna get there. You know, so, um, so just, just a detailed question. So the business model for, say, selling the— all of these units, whether it's the lower-tech stuff or the higher-tech roll-on cargo units, that is an upfront, like, okay, pay us for the unit. And then is there any kind of ongoing, like, recurring maintenance revenue for y'all, or is it just all, like, upfront project work?

Yeah, so most of the time on those big products, we have milestones, so we get milestone payments. We get something up front to stand up the program. And then we have different milestones. So by the time it flies out, we have been paid. We also have support contracts. So what we find is, you know, in all militaries, people rotate out like every year to 2 years max. And so you have to go in and train the new group on how to use the unit, how to maintain the unit. We also like to go in and just check the unit, make sure that everything is operational. But you know what we found? We had a customer and who came back after, you know, 3 or 4 years. They said, you know, we got this, we don't need a support contract anymore. And what we found is that after 4 or 5 years, nobody really could operate. It's like using your iPhone only to make phone calls, you know?

Right.

It could only do one thing on it. So we were like, we need to come back in and train you guys because all of these things that you're asking us, they exist on the module. Like we just need to train you on how to use it again. So support contracts are pretty popular. You know, we do that indefinitely. We bring the units back. So I mentioned that we have one flying in the US government. It flew for 15 years before it needed to come in for anything. And when it came in, it came in to get new air conditioning units because they wanted, they had one, they wanted it to be broken down into two. So the VIP area and the staff area had each have, and you know, things like new carpeting and, you know, re, reupholster the seats, but other than that, the structure was intact. So we do bring the units back every so often to do, you know, to do upgrades. On the medical units, I'm building, you know, as much new technology as possible on that. So, you know, the tech, the upgrades there will be medical equipment and medical capabilities, you know, things like telemedicine and other opportunities that we get to just make the unit more robust.

That's great. And so what, just to give us an order of magnitude, what is a typical, like, say, like a medical unit cost at, you know, a typical deal size? Are we looking at, and you don't have to give me exact numbers, but is it $8 million? Is it $80 million? Is it $800,000? Kind of how much, how much are these all said and told when, when the typical deal is done?

I, I will tell you, and it's just crazy, but it can range from So the ones that we're negotiating and that we're— that we have sold can range from $3 million to $50 million. That's crazy to think about, right? But it depends on the size. It depends on, you know, all of the appointments. So needless to say, the, the U.S. government is not going to pay for fancy this or that. But the Middle East, you know, demands fancy this and that. The technology that's on there, the capabilities that are on there, the communications capabilities that are on there. So it's a really big range. We are identifying the sweet spot and what we think most countries will need, which is obviously gonna be on the lower end of that. But we wanna get to the point where there is a product that works almost for everybody, you know, and that the outliers are outliers. And we're pretty close to getting that rolled out.

Yeah, that's great. And I've been to your facility. It's a very big one. What is the capability? You're here in San Antonio at a reinvigorated former military base on the southwest side of town. What is your capacity at this point in terms of, say, how many units from a medical device or medical device plus some of the lower-tech stuff? What is your capacity now in terms of the ability to deliver for governments and clients and stuff like that?

Yeah, that's actually a problem that we're working through, a really good problem that we're working through. And that is, what is our surge capacity? We can, with the people that we have in-house, we can probably be building anywhere from 2 to 4 modules at a given time. However, what we're trying to do is we're trying to move a little bit away from brawn to brains. And so we're trying to become more of an integrator instead of a manufacturer. And we're trying to draw the line in a different place and have a lot more of the, of the component parts come in more ready to assemble versus, you know, we're actually forming and cutting and shaping metal here. So, and we're looking at capabilities of other companies within the United States and then outside of the United States to support to support that. One of the reasons I— we moved into the space that we are in at Port San Antonio is because I was able to first take 80,000 square feet, and then we're in this giant building that's actually 700-something thousand square feet, and it's just one bay after another. And a year after moving in here, I took the second bay of another 80,000 square feet. So now we have 160,000 square feet, and the port has been super supportive and has said We're going to start filling it up from the other direction so that if you just need to keep expanding, you can keep expanding into this building. And if you need to contract at any given point, we can contract you. So it's just a fabulous space for us and our purposes. I'm actually meeting with architects this afternoon. We moved in here 18 months ago, and I'm meeting with the architects this afternoon to, you know, to double the office space and put the engineers on the floor and, you know, you know, expand the the production floor and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, nice problems to have, but still problems.

