Awarepreneurs interview - Benjamin Gardner

Hi. This is Paul Zellizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through a values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Benjamin Gardner.

And our topic is Values Through Action, Moving Forward Together Through Employee Ownership. Benjamin Gardner is the Chief Executive Officer of Decker Designs and is a working principal of d and is a working principal of the DPS commercial group. Benjamin is dedicated to improving the built environment using skills acquired from combined backgrounds in architecture, construction, and construction management. Benjamin has been with Decker, Perich, and Sabatini since 02/2001 and has led multiple project teams through all phases of planning, design, and construction administration. His years with DPS have given him a breadth of project experience that informs his unique understanding of the issues faced by developers, educators, and the communities in which the firm does business. Benjamin also has a long history of developing his family owned properties, including hotels, a Montessori preschool, and an elementary academy that serves over 200 students, which he cofounded with his wife. They've recently developed a 78 bed senior living facility that's adjacent to the schools, and it provides intergenerational experiences for both seniors and students. His background provides him with a clear understanding of commercial real estate development, including mixed use retail and civic properties.

Benjamin Gardner, welcome to the Awarepreneur show.

Good morning. Thank you for having me.

You're we're thrilled to have you here, and, you didn't start this work yesterday, did you?

No. I did not.

We're gonna talk about employee ownership, which is a really exciting topic to our business, and we're here. Thank you for being open. I reached out to Benjamin listeners when an announcement went out on LinkedIn that Decker went employee owned, and I reached out and said, please tell us that story. But before we get into the employee owned part of the story, Benjamin, what would somebody wanna know about you and about Decker that didn't come out in that very impressive bio?

Decker's a sixty five year old firm, sixty five plus year old firm that's been serving the community in New Mexico, in Albuquerque, New Mexico through all that time. Several years ago, we opened about twelve years ago, I think it is, we opened an office in Phoenix, Arizona, and we also have an office in El Paso, Texas. We we're an integral part of the communities we work in, not just as a business entity, but contributor. Myself, I sit on several boards here, do a ton of, community service, get active in our state politics as well as in development and economic development in New Mexico. And some of our partners, we have 25 partners at Decker. Well, we had 25 partners at Decker before we went to ESOP, but they are all acting principals in the firm that uprun the different studios we have. So we're a full service architecture and engineering firm. We don't do MEP or mechanical electrical and plumbing design, but we do just about everything else in house through our different multiple studios.

And we have subject ex subject matter experts in government projects, commercial projects, education projects, k to 12 projects, interior design, multifamily housing, structural engineering.

Great. Thanks for that summary. And when I was thinking about helping our listeners who are social entrepreneur oriented listeners, Benjamin, I was thinking about two aspects of Decker before we get to the ESOP part of things. One is you've had a real focus on sustainability and projects that bake sustainability into the DNA. That's one of your sort of wheel houses or your passions. And the other is, as in your bio, social innovation has been really important to you personally and to Decker. Tell us a little bit about those two parts of the work. Well,

for years, we have done sustainable design in our architecture just through building orientation, really looking at the context which our our buildings are in. As the LEED certification program came on board, we really embraced that as a as a way to up our game and provide a more sustainable and resilient environment. We currently have a hundred LEED certified projects that we've done.

And if somebody didn't know what LEED was most people will, but just let's just not assume anything here.

Leadership. You caught me there. Leadership in in environmental design.

It's a it's a certification that is trying to sort of have an exterior, like, you it's as opposed to self declaring, this is a great sustainable project. It was trying to have some certification process, like, that had criteria to it that you would have to check those boxes to get that certification. Does that sound about right?

Correct. And there's different levels of certification. It's, founded by the USGBC or the Green Building Council US Green Building Council. It's their program. And it's the premier pro sustainability program out there. There are several others that we are also trained in getting the certification, but LEED is the is the major one. Yeah. And there's different aspects of sustainability that covers site, water use, energy efficiency, the interior the air quality and light pollution, a number of different factors that you can incorporate into design to get certification.

And you can get reg you can get a standard certification, LEED silver, lead gold, and lead platinum certification.

