Navy Vet, Land-Use Warrior, and Indie Author Todd Ockert on Episode 307

This week, Big Rich sits down with Todd Ockert—a 26-year U.S. Navy veteran turned oil-and-gas professional, land-use leader, NAMRAC facilitator, and indie author. From small-town Michigan to Top Gun-era Miramar, Todd shares how vocational electronics led him into Naval aviation, working on EA-6B Prowlers, a rough stint in recruiting, and later a long chapter at Lemoore before transitioning to Chevron and moving to West Texas.

Todd dives into his off-road journey: early Bronco days, discovering advocacy through Del Albright’s volunteer training, and leadership roles with UFWDA and the BlueRibbon Coalition. As facilitator of NAMRAC since 2018, he champions collaboration among Cal4, CORVA, ORBA, BRC, UPLA, and others—crediting that unity for recent land-use wins, including Moab route reopenings and improved coordination on Oceano Dunes.

In Texas, Todd supports TMTC’s mission at Barnwell Mountain and Escondido Draw. He explains RTP funding, Texas OHV sticker requirements, and why public land is scarce in the Lone Star State—making managed parks critical.

Transcript

[00:00:05.100] - 

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.

[00:00:46.460] - 

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[00:01:13.000] - Big Rich Klein

This week's guest is a 26-year Navy veteran, an off-road enthusiast and land use warrior, currently the NAMRAC facilitator, and a published author. My guest is Todd Ockert. Todd Ockert. It's so good to have you on the podcast and get the chance to talk about your life and wheeling and everything else that you've done in your career up to now. And I'm looking forward to this.

[00:01:44.880] - Todd Ockert

Well, Rich, sometimes I say my life is boring. And when that, and like you've told me before, I've done a lot. And so I think other people… I try to not give myself credit. I give other people credit. But basically, I was born in Redlands, California. My parents moved there from Michigan before I was born. Lived there for three years, I think, four years. I was a little kid. I don't remember when we were back, but we went back to Michigan. Grew up Until I went through Catholic high school, Catholic grade school. Hopefully, don't go digging through my background because you might find something there that's nice. I don't know. But I graduated high school in 1982. Then, hung out in Michigan for a little bit. The auto industry crashed around that time frame. Happened to meet a Navy recruiter. He come into the little Mom and Pop grocery store I was working at. It's 11 o'clock. We're trying to close. He's trying to get something caffeine-wise to drink to get him home. I talk to him. He's like, I'm like, there's nothing. My boss told me, I can't go any higher. He can't afford to pay me anymore.

[00:03:04.240] - Todd Ockert

I've been there three years, four years. I'm like, The Navy looks interesting. He's like, I'd love to talk to you. I'm really tired. Here's my card. Come see me in my office. Perfect. A couple of days later, I wandered into his office. Actually, I wandered into the Air Force office first and told him some of my background because I'd gone through a vocational electronics training for two years. Then they're like, We think you're too smart for us.

[00:03:36.960] - Big Rich Klein

The Air Force said that?

[00:03:38.820] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. We think you're too smart for us.

[00:03:41.720] - Big Rich Klein

I can see the Marine Corps saying that.

[00:03:45.140] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, I was shocked. The Navy recruiter was just down the road. I'm like, Okay, I've not seen the Navy recruiter. Walked in, talked to him. Pretty often, Gaston. I don't know how I can remember his name now, because that's been, let's see, in '60, it would have been 20, 40 years ago.

[00:04:02.120] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:04:03.380] - Todd Ockert

Man, it just came out of nowhere.

[00:04:07.500] - Big Rich Klein

Let's roll back a little bit, and we'll get into your military service here in a bit. But growing up in Michigan, were you in a large community, a rural community? What was it?

[00:04:20.320] - Todd Ockert

So Chervy City, Michigan is big by Michigan standards. I think nowadays, they're 200,000, I think, 120, 9,000, somewhere in that range. Back then, they weren't that big. Their claim to Fame is they have a cherry festival every year. It's a week-long event. They had multiple presidents visiting and be, whatever they call the visiting dignitary. Their other claim to fame is they make a lot of fudge in the area, so all the tourists, the locals call them fudgies because they're coming up to hang out for the festival and buy fudge and spend money. It's a very much touristy business and whatnot there. They used to grow a lot of cherries there. They've migrated from cherries a little bit. They still grow a lot, but they've pulled out a lot of those cherry orchids and they're actually now growing a lot of grapes. They're doing some really good wine back there.

[00:05:25.450] - Big Rich Klein

That's one of the things that is… I guess it's because I lived in the Napa area for a while. And now, everywhere we go, people are starting to grow wine and grapes. And it's just... I don't know. It's they take nice wooded areas, scrape the hillside, and put in grape orchids. Yeah, they do. I don't know.

[00:05:58.180] - Todd Ockert

I saw a It's somewhere that, you know. Grapes are growing in almost all the states in the United States. There's been two states, I think, that don't. I don't remember which ones they are. And so, well, I think Alaska is one of them, but I don't know what grows up in Alaska.

[00:06:17.980] - Big Rich Klein

Grizzly bears? Polar bears?

[00:06:24.380] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. That's something I want to run into in a dark alley.

[00:06:30.520] - Big Rich Klein

No, not at all. Not at all. I'll let you know, one of my biggest fears is polar bears. Grizzly bears, they don't hunt you down just because they see you. A polar bear has one thing in mind all the time, and that's food. What it's going to eat. And you become, if they see you, you become the next meal. That's their intent.

[00:06:59.040] - Todd Ockert

They're going to get the next entree. They don't give up. You're the next entree. Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. I don't want to be their next entree.

[00:07:07.520] - Big Rich Klein

No, not at all. Not at all. So my son worked in the North slope, up in the oil fields up there, and around their buildings, they had cages. And it wasn't keep the employees in. It was to keep the polar bears out so that when they stepped out onto the outside of the building, you weren't stepping into the jaws of a possible bear attack.

[00:07:35.880] - Todd Ockert

Wow.

[00:07:36.800] - Big Rich Klein

And they let their... They let the trucks run all the time so that they don't freeze up. But you roll into work, you leave your truck running, you get into the gate, you go to work, and you come out of the gate, jump into your warm truck. Pretty insane.

[00:08:00.800] - Todd Ockert

We just went through that here this past week.

[00:08:03.480] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah. The cold?

[00:08:05.200] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, other than no polar bears. Right.

[00:08:07.280] - Big Rich Klein

No polar bears. How cold did it get there? You're in Midland now or Odessa?

[00:08:14.580] - Todd Ockert

Odessa. Odessa. Yeah. It basically was Texas Permian Basin area. We saw four degrees.

[00:08:22.500] - Big Rich Klein

Four degrees. Wow.

