How that came to be and what you all are looking for as far as hiring or what kind of consulting do you all do?

Absolutely.

Yeah, I appreciate the question for sure.

So Greencastle is just to validate as far as we know, right? So if there's anyone that's listening to this that can prove us otherwise, the largest all veteran firm in the world, actually.

So about 130 of us or so right now.

When I joined, I was like the 31st or second hire, I want to say.

And that was seven years ago.

listed certain specialties what what's green castle looking for

And so can we just sort of talk through their recent proposed rule and the implications for the community?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I think when most of our listeners think of the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, they immediately think of how the president prepares his annual budget, but the management in OMB is really the authority to write government-wide rules that affect every federal agency, policies that can affect agencies that our listeners most know, like the NIH, CDC, HRSA, NSF, and others that administer kidney grants.

And OMB recently proposed a 400-plus page rule titled Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance that's going to make sweeping changes to virtually how every federal research grant is awarded and managed.

Beginning in the federal government's next fiscal year, which starts on October 1, 2026, so right around the corner for our listeners.

And as I mentioned, the rule would really affect the entire biomedical research ecosystem, from universities and researchers to professional societies like ASN, and ultimately the patients that nephrologists care for.

Uh, and so to summarize and quickly answer your question, OMB is saying that this proposed rule is intended to hopefully improve accountability and strengthen oversight or federal dollars and modernize the grant management system, but I think the real question isn't whether there should be oversight of federal research funding.

So what are some of the other concerns?

I'm curious, as you were diligencing the deal, what did you focus on during diligence? And looking back, what would you have maybe done differently now that you actually run the business, right?

Yeah, it was, you know, the real estate component, in hindsight, made it much more challenging than if it had not had it.

So again, I talked about the advantages.

The disadvantage was it made the deal very complex.

Some of that complexity was due to the fact it was in South Carolina.

And South Carolina, which is a very business-friendly state, There are some additional rules and laws about buying commercial real estate that I was not aware of.

So there were some additional steps that had to be taken.

when I was working in for big companies and heard somebody worked in strategy, I'm like, what the hell is that? What does that