Brennan Metcalf of Brennan’s Garage on Episode 254

The engineer’s curse is strong with this one. Brennan Metcalf brings all kinds of goodies to the off-road world.  Listen in to a fascinating discussion of mods and parts. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

5:40 – One of the last summers I was up there, my stepdad came and sat next to me right when he got done haying, and I almost went to the hospital 

17:03– I wasn’t really into college that much – ended up doing an on-again, off-again; started into wildland firefighting             

27:32 – I’m sitting there with the doc and he goes, “let me see your good knee” I give him the uninjured knee and he’s like, no, no, let me see your good knee.

31:41 – Now, I just get to do, at least right now, I just get to do what I want and that’s building stuff

41:05– “let’s talk about these 300 projects, what is it that ticks in your brain to come up with stuff?” I call it the engineer’s curse 

55:06 –I branched off into doing some off-road recovery gear

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

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[00:00:05.280] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.170] - 

Whether you're crawling the Red Rocks of Moab or hauling your toys to the trail, Maxxis has the tires you can trust for performance and durability. Four wheels or two, Maxxis tires are the choice of champions because they know that whether for work or play, for fun or competition, Maxxis tires deliver. Choose Maxxis. Tread victoriously.

[00:01:13.010] - 

Have you seen 4Low magazine yet? 4Low magazine is a high-quality, well-written, four-wheel drive-focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4Low is the magazine for you. 4Low cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4Lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.

[00:01:39.840] – Big Rich Klein

My guest this week on Conversations with Big Rich has made a couple of pivots in life, but like many of us in off-road, found a way to make a hobby into a lifestyle. Brennan Metcalf turned his passion of off-road into a business. Hello, Brennan Metcalf. So good to have you on the podcast. I'm looking forward this one because you're one of those engineer, skunkworks type guy, not maybe real skunkworks, I mean. But you come up with some really cool products and some really cool ideas, and I can't wait to talk about how that as this works for you. Thank you for coming on.

[00:02:17.730] - Brennan Metcalf

Thanks for having me, Rich. I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about you with all the neat stuff that I build, I guess.

[00:02:25.380] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, looking forward to this. So the first question, the easiest question to answer for most people, where were you born and raised?

[00:02:34.000] - Brennan Metcalf

Oh, that's a tough one, actually. I don't like to admit this, but I was actually born in California.

[00:02:38.320] - Big Rich Klein

So was I. It's okay.

[00:02:41.160] - Brennan Metcalf

So, yeah, I lived there till I was about eight or nine I'm born in San Jose, California. Spent a couple of years there, and then we moved to... Just before we left California, we spent a year or two in Palm Desert, Indio area, Southern California.

[00:03:00.430] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:03:02.790] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. Of all places I ended up moving to when I was nine, we moved to this little tiny town in Idaho called Salmon.

[00:03:13.100] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, I know Salmon.

[00:03:14.530] - Brennan Metcalf

About three people do. No, just kidding. But yeah, so here I am, a nine, 10-year-old or whatever, Californian little, used to skate a little when I was a kid and ride four-wheelers and dirt bikes out in the desert and that stuff. My mom up and retires, gets out of California. She was into real estate and wanted out, was done. She wanted a simple country life, and so she moved us to Salmon, Idaho.

[00:03:51.690] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. The simple country life, did that include like chickens and goats?

[00:03:57.160] - Brennan Metcalf

Not too much when I was little. That did evolve. It was just me and my mom. She bought a little house, actually a big little house, if that makes any sense, and still wanted to do some remodeling and stuff like that. I think that took precedent. Then when I was in high school and starting to move on to college and stuff, she started expanding the little place that she bought. There There was another 9 or 10 acres that went down to the creek behind the house. Then when she bought it, that was separated. She waited for years and years until it came up for sale again and then bought that. Then when she remarried and some other stuff, then it's thousand horses and dogs and cats and everything. My parents still actually live there, still live in that house. Yeah, Now they have all the animals, and now they have a great excuse never to leave and come visit me.

[00:05:03.890] - Big Rich Klein

That means you always have to make the visit to them?

[00:05:09.540] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. Usually, I try to get up there and see them at least once a year or so. I have terrible hay fever to something around there, so I don't get to go up there much in the summers anymore. I'm almost banned from going up there. It's a pretty bad hay fever It's not just something I'm allergic to up there.

[00:05:32.410] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. It's probably that ragweed stuff that's that high desert-like area in the rocks and everything.

[00:05:40.270] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. I've never been able to put my finger on it. It's just something to do with the hay alfalfa stuff up there. My stepdad used to cut a lot of hay, including on their own property and then for neighbors and stuff like that. One of the last summers I was up there, he came and sat next to me at the or in the kitchen right when he got done haying, and I almost went to the hospital.

[00:06:06.550] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Okay.

[00:06:08.210] - Brennan Metcalf

Like fist-full of Benadryl in the whole nine yards. So, yeah, just something up there. But It was a great place to grow up, though. It was about 20 years behind everywhere else in that time frame. It was kids building pickups and going four wheeling and all that stuff. That's how I got into that world. I dabbled in it when I was a real little kid riding four wheelers and stuff around. But yeah, Salmon was just kids cruising Main, building cars and trucks and stuff like that, my whole high school life. It was really a good place to grow up that way, and it was a pretty simple, safe place to grow up. I was thankful for that.

[00:06:59.740] - Big Rich Klein

So as a kid, and you're up to nine years old, you're in San Jose, so that's like third grade, fourth grade. What was that like going from San Jose, Indio, and then to Salmon, because Salmon is pretty damn small.

