What The Funk?

0:00 We are back on the What the Funk podcast. I think this is episode 162. At least that's what I'm going to go with for now. And really excited to have Taylor Richards on this pod. Taylor, your

0:14 first podcast ever. Yes, it is. You're going to do great. I was really intrigued. We spent about three minutes talking at Dakota Analytics event at course field and realized you're kind of your

0:31 own bird, right? You're one of - you've got a lot of different passions. You've got a really interesting story. And we're going to get into all of that. Summer's officially over. I now

0:44 officially have a freshman in high school. My daughter is 14 years old, and she goes to Centaurus High School. So it seems to be going OK so far, but the life of a 14-year-old girl is not

0:57 something that I am overly familiar with. would be interesting to see how it all plays out for her. So Taylor, I'll just put it on you to start off with, I ask all my guests this, who are you?

1:10 Who's Taylor Richards? You know, I'm figuring that out every single day. It's constantly shifting and growing. So, you know, I'm a mom, I'm a hard worker, I run a foundation, a bully

1:27 volunteer based in honor of my child. I'm

1:31 just, you know, trying to figure it out, see what I want to be when I grow up. Aren't we all? And you do work in oil and gas, right? So, I know a little bit of, you're at Civitas today, I

1:42 believe that you're like a land manager type resource over there. I'm the director of land administration. So, I have a team of about 30 in both division orders and lease and contracts. Oh, so

1:56 you're busy.

1:58 Because Cevatos to me is one of those companies, it's a smash-co for those who don't know that are listening. I think if it is a little bit of extraction and then a whole bunch of other

2:07 Colorado-based operators, you guys have a whole ton of active production, future production focused mostly here in Colorado, but now things are shifting a little bit. You've got some executives in

2:19 Houston, you guys did an acquisition to pick up some Permian assets, so a little bit even more diversified than it once was. So I can only imagine when you take five, six, seven different

2:30 companies and smush them together, nine 2021 of November in established We. years Three? years Three. Three? years five like over companies

2:47 as Ciditas.

2:49 And you're like relatively new, right? You were a Taprock, I think before that. I am, yes, I was a tap rock for almost five years and then I joined Civitas in March, kind of separate and aside

2:59 from the tap rock acquisition that Civitas did at the same time as Hibernium. Okay, all right, so it's still relatively new. Probably, hopefully past the point of drinking from the fire hose,

3:10 although who knows? You're talking about nine different ERP systems, land systems, you've got data all over the place, you've got data in Colorado, you've got data in Texas, maybe some New

3:21 Mexico You're all over the map, right? And your job is to bring this all together and make it make sense that you can actually make business decisions out of it, which is pretty impactful work.

3:32 It's funny you say that my entire motto is to make this make sense. I love that. So we, you know, as a company that came together of so many different companies, you know, there's a lot of need

3:46 for standardization and things to be in alignment with, what the Civitas way is 'cause we're no longer nine separate companies, we're one company. And so we're definitely working on that. And I've,

3:58 in my history in oil and gas, I've been very blessed at my exposure, everything from land administration to production and then multiple software implementations. And so I'm definitely heavily

4:10 integrated in the data world, which is somewhat rare in the land administration. Arm of the business, you know, I write a lot of reports and do app design and things like that So brought a little

4:21 bit of a different perspective to the land administration team. And so it's been really, it's been really great to work with everyone there. That's cool. And it looks like you're working from home

4:33 unless your home is the Cevitas headquarters

4:37 in Denver. But you may or for people that are listening and not watching, you wouldn't know this, but it does look like you might be in witness protection. I'm trusting everything's okay, Taylor.

4:45 If there's an issue, just give me like a thumbs down.

4:50 Just play twice. We'll talk more about Cenitas and tap rock and all that stuff, but I want to focus on you. I want to go back. Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Where did you go to

4:59 school? And then how did you ultimately get into oil and gas? So

5:04 I was born in Dallas and lived in Dallas until about right after seventh grade and then I moved to Telluride. Whoa. So that was a huge shift. And then ended up graduating from Telluride High School,

5:17 which was fascinating I was six of 36. So, and then right after had my first child, Shane, who we'll talk about more later

5:31 and right out of high school after turning 18 and then took some years to explore what being young is and then ended up going to Western State College at the time. It's changed names a couple of

5:45 times since then. It isn't going to sin. So I went there first and graduated with accounting, business and math, and then was managing a credit union. And one of my best friends was like, you

5:58 really need to be a division order analyst, you would love it. And I was like, okay, well, if I go get my energy management degree and I don't get a job, you better pay my student loans.