Yeah. And so you talked about being able to do 3 or 4 at a time. And when I toured your facility, it's very much, as you said, kind of bespoke custom work. It's not an assembly line situation. How long does it take, say, from finalization of specs? And I know you also have a problem where the specs are evolutionary with some clients.

Right.

But how long does it take from, say, final, final specs to like, thing rolls out onto a C-17 and is gone? Like, how many months does that take typically?

Yeah, so the biocontainment module that we built for Canada took 7 months from contract to deliver. That was working really, really fast. We think that we can actually work that down. And, you know, that's the goal. I have some other products that, you know, the goal is to get to a point where we could deliver a product every month. I'd like to have that kind of sales that would demand that, but I'm working on the operations to make sure that when sales catches up with that, that the operations team is ready to do that. And I'm totally confident that's gonna happen.

Great.

Yeah.

Well, switching gears a little bit. So, you know, you did not start this business. It's not named Rhodes Aerospace. And I did see that Mr. Knight passed away recently, and that's the name of the business, Knight Aerospace. So love to kind of switch gears a little bit. You know, what is the history of the company? I know it's 30-plus years old. How has it started, evolved, and then definitely wanna touch in like how you got into the business, 'cause your history is fascinating too. But what, what is the history of, of Knight?

Yeah. So Al Knight, our founder, and like you said, he just passed last week. We're very sad about that because he's, he'd just been, you know, a fabulous partner and person in this company, uh, started this in 1992. So next year we'll be 30 years old. Uh, he was a former intelligence officer here at Lackland Air Force Base. When he retired, he went to work for a company that was building palletized and ground support equipment for Lockheed Martin. And Lockheed at some point looked up and said, "We don't really wanna be in this business. We'll give you the blueprints, you guys build it for us." So he started working for a company that was doing that. And then, you know, very quickly after that, he broke off and started Knight Aerospace. And they kind of divided. So he was gonna take the, the palletized and modular system, and the other, his partner took more of the ground support equipment. That was, you know, 1992. They built VIP modules every few years, lots of palletized systems. And the last VIP module they built was for a Middle Eastern customer who'd travel, head of state, travels with his physician. And the physician kept saying, you know, I want more medical capabilities. On this, on this module. So they put in, you know, the ability to take out seats and put an ICU bed in and things like this. But he said, you know, really what I'd like is a whole medical room. I'd like it, you know, I'd like a hospital room. And so, you know, they had thought about that before, but they really didn't know anything about medical. I, at the same time, was consulting on a full-time basis, and I had— I was consulting for a San Antonio company, and I had brought a friend of mine in to do the legal work. And he said, when you finish this, I'd like to introduce you to Knight Aerospace, another one of my clients. He was their outside counsel. So we met and I said, well, I'd like to, I'd like to look at the medical part. You know, I'd like to own that. They were a small family-owned business, so they wanted to keep separate ownership. So I started a separate company called Knight Aerospace Medical Systems. I was going to, we were going to sell into their customer base. So I, the name Knight meant something. It means something throughout the world. I mean, people who have our units talk about the quality and durability of our products. And I wanted to use that. So I adopted the name and, and kind of used the shield image and stuff like that to kind of move it away from, you know, from, from the family name for my business. And, and so for the first 3 years, I was doing meeting with SMEs, doing the design work, you know, meeting with people like PK to, to really hone in on what the design was going to look like. I started kind of helping Knight Aerospace, the legacy company, with some of the issues they were having as a small business. And about 3 years ago, circumstances just lent themselves, you know, so that I was able to purchase the assets of the legacy company. So I became CEO at that time. And the 2, the 2nd and 3rd generation Knights, you know, kind of came on board with my company, became part owners of Knight Aerospace Medical Systems, and we just combined and became one company. So and we were able to retire Al very nicely. And so he was happy, the family was happy, it all worked out really well. But it was, you know, really my job since then has been to kind of take the company to the next level. So as I said, moving facilities, expanding, we had been in like 40,000 square feet, so now we're 160,000 square feet. When we bought the assets, we had 20 employees, now we have 60. And, you know, we have a whole new leadership team that's just fantastic. And, you know, so we've got our set, our eyes set on, on a bigger prize at this point.

Yeah, that's great. So a number of the listeners of this podcast are actually, you know, they are interested in getting into entrepreneurship through acquisition, you know? Yeah. And so, so one of the questions for most of them is, well, how, how do they do that? And your story of how being able to do that, um, and is, is something that I think would be interesting to them, cuz I know this is really your, this is almost your third career as I think about it. Um, yeah. So cur, curious to hear your thoughts on how you got to a point where this made sense for you.

Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, I started my career as a, as a banker, a commercial lender here in town. And I became the CFO of one of my customers and then another one of my customers. And so, you know, I was pretty young and I had been the CFO of two public companies and very successfully. The second, I took the second one private and I thought I would stay home and raise my kids. And that worked for about 2.5 days when I realized that's not gonna work very well. So I started a, a consulting company and, and consulted for small businesses. I really love small business, doing things like generational transfers, raising capital, uh, operating turnarounds, things like that. And I basically made my schedule around what my kids were doing at the time. So there were times, you know, as soon as school would start, I would take on more clients in the summer. I would take less. And, and so I did that for a long, for a long time. And, and then when my youngest, you know, left home, went to college, I started doing, you know, consulting on a full-time basis and I had lots of opportunities and I really thought it would be fun to go back to the other side of the desk and buy something and, and do that because that was something I had not done in my career. And I looked at a lot of different companies and the reason I liked Knight is because it just combined the things that I loved. So it combined military, it combined medical, it combined, you know, aerospace. Manufacturing. It just had like this really nice combination of things. And I, and I could see the potential of the company. I just thought we needed recurring revenue, repeat business, you know, get, move a little bit more out of the customized into, you know, predictable recurring revenue. And, and I, you know, I could see different ways of doing the medical module was, you know, candidate number one, it made total sense. Since then we've added several others that, you know, also make sense, repeatable business. Um, but we had, you know, it had some, some really great intangible assets like the, like the reputation, um, like its quality perspective that I thought we could really build on. So, you know, that's why I did, that's why I chose this one, but I will tell you, you know, it, it's hard work. I, I learned, I learned the hard way. It's very different than being in a big public company and stuff. It's, uh, it's, it, it takes longer. It takes more money. Than you expect it to take. You've got to, you got to have a vision. You got to, you know, stick to it and, and, you know, go through thick and thin, making sure you've got your eye on that vision and, and that you're, you know, you're running the business with some sort of structure and based on some core values that, you know, I think really makes the environment, you know, really an exciting environment. Like, I think people who work here enjoy it. I actually got a phone call from my friend at Boeing the other day. He said, I don't even get it. There are people from Boeing who want to go work for Knight Aerospace. What is that all about? And I love that. I love that. That was great. So we try to make it really good here.

Well, I mean, I know you pretty well. You know, we're on a board together and the same CEO group and stuff. And I think that actually kind of the adage of people like they don't leave companies, they leave bosses. Like they also go, don't work for companies, go work for bosses. And like, I think your superpower, which I don't even, is so powerful for you that I don't even think you recognize it on a daily basis, is just, I don't know anybody that like has the same sort of, um, like, like ability to connote like the, the ride or die mentality. Like when you're, when you Bianca are on somebody's team, Like, it's just a magical thing. Like, I've never— like, it's just an amazing thing. And I think that this business also plays to that superpower, which is like, you're, you know, you're trying to build something for our government, for other folks, and be on their team. And then the people that are the suppliers and working for you, like, I think that all just— that all plays to your superpower, which I don't think other people have. So anyway, that's my perception of it.

I really appreciate that. I will tell you, it's not hard when you're doing what we're doing. So we delivered this unit to Canada, and they immediately had a military person on the continent of Africa that they needed to go get, along with his family. They were all very sick with COVID and, you know, to the point where they were not even sure they could make the flight. And, you know, that's been one of the issues is normally you've had to get people stabilized on the ground before you put them on an aircraft. That's no longer an option. Like, you've got to get people in an aircraft fast and get them, you know, to safer ground. Well, they went and extracted this family, and about 3 weeks after they landed in Canada, we got, you know, I got an email saying that family has all survived, and we absolutely attributed it to that environment and being able to transfer them back. To Canada safely. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. It, you know, since then, Canada has run a ton of missions. They talk all the time about the number of lives that they're saving and, you know, the amazing asset that they have. We're in negotiations with them right now for the second unit. They're super excited about it. I just think, you know, when you do that and when you get those emails, it just like changes everything.

Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. Mission, uh, having a great mission is awesome in terms of recruiting. Totally hear that too. Having a great boss is awesome too. So, um, so that, I think that ties into something that I wanna start to dig into next, which is, you know, how big is the team? How is it structured? Like what is your operational model in terms of the people that you have, you know, working at the company for you?

