Perseverance & People: Ted Clouser of PCA Technology Solutions

Ted Clouser, owner of PCA Technology Solutions shares his inspiring entrepreneurial story. Ted talks of starting his own computer business at the ripe age of 16 from a rural Pennsylvania dairy farm to becoming the Executive Vice President and eventually the owner of PCA Technology Solutions. He reveals his battle with depression, his deep faith, dedication to customer service, and how the tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic offered him a surprising level playing field to thrive.

Join us as we explore how Ted, with his unparalleled understanding of computers and an unyielding passion for technology, built a successful company amidst personal challenges. Listen to him impart invaluable insights on the power of consistent branding, the transformative role of the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) in organizational changes, and his forward-thinking strategies. We unpack Ted's innovative approach to branding and discuss how partnerships can be the key to business success and growth. Get ready to be inspired by Ted Clouser's intriguing journey through life and business.

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Transcript

Ted Clouser: 0:20

One, two, three, Without beyond a shadow of doubt. I was supposed to buy the company, but it's not for the reasons that I thought.

Chris Massey: 0:27

On today's episode, ted Clouser of PCA Technology Solutions shares his story of growing up through a business, then one day buying that business and the dark challenges that came along with it.

Ted Clouser: 0:39

By 2 pm in the afternoon I was spent, I was heading to the tub and depression was just through the roof.

Chris Massey: 0:47

The approach he took personally and changes he made to his business. That has them thriving and even looking to expand today.

Ted Clouser: 0:54

I brought it to my executive team in January and really pitched it and said I think this can revolutionize our business.

VoiceOver: 1:02

Welcome to Now that's it stories of MSP success, where we dive into the journeys of some of the trailblazers in our industry to find out how they used their passion for technology to help Ted manage services into the thriving sector it is today.

Chris Massey: 1:25

In 2018, ted Clouser and his wife Stephanie bought PCA Technology Solutions, the company Ted had worked for for nearly 20 years. Six months into ownership, ted slipped into a battle with depression, but when COVID hit, ted started seeing things at a level playing field.

Ted Clouser: 1:45

My wife looked at me and she said listen, this has been a hard road, but I just want you to tell me what is the worst that can happen. And so I said well, I'm so glad you asked this and this and this and this and this and this. And she said, wow, that would be really bad. What else? I said, well, then, it would be this and this and this and this. And she said, oh, that would be awful. Then what? I said, what do you mean then? What? That's like as bad as it gets? She said you're right, but now, if that's as bad as it gets, let's focus on digging out of this hole one day at a time.

Chris Massey: 2:19

Now PCA Technology Solutions is growing fast and has 30 employees, a long way from Ted's first business, started as a teenager in rural Pennsylvania.

Ted Clouser: 2:29

I grew up in a dairy farm. I was the youngest of three boys, and the challenge that I faced is that I could not grow anything and I could not fix anything. So it wasn't long before my two older brothers decided that I needed to just hit the road, and so I started a journey to really determine where it was that I could find a purpose. And actually at a very young age I had an interest in computers. They're on the family farm we had a computer. It was an old green screen 8086. And so I would learn to tinker with it.

Ted Clouser: 3:01

And then in high school I became sort of that resident computer person. I knew just enough and I realized it was something that I felt like I could excel at. And so I likened my understanding computers a lot to a musician. I just got computers. It's like any musician that can pick up an instrument. I understood how they work. It's not necessarily my passion. My passions are in people, in business, in growth, in creating a sustainable organization, and technology just happens to be a really good platform for that.

Chris Massey: 3:36

You're 16 years old, right, you're loving the computers. You see this as a way to maybe get away from the farm life, and you decided to start your own company. I did.

