Mustangs Unbridled
Welcome to Mustangs Unbridled, Lipscomb Academy’s podcast hosted by Dr. Brad Schultz and Amanda Price. Each of our future guests will represent the spirit of the academy. Some voices may be new to you while others will feel like reuniting with old friends.
Mustangs Unbridled
The Unexpected Road to Automotive Success with Greg Corley
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Not all careers are handpicked. Sometimes we land into a career unexpectedly and a surprising path blossoms before us, and when that happens we become passionate about our livelihood. As we discover through an alum from the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the next segment of On the Road, hosted by Dr Brad Schultz and Amanda Price, this is Mustangs Unbridled.
Speaker 2:Innovation is all around us, especially in the automotive industry. Today's guest has built a career in connected vehicle services, benefiting millions of drivers globally.
Speaker 1:Greg Corley, class of 1986, has specialized in business development of automotive software. He has had a unique career and we're excited to learn more about the industry. Today he's welcomed us into his home. Thank you, greg.
Speaker 3:My pleasure. Glad to have you here.
Speaker 1:We always like to start with our alumni. How you actually came to Lipscomb, what grade did you start in? Was there a reason that you were there? Just give us the history.
Speaker 3:You bet. So I moved to Nashville from Atlanta when I was in fourth grade. So the first two years I lived in Tennessee. I was in Altshedum County Public School and my parents both worked in town really weren't happy with the learning environment where I was and was looking for more, especially at that point in time. You know private education was much better than a lot of the public schools were, especially in Cheatham County, unfortunately. So went around, did a lot of interviewing and ultimately found David Lipscomb at the time and that's where I ended up, started there in sixth grade and stayed all the way through college. It was a long run, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Well, I like to look people up in their yearbooks to see what they're interested in, and you appeared many, many times throughout those four years in the yearbooks, starting with fine arts. So I think I saw you were in two different chorus groups.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was in some middle school chorus and then high school chorus. I guess all four years of high school I was in the chorus and, yeah, that was fun. Robert King was a phenomenal director. I may have been actually in his very first class when he took over leadership of that and so, yeah, I definitely remember a few times butting heads. I wasn't the most cooperative at times, but he was amazing. It was a blast. We had so much fun. I didn't have that strong of a voice so I never had to worry about solos or anything but being a part of the larger chorus. It was a blast. I really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:I also saw you won second place in the talent contest for a piano piece, so I want to know do you still play piano and what was the piece you played?
Speaker 3:I think I played the entertainer Scott Joplin's entertainer, if I recall which it's funny, I had completely forgotten I was in that talent show. Thanks, amanda. Thanks for that and the answer to the first question no, I do not play the piano, although there's a piano I grew up with is sitting just down the hall, I've walked away from it. Yeah, it was one of those things I played. I was classically trained for 10 years and unfortunately I had an experience with my last music teacher that honestly turned me off to it. And so why I've drugged that piano around for the last 30 some odd years, I don't know. Maybe my kids have tinkered with it a little bit and it's been fun listening to them. But it's on that kind of bucket list. One day, you know, when I'm not quite so busy, I would like to get back into it. But yeah, it was just one of those things I've just walked away from, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:Well, you're never too old to learn something again.
Speaker 3:I might be on that. I can't remember where Middle C is now. That's the unfortunate thing.
Speaker 1:I also saw you were a cross-country runner, so we always like to. We know that sports is more than just winning. There are so many more things that you learn and you have growth, personal growth. So, for you, what did you learn from sports and as well as fine arts, because you were with a group, for you said all four years. So what did you take away from those experiences?
Speaker 3:Well, from a sports perspective, I definitely, even though I ran cross country, I really learned that I hate running. Uh, it was. It was funny. I it's one of those things that when I did it, it was one of those things that it was probably where I had the. It had the least least barrier to entry for me athletically, because I could never make the basketball team. I wasn't good enough in baseball, that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:But what I definitely learned was I needed time to think and that was one of the coolest things about it. As much as I hated the running itself, it was always a great time just to get in your own head and kind of work through things, and so that part actually brought me a lot of enjoyment. And as much as I hated running, then it's one of those things that I did start doing. Once I got older, and especially once I had kids and work and a lot of travel for work, it gave me a chance to kind of step away and kind of reset a lot of things mentally. So that was a lesson that I wouldn't expect to learn in high school, that you kind of need that headspace and you need time to alone with your thoughts, and that was a good place for me. But when you start looking at the other kind of life lessons, one was don't ever give up. That was one thing for sure. That you definitely are going to see a lot of obstacles, especially running, and especially at that time you didn't have sidewalks everywhere to run. So you're running on the side of the road, you're running in ditches, you're twisting ankles, that type of stuff. So it was easy to kind of have injuries jump up and kind of potentially sabotage what you're trying to do athletically. But you still needed to work through that. You shouldn't give up. You've got a team that you're a part of that's depending upon you, and those are things that didn't occur to me then.
