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Kerri Miller is on the road again for her Rural Voice town hall series — a project that highlights the joys and challenges of living in rural Minnesota. On Sept. 21, Miller moderated a discussion at Rapids Brewing Co. in Grand Rapids, with parents, teachers and community leaders about what can be done to retain young talent in rural communities.

Amanda Cruise and Ash Patel press Seth on the exact playbook behind his land business, from sending direct mail to apathetic owners to making deep discounted offers on properties most investors overlook. Seth breaks down why land can be easier than houses, how he decides what to buy, and why he prefers paying cash so he has flexibility instead of debt, partners, and deadlines. Seth WIlliams Founder of REtipster.com Based in: Grand Rapids, Michigan Where to find them: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-williams-2ba52067 https://retipster.com/ For more information, visit https://superhuman.com/. Podcast production done by⁠ ⁠Outlier Audio⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

WhoDoug Fish, founder of the Snowvana ski show and Indy PassDate RecordedSept. 30, 2026About SnowvanaSnowvana is a “winter kick-off festival” (a ski show) scheduled for a four-city 2026 tour:Use the code “storm26” to snatch a free ticket here for any 2026 Snowvana show.Check out the list of free and discounted lift tickets available onsite at each show. Why I interviewed himIf we trust the metonymic origin story of our surnames, then Doug Fish is a descendant of “a catcher or seller of fish,” probably sometime before the invention of the printing press. I cannot think of anything that I understand less than fishing. Specifically, how a person can be good at it. My experience with fishing is that you cast a line in the water and nothing happens while you get drunk. But my buddy's brother could go out on Sanford Lake in a rowboat and return an hour later surrounded by like 50 fish. Every damn time. And I was always just astonished like whatever inherent traits you need to be good at fishing that dude has them.I don't know if Doug Fish is good at fishing, or if he even likes it. I do know that he's good at skiing, and that he likes it. And whatever fishing ability he may or may not have inherited from Alabaster Fish of the 12th Century, he certainly possesses some of the traits of great fishermen: patience, instinct, and the ability to do hard things that no one else can figure out.Organizing and launching the Indy Pass is probably one of the great achievements of modern skiing, in that it proved that any ski area - and therefore nearly any skier - could join the multimountain pass club. While Indy wasn't a novel or new concept, Fish was able to achieve the heretofore impossible task of organizing far-flung ski areas into a coalition with patience, persistence, and a low-key, no-pressure approach devoid of Big Ski's ego. Once Fish sold Indy Pass, he tried something even harder: replicating the success of his Portland ski show across the country. To me, that sounds even more impossible than fishing, and does not include the benefit of a cooler MGDs on the boat floor. But whatever is inside of Fish that made the Indy Pass work, it's making the recently faded ski show work too. I've attended Snowvana in Portland and Milwaukee, each time as a paid speaker. I'm scheduled to host live conversations with Indy Pass/Entabeni/Black Mountain owner Erik Mogensen (Friday, Nov. 6) and Killington owner Phill Gross and president Mike Solimano (Saturday, Nov. 7), at this year's New England show. I don't endorse Snowvana over any competing shows, but I do think ski shows in general offer a fun atmosphere, and a cool way to participate in skiing when you can't actually go skiing.BackgroundFish has appeared on The Storm Skiing Podcast four times, each time solely as a representative of the Indy Pass:TranscriptsThere are two transcripts. Both are generated by robots. Both are helpful and defective in their own unique ways. I do not proofread either of them.Transcript 1: Click the “transcript” button at the top of this article. You can only see this transcript on a computer. Because I don't know why exactly but everything is getting better and dumber all at once it seems. Anyway, this is the transcript that the robots create when I upload the podcast to the internet. The cool thing about it is that you can click on any block of text and the audio will teleport there instantly. The uncool thing about this transcript is that it does not indicate who is talking at any given moment.Transcript 2: You can read this below. This is the transcript that Zoom creates as we record the podcast. The cool thing about this transcript is that it indicates who is talking at any given moment. The uncool thing about this transcript is that the timestamps do not match the audio. Also, you cannot click on this text to move to the associated point in the audio.ZoomStuart Winchester: My guest today is the founder of the Snowvana Winter Kickoff Festival and also founder of the Indie Pass. Now in its 10th year, Snowvana gathers skiers, ski area operators, and retailers in Portland, Oregon.00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:46.000Stuart Winchester: Seattle, New England, and Wisconsin.00:16:46.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: The Indy Pass, which Fish founded in 2019 and sold in 2023, but is still involved in, delivers skiers two days each at more than 300 ski areas around the world for winter 2026 to 27. He is making his fifth appearance on the Storm Skiing Podcast. He is Doug Fish. Doug, welcome back.00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: How's it been? Been way too long.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.000Doug Fish: It has to. I know. I miss you.00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:21.000Stuart Winchester: I know. Well, it's been way too long on the pod, and I was just talking before this, in my little intro, before you joined, that this is one of the reasons I wanted to do a different format pod, because.00:17:21.000 --> 00:17:24.000Stuart Winchester: I talk or text you all the time.00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:25.000Doug Fish: Yeah, yeah, no worries.00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:39.000Stuart Winchester: And I haven't had you on the pod in 3 years. So, there's no reason for that, because we love hearing from you, and your episodes always do really well. And we will be working together here a little bit on one of these Snovana appearances in a bit. We'll get to that.00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:42.000Stuart Winchester: First, though, I do want to pick up…00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:40.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:47.000Stuart Winchester: where we left off in that pod three years ago. You had just sold IndiePass to Eric Mogensen.00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:48.000Doug Fish: Get it.00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:56.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, who has gone on to since, also by Black Mountain, and runs a technology company. He was on the podcast recently, and has been a couple times. Just…00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:56.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:04.000Stuart Winchester: First of all, tell us how you're still involved, and give as candid of an assessment as you can of.00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:10.000Stuart Winchester: where the Indy Pass is once you… once you let that baby go.00:18:09.000 --> 00:18:11.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:22.000Doug Fish: Well, it was a little difficult to let the baby go, but I felt at the time that it would be in good hands, and I'm happy to report that it is in good hands.00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:15.000Stuart Winchester: No.00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.000Doug Fish: Um, you know, my country… my employment agreement ran out.00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.000Doug Fish: Almost two years ago.00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:35.000Doug Fish: And I'm still involved, you know. Eric and I extended it, and we keep extending it, and…00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:45.000Doug Fish: I believe in in what he's doing. I certainly believe in the past. I think that Eric has done a great job of.00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:50.000Doug Fish: Staying true to the mission and the brand promise of IndyPass.00:18:50.000 --> 00:19:00.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, as long as that continues, I will… I will be involved in some capacity. I'm kind of the Colonel Sanders of the IndyPass now.00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:08.000Doug Fish: I and you know I get to be a little a bit of an ambassador. I go to some of the trade shows.00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000Doug Fish: I ski with people.00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.000Doug Fish: It's… it's a pretty good gig, you know.00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:15.000Stuart Winchester: When you said Colonel Sanders, I mean, are you…00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.000Stuart Winchester: What I thought you were doing is still…00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:23.000Stuart Winchester: Recruiting new partners? Is that not the case?00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:37.000Doug Fish: Yeah, I've been. That's what I've been primarily focused on recruiting and maintaining relationships, you know, and and helping grow from a hundred to 300 resorts in the last 3, 3 and a half years, which is pretty incredible growth. And.00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, yeah.00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:49.000Doug Fish: you know, I can't take all the credit, but, um, you know, when you can focus on just one thing, you can be a lot more effective, and I've been focused on that.00:19:49.000 --> 00:20:04.000Doug Fish: But Eric has assembled a great team, and I've kind of handed that that part of the the effort off to Nick Niebus and a couple other people on Eric's team that are recruiting new resorts, and, as you can see from the latest release, that's.00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:06.000Doug Fish: Going pretty well.00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:12.000Doug Fish: Um, and I, you know, I think there's some other exciting news in the, in the, uh…00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:21.000Doug Fish: Uh, coming up in the future, I won't spill the beans, but, um, you know, there's always cool things happening there, and I'm just really thankful to be involved.00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:38.000Stuart Winchester: It's been really fascinating to watch the evolution of not just the Indy Pass, but the Pass landscape as a whole. And coincidentally, we started our brands in the same year. Obviously, you've been at this game for a long time, but the Indy Pass launched in 2019, and that's when I came around.00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:30.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:41.000Stuart Winchester: observing the industry.00:20:41.000 --> 00:20:57.000Stuart Winchester: the pass landscape for as long as you've been directly involved in it. And I think the way I always look at this, Doug, is Vail normalized the notion of a multi-mountain pass as an everyday product for the everyday skier, not just a niche product for locals.00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:58.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:20:57.000 --> 00:21:04.000Stuart Winchester: And then ICON copied that model, and your contribution to it, which I think was…00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:07.000Stuart Winchester: Extremely important was.00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:17.000Stuart Winchester: taking that idea and normalizing the idea of the non-alpha ski area, non-destination ski area, and you do have some of those, you do. But…00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:18.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:25.000Stuart Winchester: the idea that if you put together Brundage and Mission Ridge and Silver Mountain and White Pass.00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:25.000Doug Fish: Okay.00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:40.000Stuart Winchester: That would be an attractive pass together, right? Because those ski areas, they're, they're good, they're big ski areas, they have lots of snow, but they're not destination ski areas, they're not things people would have thought to fly to, but you had this insight, okay, but if I put them all together, that's pretty cool.00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:29.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.000Stuart Winchester: And so I'll give you some numbers and I'll let you react to this.00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:52.000Stuart Winchester: So, the first season of IndiePass, you launched with, you know, your first list of 10, and maybe you had 50 by the end of the year. Right now.00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:04.000Stuart Winchester: if you look at, uh, Epic, Icon, Indy, Mountain Collective, and the new Snow Pass from Snow Partners, there are 451 ski areas around the world.00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:11.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, between those 5 passes. A little bit of overlap between a few of them. 267 in the United States.00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:11.000Doug Fish: Yeah, thank you.00:22:11.000 --> 00:22:13.000Stuart Winchester: 55 in Canada, 61 in Europe.00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:17.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and 53 in Japan.00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:19.000Stuart Winchester: I mean, as you…00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:25.000Stuart Winchester: As you kind of reflect on how this landscape has changed.00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:33.000Stuart Winchester: I've asked this before, but I'll ask again, does this surprise you? I mean, how well this worked and how much it caught on?00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:37.000Doug Fish: No, it doesn't surprise me at all.00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:39.000Doug Fish: It's basic economics.00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:44.000Doug Fish: You know, lift tickets were getting super expensive, and.00:22:45.000 --> 00:23:05.000Doug Fish: a lot of people are getting priced out of the sport, and I mean, even if you want to ski at Vail resorts or Altara resorts. You know you you really have to get a pass if you want to ski more than a few days, and so it doesn't surprise me at all. It's just a it's a good deal. Any pass is the best deal of all.00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:49.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:19.000Doug Fish: You know, whether you use it as a regional pass, you know, you go 4 or 5 days in New England, or you take it and you hit the road and hit 25 resorts. It's the best deal in skiing, and it always has been.00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:24.000Doug Fish: So, you know, people respond to deals. That's…00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000Doug Fish: That's, uh, you know, the most of… most, uh…00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:39.000Doug Fish: effective word in advertising is free and cheap comes a second, I think. So it doesn't surprise me a bit.00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:39.000 --> 00:23:44.000Stuart Winchester: So we're starting to see a little bit of churn, and we've seen this since the days of the Max Pass.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:45.000Doug Fish: Okay.00:23:44.000 --> 00:23:59.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and, you know, the Epic Pass and Mountain Collective sort of trading partners around. We've seen less of it, maybe, than I expected at the top end of Epic and Icon. We're starting to see a little in Indy. You've had some partners leave, you've had some partners who have gone to different passes.00:23:48.000 --> 00:23:50.000Doug Fish: Yeah. Okay.00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:53.000Doug Fish: Yeah, exactly.00:23:58.000 --> 00:24:00.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:23:59.000 --> 00:24:05.000Stuart Winchester: What do you… so, the reality is it's a good idea, and people copied it, and that's a free market, and that's how compet.00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.000Stuart Winchester: My question for you is, what do you think?00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:20.000Stuart Winchester: IndyPass has to do to make sure that it stays relevant, that the coalition stays together, that it stays an attractive.00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:18.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:26.000Stuart Winchester: product for both skiers and ski area operators as Eric takes it into the future.00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:27.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:32.000Doug Fish: Well, two things. I think that any of us, Lauren.00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:37.000Stuart Winchester: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:41.000Doug Fish: I apologize, too. I got a derm.00:24:39.000 --> 00:24:40.000Stuart Winchester: All good.00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:43.000Doug Fish: Um…00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:51.000Doug Fish: In order for Dandy Pass to remain relevant, they need to continue to be an affordable option for consumers.00:24:51.000 --> 00:24:56.000Doug Fish: and continue to deliver value for the resorts.00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:07.000Doug Fish: And value in, you know, the quality of the visitors, the guests, the amount of check they write, and the amount that they pay for each visit.00:25:07.000 --> 00:25:11.000Doug Fish: And if they can continue to do that, then they will…00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:14.000Doug Fish: They will outlive you and I both.00:25:13.000 --> 00:25:14.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:28.000Doug Fish: Um, and, you know, yes, we have over 300 resorts now, you're bound to lose a few now and then. And, you know, we took a hit this year, a few people left, that was unfortunate, but we added…00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:17.000Stuart Winchester: Thank you.00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:38.000Doug Fish: quite a few more. So, you know, it's going great. I'm proud of what they're doing over there, and I'm proud to be associated with it still.00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:54.000Stuart Winchester: So you're playing… I mean, your name comes up all the time, as you said, from listening to the first few podcasts of this shorter version that I'm doing now, or trying to make them short, is… wow, everyone has a lot of opinions about Doug Fish, but so does Doug Fish.00:25:49.000 --> 00:25:50.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:25:54.000 --> 00:26:03.000Stuart Winchester: So, so you're clearly still living large in the minds of, of everyone who's involved in the IndiePass or works with it, but you're…00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:18.000Stuart Winchester: Main focus, I think, now, is on Snowvana, which… I copied this language, I don't want people to think I'm being corny, when I say it's a winter kickoff festival. I copied that from your press release, because I didn't really know what… like, I want to call it a ski show.00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:17.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:25.000Stuart Winchester: but you seem to not want to call it a ski show. So, what is… what is Snovana, and…00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:24.000Doug Fish: Well, that's a ski show.00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:28.000Stuart Winchester: And what are you trying to accomplish with it?00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:26.000Doug Fish: Good, good.00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:43.000Doug Fish: It's all those things. It's a enhanced ski swap. You know, you can call it anything you want, but, um, we started Savannah in 2016, so this is our 10th anniversary, and, um.00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:30.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:54.000Doug Fish: You know, Snowvana is a place for everyone to gather at the beginning of the season, you know, and we certainly didn't invent that. I think Warren Miller did.00:26:53.000 --> 00:26:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:10.000Doug Fish: originally, and I remember as a kid going to Warren Miller films, and I was just in awe of of all that, and it was a just, you know, getting stoked for the coming season. It was just an annual pilgrimage.00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, over the years there's been, um.00:27:14.000 --> 00:27:31.000Doug Fish: you know, hundreds of ski shows, 50 ski shows across the country, big shows. And you know we we I have always been involved in events. I was in the concert business for almost 20 years, and my.00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:34.000Doug Fish: At the beginning of my career.00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:46.000Doug Fish: And, uh, I just, you know, when I was a kid and was in high school, we used to, you know, put on keggers and sell cups for a buck. So, you know, events are in my blood, and I love it, and…00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:42.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:45.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:27:46.000 --> 00:28:01.000Doug Fish: you know, when I sold the IndyPass, I sold my marketing agency, but I kept Snowvana, because, you know, I thought it'd be fun to keep it going, and… and uh… the young man who…00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:06.000Doug Fish: helped me, um, helped me, um.00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.000Doug Fish: Grow the Indy Pass.00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.000Doug Fish: Didn't want to go with Indy Pass. He didn't want to move to Colorado.00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:19.000Doug Fish: So I said, well, why don't you come and run Snowball? And we'll keep that going.00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:26.000Doug Fish: And it was actually his idea to, um, to expand it. He said, you know, I think this is a model that we can scale.00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:38.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, I looked at him, I said, okay, you do all the work, and I'll help with the marketing, and I'll finance the operation, and, you know, here we are.00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:39.000Doug Fish: That was, uh.00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:44.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, so you're doing… you started this 10 years ago, and you're taking it around the country.00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:50.000Stuart Winchester: But you said ski shows have been around forever, right? So, you said there's been 50, 100 ski shows.00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:49.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:52.000Stuart Winchester: How is…00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:57.000Stuart Winchester: What happened to all those shows? Aren't they still there? Are you still competing with them?00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:03.000Stuart Winchester: And if so, it doesn't seem like a… like a market that's super ripe for disruption, right? Like, once you…00:28:58.000 --> 00:28:59.000Doug Fish: Here.00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:04.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:29:03.000 --> 00:29:16.000Stuart Winchester: have a ski show, you kind of own the market, it would seem like. So, I guess rewind for us a little bit, maybe I should have started there. What have ski shows traditionally been in America, and.00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:09.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:19.000Stuart Winchester: What's happened to them over time?00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:31.000Doug Fish: Well, ski shows have been, you know, what's Nirvana? It was kind of a kickoff festival, a gear sale, and I think they kind of collapsed under their own weight.00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:40.000Doug Fish: You know, the Windy City Ski Show had a 40-year run. The Boston Ski and Snowboard Expo had a 60-year run.00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:49.000Doug Fish: uh, the Denver show. There's been ski shows in all the major northern markets, even in, you know, Dallas had a big show for many, many years, Atlanta.00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:03.000Doug Fish: And, um, but the cost of putting on these shows, these big shows, 100,000 square foot shows, is just too much. And, uh, at the same time, as these big shows started to go away.00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:18.000Doug Fish: ski swaps proliferated, you know, in every gymnasium and, you know, high school cafeteria across the country. You know, small ski resorts have a ski swap and a kickoff, you know, festival in the fall.00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:22.000Doug Fish: All over the country, there must be hundreds of ski swaps.00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:39.000Doug Fish: And so we looked at that and said, well, you know, ski swaps are great, but you can't get out of there fast enough. You know, when there you rifle through all the stuff and maybe you find a gym and you get a good deal, but, you know, there's no reason to stick around.00:30:39.000 --> 00:30:55.000Doug Fish: And what we try to do is create a festival atmosphere. We still have the ski swap. We have a consignment swap, which is a fundraiser for a local nonprofit. And then we have a huge gear sale and we work with local retailers.00:30:56.000 --> 00:31:04.000Doug Fish: So, you know, there's a lot to choose from, but there's lots of really good deals. And, um, but there's…00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:16.000Doug Fish: you know, there's fun stuff to do, too. We have films, we have live music, we have a bar. Um, you know, we do stupid stuff like, uh, frozen t-shirt contests and barefoot skis.00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:19.000Doug Fish: Um, so…00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:25.000Doug Fish: Yeah, there's just, you know, there's a lot of fun activities happening.00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.000Doug Fish: And, um…00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:38.000Stuart Winchester: So, so, so that's, that's all right, that's all right. So.00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:37.000Doug Fish: Sorry, I got interrupted too.00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:42.000Stuart Winchester: Is there a… is there an inflection point when the ski…00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:54.000Stuart Winchester: show stopped working. I want to point to COVID in 2020 that probably killed a lot of them for a year and then forever, but that's probably too simple of an explanation.00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:50.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:00.000Doug Fish: Yeah, COVID I think was, you know, put a fork in a lot of the big shows.00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:08.000Doug Fish: Um, you know, a lot of promoters decided not to… not to come back. Um, but, you know, I think that the…00:32:05.000 --> 00:32:06.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:15.000Doug Fish: It's very tough. These municipal convention centers are just extremely expensive.00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:27.000Doug Fish: and I think you know that's that was part of it. And you know, online sales. And you know all the all the things that kill retail right? Because these are retail events.00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:26.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:37.000Doug Fish: And so, you know, we kind of, we took a year off for COVID too. In 2020, nobody was doing events.00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:35.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:42.000Doug Fish: Well, we came back in 2021 and it was our best show. We were the first.00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:54.000Doug Fish: show to come back and give it a go in 21 at the Oregon Convention Center. And the place was packed, and it was because people were just starving for.00:32:54.000 --> 00:33:11.000Doug Fish: you know, human connection. You know, they've been cooped up in their house for a year, and they came out in droves. And, you know, this is what, you know, these shows give us, is that human connection.00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:56.000Stuart Winchester: Something.00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:58.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:21.000Doug Fish: You know you can buy skis online. You can buy anything online. But you know the the community comes together and and.00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:28.000Doug Fish: It's, you know, we call it AI for the ski business, authentic interaction.00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:33.000Doug Fish: You know, we need more of that, not less of it. And it's…00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:31.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.000Doug Fish: It's just a it's a cool thing.00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:51.000Stuart Winchester: So how are you getting around the cost piece, though? I mean, if you want to — they left Chicago because of cost. It seems like that's because Chicago costs a lot. So you're going into Boston this year, and we'll talk about that in a minute. That's not a cheap market.00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:42.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:47.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:33:50.000 --> 00:34:00.000Doug Fish: No, well, we're going into the suburbs. We're hitting the suburbs now, you know, we're in West Seattle, in a suburb of Seattle.00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:55.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:58.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:11.000Doug Fish: Uh, we're in a suburb of Milwaukee and Franklin, Wisconsin, and we're in a suburb of Boston, out in Marlboro. It's about 40 minutes west of town.00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:19.000Doug Fish: And they call it, uh, West Metro. And, um, you know, these venues are smaller.00:34:14.000 --> 00:34:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:22.000Doug Fish: They're about 50,000 square feet versus 100.00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:37.000Doug Fish: and they're way less expensive. We don't have to deal with union. You know the cost of a union labor, and you know nothing against unions. But.00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:52.000Doug Fish: they can drive the cost up. And and you know, General Motors and Ford, you know, they can do an auto show there. No problem. They've they've got deep pockets. We can't. And I think that's why some of these big shows, you know, finally threw in the towel.00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:46.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:34:52.000 --> 00:34:59.000Doug Fish: And, you know, the venues we're in, they're not as fancy. We're in a World War II airplane hangar in Seattle.00:34:58.000 --> 00:34:59.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:14.000Doug Fish: you know, at a in a in a park in West Seattle. It's a really cool building. But believe me, you know, it's it's it's not fancy. And so that's the that's the difference. And and.00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:25.000Doug Fish: we're able to charge 5 bucks in advance. Kids are free. The booth cost is reasonable for for vendors, and.00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:27.000Doug Fish: You know, it works.00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so you… the timeline's interesting for those who are following along. So you started Snovana in 2016, launched Indie in 2019. I'm curious…00:35:38.000 --> 00:35:44.000Stuart Winchester: how one may have fueled the other. In other words, and I know you've been in skiing and in the ski industry for decades, but…00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: Once you…00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:58.000Stuart Winchester: established IndiePass, and you made all these connections all over the country, I have to imagine that greased the wheels a little bit for Snowvana, because a big part of this, and we'll talk about this in a minute, is.00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:07.000Stuart Winchester: when you go there, most of the regional ski areas have booths set up. And not just the Independents, it's Vail and Altera, I've been at a bunch of the ones that I've been to.00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:04.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:08.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:12.000Stuart Winchester: In their mountains, in the bigger mountains, all over the place, so… so…00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:15.000Stuart Winchester: Do you think, I guess…00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:24.000Stuart Winchester: I guess the question is, how did IndiePass fuel the growth of Snowvana, or do you think that this would be taking off the way it is either way?00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:33.000Doug Fish: Oh, I think Snowvana and the work we were doing at the agency with a number of ski resorts all led to the.00:36:33.000 --> 00:36:36.000Doug Fish: the idea behind the Indy Pass.00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:42.000Doug Fish: And certainly the IndyPass connections that I've made have helped us expand.00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:52.000Doug Fish: Snowball on it. There's no question. You know, we just we're moving into the Boston market this year for the 1st time, and we have 37 resorts signed up.00:36:52.000 --> 00:36:59.000Doug Fish: That's pretty good for a first-year show. We have 70 resorts across the country. I think it's closer to 80 now.00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:08.000Doug Fish: And, you know, it's the only place where you're gonna see, uh, Epic Pass, Icon Pass, and Indy Pass all in the same room.00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:09.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:16.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, that's the way it should be. You know, we want to be Switzerland and invite everyone in, because that's what the consumer wants.00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:27.000Doug Fish: you know, people want to want to interact with all those companies. And and so yeah, indie pass. There's no question it. It helped us.00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:29.000Doug Fish: You know.00:37:29.000 --> 00:37:31.000Doug Fish: break into new markets.00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:46.000Stuart Winchester: So if you look at the four markets you're in this year and, you know, Portland is the logical one, that's your home base and has been for a long time. Then you have Seattle, you have Milwaukee in the Midwest, and you have, you know, we'll call it Boston or New England or whatever you want to. It's in Mass.00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:40.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:47.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:55.000Stuart Winchester: Right? So, one thing I always appreciated about the Indy Pass is that you didn't just make it a Western Pass, you went into the Midwest right away.00:37:55.000 --> 00:37:56.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:37:55.000 --> 00:38:13.000Stuart Winchester: You went into New England right away. So talk about each of those four markets and, and why it makes sense to do ski shows there because for, for example, in the Midwest, you could have, you could have gone to Detroit, you could have gone to Grand Rapids, you could have gone to Chicago, you could have gone to Indianapolis.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:06.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:23.000Stuart Winchester: chose Milwaukee, which is, you know, everyone's heard of Milwaukee, but it's not necessarily, like, the capital of Midwest, like Chicago is. So just talk us through those markets and your…00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:14.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:38:23.000 --> 00:38:29.000Stuart Winchester: Slow expansion across the country, and you're kind of thinking behind where you're choosing to do this.00:38:29.000 --> 00:38:40.000Doug Fish: Yeah, good question. Um, so Seattle was a no-brainer. You know, we knew that we were drawing people out of Seattle for the Portland show. It's three, three and a half hours to Seattle.00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:48.000Doug Fish: And we were drawing a pretty good crowd, so… uh, there hasn't been a show in Seattle for a decade. It's a great ski market, you know, they have…00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:55.000Doug Fish: 3 phenomenal resorts within an hour of downtown Seattle, Stevens, Crystal.00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:11.000Doug Fish: Summit. That's no qualming help at all. So you know, we found a venue up there that was affordable, you know, an old airplane hangar. And you know, we put a show up there, and it did well. And so we thought, Okay.00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:39:11.000 --> 00:39:18.000Doug Fish: Uh, we didn't really want to go to California, uh, so we started looking east because.00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:21.000Stuart Winchester: You, you didn't wanna go to California, why not? I mean, that's a huge market.00:39:19.000 --> 00:39:30.000Doug Fish: Um, yeah, it is a huge market, and, you know, maybe we'll go to the Bay Area. There's a big show down in LA called Ski Dazzle that's still going, a big show.00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:31.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:32.000Doug Fish: And, um…00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:44.000Doug Fish: Uh, but to my knowledge, nothing significant in Northern California, so we may go there someday. But, um, you know, where we… where we went, it's really…00:39:44.000 --> 00:39:52.000Doug Fish: you know, I knew that the Indy Pass was going to be successful back east because there's so many resorts, and more importantly, so many people.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:55.000Doug Fish: And, and so.00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:03.000Doug Fish: We started looking to the east and Milwaukee, you may think, well, that's kind of a weird place.00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:23.000Doug Fish: Wisconsin's the number four ski state in the country in terms of number of ski resorts. And Michigan is number three. So, you know, or maybe it's number two, but yeah. So, you know, there's a lot of passion in the Midwest. And I knew that from working with the resorts out there.00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:07.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:15.000Stuart Winchester: It's 2.00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:35.000Doug Fish: you know, Rick Schmitz has been a great ally and supporter of mine, and you know we've been friends for many, many years, and he said, Hey.00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.000Doug Fish: Uh, come and do a show in Milwaukee, and I'll help you promote it, and…00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:54.000Doug Fish: you know, there just happens to be a big sports complex right there at the base of Crystal Ridge, which he owns. And, um, you know, they had space that would work for a show, so we popped a show in there, and it worked.00:40:55.000 --> 00:41:10.000Doug Fish: Um, and then we were all set to go into Chicago next, you know, kind of an eastward progression, uh, either Chicago or Detroit, and, um, I got a call.00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.000Doug Fish: from a friend of mine in New England. They said, Hey, Snowbound is leaving Boston.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:20.000Doug Fish: You guys should come out here and do a show.00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:38.000Doug Fish: And I thought, oh my gosh, that's the best ski show market in the country, you know, it's been going for 65 years. And so Quinn McIntyre and I jumped on a plane in early December, when there was absolutely no snow, by the way, in the West.00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:58.000Doug Fish: And so we, of course, took our gear, and we spent a week in New England skiing some phenomenal powder at Loon, and Jay Peak, and Bretton Woods, and Black Mountain, and, you know. But we also, you know, met with a few venues back there, and found one that made sense out in Marlboro.00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:51.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:09.000Doug Fish: Uh, a nice suburb of… of Boston, and… and made the decision right then, okay, we're gonna do this. We signed a 3-year lease, or 3-year contract for… for the space.00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:14.000Doug Fish: And here we are. We're in Boston.00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:19.000Stuart Winchester: So, so to, so to clarify for listeners, Snowbound still exists. It moved to the Mohegan Sun.00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:23.000Stuart Winchester: Casino in Connecticut. So that show, indeed, will still go on.00:42:21.000 --> 00:42:29.000Doug Fish: Yes. Yeah, they didn't go away, they just moved… they just changed locations, and… and they're a couple hours from Boston now, so…00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:31.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so, so…00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:31.000Doug Fish: Thank you.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:32.000Doug Fish: Go ahead.00:42:31.000 --> 00:42:48.000Stuart Winchester: So each of these shows you go to and, you know, the gear is great and I'm sure that's why a lot of people go. I'm obviously super into the ski area, so when I go and I look at the deals tab on Snovana.com, the first thing I see at the top of each.00:42:48.000 --> 00:43:05.000Stuart Winchester: list of ski areas that will be there, and their deals are free lift tickets for Willamette Pass, when you're out in the Western shows, uh, I believe in the Midwest, you get one free at Little Switz, or Nordic, or Crystal Ridge, then out East, it's Black Mountain Maine, and there's some others as well, I'm just…00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:53.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:02.000Doug Fish: Yep.00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:04.000Doug Fish: Okay.00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:08.000Stuart Winchester: Highlighting some. So, talk a little bit about…00:43:06.000 --> 00:43:07.000Doug Fish: Mm-hmm.00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:25.000Stuart Winchester: that, because, I mean, you pay $5 to get in, and this is… it's funny, because it's kind of a throwback to the pre-pass era, when you kind of have to collect your own pass, and find all these coupons, and, you know, Warren Miller would have, like, a free ticket to Sugarbush or whatever, so… so just talk a little bit about that, and what.00:43:17.000 --> 00:43:20.000Doug Fish: Yeah, right.00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:21.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:23.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.000Stuart Winchester: attendees can expect to find their deals wise.00:43:28.000 --> 00:43:36.000Doug Fish: Oh, yeah. Well, that's what motivates people is deals. We say the deals are great and the stoke is free.00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:36.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:36.000 --> 00:43:39.000Doug Fish: And yeah, I, you know.00:43:39.000 --> 00:43:45.000Doug Fish: Can't help but mention in Boston, we have Black Mountain of Maine.00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:47.000Doug Fish: Neshoba.00:43:47.000 --> 00:44:03.000Doug Fish: and Mcintyre, all giving away free lift tickets for your with your admission. And yeah, so 5 bucks, or for 5 bucks you probably get. I don't know. That's 200 bucks worth of lift tickets, and that that's before you know all the other swag that people are giving away.00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:50.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm, sure.00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:03.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:14.000Doug Fish: So, yeah, I mean, it takes a lot to get people off the couch to come down and park and, you know, go to an event. And, excuse me.00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:19.000Doug Fish: So we try and pack as much value into the ticket as we can. Um…00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:39.000Doug Fish: And all the resorts are there with deals. There'll be 37 resorts in Boston and 70 across the country. They're all offering deals of some kind, whether they're selling a season pass for a discount or a three pack or a daily lift ticket.00:44:29.000 --> 00:44:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:43.000Doug Fish: And that's what people want.00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:44.000Stuart Winchester: 8. Yep.00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:52.000Doug Fish: And, you know, those are just the lift tickets. The gear is… the deals on the gear is what really brings people in.00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:06.000Doug Fish: And, um, you know, we can… I can confidently say that we've got some of the best selection of new and slightly used gear for 40% to 80% off.00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:07.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:14.000Doug Fish: And, you know, we spend all summer collecting it from manufacturers, from reps, from, you know, demo fleets.00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:30.000Doug Fish: And the retailers that we work with in each market, they also, you know, they bring last year's stuff that didn't sell. They bring maybe their lease fleet that, you know, they're retiring. And there's just some incredible deals, and…00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:36.000Doug Fish: You know, people will walk out saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:40.000Doug Fish: If they can spend the time, you know, looking around.00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:54.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so, so, lip ticket deals, gear deals, another thing you'll find there, uh, at least at the Boston show, is me and I will be doing live interviews on Friday with Eric Mogenson, the owner of IndiePass and IntoBenny. Then on Saturday…00:45:50.000 --> 00:45:51.000Doug Fish: Yes.00:45:54.000 --> 00:46:13.000Stuart Winchester: I will be hosting live on stage at Snovana Boston, or Suburban Boston, or New England, or whatever you want to call it. The owner of Killington, Phil Gross, and also the president, Mike Solomano, who I've had on my podcast before, but this will be our first live event. This is the third time I've done this sort of event.00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:05.000Doug Fish: Uh-huh.00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:20.000Stuart Winchester: For Snowvana, I did one last year with Lonnie Gleiberman of Mount Bohemia at the Milwaukee show, and I did one.00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:29.000Stuart Winchester: I think maybe it was the year… two years before that, in Portland, with a panel of general managers. It's been a lot of fun, and… and, you know, that's a…00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:25.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:46.000Stuart Winchester: That's a disclosure. I've worked, I guess, for Snowvana because these, you know, I don't do these things for free. It's, it's a, it's a business, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a business deal. And, um, and those things take a lot of work, as you know, but, but that, that's just one example. All right.00:46:37.000 --> 00:46:38.000Doug Fish: No.00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:48.000Stuart Winchester: Talk about just…00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:59.000Stuart Winchester: I guess quickly just run through the dates of the other shows, and the sorts of things that people can expect to be on the stages, or other things I haven't mentioned yet.00:46:58.000 --> 00:47:00.000Doug Fish: Yeah.00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:02.000Doug Fish: Excuse me.00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:08.000Doug Fish: We don't spend a lot of time with speakers. You're kind of the only one, Stu.00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:12.000Stuart Winchester: That's not true. Sean Suttner, my friend, is doing one the next day.00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:12.000Doug Fish: Yeah, the great Sean Sutner.00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:23.000Doug Fish: Yeah, Sean Suttner from the Worcester Gazette and Telegram will be there on Sunday interviewing the ownership team from Wachusett.00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:19.000 --> 00:47:21.000Stuart Winchester: Crowley's.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:42.000Doug Fish: But yeah, I mean, we have live music. We've got, you know, frozen T-shirt contests this year. We're launching the pray for snow dance contests. And we've got this thing called the Sumo Bowl. It's a inflatable boxing ring and 2 inflatable beer cans. You put these on your body, and.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:34.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:42.000 --> 00:47:50.000Doug Fish: you try to knock your buddy down, and if you do, you're entered to win a pair of skis. I mean, it's just stupid stuff, but people love it.00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.000Stuart Winchester: Right, right.00:47:50.000 --> 00:48:04.000Doug Fish: And so those are happening at all the shows. Great gear sales, lots of resorts, free lift tickets. The great Stu Winchester in Boston this year.00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:56.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:15.000Doug Fish: And and then, you know, we've got this thing called the cream of the swap. It is a special section in the gear sale.00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:07.000Stuart Winchester: Don't oversell it.00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:11.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:30.000Doug Fish: in the ski swap where we feature a lot of higher end product, mostly, you know, brand new 2627 demo skis. It's all mount. They're all mounted. They've been skied 2 or 3 times.00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:38.000Doug Fish: And there's just some incredible deals there, 40% to 50% off on essentially brand new gear.00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:48:38.000 --> 00:48:53.000Doug Fish: And, um, so you'll find those features at all of the shows. Each market, you know, had some slight differences and, you know, based on what's going on locally and how the venue's laid out, but…00:48:53.000 --> 00:49:03.000Doug Fish: You can go to our website and check out what's different in each show if you want, what the different deals are. All the deals are listed.00:49:03.000 --> 00:49:10.000Doug Fish: Uh, that, you know, the resorts are giving away, or the retailers are giving away for, you know, discounting.00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:20.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, so don't hold me to this, because they could change, so check the website, please, before you go. But right now, I'm scheduled to interview Al… Excuse me.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:36.000Stuart Winchester: Eric on Friday, November 6th at 5.30pm Eastern, and Phil Gross and Mike Solomano of Killington at 2pm on Saturday, November 7th. Those are in Marlboro, Massachusetts. So the… the only thing that I think we can hold Doug to at this point.00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:44.000Stuart Winchester: is… is the dates. So, Seattle, Washington, October 16th to 18th, at Hangar 30 in Magnuson Park.00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:50.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, the Portland show is October 23rd to 25th at Portland Expo Center, where it's been for several years.00:49:49.000 --> 00:49:51.000Doug Fish: Mmhm.00:49:50.000 --> 00:50:06.000Stuart Winchester: The show that I'll be at will be in Marlboro, Massachusetts, November 6th to 8th at the Royal Plaza Trade Center, and you wrap the season in Franklin, Wisconsin at the Crystal Ridge Ski Area, or the Mosh Performance Center, November 13th through 15th, and again, we won't.00:50:06.000 --> 00:50:13.000Stuart Winchester: resorts and everything else, because I'd imagine you're adding more all the time. You do have a special treat for my listeners, Doug.00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.000Doug Fish: Yes, we do.00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:16.000Stuart Winchester: If they want to go to any of those, right?00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:22.000Doug Fish: Yeah. Thank you, Stu, for having me on, and thank you to your listeners for, you know, listening to this podcast.00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:30.000Doug Fish: Um, if you want to go to Snow Vaughan and check it out, because you're a fan of Stuart Winchester, you can get a free ticket.00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:47.000Doug Fish: And oh, the code. So there's a promo code. Go to our website, snovana.com, and, you know, click on Buy Ticket, and the promo code that'll get you a free ticket is THESTORM26. THESTORM, all lowercase, 26. You should put that up on the screen.00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:49.000Doug Fish: Stu, um…00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:51.000Stuart Winchester: I will have my editor do that.00:50:50.000 --> 00:51:02.000Doug Fish: Okay, good. And, uh, yeah, get a free ticket, come down, get some, you know, some swag, some free lift tickets, and find a deal on a pair of skis, or a snowboard.00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:05.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, any… so that's for this year…00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.000Stuart Winchester: You have any sense of where you want to go next?00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:14.000Doug Fish: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got Philadelphia booked for 2027 through 2019.00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:13.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, really?00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:33.000Doug Fish: We will be in the King of Prussia suburb of Philly. Quinn McIntyre, my colleague, is from Philadelphia, so he's pretty stoked about that. And so we'll be there, and then, you know, we're looking at some other potential.00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:25.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:51:33.000 --> 00:51:34.000Doug Fish: expansions.00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:40.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, and do you anticipate these 4 locations returning for 27, or is it too soon to say?00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:55.000Doug Fish: Oh, yeah, we anticipate all of them just, you know, going gangbusters this year, and we'll be back, but, you know, it's like an election. You never know how it's gonna go until election day, and uh…00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:07.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, Doug. Well, look, I appreciate you coming on the show again. I never know where I'm gonna see you next. You mentioned you were in New England last December, and I had gone up there for the Ski New Hampshire media event they hold every December, and…00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:56.000Doug Fish: So…00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:23.000Stuart Winchester: I turned around at one point, and there's Doug Fish and Quinn walk through the door. I was like, the last thing I… the last people I expected to see at the Ski New Hampshire media night, because you guys are usually, uh, locked into the West Coast at that time of year, but… but it was a pleasant surprise, so, uh, next time I see you, hopefully.00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.000Doug Fish: Bye.00:52:18.000 --> 00:52:19.000Doug Fish: Yeah. Okay.00:52:23.000 --> 00:52:28.000Doug Fish: Yeah, hopefully it will, Stu, and it's always a pleasure. It's great to be back on the show.00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:33.000Stuart Winchester: You too, man. Talk to you soon.00:52:35.000 --> 00:52:40.000Stuart Winchester: Alright, that was Doug Fish, founder of IndiePass and Snovana.00:52:40.000 --> 00:52:56.000Stuart Winchester: Let's do a little quick reader react, listener react, and then we'll get outta here for today. So there you got some reaction to the podcast that I put out on Monday with Pajarito, New Mexico, general manager Jason Bellamy.00:52:56.000 --> 00:53:12.000Stuart Winchester: Gary Luft says, as a New Mexico local, I am pumped about Powerito getting these upgrades. I've been a pass holder at Ski Santa Fe, but this year I'm going with MCP's Power Pass. Thanks to Stuart for giving some attention to our great unknown.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:25.000Stuart Winchester: to those outside of New Mexico, mountains. You're welcome, Gary. I, uh, love all ski areas, and I'm sorry I have not given more love to New Mexico in the past, though I have done a couple of Taos podcasts. So the Power Pass, for those who.00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:32.000Stuart Winchester: don't know what Gary's talking about is… is Mountain Capital Partners owns about a dozen ski areas, including two down in Chile, and… and…00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:48.000Stuart Winchester: The power pass is, is basically their epic pass, right? It's the unlimited pass at all of their mountains, not unlimited at the Chilean ones, but you can see all the footnotes on their website. Uh, the point is it, it, there's three different versions and the cheapest version, it's 4 49 right now, I believe.00:53:48.000 --> 00:54:05.000Stuart Winchester: gets you unlimited access to Pajaritos, Sapapu, and Sandia Peak in New Mexico, and it gets you quite a bit of access at MCP's other resorts as well. The full unlimited version is unlimited at all of MCP's U.S. mountains, including really, really good ones like Purgatory, Arizona Snow Bowl.00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:18.000Stuart Winchester: I've also got Lee Canyon on there, which is a super gorgeous ski area outside of Las Vegas I talked about the other day. And again, the PowerEater upgrades he's referring to are… PowerEater's just putting in this massive snowmaking system that's…00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:23.000Stuart Winchester: Doubling is a fire suppression system, so it's, uh, it's super… it's a…00:54:23.000 --> 00:54:40.000Stuart Winchester: Partnership with local governments that they're doing this through. So it's, it's a really cool model that hopefully other ski areas around the West can learn from and copy. Jeremiah Kay says, interesting episode. I think wildfire mitigation will be an increasingly important component of helping get snowmaking permitted in the West.00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:50.000Stuart Winchester: 100% agree. Jeremiah Kay continues, The ski school and MCP episodes back-to-back got me thinking about urban opportunities to learn and progress as a skier.00:54:50.000 --> 00:55:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mostly because I always thought MCP should acquire the Outpost Ice Rink at the base of the Sandia Tram, and put their version of the indoor part of Woodward in that facility.00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:13.000Stuart Winchester: Would love an update episode on the state, urban, indoor… uh, state, I think he's saying state of urban slash indoor ski areas. I know you covered Big Snow well, not sure what happened to Alpine X.00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:21.000Stuart Winchester: Much like Epic and Icon add small feeder hills, I wonder if they will add something like Snowbond to a past product.00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:38.000Stuart Winchester: A little surprised we don't have Woodward Brooklyn in a warehouse somewhere. Yeah, I think, Jeremiah, that that would get back to Doug's earlier comment about why the urban ski shows mostly died. It's just the expense. You don't… and the Brooklyn warehouse, as you well know.00:55:38.000 --> 00:55:40.000Stuart Winchester: is not inexpensive.00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:55.000Stuart Winchester: thing to find these days, even though they still look like they're 150 years old, because they are. I don't know what happened to AlpineX, either. I check in with them for an update once in a while, and they keep answering my emails, but there's nothing to report. I would imagine they're caught up either in permitting.00:55:55.000 --> 00:56:13.000Stuart Winchester: or financing hell, and probably both. Continuing, Allison says, this pod does a great job showing the appeal of smaller, out-of-the-way resorts. Thank you very much, Allison. That is a core part of the storm. I love ski areas, large and small. Patrick says, I had to rewind to double-check after listening to the first 10 minutes.00:56:13.000 --> 00:56:30.000Stuart Winchester: You recapped the exciting things MCP has done while mentioning every ski area except Arizona Snowball. Later, it made more sense. You discussed Snowball specifically with Jason and called out the potential for Power Rito to follow the same transformative storyline, and you probably planned that all along.00:56:30.000 --> 00:56:42.000Stuart Winchester: This was a great interview about a skier I'd love to check out one of these days, and maybe snowmaking will make it more feasible. Yeah, you know, Patrick, it's interesting. There's a little nuance there in that that big snowmaking project?00:56:42.000 --> 00:56:57.000Stuart Winchester: I believe all happened before MCP bought Snowbowl, so I hesitate to give them credit for it. I do give them credit for all the things they've done since, you know, putting in the Chadala and.00:56:57.000 --> 00:57:12.000Stuart Winchester: really revamping that ski area, and… and uh… I think the power pass and everything else has been great for it, and I think MCP's doing a… a great job across their portfolio, so… so you're right. It was… it was, uh, something I didn't get to till later, and… and I'm always…00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:13.000Stuart Winchester: a little bit…00:57:13.000 --> 00:57:22.000Stuart Winchester: indecisive about how much credit they should give her, but I am working on a separate podcast that's going to focus on that, so stand by for that.00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:24.000Stuart Winchester: Scott Abraham…00:57:24.000 --> 00:57:39.000Stuart Winchester: Bajarito, Powerito, Powerino, don't care what AI calls it, had one of the best powder days of my life 15 years ago or so. Girlfriend in Santa Fe, who worked at Los Alamos, drove her up on Thursday and headed for the mountain, 2 feet afresh since they closed Monday.00:57:39.000 --> 00:57:54.000Stuart Winchester: Over the groom, helly skiing quality, amazingly friendly locals who were delighted to show off their mountain to the tourists from Seattle, and green chili on my inexpensive burger, of course. Might have to visit her again this winter and sneak up on Thursday. Alright, Scott's a tough critic, so…00:57:54.000 --> 00:58:03.000Stuart Winchester: if he likes something, uh, that's a good sign that it's probably pretty good. So that's an endorsement, uh, from someone who typically complains about everything.00:58:04.000 --> 00:58:20.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Aiden says, in the last comment, I was referring to Scaria operations and management programs when he said SROM, or similar at several colleges. Thanks again for the great work. So Aiden was referring to a previous comment he made in an episode when he said, uh, you should find out more about SROM programs in your…00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:27.000Stuart Winchester: And I said, you're right, I should, because I have no idea what they are. All right, thank you, Aiden, for clarifying that. That will be our show for today.00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:43.000Stuart Winchester: Please go to stormskiing.com and subscribe to the Storm Ski Newsletter. You can start with the free tier and the very best way to up to support my mission of independent ski journalism is to upgrade to the paid tier, which will give you the ability to interact with the podcast and all of the written content.00:58:43.000 --> 00:58:50.000Stuart Winchester: below the paywall, which typically is about 80% of the storm. Been a little slow lately, but like I said, it will pick up.00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:52.000Stuart Winchester: You can rep the storm.00:58:52.000 --> 00:59:05.000Stuart Winchester: like this hat if you're watching, uh, with hat, shirt, hoodie, go to stormskiing.myshopify.com. Please follow the storm on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, at Storm Ski Journal. Till next time, stay well, stay safe.00:59:05.000 --> 00:59:21.000Stuart Winchester: I'm Stuart Winchester, and I'll talk to you again very soon. No show tomorrow on Thursday. I'm recording a couple on Friday. We'll put one out Friday, one out Saturday. That's the plan anyway. General managers of Mount Southington, Connecticut, and our good friend Dennis Eshbaugh.00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:25.000Stuart Winchester: who has run Holiday Valley in New York for decades.00:59:26.000 --> 00:59:32.000Stuart Winchester: Till next time, stay well, stay safe. I'm Stuart Winchester, and I'll talk to you again very soon.00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:36.000Stuart Winchester: All right, sorry, you'll have to smooth me out a little at.00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:38.000Stuart Winchester: Okay, so, uh…00:59:38.000 --> 00:59:40.000Stuart Winchester: Just a couple notes.00:59:41.000 --> 00:59:42.000Stuart Winchester: Um…00:59:42.000 --> 00:59:44.000Stuart Winchester: There's, uh…00:59:44.000 --> 00:59:48.000Stuart Winchester: At the end, Doug says a discount code.00:59:48.000 --> 00:59:55.000Stuart Winchester: Storm, lowercase, 26, and he wants us… he said, put that up on your screen. I said, I'll ask my editor to do that. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