Ted Clouser: 3:45

So I actually graduated high school at 16. And I decided that from a business perspective, I felt like I could go to market with what it was that I thought I created, which was just an idea. Right, I didn't have inventory, I didn't have anything other than dreams, and so I began to really advertise in the local newspaper. I mean, you're talking about rural PA In hindsight. Rural PA has a lot of Amish. They do not have electricity, so therefore they do not have computers. So it wasn't the most sound business plan I ever had, but I did have several customers. I did make some sales, but it took about a year before I realized that I needed more opportunity, I needed more growth. And so at age 17, I joined a computer company up in State College, pennsylvania, and was really just their break fix guy. I was sent out to replace modems, replace motherboards, replace CD-ROMs things that I knew I could do. Somebody just had to teach me how to do it and I was off.

Chris Massey: 4:44

You're in PA, you're in State College and, by the way, as an Ohio State fan, I don't blame you for wanting to get out of there. But this year, baby, this year, but you are still a diehard. We will let everybody know, but you decided to move away. Right, you're going to move down to Arkansas. You're 18 years old and you didn't have much, but you met the love of your life. I think you said I did.

Ted Clouser: 5:09

Yeah, absolutely. So I moved to Arkansas. I had a friend that lived here, but I just picked up. I mean I just needed a place, right, I could have easily thrown a dart somewhere. But I think a greater power had me headed to Little Rock where I ultimately met the love of my life. I remember on our first date it was a blind date and I knew from the very beginning this was a girl I was going to marry. It took a few months for me to convince her of that, but finally, about nine months in, we were married and we're celebrating 25 years this year.

Chris Massey: 5:37

Congrats. That's amazing, ted. I've gotten to know Stephanie over the years and she is definitely your better half. She keeps you honest and I love her personality, and everything she's done there at PCA as well is so fantastic. Thanks, awesome. So when you go down to Arkansas worked in IT, you actually own a business. For a period of time, a small one that being, you would think you would have a ton of opportunity. Was that the case?

Ted Clouser: 6:02

Not really, and so you know part of it is. I was an 18 year old, I did not have any contacts, there was no opportunity, and so I just put my head down, got to work. I went to the yellow pages and so sent my resume, which wasn't that great but it was at least had some experience. I sent it out to every computer company in the yellow pages. I was interviewed by three and hired by one called PC assistants, as employee number five or six at the time, I'm not sure exactly what. The PC assistants hired me in 1996 and fast forward to where we are today. That's now the company that my wife and I own, and we rebranded it to PCA Technology Solutions.

Chris Massey: 6:40

What was the company like with just five employees?

Ted Clouser: 6:44

You know it was. Ben Thomas was a founder and CEO at the time, and he had a desire to grow the company. It was something that he had just started with a credit card and a vision, and when I came in, one of the things that I immediately brought to the table was we had a partnership with a place called USNet, and USNet service Packard Bell and Dell computers, and really what they did is they brought work, which it didn't pay a lot, but it created opportunity, and so then I began to try to, as overseeing that, I tried to look for opportunity. When we went into a business, or when I went into a business to try to replace a part, I asked them if there were other things that we could do for them.

Ted Clouser: 7:24

One of the things that we still talk about to this day is this sales mentality. Right, we are always selling, because selling is caring, and so if we're caring for the people that we're serving, ultimately it's not selling, it's order taking, and so over time, people began to call us because we were really good at caring, and I think that what's interesting about our story is it wasn't until recently and I'm talking about really in the past year or two that we put a focused effort on sales because historically we grew by referrals. In Little Rock, arkansas, we had a very strong reputation and we had enough business coming in from referrals. And so now, as we focused on that growth opportunity, we've really doubled down on saying, okay, how do we scale, how do we evolve? And so the same concept, which is a challenge, right Anytime you grow, to try to make those processes repeatable and to have that experience feel the same as it did 20, some years ago. It's a challenge, but it's something we're very committed to.

Chris Massey: 8:27

That's great that you still remember that and obviously have continued to drive that in the company, and there's a lot of MSPs that grow very, very quickly and maybe they forget some of those things that were such a focus or such a key back when they were smaller. That really helped them get to that point. So you guys grew pretty quickly. Over the next five or so years I think you got above 20 people and you yourself grew right. Ted, I think you had mentioned like you became EVP, and so that doesn't surprise me, by the way, now that I got to know you over the last couple of years. But why do you think they were able to put you in a position or to offer that role to you at such a young age?

