Kestrel Country Podcast
Energizing Small Towns with CEO Camden Spiller
In our latest episode, Camden, a true Texan at heart, recounts his early days in Moscow's real estate landscape.
Transformers may not be the most glamorous subject, but without them, our modern world wouldn't power up. Camden sheds light on these unsung heroes of the electrical industry, taking us through the complexities of voltage transformation and the pressing energy demands from burgeoning sectors like cryptocurrency mining and AI data centers. We delve into the resurgence of American manufacturing and the critical role of remanufacturing, all through the lens of Maddox Industrial Transformer.
Join us for an insightful conversation that looks beyond profits to the profound influence entrepreneurship can have on nurturing the growth of families, churches, and communities.
Look on the Maddox website HERE!
OR
Connect with Camden on Linkedin.
In our latest episode, Camden, a true Texan at heart, recounts his early days in Moscow's real estate landscape.
Transformers may not be the most glamorous subject, but without them, our modern world wouldn't power up. Camden sheds light on these unsung heroes of the electrical industry, taking us through the complexities of voltage transformation and the pressing energy demands from burgeoning sectors like cryptocurrency mining and AI data centers. We delve into the resurgence of American manufacturing and the critical role of remanufacturing, all through the lens of Maddox Industrial Transformer.
Join us for an insightful conversation that looks beyond profits to the profound influence entrepreneurship can have on nurturing the growth of families, churches, and communities.
Look on the Maddox website HERE!
OR
Connect with Camden on Linkedin.
This is the Kestrel Country Podcast, where we discuss the people, places and events all around Kestrel Country. Camden Spiller, thanks for jumping on with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, mike. It's great to uh great to be here. You know, I was actually kind of remembering back to um some of our earlier conversations me, me and your uh conversations as we were um making some early trips out to Moscow and looking, uh looking at facilities and kind of talking about the the real estate um situation out there and you were, I guess what came to mind is you were kind of one of the one of the first uh first uh folks that had an opportunity to work with out there. So we actually kind of go way back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, that was. Uh, it was funny that you bring that up because I was going to, um, uh, explain that. So my wife for a while would constantly would refer to you as metal business card guy when I first met you, you handed me your business card, and you know it's this fairly hefty metal card. This is the coolest business card I think I've ever received and it still sits on my desk.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great, that's great.
Speaker 1:Well, I would be like wait, is that metal business card? I'm like yeah that's him.
Speaker 2:So, oh my gosh, well, it's, that's, yes, that's great, it's those. Those are the nameplates that we put on on all of our equipment have to be a certain kind of metallic specification. And we found out that this laser um, laser etching um machine can, uh, can print business card sized little, uh little plates, and so that's what we've, uh, that's what we've always used. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the. That's the backstory there, so that's a. That's a back story there. So that's a mil-spec that will never erode under UV or anything.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, a little bit of an issue there and that was yeah, your business card is a Maddox Industrial Transformer, which is kind of what we're here to talk about, and we'll get into that. But, um, maybe to start you know what? Um, where did you grow up? I like to always kind of get a little background on folks. Where'd you grow up?
Speaker 2:yeah, schooling, sure that kind of thing, yeah, give you some some origin story there. I grew up in um in small town, tex, a homeschooled kid. I was the oldest of seven kids and grew up and really kind of planted a seed and an inspiration um for um, uh, for entrepreneurism, um and um and really kind of a, you know, a view of life that embraces um, uh, family and family discipleship and and our kind of parental responsibilities with a weighty recognition, and that was really impactful for me. That was really impactful for me. My dad has passed but got to know most of his grandkids and that's kind of the context. I grew up in working in my dad's furniture repair store when I was 8 or 10 years old.
Speaker 2:I was Well, I thought I was In retrospect old, I was, um, well, I thought I was in retrospect, I think, yeah, I think it was babysitting, but I thought I was working Um but um, but you know I, you do, you do kind of kind of learn things and and you know, working alongside um, you know your father and and just kind of seeing a man's world and kind of understanding um, uh, or getting exposure to interactions with customers and vendors and, uh, you know business situations. That's kind of the, that's kind of the context.
