Welcome to the podcast, Marshall. Thanks for being on here, man. Well, thanks for inviting me. You've been with Mule Deer Foundation for an extensive period of time, and now are you kind of spearheading the entire Blacktail Deer Foundation opening or just the fundraising part? Maybe kind of talk a little bit about the introduction of the Blacktail Deer Foundation. Yes, I've been with the organization since 2010, and I was hired as the regional director for Montana and Western North Dakota.
And so most of my career with MDF has been being a fundraiser, recruiting volunteers and putting on big events. Did a little bit of management the previous two years. And during that time period, that's when we started kind of putting together our Blacktail initiative. I'm not spearheaded this. I'm just part of that whole spear. We have Jim, who lives over there, Jim Baschel. He lives over in Prince of Wales.
He's been a member of our organization for quite some time. And just kind of back up real quick there with the Mule Deer Foundation, within our mission statement is the conservation of mule deer, black-tailed deer, and their habitat. And we put a lot of our focus, obviously, because where our chapters were and everything, most of the focus was on mule deer.
And we jim has always been like we need to do more we need to do stuff with blacktail and so he started about 2006 and 7 just as a volunteer or just as a member was trying to to get things rolling get some things going steve belinda who's our chief conservation officer they those two have known each other for quite some time and steve actually came on as a full-time employee with our organization. I think that was about 2018, 2019. And he started kind of delving into that. What can we do?
And 2022, I think it was, they had a meeting in Portland that was hosted by Louisville, by the CEO there. We brought in. Biologists and other stakeholders and stuff all the way from Alaska down to Northern California came in together to kind of talk about black-tailed deer. You know, what should we do? Is there things? What do we know? What don't we know?
They realized we don't know a lot. And so that's when we kind of started, you know, thinking about, you know what, we really need to do something like this. We need to focus on black-tailed deer. And so I started going up on the volunteer side or on the fundraising side to develop chapters.
And it was a little tough wearing mule deer foundation clothing and and you know being up there as people they either wouldn't outsider well i'm an outsider yeah that's one two there's no mule deer the ones that are there up in the top over in the canadian corner over there you know it's shoot on site yeah and so folks weren't that very interested with that being said we still got a chapter started in Kodiak we got one started in Sitka and also in Prince of Wales.
And we ended up in I think it was in 23 we had a couple of events and Kodiak just took off I have two volunteers over there Logan Wolf and Carl Scholl they never they didn't really know each other prior to it and those two have just worked so well together in that chapter we've been having a lot of fun and we've held three what I call them gunapaloozas they're just a Like a 10-12 gun raffle. A lot of fun in two hours. We've had so much fun with it and going along.
So what changed a lot of the stuff for me on the ground, for me, is that this last summer, it was approved that I could have a logo and clothing that said Team Blacktail. And it still had the Mule Deer Foundation logo and stuff like that, but it said Team Blacktail. Well, I came up there. I went to the Alaskan Outdoors Council Banquet. But also did a couple of little events and a bigger event in Kodiak. And I'm wearing this gear and it changed.
People come up to me and they're like, what are you wearing? Tell me about the black tail. What are you doing? What are you doing here? When I brought that back and expressed what I had done up there or the difference to our new CEO, Greg Sheehan, who started in mid-October, I got back about the same time as he started. We had a conversation. Steve Belinda had a conversation. And I kind of expressed how things had kind of changed in Alaska because we did that.
Talking to the other regional directors, we have one in Oregon, Washington, and one in California. They, when they can say Blacktail Initiative, people are a lot more open because a lot of the, you know, where we'd have chapters or Blacktail Art, we didn't have Mildear Foundation chapters. And so Greg Sheehan and Jim Basial and our chief conservation officer, Steve Belinda, they powwowed about this for a couple of weeks and they came out and they said, you know what, we're going to go ahead.
We're going to, we're going to strike while it's hot and we are going to develop a new foundation. So we are a division of the mule deer foundation but now we are the blacktail blacktail deer foundation yeah when that came out in december we announced we cruised pretty quick we had about three weeks with the thanksgiving in the middle there the response was incredible we had people signing up i think within the first two weeks there was about 140 150 people had signed up as members.
I came up back up to Alaska in January and we did some fun events that I can talk about a little bit later, but just coming around and talking to people, I was able to get chapters started or have organizational meetings in Anchorage, Juneau. Rebuilding the Sitka and Ketchikan all in one week. And we've got all those new chapters, five new chapters already. So it's been pretty exciting when we switched over and the neat thing about it, what it means to people.
