Episode 42: From “Temporary Job” to Lifelong Calling: Bobby Shank’s Journey in Background Screening

What if the path you thought would be temporary turned out to be the foundation of a lifelong calling? That’s the story of Bobby Shank. With a degree in finance and even a chapter of life spent in Costa Rica, Bobby never expected that joining his family’s business, Roundstone, would anchor him in the background screening industry for good. What started as “just a job” became a career marked by resilience, vision, and leadership. Along the way, joining PBSA turned out to be the source of invaluable friendships and industry-shaping insights. His story is a reminder that the paths we don’t plan often lead to our greatest impact.

Pro Conversation You don’t want to miss!

1. From Temporary Stop to Lifelong Career

2. The Turning Point: Discovering PBSA

3. Challenges, Growth, and Industry Evolution

4. Lessons, Leadership, and Legacy

Bobby Shank’s journey reminds us that what starts as a short-term commitment can grow into a lifelong passion—and sometimes, the things we resist the most turn out to be the most rewarding. If you enjoyed this conversation, please rate, follow, and review Behind the Screens. Your support helps us bring more stories like Bobby’s to the industry leaders who need them most.

Connect with US:

• Les Rosen- https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesterrosen/
• Subscribe to our YouTube Channel- https://www.youtube.com/@BehindtheSCreens200

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

One of my big pushes for PSA was to get end users involved more kind of across the board because as far as access goes, I think they swing a big bigger hammer than we do. We seem like a biased objector, whereas, you know, end users don't, you know, care about screening necessarily, you know, as part of their thing. I'm sure they do to some extent, but yeah, I feel like they have a lot more say. I always kind of hearken back to our Michigan woes from a few years ago when we had care.com come on there, and I felt like the mood in the room changed drastically when care.com came on.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

So welcome to Behind the Screens Conversations with Background Screening Pros. I'm Les Rosen, your host, and I'm excited to have you here. On this podcast, we chat with the people who know the background screening world inside and out. Executives, industry experts, legal pros, and more. We dive into their personal stories and insights to give you a real look at what's happening behind the scenes. Whether you work in the screen industry or are just curious, behind the screens bring you the real unfiltered conversations from the people who make it all happen. Stick around for stories you won't hear anywhere else. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome once again to another exciting action-packed episode of Behind the Screens. And today we have a gentleman with us who has had a very active role in the screening industry, has done lots of stuff. I'll let him tell you about it. He not only is the owner and operator of a leading public record retrieval firm, but he has been the chair, co-chair of the U.S. Council for PBSA and on the PBSA board. Maybe he's a glutton for punishment, I'm not really sure. But here to tell us all about that is Mr. Bobby Schenk. Bobby, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Thank you so much, Les. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

An honor. Well, no, it's a pleasure having you. And particularly with all your involvement in PBSA and all the work you've done, I think there's a lot we'd like to find out about you. And let's start off with what's your current role? What is it that you do in terms of background screening on day in, day out?

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Right. So, like I said, owner and operator of a family-owned business, uh, along with my sister Sarah Doggett. We've been around since 2007. I actually joined 2009. We specialize in county crimp, county civil, and dock retrieval and growing with 16 states now was started in Florida, where we're based off of. And my role is mainly in operations, you know. That's how me and Sarah don't have any sibling battles. She stays in the sales, and I kind of stay in operations. We sort of merge our two lands when we need to, and then kind of go back out.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Oh, that's great. So it's sort of the classic family business growing into an empire. So that's really great. So what do you like about it? I mean, obviously, I mean, you're a talented guy. You could be in all sorts of fields or areas. What do you like about brownstone and being in the industry?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

You know, I really love working with our team. I mean, working with Sarah is great. It's funny because when we were young, you'd never would have thought, oh, those two could work together. We, you know, butted heads a lot, but we we always say we kind of got that out of the way early. So working with Sarah and our team is great. I mean, one of the benefits of D owner is we sort of get to pick our bubble to be in. And we're, you know, huge on our organizational culture and everything like that. So really the people that we work with are amazing. Even our clients, and you know, everybody in PVSA and in the industry is just a lot of great people. So that's probably the thing I really enjoy the most about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

