Barn Talk - The Ultimate Tork Talk | Part 2

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Welcome To Barn Talk! In today’s episode, Tork shares lessons learned in his half century. From growin up in the 80’s to the hardships of raising pigs in the 90’s, & much, much more! SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c ADD US ON: INSTAGRAM ➱ https://bit.ly/3gaobdN TIKTOK ➱ https://bit.ly/3eJfftr ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's something else here now. Something new. From. Exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Previously on Barn Talk. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays at the barn until Dad and I came along.

Now we're just going to let it all out for you guys. So today is a very special episode because today is Torque's birthday. We got a birthday episode. birthday special i should have a sombrero you should we need a mariachi band to get in here and start singing but free fried ice cream while you're doing this i'm going to go get up and get you something you give them the market update i'll be right back i'll give you i'll give him the market update i'm scared i'm a little i'm a little bit scared now here's the card i don't know that's i got kind of heartfelt there so am i supposed to read it out loud or is this for private i think that's for private

Yeah. Ah, nice. And now for part two. The production was never great. It was okay, but then we got into 98, and 98 was just an absolute train wreck. And at one point 98, I was pretty sure that I was going to lose the farm up there, that my wife was going to leave me. And I wasn't sure whether or not my parents, who were, my dad was, by normal standards, my dad was elderly at that point. He wasn't because he worked, he was, he could outwork me, but it was stressful. It was very stressful. And so 98 was another hog market. And 98 was the wake up call that this deal wasn't going to work. Yeah. So all this, you know, this whole time, I'm the optimist and I think it's going to work, it's going to work. Well, it'd be hard not to just because you did it and it worked

for two years and then you got the wake-up call happen and then you're like okay this was bad but it's not going to get any worse than that yeah and then you if you wouldn't have got the two years of prosperity of it working you know i think you know it's hard to it's hard to know though it's yeah it's really hard to know you would have never but keep going yeah there's there's light at the end of the time here so um a lot of hard conversations um and a lot of a lot of a lot of of tough and it wasn't just about it wasn't just about money it was about you know it was about the two it was about the two of us dealing with a lot of stress and not you know we were we were pretty naive um you and grandpa or mom and all of you okay you know um my parents they were they were

were getting my dad was to the point where you know he's not going to change he's too far it's too far down the road you know what's he going to do um and i had i had um we had clay so we had my oldest son in 95 and um so we were you know we had a family and we were like how are we going to feed her you know how are we going to feed her family and how are we going to keep this going are we going to lose this and the only thing that saved the farm really was the fact that we were so small and I won't tell you the whole story but the bank that we banked at I remember going there and fully expecting my banker to tell me that he was going to sell me out but I honest to God believe this when I got there another one of the integrators one of our local integrators banked there and

the conversation was very pointed in that office because when I got there, the shades were drawn and I was sitting in the lobby and I could watch the shades move. And it sounded something like a Peanuts movie. You could just hear a little bit of only on the other side of that door, that's not what it was. And the door opened and the customer walked out, which was a guy I knew and had a lot of hogs, was a big producer, and my banker, who always was very well put together, he had his coat off and the top button of his shirt unbuttoned, and his tie loosened up, and he looked at me, and he just motioned for me to come in there. And I sat down, and in front of him was my,

was my folder with all of my loans and my operating, and it was, you know, it was about, it was about a half an inch thick maybe maybe it was a little maybe it was an inch thick and then sitting on the other side of him was this other folder that i could only assume was the guy that was in there and it was about it was like eight folders each one of them full thick so um he just looks at me and he said you know how's it going and i said it's not worth a damn and he said yeah tell me about it and he opens the folder and he looks at it and he says to me do you think you can pay the interest on this thing until we get, you know, and I just was kind of taken aback, and I said, well, I think I can.

And he just shut the folder and said, let's just do that. And I think that the whole reason was because my problems compared to the problems of a lot of large established hog producers at that time were nothing. Yep. I mean, there was so much money being lost that it just wasn't even on the radar. So I went home and... You had some... You had a chance.

You had some hope. Yep. And we sat down and we talked about it and I had to get a job. I mean, I had to do something. My dad obviously wasn't going to... So did you come from that bank? So did you, before you went to the bank meeting, did you guys decide we're selling the pigs or selling the sows?

No. No. No. Okay. No. We didn't know. We really didn't know what we were. going to do. And it was just, it was, you know, I don't really remember that much about it. And I think it's

because it was just bleak and it wasn't very enjoyable and it was just tough. But I came back and I knew that we couldn't keep doing what we were doing. And so somewhere in there, we just, we, obviously, we decided to sell the sowhouse. We did that. And then, what we did was we started custom feeding some pigs in the buildings we had for some people, just some guys that were buying pigs and placing them. And that kind of kept, that kept my dad afloat, gave him some income. And me too, I had pigs in a nursery and one of the finishers. And was that what a lot of guys did during that time if they completely lost their ass and they weren't like huge producers? Yeah. And I mean, just like, we're going to, because this is what people don't really realize.

back then everybody was fairer to finish. If you had pigs, you had the sows, you did exactly what you guys did, and that was just how it was. It was just like on your own ground. Like you did all the work, and that's what it was, that was like how it was. Now, today, we're here,

and most people, 95% of people custom feed pigs for an integrator. There are some guys that do a little bit of both, and there's guys that still somehow are raising their own pigs. Yeah. but it's very difficult. Yeah, you're taking a lot of risk. So this was, so this was kind of a defining moment in this hog production space in general.

