What The Funk?

0:00 tripping over

0:03 the spot fire. What do we have here? Our last episode ever, we're tripping over the peril and there's no better way to wrap up this podcast and with five of Tim's very funny and very close former

0:16 colleagues from back in the day with spot fire. I know everybody on this call, at least a little bit, a lot of big personalities, really representative of the splash that you guys were able to

0:32 make, especially in the oil and gas industry early on. And I know Tim, you know, to a man would say those were the best and most fun years of his career. So you guys have stories for days, it's

0:45 endless. And I'm just really excited to bring you all on and

0:50 talk to him, roast Tim, tell some kids stories, tell some spot fire stories from back in the day. And just let it all rip with that, We'll start with a couple of our returning guests, starting

1:03 with Rock, and then Laura Dye, and then Joe, John, and Peter Allen. You guys can follow up with some brief introductions, and we'll get into story time.

1:12 Great.

1:15 So you just went into an introduction? I'm rocking out of it. I was responsible for trying not to get into the oil and gas business, and was overruled by the rest of the people on the podcast here

1:29 Over and over again, and was constantly accused of not having any idea of what I was doing back here, but they were stuck with me because I had to make the calls anyway. So that's who I am. Living

1:42 in Boston. Living in Boston. That's right. Laura Dye, how about you? What are you up to since we last had you on the pod? I am North Carolina Farman.

1:56 But I used to work with Tim. I managed John Denning, which was my -

2:05 Actually, John was my manager. But anyway, Tim was my running buddy.

2:14 Better known as Mr. Die. Yes, no, Mr.

2:20 Die.

2:22 How about you, JT?

2:24 So yeah, I'm JT Joseph Taylor, actually. And

2:30 I think I was energy employee number one. And Tim was number two that quickly became number one. So all the person I met that had a personality bigger than mine. So he's a really good guy. And I

2:46 heard rumor that he may have gone to Texas AM. He may have mentioned that twice

2:53 I can't confirm or deny.

2:56 Peter, how about you? And then we'll jump to John. Yeah, Peter Allen, Katie, Texas. Tim brought me on the spot fire. We worked together at Slumber Jay. Actually, I met him there. And we

3:08 both worked for John, doing there. And we reunited at spot fire. So I knew Tim professionally for at least 15 years. And great guy and missing dearly. Indeed. And I'm excited to know that my,

3:22 did you guys know that my first job in a technology company was with slumber jay? Never knew that. I'll tell you about that in a second. No wonder you didn't want to get back into oil and gas.

3:36 Peter, you've never, you knew Tim professionally for 15 years. How long did you know him? I'm professionally. I'm a lot more than that. Most of those 15 years, especially after 5 pm. Yes.

3:54 How about you, John? My turn. Okay. Well, we have lots of fun

4:01 experiences with Tim, but, you know, basically I knew Tim that slumber Jay, as Peter mentioned, and worked with him when we slumber Jay acquired the company he was working for, or,

4:15 anyway, Tim was completely responsible for me to be able to join Spotfire. I approached him when I was looking for

4:25 a change, and he said, Well,

4:32 you know, phone David Hadfield. Well, that was a chore in itself to get hold of him, but finally I got hold of him and got an interview and came down to to

4:47 some reveal the meat rock and few of the others and joined and then was put in charge of launching or at least expanding the energy sector. And so that was my entry into Spotify through Tim.

5:06 Just over a couple ribs at Red Bones or something like that, Summerville? Well, yeah. Alcohol was involved

5:15 But you know, that just was part of the discussion, right? But yeah, he was so enthusiastic about Spotify. I saw him at trade shows, a couple of trade shows, when he was just joining Spotify

5:28 and I was just blown away by the capabilities of that software. I got really excited about it. So that was my desire to try to join the company. Apparently Tim was really the event. He was the

5:42 evangelist So he was the one that from a technical perspective that sort of provided so much guidance and and sort of led us through that path that went through chemicals initially and then ultimately

5:58 into oil and gas. And it

6:02 really responsible for a lot of the key success, like asking those really profound questions like, Where the hell are the maps? That's true, that's true.

6:22 Right?

6:24 They looked, they said, There's no maps. We can't use this stuff, there's no maps. Okay, we'll put maps in, you know. Yeah,

6:32 we'll put maps. Seems like a good place to start, right? If you wanna visualize things on a spatial area, maybe a map.