So, what was your career path into background screening and the particular aspect of record retrieval? Describe that for us.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah, so my resume is pretty short. I've been owner, operator with Roundstone. Basically, since I graduated college, my I guess resume would include things like pizza delivery and events coordinator for UCF student union, which fun fact, I'm the third UCF night that you've actually had on Heidi and Todd as well. So I think we might be at the top of the university rankings so far.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

I had no idea that I that I had such a you know bias in favor of University of Central Florida. Yeah, so Tal Schuldenberg from Clear Star and Heidi Patty, right? You're all uh University of Central Florida grads.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah, that's right. And so I I I graduated with a finance degree, kind of threw around the idea of being in financial services. I did some interviews and got pretty far along and sort of took myself out of the running to kind of realize it wasn't for me and was sort of just kind of floating along, wondering, okay, what am I gonna do? And I had a friend reach out to me and say, Hey, I'm I'm building these houses in Costa Rica, and he said, you know, you need a place to stay or something. He knew I was kind of in between stuff, so I went and lived in Costa Rica for a couple months and oversaw his construction project. Well, loosely say oversaw, because I was a horrible candidate for that job. Very little no construction experience and pretty mediocre Spanish. But so I did that for a couple months, sleeping outside. I slept in a hammock most nights because the house was covered in dust and things. So I was my strategy consisted of how do I keep the big bugs on the other side of the patio. So I had to come up with a system for that. But it really, you know, my my friend was an entrepreneur, and I think I saw some of the benefits of that and the flexibility and everything, and so some good came of it, and I got to surf every day, so that was great. That was a big bonus on top of that. But after that, I kind of you know had to crash back to reality and figure out what I actually wanted to do. So I uh yeah, came back home for a little bit, back to the Tampa area, and yeah, Stara and our dad had started this background screening company uh, you know, a couple years before, and sort of like, oh, you know, you could always join their family business. And I said, Well, okay, we'll do that for now and see how that goes, and I'll have that flexibility and sort of entrepreneurship that I was seeming to kind of be drawn towards. And yeah, that was like 15, 15 years ago now. So I've lived my resume, is basically many lives of brownstone. I started off doing research and court research, QA writing on, you know, we were still handwriting stuff in the early days and kind of faxing. So I got to see the very kind of end of that sort of era, and then moving into you know everything digitized and everything now. But yeah, so I was doing that, which was a horrible idea. My handwriting's terrible, so I was just constantly answering questions about what things said because of my VAT handwriting. But eventually moved on, did I done our customer service these days? Mostly, you know, high-level strategy financials. So I guess that finance degree did come in sort of handy in the end. Some accounting, and you kind of like I said, I kind of do a little bit of everything, and you know, Sarah does our sales, and yeah, that's kind of the lane that I've I've landed in, but sort of a I guess jack of all trades at this point with Roundstone.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Well, I mean, I mean to unpack that a little bit. I mean, first of all, I I think I mean I can certainly understand the entrepreneurship part of it of not wanting to have a nine to five. And so that's you know, for some people, what you did is is a better path, right? You you end up working harder, you end up working a lot more on nine to five. That's what you don't have, you're not checking a clock, but that's great. It is really interesting. So you you really were on the ground floor. You're you started in the days of you know, basically the use of the use of the apacus and chisels and hammers on on stones, basically. Yeah, to AI and everything else. You saw it all firsthand. I mean that's a really quite the experience.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Yeah, it's been it's amazing how much it's changed. I guess every industry probably, you know, has, but yeah, it's been fun to kind of see that that transition from you know doing things over the phone and boxing and all that, moving over to how it is now, and all the systems are so great and all talk with each other when they work. And you know, so it's been interesting seeing the kind of evolution of it over the years, too.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

Well, in that career and all the various things you did, other than learning that you love surfing in Costa Rica, what wasn't a really lesson that you learned uh in in terms of business in your career that has you know, you know, I'm sure we all learned lots of lessons, but what's one that's kind of comes immediately to mind that that that made an impact that you still you know remember to this day?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

