From Ambulances to Acquisitions: Blaise Zuschlag on Scaling Mission Driven Impact

Joshua Wilson: Good day everybody. Welcome to The Deal Podcast, man. This is gonna be a fun interview, uh, for a few different reasons. Once we got Chris, uh, the director behind on the ones and twos, we got Scott in the, in the seat of co-hosts today, and we've got a, a new friend, blaze, who has done some amazing stuff. Just real quick, this, this podcast is, is brought to you by, uh, FA Mergers.

One of the, the missions that we have for this podcast is to meet. Great people to learn together. And as we learn, we wanna share it with the community. So as deal makers, it's so important to pass on that, that tribal knowledge and wisdom for future deal makers and also we're deal makers. So, you know, we do this podcast for our audience to get engaged with our guests and us.

So if you want to do a deal, the deal podcast.com, this is a great place to do it. So let's kick off Blaze. Welcome to the show, man. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right, let's start with this. What did you have for lunch today? 

Blaise Zuschlag: So, um, Acadian Companies, every year we have a, we have an employee owned company, so ESOP company.

And, uh, we had 14 teams. Uh, we had a team from Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi. And so everyone cooked kind of all kinds of different foods, but I had a unique dish today. It was Cal Tone. 

Joshua Wilson: Calton Calton 

Blaise Zuschlag: served over rice. 

Joshua Wilson: If anybody with a gravy would guess what you ate today, Calton would not be on the top.

What does it, what does it taste like? Describe it. You 

Blaise Zuschlag: know, it actually was quite rich. It tasted kind of like a pork roast, like a, like a smothered pork roast Served over a, a bed of rice. Yeah. So it actually tasted pretty good. What would 

Scott Shea: you have thought it was if they didn't tell you? I would've 

Blaise Zuschlag: probably thought it was like a pork, pork chop rice gravy kind of dish.

Okay. Yeah. Uh, it was, but it was, it was, it was. Sweeter. I think they had cooked it with some red wine. But anyway, it was like never in a million years would've thought I was eating Cal tongue 

Joshua Wilson: blaze. Did they tell you before or after you? They did not. They 

Blaise Zuschlag: told me after. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. Would you have eaten it if they told you before?

Probably not. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Probably not, but 

Joshua Wilson: cool, man. 

Blaise Zuschlag: So besides eating Cal tongue, blaze, uh, who are you and what do you do? Blaise Zla. Um, I work at Acadian Ambulance Service. I'm the Chief Administrative officer, executive vice president. Um, just a little bit about myself. Um, grew up here in Lafayette, Louisiana. Uh, went to St.

Thomas Moore for high school. Went to Louisiana State University, got my undergrad in finance and business, uh, worked for a few years and then went to Tulane and got my MBA. Um, outta Tulane, I went and worked at JP Morgan Chase. I was in their private making group for about three and a half years. So really cool experience when you get to work with folks that have built some substantial net worth, you know, they've, they've created some successes, so I love sitting at a table and doing this type of exercise where you talk about.

What worked for you, what didn't work for you. And, and, and really they're proud of what they did. So it's like sitting across the table. You want to be their wealth advisor, but at the same time you get to learn some really cool lessons about what they did. So that was a really good experience. But then fast forward to Acadian.

So now I am over. Um, I've spent. Kind of moved around. I was a business analyst, I was a, a director of administration, and then most recently the executive vice president over the, I'm over the support function, so I have the IT professional staff, I have the, um, fleet and logistics staff and purchasing and procurement staff.

And then I also have our, uh, billing and revenue cycle functions. So I have about. 560 employees roughly. And a lot of 

Joshua Wilson: different hats. 

Blaise Zuschlag: And a lot of different hats. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah, for sure. Well, blaze, super cool. Um, man, I, I, I can't wait to hear the story of the ambulance, uh, the family of, of, of how you guys got into this world.

Uh, but before you. Man. You mentioned in, in the world of private banking, one of the things that you found great joy in is sitting around these people who have accomplished much. It could be financial or some type of exit or stewardship, and you got to sit with them and hear their stories. Like what's a, what's a common thread that you hear amongst those who are still happy?

Those who are still joyful? 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah. I think that those that were still joyful, um, believed in the success they created and giving back and like. Feeling a connection to, like a lot of people helped me create this success, and now it's my opportunity and my chance to turn around and try and help support the future generations.

The ones that I saw that were not very happy, were kind of holding on to all this business and, and homes all over the place and this complex lifestyle, and they just seem to not not be as excited. So the ones, the ones that really, to me, were the most. Happy with those that kind of said that, you know, God has blessed me with all these opportunities and I'm gonna turn around and pay those forward.

Joshua Wilson: Right. It's, it's, I think when it comes to success, success that flows. Two and through you to others is the one that creates the most impact and most meaning. Uh, it's when we grasp onto anything in this world, I think it becomes, it winds up owning us. Tyler Durin from the Fight Club, great philosopher, he says, the things we own end up owning us.

And I, I've seen that evident in, in my life, but the more I try to give or learn. The happier everybody becomes around me. Blaze, you, you had this experience to work with JP Morgan and, and, uh, private banking and private wealth and wealth management, and you got to see what success looks like from external to your family, right?

Your family had had levels of success at our, our remarkable, but you got to see in other people. Then you brought it back to your family business. What were some of those principles and practices that you brought from your experiences? To Arcadian. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah, so, you know, that's, that's kind of a complex question.

I guess I'll start with growing up in my family, you know, I, my father was unique in that he would allow me. To come into these types of business environments. Like he would be at the duck camp, we were talking about earlier, duck hunting, but numerous political figures, um, business owners, leaders, and, and people like that would be at the camp.

And I, at a young age, he would allow me to tag along cool. And sit there and watch him in action. And so, like, that was, that was really cool. To have that educational experience with him at such a young age. So that, it just fascinated me. And so as I moved through life, I was always paying attention to the people that I saw success.

And to your point, the thing that always resonated is like they, they love spending time with their family. They, they have their priorities and their values seemed to be very common. Um, among all the ones that I would define successful, um, and again, that want and desire to. Take the success that they created and try and help turn that in for someone else.

Mm-hmm. To, to make that an opportunity for someone else. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. So, 

so now you guys, Acadian kind of give us an overview of what, what is that? So what do you guys do? 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah. So Acadian started, uh, 1971. It was primarily an EMS, uh, operation back in the seventies, the late sixties, early seventies. Um, there was a crisis in our country, in rural EMS.

