Podcasts about rob it

Introducing Rob Ruiz Meet Rob Ruiz, a seasoned Senior Full Stack Developer with nearly two decades of expertise in WordPress innovation and open-source magic. As the Lead Maintainer of WP Rig since 2020, Rob has been the driving force behind this groundbreaking open-source framework that empowers developers to craft high-performance, accessible, and progressively enhanced WordPress themes with ease. WP Rig isn’t just a starter theme—it’s a turbocharged toolkit that bundles modern build processes, linting, optimization, and testing to deliver lightning-fast, standards-compliant sites that shine on any device. Show Notes For more on Rob and WP Rig, check out these links: LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robcruiz WP Rig Official Site: https://wprig.io GitHub Repository: https://github.com/wprig/wprig Latest Releases: https://github.com/wprig/wprig/releases WP Rig 3.1 Announcement: https://wprig.io/wp-rig-3-1/ Transcript: Topher DeRosia: Hey everybody. Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m your host Topher DeRosia, and with me today I have- Rob Ruiz: Rob Ruiz. Topher: Rob. You and I have talked a couple of times, once recently, and I learned about a project you’re working on, but not a whole lot about you. Where do you live? What do you do for a living? Rob: Yeah, for sure. Good question. Although I’m originally from Orlando, Florida, I’ve been living in Omaha, Nebraska for a couple of decades now. So I’m pretty much a native. I know a lot of people around here and I’ve been fairly involved in various local communities over the years. I’m a web developer. Started off as a graphic designer kind of out of college, and then got interested in web stuff. And so as a graphic designer turned future web developer, I guess, I was very interested in content management systems because it made the creating and managing of websites very, very easy. My first couple of sites were Flash websites, sites with macro media Flash. Then once I found content management systems, I was like, “Wow, this is way easier than coding the whole thing from scratch with Flash.” And then all the other obvious benefits that come from that. So I originally started with Joomla, interestingly enough, and used Joomla for about two or three years, then found WordPress and never looked back. And so I’ve been using WordPress ever since. As the years have gone on, WordPress has enabled me to slowly transition from a more kind of web designer, I guess, to a very full-blown web developer and software engineer, and even software architect to some degree. So here we are many years later. Topher: There’s a big step from designer to developer. How did that go for you? I’m assuming you went to PHP. Although if you were doing Flash sites, you probably learned ActionScript. Rob: Yeah. Yeah. That was very convenient when I started learning JavaScript. It made it very easy to learn JavaScript faster because I already had a familiarity with ActionScript. So there’s a lot of similarities there. But yeah. Even before I started doing PHP, I started learning more HTML and CSS. I did do a couple of static websites between there that were just like no content management system at all. So I was able to kind of sharpen my sword there with the CSS and HTML, which wasn’t particularly hard. But yeah, definitely, the PHP… that was a big step was PHP because it’s a proper logical programming language. There was a lot there I needed to unpack, and so it took me a while. I had to stick to it and really rinse and repeat before I finally got my feet under me. Topher: I can imagine. All right. So then you work for yourself or you freelance or do you have a real job, as it were? Rob: Currently, I do have a real job. Currently, I’m working at a company called Bold Orange out of Minneapolis. They’re a web agency. But I kind of bounce around from a lot of different jobs. And then, yes, I do freelance on the side, and I also develop my own products as well for myself and my company. Topher: Cool. Bold Orange sounds familiar. Who owns that? Rob: To be honest, I don’t know who the owners are. It’s just a pretty big web agency out of Minneapolis. They are a big company. You could just look them up at boldorange.com. They work for some pretty big companies. Topher: Cool. All right. You and I talked last about WP Rig. Give me a little background on where that came from and how you got it. Rob: Yeah, for sure. Well, there was a period of time where I was working at a company called Proxy Bid that is in the auction industry, and they had a product or a service — I don’t know how you want to look at that —called Auction Services. That product is basically just building WordPress sites for auction companies. They tasked us with a way to kind of standardize those websites essentially. And what we realized is that picking a different theme for every single site made things difficult to manage and increase tech debt by a lot. So what we were tasked with was, okay, if we’re going to build our own theme that we’re just going to make highly dynamic so we can make it look different from site to site. So we want to build it, but we want to build it smart and we want to make it reusable and maintainable. So let’s find a good framework to build this on so that we can maintain coding standards and end up with as little tech debt as possible, essentially. That’s when I first discovered WP Rig. In my research, I came across it and others. We came across Roots Sage and some of the other big names, I guess. It was actually a team exercise. We all went out and looked for different ones and studied different ones and mine that I found was WP Rig. And I was extremely interested in that one over the other ones. Interestingly enough- Topher: Can you tell me why over the other ones? Rob: That’s a great question. Yeah. I really liked the design patterns. I really liked the focus on WordPress coding standards. So having a system built in that checked all the code against WordPress coding standards was cool. I loved the compiling transpiling, whatever, for CSS and JavaScript kind of built in. That sounded really, really interesting. The fact that there was PHP unit testing built into it. So there’s like a starter testing framework built in that’s easy to extend so that you can add additional unit tests as your theme grows. We really wanted to make sure… because we were very into CICD pipelines. So we wanted to make sure that as developers were adding or contributing to any themes that we built with this, that we could have automated tests run and automated builds run, and just automate as much as possible. So WP rig just seemed like something that gave us those capabilities right out of the box. So that was a big thing. And I loved the way that they did it. Roots Sage does something similar, but they use their blade templating engine built in there. We really wanted to stick to something that was a bit more standard WordPress so that there wasn’t like a large knowledge overhead so that we didn’t have to say like, okay, if we’re bringing on other developers, like junior developers work on it, oh, it would be nice if you use Laravel too because we use this templating engine in all of our themes. We didn’t want to have to worry about that essentially. It was all object-oriented and all that stuff too. That’s what looked interesting to me. We ended up building a theme with WP Rig. I don’t know what they ended up doing with it after that, because I ended up getting let go shortly thereafter because the company had recently been acquired. Also, this was right after COVID too. So there was just a lot of moving parts and changing things at the time. So I ended up getting let go. But literally a week after I got let go, I came across a post on WP Tavern about how this framework was looking for new maintainers. Basically, this was a call put out by Morton, the original author of WP Rig. He reached out to WP Tavern and said, “Look, we’re not interested in maintaining this thing anymore, but it’s pretty cool. We like what we’ve built. And so we’re looking for other people to come in and adopt it essentially.” So I joined a Zoom meeting with a handful of other individuals that were also interested in this whole endeavor, and Morton reached out to me after the call and basically just said, “I looked you up. I liked some of the input that you had during the meeting. Let’s talk a little bit more.” And then that eventually led to conversations about me essentially taking the whole project over entirely. So, the branding, the hosting of the website, being lead maintainer on the project. Basically, gave me the keys to the kingdom in terms of GitHub and everything. So that’s how it ended up going in terms of the handoff between Morton and I. And I’m very grateful to him. They really created something super cool and I was honored to take it over and kind of, I don’t know, keep it going, I guess. Topher: I would be really curious. I don’t think either of us have the answer. I’d be curious to know how similar that path is to other project handoffs. It’s different from like an acquisition. You didn’t buy a plugin from somebody. It was kind of like vibes, I guess. Rob: It was like vibes. It was very vibey. I guess that’s probably the case in an open source situation. It’s very much an open source project. It’s a community-driven thing. It’s for everybody by everybody. I don’t know if all open source community projects roll like that, but that’s how this one worked out. There was some amount of ownership on Morton’s behalf. He did hire somebody to do the branding for WP Rig and the logo. And then obviously he was paying for stuff like the WPrig.io domain and the hosting through SiteGround and so on and so forth. So, we did have to transfer some of that and I’ve taken over those, I guess, financial burdens, if you want to think of it like that. But I’m totally okay with it. Topher: All right. You sort of mentioned some of the things Rig does, compiling and all that kind of stuff. Can you tell me… we didn’t discuss this before. I’m sitting at my desk and I think I want a website. How long does it take to go from that to looking at WordPress and logging into the admin with Rig? Rob: Okay. Rig is not an environment management system like local- Topher: I’m realizing my mistake. Somebody sends me a design in Figma. How long does it take me to go from that to, I’m not going to say complete because I mean, that’s CSS, but you know, how long does it take me to get to the point where I’m looking at a theme that is mine for the client that I’m going to start converting? Rob: Well, if you’re just looking for a starting point, if you’re just like, okay, how long does it take to get to like, okay, here’s my blank slate and I’m ready to start adopting all of these rules that are set up in Figma or whatever, I mean, you’re looking at maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes, something like that. It’s pretty automated. You just need some simple knowledge of Git. And then there are some prerequisites to using WP Rig. You do have to have composer installed because we do leverage some Composer packages to some of it, although to be honest, you could probably get away with not using Composer. You just have to be okay with sacrificing some of the tools the WP Rig assumes you’re going to have. And then obviously Node. You have to have Node installed. A lot of our documentation assumes that you have NPM, that you’re using NPM for all your Nodes or your package management. But we did recently introduce support for Bun. And so you can use Bun instead of NPM, which is actually a lot faster and better in many ways. Topher: Okay. A lot of my audience are not developers, users, or light developers, like they’ll download a theme, hack a template, whatever. Is this for them? Am I boring those people right now? Rob: That’s a great question. I mean, and I think this is an interesting dichotomy and paradigm in the WordPress ecosystem, because you’ve got kind of this great divide. At least this is something I’ve noticed in my years in the WordPress community is you have many people that are not coders or developers that are very interested in expanding their knowledge of WordPress, but it’s strictly from a more of a marketing perspective where it’s like, I just want to know how to build websites with WordPress and how to use it to achieve my goals online from a marketing standpoint. You have that group of people, and then you have this other group of people that are very developer centric that want to know how to extend WordPress and how to empower those other people that we just discussed. Right? Topher: Right. Rob: So, yeah, that’s a very good question. I would say that WP Rig is very much designed for the developers, not for the marketers. The assumption there is that you’re going to be doing some amount of coding. Now, can you get away with doing a very light amount of coding? Yes. Yes, you can. I mean, if you compare what you’re going to get out of that assumed workflow to something that you would get off like Theme Forest or whatever, it’s going to be a night and day difference because those theme, Forest Themes, have hours, hundreds, sometimes hundreds of hours of development put into them. So, you’re not going to just out of the box immediately get something that is comparable to that. Topher: You need to put in those hundreds of hours of development to make a theme. Rob: As of today, yes. That may change soon though. Topher: Watch this space. Rob: That’s all I’ll say. Topher: Okay. So now we know who it’s for. I’m assuming there’s a website for it. What is it? Rob: Yeah. If you go to WPrig.io, we have a homepage that shows you all the features that are there in WP Rig. And then there’s a whole documentation area that helps people get up and running with WP Rig because there is a small learning curve there that’s pretty palatable for anybody who’s familiar with modern development workflows. So that is a thing. So the type of person that this is designed for anybody that wants to make a theme for anything. Let’s say you’re a big agency and you pull in a big client and that client wants something extremely custom and they come to you with Figma designs. Sure, you could go out there and find some premium theme and try to like child theme and overhaul that if you want. But in many situations, I would say in most situations, if you’re working from a Figma design that’s not based off of another theme already that’s just kind of somebody else’s brainchild, then you’re probably going to want to start from scratch. And so the idea here is that this is something to replace an approach, like underscores an approach. Actually, WP Pig was based off of underscores. The whole concept of it, as Morton explained it to me, was that he wanted to build an underscores that was more modern and full-featured from a development standpoint. Topher: Does it have any opinions about Gutenberg? Rob: It does now, but it did not when I took it over because Gutenberg did not exist yet when I took over WP Rig. Topher: Okay. What are its opinions? Rob: Yeah, sure. The opinion right out of the gate is that you can use Gutenberg as an editor and it has support like CSS rules in it for the standard blocks. So you should be able to use regular Gutenberg blocks in your theme and they should look just fine. There’s no resets in there. It doesn’t start from scratch. There’s not a bunch of styling you have to do for the blocks necessarily. Now, if you go to the full site editing or block-based mentality here, there are some things you need to do in WP Rig to convert the out-of-the-box WP Rig into another paradigm essentially. Right when you pull WP Rig, the assumption is you’re building what most people would refer to as a hybrid theme. The theme supports API or whatever, and the assumption is that you’re not going to be using the site editor. You’re just going to kind of do traditional WordPress, but you might be using Gutenberg for your content. So you’re just using Gutenberg kind of to author your pages and your posts and stuff like that, but not necessarily the whole site. WP Rig has the ability to kind of transform itself into other paradigms. So the first paradigm we built out was the universal theme approach. And the idea there is that you get a combination of the full site editing capabilities. But then you also have the traditional menu manager and the settings customizer framework or whatever is still there, right? These are things that don’t exist in a standard block-based theme. So I guess an easy example would be like the 2025 WordPress theme that comes right out of the box. It comes installed in WordPress. That is a true block-based theme, not a universal theme. So it doesn’t have those features because the assumption there is that it doesn’t need those features. You can kind of transform WP Rig into a universal theme that’s kind of a hybrid between a block-based and a classic theme. And then it can also transform into a strictly block-based theme as well. So following the same architecture as like the WordPress 2025 theme or Ollie or something like that is also a true block-based theme as well. So you can easily convert or transform the starting point of WP Rig into either of those paradigms if that’s the type of theme you’re setting out to build. Topher: Okay. That sounds super flexible. How much work is it to do that? Rob: It’s like one command line. Previously we had some tutorials on the website that showed you step-by-step, like what you needed to change about the theme to do that. You would have to add some files, delete some files, edit some code, add some theme supports into the base support class and some other stuff. I have recently, as of like a year and a half ago or a year ago, created a command line or a command that you can type into the command line that basically does that entire conversion process for you in like the blink of an eye. It takes probably a second to a second and a half to perform those changes to the code and then you’re good to go. It is best to do that conversion before you start building out your whole theme. It’s not impossible to do it after. But you’re more likely to run into problems or conflicts if you’ve already set out building your whole theme under one paradigm, and then you decide how the project you want to switch over to block-based or whatever. You’re likely to run into the need to refactor a bunch of stuff in that situation. So it is ideal to make that choice extremely early on in the process of developing your theme. But either way it’ll still work. That’s just one of the many tools that exist in WP Rig to transform it or convert it in several ways. That’s just one example. There are other examples of ways that Rig kind of converts itself to other paradigms as well. Topher: Yeah. All right. In my development life, I’ve had two parts to it. And one is the weekend hobbyist, or I download cadence and I whip something up in 20 minutes because I just want to experiment and the other is agency life where everything’s in Git, things are compiled, there are versions, blah, blah, blah. This sounds very friendly to that more professional pathway. Rob: Absolutely. Yes. Or, I mean, there’s another situation here too. If you’re a company who develops themes and publishes them to a platform like ThemeForest or any other platform, perhaps you’re selling themes on your own website, whatever, if you’re making things for sale, there’s no reason you couldn’t use WP Rig to build your themes. We have a bundle process that bundles your theme for publication or publishing. Whether you’re an agency or whether you’re putting your theme out for sale, it doesn’t matter, during that bundle process, it does actually white label the entire code base to where there’s no mention of WP Rig in the code whatsoever. Let’s say you were to build a theme that you wanted to put up for sale because you have some cool ideas. Say, page transitions now are completely supported in all modern or in most modern browsers. And when I say print page transitions, for those that are in the know, I am talking about not single page app page transitions, but through website page transitions. You can now do that. Let’s say you were like, “Hey, I’m feeling ambitious and I want to put out some new theme that comes with these page transitions built in,” and that’s going to be fancy on ThemeForest when people look at my demo, people might want to buy that. You could totally use WP Rig to build that out into a theme and the bundle process will white label all of the code. And then when people buy your theme and download that code, if they’re starting to go through and look through your code, they’re not going to have any way of knowing that it was built with WP Rig unless they’re familiar with the base WP Rig architecture, like how it does its object-oriented programming. It might be familiar with the patterns that it’s using and be able to kind of discern like, okay, well, this is the same pattern WP Rig uses, so high likelihood it was built with WP Rig. But they’re not going to be able to know by reading through the code. It’s not going to say WP Rig everywhere. It’s going to have the theme all over the place in the code. Topher: Okay. So then is that still WP Rig code? It just changed its labels? Rob: Yeah. Topher: So, it’s not like you’re exporting HTML, CSS and JavaScript? The underlying Rig framework is still there. Rob: Yeah. During the bundle process, it is bundling CSS and HTML. Well, HTML in the case of a block-based theme. But, yeah, it is bundling your PHP, your CSS, your JavaScript into the theme that you’re going to let people download when they buy it, or that you’re going to ship to your whatever client’s website. But all that code is going to be transpiled. In the case of CSS and JavaScript, there’s only going to be minified versions of that code in that theme. The source code is not actually going to be in there. Topher: This sounds pretty cool. You mentioned some stuff might be coming. