100% Humboldt
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing Northcoast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt
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100% Humboldt
#91. Building Homes and Lives: Tom Rector's Journey
What if the parenting strategies that worked perfectly for one child completely fail with another? In this illuminating conversation, Tom Rector reveals why understanding a child's unique genetic makeup and personal memories is crucial for effective communication and connection.
Tom shares his remarkable journey from a 22-year-old contractor to the owner of Thomas Home Center, celebrating 40 years in business and 55 years of marriage along the way. But the heart of our discussion goes beyond business success to explore Tom's profound insights into human development. Through raising five children—including two adopted—and his extensive work with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), Tom discovered that traditional parenting approaches often fall short with children from different genetic backgrounds or traumatic histories.
The solution? What Tom calls "biosocial cognition"—recognizing that each person is shaped by three fundamental elements: their memories, their genetic predispositions, and their inherent humanity. This framework has transformed his approach to parenting, advocacy, and education, allowing him to connect with even the most resistant youth in juvenile detention facilities.
Perhaps most valuable is Tom's SHRR definition of maturity: Self-sufficient, Honest, Responsible, and Respectful. This simple yet profound framework gives young people and parents alike a clear understanding of what maturity actually means, rather than vague expectations to "grow up" or "act more mature."
Whether you're a parent struggling to connect with your child, an educator working with diverse learning styles, or simply someone interested in better human communication, Tom's wisdom offers practical approaches to meeting people where they are and helping them thrive on their own terms. Through his Accrescent Institute, Tom continues to share these insights through trainings, presentations, and resources designed to help children and families flourish.
Ready to transform your approach to parenting or working with youth? Visit the Accrescent Institute website to explore Tom's resources and discover how understanding biosocial cognition could change everything about how you connect with the children in your life.
About 100% Humboldt with Scott Hammond
Humboldt County CA USA is the home of some of the most iconoclastic, genuine, and interesting folks in the world.
We are getting curious about the movers, shakers, and difference makers in Humboldt County CA-Home of the giant redwoods, 6 Rivers, and the vast Pacific Ocean.
We will discover what makes people live/evolve in the beautiful, diverse, isolated, and ever-changing North Coast of California 100%!
Listen in and learn what it is to be 100% Humboldt!
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Ladies and gentlemen, friends and neighbors, scott Hammond with 100% Humboldt Podcast with my old and new best friend, tom Rector. Hi, tom, hello, how's your day? It's full, it's full. We were just talking about that off the air, how full this thing gets sometimes. And I'm just coming off a time in Oregon and you're going back up, so you know figure, Yep yeah.
Speaker 1:It's weird having time off and then coming back and having this compressed day where you're in front of a computer and I forgot how foggy that can make me when I'm not, when I'm just exposed for too long. But so tell us the Tom Rector story. You're, you're the owner. One thing you do is you own Thomas home center in McKinleyville. Correct, tell us the entire Tom Ark, the Tom.
Speaker 2:Ark. Huh, how much Ark do you want to that?
Speaker 1:Oh, you decide, Maybe the highlights it's like the Facebook highlight reel.
Speaker 2:Well, let's see, I'm almost a local. My folks came into the area when I was four and they stayed in the old housing up there on Harris, where the mall is now. Oh the projects, yeah projects. Yeah, they stayed there until they had a house built up on Humboldt Hill, and so then my youth was spent on Humboldt Hill there. And then from there, of course, at 17 or so I was ready to move on because I knew everything right At 17,.
Speaker 2:You pretty much do yeah, yeah, you know, they say hire them at 18 because they know everything. Right? Yeah, I fit that bill.
Speaker 1:But did you get hired?
Speaker 2:Actually I did so. You know that includes South Bay School, there for elementary and Jacobs, when it existed, Remember that yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Eureka High Sure. So it's kind of the go down the middle of the road kind of thing. I got it I wanted out as soon as possible. So the senior year, second half of senior year, was just a half day school so I could be working and that all worked out really well. And I figured I was going to work for my dad and his business His business was Bailey Suit. Going to work for my dad and his business His business was Bailey suit and uh, and of course then I got to be an old, 18 year old and thought I knew everything Right. So way more than dad, yeah, way more than dad.
