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Admiral Scott Powell: The Texas Navy Association & Preserving the Texas Navy
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAztqlphMdE
Texian Navy Day 2024 https://www.texasnavy.org/event-5812705
I sit down with the President of the Texas Navy Association, Scott Powell & discuss a few aspects to the Texas Navy Association. Scott is a commissioned Admiral in the Texas Navy, only made possible by the Governor of Texas.
Today, the Texas Navy exists primarily as a symbol of historical pride and maritime heritage rather than a functioning military force. It is maintained and celebrated through the nonprofit organization The Texas Navy Association, which works to preserve its legacy and educate the public about the Navy's historical significance to Texas.
Key efforts include organizing events like Texian Navy Day, supporting museums like the Texas Maritime Museum, and promoting historical preservation projects, including those involving notable vessels. These initiatives help keep the spirit of the Texas Navy alive and honor its contributions to Texas history.
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Galveston Island is the home port of the Texas Navy. So now we look at Galveston Island, fort Point In 1835, from the original Texas Navy to today. The US Coast Guard is still an active base at Fort Point. When you come in you say, well, how do I promote the great history of Texas? Well then you sit back and you say, well, governor Price Daniels said the flotilla needs to be recognized every year.
Speaker 2:It is no exaggeration to say that without the Texas Navy there probably would have been no Lone Star State and possibly the state of Texas would still be a part of Mexico. Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
Speaker 1:I've retired and I've been in the Texas Navy and now I'm president and she says if you're going to work this hard, why didn't you go get another board job somewhere and get paid?
Speaker 3:I know Well man are you ready to get started.
Speaker 2:That was just fun. I like the warm up. That was great.
Speaker 3:I might have to put that behind that story, behind a paywall, if people would like to pay for that story that'd be great, Can you, Scott? Can you give us a little bit of background on yourself and we'll get into it right after you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm a Texas boy and I grew up over in the Baytown area, directly across from the San Jacinto Monument. As a kid, you know, I played in the waters over there around what today is the Baytown Nature Reserve and Burnett's Bay and Crystal Bay and Scotts Bay. And I mean as a kid the water system there at San Jacinto Junction was just our playground. We had sailboats and canoes and kayaks. We'd get a group of kids together and we'd canoe over to San Jacinto Battleground during the summers and hang out and play in the battlefields and climb all over the battleship Texas, you know that was just part of our backyard.
Speaker 1:I'm descended, you know, not quite into the original 300, not quite into the original 300, short by just a couple of years. So my family goes way back into the Texas history. On the opposite side we were the first family over in Louisiana. My ancestors actually built and operated the first steam tugboat that pulled the sailing ships up the Mississippi to New Orleans. Wow, yeah, that is awesome. So long, long history of the maritime background and growing up on the ship channel watching the ships go up and down, you know as a kid, and it was a different time back then. You know it's, wear your life jacket and be home before dark, because all the parents did was count to see how many of the floating assets were in the yard, to see if you were not home or not. And other than that, we had a ball. When I was 10 years old, dad kind of kicked off my 10th 10-year birthday with a 10-foot hydroplane for a 10-year-old with a 10-horse Mercury motor on it. Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:And I would run that boat from our house in the old neighborhood of Brownwood all over the bay system and up into the San Jacinto River, and it was, you know, had a ball, and so it has always stuck. Yalveston Bay has always been very special to me, and when I returned to go to college down here and it was truly a coming home and I couldn't ask for anything better to be part of the Galveston waterfront community, to be educated here in Galveston as a cadet, the ferry system was unbelievably gracious to us cadets because they would allow us at night to come and ride the wheelhouses and practice shooting radar plots for practice, yeah. And the tugboats G&H knew them well because they helped the cadets out too. We were always welcome in the wheelhouse of the G&H tugs to learn to navigate and do ship turnings and barge transitions as just extra wheelhouse labor, and the experience that we gained was unbelievably precious, and so you could never reward those companies enough for helping build the careers that came out of it.
Speaker 3:You know, my dad was a captain on the ferry for 28 years and it was a deckhand for three years before that, so he might have been out there with you at one of those points.
Speaker 1:That's it. Yeah, no, it's good careers.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's a good, real good career path, excellent. So then you got into a real good career path.
Speaker 3:Excellent. So then you got into a little oil and gas, didn't you?