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but do you have a timeline? When should we be watching for the next cool thing from Rig? Rob: Okay, cool. Well, I’m going to keep iterating on Rig forever. Regardless of any future products that might be built on WP Rig, WP Rig will always and forever remain an open source product for anybody to use for free and we, I, and possibly others in the future will continue to update it and support it over time. We just recently put out 3.1. You could expect the 3.2 anytime in the next six months to a year, probably closer to six months. One feature I’m looking at particularly closely right now is the new stuff coming out in version 6.9 of WordPress around the various APIs that are there. I think one of them is called the form… There’s a field API and a form API or view API or something like that. So WP Rig comes with a React-based settings framework in it. So if you want your theme to have a bunch of settings in it to make it flexible for whoever buys your theme, you can use this settings framework to easily create a bunch of fields, and then that framework will automatically manage all your fields and store all the data from those fields and make it easy to retrieve the values of the input on those fields, without knowing any React at all. Now, if you know React, you can go in there and, you know, embellish what’s already there, but it takes a JSON approach. So if you just understand JSON, you can go in and change the JSON for the framework, and that will automatically add fields into the settings framework. So you don’t even have to know React to extend the settings page if you want. That will likely get an overhaul using these new APIs being introduced into Rig. Topher: All right. How often have you run into something where, “Oh, look, WordPress has a new feature, I need to rebuild my system”? Rob: Over the last four or five years, it’s happened a lot because, yeah, I mean, like I said, when I first took this thing over, Gutenberg had not even been introduced yet. So, you had the introduction of Gutenberg and blocks. That was one thing. Then this whole full site editing became a thing, which later became the site editor. So that became a whole thing. Then all these various APIs. I mean, it happens quite frequently. So I’ve been working to keep it modern and up to date over the past four years and it’s been an incredible learning experience. It not only keeps my WordPress knowledge extremely sharp, but I’ve also learned how various other toolkits are built. That’s been the interesting thing. From a development standpoint, there’s two challenges here. One of the challenges is staying modern on the WordPress side of things. For instance, WordPress coding standards came out with a version 3 and then a version 3.1 about two years ago. I had to update WP Rig to leverage those modern coding standards. So that’s one example is as WordPress changes, the code in WP Rig also needs to change. Or for instance, if new CSS standards change, right, new CSS properties come out, it is ideal for the base CSS in WP Rig, meaning the CSS that you get right out of the box with it, comes with some of these, for instance, CSS grid, Flexbox, stuff like that. If I was adopting a theme framework to build a theme on, I would expect some of that stuff to be in there. And those things were extremely new when I first took over WP Rig and were not all baked in there essentially. So I’ve had to add a lot of that over time. Now there’s another side to this, which is not just keeping up with WordPress and CSS and PHP, 8. whatever, yada yada yada. You’ve also got the toolkit. There are various node packages and composer packages of power WP Rig and the process in which it does the transpiling, the bundling, the automated manipulation of your code during various aspects of the usage of WP Rig is a whole nother set of challenges because now you have to learn concepts like, well, how do I write custom node scripts? Right? Like there were no WP CLI commands built into WP Rig when I first took it over. Now there’s a whole list. There’s a whole library of WP CLI commands that come in Rig right out of the gate. And so I’ve had to learn about that. So just various things that come with knowing how do you automate the process of converting code, that’s something that was completely foreign to me when I first took over WP Rig. That’s been another incredible learning experience is understanding like what’s the difference between Webpack and Gulp. I didn’t know, right? I would tell people I’m using Gulp and WP Rig and they would be like, “Well, why don’t you just use Webpack?” and I would say, “I don’t know. I don’t know what the difference is.” So over time I could figure out what are the differences? Why aren’t we using Webpack? And I’m glad I spent some time on that because it turns out Webpack is not the hottest thing anymore, so I just skipped right over all that. When I overhauled for version 3, we’re now not using Gulp anymore as of 3.1. We’re now using more of a Vite-like process, far more modern than Webpack and far better and faster and sleeker and lighter. I had to learn a bunch about what powers Vite. What is Vite doing under the hood that we might be able to also do in WP Rig, but do it in a WordPress way. Because Vite is a SaaS tool. If you’re building a SaaS, like React with a… we’re not a SaaS. I guess a spa is a better term to use here. If you’re building a single page application with React or view or belt or whatever, right, then knowing what Vite is and just using Vite right out of the box is perfect. But it doesn’t translate perfectly to WordPress land because WordPress has its own opinions. And so I did have to do some dissecting there and figure out what to keep and what to not keep to what to kind of set aside so that WordPress can keep doing what WordPress does the way WordPress likes to do it, but also improve on how we’re doing some of the compiling and transpiling and the manipulation of the code during these various. Topher: All right. I want to pivot a little bit to some personal-ish questions. Rob: Okay. Topher: This is a big project. I’m sure it takes up plenty of your time. How scalable is that in your life? Do you want to do this for the rest of your life? Rob: That’s a fantastic question. I don’t know about the rest of my life. I mean, I definitely want to do web development for the rest of my life because the web has, let’s be honest, it’s transformed everyone’s way of life, whether you’re a web developer or not. You know, the fact that we have the internet in our pocket now, you know, it has changed everything. Apps, everything. It’s all built on the web. So I certainly want to be involved in the web the rest of my life. Do I want to keep doing WordPress the rest of my life? I don’t know. Do I want to keep doing WP Rig the rest of my life? I don’t know. But I will say that you bring up a very interesting point, which is it does take up a lot of time and also trust in open source over the past four or five years I would argue has diminished a little bit as a result of various events that have occurred over the past two or three years. I mean, we could cite the whole WP Engine Matt Mullerwig thing. We can also cite what’s going on with Oracle and JavaScript. Well, I mean, there’s many examples of this. I mean, we can cite the whole thing that happened… I mean, there’s various packages out there that are used and developed and open source to anybody, and some of them are going on maintained and it’s causing security vulnerabilities and degradation and all this stuff. So it’s a very important point. One thing I started thinking about after considering that in relation to WP Rig was I noticed that there’s usually a for-profit arm of any of these frameworks that seems to extend the lifespan of it. Let’s just talk about React, for example, React is an open source JavaScript framework, but it’s used by Facebook and Facebook is extremely for-profit. So companies that are making infrastructural or architectural decisions, they will base their choice on whether or not to use a framework largely on how long they think this framework is going to remain relevant or valid or maintained, right? A large part of that is, well, is there a company making money off of this thing? Because if there is, the chances- Topher: They’re going to keep doing that. Rob: They’re going to keep doing it. It’s going to stay around. That’s good. I think that’s healthy. A lot of people that like open source and want everything to be free, they might look at something like that and say like, well, I don’t want you to make a paid version of it or there shouldn’t be a pro version. I think that’s a very short-sighted way of looking at that software and these innovations. I think a more experienced way of looking at it is if you want something to remain relevant and maintained for a long period of time, having a for-profit way in which it’s leveraged is a very good thing. I mean, let’s be real. Would WordPress still be what it is today if there wasn’t a wordpress.com or if WooCommerce wasn’t owned by Automattic or whatever, right? They’ll be on top. I mean, it’s obviously impossible to say, but my argument would be, probably not. I mean, look at what’s happened to the other content management systems out there. You know, Joomla Drupal. They don’t really have a flourishing, you know, paid pro service that goes with their thing that’s very popular, at least definitely not as popular as WordPress.com or WordPress VIP or some of these other things that exist out there. And so having something that’s making and generating money that can then contribute back into it the way Automattic has been doing with WordPress over these years has, in my opinion, been instrumental. I mean, people can talk smack about Gutenberg all they want, but let’s be real, it’s 2025, would you still feel that WordPress is an elegant solution if we were still working from the WYSIWYG and using the classic editor? And I know a lot of people are still using the classic editor and there’s classic for us, the fork and all that stuff. But I mean, that only makes sense in a very specific implementation of WordPress, a very specific paradigm. If you want to explore any of these other paradigms out there, that way of thinking about WordPress kind of falls apart pretty quickly. I, for one, am happy that Gutenberg exists. I’m very happy that Automattic continues. And I’m grateful, actually, that Automattic continues to contribute back into WordPress. And not just them, obviously there’s other companies, XWP, 10Up, all these other companies are also contributing as well. But I’m very grateful that this ecosystem exists and that there’s contribution going back in and it’s happening from companies that are making money with this. And I think that’s vital. All that to say that WP Rig may and likely will have paid products in the future that leverage WP Rig. So that’s not to say that WP Rig will eventually cost money. That’s just to say that eventually people can expect other products to come out in the future that will be built on WP Rig and incentivize the continued contributions back into WP Rig. The open source version of WP Rig. Topher: That’s cool. I think that’s wise. If you want anything to stay alive, you have to feed it. Rob: That’s right. Topher: I had some more questions but I had forgotten them because I got caught up in your answer. Rob: Oh, thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. I mean, my answer was eloquent. But I’m happy to expand on anything, know you, WordPress related, me related, you know, whether it comes to the ecosystem in WordPress, the whole WordCamp meetup thing is very interesting. I led the WP Omaha meetup for many years here in Omaha, Nebraska and I also led the WordCamp, the organizing of WordCamp here in Omaha for several years as well. That whole community, the whole ecosystem, at least in America seems to have largely fallen apart. I don’t know if you want to talk about that at all. But yeah, I’m ready to dive into any topics. Topher: I’m going to have one more question and then we’re going to wrap up. And it was that you were talking about all the things you had to learn. I’m sure there were nights where you were looking at your computer thinking, “Oh man, I had it working, now I gotta go learn a new thing.” I would love for you to go back in time and blog all of that if you would. But given that you can’t, I would be interested in a blog moving forward, documenting what you’re learning, how you’re learning it and starting maybe with a post that’s summarizes all of that. Obviously, that’s up to you and how you want to spend your time, but I think it’d be really valuable to other people starting a project, picking up somebody else’s project to see what the roadmap might look like. You know what I mean? Rob: For sure. Well, I can briefly summarize what I’ve learned over the years and where I’m at today with how I do this kind of stuff. I will say that a lot of the improvements to WP Rig that have happened over the last year or two would not be possible without the advent of AI. Topher: Interesting. Rob: That’s a fancy way of saying that I have been by coding a lot of WP Rig lately. If you know how to use AI, it is extremely powerful and it can help you do many things very quickly that previously would have taken much longer or more manpower. So, yeah, perhaps if there was like five, six, seven people actively, excuse me, actively contributing to WP Rig, then this type of stuff would have been possible previously, but that’s not the case. There is one person, well, one main contributor to WP Rig today and you’re talking to them. There are a handful of other people that have been likely contributing to WP Rig over the versions and you can find their contributions in the change log file in WP Rig. But those contributions have been extremely light compared to what I’ve been doing. I wouldn’t be able to do any of it without AI. I have learned my ability to learn things extremely rapidly has ramped up tenfold since I started learning how to properly leverage LLMs and AI. So that’s not to say that like, you know, WP Rig, all the code is just being completely written by AI and I’m just like. make it better, enter, and then like WP Rig is better. I wish it was that easy. It’s certainly not that. But when I needed to start asking some of these vital questions that I really didn’t have anyone to turn to to help answer them, I was able to turn to AI. For instance, let’s go back to the Webpack versus Gulp situation. Although Gulp is no longer used in WP Rig, you know, it was used in WP Rig until very recently. So I had to understand like, what is this system, how does it work, how do I extend it and how do I update it and all these things, right? And why aren’t we using WebPack and you know, is there validity to this criticism behind you should use webpack instead of Gulp or whatever, right? I was able to use AI to ask these questions and be able to get extremely good answers out of it and give me the direction I needed to make some of these kind of higher level decisions on like architecturally where should WP Rig go? It was through these virtual conversations with LLMs that I was able to refine the direction of WP Rig in a direction that is both modern and forward-thinking and architecturally sound. I learned a tremendous amount from AI about the architecture, about the code, about all of it. My advice to anybody that wants to extend their skill set a little bit in the development side of things is to leverage this new thing that we have in a way that is as productive as possible for you. So that’s going to vary from person to person. But for me, if I’m on a flight or if I’m stuck somewhere for a while, like, let’s say I got to take my kid to practice or something and I’m stuck there for an hour and I got to find some way to kill my time 9 times out of 10, I’m on my laptop or on my phone having conversations with Grok or ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever. I am literally refining… I’m just sitting there asking it questions that are on my mind that I wish I could ask somebody who’s like 10 times more capable than me. It has been instrumental. WP Rig wouldn’t be where it is today if it wasn’t for that. I would just say to anybody, especially now that it’s all on apps and you don’t have to be on a browser anymore, adopt that way of thinking. You know, if you’re on your lunch break or whatever and you have an hour lunch break and you only take 15 minutes to eat, what could you be doing with those other 45 minutes? You could just jump on this magical thing that we have now and start probing it for questions. Like, Hey, here’s what I know. Here’s what I don’t know. Fill these knowledge gaps for me.” And it is extremely good at doing that. Topher: So my question was, can you blog this and your answer told me that there’s more there that I want to hear. That’s the stuff that should be in your book when you write your book. Rob: I’m flattered that you would be interested in reading anything that I write. So thank you. I’ve written stuff in the past and it hasn’t gotten a lot of attention. But I also don’t have any platforms to market it either. But yeah, no, I made some… I’m sorry. Topher: I think your experience is valuable far beyond Rig or WordPress. If you abstract it out of a particular project to say, you know, I did this with a project, I learned this this way, I think that would be super valuable. Rob: Well, I will say that recently at my current job, I was challenged to create an end to end testing framework with Playwright that would speed up how long it takes to test things and also prevent, you know, to make things fail earlier, essentially, to prevent broken things from ending up in the wild, right, and having to catch them the hard way. I didn’t know a lot about Playwright, but I do know how toolkits work now because of WP Rig. And I was able to successfully in a matter of, I don’t know, three days, put together a starter kit for a test framework that we’re already using at work to test any website that we create for any client. It can be extended and it can be hooked into any CI CD pipeline and it generates reports for you and it does a whole bunch of stuff. I was able to do this relatively quickly. This knowledge, yes, does come in handy in other situations. Will I end up developing other toolkits like WP Rig in the future for other things? I guess if I can give any advice to anybody listening out there, another piece of advice I would give people is, you know, especially if you’re a junior developer and you’re still learning or whatever, or you’re just a marketing person and just want to have more control over the functionality side of what you’re creating or more insight into that so you could better, you know, manage projects or whatever. My advice would be to take on a small little project that is scoped relatively small that’s not too much for you to chew and go build something and do it with… Just doing that will be good. But if you can do it with the intent to then present it in some fashion, whether it be a blog article or creating a YouTube video or going to a meetup and giving a talk on it or even a lunch and learn at work or whatever, right, that will, in my experience, it will dramatically amplify how much you learn from that little pet project that’s kind of like a mini learning experience. And I highly encourage anybody out there to do that on the regular. Actually, no matter what your experience level is in development, I think you should do these things on a regular basis. Topher: All right. I’m going to wrap this up. I got to get back to work. You probably have to get back to work. Rob: Yeah. Topher: Thanks for talking. Rob: Thanks for having me, Topher. Really appreciate it. Topher: Where could people find you? WPrig.io?  Rob: Yeah, WPrig.io. WP rig has accounts on all of the major platforms and, even on Bluesky and Mastodon. You can look me up, Rob Ruiz. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on all of those same platforms as well. You can add me on Facebook if you want, whatever. And I’m also in the WordPress Slack as well as Rob Ruiz. You can find me in the WordPress Slack. And then I’m on the WordPress Reddit and all that stuff. So yeah, reach out. If anybody wants to have any questions about Rig or anything else, I’m happy to engage.  Topher: Sounds good. All right, I’ll see you. Rob: All right, thanks, Topher. Have a good day. Topher: This has been an episode of the Hallway Chats podcast. I’m your host Topher DeRosia. Many thanks to our sponsor Nexcess. If you’d like to hear more Hallway Chats, please let us know on hallwaychats.com.