That nursing homes were actually responsible for transporting patients. And so if you can imagine a nursing home being in charge of picking a person up and trying to rush them to the hospital, they weren't incentivized to. There was no urgency there. Right? Lemme just say that because there was a captive audience and they, whether they go to the hospital or they go to the.

To the funeral home. Um, funeral home was the director. That's what I meant to say. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Anyway, um, my father, you know, he came down and went from Westinghouse, um, and did not like Louisiana at first, um, hot mosquitoes. But within six months of his assignment, he was, he was responsible for a new Westinghouse, uh, training program at Lafayette General.

After the six months though, when he got to know people, he was like, I, I can't leave here. I gotta find a way to stay. And so they, this area in in particular was dealing with that funeral home crisis. And so he had seen a model in the northeast where EMS was being done by membership. And so he met two business partners and they went and lobbied, uh, with our mayor, president back then.

Back then, it might have just been mayor, but uh, they, they sat in, he, my dad specifically sat in that office for over a week. Every night the mayor would walk out and he's like, he's like, you're still here. He's like, all I want you to do is pick up the phone and call the mayor in my hometown and ask him how this subscription based model works and we wanna do that for this community.

And so that persistence is what allowed Mayor Bertrand, I think, was his name back then to give my dad a shot. So. Started with eight Vietnam medics, two ambulances. I think they were financed at like 17.5% interest through GMAC. Can you imagine 17 and a half percent interest on two ambulances? 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Um, and then fast forward today, um, we are now 5,280 employees, 5,280 employees spread out over Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Tennessee for our ground ambulance operations.

Mm-hmm. And then we have. Few subsidiaries. We have Acadian Total Security, which does residential alarm and security monitoring, um, and installation. And then we have, um, safety Management Systems, which is a, it's kind of a labor type company. They provide safety and medical services for industrial clients, oil and gas clients, things like that.

Sure. Um, and then more recently we have a new division that, um. It's called Acadian Health and we are doing hospital at home type programs. Um, we actually, that is growing in Florida, New Jersey, kind of in different parts of the country that Acadian is not currently, the ambulance service is not currently in.

Um, so it really has big, it kind of has morphed over time and I think that happened because Acadia's culture is like, we have this dispatcher that's not. Utilizing his time 100%. And what could that guy do sitting at that console? Well, alarm monitoring, so 

Joshua Wilson: right. A call I can't get up kind of thing. The Life 

Blaise Zuschlag: alert buttons, and then that morphed into a full fledged division.

So it's like how do we use the, the labor force we have and the people we have and maximize their utilization and become efficient and provide good customer service and quality and all that stuff. So it really has grown quite substantially. 

Joshua Wilson: Growing up, you got to see probably in the front yard, a bunch of ambulances come in and going and people are like, what in the world is going on at, at uh, at Blaise's house?

Right. Um, what was your first experience of maybe getting on the bus or, you know, 'cause the, the ambulance technology has, has grown and, and evolved over the years, but like, what was some of your first experiences there? 

Blaise Zuschlag: So, so my house wasn't anywhere near our substations, which is where our ambulances are based out of.

But growing up in the business and having. A father that if you can imagine, is starting a business from scratch. He is always busy. Mm-hmm. Whether it's traveling to meet with politicians or trying to get in new markets, or in DC working on legislation. So he was gone a lot. Mm-hmm. And so it wasn't uncommon for me going to a baseball game or like I get picked up by the supervisor vehicle, which is not the full blown ambulance, but it's like the pickup truck ambulance.

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah. And like. That was a little bit weird showing up at the ballpark and like there's an ambulance that pulls up and here comes blaze. So it wasn't so much in my house, but it was at the ballpark. Yeah. Um, and yeah, that was a little different, but it kind of made me feel like special. And then like I'd get back in the ambulance and we would leave the game and then we would run a call because there's like somebody had a stroke.

And we were the closest appropriate vehicle. So I would respond to a call after with cleats on, with cleats on. Now I wouldn't go in and make patient contact, but I was there to help, you know, whatever way I could. But you know, that was from a young age. And then even further, you know, in high school, you know, a lot of, a lot of kids during summer go do fun trips and stuff.

I worked, I worked freshman year, I was working in our fleet maintenance department. A lot of the departments I oversee now fleet maintenance. Fleet maintenance, uh, the purchasing department, the IT department, and kind of throughout that and kind of learning the, the business from the, the early age. Yeah.

Um, so it's almost like there was no boundary between the people that I worked with and, and my family. Like we were all, like, we all did everything together. 

Joshua Wilson: Are the majority of your 

Blaise Zuschlag: buses a LS The majority is a LS. We have a few BLS and some of them. Major metro areas like the bigger regions like Dallas and Houston and stuff like that.

But, uh, for the most part they're a LS because, I mean, I think 70%. Maybe 65% of our business is a LS Sure. Said 9 1 1 calls. 

Joshua Wilson: Yep. So for, for people listening in, um, my background, I was a, a firefighter medic. Oh, no way. I started on, at emsa Emergency Medical Service Alliance out of Marion County. I started on a bus, I was driver, moved to the back of the bus, then moved to rescue and fire.

No way. That's awesome. Well, I've had my adventures in the back of the bus from getting my butt whooped by, you know, uh. Drug addict patients, psych patients. Yeah. And, uh, cleaning and all, all sorts of, uh, adventures there. But, uh, when it comes to, just for the audience to have a little bit of reference, a LS is advanced life care or advanced life support, and, and BLS is basic.

So 9 1 1 call, you know, they'll triage, the dispatcher will, and then they'll decide what kind of bus to send out to, to get the patient. We called it bus because we were always transporting, you know, to to and from ho hospitals and, and such. But, um. I call 'em a unit. A unit. Okay, cool. We'll call 'em units from now on.

So buses, no, that's 

Blaise Zuschlag: fine if you're used to buses. Yeah, we stick with that. 

Joshua Wilson: I spent a ton of time on a bus. When you 

Blaise Zuschlag: say bus, we have an ambu. So we have, we have a bus, you know, because we live in the deep south and we have these hurricanes and natural disasters. Yeah. We have a bus that can transport 36 patients at one time.

So if we're doing mass evacs. Yeah. So when you say bus, I'm thinking and bus, just so you know. 

