CWC EP36 | Andy Cagnetta Sits w/ Jody Moore, Former D1 Athlete and Entrepeneur

From Division I athlete to South Florida entrepreneur, Jody Moore shares what resilience really looks like — in business and in life.

Loss, leadership, grit, and growth — this conversation goes far beyond recruiting.

In this conversation, Andy Cagnetta, CEO of Transworld Business Advisors, sits down with longtime friend Jody Moore, Founder of MSI Consulting & Recruiting, in Fort Lauderdale.

From growing up as a Navy brat to becoming a Division I SEC swimmer at Tulane, Jody built a career in recruiting that has spanned nearly four decades in South Florida. Along the way, he weathered economic crashes, personal tragedy, industry disruption, and built a nationally recognized recruiting firm that has placed professionals in more than 22 states.

But this conversation isn’t just about business — it’s about faith, family, resilience, and what it takes to rebuild when life delivers its hardest blows.

Born in New Orleans and raised across the country in a Navy family, Jody became a Division I athlete at Tulane before launching his recruiting career in Fort Lauderdale in 1986.

After breaking away from a “morally bankrupt” corporate environment, he co-founded his own firm — surviving industry crashes, personal tragedy, and transformation — to build a lasting, partner-driven recruiting business.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hey, welcome back, everybody. We are here, coffee with Cagneto with my dear friend of my longtime friend, Jody Moore from MSI Company. And uh it used to be consulting, right? Consulting and recruiting. Recruiting. Okay, but we'll get all we'll get into all that. But uh Jody is a very interesting guy, uh, and he's all about the outdoors, the indoors. So I want to just jump right into it, Jody. First of all, welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Thanks for having me. So it's uh we've known each other for a long time. It's been a few decades, I think. 20. I mean 20 decades, 20 years. Is it been? Yeah, 20 years at least. So, and um you've been through a lot in the that time, but let's go back to the beginning. So, because we talked about your beginning, it's a we have a slight connection from your college days, but you know, it's talk to us. You grew up in New Orleans?

SPEAKER_01 1:06

No, I was born in New Orleans. Born in New Orleans. I'm a Navy brat, and my father was an officer in the Navy. So um my first memories are actually of Key West. Wow. My father was stationed down there on uh sub two submarines, and then we moved from there to Charleston, um, to Charleston to Kansas. He went to Kansas University for a little while to get his petroleum engineering degree, then Virginia for a little bit, Richmond, Virginia, then out to California, Francisco Bay Area for a couple years. That's when I started swimming, and then uh came back to DC, um, lived in Alexandria, Virginia, and then moved to Puerto Rico. And at that time I got recruited to come to the Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. So that was my Pennsylvania connection. Yes. And uh I played water polo for them and swam for them, and then was recruited by Tulane back to New Orleans. Right. Uh to I knew you eventually got back there, right? So I could say I was a Division I SEC athlete because back then they were a part of the SEC. Oh, are they?

SPEAKER_02 2:10

There you go. So you you were a swimmer or water polo player at the time?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Uh well both in high school. I played water polar. We were state champions, and then um for high school, the the w swimming side of it, we were the um mythical champions, national champions, I should say. So they took all our times and put them against every team across the country and top school. Wow. So it was a big swimming school at the time.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Right. All right. What was like going to school in New Orleans at the time?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

New Orleans? Uh well, that was the early 80s. And uh it was interesting because I also secured a job as a uh DJ for the two-lane radio station, WTUL. Wow. So I had um free tickets to any concert I wanted to go to, um, backstage passes, that kind of thing. So I took advantage of it. I went in where I could. And there's a lot of music clubs. What's interesting about New Orleans for music is one, it's in the middle of the country. Right. So any touring group has to go past New Orleans. Right. They all want to go to New Orleans because they love the town. Right. There's tons of music venues there. Right. And it's the birthplace of jazz. So there's all sorts of reasons for them to stop there. So we got every genre that was out there coming through New Orleans.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

So a lot of music. Tulane's grade school still is. Yeah. Um probably better now than when I went to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Well, it's you know, I went to late high. We talked about that. You know, it's probably I probably couldn't get in there at this point. Yeah, neither could I. Well, and and you went to high school in Pennsylvania, right? Yes, well, I uh all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Went to four high schools, actually. So I went to um Mount Vernon in in uh Virginia for a little while, and then my dad was transferred to Puerto Rico, so I went to Roosevelt Roads High School. Then I was on the Puerto Rican national swim team, and to train with them, I had to go to uh Fort Buchanan High School in San Juan. So I was in there for a while. And then after that, I got recruited to the Hill School. Wow. So four high schools. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

So yeah, being on an uh a Navy brat, uh you know, you have to go you have to get go all around the country. Orders come through and you gotta go. Yeah and you gotta go. Yeah. And you have brothers and sisters as well?