Yeah. Okay. So, uh, reporting to me, I have a chief revenue officer and so he runs sales and marketing. He's got different salespeople, mostly international, but like I said, we've added a US government salesperson. And, you know, and we're always looking for, you know, for additions there because we have a lot of geography that we have to cover. So to augment that, we have sales reps and agents in different countries and different regions that work for us and represent our product. And so we consider them part of the team. So that's the CRO. I have a Director of Operations and he runs, he runs planning, purchasing, materials control, production, and program management. So all of those areas fall under him. So the concept there is to have things flow very easily between one area and the other. So, you know, the third person I have is the Head of Engineering. So he heads up engineering and innovation. Great guy, has, you know, a great innovative mind, super to work with on my team. So once engineering, you know, passes over a design and it goes to planning, and planning has to get the work orders written so that, you know, the production team is going to be building it, and the BOMs all go to purchasing so all the materials are purchased, and materials control has to receive everything and make sure everything comes in at the right time, and you know, to the specs that we require. And then of course program management has to manage all that. So the real issue there is flow, is you want everything to flow as seamlessly as possible. You want the backend talking to the frontend. So we have a lot of design reviews where we bring the people from production and throughout the process with the engineers to make sure that they are designing for manufacturing, that they are optimizing the design, that they are standardizing everything, that that can be standardized to make the integration and manufacturing processes as easy as possible. So all of that needs to work very seamlessly. So that's my team. I have finance and HR, sales, the chief revenue officer, engineering and operations. And then right now I'm searching for a new director of quality. So shout out to anybody who's listening that would like a great job at a great company. So that will round out my team.

Yeah, that's great. And then so that's— those are your direct reports and then reporting to them, how many, how many people total? Yeah, both as FTEs, contractors, and then are there third-party partners and channel distributors that you guys are working through as well? So just curious below that, how big, how big and how are those folks organized?

Yeah, so we have 60 employees total. Half of them are on the production floor. The next quarter are engineers, and we have mechanical, electrical, aerospace engineers. And then the other quarter is all of the rest of us overhead, you know, finance, HR, you know, receptionist, admin, all that kind of stuff. So that's kind of how it breaks down in a high level. We probably have 5 or 6 contract outside contractors that work a lot for us. So we have 2 senior electrical engineers that have done work for us for years. They are absolute experts in their fields and know our products inside and out. We have a DER, so we have an engineer that does our stress analysis and stuff. So he's an outside independent contractor, and we like it that way because he has an independent, you know, perspective on our products. So he analyzes all of our products to make sure that they all are airworthy. And Opines on that issue. And then, like I said, we have a team of sales representation in different countries. Sometimes it's companies, sometimes it's individuals, you know, that rep our product. But we work very closely with them. They're not just out independently selling our products. They're usually liaisons for us to work with them and their governments. But, you know, they get us in the door, they get the meeting set up, that kind of stuff. Then we usually go in and and have a very active role in that too. And, you know, right now, if, if I could find, uh, 20 people for the floor, I'd take them. Uh, we're getting ready to stand up a project that's really great. I can't wait to announce it, but we'll probably be adding 20 engineers to it. So right now what we're trying to figure out is can we really hire this talent and, you know, attract them to, to our company in San Antonio? Cuz it's really hard. It's a very competitive environment. Or do we need to go outside of the United States to get, you know, some of the talent that we need? It's a tough question. And we're working very hard to make sure that, you know, we could do it locally first and, you know, then move away from that.

Right. What's interesting, I mean, so many of the airlines, for example, or, you know, your American Airlines plane is probably getting maintained down in Brazil on the regular. So you wouldn't be the first. So kind of double-clicking on some of the team and structure and then also these third parties, Like with kind of a vague sales cycle like this, like how do you think about sales comp? Like, it's not like a, you can give people quarterly numbers, it seems like, like in enterprise software. Like, so how does that end up working both in terms of the people you hire and then also how you compensate them?