6:41 I wanna dive into some of the stories. So, you know, Tim was your quintessential awesome, Awesome, sales engineer, subject matter expert. I remember going into demos with him when he was

6:53 showing Val Nav or AFE Navigator, and even more than how well he knew the product, which products, which was very well. He just had a deep understanding of how to talk to and present to people.

7:07 But he also did some completely boneheaded things sometimes too, like talk too much, and we'll get into that. But I'm curious, what are some of the Tim stories that you guys can remember? Maybe

7:16 customer facing things when you're in the room with him, or just anything from having crazy nights out. I'm curious, because I know that you guys had a lot of fun.

7:28 Well, I think I said it last time when we were talking. I

7:32 can comfortably say this in front of Rock and Hell, but I still couldn't believe they paid us to have so much fun. Nice.

7:41 And here, and I used to talk about that. It's like, OK, this is a punsy scheme. This can't

7:47 be real. And we'd always call each other up. Every time we had a deal that closed, we'd call each other 'cause we'd think, okay, this has bought us another six months. And so we were just living

8:01 six months into the future 'cause it's like, that was it. And the other thing was never answer your phone on Friday, until it's like they'll never fire us today so they can only do it Monday. But

8:12 yeah, to that point, it really was unreal that we were being paid to do what it was that we were doing. We were

8:24 always messing with each other. We were always pulling stunts. And I remember one of the first stunts that Tim pulled on me was we were, he was coming over to my house. We were prepping for a

8:36 meeting. And he was supposed to be there. He said, I'll be there in 30 minutes. And so anyway, right after that, the doorbell rings And it's Tim. And so I have to answer it and have like no

8:50 makeup on. I'm in my robe and I just open the door and I just shut it.

8:60 No, we were always messing with each other and we were always messing with John too. Yeah, I'll second that motion.

9:08 You know, one thing that was unique about you guys is you were really the only other office that we had anywhere, right? You were really co-located more than anybody else was and

9:23 the whole rest of the company. Even with pharmaceutical, we didn't have any, everybody was everywhere, right? So you guys had an office. And it was, so that I think part of what could, it was

9:37 a little bit of an us against them, is you were sort of trying to convince us of doing stuff, but you had that great cohesion as a team. I'm glad to hear Joe that you actually thought at some point

9:49 that you were gonna get fired. We never even considered that. You guys were the gold standard when it came to the teams. You know, how the team worked together, you know, so. We did have a

10:00 great cohesive team. You really did.

10:04 And the say what you wanna say and not, like I said, there are zero filters that we have, whether there's alcohol or not And

10:14 so it behooves me to keep up with the drinkers when it comes to being able to hold your own. But yeah, it was, I never felt the entire time that I was there that there was something that was said

10:27 that was insensitive or hurt my feelings or things of that sort. And Tim, he could always connect to people. I think simply because he knew people, no matter where he went And so I even though now

10:43 in those pearly gates of God's God, he's here now.

10:50 And so, but yeah, it didn't matter. We could be in some of the most obscure places did always run. It's like, dude, you knew everybody. And he was also, before there was Google, he was the

11:04 Google guy. I mean, it was tons of worthless information, but we could tell you the most worthless stuff that was just so entertaining and engaging. But yeah, he had information. You wanted him

11:19 on your trivial pursuit team. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

11:24 Well, we had, Rocky, to your point about sort of having an office. Yeah, we had an office, we were, you know, we were remote, but you know, we were in the, because we were energy, we had

11:38 to be located in Houston And, and so I, I had the advantage of of joining the company and then

11:49 I shouldn't say this publicly for Laura and Tim, but Peter that I had the disadvantage of reaching out and hiring them

11:59 because, no, I'm being sarcastic. The fact that the group had the experience in the energy vertical propelled us to be, and the personalities, and I saw the personalities, and my style was,

12:19 you can't fence in folks that really know what they're doing and what they're saying, and Tim, being Tim, would always add humor to meetings, and I would try to, on a note or two, I'd try to

12:33 have a serious meeting, well, that was impossible, just because, you know, to get, but everybody had something to contribute. And Tim would always inject humor. in a meeting, or even in a

12:45 client meeting, he would pull people in to what we were saying because not only for the technology, but for who he was and what he presented himself, and people who warmed up to him immediately.

13:02 I think I learned from Tim and Joe who sort of shared the same characteristic. They had so much self-confidence and then so much confidence in the product. And that just came across, that just Tim

13:16 would tell you that it could do anything. The answer was always yes. You just had to make a phone call back to Somerville every once in a while. And that's one of the reasons I started wearing my

13:25 hair a little bit shorter 'cause people got us confused all

13:32 the time. Joe, not Tim, come on over. So it's like, you know what? I'm just cutting my hair. That's why I never was able to grow long hair 'Cause when he started growing that goatee, I was

13:44 like, Okay, Tim, you really are gonna screw 'em up now with that goatee,

13:49 how will they ever know? We've actually walked into a couple of customers and said we were brothers and just to look on people's face. I remember it.