Dans ce numéro de décembre des Ondes Vocast, LE podcast qui parle de RADIO, une page spéciale dédiée à Nostalgie et à son fondateur Pierre Alberti, disparu récemment. Entrepreneur énergique, à la forte personnalité mais aussi au grand coeur, il a créé Nostalgie en 1984 à Lyon, avant d'en faire un grand réseau national. Nous recevrons Frédéric Coste, son ancien associé, la chanteuse Caroline Verdi qui a décolé en Russie grâce à Nostalgie Moscou, puis Max Lafontaine qui a rejoint Pierre Alberti sur Radio Émotion à Nice. Avant cela, nous ferons le tour de l'actu radio dans le Zoom actu, et nous ferons un petit zapping sur le morning de One FM à Genève, qui début décembre, a saturé les auditeurs de Suisse romande de multi-diffusions de la fameuse chanson de Noël de Maria Carey.Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frX : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Dans ce numéro de décembre des Ondes Vocast, LE podcast qui parle de RADIO, une page spéciale dédiée à Nostalgie et à son fondateur Pierre Alberti, disparu récemment. Entrepreneur énergique, à la forte personnalité mais aussi au grand coeur, il a créé Nostalgie en 1984 à Lyon, avant d'en faire un grand réseau national. Nous recevrons Frédéric Coste, son ancien associé, la chanteuse Caroline Verdi qui a décolé en Russie grâce à Nostalgie Moscou, puis Max Lafontaine qui a rejoint Pierre Alberti sur Radio Émotion à Nice. Avant cela, nous ferons le tour de l'actu radio dans le Zoom actu, et nous ferons un petit zapping sur le morning de One FM à Genève, qui début décembre, a saturé les auditeurs de Suisse romande de multi-diffusions de la fameuse chanson de Noël de Maria Carey.Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Episode 199: The Best Family Thanksgiving Getaways in the U.S. Hosts: Rob & Traci Release Date: November 2025 When you think Thanksgiving, you probably picture turkey, football, and the Macy's Parade—but what if your family celebrated somewhere new? In Episode 199, Rob and Traci explore America's best Thanksgiving destinations—from mountain towns and colonial villages to rivers lined with glowing holiday lights. Whether you want cozy, coastal, or full-on festive, this episode is stuffed with ideas for a holiday you'll truly be thankful for (and yes, the dad jokes are fully baked).