6:09 And so I went back for an energy management degree and graduated

6:15 and landed an internship at QEP, which is how I started my career. And after my internship, I got offered a senior division order analyst position right out of my internship and really just kind of

6:28 was exposed to so many opportunities and was fortunate enough to become a supervisor over the northern region and then the manager over the southern region. And then I went into kind of a special

6:38 projects where I helped all of division orders relative to software implementation and

6:44 kind of troubleshooting any issues they ran into to. I never would have imagined I would have ended up in any kind of tech space. So it's kind of interesting how life just evolves based on what you

6:54 make out of your career and the things that you say yes to and you ask why to, you know, asking why is probably the biggest thing that has furthered my career is just questioning. So from QEP, I

7:09 went to a PDC and was there a business analyst doing the software implementation for SAP on behalf of the orders and then went from there to TAPROC, which was probably where I had the most growth in

7:24 my technical skills. It was a very small company. We ran really lean and we did very cool tech solutions that were built in house. I worked a lot with the developer there and we worked hand in hand

7:37 to build really cool applications to optimize and be able to remain lean because it's just, you know, in the private equity world, that's how it goes. we were very fortunate in all that we were

7:48 able to accomplish in those years. There's an introduction, so once that director position opened at Civitas, it was a great opportunity to take my career, you know, a little further and

8:00 be able to share what I've learned throughout the years with a new group of people who have, you know, kind of been on an island with this whole, you know, nine companies coming together. That's

8:10 a really hard situation to balance And I think we've done a great job, you know, they've made very targeted hires and we are making miles of strides every day. So love it. Yeah, there's, there's

8:23 a lot to dig into there. But I think the first thing I want to ask is not everybody that listens to this is an oil and gas, probably 80. What is a division order? What does that mean? So that's

8:36 an interesting question because I have been told I divide and order things. That is not what it is.

8:44 So a division order, it's the division of interest relative to a subset of land and so what that means is who owns the minerals that are being traversed with a well bore. So if a well bore is going

8:56 through minerals and resources are being

9:02 produced out of those lands and those minerals, then we want to ensure that we have 100 of the mineral ownership for payment and for billing purposes on who our partners are And partners are those

9:14 that have leased those minerals. And so the person who lease the minerals and owns them gets a portion and the person who lease them gets a portion as well. And so we ensure that all of that is in

9:24 alignment with true ownership and we work with owners every day. I would say in division orders, we are the owner relations team and really the face of the company with our owners. And so that's

9:34 been a huge, a huge push for the new management in place in division orders and myself is really just ensuring that we are taking care of our owners taking care of our owners. You know, it's our

9:44 number one priority. Hmm, and the owners in a well could be lots of different types of people. It could be somebody who has a farm and you happen to be drilling a well on their farm and doesn't

9:57 know a ton about oil and gas. It could be private equity. It could be high wealth individuals. It could be another oil and gas company. So the types of owners that you're dealing with are

10:07 different. It can't just be, you have one message to every single owner that you have, right? There's a little bit of nuance required there. There's a lot of nuances, you know, owners that are

10:17 unleashed, different states have different pooling, which is what lands can be included in a well. And so there's just so many different, we have the federal government, we have the state, I've

10:30 not currently at Civitas, but in my history I've worked with tribal lands. And so it's really fascinating the differences in ownership, and especially when you go into different states, owners

10:43 based on their level of experience. Like for instance, Texas, you know, owners are very savvy on what they're entitled to as a world-time middle owner. And so. Now that's really cool. And on a

10:54 given well, or well bore, how many owners do you have? Could it be like on? It could it be a hundred? Like how many different people are you dealing with when you're talking about the division of

11:05 interest on a given well? So that's also a great question It can literally range from one to thousands. And so being in Colorado as an operator, and this also occurs in North Dakota, when you're

11:19 drilling in areas where there's neighborhoods of people and lots and lots of divided interest on how those lands have been split, we definitely have thousands. We have wells that have two to 4, 000

11:30 owners in them. It's, it's crazy. Are they all making money? Like are some of these checks you're sending, like three cents every time. that can definitely happen. But for the most part, I

11:43 would say they are. And that's where another piece of division or analyst like the owner relations side can come into play is just guiding our owners when they're talking to us about like how, you

11:53 know, we'll have owners call us and say, how do I set this up for my future? I'm getting older, you know, we'll say just ensure you're not delineating your interest to the point where everyone

12:02 has nothing. So as a division of interest, we go out to the eighth decimal. And so once it gets past that, you've diluted an interest smaller than what we even go out to. So that's neat. We

12:16 could probably talk about division orders the whole time, but it might not be the most exciting thing that we can get off of that. For you, I don't want to, I don't want to downplay it. But I

12:25 love the, so you grew up in Dallas, right? Big, prestigious American city. And then boom, you moved to tell your, why did you guys move to tell your ride? Was it like work related for your

12:35 family? How did you end up going to high school and tell your eye when you grow up in Dallas. So my stepfather, we were very blessed and there was an opportunity for a house that him and his