[00:07:19.390] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, and it was really small back then. It was a bit of a culture shock. There was some hard feelings with mom for moving me out to the nowhere at first and having to get used to- Every kid has that. Yeah. The biggest difference was I was really used, growing up, to being able to jump on my bike and go to my friend's house whenever I wanted and go terrorize the neighborhood or whatever. When we moved to Idaho, I was still young enough that wasn't quite driving yet. When we moved to Idaho, we didn't really have any four-wheelers or motorcycles anymore. I lost my mobility to a degree, and so I had to rely on my mom, and she was busy and doing her stuff, too. And so trying to get rides into town or rides to friends house and stuff like that was a really big deal. But made some really good friends. And then because it was Idaho and it was way back then, we got our daytime driving license at 15. I think I only rode the bus a couple of months because my birthday is pretty late. And so I was pretty old for a freshman in high school, and so I got my license in just a couple of months into my freshman year in high school, a daytime license, and started driving.

[00:09:01.620] - Brennan Metcalf

That was freedom.

[00:09:04.010] - Big Rich Klein

What was that first vehicle you started driving?

[00:09:07.150] - Brennan Metcalf

First vehicle was a hand me down for my mom. It was a 1981 Toyota pickup, two-wheel drive, automatic, long bed.

[00:09:18.450] - Big Rich Klein

But still, it's amazing where you can put those things.

[00:09:25.910] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. And I wasn't super into four-wheeling then, but shortly thereafter, I think I bought my first four wheel drive pickup when I was 16 or 17. Trade it up, if you were. So caught the bug and never looked back.

[00:09:46.630] - Big Rich Klein

Would you have considered yourself... I mean, with your engineering, I'm assuming that you were a pretty good student?

[00:09:56.700] - Brennan Metcalf

In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. It was a pretty basic school. Some of it wasn't super challenging for me, and some of it I really loved. They had a really good technology education program. We got to build a lot of neat stuff, model rockets and hover crafts and hot air balloons and some pretty neat projects like that. It was a time in that school where they didn't have a traditional, I'll call it metal shop or shop class, auto shop class. Technology was the thing that took place of that. Then there was a woodshop program. I never really got into that too much. But that technology education stuff was was my first wet your whistle into building anything you wanted. Depending on what year you were in, first, second, or third year of it or what projects you got to do, they started you out building those little balsa wood bridges that you do weight tests on and stuff for efficiency. Just went from there and then basically got to do senior-level projects and pick our own stuff to do. We got into all kinds of trouble. Building some stuff we probably shouldn't have or got out of hand or worked too well or that thing.

[00:11:50.230] - Brennan Metcalf

That's what I really liked about school. I wasn't really a studious student. I definitely I worked a lot. Got my first job when I was, I think, 15, 16, washing dishes. Then I went to various around town high school job type stuff. That was the deal with mom, is if I wanted to have a vehicle, I had to pay for it in my gas and that stuff myself. So if I wanted to do stuff, I had work.

[00:12:30.320] - Big Rich Klein

Yes. You said washing dishes at a local restaurant or cafe?

[00:12:36.650] - Brennan Metcalf

Actually started at a old folks home. Okay. That was my first ever job. That one was a good job for a first job, but it was pretty far out of town. I was only there for a couple of months, and then I ended up getting a job at a cafe in town doing the same thing, just helping in the kitchen, washing dishes and stuff like that. Then it was Because I lived on one side of town, seven miles out of town, and then trying to manage that so you weren't burning all your gas money, going back and forth the worst and stuff. Eventually, we're working in town, and then I think in my junior year or so, I ended up getting a job with a couple of friends of mine that I had at the local grocery store. It was just a stalker and bagging groceries people and taking them out to the car back then, all the things they don't do anymore. Right.

[00:13:36.650] - Big Rich Klein

That's where I went for it. My mom's able to convince people to do that for her, but she's 86 years old, and she She'll hobble in, get into the electric cart, and then she's held on wheels as she drives up and down the aisles. You don't want to get in her way. And then she'll go, Hey, will you reach that for me? That thing. She's very She's very low off the ground, you might say. So that anything on the top shelf, she can't reach. I think she needs a personal shopper sometimes.

[00:14:13.360] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. I mean, you could build her a little lifted mobility scooter. I'm sure you could.

[00:14:18.310] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, I'm sure somebody could. I'm not a builder. Back in the old days, I could diagnose cars, and I was really good at R&R, but I would not consider any fab work? No, that's not me. No.

[00:14:35.530] - Brennan Metcalf

I don't know.

[00:14:35.930] - Big Rich Klein

I didn't get that gene.

[00:14:38.620] - Brennan Metcalf

I think everybody has it. You just have to use it. It gets bigger.

[00:14:42.480] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. My dad was a tool and die maker, machinist, ended up... The grade was a model maker or something like that when he finally retired. Okay. But he retired at 55 with 38 years in the government, Civil Service side, working naval shipyard, the RAD lab in San Francisco, and then for the MINT, and then Oaknell Naval Hospital with the prosthetics lab. He did all crazy stuff, not in a regular machine shop setting, making widgets for the same thing over and over and over.

[00:15:28.720] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, that's good stuff, though. I mean, I don't know if anybody does that anymore, really. I mean, I think a lot of that's being automated and whatnot. But, yeah, I've definitely spent some time in a machine shop and enjoyed it. So it's a good time.

[00:15:44.560] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Some One of the things that he designed was the packaging for the San Francisco mint for all of the proof coins. So they'd work on the machines for the proof coins. Then he worked on the packaging and creating the machines that did the packaging so that everything was done. Since they're proof coins, they don't want people touching them. Got you. And if they do, they're all in special gloves and that thing. But he was pretty good at that stuff. Me? No, not really. Woodworking was okay, as long as I didn't have to get real... Shelly will have some project, and she'll go, Can you do this? And I'm like, Babe, when I was working in the trades, I built decks and framed. I was not a finish carpenter. Let's not go there. I'm not building a dresser, that's for sure.