13:59 It's like a user, no, no, we're brothers. But, and in Texas, it just always got a rub. 'Cause no one was gonna say anything, but it was just to look on people's face, but yeah

14:12 So let me

14:15 tell, let me tell a quick Joe's story. Okay. So you guys all remember

14:29 that, you know, in all of our kickoff meetings, we did those videos. And there was like a combination of, of, you know, some live action stuff. My brother actually did some of the animated

14:31 pieces and then, and that we always got some, some lounge singer to, you know, to do a, you know, some sort of a song And then the one year we wrote, literally my daughter and her boyfriend

14:44 helped me write the lyrics to a rap song and then we had all the different, we had all of the different employees, you know, do parts of the rap song I'm part of the video. And right after that I

14:56 went up to Joe, I said, What do you think? He said, Lots of white people.

15:07 Fair enough.

15:12 He wasn't wrong, he probably wasn't wrong. Peter, I know you've been to be overly sensitive in that environment. Yeah, we had to wear a helmet to work.

15:26 Go ahead, Peter. Now the Aggie culture, you know, we've been, so I grew up in Western New York and, you know, I got the meetings with Tim and, you know, first thing you do is you remember

15:36 used to bang I'm Zaggy Ring on the table, is it the call to me in your order? And then you see in the room and they, you know, they do this eggy thing. And leave the meeting. And you know, I

15:48 was fairly perceptive in meetings, trying to figure out who's in charge and what's going on. But Tim, while he was doing the demo, but just through osmosis, through eggy osmosis, we leave and he

16:01 goes, so, you know, who the decision maker is, right? And he goes, no, this guy reports to this guy, he's the man or he's, she's the woman. But by, you know, he could tell just by looking

16:13 across the room, when they graduated, what they did, and like, you know, it was the eggy culture that I was completely clueless about. So he taught me that, and that was, and he brought me to

16:25 AM once for my Berkeley with Jeff with soaked in Tabasco piled on with jalapenos, and he thought he was gonna just knock me out. It was at the, they called it the chicken Scientology lamp It was

16:38 really called the mobile.

16:40 whole tree Scientology lab, which was their name for the Dixie chicken. So he takes me up there and he thinks he's going to blow my doors off. I took one by this burger and looked at him and went,

16:50 do you think that's hot?

16:53 So I would, Karen, if you ever see this, you know, well, the Dixie chicken. And most of you all do too, that was my Dixie chicken story. So I've got a lot of beer related stories to tell about

17:04 Tim, and I know we all do, but I got one, and Karen would remember this too, that doesn't involve beer, we were celebrating a deal in Denver. And I said, well, before we go out and drink beer,

17:15 Tim, I'm going to treat you to our haircut. So we went to Gentleman's Quarters across the street from the Oxford Hotel. And I don't get40 haircuts, but today I thought, let's, Tim, you need to,

17:29 you know, you need to look sharp So

17:33 did you put that on your expense report? How did you pay for that? Well, yeah, the answer is yes, and wait to hear the rest of the story. We're in the gentleman's quarters, and it's fancy. And

17:47 they do haircuts, back massages, manicures. And I said, Wherever you want, you just go for it. And I'm gonna get a haircut. So I had a haircut, and I go out to the waiting room, and then the

17:60 lounge, I'm sitting in a big leather chair going, It's time to drink a beer. What the heck is he doing? And he's in there for another 45 minutes And going, So, finally, I got up and said,

18:10 'Reception, is this just Tim's still here? ' Oh, yeah, he's almost done with his ear wax.

18:17 He comes out, his ears are beet red, like glowing. And he goes, Man, that hurt.

18:27 And he says, What the hell did you do to me yourself? And he goes, Well, you know, I had fuzzy ears, so I got an ear wax.

18:34 Then he goes, But Karen's going to be really happy

18:40 So we walk out, go across the street for a beer, and his ears are just glowing

18:46 red. And so, yeah, whoever asked the question, I think we had a200 haircut. And

18:54 somehow, that went on Spotfire's books, one way or the other.

19:02 Smaller. I hope you actually put earwax on there, because then that was a, yep I wouldn't have given the finance team a, you know, they heard of, you know, it's that Houston group, you know?

