February 25, 2025
Jim Mott, founder of S&J Tube in Wapello, Iowa, evolved from an engineer at International Harvester into a successful entrepreneur who built a thriving manufacturing business that now serves major companies like HON Industries.
In this interview, Jim shares his remarkable journey, the significant challenges he overcame, and the invaluable wisdom he gained through decades of business experience.
Video
Watch the full interview with Jim Mott below.
Key Takeaways
Here is a list of key takeaways from our discussion:
See Problems as Opportunities
Jim identified a supplier issue that others viewed as requiring expensive equipment, but instead developed an innovative, low-cost solution that became the foundation of his business.
Start Small and Bootstrap
Beginning with just $6,000, Jim purchased used equipment at auctions and built his own machinery rather than taking on debt, enabling him to grow sustainably while maintaining control.
Find the Right Partner
The partnership with his wife, Genie, who managed critical business functions while Jim focused on production and technical aspects, proved fundamental to the company’s success.
Build Deeper Customer Relationships
Rather than simply manufacturing to spec, Jim worked to understand each part’s purpose and found ways to improve it, creating win-win situations that benefited both his company and customers.
Seek Mentorship
Established business owners like Stan (COO of H&I) and Larry Emert provided crucial guidance and perspective that helped Jim navigate challenges as a first-time entrepreneur.
Know When to Say No
The 2008 recession taught Jim to eliminate unprofitable work and focus on core strengths, resulting in a leaner but more profitable operation despite having fewer employees.
Plan for Succession
Transitioning leadership to the next generation requires intentionality and patience, as Jim experienced when bringing his children into the business and gradually stepping back from daily operations.
Balance Work and Exploration
Despite working 20-hour days in the early years, Jim eventually developed new interests like aviation that broadened his horizons and connected him with different communities.
Give Back
Jim and his wife prioritize generosity, whether through supporting Samaritan’s Aviation or establishing The M Center for individuals with disabilities, finding fulfillment in using their success to help others.
Follow Your Passion, Not Just Security
Jim encourages young people to look beyond traditional career paths with retirement benefits and instead pursue entrepreneurial opportunities that align with their passions and solve meaningful problems.
Transcript
A full transcript of this interview is available below:
Andrew: Jim, why don’t you tell us what you were doing when you got hired on at Hon Industries? What was your role there?
Jim: I was an engineer at International Harvester, and then they shut down. Okay, and there was nothing; the Quad Cities was dead. I mean, real estate was dead. Yeah, and I saw an ad one day in the paper for a die maker position at Hon in Muscatine, so I came down and got hired. Then I just went from one job to another at Hon. Okay, I ended up in Tennessee as a dual-room supervisor engineer and dual designer for a year, and then I came back and started my business.
Andrew: Okay, I want to ask you more about that, and I know this is kind of weird—we’re chatting with microphones. My hope is we can have roughly the same conversation we would have otherwise. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I do want to ask you about—like cars and flying and things like that—but I think the thing that, as we’ve gotten to talk a few times, is that I wanted to ask you most about is: Jim, where does the energy level come from?
Jim: Oh wow, I used to have a lot of energy, yeah. In the last three or four years, it takes a nosedive. I’m almost—I’ll be 68, okay? But I never got tired when I was younger. I’d work 20 hours a day and just—I don’t sleep hardly at all. That’s one thing.
Andrew: What time do you usually get up in the morning?
Jim: Oh, like this morning, I was up at 2:00. I used to get up between 2:00 and 4:00.
Andrew: What time do you go to bed then?
Jim: If it’s 10:00 or 11:00, okay, but for years I’d sleep about—I used to get up at 2:00 after going to bed at 11:00 every day. It’s just crazy.
Andrew: So how do you do that?
Jim: I don’t know. I just don’t need a lot of sleep. I know a lot of people say you need eight hours’ sleep—I could sleep eight hours if I wanted to, but if I get four or five, I’m pretty excited.
Andrew: Do you have to guard your energy level? Are there things that drain it?
Jim: You know, the older you get, it drains it, but when I was younger, I was never really tired. A lot of things were exhausting—work was exhausting—but it was exhilarating at the same time, yeah.
Andrew: Well, part of what I’m—yeah, I’ve wanted to get to know you for a while just to hear your story and stuff. And then I’ve also felt like there are a lot of people in this area who do interesting things, have created interesting businesses, and I don’t know that a lot of people know their stories or that we’ve talked about it a whole lot. So I feel like if we can share some of those stories, both because it’s interesting and also to inspire another generation of people—
Jim: Yeah, yeah, when I was younger, I’d always talk to kids about starting their own businesses and things—what’s their passion, you know? But so many people don’t even—it’s not even on their radar to start a business or do something like that. I talk to young kids, and I’m like, “They’re going to go to work at the Arsenal.” I’m like, “Why?” “Well, they have a good retirement program.” Okay, so you’re going to base your life off a retirement program and go to work every day and just do some boring job that doesn’t inspire you because of insurance or retirement? To me, that’s crazy.
Andrew: So when you were working at Hon, had you run businesses before? I’m really curious—what was the opportunity you saw, and what made you willing to leave the W-2 job and start your own?
Jim: Well, I’d never—I’veend always been a risk-taker, and I was a dreamer. That’s why I was horrible in school—I just couldn’t sit and do normal things, like sit in a goofy chair and desk for hours at a time. But even at Hon, I was really good with tooling and thinking outside the box, doing it a different way. When I was an engineer there, you did things the way you normally do—you didn’t build a machine you didn’t know if it was going to work or not. You didn’t build a machine with a 50% chance it’s going to work because you had production—you know, production’s got to start. So you did everything conservatively. Not too many engineers are dreamers—some are, but most are by the book. Every time I’d want to do something, I’d kind of get throttled. They’d let me do it eventually, but we were having problems with a supplier in Michigan—quality problems, delivery problems. Their machine hit 100% capacity, and once it’s at 100%, it was about a million-and-a-half-dollar machine to get one more percent capacity, and the lead time was almost a year. So I came up with a way to make incremental capacity—15% capacity—in an area the size of this right here. I proposed it to them, and the tooling and machine had no cost, so they turned it down the first time. Then I moved up—we bought All-Steel in Tennessee. I moved to Tennessee, met Eric Baston—became best friends down there ‘cause he had unlimited energy. Wow, he’s got more energy than anybody I’ve ever met.
Andrew: That’s saying something, because you have more energy than most people I’ve ever met.
Jim: Well, me and him, we worked and worked and worked. We’d do RCIs down there and sleep on some cardboard. It was a lot of fun because we fed off each other’s energy. After being down there six months, Tom Hart called me and said, “Hey, you still want to do that tubing thing?” And I’m like, “Oh, I loved it.” I loved Tennessee—the people were unbelievable, I loved my job—and then I said, “Okay,” and I came back. My wife was still living down there with my two kids. She said I didn’t even explain what I was going to do, but I came back, lived in a camper, and started my business.
Andrew: So what year was that then?
Jim: Oh my gosh, ’98, okay? So when I started designing some of the tooling down there—not knowing if it was going to work—and I came back here, built the tooling, and it didn’t work. So then all that means is you’ve got to figure out how to change it to make it work. I would design the tooling, I would build it myself, I would go buy the machines or build machines, run the production, and drive it up to All-Steel.
Andrew: What was your first product?
Jim: It was a consensus top where they were building about 14,000 consensus panels a week. So I built one cell, and then I’d build another cell and another cell, and then we slowly took over the tops and the bottoms, and I took over the whole frame of the office panel.
Andrew: And there were times you were overwhelmed, though?
Jim: I’d go to a meeting, they’d say they wanted me to hit this production level at a certain date, and walking out of that meeting, I’d be just overwhelmed because there’s no way I could build that much tooling, hire the people. They were always behind on their dates, which helped a lot—that gave me some leeway. Otherwise, if they were hard-set dates, there’s no way I could’ve done all that work.
Andrew: I can imagine that. To really get the whole story, we should have Genie here.
Jim: She was oblivious to everything. I don’t remember—I said I didn’t tell her I was going to do it. Maybe because she was a medical technologist—she was working in laboratories and hospitals—and I just called her one day and said, “Hey, you’ve got to get up here.” I said, “I need help.” She said, “How are we going to pay our bills?” I said, “I don’t know, and I don’t have time to worry about paying bills.” So then she moved back up here and went to work with me.