Speaker 2:And, and from there I went and found other employment and coincidentally just totally coincidentally I I ended up getting a, uh, a flunky job working for a general contractor, marvin Condon, and I worked for him for I don't know some months, maybe a year, I don't remember exactly and he ran out of work. So he loaned me out to another contractor, lloyd Staggs, and worked for him for a few months, and then I of course knew everything there was to know about it. So I broke off and went and built some apartments and worked with a contractor under his license and independently, and made an arrangement with him and built some apartments and then got a contractor's license. I think I got it around 72. So I was probably around 22 or something like that, and then, once that was, then I was man. I really knew my stuff then, right? So we started building houses and we discovered the, the Farmer's Home Program financing which allowed people to get a home without any down. But the program had really stringent criteria with regard to no fluff, no frills, and they assured that by having low values that they had for it. So we figured out how to build under that program, having low values that they had for it. So we figured out how to build under that program.
Speaker 2:And Shale, my wife, who we just celebrated 55 years Congrats, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she did all the paperwork, hallelujah, and I did the go to homes and talk to people and organize it and run crews and stuff. So you work during the day with your hands and work with your smile in the evenings with folks. And we did quite a bit going on.
Speaker 2:And there was one there was a house up on Humboldt Hill that we were working on at the time and we were getting delivery of the trusses of the trusses, and the driver commented that we, the gentleman that owns the trust plant local trust plant at that time, his name was Paul Lindley. He was looking at selling his trust plant, and so that intrigued me and so I went over and talked to him. Hey, I heard you were going to sell this. And the end result is I sold a bunch of rentals to get enough money to get a decent down payment, went and talked to the banker and in those days bankers could actually make a decision at the local level. Right, remember that, yeah. Yeah, I still remember that. It's gone, but I remember it yeah.
Speaker 1:With a handshake sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, almost, almost. And of course I'm just a kid at that point. In his eyes Sure, not my eyes, obviously. But so, anyway, we bought the truss plant and ran a construction company and did the trusses, and that was in 75. You still do, right, make trusses, we still do. That's one of our divisions.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's cool. Yes, yes, two things that stand out. Shout out to Shelly, by the way. Hi, Shelly, I know you're going to see this sometime and I understand she has her contractor's license. She does. She's the one who holds the Oregon contractor's license, and I hold the California contractor's license, so you can go both ways, she was tickled pink too, because she went in.
Speaker 2:She was in her late 60s when she went in to get her contractor's license and they kind of gave her an eyeball why are you here, lady? And she was one of the first to complete the test and leave, so she was really pleased about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we go back a ways. Yeah, that's really a great story. The? I want to go back to Bailey suits, cause that's for those of those out there that'll know what that was. Uh, they were commercial wetsuits manufactured in Fortuna. They were world class dive dive suits, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:For cold water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he started the wetsuits yes, as opposed to dry suits, and he started that when we were in the project, which would be 70 years ago. He started that and he did it. It was an extension of his just his enthusiasm for diving. What's his name? Carl Carl Rector, okay, and so he just started out of a closet and built the business up and it became national, international and then, toward the end of his career, he moved into exposure suits. There was some laws changed where boats had to have exposure suits, so people jump into the suit before the boat sinks and so they can survive and he did really well on that.
Speaker 2:But that waned and went away and so his last years were pretty tough financially, pretty tough for him. Business is tough, as you know. Every day you got to be on.
Speaker 1:That's true, yeah, and if you're not moving forward, you're going backward. Yeah, yeah, ricky Bobby, if you're not first, you're last, that's true. So tell us more. Did you ever do any university studies or did you go straight into the trades?
Speaker 2:You know, the only dabbling in that is CR for four accounting classes, so I needed that wanted that for the balance sheet and income statements and stuff, because you got to run a business by the numbers right.
Speaker 1:You have the demeanor of a well-educated man. Oh well, thank you.
Speaker 2:I got the bald head for it too.
Speaker 1:Like I say, I got the lumps on my head for it. School of hard knocks. I have a master's and a doctorate.
Speaker 2:You know I've had folks comment about I spent $100,000 or $300,000 for my education and I says that's cheap compared to the school I went to. Of hard knocks, yeah, the ebbs and flows and the profits and losses 55 years of marriage.
Speaker 1:I applaud you, man. I just hard stop on that because it's such a marriage is such a cool and amazing and multifaceted journey, and kudos to you and Shelly.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, yeah, and five kids, five, yeah, four surviving. And yeah, I met Shelly as a 16 and 17 year old. There's 16s and 17-year-olds married at 18.
Speaker 1:She's from Eureka as well. Yeah, wow, just started dating.
Speaker 2:No, we started by me teasing her in the hallways at the school first. That's where we started right and then you progressed to something good, Like any good relationship that's good.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's neat, and I know Shannon, of course that's good. Wow, that's neat, and I know Shannon, of course. Hi, shannon. Shout out to Shannon and does your son still run Thomas Home Center in McKinleyville?
