#225: Jeff Berlin (Bridge Industries) — American Manufacturing, Permanent Capital, and Patiently Scaling an Industrial Platform

Jeff Berlin [00:00:00]:
We think our model gives us a 25%, 25, 30% a year growth capability, call it 15, 15 to 20 of that on the acquisition side. And we think we can do double digits just organically in the kinds of businesses that we get involved with just by upping the game on sales and marketing and just being more attentive to just strategy. So that's kind of the model. And then so if you look back at maybe Hawk and you look back at Bridge in general and Transtech, that's usually about where we end up. I mean, we think we can keep doubling the size of these businesses over a three to five year period.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:36]:
Welcome to the Lay of the Land Podcast where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio. I am your host Jeffrey Stern and today I had the real pleasure of speaking with Jeff Berlin, Founder and President of Bridge Industries and chairman and CEO of TransTech Energy. Jeff's journey spans from his early days at Parker Hannifin to helping grow Hach corporation from a $20 million single plant business into a $200 million global operation. Jeff then took the entrepreneurial leap in 2004, founding his own company, Bridge, an industrial holding company anchored by Transtech that has quietly scaled into a multi hundred million dollar enterprise from its base in Chagrin Falls. In our conversation today, we cover Jeff's conviction in the importance of American manufacturing and how it has shaped his commitment to building enduring businesses. We cover the creation of Bridge Industries and his intentional choice of choosing a permanent holding company model over a traditional private equity one. We cover the over 25 fold scaling of TransTech into a diversified industrial platform with over 700 employees from 35 just a decade earlier. We covered the lessons learned along the way, the resilience and philosophy that guide him, how to weather downturns, usefulness as a true measure of value and success, culture across companies, and a whole lot more.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:59]:
Jeff is an incredible entrepreneur and I am grateful to share this conversation with you today. Please enjoy. Lay of the Land is brought to you and is proudly sponsored by Roundstone Insurance, headquartered in Rocky River, Ohio. Roundstone shares Lay of the Land's same passion for bold ideas and lasting impact from our community's entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders. Since 2005, Roundstone has pioneered a self funded captive health insurance model that delivers robust savings for small and medium sized businesses businesses. They are part of the solution to rising healthcare costs, helping employers offer affordable, high quality care while driving job creation and economic growth throughout Northeast Ohio. Like many of the voices featured on Lay of The land Including Roundstone's founder and CEO Mike Schroeder, Roundstone believes entrepreneurship, innovation and community to be the cornerstones of progress. To learn more about how Roundstone is transforming employee health benefits round by empowering employers to save thousands in per employee, per year healthcare costs, please visit roundstoneinsurance.com Roundstone Insurance built for entrepreneurs Backed by innovation Committed to Cleveland so I'm always thinking about where the best place to start these conversations is.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:15]:
And for ours today, I wanted to start with where would you say your belief in the importance and viability of American manufacturing and, you know, then consequentially the significance of building businesses in that space for the long run stems from.

Jeff Berlin [00:03:41]:
Yeah, I think a lot of that comes down to being born in sort of Cleveland, Midwest. Call it the rust belt, you know, is what we all called it when we were growing up. I think that had big impact on me. I think one of the things that will probably come up in our discussion is that I, I just love kind of Cleveland. I love the environment. I mean, my wife and I, family, we wouldn't think of being anywhere else, but I think that was probably the early roots and then just being somewhat fortunate, picking Parker Hannifin as my first job out of college, where I didn't have any formal background in manufacturing or engineering. I had a finance background. But the program they had there really immersed young people in operations.

Jeff Berlin [00:04:28]:
They just sent you to a site and said, go figure it out. And I just loved it. I mean, these were people who were there showing up every day, often three shifts, making some type of a product, and I just found it fascinating. So I think it's kind of those early roots and then the first job, that kind of sealed that for me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:04:48]:
So you, you grew up here in Northeast Ohio. You began your career in the industrial world at Parker Hannifin. When you reflect on that time, what were the kind of formative experiences during those years that shaped the kind of business leader and entrepreneur that you've become?

Jeff Berlin [00:05:13]:
I think kind of pre. Call it college and working, I would say fortunate that I had a lot of independence. I mean, one could say maybe there was some downside to that, but I had a very independent youth where it was kind of on me to decide and pay for college and things like that. So that had a big impact on me to take responsibility and kind of the importance of planning. And so coming out of, you know, school, I had no idea whatsoever what I wanted to do. So I just interviewed with a wide variety of. This was at Miami of Ohio wide, wide variety of companies. And it just kind of.

Jeff Berlin [00:05:57]:
And I was a fine. Well, I was a accounting major. And so a lot of the steering was towards at the time, it was the big eight accounting firms. It just didn't resonate with me. It just wasn't a fit for me, really. I don't think I was a services type of person. It was a very generic interview, typically. And then I put Parker Hannifin on the interview schedule.

Jeff Berlin [00:06:18]:
I literally did not know who they were. I didn't know it was a law firm consulting firm until I researched it before the meeting. And this is. I call this sort of one of my first good breaks where I happen to meet a guy who sitting here today is on our board of directors. So 41 years ago, met a person who I identified with and he recruited me to Parker Hannifin, Tim Pestell, who became the CFO of Parker Hannifin. And so we've had a relationship for 41 years. Friends worked on boards together, and he sits on our board today. So those were some of those early foundational things.

Jeff Berlin [00:06:57]:
That kind of just taught me a lot, watching people like Tim and watching people at Parker Hannifin and the way they. It's a very well organized business, but it. Its roots are acquisitions and most the companies are small. And the way they operated were really similar to the way that we operate today, which is, you know, very decentralized, very much relying on those businesses to, yeah, they operate under a plan, but they've got to go out there and make it work. In local, you know, in usually small towns, usually they're less than 150 people. So I learned a lot in those early years.

Jeffrey Stern [00:07:35]:
What were the seeds that were planted that ultimately sprouted and grew into your desire to kind of emulate that model, if you will, for yourself? Where did you begin thinking about that as an idea?