Des Ondes Vocast, c'est le podcast qui parle de radio.- Dans cet épisode de Novembre, Olivier Oddou va faire tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio avec notamment les salons radio à venir.- On parlera aussi de la baisse de 44% du FSER dans le projet de loi de finance du gouvernement, et pour cela Rémy Bertholon recevra Hugues de Vesins, Président de la radio CFM, qui nous rappellera les enjeux de ce financement essentiel pour les radios associatives et le lien qu'elles créent dans leurs territoires- Dans la deuxième partie interview de ce podcast, Rémy recevra Stéphanie Loire. Passée par la matinale de NRJ aux côtés de Manu Lévy et par celle de Chérie FM, avec des petits arrêts chez RTL et Europe 1, l'animatrice touche à tout a aussi visité les cases télé et podcast. Depuis 2 ans, elle a rejoint ses terres d'origines lyonnaises et a repris le drive de Radio Scoop, où elle y interviewe aussi des stars.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frX : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

- Dans cet épisode de Novembre, Olivier Oddou va faire tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio avec notamment les salons radio à venir.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

- On parlera aussi de la baisse de 44% du FSER dans le projet de loi de finance du gouvernement, et pour cela Rémy Bertholon recevra Hugues de Vesins, Président de la radio CFM, qui nous rappellera les enjeux de ce financement essentiel pour les radios associatives et le lien qu'elles créent dans leurs territoiresAnimation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Dans la deuxième partie interview de ce podcast, Rémy recevra Stéphanie Loire. Passée par la matinale de NRJ aux côtés de Manu Lévy et par celle de Chérie FM, avec des petits arrêts chez RTL et Europe 1, l'animatrice touche à tout a aussi visité les cases télé et podcast. Depuis 2 ans, elle a rejoint ses terres d'origines lyonnaises et a repris le drive de Radio Scoop, où elle y interviewe aussi des stars.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Des Ondes Vocast, c'est le podcast qui parle de radio.- Dans cet épisode de Novembre, Olivier Oddou va faire tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio avec notamment les salons radio à venir.- On parlera aussi de la baisse de 44% du FSER dans le projet de loi de finance du gouvernement, et pour cela Rémy Bertholon recevra Hugues de Vesins, Président de la radio CFM, qui nous rappellera les enjeux de ce financement essentiel pour les radios associatives et le lien qu'elles créent dans leurs territoires- Dans la deuxième partie interview de ce podcast, Rémy recevra Stéphanie Loire. Passée par la matinale de NRJ aux côtés de Manu Lévy et par celle de Chérie FM, avec des petits arrêts chez RTL et Europe 1, l'animatrice touche à tout a aussi visité les cases télé et podcast. Depuis 2 ans, elle a rejoint ses terres d'origines lyonnaises et a repris le drive de Radio Scoop, où elle y interviewe aussi des stars.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Dans cet épisode de Novembre, Olivier Oddou va faire tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio avec notamment les salons radio à venir.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

- On parlera aussi de la baisse de 44% du FSER dans le projet de loi de finance du gouvernement, et pour cela Rémy Bertholon recevra Hugues de Vesins, Président de la radio CFM, qui nous rappellera les enjeux de ce financement essentiel pour les radios associatives et le lien qu'elles créent dans leurs territoiresAnimation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Dans la deuxième partie interview de ce podcast, Rémy recevra Stéphanie Loire. Passée par la matinale de NRJ aux côtés de Manu Lévy et par celle de Chérie FM, avec des petits arrêts chez RTL et Europe 1, l'animatrice touche à tout a aussi visité les cases télé et podcast. Depuis 2 ans, elle a rejoint ses terres d'origines lyonnaises et a repris le drive de Radio Scoop, où elle y interviewe aussi des stars.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Des Ondes Vocast, c'est le podcast qui parle de radio.- Dans cet épisode de Novembre, Olivier Oddou va faire tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio avec notamment les salons radio à venir.- On parlera aussi de la baisse de 44% du FSER dans le projet de loi de finance du gouvernement, et pour cela Rémy Bertholon recevra Hugues de Vesins, Président de la radio CFM, qui nous rappellera les enjeux de ce financement essentiel pour les radios associatives et le lien qu'elles créent dans leurs territoires- Dans la deuxième partie interview de ce podcast, Rémy recevra Stéphanie Loire. Passée par la matinale de NRJ aux côtés de Manu Lévy et par celle de Chérie FM, avec des petits arrêts chez RTL et Europe 1, l'animatrice touche à tout a aussi visité les cases télé et podcast. Depuis 2 ans, elle a rejoint ses terres d'origines lyonnaises et a repris le drive de Radio Scoop, où elle y interviewe aussi des stars.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy BertholonInvités : Hugues de Vesins (Président de CFM) & Stéphanie Loire (Animatrice Journaliste sur Radio Scoop)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Des Ondes Vocast, le podcast qui parle de radio, propose un numéro d'octobre riche en actualités et en témoignages.Olivier Oddou revient tout d'abord sur les 40 ans de Fun Radio, une station qui a marqué beaucoup d'auditeurs dans les années 90 et a lancé toute une génération d'animateur. Retour sur cet anniversaire avec des archives sonores et des extraits de l'interview de son fondateur, Éric Péchadre.Des Ondes Vocast reçoit ensuite Jean Clergue, président de Pyrénées FM. Il revient sur le développement de cette radio régionale de proximité, son arrivée en catégorie B il y a quelques années, et son entrée prochaine dans le groupement des Indés Radios — une étape stratégique pour renforcer sa présence dans le paysage audiovisuel.Enfin, Rémi Bertholon reçoit Marion Gagnot, voix bien connue des auditeurs d'Europe 1, NRJ et Fun Radio. L'animatrice publie un livre retraçant vingt ans de carrière, un témoignane dédié à son jeune fils et à tous les amoureux de la radio, ponctué d'anecdotes savoureuses et de souvenirs de studio.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Jean Clergue - Président de Pyrénées FM & Marion Gagnot - Animatrice sur Europe 1Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Olivier Oddou revient tout d'abord sur les 40 ans de Fun Radio, une station qui a marqué beaucoup d'auditeurs dans les années 90 et a lancé toute une génération d'animateur. Retour sur cet anniversaire avec des archives sonores et des extraits de l'interview de son fondateur, Éric Péchadre.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Jean Clergue - Président de Pyrénées FM & Marion Gagnot - Animatrice sur Europe 1Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Des Ondes Vocast reçoit ensuite Jean Clergue, président de Pyrénées FM. Il revient sur le développement de cette radio régionale de proximité, son arrivée en catégorie B il y a quelques années, et son entrée prochaine dans le groupement des Indés Radios — une étape stratégique pour renforcer sa présence dans le paysage audiovisuel.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Jean Clergue - Président de Pyrénées FM & Marion Gagnot - Animatrice sur Europe 1Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Enfin, Rémi Bertholon reçoit Marion Gagnot, voix bien connue des auditeurs d'Europe 1, NRJ et Fun Radio. L'animatrice publie un livre retraçant vingt ans de carrière, un témoignane dédié à son jeune fils et à tous les amoureux de la radio, ponctué d'anecdotes savoureuses et de souvenirs de studio.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Jean Clergue - Président de Pyrénées FM & Marion Gagnot - Animatrice sur Europe 1Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]X : @DesOndesVocast [https://x.com/DesOndesVocast]

