93
Let’s hear the story of Nebraska, its communities, its number one industry Agriculture, and the people who make it happen. Sponsored by Nebraska's Law Firm® - Rembolt Ludtke.
93
Tim and Nathan Geisert--Two Brothers, Two Paths, One Nebraska Legacy
In this episode, we sit down with brothers Tim and Nathan Geisert, proud natives of a homestead southeast of Ogallala, Nebraska. Though their paths took them in very different directions, both men are deeply rooted in the lessons learned growing up under the wide-open skies of western Nebraska.
Nate, after thirty years of farming, recently hung up his hat to follow his lifelong passion—restoring antique tractors and sharing his engineering prowess and stories with thousands on his growing YouTube channel. Tim left the farm for college, but never forgetting where he came from, carving out a successful career in business and currently Partner and CRO at AuctusIQ. Together they reflect on a childhood spent in a one-room schoolhouse, the values of hard work and family, and how those lessons and Nebraska values continue to shape their lives today.
So settle in—it’s time to hear the story of Tim and Nate Geisert, two brothers, two paths, and one Nebraska legacy.
It's not just a place. But a way of life. It's 93 county. Better home to innovative individuals. Caring community. And it's spirit. It runs deeper than it's perfect. It's good. Welcome to 93, the podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to 93, the podcast, where we talk about Nebraska, its communities, its number one industry agriculture, and the people who make it happen. I'm Mark Folson, your host for today's episode, brought to you by Nebraska's law firm, Rembrandt. Our guest today grew up on a farm just southeast of Ogallala, Nebraska. Though their paths took them in very different directions, both men are deeply rooted in the lessons learned growing up under the wide open skies of western Nebraska. We'll delve into their childhood spent in a one-room schoolhouse, the values of hard work, resilience, and family, and how those Nebraska values continue to shape their lives today. Our guests today are Tim Geisert and Nathan Geisert, two brothers, two paths, and one Nebraska legacy. Tim, Nate, thanks for joining us. Why don't you give our listeners a little background on yourselves? Tim, you get to go first. You're the oldest.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but I'm not the smartest, nor am as I I'm not as good looking. Yeah. Um yeah, well, so hey, thanks for doing this. And hey, congratulations on the success on this thing.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's been a fun project.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you've got how many uh so far? Well 1520.
SPEAKER_02:Uh episodes, we're up over 52. So we've done yeah, we're the thickness is probably 55 right here.
SPEAKER_03:So when you get to 93, then you're done, you're retiring.
SPEAKER_02:So I think that's when we kind of hang it up, make a decision.
SPEAKER_03:All right, go to the bar. Go to the next topic. We're gonna go to 97. Then we're gonna go to 105. So, Tim, your background? So a little bit about background. I mean, both Nate and I grew up in Western Nebraska. Ogallala boys.
SPEAKER_02:So what county is Ogallala? That's Keith. You know, license plate prefix.
SPEAKER_03:68, baby. 68. That's one I've known for quite some time. Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of famous people came from there. Such as I don't know anybody. More infamous. They've actually just passed through. There was nothing to stay for. They just kept going.
SPEAKER_05:Most people just pass through and they they think it's a great town, but there's there's a casino there now. Oh boy.
SPEAKER_03:Is there well that's long overdue. Okay.
SPEAKER_05:Well that that fits right in. It was uh well, you know, there's a pit of society there's the Texas Trail.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right. Well, you know, the place really took off when Oli's, you know, kicked off after prohibition. That's when it's down at Pax. That's when it, yeah, that's when it became a real, real good county. What about Front Street? Well, you know, I it was fine. I actually played piano at the Front Street a couple of summers. Seriously? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's that sign that says don't shoot the piano player. Yeah. They actually shot me. No, I was yeah. So yeah, so we grew up in Ogala farm. Um, Nate, when was it? 1888? Eight eighty-six is the official date. I think.
SPEAKER_02:So you your family homesteaded that? Yeah. Which which relative who was it?
SPEAKER_05:Well, it'd be uh great uncle.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Did he come by uh given your last name and Reinhart Geysert? Okay, from Germany.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, he was the oldest of I think five brothers, yeah, and his mom, and he came over first, he was the oldest, and then uh stayed a little bit in Illinois with another relative and then made his way out to Keith County and settled out there.
SPEAKER_02:So and there he died. So what year what year was that again? 86. Okay, so right, not too long after the founding of the state.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, right, right. Well, I mean, and it was, you know, uh, I don't know if you guys have seen uh, you know, uh 1883, I think it was, the the sh uh the Tyler Sheridan episode. When I I don't know if you've watched that, but I watched that and I was like, my god, how did they get there? How hard that must have been. Because actually there were Germans on the wagon train that came out of Fort Worth, which is a lot of where our you know our ancestors came from. And you're just like, holy cow. Why and why did they stop there? Well, that's where the nearest available land was. Okay, free land. Okay. They went to where it was open and they put a stake in it and they made a go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:That's why we ended up in western Nebraska as opposed to Illinois, because that's where the land was available.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So both of you attended the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Tim, what did you major in?
SPEAKER_03:Um well, I had several majors because I was really confused. I wasn't gonna go to the university. Dad kind of convinced me. I was I was actually I was a musician. I thought I was good at as a musician. And in fact, our family, you know, mom was a music teacher, which is strange. Where at in Ogallala? In Ogallala. She was the University of Nebraska graduate, um, very accomplished musician. Dad was a musician. So for a farming community, we music was just kind of a part of our lives. And, you know, when all four of us were young and cute, they kind of thought we were the Von Trapp family, and they they draught us out for the for all kinds of events. So, anyhow, just kind of growing up in music, I you know, I was kind of a rebellious, it was the 80s, you know, everybody's gonna be famous. I had long hair and an earring, and I was just gonna go travel with a band. And dad said, nope, you're gonna go to school for at least a year, and I did that and study music then for a couple years. Then there's uh, and then I don't know what it kind of gets weird after that.