Jeff Berlin [00:07:52]:
It probably took a while to germinate, as you can imagine. I think each step of the way you learn a little something. And I think one of the things I picked up at Parker Hannafin was that I probably was not a big company person. The process of getting from where I was to maybe where I wanted to be sounded like it was going to take a long time. And some of it was not under my control. And so I kind of probably was able to check the big company box very early and realized that, okay, I'm probably not going to end up with a career at a big company, But I still didn't know enough about acquisitions or financing. So the next Few steps really filled in those blanks. I had the opportunity to work with a few people who I just learned a lot from in terms of how do you structure an acquisition, how do you work with banks and every part of the stack, whether it was venture or private equity or every part of it.

Jeff Berlin [00:08:48]:
So I gained a lot of experience and that was pre Hawk. So I had a lot of that experience going into the first, what I would call large opportunity as, you know, more of a leader.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:00]:
How would you describe the chapter of your career that was Hawk?

Jeff Berlin [00:09:05]:
It was really transformational. You know, once again, I kind of call that probably my second break where, you know, where, where it's like happened to. I literally walked into the office of Ron Weinberg, who was somebody I had met through earlier in my career in the deal world. He was well known as a financier. Walked into his office, I did not know what he had going on. It was Weinberg Capital. He and Norm Harbert, who had an operating background, had purchased a company in Medina which made Friction Materials. And the timing just was pretty good when I walked in.

Jeff Berlin [00:09:46]:
I think they needed somebody to kind of figure out what to do with it. It's a great company, good cash flow, but it was. Didn't even have computers at the time and so, you know, no systems. They just needed somebody to go figure it out. And they gave me that opportunity. So they took a chance on me and I kind of took a chance as well. I kind of took a pay cut and wasn't as worried about the current pay, but really transformational from a company of 90 people that we grew to be 1700 people all over the world. With me being given a leadership role at a very young age, going through an ipo, multiple financings.

Jeff Berlin [00:10:25]:
I mean, it was more than you could ever imagine over a 10 year period.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:31]:
What do you hold as the most important learnings from that chapter? And just getting to see such a meteoric growth of an organization.

Jeff Berlin [00:10:42]:
It'S a little bit of everything. I think I grew as a, call it a manager, a leader because I worked under several people that were very good. I worked at a peer level with several people who were general managers of businesses or former business owners that we then partnered with. That I just, I learned a lot. And then, you know, kind of the school of hard knocks, that's a business that we had a lot of cyclical parts of the business. So we went through years of. I know that was one of your questions. You know, just the resilience that you have to face when you See a market go down 60 or 70% in a year, you know, it was amazing.

Jeff Berlin [00:11:23]:
So I learned a lot. I had the good finance background, maybe call it acquisition background. Learned a lot about sales and marketing, the whole distribution side of the business, the back office support systems side of it, a lot about engineering and fabrication. I always, it was kind of a closet engineer. So I just loved following around the engineers and the people doing R and D and learning from them. So yeah, just every aspect, it was just a great learning experience.

Jeffrey Stern [00:11:55]:
What did you learn about resilience and kind of cultivating the capability to weather drawback like 67% of a market.

Jeff Berlin [00:12:05]:
Yeah. So I think step one is, I mean, staying calm. I think I, for whatever reason, I've always been able to kind of take a step back, collect yourself, don't overreact. I think a lot of it is how you prepare because in the kinds of businesses I've been in, if you have all the chips on the table and you're over leveraged and you're not ready for something bad to happen, then you're going to be in trouble. I don't think you can overcome it. So you know, we always tried to prepare like several, like 911 was a good example where a big part of our business was replacement parts for commercial aircraft. But when there are no commercial aircraft flying, that's, that's a tough business. And so, you know, you have to cut costs, you have to get the team together and pay cuts.

Jeff Berlin [00:12:53]:
Every aspect of what do you need to do to keep payroll going and keep as many people as you can to live for that next step. And so it's all how you communicate it. It's making sure the team understands what you're doing. Why? Yeah, really learned a lot through those periods.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:10]:
What would you say was your third big break?

Jeff Berlin [00:13:15]:
Yeah, I would say it probably would be. That decision to start bridge, the format that I started it under, which was almost what I would call a blank sheet of paper. Don't go raise money, don't call yourself a private equity firm. BA I called myself an industrial holding company. Figured we would see what happens, go buy a business and see what happens. So really doing that instead of maybe something a little more complicated which would, and you know, get some partners, raise a lot of money, commit to something that was more formal. I think it ended up being a good decision because I just learned a lot through the process of building up bridge.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:02]:
I want to unpack your description there of what bridge was by design, the intentionality around it. What does an Industrial holding company mean.

Jeff Berlin [00:14:15]:
So it's a pretty generic term obviously, but to me, I'll tell you what it meant to me. What it meant to me was that we're in business to acquire. And typically our target has been family businesses where it's an entrepreneur or second or third generation entrepreneur family member who is ready to sell the business for one reason or another. And usually in our case, the best fit is where that reason includes, hey, I need a partner who can help me grow the business. Yeah, it's usually we can deal with, now that we're larger, we can deal with the people who are saying, hey, I'm retiring and I'm done. We can deal with the companies that need a lot of help and it's a bit of a turnaround. But at the time when I was starting, I really needed other sets of hands, so to speak. So really I didn't have a team.

Jeff Berlin [00:15:08]:
So you know, we, we really looked for companies that had an entrepreneurial family background, but they needed something, they needed systems, they needed maybe some of the background that I had in terms of general management or finance or distribution. And then it also had to be a little bit under the radar. Cause as you know the market well, I wasn't going to go out and compete with Riverside or other private equity firms to see who could pay the most for the company that had a perfect customer list growth of 15% a year every year. That wasn't going to be the market for me. I had to find things that were a little under the radar.

Jeffrey Stern [00:15:47]:
I'm very interested also in your intentionality around maybe the explicit differentiation between yourself and traditional private equity. Why did you decide to go one route over, over the other? And when you think about the incentives that drive certain decision making that typical private equity backed companies might face that you were not going to as a consequence of this intentional choice. How do you think about what, what those advantages were, why were they important to you and just how you were thinking about it?

Jeff Berlin [00:16:28]:
Yeah, I think just in your question you hit upon probably the number one factor to me, which was that I think the decision making process that has to be in private equity because their job is to give money back and to do it on a regular basis. That concept just doesn't resonate with me and what I think is necessary to really do a good job building a company long term. And I also felt at the time when I set up Bridge that there would be companies out there, families, entrepreneurs who would agree with that. They would say, hey, I am not in this. So that, you know, five years, I can get another bite at the apple and work with some people that I see once a quarter and I send financials to. I was more interested in the people who were like, hey, my business is 10 million, I can take it to 50. Let's partner with Bridge and figure out how to do that. We'll have a lot of upside because we, we really try to be entrepreneurial in the way we structure deals also.