For a lot of people, it was a defining moment like you, but it was a changing point in hog production. It was, and we're kind of, we're kind of glossing over. There were so many changes that went. So the genetics change, but then the other thing that happened during this whole time was when I was a kid, there was probably, you know, through the 80s and into the early 90s, there was probably, I bet you there was probably 10 different places in Washington, the Washington area where we grew up that were selling feed, that were selling concentrate, that people were

grinding their own feed. And by concentrate, what I mean by that is you bought the, you bought concentrate and it had the bean meal mix. It was the bean meal mixed with the vitamin pack, the calcium, the salt, all that, and it came together. Well, somewhere along the way, premix started. And what premix was is people figured out they could buy their own bean meal and why pay the markup on the bean meal. I could just go to ADM or cargo in Cedar Rapids and buy my bean meal. And then I could just buy a pack that was literally just the lysine, just basically the vitamin pack and I could save a bunch of money because I'm not paying this guy markup on bean meal. Right.

Well, that changed everything. Everything. And you had feed mills, local guys that were selling feed. They got decimated because there were. No one was buying it. Well, there was a couple of companies that were ahead of the game as far as they were the first ones to really get on that. And it was like shooting fish in a barrel because you could show these guys. that you could save how many dollars a ton by doing this yourself.

And so when this all hit, you had a lot of guys that were farroen that couldn't make any money that got rid of their sows. And if they had, if they were raising them in barn lots or open fronts or stuff like that, nobody wanted that stuff if you were an integrator. So they literally got completely out of it. And then at the same time, the people that were servicing a lot of this, They had fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer customers, and they weren't making any money

because the margin was gone. You had to sell, if I'm buying something, and instead of buying, you know, I don't know, 40 ton of pre-mix or of concentrate every month, I'm buying two ton of bags, and the margin on that is not near as good. Whoever's selling has got to sell a lot more bags. Right.

And so you saw, you know, I could rattle off all the, you know, Landlakes, Perina, Golden Sun Feed, Mormons, Kent, I mean, all these guys. And the consolidation started in that industry because all the margin was getting out. All the little guys, you either could consolidate into one or you were not making it. Yeah. So the ripple effects, it was happening everywhere. And so, you know, by 98, 99, we knew, I knew that it wasn't going to work.

And so we kept finishing pigs for a couple of guys, but I had to get a job. And we converted our gestation barn to finishing. And the guy that did that was a local guy. shout out to Craig Jones, owner of the Aesimore, Washington, Iowa. But Craig Jones, he gave me a job when I probably wasn't qualified to do anything other than raised pigs. And he was a guy that he fixed hog buildings, he did remodels, and then he built, he was a one-man shop. And I went to work for him part-time. But I think before I did that, I went to work for him.

for a printing factory in Iowa City because I was just looking for a job, something to give me some money to keep food on the table. So I worked third shift at a printing factory in Iowa City, and I did that. I was the last person that got hired. They got a couple of contracts, and they had to hire like 40 people, and then I'd been there three months, and they lost a contract, so I was one of the first people that they let go. Thank God. Yeah, because, you know, I don't know if I'd still be there today, but it was a lot of fun, but I couldn't have done it forever, working third shift. So anyway, when I lost that, I went to work for Craig. And what I did for him is I worked on a five man. I think there was five of us, and then there was four of us, and sometimes there was just two of us.

And I learned by doing. I literally learned by doing. So the beautiful thing about what he did was he did everything. So he didn't do the concrete, but we did do a lot of concrete work, but he framed the building, he wired the building, he put all the equipment in, and then he serviced it.

And it was all the same crew that did everything. And so I learned from the ground up how you run the wire, how you wire the motors, how you wire the fans, how you set up the control. And then he did all of his own service work, and he was getting busy. You know, it was a time when the integrators were coming in and the big guys started to get bigger.

So when I say big guys, you know, we had 240 sows. Well, there were some guys around that had 1,200 sows. And those guys, some of them didn't make it. But some of them did. And some of them, they doubled. They went to 2,400. And then to grow, it's really hard to grow. if you're going to ferrow all the pigs

and then you're going to build all the space to finish those pigs. And that's where the contract finishing idea was born because it enabled them to spend their money building sows. The sow part of it. And they basically hired people like me, like us, to build the finisher for them. For them. Take care of their pigs.

And they were fine guaranteeing you the money to do it. They just couldn't carry all that debt. on their balance sheet because if I if they if I build the building it's that's debt and that's long-term debt but if I'm the guy and I'm rent in the building that building payment that I'm given them every month that's just a short-term liability and so if you're borrowing money and if you're doing a cash flow you can make it work better if you're not taking on all the debt if you're not taking on all that debt and so that business really started grow building buildings and so Craig, he was busy.

And, um, so if people don't know what the word meet, what integrator means, integrator is the big guys, the big guys that got more sows and they started doing the custom feeding. And now today, there's a handful of custom feed operative, custom pig feed operations called integrators. They got, yeah, they got the hogs, they go to farmers and they contract gross them. Do basically what we're doing. Yeah. So we contract feed for Ikelberger farms out of Wayland, Iowa. And that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, a family-owned business that, you know, they've got a lot of sows and they got their own feed mill and then they have people toll mill for them. But they don't own, they own a few finishers themselves.

But the vast majority of the finishing space they have are independent people like me and they pay us, basically rent the building, provide the feed, provide the veterinary supply. We provide the labor, we provide the utilities, and it's a relationship where it gives me the fertilizer, it gives me something to do that pays me a wage. Passive income. Yep, exactly. So it's been a good deal. And it's, like I said before, it's really what, like, 95% of people do it because it's

really hard to grow. Yeah. If you wanted to, you couldn't just start Farrow and Salas. I mean, like, you couldn't. I always said that if you won the, so you can do it. And there's guys that have shares in sal units, and there's guys that own small sal units. Like there's guys that own a 1,200 head sal unit, and then they finish all their own pigs. And they farm enough ground.

So you can make it work if you farm enough ground that you've got the grain, and you want to run that grain through that pig operation and basically add value to your crop. If you can manage the labor and get people to work for you, and you can manage the swings and the price and the ups and downs of the price you're receiving for the pork, for the hogs, you can make it work, but it gets harder. Cost of entry.

