Still Strong #24 Jerome Reynaert

Intro voiceover: [0:01] I learned the hard way. Nothing's overnight. Some days you lose, some days you survive. Still

Keith Vance: [0:26] Drone Rainer, welcome to the podcast, brother. Morning. Jerome, I've been trying to figure out how to start this out. You and I have been friends for thirty years. We went from working almost every day together to coming on, like, crossing paths every five to ten years. You'll always take my phone call, but you've been doing your thing. I've been doing my thing. Yep. I think you and I have been trying to hook up a couple times now. You said, hey, Keith. Can I do it via Zoom? Probably a selfish thing. I just wanna sit down and have a conversation with my buddy that I haven't talked to in ten years, and you're busy. I know that because you're here, there's something or someone that's not getting your attention. Someone try to be respectful of your time, but, I just do appreciate you taking the time to be with me. Yeah. No problem. Happy to be here. Yeah. So, brother, before we get into it, everybody that comes on the podcast gets these still strong hats. They're Richardson one twelves. My kids tell me they're they're the best. When I decided to do this podcast, people have been following us. They know what it's all about, but I literally went through my phone and, just wrote down people that inspired me that are still strong, been through adversity. Right there, there's a phrase on that wall, not untouched, not unbroken, but still strong. We're gonna get there. But, Jerome, there's been things that have touched your life. There have been things that have broken you, but you're still here and you have a story to tell, I wanna get to that to one, just reminisce and, those lessons that we learned through those hardships. Maybe somebody's going through it now, and it'll, like, help them see the tunnel or the daylight in the tunnel. But before we get going, what's life like for you now? How old are you now? How many kids do you have? Do you got grandkids yet? Like, what what are you doing in business and family and fitness? Like, what's life like for you now?

Jerome Reynaert: [2:23] Busy. I've got seven kids, 46.

Keith Vance: [2:31] What are their ages? More or less. Emily's 24.

Jerome Reynaert: [2:37] No. 25. Wow. Emily's 25. Julian's 22. Maverick's 18. Montana's 15. Brody's 13. Brooke's 11, and Casey's three. Wow. So Emily's got a three year old son. He's a little bit older than my youngest. So that's my oldest grandson, and then she's pregnant with a little girl. So

Keith Vance: [3:05] number two, anyway. What is life like being a father compared to being a grandfather? Have you had time to think about that yet?

Jerome Reynaert: [3:14] Not really. I mean, because Emily's upbringing was disconnected for me for a while, you know, she kinda she came back after high school, and then her and her husband both worked for me for three or four years after that. And so when they had Jack's, which is my oldest grandson, I had a baby right after that. So I don't know. It almost didn't seem a whole lot different. So, I mean, Casey and Jax are four or five months apart. So I kinda got a kid and a grandkid at the same time, so it just kinda all feels the same. Got it. Understood. Yeah. Not a lot of difference, but Yeah.

Keith Vance: [3:57] Family's all good. Family's all healthy and getting along. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's doing good. You always I felt like you're always in competition with me to have the most, like, more kids than me. I'm stuck at seven. You're at seven. Do you plan on keeping going? Are gonna you're gonna get that win? Are you are you good just being a tie? I never never was pushing for a win. I

Jerome Reynaert: [4:15] it worked out that way, so it appeared that way. But, no, I was I was done at two. And then then, oh, that happened. And then when I got remarried, I I couldn't not have kids, it seemed like. I wasn't trying. It was you know, at that point, I was going through everything, and the last thing I wanted was another kid I needed to try to take care of, but they just kept popping like popcorn. So

Jerome Reynaert: [4:49] that was just kinda what it was. See, I was kind of running joke with you and me. But, yeah, it's kind of odd that we both accidentally settled at seven. Seven, they said, is a let the number perfection. Number. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I'm done or not. She she had her way. She'd have some more. I don't mind. They're like kids. They're fun. But

Keith Vance: [5:11] we'll see we'll see what happens. What's your business life like right now?

Jerome Reynaert: [5:15] A little busier than I'd like, but good. I mean, I don't have any complaints. Just I think the biggest thing I miss honestly is working. Get stuck in the office dealing with all the stuff you try to do to get other people to be able to do what you do instinctively. And I think it's the general course of that that ends up diluting what we did or do in general because the guys that are best at it advanced to the next level. And if there's not somebody that's as good as they were at the level they just left, then that level suffers. And you see it over and over, and then you just you spend a lot of time trying to back up lesser operators sometimes to positive result and sometimes not. You know the drill. But you wanna just go out there and do it, but, you know, you can only cover as many bases as one guy can cover. So you try to duplicate, and it's a cycle of wins and losses. Right?

Keith Vance: [6:23] Yeah. You and I and we'll get into it. You and I, I guess, are really competitors in business. Mhmm. For sure. So but you're doing some other things too. Are you still doing some stuff out west, or is is the No. The framing company your what you're doing now, or do you have other things you're doing?

Jerome Reynaert: [6:40] Well, we I didn't intend to come back here at all. I had kinda set things up out west to basically just do investment building out there with the boys, and they were we went out there. I guess they were 11 and 15. And so I figured, well, I'll spend the next ten years kind of solving the problem I just touched on, you know, teaching them the actual basis of it where they actually know how to do it, not just how to perceive it, so to speak. So that was my plan. That's what I was gonna do. So I built a house out there, started one multifamily project, and then when management fell flat back here, it was kind of a you know, that this the feasibility of that operation out there was based on the consistency of this operation back here. Understood. And when that consistency became questionable for certain, it's like, well, I can't, you know, I can't keep getting deeper out here and get shallow back there. So I came back here, and I knew once I got here, you know, the the hole was a whole lot deeper than anybody else had realized Got it. Because management had taken their eye off the ball at least a year before they bothered to tell me they were moving on. And so instead of the pipeline needing to be continued, it was empty. And so it was kinda one of those, uh-oh, here we go moments. So I decided, okay. I can't I can't look at this like temporary. I've gotta look at it like I'm all in, and so you can't ever do anything halfway to any level of success. So I just started throwing everything at the wall I possibly could and hoping enough of it would stick to keep everything above above water, so to speak. And I think the just the combination of timing and, you know, providence and whatever, a lot more stuck to the wall than I expected. And so there's a lot going on. So they out there out in Montana, I finished up the projects that were out there and put them on the market, but I don't I'm not starting anything else out there until I have no idea when. Just trying to get things here stabilized and settled down.

Keith Vance: [9:07] We're gonna dissect this from where you and I met, like, all the way through where we're at now. Mhmm. But the main reason why you're I wanna talk to you because you just hit down a little bit. You've always been able to adapt. Mhmm. You've always been able to adapt and figure it out. And, that's what I appreciate about you. And, even just now, this little opening talking about I had this going on, but I had to I had to transition and figure it out. Like, you've always been able to adapt. You've never just laid down and given up or or, alright, here's the hill I die on. You've always been figured it out. I think that's admirable. I think it's honorable. I'm I'm glad to call you my friend. I respect you for it. I know you've been through some stuff. You got a what's your shirt say? The iron what? Oh, this is the Rocks clothing brand. Iron Planet, I think. So are you what's your fitness like these days? Back when you and I were hanging out, you had this expensive bicycle. I think you'd I think I remember you did some triathlons. So Mhmm. What's your fitness journey been like, and what is it like today?

Jerome Reynaert: [10:09] Been about as up and down as everything else. So I in my teenage years, I raced at a highly competitive level at triathlons. I was on the junior Olympic team from, oh, I guess, must have been 1996 through '99. Won the world championships in '99. Right right guess that would have been around the time you and I were starting out and doing what we were doing. But then when I started the first business after you and I split up, I moved away and came back and whatnot. I didn't do anything from the end of ninety nine till probably 2004. And then I decided, okay. I'll start racing again. So I raced a little bit o four, o five, but was I think that was the first time I realized how long it'd been since I did it. And so it took me took me till, oh, middle of o seven to really get kinda my legs back under me with that part of life. I actually signed up for the New Zealand Ironman in spring of o eight, I think, was supposed to be the race. So, like, late o six, I signed up for it. And, of course, late o '6, everybody was lying at 40,000 feet and thought we were gonna never drop. Right? So I got into Ironman training at that point. I'd never done an Ironman before. My dad had done one, and so I'd always wanted to do one, but got got in shape for it. And then the bottom had fallen out everything so hard I couldn't go, so I didn't end up going. And then from there, I fought through the next four, five years. Didn't have any time for anything fitness oriented to any significant degree. So I've finally, I guess, in 2017, I signed up for the Boulder Ironman and went and did Boulder in 2018. So did Boulder in 2018, then did the Texas Ironman in 2021, qualified for the world championships there. Was supposed to go to the world championships in '22 in oh, I forget the name of the town. Somewhere in Utah. But was trying to shut that operation down and move it out west and just had too much to do, so I didn't end up going. But then haven't done anything much since then. Started after I got back here. Took a couple years to get things sort of leveled out where you had any time to breathe. So I started working out last summer, figured I'd get back on track and do something, and, ended up with a messed up left knee. I just had some cleanup knee surgery a few months ago. So I get another month or so of getting back from that before I can do anything too serious. So in my opinion, I'm about as out of shape as I've ever been and can't stand it, but, you know, you get laughed at by everybody else when you have that opinion of yourself, but that's just life.

Keith Vance: [13:23] I got some questions here. But, you said you're 46? Yep. So it takes a little longer to warm up the engine. For sure. But it doesn't mean that you need to stop doing your doing your stuff. You know what mean? It might take a little longer. You you mentioned your knee. Rehab might take a little longer. Yep. But that doesn't mean you're you're done yet. And the fact that it's not off the table with you right now, again, is something I appreciate about. Minor setback, but you know what? I'm gonna put it back on the table and get after it again. Yep. Yeah. Well, it's funny. Like, I had a kid that

Jerome Reynaert: [13:59] went through a lot of the low and dirty periods of my career with me. And at the time, he was drank way too much and did a fair amount of other things that he wouldn't recommend to a point that he was you know, at one point, he stole a bunch of stuff from me and went to jail and all this stuff. And he called me yesterday, and it's all cleaned up, running his own business, did a half iron man last weekend, and crushed it. Wow. I mean, time was phenomenal for a first timer. And so, I mean, he just you're never down too far. Yeah. And this kid was down all the way. He was down about as low as you can get. I mean, I'd you or I, as far as I know, never had any personal bad habits to an extent that, you know, put us underwater, but this kid had it had it from all sides. And but you can always you know, like you said, might take a little longer. You might have to dig a little harder, but, you know, it was it was really good talking to him yesterday because he was one of those kids that you knew had it and just for whatever reason couldn't get it together. Yeah. And when you when you see somebody bounce back and actually go somewhere, it's It's inspiring, brother. It It is. It's fun to watch. Yeah. Yeah.

Keith Vance: [15:17] In this little wheelhouse wheelhouse of fitness, I've never done an Ironman. I think you said your dad didn't did one and it kinda, like, sucked you in. Yep. What is an Ironman? What is the prep for it?

Keith Vance: [15:31] What's the the the parts about the Ironman that you like, don't like? Like, for me, I think it's the swim. I think the swim would not be the fun part. But having done one, can you just walk me through the process, the prep part, the status like, the whole thing? Sure.

Jerome Reynaert: [15:48] So the swim is what scares most people. It's probably the thing that deters the majority of athletes that don't ever get into triathlon. They've changed it a lot over the years. When I first started back in the nineties, it was all mass start races. So hundreds or thousands of athletes depending would hit the beach all at once. And there's guys your size, and there's little girls ninety six pounds. Got it. And you're all hitting the water at once. I mean, it is literally like lemmings. And there's a number of people died, number of people got beat up. You know? It was it was always scary. And then in the late nineties, they started wave starting, they called it. So they would start the age divisions in sets, basically. So it drastically reduced the number of athletes sitting in the water. That helped a little. But now at the Ironman distance anyway, with computer timing capability, now you self seed yourself. So you enter a shoot based on the time you anticipate your swim to take, and you enter the water one athlete at a time. Your time starts when your chip crosses the line. Got it. So all the timing is equalized. There's no rush to be the first one in the water. You're starting in at a time when all the people that swim at your level are swimming. So it really takes a lot of that

Keith Vance: [17:09] scary part out of it. In your mind, is that the better way to do it?