And what it means to us is that we are able to take this foundation, the monies that we raise on the ground, the things that we do, we can focus at 100% on black tail. It's not going to get mixed with mule deer stuff. Yeah. I think that's an interesting thing because people are very familiar with Ducks Unlimited up here and Trout Unlimited up here. And those are lower 40 organizations that have a presence here.
Totally trusted, totally part of the culture, but something else, something new, people can be a little bit wary of it. But now because it's Blacktell, I think that's a great marketing thing. And people recognize now more than previously the need for habitat. I think when people think about habitat, they think of the lower 48 and they think about. Roads and highways and the migration corridors being ruined by, by, or not being able to be accessed by private land.
Whereas up here, everything is so public and so accessible. People think that there's not really a need for any sort of conservation efforts, but as we're seeing, as we get more data about the second growth and thinning and all these other opportunities, we see that, yeah, there's, this is definitely a spot, even though it's super wild. And even though there's a lot of access, there's still a lot of work that could be done. So having a, a specific organization that is geared to that,
I think it's going to really catch on. It'd be great. Yeah. And we've had some people reach out to us from other organizations as well to see if we want to work with them jointly or an agency. And Scott would probably be able to tell you a little bit more about there's, there's one up there that we're working with a fisheries biologist where one of the streams got blown out pretty good two times.
And now it's like a big delta and where we are their second growth there and so he we shot to scott or i'm about to shoot reach out to but they are like you know they're going to go in there they're going to do some thinning and then they're going to take those logs and use those to rebuild those banks so it has a good stream for the salmon to go back up and stuff so it's kind of cool in that regards too yeah i'm going to leave that
stuff up to you know jim that's out there yeah yeah i'm not a biologist Yeah. When, when you are doing the fundraising stuff, I think it's got to be, I don't know, nerve wracking, go to certain areas and you know, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to show up or you have to, to cater an event that's going to match with what the people want.
So as you've been an event planner for, you know, what have we kind of, kind of learned or what have you learned about how to set things up and expectations and getting people there? What, how's that been? Well, it's my volunteers. It's the people that live there. They know their community. They know what things they like, what calibers, what products would do really well for their event. They know their people. They have all the contacts. And so I rely on them very heavily.
There's one thing I've always stated, you know, with all my chapters that this is your chapter. I'm here to help guide, make sure you don't break any laws, have a little fun, get people together. But, but it's the volunteers chapters. And that's, that's where you have success because you're engaging them, allowing them to put their thing together. Sometimes you've heard, you know, people go to an event or the volunteers at the event, they really don't have much say.
And it kind of turns them off that's the one thing that we do is it again it's their chapter so one of the neat things about the organization is that we have a thing called chapter rewards or monies that are raised our chapters actually are involved in the determination as to where to allocate those funds so for instance recently we got a phone call up in kodiak so they are doing a study on her, it was a small study, just kind of a baseline study.
So they're capturing and collaring deer on, on a Fognac and also on Codiac. Excuse me. The game official reached off to us and said, you know, we need some help. We, we lost our drone. And what we need is a drone that has infrared capability because, you know, it's a lot easier to find the animals to get in on them. And all I did is contact our chapter chairs. We have two of them there, Carl and Logan. And they said, guys, here's what they're doing. This is what they want to do
with this. It's going to cost a little over $6,000. Do you want to write a check on your bank account for it? And they were enthusiastically, yes. So they wrote the check, and within a week, they had that drone. The other neat thing is that, you know, trying to bring volunteers together and get involved, get their hands dirty with projects. We've got an exciting opportunity up there in Kodiak where we've got about 15 of the members I sent out a note to them saying, you know, AF and G,
they need help. There's only two guys up there. And they're looking to see if some volunteers would help out with adopting a camera, changing out the cards, making sure the batteries are good. This spring, there's going to be more opportunities. Everything from picking pellets up, possibly hair, whatever, other tasks or duties. So we've got 15 people that are pretty excited to help out. That really gets you excited, gets you involved and engaged.
So why did you get into the huge mule deer hunter fan and black tail, like your personal deer history? You know, a lot of people love to hunt, but when it comes to making a career that's kind of in that, I know you were in the newspaper business advertising there, but what is it about the deer on this end that's really appealing for a, for a career?
