393: Charity, Community, and the Power of Giving Back w Colin Burns

Transcript

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Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs, from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light.

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Whether you're a club veteran just getting your feet wet or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place.

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I'm your host, denny Corby.

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Welcome to the show.

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The right place.

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I'm your host, denny Corby.

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Welcome to the show.

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In this episode with Colin Burns.

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I'm so stoked because I love chatting with really good humans, really good people.

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In the beginning of the episode we touch on when he and I connected a little bit deeper, which was at the NCAA conference for the National Club Championships, and he was chatting on how his club was hosting the US Open and the pandemic hit and they had us flip the script on everything, complete 180.

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And we talk about what goes into that.

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But then we pivot and we talk a lot about fundraising and giving back and being a person of service and really the importance of teamwork.

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Adapt Club Foundation has had on students, on people, on their community, on their clubs, and how much money they've raised and what they've done with it and he shares some stories of how his club has came together when there was a very tragic loss and what that meant to him and the club and just really shows what community is and what clubs are about.

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And then we also touch on the Gladney Cup.

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Colin's very involved in the Gladney Center for Adoption, which is a nonprofit that has helped over 33,000 adoptions since its inception and it was just a really great conversation and I really enjoyed my time speaking with Colin Burns.

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Private club radio listeners.

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Let's welcome to the show.

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Colin burns, I really enjoyed your talk last year at the championship club conference, um oh yeah, that was yeah, that was a great conference.

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That was a really good conference.

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It was small, intimate.

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I love just everything about it.

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It was just like the people who wanted to be there wanted to be there.

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So it's like, even though it was maybe only what, like 20, 30 people, it was just like.

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I mean, tim Muesli came in from the Olympic Club in California, I was like wow, that's pretty impressive, and Kevin Posada was there from Augusta National.

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It was a nice collection and I agree it was really well done.

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Actually, you and I started hanging out talking a little bit, yeah, during the reception there.

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Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

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I think your big thing was it was the big tournament in 2020, and it kept getting pushed and it was all.

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It was chaos and you ended up making it happen.

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It was.

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It's funny, there was just a post, If you look up, a guy named David Atkins.

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He was a captain in the state police.

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He just posted a picture of himself holding the US Open trophy outside of the Wingfoot Clubhouse.

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And you know, we had to move it from June to September, and people don't realize that a big part of an event like that is the security element.

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So we're working with the governor's office, which controls the state police in New York, and so we had to basically take this plan, crumble it up, throw it in the garbage and then say now what are we going to do?

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And we had to set up a COVID testing site where we tested over 2000 people, sort of on a drive-by, drive-through basis.

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And so it was really a lesson, Danny, I think in teamwork, in believing that it could happen and working together to make it happen, you know we could have been wringing our hands going oh, you know, poor us.

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You know it didn't happen in June like we had planned, but instead we said okay, look, first of all number one, it's only the game of golf People.

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We were four miles from the epicenter of COVID.

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The ambulances were going nonstop, People we knew were dying and we said so let's first of all, let's keep this in context here, let's keep our perspective.

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And so that was number one.

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Number two we said look, let's just sort of incrementally figure this out.

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So we stopped production on all the, on all the tents and all the you know the.

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We sold forty five thousand tickets, so we stopped building the infrastructure.

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It was March 13th, we made the decision and then we basically went back to the drawing board and said how can we make this happen in spite of this worldwide epidemic?

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In spite of this worldwide epidemic?

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And we slowly, incrementally, kept chipping away at a plan and resubmitted, resubmitted, Worked with the USGA, worked with the folks in the NFL Augusta, because before you knew it, it was, you know, we'd gone from June.

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Next thing, you know, it was fall and we made it happen.

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It was really, it was a challenge, and yet it was an opportunity to work collectively and everyone sort of kept their egos at bay and it worked out really well.

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And we had.

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It was the first US Open.

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I think there were only two or three US Opens held in September to begin with, and it was the only Open ever held during a worldwide epidemic.

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And so we went from 45,000 spectators to zero spectators.

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And we had, you know, we had reserved hotel rooms, we reserved parking, we had done all I describe, imagine.

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So you're throwing this party for friends, right, For 200 friends, and you planned every detail and a month before you said, well, we can't do it.

