In this engaging podcast episode, join me as I explore the world of business, trust, and growth with Bart Walker, the president at Pacific Ag Rentals. We delve into the symbolic importance of a handshake, representing the foundation of trust between a business and its customers. The company's impressive 23-year history is a testament to Walker's unwavering commitment to exceeding promises and cultivating trust, propelling Pacific Ag Rentals forward. During our conversation, Bart shares a valuable lesson from his father about prioritizing fairness and integrity over monetary gain when addressing customer issues. This commitment to taking the high road, even when it demands sacrifices of time and money, echoes throughout our discussion. Beyond business principles, Bart encourages listeners to focus on uplifting and supporting people, emphasizing the brevity of life. He emphasizes the transformative impact of positive words, encouragement, and collaboration. The same positive mindset is intended for his employees and customers, with a genuine effort to seek feedback for continuous service improvement. As our conversation unfolds, he reflects on his modest upbringing, recalling family dinners of cold potato soup. He suggests that facing and understanding financial challenges can make individuals more open to taking risks in business, drawing parallels between his own risk-taking journey in Florida and the exploratory spirit of Lewis and Clark. Ultimately, Walker suggests that true success is not measured by monetary value but by the valuable experience gained through taking risks. This podcast serves as a rich source of business wisdom, emphasizing trust, integrity, positive impact, and the enduring value of one's roots.
In this engaging podcast episode, join me as I explore the world of business, trust, and growth with Bart Walker, the president at Pacific Ag Rentals. We delve into the symbolic importance of a handshake, representing the foundation of trust between a business and its customers. The company's impressive 23-year history is a testament to Walker's unwavering commitment to exceeding promises and cultivating trust, propelling Pacific Ag Rentals forward. During our conversation, Bart shares a valuable lesson from his father about prioritizing fairness and integrity over monetary gain when addressing customer issues. This commitment to taking the high road, even when it demands sacrifices of time and money, echoes throughout our discussion. Beyond business principles, Bart encourages listeners to focus on uplifting and supporting people, emphasizing the brevity of life. He emphasizes the transformative impact of positive words, encouragement, and collaboration. The same positive mindset is intended for his employees and customers, with a genuine effort to seek feedback for continuous service improvement. As our conversation unfolds, he reflects on his modest upbringing, recalling family dinners of cold potato soup. He suggests that facing and understanding financial challenges can make individuals more open to taking risks in business, drawing parallels between his own risk-taking journey in Florida and the exploratory spirit of Lewis and Clark. Ultimately, Walker suggests that true success is not measured by monetary value but by the valuable experience gained through taking risks. This podcast serves as a rich source of business wisdom, emphasizing trust, integrity, positive impact, and the enduring value of one's roots.
Pacific Ag Rentals (PAR) - https://www.pacificagrentals.com/
This episode is sponsored by UnitedAg, one of the largest association health plans to offer healthcare to the agriculture industry of California and Arizona.
Kirti Mutatkar, President and CEO of UnitedAg.
Reach me at kmutatkar@unitedag.org, www.linkedin.com/in/kirtimutatkar
UnitedAg website - www.unitedag.org
Episode Contributors - Bart Walker, Kirti Mutatkar, Dave Visaya, Rhianna Macias
The episode is also sponsored by Brent Eastman Insurance Services Inc. - https://brenteastman.com
Blue Shield of California - https://www.blueshieldca.com
Elite Medical - https://www.elitecorpmed.com
Gallagher - https://www.ajg.com/
SAIN Medical https://sainmedical.com/
MDI Network - https://www.mdinetworx.com/about-us
This is Ag! - Bart Walker
Kirti Mutatkar: Good morning. I'm here in Salinas and I am in the office of Pacific Ag Rentals sitting [00:00:10] with Bart Walker. And I actually called you Bartley Walker. But now I feel like you're Bart. You're not Bartley to me anymore.
Bart Walker : Yeah, Bartley is what my mom says. When I was [00:00:20] when I was bad, she would usually say that, but that's that's on all my business cards, so that's typically what I go by.
Kirti Mutatkar: So I'm excited. Welcome to This is Ag. Actually the reason I reached out [00:00:30] to you was because I read your LinkedIn post. It was about a handshake and handshake in agriculture and why that's important and what we do. [00:00:40] So I wanted to reach out to you, have this conversation with you, and I'm super, super excited to be here with you today.