[00:08:23.900] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. And with the wind chill, I think they reported negative 10, negative 12, somewhere around there.

[00:08:30.000] - Big Rich Klein

Nice.

[00:08:31.480] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, it was cold.

[00:08:34.280] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. So in Traverse City, you went to high school there. What was it? What student were you? Were you a good student or were you one of those that looked out the window waiting to get out for the bell to ring?

[00:08:50.360] - Todd Ockert

Overall, I'd say I was an average student. Definitely not the honor roll, but I was also looking out the window about what's out there in the world, what am I going to do, when's the bell ringing so I can go home? My parents got divorced, and so I was working to basically support myself for a long time. I'd get off from school, I either run home or run to work and work until 10, 11 o'clock at night, and then repeat the cycle the next day. I think it forced me to grow up and fend for myself because basically I was. Nothing against my parents. They made the decisions that they had to make. I don't look bad at them. I look down at them for it. I was old enough to take care of myself at 16, 17, so I did. Basically, I worked. I paid for my education to go to the Catholic high school because that's where I wanted to go. Otherwise, I was going to the public high school. My graduating class was 98 students, the high school across town in Turner City, 1,100 students, and so I didn't want to go there.

[00:10:13.720] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:10:15.000] - Todd Ockert

And so I paid for my own education to go to school. I don't regret it because I liked where I was going. I had all my friends were there. They gave me basically a scholarship and helped me make payments and all that stuff.

[00:10:31.640] - Big Rich Klein

Because they knew you were paying for it yourself?

[00:10:36.020] - Todd Ockert

Yes.

[00:10:36.780] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And did it... With that small of a class and everything, I would imagine school sports, maybe basketball team at the most or a baseball team, but probably not football and stuff?

[00:10:50.440] - Todd Ockert

Actually, I didn't do any. Any? Okay. Like the little high school, the grade school I went to, we had 12 students. We had basketball team through grade school, middle school that I played on. I rode the bench and a couple of shots. If you go look at my scoring record, it's zero throughout four seasons. It is what it is. When I got to high school, I was not interested in playing sports because I knew I didn't have that aptitude and whatnot. That was not me. Now, when it came to outdoor stuff, I had a few friends that that's what we enjoyed doing. We actually used to bring our fishing poles to school when the salmon were running out of Lake Michigan, run down to the local river at lunchtime, sit there fishing through lunch, catch a salmon, get up, go home, and throw it in the freezer and cook it up. That was part of high school. A lot of camping, especially in the summer when not school. I worked weekends. Whatever my schedule was, buddies and I, there was a place we called Well, it's been coming from the name of it now. It's an off-road area.

[00:12:19.880] - Todd Ockert

I had a 1966 or '68 Ford Bronco. The doors were rusted off of it. We used to take it down there and party at night, especially on weekends. That's where all the parties were down in this whole valley and whatnot. We'd come listening the old 302 with cherry bombs on it. You could hear me coming from a mile away. When I said the doors were rusted off, they literally... I walked out one morning to go to school and the driver's door was laying on the ground because Michigan put salt on the road in the I had to make that thing on to go to school.

[00:13:06.720] - Big Rich Klein

That's handy.

[00:13:09.400] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. Made it getting in and out easy. Right. I had to hold on the door going down the road, though. It was a three on the tree. That was a fun little Bronco. I don't remember what happened to me. I think when the doors fell off and my We had finally came and got it, and we took it with the junk air because it smoked, too. It had a, you know, back then, the engine's rings and stuff like that.

[00:13:37.480] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:13:38.140] - Todd Ockert

So it smoked a little bit, but it used a little oil.

[00:13:43.780] - Big Rich Klein

What was your favorite class of study?

[00:13:51.100] - Todd Ockert

My Electronics, so vocational classes in the, one of my junior and senior year in high school. The instructor was actually an old Navy electronics technician, and that's how I heard about the Navy. He talked up the Navy specifically because that's what he had did. Excuse me. He gave us that. I think I was the only one out of my class that went or joined the Navy a couple of years later. That's where I got some of that background. That helped me, actually, I got in the Navy because I'd already been trained on electronics, and I was able to move through a lot of it really quick. But it was fun. He taught it in a way that was relatable to everyday things and teaching us the theory behind electronics, electricity and electronics. And so it was really fun. I enjoyed it.

[00:14:51.400] - Big Rich Klein

I had a teacher like that that was also... He was my photography teacher. I forget. He taught other classes, but he had the photography class, and he made it very interesting. And that's why I ended up getting into photography and working at agencies and things like that, because of that teacher. And it's real important that, I think, and I don't know if it's done much anymore, but to get kids interested in things they may not know about through regular curriculum.

[00:15:35.980] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, I'd agree with it. If you follow Mike Row, he's huge into getting students into the trades.

[00:15:43.260] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[00:15:43.950] - Todd Ockert

Being out here in oil and gas, there's not enough welders and guys that can do some of that. It's back-breaking work. They make a ton of money. Getting kids to see what some of that is, you go to a trade school, learn the trade, come out of there with basically almost zero debt most of the time, and turn around and start making some pretty good money. Now, you don't go from trade school becoming a master welder in an oil field. You work through the... Being a journeyman or welder's helper, then get certified to do the different types of welding they do out here. But once you get there, and you could be there in 2-3 years.

[00:16:32.900] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, it's worthwhile. And you can save a lot of money if you do it smartly. But I think a lot of those guys, they're single, they're man-camping it, and They don't have the idea of saving money as a thought process.

[00:16:51.820] - Todd Ockert

They don't, because when the oil field crashes, the oil crashes, you can find a ton of toy haulers and side-by-side and all the other toys they bought for sale, cheap.

[00:17:00.940] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And that's the thing. Start looking in those areas when oil prices get to a point where it's not worth it any longer for them to drill. Man, those... Yeah, you're right.

[00:17:15.520] - Todd Ockert

Yeah.

[00:17:18.460] - Big Rich Klein

So then you have the interest in electrical, and the teacher gets you interested and talks about the Navy. And how long after high school did it take you to get into the Navy to go in?

[00:17:35.840] - Todd Ockert

Almost two years. Okay. Because I just turned, I turned 20 right after boot camp. And so, It's funny thing is, I left for boot camp from Travis City, Michigan, on April first, 1984. When I told people I was leaving that day, they're like, Yeah, you're kidding, right? You're kidding. It's a fool's joke, right? Yeah. I had already been down to maps and done all that processing, actually, almost a year prior. I knew what my rate was going to be, aviation electronics technician, knew where I was going to go to boot camp, knew where I was going to school, and all that.

[00:18:21.460] - Big Rich Klein

Once you got out of boot camp, what was your first assignment?

[00:18:28.040] - Todd Ockert

Memphis, Tennessee.

[00:18:30.440] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Not near the water.