SPEAKER_05:Nate, what did you major in? Uh, well, I was inclined to be an engineer, and I thought long and hard about being an engineer. But uh, when I spent time in DC as a page, I realized I really didn't like the urban lifestyle. So I kind of convinced myself that I should probably farm.
SPEAKER_02:DC will do that to people, by the way.
SPEAKER_05:And so I thought if I'm gonna farm, I know about the mechanics, the engineering, I don't know about the marketing and economics. So that's what I measured in and in the university.
SPEAKER_02:So your degree was ag honors, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_05:Ag honors, but emphasizing and marketing and economics, only accounting and all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_02:It was the best it was the best major in the ag college till folks like me ruined it for everybody else. So well, we were the we were the flagship group, and I think it probably went away after we left.
SPEAKER_05:Put a stake in that one.
SPEAKER_02:So the uh four siblings in your family, right? How how did your family decide which one was going to stay home and farm?
SPEAKER_05:Well, well, we all drew straws, and I was the loser. Or the youngest, one of the two. I don't know.
SPEAKER_03:So I I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna tell it. I I believe it's a mostly true story to answer that question. So, you know, Nate, Nate was again, he was the taller, better looking, and smarter of all of us. And he was getting all these letters um from you know, Caterpillar, John Deere, various other people wanting to, you know, hire him on and have him come interview. And I was looking at these letters on his desk one day, and I was like, look at these. This is you know, wow, this is what a great opportunity. You you you should go interview these. And he's like, nah. And I go through him, like, well, what about this one? What about the nah? And I go, well, what are you gonna are you really gonna go back and farm? And he looked at me in Nate's kind of deadpan sort of way, and he goes, Well, I guess I'd rather just deal with God than people. And hence he spent a lifetime on the farm. True story, Nate?
SPEAKER_05:I most of that's true. I don't know if I had offers from John during Caterpillar, but anyway, I did I did tell him I believe I would rather deal with God than men, but uh yeah, but I I spent 30 years farming full-time, not counting growing up, the 30 years I spent growing up.
SPEAKER_02:So uh you both got spouses out of your time at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. That's one huge benefit, right?
SPEAKER_05:Yes. Um married a gal from Gordon, Nebraska, which is 61 County. So you can mark that one off.
SPEAKER_02:I was at that wedding at uh Gord Gordon Nebraska. It's the one and it's the one and only wedding I've been to in Gordon, Nebraska. There you go.
SPEAKER_05:And so, yeah, met at a bar, surprising. We were both of age. Yeah, yes, yes, and yeah, I think it was just uh like a couple days after the issue in election, and I was sitting there at the bar with uh fraternity brothers and having a beer, trying to unwind, and and this gal from my class in Ogallala, who is a volleyball player, comes up to me and was interested in one of the other guys that I was with. And Val was with her, and that's how we got introduced to each other.
SPEAKER_02:So, kid, did uh kids have any uh kids or grandchildren that came from that that great relationship?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah. We got three kids, one boy and two girls, and they're all having kids now. And right now we got uh four little grandsons on the ground and one coming.
SPEAKER_02:Tim, how about your uh marriage story and children?
SPEAKER_03:The the short of it is is that I actually, you know, when you grow up in western Nebraska, you know, they're you know, you'd know everybody or you're related to most of them, so you really don't get a chance to really date date, right? Or if you do, you're just kind of you know, high school sweethearts and that ends up in marriage. But I wasn't that. I was just I was really anxious to kind of, you know, see what the university of Nebraska could provide. And um so we had a fraternity um exchange dinner with a coyos, and um, they were coming over for spaghetti. And one of the things that uh we did as a um way to woo the women was that we would feed them, you know, good spaghetti or whatever dinner on on Sunday nights, and then they would trot me out to play the piano, and we would sing songs and and and kind of woo them at the end of the piano.
SPEAKER_05:All the women were in love. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that was back when I was good looking at the. And you had the hair. Yeah, yeah, kind of miss those days. Um, so anyhow, at the end of the piano was this uh beautiful auburn-haired um gal from from Lincoln, Nebraska. And so um, so I uh I fell in love immediately, but didn't ask her out for almost a year because uh because I was probably I needed to get some other things done. I was busy in the music school, Mark. I was in the music school, and so um we then went out uh when we were sophomores, and uh at the behest of Molly Nuvac, if she ever hears this, she's a good friend of mine from Mogulala, who is a f a sorority sister, and said, Don't you think it's about time you asked Jennifer Acker out and quit messing around? And I said, Yeah, you're probably right. So um we we started dating sophomores and dated ever since. Children? Got two. Um, one who's in nuclear engineering and science in Texas, and the other one who's married to a farmer in uh in North Dakota. And it continues. And it continues, yes.
SPEAKER_02:So after the University of Nebraska, kind of uh you have a long career path, but can I maybe summarize it uh how you ended up where you are today?
SPEAKER_03:Um well, gosh. Um unlike my brother, who's a very steady, smart, you know, gets things done, knows where he's going, all of that, I was a wandering person.
SPEAKER_02:Um so I what was as in past tense or yeah, I'm getting too old for that anymore, right?