Speaker 1:I uh, I grew up in yeah, so family business very much, not just in name, but family was involved in the business. And was that a long-term family business or something that your dad started?
Speaker 2:No, it really it was something my dad started and it was very much kind of the solopreneur kind of thing, the self-employment kind of situation. And you know, I've reflected on this in years since that and probably the takeaways that I had from those times, as I mentioned great things about work ethic and small business and all that kind of stuff, but really came away with the realization that there is a certain scale of business, that kind of self-employment kind of thing, where, where the business owns you, you know, you don't, you don't own a business, um, and it's um, it's kind of um, uh, it was a struggle, uh, frankly it was. You know, those, those kinds of businesses um, struggle to be more than a job, where the owner, the self-employed individual, ends up kind of having to wear all the hats, and so you know, I'm massively grateful for a lot of that experience. It really did shape the way I came to think about business and particularly kind of a bit of a counterpoint to much of what we see kind of exist in a scale that, uh, I feel like I felt like missed, missed a lot of opportunity to uh, to be a blessing to the family or whoever owns it, to uh, to uh employees, you know key, key leadership, uh, you know members of the community, uh customers, I.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's there's really a opportunity um for uh, you know, members of the community, uh, customers. I feel like there's there's really a opportunity um for uh, for entrepreneurs to to uh to really aspire to um, to uh to larger scale business and and uh, kind of paradoxically, see better family life balance and um and um and you know, whatever measures of success you might have, um, I've, I've tried to, I've implemented into my life and my business Um, some of these things that I've tried to encourage others to see some of the benefits and blessings of running a business at a larger, larger scale. So, yeah, yeah, anyway, that's one little takeaway, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that was that. You grew up down. You grew up there, kind of in the family business, doing that. Uh, how about? Yeah, what was the next step and what led into getting into transformers?
Speaker 2:sure, sure. So um went to um, uh straight out of uh high school into uh running a software development business with um, with another one of my brothers, um, and kind of did that through the 90scom boom and bust and this was kind of doing e-commerce kind of things, when that wasn't a commoditized service, there wasn't sign up for Shopify kind of things. This was kind of a very Wild West kind of era when you kind of rolled your own you know transformer electrical transformer business and I began to learn a lot about that and and wasn't you know, it's one of those things where you know you plan your way but the Lord directs the steps. That I didn't. I didn't uh set out to get into the uh the transformer business but but really got um, really got involved with this client. They asked me to come on board full time and really just work my way up through the ranks there, and so I was an employee at that business from basically the late 90s until 2014. So I had almost 20, I think I had slated to.
Speaker 2:I had had discussions with the uh, uh, the owner of the business at the time about, uh, the succession plan, the business and I was, I was planned over the next few years to um to take over a CEO.
Speaker 2:And that was my stated, my stated career plan.
Speaker 2:And they paid my way through Harvard Business School and gave me some great career development opportunities.
Speaker 2:And the plan was the older guys would step out in a course of time and us Jagger guys would step into place and that nice and tidy succession plan really entirely fell apart and there was relational discord amongst the three senior guys and uh, they're, um, that totally fell apart and kind of the, the guy that you would have, um, uh, um, uh, well, just kind of the way the cookie crumbled, um, the guy that got uh in depth and controlled business, um, uh, needed to sell it. Uh, it wasn't, wasn't, uh, it wasn't really viable for him to him to hold it together alone. Um and uh, so business sold to private equity group and um got to kind of walk through um, walk through that experience and you know, see, you know even before the paints dried on that, the cultural implications of all of that, and one of those implications was letting me and my entire team go. So I was able to now reflect on it as the best, worst thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 1:So and now was that? So you, you were working in uh, it was kind of software development. You were helping them with that end of the business.