[00:18:31.860] - Todd Ockert

Went- Not near the water. Went there for basic electricity and electronics. That's where my prior electronics training high school helped me. I was able to basically do the accelerated test through a good portion of it. Then got through most of that. They got into the fine Navy stuff on the radios and TACAN and radar and teaching us that, which I did pretty good on because it's still following back on some of your basic electricity stuff, teaching you how that stuff works. Then I was also signed up for their advanced electronics training. We called it after advanced first-term avionics or something like that, which gave you E4 right out of your basic training. You did all your other training. You went to this advanced first-term avionics. You got your meritorious promotion to E4. That training was six months long. I spent a year in Memphis. Okay.

[00:19:44.320] - Big Rich Klein

And Memphis is... I can imagine on leave, you spend time down on Beale Street and stuff?

[00:19:52.520] - Todd Ockert

You bring back some members.

[00:19:58.900] - Big Rich Klein

I've been down in for an extended four or five days during Beale Street Music Festival along the river there. A friend of mine was in a band that was playing, and we had a really good time.

[00:20:17.740] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, we had a lot of good time down on Beale Street in that area, going down to the river. What else did we do? Part of the things we can't talk about here.

[00:20:29.160] - Big Rich Klein

Of course.

[00:20:30.860] - Todd Ockert

That was a great place to have fun. Back then, some of the locals didn't like us because the state, if you were in the military or the Navy there, the normal drinking age was 21. But if you were in the military, it was 19.

[00:20:51.460] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, really?

[00:20:51.990] - Todd Ockert

So all these Navy sailors and marines were hanging out downtown at 19 drinking, and the locals couldn't drink it until they were 21. It's strange now. The Navy took all their electronics training, aviation training out of Memphis and moved it down to Pensacola now.

[00:21:15.040] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:21:16.940] - Todd Ockert

I don't think the Navy's got really... There's some stuff there. I just don't remember what now.

[00:21:23.860] - Big Rich Klein

After training there in Memphis, where was your next duty?

[00:21:31.420] - Todd Ockert

Fun place called Miramar, California. Oh, yeah. Just north of San Diego.

[00:21:36.520] - Big Rich Klein

Top Gun.

[00:21:38.060] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, Top Gun was there. I went through some of the training I had was at the Top Gun facilities. We got to see all those airplanes, F-14s. Actually, when I was there, they filmed a good portion of the first Top Gun movie at that time frame.

[00:21:56.660] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:21:59.860] - Todd Ockert

1985, spring and summer of '85 there. We used to run down to San Diego. We were restricted going into Mexico, so we really didn't do that a lot. We'd walk across once in a while, but we're young stud sailors. We were going down to beaches in La Hoya. It's another one down there, that area, hanging out. We were just running down to San Diego and running the Gasbank district and all that.

[00:22:35.420] - Big Rich Klein

San Diego's got a cool little nightlife going on downtown.

[00:22:40.220] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, they do.

[00:22:43.140] - Big Rich Klein

Did you spend the rest of your time there in Miramar? Because you were, what, in the Navy for 26 years?

[00:22:51.140] - Todd Ockert

I was, 26 years. No. Once I got done with my training there, my ultimate duty station was Wood Bay Island, Washington, north of Seattle. Okay. Working on airplanes that are the EA 6 feet proler, classified COM-NEV jammer. It's been retired now to the newer F-18 G, like a growler, as they call it. That was a fun airplane to work on, very electronic, intense. We had a ton of systems in it for surveillance and jamming and stuff like that. So did that for... Well, I got there in late '85, left there 2009, I think. Yeah.

[00:23:42.060] - Big Rich Klein

And was Was that your last duty?

[00:23:47.040] - Todd Ockert

I went down to San Francisco to Carl Vincent for two years, went back to Woodbury Island. I remember, ultimately, I guess, left there No, in 1999, left Woodbury Island, went to recruiting for a year, which is the hardest thing I ever did. The only time I hated the Navy, and I can say that because it's high pressure sales. High pressure sales. Your career depends on what a 17, 18, 19-year-old kid does. If they sign on the paper, you're a hero. If they don't, you're a zero. That's what they call it. So you're either a hero or zero today.

[00:24:30.780] - Big Rich Klein

Which one are you going to be? Every day.

[00:24:33.640] - Todd Ockert

Every day. Wow.

[00:24:36.300] - Big Rich Klein

How often did you get people that would come in, or were you guys recruiting, going to the schools and that thing, or was it just sitting there waiting for somebody to stumble in?

[00:24:51.280] - Todd Ockert

No, we had to… We did cold calling. We got lists of high schoolers, The army handles the AXA test in high schools, and then they would scrub the list and then give us the list that also had phone numbers on. We would start cold calling kids through there. We would go to high schools, we would hang out in malls. Any place the kids were hanging out, we had to go hang out there. Once you got one that you could start talking to, talking to them about Navy opportunities and putting them in the Navy and then all that fun stuff and all that paperwork that go along with that. You got one that wanted to join, and then you had to take them down to maps, get them through a physical, get them assigned a job, and then you'd bring them back and drop them off back at home. Then whatever the shift date was, you hoped that they didn't get cold feet by that time and not want to leave. You'd have to track them down.

[00:25:57.580] - Big Rich Klein

Great.

[00:25:59.300] - Todd Ockert

Yeah.

[00:26:00.500] - Big Rich Klein

So like a skip tracer and a recruiter at the same time?

[00:26:05.200] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, very much so.

[00:26:06.840] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. And how long did you do the recruiting thing?

[00:26:11.520] - Todd Ockert

Ours there, seven months, eight months I was not a very good recruiter. It's only a three-year tour. And so I only put one... My name is only on one contract as a recruiter. And so finally, it's like, How come you can't I'm like, I'm not a sailor. The Navy is forcing everybody into being a Navy recruiter. I was in that group that automatically just had to go. He went through the training. I knew the script. It's just I could not sell the Navy to this kid. Finally, they asked me, Tate, do you want to go back to the fleet? I'm like, Yes, please.

[00:26:54.400] - Big Rich Klein

Please.

[00:26:57.400] - Todd Ockert

That's where I ended up in Lamour, California, after recruiting. Went to a command there. We fixed avionics boxes and jet engines, hydraulic parts. Basically, the rest of my career, that was end of... I went there in 2000. No, 2000. Then retired in 2010 from Lamour, California.

[00:27:32.780] - Big Rich Klein

Lamour, for those that don't know, that's high desert?

[00:27:37.560] - Todd Ockert

I don't know if I'd call it high desert. It's the central valley of California between LA and San Francisco. Okay. All All agriculture. I mean, I-5s on one side, 99s on the other side a little bit or splitting it. Again, a very fun place to be because you were two hours to LA, 2 hours to San Francisco, Oakland, those places, 2 hours to the beach, Pizmo Beach, that place, 2 hours to the Sears, Duceursian, and those trails. So I mean, you could not ask for a better place to be stationed if you liked whatever you liked, you could find it within 2 hours. Okay.