I've always said, I always tell people that if you woke up and you won the lottery and you had $300 million or you had to have $500 million, and you said, I'm just going to be the biggest hog producer, and I'm going to go build all this from scratch, you would give up long before you ever got very far because there's so many moving parts and it's the people side of it. It's like any large business. It's the people's side of it. You have to find good people at so many levels that can do it because you cannot do it all

yourself that you'll probably give up before you ever. It's a hard business. It is. It's a tough business. It really is. And you know, it's not, the other thing is it's not just human lives that you're affecting. Yeah. So it's different than making widgets in the fact that, you know, if you need to shut down the Ford plant for two weeks, you lose money, but nobody dies. Somebody has to chore. Somebody has to be at every one of those sow units, every one of those nurseries,

every one of those finishers, every day, multiple times a day. And if an alarm goes off because a fan quits or something happens, the water quits, somebody has to take care of that. And lives are at stake. Yep, absolutely. It's, yeah, you're not just taking care of people. You're taking care of pigs, too. So it's a little different than making widgets, for sure.

Anyway, I got a little bit ahead of myself. So when I went to work for Craig, you did everything. You fired it up, you did all of it. We did all of it. And then he did all his own service, and as he got busier, he needed somebody to do, to fix stuff.

And I honestly didn't know that much about fixing other than my dad instilled in me this idea that if it was broke, you figured out how to fix it rather than call somebody because you didn't want to spend the money. And so I was stubborn enough that when it came to like electrical, I would fumble my way through it and try to figure out. And Craig was the same way. That was what we had in common. And I think that's what I always admired about him was he taught me a lot. But the most important thing that he taught me was, I always said that Craig is the guy that if he answered the phone, we never knew what the person was asking him on the other end of the phone,

but it didn't matter because his answer was always the same. It'd be like, yep, yep, sure. Oh, yeah, we can do that. And then he'd hang up the phone and say, you know, any of you guys know how to weld depleted uranium? Or, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it was. And we all be, like, looking at each other and he'd be like, well, we're going to go do this or we're going to go do that

because he was trying to, you know, he was trying to provide for his family. what do you always say fake it till you make it no i'd say a lot of things but trial and error oh yeah right and and that's what i did we'll get you a long way trial and error will get you a long ways and you learn from your mistakes and so you know i had a pair of wire pliers Craig gave me you know like a pair of wire pliers and a tester and i don't know what all and i don't know how many pairs of wire pliers i welded learning what not to touch at the same time and and all that. But anyway, I learned a lot, and I progressed and got better at it. And while I was doing this, Sawyer was born. So this is in 2000. Sawyer was born in February 2000, and I was still working for Craig. And I was making, I think I was probably making $12 an hour. And then I got a raise and I was making like $14 an hour.

And I mean, we were getting by, but it was, it was. And the farm was still. the farm was still would you go work and then come back and check on the pigs so i'd work for him and um you know come back and chore and haul manure on the weekend power wash on the weekend i just worked all the time hustling which was what we had to do but our marriage took a toll i mean it it did take a toll trish and i um i wasn't around a much a lot and she was working full time she was cutting hair she she um she had a salon there in her house and um raised the kids and made up for me working all the time and um we got by but it was tough and um i didn't know what i was going to do you know i i knew that this wasn't my few you know i couldn't do this forever i couldn't just work on a crew

forever but I didn't know what it was going to look like and um what was your when you first started working for crag and all i mean what was your main goal of all of what you were trying to do uh provide for my family and by myself enough time to figure out what i was going to do that's what it was yeah and so for about a year and a half did you did you think like whether it be the farm or not farm in or not were you kind of like if we can make the farm and work we'll do the farming but if we can't we can't yeah and so During this time, we had a neighbor that I rented their farm. I rented their farm. It was 240 acres, and I crop rented it from them.

And this was in 99, probably. And we were LDP and corn. So I used my dad's equipment and didn't pay anything for the equipment and farm this. swapped it, you know, swapped it for labor and farmed that for three years, I think, and didn't make any money. I mean, broke even, basically, but didn't make any money. Just juggled a lot of money around. And then they actually decided that they were going to sell that farm. And so we, you know, we weren't going to continue to rent it. And they wanted to know if I wanted to buy it. And I didn't have any money. So I got into grain farming and then I got out of green farm and then I didn't really have

anything to show for it. So I kind of, I was kind of about as low on farming as I'd ever been. And this is where I think I lost, I lost the, I think I really lost that optimism. And I never really thought about building a hog building to custom feed. I was really kind of down on the hog business. You had a sour taste in your mouth. Yeah, I just, I just didn't. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. How could you? I'm sure there was a lot of guys like that. Well, yeah, and Trish, I guarantee at that point, if I would have said, you know, the way to do, what we need to do is double down and we need to go and tear these hog buildings down here at home and put up a couple of finishers, I think she would have left me or she would have taken me and tried to get me professional help because she would have

thought it was crazy. And so I didn't really know what I wanted to do. But out of the blue, one day in the fall of 2000, we were setting trusses on a hog building down by Wayland, Iowa. It was actually Matt Lictey's building. We were setting trusses on Matt Lickney's building. And I get a phone call. And it is Chris Harmison. He, is the he is the CEO no he he was the he ran the he ran the business for Claude he was the office man I don't know what you want to say he did he managed the contractors and all the employees for PSI and he called me and asked me whether or not I would like to talk about a position and the funny thing about it was that day at lunch we had talked about the guy that had been running all the crews that did all the install for precision structures out of Wellman, Iowa. And in this area where we grew up, they were the king, they were the king builder. I mean, as far as hog buildings go, they built the vast majority of them.