Bart Walker : Yeah. Kirti, thank you very much for having me, I’m humbled and honored that [00:00:50] you'd be here to even reach out for this. You know, we started the company, my dad and I in 2001 with two tractors on his kitchen table. And, [00:01:00] you know, we're over 3500 pieces of equipment and eight states in Mexico. It's bigger than we've ever would have thought it would have become. And and we finally got to the point, maybe 4 or [00:01:10] 5 years ago when we said, you know, how big can we get it? How big can this get? And our goal has always been to help out the farmer. And I want to make sure that we're delivering value, [00:01:20] that we're helping them either sustain or lower their costs or improve their efficiency. And if we continue to do that, they're going to continue to answer my [00:01:30] phone call. They're going to continue to to want to say, hey, what does Bart, what does PA have that they can bring out? And this all started from my dad's handshake. You know, my [00:01:40] my dad came from the hills of Tennessee. In fact, we still have kinfolk back there making moonshine. I won’t give the exact location, but I do get a family discount. I get $5 [00:01:50] off in case anybody needs any. But my dad never made it past the third grade. And, you know, coming out of college, I thought I was the smartest guy in the world until I started working with [00:02:00] my dad and just didn't realize how smart he was and how much common sense that he had.
Bart Walker : And, and that really common sense is teachable because I learned it from him. [00:02:10] And what we're trying to replicate here is his handshake. So he passed away in in 2010. And we've continued to push to keep that ball rolling. But [00:02:20] we want to do that and listen. We have to have more contracts. We have to have other stuff, but we're fighting so hard to keep it out and make sure that we're focused on the handshake. Farmers [00:02:30] understand that contracts are part of the deal, but if you don't have a handshake, you don't have a contract. And that's what we're trying to go through and do with every single customer. Every single [00:02:40] potential customer we meet is try and display my father's handshake to them so they can understand that when we say we're going to be there on Tuesday, we [00:02:50] want to be there Monday at midnight, right? We want to be there. We want to undersell and over deliver. Right? We always want to make sure that they're not having to think about us. [00:03:00] The farmers aren't having to call us to say, where are you at? We want to be there when they're ready to go deploy. And then when something breaks down because all tractors break down. When they do break down that we've got [00:03:10] a staff that's going out there with the right tools, with the right parts to get them back up and running again so they can have uptime.
Kirti Mutatkar: So we did not do this as you were talking through this [00:03:20] for somebody new listening in. And when we say PA and I actually did not even introduce you with your title. So you are the owner and [00:03:30] president of PA Pacific AG Rentals. So for somebody who might not know, what exactly do you do? What would that be? What does Pacific Ag [00:03:40] Rental do?
Bart Walker : I want to say we're a fiduciary, somebody that can go through and help the farmer. We're not owned by a dealer. We do have a few brands that [00:03:50] we have dealership status with, but for the most part, we buy our tractors from the same place that the customers buy their tractors from. We go down to the local John Deere dealership, the [00:04:00] local car dealership, the local Fendt dealership. We buy equipment and then we go out and provide that equipment to our customers on a monthly basis. Sometimes [00:04:10] if farmer goes into a new area, they don't have equipment, they don't have mechanics. They call us up and say, hey, Bart, hey, PA, I need a tractor from, you [00:04:20] know, this March to April, and I need it for one month and I need 170 horsepower tractor. And I'm going to need a small disc to go behind it. Great. We'll have it there for you. And they [00:04:30] have a problem. They call us up. We have mechanics go out there. So you're really pushing off your need for your mechanic. Pushing off your need for equipment. Equipment has gone up over [00:04:40] the last two years by 35%. We are going through. It's getting so much more expensive for the farmers to own that equipment. So we come in and allow them to rent [00:04:50] it, almost like renting a car. When you go down to the airport and you get a car from Hertz, you have to drive it. You have to put fuel in it. If you crash it, you're going to pay for it, [00:05:00] and you use it for as long as you want if you want to use it. For a month. Then you bring it back, you turn it back in, you drop off the keys and you say, see you later. If it breaks down while you have it Hertz comes out and brings another [00:05:10] one. We do the same thing just with farm equipment.
Kirti Mutatkar: Taking that headache off from the farmers so they can focus on what they need to do.
