E35: The VIP Café Show featuring Tra’von Eley from Tra's Gourmet

Tra’von Eley (Owner)- Grew up in Boardman, Ohio. He graduated from Boardman High School and Mahoning County Technical Center for Culinary Arts. Tra’ Started his culinary career at the Lake Club of Ohio, Bistro 1907 in Youngstown, Ohio, as the Kitchen Manager and at Downtown 124 in Warren, Ohio, as the Head Chef! Tra’s Gourmet launched in 2022 but was well planned by Tra’ during Covid. He bought an empty cargo trailer and got it built out with two fryers, one flat top, a production cooler, a freezer, and a Pepsi cooler. He worked the Canfield Fair with Lisko Family Amusements along his journey in a lemonade trailer. He credits many people today for his success, but most importantly, he wants people his age to be inspired. Tra’s Gourmet started on paper and led to an entirely operated food trailer. Tra’s plans to grow the brand more with two other food truck concepts and possibly a “Tra’s Gourmet Sandwiches Bar.” 

Tra’s Gourmet Sandwiches 

www.trasgourmetsandwiches.com 

Chapters

• 0:06 Culinary Journey
• 12:04 Encouraging Young People in Business
• 19:50 Trailer Building and Local Restaurants
• 25:51 Favorite Foods

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:06

Hey, welcome to the VIP Cafe Show. I'm here, greg Smith, with my cohost, debbie Larson. Hey, debbie, how you doing today?

Speaker 2 0:14

Hey, Greg, I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1 0:16

Are you?

Speaker 2 0:17

It's cold outside and it's warm in here.

Speaker 1 0:19

Yeah, we had that Indian summer, right, yeah, we did, but what is that?

Speaker 2 0:22

I don't know, this weather's crazy. I stopped even following the news. I just I stick my hand out the window and feel what it is. I have.

Speaker 1 0:29

I have students at YSU right and then some of them. I have got one from South Africa, I've got one from Vietnam. They've never seen snow. They don't know what it's going to be like. And this is going to be their first experience with cold weather in their lifetime.

Speaker 2 0:42

So that's so exciting, that cultural blend.

Speaker 1 0:45

Like.

Speaker 2 0:45

I met another one of your students from Nigeria and I asked him how he liked this area and he said I love it. I love it and he just saw all these good aspects of our region and I love that. That's got to be inspiring to constantly talk to people from out of the area and they're coming in from and Young's has such a great microcosm of the United States.

Speaker 1 1:05

We have every religion here. We have cultural culture, we have food. Now there's a topic we need to talk about.

Speaker 2 1:15

Funny, you should mention foods.

Speaker 1 1:17

Yes.

Speaker 2 1:17

Funny, I should mention food. What, what, what we got going on today On my mind. I think food is on my mind because our guest today. Have you ever been hungry for the best sandwich? Like a good sandwich? Everybody's always wondering, hey, who has the best burger, who has the best sandwich? Our guest today has perfected his chosen sandwiches in trays gourmet sandwiches as a food truck. You guys may have seen him on billboards all throughout town. He did a billboard and billboard campaign and he's just been in so many festivals and fairs throughout this past year. So we are here today with Trey and so many people wonder if it's Trey or Tra. What do you see? It's a TRA. So I'm going to let him introduce his full name to you. And yeah, it is definitely Trey. I'll just spoiler alert, go ahead.

Speaker 3 2:10

Hey guys, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's Trey name spelled TRA apostrophe. Full name is Trey Vaughn. So then the Vaughn comes after the TRA apostrophe.

Speaker 1 2:18

All right, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 2:20

Yeah, most people call it, they read it and they say Tra, we get that a lot, but it's Trey, just so you're looking at me right.

Speaker 2 2:27

Yeah, If I see you under the garter, I'm just going to yell hey, Tra Tra. Yeah, I'll answer the phone. People are going to think I have tickers on me.

Speaker 1 2:37

So I have a lot of students at YSU, a lot of young people, a lot of people since COVID, since we've been through all this Like what do I do? How do I make a difference? How do I? And you make sandwiches, you like, you feed one of the things we have to have, which is food, and you do it. So tell us a story. How'd you get in from birth to conception? How did you get into doing this and tell us a story.