Speaker 1:You know, I started off on the tankers third officer and moved on up through the tanker system to captain and sailed on the big ships and sailed on the big ships. I was on the smaller ships sailing between Port of Houston and up the East Coast hauling refined product. I moved out to the West Coast and then I was at a time when the company was getting rid of some vessels and I was a young captain at the time and so they they sent me off to salvage school because I was also an engineer, and I came back from salvage school just in time for the Exxon Valdez to happen and I got loaned out to Exxon to assist with the removal of the Valdez and I integrated right into a great group of guys Good process Got real well acquainted with a lot of the Coasties, coast Guard guys and women that I would actually interface for the next 25, 30 years of my career. We all cut our teeth up there in Alaska when the Valdez was pretty well done.
Speaker 1:I later got an invite to join the American Bureau of Shipping and I really liked the field work and so I did nothing for about a nine-year period except go around the world dealing with ship accidents, burnt and twisted and broken steel and pulling vessels off of reefs and sandbars and doing everything I could to save the vessel and keep it from going to true salvage. And so that right there earned me a reputation in another sector of the oil industry because I supported some offshore well control events where they were floating assets. I was asked if I wanted to join a little company, wild Well Control, and it was. You know, very few people understand that arena. It's a very small niche and it's fascinating. I spent my next 20 years, you know, as their vice president and doing the offshore and subsea work. Loved every bit of it up until the day I retired.
Speaker 3:It sounds like a super exciting career.
Speaker 1:It's been three exciting careers and every one of them have built right on themselves. I've got guys that are in the Texas Navy with me, that were with me literally up to 37 years and so good following. Because you don't do anything by yourself, it takes a real team effort.
Speaker 3:That is awesome. So your experience as a kid growing up basically where the San Jacinto Monument is and Battleship Texas where it was, and then tied into your maritime career, that kind of also rolled into the position you're in now at the Texas Navy right.
Speaker 1:Yes, it did, and our family actually. If you were to look at a map back in the early days where the Lynchburg Ferry is, it had a finger point that ran down the north side of the channel almost to the Fred Hartman Bridge.
Speaker 1:That was original Lynch family land grant property and our family had gotten property on the upper side of Burnett Bay in the town of Baytown, which I'm original founding family of the Baytown area oh wow yeah, the Brownss, the woosters, uh, the crows and our family members uh, acquired the lynch family properties because not long after the san jacinto battle mr lynch got ill and passed away, leaving his wife and kids, and, and so she was needing money and so she was divesting of some land and our family bought that land to complete all around the bay, and that's the property where David Burnett his cabin sat, which is why it was named Burnett Bay up there. That's where he and his wife lived and he had his fishing cabin and all was their own property that we eventually owned. And so it's a love of history that runs deep and far and just a real pleasure to look at and dream of what it was in those days. And I took that history, always having time to read when you're on a ship or offshore or wherever. I've always got a suitcase full of books, and most of them would be history books for where I'm going. So if I was headed into Canada or somewhere, I'd have history books on where I'm about to get to and I'd be reading those, and it's just been a life's passion.
Speaker 1:And so when Governor Abbott extended commission as Commission, as Admiral in the Texas Navy, you know, it was really, you know and that was extended for services to the state. It was like the real coup of the height of career to get that. And here I sit a few years later now as president of the Texas Navy Association and really being able to help steer, to make sure that we're positioned to go forward. You always have your eyes to the future to make sure the history is moving forward with you, and that's what we try to do, is to steer the Texas Navy Association, the Texas Navy Association. Our goal, as charged by the governor, in short, is to preserve, protect and promote the wonderful history of the state of Texas, the Texas Navy. And that history starts clear back in 1835.
Speaker 1:And with the start of it it did not start as an official Navy. What it was was? It was an approved group, authorized as opposed to licensed but authorized group of privateers, and they were charged with helping to protect the Texas coast, protect the trade between Texas and New Orleans. People don't realize just how Texas depended on the port of New Orleans, you know, with its importance, because everything that came into Texas pretty much came by ship out of New Orleans down the Mississippi, came by ship out of New Orleans, down to Mississippi and over to Galveston, down to Freeport and Velasco and then Matagorda and then all the way down to the very tip of Texas, and Matamoros was also a big trading point. And Matamoros was also a big trading point.