I mean, really delegating and finding the right people, you know, people with strengths that kind of match our weaknesses and filling those those gaps. I mean, the one thing that you learn by kind of doing a little bit of everything is that you can't do everything. So, you know, over the years I've kind of learned where our strengths lie and where our weaknesses lie. And, you know, learning that can't try to do it all. Sometimes it's you better just get an expert, hire them and do it. That's probably one of the biggest things as a business owner that just always kind of stuck with me is you just gotta figure out what people you need, get the right people in there, and yeah, it will be all the better for it.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah, that's a great observation. And even if the person you hire doesn't immediately know what to do, you could you you can train and they become the expert. And then they take it over and boom, one less thing you worry about, and you can focus on what you do best. Yeah. That's a great lesson for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah, and that's a good thing about doing all these different jobs that I've done over the years is I'm able to not only train with them but strategize with them and empathize with them on the things that aren't so fun about some of these positions. So I think they all kind of appreciate it knowing that I've been there, you know. Whatever they're going through on a daily basis, it's like, well, I've done that, you know, did that every day for a while, probably too. So yeah, I think it helps to have an a kind of wide yak of all tradey skill set, I think.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

So part of your motto is been there, done that. Yeah, pretty much when it comes to uh your role in the industry, you've been there, you've done that, and you you know the pain. Well here you know, you had the finance screen from uh USUCF University of Central Florida, and obviously you had options. You've talked about this a little bit, but generally speaking, what do you enjoy about the background screening in general? We talked about what you like to have about roundstone, but what about you know why stay in this industry with your rays of skills and things you could be doing?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, you know, it's a new kind of challenge every day with what we do. I mean, we don't even cover the whole US or even, you know, the world like some people do. We cover somewhere in the you know, I don't know, 1300-ish jurisdictions last time I I counted, and it's there's a new challenge every day. I'm learning something new almost every day. So the challenges that come with the landscape that we work in is super interesting. And the people, again, I mean I can't say enough. I know we're both huge advocates for PVSA, but I think the people in the industry, yeah, is definitely one of the things that sort of glued me to it, you know, uh being an entrepreneur got me in, but I think the people kind of stuck me as an entrepreneur in this industry.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Oh, that's great. Yeah, we talked about this a little bit, but there's one question that we play changes and challenges, sort of top of mind. Biggest changes you've seen, biggest challenge that you see on the horizon.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

I would say changes, the two kind of things that come to mind immediately are like automation. We kind of talk about technology changes, and you know, whether you're for it, against it, and we don't really use automation, but you know, we're there to support it. We have clients that's great and automate and do all those things, and that's great. The technology advancements are amazing, it's great that they're doing it. So that's been a huge change. And I would say consolidation, you know, it's very different than it was. You got a lot of big companies, massive companies, and like a set of smaller companies, and so it's interesting. The midfield feels like it's sort of emptier than it was, which is interesting going forward. Who's gonna kind of fill those gaps and you know, seeing how it all kind of shakes out? So as far as challenges, access is a big one, you know. That's sort of why I always try to stay involved, not to get I know too much into the weeds on access or IDs and stuff. But you know, one of my big pushes for PDSA was to get end users involved more kind of across the board because as far as access goes, I think they swing a big bigger hammer than we do. We seem like a biased objector, whereas you know, end users don't, you know, care about screening necessarily, you know, as part of their thing. I'm sure they do to some extent, but yeah, I feel like they have a lot more say. I always kind of hearken back to our Michigan woes from a few years ago when we had care.com come on there, and I felt like the mood in the room changed drastically when care.com came on. So yeah, that's just kind of a few other changes and kind of challenges that come to mind.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Yeah, that's a great insight because when you know we've all dealt with you know, court clerks and at the county level, the state level, all sorts of levels, and they they see us and they think, well, you guys have a vested interest. But when an employer comes in who pays taxes and employs people, that's uh you're right, the conversation and the tone, everything shifts. All right. So I mean that that's a huge thing, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, looking back and in your career, and what's been a something that you would describe as a proud moment or something that brings a smile to your face when you think about, yeah, that was pretty that was cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

I would say so. We were as part of the provider advisory group, which is kind of where I got my start with PVSA, we completely revive reviewed, revised the criminal record provider guidelines, which are sort of the you know, I don't say kind of handbook for criminal record providers, and revamped that exam program as well. And that would be a huge undertaking. I mean, just meeting weekly, bi-weekly for a long like months, months and months, and it was just such a huge undertaking for us. And yeah, to get that done and see it, you know, kind of updated and onto the PVSA resource library and everything. That was super satisfying.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