12:49 brother owned in Telluride to move up there. And he,

12:53 mom and him owned their own company and so they could kind of run it for more ever. And so decided to move to Telluride and have the base there. He always wanted to be in the mountains and being in

13:05 the eighth grade, I was like, what are you doing to me? Yeah, you're taking me away from all the people and all my friends. And now you've got a pool of 35 other kids to be friends. Yes, it was

13:16 definitely a transition for sure. But looking back, I feel so blessed to have experienced it 'cause Telluride is one of the most beautiful places. It's incredible. And one of my mentors, actually,

13:27 he's from Canada, but he worked in Houston for quite a while. And we kind of decided to do his own thing. He's like, well, I don't want to live in Houston My wife wants to live in Telluride, so

13:39 I'll just go live in Telluride. and loved it, right? And I think he's even said, the nice thing about Telluride, too, is so many people in oil and gas vacation and Telluride. So it was easy for

13:48 him to have meetings around oil and gas and oil and gas tech at coffee shops and Telluride. Sometimes easier than having to go to Houston or Dallas. Oh, that's fantastic. I actually didn't know

13:58 that, but it makes sense. I mean, it's definitely a destination spot. That's beautiful. Yeah. And that Montrose airport is something else for sure Yes, it is. So is the Telluride airport. I

14:09 didn't even know. I assume that that's like a different level, but so it's you fly in and it's a cliff and you land right on the cliff. It's not scary at all. No, sounds super chill. So you go

14:24 to high school and tell your ride and you have, if I'm getting this right, you had a son at 18 years old. I did. I did. I had him. I got pregnant right out of high school and and had a son at 18.

14:38 Yep.

14:40 So

14:42 life comes at you fast. When I was 18, I was not in a position to raise a child. That's for sure. How did you do it? Did you have support with you? How did you raise a kid when you were 18 years

14:57 old? I've said frequently it's amazing what humans are capable of when you feel like you have no other option. Yeah You know, it definitely kicked me forward

15:10 in life and I just made it work. There was a lot of hard decisions and hard moments in all of that. I was definitely in areas where I wasn't always surrounded by family which made it harder and was

15:24 a single parent for a large portion of my oldest son's life and so it was definitely hard but I worked a ton of jobs I put all of my energy into, you know, in a minimum wage of515 an hour, you

15:37 have to You have to get a few jobs to take care of things. Yeah. And it's funny, by the time I got my internship at QEP, I had to quit six jobs to take the internship in Denver because living in

15:51 venison was so, you know, you had to do what you had to do to survive, so. Well, good for you. This is definitely a story in perseverance. Let's talk about Shane a little bit So you have your

16:07 son and you're 18 years old and you're trying to figure out the world and you're bringing a child into the world as well. You're also trying to establish and develop a career. Tell me about your son

16:17 a little bit and let's talk about his foundation as well. So Shane grew up with me. I was so young when I had him that he really did grow up with me and he was just so amazing. He was an artist and

16:33 one of those kids that my friends would talk to and be like, I'm so sorry, I forgot I was talking to a child. Totally. Because he could just articulate things so well and you kind of just forgot

16:43 you were speaking to a 12 or 13 year old. And then, you know, he definitely had mental health struggles throughout his life. He was the child that always befriended all of those that didn't have

16:56 friends and really brought people forward. But I feel like in that he was kind of neglecting his own mental health. Sure. And so in 8th grade, in February of 2018, he took his life

17:12 and that definitely changed everything. It changed who I am at my core.

17:19 It changed who I am in a better way, which is complicated and confusing.

17:27 And so as a result of that, when you have a loss so impactful to your life that you know is never gonna go away, I feel like

17:35 the immediate reaction is to wanna do something. You know, you want to do something tangible, you want to make a difference. And so,

17:44 suicide awareness and prevention, there's a ton of resources out there for that. And it felt pretty intangible to me, to be perfectly honest. And so I thought about Shane and who he was. And,

17:56 you know, he struggled in school, not because he wasn't smart enough. It was just, you know, he was very artistic and his focus was in other places. And so I remember putting him in this six

18:06 week tutoring program that really changed everything for him. And so I said, why don't we take a different approach? And so a group of really close friends and colleagues, we started the Shane

18:17 Thurston Foundation in February of

18:22 2019 with the goal of promoting positive mental health through providing access to educational programs. And so we were really trying to take more of a systemic approach to mental health and say,

18:31 you know, if they have a strong educational foundation if they're really getting to be involved in art and music and have those outlets for themselves. then the coping strategies and being able to

18:41 cope with harder situations becomes easier if you feel really confident in other areas of your life. And we started to look into this, you know, for the K through 12 group of students, there's

18:51 really not a whole lot of resources out there.

