#22 - Pat Smith

If You Denton Know Pat Smith, now you do.

Pat Smith is the founder and CEO of Serve Denton, a nonprofit hub that houses 25 partner organizations under one roof and was built entirely without government funding. A Denton native, retired Air Force colonel, and son of two of Denton's most beloved small business owners, Pat brings decades of leadership experience to a mission rooted in his hometown. His story is a window into how one community came together to create something rare in the nonprofit world.

In this episode, listeners will hear how Serve Denton went from a vacant church sanctuary to a 10 million dollar campus, why Pat partnered with Toyota to bring world class operations to a nonprofit, and how a difficult Pentagon assignment shaped his approach to servant leadership. It is a conversation about hope, hometown roots, and what it looks like when private investment, faith, and good leadership build something that lasts.

Guest Bio

Pat Smith is the founder and CEO of Serve Denton, the nonprofit center that partners with 25 organizations to better serve people in need across Denton County. A Denton native and retired Air Force colonel, Pat spent 28 years in the military managing large scale construction and housing projects before returning home to launch Serve Denton in 2012. He is the son of Jim Smith of the legendary Jim's Diner and Rose Smith of Rose Costumes.

Key Topics Covered

• Growing up in Denton and the legacy of Jim's Diner and Rose Costumes
• Pat's 28 year Air Force career, from the Academy to the Pentagon
• The leadership lessons that shaped his philosophy of servant leadership
• How losing his father became the catalyst for Serve Denton
• Turning a vacant church sanctuary into a 10 million dollar nonprofit hub
• Partnering with Toyota to bring the Toyota Production System to nonprofits
• Why Serve Denton operates without government funding
• Expanding the model to other Texas cities and beyond

Timestamps

00:00 — Guest introduction 

01:00 — The original 1976 vision for a human services center 

01:45 — Jim's Diner, Rose Costumes, and growing up in Denton 

04:35 — From the Air Force Academy to building air bases overseas 

07:03 — The Pentagon assignment that defined his leadership philosophy 

12:07 — Losing his dad and finding a new calling 

15:34 — Launching Serve Denton with Tommy Nelson's blessing 

17:21 — Buying the building and the new market tax credit breakthrough 

19:38 — Bringing Toyota Production System to the nonprofit world 

22:30 — The mission, the model, and staying in their lane 

30:24 — Teaching servant leadership to the next generation 

37:05 — Denton favorites and upcoming events

Denton Highlights

• Jim's Diner on Fry Street
• Rose Costumes
• Metzler's Barbecue
• Dan's Silverleaf
• Fine Arts Theater
• Cartwright's Ranch House

Guest Links and Resources

• Serve Denton website: servedenton.org
• Email: psmith@servedenton.org
• Upcoming event: Dragon Boat Races on Lake Lewisville, June 27
• Upcoming event: Christmas concert with David Pierce at the Fine Arts Theater, December 21

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Our guest today says that people can live three weeks without food, but can't live three seconds without hope. He spent the last decade building a place in Denton where hope is exactly what you find. If you didn't know Pat Smith, today you will. Denton's got it all. The food, the music, the art, and of course the people. And behind every corner, there's a story worth sharing. And that's what this podcast is all about. Denton's Best, one conversation at a time. I'm Brad, and this is If You Didn't Know, Now You Know. Welcome back to If You Didn't Know, really excited to have Pat Smith, CEO and founder of Serve Denton with us today. Welcome, Pat.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Thank you, Brad. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Absolutely. Now, I know you're we you have the title of founder and CEO.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

But the the vision for Pat or for Serve Denton kind of started decades ago, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:00

That's right. Really started in 1976 with Mayor Eleanor Hughes at the time. And she was a professor, professor of sociology at TWU, and she proposed this whole idea of a human services center and formed a commission that was led by uh Pastor Bill Crouch from First United Methodist. And they looked for years but just couldn't find anything. And so that group just kind of went quiet and the idea didn't go away, it just didn't go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah, it didn't go anywhere at the time. It was just a little be a little ahead of its time. Yeah. Well, we're gonna dive into that and learn kind of how you really got it going and where you are with it today. But I want to want to start kind of back up a little bit. You grew up in Denton and you you've got some kind of famous parents, I think, at least for Dentonites, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:45