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What are we going to do three months from now?

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It's going to be in a different season, right, June, September.

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Anyway, that was an interesting time.

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Limitations force creativity and you guys knocked it out of the park.

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Let's go back.

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Let's go back to in the very beginning.

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You were talking about what got you excited and you mentioned the fundraiser you guys are doing, and just the fundraising that you do at the Metropolitan CMAA.

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Let's talk about that more, like why?

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Why do you think you do more fundraising?

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What was there a maybe a tipping point as to like it wasn't a, it wasn't a collective, uh initiative, like what?

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What started that ball rolling with it?

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Did it just happen, naturally?

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Was it a focused thing?

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Was it like a conscious thing?

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I think it was one of those things where you have to give credit where credit's due.

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John Blatt, who was the long-serving general manager of Blind Brook Club, a very prestigious club in the area of Westchester, he felt that it was something we had to do.

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He had, you know he was you know, I think and I hate to use this term sort of the old timers had a different sense of charity.

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They'd lived through World War II, they had seen hard times, and he said you know, we need to do something.

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We all work in these very prestigious clubs and all of us are making a good living and our members are all making a good living.

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And so John had the idea to put together the Metropolitan Club Foundation, which started out as an idea, like so many things that come to fruition.

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And what will it be for?

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Well, it will be for education, it will be for good and welfare, the two primary purposes.

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So we got together, we formed a 501c3, and we began raising money.

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So we went from zero to today, where we have about.

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What year was this?

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You know it's funny, I just came across the file, let me see.

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So let's go back, it's gotta be.

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And you could ballpark it too.

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I got to Wingfoot in 1991.

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So call it around 1991, 1992.

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Oh wow.

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So like before, even like before, it was cool to be more hospitable and more, more giving and generous Even like before.

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It was cool to be more hospitable and more, more giving and generous.

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It was cool.

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And before, um, before and before, there's also this sense of FOMO.

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You know, we better do it because they're doing it.

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We just did it because we felt there was a need and and, and you know, at that point club management was really evolving from what was a pretty homespun kind of deal.

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As I said to you before, back then the typical sort of club manager was wearing the gray slacks, the blue blazer, the white shirt, the food stain tie, and they weren't really the administrators that we've become in today's world.

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So John Blatt who's still alive, I think John has run in like 15 New York marathons.

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He's an amazing man, he's incredible and he's Danish and he has this coif of white hair and he's just always wearing white shoes, blue double-breasted blazer very dashing and he's just a wonderful guy.

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And so he pulled together a group of us.

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I was a junior in the group back then, but I was at a very prestigious club and I had made a name for myself, and so we started out with basically zero dollars and today we manage about $3.5 million and one of the real turning points.

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I would certainly consider it a seminal moment was we had an employee at Wingfoot who had been stabbed to death upon his arrival at home.

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Nobody to this day knows what happened.

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His surviving spouse, rosa, and the two children, ariel and Paola, were babies and he was a very well-liked, beloved employee at Wingfoot.

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It was a brutal murder and it was something that shocked us.

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And this was the first time we really called on the Metropolitan Club Foundation to help from the good and welfare element of the pillars, the purposes, and we said clearly, this is a good and welfare situation.

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We raised so much money directly, indirectly.

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We had Wingfoot members donating to the foundation that was eventually used to help Rosa in her, basically in her survival, and it was one of those moments and we've used, matter of fact, we've interviewed the children, uriel in particular, who went out.

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You know, he went to a very prestigious boarding school.

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A brilliant young man went to Williams and he has actually spoken on our behalf.

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He changed their lives and that was one of those moments we said, wow, this thing really has tremendous value.

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Now, since then, you know, a local chef has passed away, somebody else's family member has passed away and we've always been there, so that's sort of the primary purpose.

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Second is education.

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So what we do is we will support the educational efforts of the Metropolitan Club Managers Association.

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So MCMA is here, mcf is here.

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There's some overlap with the boards, but we act independently.

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So MCMA will say you know, we really need to support young club managers.

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Let's create a scholarship program to send them to conference Boom.

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We'll do that where, thankfully, there have not been any significant welfare issues.

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So the fund has grown.

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We've managed it very responsibly.

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We have a great board of all really in the area, well-known, responsible managers, and it's funny.