Bart Walker : And there's really nobody else in the United States doing what we're doing. So we're either really [00:05:20] super smart or we're super dumb. But I'm thinking we're somewhere in the middle because this is our 23rd year, so we're still here, lights are still on.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:05:30] I think that is super smart because I was talking to actually talking to somebody in Wisconsin the other day, and I mentioned that I'm coming down here to meet with you. And he talked [00:05:40] exactly about what you just said. From a farmers standpoint, he is a horse radish grower. And he said he would do the same because that takes the headache away. One less [00:05:50] thing to worry about. And then you focus on what the core of whatever you're growing or whatever you're doing. So yeah.
Bart Walker : The tractors are getting so complicated now. I mean, even your car, I mean, I would say take [00:06:00] the car you're driving, lift up the hood, look at the engine. Is there anything you can touch anymore? There's like a big piece of plastic on there, and it says, Keith, don't touch anything on here. Call, call the dealership. And the tractors are getting [00:06:10] the same way. So we've got trained mechanics, we've got trained shops, we've got the tools to work on all of the equipment. We want to be the front line. Do we still have warranty on our equipment? Yes we [00:06:20] do. Do we still rely on the dealers? Yes we do. It's a partnership with them. But we want to make sure that when you call, we are the first line of defense. We want to be out there and try and get you back up and running as quickly as [00:06:30] possible, because speed of service is what sets us apart from our competition. That and selection. So yeah.
Kirti Mutatkar: And the thing that attracted me to reach out to you as I was [00:06:40] reading your LinkedIn post, the handshake actually talks in a way. It's how your customers trust you so they trust you. And [00:06:50] that's why handshake works, right? So what you talk about the way you do business, the way you're handling your customers and what you're doing is you build your trust over the 23 [00:07:00] years, and that's why you've grown so much. And that's the reason the handshake works, because whatever promises you're making, you're going way beyond [00:07:10] delivering that. And that builds the trust, right? Is that how you see it?
Bart Walker : I would I would agree with that. And so getting back to the trust side, you know, my dad taught me a long time ago, son, you're [00:07:20] going to have a problem at some point with the customer. And when you do take the money out of it and then do what you think is right, do what you think is fair, what you think is right, and then bring the money [00:07:30] back in, he says. Because money will cloud your way of thinking, right? And he said, you may lose money in these instances, but you'll have a friend for life. And I've done that on several occasions, [00:07:40] and we have friends and customers for life, for it. We always want to take the high road. We always want to do what's fair and what's right. I mean, if I'm standing in front of 12 people, [00:07:50] I want those 12 people to say, yep, that was the right decision. That's the fair decision to go. And sometimes that costs us time, money, effort. But it's the right thing to do. And my son, [00:08:00] who's 13 right now, I want him to have the opportunity to run this business at some point. So we're looking at it for the long run. And I think that's really the only way [00:08:10] you can look at it is look at it for the long run.
Bart Walker : How can we be there and help the farmer out do what we say we're going to do? And it was easier here on the [00:08:20] West Coast because everybody knew my dad and my uncle Bill Walker, who both were instrumental in me, in my life and my education growing up and introducing me to agriculture. But when [00:08:30] we went to Georgia and Florida, those people, they didn't know my dad, they didn't know the Walkers, they didn't know anybody. So going out there, we had to start all over again. And really, [00:08:40] you have to spend a lot of time at coffee shops. It's 11 times at a coffee shop before the farmer knows your name. 15th time before he'll give you a small order, maybe a disk [00:08:50] blade or a bearing. But that's how it starts. They have to see your shadow. Just like the crops need to see their shadow. They have to see your shadow. And once they see [00:09:00] that and it's replicated, then they start to trust you. And hopefully you can earn their business. And that's what we've been able to do. We've been able to grow organically since [00:09:10] day one. You know, somebody would tell somebody else about how we do what we do. They would say, wow, that looks great.