19:13 Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Smaller. Smaller.

19:18 Smaller.

19:20 Yeah, I had to approve those expense accounts, and I thought, Jesus, this is a test to move this stuff over the summer bill, but I never got to push back for you guys at all. Yeah, I don't

19:31 think they want to talk to us. It's like, yeah, you know what? It's not worth it, yeah

19:37 We were foreigners speaking foreigners when I first joined or a bunch of joint spot for I said well Tim, what's the license model? well That in and of itself had a conversation we had carry carry on

19:51 conversations when we were in spot for But I remember I married him saying John you're probably not gonna like to hear this, but it's it It's subscription. I said oh well, you know, okay. That's

20:05 a challenge. You said It'll work, but you know, you're gonna have to try to convince the folks in in some reveal that This model does work and you know, we did make it work But you know we brought

20:17 rock and the the senior management team kicking and screaming into kind of tweaking license model and there would be times when we'd get you know Tim would be in the room and and we'd be in conference

20:31 calls with David or rock or whomever and and this won't work, we get pushed back. Well, you know, Tim would roll his eyes saying, See, I told you. And you know, we abided by the senior manager,

20:47 but as we progressed, there was times on how to do some bigger deals around not the licensed model of choice. Yeah. I'm glad I never heard like the aftermath of those phone calls, you know, back

21:02 with Summerville,

21:04 you know Like those idiots, you know, up there, you know. You were, but Rock, you were always a level-headed one. David was the guy that, and I wrote him down there. Yeah, he's got a pretty

21:15 low bar, though, you know.

21:18 One time he's saying, if someone says anything else to me about an enterprise model, what was it? A brand new model, I'm gonna kill him. I was like, Ah, nevermind. I remember when I closed the

21:32 first concurrent, right? And Rock calls me a teacher. and he's screaming at me, and I literally just took the receiver and I'm going, Ah, that's that.

21:47 There was a lot of trust in that rock, and Tim was very supportive of the current model, but he knew what we were up against, but there was a lot of support from you guys, because you were patient

21:60 with us, and Tim was the one that basically was the glue that bind between Somerville and what we were trying to do, and he would always put rational talk around what we were trying to do, but what

22:14 was real in terms of what would be approved by Somerville. But he knew, he knew his way through that. Yeah. Did you send Tim over to Australia once or twice? No. That was David and me with me.

22:33 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. who did we send over to Saudi Arabia? I don't know, but they never

22:45 came back. And we said we would never speak of that again, Rock. So, I think that

22:53 one of the things that customers picked up on was how much fun we all had. Yes, yeah. And I think they, I remember, because we were, like I said, we were always pulling pranks on, on each

23:06 other. And I remember one of the first presentations, it was a big presentation, it sat out at Anna Darko in their figure room, right? And so it was me and Tim, and you know, we're getting

23:18 ready to start, and he goes, I'm going to run to the restaurant real quick. And so I ran up to his computer, and I changed his screen statement. So, you know, he didn't, of course he didn't

23:31 notice it when When he came in,

23:33 his screen saver wasn't on. But anyway, so he starts talking, and he's not looking at the big, huge screen behind him. And the screen saver kicks in, and it's a 3D, it says, Hi, my name is

23:46 Timmy. And it starts really

23:50 good. I love it. And I did that, so actually, it's Chevron. I checked in on Timmy, and said, I'll get your pass, I'll get your name tag. And so I wrote Timmy on it too. And so he sat there

24:01 at the conference table, this big meeting the whole time, and this says, Timmy And so finally somebody again says, Thanks a lot, Timmy.

24:10 'Cause

24:12 that was a thing about us is it was never a, 'cause normally it's like, okay, well, then when there's adults in the room, okay, stop the horse play and just, I mean, that just kicked it up a

24:22 level. So if it was a customer meeting, it didn't matter. I wanna see how this person's gonna respond, and it was

24:29 pretty funny

24:32 I remember when I took Tim up to Calgary one time and it was, you know, it was winter. And, you know, Tim, he'd been to Boston and he'd seen the cold weather and he'd be being a Southern boy.

24:43 Well, a cold front came in. It was probably 30, 35 below zero. Whoosh. And we came out of the hotel and he said, How do you people live in this environment? And he just was so cold the whole

24:56 time, but, you know, he turned to me and he said, At least they got some layers on that keep me warm.

25:07 Man.

