Inside the Empire
Inside the Empire
Legends Reborn: Ken Smith - The Man Who Turned Paper Routes into Panera Contracts | Temecula Entrepreneur Story
Ken Smith's journey from sorting beer bottles at a young age to building a business empire epitomizes the American entrepreneurial spirit. Growing up as the son of a schoolteacher in Chicago's suburbs, Ken learned early that work wasn't just an obligation, it was opportunity. While neighborhood kids received allowances, he created his own income stream through paper routes, restaurant jobs, and even selling plasma in college despite his full wrestling scholarship.
This hustler's mentality led Ken to California in 1976, where he purchased his brother's distribution route using money from property he'd bought in seventh grade. That small business, renamed Southwest Traders, became the cornerstone of his success, evolving into a powerhouse that now services major chains like Starbucks and Panera across three states with 500 employees. Ken attributes this growth to two foundational principles: financial sustainability and intentional culture-building. "Teamwork makes the dream work isn't just a slogan," he explains, "it's real."
What truly distinguishes Ken's business philosophy is his approach to property acquisition and development throughout Temecula Valley. Beginning with Galway Downs in 2010, he's specialized in revitalizing distressed properties with historical significance—what he calls "legends reborn." From Cross Creek Golf Course to Native Falls and wine country properties, his mission remains consistent: preserve the region's heritage while creating spaces where families build lasting memories.
Ken sees himself not as an owner, but as a "caretaker" of these properties, responsible for ensuring they remain financially viable while honoring their cultural significance. His latest ventures focus on farm-to-table experiences that celebrate agricultural traditions without the chemicals and negative environmental impacts of commercial farming.
Have you visited these revitalized Temecula gems yet? From equestrian events at Galway Downs to the hidden oasis at Native Falls, Ken Smith's legacy of opportunity, teamwork, and community stewardship continues to shape the valley's future while honoring its past.
Welcome to the Inside the Empire podcast. I'm here with my guest, Ken Smith. Ken, we're super excited to hear your story. Appreciate you having in here. We want to start all the way at the beginning. So what was your childhood like? Where'd you grow up? What was the family model like? And let's start there.
Speaker 2:Okay, first up afternoon. Thanks for me and I look forward to the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah thank you. So from there, my family I'm the youngest of five and I was born in Norfolk, virginia, and my father was a schoolteacher. Our whole family, both my father and my mother's family, was from Norfolk, raised there, went to high school at Granby High School in Norfolk, and he had five children I was one at the time. He was a school teacher. It was challenging making things work as a school teacher in that part of the country. So, pre-social media and the internet, he did some checking around. He put a lot of communications out and found out that San Francisco and Chicago were the highest paying school teachers teaching jobs in the country at that time 1957. And so he, chicago, responded first. So we ended up being the Northwest suburbs of Chicago and that's where we were raised and I went to high school. All of us graduated from Wheeling High School.
Speaker 1:So one of five was mom and dad were together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were together and all of us moved to Chicago. He was a schoolteacher there. He was a coach his whole life. Nice, in what they call the Maine system Maine East, maine West, maine South, maine, north, maine South is where Hillary Clinton went to and he was teaching at the time. She was there Right on Meanwhile. So I was raised in the family of a school teacher. My mom worked off and on not a lot. Our upbringing. We didn't have a lot of money. I'd call us a little below middle class or maybe middle class, but it didn't necessarily feel like. Everybody else on the block seemed to have more than us.
Speaker 2:We had a block of probably 12 houses, 15, maybe there's 20 houses on our block. No, excuse me, 30 houses on our block, but in those days everybody had five kids, almost so the average was five kids, but some had 13,.
Speaker 2:Some had nine, a couple strange ones had two. So we were left alone a lot. When I say left alone, we were left to do what we wanted to do, whether it be play. We weren't given any money. Our neighbors all got allowances. We didn't get allowances. So to get money, we worked, we figured out how to go make money and being the youngest, I learned to work quickly.
Speaker 2:So my first job was on Wheeling Avenue in the Wheel Inn bar at four years old, sorting beer bottles. So the people at the bar would be there and when they didn't have a lot of cans it was most all bottles, and so when they finished the beer they put it down a shoot and go down to the bottom of the basement and drop into the glass and you know, eventually it keeps a bed. But on saturday I'd go there and sort out the hams, because they used to recycle all the beer bottles. So you didn't, you wouldn. You recycled hams, schlitz, old Style Budweiser, and so I'd be down there putting the bottles in there and sweeping up. And the funny thing was my neighbor's grandmother owned the wheel in and she goes. He can't work in there, he's too young. So they snuck me in. On Saturday mornings I'd work, they'd go play all day, my older brother and Jerry, and they'd come back. I'd get half the money and I was happy I had money.
Speaker 2:So that was my first job and I had a paper route when I was seven. So the bottom line is I was really fortunate that I found out early in life that work has a weird. The word work sounds negative. Most people go work. Well, that's not so good. They should come up with a new name for work, because to me it was an opportunity to make money. Amen, yeah. Opportunity is the key word right there, and then with making money now I can buy stuff, include whatever I remember.
Speaker 2:I was at, I'd buy my friend's donuts. I felt so good about buying my friends donuts and then I bought. My first big buy was a Stingray back in the day, but a Stingray with a white seat.
Speaker 2:Bought it with my own money, bought the family a pool table. So I had money because I worked all the time All the way through high school. Even in college I had a full ride in wrestling. I still worked the whole time. So that was my next question you say wrestling, what sports did you play growing up? We, you know, organized sports. Again, we weren't from a very wealthy family, so I had neighbors that played organized sports, but I didn't until fifth grade and none of my brothers and sisters did until they got to junior high school, so they didn't really have organized sports in middle school.
Speaker 2:I mean you know first grade through sixth grade unless you joined a local basketball team or little league, and none of my brothers and sisters did that. But when I moved from one part of town to the other part of town in fifth grade I played little league for the first time. So I played little league and then went and played, and then I got to junior high now they have sports so I wrestled in junior high and then, um, for some reason, I really liked wrestling.
Speaker 2:It was one-on-one and it was you know, I, I, I liked the tussle was fun yeah, greco or no, regular wrestling.
Speaker 1:Then I I did wrestle a lot uh, freestyle.
Speaker 2:Never too much greco. But I wrestled in high school and when I walked in my freshman year I said I'm gonna get a. I did wrestle a lot freestyle never too much. Greco. But I wrestled in high school and when I walked in my freshman year I said I'm going to get a scholarship for wrestling and I ended up getting a full ride for wrestling, had a lot of choices, decided to go to LSU because when I went on my recruiting trip I went down there, I left snow and my coach showed up in short sleeves and shorts and if you've ever been to LSU campus, it's as pretty a campus there is in the country.
Speaker 2:There's probably others as pretty, but I've never been to one I've been more impressed with than LSU campus. Beautiful campus and it was a beautiful place. So I ended up down there in Baton Rouge going to college for a couple of years.
Speaker 1:Wow, that was a great place. It was good people down there, different world, but it's one of the great learning.