[00:28:24.060] - Big Rich Klein

And with that, since you mentioned off-road, when did you, besides having that early bronco, when did you get involved in off-road? When did that need to off-road happen?

[00:28:45.840] - Todd Ockert

So I bought a Jeep in 2004, and it took it out of stock a little bit. Got playing with it, and I'm running with guys that are, looked at Jeeps and a bunch of other things. I'm like, okay, I need to lift kit. Put a Rubicon Express lift kit on it. Found some 35-inch tires from somebody, put those on it. Got playing around. I was doing something on the Cal Four Wheel website in their form at the time. Dennis Meyer, I don't know if you know who Dennis is. Oh, yes. He passed now, but he posted there, Hey, who would like to come to free training about land use and land efficacy? I raised my hand. He was like, No cost to you. You just have to get here. Is that Rob's Resort? I talked to my wife at the time. I'm like, Hey, let's go to this. I think it'd be fun. It was a three-day weekend. We packed up, headed on up there, and then we left after I was off work. I talked to Randy Burleson. He's like, I'll be up when you come rolling in. I'm like, We're going to be there 11 o'clock right He's like, I'll be up.

[00:30:01.800] - Todd Ockert

He goes, Just look for the guy that looks like Jesus. If you know Randy back in those days, hair, beard. We came rolling in, light swung on around. This guy came walking out of a cabin or out of the main lodge. Sure enough, I'm like, Yeah, he's right.

[00:30:21.580] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I've known Randy since '99.

[00:30:24.700] - Todd Ockert

Wow. We went through Dell's Volunteer Land Leader Stewardship Training. That's what that was. That's how my first indoctrination into land use. Delt obviously teaches that. I'd seen Delt at a couple of different events and I'm like, Who's this God in the off-road world? Went through the training, became friends with Delt through that. Then Basically, from there, I started working my way up through… My first land use role was with United Four Driver Associations as their Environmental… What was the official title? Environmental Land Use Advocate or something like that on their board. Bid that for a couple of years. Actually took the role over from John Stuart.

[00:31:26.600] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[00:31:27.320] - Todd Ockert

Who I think? Yeah, I think you know John Stuart. Did that for a couple of years, and I'm still active duty Navy deploying, and that made it hard a little bit, but I did a lot, even if I'm deployed a little bit. Left that role, and then Dell approached me and was like, Hey, would you like to come to the Blue Ribbon board? I'm like, Sure. I'll stay involved. Now I'm starting to do things with Calful Wheel a little bit, helping on some of those events, doing some Little things in the background. Del got me, he nominated me to the Blue Ribbon board. I don't remember when I first elected to that board, probably 2005, 2004, somewhere around there. I think it was. Then spent some time on that board, ultimately to position of President. I did two terms. You Greg Mom was the executive director for a while. Martin Hackworth was executive director. I helped hire Martin, helped hire Spencer Gilbert as the President. Learned a lot on that, and that really played a role into hiring you here for TNTC, Texas Motorways Trails Coalition. I used all my background knowledge from those two hiring processes in a nonprofit for some things we did I'm in the process for hiring you.

[00:33:01.900] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And there's- Of course, as we record this, nobody knows this yet. But once everybody hears this in a couple of weeks, then they'll get the reference. I mean, they'll understand.

[00:33:20.340] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. I've got that press release. I just made some changes to which I need to get it to. So I left BRC because my dad came down with cancer at the time, and he survived it. He's a cancer survivor. I left because he needed some help, and I went up there a couple of times. I know I'm in Texas, so we'll step back Because I retired from the Navy in 2010, went to work for oil and gas in California, and then made a move to Texas, West Texas, working for oil and gas. I made a couple of trips to my dad's place in Ealy, Nevada. If you've never been across Highway 50 up there, you passed through Ealy, Nevada, the loneliest highway. I left BRC because I knew he was potentially going to need some help and some other things, and so I made a decision to leave the board. It was a tough decision, but I think it was the right one on that time. I felt I'd done a lot for the organization up to that point. It was a good stepping off point, I think.

[00:34:38.360] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Yeah.

[00:34:40.380] - Todd Ockert

Now, somewhere in there, Dell, who had been the facilitator for NAMRAC, the North American Motorized Recreation Council, he's like, and I'd been going to those for a number of years at this point. He's like, I think you can facilitate this because I'm about ready to step away from it, step back a little bit. I'm like, Yeah, I'll do it. I facilitate investigations for my job at Chevron. I can facilitate this. These guys, gals, aren't any harder to facilitate than things I do in oil and gas. Just a bigger crowd at Namrock. I've taken over Namrock since I and I were just talking about the other day, 2018, is when my officially started facilitating NAMRAC, and I coordinate that every year, set up a meeting with CEMA. They give us a room, start sending out emails for all those that have typically come. I have an email list that's 150 people. Typically, we get 60 or 70 every year.

[00:35:58.120] - Big Rich Klein

That's pretty good.

[00:36:00.120] - Todd Ockert

We talk about land use. Dell used to keep it pretty structured. I did that for a couple of years and got a few complaints. Some people like it, some people like a structured meeting. One year I'm like, I'm going to shake things up. I did this standard, Here's the agenda, and this is what we're going to cover, and all that. People are shaking their heads. Finally, I just turned off the projector. I'm like, Where are you going? I'm I'm going to call it free form. We're going to talk about... I threw some things out there. Okay, let's start talking about this. What's good, what's bad, what's ugly? Then, Okay, let's talk, pick about another topic. And we did that, and The feedback was phenomenal. And so I've kept that philosophy with the meeting at NAMRAC, and it's gone exceptionally well since I... I guess, well, we didn't have a meeting in 2020, so prior to 2021, We went, I just call it free form. Basically, the agenda is we talk about what's going well, and I've been talking to them and really beating it into their heads about being very collaborative in our land use meetings and associations and whatnot.

[00:37:24.680] - Todd Ockert

I don't know if you've seen how some of the head budding that was happening years ago between Cal Four Wheel, Cvorba, Orba, a bunch of those organizations back there. They've all been coming to NAMRAC for a number of years. I watched with some of the other groups are doing that oppose us and see how they are very collaborative. I'm like, so I really started hammering that into them. I'm like, We need to be very collaborative. I'm like, If you take anything away from this meeting today, it's we need to be collaborative. You may not like the guy sitting next to you or that's in that organization, but you need to talk to him. We need to be able to discuss, what are we doing? How are we going to help each other? How are we going to help the off-roaders? Keep our public lands open? It's sunk in. Now, if you're going to look at Cal Four Wheel and COREVA and then Orba, and I'm trying to think some of the organizations back there, and BRC, they are working hand-in-hand in this land use arena. Even Cal Four Wheel working with Utah Four Drive and Upla, Utah Public Lands Alliance, they're all working together.