And listeners, I'll put a link to in the show notes to lead so you can read more about it. Thank thanks for that summary. Sure. Yeah. Cool. So tell us about the social innovation. That was a really cool project kinda collocating different facilities, different generational aspects in proximity. Why would you do something like that?

Well, this basically, when our personal development of the school, my my wife is architect or has her master's in architecture and really feels like design the design process is a great way for learning and could be a great teaching tool. So she's developed a number of programs and that for high schools and charter schools. And then she thought to herself that she need to start earlier and really engage children in different types of learning. So she chose a Montessori, a pure Montessori path to go forward in developing the schools that we have. And it was just natural. We were we were very fortunate to acquire some land right next to the school. And with the need for quality assisted living and memory care in our communities, we thought it was a natural fit. And then just to tie in for the intergenerational learning, having seniors learning from the from the children, and the children learning from the seniors, and having that constant engagement just created a better quality of life, one, for the seniors and a deeper educational environment for this for the students, really allowing them to learn from the elders and also develop a strong respect for each other and the way they interact.

It's just rich.

Cool. Well, listen. If you get an idea, I'll put a link to the Decker site. But you get an idea. This is an architecture firm in Albuquerque and now beyond, also in Phoenix and El Paso that's doing things that are have positive impact in everything they're in in a lot of what they're doing in both the sustainable design part of things and the social innovation, go do your homework. But when a design firm like this also announces that they're going employee owned, you can see why I reached out. So so let's Yeah. Let's pivot a little bit now, Benjamin, to the specific topic today, which is about why Decker became you know, moved in this direction, what it all means.

But let's let's start out with the why. When you all are trying to help somebody who's excited about employeo, think about why did your particular firm start to research and eventually push go ongoing employeo?

Well, when I came to the firm as an intern twenty five years ago, I just the culture, the the the culture here was just one of personal and professional growth. I felt like I was invested in this career, and I saw the people around me feel the same way. So I think we've had a sense of ownership culture for years. We just wanted to formalize it. We looked at our 25 partners and the candidates that we have coming into the the principal kind of roles, taking taking over succession planning was a big part of it. But we we thought that as we keep growing principles, that was really unsustainable because we were we were headed to the point where everybody had a little piece of ownership. As we as we promoted to principle, that you you became a partner in the firm and you were invested. And we really thought, well, wouldn't that be great to give everybody that same opportunity that we've had as we've grown in the firm? Most of the principals that you've that are principles right now have been with the firm ten to thirty, thirty five years.

Yeah. And when we mentioned it, we thought, well, it's a way to keep the firm growing, a way to ensure business continuity over the long term. And it's also something that I feel strongly about is maintaining the legacy of Decker through an ESOP and through kind of self perpetuating business entity that people are people are invested in in more than just a job or a paycheck. And we've already seen several staff members really step up and engage in the the idea that they're in ownership and being more willing to contribute to processes, to making things work better for us and being more efficient.

Yes. Love what you're sharing there, Bender. And my research in employee ownership and moving into that formal structure, it works best. And I'm curious if this is your experience as you were doing your research. They're trying to get going into a formal employee ownership like an ESOP, which we're gonna talk about listeners if you don't know what that is. Hang in there. Keep breathing. We got you.

That that culture you're talking about is like an important pre step that if you don't have any culture of a lot of engagement or that, you know, you're talking about people staying in a Decker between ten and thirty years. Like, people are already invested. That culture is a good pre step towards a formal ownership. And if you don't have that culture, it might be helpful to work on that culture first is my research when I talk to people. Does that sound about right to you?

Yeah. I think I think you have to have the mindset that your employees are your biggest asset going into it and being willing to to share that. We've we've done a form of profit sharing since I joined the the company through our bonus and plans. And I think there was only a couple of years where we weren't able to bonus in the great recession, but we've always kept that. My predecessor, one of his favorite things to about the business was when somebody called when somebody did a employee check. They were buying a car or buying a house, and he would get that call to do a reference check on that. And that would just make him feel so good because he he knew they felt stable enough to make a major investment like that. And there that sense of stability and of our business and our environment that just made him feel great, and I've I've I've adapted that same attitude throughout the years.