Jerome Reynaert: [17:14] For sure. For I mean For same thing. If you're if you're in the top 10% of the athletes in the race, you wouldn't care. Right. It wouldn't make any difference. You're gonna swim out in front, and you're big enough and strong enough that it's not gonna be a problem, and it wouldn't bother you. But for the safety and, you know, benefit of the race for everybody in the race, for sure. But, anyway,

Jerome Reynaert: [17:36] for me, I grew up swimming. So for me, the swim is kind of a a break to warm up for the rest of it. Really? Because you swimming is mostly technique and fitness level. I mean, as long as your fitness level is where it needs to be, you're better off focusing on technique than trying harder.

Keith Vance: [17:55] The harder you try, the slower you'll go. I get it because if you're if you're trying hard during the race, it probably didn't train hard enough. Right? Like, it's just you're just I've done this. I've trained for this. Now I should just get it done. Yep. And swimming, when you when you push harder, generally, your technique falters and, actually, you slow down. So far is the swim? Because I don't I've seen them on TV, but I really don't know too much about Ironman. So how far is the swim? 2.4 miles. Holy crap. Yep.

Jerome Reynaert: [18:22] Yep. 2.4. It's long. Yeah. It's long. So how long does it take to for you to swim 2.4 freaking miles? Just over an hour. Holy crap, dude. Yep. Yep. The really the really good athletes will you know, your pros will come out in the high forty minute bracket. You know, the meat of the pack, I would say, is between an hour five and an hour thirty five, and then you have people that are out there over two hours all day long.

Keith Vance: [18:48] So to prep for a 2.4 mile swim, how many how many swims are you doing a week? Are you swimming like, what's what's the prep for a swim? I never swim a whole lot. Like I said, I have a a large swimming background,

Jerome Reynaert: [19:01] and it's mostly technique. And, yeah, I should swim a lot more than I do when I prep. I would say a lot of athletes probably swim, oh, 15,000 yards a week, something like that in the in the main part of their training regimen. I don't think I ever swam more than 3,500 or 4,000 yards a week. Because you're naturally good at it. No. Well, I had the technique, and the time was better spent on the bike or run. Understood. I could develop faster doing the bike and run. The fitness lapses over. You know? So it it was just kinda, like, time over time value. So, Ron and I always minimized because I've always been around two hundred pounds and wasn't stupid enough to think that knees and ankles and stuff would last forever. So I just ran as much as I felt they needed to. Spent a lot of time on the bike.

Keith Vance: [19:59] So hold on a minute. On the run, you're getting out of the water. Right? The run's next. Right? Nope. Bike's next. The bike is next. You get out of water, the bike is next. How long are you biking for? 112 miles. K. 112 miles. To me, that feels the swim feels more ominous than the run. I mean, than the bike to me. The swim feels more ominous than the bike element.

Jerome Reynaert: [20:24] That must be what it is. You the the swim can kill you. The bike, you just My mind can digest a 112 miles on a bike. Like, I can break that down. I can break that down. So what's the bike ride like? Is that The bike is the defining piece because you can either you can either make or break your race on the bike. You spend the most hours on the bike. You're gonna be on the bike depending on your fitness level somewhere between, you know, four and change to six and change hours. K? So it's a long period of time. It's when your fueling is most important because if you're not hydrating or, you know, getting the right nutrition on the right schedule, you will fall apart in the run. That's not if. It's when. So how you manage the bike and it's hard. It's always been a challenge for me because I was always real strong on the bike. But if you overplay your bike, your run will crash. So you you gotta leave enough on the table to get through a full marathon once you get off that 112 mile bike. So, like, at Boulder, I think my I biked, like, five hours and thirty seven minutes or something for So that you said between four and six hours, that's an average Yep. Right in the middle of the pace. Yep. And, really, I mean, I survived the marathon, I would say. And I did some different training when I went and did Texas and backed off the bike about ten minutes and ended up with about a fifteen minute overall faster time because it backed off the bike just a little bit and, you know, left the ability to actually run the marathon. So, you know, every athlete's different, but you see it if you watch the pros. The guys will go out and they'll lead the entire race on the bike, and then halfway through the marathon, they get just run right by by the whole pack that was back there relaxing. So it's there's some strategy and some knowing yourself to it. Do you

Keith Vance: [22:23] like, the two races that you just talked about, and we'll move on after this, but this is this this I love this kind of stuff. Mhmm. So

Keith Vance: [22:34] and you're not a quitter. You're an adapter.

Jerome Reynaert: [22:37] Mhmm.

Keith Vance: [22:39] And I I equate, like, this Ironman that you're doing with, like, real life stuff. I quit that that that kind of stuff carries over. Okay. So I have to adapt to this. I have to adapt to that. Can you just in a race, can you just maybe give me some things that that you can think about where maybe developed, say, a cramp in your cat or you where you had to adapt and your mind there's that I like that me versus me stuff. That's one of my fitness stuff. I don't compete with other people. I like competing with that person in my head that says, you can't. You're not good enough. Why are you doing this? Like, I compete with that person. Mhmm. I think you do too. So can we just kinda, like, live there for a minute? Sure.

Jerome Reynaert: [23:18] I mean, the competition element of Ironman is so far beyond my level of fitness in recent years or aspiration that it doesn't even come into play. I mean, after Boulder, I was didn't intend to go to the awards ceremony, which they do the next day because everybody's not done till late in the evening. And but I happened to be walking by the awards ceremony, and they were announcing the 35 to 39 age bracket, which I was 39. And so it kinda perked up and thought, okay. I'll listen to this and see where I fell in there. Right? I knew I wasn't anywhere near the, you know, metal round or whatever, but I thought I'd just pay attention. And so they announced the gauge category, and they announced fifth place first up through first, and they announced the times along with it. And fifth place was, like, I think, eleven hours and fifty five minutes or something. And I had done, like, twelve hours and forty five seconds or something like that. And I thought, man, I was only five minutes out of fifth place. That's amazing. That is amazing. Then I realized they were announcing the women. Oh my goodness. And I was like, oh, wow. That was only a girl. I'd almost be competitive. Wow. So my point is I don't race Ironman for the competition against the other guy. I mean, there's guys out there that spend their whole life. That's what they do. They have a lot of time to do it. They're better at it, whatever.

Jerome Reynaert: [24:45] For me, it's it's definitely the mental me against me thing because

Jerome Reynaert: [24:54] in in just about every aspect of an Ironman, I mean, you're gonna go through six or seven different major physical cycles throughout that day. That's twelve hours of high intensity nonstop, no break, never off the gas. And so, you know, your body's gonna crash and recover and go through that multiple times throughout that day. You're gonna have to manage every every different thing. But the biggest challenge for me is and I think it's for everybody who succeeds at it, you have to decide before you go into it. You don't know what that cramp's gonna be or what that crash is gonna be or when you're gonna get nutrition off balance. You don't know. You got ideas of what to avoid, but you don't know when it's gonna hit. And the whole thing is it doesn't matter when it hits. Doesn't matter what it is. That's good. You know? There's not when you hit that wall, the question is, do I dig under it? Do I climb over it, or do I knock it down? It's not a wall. It's just that next thing that I gotta figure out how to get around. And I think the the correlation to life is is just that. You know? Yes, sir. It's preparing for the it's not a matter of if I'm gonna run into something difficult. It's just a matter of when. And once you get to the point where you've hit the wall as many times as I have, you you just kinda, well, okay. When's the next wall? And you don't even you're not even alarmed by the fact that the wall's there. It's just like, well, okay. What do we do to get around this one? And so it is a, you know, it is a microchasm of life, if you will. But that's I think that's why I do it because trying to find a way to challenge that aspect of yourself that isn't challenged enough Yeah. And develop it to the level that it's still there next time you need it. Yeah. There's

Keith Vance: [26:53] a lot of stuff right here. There's a lot of stuff right here we talk about.

Keith Vance: [27:00] I

Keith Vance: [27:02] a few years ago, like, every January, I I, our family goes away for Christmas and New Years. And kinda like when your routine stops, you just evaluate yourself. Like, you're outside you're outside of your routine, and it's good just to kinda like, from a different vantage point, look at your life outside of that vantage point. And that's what Christmas and New Year's is for me. And I say, okay. What did I do last year that was that I grew? What were some things that I shied away from because I was afraid to grow? And I just give myself a diagnostic. I always try to challenge myself. One year, I would I ran a I somewhere around a 100 miles this year. And, like, to to get to that point, I said I have to I have to be mentally prepared. Like, the reason I'm doing this has to be a strong reason because once it starts sucking and, like, why are you doing this? I'm gonna quit. Mhmm. So I found I I just went through that, those emotions for a while, and I I grabbed on okay. This is why I'm gonna do this. Once that was solidified, when my wife dropped me off in Sarasota, I ran down 41 from Sarasota to the freaking Naples.

Keith Vance: [28:15] Yeah. And the hardest part was 02:00 in the morning right around that between Port Charlotte and North Fort Myers area where there's no sidewalks. It's hotter than balls. You run on the side of road with all the industrial trucks coming out. There's a freaking homeless guy came out of the woods. I thought he was gonna try to rape me. I couldn't even, like, hardly run. We end up being a cool dude. Like, when when light when it just sucks the most and, like, you're literally peg leg walking it, You piss yourself a little bit, and you're like, why am I doing this? Yep. You go back to that starting point. This is why. Right. And that's the stuff that carries you through. If it's if it's for vain glory, if it's for pride, any of these secondary things, you'll fail. Sure. Like, my my go to is my my family brother. Like, that's that's what that's what I go to. So let's make that a little bit of a transition. You said that

Keith Vance: [29:06] the Ironmans translate over to, like, real life stuff. And you talked about the obstacles you've been through life. Again, not untouched, not unbroken, but still strong. Almost at the stage. Okay?

Keith Vance: [29:20] My wife and I were newly married. We had just built our house on 8th Street. I was working for a builder that we were building houses for these Germans. Back then, the Deutsche Mark was was like a 2 to one to the dollar. So these people were building vacations homes over here, and, we had an in house framing crew. When we got done framing them, I would do the tile. I would do the brick paver. Like, I just did whatever, and, I learned a lot. So the guy that I was working for, although he was a good at his craft, he was a craftsman. He wasn't good in business. He ended up going out of business.

Keith Vance: [30:01] I had a baby at the time. I went a month without getting paid. I was loyal to him because he was loyal to me. Like, he taught me everything I know. He laid everybody else off and kept me with him. I was loyal to him. He cut me a check, brother, and that check bounced, which caused my house payment, my mortgage payment to bounce. So I started my own little thing, and I started, like, doing stuff for people, handyman business. I went to their yellow pages and I came across this Rayner Contracting. I called this guy. He said, yeah, come meet me down here. Went to his office. It was your dad. At that time, your dad was getting out of remodeling. He was doing house or something like that. Mhmm. And it was through that low time in my life that your dad gave me a shot and I said, I'm just one guy, so I know how to frame. He said, well, I got a bunch of boys and your dad put us together. Mhmm. So I wanna start there, and I want you to take over the story and steer this ship towards where you and I met and started and where you sit right now when we talk about the triathlon of life. Mhmm. Let's just go through it. Take your time. Relive it. Remember it. I didn't know the backstory of that.

