The Real Work of Mergers: Culture, Trust, and Growth

Today's episode is one of those conversations that reminds you that business at its core is a deeply human. I sit down with three incredible leaders, Jennifer Loose, John Miller and Rich Clark, all of whom chose to merge their firms with RTM. They share the behind the scenes of that decision, what they gained, what they gave up, and how the transition impacted not just their day-to-day roles but their teams, their careers, and even their sense of belonging. If you've ever wondered what it really feels like to go through a merger, and to find yourself on the other side, feeling more at home than ever, this one's for you. I'm Katherine Gelanick, your host for Beyond Engineering, a podcast from RTM and Jeanneering Consultants, where genuine devotion to people and their passions empowers us to grow together, lead with integrity, and make a meaningful impact. Welcome everyone, I'm so excited for this episode today, so we have a rock star panel today here to share their experiences, especially from the advantage of going through the process of merging with RTM. Excited today to welcome John Miller, Rich Clark, and Jennifer Loose, coming together for this episode, giving us an inside look as owners and leaders of companies that chose to merge with RTM. So just to start us off, everyone, can you share your name, where you are, your location physically, your office location, the years since the merge, and prior to the merge, your role in the company, your firm. Okay, Rich, you want to start us off? Sure, Rich Clark, I'm based in Burvine, California, merged in 2020, so it's been about five years now, and I was the sole owner of my previous company, so I did everything. Jennifer Loose, I'm located in Springfield, Missouri. We've been part of RTM for about seven years, so we merged in 2018, and I was one of six partners when we merged. John Miller, I'm in Springfield, Missouri, and we merged about two years ago. I was one of the founders of J&M Engineering with my partner, Ben Jennings. Wonderful. So welcome to each of you. The first area that we're going to talk about is life before the merge. So share a little insight into what was your day to day before merging with RTM, what was life like, and share a little details like how big was the firm, how many people were in it, how many years had you been in business, what was your engineering focus or specialty, what hats were you wearing then, Jennifer, you want to start? Sure. So we had about 25 people before the merger, we had two offices, so one was in Springfield, and then we had an office in Oberlin Park. We do mechanical, electrical plumbing design, and that's exclusively what our two offices did at the time. And before we had six partners, so each partner kind of had a different role, I would say I was probably more on the operational side, kind of managing our local projects here. The company was here, was founded about 32 years before the merger. So it was pretty much the original group that had made the original company before the merger. And really most of what I would say, my kind of role has kind of say it's similar. We can talk some about how that changed a little bit later in the podcast. But that hats you were wearing more operational for that. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. John, you want to go? Sure. Jane and engineering was a special firm here in Springfield, Missouri, and we were actually introduced to our team through Jennifer's firm, people at her firm. We've been in business about 12 years at the time of the merger. There were 14 of us here in Springfield. We did work all over the country and then as a co-owner, there were two partners. So we wore all the hats. We were doing the marketing, the building, the accounting, the production as well. And making sure that they make quality control. And since then, I've been able to take off a few hats and that's been pretty nice. I guess I'm next, right? We were about a dozen people. I originally had a business partner, but during the recession took out that business partner. So I was the sole owner from about 2008 on civil engineering firm, focused on land development and water waste water primarily. And had some senior project managers and teams, but I was really functioning as the principal in charge on all the projects. So client-facing, as well as doing all the business stuff, just like John was describing. So that was negotiating medical insurance, leases, you name it, making true payroll, guess for all that good stuff. So I was happy to shed many of those roles. Right. So that's kind of my next question. Is what was the biggest grind back in the day? Like when you know, pre-merge and you were wearing more hats or Jennifer, it sounds like it's quite similar to the role you have now, but was there a grind or, and if there was, what was the biggest one for you? Yeah. There was definitely a grind in terms of the medical insurance, negotiating leases, HR compliance, just all the things that aren't really related to the core. I got into engineering to solve problems and work with clients and that's where my passion is and developing teams. So anything that isn't in that bucket, frankly, is a grind or a pain and was happy to shed some of them. Yeah, and I want to agree with Rich. I was our HR person, which is, I used to tell people I was a lawsuit waiting to happen, just because of my HR skills, but I believe in negotiating the