Bart Walker : Let me get a tractor from them. And then we'd order two tractors and then four tractors [00:09:20] and then eight tractors. And we're ordering a lot more than eight now. And we really been blessed by having great relationships with farmers no matter where they're at. [00:09:30] You know, farming in Georgia is different. You know, the first time I've ever had boiled peanuts, going to going to Georgia, but learning more about different crops, farming is different there than it is over here [00:09:40] on the western side in California and Arizona. But the farmers handshake is the same. They still have the same needs. They still trying to grow a crop. And we found out [00:09:50] that our message, my dad's message, my dad's handshake is easy to replicate over there because the farmer just wants somebody that they can trust that understands that [00:10:00] they're going to be there, that if this tractor breaks down. They're going to bring out another one. It may not be the same color, but they're going to bring out another one and keep me going, because the rain is so much more [00:10:10] impactful back there than it is here. And they need to have uptime. So we want to make sure that we're delivering that for them. So it's been a it's been really good. It's been a great business model for us. [00:10:20]
Kirti Mutatkar: You know. But as you were talking through this, the reason I do this podcast is yes, the listeners listening take nuggets and learn from it. But [00:10:30] for me, what I find fulfilling is when I'm sitting across from somebody like you and listening to you, I just grew a little bit in just the last five seconds [00:10:40] that you mentioned a few things, because you said quite a few things in there that got me thinking. One was, your people [00:10:50] come before the numbers, and looking at it from even from United Ag when I do when we doing business, when you're looking at renewals or new business coming in, we [00:11:00] tend to forget that putting people first and understanding their business and seeing what that impact it has on their income statements is [00:11:10] more important for the long term than the short term. Thinking of what that renewal, what that number looks like today. And you mentioned that's what you learned from your [00:11:20] dad and that's what you're carrying through. That's such an amazing lesson to always keep right at the end. And the whole thing about relationships, [00:11:30] the reason we spend that many hours in a coffee shop is if I don't get to know you at a very deep level as a customer, I'm not going to be able to serve you [00:11:40] because your needs are going to be very different than somebody else's needs. And I need to understand your needs, understand you at a deeper level, because that's how the relationship builds. And [00:11:50] that's why that handshake, going back to that, because you and I know each other at a very deep level, and that becomes a handshake than a business proposition at that time. And [00:12:00] I do feel that will have. That's the reason businesses grow. That's the reason we've grown. And that's the reason you look like you've grown. Lots of things. [00:12:10]
Bart Walker : Yeah. It's always been, you know, customer company self and you have to keep it in that order. And sometimes I ask my wife, sometimes I mess that up because I didn't put family in there. But it's God. Family, [00:12:20] work too. So those are the two different silos I have to operate in. And sometimes I mess up the family one a little bit. But man, that's what I'm trying to get dialed in. But it's, you know, as far [00:12:30] as on the business side, it's customer first, then company, then self. And in business, I think we've kept a small business mentality of just focusing [00:12:40] on the customer and not focusing on the money. I almost even look at college football. I look at college football and those guys are playing with heart. They're just not really playing for the money they're playing [00:12:50] for. They're just playing for the heart of the sport. And you see more of that. And typically in the NFL and the higher leagues, you see them playing. You know it's kind of more for self, more for money and you [00:13:00] kind of lose that. And I, I see that in businesses too, that some of these businesses that we're around, they really value wealth to me too much.
Bart Walker : It's not about [00:13:10] money. It's always to me about impacting with other people. Listen, we're I don't know what the mortality rate is where you live, but where we live here in Monterey County, mortality rate [00:13:20] is 100%. So we're all going to be dying at some point. And when I'm done and gone, I won't be able to communicate to you with my spoken voice anymore. Right. This is it. This is [00:13:30] the time to talk to people. This is the time to pour into people, to impact people with your spoken words, to encourage people to get shoulder to shoulder with them. And let's go fight. Let's go [00:13:40] make a difference. And I and I want to communicate with you and lift you up and let's go make this make this work. So my goal is to pour into my our employees first. We have over 300 [00:13:50] employees here. Pour into them, encourage them, motivate them, and then go to our customers and pour into them and ask them, what can we do differently? How can [00:14:00] we better serve you? I almost relate us as the porter. When you pull into a hotel and you get out of your car, we're the people that come out, the men and the women that come out to [00:14:10] grab your suitcases and don't apologize because your wife, your husband has 14 suitcases.
Bart Walker : We'll bring another cart over. Let's go get it. And I think as long as you have that humble servant mentality, [00:14:20] which I believe is part of our handshake and what we're pushing down to each of our employees, as long as you have that humble servant attitude, your customers [00:14:30] understand what motivates you. And it's not money, and it can't be money. It can't. And I and I've seen so many business owners that look at it that way and it's like, what's [00:14:40] money? What's money going to do with you? What if you and I had hit that lottery and we got $20 million a piece right now? What are we going to do with that? I don't know what I'm going to do with that. I don't want to buy a boat, I get seasick, you know, I probably [00:14:50] donate half of it and leave the rest for my kid. Money doesn't motivate me. And I think some of these other business leaders, they get confused by that. So and that's not part of our handshake.