Jerome Reynaert: [31:18] I know the part where you met my dad and beyond, but I didn't know you know, I didn't never really knew, I guess, where my dad found you or how that initial meeting happened. What you may not realize is behind that, on my side of the story, was that my dad had remodeled been a remodeling contractor. I'd worked with him. I was oh, man. At that point, maybe I was 18. 18, maybe 19, something like that. And so my dad actually intended to keep remodeling. He was growing the remodeling business. My brother had started a new housing division and was selling and trying to build new houses. And, I didn't

Jerome Reynaert: [32:10] none of it was fast paced enough for me. It was you know, remodeling was slow. It was boring. You're always waiting on things to happen. And the new home building business was just basically looked like glorified realtor stuff to me at the time, and I just didn't it didn't plead to my strengths at all. So I told my dad, I wanna start a framing business. And he said, well, you know, you know what you know, but you don't know the rest of it. I said, yeah. I know. I said, well, you know, whatever. I'll figure it out. And so he he reached out and found you and then put us together. I think we framed the interior walls in that house over off of, 7th Street or something. Somebody else had done the lid. I don't know who he had top it. To the roof. He said, I got this house here. Yep. Yeah. I remember this. And you and me, James, we built the interior walls. That was I remember that. Round one. Yeah. And I was pretty good at interior walls. I built a lot of walls before in the remodeling game, but you had a process of it that I hadn't seen before. You know, you laid out the plates standing on edge instead of laying down flat. Understood. Little process things that you had that, you know, made more sense. And I don't I don't remember I don't remember exactly what we did after that. I know we did a few things for my dad, I guess, or whatever. And then, then I went and contracted that big fat Ruttenberg down at Stony Brook. I remember. That was the first full one we did. Yeah. And I was paying you by the day. Say, I was. My dad was, whatever. I was kinda running that piece of it for him. And, I remember showing up to that pile of trusses and thinking, what in the world do we do with all of this? I mean, it was a cut up mess. I don't know if you remember that one But or it was in today's world, it wasn't any big deal. Either one of would walk up and go, okay. Another house and you just walk on. But back then, I remember looking at it thinking, good lord. Where do all those 4,000 pieces go together? And we were looking at the trust plan, and you knew how to read it. At least it looked like you knew how to read it. I didn't know what I was looking at. It was it could have been written in Chinese as far as I knew. I had never looked at a trust plan before. And we fought through that thing, and, I think we lost, like, $800 on that job. By the time I paid you and we covered everything, I think it was, like, $800 in a hole. And I didn't know that. My dad says, see, I told you this isn't gonna work. I said, well, what if we do it twice as fast? Then it works great. Well, how are you gonna do it twice as fast? It took this long. Like, well, we just go faster. You know? Of course, I had the benefit of knowing everything I didn't know coming in the front door that I did know going out the back door. I started sheeting the backside of the roof. You walked over the roof and said, you snapped the line for that sheeting. Right? Yeah. Sure. Thinking, I don't know what he's talking about. What do you mean I snapped the line for that sheeting? I had no idea you snapped the control line at the top of your first sheet to keep it straight. Everything I'd done had done little additions and whatnot, so I just aligned the sheeting with the sub fascia and, you know, it was good enough because you're only putting two or three sheets in a row. So when you weren't looking, I looked over the ridge and figured out where you snapped your line and then deductive reasoning figured out what I needed to do in there. I think when we got around the corner of the house, my line was about a half inch too high or something, so it didn't match up, and you were all pissed off. Sounds about right. We sorted it out. So then we then we did that big two story out in North Fort Myers for Bill Pigott. Bill was my dad's roofer. He was building himself a new house, and and that one we made money on. Not much. A little bit. I don't remember exactly what. I think we made, like, $1,500 or something when it was all said and done. Then we did that big one out for oh, wasn't really big. Seemed big then, but they that one out on Saint James City for Sun Country. I remember kinda had to keep going back. Yep. Yep. Well, it's that was just the way they were. But so it was I learned a ton from you, which you probably realized some of it, but not all of it. I was pretty fast learner, and you probably thought I knew more than I did. But I I learned a ton framing with you in the early, you know, in the early going of it. So having said that,

Keith Vance: [36:40] I had the benefit like I said, we had an in house framing crew. Mhmm. The guy that trained me used was Amish and he ran away from the Amish community. So I got a lot of my work ethic working those ten, twelve hour days. And, like, those are true craftsmen. Yep. I was next to him. And so I I knew all this stuff. Like, I'm observing all this stuff. I know I know how to do it, but I always had someone there that was, my training wheels. Like, if I if I can't if I get stuck, I can Steve's right there. Sure. When you and I were working,

Keith Vance: [37:21] that was my first time without a set of training wheels. Like, all that stuff, I was it was new to me. It's it's it's different when your mentor's not there. Sure. You know I mean? So I was learning too. Even though I knew how to read a trust plan, that was the first time that I didn't have anybody that could go to and ask. Right. Like, there was stuff there that I I know I'm supposed to know this, but you don't really know it until Yep. You don't really know what you know until there's no one to ask. Yep. And so that was a different experience for me. Yep. And I'm glad to hear that I didn't know like, I thought you and I were on the same level. Like, if I if I would've known that, oh my goodness. This guy didn't didn't even snap a line. Like, I think that would've that would've stole some confidence from me. Like, I was I I I enjoyed working with you, and I felt confident. Said, well, Jerome Jerome's got it. Like, I felt like so I I slowly learned

Jerome Reynaert: [38:13] being in the driver's seat, if that makes sense. It does. I think, you know, I think we both we both overestimated each other enough that we felt we could do what we were trying to do. And so, you know, the combination of it worked out. We got through it. And, you know, I I think that in my experience beyond all of that, that never changes, though. You always overestimate the other guy, and you always underestimate yourself. And a lot of times, confidence is just a perception. It's not. Whether or not you should be confident is based on whether or not you're willing to do what it takes to get it right, whether you knew it or not. Doesn't really matter if you knew it. You can know it and get it wrong. Right. But are you are you willing to do what it takes to get it right at the end of the day? And we both innately had that. You know? We'd tear it apart, put it back together, and do whatever it took until it was right. But, you know, the emotion of things is the perception of confidence, but it's not actually confidence. Confidence is when you actually know that it doesn't matter if I goof it up because I'll get it right anyway. Sure. So it's just, you know, how many turns are in the road before you get where you're going. But, yeah, it was it was definitely interesting time. And we kinda got to where we know what we're doing. We're building all those little two stories and It was fun. Jumping off the roof into fill piles and, you know, being stupid and having a good time. And, yeah, then it kinda got easy for a while. But Yeah. It was fun. Then my dad's check started bouncing, and it wasn't so easy anymore. I remember that.

Jerome Reynaert: [40:03] Yeah. That was I guess that was the first bump in the road. Because, I mean, at that point for me, I got a salary check. I drove a truck that was paid for, and, you know, all I had to do is do my job, and I'd get paid, and life was okay. I didn't quite have the, you know, the where the rubber meets the road, oh, shit motivation that you did because, again, perception. I perceived that everything was taken care of behind me, and all I had to do is show up, basically. But then you got a rude awakening real fast about how fast that can go away. We were And we were submitting bills for the framing, and they were

Keith Vance: [40:41] the checks were coming slower and slower, and then the checks didn't come. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So

Jerome Reynaert: [40:48] yeah. And I yeah. I was because I'd always had that family business, you know, that father figure that had it figured out where I didn't have to, I think I kept looking for that. So I moved up to Ocala and was supposed to go to work for my then wife's father. And, so I sold the house down here, moved up there, bought a house, remodeled it, got life all set up. And Do you remember when

Keith Vance: [41:19] you're at that fork in the road? And I'm pretty sure you and I are both sitting in your truck, and we had a conversation, like, thirty minutes or an hour.

Keith Vance: [41:28] And it was, like, you became aware, like, your life is about to change,

Keith Vance: [41:34] and your family dynamic and business, where is where do I fit in all this? And here you and I developed a pretty good friendship. You and I Yep. Like, we were tight. Yep. And I think we had even talked about I think you were trying to get me to I think you're feeling me out like, hey, what about you and I starting a business together?

Jerome Reynaert: [41:53] Mhmm.

Keith Vance: [41:55] And I just wasn't there. I I couldn't wrap my head around it. Your dad told you not to. He did? Yep. That I don't remember that exact conversation,

Jerome Reynaert: [42:03] but you're not wrong. That was I mean, to me, the whole time you and I were operating together, and I was basically paying you as a sub to, you know, be the other half of what we were doing. I mean, it was it was a partnership in all fashions other than the fact that it wasn't. Right. But when all that busted apart yeah. I mean, that whole time we were doing that, I was turning all the money we were making into my dad, and it was paying for the whole rest of the business. Wow. It wasn't I mean, what we were doing was making money hand over fist, but it was all contributing to supporting the rest of what he was falling apart on. Understood. So at that moment moment in time, I knew the numbers real well. And I knew that if you and I had no one else to carry and we were just doing what we had been doing, we'd have been making three, four times each what you were taking home every week because the bottom line was healthy. But I didn't push it all that hard because the business source we had, I wasn't sure what it was. Right. You know, my dad's stuff was gone. You knew a few people. I knew a few people, whatever, but it was all based on the consistency of how much work we could keep going. Right. And so, you know, I'd I'd never done it, but I didn't I wasn't bullish enough to be willing to jump out there and do it on my own. And I think you that was a confidence thing. I was looking if you had a back up the other half of it. I think you had a glimpse of the vision. I think you had

Keith Vance: [43:38] I think you're looking down the road, and even though the road was foggy, there was these patches in the road where the fog kinda dissipated. You can kinda see something there, but couldn't quite put it together. Yep. And I couldn't see it at all at the time. I just I just needed

Jerome Reynaert: [43:50] I needed that that wingman. I needed that other, you know, that other little bit of confidence that I didn't quite have on my own. And if I remember correctly, I I think it came down to and for all I know, what your dad said to you, you may have simply misunderstood. But whatever all went on, you came back to me and said, you know, my my dad said I shouldn't do this, you know, whatever. So I'm gonna do my own thing. And so I said, well, that's cool. And so then that's when I moved up to Ocala. I don't remember that at all. Yeah. Well, it's I only probably remember it because when you worked with me briefly in o six after you sold KB, and you told me at that point that you talked to your dad again, and it kinda confused you because you said this time he told you, yeah. I think that's awesome. You should do it. And he the the the speech he gave you back in '99 was, you know, something about being inequally yoked, and that's why he gave you the advice that he didn't think it was a good idea. And partnerships are a train wreck 90% of the time, so I don't think fundamentally he was wrong. But, I've wondered over the years many times what would have happened if we did manage that different. Because at the end of the day, there's a lot of operators out there, but none of them none of them even come close to the volume of capability and willingness to improve the mechanism itself that you and I have both exhibited over the years. I mean, you can look at you can look at the business that we do and who we do it for and what they expect from us. And I think I can honestly say, I don't get that. I know when I'm bidding against you, and I know what they expect, and they know what to expect. I don't ever get that feeling when it's anybody else on the other side of the table. And That's I don't know if we'd have watered each other down or if we'd have taken over the world. I I don't know. But, I've wondered about 4,000 times over the years.

Keith Vance: [46:00] I was thinking about yesterday. I was thinking what what what would that have been like? So

Jerome Reynaert: [46:08] anyway There's still time. Yeah. I ain't dead yet.

Keith Vance: [46:13] So you went to Ocala. Yep. And worked for your then father-in-law doing

Jerome Reynaert: [46:19] actually did. What were you doing? I supposed to. He was he had about a million dollars worth of work. He was gonna put a huge addition on his estate. He had a estate out on forty, fifty acres or something there in Ocala. He was gonna build a new office building, and he was gonna build some investment properties and this and that. And the story was he was basically, I would work for him, and I'd run his construction involvement operations improvements, what have you. Where he turns out he was, you know, he's one of those guys that he was only lying when he was speaking. Mhmm. But I didn't know that. And so I went out there, bought a house, remodeled it, kept showing up at his office going, okay. When are we when are we doing something? You know? I gotta generate income from somewhere. I had made a little bit of money when I sold the house back here, so I was okay for a minute. But, you know, I didn't have much. And so then he he hired somebody else to do the addition on his house, which to his own detriment for probably a quarter million bucks. And they did a crappy job, and he was whatever. It was a mess. But long story short, he never did anything. I think he paid me a $150 to put new paneling in the mobile home on the back of his heavy equipment dealership lot. So I came home, and I told my wife. I said, look. I'm not gonna sit here. He show well, he showed up for coffee one morning. He put $4 on the table. He said, here, I know you guys are having a hard time. Maybe this will help. And that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I was like, look. I gotta sit here and do nothing waiting for you to do what you said you're gonna do and then come over and give me money. I'm like, this ain't gonna work. So I don't know exactly how. But

Keith Vance: [48:02] At this time in your life, I would imagine you're, like, early twenties. Right? Yep. 21.