[00:16:48.370] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, no, I never got into the woodworking stuff too much.

[00:16:53.450] - Big Rich Klein

So then you're working at the grocery store, and what was the next step?

[00:17:03.690] - Brennan Metcalf

Graduated high school and went to college. Went to University of Idaho, in Northern Idaho, right on the Idaho-Washington border. That was an interesting experience for me. I wasn't really into college that much. Ended up doing an on-again, off-again thing just because of the cost. I ended up starting into wildland firefighting.

[00:17:34.090] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, really?

[00:17:35.080] - Brennan Metcalf

I did that actually for a decade. I was on the long-term plan for getting through school. I would do it in the offseason and to put myself through college. That went in waves. Some years I'd get two semesters in. Sometimes I would only do one. Then it would depend on what classes I needed and stuff for that year. But I was actually on the path to be trying to be, I don't know if you want to call it professional firefighter It was all wild and fire. I worked for the BLM for six years on an engine, light engine and then on to a heavy engine and was an engine boss and all the things that come as you go through the ranks there and really enjoyed that. It was a lot of outdoor time. It was a lot of off-road, but not in the sense for the fun of it, but more for the work side of it. But it was still fun. Just got to spend a crazy amount of time in lonely places, I guess, if you want to say, like remote places. I was based out of the Salmon Chalice National Forest area, but traveled all over the US in that time.

[00:19:18.500] - Brennan Metcalf

That was a really good time, I guess, in my life. Then moved on from fire engines into helicopters. I went on to work for four years in a Hella Repel crew. We would basically initial attack fires from helicopters. You'd repel into crazy places and initial attack fires in areas typically that you couldn't get other resources. We were in competition with getting to the fun fires before the smoke jumpers. There was much rivalry there, all in good fun, but that was always the same thing. So did that for four years. Then Ended up having a pretty bad PT accident my last season and cracked, I guess, if you want to call it. It felt like shattered, I'll tell you that, the head of my femur and in my knee. That was the reality check I needed that I was probably burning the candle too much at both ends.

[00:20:44.030] - Big Rich Klein

Because you guys worked hard. Was it party hard, too?

[00:20:51.030] - Brennan Metcalf

I honestly didn't have enough time to party. It was definitely a lot of working. We would work in a good season. You'd work a thousand hours over time in six months, a six-month, eight-month season, and you'd get a thousand hours plus of overtime. It was a lifestyle. It was much more than just a job. You live it, breathe it for the season. And then just about the time that you're totally burnt out, then the late fall comes and you get a break and I'd go back to school for a semester or something and get to heal up and recover and have a little bit of fun and personal time and stuff like that, and then go back and do it again.

[00:21:51.540] - Big Rich Klein

I went to college in Santa Barbara and hung out at a place that we met this guy that we ended up hanging out with, didn't go to college with us. He was working, but he was an underwater welder out on the oil rigs and stuff out off of Santa Barbara. Then during fire season, he was a hotshot.

[00:22:15.750] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, that would be a life for sure. Yeah.

[00:22:20.680] - Big Rich Klein

I thought, Man, you're doing two of the craziest jobs I can think of.

[00:22:26.510] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. I'm I miss it. I made a lot of good memories and stuff like that. But at the same time, you look back on it and you wonder why you have shoulder pain and knee pain and a bad back and that stuff. I had friends getting surgeries when they were in their 30s and stuff. It was just very… You don't see it when you're doing it, really. But looking back, you notice that I'm sure it's a lot like the military for some people and stuff like that. It's fond memories, but you look back and you're like, Wow, that was crazy. It was good. I learned a lot about people and management of people and working in super high stress environments and did a lot of medical and search and rescue and all the things. Those were all skills that took on with me to other things in life, and I'm very thankful for that and all the opportunities that I had in that world and memories I got to take away from it and stuff. Every year, I still have a couple of friends that are now a lot of the people I did that with are retired, but still, every year when fire season comes up, you get to smell the smoke, get the itch.

[00:23:59.830] - Brennan Metcalf

That thing.

[00:24:03.220] - Big Rich Klein

You were going to college at the same time as you were firefighting. Did it take you all 10 years to get through college?

[00:24:11.030] - Brennan Metcalf

No. Or did you get your degree? No, not all 10 years, but I definitely tried a different couple of things in college. I used almost all 10 years, I think, eight or nine of them. Then I was trying to figure out how to blend the two Working together, looking at moving out of active fire stuff into some research field or somewhere where I could use engineering. There was a big testing center up in Missoula, Montana, where they did a lot of development work and stuff like that, and got hurt and just decided it was time to move on. Then somewhere in there, life started budding, if you will, met my partner, Theresa, and ended up going with her to help her finish her student teaching and get her teaching degree, physics degree. And when I was recovering from my knee injury, and then we actually just up and moved to someplace new for both of us and landed down here in Durango, Colorado. She got a teaching job here, and I actually came down here with no plan, really, but was able to walk in the door at the local college here. When I was at college, I had worked for what was then Marriott and then Sodexo in the food service management side of things.

[00:25:59.370] - Brennan Metcalf

I I was able to walk into a job here doing that. Shortly thereafter, ended up with a company actually walked into a machine shop of all places, and with a pipeline company that did specialized pipeline construction stuff with what's called a liner system. That was the start of the next phase of things.

[00:26:30.900] - Big Rich Klein

How did you injure your knee, if you want to talk about it?

[00:26:35.540] - Brennan Metcalf

I was just on a PT run just up in the hills above the Hella base. The PT program on the helicopter crew was quite arduous, if you will, and literally just took one wrong step and landed funny on a rock that caused me to lose my balance as was going downhill and just the worst jamming of your knee ever as I was falling and just poked a hole in the middle of the meniscus and cracked the head of the femur. And, of course, a couple other little things in there. But, yeah, it was just...