Andrew: So where were there points, or how long was it in those early days—was there a point where you knew it was going to work? Was that immediate, or how long did it take?
Jim: I knew it was going to work, but it was working out all the kinks. I’d never run a business before—took an Econ class one and two at St. Ambrose at night, didn’t know anything about running a business, really. It was a God thing, because if somebody told you all the things you have to do to start a manufacturing company—you’ve got to have OSHA, bloodborne pathogens, all these—you wouldn’t do it. The average person would look at that list and say, “There’s no way.” Not knowing was an advantage to me because I was too dumb to know.
Andrew: Was that an advantage to you?
Jim: Yeah, my wife was really good—she did all the policies and procedures, all the OSHA stuff that I would never even mess with. I remember the first time OSHA came in—it’s always a disgruntled worker that turns you in—and this person was taking OSHA classes at MCC, so he knew enough to report us. They came in, and they were no joking—they wanted to see all our procedures for bloodborne pathogens. My wife had everything out, and once they saw it was all in order, they kind of put their guard down. With her credentials and background, she knew what she was doing. They said if they walk into a place and everything’s a disaster, usually the paperwork’s a disaster too. We always kept our places clean, tidy, well-kept, so they could tell just by walking in. Without my wife, I couldn’t have—I probably would’ve fallen apart at some point.
Andrew: How many people were in the business by the time she came up here?
Jim: Just me and her at that point. She drove a straight truck to Hon all the time—I mean, she worked night and day. We didn’t have a covered dock—we were renting a space from the Louisa County transfer station. They had an old building with a dock, but it wasn’t covered. So at night, it’d be raining, and we’d wake up in the middle of the night—if it wasn’t raining, we’d jump in our car and go load a truck. That was the window we saw.
Andrew: What was your financial situation when you started? Before you started that, was it—
Jim: It wasn’t good, no. Like everybody else, I had a mortgage. I started my business with 6,000 bucks—mostly for capital or equipment. I’d go to auctions and buy equipment—I bought a press one day on a Saturday for 25 bucks at an auction, a 5-ton brake press, punch press. I brought it back with a die, and it probably paid for itself in the first 45 minutes I was running it. I never bought new equipment—I always just built it. I built a paint line from scratch. Mostly because Stan was a good friend of mine at the time, and he pushed me. I thought, “I know a lot more about tooling than you do, Stan—you might be the CEO of Hon, but—” He pushed me on a paint line. I was going to buy one—it was 4 million dollars and took up a whole building. I ended up building one for $40,000 from scratch. I knew nothing about it—people said, “Well, you can’t do that.” I bought water heaters from Lowe’s to heat the water. The other paint line was $250,000 plus $40,000 to install it, so I built this for 40 grand. Since then, I’ve built three more paint lines. Not spending money on capital—too many people go get a loan, and they don’t understand how precious that asset is. They’ll buy things they don’t need. I really kept a good handle on the expenses—initially built everything. I’d buy something that was junk and rebuild it. The first brake press I got was at an auction in a gas station in East Moline, Illinois—it was in the basement, and they had a jack on it to hold the floor up. That’s what they were using it for—I don’t think anybody knew what it was. I brought it back and ran that for probably 10 years—refurbed it, new bearings, clutch, painted it up, and it looked brand new. I paid 100 bucks for that—otherwise, a new one’s $20,000.
Andrew: So what did you—what was the opportunity that you saw? Did you see something that no one else was seeing, or was it just that no one else was willing to go for it?
Jim: Yeah, ‘cause everybody knew this company was struggling with delivery, quality, capacity. I’d just thought, “I can—it’s time.” I was doing a lot of Kaizen, you know, RCI—I went to Ohio on the first team that ever went out there. I was on that first team, and I knew tooling already, so I just knew one-piece flow and all that kind of stuff. The two went together, and I thought, “I can—I don’t need a million-dollar machine that only runs one part, say a 36-inch part at a time.” With myself, I could run five different length parts at the same time with no changeover. Most people weren’t willing to take the risk. Unless you knew how to design tooling, you couldn’t just go buy the tooling—it’d cost so much money, it’d be crazy. I had a lot of friends that were way smarter than me—a lot of people are way smarter than me—but they’re not risk-takers. I lived in a camper—I moved from Tennessee up here not knowing when I was going to get a paycheck.
Andrew: So how long did it take before—or was there a point then where you felt like the income was clearly a win over just staying in the job?
Jim: It’s weird, though, because probably the first three or four or five years, money wasn’t even—you want all you thought about was delivering product and taking on new parts. So money wasn’t even an issue. It probably took—I was blessed—maybe six months before I started making money. Actually, Hon asked me to come and work at night at Hon after I’d started—come back and it worked out perfect ‘cause my old boss—I would drive the truck and drop parts off, and then I’d actually work in the tool room four hours a night under contract. I made decent money there too, and then I did that probably for about six months ‘til I could start paying myself.
Andrew: So it sounds like it was pretty quickly the business did start carrying?
Jim: Because I couldn’t borrow money at the beginning without a proven track record. The banker in Wapello—I went to him, and because I knew what the volume was, I knew what my part cost was, and I knew the selling price—pretty cut and dried, you know—he said no. He said, “I got a lot of people come in here with dreams,” and he turned me down. I still rib him to this day because another friend of mine went into banking—he was president at the Iowa State Bank—and he called me up and said he was willing to take a chance with me when I was putting up buildings and inventory. That’s the hardest part—the first few years, we put up building after building after building—addition after addition—and then you need equipment, you need inventory. It’s like all the money you make, you’re paying taxes and growing.
Andrew: So who were your first hires? It was you and your wife, and then what was the first guy that walked in?
Jim: The first guy that walked in my door was from Mount Pleasant, Iowa—70-some years old and just wanted to help. Didn’t know how he found out about us, and the funny part was he was a Christian on fire for the Lord, which—I grew up Catholic, so I knew nothing about this. I ended up going to his church, got saved, and I couldn’t pay him probably for three months. He drove 60 miles a day and worked for free. Then when I was sleeping in that camper, a lot of times I’d say, “Hey, want to spend the night?” and he would spend the night. I’d come back from Hon at midnight, and then we’d talk and stuff. That was another God thing—he retired and was just willing to—he wanted to see it. Somehow he heard about me and just wanted to help. Bob Kennedy—and then his son was a truck driver for me for 15 years probably.
Andrew: What a—I mean, that’s not a coincidence. So how long had you been in business—what were your first non-production hires?
Jim: My sister-in-law—she’s actually going to retire next month. She’s been with me 25 years. We hired her as an accountant, and then we just started hiring production people. That was probably two or three years before we’d hire a production supervisor, because me and my wife did everything. She was HR, she was safety, she was supervisor—and I was mostly building and designing tooling. Hired a guy part-time to work in the tool room to help me with tooling, because that was a huge need at the time—I couldn’t keep up building tooling. When you’re in business, you just take on job after job after job—that’s what you think you’re there for. You basically say yes to whatever people ask.
Andrew: Then once it—once a floodgate started, was that just for other companies as well, or was it all at Hon at the time?
Jim: All at Hon at the time, because they’re so big. Years later, I took on work for Case and John Deere and stuff. Stan told me, “How long does it take to build a relationship?” I said, “Years and years and years.” I can call Hon and say, “Hey, I don’t like this tolerance—here’s a better way to do it,” and they’ll work with you on it. You call John Deere and say, “Hey, I want to change this tolerance,” and that engineer has nothing to gain, so they say no all the time—it’s like a gauntlet. After a while, after I’d reigned in some parts for Hon and took out a bunch more jobs from that company in Michigan, I just called these companies up and said, “Hey, come get your stuff—I’m done. You didn’t renew with me.” Even with Case, making three or four parts for them a day—they make 60 backhoes a day, so you’re talking 180 parts—I redesigned a part for Hon that turned out to be 4,000 to 6,000 parts a day. Smaller, but much higher volume.
Andrew: What about today? What is your business—where’s it going from here?