And Craig, my boss at lunch that day, had said, did you hear that this guy is leaving PSI? And he had a reputation. This guy had a reputation. He was a hard-nosed guy. He was really good at what he did. But he went through employees pretty fast. and he was very he was very abrasive let's just say that he had a reputation and i was like i remember i made the comment i said holy cow i said what are they going to do who are they going to find to replace him

and craig's like you know i don't have any idea and two hours later my phone rings and it's chris harrison and he wants to talk to me about a position and i said to him i'm like well i'm on a roof right now but i said yeah i would be um and we sat it up up. This was, I think this was on, this was on like a Monday. I think this was on a Monday. And I said, yeah, I said, when can you do it? And he wanted to know if I could do it tomorrow. And I was like, holy cow. I said, okay, I can't do it tomorrow, but I could do it Wednesday. And so I get off the phone and finish that day. And I told Craig, I said, I got to take Wednesday, I got to take Wednesday afternoon off and we were busy and Craig didn't like that but I just felt like I had to go and so I went

and that was that was the beginning of PSI for me and I I sat down with them and they were looking for somebody to replace this guy that had left and I've told this story but this is probably one of the most pivotal moments as far as from the trajectory that I was on to the trajectory that I ended up on. That was one of those times that when you look backwards, and that's one of the great things about getting older is you have hindsight. I mean, they call it wisdom,

but it's really just you have the life experience that you can look backwards, and you know when you made a change, and you know what that looks like, and so it helps you look forward a little bit. But anyway, I was sitting in that office, and they were looking for somebody to manage the service side

and the install side of their business and basically fire up all the buildings they built and make sure that everything was done right. And I was way over my head, way over my head, because the controls that they used were not the same that Craig installed. I had done a lot of maintenance,

but I hadn't worked on hardly any of the brands of stuff that they were using. And plus, I had built probably, I had worked on probably building maybe eight or nine sheds. and they built probably at that time they probably built 25 or 30 sheds a year and so i felt like it was just like going from nothing to the big leagues yeah and you know they asked me this and asked me that but i'll never forget claude griner owned that company and he sat there and he didn't say much he let there were there were three i think there was two other people in there there was an estimator

and then there was chris and i think claude's son adam was in there too he was one of the estimators. And they asked me different questions about different stuff. Nothing real, I mean, nothing really hard. But Claude finally looks at me and he says, so I've got this finisher that we're just finishing up and I'm going to send you out there to fire it up. How do you do that? Which, I mean, I have no idea. But the one thing that I read about Claude was I knew he was a salesman. I knew that he probably didn't have any idea how it got set up either because that wasn't his deal. He was the big picture guy. And I just looked him right in the eye and I said, Claude, however you want it done. And he slapped either Chris or Adam on the shoulder and he goes,

that's a damn good answer. That's a good answer. And I left that interview and I felt pretty good. And that night I got home and Chris called me and he said, I'd like to offer you position at PSI. I said, I would be interested in that. And he said, there's one problem. You got to start by Friday. this was Wednesday. And I've always felt bad about this because there's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going. Start your search at.

auto trader.ca. Canada's car marketplace. He's the only gave you a chance. Greg. Yeah. And I went to work that next day and I went late. I told him I was going to be late because I wanted to get there after the crew had left. And I told him, I said, you remember we were talking about, you know, Randy Berg and we didn't know what crazy person was going to take that job. And I didn't say it like that. I said a little more colorfully. He said, yeah. I said, well, I'm the crazy center. of a bitch that's going to take that job. And I could tell he was pissed. And I told him that I would, he could take my, he could take the vacation days that I had, but I wasn't going to be able to, I got to start Friday and, you know, I can't, I can't give you my two weeks and all that. And

he took it pretty well. He was pissed. I think his wife was a lot more upset than he was. And, but, you know, he knew it was. an opportunity. And in the end, it worked good, and I consider him a good friend of mine now. I mean, he's a great guy. But anyway, I left there and I went to PSI, and that was a turning point, because when I went there, I really found my calling, I guess you'd say, because all of the things that had happened to me and all the time that I spent building buildings and working in buildings and growing up with my dad, you know, figuring just, well, you're going to have to figure it out. That's what happened. And I remember I picked up the truck on Friday afternoon. And at that time,

we didn't have cell phones, so you had a pager. And everybody, every building we built had this pager number in it. And it said, Randy. Only it, now it was torque. But anyway, they would page you, and then you'd call them back, and then they'd tell you what you needed. And I picked that truck up on Friday afternoon and on Saturday morning, somebody called me and I went to, I went to Lost Nation Iowa, which is fine. I was probably two and a half hours away. And I had to fix a curtain machine, and it was a curtain machine, hired hand curtain machine that I'd never worked on before. And so instead of dropping the motor and spinning the screw out of it and changing the bushing in about 20 minutes, I didn't know how to do it. So I took the whole top of the curtain machine off, vice grip the cables,

and crank the screw by hand, and it ended up taking me like two hours. But I did get it done. And the beautiful thing about it was at that time, you brought your tickets in on Monday morning, and Tammy, the bookkeeper, she'd cut you a check by Monday afternoon. And I got a pretty healthy raise from what I was getting paid.

And then the other thing was, and this is something that today, I just think it's weird because people don't want to work like they did. So in my mind, was broke. I mean, in my mind, I was living paycheck to paycheck. And that job, you could work as much as you wanted to work because there was no end to the stuff that needed fixed. They had so many buildings out there and so many buildings going up that nobody ever even questioned the hours you worked.

And it was almost all billable because it was almost all service or else it was fire up on new buildings. And so literally, if I didn't have a service call I had to make, there was a building out there that was getting finished that I needed to go, check the water, check all the fittings, check the control, set the control, do all that. And so, and I got paid every week. And so I had two small children and a wife and, you know, bills to pay and mouths to feed. But I knew that was the first time since 19, probably 1990, 96 or 7 where I felt like everything was going to be okay. You got your optimism a little bit bad.