[00:27:25.310] - Big Rich Klein

It's not a great story, like a tree falling on a friend and dove to save him? No.

[00:27:32.530] - Brennan Metcalf

I have a lot of those stories, but they didn't involve me getting hurt. Okay. But yeah, no, I was hoping that it was recoverable, but it was a really good gut check. I went in to the specialist, the ortho guy, and after I got a, whatever, CT scan and stuff like that. I'm sitting up there on the bench and he's like, okay, let me see your knee and give him the one, let me see your good knee. I give him the uninjured knee and he's like, no, no, let me see your good knee. He was just like, You're done. Even the good knee was so bad at that point that it wasn't worth trying to do it any longer. I mean, 10 years in that, doing that stuff is a lot. I got out in time that I don't have daily pain from it, but I definitely still have lingering. If I leave it in one spot too long, it starts to have issues, stuff like that.

[00:28:50.050] - Big Rich Klein

You're still pretty young.

[00:28:52.220] - Brennan Metcalf

I'm 48 now.

[00:28:53.760] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty young.

[00:28:55.230] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. I think I aged it all a little fast doing the fire thing. But yeah, I'm thankful I got out when I did. I can still do everything I want to do and don't have to live around it. Stuff like that.

[00:29:16.980] - Big Rich Klein

At 58 is when I started feeling, I'll call it feeling my age. It's one of the things that I knew that I go, Oh, I know how I injured that. I was 17, and I did this. It was high impact sports and doing stupid stuff. It catches up now, and I'm almost 67 now. It's like everything hurts.

[00:29:47.940] - Brennan Metcalf

I'm hoping that I don't end up in that. I'm hoping I got out early enough that I... I still have things, ribs that separated and poke out every once in a while, and shoulder that likes to click when I walk. But trying to transition from being super, super active in that world into essentially a desk job was quite different for me.

[00:30:23.050] - Big Rich Klein

That was an adjustment. You're still an engineer in the In the pipeline, you work for United Pipeline Systems, is that right?

[00:30:34.530] - Brennan Metcalf

I did, yeah. Oh, you did? Yeah. I worked for them for 15 years, and recently, stepped away in the last year to do my own thing. The company got bought and sold during COVID a couple of times. It was, I mean, not to go into too much stuff, and I can't go into too many details because I'm still under a non-disclosed bond disclosure thing and a whole bunch of other legal stuff. But it just was part of a big company, and then it got sold into a smaller company, and then it got cut up into a smaller company, and then it ended up being a small private company again. At that point, it just wasn't the same thing that I had been doing for so long. They were headed a different direction than I was going to go. And so it was time to do something different.

[00:31:34.900] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about that then. Is that Brenan's garage?

[00:31:41.370] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, that and and some stuff on the side with doing some fabrication work for customers and things. And honestly, just being lucky enough to be in a position that I can do I want after 15 years in the engineering field, came out of that with some really good connections and shops to work with and all that stuff and a lot of practical engineering know-how, if you will, really heavy background in computer design and modeling and solid works and tons of stuff that way, machine design and other things. Now I just get to do, at least right now, I don't know if it'll be forever, but I just get to do what I want. That's building stuff.

[00:32:50.580] - Big Rich Klein

Are you concentrating on the off-road industry? Yeah. Because that's what I see.

[00:33:00.930] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, that's definitely been my passion, I guess. Most of my life, since I was 15, 16, when I got my first four-wheel drive. Yeah, That's been one of the areas that I've enjoyed the most. I never really got into the go fast stuff. Probably, thankfully, I probably would have ended up in jail or something. But Yeah, so the off-road world stuff has been a big thing for me. One of the things that happened early on, I think when I was 16 or 17, and you actually had them or had her on your show or your podcast recently was Addi Upton and her husband, Loren, came to my high school and gave a presentation after they got done with around the world trip. I don't know if you ever got to meet Loren before he passed, but what they did still to this day is mind-blowing to me and probably the greatest Jeep off-road story of all time, if you ask me. To have that put into the back of your brain when you're 16 years old was what I would call one of the turning points or major things in my life that pointed me in that direction.

[00:34:42.600] - Brennan Metcalf

And so I've always been into the off-road world and growing up in salmon, it was a big thing, and I've just carried that with me my whole life. And built a couple of vehicles when I was working as an engineer and got to cut my spin on things and grow up with technology as things like CNC laser and plasma cutting and CNC And then the chaining got more available for people and that thing. And. Yeah, so I just get to build all my ideas that I've had squirled away for years. I literally keep a master I think the last time I counted it, it was 300 or something odd ideas.

[00:35:36.890] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Let's get into that list here in a minute. But your first, you said, I know you had the two-wheel drive Toyota pickup.

[00:35:46.630] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah.

[00:35:47.650] - Big Rich Klein

Then did you get your first four-wheel drive after that one?

[00:35:52.540] - Brennan Metcalf

Yes. I bought a 1976 Ford F150, 4 by 4 long I had a 400 V8 in it, 4-speed manual, 205, 9-inch, 44, was on 33s. I think that one I kept on 33s. Then long beds weren't cool back then. I had that one for a couple of years, maybe a year or two, and I ended up finding, It was essentially the same-ish truck, but in a short bed. I did some wheeling and dealing and trading and this, that, the other thing and ended up getting... It was a '78, I think. It had a 390 in it and still everything else pretty much the same. That one I put a little lift on and some 35s and built a bumper for it and put a big dumb loud stereo in it. All the things we do in high school. Drove that around for a while. I technically still have it. It's still on my parents' ranch sitting next to the barn. Really? Yeah. Just waiting its turn, aging to perfection, if you will.

[00:37:22.740] - Big Rich Klein

Getting that right patina.