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One of the funding elements is the vendor show that we do every year.

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You should come one year.

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It's actually a lot of fun.

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And so we have vendors, whether it's insurance or people selling fish or whatever it is, and I was there last year.

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It was funny.

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Last year was the first time I was there as not as a club manager, but representing GGA Partners, which is the executive search for people services, that company that I now work for, and so it was a lot of fun being on the other side, and so we raise a significant amount of money every year.

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It's very well attended and the Westchester chefs all cook.

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They prepare dinner for us afterwards and there's 200 or 300 people, maybe 400 people at it and it's really a lot of fun and there's a lot of goodwill and a lot of money that's raised that goes into the foundation.

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That's amazing.

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Are there any initiatives or things that the money was used for that you're very proud of, or just happy?

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I don't know how I'm trying to phrase it, but like there has to be something that you've been able to change lives with.

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Because of this that you must be proud of.

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Well, I'll go back to the story of Arturo, who had been killed.

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So the years had passed, so he was brutally murdered outside, right outside of his home, after leaving work and the family was really desperate.

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It was, this was just out of nowhere.

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It was horrible.

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We arrived at the house shortly afterwards and it was still kind of a mess, without getting to traffic, and so the family didn't know what to do.

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And I have to give credit to the Wingfoot Golf Club membership, the money that was raised I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, some of it that went into the hundreds, to the point where Rosa, who recently passed away, leaving the two surviving children who were now adults, she never even used the money that was raised.

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She was very, very responsible and frugal, and so here, so fast forward.

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So the years go by.

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Uriel, who was a baby, is now in high school.

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My son is now attending and it's his freshman orientation, is attending that same school, a very prestigious school, and Uriel sees me, he goes, mr Burns, he comes over, hugs me and starts crying and he said I've never had the chance to properly thank you and the club and the foundation for what you did.

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I had not seen him.

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You know time passed.

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Give me the chills man.

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It was.

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I remember it like it was yesterday and the people from the school were saying, wait, wait, how does Burns, who's brand new to the school, know Uriel, who's you know, one of the destined to be the valedictorian of the school?

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What's the connection?

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And here he is on my shoulder crying.

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We're talking and I explained to the head of the school.

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I said I didn't realize, I knew Uriel was here, but I had not seen him as a young adult, this fully grown person, and I said so.

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Here's a story, without getting into too much personal information, but we we were very helpful in his, in his upbringing and I don't think there's anything from a charitable perspective that that I've done that really rivals that.

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I mean, it was really.

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It impacted their lives significantly.

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That gave me the chills.

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That, yeah, yeah, that's yeah, it was.

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It was, uh, it was a tough time and yet, um, it was one of those things that really brought people together.

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I mean the, the members who were at the funeral, who were at the mass, who contributed money.

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I mean rush limbaugh, you know the old, the old radio host.

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Yeah, was a member at the time and he called me up.

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He said Colin, I want to donate.

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And I said how much?

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He said no, and then he gave me the real number.

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I misunderstood him and you know, rush had that booming voice and it was people like him and many others who really came to the call, responded to the call.

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So that was one of those.

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So that's, it's a little bit sort of depressing thinking about that, even though there was a golden lining, if you will, silver lining, to the story.

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I think, beyond that, you know, you'll see multiple young people at the national conference, at the CMA, a world conference.

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You'll see them there on scholarship on behalf of the Metropolitan Club Foundation.

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There'll be allied associations who need money.

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We'll give to them as well if they're trying to.

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There's some type of initiative and it's funny.

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So now you know fast, you know.

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So now, beyond our initiative, this past Monday I was at the New Jersey Club Foundation event Really well attended.

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Hamilton Farm, beautifully done, and they've raised a bunch of money.

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And there they are writing checks for a local camp supporting children with particular challenges, autism being one of them.

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And so it's.

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And again, they did that not some sense of FOMO.

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They did it for the same reason we did because we just, you know, we're very privileged to work in these environments.

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We're very privileged to be able to be around people of such privilege.

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We work in a clean, safe, comfortable environment and, yeah, we have our difficulties dealing with committees and boards, but in the scheme of things, I think all of us in the club industry realize how really lucky we are.

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And how do you not give back after being blessed with these jobs that we've been given?

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Yeah, that was good.