This week's edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features conversations with two people instrumental in a project to restore the rapids to the Grand River in Grand Rapids.First, Matt Chapman, executive director of Grand Rapids Whitewater, talks about the history of the river (Michigan's longest at 252 miles), why dams were installed and the why the rapids were cleared in the first place. He also talks about the unique opportunity to provide benefits to the environment, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities in a river that falls 18 feet within the city of Grand Rapids. Later, former Grand Rapids Mayor Rosalynn Bliss, long a champion of the project, shares her recollections of 18 years of work to move the project forward and why it was so important to her. She touts the economic benefits as well as the river's role as a connector rather than a divider in the city.  Bliss also talks about the spiritual significance of the Owashtanong to the first inhabitants of the city. 

Jesus heads to the Mount of Olives with singing. There, He forthrightly tells His disciples what is about to happen to Him and to them, all in fulfillment of the Scriptures. In Gethsemane, Jesus prays to His Father knowing exactly what He is about to face, yet He does so in obedience to the Father's will. Although Peter, James, and John cannot stay awake and pray with Jesus, the Lord continues resolutely toward His suffering and death.  Rev. Jeremy Swem, pastor at Our Savior Lutheran Church and School in Grand Rapids, MI, joins host Rev. Timothy Appel to study Matthew 26:30-46.  To learn more about Our Savior in Grand Rapids, visit oursavior-gr.org. “The Reign of Heaven Stands Near” is a series on Sharper Iron that studies the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The first evangelist proclaims that God has fulfilled His Old Testament promises by sending Jesus to bring the reign of the heavens among us. As the Son of David, Jesus is the gracious King we need, and as the Son of Abraham, Jesus is the blessing to all the families of the earth.  Sharper Iron, hosted by Rev. Timothy Appel, looks at the text of Holy Scripture both in its broad context and its narrow detail, all for the sake of proclaiming Christ crucified and risen for sinners. Two pastors engage with God's Word to sharpen not only their own faith and knowledge, but the faith and knowledge of all who listen. Pastor Appel serves at Faith Lutheran Church in Godfrey, IL. Learn more at flcgodfrey.org. Submit comments or questions to: listener@kfuo.org

Reports of the Red Wings preferring a bridge contract for Simon Edvinsson have this Detroit Red Wings podcast fuming, & Dylan Larkin's trade list reportedly grows to about 8 teams. Plus, a Hockeytown preseason recap and a full Eastern Conference (Atlantic & Metropolitan Divisions) preview. (00:00) - Intro Anton Johansson pranks the Winged Wheel Podcast! (05:50) - Preseason Wrap-Up Alex DeBrincat drops the gloves and then buries the overtime winner in a 3-2 win over the Sabres, while the finale against Columbus was forgettable hockey. Nate Danielson looked like a steady NHLer without the offensive bite, Marco Kasper got bumped to the fourth line in the finale and still put up two points, and nobody up front forced a tough roster decision. (14:50) - ASP & Anton Johansson Shine Axel Sandin-Pellikka walked the blue line with confidence and was a weapon on the flank with the man advantage, while Anton Johansson kept getting pucks through to the net and ran the point on a few power plays (despite their defensive warts). Also, why William Wallinder may end up in Grand Rapids or elsewhere. (21:15) - Andreas Englund Waiver Claim Detroit claims Andreas Englund off waivers from Calgary, a big depth defenseman that Todd McLellan praised for fitting the room. Where does he fit in with Jacob Bernard-Docker day-to-day and the young defensive core competing for spots whil Edvinsson remains unsigned? (26:30) - Edvinsson Bridge Deal Reports Simon Edvinsson remains unsigned, and reports suggest Detroit preferring a bridge contract. How big of a disaster would this be for the Red Wings, how much have they cost themselves by waiting this long, and who's to blame for another own-goal? (45:25) - Larkin Trade List Expands Elliotte Friedman reports Dylan Larkin's list has grown from three or four teams to about eight, none of them in Canada - and Washington is the only one that may make sense. Would a Protas, Cole Hutson, or Leonard be available? How does this affect the timeline of a Dylan Larkin trade? (1:04:05) - Eastern Conference Preview Full previews for the Metropolitan Division and Atlantic Division: standings predictions, offseason changes, & more. (1:43:15) - Overtime Patron questions on whether Edvinsson's agent should be shopping an offer sheet, one-to-ten grades for the offense, defense and goaltending so far, and Emmitt Finnie's switch-handed faceoff win. --- WWP Night at the LCA dates announced! Get your tickets for the Nov. 21st game here: wingedwheelpodcast.com/redwings Get $100 in free fuel credit (after approval) with Mudflap! Sign up at muddy.com/wingedwheel #ad Go to TempoMeals.com/WINGEDWHEEL for 60% off your first box! #ad Join our PikSheet NHL Pick 'Em pool! https://piksheet.com/wingedwheel Support the show: Patreon.com/WingedWheelPodcast Max's Article: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7630652/2026/09/27/red-wings-simon-edvinsson-contract-offseason-nhl/ Head over to wingedwheelpodcast.com to find all the ways to listen, how to support the show, and so much more!