Ted Clouser: 9:07

You know, obviously, as a man of faith, I've got to ultimately say that it was God's hand that put me there, but I was not afraid to work. One of the things that I will say dairy farming taught me is that I'd get up early and I was starting my days at 5am, and back in early 2000s, that was a huge advantage because I could get four or five or maybe six hours worth of work done in a two hour time span, because no distractions existed, and so I wasn't afraid to do that. I was willing to go the extra mile. I worked long hours, you know, even as I was growing, a family stuff was extremely supportive to give me opportunity to work. But then I, you know, we have that mantra of work hard, play hard, right. So we vacationed a lot.

Ted Clouser: 9:48

By the time I was 30 years old, we had seen all 50 states in the US. So it wasn't, it wasn't. In spite of it was. In addition to. You know, one of the things that really spiked our growth in the early 2000s was we had sparked a relationship with a place called Altel, which ultimately was sold to Verizon, and we were the first in Arkansas to roll out the DSL modems.

Ted Clouser: 10:13

So, every time Altel sold DSL they called PC assistance, and so it grew our business. I mean, I think we doubled in just a matter of two or three years.

Chris Massey: 10:23

That's awesome. Do you remember about when you were introduced to?

Ted Clouser: 10:27

enable. We were probably the second or third in the state of Arkansas to really begin to spearhead into the MSP side full circle. It was 2004, maybe 2005, that we began the journey and enable was just white, gloving us through the process. It was a great experience. Good friend Gavin was the CEO at the time that I got to know later it was just a top notch product but it was an enormous expense for us.

Ted Clouser: 10:52

I mean, we were a small company preparing with this vision that, quite honestly, stephanie and I had talked through and I came up on a car ride home back to Pennsylvania of what we're going to do. We're going to call it IT assurance and we've since rebranded it to be just ITA to really make it more simplistic. But that was just from one of those trips where I think it's important. You've heard a lot of working on the business instead of in the business, and the car rides and time out in wilderness just gives me some freedom to really begin to be creative and to think of ideas. And so when we came back with that, this is all just. I think it will work. And so now I'm trying to make a business decision that we're going to spend this enormous amount of money and gosh. It was one of the greatest investments we've ever made in a history company, but it was pretty scary to think about back then.

Chris Massey: 11:45

Yeah, I think I know you're a big faith guy and there is definitely there's something about PC assistance reaching out to you, seeing that resume going. You know what. This is somebody that we should bring on board because we've got bigger plans for him. And I asked you that at the beginning, you know, when you joined, did you ever think you'd be on in the company? I think the answer was no, but you always sort of took this attitude like you know, how could I do things better? You're always looking at ways to just improve, constantly improve.

Ted Clouser: 12:16

Part of it was I wanted to try to drive efficiencies. I didn't want to just do the same old thing. I wanted to see growth, I wanted to see success, and I believe that efficiency is a huge part of that. So my eyes were open to try to figure out how to do more with less. Can you talk a?

Chris Massey: 12:33

little bit about how the ownership opportunity at PCA came about.

Ted Clouser: 12:38

Yeah, I actually can tell you I never desired to own again. I was very comfortable being the number two guy.

Ted Clouser: 12:45

I felt like I thrived in it. It allowed me to take all of the best qualities that I felt like I was gifted with and use them. You know, stephanie always felt like I could someday own the company. It's not that I couldn't, it's that I simply didn't want to. And you know, the owner and I the founder had had conversations. There was always the expectation or plan of that. I just didn't feel like it was going to come. And so it all happened pretty quickly. When he had conversations about the exit strategy, steph and I prayed about it and quite honestly, I can say in hindsight I can, without being on a shadow of doubt.