[00:37:24.660] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, it's definitely got that. But Yeah, so drove that truck for many, many years, all basically through my fire career. I think that was... I had a couple of little beaters here and there, like tried to get a car or two that would get better mileage or something like that. But always basically came back to the pickup. And yeah, I think that was... I had a Toyota pickup in there somewhere and a a couple other little boring cars and trucks and stuff, but nothing special. And then the bad thing about fire was I just never really had time to build anything, always wanted to, but it was always just you were so busy that you really couldn't. Then I would try to go to school in the offseason. And so you weren't really building too much when you're trying to go to school. And just drove the heck out of that Ford pickup for many, many, many years. Did a lot with some little stuff here and there to it, but nothing crazy until I got into engineering and got out of fire that I started to have a house with a garage and time and tools and space and stuff like that.

[00:38:57.580] - Brennan Metcalf

Then I started building fun stuff.

[00:39:01.570] - Big Rich Klein

While you were in college is when you met Theresa?

[00:39:06.730] - Brennan Metcalf

Late in college, yeah. I'll say we actually met very early. Then we, life of a firefighter wasn't too conducive to having that much of a relationship. We were friends and that stuff and dating and whatnot, but we never really got together until very late in that. I think I was only in fire for a year before I got hurt, and then Yeah, and then we moved in and we both tried to finish getting everything done and moving out of... She was from Chicago. She had family in Salmon, and that's how we met. She used to spend the summers in salmon working with her uncle at the airport. She wanted to be a pilot. I guess it was just meant to be.

[00:40:15.840] - Big Rich Klein

University of Idaho, that's in Moscow?

[00:40:18.690] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, Moscow Pullman. It's right on the border of Washington and Idaho, north, right over the time zone., too. It was always terrible living there because it was dark all the time. It's really far north, and then it was like right at the Pacific edge of the Pacific time zone. You'd get up and go to class at 8: 00 or 9: 00, and it would be dark, and then you'd get out of class at three or four, and it would be dark. It's always dark.

[00:40:50.270] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Yeah. Because during fire season, when the days are longer, you're up in the mountains.

[00:40:59.230] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. It's You're always light. You're always working. Right.

[00:41:05.160] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about these 300 projects. Let's dive into some of those things that you've created. What is it that ticks in your brain to come up with stuff?

[00:41:25.050] - Brennan Metcalf

I call it the engineer's curse.

[00:41:28.260] - Big Rich Klein

Engineer's curse.

[00:41:29.990] - Brennan Metcalf

I like that. If I see something, my brain automatically goes to ways to improve it. It's just how I spent most of my professional career was trying to improve large industrial systems and make them more efficient or how to build them more efficient or those kinds of things. That developed a knack with being able to look an existing problem or system and just come up with a different, better, easier, more affordable, whatever the metric is you want to use way to do That turned into starting a line of products. It was very innocent at first. I I was building an old Jeep project for myself, and I was going through doing stuff. I was doing a lot of stuff back then. It was during when a entire 4x4 and forums were very, very popular and build threads and all those things. I spent a lot of time documenting builds that I was doing, and I would show things that I was making. Then I was getting contacted a lot by people as, Can you make me one of those? That turned into my first I had a few products. First product ever was basically a disk break conversion for early Jeeps.

[00:43:24.540] - Brennan Metcalf

I was just tired of the way that it was being done historically. I was in the middle of a Jeep build and I wanted to do something different. And so I did and came up with an easy way to do it. After many people contacting me and, Can you make me one of those? Can you make me one of those? I finally just relented and was able to leverage some of my manufacturing contacts from my engineering background and have things produced professionally. I didn't have the time to sit out and make a hundred of one by myself. I didn't want to do things that way. I wanted to be able to leverage my time and having things made modern manufacturing methods and stuff like that. That was the first one, and it started innocently enough. Trying to sell things on PayPal or whatever was popular back then, and then that rolled into learning the small business side of things where it was trying to make things efficient in one place. That led into doing a website in a store and putting all those things together. Basically, I just made things that I wanted and tried to make extras and would sell the extras and that turned into a thing.

[00:45:16.670] - Brennan Metcalf

Here we are four or five years later now, four years later, I think, of having the store open and everything. Now I'm doing a thousand plus orders a year by myself. Yeah, it's been fun and I've really enjoyed being able to build a lot of different things and have a lot of different products and still be small and innovative and not a bunch of marketing and that thing. I'm just doing it because I like the hobby.

[00:46:00.190] - Big Rich Klein

It's good when you can afford to keep it that way.

[00:46:08.340] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. I've probably, I don't know, been a little bit hesitant to let it grow too much, but it's got to be worth my time to do it also. That keeps me humble with it. I don't try and grow it too much. I'm not trying to be the next huge company or anything like that. I just want to build fun stuff. If I can sell a lot of them and make a decent I'm out on that enough to allow me to do what I want to do and keep making neat things and keep making different things and ideas and things like that, that's fine by me.

[00:46:56.880] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. What was What was your handle on pirate?

[00:47:03.320] - Brennan Metcalf

Miser.

[00:47:04.270] - Big Rich Klein

Miser, okay.

[00:47:05.860] - Brennan Metcalf

It was just a nickname I had from a friend of mine in high school. Back then, it It was everybody was much more anonymous to a point, and I actually missed that in some ways. But it was a lot different. I think it was a little bit better community aspect to it. I really miss parts of that with how things are done now with Facebook. Social media? Yeah. Instagram and YouTube and stuff taking the place of forums. I think we lost a lot of the ability to share tech. It was searchable in there, the whole debacle with the photo bucket when everybody lost all their images and And hosting and hot linking and all that stuff. So, yeah, I missed those days a little bit.