Joshua Wilson: Oh, okay. Fantastic. Yeah. The most I ever had in the back of, of my bus was I had three patients, one on the gurney, one on the seat, and I was trying to manage, we had a mass incident. Uh, so that was, uh, that was an adventure driving down I 75 with, uh, managing three patients.

Um, bla so kind of going through this ex experience with, with seeing your dad in, in, in business, which is. This is like one of the missions of why we're doing this and, and you got to experience that with your private wealth, is being able to see people in action and being able to see deals take place and how your dad communicated to these politicians and business owners, and you saw him kind of like evolve into what it is today, thousands of employees.

What, what do you think was some of the golden nuggets that your dad taught you by example? Over the years. 

Blaise Zuschlag: So this is funny. This is a funny story, but it's, it's, it's also very serious. Mm-hmm. Um, he, even though he was busy and we had to take the ambulance, the buses to the, the, the ball field for games.

Yeah. He would always make time to bring us to school one morning and we, our school was kind out across town, so it was a good 20. 20 minute drive for my, my, I have a twin brother and sister that are older than me, so three of us, 

Joshua Wilson: okay? 

Blaise Zuschlag: But he would drive us to school and he would instill in us, he called him his Zs Ps.

And so those Zs ps started with like four or five. And you know, the first ones would be like positive attitude, um, punctuality, patience, persistence. Things like that. And then as he got older in life, his zzz peas morphed into 10 zzz peas and it added more things like prayer. And it kind of, it was like the enhanced layers of, you know, these are the things that helped me be successful.

And I laughed because like patience was not one of those ver, like he's one that he preached. Yeah. But practicing sometimes is more difficult. Right. But it's one of those things that he tried, like he recognized that it was a weak, he tried. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. He tried. So we call those ZZZ ps and I don't, I normally carry around a card that has those, and I apologize, I don't have those, but I can maybe follow up with y'all and 

Joshua Wilson: give this, you know what would be cool bla, is if you provide your, you know, your dad's 10 ZZ Ps and we'll put them in the show notes.

Like, we'll list them out. Yeah. 'cause I think that those, you know, you've got the fruits of the spirit, right? Yeah. But the ZZ Peas kind of like. Man, it, it 

Blaise Zuschlag: really nails it. It nails it. Yeah. It nails it. And so like that is what I grew up. And he actually was very good at a lot of disease Ps but there was a few that, you know, he mostly had 'em, but, but he had some deficiencies.

But 

Joshua Wilson: yeah, 

Blaise Zuschlag: I mean, it's profound. Like it's simple, but it's profound. Profound. And it's like, and it's simple that the kids could understand it, right? Yeah. I find myself doing that same thing with my kids. You became your dad. I'm now doing that. You became your dad and you know what, I like patience in a lot of matters too.

Yeah. And so it's like, you know, recognizing that and anyway, so yeah. I'm so grateful that you shared that. That's cool. 

Joshua Wilson: How do you know this guy? 

Blaise Zuschlag: So he's, he's closer in age to my older siblings, Beth and Blair, 

Joshua Wilson: your old. He's a little bit older, but the Shea, 

Blaise Zuschlag: the Shea family's an incredible family. They have been stewards of, um, their successes and giving back in many ways.

And so I've known, I know, I, I know, um, Ryan, who's, I believe you probably your cousins, second cousins or cousin. Uh, she's got kids that go to Fatima and then I'm, I'm one the LSU Board of Supervisors. And so the, uh, the Shea family has been heavily involved with the university 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: For the longest time.

And, um, so yeah. That's kind of some of the ways that we know him. 

Joshua Wilson: So well, families of impact, you know, birds of a Feather fly together. We 

Blaise Zuschlag: see each other at a lot of events. Yes. Whether it's political fundraisers or we are charity galas and things like that. We Right. We all run into each other. 

Joshua Wilson: When we, when we found out we were interviewing you, Scott's like.

Hey man, I want to, I want to get in on this because he has some, he has some questions for, for you and for some of the accomplishments that you guys have have done. So Scott, and why don't you dive in with a few? Sure. 

Scott Shea: Yeah. And I just, I relate to the story 'cause I grew up in a family business as well. And um, my first question, you mentioned you went to JP Morgan, did some other things.

Was the plan always to go work for Acadian or did that just sort of happen? 

Blaise Zuschlag: So, if I'm being honest with myself, I really wanted to become a physician and. Back when I was growing up, I think I was in junior high and one of our teachers made us do a term paper. And I feel like kids these days should do more of this, but as part of the research paper, I had to interview several doctors and turn in a report about the career that I wanted to pick.

And when I got done with the report, I talked to my dad and I was like, man. I didn't realize how much school and how much time these physicians have to spend before they can start earning money. And I said, I'm, I'm, I want you to know that I'm turning this report in as if I still wanna become a physician, but I don't think I wanna do that anymore.

And he kind of chuckled and he was like, well, what do you wanna do? I was like, I wanna do what you do. And so. I think there was a part of me that knew that I always wanted to come back to the family business, but I, I recognized like working for the business had become larger and more complex and the ESOP had already started.

So for me it was like an opportunity to show I'm going get some outside external experience and do some things kind of in my own light. Right. That. Eventually whenever I do get the call to come back, I think those will help lend to my credibility 'cause it is difficult. Family business, you know, internally, externally, no matter which way you look at it.

Family businesses can be super difficult to 

Scott Shea: navigate, no doubt. Statistically, most of them don't last that long. Um, did your dad ever push you to go do other careers before going to work? He 

Blaise Zuschlag: didn't. He never pushed me to do anything. He always rather would listen. Offer like insights of what things that he did.

But he never would like tell me, I think you should do 

Scott Shea: this. Right. Which I think was pretty neat. Yeah. Scott, I know a lot of family businesses have, you know, kind of unofficial rules where family members have to go work, say two years elsewhere before they, they join the business. Um, so I was just curious.

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Scott Shea: So you mentioned LSU football too. I know your dad was received a big recognition. Was it a year ago? I. 

Blaise Zuschlag: It was, it was, it was last fall. That's, that's correct. 

Scott Shea: Maybe just kind of tell the audience what that was for. Oh man. 

Blaise Zuschlag: You're gonna make me cry. 

Scott Shea: That's not where I wanted to go. 

Blaise Zuschlag: No. Look. Look. So that was really unique and, and special.

My father loved the university because he saw it as a place where academics and athletics. Could breed success for our, for our state. He had a lot of pride in Lafayette and Louisiana and his country and the university was like that mechanism. So he was appointed to the Board of Supervisors and he had never served in that type of capacity in another organization outside of Acadian.

