Yeah.

And so it was a little different.

I think Jeannie and I had this sense of optimism.

I think I do that with a lot of things.

It's like, okay, you know, at the time, obviously, when you're diagnosed with cancer or something like that, you immediately go to the charts.

And you go, okay, what's the average survival rate? What's, you know, all this thing.

And I know that one of you two are cancer survivor.

That's that.

And I'm going to hand it over to you because I would love to hear about what was that experience like going through the recession as a business owner? Because that had to have been a very trying time.

Well, first of all, Pam and Natalie, I am really glad to be with you guys.

I've been looking forward to this podcast, so it's great to be here.

When I'm a guest on a podcast, I really try to take the attitude that I want to bring value to not only the host, but to the audience.

And hopefully the audience will learn something from this.

You know, I had the attitude before the great recession that, You know, life is pretty straightforward.

I'm in control.

He,

Yeah

... construction, engineering, uh, those type of things, I was, I was very interested in.

So that, that's what got me involved in the construction industry.

Now, I didn't...

You know, a lot of people might say, "Whoa, you went right from college to into the family construction business." And the answer to that would be definitely no.

Um, I, I, uh, I was a little prideful there maybe.

I, I, I decided that, "Hey, I, I didn't get this college education in engineering just to go to work for the family business." So I actually had worked with, uh, three other firms, uh, before, uh, coming to the family business.

Yeah.

You

know, things like that.

Just trying to learn all that.

And then there was another banker who we knew we actually hired as a somewhat of a consultant on the side.

And again, just to help us know what bankers are looking for during this time.

Also remember during that time that banks were closing their doors.

I mean, it was just a terrible time for banks, especially those banks who had loaned a lot of money in real estate.

getting ready

and

all of a sudden I wasn't.

And so right away I'm going, well, this, this can't be happening.

Um, this wasn't in my plans.

Uh, this can't be a long-term thing.

It ended up being five years.

All those thoughts went through my mind.

So if that was your definition of strong leadership, and you've hinted at this already, but what does the definition of strong or good leadership look like to you now?

Bill, take us back to the beginning where you described your story as one of the unexpected challenges What happened?

Yeah, so, you know, I kind of start my story, at least in the book, I start my story with this attitude of control and thinking that I have life completely under control.

And why wouldn't you? I mean, that's what you're taught.

You know, you plan things out, you work your plan, and things go according to plan.

I had life going pretty well.

Good family, good marriage, doing well in business.

So I joined a family construction and real estate business after 10 years out of school, out of college, and we're doing fine there, expanding, growing.

What was that season really like? And when did you realize you were facing a major storm?

How did you discover that for yourself?

Yeah, first of all, I think it made me more aware of the important things in life to me.

And they weren't the things that I had that I thought were so important.

It was the people.

It was my family.

It was my wife.

It was the friends I had.

itself reminded you of who you really

So how do we find lessons in these experiences?

Well, I think that's a good question.

I think to be real honest with you, you realize that over time.

You realize it in reflecting back over what just happened.

I know for me with, let's just take the financial storm, business storm, that was a very tough thing.

And I went into that with this attitude that I was in control of life.

I was in control of where life was gonna go.

Okay, so is it possible to remain positive without ignoring the reality of

What were some of the storms that changed the direction of your life?

Yeah, you know, so when I say unexpected, I come at it from a perspective that I had back then where I was basically in control.

Control of my life, control of business, you know, just...

Uh, I was never going to experience the storms in life per se.

That was my attitude.

My wife and I were raising a family and yeah, with four kids, you have some, you have some things going on that you have to deal with.

But overall, I just thought, you know, we'll get through the little things and, and we'll avoid the big storms in life.

How did you process that news?

What were some of the toughest decisions you had to make while leading your company during that period?

Well, when you're running a business that basically... figuratively overnight is at one level and a few months later you're at a level that's maybe 25% of that.

That doesn't fit in the business plan very well.

So now you've got too much overhead and for us that meant we had too much land for development.

We had too much equipment.

Uh, we had too many employees and which meant we had to sell some of our equipment.

We had to figure out.

uh,

Yeah.

And at the end of the day, it's, you know, it's in my book.

But it was a happy ending there.

I mean, it was kind of weird.

But in the end, it worked out.

And I think a lot of it is because the gentleman who I worked with at that bank, he was basically the messenger.

I mean, but he was, you know, executive vice president.

you okay?

Before we get into what you did with your construction companies, how did you get there? Were you from a family of entrepreneurs? Were you carrying that company torch generationally through or were you the first?

Yeah, that's an interesting question.

In my case, I went to the...

University of Minnesota.

My dad started the business in 1967.

I had got my degree in civil engineering from University of Minnesota in 1977.

So 10 years later, I think my dad assumed that I would just go to work for his company at that point.

I mean, was that where the diversification came into play? Was there anything unique that was born out of that with your company?

So, um, could you take me back there? What was happening inside your head the day you realized the storm isn't actually over?

Hmm.

Yeah, well, uh, you, you kind of said it right in that after five years of going through, uh, the business storm, uh, just dealing with, uh, you know, a terrible time for our construction and, uh, real estate development business, uh, it was...

You know, I was kind of exhausted at that point, and looking forward, looking forward to just, uh, the new normal, uh, or things getting back to normal and, um, not having to constantly worry every day about business.

We were kind of at the point where we had survived by the skin of our teeth, but we survived, and now I was looking forward to, uh, building it back and once again thriving.

Um, but within a year, um, these aches and pains started, and I was like, "What, what is going on?" And, uh, eventually, uh, after seeing a number of doctors, a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a non-curable, uh, blood cancer.

Um, you know, I think on the surface it'd be very easy to say, um, "Well, you must have been devastated." I'm not saying I was happy about it, um, but after going through the last storm, uh, that was just over, I think that storm helped to, um, strengthen me in many ways, um, my heart, my mind, my soul, um, my relationship with, um, with my wife and family.

So at what point during the recession did you realize this wasn't just a difficult business cycle anymore, that this was becoming one of the def- defining storms of your life?

How to

prepare? Yeah.

I would say that's the hardest thing about it.

Because, you know, I prepare for every speech and basically with a few changes here and there that I make.

But for the most part, it's the same speech, so to speak.

But I do prepare because I...

I think that it's important that you go over your speech.

So can you just tell me about it?