09: Rob Gandy
Chris Suarez (00:00):
Today's going to be a great one experienced growth listeners. We are going to introduce you to just a phenomenal human being and an equally phenomenal business person today. Get ready to meet Rob Gandy. Rob Gandy is the founding principal and managing partner of CLO in Austin, Texas. He founded a company about a decade ago with with a partner and that company has now acquired and developed over 1.3 million square feet of commercial real estate in the city of, well in the state of Texas.
Now the firm's assets under ownership or development has a combined value of about $600 million today. Historically this leadership team has operated over 10.7 million square feet of commercial space. Real estate with a project value of over one and a half billion dollars. So clearly someone that's made a Mark on the landscape of real estate in mostly are around Texas and different cities.
Austin primarily has created some of the flagship buildings in the city of Austin. Some of which actually our organization has been part of, has done events in has had great experiences in. So it was a bit serendipitous that we got connected through a mutual friend and realized that he had developed in and built some of the projects that I just have always admired in the city of Austin.
With that said much of our conversation will actually go outside of the business. And really talk about how he built his organization with culture. And as much as anything doesn't just develop property but has built a purpose driven mission. Based organization .
Their company is built on a fact that health and wellness matters. And as you'll see they curate experiences for the workplace experiences for the community That built on this health and wellness theme throughout. But what you'll realize it's really created a purpose and passion project for him and the entire organization at CLL. So with that I introduced to you Rob candy.
Chris Suarez (02:17):
Maybe we can begin , and just introduce our community to you, Rob.
What is your role today and what was it prior to the foundation of the current company?
Rob Gandy (02:25):
Sure. I will, it's probably easier for me to start pre and then go to two CLO. If that works, I had a finance background lived in New York, worked for an investment bank. And then moved .
I met my wife in New York and in Oh seven, we we moved to Texas. She was a Texan and I was well. And so I think at some point, living in the city for four or five years, you want to. Give back. Are we, did and I moved back in Oh seven.
Did I worked for a bank for a couple years through the downturn and got Got to learn how to do bank workout deals and see these problem assets that they had taken back and help, devise plans to get them off their books and sold. I felt like that was a lot more interesting than what I had been doing previously.
And somebody introduced me to Bobby Dillard. Who's my co-founder CLO and we, and he was doing primarily retail development at the time. And primarily target anchor shopping centers. And There was a a deal that I found as an opportunity and some guy, common friend we knew introduced us and we, we actually decided, and within a month or two months to form a company around this strategy.
And We started the company in may of 2010 with the focus of, a retail development focus but really focused on kind of bank work out deals. At that time there was a lot of repossessed property and we saw an opportunity. We didn't have. You know my really any money, but we could help these banks move these assets and get them from a non-performing state to a performing.
And that's really how we formed formed the company.
Chris Suarez (04:24):
So as I think about what the purpose or the mission, that was a very analytical financial base solution for banks and you guys partnered, and that was your target. Is that right? Initially?
Rob Gandy (04:40):
That's right. And B, because we were young and I'd say probably, starting our company out.
We saw the opportunity to buy assets from banks that they had repossessed but then partner with cities to (00:05:00) bring these retailers to their city. And our focus at the time was big box shopping center development. And so our first deal as a as a company was a Sam sinker project where, you know, the Sam's club in the neighboring city.
Was bringing in so much sales tax revenue we could go to it was actually the city of Macallan and where I had where I was from and say, Hey, we'll bring Sam's to your site. We're going to buy this land at I'd say basis. That was a little higher than market from the bank.
But for that, we will Use tax rebates of that Sam's would create in the city in order to bridge the gap and it helped the bank out and it helped the city out. And it obviously, jumpstarted our company. And we did that and in the Valley, and then we worked on like a Walmart deal in Dallas.
But that's really the. Yeah, the opportunity we saw at the time was how do we, make win-win situations with various parties and be in the, the creator or the developer of it all. And it, it worked out that's interesting.