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I have three brothers and two sisters.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Wow. So it was a big family trucking around that for a while.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

It was just the four of us. My parents um after took a 13-year hiatus. So my um oldest sister is sixteen years younger than I am, and my next sister's eighteen years younger. Wow. So we didn't really grow up together. By the time they were coming around, we were off to boarding school um and really really weren't around in the house. So almost like two separate families. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

So after college, what brought you to Fort Lauderdale?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Oh, uh well, New Orleans was going through the oil bust. Um great there. New Orleans is a tough town. Yeah. If your family wasn't there 300 years ago, you're really not there today. Right. And uh that's just a hard shell to crack. Uh, and there was a friend of mine, his uh father had a business located out of Tampa, so I started working for them out of Sarasota. Um, that's where I met my late wife. And um did that for a couple years. It was in the um building products industry, and uh then I interviewed with uh a staffing agency, loved what they were doing, um came on board with them and they put me in Fort Lauderdale. Wow, I've been here ever since. So that was 1986.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Right. Yeah. 86. So what uh it's gonna be 40 years, 50 years. Yeah. Do my math, 40 years. 40 years, yeah. Do my math, sorry. The high math right there. So um, so 40 years here in in Fort Lauderdale, and you were in the recruiting business. How'd you wind up starting your own recruiting business?

SPEAKER_01 6:20

I was working for a large national firm that will go unnamed. Um, and the opportunity to grow there wasn't the type of thing I was looking for. Right. Uh I just found the upper management morally bankrupt one and didn't want to be that to move forward. Um and at the time I was working um with my business partner, my future business partner, I should say, and we decided, you know what, this is not our lifestyle, it's not what we want to do. Let's go on our own, stop getting screwed around. And uh yeah, we ventured out uh end of eighty seven um sorry, end of um ninety-eight.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Just a clean break, just started out on your own.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah. Well, we it's funny, we did um secure some um finances from a what do they call a white knight investor, you know, and uh we had him paid back. We borrowed he he lent us a hundred thousand. We only used about thirty of it, and we were able to pay him back within six months getting started. So yeah, but he you know, uh God bless him, rest in peace, Scott Morrison, but he got us started.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Wow That's a great story because you know it's always interesting how people get their start, you know, and uh and so you frustration on our part. Yeah, I mean, you know, everybody has a story of like not wanting to be where they were, like in a company that was either morally bankrupt or not doing the right thing, and then going out and doing yourself. So uh that was pure your Yes. And so you guys started that company and you've built it now over the last Yeah, we had a windowless office about the size of this room here, you know, uh in a shared space operation.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

So yeah, it started pretty humble. It was really tough. Uh I hate to say this, but we were six weeks into it, and my business partner, he and his wife had their first child and um they had serious complications. And so she the doctors said pull the plug on her. And uh the mother wouldn't hear of it, so they first went to Miami and they were like, We can't do anything. So they ended up over in Tampa, children's hospital there. So he was literally out of the office for almost three months. Wow spending time in Tampa. So here we're getting started trying to make it happen, and we get a gut punch like nobody's business. Right. Uh so we survived that. Unfortunately, the child died 18 months into her life. Another tough, tough time.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

So Yeah. Um you've been through some tough times too, you know that. And I mean, a lot of business owners are a yeah, what i and I've heard this before, and I I I sometimes liken it back to do you think like your early days of sports gave you that resilience, that toughness? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Um You can't quit. Right. Right. Well, not in the pool anyway. No, he can't quit. So, you know, at Tulane, for instance, um the coach the coach who recruited me left like a month before we got started. The guy they brought in was a total jerk. Four years I had to put up with this guy. Of the eleven people I started with, I was the only one to make it all four years. Wow. I was on full ride. If I gave that up, I didn't have any choices, so I'd stay with it. And that's tough. You know, I was working out five hours a day. Right. Two hours in the morning, uh, waits in the afternoon for an hour, another two hour practice, putting in, you know, eight, ten thousand yards a day back when we do that kind of stuff. And um ten months out of the year in the pool. Wow. Yeah, it was tough. I had going to school and I had a job. I worked as a waiter and a bartender for a um high-end steakhouse down on Magazine Street. So I was running and kind of I mean, I was uh uh the alarm went off at like 5 30 in the morning in the morning, went to swim practice, came home, ate breakfast, went back to bed, slept until my first class, alarm went off again, um, went to classes, came home, ate lunch, back to bed again, slept until I had to go to uh workout.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

So you were pretty good at putting your head down and going to sleep if you needed.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

You know, I was just tired all the time. Right. Just getting beat up in the pool and trying to have a social life and working a job. So you I look back on it and go, how did I do all that?