Speaker 3 2:58

I started in the culinary world at a very young age. I was 17. I went to the MCCTC Chef Matt Puzier. I was down there for two years. There I went to the Lake Club. I was a senior in high school I was working for Ed Moranski Most people you got to know Ed Good guy. So I was working for Ed. Didn't see Ed much, but I was working for Ed. He signed my paycheck.

Speaker 2 3:21

So I was working for Ed Connection to greatness.

Speaker 3 3:22

Yeah, so I worked in his. They had just opened the pool actually, so I got shipped over to the pool. I was doing that, helping out there for a summer. And then later that led to working for Mark Kanzaneta at Bistro 1907, downtown Youngstown.

Speaker 1 3:36

Awesome.

Speaker 3 3:36

So I was there. I was a cook there for a year, then I, the year two, I became his kitchen manager. So I was running his restaurant for five years. So then after that I felt like I wanted to do something for myself and that's when Trays Gourmet sandwiches became a thing. But in the process of me my first year doing that I was also able to help out at downtown 124 restaurant and Warren. I helped him open that, get that up and running.

Speaker 3 4:01

So, now I'm on, I'll be on year three coming up on Trays Gourmet sandwiches. So yeah, time definitely has flown.

Speaker 1 4:07

Wow, that's awesome. So where do you? Where's your truck at? Where do you? How does it work?

Speaker 3 4:13

We travel all over Ohio, some Pennsylvania. We went to Lake Erie, fairport Harbor out there, but we do everything Every festival around local Youngstown we're for sure there yeah.

Speaker 2 4:23

And at the fair he has like a stamped bun. How about your stamped bun? We do, we do a stamped bun.

Speaker 3 4:28

It's a brand. You heat it up with the torch. It goes right on top of the bun. It says trays. We do that at our busy events. Just people walk around. You want to see what other people are eating and people see where'd you get that from? It says trays on the bun. You don't see that, especially around here too much. Some restaurants do it. Maybe Cleveland they brand their buns, but around Youngstown most people. It's time consuming.

Speaker 3 4:49

Yeah, it's like you got to pay somebody to sit there and brand buns, but it's definitely worth it.

Speaker 1 4:54

Yeah, so tell us about. Tell us about the food we definitely need to know, about the food We've got to make everybody hungry on this on this show.

Speaker 2 5:00

Yeah, right, and mouthwater and goodness.

Speaker 3 5:02

Yeah, so the food. We have six sandwich options. I'll start with our chicken sammy. So it's a brioche bun we sourced from Orlando Bacon Company. We have lettuce, tomato, onion, pimento cheese on the bottom, pickles and fried chicken sandwich. Honey, hot honey on top of that. That's probably one of our big sellers. Then we go down to our chicken and waffle sandwich. We use that same chicken breast, two waffles, we do syrup, scallions and that's another one too Syrup and scallions on the same sandwich Syrup, and then scallions just for a little color, a little garnish.

Speaker 1 5:35

It's not nothing crazy.

Speaker 3 5:36

And then we do some bacon bites on top of that as well. So when we have like brunch events, people just tend to go towards that. Like at the fair, we did a decent amount of chicken and waffles from 11 to one. Then we have our jalapeno, cheddar grilled cheese. So it's bread is actually infused with jalapenos and cheddar. We sourced that from bread chef over in Boardman on Western Reserve. He does a good job with us for that, so he slices it then for us. We put American cheese very simple, and then slice that in half. Some kids want to grill cheese. We'll do that on a bun as well, just a burger bun. We have a loaded waffle fries. That's a big one too, so it's just waffle fries, queso blanco, scallions, bacon bites. Then we have our plain waffle fry. Yeah, you're getting hungry.

Speaker 2 6:19

I am man Wow.

Speaker 3 6:21

We have a vegan. I've learned growing in the culinary industry you've got to have something vegan. They'll come, they'll support you and they always show up and they will pay, no matter how much it is. So we have a beyond plant-based burger. We do that vegan cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion and we want our vegan consumers to feel just like anyone else, so we always stock up on that, always make sure that we have those beyond burgers as well. We have burgers, have you tried those? What's that the?

Speaker 2 6:48

beyond burgers? Yeah, obviously you have. Can you taste?