Speaker 2:So we ended up with two girls and three boys. The girls were the youngest and the oldest and the second born, nathan, from the time he was 17, 18 years old. He took over all of the technology part of the company and software, writing software and hardware and all that kind of stuff and he went out on his own and has had his own business for 20 or 30 years probably.
Speaker 1:So you adopted tech early.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we were.
Speaker 1:We were.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I talk about we got these cell phones right, you know, and they can do all these kinds of things. And when I started we had an IBM 32 and it was the size of a nice desk, yeah, and it only had like four lines or so. The progress has been tremendous. Oh yeah, and it's cool, and CAD drawing and the whole nine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just amazing. So he's an early adopter. Did you guys homeschool? Did I remember that?
Speaker 2:right, we did the second set. Our parenting thing has been we raised two children. When they're out of the house, we started over with three more and the younger three there was. We were pretty when you get to do it a second time, just kind of review what you did. There's things of improvement, right, and one of them was that we were very clear that the school needed to fit the children, rather than the children fit the school, good word. So we chose different school scenarios depending on the need and the ages that were going on, and one of those was homeschooling for a while. Sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, I think we knew you guys back in the day, and you must be a fabulous expert on parenting.
Speaker 2:I don't know, anybody's an expert.
Speaker 1:You know what. Thank you too. I'm leading into further discussion later on, if you're just joining us my great friend Tom Rector talking about his history in Humboldt and his business, and we're going to get into involvement in kids and CASA and your advocate advocation for children and kids and their parents. Right, and what you're all about there. Let's talk about McKinleyville first.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:We'll go back to McKinleyville, since I'm going back there tonight anyway.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's a long ways away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's 22 minutes and there's no there's really there's one traffic stop at the end of Eureka and if you're really smart, you use the cheater lane, which I talked to the guy that designed it for Caltrans. He goes it's designed for cheating. Oh, Coming in, you have three lanes down, Coming out, you got three. So it mitigates traffic, it modulates a lot of what are backups to and I tend to be digressing here. So so you've seen McKinleyville through a few changes after you bought Whipple's building supply right. Yeah, how many years ago was that that was in 84, 1984.
Speaker 2:Crazy.
Speaker 1:So 94, 40 years, mm-hmm. Wow, and you're multi-division there. You guys have a lot of we do.
Speaker 2:We have four main divisions. They are trust operation that we had taken on in 74, 75. Our home improvement division is based off of our general contracting we started in 72. And then when we purchased and it was Earl Whipple's business at that particular time he was 65 or so when he retired and was selling Nice guy, he was a challenge if you were on the opposing lines, okay, if you're on the same line, he was a great person. Yeah, great, great person. Don't get on his bad side.
Speaker 2:No, he just knew how to take care of his interests and what should be done. And he had a strong beliefs and, like so many of us do when we're that age, be done. And he had a strong beliefs and like so many of us do when we're that age. So his business was the retail store lumber yard and he had a overhead door business that was with it too. So those four divisions are what makes up Thomas Holmes Center at this point in time, and then each of those divisions evolve and shift and shuffle based off the market conditions and the products that are available. Brilliant.
Speaker 1:Good business model.
Speaker 2:Well, the focus really is about the homeowner, the person who owns the home, and we obviously help commercial businesses in the garage door business and we have several of the Caltrans contracts for the overhead door business but the general focus is on the folks who own homes and they're either fixing them up or getting ready to move out of them and right at the moment we're doing a lot of work with regard to aging out conditions, so handicap and stabilizing and easy access to showers and things like that.
Speaker 1:I heard a stat yesterday. We were at Ben Oregon. 28% of America lives alone as elders.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I'm going. That's stunning If it's 20, it's a lot To almost a third are solo seniors. Oh yeah, it's done with nothing and nobody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going, wow, yeah, and I see a lot of them. I see a lot of them, and so many times it's ladies and they need somebody they can trust. Sure, and they got it with y'all? Well, I think so.
Speaker 1:You should. You heard that every day, yeah. So you bought from Earl and he sold that whole thing Right, and then you diversified it. Where do you make the trusses? Are they made?
Speaker 2:in Valley West somewhere, I don't remember vision up there, which had two benefits. One is that it reduced some costs, but more importantly, it made it easier to run the business, because you can just go out to the backyard rather than driving down. So it was, but it was a big deal, a really big deal at the time. So, yeah, it's back there. You don't see it. I was going to say it's pretty concealed. Yeah, it's in the backyard.
Speaker 1:You don't hear much. Yeah, my son Jesse worked for you for a season or two. He's a doctorate student at Davis and now lives in Amsterdam with his sweetheart.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a long ways away. Did he pick the furthest place from you?