What if we've settled for a counterfeit version of what it means to follow Jesus? In John 15, Jesus invites us to abide in Him, to make our home in Him through dependence and obedience, rather than trying to earn His favor through activity and performance. When we remain connected to Jesus, the fruit of His Spirit naturally begins to grow in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The invitation is simple: stop striving to transform yourself and learn to depend on Jesus, obey Him, and let Him transform you.-----------Join us for service online or in-person in Grand Rapids every Sunday at 9AM & 10:45AM.Decided to follow Jesus? We would love to help you figure out what's next! Let us know at https://bit.ly/TLC-i-decidedStay Connected!Website: http://localchurchgr.orgFacebook: http://facebook.com/localchurchgrInstagram: http://instagram.com/localchurchgrWeekly Email Newsletter: https://bit.ly/trendingatTLCVisit & What to Expect: http://localchurchgr.org/expectEvents: http://my.localchurchgr.org/eventsIf you would like to support The Local Church GR's ministry and help us continue reaching people in the Grand Rapids area, click here: https://localchurchgr.org/giveNeed prayer? Please let us know! https://localchurchgr.org/care

Originally uploaded September 14th, reloaded September 28th. Jeffrey Mosher welcomes back Pete Martin, director of portfolio management at the MSU Research Foundation: Pete, let's start with the expanded funding. The potential semifinal prize has grown from $250,000 to as much as $375,000. Why was increasing that investment important, and what does it change for the founders competing? There's up to $1.5 million available across the four semifinals, but the founders are also receiving intensive coaching and connections. What do you hope these companies take away from PitchMI regardless of whether they ultimately win the money? Pete, the semifinals are spread across Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Marquette and Detroit and are organized around four different industry areas. Why is that statewide approach important to the future of Michigan's startup ecosystem? For Alisyn Malek, CEO and co-founder of Averra Systems: Alisyn, you're one of five founders competing in PitchMI's Advanced Manufacturing, Materials & Outdoors semifinal in Marquette. You're tackling some pretty big, technical challenges in advanced manufacturing with Averra Systems. What could that additional funding help you do sooner or differently as you grow? You've gone through that preparation firsthand. What part of the experience has been most valuable as you get Averra Systems ready for the semifinal stage? What makes Michigan a place where you believe your company can grow, and what excites you about being part of that broader startup community? Thanks to an incredible new $500,000 co-investment across the four semifinals, each PitchMI semifinal winner can now receive up to $375,000, an increase from the originally announced $250,000. With even more on the line as founders take the stage across Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Marquette, and Detroit this fall, four co-investors are stepping up alongside the MSU Research Foundation and MEDC to support Michigan startups: Grand Rapids - Anchor Up Ventures Kalamazoo - Kalamazoo Forward Ventures Marquette - JM Longyear Detroit - ID Ventures This updates the early September information indicating: The MSU Research Foundation and MEDC have announced the Top 20 companies advancing in PitchMI, one of the nation's largest founder-focused startup competitions. Hundreds applied from across Michigan, including companies from Ann Arbor, Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Marquette, and beyond, earning a spot on the semifinal stage. This fall, five companies will compete at each of four industry-specific semifinals: Defense & Aerospace — Grand Rapids, Sept. 15 AI & Software — Kalamazoo, Sept. 22 Advanced Manufacturing, Materials & Outdoors — Marquette, Sept. 24 Healthcare & Life Sciences — Detroit, Oct. 1 One winner from each event will receive $250,000 and advance to the statewide PitchMI Championship in spring 2027, where another $1 million will be awarded. And before they ever pitch, all 20 semifinalists also get two weeks of coaching and startup development, covering everything from hiring and branding to fundraising, financial planning and go-to-market strategy.

This message explores the idea that words are incredibly powerful. They don't just describe things, they do things. Christians as prophets have been equipped with this power to speak God's words to people who desperately need to hear what He has to say. Understanding this power, we pray that the Lord may touch our lips and put His words in our mouths. Jim Samra | Minister & Senior Pastor This was recorded live in Grand Rapids, MI on September 20, 2026

This message explores the idea that words are incredibly powerful. They don't just describe things, they do things. Christians as prophets have been equipped with this power to speak God's words to people who desperately need to hear what He has to say. Understanding this power, we pray that the Lord may touch our lips and put His words in our mouths. Jim Samra | Minister & Senior Pastor This was recorded live in Grand Rapids, MI on September 20, 2026

Sermon Date: 9-27-2026 Location: City Life Church, Grand Rapids, MI

Sermons from Gold Ave Church, Grand Rapids, Michigan

This Saturday, Open Line with Dr. Michael Rydelnik is on the road in Grand Rapids, Michigan! He'll take questions from our live audience on a variety of Bible topics. Grab your Bible and join us for this weekend's special broadcast of Open Line, live from Grand Rapids. Mentioned resources:Open Line LiveSummit on Antisemitism, November 7, 2026Moody Radio Alaska Cruise, June 5-12, 2027The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy Chosen People Ministries free giftFEBC podcastMoody Bible Commentary September/October thank you gift:The Bible: A Book like No Other by Mike Fabarez Open Line is listener-supported. To support the program, click here.Become a Kitchen Table Partner: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/openline/partnersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Open Line with Dr. Michael Rydelnik comes to you from Grand Rapids, Michigan, this weekend. Our live audience asks their questions about God, the Bible, and the spiritual life. Hope you can join us this Saturday for a special program. Mentioned resources:Open Line LiveSummit on Antisemitism, November 7, 2026Moody Radio Alaska Cruise, June 5-12, 2027 Chosen People Ministries free giftFEBC podcastMoody Bible Commentary September/October thank you gift:The Bible: A Book like No Other by Mike Fabarez Open Line is listener-supported. To support the program, click here.Become a Kitchen Table Partner: http://moodyradio.org/donateto/openline/partnersSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Paul Krauss, MA LPC talks with Katie Asmus, MA, LPC, BMP founder of the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute, about what happens when trauma work moves off the couch and into the body, the wilderness, and ritual. Katie brings three decades of experience leading wilderness groups and treating trauma somatically, and she and Paul explore why so much healing lives below the level of language — in the nervous system, in movement, and in our relationship to the natural world. Katie traces her own path from a self-described indoor kid who hated getting dirty to someone who has spent 30 years guiding others through the wilderness, describing the moment on a high ropes course in college when she realized, "This is what I want to do with my life" — help people know in their bones that they're capable of more than they imagine. The conversation covers the range of work happening at Katie's institute: somatic and nature-based therapy trainings, EMDR training and consultation, wilderness quests, and ceremony and rites-of-passage facilitation for both clients and the therapists who serve them. Paul and Katie dig into why marking transitions and losses with intentional ritual matters clinically, how nature itself functions as a co-therapist rather than just a backdrop, and what it looks like to help clinicians avoid burnout by reconnecting with their own inner wisdom. It's a conversation that will resonate with therapists looking to expand beyond talk therapy, and with anyone curious about how the body and the land can become allies in healing. Katie Asmus, MA, LPC, BMP, is the founder of the Somatic Nature Therapy Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where she trains therapists, coaches, and healing professionals in somatic and nature-based approaches to trauma work. She holds an MA in Somatic Psychology from Naropa University and is a Certified EMDR Therapy Practitioner, Consultant, and Trainer, with more than 30 years of experience leading wilderness groups and counseling since 1995, including faculty roles at Naropa University and Prescott College. Her work blends somatic psychology, EMDR, wilderness therapy, and ceremony and rites-of-passage facilitation, rooted in her belief that the same inner brilliance that helps people survive hardship is what ultimately helps them heal from it. Get involved with the National Violence Prevention Hotline: 501(c)(3) Donate Share with your network Write your congressperson Sign our Petition Preview an Online Video Course for the Parents of Young Adults (Parenting Issues) Unique and low cost learning opportunities through Shion Consulting Paul Krauss MA LPC is a Co-founder of Health for Life Counseling Grand Rapids, home of The Trauma-Informed Counseling Center of Grand Rapids. Paul is also a Private Practice Psychotherapist, an Approved EMDRIA Consultant , host of the Intentional Clinician podcast, Behavioral Health Consultant, Clinical Trainer, Counseling Supervisor, and Meditation Teacher. Paul is now offering consulting for a few individuals and organizations. Paul is the creator of the National Violence Prevention Hotline as well as the Intentional Clinician Training Program for Counselors. Paul has been quoted in the Washington Post, NBC News, Wired Magazine, Psychology Today, and  Counseling Today. Questions? Call the office at 616-200-4433.  If you are looking for EMDRIA consulting groups, Paul Krauss MA LPC is now hosting a weekly online group.  For details, click here. For general behavioral and mental health consulting for you or your organization. Follow Health for Life Counseling- Grand Rapids: Instagram   |   Facebook     |     Youtube Original Music: ”Alright” from the album Mystic by PAWL (Spotify) "Lilacs" from Themes for Dreams by Resavoir (Spotify) "Dream Theme" from Themes for Dreams by Resavoir (Spotify)

Jeffrey Mosher welcomes Steven Struck, CPA, principal, Maner Costerisan, Grand Rapids, MI. RE: Maner Costerisan's growth, culture, and community commitment in West Michigan Q1: You've worked in Grand Rapids and West Michigan for many years, first with Baker Holtz and now as part of Maner Costerisan. From your perspective, what does this combination mean for clients in the region? A: For me, the most important thing is that clients can continue working with people who know them, know their businesses, and know this community, while gaining access to a broader range of expertise and resources. We already had strong relationships throughout West Michigan. Becoming part of Maner Costerisan gives us more capabilities to bring to those relationships as clients grow and their needs become more complex. Q2: When two established firms come together, what is most important in getting that transition right? A: It starts with recognizing that you're bringing together people, relationships, and cultures — not simply two businesses. Baker Holtz had built a strong reputation and deep roots in West Michigan over many years. Maner Costerisan brings additional scale, resources, and areas of expertise. The opportunity is to build on the strengths of both. Q3: This year, Maner continued the former Baker Holtz charity golf outing, raising $11,000 for Family Outreach Center. Why was it important to carry that tradition forward? A: Baker Holtz hosted the outing for 12 years, and over that time it became something our clients, business partners, and longtime relationships looked forward to each year. Q4: Maner has earned several workplace honors in West Michigan this year, including being named a West Michigan Best and Brightest Company to Work For and ranking No. 5 on Crain's Grand Rapids Business' Best Places to Work in West Michigan list. At a time when attracting and retaining talent is challenging, how important is workplace culture to Maner's ability to compete and grow? A: It's critical because, in professional services, our people are the business. Clients want knowledgeable professionals who understand their organizations, anticipate challenges, and can help them make better decisions. To provide that level of service, we have to attract talented people and give them reasons to build their careers with Maner. Q5: You've spent much of your career working with businesses and organizations in this community. As you look ahead, what do you want Maner Costerisan to be known for in Grand Rapids and across West Michigan? A: We want to be known as a firm that really understands West Michigan — its businesses, organizations, and people — and as a partner they know they can turn to as their needs change and become more complex. » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Watch MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