I did. And we just kept growing. What time did you, or when did you get, when, what year did you get hired to be the service guy? So 2001. So 2001. Like four years you didn't feel pretty, very often. years those were a tough four years and if you ask your mother she would tell you the same thing

it was tough it was really tough and um and you know then as that started then i got then i kind of found my niche as far as being able to talk people talk to people and relate to people and kind of empathize with people because being you know i was constantly talking to growers but then we did open houses and we'd go to the World Pork Expo. You know, the first World Pork Expo I went to for Claude was a whole different deal than when I would go up there when I was a lowly hog farmer because we went there and everybody knew who you were because we were one of the big players when it came to building hog buildings.

And we all had that, we were all about the same age. Everybody that worked in there had about, we were about the same age. I was actually a little bit older than the rest of them. But, you know, I still consider myself young. But we all had this attitude that it was us against everybody else. I mean, we did. We just, we were out to sell every building. If we knew about a hog building that was being built, we thought we were going to sell it.

And that's a good mentality. That's a mentality to have. And so when we went to those deals, we had a really good time. And it was good. And it grew, yeah. And it grew. It really did. It stretched me.

And it was hard because I was on the road a lot and you guys were little and mom had to burden a lot of that. But at least we were getting dug out of the hole we were in. We were making money. We were getting things back on track. And then I'd been doing that. I can't remember what year that was. I can't remember how many years I did that. Maybe I did it.

Maybe I did that seven or eight years. And they had a salesman that left. that left to start his own company. And I knew that if I was ever going to make the change, that I had to do it. And I just, I basically went in there and I sold Claude and Chris on the idea of me becoming a salesman. And I did.

And when I became a salesman... Well, just back up a little bit because you felt optimistic. You've talked to me about it. So you felt optimistic and you were, you, everything, you've done in your life up leading up to that point you were working on hog buildings had association with hogs so it's everything you learned so you knew the in and an ounce of hog buildings just about as best as anyone could ever yeah no and but you like you said so you got back to a place where you're optimistic but mom you had us and you had mom and you're you've been working

you're trying to get your way back up the mountain and you're finally like on the upward spiral Yep. But you knew you had to, you were working, you were working long, long, long, long, long hours. Yeah, so, you know, one of our earlier, one of our earlier barn talks, we talked about trading money for time. And that's what I was doing 100%. A hundred percent. Time for money. Yeah, I was trading.

I was trading time for money. Or money for time. Yeah, right, whatever. Because I was working. Well, basically, it was one of those things. You know, if the water heater broke, I knew how many hours. knew how many hours I had to work. And it wasn't, if I didn't work, I didn't get paid, nothing got done.

And I knew that I didn't want that life. I knew that I wanted to get to a point where I had something that was at least going to give me something whether I was there or not. And I honestly hadn't thought about doing a hog building because I knew that it had left such a bad, well, it was so devastating going through all that that I just didn't feel like it was worth trying to do it. And when I became a salesman, well, I'm just, I'm just trying to tell you, I'm just trying to let them know how, what your mindset was when you went into that meeting to get the sales job. Oh, yeah. Because you were, yeah, mom was, let's be honest, mom was fed up of how much hours

you were working and we were little and she you were she was carrying the load she was carrying the load because she she had you had to do what you were doing you she was doing what she had to do yeah so i knew when i went in there that i had to get that job because that was my chance to get a salary instead of an hourly position and it was my chance to get uh to get a chance to make my own destiny basically because I knew, I knew that I could sell a building. I had been to enough open houses, and I had watched Claude, I had watched Daryl, I had watched the other salesman that they had.

I had watched these guys. And I knew, because I was on all sides of it. I knew why people wanted to build a hog building. I knew why they wanted to buy it. And that was the beautiful thing about it. So we really had, all we had to do was convince somebody that they wanted to have, have us build it. We didn't have to convince them that they needed it, that they had a reason for it.

When they called us, they were already interested in building it. Yeah, they wanted it. They wanted what we were selling. We just had to convince them that what we had was better than what somebody else's had. So it's for a, you know, as a sales deal, that's pretty good. That's a good product. When you don't have to cold call and you don't have to prospect and you literally, all you have to do is convince people that you are your product's the best. You will take care of the pain. that they have. That's what you had to do. And so I knew... At a high ticket price, too, that also helps. Well, and that's the other thing about it. I mean, so there was a lot riding on that,

and it was a huge relief. I remember it was a huge relief when they offered me that job, and I really, I was so proud. And that, you know, that was the other part of it was, I treated that company like it was mine. Like I had a vested interest in the profitability and the growth of PSI, because I felt like a little piece of that was mine. And that's something, you know, if you can get employees that feel that way,

it's unstoppable. Yeah, if you establish a culture like that, it's pretty... And that's how that culture was at that point. I mean, that's how it was. Everybody that worked there, wanted it to go to the moon. They did, and they were, fiercely loyal about it.

You know, nobody slurred us. You know, nobody said anything. You took it personally if somebody said something crappy about it. And it was just, that's how it was. But when I started that, I spent a lot of time with Claude, and I'd really love to get him on. I want to get him on here and have him tell you his story because it's amazing. But it's so much about mindset, and he taught. me so much about passive income.

And he taught me, I mean, he's the one really that pushed me over the edge of just do it. Just do it, because it's not going to happen. If you don't take the step, it's not going to happen. Instead of you sitting around thinking, you know, what could be, what could be, what could be, you either need to know whether it will be or it won't be, but you're not going to know anything if you don't try. If you don't get off your ass and just do it. And, you know, one day we were going somewhere, and he just said to me, he's like, are you ever going to build a building?