Des Ondes Vocast, le podcast qui parle de radio, propose un numéro d'octobre riche en actualités et en témoignages.Olivier Oddou revient tout d'abord sur les 40 ans de Fun Radio, une station qui a marqué beaucoup d'auditeurs dans les années 90 et a lancé toute une génération d'animateur. Retour sur cet anniversaire avec des archives sonores et des extraits de l'interview de son fondateur, Éric Péchadre.Des Ondes Vocast reçoit ensuite Jean Clergue, président de Pyrénées FM. Il revient sur le développement de cette radio régionale de proximité, son arrivée en catégorie B il y a quelques années, et son entrée prochaine dans le groupement des Indés Radios — une étape stratégique pour renforcer sa présence dans le paysage audiovisuel.Enfin, Rémi Bertholon reçoit Marion Gagnot, voix bien connue des auditeurs d'Europe 1, NRJ et Fun Radio. L'animatrice publie un livre retraçant vingt ans de carrière, un témoignane dédié à son jeune fils et à tous les amoureux de la radio, ponctué d'anecdotes savoureuses et de souvenirs de studio.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Jean Clergue - Président de Pyrénées FM & Marion Gagnot - Animatrice sur Europe 1Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frX : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Dans ce numéro de rentrée, nous faisons tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Julien a écouté le nouveau drive de Cyril Hanouna sur Fun Radio, Tout Beau Tout Fun. Il nous dit ce qu'il en pense. Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Julien nous partage ses Carnets d'Écoute. Il commence avec trois podcasts : 'Generation Do it yourself' de Mathieu Stefani, 'Espions, une histoire vraie' de France Inter par Stéphanie Duncan, et 'Les mecs que je veux ken' de Rosa Bursztein. Puis il enchaine avec deux radios écoutées sur la route des vacances : Chérie FM et Forum.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Rémi Bertholon accueille Laurent Petitguillaume pour nous parler du retour de Radio Restos avec notamment une diffusion sur plusieurs réseaux FM dont Fun Radio, Rire et Chansons, RFM et Chante France. Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Olivier Oddou reçoit David Glazer, animateur et journaliste dans le média radio depuis plus de vingt ans. Avec David on fera une petite page nostalgie sur Maxximum, la radio électro historique qui a tant marqué les esprits entre 1989 et 1992. David prépare un livre sur cette radio après de nombreux entretiens avec les membres historiques de la station.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Cet épisode lance la huitième saison Des Ondes Vocast, LE podcast qui parle de RADIO, toujours animé par Olivier Oddou, Julien Vigier et Rémi Bertholon.Dans ce numéro de rentrée, nous faisons tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio.Julien a écouté le nouveau drive de Cyril Hanouna sur Fun Radio, Tout Beau Tout Fun. Il nous dit ce qu'il en pense. Julien nous partage ses Carnets d'Écoute. Il commence avec trois podcasts : 'Generation Do it yourself' de Mathieu Stefani, 'Espions, une histoire vraie' de France Inter par Stéphanie Duncan, et 'Les mecs que je veux ken' de Rosa Bursztein. Puis il enchaine avec deux radios écoutées sur la route des vacances : Chérie FM et Forum.Rémi Bertholon accueille Laurent Petitguillaume pour nous parler du retour de Radio Restos avec notamment une diffusion sur plusieurs réseaux FM dont Fun Radio, Rire et Chansons, RFM et Chante France. Olivier Oddou reçoit David Glazer, animateur et journaliste dans le média radio depuis plus de vingt ans. Avec David on fera une petite page nostalgie sur Maxximum, la radio électro historique qui a tant marqué les esprits entre 1989 et 1992. David prépare un livre sur cette radio après de nombreux entretiens avec les membres historiques de la station.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Cet épisode lance la huitième saison Des Ondes Vocast, LE podcast qui parle de RADIO, toujours animé par Olivier Oddou, Julien Vigier et Rémi Bertholon.Dans ce numéro de rentrée, nous faisons tout d'abord le tour de l'actu radio.Julien a écouté le nouveau drive de Cyril Hanouna sur Fun Radio, Tout Beau Tout Fun. Il nous dit ce qu'il en pense.Julien nous partage ses Carnets d'Écoute. Il commence avec trois podcasts : 'Generation Do it yourself' de Mathieu Stefani, 'Espions, une histoire vraie' de France Inter par Stéphanie Duncan, et 'Les mecs que je veux ken' de Rosa Bursztein. Puis il enchaine avec deux radios écoutées sur la route des vacances : Chérie FM et Forum.Rémi Bertholon accueille Laurent Petitguillaume pour nous parler du retour de Radio Restos avec notamment une diffusion sur plusieurs réseaux FM dont Fun Radio, Rire et Chansons, RFM et Chante France.Olivier Oddou reçoit David Glazer, animateur et journaliste dans le média radio depuis plus de vingt ans. Avec David on fera une petite page nostalgie sur Maxximum, la radio électro historique qui a tant marqué les esprits entre 1989 et 1992. David prépare un livre sur cette radio après de nombreux entretiens avec les membres historiques de la station.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Laurent Petitguillaume et David GlaserCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frX : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

The BanterThe Guys talk about how to ruin a good drink.The ConversationThe Restaurant Guys sit down with Rob D'Elia, the owner of iconic dive bar Ale ‘n ‘Wich Pub in New Brunswick, NJ. The ‘Wich has hosted a few celebrities and a lot of personalities over the years. They reminisce and talk about the je ne sais quoi of local bars.The Inside TrackThe Guys used to shoot darts at the Ale ‘n ‘Wich in college. In fact, it was where Francis had his first legal drink. They've watched it go through various phases and Francis asks who are the regulars now. Rob: It's hippies, hipsters, artists, musicians, ink, LGBTQ, United Nations of Colors, professors, professors with their students who are over 21 that sit here and do discussions as part of a part of their class. Age? 21 to 60.. 65…70.Francis: Notice he made it 65. Because I'm 60. I was at the limit. I got an extension there!-Rob D'Elia on The Restaurant Guys Podcast 2025BioRobert D'Elia is the owner of Ale 'n Wich Pub in New Brunswick, NJ, a landmark bar known for its historic charm and strong community ties. After a successful career in mortgage banking, D'Elia became a partner in the business in 2005 and took full ownership in 2012. He has since preserved the pub's authentic atmosphere while making thoughtful updates, ensuring it remains a beloved local institution for students, artists, and longtime regulars alike.Ale ‘n ‘Wich Pubhttps://alenwich.com/***Win an Ale ‘n Wich t-shirt!!***Email TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcst.comThe Martini Expo!Presented by the award-winning publication The Mix with Robert Simonson https://martiniexpo.com/Sept 12 & 13, 2025 @ Industry City in BrooklynJoin us for martini experiences with acclaimed guests (see martiniexpo.com)Restaurant Guys Regulars get a 10% discount. Subscribe at https://www.restaurantguyspodcast.com/ Our Sponsors The Heldrich Hotel & Conference Centerhttps://www.theheldrich.com/ Magyar Bankhttps://www.magbank.com/ Withum Accountinghttps://www.withum.com/ Our Places Stage Left Steakhttps://www.stageleft.com/ Catherine Lombardi Restauranthttps://www.catherinelombardi.com/ Stage Left Wineshophttps://www.stageleftwineshop.com/ To hear more about food, wine and the finer things in life:https://www.instagram.com/restaurantguyspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/restaurantguysReach Out to The Guys!TheGuys@restaurantguyspodcast.com**Become a Restaurant Guys Regular and get two bonus episodes per month, bonus content and Regulars Only events.**Click Below!https://www.buzzsprout.com/2401692/subscribe

Comme chaque année, Des Ondes Vocast, LE podcast qui parle de RADIO, décortique et analyse dans son épisode d'août les résultats détaillés des enquêtes EAR Local de Médiamétrie qui mesurent l'audience de la radio en région. Au menu, l'analyse des audiences chez les Indés Radios, la revue du classement dans les plus grandes agglomérations, et les audiences des pure player DAB+. Cette année en prime, nous recevons Parivone Sudaros de Médiamétrie qui nous explique la méthodologie de ces enquêtes et les grandes tendances de cette vague.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvitée : Parivone Sudaros - Directrice Radio Locale & Outre-Mer à MédiamétrieCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [https://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Comme chaque année, Des Ondes Vocast, LE podcast qui parle de RADIO, décortique et analyse dans son épisode d'août les résultats détaillés des enquêtes EAR Local de Médiamétrie qui mesurent l'audience de la radio en région. Au menu, l'analyse des audiences chez les Indés Radios, la revue du classement dans les plus grandes agglomérations, et les audiences des pure player DAB+. Cette année en prime, nous recevons Parivone Sudaros de Médiamétrie qui nous explique la méthodologie de ces enquêtes et les grandes tendances de cette vague.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvitée : Parivone Sudaros - Directrice Radio Locale & Outre-Mer à MédiamétrieCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frTwitter : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

- Le bilan de la saison : zapping et focus sur diverses radios, avec Rémy BertholonAnimation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- ITW avec Albert Spano, qui quitte la matinale de RFMAnimation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Au programme de cet épisode S07E12 du podcast Des Ondes Vocast :- Le zoom actu, les dernières actus radio résumées par Olivier Oddou- Le bilan de la saison : zapping et focus sur diverses radios, avec Rémy Bertholon- Julien Vigier partage ses Carnets d'Écoute- ITW avec Victorien Clary, animateur et réalisateur de la matinale avec Cauet sur Europe 2- ITW avec Albert Spano, qui quitte la matinale de RFMAnimation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frTwitter : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Au programme de cet épisode S07E12 du podcast Des Ondes Vocast :- Le zoom actu, les dernières actus radio résumées par Olivier Oddou- Le bilan de la saison : zapping et focus sur diverses radios, avec Rémy Bertholon- Julien Vigier partage ses Carnets d'Écoute- ITW avec Victorien Clary, animateur et réalisateur de la matinale avec Cauet sur Europe 2- ITW avec Albert Spano, qui quitte la matinale de RFMAnimation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Le zoom actu, les dernières actus radio résumées par Olivier OddouAnimation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- ITW avec Victorien Clary, animateur et réalisateur de la matinale avec Cauet sur Europe 2Animation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Julien Vigier partage ses Carnets d'ÉcouteAnimation / réalisation : Julien VigierIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Olivier OddouInvités: Victorien Clary, Albert SpanoCrédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Au programme de cet épisode S07E11 du podcast Des Ondes Vocast :Dans ce numéro de juin, nous allons tout d'abord faire le tour de l'actu radio dans le Zoom actu.A l'occasion de la fête de la radio, nous recevons Romain Laleix, le nouveau membre de l'ARCOM qui préside le groupe de travail Radio et Audio numérique. Il nous parle de son parcours et de sa vision du média radio, notamment en ce qui concerne la proximité avec l'auditeur et la véracité de l'information.Julien Vigier nous partage ses fameux carnets d'écoute.Rémy Bertholon reçoit l'animateur Elliot qui vient de lancer le Twitch NRJ tous les soirs de 19h à 21h sur Twitch, après être passé aux mornings de Bruno Guillon et de Benjamin Castaldi, mais aussi en télé à Touche Pas à Mon Poste.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Romain Laleix (Membre de l' Arcom, Président du groupe de travail Radio et Audio Numérique), Elliot (Animateur NRJ)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure JinglesVoix off : Estelle HubertContactPar mail : contact@vocast.frTwitter : @DesOndesVocastHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