Speaker 1:No, you know, they looked all over the world. She got a job in Nike Europe, which sounds really sexy, but apparently they're not that efficient up on top. So I don't know what are you going to do. But they looked all over. They wound up in this town south called Utrecht, which is about a third of the size of Amsterdam, but all the same features canals a third of the size of Amsterdam, but all the same features, canals, bikes, mass transit beauty, oh okay, and they love it.
Speaker 1:They don't want to move back and bought a very expensive flat, but love everything about it. You know lots of art and culture and just a cool place to live and visit.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:And we get to go back once a year and say hi. So let's talk about kids. So kids have been in well, I don't want to say trouble. Kids have been a challenge since I think the earth began. But kids today will go well, let's fast forward through history.
Speaker 2:Wow, that was a short history lesson.
Speaker 1:So kids have challenges. Kids and families.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I want to premise this before we talk about your advocating for all of us, parents who need help with kids and kids that need help with their parents. It's a tough go, man, and I'm understanding at 65, I'm still 25 or 35 inside but it's a tough thing watching my kids raise their kids I mean, in quote, typical families. So I can imagine that the atypical in our communities have a heck of a time that don't have money or privilege or resources or schools or parents that give a darn. There's them and I just kind of you know that heart for kids. I think we share that and I want to know more about yours and tell me about foster care and adoption and CASA and maybe touch on some of those things you've been involved with.
Speaker 2:Well, uh, as I said, we, we raised two children, and then we, uh, then we started over with three more and our two youngest of those three were adopted to us. Um, one came to us at eight months and the other one, the youngest, came to us at birth. Wow, and the reason we did that is because we enjoy being parents. That's the motivator. There's reason for it. So we ended up parenting for 40 years instead of 20. Attaboy, me too, you too, yeah, 42. Yeah, and the experience, though, the second time around was different than the first time, for two reasons One is that we had adopted children, and two is the world had changed, a changing kind of thing, and so how do you navigate all of what I would call slippery slopes that are out there for the kids? And so, in my particular case, I was very active in advocating, and so CASA, as you mentioned that was CASA of Humboldt was a place that I originally signed up to volunteer, and that happened the day that the adoption papers went through for our first child.
Speaker 1:So CASA's court appointed Special advocate. Yeah, yeah, child. So Casa's court appointed special advocate. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that just there's so much to do in that area and I ended up with a case, one case two boys, nine and eleven, and I was with them until they aged out of that situation. The learning of it is that it's not simple, it's just not simple. The learning of it is that it's not simple, it's just not simple. The learning of it is the Resources that are out there to help are spotty at times or just not deep enough to help out.
Speaker 1:Is that California or Humboldt in particular?
Speaker 2:Well, my personal experience is California, both Humboldt and Del Norte California both Humboldt and Del Norte.
Speaker 2:I don't have personal experience with other areas, but all of the people that I've spoken to it seems to be the situation I many times have said is if everybody could be a foster parent for a couple of years, they would vote differently on a number of things, right, just because knowing makes a difference on the judgment call, right. So, anyway, the experience of being an adoptive parent, the splat in the face was that what makes sense and works and creates a productive result. With my own birth children didn't work for the adopted children and I went searching for why. Why is that? What is going on? And the learned lesson out of that, which wasn't overnight but learned lesson of that, was the genetics of the person are profoundly important to understanding how to parent that particular child, and that was a foundational component of further research and development and advocacy and teaching that I do now and some of the work that you do in the presentations and speaking Right right.
Speaker 1:World famous speaker. I hear World.
Speaker 2:I don't know, Maybe they hear me over there on the other side. They probably do.
Speaker 1:There's the internet. I think you touched on something that's really key and I read this recently the raising of kids in the last 50 years 60, just name a window took this major change from an analog world to a digital world.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And it's no small thing and it's still morphing. So you got all these all. I mean. I've watched my 21 year old go nuts on on Instagram and just like like that's some sort of reality for him and I'm going, wow, this is. Things have really quite shifted. And he's not he's a bright kid, but I'm going you can't adopt values or opinions from not only third world, but virtual third world.
Speaker 1:That's far away. So the challenge is interesting. So your genetics. So how would you, how would one determine how to reparent or do a parenting job different with a non an adopted kid?
Speaker 2:Well, the teaching and the trainings that I provide, and have provided for the last couple decades, is that there's essentially three things that you need to know and understand of each person, each child. One is what are their memories. Two is what is their genetics like?
