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Growing Our Future
Growing Our Future
You Can't Be Afraid to Fail Guest: Eddie Priefert
In this episode of Growing Our Future Podcast, Eddie Priefert, the president of Priefert, shares his journey and the success of the Priefert brand. The company started with 300 acres, one product, and a two-car garage, and has now grown to a 3,500-acre ranch and a campus with 35 acres under roof. Priefert is involved in the ranch equipment and rodeo markets, as well as the steel industry, selling converted steel to other manufacturers. They also offer Priefert Complex Designs (PCD), which helps design and build animal agriculture facilities. Eddie emphasizes the importance of attitude, faith, and integrity in achieving success.
Story Notes:
- Eddie's Journey to Becoming President of Priefert
- The Priefert Brand and its Innovations
- The Scope ofPriefert's Operations
- The Growth and Future of Priefert
- The Importance of Attitude, Faith, and Integrity
- Competitive Edges for Success
Learn more at MyTexasFFA.org
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast. In this show, the Texas FFA Foundation will take on a journey of exploration into agricultural science, education, leadership development and insights from subject matter experts and sponsors who provide the fuel to make dreams come true. Here's your host, Aaron Alejandro.
Speaker 2:Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or whenever you may be tuning in to the Growing Our Future podcast. Hey, listen, we're glad you stopped by and we just enjoy bringing this podcast to you. Texas Ag, science, education, the FFA. We are blessed. We are surrounded by some people that are willing to share their time, their talent, their treasures, their testimony. This show allows them to bring in their experiences, their expertise, their insights, and today is no different.
Speaker 2:It is an honor to introduce today's guest. We're going to talk a little bit more about him here in a minute, but I want to introduce Eddie Preford. Eddie Preford is the president of Preford and my gosh, what a brand. I mean. That brand just goes on and on. We're going to talk about that, eddie, just how big that brand is. But, eddie, thank you for being here. Hey, hey, thank you for having me here and it's absolutely pleasure tell you, we're gonna talk some eddie stories here in just a minute. But, eddie, I like to start off every show with the same question I love to hear from guests, maybe something that's a little internal, a little reflective, and and that is what are you grateful for today?
Speaker 3:What am I grateful for? I am very grateful for my family.
Speaker 3:That's primarily. You know just everything that I've been raised to be about, but at the same time, over time, I've just learned that family is what counts and why you get up every day and why you do it. And when I say family, I don't just mean my immediate family, my boys, my wife, my little girl, my mom and dad and grandparents. I'm talking about my family in general, as it comes down to friends like you, employees that I work for, to friends like you, employees that I work for. And when I say that I work for the employees but the employees that I work for here, some of them have been with us for 40 and 45 years.
Speaker 2:They taught me how to work and they kicked me around the plan a little bit, and that's what I'm grateful for. Well, eddie, I just want you to know how much I respect you and your family. I just want you to know how much I respect you and your family, and I agree with you. I showed my kids a picture of our family the other day. You know, with now we got two grandchildren, you know and.
Speaker 2:I told them. I said you know I hate to sound a little sappy. I said, but I want y'all to look at that picture. I said because I didn't have that growing up. Yeah, and to your point, eddie, when you can appreciate family and the scope of what that family means, right, and you can be appreciative of that, it means a whole lot. Um, you know, just to say something about eddie and something that he said here and I don't know if he remembers this, but I'm going to share it. You know, I've got everybody's name in my phone, so when they call it pops up. And I remember one day this call comes in from Eddie Preford and I thought I wonder what Eddie needs, wonder what's going on at Preford, and Eddie just gets on the call.
Speaker 2:And he said I just wanted to say hi, didn't need anything, I was just checking on you and we had recently lost a country western star friend and Eddie was just being Eddie. And he said you know, I'm just calling in checking on my friends.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Eddie, I wanted to share that because I hope that other people that hear this podcast they may have people on their mind and don't hesitate to pick up that phone and call them, because you know, god nudged you for a reason. That day. I never forgot, and I just want you to know how much I appreciated that phone call and it gave me again just that much more insight into who you are as a person, as a man, your leadership, everything. So I just want to share.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Speaker 2:So Eddie Preford, the Preford brand, the Preford family I know that probably everybody on this podcast has ever watched a rodeo or participated in a stock show somewhere. I guarantee you've seen the blue Prefort brand somewhere in your experiences.