He goes, how many acres you got out there? And I told him, he's like, why, you know, why aren't you doing this? And I told him, you know, about everything I'd been through. And he'd been through, he had been through financial problems way worse than what I had been on a grander scale. And he built that thing all the way back. He stayed in the same industry and, you know, came all the way back, which is basically. you know what I was doing and and um just changed everything so I what I'll say is we all every one of us have people in our lives that we run into that maybe at the time you don't realize the value of

that individual but in hindsight you realize how important that relationship was and for me that was one of the most important relationships that I had professionally. And the guy that I worked for after that, Dave Eichelberg, I would say the same thing about. Those are two individuals in my life that you can look at and you can learn a hell of a lot from. Claude was your first real mentor outside of your dad. Yeah. Like that was, mentor is kind of a mainstream word now, but back then no one really called it that. But he really was your first like mentor.

Yeah. And it was a change of mindset. Working there, selling buildings, being around that group of people, it changed the way I thought about what I wanted for my life. As far as it flipped me from being somebody that wanted to just put in my time and then come home and put my feet up and have a few beers and fall asleep in front of the TV. and, you know, I don't know, go duck hunting on the weekend. Nothing against duck hunters, but I don't, you know, just it really lit a fire that kind of gotten

extinguished through that period of time of the hog business. And so, yeah, then... The fire was relit. Yeah, and so then the best sales pitch that I ever gave next to when I asked Tricia to marry me was me convincing my wife. Well, not only my wife, I had to convince my dad because he had to deed off the ground for me to be able to build it because I didn't actually own any of the ground.

And boy, I didn't know if I could get that done. And I did in 2010, I built that barn. And it worked. And I was scared. I mean, we were scared. and we didn't know if it was going to work and it did. You know, when you're in it, it seems like it's, it seems so big and it seems so hard and it's just,

it's just a lot of stress. And, you know, I got to say, the most pleasurable experience that I've had is building your barn. Mm-hmm. Because it's kind of all the work that you, like, you went through it yourself, but it was kind of enjoyable for you for this. This one was enjoyable.

Because you didn't feel it. Well, and I know, you know, here, look at, the way I look at it is, is hopefully, hopefully, I can give you and your brother some advice, some information that you can actually use so that you don't have to make, you're going to make mistakes, there's no doubt about it. But hopefully you don't have to make as bad a mistakes as I made. And the mistakes you do make are not severe enough that it takes you a decade to recover from them. And if you guys can do that, you're going to be a lot further ahead than I was. And, you know, my dad, my dad did the best that he could with what he had. and for what he had and for as much technology and as much innovation that he... And time.

Yeah, that he used, that he did. I mean, he did a lot. But it wasn't... There's just a lot of things that played into how I ended up. You know, if I... Here's, I'll go back. Here's a great story. So in 1992, when that farm that Gary Ledger had came up for sale, I was dating your mom.

I was dating Trisha. And she's shirt-tail relation to Dave Eichelberg. And we were at a dinner, and I knew who he was, but I didn't know him very well. And he knew my family, he probably knew my dad. He didn't really know me. but we had talked and we were sitting at this table and he literally said to me and I think this was probably fall of 92 because this property was up for sale and I can't remember exactly when I bought it but right around that time and he said to me this is before the crash this is 92 yeah this is

before the crash this is before the three years before the mild crash yep hogs are real good Hogs are real good. He says to me, he said, Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one. For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids,

ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. I don't know if I brought it up or he knew, he knew that I was looking at buying that, I think, or I might have told him or whatever. And he said, why don't you just go up on that farm that you guys bought and build a couple of buildings for me? You'll make way more money doing that than you will fair on your own pit.

He said, you'll be, you'll be way better off doing that than buying those sows. and I mean I'm giving you I don't remember exactly but that was the gist of it and I looked at him like he was bat shit crazy and you remember I'm 21 yeah I need to you're my age so I'm pretty fucking smart sorry but you know had to give that for emphasis I'm pretty smart and I said to him, I said, I can make way more money fair on my own pigs than feeding pigs for you. And in credit to him, he didn't, you know, tell me to go jump in a lake or anything. He just smiled and he said, yep, you can. He said, but it's not always going to be that way.

He said, this thing is changing. And he said, it's going to be different. and I didn't give it a second thought. And this was in 1992. And this was right when he was starting to have people build buildings for him, custom feedings for him. So he was a little bit ahead of the time. He was a little bit ahead of the times.

And if we could ever get him on here, I'd have him to tell you that story because he's got a great story about seeing the hog business transition. But anyway, fast forward. From 1992 to 2010, 2010, I built. my first 2,400 head contract finisher for Eichelberger Farms. And I go down to their office when they were at the old, when they were at the old office, I walk in and the guy that's the head of their production,

he's the guy that I talk to about doing it and getting the contract and all that. And I go see him and I'm like, you got that contract, I want to get it signed because the bank needs a copy of it. And he said, yeah, he goes, you know, I do, but he goes, Dave wants, Dave wants to see you. I think he's got it.

You want to ask you something. I'm like, okay. And I should back up. When I worked at PSI, we built a lot of buildings for them. So I had a good relationship. At this point, I'd done a lot of business with him, and I knew Dave, and I knew all of them. So, I mean, I wasn't, it wasn't thrown off at all.

I thought, you know, maybe he wants to talk about a project or something he's thinking about doing. I go down there. And he has this contract, and he slides it over there, and he just looks at me, he goes, Didn't we talk about doing this once? And he just kind of smiles. And I just nod my head and I signed the contract and they made a copy of it.