Yeah. Well, a good bit of my sales force is the two-night gentlemen. So they have ownership and they're, they're, they're like me. We're sacrificing for the, for the bigger prize. Uh, my new CRO, you know, there's a lot of people at Knight Aerospace that have taken a haircut to be here because we're working for the company that we're building, in all honesty. So there are, you know, different components. I have salary, I have commissions, I have bonuses, and I have equity. And we have phantom equity too. So we have a lot of different, you know, things to work with. And, you know, depending— but yeah, you're right, the sales cycle has been longer and more vague, although I'll tell you, my CRO is doing a bang-up job of getting that thing tightened down and buttoned up. And I think that, that, that, you know, especially now that we've got the medical module, we have another product that, that I could share about that, that we're working on and that's going to be recurring revenue. So, so the, the revenue will be a little bit more predictable. It may be a little bit longer, but it's going to be a lot more predictable and And as I said, we're standing up another project that's also repeat business. And so I think that's going to be easier and easier to do. But there are programs like, you know, getting the US to buy the biocontainment module that's going to take a little bit longer, you know, hopefully not that long, that, you know, that make it a little bit tricky. But I really do believe that everybody here sees that vision and believes that we can do what, you know, what I'm describing here. And so we're all pretty patient. We're working very, very hard, but we all believe that we can make it happen. And I don't think it's going to take as long as it has to get us from the beginning to this point. I think it's going to start accelerating.

Got it. And do you have a— you've touched on this theme a few times, which is increasing the value and resiliency of the business by getting to more recurring revenue as much as you can, and then secondarily predictable revenue as much as you can, and kind of minimizing the ups and downs that seem to come with everybody who's doing just basic project work for the government.

Right.

Or governments. Like, do you have a goal of where you want to get those kind of 3 buckets, or how are you thinking about the evolution, continued evolution of the company and implementing that?

Yeah, so we do. We have a model that we work, and it starts with how many cargo aircraft are there? And where are they? And what percentage of those should be leveraged for more missions through VIP or medical transport? And so then we kind of, we back into that and say, okay, that means that we should, we should have this many modules out in the world and this is where they should exist. And so that becomes kind of the target. And we know, you know, what, we know how many each country should have. To optimize their cargo fleet. And so that's kind of what we use as kind of the roadmap. And by the way, so we have a relationship, for instance, with Embraer. They just introduced a new cargo aircraft, the C390. We were selected after 2 years of vetting as the preferred provider for their palletized and modular systems. And we just delivered a first system to the Brazilian Air Force because that was the first customer for the Embraer since they're based in Brazil. We're talking to them about medical aircraft. So, you know, there's also new entrants into the cargo aircraft. The C-17 and the C-130, obviously there's more of them than any others, but they no longer manufacture the C-17. So we're talking to the A400M with Airbus, the C-390 with Embraer, And then, you know, Boeing's coming up with a KC-46. So we're very much involved in those conversations too, because it's not a finite market for us. It's not just based on the cargo aircraft that exist today. It's changing as new aircraft come on board.

And then, so that's kind of the total addressable market for y'all, which I think is great. And then in terms of the revenue mix, like how are you thinking about it? And you're okay to just say, I don't wanna talk about it, but like if I was in your shoes, you know, I would be really wanting to see how much of that maintenance revenue can I get, and then secondarily, the predictable stuff. How is that today? And are you trying to change that? Is that something you're worried about or any thoughts on it?

Yeah. So, you know, again, the biggest thing that we can do is come up with a universal patient module that has, you know, that has, that is as robust as possible and that we just hit that sweet spot for the maximum number of countries that would just order that. So we could produce the same thing over and over again. That's the biggest thing that we can do to address the medical market. But we're pretty close to finalizing that right now. And then, you know, of course, the support that goes with that, you know, is a very important part. And the technology upgrades that goes with that are super important. I'm right now standing up an innovation advisory team, SMEs from across different, you know, different areas that will help us make sure that we have the best technology in our modules. And so I think that— I think we'll always be making great upgrades and stuff like that that give us more opportunity to create that kind of stickiness with our customers and provide just the most robust product out there that's available. We have another product called the ATGL. It's actually a next-gen ATGL, Air Transportable Galley Laboratory. And this is an R&D project that we started we realized that the— there is— because like I said, most cargo aircraft does not have galleys and lavatories. This is exactly that. It's 2 lavatories on a pallet with on the other side there's a big galley. And so it just rolls on, it tight— you know, it locks into the aircraft. And now you have 2 lavatories and a galley on an aircraft, which is, you know, great. Well, the U.S. had a design that it developed about 28 years ago And it's been servicing those. There's hundreds of them throughout the world. It's been servicing them for 28 years. And, and actually, Lockheed had the service contract for them. And a few— a couple of years ago, Lockheed said, we don't want to do this anymore. It's not our core business. So the government went out for bids on it and we said, why don't you just let us design a new one? Because this is really old technology. And there are things, there are parts of this that we can no longer even, you know, source. Things like fluorescent light bulbs that could be replaced with LEDs. And when we went out and talked to the, you know, the fluorescent light bulb company, they said, "We don't make that anymore. And if you want that again, it's gonna cost you, you know, $20,000 a light bulb." This is how the US government pays $20,000 for hammers. I mean, this is literally how it happens. So we kept going back to the government saying, you know, it would be so much better if we could just design a new one. They said, well, the requirement out there is for you to bid on the servicing of the existing fleet. And so on our own, we said, let's go build, let's go build one. Let's go do it on an R&D basis. We teamed up with Collins Aerospace, who had a very robust laboratory system, and we designed a new one and we got the government's attention. We took it up there. A couple of months ago to show it to them. They actually took the refurb requirement off the market and said, okay, we need to kind of think about what we're doing here. And that's a product that we're really hoping that, that, you know, takes purchase in the market. We have sold the first 4 units to Australia and we are in negotiations for 2 more orders outside of Australia. and we're talking to the US government. And again, there's hundreds of those. So again, repeatable, predictable, recurring revenue. We could build the same product over and over again. Very excited about that because that's a really nice unit. Really is a great product. Everybody, all the— so, so the existing product is not airworthy. It's been tested at 3Gs and it failed. And so, you know, this, ours is, and there are governments that really like that characteristic that really want to know that if they're in turbulence, this thing is not going to dislodge and become a projectile inside the aircraft or cause the aircraft to crash, you know. So we think we bring something of value to the table and that, you know, that's beyond the creature comfort aspect of it. And so, you know, again, you know, that's been the name of the game is look for products like that, that we can fill a market need that they— we could build more of that are not just individually customized. And like I said, We may have to do another podcast because I have a great announcement coming sometime soon for another great product, uh, that I can't wait to share.