Yeah, I think people have called my parents uh Denton royalty. That's not my word, but others have said that. My dad uh started a restaurant uh back in the late 70s uh called Jim's Diner on Fry Street, which became very popular, uh, had a very famous mural on the side of the diner that has been recognized uh by artists across the world. Um and then my mom had a store right next to him called Rose Secondhand Rose at the time, and then she moved over to Elm Street in the mid-80s and became Rose Costumes, and then she moved out to uh the old Outlet Mall and was there from 2004 to uh two just 2024 when they moved to the square and now they're in the old McNeils building and uh really doing well. And mom is still very active making clothes and costumes for the store.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

She is incredible at that, just the her creativity and the c costumes and things she comes up with is and and she's is she responsible for numerous little uh kind of parks or beautification areas in town as well?

SPEAKER_03 2:56

She was uh on the board of uh Keep Didn't Beautiful for many years. She has the adopt spot on Sherman Drive between Elm and Locust. That's probably her hallmark, but she's done a lot of other smaller projects around town. Um also the Cherry Orchard, if you're familiar with Cherry Orchard, uh she started that back in uh 2015 and really became the number one tourist attraction in Denton County.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

It's incredible. Well, you were destined to be successful with those parents, yeah. Thank you. Uh so grew up in Denton. Uh tell me tell me what Denton was like for you as uh kind of growing up.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

Man, Denton was a great place to grow up. Uh one high school, went to Strickland, and then to Denton High, played football. Um just uh and looking back on it, Denton was 35,000 in the summer and 65,000 in the fall, spring, and winter. And uh just really close to a lot of folks. Um everyone knew everyone. Small town, yeah. It was. And uh mom and dad quick loved living here, quickly became entrenched in the community. I had a lawn mowing business. I was uh doing the janitorial work. I was the guy that cleaned the chamber of commerce every day and just was hauling hay and during the summer and mowing lawns in the fall and the spring and uh just had a great life. And then uh funny story, I went off I played next to a guy named Mark Benning in high school.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Mark went off to play for the Nebraska Corn Huskers and he and then the Pittsburgh Steelers Steelers. I went off to the Air Force Academy to play football, had some problems with some concussions, didn't get to do that very long, and then wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Well that's why you went to Air Force. You get a scholarship to play football.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

Right, exactly. And then um had hoped to fly, but because of my concussions, I couldn't fly, so I went and became a civil engineer and graduated in 84, went to Tinker Air Force Base, and uh really didn't know what was gonna happen, but uh God had other plans.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So Yeah. But you you stayed in the Air Force really, I mean, had a whole career in the Air Force.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

I retired as a colonel, uh was uh retired in 2008. During my career, I built air bases in the Middle East. I rebuilt Homestead Air Force Base after Hurricane Andrew in 1992. I my first big project was at Tinker. We had a building that was a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, and it caught fire on Veterans Day 1984 and burned 33 acres of roof. And I was one of the project officers and we rebuilt it in nine months, $100 million project in nine months, and uh really cut my teeth on big project management.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

That seems virtually impossible in general, but especially with probably the bureaucracy that you were working through. I I can't even imagine how you get something done like that.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Yeah, what happened is the all the bureaucracy got dissolved.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

They had to get it done.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

All the B-52 engines uh that and this is 1984, height of the Cold War, were in that area, and this was a major national security concern. And so we we eliminated a Congress gave us the permission to eliminate a lot of the government procurement requirements. I was bidding contracts on cranes and things like that with just as a 23-year-old uh lieutenant, and uh it was really uh amazing to see what you could do when you had to.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

We worked 24-7, 365. There was always three shifts going every day all through the holidays, everything. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Wow. So you I know we're gonna talk a lot about your philosophy in general of uh servant leadership, but I imagine kind of starting in in the Air Force and working through that, you were kind of picking up and starting to notice some of those those techniques, maybe probably even from your parents, even before that.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

