Kelly Blanchard

     
  I interviewed Kelly Blanchard who is a financial annalist and day trader. He teaches lessons to very wealthy individuals on how to trade the stock market. He told me that his normal day would consist of him trading for an hour or two in the morning as the markets open and for an hour or two on the close. He had lessons almost every day after 3 with his wealthy students.
         I asked a little more about the classes and the things that he teaches in them. He said he basically gives them various trading strategies and lets them pick what one they feel most comfortable with, and they think will work best. He said that his strategies are not just trading the broad market, but trading thinks such as futures, and short selling stocks, and bonds in different industries. It sounded very complex, yet very interesting. He lives in Utah and has a very good track record and has been very successful in what he does. I was impressed by how simple he could make just the couple strategies he explained to me an how they worked. I learned a lot and I plan to stay in touch with Kelly to learn more about the markets and his work. 

Gary Farmer

    
   I interviewed Gary Farmer from Alliance Health. This was over the phone and It was pretty brief. He told me a little more about the companies background and his story to how he got to be the marketing director there. Alliance was a small start up out of Salt Lake City that is meant to serve one who has a chronic illness. It is the middle man for things as support groups, affordable costs, and access to medications. It have been doing very well and there growing at over %100 every year. Gary said their marketing team has grown from 6 to about 12 people in 1 year. They are currently looking to buy more ad space online. 
        He thinks that within two years the company will be acquired. He worked in marketing in a business prior to this as was recommended from a former employee. He explained some of the things that made their culture different from his former employer. It was interesting to see his point of view on the company, and what his plans would be if they were acquired. He would stay for as long as they kept him he said. It was a good experience. 

Mike Jensen

        I interviewed Mike Jensen from CHS. I had met Mike once or twice in Idaho as I was growing up. He is the CFO for them and is very busy. CHS is a billion dollar Ag corporation that is located throwout the world. I thought he would be interesting to interview as farming in my roots. He is very formal and didn't have as much animation as some of the others I interviewed.  He was more set on ways of the corporate world and what steps need to be taken to reach a higher rank.
      
        I'm don't plan on taking this route in my job, but It was good to hear his outlook on the situation. He told me what a normal day would be like for him. It seems like meetings take up most of his day. He was very passionate about his work and really enjoyed the atmosphere. The interview wasn't very long, but it was good to see his spectrum of the business. It showed my that, the corporate ladder is probably not for me.

Shaun Sorensen

       I interviewed the CEO of American Healthcare Lending Shaun Sorensen. I met Shaun at one of the career fair things on campus. He seemed like his company had a pretty interesting story so I invited him to go out to lunch. It was a great interview, and I was able to learn a lot from what he said. American Healthcare Lending started with Shaun and his brother Nick. Nick at worked in various companies as a marketing VP an Shaun had much experience in sales. Together they came up with a financing platform that could be disruptive to the traditional medical lending.
        Before they even had a viable product, Shaun went and sold the service to a few dental offices to see if it would work. He had to cancel on them as many of them were willing to sign up. From here they bootstrapped and worked from their garage for 1 year. They hired the right IT people to help them build their platform. Shaun talked about the hard times, and times when they both wanted to just drop it and move on. They both stuck though the hard times and long hours to make it work. They are still fairly small with 30 employee's, but they are growing at a very fast rate, and they are making a good profit. They plan on expanding and hiring 30 more in the next year. They have funded over 500,000 million dollars since 2009 when they started.
        I learned from him what to expect when starting a business. He didn't sugar coat the experience but gave me a good feel on what he and his brother felt. He explained of the stress and even difficulties of hiring for the first time and making decisions to help scale up. He said it's not as easy when your the one making all the big choices. He was humble and very grateful that the hard times were over.  
 