25:09 Yeah,

25:11 Tim definitely liked the cold. I've said this a few times, but I remember we were out at Elway's in Denver one time and it started to snow really hard. And he walked out and I was like, You're

25:24 gonna take a cab or something? Like, it's snowing pretty hard He's like, now I'm going to walk to my hotel. It was so wet and so thick that he had to stop at like the 711 for all hell to make it

25:37 stop and still walk down. But I was like, man, most Houstonians would be like, I'm not going outside, you kidding me? I'm not going to touch that stuff. Tim was just like a big, a big fun kid,

25:47 you know? How long did you guys all work together? Who are like the longest tenure? How was he there for like seven years or something?

25:57 All right Yeah, so she was there from 2000 to maybe '08, I want to say? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because I, because I, right about the time he left, I'd become manager over the presales team. And,

26:15 and two things that happens. First, the energy team left me with this guy, I won't call any names. This guy was, was an onion And, and I said, you're thinking, okay, Tam, I have the utmost

26:28 respect for you. How did this guy get past you? And then of course he explained it. So that was one issue I had to deal with. And the other one was Tim's, Tim leaving. And it's like, no, I was

26:40 like, man, dude, you can have this job. 'Cause the first thing I did when I took the job was I promoted him. And so he and I were like, same level. And I even told him that, dude, you stay,

26:51 you can have this job. I mean, I do not want you to leave. But yeah, the opportunity he had was just a mess Like, hey, they're going to give you a portion of the company. I was like, I'll give

27:02 you one of my kids. I mean, I was going to deal with that. But I think energy navigator won out in that particular case. When Tim told me he was leaving, he took me to lunch. And I had a meeting

27:15 down at Greenway Plaza after that. And I walked out, got in my car, and headed to the meeting, and just cried the whole way. Yeah.

27:23 He had - he was just so wonderful.

27:29 Wow, that's amazing

27:33 No, it was a huge loss it was a huge loss Yeah,

27:38 we managed to motor on but but it definitely was not the same at that I will say it was far from his name still good but different yeah The first sales conference the first sales conference that that

27:52 I was present in and I think was We went to the Bahamas and I asked him before he said I said What's the what are these like and he said?

28:05 It's a party looking for a software solution And he basically said, you know There's a history that that we have that that basically but it's we do get things done It's a great time, but it's a

28:18 bonding. It's a bonding exercise that you never forget and he was right it was Very very moving for me personally

28:29 The Bahamas was your first?

28:32 Yeah, I think so. Was it, I would have thought you were here

28:36 before. Yeah, I think it's some others in that. Didn't you know it? Well, I remember

28:40 the Bahamas. I shouldn't because I remember

28:44 there was some times when we wouldn't even remember what went on, but it

28:50 was. Bahamas was one of those where, 'cause typically, you know, we do half work, half meeting The Bahamas was just all celebration. I mean, we do a one hour, you know, presentation meeting.

29:03 And I remember one day Chris came in and he was just blasted 'cause I'm, he calls me up into the room in my room the night before and he'd been drinking. And he's cursing and what are you doing?

29:15 Get your aid down here. I'm like, Man, he's never spoken to me like this before. He's like, How much alcohol do you have in your mini bar? I was like, I don't, everything now I, don't drink

29:24 said, well, shut up and bring an effing down here

29:28 The next day, he crawls up in here and he is hurting. And he was like, Joe, I'll give you a hundred bucks if you just tell them to shut the F up and let's get out of here.

29:42 And it was like, but yeah, that was one of those times where I think we really were about 999 play and about 1 work. I mean, that was definitely enjoyable.

29:57 Gosh. Remember the conference that we had where we had the paintball thing? Oh, yeah. Oh, geez. Oh, yeah. Well, that was Connecticut, wasn't it? Yeah, that was a mess. Yeah. We ganged up

30:11 on David Hadfield, I remember. Oh, really? They finally, they called, you know, Stop.

30:20 And I'm hearing it. David said they're just blasted, David

30:26 falls over and drops all the paint balls. And finally, the whoever was, you know, the referee told me to stop. But anyway, that was great.

30:37 Peter Jeremy, so you worked with Tim, you know, and something just hit me and would listen to everybody talk.

30:45 And I sold software before and after working with Tim. And this was just a revelation I just had.

30:53 The tone he set in the meeting, and I think Laura mentioned this, was one of, we all got along. We were obviously having a good time. And I think that was immediately transmitted to our audience.

31:07 And instead of a tension, vendor, client thing, it was, it had a very different vibe. Yes. And it just, and the reason I never thought about it until now was that's always the way it was. We

31:22 didn't operate any other way That was just our culture.