SPEAKER_02 11:09

How'd you do all that? Well, I mean, you do it, right? I mean, that's that's what it's a choice. That's what it takes. You don't have any choices. So you're here, you know, your first gut punch, you know, obviously was was something. But you know, over the years, uh recruiting has had its ups and downs as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

So when people are feeling good about the future uh of the economy or their business, they're looking to grow and and hire. So when things just fall apart, everyone just freezes up. Everyone's hiring, everyone's letting people go, those types of things. So uh yeah, we had a tough time right after 2000 came around. You know, we just got started and uh the big um bus. Yeah, whoo, boom. And uh so that that started turning around in 2003. We had a really, really good run through about 2008. Right, 2009. The Obama years were horrible. Right. He was not business friendly and his new normal wasn't uh you know good for business. And then uh Trump comes in office and even before he was um took the oath of office, things just skyrocketed. Right. Um so yeah, we we haven't had as bad a time as 2008. Since yeah, right. I mean, there's been dips, right, but nothing like that.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Nothing like that. I mean it was a big time, it was a tough time in South Florida to begin with, right? Right, yeah, everyone has heard and and you're like, you know, doing recruiting for a slice of South Florida, like basically the industries in South Florida or all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, that changed um in about 2010. Business was still pretty tough. Um and we had clients that were asking us for things outside of our wheelhouse, which was finance and accounting. So we played CFOs, controllers, staff accounts and like. So that um but there wasn't enough of that really around. So, you know, when people started asking for salespeople and operations types and uh uh marketing, um, we expanded. And at the same time, technology came into play with the different search engines. Um, so we were able to recruit outside of our network. Right. It used to be that when you went to market, you sold yourself as an expert. We were experts in accounting and we built this network basically the old-fashioned way, getting on the phone, talking to people, finding out who was who and uh working at that. Well, with technology, we could find people through upgraded versions of LinkedIn, the different search engines. Uh so we could expand into other areas, other disciplines, and then out of area. So we actually have placed people I don't know, it's probably about twenty-two different states. Right. Um, as far as California and New York. Um so we're not limited that way.

unknown 14:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

We used to be.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

But you're still, you know, you're South Florida-based company.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Yeah, most of our clients, granted, are in South Florida. Um, but we have a client here that is has offices elsewhere. We can service we can service those now. And then we have clients that somehow get referred to us that are out of the area that we doesn't matter anymore, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:46

In the days of Zoom and email and so much has changed. So much has changed over the years that it's really given you the ability to expand your company literally.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yes, and I I want to pat myself on the back too because we've watched a lot of people go out of business because they didn't change, they kept to their old system and got overwhelmed. Um, so staying up with technology and changing with your clients. I remember one time we were upset with our staff that they weren't making enough phone calls to the clients, and one of them said, they don't want to hear from us, they only want to hear through email. So I had to sit there and pause and think about that. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

All right. We've got to change the way we contact people.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah. But you can't get that lazy either. Right. You have to stay on the phone, but work both sides of it.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

Right. So, um, other than you know, business, you're very involved in South Florida. You've you have some hobbies too. You like to go out there and fish and hunt.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah.

unknown 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Uh and Florida's a great place. Florida, of all places in the world, I've said this to many people, and they think, what, how could that be? But when you read about other areas in the world, no place like South Florida has the amount of game species that we have. Um and we have an interesting mixture of tropical um subtropical species, and then we have uh uh estuary in the Everglades that produces a whole different environment. Right. So when you start talking about we can go right offshore here in Fort Lardo and fish for Marlin, sailfish and and Mahi. And then um you can go into the backcountry of the Everglades and catch redfish, snook, your estuary type species, tarpon. And then you can go down the keys and catch tarpon, permit, and bonefish, your tropical species. Right. Not to mention the reef fishing we have, not to mention the freshwater fishing we have, not to mention the different exotic freshwater fish we have here, like peacock bass and and uh Oscars and every other thing that's in the in our canals.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

