Brock Briggs  00:00

Hello and thanks for tuning in to the Scuttlebutt podcast. I'm your host Brock Briggs. And today I'm speaking with Barrett Bogue. A common thread you'll see in Barrett's story hinges around communication. As we unpack a few topics, he's come to be an expert on transition, the GI Bill and starting a business. Barrett deployed back in 2004, in the middle of his schooling and upon his return came to understand why communication is so important, not just with our peers and family, but with organizations. 

He was dealing with his schools, employer, and family looking to help him but unsure how. This understanding of the problem gave him the passion to fulfill a position he later held at the VA. And then later on when he started his own company, Evocati, a PR and consulting firm helping companies communicate and grow their relationships with the military connected community. During the segment on education and the VA, Barrett gives a detailed history of the GI Bill, which really helps to quantify the impact the GI Bill has had on our country over the last 75 years. 

While individual service members see a check to pay for their schooling every month, it's important to understand the larger impact that has had on our communities and education levels throughout the country. The thread on communication is one we pull on a lot. When it comes to people, Barrett talks about something he calls radical empathy, and how that plays a role in our transition process. On the organization side, Evocati is working to solve a problem I had never even thought about before. 

Barrett recounts the story of his firm having the pleasure of announcing that Fayetteville State was going to offer free tuition to any military connected family. Yes, free. That's crazy enough of announcement to get headlines, but it's not quite as simple as just calling the local news. We walk through some of the programs he used that helped him hone his idea for a business, including Bunker Labs and the Stanford Ignite Program. I've included links to all those resources and a few more that we talked about throughout the show in the show notes. But first, you've got to hear it from the man himself. Please enjoy this conversation with Barrett Bogue. 

Brock Briggs 

Barrett, thank you so much for being here with me today. This conversation has been a couple of weeks in the works. And I've been looking forward to it as I kind of learn and read more about you and hear about your story. I think from our conversation, the most interesting place to start would be you coming back from your deployment in 2004. You served in the Marine Corps from 99 to 07 in the reserve with that one deployment, and you speak about that deployment as a pretty transformational time for you. Let's start there. And then we can kind of work through everything else that we got.

Barrett Bogue  03:12

Sure, Brock. First off, I wanna say thanks to you for this opportunity to talk about the military transition, leadership and entrepreneurial journey, as well as for those listeners who are participating right now. So I served in the Marine Corps Reserve, like you noted and was deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom ll. And you know, the transformational part of it wasn't the deployment itself. It was what happened when I got home. And so I was in the middle of earning my master's degree from the University of Tennessee Knoxville. And I jokingly tell people that I took a gap year to go spend in Iraq and

Brock Briggs 

Not your typical gap year.

Barrett Bogue

No, it's not your typical gap year experience. But when I came back to the university, which I proudly support so for those who are watching right now I have a Tennessee hat on. The university, the people there were incredibly supportive of me as a military member, and as a veteran and as a student, but they were wildly underprepared or unprepared to support my needs as a transitioning veteran. So that's where my passion for engaging and supporting the military connected community was born. And I've dedicated the majority of my professional career in that. And it's also led to all kinds of other opportunities both inside and outside the military connected community. But if I had to point back to a seminal moment in my 20s that really influenced my trajectory for good, it would be when I came home from Iraq, and not necessarily the deployment itself.

Brock Briggs  05:47

You said that your university and maybe the people around you were underprepared to help with your transition. Under prepared in what way? And maybe you can kind of flesh a little bit of that out as well as talk about maybe where we draw the line of like, whose responsibility it is for transition, you know. What lies on behalf of the people around us and the organizations that we are a part of, and then what is it that we need to own to kind of like show up and be putting our best foot forward I guess?

Barrett Bogue  06:22

It's a great question. So when I separated, transition was a two or three day PowerPoint. And that's all it was. And it was your trigger from the fire hose, here's all the information you need to know. Good luck. Today is transition experience, while still not meeting all of the service members' needs is a far better improvement. You have to look at your transition from a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset, that the transition from the military to the civilian sector is a growth opportunity both professionally and personally. When I talk to transitioning service members, I tell them that transition is not an event. It's a journey. And those that are able to embrace the journey and understand that there's going to be peaks and valleys to that, tend to do better and to embrace the ambiguity that comes with it. 

And trying to figure out, where are you gonna live? You know, what meaningful employment opportunity are you going to have? What's gonna happen with your family? For oftentimes in my sector and how do I manage a full time schoolwork while I'm earning my undergraduate degree while working while raising a family, those are very difficult things to try and manage. And at the university level, you know, it was so early in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that they didn't know what they didn't know. And it looks very different today. For example, the mental well being needs of transitioning servicemembers, addressing traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress, anxiety, and adjustment, military sexual trauma, like all of these things can come out in a university or collegiate environment. And their staff may or may not be prepared to respond to that. 

There's also just a matter of the GI Bill, which is a very different program today versus when I was in school, and it pays a lot more. In some scenarios, it can pay for all of your education. So for an institution that really values enrolling student veterans, you wanna ensure that if they value enrolling student veterans and they say that then you want to see where are they putting that shadow money into their school. They're reinvesting it back into programming for military connected students like spouses. Or they are offering things like childcare, right? Because for today's student veterans were more likely to be married with children and working part time or full time. So in terms of the ownership, I do see it as it starts with the individual service member. And again, like I started off in answering your question, it's about the lens by which you look at your, the transition.

Brock Briggs  10:03

One thing that I don't think that is really talked about, or at least I don't hear people talk about it. The differences in going through that transition period as a reservist from active duty. When I was going through the Navy taps class, which is a very similar thing, I'm guessing week long PowerPoint drinking from the hose type operation. In my class, there was a large handful of reservists that were in there. And I was curious, I asked, I was like, why are you guys in here? Are you guys all actually getting out at the same time that we are? And they said, no. They go through that transition class when they come back from deployment. 

So they had just got back from a year in Africa. And we're like on this integration thing. And I was like, oh, man, like, that's a very different type of transition than somebody like myself, and probably harder, I'd even argue, because I've been living for four years as my nine to five. My everything is the military. There's not even a quarter of my life that's not affected by that. Whereas you have like been completely immersed in this for one year and then are just immediately dropped back into it. There's not really, it's an even harsher kind of drop off. And I sympathize with that. I think that that would probably be tremendously harder than maybe even a traditional Active Duty transition, I guess.