Ted Clouser: 13:20

I was supposed to buy the company. I mean, I can say that wholeheartedly because God made it happen, but I it's not for the reasons that I thought. I had a lot of counsel. I had a lot of people that were speaking into me to say you need to understand that this transition is more than you think. And I'm like I got it. I've been running the company. It's not that hard. I'd already acted like I was the owner. I've treated everybody like I was the owner. This will not be hard. And boy was it hard. And you know. And it ended up putting me in a state of rebuilding, and the reason why I can say so confidently that I was supposed to buy it is I'm a much better man and a person than I was beforehand, and it was really through that process that allowed me to see a lot of my blind spots, and I'm a big advocate of being open and real about this because, you know, even if I could just help one person recognize they're not alone, recognize that this is not something that you should shy away from or be ashamed of, then it's worth it. So we bought the business in 2018, about six months later, I brought in a business consultant and we really started working through the challenges that I started to face six months in, and it didn't take him long to see and really push me and say, ted, you've created a company with no foundation. You built all of this and you were the fixer. You know people would come to you and ask for direction and you were good at pointing them in the direction and then they'd head off. But you've essentially got a company that isn't worth much. I went millions of dollars in debt in a building because we decided that was a smart idea to buy a new building too.

Ted Clouser: 14:58

I turned 40, I'd been married 20 years, my daughter went off to college. I had all of these life changes, chris, to be honest, it put me in a bathtub and so by 2 pm in the afternoon I was spent, I was heading to the tub and depression was just through the roof, and thankfully our COO, rex Easter staff, as the chief brand officer and our business consultant, really rose up to help begin to build the things. I was able to function, at least 50%, but I wasn't my whole self. I was struggling on every level and so it just it was hopeless, and the best way I can describe it and the reason again the whole go win the day mantra was so powerful for me is I was literally anxious about things that might happen a year and a half in the future a year and a half right, and so that is an impossible thing to overcome. If I'm anxious that far in the future, it's one thing to be anxious about a meeting I have tonight or even tomorrow, but that was so daunting and so overwhelming, and so part of the journey was was recognizing it. You know, I certainly was open about talking to a professional counselor, being open to medication, you know, really just praying through what that looked like, and ultimately came to a spot where, you know, as I shared earlier with that story with Stephanie, that was beginning to come out of it. But as I was coming out, so 18 months into the process, covid happened. And again in hindsight I can walk through all of these right. So Psalm 23,. I was walking through a valley, but it was preparing me for what was to come.

Ted Clouser: 16:40

And what was interesting about COVID is I felt like it was a little playing ground again. I had struggled for the past 18 months thinking everybody's better than me. All the other IT firms are better, every, every CEO is better. And when that happened I was able again, I was coming out of it. So that was important. But I was able to look and think we're all even again, and so I was able to then begin to lead through something that nobody was an expert in. It was really life changing for me. You know we're fortunate to be able to get through the pandemic. Arkansas handled it pretty well, so it was business as usual for most part, but we, you know, sent people home and did some of those things. But that was a really, really just a pivotal point for me and for the leadership and the company as a whole.

Chris Massey: 17:26

I'm so glad that you were able to get the help that you needed and that you had the people around you like Steph and Rex and it sounds to me like there were a bunch more as well. Absolutely, that stuck by you and it's so great that obviously, this awful thing like COVID happened, but it gave you an opportunity to say I got to snap out of this. Obviously, you were already well on your way, but you know it's given me a chance to sort of start fresh and build a new company the way that I want to build it right. It's the TED that I know. You've always been this just very optimistic, positive person. So to see that there was this part of your life that wasn't that way, it's amazing. I think that's just a testament to what you've become and the company that you've built.

Chris Massey: 18:07

You guys have a fantastic MSP. You've got a great group. I love Rex, I love Stephanie. They've done such an amazing job there. Your brand is really powerful. So, you know, congrats on being able to work through everything that you did and continuing to build the company out of COVID. So let's talk a little bit about some of the other changes that you guys made. You know, eos is definitely an organizational change that a lot of small businesses try to look at, but I seen it really be a focus for MSPs, and so can you talk a little bit about the importance of EOS and just why you went down that path?