Well, for my, I've been a mule deer hunter my whole life. My dad was a huge mule deer hunter, even though we have white tail here in North Dakota, and. And even when I worked in the newspaper in Minnesota, I hunted one time, couldn't do it, and would buy my out-of-state license out mule deer. So my whole experience was mule deer. Like I mentioned, two years ago, when we had a meeting up in P.O., we ended up having another meeting up in Prince of Wales.
And that was an all-Alaskan one. So they had folks from the university. All the different agencies were all there. I was invited to come up to listen in, to learn more about it. And I spent, I think it was a four-day meeting.
And i learned a ton about these deer just from listening to these folks i actually got to see some on the wild and just it's totally stunning i just totally fell in love and the more and more i learned and i didn't know anything about subsistence either until that meeting and how important it was i was like oh yeah this is really important you know we just don't hear that stuff there so yeah it is it i really enjoy it i can't wait to do it to hunt hunt blacktail i've
been so busy going up there i've been up there probably six six seven times and i'll be up there for 10 days to 14 days at a time maybe a little longer i have yet the chance to do any any activities like that just work huh yeah yeah because the logistics and getting everywhere and to me it's It's more important to make hay when the sun shines and get out there and do these things.
I'll have opportunity in the future, you know, late summers, because obviously we won't be holding any events during the summers in Alaska because you have tourism, you got fishing, you got everything else going on. You guys are making hay. But it's been a lot of fun. I really enjoy it. I have two cousins up there. My son moved up there a year and a half ago. So it's been fun. I've been getting a lot of push too from, from chapters that, well, why don't you just move up here? And I'm like, wow.
It's, it's pretty awesome. Once you're nowhere is perfect. So you got to come up here and if it's, you know, Southern Southeast, there's a lot of rain, you go to Kodiak, you got storms. I mean, nowhere is perfect, but yeah, once you can start to see if you can live the brochure, then you're going to be in good shape. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can't wait to, to do some things like that. We're, we're looking at having several events the last week of April.
And into May for the first couple of weeks of May. And my wife and I, we are going to, when I get done with work, she's going to fly up and we're going to hang out for a while down in Southeast Alaska. Nice. What about the other states? I know you have a couple of chapters have opened up in Oregon, Washington, California, because it's all Black Tails. It's Southeast Sitka Black Tail and it's also Columbia Black Tail. Right. Have you been able to travel to those other places and talk to some of
those chapters? Well, we actually have regional directors there. And so our Washington, Oregon regional director, he covered both states entirely for Mildred Foundation. Just recently, this past month here, he is now exclusively focused on the Pacific Northwest coast there. Basically, we call it the I-5 core board. You know, so from Canada all the way down to the California border and everything to the, to the west of I-5 to develop those chapters.
So he's exclusively kind of like when I'm in Alaska, we're exclusively dealing with Blacktail Deer Foundation. And so he's already, from my understanding, within a, within one month, I think he already had three chapters started and he's gone full tilt into Oregon. We had our national convention here this last week, our Western hunting, Western hunting and conservation expo in Salt Lake City. We couldn't believe how many people were from Washington and Oregon and California that were there.
And they saw our booth and they came right up to us right away. So they've got a lot of people that are extremely interested. So I think you're probably going to see several chapters popping up.
In those areas there. Yeah. I lived in California for a little bit out of college and you had a hunting contingent, but it was, it was largely, I guess, overshadowed by your stereotypical California, whatever, but it didn't seem like there was the same level of antagonism, but now it just seems like there's, especially in some of it in like Washington, like some very aggressive anti hunting efforts. So I think a lot of people are really relieved to see maybe a black tail specific
organization. That's going to kind of help out with that. it probably makes you feel really, really happy to be in Alaska. So you don't have to deal with some of those other issues. No, no, no. I don't know. No, it's, it's, well, with that being said though, you know, Alaska, Alaskans are, are very political and, you know, with our organization, we're not a very political organization at all. Our focus is conservation of habitat.
We try to avoid getting into those things. And, you know, there's a lot of advocacy groups out there and everything. And at times we've had to, you know, get on board and sign on something because it did truly affect our species. But, you know, that's the main thing with us is I let our volunteers know immediately that, you know, we're not getting into some of the messes that you see out there and things like that.