SPEAKER_03:Um, but no, I mean, I I followed my music to a certain degree um in school um and parlayed that into writing jingles for commercials, got into the ad business, um, started a little ad agency with some some guys right out of school. We then transacted that to uh another ad agency locally, worked for that, and then just kind of worked my way up through the ad agency world, kind of a madman sort of pathway. To which point we were living in Denver. We had two little kids, and I was traveling all over, and my wife meets me at the door and she said, I love you, but I need help raising these kids. I'm going home. So I decided to go with her, really without a job, and came back and we uh I invested in a small little ad agency, grew up pretty significantly um and sold out of that, and then had some really good friends with a company called Kinexa, where we transacted that to IBM for over a billion dollars, and that allowed us to really kind of dabble in a whole bunch of other businesses. So, together with that leadership team, we've own a we own a couple companies, and we've really been fortunate and blessed to do a lot of good things here in Nebraska because of it.
SPEAKER_02:Nate, uh, post-college, uh your story maybe isn't as meandering as your brother Tim's, but uh bring us up to today.
SPEAKER_05:Well, we I spent 30 years farming full time after graduation, and then I didn't finish strong. I decided uh after my folks passed away, uh my body was saying no more, and my mind was saying no more. And then I listed out the pros and cons, and there wasn't anything on the pro side. So I decided to to quit farming and uh cash it in, and now I'm just working for myself, more or less. He's dabbling, he's doing cool stuff.
SPEAKER_02:So, what are some of those things?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I've gotten back into uh where I when the kids were in high school and college, I didn't do much on the antique tractor restoration or in that world much. But uh now since they are gone and I don't have to farm anymore, I've got some projects on the back burner and on the burner, and I uh am trying to restore those. And I thought uh there's not a lot of content out there on old tractors, so I started a YouTube channel. And the name of it is is Pop's Antique Tractors. That's what uh the grandkids call me is Pop. So it's Pop's Antique Tractors, and you can find me on YouTube and on Facebook, follow me, and you can if you're tired of the content that you see on TV, you can always tune in and see something really boring.
SPEAKER_02:So that that's your passion, right? I mean, at the end of the day, if you had to say the one thing that I mean, just it's not work to you, uh restoring and collecting antique tractors, right?
SPEAKER_05:Well, yeah, I guess my passion is engineering and and mechanical, and I just like putting stuff together and watching them run. I guess it gives me a jazz. So I like to uh my latest projects have been 100-year-old tractors. I restored a uh John Deere D that turned to 100 last year, and I rebuilt that mostly from new old stock parts, and so it's almost like a brand new tractor that's 100 years old. And since 26 is coming up next year, why there's three versions of the D that year, so I'm trying to get those three versions put together for next year for the 100th anniversary.
SPEAKER_02:Without revealing too much, kind of uh give listeners a description of how many tractors you have and what the most unique one is, or maybe what your favorite one is.
SPEAKER_05:Uh well, I suppose the one I did last is my favorite, the the new old stock 100-year-old D. That's probably my favorite right now. But uh, I do own a Waterloo Boy, which is a nice tractor. Um I probably got oh several. Probably I can't admit it to my wife. How many of you have to do that? She's not listening. She's not listening. Hey, no attention valve. But I did have a a sale here a few years back getting rid of the uh the equipment and stuff for the farm, and I uh let go of probably 30 tractors there, antique tractors. So what was the what was a collection at its height? Um between you and dad. We probably had sixty or seventy.
SPEAKER_02:Where do you store those at?
SPEAKER_05:Uh where where my wife can't find them.
SPEAKER_03:Scattered throughout the country.
SPEAKER_02:So in addition to having the farms back in Ogallala, uh uh you also have developed some stuff down here in the eastern side of Nebraska. What uh what's going on back east?
SPEAKER_05:Uh we purchased some farm ground in Odo County, which is number 11. And uh we've been bit we built a big timber barn out there, and we're just about got that completed. Uh my son has done a lot of work on that. He's studied to be an architecture architect in college, and so he drew up all the plans and we built it uh according to his plans. And I mean it's not a small building. How big is it? It's 120 by 70.
SPEAKER_02:And what are you gonna do with that?
SPEAKER_05:Uh good question. Mostly storage, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02:But uh cleaning some of the tractors.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there'll be uh tractors in there. Uh but uh uh possibility of renting it out, doing the events. We've kicked all that around. Uh it's costly to get ready for things like that and permitting and everything like that. But uh it would be maybe a purpose for it. Uh yeah, I I don't know, it's a legacy building and and it's hard to share it with the public, I guess. But uh we may do that down the road. It's kind of up to my son what uh his road leads him to do, I guess, when I'm kinda out of the picture. But right now it's probably gonna be storage. And then we're in the process of maybe building a house out there too.
SPEAKER_02:So I I heard the story once. Maybe you can tell me whether it's true. There's a lot of false stories in your family.
SPEAKER_03:But uh well, they're more like half truths.
SPEAKER_02:Half truths.
SPEAKER_03:There's just sort of truth.
SPEAKER_02:And then there's the embellishment. Did did you at one time consider or were you under consideration to work at John Deere, either in the museum or some of the historical position?
SPEAKER_05:Uh they had a uh collector center uh program in in Moline, and they were gonna have a uh kind of a throwback dealership with old tractors and things in there. And uh at one time I did go back and interview for that position to run that, manage it. Uh but shortly after that they just fun, uh they did away with it and and and just made it into a museum and part of the museum in Moline. But uh I did consider that at one point.
SPEAKER_02:Do you communicate with folks at John Deere? I mean, they they obviously are aware of your YouTube channel and all the cool things in your collection. Uh do they ever reach out or do you have communications with I I don't have any with the corporate.
SPEAKER_05:No. Uh corporate's more about making money. They don't really support the antique tractor hobby anymore. Uh they they try to stay away from that. They uh are more about making money for the stock stockholders than about working for the the collectors out there. So but it's uh it's a whole culture out there. There it's it's uh it kind of runs below the surface of everything else. And and if you know the right people, you know where to get stuff to get the job done.