But yeah, it wasn't real concrete to me early on. Uh picked a lot of it up at the academy because of uh the training there, and I was uh cadet squadron commander, so I was fairly high in the cadet chain of command. Uh, but then I got to my first base, and um I actually share the story when I talk about serving leadership. We uh were going through getting ready for an inspection and uh to go deploy, and the unit did really poorly. And uh I was in charge of getting us ready, and the colonel um Colonel Dick Thompson, I walked up to his office after the wing outbrief, and I said, Sir, I guess you're gonna fire me. And he said, Pat, why would I fire you? You've made all the mistakes, go fix it. And that was really meaningful to me. And two years later, that same inspection came back and we got an excellent, almost got an outstanding. And uh what I learned from that is I gotta have Colonel Thomson was patient with me. He allowed me to fail, and he allowed me to learn from my mistakes. And because of that, that confidence that he gave in me and the and the support showed me what good leadership's look looks like. That you don't kill the person the first time they make a mistake. You coach them, and he did. He coached me, but he gave me an opportunity to learn. And uh I grew a lot in that experience. Now the reward for that was three weeks later. I was on my way to uh Saudi Arabia to build air bases out in the middle of the desert, but it's all good. It's all good.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

You did such a great job here. Go over there and do this, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

How long were you in Saudi Arabia?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

So first time was for a year, yeah, and uh built a series of radar sites along the Iraqi and Israeli borders and uh up on mountains and did some amazing things working with Bedouin tribesmen and um building roads 20 miles long up mountains and building radar sites. So it was a real different experience, but I a very challenging. I was all by myself. Wow. My boss was in a thousand miles away in Riyadh. Wow. So young.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

I was yeah, how old were then?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

29.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Doing 150 million dollars in construction.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

No problem. So wow, very impressive, Pat. So uh went on, spent some time at the Pentagon, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Yep, spent a year three years in the Pentagon, and that's really it was the hardest tour I had, but I also really crystallized what kind of leader I wanted to be. I had a terrible boss. I had probably the worst boss you can imagine. She I had to be there at 6 a.m. and never got to leave before 6 p.m. And she was very uh caustic and and cussed me out every morning at 8 a.m. and really hard person to work for. Um had a lot of health problems because of that. Yeah. But I learned what kind of boss I didn't want to be.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Sometimes you learn as much from that kind of like, okay, I'm never gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Exactly. And so the next assignment I had, I was gonna be run the DOD fire academy, and uh there were some problems there that I was being asked to fix, but I said I know what kind of leader I don't want to be. So I sat down and I wrote down what kind of leader I would want to be. Yeah, and that's one of the things we learned in the Air Force is to write down who you want to be as a leader and then continually check yourself against that. And I did that and uh turned the unit around, uh the fire academy around, but I knew what I didn't want to be, I didn't want to rely on you know my authority and my power, I wanted to lead by trust and influence. And um that has stayed with me up to this day.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

That's the only way I believe in that too, man. That's great. Well, uh, so eventually decided, okay, I'm I'm gonna hang it up and retire from the Air Force. That that happened when 2008.

SPEAKER_03 11:14

So I was uh I made colonel in uh 2006. I uh got selected to be the landlord of the Air Force. Wow, managed about a hundred thousand homes, a $3.7 billion portfolio. And we were doing a lot of privatization where we were working with developers and investment banks to re fix up Air Force housing, which was not in great shape. And I closed uh 10 deals in two years, and uh 2008, of course, the economy took went in the tank. I thought it was a good time to get out and went into the consulting world and uh made a lot of money but didn't enjoy it. Yeah, I missed the people uh and I missed just making a difference in people's lives. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

So kind of about 2011 when you started thinking about this served in, or where were the roots of that?