18:55 I met a lot with the precious child who was one of our first grant recipients and they're an amazing facility. And I would say that the guidance I received there is definitely how we were able to

19:05 kind of take the next step forward And so we started our giving structure at first. It was kind of, it was in 2020, which everyone knows was a hard year. And so we wanted to find a way to start

19:16 giving in some sort of way. So we started our giving structure, giving to other nonprofits that aligned with our mission and would use it for educational purposes. But then in the fall of 2021, we

19:32 decided to kick off our golf tournament and which was gonna continue on and still has one major fundraiser for the year. Being in the industry, being an oil and gas, golf is definitely part of that

19:46 industry. It's ingrained in what we do. And so it just made sense as a fit. And we kicked off our golf tournament. When we did that, we announced that our new giving structure was going to be

19:58 opening up what we call the Giving Fund. And the Giving Fund is where families across Colorado for K through 12 students can apply for up to500 four times a year, so2, 000 per student. For

20:12 tutoring hours, art and music program tuition and art and music program supplies. And then we partner with facilities around Colorado and we pay the funding directly to the facilities providing

20:23 services. And so we started that in, like I said, in fall of 2021 And since then, we have given over 450 scholarships to date.

20:37 That is really attributable to all of our partners through the golf tournament. You know, if it weren't for everyone partnering with us and supporting us in the way that they have, our giving

20:47 structure would definitely have to be more restrictive and I don't wanna have to do that. We wanna be able to help as many children as possible throughout these efforts. So it's been really

20:57 fascinating to watch it grow. So 80 of our proceeds from the golf tournament go directly into that fund And then the other 20, we put into an endowment fund 'cause we wanna ensure that we're

21:09 building a sustainable structure so that if we do have, you know, another 2020 or something happens and our fundraising isn't quite as high as it was a certain year, we can kind of, you know,

21:19 lean on that endowment fund to ensure that our giving structure doesn't have to change. So. Wow. Very blessed.

21:28 Not trying to make this therapy session for you. I'm sure you've told this story many, many times.

21:35 Obviously, that's very, very heavy, and I can only imagine the pain that you've endured and experienced, especially as you go back, you know, six years ago. Beyond that, I do want to commend

21:47 you. I think that you chose at that point to turn a real tragic situation to something positive, right? And understanding that there are other people, whether it be parents or children, that are

21:60 going to experience tough situations, and you'd probably prefer that they don't have to experience the same things that you did. So good for you. I think the mission is super altruistic. And I

22:13 truly commend you not only for raising a child when you were 18 years old, but turning something obviously very sad into something that will keep his memory alive in a very positive way. Tell me

22:24 more about the golf tournament So we're getting toward the end of the summer here in 2024. Have you had it this year? Is And then if people want to be a part of it, where is it, how do they do

22:35 that? Absolutely. So we actually haven't had it this year. It's coming up on September 23rd. Okay. We are super excited for another amazing year. And we still have sponsorships open. There are

22:47 a few golfer spaces open. And we always encourage anyone to come and just participate in the event, even if they're not golfing, we have volunteer opportunities And it's a

23:00 shotgun start with a scramble, four-player scramble, two teams on each hole. And we have tons of fun games and silent auction and raffle. And I'm a little, like you said, on my own bird, I'm a

23:12 little kooky. So my tournament's kooky right along with me. So it's a ton of fun and an opportunity for everyone to come out and be together. But then another thing that we do that I really love

23:23 And

23:26 as we have in memory of. signs around the course. And so anyone that has been lost to mental health, we love to honor those those people and keep their name alive and really show people why they're

23:37 there and what the purpose of being there is. And so we make signs around the court that are all around the course for anyone that has been lost to mental health. So that's something that I also

23:48 offer to anyone. On the website it does show a fee but we cover that ourselves. All we need is a picture in the name and we would love to honor anyone around the course. And then once we do that

23:58 they're honored from that point forward at the event. Oh that's that's so great. So September 23rd, where is it? Oh yes, where? That's a good point. A lone tree golf club and hotel. Okay, so

24:12 all right I definitely want to be a part of this. Funk Futures would be happy to sponsor in this event and we'll definitely want to put the link out there. What's the website that people would go to

24:21 to find out more? So you can either go directly through our website which is Shane Thurston Foundation dot org. And then it'll say register now. And there's actually a video of last year's

24:32 tournament. And a few of the sponsors did an interview to really explain what the cause means to them.

24:41 Or you can go directly through Eventbrite and just search Shane Thurston and the event will come up on there as well. And this is our fourth annual and we're super excited. We have a lot of great

24:51 sponsors and companies and supporters and people who just come out. And it's such a great day of just collaboration and support and

24:60 it's really amazing. That's, that's powerful. And that's, it sounds fun. I can't wait to be a part of this. Is that a, that's a Friday, right? It's actually a Monday. It's a Monday. Yes.