Chris Weenig

        I interviewed Chris Weenig. He is good friend to my wife's side of the family. He is a very successful entrepreneur, but it the most down to earth person that I have ever met. I don't have as close of a relationship with him as my wife and her family, so I was very interested to get the personal details of his story and what I could learn from chatting with him. Growing up he didn't know exactly what he wanted to do or study. During school he still felt the same way, and ended up getting his degree in exercise science. He thought that it would leave the door open for medical or dental school.
         He ended up working with his uncle who had a construction business after graduating for about a year. He had decided that he was not going to work in the medical field. His decision was not easy for him. He took off a month of work and traveled and cleared his mind so that he could make the best decision for him. He told me that he felt that he should just go with the flow and see what opportunities presented themselves. This went on for about a year or so and then he decided that he would be the one that had to find the opportunity. He looked online at several different businesses and idea, and came to the conclusion of he would open copying and scanning business particularly for documents.This may seem a little outdated now, but he was the pioneer to the industry. They now offer man fine products from mutli functional copiers, data security solutions, It support, interactive presentation boards, and etc. His growth was very slow and steady, but he said that he never aggressively leveraged his business and this helped. There were good times and bad times and he didn't want to incur large amounts of debt, and then have a bad year that would put him out of business.
He talked about how having a supportive and loving spouse is key to starting your own business. He credits his wife to a large amount of the success. He said he always made time for his family, when he could have been doing something for the business. He wouln't neglect either one of the two, but he always placed family first. I'm starting to see that this is common advice from the entrepreneurs that I have interviewed. I will be sure that I make sure that my priorities are in line when starting and running a business as well. I thought this family picture of his is very fitting for my closing

Jeff Erickson

        I had an interview with Jeff over the phone, because he was out of town. I had heard him talk in on of my lecture series classes and I thought that he would be a good person to interview. It was interesting that right off the bat into our conversation, he asked what things drive me. What things make you tick he asked. It took a little while for me to respond. Thoughts of sports, cars, and money all passed through my mind, but I answered back by saying family. He loved the answer and told me that first and for most family is the most important thing to keep close during all life's journey. He said, "It doesn't matter if you are working a 9-5 job, graveyard shift, on business vacations, or a self made multimillionaire,  make sure that things are right with your family."
        Before anything else that's what he wanted to get across. He later told me more of his story as a dentist and how he was successful. He graduated from dental school and became partners in a dentist office that focused on dental work for children. He worked there for a couple years and decided that he didn't particularly enjoy what he was doing. He decided to go back to school and specialized anesthesiology in the dental area. He could now work in the office, but mainly just deal with putting them to sleep. He saw a niche in the market that he was in and there were no go dental offices for low income families with children. Primarily medicaid customers. He decided to open a practice to treat this target market. It was slow for a few years, but he was extremely successful and was the only dental office hitting this market in a radius of over 200 miles. He ended up selling that practice for millions of dollars. He claims that he was quiet lucky to be there at the right time with the opportunity. He said that some successful people do have some degree of luck on their side hit it big.
       He now invests in various projects and investments in all areas. He is opening what will be the largest dental office in Texas. In the office they will again be marketing to those children on medicaid. He asked what field of work or entrepreneur sector I am looking at coming into. I didn't have a set answer as I'm still figuring out exactly what I want to be know as. I am thinking the sectors of finance and real estate. Jeff has had many investments in real estate, and most have turned out well for him. It was good to hear his outlook on starting a business and he was very motivating.    

Brad Weekes

         