And for those who may not have been as involved with PBSC as you are, I mean, people don't understand the number of stakeholders that are involved, the number of opinions. You know, you have eight people in a room, you'll have ten opinions, and seven people might think the other opinions are wrong. I mean, it's like, you know, you know, and then meeting and then wordsmithing and every single word, and what about this and what about that? And it just boggles the mind. So, you know, when you get something like that done, it's a huge accomplishment.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

It is, and all what I mean, these are all competitors working with each other, we're all providers, we're all very much in the same space. But luckily, there's just so many fantastic uh providers, you know, working alongside people like Scott Maloney and Andrew Cashman, and just really bright minds working on it. So, and really, I mean, I was just happy to contribute a little bit. Those guys are fantastic, and there's a lot of great people, Duranda Funk, who's fantastic. I mean, so many great people that were on that task force. That's I always kind of look fondly back on that one just because yeah, it was such a good group. He just learned so much and hearing them them talk, and that's kind of why I always advocate for people joining the committee is it's just even if you're a fly on the wall in these task forces, there's so much great stuff to kind of soak up from these people.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Oh, that that's great. And I I think uh people don't realize again that just how much work that is. And it really is true. The the the fact that you know it's uh it's uh a lot of members of PBSA uh in one sense they're competitors, but on the other hand, they're all breathing the same oxygen. They're all I mean the environment uh you know affects affects everyone equally. So I mean it's it's that's really tremendous. Well, well, since we segued the PBSA, I haven't read that you were the U.S. co-council chair and then on the PBSA board. Tell us about that. Let's start with the with the USA council.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, so I actually originally it started off as the co-chair of the provider advisory way back when. I actually it's kind of a funny story. Wanda Hess was the co-chair, one of the co-chairs at the time, and they were having trouble finding another co-chair. And so, you know, Ther and I were basically like, oh, one of us should do it. And so we flipped a coin to see what we would do. And I at the time I was like, I think I lost. I was like, I don't know, it feels like a loss, and I have more stuff to do, and I was like, oh, you know, I mean, looking back now, I'm like, what a you know, what a win that was. I wouldn't probably wouldn't be on this podcast, I wouldn't be done a lot of the things that I'd done, had a lot of growth sort of through. But I started with that group, ended up doing about five five years on the provider advisory group, which I'm still active then, still go to the calls and everything. And then so they had started the U.S. Council, which one of the chairs or the chair, depending on the committee, reports to the U.S. council along with a U.S. council kind of chair and chair-elect. And so I was on the council representing the provider advisory group, and then at some point, you know, they made a mistake of choosing me to be the chair-elect and then chair. So I did that for two years and been lucky enough now to be on the board, board of directors for PBSA, which has been a great experience so far. I mean, just so many just absolute amazing people on that board. So again, it's just one of those things, just being in there, soaking it up, and everything is just yeah, it's kind of surreal a little bit. But I'm hoping I can bring something to the table. We have our strategic plan coming up here in the next month or so. So I have a lot of ideas. I guess we'll find out if they're good or bad, you know, soon enough. But a lot of ideas, but it's been I mean, instrumental in growing me professionally, you know, just even learning to lead teams better, lead meetings better, speaking, as spoke at one of the conferences, which I would have probably, you know, if you would have asked me 10 years ago, I would have said, Yeah, absolutely not. I'm not gonna speak at the conferences. What would I, you know, what would I even say? And then going from that to where you are now, I mean, none of it would have been kind of possible without PBSA, to be honest. As a smaller business owner, you kind of get in your own bubble for good or bad. And then, you know, I feel like getting involved in TSA has really allowed me to kind of advance a skill set that I probably wouldn't have had otherwise.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Well, when you became chair-elect of the U.S. council and then the chair, I mean, how many give the listeners a sense, how many hours a month was that? I mean, how many meetings, what's involved, in addition to your full-time job as a family member, family man, and then your full-time job with Roundtree. Uh I take it it's almost like a third job.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, it really can be for sure. There's it really depends what's going on. I will say the committees do an incredible amount of work. Like they are really the kind of workhorses on a more consistent basis where the the U.S. council, there's a lot to do, a lot to organize and keep track of, and you're kind of reporting, not reporting to the board, but sort of the intermediary in a sense, a little bit for the U.S. council. So trying to, you know, drum up ideas from the committees and try to, you know, send those up the rung of the ladder to the board of directors. But there's so much great collaboration. The you know, the creation of those councils, as far as like PVSA is concerned, was an absolute, I don't even know whose idea it was, but it was a fantastic idea because the collaboration between all of those committees is really like great. I still love those calls. I'm actually the board, the liaison to the U.S. Council now, so I'm still on on all those calls. And the amount of collaboration on there is great. It's literally one of my favorite calls to get on each month because they're always drumming up ideas on how we can improve the committee, improve our kind of volunteer pipeline and everything. And there's just yeah, there's a lot of great ideas that come out of those councils and committees.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