But so we, you know, and that's one of the kind of neat things too is, you know, our organization, we put 87% of the money we raise on the ground because that's what our focus is.
And now it makes me pretty proud. mm-hmm yeah that's one of the things especially now with all the cuts that are being made and the wasteful spending on the part of the government people really are asking questions about where's the money going so that was going to be one of the questions i asked is how much of the money goes to it so how do you is that kind of a an industry standard with a lot of these conservation groups like you don't
have to say this company or this organization does less or more. But how does that foundation gauge enough to be able to have employees, but also provide and make it meaningful to the chapters? We're a small organization. We're not very big. We do rely on getting grants, writing for grants. The important part is the fundraising on the ground because we utilize those dollars to help leverage things. So we may, for every dollar that we raise, we will leverage it another three to $5.
You know, so if an organization or agencies say, you know, they're going to, well, we're going to grant you a hundred thousand dollars, but we need 25,000 to match. You know, that's where it's really important with our, with our chapters. That's where we put our focus on. And especially in these days and times right now, where things are on hold. Nobody knows what's going on right now with regards to stuff.
It's even going to be more important that we establish these chapters and we rely not exclusively on grants or anything like that. We have to really work hard to raise those funds on the ground. So where do you find these grants as, as the fundraiser, you got to be very creative with where you get funds and, and how to be really involved in that stuff. So what type of agencies are, are giving money? Is it federal grants, nonprofits? Like, how are you, who are you asking anywhere?
Is that like a contacts? Are you Googling this stuff or is it a database or? I'm, I'm not in that realm. That's more of a question for, for Scott and Jim, but I have I've gotten involved a couple of times out here where, you know, for instance, our, the state that I'm in when I was covering North Dakota, we had an outdoor heritage fund. And I wrote my first grant and grant request, and it got denied because there was one word that they didn't like in there.
Oh, I remember the prescribed hurt. That's two words, prescribed burdens. And I went back and I visited with a few of the decision makers on that board. And they said, if you just change that, pull that out and do this. You know, you should be fine. So the next time it came up, I did that and it was unanimously accepted and I had a $485,000 grant. We work with, you know, specifically what I've helped with is NIFWF, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
And they focus on different things throughout the country, but when I was the RD out here, it was antelope and sage grouse. Well, the same things that you need to do to improve habitat for them are the same things that you do for mule deer. And so we were able to write, and Steve did the lead on that one and wrote that, and I added a few little things. and he took the lead on that one.
Steve's one heck of a grant writer. A lot of our conservation teams, that's one of their duties is to write grants to identify opportunities. Us on the ground, our lives have changed a little bit too where we are getting more active, not just doing banquets and raffles and stuff, but also identifying people that will make donations, companies, partnerships.
I've worked with Bobcat, for instance, where they've literally shipped down several pieces, you know, several pieces of equipment from payloaders to, excuse me, the Bobcats to all the different attachments and track hose, everything. Those are partners that we also look for too, because we can utilize what they do. So, for instance, let's say that value that Bobcat drove down, sent down on two semi-loads, and the time that we used it and everything may have been worth $50,000, $60,000.
We can use that toward match for these grants. And then it's other organizations, other companies, businesses, they see that, and they've reached out and said, hey, we'd like to get involved. And so I would say probably in the last two years, that, that has, that exposure that we've been doing has increased dramatically of people reaching out to us and wanting to help us. And Steve kind of, Steve Belinda kind of quoted it.
We're a small organization. And so people are amazed at what we've been able to do on the 48 down here. And they're saying, you know, he would always come back and say, you know what? We look like a lightweight, but we're hitting like a heavyweight. And that's our plan as well with BDF is to come up there, create relationships so we can do even more. In my short time that I've been up there on Kodiak, we've developed a really good relationship with Big Ray's Sporting Goods.
They had the last last january and then this january uh they made donations to us based off of off of their big buck contest but since we switched over to bdf in december jesse one of the owners he came to me says now that you are blacktail theater foundation you are going to see a higher partnership with us and so we're really excited because they have three locations, one in Kodiak and one in acreage and one in Fairbanks we developed a relationship with double shovel cider very lucky
there he Gideon I contacted him he actually mentioned to me when I was up there in an event and last spring and he said you know I'd like to do a little bit more for you guys I'd really like to help you I like what you guys are doing and I asked him in August I said would you be willing to maybe make a cider for us you know a blacktail cider and then maybe you know 15 20 percent of the profits that you would donate to the chapter to help them with their banquet to increase
their efficiencies and he goes yeah i could definitely do that he goes i got this stuff going in a rye barrel right now i'm trying this out with a rye whiskey barrel.