- Dans ce numéro de juin, nous allons tout d'abord faire le tour de l'actu radio dans le Zoom actu.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Romain Laleix (Membre de l' Arcom, Président du groupe de travail Radio et Audio Numérique), Elliot (Animateur NRJ)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- A l'occasion de la fête de la radio, nous recevons Romain Laleix, le nouveau membre de l'ARCOM qui préside le groupe de travail Radio et Audio numérique. Il nous parle de son parcours et de sa vision du média radio, notamment en ce qui concerne la proximité avec l'auditeur et la véracité de l'information.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Romain Laleix (Membre de l' Arcom, Président du groupe de travail Radio et Audio Numérique), Elliot (Animateur NRJ)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Julien Vigier nous partage ses fameux carnets d'écoute.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Romain Laleix (Membre de l' Arcom, Président du groupe de travail Radio et Audio Numérique), Elliot (Animateur NRJ)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

- Rémy Bertholon reçoit l'animateur Elliot qui vient de lancer le Twitch NRJ tous les soirs de 19h à 21h sur Twitch, après être passé aux mornings de Bruno Guillon et de Benjamin Castaldi, mais aussi en télé à Touche Pas à Mon Poste.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Romain Laleix (Membre de l' Arcom, Président du groupe de travail Radio et Audio Numérique), Elliot (Animateur NRJ)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

Au programme de cet épisode S07E11 du podcast Des Ondes Vocast :- Dans ce numéro de juin, nous allons tout d'abord faire le tour de l'actu radio dans le Zoom actu.- A l'occasion de la fête de la radio, nous recevons Romain Laleix, le nouveau membre de l'ARCOM qui préside le groupe de travail Radio et Audio numérique. Il nous parle de son parcours et de sa vision du média radio, notamment en ce qui concerne la proximité avec l'auditeur et la véracité de l'information.- Julien Vigier nous partage ses fameux carnets d'écoute.- Rémy Bertholon reçoit l'animateur Elliot qui vient de lancer le Twitch NRJ tous les soirs de 19h à 21h sur Twitch, après être passé aux mornings de Bruno Guillon et de Benjamin Castaldi, mais aussi en télé à Touche Pas à Mon Poste.Animation / réalisation : Olivier OddouIntervenants : Rémy Bertholon, Julien VigierInvités : Romain Laleix (Membre de l' Arcom, Président du groupe de travail Radio et Audio Numérique), Elliot (Animateur NRJ)Crédits musicaux : Rob - It's a blast (BO du film 'Radiostars'), jingles produits par Pure Jingles [https://purejingles.com/]Voix off : Estelle Hubert [http://estellehubert.com]ContactPar mail : contact@vocast.fr [https://www.vocast.fr/contact.html]Twitter : @DesOndesVocast [https://twitter.com/DesOndesVocast]