Kirti Mutatkar: That is interesting. [00:15:00] If a lot of people ask, what would you do if you win this lotto, right? My answer to that is I don't want to. I want to continue doing what I do at United Ag because it is and even [00:15:10] with ourselves. So you said customer comes first and then your company and then us, right? Even looking at us, when you focus more on the number and [00:15:20] not what is what you're passionate about and what you want to do, it's not going to go anywhere, right? Because like I was telling you the other day when we were chatting, when it's all said and [00:15:30] done, what have you done that's going to be more important, right, than what we've said or what we've achieved or what money we've made. What have you done? What impact have you had? [00:15:40] Right. And that's where the passion comes in. Yeah. But one of the things as you were talking through this, I was thinking about the infinite versus the finite games that [00:15:50] we play in business. So when you define it, the finite game would be focusing on numbers. Right? We focus on numbers. It's like a game of let's say [00:16:00] where you have winners and losers. So one lose one gains. Right. But what you are more talking about is creating a business that is long term [00:16:10] sustainable, sustaining. And it is like a game of catch that we play with each other and we continue on and make each other successful because [00:16:20] we are playing it just for the fun and the passion of playing that game. You're not playing to be a winner or you're not going to be the winner or loser mentality. [00:16:30] It is more, let's play the game of where you want to take Pacific Rentals or PR where we take I take United Ag for the passion of what [00:16:40] we do day in and day out. Right? The money will come, the business will grow, all that will happen. But like just enjoy and be passionate about what you do every day. [00:16:50] That's what I thought about when you said that, right?
Bart Walker : And I keep going back to all ships rise and a rising tide. I want my ship to rise. I want somebody else's ship to rise. Their ship could be ten times [00:17:00] my size or half my size. But if you think about, hey, the whole pie is not for me. The whole pie is for us. Let's enjoy. You know, all ships rise and rising tides. So [00:17:10] how can we keep, you know, making decisions and partnering to do that? The Japanese have a firm called Kiritsu, and Kiritsu is something that Toyota [00:17:20] used a long time ago. And Kiritsu is working with their vendors. But having the vendors work with their vendors as well. So their transmission [00:17:30] company would talk to their brake lining company and they would have their brake lining company talk to their hubcap people, and everybody is interwoven into this. So they're not just doing business [00:17:40] with Toyota, but they're doing business with other partners that are doing business with Toyota. And I really like that, that philosophy of how can we go through and do [00:17:50] business with John Deere, do business with do business with Kubota and Casey and other companies and even technology companies. We're working with a company, burrow, out of the [00:18:00] Central Valley, where we're using autonomous carts to help growers go out and pick and pick grapes, and they put them on this little cart. It's like a dog that follows you around, and then you tell it [00:18:10] to go back and it takes the grapes back.
Bart Walker : One of the workers came up to me and told me, he said, Bart, I can actually go play soccer now with my son on Sunday because this cart is helping save my back. [00:18:20] And I'm like, that's super cool. I mean, we wanted to do something to help the farmer, but it's helping the workers as well, right? So we're trying to look at how can we create relationships [00:18:30] where more open kimono. Right. Where we're sharing with other people. All ships rise. I don't care what ship you have. It could be with John Deere or Finch [00:18:40] or whatever. Let's focus on the farmer. Right. Let's focus on what we can do to help them grow a better crop, a more affordable crop, more nutritious crop. What can we do to make [00:18:50] that happen? And I think if we all thought like that, man, it'd be a lot nicer place. Instead of thinking of market share. And how much money are we getting from this guy? And what can I stick them on in the lease? And what's [00:19:00] the interest rate going to be? Now let's just say, hey, this is what we have to get. If this works out, great. If it doesn't, if you don't want to rent it, we can lease it to you. We can sell it to you. We're super flexible. Let's find out something that works for you. [00:19:10]
Kirti Mutatkar: Right? How can we make your life easier? That's what you're all about, right? That is pretty cool. One of the things I was thinking through a conversation that we had recently, and [00:19:20] you were talking about the cold potato soup. Just so the listeners, can you talk a little bit about what that is?