Jim: Good question. We’re starting to—we do a lot of new work for Hon. I mean, we just took on more work just last week. But we’re working with other companies on trying to figure out what else to—it’s got to be the right fit, you know. Back when I used to take every job there ever was—15 years ago, I had 250 people working for me. Now I have just over 100. But like in ’08, when we hit the first recession, I found out I’m done doing all this work once you get in the books and everything and making no money. So I got rid of a bunch of jobs—some were other companies—got rid of all that stuff that you’re making no money on. Then you become leaner and more profitable by not doing—you’re running around doing work and making no money and just taking up your time and your capacity for other stuff. That was the best thing that happened to me, was that recession—because you figured out where the profit was and streamlined. I got to a point where I don’t have to do every job that people ask me. I met with another company that Hon wants to expand with, and he said, “My dad would roll over in his grave ‘cause I said Hon really—” They’re in Bona, Iowa—Riverside Plastics—get rid of all those 30 suppliers that you’re doing 20% a year with and take on more Hon work. He said, “My dad would roll over in his grave if I gave back work,” because his dad started the business like I did. That’s your mindset—I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do all these jobs—you couldn’t do it. So you’ve got 30 customers that you’re trying to please when you can have one customer that you could do excellent work for. You can get 10 customers you don’t know intimately—you’re just—and my biggest thing, I’m telling Andy and Mike and my daughter, “You get a print from somebody, I don’t want to just make something—I want to know why, what it does, how to make it better, how to take cost out of it, make it a win-win.” You can do that because the user or the next part of assembly is just a little driveway or 30-minute driveway away—and you know what the part does. Once you know what the part does, a lot of companies just make a part, send you a print, it’s got all these tolerances on it that are way too tight, and so you quote it, you send them a part, and you have no relationship with them other than a transaction. When you know the customer and what the part does, I know, “Geez, I can do this—I can make a $15 part and make it for $8, and you save two or three, I save two or three—it’s a win-win.”
Andrew: So are you still in the factory every day or every week?
Jim: Unless I’m gone, I’m there every day. It’s weird now, though—it’s like raising a child. The first 10 years, we were there night and day, and then all of a sudden it’s like raising your kid—starts to become independent at 9 or 10 or 11, and then they become 25 years old, and they don’t even really want you. You still think your company’s like a baby—it’s just a life transition through life that’s different and awkward. I go to meetings now—we have an 8:00 production meeting every morning—and there’s some days it’s like, “They’re doing things I was never good at.” My daughter loves spreadsheets—she’s always figuring—we deliver, I think, 20,000 pieces a day, and then we track every time we send the wrong part, because we send them up in buckets by sizes, by their exact production order. They’re scheduled exactly—we roll a cart on, and they take them off, and it runs right down there. Last month, we sent like 43 wrong—like the wrong size, the wrong width—so 43 out of over a quarter million parts. She tracks all that kind of stuff, and we—years ago, me and my wife, we never tracked anything like that. Part of the continuous improvement process.
Andrew: Who are the—so it’s your daughter and son that are in the main leadership now?
Jim: They worked for me probably 12 years full-time. My daughter ran a garden center for 10 years because her passion was floriculture. Never dreamed my kids would—I don’t know, they were six, seven, eight when we started the business, so the last thing you ever dream about is your kids working for you. My son never wanted to live in Wapello—that was a different phase of life too. When your kids do want to take over, you let them get involved, ‘cause it’s a struggle—a family business struggle for them to learn the business, for you to let go of it, both for them to—and then it makes Thanksgiving—for years, it was brutal. There’s times my wife says, “I wish we had sold the business,” because you have a different relationship with your kids when they work for you during the week and then on the weekend you have Sunday dinner—it’s just—and we’ve gotten through that fairly well, but it’s a struggle you never dreamed of when you started your business and had everything laid out. You never think you’d have problems with your kids being in the business, and that’s another relationship you have to manage. But it’s always, like I tell everybody, it hasn’t always been fun, but it’s always been good. Most people can’t stay married with their wife for—my wife’s birthday’s today, she’s 65, and we’ve been married going on 44 years, and worked side by side in a business. I’ve got friends who are like, “Well, me and my wife work—” and I’m like, “Yeah, and you work in two different places. You’re not making payroll every week, you’re not firing somebody that your wife likes.” It’s been a God thing—you’ve made decisions side by side for decades, and you go home at night. I’m pretty good at leaving work at home at night, but my wife’s not—so you get home, and she’s mad about something at work, and I’m like, “Hey, we’re at home,” so it carries over.
Andrew: Looking back, do you think that living in—or being in the Midwest here, was that an advantage or a hindrance to your success?
Jim: I’ve never been asked that question before. I think it’s probably been an advantage. One thing, like I said, I’m 30 miles from Hon, and at the time, I knew I wanted to make multiple deliveries because, at the same time, Michigan would get big snows, and their trucks couldn’t come in. So I thought, “Well, I want to make multiple deliveries a day.” Never dreamed I’d be making drop shipping every two hours to their schedule—eight trucks a day. So just being in the Midwest, since Hon was here, was a huge advantage. There’s always availability of a workforce—25 years ago, I mean, I had a lot of retired farmers that were really good workers working for me. They loved it—they’re like, “I get a check every week.” Most of them farmed all their life, went through a lot of lean years, and one guy that worked with me for years, he just loved it. He said, “This is great—I come in, I get to talk to people, the work’s not that hard physically when you’ve farmed most of your life, and I get paid every Friday.” Slowly over time, that workforce has diminished.
Andrew: Is it harder today to find—
Jim: Oh yeah, it’s a lot harder, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve gone from 250 to 100. We’re using a lot more technology to replace people where we have to. That whole farmer thing—it’s like anything—farmers used to have eight or nine kids, and now one or two farmers can farm a couple thousand acres, so they’re just not out there.
Andrew: Do you find—people talk all the time about younger generations, which I don’t really believe human nature changes that much—we always complain about the younger generation—do you feel like the youngest workers right now are different?
Jim: For the most part, I think they are, but for me, the exciting part—I tell my people all the time, “Look, people are going to come and go—that’s just the way it is.” But every one out of every ten, when you find somebody that’s a really good worker, that’s rewarding—to hire somebody and look at them and say—I can use it if I go through the training center or whatever, and in two seconds, I can tell if that person’s going to be a worker or not. I’ll tell people, “That guy’s going to—” just from a brief interaction with them, how attentive they are and just the way they walk through the shop on orientation. I love it when we hire somebody, and it turns out they flourish. Years ago, my biggest thing was taking people that worked for me in production and putting them into growing into management—into supervisors, into plant managers—jobs that they never thought they could do because they didn’t have a degree or they just didn’t have any skills. So we’re doing more hiring outside now—like we hired Andy Chelf, Clint Finley works for us, my nephew Jake Freeman—so we filled, which I think has worked out well. When I was doing it, I hired mostly from within, and they would get to the point—the Peter Principle—where they just got to the point where they were incompetent, promoted to the level of their capacity. My kids ask me all the time, and I’m like, “That’s just how we did it back then.” It worked well—they weren’t at the perfect level, but that was one thing I always liked doing—promoting people from within.
Andrew: What got you into airplanes?
Jim: Well, I had motion sickness my whole life—every time I’d be in a car, I’d throw up. Couldn’t go on a ride. I got to know Stan mostly through my son—his son and my son were good friends. I moved a plane for him one day down from Mount Pleasant to Cedar Rapids—it was an RV in pieces, so I put it on a trailer, made a special bracket, and my wife drove the wings in a straight truck and moved it up there. The guy that taught him how to fly, Steve Hale, said, “You’d make a good pilot—you should try it sometime.” So I went up, got sick—didn’t throw up, but it was hot, it was winter, I had my coat on, the heater was cranking, and I got green about halfway through. On the way home, I told my wife, “Well, I guess I’m not going to be a pilot.” Then my son-in-law’s brother’s a pilot—worked for the University of Dubuque as an instructor. He said, “Well, I threw up the first five times I flew, and they said if you don’t stop, you’re going to have to find a different major.” He said it just went away. So I’d go up two or three more times, and it just went away. Ended up getting my license—I mean, it’s the last thing I ever thought I’d do. Growing up, my dad was a tool and die maker at International Harvester—we never had any extra money, didn’t know anybody that flew.
Andrew: Has flying opened doors for you in ways that wouldn’t have ordinarily opened?