Speaker 2:You go from a Chicago suburb where you know you're, you know, somewhat meaningful in your world because you know you're getting a full ride. You're captain of the football team, captain of the wrestling team, and then you go down to Louisiana. They don't even know what wrestling is hardly Right, louisiana, they don't even know what wrestling is hardly, and everything has basketball and football and you're in a different world. So I remember the first six months was challenging. All of a sudden you're not in Kansas anymore, so that was interesting. But after the first six months I learned to love it. It was a great place great food, great people, really friendly people. Glad I spent two years there, but only two years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so going into that, you worked under the, under the bar, right literally. Uh, sorting, sorting cans and bottles. Then you did paper boy, um, and then what was your career? I?
Speaker 2:did a fair amount of restaurant work okay, you know, washing dishes, bussing tables, never did a lot of waiting, never did a lot of cooking, but did a lot of that. And then did a fair amount of car parking running for cars, because valet work because they keep you fit, you know, the faster you ran the more cars you park, the more money you make.
Speaker 2:So I used to like to do that because it helped with your managing weight and staying fit both. But those are all the kind of different things. I did some magazine prescription sales, you know, door to door trying to sell stuff. I did some of that too, but I tried to do anything if you could make some money at it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you worked hard. So you worked all through middle school, high school, and keep in mind paper routes back in those days.
Speaker 2:You know those were seven days a week, Right, those weren't. You know there was no days off. You worked every single day and typically you'd finish your paper route. It would be just getting light. Sometimes, depending on the time of year, it would be light before you finished. But it was interesting. I remember being seven years old, out in the paper, me and my dog walking the streets, Never felt remotely in danger. I always felt comfortable, but that was. It was just the way life was.
Speaker 1:You just that there's so much to learn there, right, you're, you know, seven years old, eight years old, running a paper. You're working a full job, right, waking up early, the discipline that you learn at that age, um, and it's crazy because I see a lot of reflection. I've heard other people my dad actually was a paper boy when he was younger and I got to see the hard work and I think when you instill that type of discipline in somebody at a young age, you know, the older they get opportunities. Right, you look at everything more as an opportunity. Not hey, I have to work, but I get the opportunity to work, right that's right so that's great I have a loud question.
Speaker 2:I agree with you.
Speaker 1:100 so then, going into going into college, you left home, left mom and dad, went to lsu wrestled. Were you working at that time as well, or just, yeah, I worked doing some landscape work.
Speaker 2:I worked for a lady taking care of her house. I, you know you're not, you're on a full ride. You got a little bit of spending money, but you only wanted more money. So I did two things. I worked in. This one is not work, but I donated plasma, oh yeah because, the first day we could get two and a half dollars.
Speaker 2:The second day we could get five hours, so you get seven and a half dollars. Well, beers were 25 cents, so that was my uh. It made money and plus I worked probably two days a week for this lady.
Speaker 2:So that's the work I did down there for those two years nice and then after college, not after after my sophomore year in college, instead of going back to chicago to work in chicago suburbs for the summer, my brother called me up. He lived in lucadia actually in encinitas, no lucadia at the time and I moved to california and worked for him. In the summer may of 1976 I came out here and worked for him doing a route he had a route doing fresh juices to the health food stores what naked juice, or it was called Eskin juice, but it was the fresh juice of that time in San Diego, in South Orange County. So I did those routes, along with some cheesecakes that he made and I delivered those around South Orange County, san Diego, a little up in LA for the uh cheesecakes, for some of the fancier restaurants, right. And then it was time to go back to college to finish my scholarship.
Speaker 2:I was in a full ride and just came up for summer job yeah my brother says well, why don't you just skip going back and stay here and keep working? I had a bad thumb and a bad elbow and I I said, well, maybe I'll take a little bit more time off and call my coaches. Hey, coach, I'm in a red shirt this year. I'm trying to heal up a little bit. He says, no problem. Then came December and it was time to go back again in January and we had a conversation. I said I'm not going to work for you, but I'll buy your route from you. So I bought a route from him with the money I had from buying a piece of property when I was in seventh grade in the lake of the ozarks. I bought a piece of property no way, and that was now worth four thousand dollars and I sold that and I got my down payment to buy the business from him wait.
Speaker 1:So when you were seven, you bought your first piece of property, right? How much was that?
Speaker 2:you know, I would guess it was probably like at the time, three thousand, maybe only two thousand dollars, but when I, you know, fast forward, you know, you know, eight, nine years, it was worth. It was worth 3 500 bucks, or a thousand bucks, right, and there's what I got for it I paid it off and and now it was worth that much money well, what inspired you?
Speaker 1:at seven years old, to buy a piece of property.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just bought stuff, and then my parents had gone to the Ozarks and so did I. And then my junior year no, it was my freshman year, somewhere along those lines when we went there my parents said, hey, you can buy a piece of property. And so I bought it. It was in seventh grade, I know that and okay and I sold it later, but um that well, that was just made sense yeah had a monthly payment right, so that was good that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Banks were a little different back then too, and you probably owner owner carry yeah, a lot of people don't know about owner carries. Those can work great as a real estate investor.
Speaker 2:Right. One of the rules in that by real estate today is owner carry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe talk about that there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 2:Owner carry for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I remember when I went out to LSU, too. It was interesting. You go to college, you're a guy and you're going to college. There's, too, it was interesting. You go to college, you're a guy and you're going to college. There's all this wonderful life the girls will be everywhere. At LSU. It was really interesting. All the girls were on one side of the campus and all the boys were on the other side of the campus.
Speaker 2:You were never allowed in a girl's dorm under any of your circumstances ever, and girls were never allowed in your dorm under any circumstances ever. So that's the way the rules were and I understand these are. You know, maybe even currently, those are the rules at LSU. They certainly were a few years ago, my buddies tell me. But bottom line is, after my, as my freshman year came to a close, I go. I don't like the setup at all. So I went looking for a house and then I convinced my parents to buy a house that I moved into and got roommates to move into. So I get to go through the escrow process Buys, go through the escrow, then get roommates manage the roommates. So that was an educational process as well, big time. But it wasn't an educational process in my mind at that time it was a way for me to get freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:I really enjoyed that that, but that played out to be very important, as I uh, that was my second real estate deal. You know it wasn't my money, yeah, it was my parents money, but I got to see that how it worked yeah, he got to run the business and operational side of it right it was great.
Speaker 1:So then you came out here. Were you single at the time when you moved out here with your brother and started or ended up buying his route?
Speaker 2:yep moved around 76 and I I had a um, a girlfriend from college, but she moved back to pennsylvania, she went back to lsu and finished and I didn't. I stayed here and uh, yeah, so okay, so you bought that route.
Speaker 2:You were selling, uh, juices and cheesecakes right and and then we started our company january 1st 1977, 1977, southwest Traders. Because when I bought that route from him, I changed the name to Southwest Traders and I had a partner. My brother sold the business to me and this guy, dean, who was the guy, had been there working for him before me. He said I'll sell it to both of you. So we were really three-way partners.