insurance and all those types of things and the leases and the things not dealing with engineering were things that I was very happy to give that out of work. How much of your time was spent doing those kinds of things? I would probably say probably five hours a week maybe, just because I was dealing with employees if they wanted to make a change in their insurance or something. I was the one that had to follow that through or payroll or those kinds of things. So, yeah, I was very happy to give that out. Yeah, and with those things, sometimes it's not even as much of the hour as the attention shift, you know, the content switch between this and that and putting the different hats, switching between the hats. Yes. Is it burn? Yeah, I mean, I think I could tell I'm in that all our offices were kind of similar, right? We're offices of engineers. We're not offices having a lot of extra auxiliary staff. And so dealing with all those things that aren't directly engineering related, we're definitely harder for us to manage. And while that wasn't my hat that I wore, there was other people that had to do the research. I mean, we still had to spend time and discuss, you know, which plan we had to move forward. Even on our side of things like marketing and some of those things, you know, putting those things together, we were trying to do a lot of that ourselves. We had somehow, but having the corporate support for all of those items, you know, this has been really great. Yeah. It's an easy benefit to see. So let's talk about how the journey began with RTM. I want to just hear how each of you were even approached or did you approach them or where was the opening? Yeah, I guess I can kind of start. So for us, we were kind of in a weird transition point. So we had kind of looked, reached out, just kind of in the public market, just to see kind of what was out there and available. And I wouldn't say we necessarily had any great leads initially. And somehow we got connected up that RTM was looking for merger companies. And so one of our other partners kind of helped navigate that initially. But he started the conversations. Obviously, they kind of go both ways. It seemed like it was initially a good fit, cultural wise and operational wise. So just having a lot of those conversations, we had a lot of meetings with some of the corporate folks at the time. And then our senior leadership and just kind of navigating through that process. You just have to have a lot of buy-in on both sides of things. And it seemed like a good fit. And so we just kind of navigated through that process. And then once initially kind of made sense on both sides, we did a vote amongst the partners. And so that's how it was kind of decided for us to move forward or not at the time. Just to follow up on that question, what was even the reason originally that you guys were shopping around? Like you've been around for 32 years, right? So what caused the shift or the consideration to begin? I think, I mean, there was obviously several factors. I would say probably the most dominant factor is we're in Southwest Missouri. And we're kind of a little bit more limited on how we can branch out and grow. And so I think it was a good opportunity for us to kind of expand our services and staffing opportunities. I would say probably the main reason we were kind of looking out at the time. You sense? Richard John, how did the opening even begin? I think I think for us. So it was, it was, we weren't on the market, then and I, and then we had a third partner in Charles Taylor. We always said that if someone wanted to talk to us, we would listen, and we'd been in part several times. And always right away, we knew that those weren't a good fit. But I was actually on a site visit out in California, and Jennifer's part in the Rod was in the same area, and we'd become friends over working together for 20 years. So I just talked about, he happened to be in the same part of California, we went to dinner and he said, hey, I'd really like to talk to you guys, and we knew that they had merged about four years earlier, four to five years earlier. And so Ben and I visited with Rod and set up a appointment. And Tony came down. We had lunch one day, about an hour visited. And we were both intrigued enough to kind of continue the conversations. So from there, we started meeting more regularly with Tony and people on his side. And now we're here, so it's been a great thing. A lot of me the phone called Rod. Absolutely. Huge trajectory shifting moments. How did the journey begin for you, Rich? Yeah, so mine was, it was a journey. I had 10 or 15 years. Let's call it, left in my career, the way I saw it. And the traditional way of transitioning the company was you develop young engineers, they gain leadership skills, and then there's this process of buyout. But it requires them to take on a bunch of debt. And the next generation of my leaders weren't interested in that. There was a lot of pushback. So I went to market. I hired a broker, went to market, and hindsight and never hire a broker again. But the one thing the broker did, I had a bunch of offers. Some of them were super lucrative, but they were bad culture fits. I couldn't see benefits for my team members. It felt like I was going backwards personally, or it just was a poor cultural fit. The broker did introduce me to Tony. And Tony and I just hit it off. And it was around the COVID time. So meeting was tough. And so we're doing a