Speaker 2:But in a non-technology business that's more business process, and so that was really key to giving me a real intimate understanding of business, whereas if I maybe had other other posts I wouldn't have had the same visibility. But you know, over the course of almost 20 years, you know I ended up working, you know I worked in sales and I worked in I, you know I had a lot of you end up getting around in a, you know, in a career path like that. So I had a pretty, pretty good, pretty good grasp of the business and then I had really, you know, with with my hopes and dreams then dashed. But to be the next CEO and to, you know, to to lead the company, I kind of had my thoughts and plans on what would I do, how would I do this differently, how would I improve on the good and reform or discard the parts that I felt like needed it and so put out on the street.
Speaker 2:I was able to really clean sheet and put this company together from the ground up, made some calls, got a little bit of private investment money just an individual, a couple of individual investors and then a little bit of my own money and bootstrapped from there and just to kind of fast forward 10 years later we have about a third of the US market share with the largest company in our space. We've close to the old company I was I was with and in fact there was kind of a big three when we started a company and and the biggest two have merged. Um and uh, we've, uh, we've still surpassed them in our, in our market, in our target market.
Speaker 1:So, um, so it's really been when you started it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 10 years ago yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and where, where was, where were?
Speaker 2:where did you start, maddox? Yeah, so we, yeah, started here in um in Vancouver, washington, um, but our first facility. So we uh, uh, they fired me in in um January. Uh, uh, they fired me in in um january, started the business in february, um, and this is just me and my brother selling transformers out of the spare bedroom. This is kind of you know, we're really just kind of barely getting things set up um, uh, but we uh, by may, by apr or May, we had opened our first facility in South Carolina and we moved out there for I guess three or four years to get that first facility off the ground. I guess four years later, four years after that, we opened our facility back here in Battleground Washington, Um and um, uh, battleground is a is a small town just right outside of um, right outside of Vancouver, washington, uh, you know this area.
Speaker 2:So um, battleground Washington is just a great um, great little small town, conservative area. So um, battleground Washington is just a a great um great little small town, conservative town. Um, you know, just kind of small town. America, um, which was a little foreign to me growing up in in small town Texas, you know, I thought this was kind of the liberal West coast and and uh, it was, uh, it was uh, uh, it's, it's, uh. It was quite refreshing and we absolutely love, um, love battleground. But um, it started this, this facility out here.
Speaker 2:We moved back out here, um with um, with um and obviously an alignment for our business plan. We had targeted a national market from the beginning and needed a West Coast location, but also I wanted to raise our kids in an extended family context. My wife's family and our siblings are out here, so the kids have cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. My folks moved out here my, my dad just before he passed, and then my mom is, is, uh, stopped here, um, uh and uh, as well as my, uh, my wife's parents. So, um, that and and uh, the church here was going through um, uh transition and we really wanted to be um through transition and we really wanted to be a part of that effort.
Speaker 2:So that's a little glimpse into our life here in Battleground. I didn't talk about that but in terms of the business, yeah, so I started in first facility in South Carolina, then back here in Battleground Washington. First facility in South Carolina, then back here in Battleground Washington, then offices. We've got some folks in Houston, texas, moscow, idaho. We opened another facility, another full production facility, in Batavia, ohio, which is right outside of Cincinnati and that's where we're at today. Well, and I guess we opened two more facilities in South Carolina after that, so there's really kind of three facilities in a separate office. So we're in four places in Greenville County, a little bit spread out, but yeah, and how many?
Speaker 1:how many employees today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've got about 250 people Um and um. Probably most the majority of those are um South Carolina Um, I think we've got about. I think I've got about 75 here in Battleground, maybe 40 in Moscow, a little less in Batavia and then some remote and some spread around, but probably the preponderance of the remainder would be would be amongst the South Carolina facilities. Gotcha.
Speaker 1:So I'd probably back up a little bit, you know, kind of back to 10 years ago. You said you know started you and your brother selling transformers out of a back bedroom, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we should probably for those who don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we should probably for those who don't know, um, I guess. So what were you saying? What's?
Speaker 2:maybe define a little bit about uh, the transformer.