Speaker 1:My brother still kept a third, my new partner kept the third and I kept and I bought a third nice and then through that you guys just continued to grow and expand the business operations and offerings and right but relative to quickly, my partner dean and I um, it was clear we were not the same people.
Speaker 2:He came his was a doctor, his father passed away, he left him a fair amount of money, so he always was about protecting what he had and didn't want to take any risk, and I was like I got nothing to lose, let's roll the dice, let's go. So that was a conflict that didn't make him bad or good and didn't make me bad or good. It just made us not right partners. So I bought him, just different, different, yeah, and so I bought both my brother and him out and I became the sole owner about 1979 nice and then through that I'm sure there's some real estate transactions that that came kind of down the road.
Speaker 1:Um, so what you were living, go ahead the real estate transactions didn't happen right quick.
Speaker 2:It was once the 79 to buy my partners out and I get and I go from. I'm in the health food business so I want health foods and health food related products, mostly the fresh, not the frozen but the fresh stuff going coolers to have. At the time it was sprazier farms, it was haveleys, it was um, um, can't remember the other one, riddle farms a lot of you know movers market, which is still in business, I think today, up in orange county. So we had a lot of customers we sold health foods to and then in early 83 or so I was selling a yogurt and it was in the health food stores and they also sold soft serve yogurt and so I started delivering soft serve to yogurt shops in the early 83, 84.
Speaker 2:And around 85, I switched completely and got out of the health food business completely and just went into the healthful business completely and just went into the yogurt, just selling fresh yogurt or not yet you know yogurt to go into yogurt machines like yogurt shops today. Yeah, um, I put my, all my eggs in that basket and it was became a one-stop shop for that industry for frozen yogurt frozen yeah at the time I originally just papered I'm just yogurt and I had the toppings, the cups, everything.
Speaker 2:So it was a one-stop shop. And then that led us to be in a chain business. We'd go after the chains in the yogurt business and from the chains in the yogurt business we went to chains in the other businesses like Starbucks or Jamba Juice Right. So you focused on the franchises. So you get system accounts of large organizations, which is really more what we are today. We still do yogurt shops and we still do some small mom-and-poms at Southwest Traders, but we're primarily a systems company and we do large chains Rubio's, panera, jamba Juice Not any Jamba Juice anymore. We used to do Starbucks now and have for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so where do you guys do distribution?
Speaker 2:We do it throughout California, arizona and Nevada.
Speaker 1:Okay, Awesome. And then that business today is run by. You've got some family in there, right?
Speaker 2:We own the company. My wife and I still own the company. We've been working on the company. We have a president, terry Walsh. He came from the industry. He's very, very solid. He's very, very good. And then the four sons we report to him and they're in the business along with some other longtime folks that have been with us. Our CFO Lynn Bittermeyer has been with us. Our cfo lynn bittermeyer's been with us 40, 45 years wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:That's a testament to the culture that you built there right.
Speaker 2:Keep somebody there that long is well, and one of the things is I used to say, well, just because you've been here a long time doesn't mean it's a good thing yeah, you know, sometimes you're not growing a long time and it's not a good thing? Yeah for sure. In this case, it's a very good thing they don't. But culture is critical and the reason our company today is successful and we're at our all-time peak in our service level. We're number one distributor for Starbucks in the country.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're the fourth largest distributor, which makes it much more difficult. Number one in Panera's system and we're number one in Einstein's system. So we're very good at what we do today, and that's all a byproduct of culture. There's nothing I period right culture, which certainly is heavily to do with leadership absolutely but we have a great culture today and that makes such a big difference and it makes business so much more fun and much more profitable and um positive for everybody it's a win-win all around.
Speaker 1:So we we obviously have a lot of viewers that are business owners. What's your best piece of advice to build and cultivate culture within a business?
Speaker 2:well, there's a lot of different ways, but I'll certainly say that you know um, the people work for who they trust and they like and they respect. In fact, I think it's a well-known fact. If you looked at why people leave the job, it's because they don't like the person they're working for, which is their immediate supervisor or somebody. That's the number one reason people leave the position in the company. So you've got to realize quickly that these people are on your team. They're teammates. That same teamwork makes the dream work. That's really meaningful. It's not just a slogan, it's real, agreed. You've got to make sure that there's nobody in the team. That's not important, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Everybody's important.
Speaker 2:And they all need to be treated with respect and I learned this slower, but you need to try to pay at the top. Our goal now is to be the best payer in the industry. You have to say I can't afford to be the best payer in the industry. Truth to mention, you can't afford not to. Not to yes, it costs you too much in business and all the things the turnover means frustration, bad for morale, bad service, all cut dead to the P&L All of it's bad.
Speaker 2:Our turnover has never been lower. Our, the P&L all of it's bad. Our turnover has never been lower. Our accident rate's never been lower. Our service level's never been higher. Our comp, our drivers we get very good comp for our drivers. Our driver we can take a guy in a warehouse, comes in our warehouse, works somewhere else, does a good job, qualifies for our gears, our shifting gears, and he becomes a driver and he makes $105,000 a year. That's the average pay in a driver at our company, which is a very good pay, and that's the average pay. The ones that are hungry?
Speaker 2:are doing better and they're solid jobs and they're consistent. The food industry may not be. It's not glamorous by any sense of the word. It's a glucose level. It's not explosive, but people eat all the time, so it doesn't have the huge ups and downs that some of the other industries can have as well that's right, 100%. So with that obviously I mean how many people are on your team about 500 thousand, I'm sorry 500 today, 500 employees over there, 500 employees through the three facilities, fresno, stockton and Temeca, 500, 550 maybe.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's a big company to run and operate right, and so multiple locations. Obviously that didn't just happen overnight. That was something that you guys built and established. There's, you know, a lot of business owners again that are watching this. What would you encourage them with? And let's say they're a couple years into their business just getting going. They aspire to have 500 employees one day, but obviously they're not there yet. What's some words of encouragement for them on that?
Speaker 2:Well, make sure you stay focused on that being good with what you're at right now. Don't think about expanding too quickly and get too far away from the barn. If your P&L can't afford it, don't expand. Make sure you've got plenty of room for error, because when you expand that's likely going to lead to some bumps on the way and likely going to lead to lower profits in the new facility. It's just as likely. You maybe have a wonderful situation where you can avoid all those things that are likely to happen to you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Don't always think you're going to beat all the odds, of course, because you're going to hit some of these things that have hit most people in the expanse. So make sure you're in a you can't be afraid to make moves. Of course you don't want to run your business out of fear, but you just don't want to be reckless because sometimes growth will kill you as fast as shrinking. You know you have to overgrow and overgrow your cash flow. Yeah, you know, there's no question. When you start to expand, even though you're growing, you gotta make sure you're looking at that cash flow to make sure that that's under control, just as much as your growth, just as much as your, your, your labor or whatever your key metrics are in your business.
Speaker 1:Certainly, cash flow is a key. Cash flow is king. Yep, yeah, 100%. And that's what I love like just having this conversation with you right now, and I know that the audience is going to get a lot of value from it is just the numbers you know. If you're in business, you've got to know your numbers. You have to look at your pnls, you have to look at your balance sheet. Cash flow is king. You can not. You can have a horrible pnl, but at the end of the day, what are you going to do to get out of that? And and how are you going to increase cash flow? Maybe your pnl looks great, but cash flow sucks.