Jerome Reynaert: [48:07] Yeah. Yep. So I somebody had screwed up a job down on Sanibel, Big 1212. I'm not even sure you didn't come help me with it. I know I talked to you about it. It was on Rabbit, the name of the road. But, somebody had screwed up the roof seven ways to Sunday. So I took a, you know, fix it contract, and that's when Doug came to work with me. And we went and fixed that one. I was staying in a extended stay hotel and kinda started my initial framing business there and got that you know, we did that one, and then I forget what I contracted exactly after that. And I remember.

Keith Vance: [48:51] So I remember you called me by the house. I didn't help you with it. You called me about it, but I was busy. Yeah. I was busy. And I think that next transition, correct me if I'm wrong, but that next transition is, you know, Ocala, you're you're coming down. You had that thing you're doing. Mhmm. And then, there was this building contractor that kept bugging me, calling me called First Homes.

Jerome Reynaert: [49:19] That was later, though. Yeah. There was something I don't know what went on in between. I know I finished some houses for Ross Hucker. He had two or three things out there. But, yeah, honestly, till you said the thing about first home the other day,

Keith Vance: [49:33] I didn't remember that link. I knew I went for for for first homes, but I didn't remember you being involved in that. I didn't wanna mess with first homes because I was doing like, in my mind, they were beneath me because I was doing custom stuff. Mhmm. I didn't even mess with that little stuff. Yeah. And I did one or two. They were bugging me. They want me to do more. You're trying to figure out what you wanna do. I said, dude, these first homes, dude, they're calling me, bugging me. They're little cracker boxes. Here, take them. Gotcha. And then, not only did you take them, but you build a whole business around that that volume.

Jerome Reynaert: [50:08] Mhmm. Remember that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. That was when when I started with them, they had 17 framing contractors, literally. It was 17 different contractors that were filling that space for them. And at that time oh, I don't know. Maybe they were doing 5 or 600 a year. They had a lot going, but it wasn't crazy. And big Dick Lewis was the superintendent that I went to work for. And so we the first one of those we did. By that time, my brother and I think my dad was back working for me by that time. And the first one of those we did was kinda similar to when you and I started out. I think it took me, like, four days to do it, and I made a couple $100. I was like, well, this sucks. It's not very good. I'm like, no wonder Keith gave me this crap. But then then I just kinda thought the same thing that, well, okay. If I go twice as fast and I had that athletic background, so it was always like, okay. Well, we'll just go faster, and that'll solve the problem. And that's exactly what we did. And it took about I think I did the first one in early September. And just before Christmas, we did the first one in a single day. So we crushed that five week schedule down to a one day schedule or five day schedule down to a one day schedule. And at those at that rate, it was it paid better than any custom I could contract. Mhmm. In fact, I you you really solidified yourself in that custom world. You were getting a lot of that. And every time I would bid it, I couldn't get any of it because I was young, didn't really understand. Mhmm. And I was bidding based on I'd take my profit margin from a first home, try to apply it to the length of time that custom would take me, and that's where I'd bid it. Well, I couldn't get anything because that was Got twice as much as I should have been. Got it. And it actually first home actually spoiled me to the extent that it made it harder after all that went away to ever get on track, so to speak, because my perception was that you should make a 150% markup on your cost or you shouldn't go to work. And I guess that wasn't real.

Keith Vance: [52:34] So you had you had said that, how many framing contractors were they using at the time? 17.

Jerome Reynaert: [52:40] And then I'm pretty sure you scooped up all of them. Right? By the end, it was just me. Yeah. The I got I got 50% of it. I got 50% of their volume over about a two year period, but I could not get over that 50% mark. They the story was that they had a hard line drawn where nobody could have more than half of their business. Understood. Wanted dual service providers. But what it really was was the other guys were paying off all the management and license holders and ownership when it when it all finally blew up and the FBI showed up was when I ended up getting all of it, and they turned over that there was, you know, $510,000 a week and kickback checks being written to management and everything else. And, again, I was just young and had no idea that's how the game got played. I never really would have thought oblivious to all that. Yep. So what was the what was, like, the monthly volume you're doing with them dollar wise? Like, back in day a month. $2,000,000 a month. Yep. Remember one one two week cycle, we did 1.4 and a two week something years old. Yep. Yeah. '24, 25.

Keith Vance: [53:46] So here's a no oh, this is your story, but I'm just remembering some things.

Keith Vance: [53:53] So I here's to the grapevine that, you know, first homes, the mind volume you're doing with them, and then we would cross paths. And once in a while, I would notice the vehicle he's driving. Like, I would notice this stuff. Right? And I'm I'm sticking to my principles by doing big customs. And you're talking about growing. Like, I was I didn't go to college. I was homeschooling. I just worked. I'm I'm I'm literally learning on the fly like you did, that's why I like you so much. That's why we're friends. We're figuring it out. We're adapting. Mhmm. So when we when we cross paths every once in while, every I would walk away with a different perception that I didn't have before, and, like, my brain like, I would grow. So is it really is it really important what the perception is, the type of house that you're capable of framing, or is it how much, like, money how much money you're actually making? And every time I would, like, walk away with you, instead of just being a, like, a really good framer or a really good carpenter, I walked away being like, you know what? Jerome's a good a a hard worker. Like, go faster. I can vibe with that. But he has some things that I don't have. Like, he is learning how to run a business, and that's the part that I didn't have. You understand? I knew how to work hard, get after it, but I don't know what my margin is. You you you saying, hey, man. If I don't make a 150% margin, I'm I don't get up, but I didn't know what my margins were. I'm just working, making a decent living. So every time I watch you, I would come across you. It's like, okay. And then I had my shot. So I was doing Mike Groff's framing in Lehigh. You know, he was a drywall guy building houses. He had a model center on Lee Boulevard. He sold his model center to Adams Homes a year or two after you first homes you took over first homes. He's like, Keith, there's this builder in town, Adams Homes. I gave him your number. Well, they're a national builder. They were like your first homes. Mhmm. So having learned with learn watching you and say, okay. It's about I need to be a business person, not just a really good framer. I scooped up Adams Holmes, and I took some of those lessons I learned from you with first homes, and they were my first homes. Like, we're I would like I think we're billing, like they paid weekly, which is awesome back then at twenty seven years old. Yep. Like, my wife's going down there every week, picking up a check for a $100, $200. It was just money to me. Like, I'm just working. Was just money. Like, didn't even know, like it really didn't translate over. She's loading all my babies up and her little minivan. Terry Terry is, like, three or four years old. What day is it? Friday. Oh, man. We gotta go to Adam's homes again. It's too long. Like, it's too far. So just, like, knowing you're gonna be sitting here just reliving some of those memories, it was like Yep. It was been good for me. So that's a little bit I learned from you early on, and I've learned more. Well, I I think, again, you know, I've I've watched

Jerome Reynaert: [56:58] you and a lot of other people, and you always you always overlook your own positives. You always see your own negatives. In my opinion, it's human nature. I know for me personally, the things I focus on are what I'm not doing good enough. I don't spend much time thinking about what I'm doing well because I don't need to think about that. It's just being done, and it's okay. And then you look at the guy across the aisle and you see what he's doing well because that's what you see. And so you always you know, you you're always comparing yourself. For me, it was never a comparison to guys like you that was you know, am I as good as that guy or is he better than me? But it was more of a a comparison in the context of what does he have figured out that I don't have figured out that I can copy because I was never above copying whatever you had figured out. Same. And, you know, it but, again, when you're doing that, it took me a lot of years to realize that I was only looking at the wrong side of the coin. Jerome, for me,

Keith Vance: [58:08] that a lot of that stuff translates over to that me versus me. Mhmm. Because when I see you, in my mind, he's doing it better or succeeding more. Am I am I am I lazy? Am I not doing it right? So it's it's always comes back to that me versus me Yep. Fighting that complacent person. Yeah. But at the end of day, you don't know what you don't know and you're learning stuff every day. And I learned a lot from you when it came just to come to how how to run a business in construction. So I didn't mean to cut you off. Well, I don't know if I ever I don't know if I know how to run a business in construction now.

Jerome Reynaert: [58:37] I mean, you don't I don't know. You

Jerome Reynaert: [58:43] know how to do the things you know how to do, and you do those well. And every single day, I learned something that, jeez, I didn't know about that before. But, yeah, I don't know. It's definitely been a run. So you're

Keith Vance: [59:02] billing $10,000,001,000,004 a month for first homes back in the heyday Mhmm. And life is good. Yep. We talked about roadblocks, hurdles. Is there one coming?

Jerome Reynaert: [59:14] Oh, yeah. There are a couple. They kinda come in sets. Yeah. They do.

Keith Vance: [59:20] Yep. I anticipate them. Like, I enjoy the rest the rest of the break. Okay. I caught my breath, but I'm always anticipating.

Jerome Reynaert: [59:27] Okay. Unfortunately, I've gotten to the point where the minute I start to feel good, I get worried. Same. Back then, I was naive enough that I didn't know to be worried. But, yeah, end of o four, everything was, you know, flying high, doing well. And, then I just before Christmas two thousand four, I fell asleep driving home. Just doing a model center amenity base for a builder out in Lavelle. Mhmm. And it was one of these funky hand frame octagonal gazebo deals, and I didn't have time to do it. Didn't have anybody knew how to do it. So I was breaking off doing my real job, and I'd go out there from, like, 03:00 in the afternoon till 10:11 o'clock at night with a set of three or four guys and had to get this thing up by his Christmas party. The only way I could do it is to build it on the ground and then fly it with a crane and set the post under it because it had a big cupola in the middle of it and stuff. It was all conventional frame, and I tried to do it 15 feet in the air. I never got it done. So I set it up about two feet off the ground on little stubby posts and framed the whole thing up, and then had a 50 ton crane fly it and kick posts under it. We got done about one in the morning on the twenty second. And, so I took off from La Belle driving home and flipped the truck at about a 120 miles an hour because I fell asleep. Apparently, when I fell asleep, I fell asleep on the gas. So I flipped that thing over. Let's see. I guess it would have been two westbound lanes, the median two eastbound lanes, the water control structure through a fence and up into a mobile home front yard. Wow. I didn't know this. I don't remember this. Yep. Yep. So you and I weren't real we weren't in touch a lot at that point. But, yeah, I woke up when I started flipping, and I remember the truck was flipping. And I didn't have my seat belt on, but it had a it was just a bench seat. It was a loaner, f one fifty loaner truck I had from the dealer because mine was in for service. And I laid over on that seat and grabbed onto the passenger side of the seat. And every time that roof would hit the road, my shoulder would smash into the roof. Mhmm. And I remember thinking, well, where am I at? Because I was asleep when it started, I didn't even know where I was. Didn't know if I was alone. Didn't know. So I went through that whole process, you know, wife and kids with me. You know, what's going on? Have I been drinking? How'd I get here? You know, that whole process of what what did I do to be in this mess? And realized, okay. No. I'm by myself. I remember where I'm coming from. No. I wouldn't do anything stupid. You know, this is just I guess I must have fallen asleep. And so then I went through the whole, you know, is my life insurance paid up? What's gonna happen to them if I don't live through this? And I realized, yep. That's all good. They're taken care of. They'll be set. You know? That was the scary part because then I was ready to die. I'm sorry. What'd you say? Then I was ready to die. You were ready? And I didn't mind. And that scared the hell out of me. I didn't wanna die. I wasn't hoping I would die. But the moment I realized they're all good, they're taken care of, I was like, oh, alright. Well, I won't have to get up tomorrow morning. Wow. And I thought, what in the hell? What is that? You know, I'm 25 years old. I got money in the bank. I live in a beautiful home. I got four kids. You know? I don't have any problems. None. You know? And it was a relief to think I wouldn't have to get up tomorrow morning. Wow. And so the truck stopped rolling, I wasn't dead. And I couldn't find my phone because it had busted off my hip. Back then, you had those big Nextel phones, you know, the size of a brick. I couldn't find that. So I kicked the windshield out of the truck, and I was only about three, four miles from home. So I figured, well, I'll just run home. So I ran home at about 02:30 in the morning. That whole run down Palm Beach, I'm thinking, why do I not care if I die? What is what is going on? And I realized that way back at the point you talked about when you and I have a long conversation in the truck, from that point to this point, I've just had my ears pinned back trying to get out of the hole. Mhmm. Just trying to make it. Trying to not not fall back far enough that you get eaten by the proverbial monster that's coming behind you. And for me, that was always defined by were her and the kids gonna be okay. You know, had I done enough that they would have what they needed and wouldn't end up in the position I'd seen my mother end up in or, you know, countless other people. And so I realized when when my brain crossed off that if I die and they get my life insurance, then I've done that, at least to my young mind then I felt ahead. And so that means, okay. My job is done. There's nothing else I need to do. And I realized I I had turned myself into it, literally, a tool, not figuratively speaking, literally. That's just what I was. I was a means to an end Mhmm. To cause a certain thing to happen.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:05:04] And once that happened, I don't have any value. I don't have any reason for being, period. And so it scared the crap out of me. And the next three, four days, it was like some deep thoughts for