So, I mean, before the councils, then when it was just a PBSA board, but you would have uh you know all the committees, but now those are U.S. committees, and now each you know, APAC and Canada, Europe, Africa, they each have their own committees, and then it all kind of reports up to the main board that you're on now, right? Yeah. Yep. So wha how's it like being on the on the main board, the the board that oversees all the councils? What what when did that start for you? And how long is your sentence? I mean your commitment.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

So my sentence is I believe it's two years, and gosh, did it start? It's probably been six over six months. My gosh, I should write some of this stuff down so that I remember, but time just kind of yeah. Like once you have kids and stuff, time just is totally lost. I've lost any sense of how long anything is this time. I just down. I have no idea, but it's been really great. Like I said, there's so many good people from so many different companies and different positions, and you know, you got Melissa Sorensen sort of you know wrangling us, who she's an absolute like tour de force of a human. She just like whenever she speaks on something, I'm always just incredibly impressed by her. And now we have Michelle LeBlanc who's great. I mean, they have really done a nice job at filling out the PDSA staff team. And so, I mean, they help a ton, but just I'm still in the kind of soaking up phase. I guess you know, we're we're kind of coming toward the end of our last strategic plan. So a lot of it right now is sort of in wrapping that up, finishing it off anything that's sort of left on that strategic plan, so we can move on to the next one. So I feel like my big hopefully my bigger contributions will come once this you know next strategic plan that is sort of getting you know worked out and we start kind of knocking some stuff off of that plan.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Oh, that's great. So the PBSA board, I mean the whole PBSA experience from what you described has been really positive for you. Everything you've been involved in, all the uh lessons learned, people met, leadership, speaking. What did you speak on, by the way? Do you remember when you presented uh PBSA conference? You recall your topic?

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yeah, so we did a session on CRA and provider relations. And uh Orville, who's with Equifax now. It was good, it was fun. You know, the lead up to it, the only downside is it just takes up so much mental space going up to the you know, leading up into the conference. But once you're in it, it's like that's the easiest part is actually doing it. The hard part is the build-up and the planning and the slides and everything like that. Once you get into it, it's actually kind of enjoyable. And it was helpful to do with somebody like Kevin because Kevin he speaks really well and he does lead GR. He's one of the chairs of GR right now. So he's he's a great person to kind of work along with. And and we're friends, so yeah, I feel like that helps keep it kind of conversational and everything. So it was a good it was a good experience.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah, it's really true. There's kind of a rule of thumb that for every hour you speak, it takes about three hours to prepare. So I mean it's just a general kind of rule of thumb. You see that in lots of industries, but it's really true. You're putting a lot of time and effort, and then when you get up there, time goes so quick. Someone asks a question and you're slowing off on some tangent, and and boom, all of a sudden the session's over.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Right. Yeah, and I'm you know, I'm a sucker for a tangent. I could go on a on a tangent, no problem, and just yeah, I won't even know how we got there eventually. Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Oh, that's funny. So so you've been really involved in PBSA, I but beyond PBSA, what do you do in your non-screening hours? Tell us about your hobbies or interests outside of screening. What do you do for fun?