Okay, that's super cool.

Yeah.

Well, and one of the things I'm also curious about is how politics or the state of politics affects your business. And I guess there's two, there's two angles of that. It's like, what's the macro politics situation, like who's in the White House and all that kind of stuff and their attitude. And then secondarily, like the politics that seems to get played when government contractors are selling to the government. And I know you have an advisory board and there's kind of the revolving door of 4-star generals that end up on boards of Lockheed and stuff like that. Like, so how does kind of the, starting with the first one, how does the macro environment of politics affect the business?

Yeah, well, certainly defense budgets matter. And so when there's more defense spending, It really helps us even though what everybody, you know, fights for and what really we have to compete against is people who are wanting to buy or governments that are wanting to spend the money on weapons and, you know, things like that.

Right.

And so, you know, we certainly fight that battle. However, you know, as I said, this new environment has changed that. People realize that's different. The other thing that's changed that, Michael, really is that the war theater has changed. So it used to be that we would send 50,000 troops into a country and, you know, and fight a war. But now we spend— we send special forces in, and those assets are super valuable. There's not that many of them. So instead of just, you know, filling up a cargo aircraft with, you know, 10,000, you know, troops, we are having to go in and extract a special ops guy or a woman very quickly. And again, you can't wait to stabilize them somewhere. You got to extract them as quickly as possible, treat them in the air. So that has changed. The war theater has changed and special forces have changed so that there is a more compelling argument for having the air, the medical evacuation part of the equation be more robust. You got to be able to do more in the air than just transport them. And so, you know, we say we, we can transport but that's really not our sweet spot. Like, we need to do— we can allow you to do more than transport. We can allow you to do more medical activities more effectively and create better outcomes with expensive assets. So I think that's changing even in the US government. But yeah, the defense spending, where it's being spent, and then things, special programs like this. COVID produced a lot of money out there, but really it's been kind of a mess. How do we use it? How do we use it effectively? Some of that is starting settle out. We're having discussions with the states. There's a lot of guards that have come to recognize that they need, they need to be able to move patients safely, not just because of what happened with COVID but even things like, you know, the natural disasters and stuff when they're having to move. You know, perfect examples when we moved people during the hurricanes in New Orleans to Houston and stuff. We couldn't move a lot of people out of hospitals and nursing homes because there was no safe way to do that. You know, you can't just sling those kinds of patients on the back of a cargo aircraft. So that was, that was a real problem. The immigration issue on the border. I mean, all of these things come into play. And so we're talking to the guards and groups of guards about what their capabilities are. We're in firefighting. You know, the cargo aircraft gets used for a lot of different things. And so You know, we're talking to states like California about some of the firefighting equipment and solutions that they need. So, yeah, so there's a lot of budgets and then pockets within those budgets that we look at and then even down to the state level. Needless to say, because of what I started talking about, just the whole paradigm shift, it's super important for us to be in front of our politicians. It's super important for them to know what we're doing, to know that the solutions exist. you know, to help us down the road, because most of what we're having to do is socializing and trying to get people to change their mind about, you know, how things should be done.