Speaker 2:It doesn't give you the ability to scale right, so there's so many variables cases when you can have a good pnl and be starting cash flow and actually put you out of business.
Speaker 2:I know I've been involved with business groups since 1986. It was tech. Then it became Vistage out of San Diego. It's a worldwide company.
Speaker 2:But the group I was in, which is a group of businessmen that get together once a month and they have a facilitator, they kind of set the agenda, bring the speakers in and then you have roundtables. But you'll learn a lot in those kind of set the agenda, bring the speakers in and then you have roundtables. But you'll learn a lot in those kind of environments. Absolutely Particularly, you'll learn about other people's mistakes and you can maybe avoid them, right? A smart person learns from somebody else's mistakes, that's right. Some of those roundtables were really, really good for those things to learn about other people's mistakes. But it also was a wonderful place to learn about how to solve people's situations. So 10 people sitting in a room and entrepreneur X has got this problem this month, right, and the group is looking at how to try to solve that and they wouldn't give it their best effort because they're part of your group and that's what you're there for. That's how you're in the group, of course, to try to benefit each other. And it was fun and you learned a lot. I'm watching what worked and what didn't work and people came in and did it and did it work. So it was a fun thing and I did the same thing up in the executive form, which is another group.
Speaker 2:But being involved in those business groups has been very advantageous and very educational. It's like a continuing education. That's what it is, but it's custom, right to you and your world and it helps you understand. The people in these groups often are not from your industry. In fact, my history was nobody was from my industry. It could be a banker, a CFO, a CPA in there, all kinds of different businesses. So they all have a lot of the same fundamentals about business practices and good things. So it was very positive. So I certainly I know we didn't ask about it, but that was one of the things that I found very beneficial over time is my continuing education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree with that. It's important to continue to grow and skill internally as much as it is externally. You know, I mean you could only grow a company as big as you grow yourself. Right, and if you're not investing in yourself, you kind of have a disadvantage to your competitors that are spending the time going to the seminars, doing the training, joining the mastermind groups, listening to the podcasts, right All of the things to continue to scale as an individual. So that's great. I do want to rewind a little bit. So you have a beautiful family married. At what point in this timeline did you get married and then start having kids and building a family?
Speaker 2:So it was like 1979. No, it was actually 19. I got to here in 76. I got a girlfriend. That girlfriend, thank goodness my roommate was right going. Can you look back upon her 20 years from now and be really glad you didn't marry that one? So she was gone. She dumped me in a thousand days. At the time it didn't feel good, but I was going out to the bars on saturday. I worked 100 hours a week but on saturday night I'd go out to the bars, you know, and that song looking for love in all the wrong places was out and I started to realize this isn't the place to meet a girl, right, these bars on saturday night. They're fun.
Speaker 2:But yeah this ain't the right spot, so I consciously decided to go in, uh, the of 1980, to go to Palmer Junior College, and for the sole purpose of finding a girl.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow so second day I'm at the bookstore and there's a girl behind me and she barely talked to me Because that was a typical thing You're a guy from Chicago and a girl from California and she doesn't pay me. But somehow she told me where she worked and I probably get hit for stalking today but she wouldn't give me her phone number. I went outside and waited for her after we got through the. Can I walk into class? No, but I called her at work and bottom line is no, I'm getting married wow, so you guys met at a bookstore where the books are palm road junior college.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome. Mike and I met her. Probably went on a date, with her dropped out of school the next day, wow how does there? For one reason yeah, I apologize, I carried my phone off no worries so, uh, that was a mission accomplished. That again, that was all about, you know, looking for love and in some, the right place yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's a great story so that was so.
Speaker 2:We got married in 1983 and you know, whether you like my thought process or not, I got married. I wasn't gonna have kids. I don't know, sure, if I would have gotten right, maybe I wouldn't, we wouldn't know, yeah, but I wanted to have kids. I, I was 27. So I asked Tina Merritt. She said yes, and we had a baby nine months later and we have five sons now. Love it, 13 grandchildren and one more cup.
Speaker 1:That's the greatest blessing right there. Yep, that is the greatest blessing.
Speaker 2:I like to tell people I'm most fortunate.
Speaker 1:Very fortunate fortune. We have a wonderful wife, wonderful family, good health. Yeah, very positive. That's the. That's the best gift right there. Like it doesn't, doesn't get much better, yeah. And then to be a grandparent? I don't know that yet. I got two little ones, I got one on the way, um, so I know what it's like to be a parent, but I hear being a grandparent's even that much better, yeah, because parents are a lot of responsibility.
Speaker 2:There's no getting around it, just a full-time job. You're on, we're around our band children all the time. In fact, our son Ryan and his wife Kat and their son Hen were just staying three nights in a row at our house because their house was getting worked on. Yeah, just forget how much energy the little guys have.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, they're full time. Yeah, yeah, you better be on your toes. Chasing them on their toes, oh yeah, big time. The thing I love about kids is they bring the childness back into us. You know, and it's just that element, because I mean, as soon as I get home, it's like it's playtime. My daughter, she's ready to play, she's like, oh, the jungle gym's open. That's literally. She says that every time I get home, jungle gym's open. So it brings out that, that childhood in us, and we need that.
Speaker 2:You know, some sometimes just into all my son. I don't get on the ground. Every place I get need replaced hits replaced if I don't get on the ground, and so quickly up and down. Right, my wife does my wife's on the ground, with them playing all the time. Yeah, plays with themays, with them. They live in there. Yeah, it's the best, and their parents as well, but they all play. I'm probably not the greatest player. Yeah, I want to see certain things because getting on the ground makes it a bit different.
Speaker 1:For sure, for sure, that's awesome. So, going back to the business side of things, you've had a lot of success in in southwest, but I know you also have some other business ventures. Let's let's start talking about those and timelines. What was after southwest? Where did you start invest in?
Speaker 2:and so southwest traders.
Speaker 2:Um remains the deuce that lays the golden egg for us it's a very good company and it's really what's allowed us to buy anything or do anything else it wasn't. We can venture out is because we had capital that Southwest Traders generated Right. So the first thing I bought was buildings the buildings that Southwest Traders occupied Once upon a time. We used to be in Texas, we used to be in Denver, we used to be in Arizona and I bought facilities in Phoenix and Denver. I leased buildings in Texas, so those were some of the first buildings.
Speaker 2:I built a building over here on Rio Nido Street In 1986, I bought the land and built a 20,000-square-foot building on Rio Nido. That was my first building I owned, built from scratch and owned. And then from there we bought the one on Diaz Street, scratch and own, and then from there we bought the one on diaz street and we bought a variety of the properties over the course of the next uh, um, you know 10. You know I bought properties till 2010, but warehouses and stuff. And in 2000 I I did buy some other properties up in rainbow, like our house, and I bought some land around rainbow.