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Yeah, a lot of sports-related stuff. I still surf as much as I can on both of our coasts. Uh we live closer to the Gulf side of things, and but I'll wake up at you know 4 a.m. and drive over to the east coast and surf for a few hours, come back the same day, still do that. Used to do a lot more surf trips, like I said, Costa Rica. Even I did the two months down there with my friend helping him with his houses, but then I would come back every year for a month and work and surf, wake up at the crack it on and either start doing some roundstone stuff, or if the tide was right, go down to the beach for a little bit, come back and so basically just work surf eat sleep, and that was about it. So I still do that as much as much as I can on top of that. I grew up loving baseball, a huge baseball fan, played about as much baseball as you could have from the ages of probably five to eighteen, and so now my son just started t-ball this past year, so I got to coach the T-ball team. So that was kind of that was fun to see everybody kind of trying to, you know, teach him little tidbits there and see him kind of thinking up a passion for the game and everything. So that's been really cool. Um, I really love motorsports, F1 and World Endurance Championship, IndyCar. I take our son to the St. Pete Grand Prix every year down here for IndyCar, and that's been a lot of fun. He's kind of hooked on it, and I've now I'm surrounded by Hot Wheels and monster trucks. Well, probably my other hobby is playing with a toy car all day.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Well, I gotta break that down a little bit. All right, so what's your team? Your uh what's your local team? Is that your favorite team?

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, the Rays. Yeah, the Rays would be my team. We're from Chicago, I have a lot of family in Chicago, so sort of forced to be a Cubs fan a little, you know. So they'd be my second, my second team be Cubs, but yeah, I'm a Rays fan kind of, you know, through and through because we've been here since I was, you know, less than a year old. So the Rays weren't even here when I moved here. So I got to see them kind of come into creation and yeah, got pretty hooked to go into the games with a kid and everything.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Well, aren't they playing in some little league field now or something? Or pretty close to the stadium. What happened? What's going on there?

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Parking lot of the Bucks Stadium, pretty much. They're playing at the uh yeah, the spring training and I think Single A Stadium for the Yankees normally. Yeah, it's like George Steinbrenner Field off in in Tampa. Um I haven't been to one yet at that field, but I you know I would like to go just because it's kind of a very time-stamped thing, you know, after the trop got destroyed and one of the hurricanes. You know, it's kind of a weird setup to be at a single A ball club field and get to see a professional team. So it's kind of a cool, unique thing. So I'll have to I'll have to get down there and check it out, but it's brutally hot this time of year. So I think if anything, we've learned maybe we need to get a you know, retractable roof at Betts, you know, but probably just go with the dome of some kind.

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Yeah, I've been to the trop a couple times. It seemed to me like it was a blow-up stadium. Like some someone just stood there and blew it up. Right? It was a bad baseball stadium.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

I can say you we can say it. It's one of the worst baseball stadiums. You know, the team and management and owners are have been pretty good. I mean, they've done a lot of. They won't have the World Series. Yeah, I mean, they've done a lot with very little, you know, as far as payroll goes. Our whole payroll is about this, the same as some teams like, you know, a couple pitchers, and that's our entire payroll. You know, so they've done a lot with very little, but yeah, I think they'd have better luck maybe doing it in Tampa, but we'll see. St. Pete's is not the easiest place to get to. But so hopeful. I just want to keep them in the area. That's my thing. Just don't go away.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

Well, I can't give you too much because the A's have left Oakland and they're playing in a park in Sacramento where the uh the minor league park holds 14,000 people. I've been to one game there, I'm going to another game later this summer, and it is so much fun to go to a minor league. I mean, like old time like Major League Baseball, and you're in basically a minor league park. I mean, you know, the you know, the mounds 90 feet away from the home place, so the dimensions are right. It's just, you know, instead of 50 or 60,000 people, there's only like it only holds 14,000. Yeah, it's just uh so it just kind of blows your mind. But it's professional baseball, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

So that's a big difference where you're watching. We had their we got lucky enough to be able to go to Fenway during the PBSA conference in Boston last year, which was like a bucket list one for me because I'd never been to Boston, and you know, obviously Fenway is you know about as good as it gets as far as baseball history and experience goes. And that was like incredible. We were yeah, I was kind of over the moon about being able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, yeah, I love Fenway. That big green wall is still kind of I still don't get that, but it's all right. It's okay. Well, I mean, you do a lot in your spare time. I don't know how you manage all this. And so so your son is starting T-ball, right? So, how many kids, if I can ask?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah, two kids. I have a four-year-old boy and a one and a half-ish year old girl. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, a lucky one of each. And yeah, they're great. I mean, I spend as much time as I can with them. That's one of the good, you know, one of the great benefits of the flexibility that I used to always use for surfing and going to Costa Rica and things. Now I can use to, you know, do repeat ball games and you know, spend time on, you know, on the floor racing hot wheels across the ground or playing with our daughter. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