When he saw the good that could be done through the university for the students for the betterment of Louisiana, that's when he really like went from passionate about LSU to like love and like agape, like deep, deep love. So he did a lot of special things for the university and he just led by all the principles.

We talked about the Z piece, and he would write people notes. You did a good job like he remembered birthdays, anniversaries, all this stuff. So. He was really special to a lot of people at LSU. And so for them to do that, it was obviously very special for the family. Yeah, that was 

Scott Shea: really cool. Yeah. Um, while we're on the, we'll, we'll get into the deal making conversation.

This is more exciting though. Sure. Um, and I'm reading a, a, a book actually that talks about, you know, what is enough and what makes you happy. So obviously your family's been very successful. Um, the Zula name is kind of. You know, infamous in the Acadiana area, what motivates you, um, every day, whether it's with the company or so 

Blaise Zuschlag: For me, it's the mission.

The act of saving someone's life is such a critical thing for me because it's my center point to saving that life. It's selfless. You know, you're there on someone's worst day. Terrible. Yeah. You're there to make it better. And, but everything that dad built around Acadian, you know, the saving their life is at the center.

But all the wraparound thing, you know, that mission to me is we're taking care of others. It's about someone else. It's not about me. It's not selfish, it's selfless. So that is kind of what I relate. Almost everything I do to, it's like that is the mission and that's why I get out of bed is like, don't get in the way of, you know, blaze saving a life today or Acadian saving a life today.

Like our team is gonna go to bat to save that life and you're not gonna get in our way. That's awesome. And, and we're doing it. We, the intent of, you know, we're serving others and so that really is in the fabric of the culture of Acadian. Like it, it is ingrained in every single employee. That's incredible.

I. 

Scott Shea: We'll get into deal making, but not yet. Got another question. So while we're talking about your dad, and you mentioned earlier the, the lodge, the, the infamous grand view, which Josh, you probably don't know, it's a incredible duck hunting property in south Louisiana. I could shoot some birds. A lot of people know about Grand View and there's a lot of, you know, influential people that have been there.

How important has that been and just relationships in general been to the success of Acadian? 

Blaise Zuschlag: It's, it's huge. Um, my rule is you can shoot it. But you've gotta eat it. I like, 

Joshua Wilson: I eat meat, bro. That's, that's, that's 

Blaise Zuschlag: my rule. So if you're gonna harvest it, you've gotta tongue concluded you've gotta eat it. Yeah.

Tongue concluded. I didn't kill the cow. But no, it's, it's huge. Relationships are huge for Louisiana. The, the families like the fabric of Louisiana. It's like all about family. And the people in these communities are gonna work their tails off. For an organization and they're gonna be more like family. But the, the camp specifically, you know, the CFOI, I remember my dad telling me a story.

It's like the CFO's like, man, you're spending a lot of money at this duck, this duck club, and this and that. And it's really hard to put it in the perspective, but when it comes time, and it's not really, there's not a lot of things that happen. From going to the camp, other than you're in a really special, unique place, right?

Building a relationship and and planting these seeds. But whenever things do happen later on and you pick up the phone, those seeds become these giant flowers. And so when you're dealing with an EMS company and we've got Medicare, Medicaid, you know, state and federal payers, and we're dealing with a whole host of state and federal issues, we've gotta be able to pick up the phone and call and make our case.

And tho that camp, I mean its ROI is in the hundreds in terms of what we spent and what we've been able to achieve by building those relationships. So there is no doubt in my mind that that place is, is the 

Scott Shea: secret sauce. It's known for that. So that's, uh, that's the answer I was expecting. Yeah. That's really cool.

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah. We were fortunate enough, um, you know, by dad. After Hurricane Katrina, uh, Acadian was kind of the only company left with communications between the Superdome and certain regions because of all his backup ham radios. And he was an electronic, he was an electric, an electrical engineer by training, so he geeked out over all that stuff, but so.

Our communication center, we're dispatching, you know, US military helicopters and you know, we, Acadian played an instrumental role. There was a lot of people, a lot of organizations, a lot of people that did a lot for Katrina to try and help in such a devastating situation. But because of that, uh, he was able to go and have a conversation with, uh, vice President Cheney at the White House then.

And, you know, of course my dad would, at the end of the conversation, have you ever duck hunted in Louisiana? And fast forward, like, you know, I think a year or two later. Vice President Cheney came duck hunting with us at our camp. And so like 

Joshua Wilson: that's cool. 

Blaise Zuschlag: It gets notoriety and stuff like that. But they became really close friends and Justice Scalia came as a guest of Vice President Cheney.

And I remember my dad telling me a story about they were at a duck lodge out in California at a later date, and like they had become such close friends at Grandview that the two of them realized that it was Sunday and they're both Catholic and the two of them used a. A pickup truck, one of the ranch hands pickup truck, and, and my dad drove Justice Scalia two masks 30 miles away.

Wow. Because they knew that that was such an important part of their family life. Justice Scalia had like nine kids and like 40 something grandkids. It's, it's insane. Like yeah, it's a huge family. It's really cool. But yeah, no, that's, see, that's just a byproduct of having that place, building those relationships and then, you know, how can you translate that into success, right.

For the right reasons. 

Joshua Wilson: So mission driven, mission oriented. Like you wake up and you're like, we're gonna save another life today. We're gonna save another life, you know, like in the back of the bus or unit, you know, we've saved lives, we've delivered babies, we've done all sorts of stuff. Uh, good, bad, the ugly blood and guts, right?

It's, it's a place where you, you might see people at their absolute worst. And, uh, you also get to see beautiful life that comes from it, um, when needed. Uh, the 9 1 1 emergency response. It's a, it's a lifesaver, right? And, um, the, the people who show up there, this is the leading into the deal side of it. The people showing up, man, if they're treated well by their organization, they're gonna pass that love and care onto the people from the mission to how they're being treated.

And having to circling around you, treat your employees as owners. Explain what that ESOP process is. Why did you guys choose that? What does that mean, but, and how does that trickle down to, how does the medics treat the patients? 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah. Great question. I'm gonna start with a story. Okay. And then I'm gonna kind of fill in.

We get CS accredited every three years. So that's the gold standard. EMS, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. I'm sure that your company, you mentioned I was 

Joshua Wilson: on the, I was on the glove side of, of the, I was on, I was on the delivery side of this stuff. I didn't get into the politics there or the leadership there yet.