31:28 And it hasn't happened to me since. And I'm looking back on it. Rockin' John is, you know, as managers of the company. It was remarkable now that I think back on it to go into a room and just

31:39 have this, the buzz and the aura in the room of, we have great software. Well, sure, a lot of people have great software, but we're here, the team, and we all get along, like Laura said,

31:53 joking with his screen That doesn't happen these days. Right, you always just walked right in here.

31:59 And looking back, and I think it's really remarkable, I think Tim set the tone. And Joe did a large extent too, and you guys were, even though you're slightly different culturally, when it came

32:09 down to selling software, you were very, very similar. So that was just a little observation I just had. And I always liked when

32:20 we merged with Tipco, that typical aggression here. Going into meetings with those guys and how their eyeballs would just like widen up whenever we start presenting because it's like, oh my God,

32:33 we never say that in front of a customer. Like,

32:38 this is what this is what we do. But yeah, they would freak the F out whenever we presented around them. I mean, it drove them nuts. It's like, man, this is how it gets done Yeah, it was

32:49 authentic. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's a great word for it. I remember I went into a meeting with CTO, and I can't remember.

33:02 And I think you used to work at Marathon. But anyway, she was moved over to another company with CTO and brought us in and we were sitting around a conference table and they were really trying to

33:12 trip us up and Tim was sitting next to this CTO And so anyway, they tried to trip us up and they said, Well, here, you know, demos are all great, but take our sports sheets and see what you can

33:23 do with them. She's a 10-foot spreadsheet, right? And she's the whole time kind of looking at him. She's sitting, and he's tall as in her, and she's looking at him, and then, you know, they

33:32 would ask him a question, what can you do? You know, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And Tim looked at him and goes, oh, like this? You know, like, there's a lot of falls out of their chair.

33:39 But this woman, the CTO,

33:42 the whole time he's presenting, just starts looking up at him like, she was so proud of her son, you know? It was like, this was her son, and she was so proud of her son. I

33:53 didn't believe it, it was great. You know, I'm remembering one. So this was, John, and maybe you can fill this in, but it was a meeting that we initiated from Somerville down in Houston with

34:07 Anderson Consulting. And so I ended up calling Tim and saying, Could you come in with me? You know, 'cause you guys were all busy, and it really wasn't a, we were trying to get to their industry

34:20 leader to get to the people they work with in the industry. I don't want to waste any of your guys' time, but I needed Tim. And we were sitting in there, and a whole bunch of how Anderson would

34:33 fill a room. They'd just like all these different people, who they helped me, who they were. And they said, Well, where's the rest of your folks? And he said, It's us, just Tim and I were

34:44 here. And he said, Well, IBM was in here last weekand they brought 25 people. I said, Well,

34:52 I don't have 25 peopledoing nothing, all of our people are out with customersand doing real work, and we're here. I said, Even our salespeople are all busy. I came to represent that part of all

35:07 this. So these 25 people that don't have anything else to do, but sit around the table with you guys at IBM. I mean, to Joe to your point, we would talk to customers like that. And then it's

35:19 like, then Tim would just sort of take over domain expertise and with the software demos. And, you know, it was like, we don't need those 25 people, do we? No, no flow.

35:33 Yeah, absolutely. You know, a customer basically like that directness. They like the honesty and Tim would put humor and lightness. But, you know, in a professional way, lightness to a meeting

35:45 and people would be drawn into that. And that was just magic in front of customers 'cause they got the real deal And he presented a real deal in terms of what we were about. And I think people

35:58 understood

36:00 that we were a team that they could work with. And they just weren't in love with that guy.

36:07 Yeah, you know, I would generally chime in in terms of business in general. I've been in business now for almost 20 years and it feels like in competitive sales situations, especially in

36:21 technology sales. There has to be a level of trust, but then if it really comes down to it and the products are even, you generally just do business with whoever you like a little bit more. And

36:33 that was a huge advantage that I think you guys had that A, you liked each other, and B, you kind of presented something of, you know, we certainly hope to win this deal, but if life goes on and

36:45 we don't, we'll still have a great attitude the next place we go to, and I think there was a lot that was attractive about that Another quick note about, Peter, you kind of alluded to this, but

36:55 Tim and his presentation and management style was huge for me as an early 30s sales guy to see him go in the room and really think of the people and present to people as humans and individuals and

37:09 sympathize with what they have to do on a daily basis versus this is just poly production engineer or, you know, Joe who does decline curves He truly wanted to understand. like what made these

37:22 people tick, what their actual pain points were, and that little bit extra would always sort of sway those competitive deals. So he did very well when he had the opportunity to spend more time with