        Yesterday I interviewed Brad Weekes. I was very exited to talk with Brad about his successful career that he has in the real estate field. It is an industry that has a lot of opportunity, but can also be very tricky if business is not done properly. As I asked about Brad's story he started by telling me a little bit about his back round. It just so happens that he grew up in Idaho on a farm just me. He grew up only 30 minutes away from where I did. I felt that we had an instant connection after that. We talked for almost 20 minutes about the farm life and some of the changes and such in Idaho. 
        He served his mission in New Zealand and shortly after began his entrepreneurial endeavors. It amazes me that how even as a poor college student, he was finding ways to open businesses and invest the little he had. He and his brothers started a disco hall called the Star Palace in Rexburg, Idaho. He had tons of fun doing this, and were making money. He also owned and operated two used car lots. His investor IQ is something that I found remarkable. He said other college students were taking out loans to drive a nicer car, and he was pumping the little he had  in something that could give him a return. He also started to build his real estate portfolio, once he had a little more to invest. He renovated existing student housing that he could rent for more. He also begin building new student housing apartments. When he began selling those, he can remember having made 70 thousand dollars in his junior year. He said felt like the king. He chuckled and said that he was thinking that his wife, but girlfriend at the time, would be stupid not to like him. He said that wasn't  the case but after a long fought time he convinced her to marry him.
        He spoke much about his wife and family as he was telling me his story. I was very impressed with how he manged to put his family first during all these busy times. He and his wife ended up moving to Arizona where the housing market was down. He thought that this would be a prime time to buy cheap homes and rent them, and later when they increased in value, he would sell them. He explained that one of his regrets is not keeping the houses and apartments that were "cash cows". These were the ones that paid great rent and were very low priced to acquire. He told me of one property that in 12 months rent in today's rate. Would pay for the entire price of the property. His company in Arizona grew fast and he opened a custom home building company.  The company was one of the most successful custom home builders in Arizona.
      He did the same thing in California. He said , "It was fun, If I sold 5 of these luxurious custom homes, then I got one for free." It was a very fun interview and he is a very animated man. I told him he looks like Harrison Ford, and he replied Harrison would have to pay big bucks for him to look this good. He was a die hard believer on doing your due diligence in real estate transaction, and also seeking the right investment. He only likes investments that return at least 20% of the initial investment.
            

Albert Wada

 

I interviewed Albert Wada of Wada Farms. I know Albert because he is a good friend of my fathers and is buying my dads potato farm this coming season. Albert came from a humble background, his father was a small beat farmer of about 49 acres. Albert was a car mechanic but saw vision in buying his fathers land and expanding. He didn’t have much money but slowly bought out what his father had in land. Albert now farms more than 30,000 acres and has ventures with Dole, Category, and Idhoan Foods. He has two multi-million dollar packing facilities where most of these products are made.

            Albert feels lucky that he got into farming when it wasn’t so expensive. Today it is harder to start your own business in this area. He explained how there is a lot of overhead costs to farming. Land today is nearly 15 times the price of what he first bought his fathers 49 acres for. Equipment to plant and harvest can be very expensive. One new combine can cost up to four hundred thousand dollars. He explained to me how a lot of these farmers that have expanded are getting older and starting to retire, so there is a good opportunity for those that have an in into farming. Albert is now 68 and is planning to officially retire soon and have his sons continue the business.

            I asked Albert about the pains and the trails that he had to overcome over the years and he could tell me about many. He talked about how he started off so small with only one tractor and equipment that was rented. He had very long hours and did all the farm work by himself. He was barely scraping by for the first five years. After his fifth year he had built up enough capital to buy his own equipment and that very next year potato prices were up. This helped him build a rainy day account for when potato prices were not so hot. He says that farming is a major risk because it takes so much money to prepare the ground and to buy fertilizer, that if a crop or the prices are bad it can destroy the operation. He knows of many farmers who didn’t make it and have had to do something else because they couldn’t survive during the bad years. He claims that he took a major risk and it paid off. Even today they risk millions each year as they farm so much land.

            He has learned so much from his successes and his failures. He knows the importance of saving and planning in the good years to overcome the bad ones. He broke a farming norm when he built his own packing plant in 1992. He was the first grower/shipper with a packing facility. The facility was more than 12 million dollars to build, but has paid of immensely. He cut out the middleman and has been successful in multiple operations that happen in the facility. They mostly dehydrate and package the potatoes to make things such as instant mashed potatoes, hash browns, and easy bakers that are similar to twice baked potato’s. In 1994 they became an official supplier of Dole for potatoes and sweet potatoes. Albert told me that you always have to be open to new ideas and ways to get yourself out on the market. He first came in contact with some of the directors of Dole when he was on a vacation in Hawaii. It was mere coincidence that he happened to be staying in the same hotel as them, but he made the most out of that opportunity.

            Although He is getting ready to retire and for the last decade has done more of the executive part of the business, he still remembers the long hard sweaty 14 hour days that brought him to where he is today.