Speaker 3:I sure hope so.
Speaker 2:Well they will. After this podcast. I hope we add to that, anyway, the Prefort brand. I was familiar. I knew who Bill Prefort was and I knew that he had three sons, eddie, nate and Travis, and they had this place in Mount Pleasant, texas. I mean, I was aware of all that. But I'm an outdoorsman, I love the great outdoors and so I love to watch hunting and fishing shows. And all of a sudden I flipping through fish hunting shows one day and there's the preference and I'm sitting here and I'm going here watching this show and I immediately said we got to connect with the pre-verts and I reached out to eddie and we reached out and we began a conversation which led to a sponsorship and which led the past state FFA president Blake Vineyard and I to join you on an episode of Backwood Bloodlines back then.
Speaker 3:Yep that's right. Palo Duro Canyon.
Speaker 2:Palo Duro Canyon and I never forgot that. We met at the Dairy Queen there in Claude, texas and we drove hours out into Palo Duro Canyon. We hiked up and down hills. I share that story to say this, eddie one of our former board members was a guy named Brian Bolton and I don't know if you ever met Brian. You maybe didn't realize it, but Brian used to be the CEO of All Flex Tax, okay, and he traveled all around the world and I'll never forget.
Speaker 2:He told me a story one time about a client. He was going over to Sweden. I said, well, what are y'all doing over there? He said we're going fishing. I thought, wow, that sounds good. I said, how long are you going to be there? He said about a week. I thought a week. He said, yeah, aaron, he goes see America. We do things a little bit different than some of these other countries do. To them, spending time with somebody is how you build a business relationship, oh yeah. And so they spent a week fishing to get to know one another and I've got to say that that opportunity to hang out with you and your folks, that was a moment. I mean you get to know people. Oh yeah, very much so you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:When you struggle a little bit and you bleed and bruise just a little bit with each other, it just somehow builds a bond. God built it that way. That's the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2:So that's how I kind of got to know Eddie and again, it's been a real honor my son, my youngest son we were just swapping stories about the Preforts. It's just special to have organizations like that, companies and families like that in your life. Like you said, eddie, it's kind of an extended family, absolutely. There's no question that you carry the title President of Prefort, which is again an enormous brand, and we're going to talk about all that. You've got going on. But I know for a fact you did not just fall into that seat, you didn't. You didn't just happen into that seat. I guarantee you. There's a story, there's a journey that kind of led you to where you're at today and I was wondering if you would just kind of share with us led you to where you're at today, and I was wondering if you would just kind of share with us how did you come up the ranks to be president of Preford?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, it's one of those things that you know. We come from a farming and ranching background and my dad's very old school he was raised old school, my dad was raised by a German farmer that grew up during the depression and the mentality of those old school guys is basically, you do what your father did, you grow up doing what they did on the ranch and you run the ranch. That's what your life goal should be and pretty much growing up, I never believed I actually had a choice. It was like, okay, this is exactly what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. And I started being groomed from my early age at 10, 12, 11 years old, 10, 11, 12 years old to to be the leader of a company that that's a growing company. Now, somewhere in all of that in my 20s, I resented that fact until I was 22, 23, 24 years old. Then something happened to me at a younger age that I figured out real quick. It was a mission for me to be the leader of pre-for-manufacturing manufacturing and I ended up being blessed that my father put me in the positions to learn all those things, to do what I do today. So you know, it's been a journey and just growing up and all of it. I am absolutely blessed and it's a mission to god for me to be a leader of pre-for manufacturing because he's put me in a position not just touch a thousand lives in Mount Pleasant, texas, that work for me, it's to touch 1,200 dealers lives, all their employees and every customer that's out there that will ever buy pre-for Texas to the United States, to all over the world.
Speaker 3:So to get back to my story, my dad had me and my brothers working in the plant after school at 12 years old.