37:34 the potential buyer, 'cause people would start to buy into him more and more. And I think that was something that I took from him in the time we spent together. Jeremy, it will addage

37:49 of sales is, you sell yourself first in front of a customer. Of course, the technology has to be wonderful and you have to prove that to him, but right out of the gate, Tim would walk in and he

38:03 would sell himself immediately. And he was not the guy, kind of guy that would sit there and run his tapes in a demonstration. He would pull customers in and ask questions. And that was magic,

38:16 you know, and with that, sprinkle in a lot of humor with that so. I tell you what, what I found kind of cool when I went to his, his memorial ceremony was the, the interacts, the pictures that

38:30 they would show of him and his interactions with his family was just the exact person that, that, that we would get. I mean, he was a person's person. There was one, one time there was a guy

38:43 from Anadarco, I'm not our best hire at the time, but that's not a part of this story. Anyway, Tim, Tim brings this guy, Tim brings this guy on, and I knew the guy as well. And Tim calls me up

38:57 and says, hey, look, we brought, we brought this guy on. What do you think? It's like, yeah, yeah, I think he'll be a good fit. And at the time, Spotify gave retention bonus. I like a

39:08 recruiting bonus. It's like 50 hundred bucks. And he says to me, he says, well, since you know the guy, and I know the guy, I'll just split this with you. I'm like, wait, what? And first of

39:18 all, I didn't even know you could do this and you probably couldn't, but he made it happen. And a man after that, I'm like, Holy cow, what a person. And so what he did for me after that, the

39:28 few times that I did do recruiting bonuses, I did the same thing as I do this. If it's somebody that you knew that I know that I'm splitting, of course, the third time I did that I got somebody

39:39 that I shouldn't of and I was pretty much more thinking about the recruiting bonus than they are. And Tim and I looked at each other and said, You know, this is blood money, don't you? I

39:49 was like, Yeah. I was like, You only got1, 500? Huh? Yeah, they only gave you1, 500. Yeah, I can't remember what the number was. I just remember, I remember we were 50-50 on it and I'm

40:05 thinking, like, Holy God, this dude didn't have to do. And it wasn't gonna be one of the things had he done that 'cause it wasn't like the guy and I were like buzzing Tim and I were, but the guy

40:14 that he brought on it was, I mean, it wouldn't have been a big deal, but for him to call me up and say that, It's like, man, and dude, that was like, man, that's right. pretty tight. Me and

40:24 the motorcycle dealership, thank you for that. So.

40:30 Well, yeah, that was the kind of person it was. So he wasn't one of those guys that just said it. And it's like, Oh, yeah, anybody can say that, that, that he truly was. And I'm sitting

40:40 there in the church couple of weeks ago and it's like, you know what, I don't even know it's political affiliation I never, I never, I never, I never, I never knew. And if I was blind, I

40:52 wouldn't have even known his ethnic makeup. It's like, and, and honestly, even now I still question. It's like, yeah, on the outside, you look white, but you're saying a lot of stuff that has

41:03 me thinking there's way too much rhythm in your walk to say that you're a bad guy. So

41:12 if this family would be willing to let me run that on Ancestors DNA, I think my theory would be proven correct there.

41:19 I did. I do it. I know why guys just swab and smooth and able to woo people like this. He has to be.

41:31 That's a great observation, Joe,

41:34 that the pictures we saw at his service and the smile in his face with all his friends outside of work was exactly the same person we saw inside of work. That's a great observation. Thank you. Yeah.

41:50 Nothing changed Next question. What I was thinking earlier is that so many people now in a professional situation act like it's some kind of war or battle against them smarter than you or you're

42:01 smarter than me and we just didn't have to do that with Tim. Yeah. Just, man. I mean, he never even, he never even talked down to the Lone Horn. I mean, he realized that they were special me,

42:15 but those guys like they were, you know, Not regular people, but sub regular people. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, man, you're speaking to those people. He's like, Joe, everybody needs a

42:29 little. And so, but yeah, he never, and that was the, even with his rivalries or what have you, man, he never made fun of. It's like, dude, that's gotta be close to perfect. 'Cause again,

42:39 never heard him make fun of, even with the Aggie, Longhorn thing, that was just the kind of guy he was. And so, there were times I'd aspire to be like it, but I could only be Tim for about two

42:49 or three minutes. It's like, no, I can't be that nice for that long, so.