Speaker 3 6:50

the difference. They're good, they're good.

Speaker 2 6:52

Can you tell that they're not meat? I?

Speaker 3 6:53

mean, yeah, you could tell, but it's still it's not, it is Like I eat it sometimes when I'm just want to eat something different.

Speaker 2 6:59

You feel healthier? No, no, no I don't.

Speaker 3 7:05

So that's, that's what, four. And then we have our burgers. We have our. I call it the OG burger. It's just classic burger lettuce, tomato, onion, bread and butter, pickles on a brioche bun and we have our barbecue bacon burger. Same setup, just barbecue and bacon.

Speaker 2 7:21

Look at that sandwiches. He made sandwiches gourmet.

Speaker 1 7:25

Yeah that's amazing.

Speaker 3 7:26

Yeah, it's can.

Speaker 2 7:26

I ask a random question.

Speaker 3 7:28

What's that?

Speaker 2 7:28

All right, not, you don't have to name the place that you got it, but what is the worst sandwich you've ever had?

Speaker 3 7:36

Worst sandwich I've ever had.

Speaker 2 7:39

Okay for me having a sandwich, it doesn't matter really the ingredients, if it's dry. I can't take a dry sandwich. I need to have at least a tomato on it to like to give it a little bit of taste and a little flavor. To me, the messier it is usually the better, unless it's way overdone. So I can't take dry sandwiches. So those will probably get the worst reviews from me, right.

Speaker 3 8:05

I agree with that. I like the saucy guy, I know the answer is question. I'm not even the interviewer and I know the unit.

Speaker 1 8:11

It's like any sandwich, except for my food truck, yeah.

Speaker 3 8:16

Yeah, there you go. I'm only saying what I'm eating.

Speaker 2 8:17

Yeah, you better have that tray stamped on it.

Speaker 1 8:21

Right, that was a question tray and you missed it.

Speaker 2 8:25

No, because being a foodie, being somebody who creates, like when I worked at a restaurant, I used to go in the back and tell the guys, just make me something you would make yourself. Oh, my goodness, I didn't even question and it was always so good. Because they're back there, oh, probably thinking of a thousand different variations of things, and so I would say, just make me some, and it would always be amazing. So, being a foodie and having that mindset, which I don't personally have you've probably had a sandwich here like this is just not it, but I'm glad that you're not sharing your round back.

Speaker 1 8:58

It's not baggage. It's not baggage, okay, anyway. So what do you love about this business? What gives you the greatest joy in doing this?

Speaker 3 9:06

For me it's honestly meeting different people. Like I said, we travel all over Ohio and PA so we're meeting new people all the time. So that's it's nice, I can engage with them and conversation. It's not just like they're coming up getting food and they're gone. We try to keep it personal with the customer so when they come back they feel they honestly feel like oh yeah, I know Trey, I know I talked to Trey and then remember names is a huge thing. They feel more like comfortable. It's like they come get food. You remember their face, remember their name. They're for sure going to come back. And I think the big thing is no one's perfect. So it's like when something's messed up, we like to fix it right then and there make that customer happy. We don't want them to walk away with a bad sandwich Just like you said, you walk away to bad sandwich. You're going to remember that. So if something does go wrong, we mess up no cheese and they wanted cheese type of thing we make sure we fix that right then and there.

Speaker 1 9:56

Yeah, great, that's good, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 9:58

What's been your lowest moment? A lot of times we talk about the successes and highs. What's been the lowest moment since you started this? Did you ever question yourself or feel like, man, maybe this isn't going to work? Or tell us a little bit about.

Speaker 1 10:12

And how did you get out of it?

Speaker 3 10:14

Oh, yes, when I honestly, when I first started I didn't think it was going to be as big as what it is now. We actually went to East Liverpool Pottery Festool and it's my first festival going in, so I don't know how much to buy. I'm just shooting from the hip, I don't know. So we get there and we run out of food. Festival ends at 10 o'clock. We run out of food at seven o'clock.

Speaker 2 10:36

Oh, that's a good problem to have.

Speaker 3 10:38

So I'm like, instantly, I'm glad it happened, our first event. Instantly I'm like, OK, this is going to be bigger than what I think it is. I learned from that. We started doing the par sheet. Now I know just from previous years what our numbers were and what we could possibly do. That's played a huge part learning from that.