Barrett Bogue  11:41

It's definitely different. It's definitely different. And what I wasn't, didn't understand at the time was as a military reservist, you're transitioning back into the civilian sector once a month. So you go from, you know, in my case, a very academic environment, you know, from your dorm. And you put the Marine Corps uniform back on and you go do all kinds of crazy stuff for your training. And then you come back, you take it off, and the next day you're back in class talking about politics or whatever issue. You've got homework or lab work. 

And it was difficult for me to try and compartmentalize that, this would have been my early to mid 20s. But learning how to compartmentalize that was eventually, it helped me to better understand how to organize, differentiate between your professional and your personal life. But you're absolutely right, the transition experience is different for military reservists. Although I think the shared experience that we have in the military crosses over whether you’re reserve or active or guard that we all have. And there are still elements of that transition that we all share as well. I try and when I talk with transitioning service members, I say, I try and get them to think of themselves as a cultural exchange student. 

And you are, you know, from going from the military to the civilian sector is like going into a different culture, as a cultural exchange student that you're about to go, you know, from school in the US to a school in a different country. And to thrive in that, you need to immerse yourself in that culture and think about all of the preparatory work that you would do to be successful in that. It's the same principles apply when you're transitioning to the civilian sector.

Brock Briggs  14:11

This may be getting a little bit ahead of myself here because I think that the answer to this question might be in a lot of what you do now today with your business, but how is it that you think that we can get across to people in these other organizations, whether it be your school, your family, your friends? How do we communicate to them the unease of being constantly kind of moved around and coming back into a life that maybe doesn't feel like your own? I think that you, hearing your story, you are now more sympathetic to that because of having gone through the deployment. You’re like, oh now this is affecting me like I get it. 

I'm reminded of when I was coming back from deployment, they flew it. You had the option to bring out family members for the last three days before we pulled in. They give a chance to like, you see your family, you know, they bring them on the boat, they get to cruise on the ship for three days. And it's, you know, whatever. And I remember my mom talking to me, and they have to sleep in like the accommodations on the ship. And it's like the whole like family immersion thing, you know, I brought out my mom and dad. My dad was super jazzed because he's former Navy, a different type of ship. 

But like it was kind of like a reminisce and like throwback for him. My mother, on the other hand, was like, I have earned an entirely new appreciation for everything that you guys do. Like you guys are suffering out here. These beds, she just comes, she still complains about her back hurting to this day from the sleep that she got on the ship. It was like three days. I'm like, yeah, that's what I've been dealing with for seven months. 

Barrett Bogue

Yeah

Brock Briggs

But my point and all that is, it really takes some immense exposure to even grasp what is being dealt with there. So to come back to my question, how do we communicate that better?

Barrett Bogue  16:28

What you described is called what I would call radical empathy, and understanding what we experience and based on that having a very deeply personal connection to it, that you can actually recall what that experience was like and recognize that ties with that. To kind of facilitate that exchange, so let's acknowledge that there are misperceptions about our community, in the workplace, in the private sector, and the private, the public sector, etc. I think for me, the one thing that is going to overcome those misperceptions is leadership. 

And I encouraged the you know, if you're listening right now, for those that have interacted with, I tell them like we are, as a community, we are called to lead either in the workplace, in our families, in our communities, that the only way for those with misperceptions about us to understand the truth is for us to engage with them and to demonstrate how those perceptions are misinformed. For many of us and I'm sensitive to this, talking about our military experience is the last thing we wanna do. You're done with it. You took the uniform off. You don't even want to identify as a veteran. You don't check that box, if you're applying for the scholarship or applying for the job. I get it. And I 100% respect that. 

When the time is right though and there's an opportunity in a workplace, relationship, or personal friendship, I would encourage you, for those of you who don't wanna self identified, to open up about your experience because what I have found is, the more open that I am about what I experienced in the Marines and afterwards, the more I have in common with people that I work with and with the clients that we represent. And it leads to a much healthier dialogue with those individuals.

Brock Briggs  19:08

I think that that's right. And finding that common ground I think is probably a really important factor in kind of your reintegration. Like the people that you've had something in common with are other people who are in. You know, the people that you've shared a rock with, the people that you've been sleeping on the ground with for however long, the people you've been eating with, and you kind of need those lines out into the water of kind of the civilian population again to get linked back up with those people. And I think that there's probably more that people won't know the ins and outs and, you know, they're not gonna know all the regulations and all this stuff, but I think that there is more in common there than I think 

Barrett Bogue

Sure

Brock Briggs

Most people realize, but some people really wanna get on their high horse and say, oh, like you'd never understand. 

Barrett Bogue  20:09

You know, Brock notice what I didn't say. I didn't say, well, they owe it to us because we're the ones who served. Or the essentially, I would hope that what you heard was the opposite of an entitlement mentality was that rather than obligation mentality. I don't expect people to ask the American public in particular to I don't expect that they owe me anything just because I served. If anything, it was a privilege to be able to serve. Because as you can see even nowadays, it's a challenge to get into the military. Many people who wanna join the military can't just be qualified for certain reasons. Sometimes, for reasons that are beyond their own capability or responsibility. But yeah, I think looking at it from I would challenge, you know, you and your listeners, in saying that as a community, we're obligated to go out and to demonstrate our value as citizens and as leaders.

Brock Briggs  21:32

A few minutes ago, you mentioned the GI Bill and talking about the different circumstances that can pay for school. And you kind of hinted and alluded to the differences and how it is to now. I like to use that as an opportunity to like dive into that. After your time in the Marines, you went on to work at the VA for some time, serving a variety of roles worked as an analyst all the way up to Assistant Director of GI Bill oversight. Can you give us a little bit of history, maybe about the GI Bill, the differences that you saw during your time, and then anything impactful that really happened during that time?

Barrett Bogue  22:18

So anything impactful? Well, it was like 10 years at VA. So we're not gonna be able to cover everything, but we can definitely talk about some of the highlights. And before I do that, most of us understand that the GI Bill was in response to World War ll. And it was signed by President Roosevelt. The genesis behind the GI Bill actually goes to after World War l in 1918, when veterans of World War l marched on Washington and the Capitol because the federal government had not honored their pension, their promised pension from service was called the Bonus Army March. 