And now you have at least 18 years ahead of you of uh youth sports, then, right? I mean baseball, basketball, football, whatever it is the kids decide to do, right? Games every week and away games and practices and everything. So yeah, I've been there, done that, and now uh it's your turn.

unknown 31:51

All right.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Oh, that's great. So we played a game called Fun Facts. I mean, I thought we we've already learned the fun facts. I had no idea you were a surfer. I mean, that's just amazing. The fact you go out in the water with a piece of wood and you stand up on it somehow, and you ride it, you know. Obviously, like Hawaii 5-0. So I mean, that's really impressive.

unknown 32:14

All right.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Yeah, I mean, that's my favorite, my favorite thing in the world. I mean, once you kind of it hooks you a little bit, you know. So I got hooked pretty early, and yeah, I just can't get enough of it. My wife will ask me, like, you just how do you need to go surfing? Yeah, you just went last week. Like, aren't you good for a little bit? It's just no, no, you just gotta keep going. But I think I tell you, I kind of lead with that. Or if more of a fun fact, I guess people probably don't know, is that I know, and I know some other we've had you've had some trekkies, I believe, on I'm not as much of a trek, more of a Star Wars versus Star Trek guy, but love fantasy stuff, fantasy books, Lord of the Rings. I actually have a Gerard Tolkien tattoo that I got in Indonesia, which sounds like a fake story, but it actually did it did happen. It's still there. So, yeah, that's probably something people probably I don't want to get too personal and ask you where it's at or what it is, but no, it's on my it's on my arm right there. But yeah, the whole it was kind of a little paragraph about the most famous part of it is not all those who wander are lost. And so it was sort of at the end of like a six-month surf trip that I did, of course, starting in Costa Rica and uh little dabble in Panama, and went to visit a friend in Australia, and hopped over to New Zealand and did some hiking, and then ended it in Indonesia, and so that was sort of like the culmination of that that trip, and there was a lot of wandering, but I wasn't necessarily lost. It felt fitting, and I love Lord of the Rings, so yeah, it felt pretty perfect, and they didn't make any uh typos or anything like that, which was nice, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

So it's kind of rune style. I mean, it's kind of Lord of the Ring, it's that that elephant style or whatever. Yeah, kind of stylized, I guess. It's fantastic. Oh, that's great. So obviously you've seen all the movies, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:07

The Peter Jackson movies. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

I haven't got to visit, I went to Hobbiton to like the Shire when I was in New Zealand because they filmed, you know, pretty much all those films I think were all in New Zealand. So they're worried and everything to go to different filming locations. So yeah, I went a long way out of my way. I didn't even really have to go to that island to the north island of New Zealand necessarily, but I wanted to see it, and so I took it. Well, you have to.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

If you're a Tolkien fan and you're in the area, you have to.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

I mean, if you can see Hobbitville, if you can see the ship, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

All right.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

It was like a two-part tour that I did. One you went to Hobbiton and then went to uh look at some glow worms in a cave, which was actually pretty cool too. But that was my little tourist day to go see Lord of the Rings and everything.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

What was it? What part did they shoot in the with the glow worms when the ring was destroyed? Or no, that was like the mountain.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

No Lord of the Rings relation, just a weird thing that they have glowing worms in these caves, and you can just kind of ride this one within a boat, so you just kind of rode through a little boat and you'd look up and there'd just be a bunch of glowing worms up there. It's kind of an odd thing that yeah. I was like, well, while I'm doing the Lord of the Rings tour, I guess I'll go see some glow worms too.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

You know, why not? As long as you're in New Zealand, you can't miss the glow worms. That's great. Yeah, yeah. Or old old saying, you can't miss the glow worms. Well, now you realize at every PBSA conference, but everyone was saying, All right, let's see it now. All those who wonder are not lost, tattoo. All right, fantastic. Bobby, I mean this is great. I mean, what I love about doing these podcasts is you you talk to someone and they're all business, suddenly you realize, oh, they have a Lord of the Rings tattoo and they've been surfing all over the place. And it's like, wow, that's really cool stuff. All right. Anything else, Fun, you want to share? Or you're you or you feel you've you've given enough cannon fodder to people to tease you about.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

I've definitely given myself some fodder. I'm looking forward to it. And Anaheim, I'm sure I'm gonna get something, and yeah, maybe some requests for the tattoo for the open bar for a while. Um, but no, not really. We covered so much. It's been a lot of fun. I mean, the questions really it was kind of a fun sort of walk down memory lane for me because this is all stuff that you know you don't think about so much on a daily basis. So it's been yeah, it was kind of a fun exercise to sort of think of all this stuff and run our back. Like, what was my career path?