And so i when i was up there in october for their event i went over talking with gideon and he took me in the back room there and poured some out and we were drinking it it's like a chardonnay at that time, And so January, we had a big event where we brought in the Game and Fish Department to talk with all those 15 people, you know, what they're going to do in orientation. But ended up with like 85 people in there because they want to know what's going on, what we're doing and everything.
Well, Gideon gets up on the ladder to introduce and thank everybody. And then he talks about his cider, Blacktail Cider. And he goes, he is so excited by what's been happening. What's happening in the community, the buzz, the talk, how members are actually helping, you know, determine, you know, helping with the survey. And he says, we are going to donate 100% of the profits of this ride to that chapter.
So developing relationships like that, identifying who stakeholders are, and it even comes from individuals as well.
So what if you're looking at it i don't know if this is a really a question you can really answer but as far as like a healthy chapter what does a healthy chapter look like is it sheer numbers is do you know that for every like 10 people there's going to be like one or two active members or what as far as chapter dynamics go what have you kind of observed over your time i'm kind of a numbers nerds sometimes. You know, I've got it figured out as to what an average is.
You know, okay, so let's start with membership to get a chapter started. I need one person. Two would be better. Four would be great. Six would be awesome. But I've started chapters with one person. And because that one person will get a few of their friends to come help. And so we'll do these smaller events like I talked about, the Gunnapalooza. You only need three people to help you.
When you get to a banquet, that's when you're going to need, you know, 12 to 20, depending on the size of the banquet. And a volunteer, you know, you have two volunteers. You have your volunteer that is pretty engaged with the development of the event itself. Identifying what items or merchandise that we're going to have there for raffles, for live auction, for whatever.
They're dealing with the caterer, getting the place set up. They're making a lot of those decisions, and I helped them with that. And that can be, you know, two people all the way up to eight people. So I've had some chapters that have been around for 25 years. I got, you know, eight to 12 people on the committee. Not everyone shows up to every meeting, but you got a lot of people there. Then you have your volunteer, not your committee guy, but your volunteer that is, they will help when asked.
You know, they'll be there on game day. I'll come help set up. I'll tear down. I'll run a table. You know, some of that. Yeah, give me some posters. I'll go do that. Because everybody's life is different. Everybody's, they got busy things. You got children. You got sports. You got this. You got that. And if the more people you have in there, the better. for volunteers, that outlying volunteer.
Your committee, you know, I think a good committee can run, well, we've obviously proved it up in Kodiak with two individuals, but when you get to that banquet committee, you get at least four people to six people minimum, you're doing well, you'll do fine with that. We also know that the average volunteer will probably bring 20 people to that event, friends and family.
You know, so if you got, you know, 10 volunteers, you're most likely going to have 200 people at your event probably more what about chapters kind of working together i'm sure it's a little easier in the lower 48 where you can drive but do you ever have instances in which chapters kind of get together to do a group sort of event or combine yes they can yeah they've done that and so i've just started that chapter up in matzu valley up there was still up almer area and
at the same time a chapter in anchorage and you know so when we had the orientation meeting or you know trying to build it in Anchorage. Spencer from Palmer he came down and you know to be at that same meeting and listen and learn because he works in Anchorage too and he's like well I can do both you know and and so we've had these chapters down here I've had chapters that are 50 miles apart whatever and.
They'll go up and help them during game day. They'll come up and they'll, you know, buy raffle tickets, hang out, and vice versa to come back. We also do that with, we've had relationships with other organizations, you know, where we'll go buy a table. You know, the volunteers pool their money together and they buy a table, go over there and support them. And then here they come back, come to our table, you know, come to our event too.
So, and that's one, that's a really important thing to bring up too is just that these are conservation organizations and stuff. A lot of us are trying to do similar things. and some of the things that we do will benefit other species as well as what they will do could benefit other species. So like I talked about a little bit ago about the fisheries and us thinning the trees out for the benefit of the deer.