Chris Suarez (06:15):
So fast forward, And where as you described that seems very tactical and very like just economics. And now I look at where you're doing and it is. It is purpose rich, not that the prior business model didn't have a purpose, but your approach is different. Then a lot of developers even in your own city, what changed about your approach or what would you say is different about your approach now? Than what a lot of developers are doing.
Rob Gandy (06:47):
I think early on when you're just trying to, make money just to live and you'll, take any opportunity. And if you think there's a chance of making money off it, you'll, you'll go down that path. And quite frankly, that's what we did for the first.
Three years is, we'd we bootstrapped the company and we scratched and clawed our way to, uncovering a value or seeing value in assets that others hadn't seen or overlooked. We were young and so in 2010, 13 I'd say maybe we're more optimistic than we should, or more optimistic than others.
For one reason or another. And it actually led to some pretty big successes because we were buying assets, in the downturn. And luckily we were in Texas and specifically Austin and which is, obviously blown up since then, but. Those early on deals were more I'd say more out is, I'd say more out of necessity or probably less connected to our passion which we've figured out one more time versus, fast forward today.
It's less about making money and it's more about purpose and, , it takes a while to figure that out. Or I did for us I'd say today our purpose and the things we're passionate about. Wow. Drive our investment decisions over Things that maybe could make money, the NR the reward is only money and not, fulfilling your purpose and passion.
, I, we're lucky to obviously being a great market and that's allowed us to even say things like this, it's It's easy to say, Hey, follow your, follow your passion and figure out how to make money out, around and that I think it's it's a lot harder to, see the opportunity. I think you've got to start with that purpose or that those things are passionate about. And. Follow that and start whatever businesses around that. Don't worry about making money. If you're really passionate about something and there's a business point of that you think could make money.
I think that's the worry about making money on the back end, I think is something that has, stifles people in their pursuit of. Yeah, entrepreneurial-ism maybe. And so that's one thing we've learned over the years.
Chris Suarez (09:20):
I think the takeaway for our community Robin is that That oftentimes, and it's such a, it's almost a cliche now where people say, Hey, you follow that passion.
And potentially we have a generation showing up following passion, but not really figuring out how to contribute to a community or contribute to the economy while following that passion. But for you guys there was a three year period where you said yes to a lot. It seems right. Like you still you're you still have the skill to see what others didn't see is the word you used or see potentially missed opportunity.
Maybe it wasn't a path shin opportunity, but you're willing to do heavy hard work (00:10:00) early. And while you were doing that gave you the time while building. And not gone to an economically sound business to then earn the right or earn the freedom to make passion calls later.
And sometimes the hard work comes earlier and we're not willing to do it first to the
Rob Gandy (10:17):
Passion work. Yeah our, I say our purpose early on was. Making money. Like we've got to make money. We don't have any money. How do we do it? So purpose. And so we said yes to a lot of things. And, as we got older and the company became more established, I think having, , that criteria and say, notice anything under a certain size or something outside of our expertise is what we started to focus on.
And then it became, no to things that don't fit our passion, our purpose. Really that's been the change I can think of in the last 10 years, is that. I like
Chris Suarez (10:57):
That’s a lot. I think that's a huge takeaway, right? The, no, for like you first earned to say no based on your model and then you then learned or earned the right to say no, based on your passion.
Now you mentioned your partnership. And I think we could. So often these interviews show up because someone showed up as a leader in their field or their industry or highly successful. And we only hear that part of it. And yet there was a decade. You've been building the current company for a decade and you each came with a unique.
The skill set to the table that you had learned and worked on for, right? Like almost a decade prior to how important was, do you think the partnership and the blending of the skillset? What would you be?
Rob Gandy (11:44):
Yeah, I think we're both very lucky. We're two pretty different people.
And I'd say the I'd always been in charge of the capital market side because of my banking and finance background. I always handled that and kind of equity raise duties. We both were more business development, so bringing in deals and then he had really the expertise with.
Real estate development and leasing and I think having the right partner is all, it's a huge part of our success. We've, up until about three years ago we were pretty loose on roles and. We have really defined expectations and roles and between us too.
And I think, there's, if there's two kind of equal partners and those roles aren't aligned, it's really hard to pull somebody accountable to their duties. And think that's been a big part of it. Because it's, if somebody isn't in charge of one thing and two people are then really nobody is right.