Jim: Mostly through—we’re involved in Samaritan’s Aviation in Papua New Guinea. I’ve been over there two or three times with Stan—going to a big 25-year anniversary in California in a couple weeks. Me and Stan would fly around—we’re up to four planes now. Every time we buy a float plane over here, it’s got to get new interior, paint, avionics. We’d go to Baldy, Texas, to get a Robinson stall kit. Me and Stan would fly all around—I’d fly chase with him around, we’d pick it up, take it from here to there. Helping fly in Papua New Guinea—it’s been pretty amazing, a 700-mile-long river.
Andrew: What’s the work that organization does?
Jim: Air ambulance. We’re talking tribes—most of them have never seen a plane, never been to a city. They live along this river—700 miles, up to four days in a canoe to get to one hospital. Most people just say, “I’ll just die here.” Snake bite victims all the time—they just die because—so we just opened up another outpost. That’s probably the biggest thing that’s got me into that whole thing of flying. It set you up with a whole new set of friends—like Stacy Lewis was just here this weekend. He owned all the funeral homes—he flies. All of a sudden, all your friends fly—it’s weird how they all just—
Andrew: Why’d they say you’d be a good pilot?
Jim: I think he just said, “You look like a pilot.” I was pretty fit when I was younger. But I’m not the greatest pilot—my OCD, inattentiveness, and detail is not my strength. It takes attention to detail—you have to be a hands-on person, not just a book learner—but the planes sort of fly themselves. It’s the plotting and planning and decision-making. I’m pretty mechanical, so—but I’m a decent pilot, not a great pilot.
Andrew: Scary stories?
Jim: Oh yeah, everybody does. Especially when you’re first learning how to fly—you don’t get on that right rudder, and you’re slowly drifting off the runway to the left, and you’re just about in a cornfield in Mount Pleasant. I pulled it up just as I hit the corn—then you don’t fly for two weeks because you’re scared to death. Almost every pilot has those experiences where you do something really dumb. Our friend from Papua New Guinea—their daughter got married in Terre Haute, Indiana—that’s where Stan moved to. He lives a mile from the airport. It was a big air show that weekend—the guys are excited ‘cause there’s an air show, the women are mad because airplanes are flying around all day long. We got ready to leave that Sunday, and I took off—I knew the weather was not great. I told Stan probably 50/50. He’s always mad because he got me into flying—he said, “If you ever kill yourself flying, I’ll never forgive myself.” I took off and hit some weather I could not get around. My wife’s a pretty nervous flyer—I got back on the ground, but I called because they shut it down at—I think it was 10:00 for the air show—it was about four minutes ‘til, and I said, “Hey, can I come back and land?” If they said no, I’d have had to find another airport. I got back, acting like nothing’s going on, and my wife knows this is not good. I was trying to snake through a bunch of thunderstorms—it was way worse than I thought it was going to be. I’m usually pretty good on not going when it’s bad, but sometimes you get up there, and it’s just not as good as it looks.
Andrew: So you had to turn around and go back?
Jim: Yeah, but I hate to do it with my wife because it just makes her more nervous the next time. We both fly to Colorado, and there’s three passes I have to go through—they’re like almost 15,000 feet—and she’s not excited about flying through the mountains when you’re looking over and the mountains are right here—you’re not any higher than them, you’re below them.
Andrew: Do your kids fly too?
Jim: No, my son—he’s asked about it a few times, but I never wanted him to fly. He’s a lot like me—not attention to detail. I’d be worried to death—it’s so dangerous by nature, you have to be that careful. He’s married, got two or three kids—it’s like, “You don’t really need to fly.” I used to fly a lot more for work when I had suppliers out in Ohio, Michigan, all around, and as we slowly brought that work in-house, I don’t fly for work near as much as I used to. It did serve me well for work—going to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana—but it was just another fluke that I even got involved in that.
Andrew: What about cars? You’ve got a habit now—
Jim: I don’t know why I always liked cars. Growing up, my dad never had a new car—he always had junk cars that we worked on all the time. One night, my dad—we changed an engine. We had a hoist in his garage so we could drive to work the next day—that’s being diligent. Growing up poor, I always thought, “Man, if I could just have one nice car—like a Barracuda, a Charger.” In high school, I remember looking at a purple one—it was $3,200. It might as well have been $320,000—$3,200 at that time was—I couldn’t afford it. When I was younger, I had Porsches and Corvettes—I had a 914 and a 911, a ’69 Corvette, and a ’72.
Andrew: Would you say younger—after your business was fairly well established?
Jim: Oh yeah—or even younger than that, when I was on my apprenticeship as a tool and die maker.
Andrew: What kind of Porsches did you have?
Jim: Just a 914 and a 911—had a ’69 Corvette and a ’72. All young men are enthralled by cars—
Andrew: Why is that?
Jim: I don’t know, but I don’t think it is anymore, though—is it?
Andrew: Maybe it’s changing—maybe there are a lot of people that aren’t as motivated to have—
Jim: I don’t know any kids now that really know anything about cars. Part of it is, what do you do on a car? You can’t just pull the engine now or pull the heads off and get your head reground and grind your valves—it’s kind of weird. They’re becoming like appliances—they don’t know anything, have no idea how they work. We were always changing brakes and alternators—water pumps were always going out in cars back then. Now they just last—it’s wild. Even in the ’80s, maybe into the ’90s, the question in the wintertime was, “Is the car going to start?” We don’t have that anymore over the last 20, 30 years. In the ’70s, on my apprenticeship—boy, on a cold day, there was a good chance your car wasn’t going to start. It wasn’t like it was an old car with something wrong with it—cars just didn’t run the same way. They broke down all the time—always changing water pumps, the seal would go out. Everything’s just so much better nowadays. In my old Corvettes, with disc brakes, there were four seals on each—so 16 seals on the brakes—and there was always one or two leaking all the time. You tear it apart, put a new seal in—and you could put a new seal in, and it’d just leak. I’m guessing the bore sizes were probably a little bit different, and the material in the seals wasn’t near as good as they are nowadays. Nowadays, you put in windshield wiper fluid, and that’s about it.
Andrew: That is wild. Do you love technology in cars?
Jim: I do—that’s what I really like. Like the C8 Corvettes—I love looking at old cars like Corvettes, but to drive them, they’re rough, they’re noisy—it’s just an analog experience. To look at them, they’re great, but once you drive them—I’ve got a ’39 Chevy that was my great-grandpa’s. In junior high and high school, me and my dad tore apart every bolt off it—took the fenders off, did everything. We broke probably three-quarters of the bolts out, so I’m up there with a drill and a tap taking them out. Had it all repainted, and then 20, 30 years later, my kids have no interest in it ‘cause it’s got mohair interior, it’s 45 miles an hour, you’re all over the road. So I retro-modded it—put a Corvette chassis underneath it, supercharged it, electric everything, electric air conditioning—but now there’s nothing I can do on it. It’s kind of a love-hate thing now—I kind of wish I’d left it stock. The first time, I had to call my dad—I said, “Dad, I haven’t tuned a car—I don’t remember how to do it.” You set your points, set the dwell, and all that—he’s got all the tools. He just passed away about a year ago—went through his house a few months ago, and all these things are in boxes in his toolbox. I’m like, “Who’s ever going to use this again?” I ended up throwing them away, and I felt bad. My brother’s like, “We can’t throw them away.” I’m like, “You’ve got this timing light—we’re never going to use it.” I just remember all the years—you get down there, mark a chalk, set the timing, hang out with three or four of your friends working on a car on a Saturday—all that’s gone. I guess there’s video games now.
Andrew: My first car was a 1970—or ’72—Fiat Spider, the 124. You’re always changing a water pump or something, but it’s an analog car—you get in, and I never got good at that, but at least I’d know where to dial in the carb a little bit—let’s run a little better there. My brother and I would go down the road—he’d run the brakes, you step on the brake and it veers, use the handbrake—it was a multi-person job. You get going 70, and the thing’s shaking all over the place—it’s like you feel you’re going 170 in that little car.
Jim: It’s like farmers—every kid was a farmer back then. They had a Lincoln buzz box in their shed, and they could weld. Something broke on your tractor, and you welded it. Nowadays, the tractors are so big, you don’t weld anything—they’re technology machines. Somebody comes out, puts a new part on it—that whole thing’s gone.
Andrew: What do you think of ChatGPT and—talking about technology?