And they actually, you know, if you think if you've seen protests today, they kind of pale in comparison to the Bonus Army, which literally camped out in front of the Capitol. And these are military veterans, right? So people who were conscripted or volunteered to serve at World War l. And at the time, the public stance was service in the military was a citizen's obligation. And you should not expect anything in return for that. The entire concept of round, having a healthcare and a benefits infrastructure was very nascent. The Bonus Army in a very violent time in our history was actually cleared out by the US military. 

And the imagery from that and the public backlash was to such an extent that people said, we're never gonna do that, again. Will never honor our military veterans again and we do not wanna have that type of societal unrest. So now we move forward to World War ll. And in understanding what took place after World War l, the public policy concern was if we have 15 million men and women demobilizing at the same time, what do we do with that, like where do those people go? What can we provide? So that there is some there's no sort of like economic imbalance because that's a significant input into the American labor force and you didn't have a plan for it. 

So the concept of the GI Bill was started while we were still at war. And the first mention of the GI Bill or it wasn't called the GI Bill at the time, but it did have a comprehensive benefit package for World War ll veterans, was announced by President Roosevelt in a fireside chat. And it's about 1943 or 44. And a year later, the GI Bill became law. And it was led in part by the American Legion. I would say that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Legion for spearheading that. So the GI Bill paid for school. It helped you purchase a house, it provided employment insurance. I'm sorry, unemployment insurance and a variety of other benefits. 

And it was and has been the most impactful social benefit program in American history. That for every dollar, the World War ll paid America received $7 in return and increased tax revenue. So it also completely transformed America's System of Higher Education, entire schools doubled or tripled in size because of the number of women and men who enrolled in school because of the GI Bill. So as we moved from a conscription to an all volunteer force, the Congress took away small slices of the GI Bill. So that it became I would say, this is my personal opinion, a shell of its former self, a very small amount. When I was in school, I got 300 bucks a month. Okay. 

And 9/11 2001 one was a catalyst for our country and for the military. And because the active duty reserve and guard were essentially all one operational force to fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, for what would be, you know, 20 years, that the need for a more robust education benefit package was out there. So when I came back to University of Tennessee, I was accepted into a program called the Presidential Management Fellows Program, which is an internship program that's sponsored by the Office of Personnel Management. And they place you in mid level executive roles across the federal government. You have to have a master's degree in order to get in. 

So I was placed in. I found this opportunity at VA in the office that administered the GI Bill. And I was a legislative analyst. And the first assignment I had was analyzing this piece of legislation from then Senator Jim Webb. He was a Vietnam veteran, former Secretary of the Navy. He was the junior senator from Virginia. And his son was a Marine and his son, I think at the time was serving in Iraq. And he modeled the new GI bill for a new century. He modeled after the World War ll GI Bill. And you have to understand at the time, there weren't a lot of people using the GI Bill like you see today. It wasn't really paying a lot. It was probably maybe two or 300,000. And with an outlay of maybe $3 billion annually. 

So when we did the analysis of this piece of legislation, we said we estimated it was gonna cost $100 billion over 10 years. And we all laughed and said, there's no way in hell this is going to become law. And a year later, it was a law. And what started was a journey in essentially creating a benefit program that tripled in size from what do we had been doing? And we had about 18 months to do it. So that's getting into VA. But if we, you know, if you have any, I just wanna stop there. If you have any follow up questions to that, we could talk about my time at VA.

Brock Briggs  30:11

No, that's all good stuff. I have read about the GI Bill and obviously have been a recipient of it. It's an absolutely tremendous program. And the benefits are really, really fantastic. Really no reason why people shouldn't be using them. I didn't know some of those finer details, though. I think that it's worth going back and highlighting the point that you made there that the amount of dollars invested in the World War ll, like it was $1 of investment returned $7. That is so, so tremendous because you're investing in people who have like spent their time and lives investing in the country. And like, here's like an actual dollar figure returned because we're in bettering these qualified and capable people to lead and become more educated in the country. That's so cool.

Barrett Bogue  31:24

It is and it continues today. It really highlights the transformative power of higher education. It demonstrates just how hungry we are to better ourselves, to improve ourselves. And by the way, I don't think veterans are exclusive to this. I think every American, everybody who's here wants to better themselves. And pursuing a degree is one of the ways to do that. Anytime we have an opportunity to remove those barriers to access that, we should seriously consider it. And we should do so. We know that millions are using the GI bill today. But we don't know the return on the ROI yet. We've probably got to get another 10 or 15 years before we can do a really effective longitudinal study. But I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar number for every dollar we get $7 back. I would not be surprised if we saw a favorable ROI for the money that we're spending on the GI Bill.

Brock Briggs  32:30

Well and if it is similar, I just kind of pulled up an article from defense.gov. This article is back from 2019. But it was talking about the 75 year anniversary of the GI Bill and the closing sentences. There's a bunch more here and I'll be sure to include the link in the show notes. But the closing paragraph reads as follows. There are a few versions from which to choose nowadays,with the most use being the post 911 GI Bill. Since its implementation in August 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs has provided educational benefits to nearly 800,000 veterans and their families totaling more than $12 billion. That’s a similar ROI, like a much larger dollar figure like the benefits.

Barrett Bogue  33:23

It was a bit scary at the time, I'll tell you, Brock, because we didn't have any experience. I was the smart-Alex-not-knows recent college graduate. Everybody in the office was older than me. And they're like, congratulations, you now have the most comprehensive change to your program in 70 years. You know, your budget to do this is pretty extensive but you're gonna go from, you need to expect to triple your workload to triple the number of employees that you have and to triple your outlays. And you have really, it was really just 12 months to make it happen. It was a massive lift. It was.

Brock Briggs  34:13

That's so fantastic, though. All of that work was certainly not in vain. And I think that we still see like the benefits of that. 

Barrett Bogue 

Yeah

Brock Briggs

I do have one more question about education, maybe for people in general, but maybe specifically veterans and then I wanna hear about your time in the VA. The bar for education has slowly continued to rise. An undergraduate degree is almost table stakes, you know. And I don't want to discount how important trade work is and like the last couple of years, we're certainly starting to see that pinch on trade work and a lot of people not opting to go for like the manual labor route and stuff. To their benefit or demise, I don't know if those guys make a lot of money too. How do you see, maybe this continuous need for more and more education impacting veterans over the next 20 or 30 years? You know, we've got the first

Barrett Bogue  35:23

I can only give you a speculative answer here. Because I don't have any, you know, any data to inform my response. I will say that based on what we know today, women veterans who earn a degree are over represented compared to women in the military. Meaning if the US armed forces are, you know, approximately 16 to 17% identify as women, then the percent who go and earn a degree using the GI Bill or something else scholarship, could be anywhere from 25 to 30%. So the growth in the number of women who leave the military and earn a degree, I think that's going to continue. So I think that the military veteran population is going to continue to get to look younger and much more diverse by gender, by race and sexual orientation, as well. You have another question?