Speaker 1:So with that it was the progression and the privateers. They interrupted the Mexican army's ability to just constantly harass the Texas vessels and the trade vessels supplying us. But it pushed. The Republic as it was coming into being showed them the importance of having a Navy, and so that's when they authorized the acquisition of the first four sailing vessels that were rigged out as fighting schooners, and today we know three of them. We're still missing one, and someday we'll bring her home to us and at least by pinpointing where she rested and know more about her final days right off of the coast of Galveston.
Speaker 3:Mr Andy Hall was in here a few months ago. He was telling me that there's still one Texas Navy shipwreck off the coast of Galveston, somewhere that has not been located just yet.
Speaker 1:Just yet man.
Speaker 3:Do you think it's possible? I mean, it sank in the 1840s, is that right? 1830s? Yeah, so do you think it's possible, even with all the hurricanes we've had, the numerous hurricanes we've had over the past almost 200 years, that we'll be able to find it and identify it? Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Let me just boil that down to a simple yes, okay, you know. And the most important thing, when you enter into searches like that, even when you do search grids and I've done lots and lots of search grids for information in the Gulf of Mexico, because now you just proved where it's not- Right, that's right.
Speaker 1:And that's very important, because if you know that it's not behind that rock, then you don't have to go move that rock again, and so that's the key to it. An example when people say, well, will it ever be found? Parks and Wildlife and their magazines and Texas Monthly there is a shipwreck down in South Texas, on South Padre Beach, and it's just right off the beach and every few years it surfaces. They have not been able to clearly identify which vessel it is. Now there's plenty of speculation based on the size and all, but they've never excavated it to prove and it'll be there for a little while, and then the weather kicks in again and the sands shift and it disappears again. And the sand shift and it disappears again, and so it's covered up, which is good because it protects the remains from would-be treasure hunters and looters and people that just want to take a piece of the old wood home with them. You know which is so detrimental. That's why we have the antiquities laws, that we have to preserve and protect our history, and that's why the governor's charge is for us to do exactly that with the history of the Texas Navy, and so we have to learn as much as we can.
Speaker 1:The Texas Navy. It's had evolutions of its life. You had the first Texas Navy, which was made up with the four original ships, and then the second Texas Navy, where they started bringing in the steamship. One of them is stranded just off of Texas city and ended up being blown up. Then they intentionally blew the wreck and then it was an obstruction to navigation and the remnants and it was blown up again. And when they were trying to improve the commerce of Texas city.
Speaker 1:Well, we do have possession and not we, but a museum that Texas Navy Association, for short it's called the TNA. We're deeply involved with the Texas Maritime Museum down in Rockport. They have parts of the boiler and they are currently working on expanding their footprint of the museum itself and we are involved with them to design the display and how to use that as a tool to teach the Texas Navy history. And we already have a real nice display in their museum. We also have a wonderful display on board the USS Lexington. If you want to go see it specifically, as soon as you get your ticket you tell them I need a guide to take me down to the Texas Navy Museum exhibit because it's a honeycomb environment to weave your way through the ship unless you have a week to spend and rations to support you while you're down there. You know it's best to get a guide that vessel is massive.
Speaker 3:I was on there a few years ago and you don't realize how big aircraft carriers are until you get on one, and it's pretty tough to navigate when you get on there.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and how many small compartments and the doors don't go all in the same direction, and so it. It makes it fun. But yeah, we're on there. Uh, we've been on the battleship texas since 1955 in the wardroom, uh, with a nice display. And I'll regress a little bit.