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I sit down with Rob Holmes of Texas Capital Bank. Rob shares the bank's dramatic turnaround story since he became President and CEO in 2021 amid challenges, including a failed merger. Rob explains how Texas Capital improved its standing through strategic moves like fortifying capital levels and attracting talent from global institutions. We explore Texas Capital's community focus through initiatives increasing volunteerism and launching a charitable foundation. Rob highlights how their junior program brings diverse talent while nurturing a vibrant culture. Wrapping up, Rob discusses maintaining liquidity amid regional banking stress, their strong capital position, and diversification that sets them apart. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Rob and I discuss the transformation of Texas Capital under Rob's leadership since 2021, highlighting the strategic moves that improved the bank's financial standing and attracted top-tier talent. Rob explains how Texas Capital's strong capital position and strategic diversification helped it navigate the regional banking stress of 2023. We explore Texas Capital's commitment to community engagement, including extensive volunteer hours, the founding of a new charitable foundation, and various philanthropic activities across Texas. Rob elaborates on the bank's innovative junior program, which has attracted diverse and talented professionals to Texas Capital. We discuss the importance of maintaining a respectful, collaborative workplace culture and the value of in-office collaboration for fostering a strong, healthy culture and achieving better customer outcomes. Rob shares insights on the challenges facing the banking industry, such as regulatory inconsistencies, the inverted yield curve, technology integration, and commercial real estate risks. We discuss Texas Capital's strategic initiatives to expand services, including public finance and equity research in oil and gas. Rob reflects on the lessons he has learned from his career, emphasizing the importance of candor, transparency, and servant leadership. Rob recounts personal anecdotes about his first jobs and leisure pursuits, offering a glimpse into his personal life and leadership style. We touch on the role of media in shaping perceptions of regional banks and the distinct advantages of regional banks in serving local communities and businesses. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Texas Capital GUESTS Rob HolmesAbout Rob TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In this episode, you will meet Rob Holmes, President and CEO of Texas Capital. Rob shares an inspiring story on how Texas Capital has rebuilt itself and become the first full-service financial services institution headquartered in Texas. Rob, I want to thank you for joining me here on Building Texas Business. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Let's start. I know you're the CEO Building Texas Business. Welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Let's start. I know you're the CEO of Texas Capital. Tell the listeners a little bit about what Texas Capital is and the type of services it provides here in Texas. Rob: Great. Well, thank you very much for having me. So Texas Capital had a very proud founding in the late 90s by Texas business people to found a bank to serve Texas businesses with local decision making. After all, the banks failed in the late 80s and they had a very proud run and 05 went public and did very well. Then about the mid teens we kind of started going a little sideways and by the time I got there the bank needed to be kind of rebuilt and so we had a failed merger with a bank about a third our size and that tells you anything, and really because of COVID. But after that they needed new leadership and so what we did was we started over and we went fast. So we raised a perpetual deferred deal with sub-debt securitization, got out of a line of business correspondent banking that attracted a lot of capital and improved the capital by about 270 basis points in about eight weeks, and that's my bet as we run the bank very conservatively. We also brought in a lot of new talent. So the entire operating committee is new. We have a new junior program we can get into that later. But then we started on the journey to build and this is kind of interesting. I think you'll find it interesting. We're the first full service financial services firm ever to be headquartered in Texas and if you think about it it makes perfect sense. So in the 80s you had Glass-Steagall and stuff. You had a lot of big banks. They failed. They were replaced by larger institutions from out of state that saw this as a very attractive market. But the in-market banks never went into the full service direction. So regional banks are made from community banks and they get bigger and they didn't have the products and services. They just had NIM banks, if you will Sure. Chris: Well, that's an impressive thing to have a claim to being the only one headquartered in Texas. I would not have thought that, you know, given some of the other Texas yeah. So I mean you're not kidding when you said a full restart just a few years ago. Rob: Full restart. So we have think about who we're able to attract, and this says more about Texas than Texas Capital. But the woman that runs treasury services for us ran treasury services for JPMorgan Chase globally. Our chief risk officer was the head of risk for JPMorgan's investment bank and then chief risk officer was the head of risk for JP Morgan's investment bank and then chief risk officer for the commercial bank and then head of risk for real estate globally. Our head of ops was a head of ops and tech for Stan O'Neill at Merrill Lynch. The CEO Started in the mailroom, ended up reporting as CEO head of ops and tech for Merrill Lynch. I think he can do it here and that so and that just kind of it keeps going. Our CHRO came from Cilindes and our CIO has an impressive background. Our head of commercial banking all of them had bigger jobs at much larger institutions. Chris: Yeah, what that tells me, Rob, is that those people saw a bright future in the business climate in Texas to make those kind of moves to join you and the Dallas headquarters. Rob: There's no doubt about it and, by the way, I wouldn't have tried this anywhere else, I mean for sure. So, as you know, texas is eighth largest economy in the world, second largest workforce, youngest workforce, fastest growing. We've created 46,. We've created more jobs in 46 last 48 months, so it's a very attractive place to be overall? Chris: What was it about just speaking to you? I know you joined in 2021, that based on the career you had built to that moment where you saw this as the right opportunity for you. Rob: I was very happy where I was. So I was primarily in the investment bank at JPMorgan Chase, but my last 10 years I ran the large corporate bank and the commercial bank ended up taking that to 22 countries. So I ran that business. Globally it was over $180 billion in assets. It was a third treasury, a third lending and a third investment banking. Great business, great people. But when this bank kind of went sideways, I had two or three people call me and say, hey, I'm thinking about this, would you come run it? And it surprised me. I'm like, why are you calling me? But then I started looking at it and, like you, I'm from Texas. I commuted to New York for 25 of the 31 years that I worked for JP Morgan. But people kind of said, why don't you come home and build something special with where you're from? And that, through more and more dialogue, became very appealing to me and I did not know and shame on me that as bad a shape as a bank was when we got there. But it ended up being a blessing because you know like today it'd be very difficult to do what we did. I mean to have a board, investor base, regulators, constituents. Let you reinvest. We reinvested over a third of our non-interest expense and then more, and we said to the investor community and the board and others that we're going to have negative operating leverage for about a year and a half. That'd be very hard to do in this climate, right? And so the other thing we had to do became a blessing because you had to do it all at once, and so I'm glad that's behind us. Today the bank is. It used to have just mono banking, like a community or regional bank. Today we have segmentation, so you have business banking for small businesses, middle market banking for a little larger businesses, a little more sophistication, and then we have a corporate banking group like a money center bank. And when you have a corporate banking group you have to have industry expertise. So we have energy, diversified FIG, government, not-for-profit healthcare, tmt and mortgage, so we have the industry expertise of any money center bank right here in Texas. And then we have private wealth and then we rebuilt all of treasury. So it's a brand new bank. We have a new payments platform, new lockbox, new card, new merchant, new digital onboarding that we came up with. And so we people say the banks can't compete on technology like with the big bank, but we can because we have one platform. Those big banks have many platforms because they're a combination of many banks. We can go in that if you want. And then we have one platform. Those big banks have many platforms because they're a combination of many banks. We can go in that if you want. And then we have, as I said, private wealth, investment banking, and we can go into as many of those areas as you want. Chris: So you basically built it like you said. As businesses are coming to Texas, you're ready to serve whatever need they have. Rob: For sure. So we want to be very relevant to our clients and we are a one-stop shop, so you won't outgrow us. We were a top 10 arranger of bank debt for middle market companies in the years. We've done about $110 billion of notional trades in about 18 months. Wow, it's profitable. Chris: So what's your vision for the future, then for Texas Capital, and kind of, how are you working to achieve? Rob: that it's actually pretty simple. It's maturing the platform that we built. So we are the number one lender to Texas-based businesses of any Texas-based bank. Now that's new. We've had tremendous success. Business owners and decision makers love the local decision making. They love the fact that when they hire us, they're getting a very talented, experienced MD working for them instead of maybe the money center bank, whatever, a VP or something assigned to it. They just like the local decision making, local access. But the go forward strategy is People ask me this all the time what's next? And they think that we have a big bang answer. The big bang answer is delighting clients and banking the best clients in our markets, and we've always said, or I've always said we'll be defined by our clients, and so we have been blessed to have clients be attracted to the strategy and platform. So we're going to just do more of what we've done. Chris: So what I like about that strategy is the simplicity. I think there's a lesson there for entrepreneurs and other business owners in what you've done in the last few years, and that to me is get the foundation right and your core right Correct, and then do the fundamentals really well. Right, it's blocking and tackling is what you're doing. Rob: It's executing now for sure. And I had one CEO of a very renowned New York financial firm ask him to come see me. They had heard about what we were doing and he wanted to understand it because we actually we took what he would say was the very best person from his sales and trading floor who had been there 18 years. He didn't understand how we could attract that person because that person drove a U-Haul to Dallas with his wife and kids before we were even open. And he said tell me your strategy. And I went through it and, to be honest with you, I was hoping he would like it because I was pretty long the strategy. And so he did. And I said what do you think? He said I think y'all are going to be very successful. And this was early on. And I said why is that? He said do you have a differentiated strategy with differentiated talent in a differentiated market? And I think that's true. But then he said what do you think? And I said well, our talent's really. This is back in 21. Now we've done all these things, but I said that the talent is really good, but we've got to do everything with this jersey on now and delight our clients with TCB jersey, not another jersey. And he said look, rob, do it once, it'll be hard, do it three times, you'll be good. The fifth time you're an expert and I kind of he kind of and he's pretty renowned. It was a pretty simple lesson but it's kind of true. And now we have done it and we are good at what we're doing. But we still can mature the platform, that treasury platform we talked about. It's literally second to none. We're doing open banking for clients. We're doing a digital onboarding. You can open a commercial account tomorrow at a money center bank. That take eight weeks or six weeks. But that platform to scale to get the most out of it, I mean we could run it without any more investment for five years. So we got to scale the business and, by the way, it's happening. So that treasury platform is it's called P times V, price times volume that's how many transactions are going through the factory or warehouse financial transactions. That's usually for a bank it's a 2% business at best. It grows the economy, it grows the GDP. We're going 17%, quarter over quarter, year, quarter after quarter. That's remarkable Because of new clients moving to the platform. So it is scaling but we just need to continue to do that Right. Chris: So you talked about the platform a couple of times. What type of I guess technology or emerging technologies do you see having the biggest impact in the banking industry over the next, say, three to five years? Rob: I think real-time payments, I think open banking, and people don't really understand what open banking is. What open banking is? It's actually very simple, so think well, here's, here's one simple way. Part of it is you don't have to leave your internal financial platform to go to our platform. We'll put an API on yours and so you can just push a button and be into our system and send ACH or wire or what. So I think AI, I think open banking and I think real-time payments. Okay. Chris: Well, I can speak from experience, as we transitioned to Texas Capital a year ago and, to your point of the ease of that transition and being able to deal with decision makers made it seamless. Good Well thank you. It's been a great relationship for us, for sure. Rob: Good Well thank you. Chris: What you're saying is true, Well, thank you. It's been a great relationship for us for sure. Good, Well, thank you. I can attest to that. What you're saying is true, Well, thank you. Let's talk a little bit about where you see corporate leadership whether that's your C-suite or just the company as it exists and community impact. What type of initiatives is Texas Capital working on to be a meaningful member of the community? Rob: Yeah, well, that's a. Thank you very much for the for the easy pitch. So I think we do. We bat way above our weight in community impact. So we do tens of thousands of hours of employee volunteer in the community. We, as part of this transformation, when we were investing in the platform, we took time to also found our first foundation. We never had a foundation before. So we have a foundation and we do volunteer hours and we just were part of the group that bought Opal Lear Newhouse. We were the first one to open a branch in West Dallas. We gave the founding seed money for Southern Gateway in Dallas. We're big supporters of Rodeo here in Houston. Last year I think we sponsored the opening night, so I think you're going to see us pretty much all over the state of Texas in terms of giving and more than just money but time, resources, expertise to philanthropies. We hosted a great event about three weeks ago. People came from all over the country and it was for veterans and we had veteran not-for-profits and we had veteran-owned businesses and we just brought them together and talked about issues and how they could work together and synergies between the two and advancing veterans on a go-forward basis, and the people that came would just blow you away and the feedback of it. I happened to be out of town on a three-day weekend afterwards out of the country and somebody approached me and I didn't know them and they didn't know me, but I guess they'd seen my picture or something and they thanked me for having that veteran event. Wow, and so it had a far, far impact. It will do things like that. We have a nonprofit event in every city, getting nonprofits together, helping them learn how to raise money and trade best practices, and we do that and we'll do that in every city during the summer. So you know, our giving is good, Our volunteer hours are fantastic, Our sharing of expertise is good. Our investment in the community is great, Good. Chris: Let's circle back to because that kind of made me think of team building, right, so you talked about basically a wholesale change with the team around you. What are some of the things that you look for to make sure you're you know, through that recruiting and hiring process, that you're getting the right person for the position? Rob: Yep, so this is a great question and this was the key to what we've done so far and how we're going to reach our 25 goals. So in September of 21, when we announced a strategic plan, which was pretty dramatic, we said we're not going to achieve our financial goals until 25. With that came a lot of change and a lot of talent. So 80% of the people at the firm are new since I got there. That's 80% of over 2,000 people. So that's a lot of change, managing through a lot of change through a transformation, through a regional quote, unquote regional banking practice that I'd love to talk about, regional banking practice, regional banking stress that I'd love to talk about transformation. So there's a lot going on there, both internally and externally, that we had to manage through. And what we did is we started at the top and the bottom, so we put new leadership with new skill sets and new expectations and new goals of banking the best clients in our markets instead of just being a bank, etc. And we also started a junior program. It was the first junior program in the history of the bank. Chris: You mentioned that earlier, so tell us a little more about the junior program. Rob: It's awesome If you have a kid and they want to get into finance and they don't want to go to New York but they want to work at a great financial services firm to have them join us. So we post in. So I got there in January of 21. It so I got there in January 21. It's COVID Nobody's in the office. We'd just been through this internal stress with the failed merger, new CEO, the whole bit. I said we need a junior program. We posted 60 positions. We got 800 applications. We hired 60-something. A third of those had their masters. That wasn't required. The average GPA was over 374. So people love what we're doing right. The next year there's over 2,000 applicants and our junior program is great. And, by the way, I helped build one in the investment bank in my last firm and one in the commercial bank in my last firm. I thought they were both very good. This one's awesome. So you come in, you go through four or five months of training and then you go into your line of business. But we probably hired you after your internship the summer before, if that makes sense. Sure, the program has some of the diverse classes I've ever seen in banking and we didn't do that. This may be controversial. We do that on purpose. We did that because we hired the best people Exactly and they're the most diverse classes, and so we're really excited about that. And then the attrition rate there isn't nearly what we thought it would be. We built it for a higher attrition rate because those kids usually leave a large percentage after third year. Sure. They're not leaving. Rob: They like it, so that's been kind of fun. It's a good problem, right, it's a great problem and we'll use all of them. And, by the way, after that change you should just know the attrition stuff has dramatically slowed as the transformation slowed. We got all the talented people in place that we needed so we are ahead of corporate America, finance and Texas companies for attrition and excited about that in the new culture here. ADVERT Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders. Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom and thanks for listening to the show. Chris: Well that you know that low attrition rate leads to what you talked about earlier better customer experience, more stability. Rob: We need stability. Chris: Everybody needs stability. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so you mentioned regional banking stress. Tell me what you're referring to about that. Rob: Yeah, last spring of 23,. Eb failed, first Republic and the like. We were fortunate. So, november of 22, we sold a business to Truist for $3.5 billion with a very big premium on it. With the sale of that we became if you compare us to any $100 billion bank or above in the country or any Texas public bank we have the third most capital and I think in the next quarters we'll have the second most but third and we're number one in equity tangible common equity assets. So we're the least levered. We have third most capital. Our highly liquid assets are like 29% our cash and securities. Our AOCI problem, which is the mark on the bond portfolio. Banks are struggling with that. We're very good there. So our capital, our liquidity, et cetera, was very strong. So we didn't experience outflows of deposits or anything. What we did experience was a rotation, like every bank in the country, from non-interest-bearing deposits to interest-bearing deposits. So all banks if you want to call this cost of goods sold went up. But the regional banks for us the reason I wanted to come back and talk about that people call it a regional banking crisis. It was not. It had to do with certain banks were of the size that they define regional banks that had the wrong strategy, the wrong concentrations, and they failed, right. That's not because they're regional banks, right, they just happen to be that size. By the way, credit Suisse failed too. It is a global bank, right. So you know, I think this is sometimes where the media gets the message wrong and puts fear into the market, and they love it, and they love it and so I'm really proud of what the regional banks do and how they serve their clients in market and their local communities, giving back to their communities, being Main Street lenders, and I'm really proud of. You know how we do that. I think I told you before we went on the air. We're the number one lender of Texas-based businesses, of any Texas-based bank. That's a big deal because these money center banks they may be in the state or super regionals in the state or even regionals in the state but, if they decide, oh you know what, it's not okay to bank an energy company, they don't Well, guess what? We have those decisions here. We don't have somebody else deciding our social norms. Chris: Right, right, that's a great selling point. Going back to the kind of the junior program and this new team, let's talk about culture, I mean. So how would you define the culture at Texas Capitol and kind of, what do you think you've done to kind of foster that and what do you see as necessary to keep it growing? I think? Rob: the culture is transparent, curious, candid and relentless dissatisfaction, as my general counsel calls it. So, look, we've made a lot of change. We'll continue to make a lot of change. We just hired somebody to run public finance for us. We didn't have that before. Lot of change we just hired somebody to run public finance for us. We didn't have that before. We started into the foray of public equity, research and oil and gas. We're going to keep growing and building, doing things that serve our clients and our clients' needs. But the one thing that we kind of talk about a lot is and I'll say it little softer is you know just no jerks allowed. You could talk about, you can talk about Ivy League. You know culture and they have you know big words, but the simple thing is like we're gonna treat people with respect, period. Right now. You can be tough and you can be hard, but you gotta be fair, right, and you gotta be polite. And you know you can be hard but you've got to be fair and you've got to be polite and you can have high expectations while being compassionate. So we have high expectations, we are moving fast, but we do treat people with respect and we like working with one another and that's been part of the fun is, we've been in office because we think that's how you build a career and not a job, and that's how you collaborate to serve your client and that's what's best for our clients and best for employees. And we like being with one another. We don't want to work remote from a beach and not share life's experiences with our colleagues. Chris: Yeah, couldn't agree more. I mean, we got back to the office in May of 2020. I believe, and my partners here, you're a part of an organization for a reason. Organizations are a group of people together, right, correct, and we learn from each other. We can collaborate in a customer service-related industry. Like you and I are in the customer does better when we're collaborating to serve them, you and I are in the customer does better when we're collaborating to serve them, and we do that when we're together. Yep Hands down, no question. And we've been like you. We've been in office in person for a while now and you read as much as I do for the last six, seven months. You just see the pendulum swinging back because the other organizations are realizing they're losing customer satisfaction, they're losing engagement with their people. You can't have a culture if you're not together. In my view, or you can. Actually, you can have a culture. It's just not a healthy one in my view. Yeah, it's really bad, that's right. Rob: So, look, looking back, it seems like a really easy decision and, by the way, I was back in the office in 2022. But at this room, I didn't get there until January 21. Nobody's back in the office. You meant 22 as well. Yes, I did. I did. Excuse me, I did, but you know I got here in 21. We went back to office Memorial Day the Tuesday after Memorial Day of 21. And it was a harder decision then. It seems easy now Because, like even the day before, there was rumors of everybody in our ops organization that they were going to protest and walk out. You know at 901 and we decided, we made a conscious decision that this is what they're going to do and we wanted the people that wanted to be in the office right, and we may lose some people, and that's fine, and it would be harder in the short term, but the people that would be attracted to the platform and the business and us would be people that wanted careers, not jobs, and, by definition, those are the better employees, right, and I think those people attract those people and that's how we were able to transform so much while other people were sitting at home. Chris: Yeah. Now to your point. I mean, if you have a long-term strategy right, then you're willing to go through some short-term pain to get the right people that are going to help you achieve that For sure. A little bit about just your thoughts on what are some of the biggest challenges you think facing the banking industry as we sit here today and maybe for the foreseeable future. Obviously, for the last couple of years, every month everybody's watching the Fed, so that may be part of the answer. But just what do you see as the challenges? Rob: Yeah, so there's plenty for most industries though, too. So one is, and this is an excuse, but it is a challenge. The regulatory body needs to come together and be consistent and apply things consistently. That'd be helpful. We have an inverted yield curve now for the longest time, one of the longest periods in history, you know the two years four, seven something. The 10 years four two something. That makes banking very hard for a lot of technical reasons we can go into. For most banks, technology is a problem. Most banks are an aggregation of multiple banks. They're not like us that has one technology platform. That's, by the way, brand new and totally modern. Banks have not been willing to. It's been a cost cutting game because a lot of banks this is why our strategy is so good NIM banks. So net interest margin, which is loan only, the model of taking a deposit and making a loan and achieving a return above your cost of capital through cycle, I think is very difficult and that's why we supplemented our platform. You know loans, investment banking, private wealth. You know all the different things we do for a client so that we can achieve that return, because a lot of the banks to have that return would have to maybe make a riskier loan to get a higher spread or what have you? So I think the NIM banking model to get a higher spread or what have you? So I think the NIM banking model especially after spring of 23, is hard. I think the technology spend is hard. I think there's a lot of banks that have too much commercial real estate. So our commercial real estate is a very small percentage of our total capital. Regulators want you to be maybe 250 or 300%. There's a lot of banks that are 400. That's too much, yeah. And when you have that much commercial real estate, remember a lot of its construction loans, and so the construction loans. You made that decision today and you're funding it in two years. So you're going to you're that that concentration, because those paydowns are, you know, like a five-year low and commercial real estate is going to keep growing. So banks marginal loan the dollar to make the next loan. The cost just went up, so they're going to slow down their lending while the commercial real estate gets absorbed. They can't be relevant to their clients with anything other than the loan product and if they're not doing that, they're going to slow down their growth and slow down lending. They can't be relevant to their clients with anything other than the loan product, and if they're not doing that, they're going to slow down their growth and slow down lending. They don't have the margin to spend on technology. Chris: And those are some of the problems. Yeah, there's cascades, right, totally. Let's turn a little bit to just kind of you and leadership. How would you describe your leadership style today and maybe how you feel like it's evolved over your career? Rob: I think you've got to do what you want other people to do. So I'm in Houston today. We're seeing six clients we talk all the time about it's about the client, not us. Ops exists to serve a client, technology exists to serve a client. It's not for the bank. And so we have become pretty client obsessed at Texas Capital, delivering the best outcomes for our clients. I mean, like the one deal I think I told you about, we sole managed the largest debt deal in the country last year. The largest sole managed debt deal in the country last year. That's after a money center bank failed doing it. We gave the client the best advice, knowing they'd probably go with the other bank. They did. The other bank failed them. They came back to us and we did it. Now we have a client for life. So give the client the right advice, do the right thing for the client, but your people have to see you do what you want them to do. So I'm with clients. We are aggressively serving clients, but we've managed the place very conservatively. And then I think candor and transparency is really important. Chris: I think those are great qualities, anything that you could point to. I always think people I'll speak for myself, but I think I hear it in others as well a setback or failure that you encountered, that you learned from, that made you better as a leader, as a business person, anything that comes to mind, that where you look back and go, wow, that was transformational. Because of that, how long do you have? Rob: No, I think we talked about junior program, one that always comes to mind because there's early on the program of what early on my career was. When I was a junior, you know, I talked to that junior class a lot and one of the things I tell them is be careful, because you know, building your brand sometimes is too easy, like you know, if you do something great, like I had some successes early on as being a good client guy, then I was the client guy, but also my brand that I got early on was, as a junior was I wasn't very good at details and as a junior an analyst associate your only job was details Right, and so I learned the hard way that maybe I needed to focus on the details. Now I would suggest that the people that work with me think I'm too focused on the details. But that's because I learned the hard way as a junior and people corrected me Right and I'm not sure if they corrected me the wrong way or right way. That was the old days, but they certainly made an impression. So I think that was one of the things I learned is details matter and details are important, and I learned it as a junior and that stayed with me throughout my career. The other one was one I think is interesting is later on, when we were talking about a promotion, one of my bosses told me that I think this is really important for people to know, because I think it's true. He said rob, I don't it, my vote doesn't matter. The vote that matters is everybody else on the floor that works with you, because I'm not promoting you unless they want you promoted, right and so I do think that you know that's a pretty good lesson too. Chris: Yeah, kind of well servant the well, servant leadership, for sure, and that kind of team mentality For sure, team mentality. And I've said forever, I think the lessons you remember the most are the ones you learned the hard way. For sure, so the details right. Chris: So he's like I'm not going to let that happen again. For sure, that's great. Well, I appreciate you sharing those up, but I think it's a great quality leadership to have that vulnerability and humility about you for sure. So I'm going to kind of move away from the business stuff. Okay, to wrap things up, I want to know what was your first job, my? Rob: first job was uh bagging groceries and stocking grocery shelves in high school I did the same thing, did you? Chris: yeah, uh, it was hot and yeah, I tell people we had to wear like black pants. Oh, yeah, these kids get to wear shorts. Now I'm like this is going easy on them. Rob: Yeah, I think one day one of the guys got mad at me because they made me restack all the remember when people used to return the glass bottles. Yeah, and it was in a cage in the back of the alley of the grocery store. It was about 110. And nobody had organized them for about three months and I got fine job. Chris: Very good. All right, you're born and raised in Texas, so do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Rob: Both Like a brisket taco. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, I like that All right. And last thing if you could take a 30-day sabbatical, where would you go and what would you do? I'd probably spend half of it fly fishing in Montana and half of it quail hunting in South Texas. There you go, Just not this time of year. Not this time of year. That's right. Chris: Rob, I want to thank you for taking the time. I mean, I had no idea the details behind the transformation at Texas Capital and obviously what you and your team are doing and have done is nothing short of remarkable. So thanks for sharing that. Rob: Well, thank you, I think you know. We think Texas does deserve its own full-service financial services firm. Chris: Well, I'm glad you're delivering it. Thank you, take care. And there we have it another great episode. Don't forget to check out the show notes at boyermiller.com forward slash podcast and you can find out more about all the ways our firm can help you at Boyermiller.com. That's it for this episode. Have a great week and we'll talk to you next time. Special Guest: Rob Holmes.