[00:38:47.680] - Todd Ockert

You can say, I'm the one that did that, but I think it took them to make that conscious decision to work together. To me, it's on them. I just planted the seed.

[00:39:01.800] - Big Rich Klein

I think a lot of that, it's just like in anything, like when I was an event promoter, and there was a whole bunch of different rock crawling events, series, that everybody was trying to fight for the same dollar to do what they were doing. And I think that came down to the same thing with land use, is not only were they fighting for the same dollars, but everybody wanted to be the big dog. And it became just a clash of egos driven by that need to be number one and to bring in the most money. And it's really rough when that happens.

[00:39:48.580] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, and they like to show their members that when that press release goes out, that they're the lead organization. And I tell them, I'm like, Don't care about that. Care about winning that fight. Your members are going to care that you won the fight. They're not going to care who's Kalfon Walsh at the top of the press release or Blue Ribbon or United or Koreba or Orba. They're not going to care. They just want to know that you've kept public lands open. I think if you go look at some of the latest press releases where they've had joint things for Pismo Dunes and Océano Dunes, there's a joint effort there. They don't put a lead organization on the top of the letterhead. It's like, These organizations are fighting together for this. To me, it's been a step change in the land use fight and how successful we've been in the last year and a half, two years. Yeah.

[00:40:50.980] - Big Rich Klein

And there has been a change of tide as far as land use and victories go on our public lands.

[00:41:03.720] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, very much so. A little bit of it is with the administration change that has helped to a certain degree because a lot of the land use decisions that were made under the Biden administration have now been, I'm going to say, put on the shelf. Now they are reviewing those because of proclamations that President Trump has made to review them, make sure that we're meeting everything we need supposed to, and then what those organizations or federal land use or land management is supposed to be doing for shared use. That has played a role But again, I think our organizations showing unity has opened the eyes to the land managers that, Hey, I'm not just fighting the rhythm. Now I'm Blue Ribbon and Calfour. As a unified front, they are unified.

[00:42:06.420] - Big Rich Klein

Right. It's important, that's for sure. And I got to give it to everybody that has been in the land Agenius ballpark, so to speak, a lot of credit for sticking with it. It has got to be the number one thing in the off-road industry or lifestyle that is the hardest to deal with, because everything takes so long to have any an impact, on all fronts. I mean, whether it's trying to get people involved with the organization and getting that reason out there, why it it's so important to dealing with the federal and state law makers and the states themselves and the feds, all those divisions that just would rather not listen to anybody and just do whatever they want.

[00:43:29.180] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, and definitely that. Sometimes I think they've listened to who's got the most money for a lawsuit to sue them has swayed them the most. So for years, Center for Violence, Butdiversity, SUAA, those organizations, and they still do, they still got millions of dollars in the bank compared to the Blue Ribbons and Cal Four. But I think because of the way that Blue Ribbons and Cal Four and all those organizations have come together, sharing that fight has been an eye-opening experience to those land use managers because they know that really, however they, whatever decision they make, in their record of decision. If it goes for the anti-access folks, those folks aren't going to sue. But Blue Ribbon and Cal Four and Oplia are coming right behind it with a lawsuit. They're trying to get collaborative a little bit within their aspect when they're coming to a decision. Some of the old decisions, like I said, have been put on a shelf and being redone, reviewed, and whatnot. I can't remember how many miles were reopened in Moab here not too long ago, end of last year, because of some from the administration and some because of the lawsuits that came from Upla in Blue Ribbon.

[00:44:58.900] - Todd Ockert

In that, because they didn't... Like the BLM didn't follow their own process for how they were supposed to do travel management.

[00:45:07.300] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Well, and then I heard that Escalante is being There may be a door opening to the Grand Staircase area as well. I just read something on that. I believe so. So that's one where I got involved. That was probably my first That's what it was. First foray into land use was because I was living in Cedar City, Utah at the time, and the Grand Staircase is right in that area, or one edge of it. And we really looked at it, and I started an organization and then moved back to California, and it just went away because nobody would finish doing it. There wasn't a leader out there. And so it It made it, unfortunately, SUA won that one. But it was during where they were making all the decisions, and of course, they went with the most restrictive option that they could. So hopefully that gets rescinded.

[00:46:20.800] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, I've heard about that one. And there's some other ones that, like when we were at NAMRAC, that Blue Ribbon talked about. I don't know all of them yet. Some of them, they talk to us and like, Hey, please don't go say anything about these yet. We're working these. I can't let the cat out of the bag. Sorry. No, I think that's one thing that sometimes the membership doesn't understand is that there's things going on in the background between organizational leadership, land use managers, and legislators at times to to come to some of these decisions. Those people don't want things let out of the bag early because they're trying to do things to make it legislation to where everyone's happy and things like that. But memberships sometimes need to be transparent. As much as we want to, we're being told it's almost like an NDA that we need to keep it quiet until we finally get to the point to where we're ready to release it, especially the legislators. There was a couple of deals in, I think, Southern California that were pretty close to becoming federally mandated through legislation, OATV areas, stuff like that.

[00:47:45.000] - Todd Ockert

And then somebody opened their mouth and legislators backed away. And so now you're back to the typical land fights with the land managers to get to what you want, and everybody else trying to close it. And so there's a fine line there that I think our membership does not understand at times.

[00:48:06.720] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Well, everybody wants to read the newspaper. Nobody wants to go and write the newspaper, so to speak.

[00:48:15.580] - Todd Ockert

Yep.

[00:48:16.240] - Big Rich Klein

I guess that's a bad analogy now because nobody really reads a newspaper anymore. But, okay, a news feed, let's say.

[00:48:24.520] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, news feed. So, yeah. And then, go ahead.

[00:48:32.280] - Big Rich Klein

As I said, when did you make the move? Or let's talk about when you made the move to Texas, because you were here in California, correct? Yeah. Or in Nevada, correct? To California. California. And then you made the move to Texas. And why did you do that? And what are you doing now in Texas?

[00:48:58.060] - Todd Ockert

So I was Chevrolet at the time, in 2017, in California, was downsizing their operations where I was working. They're like, Hey, Chevrolet operations in Texas is ramping up because this is premium based on they've got some newer technologies, so they need more people. We will support a move to Texas if you want to go. So I went home like, Hey, you want to move to Texas? My wife's like, Yeah, let's go. And so I applied for a job here. We left Hanford, California, December 22nd, I think, of 2017.

[00:49:42.080] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Okay.

[00:49:43.360] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. I've been here eight years. Well, I guess seven going on eight. So I made the move down here. We like it down here. It's West Texas. What can't you love about Texas?