It's 

Blaise Zuschlag: an accreditation accrediting body and they come in and they have a very detailed process and they got all these people that come in and they study, you know, your units and your protocols and, and anyway, they, they kind of certify this company. It's like. Really highly qualified to. Mm-hmm. And so you become accredited.

Well, as part of that, they do interviews, field interviews with random, uh, employees. And so you never know what they're gonna ask 'em or something. And so, um, I think this was like 14 or 15 years ago and it made my dad so proud. But anyway. One of these doctors on this accrediting body is like, asked one of these employees, like, have you ever met the owner?

And the employee looked at him. He goes, you're looking at him. Boom. Right? It was like, and the guy just was so impressed. He just, he stopped. Like, he was like, all right, I'm good, but so why he stopped. So I was kind of mentioning to Scott in the hallway before we, before we sat down, but so company was started in 1971.

By my dad and his two partners. Fast forward, they had a lot of growth over the eighties, the nineties, and then there was a lot of, there was a lot of, uh, payment reform happening with Medicare and commercial insurance and all that kind of stuff. We used to have the membership and there wasn't really all these insurances that you can collect from in healthcare.

It specifically EMS. Um, that was all starting to change and there was some stuff being talked about that I think spooked. Um, my dad's two partners and so. They were entertaining. And, and at the time there was this rollup company called a MR, I'm sure you're familiar with a MR. Um, and they were kind of rolling in all these EMS companies with the intent of taking it public.

Well, they made an offer to Acadian and my dad's two business partners said they wanted to take it. And my dad said, I don't wanna do that. And so the deal kind of fell through because they really wanted to keep my dad involved with the business. So, but. They turned that into an opportunity through an esop.

So they were, they were kind of becoming more and more common and my dad was reading more about 'em and they, someone brought them this idea and it gave, it gave the two partners the opportunity to exit the business over a three year period and get some treasury interest that would get them to where the deal would've been now that it took, it took them an additional three years, but it got 'em to where the offer was, uh, from the acquiring agency.

So. That was really the advent of the esop. And so you fast forward, you know, the ESOP has been super successful. I think our, our stock value growth has been like above 14%, compounded annually since, wow. 1997. That's incredible. That's incredible. Our employee tenure, like we have people walking across the stage 45 years, 40 years, and there's a lot of 'em.

It's not just like one or two. So people like, again, it's, it's it's family. It's like this is their career. You've got the person that's working on the ambulance that's retiring at 35 years old. I mean at after 35 years. 55 years old. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: They've got a million and a half in their ESOP account and they've got a half a million in their 401k, maybe a little more.

They're walking away with more than 2 million bucks. I mean, that's impactful stuff that's impactful. Um, so. You wanna talk about, like they care about the patients. Like that's, I think the recipe and the secret that's in the sauce. 

Joshua Wilson: So I've worked, I've worked with privately owned, and then I moved over to the, the public side where there's, you know, county, city and I've been on, on that side.

And, um. When it comes to equipment, how you treat it, how you drive it, how many gloves you put on, how many this and that. Now you have to always follow protocol on, on, on cleanliness and, and taking care of the patient. But when, when I'm looking at, Hey, this is gonna pay for my kids' college, or this is gonna one day allow me and my wife to retire, like, I think you, you treat things with higher respect the machine.

The equipment, you're not dropping it, you're not bouncing it, you're not throwing it outta the back of the bus when you're, you get a bad call or whatever. So like, I think that's a, it's a great model and I, I wish more people would consider something like that. What's 

Blaise Zuschlag: the joke? If you put a, a medic in a room with two bowling balls, one of 'em gonna be broken and one of 'em gonna be missing 

Joshua Wilson: and is true.

Right. Two, two is one and one is none. Right. 

Blaise Zuschlag: We always lose stuff. I, I will just say that the ESOP is such a strong benefit. Yeah. But I think that the challenge nowadays with. Cell phones and instant gratification is like the younger generations having a tougher time. Sure. Preparing themselves for retirement.

They kind of want, they want, they want everything now. Yeah. And so it really takes a lot of coaching and stuff, but I, I don't think, I don't think that's lost. I think they just need somebody that's gonna drill that into 'em. Like they need someone to care about 'em enough to, to tell him like, these are all the reasons why you need to do it and show 'em their balance.

Right. And so my dad, that was. When he would go around talking to people. He was really proud about that ESOP example that I gave, the 35 year employee, um, you know, started off in the nineties, making 10,000 and then retired, making 40 something thousand. And then that kind of money, that's, it's significant.

It tells a story. I mean, it's pretty impactful for sure. 

Joshua Wilson: You guys have had growth through, you know, organic growth, but you also had growth through mergers and acquisitions. Yeah. And that, that kind of m and a strategy, walk us through. Why you would consider m and a and what did that look like? 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yeah, so organic growth is cheaper, but it's longer, like it's a longer lead time.

Uh, acquisitions are instant and so there isn't a whole lot of opportunities for RFPs that come come up and EMS or opportunities for organic growth. They do, but they're few and far between. Um. Back in the nineties, and I think, you know, we did a few acquisitions in the eighties and maybe a few in the nineties, but then in the late nineties and the early two thousands, that's when it really started getting hot and we started buying companies.

Um, you know, being that we're an ESOP at this point and we get an annual valuation, we know what. Our value of stock is, and so our whole thesis was, well, let's go find these other mom and pop EMS companies that we can do an asset purchase agreement with. For us, it was all about the patients, right? We know that at Acadian, if we go by these patients, we can assign our average net collectible revenue per patient, which is generally way higher.

'cause we have a lot of systems contracts, systems, processes and things like that. And then on the cost side, you know, at least back then. The cost. We knew that our cost because of our efficiency, so we're gonna have a higher net collectible revenue and a lower cost. And so it was accretive, it was, it was accretive to our value, even if we were paying five times.

And we would always try and keep the owner of the business engaged and do some type of contingent purchase plan where, you know, if you keep the volume mm-hmm. You know, where it's a couple of years, but man, we, I think we probably made 20. Eight to 30 something acquisitions in that next like 15 year time period.

So it really ramped up and we really started realizing and then like our, that was our growth into Texas was in 2006, I think was our first growth into Texas. And then from there we grew a lot in Texas. 

Scott Shea: Yeah. When was your most recent acquisition, if you can disclose that? 

Blaise Zuschlag: Our most recent acquisition would've been about a year and a half ago in Texas, and you know, I'm drawing a blank on the name of that right now.