It's it's been great. But an ESOP isn't isn't for every people. No. For every company. We learned that through our research. There has to be a willingness to put yourself out there. And we're our structure of our ESOP is we're we didn't borrow any money. We're seller financed through it.

So all of our our stock is is basically transferred over to the ESOP.

So what let so, again, listeners, think about the culture of the organization that doesn't make sense to be going in a more formal direction like an ESOP. And if it's not there yet, get some help to work on that culture. And and you heard some examples that Benjamin was giving. But with that structure and that history of people sticking around and wanting to formalize that, especially as the company grew, Y'all started to put your finger. I think ESOP's not for everybody, but I think it might be for us. What is an ESOP if I've never heard that term before? And why were you starting to say, okay. It's not for everybody, but I think it might be for us?

NESOP is an employee stock ownership program, and it's basically a retirement and wealth building tool for for folks that's much like a four zero one k. Some of the administrations like a four zero one k, except that the employee does not contribute or participate in building that. It's all based on stock value and shares that they they they receive every year, and that valuation depends on the or the value of their shares depends on the valuation of the firm and how well the firm does as we go forward. So it's a it's we saw it as a wealth building more than just more than just a retirement account. It's something that could exponentially grow and get you invested as as an owner. Having shares of the stock, thus having a real desire for the firm to do better. It's just like I I've always dreamed to give everybody here have everybody as an owner owner in the firm, giving them that opportunity. If they're so invested and our employees are very invested in what they do, we have a very passionate group that does a lot more just architecture here in there serving the community, and this rewards it for them in a in a law in a long term strategy.

Great. And listeners, way back I don't remember the episode number. I don't have it in front of me. But one of the maybe the largest one of the larger ESOP examples we have in New Mexico is Positive Energy Solar, and I had the real benefit in honor of interviewing Megan Bot who shared with us about that company and their transition and what they've seen as they're they've been an employee owned for quite some time and the results of that. I remember at the time in the interview, they had a 20 plus employees. They hadn't seen any changeover in six months, and they had a waiting list of people wanting to work there. So I'll put a link of that episode of a company in New Mexico that's pretty well known for this type of employee ownership structure and what some of the benefits they were seeing, including in a time when most people can't or or are struggling to find talent and attract talent and retain talent, their retainment was through the roof and they had a waiting list to people wanting to work there. So that might give you some other reference point of a company that leaned into the structure and has been added a while and some of the results they're seeing.

I'll put a link to that in the show notes. So what would you say, Benjamin, as you were doing your research going from a high engagement culture, people liked working there, they tend to stay at Decker, and you're starting to say, okay. We're gonna formalize this. What were some of the main points you were hearing as you were doing your research? How does a company do this well when you already have that culture? And what does it involve to bridge into an ESOP when you have that culture to build on? Still, you know, there's still some work involved. Tell us a little bit about that work, and what are some of the important things to keep in mind if a company does wanna go in this direction?

Well, it's it is a lot of work to structure an e ESOP. The just the investigation, the amount of financial information, it has to be tested and modeled to make sure it's a viable a viable mechanism to to employ. You have to have buy in. That's what something we noticed right away with our partners was we had an incredible level of buy in and interest in it. We looked at an ESOP formation about nine years ago, and that was not at that time, we didn't do enough investigation. We didn't have the right consultants on board to kind of guide us and to listen to what we wanted to do and how we wanted to set up the ESOP. So it was it was a a big learning experience. It's expensive to set it up and maintain, you know, from my reading and from the research.

If you're if you're not over 20 employees and have a a payroll of about $250,000, it's almost impossible to make it viable. So because of the costs, ongoing auditing and regulatory costs, setting up an ESOP because there are checks and balances. They wanna know that your employees are being treated fairly and equally across the firm as you go into as you go into a ESOP. But for us, it was it was a tool to to allow people to feel more ownership, take a a step in the right direction. Recruitment and retention, as you had mentioned, was a big part of our decision. That, especially as we struggle to find and keep talent in this day and age that we're in where wage inflation really increased after COVID. And then just in our industry, finding architects that are bringing skill and encouraging those to go to architecture school is a hard business these days. It's a lot of work, a lot of deadlines, a lot of, client focused, energy that goes into what we do.