Jeff Berlin [00:17:29]:
So it almost always involves the seller retaining equity almost immediately. The team then gets incentivized with options, and we really want people to think like owners.

Jeffrey Stern [00:17:41]:
So I don't think it would be a stretch to say that what you wrote down on paper is something that you've been able to realize. And not only that, but at a scale that is. You know, I'm curious if you had even kind of envisioned at the time. But when you think about what you are able to build in terms of this industrial holding company, you've taken a group, you know, anchored by, by Transtech, which we can talk about, but from an order of magnitude of eight figures, dozens of employees to many nine figures, and hundreds of employees at a, at a national, now international scale, orders of magnitude increase in the size of, of the business. And I'm, I'm just very interested in that kind of trajectory that, that Bridge has been on and overall, the strategies and the tactics that you've put in place to realize such an accomplishment. And so with that kind of framing, when you reflect on the journey of Bridge itself, how is it that you think about those chapters, the strategies and the tactics, and we can kind of take those in different parts over time. What was it when you had industrial holding company? Is this what you had in mind it would look like today when you were starting.

Jeff Berlin [00:19:10]:
It? It's pretty close because keep in mind, if you go back to Hawk, it's essentially what we built there. So I had kind of a dress rehearsal where we started with one company and what we ended up doing was. And I was the point person, so we had one company. My job was to not only make sure that company was running well, diversifying, growing. What else can we buy to make the overall business more valuable? And so we were in the friction material industry. We found a couple of adjacent industries. And what we ended up with at Hach was kind of three primary groups. We added the structural powder metal group, which was similar to the same type of technology that we use for friction materials.

Jeff Berlin [00:19:55]:
And then we also added a performance business that was in things like motorsports and so we kind of same. Same strategy as, as, as Bridge, where we'd get into these businesses, they typically needed a lot of help. At Hawk, the difference was we built a little bit more of a corporate structure and then the sheer act of going public, as you can imagine, required just a lot more support from the kind of legal, finance, HR standpoint. Learned a lot with that. Probably not looking, you know, that's. I don't aspire to do another ipo. Cause I think for this type of business, it bogs you down a little bit. I'm not saying there's no possibility, but it just doesn't seem like a great fit for the model that works with this type of business.

Jeffrey Stern [00:20:47]:
So what was your strategy as you got started?

Jeff Berlin [00:20:51]:
So with Bridge, So I'll kind of walk you through it. Simple strategy number one is, I explained this to my wife and friends, is when I went on my own, I could be unemployed for six months, it could be three years, could be more than that, because it involves buying a business. So strategy one is you have to come to an agreement with another party. And when you're starting out, you also have to have the discipline. And I think there were probably four or five of these that you spend a lot of time and money, your own money, on diligence. And you can't get a deal done either because you can't get an agreement done or you find something in diligence. So, you know, the first step to the strategy is just find a company that you think has some. Whatever it is that I see that may be unique, you know, could be a market opportunity.

Jeff Berlin [00:21:45]:
It could be just the team. It's always relates to the team. Is it a team that you can work with? Is the team you feel like, okay, they're receptive to growth, you know, that's always a key for us, no matter what. And then you start. Once you have an entry point, then you can go to work and really try to learn the business. You know, so you, you go to trade shows, you visit customers, you do a deep dive with every technical person in the company and then slowly but surely help them guide the strategy of the business. It's not Bridge or me or, you know, that we have some amazing insight. It's coaching up the team so that they're broadening the lens and just looking at the markets differently.

Jeff Berlin [00:22:27]:
How do we develop new products? How do we grow internationally or, you know, nationally or internationally? How do we add more automation to the, to the product line? How do we train our people? But, you know, all the Blocking and tackling that's needed almost every business we get involved with. If there were 10 boxes to check, they may have three or three or four, which is great. And we try to check as many of the other ones as possible.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:53]:
So take us through in practice, that first acquisition actually getting started there.

Jeff Berlin [00:23:00]:
Right? That's a great. It's a great example where my strategy, you said, what's the strategy? I figured, boy, I'm going to use all the background I had from Hawk. So think industrial markets, a lot of aftermarket. I knew the customers, I knew everything about it. Couldn't find anything there. So the first acquisition I found made equipment for the oil and gas industry. I had no background whatsoever in the oil and gas industry. So there's a company in Millersburg, Ohio that made equipment that helped efficiently remove fluids from wells.

Jeff Berlin [00:23:32]:
So think about the old days of vertical wells. You would build up water and oil. As the well got older, you didn't have enough pressure to release that. And so this system would literally send a device up and down the well to pump out the fluids and make the well more efficient. It was a great technology company of 40 people in Millersburg. And so we figured we could grow it regionally. Most of the customer base was. Think about the old vertical wells in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia.

Jeff Berlin [00:24:04]:
Great customer base. And to me, the beauty of it was there was a replacement market. So everyone who had our equipment would have to buy replacement parts as the wells continued to operate. And these were wells that you would have sat and projected were going to be around for 15, 20, 30 years. However, the shale revolution hit, say two years after bought the business. And then I got to, I had a front row seat to see that whole industry develop. And it was, it was a great learning experience. But it really shook up our business plan because all those vertical Wells, we had 3,500 vertical wells that had our equipment.

Jeff Berlin [00:24:43]:
Say you could take 400 of those wells and turn it into maybe three wells that were running, you know, horizontal fracked wells that now were going down 10,000ft with laterals and everything you've probably read about. So fascinating, but scary because we had to develop new equipment that would work in that environment. And no matter what we could do, there were going to be fewer of them because there were going to be fewer wells. So great learning experience. We built the team, we built a national footprint, we opened offices, we had a lot of ups and downs. I characterized that as just. It was a 10 year process where we built it up and we ultimately sold it to a Strategic buyer, call it a solid single, you know, really one of those where I was kind of lucky just to keep it. Yeah, we grew the business but learned a lot and it led to the second opportunity, which I think has always been maybe where we excel.