Speaker 1:Oh sure, I'll do when. Who's your customer? Um? And what does it look like to have, like you know, two guys selling transformers out of a bedroom?
Speaker 2:Well it's, it's not. Um, this is not a business that does lend itself to kind of the cottage kind of model. So that was certainly, you know, kind of a transitional stage as we were just getting things set up. But to kind of give you some background on what is a transformer and what's the role and then what are the applications. So electricity is generated, we'll say, here in the Pacific Northwest we have a lot of hydro, hydroelectric power. So you have a generating station and that power is generated at a certain voltage and it needs to get from source of generation to source of use, and that is a transportation problem. Moving that much energy across that many miles requires you to transform it from a low voltage, at which it's generated, to a high voltage, which allows it to go cost-effectively over miles of wires, and then it gets transformed back down to a lower voltage, to where I can charge myself whatever usage is. But that's what transformers do. Our target market is the commercial industrial market, and so while we do work for utilities and electrical cooperatives and places like that, our major emphasis is in the commercial industrial segment, and so that's going to be any large power, non-utility user of power, some things that are maybe a little bit newer in the last 10 years or so. We have a large installation base in cryptocurrency mining. So all this Bitcoin stuff requires a lot of energy. Bitcoin stuff requires a lot of energy. All these AI data centers are absolutely changing the energy landscape of the nation by just the sheer amount of energy they consume. We have a massive footprint in those spaces. But then also very traditional large power users. If you're making steel, you have to, you know, melt that steel at very high temperatures. That's all all energy consumption, um and um. So traditional industry is is a major focus that puts you at the forefront of of is a major focus that puts us at the forefront of of uh, of a reshoring American industry.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of uh activity right now bringing manufacturing um back to back to the U? S or at least um, at least North America, um, that's that's uh and that's that's as Chinese manufacturing kind of falls out of political favor sides of the aisle um are moving us rapidly in a um in the direction of bringing um manufacturing back to um, back to the continent. Um, I, I. I say that because we do most of our work is in in um, in domestic uh, us based um stuff. But there's a tremendous amount of activity in Mexico right now as as industry um that moved from the U? S to Mexico to China is moving back to back to Mexico, um and and some of it back to the U? S as well, but, um, but that we have a lot, of, a lot of interplay there.
Speaker 2:We do some fun stuff. You know, we, we, you know we do transformers for SpaceX and NASA and some kind of fun stuff like that, but also the new Costco store down the street, anybody who's going to be a major power user. We've got about a third of those applications.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got about a third of those applications. Yeah, so they're, they're looking, they need something very specific as far as their energy use, um, and so then are. But you're, are you manufacturing as well as selling? I know there's some of the remanufacturing, that kind of thing that you do or is that kind of your? Your niche.
Speaker 2:Right. So there's. There's a couple sides to the business. One is we have contract manufacturing relationships where our manufacturers build to our specs, our brand name they're Maddox Transformers but we don't own and operate those new manufacturing facilities. But we don't own and operate those new manufacturing facilities. We have manufacturing partners for that side of the business In the remanufactured side of the business. That's what our owned and operated facilities are, and so we have three, four, five of those facilities that focus on remanufacturing Four on liquid filled and one on a dry type, just a different kind of product line. Those facilities take equipment that is nearing end of useful life and we'll take that equipment out of service. It'll have been in service for 20 or 30 or more years. We'll rebuild it and give it another 20 or 30 or more years, so that remanufacturing part of it is absolutely essential to try to keep up with equipment demand.