Keith Vance: [1:05:17] in a short amount of time. Yeah? Those are those are some heavy thoughts and some some real hard conclusions you came to in a short amount of time. Yep.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:05:28] So I turned the world on its ear. I've never been one to realize something and then sit and do nothing about it. So I ended up kinda step by step going through a whole process of why is this the way I feel, and what do I do to change it? And I changed everything. I bought my partners out of the business. I hired a general manager. I backed off my hours. I repurposed what I was doing. I

Jerome Reynaert: [1:05:58] set up to take a whole lot more time for the family. I went and bought an RV. We went on a vacation to

Keith Vance: [1:06:05] North Carolina that next summer. I took, like, a whole two weeks off. I thought I was gonna melt or something because I had to take two hours off. You know? I can can vibe with that. So we we our family takes off on Christmas time because that's when things kinda slow down. Mhmm. The first two, maybe three Christmases we did that, For one, I didn't wanna go. Right. Because if to come back, you know, it's like, okay. If I if I walk away, I'm walking into a hornet's nest when I come back. And then, bro, now now I look forward to those times. Sure. They're special. But before, it would take me days, dude, to decompress. It would take me days, and I was not a happy person to be around. Yep. Yep. But I was trying.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:06:50] And so I, you know, I basically reimagined my whole business from me being the linchpin of the business to the business being able to function without me and give me an opportunity to, you know, figure out what I wanted out of life and spend some time with my wife and kids and this and that. I want you to I

Keith Vance: [1:07:12] want you to hold your thought. What year was this? 2004?

Jerome Reynaert: [1:07:17] End of two thousand four, early o five. Yep.

Keith Vance: [1:07:21] 2005.

Keith Vance: [1:07:25] We had just built our new shop. Yep. 10,000 square foot building at a 100 and some odd employees. I have my managers and stuff in place. I just I did what I knew how to do, and then I, like, would copy what you were doing. That's the only two things. What's Jerome doing okay? That's what I'm gonna do.

Keith Vance: [1:07:46] Back then, we're framing thirty, forty, 50 house a week for at, Adam's Homes. You know, you print out the map quest. Here's our jobs. I knew where all my jobs were. Yep. I knew where all my jobs were, which is Yep. Amazing. Mhmm. And then even though I had people in place, I wouldn't just say, here, take this. Let me know if you need me. I was a really good micromanager. Like, nobody's as good as me. Nobody's gonna watch it as close as me. So I just had basically, I just had my own appendages out farther. It was my eyes. Here, take my eyes. Yep. It was like this. And I didn't realize what I was doing. I like, oh, man. I made it. You know, I got I got people in place and until I tried to take some time off. So you you you you got in a car wreck for your epiphany to come to. Mhmm. I tried to take some time off for a freaking weekend, bro. And I went to go out the door, and there's this ball attached to this chain to my ankle. Yep. And then I came to conclusion, Keith, you just built this thing. You just built this thing. You got all this money, but you don't have freedom. You don't have time. Yep. And so my my response to back then was, okay. Well, I just want out of it. In 2005, I sold my company to to get to get my breathing room, to take some time off with my family, to to, like, to live life. Yep. That was so as you're talking about your road, I had a similar road. Yep. So and it was just funny that it was around the same amount of time. Well, I mean 2004, 2005, right around that same time. Yep. Yeah. It was I when I hand it I sold my company, had the biggest check I've ever seen in my life. That didn't do anything to me. Like, the check didn't matter. Dude, when I took that Nextel phone off my hip and I laid it down in the office and I walked out the office, that was like a a 20 ton weight. That little phone was like a a weight, and I I literally felt different. I like, but you don't realize the weight you're under. Mhmm. When you're in it, you just alright. Stack it on. I'll figure it out. Stack it on. I'll figure it out. I'll I'll get through it. I'll do it. Yep. It was just funny how similar scenarios you and I had. Yep. Didn't even realize your story was like that.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:09:58] Yep. So I re you know, revamped everything, hired a general manager, you know, put things kind of sort of on not on autopilot, but at least operating without intimate involvement for me on an hour by hour basis.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:10:18] Got into a number of other things. And simultaneously with that all kinda finding a point of, you know, where I could take a breath, then my whole marriage fell apart. And now all of a sudden, end o five with wife's gone, kids are gone, got an 18 old son that I don't even really know because his whole life, I was so busy that, you know, I didn't even know which way was up. And now that's all gone, and I'm sitting out in a big house in the middle of nowhere with the business taking care of itself. So all this time I'd carved out to now spend with them, and they're not there. So now, early late two thousand five,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:11:09] sitting there wondering, well, now what do I do with life? I've made all the money I'm ever gonna need. I hadn't, but I thought I had. And I'm never gonna have any more kids. Never gonna get married again because to me, I had watched my first wife had two older daughters. His father had been killed. And I knew how hard it was for me to be a good quality stepfather to them. And in my mind, there was no way anybody was ever going to do that for my kids. So I'm not gonna put them through the compromise of whoever may whatever with them. So to me, life was just basically I didn't know what to do. I was thoroughly lost. I had no no reason to do anything that I did. No no reason not to do anything. I had no have to, no drive, nothing. It was just like the whole world went immediately dead. Like, somebody just unplugged the light from the wall. Because like I told you, everything I'd ever done was just to provide for that family and that future that I imagined, and then it was just gone. And so I bounced around. Fortunately, I had done a fair amount of real estate investment stuff with a couple of guys that were a whole lot older than me, and one of them, he saw it. He he was intuitive enough to understand that, you know, this was not this wasn't something that I was just gonna wake up the next morning and be okay. So that guy showed up every day, 06:00 in the morning. He invested Brought me coffee. Said, okay. What are we doing today? Wow. And he was in his late sixties. You know? I know this guy. And he just what are we doing today? And at first, I remember being so hungover riding in the passenger seat of the car thinking, I don't wanna go anywhere today. And I don't even know where we were going, but he would just go somewhere, and he'd start talking. And then, you know, kind of the business reality of things would kinda come back into frame, and I'd start firing on some level. And that went on for a couple of weeks, and I don't remember exactly what he said one day. But I think, basically, he just told me, look. This is gonna be awful for two more years. It's gonna take you two years to get over this. He said, but I promise you, you're gonna get over it. And if you let everything fall apart while you're getting over it, then you're gonna have a whole another hill to climb, or you can get back in the game now and just force yourself to do what needs to be done even though you don't know why you're doing it. He said, I've been through this. It's terrible. He said, but you're gonna survive it. So I had enough respect for him that I just kinda took him at his word. Like, okay. This is what it's gonna be. It's gonna suck, but I'm a figure it out. And so I sat down at my desk, and this was right right before you ended up coming back and helping me with those houses for a little while. And I sat there, and at that point, we were doing we were on track for about 25,000,000 that year. And I sat down and I said, okay. He told me also in that conversation, you gotta pick a goal. You gotta pick something that gives you a reason because you've lost your reason. Wow. So find a way to find a reason. I didn't know how to find one because everything fundamental, family, kids, all that to me was just a big black hole. There's no way could touch it. Everything you and I have been built for Yep. Gone. Was gone. For the only time in my life, I made the decision, okay. I'll just knock the business out of the park because what else am I gonna do? At least this way, I can't hurt anybody. I'm not gonna I don't wanna go out and get twisted up with another girl and wreck her life or wreck my life or my kid's life. So I've been horny as a bastard my whole life. So it was hard enough just to, you know, not go out and screw up everybody's planet and my problems. So I just said, alright. So I sat down at my desk. It was had a little house that I had rented for overflow office space over there in Lehi. And I sat down at that desk in the bedroom and formulated a plan to go from 25,000,000 a year to a 100,000,000 a year in thirty six months. And I actually mapped it out, what it was gonna take to do it, the projects, the type of projects, what we were gonna do to get there. And I walked out into the dining room and said to Joe, I said, alright. I figured it out. He said, what's that? I said, well, we're gonna hit 100 a month by or a 100,000,000 a year by, whatever it was, 2009. And he says, okay. Let's go. And that was it. And so then I took everything I had and doubled down on every position I was in. At that point, I had basically no debt. I had a lot of cash, great credit, and was, you know, just sitting in a position. So I I went in and I went all in and set strategically, oh, I don't know, probably 12 or 14 different things in motion to get going down that road, unwittingly, at the worst time in Earth's history to ever go all in. I was going all in in o six. But unbeknownst to most people, had nothing to do with the fact that I'd made money or the space and time or the economy or it was all about me. It was all just the position I was in and what I was trying to do to stay out of that ditch. And so I did that, and then we had our biggest month, December of o six. And then January 2 or January 5, I don't know, something like that, of o seven, I laid off 86 guys at a 147 employees at that point. And what I did not know behind the scenes was that First Homes had sold as part of their sale to the national builder that bought them. They had an incentive contract to produce 3,600 units in the calendar month after their sale. So while the market was dying, we were pushing like we were on turbocharge because they had no monetary reason to take their foot off the gas. They were incentivized by a huge additional pay piece to truck this thing through until they hit that calendar year from the sale. So we ran full tilt for the wall all the way through o six, and literally the minute they hit that goal because, contractually, that's when the new owner was able to because he couldn't hamstring them as long as he had this incentive contract in place. But the minute they hit that goal, he turned it off. So I went from doing 17 units a day to doing, like, 12 units a month literally overnight. And so, you know, I spent two years. I had just kinda gotten my along that thread, I did meet a girl, got engaged, was planning on getting married, had kind of my personal life back on track and found some unexpected life there. Never considered marrying an 18 year old in my, you know, previous black hole. But and so I got got personal sorted out and back on track and with, you know, a light at the end of the tunnel, and then business just falls off a cliff. And

Jerome Reynaert: [1:19:26] but, you know, that was a thousand times easier than the other thing. The family thing? Oh, yeah. I mean, I I could lose everything today. You can take the business, you know, sign it over to you and take the money in the bank and put me out there with my shoes and the shell on the driveway, and I'll figure it out Because I'd have a reason to. But when I lost the family, I had no reason to. And so it just I think everybody looks at me in a lot of times and, you know, they they recognize those those business changes because they're what's visible to the outside world. Right? And they have a level of respect for what I've done or recovered from or whatnot from that standpoint. But the truth is losing the business wasn't that big a deal. You know, it's like you said, you put the phone down, and I was like, ah, okay. I don't have to do that anymore. You know? It was it was it became hard after the business was gone and money was gone and credit was gone and everything was gone. And now I've got a family I gotta feed again, and I can't. Mhmm. And so then it's kinda like the cycle starts all over, you know, now. But that was a challenge that was almost like, okay. Good. I'm back I'm back. I understand this world. I know how to drive in this space. You know? It's like, okay. These challenges, I know what to do with. But at the same time, now you're fighting this other feeling of complete failure on a professional side because like I just said, I I made those choices to go in deliberately. It wasn't accidental or, you know, just the course of business, so to speak. So so it you know, from there, it took a lot longer to get back to to functional, I guess, because there wasn't anything there was no traction to be had here. You were making sandwiches. And I bought a little restaurant just to just just to I know. Do something. I know. I bought a freaking little restaurant just to do something, brother. Just to I remember passing you on on Buckingham riding a an Enduro motorcycle to go make sandwiches for the day, and I remember thinking, what the hell happened to us?