Jeff Berlin [00:25:40]:
And that is just keeping our eyes open, meeting people in the industry, looking, you know, understanding, getting better at evaluating companies. So Cimarron, which was our second acquisition, was a direct beneficiary of the shale development. And they made production equipment which was everything that sits above a well where the oil and water goes into that unit and gas, it all gets separated, the gas gets dried and put in a pipeline. The oil and water gets separated, they go into tanks and this equipment just keeps running. You know, obviously 247 I had a customer that was buying equipment from us who had an opportunity to grow his business. Used to have breakfast with him probably monthly in Colorado, which is where he was located. He was always talking about growing the business. Finally I just said, if this is what you want to do, what's holding you back, why aren't you doing it? And he said, well, capital and this and that.

Jeff Berlin [00:26:36]:
And I said, okay, here's what we'll do. I will, I'll buy half the business and we will grow the business. Because I, that was a huge opportunity for him. So he went from a single site where they were doing just repair work in Colorado for production equipment to where we acquired an actual fabrication shop in Oklahoma. That made the whole system. And then we had, we created a national footprint. So they were able to leverage off some of our sales relationships from that original business. We opened up new offices and long story short, we took it from about 10 to 150 million in revenue in three and a half years and then sold it to a public company.

Jeff Berlin [00:27:18]:
Curtis Wright. Yeah, so that, that wouldn't have happened if I didn't go through a 10 year. Well at the time it wasn't 10 years, but four or five years of learning with the multi products experience.

Jeffrey Stern [00:27:31]:
So, and this will I think permeate the whole rest of the discussion as well as what we've already talked about. But I mean you mentioned kind of the beginning of the geographic expansion of the business. How do you manage that scale of geography spread across all over while keeping such a lean corporate structure? How do you think about the actual organization itself and bridge as a, as an entity relative to your holding companies? What is your relationship in that regard?

Jeff Berlin [00:28:12]:
So it's always evolving. So sitting here today, we have a total of seven people located in northeast Ohio. We'll probably continue to add incrementally as we support finance, hr, it, corporate development, we'll probably continue to increase that footprint. But the one thing we don't aspire to be is sitting in the, you know, on the 10th floor of a tower somewhere in downtown Cleveland with a huge staff. I think it, it's not the message that we're trying to send to the, to the partner companies, you know, so really part of our job is to figure out what's that, just what's the right amount of corporate support. And so I would say maybe I've erred on the side of being a little behind the curve, which call it, it could be a strength, maybe it's a weakness. But you know, I think what we've built now is a team that really is, it's where we need to be. So you know, we have the finance and IT and, and corporate development support.

Jeff Berlin [00:29:11]:
We spend a lot of time at the companies. So our job is not to sit here and think and strategize. It's really to be in front of the folks that we, you know, that are part of bridge, part of TransTec, hearing what they need from a capital standpoint or strategy standpoint. And then we then are responsible for really helping them just do a better job of their own planning, their own recruiting, their own business plan and reporting every month. So it's an ongoing process. We'll continue to support the businesses but we don't ever expect to have a really large corporate staff.

Jeffrey Stern [00:29:47]:
So you mentioned TransTech there. I feel it might be a good time to, you know, introduce them into the, the whole conversation here. What, what is Transtec and how, and how did that come into the bridge fold?

Jeff Berlin [00:30:01]:
So yeah, this, this would have taken place. We, you know, we already had, I think at the time we actually had Multi Products and Cimarron were still part of Bridge. And we, you know, we're always looking and so we're always looking for what's, what's the next opportunity company that we think we can build. So, and I can't explain how it happens sometimes, but this was just a blind email that I got from a, from a broker. I have, you know, just from a lot of years have a lot of brokers that I've worked with and I love the, the one or two person shops and they're in Tulsa or they're a small town. I get these all the time. I always respectfully will look at them and respond to not a fit. In this case it was worth talking to the people it was a business that was in the mostly propane industry.

Jeff Berlin [00:30:50]:
What they did was they kind of rebuilt equipment and they installed systems and it was a family business, very entrepreneurial. And I just had an introductory call where I met the founder and actually his brother in law. And it was a conversation like that where I just heard a lot of things that interested me. I thought that this company for a relatively small size business, had a lot of skill set, but also had a lot of growth opportunity because they were somewhat pigeonholed in the southeastern U.S. located in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. They had none of their own production capability. So everything they did if, when they would get an opportunity to and think infrastructure. So they were, they would provide things like tanks and pumps and vaporizers, you know, systems that somebody would use at a, a propane distribution site or a backup power facility.

Jeff Berlin [00:31:43]:
And they had all the skills needed to put all that together. They just didn't make the equipment. So we thought there'd be an opportunity to provide, you know, vertically integrate a little bit, kind of jumping to the kind of the next step. We, we partnered with them. The, you know, this guys kept some equity kind of locked hands on a, on a business plan. And then we set out from, from bridge to figure out, okay, how do we get manufacturing capability to help this company become more of a national player and grow into some of the markets that we knew, you know, which I'd say traditional energy upstream midstream, where a lot of their equipment could be used also. But historically that's not the market they were approaching. So we uncovered, actually we started with a subcontract relationship with Mitsubishi who had a, they had a wind tower facility in McGregor, Texas.

Jeff Berlin [00:32:35]:
And this is once again, this is probably a typical story for us where we got to know the people and we had them make tanks for us. So think about very large 90,000 gallon tanks that are, you know, 120ft long and require very custom freight capabilities and things of that heavy lifting. Well, it's not that dissimilar than a wind tower. And so they had the equipment needed. We just had them just start making our product, getting to know them. We realized the wind side of it was just not going well for them. They picked the wrong time. It was a very competitive market.

Jeff Berlin [00:33:13]:
So Mitsubishi at a corporate level was interested in selling this unit and we were in the right place at the right time. We got to know the people, we bought the business and it came with a hundred acres in McGregor, Texas facility that had dirt floors and not a lot of equipment. Because it never quite was fully baked, but it was making some of our equipment. And then we invested a lot of time and money in turning it into a full production shop. And hindsight now is great. I mean, it's a great facility. Our Neighbor there is SpaceX, so down the road from us is a facility where they're testing rocket engines. We also do work with them and we've seen that whole area grow up.