[00:48:09.120] - Big Rich Klein

I agree. I agree totally. It's hard to pull away from social media, whether it's Instagram or Facebook or whatever, to go back to just bulletin, bulletin boards, because I I don't watch television until seven o'clock at night. Then it comes on and we stream movies or shows that were done 10 years ago that we're just catching up on. Living on the road like Shelle and I have done for so many years, we just didn't have that ability. It's hard to go away from that because of the social aspect of Facebook and in those places, because of everything you get. But then, like you said, the people that you really want to... That sharing of tech, the sharing of experiences, just in off-road, there's more stuff. It's all those forums put into one spot instead of, here's general, here's trailer park, Yeah, the biggest difference I noticed was it was just we just lost the archive and the searchable aspect of it.

[00:49:41.700] - Brennan Metcalf

You can still share everything on Facebook, and it's really actually quite easy and good, and people do share a lot of stuff there, but there's just no way to search back through it, really. Maybe it's because there's so much of it, but it just doesn't have the same feel or result as... I mean, you can still search the old pirate bulletin board or I hate mud or whatever your pick your poison was, pack then. But those are still searchable and you still get results. And that just doesn't happen on the modern social media platforms, in my opinion. That A piece of it is missing. And then the Instagram is great, but the interaction is really limited. You can't share pictures back and forth inside a post, which is annoying. True. It limits you that way. Facebook is better that way, but then it's Facebook and searching back through Facebook doesn't seem to be a good thing. There's some things that we can do to be better with hashtags or trying to categorize a project or something like that, but it just doesn't work as well as a bulletin board or a forum did. Then YouTube has been a really great platform, but it also suffers from that same lack of interaction You just can't grow in it.

[00:51:37.990] - Brennan Metcalf

I don't think you could in a forum. I keep going back to the old build thread stuff where you had one project It was one thread or a post, I guess you would call it, that turned into a thread or however you want to term that. But all that information for that one vehicle was in one place. I my pound of flesh to photobucket every year just to keep my old built threads alive and functional.

[00:52:10.150] - Big Rich Klein

Interesting.

[00:52:11.700] - Brennan Metcalf

I had some really big ones and popular ones for my old flat vendor Jeep that I call Rango. I don't even know how many million views or something that got still to this day gets traffic and everything is quite surprising and stuff like that. But I did. I think the last one I did was my I built what I call the LX45, which was an old FJ45-esque body on a newer Land Cruiser. It was actually an LX450 chassis I did a build thread for that. Then after that, I stopped and just started doing it on the more modern social media platforms. I regret that still to this day because a lot of that information for the build, I feel, it's there somewhere, but I can't hardly even find it comparatively.

[00:53:28.600] - Big Rich Klein

You almost need to I'll read the exact name of the... However you did the initial post. We have some videos that went pretty viral, millions of millions of views, and trying to find them is difficult. And I made a list one time, just a handwritten list, and of course, I can't find that list anymore, of certain videos where I could find them.

[00:54:00.260] - Brennan Metcalf

And I thought YouTube was going to be better for some of that stuff because it's all like all my content is on one channel and it would go to one place. But honestly, I don't know. That format just doesn't seem to work for me very well for how I like to share tech. I don't know.

[00:54:29.590] - Big Rich Klein

Well, Maybe somebody will come up with a really cool way to integrate the modern social media, and I guess we call it the archaic bulletin boards, and make it so that it's the best of both worlds. But that's above my pay grade.

[00:54:50.730] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, I've got some ideas, but I have no idea how to do them. I'll just keep building widgets.

[00:54:58.180] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. What have been some of your most popular widgets?

[00:55:06.620] - Brennan Metcalf

I branched off into doing some off-road recovery gear. That's one area I found very interesting over the years. I enjoy that stuff, and so I've dabbled in that world. It's an interesting market, I'll say that. I came up with what I call the AXA device, which is a soft shackling receiver adapter. It's basically a very simple, clever way to attach a soft shackling into a receiver hitch. It was a labor of love project. The part ended up looking really simple, but was actually a really big pain in the rear to make. Just required some like 5 Access machining and things like that. But that's been really popular. Then I was an early adopter of the recovery ring concept and came up with a couple of my own little tweaks with that. I've continued to dabble in that space. Not necessarily even things for sale, but just ideas in how to rig winches with different methods, I guess, than is normal. One of my most recent ones that I've been working on is just trying to actually integrate back in some old helicopter repel technology into how we manage winch line extensions and some other things like with a throw bag to manage how we handle and deploy winch extensions, and then how we can transform a winch extension into a more multi-use item.

[00:57:18.290] - Brennan Metcalf

I came up with a way to what I call a field fit. Essentially, just having a fit on the end of the winch line permanently Instead of, typically you would do that in the manufacturing process and you would do whatever rope work you're going to do and then you would remove it. Just One day I was like, if we just leave it on there, then we could make and remake whatever length winchline extension we want in the field in 30 seconds. Just trying to come up with ways to make make common things that everybody has and use more useful so you don't have to carry as much stuff.

[00:58:11.640] - Big Rich Klein

I swear every time I pull out my extensions, Because I had a whole bunch of different length extensions made when I was doing the Chocolate Thunder recovery at KOH. Because we could have one pull vehicle and we could do recoveries from six in different places on Chocolate Thunder, just because of the way we had it rigged up. So I had all sorts of different extensions and stuff. And every time I need an extension out of my extension bag, it's like a monkey put it away, and it ends up being like when you break your fishing line, and you get that knot. Well, that's what I end up with. And it's like, I spend more time trying to get the extension out and clear instead of doing the recovery itself.

[00:59:08.240] - Brennan Metcalf

The way I started handling that was just to treat it like a rappel rope on the helicopter a dropter. So we used to use basically, essentially, it was a throw bag or a drop bag from the high angle rescue world or even a A throw bag for a safety line on a boat was another really common way to handle that. And so you flake the rope into the bag and then you leave one end out and there's a tab or a mechanism or a closable throat on the bag, and you leave the one end out. All you have to do is basically just pull that end out, and then you can just throw the bag and the bag deploys the rope to wherever you need to go.