Speaker 3:But I've absolutely seen and lived for the last 30, 40 years in life and especially in work.
Speaker 3:No one's alone when they're working. Even if you're self-employed, you still have others that are a part of that team that you're depending upon. And especially for me, being a small part of a much larger organization and a much larger team that's been able to deliver a lot of things understanding what it's like to be a part of a team, understanding the role that you need to play and that the success of teams really occurs when you're not trying to play hero ball, when you're playing your position, your role, you're taking care of your responsibilities. It doesn't mean you can't step up and go above and beyond, but the key success elements are really when everybody is doing their job and everybody's kind of pulling in the same direction. And so being a part of various teams growing up really helped kind of plant those seeds same direction and so, you know, being a part of various teams growing up really helped kind of plant those seeds that really didn't sprout and I really didn't understand until I certainly got a lot further down the road in my professional career.
Speaker 2:Just an FYI, so no question here, but when Amanda was talking about chorus and you mentioned Robert King so this is his 40th year I didn't know if you know.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah so I did get some emails about it and the links that he put out. So I did go back and look at some of the old Granny videos from back in the day and, yeah, I got a big chuckle out of it. It was a lot of fun going back and seeing some of the old performances at Hillsborough and Granny White and Bellevue, where I grew up going. It was pretty cool. It was really neat to relive that again.
Speaker 2:That's neat. So if you were to walk through our campus now and inside the building several different places lower school and upper school campus we have some signs that says you belong here and for students to feel like that's true, it's about relationships with friends, but I think also they would say very much with faculty and staff coaches, teachers, course teachers you know different areas as well that they've connected with. Were there some individuals that come to mind when you think of what allowed you to feel like you belong there with faculty and staff?
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. There's a handful of teachers that really, truly stick out. I mean, the first one that popped to mind is Nelson Eddy. You know he was English teacher. That, oh my gosh, you know from into the room and he's dressed up like Shakespeare.
Speaker 3:The biggest thing was how he made everyone feel involved in a part of the class, because in all of our quizzes and our vocab test, you know, he would actually do a caricature of a student on every one of them and it was always you. Couldn't you actually look forward to the test or the quiz because you want to see, hey, am I on it this time? Is this going to be my character? Cheer? But he was able to really bring things to life in such a vivid way. And then he was also. I got to work under him, you know, the night of January 16th he was the director, uh, when I was, you know, had the uh a part in in that play and he really made things fun. He made things exciting and that's one of the things that actually, for whether it was Miss Brown, miss Dixon, miss Boyce, mrs Piper, all those teachers in seventh grade, they all made learning fun, which really helped kind of set the stage of okay, it's not just school Yuck, this is exciting, this is fun stuff, and whether it be what their teaching styles were or how they interacted with you, you know, in between class and home period, that type of thing, it was great.
Speaker 3:You know coach Tracy she was an amazing you know track cross country coach, but also English teacher as well. It's funny Now that I think about it English really had a pretty bigger impact on my life and kind of impression than I really thought it would have. Until I kind of take a step back and look at it, it kind of flows down to now my daughter's an English teacher, so it's kind of crazy how it goes full circle. But those are the names and teachers that really jumped off the page at me.
Speaker 3:You know another teacher that I knew, but I never had her as a teacher, mrs Rydell, because I never took chemistry. I wasn't smart enough to take that and I avoided it like the plague. But being able to see the relationship that all my friends had and that she had with all the students, even though I never had her in class, being around her and seeing her influence, that definitely sticks, you know, jumps off the page and sticks with me over the years of you know. Again, she made it fun, she made it interesting, but she was also a just a phenomenal teacher from a, from a curriculum perspective, and so that was. That was a lot of fun too.
Speaker 1:So you're not the only person that has mentioned Mrs Rydell in these conversations, or Nelson Eddy and I can't remember who it was. It might have been Monica Wright, she graduated around the same time you did, and I think she was one who talked about how he would just come and just make the words come alive.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to go back to the yearbook for a minute. I saw that you were a staff photographer for the yearbook and I think were you an editor.
Speaker 3:I wasn't the editor. No, Okay Well did you that was Julie Fox.