Speaker 1 10:55

Yes, but there's nothing better than somebody comes to get your sandwich and it says sold out.

Speaker 2 10:59

And you're like, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 11:01

Yeah you're right. Yeah, you ran out of food, right. Until you're sitting there and everybody else is making money. Yeah that part, yeah that part, but start selling repurposed whoppers. Barn burgers for other people.

Speaker 2 11:20

OK, so are you the first entrepreneur in your family? Because entrepreneurship is a bit challenging. It's a bit hard to be like doing it on your own. It could be lonely, it could be an isolating road. It sounds like you've had a great support group around you. So are you the first entrepreneur, or do you have that in your family?

Speaker 3 11:37

I'm not my mother. My start with my grandmother. She owned a salon way back when and then that led to my mother. She owns a salon now and boarded me on Market Street. So I've grew up watching that entrepreneurship. And then just not even that, just people I've worked for. I've watched them do their own thing. I've never worked out a chain like Chick-fil-A or seen so. I've seen people that have owned restaurants started from the bottom, so it's like that's played a huge part too.

Encouraging Young People in Business

Speaker 2 12:03

That's amazing.

Speaker 1 12:04

Tell us, if you were to encourage young people about getting involved in a business or chasing their dreams, what would you tell them?

Speaker 3 12:12

You got to put in the work. There you go Now nowadays I see I'm also a culinary assistant at the tech school. Now I'm doing that during the week and it's like these kids don't they don't want to put in the work, to even do homework, and that's where it starts at when you're a kid, in that classroom, when that classroom leads to whatever else you want to do in life. It's just you got to have the right mind for it.

Speaker 1 12:33

Yeah, I'm reading a book now. It's by Marcus Buckingham, it's called Love Plus Work. And they found that if you have a few rated employees, from a one level employee all the way to a five, which is your star employee, your best employee and all these employees always try to take their fours and make them fives. What's impossible? You can't do it. The gap is so big. The reason the gap is so big is because the fives have found what they love about their job. They found what they love about it because love will propel you. Love will make you do things you never thought you'd do, and if you can't find love in what you do, you're not going to get to work, and I don't know what's happened, why I should try to teach these young people.

Speaker 1 13:15

I say you might not like public speaking, but find just something you might love about it. It's the only because you got to take the class. And in this culture we have to work. In all of humanity, since we've been on this earth, If you did not work, you did not live well, and that has not changed and it's not going to change in 10,000 years and it's not going to change now.

Speaker 1 13:35

But somehow COVID has dumbed us down, and so it's dumbed us down in the fact we needed to work. And it's so refreshing to hear the first thing you say you got to work. And it's interesting if some young person came up and said to you I want to do what you do, and the answer is you want to do what I did, to do what I do. But you wouldn't have any problem telling them now, would you? No, because you know how much Boston Bud is.

Speaker 3 13:58

Yeah, Like for me it started on a piece of paper. That was the start, right there. Right, the idea is what I want to do. I see even my best friend. He wants to do a food truck. And it's where do you start with that? Like it starts. Give me some ideas, give me some concepts that you think would be good, Because for me, we're going to festivals, we see fair food, we don't see concepts. So for us we're a concept, we're an actual concept. We're not just burger on a bun type of thing, we're a concept. And people remember that because in the carnival world people think that, oh, the cotton candy trailer. People will remember cotton candies, cotton candy in their mind.

Speaker 3 14:31

They're going to get it on their way out, whichever trailer they're by. But it's a trace. Gourmet, you're not getting my stuff on the next street type of thing. Yours is an experience.

Speaker 2 14:40

That's good. Yeah, that's true. What's your favorite food truck, Greg?

Speaker 1 14:44

I haven't tried trace yet, but I haven't feel like it's going to be trace. I just have that feeling right now.

Speaker 2 14:50

You painted a good word, picture with your words.

Speaker 1 14:53

I mean Maulner's sonam and rolls might get bumped right.