Speaker 2:And three, is to remember they're a human and have a clear understanding of what is humanity, and that's lost. A whole lot of that is lost, and so what people will hear in my training, a piece of a small piece of it is we need to remember that we we as a species are are wanting to be an individual, but concurrently with that, we want to belong to a group, and those are opposites. Right, they're opposites and yet we want to. We need both. We need both of those, and we need to also understand, as humans, is that our strength, that we draw upon to promote our survival, like don't be anxious kind of thing or get out of the way of the truck or whatever it is is that we have adaptive behavior, that we choose to change our behavior to enable us to navigate the world around us, and to do that we use our memories, and we need to come to a clear understanding that our memories are the foundation of whatever choices we make.
Speaker 2:And so if you want to make a difference, you want to have an impact, you want to empower someone. It's knowledge. It's knowledge, memory, and whether that's a skill or it's an education or it's an experience, however you get those, they're all the same thing. They're all memories that you draw upon. So the choice that you make is going to depend on those memories, and how you do that is going. How you choose to use those memories is going to be affected by your genetic nature. So if you're an introvert or you're an extrovert, or you're a tactile learner or you're an intellectual learner, Audio learner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, audio learner visual.
Speaker 1:Do you hear that out there? Audio?
Speaker 2:Audio, audio. So we, if we want to be successful in the parenting as much as possible, we need to start from that place and and be very dialed into what our child, or our person or our spouse, those and then we need to be able to communicate in whatever fashion that registers through their filters. Yeah, so we didn't have to worry about that 40 years ago because there was not as many slippery slopes, there wasn't the ability to go around the power centers. You can now go directly to wherever you want in the world at any one time and get that information and believe it or not believe it. So that's the fundamentals of that is to be able to like that.
Speaker 1:So I resonate with that. I think that's why, that's why we homeschooled, because you could gear the curricula around the kid, audio learners galore and you know, kalia was a tactile learner. She's very good with her hands, still is and so we were able to take kids to that next level by feeding them correct curricula in an environment that met their need and their gift and their genetics. So I get that. I also, um, I think that's great, and I wonder how that plays into the five languages of love that, uh, townsend and his partner wrote, um Cloud and Townsend wrote this book. So we have, we have these five languages um uh, acts of service, words of encouragement, tactile touch, gifts, giving a gift. Some people really love that one, and so these are fundamental languages, especially well, not just with romantic couples, but with people.
Speaker 1:So I think of those and I equivocate to some of the stuff you're talking about and I go oh, okay, you have to meet people where they are is what I heard you just say. Right, right, right, but with specificity. How do we? If I understand this person's had trauma? I'm going to deal differently. First of all, they're valued and they're beloved and they're people. Let's go with that law first. Secondly, let's meet. If I'm going to serve others and be on a noble mission that I hope I'm on and you're on, we're on as a country, as a world, I'm going to meet needs, which means looking for them.
Speaker 2:Or recognizing them, or recognizing them, and recognizing them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's all training. And I think this is I love this because this is all learned skills that I could learn this Right, if I could learn mechanics or computing or podcasting, why can't I learn to read to my kids or my friends or my wife Right, or my friends or my wife Right, and adapt my behavior, my needs, my whatever, to them? And I think I don't want to go too deep into your material, because I think I get it, I like it and I'm excited a little bit about it, but I think what it presumes is that I would be of service.
Speaker 2:Once I had that knowledge and that skill set that I could recognize the individuality of the person, then your ability to communicate is going to be more successful. And communication is where all the relationships are, that's where all the things happen. The connection, the connection. So it essentially applies to all and it can be targeted or used more explicitly in special situations, but it's all over.
Speaker 1:So my notes say biosocial cognition.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Is that what we're talking about? Yes, okay, so there's a biology piece of it and there's also the environmental piece.
Speaker 2:There is the biology and the recognition of the intellectual recognition, and so it's really really straightforward is who's the person, who's the person? And understand that as humans, how we use those pieces of the person and their, their memories and their genetics and the person. So if we don't understand or recognize or know what those memories are or want to Well, and if we don't recognize and accept that the person that we're talking to is not me, it's you, then our opportunity to successfully communicate with this person is going to be inhibited. Communicate with this person is going to be inhibited. And all of that is if we just focus on it and become aware of it in that particular fashion. We recognize it, we can see it, we can be trained to be more dialed in, we can be trained to be more sensitive to it, but we have the capacity to do it on an individual level, it's person by person. So that's what we want to do, that's what we want to do.
Speaker 2:We want to also understand human nature, and human nature is such that, whatever our behavioral choices are, they are, at the most fundamental level, promoting our survival. Whether it's just I feel more comfortable or I'm going to jump out of the way so I don't get a run over, all of those fit into the conversation of survival.