Speaker 1:Do you remember that the very last page of your senior yearbook, the whole staff wrote a letter to Nelson Eddie talking about how much y'all appreciated him and his guidance? So it impacted. It impacted me when I read it Cause, like I said, you weren't the first person who actually talked about Nelson Eddy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he was. He was an amazing guide for us, you know, as we were working on on the yearbook. It was funny he he gave. He gave me an opportunity to be a photographer and I wasn't that great a photographer, so there were. I remember I think it was Homecoming I actually was in. Thankfully we had multiple photographers Bobby Johnson and others were in there doing it Because I didn't have film in my camera. So when we go to the darkroom to development, I pop it open and there's nothing in there. So I'm like, okay, that's just awesome Learning experience.
Speaker 1:What a'm like okay, that's just awesome.
Speaker 3:Learning experience, A lot of learning experience. Yeah, double check your work, everything. But yeah, he was funny, caring, very instructional and definitely brought every part of life that I had a chance to interact with. He truly brought it to life and that made a huge impact on me.
Speaker 1:So I want to read to you what's on his LinkedIn page.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:During my five-and-a-half-year career at David Lipscomb High School, I taught English, speech, theater, bible and yearbook. I'm especially proud of the fact that one of my students is now a university athletic director, another is an accomplished songwriter and, to my knowledge, none of my students is in prison.
Speaker 3:Well, I know he's talking about Philip as far as the AD, but yeah, thankfully I've never spent any time in the pokey, so I'll give Mr Eddie all the credit for that.
Speaker 2:When you were in high school, you were in the Future Teachers of America Club, which that's pretty evident what that is, but you were also in Homiletics Club. So do you mind just sharing, for those who may not be familiar with that, what that club entails?
Speaker 3:Sure, the Homiletics Club. Basically it was a preacher's club, for lack of a better term. It was tied very closely actually to the chorus and kind of working together, but it was a club. The homiletics club would. When we would go to perform at a local congregation, a member of the homiletics club would usually deliver the message. It would speak in the service that Sunday evening and then afterwards the chorus would perform. So it just kind of became a natural connection.
Speaker 3:There I'm in one, I can be in the other and let's kind of do both of them. I enjoyed public speaking. It was one of those things that I learned early on that I kind of had a bit of a gift of gab and an ability to do it somewhat effectively I'll blame Mrs Boyce for that and a history assignment on the Battle of Shiloh. But that's how it worked. The Bible teachers at Faith and Mr Eddie and others were very instrumental in kind of guiding us and teaching us speaking techniques and how to put specifically around lessons. Bible lessons kind of here's how you need to structure things, here's kind of the fundamental flow and how to put your points together and your messages together and how to do it in a succinct manner but in an effective manner as well. So it was a lot of education that, even though I didn't move into ministry, there were some fundamental things there about crafting a message that I've applied literally every day of my professional career since then.
Speaker 2:So, looking at your current career choice, you're not a teacher or a preacher that I'm aware of, but so how did you end up in the automotive industry?
Speaker 3:Completely by accident, not intentional at all. So after I graduated from college at Lipscomb needed a job. I was doing some TV work and stuff, but I needed an actual, legitimate, paying job and I went to work as a salesperson in a home security company Rollins Protective Services at the time and one thing led to another in the course of spending time in the home security space that literally one day within a 24-hour period I get four different contacts about going to work for a company called Westinghouse Westinghouse Home Security. Four different job opportunities in four different locations and and a couple of them were sales, one was management and another was a national sales trainer based out of headquarters corporate here. And so when you get something like that, it's kind of like I think God's trying to tell you here's a path, I think you'd kind of need to be going down, and one thing leads to another. I get the job as a national sales trainer here.
Speaker 3:So when I come down here in end of 96, westinghouse has this little division that has just started. Literally they'd launched that year in their connected vehicle space. So I was doing national sales training. I had visibility in front of the executives and having the president and other VPs of the company coming in and speaking to new salespeople as part of it, and that gave me visibility at the executive level that I probably shouldn't have had normally.
Speaker 3:And it led to the point of the president coming to me and said hey, we're going to grow this little automotive thing that we're starting. We're going to do one of two things we're either going to spin it off and sell it to somebody else, or we're going to grow it and we're going to separate it. And we're going to do one of two things we're either going to spin it off and sell it to somebody else, or we're going to grow it and we're going to separate it and we're going to go public. I want you to be a part of that. And so nine months into that I made a switch over into automotive and from 1997 to today I've been in the automotive-related business. So completely by accident, but it's been a fun, fun ride.
Speaker 2:That's good for our students to be able to hear, because I think very often they think they've got to have it all figured out, even, like as a ninth grader, oh, I need to know what I'm going to do, right. So it's nice to hear you don't have to have it all figured out.
Speaker 3:I'm still trying to figure out what I actually want to do.