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Yeah, I didn't, yeah, that was yeah.

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So, anyway, so it's been, it's been one of the highlights of my life.

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You know the other thing that it not, that it's, it's, it doesn't relate to well.

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I shouldn't say that it does relate to club management.

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You know I'm on the board of the Gladney Center for Adoption what's called the Cup, and the Cup is a biannual event that we host at US Open venues.

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The Gladney Center for Adoption started in the late 1800s.

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They've been responsible for about 33,000 adoptions.

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People like Hugh Jackman, vera Wang, hoda, the Bush family have all adopted through the Gladney Center.

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The Cup is something that we started and was literally.

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This will give you chills as well.

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The first Cup was held one month after September 11th.

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The buildings in Wingfoot where I worked for 31 years is 45 minutes from Manhattan.

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Yeah, buildings are burning.

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The person who sponsored the event at Wingfoot was one of the first killed at Cantor Fitzgerald, a guy named Billy Minority, whose family we just honored this past year when we held the event at Paul DeSroll and Stephanie Minority.

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His wife had not been aware of the progress we had made with the Gladney Cup.

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And so it's a month after September 11th and we host the first Gladney Cup and since that first event we've raised $13 million on a net basis.

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We've been at Wingfoot twice now.

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I think it's three times now, now that I think about it.

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We were at Shinnecock, we were at Baltus Roll, the country club, and what's interesting is that there were club managers who at first said what's this thing?

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Gladney it's kind of an odd name but Edna Gladney was a woman who started it post-Civil War.

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There's a whole book that's been written about it, called the Orphan.

00:19:38.307 --> 00:19:42.163
Basically it was the orphan train that ran from Georgia to Texas.

00:19:42.163 --> 00:19:46.267
It was the orphan train that ran from Georgia to Texas.

00:19:46.267 --> 00:19:54.194
And so we've approached my very dear friend and beloved colleague, david Shagg, up at the Country Club, or Nick Conlon, who's at Shinnecock.

00:19:54.194 --> 00:19:55.656
These are people who you really should know.

00:19:55.656 --> 00:20:03.269
They're wonderful and when I first approached them, you know they're like you know what is this, you know what is this thing.

00:20:03.269 --> 00:20:12.542
And I would always have to say, by the way, we're paying, it's not a freebie, because you have to get that, because their eyes start to glaze over.

00:20:12.542 --> 00:20:16.907
And then they'd say, well, you know, it really doesn't, it's not a local charity.

00:20:16.907 --> 00:20:30.788
And, denny, every time the manager would say, well, they'd sort of put us on hold, they'd go back to their board and invariably there was somebody on their board or somebody within their club community who had adopted.

00:20:30.788 --> 00:20:34.650
Through Gladney, I mean 33,000 adoptions connects everybody.

00:20:36.063 --> 00:20:38.830
So this year we're going to Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.

00:20:38.830 --> 00:20:44.500
We try to move it back and forth across the country and so we'll be at Riviera.

00:20:44.500 --> 00:20:52.633
The Watanabe family was very supportive of our being there and we will sell out at a very high number, by the way, at $30,000 a foursome.

00:20:52.633 --> 00:20:55.327
We will sell out in 24 hours.

00:20:55.327 --> 00:20:57.243
It's a weekend event.

00:20:57.625 --> 00:21:09.669
It's spectacular and talk about a joy fest when you have 200 or 300 hundred people, sometimes four hundred people in a ballroom and all the gladi babies, no matter how old they are.

00:21:09.669 --> 00:21:14.851
They're called gladi babies and they all stand up and I get choked up thinking about it.

00:21:14.851 --> 00:21:34.968
I mean it's the stories of young women in particular who had really suffered in their childhood, had ended up pregnant unwanted, and the success that their babies have gone on to achieve and what it's done for them as well.

00:21:34.968 --> 00:21:35.789
It's really very moving.

00:21:35.789 --> 00:21:36.571
You'll have to look it up.

00:21:36.571 --> 00:21:43.093
As a matter of fact, on Good Morning America there was a male gay couple.

00:21:43.093 --> 00:21:45.367
They were featured on Good Morning America.

00:21:45.367 --> 00:21:48.630
They watched something on adoption.