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Yeah, so the roots for that were uh October 11th, 2009. That's uh dad uh passed away. Um and I learned a lot about my dad after he passed.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

I was off doing my Air Force career from 1980 to 2004 when we moved back to Denton, and then I took this assignment in San Antonio but left the family here. And long story made short, uh while dad had his restaurant, he fed a lot of people out the front door, he fed a lot of people out the back door as well. And he um really impacted a lot of people's lives. And so when he passed away, there was a big article in the paper that was written uh about him, and people came from all over the country uh for his memorial service on November 11th, 2009. And I was officiating it, and I stood at the door afterwards and I shook the hand of everyone who came and I said, Well, you know, who are you? Where'd you come from? And and I was struck by all these people who had come from all over the country, San Francisco and New York and Dallas or Dallas and Denver and Atlanta, and I was like, Well, why did you come to my dad's funeral? And they go, Well, your dad saved my life.

unknown 13:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

And uh I stood in that door that one day, and I had my service dress on, and I have the Colonel's Eagles on, and I was like, you know, my dad did more for people than I ever have. And I decided right then and there I was gonna change, and uh took a year, but I decided to go into ministry at that Bible church, okay, um, and did that, and uh Tommy Nelson uh asked me to do two things. First was to get the ministries in the church working to together better, yeah. And the second was to figure out what the church could do to be more loving in the community. Okay. What could the church do to make a difference? I didn't know, but Pat, you go figure it out and come back to me. That was literally my job description. So I started talking to a lot of folks. I talked to Mark Burroughs, I talked to guys like Tom Newell from the Community Food Center, Gary Henderson was you know in that mix and talked to city staff and came back and said, Hey, what if we did this nonprofit center kind of thing where we take we had a vacant church building, chat sanctuary, uh, and convert it into office complex for nonprofits and make it easy for them to do their job. And Tommy said, We actually met at Hula Hands up on the square and he goes, Pat, I love it. And so that was March of 2011. And uh two weeks later I had lunch with a lady named Priscilla Sanders. Yeah, and uh we she heard me talk and she said I she thought I was talking like Colin Powell, the general colin Powell, and she said, I'm in. And uh we met at the Abbey and we uh took off from there and um started building a board and talking to people in the community, building consensus and getting people bought in and uh having look back.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Wow. Well, it's incredible what can be done when somebody doesn't give you any boundaries, just say go go figure this out. Here's the problem, or not problem, but just here's my idea, go figure out a solution for this. And and you you man, very impressive what came out of that conversation from from Tommy. Thank you. So it started officially in 2012, yes, sir Denton. Yeah, and that so that was on the campus there at Denton Bible.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

That's right. So we took over the old sanctuary right there at the corner of University in Nottingham. We didn't have the whole building, but we had a part of it, and uh started operating and uh bringing in two tenants. Uh the first one was uh Big Brothers, Big Sisters, and the second one was a group called uh Rising Star. And uh after a couple of years we had six in there and started trying to raise some big money and talking to people who could write big checks, and they said, You really need to own your own building. Uh we're not comfortable giving money to a building that the church owns because we were leasing it from for a dollar a year. I see. And so I went back to Denton Bible, went to Tommy and to Jerry Falbo, the executive pastor, and I said, I need a million dollars. And uh Denton Calvary was looking to buy that building. So, long story made short, we worked out a deal. Stan Morton was the board chair at the time, and um we uh the church sold the building to Denton Calvary Academy. They gave us a million dollars and we went and bought the building from Virgil Strange.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Technically, it what they called a termination fee, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

You had it written in your lease that if if this lease is gonna be terminated, you need to be paid. Is that how it was structured?