[00:50:01.280] - Big Rich Klein

It's got everything.

[00:50:04.660] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. Wide open spaces, and it's the Wild West when it comes to oil and gas yet. It was a great move. I enjoyed my time at Chevron. Retired from there May of last year. Officially retired. Basically, my retirement date was May 31st on the payroll there. Took a month and a half off. We traveled the state a little bit, and then I took a job with another oil and gas company down here, a friend that I do competitive pistol shooting with. He's like, Hey, I heard you retired from serving. I'm like, Yep. You want to come to work for me? I'm like, Maybe. He was like, Here's the dollar figure. I'm like, Okay. Here's what I'll pay you. Okay. So But in my time here, there's almost zero public lands here in Texas.

[00:51:08.620] - Big Rich Klein

It's only 2% or 3% of the land in Texas is public land.

[00:51:16.980] - Todd Ockert

There's some state parks. They have a little bit of off-roading. Bridgeport, I think, is a state park over there. It's got some off-road stuff, but everything else is private parks. Tntc that I'm a part of. I can't remember when I got involved with them. It's been six years ago, I think, because I've heard about... When I got here, I'm like, Okay, where's the wheeling at? Everybody's like, Here, what? People here travel to... Escondido Dra is 100 miles south of me. Two parks over there at Mason. Was it Kenemsee Rocks and Wolf Caves? A hundred miles, not quite a hundred miles, 80, 90 miles from my place. So I've been to Escondido Dra. I've been to Wolf Caves. And that's really the only two places I've been here in Texas since we moved.

[00:52:23.580] - Big Rich Klein

Wolf Caves is nice because it's open all the time. As Is Cundido, Draw, TMTC, and Barnwell are open, what, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday?

[00:52:38.040] - Todd Ockert

Correct.

[00:52:38.840] - Big Rich Klein

And then Ketempci is open for specific dates. Where they're, it's like the Toyota run, and then they have a Bronco run, and they have when We Rock is there, and other events like that. And then they have once a month, or once every six weeks or so, they have a special day of their own that they put on where the park is open. So it's not open to the general public on, like every weekend.

[00:53:11.780] - Todd Ockert

Okay. Yeah, there's another park up too far from that area. I can't remember.

[00:53:20.100] - Big Rich Klein

There was one called Canyons down toward Fredericksburg, but that has closed.

[00:53:27.100] - Todd Ockert

Yeah.

[00:53:31.260] - Big Rich Klein

There is east of there before you get into Austin, there's in Marble Falls, there's a park there. Hidden Falls. Hidden Falls, yeah.

[00:53:44.780] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. Those are the biggest private parks that we have here in the state of Texas. And I think the cool thing about TMTC is we have used RTP to purchase those properties, which is, as you know, gas tax money. I don't remember the dollar figure for Barnwell Mountain. I think the figure, ultimately, total, I think we spent close to... Ttc has spent close to $13 million on Escondido draw over the years. I don't remember the initial purchase price. As you know, we're working on a new Park down near Houston called Rio Bravo, which is pretty much a motorcycle park that we're buying from the family and the father who originally built it was an off-road motorcycle guy, and he built the park and ran it for a number of years. They'd had, I guess, some huge races down there. The family came to us to ask if we wanted to purchase it, and we're working through all that stuff right now with and the family, and should be signing that contract here soon to finalize that sale.

[00:55:06.960] - Big Rich Klein

So do you guys act as TMTC? And I'm saying you guys, it's now me too, but I'm so new to the position, like two days as of this recording? Actually, not even yet. Monday is my first official day coming up, and this happens to be a Friday. So I don't even I don't know all the specifics yet, but are you guys actively looking at other properties, or is it something where somebody comes to you with an idea?

[00:55:42.560] - Todd Ockert

Well, the family came to us about Rio Bravo, and I don't know how they came about getting Barnwell Mountain because that was the first property for TMTC. I think an organization was formed. They bought that property. I don't know if the state and Shane and Stacey have all some of those details because they'd been with the organization almost from the get-go. Stacey's one of the OG guys. I think Clint is, too. He's one of the Ogie guys. Team DC has broken up into three areas, three regions. The idea was to put a park in all three regions. So Barnwell got making money. I think they started looking for property, basically, I think, region one, which is Escondido draw. Somebody found some land potentially for sale, went to the owner, Hey, we'd like to buy this, make an off-road park. You have to understand this is... We're not able to write you a check tomorrow. This is a long, drawn the lot process. It's a two to three-year process. You get all the funds through RTP, the state to write you that check. Ultimately, the owners, whoever owns the land for us can do a draw, accepted that, and we were able to buy that property.

[00:57:05.560] - Todd Ockert

We just added a couple of hundred acres last year. It's like maybe 600 acres or something like that, maybe 5,000, somewhere in there. Some great trails. Some of the trails down there are very technical, some that are way over the abilities. I call them buggy trails because not My Jeep is not set up to climb some of those trails. Coming up out of the canyon, there's some waterfalls in there that are just like, Oh, my God. But it's a fun park. It's a very fun park. It's just out in the middle of nowhere. That's its downfall sometimes. Which I think also helps it because we don't have nosy neighbors. We don't have neighbors that care about the noise. If people are riding side by sides or have loud jeeps or whatever, we don't have that neighbor that's like, You're keeping me up at 10: 00.

[00:58:09.620] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Where Barnwell, you've got a lot of looking at the Google Earth, there's not residentialals. I mean, it looks like fairly large properties, but there's neighbors right up against the property line.

[00:58:26.080] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:58:28.420] - Big Rich Klein

So was Was Escondido a park to begin with, or was it just a private property, like a ranch or something that somebody found?

[00:58:40.140] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, it was a ranch that somebody found. Once we closed the deal, through all the environmental stuff, started building trails down there. That's the cool thing is we effectively own it. We can walk something out and go, Hey, this might be a pretty cool trail. We can get with Texas Parks. We actually have to also I could go through TechSpot to finalize a trail. I don't know why, but we do.

[00:59:08.020] - Big Rich Klein

Not like they're ever going to do anything with it.

[00:59:11.840] - Todd Ockert

I know. I heard that one one day, and I'm like, What? Why does the text not care? So somebody walks it out, they map it, GPS it, and then get to put in the request of the environmental historical stuff, looking all that bugs and bunnies and that fun stuff. And then- Bugs and bunnies. Yeah. We get approval from Texas Parks, and usually Texas Parks There's a sign off on it. Then text out. Then once we've got all the signatures, then we can start building a trail. Some of the new stuff that we just acquired, they're getting ready to build some new trails down there. So adding to the trail mileage every year in that park.

[01:00:04.120] - Big Rich Klein

Nice. Rio Bravo's next. Is there anything else being eyed in other areas?