00:21:48.630 --> 00:21:57.857
Next thing, you know, they're contacting Gladney and so the two gentlemen whose names I'm forgetting now and their beautiful Gladney son were on Good Morning America.

00:21:57.857 --> 00:21:58.400
Really.

00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:07.563
So that's my other real passion when it comes to charitable things is the new charitable giving is the is the Gladney Center for Adoption.

00:22:07.563 --> 00:22:08.425
You should look them up.

00:22:08.425 --> 00:22:09.327
It's a great group.

00:22:09.829 --> 00:22:14.872
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to, definitely going to after this and I'll put a note to it in the show notes.

00:22:18.579 --> 00:22:20.786
Yeah, so what else do you want to talk about?

00:22:21.827 --> 00:22:23.551
I don't know, I don't know this is.

00:22:23.551 --> 00:22:30.146
I think there's going to be one of those fun episodes where I'm just going to say Colin and I were just, I hit record and that was it no?

00:22:32.019 --> 00:22:33.082
I think that was just.

00:22:33.082 --> 00:22:34.262
I don't even know.

00:22:34.262 --> 00:22:35.324
I think I just wanted to talk to you.

00:22:35.324 --> 00:22:51.567
It's been, it's been a minute now, so so I think actually just that I think I'll leave it at that, okay, or meaning like that'll be just like a quick little, just like talking about the foundation, just giving back.

00:22:51.567 --> 00:22:52.510
It's a cool thing.

00:22:52.510 --> 00:22:56.328
Tell me about GGA part and this is, this is off.

00:22:56.328 --> 00:23:14.458
Yeah, tell me about GGA partners now and and when it comes to like what separates GGA from KKW and every other consultant out there.

00:23:14.478 --> 00:23:14.940
Now who does this?

00:23:14.940 --> 00:23:15.361
You know it's.

00:23:15.361 --> 00:23:17.708
I think one of the things that distinguishes us is the the depth of the practice.

00:23:17.708 --> 00:23:22.107
It's not just executive search, it's people services, it's strategic planning, master planning.

00:23:22.107 --> 00:23:32.351
You know it's a former, it's a group of former KPMG people who formed the company, so they have a very data-driven approach to things, very analytical.

00:23:32.351 --> 00:23:36.089
We recently hired Dr Eric Hutchinson, another guy.

00:23:36.089 --> 00:23:39.029
He's absolutely he is priceless.

00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:43.070
I met him at the NCA show, isn't he fabulous.

00:23:43.070 --> 00:23:43.392
He's a who.

00:23:44.301 --> 00:23:45.227
He is fabulous.

00:23:45.227 --> 00:23:45.548
He's a who.

00:23:45.548 --> 00:23:46.856
He is fabulous, he's brilliant.

00:23:46.856 --> 00:23:50.970
He's a riot MBA, phd and a riot on top of it.

00:23:50.970 --> 00:23:52.582
So he brings a lot of.

00:23:52.582 --> 00:23:57.993
He brings an analytical approach to when we do executive search.

00:23:58.421 --> 00:24:01.269
And the critical thing with executive search is finding the right fit.

00:24:01.269 --> 00:24:04.970
A kid like you can find 10 men and women who check all the boxes.

00:24:04.970 --> 00:24:08.059
They know how to do this, they know how to do this, they know how to do that, they know how to do this.

00:24:08.059 --> 00:24:09.586
But what's the fit right?

00:24:09.586 --> 00:24:15.346
It has to be the right cultural fit, it has to be the right feel, and that's one of the things we really drill down on.

00:24:15.346 --> 00:24:23.529
And besides that, I think it's a group of really I mean talk about feeling old.

00:24:23.529 --> 00:24:32.401
I mean it's a group of really smart young men and women who you know they've all worked.

00:24:32.401 --> 00:24:35.165
Some of them have worked at some major consulting houses, they've got advanced degrees.

00:24:35.165 --> 00:24:41.375
They're just, I mean, they're just really, really smart and sharp.

00:24:41.375 --> 00:24:56.791
And, as a matter of fact, I was just participating in a strategic planning session down in Manasquan River Golf Club then South Jersey, and one of the young men presented and at first I was like you know, I have to tell you I was blown away.

00:24:57.460 --> 00:24:58.664
Is that Ryan Brennan's club?