Speaker 1:I can appreciate that too. So you have worked almost 20 years for the company where you currently are, agero. You worked, took some different jobs and then you came back. So what is it about this company that has made you want to come back again for a second term?
Speaker 3:Sure, for me it's real simple. It's the executive leadership. So the first go-around the president, chief strategy officer and chief legal officer are with a company now that were with a company previously and I had an opportunity to travel domestically and internationally with some of them and really had an opportunity to see them beyond the boardroom and kind of see what they're like, you know, outside of the four walls of a work environment and get to know them on a little bit more of a personal level. And with that I saw the integrity, the, you know, the quality of the person and that you know the persona that they had at work wasn't their real persona, that's, they were true and authentic and so that definitely made an impression on me and no matter where kind of where life was taking me, you know, having that kind of connection and that ability to stay in touch with them professionally certainly opened doors so that when an opportunity arose for me to move from one position to another and they had an opening, the timing was right I absolutely wanted to jump at the chance to go back. So you know it was very much a personal or person-driven decision and from that I'll use a term that a boss that I had Steve Milstein for years at ATX and then part of the time at Agero.
Speaker 3:A phrase that he used shadow of the leader, and it's all about you know the effectiveness of leadership and everybody below you takes on and kind of falls under. However you act as the leader, that's how the people below you are going to act. And I very much see that shadow of the leader approach is very visible at Agero with Dave Farrick and Peter and Jeff and the shadow that they cast across the organization from a professionalism and innovation, a creative thinking, a teamwork, all those things kind of trickle down. And it absolutely was something of interest to me, especially at this point in my career, going on 55, going on 56 years old. You know I don't need political games, I don't need all that type of stuff at this stage in the business world, and so that's really what kind of helped drive me or really drove my interest in wanting to come back and the timing worked out that there was an opportunity there as well.
Speaker 1:I like hearing that you chose to follow the people and not the company, so it says so much about character when you want to go back to work for a particular individual.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. I mean that's one of the things that I would say when I look back on my professional career. You know the people aspect of what I've been able to do and see in the companies I've worked with, it's really the people that jump out and stick out for me. I mean, yeah, we've had an opportunity to work with some of the biggest companies in the world in the automotive space, but it's all about the people there and the relationships that you've been built, because, especially with what I do and really for a large part of sales in general, it's all about relationship selling. I can think back to 2005 when we, when Toyota picked this little company ATX out of Dallas non-automotive my president, steve Milstein, I had flown out having the, the, the handshake signing agreement and that type of stuff. And after we were done, you know they said look, we're not buying you for the company, we're buying you for you. We trust you, the two of us, because we've worked with you and this process has gone so long. We're trusting that you can deliver on what you've said and to me that speaks mountains.
Speaker 3:You know it goes to the importance of your character, your dependability, your truthfulness throughout your process. It applies to any part of life, but especially when sales I mean gosh. I can remember an executive at another card company that would always joke with me. He's like, hey, how do you know a sales guy's lying? His lips are moving. Okay, everybody's heard that joke, but it really speaks to and validates the importance of those personal relationships and their ability to rely on you. And so truthfulness is absolutely something that it's foundational. Obviously you learn, hopefully you learn it at home, but that's absolutely a foundational message that I learned from sixth grade, all the way through college at Lipscomb, was to be earnest, to be truthful and to be forthright in everything that you do. For me, it's paid off in spades throughout my life.
Speaker 1:Well, agero started as a motor club company 50 years ago, and it's expanded to electric vehicle mobile chargers and software for real-time, real-time assistance. So, of all their innovations, which ones have impressed you the most?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh. The fact that it's still a family-run business, I think, is definitely one of the most impressive things you know.
Speaker 3:Sid Walk just it's back to people Sid Walk just late last year they had a big 50th celebration for him and the family and what the company's done. When you look at what Agero's done certainly a lot of it in the window that I wasn't part of the organization, but their leadership in starting an automotive, but now their leadership in the insurance space, dealing specifically with insurance carriers. You know, some of the largest insurance providers in North America partner with us to take care of their drivers and so being able to create very specific, very unique solutions and programs from a connected vehicle roadside that are very specific to the insurance space. Programs from a connected vehicle roadside that are very specific to the insurance space. Things that in 2013, when I left Agera, when they sold our division off, things that were just on the drawing table to now, 10 years later, 11 years later, to see them going from just beginning it to dominating that space. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:It's really, really cool to see the technology that they're implementing.