25:12 I'd love to be out of the office for a Monday. So I learned my lesson. The first year was on a Sunday and I heard it's a lot easier to take a day off for charity than it is from the family. So yeah,

25:24 now the weekend, I mean, you know, I've got three kids and the weekends are precious, right? I think especially coming out of summer where we had all this time together Which was amazing and

25:34 yesterday actually I felt like my mental health suffered a little bit because it was the first day You know I worked from home and it was the first day that nobody was here It was just me and you know

25:47 I've got a daughter in high school daughter in seventh grade a son in in first grade and my wife works in an office And Boulder and it was like you'd think I was kind of looking forward to this day

25:56 not gonna lie like okay Finally quiet, and then I'm here, and I'm like huh Wow like kind of lonely It's like sort of nice when somebody asked me to like get them food or take them to Walmart or

26:09 Something that I'll inevitably say no to like take right Take them to the pool, and it's like can you take me to Lowe's or I'm sorry Coles can you take me to Coles? I'm like right now, like I'm

26:21 literally on a call. Don't you hear that I'm like doing a podcast at this very moment and just like

26:27 dad, such a dork. But it was sad, like it hit me yesterday in a way that was like, I guess that's it. Like that summer's over, right? And it's over early here. I'm from New England. You can

26:40 see kind of all this stuff behind me. We didn't go back to school until like September 5th, right? So you get out of school later in June and then your summers went a little bit later. And you can

26:51 kind of see like Labor Day hits and you start to get a little bit bummed out, but you go back to school. It feels like it's still summer right now, but it's over. My kids are in school. They're

26:60 sitting in a classroom right now. I know. It's crazy how fast it goes by, too. It's definitely starting the new position at Civitas. That's made time pass really fast. I bet. It makes me way.

27:15 I mean, it's just, you know, it's a lot when you jump in I'm definitely a feet first, run in every direction I can and I'm kind of person. So. So you, you definitely like to stay busy. And I

27:28 can only imagine what it's like running a foundation. Cause you're probably getting inquiries to where people that want to be a part of this event or donate and like you're a mom, you're, you're

27:36 also a worker who's managing 30 people. How do you manage your time? Um, you know, sleep is the only thing you can kind of cut down on Yeah, I'm not going to do that. I need that. Um, I just,

27:53 I feel like I'm the person that I thrive on staying busy. Um, a lot of that does come from after Shane's loss. You know, there is some semblance of, if wanting to keep your mind occupied so that

28:05 you don't kind of go down a dark path. It's, it's something I struggle with every day. My mental health has definitely changed. But in a way that I know better what my boundaries are. what my

28:16 limitations are and when to really put that in place.

28:21 And so I wouldn't say I always do great at balancing my time and my friends would probably agree with that. But I have an amazing support system. I'm surrounded by people like my board of directors

28:32 is some of you know the closest people to me who have been there through all of it. We do have applications coming in all the time. My sister is the one that kind of wrangles all of that and then I

28:44 work with a lot of the sponsors and what there's another volunteer lead. So it's really all the people around me that the team that I have at work you know this it's really all of us in the

28:53 collaboration working together that makes me able to balance my time that I'm not great at you know and I know that you know I you know I have kids I have my husband who's an amazing support for me

29:06 that

29:08 you know sometimes he probably gets left over me.

29:13 I hear that. I think that's actually an important point. And on the subject of mental health, like I have seen an evolution there. I'm a little bit older than you, but even going back to like the

29:26 late '90s, when I first realized that I struggled a little bit, whether it be my own fault, or I'd like to just blame my parents because they both have anxiety and depression, but we're all our

29:39 own individual And I'll never forget going to meet with a doctor in 1999 and him saying, like, you know, he just basically kind of interviewed me, he's like, you're depressed. I'm like, no,

29:51 that's for like people who are weak. Like, I'm tough, what do you mean? I played football, like, and he's like, I'm gonna put you on Zoloft, right? And we're gonna see how this treats you.

30:04 And it's like my whole world opened up. A few weeks later, it was tough, like initially getting on a new medication. But a few weeks later, it's sort of like - my baseline of happiness just rose.

30:16 And there's been points throughout my adult life where I've gotten off of the medication and I feel like it drops, right? So for me, and I'm not advocating everybody should be on Zoloft or Prozac

30:26 or something like that, but I'm so thankful that I was diagnosed with this at a young enough age where I was able to do something about it, you know? And I think that that was a big deal. That's a

30:39 big deal, especially in that time I feel like we're finally in a place as a society where mental health is being more acknowledged, more validated, 'cause I think a lot of what was happening is it

30:49 was kind of invalidated when we were younger. And so I'm really happy for you that it was diagnosed so early because it was such a, I feel like it was more of a controversial topic when I was

30:60 younger, which I don't understand why because it's humanity. I mean, we're humans with feelings and

31:09 it's complicated. get humans with other humans when you, you know, personalities together, it's a lot. I mean, it's, it's hard. And I think it's hard. Go ahead. Since I have a kid in middle

31:23 school who just started sixth grade and, and man, I just remember, I'm like, oh, middle school's the worst.