Speaker 2 14:56

Yeah, I heard that oh man, that's a marvelous. Listen, that line at the end of the fair that's the last man standing until they're out. Yeah, they're pretty good. I tried this, a place called corny dudes. They do street corn, they do all kinds of variations of street corn and oh my goodness, it was so good. And then they are thinking about dipping into donuts and stuff. But yeah, if you ever see them, they were at the. Canfield Fair, but they set up at Lord's Town a lot.

Speaker 3 15:25

Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2 15:27

Yeah, they're just a couple guys, local guys too.

Speaker 1 15:29

I love it.

Speaker 2 15:31

That just started a thing. Like Greg said. Everybody, it's easy to be like, oh man, I want to do that, I want to do that, but the hours in the kitchen, the hours training did you have a teacher that inspired you when you were at MCCTC? No, no, I did.

Speaker 3 15:43

I honestly did my English teacher, alyssa Kohler. Her husband's actually the fire chief at Canfield.

Speaker 2 15:49

I used to always fall asleep.

Speaker 3 15:50

when I was a junior in English class, most teachers are just going to tell you, they're just going to fail you. Yeah. And they used to time with me after class and tried their reason with me, like why are you falling asleep? Why are you falling asleep? My reason was oh, I'm working, I'm working. I was working at TJ Maxx, getting off at eight.

Speaker 2 16:05

Okay.

Speaker 3 16:07

I just didn't like school so she gave me. She made class more interactive. Now it's. I went to Boardman High School and your English class says you're reading a book. When I went to tech school it was English was based off of culinary, so I paid attention after those first couple of weeks when I realized that it's all it's project-based learning. So I'm learning stuff English, stuff about culinary. Same thing with math is I'm learning about pints, equivalents, all this stuff around culinary.

Speaker 3 16:33

I'm not just learning this X, Y, Z that I haven't used once in my life.

Speaker 1 16:39

Oh, I love that and that's very much like a master's program.

Speaker 2 16:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 16:42

So what you got is, you know, basically a master's program, right?

Speaker 2 16:46

Yeah, because don't ask me to convert courts into leaders or stuff. No, I love that.

Speaker 1 16:52

I love that. It's not the cookie cutter, it's teach the subject in what they love. Hello teachers, do you hear this?

Speaker 2 17:00

Right.

Speaker 1 17:00

Administrators politicians that think they're administrators Teach the kids the subject in an area that they enjoy.

Speaker 2 17:10

Yeah.

Speaker 1 17:11

And guess what? They might pay attention. That's a phenomenal point, wow. So tell us, let's get the business side of this. Can companies hire you? Can families hire you to come out to their parties? Do you do things like that?

Speaker 3 17:26

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 17:27

How do they get a hold of you? Let's give them the goods.

Speaker 3 17:30

So you can get a hold of us at tradesgourmet sandwichescom. You can send us an email. We also have a website on tradesgourmetcom.

Speaker 2 17:37

Facebook social media Facebook social media.

Speaker 3 17:39

Same thing tradesgourmet. There's a little thing on the website. Click on that and you fill it all out what event, what company, how many people and then I look at it and then I give you a call. I'm like, ok, you have 50 people, and then I send them our catering sheet and then we go from there. But we really don't hit too many company parties, at least on the weekend until after September, because we're so booked from June till September. It's like we're going from festival to festival.

Speaker 3 18:05

I call it the sandwich time tour because we're always on the road going from one place to another and you're setting up, turning down, setting up, turning down. So we really don't hit too many company parties till after fair and fast season.

Speaker 1 18:16

Do you ever do?

Speaker 3 18:17

weekdays, we do. If I can get a company party on a Monday, we'll take it. If we're not set up.

Speaker 1 18:22

Well, what we do I'm going to share what we do at Comco is we bring food trucks out.

Speaker 3 18:26

We've been to Comco, I guess.

Speaker 1 18:28

And they service, and then we have our meetings and we break bread together and I don't know if you've ever heard of breaking bread together. It works Right. But, when you sit down and have a meal together, you lower your defenses, you combine, because the one thing about humans is we need to get along. Yeah, that's interesting To survive and it's built into our DNA and there's nothing better than we all have to eat, so it's something you commonly that is, yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 1 18:55

So you do. If a business wants to have you out for it to treat their employees on a weekday, you can do something like that we love those.