Yeah. And you all are doing sophisticated projects with multiple it's not single bottom line to use social entrepreneur language. You're not just, and I don't mean this in any diminutive way, building a building, but there's social aspects or sustainability aspects. So in our space, we would often talk about triple bottom line, people, profit, planets. Right? So you're doing multiple layers of what wants to happen in a project, which makes an architect's job if they're excited about values, that's awesome, but it makes their job harder. Right? They're trying to manage more things than did this bill you know, will this building, you know, survive a earthquake event? Or, you know, does it spec right in terms of getting the HVAC systems, you know, all synced up in the mechanical room where they're gonna be landing? That's an important part of it, but there's these other layers which makes the people on your team, they have to balance more aspects of a product. Is is that fair to say given the way you all do business?

Oh, it's definitely there's a lot more than just the building. We have to learn each building or each facility that we do for an entity. We really have to learn their business. How are they gonna do their business to be able to facilitate that type of environment? How what their culture is like, how they interact with each other. That it's just multiple layers, complication, and excitement when you can really see it work. You know, I I have a very simple view of architecture as if the building works, it's beautiful for its inhabitants and it creates an environment that you wanna be in. Like our office here, it is a it's we have a buzz. There's that excitement of creativity happening everywhere as you walk the halls.

We are we're an open office, so you just kinda see that happening. You hear that interaction, and that's what makes it fun When you can see your clients be successful in that environment and be successful as a business or education facility or an entity, those are the things that go beyond how the drywall went on the wall or how the HVAC system works.

Or which windows you're gonna use or Yeah. Or whatever you yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So let's do this. In a minute, I wanna come back and ask Benjamin about what have they seen? It was a big investment to get ESOP up and running. Also, what have they seen in terms of recruitment and retainment. Before we do that, I just wanna take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor.

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And before the break, Benjamin, you're telling us there's a lot of work to get it set up at the time. You even tried it earlier nine years previously. Right? But it's been up and running, and and I saw that announcement. It was late in 2024 that an announcement was going out on LinkedIn. When did it officially happen that you said welcome to this new phase of Decker? You are now an ESOP.

November 30.

November? Oh, okay. Then we are recording this in February. So we're, like, two and a half months in or two months in or something like that. So pretty fresh. Right? How's it going so far?

It's we're still all in a learning curve. We're we're really out on an educational campaign, constantly letting people know what the self is about, what the structure of it is. We've just received we've released our kind of our plan or ESOP planning document. Talks about what we're how we're structured, what it means to folks. But some people think they know what an ESOP is, but as they in the ESOP industry, they say, if you've seen one ESOP, you've seen one ESOP. Because each one

each one That's hilarious. Yeah.

Is structured differently. That was what was great about the way we, the advisers that we have, really gave us options on how we set it up so that it provide the most benefit. A number of since it's a a retirement kind of mechanism, a number of ESOPs get rid of their four zero one k when they do it. We still kept our four zero one k as we set it up as additional benefit. But there's a lot of people that that still ask that question. You know? Do I still gonna get my four zero one k? I think so. There's a huge learning curve, and we're in the middle of that. Yeah.

We've been told by other ESOPs that we've interviewed and and talked to. But it really takes about three years to really see the ultimate benefits in it for people to understand when they get their statement what that value it really is. Because initially, it starts off with very little value. We could re require debt to buy up to sell to these. So once we see those statements go out, and the statements go out this year in May and every May after that, as we firm up the financials from the end of the year, we revalue the firm, and then that value is is given certain number of shares given to each employee based on their their pay their salary is what determines the number of shares you get each year as you go. So the longer you're here, the bigger than the the, you know, the bigger your salary, the bigger the shares that you that you acquire. But it's it's been interesting how we how we structured it, and there's multiple facets. I'm still learning.