31:30 Harder for girls too, I think. Like, for me it was, yeah, I mean, obviously there's puberty and there's changes and social stuff, but seeing it through the, the lens of, of girls, it's so

31:40 much different, you know what I mean? They're nasty to each other sometimes. And then social media brings this whole new element into it. I actually decided recently, I don't do this often, but

31:52 I felt like I was spending a little bit too much time on social media and I just deleted all the apps from my phone. And it's amazing how much clarity you start to gain when you don't spend so much

32:04 time on social media. LinkedIn's tough because a lot of my business is generated and runs through LinkedIn and I post this podcast when we release it every week. So I don't fully get away from that.

32:16 And also it's just not quite as exciting or controversial as Twitter and Instagram and even Facebook with all the political bullshit that exists there. But it really has been eye opening to me when

32:29 I'm like, Wow, I spend so much time on these apps. You forget, I'm so busy I'm running multiple businesses and I got a bunch of clients with funk futures, but how much time am I wasting by being

32:43 on social media? That I'm not even keeping track of. And then how much is that deteriorating my mental health? Absolutely, absolutely. I was actually gonna mention social media because it totally

32:55 shifted the societal dynamic. I mean, and how people interact,

33:02 people are willing to say behind a keyboard that they wouldn't say in person, which is only exacerbated. I feel like mental health within the youth. And so that's been something really strong in my

33:12 household based on my experiences is that social media is something that I restrict from my kids because I did not from Shane and I do feel like it played a part in his mental health. I know he

33:23 brought many things to me that other kids were posting that I had to report. I mean, it's really sad what would happen And after I lost Shane within our district, there was eight more students

33:35 within four months that took their lives. And I mean, it's just horrific to think about these young children who think that this permanent solution to a temporary problem is the answer, but to them

33:47 it feels permanent. Yeah. You know, and so I think remembering as parents, it's hard to remember that they don't have the same cognitive processing that we do. And because of that, we need to be

33:58 more mindful how their life really does feel permanent. And that is real to them.

34:04 And so I've definitely learned a lot through things that I wish I didn't learn the way that I did. But I definitely try to share that with others. It's just, if I can help anyone, I'm here. I

34:17 love the answers though. No, no, you

34:20 don't. But you have experience. And that is very important And you know, there's so many other questions I can ask about this, but that's probably meant better for not a podcast. I'm curious a

34:36 little bit about

34:40 how you obviously Shane's gone, right? And that sucks. And there's nothing that's going to physically bring him back. Do you still have ways where you feel like you do communicate with him,

34:51 though, like maybe through dreams or maybe through, like, written word. And just to kind of speak about myself a little bit, you know, I told you before we started, it was really hard for me to

35:01 lose my podcast partner, Tim Loser, to cancer just over two years ago. And our friendship was, was strong. And I felt like it was still growing. And something that I've noticed, it's, it

35:11 happens a little bit less now that there's been, you know, a couple years of past, but he still shows up in my dreams, you know, and like in a very sort of vivid way. And sometimes it's like

35:22 active and conversation and fun. And other times it's like I'm talking to him and he can't talk back, which is just painful because then you wake up and you start screaming and it's it's been pretty

35:33 eye opening to me. But but I'm curious with with your loss and the love that you obviously still have for your son. Like are there ways that outside of the foundation that you feel like you honor

35:43 him or find ways to communicate with them not a physical realm?

35:48 You know, that's a really complicated question. When I have, you know, I've had vivid dreams. And when I do, I wouldn't say they're, they're hard. Like what you mentioned, they're, it's,

35:59 it's something I can't control and he can't communicate back. And so that, that's always been really hard for me is, is the dreaming side of things. Yeah. One thing I do find is I find myself

36:08 drawn to certain things like certain songs or certain art, where I feel like he's just pulling me to it. Yeah. And honestly, the other thing that seems, to some, it may seem silly, but I feel

36:20 like he's also guided me through my career And I've made some really hard decisions since he passed that I don't know that I would have had the strength or even the thought to do that for myself

36:30 before. And so I feel like, you know, I went to PDC and that's where I met my current husband and feel so blessed for. And I'm like, I swear, he guided me there to meet him and then moved me to

36:39 tap rock to get the experience I needed to then grow my career. And I just feel like he's been guiding, been like my guiding light through things that gave me inner strength. I didn't know I had

36:50 honestly. So, That's, yeah, that's spectacular. And you mentioned like, you know, he was a creative type, right? So whether it be music or art, naturally, there would be some synergies