And then, so then how does like the, the second part of the question, the game, the game that seems to get played with, you know, the revolving door of folks, and maybe I'm touching on like an electrified fence for you and you just feel like, I don't wanna talk about this, but you know, you have an advisory board, Boeing has theirs. It seems like there's, yeah. There's that game you have to play also.

There is, and I will tell you that it really, really bothers me that we have not been good at playing that game. You know, you think, uh, government asks you to bid on something, you think you just do a real honest answer and answer it, and you, and you give them the best product that you can, and, and then, and then we lose by 50%, and you're like, wait, what just happened here? There's no way we could— I mean, we literally lost one government contract And we've, we calculated that we could not even buy the materials for what the competitor won at, at one at that. So we realized there's more to this than meets the eye. Uh, there's a lot of bait and switching. And I, I say that in a prerogative way, but maybe it's not, maybe it is. They know how to sell the initial product and then sell the additional things that, that, you know, that cause the additional revenue to happen and this and that. We haven't been good at that, that's for sure. And like I said, when we had to bid on the US government stuff, it all came sole source to us. Like, there's not another provider of a product like ours. If they want to compare— if they want to bid this against a shipping container with medical equipment hanging in it, we're not going to be able to win because ours is going to be more expensive. But you're really comparing apples and oranges. And so that's a fight that we're constantly having to have, and it's a game that it's constantly having to be played and education that, that, that we're, you know, having to provide all the time. And so that's why we just, you know, started hiring people smarter than us that know how the government contracting business works and that have been on the other side of the desk who can help us with this. And we have people, you know, we have somebody internally, but we also use outside, you know, contractors and people that were former government contractors that kind of help us, you know, learn those ropes.

Yeah, and they get their phone calls answered.

That also helps. Yes.

So it sounds like thinking about competition and market, really you guys are kind of on an island, but it's also because it seems like you're a bit early to the space, which is not a bad thing. But, um, you know, how are you thinking about the competitive dynamics both now and going forward?

Yeah, so We don't believe that we have a competitor that can produce the product that we can. I don't think we could have produced the product that we could— that we're producing if we had not had 30 years of legacy. It requires a ton of experience and expertise. Like I said, we're building it to the same standards that the aircraft gets built. And so, you know, there's not new aircraft being built every day. It takes a lot to build an aircraft. It takes a lot to build a module to the standards that we build them to. So we don't believe that there's anybody who's out there. That doesn't mean, though, that we don't have competitors because we have competitors who, who claim to have something similar. And so we're just constantly having to fight that battle. But I think we're winning that war. I think that, that our presence in 34 countries is really helping us. I think we have momentum. I think the barriers to entry are more difficult. And even the competitors that thought they could go head to head and develop a product similar to ours, I think, have found out that it's easier said than done and more expensive than they initially thought. And there's more— there's more to it. I mean, it just takes a lot to develop that kind of experience and expertise. So we just have to make sure that we protect our market and, and can produce enough product so that, you know, that becomes increasingly difficult. For anybody else.

Yeah, it does seem like at least for the near term this is going to remain somewhat of a niche market, which is— that's the— that's what the whole podcast is about, by the way. Thank you for being here. But, um, like, it seems like that's actually a defensive moat for you. Like, this isn't— this, for at least for the foreseeable future, isn't going to be interesting to the government contracting arm of Boeing or, or whoever. So totally dig it. Cool. So two, two more questions, and then, uh, I promised you we could fill more than an hour because And we're an hour 7, so you've done great. Um, so, uh, one, one question I, I, I'm curious about, like, what is the easiest part of your job in business and what do you think is the hardest part of your job in business?