SPEAKER_03:Tim, do you have any collections? Do I have any collections other than the baggage I carry and the guilt? Um no, um I have I have a gym um of which um my so so dad um and Nate stored my grandpa's pickup for for many years. Um but not before we used the hell out of it and beat the hell out of it as a what was it, a fuel truck for a while?
SPEAKER_05:No, I I drove it when I first went to full time farming out there. That was like my first pickup. That I drove around.
SPEAKER_03:What year was it? What model? It's a 67 C10 Chevy pickup short box. Okay. Fleet side to be specific. And yeah, so it was one of those kind of, and it was grandpa's last truck, but we it got was beat to hell. And dad, as he was cleaning out a barn that was falling down around it, he says, You need to come get this truck and and restore it. So Nate brought it down. I think he brought it down, or did dad bring it down? I can't remember. I probably brought it down. You probably brought it down. I put it in the garage. I don't know why, because it's been sitting out for freaking 30 years. Um, but anyhow, I put it in my garage and it smelled so bad. It smelled the whole house, which made my wife very unhappy. Um, but yeah, it's uh we fully restored it, frame off. Um Laugh Man Garage did it out of Sterling, Nebraska, and it's just a beautiful little gem. In fact, I got it out yesterday and just drove it around. Um what color? It's what's red, man. Red Ed. And it's and it's and slices plate name is Red Ed because uh my grandfather, our grandfather's name was was Ed. So um it's a bit of a nice tribute to him. Nice little jewel. And that's all I got. I ain't got 60 tractors. I got red ed.
SPEAKER_02:So, Nate, uh fondness for John Deere, are you a green guy as opposed to red or other brand?
SPEAKER_05:Well, yeah. Uh not by choosing, I guess, but uh just that's what our heritage was.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and tell him the story. Tell him how we ended up. Well, the first tractor.
SPEAKER_05:Well, uh back when Ed was managing the operation, going from horses to mechanical, why he started buying John Deere tractors and still had them sitting out there to the day I started restoring them. So um the uncles had some other off-brand tractors, but uh I guess the green kind of stuck. And when we were growing up, why dad bought a new 4020 one day and brought that best tractor ever.
SPEAKER_02:Do you still have it? Do have it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, uh huh. That'll be buried with one of us, probably Nate.
SPEAKER_02:They're hard to find and they uh are very rather expensive on online auctions.
SPEAKER_05:They they always kept their value. I think he paid ten thousand dollars for that. Wow, and I think you can still get 10,000. It's always been worth 10,000.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So but wasn't the story that during the World War II, when there was a rationing of all the tractors, you know, and all the manufacturing was going towards tanks and you know, war material, um, they only made a few tractors. And so you you would put in um apply for essentially getting a tractor, and the government would send you whatever they could get you at the time. And I think at the time, uh Grandpa Ed had put in for a farm all.
SPEAKER_05:No, this was our dad, Jerry. Dad did that, yes, right. When he took over names on the list uh rationing board, and he was hoping for a farm all. There you go. Because they were the upcoming thing at that point in 40, whatever, 44. And uh but a John Deere A came up, and if you didn't take it, you your name would go to the bottom of the list, and so you have to decide do we want that really or do we want to go back in the bottom of the list? But so he decided to take that John Deere A. And we still have that one too. As you can tell, nothing ever really gets thrown away.
SPEAKER_02:So, Nate, do you miss farming?
SPEAKER_05:Not really. Uh I I'm happy that people do it. Uh I put in my 30 years and I felt I I did it long enough, but uh yeah, I I didn't finish strong. Uh, but there's some people that just really love it, and I thought uh might as well let them do it. They have more enthusiasm for it.
SPEAKER_02:So, in addition to row crops, did you ever have livestock? Yes. At some point, did uh was there a family decision to get out of the livestock business?
SPEAKER_05:Well, the cattle business, there was always cattle on the place. And because grandpa Ed loved he was a cowboy. He was a cowboy. Grandpa Ed was a cowboy. He loved the cows. Daddy Jar was not. And I was probably more with Jair. Um but yeah, I started full full-time in 1990, and I put up with them until about 2001, 2002, somewhere there was a lot of.
SPEAKER_02:Tim once told me a story how the how that came to resolution uh as far as uh the getting out of the cattle business. Tim, uh, you want to relive that story?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'll I'll tell you the truth of your version of it. The truth of it and the and the falsehoods of it. But you have to understand, you know, back back in the when we were growing up, farming was different, you know. You know, if you heard it once, you heard it a million times, it was don't put all your eggs in one basket. So you have some road crops and you have a diversity of that, you have cows, you have chickens, you have all of this stuff. And that's what farms were like, you know. And so when we grew up, that was that was the case. But we were even more imperiled because for some damn reason, my our our forefathers thought they should have sheep. And you know, I think everybody in America should spend some time with the sheep. I'm not sure that wasn't just contrived for our advantage. You think by Jar. Because why? He just thought he wanted something for us to do. Yes. And magically they went away when we went to high school.
SPEAKER_05:So we can get up and feed them every morning and feed them every night.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because we were basically chore boys. That's all we did. We just got up, you know, uh, you know, feed them before, feed them after, feed them in between. Oh my God. But dad always he was always too cheap to do a bunch of stuff, and one of them he just never wanted to buy a lawnmower. He just so he thought, well, we'll just fence in the place and just let the sheep, you know, basically eat all the weeds and keep all of the brush down, which it was a good idea, except all of that was replaced with shit everywhere. I mean, there was just road rollers everywhere. It was just, it was just, oh, just my OCD was just off the charts on that. But that but anyhow, we were in charge of taking care of these sheep. Well, the thing about sheep is that they're unappreciative, they're totally unappreciative. And what they do is if they can get out into something else where they're other than where they're supposed to be, that's what they do. And we were forever pulling these sheep in or fighting off coyotes or whatever, because you know, when you got 150 head of sheep, and the the coyotes show up in droves. Well, anyhow, yeah, we he we had to go away to some camp, or I don't know, we were we were gone for a like a long weekend or a you know a week, whatever. And we get back and those sheep were loaded up and gone.