Speaker 3:It's so much more than just a tow truck on the side of the road the design, the ability to leverage artificial intelligence on the back end to help speed things up, the focus they have on customer satisfaction and having someone that at what may be one of the certainly the worst part of your day, when you're broken down on the side of the road, being able to turn that into a positive, not only experience for you but also a positive experience for the brand. Whether it's your insurance carrier that you call to help get you taken care of, whether it's the car manufacturer, the innovation and the focus they put on that absolutely has been very impressive. And then, when you start looking at leveraging technology, moving forward you know the EV space and things that we're doing and lessons learned from some of the initial programs that we've been you know we have in place being able to help a car company say this is how you need to design things for the future, this is how you need to take care of your drivers tomorrow, 10 years from now.
Speaker 2:Those types of things, that vision, very, very impressive to me and very excited to be a part of. So on several sites we saw a description of quote white label, roadside assistance. So what does white label mean in your industry?
Speaker 3:It's a great question and it's really simple. It means that we do not promote the Agero brand. It means we take on the brand of our customers. So, for example, we'll answer the phone as a Toyota or a Subaru or a Honda, or we'll answer the phone as State Farm or Liberty Mutual those types of things. So we take on our customer's brand when we're interfacing with the end client. That's really what white label means. So it's something we've done throughout. Actually it's a part of what I've done, except for a small portion of my career.
Speaker 3:Everything's kind of been white labeled. When we first started in the connected vehicle space, working directly with the car companies ATX, westinghouse Protection, one Mobile Services, atx, even Cross Country slash, agero we'd always answer the phone as, whoever the car company was, sirius XM, that window. They had a brand publicly traded. Everybody knew what Sirius XM was. So that was a little bit of a shift for me because, okay, now we've got our own massive brand to kind of leverage and put out in the public.
Speaker 3:But for the most part, throughout my career, being a part of a kind of a white label company or white label industry has been very beneficial. So it's problematic when someone asks you hey, what do you do for a living or who do you work for? And you say my company name and they're like no, I never heard of that. Well, have you heard of this? Oh yeah, I've heard of that. Okay, well, we're actually the ones that provide that. So it's kind of an interesting give and take around the white label piece, but it's been extremely beneficial for us as an organization supporting our customers and their brands.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned your division was sold off and it was sold to Sirius XM. So did you go and you led that division at Sirius XM?
Speaker 3:I didn't lead the division, I was part of it.
Speaker 3:So we had the core roadside business and historical roadside business and then the connected vehicle business that I was a part of that cross country at the purchased and then sold that division to SiriusXM and then the core roadside and other things that they were doing stayed under the Agero brand.
Speaker 3:So I was you know gosh, there were probably a few hundred of us that went from a call center piece, operations piece, marketing, engineering, sales, business development and executives that went over to the SiriusXM team. So definitely had a bit of a shift from a role perspective once I went over because there was a lot of duplication when you become part of such a multibillion-dollar organization like that. But was still focused on business development, kind of narrowed the scope down to specifically the Asia-Pacific brands, japanese and Korean brands, whereas before I was responsible for all business development and sales activities globally for the automakers we were chasing. So a bit of a shift but still had the opportunity to do business with companies I've been working with for years, both working with them here in North America but primarily working with them back in Japan and Korea at their corporate headquarters and then in Europe as we were looking to potentially grow business over there as well.
Speaker 1:When your division was sold off, it was shortly after Sirius Radio and XM Radio merged to become this huge satellite product. What was it like? What was the energy there? Because I know that satellite radio came on in the early 2000s but it took a while to grow to where it's actually in all the cars. So when you started working there, that was about the time that it was really really getting big. What was the vibe like there?
Speaker 3:It was definitely different than anything I'd ever been in before, because now I'd gone from always being part of a privately held company to now as part of a publicly traded company. So the expectations and demands are completely different. There's certainly, as everyone would expect, it's all about the money, it's all about the profit, it's all about the returns. And what's the story? Going to the street, the good thing was, with the connected vehicle piece, we were such a small part of the massive SiriusXM entity that we didn't have the exact, we didn't have the same scrutiny as the core satellite radio audio business did. So we had a little bit of protection there. Still the same internal demands and rigor and expectations, but at least from the street, not quite the same level of granularity that was focused on our company, the energy.
Speaker 3:It was fun, it was exciting, it was great to be a part of a, an industry giant, so to speak, because it immediately opened doors that were so hard to open previously. You had brand recognition, you had relationships with every car manufacturer that sold in North America, so it definitely made parts of the job a lot easier because of those relationships. But there were other elements that also were difficult to tackle because okay, wait, you've gone from being a small company, at least on paper more nimble, more agile, more moldable from an OEM customer perspective, to now you're part of a massive company. Maybe a little bit harder to get something pushed through quickly, those types of things. So it had its challenges, but it was a lot of fun. It was cool to get free satellite radio for a little while while I worked there, that was nice, always enjoyed 80s on 8.