Speaker 3:11 years old, we'd get off the school bus and we'd come in and pick up nuts and bolts and sort nuts and bolts and sweep. And it might only be an hour per day because he wanted to go get our homework. But we came up there, saw what dad was doing, saw what grandpa was doing doing, listened to him for an hour or so, do a little bit of work and then maybe even go cut thistles down on the ranch in the evenings, even though they had spray back. Then he said y'all go cut thistles, get get rid of the thistles, cut them out by hand. But he had us working here at the plant, learning everybody, learning from everybody. And as we grew up, we went to college and it was just ingrained in me early on that I had an opportunity that I should grasp and take hold of and not squander, and see it as a blessing and go forward, and I've loved every minute of it. I know I'm made to do the job, so I'm happy to do it got to write that down.
Speaker 2:Always, listening to these interviews, find the title of this show, this episode, and you might've just gave me we'll come back to that later, eddie, I think that, if I'm right, I think it's kind of neat to think that you, nate and Travis y'all were all and I think your sons were all former FFA members. Is that correct? Everybody? Every one of us were all former FFA members. Is that correct, Everybody?
Speaker 3:Every one of us has been an FFA member. Sure enough, grew up in the FFA wanting to be in the FFA. That's what you did, and you got involved and you helped out and you worked and you got in the FFA and you learned all about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's funny we're sitting here talking about this and we know each other through our professional careers. But just like you, you know, at Boys Ranch growing up I ran the hog farm, the feedlot, the dairy barn, processed milk, worked in the slaughterhouse, cut meat. Well, it's amazing when I think of the-fort family farm and everything that y'all have and the experiences that your kids get. I don't think they always really understand just all that they're learning now you're exactly right.
Speaker 3:They're grasping and learning to look at all of it, all of it. And you know, when you're in the ffa, I tell my kids all the time put the cell phones down and just get your hands full of something, something else, because you're learning something that, when the cell phone's not there later you're going to be using Isn't that the truth.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know you said something else a second ago One of my favorite books. It's a leadership book by Wes Robert called Leadership Secrets of attila the hun, and what attila would do is he would put the young huns around a campfire and then he'd get the older huns and have them stand behind the younger huns and tell them stories, battles, victories, defeats, experiences. And you said something a second ago that really gave me goosebumps because I thought how cool would it have been to have been Eddie Preford growing up, getting to hear Bill Preford and his dad and to hear them talk about the business and what's going on. And if anybody here that listens to this ever gets a chance in your through Mount Pleasant, stop at Preford headquarters and go inside and you'll see the original head shoot, the original Preford head shoot that your grandfather is that correct, hooked onto on to the Mustang automobile.
Speaker 3:Yep, he welded it to the frame of the back bumper. He didn't have a pickup truck. Well, they got better gas models in that Mustang than they did in the Mustang and they wanted to go sell those headgates. So they welded it to the back bumper and they didn't have to unload it. It was already standing upright and they could just operate it right from the back bumper of that Mustang to the local veterinary and never have to unload it, mount it or anything else and they could operate and show it off.
Speaker 2:So, eddie, one of the reasons we do this show, by the way, is I like to tell people, if agriculture's taught me anything, it's taught me that if you want to know what the future is, grow it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You want to, if you want to know what the future is, you grow it. Well, how do you do that? You've got to plant seeds, you got to take care of those seeds, you got to grow those seeds, you got to harvest, and then you've got to share it with those around you. Okay, there's so many seeds of greatness that you've already shared in just a very short period of time. By the way, I'm hoping that people that are sitting in classrooms, driving in their cars or wherever they may be, are hearing these little, great little seeds of greatness that you're sharing. But I want to highlight one of those.
Speaker 2:One of the things that's always impressed me about you, your brothers and the Prefab brand, your dad, is y'all's ability to be innovators. Y'all are always looking for ideas. You're always saying is there a better way to do this? And you don't necessarily and I don't mean this with any disrespect to anybody that's listening you don't necessarily have to have a college degree to do that. You just have to have that imagination and that will that God gave you to say I want to figure something out, I want to do something better, and to think that that's how your company started, with your grandfather saying I'm going to save some gas money. I'm going to make it so it's easy to see and to say I'm going to help you solve a problem, make it easier for you work your cattle?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely. And and I'll put it this way, it's also is not any one person uh, not, not any of the prefects can take full credit for being innovative. I'll start to. I'll start what I'm trying to say with something, and where I'm going is for every kid that's out there and I'll tell kids. I learned this from Coach John Baxter in California. He's at Fresno State assistant head coach. You show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And what that means is you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with. And when it comes down to innovation, it's not the prefects doing it themselves. You can't recognize all the different things that are out that can be done, but if you're listening and learning from others, that other people's experiences, other people's thought processes, you'll recognize something that is needed in this world to make the world a better place.