00:24:59.105 --> 00:25:01.444
Yes, Matter of fact, ryan is.

00:25:01.444 --> 00:25:02.970
Ryan has a position.

00:25:02.970 --> 00:25:10.991
I'm not sure if he's the president, but he spoke at the New Jersey Club Foundation event, so he must be.

00:25:10.991 --> 00:25:11.913
I don't know his position.

00:25:11.913 --> 00:25:12.694
I love Ryan.

00:25:12.694 --> 00:25:17.867
I don't know what his position is, so, yeah, it's Ryan's club he's a really great guy.

00:25:18.180 --> 00:25:19.625
Performing there next month, I think.

00:25:19.625 --> 00:25:20.287
Are you really?

00:25:20.729 --> 00:25:23.626
Yeah, that's sort of my hometown, is it?

00:25:26.580 --> 00:25:27.642
Have you been to the Jersey Shore?

00:25:27.642 --> 00:25:29.924
It's been a minute, it's been a few years, probably three years.

00:25:29.924 --> 00:25:34.990
It's the best we should grab lunch or something before you should come to the show.

00:25:35.369 --> 00:25:36.672
No, no, I will come down.

00:25:36.672 --> 00:25:41.916
I have any excuse to get on the Garden State Parkway, get to exit 98.

00:25:41.916 --> 00:25:44.205
I know exactly where it is, you know.

00:25:44.205 --> 00:25:45.593
I always say, you know Bruce Springsteen.

00:25:45.593 --> 00:25:50.792
The most famous song Bruce Springsteen didn't write is called Jersey Girls.

00:25:50.792 --> 00:25:52.046
It was written by Tom Waits.

00:25:52.046 --> 00:25:57.226
And I always say to people one of the lyrics is down the shore everything's all right.

00:25:57.226 --> 00:26:06.003
And you know, you cross over that Manasquan Bridge, right where the golf club is, yeah, and it just takes on.

00:26:06.003 --> 00:26:06.423
I don't know.

00:26:06.423 --> 00:26:06.964
Life takes on.

00:26:06.964 --> 00:26:10.407
That salt air starts coming and people are barefoot.

00:26:10.407 --> 00:26:13.309
You see the sign for Jersey Mike's and you go.

00:26:14.511 --> 00:26:18.654
Yeah, it's different than the Hamptons, it's cool, it's relaxed, it's very nonjudgmental.

00:26:18.654 --> 00:26:20.717
You can dress up, dress down, do what you want.

00:26:20.717 --> 00:26:22.942
It's a very you know.

00:26:22.942 --> 00:26:23.784
We went out to dinner.

00:26:23.784 --> 00:26:25.167
I stayed at oh what was?

00:26:25.167 --> 00:26:30.376
The baron's cove and we went to dinner and it's, it's the only place where they're.

00:26:30.376 --> 00:26:31.885
You know, it's like one of these.

00:26:31.885 --> 00:26:39.325
It's in Sag Harbor where $60 for a bread basket and it's, you know, shrimp cocktail is, you know, $38.

00:26:39.325 --> 00:26:40.326
Oh my.

00:26:40.606 --> 00:26:41.028
God.

00:26:41.107 --> 00:26:42.289
Yeah, but that's the Hamptons.

00:26:42.289 --> 00:26:47.557
The shore is not like that, and so, yeah, I'll see you down there for sure.

00:26:50.148 --> 00:26:51.359
Yeah, yeah.

00:26:51.359 --> 00:26:54.244
Let me see one of that.

00:26:54.244 --> 00:26:57.068
That's is Manny, a part of GGA.

00:26:57.750 --> 00:26:58.951
Manny's a part of GSI.

00:26:58.951 --> 00:27:00.012
I happen to love GSI.

00:27:00.012 --> 00:27:01.214
Yeah, yeah.

00:27:01.595 --> 00:27:03.000
No, no the wrong G.

00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:04.382
All right, yeah, yeah, no, no the wrong G.

00:27:04.402 --> 00:27:13.770
So there I am with my youngest son, stefan, who I just dropped off at Indiana University, october 24th oh good, I'm around.

00:27:13.770 --> 00:27:15.352
I'll be back from France.

00:27:15.352 --> 00:27:18.654
I represent a club in France, by the way, called Vita Bon.