Keith Vance: [1:21:54] Something just just to have a place to go and just to do something. Yep.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:22:00] I think I came because there was sandwich one way. Nothing going on. Nothing. Nothing.

Keith Vance: [1:22:07] Yeah. Yeah. It was something You came up one time. You were driving to some old some old Cadillac

Jerome Reynaert: [1:22:13] Limousine. Limousine. Yeah.

Keith Vance: [1:22:15] Yeah. I bought a I a 16 year old limo. Only you didn't have a driver. You were the one driving.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:22:22] Yep. Yep. I remember that.

Keith Vance: [1:22:25] But even that, you know, I bought that little restaurant just to do something. Even that, we weren't making any money, Jerome. No. No. But it gave me something to do. Yep. My family was together. Yep. My kids were learning how to work. They're learning how to communicate. Sure. There's friendships that I have from that place that I still have the day. Yep. And even, like, when we came full circle and we started, like, getting back in construction, there's relationships I have in that little restaurant that saw the day in construction. So you never like, from where I stand as a Christian, like, providentially, you talked about Joe, the right time in your life. Hey. Let's get them. Let's go do something. Like, I feel like God puts people in your life at the right time Mhmm. To, like, if you can't be strong for yourself, I'm gonna give somebody that you can just sometimes you just need somebody that Just start walking. I'll follow you. I feel like Joe was that for you. For sure. Hey. Just where are we going? Get in the car. You drive. I'll follow you. Yep. I've had those times in my life. Yeah. You definitely

Jerome Reynaert: [1:23:25] you need it when when it shows up. But yeah. So I ended up traveling all over the country. Mississippi, New Orleans, ended up landing in North Dakota for a hot minute and

Keith Vance: [1:23:40] kind of You were in Mississippi, New Orleans because they had a hurricane Katrina. Right?

Jerome Reynaert: [1:23:44] Sort of. So they can they're raising houses for code or something? No. Most of what I did out there was municipal stuff. We got tied up with a contractor that basically, just like the government always does, they put a bunch of money somewhere when there's a disaster, and then everybody figures out what they wanna do with that money. What I was doing wasn't really disaster related. It was related to the money that came in because of the disaster. But I built a a sheriff's station, a fire training facility, couple of schools,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:24:16] couple of parks. It was it was all all municipal buildings and stuff like that. And which sounds like

Keith Vance: [1:24:24] it sounds like it'd be profitable, but you told me you were making Oh, it was nothing. I mean, we were I was working. The GC that was doing the work,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:24:33] we were basically playing a almost inclusive turnkey sub for what he was selling. So we were doing the site work. We were doing the foundations. We were doing the vertical work. We're doing basically everything other than the MEP trades. And but, I mean, we were we were doing it at a rate that was extremely cheap to begin with. And then the corrupt nature of New Orleans, you got paid sometimes.

Keith Vance: [1:25:01] So,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:25:02] I mean, I was making less than than I made when you and me were working together in '97. So it was you know, it was bread and beans kind of money, not anything.

Keith Vance: [1:25:13] But just to recap, there was nothing here going on in Florida. Nothing. So you had to adapt. Yep. So you pick up and go to New Orleans.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:25:23] Yep. You were there for what? Three, four years? No. I was only there for a little over a year. Did a lot in a short period of time, but I was there for a little over a year and hated it just because of the corrupt nature of it. I was used to back here. We're fortunately here, for the most part, you know Mhmm. It's based on a lot of pretty good hearted, well intentioned, honest people. You know, obviously, you got your crooks everywhere, but, my career, I've never really had to chase money. I you know, once in a while, but for the most part, I've been blessed to dealt with an honest group of people that never really had to worry about it. But you got out there, I mean, it was it was horrible. Mhmm. We probably I think we did to our book of business maybe maybe eight or nine hundred thousand dollars worth of business over the year I was there. And I think two, two fifty of it, we never did collect. So, I mean, it was it was literally just survival. So North Dakota was hopping. It was the oil boom. So I went out there and

Keith Vance: [1:26:34] Did you know anybody out there? Like, what was that? And you said, okay. Nope. Heard about it.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:26:39] Drove out there. Took a look at what was going on. Stopped by a it it was weird because it was the only place building anything new in the country, so it looked like a lot. But, like, compared to what we'd been doing before, it was absolutely nothing. I mean, a big builder out there was building a 100 units a year. Well, you and I had been building 100 units in two weeks, and we were stamping out a 100 units. So it was the volume was very different, but out there was all full frame houses. You're coming off off of a basement foundation, and so everything from there up was wood. There's a lot more framing per unit than there was here. So I sold a framing and siding contract to the biggest builder in that little town and took about a dozen guys out there. So that was when I left here completely and sold everything I had here and moved out. And then on the way out there, I flipped my truck again. And this one. And so by the time I got actually showed up, had $8 in a briefcase and 12 guys with nowhere to live.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:27:53] That was that was tough for the first couple of months.

Keith Vance: [1:27:57] But listen. It like, looking back reminiscent, it sounds like you're laughing. But when you have no choice, when there's no room to go, only forward Yep. You figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. And the fact that 12 freaking guys followed you says something about you and your character. You follow me? The fact that you're able to get to get some guys together and that they had faith in you to follow you out there and meet with like, looking back now, it's like, man, I I would have talked to those guys out of following me. Like, based on what I know now, they should not have followed me. Well, except for the fact that there was nothing for them here either. You know, they were in the same they were in a different

Jerome Reynaert: [1:28:37] different version of the exact same boat. You know? I was sitting in the captain's seat. They were sitting on the jump seat, but it was still the same boat. I was like, alright, guys. We got nothing loose. Let's get it. Yep. So I remember you talking about when you went out there,

Keith Vance: [1:28:50] and if you need to take a break, we can. But when you went out there, you you said it was pretty like, the people out there pretty isolationist. They weren't they weren't keen on outside people.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:28:59] So you had that you had that to Yeah. It was tough. To break down. I mean, you had the guys out there. You had everybody swarming in from all over the country doing a horrible job for the most part because let's face it. Nobody that was established and knew what they were doing was gonna go out there, but everybody that was starving and, you know, trying to survive was going. Understood. And for the most part, you talked about the Amish people earlier. The people that are there static all the time have a large piece of that Amish influence. Understood. Very good operators, very high quality, very honesty and integrity based. You know? And so for honest, fair reasons, they're looking at all these scabs flying into town going, oh, no. What kind of mess is this? And so we had that to overcome. It didn't take long, fortunately, because, I mean, I dug in with the group of guys we had. We worked hard. We did a good job. And so then we kinda washed off that guy from out of town look pretty quick. But they're because there were so many people swarming out there, the pay rates weren't great. I mean, we were working for rates out there that I never would have worked for back here, but it was at least it was, you know, it was survival type stuff. So that went okay for a bit, but the seasons out there are so rough that even if you made good money for eight months out of the year, you're gonna lose for the other four months out of the year, and you're gonna basically be stuck in breakeven. It it's just like you just you cannot you cannot do anything efficiently in the winter out there. You can function, we did,

Keith Vance: [1:30:43] but not to a level of profitability. What was the first winter like for you guys out there? It was it was brutal. I mean Did you work during the winter? Yeah. Yeah. I know you did. Listen. Yeah. Freaking North Dakota. No nothing should be outside, but I I knew you would be I knew you'd try to figure something out. So you're trying to you're trying to work during the winter? Describe me that first winter you tried to work. What happened?

Jerome Reynaert: [1:31:04] Well, you had to you had to break your studs out of the unit with a sledgehammer because they were frozen together. You probably don't know this, but frozen wood splits about 14 times easier than wood that's not frozen. So, I mean, the hardest thing is keeping your fingers warm. I mean, you you've worked enough with me to know how fast I can move on a framing job. So me staying warm wasn't really that difficult. In fact, I work most of the time zero, five, 10 degrees just in pants and a long sleeve T shirt, and that was it. Because if you wear too many clothes, you can't frame. How are you gonna reach your tool belt and a Right. Pillow jacket, and that didn't work. And so I would just move fast enough to stay warm enough to go, but you can't keep your hands warm to save your life. Forget it. So it was yeah. It was and you can't there's ice on everything. So you're slipping on everything. The trucks won't start. The compressors won't start. So you go start the compressors in the shop, put them in the truck running. Don't turn them off all day long or they won't restart. Condensation in your airlines freezes up, and then your guns won't fire because you got ice in your air hose. I mean, just the the volume of things that so you end up looking back at the end of the day and you put up two walls when you should have put up the whole house and you're like, ugh, just come on. But you don't have a choice. You gotta pack it all up, go put it back in the shop, warm it all back up, and get ready to go for tomorrow. And so, yeah, it was, like I said, there was just no traction to be made. So we did that. I see. I got there. I I went up there briefly prior to this, but got there full tilt February 2012. And, by summer of two thousand thirteen, realized I can't go through another winter, the 1314 winter, if I go through that without something else going on. Because by that time, we'd built back up to 35, 40 guys because we're doing a couple big apartment projects and different stuff, and there was no way I carry that staff through the 1314 winter. So I went down to Central Texas and found an area there that was doing pretty well around Austin and figured, okay. I'll start a southern division here and pull the staff out of North Dakota during the winter down to Texas and operate here, which sounds good, but practically is not terribly effective. Plus, I still didn't have any money. You know? It was back to being able to put gas in the truck without having to worry about it, but I didn't have any money. And so I ended up I took a contract to build a house behind the Hooters on Fort Myers Beach

Jerome Reynaert: [1:33:53] in Christmas break of twenty thirteen. So I moved to Central Texas in the middle of thirteen to set up for the winter. Was still operating and running everything in North Dakota, but then realized it simply didn't have enough money to get Central Texas up and on its feet in time for the winter. So I took that contract down here really out of desperation. I just didn't know what to do. I mean, it was a $37,000 framing contract. It wasn't gonna change the world by any means. Tell me what you'd frame a 5,000 square foot full frame three story on Fort Myers Beach for today. It's not $37,000.

Keith Vance: [1:34:36] No. Especially if I'm in Texas. So You should have said call my buddy Keith. He's got he's got seven kids. Yeah. And he's right and he lives right down the road.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:34:46] Yeah. But you should've did for me like I did for you when first home called call my buddy Jerome. You would've told them $80, and they'd have called me back. Alright. But That's fair. Okay. And you should've. You were right, not me. You could've at least given me the option.