lot of stuff by phone and culturally our core values lined up almost identically. The way he looked at business, the way I thought about our business, so aligned. It was so aligned that I'm like, Tony, I think you're full crap. Don't worry. Frankly, it sounds too good to be true. And he's good. OK, I hear you come on out and meet as many partners as you can. So I went out to Schomburg headquarters and did that. I met as many partners as I could. And he went full crap. He's built a great company with a great culture. And I mean, Jennifer and John are examples of that. Just great people working together in alignment. And it was like a switch went off. It was, I'm in. Let's do it. And so glad I did. I wish I frankly wish I would have done a 10-year sooner. That's interesting. You said that, Rich, because that's one thing I told Tony. Because same experience. What to Schomburg, we saw it. And I told Tony as we were getting ready to close, I think I said, man, I wish I was 47 instead of 57. Because-- And from the very first day after we signed the paperwork and we were our team, we were welcoming, you know, with really open arms. And it's been-- it's not like we're the new guys. It's like you're one of us. You're part of the family now. And I've seen that with the firms that have come on after us. It's just like you might as well have been here forever. Because Tony, that cultural fit that Rich was talking about is so huge. And it just makes a very natural integration. So yeah, it's been great. So here's my question. Is during the process, at what point were you most hesitant? Or was there any moment of hesitation or any moment of like, oh, is that a red flag? Even if it was your own stuff, or I mean, any of it. Like, talk about the human elements of this. Like, where wasn't it like, all green light? I think anytime you merge, I mean, you don't really know what you're getting into. And so you're in there. I mean, I think from our standpoint, like, you don't know if there's going to be limitations or how much they're going to dictate your day to day or what you do or how you do it, licensing for software. I mean, it's a big component of what we do. And so you don't really know exactly how that's going to evolve and be implemented. And just from that hesitation and that concern on my part, I would say is generally flawless. I mean, for us, it was a little bit easier because we didn't even have to change accounting software. They were using the accounting software. We were using before, which made it super easy. So for us, the transition was almost flawless because they're very much proponents for-- when a company comes in and merge, it's a good fit culturally. But there's a lot of reasons that they're more merging together. So they provide good services. They provide quality engineering. It kind of aligns with the core values. So they don't come in and try to change what you're doing or reinvent the wheel. The wheel was working. So nobody merged in because the wheel wasn't working, so to speak. So from my perspective, that's been the best and the easiest part of the transition. As you kind of just kind of took the benefit that the corporate group had to offer and utilize the good part that we were doing, which is the engineering part and the part that we're more passionate about. And generally, what we're better at, right? Yeah. For me, it was that the only hesitations were early on just making sure there was the cultural fit I spoke about. But also, as a civil engineer coming into an NEP firm, it's just like, are they going to get what we do? And there was a small piece of civil engineering in place. So I spent a lot of my energy trying to assess, is that a red flag? Are they going to get it? And at the end of the day-- and really, there was this moment of all-in. And it was because I felt like I could trust the people that we were-- and there was enough alignment-- that even a hurdles popped up, whatever they were, we were going to be able to work through them. Because that's ultimately the transition point for me. As can I trust these people to be true partners as we move forward in this transaction and afterwards? And yeah, it was a light switch moment. But it took a little time to build. Yeah, and I think for me personally, I think I was on board. I was wearing so many hats before that I was ready for a change. And what? Tony was offering it. We'd gone to Schumberg as well, Ben and I. And I'd seen that. And I was ready for that change. My partner-- he was-- he's younger. He's about eight years younger than I am. And his process of getting to the point to pull the trigger was a little bit different. Took a little longer. And he was very analytical. And one of the big things for him was we actually went to lunch with Jennifer and her partner at the time, Cam Collins. And he'd actually voted no on the merger. Is that right, Jennifer? That is correct. So we had six partners and two were against. And Cam was one of the against. And Cam was one of them. But we went to lunch with Cam and Jennifer. Ben was questioning them when I'm going through all the process. And Cam told him, you know, I was against this. But in hindsight, it's the best thing we could have done. And the best thing, it's been a wonderful finish to his career as he's now retired. And that was a one thing I think more than anything else that made Ben see what the potential was and the opportunities to hear from someone that he'd worked with for 20 