SPEAKER_03 17:21

No, it wasn't it it ended up being structured like that. It was a termination fee, that's what we called it, but it was not in the original lease. I see.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

So we had to modify the lease and then do the wow so yeah, that gave you the seed money, then yeah, go buy the building that Virgil had out on 288.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

Right. So we bought bought it, just did a five percent down on our financing with Virgil Strange. He built out what we called phase one, and then we were able to do a capital campaign that ultimately raised $3.3 million. And then we I knew from my Air Force experience this thing called New Market Tax Credit Funding. And I uh reached out to a consultant that I just uh happened to find that did this. She lived up in uh Paris, Texas, and she came down and said, totally can do this. We had the right location, and uh so we got $3.1 million from US Bank. And so that put a lot of energy and and financial capital into the project. And basically the New Market Tax Credit is a seven-year loan that you pay a very low interest rate, 1.75% interest on it. That was all prepaid interest. At the end of the seven years, the loan's forgiven.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

So we get this huge injection of cash, and it also told told potential donors that we were investment worthy. Right. And we brought in Health Services North Texas, Chones Apsey Center led by Kristen Howe, and then Dan Community Food Center. They were a big three anchor tenants. And they brought some cash to the table. So we went from a million to ten million dollars in a year, and that's what resulted in the uh campus that we have today. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Really neat. That that it's impressive what you built over there. I've I had an opportunity uh, I guess a year or so ago to tour it with you and just to see the whole behind the scenes operation. And and I know that y'all employed a lot of the the Toyota production system within that, right? And maybe touch on that for a second, because I know I think you now that's one of your revenue streams as well as as you're kind of going out and teaching people, other people this the system, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Yeah, so when we opened the building in October 2019, all the construction was done. I built 40 buildings across the world, and uh I knew the building would never look as good as the day we moved in.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

And I didn't want it to deteriorate because I had looked at a lot of nonprofit offices and they were usually not well maintained. Right. And so I uh who's best in the world at operating stuff? And I had read a book years ago called Lean Thinking, and so I read it again and I said, I'm gonna reach out to Toyota. So I emailed them, and it took a while to, but they got back to me and they said, Yeah, we're interested in talking to you. And so that was in December of 2019, and we they came to visit in uh May of 2020 during the pandemic, height of the pandemic. We're all wearing masks. Yeah, and uh they were like, Man, we're really interested in this. So uh we spent the next six or three months uh that whole summer really just working on our property maintenance process so that we could our response time was not very good. It was like eight and a half days, and we wanted to get down to two business days. And so we they worked on that, and by September we were down to 2.05 days. And uh we're really happy, Toyota was really happy with the project, and they brought in their senior leadership, and we had to brief them there at at uh sort of I had to do the briefing to show them how well I've been taught TPS.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

And they they liked what I did and they continue to invest in us over the years, and we just kept spreading that learning into other parts of how we operate. And um Toyota has now said you guys are really strong in in doing TPS and we want you to help others. So we teach a class now with Toyota at ServeDutton showing how to use TPS.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Wow. And so people pay you to come to this class and you just kind of that's one of the revenue streams for for serve.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

We charge four hundred for nonprofits and five hundred for businesses and government. Yeah. Toyota charges a lot more than that for their classes.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Wow, that's really that's really cool. It's quite an endorsement for them to say, all right, hey, you you do this now. And we we're they're still obviously using that system and branding it that way, but yeah, they trust you to to lead out.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Well, very cool. Well, I want to I want to really spend a few minutes talking about what your mission is and kind of what you're the the at the core what you're trying to do and what you don't do. I I mean, you know, there's some things it's like that we're not this. So so what are what's kind of your core mission?

SPEAKER_03 22:30

So our core mission is to partner with nonprofits and communities to help them better serve people in need. Okay. Partnering for us looks like providing high-quality space at a very affordable cost and support services. We provide a receptionist, we provide IT backbone, we provide office equipment, we provide marketing support. Um a lot of those things that most nonprofits aren't inherently good at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

What about the accounting side?