Speaker 3 19:01

It's a nice easy day. We make you pick. We have the six options, so you can pick one, two or three and then we come with those options. Comes with fries. You can add drinks to it if you want to, so it gets the. Especially when you're on like a 30 minute lunch schedule, it gets the line to go faster. We have a 200 workplace. They want to feed their employees. We make them pick two options. Say, you want a burger chicken sandwich. And then we can get you out of there a little quicker.

Speaker 1 19:28

Awesome, awesome.

Speaker 2 19:31

When it comes to your future plans, you had mentioned at one point that you have a plan for a second food truck here coming up.

Speaker 3 19:40

Can you?

Speaker 2 19:40

talk about that, or is that top secret?

Trailer Building and Local Restaurants

Speaker 3 19:42

No, it's not top secret. We do so. It's Mikey Ritana. He owns Ritana's Apple downflakes. People love that at the fair too. He builds trailers. That's his little gig in the winter time that not too many people know about unless you're in the business. He only really does it for certain people. But he's going to build us a 20 foot trailer all glass around the marquee, when a marquee signage at the top of the trailer lights all the bells and whistles for a concession stand. We'll use that at festivals and fairs and then the cargo trailer we'll have is a little bit more easier to tow. So we'll use that at some smaller events and whenever we have to we'll double book with both of them.

Speaker 1 20:20

Awesome. It's awesome, I love to see growth.

Speaker 2 20:23

Yeah, it's exciting they say you're either moving forward or moving backwards, that's true, yeah, so well I don't know how much time do we got?

Speaker 1 20:32

We can about another three minutes.

Speaker 2 20:34

Oh, three minutes Okay. All right yeah so, other than now, you mentioned some of your. Your the guy in, let's give a shout out to some of your buddies. Okay, so, other than trays, gourmet sandwiches, what are some of your favorite places that you go to eat?

Speaker 3 20:51

that you would tell in the food truck world.

Speaker 2 20:53

No, just the restaurant, just local areas.

Speaker 3 20:55

I don't get out to too many restaurants. I know a lot of those guys. I don't get out because obviously we're busy on the weekend, but mark has is doing his thing up Bistro, like I said, downtown 124 Octavio oh, what kind of food?

Speaker 2 21:06

does downtown 124 have?

Speaker 3 21:09

pretty much everything he has. It's pretty much spread out.

Speaker 2 21:12

Okay, and that's by the courthouse in Warren.

Speaker 3 21:14

That's right by inside the double tree.

Speaker 2 21:17

Yeah, that's downtown Youngstown. Yeah, you're talking about downtown 124. Okay, that's.

Speaker 3 21:21

That's in Warren. That's in Warren by Nova coffee shop.

Speaker 2 21:25

Okay, yeah, and what do they have?

Speaker 3 21:27

It's pretty much all over the board. Okay, and he used to be the GM at Bistro, actually, and then he opened his I'll see the Bistro.

Speaker 2 21:33

He's like birthing, he's like having babies. Yes, yeah, that's exactly how it's like the cradle coaches, like the cradle coaches. That's cool. It says a lot about him.

Speaker 1 21:45

Yeah, we have the cradle of cooks now.

Speaker 2 21:47

The cradle of cooks.

Speaker 1 21:48

That's true, that's great.

Speaker 2 21:50

What is the cradle of coaches?

Speaker 1 21:52

cradle coaches.

Speaker 2 21:53

Yeah, what is?

Speaker 1 21:54

that. Oh, you don't know about that.

Speaker 2 21:56

No, am I like. Now, all of a sudden, I'm like, yeah, I'll do the loop you have.

Speaker 1 22:03

I'm gonna have to edit this part.

Speaker 2 22:09

Okay, we can talk about off I Got to think about.

Speaker 1 22:12

It's the coach of coach of Oklahoma and the coach of Kentucky.

Speaker 3 22:15

Okay, coach stoop.

Speaker 2 22:17

Stoop's, the stoop's brothers.

Speaker 1 22:18

Oh, this is the sport, okay, you have the, the former coach of Youngstown State, who used to call me Polini. You have bow and Carl Polini you have, and there was a point in time where you have trust. Look, came from this area. You have all kinds of coaches that have made it very big and the in the world.

Speaker 2 22:39

Really, and they, they all have a connection here.