Speaker 1:The battleship that is the flagship of the Texas Navy and very few people are familiar with the Buford Jester. He was only governor of Texas in 1948, and he suffered a heart attack and he was lost to the great state of Texas as a result of that heart attack. But what he did do was monumental because he's the governor that Admiral Nimitz brought the Battleship Texas to and presented it. Governor Jester in his statement says I accept the Battleship Texas on behalf of the people of Texas and I hereby dedicate the Battleship Texas as the flagship of the Texas Navy from this day forward. And so that gave us our official tie to the battleship. In 58, with Governor Price Daniels, he re-recognized and re-dedicated the flagship of Texas when he stood up the Texas Navy as the third Texas Navy. It was a standing up of civil defense activities and trying to reformulate it, and so he called on the Texas Navy to come forth on the third Saturday of each September with a flotilla of vessels that could be counted as part of the Texas Navy in 58. And coming forward. The Texas Navy was actually part of the state of Texas militia as a resource for the governor to call out and use as he would need. What happened in 74 was I don't know if it was the Sunset Commissions existed right then or not, or their predecessor most likely but it was determined that the Texas Navy, due to funding resources and all, would reinvent itself as a nonprofit organization, no longer part of the Texas militia as they were doing their best to downsize in 74. But the Texas legislator says you're now the Texas Navy Association nonprofit, and we hereby proclaim that you are the Texas Navy still in fact, and so that was in 74. Then it just keeps coming forward in that same fashion and right to this day.
Speaker 1:You know the re-recognizing of the Texas Navy and what we do and it's always our mission is to promote and preserve and protect our great history of the Texas Navy along our waters. And the governor's proclamations are very clear that when you accept your commission from the governor you are also accepting the responsibility to protect the boundaries and the waters of the state of Texas and to act if so called. And so they keep a string on you for being able to carry that title. And so then, within the Texas Navy Association, it's admirals that are tasked with the management. To be on the board, elected to the board, you have to be a commissioned admiral by the governor. The only governor can issue commissions is admirals. You know we take it extremely responsible and it's an honorary title, but it has a lot of respect and responsibilities involved with it. And so when you come in, you say, well, how do I promote the great history of Texas? Well, then you sit back and you say, well, governor Price Daniels. Governor Price Daniels said the flotilla needs to be recognized every year. And so one of the things we looked at as a group this year was you know, how do we really kickstart and get things going so that the public knows that we're taking our charge serious? And it's Texian Navy Day Since 1958, we've been charged to celebrate it on the third Saturday of each September. And so this year we sat down as a group and we said how do we want to do this? And so, coming from the background I do I'm like, well, we need to make sure that we don't exclude any of the facets, because the Texas Navy has been an evolution.
Speaker 1:It didn't just stop when the Texas Navy achieved statehood. It was actually incorporated into the US Navy at the time of statehood. It was actually incorporated into the US Navy at the time of statehood and the US Navy took over all of the assets here on Galveston Island. So 1835 to statehood, everything on the island was under the Texas Navy Statehood. It became the US Navy's responsibility and they had these built-in bases and warehouses and infrastructure right here. Well, the Navy wanted to fight foreign wars, not do anything. So as the US Coast Guard evolved, then they passed over the responsibility to the US Coast Guard. So now we look at Galveston Island, fort Point In 1835, from the original Texas Navy to today the US Coast Guard is still an active base at Fort Point. Today the US Coast Guard is still an active base at Fort Point.
Speaker 1:The mission of the Coast Guard is not just a military armed mission. It involves search and rescue, aerial assets, pollution response, big one, big piece of it. And so with that we said how do we do that? And so boat parade. That incorporates the actual theme protecting our coast from 1835 to present. So how do we do that? We have got the boat parade orchestrated to where we've got a fire tug Starting us down the channel with all the water. We've got the 200-foot offshore environmental vessel, texas Responder leading the way, the pilot boats, the Galveston Pilotage Group and we've got three Coast Guard cutters Three. We've got three Coast Guard cutters three. We've got the 87-foot Alligator, which is a beautiful patrol cutter and she's going to be floating around doing security for us on the channel during the parade. Then they have Coast Guard said they really wanted to be able to include the 164-foot fast response cutter and they're always fun to look at, yes, and she's a beauty.
Speaker 1:Well, and we've got another special treat in the 100-year-old, 125-foot retired cutter, morris. Wow, yeah, and the Morris has not been in Galveston very long and she is owned by the Vietnam Marine and Aviation Museum and they acquired her over out of San Francisco where, when she retired, she spent 17 or 18 years as a Sea Scout vessel, then went into retirement from that in a maritime museum that was foundering and trying to support her, and so these guys picked her up. They brought her around from San Francisco through the canal on her own bottom, under her own power. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah, quite the story with no glitches. You know, perfect Operated all the way, and so we're really looking forward to her. That's going to be great, yeah.