Jeff Berlin [00:33:56]:
So think between Dallas, this is, you know, The Waco area, McGregor, Texas is kind of between Dallas and Austin and it's all kind of coming together. It's a very good location for what we do. So then just, we kept advancing the business plan. How do we add a market here? How do we. The companies that we've acquired over the time, over time with TransTec are typically filling a gap, you know, something we've already decided we want to do. A company we've already met. It could take three years to foster that relationship. But we keep refining our business plan.

Jeff Berlin [00:34:32]:
And then the other thing that's key for us in the acquisition process is, you know, like you read about aqua hiring or whatever, which is a fancy term, which is something I've always believed in, which is this is where we get our people. I mean, these are great folks that we're typically finding in the acquisition process where, you know, maybe they were held back by, you know, an entrepreneurial owner that didn't want to put money in family business. Maybe it was a corporate owned entity and usually we can free that up and kind of a lot of these teams are ready to execute and they just need the right partner. So that's a common theme for us as well. So. Yeah, so over time we've been, we. I would tell you that the model Transtex, probably a good example because we're 10 years into it. We think our model gives us a 25%, 25, 30% a year growth capability, call it 15, 15 to 20 of that on the acquisition side.

Jeff Berlin [00:35:31]:
And we think we can do double digits just organically in the kinds of businesses that we get involved with just by upping the game on sales and marketing and just being more attentive to just strategy. So that's kind of the model and that's. So if you look back at maybe Hawk and you look back at Bridge in general and TransTech, that's usually about where we end up. I mean, we think we can keep doubling the size of these businesses over a three to five year period.

Jeffrey Stern [00:35:59]:
Well, I mean, and ultimately that's something you've Been able to realize from the outside, you know, seems like it's grown 25x over the last decade or so. As the business model evolves opportunistically, companies that you come across, that you feel are accretive to the broader story. What would you say is the vision itself for Transtech? How do you keep the ambition and vision of the company as, you know, the business model itself might change.

Jeff Berlin [00:36:36]:
So we're, We. We spent a lot of time going through the process of having a, you know, having a mission statement, core values, you know, kind of rallying the team around core values. Trans Tech, we have that. I think what, you know, the, the vision there really relates to. Yeah, the team's very excited about growth. The team's very excited about, you know, this. Why this international expansion is so well timed, because I think we have a team that's hungry for, you know, finding the next frontier, you know, what's the next challenge. So, yeah, that's kind of what's motivating everyone.

Jeff Berlin [00:37:13]:
You know, we're all pretty competitive and we're in competitive markets, so we love situations where we're competing against, you know, companies that are much larger. A lot of people hadn't heard of Trans Tech. The name's actually getting to be better known now. We've invested a lot in kind of marketing that name a little bit more. And we don't ignore the original company names either. I think that's important to us when we're partnering with somebody like Bendell, which is a company in Charlotte, that was important to them. I mean, it was the guy's dad who founded the business, and their name was part of that name. And we'll usually commit to people and say, look, we have no reason to change the name of that shop and have the Bendel name on it.

Jeff Berlin [00:37:55]:
You know, it'll be part of Transtec. But we try to preserve some of that local culture as well.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:00]:
What is the importance to you of vertical integration and how do you kind of think through that holistically in this acquisition process?

Jeff Berlin [00:38:10]:
I mean, it's been a pretty common theme for us. I think it gives you a little more control of your destiny, but you can act a little quicker. I think you can respond to customers quicker. You're taking layers out of the process. I think you'll learn a lot along the way. I don't think you do it just for the sake of doing it, but, you know, the kinds of businesses we've gotten involved with, it usually plays, you know, an important role to strategize when.

Jeffrey Stern [00:38:37]:
You acquire a company, what have, what have you learned about the integration process and the right alignment of incentives and how to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit that got them to where they were. As you continue to go forward, just kind of your, your reflections on the playbook of what integration looks like.

Jeff Berlin [00:39:00]:
Right. And I wish I could share the screen and show you our latest version because it evolves and I think when I first, you know, when I, when I first. We did a lot of work at HAWK on integration and you know, had a, I wouldn't call it sophisticated, but well developed model. Um, when I started at bridge, I specifically did not have that. And so I kind of, you know, you started with the first and second acquisition, kind of a little bit of feet of the pants. Get in, figure it out, figure that you're small companies, but clearly we've had to, we've had to progress and evolve. So yeah, we have a pretty detailed program now and you know, we try to do it in kind of cook your traditional 30, 60, 90 right out of the box. What are the things that we need to get done? And it's really well detailed.

Jeff Berlin [00:39:47]:
We spent a lot of time with the team on the other side as well before we even closed the deal to get everybody prepared for the process. And then we keep adding to the playbook. I do admire the companies that maybe are a little larger and they are really quick and efficient to say, okay, you're going to be using this ERP system. This is the way you're going to report this is, you know, that's, I think that's great. We're not there yet. Right. So we, we're getting ready to, I think the last few deals we've closed, a lot of these Companies still have QuickBooks if they have anything. So we're, we actually just acquired two businesses from a large private company where the, our responsibility was to take the people and the ip.

Jeff Berlin [00:40:35]:
That's all we got. We didn't get a facility, we didn't get any IP software, anything. So we had to stand it up completely. So our team here has had to make that happen. So we kind of, I guess we have to be a little bit flexible in the way the integration plan works. We keep evolving it. We, we'd like it to go quicker. I think we're a step short of always saying, here's your trans tech playbook.

Jeff Berlin [00:41:02]:
Start doing this. Day one, forget about your culture. Right. So we're, we're really attentive to trying to get the cultures to blend. But as you can imagine that's a, that's a challenge. You start to get larger, it becomes harder to make that happen.

Jeffrey Stern [00:41:16]:
How would you describe what the culture is?

Jeff Berlin [00:41:19]:
I will tell you there's an overall culture and then you know, if you go to any one facility because we're all over the country and now world, you're going to see some local culture there. But you know, we're pretty competitive group. A group that wants to, they want, they want to win versus the competition, very concerned about their team. So we kind of big discussion that we have is, you know, how are we helping our team, how are we helping the community and how are we helping our customers and vendors? It's kind of, that's part of our whole core value statement and it's people live by that. So when we have a team member that needs some help or a community that needs some help, we just actually because of our location in McGregor, the flooding there, there were a number of people that were impacted and our team really stepped up and helped out in a lot of ways and we supported them. So I think it's just, it's people oriented and it's growth oriented and it's kind of do the right thing, you know. So safety and the types of businesses that we have is always our number one core value. And so whatever investment is needed in these facilities, sometimes we're acquiring older facilities that don't have all the bells and whistles that we like to see in terms of, you know, safety protocol.