Speaker 3:And that might just be in cattle equipment, it might be in a bank I don't know what it is but you listen to others and where you see that there's opportunities or people are hand feeding you opportunities all the time, you take them. And then you listen to the people that you're around and go the direction that the Lord wants you to go. But if you surround yourself with sorry people, you'll never get anywhere. You're only going to do sorry things and you're only going to be representing sorry things. You're only going to do sorry things and you're only going to be representing sorry things. You're only going to be thinking about sorry things.
Speaker 2:But if you surround yourself with the right things with the things that are going the right, the directions that you know that are correct and noble and honorable. It's easy to recognize if you're willing to listen. Well, that's that's so good, eddie, that that that's real good. And you're absolutely right. And you know, every summer we take a group of teachers, we take 36 teachers from all over the state of texas on a week-long leadership experience. About every six years we were blessed to be able to go through east texas, where one of our stops is Preford headquarters and to get to see the manufacturing side of everything that you do and Bill Preford, the CEO, built. You got to keep up with Bill. Once Bill takes off through that plant, you better have your sprinting shoes on because you're going to have to keep up with him.
Speaker 3:And yeah, and if and if you're the last in line, he's going to grab you out and tell you too slow. And he knows everybody.
Speaker 2:He talks to everybody as he's walking through the plant and everything. But the reason I think that's important is because number one he's willing to share. Yeah, you were willing to jump on this call. I know you're a busy man, you got a lot of things to do, but it's also important to pay it forward and you know, one of the things that we like to say is that the essence of leadership is to plant trees under whose shades you may never sit Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And people planted seeds in your life and we're trying to plant seeds in others' lives and you're coming on here and sharing could plant seeds? Some kid may be sitting there right now going hey, listen, I've got an idea about a welding project. I never thought it was worth anything but Eddie said think about exploring it, think about trying it, just go get after it and you never know where it may take you.
Speaker 3:Yep. Well, my grandfather always said, you know, his secret to success was not being a genius and smart it was. It was because he just had just had, he was just too too dogged in nature to quit and he would, uh, he would stay on projects for longer than he should, even though they wouldn't work, because he just wouldn't give up. But he would fail. He, he told me, my dad told me this they he'd fail nine times out of ten. It's just that one that actually works. But every idea you ever got everything else and you can't be afraid to fail. I mean the ones that are afraid to fail, you just never take the step. He wasn't afraid to fail and he wasn't arrogant enough to believe that he could, but he was learning from every failure. Failure and that 10th one would pay off.
Speaker 2:Awesome that, I love it. Yeah, bill, you know again. I'm just sitting here and I can still hear Bill talking to our teachers and it never fails. I love sharing this story, but it never fails. We'll get back on the bus when we get ready to leave Prefix. We'll get back on the bus and I always ask the teachers I said well, what were your takeaways, what'd you learn? We'll get back on the bus when we get ready to leave Preford. We'll get back on the bus and I always ask the teachers I said well, what were your takeaways, what did you learn? And they always say the same thing. They said Bill Preford should run for president of the United States.
Speaker 2:He said that before they said, man, this world would be better off if Bill Preford would just run for president of the United States. Eddie, y'all have quite a company, you've got a lot of success. And, by the way, let me say this about leadership I'm a firm believer that a fountain can only rise as high as its head. Don't care what the organization. I guarantee you a fountain cannot rise higher than its head. And you, your dad, your brothers, y'all are setting a standard of what you want the culture and the brand of Preford to be, and it's evident in what y'all are accomplishing. So that people really understand the scope.
Speaker 2:Because I've been blessed, I've been able for the last 24 years to visit Preford on several occasions and I've seen the growth of this company. It is phenomenal the buildings, the structures, the capacity. I cannot do justice to it. You're just going to have to go get a tour yourself to really understand the scope of how phenomenal this company is. But, eddie, take us through. When we think of Preford, some people will think of rodeo equipment or gates or panels.