And we started to define, we have defined roles and responsibilities based on the type of people we are, what are we like? What do we, what are we good at? We do a lot of Personality assessments. And that has helped us, not only just for us too, the other 40 plus people in the company, identify what roles they're in, are they in the right role?
And if they're not where, where are their strengths and basically set people up for success that way. That's been a pretty, pretty a big focus for us over the last three or four years. So
Chris Suarez (13:32):
As you've done that, I know one of the things that your organization is known for is just culture within the company.
W we'll get to the culture of the product that you create in a minute. But how has the definition of roles and getting people in their strength zones, how has that led to maybe corporate culture or company culture? And what else has been the driving force behind that for you guys? You
Rob Gandy (13:58):
I know, our culture is always evolving.
I'd say it's it's, we always like to think we've got a great culture and, we're, experts in creating great culture. I'd say it's really all about the people you hire. And that are in the boat with you. And. We're talking about learning experiences and how those affect culture, early on when we were hiring people, it was primarily for skills.
And yeah, values, came after that. We didn't really have a great, defined valueless. And, you take what you can get early on and, you don't have a lot of credibility. Somebody's got a, CPA certification and back at a degree and whatever it is are really good at modeling deals, but their values aren't fully aligned.
That was. What we, and we were forced to, or not forced, that's what happened early on that affected our culture because we'd (00:15:00) have people that had we're in the, in the tent that didn't have values that totally aligned as we started to, really focus on.
Okay we need to make sure we have a great culture. Put people in the right seat. So all of that. Yeah. We've really set out, our values and define those and made sure that everybody knew what they were and if they were on board with them, this is going to be the place that works for you.
If you're not like, no hard feelings, but you're welcome to leave. Once we did that people kinda self-selected and that really helped our culture. Because if five out of seven people had the values that you wanted, that you guys all, everybody's signed up for, but there's two bad apples.
And let them hang on. That creates motivation problems that creates all sorts of problems in their culture. And I think by removing or people, self selecting out of the company that didn't totally have the values that we had, people, the people that stayed really appreciated.
I really appreciated that. And which was a huge moose, our culture, like our culture today is is one of complete transparency. We, I don't know if you've ever read it, but principles, but we, the whole company is Reddit. We're actually doing one of race programs right now, which we're a test bed before.
But it's all about, this is our mission. These are our values, this is, don't be afraid to approach me or Bobby or whoever with problems or tell us where we've done stuff wrong. And by having transparency and being able to speak the truth, I think that's helped eliminate a lot of things that get in the way of, having a great culture.
So it's, always evolving, but that's, today that's really where we are and how it's been different. What's
Chris Suarez (17:13):
interesting as you bring up even going back to, when you said you had to get your roles clearly defined. One of my favorite parts of Ray Dahlia is perspective in his book is when he did that time in motion study.
And he said, he looked at his company and it grew fast and you guys have grown fast. He grew so fast and he realized that they were slipping from his words were being pervasively. Excellent. And so he did this time and motion study and realized gosh, If I was going to do everything that was assigned to me, excellently, it would be 160 pounds a week.
And 80 was too much because he wasn't living experientially. So then it's now I have the opportunity to go find the right people to do this. When more excellently than I am doing, but with these underlying principles as the guiding attraction quotient or hiring quotient, and it sounds like you guys have have done that.
Perhaps even based on the influence of principals,
Rob Gandy (18:11):
That's fine. Yeah, absolutely. I'd say a lot of it is principles based. That's why I talked about values assessment and, or the personality assessments having the right person and the right seat or making sure that they have the ability to, give feedback right, or under, take feedback and give feedback is been a huge it's a huge part of where we're at today with our culture.
Chris Suarez (18:38):
Do you, how do you guys connect the actual product, what you do with your people purpose as well you definitely choose specific projects and you develop them in such a way that is. So from my perspective, purpose, rich, how do you connect your people to that?