00:27:18.654 --> 00:27:19.516
That's another story.

00:27:19.516 --> 00:27:30.760
It's beautiful, ha ha beautiful.

00:27:30.760 --> 00:27:35.374
It's owned by a very wealthy, very kind individual and I organized some guest invitationals for them.

00:27:35.374 --> 00:27:36.396
It's in Provence, it's pretty special.

00:27:36.396 --> 00:27:39.724
So we're down the Jersey shore having dinner, stephan and I.

00:27:39.724 --> 00:27:39.944
Who do?

00:27:39.944 --> 00:27:42.290
We run into Manny and his family.

00:27:42.290 --> 00:27:43.593
So he's a really nice.

00:27:43.593 --> 00:27:44.965
He's a true gentleman.

00:27:45.006 --> 00:27:56.349
I like manny a lot yeah, I connected with him uh, I don't know if I invited him or sean did when we did our little poker thing at conference last year, but he loves poker, so we just like we.

00:27:56.349 --> 00:27:57.873
Oh, he like he.

00:27:57.873 --> 00:27:59.962
He drinks the juice hard, as do I.

00:27:59.962 --> 00:28:03.126
Uh, loves poker, I didn't know.

00:28:03.126 --> 00:28:13.172
Yeah, he, he and I bonded a lot over over poker instead, um, but yeah, so that's uh, he's, yeah, he's, he's yeah, I.

00:28:13.713 --> 00:28:14.856
I, I like him a lot.

00:28:14.856 --> 00:28:24.445
He was there, his daughter was there, his daughter's going to I think she said Kentucky, she, she, uh, he's an aspiring equestrian, I think, but anyway, it was great to see him.

00:28:24.445 --> 00:28:32.686
He's one of those people who, dude, you have competitors in life, right, and some of them they're competitors and you may not like Manny.

00:28:32.686 --> 00:28:34.945
The minute I saw him I said to Stefan, I've got to go say hello to Manny.

00:28:34.945 --> 00:28:36.830
Big hug, what's going on?

00:28:36.830 --> 00:28:39.249
He's a very old-fashioned Italian guy.

00:28:39.249 --> 00:28:41.362
I love that about him.

00:28:41.362 --> 00:28:44.263
He's got that, he's got this the way.

00:28:44.263 --> 00:28:45.345
Yep, yep, yep.

00:28:45.345 --> 00:28:47.487
He's a good guy.

00:28:47.487 --> 00:28:48.528
He's a good guy.

00:28:48.528 --> 00:28:51.069
But I'm very happy.

00:28:51.411 --> 00:28:53.352
I'm not sure if you've come across Henry Delosier.

00:28:53.352 --> 00:28:58.737
He's sort of the dean, of sort of the club industry and he was the reason I joined GGA.

00:28:58.737 --> 00:29:09.962
I just I was always I would go to his talks and he just had this professorial, erudite way, very calm, and I said you know what I said, I like this guy.

00:29:09.962 --> 00:29:18.939
So, as I was looking around for things to do after, um, you know, after, uh, my, my 31 years at wingfoot ended, um, I talked to henry.

00:29:18.939 --> 00:29:20.844
You know I'm going to join this firm because I like him.

00:29:20.864 --> 00:29:21.946
You know, it wasn't, it wasn't very well researched.

00:29:21.946 --> 00:29:22.568
I had other opportunities.

00:29:22.568 --> 00:29:25.698
Yeah, it's been great, and he and I did a matter of fact, we, he and I, did an off-site because I like him, it wasn't very well researched.

00:29:25.698 --> 00:29:26.219
I had other opportunities.

00:29:26.219 --> 00:29:31.703
It's been great, and he and I did an off-site retreat, a board retreat, and it was boy.

00:29:31.703 --> 00:29:37.085
Just, you know, it's fun watching somebody who's really good at what they do and it was fun.

00:29:37.085 --> 00:29:41.307
I mean I participated, but really it was watching him and he's really good.

00:29:41.307 --> 00:29:48.409
So if you're ever at a conference, whether it's NCA or the big conference, cmaa, you should definitely attend some of the sessions.

00:29:49.089 --> 00:29:49.790
Oh, definitely for sure.