That's okay. It wasn't, it wasn't a terribly huge opportunity. 

Scott Shea: Yeah. Are you guys typically competing? 

Blaise Zuschlag: Yes. Yes. So. In Texas, um, for instance, we do a lot of the hospital to hospital transports. Mm-hmm. And so they're, they. While we want to all hope that everyone wants the best patient care, which is what I think Acadian offers.

Um, they want somebody, they want an ambulance there to get, get the patient moved. Right? And so if you're gonna be later that they want, so they have multiple agencies usually that contract with them. It's really hard in Texas to be the exclusive provider We are in some areas with some hospital partners.

Um. But I think that's where we could probably use technology in the future to integrate better and to have like the Papa John's, I, I always call it the Papa John's, but like you have an ambulance ordering system and the hospital through their EHR to where they don't have to go into their system and make a call that in Epic, they just click a button, ambulance, and then we have all the interface.

And then it shows them, it looks at our, it looks at our dashboard and it says, Acadian will be here in x, Y, Z minutes. It'll feed the billing record information so that they don't have to pay for bills that. They're not responsible for, which is a pain point for them. Mm-hmm. I just, I see that as the next wave of the future.

Um, in Louisiana we have, like in Lafayette Parish, I'll use as an example, they have a a, they have an EMS commission made up of a appoint appointed councilman council representatives that review our response time criteria. Our, uh, our rates. It's, we're a lot like a public utility. In the markets where we do 9 1 1, it's like we're a public utility.

They have, they have like jurisdiction over what our response times are, and there has to be transparency and then there's like, this is what you can and can't charge and things like that. So it's almost like we're a public utility in the 9 1 1 markets, so it's kind of a different flavor. Texas to Louisiana, right.

Joshua Wilson: When it comes to managing mission and p and l, right. You're saving lives, you're on a mission. Yep. At the same time, if you guys aren't fiscally responsible for your 5,200 employees or however many a lot, right? If you're not fiscally responsible, then they might not have jobs. So you kind of have to balance mission and Absolutely.

And how do you do that? 

Blaise Zuschlag: So it's very carefully. Well, it's, it is difficult as, I'm sorry I hit the microphone. No, you're good. As an esop, you've got a responsibility and a fiduciary responsibility to the retirement plan now. So it's almost like you're a publicly traded company. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: You wanna make sure that you don't.

Make a huge acquisition that could potentially jeopardize the value of all these esop. But at the same time, you don't want to just stay stagnant. You want to kind of just, so our method has always been like, man, if we can get that anywhere from five to 15% growth and in some years maybe 20, 25, like, and keep that.

Cumulative annual growth rate that really is successful for the esop because that allows people to retire and not freak out and not have a mass exodus. But specifically to your question, like when Arcadian started, my dad's, uh, banking officer said, Richard, you're saving too many lives and you're not making any money.

So the pendulum was all the way to patient care and he wasn't making any money to be able to. Continue the business. 

Joshua Wilson: Mm-hmm. 

Blaise Zuschlag: So the pendulum swung and then he started realizing that, okay, we gotta start making some operational decisions and things like that. And so what we don't want to see is that the pendulum goes to where we're just doing financial management of the business.

Right? Yeah. And so that's, it's a pendulum and, and we've gotta have honest conversations. Our executive team talks about this a lot, right? We have, uh, I don't know if you guys had it, but like we have metrics that track. Unit hour utilization, which is kind of like our cost efficiency ratio. Right? How busy is that unit, which means we're generating revenue.

Yeah. And so you, we've been dialing that back significantly. We've been working on wage growth for our employees, like, so I think Acadian does it the right way and we're able to, you know, continue that track record of, of the, the good growth that supports them, their retirement. But at the same time, we're not jeopardizing that patient care, which, that's the brand and reputation.

Right. For 

Joshua Wilson: sure. Yeah, I was on a 24 48 schedule at the fire department. And, uh, at the time I was on, uh, one of the busiest trucks in the fifth busiest truck in the nation in terms of rescue calls. So like, if I was like, all right, Josh, you're on rescue. And I was like, oh, no. You know, like that, that, that means I'm gonna be up all night running patient calls and stuff and then having to come back and write the reports.

And back in the day we wrote 'em by hand. And now you guys have your, you know, patient care reports and they're electronic, right? Yep. What technology has, uh, have you guys advanced into like, 'cause back in the day, seriously, it was three pieces of paper, carbon co. You know, you'd write and peel it off, give one to the doctor, roll up your, your, uh, uh, the heart rate stuff and give it to the, the team.

So like, where has patient care reports advanced? 'cause that was my biggest. So 

Blaise Zuschlag: they have advanced significantly. I'll tell you, the biggest technology that we're looking at right now is our cat computer aided dispatching system. Yeah, there's a lot of AI features built into that. It can actually pull into scheduling, it can help, you know, busy employees with scheduling.

Um. The patient care reports. I mean, that's incredible. Like the stuff that that stuff can do now they can, the patient, the, the medic can talk to the narrative instead of having to like sit there and I mean it's, it's, oh, it's advanced significantly, which allows them more patient time, which is what you really want.

'cause we require these medics to do so much stuff to make sure that we're gonna be able to bill for this transport and do these, the safety stuff, and do this stuff and do this stuff. But really their job originally was patient care. Patient care, 

Joshua Wilson: yeah. And be 

Blaise Zuschlag: attentive to the patient. So it's like. You gotta use technology to make sure that we can get back to that.

Mm-hmm. I, I often say like, we're 50, 54-year-old company and we have 54-year-old stuff and we can present, we can, we can prepare ourselves for the next 50 years if we invest in the technology 

Scott Shea: appropriately. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Go for it Scott. Alright, 

Scott Shea: random question. So you mentioned technology and ai.

Are there any, um, people out there trying to have self-driving? Units that would eliminate, ultimately eliminate labor for you guys? I would think. 

Blaise Zuschlag: I haven't heard of anyone. Um, the craziest one that I saw is that, uh, there was this EMS company in, I believe England that sent us some information about a hydrogen fueled vehicle.

And I'm like, okay, if that becomes unstable, then you just, you didn't just kill everybody in the unit. You killed everybody in the block, you know? So it's like, but. I don't think it's that far off. I mean, right now Acadian, so we're doing a pilot project with a company called Blue Flight and the entrepreneur that founded Blue Flight, he is a really brilliant guy, but he is, he came to us and said that he wanted to work with EMS and we're actually working on a pilot right now with a DOD grant.