Speaker 2:Um, but I started buying the big things that started changing. I bought Galway Downs in October 2010. That was the first thing that was away from either our home or a property near our home or was related to commercial business commercial warehouse for Southwest Traders. So I bought Southwest Traders. I'm sorry I bought Galway. It wasn't called Galway Downs, it was called the Southern California Equestrian Centerway. It wasn't called Galway Downs, it was called the Southern California Equestrian Center. We changed the name back to Galway Downs in about 2013 because I didn't like that long-winded name in Galway Galway.
Speaker 1:Good choice. I think everyone agrees with that.
Speaker 2:We were debating between Temecula Downs and Galway Downs, we decided Galway Downs and they had that guy named Fran Delaney. He had a restaurant here for at least a decade. He had a bunch of restaurants and he had a food distribution business out of Newport Beach but we bought it and we put that name back around 2013. So that was really one of the first I would call it in the hospitality area. It's not really I can't say Galway's a hospitality property, but it's. You know, it's in the events space, right, the equestrian world and the other things that it had done for, you know, since the 60s, been there since the late 60s. So it had weddings, it had a restaurant, it held events, you know. So it did a lot of things. It was event space right.
Speaker 1:And how many total acres is it? 242, 242, yeah. And you guys are doing non-stop events weekends. You got soccer tournaments and you guys have obviously the cottages there, right the number one thing.
Speaker 2:Galway Down downs is number one first in equestrian property. It is, and it means that and will be that, and that business, first off, is doing better than it's ever done by the largest of margins. But they host robert and ali meal for russian. They host about 13, 14 really, um the large enough anywhere from 300 to 900 horses for one of those week shows and then they have smaller shale shows but they had probably 35 shows a year there. So the Galway equestrian world has never been remotely as strong as it is today.
Speaker 2:But part of Old Galway in the 69s it had a trailer park and so we utilized that trailer park and we put ranch houses there which primarily are geared for people who are going to equestrian events and who are going to a wedding there. So we have very little business from people coming off the property to the property. The reason we stayed at Galway is because you're going to be in a sporting event or in an equestrian event or you're getting married there. That's why you stay at Galway. So it's really a very self-contained world and we are only able to provide lodging, whether it be you bring your what do you call it? Water home there or you stay in one of the ranch houses About. I would're. What do you call it motor home there? Or you stay in one of the ranch houses you know about.
Speaker 1:I would say 5% of the people Right, that actually come and yeah for sure, weekends are very busy.
Speaker 2:End up seeing it. Whether it be Ponte or whether they be Pechanga depends on the audience. The equestrian rule, that's the sport of kings and queens. So they're staying at the higher ends South Coast, ponte, patonga, temecula Creek Inn and they do very good business from our customers that come to town, but they come for a week, right, and they do that 10, 12, 13 times a year. Yeah for sure. I know that model has been very good.
Speaker 2:We'd like to figure out a way to have more lodging because people like to come to the property, drive there and stay there, not have to come, compete in whatever they're doing and get in a car and drive back towards the 50. Into town. Is it small? No, pechanga's not, as far you can avoid going to town but you'd like to stay on the property. So that's one of our longer-term ambitions is to get more lodging there to make it easier for people to stay on property.
Speaker 2:You're probably not familiar with a place called World Equestrian Center. It's in Florida. It has a big hotel and that's not our goal to have a big hotel. Our goal is to have lodging more, like a little two-bed, you know, spread around where people can stay, because people from the equestrian world particularly. They have dogs, elevators and dogs don't necessarily work. Great, you can have a sixth floor and a third floor, so we're probably going to stay. We've got to figure out a way to get more lodging, because that's what our guests and our customers want. They want that experience. So stay focused on trying to get more and more of that to fulfill that demand.
Speaker 1:That's being met anyway yeah, and it's really a beautiful piece of property. There's so much just to do right there on on the property, you know, and so with the events, of course, um makes sense that you guys would add and supply more lodging. So, since we're talking about it, um, obviously everyone's very sad, everyone's curious what's going on? The 2028 equestrian olympics we're supposed to come um. What? What happened with that?
Speaker 2:I know there's not clear answers, but I'm sure everybody would love ken smith's perspective on this well, um, yeah, yeah, I can speculate, but I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be pretty close to reality of what happened. But we went through it over a three and a half year process. We were, you know, there was a variety of that venues um, they were looking at the group that was part of le 28 looking for, you know, they were in charge of picking the venues, spur events, and we originally were not on that list and we my good friend, mike malay, who I went to middle school with and wrestled in high school, wrestled, went to lsu and wrestled. Wow, um, he, he went on to work at dizzy and so he knew that space and knew that area. So he knew some of the people that were on the la 2018 and he called his mom, said he that he'sway on your list and they said, no, they came out and looked and go yeah, there's a lot of good things here.
Speaker 2:So for after three and a half years, or three years really, it was pretty much decided. They said you guys are because you're lower cost than anybody else, because you already got all this infrastructure here, because you've got a team that can not only handle 250 horses that will come in for the Olympics, you've got a team that can handle 900 horses. Our shows get to 900 horses. So we have the equipment, we have the people, we're experienced and we can execute this. And then it's a legacy property, which means it's not like Versailles, it's not like in 1984 Olympics where they had the jumping up in Santa Anita and they had the cross country down in Fairbanks Ranch. In all those cases they build them and tear them down Right. There's nothing there for the equestrian community to benefit for decades to come.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we were very happy. They chose Galway, they designated us as the spot, and then they had one thing left to do from what we understood. They chose Galway, they designated us as the spot, and then they had one thing left to do, from what we understood, which was the LA-20 had to approve the five or six sites, the LA City Council excuse me, the five or six sites that were going to be outside the city of LA that had to be voted on and approved by city council. We were the only equestrian facility that they voted on, along with other venues that weren't related to equestrian. Yeah, and so the vote happened. We popped the champagne. We think it's done, it's over.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so not exactly sure how they undid it, but I know it has a lot to do with billionaires have a lot of money and the people who own San and they're billionaires, oh yeah, and they're um in the equestrian world and it's a big world her rights for, I believe, is trying to ride for the canadian team and the guy in charge of the la 28, casey wasserman.
Speaker 2:He also has a person in the uh writing world, so so I think that it's the sport of kings and queens, and the kings and queens decided they wanted it in Santa Anita.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so how they exactly got it done, I'm not sure. Yeah, they unraveled Money talks and all the yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm saying Money talks. I'm very disappointed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all are. It's a miss on very disappointed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all are. It's a miss on them too.
Speaker 2:Because really it's not going to be a legacy property.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So you know, Santa Anita, yep, you know, you looked at what's happened to that industry under their watch, which is the Stronach family. You can just Google it. They control 40% of it in America, in North America, canada and the United States, and under their watch, the industry hasn't done well and as San Andreas is not doing well, the whole industry. It closed down in Northern California and I've even heard that San Andreas for sale. We wouldn't be surprised if the right price came along. They'll sell before the Olympics happened.