years interested to make that kind of declaration. Yeah. I'd say, you know, it's really lovely to get to be on the inside and get to talk to so many people from our TM. And I can see that from the outside. One of the hesitations could be similar to what you had in your journey, Rich, where it's like, this is too good to be true. I got to go see you in person, because that online dating is going too well. I think this can't be real. And I always make the analogy when I'm telling people about RTM, I'm like, it's like a good family. It's not like there aren't moments of chaos and heated things that happen, but the core is good. And you can feel it when you walk into the house. And that's kind of like how it always seems every time I get to interact with folks from our TM. But that is just a real true thing, I think, that's going to be there is that hesitation of like, is this real or is this just more marketing? But question is that, can you shed light on? I know that you had a few differences in years the year that you merged. So what was the actual courtship process like, you know, if you had to lay out like the steps. And I know that some of it was organic and maybe there was other meetings that were added on for different reasons for your firm, but in general, can you lay out what it was for when you merged? I think the courtship process for us, as I mentioned, you know, totally paying down handwarts. And one of the very first questions I asked him was, you know, are you profits in this? Because I'd worked in a firm that was profit centers and it wasn't a good environment. And he explained absolutely not, you know, because that doesn't foster work sharing, that doesn't foster the community that we wanted to be part of. But then after that, we had weekly calls with Tony, my partner and I, and that went on for probably two or four months and then we went to Schumberg, met with a group up there for a couple days. And then we actually, Rich was one of the ones that we reached out to and talked to about his experience. And I think that was a very beneficial thing that Tony was willing to let us talk to anybody, you know, and that kind of, in my mind, maybe it seemed like, well, maybe this is an all a bunch of, you know, rainbows and unicorn type situation that were being sold. So, and then after that, we brought in a junior partner and told him what we were doing and things and then we continued to have meetings and he had meetings and let him go through his process and then eventually we got to the point where we decided to set a closing date, we closed and for us, because we wanted, we really wanted our senior people to be on board and not just bring it on. It was about a six-take-no process. Okay, great. And what point did you tell the rest of the team or the rest of your senior leadership to do so? Senior leadership wasn't aware, probably about three to four months before closing and then we told the rest of the office the week before closing, you know, and that seemed to work out pretty well for us. For me, it was, um, process was the series of conversations, the meetings in Schomburg, um, but then it was really the deal structure which came together pretty quickly, culminated in the L.O.I. I would say within 30 days of that, you know, after that initial rainbow, rainbow's and unicorns. Yeah. And, uh, from there, it moved pretty quickly. It really, they used an outsource, diligence company, so that was, that was 60 days of intense, you know, supply information, the answer questions. We had a lot of stuff professionalized, so it was an easy process, but it did take, you know, it takes time and you've got to answer questions and kind of push things through or be pulled through depending on the situation. That diligence piece and, you know, emerged from that, I would say in total, we were probably nine months, including the preliminary courtship part, but the deal only took three or four months to consummate from the time of the L.O.I. to actual close, and then, um, did not loop in the staff until the week before, which was, I was actually quite nervous about that. The way I'd operated was very transparent. Like, I was fighting this desire to tell them everything, but the, you know, until you know the deal is, is really going to go through and both parties are happy. My concern was it was going to create a lot of turmoil, so I was anxious, and when I, when I told them, they were all absolutely fine. It was all, you know, stuff I was turning in my head and worrying about, but they were fine because we had that, we had that level of trust. They were like, well, we'll see where it goes, and, but we trust your judgment was really the comments I got. And so it was, that was great. And then HR and accounting show up, uh, that, you know, basically that next week and spent so much time one on one with each team member, but they were very comfortable very quickly. So all that anxiety was for them. Hmm. Good, good to hear. Yeah, our similar, similar process. I think they kind of had streamlined it. So we came in before these other guys. Um, so I think we were, I think kind of the start of the, kind of the big section of mergers after us, but it was very similar process. It's definitely not quick. Um, it definitely took, uh, quite a bit of time just because we had six partners just to get all that information relayed. And so all six of us didn't go up to Shamburg and see all that. So a lot of that was kind of relayed