David Bahnsen, Founder & Managing Partner, The Bahnsen Group From $600mm to $10.5B, David Bahnsen built The Bahnsen Group almost entirely through organic growth. He shares the decisions behind that growth, the value of reinvesting in the business, and why selling to longtime partner Hightower became the right next step. In Summary David Bahnsen left Morgan Stanley in 2015 with eight people and $600mm in client assets, motivated less by dissatisfaction than by what he calls being “intoxicated by the idea of freedom.” Eleven years later, The Bahnsen Group has grown to $10.5B in assets, 106 employees, and 13 offices—with virtually all of that expansion driven organically.  But the more instructive story is how that growth happened. David explains how original content and thought leadership became a powerful source of new business, why attracting clients only matters if the firm can deliver an experience that keeps them, and how continual reinvestment in people, tax, planning, investment management, and family office services helped turn a founder-led practice into a national enterprise. He also shares the thinking behind his decision to sell The Bahnsen Group to Hightower after more than a decade of working within its ecosystem. The transaction gives the firm greater resources for technology, HR, supervision, and future inorganic growth while allowing David to maintain control over the brand, P&L, strategy, and client experience.  The Storyline When David Bahnsen first appeared on the Diamond Podcast in April 2020, The Bahnsen Group was five years removed from its Morgan Stanley breakaway and had grown from $600mm to roughly $2B. Today, the firm manages $10.5B across 13 offices with more than 100 employees. The numbers are notable, but David's approach to building the business provides the real lessons. Rather than pursue acquisitions, The Bahnsen Group built an organic growth engine around content, thought leadership, and a distinct investment philosophy. David's Dividend Cafe now reaches roughly 35,000 subscribers organically, but he is clear that attracting prospective clients was only half of the equation. The firm continually invested in the people, capabilities, and services necessary to deliver on what the content promised.  That philosophy extended to how David structured the business. He chose to keep functions that created what Louis describes as “surplus value” inside the firm while relying on Hightower for areas such as supervision, regulatory support, and technology. At the same time, David resisted the temptation to maximize current margins, instead investing in advisor capacity, planning, tax, investment management, family office capabilities, and infrastructure. The result was a business with significant organic growth and enterprise value. Now the story enters its transact phase. After years of operating within Hightower's ecosystem, David agreed to sell The Bahnsen Group to Hightower. Yet the transaction is less an endpoint than another evolution of the model: Hightower becomes owner while David retains substantial operating autonomy and gains resources to professionalize the firm further and supplement its organic growth with carefully selected acquisitions. It's the full Build, Grow & Transact arc—and an example of what can happen when independence is treated as the beginning of building a business rather than the destination.  Topics Covered How The Bahnsen Group grew from $600mm to $10.5B Building an organic growth engine through content and thought leadership Why attracting clients is only the beginning of sustainable growth Reinvesting profits to build long-term enterprise value Creating advisor capacity without sacrificing the client relationship Deciding what capabilities to own versus outsource Why maximizing margins can limit the business you ultimately build The evolution of David's relationship with Hightower Why Hightower became the natural buyer of The Bahnsen Group Preserving autonomy and continuity after a transaction Balancing organic growth with future acquisitions Why independence can be a starting point rather than an end goal > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why freedom – not dissatisfaction – drove the breakaway. [04:44]David explains why he left Morgan Stanley despite being successful and well served there. The appeal was ownership: the ability to control how the business operated, how clients were served, and what the firm could ultimately become. How authentic content became an organic growth engine. [09:34]What began as written market updates during the 2008 financial crisis eventually evolved into Dividend Cafe, books, television, podcasts, and other thought leadership. David explains why the content works precisely because attracting clients was never its primary purpose. Why attracting clients isn't enough. [15:59]A strong content engine can create interest, but the business still needs to deliver. David describes the continual investment in planners, tax capabilities, investment management, family office services, and client experience that allowed the firm to retain and serve the clients its content attracted. Knowing what creates “surplus value.” [22:03]David and Louis discuss the importance of identifying what a firm does exceptionally well and what is better handled by an outside partner. For The Bahnsen Group, that meant keeping investment management, business development, branding, and the client experience close while outsourcing functions such as supervision, regulatory support, and technology. Why maximizing income and building enterprise value are different objectives. [25:08–35:26]David explains why he has continually reinvested in the firm rather than optimizing margins, while Louis connects that philosophy to a recurring Build, Grow & Transact theme: owners willing to sacrifice some current income can create capacity, growth, and greater enterprise value over time. How the advisor role changes in a scalable enterprise. [29:15]With advisors limited to roughly 80 households, The Bahnsen Group surrounds them with planning, tax, estate, operations, marketing, content, and business development resources so they can concentrate on client relationships. David also explains why he believes the industry has more of an “opening business” problem than a closing problem. Why Hightower became the buyer. [37:09]David wasn't looking to sell. He explains why maintaining control over the brand, P&L, hiring, strategy, and business was non-negotiable—and how Hightower structured a transaction that preserved that autonomy while adding resources the firm needs for its next phase. Why inorganic growth is now entering the picture. [44:01]At $10.5B, the law of large numbers changes what 30% growth requires. David explains why acquisitions will become a supplement to—not a replacement for—the firm's organic growth engine, with cultural fit playing a critical role in the strategy. Why independence was always the beginning. [50:51]David never viewed breaking away as the achievement itself. Independence gave him the ability to build the business he envisioned, and he now sees the Hightower transaction as the beginning of another phase of that journey. Key Takeaways Organic growth is more than business development. The Bahnsen Group's content creates awareness and opportunity, but its growth has been sustained by building the capabilities necessary to deliver an increasingly sophisticated client experience. Enterprise value often requires sacrificing current income. Hiring ahead of need, expanding services, creating capacity, and investing in infrastructure may compress margins today while building a stronger and more valuable business over time. Scale should support relationships, not replace them. David rejects the idea that client relationships themselves can be scaled indefinitely. Instead, the firm scales the resources surrounding its advisors so those advisors can remain focused on clients. Outsourcing can be a strategic advantage. The goal is not necessarily to own every capability. David's approach is to retain the functions where the firm has passion, expertise, or differentiation and leverage outside scale for others. The right transaction can preserve what already works. David's decision to sell was contingent on maintaining meaningful control over the brand, strategy, P&L, and operating model rather than changing the formula that created the firm's growth. Organic and inorganic growth don't have to be competing strategies. The next phase will combine The Bahnsen Group's existing organic engine with selective acquisitions designed to add scale without creating a collection of disconnected businesses. Independence is a means, not necessarily an end. The larger lesson from David's story is that independence created the freedom to build. What mattered afterward was how that freedom was used. https://youtu.be/_s8MFJtrbS0 Quotable Moments “I was very intoxicated by the idea of freedom.” — David Bahnsen [04:44] “Relationships don't scale.” — David Bahnsen [29:15] “Twenty cents of something big is a lot more than 40% of something small.” — David Bahnsen [33:31] “I did not want to go to independence as an ending point. It was a beginning.” — David Bahnsen [50:51] FAQs How did The Bahnsen Group grow from $600mm to $10.5B? The firm's growth was overwhelmingly organic. David attributes much of the business development engine to original content and thought leadership, supported by continual investment in advisors, planning, tax, investment management, family office capabilities, and the broader client experience. How did content creation contribute to The Bahnsen Group's growth? David began writing regular market commentary during the 2008 financial crisis. After becoming independent, he developed that work into Dividend Cafe and expanded into books, television, video, and podcasts. Dividend Cafe now has approximately 35,000 subscribers, which David says were acquired organically. Why does David Bahnsen believe in reinvesting in a wealth management business? Rather than maximizing current profit margins, David has invested in people and capabilities when he believes they will improve the client experience or create a better environment for advisors. His philosophy favors building a larger, more durable enterprise over extracting the maximum amount of current income. Why did David Bahnsen sell The Bahnsen Group to Hightower? David says he was not actively looking to sell. The transaction became attractive once Hightower was willing to preserve the firm's autonomy while providing additional resources in areas including HR, technology, AI, supervision, and future inorganic growth. Will The Bahnsen Group continue to operate independently after the Hightower transaction? According to David, the firm will operate as a wholly owned independent subsidiary. He expects to retain authority over the P&L, hiring and firing, strategy, branding, and other core aspects of the business while drawing more extensively on Hightower's resources. How will The Bahnsen Group grow after the Hightower transaction? David expects organic growth to remain the foundation. However, as the firm becomes larger, he plans to supplement that growth with selective acquisitions and advisor additions that fit The Bahnsen Group's system and culture rather than simply aggregating assets. What can financial advisors learn from David Bahnsen's independence journey? His experience illustrates the importance of defining what independence is intended to accomplish. For David, leaving the wirehouse was not the destination; it provided the control necessary to invest, create, hire, build services, and develop an enterprise around the client experience. The firm's growth was overwhelmingly organic. David attributes much of the business development engine to original content and thought leadership, supported by continual investment in advisors, planning, tax, investment management, family office capabilities, and the broader client experience. David began writing regular market commentary during the 2008 financial crisis. After becoming independent, he developed that work into Dividend Cafe and expanded into books, television, video, and podcasts. Dividend Cafe now has approximately 35,000 subscribers, which David says were acquired organically. Rather than maximizing current profit margins, David has invested in people and capabilities when he believes they will improve the client experience or create a better environment for advisors. His philosophy favors building a larger, more durable enterprise over extracting the maximum amount of current income. David says he was not actively looking to sell. The transaction became attractive once Hightower was willing to preserve the firm's autonomy while providing additional resources in areas including HR, technology, AI, supervision, and future inorganic growth. According to David, the firm will operate as a wholly owned independent subsidiary. He expects to retain authority over the P&L, hiring and firing, strategy, branding, and other core aspects of the business while drawing more extensively on Hightower's resources. David expects organic growth to remain the foundation. However, as the firm becomes larger, he plans to supplement that growth with selective acquisitions and advisor additions that fit The Bahnsen Group's system and culture rather than simply aggregating assets. His experience illustrates the importance of defining what independence is intended to accomplish. For David, leaving the wirehouse was not the destination; it provided the control necessary to invest, create, hire, build services, and develop an enterprise around the client experience. Related Resources The RIA Builder's Blueprint How the Freedom to Communicate During a Crisis and Beyond Translated to 4x Growth for this ex-Morgan Stanley Team Mentioned in This Episode Dividend CaféThe Bahnsen GroupHightower David L. Bahnsen Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer David L. Bahnsen is the founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of The Bahnsen Group, a national private wealth management firm with offices in Newport Beach, New York City, Bend, Nashville, Minneapolis, Austin, Phoenix, West Palm Beach, Dallas, and Grand Rapids, managing over $10 billion in client assets. Prior to launching The Bahnsen Group, he spent eight years as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a Vice President at UBS. He is consistently named one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron's, Forbes, and the Financial Times. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and Fox Business, and is a regular contributor to National Review. He hosts the popular weekly podcast, Capital Record, dedicated to a defense of free enterprise and capital markets. He writes a weekly macro commentary at dividendcafe.com. David is a founding Trustee for Pacifica Christian High School of Orange County and serves on the Board of Directors for the Acton Institute, National Review, and Hightower Advisors. He is the author of several best-selling books including Crisis of Responsibility: Our Cultural Addiction to Blame and How You Can Cure It (2018), There's No Free Lunch: 250 Economic Truths (2021), and Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life (2024). His newest book, Profit from the Profit: The Past, Present & Future of Dividend Growth Investing, was released in August 2026. David's true passions include anything related to USC football, the financial markets, and politics. His ultimate passions are his wife of 24 years, Joleen, their children, Mitchell, Sadie, and Graham, and the life they've created together on both coasts. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… Build, Grow & Transact: David Bahnsen on Building a $10.5B Business Worth Selling A conversation with Louis Diamond and David Bahnsen, Founder & Managing Partner of The Bahnsen Group.     Louis Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Build, Grow & Transact: David Bahnsen on Building a $10.5B Business Worth Selling. It’s a conversation with the founder and managing partner of the Bahnsen Group. I’m Louis Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. Mindy Diamond: At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education-driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at 908-879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. Louis Diamond: There’s a big difference between breaking away to create a better version of the business you already have and breaking away because you see an entirely different business you want to build. And I think that distinction becomes even more important as we look at what creates real enterprise value in the wealth management industry today. My guest, David Bahnsen, is a pretty remarkable example. David first joined us in April of 2020, five years after leaving Morgan Stanley with eight people and 600 million in assets. At that time, the Bahnsen Group had grown to roughly two billion. Today, it’s a $10.5 billion business with more than 100 people and 13 offices across the country. Perhaps the most interesting part of that growth story is that virtually all of it has been organic. David didn’t build the firm by buying AUM. He built it by creating an authentic voice, an incredibly effective content engine, investing heavily back into the business, adding services clients actually wanted, and being very deliberate about what his team should own versus what was better outsourced. There’s a lot in that playbook for any advisor who wants to build a business with real enterprise value. But David’s story also gives us something we often don’t get to examine, the full build, grow, and transact arc. For more than a decade, Hightower went from employer to service provider while David maintained ownership and control of the business. Now, the Bahnsen Group is being sold to Hightower, giving David additional resources to pursue the next stage of growth while preserving much of what made the firm successful in the first place. So we get into the decisions behind that extraordinary organic growth, why maximizing current income can work against building long-term enterprise value, how David thinks about content, clients, and scale, and ultimately why someone who was once intoxicated by the idea of freedom decided the next right move was to transact. It’s a great case study in what can happen when independence becomes a starting point rather than the destination. So let’s get to it. David, thank you for coming on our show again. David Bahnsen: Well, it’s wonderful to be back with you. I love listening to the show every week. Louis Diamond: Oh, there you go. Just flattering us now. So for anyone who probably, myself included, doesn’t remember the last time you were on our show, it was April of 2020, a time warp into a crazy time. It was the five-year anniversary of your breakaway in the very, very beginning of the pandemic. Then you still had an amazing business, two billion in assets. But for listeners who may have missed it, and even just to catch us up, can you give us the quick version of your origin story of leaving Morgan Stanley in 2015 with 600 million and eight people and why you did it, just the speed round of compressing a stressful and very important time in your business arc? David Bahnsen: So I was one of those people that in an almost cliche, typical way, the types of folks that your business deals with all the time, left because I wanted independence. I wasn’t unhappy at Morgan Stanley. I wasn’t in need of any particular change, but I was very intoxicated by the idea of freedom and became very committed to the idea that if I were going to run my own business, I needed to run my own business. It started in 2014. We made our official exit in early 2015. And as you said, there were eight people, all of which were folks on my team at Morgan Stanley and 600 million of client assets, and we basically moved 100% of that. When I was on the podcast, April 2020, it’s funny when you were saying that, I can visualize myself at my home office at that point in time in Southern California recording this. And we would’ve been our five-year anniversary, couple billion, so we had a little bit over tripled. We probably had, if I remember correctly at that time, 25, 30 employees. And it’s interesting the linear arc of it, because you fast-forward now, we’re at 10.5 billion and 106 employees. And so it’s just proportionate, the AUM and the headcount and the time gone by, it’s been a very nice, steady arc. But I really loved the idea of being independent. I turned 40 years old in 2014 when I began the extensive due diligence that led to me leaving Morgan Stanley. And it really was that moment that I said, “If I’m going to stay as a corner office guy at a wirehouse, I will stay at Morgan Stanley forever.” I had no issues there. My manager at the time is still, to this day, my best friend in the world. We’re like brothers. I just dedicated my new book to him. I wasn’t unhappy with Morgan. I just liked the idea of having my own business and haven’t looked back since. Louis Diamond: Amazing. Seems like it was probably a pretty good move based upon what you shared, but I think it’s an interesting perspective because I feel like I’m starting to see that more and more is the profile of the advisor who doesn’t have these intense pain points and is relatively well served, is going to be successful, knows how to operate at their firm, but they just want something more. There’s an intangible that staying isn’t going to solve for them. For many, it’s being a business owner, like the path you took. For others it’s, hey, I just want to be recharged. I don’t want to be static. I want something different. I want to monetize. I want to work in a bit of a different way. I think you’re early on that trend, to be honest with you. You were probably right in the middle, even probably even the beginning innings of the independent movement, and I am very excited to dig into how you got from 600 million in 2015 to over 10.5 billion, 11-ish years later. So let’s jump to today, and we’ll spend some time going through dissecting that growth. But today, like you said, 10 and a half billion under management, 100 plus people, 13 offices, including Santa Barbara where you just opened, but Newport Beach, New York City, Nashville, Tennessee, Palm Beach. It’s a real national firm. And I read that you’ve grown over 30% organically over the last decade. So when you look at the firm now versus 2015, what stands out the most? Let’s really dive into that. David Bahnsen: Well, a lot of this is where we’re going to end up going later in the conversation with where I see the next iteration of the company. But when you talk about the last 10 years, it has been the textbook definition of organic growth. There are 13 offices open and zero of them came by acquisition or merger or purchase. We’ve hired two or three advisors out of our 26 advisors that had a little bit of a book, but I mean under 100 million. We never paid for it. I’m talking about hiring people. But you’re looking at an organic story, and I am proud of that, but I also recognize that it wasn’t intentional. And what I mean by that is I didn’t have this strategy in 2014, ’15 where I said, if I can just go independent, I have this evil genius behind me that is going to drive a mousetrap that will get me up to 10.5 Billion. I’ve been as surprised, as many outside observers, but I have a lot of gratitude for it. I understand now why it has worked, and I think that there are people inside of our business that are a little more qualified to understand how the business works than people who are outside of it. Your consultants and professional investors are very smart at what they do, but they don’t necessarily always understand that advisor-client dynamic. And I get why we’ve been successful with it. But I also don’t want to take credit for it as if it were this master strategy. We just tried things and those things that worked, we kept doing more of, and this is where we are. A lot of it, and I spoke to Mindy about this six years ago, it’s been content creation, thought leadership, and the voice that, much to my surprise, has attracted people and never doing it for the purpose of attracting people. This very natural and sincere delivery of a belief system about markets, about the economy, about the world around us, I share things sometimes about my faith, politics in a public square. I’m on television, this podcast. And then the major driver is the written word, which some people might be shocked to hear as we’re talking about a podcast still even exists. But my weekly Dividend Cafe, which is my weekly market commentary, is up to 35,000 subscribers, 100% organic. We’ve never done anything to get any subscribers. And our video and our podcast and everything, the books I write, the television hits, they all have their audience. But most of it goes through that written word. That’s where I get to connect with people that if they like me, they may end up becoming a client. And if they don’t, they won’t, but that’s really been our story though. Louis Diamond: That’s absolutely amazing. There’s so much to unpack there. That amount of growth without anything inorganic, especially the way this industry is going, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. That’s amazing in and of itself. But just the way you can track back your meteoric rise to content creation, I think for many listening, it’s either, “Oh my God, that seems so daunting and so crazy.” Others would be like, “Well, I can’t do that, but that sounds great. Of course, he’s been able to grow because he can have an original voice.” As a firm that puts out a lot of original content, podcasts written, Mindy wrote a book, white papers, et cetera, I know the amount of work and dedication and commitment it takes to stick with that for so long. So if you don’t mind, can we double-click into that written word story? How did you get started with it and what’s been the arc or the growth journey? Someone who’s listening who would love to do that, where did you get started? You didn’t just all of a sudden have a book and show up on TV. How did you get started? David Bahnsen: In the truest sense of the word, I grew up loving writing. My father died in his 40s and I was only 20, but he was an intellectual, a brilliant writer, had several books, and I was a nerd in high school. Luckily, I had basketball so that I could still meet a girl here and there and have friends on the team. But I mean, if it were up to me, I would’ve been home reading books and writing papers, and I would turn in extra credit papers more than I would study for a test because I loved writing. So the written thing was there. I don’t know if I was ever good at it or not, but I know I loved doing it, and I would credit my late father with the early seeds of that. When the financial crisis happened in September, the actual week of Lehman’s bankruptcy, September of ’08, about three, four days later, Morgan Stanley’s credit default swaps were blowing out, and now it was not just the market was crashing every day. And of course at that point, Merrill had gone down, AIG had gone down. We were in this cascade, and everybody who lived through it remembers it all well. I remember every detail of it like it were yesterday. But all that happened was once I got my 80th call about what the hell was going on with Morgan, I decided to write up a piece, not send it to compliance for approval and send it out to everyone. And if the firm was at risk of not making it for another day, I wasn’t especially worried about compliance getting mad at me at the time. And I did that, and then a couple days later did it again, just broad update on everything going on, and I never stopped doing it. That’s what it was, just every Friday since September 2008. And then when we left Morgan, at some point along the way I started getting compliance approval and getting a bit more of an audience. We had hundreds of clients that were reading it, and we’d have a few guests that would ask to be signed up as clients were forwarding it around, but that was it. It didn’t have a website, it didn’t have a subscribe feature, it wasn’t a real blog or anything like that. So then in going independent, I was able to incubate it, and we branded it as Dividend Cafe. We’re Dividend Growth investors at my firm. So we put a brand around it. We had a website, and I think we started a podcast and video that was becoming a very large medium around the mid-tens as well, and so we added that shortly later, but it was just because I had the freedom to do it. And then I did do some hit on CNBC like Asia or CNBC World or something. It wasn’t anything with a big audience, but then we sent the clip to someone at Fox and they really liked it, and then they had me, and then I started getting invited more regularly. So now the TV thing was happening, and I always say that TV can be a really good thing for a very small number of people. Obviously, Josh Brown has been incredibly successful with it. He’s very good at it, and it’s done okay. It’s done well for me, but it’s different than people think. You do not go on TV and then get done and all of a sudden the phone rang and someone said, “I saw you. You’re so handsome. I want you to be my advisor.” What it does is it might drive them to other content. It might drive them to the internet where they’re going to find other things about you. And if my name was David Johnson instead of David Bahnsen, I think I would’ve got lost in the SEO and nothing would’ve come of it. I really believe that. But it enabled some people that liked what they heard on TV to start following me in other more substantive and perpetual mediums. And then in 2017, I wrote a book that I wouldn’t have been able to write at Morgan Stanley. I had very strong opinions about the origins of the financial crisis. And I did not believe the left-wing narrative that it was caused by unfettered markets, and I didn’t really believe the right-wing narrative entirely either that it was exclusively caused by government intervention. I believed that all of those things were true but were missing this cultural and moral component about Main Street. I wrote a book on it and I thought there might be 200 clients of my firm that would read it, and it ended up being a bestseller, and that created more television invitations and just to a slightly larger audience. And at this point now, I realized that all of these things were dovetailed together, content, the mediums, coming to Dividend Cafe, coming to an authentic point of view about markets. And then, and this is the thing that is so important because of what you do and do so well in your business and within the kind of practitioners that listen, it wasn’t enough to have a mousetrap that drew people to us. We had to keep them. We had to deliver an advisory experience, and so we were just relentlessly reinvesting back in the business, adding planners, adding tax, adding more investment sophistication, family office, just improving our business, and that’s why we’ve added so much to headcount because we have just constantly wanted to really be what we were attracting people to. Louis Diamond: It’s amazing. The key themes I heard there, there’s a lot, but is it’s not one thing that works. It’s a coordinated strategy. I can attest to that for the content work that we do. There isn’t one single point of growth that comes from content creation. It’s everything working together. You don’t know, especially in this day and age, how people consume information or how a message gets across to them, whether they’re a reader, whether they find you in AI, whether they watch video, whether they saw CNBC in their barbershop. So I think that’s absolutely amazing, and congratulations. Let’s talk a little bit about your breakaway setup, if you will. So when you broke in 2015, you signed on with Hightower, but in a bit of a different way, certainly different than today. You paid Hightower an override on your revenue, or basis points and assets, to be on their platform. But you owned 100% of your business, ran your own P&L, and they provided certain services to you. Thinking back to 2015, and then even up until your recent decision to sell to Hightower, why did you structure it that way rather than under their brand or as an employee or even just having your own RIA, especially given your size and scale? David Bahnsen: There’s actually one piece missing there. You may not have known, but I think is important to the story. When we came in 2015, we were employees and they had a 50/50 net model, and we joined in that capacity. And then when they recapped in 2017, brought a new investor on, eventually changed CEO about a year later, at that point, we were growing. I felt very comfortable with the independent space. I now knew what I didn’t know. I knew what I thought they did well, and I knew what I thought we could do well, and I took advantage of that moment to say, “Guys, I need to be on my own. We need to run our own firm, our own finances, our own payroll, our own brand.” And what the investors wanted at that time was some sort of affiliation that they could count on and not be vulnerable, but I didn’t want to sell and I wanted full control. So I got control, much better control than I had had in my first couple years, and they got a extension of agreement of these services that they could feel good I was going to be a part of their ecosystem. And the cash flows were pretty meaningful as we grew from, at that point, a billion to over 10 billion, and we became obviously a very meaningful contributor to their earnings and revenues. And the CEO who came in was the second CEO in the history of the company. And they now have a third, but that individual, Bob Oros, I knew well because he had been at Fidelity when I chose Fidelity as our primary custodian. Bob and I got along very well. And so over the years, there’d be things that we had impediments that we had to work through, and we worked through them just like adults, like businessmen and women and got stuff done. So it was a good relationship. But we were really quite independent. Very few of my people that worked at Bahnsen Group even knew who Hightower was because we had our own brand, we had our own investment process, the HR, the payroll. And unlike a lot of the other platform teams, they didn’t have too many platform teams, but ours, the accounts payable were massive. I mean, we had to have a whole finance department just because of our growth. So it became a difficult thing for them at this stage to have such a meaningful company within their ecosystem not aligned and not harmonized within the economic model of the rest of the firm. But I would say that decision for 2017 until this year, I don’t regret it at all. Hightower doesn’t regret it at all. They benefited immensely from this growth we’ve gone through, and I very much desired that freedom. Look, if I’m being very candid, Louis, you brought up why didn’t go on my own ADV? At the time in ’14 and ’15, I didn’t know enough. I didn’t understand. And I met with Focus, I met with Dynasty, I met with some others, and you just meet with different people, hear the stories, and the one I went with was Hightower, and there’s pros and cons to all the models. It’s one of the things I wasn’t joking at the beginning. I listen to your guys’ show every week. I’m a sucker for everything happening in our industry. I hear the stories of different successful advisors, and every one of them resonate with me in one way. There might be nine ways it doesn’t resonate, but one way that does because there’s always something that each person’s looking for that some of us can connect with. And at the time, I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I felt good about the Hightower story, went in that path, and I would argue that we got the best of all worlds in that 2017 to 2026 story because we really got to function independently. We were under their corporate RIA, but other than that, felt very independent. And that’s a testimony to Hightower that they honored that autonomy, but I think it gave me the entrepreneurial thing I needed, and I’m grateful for it. Louis Diamond: Fantastic. So let’s say from the 2017 to 2026 timeframe when you decided to finally sell to Hightower, how did you weigh the leverage that outsourcing certain things provided your business versus paying a fee, obviously, more than what it cost Hightower and not having complete and utter control over your business? How do you track that to your growth, if at all? David Bahnsen: The criteria was always anything we like doing or are good at doing, we’re going to do it, whether Hightower offers it or not. So for example, I’m sitting here in a beautiful office. We have the 31st floor of a building on 54th Street and 6th Avenue, and Hightower has a whole facilities department. We’ve done 13 office leases with no involvement from their facilities department because my wife loves designing the offices. She’s an interior designer. My team loved picking our own locations. I didn’t find negotiating with a broker all that hard. So we were able to do it, we liked it, so we did it. But then the supervision side, the regulatory side, and candidly, a lot of the technology side, which is where some of our talk is about to go in terms of the new transaction, those things I felt more comfortable outsourcing to Hightower who had entire departments and resources geared towards it. And we would do them if we had to, but we weren’t passionate about it. I didn’t want to go understand all the nooks and crannies of the regulatory apparatus. So that was part of their ecosystem, and we were happy to utilize their services there. Investing money, financial facilities, the business development mousetrap we built, those things we were good at, and so we held onto that, and that’s how we viewed the division of labor. Every firm, RIA, IBD, a wire, W, it doesn’t matter. Everyone who optimizes this challenge of doing what you like and not doing what you don’t like is going to grow. It’s hard to do. It’s easier said than done, but that’s the challenge right there. Louis Diamond: I absolutely love that. I think it’s so true, knowing what’s actually going to add surplus value relative to the amount of time you’re doing versus what’s commoditized or back of house or isn’t something that lights you up. Because there’s plenty of RIAs that I’ve interviewed or that I know where they enjoy building technology, they like designing their own compliance organization, and to them, that’s their superpower. That’s what makes them different. For you, it sounds like it was very clear. You knew exactly what you wanted to do. As long as you’re able to still do it, you’re very comfortable with outsourcing certain things that would’ve been a distraction or something that you and your team weren’t world-class at. I want to talk a little bit about some of the deliberate choices you made to take the business from, I would assume it was you as the rainmaker, and now you said you have over 25 advisors. So just thinking about hiring, structuring the business, investing in the business and platform, because I’m sure you’ve had the temptation, maybe not because you’re a business builder, but I think a lot of people love, “Hey, I can make a ton of money if I don’t make that second, third, 125th hire, and instead I just take cash flow. I don’t necessarily need this person. I can make more money or distribute more to my partners.” So I’d love to hear a little bit about some of the deliberate choices you made on hiring and investing in your business. David Bahnsen: There’s two things that I am very hesitant to take credit for, even though they’re true. You had mentioned before when we left in 2014 that we were early innings of wirehouse defections to the independent movement. I was early, but I wasn’t a first inning guy. The real trailblazers were going in 2006, 2007, 2009. 2014 is a lot earlier than those that have gone in the last two or three years, but I was like a third or fourth inning guy, and I don’t deserve credit to be a first inning guy. The other issue is that I reinvest in the business constantly and have not been greedy about maximizing all the margin, but that is easy to say once you’ve already scaled the business, right? You’re already in a place where things are going very well, and then from there, deciding you just really want to run the business the way you want to run it. It’s not as selfless a decision as people may think. It was a luxury. And at the same time, I cannot tell you how bizarre I think it is when people are focusing on maximizing margin versus running the business that they want to have. It’s a high-margin business. There is not a lot of operating leverage in it. More or less, not completely, but more or less expenses go up in proportion to revenue. Particularly for us opening new offices and hiring a lot of new people, our biggest overhead far and away is people. And we started an ETF a couple years ago and I got a chance to learn the polar opposite where my business has tons of pricing power and very little operating leverage and asset management has unbelievable operating leverage. I basically have zero dollars of expenses on my next dollar of revenue, but no pricing power. Louis Diamond: So interesting. David Bahnsen: Yeah. I mean, it really is just two different business models. When we have hired more people, we’ve always done it based on are we going to serve our clients better and enjoy running our business better with these people? We don’t want wasteful positions, but we want the maximum optimization for how to service clients and how to give advisors an ecosystem to function in. So a one-to-one operations to advisor, having planners that are not the client-facing advisor themselves, but are devoted to the behind the scenes planning process. Having a full tax department that does not provide tax services to non-wealth clients, that is only there, a robust tax consulting, tax preparation, tax advisory arm to drive a better client experience for us. These things all erode at margin, and I wouldn’t do it any other way. And the biggest thing, by the way, is the investment management, because then you’re not just talking about profit margin. We’re talking about time. I am a 3:45 AM guy every day because we’re inside markets. We have analysts, traders, investment folks. I think it’s something like 10 or 11 people on the org chart. It costs me millions of dollars a year for us to manage money in-house. There’s no justification for that other than it’s what we want to do, what we believe in. And those that have a outsourced Vanguard DFA-type model, I have no criticism of it in the world, but it just wasn’t us, and so we had to do what we liked doing. Louis Diamond: Yep. And once again, the authenticity shines through. Can we talk a little bit about the financial advice part of the business? I would assume when you’re at Morgan Stanley, you were probably the driver of growth, you were serving personally probably every client or just about all of them. Today, with 10 and a half billion, 25 advisors, just the immense scale of the organization, how do advisors advise? Are you still providing financial advice to clients directly? Are you more of just the CEO, the rainmaker, the strategist? I mean, how do you think about, I guess, allocating clients to your advisors? How have you grown your capacity for financial advice? David Bahnsen: So our leverage is entirely limited by my ability to find like-minded advisors who can go deliver our client experience and be in relationship to clients. It’s why I’m not a big believer in this notion of scalability. I think technology helps scale. I think there’s all kinds of processes you can do more efficiently, but it’s a relationship business and relationships don’t scale. And we have an internal policy philosophy preference, if you will, that no advisor will cover more than 80 households. And so for us to continue growing at the number of households, number of AUM, and therefore number of revenues, all those numbers, of course, have some proportionate relationship with one another, we have to have the advisors to do it. And so as we find advisors that can not drool on themselves and be professionals and deliver an experience to clients, we want them to be generalists. We want them to be very good at what they do, but we don’t want them entering trades. We don’t want them doing their own operations work. We don’t want them having to pick stocks. We’re providing this ecosystem of the tax, the planning, the estate, the operations, the content, the marketing, and the biz dev. They don’t have to go try to rainmake at their kid’s soccer game or join the chamber of commerce or things like that. That we believe we have enough internal biz dev opportunity that what they need to do is cultivate the relationships with the prospective clients we give them. They do have to close that business, but our industry, for all of the talk about this, people diagnose it wrong. We do not have a problem with closing business in our industry. We have a problem with opening business. And so the sourcing is the issue. And for whatever reason, it’s a mystery to me, it’s been a mystery for 27 years, I’ve been pretty good at sourcing business. And so we can share that with our advisors and then expect them to, their job when they wake up and go to bed and everything in between is to be in relationship with clients. Louis Diamond: If I think about, just think of 20 highly successful RIAs and think of some of the biggest and best names in the space, I think a critical connection point or commonality for all those firms is they’ve somehow figured out lead flow or some mechanism or capacity to bring in clients for their advisors. To me, that’s the truly only scalable way to keep adding advisors and growing a business is if there’s enough inbound lead flow that’s cultivated or created by the firm to really feed all the different advisors, and it’s not snap our fingers and it happens. But if you compare that to many other models, the wirehouse model where it’s all on the advisors to go out and find clients, that’s great. And if you find some amazing rainmakers, amazing, and it’s additive, et cetera, but you eventually hit a ceiling because it’s hard to find advisors who have that knack. You’re not bringing in the ideal client every time, and it’s an unpredictable way to grow. So I think I wouldn’t gloss over the fact that you’ve been able to create enough inbound traffic or lead flow through all of your content and thought leadership that you’re able to sustain that type of model. Because it is the best way to grow a business is keep your advisors focused on just being advisors, solve for organic growth, solve for the other things they have to do. And then when you open up a new market or hire an advisor, boom, you got capacity, you got someone trained up, and it’s predictable, your close rate and your ability to scale it from there. So I’ll get off my soapbox, but I think that’s such an important element of the biggest and best and most valuable firms in our industry today. David Bahnsen: I agree with you a thousand percent. And even if you put numbers around it, somebody who has to go make their own rain and service the client, they will expect, if you use wirehouse-like grids around it, this is just round numbers, I know you could turn a knob a little bit, but I view the business as more or less it costs something in the range of 40 cents of a dollar revenue to run the business. There’s 20 cents available to the owner, 20 cents to the person who makes rain and 20 cents to the person servicing the client. It’s back of napkin math. If you are a wirehouse advisor, you’re making the rain and servicing the client, you’re getting two of the 20 cents, you’re getting 40 cents, let’s say. And if you’re the person who owns the business and makes the rain and is the advisor, you can make 60 cents on the dollar. That’s a wonderful margin, and you cap out at a certain level where you just cannot grow any further. I would rather make 20 cents on where we are now. My advisors would rather make 20 cents on where they are because 20 cents of something big is a lot more than 40% of something small. And again, and my numbers are, I’m rounding, but you get the idea. That’s really the kind of business model we’ve done here. Louis Diamond: I think it’s brilliant. And some would argue about the percentages and would say, oh, it costs 40 cents to 30 cents to run a business and we have a small team, but I think philosophically that’s exactly right. And I think something you said too, which is there’s been a common thread in our “Build, Grow, Transact” series. You think about Jason Fertitta of Americana Partners or Matt Kilgroe from Cyndeo and many others that we’ve had or will have, it’s really playing the long game. No one we’ve had on the show is optimizing for how much money can I make this year, next year or the year after. It’s the intentional decisions to invest in capacity, invest in growth, and by choice take less as the owner of the business, but doing it because what you’re building is enterprise value that will sell at a dramatic multiple of that growth and have room to run. So I think that’s the big thing is, again, it sounds easy, it sounds great, but it’s not an easy decision to say, “Hey, I’m going to make less money today and over the next few years because I want to hire the next person or invest in an organic growth funnel.” That’s discipline, for sure. But I think it’s a great takeaway for anyone listening is play the long game, invest where it makes sense, and the riches will follow you later. They don’t have to follow you today or tomorrow. David Bahnsen: And it’s a whole business of playing the long game, not only in the value creation and enterprise value of being independent. But even for wirehouse advisors, I remember back as I was entering the business, that debate about fee-based business versus transactional, and all it was, are you going to play the long game or get more money quickly? There’s temptations in both ways. There’s goals, there’s overhead, reality. Anyone who played the long game in that story from 30 years ago benefited immensely. And now you see it, of course, in what we’re talking about here, playing the long game in the way you run your business has just been the smartest thing anybody could do. Louis Diamond: Absolutely. Especially in this industry where each new client that’s brought on, there’s a lifetime value of a client. That success compounds with market appreciation, with them adding new monies, and then ultimately they’re going to give you referrals hopefully. And then over time, that’s where the real money is. It’s the compounding nature of doing the next right thing rather than, we’ll say, taking a shortcut or not making that investment in the business. I have a ton more questions for you on this topic, but I want to spend enough time on your important decision to sell the business, sell the Bahnsen Group to Hightower in April of 2026. So after more than a decade of being an employee of Hightower, being affiliated with them but really owning your own business, you decided to not just sell the business, but to sell it to the very platform that you’re operating on. So can you just talk about that decision? Why was 2026 the right time? Why did you decide to stay with Hightower rather than any of the other 100 acquirers or a random private equity firm that would love to buy a business that’s growing 30% per year? David Bahnsen: It’s interesting to think about as our deal gets ready to close here at the end of September, if I had gone out and run a process, if I was looking to sell, would I have been interested in conversations with others? And I don’t know the answer to that because I wasn’t looking to sell. There was nothing broken, in my mind, in what we were doing. But when Hightower and her investors came to me, the entire conversation centered not around what we needed and wanted to be a seller, but on what we didn’t want or couldn’t have. And I’ll share the story because I haven’t shared it publicly with anyone. As we were having conversations about a variety of things in the relationship between Hightower and the Bahnsen Group and Hightower’s investor and so forth, there were a couple of different meetings and things and we ended up having a pretty significant meeting in person in their conference rooms here in Midtown. And I’ve had seven eye surgeries, and I have challenges with my eyes and there are all these numbers up on a screen in the conference room. I couldn’t see any of them. And it occurred to me that there was an offer on the screen they wanted to buy the business. We had not discussed that. And I turned to the folks and said, “I don’t really know exactly what it says, but I just want to make something very clear to save time and drive our conversation constructively. There’s no amount of money that I would sell for if I can’t be fully in charge of what we’re doing. Our brand, our business, our autonomy is what I care most about. If there’s a way to have that, protect it, enhance it and do a commercial transaction, I’m open to it.” And I didn’t really think that would be possible, but I will say to their credit, they did not want to interfere with that autonomy and what they believe to be a successful formula inside our company at all. And so while they’re doing a lot right now to build their Hightower Signature Wealth brand, both internally and externally, and are coming up on $50 billion of assets that they’ll have moved onto that platform in trying to create more centralization and consolidation, which I think has a lot of commercial rationalization behind it, what they’re looking to do with the Bahnsen Group is have a wholly owned independent subsidiary where I still have plenary authority to run the business, control of the P&L, hiring and firing, strategy, branding, and yet the resources of Hightower at my disposal more now in the HR front. That gets a little trickier with 106 people that will soon be 150 than it was when it was 20. I’m committed, Louis, to knowing every one of my employees’ names forever and it’s getting harder, but luckily I have a pretty good memory. But the technology side, the AI moment, the way in which a tech stack all intersects, I hate this stuff. And they not only are good at it and like it, but are heavily invested in it. And so it felt to me like if they’re really going to allow me to continue running this and have that control of the P&L, it could be best of all worlds and certainly very value additive to the enterprise of Hightower. And that’s what we worked a few months to put together and everybody is really pleased with the outcome. Louis Diamond: Amazing. I mean it’s an interesting shift in the way I’m seeing a lot of these platforms, that they start off as a fee-for-service affiliation platform and then over time they morph to being buyers of businesses, investors in businesses. And Hightower is definitely, they’re probably at the forefront of really completely shifting or re-identifying themself in the market, especially on buying practices. So I think it’s very interesting that you had this long-term relationship and ultimately having such an amazing business, they were the ultimate buyer of the business. David Bahnsen: And I think it’s important to say for our listeners, you know as well as I do, if we went to market, there would’ve been a lot of interested parties. Louis Diamond: That was going to be my question. David Bahnsen: The organic growth alone would’ve commanded something pretty attractive. We were under Hightower’s ADV. I not only had a positive relationship with them and a good cultural dynamic, which I wouldn’t want to risk changing, but I don’t want to re-paper the size of this business, and so it was just a non-starter. I talked to a couple investment bankers after we were already in LOI and they all said the same thing. You had your most natural buyer. It was the one you were already dating. And that’s how I feel, is if there was going to be a transaction, it made the most sense for us to do it with the one we were already partnered with. Louis Diamond: So was it like, hey, you know exactly who we’re getting in bed with because they’ve already been our partner in this business for a while, and as long as I get what I think is fair value for the business, that’s good enough? I’m sure you could have gotten a turn or two more to have 50 bids and to have the shark circling to push Hightower higher. But it sounds like for you, that was of course important, but that wasn’t the number one driver. It was more how do we preserve what we like, preserve our autonomy and do it with people that we like and trust? David Bahnsen: Yeah, that continuity, in a funny way, I did it the wrong order. I ran a process after I was already at LOI, meaning I did enough to find out, hey, did I just do a good deal or not after I’d already done the deal. And the good news is I did, but it wasn’t the way most people go about doing it. But the continuity thing is there’s always two fronts to it at our size of business. There’s the client continuity and the team. Our team is going to move the payroll from being under Bahnsen Group to Hightower, and there’s benefits and changes and things. But the clients don’t know any difference whatsoever. Custodial, the G numbers, the ADV, there’s no signature required, no negative consent required because they already were under the Hightower ADV before. So this transaction all at once allows us to go into the next iteration of our business, which I’m very excited about, and I think is a wonderful deal for Hightower and what their goals are, but we didn’t have to bother clients with it. And when we say to clients, “Nothing’s going to change,” we can actually mean it. Louis Diamond: Yeah, that’s the definition of it. You mentioned there you’re excited for this next iteration or the next chapter of the company. Can you explain that? I would imagine just continuing your strategy that’s worked so well for the last decade plus, you keep doing that, I mean, you’re going to have a 20, 25, $30 billion business over the next handful of years. So what’s the next chapter? Why change it at all? What are you thinking about? David Bahnsen: Well, it’s funny in a moment now where, first of all, I’ve went out of my way to say that we didn’t grow at all inorganically, and a lot of people have now decided that inorganic growth is a little bit less impressive than organic growth. One of the issues with the law of large numbers is growing 30% at two billion meant adding 600 million and growing 30% at 10 billion means adding three billion in a year. Louis Diamond: That’s fair. David Bahnsen: And then 3.6 billion, the exponential nature of it. And I believe that there are… I’ve never gone to a meeting with an advisor with a checkbook or with a balance sheet, and we want to find some folks that want to join us, join our system, join our culture, not merely aggregate a bunch of unified parts, but in some cases doing that with other people demographically would mean some monetization events. So I do believe that there will be some inorganic growth that we will add to our toolbox as a supplement to our core underlying strategy, which we think is industry leading organic growth. So we want to continue doing more of what we’re doing. And then just as we continue to professionalize based on our size and scale more of those things that are not passions for us, technology, supervision and HR, utilize the mousetrap Hightower has that they do well while maintaining the things that make us uniquely us, which is our branding, our business development, our investment strategy, our delivery of services to clients. I’m not naive enough to think that there won’t be some growing pains and some hiccups and whatnot, but we believe that model, all the parties are very committed to it, and we believe it’s the right model for us. Louis Diamond: Absolutely. I think what’s really cool about what you said was, one, I agree with the concept of law of large numbers. I mean, it’s a fact, right? No matter how much content you put out, it’s going to be hard to bring in 10 billion of net new assets eventually without going inorganic. But I think to me at least the big trap in the industry today is firms either completely ignoring the organic and just focusing on buying and growing that way and pointing to, oh, we grew by this amount. But what you said, which is really cool and important I think is we’re going to continue the organic side to the best of our ability. That’s not going to change. Inorganic is a supplement. It’s not the replacement. I think that’s a really important lesson or discipline that it’s the combination of the two that really builds an enterprise and builds scale. You already had your transaction, but anyone who’s weighing a transaction in the future, buyers will always value a dollar of organic growth than they would inorganic growth. So if you can hit both and you do transactions strategically, you’re not just trying to buy anyone or everyone, but you’re doing it to add the right capacity, add a new discipline, diversify the talent pool, ho