SPEAKER_03 23:03

We we told we looked at that accounting side, we could do it, but uh we our experience is most nonprofits are not as mature as we'd like them to be in their accounting. And so and because of the fiduciary responsibilities, we kind of steered away from that. Gotcha, okay, okay. If we can provide great space and support services so that the organizations can focus on their core mission and they don't have to worry about the bathrooms and the trash and you know, people coming in uh that may or may not be the right people, we take that off of them. And we get very high feedback that they like that. They value that, yeah. As we've learned gone through this process and working with nonprofits, and we have now 25 nonprofits at Servedin.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Never did in my wildest imagination we'd have that many. Um we also realize that you know sometimes they probably need some education, some upskilling and leadership and in how to operate. We've had several agencies say, Man, we wish we could operate like you. And they've some of them have worked with Toyota and have seen great results. Um, but we teach that class uh so that they can learn to operate better. And then because of that, our reputation has spread. We uh have worked with the city of Louisville, we did serve Louisville, that closed because two of our major tenants lost all their federal funding. No tenants. Yeah, you know the business. Yeah, you gotta hit that. Yeah, can't can't operate a building with no tenants, and uh so we handed the keys back to the city of Louisville. But we're now on a consulting basis working with uh a church in Garland and then also the city of Plano to help them create their own centers modeled on what we do. I see and uh City of Round Rock's coming to see me on June 29th. So and we've had lots of cities across the country come visit us. Right. We've had Edmonton, Canada come and they created a center and they say, Oh yeah, everything we do is based on what we learned at Servedon.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

And these these nonprofits, 27, 28, you said 25 right now. 25. They I mean they could be in just using a one-room space or a desk to having several thousand square feet within your facility, right? That's right. Exactly. Everything in between. Yep. Or maybe they just need it on a monthly basis to have a board meeting or something like that. Exactly. So there's all kinds of options if if you're a nonprofit to say there's there's a home for you there, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:43

That's right, there is, and that's really well said. And yeah, we want to, you know, we want to help new nonprofits get off the ground, but then we also want to help mature nonprofits uh, you know, expand. So Catholic Catholic Cherries of Fort Worth just announced last week they're creating a hub at Serve Denton.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Oh, great.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

A year ago they weren't even in Denton County. Yeah, and they all are they've uh have three offices now, and uh they're doing a great job helping families with financial literacy and education, and uh we're just excited to have them uh grow, and that's what we want to see. Denton, as you know, is growing 86 people a day. Denton County, 86 people a day are moving here. Yeah, they're not bringing roads, they're not bringing water, and they're often not bringing a job. And so, how do we help those families who are struggling, especially with the challenges of uh inflation, to get by, and that's the idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, okay. Now you you're you've kind of drawn a line in sand though, you don't provide any direct service to individuals. So why is that important to you? That I mean I know and it's I know it's not because you don't care.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

No, the reason we don't is we never want uh an agency to fear that we're gonna get in their lane. Yeah, they can look at us sometimes and say, Well, you're the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Uh we're pretty good at fundraising, we're pretty good at operations, but we want to be Switzerland. We want to be that place that's neutral and safe. Yeah. And we never want a nonprofit to say, Oh, you guys are getting into our business. And uh uh the board drew that line in the sand very early on. We are never gonna do direct services other than the receptionist, right? And we're very limited in what we do, we don't ever get into case management or things like that. And it just makes it there's never a uh us versus them, it's always us together.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Well, a year or so ago is when I introduced my sister-in-law, Tarantia, that uh she and her good friend have Meg, you know, started Meg Matters. And so I know they've found tremendous value out of what Served Denton provides, and so appreciate all y'all done to kind of guide them along.

SPEAKER_03 28:03

That's how happy to do so.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

And again, if you're if you're nonprofit thinking, how do I I maybe I'm smaller, it's just me and I've got an idea, Bat's your guy from my experience.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Go talk about you.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Go talk bat. So I want to talk, um, I guess first of all, what what are you most proud of on on that kind of served dentin front and what you're doing?