through really, you know, one, one main person, but just transparency for all the information and, you know, Tony came down here a couple times, um, just to kind of help relay that since we had six people in two locations really. So it was a little bit harder for us to navigate. So I'm guessing we were a little bit longer than those time frames, but very similar process. We did the same thing kind of rich did, you know, tell staff before, and we didn't necessarily have any big major concerns or anything like that. Again, you kind of have a good company, good core people. They trust you. I've been their leader for quite a while. So we didn't really have any trouble or turmoil or really any issues. Um, for the transition, most of our staffs say if we did have one partner that decided not to come through with the merger, but other than that, um, everybody else was pretty much on board with it. Great. And just to ask what was their reason, if that's, if that's all right, Taz. Um, I think that just the, you know, all the concerns we kind of initially talked about, um, most people want to work for a smaller firm or add a smaller firm, right? There's just more concerns and getting pigeonholed that comes when you're kind of part of a big company and just not knowing how that transition really is going to happen or how your job is going to change. Um, I think he just chose to stay in kind of a smaller company and not get part of that big company feel. Um, and I think that's where Kim's comment was, like he voted against it for the same reasons. But then once you kind of get into the RTM family, you realize that it's really just small companies part of a bigger family, right? So it's still a small group that you're working with, a small group of people that are your day to day family. And you just have this huge extended family they can use for resources and, um, you know, just more information and, uh, you know, just experiences. So it's opened up a little bit more without having that big corporate feel that we were all concerned with that we were going to maybe roll into. So it's, it's definitely much more like a small company feel just part of a big bigger group. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like that's really important information to share the, the way that it is a little bit of both getting benefits from both. Right. So let's talk about the integration process. I know that in each of your, you know, shares about the dating game and, and how you came to decide you've already alluded to this a little bit. But just the actual integration after everything signed the deal is done. John you already mentioned, they were, they're the next day and, you know, accounting sits down and everything was seamless. But talk about like, yeah, what was it? What was that process? The integration process? How long did it take? How did the team respond throughout this time? What was RTM doing to support? Yeah. Just to speak to that specifically. I mean, I could, the biggest thing I could think is just transitioning everything over, right? You have licenses and software and computers and everything like that. So everything isn't dependent. So it takes a long time to switch all that over. We didn't have any problems with that. I think the biggest thing was just uploading our accounting stuff into their system. So it helped that we were on the same accounting system and, you know, we had, you know, 25, 30 people total. And so there's probably in 32 years of data, right? So there's probably a little bit more, you know, integration into that for all that accounting to move over. So that was probably kind of the hardest thing. So there's that time span we have to stop using something and switching over. So but really everything else was pretty seamless. Things that kind of came after the fact were more like your servers and your IT integration. So that seems like it takes the longest time where you're connected server-wise into other offices. But you're really still able to work, you know, throughout that whole process. So I mean, for us, it was pretty seamless and we never really had any problems or concerns really moving over. I mean, our experience was similar. We had all the technology type things going on. But at the time, we were so busy that we really couldn't take on outside work or team structure work yet. So as far as our day to day things, I mean, they were Therefore support we continue to have calls with Tony for a period of time just checking on us and we were introduced to other people that would call and check on us, ask what we needed or how they could help. But other than not the day-to-day really stayed very similar. Yeah, my experience was similar. The day-to-day for the team was pretty much unchanged. The accounting stuff took, I don't know, 30 or 60 days to kind of smooth out and just like Jennifer was talking about the data transfer and that's in bold so that it was a little strange in that for probably two or three months I didn't get a call for me. We changed the process since then but it was like okay there was a lot of fanfare but you know what's happened, what's different and I used that time to reach out to a bunch of principles and just try to build some connections and get to know some people and would reach out to Tony and say okay what's next, you know what's the next evolution which careful what you ask for. So there were plenty of things I could get involved with. That's good, you're