37:00 there. Um, and I think that's super cool. Like in the case of Tim, right? He went to Texas AM. You know, one's ever going to be able to say, uh, Texas AM, or, or mention the Aggies or a

37:11 game comes on where I won't think about him right away. Right. And you just, you start to have these hardwired connections about something that, well, they're sad. I do think that it also

37:21 occasionally brings a little bit of happiness, right? You know, you come to the piece and humans, I think, just generally speaking are, um, are amazing beings. Like what we're, we're trained

37:32 to move on, right? And, and sometimes you don't want to move on. And that's hard, but, but I think that we're all sort of blessed with, um, the ability to reflect and find strength in things,

37:45 even, um, very difficult things So I truly commend you not only for coming on and sharing your story. But turning it into a foundation that can then be positive for other people.

37:58 Because the last thing you'd want is somebody to feel the pain that you experienced six years ago. Absolutely. And what's really interesting and fascinating to me is once we started the foundation

38:08 and started partnering with these different facilities, another kind of

38:15 unknown benefit that came from that was I started meeting with these facilities and it was, you know, retired teachers or teachers who had left the school system who, you know, felt there was a

38:25 break there and they wanted to help these students. And so when we went into these facilities, they were like, we, um, trying to these kids out of our own pockets because we don't want to deny

38:35 them

38:37 the opportunity to learn. And I was able to say, you know, rather than doing that send them to us, let us fund it. Let's work out a structure. Yeah. And then you can be hiring more tutors,

38:47 helping more students. and really growing your facility versus absorbing this cost, let us take that burden away from you. And so their facilities have been able to grow to help more students as

38:57 well, which is a benefit I actually didn't even think about until it started happening. And it was beautiful to see that our partnerships are allowing these facilities to grow even further. When

39:09 you started this foundation, did you like reach out to other nonprofits that had started similar things? Because I'm sure it was some work in terms of figuring out how to do it. Obviously the golf

39:21 tournament is like you're probably your biggest fund raising an event and an opportunity for everybody to come together. But did you seek out other groups that had done this before to try to make it

39:30 a little bit easier as you set this up in 2021? Absolutely. I worked a lot with a CEO of a precious child. She was amazing and guiding our efforts and giving me feedback. She was like, when you

39:42 start something you wanna save the world. Yeah But you have to be realistic. what can you do? And the first thing I tried to do is actually go directly into the school systems and that was found to

39:54 be very complicated. But when I met with one of the administrators, he said, you know, while I don't recommend this path, what I can tell you is the successful foundations that I know of, they

40:04 do a thing and then they nail it. Before you start spreading out on that, feedback was so great for me to say, okay, we know what we wanna do. We wanna give these sponsorships to students How do

40:16 we do that? And so finally, before the tournament, it was really not long before the tournament where I was like, we're about to, we're raising all this money, we're doing this huge event, how

40:25 are we gonna get it out into the community? And finally, I was like, I talked to the board and we were like, let's remove the schools from this. Let's tell the schools we're a resource that they

40:35 can give the students, but let's work with the facilities who provide the services and really kind of remove that out of it. And then we're not doing this like scholarship where one person gets it

40:45 kind of situation. Families can apply all month through our website. And we gain new partnerships every day as people apply for new facilities. I reach out to them and then create that new

40:56 partnerships. They know who we are. And then they start providing a resource. And so we've really just grown from there. That's fabulous. Well, thank you for sharing that and your whole story.

41:07 And I wanna put you on the hot seat a little bit and ask you a couple of questions. Maybe a little bit softer touch than what we've discussed at this point so far. But how many people do you expect

41:19 to play in this golf tournament? Like how many sponsors are you gonna bring on? How many individual golfers are gonna participate? Yeah, so to date, we have around 30 sponsors. We've had up to

41:32 60 sponsors in a given year. I would say 2022 is probably our biggest year we had. But I'm so blessed for all our continued sponsors and the new sponsors we've had this year. I expect another sold

41:46 out event, which is at 144 golfers. Wow. And so we do like golfer bags where companies can provide branded swag, if they don't, you know, however anyone wants to participate, we have

41:58 opportunities all around, whether it's volunteering or donating, silent auction items, raffle, you know, door prizes, whatever that may be. And so we're looking for us, we're looking at a sold

42:10 out event this year. There'll still be probably some sponsorships that are out there, but they wouldn't include, I expect the golfers side of it to be sold out for sure. Got it, and this is all

42:19 through the stfoundationorg. Is that the right website if I wrote that down correctly? Shane Thurston, Foundationorg. Shane Thurston, Shane Thurston, T-H-U-R-S-T-O in foundationorg. Let's talk

42:32 a little bit about business. You've obviously made some evolutions, right? From division order to land administration, to manager of people.