In fact, today, I was reading about an adjustment. Since the end of the year when we finalize the deal, then there was an adjustment that recognized all the costs that we were able to get. We got value for the cost that we spent as setting these up, and that that value translates into shares.

When you you you mentioned it's an open office. When you walk around your office now, Benjamin, you know, compared to six months ago, do you notice, like, is this a topic of conversation? Are your employees at Decker, are they excited? Are they a little like, it sounds kinda cool, but we're still figuring it out? Like, what's the temperature on the ground as you listen to the conversation?

Well, there's in fact, coming up this week, later, Thursday, we have a ESOP open house, and those have been very well attended. People are asking questions that they've they that for the first time. What does it really mean to me? When are we gonna see a statement? How does that work into my compensation? You know? Do we still have four zero one k contributions? We've had that number that that question come up over and over and over again, but there is a vibe. There's some people are a little skeptical. And we've got some some comments. We set up a website for people to ask questions that they don't wanna ask in one of these group meetings that we're having. You know, what does it really mean? How how do we create the value, and what is my what is my role in it? You know, the the management hasn't changed, and I think everybody thought having a trustee who come who comes in would change a lot of what we do, but we still make all the decisions. We still are able to do what we've done in the past, provide opportunity for folks to learn what it's about, how our business works.

One thing I have noticed is, we've purposely been a lot a lot more transparent with our financials, with our success, our strategies. Every year, I put out what I call my wildly important goals for the year, which are actionable items that support our strategic growth initiatives. And there's been a lot more interest in that, in what what our part of that is.

Yeah.

And then we've just we've tried to encourage that ownership by, we have town halls every month where the entire firm gets together via our other offices call in through a Teams meeting. And we've had a lot more willingness by the staff to present ideas or

That was one of my questions. Are you seeing any innovation results? Are you seeing it change or influence your culture of how people are thinking about innovation and willingness to try things that you haven't done before or modify things that might be working. I I've been thinking of the book Good to Great lately. Things that are going good, but real innovators don't just stop at good. They really wanna go to great. Do do you feel any difference there based on, you know, since you've made this decision?

Seeing a little bit of it. Yeah. I think, you know, there's a a pop a part of the population who is always coming up with ideas or walking through walking into my office and saying, what about this? Or how maybe we should change this, and I love that. So I'm hoping to see more of it. I think what we've what we've understood from other ESOPs, it takes that time for people to feel comfortable really coming in and say, you know, if this is the way we always did it, we we should be changing it because it's not working. So we've always had a little bit of that. We're seeing a little bit more, and and I'm hoping to see see more.

That's something you'll be tracking, it sounds like. Yeah. It's one of the intended goals to increase the culture of innovation, and it's still pretty early, and you'll know more year one, year two, year three. It sounds like you really start to get a sense of is there a big return on investment in terms of that innovation? Yeah. Yeah.

Well and that's one of our wildly important goals this year is to improve and track how we're doing. So now every project that we put out at the end of construction documents and the end of construction administration, we're doing a client survey to figure out how we've done. And, usually, we did this once a year and put something in. But as well as a client survey, we're asking the employees, was this a purposeful did you feel like this project, there was a purpose to it? And did you feel like you've you'd gained something? So that we're trying to trying to get that feedback as well. You know? What could we change? How how could we do this differently and more make it more enjoyable to to do the the the work?

Love that question. Did you feel like this project was purposeful? What a what a great love

that.

What a great way to assess the we we might call it impact in the circle sign move in here. You're looking to help your employees feel like that matters. I love that you're assessing that. That's that's fabulous. I hope

We just actually this last week, we had the first round of the surveys go out. We had 10 projects that were completed and going out the door for construction. So I'm I'm guiding to find out the results Yes. And see the see the results from the survey.

Very cool. So question about recruitment and talent. That's one of the reasons why. And, again, it's very early, so you might not have a lot of data. But any sense of is this moving the needle even a little bit in terms of recruitment and retaining talent?