Speaker 1:I read a lot of information about the companies you work for. I read a bunch of automotive stuff and they all seem to be on the forefront of technology. So, without giving insider information, what is the next big thing that's coming?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, yeah, that's a tough question but it's a fun question. It's all about education, both from a consumer perspective but also from an automotive manufacturer perspective, of being educated on how are people using my car, what's important to them from a feature perspective, from a usage, from a mileage, what's breaking down so that I can improve my quality, I can improve that ownership experience? I think that's really when you start looking at that's the future, because when you start kind of peeling the layers of the automotive space back, one of the challenges that they're really trying to tackle now is the buyer profile continues to change. I just look at me and my children Back in my day couldn't wait to get your driver's license. It was freedom, it was independence and you were gone. You know, trying to get it at 14 or 15, but no later than 16, you're gone. You got a car and you're gone. I look at my kids, and certainly between one that's a 24-year-old and an 18-year-old, the difference in that age group and their interest in driving and getting their own license and stuff. It's been shocking that. You know I don't need that as much. You know I can Uber, I can rideshare in all shape, form or fashions, having my own ownership of a car isn't quite the same. Obviously that's going to depend on parts of the country you're in, but that's one of the challenges that the car companies are looking at. My job is to build and move metal, but my users are using it differently. So how do I need to change?
Speaker 3:Technology is enabling a lot of that shift, a lot of that understanding to change what the car of the future looks like. Then you start looking at EV and hybrids and those types of things. That's such a massive opportunity. There's so many challenges that are there for that to truly, I think, become kind of the status quo of everybody's got, or EV becomes a part of what everybody has. There's so many infrastructure changes that have to take place.
Speaker 3:Forget range anxiety and stuff of hey, how long is my battery going to last? Can I get from point A to point B? It becomes a lot more practical to me of I don't have 30 minutes to wait for my car to charge so I can go from here to there. I need to be able to do it as quickly and as conveniently as the internal combustion engine is today, and while is it realistic to have charging stations that can get you up and running in five minutes on every street corner like we got gas stations?
Speaker 3:I don't know, probably not, but that's really what's got to come, and that's not just an automotive thing, that's a government thing, that's an infrastructure thing. That's a government thing, that's an infrastructure thing, that's a partner thing. There's so many players that are involved in that to really drive. What everybody believes is that's where we're going from a technology perspective within the automotive space. But for me, the next big thing is really how do we leverage technology to better understand what our users' needs are and then what our products should be to meet those needs?
Speaker 2:So this is graduation season. You know this very well. You've got a child graduating this year, and so one thing we'd like for you to do is just kind of reflect on your time since you graduated high school, if you've got a moment to just share some advice to these students who are seniors, who are about to be leaving us, any advice that they may or may not listen to.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, I mean, maybe one of them will listen. My kids don't. But I will start with this. I'll say the same thing to these seniors that I've said to all three of my kids Find something that you love, something you have a passion about, and chase it until that chase is over. You know what? That's just not what I want to do. Give it a shot, especially at this point in time.
Speaker 3:There's never a better time to chase your dreams than coming out of school. When I look back at my life and God's blessed me beyond my wildest dreams. There are still and it's gotten less and less over the years, but there's still times I look back and go what if I'd done that? What if I pursued that instead of this? What if I'd taken that fork versus this fork in a road so happy where I'm at, I've got to see and do some of the most amazing things, things that, growing up in Cheatham County on 40 acres, never dreamed would be possible. But that would be the very first thing I would say to the seniors Don't be afraid to chase your dreams, no matter what they are, no matter big or small they are.
Speaker 3:Chase your dreams. And then the second thing is don't let the money drive you. Let the relationships drive you. If you find something, if you can build relationships and you find yourself in making a living that you enjoy, trust me, the money will find you. It will. The path will lead you to where are you going to be the richest person in the world? Who knows? But I guarantee you, based off of my own experience, the money will find you. God will bless you in ways beyond your wildest dreams, and it's not always money the life experiences and things that you'll get to do, the people you'll get to see along the way, and the relationships you have. When you look back, that's what you remember, and it's not the paycheck. The paycheck helps facilitate, it's important, so don't take it the wrong way. But there's so much more to your life and your career than just a paycheck. So chase those dreams and live it.
Speaker 1:We have come to our favorite part of every podcast, and it's rapid fire, where we just ask you some random questions so that we get to know your personality a little bit more. But I can tell probably a third of the questions you've answered already have all been about relationships, I mean you are relational, so I feel that this is going to be right up your alley, okay.