Speaker 2:There's not enough transformers in the world to meet our energy needs right now, and this sometimes plays out in mainstream news. There's multiple journal articles recently about it. In mainstream news. There's multiple journal articles recently about it. Elon Musk is tweeting about you know. Transformers will be one but important way to keep more transformers in service, to meet more energy demands, to take care of the aging infrastructure. We've got uh. We've got a an incredible um. We're incredibly blessed with the power uh infrastructure that we have here in this nation, but it's aging and it, it, uh, it needs, needs a uh needs a lot of attention, and that's that's, that's where, where our business is focused.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, yeah, so then you're able to take in that older equipment and repurpose it for specific customer needs, as my ignorance of it, are all the transformers you sell? I mean, is it kind of off-the-shelf type thing, or are most of them? You know, customers need a very specific transformer, um transformer or something that's a little bit more custom.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's, um, it's uh. There's kind of a middle middle area there. There's um, there's uh, there's a few dozen um, uh of the most popular kind of voltage and size configurations and those come in then different, different um, uh, different kva classes, basically, uh, different power, um, sizes, put it that way. Um, so, um. It's not custom in the sense that it's one for one, like when spacex needs a new transformer for, you know, the new fuselage plant or something. They don't have to, you know, necessarily have a custom built transformer from that, but it is custom enough that there's a great need for a company like ours know thousands of transformers, um, uh, ready to go, so, um, so yeah, it's um, you know it's um, it's. It's a business that um, that requires um, requires a lot of know-how on market needs.
Speaker 2:We try and understand the growth of industry in certain regions and we know that those regions typically use these certain voltages and our target customers use these certain size transformers, and so we try and triangulate all that information and try and do the best we can to anticipate demand. Some of that you can kind of get at with data, some of it you need to. You know there's some art to pair with the science to try and understand where demand is going to go. And then you kind of have to reconcile all of that with the world that we live in, with raw material shortages and supply chain constraints still being a factor in our world, constraints still being a factor in our world. Um, and many times you just build what you can build or you just recondition the equipment that that you can, you can buy. Um, so, um, so, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting, it's an interesting world to live in, but it's. It's an interesting world to live in, but it's, it's, it's, it's just a joy to be in a, in a business that's uh, essential. You know, as we, we saw um through COVID lockdowns.
Speaker 2:You know there's this kind of seemingly arbitrary designations If you're essential, you're not essential. You know it's uh, you know not essential to to worship God on Sundays, but it is essential to worship God on Sundays, but it is essential to, um, you know, to uh, do this or that and for what? You know, for, for good or ill, um, the, uh, the, the powers that be, um designated our, um, our industry as essential, which, which is I. You know, I agree with that. That uh, more of my disagreement would be on the things that they said were not essential, but, but more of my disagreement would be on things that they said were not essential. But the recognition that certain industries are essential, I think, was another kind of takeaway that I had.
Speaker 2:Another thing that I've really encouraged other entrepreneurs, other believers, particularly to take into consideration when you're thinking about thinking about starting businesses or joining businesses, is is really taking a look at those things that are undeniably essential to our civilization, civilization, and I think that is, um, I think, as we kind of try and chart a path and this negative world kind of kind of context, if you're, if that reference with kind of Aaron Wren's three worlds and kind of the evangelical, you know, recent history um, uh, makes, uh, if, if that, uh, you know, if that's, that's a lens, that, that uh, that you find helpful, which I really do. I think there's a great opportunity for believers in particular to take up significant positions in critical infrastructure and essential services and really find great opportunities to um, uh, to be, you know, have a significant impact in their communities by by doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's really good. Well, and and I mean obviously with you, so 40 or there about employees in a small town like Moscow. You're having an impact here, and so it's been. When did you open the office here?
Speaker 2:Gosh, it's, probably is it three years Been, three years back.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's probably Probably right. Yeah, so, as I mentioned, we're in Greenville, south Carolina, battleground, washington, moscow, idaho and Batavia, ohio. These are all locations that we have picked very intentionally. We are very much a people-driven company. We're very people. First, we do we do with our small, relatively small um team, more than companies that have two or three times the number of employees, and we do that by um by hiring men and women of character, by having you know good business processes and you know all the kind of necessary stuff that you need to have, but by also really orienting ourselves to intentionally investing in the communities that we're in.