SPEAKER_03 28:22

You know, I'm most proud of, and I've said this publicly several times, I'm most proud of how we as a community came together and did this with zero government funding. Yeah. I spent 28 years in the military, uh, so I always spent a lot of time on the government side. Yeah. And I spent a lot of time in the Pentagon working on government funding. And everyone's first answer is always, oh, we need to go ask the government for more money. All right. And I was like, no, we don't. We're not gonna ask the government for more money. We're gonna figure a way to solve this ourselves. And one of the things I admire about what you do is you go out and build community by raising private investment to make uh the community better. That's all we're doing. We're just doing a nonprofit focus versus a business or some other type of uh focus. And uh the fact that we could do this in Denton uh just means a lot to me, especially you know, being my hometown and seeing how many people stepped up from different walks of life and different political views. But at Servant Denton, we we all wear one patch, just like in the military, you wear one patch, you have an American flag. We wore one patch, you know, then community and how many people got behind that.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah, love it. Thank you. Well, you're your one of your driving philosophies, as I touched on earlier, is servant leadership. And so you you talked on talked about that a little bit, kind of your experiences in the Air Force, and I I I know over the years you've honed in on that even more, right? And that's exactly the way you try and lead. But you're teaching other people these these principles and skills now, too, right? Yeah, why why is that kind of your why do you think that's so important for that to be your core philosophy?

SPEAKER_03 30:24

Well, twofold. One, uh I've as I said earlier, been on the receiving end of the other way, power play and the you know, you're gonna do it my way or else. And uh while that can work, it's not sustainable in the wrong long run.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

Um and someone said to me years ago, Pat, you always are thinking about the long game. And I I really try to think, what's the long game here? I'm not worried, I'm not interested in short-term gains. I'm like, how do we build something that is sustainable? And I saw that my mom. I mean, my mom built a business in 1976 with $400. Right. And it's now 20, 26, 50 years. 50 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

And thriving.

SPEAKER_03 31:12

It's thri thriving, you know, and she's now probably the oldest women-owned small business in Denton County that's over 50 years old.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

And uh you gotta build you if you're really serious, you gotta build for the long game. To me, servant leadership does that. And it's all about you know, how do you lead? Well, you lead by building trust, which gives you influence to lead people. And how do you build that influence? Well, you serve and you sacrifice. And that service and sacrifice is built on love. And love is a verb, not a noun in this case. And love is commitment, forgiveness, honesty, humility, kindness, selflessness, patience, respect.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:53

And I said, if you live that way as a leader, people will follow you anywhere. I was watching uh a part of the movie Gettysburg last night, and uh in the movie Gettysburg, uh, there's a major chamberlain who led the 20th Main Regiment on uh a battle at Gettysburg, and he was given these uh main soldiers from another regiment, and they have been really mistreated by their commander. And he took these guys over, and in a matter of three days, he cared for them, and they went on to have one of the most successful military uh battles, you know, the battle of Little Roundtop. And uh, if you're not familiar with Gettysburg, it was really key to the Union victory. And Chamberlain led as a servant leader, and he took care of his people. And I say, you take care of the people, the people take care of the mission. And if you can do that, you're gonna be wildly successful.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

I have found that it people will just run through brick walls to if if they know that you are there for them, that you care, that you love them, that you're yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Wow, that's great. So, how how how does that look now? You're teaching that to others. Is that a formal program?

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah, it's um we have two formal programs. The first one is a two-hour workshop uh called Embracing Servant Leadership, where we teach just kind of what I walk through, and then we do a leadership assessment, and then I teach some coaching and listening skills. Good leaders are really good at listening and they're really good at coaching. And coaching is not giving advice, it's asking questions that help the uh person you're trying to coach arrive at where you want them to be, but it's making them think that's what Colonel Thompson did for me. It was your idea. He said, Pat, you made all the mistakes, now just go fix it. Yeah, he didn't tell me what to do, he let me learn in the process. Um, and so if I can give a little bit of that, then the longer version is a 16-hour version where we uh meet um over about four or five sessions, and we talk about leading yourself first, leading a team, leading an organization, and then leadership capstone where you write down who you want to be as a leader, why you want to be that kind of leader, and what are those behaviors. Leadership is all about is a way of behaving and making choices about what kind of person you're gonna be. Are you gonna be the same person at work that you're at home? Um, and people often don't think about that, they just start doing, yeah. And then they're like, How did I end up here?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Well, I know this sounds like a lot of just foo foo lovey dovey stuff, but I can attest that it it really matters. And and I've like you have had experience where with bosses or employers that have been this way or that way, and it's like are the ones that people want to work for and that really I mean they they'll even sacrifice how much you make, you know. Right. I I I don't need to make as much if I can work in this type of organization, and and then they just go that extra mile often.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