SPEAKER_02 36:39

So well, that I I appreciate your comments with the with everything we've talked about. You're the perfect person for me to ask this of. And you've been through so much and have done so much. What's your advice to people in the industry, newcomers that you know that are either uh you know starting in the industry or you know, maybe they're you know working at some firm but they're not you know high up or not on a management track necessarily, they're a verifier or you know, a criminal record researcher. What would you tell them to do in terms of should they stay in the industry and how to get ahead and what to do? And uh what say you?

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Yeah, I mean, I would say, and I know that they'll be echoing what others have said, but definitely get involved in PDSA. I mean, if your organization is involved, you know, ask them about Billy. You're a criminal research provider, ask them about the criminal research provider certificate, or see what certificate programs are there, or you know, anything to give yourself a leg up, and they're good learning tools too. There's a ton of good content in the PDSA resource library. Look at it, it's just you know, free to members, just go on there, and there's tons of good practical guidance, documents, the back to basic stuff is great. I mean, there's a ton of free, great content in with PDSA. So ArdPay definitely do that and get into a committee. It's it is what you it's as much responsibility as you make it, right? So, I mean, you could just hop on the calls, or if you miss them, nobody's taking attendance, they're not gonna come yank you out of your cubicle or probably your home office these days, but nobody's gonna come, you know, looking for you if you miss a committee call. Um, but it's a great way to just be in those calls and soak up some broader knowledge about the industry. So I would definitely say get involved in the committee. They're always, you know, they're always looking for more people, and there's so many great people in those communities that are willing to share their expertise. And you know, it's just a very giving community, you know. There are people are very generous with their time and their knowledge and USLA, really take advantage of that, and then you know, just be as the best of whatever you are. If you're a verifier, be the best verifier in the business. If you're uh, you know, criminal if you're in QA, be the best QA there is, you know, and just and that'll take you places you may think nobody notices, but as a owner and somebody that has, you know, employees, we you know, you notice, you know, who's you know, really putting in the maximum effort, and those are the people that are gonna, you know, make it ahead. So I would say be the best at whatever you're doing, make the most of it.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

I mean, that's a great observation because someone might enter the industry and think, well, I'm getting paid, you know, whatever, you know, kind of entry level, and you know, where do I go from here? And you're right. You as a former business owner, you know who has the magic touch just because they put in the energy and the effort and they just they care and they try. And I also the other great thing you said was that anyone could just call up, even if your manager doesn't, you don't have to ask your manager's permission or your employer's permission. You can just say, Hey, I want to join this committee. You can be an entry-level QA clerk, and you can start getting to know everyone in PBSA. And that just leads places. I mean, I don't know where it leads, it just magically leads places. So you it just you just never know. So Bobby Shaykh's been great having you.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Thank you again so much for having me. And yeah, it's just it's an honor to be on and and just to be a part of this industry with everybody. I mean, it's been makes my professional life much easier and much more enjoyable being able to uh you know work with the colleagues that we do in the industry and PBSA and people like yourself that kind of paved the way for you know what was NAPBS and it's PDSA and everything. So yeah, just really grateful and thanks again.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been another episode of uh Behind the Screens. Our guest today has been Bobby Schenk. And for those who did not know it, who he's a surfer and a proud, involved dad, as well as a gentleman who has accomplished a lot professionally and then and within PBSA. It was my pleasure to get to know you better. Pleasure to have you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Les. Alright, that was yet another wonderful conversation with a background screening pro. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an update. And hey, if you had a moment, we'd love for you to leave us a review. It really helps get the word out. For more info or to catch up on past episodes, or to make suggestions or to suggest possible future guests, head over to our website. Once again, this is your host Les Rosen, and it's been a pleasure to bring you another episode. See you on the next episode. Thanks.