Rob Gandy (18:55):
We start with. Okay. What is our criteria for a project? Today it is stuff that has an impact on the stakeholders, right? I we do I don't know, industrial deal and some other towns. Maybe, but I'd say that's not really our focus. It's how do we impact stakeholders in our community and stakeholders in the company and stakeholders that are, our investors.
And it all comes back to what our, what we're passionate about. And my passion could be a little bit different than, my CFO's passion or, somebody else's passion, but I think the. The common thread is improving the lives of other people, whether it's through, architecture and we geek out over, great architecture, building things that are a little bit different.
And architecture design is one, one thing we can say, okay we're not going to build, in (00:20:00) 20 years, I want to drive by this building and share my kids, this bill in, and it's going to be something that's, I'm still proud of. We've we're really into health and wellness.
And we feel it's like a duty to build buildings that are healthier. And promote wellness RAR tenants, and, we can dig into that in the bed. I'd be like it's, we always want to be win-win whether it's with the neighborhood or, the tenant or, whoever at the city.
If we're going to go into the neighborhood that and develop a building, let's just say East Austin, right? Yeah, there's a big kind of gentrification concern going on, in East Austin. And so We want to build things that are from the fabric of whatever neighborhood or city we're going into . And we feel by giving buildings architectural elements from that neighborhood or bringing in local artists into our building, and we showcase their art promoting, outdoor, communal spaces that the public can come and enjoy, even if they're not tenants in the building. Those are all things that we're thinking about and we're super passionate about.
. And at the end of the day, we're trying to improve the, the lives of people who maybe don't directly lease the building, but you know what their houses right by the building.
And they'd rather, drive by an architecturally pleasing building versus just whatever tilt out. Not all, not high design, a building. Yeah.
Chris Suarez (21:42):
What's interesting is you've captured the connection between the investor, right? The stakeholder in the company the team, the staff the future tenant.
And the community in which that new project building rehab is going to show up in. Now, you mentioned that health and wellness is a big deal for you within your organization, but also in the buildings that you participate in. What does that mean? Like how do you focus on that?
How does that mission or that purpose show up in the actual product?
Rob Gandy (22:16):
The, a lot of people in real estate, things that in order to build, you know, architecturally, pleasing buildings or healthy buildings that, it's a lot more money. And if you take the focus less on making the return, but more on. Building something that is, win, or a, giving back to the community or, improving the lives of your tenants.
I think the return and the profits will follow. I think, tenants appreciate health and wellness obviously. And will they pay up to be in our buildings? We're not even focused on that. Will, in theory, should they? Yeah, sure. But that's not a, that's not really a focus.
And take that out of the equation. We are, and I mentioned earlier, we feel like it's a duty of ours as we build. Buildings that last a hundred years or more to do them right. The first way the first time. And we built, for example, a third and show was our hire out last high rise downtown.
It was the first lead platinum high rise in the city of Austin. And if you know the history, Austin Green building was the predecessor to lead and that's really how leads spun out. The number of lead buildings in Portland or Seattle compared to Austin are way more, we've, we've been behind what a lot of people are doing on the West coast. And the fact that there wasn't a lead platinum building in high rise in downtown Austin was something that, we felt we should bet whether it was the returns are not we, I remember being in the architectural meetings and saying, we kept bringing this up.
Let's, what's it gonna take to get to the lead? What's it gonna take to get to lead or to lead platinum? And we made that a focus where it was because we wanted to build, not a sustainable, a building that it had never been done on that level before that was that STEM from our passion to build, healthy buildings, on top of that.
So that's more kind of. Materials and systems and whatnot energy efficiency, but then you focus on the air, the light, the water, connection to the outdoors. And my my business partner, Bobby is a, yeah, he calls himself a biohacker, which is It's you biohacking is basically doing little things (00:25:00) to prove, in your life or technology to increase your health.
So we started looking at, air systems that can, increase the amount of oxygen or the biophilia, we've in our new office. I think we've got like largest or one of the largest real living walls in the city. And, it's no it's no, Oh, a secret that, having indoor plants and being connected to nature, it makes people feel healthy.
We felt like that was worth spending money on. Just so happens. The group out of Johnson city does. I think like majority of Amazon's buildings, they do, they're looking at walls. And that was a big that was that stemmed from one of our, one of our passions.