Ted Clouser: 18:43

Well, our current business consultant advised me to read traction. This was also the guy that advised me there was more opportunity on the table with the RTC credits. Of course you hear about all that now, right, they're knocking the doors, but this was really on. So I felt okay if he told me about that, this traction thing ought to be pretty good. And I read it and I'm just sitting here thinking, oh, my goodness, this is so easy, how am I not running this already? And so he told me to read it in December.

Ted Clouser: 19:12

I brought it to my executive team in January and really pitched it and said I think this can revolutionize our business and you know I've been known to bring what we call shiny stuff in that's going to revolutionize our business. Sure Of kind of what, what CEOs do a lot, but. But I was pretty convinced that this was the final silver bullet that really could change things and so we rolled it out. And we actually did all self-implementation but rolled it out on the executive level, and that was January, I think we made a commitment to have it, you know, rolled out in February or whatever. And and we were seeing so much traction really pretty quickly, because meetings I mean meetings can just be a waste of time. They're just totally unproductive. Right and traction reading now will tell you that. But this is different. It's it's very laser focused. And what's interesting, because we rolled it out in the entire company in June and and so we're almost at what 60 some days into it.

Ted Clouser: 20:10

What's interesting is we had a year end retreat at Big Cedar Lodge last year, took the entire company, shut down our MSSP and partnered with another group to handle our tickets for that 24, 48 hour period. One of the final sessions that I really stressed was called measure twice, cut once, and it was all about metrics. And I walked out there thinking, whoa, this is going to be great. I have no clue how I'm going to do what I just said I need to do. But within 30 days and I read traction and I start thinking about what they call a scoreboard. And we were we're your technology coach, so we try to be very sports based, so ours are a stat sheet. So I began to see how I could take these KPIs and make them visual and tie metrics around them, tie just the number, so that everybody has a number which traction focused on.

Ted Clouser: 21:07

And, chris, I'm telling you I am floored in eight months what we have seen happen, absolutely floored with issues that we have resolved, that have sat around for years, and the things that we're focusing on this quarter and we're about to focus on next quarter. We were just spinning and again, traction talks about. The whole concept is to fix issues, not try to suppress them, not bandaid them, to fix them, and it's been huge for us. Chris, I'd strongly recommend it. You know it's interesting. I don't know how scalable it is, but I thought you know, if the US government would just sit and have some level 10 meetings, maybe they'd fix some problems. That's great.

Chris Massey: 21:49

Very good, yeah, it's. You know what traction is, one of those things, that it's such a powerful book. Us is such a powerful technique that we had an in-person peer group a few weeks ago you know several of the gentlemen that are businesses that are in there and we had sort of a CEO. Hot seat was one of the sections in the in-person peer group and the CEO got up there and he was sort of talking about you know, I'm having all these sort of operational challenges and I don't know like what my role as a CEO is, and so on and so forth. And then very quickly, one of the members of peer group said you need EOS and he walked out of the room and he grabbed both of the books the cliff notes and the full-straction book and handed it to him and said read this on the way back. And he's like how did you have this? He goes we give it to every one of our employees, and so it was just one of those things that it was just. This has been really, really powerful and I've heard so many speak very highly of. So very, very good. I really appreciate your story on that.

Chris Massey: 22:44

So let's talk a little bit about the, the PCA brand. I have really been able to see the power of social media that you post every single day. I think your website is one of the best websites. I love the idea. I almost say it's like transparency you share on your website, like this is who we are, this is what we do. Do you want an example based upon the type of company you are? You just have done such a nice job of putting so much focus in the brand and what PCA is. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of branding?