So I I I kind of think like you're you're like the original influencer. Before influencers were out there, you were like publishing a what was it called? Rod and Wheel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

So I was actually um in the early 2000s, I was um more or less contacted to write for Florida Sportsman magazine, which was the the the biggest publication, fishing publication in the United States at the time. Um and it was a pretty big deal. So uh uh I was their field editor, so I had a monthly article talking about just the fishing in South Florida, had to talk to captains and different people to monthly say, Hey, this month anticipate this going on. And then I wrote about an article a month for them. And uh I was allowed to write for other magazines. So there's um uh American Fly Fisherman, Fly Tire magazine, a couple others. And um so I've had something close to around 250 articles published. Wow. Now that was all a good gig and it was it it funded my fishing side of things. I'll be bad habit, yeah. Yeah, um, addiction, however you want to call it. Right. And um uh but the magazine industry really took a dive. Yeah. Oh talk about change. Yeah, so uh it just wasn't worth it. And then so I did attempt uh a blog for a while, and the next step would have been really film. Right. Doing videos. Yeah, and when I looked at that, the time it would have taken to do that and to constantly come out with content. Um, and I'm you know, I have a family, I've got a business I'm running, I just didn't have that kind of time to do that. So I I drifted away from it.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah, I mean it it's it's a big commitment for sure.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Yeah, well, and just the editing. You know, when you do film, the amount of time you have to do editing and consistently, consistently come with contacts, they have to be out there all the time. Uh, I just couldn't swing.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Well, not only that, you had four kids. Yes, yeah, four kids that were all sports oriented.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Oh my, yeah, that's true too.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

So you were doing the they went to school for sports, a lot of them. All of them.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

So my my oldest daughter um wasn't sports oriented, but she was very um um inclined towards academics. Right. And uh so she eventually went to Northwestern uh for uh film and TV school, and now she works for um Sony Animation. Wow. In fact, she's on the um Spider-Man 3. She was with Sony Animation for Spider-Man One that won the Oscar.

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

And now she's with this one. And then my oldest son, um, I got him involved in swimming at first. He was very talented in it, but he hated it. And um you know, he was he's he's six six now, but I knew he was gonna be tall and wasn't gonna be good at basketball. He hated baseball. Uh soccer wasn't gonna be his thing. And I'd say, you gotta do swimming, you gotta do something. And he was just not liking it. And then my wife heard about the water polo program, and I had played in high school. I loved it. So we got him involved with that, and he took off with that. Yeah. Well, he was um by a sophomore year in high school, he was uh by the Miami Herald um athlete of the year for Broward County for water polo.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

He got it his second year, and then he got Tri-County Athlete of the Year. Um and then he got a uh scholarship to Bucknell. And then he took he took his high school team to state championships for the first time and won. And then he took his as captain of the team and then Buck Mel as captain of the team in his senior year, he took the uh school to the uh NC2A's for the first time in third year. Nice. So yeah, he had a great career. Wow. And then uh my youngest daughter played basketball state champion type stuff as well. Right. Um national champions for her um travel team.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

And then uh she got recruited by Bucknell as well. And then my youngest son played baseball and he played for Rowlands as a pitcher. Wow. So yeah. So yeah, our weekends were divide and conquer. Okay, you're gonna the baseball game, I'll go to this.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

And then in the middle of that your family suffered a tragedy.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Yes. Uh yeah, in uh two thousand. 14 my wife passed away from cancer. So that was a nearly a two year battle. Um Yeah, it was hard. Yeah, yeah. I had two kids in high school and two in college. And um yeah, I was a it was a wipeout. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

But you know, I I I I think you learned a lot in that process just because I know I I've I talked to you a lot during that time and um it that teacher that humbles you too, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:29

I mean it's in many ways uh yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

And um thank God um for the community of St.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

Anthony's uh Catholic and um I don't know how it would have survived without that faith community coming together. Nice um simple things like people providing food and just just the many friends that just came together. Uh I often wondered how would somebody do this alone without that?

unknown 23:04

No how.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

It's devastating. You have you have you know my children are grieving, I'm grieving. Uh my mother-in-law and father-in-law are grieving. Right. You know, the nanny we had working for us for 30 years was grieving, so I felt like I was the center of trying to manage everybody and their grief.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