But so there you go. Hindsight is a powerful thing because there is a point there. So my life could have been totally different. And I'll never know. And it's like you talk about how Gary V says, you never know what could be for the decisions you made. but in 1992, it is possible that I could have decided to not buy that Farrow to finish, and we could have gone up on that farm that we bought,

and we could have built two contract finishers for about $125 a pig space, which Claude Griner probably would have built. You know, he was building back then, and they would have paid off in about seven years. I don't know where I would have lived. I don't know, you know, and I don't know if I would have met, Trisha and I or no I was dating her but I don't know who knows what would have happened and so you can look at that and say that was probably a mistake well it probably was a

mistake but then the flip side of it is if I would have done that I guarantee you I would have never struggled as much I wouldn't have learned everything I learned I sure would have never become a salesman I would have never met the people that I've met I probably would have not ended up making it all the way back to working for Eichelberger's before I came home. There's just so much that I've accomplished and learned that I wouldn't have learned if I would have made that decision. You wouldn't have trade it. You wouldn't trade it for anything. No. I would, and I, I, I, I, for all of the good and all the bad, you can't say that. You can't say, yeah, I should, I should have done that because you don't know what would have

happened. Right. I mean, very well, you could have, you could have done that and started making a lot of money, and then you could have went on a plane, and that plane could have crashed, and you could have died. Oh, yeah. Well, heck yes. That's for sure. What if that, you know, that's the thing. You could have made the right decision there, but you would end up dying before you became 50 years old.

You know, when I was seven years old, we were unloading corn out in the bin right outside this barn, and I was playing in the wagon. My dad always chewed my butt about getting out of the wagon, and I didn't listen to him. and he walked over to our gestation building to look at something, and in the process, in that amount of time, I got sucked down as the corn was sliding out of the gravity box, it pulled me to the bottom. I don't know.

I don't know how. I was little. But anyway, I almost suffocated. And the corn was up over my head, and my dad came back, and I was, I never forget this, because I was scared to death, and he pulled me out of the wagon, got me up out of the corn, and then he proceeded to beat my ass because I was stupid, and he got me out, and he sent me over the house and told me, you know, I could have been dead right there. So there are so many things

that happen in your life. There's so many. So get back on track. You built your Ferrell's Hogg building in 2010, and that was another pivotal moment, not just for you, but for me and our whole family in our generation as our family farm. I mean, if dad wouldn't have built his building in 2010, I would not be, we would not be here doing what we're doing right now. I wouldn't have never farmed. We probably would have run it out the ground. This will do farm would not have been a thing.

No, it wouldn't have been without a doubt. Because that was, at that point, my dad was getting to where he, I helped him do everything as far as putting the crop and taking it out. And when I was doing service, it was really hard because I didn't have the time. And when I became a salesman, then it also gave me time that I could do almost, you know, I could do a heck of a lot of work from my phone. And, you know, as it grew from my computer and all of that stuff to where I was able to help, we, he had actually, there was a couple years in there where he had actually rented out part of his ground just because he only wanted to do, he only wanted to do a little bit of it. And I was able to, we were able to do it all, so we just went back to farming ourselves. And then we got the manure out of that first shed.

And because I had my income from being a salesman, I didn't really need to take anything out of that building. So I was able to put everything back into it. And then it didn't take very long. And I decided that, well, I might as well, I'd might as well, build another one. And so in 2015. So you got that. Got a better taste in your mouth now. Yeah.

The hog building worked. Well, it worked. And then I had met so many people that had multiple buildings that were doing, they were making, they were making hog buildings as real estate to give them passive income and to shelter money they were making other places through the depreciation of the buildings. You know, they were buying, they were putting these sheds up. They were, or they, you know, they would. You knew it worked.

I knew it worked. I knew it worked. And I knew that I could make it work for this farm. And I knew that the only way that we were going to stay viable for a 400-acre farm was to have more hog sheds. It was the only way you could make it work because land prices were going up. There was no way I was going to go buy a farm. It just wouldn't work.

But I could make a hog-building work. And the thing was, I was making good money selling to where the building just had to cash flow and all the extra money I could put back into it. And that made it work even better, even as the prices started going up. Because from the first building to your building, they've gone up significantly. What, $200,000?

Yep. For a site, for a site, from what the first one cost to the last one. And so... You just kept going. I just kept going. And then we talked about, you know, I kind of became,

success is addicting, but then I became, I kind of got, I kind of got, I think I kind of just became a person that I didn't like, because I was so driven on getting the next sale. And then the other thing I hated was, I got to the end of the year, and I had to start over, and it was just, I had this mountain to climb. And Claude sold the, he sold the company, and, um, the same guys weren't working there. Yeah, everybody had moved on. The culture wasn't the same as when you started in it. They'd gotten bigger, which they had to get bigger. But the culture had changed.

And, I mean, let's be honest, I'm not a detail person. And if you ask them today, the customer responsibility list that they give people that they have to sign, there's items in there today that weren't in there when I had it. And the reason they're in there is because of me. Because my number one priority was to sell the building, and I didn't really care about the details. If there was something that I needed to do or something I needed to give, you know, if it was going to cost the company $500 here, $500 there, I didn't really care because I just wanted to get it sold. And there's nothing wrong with that, but when you get to where you're building the number of buildings they were building, trying to keep all those little details straight that some salesman had probably scratched down in the margin of the final costing page. yeah you got to do a better job in that so um you know the business had changed and i wasn't

i wasn't want to go that direction so um and then the other thing was i felt like there was something bigger out there that i wanted to do well and did you get hope back into the farm yeah 100 percent um you know i knew i had to do more and i had to do more because at that point both my parents were elderly and I needed to be able to be here and check on them and take care of their both my brothers are live quite a distance away and so there was just stuff that needed to be done and um I wanted a little slower pace as far as I didn't want to be far from home I didn't want to be down in Missouri I didn't want to be up in the dakotas I wanted to be close to home and so the opportunity came and I took a pay cut to leave there I mean I did and but I was a