SPEAKER_04:Because dad had to take care of them.
SPEAKER_03:It was a beautiful day. How'd you get out of the cattle business? Well, I mean, so so when dad and Nate were really working the farm, you know, that's when that's when the transition of farming really changed from from diversity into specialization, right? And that was a hard, that was a hard decision because you know, when you when your farm's been established in since 1886, you just have a lot of habits, you have a lot of beliefs, you have a lot of ghosts that kind of keep you making some of the decisions that you you you want to do. And and the way I tell the story, which is half right, half wrong, but I was living in Denver at the time and I got a call from dad, and he was mad at Nate. I get a call from Nate after I hang up with dad, and he was mad at dad. And so I grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and I went to Ogallala and we sat down and kind of hashed through this. And and the the reality is these two guys were just going through a change in the way agriculture was changing, and the cows were the problem. They neither one of them wanted to deal with the cows, but you've got a lot of land still tied up with cows, and um, but the cows were getting in the way of the row crop production.
SPEAKER_05:And so well, it was stringing us out too far on labor. Yeah. Uh just didn't have the labor between the two of us to take care of that. And then also the economics, uh, as the cost of uh uh corn stocks and pasture go up, I told dad we can rent out all this and make more money than actually growing the cattle.
SPEAKER_03:And that was a hard thing for dad to kind of accept because he's he's well, he's 100% stubborn and he was 100% German. So you got double stubborn. Am I right, Nate? Most more or less, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So there's a huge need for farm mediators on these family disputes, Tim. That maybe you've got a second calling there.
SPEAKER_03:You just go grab a bottle of uh bottle of Jack Daniels, put it in the middle of the table and pour some glasses, and then you just get after it.
SPEAKER_02:Just have that discussion.
SPEAKER_03:You know, it it you know, it's like any business, you know, far we always want to make farming seem seem unique. Um and there is a lot of emotion tied to the farm. But the the reality is that it is a business, you know, and it has to it has to make it work. Um many times, many times, you know, these family farms, especially when going through that transition at the time, and you know, any business, you have these just kind of ghosts of the forebears who started the the company or the business, and those many times can kind of cloud the decisions that are that are right for the for the balance sheet. So I think that was just one of them. And then, you know, after that, things got you know, after you got rid of the cows, I mean first the sheep, that was a good move.
SPEAKER_05:Well and then Jared got rid of the cows right off the or the sheep.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:After we got involved in high school and college, yeah, magically went away.
SPEAKER_03:But that again was a that was a that was a big decision. And uh, but you know, and when he got rid of the cows, you guys started, you know, focusing more on making the production side of the agricultural row crop side of it much more viable.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we took on another thousand acres and gave that a go.
SPEAKER_02:So going back to growing up, uh what age were you when you first uh hopped in a tractor and drove it by yourself?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I can't rightly remember. It's it's there were so many things going around. It was like a tornado. And there probably was a tornado.
SPEAKER_03:It was western Nebraska.
SPEAKER_05:We didn't we watched a little bit of cartoons on Saturday morning before dad came and pulled us out and says, Let's get to work. But it was always something going on. I can't rightly tell you when I first drive drove tractor, but I do remember when I got Jake, my son, to drive tractor. He was eight years old, and the summer till was getting really bad. And I said, Would you be willing to go out there and try to make this field? There weren't any uh REA poles, it was a square field out in the middle of a quarter, and I turned him loose on that, and he got it made and got most of the weeds killed.
SPEAKER_02:Tim, how old were you?
SPEAKER_03:So we had two older sisters, have two older sisters, Betsy and Chris. And Betsy was really kind of the you know, the first farmhand of us kids. And she had a band camp. I remember it vividly. She had a band camp in Fort Collins, and I was eight, nine years old. And dad came in and he goes, Hey, you're driving tractor today. And I was like, and you know, the thing is that wasn't a big step. It wasn't like all of a sudden, because we would drive the pickup, you know, throwing, you know, dad's throwing hay bales off or whatever. We we, you know, we'd driven go-karts. I mean, we just you know, driving that go-kart took terrible abuse. We we were always patching that thing out. So wondered if we didn't kill ourselves. Um, but you know, yeah, I remember it was a it was a 70. Uh, which what year is that tractor? Is that 56, 54, yeah, 70 diesel?
SPEAKER_05:Yep. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. That's that's probably the one we started out on. Yeah. And I remember culvating corn with it. It was six rows at a time, and and just a little waif I was that it wouldn't some of the ground was too hard to get it to go in first, so I'd have to crawl back on the three-point to give it a little bit more weight so I could get it to go in, and then I'd get back on the seat and take off. OSHA would love that. Yeah, right, right.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, ag is a safe, it's not a dangerous industry.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, geez. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and and but you just, you know, the the growing up in it, you know, because it it it is, it's a I mean, it's a it's a heavy mechanical, it's a highly cerebral business. You you have to be on your feet, you have to be on your game all the time. But yet you do these crazy things like jumping on the cultivator to get it in, you know, to get it going to the ground and doing all those other things. You just don't think anything of it. And you tell other people and they just turn white. Oh, that's so unsafe. How did you survive? It's probably true. How did I survive? Yeah, there you know, and some don't.