And you're running a business.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah. Yeah, running a business. And thank God for my partners, they stepped up to the plate. Right. Well, you had done that for him too. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Absolutely. Yeah, but you know, we never talked about it. It's just you just did it. And um, yeah, so that was um yeah. It was a tough time, but yeah, you know what? And what I the I the other thing I learned is um uh judgment.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

People whether they know it or not, they judge you.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

So during those grief periods, if I was talking to you like I am now, very almost clinical, I'm smiling. Oh, Jody doesn't give a darn. Right. He's you know, some cold hearted bastard, right? Right. And other times I might be talking to somebody at lunch in a restaurant, just just you know, sobbing, and people are looking over like, uh, oh, he can't handle it. He's totally lost it. Right. So you get those types of judgments going on. Yeah. And then, you know, when I started dating, that's a whole nother scene of judgment.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

And well, I you know, I think the the thing I've learned through loss, and and you know, I've had some loss in my life, not my wife think uh God bless, but um I've learned in loss that the one of the cruelest things is life goes on. Like the next day, just the world keeps churning, everybody goes to work, and uh everybody's trying, you know, like keep coming in, and the bills keep coming in and the obligations are still there, and and it's a humbling thing to be like, wait a second, this horrible thing happened, but the whole world is just churning on.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Can't stop.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

You can't stop. And and I think you know no one should judge someone for making the most of the life going on. Yeah, but they do. I know, I know they do. We've had this conversation, and I think you shouldn't do that, obviously. And and you're in a great place now. You're re you got remarried, and you have a beautiful wife and uh another family on top of that, right? Yeah, yeah. So I mean it's I have six kids now. You have six kids now, but you know, I I know it's hard, but you see, you know, people go through the it's it's life.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, well, I would just say to anybody, don't judge until you're in that situation. And I've watched uh a couple of you and I know, again, domain unnamed that lost their wives, and within very short period of time, months, they were dating. Right. And you know, when you go through uh an illness like that and watch your wife suffer two, three, four, five years, um you know, you you want to start living again. Right. And you know, both these guys started dating and everyone was aghast. How could they do this? Right. Well, until you've been there, you have nothing to say about it. Right. Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, some it's uh it's you know, I've seen that as well. And then, you know, like and some some people it's like they're not they don't want to be alone, and why should they have to be?

SPEAKER_01 26:35

They shouldn't have to be.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Shouldn't have to be.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

But people get upset about it because it's a change and brings another personality to their lives, and and again they judge it like, well, shouldn't they be grieving for this? And how could they do this? They were married for so long and they had a great until you've been there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Yeah, well, things are going well now, so that's the good news. And you guys are out on the town, and you know, so uh will you all so first of all, that was good advice uh for some young people. We we always like to give advice to other to the young folks out there listening. You've been uh an entrepreneur, you've been through ups and downs, you've had tragedies happen in your life. What what's your advice to young people out there these days? You've raised four kids and watched them be successful.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Uh well, uh you know, I sincerely believe that you're you're given God given talents. Right. It's your obligation to use them to their fullest.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

And I love the saying if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

And I think so many people look at make excuses not to do things, make excuses to do things. Yeah. Step up to the plate where you think you can't do it. But you need to do it. Right. Um I was terrified of public speaking at one point. You wouldn't think that today, but there was a time when I just thought that it was a horror show for me. And to get over that, uh you know, I would watch people speak. So to get over that, I started speaking to fishing clubs about fishing, the slideshow and everything. And easily got over that.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Yeah. Uh because you were passionate about it, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, passionate about it. And I was an expert. Well, you know, you can say you're an expert.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

No, you're definitely an expert.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Uh so my audience was looking to me for information. So I felt confident in that regard. But, you know, conquer those types of things. Right. And the other thing I've learned, um uh don't continue to be good at what you're good at, right? Um I think back in the 80s, you know, we grew up in uh work on your weaknesses. Right. That's that's total BS. Work on your strengths.

SPEAKER_04 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

And surround yourself with people that can assist you with your weaknesses.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

It's true. Do you you want to hire I I mean I'm successful because I have a lot of good people around me. Right. And they do things that I'm not necessarily good at. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