Speaker 3:Are there going to be civilian vessels in there as well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's going to be great. Yeah, are there going to be civilian vessels in there as well? Yeah, after you get past the last of the government vessels, then we've got some of the new vessels and commercial vessels right here from Galveston. The tour group just took delivery of a new 70-foot sternwheeler excursion boat, and so they're really hoping to get everything ready and be out there with it. And then we've got the pleasure yachts coming in, and I think our largest is right around 100 foot and down to I don't know what, but total prairie. It's going to be around 40, 45 vessels, so it's going to be a great day.
Speaker 3:That's going to be a sight to see. It really is and what is the date it's happening?
Speaker 1:September, the 21st, 21st of this year. At Pier 21. 21, 21. Yeah, so you can't forget it 21st day of September at Pier 21. We've got a wonderful museum or not museum but monument there at Pier 21 to commemorate and recognize the heroes of the First Navy of Texas and it's overlooking. And you've got the battleship in the background, broadside, beautiful beautiful setting.
Speaker 3:I'm really excited about that. I might even hop on one of my friend's boats and head out there to pee on the water.
Speaker 1:If you're going to do it, there's a couple of important things, because Coast Guard is doing a channel closure for the event for safety's sake, and we have two designated areas for viewing from boats. One of them it starts on the Seawolf Park side of Pelican Island from about the corner where the parking lot starts on the western edge and then it runs down. There's kind of like a bay type area right in there and that's all available for spectator boat moorage. Then on the opposite side, a little further down the channel, from where you're clear of the ferry terminal, because it's going to be running, you know, nonstop Saturday, lots of traffic back and forth to Bolivar. We don't want to do anything to impede them, but along that water's edge, be respectful of private docks that are over there, stay clear of those. But it comes all the way up to the eastern corner of the boat haven on that side, and so with those two you got to be in position before 10 o'clock, gotcha, and you can't move out until the parade's over.
Speaker 3:Gotcha because the Coast Guard will be blocking off both sides of the channel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the Coast Guard's going to have plenty of patrol vessels to make sure that everyone's safe, and that's our big thing is safety, and so it's. You know it's a big event. We've got a lot of heavy iron involved and big boats that are moving, and Galveston has never seen a parade like this before.
Speaker 3:I'm excited about this. I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 1:It's a glorious way to celebrate Texas Navy Day and honor exactly what Governor Price Daniels asked to have accomplished. You know Texas Navy Day. We encourage every squadron of Texas Navy to be celebrating Texas Navy Day in their own region. But Galveston Island is the home port of the Texas Navy, and not only from. This is where our shipyards were and this is our bases and logistics and our tie back to New Orleans. But this is the actual home port and where the Texas Navy Association resides and no one can move it from here except a governor. It takes governor's proclamation and approval to move us to anywhere else. So it's a great story. I love it.
Speaker 3:It's amazing. You know, I was telling Andy when he was in here growing up I didn't hear much about the Texas Navy. I mean maybe a little bit in Texas history. Of course it might've been just a day, a short little, a short little segment on the Texas Navy it's. It's really one of those things that people are really starting to realize how important the Texas Navy is and was to Galveston and Texas, because without the Texas Navy Mexico would probably still own most of Texas right, it runs deeper than that, because the Texas Navy, you know, interrupted the supply lines of Santa Ana and with that, you know, with the victories that we sustained down in the Bay of Campeche.
Speaker 1:But we actually captured the vessels that had Santa Ana's supplies of munitions and cannons and a thousand additional troops and they were headed towards the Brazos River. If they had landed at the Brazos River they would have marched right up and come in behind Sam Houston and that would have trapped Sam Houston between Santa Ana and the reinforcement and it could have, and most likely would have been another Alamo. And so it was the Texas Navy's ability to secure those vessels and hold those recruits offshore and prevent that from occurring, A real turning of the tide.
Speaker 3:That wouldn't happen. No Republic of Texas we wouldn't be here today. No Texas in the United States, nothing.
Speaker 1:Wow, you know I love Mexico. I've, you know I've been had so much of my life, I am intertwined with it. I am a red-blooded Texan all the way through.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's, and so are some of my friends. It's just the way it is. We are in history. History is wonderful. There's a reason why history turns out the way it did, and so we've had great resources, we have great support and we will continue to find ways. You know, we build our finances so that we can keep building museums, expanding our literature, storytelling and talk about the people.