Keith Vance: [1:35:02] I would've framed it for you, and I would just give you a kickback. You could've stayed over there. Call me once in a while. Yeah. Yeah. Call me once in a while. Probably should.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:35:10] But so we we came down and did that, and I realized while I was doing that, you know, I've got a whole lot more contacts here than I do in Central Texas. So I walked into Brooks and Freund just to say hi to an old project manager there that I knew. I was in shorts and flip flops, and it was, like, a Friday afternoon. I hadn't even started working yet. And Richard called down on the speakerphone just screaming at him. And I didn't know what they were talking about. I'm just sitting there quietly not wanting to interrupt the conversation. And Jack says, well, I got a goofy looking curly haired framer here in my office right now if you wanna talk to him. Richard gets quiet, which doesn't happen real often. He says, who? Jack says, Jerome, tell that mother get up to my office. I went upstairs and basically pushed the spreadsheet across the table and said, you want it? It's here. Just come get it. And so he had a he had a framer that was failing. They had a multi building subdivision down in Naples. And he said, how many guys you got in the state, you know, that can do this? He's like, I need these trusses flown on Monday. And it was actually a Thursday, not a Friday. And I said, well, I got enough. Are you sure? I said, yeah. I got enough. I didn't have any keys. I didn't have a truck. I didn't have tools. I had nothing here on that Thursday. And we flew 10,000 feet to trusses on Monday morning. Again, adapt adapt and figure it out. I put guys on the road the minute I walked out of the office. They showed up, hadn't slept. Wow. It was a rowdy truss set. Wow. And that was at that point, I had no idea what safety was. No idea what any of that happened. We didn't do safety. No. Shirts off. Just just get it done. We showed up for that 12,000 square foot truss set with no fall protection, no hard hats, no pants, no boots, nothing. And that they had had such a bad run that they They didn't care. They nodded for a minute. And then I got a call into the office, and they said, look. I really appreciate you getting them dresses set, but you guys are gonna have to tune this up. So we did. And but that was another rough rough space because now I had North Dakota gone. I had a house with three young kids and a young wife in Texas in operations here, and I was literally spread out in three different places across the country and still no money. You know, figuring out when to fly because the ticket was $50 cheaper mattered. You know, it wasn't it wasn't a luxury thing. It was a well, I don't know. Can I afford to get there on the money I'm gonna get on the Thursday after I get there, and then can I get home? And so it was fortunately, we were able to exit out of North Dakota at the right time before oil really fell apart up there. So that was providential because that wasn't planned. We'd but we got out of all of the things we had gotten into up there, and we're able to sell out everything and come out with our pants on, so to speak. And, so then I was stretched between Central Texas and here till about oh, I don't know what it was. End of end of sixteen, early seventeen, and then brought somebody in to manage things here. Got things here kinda stabilized and operating and doing what they needed to do. And then I from

Keith Vance: [1:39:00] from there to the end of twenty two, I focused in Central Texas and ran that. Even that the guy that was managing that for you, he was I think I know who we're talking about. He was doing his own thing for a while. Mhmm. And you you even like that seeing an opportunity for both of you Mhmm. And just kinda like looking down the road like you tried to do with me way back when when this first conversation first started, like Mhmm. See a vision, adapt. A 2008 happens that slammed everyone. Okay. Well, I'm I gotta reset. Okay. Now here now now what do we do? What are gonna like, just to be able to keep moving and keep adapting when it comes to business. You know, it's funny. You just touched on two things that that kinda brings something to mind. The

Jerome Reynaert: [1:39:45] all of the success I've ever had, I can attribute simply to the fact that I did what I thought was the right thing to do because I thought it was best for me and the other person in the equation. I can honestly say I never attempted to do something because it's what was best for me. If it wasn't a win for you and me both, I'm I'm not gonna do it. You know? You and I have talked about jobs over the years with you know, we've never competed over a job. I've never lost a job to you. You never lost one to me. If it came down to that, we talked and whatever went the way it needed to go.

Keith Vance: [1:40:21] But There there have been times where I needed that job and you've cut it loose and vice versa. There's been times that, Keith, I could really use this one and Mhmm. Cut it loose. So Exactly.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:40:30] But, I mean, what's funny is every opportunity I look back on and see that didn't happen, that could have happened is almost always based on a element of distrust that unfortunately exists because of society and life and the way we're wired. That, man, if it didn't, I mean, if that if you and me twenty some years ago hadn't had that anxiety of the what if this does go wrong, or is this a good idea, isn't it, you know, that other guy that got involved with me that never trusted what he was involved in, If he had, or that could've gone I mean, when I came back here, I quadrupled the size of the business. He could've done that every single year he was at the desk. Understood. But the is it gonna benefit me question that humanly exists in everyone's mind, I always look back and see that is why the thing never went where it really could've gone. And I'm I'm not saying I don't do it. Yeah. I look out for me too. But I think the rare occasions where things actually work on a massive level are when a few different individuals with different massive skill sets actually are able to move past the what is that guy going to do or not do for me and actually get the one for all mindset truly in play is when I think the wheels absolutely just come off of a thing and it flies. But, unfortunately, we spend I look at our industry. Two thirds of the management effort put into anything we do is to keep the other guy, whoever it might be, from screwing me. You're right. And if that energy was reversed into how do we do it better, faster, more profitably, Holy crap, dude.

Keith Vance: [1:42:36] You're right.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:42:37] I gotta pee. Let's take Let's take a break. Technology will be back. Yeah. So, anyway, I I was just it's always disappointed me the the way that Human nature. Human nature and distrust controls the game more than the endeavor and the goal to make it better. And invariably, it's what pushes inflation. It's what pushes cost of living. It's what pushes everything. I mean, if how many things do we do to make absolutely no sense just to protect us from the other guy? Look at the just look how the thickness of the contracts we signed have evolved since we started.

Keith Vance: [1:43:24] It's so stupid, dude. It's it's like it's like you try you try to write in every possible way someone can get a leg up on someone else. And, really, if I need to sign this, then why are we even working together? Like, if if this if we really need this, then why are we even in their same room together? Yep. No. That's the world in which we live in. I know. It's it's insane. And, I mean, in all the all those contracts I've ever signed,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:43:49] I've never gone to court. I've never not finished a job. Same. I've never had money held. I've never not gotten my retainage. I've never you know, I mean, little tiny bits of this or that or whatever, of course. But in any kind of way that that contract ever could have been enforced, it never was. But we spent all that money and all that time and energy being concerned about it and drafting it, and it's just insane. So I don't know. My my goal at the moment is to try to maneuver long term into a space where none of that matters and create a relationship based contracting method where instead of all of that waste being expended where it is, that waste is turned into fuel. And I think if that's accomplished, you have a model that can't be competed with.

Keith Vance: [1:44:53] And that's something you're working on right now? Mhmm. That's what I'm doing.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:44:59] That's interesting. Yep. Because it it just it makes me sick. Because, I mean, you see it all the day. You you the amount of money that either one of us can go out there and charge somebody for something sometimes is embarrassing. You shouldn't be able to do that, but you can because so few people do it. Mhmm. So few people know how to do it. And the ones who do do it and know how to do it don't have the credentials or the, you know, the size or the financial requirements or what have you to be able to do it. So that you look at not to get too political, but you you look at the way that all the regulatory things exist to protect things that are government backed from being exploited, and all it really does is double the cost of the endeavor because you've precluded anyone from using anyone who should be used and would be efficient because they're not big enough or fancy enough. And I'm always looking for the guy that was you or me thirty years ago. That's the guy you want. I don't want the guy with the big fancy sign on the side of the road or the, you know, 10,000 square foot building. I want the guy with the truck with no name on it, but the right guy in that truck. So

Keith Vance: [1:46:26] That's one thing I've always kinda, like, prided myself in. You know the road just came down. Mhmm. I've lived here forever. People have a certain perception of us. When they find out I live down a dirt road and I operate out of my barn, I love that because it goes against what you're talking about. I love that. Yep. Like, look at a person's character, look at a person's track record, what they've accomplished, and now the other stuff is just BS. Well, but your stability

Jerome Reynaert: [1:46:57] because you have that small base is so much broader than the stability of the guy that looks like he's 400 times the size that you are because you're insulated from whatever it is. Then so there's, yeah, there's a whole lot to that.

Keith Vance: [1:47:16] We started in Florida, and we took a little track around up and then over, and now we're back in Florida again. Is there any other hurdles or things in your Ironman life journey you wanna talk about? Are we almost to the finish line?

Jerome Reynaert: [1:47:35] Oh, I don't know. I think we're almost to the start line.

Keith Vance: [1:47:38] Well, that's sad.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:47:41] So I don't mean from a negative standpoint. I mean, to me, what I've done so far was to get to where I could do what I wanted to do.

Keith Vance: [1:47:55] Yeah. So you you and I had a conversation the other day, and you talked about this burden that you've been carrying for, like, fifteen years that you just you're just recently released of. Is that where you're getting at?

Jerome Reynaert: [1:48:05] Is that a part of it? Not sure exactly what you're referring to possibly.

Keith Vance: [1:48:11] You had a tax burden on you for Oh. Fifteen plus years in your tomorrow? No. I mean, that was that was just one of the impediments from

Jerome Reynaert: [1:48:20] the fall apart of years ago. But when I what I'm referring to at the moment, I mean, back in 2002, my two older brothers, my younger brother, myself were teamed up together. We had four crews at that time. Yeah. We ran four crews. We built four houses a day. We had four pickup trucks. No office. No secretary. No nothing. No waste. No exposure. Everything was about as tight as it could possibly be. And it was it was almost like going to the playground every day because, you know, it's like when you and I were working together, yeah, we were working hard. But we were assing around and cutting up the entire day. I mean, there was no no stress associated with what you and I were doing when we were framing those little two story houses around Lehi and, you know, it was it was a game. And at that point, it was just a little bit bigger version of the same thing. You know? Everybody giving each other crap for who had the better day or, you know, who did whatever, and we're just having fun doing it. And, you know, I mentioned a little bit ago about the the distrust or the the looking back at the things that could have been. And I look back to that point in time if the

Jerome Reynaert: [1:49:45] your dad gave you the advice when I suggested us hooking up, you know, relative to being inequally yoked and it being a bad idea. I respectfully disagree with him. I think he was wrong. Not that partnerships are a great idea, but I think you and I uniquely would have been equally yoked. I think we both had Listen, brother. The I'm like, just you and sitting here talking.

Keith Vance: [1:50:08] I trust you in my life. I trust you in my life. Like, not saying that we should have or shouldn't have. Sure. But I would have given you everything I got, and I know you would have. And I know we wouldn't when we tag teamed up, we could have just shook hands and, like, let's rock and roll with this. We wouldn't need a lawyer in the room. We just figure it out. We'd have set the world on fire. And what I mean is, you know, my brothers and I had that same opportunity.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:50:32] But to your dad's point, we weren't equally yoked. I was gonna out pull, and the cart was gonna go sideways. And, you know, they never had the they never had the desire for whatever reason to pull hard enough or go fast enough or try hard enough. And so invariably, that spun out of control, and, you know, we parted ways, and they all went and did their different things. But to now, my sons are just now getting to the age where they're involved and they're coming on. And so to me,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:51:17] the challenge becomes how do you how do you give them the half to that you had that they don't have because, you know, there's not that proverbial monster nipping at their heels. They know they can always come home, go to bed at my house. You know? But the opportunity to try to find a non fear non fear oriented productive way to steer that capability and that strength and get it going in a in a direction that makes sense and actually multiplex something into something other than all of the family businesses that fail. So in my opinion, I don't have a path. It it's never been about me. I don't you know, I would have worked for my dad till I died and would have been happy doing it. You know? And so my my goal has always been to not repeat the mistakes that were made behind me to create a world where my kids had the ability to not work for me, but take what I've done and multiplex it into the next thing, whatever they want it to be. But it doesn't even have to be the industry that we've lived in. Right. I don't care what they do. I mean, your son runs a steel operation, does a great job of doing it, seems happy doing it. Good for him. You know? My wife asked me a couple of times, well, you know, that's all great. What about the girls? I said, look. Doesn't make any difference. They can do whatever they wanna do. You know? Just come in with figure out what you want to do, and then we'll back that. Yeah. Doesn't make any difference. So,

Jerome Reynaert: [1:53:06] yeah, I feel like I'm almost to the start line.

Keith Vance: [1:53:09] I'm a little bit ahead of you in this regard. Mhmm. Your your kids are coming on board. Yep. So out out of our seven children and I don't know how many in laws.

Keith Vance: [1:53:24] So my son, Terry, he's the framing company. And my boys, it's funny because

Keith Vance: [1:53:36] we have these perceptions. They got a perception of you, you of me, but let someone speak for themselves.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:53:42] Mhmm.