Well, we've we've we've seen a little improvement in our turnover rate, but we haven't really it's so new

It's pretty

that there's no there's not enough data, to look at that. You know, we're still having some people choosing to move on. We have to compete with certain pretty big competitors here in our market area that are able to pay a little more than we are for the top talent, mostly in our Phoenix office, though. There's just a lot more movement there because there's a lot more competition in that market area. But here, we've been pretty safe. So Yeah. We are finding some great great candidates, and they are thrilled to hear that we're we have an employee ownership program.

So when you start the conversation with somebody who's pretty well accomplished, that's getting their attention in a way that if you didn't have an ESOP, it might not be as attractive an offer. Is that fair to say?

Yes. Yeah. Awesome.

Yeah. I'll be super curious to hear as you track that further, where that

I meet with all of our new employees personally during their onboarding. And, a few days into it, by far, almost everyone that I've talked to is just, wow, you guys have a a culture and resources and attitude that I didn't expect. You know? And then I can already see that they're they're they're planning on sticking around because there's so much opportunity Yeah. Beyond the ESOP, beyond everything. Just lots of great work.

Yeah. And in a time when, globally, we're hearing from talent that many employers don't they they're not having that experience. Right? They're not feeling valued. They're not feeling opportunity. They're not feeling the opportunity for innovation for you all to be particularly planting your flag so robustly. I I'm I'm excited. I honor you for making that choice, and I'm trying to encourage more businesses. But just a a thank you and an appreciation that you're really leaning into it at a time when a lot of businesses are detracting from whatever measures they might have had in that realm, not not leaning into more.

So thank you for doing that. I think it's a wise move, but not everybody's making that choice.

Well, I I think it's it's vital that we continue to learn how to listen to our to our staff, to each other. And I think we're getting a lot better at messaging and communicating with their staff. I've really encouraged our principals group and our management through some changes that we've made. We just had our goal setting for the year. We're in January's goal setting meeting. So everybody in the firm meets with their supervisor, resets their goals. I set my goals. All of the other principals set their goals, and I've really been communicating out what my goals are so people understand what I do all the time.

And those goals are around having more transparency, having more dialogue so that people feel free to to come in my office or to express their ideas. And that, I think, is the way we're gonna reach people. We can't we're still having some issues, that we, you know, can't see the forest through the trees and some some issues, but we're trying to make sure that we're paying attention and that people feel open enough to report up to manage their managers in a in a fashion and and feel empowered to do that from within the firm.

Slightly different topic, Benjamin. We have a social entrepreneur audience all over the world, and they've been hearing me and and our listeners. First, I went for one episode that was New Mexico focused a month, and there's so much happening here right now. We're now doing two a month just in New Mexico, and you've been at this a long time. They've been hearing me sort of sing the praises of New Mexico with things like our permanent fund, $58,000,000,000 in investments that are coming out of that. And we're seeing robust growth in climate tech and advanced energy and other, you know, the create creative industries with Netflix moving their base of operations. There a lot of our listeners are getting a sense that there's something moving in New Mexico. And as somebody who's been in our built environment space for a very long time, does that resonate with you? Are you seeing a different error in the climate of New Mexico business in particular and also some of these impact industries like climate tech, and we're seeing a lot of attention going to what New Mexico calls underrepresented founders, founders of color and women founders, and getting capital in the hands of businesses created by them.

Is is that something you're seeing on the ground?

Well, we're seeing a lot more attention paid to, in a broad terms, economic development, site readiness, the availability of our infrastructure to serve. And we're still we're having some struggles with that, but the conversation has happened, which is something that is new for me that a lot more voices speaking about the same things and a lot more people getting involved. You know? But it's up at the Capitol last week, and you can just there seems to be a little difference in the dialogue that's happening at at our legislature right now, the feeling that we have to get things done, that we need to move quicker in New Mexico to really realize the positive momentum that we have with the with the all of the environmental technology going on, the great work that our labs are doing, and some of the other opportunities that we have here to to really showcase New Mexico and have New Mexico ready for growth, which is something that I've seen a lot of. It's that that interest in in realizing we have to be we have to be better than we've we've been. We have a great permanent fund, as you said, and some of the investments we're making, just making sure that those investments are really paying off that they have in our airline. I still think there's things in New Mexico that we really need to work on. Our education system is that, and I see more movement. I've been really inspired by some of the dialogue that I've heard around improving education here, changing the way things the way we've always done it.