Speaker 1 22:41

Yeah, and then look at the class of Mooney, now for boardman. So yeah, trail, forgive me.

Speaker 2 22:48

Come to Jesus.

Speaker 1 22:51

And but, mooney, look at all the, you have boom, boom, mancini right. Yeah, you have all those leaders that came. All those leaders that came, the president of our company, rick Friday. All those leaders came out of Mooney. There's a tremendous amount of leadership that came out of that school. There was some teachers there that really inspired kids and really Got them to dig down and become the best they could be, and they're great leaders my class and boardman. Yeah, you have Tim Saxon who's a superintendent.

Speaker 1 23:20

You have Vicki Davis, who is on the board of education. You have Jeff Green, who's a sheriff. That's all for my class really so we had some great teachers at that time.

Speaker 2 23:31

There was just a burst of Good leadership that came not something back to the teachers and back to the leadership? That is fascinating Wow there, that's. That's amazing. Okay, so one more question, if I have time, is what is your? What has been an influential book of Greg? For those of the listening, you probably have already surmised that Greg is a reader.

Speaker 2 23:54

Yeah he's always recommending books and he's always he facilitated. Basically, he sees a need and somebody, he's go oh, here's a book, here's the book at. What book or are you currently reading? Or what book has, would you say, has been very influential in your life?

Speaker 3 24:08

I don't read too much.

Speaker 1 24:10

Okay, what about you listen to podcast? Who inspires you? What? Where do you get your mentoring from?

Speaker 3 24:15

My, my biggest inspiration growing up still to this day, would it? Kobe Bryant that's. I've watched a lot about Kobe Bryant. Any school project was on Kobe being and just watching his dedication Always first one in the gym, always the last one out. That's how I want to be, always that one that was putting in extra work. And a lot of my friends they we grew up and it was like they all had the same dream. It was good, nfl, go to NBA. And it's like now I talked to those guys and they're like You're the only one of us that had a different type of dream. Those guys are graduated from college working in nine to five and it's like I was the only one that said I don't want to play football anymore. I want something different that I know I can thrive in and I know for sure that I can get to. Hmm, wow.

Speaker 2 24:59

Now you're dreaming about putting your name on the board. Men's scoreboard.

Speaker 1 25:05

That's pretty incredible Circle, but I know how we can get that to happen. I know some.

Speaker 3 25:11

Bourbon football games Tim I went to school with Tim's kids.

Speaker 2 25:14

Oh yeah, yeah, that's a good guy.

Speaker 3 25:16

He's to be a principal oh wait a minute.

Speaker 2 25:18

Well, hold on. You went to school with Tim and you went to school with his kids.

Speaker 1 25:22

Yeah, yeah, that's kind of cool Like being a spark we can hold back.

Speaker 2 25:28

Yeah, the owner of Phantom fireworks, graduate from board win. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 25:33

Bernie Kosa.

Speaker 2 25:34

Yeah, wow, bernie played when I was there like there's needs to be a hashtag surrounding that. Somehow there needs to be a hashtag board with something.

Favorite Foods

Speaker 1 25:43

That's true, all right, we always. We always have something at the end. Here it's called Rapid fire. So we asked you a couple questions. Okay yeah, browns or Steelers? Steelers Well, how? State or Michigan?

Speaker 3 25:59

Wow state Good answer wine or beer beer.

Speaker 1 26:03

What kind? I'm not IPA or.

Speaker 3 26:07

IPA Bert. We do a lot with birdfish. I grew to love some of the things that they have over there.

Speaker 1 26:12

To hip, to sip. That's my number one. Yeah, okay, let's see. You asked me what kind of flavor ice cream is your favorite chocolate chip?

Speaker 2 26:23

Really, you ever?

Speaker 1 26:24

had graders. No, no, graders is great.

Speaker 2 26:27

Who has the best fries?

Speaker 1 26:29

Yes, there it is. That's the final question. Are you talking?

Speaker 3 26:31

fry, french fry. I'd be side you, besides you, besides you, if you couldn't get your fries, where would you go? Oh, it's crazy to say because we could, we get compared to it so much, but Chick-fil-A.

Speaker 1 26:43

Huh, awesome, all right, thank you very much for coming here.

Speaker 3 26:48

Thank you for having me really appreciate it.