Speaker 1:You bring up a paradox, though. So, if there's me trying to be the individual and also fitting into community, now we have a perhaps conflicting interest. Maybe not. Frank Zappa is famous the artist. The Rolling Stones and the Beatles used to come to LA to see Frank. Okay, because he was a genius musician and apparently a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:But he saw all the kids at the concerts wearing Levi's and t-shirts like you and I did it a hundred years ago and he goes you're all in uniforms and you've all conformed and you're nonconforming. Yes, right, and the paradox of that I'm going. Yeah, me too. I wear a vest, just like all old farts do, and have a goatee and run around with some bling on I guess I've conformed and an eyewatch hey, let's see your iWatch, you, and I See we've conformed. So it's an interesting conundrum. And how can we help people be individuals and still feel part of a community, and tough one, especially these days, because now my community lives in here. Hey, what's up? You know, here's my echo chamber, telling me all the things that I want to hear and know and reinforcing all my BS narrative, some of which is probably whatever. So interesting, any comment on that?
Speaker 2:Which part of it? The BS part? Well, the no, no.
Speaker 1:Just the fact that there's this duality to all people. Yeah, that I want to be expressive and creative and understood an individual, but I also really need. I really need people and that's okay, that's all okay.
Speaker 2:So one of the teachings, niche training courses I have is around what I call the agreement process, and I teach it to the teens and I teach it to the parents both. And I choose to do that not concurrently, because it's one language for the teens and it's another language for the parents. The component of that teaching is a what is maturity, and the component of that teaching is a what is maturity. We know it when we see it. But what is it? And so I've chosen to name it, and I've named it through an acronym of SHRR self-sufficient, honest, responsible and respect.
Speaker 2:And what that does is allow the person to be an individual and at the same time, coexist productively with others. Because if you respect that, you get to be who you are and I get to be who I am and I'm responsible for whatever I choose to do, and I choose to be self-sufficient, not dependent. And honesty has to do with an investment in the future relationships. So by naming that and giving the youth that as the measure of maturity, it makes sense to them. And I've taught in the locked up probation kids in Del Norte and the reviews I've gotten from the staff there is that I'm the only one that they've listened to. Wow, the other ones they just Attend, right, yeah, um. So to answer the question is um, maturity allows us to coexist and be a person, and how do we name that so it can be understood rather than you're not acting mature, right, uh?
Speaker 1:or you need to act mature, so it quantifies it sorry about that, that that's only happened twice in 91 editions. All right, all right, I'm special. I would call that emotional intelligence too. It's been written about. It's the same sort of idea. Go with S-H-R-R again.
Speaker 2:So self-sufficient, honest, responsible respect, respect.
Speaker 1:I like that Honest, responsible respect, respect I like that and those are. Each one of those are an investment both in the individual themselves and an investment in the relationship with the others for the future. Honesty is a deposit you're making in a relationship.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:I like that. If you're just joining us, it's my friend, Tom Rector, talking about a whole bunch of cool stuff and we'll get back to that in a minute. Real quick, if one wanted to reach out to you, I'll give you another shout out here in a minute. But how would we get a hold of you? Talk to you, talk about curricula, go to the website. How are you connected to?
Speaker 2:So our website is a Crescent Institute and you come on, go online and there's all kinds of material there and trainings that are available for all different audience interests needs, interests needs. There's the ability to do one-on-one, there's the ability to do Zoom trainings in small groups, and then, of course, I could go on site. We list on the site also the upcoming trainings that we do at conferences. For example, saturday I'll be in Washington State doing a presentation training, two of them actually One is on the agreement process and one is focused on the IEPs that are done in schools, and we'll be doing that on Saturday. And then the next one is National Head Start in Orlando in December. So there's's multiple ways to connect. Multiple ways to connect. First step is to come on the website and just kind of look it over and see how it works Crescent Institute.
Speaker 2:Crescent Institute. Crescent Crescent A-C-C-R-E-S-C-E-N-T. Okay.
Speaker 1:Or we could Google or chat GPS Tom Reckner.
Speaker 2:I bet you'd come right up. Probably there, probably there.
Speaker 1:Which is the more cool kid? Modern digital way. Hey, how do I get to Washington State? I?
Speaker 2:was just told the other day is that, hey, you can say hey, siri, where am I, what's the address? And it'll give you the address of wherever you are.
Speaker 1:I thought I hadn't thought of that. That's. You know the tech. You and I have seen a lot of tech, hey. So I want to do the quiz part and we'll come back to a little bit more of the stuff. So this is the fun part where you can win. Oh, tom, what do we have for you here? A Dick Taylor Hazelnut milk chocolate bar to eat all the way back to Oregon tonight, if you wish, made with 55% Alexander Family Farm A2 A2 milk which is up in Smith River as you might know.