Ted Clouser: 23:26

I am a CEO that believes strongly in the power of a brand, so much that my wife is our chief brand officer and someday, when she rides off into the sunset, we'll still continue to put a high priority on brand marketing, because I believe it's essential. In fact, I just learned, apparently we have a font, and so now I'm writing letters in that font. I'm taking it to a new level. I'm not using that font, I'm going to be busted, but to me, it's just the message. So the importance of the brand is that we want every single person, we want every piece of social media and everything that goes out to be consistent, and so we have our terminology and we're actually going through that as a company right now, revisiting because, unfortunately, the stuff gets stacked, and so when we rebranded, it was the end of 2018. That's coming up on five years ago, and so now we're really analyzing and saying, ok, does everything still fit? Do we need to look at adapting?

Ted Clouser: 24:24

And I think that one of the things that I've learned because I tend to be that, you know, shoot from the hip type guy I've learned that I need to engage my brand and marketing team before I put it out, because it can cause confusion, it can cause the wrong message, and so the consistency in all that we do from the words that we use. That's why I mentioned IT assurance and we're rebranding it's ITA. It's because 95% of the people in the organization say ITA, so we need to get that to 100. We need to sunset the old term and we need to be consistent. So, even just down to that level, the importance of the words that we use, both internal and external, are essential, and one of the things that we're pretty focused on with even our social media is the importance of that consistency, because you're seeing what PCA means and that's our best way to do it is that consistency.

Chris Massey: 25:21

Yeah, I think it's amazing. Even on your personal posts, even if you're sharing something that you went to with your family or your friends or you're on vacation, you still are very, very consistent with it, and I just I almost look forward to it. Like, hey, when's Ted's post going to be? So great job with that. That is not an easy thing, so congrats on that. The other thing I love about you, ted, is you like to think outside the box. I'm not sure how much you're willing to go into detail on this, but when we met in Raleigh last year, you were trying to convince Robert and I about this marketing idea you had, and so I was curious if you'd like to share your out of the box thinking and maybe how that went over the last couple of years.

Ted Clouser: 26:03

One of our things that we focused on is the sports mentality. It's interesting because we are your technology coach and we've had a lot of internal discussions, because when I think coach, I think Nick Saban, and so whether you love him or hate him, he wins. Why does he win? Because he brings in a plane, and so if you hire us as your technology coach, we're coming in with a plan that will allow your business to win. The downside is, not everybody sees the word coach that way, so that's something we're having to evaluate. But because we are your technology coach and because it's the sports analogy, I thought it would be a great idea to sign an NIL deal. You saw banks, at least in Arkansas. We had financial institutions that were doing it. You had large organizations that were doing it. No small business like ours was doing it. So perfect opportunity, we felt like, and so we began to put together a strategy that I'm not sure the team was as bought into it as I was. It's another one of the shiny things, right, but I kept pushing. I kept really spearheading it. I had the conversations. You know my son was an athlete, so I had some connections and we did an NIL deal with a young man that I just think is so amazing, named Daring Fort. He was at the University of Arkansas at the time when we signed him, and part of what we wanted to do with the NIL agreement is great I T are core values. We needed the NIL relationship to be the same. They needed to meet all of our core values because signing an NIL deal and I am, I have learned a lot right, and we I realized there's NIL attorneys. I had to hire an NIL attorney to draft contracts, but it was a learning experience and it allowed us to really again spearhead and I felt like in a very safe way.

Ted Clouser: 27:51

I am, I'm a calculated risk guy. I do not mind taking risks, but I'd like to know that there's a really good chance they're going to be successful, and I felt like this was. And so you know, we, we set up the arrangement and then had the event in June and it was, oh my gosh, it far surpassed my expectations. We made it about the community.

Ted Clouser: 28:12

We, we opened up doors, we had that local venue, we allowed it to be free, we invited the community, we pushed it and pushed it, and I just remember Darian and his family. There's one more clock whistled off the right hand, but I just remember the smiles in their face and how they felt looking at all these people that came out to see their son, and I remember talking to Darian and his family and said these are kids dream to be like right, they aspire to be like him and and Darian also part of it is you'll see some things coming out soon where he's a part of our coaching videos where he talks about the importance of a coach and so very excited about how it turned out. The plot twist was about a month before the event he entered the portal and I'm like, oh no, a transfer portal yeah.