Speaker 2:But there is so much more to the Preford brand. I know there's solar panel frames, there's steel division. Give us a scope.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let me see if I can paint a picture for you. So the company started in 64. My grandfather were 300 acres, one product in a two car garage. Today the ranch is thirty five hundred acres. We are the only rank. I think I'm going to say this. I don't know that I'm correct. Correct, but we are one of the only ranch equipment companies that is a working branch. So we use the product before we put them on the market. We know that they're safe, we know that they're wearing their high quality, so we use them. And the ranch is where we use all product. So we have the ranch, 3,500 acres. We all work on the ranch, we all help take care of it all and then, when it comes down to the business, we roughly have 130 acres of total campus. On that campus is about 35 acres under roof. Might be a little bit more, but I'm going to understate it just a little bit. So 35 acres under roof, we're 1,000 employees that work and operate.
Speaker 3:When it comes down to the markets and the markets that we're in, the Lord has blessed us. We're in a lot of different markets Ranch equipment and rodeo combined. Them are roughly two-thirds of our business today. The other two-thirds of our business is selling steel, converted steel, whether that be tubing, flatbore, sheet metal, cut parts, broken parts when I say broken parts, broke parts in presses and in shears and in brakes parts to other manufacturers. So these other manufacturers roughly 600 other manufacturers that are customers of ours, 500 that buy steel, converted steel, packaged and sent to their operations to be pulled out and used in their operations for welding and welding implements and whatnot. So if you've seen a SEM truck bid, if you've seen big tech trailers, you've seen steel going up and down the road. It's gone to other manufacturers that use the steel that we convert in our plants for them to manufacture with. So that is two-thirds of our business today in that two-thirds is also in the energy sector, which is in solar fields. So the two mills we have two mills, we have three, two mills operating today we have our fourth tube mill going in operation as we speak. Any day now the fourth tube mill will be operating and in six months we have another one going in at the same time but it's been going in. So it'll be our fifth tube mill to go in along with the slitters, the blanking lines and all that.
Speaker 3:And to give you a little bit more idea. We have roughly 200 rail cars per month coming into the plant carrying master coils of steel. So we start with master coils. Master coil looks like a coil. I say coil my East Texas accent doesn't come across real well sometimes.
Speaker 3:A master coil is about the size of a round belt of hay rolled up in sheet like a roll of toilet paper, and it comes out and we convert it and cut it to the widths of whatever we're going to be making, whether that's a roll form part that goes into the solar field or into a trailer floor, to a tube, to a piece of sheet that's going into a laser table, uh, to a cm flat, flat bed.
Speaker 3:That that goes to that sheet, that that slid to the width, then goes to the laser table and it's lazed out and then broken, the break, the edges and all that, everything cut and packaged. So that's how everything starts. So roughly 200 train cars per month are unloaded. 200 train cars per month based on the tons and the pounds, that equates to about 800 truckloads per month that come into the plant. Right now, based on all the new things that we're doing in the steel operation, on the tube mills, the new slitters, we're putting in a 30-car rail spur as we speak, also in operation, so that we can unload 30 cars per day instead of 10 cars per day, so that more than triples our capacities. And, god willing, we'll sell those capacities over the next three to four to five years, depending on how everything goes, and then we'll grow it again.
Speaker 2:That is phenomenal. I mean those numbers that you just shared for educational purposes. That's going to be really good. So when you think of the scope of all that, eddie and having been there, I mean the peer-to-peer accountability for quality control there's just so many things about the way that y'all do things. I remember your dad was telling us once about how the engineer said that something wouldn't work and your guys all looked at it and said, well, I bet if we did it this way it would work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we call it. It's that farmer-rancher mentality. This way it would work. Yeah, we call it. It's that farmer rancher mentality. They, they don't go out in the junkyard and don't get a piece of equipment that was built 40 years ago and we'll rebuild it and we'll have something working today that most people haven't even thought of. And there's always a way to do it. Uh, you just can't give up now. Sometimes it might not be all that wise, but uh, yeah, if you want to see everybody, everybody just really get on board, you just say we can't and everything's going the right direction.
Speaker 3:It might not be very profitable but we'll get it done. That's good, that's really good. And let me go back. You know the steel side of the business is a growing sector. It's a high. There's a lot of volume in the steel and selling steel and that's a huge market when the ranch equipment is a very mature market. You've got a lot of competitors out there. There's just so many cows out there, there's just so many horses, there's just so much land.