Brock Briggs  36:36

I was just kind of, I don't know if this is in the same vein of that. And if this is like, not really where that's going, then I'll just cut this segment. But does that imply that? Because obviously, there's a large portion of dependents that are using the GI Bill of the person, of the actual service member, do you think that we will, that number will grow up to the point of like equaling, like you're saying that women are overall? 

Barrett Bogue

Oh, yeah. 

Brock Briggs

Is that going to work up to whatever the actual amount of service members that are women?

Barrett Bogue  37:22

No. So what I mean is, I see where you're going with that. And I'll acknowledge that in just a moment. What I'm suggesting is that the more women who served will be more represented in higher education, and pursuing a degree. Okay, 

Brock Briggs

I gotcha

Barrett Bogue

I think that trend is going to continue. The interesting thing, like you noted, like you said about the GI Bill, is that you can transfer it to a family member. What I want your listeners to understand is what that really means as an obligation. I know people are gonna correct me here who are listening. But the last Civil War pensioner, the last person to have received a pension from VA, from the Civil War was a dependent. And she passed away in 2016, okay. When our country goes to war, we create an obligation that is going to last generations. 

So I believe that we will be paying general benefits as they are today for people who are going to be alive in the 22nd century that we need to be looking at what is the horizon in 2018 and 2019? That's the more interesting question for me. And I still fervently believe in the value of an undergraduate degree. I think it's the great equalizer. Okay. And I will always believe in the power of higher education. At the same time, higher education is only as valuable as the time and energy that you put into it. Okay. There is a role and a place for trade jobs that will always be in our country. 

And I value that and I advocate for that, where I think it's in that person's best interest somewhere. I think it's appropriate like you said, it can be very lucrative especially when you combine it into like your own business and a business opportunity. You can do really well. I am interested in saying what the effect of the gig economy, artificial intelligence and automation are going to have on both our economy and in the value of a degree. I don't know what that's going to be or what its gonna look like. I'm not a futurist. I read, you know that stuff and I'm really interested in it. But my advice for if you're in this industry now, or if you're a policymaker is to practice strategic flexibility in responding to those needs. 

If you have to be a gig worker, or a gig, you know, business owner, an AI programmer, or a video game designer, or heck, even, you know. There are gonna be a whole ecosystems in a virtual world that we haven't even thought of yet, that are gonna require some type of higher education. I wanna make sure that the GI Bill was able to help you earn that, whatever that if it's a credential, if it's a degree, whatever it is, to be able to have that opportunity. I think policymakers and higher education professionals need to be flexible in responding to that. Maybe we weren't gonna go that far in the future. But that's kind of where I'm at. 

Brock Briggs  41:26

No, I'm with you. I like that. I think that it is good to think optimistically and be optimistic about the future and be planning for that. However, we need to, that doesn't, that shouldn't take away from doing things today.

Barrett Bogue

Correct. Yeah

Brock Briggs 

I'd love for you to dive into a little bit of your time at the VA and maybe what you've learned or took away from your 9 or 10 years that you worked there.

Barrett Bogue  42:02

When I talk to transitioning service members, I tell them that if you can start your career in the federal sector, do it. And if you can start your career at VA, definitely consider it for a variety of reasons. Number one, there's stability and growth and advancement opportunities within the federal workforce. Number two, very competitive pay and benefits compared to the private sector. Number three, and most important is the VA is the second largest department in the federal government right behind DOD. I think I said this to you offline in our first conversation, I think VA has the best mission in the federal sector to care for those who have borne the battle and the widow and the orphan. 

The challenges that you face and the complexity of the problems that you have to solve, while at VA or another federal agency thus far have paled in comparison to what I faced as an entrepreneur. If you can succeed in the federal sector and especially at VA, I promise you, you can succeed anywhere. And it has been, so what I'm reflecting back on my time at VA is a remarkably similar experience to being an entrepreneur. If you're given a piece of legislation and program to implement at a federal level with millions of American citizens and you have white house level involvement, the pressure doesn't really get any higher than that. Like that's a very challenging thing to do. And nobody there really has the expertise in building out a program essentially from scratch. 

So you're all just kind of figuring it out on your own. And you're all working together to build out this program. And that's what we did with the post 911 GI Bill. We did not meet our community's expectations when we launched the post 911 GI Bill. There were significant delays and screw ups when we launched it. And that was because of some ineffective and inefficient planning on our part. But our response to that I still think is one of the best stories ever told is we were taking anywhere from three to four months to pay students. And by the time I left, we were turning around payments within 25 days. There's a lot of work that goes into IT and process and development, etc. 

And having that experience and that engagement for so many years was just across the board applied very well to the things that I did after VA. And finally, because there are advancement opportunities, you will have an opportunity to lead people just like I did. And I sucked at leading people. When I first started as a team leader, I thought that my model from the Marine Corps would be a one to one transition right there. And I did not account for what motivates employees. I did not account for generational differences in the workplace. I didn't account for politics in the workplace, right? Because when you're in the military, it can be political, right? 

And I had to learn a lot of those lessons the hard way and how to be an effective leader, which I still apply today at my company. So yes, getting into the federal sector is difficult. Yes, going through USA Jobs is a pain in the butt. Yes, you will find people who fit that bureaucratic stereotype that you see in comics and on TV. You will find that, but for the majority of those you interact with and for the sense of accomplishment, that you're going to do together. It's hard to find an experience that compares to that except for your time in the military. It's really, it can be an outstanding cohort experience for you. 

And for those listening, I just want them to know that every day, there are 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people who work at VA, who wake up in the morning and say, I wanna go give my best effort for military veterans. I understand the narrative that's out there about VA. And some of that's deserved. I get it. For the most part of the majority of people that I interacted with at VA, they're just as mission focused as that marine grunt who has to take that hill.