We've, we built decks on every floor of that third and Shoal building, which really hadn't been done before in a high rise in office. Yeah, there was. And from the air to the light, lighting that doesn't give off blue light or in the day that affects your cortisol and whatnot.
There's things as a developer, you can do, you know that the reason people don't do them a lot of the times is because they feel like the cost is not outweighs the benefit. And we, when you take the, that mindset out of it, then you know, it really allows you to take chances and do these things that, others probably don't think have a lot of value.
Chris Suarez (26:28):
It's interesting is. Bosco where the project's done. Those that are going to live there, work there, play there, experience that building completely differently than perhaps the building that they came from or where there are, where their tendency was prior to moving into one of those, one of those buildings.
So your spaces become a experiential is what we like to say as opposed to just utilitarian.
Rob Gandy (26:56):
Yeah. It's the same reason that, you know, Facebook and Google and lobbyist, big tech guys with big budgets spend so much money on their space. A lot of it's for recruiting for their, their people.
At the end of the day, it's okay. Once I've landed that person, how are they going to feel in their office? Like how are they going to be excited to go in their office? Are they gonna. Have an office that's just boring and not well lit and trashy now, people want to feel, and employers want employees to feel excited, but when they come to the office, exact same thing with us.
We want people when they walk through our lobbies. They want us, we want them to see the amazing artwork that we've curated from, local artists down the street. And we've got, small story about that person. Or we've had the artist come to the building and we have, a party form like we did on one of our East side buildings.
Great office. If you ever go to our new office our personal, new headquarters, we feel like office has been, behind the times. I think we're going more towards a hospitality type field. We think, when you're, going into a hotel lobby how great does that feel?
It's comfortable. There's. There's drapes. There's nice furniture. There's things that are more inviting. Back when I lived in New York, I remember walking in, these big, huge cavernous lobbies, and it was like you and the security guards. And you go, you have the checkpoint and go through the turnstile and it's so intimidating.
You don't feel good when you go into one of those lobbies. It's not inviting it. Very corporate. And it's great. Very, from a guy that grew up on the bore of South Texas in a small town and going yeah. In New York, my first day, I got it, this huge cavernous lobby with these gals, like it's just not a comforting place.
And like at third show we took a lobby that probably should have been twice the size. And shrunk it down. And instead of having that space, the other half that was towards the year four lobby, we decided to have a coffee ended up being, intelligency a coffee, which is the first location in Texas, but we, we had a NanaWall that opened up to the lobby.
And so we created an energy, in that lobby. And so people, people would spill out. You don't get your coffee. People spill out into the lobby. We had a restaurant on the other side and that's what people want to experience. They don't want to experience, you and the security guard.
They want to experience energy and, walking in through the lobby and seeing their friends, hanging out and, creating places that are an alternative to being in their office where they can go and jam out with the people are
Chris Suarez (29:56):
One of the things as you say that it makes me think of it as I (00:30:00) think human beings have changed in what they expect from work in, when you look back and read, having been born and raised and grew up and worked in.
My first office was on wall street and right. I would go into a lot of attorney's offices and it was as big as the lobby. If you can make the lobby bigger, it was there to impress you. And I think you're right. Like those two words that jumped out at me, as I thought about those were they were built to impress and intimidate.
And now, and I think even on the other side of everything that the world is going through here in 2020, as we're recording this connection becomes more and more important in what you've really created is a space for people to connect. I think it's important for people to connect to their space and have identity with the space in which they live and work and play in.
But it also allows for that human connection based on the design of your spaces as well.
Rob Gandy (30:54):
Yeah. Do
Chris Suarez (30:55):
It's about connection to the community because I think you guys do this incredibly well. And it's based on who you are. I came across the story that actually I'm thankful it was published, but the story back in early 2019, when you were building, I think the second Foundry building, and there was a home on that lot and you were putting up 160,000 square foot of mixed right.
Of mixed use. There was just this small little historic could you tell our community about what happened there and what you did with that home?