Speaker 2:We feel like there is healthy families and communities. Healthy communities are built on healthy families and churches and a whole social fabric that we want to support and contribute to, and so we find ourselves in relatively small towns where there are strong families and churches and that's kind of, you know, that puts us in a place where there's there's a uh, an existent kind of social fabric that we can contribute to, uh, to, and and, and, uh, and be supportive of, and it's, and that's a huge, huge part of our, of our, uh, our vision, um, you know here, uh, greenville, I guess, greenville, south carolina, that's, that's the, the, that's the largest town we're in, but these others Battleground is about 25,000 people. I think Moscow is probably about the same. Is that Moscow? Yep, okay, batavia, ohio, so this is, I think we have a.
Speaker 2:You probably know Michael Foster. Do you guys have? You guys uh okay, so he's um out there, um in our uh, he's, he's there in um in uh in uh Batavia and uh runs, runs, that, um, that operation, um really founding these, these plant planting these, these uh facilities, these operations, alongside um, uh, the presence of, of uh, of strong families and churches is really where, where my heart has always been, and that's kind of back to uh my personal mission, which is to really to spend my life investing in men and women who are building families, churches and communities, and so that really has a lot of influence in the way Maddox has taken shape and its trajectory over the years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how has that been balancing managing people and places all across the country? You know, people and places all across the country. I know you mentioned that initially. You're, you're, you've kind of always had a kind of national market focus. Um, yeah, how has that been?
Speaker 2:you know, dealing with kind of having having management of people all over the place yeah, well, in a real contrast to what I mentioned before about the solo premier or the small business, the really individual-centric business that you have at a small scale, at this kind of scale it's, with entire reliance on good management, higher reliance on good management and folks who have joined the business over the years, who have taken on tremendous amounts of responsibility and are leading well with that. Like we were talking about this Batavia facility being the last one, the most recent full facility we've put on board. We've got a strong leader out there. Michael has had experience with the company prior to moving out there. We relocated an operations manager. Caleb's servant was here in Battleground and moved his family out there to run that operation from the production side of things.
Speaker 2:And so we have taken what we you're asking about you know. So how do we manage this across these locations? We have usually taken a colonization kind of approach where we will take folks who kind of know the Maddox way and move them out to this other location to kind of seed and to start up the facility. We found that to be a real accelerator to the growth. So that's one thing. That's kind of in our model. But it's not all easy. There's hiccups in starting a new facility. It's fraught with uh, with uh, probably learning opportunities. So, uh, it's, uh, we're, we're still, we're figuring it out as as uh as as we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, what are? Uh, so you're still figuring it out, but still growing um where the the challenges to that is? I know a lot of folks having trouble finding people. Has that been a challenge?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, we've uh, we've been really blessed to have a tremendous amount of um, of uh, word of mouth and um, so I'll kind of say, uh, yes, yes and no, we love, like, employee referrals and we've got a lot of, we've actually got quite a bit of families, even in the business, where you know we've got, you know, brothers or brother and sister, or husband and wife, and a number of fathers and sons, um, that that are working in the business, um, and so that's that's a joy. But we are hiring, you know we're. I think we hired 70 or 80 people last year and probably a hundred people before and probably 100 people before. Maybe we haven't quite broke 100 in a year yet, but we're hiring somewhere on that order of magnitude. So, yeah, that's hard and we were early. Actually, I think we may have been the first non-Idaho company on Red Balloon, and so that's just been a great story to watch and to see that.
Speaker 2:But there are certain positions that we have many hundreds of applications for and others we're looking for a key executive position right now to replace our outgoing CFO position right now to replace our outgoing CFO, and that's a tougher position to fill, but yeah, it is In terms of your question of is that a? Is that a constraint? It? Um? It's certainly um, uh, something we, we, we want to take our, take our, our time and um, and make sure we get the um, we get the get the right people. So, um, we've been fortunate to hire um, we try to hire um. It always feels like you're behind, we need, you know, we need more people, we need more people but, um, but I think as a whole, we we've done a pretty good job of um, well, we've doubled the business every 12 to 18 months for nine years. Um's, you know it's always a struggle, yes, but I think I guess, if I were to speak to probably that personnel issue, maybe more broadly, and for either job seekers or for folks starting businesses and looking to hire folks, this is a great time to be a believer, to be a Christian in business with a Christian worldview, because I think a lot of the romance of the self-employment thing I feel like has kind of maybe worn off a little bit in our community for good reasons, and we're now kind of seeing the strength and the opportunity and the advantages of, instead of, hey, it's just, you know, me and my wife or maybe my kids someday.