Yeah, my wife's an ecologist. And so I knew all this stuff intellectually that everything kind of works together in harmony, but you kind of look at things a lot differently once you kind of see the entire cycle now everything not only just works together but is dependent on each other and you can't really remove an element of something without impacting everything else and so it's really interesting to see and it's good to see like these complementary,
organizations and these efforts to to do things that benefit more than just one species and that's keeping the habitat good is is good for multiple species the other part of it is too is getting other chapters involved you know fairbanks i'm i have interest up in fairbanks to start a chapter you know and i just talked about wasilla and anchorage they don't have blacktail there.
And that and people like well why are you going to be up there because we have blacktail hunters, yeah last is a big state it's a big state we need a lot of chapters there's a lot of things to do, and again scott and jim can tell you a little bit more about the acreage you know for the second you know second growth and all that type of stuff you know kodiak's habitat is incredible You know, I'm not, I don't know what we could really do.
You know, with that being said, you still have to bank stuff away because something could happen a year from now, two years, something, you know, that could affect the landscape that needs to repair or whatever. And so I like to have a lot of chapters work together as well. So yes, I've got this money in my bank account here. Doesn't mean you have to spend it in your backyard. You know, your backyard might be fine this year, but you know what? We need a lot of help over here.
And so I've always kind of talked to people and say that, you know, you're a hunter. Where do you go fishing? Where do you go hunt this? Where do you go hunt that? This species, that species, that species. The entire state's your backyard. You know, and so we have to focus and, you know, expand where we're going to put our stuff. Identify the projects that are, we get more bang for our buck. Much more benefit, much more needed.
So that's anything is we, we bring projects to them. Sometimes a volunteer will have a discussion with somebody from one of the agencies and say, Hey, they're looking at us doing this project here and bring us in. And so, so how would someone get involved if they, or just to get some information about it, blacktealdeer.org, but then also like, do you have social medias? Are there events coming up? Are there meet and greets? Are there zoom calls?
Like how can people kind of either dip their toe in or jump all the way in? Well, first they can contact me. Yeah. They can call me. I'm on the website there. Blacktail, that's blacktaildeer.org. And click on your state. If you're listening, you know, not Washington and Oregon and stuff, click on your state. You can look to see if there's a chapter close to you, but there's a regional director close. And that's the first thing to do is contact them. Secondly, we are on social media.
And so there's a national Blacktail Deer Foundation page on Facebook. And then, for instance, in Alaska, I have an Alaskan Blacktail Deer Foundation. So that's all about what's relevant to us up here. Where our chapters are, promoting our events. You know, keep an eye out for that. Just letting you know, before I'm coming up to the show in Anchorage, the Great, was it the Great Alaskan Sportsman Show?
Which is the March 7th, 7th through 10th, I think it is, or 8th through 10th, somewhere in there. 7th through the 9th, that's what it is, 7th through the 9th. So I'm going to be in Anchorage. So it's an opportunity for people up there that want to stop in and visit with me. I have a booth up there. But I'm also going to fly up to, prior to that, a couple days ahead, I'm going to fly up to Fairbanks. And I'm going to do kind of a meet and greet. Sometimes I call them beers for
deer. Come on out and hang out with a beer. Visit and talk about our organization, how you can take part in it. So I'll be doing that. might be going to home or two. So if you go to that site, you're going to see me punching that stuff in there and where the events are going to be too. But the first thing is just reach out. Are you going to be in Southeast at all in the next couple weeks, months, or year?
Oh, yeah. So I just came through there in January. I did that old milk run in Juneau, the Ketchikan, and home. So that's where we established these chapters back in January here. So we've been doing meetings over Zoom and stuff, visiting on the phone. We are planning to do events in the Southeast between the last week of April through about the second week in May or so. So I think right now, SIC has got the latest one May 11th, which is a Sunday.
And then tentatively, Prince of Wales might be on the 9th of May. But we're just kind of working on those dates right now. Again, most of my events, they're going to take place between January. Well, basically, let's go this way. They'll take place probably about mid-September through May because nothing else is going to happen in between. For sure. Yeah. That's great. Was there anything else you'd like to add about anything? the foundation or final picture?
Well, I just really like folks to, you know, get on that social media. If you have, you know, check us out there, go to our website. But if you really have some good questions that you want to ask, you want to find some stuff out or you have interest, how you can help, pick up the phone and call me, send me an email. I'd appreciate it. Awesome. Thanks again. I really appreciate it. Now that the baby's getting a little bit older, hopefully I'll be able to come
to some of the events when you're in Ketchikan. Oh yeah. We'll expect it.