Rob Gandy (31:28):
Yeah, we We, it was actually the, what we saw was either a home that, could potentially be demolish or or we had the ability to, fix it up and give it to somebody else.
And so it, what we did was. That we found a lady that had a piece of land on the East side to her house had burned down. And I think she had moved into the garage and that did their burgers or something happened to the garage. And we were able to say, Hey, listen, we've got this house that.
Is it was going to be moved. We'd love to, give you a new home. Yeah. We paid to have the home totally agreed on. And she had the lot, and it worked out. Gave her a house brand new house and, on this lock that she had for years. And were things like that or what this is all about.
Those are the most rewarding things for us. It's not the kind of that little profit at the end of the day. It's really like the experiences for us that you let you, that you learn from that you, some of these experiences are not always positive, but it's how you deal with them.
And, is there a way to make. Unfortunate situation and a win for somebody. And, at the end of the day, like that's super rewarding, right? It's if it was all easy and this would, this wouldn't be a lot of fun. I would probably be great to make money, but that's really not, that's.
That's what our focus early on. It's definitely not anywhere close to what is our, our being drives us today. It's about these experiences we have,
Chris Suarez (33:22):
I think is awesome. Is. You were able to create a completely different experience for a community member that had lived there. They're on that lot for, it was 50 years of her life.
And you're right. There was two fires. And ultimately right after the second fire potentially would have been displaced from the neighborhood. I think oftentimes people look at developers and say gosh, that's what's happening. People are coming in, a small little house turns into 160,000 square feet.
And yet. If you have a socially responsible mission and experiential mission, you're able to actually allow the current community to live and stay within the community that they've grown up in. And it actually improved that health and wellness of the way people live as well. There's a there's a project in Austin.
In fact this project has gotten national news. Someone actually in Portland brought it to my attention a few years ago and. We've done some work and raising money for it. And it's called community first. But a landmark project for the country three, I believe. And it's it started there in Austin.
Your organization and company has pledged a million dollars to this. To community first, maybe you can tell our community what community first is, why it matters to you and why you're such a huge supporter of it. And then I'm going to make an ask of our community afterwards to get behind and help support it as well. But what's community first. And why are you guys involved?
Rob Gandy (34:48):
Yeah, we in August know, just clarify we pledge, I think back in 2018, a million dollars to help. Fight the (00:35:00) really end homelessness in Austin. And some of that money went to other nonprofits. , I saw that community first was really a pretty ingenious model and a very successful model.
And I'm dealing with. People that wouldn't necessarily qualify for all support, for supportive housing because maybe they were still, I don't know, maybe they are still on drugs or there was some sort of record that they had that denied them the opportunity to get into some supportive housing.
Alan Graham and the people at community first. Saw the opportunity to create a place where really the most vulnerable homeless people and felt that giving them shelter was the first step in in helping them come back and have dignity. And. A lot of people are homeless for, they made one bad decision and they're out on the street.
And then, five years later, they're still out on the street. Okay. What community first is down and said, listen, we will give you a house. Will you know that you can call your own
some have trailers, some have the small houses that's first and what they do second is say, now, here is your community that is here to support you, and you can still be on drugs, but we are here to support, you getting off drugs and we're there, we've all. You can go to community first and move in and you can talk to people who have, wean themselves off of, whatever advice was holding them back.
And they've done an amazing job. There, they had just opened phase two and it's really going around and talking to people. And their stories. It really is, one bad mistake or just, some unfortunate happiness that put them out on the streets.
And so when we, made this pledge, we looked at, what are the things that can really move the needle in a big way for us to help solve this thing. We knew the icon guys who basically have a three D printing technology where they're printing, homes. And we said, listen, we'd love to buy a printer and really partner with you guys to build.
Housing to help end homelessness in Austin. , I think our first project out there was the community center in phase two. Since then I believe we've done five or six houses. This is pre COVID and a lot more on the way.
Yeah, you say three printers is super exciting. And we felt back to the win-win you could create homes for homeless people. You could, obviously be a part of some really exciting technology. But it was, first and foremost is it was our, it was a passion project for us that, we drive by, people every day that are homeless.