SPEAKER_02:I mean so growing up on that farm, uh, you obviously learned a lot of lessons. Uh what Nate, what would you say the most important or valuable lesson you learned growing up on a farm and then farming afterwards?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I knew how to work, that's for sure. And I still can't shake that. I get up every morning, I I don't have per se a job anymore, but I get up, go put in a full day and come back tired. So it definitely teaches you how to work. And then it teaches you how to think too. Uh you spend a lot of time in the cab with the tractor or the whatever, and you're thinking about everything that goes on on that uh on that farm. And so you put a lot of thought into it, and it makes you a critical thinker, Tim.
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, I mean, work is all of that's exactly right. I mean, we we worked our butts off. I mean, we just did, and we didn't know any different. We just thought that's the way it is. I think the other thing is that it kind of teaches, at least in my case, it you know, everybody's always like, what are you gonna be when you grow up? You know, what are you gonna be when you're gonna grow up? Well, when you're young, you want to be an astronaut or policeman or fireman, right? But when you get into the real world, you always try to figure that out. And you're always trying to answer that question. I think it's just the wrong way to think about it, because in some ways, if you just put your shoulder to it and go to work, it'll all work out. You'll figure it out. And that's kind of what I learned. I just I just kind of learned there they're chores you do, and it ain't, and it's sometimes not very fun, but there's there's reward at the end of it. And and you know, the other thing we learned, and I guess kind of growing up, because we're not very, we're just a couple years apart, you know, we we just we invented a lot of stuff, we did a lot of stuff, you know. Remember that we we we got tired of water in the freaking garden, right? Remember that? I remember that. And we got you know, it was just all these chores, we were always trying to figure out how to mechanize it so we didn't have to work so hard. The more we would figure out how to, you know, operationalize stuff, the more work we'd get.
SPEAKER_02:So, what'd you do with the garden? How'd you fix that? Go ahead, Nate. Tell me.
SPEAKER_05:Well, we had like uh gated pipe system out of like a three-quarter inch galvanized pipe, and we'd drill holes in it and and hook it up to the garden hose and run water down each row in the garden. It was all timed out, all kind of managed. It was, you know. And when that row got done, we'd probably stick a stick in the hole or something.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it was it was not that, but you know, there were very few people in the United States who are built something like that for a garden. But it just, you know, and that's just the way it was. When dad had built this little tractor, we were always working on that. There was always just, you know, always trying to figure out how things worked and how you can make them better. And that's probably you could say that's work, but there's there's always that that constant improvement you're always looking for. And I think I think that's a trait that comes off of farming, right? And and when I went, when I worked in the advertising business after after college, I worked with agricultural companies. And side by side, I'd work with an ag company or just a you know, regular, you know, tech company or industrial company. And you know, agriculture was always the forefront of creativity, invention, and um, and investment. And that I don't think we really realize that when we're growing up, but even today that's the case. The sophistication of you know the American farming business is is just unlike anything else. And so much of what gets built comes from, I think, the very thing we grew up with, which is let's figure out a better way to do this and work hard to do that.
SPEAKER_02:Aaron Powell I was recently judging at the National FFA convention. One of my co-judges is a farmer from Kentucky, and he has invested, apparently he has a some type of deal with John Deere, an autonomous tractor. And so he says, here, watch this. I'm planting barley as we sit here today. And he showed me on his phone all this everything, all the info, the cameras, everything was on his phone. He was planting barley, which he then custom sells to various uh distilleries in Kentucky, all autonomous.
SPEAKER_03:Well, one of the companies I got involved in after we sold Connects was a company called Realm 5, just north of town here in Lincoln, where they've got a fully robotic, um invented uh system that is really quite impressive. And um, you know, I think, you know, in times, you know, because the reality also is just the the human, there's just fewer humans out there in the in the rural areas that is gonna force us to figure out how to manage all the land and all the agriculture autonomously.
SPEAKER_02:Give me some other farm stories you guys growing up. I think you guys used to sort of throw like is there's some famous story about dirt clods, dirt clod fights? Is that is that a family tradition?
SPEAKER_03:Well, you know, we are we are the product of a one-room schoolhouse. I think we could we could be in the minority in all of America. Like like I don't know how many people went to one room schoolhouses, but we did.
SPEAKER_02:What was the name of it?
SPEAKER_03:That was District 7. District 7.
SPEAKER_02:Old District 7. Do you have like an old t-shirt that you wear around? Product of District 7?
SPEAKER_05:They they didn't uh print t-shirts back in the those days like they do now.
SPEAKER_02:So, where was the schoolhouse from your farm?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, it was how far in eight? It's probably about three miles to the southeast.
SPEAKER_02:Please tell me you didn't walk to school.
SPEAKER_05:A couple times. Uphill both ways in the winter.
SPEAKER_04:We did drive that go-kart there. Yeah, a lot of times. That was that was better weather.
SPEAKER_03:That was live and large when we got it. We got a go-kart that we could drive ourselves. Oh man.
SPEAKER_02:Did you build it? Did you build it from scratch?
SPEAKER_03:Jared builded it. Okay. Yeah. Dad built it and then we wrecked it, and then we rebuilt it many, many times.
SPEAKER_05:There was a lot of times he didn't know what happened that we had to figure out how to weld and use the torch.
SPEAKER_02:What did you boys do? So one room schoolhouse, what grades? Through eighth, I think.
SPEAKER_03:It was through eighth grade. K through eight.
SPEAKER_02:It was it so you had one teacher and you had kids in all those grades and they taught everyone together?
SPEAKER_03:We actually actually had two teachers, right? Um, that kind of we split the younger grades to the older grades, but yeah, it was still one room, but just kind of this curtain. Curtain in between. Yeah. Curtain in between. Yeah. One or two people in our class at best. Yeah. And and so for fun, I mean, you know, the Nelsons had a place. So it was it was had cedar trees all the way around it, like most everything in western Nebraska. You know, you have a kind of a windbreak. So the school was, you know, on the on the south side of that wind break. But if you go on the other side, uh the Nelsons had a I guess they they they had uh they farmed it and it was just summer till right. And uh and for fun, we would we would go out and we'd go out back and we'd pick teams and we'd start throwing dirt clods at each other.