Speaker 2:I don't know yet to be true, but They'll sell it before the Olympics happen. I don't know. I need it to be true, but it's hard to tell what would happen. All I know is that we took a property out of bankruptcy in 2010 and built it to a model of success in the equestrian world, and they've taken a business that's been around for a century for sure horse racing and it hasn't thrived. In fact, it's going down and going down, and going down and they end up getting it and they're not. You know, they're horse race people. They're not really in the business of an English style riding in their business. Their daughters may be or their granddaughters may be, but they're not in that business historically.
Speaker 2:They're not in that business historically. So it's disappointing how and you look and go you try to reward the right models of success. In our minds. We build a model of success that go all the way down. That's right, and they are not the stewards of the model of success currently, but they got the thing and I think you hit it right on the head. Money talks and exactly how and where it talked and when it talked. Yeah, I don't know. I just know it talked and was all said and done.
Speaker 1:For sure. Yeah, we're definitely sad as a city. I saw you know all throughout Facebook and through the local groups and everyone's you know what's going on. We got local city council. There's not answers. There's never going to really be answers, but at the end of the day, I think we all really know what happened, um, and and hearing you know kind of your perspective and what what you guys did like. Thank you guys. Thank you for, at least you know, putting us on the map and making an opportunity, and we know that a lot of big opportunities are going to continue to present themselves through the property that you guys have already invested in or and are going to continue to present themselves through the property that you guys have already invested in and are going to continue to invest in, so it'll keep growing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, along those lines. You know I mentioned the words before. You know, teamwork makes the dream work and we have a phenomenal team at Galway Downs. You know the folks, ali and Robert Kellerhaus, robert and Neil Faroujian and Robert Kellerhaus, the shows they put on and they have been putting on. And now recently, robert I'm sorry Ali Minferdim sold his business to Equine Network, which is a very successful company out of the Western-style world.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot of positive things going on in the equestrian world. We're at our all-time high at Galway Downs and the equestrian side of the business and that business is going to get better and better because the team we have there and again, if we can address some of the lodging, it's going to continue to make it easier for Robert and Ollie to put on world-class shows. So we're really excited about what's going on and there's no question you know we're frustrated about and disappointed about the announcement but so much positive going on at Galway Downs, so much in our future. And the reality is we got a lot of people didn't know who Galway Downs was or where it was or what it was. Now a lot more people do Absolutely Than they used to.
Speaker 2:So all that's a positive, including our local community, our local community have never been out to a show at Galway Downs, a 3D eventing or a jumping show. I would say I bet 99% of the people in Temekla come up and play sports or get married there. They've never seen what's going on on that equestrian side. I'm not an equestrian person. I wasn't born or raised in that. I told you, my dad was a schoolteacher.
Speaker 1:I didn't know this Out of Chicago.
Speaker 2:I love what those people do and I'm very impressed and I'm very entertained by it. It's top shelf and these guys are really good. We have Olympians come to Galway on a routine basis, right and just. They put on a great show and it's a great experience. So we're going to be unlike in the past. We're going to really focus on trying to make it accessible to the general public and having tickets to sell there and come and enjoy it. We have some really good, great VIP experiences there. It's really quite good. In fact, have you ever been there on a Saturday night for the Grand Prix?
Speaker 1:No, I haven't Not on a Saturday night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll invite you to the next one, one of the ones coming up. Yeah, your. I haven't, not on a Saturday night. I'll invite you to the next one, when one's coming out of your family. That'd be great. It's really. You'll be surprised. Yeah, I almost assure you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen some of the shows and I've been there. I mean, the property's great. I love horses. My dad was big into horses. He loved going down to the horse races too, so he kind of got me into that a little bit. There's actually a show that just came out on Netflix. It's about racehorses. Yes, it is. It's actually really good for anyone that's interested in just learning about the industry, the horse racing industry. It's very insightful and you can learn a lot. But yeah, I mean horses and just the equestrian industry as a whole. It's amazing. It's kind of I feel like it's a lost art. There's not as many people that really are living that lifestyle and hopefully, you know I can encourage people to do that. We bought some land out here. We're developing a family ranch and we're thinking in Portola.
Speaker 2:We're out over off de Portola and east benton out towards, yeah, that's not by bioscobiles is more in on off of de portola and that so by the horses. Yeah, yeah, that were gaui is and that you know that whole property was developed to be that and and I mean you see the signs you come into mecca unless they change it. We say you know new opportunities, old traditions, right, we're committed to try to keep the old traditions, keep Galway and in the equestrian world strong. And by those caballos, yeah, not like what's happened in Los Corralitos I mean Los Ranchitos, where you lived just outside of Los Ranchitos for 20 years.
Speaker 2:A lot of horse properties there with horse facilities. Very few horses today because the trails aren't as effective. There's no places to compete. But Galway, on the other hand, and CRC Ranch you know a lot of CRC Ranch has the Western style activities and we do the English style activities. So having those places where they host events, for the industry is very big, makes it more attractive for somebody to come and live close by and do their training for whatever discipline they're in. So we're really excited about the future there. We think that we want to keep.
Speaker 2:It's our goal to keep the equestrian world as strong as possible, and by those cabals, love it, it's our goal to keep the equestrian world as strong as possible and buy those caballos, love it and keep Galway stronger and stronger. The stronger it is, it makes it more attractive for people to want to buy it and do whatever horse discipline they're doing around the likes of CRC Ranch and Galway Downs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you nailed it on the head. You know um old traditions, right and so keeping the roots, keeping it strong, and what Temecula was built around. I mean, this was all ranch.
Speaker 2:At one point, you know, fed to all at LA. And between the slabs they used to build the buildings and and the food. They had a train line that came here. Yeah, the cattle and the of the different type of protein, right and, and the and the slabs of cement to build the buildings, but uh, it was a ranch that's otherwise bail. Ranch was a big property I'm not sure how many acres built a lot yeah, a lot more than I got, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:But we, we definitely want to play our part in bringing back local farming. I think it's. I don't think commercial farming works, and everyone who's just in that industry and has land and wants to, you know, continue to preserve the land too. It's important we need more people in that realm and people that want to, you know, kind of play their part.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be working with a couple people on doing a project right now. I'm excited. I'm working with a couple of people on doing a project Right now. We're closing escrow today on one and we're looking to wrap up three or four properties all along the lines of old traditions of cattle raising and sheep and pig pork and chickens, without all the negative parts that went with it, with the chemicals, et cetera, and then farm, so having less chemicals involved with farming. So we're looking to do that and do farm-to-table events at Galway and this other property that we're getting, which, again, it's too soon to say exactly where it is, what it is, but really excited about that opportunity to continue to expand the old traditions here.
Speaker 1:That's great. We'll have to have a conversation off camera about that. We have some old spotted, some cloushires pigs, so we just got five little piglets. They're about four weeks old now. We have nine pigs, but I got chickens, little mini horse goats, so we're working. I didn't grow up in this world either, so it's still new for me. Avi yeah.