Uh, well, you know, up to just recently, I would say the hardest part was to find the right people in the right seats. Um, because it takes, you know, we don't settle. And, and so I've had jobs that I've had open for months and months. Because I really wanted to find the perfect person to sit in that seat. Right now, I'm like super elated because I have a terrific team in place, and that's worked out really, really well. So that, that becomes the easiest part of my job is, you know, how do I, how do I manage a team of mavericks? That's like a great problem, and it's fun and it's easy. And, you know, you just like throw them what they need and let them go. And just, you know, make sure that we're all moving in the right direction. So I use the EOS operating system model for, for, you know, how we run the company. I think that simplifies things. It makes it easy for everybody to come in and just like, you know, start marching with the rest of us. That makes my job easy too. And really, you know, I think a lot of, a lot of the fun and the easy component comes from the network that I have, you know, the, the, the people like Michael Girdley in my life that I can call and say, okay, we're thinking about, you know, near sourcing in Mexico. Give me some intelligence here. I think that makes, you know, life a whole lot easier. I don't know how people, uh, can try to run companies on their own. Um, I think you need to have that kind of network. You need to have the other SMEs in your life that you can call for different things. Um, so I spend a lot of time doing that, but that's like super fun too. Yeah. Like I love being around smart people and learning new things and reading new books. And so, you know, that just, that becomes the easiest part.

Yeah. So what's the hardest part now?

Ah, so I think the hardest part is going to be to scale really. It's going to be, it's, it's, you know, I use the frame or the phrase here all the time, nail it before you scale it. And, and so we're trying to get all those processes in place and, and, you know, we, we keep thinking that we've got it, but there's always more tweaks and, I've got, you know, I've got some outside folks helping me right now, just making sure that we, we can do that very quickly because the— I see a tsunami coming my way. It's like a really good tsunami. But if we don't have our act together and, you know, and have all this stuff down nailed tight, it's, it's not going to be pretty. And the company, in all honesty, in the past has had a hard time producing two big, you know, programs at one time. And so we've gotta get a whole lot better than that if we're gonna be successful. So I think it's gonna be making all of these components march at the same time in the same direction to the same tune to make it all work right.

Yeah. Big operational challenges at this point. And I, I love the new product development, you know, breadth that just gives you so much more surface area to attack with.

Yep.

In terms of going after governments, not only here, but, but everywhere. So, you know, if, if things go right, where, where do you guys hope the company will be, say in a decade from now, 10 years from now?

Yeah, you know, especially with, with my new announcement that I'm going to make, I, you know, I see this being a campus. I see it, you know, I see it producing a lot of product outside of the products that we're talking about. There's a lot of other ideas that we have for products that, that, that are based on our expertise, but that, that meet several other needs that have not been really identified. Again, they're all new concepts and stuff, so I don't know why. I think I'm a glutton for punishment, like trying all these new things instead of just going out and doing something that somebody else has done and making it a better mousetrap. But I see this company being very big, very campus-oriented, recurring revenue, but still a niche player in the fact that nobody can touch the expertise and experience that we have and can produce what we— the kinds of things that we'll be putting out in the marketplace.

Yeah, it seems like a huge competitive moat, just, you know, in terms of time to business, expertise, and then the scale you're going to have all seem like great things to insulate yourself against competitors.

Yes.

And then the scale both in both ways. We talked about that, like you're not too big that you're going to be a target and you're not small enough that somebody can come in and replicate what you're doing. So Super smart. Of all the businesses you saw, I could see why you bought this one. Yeah, it's really, really fun.

Well, cool.

Um, so in closing, thank you for, again, for being here, but how can the listeners— and I showed you our podcast stats, so they, they are there, I didn't fake that. Um, how can our listeners support you, follow along with your journey? What, what sort of things can the people that have, uh, listened today, uh, do to support you?

Yeah, so, you know, I talked about socialization. That's like a big need for us. I'd love for people to, to, to resend that picture of the 800 people standing on the back of a cargo aircraft and say, doesn't have to do this. It didn't have to be this way. There's a company that provides a great solution. And so, yeah, join us on social media because we're trying to get the message out. That's probably the biggest thing that your community group— of course, if there's anybody that happens to own a fleet of cargo aircraft and wants a really high-end way to, to transport their loved ones when they get sick, I've got that too. You know, but any, any other kind of socialization to people that, that are in this space, that are, that are, that are flying patients, that are in NGOs and, and that are working in the government that don't know about this need to know about this because like I said, it just doesn't have to be the way we've been doing it for 50 years. This is right.

Time to change. Time to change that picture. That picture that you saw of people leaving Afghanistan. Packed in like sardines. It looked like the, you know, those, the ships that used to bring the Irish over, you know, in the turn of the century. I was like, wait, that was 100 years, that's 150 years ago. We still haven't figured something better. So totally, totally makes sense. So, well, cool. Well, thank you so much for being here. This was awesome. And, uh, you know, I, I think people are going to be as fascinated about your business as, as I am. And thanks again for doing it.

Oh, Michael, this was terrific fun. I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to do it again. Awesome. All right, I'm clicking stop now.

Bye everybody, see you soon.

Bye!