leading me right into the next question. Can I say one more thing? Yeah, do, yes. You know it was interesting because we were pretty nervous about telling some of our clients. You know we'd had these clients for 20 years, the 12 years, we weren't business certainly in the relationships we built before we went off and started our own firm and actually that part was pretty smooth. We did not, you know, we had the only client that said they probably wouldn't use us. It was another MEP firm that we did two jobs a year, four great guys and they've actually come back to us since that time on some projects but they said they couldn't hire us since we were part of the MEP firm now. But everybody else is like well you still the people that I call to get work done and say yeah we're still the guy. So that was a really easy part that I had a lot of anxiety about but didn't need to have. I love that. Question before we get into the hats and you were today and life today but culturally like what happened you know when you were getting integrated. Was there any plug-in to like teams at the time in terms of Microsoft teams and like you know company communication for your broader team or was there how was everyone looped in in terms of the culture and the communication and the feeling apart of the bigger family. For us there was a teams channel for civil and so it was they did it by office at the time and also we plugged we created a consolidated civil channel and so started interacting. Today we do more purposeful or intentional things to you know do virtual happy hours or whatever to try to get people to intermingle but and I think that's an evolution at least since I've joined because that does help it's all about you know getting to know the other people to really feel part of that truly integrated part of that bigger family. We came in before COVID and it sounds terrible because it doesn't seem like it was that long ago but it's been long enough I don't remember a lot I do know that we transitioned to teams during COVID which was I think it was like we came on board maybe like the week before the big shutdown right and so for us that timing couldn't event better because everything made it navigable during COVID times with virtual things and everything like that so I felt like we were probably more isolated prior to so I think mostly things were just via email there was a lot less companies at the time a lot less people so I would say that there was I mean we kind of just rolled like we were before and then we would just reach out to certain people if we had questions or concerns. We were given a lot of flexibility kind of run things how we did before we weren't you know there's no restrictions there wasn't like well you can't spend money on this because of whatever so I think as long as you know we were making good business decisions we were pretty flexible but the the teams once we rolled into that made things a lot more open a lot more easy to communicate with other offices and other groups and just reach out if you had quick questions it was easier to navigate so the company's evolved which has been great so it's really just really benefited I think everybody and more of the companies that have merged after us. Yeah I mean I experience very similar you know we we encourage we try to try to get get our group at all levels to reach out and have peers in there there's two other structural offices to kind of develop relationships with their peers in those other offices so and that's worked out pretty well. Great so let's talk about today and how's today different than way before pre-merge what how it's are you wearing today like what are you doing that's different than your day-to-day what have you shed specifically what are you enjoying is anything different and also kind of hear a little bit about have have things changed for your team how are they doing now any differences that are tangible for them has your team grown like yeah what's changed. I guess I can kind of start so I think the biggest thing we kind of had a reorganization lately and it's prior to we tried to group offices and staff together kind of I would say more geographically some a little bit by discipline so you kind of had like a little group of people that you could reach out to or talk to just you know business development or marketing things operational stuff more regionally and we reformatted that's where it's more by your primary job focus so for me that's probably been the biggest hat change lately is you know more involved than the leadership side for our institutional organizational group and so that's changed a little bit and it's tied us a little bit more into people that do the same types of projects every day so from my staff perspective it's been great because we've been work sharing with other offices and if we need to code or a standard or just have a question on something it's made it a little bit easier to ask questions to other people in other offices where it's much more fluid dynamic it's easier conversation because you've you've talked to these people you've had more conversations you work with them on projects and it's I think it's just kind of opened up communications across state lines a little bit better with this reorganization and it's you know it just takes time but people get more familiar with other people you know who'd ask questions to on not only you know a senior leadership which we've had but more at the lower engineer