Speaker 2:Two of our sons. I think one of our sons now only has chickens. But we like that, we think it's agritourism. Just ask we already got the wine crunch, we already got Pechanga, we got the golf courses here, we got Old Town here, we got Galway Downs here. Yeah, I think this is another great addition to just separate or, you know, to just help advance what's happening here in the Temeca Valley.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it, love it. We'll definitely have more conversation on that. We'll definitely share it too, once uh gets more settled not that far away either love it.
Speaker 2:Ready to announce some things here, probably within 60, 90 days awesome, awesome, all right, so we're.
Speaker 1:We got to kind of speed ramp this, because I know you got a busy schedule, as do I, um. So you ended up 2010 purchase galway. And then what was the next business transaction after that?
Speaker 2:Purchased a lot of property around Galway Just because my friend, who again worked with Disney, recommended buy as much property around so you'll have some options on the property. So we own property on the corner of Los Caballos and 79 South and that property is zoned and it could be a resort type property. It's in wine country, wcw. Whether we'll do that or not I don't know, but the good news is we've got other properties that can help enhance what goes on at Gullaway Downs. That's the sole reason we bought it is to have options available for us there. So those are there. And then, after we bought some property around, go away but also started looking and we bought, uh, what was called indian oaks campground and and now we're changing the native falls. We're really proud of that. That was a a treasure.
Speaker 1:it is a treasure it is a treasure I'm just getting.
Speaker 2:I'm running water year round. It's got, you know, fish in the pond, kids can swim in big boulders, big trees. You get, you go there and you don't know where you are yeah, yeah, it's a hidden gem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a very cool little place and, again, we're the current caretakers of all of our property. We're just the current caretakers of the properties and our job is to try to do the best we can for the land itself and also help bring value to people and to help fund taking care of the land Right. We'll do Native Falls, which has been a long project. That has not been an easy project or a profitable project to date, no, but I'm confident it will be. Cross Creek Golf Course we bought that, I think about four years ago. Our son, blaine, and I bought that and that was a property that was not in great shape, just like Native Falls, just like golf. Golf was in foreclosure, yeah, indian oaks was, um, it was a very. That was a mess. Yeah, people living there year round and the police a lot of drugs?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, it was not. Uh, you know, placing one to bring your family? Yeah, um, so that's changed. And trust rate was in disrepair, you know, was deferred maintenance going on there too. So all those properties we've taken and um revitalized them. That's where the legends reborn came from. The original galway downs was a legend reborn, came up that slogan back in 19 or 2015, and then these other properties are just part of the legends reborn. So we try to keep these properties that are. They have those, you know, great cornerstone pieces in them, but have been, you know, have deferred maintenance or haven't been taken care of, and try to bring them back up, uh, to, to move to a better scale. And yeah, and that's what we're committed to doing, this, we're doing it you are doing it yep and, and we're.
Speaker 2:We're not going to lose focus on that because we believe, and we think that the P&L shows as well people like that. Not only is it fun and not only is it good for the land. People enjoy being on a property that's got a lot of life to it, that's taken care of, and so it's I could say it's fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And when we first met, you had shared with me you said that through all of these businesses, you want it to be a place where families can build memories. I'll never forget that conversations and everything you do. It's about building a place where families can build memories and it showcases through your work and through the properties and through your team and the efforts and the financial responsibilities that most people don't even think about. They definitely don't think about. But all of this comes with a high level of risk too, you know. And so through that, I'm sure, on behalf it's safe for me to say, on behalf of the entire Temecula community in the valley, we appreciate you and we appreciate you, um, investing in the land and and making Temecula a better place because it doesn't go unnoticed. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so. Cross Creek and then that was about four years ago you guys have built, built that. I mean, that's a beautiful course. If you guys haven't played Cross Creek, that's a must. It's up there with Pechanga. I love Journey. Journey's a great course, cross Creek's.
Speaker 2:You know, the same Art Hill's, the one that designed Cross Creek first and then Pechanga.
Speaker 1:I did not know that. I did not know that. Okay, that makes sense. When you play it, you can see the scenarios about the.
Speaker 2:It's not just I'm bringing your driver out of every hole he's got, so you're not using your driver yet it's a par four. Yeah, so it has challenges. Obviously, journey's a premium property. Of course. You know that's really not in our sights that we're going to be equal to the likes of a journey, because we, frankly, don't have the funds to have a property at that level. Right, but we want to be. You know, within sight of that, you are pushing against it all the time. But that's, that's a, that's a gem over there for sure yeah it's a treasure, absolutely treasure, too in a different way.
Speaker 2:Right, ours is a treasure. We're very, very proud of what's going on I love that course.
Speaker 1:It's, it's a, it's a great course. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And then I know there was a couple more business journeys that you've gone through we bought.
Speaker 2:I had some money in an exchange. I sold something someplace. I had money in an exchange. I ended up buying Dan's. Bob Olson was the owner for 10 years ish and he decided he was going to move more back to Minnesota where his grandchildren were. So we bought Bob's Danza del Sol and then shortly afterwards, maybe a year later, we bought the Sea of Alvinia and then our son bought his house. Brad, our third son, and his children, his wife and children, lived there at his third house. So, bob, we feel fortunate to have assets that Bob was caretaking for a period of time and now we're all here taking those assets and we're proud of what we're doing at Danza and most people. You don't see a lot of Danza yet, but it's coming. We're about to pull our permit for the.
Speaker 2:We did change the bureau room to an event space. That was, you know, took a few years to get that done, but now Wedgwood is doing weddings there and we do celebrations of life there. It could be a variety of things. It's a beautiful property or, you know, facility, right sitting in the middle of the vineyard, and now we're going to put a terrace on and have some food and the next step after that is to put a galway spirit, reopen galway spirits, up in the old tasting room where we have our, you know, have our bakkas and our gyms that come from our grapes, through our vineyard, from our vineyards, you know, to our winemaker, to our stills, and you'll have a great grape based bakken gin which we've made for four or five years, six years, very good product, but it was more. It's difficult into the commercial side of town or where the warehouses are, but over there, in the wine country, I think it's going to do well and add a nice feature to a wine experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and that's exciting. I know a lot of people out in the community, more of the locals, know about the properties. They are beautiful, um, and I'm excited to see what you guys do with them. I know there's there's more plans, some things that we can't reveal right now, but there's some exciting things that are going to continue to happen on those properties as well, that that you guys have in store for the future.
Speaker 2:So every year we look at how we make, in each of these properties, better, yeah, and better means, too, a better value to our customers. Certainly a place, you know, we like. People come in and want to celebrate life there yeah, and they can celebrate life because someone's getting married or they're participating in a sport or they're truly celebrating someone's life that's passed away. So all of our properties are geared with just celebrate life, you know, and celebrate life. We want to make it easy for people to do that. We want to facilitate people celebrating life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it. That's amazing. So, seven-year-old paper boy now looking at you where you're at today, would you have ever thought that this would be the life that you live in? And you have five beautiful kids, married, 13 grandkids, getting to be a huge piece and asset to an amazing community Temecula. Did you think that this is what your life would look like? For sure no. This is what your life would look like For sure no.