[01:00:02.520] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[01:00:03.220] - Brennan Metcalf

Little things like that is, I guess, what I find the most fulfilling these days is just doing things like that. And sometimes that's a product, sometimes it's just trying to get the information out there and show people how to do it. Sometimes it's both, but that's been in one of the areas of for my little web store stuff is the recovery gear. I built a lot of early Jeep part products, and surprisingly, they still sell very good. But somewhere in there I was like, well, there's only so many Jeeps I could do a disk break conversion on. I better branch out into something I could sell more people. Right. Surprisingly, it's still the disk break brackets are all still the best seller, almost. I did that. Another one that I came up with a couple of years ago that was pretty popular was what I called a taller jack, which was essentially just a way to turn a well square trailer jack into an off-road recovery jack. How that came to be was a friend of mine bought I don't think I should say the name of the company, and more than one company makes them now, but they're a hydraulic off-road jack that was a replacement for the old farm jack thing.

[01:01:43.170] - Brennan Metcalf

His very expensive new hydraulic recovery jack leaked oil all over the back of his very nice Jeep. It was a campfire discussion on how How can we make something that was this package that wouldn't leak all over the back of the Jeep. It ended up being a little DIY-style kit that I designed that you weld up on a certain size, either a two and a quarter inch body or a two and a half inch body square, either a top winding or side winding trailer jack. Essentially you get a really nice little compact recovery jack. So that's been a very popular product. A lot of people saw that and was forehead smack thing. And we're early adopters, like Harry Wagner ended up writing a story about it for when Fourwheelers was still around and stuff like that. So I'm not too much in the marketing side of things, though, sadly. I'll come up with an idea and a product or whatever it else, and I'll do an initial release, and then that's about it.

[01:03:18.380] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:03:19.600] - Brennan Metcalf

And you just hope all your friends do it for you? Yeah, or customers are happy or whatever. I'm already thinking about the next 10 things I'm going to do. I don't want to spend a whole bunch of time trying to market something. I'm just doing it for the fun of it, really. And so That's that formula has actually worked out surprisingly well. I'm not a Bill Gates or Amazon or anything, but it seems to be doing just fine.

[01:03:58.800] - Big Rich Klein

Do have any other aspirations on things that you want? Not necessarily more widgets or products or anything, but the next step, you said you were 48, right?

[01:04:13.840] - Brennan Metcalf

Oh, yeah. What do I want to do when I grow up?

[01:04:18.770] - Big Rich Klein

That's a good way of putting it.

[01:04:22.140] - Brennan Metcalf

Now that I'm in a position where I'm comfortable enough to do what I want, I definitely have some more trips and starting to maybe perhaps get into more of the expedition side of things. This is the stuff from Patty and Lauren coming back up is doing some trips like that. Would I love to around the world? Absolutely. Is it politically possible these days?

[01:05:05.220] - Big Rich Klein

I don't know. Maybe if you're not American.

[01:05:09.980] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. There's some stuff there I definitely would like to travel more and explore more, spend some more time out, things like that. We've been doing more of that. I have a group that I've been wheeling with pretty much my whole We met in college and stayed in touch or even earlier, some of them, friends from high school and stuff. We try to get together once or twice a year and do a big trip somewhere. Doing hopefully more of those, how that can.

[01:05:50.740] - Big Rich Klein

That's my goal. We did 16, 18 days. I forget how many days it was. I was in Australia. Oh, that'd be great. We rented a 110 Land Rover, and that was all set up. All we did was bring our clothes and then stop at the grocery store. We were able to camp out of that thing with the rooftop tent and the kitchen and all the stuff that had in it. It was so cool. But I know that the next time I go back, I got to be able to spend six months.

[01:06:27.430] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, that's how we are, too, is that we're just getting to the point now where I can get away for a week a month. That's a ton compared to what I could do when I was in the professional world. I'm trying to take advantage of that more and do more like that. But now I have to feed the web store and make sure I get all my orders out and stuff like that, too. There's a balance there, but I feel like I have more time than I used to. It's still surprisingly how little time it feels like I have sometimes, but I'll never have enough time.

[01:07:18.270] - Big Rich Klein

We created a thing that we want to do, and it's we want to visit all the lands. You got Greenland, Iceland, Finland, We're going to go to all the lands, or most of them. There's some that we may not do. But that's our goal, is to visit the lands. Then, of course, that'll lead into everything around them that doesn't have land attached to it. But I'm thinking that that was a good start.

[01:07:54.000] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, no, that sounds fantastic.

[01:07:57.230] - Big Rich Klein

Do you have anything like that? I mean, is there some place that you really want to go explore?

[01:08:05.660] - Brennan Metcalf

I mean, explore/vacation. We've been trying to go to Sicily for the last three years.

[01:08:12.680] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[01:08:13.040] - Brennan Metcalf

And we swear we're going to make it happen this year. But, yeah, last year we had a little bit of a family thing with a nephew that lost a battle to cancer and that thing. So it's It sometimes gets in the way, but we'll get there.

[01:08:34.530] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, family commitments. That's what's happening with Shelle and I is we're in Northern California now, back where I grew up, taking care of my mom. My dad passed away a couple of months ago, well, August. He was 30 days shy of his 90th birthday. Now we're here with mom, taking care of her and making sure she gets to the doctors and does all the things that comes with age. And inevitably, at some point, we will be able to start the traveling again. And it's one of those things, when you get the chance to do it, just do it. If you wait and say, oh, we could do that in four or five years, which is what we were doing, Now, it may be another four or five years or who knows how long.