This Day in Legal History: The Judiciary Act of 1789On September 24, 1789, President George Washington signed the Judiciary Act of 1789 into law—one of the very first acts of the very first Congress, and a document that turned the skeletal promise of Article III into a functioning national court system. The Constitution had created “one supreme Court” and left everything else to Congress's imagination. The Judiciary Act supplied the imagination: it built a three-tiered federal judiciary of district courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court; it fixed the number of justices at six; and it created the office of Attorney General.The Act's most consequential provision turned out to be a quiet one: Section 25, which gave the Supreme Court the power to review and reverse state-court decisions that ran against federal law or the Constitution. That authority—federal judicial supremacy over state courts on questions of federal law—was the seed of much of what the Supreme Court would later become, and Section 13 of the same Act was the very provision the Court would strike down in Marbury v. Madison, establishing judicial review itself. In other words, the machinery of American judicial power, and the Court's authority to police the boundary between state and federal law, traces directly to this statute.The significance of September 24, 1789 is that it is the architecture beneath essentially everything we cover—the district courts where cases begin, the circuit courts of appeals that review them, and the Supreme Court that sits atop it all. And it's a strikingly apt anniversary, because our lead story is that very system in action, and under strain: a dispute ricocheting between a state supreme court, a federal district judge, a federal circuit court, and the U.S. Supreme Court—the exact interplay of state and federal judicial power that the Act of 1789 first set in motion.The fight over Missouri's congressional map is back at the U.S. Supreme Court—for the third time in a month—and it has become a genuinely dizzying illustration of how tangled our courts can get. Let me trace the bouncing ball, because the procedural chaos is the story. Missouri Republicans adopted a new map in 2025 that dismantled a Kansas City district held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver, part of the Trump-backed national redistricting push. Then: on September 3, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled that under state law the new map can't be used until voters approve it in a referendum. On September 8, Justice Kavanaugh, as circuit justice, rebuffed Missouri's request to intervene. On September 10, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the state from using the redrawn map, in an unsigned order with no dissent. But then a federal district judge and, this Monday, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals went the other way, reviving the Republican map—which has now triggered this third trip to the Supreme Court. Here's the legal knot at the center: this is a collision between state law and federal law. The Missouri Supreme Court's ruling rests on the state constitution's referendum requirement; the federal proceedings involve federal claims about the map. Untangling which sovereign's law controls, and which court has the final say, is exactly the state-versus-federal judicial question the Judiciary Act of 1789 first tried to sort out—and today it's playing out in real time. Meanwhile, the human cost is real: more than a million potential voters are caught in the confusion, and absentee voting is already underway using the old 2022 districts. The significance is twofold—it's another test of mid-decade partisan gerrymandering, and it's a vivid, almost overwhelming example of what happens when state and federal courts point in opposite directions weeks before an election. Whatever the Court does, doing it this late, on the emergency docket, leaves election administrators and voters in an impossible bind.Battle over Missouri's congressional map reaches US Supreme Court for third time | Reuters · SCOTUSblog · CNNA federal judge has dismissed Michigan's climate lawsuit against the oil industry—and the way she did it matters, because Michigan tried a novel legal theory that just ran aground. Most of the climate suits we've seen from states and cities are built on public-nuisance and consumer-protection theories—the claim that fossil-fuel companies deceived the public about climate change. Michigan tried something different and more ambitious: an antitrust theory. Attorney General Dana Nessel accused BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute of conspiring, over decades, to suppress competition from electric vehicles and renewable energy in order to preserve fossil fuels' dominance. The idea was to reframe climate harm as an antitrust injury—collusion to kill off cleaner competitors. U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering in Grand Rapids rejected it, and her reasoning is a classic antitrust-doctrine problem: proximate cause and antitrust standing. She found that antitrust law simply doesn't protect against most of the injuries Michigan claimed, and that even for the one cognizable category—energy overcharges—”the distance is too great between the alleged conspiracy and Michigan's and its residents' overcharges” to say the conspiracy actually caused them. That's the antitrust-standing doctrine from cases in the lineage of Associated General Contractors: to sue, your injury has to be the kind antitrust law was meant to prevent, and it can't be too remote or speculative a link down a long causal chain. The significance is that this marks a setback for a creative frontier in climate litigation. The public-nuisance suits grind on in various states, but Michigan's attempt to weaponize antitrust law against Big Oil for slow-walking the energy transition has, at least here, been deemed too attenuated a theory to proceed. It's a reminder that even a compelling narrative of corporate misconduct has to fit within the specific, technical boundaries of the legal theory you choose.US judge dismisses Michigan climate lawsuit against oil companies | Reuters · Inside Climate News· US NewsAnd finally, the Musk-versus-OpenAI antitrust brawl has taken a delicious turn: OpenAI is trying to get the case thrown out by using Elon Musk's own SEC filings against him. Recall the posture we covered—Musk's xAI and X Corp sued Apple and OpenAI, claiming Apple's exclusive integration of ChatGPT into the iPhone illegally shut out rivals like Grok. Then, on September 14, Musk's companies quietly dropped Apple from the suit, leaving OpenAI as the lone remaining defendant. Now OpenAI has asked Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth for summary judgment—a ruling in its favor on the existing record, before the January trial. And its argument is beautifully simple. OpenAI points to the IPO registration statement that Musk's SpaceX filed with the SEC, and says it is “replete with disclosures diametrically opposed” to xAI's claims of competitive harm—that the rosy, optimistic picture a company is legally required to paint for investors “bears no resemblance to the doomsaying in this litigation.” Here's why this is legally clever, and it goes to the heart of securities law. When you file with the SEC, you are under a legal obligation to be truthful and not to mislead investors—so a company's SEC disclosures are treated as serious, considered admissions. If SpaceX and xAI told investors the AI market is competitive and full of opportunity, they can't easily turn around and tell a court the same market is being unlawfully monopolized to their ruin. It's the litigation version of getting caught saying two contradictory things to two different audiences—and courts do not look kindly on it. The significance is a sharp lesson that echoes my own tax-and-regulation beat: your legally-required disclosures in one forum can come back to bind you in another. You cannot tell Wall Street one story and a federal judge the opposite. Whether it's enough to end the case before trial is up to Judge Pittman, but OpenAI has landed a genuinely elegant punch.OpenAI says SEC disclosures undermine xAI's antitrust lawsuit | Reuters · PYMNTS · Unite.AI This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

On Tuesday, July 14, 2026, MBN was on the road in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The presentation focuses on helping businesses use AI practically while maintaining the human element of their work and protecting their core mission and values. Speakers emphasize creating a consistent infrastructure around AI that addresses issues such as human resources, contracts, cybersecurity, and the reliability of AI-generated information, noting that employees may already be using AI even when their organizations are not. The Better Business Bureau of Michigan demonstrates its AI assistant, Ava, which can make outbound calls and provide information about BBB services and events. The goal of the summit is to give businesses practical tools and a plan for using AI to reduce routine work, empower employees, and improve areas such as decision-making, marketing, operations, and customer service. » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

On Tuesday, July 14, 2026, MBN was on the road in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The “Beyond the Hype” session examines the rapid development of artificial intelligence and aims to help business leaders distinguish meaningful developments from headlines and hype. The speaker explains that the current AI moment is being driven by the convergence of massive amounts of data, specialized talent, advanced hardware, software development, and substantial investment, creating opportunities for businesses to access increasingly powerful technology. He argues that AI is making intelligence more abundant and scalable, potentially changing how work is performed across entire enterprises, departments, teams, and individual roles, and encourages businesses to begin by asking how AI can help their people, customers, and operations rather than simply focusing on specific tools. The presentation breaks AI into three broad categories—custom AI built for specific business needs, specific-purpose AI designed for particular tasks, and wide-applicability AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and Perplexity—while emphasizing intentional use, practical applications, and meaningful value. » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

On Tuesday, July 14, 2026, MBN was on the road in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The presentation explains how AI is radically changing search and the customer journey, with consumers increasingly turning to tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, and Perplexity for answers instead of relying solely on traditional search engines. While traditional SEO remains important, businesses now also need to focus on Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)—structuring their website and other online content so AI systems can understand, cite, and recommend their business. The speaker emphasizes that a company's website has become a critical source of truth for AI, making clear service pages, accurate information, pricing examples, FAQs, customer reviews, and testimonials valuable both to AI systems and human customers. The central message is that businesses that are not visible and properly represented in AI-generated answers risk being overlooked by potential customers, while businesses that optimize their content can improve their chances of being discovered during this new AI-driven customer journey. » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/

Adopted at 12, Found Her Father at 50: Jessie Elliott Reveals the Truth About Adoption, Trauma & IdentityTHE TRUTH ABOUT ADOPTIONLearn the mindset and moves that lead to real results.Visit: http://diversifiedgame.com/Today on Diversified Game, Kellen Coleman sits down with Jessie Elliott of The Hummingbird Lion for a powerful conversation about adoption, childhood trauma, race, identity, family separation, relationships, healing, and rebuilding your life.Jessie is Korean and Black and was adopted from South Korea at age 12 into a white evangelical family in Grand Rapids, Michigan.Her story includes separation from her biological family, life in an orphanage, childhood trauma, racial identity struggles, and survival patterns that followed her into adulthood.Then, at age 50, everything changed.After using AncestryDNA, Jessie connected with a cousin who helped lead her to the Black American father she had never known. She shares the emotional story of finally speaking with him and learning that he had never intentionally abandoned her.That reunion changed how Jessie understood her childhood, relationships, identity, and the direction of her life.Jessie also challenges traditional narratives surrounding adoption. She explains why adoption should remain child-centered, why prospective adoptive parents need to examine their motivations, and why understanding trauma can provide an explanation without becoming an excuse.As both an adoptee and the mother of an adopted Black son, Jessie brings a perspective that goes beyond simply being pro-adoption or anti-adoption.She discusses transracial adoption, international adoption, foster care, attachment, race, Korean adoption history, biological family reunification, and what she believes needs to change inside the adoption system.Jessie also explains how she returned to college in her 50s. At 52, she says she barely knew how to copy and paste. Today, she is researching, writing, speaking, consulting, and creating resources around trauma, human development, and adoption.She also discusses her book The Hummingbird Lion, her Retrain Your Brain program, adoption workbooks, coaching, consulting, and speaking.If you have ever questioned where you came from, struggled with childhood experiences, considered adoption, worked with foster or adopted children, or wondered whether it is too late to reinvent yourself, this conversation is for you.CONNECT WITH JESSIE ELLIOTTWebsite:https://thehummingbirdlion.com/Email:elliottjessie854@gmail.comInstagram:https://www.instagram.com/thehummingbirdlion/Book:The Hummingbird LionCONNECT WITH DIVERSIFIED GAMEWebsite:http://diversifiedgame.com/YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@DiversifiedGamePodcast/?sub_confirmation=1Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/profile?u=15553364Facebook:https://web.facebook.com/GAMEDIVERSIFIED/X:https://x.com/gamediversifiedLinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/gamediversifiedBusiness inquiries:KELLEN@COLEMANPRFIRM.COMTOOLS & REFERRAL LINKSZoom:https://us02web.zoom.us/opc/buy?coupon=6CT45KKFL1DZSHSD4K&couponSource=referral_programSEARCH TERMSJessie Elliott adoption, The Hummingbird Lion, Korean adoptee, Black Korean adoptee, transracial adoption, adoption trauma, adoption reform, childhood trauma, attachment trauma, adoptee identity, biological family reunion, finding biological father, AncestryDNA adoption reunion, foster care adoption, starting over after 50, Diversified Game Podcast#DiversifiedGame #JessieElliott #TheHummingbirdLion #Adoption #Adoptee #KoreanAdoptee #BlackKorean #TransracialAdoption #AdoptionTrauma #ChildhoodTrauma #Identity #FosterCare #Healing #LifeAfter50DGP&x%

Knee pain can quietly shrink your world until stairs feel risky, sleep gets interrupted, and “I'll just live with it” becomes the default plan. We sit down with Dr Tom Nabity from Michigan Center for Regenerative Medicine to talk about a different path: regenerative orthopedics designed to reduce pain and restore function without traditional surgery.We dig into what PRP (platelet-rich plasma) actually is, how it's prepared from your own blood, and why the goal is to trigger a real healing cascade instead of another temporary mask. Dr Nabity explains what stem cell procedures can and can't do today, why post-procedure imaging may not look “like you're 20,” and why the outcomes that matter most are pain reduction and getting your life back. We also cover what “bone on bone” really means in a consult, and why anesthesia risk becomes a bigger concern as we age.You'll hear practical details like the typical recovery window (often a few sore days), the six-month improvement timeline, and why rehab and movement retraining are a core part of long-term success. Then we widen the lens into healing support: peptides for orthopedic recovery and hormone replacement therapy for energy, mood, cognition, and body composition, all guided by symptoms plus bloodwork.We close with concrete next steps, including how to reach the clinic in Rochester Hills or Grand Rapids, a general price range ($1,500 to $10,000), and a 10% discount for listeners who mention they heard about the clinic through Next Steps for Seniors. If this helped you, subscribe, share with a friend who's living with joint pain, and leave a review so more families can find real options.About Next Steps 4 Seniors: Conversations on AgingConversations on Aging brings together trusted experts, practical resources, and meaningful conversations to help seniors and their families navigate aging with greater confidence.Need help finding the right senior living or care options? Next Steps 4 Seniors provides personalized guidance and support to families at no cost.

Kristin Du Mez signed the contract for this book about a week before Beth Moore tweeted about Jesus and John Wayne, and that book took on a life of its own inside evangelical spaces. Then January 6th happened. So she wrote Live Laugh Love while still very much living inside the Jesus and John Wayne moment, which is partly her excuse for why it took so much longer than agreed — the other excuse being that once she started tracing what white Christian women were actually reading, buying, and building their lives around, she discovered she had to remap twentieth-century American religion. The neat boxes break down. Fundamentalist, evangelical, charismatic, mainline, Mormon, secular wellness — the women's cultural products cross all of them, and the through-line running underneath is New Thought. Here's the payoff that stopped me: what gets sold today as biblical womanhood traces back through Marabel Morgan's The Total Woman to Helen Andelin's Fascinating Womanhood to a set of 1920s booklets published by a New Thought press. They just added Bible verses to the top. We also got into the Amway tour, the rules against negativity, why toxic empathy makes perfect sense once you see the system, and — at the end — what she learned studying the German Christian movement that she cannot stop thinking about now. She's at Beer Camp in a few weeks. You can WATCH the conversation on YouTube About our guest Dr. Kristin Kobes Du Mez is Professor of History at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute. She holds her PhD from the University of Notre Dame, with doctoral work on twentieth-century Germany and the German Christian movement. She writes Du Mez CONNECTIONS on Substack and co-hosts The Convocation Unscripted with Diana Butler Bass, Robert P. Jones, and Jemar Tisby. Her new book is Live Laugh Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made JOIN OUR OPEN ONLINE CLASS: The Empire Christ Couldn't Keep⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ever notice how Christian nationalism gets talked about like it's some bizarre new glitch in the faith? It isn't — it's a 2,000-year-old arrangement wearing new clothes, and once you see how the pattern works, you can also spot the Christ who keeps slipping free of it. Join theologian Joerg Rieger and Tripp Fuller for The Christ Empire Couldn't Keep, a free six-week online class tracing the holy alliances, imperial creeds, and stubborn resistance that have shaped Christianity from Paul to the present. You'll get six lectures from Joerg, six live Q&As, weekly readings from his book Christ and Empire, and a community of fellow troublemakers thinking it through together. It's free to join, every session is recorded, and it kicks off Thursday, August 27. Grab your spot at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HomebrewedClasses.com.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Homebrewed Christianity ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠production. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the Homebrewed Christianity⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Theology Nerd Throwdown⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rise of Bonhoeffer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ podcasts for more theological goodness for your earbuds. Join over 75,000 other people by joining our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack - Process This!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get instant access to over 50 classes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.TheologyClass.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow the podcast, drop a review⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, send ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠feedback/questions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or become a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠member of the HBC Community⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I know you are working so, so, so hard to hold onto your owl brain.Maybe you're at the stage where you don't even notice you've flipped your lid until hours later. Maybe you're at the stage where you can see it happening and still can't stop it. Either way, there's probably an old, familiar voice telling you that you should be further along than you are by now.I was once exactly there, too. Hollering- literally - at my own therapist for the reality that I wasn't changing faster. I was MAD. I finally finally, finally had to consider believing what she was offering me- that I was exactly where I needed to be in that moment, and I was shifting and changing as fast as I could.I have had the experience on both sides of the couch- the person who was so angry I wasn't changing faster AND the therapist who believed with my whole being that my client was exactly where they needed to be- even if that truth was extremely painful.I wrote the Guided Journal from that space between.In this episode you will learn:Why hearing "you're exactly where you need to be" from my own therapist once felt more like a threat than comfort What made a therapist's steady presence more powerful than any of the tools she had, even all her training in about five bajillion techniquesWhy the guided journal was crafted with no agenda, no required order, and nowhere you have to arrive by the last pageThe Guided Journal is out today, September 21 — grab it wherever you love to buy books, or catch a signed copy through Schuler Books. Details on tonight's Grand Rapids signing, the Richmond events, and the October 1st online celebration are all at robyngobbel.com.Read the full transcript at: RobynGobbel.com/exactlyrightOrder a copy of the new Guided Journal wherever you love to buy books online or head to RobynGobbel.com/GuidedJournalOnce you order, head to RobynGobbel.com/MAP and register for the FREE online workshop exclusively for everyone who orders the new Guided Journal. Map Your Child's Nervous System LIVE, online October 1- PLUS you'll get the recording We are waiting to read your application for the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals! RobynGobbel.com/immersion for every detail about the program you could be curious about!  Grab a copy of USA Today Best Selling book Raising Kids with Big, Baffling Behaviors robyngobbel.com/bookJoin us in The Club for more support! robyngobbel.com/TheClubSign up on the waiting list for the 2027 Cohorts of the Baffling Behavior Training Institute's Immersion Program for Professionals robyngobbel.com/ImmersionFollow Me On:FacebookInstagramOver on my website you can find:Webinar and eBook on Focus on the Nervous System to Change Behavior (FREE)eBook on The Brilliance of Attachment (FREE)LOTS & LOTS of FREE ResourcesOngoing support, connection, and co-regulation for struggling parents: The ClubYear-Long Immersive & Holistic Training Program for Parenting Professionals: The Baffling Behavior Training Institute's (BBTI) Professional Immersion Program (formerly Being With)

It's possible to be around Jesus without actually making Jesus home. In John 15, Jesus calls Himself the true vine and reminds us that our identity, life, joy, and peace are found in Him. Not in our jobs, relationships, accomplishments, possessions, or anything else we might attach ourselves to. To abide in Jesus means to make our home in Him, allowing every area of our lives to feel the pull toward Him through dependence and obedience. As we begin Home, the invitation is simple: wherever you find yourself, take a step toward Jesus and let Him meet you there.-----------Join us for service online or in-person in Grand Rapids every Sunday at 9AM & 10:45AM.Decided to follow Jesus? We would love to help you figure out what's next! Let us know at https://bit.ly/TLC-i-decidedStay Connected!Website: http://localchurchgr.orgFacebook: http://facebook.com/localchurchgrInstagram: http://instagram.com/localchurchgrWeekly Email Newsletter: https://bit.ly/trendingatTLCVisit & What to Expect: http://localchurchgr.org/expectEvents: http://my.localchurchgr.org/eventsIf you would like to support The Local Church GR's ministry and help us continue reaching people in the Grand Rapids area, click here: https://localchurchgr.org/giveNeed prayer? Please let us know! https://localchurchgr.org/care

Ep 135: The boys recap the Wensco Midwest Sign and Graphics Show in Cleveland, Detroit, and Grand Rapids. Plus, tips on how to save money on your orders from Wensco.Get the offer from Geneva Capital: No Payment for 90 Days, Zero DownCheck out the featured products:Avery Dennison ProductsArlon DPF V9500G2G ProductsMetamark"Your podcast is the best podcast in the business." - Jared Granberry, President, GSG (Graphic Solutions Group)The Slightly Serious Sign Podcast is now the #1 Most Fact Checked Podcast in the United States.Voted #1 by Signman (standing on a van on top of 18 pallets changing a lightbulb over a movie theater sign)https://www.wensco.com/company/slightly-serious-sign-podcast616.785.3333W.A.R. (Wensco Automotive Restyling)Slightly Serious Sign Podcast Theme Song Courtesy of Joe Morreale© 2025 Joe MorrealeThe views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of Wensco Sign Supply. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only. The "Wensco Sign Supply" name and all ...

Originally uploaded July 30th, reloaded September 10th. Chris Holman welcomes back Lisa Frohnapfel, President & CEO, BBB (Better Business Bureau) MI, in Kalamazoo or Grand Rapids today? Welcome back, Lisa. How has uniting most of Michigan's geography for the BBB gone so far? The BBB® of Michigan is just coming off its 9-hour BLAZE AI Summit 2026 in Grand Rapids. Please share some highlights? How does focusing on A.I. match the mission we've come to know for the Better Business Bureau? The BBB® of Michigan is taking nominations and applications for Finalists of the 2026 Torch Awards for Ethics. Tell us about the Torch Awards for Ethics? Please share the significance of the 2026 Awards? Give us some event highlights: who, what, when, where? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Watch MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Ethical leadership strengthens businesses, nonprofits, and the communities they serve. Applications and nominations are open for the BBB Torch Awards for Ethics, honoring organizations that consistently demonstrate integrity, ethical decision-making, and a commitment to building trust.

In Jeremiah babies are central to the plans and purposes of God. In this message we look together at how babies represent both the problems and the blessings that God wants to address today. Please note: This message discusses the issue of abortion, both the sin that it is and the hope that Jesus offers. If abortion – or a pregnancy in difficult circumstances – is part of your story, we want to walk with you in this. For prayer and counsel as you process this sermon, contact Christie Thompson, Calvary Care Ministry Assistant at (616)956-5628 to make an appointment. We have staff and congregants who understand difficult journeys and want to come alongside you. For men and women who have abortion as part of their story, you can find more information and support at Garden of Hope. For women facing a pregnancy in the midst of difficult circumstances, consider joining Flourish – our Bible study for single moms of small children. This group will help you connect with other resources of the church as well. Contact Sheri at (616)956-5524 to learn more. You can also find support and resources through Calvary's community partner, Alpha Grand Rapids. For those grieving a miscarriage or the loss of an infant, Hannah's Heart is a Calvary ministry provides comfort and support for women, couples, and families. They would be so honored to walk with you and encourage you on this incredibly difficult journey. Contact hannahsheart@calvarygr.org. Jim Samra | Minister & Senior Pastor This was recorded live in Grand Rapids, MI on September 20, 2026

Join Tyler and I for a chat before the frontman played a sold out show here in Grand Rapids. Tyler opens up about the bands longevity, getting older, and becoming more comfortable with who you are. How all of these things allowed Theory to get back to making music that actually makes them happy. We talk about knowing when to trust your own instincts. How Tyler navigates being an introvert despite spending his life as a frontman and the balance of vulnerability and humor in his songwriting. Tyler share how “Bad Girlfriend” became an unlikely dive bar and strip club anthem. What fans can expect from their latest EP Part 1: Funeral Songs , the themes tying these songs together, and what “Part 1” might mean for what Theory has coming next and more in this backstage chat with the Theory of a Deadman frontman. Music:Hard Lines by Tom Denney Links:Facebook: www.facebook.com/theorymusicwww.facebook.com/rockabiliacomwww.facebook.com/brewspeakpodInstagram:@theorymusic, @Tylerfromtheory, @rockabiliacom, @brewspeakpod, @jbeatty616Website:www.theoryofficial.comEmail: Brewtallyspeaking@gmail.comRATE/REVIEW/SUBSCRIBE!!!

In Jeremiah babies are central to the plans and purposes of God. In this message we look together at how babies represent both the problems and the blessings that God wants to address today. Please note: This message discusses the issue of abortion, both the sin that it is and the hope that Jesus offers. If abortion – or a pregnancy in difficult circumstances – is part of your story, we want to walk with you in this. For prayer and counsel as you process this sermon, contact Christie Thompson, Calvary Care Ministry Assistant at (616)956-5628 to make an appointment. We have staff and congregants who understand difficult journeys and want to come alongside you. For men and women who have abortion as part of their story, you can find more information and support at Garden of Hope. For women facing a pregnancy in the midst of difficult circumstances, consider joining Flourish – our Bible study for single moms of small children. This group will help you connect with other resources of the church as well. Contact Sheri at (616)956-5524 to learn more. You can also find support and resources through Calvary's community partner, Alpha Grand Rapids. For those grieving a miscarriage or the loss of an infant, Hannah's Heart is a Calvary ministry provides comfort and support for women, couples, and families. They would be so honored to walk with you and encourage you on this incredibly difficult journey. Contact hannahsheart@calvarygr.org. Jim Samra | Minister & Senior Pastor This was recorded live in Grand Rapids, MI on September 20, 2026

Sermon Date: 9-20-2026 Location: City Life Church, Grand Rapids, MI

On this episode of WYCE's Community Closeup, host Phil Tower welcomes Leah Voigt, CEO of Grand Rapids Ballet, for a conversation about her new leadership role and the future of Michigan's only professional ballet company.Voigt previews the 2026–2027 season, including Broken Wings, The Nutcracker, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, Jumpstart, and Fancy Free, while also discussing the Ballet's work beyond the stage through its school, Junior Company, adult dance classes, community outreach, and Moving with Parkinson's program. Our conversation also explores her priorities for growing audiences, expanding educational opportunities, strengthening community partnerships, and ensuring the organization's long-term sustainability.Learn more about Grand Rapids Ballet, the upcoming season, tickets, classes, and community programs at grballet.com.