Speaker 2:I remember when I moved here in 76, I lived in the garage cement floor of my brother's house in Lucadia and I had to drive through Rancho Santa Fe to get to Escondido at Escondido Juice Company every day except for Sunday. We didn't go to juice on Sunday, but six days a week I'd drive through Rancho Santa Fe to get picked up my juices. I drove through his mansion Sunday. We didn't deliver juice on Sunday but six days a week. I tried some Rancho Santa Fate to get my juices.
Speaker 1:I grew up near this mansion and I never once said, one day I'll have one.
Speaker 2:It's cool.
Speaker 1:That's nice, that stuff yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not touchable, but it's touchable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's there.
Speaker 2:So it's nice to have nice things and it's more fun to build nice things. It's fun to build things that people enjoy.
Speaker 1:I agree with you on that one and to do it in a community like this, where it can be appreciated readily.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things. It's a great community, there's no question it is. It's all of our five sons here. They all graduated from Temeca High School. Good community school.
Speaker 1:But community, yeah, it is. We're super grateful to to be here and be raising our family as well and to be able to, you know, get to help other businesses grow and scale. So it's, it's uh, it really is that community. I grew up in a super small town in nevada, just outside of reno, lake tahoe, and it was community. You know everybody looks after each other and you support each other and that's what really attracted me to moving here was getting that same sense of community. And you know people love, people love each other here and there's a lot of mutual respect and support and a level of gratitude for the people that do live here. They are very grateful to live here. You know they don't take it for granted and that's hard to find. Not every city is like that.
Speaker 2:I think we're all most fortunate to live in a community like this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Take it for granted sometimes, but I always try to remind myself. I had heard a sermon a long time ago and this pastor talked to him and his wife. Every day they drive home and he would say, babe, like wouldn't you love to live here? Like wouldn't you just love to have that house? And I started taking that mentality in perspective. And so when I'm with my wife, even by myself, but especially when I'm with my wife, it's like, you know, we're driving up to our house and to our land. I'm like, babe, could you imagine living here, like wouldn't it be amazing? Like we live there. But just reminding ourselves and it just creates that sense of gratitude on a consistent basis. You know, it's that constant reminder like we've got to be grateful, even like the cars we drive, like, oh, could you imagine.
Speaker 2:Like we're renting this car, but could you imagine if we're? We're renting this car, but could you imagine if we own this car? It's those little things, simple, simple pleasures of life. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we are very fortunate to live in this time and in this town, yeah, so I would ask what's next? I don't. Maybe there there is some more. What's next? You already gave us a little hint into the farm to table and possibly closing on some escrow here. Um, is there anything outside of that that that could possibly come in down the road for the the smith family?
Speaker 2:um, you know our plan to continue to keep our, raise our family here. They'll like it. Yeah, we looked at I, I, you know, before we had any grandchildren, before any of our children were married, I was convinced I wanted to move to Mexico. And then I felt, well, it's chilly, I want to just move where I just go, just move the whole family. And now my wife didn't ever like that idea.
Speaker 2:But on top of it, you know, I've traveled the world, not every place in the world, but a lot of the world, and I like a lot of places in the world, but a lot of the world. And I like a lot of places in the world. But frankly, it's tough to beat Southern California. Southern California is a very, very nice place to live. It's got great weather, tons of things to do and it's a safe place, because a lot of places you're going to look at going well, is that going to be safe or are you going to have to worry about being kidnapped all the time? I never, no, I never, no. We didn't think about that in the United States, but look in other countries. That's on the radar. It's kidnapping a big potential problem. So we're staying here, love it and I got rid of the whole thought process going. We looked around and for my lifetime we'll stay here.
Speaker 2:My children's could be different, but we really like the community. We plan to stay and invest in hyper kits. They're in sports already. We're engaged. They're not only just sports, but equestrian grandchildren and uh, not our grandsons yet, but our granddaughters are riding horses um, so that that's where we're at. We're, we're vested here. Southwest Traders is here and we'll continue to um expand on what we're doing here. And I wouldn't be surprised that in the future one of the four boys um at southwest may come away from selfish as me, get involved in the hospitality business, but I'm not sure that that will happen. Some of them have some interests, but uh, because obviously the hospitality industry is a little bit more fun than the blue collar moving cases of southeast traders, for sure.
Speaker 1:it's just they're different worlds yeah, it's a little sexier, a little more fun. Yeah, right on, that's awesome. Last words of advice I mean you've had a ton of success that came through hard work, dedication, like consistent, you know, um, investment into yourself and personal development. Um, what's your last words of advice for somebody who wants to maybe invest in real estate and, you know, build their own legacy, or even just start a business and build a successful company with you know, hundreds of employees and create a good culture? What's your last words of advice?
Speaker 2:Well, I think if in business, investing or having a business, it's really it's a business and you don't want to help you invest in, you're making a financial decision. If you're running a business, you're making a financial decision, so you really have to make sure what you're doing is sustainable, which means your P&L has got to be part of your focus. If you're not profitable, then you're at risk Because you're counting on your savings or you're counting on somebody else your parents or some financial supporter. If you don't want to be responsible to anybody, then make sure your company's financially viable and it's on its own two legs, because if it's not on its own two legs, it's at risk. It's a question of not. If it's a question of when does it become at risk, it's a question of not. If it's a question of when is it becoming at risk? To me, it's all about building financial models of success, because now you are sustainable and that's really important and that's a big focus. At all of the things that we do, particularly Galway, it's got to be financially sustainable. That's what secures it for decades to come.
Speaker 2:If I would go away, it doesn't matter. There's a financial model of success that someone else could come in and take over and take it to even better places, but barely hanging on. Then someone might come in and do something different, like put houses there or try to For sure. So, and along those lines, the P&L is very important because it is about that your financing is viable. But the other thing is you know that your financing is viable, but the other thing is you build. If you have an organization, culture is critical. You've got to have a good culture where people know they make a difference and they're you know and they got to. It's got to be real. It can't be fake. It's got to be real there that everybody's important, everybody's part of the team, and that's how you win. So it's right back to where I said. I think now the third time the teamwork makes the dream work. So I would always look at making sure you got a team that wants to make your dream work or your collective dream work of course 100.
Speaker 1:No, that's great advice and uh does not go unnoticed within your work and within your success. So we appreciate that. I know the community will as well. Any last words.
Speaker 2:Just again, I feel most fortunate. Thanks for taking the time to chat with you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for coming in. We appreciate having you.
Speaker 2:If I provide anybody value today, I feel fortunate to have done for anybody at all.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you definitely will. I'm sure people will be commenting and probably reaching out to you, so what's the best way to find Ken?
Speaker 2:KenS at GalwayDownscom.
Speaker 1:Perfect, all right, thank you, guys, appreciate you tuning in to Inside the Empire podcast with Ken Smith. Make sure to like this comment, share it. And two things Go check out Native Falls. It's a beautiful place. Bring your family, bring your kids. Second thing go check out one of the equestrian events. The property's beautiful, your kids will love the horses, you'll love the horses, and the show that they put on there is next level, so it is an olympic model, so you guys will really enjoy your time there. So thank you, ken, we appreciate you, yeah, absolutely.