Cool. Um, not A-D-O-T-D grant where we are gonna experiment with in Lafayette flying drones to deliver blood. To like severe trauma calls, uh, Narcan for like 

Joshua Wilson: Yep. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Uh, overdose patients. Yep. And then AEDs for like potential cardiac arrest calls. I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. So we're, we're starting to mess up, we're starting to experiment more with, with drones right now.

And that's actually like, we're in like the second phase of that grant. And if we get through this phase, I think we're actually gonna be flying them. Trialing it out. 

Joshua Wilson: That was such a good question. So some of my buddies were building, this was when I was working in vc, they were building a drone that delivered a ED.

So you could be on a golf course, Kro, your buddy could hit a button and a drone would drop into a ED right next to the person. So the response times were like minutes. Yeah. 

Blaise Zuschlag: And those minutes matter on cardiac arrest. Oh, for, for sure. For sure. Absolutely. 

Joshua Wilson: So very great question, Scott. Keep going, man. You're on the roll, man.

Scott Shea: No, it's just, I, I love the AI world. It's obviously the. The fad that we're in, uh, at the moment. 

Blaise Zuschlag: I think that given that the whole self-driving vehicle is based on everyone doing following the rules and EMS, you're just, you're flying lights and sirens, the more 

Scott Shea: chaos 

Blaise Zuschlag: it's gonna be when they can solve more chaos.

I think that that would might, that might come in, but I think what we're trying to do is go up in the. To get quicker and, and more efficient. 

Joshua Wilson: That's really interesting. So, as a follow up question that you guys have ground transport, do you guys do any flight fixed wing or Yeah, we 

Blaise Zuschlag: have, so we have air medical, uh, we have 13, uh, helicopters.

Okay. Spread out throughout mainly Louisiana and, and kind of on the border of Texas. 

Joshua Wilson: Do you do any fixed wing far flights? We do, 

Blaise Zuschlag: we do fixed wing. We have, uh, medical flights and we also do charter as well. We're part 1 35. Okay. Uh, and we do, we do patient flights as well. 

Joshua Wilson: So for people listening in real quick, helicopter, so bad, really bad, uh, vehicle accident or someone, someone gets ejected, a kid needs to go to that hospital now to get surgery.

They could land a chopper right next and they could export 'em out. Uh, also hospital to hospital. Someone's getting delivery and they have a, an, an infant. So they could send from hospital to hospital, fixed wing. It would be like if you're overseas or something like that. And you need to get back to the US to, to get medical care.

So there's like. Ambulances don't just happen on the ground, they hap happen in the air as well. So it's really cool that you guys, uh, kind of cover ground and air. Yeah. Maybe one day sea, right? Yeah, maybe. So. 

Blaise Zuschlag: It's funny you say that Chris Allard, uh, metal shark boats has like been asking me, he is like, is there a need for EMS boats and, 'cause he's in the boat business and for sure he does, he does Coast Guard, he does Navy, he does other.

Uh, boats and he's been like picking my brain about like, how would a EMS boat look? You know, New York, some of these places that are surrounded by water, big cities, it's like, it may make sense, I mean. 

Joshua Wilson: If you gotta get from downtown Manhattan to wherever or something like that, we, 

Blaise Zuschlag: Acadian have not considered it.

Um, even though we live amongst the swamp, like we, we, we are utilizing ground and air. Air is kind of our rural area. Like air is kind of a stop gap for that. 

Joshua Wilson: So in Louisiana you need air boats. Air boats, right? Right. So you go over the swamp when 

Blaise Zuschlag: hurricane, uh. When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. Yeah. And that wasn't a like a wind event, it was more of a flooding event.

It flooded Port Arthur, Texas where we do the 9 1 1 service. 

Joshua Wilson: Mm-hmm. 

Blaise Zuschlag: And there was a group of us that went and we were driving a gator tail, like fishing boat. Like hunting boats. Yeah. And they had like aired medics in the front of the boat. We were doing 9 1 1 calls out of boats because you couldn't get vehicles in there.

Joshua Wilson: What a great story, man. Yeah. We were 

Scott Shea: driving gator tails. It's pretty cool. I was just gonna add, he mentioned that the charter, they, they've got the famous uh, LSU plane. A lot people have a con people around here know about, 

Blaise Zuschlag: we do have a contract with, uh, LSU to provide, uh, air services and so they asked us to wrap.

Plane, LSU, and so that's pretty cool. Is there a tiger on the front or something? No, it's, it's, it's classy. There's purple and gold. Purple and gold. But like when, when the plane goes in, a charter flight with someone just paying to go play golf somewhere. And then Tiger droppings, which is like the LSU website.

They see it in Morgantown, West Virginia. They think we're going, we're gonna take the, the West Virginia coach. Yeah. So people watch the plane. They think that football recruiting happens on the plane and it could be just a guy going play at Niko and Woodlands. Yeah. And uh, yeah, so it gets mixed up. It's kind of funny, I, 

Scott Shea: I didn't know your dad personally, but I'm assuming he didn't mind the, uh, the wrap on that plane.

No, he did not.

Joshua Wilson: He going on. Scott, what else you got, bud? 

Blaise Zuschlag: I'll tell you, I've, I was appointed, uh, governor Landry appointed me to his seat on the LSU Board of Supervisors. And I, I was, I was a little reserved about doing that because I'm busy as a father and executive in the business. Sure. But I'm doing it and I'm loving it and it's, it's been really good for me growth wise.

Um, I'm learning a lot and I'm kind of like seeing his vision come to life in 

Scott Shea: me. That's awesome. Pretty cool. So you mentioned. You know, being a father, are your kids involved with the business like you were as a child? It sounds like you're turning into your dad slowly, so I'm assuming they are. 

Blaise Zuschlag: So, um.

They come to the duck camp when we have, like my older son, he's 12. And then I have a 10-year-old son and then I have a 9-year-old daughter. They come to duck hunting quite often. They come over with a family right now. But my, my older son does come. 'cause my rule is like, you can come but you need to be polite.

You need to help, you need to wash. Like you need to make yourself useful. Right. And make justify you being, because that, that's what we did. Um, so he is starting to come more. And that, that is, that is special. I think 

Scott Shea: dad's like the cool ambulance guy, or 

Blaise Zuschlag: I think they take pride in the fact they, they, they take pride.