Jeff Berlin [00:42:39]:
We get there quickly. I mean that's, that's a non starter. I mean we always hit hard on safety programs, recording and the ability to report how we're doing in that program.

Jeffrey Stern [00:42:51]:
Having been in this kind of industry as long as you have and worked with as many business owners and companies across the space, I feel you have probably a pretty unique perspective on just the state of what industrial companies are facing today and maybe more a bit of the macro landscape that they're operating within. And I'd love to hear your perspective on just where we are as American manufacturing and industry. And what's your kind of outlook on where this is going? I mean, it's kind of interestingly, I feel there's a resurgence in interest in our ability and capability to make things and all the requisite steps that come with that. And you know, just your take on where we are and where it's going.

Jeff Berlin [00:43:43]:
Yeah, I appreciate the question because that was one of the things that I on my kind of handmade simple website when first came out with Bridge, I Mean, that was the, one of the things that I made clear was that true believer in American manufacturing and the importance of it. And as I told you, because of the kind of the midwestern roots and so on, that's always been just a core part of the way we believe. It's just, I don't think it's something we can give up on. We can't be a country of just services, in my opinion. So I'm generally optimistic. So, you know, I've seen companies, I've seen people we compete with, whether it's lower cost areas of Mexico, India, China. We actually put a plant in China. When I was at Hawk, that was a great learning experience.

Jeff Berlin [00:44:34]:
But I think the common denominator is there's just, there is still a value to having that skill set. And we saw a lot of this through Covid and supply chain issues that we faced. And I'm really happy to see that. I think people learned a lot through that. So to me, you could take both of these things together. The whole manufacturing as well as energy independence, I think are just really important for the U.S. i mean, we're kind of blessed to be in a position where we can have that. So when, when I think about it though, I, I'm not a big fan of like protectionism.

Jeff Berlin [00:45:11]:
So, you know, when it comes to, you know, how do you achieve growth in manufacturing in the U.S. i'm, you know, I don't think that huge tariffs are the answer. I hope we get to a point where we settle it out and maybe it's reciprocal and we can move on because I think that's causing some disruption right now for a lot of folks making decisions like our customers who are making big decisions about buying something and they want to wait to see what happens. But generally I'm very optimistic. I think obviously it's critical for investment, so a lot of things will become more automated. It's not easy to find labor. So I think probably a lot of the people you would talk to would tell you the same thing that we have a lot of welders, fabricators, these folks, it's just really hard to find. These are skilled jobs.

Jeff Berlin [00:46:00]:
There aren't as many folks in the pool. So we have to train a lot of people, you know, So I, I, I think it's an area maybe we just have to educate our youth a little bit more about the value and the attractiveness of these jobs as you can make a really good living in the trades. So hopefully we don't lose that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:46:20]:
With that all in mind, what is the impact you would ultimately like to have with Bridge and with Transtech?

Jeff Berlin [00:46:30]:
I look at it as trying to just add value, trying to somewhat. I would use the term be useful. I mean I did, I heard, I think it was Elon Musk recently quoted and they were asking him, you know, how does he define success or. And he said, I just, I think people need to look at how can you be useful? And I think what we like to encourage our team, you know, like how do we help customers and how do we help our people? And that'll check off a lot of the boxes to being successful. In our case, we have challenging customers, but they have really, really interesting applications. Everything from space travel to, you know, to energy to food production to the whole renewable space, which we didn't even talk about, which is fascinating. Just, you know, how do you create energy out of a landfill? And these, these are all things that, you know, we kind of rally around because we think that it's helping the world while also keeping a bunch of people employed and helping their families. And so that's enough to kind of keep us pretty motivated.

Jeff Berlin [00:47:32]:
And that's kind of what keeps our team going.

Jeffrey Stern [00:47:35]:
Yeah, like useful as a barometer for success. Well, I'll, I'll pull on that question again a little bit and maybe reframe it. With regards to what you see as, I don't know, the growth and future for Bridge, what are your ambitions to grow it? In some regards, you've realized the vision that you wrote down when you started to build an industrial holding company. So what do you find is motivating you and where do you want to take it?

Jeff Berlin [00:48:10]:
Yeah, I think it's good timing for that question because we feel like, and we actually spent a lot of time on strategic planning and we just updated our five year strategic plan and I think, I think we have a model at called Transtech that transcends and goes forward and we're pretty excited about. So think about another doubling in the next four to five years and what that would look like. So then if you go up a level and you say what can we do at Bridge? We'd like to have another couple of Transtex, you know, we'd like to find the next TransTech that starts probably it could be whatever 15, could be $50 million business, you know, something that we feel could be, could benefit from the same strategy of kind of a long term approach investing in, you know, facilities, technology, you know, growing customer base. So we could see there being additional transfects under that Bridge Umbrella and then continuing to treat Bridge as a holding company that would supply and support, you know, the finance, hr, it, corporate development side. You know, so that's kind of what we would see going forward. And then if you think if I, you know, had high aspirations, is trying to give you examples, it would be like the Danaher type model where you have these really, really well run companies that have over the years really refined their model for how to operate in a manufacturing setting. You know, we would aspire to get to that level.

Jeffrey Stern [00:49:40]:
You mentioned your mentor, maybe former boss from Parker Hannifin, who's, who's been along on this journey with you now for the last 40 years. I'm curious if you were to ask him what surprised him most about the evolution of the business and yourself as a leader, what he might say about it.

Jeff Berlin [00:50:02]:
Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I think he, he, he has been, you know, just a supportive kind of mentor and friend and I think he, he would give me grief forever having left Parker Hannifan. Like, you know, why, why would you do that? And then over the years the relationship pivoted and you know, as we kind of have worked so closely together. Yeah, I think he, I think he'd be proud. I think he, you know, I, I think he realizes that he's been huge. Hopefully he realizes part of that journey. And you know, I've gotten to know him, you know, just through some non profit work as well where we're both on some boards together and he was really helpful, you know, you know, on, on the multiple sclerosis board where I was chairing the board and he was extremely supportive getting involved at a, at a clutch time. So no, I think he would be, you know, hopefully proud and, and I think he would be, he would hopefully take some credit as well because he's a great sounding board and he'll tell me when I'm doing something stupid and he'll give me his opinion.