Speaker 1:You know of who the Texas Navy was, and I put a challenge out to our members, our history committee. It's like okay, what do I want you guys to do for us this year? I want the backstories. You know, yes, we always have a few prominent names that are involved and associated with the Texas Navy. I want to know who was on the deck of the ships, who were the families, when did they come from and where did they go. There's so much more to our Texas history that is yet to be told. And telling a family lore. You may not have all the documentations dug out to substantiate everything, but there's family lore and it's important. How many stories do people have that they were told by their parents, grandparents, and they think their kids will forget it because it's not documented anyhow. And so I've charged our people to expand on that and let's see what we can develop.
Speaker 3:What are some lesser known stories or history from the Texas Navy that people are always really surprised to hear?
Speaker 1:really surprised to hear you know the story about how the resupply literally turned the tides of the Battle of San Jacinto. No one knows that story and it is so key and functional. The other story is, you know, our sailing vessels that were down in the Bay of Campeche overtook and won the battle against steam-powered Mexican Navy vessels, which was unheard of and that surprises a lot of the not just people but historians, because they said no, steam power was superior and so it was always expected to be superior. But yeah, the big one is the story of how we captured all the supplies and the recruit, the reinforcement recruits of Santa Ana is just a phenomenal story that people don't know.
Speaker 3:I was at the Alamo probably three or four years ago. They had a big diagram of the Alamo and a big diagram of Texas. It was kind of one of the exhibits they had set up outside to really tell more aspects of the Alamo story or the Texas history story, right, like tell more aspects of the Alamo story or the Texas history story, right, and it was. It was wild because I of course read about the Texas Navy at this point, but as she's describing the story of how Sam Houston's moving eastward and how the Texas Navy came in, and when she's talking about the Texas Navy she's kind of describing it in detail as you are and people around her like about the Texas Navy. She's kind of describing it in detail as you are and people around her like Texas had a Navy. You know these people from all over the world looking at this diagram and people are really like shocked to hear about that. But then that story alone is like pivotal in the entire history of the revolution and Texas history. So it's. It blew my mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's so important because the whole world looks at the monument at the Battle of San Jacinto and says that was the deal, and it was, it was the real deal. It's there because it truly pays homage to the heroic acts, because it was such a small number of Texans that overtook such a vast majority, and it's unbelievable. And the same thing was with the Texas Navy. You know, a couple of ships turned the tide on Santa Ana because he didn't believe that Texas had any type of sea power worthy of note. And so that in itself, you know, underestimation is, you know, defeatism so often around the world. If you don't know who you're up against, you don't stand a chance. If you don't know who you're up against, you don't stand a chance.
Speaker 3:That's very true. I want to do some research on Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific now, yeah, because I'm really curious, being a Texas boy himself.
Speaker 1:I'm really curious if there's any history or strategy he took from that and tied into the Pacific. You know he was a great historian. He loved the Texas Navy. That's why he was so driven to bring the battleship Texas to Texas. But he was a big supporter of the history of the Texas Navy. We've got to get back with the battleship and on it and see how that's all going to play out. We're a nonprofit. Yeah, we're a 501c3. It is 100% pro bono. Nobody gets paid. We've got one contract bookkeeping service that's only a couple of hours a week and same thing with a digital admin to help us. Other than that, we do it all.
Speaker 3:It's pure preservation and promotion of history.
Speaker 1:It really is. So any dollar that is donated to us through our fundraising events and whatever, it's going straight to the product. And I like that, I really like that there's no middleman, nobody's taking a cut, we're not paying big salaries. We do it all. We do it for the love of our history.
Speaker 3:Well, Scott, I really appreciate you coming in today. Talk a little bit about the Texas Navy Association and the big event you have coming up in just a couple weeks and I really hope to see it here every year after.
Speaker 1:For eternity. That is our goal, and I've already started thinking about next year.
Speaker 3:That's what you need to do. That's it, great. Keep on growing.
Speaker 1:Next year. You know, I think we can have a lot of fun yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course Awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, Scott, thank you so much man.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, I've always been told that I can't tell my name. You know it's like tomorrow I'm keynote speaking at a joint military advisory commission. They're giving you 45 minutes. You can't tell them your name without 30 minutes.
Speaker 3:Hey, I get it. I'm the same way.