So yeah, I have employees that have done that very thing. Yeah. Took a lower-paying job to come work for me, and my retention right now is 100% over the last three years. Wow. Um, I'm very grateful for them. And I want to be a place where people in this day and age where you're always competing for talent, be a place and be a leader that people want to work for, and you're gonna win the talent game.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yep. Amen. Love it, Pat. Well, so if people want to know more about those two classes, the leadership servant leadership class or the toy owner production service, are they reaching out to you directly or where where do they get more information?

SPEAKER_03 35:50

Both. Uh they can email me directly at psmith at servedentonor.org, or you can go to our website and click on events, and uh those classes are always listed.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Okay. And then just more broadly in general on on Serve Denton, any anything upcoming or that you need to promote, or you Yeah, we're we're doing something new.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

I always like to rock the boat, so pardon the pun, but we're gonna do the first uh dragon boat races on Lake Louisville uh on June 27th.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

We're signing up teams. There are 20 people a team, and uh dragon boats are a pretty grow new but growing sport where teams come together, there's professional teams but also community teams where you you know we always talk about and getting everyone to row together this that I that analogy. Well, this is literally doing that and doing it on Lake Louisville right in uh Highland Village, and that's gonna be June 27th. And so that's our next fundraiser. Um, and uh it'll benefit both Servedenton and the Denton Lake Cities Rotary Club and uh and by you know extension the other nonprofits that we support. The funds that we raise basically cover our indirect costs, our rent covers our direct costs.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

I see. Okay, that's the that's the funding model there. So all right, so servedenton.org is where people can find that the information on that and other ways to get involved, right? Yep, absolutely. Well, I a couple of things as we close up here. I really really enjoyed the conversation, appreciate sitting down with me. Um obviously, Rose costume, no longer Jim Diner, but I mean what what are your favorite spots to hit in Denton? You got Tetron or other hot spots?

SPEAKER_03 37:31

Yeah, so I'm a huge fan of Metzler's barbecue.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Uh Roy and I are good friends, but Roy reminds me so much of my dad.

unknown 37:39

All right.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Uh just uh wears the same kind of polo shirts and built that restaurant from scratch and you know, really great German food and which I enjoy. And uh Roy does so much for the community uh with our daily bread with UNT Athletics. Um, and uh I eat there every couple weeks just whether I need to or not.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Okay, great shout out. I hadn't I hadn't been there in a while, I hadn't thought of it, so I'll have to hit that up. Thanks for sharing. Well, you also get a hat as one of my guests, Norman Roscoe hat, so you get to pick your your choice of Denton hats there. Oh wow, I like this one.

SPEAKER_03 38:17

Okay, all right. Well, thank you. That one's fine. I wear it proudly.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

All right, well, you're a great dentite, so you know whether you wear the hat or not, you're always wearing the hat, so to speak.

SPEAKER_03 38:26

So proud of our community and uh grateful to have a friendship with you.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Absolutely. Well, thank you. I it's it's an honor to call you friend and and uh really appreciate all the great work you're doing in the community.

SPEAKER_03 38:39

So well, I'm so excited for the Fine Arts Theater to open. And uh David Pierce and I are gonna do a concert, a Christmas concert there on uh December 21st with his 20th. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Oh, I hadn't even heard.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

Yeah, this is exciting, breaking news.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

I've been excited. We're gonna have cartwrights cater it. Um we're we've done it the last two years at Dan Silverleaf. Yeah, we packed it out and we said we got to get a bigger space.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

David's so talented.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

And so we David's talked to your folks and wow, I'm so excited about that. Yeah, so it's I'll be there. High-end Christmas music. Uh he but I didn't realize this, but his people in his band come from all over the country. He's got just to play with him.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah, he's very talented and creative. So that's gonna be fun. Well, if somehow you didn't know Pat Smith before today, now you do. Thanks again for for joining us on another episode of If You Didn't Know.