[01:00:17.420] - Todd Ockert

Not that I know of. I'm sure if we could find something, maybe South Texas or something, someone that was willing to sell something that had some potential, I'm sure we would be open I'm sure Texas Parks should be open to it because it helps their overall recreational footprint. That's the other thing. If you recreate at one of our parks, you also have to have the Texas OHV sticker because we've used Texas OHV funds or RTP funds through Texas Parks to build these parks and upgrade them and spent a lot of their money. People have to have a Texas OHV sticker to recrete there.

[01:01:01.700] - Big Rich Klein

Do people have to have an OHV sticker to go to other parks outside of the TMTC?

[01:01:08.900] - Todd Ockert

I don't think so. When I went to Wolf Caves, I don't think I had to have a Texas OHV sticker. Okay.

[01:01:16.060] - Big Rich Klein

I don't think it was a part. I don't remember ever being approached about that at either, at any of the parks that I've been to. Okay. That's interesting. But That's not a hurdle. I mean, it's not like the OHV sticker is expensive.

[01:01:38.600] - Todd Ockert

No, they're 20 bucks, and team to see buy is a block of them. All the parks have them, usually on And so if somebody comes in and doesn't have one, the park right there, the entrance gate can sell it to them. Right.

[01:01:53.120] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. So how much longer... Oh, I know what I wanted to talk about next. You're author.

[01:02:02.300] - Todd Ockert

You found that one.

[01:02:04.860] - Big Rich Klein

I bypassed it in my notes here, and there it is. Your first book out, was that the Rubicon Xscape?

[01:02:15.000] - Todd Ockert

It is. It is.

[01:02:17.430] - Big Rich Klein

Which I'll have to say I just read, and I've just ordered the other books, and I really like it. I appreciate that. I think it's interesting how the end, it's all of a sudden they're throwing in the supernatural, you might say. So you're baiting the hook, you might say, or chumming the waters.

[01:02:46.260] - Todd Ockert

Yeah. In Rubicon's escape, when I first wrote it, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so, thankfully, you've got the updated version. It was very I don't even want to say first person. It was omnipresent type writing. And so it was hard reading. I got some feedback on it. My editor, I found an editor. She looked a couple of pages of it. She threw it at me. She's like, You big dummy. I'm like, Okay, I know. I need to rewrite it. But then I already had Book 2 written, Magic Revealed: Anarchy Reigns. We changed the series to title at that point to Supernatural Apocalyptic War. My wife helped me write Book 2. That's where we really pulled in the supernatural. Then when I went back and rewrote Rubikon Escape, I pulled some supernatural stuff into it, just touching on it a little bit, and then really feed into it, and Magic Reveal: The Anarchy Revains. And then continued that into Book 3, The Reconing of Chaos and Magic. And I got the name for Book 4, which is almost done.

[01:04:06.580] - Big Rich Klein

Awesome. And is that something where you just jump into it when you need to, or do you set time aside to say, Okay, every week I'm going to write this for this many hours, or put this many hours into it? What's your process?

[01:04:27.260] - Todd Ockert

No, I really need to I don't put myself on a schedule to write, but I don't. And like right now, Book 4, I'm really under a deadline because I told my editor, I'm like, I'll have this Book 4 done. I've paid the deposit to her, and so I need to have Book 4 to her by February 23rd, actually 22nd, because she's in New Zealand. She's a different day than me. I I try to write a fair amount on weekends. Took some time at Christmas, and I did 15,000 words over the Christmas time that I was off. I try to, especially on weekends, I try to write 4,000 or 5,000 words, which is typically two chapters and whatnot. This week, I didn't have... Usually, I would try to write a little bit at night, sitting there watching TV, looking at TV, and sometimes I'll get little things like, Okay, maybe that line will work here, and things like that. I'm a little behind on book four, but I don't have that much left to write in it. I think the way I've got it plotted out, I've got four chapters left to write.

[01:05:49.700] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so you do work from a basic plot line?

[01:05:55.460] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, very much so.

[01:05:57.080] - Big Rich Klein

And then just have to fill in the... You know where You know where you're starting and you know where you're finishing. Yeah. And then a few things that you want to hit along the way on the process. Okay.

[01:06:10.800] - Todd Ockert

It's been a- Go ahead. It's It's been a fun journey. When I brought up the first one, it's like, I've been reading stuff, postapocalyptic stuff, and I'm like, I like this, but I don't like the way they talk about this military-type stuff or this stuff and whatnot, especially when it to how airplanes are flown and this airplane carrying this and that. One of the offers, and I'm not going to say his name because I love his work, but he's talked about F-18 carrying a Tomahawk missile. I'm like, No, never happened. I can't. Or talks about an airplane carrying something else or doing something else. No, that's physically impossible with an airplane. I I wanted to write something myself, and I knew the Rubicon trail. That's how I come up with Rubicon escape. Wrote that, which I didn't know what I didn't know, went back and rewrote it after basically book three was done. My editor is great, Helen, out of New Zealand. I send stuff to her, and A good editor is not cheap. I spend more on editing my books than I've made. But she gives me some, oh, my God, down to earth, gut-wrenching feedback.

[01:07:45.220] - Todd Ockert

Sometimes I'm like, I'm not good at this. I'm going to quit. I'm going to throw it on the trash. It's like, No, take a deep breath. She's doing what you paid her to do. Take it, fix the book, and send it back to her for her final edits on it. She comes back, Yeah, looks good. I like it. You're like, Oh, thank God.

[01:08:08.720] - Big Rich Klein

How do you find a book editor?

[01:08:13.600] - Todd Ockert

I went to Actually, my wife and I went to a writing conference called the Writer Con. It's in Oklahoma City. Great group of people, very friendly. They're like off-roaders, but they just write books because they're very friendly. There's some pretty big name authors there that have been really successful. You can sit down and talk to them about their journey and how they went through it. There's editors there, there's agents, publishing companies, and whatnot. You can sit down and talk to them. I made the decision to stay as an independently published author rather than trying to find an agent and then go through a publishing house. Because that could take years. I like what I'm doing. Even at writer con, there's a couple of guys that do scripts. Bob, one of the guys I've met, I shared all my books with him. He come back to me. He's like, Let me know when you got book two done. I'm like, Why, Bob? He goes, just shook his head at me like, No, not telling you. I don't know what that guy's got planned, but he wants… It's one of the new books that I'm just finishing up.

[01:09:35.320] - Todd Ockert

I just got it back from my editor. That one is called Journey Home. That's the title for Book 1 in the series is Dark Horizons. He's seen that. He only saw a very rough draft. Like I said, that one just came back from my editor.

[01:09:56.080] - Big Rich Klein

Cool.