Bart Walker : Yeah, I get back to our cold potato soup story, [00:19:30] and when I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of, you know, extra resources in our household, I guess would be a great way to say it. And my mom would make us potato soup, [00:19:40] you know, so she'd get a can of Campbell's soup, cut up a potato, put it in there. There's our dinner for the night. And it was, you know, my mom wasn't the most awesome of cooks. And so the potato soup [00:19:50] would be cold. And I remember one time my dad saying, you know, hey, come on, can't we even warm up the soup? Come on, let's warm up the soup. You know, and my mom says the kids like it that way. And I just put my head [00:20:00] down and kept eating. I didn't want to get involved in that, in that deal, but that's where we came from. And I think if you can remember where you come from, that we were able to survive [00:20:10] on cold potato soup. And I think a lot of businesses, a lot of people that are starting businesses now, a lot of the younger managers are really focused [00:20:20] on surviving off of the dollar, and they don't want to go through and take risks because they've never had to eat cold potato soup. They've always had, [00:20:30] you know, steaks or nice dinners and nice meals. There's nothing wrong with that. But they don't want to lose that.
Bart Walker : They don't know that they can survive with cold potato soup. They've just never been there. So we're [00:20:40] really kind of open to risk. And, you know, I've had some manufacturers ask me, Bart, tell me the KPIs that you had when you're coming out here to Florida. What made you come [00:20:50] out here to Florida? What was the data? I'm like, man, I didn't I didn't have any data. It was a hunch. We're really Lewis and Clark. There's nobody else that we can go through and buy or M&A. [00:21:00] There's nobody doing what we're doing. So we have to stay in the jungle, keep cutting down bushes, climb a tree to make sure we're going in the right direction and keep cutting. So we took 20 tractors. [00:21:10] We went over to Florida and started. And if I hadn't have had my cold potato soup. I wouldn't have understood that I can survive on this. If this [00:21:20] doesn't work, bring our tractors back. I understand the risk. I can survive with two tractors on my dad's kitchen table again. We can make that happen if it goes to that. So it makes it a lot easier to make [00:21:30] riskier decisions. Now I still calculate those risks, but it makes a lot easier to let go of the rope. You know when you need to because you know you can survive on cold potato soups.
Kirti Mutatkar: [00:21:40] That's an awesome story. That's an awesome story. Actually, the reason I'm here today partly to meet with you, but also my Women Ag Academy [00:21:50] tomorrow and we are reading the book called The Alchemist. And interestingly enough, last night I was reading about just this. Right. It's like taking the risk [00:22:00] because then if you lose everything, you can create it all over again, right? So it is up to us to create and pivot and be creating. [00:22:10] If everything goes away, then you can just pivot and start all over again because we should be all convinced that we can do that. And that's exactly what you're talking [00:22:20] about here. That gives you the confidence to take the risk, right? Because if you lose everything, you still have the confidence that you can still build it back [00:22:30] again. What an amazing story that is. And it relates back to what I was just reading last night. Pretty cool.
Bart Walker : You can't have your grip so tight on profits, [00:22:40] so much on conquering that you lose sight of. Why are we here? Right? Those people that are gripped so tight on that won't take a risk because gosh, they don't want to lose that precious [00:22:50] dollar. And man, I cold potato soup is. I haven't priced out a can lately, but I can probably get one for $3. Yeah. You know, I can go to Top Ramen. You know, I was in college, we had Keystone [00:23:00] beers, a taste of a bottle and a can. I mean, I can, I can get back to baloney sandwiches, which I've had before. For those of you in Georgia, I've had I've had fried baloney sandwiches and okra [00:23:10] and lots of stuff in our upbringing. And kind of brings me back to a phone call that I got the other day. It was on New Year's Day. Young gentleman, probably 22 years old, called me up. [00:23:20] Random caller from Georgia. I don't know who this person is, and I still don't know who he is today. And he called up and had my business card because he called me Bartley Walker. So I had my business [00:23:30] card and we had a discussion there. He wanted me to help him out. He was playing 21 with a friend. It was 7:00 our time seven, eight, nine, ten. So it's 10:00 his time and playing [00:23:40] blackjack with a friend and needed help with blackjack.
Bart Walker : So here I am, talking to this guy for probably 30 minutes and just helping him out with blackjack, which he won his hand after taking [00:23:50] my advice. Luck. I mean, I'm not a big 21 player, but I was able to help him through that and we just talked about family and friends and pick up trucks, and he sent me a picture of his truck [00:24:00] and went on about our day. But I think he called because he wanted to see what California's like. He's heard that we all eat tofu, and I'll live on the beach [00:24:10] and has this image of what Californians are. And hopefully he has a different idea of what Californians are now that we're not Californians, [00:24:20] we're Americans, we're all in one country, and we're all fighting for the same thing. And yeah, there's some crazy stuff going on in the world right now. But look, back in the 1860s when we had a civil war, there's always [00:24:30] hello. There's always been crazy stuff going on in the world, right? Make your vote, stand your ground, know your line in the sand and move forward. And I think that phone call that I spent, I still know the guy's name, but [00:24:40] I'll probably have to call him back at some point.