And then, yeah, we are seeing, you know, an influx of folks moving here. We're not as as attractive as Texas just yet, but I think we're way more beautiful than than a lot of places in Texas.

I'm a trail runner. I'd take New Mexico over Texas any day.

Oh, yeah. It's it's gorgeous. And, I think I think people that come here realize that. It so it makes me stay here. It's just the the whole environment of of how it's set up and and also the people. You know? I don't think there's as much division here as maybe you see in other places. People wanna help each other to succeed. And, hopefully, it stays that way.

This this time is a little scary for all of us. It's on the national stage. That's for sure.

So, Pedro, if you look ahead five years, right, you've got your goals and your team and big investment and culture and innovation. Look ahead five years. Where do you think Decker is in five years?

I think we're we're growing, continue to grow, adding new services to our our business line, being innovative in those ways, working on more more purposeful projects. Part of our strategy is to look towards aspirational projects, projects that really bring value and purpose, and I'm gonna continue down that path. I think, our market areas from Texas and Arizona will continue to grow, and our headquarters here in Albuquerque will be, you know, will be in a smart building. We're slowly but surely implementing smart technologies even in our own offices to test those before we bring them to to our clients. But I see this as a successful firm. My my major goal is to have people lined up outside the door wanting to get in here and and go to work. And how can we encourage that? I also see us a lot more involved in education in in the state at the university level, bringing that into our business as much as we're doing it in house now in terms of, our educational program, our Decker University as we call it. Having more and more connections with CNM, UNM, the other institutions here in town.

I'm meeting with the CNM leader for coffee in an hour or so. So I'll I'll let them know that you're Great. You're looking to connect more even more than you already are.

They they know us pretty well.

I know they do. Yeah. They're doing they're doing awesome thing.

Good supporters of the Yeah. CNN because they are doing some

They're doing amazing things. Amazing things.

Awesome. So,

Ben, I could hang out with you all day. I know you're busy, and our listeners are busy too. As we start to wind down, if there was something you were hoping we were gonna get to and we haven't touched on it yet, or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with on this topic of employee ownership and where Decker is going and how you're innovating, what would that be?

I think it's just that realization that your employees, the staff, your friends are your most valuable asset, and that they need to be treated as such and realize that they have purpose, what they do every day, bringing their value, the firm realizing that value is is paramount that that's noticed, recognized. And in the same breath, constantly challenging people to grow personally and professionally, not be complacent. For me, that that is something it's one of my pet peeves. You know? When I start to see somebody that looks like they're just doing the nine to five, I wonder, what what are we doing wrong? Why are they bored? What do they need to get them excited about coming to work? And if they could do that, then it's not work.

Benjamin, if somebody wants to get a hold of you or learn more about Decker, where should they go?

They can call me here at Decker. Front desk is always don't let anybody through to my phone.

Okay. Well, we'll put the Decker website as the first link in the show notes.

Yeah. Or they can email me at Benjaming@DeckerDesign.0rg.

Great. The listeners will put that in the show notes. Benjamin, thank you so much for being on the show today, and congratulations again for leaning into this culture. I'm so

sorry. Hopefully, we can get back together in in a a year or two and

Yeah. And here, let's get an update.

I would

love that.

More information about what the ESOPs how the ESOPs turned out for us.

I would love that. So listeners, let's do what we do. Please go tell your friends about Decker and their real leaning into ownership and a culture of innovation in the time when a lot of companies aren't doing that. So please share this episode with your friends. And a reminder that we love listeners suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea for a show, go to the AwarePreneurs website. And on our contact page, it has three simple guidelines. If it feels like it's a fit, please send your ideas in.

And lastly, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our

world.