okay with it because I knew I had residual income coming from these sheds. I knew they were going to get paid for and it was the right decision to do. And I wouldn't change that either. And then, you know, I built the third building. And so then it just became, it's just a time. It's just a time thing. I knew that my kids were growing up and they were going to make their own way. And so I wasn't going to have to support that side. And it was just Trish and I, and she had her own things that she put a lot of stuff on hold while I was doing all the stuff that I had to do to, to, uh, get this family raised. And so, you know, I wanted more time for us and it worked out. Um, and it's, I mean, it's still working out. We're, I don't want anybody to think that we're not

busy. I feel like we're busier now than we ever are, but we're busy doing our own stuff. Yeah. And I'm more optimistic now than I was ever well even two years ago because this what we're doing right here I have met so many people and made so many connections that I would have never made right I mean it's just like when I became a sale when I went to PSI when I went this is a pivotal moment it is a pivotal moment it really is and this is we're going to have to make this work for this farm to stay relevant for another generation we've got to. Right.

Because the sad truth is, no matter what business you're in, if you're not growing that business a little bit, you're going backwards because the money's worth less and the costs go up. And every generation that you add, there's going to be more miles to feed. I don't know how much time we have before there's more mouths to feed, but it's coming.

I have a feeling it's coming one of these days. So we've got to keep going. Yeah. But I guess, I'll close with this. I'm 50 years old. I feel, I don't feel 50 years old. And I'm sure if you ask my dad when he's 99 years old that he didn't feel like he was 99. I bet some days he felt pretty old. But there is so much opportunity out there. And there, you know, I've learned a lot. In the last six months, I've learned a lot more than I have in the last four years probably. And I'm

going to have to keep learning. And I think that's the other thing. If you get to the point where you don't feel like you want to spend the time to learn anything new or you don't like where things, what things look like, and you feel like you want to resist that or go the other way or crawl up in a ball, it's not going to stop. And you might as well, you might as well embrace it and find a way to prosper from it. Yeah, you got to change the times. But yeah, I mean, you made a long, that was kind of dad's life story right there.

I mean, it's kind of long. It was long. I was definitely a long, long episode, but it's the ultimate torque talk. That's what we're going to call this episode because we do little torque talks on our Instagram and stuff. And it's kind of a funny thing to say because, you know, there's TED Talk out there. But we have the torque himself. So I changed the name to Torque Talk. But this is the ultimate Torque Talk of his life story and how he did things.

But I feel like it was all meant to be. I feel like you wouldn't want it any other way because it ultimately led us to be able to farm together. we're going to be now we're working together to make this farm and our family making the farm viable for another generation I mean that's both our goals and yeah I don't know maybe you should read that card now I think it'll be a good way to close all right I got really good in the feels in this one so you can read it out loud but this might be a really good way to close the episode I mean it's a lot of a lot of yeah i mean it's my dad so i think very highly of him and all the sacrifice he had to

made for our family to get to where we are and the work he put in and to help the if he wouldn't have done what he did uh this farm wouldn't be a thing i wouldn't have a job i wouldn't even be here so kind of means a lot to me okay the bar is pretty hard pretty high so uh happy birthday to the best dad ever yeah the cards card was it We got a Walmart card, so... It's good that Sawyer and I have the same handwriting. Yeah, I was going to say, I hope you can read my handwriting. Happy birthday to truly the greatest dad ever.

It doesn't seem possible that you're turning 50. We remember being kids riding on your lap and mowing and playing Halo 3. Halo 3, best video game ever, arguably? Yeah, no, it is. With you like it was yesterday. I know that back then you didn't think we would. would probably amount too much. That's not true.

With spending all our time playing video games, yeah, I did think that was kind of excessive. But seeing your sacrifice and work ethic for the betterment of our family is ultimately what set the example for what a man is supposed to be. We're so very blessed to have a dad and a best friend like you. That drops everything to help us out whenever we need, whatever we need. whatever we need. A true family man that supports our crazy ideas, any crazy ideas we have,

any crazy ideas we come up with and doesn't make us feel crazy thinking that way, that our biggest, the biggest hype man, no matter how big or small the accomplishment. Anytime I feel overwhelmed or discouraged, you always find a way to lift me up again and keep me moving forward. Yeah, I truly would be lost without you my life. The guidance and example you set for the men in our family will carry on for generations. The lessons you've taught us is better than any lessons I've learned from a book or an online guru. I hope that one day I can become at least half the man slash dad that you are to my kids and you will.

Thank you for everything you've done and continue. to do for us. It is only half time, at least. So many years to go, which is good. We still have a lot to do. I still have a lot to learn from you, and we're just getting started. We got it back. Oh, geez. I filled

it out. When it's all sudden done, I think, Torque Whistler will be the greatest generation. That's fine with me, because I already think you are. We're so proud to be your sons. Happy, deep thoughts. Happy birthday. or hashtag deep thoughts we love you clansore uh well that's pretty that's pretty good um yeah and you guys

will be yep but i mean yeah it's my dad ultimate sacrifice none of it would be possible without him and that road right there that journey right there yeah none of this would be possible without it so all that that was a crap shoot of you know you had some crappy times in that journey but i'm sure glad that you did it i'm sure glad that you did it i'm glad we did too i'm glad we stuck it out and i you know if mom was here, she would say the same thing. It was hard, and it was hard on all of us, but we're glad we stuck it through. And that's everybody.

You know what? Everybody has that story. Everybody's story is different, but the truth is if you just, if you just keep grinding, you'll get through it and better days are ahead, but you just got to put in the work. Keep your nose on the grindstone.

And I know this is a long one, guys. I really do, but happy freaking birthday. Thank you. Happy 50th birthday. Tell Dad, Happy birthday in the comments. Let us know who you want to see on the show in the future. And we're getting close on getting guests.

Yeah, we're getting close. So have a good rest of the week, guys, and we'll see you in the next one.