Keith Vance: [1:53:43] And, thankfully, I had a conversation with my boys. They had a perception, a narrative in their own head without dad's words coming out, and we were able to have a conversation. For some reason, they thought that in order for me to respect them as men, they had to go the same road that I went. They had to start from zero. Mhmm. And I said, hey, hey, listen. Like, everybody's dealt different set of cards. I started from zero, but you have this mechanism in place. Mhmm. And just because you take this mechanism that's in place and listen. I got the work ethic, but your daddy ain't that smart. Like, I just copy other people. But you guys have the work ethic and plus you're really smart. So if you just take what daddy started and built off of that, that doesn't make you any less of a man. Like No. Take take the cars you dealt and run with it, brother. For sure. And it just it just helped them with that prequel. Dad dad won't respect me unless I start from zero. Who who said you got why why who said you had to start from zero, and why would you ever wanna start from zero? So my son, Terry, he runs the framing. He's mentioned Thomas, the steel. Yep. My daughter, Lily, he does the bookkeeping stuff for take pressure off my wife, does the bookkeeping. My son-in-law Austin does all my estimating. My son my my son-in-law Michael here, he started that estimating stuff. He built the program for me, and now he's doing this podcasting with me. So just Yep. We have a little property that we do wedding venues. One of my daughter and daughter-in-law runs. So just like you said, whatever your kids wanna do, whatever they're built for Right. To be able to say, okay. Let's make a little family operation. Let's throw some gasoline on it and, like, go with it. I feel like there's something to be said for the family unit and keeping that family unit strong. For sure. Whoever said we had to had to fracture off and start over again.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:55:38] Well, it all it's all when, you know, you go to that distrust and competition mentality versus the true family mentality where it really is everybody backing everybody up. I mean, it's totally it's a totally different mode of operation. And, I mean, I've given my kids over the years, you know, the the example of the parable of the talents along the thread of what you were saying about starting from zero because, look, you're given the talents you're given. You're given the basis you're given. Now how you manage that is the definition of who you are. Not Yes, sir. Not whether you were given anything to start with or not. It didn't make any difference. I would sure as hell like to start with something. You know? And in a way, I did. You did. You did. If I had background. If I hadn't been taught what I was taught and, you know, been given the access and the, you know, information that I was as a young man, they I wouldn't be where I am by any means. You know? If I look at what my dad was given a generation back, you know, he was in the projects in Detroit with Wow. An immigrant father and, you know, my grandfather didn't even have a mother, and his father was jumping trains. And Wow. It's so if you look at it generation by generation, there's no question. It's a vertical trend. But, you know, it at some point, somebody's gonna decide to do something for real. And so My kids, you know, you and I

Keith Vance: [1:57:06] you and me, our motivation was our bills are behind us. I gotta keep pushing. Yep. My children

Keith Vance: [1:57:18] my children work hard, bro.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:57:20] Yeah. They work hard.

Keith Vance: [1:57:22] With their motivation is their last name. Mhmm. Their motivation is Keith Vance, my dad. Mhmm. And I think it's a better motivation than Bill's. Like, they they respect what I started and they they want to keep going with that. So that's maybe that's their something your kids can build off of. Sure. You know what mean? Look at everything my daddy went through. He figured it out. This ain't like, when he's dead and gone, I'm gonna keep on figuring out, like, what might what built my daddy, I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep going with that. And we never really do figure it out. Like, life happens and you just adapt and you keep going. Yeah.

Jerome Reynaert: [1:57:57] Yeah. I think I think more than anything, though, they just they just wanna know that you care what they're doing. Whether they're doing it perfectly or good enough or not is certainly an element, but I think the the biggest thing you can give your kids is them just being aware that you're paying attention and you care what happens to them. Like, the worst thing you can do as a parent is become absorbed in yourself to the degree that you're still looking at you and you're not looking at them. Because they know when you are and when you aren't. And when they understand that you got them and you see them, then it gives them that

Jerome Reynaert: [1:58:44] true confidence that there's somebody there. And, again, it's that lack of fear. It's that lack of competition that I think breeds the best operators. You and I might have been the most motivated. Certainly weren't the best. No. There's there's a million things I could have done different or better or whatever, but, you know so it's a balancing, you know, figure out the balance. How do you how do you how do you not give them so much that they've killed themselves with it, And how do you give them enough that they can actually make something out of it? And I think at the end of the day, it it really boils down to a personal decision. Every human being is gonna make their decision where their life's gonna wind up. Can't force it.

Keith Vance: [1:59:37] I just had a thought I asked you. You know, we talked a couple days ago, we'll we'll wind this thing down. You gotta go do some paddle boarding. My family's waiting at the beach for me. But I asked you, do you still feel like that 20 year old kid that's still trying to make it, do you feel like you have made it? And you you said, well, you related to it to your family. Mhmm. Like like, much you related to, like, not not monetary stuff, but family. Mhmm. And I've been thinking about that all week. And how I know I'll have made it is if on my deathbed, everyone that I love can be in the room with me, and they wanna be in the room together. Like, they don't have to squash their beef between each other out of respect for dad. Like, everybody loves each other and they're like, we can all be in the same room and just have, like, unconditional love.

Jerome Reynaert: [2:00:31] Some families don't have that. You know I mean? No. And I, you know, I hope that for both of us that that's able to be the case. But in my experience, you have to accept the fact that people are gonna be people. And we both have seven kids, and I hope and pray that at the end of the day, all seven of them make the best choice or the right choice or the good choice and that, you know, euphoric reality is able to be your end. But when human beings make bad choices or make choices for the wrong reasons and it foils that perfect picture, it's not a definition of your success or failure. The the introspective, arrogant version of each of us wants to be able to solve every problem, own every mistake, put every problem on our back, and fix it. That's the dad in us. Mhmm. But your kids are human beings. They're individuals. They're gonna make the choices they're gonna make. And if they make the wrong choice, in my opinion, it's not a definition of what you did right or wrong. You did the same thing for all seven of your kids. They're not all the same. No. They all make different choices. They all make different decisions. Good and bad things are gonna happen. And I think when you have a lot of kids, if you don't understand that, you will hurt them all because one of them makes a bad choice every single day. You may not happen to hear about it, but at some point, somebody makes a negative enough choice or decision that you do find out and it impacts you. And when you allow that to define you or to say to you whether you did or did not do what you should have done arrogantly. Now it compromises you, and you in turn compromise the other six who didn't make a bad decision because you're trying to be the martyr or responsible for the individual's bad choice. And I think I kind of figured that out when I was going through my divorce, and I made a rather vicious comment about my ex wife to my CPA. And he just kinda looked sad. He said, don't say stuff like that. I said, why? He said, Jerome, he said, he said, the only way I can tell you is is good people make bad choices sometimes. And he said, you can decide to make their bad choice who they are, or you can decide to try to be the reason that they made that bad choice. He said, sometimes you just have to accept that somebody made a bad choice. View the bad choice for what it is, accept it for what it is, and let it go. Because if you don't realize that good people are gonna make bad choices from time to time, then you always try to find the reason why they did it. And the arrogant side of you will always try to explain that it was because of you or that you could have done something to prevent it. They said at the end of the day, nobody can stop you from walking out this door and doing whatever you're going to do. And we impact each other, but we're not responsible for the choices one another make. And it didn't really make a lot of sense to me when he said it because I was mad and but I've thought about it over the years. And I think as a father, you you gotta keep yourself straight up and down and keep your eyes down downrange and make sure that you're fundamentally focused on what you need to be focused on and accept the fact that, you know what, as much as I love them and as much as I care, sometimes they're gonna goof up. And it may you know, they may goof up in a fashion that's irrecoverable. And I hope that never happens for you or me or anybody, but I just think I watch watch my parents, and I've watched other parents over the years be defined by the poor choices their children made and seen the detrimental effects on their other children because they let their children's bad choices define who they were. Then it can obviously happen the other way around too. You you make a bad choice. Your kids think it's their fault because they didn't do something that, you know, you wanted them to do or whatever, and it's it's there's a all for one and one for all mentality that's extremely positive, but there needs to be some individuality left in there where everyone's allowed to succeed and fail on their own and know they have the support of the whole without defining the whole by the worst moment of your life. And so I don't know. That's good. Thank you. That's I'm gonna digest that for a while.

Keith Vance: [2:05:35] There was a lot there, and it hit close to home. I like to control everything, including relationships.

Jerome Reynaert: [2:05:43] Of course. Yeah. Of course.

Keith Vance: [2:05:47] Anything else you wanna talk about before we wrap this thing up? No. I don't think so.

Jerome Reynaert: [2:05:52] Appreciate you having me on. It's fun.

Keith Vance: [2:05:55] The last thought I had was yeah. Thank you, man. Thank you for, like I'm glad we didn't Zoom this thing. I just again, it was selfish. I wanted to I wanted to look you in the eye. Like, I wanna sit down with my buddy and just reminisce for a while. So this was kinda, like, selfish for me. But king David, I forget where it was at, but it said in scripture that there was a day that kings went forth to battle with their men, and there was one day that David decided not to go to battle. So it's implied that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. It's implied that he became I made it. I reached it. Like, I don't Yeah. Like and then, you know, you watch as Beshie would take a bath and you you see all that how that spirals out of control. That complacency, that's what I struggle with. Like, it was so easy. And when you and I were working together, I get up early in the morning when was dark. I worked my tail off until it's dark. I did what I was supposed to do. At 50, my role is different. Mhmm. I don't have to go to battle every day, Jerome. I can stay home in my kingdom. My my you're talking about balance from relationships and all that kind of stuff. My balance is fighting complacency every day. What am I supposed to be doing? What did I delegate that's not mine to handle anymore? And so just where I'm at now, that's my main thought and main main mode of operation where I live. Mhmm. You know I mean? I don't life is kinda easy compared to before. Sure. But there's you know, my my bills don't make me get out of bed anymore. Right. But I still gotta get up out of bed and do my thing. Mhmm. Yeah. So that's where I'm just kinda, like, trying to find my balance in life. So I feel like you're probably in that same same boat.

Jerome Reynaert: [2:07:46] Little different, but I know what you mean. Yeah. There's a

Jerome Reynaert: [2:07:53] for me, it's more of trying to find the the balance of how much is too much and how much is enough because, you know, I I tend to take on more than maybe is intelligent from time to time. And, you know, I with all the bouncing around I've done you've been in the same place for fifteen years. Mhmm. Been here. You're established your set. You know? I'm still I'm living in a rental at the moment. I'm not even I don't even have my my ass firmly planted quite yet. You know? So there's there's still a lot of a lot of stabilization that I need to do. But for me, that's more, you know, finding the balance of how much to take on at a time to have any, you know, any semblance of a productive or functional life that's not, you know, just good for me, but good for the people around me and whatever. So You'll figure it out. Goes on.

Keith Vance: [2:09:06] So are you gonna train for another Ironman?

Jerome Reynaert: [2:09:10] Yep. Waiting on this left knee to get back to the point where I can run on it again. My 13 year old asked me the other day if I'd do one with him when he was 18. So you're not allowed to do it till you're 18. So So you can do it five years? Five years out. So I'll do some stuff between now and then. Don't know that I'll do another full Ironman until that just because I watched my dad in his triathlon career go really, really intense nonstop for a long time and beat himself up. I think there's a balance in fitness to what's healthy for you and what you may be driven to do purely out of competition. And I don't I don't have any desire to run myself into a point where I can't do anything because I'd be used to the whole point. What did that accomplish? You know? The whole point of You you win today. Go for it. Good for you. Have you The whole point of the whole point of fitness journey is to have some longevity so you can do the things you love as long as you love, not just Well, then I gotta be somebody else. Three year old, I look at him, I'm like, what's he gonna wanna do when he's 18? Well, that's a long way away.

Keith Vance: [2:10:22] When you, we'll we'll close it down, but I'm a put myself out there. In five years and when you get ready to do that, Ironman, keep me in mind. Yeah. Let's do it. I like to do I'd I'd be 55. Yep. And I think you need to challenge yourself every once in while. Absolutely. And listen. Let me go out first. That way, when you get about a half mile, you see me struggling, just

Jerome Reynaert: [2:10:46] you'll be fine. Give me a hand. Like, swim with me. Swim with me. You'll be fine. Swimming swim is put on a wet suit and paddle. You'll be good.

Keith Vance: [2:10:57] My brother's get out of here. Still