Brock Briggs  47:43

It's interesting you talk about the stress level involved in implementing policy that affects you know, millions of people. I find that I don't know if comical is the right word. It's comical, not in the sense of like, degrading your experience but comical in the sense that you're coming from an infantry background in the Marines who spent time no doubt leading troops in Iraq, like that is crazy to compare and contrast those two things. And I think probably for those of us who haven't done either of those things, I think probably serves to really put it into perspective how much weight is sitting on your shoulders with problems like that. 

Barrett Bogue  48:35

It’s intimidating to know, to sleep with the knowledge that your program that the program you're building is gonna be responsible for the welfare of a family and individuals, that is a weighty prospect. It's a different kind of pressure from engaging in any contact, in closing with I guess you could say the pucker factor is a little different. And in that case, the responsibility that we had the time wasn't lost on us. Everybody really is trying to give their best effort in that moment to make it happen, despite, you know, sometimes federal civil servants are shown in the public.

Brock Briggs  49:37

I think it's very easy as a veteran to complain about service that you get at the VA or really any related service, whether it be a hospital, whether it be a GI Bill, whether there are any type of VA sponsored service. But it is so encouraging to me to talk to people like you saying that. A few episodes ago, I spoke with marine Elias, who works at the VA currently

Barrett Bogue

She just got sworn in, I believe. 

Brock Briggs  

Yes, Deputy Chief of Staff, big deal. 

Barrett Bogue

Yeah

Brock Briggs  

Yeah, super cool. But talking to those people and you just can see, like, when I was talking with her, I could see the light in her eyes, talking about giving back to the veteran community, and like, that's who you want fighting for you. Like that's, I feel good knowing that we have people like that fighting for us.

Barrett Bogue  50:41

I feel the same way. And I think the world of marine if she's listening, good luck in that role at VA, but they picked up, they have a very fine person and marine. You know, look, let's be transparent and honest here. I'm also a “client of VA”. I receive a disability payment. I utilize the hospital side. Navigating VA is elaborate. It is incredibly difficult. I followed there was a lawyer on Twitter. And he started this tweet with I am one of the world's experts in such and such law. And I've just spent nine months trying to navigate VA. And if I can't do it, I can only imagine what somebody who's not a lawyer. So VA doesn't make it any easier on itself. 

And for those of you like why is it so complicated? I don't understand. There's an answer to that. Number one, you have systems built on systems. So the GI Bill system that processes payments for, literally, you know, processing payments in the bank and sending it to your bank account was built on a coding language that existed before you and I are born. And the system itself was built in the 1970s. And because if Congress says you have to enact this now, there's no like starting from scratch. You have no option but to build it on a pre existing system and to make it work. 

The other thing is just the risk aversion which comes with working in the federal sector. You're often, you could be the subject of a lawsuit. And you have to be very careful when you are. When Congress passes the law and a change to a program, it goes to VA for it to write the regulations around it. And the regulations have to stick within what the congressional intent was. And so they have to be as specific as possible. And that, which leads to very, very burdensome and complicated requirements in order to qualify for a program and time to process those applications that come in. 

And finally, when you work at VA, you don't have one boss. You have what is it, 438? You have 100 bosses in the Senate, 328 in the House. And any one of them can stop your work with a letter to the Secretary or to the White House. Even at that level, it adds further complexity. So I go back to how I started the answer is the level of complexity and the challenges and the problems that you have to solve really pale in comparison especially in trying to start up a business.

Brock Briggs  54:07

Initiating change in any form of government related entity is like incredibly difficult, even when you're a part of it. Like coming in and say, hey, I wanna change how this is done. Like you don't just do that. It's you know, it takes a lot of firepower and rank and money and all of these things to make that happen. Hearing you talk about a lot of these outdated system is it sounds like and I'd be willing to bet that there is a lot of systems that the VA uses that are ripe for disruption and waiting for an inspired entrepreneur to come in and redo their payment system or come up with a better way to do things for them. Is that even possible? We're gonna talk startups and stuff in a minute, but I'm thinking about the integration of those two and how hard that is to do.

Barrett Bogue  55:12

I think it's possible that VA is willing to accept that as a possibility. And they're open to that. I think it is unlikely because of the requirements that the federal government has in contracting with the private sector. That it is unlikely that a startup is going to be approved for a million or billion dollar contract to go and rebuild those systems. I think it's more likely that a more well established company would be responsible for that. However, there are business opportunities within the margins that I'm starting to see the startup community fill in. ID dot B is a good example. 

There are some others that I don't wanna mention because they are in the startup phase that are kind of dealing with the benefits that VA administers. I don't see a lot of entrepreneurial activity around the healthcare side of VA because I think it's just so direct there actually, comparatively, the VA integrated healthcare system performs far better than the private sector health care, both in patient satisfaction and in outcomes. For them, the challenge is getting enrolled into it, that's the challenge for us. But I do see opportunities around. 

Right now, there's a lot of work in trying to track wellness performance and health care of athletes that the professional and the collegiate level. I'm very interested to see if there's an opportunity to do the same for the soldier who's deployed and the long term impact it's gonna have on their wellness and health, and their health and well being. So like I said, kind of within those margins, I think there are areas of opportunity. But I wouldn't get your hopes up on being that you know, the next Microsoft is gonna get a billion dollar contract with the DoD or VA or something like that.

Brock Briggs  57:48

Well, let's take that as a segue and talk startups for a minute. I'd love to hear about where you got interested in startups and building your own company. You've participated in a couple really notable programs, Bunker Labs and Stanford's Ignite Program. Love to hear about your origins there, and then talk about those programs and what they offer.

Barrett Bogue  58:13

Yeah, I'd be happy to. So during my time at VA and within the nonprofit sector, I heard the same feedback from stakeholders over and over, which was we struggle marketing to the military connected community, and they were coming to the VA, not SVA Student Veterans of America for help in that. And I thought, you know, I think there might be a business opportunity there to teach you how to do that or to help you do that as a public relations firm. So I had this idea of a company that was focused on the military connected community representing it for about a decade, really, maybe like little less than a decade. 

However, I was approaching 40 when I was at Student Veterans of America. And you know, for those of you listening, you're supposed to date your business idea before you marry it. And I just quote, I did not do that. I turned in my two week notice to my boss. I said, I founded this company called Evocati. It’s a really weird name. I'll explain it in a moment. And I'm gonna go see if I can do it. And that was in 2018. And we're still in business. I do not have a business background. My background is in higher ed administration and political science. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. None whatsoever. But I had a business idea. 