Speaker 3:One of the best things that happens for us which I'm not sure is a good thing for everyone but when all these 300 acres and everybody's seen it in the last couple of years and it's just looking at the markets, how the markets work and all that but when you see these 300 acre places during COVID split up into 30 acre places, 10, 30 acre places, every one of those folks needed to fence it off with barbed wire, they needed to put gates in. Every one of them wanted a squeeze chute and a sweep system for their six heifers, their two horses, their three dogs and their bunny rabbits and their goats All 10 people that split up that 300 acres. So you can see where the market has grown during COVID, what's going on, how this land's splitting up because everybody wants to be a farmer. They don't know that they do, but they all want to go out. And when I say farmer, they all want to be a rancher. They want to live that lifestyle because they know it is an honorable lifestyle, they know it's the right way to be. And everybody goes back and settles back to that agrarian mentality and that helps our market. Good thing, bad thing, whatever it is. And that's the growth that you've seen. Just kind of seen that slow down the last year, with everybody settling back in COVID, being over all the different things that have happened, or the plandemic as I call it, the plandemic after it happened.
Speaker 3:But today our aggressive mentality is we've not stepped back on our laurels with ranch equipment and said, okay, this is just where it's at. We have been flat for the last year, but we've looked at that and said you know what? How are we going to grow more? So we went out after more dealers. You go pick up more dealers all across the nation because and you go out and you compete, you get into those market shares and you start taking market share from your competitors, picking up more dealers. And that's how you grow, because there is a tremendous amount. There's more, there's more ranch equipment to be sold out there. There's six or seven competitors out there. You just got to take it from them and today that's what we're doing. So when I say we're growing the steel side ranch equipment, it most likely in the next four to six years we'll double in, double in its capacities also. We're doubling the capacity, but we'll probably end up doubling and tripling sales in the next four to five years just in ranch equipment alone.
Speaker 3:Also because of being aggressive and going after markets, new markets, and then me standing on the shoulders of my father and grandfather, the name that they built. Everybody wants to own preferred equipment because it has high quality, high standards. We live the lifestyle. We are the brand to own. Because in the markets today horses aren't cheap anymore. Horses are very, very expensive, cattle markets going up and the cattle are worth a whole lot more than they've ever been. Dogs are are perceived as valuable as people today. So when it comes down to those things, nobody wants to afford anything less than prefer because they need the quality to house those animals in a high quality fence, gate, whatever it is, because they don't want that animal to hurt. So it's easy for me to say, oh yeah, we go out and pick up market share, but it's all due to the fact of the name that my grandfather and father built over time. Let me capitalize on it.
Speaker 2:That's good Eddie that right there is good, I've got to tell you again. I'm just going back to my experience there at the plants and getting to tour through your campuses and all your facilities and you know the powder coating there, to watch a piece of steel equipment go into that powder coating and then it comes out on that other side, that iconic, that iconic blue or the yellow, iconic, that iconic blue or the yellow, I mean it. Just it's awesome. And then all of a sudden I'm flipping through watching some of my favorite television shows. There's one, what is it? Yellowstone. I think.
Speaker 2:Yellowstone.
Speaker 1:Anyway, you're flipping through and all of a sudden you go hey, that's.
Speaker 2:Preford right there and it just makes you proud because you're like, you know that that's an example right there of the quality of a brand and how it gets picked up by another quality brand, right, and eddie, something else.
Speaker 2:That that that's, I think, part of y'all's journey here is that I hope kids are hearing I'm a firm believer that success begets success and that if you can learn to be successful and it could be something, eddie, go back in time I'm a firm believer that success begets success and that if you can learn to be successful and it could be something, eddie, go back in time it could be just being brave enough to get in front of the class and say the FFA creed yeah, absolutely. But success begets success and if you can have success, you can duplicate that success, right, and you can carry that on through your career journey, your life journey. And that's one of the things that I like about what y'all are doing at Preford is you're not satisfied. You're saying what can we do next? And we know we've been successful, so I know we can be successful again. Yes, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And the success is. I started it with some of my first statements. Our true success is not anything anyone preferred has done. It's the people that we have working in and they know that they can. They have faith in us, we have faith in them, and it's a full cooperation and team effort. But the success is surrounding yourself with good people, everybody going the same direction in an honorable way, and it's hard to fail when you do everything the Lord lines out in the Bible, which is truth and faith. If you're just following the truth and you're following the faith and you're following all those things he lines it out. That is the secret to success and it's lined out in the scripture exactly what you need to do and how to do it. It's easy to follow. It's written down.