The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast likes it when ski areas are run by people who are good at running ski areas. Please subscribe to the email newsletter to get new posts the moment they're live. Thank you for supporting independent ski journalism.About CamelbackOwned by: EPR Properties, managed by Peregrine Hospitality (formerly KSL Resorts)Located in: Tannersville, PennsylvaniaYear founded: 1963Pass affiliations:* Ikon Pass: 7 days, no blackouts* Ikon Base Pass: 5 days, holiday blackoutsClosest neighboring ski areas: Shawnee Mountain (:24), Jack Frost (:26), Big Boulder (:27), Skytop Lodge (:29), Saw Creek (:37), Blue Mountain (:41), Pocono Ranchlands (:43), Montage (:44), Hideout (:51), Elk Mountain (1:05), Bear Creek (1:09), Ski Big Bear (1:16)Base elevation: 1,252 feetSummit elevation: 2,079 feetVertical drop: 827 feetSkiable Acres: 166Average annual snowfall: 50 inchesTrail count: 45, with three new trails for 2026-27 (not on the map below, but discussed on the podcast)Lift count: 12 (1 high-speed six-pack, 1 high-speed quad, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 2 doubles, 5 carpets – view Lift Blog's inventory of Camelback's lift fleet)For reference:The Zoom transcript (click “transcript” above for the Substack transcript, then click on any text block to teleport to the associated point in the video; timestamps below DO NOT MATCH THE VIDEO)00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:37.000Stuart Winchester: Welcome to The Storm! I'm your host, Stuart Winchester. Today is Wednesday, September 16th, 2026, and I've got a really good show for you today.00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:45.000Stuart Winchester: we're going to talk some Pennsylvania skiing. And Pennsylvania skiing is a really interesting thing. As I travel around the country.00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:56.000Stuart Winchester: and ski at all these different places in the Midwest, and out West, and in New England, and in the Mid-Atlantic. Uh, and as I talk to folks who… who don't ski that much, or only ski at the big mountains.00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:05.000Stuart Winchester: I'll often bring up some experience I had at a Pennsylvania ski area. Pennsylvania has quite a few ski areas as 21.00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:20.000Stuart Winchester: public chairlift-served ski areas, and it does 2.6 million skier visits on average per year. That is more than any state except for Colorado, California, Utah, Vermont, and New York.00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:26.000Stuart Winchester: It's more than Washington, it's more than Oregon, it's more than Montana, it's more than New.00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:39.000Stuart Winchester: So, Pennsylvania is a really important ski state, which is probably why Vail Resorts owns 8 ski areas there, because it is really close to a lot of population centers. In western PA, you have Pittsburgh.00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:54.000Stuart Winchester: and Seven Springs, and Laurel, and Hidden Valley, and then you have Philadelphia on the east side, and you can also draw up from Baltimore and D.C. for Round Top and Whitetail. And uh…00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:57.000Stuart Winchester: And Jack Frost's Big Boulder up in the Poconos. So…00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:00.000Stuart Winchester: Vail has a big presence there.00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:15.000Stuart Winchester: Icon has a presence there with Camelback and Blue Mountain. Uh, and then Indy Pass just signed their 8th ski area in Pennsylvania with Spring Mountain, uh, down near Philadelphia. So, so it's, it's a place where a lot of skiers start.00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:19.000Stuart Winchester: And it's a little bit of a funny place to ski, because…00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:29.000Stuart Winchester: it tends to have an outsized number of novice skiers, which is great. They're very good at doing that. Uh, but it can make it a little chaotic.00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:38.000Stuart Winchester: And the lift lines can get a little crazy, and people are all over the hill, and sometimes they're walking down the hill because they're frustrated and they're giving up.00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and…00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:44.000Stuart Winchester: You take that as your baseline in Pennsylvania.00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.000Stuart Winchester: And you had any sort of complications.00:05:49.000 --> 00:05:54.000Stuart Winchester: And things get out of hand really quickly. And in general.00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:00.000Stuart Winchester: For that reason, the ski areas that have survived in Pennsylvania.00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:07.000Stuart Winchester: are among the best operators in the world, and I would put that up against anyone.00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:14.000Stuart Winchester: It's a very, very challenging environment, not only because you have a high number of novice skiers.00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:17.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but also because you have…00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:31.000Stuart Winchester: not a ton of snow, sometimes in the west part of the state, where there's higher elevation, they do get a lot of snow, but… but not as a rule, you couldn't count on it for natural snow. Uh, you get a lot of rain, you get a lot of warm-ups.00:06:31.000 --> 00:06:35.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and… and you, in general, have to rely on…00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:42.000Stuart Winchester: a very short season, generally mid-December-ish to mid-March-ish.00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:45.000Stuart Winchester: And the skiers there…00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.000Stuart Winchester: They're they're accustomed to a pretty high standard, so.00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.000Stuart Winchester: So when things do get out of control, uh…00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:04.000Stuart Winchester: They really rebelled, and they really noticed. So, a couple years ago, this is what happened at Camelback. So, Camelback…00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:09.000Stuart Winchester: You know, I don't generally do ops stories, uh…00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:10.000Stuart Winchester: You know.00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:19.000Stuart Winchester: ski area didn't groom this run, or they haven't opened this lift, or, uh, you know, they usually let this bump up, but they don't, or, or…00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:27.000Stuart Winchester: you know, they… they are trying to save money, or they're being cheap. I generally don't bother with those, even though I get a lot of messages.00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:32.000Stuart Winchester: Complaining about things like that, because there's almost always a pretty good reason.00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:38.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, and it's almost always temporary, and it's really not worth the effort.00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:48.000Stuart Winchester: to write the story if I'm just writing about, you know, why Stratton or Mount Snow or Magic Mountain didn't open a certain lift on a certain day.00:07:48.000 --> 00:08:04.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it's, it's a lot to track down and it's a lot of, uh, this person said this and the other person said that. It's just not the kind of thing that I'm want to cover with the storm, right? I want to do bigger stories. I want to do trend stories. I want to look at the culture and evolution of skiing.00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:11.000Stuart Winchester: And the passes, and all the infrastructure, and all the fun stuff. So I don't generally cover the day-to-day stuff, just because…00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:18.000Stuart Winchester: The ski areas that remain in 2026 are, for the most part, run by really good operators.00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:32.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, it… because… and they've survived. Most of the bad ski areas that were either mismanaged or were in the wrong places, they went out of business a long time ago, which is why the number of ski areas has been stable for around 25 years now in America.00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.000Stuart Winchester: So I but I started to notice.00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:45.000Stuart Winchester: several years ago that I was getting an outsized number of complaints around one ski area in particular in the Poconos.00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000Stuart Winchester: And it was Camelback.00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.000Stuart Winchester: And Camelback had a long history of being an independent.00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.000Stuart Winchester: And…00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:54.000Stuart Winchester: Really…00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000Stuart Winchester: the way it's been described to me by… by season pass holders, and I've skied…00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:04.000Stuart Winchester: some at Camelback, but I don't have that depth of knowledge of having grown up there.00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:20.000Stuart Winchester: That Camelback for a long time, for decades, set the standard on snowmaking, on grooming, on just general maintenance of lifts in the ski area in the Poconos. And that was why they had chosen to ski there all those years.00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:30.000Stuart Winchester: But things had started to fall apart when a new owner showed up in 2019. It was at the time KSL Capital, who was.00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:43.000Stuart Winchester: was managing it for EPR Properties, which is the entity that bought it, and they own a bunch of ski areas, EPR Properties, including a bunch owned by Vail, including North Star, and a lot of the old Peak Resorts in Ohio and such.00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:50.000Stuart Winchester: And KSL Resorts was a division of KSL Capital.00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.000Stuart Winchester: which is a part owner of Altera.00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:58.000Stuart Winchester: But for some reason, Altera, which is very good at running ski resorts.00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:00.000Stuart Winchester: did not…00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:15.000Stuart Winchester: get assigned as the… as the owner of Camelback. And when KSL Resorts purchased Blue Mountain, not in Ontario, the Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania, that's about 45 minutes from Camelback, two years later, in 2021.00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:26.000Stuart Winchester: That ski area also did not fall under Altera's ownership. And it was an odd choice to make, because Altera's really good at running ski areas, and they run…00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mammoth, and Deer Valley, and Steamboat, and Solitude, and Palisades Tahoe, and Stratton, and Sugarbush, and they definitely have.00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:41.000Stuart Winchester: the institutional knowledge and internal firepower to be able to run these ski areas in the Poconos.00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:43.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, Blue Mountain…00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:47.000Stuart Winchester: Had the benefit of a long time tenured management team.00:10:47.000 --> 00:11:02.000Stuart Winchester: That kept the place, by all accounts, running pretty well. Camelback, on the other hand, seemed to be falling apart before our eyes, and before the eyes of the loyalist skiers who loved the place so much. And they were really, really concerned, and I started to…00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:08.000Stuart Winchester: Because they had put, uh, a management team in place, it seemed.00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:10.000Stuart Winchester: that…00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:22.000Stuart Winchester: was not familiar with the… with the inner workings of a ski area. Uh, I… I hosted Dave Makarski, the former general manager of Kalenbach, on this podcast.00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:33.000Stuart Winchester: and very nice guy. We had a great conversation. Uh, he's not a skier. And, and, you know, sometimes you can be not a skier and run a great ski resort. Uh, look at Bill Stritzler up at Smuggler's Notch.00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:43.000Stuart Winchester: Bill hasn't skied in years, and he snowboarded for a little bit, but he's not a daily skier. Look at Shawnee.00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:54.000Stuart Winchester: that where the owner… that's one of the most modern, nice ski areas in the Poconos, uh, and the owner has not skied in decades. So, so it's not always necessary, uh, but…00:11:55.000 --> 00:12:10.000Stuart Winchester: It does help and it's certainly a benefit. So everyone I talked to, I was, I was gathering all this stuff for a story and I was gonna write about Camelback and, and it, it really seemed like it was the worst run ski area anywhere that I could find based on the amount of feedback I was getting.00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:25.000Stuart Winchester: I was gathering all this feedback from all these long-time pass holders, and then they hired a new general manager, and so I scrapped the story, but I still wanted to get it, and by all accounts, Jason Bays, who I'll bring on the podcast in a moment.00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:34.000Stuart Winchester: has really done a nice job of turning CamelBak around. So, so let's go to Jason now.00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:16.000Stuart Winchester: My guest today is the Vice President and General Manager of Camelback Ski Area in Pennsylvania.00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:26.000Stuart Winchester: Camelback runs six chairlifts, or maybe seven. I might have had a typo there. Serving 45 trails on an 827-foot vertical drop.00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:41.000Stuart Winchester: Prior to taking the top job at Camelback, he was general manager for Great Wolf Resorts around the United States. He also spent time as chief operating officer and general manager of Mountain Creek Ski Area in New Jersey and director of operations.00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:54.000Stuart Winchester: for Jay Peak, Vermont. His very first jobs as a teenager were as a lifeguard and ski instructor at Camelback. Jason Bay is my guest. Jason, welcome to the Storm. Awesome to have you. How you doing today?00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:00.000Jason Bays: Thank you, Stuart. Great to be here. I've been a listener from day one, so excited to join you.00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:14.000Stuart Winchester: I love that. I'm so hyped to hear that. I know I started with a little Northeast focus. You know, you're the… you probably know this already, but you're the second straight guest I've had on. There was a Mountain Creek alum, Chris Haggerty, on yesterday. Are you acquainted with Chris?00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:18.000Jason Bays: Yeah, Chris and I worked together, um, back in our days at Mountain Creek, great guy.00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah, I'm, uh, I'm not sure, I'm sure you're aware I'm based in New York City and Mountain Creek is one of my go-tos and, and was my home mountain before I started traveling all over the place for the storm. So, so, you know, Jason, I, I think it's awesome that you grew up at Camelback. Tal.00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:41.000Stuart Winchester: your childhood Camelback. What was the kingdom of Camelback like to you, uh, when you were growing up skiing there?00:15:40.000 --> 00:16:03.000Jason Bays: Yeah, look, I, you know, took, I grew up in Pocono Kid, born and raised 10 minutes from the resort. After school ski program was the first, you know, first sort of foray into life at Camelback and was immediately hooked in the summer as a swimming pool and two water slides. I thought that was the most awesome place in the world too.00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:45.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:55.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:21.000Jason Bays: And my parents thought it was a great babysitting service, you know, relative to that. So it was just an awesome, awesome place to grow up and, you know, be part of the small but mighty ski community that is Tannersville, Pennsylvania, in this area, in the Poconos.00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:39.000Jason Bays: um, you know, when it came to get a first job, uh, there's no place I was, uh, gonna consider other than Camelback. It's where all my friends were, it's where we all hung out all the time, and, um, you know, really just got introduced to, uh, to the sport, and, um, had some freedom. It was the first time I had some freedom, and it was to be at Camelback, so that's.00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:56.000Stuart Winchester: So you worked there, and you were part of the machine, so to speak, and I realized you were sort of on the peripheral of the machine, as opposed to in the center of it, as you are now. But, you know, you grew up in the Poconos, and had that experience, and you had this vision of Camelback in your head, right? Then you went off and had a big life, as…00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:57.000Jason Bays: Yes.00:16:56.000 --> 00:17:00.000Stuart Winchester: as people do, and you went and worked at all these places that I just mentioned.00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.000Stuart Winchester: And then you came back to Camelback.00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:06.000Stuart Winchester: When you, when you arrived.00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:10.000Stuart Winchester: How had the place changed? And I just want to tee this up. I, you know.00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:19.000Stuart Winchester: before you came on, I was talking about how I don't generally write operations stories, right? Because it… there's usually a good reason for why a trail is closed, a lift's not running.00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:26.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but a few years ago, I started to get an outsized number of complaints about Camelback.00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:38.000Stuart Winchester: And so I started to write a story about it, and then when you came along, I shelved it, because honestly, everyone immediately was like, oh, this is so much better. So, you know, how had…00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:41.000Stuart Winchester: Camelback changed.00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:42.000Stuart Winchester: when you…00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:44.000Stuart Winchester: Came back to work there.00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:51.000Stuart Winchester: And what were the challenges facing the resort? What did you focus on immediately?00:17:50.000 --> 00:18:08.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I'll just back up to say, you know, just to contextualize, um, from when I was there as a teenager and, um, through college on the ski team, too, I would say that community was a really big word, um, that was used all the time. You, you felt like it was, it was the Camelback community, and there's a really big emphasis on the ski product.00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:28.000Jason Bays: Um, as a ski instructor, like, what we were putting out, how we were doing lessons, how many lessons we could do, and the experience that was surrounding that. And same thing on the water park side. And, you know, I think the, um, you know, some of the observations, um, coming back to Camelback was, um, I think there's a little bit of focus, um, focus direction for, for, like, to focus on the ski product.00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:44.000Jason Bays: and focusing on the water park product, and I sort of look at it as, like, a… as Disney World, right? Whereas we fill out… if we do the ski part well, we do the snow tubing part well, we do the water park well, that puts heads in beds, um, versus trying to put heads in beds.00:18:44.000 --> 00:19:01.000Jason Bays: And then have them do the activities. We're leading with an activity front and centered focus. And that means making the strategic investments in the ski product, in our recreational product, and making that the very best that it can be.00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:23.000Jason Bays: back in 2008 when I was here as a teenager, that was all there was. There was no hotel product, right? So the ski product got outsized attention just naturally because it was a 560-acre resort that identified as a ski area and a water park. And I think some of the context that was missing was that while there's been a great evolution of Camelback as a four-season resort.00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:16.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:40.000Jason Bays: It's really important that, to me, that each of those business units gets the time and attention that they would deserve if they were stand-alone units, particularly because a cog… it's a cog in the wheel, and that wheel is… it's a flywheel. It needs to… it all needs to turn at once, and so we lead with.00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:43.000Jason Bays: the recreational offerings first.00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:48.000Stuart Winchester: You know, you mentioned the community, and I wasn't aware…00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:59.000Stuart Winchester: that there was such a strong community around Camelback, and I'm not surprised, because most ski areas have that group of folks who, you know, they're retirees, and they boot up at 8am, and they take runs together.00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:14.000Stuart Winchester: But they were really passionate, and the running theme, Jason, in the emails and messages that I got from Camelback locals was that they loved Camelback. It wasn't that they hated Camelback, they hated to complain about Camelback.00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.000Stuart Winchester: They wanted to love it, but they couldn't. There was there was.00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:34.000Stuart Winchester: a lot of things they cited, uh, not making snowmaking when it's cold, understaffed grooming, uh, missed lift inspections. I don't know if this is true. This is what people were… they were reaching, I think, for answers. Uh, put it all together, and there was… it was definitely…00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:47.000Stuart Winchester: seemed as though the ski product was not the focus. So when you came in, what did you focus on right away and say, okay, this is what we gotta change, you know, we have to cover every trail 100% right away, or whatever it was?00:20:47.000 --> 00:21:09.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I think that's, look, I would start, you hit the nail on the head that there's a very passionate skiing community here at Camelback and in the Poconos and it means a lot to people. This is second, third generations that are learning to ski here, bring their families here and be part of this. And to your point, everyone wants to be prideful of Camelback, right?00:21:09.000 --> 00:21:24.000Jason Bays: This was the, this was family run for a really long time and, you know, very focused on sort of the, you know, season pass holders renewing year after year.00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:40.000Jason Bays: You know, a couple of things. One is I think that how we authentically tell our story isn't done in a way that is, you know, is done in a way that's authentic. A, bringing back the Camelback Mountain Facebook page that communicated ski related content.00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:39.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:21:40.000 --> 00:22:06.000Jason Bays: Right? I think that, you know, there's only so many things you can say about a hotel room and how exciting it is. Like, we really lead now first with authentically telling the story. Our snow report got a lot more detailed, gave granular information as to what was going on. So, you know, did we have a perfect winter last winter? By all means, no, but we communicated that authentically. And where we messed up, we took.00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:23.000Jason Bays: the blame for it, and said, hey, we didn't get this right, and where we were working to improve the experience, we communicated that… communicated that story. So, to me, it started from a communication standpoint, that we were authentic, that we were honest, that we were truthful, and that we were communicating on a medium that.00:22:23.000 --> 00:22:31.000Jason Bays: our guests would see, um, and relate to. So I think a big miss was, I think, admittedly, a big miss was removing the, um, Camelback Mountain.00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:53.000Jason Bays: social media pages, um, and bringing those back were really important so that, um, we could tell the story authentically. I think SKUs really appreciate, um, knowing what's going on, and to your point on, hey, there's sort of this rumor flying or that rumor flying, um, you know, we were able to, uh, sort of hone in and, and tell, tell that story. Secondarily, I think from an infrastructure standpoint.00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:09.000Jason Bays: um, we really needed to make sure that we had, um, the right team in place. And we have an amazingly talented team at Camelback, um, but we did not have key positions filled, um, in certain areas. Um, and so, we bolstered up the snowmaking. Snowmaking team went from.00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:05.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:08.000Stuart Winchester: Like, what areas?00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:30.000Jason Bays: you know, 3 to 4 to 30, um, this past winter, um, that makes a big difference, right? Our trail rollout was, um, you know, first to open in the East, uh, for Pennsylvania, um, and, uh, um, and, and focus on the core products. Um, same thing with lift operations. We brought in a really experienced lift, uh, maintenance manager.00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:13.000Stuart Winchester: Hey!00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:14.000Stuart Winchester: Wow.00:23:14.000 --> 00:23:16.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:46.000Jason Bays: Um, to our team that really helped, um, support our Lyft, um, uh, operation. Um, decisions on when Lyfts ran and what time they ran, uh, you know, our thought was, let's, um, be more… like, you have to run the Terrain Park Lyft every day.00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:47.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:23:46.000 --> 00:24:06.000Jason Bays: to me, that's a commitment. We make that every day. We say we're running the Glen Lift every day. It services great novice terrain. It services the train park. And so, looking at the operational plan and saying, okay, what are ways that we can give back, you know, and make deposits back to our skiers? And in turn.00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:24.000Jason Bays: that builds momentum, right? People talk, and, like, the ski community is so connected, right? It's like, if you do something, like, people find out about it, because they're really, you know, they hear about it. And so, for us, focus on the core business was, um, you know, from a ski standpoint, was really important, and the infrastructure.00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:13.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:41.000Jason Bays: to be able to do it. And I would just, lastly, just say I go back to making sure that our team had the resources to do their job. We're supported, we're empowered, collaborative leadership, you know, we sat around the table and said, this is the operating plan, this is what we're going to do for our guests.00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:46.000Jason Bays: And then go out and execute it to the best we can.00:24:45.000 --> 00:25:03.000Stuart Winchester: You know, Jason, I, I, I think you could have run for governor with one of the first things that you did, which was get rid of paid parking. I, I, I don't think that I've ever, uh, heard people happier about anything. Now, now, and let me, let me qualify this, right? I think in, in some instances, paid parking and parking reservations.00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:05.000Stuart Winchester: make sense.00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:18.000Stuart Winchester: you know, super high volume days. Arapahoe Basin, I think, is a model in Colorado where they only charge for certain days and certain times, and they keep backing off which days as they learn when they really need it. Camelback was charging every day.00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:36.000Stuart Winchester: All day, you know, a Monday with, you know, 10 people on the mountain, they were charging for it. And, you know, acknowledging that sometimes it's appropriate, I think Camelback got pretty out of hand with it, and when I had Mr. Markowski on the podcast, great guy, we had a great conversation, but he was not backing off that. He said, nope, paid parking.00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:51.000Stuart Winchester: we're all in. You said no. So talk about that and how you sold. I'd imagine it was a revenue stream, right? And you had to sell management on that, and I don't know if I'm giving you credit for something someone else did, but talk to us about parking and the evolution there.00:25:51.000 --> 00:26:12.000Jason Bays: Yeah, that was a week one decision from the Camelback team when I got here made from our leadership team at Camelback that everyone was in alignment on our senior leadership team here at the property and myself to remove the paid parking. And I think definitely there's actually you have so many nice pictures behind you.00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:30.000Jason Bays: I have a picture of the old paid parking sign behind me there, if you can see it on the corner, and it actually serves to me as a reminder of the guest experience, because someone's put a sticker on that paid parking sign that you probably can't see there, but it says, Ski Camelback, we're not happy until you're not happy.00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:48.000Jason Bays: Um, and it's a reminder to, to me and our team, um, that we're here to have fun, and we're here for the guest experience, and we're here to live, live and breathe fun Camelback style. This is not a, um, you know, we want guests to look forward to, to being here. And I think, you know, yes, there was.00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:38.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:26:48.000 --> 00:27:05.000Jason Bays: So obviously we ran a financial model. We didn't just, you know, get rid of paid parking and not assume, you know, that there wasn't some revenue to be recaptured elsewhere with a strategy to do it. But I think more importantly, you know, think about it.00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:22.000Jason Bays: a non-busy day, it might even be raining, it's 40 degrees, the last thing you want is someone running around a parking lot telling you, like, hey, I need you to hand over $15, and by the way, then you're gonna schlep your stuff up two different levels of parking, um, you know, that might be even charged higher, and then get to.00:27:18.000 --> 00:27:19.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:38.000Jason Bays: uh, the mountain and go to guest services. You know, I have a 3-year-old. If my wife and I went skiing, that would be an incredible amount of friction, um, just to get to, uh, the front of the mountain. And so I think putting ourselves in the guest lens of saying, is that really what we want the guests to experience?00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:53.000Jason Bays: Um, it's not, and, and it was a burden to everyone at this, you know, you think I'm talking about, we talked to frontline associates too, like, the first thing that they had to tell people was that they had to pay for parking. You just imagine, sort of, the cascading effect that, that, that, uh, that that had, and we said, look, is there.00:27:53.000 --> 00:28:09.000Jason Bays: Um, is there a better way? Um, can we run shuttles to these lots and pick people up and bring them to the mountain and make them feel, um, you know, like our valued… like our valued guests? What does that arrival experience look like? Um, you know, that's really what we… what we looked at, and then said, okay.00:28:09.000 --> 00:28:25.000Jason Bays: can we… ultimately, will we drive more volume here? Will more people come because of a better guest experience? And I'll say that I would rather grow the sport, grow the industry. Our team would rather grow the sport and grow the industry than figuring out how to.00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:35.000Jason Bays: You know, sort of, you know, run a secondary ancillary business that's not to our core product and what we want our guests to experience here.00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:48.000Stuart Winchester: You know, it's a little counterintuitive, but sometimes, by removing a revenue stream, you get that less-is-more effect. Another example, your season pass, you know, according to my records.00:28:48.000 --> 00:29:04.000Stuart Winchester: Starting in 2020 to ‘21, the season pass was $599 at its early bird price, and it hovered between that and $649 for the next five years. This year, you put it on sale for $399. It's still at that price for unlimited Camelback.00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:20.000Stuart Winchester: That's a great bargain for, uh, for a season pass on the East Coast, and, you know, for the listeners, you are competing with the Epic Pass, which has Jack Frost, Big Boulder, right down the road, a couple exits down I-80, and their Northeast season pass is pretty affordable, and it's a pretty good deal.00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:33.000Stuart Winchester: So… so talk to us about that decision and… and… and how… how that $399 is worth it. You also wrote back, if you want to talk about, uh, the… the triple pack. I thought that was great, and I don't have the price right in front of me, but… but you've really done a lot to… to…00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:39.000Stuart Winchester: create more of a value experience for that loyal Camelback skier, from my point of view.00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:55.000Jason Bays: Yeah, thank you, and that's definitely the goal. Um, you know, I think our thought process here is let's get more people on Snow, um, and have them have a great experience while they're here. Um, I would love to tell you that there's some master business plan behind this.00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:29:55.000 --> 00:30:10.000Jason Bays: But, you know, truly, at the heart of what we do is, let's figure out how to get more people on snow, get them to a spot where they want to come back and learn and be part of it. And guess what I would just share to that is.00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:24.000Jason Bays: you know, we were charging a day ticket in 2025 of $169, um, at its highest point, right? And I would rather have a lifelong… I would rather have one per… I would much rather, I think from business proposition, we would rather have.00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:17.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:39.000Jason Bays: one person definitely not come and spend $15 to $40 to park and $169 and say, I'm never coming back, versus $399, now they're like, wow, this place is awesome, I'm getting a great value, I bring my family.00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:33.000Stuart Winchester: Damn.00:30:39.000 --> 00:31:01.000Jason Bays: I want to come enjoy food and beverage. And hey, by the way, we also have this great snow tubing park and this great water park. And would you like to stay at our hotel when you come with your season pass and enjoy Aquatopia? And we're debuting The Curse of Camelback this fall, right? Which is the Halloween, if you haven't heard, it's a Halloween 13 scare zones. Take a chair, lift up to it.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:03.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:31:01.000 --> 00:31:24.000Jason Bays: But I say all that to say we've got so many great cross marketing promotional opportunities at Camelback that that really becomes a super compelling business case for us. And I think it's the right thing to do for the sport is grow it, make it more accessible, allow more people to come here and see what we have to offer. I can't tell you how many people I meet, whether it's snow tubing, skiing.00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:41.000Jason Bays: water park, the hotel, whatever they're here for, CBKMA or Adventure Park, they have no idea that the other part exists to, um, the resort. And I'll share that that's been the case even in, like, when I was, uh, at Jay Peak running the water park.00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:34.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm. Okay.00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:43.000Jason Bays: People would come there, and they'd be like.00:31:43.000 --> 00:32:02.000Jason Bays: what is this mountain that is here? And it's Jay Peak, like, one of the most hardcore ski resorts in the world. And there were people that were coming there and were like, I had no idea there was a ski resort here. So, if it's true at Jay Peak, it certainly is true at Camelback, where.00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:49.000Stuart Winchester: Right.00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:53.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:00.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:02.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:32:02.000 --> 00:32:19.000Jason Bays: we have all these different offerings that people don't know about, maybe necessarily about all of them, so our fundamental business philosophy is make it accessible, make them lifelong, um, skiers and riders, and introduce them to everything that we have to offer here in the Poconos. And I would just argue, when I say Poconos.00:32:19.000 --> 00:32:41.000Jason Bays: Like go, like experience Shawnee and experience Jack Frost Big Boulder and experience, you know, the other great ski areas in this region and Mountain Creek and wherever else and get a flavor for it. I think that's, we could use more skiers in the industry and to grow the sport. So for us, that's sort of the long-term business model that we're using.00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:58.000Stuart Winchester: So, I just looked at the triple ticket, and it looks like $149, and I think that's no blackouts. $199 includes rentals. That's pretty amazing. So, talk about that product, and then you mentioned the $169 peak day ticket. Have you settled on prices yet for 2020?00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:03.000Stuart Winchester: 6, 27. I should have checked your site in advance, but I didn't. So I don't know if you've.00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:21.000Jason Bays: Yeah, we have not, uh, posted, uh, day ticket prices for this year. Last year, um, we didn't exceed around $110, um, on a day ticket. Uh, so we kept it, I think, pretty reasonable for, for, for a, for a Pocono offering. Um, triple tickets, massive, um, success, uh, for us.00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:12.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, okay.00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:15.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, yeah.00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:37.000Jason Bays: Um, and when we talk about, like, again, getting more people introduced to the sport, you don't necessarily pick up skiing on the first time. Um, you think about that rental product, which we, um, tremendously… whatever we had on the pro forma for that was, uh, blown by by, like.00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:33:37.000 --> 00:33:53.000Jason Bays: 400% on the triple ticket with rentals. And what I really believe in is that, you know, you become a lifelong skier by getting repetition, not by going once a year. It's really hard to sustain as a skier going once a year.00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:52.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:33:53.000 --> 00:34:11.000Jason Bays: and saying, oh yeah, that was our trip. We're really trying to create a guest for life and get them to return visit. That's in many ways more important to us than, again, trying to get, like, the highest yield on that one day that they picked. Like, come back and visit our resort and, um, you know, again, the business side to this is.00:34:11.000 --> 00:34:28.000Jason Bays: we're cross-marketing across all of our other offerings here that we have on this campus to say, come and visit us again. And again, to us, that's more important than, you know, the highest yield that we can get to. So the triple ticket's really successful. And I think one last thing I would share.00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:46.000Jason Bays: a lot of season passes in the market right now, um, the triple ticket's a great opportunity for people to get a couple of days at Camelback, even if they've committed somewhere else, and particularly, you know, our long season, um, there's plenty of time to use it, um, as well, uh, from the, uh, long season that we established from last year.00:34:46.000 --> 00:34:50.000Stuart Winchester: Jason, I think that's a really smart way to look at it as…00:34:50.000 --> 00:34:57.000Stuart Winchester: a… creating a habit rather than pulling as much yield as possible. And a lot of the larger operators.00:34:57.000 --> 00:35:11.000Stuart Winchester: get frustrated with me and the rest of the ski media because they don't understand why we focus on that peak price, right? Because the peak lift ticket this year at Beaver Creek is $392, set to be. Probably almost no one will pay that price, but…00:35:11.000 --> 00:35:28.000Stuart Winchester: What it does is it acts as a, a billboard for the rest of the ski industry and especially so, so Camelback for, for people who don't know when you're driving on I 80 I mean, you see it, it looms right over the highway. It is one of the major interstates in America, especially at night. The thing is lit up.00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:46.000Stuart Winchester: And so, chances are, if people think about skiing, and they think about where to go, they're gonna think about the most obvious one, and that's Camelback, and that's why, for many years, it was that, or Seven Springs was the busiest ski area in Pennsylvania, traditionally. So I think that's a really smart way to look at it, because if people show up that one time, and.00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:59.000Stuart Winchester: cost them, you know, $500 for 2 people, they're just not gonna come back, and they're not gonna try Shawnee, or… or Blue Mountain, or Jack Frost, or Elk Mountain, or Montage. So, um, I wanna talk about… Jason, I wanna talk about Lyft.00:35:59.000 --> 00:36:16.000Stuart Winchester: And… can you see this trail map? This is an old trail map. I mentioned that I know this, so for those watching on StormSkiing.com or YouTube, you can see this. So there's been a ton of changes, and I want to break all these down with you. The first I want to talk about is, over the past couple years.00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mark Antony and Cleopatra, these two lifts right here, an old triple and an old double, have been removed. Can you talk about why you took those lifts out of service, and if you plan to replace them with anything, or what you planned, or what the rationale was behind it?00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:49.000Jason Bays: Yeah, I appreciate that. Uh, that does predate my time here, that they had reached the end of their, um, uh, ability to operate. Um, and so they have, um, both been, um, sort of partially disassembled. Um, there is unfortunately not.00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:37.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:41.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:47.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:36:49.000 --> 00:37:05.000Jason Bays: I, by the way, two of my favorite lifts when I was a ski instructor, because you could get right up and not wait in long lines on the weekends, so absolutely realizing and recognizing the capacity that they brought, but no opportunity for us to.00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:02.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:23.000Jason Bays: um, reinstate those lifts as presently, um, as presently, uh, uh, sort of, um, situated, um, and, and not, not, not able to, uh, um, not able to, uh, rerun them. It will require a, um, new, uh, chairlift to, um, to ultimately replace.00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:37.000Jason Bays: those two lifts. It saddens me to share that, but that is, in fact, what has happened there, and I've been very open with our season pass holders about that messaging and the why behind it.00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:41.000Stuart Winchester: So, so in fantasy ski resort world, Jason.00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:46.000Stuart Winchester: Would you put a new lift here, and what would you put, if you could?00:37:45.000 --> 00:38:04.000Jason Bays: Yeah, absolutely. Um, same thing. We've, uh, we've made clear, uh, with no time, no official time frame to share, um, but certainly, uh, we've, we've, um, had, uh, preliminary conversations, um, about a fixed grip, um, quad that would, uh, would be able to take the place of both of those lifts, uh, and create that.00:38:03.000 --> 00:38:04.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:10.000Jason Bays: original redundancy that those two lifts brought to the resort when they were in operation.00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:27.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, that would be really nice. So, so, so these are gone and I, I have a, a current trail map now. So, um, and, and it's not completely current. We'll discuss the new trails in a moment, but this is the most current posted on your website. So, uh, we go over, these are the lifts that remain and see, uh, yeah, I, I miscounted in my intro, so sorry about that.00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:42.000Stuart Winchester: So this one is Stevenson, and Stevenson was, uh, it's a high-speed quad, uh, for the listeners, and it… it was a real junker. It was always stop, stop, stop, and, you know, it was… it was really… seemed to be falling apart and have a lot of issues. Now, uh, in 2020…00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:51.000Stuart Winchester: 5, this year, or 2024, I believe, Camelback, uh, McCarthy, the GM at the time, sent out a letter saying it was due for a…00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:53.000Stuart Winchester: Waltz.00:38:53.000 --> 00:39:02.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, let me see what he said… like, a complete modernization of Stevenson. So, so did that happen? And talk to us about Stevenson, and what kind of shape it's in right now.00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:20.000Jason Bays: Yeah, great, um, yes, that was a, uh, look, an amazing, um, project that was completed by, uh, by Dave and team, um, to modernize that lift. Um, it has, essentially, Doppelmayr came in and put in an entire new, uh, minus the, uh, minus the, uh, uh, the terminals and the.00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:35.000Jason Bays: Um, uh, and the structure itself, um, essentially all new components, all new electrical, um, uh, wiring components to it, a lot of the things that had plagued it. Um, and last year, uh, it operated 138 days.00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:36.000Stuart Winchester: Unbelievable.00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:53.000Jason Bays: Uh, which for Pennsylvania, uh, that's pretty darn good. I think we recognize it's a workhorse, um, it's key to accessing some really, um, fantastic terrain for us, um, and that modernization project with Doppel… in, um, partnership with Doppelmeyer that was done in the summer and fall of 2025.00:39:53.000 --> 00:39:54.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:39:53.000 --> 00:40:08.000Jason Bays: um, was, uh, very, uh, so it's all immediate impact, um, with, uh, Stevenson Reliability this past year, and we expect that to, uh, you know, knock on wood, to, uh, to continue going forward. We essentially, again, have a brand new lift, minus the, uh.00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:10.000Jason Bays: Uh, minus the physical pieces.00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:26.000Stuart Winchester: That's a really smart way to do it because they are tremendously expensive, these new lifts. And for folks who are watching or listening, this Stevenson is really important because you walk out of this giant hotel that's right here, that's not on the trail map with 400 and some rooms, and that is how you get up the mountain. Otherwise you got to.00:40:26.000 --> 00:40:41.000Stuart Winchester: pull your way over, so when that lift is not running or has problems, it's a real big issue. So, the alternative was, over here, Black Bear 6, uh, you replaced an old high-speed quad that was there, and… and I love this Black Bear 6 lift. It is…00:40:41.000 --> 00:41:01.000Stuart Winchester: Freakin' Ferrari, man. I think the price they gave me was something like $12 million that they spent, or maybe it was $10 to put that in. So that's the alternative, right? If you don't just modernize that current lift, you replace it. So, uh, Black Bear is awesome. I love it. It has bubbles. Is it too much? I mean, I know that KSL Now Peregrine had reasons for.00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:16.000Stuart Winchester: for putting it in, but what have you learned from a couple of years of having BlackBerry around, which is, again, probably the nicest lift in the state of Pennsylvania and one of the nicest in the Northeast, but maybe a little heavier than what you need for CamelBak, but I don't know, you tell me.00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:41.000Jason Bays: Yeah, you know, you know what I would share to that, um, you know, we, we brought it back for scenic chairlift rides this summer, and I mean, it's a massive hit. The summer, summer guests love, uh, the bubbles, they put them down when it's sunny, they put them down, um, probably gets more use in the summer as a bubble lift than the winter, uh, but look, it's, it's nice to, uh, have on the days where, you know, there's some liquid precipitation out here. It certainly happens in the Poconos.00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:24.000Stuart Winchester: Hmm.00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:35.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:58.000Jason Bays: um, and, uh, and, and or, um, uh, you know, other, other weather events, it's, it's, it's a nice to have, um, and it certainly, it gets you up in, you know, a little bit over two minutes. Um, it's a smooth ride, it's a great ride. Um, you are not going to get any complaints from me that we have a, um.00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:52.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:11.000Jason Bays: bubble, D-line, six-pack, um, in place, uh, and able to operate as our main workhorse lift. Um, and, uh, I think the six-pack versus the quad was absolutely the right, uh, call. Um…00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:27.000Jason Bays: from my experience being here before with the Sullivan Express, um, with the four-seater, the six-seater, just the… the added, uh, ability, uh, there is, uh, is… is well worth it. So, uh, we're happy to have that… happy to have that lift. I… I wouldn't, uh… I wouldn't…00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:31.000Jason Bays: We won't be trading it in at this point. Let's put it that way.00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:38.000Stuart Winchester: It is a gorgeous machine, and I have to tell you, I'm that weird person who, if there's a line on one lift.00:42:38.000 --> 00:42:56.000Stuart Winchester: And no line on the lift next to it. Even if it's a slower lift, I'll take the slower lift, because I just would rather not deal with the hassle of the line. So right here, for those who are watching, is the Bailey Double, and this is an old chair lift. It's an old slow double, it runs almost exactly parallel to Black Bear 6, doesn't land quite as high.00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:16.000Stuart Winchester: on the mountain, but functionally, it does about the same thing for you. So I like Bailey, and I was glad to see that not only did you keep it, and it does run, and that was true even under the previous regime, but you got a new gearbox for it, which is a really big deal for a lift like this in several decades. Also, talk about the work you've done on Bailey, and how you hope to use that lift.00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:18.000Stuart Winchester: this year to complement Black Bear.00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:21.000Jason Bays: Yeah, so, um, Bailey Lift…00:43:21.000 --> 00:43:32.000Jason Bays: full disclosure, Bailey Lift, Meadows Lift, Raceway Lift, and our season pass holders are very aware of this. Um, unfortunately, uh, we're not, um…00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:41.000Jason Bays: ready for day one of last year, um, or even close. And so, uh, we had to do a lot of, um…00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:35.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:57.000Jason Bays: normal PM maintenance, um, throughout the, um, end of fall and into winter to have all of them operational. Um, what I share to that is, um, we will run, just level set here really quickly, we will run all the lifts that we have on this trail map.00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:44.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:02.000Jason Bays: Um, and take care of them, maintain them, operate them.00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:18.000Jason Bays: Staff them, everything that you would do to run the extra capacity, we certainly need it. We'd like more capacity, actually. So that being said, Bailey Lift is critical. We got it back online.00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:10.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah. Okay.00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:34.000Jason Bays: End of January, it ran for 2 or 3 weekends, and we had a failed gearbox, um, on it, which is really unfortunate. Um, this off-season, uh, we've replaced the gearbox, we've done a full PM over the course of the summer on it, which is…00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:50.000Jason Bays: the, as you, as everyone knows, the ideal time, uh, to be, um, conducting such work, um, so that it is ready on, uh, day one. Um, it is a critical backup lift. We will run it every weekend.00:44:50.000 --> 00:45:07.000Jason Bays: Um, that we're, you know, in season, I would say in the heart of season, we're gonna run it. Won't be shy to not run it. Um, same thing with the Meadows, same thing with the Glen, same thing with the Raceway, which, um, you know, I know that that was, um, certainly chief among the complaints of.00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:22.000Jason Bays: locals and guests who were visiting from out of town alike was Lyft availability, Lyft reliability. That was something that we focused as fast as we could on last year, but we're setting ourselves up this year to be.00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:39.000Jason Bays: um, very proactive to that, and recognizing the importance of, of each of, uh, uh, you know, each of these. And look, every once in a while, uh, if the, you always want to have, like, Bailey is critical because it's the only other, if there's Black Bear, without Black Bear, it's the only other thing left, right?00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:38.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:45:39.000 --> 00:45:55.000Jason Bays: Um, and so, uh, you know, I think the, you know, back in the, when I was here, like, every Lyft ran on the weekends. It was Camelback. Um, it was busy, right? Like, everything was going. That's, that's essentially our, our, our philosophy, um, will continue to be our philosophy going forward.00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:11.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, Jason, I'll admit, I didn't come to Camelback last season, so I wasn't able to experience it firsthand. I really wanted to come to your May thing, which I'll talk about, I'll get to in a minute, but I had a shoulder surgery, so I wasn't able to do that. But I wasn't only basing my perceptions of C.00:46:11.000 --> 00:46:19.000Stuart Winchester: on locals' reactions. I had skied there myself in recent years, and the lift line management, I have to say.00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:21.000Stuart Winchester: It was…00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:33.000Stuart Winchester: really frustrating from a skier point of view, when you're waiting for the Stevenson lift, and there's a big line, and every chair is going up with one or two people, and this is not peak COVID or anything else, this is several years later.00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:50.000Stuart Winchester: So, you know, and I had a lot of locals tell me, oh, we walk up Sun Bowl because the lift line is just too chaotic. People come from both sides. No, no, again, that was all before. What's your philosophy of lift line management? How have you tried to tame that? And there's always, it's always going to be a little wild and hard in Pennsylvan.00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:56.000Stuart Winchester: Uh, but they could definitely have been managed better. Is that something that was important to you, that you focused on?00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:15.000Jason Bays: Yeah, we focused on that. We have a new lift operations manager that was hired in November of 2025, who took the bull by the horns. We developed a supervisor team in fairly short order to that as well, to build out a well-rounded team. And then I would just share that our lift attendants.00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:32.000Jason Bays: All hired locally within the community. And I think that we were fully staffed in LiftOps this year, which was a big, very big win. It starts there, right? A, the people, and then B, the right people.00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:23.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:49.000Jason Bays: um, on the, uh, on the bus, um, as a catalyst to drive, uh, lift operations forward. Um, and then absolutely, uh, we focused on, uh, line management, queuing, um, we set new, in some cases, new queues. We had, um, uh, supervisors, in many cases, out.00:47:49.000 --> 00:48:04.000Jason Bays: um, putting up chairs, um, and, um, and managing the lift line. We added, once we got that right, and we felt like we were in a good spot, and we, you know, look, I think, admittedly, a couple technology hiccups here and there, it was not a perfect, uh.00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:17.000Jason Bays: we didn't, like, on opening day, it wasn't perfect, but, uh, we improved, it was a big focus for our team, and I think when we talk about fundamental ski operation, um, if we just were a ski area, we would absolutely be focusing on.00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:08.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:36.000Jason Bays: lift queuing, but we have to do that, like, we have to execute that every day because we are a ski area, um, and that's core to our business, and so that's important. Um, then we added, once we got queuing, uh, uh, correct, we added surprise and delights. Lift, uh, chocolate chip cookies were massively popular.00:48:36.000 --> 00:49:04.000Jason Bays: We handed out over 15,000 chocolate chip cookies this winter at the Stevenson lift line. And so, you know, then it becomes fun, right? Then it's the hospitality side of the business of how do we engage with our guests now that we have full chairs going up for the most part off of the Stevenson and the Black Bear and the Sun Bowl. So we hired extra associates to do that, to surprise and delight, to help our guests.00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:42.000Stuart Winchester: Cool.00:49:04.000 --> 00:49:20.000Jason Bays: The one other thing I would just share is Sunbowl is a great example. How many people get down to the Sunbowl and have never ridden a lift before? And so you need that extra human touch to be able to help. It's not even just putting people in groups of four. It's just helping them with like, here's where you go to load the lift. Here's what you do.00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:14.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:21.000Stuart Winchester: Yep.00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:33.000Jason Bays: Um, I think that that investment in our people to provide that service to our guests is very well worth it, and it's the difference between someone having a bad experience getting on a lift and never coming back.00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:43.000Jason Bays: or having a great experience, feeling well cared for, and wanting to try again. Um, and so that, that, that was, um, you know, I think that's a core, um, focus for us.00:49:43.000 --> 00:50:02.000Stuart Winchester: So, one of the ways that I can tell the resort is being run by a skier, in addition to all the things you just said, and your passion for the minutiae of things like lift lines, which I share, is that you're cutting 3 new trails in a resort that's 60 years old, and I love that. So, talk us through these trails, Jason. I'll do my best to trace them.00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:08.000Stuart Winchester: on the trail map. I don't have the updated trail map, I don't know if you've created it yet, but talk us through these three trails.00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:25.000Jason Bays: Yeah, so we're really excited. Look, this, you know, came after, you know, the so many guests, new guests that visited us at Camelback this past season. We said, you know what, let's do something fun and exciting. And like, you know, you think about how.00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:43.000Jason Bays: Um, yeah, I just, you know, if someone said, anyone puts in a new trail, uh, the skier in me wants to drive to that resort, no matter how big or small, and be like, alright, like, let's do it. Um, and our team feels, uh, you know, much of the same way. So, um, that being said, uh, we had a lot of natural snowfall this year, so…00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:33.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:36.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah.00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:37.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, sure. Yeah.00:50:43.000 --> 00:50:59.000Jason Bays: I was acutely paying attention to where people were skiing when we had natural snowfall, where they wanted to go, and then, you know, maybe following those lines, too, and seeing what the fun was about. So, my point to all of that is, we said, let's create some, and I think for Camelback, too.00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:48.000Stuart Winchester: Mm-hmm.00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:15.000Jason Bays: it's very, um, you know, we wanted to create something that was sort of unique. I didn't want to just put in, like, regular trails that, A, we don't have a lot of space for regular trails, and B, um, we really wanted to create sort of unique experience. So, right underneath Black Bear, um, in between Sullivan and John Bailey there.00:51:07.000 --> 00:51:09.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:30.000Jason Bays: um, there's a, um, there's a chute, um, where the old Alpine Slide used to go. Basculus goes back into Rocket, uh, but underneath there is some really fun rolling terrain. Like, it's, it's because the mountain, the, uh, Alpine Slide.00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, thank you.00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:54.000Jason Bays: back in the day did had several dips and curves and so we're going to lean into those dips and curves and create something sort of fun that you can get some you know launch some airtime off of if you want or carve a turn over it but it'll have some some really nice terrain variation in a way that most trails at Camelback don't have and they're coming off of an expert trail there so.00:51:54.000 --> 00:52:06.000Jason Bays: um, gives, uh, you know, anyone skiing Asp, Hump, Rocket, um, or Basilisk would be able to reach that trail, um, and, uh, and be able to, uh, just have a little bit more excitement on the way back down.00:52:06.000 --> 00:52:08.000Jason Bays: Um…00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:20.000Jason Bays: Upper Cleopatra there, if you go to the, uh, where the U is, uh, or where Upper is, we're gonna cut a trail through the woods there that's going to end up on the bottom of Big Pocono.00:52:19.000 --> 00:52:21.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:31.000Jason Bays: Um, so it's gonna go down and across. So, um, that… um, and I see where your cursor is. If you go to the… where it says Upper on Upper Cleopatra.00:52:26.000 --> 00:52:29.000Stuart Winchester: So, like, here? Or…00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:32.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, upper…00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:54.000Jason Bays: So, Big Pocono, that's Uncle B. Yeah, right there. Yep, we're going through there. Yeah, so that's gonna be, that's a narrow blue square. So, you know, I think one of the things that's fun for us is we're gonna create a blue square there. That used to be a trail back in the 60s and 70s, fun fact, when Walter Foger was designing Camelback.00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:37.000Stuart Winchester: Upper… oh, this one. Okay, so you're cutting through here?00:52:37.000 --> 00:52:39.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool. Okay.00:52:49.000 --> 00:52:51.000Stuart Winchester: Oh, cool.00:52:54.000 --> 00:53:09.000Jason Bays: Um, that being said, um, the… actually, it got filled in with pine trees, so it's gonna be really cool, because there's pine trees on both sides. Um, we made it narrow, so we kept the pine trees, um, and so that's gonna be a really fun, um, sort of narrow… I think about, like, the, um.00:52:58.000 --> 00:52:59.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:03.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool. It's pretty.00:53:09.000 --> 00:53:26.000Jason Bays: the ending of Jay Peak with some of the blues at the very bottom there by Interstate. We're trying to sort of have that, obviously in a much smaller zone, have that same effect, though, where you're feeling like you're really in the trees, and you've got some nice twists and turns to it. It's not terribly steep.00:53:12.000 --> 00:53:13.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, okay.00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:44.000Jason Bays: Um, two things on that trail. One is, it takes traffic off of Honeymoon Lane, which is a main boulevard, it pushes it onto the Sphinx, which has much more trail capacity, which is great, um, comfortable carrying capacity, and secondarily, um, on weekends, we're gonna have a hot chocolate, um, hut that people can ski up to.00:53:31.000 --> 00:53:32.000Stuart Winchester: Mmhm.00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:52.000Jason Bays: Um, and get shots of hot chocolate, um, as well, so we're excited to, um, uh, to offer that to our guests. We think that'll be really fun.00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:47.000Stuart Winchester: That's cool.00:53:51.000 --> 00:53:53.000Stuart Winchester: That was awesome.00:53:53.000 --> 00:54:17.000Jason Bays: And then the Stevenson, it's going to drop on the cliffhanger side and drop down that lift line and go right down into the Faroe there and follow that lift line. Vermont skiing in a very short array but very much Vermont skiing, that's an intimidating drop. Stevenson for those that may not be familiar has a extremely.00:53:53.000 --> 00:53:55.000Stuart Winchester: And it.00:53:58.000 --> 00:53:59.000Stuart Winchester: Okay.00:54:08.000 --> 00:54:09.000Stuart Winchester: Yeah, I think so.00:54:17.000 --> 00:54:34.000Jason Bays: extremely tight, um, and high, uh, crest of the lift, because the mountain crests, um, really steeply. Well, we're gonna ski that, um, and, uh, and make snow on it, and, uh, and, and, uh, and allow our guests to, uh, um, and allow skiers to, uh, to, to, to test, um, you know, a more narrow.00:54:34.000 --> 00:54:44.000Jason Bays: um, uh, trail up there that has a really great expansive view ov