SPEAKER_02:Larger schools have gym, uh, you know, they have uh PE. You guys just had you just made do with dirt. Freaking threw dirt clods at each other.
SPEAKER_03:We'd walk, you know, we'd walk in, not really thinking, we kind of sort of dust ourselves off. And I'll never never forget Mrs. Conrad. She looked at us and she goes, What have you been doing for recess? And uh I don't remember who actually said it. He said, We were playing softball. That must have been the dirtiest game of softball. I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_02:So how far away was your place, uh, the homestead from Ogallala?
SPEAKER_05:It's about 10 miles to the southeast of Ogallala. Probably the closest town is Roscoe. That's about five miles away. But nobody knows. Roscoe is unincorporated. Ogallala is a town of 4,000 or so.
SPEAKER_02:So on an average summer, and let's go back to childhood, how often was it that you actually went to town, or were you pretty much just stuck on the farm in the summers?
SPEAKER_05:I don't I think mom and dad kept us at home for the most part.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, we were pretty, pretty tethered. I was, you know, unlike uh Nate, Nate doesn't have allergies. I had terrible allergies. And so there were there were times I just couldn't work on the farm, and so which made me less than useful. So I I had a couple other jobs in town, but boy, if it was tractor driving, I was always doing it and there was always work to do. And and and and then um dad always used to have this phrase that we got to be smoking by seven. Now, most people might think, well, that's smoking weed or smoking no tractor smoking by seven. You're out there working, and uh and then um burning daylight. Burning daylight, yeah. Yep. And uh what were we talking about in the car ride over here? There was a certain blight that would happen when we were out smoking by seven. Uh and we'd been up a little late that night before.
SPEAKER_04:That was called culminator blight.
SPEAKER_02:So maybe missed a few rows and actually took some rows out.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, luckily it was only six rows at the time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I didn't quite understand that as a kid. My dad told a similar story, and he said that he'd been out late roller skating late one night in college and went home to cultivate. And it wasn't until harvest that his dad, uh his dad discovered that there was about an acre missing in the middle of the field that he had fallen asleep on the tractor and just kind of cleaned it out.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that cultivator blight was it, you know, it's not noticeable right away, but it does show up.
SPEAKER_02:So it's certainly your parents, if you had stayed out late, say in high school, they they'd let you sleep in, right?
SPEAKER_05:I remember one time we were building a building and uh by ourselves all the time. We never hired out much, but anyway, it was uh footing digging day the the next day. And I remember I was out pretty late the night before and and I had to struggle through that while we were digging that foundation.
SPEAKER_03:That was that big silver building that was down off the elevate elevator. Yeah, boy, we busted our ass on that thing.
SPEAKER_02:So, Nate, what's the describe for someone who hasn't been there what the farm, the homestead, the farmplace looks like today?
SPEAKER_05:Uh well, it's got a lot of similarities. We have a picture from a hundred years ago, about the turn of the century, and there's a lot of the same buildings still there. Uh actually, most of them are still there. The house is the same, and a couple of the barns and things, but uh through the years when uh Jerry and I were in charge, uh we put up several more buildings. And so there's there's some newer buildings on that place too, but uh uh there's still a lot of historical buildings there.
SPEAKER_02:And did you build uh some type of event center out there as well?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, uh at my place, which I'm about a half a mile away from the the homestead, uh that was my uncle's place that I bought from him when I moved out there. And uh my wife was at one point says, you know, I think we need to build a new garage. And so uh, or or update the garage, maybe it was. And uh I thought, well, you know what we really should do is just tear that garage down and build something of substance. And and so I told her, I think I'm gonna build you a garage. And so we, my son, who was studying to be an architect at the time, I think we drew a little bit on a napkin and we started building. And when we got done, she says, Well, that's a little bit more in the garage. It's got three three levels to it. There's a loft and then and then the main floor for the garage, and then an upstairs at uh uh kind of an events. Uh uh it's really cool. It's just really cool.
SPEAKER_02:Do you at least it out for like weddings and things?
SPEAKER_05:Uh we have once or twice, a few times. We we we build them to what we like, and then it's hard to share them with the public, I guess. Yeah, but we have had a lot of gatherings there, whether it's rented out or not. There have been a lot of gatherings.
SPEAKER_02:So property taxes, uh, is that one of the largest issues facing Nebraska farmers?