Jeff Berlin [00:51:13]:
So I appreciate that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:51:16]:
What do you wish more people understood about the nature of your work and what it is that you're building?

Jeff Berlin [00:51:22]:
Yeah, it's not a great cocktail party discussion because you can't pigeonhole it. Even my own team, you know, when we're in a group, they're saying, yeah, Jeff's in private equity. And I say, guys, to do that you actually have, have to have some equity. You have to have a fund, you have to. I think people generally, just because it's a bit of a unique model, they don't really understand it. I think it Would be great if they understood, you know, maybe the value add in terms of job creation, in terms of just, you know, the ability to kind of keep our, you know, as we said earlier, domestic manufacturing, you know, try to continue to invest in it, you know, make people aware of how important it is, you know, things of that nature. I mean this, the one area that, that, that does resonate with people that I mentioned briefly was this renewable space, which seems to be the one company, when I talk about that, people do want to hear more about it. So that's maybe a little sexier, but that's about everything else is infrastructure in it.

Jeff Berlin [00:52:23]:
And so they don't, they can't get their arms around, you know, what, what's behind a pipeline or a processing facility or how does that food get mixed and then somehow heated or cooled in a certain way. We find it interesting, but it just doesn't always, it's not a, it is not a great cocktail discussion.

Jeffrey Stern [00:52:42]:
Yeah, well, it's so obfuscated from I think normal day to day life that we, I mean certainly probably all take it for, for granted. And so I, what I was kind of curious about is to the degree that, you know, you do spend a lot of your time thinking about infrastructure and all the things that allow for us to have, you know, regular day to day life experiences. What you wish people understood about, about, you know, that world, maybe.

Jeff Berlin [00:53:13]:
Yeah, yeah. So if you were to, you know, take, take an example of where maybe you hear or you see something on the news of people protesting because there's going to be a pipeline going somewhere or you know, the ability to drill wells, you know, and, and I think a lot of I, I do understand the concern for environmental and I understand a lot of the concern. I don't think people understand the importance of it because at the same time people do want to go home and put, turn on the heat or the air conditioner, have them work, you know, be able to drive around from place to place. And so these folks that are working in that industry, right, like literally these are tough jobs. So these are people that are out in the field in every type of weather. And so like our customers, you know, we have to deliver because what they're doing is critical. And so a lot of times there's a tight timetable, a lot of times there's a lot of pressure on the cost side for them because at the end of the day people still expect their natural gas to be whatever 350an MCF and their gas to go in the tank to be $3 or less and they get pretty upset when it's $5, but it'll be 5, 6, 7, 10. I mean, look at Europe if we don't have control of our supply.

Jeff Berlin [00:54:35]:
So yeah, I think it would be great if people appreciated that more.

Jeffrey Stern [00:54:40]:
What has it meant for you to build this in Cleveland?

Jeff Berlin [00:54:45]:
It's very important. I really am a Cleveland guy. Like I said, family is from here and tied to the area. My wife and I love the area. We'll always have a presence here. And I also, just because of. And you've interviewed a lot of the folks. I mean there's so many role models, so many people I've watched over the years that I admire that I think are from this area.

Jeff Berlin [00:55:09]:
I think there's something about, and I'm just going to say Midwestern values that I see that I don't see in other places. And I truly appreciate. Try trying to convince my sons that there's some merit. You know, one's, one's in the northwest, one's in the south. Yeah, it's critical that it's in Cleveland. And you know, I would love to find, you know, some of the actual companies to be around the area as well. It'd be nice to be able to drive to some of these businesses instead of fly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:55:44]:
You mentioned, you know, certain optimism kind of writ large about American manufacturing and the industry. What are you most excited about? Just looking forward.

Jeff Berlin [00:55:56]:
I generally just get excited about having a business plan and having a challenge and going and trying to execute. Yeah. Since I'm a washed up athlete and can't compete effectively, this is my outlet for you're keeping score and you're trying to work with a team and compete against others that are very capable but yet win. So that's very motivating. And I think the other thing that's particularly interesting for us is where we, as I mentioned earlier, where we try to incentivize the team with, with equity. There are some great stories I could tell you where I think the folks that we partnered with didn't, they didn't even realize what the value was. I mean most people are looking at their, their base salary and the bonus and this was a throw in and they didn't. And now that that value is 3x their annual salary, it's just really cool to see that realization as an owner and have more of our, more of our team.

Jeff Berlin [00:56:55]:
Appreciate that. That's really, to me that it means a lot. And it's just, I think people learn a lot about the value of being an owner. And so we want to continue that. That's another part of sort of our goal as we develop the business is to just have a lot more people that are partners.

Jeffrey Stern [00:57:15]:
You've mentioned the evolution of the playbook over time as you continuously learn new things about how to actually stitch together these companies and build a cohesive culture and holding company. Ultimately, is there anything recently that you've changed your mind about in your strategy and approach?

Jeff Berlin [00:57:42]:
I would say over the last one or two years, we have intentionally invested more heavily in what I would call the kind of the financial and IT infrastructure in the business. I think that's always been a challenge for us because the businesses we're inheriting literally have nothing, very, very little capability in terms of just infrastructure. So we are trying to get really ahead of, I mean everyone, you know, we all read about and try to understand the AI impact on our business. And in this case we're intentionally investing a lot in infrastructure, which I didn't, I never thought I'd see this. But you know, we're putting a lot of money into just our own data capture and retention and then what we're going to do with the data and the ability to just get a lot smarter in how we capture data in our business and then use it effectively going forward. So that's probably one big change. Maybe another one would be how to recruit and how do, how do we scale up? That's always a challenge for us because think about us trying to attract folks that typically not a household name. So we've gotten a little more entrepreneurial and just tried to extend out and try a few things on the recruiting side, including, you know, a few outside recruiters to add into the mix just to get, do a background more effective job of recruiting.

Jeff Berlin [00:59:11]:
And then part of that is just call it the internship side. So our ability to probably bring in a larger group of interns every year, it could be everywhere from sales and marketing, data analytics, finance, where we will have a better control of our pipeline of talent. So that's, that involves a net investment obviously for us because you can't expect folks, they're not jumping in, into a line role investing in the future.