Jim: I know nothing about that. The other day, I was on a committee for a leadership board, and Brett Miller came up with some things—he said he just typed it in, and it spit it out. I’m like—I know nothing about it other than it’s going to be huge. The world’s going to change. I forget—every so many years, exponentially, we gain more and more knowledge, and it’s just getting faster and faster and faster. I think that’ll just—it’ll—the world’s going to be so much different 20 years from now. It gets faster—even the AI things we have access to a year ago were functional, you could do things with it, and now it’s natural language, the IQ level is just in front of us—when it can learn, teach itself—it’s going to be—there’s no stopping it. They don’t get tired—they can work 24/7, seven days a week. Luckily, by then, I think I’ll be an old enough dinosaur that it’ll affect my life differently.
Andrew: Would you—was there a point that you started finding yourself thinking about legacy or—maybe you haven’t—is that something you think about?
Jim: Just in the last year or two, probably—which, for my wife, it was about three or four years ago. It was brutal because she wanted out of the business so she could have more free time, but yet when she didn’t know what was going on, it bothered her. She was stuck in the middle, and I watched her go through it. She’s about 90% through it now—I think I’m about 75% through it—because, like I said, I’ll go to an 8:00 meeting, and they’ll be talking about all these things, and they don’t even need me. One day, somebody asked me about it—my son and daughter were in a thing—and I said, “Mike, do you like it when I’m there at work or not?” He said, “When you’re not.” I asked my daughter, and she said, “I like it when we need you.” It’s just weird ‘cause all of a sudden, I’m not important like I used to be—I’m not making every important decision at work like I used to. I’ve got a group—a team—that does it, and they’re pretty good at it. It’s a weird thing.
Andrew: What does that feel like?
Jim: It feels like you’re on the tail end of your life. I’ve watched friends that ran businesses, and they want to stay relevant. One of them’s in his 80s, and his biggest thing—he’s always got to tell you what he’s working on, because without that, it’s like his purpose is gone. In a way, it’s kind of sad.
Andrew: What would you say is your purpose?
Jim: Well, like I said, I was always great at coming up with new ways to make a part—like I took this gluing operation or welding operation—they would spot-weld these two parts together, two different thicknesses. The part would end up bent, stood on it, and then they’d handle it with fabric. I came up with a gluing operation and these automated welders—about three or four years ago—that just—they’re 110 MillerMatic welders off the shelf, but I made these machines that are just unbelievable. I always want to come up with what’s my next big thing. I keep telling my wife, “I just want one more big thing, and then I’ll be—” and she’s like, “Oh, there’ll always be another one.” I just have—I think I’m at the end of that.
Andrew: In the interest of inspiring another generation, is there something you tell people when they come to you and say, “Hey, I’m thinking about this business,” or “I want to do this idea that gets me excited”?
Jim: Part of it is technology—a lot of it’s in technology now, which has passed me by a long time ago. Anything like computers, I can be of no help. I’m finding out there’s not a lot of manufacturing companies opening up, which I still think there’s a place for in the United States. Just telling them that they can do it—to dream and—just in their mind—I call these entrepreneur classes—they have them in different places. It gets me excited. They had one at Calvary not too long ago—maybe it was homeschooling, I think it was—my wife ended up buying a bunch of stuff that the Finleys made. It was pretty ingenious, neat stuff that the kids made and sold. The idea was to do something entrepreneurial—make something that people want, figure out what it costs, figure out what you can sell it for. Anything like that, I get excited about with young kids, ‘cause most of them don’t think that way. You’re taught, “You go to college—why do I go to college? So you can get a good job. Why do I want a good job? So you can afford a house, work 30 years at a place, and retire.” That doesn’t get me excited.
Andrew: So you say, “Go for it”?
Jim: Go find something you’ve got a passion for and learn it. So many kids that are 19, 20—they want to have a business, they want to be rich—and it’s like, no matter what you do—whether you’re a fireman, a farmer, whatever industry you’re in—look for something, a problem that needs to be solved. No matter what you do, you know something about it more than the average person. Find out, “How do I solve a problem that a lot of people don’t even know there’s a problem?” It takes years—I was 40 years old before I started my business, which—if I was 30, there’s no way I knew enough about anything to do it.
Andrew: So that much life experience was the time that worked for you?
Jim: If I’d seen that opportunity earlier, I wouldn’t have seen it—wouldn’t have known how to fix it, wouldn’t have even had the entrepreneurial drive to do it. I wasn’t around that—my dad worked 30 years at International Harvester. All he knew was tool and die maker—he was no risk-taker. His life was pretty—he never traveled out of—took him on a bear hunting trip to Canada once, only time he’s out of the United States—lived in the same house for over 60 years. It was just get up and go to work—very smart guy, though, but just not a risk-taker. Worked on cars all the time, and I just knew—I grew up in Bettendorf—I had a lot of friends whose parents were fairly well-off, and they all had their own businesses. Their parents—one had a dairy, one had WT Grant Realty in Bettendorf, which at the time was ahead of the market on real estate in Bettendorf—and I just knew enough that it’s like, “Wow, all these—” and they lived in nicer houses. I grew up in the slums of Bettendorf—so I knew that at some point I wanted to start a business.
Andrew: You had that in the back of your mind basically from early on?
Jim: My mom never worked—she had no skills—and I just knew that my friends where the mom worked, had skills—their lifestyle, their standard of living was a whole lot higher than my dad’s one income with three kids—four kids. I always said that was the best thing my dad ever taught me—to at least marry somebody that had skills, that wanted to work. My mom never graduated from high school because my dad was in the Marines in Barstow, California—drove all the way back here on a leave, got married at a justice of the peace. My grandma at the time—I didn’t know it for years and years—she lived behind us, but she never liked my dad—never liked my dad at all. One day, I said, “Dad, I understand after Mommy passed away—why doesn’t Grandma ever like you?” I think he was four years older than my mom. She said my grandma told her, “The first time I ever met your dad, he was standing at our porch, knocked on the door—he had his Marine outfit on with a cigarette in his mouth, sunglasses on.” My dad’s a big guy, and he said my grandma said, “Oh man, why don’t you just get out of here?” So they get married—she’s a senior in high school—go back to Barstow, California. She doesn’t graduate from high school—all of a sudden, your daughter’s gone. Could you imagine nowadays—my daughter—that would feel pretty—come home and some guy’s going to—they’re going to go get married, and she’s not even going to finish high school. That had a big effect on me—just being not dirt-poor, but never having much.
Andrew: You had the work ethic and the ideas to get out of that?
Jim: Change my family tree, you know. The best thing that probably came out of it too is I’ve always been a giving person—my wife, we just love to give to a lot of different—you know, so that’s a big thing for making money too, being involved in a lot of charitable contributions and organizations.
Andrew: Are there any that are particularly important to you?
Jim: Cystic Fibrosis—I’ve got a granddaughter that’s got CF—which I didn’t know what it was—I had no idea. You hear about all these things, but you don’t know what they are—so we’re involved pretty heavy in that. FCA—Fellowship of Christian Athletes—I started it down in Wapello 15 years ago. I opened a gym for 20 years on a Sunday night for the high school kids and any kids that wanted to play basketball. Then I got with Dan Pearson—used to be on Channel 6 news—and just week after week—one night, I came home and told my wife, “I’m done—I can’t take this anymore.” The kids were a bunch of knuckleheads—I’d have a meeting with adults, and like one principal would show up. Now Josh Elzer—he’s the area rep—he was a deputy sheriff for 20 years—he’s in charge of the whole area now. We have 40 kids from Wapello going to FCA—so that’s pretty exciting—take them to camp every year.
Andrew: Did you go to Wapello—was that—were you living there, or was that a business decision to find space there?
Jim: Well, I grew up in Bettendorf, and then I just knew I wanted to be within a 30-mile radius. I was actually designing tooling for my brother’s brother-in-law at a little teeny shop in Wapello—had like two part-time workers—so we had a mill drill. I was building tooling there, and then when I actually started my business with Hon, I said, “You know, the failure rate’s too high for a startup.” So I had him—he and his wife were my partners for probably a year—and they were just—I love Dave Ramsey, we love Dave Ramsey to death—“The only ship that doesn’t float is a partnership.” Less than a year later, we bought them out—just because it was—it was the closest thing I could think of to getting a divorce. You have to be so aligned on your vision—and they were completely opposite. They were just so small-time—they couldn’t see the forest for the trees. That was another God thing—otherwise, it would’ve been—every time you walk in a room, your hair stands on the back of your neck. I’m like, “All you’ve got to do is what I tell you to do,” but she was a type-A personality—she wanted to be involved in everything, didn’t know anything. It was a way to get started then—it worked out perfect looking back.