Speaker 3:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:I know you said you don't like to run, but what's the fastest? You've run a 5k in when you had to run.
Speaker 3:I don't even know. Probably the last time I ran that far I probably ran it in wait. What's a 5K again? Is that three?
Speaker 1:miles 3.2.
Speaker 3:3.2 miles Now. I probably run that in about 30 minutes maybe. I'm super slow, you know. I just my knees hurt too much. I couldn't tell you what the fastest I ever ran it, unfortunately. But yeah, it's probably around 30 minutes now.
Speaker 2:I think that's great, I think it's amazing. Actually, what's your guilty pleasure or guilty indulgence?
Speaker 3:Chocolate chip cookies. Oh my gosh Do you like them warm. I just like them. You know there's cookie dough in the refrigerator right now that I'll go and pop Warm. You know a pizookie? I don't know if they have BJ's restaurants back in Nashville. What is that? It's a skillet iron skillet chocolate chip cookie with ice cream on it. You get it super hot. Oh my gosh, my mouth's watering down just thinking about Pazookies. They're unbelievable.
Speaker 1:How often do you get back to Nashville or Cheatham County?
Speaker 3:Once or twice a year. Now Still have a couple of brothers that live out in Dixon County, but business used to take me back a lot more often when I dealt specifically with Nissan. I don't deal with them directly anymore, so now I get back once or twice a year. Nissan I don't deal with them directly anymore, so now I get back once or twice a year.
Speaker 2:What's your?
Speaker 3:favorite season Spring. Spring is definitely my favorite season Does Texas have? Seasons. We have no, not really we have brown and green. That's pretty much our two seasons. Colors yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you've actually already answered this question, because you said 80s on 8 was your favorite radio station.
Speaker 3:Right, I was going to ask you what your favorite XM radio station is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 80s on 8 absolutely was. So I love Rock and Roll, hall of Fame, but it's gone. I don't understand how do they operate in that you have a station for about a year and then it disappears, and then on your screen it just has XM radio and there's nothing there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know, the time I was there it was definitely a veil and science behind it. There's definitely a science behind what they do. There's no question about that. Some of the stuff they'll put up and it's kind of trial balloons, see what it's like and then, with the full intent that it's going to come back down and then pop up every once in a while, but I never understood the thought process. But there's definitely absolutely a science behind what they do and how they come up with it.
Speaker 2:This one might be tough. How many countries have you been to?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, 20 or 30 easily.
Speaker 2:Wow yeah.
Speaker 3:If it wasn't rapid fire, I could go through it which one stands out.
Speaker 2:If you had to go visit one two weeks from now for pleasure, which one would you go to?
Speaker 3:For pleasure. It's probably Italy or France. Those are two of my favorite places on earth that I've been able to travel. Japan Absolutely love Japan. I've probably been to Japan more than 80 times. France Absolutely amazing. Was there last summer on vacation with my fiance and it was the greatest two-week trip I've ever been on. And then Italy. Italy is outside of Mexico. It's the first place I went to internationally when I was way, way, way back in the day, and I've been in love with it ever since. Absolutely love Italy.
Speaker 2:Eighty times You've been to Japan, but how many times have you been to Kroger?
Speaker 3:When you go on business three to four times a year for 25 years, it kind of adds up but it's all a blur. But Tokyo is one of the most amazing cities. It's incredible, that's great.
Speaker 1:What time is your alarm set on a typical weekday?
Speaker 3:Well, now it's late, my alarm's set at seven. I'm usually awake long before then, but I have my alarm set just so I can make sure I stop whatever I'm doing. It may be waking up, but I stop whatever I'm doing so I can spend a few minutes with my son before he heads off to school. But I love my sleep. So I'm not a. I try not to get up early, if I can help it.
Speaker 2:What's your favorite Texas barbecue joint?
Speaker 3:Meet you Anywhere is my favorite. There's got a couple of locations here I just absolutely love. Their brisket to me is the best. But that's a question that will start fights, because you can ask five people and get 10 different answers on what their favorite and what the best barbecue joint is.
Speaker 1:Okay, In the same realm. What food in Texas is overrated?
Speaker 2:In your opinion.
Speaker 1:In your opinion.
Speaker 2:In my opinion.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure any food here is overrated the Tex-Mex, especially. Growing up when I did in Nashville, I never really knew what that was, it was Taco Bell, holy cow. The Tex-Mex down here is mind-blowingly good and I can't. That's the one thing I would do when I would go overseas, especially going to Asia. But no matter where I traveled, the very first meal I would have would be Tex-Mex when I would get back home. So I'm not sure that there is a food that's overrated down here.