Speaker 2:Isn't that funny how we make life more complicated than it really is? It really is. It really is.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Preference too. By the way, I got to brag on another little part that they have and a lot of people don't even know about this, but Prefers Complex Designs, pcd. You know, here's a company that has these incredible products, and then what do they do? They add an incredible service to those products. Yeah, so they can help fairs, expos, they can help companies, businesses, universities create animal agriculture facilities, because, to your point, eddie, y'all understand animal agriculture.
Speaker 3:Right and animal flow and animal safety and what people need to do and how to do it. And it's just, we know it inherently because we do it every day Right. A lot of people and and to us it's it's not rocket science, but to others because they don't understand it, have a tougher time with it and and it can be very, very overwhelming. But that's where we come in. We take all that overwhelming aspect of how to handle all these animals at different times. Take it, take the products down, take the products up. When I say products, our product to go from one shell to the next shell and how it's stored, why it's stored, the way it's stored, all the different animal flow about it, that's overwhelming, hard to put together.
Speaker 3:But we've done it for so long and so many other ways. It was inherent for us and an easy transition. But to say that you know we just finished Laramie County, wyoming, and Cheyenne, wyoming, so that one was just finished just the last month, just got it finished and set up Sam Houston State was just finished. We did all of it but we have done numerous. Those are just two that we've just finished. We've got probably eight or ten other complexes that are in the works and what's going on as we speak well you equine center down at texas a&m university, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to share that because I know that there will be ag chapters. Teachers listening that may not be familiar with pre forert Complex Designs, pcd, and if your school's looking at expanding your ag facilities, or you know, and Prefert PCD doesn't come in and replace the school's architects, they don't come in and they work alongside of them to make them efficient, to save them money maybe. Even so, I just wanted to throw that out because I think that's good. Eddie, we got to start wrapping up, but there's a couple more things that I want to cover real quick.
Speaker 2:I know that when I was out there one time you were showing me this encased laser cutter that blew my mind. I could not get over how fast that laser cutter was cutting steel. But you said something that day to me that I'll also never forget. You know you want these kids to go through high school and you want them to be involved and you want them to learn as much as they can and you want them to get all the certificates and all the training that they can right. But when you go to work for somebody, you better be coachable, right?
Speaker 3:absolutely they have to be coachable and I will encourage everyone that that can wants to or whatever to go to college. But there's an awful lot to learn outside of college. There's a lot of people that we don't want to go to college or need to. But when I'll, I'll bring people in to the company and the first thing that we look for with somebody is, you know, is not necessarily you can't judge them, but his attitude's attitude. We look at their attitude. What kind of attitude do they have? Do they have an attitude that they can learn?
Speaker 3:Because, when it comes down to it, everybody high school age I was this way high school age, college age, all that you think all my education is over. Well, when you go to work and when you start, the education just starts. Better, be still learning. Now. It may be listening and asking questions from all the folks around you, reading the books, getting on the computer. It's learning all those things. But if you want to get anywhere, you're going to have to be continuous, always learning a trade and your trade of where you want to go, and you can't ever stop learning and your trade of where you want to go, and you can't ever stop learning. And college and high school are basically those teachers out there. Aren't necessarily they are teaching you reading, writing and arithmetic, but they're teaching you to learn more than they are anything else, and that's what you're trying to do is learning to learn, and learning to listen, and learning to gain wisdom so that you can go forward. And at 60 years old, you're still learning to make what you're trying to do better.