Andrew: How important are those mentor figures—like Stan was for you? Were there others, and how critical are they?
Jim: I don’t know if you know Larry Emmert—he owned—I know the Emmert family—Andy’s dad, Larry. We’ve been on a lot of hunting trips and stuff together. I used to go to Bible study on Thursday morning with Bruce and Stan and Larry and a bunch of guys, and afterwards, I’d just talk to them for hours because—he didn’t know if his dad started the business, I believe—Hawkeye—and we’d just run stuff through them that I’m struggling with. Not having any experience—so Stan and Larry were probably my two biggest, because you need somebody like that that understands the owner perspective and has been through it. Problems pop up that you don’t even dream about—it’s like, “Wow, I couldn’t have seen that coming in 100 years.” A lot of times, they don’t even answer your question, but it’s just good to sit and talk to them and get their perspective. Stan was by far probably my best mentor—and then we became really good friends, which was really awkward too because he’s the COO of Hon.
Andrew: How was that awkward?
Jim: They knew over the years we just became really good friends—and I would never—I don’t think I ever went to him more than maybe once or twice on a problem, because then you get a—and so the people—they just knew that they thought I had more power than what I did. Stan even said a few times to them, “Hey, me and Jim are friends, but he expects more out of me than anybody—more on quality, more on price, more on—” He pushed me more than anybody that he didn’t know—but at the same time, the people at Hon knew we had a relationship that was unusual. If it wasn’t—everything you look back, it was all a God thing—a guy that had no business experience, working side by side with your wife for years and years and years. Even Stan said, “Man, I don’t know how you do it.”
Andrew: Maybe sometime we’ll have to talk with Genie and get her side of those early years when it was just—
Jim: Yeah, ‘cause she said, “I came from—I worked in a laboratory.” She was a chemist—she got a degree in biology and chemistry—she knew nothing about steel. Pretty soon, she was ordering the steel, driving the truck—and I don’t know a lot of women that would drive a straight truck back and forth and do the things that she did. She was doing HR and probably bookkeeping and production—she was—I mean, my wife’s a hard worker. She grew up on a farm—she’s a hard worker. I tell her all the time, “I can’t think of anybody I know’s wife that could do what you did—not one—and then still raise a family.” Since she’s one of the heroes of making that work—one of the funny parts that strikes me, though—one day we were talking, and I heard my daughter talking, and she said, “I raised my brother.” I heard that, and I’m like—and she said she raised her brother—my son—and I thought—and then my wife says, “You know, she did.” I’m like, “Wow, I didn’t even—” Growing up, when my kids were at that age, we were working all the time, and I didn’t think about it—but she probably did raise my son. Makes you kind of feel bad—20-hour days for a decade or more—and it’s like, “Wow, I never even thought of that.” Then I’d get my son—I’m like, “Hey, let’s go out on Saturday—I’m going to teach you how to run AutoCAD and design,” and he had no interest in it. A friend of mine said, “Jim, all you’re doing is bending metal.” I’m like, “Yeah, but I’m designing dies to do it.” He said, “You think a kid in seventh grade is excited about that?” He was seventh grade when I was wanting to—I’m like, “Yeah, yeah.” It’s cool how he likes it now, and he’s not a tool designer—he never will be, he’s not a toolmaker—but he thinks outside the box and is creative. That’s a hard thing—you expect your kids to—I always thought he should know what I knew, and then I finally realized he’s never going to know what I know. He’s better on computers and all that than I am.
Andrew: You’ve asked me a bunch of questions I never thought about before either—it’s like, “Wow, good—wow.” I’ve got to remember the one you asked me that I really—about growing up in this area, if it’s an advantage or disadvantage. I think a lot of times too, you can get lost in a big city—
Jim: I just wish more kids would start businesses, though.
Andrew: Do you think there’s ways that we can—it’s hard to motivate someone who’s not motivated, but there are motivated people, and they probably need some guidance—
Jim: There’s—‘cause I see so many businesses that open up, and I’m like, “Oh, what are you thinking?” Just understanding there’s not a business model there—there’s no demand. You see it—we just had, right outside my window at my office, guys open a restaurant—put all the money in, took a building that was really dilapidated, made it really nice, put in all the equipment—and a year later, it’s closed. The location was bad—it’s in Wapello, Iowa.
Andrew: Do you feel like there is a—can this area work well for businesses if you find the idea? Are there ideas that can succeed?
Jim: I think so, yeah. You still look at all the things that we—there’s so many things now that are made that people use—where when I was a kid, there wasn’t that many different items you could buy. It’s unlimited now—unlimited things, ideas that people come up with—and to me, there’s still thousands out there that you could come up with an idea you could make a business out of—but you’ve got to be thinking about it.
Andrew: Do you feel like a lot of those ideas are in manufacturing or producing stuff?
Jim: Yeah, a lot of—I think because that’s what I know—so I would say that our area—Muscatine County and the area—it’s in our DNA. We are good at producing things—it’s our history, and it’s what we’re doing now. That’s a characteristic of our area we can just lean into. Even when I lived in the Quad Cities, I’d hear about Muscatine—how low the unemployment rate was—always lower than any place in the state—because of GPC and Hon and all the industry that’s here in Muscatine. Even back to—I’m fascinated by the button factories that were in town—50, 60 button factories—and just the machines they used to make them. You look at McKee—that building’s beautiful—and we had operating button factories here—there were three of them until about the last six years, and the last one just this year stopped operating. That’s an incredible run—because when did they start? Early 1900s, I’m guessing—but that—I think it’s interesting how in our area, the production capacity—first we were a lumber town, we had the sawmills, and then the button industry was a big part of it for a short time, and then Hon and the other companies—but we’ve just got this strong history of production capacity.
Andrew: It’s funny because I just glanced through my book right when I started at Hon—it was 1985—and it came out with a 50-year history talking about the 50 years of—back when it was CLM, Haskins—and I’m skimming through everything—it’s like, “Wow.” That’s a story—that company should’ve never lasted. They went through some struggles financially—and how they did it with four people that started it—which is hard to do—but you look at where they’re at now, and it’s unbelievable—from making those scoopy little recipe boxes—that was their first product—what a name.
Jim: It’s always fun for me now—I go to houses, and I’ll see some metal cabinets, and I’m always looking for that Hon name there—but look what came out of it—provided livings for a lot of people.
Andrew: Well, you’ve got a birthday party to go to probably somewhere—
Jim: It’s funny ‘cause my wife—she came up, she does a Bible study with some girls, and she left. She got into hunting 10 years ago, and she’s addicted to it now—so I said, “Well, I’ll drop your deer off to get it mounted.” Then Tom Randman came over—dropped off chairs for our party tomorrow—and I said, “Hey, come over to my office—we’ll talk for a while.” While we’re talking, I took a different car to work today—my wife’s deer was in the back—so I had to run home and get her deer—and I was running behind. I put it on the other seat of the car, and I thought, “Wow, if I forget doing—” My wife knows I’m forgetful—if she found out I was trying to be helpful and do everything—take everything off her plate—and almost forgot that—
Andrew: Are you—so I’ll listen through this—are you okay if I share that with people for them to hear your story?
Jim: Oh yeah, great.
Andrew: Even sound like—like yesterday, we started where you started your business—
Jim: I ended up buying the building—just a little—we remodeled it—got a hold of Louisa County—what they call it—Community Development—and said, “What do we need in Louisa County?” Because we had this building—we didn’t know what to do with it. My son wanted to put a gym there, and we started meeting with people and found out there was a huge need for kids to have a dayhab—mental disabilities and stuff. We met and met and remodeled the whole building—which, I still to this day—we were there yesterday having a party with the clients—I think there was like 17 kids there who normally would just sit at home because they’d have to go to Muscatine or Burlington and ride on a bus for 30 miles.