Ted Clouser: 29:02

If he goes to somebody, that's anti Arkansas.

Chris Massey: 29:03

This is not going to do it.

Ted Clouser: 29:05

But right, it ended up being perfect. He transferred Arkansas State. It was a total win. And you know, the thing about NIL is the relationship is with the student. It's not you have to adhere to the rules of the school, but it's with the student. And so you know. People would ask you know now he's in the portal or are you still? Yeah, no, our relationship with Darian, and we're committed to that and and even had the conversation you know super amazing kid and he called me beforehand to say hey, I just need to give you a heads up. I do not want you to read this on Twitter, I don't want you to read the paper, but I'm being in the portal and I just don't know what that means for us. Like I said, I tell you what it means for us. We're still in this together, so that's great and it was great. I mean, it was a really, really good experience.

Chris Massey: 29:46

Good that's. That's great, that it worked out the way that you had hoped it would, and it sounds like even better. So, also, for those of you out there listening, don't be afraid to think outside the box once in a while, because it sounds to me like something that was, you know, maybe a little risky but calculated, ended up not only working out for you from a lead generation perspective, but it was also really enjoyable and it felt very rewarding Because again, you're giving back to the community. You're giving back to this player, this young teen and his family. I mean, just that's really really great, ted, and that falls in line with the Ted that I got to know really really well. So that's great. I love that story and I think that's a great one. I really appreciate you sharing that. Thank you, I appreciate it. Awesome. So talk to us about what the future holds for PCA and maybe yourself.

Ted Clouser: 30:35

Well, I mean the future for PCA, I think, means growth, and so we have. One of the things that we're that we're very proud of is the new foundation that was built and, as I talked through that story and I transitioned, we've rallied the team and we've made sure the right people are in the right seats doing the right things. That's another traction comment Again. Nick Saban talks about a little different, but the same concept. Right, we don't want A, b and C players, we want all A players, and so as we hire and ultimately as we fire at PCA, it is all around core values. We wanna make sure that we have like-minded people within our organization. We can teach the IT part of it much easier than we can those core values. So we're gonna continue to hire around that. We've just had a new person start this week.

Ted Clouser: 31:25

We're over 30 people continue to have growth plans to really evolve and, quite honestly, I think you know we gave it a whirl before COVID, right before COVID, when we opened some additional offices. I'm actually in my North Rock location today it's a lot quieter over here, but I fully foresee us entering into other markets in the very near future. In fact, I know there's a study being done right now of what makes sense, because, as we continue to grow and evolve, yes, arkansas is our home and we're going to take care of the people that got us to where we are, but we believe that there's more opportunity throughout the US that we can really be a part of, and so we're excited about that. I also share. There's a new alter ego of my AI, ted, that we're playing with a little bit, so you'll see a little bit more of him. So that's in the near future.

Chris Massey: 32:13

We'll see if your readers like AI Ted better than actual Ted. Right, that's the fear of the future, right, Right? That's exactly right. So, as is tradition, since this is the Now that's it podcast, we like to ask all of our guests one final question when was when? Did you know that that was it, ted, that either you had done the right thing, made the right decision? When did you know that was it?

Ted Clouser: 32:42

Wow, I mean I've got to point it back to Steph, you know, when I asked her to marry me. I mean my life has never been the same. She is definitely my better half. She pushes me, encourages me, and so I've got to say that's when I knew it was it.

Chris Massey: 32:59

I really, really, really appreciate the conversation today. It's always great catching up with you. I wish you, rex and Stephanie, the best, as well as the rest of the PCA team, for the future. Thank you so much for being with us.

Ted Clouser: 33:12

Well, I appreciate that and, you know, part of our mission, part of our vision, part of our core values, big part of that is partnership, and so I'm grateful for organizations like Enable that have been with us through so many of these challenges, that were able to provide us with what we need to grow. You know, been a partner for a long time and we have huge plans for the next decade, and so I look forward to really spearheading forward those types of partnerships. Thank you, chris, I appreciate it.