So I was in a personal decision to do that because of the significant support that I had from my spouse and our family. Okay, so I recognize that not everybody can do that. And we can talk about how to be an entrepreneur and manager, your current job, if you wanna go into that subject, but Evocati is Latin for reservists. And the Evocatis were the first recorded instance, in classical Rome of a force of reserve. They were retired legionnaires that Emperor Caesar Augustus kept on payroll. And they were there at his disposal, and they could be recalled to service ostensibly to protect the Empire, but really to protect the Emperor. And they’re called the Evocati. I liked that idea because you know, I was in the military. And for us, in our branding, we didn't, I had a couple rules. I did not want a military themed name. I did not want an eagle in my logo. And I didn't want it to be red, white and blue. I didn't wanna do that. 

Brock Briggs  1:01:21

Yeah, be careful trashing eagles in the logos.

Barrett Bogue  1:01:26

It’s all over the place and I get it. I love them for it. Team RBB has a fantastic brand. And I also didn't wanna be in a place where it looks like I was emulating that. I wanted something that spoke to my own experience. So we founded Evocati in 2018. And I knew, so the advice I would give you all who are thinking about doing this is give yourself permission to fail. So I told my wife and myself really that if this company isn't profitable within a year, I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna go back into the private sector. And it sounds counterintuitive but that actually took a huge weight off my shoulders. 

I had a horizon, I had a deadline, I had a goal to reach. And I've just kind of been, I had that attitude ever since then is give yourself permission to fail. And all that you do in this journey. I also knew that I wanted to be the best entrepreneur and the best founder for the company. And for the people who would eventually work at Evocati. So I was connected into Bunker Labs in their Veterans in Residence Program, which is an incubator program for military connected entrepreneurs. 

And I highly recommend those of you listening to go at bunkerlabs.org. Look up where your local chapter is and get involved. They’re gonna provide a network of like minded entrepreneurs that you can run ideas by, that you can socialize with, that you can, you know, fundraise with and support the growth of your business. Stanford Ignite, their post 9/11 Program, Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Veterans Program is an intensive masterclass, essentially, that is provided through Stanford Graduate School of Business. It's an MBA in 30 days is how I would describe it. And you are within a cohort of 40 to 50. 

It is done virtually now. It was done in person on Stanford's campus. Because of the pandemic, they went virtual. It worked out so well that they're actually gonna maintain a virtual class. And you are going to learn the fundamentals of design thinking, entrepreneurship, innovation, fundraising, business valuation, and accounting from literally the world experts. That the people that they can bring to the table are the ones who were in the room when Facebook started or Google started and you're there with them. And I cannot say enough about that program. I highly recommend. If you're like me and you feel like you have no idea what you're doing. You never went to business school, but you wanna learn the fundamentals. That's a great program for you to participate in. 

And to a tee, every faculty member we interacted with said, we love this program because we love working with veterans. And we love teaching you all and caring about your business ideas. So I can say unequivocally that the Stanford faculty that you are engaged with in that program are invested in your success. And these are people who are the leading experts in business. It's a privilege to be in that program. So I recommend that as well. So I'll stop there any other questions about Evocati? Or the programs that I was involved in?

Brock Briggs  1:05:43

I wanna talk some more about Evocati here in just a minute. I have a couple of questions on Stanford Ignite and the Bunker Labs. 

Barrett Bogue

Yeah

Brock Briggs

You are talking about Stanford Ignite as kind of a fundamental crash course in business and starting a business, running a business, fundraising, etc. What from the Ignite Program did you learn that we can see in your business today?

Barrett Bogue  1:06:18

You need to be able to clearly articulate your value proposition to anybody, that's gonna separate you from your competitors. It's going to differentiate you from your competitors. It's going to help you capture leads. It's going to help you capture clients or customers. It's what you're going to say when you're going to go fundraise. It's when you say we do podcasts like this. It's gonna be a talking point that you use in your interview. And it has to be clear, it has to be articulate, it has to be understood. Evocati is a public relations company that helps military connected clients research market and grow their investment within their community. That's what we do. And that's our value proposition. 

So that's one of the things that I took away from Stanford that I internalized and a great value proposition is worth every penny, and spending time on it is worth it as well. In addition, or I would say a complement to that is, you know, what's the problem that you're trying to solve, right? And how is that different from your competitors? For us at Evocati, we wanna help clients, especially clients who are in underserved or underrepresented communities, research market and grow their impact either within their community or without their community, meaning to the public at large. 

And what we've discovered is all the work that's happening locally, for example, we talk about a historically black college in diversity that's doing really good things for students. That's a very local story. But what we found is there's a national appetite to tell those stories and to amplify them as well. But to answer your question, I think the value proposition is key. And you can't spend enough time thinking about that.

Brock Briggs  1:08:45

Well, I'm from what I know and understand of starting a business, I don't think that you can hope to solve a problem if you aren't intimately connected and understand what's driving that, the stakeholders involved and what a potential solution might look like. Because especially with military related things there. We've been around for so long, there are reasons why things are the way that they are. A lot of rules written in blood. And you really just need to understand the problem. So I think that that's a good thing to walk away with that program. 

Barrett Bogue  1:09:31

Yeah, it requires an effective feedback loop between you and your client or your customers so you're able to respond to their needs. You're absolutely right.

Brock Briggs  1:09:43

I would love for you to kind of walk us down the road of Evocati's value proposition. You've kind of explained and articulated a little bit, but I think that the best way to really understand what you guys do in like the sense of like starting a business wise but then also like as maybe a potential customer. I think it might be helpful if you walked us through the story of you consulting and working with, is that University of Fayetteville? I would love for you to tell us that story. And kind of what was your mindset going through the hole? Just give us the full spiel on the University of Fayetteville.

Barrett Bogue  1:10:30

Yeah, I apologize. It's Fayetteville State University, FSU. As I joke with others, the real FSU. So if you're similar listening right now, I'm not gonna apologize to you. Yeah, it's a really good question. So again, talking about that feedback loop, what we started as was really an kind of consulting, it was built around my own capabilities, right? So a lot of us will start a consulting company. And it's really just talking about the things and subjects that we know about to our clients. And that was in 2018 and 2019 and 2020. 