[01:09:36.320] - Brennan Metcalf

I agree. I was lucky enough when I was doing the professional engineer thing that I got to travel quite a bit of interesting places. Not the same places probably everybody else goes to, but got to spend some time in the Middle East Mexico and some other places. That was getting to see probably the places that people don't normally go to. That was definitely eye-opening. Definitely made me want to do more. Excellent.

[01:10:27.240] - Big Rich Klein

Do you Do you have a stock flat vendor, one that qualifies?

[01:10:35.590] - Brennan Metcalf

No. No? No, I do not. My flat vendor is the furthest from stock you will probably ever find.

[01:10:42.830] - Big Rich Klein

No, I've seen it and seen the photos.

[01:10:46.470] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. I really love that world. When I built my flat vendor, it was the beginning of the resurgence when they were getting popular again. I did a lot with it and had a lot of good times in it and that things. I still sometimes think that the worst thing I ever did was build something else. But the more than one mouth to feed and stuff like that. But we still get together every year and we do what's called the Friday Flat Fender Fun Run. We usually do it. It's the Friday of the week of Easter Jeep. We all get together, all the old flatties that are in town. Now, it's one of those things where it's taken on a life of its own and people come just for that and everything. But we've always tried to keep it low key and underground and that thing and not make it a big thing. But I look forward to that every year. And that's my home haunt, if you will, for wheeling. It's where if I want to go someplace for a weekend or something, it's close enough to Durango that I can go there. That's where I spend a lot of time.

[01:12:27.110] - Brennan Metcalf

And so I'm able I'm trying to find places and trails and stuff that aren't the normal stuff. I've really been enjoying doing that for everybody lately is not going on the same dozen trails that everybody else goes on during Easter Jeep. Not necessarily super hard stuff or anything, but just different and unique and that. That's been really enjoyable As of late, with all the closures and stuff in that area, then it's probably more important than ever to get out and use some of that stuff so they don't close it, hopefully.

[01:13:13.880] - Big Rich Klein

So true. Hopefully, the new administration helps draw back some of that stuff that has been closed.

[01:13:21.830] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, or at least lets us catch our breath and finish some of the legal battles that we have already going with some of it and get ahead of it because it was just so aggressive for so many years.

[01:13:37.630] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, it just seemed like every week, something else was getting closed.

[01:13:40.730] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah.

[01:13:41.260] - Big Rich Klein

It was crazy.

[01:13:44.060] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, that and just looking forward to building new stuff. I started a new, new, new, new, new Got me out there and doing really big stuff like ultimate adventure and whatnot was my old flatty. That wasn't the only thing that I wanted. Just continuing to build stuff and different stuff and try different stuff and building a JKU right now of all things. But really enjoy I'm taking a swing at building things a little differently than most people, maybe.

[01:14:37.150] - Big Rich Klein

Well, we just today purchased a 2000 Wrangler TJ. That is stock. I mean, it's got 30 by 950s on it. I think it is. And that is... I mean, first thing I did was like, Oh, I could do... And I'm like, No, you're not going to. You're going to leave it just as it is. Maybe go with just a hair bigger tire or wider if I can get something. But I don't... I'm not going... It's got Steelys on it. They're going to stay that way until they get rusty because we're going to take it and leave it down in Texas where our boat is at. Sure. We can just fly in and have a vehicle already there.

[01:15:25.020] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, I went through that with my JTE build. I'm just right in the middle of a big, huge change to it right now. I had a couple of messages where people were, I thought you were going to leave this one stock. I'm like, Who do you think you're talking to? I was never going to leave this stock. I just did a whole video about how the whole plan for it, and barely nobody watched my YouTube because I laid it all out. Then they were like, I don't know. There was a miscommunication somewhere. I was like, No, I just didn't want to do the iterations of... I didn't want to have it be stock and then 33s, and then 35s and then 37s and then 40s. I just went from bone stock all the way to 40s. There you go. One step.

[01:16:10.590] - Big Rich Klein

I promise this one is going to stay stuck. It's already got radios. It's got a winch. It's got ham in it. It's all it needs.

[01:16:28.510] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah. And for what? If we're doing a lot of things, that is all you need. There's a lot of that in the sport also.

[01:16:38.800] - Big Rich Klein

In Texas, it's running on the beaches down in South Texas on the Coast. So it'll do fine on the beaches. Well, Brenan, I want to say thank you so much for spending the last hour and change with me and talking about your life and what you do and what you've done. I appreciate it.

[01:17:04.010] - Brennan Metcalf

Yeah, no problem. It was great having you talk with you and get to tell my story a little bit.

[01:17:10.270] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. I think it's great. And if people want to take a look at your products, where can they find them? What's your website?

[01:17:18.660] - Brennan Metcalf

It's brennons-garage. Com. They can also find me on... I have a Facebook page for that and Instagram and all I do that stuff, too. Instagram is just my full name, just Brenan Metcaff. Then Facebook, I have both. That's basically... I The YouTube channel is just Brenan's Garage. But with all those places, that's usually a good way to get a hold of me. I do like talking to people about their projects and helping them where I can and carrying Raining on the tech tradition from the old pirate days and point people in the right direction and whatnot.

[01:18:09.320] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Well, I want to say thank you for what you do. We need those engineer types out there that want to build a better mousetrap. I appreciate it because I'm not doing it. I look on the Internet and go, Okay, what's new? What's somebody got out to figure out, to solve what I need. So I appreciate the work that you do and others like you. And hopefully people will flood your store.

[01:18:44.690] - Brennan Metcalf

That would be nice. Yeah. Let me build some more widgets.

[01:18:48.650] - Big Rich Klein

There you go. All right. Thanks, Rich. All right. You take care and thank you so much.

[01:18:53.330] - Brennan Metcalf

Yep. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

[01:18:55.840] - Big Rich Klein

Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.