You know, so and the other thing, be the full package. I tell my staff, because they're out there networking, if someone comes into contact with you, it should be a good thing. Whether they receive a simple thing like a compliment, like you're you know, someone who waits your table or a candidate for looking for a job or a client that something good happens from it. That their life was enhanced from the the connection with you. Uh so you know, I've been involved in a number of organizations. Right. Um certainly we were in execs together. Oh yeah. I was president of it um at least once. Yes. Um I've started fishing clubs, I started the St. Thomas Sporting Clays Tournament, co-founded St. Anthony's Men's Dinner, and a lot of things to get things going.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Those are two huge events, by the way. And they're still going on, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Well, the the Sporting Clays um COVID killed that, unfortunately. Oh, did it? And the venue and everything changed. So the St. Men's Dinner, yes, is in its what 25th year or something like that. So raised a lot of money for the schools. Yeah, you've done a great job. The St. Thomas Sporting Clays uh actually became their biggest moneymaker.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Yeah, there was a that was a nice event. Yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. So what else do you like to do for a fun? You know, Fort Lauderdale is a great place. This is your home, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Yeah, it is my home now, certainly. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:36

I mean, you know, we've been here for long enough that it's it's home. Yeah. It's home. You know.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Um well, yeah, the uh I'm passionate about fishing, as you know, and uh traveled areas for that out west for travel fishing. Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, sure. Um, and I've traveled out of the country for saltwater fishing, Bahamas, Belize, Costa Rica. And uh so I've enjoyed that. Uh my wife and I like to travel to Europe, so we um try to get out there at least twice a year. Nice um and um we just got back from Spain. We were in Madrid for three nights and Seville for four to celebrate our two-year anniversary.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Congrats. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

So um I'm a history major from Tulane, so all that plays for me as well to go to places like London and Paris and Rome and Madrid and Seville, where all sorts of things happened.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Yes, yes, lots of rich history in Europe for sure. So wow, that's uh great. Any favorite restaurants?

SPEAKER_01 31:51

We always think here in town. Oh, uh, gee whiz. So many I think uh my favorite steak place is steak 954.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

You know what that's mine too. It is really good. I think it's underrated. Underrated.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah. Um, where else do I? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way to do that. We have a lot of friends in town that own restaurants at Casa D'Angelo.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Of course, you know, going out to some of the water places like Boat Yard and you know, Boat House, and you know, some of our friends out there who have restaurants. We'd like to support them. Of course, Martin at at uh uh Cafe Vico does a great job.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

You know, there's a place I hate to even mention it, but I'd like to see them do well. It's this little Italian restaurant on uh Federal Highway right north of Oakland Park. De Baye's Italian kitchen. Yeah, it's a good fantastic. Fantastic. And nobody knows about it. Wow. It's I love it for one reason. One, it's just you know, I could practically walk there. Two, I don't have to worry about a reservation. I hate reservations. And uh it's the food's really fantastic, but just nobody knows about it. They don't advertise, they don't think well we'll try to check. We'll have to check that out.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

What's in the future for MSI?

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Well, um, we're looking uh, you know, we we've been growing. We we changed our uh excuse me, we changed um our our means of hiring a couple years ago. Uh originally the industry um what you did is you found somebody who made uh two or three years in sales, right? Bring them in the business, train them. And that's uh it takes about five years for somebody to fully go through the whole cycle that they become. So it's a lot of time and investment. And um you know, a lot of times what happens, you get somebody in two years into it, they're successful and they think, Oh, I can take this and go somewhere else and do something better. They don't, but they try it and you know that whole investment's going. Right? Yeah, you know the story. So uh we really changed course um about two years ago and really started actively recruiting people out of other agencies. Nice and finding hey, they're not as happy as they portray themselves. Right. We offer a better opportunity in terms of they can get a piece of the action um providing they build something. Right. And they're given all the tools to do that. And the one I could point to is um our um operations partner, Kellen Smith, who started us in 2010. One of the lowest points of our business yeah. And uh you know, three years into it, I recognize hey, this guy's got some stuff going on. He's gonna leave if we're not providing something. And it's what I always wanted to do anyway. So we set him up for success. And now he's a partner in the company. Nice. Uh a one-third partner, and uh he he handles a lot of what I used to do, which is good. Right. And uh, but he's he's and he's much more diverse and um he's very involved with the marketing, and just a smart guy and very good at what he does.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

So continue to grow and then call trans world one day. That's what that's what everybody wants to do. So well, congratulations. I mean, it's certainly uh you've you've had a great journey and a lot of it continues, and it continues, and uh you know, thanks for being a friend. Thanks for for everything you do in the community, whether it be for uh the workshop or some of the charitable things that you do. I really appreciate it. So I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

You're an example, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

I know. Well, we we both we both built big dinners for sure. So all right. Well, thanks for coming in again.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Hey, thank you, Andy.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

All right, another great episode of Coffee with Cagnetta. Catch you next time.