Jeffrey Stern [00:59:39]:
You mentioned AI. I feel a little remiss if I, if I didn't ask for your perspective on automation and how you see that and its implications in your world.

Jeff Berlin [00:59:53]:
I mean, for us we're just scratching the surface. But if you think about like the fabrication side of our business, the opportunity is just amazing in terms of just the number of kind of sensors and capturing data at the production level. So whether that's machine maintenance or productivity or output, I mean, those are all data points that are critical to us. We should be capturing automatically that we're not today. Because think about a lot of our equipment being analog or older equipment. So we, I think we'll have the opportunity to not only retrofit some of that equipment, but also in our future. But, and we just recently our timing wasn't great because some of this product comes from Europe and the tariff thing has been really disruptive. But think way more automated equipment.

Jeff Berlin [01:00:43]:
So equipment that has more robotics equipment that's able to maybe typically, you know, do the job that may take 10 people, could be two. And then, you know, how do we keep finding a way. Getting back to the example I gave earlier about like landfill temperature of methane, think about the amount of data that we're able to collect from not only the equipment that's there. It's a very large facility that's cleaning up that gas and then putting it into a pipeline. Information we're able to get 24, 7. That's telling you every part of the gas composition, temperatures, pressures, which gives us the ability to understand what equipment's working well, what's not working well, how do we change the process, things of that nature. So we have a huge open opportunity there that we'll continue to invest in.

Jeffrey Stern [01:01:38]:
What do you feel are the most salient learnings that, that you keep with you as kind of like guiding wisdom, grounding philosophy that have just kind of grounded you in this whole journey?

Jeff Berlin [01:01:53]:
I think that I enjoy what I do. And I would tell you that I never set some target that was financial. I'm really not financially motivated. So I tend to get a lot more joy out of just what I said, team victory or accomplishment. And some of that is just with the work that I've done outside of bridge. It's just I enjoy working with people that are kind of working for a good cause, trying to help others. But I don't have like some grand plan that says, oh, I have to do this or I have to do that. I mean, I want to be a good husband and father, hopefully first.

Jeff Berlin [01:02:37]:
And I think the other things are. Will follow along.

Jeffrey Stern [01:02:44]:
Is there anything in reflection here that you wish I had asked about that feels particularly important that we didn't get to talk about?

Jeff Berlin [01:02:52]:
Yeah, I think maybe the only thing I'll point out because it's sort of front of mind just because we've had so much in this area, but it's this the whole renewable natural gas area that I mentioned earlier, it's just really exciting. I mean, so the reason it's top of mind right now is because we're in the process of. And this is a company that we partnered with three years ago, and the entrepreneurial founder is really one of the leaders in the industry. So how do you take methane out of a landfill and turn it into natural gas and do it in a safe manner, and you can use it for power or energy? And so it's been. It's been. And, you know, then you've probably tracked all this. You had the IRA support and tax credits and so on. So it's just been fascinating to learn about.

Jeff Berlin [01:03:39]:
But in this case, it's. It's truly one of those that our team rallies around. The fact that the. Just the facilities we've done already, 90 facilities around the. Around the world, just those facilities that are operating today are the equivalent of taking like 300,000, 300,000 vehicles off the road. You know, really the amount of CO2 reduction and the. The methane that we're taking, you know, and, and cleaning up instead of it going into the air is making a very big impact, and that keeps growing as we continue to build facilities. So that's a good motivator for the team.

Jeff Berlin [01:04:15]:
They feel good about it. So that's. That's been. And. And it's not a. I don't think that story is well known kind of in the Cleveland area. We don't have as much going on on the renewable side, but I do believe in that area, and. And we'll continue to invest in it.

Jeffrey Stern [01:04:33]:
Yeah, that's. That's phenomenal. Well, Jeff, I just want to thank you very much for taking the time to share a little bit more about your story. It's very much in the spirit of this podcast. It's kind of unbelievable to me what you've built and in some regards, how under the radar I feel it might be. And it's really. It's quite inspirational for me to see what it is that you built.

Jeff Berlin [01:05:02]:
I appreciate that and I appreciate your story, because I think it's interesting that you somehow figured out at an earlier age that this entrepreneurship thing was something you could kind of make a career. And in my case, it took a while to kind of figure that out. And then even when you had sent me the concept about entrepreneurship through acquisition, which is. It's a great buzzword, but I do. I think that's a real thing. I think it just resonated with me where it's wow. You can do that and get paid for it. It's a lot of fun.

Jeff Berlin [01:05:41]:
I definitely enjoy doing it.

Jeffrey Stern [01:05:44]:
Well, I'll ask you then our traditional closing question, which is for a hidden gem in Cleveland.

Jeff Berlin [01:05:52]:
Yeah, I. I will say. And, and I know you interviewed Zimmerman from the Metro Parks. I always tell people from anywhere that, you know, where they'll listen, that the Metro Parks is. I don't know if I'd call it hidden, but it, you know, not everyone takes advantage of it. It's just truly special where from my perspective, living in Chagrin Falls, there are several choices, but anyone in the Cleveland area can pretty quickly be in a very nice place that you know is going to be well maintained. They seem to constantly upgrade the Metro Parks, so that's been. That's been pretty cool.

Jeff Berlin [01:06:27]:
And the other, the other thing I would add is I think the entrepreneurs, the people you're interviewing are hidden gems. I mean, I think these are folks that are. A lot of people are not aware of all the work they've done, and I think it's a great community. And so I think that's another hidden gem.

Jeffrey Stern [01:06:43]:
Well, that certainly resonates with the spirit of this. So thank you, Jeff, very much. Appreciate you taking the time here. That's all for this week. Thank you for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so if you have any feedback, please send over an email to jeffreyoftheland FM or find us on Twitter oddleayoftheland or sternfa J E F E. If you or someone you know would make a good guest for our show, please reach out as well and let us know. And if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on itunes or on your preferred podcast player.

Jeffrey Stern [01:07:21]:
Your support goes a long way to help us spread the word and continue to bring the Cleveland founders and builders we love having on the show. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. The Lay of the Land podcast was developed in collaboration with the UpCompany LLC at the time of this recording. Unless otherwise indicated, we do not own equity or other financial interests in the company which appear on this show. All opinions expressed by podcast participants are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of any entity which employs us. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.