Andrew: This is—you have a fund or foundation, I guess—or is it the MS—
Jim: Long story short, we’d always say, “Where are we going to meet?” They said, “Let’s meet at the MS.” The building was—they just called it the MS—so then they named it the M Center—Mentoring, Outreach, Training, Transition, and Support. We’re like, “We don’t want our name on that goofy thing.” It worked out—it’s just the M Center—but over the years, just the people that have come to me and said, “Hey, my grandson goes there, my kid goes there”—so that’s been one of the big blessings too in town, just to have an impact on—I don’t know if you know Nate Bailer—his daughter goes there—she’s got—and it’s just—what drives me nuts is when people aren’t generous. I’ve got family members—and my wife’s really got family members—no generosity whatsoever. We’re like, “How do we get two generous people to get together?” We never fight over how much money we’re going to give away ‘cause we love doing it—where some couples—my in-laws—they passed away with a lot of money, but they never gave away a penny. My wife kept saying, “Don’t you want to get any joy out of your money?” They came from that scarcity—they grew up on a farm where—I get excited too when I meet generous people—like with Samaritan’s Aviation—Stan is very generous, some of my friends are very generous, some are very, very not generous. What a way to go through life.
Andrew: It is pretty exciting when life takes you places you never even dreamed of—growing up in little Bettendorf—just a kid, the world was teeny when I was a kid—
Jim: We’ve been all over the world now for mission trips and just traveling—like, “Wow.” The other day, I said, “I wish my grandparents could see life today.” They grew up on farms—they didn’t go anywhere.
Andrew: So how’d you get into real estate then?
Jim: I’ve always been involved in community building—helping—I love connecting people—that’s always been fascinating for me. Muscatine is my hometown—I grew up here, and then I lived in a number of different places. I always wanted to go to the big city—so I did an internship in New York City—I loved that environment—but you’re right, you can get lost in it. If you like anonymity, it’s great, but nobody knows you. Then I ended up going to Istanbul, Turkey—worked with a missions organization there for a number of years. I was an event producer for an organization—and eventually, somewhere along the line—I’ve always done a lot of creative things—I just kind of did a finger in the wind and watched—basically saw my heroes, the people I thought were doing really interesting things—they all ran their own businesses. I knew at some point I wanted to run a business—didn’t know in what or what my role would be. When I moved back to the US, I was doing a lot of creative arts-type things—you’ve maybe seen some of these things around here that I’ve been involved with—and it’s creative art, but really what it is is community building—connecting people. I came across a book and an author who was connecting creative work and creative community with economic development—I realized, “Oh, this is what I’m actually doing.” It was intuitively there, but that’s what made sense—when there’s an interesting factor, a cool factor, it gives people a connecting point. I did that for a number of years—and I really struggled economically with it for a long time—and then just a little more than 10 years ago, I stumbled on real estate. Just under 10 years ago, I got a real estate license—I remember looking at a recruiting sheet—“You may be a good real estate agent if”—I went through that sheet, and there were a couple things on there I said, “Nope, that’s not me,” but there were a lot of things—self-starter, independence, time independence, problem-solving, really good customer service-type thing. I remember looking at it and saying, “If this is what being a real estate agent is really about—not only could I be good at it, I could maybe be really good at it.” Right now, my business is real estate sales—residential, mostly—but then in our area, commercial and other things—and then I operate a rental portfolio—residential rental properties. It’s been an amazing run of doing things that put me in front of the public eye for a lot of years—doing it almost for free—you can make a living, but you don’t really make any real money at it. If I had come to real estate even one year earlier, I wouldn’t have been ready—I wouldn’t have recognized it as a fit for my skill set—even one year earlier, I would’ve missed it.
Andrew: Because you look back—the timing on everything—it’s like, how did it all happen? It doesn’t make sense at the moment—it only connects in hindsight, really.
Jim: I thought I’d do real estate once I retired—semi-retired—because I loved it. The biggest thing I loved about it was helping people find a home that they could afford—one they needed. That was my biggest thing—customer service.
Andrew: Did you do mostly residential?
Jim: All residential resale—but I’ll never forget, first week I’m in the office—on Kimberly Road, that office—I was talking with John—there was a guy there, been there a year and hadn’t sold a house. He was retired HR from Case—Joe Busher—and he was kind of down because interest was 6-9%. People don’t realize when they’re talking about 7% interest right now—if you found a 7% assumable loan on a house, boy, you were pretty excited. The first week, somebody said, “Hey, Jim, you want to cover for 10 minutes? I’m going to go to lunch early.” A car came with a U-Haul trailer—they were getting transferred to the Arsenal. I sold my house—became kind of friends with them the first week—and it was like—I was really good at it. I still remember one day—you’re showing people houses—showing, showing, showing—and all of a sudden, one day, all three people—I wrote three offers in one day. It was the craziest day of my life—but how could they all want to write offers on one day?
Andrew: You saw that as fortunate?
Jim: Well, a few months before that—when I sold the house the first week—not the first week, but I showed them and wrote an offer—I mean, we wrote an offer on the picnic table at Scott County Park—I didn’t know what I was doing. Real estate school you go to—they don’t teach anything about selling real estate—it keeps evolving too—
Andrew: You learn on the job, and it keeps evolving—you really have to stay on top of how things go—
Jim: We used to have an MLS, and it was a book—a paper book—and I’d give it to people and say, “Hey, look through it and stuff”—but nowadays, it’s all over the internet. To get any public records, you went to the courthouse—it’s completely different—but I really enjoyed it. I can see long-term, it’s like—people, too many people were struggling full-time—a lot of part-time people—
Andrew: It’s hard to do it not full-time—you’ve got the connections over time—
Jim: There’s always this threat of technology is going to change it all—agents are going to go away—but the customer service and the people that want professional representation—it’s actually stronger than ever. I think it’s more important than ever to have—
Andrew: You can do it other ways, but whenever the headlines are like, “Oh, the industry is changing”—well, I see the need for good customer care actually being even stronger—
Jim: People try and sell their house by themselves—90% of the time, it’s way overpriced. Everybody thinks their house is worth $20,000 more than their neighbor’s because, “I own it.” If you’re a buyer, it’s free—you don’t pay—the stats actually show too that people with a well-marketed house that’s represented by professionals usually net more than if you—
Andrew: I feel like the DIY mentality—I come from a very DIY mentality—I didn’t change a motor in my driveway, but I certainly changed the oil—I repaired a timing belt in the middle of winter in the driveway, losing sockets in the snow—that kind of thing—so I come from that background—and then being able to move away from that and say, “I’m going to trust experts—the professionals that know their field”—that’s been a long journey for me—
Jim: Even my dad, when I was a kid—he would change tires—pull them off over the rim. We’d drive over—maybe he had some little—“Dad, it’s two bucks at the gas station.” He said, “Yeah, that’s $2.” He had time—and my dad would go home and give my mom his whole paycheck—and he got five bucks. He gave two people a ride to work for two bucks a week—so he had $9 a week for money for himself—and I never heard my dad complain once about—when he’d take me and my two brothers, we’d go hunting a lot and trap shooting—we’d reload our own shells and go pick up clay birds that weren’t broken—but nine bucks a week—I thought, “I don’t want to live like that.”
Andrew: You wanted to live—
Jim: I dated a girl for a long time—she was Catholic—had seven brothers and sisters—their parents both had a good job, but you raise that many kids, you don’t have any money.
Andrew: Where did you meet Genie?