SPEAKER_05:It's one of them. Uh it's just everything is getting inflated. Uh how can you pay a million dollars for a combine? How many how many bushels do you have to run through that thing to pay for that? Um when it's not much more. I I think the price today is probably not much more than it was back in the 70s when dad bought that 4020 for$10,000 and now a tractor costs you$500,000. So yeah, I it's it's a tough go. I I appreciate the guys that do it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I mean it it it it always has been a tough economical profession, which is why I think a lot of the guys and I and I think about my my son-in-law's family, I mean they they love it. There's there's nothing other there's not they don't have any other choice and they love what they do. And a lot of people do that. I think you know, we we both kind of and uh gained a lot from growing up on the farm, but we're we're certainly not long-termers, obviously, and uh and farming today. But you know, one of the things that a project that I'm working on that's really quite interesting with some of the former administration people, um, or the governor's administration from from the previous group, um, is you know, we have something unique here in the Nebraska that's uh this public power. And public power has never really been leveraged other than to make sure that it's you can count on it and you can um and it's cheap, right? But one of the things that's interesting about the world today with AI, where they're building a data center and whatnot, every 30 minutes or something like that, the the world is short on energy. And we're one of the few states that have a public power uh system that actually could play to our advantage that ties directly into tax advantage, meaning if we could export energy and make money off of that, which I think there is a case of that today because of all the energy needed for AI, we could relief our our our the burden on farmers, uh the tax burden on farmers, and actually make it cost neutral. And so one of the groups that I'm involved with um is is looking hard into how can we maybe bring this new nuclear energy that's coming out, all this new technology with the small nuclear reactors, utilize the combination of the political um aspects of public power and create a Saudi Arabia of energy, electric energy in Nebraska. And I think that's something that's really I we kind of started talking about it about six months ago, and it's actually gaining some steam that um that could really turn Nebraska into something that uh would be special to the nation, but also relieve the farming pressures, especially on taxes, to keep the state running. So though I think there's you know, technology always kind of has a way. Grandpa used to say, Grandpa Ed used to say, you know, all things begin on the farm, you know, whether it's a recession or a a boom town, boom time. And I think there's a lot of truth to that, you know, because how we eat is really the essence of how we live. And farming is, of course, at the center of that. So energy in in this world is kind of meeting up with the the agricultural world in an interesting, different way. And I hope to see that something like that can can turn into something beneficial for the state.
SPEAKER_02:Nate, how do you uh spend your days? You said you still get up early. What do you what uh walk walk us through an average day for you now that you're an officially retired farmer?
SPEAKER_05:Well, basically I'm trying to move the operation from Ogala to east of Lincoln here. And uh got a bunch of grandsons coming up, and they need kind of a place to live the farm experience out. So, along with the barn that we built, we pretty much did that on our own, and that was a lot of work. And now we're trying to develop this ground that uh the barn is on, and it's there's just a lot to do, uh tear out cedar trees and burn piles, and it's just how many cedar trees did you ever move last year? Oh, there's 50,000? Oh, I don't know, but it was a lot. Where do you start from the ones like this or the ones 30 feet tall? Um I know we had one guy out there that I contracted and he spent the whole year out there cutting cedar trees down. That's a lot of cedar trees. That is a lot of cedar tree, but now we have the problem all the little seedlings coming, and so that's a full-time job for anybody to do that.
SPEAKER_02:So you know the answer to that, right? You go get some goats and some sheep. You see, it all goes back to your dad.
SPEAKER_05:I don't think the maybe the goats would eat the cedar trees. I don't know, but the sheep.
SPEAKER_04:Goats will eat anything.
SPEAKER_02:Life comes full circle. So, gentlemen, uh, there's one question that we ask everyone who appears on this podcast. You get one word. What is the one word that to each of you best describes the state in which you were born and raised, where you attended the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and where you continue to live today? What's your one word for Nebraska?
SPEAKER_05:Nate? I guess I'll have to choose home. Uh with the travels around the United States I've had, I've always yearned to come back in about a week when I've been to another state. Uh my wife loves the prairie. She likes to see it across the horizon, and and so when we get into an area that there's a lot of trees, it just seems claustrophobic to her. And so we like to kind of be out on the prairie, but uh we also like uh the kids being close. They all are employed here in Lincoln, and so we're only like a half hour away from them. So we like we like going back to Ogallala too. Uh when we get out there for a stint, why uh it's nice and quiet out there. We live quite a ways away from Ogallala, and uh it's nice to be in the solitude and look out over the the farm ground, and and it's it's just home.
SPEAKER_00:Tim.
SPEAKER_03:There's a lot of words to describe, you know, Nebraska, but you know, in in in my world, you know, I I work with business people all over the country, and um and I travel quite a bit. And my wife and I, this is a good example. We were we were in uh San Diego several years ago, staying on Coronado Island, and we were just decided to walk along the beach. And I don't know what it is, but when Nebraskans go out into the world, there's this magnetic pull to find other Nebraskans. It always seems like we bump into them. And whether it's by happenstance or whatever it is, and there's just a certain, there's a there's a special connection and a bond for people who grew up in the state, who are from this state that is odd, but really quite special. And and so I say my my favorite word is connection. There is a connection that and a bond of anybody that lives or is from the state, whether they used to live there or they lived there before or like I so in my Zoom calls, I have my Nebraska football in the background, just to kind of, you know, it's usually a good conversation starter. And there was actually a guy I was talking to, and he goes, My grandfather was from Nebraska. He was from Fremont, Nebraska. I've been to Fremont, Nebraska. That's the coolest place in the world. And I then went to the bar. There's this little bar called the Rail. And he's like, we went there with my buddies, and he goes, None of us were from Nebraska, and they all treated us like we were kings and queens. And you know, you just find all these people that just have this kind of this special kind of connection to Nebraska. In fact, another colleague, he's actually uh he he tells, he says, one of the best Saturdays I've ever had in my life is when I came in for the the the Notre Dame game, even though that was a game they lost. We won, thank God. Um he goes, I went to um here um sidetrack, who's the gal that was this the So Joyce. Joyce. Uh he goes, and we he goes, I was the only Notre Dame person in that bar. And you know, in most other cities and in most other states, I would be pummeled with rocks and thrown into the bathroom, never to be seen again. They put me up on stage and made me sing the fight song, and they all cheered. And and he goes, so there's just there's a certain amount of connection and a pride for doing the right thing and and celebrating what we do and the hard work. And that that word to me is just uh a connection to the state and to the people that are from here.
SPEAKER_02:Tim, Nate, thanks for coming on. If you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast app, and share it with someone who might find it of interest. And please keep on listening as we release additional episodes on Nebraska, its great communities, Nebraska's number one industry, agriculture, and the people who make it happen.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. This has been Nighty Three, the podcast, sponsored by Nebraska's law firm, Rembolt Ludkey.