Speaker 1:Question number one. I'm not going to go easy on you either. So you got to earn this candy bar.
Speaker 2:I like chocolate.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, what's your best day? What's been your best day of your life or one of the best days of your life? That's unfair to ask for the best day by golly.
Speaker 2:I guess I don't really think about best days. Let me think a minute. So, oh, there's a lot of best days. Probably the good starting place is the day Shelly agreed to marry me.
Speaker 1:Wow, Were you on bended knee in Eureka somewhere.
Speaker 2:Pretty close.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh Pretty close.
Speaker 2:And what'd she say? The very first answer was yes. So, she didn't have to think about it. So that was good, that's good Positive response. Hey, question number two Worst day of your life, or one of the worst Tough day.
Speaker 1:Our son died. I bet, yeah, that would be hard. It is. Yeah, yeah, ralph, I'm sorry. Question number three what?
Speaker 2:do you find fulfilling? I enjoy. I enjoy creating a solution to something and when it's for someone so for example, a kitchen remodel, how do I make this nicer in here, and I can be. I'm able to come up with something that really brings it all together for them and they just go yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice, you saw it somewhere before they could see it, and it isn't just kitchens, I mean, there's all kinds of situations.
Speaker 2:I have a son-in-law.
Speaker 1:Like you, he goes see this. This is the and I'm going. I can't see it, but keep talking. Not very creative up here, but you are, and you're bringing it to life by virtue of your descriptors. And here's what I would do I would put you know, do this landscape and do this with the door and blah, blah, blah. Number four what do you find soul crushing for you? What just zaps you of life when you experience it?
Speaker 2:You know that's not a space I have.
Speaker 1:Good, okay, good answer. Remember the question you take Shelly anywhere to dinner. In Humboldt it's on Joni and I. Where do you go out to eat?
Speaker 2:Well, Shelly's not in Humboldt.
Speaker 1:I know that. But she could be someday.
Speaker 2:And she can't go out in public activity places now, so it's not something given much thought of, okay, so maybe in past years it would be pretty fancy salad at Wendy's. There you go.
Speaker 1:It kind of begs the question. I was going to maybe hold this in the bates. In the back of the day I would see Tom Freak relate McDonald's. I was, you know, on my sales route selling ads for the Tri-City Weekly newspaper or Cox Cable or Sunlink. And hey, tom, what's up? And here you are at McDonald's. So McDonald's was your go-to.
Speaker 2:It was a go-to. They had a salad back when they had salads, and salad was a good thing. They don't anymore. Huh, uh-uh, it's all different, yeah. Yeah, I think the COVID shot that down. But, yes, and I could go there, set up the laptop and work away. And all the noises and all the issues and all the problems not one of them had anything to do with me, so it was actually kind of white noise, yeah. So it's really just kind of my own private room of being able to work on focus projects and there's more coffee if you need it.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't drink coffee, so I didn't need it, you didn't need it.
Speaker 1:Don't worry about it. Well, great answers. What do you do for fun, by the way? Oh, bonus question what's a perfect day for you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I would say there's multiple ones. Can I give a multiple answer?
Speaker 1:Of course, yeah, just the elements of the multiples.
Speaker 2:So dancing to some good music, that's a really good.
Speaker 1:You're a dancer? Yeah, I never thought I wouldn't have thought that and I wouldn't have thought I was a dancer. But I'm a pretty good dancer. Just ask Joni.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, Unbiased opinion there Anytime.
Speaker 1:I get up to dance is a good dance. It's like such a reluctant dancer for so long they might see me there we go See.
Speaker 2:Another one would be have some really solid soccer games, made some good stops. Sharp, that's a, that's a good day. Um, you're a goalie, I understand. Yeah, yeah, I'm a goalie, nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You just have to get in a way.
Speaker 1:It's, that's that's right, it's really basic.
Speaker 2:It's really basic, it's a good skill to learn. The trick is being fast enough to get away. And I would say one particular training I really enjoy doing, which is the agreement process, where I present the information and then the group, the room, divides up into small groups and each one of those small groups go through the process and it's so alive and so many light bulbs are going on and interchange. It's just just a really positive energy thing. I feel really good about that.
Speaker 1:So you can watch people learn Well, and I'm not so much watching.
Speaker 2:I'm contributing in the sense of either giving them the information and answering questions or nudging like no, not that one, this one. It's just really good just to see that it made a difference.
Speaker 1:And then sit for a second and find some joy in all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's cool. I like that a lot. So tell us about your legacy. What do you want to be remembered for? And sometimes I talk about a tombstone. What would it say on that? We saw some real entertaining ones up in Jacksonville.