[01:09:56.580] - Todd Ockert

What that process looks like is you write it You write the book, get it, this format or somewhat, you go through, do your edits. Typically, two or three times, you'll run through it, do your edits, looking for punctuation and grammar and all that fun stuff. Then you send it off to your editor. Journey Home, it took her four weeks to edit that book. It's 80,000 words. And an editor charges per word. And so, thankfully, with my editor being in New Zealand, there's an exchange rate that helps me.

[01:10:40.380] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[01:10:41.880] - Todd Ockert

Initially, when it comes back in New million dollars. I'm like, Oh, oh, converter, converter. She does herself. She puts comments on it, highlights things, and sometimes she'll delete some things, and It's all marked up. She could line out something, but if you really like it, you can go back and highlight and go, Hey, I really like this, but maybe you didn't like it. She gives you a comment. I'm going to reword it, and then you send it back to her and your other should come back. Yeah, no, that's good. No, I think you should still take it out because here's why. She tells me why it should stay or go or why she recommends this that, things like that. It's the one I'm looking for. Initially, when your book comes back from editing, it's like your editor has called you Baby ugly. That's the best way to look at it. She's trying to help you, or your editor is trying to help you make that into a pretty baby that people want to buy, and they respect your writing. You have to understand that when you hire an editor to do that.

[01:12:08.320] - Big Rich Klein

Are the editors genre-related necessarily or not?

[01:12:18.440] - Todd Ockert

I think some are. Mine is not. Other than, I don't think she'll do sex books and stuff like that. But she does a lot. I think she has mostly a lot of fiction. I don't know if she has done any non-fiction. She's done some writing herself. But Helen is great. But I met her at Writer Con two years ago. Talked to her. I'm like, Okay, I just need to figure out how to pay for an editor. Because initially you're like, Oh, God, that hurt. It's going to be expensive.

[01:13:10.280] - Big Rich Klein

I was like, Okay, you just need I could do this and understand how it helps your book.

[01:13:17.660] - Todd Ockert

That's where I found Helen. At writer con, there's one or two different editors that I talked to. I don't know. I got talking to Helen, and she was just trying to break into the US market a little bit. That's why she came to a writer con.

[01:13:41.780] - Big Rich Klein

You said they charged Are you charged by the word?

[01:13:47.340] - Todd Ockert

Yes.

[01:13:48.160] - Big Rich Klein

So you want to make sure you use big words or little words?

[01:13:54.440] - Todd Ockert

It varies. I mean, big words. If you can get your word count down, I guess, because you use big words and you've told your story, it's probably good. I do a combined edit, a line edit, proof edit with her, but there's a developmental edit, which... Like one of the books that I wrote, she come back. She's like, This book would have really been good to have done a developmental edit on. Then you go rewrite it, come back for a line edit or proof edit from there. She does different types of editing, and I think most people don't realize that there are different types of editing in the book process. I think the other reason why I like being an independently published author is I have far more more editorial control over my books from the editing and the covers and the distribution and stuff like that. Because if you go traditionally published, you're going to have an agent, then they pitch you a book to a publishing house where they edit the book, and they may make edits that you don't like, but they're like, This is what's going to sell. You have to show your shoulders and go, Okay.

[01:15:29.280] - Todd Ockert

They're This is how we're going to sell your book. You have a little control over the cover there. They are going to pick. You may like, Oh, I don't like that on there. I don't like those. They're like,.

[01:15:43.960] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Control. You lose control. Yeah.

[01:15:51.240] - Todd Ockert

I'm using Amy through a publishing company. She's a hybrid publisher. She's got a book cover designer that I'm using. She did the cover for a Rubik's Connixcape, and I'm using her for book four. Then she's done covers for Journey Home and Blackout Genesis, which will go on the shelf for a while until I can rewrite it. It all costs you money, where traditionally published, they front all that money, and then you get They'll pay you an upfront fee for basically the rights to your book, and they retain the rights to your book. You lose some of your rights in that book, traditionally published.

[01:16:41.460] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. Because if it... Yeah, that would Kind of like what happens in the recording industry with bands and everything, where people can hear these stories where a band becomes successful, and then they don't own any of it, and they owe the The record company, millions of dollars. And the company has made millions of dollars off of them. It's crazy. We're coming on and talking about your life and your different interests and all that. And I'm looking forward to working with you at TMTC, which for people that don't know what that is, that's Texas Motorized Trails Coalition. And you can find that on the Internet and see we're all about, Escondido Draa Recreational area, as well as the Barnwell Mountain Recreational area, and soon to be the Rio Bravo, when that deal gets finalized.

[01:17:46.800] - Todd Ockert

Correct. No, that honors mine. It's a pleasure to be here, Rich. I'm very humbled to be on your podcast, and I still think I'm not worthy. You'll find out that working with me at TTC that I'm typically not one to take any credit and accolades for anything. People doing the work and elder people deserve those credits, typically. That's where I try to push them. Now, when things go wrong, if you're the leader, okay, I screwed that up. I was part of that decision-making process. That error was on me. That's the way I led that way through my Navy career and even at Sheron. Then I do the same thing here at TMTC and whatnot. It's a pleasure to have this chat with you. It's going to be a pleasure to work with you at TMTC. I'm looking forward to where you help us take TMTC here in the future as our first executive director.

[01:18:44.620] - Big Rich Klein

Well, I'm looking forward to it as well. It is what I've wanted to do for quite a few years. At one time, I was looking for property to either lease or partner with or buy. Almost pulled the trigger on an area outside of Ketempsey that I guess, fortunately, it got bought before I made the offer on it, because I don't know. I mean, I would have been way in over my head at that point, but it was creating a partnership to do that. And I just didn't get all the partners in line quick enough before the land sold to somebody else. So it was... It's okay. So we'll We'll see how this goes. I'm really looking forward to it. And my goal has never been to disappoint anybody with what we do. I'm going to carry that same thing in with this.

[01:19:42.980] - Todd Ockert

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I know we'll have some stumbling blocks, and that's to be expected.

[01:19:48.700] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely.

[01:19:49.360] - Todd Ockert

Everything's new. We have. We have never had executive director, but we're looking forward to it. It was the right time for us to hire an executive director. I I think you're going to be fabulous and looking forward to it. And I welcome you coming here to help us move forward as we do.

[01:20:09.500] - Big Rich Klein

Well, my goal is to build something that can be passed on to the next person. So I'm looking forward to it. Again, thank you so much, Todd. And you have a great weekend, and make sure you get that next book done.

[01:20:24.820] - Todd Ockert

I will. All right. I'll start right now.

[01:20:27.560] - Big Rich Klein

All right. You take care, and I'll talk to you next week.

[01:20:31.640] - Todd Ockert

Talk to you next week. Thank you, Rich.

[01:20:34.180] - Big Rich Klein

Later. Bye-bye. Bye. 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 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 and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.