Kirti Mutatkar: When he listens to it, he'll reach out to you.
Bart Walker : He'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Yeah, he'll know. But that's a great story. Just taking the time. And [00:24:50] that's something that I believe we do differently than our competition. We answer our phone on the weekends, we answer our phone on New Year's Day, and we have empathy to talk [00:25:00] with other people and understand where they're at in their walk. And if we can help them out. Remember, we talked about we're only here for a short period of time. What can we [00:25:10] impart in somebody else? Hopefully I shared with him. Hopefully he takes something away from that and thinks, hey, you know what, California might not be all that bad. Or hey, this company, Pacific Ag Rentals, [00:25:20] I talked to their president for 30 minutes and he doesn't even know who I am, right. And hopefully that meant something to him and makes an impact. And hopefully at some point he'll be a customer.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah. Kudos to him for reaching out to [00:25:30] you, because a lot of people go through their life with a perception that California is this way, or even agriculture, right. When you're in that industry, everybody [00:25:40] has their perceptions about everything that they don't know, and they form their own ideas in their head. And kudos to him for reaching out. And kudos to you for spending [00:25:50] that half an hour on showing him that at the core of it, you are an American, and like anybody else, it doesn't matter Californian or Floridian or somebody else. [00:26:00] It doesn't matter. Yeah, right. It's that's pretty cool. So, Bart, I'm here in your office, and when I walked into the office, I see a calendar here. [00:26:10] And it's a pretty interesting calendar because everything else around here looks very professional. And this is kind of a little. A little bit different. So can you tell me a little story [00:26:20] behind it? It is actually just to describe it. Or maybe you should tell the story, because if I describe it, it takes away from it's a punch line.
Bart Walker : Yeah. It's a picture with my dad and I [00:26:30] on the tractor. My dad's down in the front by the front wheel and I'm sitting in the seat. So we got a call. This was when my dad was still alive. We got a call from a [00:26:40] local fundraising agency and they said, hey, you know what? We'd really like to pay a tribute to your dad for being an agriculture and everything he's done for agriculture. He's been in agriculture [00:26:50] since the late 60s, and we would like to do a tribute. So we're doing a calendar, fundraising calendar, and it's going to be for the children. It's going to be for the third graders. It's going to be for the, you know, we're helping the children in [00:27:00] third grade see agriculture. And that's great. But so this is going to be a fundraiser to help them. I'm like, okay, this should be an easy thing. I think this would be a great honor for dad. Went down to talk to him and said, dad, we [00:27:10] got a great opportunity. They really want to honor you for being in agriculture. I just want us to be on a calendar. It's great, great, great. So I, uh, about a month later, somebody called me up and they said, hey, I [00:27:20] hear you're here. You're going to be in this calendar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's going to be a fundraiser.
Bart Walker : Monterey County Ag education. We're raising money for the children and it's going to be great. And they said, well, you know that the [00:27:30] calendar is kind of like a nude calendar. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, this is a calendar. This is a tribute to my dad for agriculture. It's not going to be that. So I called up the lady who called me and I said, hey, [00:27:40] hey, I heard something crazy. They said that it was going to be a nude calendar. It's not going to be a nude calendar, right? That's crazy. And she said, yeah, that's what it's going to be. And I'm like, uh oh. I said, I don't know [00:27:50] if my dad's going to agree to this. I thought in my head, man, I got to come up with something I can tell my dad so we can back out of this because it don't work out. Nobody wants to see that. I mean, listen, we're not we're not [00:28:00] those we're not calendar people, right? And so I go down and tell my dad, and I said, dad, you won't believe this. These guys, they want us. They want it to be a nude calendar. [00:28:10] Dad, how crazy is that? So I thought that would get him to say no. And he thought about it for a second. He said, son, it's for the children.