In this episode, Nabeel Mahmood and Phillip Koblence chat with Rob Coyle, Community Technical Program Manager at Open Compute Project Foundation, who has a rich background in digital infrastructure. Starting in the aviation sector, Rob worked on updating aircraft systems, giving him a strong understanding of electronic and mechanical systems. However, it was the data center industry that truly captured his interest. Over the years, he's taken on various roles, from hands-on engineering to business development. Rob's involvement with the Open Compute Community stands out, especially his work on the OCP Modular Data Center project and the OCP-Ready program. Today, Rob is focused on promoting open-source solutions and sustainability in data centers. He's passionate about sharing his knowledge and helping others in the industry. With a background in hands-on learning, Rob is all about practical solutions and collaboration in the world of digital infrastructure.Nabeel and Phil begin their journey with Rob by going back in time to learn more about his start. As Rob shares that he comes from a family of carpenters Phil is interested to learn if Rob thought he would become a carpenter as well:“I think I always had the inkling that I was going to build something. I'm not a skilled carpenter. I would say, maybe it's good I didn't.”Phil digs a little deeper to find out how aviation came into the picture and Rob shares a story about his family's first computer:“So, I had some old work machine that was a Commodore 64… and they said give it to the kid, let him figure it out. And I had the knack and from there, I've been playing with computers ever since. So then being in the aviation industry, eventually, these kinds of systems and passion for technology and this, I guess, born with the desire to build something pulled me into the data center industry.”Nabeel points out that Rob has had a very interesting career, and he is just starting out. He wants to know what is next for Rob:“It's about learning more and being more resourceful to help people within our industry and take the advantages that I've been given over the last 10 years and this opportunity to participate and find an industry that I truly passionately love is what it's all about for me.”Rob Coyle's episode provides a unique perspective on transitioning from the aviation sector to the dynamic world of data centers. His journey, marked by adaptability and a genuine passion for technology, offers listeners a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of embracing change. For those navigating their own career paths or seeking inspiration in the tech industry, Rob's reflections serve as a testament to the power of perseverance and continuous learning.Stay connected with Rob Coyle on LinkedIn and Instagram for more insights from his vast experiences in the tech landscape.