Jim: Northeast Missouri State, okay? I broke off—I served my apprenticeship, was going to St. Ambrose at night, taking classes, yeah—and then I went to work for Caterpillar. You know, I’m building dies and fixtures, and I go to Caterpillar, and the first night, they give me a whole pallet full of broken boring bars with stripped screws ‘cause they did a lot of casting turning—like, “What tool do you want me to pick these screws up with?” So I decided I’d go back to college then ‘cause I went a year right out of high school, okay? I got laid off from my apprenticeship because it was ’75 and it was dead—the farm industry, yeah. I came back a year later, and they were just swamped, you know? Tooling projects come and go, and they were busy. My boss said, “Hey, you want to stay and finish your apprenticeship?” I kind of liked college, so I asked my dad. He said, “Well, ask them for a year’s credit,” because I’d worked in a tool and die shop since I was 15, okay? Okay, so I asked them—they said, “Yeah, we’ll give you a year’s credit.” So after one year of high school, I had a year of college and a year of my apprenticeship—told my parents I’d graduate from college. So I went to St. Ambrose at night—hated it, you know? Oh, I’d work all day long, go take a philosophy class at St. Ambrose, and my dad said, “You’ll never finish college,” and he was right—I would’ve never finished. So when I went to work at Caterpillar that first day, I thought, “I’m going back to college”—went back to college and met Genie. She played on the basketball team—I love basketball, played all the time—so we met. Didn’t like each other that much—she thought I was arrogant and a ball hog, which was true, of course it was. I said, “Yeah, but you liked winning when you were playing on my team.” So, I mean, that’s a weird thing—I said I would’ve never—the chance of me going back to college, for one, ‘cause people, when I told them I was quitting being a tool and die maker, thought I was nuts. And I go back to college, and they’ve got me taking these classes—they’re like, “This is insanity.” I’m a journeyman toolmaker, and they’re making me hacksaw a little hammerhead out, yeah. So I had a counselor that was really smart, and I told him everything I’d done, and he got me a year’s credit—oh, interesting—and all these classes that, yeah, and I end up teaching tool and die classes at night. They paid me, and I got an A in a class, yeah, ‘cause the instructor at the time, he was getting ready to retire. We got a new CNC machine in—he didn’t know anything about it, didn’t want to know anything about it. So the timing on everything worked out perfect because I was thinking about quitting and going back to work, you know, because I thought they’re not going to teach me anything here. You just felt like it wasn’t—yeah, it was all, wait, I mean, it was like high school stuff, yeah. But that worked out well—met my wife. I tell people that’s the best thing that ever happened in college was meeting my wife, yeah, ‘cause all the people in the world, you always wonder—now, are you married?
Andrew: I’m not, no, no.
Jim: All the people in the world, it’s like, “Who’s your, you know—” You know, millions of people. I don’t know if there’s one true love or not, but it’s just weird, yeah. I’ve had so many coincidences in my life, and I don’t—and I know they’re not coincidences, but yeah. So he said, “You should write a book sometime.” Like, “Nobody wants to hear my story.”
Andrew: Uh, I bet there’s a lot of people that would, uh, yeah. Would you have thought about it?
Jim: Oh no, I’m not a writer, trust me.
Andrew: What if you had lots of people interview you and then just write a transcript from it?
Jim: Like, that’s a boring story.
Andrew: Well, thanks for talking through these. You’re good at asking questions—this is fun.
Jim: You’re good at asking questions.
Andrew: Is there someone that you would—someone you think would like sitting down and, uh, who—who’s someone that you want to hear their story?
Jim: That’s another good question, because I know a lot of people’s stories, but as I get older, I don’t know the younger people’s stories—like yours, I didn’t know who you were. Um, how long you been going to Calvary?
Andrew: Quite a while—six years or so, yeah.
Jim: So we probably just never see—never talked. You don’t get coffee?
Andrew: And it’s funny ‘cause we sit in the same spot, the same group of fans—like magnets, all gather. You kind of get your circles. Some people going in that first door, you never see them ‘cause—
Jim: I’ve been going—we were going to FCC, and I loved it there, but it was pretty charismatic. So when they start doing the things where they put their hands on you and then people fall down, they’re like, “Whoa, wow, that was too, uh—” And Stan invited me to a men’s weekend, oh, which I’d never been on a men’s weekend. Growing up as Catholic, we didn’t do anything, yeah. And I went without—it’s everybody doing the shooting and the—well, not the burly man, but they had a speaker come in, and okay, we played volleyball and basketball, and I thought that Jeff Allgood was a doctor—he was nuts. These people are crazy. We played three-on-three basketball—me and my neighbor won the tournament, almost got in a fight with Jamie Hopkins—Stan did—because Jamie—I don’t know if you know Jamie—a little short guy, like, “What is this guy? This is church,” and he and I thought, “Well, I’m going to go just to please Stan, and then I’ll go back to FCC.” And then it—I called it like the Three Bears—one porridge was—that was too hot, yeah, and Catholicism was way too cold, and Calvary was just right, huh.
Andrew: So, well, I, uh, I guess I’ll have to drive my 911 more places, and then I—I’ve connected a lot of people over cars.
Jim: You got a 911?
Andrew: I do. I have—it’s from 2001, 996 series, and I bought it right—I knew they were going to—you know how Porsches, they’re unloved at some point, and then there’s no unloved old ones—they all—and thought, “Well, if I’m going to get this model, I should get it now.” So I went down to Texas, and I found one—I’d been looking for it all summer with a specific combo, and, uh, went down to—flew down to Fort Worth, and, uh, dealer picked me up at the airport, and I was going to buy it—I’m not going, but you know, walk around, you just hope there’s nothing obviously wrong with it. You go from—Iowa to Texas, and, uh, you’re interested—drove, uh, drove around the Texas countryside for a couple days. I wanted to check it out a little bit—drove around for a couple days in the countryside. It immediately started meeting people, so there was a guy that was at a state park, and the guy came running across the parking lot—he just wanted to see the car, you know. Then he told me about a racetrack that was nearby there—went there, met a bunch of more people, drove a Lamborghini, and I mean, just the way it opened doors was a surprise to me. I didn’t—I didn’t expect that.
Jim: No, I had a 911—was it an ’86 or ’89 with a whale tail? Oh, red—what color interior? Black—black. That ’86 911—was it a—just was it a Carrera?
Andrew: Yeah.
Jim: Those appreciated so much. I sold it to a friend of mine in Wapello for 10 grand because it just sat in my driveway—it didn’t have a tilt wheel, yeah, and me—I got really long legs and short torso—I couldn’t barely get in and out of that thing. Yeah, and I had other cars at the time, and I just—I just wanted it out of my garage, and I bet it—it was worth 40 grand for a while. It’s probably today—yeah, somewhere between that. Every time I see it, I’m like, “Hey, I’ll buy this back from you.” He knows how much it’s gone up—I mean, it’s—and it’s a beautiful car. I’m like, “Why did I sell that stupid thing?”
Andrew: I feel like the moral of the story with cars is like, never sell your cars—just keep all of them.
Jim: But then you need to—okay, now I have—now I have a—
Andrew: Cars have been such a connecting point for me, and I was telling a friend, uh, a while ago, I said, “You know, I’d—I’d like to find a building, make a car club,” and he said, “Oh, I’m a part of a car club,” and I said, “I’ll send you some photos,” and it—I couldn’t believe it. It’s an industrial building—they’ve got lifts, so there’re two layers of cars. He said one of his friends—one of the founders of this car club—they have like $3 million of neon signs, this big collection or whatever, and they do events there. It’s a private club—they pay so much per year to be a part of it, and it’s a private club. They have a cigar lounge, and you’re talking about the Vault in Arizona?
Jim: This one’s in Vancouver, BC, but it’s probably very similar to that.
Andrew: Could that work here?
Jim: Oh, I don’t know—it could, on a smaller scale. What if—I mean, what’s the price? I mean, and I think it needs to be—and what if it’s 5,000 a year? You could start—store two cars and have private access to it.
Andrew: There’s a—
Jim: Niche. You’ve got to figure out, is the niche big enough, yeah?
Andrew: I come up with maybe five people that I think—and you might be one of them—that might be a candidate for that. And I think if you could get to about 20 members, you could probably—I think there’s a—
Jim: Yeah, because Stan was a big car person, yeah.
Andrew: Um, and I don’t—I don’t know a lot of people that are big into cars. Do you feel like the value is having a place to store a car? I mean, someone like Stan or yourself—you don’t need a place to store a car. Would you—I mean, I would—that be valuable? Is that the value—a place to store two cars?
Jim: Part of it’s the camaraderie, yeah—just the like-minded people that—it’s kind of like the airport. When three of my friends moved away, you know, we—we half the time we’re spending flying each other’s planes to drop them off to get worked on or annuals, and I’d fed Stan at Green Bay all the time—he had so many planes—Green Bay, Aurora, yeah. And that’s part of the camaraderie—just flying around, picking your friends up, dropping them off, and, uh, yeah, same with the cars—just hanging out and talking and, uh, yeah. ‘Cause I had—where I put my office, I’ve got an oversized four-car garage, and I, you know, fixed it all up, and I keep four Corvettes in there, okay? But I’ve got cars in storage units, and I still have places I need to store cars—like my ’39 Chevy. I got more money than that in any car I have, and it’s just in a cold storage, which is kind of crazy. So having—maybe there is some—it’s a combination of values—the camaraderie, a cool space, and I could use some warm, climate-controlled space. I’ve got a space I might—I might show you sometime, maybe we can just brainstorm some ideas.