Like they were all really, really close to my father before he passed away, right? Last year. So that was really difficult getting them through that. But yes, they are involved and, and to the extent that they don't go in the supervisor trucks, like they mom and dad take care of that. That was kind of an early days thing.

We wanna make sure that those trucks are gonna save lives and anyway. Um. Yes, they're involved. Yes, they're proud. Um, I think that he does want to do like summer jobs and stuff like that, so, you know, that is something that they've been asking. 

Scott Shea: Yeah. I was. Guys, would you, uh, and you may not know the answer, would you want them to follow the same path that you did?

If, 

Blaise Zuschlag: if the paths available to him, I would say absolutely, because again, but, but that has to be their decision, like the mission thing, I think. For everybody. That that is the, that like, I am lucky that I get to work at Acadian every day because I get to serve that mission. Right? Right. And so that's the thing that I question them about.

It's like, what, what do you wanna do and why? And, 

Scott Shea: and what mission are you serving? Another question, does it, obviously, when you go from say 50 employees to 200 to 5,000, does the family component. Fade at some point or the, it does get tougher. The sentimental, like obviously it was your dad's company. Does that fade now?

You're just so big where you're just another business 

Blaise Zuschlag: that gets, that gets tough. That gets tough, especially as you. Move out from the, the geographic center of Lafayette, Louisiana, like where some of our, that's where a lot of the magic happens, and I think you've seen some of those people travel out and try and build that culture.

And that just comes with slow and smart growth. And we've been able to acquire some great companies and bring on some great, some great talent. Um, and we're really getting that right. Um. But it is, it's more challenging. You just, you have to, you have to work harder to make sure. Our president of our ambulance company, Justin, uh, is incredible because he, you know, he's ex-military, but he's an EMT.

He's on the trucks, like running calls with folks. He goes to different markets all the time. I think bringing that culture out to those employees is super important. And so he does a phenomenal job and he has a cool accent. He has a really cool accent. He's from Australia. Oh, cool. He's an Aussie mate.

Scott Shea: It's Aussie. I've got a quick story, Josh, and I'm curious to get his response. So when I was working with my dad, every Wednesday he'd pass my office and say he was going to a meeting, which was golf course, and I'd always say, when do I get to go to meetings? And he'd say In about 35 years. So it takes time.

You mentioned instant gratification in today's world and like. Just how, how do you view, like it took your dad, you know, 60 years to get to where you are now. Um, I guess what would you tell kids who like, can't even see that? Um, and one other point, I, same book I mentioned earlier, Warren Buffett at the time of the book was worth, I think 84 point a half billion, 84.2 of it had come after age.

50 point was like time is what made him so successful. Just kind of what's your thoughts on that? Today's world where nothing has time. Well, like 

Blaise Zuschlag: that kind of goes back to the start of the show. Right? Why do you want to be successful? Like why? I'm reading a book right now that one of my friends recommended to me and the, the title kind of threw me off and I almost didn't wanna read it based on the title, but it was, the title was How to Make a Few Million Bucks.

Joshua Wilson: Mm-hmm. 

Blaise Zuschlag: You familiar with this? I'm Not, the Sky was. Incredible. I'm, I'm only through chapter one, but anyway, more to come on that. 

Scott Shea: Yeah. Follow up episode. 

Blaise Zuschlag: But, but to, to answer your question, like the kids and the youth, like, that's a tough thing because nowadays be, you almost have to lock them in to a lifestyle that they want for whenever they get older, and that's their hook, and then you gotta walk 'em back.

Whereas it used to be you could just be coached. And blindly, like follow the people that have done it and, and, and mentored you Nowadays, it's like they want to know, like they want to get hooked on this is the lifestyle, this is the kind of retirement I want, I wanna travel, I wanna, so there's just all these different things that the newer generation wants and we've gotta really work hard at figure out, like how do we tell 'em they can have, like, they can have that and work here and have the work-life balance like, and so.

It's, it's really tough. It's really tough, but I think that it starts with why do you want to be successful and what do you wanna do with that success? Awesome. 

Joshua Wilson: Yeah. 

Blaze, um, we promised you we'd get you outta here so you could go to your kids' game. Yeah. So this is, this is episode one, I'm sure of, of many things that we get to do with you and, uh, cheer you on as you guys succeed.

Um, what's, what's one final piece of advice? This was from, you know, one of the guests, they pass on a question to you. Okay. And then you get to pass on. Okay. The question to the next guest, but one of our previous guests said. Um, what is something that you have currently said yes to that in maybe in hindsight you should have said no to?

Blaise Zuschlag: I get asked to help out a lot. Sure. In community projects,

there's such a need. When you look across the spectrum of all these nonprofits and all these people that we're trying to help, I've really said yes too much in terms like. I've taken on the LSU Board responsibility, and then I've got. All these other responsibilities with these local nonprofits that are serving this great need.

Joshua Wilson: Mm-hmm. 

Blaise Zuschlag: But I'm starting to feel spread thin. Yeah. And I think I need to find a little bit of joy in being able to say no and just doing the one thing really, really well. And then maybe saying one day I'll come back around and help with this. 

Joshua Wilson: For sure. 

Blaise Zuschlag: Spreading yourself too thin is not a good position to leave yourself.

And like I don't wanna, everyone, everything that I do, I want it to be like, great. Yeah. And I think that I've said yes too much too. Exterior stuff to my family, to my, to my work, and to my, like, my mission. Like, yeah, 

Joshua Wilson: it's so hard 'cause you're a deal maker with such a huge heart and we honor you for that.

Like we, we do wanna honor, but like to, for every yes, you give, you're saying no to something else. And at some point that no starts hitting the family starts hitting that. You've seen that and, uh, you're just doing a phenomenal job. Blaze, thank you. With, with what you're doing as a deal maker, we honor you and we're so glad that you came here to chat with Scott and myself.

Thanks for having me and Chris on the, on the ones and twos over as the director, uh, fellow deal makers as always, reach out to our guests and say, thanks for being on the show. Their contact information will be, or their, their links to their websites will be in the. The show notes below. If you're working on a deal that you'd like to discuss, maybe here on the podcast or your family's journey of buying, building, selling companies, we'd love to love to hear your, your story.

And if maybe you're a group that that's on the equi, uh, acquisition path, man, we'd like to know your strategies and why and hear the, the journey behind that. So head over to the deal podcast.com, fill out a quick form and heck maybe get you on the show next. So then we'll talk to you all on the next episode.

Cheers, guys.