levels well so I think it's been really beneficial on that side of things. Well that's great it sounds like new connective tissue in a lot of ways but that to just clarify especially for listeners it's the RTM as a whole reorganizing with those centers of excellence is what they're calling it right right right right and grouping based on locations and near near to us locations it's grouping based on types of engineering and role focuses is that correct yes that's okay yeah it's based on in markets so institutional commercial healthcare and industrial and then civil and structural or service based and specialty is like an incubator for other services complimentary so we have we have six but each the MEP groups are all about 100 people roughly and civil and structural are in the 60 to 75 so you get critical mass so all the things Jennifer was talking about are you know it's unlocking I think some potential that we haven't seen before. Wow the fact that our team continues to find new ways to unlock potential it's pretty exciting okay but so back to the prior question Rich for you the hats that you're wearing today what's changed for you personally and then for your team? Yeah so my let's start with my team so the team with a bigger group there's just more opportunities so before I was the principal in charge I'd have a project manager project engineer working on you know the day to day they're now able to take on larger teams develop their skills in the context of the civil COE and so that's that's really accelerated growth for those people who who want that and we've seen that that cascades so there's just there's tons of opportunities especially with our growth rate as well it creates it creates gaps quite frankly but those gaps are opportunities for other people and I think you know one of the things that is part of our culture is really letting people do the things they like to do most and it's hard to deliver on that unless you're growing and and really thoughtful about you know even the transition to COEs will unlock some of that so for my team members they're I've seen a lot of individual growth just tons of individual growth and I couldn't support in my office. structure, just we weren't big enough, we weren't growing fast enough. For me personally, it's, I like lots of things, so I think I've probably wound up with a lot of hats as a result of that. But I enjoy business, leadership, development, those aspects. So I'm very much focused on those things now and having a blast. It's all, it's work, obviously, but you know, it's that good tired when you go home. So yeah, lots of hats. Well, I think, I think for me, you know, maybe just to maybe jump on Rich's bandwagon. That was a really important thing to me when we were in the dating phase was that we would have create opportunities for our people. Because there's about 15 of us who had done work all over the country. And I look back on it now and I really think that we conscientiously held people back and maybe not deterred their growth because we needed them sitting at their desk and pushing projects out the door. And so I think when we were, we were courting, that was something that was really important in my mind that we create opportunities for our people. And I've seen that happen, you know, we've got it. It's fun to see the people that were just focused on themselves. And what they were doing or what was on their desk or the project or that. To have their eyes opened up for their thinking more about their team and the others around them and how they can encourage the growth of the people that they're now managing. So that's been a really nice kind of maybe not. I don't know if I anticipated that that much when we were before we merged, but it's certainly a nice I've seen on the whole process. And as far as hats, I'm kind of like Rich. I like to do so many things. It's hard to just pick one, but I really enjoyed like the leadership development or the I enjoy the relationship aspect of it. With clients, with colleagues, I mean, I know 100 people now and have relationships with them in our team world that I I never would have met. I feel like my my life's been a rich because of that. You know, because it's just such outstanding, outstanding people all across the board and all levels in our team. So I think I think that's probably one of the things that's brought me the most joy seeing the growth in our people relationships we've developed as well as the opportunities in work and work sharing. And you know, I get a call from Maryland or call from our Seattle office and they need some structural help and I can pass that along to one of our engineers and then they start developing those relationships and things and just see that. See that see that growth and development that comes from that it's pretty fascinating to me very, very pleased. Wonderful. It's the light to hear that. Rich, did you have something you want to add? I was just going to crack a joke that all of all of John's new hundred friends are going to come crash is this lake house. Sounds good. If it ever gets finished. That's from the bank. It's the longest. We have designed and built 120 million dollar projects. But my way counts is still under construction. Of course. The cabinet is huge. Of course. So as we begin to wrap up, what do you and we've shared a lot and there might not be anything else that you have left that's unsaid. But in case there is, what do you want to share with