Speaker 2:Oregon.
Speaker 1:Some of them were very old and some of them were very funny and it was quite entertaining. So at your celebration of life, what are we going to say about Tom Rector?
Speaker 2:Well, let's see, let's go to the tombstone. It should have a name and a dates on it, and that's all I need. So I just don't need any more. Something simple, I think. Probably the measure of whether I was successful or not is whether what I provided made a difference.
Speaker 1:That's good yeah.
Speaker 2:Whatever it was.
Speaker 1:You're doing a lot of providing these days.
Speaker 2:Trying yeah, trying.
Speaker 1:I love it. Tell me so I have the boards that you've served on. So I'd love to hear about that just for a second before we do more shout-outs on how to find you. Okay, you served on the CASA board, I think, correct.
Speaker 2:So CASA of Humboldt for a few years and then CASA of Humboldt created, set up Steve Vallow great guy set up Del Norte County to have their own CASA organization and I was part of the founding group for CASA of Del Norte and I was there with that for many years.
Speaker 2:Actually, they got into a financial situation and so I ended up being the volunteer executive director for a couple of years and so I ended up being the volunteer executive director for a couple of years. The lady now who runs the show and has for a long time, christine Sletty, she's just really great, really, really great. So those two boards National Foster Parent Association, a national organization, was there for four years and that was a new experience for me at a national level and it was interesting to discover that it really isn't any different. It's the same thing how do we get revenue and how do we stay on target and how do we make sure that we operate professionally and it was an interesting experience from that standpoint. I was on basically the founding of Inside Sports. That was a futsal soccer program for a couple decades.
Speaker 1:Inside indoor soccer.
Speaker 2:Futsal is a soccer game of five members on a team.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Uh, one, one keeper and four field and it's played on a basketball court, mm-hmm Um. Joe Homan and uh Jen Page were key, key people that brought the uh focus and the, the information, the knowledge of how that all works. It wouldn't happen without those two folks Like a national level or local no just here, just Humboldt County.
Speaker 1:I recognize that name.
Speaker 2:Arcata yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of Holmans up there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, Joe, Joe, and you know, they served 500, 600 kids and adults mostly kids for year after year after year after year. Melissa Morrison, who ran the day-to-day stuff of it she was just a gem and a jewel and her husband, Patrick Shanahan he was just right there all the time. So, had really good people and I just had to sign as president all those years.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Cool. So do you ever know Pete Shepard? Yeah, shout out to Pete.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah he. He led the Humboldt rec program when I was right out of college and ran all the rural rec programs from Trinidad down to Briceland. Yeah, great guy, really amazing.
Speaker 2:Around a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a long time. So how do we get a hold of Tom Rector or the organization we need to, besides ChatGPT or Google?
Speaker 2:Well, it depends on what your needs are. Is that, if you're in the world of adoption, foster parenting kinds of things, a Crescent Institute? Okay. If you're in the world of hardware and trusses and overhead doors and remodel stuff, thomashomecentercom?
Speaker 1:Dot com. Pretty easy to find that. Yeah, wow, so is there a book in the works?
Speaker 2:There has been a book in the works for a long time. If aging is an important ingredient, I've got that covered.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, there may come a time where you are able to settle in and write the book or two.
Speaker 2:You know I've I've worked on it off and on and, um, clearly I I am challenged about how to bring the information forward so that it connects to the multiple different audiences and yet not be sprayed all over the wall too, so sure. So I'm sure Shannon will get me squared away and get me pointed You've got a decent editor there. Thanks for letting me get it done.
Speaker 1:She's good. Shout out to Shannon again Hi, shannon, so maybe videos too. Are there videos on the website? Do you do YouTubes?
Speaker 2:There is, and each year we set up different goals of what we have and, uh, this two 2026 is going to be, uh, focused more on creating a YouTube content also, so it just keep growing. Yep, it's self-funded so and there's a certain amount of limitation there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Limited resources. Hey, before I forget, uh, you did win the Dick Taylor chocolate, oh hallelujah. So I just want you to okay. Does.
Speaker 2:Shelly like chocolate? Uh, she does, but I hope this makes it up to Oregon. No, okay, thank you, sir, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for being here. Appreciate you, I really do. And thanks for listening. If you want to tune into us, we're at YouTube, all the podcast platforms. We love the positive reviews, comments like us, subscribe to us, love us and like us. Please. That would be amazing and tell your friends. And thank you again, tom Richter, for being here. Appreciate you. Thank you very much. You bet have a great one. Thank you.