What I realized was, we had to divide the company into two in order to respond to our client aids, but also to track revenue, and to better track revenue that was coming in. So that's when I created two vertically integrated business lines, Evocati Creative, which is the agency of record and the PR side of the house and Evocati Growth, which is the consulting side. For Evocati Creative, we serve as your agency of record. And I'll talk about what that looks like in a moment. 

For Evocati Growth, that is the consulting side where we would come in on a project by project basis to do some type of research or assessment for your company or for your institution. For example, if a school wanted to be able to recruit more student veterans, they needed to understand how do they compare their parents' situations. Have the opportunity with FSU started was they had a chancellor who came in and he was very forward looking. He understood the value that military connected students provide. And he wanted to be, to take the steps to be a premier institution for all military connected students, not just an HBCU but for all schools and students. 

But he didn't know how his university compared to his peers in North Carolina and across the country. So he contracted with us in Evocati to do an analysis and a report using things like 26 or 20 different variables that showcased where FSU compared to its HBCU peers, as well as its peer institutions within the region. And what we found is that FSU compared favorably, if not exceptional, to all these other institutions in terms of its support for military connected students. And they published that report. And it was very well received. What the chancellor decided based on that report was to increase his institution's investment into military connected students. 

And they came to our company and said, hey, we're gonna make an announcement. And we need a PR firm to help us amplify this to the nation. And I was like, well, I happen to have a PR firm. Let's see what's happening. And they told us and they said, we're going to announce that for any undergraduate military connected students, he or she will be able to attend for free. So no tuition fees. I’m talking about you, Brock. I'm talking about your future kid or your current kid and have you had kids regardless of when you served, right?

Brock Briggs  1:14:42

That's a big offer.

Barrett Bogue  1:14:43

It's a huge offer. So of course on the PR side, we jumped off like we, that is a very easy sell, as we told them like we're not gonna have any trouble getting people interested in that.

Brock Briggs  1:14:56

You're not coming out and saying you're laying off half the staff. 

Barrett Bogue

Right

Brock Briggs

We’re giving free school away.

Barrett Bogue  1:15:02

Yeah. So we pitched it to a very well respected and somebody I admire, a reporter at The Washington Post. And she wrote a great story about FSU about announcing this military connected, it's a military scholarship. I can't quite remember the name of it. And we went down to Fort Bragg. And we've participated in announcing this. And I'm speaking figuratively here. The response to that analysis was so overwhelming that their phone lines melted. What I mean is, you couldn't the phone line was so busy, you couldn't even get through to leave a message because people were so interested in this scholarship. 

And a close colleague at FSU who I've worked with, for a while, she recounted a story to us to our team and we got very emotional listening to this. But she said she had a Vietnam veteran father of three, who had no idea how he was gonna pay for school for his kid. And he heard about this through our work, it must have been through a local story or something. And he called to say, they're gonna go to FSU. And now I know how they're gonna go to school. Thank you for opening up this opportunity. It's really wonderful to be a part of that. And that work continues.

Brock Briggs  1:16:37

How powerful is that! Wow.

Barrett Bogue  1:16:39

Yeah, yeah. So where we're at today, as a company is what I've been able to observe. And looking down the line is we don't see as much opportunity in the consulting world, as we had kind of assumed, and those opportunities are somewhat dependent on the health of America's economy. Okay. Where we do see opportunity is in being an agency of record and engaging in storytelling opportunities for our clients. We think that's going to be the best place and we think that's an opportunity to really disrupt the industry. I'm excited about some things that we're gonna be sharing soon that I can't share here. But if this podcast gets released in August or September, you can go on our website and probably read about it now.

Brock Briggs  1:17:43

How exciting. I'll be watching for those things. Did you raise money for Evocati? Or did you self fund it?

Barrett Bogue  1:17:52

Thanks for asking this question because this is a topic that I've noticed that our community it's not well understood. It's something that I learned a lot about when I was at Stanford. The answer is no. I went in with the idea because I'm a stubborn Marine. I went in with the idea to say, I'm not gonna take on any debt financing. I'm not gonna do any fundraising. But the company has to stand on its own because I don't know, I guess. I felt like I needed the challenge. There's really no compelling reason for it. It was really just to kind of prove the business idea. 

So no, we haven't taken on any debt financing. We haven't borrowed any money to build out the company. We do have a certain revenue mark that we wanna hit before we go and fundraise. And that's certainly something that we are in conversations about today. Where we at as a company is how do we focus on our core value proposition of public relations. And where are the areas that we can diversify revenue streams for the company so that we can weather economic downturns and also grow our client base. 

That being said, there is an incredible ecosystem for military veteran entrepreneurs to fundraise. It's out there. There are VC companies that work exclusively on funding that are in startups. And I plan to tap into them when we're ready to do it. And you will find a community that is very open and willing to whatever pitch that you wanna give as well as connecting you with fundraising opportunities.

Brock Briggs  1:19:55

Do you mind calling some of those out? I'd love to include them in the show notes. 

Barrett Bogue  1:19:59

Yeah, there’s the hydrogen drivers. There's two more. I tell you what Brock, can I email them to you so you can put it in the 

Brock Briggs  

Yeah

Barrett Bogue

The description? 

Brock Briggs  1:20:17

Okay. Yeah, that'd be great. I don't know how much of this you can share. You said that you were profitable in the very first year. Can you maybe walk us through a little bit of the economics of what an agency business does? If you can share revenue numbers, great. If not, what are you trying to do? You say that you're looking to hit a certain milestone. Walk us through kind of some of the economics of the business.

Barrett Bogue  1:20:41

Yeah, so I won't share numbers. But I will say that we're looking at the seven figure range, right? Seven figures and above for revenue. I have found that trying to determine your pricing model where you're in a service industry, for a product industry, you can do it, right? For service industry especially in PR, it varies wildly. And typically, there are different models out there. You can price it basically your service based on an hourly rate, based on the associate level or the employee who works on your PR. There's the retainer model so they pay a fee up front. And then you can use this company anytime. 

And then they'll just shoot you an invoice for however many hours that you are billed. Right now the model that we're doing, which we like is the subscription model, which is all you can eat. From the services that we offer for a monthly fee. And we offer a warranty for our work. We also say that you can cancel for any reason with a 60 day notice. In return, we prefer to have longer term contracts with our clients because that allows us to build out a very good rapport and relationship with them. 