Speaker 2:Eddie, you're giving us so much good stuff here. Okay, so let's start to wrap this up. So here's the thing In the state of Texas I can't speak for every other state that's listening to this, but the model's the thing. In the state of Texas I can't speak for every other state that's listening to this, but the model's the same. In the state of Texas, there's over 3,000 high schools. Think about that. How many of those high schools are going to have a graduating class? Every one of them. They're all going to be getting out. They're going to be looking for a job, a scholarship or an opportunity. So I always ask the kids, I say what's your competitive edge? What is it that separates you from everybody else that's going to be out there looking for something? So, eddie, if you were able which you are right now, through this platform, you're speaking to students across the United States what would be three competitive edges? What would be three things? You'd tell them you do these three things and I guarantee you they'll plant seeds of opportunity for you.
Speaker 3:Man show my yes, that's a good question. That's the hard question. I'm going to go back to it. First and foremost is three things that everybody needs to keep first in their life God first, family, god, family, country those three things. God always comes first. Everything else works itself out if we keep God in front. But attitude is everything A learning attitude, an encouraging attitude, the attitude when you come in, and I'm I shouldn't say faith is first, but that's hard to judge. But if you want to be successful, you have a good, strong faith attitude and integrity. But you're automatically going to have integrity if you have the other two anyway. So, uh, high integrity, attitude and faith.
Speaker 2:Eddie, you can't say it any better than that. It's like you and I have talked about. There's no secret sauce to be successful. No, it's little things that you do that become part of your core values, that you do well and people notice that it's just like you said.
Speaker 3:Y'all look for that attitude, yep, and positive energy, positive attitude, and you're only going to make yourself and everyone else around you better amen to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great, eddie. I don't time flies when you're having fun, I tell you I it's been an honor to know you, get to to know you. We definitely appreciate having Preford as one of the generous sponsors to the Texas FFA and I appreciate you taking time out of your schedule. It's my pleasure and an honor. Thank you, to come on and share with us again. You know, abraham Lincoln said that the philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next. Yep, think about that. That the philosophy of the schoolroom here is going to be how we're going to be governed here. And when I think about folks like you and the Preford brand, the Preford family, y'all's value system, the fact that y'all are willing to share that and plant seeds of greatness. Again, if you want to know what the future is, grow it. So, together y'all are helping us plant seeds in young people that will grow into strong, mighty oaks into the future.
Speaker 3:Yes, so thank you so much for your help, thank you, thank you very much, it was honor.
Speaker 2:All right, so last question every guest gets one last fun question. For you. This might be a challenge because I know you, but uh, the fun question is this what is the best concert you've ever been to best?
Speaker 3:concert. Yes, well, I don't go to too many concerts. I don't know. That's a good question. What is the right thing to say? I don't know. I'm going to say George Strait. I went to one of George Strait's last concerts. Well, he said last concert and he's still out there singing but I went to one of his concerts. I enjoyed that very much because I was a little kid when he was getting started. So I'm going to say George Strait, but I've got an opportunity to listen to a lot of them. And then Cody Johnson's a real good one to go to and he is a very, very positive thinker and a very positive attitude and shares his faith everywhere. He goes all the time, and that that is a fantastic one. But my favorite was probably the George Strait concert.
Speaker 2:And you know I will tell you this when I've asked this question. There's no question that George Strait is still the number one most recognized. I did have a lady the other day and she said Cody Johnson, interestingly enough. Yeah, and hopefully Cody's going to be on this show one day, because I really brag about Cody Johnson and his success because he was a former FFA member. He's a former Texas FFA member and we've had a lot of them by the way, george Strait was one of them, yeah, and I appreciate all of them. But, cody, you said something a while ago about that that attitude of gratitude. Cody's never failed to recognize that FFA experience in his life and I've always appreciated him because of that. And anyway, we'll get him on here one day and talk about that.
Speaker 2:Eddie, thanks for joining us to all of our listeners. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Growing Our Future. You know, like we say, if you want to know what the future is, grow it. Well, listen to Eddie today. My goodness, his positive attitude, his belief system, all of that should be contagious. All of that should be seeds that we can plant in our lives. That'll make us better people, better family members, better community members that will help us grow a better state and nation. Until our paths cross again. Everybody, go out and do something great for somebody. You're going to feel good about it and, as a result, think about it. Our homes, our communities, our state and country will be a better place to live, work and raise our families. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1:We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast. This show is sponsored by the Texas FFA Foundation, whose mission is to strengthen agricultural science education so students can develop their potential for personal growth, career success and leadership in a global marketplace. Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