And being able to give somebody a house is just I can't think of anything better. That's like the most rewarding thing we could do. And that's how it started. And it's been very successful.
Chris Suarez (38:31):
Yeah. It was interesting pre COVID. Our next step experience with our group when we got to Austin was going to go and do a tour of community first and that the trip got canceled and got put on hold, but we're gonna make it down there. I think one of the interesting things about that organization.
And interestingly enough yours as well is they meet people where they are, they meet people where they are at that moment in time and what they need, and then bring them towards this preferred future that they had. And our organization believes that's the definition of leadership, and leading people down a path to their preferred future. You're doing that in your development, right? This is your building. Workspaces and space for a better future, right? Help wise, wellness wise, community wise life integration wise community first does that well and that's why it's a passion project for you because it's like this incredible integration between.
Between life and work where you feel fulfilled both portions, like you said, three D printing is the technology is fascinating and exciting. And so to be able to be involved with it while doing good with it is pretty darn awesome. Which leads me maybe to my last question. A recent interview that you, you did, you'd said that, gosh, do you just want to show up and be the best, right?
Like you have this internal drive to be the best. And if you can, if you could you go to bed knowing (00:40:00) that. Man. I deliberate right for my investors and for my partners and for my work life. But at the same time I could, you could put your head on the pillow and know that you were the best husband and the best gap.
Then you're gonna, you're going to go to bed knowing that he didn't leave anything on the table. How do you do that?
Rob Gandy (40:18):
I don't know the
Chris Suarez (40:21):
Preferred future. But how does someone build something big while also making sure that they live experiential? You guys travel a lot, maybe that's it like, what is what's some advice to someone that's doing it, living into that aspiring to do it.
What's the advice for people that want to live that way?
Rob Gandy (40:40):
I think I'm pretty competitive. And so just to address the first part, I think that was probably where that came from is, always wanting to, be the the leader in whatever we do. That's just a natural thing for me.
I think you hit on the head though. It's for me. Yeah, the thing that's changed. And now that I've got kids and a family, having those experiences far outweigh any sort of, material thing I could ever have. And our focus, as a family is whether it's going places that you never been before.
Or doing things you've never done before. It's really how do I have lasting memories with my kids. And quite frankly, a lot of those are, riding bikes to projects and we'll go hit three or four projects and go and see the the excavators going on or the concrete being poured.
And that to me is not only, doing site tours and checking on the progress. So of of the deals we're building or going to see, that the Yeti deal we did on South Congress that we talked about earlier. I remember taking the kids there when It was under construction and it was, we, they were a part of it.
And so they'll probably go buy that building someday, in 10 years from now. And hopefully they'll remember when, when we walked out or when, we were in there looking at the build out for Yeti or one of these other tenants. And a lot of it is these experiences that are also part of work.
Work is obviously a it's gotta be fun and you've gotta be passionate about it. And then what I've seen is my kids can have just as much fun, walking around at a, That'd be careful with OSHA listening, walking around or around a construction site where we'd ride our bikes to it.
And then afterwards we'll get ice cream or whatnot. But like that to me is what it's all about. And that's been the most fun thing I could think about from the kid's side on the. On the business side and with our people honestly it's kinda the same thing. We love to bring them to the sites.
We like to have them experience a building going up or a talking out if you're an accountant or an AP person and you're cutting checks or doing that all day. They don't get to see that side of, what's going on, which to me is the fun side.
And so having them feel like, and know that without them, we couldn't do, these buildings tying these experiences to their daily life has been. I'm a pretty big focus for us. And at the end of the day, it's about, what are we learning from our experiences and what are we learning every day?
And there, if the learning can be fun, I think that's really the goal. And hopefully we make money along the way, but that's definitely, the byproduct of having fun and learning a lot.
Chris Suarez (43:51):
What I've learned is you always do well, right? If you're having fun and you're working hard for other people and you're contributing to the community, interestingly enough, they'll never have to worry about things financially, because that will show as a byproduct of the good work you do. I just want to thank you for being willing to take quite a good amount of time out of your busy day, busy family, busy, everything right. And share with the community.