Original Air Date: 09/19/26 Episode Number: 477Episode SummaryThis week on Home In Progress, Dan covers paint store tools you've probably walked past without a second look, and explains why each one is worth having. They include FrogTape (green and yellow), the painter's five-in-one tool, a brush comb, the Handy Paint Pail, the Wooster Pelican Pail and the Wooster Sherlock system. Then he gets into ombre walls, a painted gradient where one color slowly melts into the next with no hard line between them. He explains what the look is, where it works and which direction the colors can run, then walks through the full process from choosing colors to blending wet paint. The episode wraps up with a fall list: jobs to get on the calendar now, plus a few fun things to do before the season gets away from us.Timestamps[00:00] -- Show Preview [01:09] -- FrogTape Clean Lines [03:28] -- Yellow FrogTape Delicate [04:29] -- Five In One Tool [05:28] -- Brush Comb Care [06:15] -- Handy Paint Pail [07:24] -- Pelican Pail Combo [08:28] -- Wooster Sherlock System [09:32] -- Ombre Walls Explained [10:02] -- Color Capping Context [10:59] -- What Ombre Means [15:20] -- Where Ombre Works [16:29] -- Ombre Direction Choices [18:50] -- How To Paint Ombre [19:27] -- Ombre Recap Practical [20:43] -- Ombre Wall Basics [21:36] -- Choose Three Colors [23:20] -- Prep and Base Coat [24:04] -- Map the Color Zones [25:23] -- Blend Like a Pro [28:55] -- Corners Tape and Edges [29:57] -- Practice and Dry Time [33:14] -- Fall Checklist Begins [33:51] -- Chimneys Apples Gutters [35:21] -- Trips and Winter Prep [37:20] -- Historic Homes and Furnace [38:36] -- Last Fall Fun and WrapPaint Tools You've Walked Past [01:09]Some of the most useful things in a paint store don't look like much on the shelf. Once you know what they do, painting gets a lot easier.Green FrogTape. FrogTape has PaintBlock Technology along its edges. When latex paint touches that edge, the water in the paint makes it react and form a tiny barrier, so paint doesn't creep under the tape. You still need a clean surface, a firmly pressed edge and a light hand with the paint, but the lines come out much sharper. Through the end of September, RepcoLite has 1.5-inch green FrogTape 3-packs for $12.99, which works out to about $4.33 a roll.Yellow FrogTape [03:28]. This is the same clean-line technology in a delicate surface tape. It's made for freshly painted surfaces that have dried, and for wallpaper. Regular tape on those surfaces can pull paint or damage the paper when it comes off.Five-in-one and seven-in-one tools [04:29]. They look like oddly shaped putty knives, but each part has a job. The flat blade scrapes and spreads patching compound. The pointed corner digs out and opens up cracks before you patch them. The half-moon curve squeezes paint out of a roller cover while you wash it. Some versions also open paint cans or have a flip-out screwdriver.Brush comb [05:28]. This is a small steel comb you run through the bristles while cleaning a brush. It separates the bristles so water gets deeper in, and it pulls out paint that has built up near the ferrule. That buildup slowly ruins a good brush. A comb costs very little and adds years to a brush.Handy Paint Pail and Handy Paint Cup [06:15]. Both are hand-held containers for cutting in. A magnet on the side holds your brush, so it doesn't sink into the paint when you need a free hand. They clean up and can be reused.Wooster Pelican Pail [07:24]. It's a similar idea with a brush magnet, plus an angled roll-off area for mini rollers up to about 4.5 inches. You can cut in, stick the brush to the magnet, roll a section and go back to the brush, all from one pail. Liners are available.Wooster Sherlock System [08:28]. These roller frames and extension poles lock together. You don't thread anything, and nothing spins loose while you work. You can swap frame sizes and change pole length in a few seconds.Ombre Walls: What They Are and Where They Work [09:32]A couple weeks back we talked about color capping, which uses two or three related colors with deliberate, visible transitions as you move up the room. Ombre (ombré) does the opposite. The colors blend into each other like a gradient, with no stripes or bands. On a well-done ombre wall, you can't point to the spot where one color stops and the next begins.You can use shades of one color, which is the easiest and most subtle option, or blend between different colors. Because the color keeps shifting as your eye moves across the wall, you get depth and movement that a single color can't give you. Soft, related colors feel calm. Bolder colors make it dramatic.Where it works [15:20]. The wall behind a bed, a dining room wall, one big living room wall, or a kid's room. Some versions online look like the night sky just after sunset. You can wrap a whole room in it, but blending across corners gets tricky, and Dan thinks one wall is usually plenty.Direction [16:29]. Dark at the bottom and light at the top is the most common choice. It puts visual weight down low and makes the ceiling feel lifted and airy. Flip it, with dark at the top, and you get a much more dramatic room. Look at examples online before you decide.How to Paint an Ombre Wall [18:50]No sprayer needed. Regular wall paint, rollers and brushes will do it. It takes more technique than rolling two coats, but most people can pull it off with a little practice.Choose three colors [21:36]. Pick a light, a medium and a dark. Start with color chips, then get Benjamin Moore color samples and try them on foam board or the wall. Blended colors can expose undertones you didn't expect. For a first try, pick colors a couple of steps apart on the same chip.Prep and base coat [23:20]. Fill holes, sand, clean the wall and tape off trim and neighboring walls. Paint the entire wall in the lightest color, top to bottom, and let it dry 3 to 4 hours.Map the zones [24:04]. Divide the wall roughly into three horizontal zones. Don't tape the zones off. Light pencil marks are fine if you want a reference.Roll the medium and dark colors. Put the medium color across the middle and the dark color along the bottom. The edges can be wavy, and this paint doesn't need to stay wet. You're just establishing the zones.Blend [25:23]. Put each color in its own container, like a Handy Paint Pail or Pelican Pail, with its own brush, and keep a few clean brushes for blending. Start where dark meets medium and work about 2 feet of wall at a time. Brush fresh dark paint in a 6 to 12 inch band along the top of the dark zone, then fresh medium paint right above it. While both are wet, use a clean brush to blend across the line with loose diagonal strokes, around 45 degrees. You're softening the line where the colors meet, not erasing either color. Move to the next 2 feet and blend it into the section you just finished. When that transition is done, repeat the process where medium meets light.Corners and edges [28:55]. Feathering right into a corner is fiddly. Tape the adjoining wall. If that wall has fresh paint on it, use yellow FrogTape so the tape doesn't pull the new paint off.Practice and dry time [29:57]. Practice on a scrap of drywall or foam board first. You'll learn how wet the paint needs to be, how much pressure to use on the brush and how wide you want the blend. Know when to stop. Once the paint starts to set up, more brushing just drags half-dry paint around and leaves marks that show every time sunlight hits the wall. If you can't blend fast enough, a little Floetrol extends the working time of latex paint. It isn't a cure-all, but it helps.Tried an ombre wall? Send pictures to radio@repcolite.com.Fall Checklist: Jobs and Fun Stuff [33:14]Chimney [33:51]. If you plan to use a fireplace or wood stove, have it swept. If it hasn't been used in a while, have it inspected too.Apple picking. Pick a Saturday and an orchard. Try not to walk out with $150 worth of apples.Gutters. Start clearing them now and keep at it as the leaves fall, so water moves away from the foundation.Charlevoix mushroom houses [35:21]. Earl Young's stone homes have curved roofs and huge boulders built into them. Charlevoix has a self-guided route. Most of the houses are private, so enjoy them from the street.Snowblower. Change the oil and make sure it starts. Repair shops have room in their schedules now. They won't in late November.Sprinkler winterization. If someone blows out your system, get on their schedule now.Historic home tours [37:20]. The Meyer May House in Grand Rapids is a restored Frank Lloyd Wright home with free tours. The Hackley and Hume Houses in Muskegon are Queen Anne Victorians from the lumber era, and their Flashlight Tour is October 9. The Felt Mansion near Saugatuck is also worth a visit.Furnace. Change the filter and make sure it runs before the first cold stretch, when everyone else finds out theirs...