Bart Walker : We gotta help the children out. Let's go ahead and do that. And I'm like, okay, [00:28:20] so we get here and the photographer's right. I said, hey, let's do this in the shop. And he's like, no, no, no, we don't need to do it in the shop. We need to have agriculture around the back. We need to have, you know, lettuce [00:28:30] or something. I'm like, well, there's lettuce right across the street, but we'd have to be out in the open. Yeah, yeah, that's a good place. So we go, we go over across the street and we have the tractor [00:28:40] and we're sitting there and I don't have my clothes on. My dad doesn't have his. We have our shoes on and that's it. He's standing at the front of the tire and we're hit. You can't see everything. [00:28:50] Right. And then the photographer starts to tell us a story and I'm like, listen, send me a text message. Take the photo. People were driving by. We actually had our vice president, [00:29:00] Luray. He his wife was driving by in a truck pulling some horses. She sees us. She starts honking the horn. Other people are going by honking the horn. They take the picture. [00:29:10] And I thought, it's very, very embarrassing. And it was a cold day too, but very embarrassing. And we got through it. And you know, it’s actually a great [00:29:20] picture. I love the picture.
Bart Walker : It's titled For Rent with my dad and I, and it was a success. They had so many people sign up for the calendar we had. There was a two year calendar. [00:29:30] So all agriculture people all naked. What things covering their, their, their areas. And, uh, you know, I'm so glad I did it because it really got us to get, [00:29:40] you know, outside of the box and to do something different, to do something that is non-consensus. And that brings us back to exactly what we want to try and do. We want to [00:29:50] be the non-consensus disrupter in the industry. We want to be a different vehicle to provide equipment to the farmer, something that [00:30:00] the manufacturers haven't looked at before. I like Non-consensus disruptors so much. I got the website. I also got the website United Ag Rentals. I got that on year two when [00:30:10] we started. And United Rentals is $1 billion. There are $10 billion company and always have had the dream of, hey, what? What if, what [00:30:20] if we did get that big? And if we don't, that's okay. Cold potato soup. I'm okay with, you know, where we're at, but I sI got the website United Ag Rentals will probably sue me for it at some point.
Bart Walker : And so it just, I just I wanted us to stay focused even at a small young age. We're dreamers and let us continue to dream [00:30:40] and think big thoughts. You think big thoughts and things will happen. And sometimes we find ourselves dreaming and it's not big enough. We need to think bigger thoughts. So that's what we try [00:30:50] and do here.
Kirti Mutatkar: I think big and I like that. And you're going to be United Rentals. That sounds great too for United Ag because I think you mentioned this earlier on. [00:31:00] It is all of us grow together, right? We all can on the rising tide all grow. So you grow and we'll grow. And are we at United also dreaming very [00:31:10] very big. So I wish you all the luck because everything that you talked about today, I don't see anything but success coming your way. I [00:31:20] don't think you'll ever be having that cold potato soup, because think about it. You talked about the way grit, right? Your company is built on that. It's built on human beings. [00:31:30] It's built on employees understanding what a customer really needs and understanding at a deeper level. Relationships, trust. It's like a [00:31:40] long term thinking all of that actually is so, so important in a business to grow. And I don't see anything but success. But [00:31:50] I think you will be the next time I'm here. It's going to be that billion dollar company and United Rentals.
Bart Walker : Yeah. I think that [00:32:00] as long as we understand what success means and you know, we can have a whole program on just what success [00:32:10] means. And success to me, means that I'm going to have a packed church at my funeral. That to me is success, because that means that I've, you know, [00:32:20] poured into people with my time, my effort, my money, my handshake, whatever it is. That to me is success. Because if I do that broke with cold potato [00:32:30] soup, that's awesome. I did something good here because that's that to me is what success is.
Kirti Mutatkar: Yeah, that is true success. That is true success. [00:32:40] This has been such a pleasure and I am so inspired by this conversation right now. I have lots of takeaways for me. I've been taking notes as [00:32:50] you were talking. A lot of things that I want to learn from here. This is awesome. I'm so glad I reached out to you and looking forward to maybe part two of [00:33:00] this, because this is amazing. Thank you.
Bart Walker : It'd be great. Thanks for thanks again Kirti and United Ag for having me. You put a mic in front of my face and I'll talk for forever. I'd like to say it's all because of [00:33:10] me or all because of my dad. But we pray a lot around here too. And so we've got some divine help as well. And I think that really goes well with the farmers as well, because they pray a lot [00:33:20] for their crops, and we want to make sure we're in lock step with them. So thanks again. Pacific Ag Rentals thanks you for coming here today and I thank you for coming here today and with great questions. Great [00:33:30] questions. So thank you.
Kirti Mutatkar: Thank you.