00:29:49.790 --> 00:29:51.132
Are you going to be in Tampa?

00:29:53.474 --> 00:29:53.955
What's in Tampa?

00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:55.641
CMAA in February.

00:29:55.641 --> 00:29:58.288
Okay, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:29:59.030 --> 00:30:01.037
Sure, but I'm going to see you in October.

00:30:01.944 --> 00:30:02.326
Oh, of course.

00:30:02.326 --> 00:30:03.592
Well, yeah, I just meant in general.

00:30:04.986 --> 00:30:07.913
I still I enjoy, I look for me.

00:30:07.913 --> 00:30:08.696
There's a lot of you.

00:30:08.696 --> 00:30:10.531
That's one of the beautiful things about this industry.

00:30:10.531 --> 00:30:14.615
It's made up primarily of really nice people who really do.

00:30:14.615 --> 00:30:16.021
I mean you've been to conferences now.

00:30:16.021 --> 00:30:20.811
I mean people really get along well and they like each other and it's a.

00:30:20.811 --> 00:30:21.393
It's a real.

00:30:21.393 --> 00:30:25.179
It's a real community which I'm still very happy to be a part of.

00:30:25.179 --> 00:30:30.333
Yeah, yeah, and you're lucky to be a part of it and we're lucky that to have you as a part of it.

00:30:30.444 --> 00:30:32.613
I still represent this club in Florida called Apogee.

00:30:32.613 --> 00:30:34.329
I'm not sure if you've heard of it.

00:30:34.329 --> 00:30:40.868
Yeah, so I was a COO immediately after Wingfoot, but I really didn't want to live in Florida.

00:30:40.868 --> 00:30:42.029
So I told the ownership group.

00:30:42.029 --> 00:30:46.933
I said, look, I'll continue on as an advisory role, doing membership basic introductions.

00:30:46.933 --> 00:30:52.417
And so I contacted a club I'll tell you who it was Anglebrook, which is in Westchester.

00:30:52.417 --> 00:30:56.561
It's privately owned, and Matt Sullivan.

00:30:56.561 --> 00:30:57.663
So I, who's the GM there.

00:30:57.663 --> 00:31:04.777
I said you know, we'd like to my colleague Greta and I would like to visit and oh, yeah, that'd be great.

00:31:04.777 --> 00:31:11.265
We'll sit down, we'll have lunch with the pro.

00:31:13.248 --> 00:31:14.631
The email he sent me brought tears to my eyes.

00:31:14.631 --> 00:31:15.173
He said I had forgotten.

00:31:15.173 --> 00:31:17.277
You know it's almost sad I had forgotten.

00:31:17.277 --> 00:31:24.557
I'm going to tell you right now I had forgotten that I'd met him.

00:31:24.557 --> 00:31:26.241
Hold on one second, hold on, matt.

00:31:26.241 --> 00:31:29.176
I had forgotten that I'd met him.

00:31:29.176 --> 00:31:36.098
I'm just going to tell you quickly.

00:31:36.378 --> 00:31:51.497
During my days as the editor-in-chief of Lynx Magazine a high-end golf, I know it's a high-end golf travel publication I found myself with access to some of the most intensively private clubs in the world, places I never dreamed that I'd have a chance to play.

00:31:51.497 --> 00:31:54.990
I started taking notice of what I was calling, by the way.

00:31:54.990 --> 00:31:55.932
This is kind of a cool.

00:31:55.932 --> 00:32:05.452
I like the way you put this the guy in the tie at these amazing clubs, places like National Golf League, garden City, pine Valley, augusta National and, of course, wfgc Wakefield Golf Club.

00:32:05.452 --> 00:32:16.250
He said during my first visit you were so kind and welcoming to me that it planted a seed in me that private club business is something I should take a look at and a way to make a great living.

00:32:16.250 --> 00:32:25.511
Several years later, 25 years later, you remain one of the handful of people I remember as keying my second career.

00:32:25.511 --> 00:32:27.996
Consider this a belated thank you.

00:32:27.996 --> 00:32:38.708
And then he went on to send me a separate text and I said first of all, embarrassed enough, I didn't remember meeting him, but I was always the guy on the floor.

00:32:38.708 --> 00:32:39.911
Danny, I was always.

00:32:40.291 --> 00:32:43.478