Originally uploaded September 13th, reloaded September 16h. Jeffrey Mosher welcomes back Andria Romkema, Senior Vice President, Business Development, The Right Place, Inc. Grand Rapids, MI. Andria, Tech Week Grand Rapids has become a major gathering for the region's technology community. What are you hearing from West Michigan businesses right now about the biggest technology opportunities and challenges they're facing? This year's kickoff features Daymond John and Robert Herjavec talking about building, protecting and scaling businesses in a digital world. Why was that business perspective important to bring to the opening of Tech Week? AI is obviously a major part of the technology conversation right now. From your perspective, where are West Michigan businesses making real progress with AI, and where do companies still need to figure things out? Tech Week is much bigger than one kickoff event, with businesses, entrepreneurs, students and community organizations hosting events throughout the region. What does that kind of broad participation contribute to the business community? For a business owner or leader listening who wants to get more involved with West Michigan's technology community, what's one thing you would encourage them to do during Tech Week and beyond? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Watch MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: X.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Tech Week GR – Tickets on sale to hear Shark Tank stars' speech at Sept. 14 Tech Week GR 2026 Kick-Off event The Right Place, Inc. is proud to announce that entrepreneurs and stars of ABC's Shark Tank, Daymond John and Robert Herjavec, will co-headline the Tech Week Grand Rapids 2026 Kick-Off event, held on Monday, September 14, at GLC Live at 20 Monroe. Taking place September 14–19, this year's Tech Week will open with a fireside chat between the two Sharks. Together, they will set the tone for a week of celebrating innovation, collaboration, and the transformative power of technology in the Greater Grand Rapids region. Although technology is at the center of the Tech Week conversation, the events are open to the public, not just people involved in the technology sector. Learn more at: https://www.techweekgr.com/ Summary: Andria Romkema discusses Tech Week Grand Rapids, AI, technology trends and how West Michigan businesses can connect, innovate and grow. Andria Romkema of The Right Place discusses Tech Week Grand Rapids, AI adoption, technology trends, business innovation and the connections helping West Michigan companies grow and compete.

Hey Bubs and welcome back to this episode of the Bubbles' Mushrooms Podcast. This week we have a new viewer on the show named Emily! We start by showing off all of our international viewing stats, Luke finally watched Johnny Dangerously and provides a honest and heartfelt review, Emily does her people in the neighborhood segment, we discuss the Greenville Danish Festival parade route and also review the rheumatologists of the greater Grand Rapids area. Luke has a customer service anecdote about Bushka, Edward has a customer service anecdote about female anatomy, Katie has a customer service update about vulvas and Jaclyn has a Bell Buckle ugly word update. This week's super fun game time activity is all about the Latin language. Can we figure out what Latin words actually mean? Are the Latin words about courtrooms or are they about mammals? Grab your habeas corpus and remember to check out the Bubbles' Mushrooms podcast, only on the internet! Check out our socials @bubbmush and email us at bubbmush@gmail.com

Michigan rental property legislation is moving fast, and most of what matters to rental owners is happening in Lansing, not Washington. In this post-primary legislative update, Erika Farley of the Rental Property Owners Association of Michigan breaks down what the August primary results signal about November, which candidates are actually talking about housing, and which bills should worry Michigan rental property owners heading into lame duck and the 2027 session. Rent control, eviction expungement, junk fee rules, and a proposed cap on application fees are all in play. About Erika Farley Erika Farley is the Executive Director of the Rental Property Owners Association of Michigan, where she leads advocacy and lobbying on behalf of the state's rental property owners and housing providers. She works directly with legislators and elected officials in Lansing, tracks housing policy at the local, state, and now federal level, and oversees the association's endorsement and PAC activity. What We Cover in This Episode What the August primary results signal about turnout heading into November The Michigan U.S. Senate race and where the candidates stand on housing Why housing became a top tier campaign issue for both parties What the new federal housing law changes for HUD, Section 8, and construction The Congressional 7th race and what it signals about housing policy direction Rent control risk and why New York City is being used as a policy roadmap RPOAM's position on rent control and new restrictions on rental owners How RPOAM decides which candidates to endorse in a general election What questions go on the RPOAM candidate questionnaire The bipartisan Michigan rezoning package and who is driving it Michigan's new limit on corporate ownership of single family homes The electronic rent payment mandate tied to the state budget deal Eviction expungement legislation and the amendments RPOAM has fought for Junk fee bills and the proposal to cap application fees at $25 The tenant bill of rights package expected to return after January Why lame duck and early 2027 are the real fight for Michigan rental owners Key Insight Erika's read on why the current batch of housing bills is so small: legislators are looking for low hanging fruit they can put on campaign literature and claim they worked on housing. The bills that actually change how you operate, eviction expungement, junk fee disclosure, application fee caps, and a tenant bill of rights package, are being held for lame duck and the session that starts in January. Our words on the current activity: they are nipping at the edges. The real lift comes after the election. Why This Episode Matters If you own rental property in Michigan, the rules you operate under next year are being written right now by people who have never run a rental business. This episode tells you which bills are moving, which races decide who writes them, and where a state association can actually change an outcome. If you have been treating legislative risk as somebody else's problem, this is the episode that shows you the bill. Find Out More Website: https://www.rpoaonline.org Government Affairs and Legislation: https://www.rpoaonline.org/page/legislation Facebook: Rental Property Owners Association of Michigan https://www.facebook.com/RPOAofMichigan/ LinkedIn: Rental Property Owners Association of Michigan https://www.linkedin.com/company/rental-property-owners-association-of-michigan RPOAM in partnership with the Detroit Rental Property Owners Association (DRPOA) is hosting an in person networking event in the Detroit area on October 7. Details: https://www.detroitrpoa.org/event-details-1/detroit-rpoa-real-estate-investor-meetup-1 The Midwest Real Estate Investor Conference returns May 20–21, 2027 in Grand Rapids, MI. Details: https://www.midwestreiconference.com/ And join RPOAM in Grand Rapids for our next Government Affairs Luncheon on November 11 where we'll be taking a post-election look at what Michigan's 2026 results could mean for housing policy, regulation, and advocacy in 2027. Details: https://www.rpoaonline.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=2068374&group= Sponsors Today's episode is brought to you by Green Property Management, managing everything from single family homes to apartment complexes in the West Michigan area. https://www.livegreenlocal.com And RCB & Associates, helping Michigan-based real estate investors and small business owners navigate the complex world of health insurance and Medicare benefits. https://www.rcbassociatesllc.com

John Anderson started the EO Detroit chapter in a conference room in 1996 with two other guys and no money. He's now a business coach, an author, and one of the most connected people in Michigan.He used to deliver mortgages by hand as a mailroom clerk making $30,000 a year. One man in that office, the chairman of the board, pulled him aside and told him he was going to do great things. That single sentence rerouted the rest of his life.From there he built relationships with people like Vern Harnish, David Brandon, Bill Ford Jr, and Peter Diamandis, using one rule he's never broken. He wrote a book called Replace Retirement. And now he's chasing a new goal that sounds impossible on paper: making Michigan one of the top five states to live and work in.What we covered: → How he built EO Detroit from three members into a 30 year run → The rule he's followed for 30 years before ever asking a powerful person for anything → Why he wrote a book about disrupting the entire idea of retirement → The Everest story that made him walk away from his own company → His new moonshot to make Michigan a top five state in the countryYou are one call away from a relationship that changes everything. John has spent 30 years proving that's not a saying, it's just true.Thank you to John for driving in from Grand Rapids and giving us an hour of stories most people never get to hear. And a specific thank you to Tim Bryson at Sandler for making this connection happen in the first place.*Chapters*00:00 Intro 01:00 How EO Detroit got started 06:05 The mentor who changed everything: Mr. Cooper 12:05 Landing Bill Ford Jr. and the power of service 19:06 Why he calls himself a people connector, not a coach 21:15 Peter Diamandis, moonshots, and the 2% rule 28:11 Attention, distraction, and the bee analogy 34:41 Making Michigan a top five state to live and work 41:26 The Everest story that changed his career 48:34 How to dream bigger without the fear*Connect with John Anderson*https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnanderson12/https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-ceo-advantage/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-dillon-england-show--6370921/support.*Connect with Dillon*https://www.instagram.com/thedillonenglandshow/https://twitter.com/imdillonenglandhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonmengland/https://www.facebook.com/dillon.england.5*Sponsor — Broadcast Brew (Low-Acid Coffee)*Order our LOW ACID COFFEE “THE BROADCAST BREW”Thank you to Cool Beans Coffee Brewery for your partnership.https://www.coolbeanscoffeemi.com/product-page/broadcast-brew-low-acid-blend*ABOUT THE DILLON ENGLAND SHOW*Authentic conversations with interesting people across personal growth, entrepreneurship, and lifestyle — direct, faith-forward, Detroit grit.Subscribe for full conversations and weekly clips.Share this with someone on your leadership team.Comment your biggest takeaway.

This Sunday, we had the opportunity to reflect on all the Lord has done through TLC over these past few months and look ahead to where God is leading our church! We're so grateful for what He's doing and excited for all that's still to come.-----------Join us for service online or in-person in Grand Rapids every Sunday at 9AM & 10:45AM.Decided to follow Jesus? We would love to help you figure out what's next! Let us know at https://bit.ly/TLC-i-decidedStay Connected!Website: http://localchurchgr.orgFacebook: http://facebook.com/localchurchgrInstagram: http://instagram.com/localchurchgrWeekly Email Newsletter: https://bit.ly/trendingatTLCVisit & What to Expect: http://localchurchgr.org/expectEvents: http://my.localchurchgr.org/eventsIf you would like to support The Local Church GR's ministry and help us continue reaching people in the Grand Rapids area, click here: https://localchurchgr.org/giveNeed prayer? Please let us know! https://localchurchgr.org/care

Thinking about a move? Here are the things to know before moving to Grand Rapids that most people don't find out until they've already lived here. From surprising commute times to what your money really buys, this is the local's guide to getting settled the right way.⏱️VIDEO CHAPTERS Introduction (0:00) Commute & Getting Around (0:30) Outdoor Life & Recreation (1:05) Biking Community (1:40) Flying In & Out: Gerald R. Ford Airport (2:23) Cost of Living (3:08) Final Thoughts (3:56)Grand Rapids Commute and Getting AroundOne of the biggest surprises for newcomers is just how far you can live from downtown Grand Rapids and still have an easy commute. In most major metro areas, thirty minutes barely gets you past the city limits. Here, that same thirty minutes can put you in a small town, on a few acres of land, or on a lake, and you are still a short drive from downtown. Average commute times run around 20 to 22 minutes, without the gridlock you would expect in Chicago, LA, or New York. That means buyers can often trade a slightly longer drive for more land and more house for their money.Outdoor Living Built Into Everyday LifeOutdoor access here is not just a weekend trip away; it is part of daily life. The Grand River runs straight through downtown and fills with steelhead and salmon every fall and spring, so fly fishing minutes from the office is completely normal. Add in dozens of inland lakes for boating, Lake Michigan beach towns like Grand Haven and Saugatuck about 45 minutes to an hour away, and wooded hiking trails at Millennium Park, Almont Park, and Provin Trails, and it is easy to see why so many transplants fall in love with the lifestyle here.A Bigger Biking Community Than You'd ExpectGrand Rapids has been ranked among the most bike-friendly cities in the country, and the trail network backs it up. The Grand River Greenway is on track to connect more than 80 miles from downtown all the way to Lake Michigan, with mountain bike systems offering over 100 miles of singletrack nearby. Group rides are easy to find and join, and they are one of the best ways to get to know the city and the surrounding areas.An Airport That Actually Makes Travel EasyGerald R. Ford International Airport offers nonstop service to more than 35 destinations across seven airlines, so a connecting flight often is not necessary. On a normal day, you can arrive about 45 minutes before boarding, move through security without a wait, and still have time for coffee before your flight, a very different experience than O'Hare or Atlanta.What to Know About Cost of LivingCost of living in Grand Rapids runs meaningfully below the national average, with groceries about 10 percent below average and utilities, healthcare, and transportation close to national norms. Housing is the area to watch. The average home sale price in Kent County is currently around $400,000, with homes selling in about six days on average, often above asking price. It is still far more affordable than Chicago, Denver, or the coasts, but it is no longer the deal it was a few years ago.If you are considering a move to Grand Rapids, the May Group at RE/MAX would love to help you plan it out and answer any questions along the way.Thinking about moving to Grand Rapids? Grab our free Relocation Guide: https://mailchi.mp/8b5aff1055a5/relocation-guideHave questions or want to talk more about a move to or around West Michigan? Contact The May Group at RE/MAX Grand Rapids Phone: (616) 330-2555  Email: info@marketgr.comFollow us for more Grand Rapids and West Michigan content: https://www.instagram.com/maygroupgr/#GrandRapidsRealEstate #WestMichiganRealEstate #MovingToMichigan

This message introduces our new series for 2026-2027, studying the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. To lay the foundation for why God has led us to this book for this season, we are looking at the role of the church within society. Through this time, we will see how God will use Jeremiah to help us be the people who can live out that role. Jim Samra | Minister & Senior Pastor This was recorded live in Grand Rapids, MI on September 13, 2026

September 13, 2026 ~ Dave Lorenz and guest host Jim Edelman from Under the Radar Michigan explore the hidden gems of the state. Candace Smith details the diverse tours offered in Grand Rapids, from mural walks to spine-tingling ghost hunts. The hosts then discuss the historical significance of the Gerald R. Ford Museum with Brooke Clement, highlighting exhibits like the recreated Oval Office and the “Waltzing with the Queen” display. Finally, Candace Smith and Brooke Clement share seasonal tips for visiting Crystal Mountain and the Keweenaw Peninsula, including fall color tours, mining history, and upcoming autumn festivals. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This message introduces our new series for 2026-2027, studying the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. To lay the foundation for why God has led us to this book for this season, we are looking at the role of the church within society. Through this time, we will see how God will use Jeremiah to help us be the people who can live out that role. Jim Samra | Minister & Senior Pastor This was recorded live in Grand Rapids, MI on September 13, 2026

Andy Wicks interviews Dr. Lauren Jones, a physical therapistat Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids who has extensive experience working with patients with limb loss and limb difference. Jones describes launching west Michigan amputee soccer clinics through the United States Amputee Football Federation after connecting with the University of Michigan program, emphasizing grassroots access, student involvement, and pathways to national-team camps, including growing women's competition. She also discusses Mary Free Bed Guild–supported trips to Guatemala City delivering about 30 prostheses in one week—from casting and fabrication to delivery and gait training—within an established clinic that provides follow-up care; mostamputations there stem from motorcycle trauma. Jones stresses finding mentors and close prosthetist collaboration, and advocates for a PT specialty certification in amputee care. PTs and PTAs in Michigan! You can receive PDR credit towardlicense renewal by listening to Waves episodes! Download and complete the LARA General Response Form and keep for your records.  00:00 Podcast Intro Guest Setup00:41 Lauren Jones Background Role01:43 Amputee Soccer Origins03:32 Grassroots Program Expansion04:13 How Amputee Soccer Works05:31 Pathway To National Team06:38 Medical Missions Overview07:58 Guatemala Clinic Logistics09:00 Prosthesis Week Workflow11:31 Patient Impact Motivation12:17 Why Missions Reignite Passion14:20 Waiting Instant Gratification16:12 Wheelchair Safety Net17:20 Why Amputations Happen17:38 Guatemala Trauma Reality20:30 Teaching Future PTs22:17 Working With Prosthetists26:03 Need PT Specialty Credential29:17 Take the Leap Abroad30:40 Contact and Wrap Up

Childhood trauma and marriage are more connected than most people realize, and no one proves that more than my guest today. I sat down with Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, the man behind the bestselling book Love and Respect and the Love and Respect marriage conferences he and his wife Sarah have led around the world since 1999. But before he was helping millions of couples understand each other, he was a little boy watching his father nearly strangle his mother, a kid sent away to military school at 13, and a young man who didn't tell his own mom what he witnessed until decades later. In this conversation we talk about how that pain shaped his life's work, why he believes most marital conflict comes from honest misunderstanding rather than ill will, and the simple biblical principle that changed how he sees every relationship. If you have ever wondered why two people who fell in love can end up feeling like strangers, this episode is for you. Dr. Eggerichs holds a PhD in family studies from Michigan State University and spent nearly twenty years as a senior pastor before he and Sarah founded Love and Respect Ministries, where she now serves as vice president. They have been married since 1973 and live in Grand Rapids with their three adult children. His book has sold over 2.3 million copies, and in this conversation he walks through where the whole message actually came from, a single verse in Ephesians that he came across while teaching through the Bible verse by verse. That verse became the foundation for one of the most talked about frameworks in Christian marriage counseling, the idea that a wife's deepest need is love and a husband's deepest need is respect, and that most couples are not fighting because of malice but because they are speaking two different languages without realizing it. We go deep into his own healing from childhood trauma, including a memory he carried silently for most of his life before finally telling his mother what he had witnessed as a small boy. That wound became the seed of everything he now teaches. From there we unpack his COUPLE and CHAIRS acronyms, the practical differences in what women and men each need to feel secure in a relationship, and why a husband losing his job or sense of purpose can shake him as deeply as a health crisis. I also open up about my own marriage to Jordan, the years it took me to find language for what I was feeling, the season of caregiving we are in right now, and the small rituals, like our weekly date night, that have carried us through the hardest chapters. This episode is for anyone doing the quiet work of healing from childhood trauma, anyone trying to understand love and respect in marriage, and anyone who needs practical marriage counseling advice that goes beyond surface level tips. We also talk honestly about where this message ends and abuse begins, because Dr. Eggerichs is careful never to let biblical love and respect become an excuse for control or silence. If you have ever felt unseen or misunderstood in your own relationship, or you are simply looking for a deeper way of understanding your spouse, I think this conversation will stay with you long after it ends. Find more from Emerson: About Us – Love and Respect Ministries: https://www.loveandrespect.com/about-us Lightbulb Moments in Marriage – Love and Respect Academy Course: https://www.loveandrespectacademy.com/lightbulb-moments-in-marriage Connect with me: My website: https://tammympeterson.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tammy.m.peterson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TammyPetersonPodcast TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tammypetersonpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tammy1Peterson Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/TammyPetersonPodcast  

EP342Would we still stop the country for 9/11 if it happened today? Solo Episode 342 drops on the 25th anniversary, with Jhae Pfenning on memory fade, walking the Ground Zero memorial with Ivette in June 2018, and standing in a Grand Rapids bar when the second plane hit live on TV.ABC News posted that a Tesla crashed into Midtown scaffolding and killed a passenger, then deleted the X post after Community Notes. The driver was operating the car manually, fled, and was arrested for DWI and vehicular manslaughter — not FSD. Jhae also covers Labor Day street takeovers, including LAPD's Operation Street Sweeper in Harbor Gateway.The back half is the Lindsay Clancy hung jury without a hot take. The trial was never “did she do it.” It was her state of mind. Using the 2015 Arizona I-10 median-barrier case he sat on, Jhae lands on the only rule that matters in a jury room: it is not what you know. It is what you can prove.Sources:Business Insider — films altered after 9/119/11 Memorial & MuseumABC News — Midtown Tesla crashNY Daily News — DWI charges, BAC .229Musk: Autopilot was not in useLA Times — Operation Street SweeperNYT — Clancy mistrial, what nextNBC Boston — jurors speakAZ Central — I-10 / Humphrey-QuinnTimestamps0:00 Cold open0:21 Show open0:31 9/11, 25 years later2:10 Ground Zero with Ivette, June 20184:09 Where I was when the second plane hit6:13 Remember September 11th7:25 ABC deletes the Tesla crash post8:35 LA + Chicago street takeovers12:23 The Clancy trial was about state of mind13:20 What an Arizona jury taught me21:18 Not what you know — what you can prove25:04 Thanks and closeContact: info@hardparking.comWebsite: www.hardparking.comPatreon: patreon.com/hardparkingpodcastInstagram: @hardparkingpodYouTube: youtube.com/@HardParkingTikTok: @hard.parking.jhaeRight Honda: righthonda.comRight Toyota: righttoyota.comArcus Foundry: arcusfoundry.comAutocannon: shop.autocannon.comThe Warehouse AZ: thewarehouseaz.com

Health care is not just a line item for employers, it's a defining force in whether a region can grow, attract talent, and stay competitive. From the 2026 Mackinac Policy Conference, we sit down with Rick Baker of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce to connect the dots between community investment and the health care systems that keep West Michigan working.We talk about what the Chamber actually does across 3,100 member businesses, then zoom in on what makes Grand Rapids “sticky” for graduates and early-career workers. Rick shares how quality-of-life investments and higher education partnerships help employers recruit and retain, and why hospitals and health systems are true community assets. We also explore the region's long-term goal of becoming a destination city for health care, including the growth of the Medical Mile and the role of major institutions like Corewell Health, Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine, and the Van Andel Research Institute.Then we get candid about the toughest issue: rising health care costs and the real impact on employer benefits and workforce decisions. We close with a hopeful shift, discussing how COVID-era awareness accelerated more open conversations about mental health and why “above the neck” care must be aligned with physical health to support whole-person outcomes.Subscribe, share this conversation with someone who cares about Michigan health care, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.Support the showEngage the conversation on Substack at The Common Bridge!

On this week’s show, we’re talking about fall fishing in Northern Minnesota. Bret Amundson and Dan Amundson are broadcasting from Ray’s Sport and Marine in Grand Rapids. Dan shares some little adjustments he made to catch a bunch of smallmouth bass, and Bret talks about some strange places he took his Lund. Kyle Kleinendorst from Ray’s joins us and talks about some new things coming from Lund for 2027. Joe Henry has some incredible stories from a veterans fishing event at Lake of the Woods, and Amanda Templin talks about all things Grand Rapids has to offer for outdoorsmen and women. Make sure you're “following” us on your favorite podcast streaming platform so you never miss a show, and if you like what you're hearing, leave us a rating and a review. We'd love to hear from you, and it helps us more than you know! Save 20% on a new OnX HUNT Membership with the code “SJR20” https://www.onxmaps.com/hunt/app/east https://fishhuntforever.com Find us on SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/5OVGMvd5vMvETdClc6ks6q?si=5bfeed6989d04b23 Find us on APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fish-hunt-forever/id1248475232 Find us on FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/fishhuntforever Follow us on INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/fish.hunt.forever/ Follow BRET on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bret.amundson/?hl=en Follow DAN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dan_amundson/?hl=en Find us on TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@fishhuntforever Follow DAN on TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@dan.amundson Follow BRET on TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@bretamundson Get a NEW BOAT: https://www.raysmarinealex.com/ Take a trip to LAKE OF THE WOODS: https://lakeofthewoodsmn.com/ Take a trip to DEVILS LAKE: https://www.haybaleheights.com/index.html Get in on the Rainy River/Lake of the Woods FISH MIGRATION: https://riverbendresort.com/ Learn more about SPACE TRAILERS: https://spacetrailers.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooboQSOhbWZ18_wMvVzkAIZx0uGsJiClXI22XCheqrdD8SEIUHn Learn more about CHEF ROBERTS: https://chefroberts.com/ Get OnX FISH: https://www.onxmaps.com/fish/app Visit GRAND RAPIDS, MN: https://visitgrandrapids.com https://fishhuntforever.com/feed/podcast/ The post Week 731: Fall Fishing in Northern Minnesota appeared first on Fish Hunt Forever.

Celebrating 106 years since the birth of George Wright on 28th August, 1920 Start Name Artist Album Year Comments Ten Cents A Dance George Wright By Request Only [Banda 201901 2-CD] 1980 3-13 Wurlitzer, Ronald Wehmeier Residence, Cincinnati, OH; Concert December 8, 1980 3:03 Wonderful Baby George Wright Concert: Auditorium Theatre, Rochester - Feb 1976 1976 4-22 Wurlitzer, Auditorium Theatre, Rochester, NY; RTOS, ex-RKO Palace, Rochester 5:56 Song Of The Wanderer (Where Shall I Go?) George Wright Concert: Organ Grinder, Portland 1975-01-11 1975 4-41 Wurlitzer, Organ Grinder Restaurant, Portland, OR 10:16 Love is For the Very Young George Wright Concert: Gaumont State, Kilburn 1978-04-30 1978 4-16 Wurlitzer, Gaumont State Theatre, Kilburn, London 14:20 Veil Dance George Wright Chicago Theatre Concert 1977-07-04 [Banda 202001] 1977 4-27 Wurlitzer, Chicago Theatre, Chicago, IL 18:39 Harper Valley P.T.A. George Wright Concert: Keystone Oaks High School 1978-10-17 1978 2-10 Wurlitzer, Keystone Oaks High School, Dormont, PA 21:59 But Not For Me George Wright Concert: Orpheum, San Francisco 1963 4-22 Robert Morton, Orpheum Theatre, San Francisco, CA; 13 December 1963 27:16 Singing Sweethearts George Wright Concert: Avenue Theatre, San Francisco 3-15 Wurlitzer, Avenue Theatre, San Francisco, CA; ex-State-Lake Theatre, Chicago (3-13) 29:27 Tango George Wright Concert: Paramount, Oakland 1985-11-16 1985 4-20 Wurlitzer, Paramount Theatre, Oakland, CA 34:03 Deep Henderson George Wright GW At Dickinson [Banda 202004] 1979 3-??, Dickinson High School, Wilmington, DE 36:46 I Love A Piano George Wright Concert: Hinsdale Theatre 1980-04-13 1980 3-28 Kimball Hybrid, Hinsdale Theatre, Hinsdale, IL 40:56 Norwegian Wood George Wright Concert: Auditorium Theatre, Rochester 1972 1972 4-22 Wurlitzer, Auditorium Theatre, Rochester, NY; RTOS, ex-RKO Palace, Rochester 45:33 A Good Man Is Hard To Find George Wright ATOS 2004 Milwaukee 2004 5-55 Allen Renaissance TO-5, Irish Cultural & Heritage Center of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; Saturday, 3 July 2004 49:31 I Love You George Wright Concert: Roaring 20s Pizza, Grand Rapids 1979-06-14 1979 3-30 Wurlitzer, Roaring 20s Pizza, Grand Rapids, MI 52:36 Oh, You Circus Day George Wright Concert: Vollum 1968 1968 4-42 Wurlitzer, Howard Vollum Organ House, Portland, Oregon; ex 4/32 Granada (later Paramount) Theatre, San Francisco; now Regent Theatre, Melbourne 55:31 Ain't We Got Fun? George Wright Live - In Concert [Dot DLP 25712] 1966 2-10 Wurlitzer, Rialto Theatre, South Pasadena, CA