other companies that might be considering emerge with RTM or maybe outside of it. And this episode could just be generally educational about what to be looking for. But what questions do you encourage other leaders to ask? And then like the cherry on top is what would you tell your past self if you could throw a little message in the bottle to the past. The one thing I would say is just to be patient. I think all of us kind of sounded similar where like you emerge you sign on the dotted line and then you like expect big changes, right? You expect something like something. And like it doesn't come. Like there's not substantial changes. So in a way that's good, right? Because you know you were operating well before. But like everything took a bit of time to kind of roll out and get going and even just changing the sign on the door, right? So I think just be patient and know that that's a good thing. I guess in my mind, looking back like I was like a little apprehensive about things. But at the end of the day, you know, being patient and it taking time was good. The best thing that we came out of it, I think was just the overwhelming. You have to have a good culture fit, right? And your operational goals and the way you operate your company have to align and you have to get a good fit for that. And for us, everybody that, you know, we work with in different offices have aligned. They've been super helpful. They've been very pleasant. I mean, that culture fit is super important to make sure that those relationships are effective and positive for everyone involved. And from our standpoint, that's been great. And that's been the best thing about it so far. I think for me, what rich finishes up and sees us, he's our spokesman. I think for me, you know, I've had a very storied career. I feel like I have a good different firms and I've enjoyed all of them. And I think like Jennifer said, is the culture part of it, the camaraderie that comes from the willingness to work together on projects and things has been phenomenal. And I'm so glad that we took the time and the perseverance that it took, you know, rich talked about the de-diligence effort. That was it. We were 14 people, my wife actually volunteered to do our de-diligence and she probably spent hundreds of hours. She still reminds me of that, by the way. But doing that for us and putting all that information together and personally, I'm so glad we did is I look around where we are now compared to where we were. It's a really good place to finish up. I think you reminded me of Catherine and I told you earlier, but I feel like I've come home, you know, and I honestly feel that way. Don, you always want to make me tear up and we're talking. That's my reason. Paul was tear up. Wow. Hey. So that's what I would encourage. Just take the time, listen, work through the process and then. And if it is a good fit, I'm not one day regretted the decision we make. Yeah, for me, it's really two pieces of advice. Whether it's to my home here. Whether it's to myself or to someone else is. I went, I heard a broker because I thought I needed something, but like I thought there was something I didn't know about the market or how the process, whatever. And it really turned out to be a poor, a really poor experience. I hope that's just me, but I would say, take pause, go out and get some more information because it actually was a hindrance instead of a help in my case. But the bigger broader message and it's going to echo somewhat what Jennifer and John have said is, first thing is, if it's not a cultural fit and not a forced fit in any way, like, RTM isn't for everybody. But people who align with our core values and get along with partners like the three of us, you're going to thrive. But if you don't have that, and it's a mismatch, it's okay. Just we're not the right place. And figuring out that match is number one in my mind. That's the advice I get. Just find a good match. Awesome. Okay, you three. Thank you so much. This is a wealth of information. I'm really excited to get to share this with the listeners to be on engineering and the market in general. But, you know, well done and thank you so much for representing RTM today and what it's like to become a part of RTM. Thank you. Yes, inter-closing. The last thing, the last question, and I'm giving us a last closing appreciation for anything. But what's top of mind? A bigger family. How about that? I was going to say I'm thankful for partners, partners like Jennifer and John, just like my new people. And getting to do things I love doing. I would say the same thing. You know, just we get to do what we love to do in our circle. You know, the circle is so much bigger than this, we can share it with. My closing appreciation is the fact that a conversation, a panel conversation about mergers and an engineering firm can get me literally teary-eyed and I'm not faking it. That is so wonderful and speaks well. It's like, right alongside everything about RTM, you guys, the culture there. So thank you so much for a very human conversation on this topic. - Thank you. - God, John did make you bring out tissues or anything. - Right. - This is the makeup. - It's a lot of doll. - Cool. All right, thanks again guys, until next time everyone. - Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you for listening to this episode of Beyond Engineering, a podcast from RTM Engineering Consultants. 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