Speaker 2:In this little cottage industry thing, we now kind of have models and visions of, hey, what is it like to work shoulder to shoulder with a hundred or 250 other men and women who are, you know, going in the same direction, um, who you know kind of uh, you know, value what I value, or have, you know, have a worldview and have a look at a life that is supportive of family and is, um, is, uh, yeah, and someone gives you that, you know, gives you a sense of, of camaraderie.
Speaker 2:And, like I said, shoulder to shoulder with those who, um, who, uh, yeah, and someone gives you that, you know, gives you a sense of, of camaraderie. And, like I said, shoulder to shoulder with those who, um, who, uh, you know, want good for you and your family. Uh, is incredibly, um, incredibly powerful thing. And so is it hard to find good people? Sure, but this is, this is a good time. I think there are certain business people who recognize this opportunity. I think there's certainly a segment of the world that wants to work in that kind of situation and when we put, you know, put our, put our hands to the plow, so to speak, uh, we can do, we can do incredible things and and it's just kind of you know, you know the dramatic story is is one of those. You know in a small way, kind of you know kind of kind of things that you can see, kind of fruit that's born of those kind of, um, those kinds of perspectives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's wonderful, that's encouraging and yeah, it kind of reminds me of that difference, like what you were talking about, the cottage, small solopreneur, versus larger business and what you can accomplish. There's probably a lot of conservative movement in the past. Probably a lot of the conservative movement in the past there was, like the you know a prepper solo guy out in his cabin, you know kind of idea that people were attracted to. It's like, yeah, it doesn't work. You know you need, you need community and seeing the importance of community working alongside and what you can accomplish and what you can, what you can stand together for yeah, it seems to be, people are realizing that kind of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, I think you're putting your finger on it. Yeah, exactly that sense, and there there's really, there's great, there's many good and admiral things about some of that sense, and this is very much the context I grew up in. So I there's, you know, there's a desire to, there's a good and well-placed desire to be good at your craft and to have a skill and have a trade element of community and working alongside others. That I think you know. I'm just excited to see a rediscovery of that and that kind of a concept of a productive household, um, that um is not intrinsically isolationist. Um, and I, uh, yeah, I think there's, there's, uh, there's there's a number of stories we can, we can look to um, going on, right now that we're, we're, uh, where folks are are putting it, going on, right now that we're we're we're folks are are putting it. That is action.
Speaker 1:So so that's yeah, yeah, well, no, that's awesome and I know I think we're out of time. Definitely want to be cognizant of that, but yeah, it's been really really fascinating and interesting and good to learn about. You know, our podcast is really about this area and we see the the changes you've made to that, building more and more people walking around with those cool orange M's on hats and jackets.
Speaker 1:You guys do a great job with branding, and so it's fun to hear and hopefully share with some of our folks about what is going on up there. What is Maddox? What do they do? You bet?
Speaker 2:You bet. Well, thank you so much for that. You know what is going on up there. What is Maddox? What do they do? You bet you bet. No, well, thank you so much for that. We've got the marketing. Actually, marketing is is headed up by Miles Whitlam, who is actually there, based in in Moscow. So Miles is much too much to credit for for making us uh, keep us looking good, so really grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Good to have you Well, thanks again, camden, appreciate it. And yeah, for anybody curious about opportunities, that kind of thing, maddoxtransformercom, check you guys out. We're on Red Balloon, right? We used to, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you so much. Have a good rest of your day. Great talking to you, mike.
Speaker 1:Thanks, take care. Thanks for joining us. Like, share, subscribe. We'll see you next week.