And it just means in the end, we're much more effective for them in telling your story. Tend to the items that we do at Evocati, our services are broken up into different offerings. We have messaging material development, which is the building out your social media, building out your press releases, building out media advisories, etc. There's straight public relations and media engagement. And that's distributing your releases. That is us getting you placed in publications and getting you interviewed by the media where you're intermediary between your company and your organization. 

And the media is advising you on best practices and engaging with the media and in PR. There's a crisis communication component to it. And I'll share an example of that in a moment. Then there's strategic planning and communication and that is in helping you plan out your campaigns and events and looking ahead. And then there's stakeholder partnerships and community engagement, and that's tapping into our network and to the Evocati brand and in helping your company make connections to other companies or organizations that you otherwise wouldn't have had without Evocati. Does that answer the question?

Brock Briggs  1:24:05

I think so. I think that it's good to get a bigger picture of all of the different things that this might encompass. Because when you hear that, like that first line, your value prop statement or whatever, even I the first time I heard it, I was like

Barrett Bogue

Yeah

Brock Briggs

What does that really mean? 

Barrett Bogue  1:24:24

What does that look like?

Brock Briggs  1:24:25

Right. What is the practice of that? But I think that the example that you gave there of there are a lot of organizations that need to be able to communicate with a population of people. That's very, very large. There's a lot of military connected people and you need somebody to do it. PR is not going away.

Barrett Bogue  1:24:53

It's not and so I'll give you, we'll put some numbers to it. So if you were to hire every full time employee that you would need to do what we do at Evocati, you're gonna pay probably 60 grand a month in overhead. And you can get the same level of service at a higher quality from the experts at a fraction of that. So the value proposition is that instead of trying to do it in house, you can work with a firm that will do it for you. So that's the financial value proposition and the money that you're going to save as a business owner, or even as a nonprofit as well.

Brock Briggs  1:25:50

I have two more questions for you today, Barrett. Let's say that Evocati 10x's in the next five years, what will you have done? And you and your team have done to make that happen? What is it gonna take for you to be successful?

Barrett Bogue  1:26:08

Well number one, constantly, inconsistently questioning our value proposition. And whether we're meeting the needs of our customers, we have to be relentlessly focused on that. Number two, to not be afraid to experiment and pivot as a company and responding to those needs. And lastly, that we were able to increase our brand recognition and reputation as a company. I hope if we do 10x in that time that I no longer round, that I'm just, you know, the old figurehead, and I may come in and be annoying or something like that, but that we've hired somebody else who is far more talented than me. And far more visionary than me to take it from 10x to even further at that time. But that person is a values based leader and believes in the mission at Evocati. 

Brock Briggs  1:27:29

My last question. You kind of alluded to this earlier, talking about the ability to have a spouse that was supporting you. And you know, you kind of took the leap of faith to jump off the diving board or cliff or whatever some kind of tall object into the deep end of starting your own business. That may not be right for everybody. I would love to hear who it is right for and maybe who isn’t, coming from a veteran lens.

Barrett Bogue  1:28:05

I've never talked a veteran out of starting a business. I've never talked them out of it. I've encouraged them to do it. And the primary barrier to entry was the lack of knowledge and lack of time. Now what you can fix, okay, you can address that. There are hundreds, if not 1000s of courses that you can take. In fact, Bunker Labs has a really good course that you can take to help formulate your business idea. It's called Launch Lab Online, it's free to enroll. And I actually did that program as well. The time is an interesting thing. 

What I tell military veterans in our community is if you have a great idea, there is nothing lost in working on that idea. As what Todd Connor, the founder of Bunker Labs called as a third shift entrepreneur. And you can do that in your downtime, if it's important enough to you. What I would say is it needs to be an idea that captures your imagination because it's something that you're gonna pour yourself into. I wouldn't say that there are military veterans not cut out for entrepreneurship because in fact, our community is social represented in terms of the number of veterans who own a small business compared to our peers. We do fairly well within the small business landscape. 

I would say that you need to be prepared for the work ahead. And I'm not gonna discourage you from doing it. And I am more than happy to encourage and mentor you through it. But it is going to be a very challenging thing. It is gonna require being honest with yourself and your limitations. And that's something that's hard for me to do. And it's gonna require constant query and questioning and the pressure that you feel as an entrepreneur for being responsible for people and for their well being, you've got to be prepared to handle that. For me, the best way to navigate that is to be a values based leader. 

And you need to understand the value that you will adhere to, and that you're not gonna compromise and all that you do, but especially within your business. So my values are integrity, wisdom, family, teamwork, and empathy. Those are the five things that I don't compromise on. And those are actually the five corporate values of Evocati. So I built a company around my values. And those are the standards that we start with when we talk about working at Evocati and the company. So if you haven't identified what your values are as a leader, I would start there. And then go into start thinking about the problem that you wanna solve, a service that you wanna provide or the product that you have in your head that really excites you. 

It is absolutely possible to do that part time and with the expectation that it can turn into a full time opportunity. So I would encourage anybody who's listening, if you think you don't have what it takes or you have a lot of anxiety, I thought that as well. I still have anxiety over Evocati, and you know, concerned about, are we gonna make it? That is just part of the entrepreneurial journey. And you're going to realize, after you take that dive, when you get down there, you're not alone, like you're not by yourself. And I'm glad I did it. And I'm glad to have the opportunity to talk about it in detail with you, Brock.

Brock Briggs  1:32:09

I really appreciate you coming on and sharing with us today, Barrett. This has been extremely instructive, both historically and modern day context as well. Where can people go to learn more about you, follow along with you, plug any social you want, Evocati?

Barrett Bogue  1:32:26

Yeah, absolutely. If you're out there and you're listening and you have the same problem in your organization in terms of placement, marketing, reach PR social media. If you're that one person who's wearing all those different hats in your company, and you need help just visit evocatillc.com, to learn more about what we do and there's a button to contact us in the top right corner. 

For those of you who wanna talk one on one and you're listening and you can identify with things that I said and you wanna learn a little bit more, you can just find me on LinkedIn. Brock, if you wanna put my link to my profile on LinkedIn, one of those, that's fine as well. Just reach out to me and send me a DM and I'd be happy to connect with you all.

Brock Briggs  1:33:12

Barrett, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Barrett Bogue  1:33:15

My pleasure, Brock. Thank you!