Speaker 2:I really don't so I've heard you mention several different places. How did you end up being a Georgia Bulldogs fan?
Speaker 3:well, I was born in Atlanta, that's's right. So I moved to Nashville when I was nine but my father was a season ticket holder. So my earliest sports memories are between the hedges going with my father and my brother, jeff, before he graduated from high school and standing in line to meet Ugga and see the cheerleaders pet Ugga pregame back when they used to do that way, way, way back in the day. So yeah, that's, those are my earliest childhood memories and it's just stuck with me and it also kind of ticked my mom off.
Speaker 3:So you know it was always good she just hated Georgia, she just hated the University of Georgia. It was just the University of Georgia per se, but so it was as much as anything to help, kind of, you know you know what? Kids do like to poke poke their parents sometimes, so that was part of it too.
Speaker 1:What book is on your list to either read or listen to next?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, um, I don't know. Honestly, I, I, I, I feel woefully inadequate. I've got a lot of shows to watch, but I don't have a lot of books to read. So I feel really bad about answering this question, especially for how much emphasis I put on English earlier in this conversation.
Speaker 2:Do as I say. Yeah, exactly, do you play Wordle?
Speaker 3:I have played Wordle. I haven't played in a while.
Speaker 2:You have an app that you waste time on.
Speaker 3:Besides Instagram no, not really Instagram is a big waste, primarily because of travel, so looking for travel ideas and things like that, we're planning trips, so that's the biggest waste. The reason I'm on it for that.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite musician?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I mean I'm still extremely partial to Duran Duran.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, my favorite band ever, simon Le Bon Was that his last?
Speaker 3:name. Yeah, and John Taylor, john Taylor. He and I have the same birthday.
Speaker 1:Brad's like who's Duran Duran. I don't know any songs? No, I know who Duran is. No, I know who Duran is.
Speaker 2:I don't know any songs. But oh, yeah, no. If you play the songs I'll say oh, I recognize this song.
Speaker 3:Girls on Femme.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know all those songs Rio Hungry Like the Wolf. Her name is Rio Hungry Like the Wolf. I know that. There we go.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I had a chance to see them. Four was a huge Duran Duran fan and they are playing this summer at a casino near her.
Speaker 1:So, if you want, to just drive right on up there. You can watch them again.
Speaker 2:I could just say at a hotel near them.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a hotel there too. It's an amazing facility, great location, great venue. So if she hasn't been there before, it's a phenomenal venue to see a concert Great.
Speaker 2:So do you consider yourself adventurous? Yeah, I think so. What would be a somewhat recent adventure?
Speaker 3:you've been on Well, let me adventure not life-risking or safe-risking, but adventurous is just the first things to do. You know, I would say, well, I just think back to last summer when we went to Paris for two weeks and said, you know what? Hey, we're going to take a side trip here, Just out of the blue, we're just going to go here. And we ended up going to, you know, Mont Saint-Michel. You know that little island city where the cathedral and all that stuff is and the water flows in and out around it. And I had a chance to meet, stay on the island, meet the nicest, most amazing little French couple. We stayed in contact since then. They opened up their home because they rented out a room in their home to us for overnight. It was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 3:So for me, adventures are like that Just saying I'm in a foreign city and I just want to go check out a night market in Bangkok, or I want to. You know, I'm in Venice and I'm just going to wander the city. I have no idea where I'm going. Things like that, that's what I consider adventurous. So I very much look forward to, you know, be taking an adventure with at least a senior and here in a couple of weeks going to Belize. Never been there, so that I can't wait, you know, Can't wait for that.
Speaker 1:Well, when I get to Bangkok, I'm going to go check out a night market.
Speaker 3:It's amazing, it's absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1:What's your biggest pet peeve?
Speaker 3:Slow drivers Oblivious, that would be the word I would use. It's not just slow drivers, but it's drivers that are oblivious to their surrounding, especially those left lane. Just go so slow, those drive me nuts. So yeah, just people that are oblivious to their surroundings and are just lost in their own world. They star in their own movie that drives me nuts.
Speaker 2:Do you have a favorite podcast you like to listen to?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, I didn't listen to a podcast until recently, but now my favorite that I listen to all the time is Mustang's Unbridled oh, there you go.
Speaker 1:That was even unplanned.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for letting us come and spend some time with you, open up your home to us, share these wonderful stories. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:No, my pleasure. It was a great time. Thanks for coming out.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Mustangs Unbridled an exploration into the lives of Lipscomb Academy students, alumni, teachers, parents and interesting folk we meet along the way. To learn more about our school, visit wwwlipscombacademyorg. Until next time when the Mustangs run free this has been Mustangs Unbridled.