42:46 Like where do you see your career going? Do you view this as like, I want to be a vice president of land. Do you like the data stuff where it's like a data and analytics type role where you're

42:53 bringing reports and data to people? Is it staying at operators? Is it looking at working at a consulting firm? Like you've got kind of a variety of different skills. Where do you see your career

43:04 going if you were to plan it out a little bit? That is a hot seat question. You weren't lying. So honestly, that is so hard to say 'cause I never would have imagined where my career is gone.

43:17 Right now, I'm fully committed to what we're creating at Cibitas, but if for whatever reason in the cyclical industry that we're to, as we know, it's kind of an eater being, world we're in and

43:30 smaller operators and PE companies become in mid-caps and mid-caps go into super majors and a lot of MA activity, so But, you know, I definitely. drive in the data analytics, the finding and

43:47 cleaning the data to make it usable and consumable across the company to streamline processes and optimization and efficiency creation and app design to really move - when I say app design, it's

43:58 really targeted applications for administrative tasks to really kind of remove that from people so that they can focus on true analytics. But something else I love to do is teach. I do a lot of

44:10 trainings Next week, I'm doing a calculation class for a joint like ALTA, AXA, DALTA, to do a kind of thing. So I love doing trainings and land administration, I feel like there's a large kind

44:26 of generational gap that has occurred through the evolution of the industry. And so I really want to be a part of training people the appropriate way so they understand why they're doing what they're

44:37 doing, you know, appropriate decisions on behalf of how that company is operating versus how they've always done it.

44:45 And so it's hard to say where I would go, but it feels like one day I'll end up consulting 'cause I love to help people make things better. So. Yeah, and you know, right now you're living in a

44:56 bit of chaos, right? 'Cause you're talking about nine companies coming together and making sense of everything, which is sort of the life of a consultant because the reason you're being brought in

45:05 to a number of different organizations is to sift through the chaos, right? But I think that's what you're doing now. I'm sure you'll have a great run at Civitas and

45:17 moving that organization forward from both a data perspective as well as like a usability of tools perspective, 'cause I think, you know, I'm an oil and gas tech. And for me, it's when I'm

45:28 approaching somebody like you or I'm approaching somebody that's in the oil and gas industry, I try to be mindful of, You're being approached by vendors all the time and a lot of these things sound

45:39 the same. So how do you figure out which of these solutions will be beneficial to you and your organization? So having some level of empathy for the person that you're speaking with, I think is

45:52 really important in the tech space, especially with the rash of technologies that have come out in the past like 10 years, right? Absolutely. Do you touch the AI space at all or is that like a

46:04 little bit outside of your purview? So it's just now becoming more of a thing in my career to be perfectly honest. So, you know, thought trace, which isn't full AI, but has some AI functionality

46:17 within it, you know. Took OCR a little bit of AI, yeah. Little bit AI. So we use that for sure within our organization, but there's definitely been a lot of conversation about how we can use AI

46:32 within our industry, just within our organization to optimize what we're doing. And a lot of, while I see us headed in that direction, we also need to standardize what we're doing currently before

46:45 we can effectively use tools. And so that's been a huge push for me as standardization within the data because when all

46:54 the data was merged together, I don't know that there was necessarily, there's a huge data mapping exercise that needs to occur to properly merge that, but there

47:03 wasn't time, there wasn't the resources. And so I think everyone at the company, what's really great is from the top down, everyone's on the same page is how do we make this better? How do we

47:14 become what Civitas is trying to be? And so I would say cross functionally up top down, like we are all on the same page as far as how to make it better. And so we're really kind of looking at the

47:25 gamut of solutions to say, what do we use? How do we use it? Is anyone using it? Yeah something better out there. and let's look at that and see what makes sense for us and how do we move us into

47:37 the next stage of what we are as a company? I love that answer and I think that data management and oil and gas to me is so fascinating because yes, you can look back and put in processes and

47:51 standardized data that's historical. But the nature of oil and gas is you have more data coming in all the time. So how do you then keep up with the new data that's coming in? It's not like you

48:01 just stop drilling, right? Your stock would go to nothing. So it's kind of fascinating stuff. Taylor Richards, how to blast with you. Thank you for being authentic and vulnerable and truly your

48:13 unique self on the What The Funk Podcast. One more time, where can people look to donate to the Shane Thurston Foundation and participate or sponsor in the upcoming golf tournament? Yep, the best

48:25 source is to go directly to our website, which is shanethirstinfoundationorg.

48:30 and Thurston is T-H-U-R-S-T-O-N. And you can also view a ton of his art that he drew out there and hear more about his story and my story and then also see a really cool video of last year, my

48:43 brother's a cinematographer. So he did some cool stuff to both my brothers to make a video of last year's tournament so everyone can see what the fun's about. I love it. Well, thank you for coming

48:55 on and I will see you on September 23rd. Awesome, I can't wait, thank you.