42:56 Does anybody know what a T-Sipper is? Uh-huh. Okay, well, I don't. He used that term a lot, and I guess he assumed I knew what it was, and I knew it was a backhand idea. No, it's not ideal to

43:09 be called that. Yeah.

43:13 Peter, Peter, I remember the first time I went to Tulsa, I went with Tim, And I think you were with, you may have still been with me. spot fire at the time. But Tim was really excited because

43:23 you guys had been there before. You've been there doing business together. You knew some people. You knew what bars to go to. You guys even drove me around Tulsa a little bit. Show me some of

43:33 like the nice neighborhoods. And it was just really. And Tulsa is fun and Tulsa. It was fun. It was really fun. Like, man, these guys weren't just like former co-workers, they're friends. And

43:47 and that's right. That was cool. We had mugs with our names on them at McNelly. That's right. That's right.

43:56 Now you have got to be secure in your masculinity when two men put their name on a mug. That's it wasn't the same mark. It wasn't the same mark. That's oh, okay. I thought it was the same mark.

44:17 Yeah, Peter Hart Tim, yeah.

44:20 For Timmy, it's gotta be too much beer there. For Timmy. You got more beer. I can see they're sitting in the bar with their mugs and two spalls and touching their heads together, they're sipping

44:31 their mugs. Look at these smells. I think, dude, I love you, man Yeah..

44:38 You're absolutely right, Jeremy. Yeah. Different mugs, okay, that makes a lot more sense. Thank you But you know what we did in front of customers is exactly what we're doing now. Oh, yeah,

44:49 right. Because we would mess with each other in front of customers. Oh, yeah. And the thing about it was the customer was never let off the hook. So never at any of that point in time where there

44:59 was a punch line, or we say, Oh, it was just kidding. I mean, nothing. I mean, you never got off the hook from one of our things. It's like, dude, you just walked in a friendly fire, just

45:10 take it in, trust me, nothing's meant by it. But yeah, sometimes they look in their face. But like you say, Peter, after a while, they're just chuckling along and it's just, and it always

45:20 made it different when you were selling to a customer versus selling to people that you knew. And it was always the deal was to just make, just turn them into people that you know. And then you can

45:31 pretty much do and say what you wanted. And even if you miss said something, they'd kind of help clarify things. And

45:39 it was, yeah, it was, I mean, there was times and I'd watched him in presentations where he'd pretend like not to know something. Just to get someone to start telling them something about what it

45:50 was that they're doing. I'm saying, okay, now he knows that because we were talking about that on the ride over here. So why is he asking that question? And boom, before you know, it would

45:60 start telling you stuff that they normally wouldn't be spilling the people.

46:05 Yep, that's true. I remember one time we were on the way home from Bakersfield and we got to the. car rental place. And the whole time, you know, we're on these trips, we're just like, you

46:18 know, we're just messing with each other and joking with each other. And so anyway, we were in the rental car bus. And it was just me and Tim and one other man who was sitting across from us. And

46:29 we were just going back and forth and back and forth. And finally, he just looked at us and he goes, you guys remind me of the goddess,

46:38 which was on the TV I remember driving those drives to Bakersfield. I love

46:45 them. Because

46:50 we would fly into LA and then we'd have like a three hour drive or something like that to Bakersfield. And we talked the entire time. Every second. Every second. And then every time we went and

47:03 came back, then we would cross the San Andreas fault. We'd throw our hands up in the air and yell.

47:12 With energy navigator, I know that there was a part of him that was left behind. It wasn't easy for him to leave, but he had to. And as far as as navigator, he, he really focused on culture

47:25 first. Like he actually hired, I believe, some people who had less experience than he probably would have ideally had, but he was more concerned about cultural fit and made a very, very familial

47:39 fun environment, which led to being more competitive and competitive business deals. So I think that he learned a lot from how much fun he had working with all of you guys and then started to put

47:50 that in place with navigator. And then once he left there, he worked with friends again, right? So for him, you could tell how important it was to actually work with people that he liked hanging

47:58 out with and being friends with as opposed to just, well, this guy's a great businessman. Like he would also think about, he said this to me during our interview process because I like you. I

48:09 really want to hire you. I'd love to work with you. I'm concerned. though that you might get bored with not having enough products to sell. He would actually think about the person and what could

48:18 go wrong with them in this role down the road versus his concerns about me. And I think did a great job of providing me with real self-awareness as a part of my career. But from a leadership

48:32 standpoint, I really enjoyed that kind of communication style and his desire to mentor.

48:39 And everybody else is just leaving They're going to go celebrate the weekend, I guess. They're getting out of here.

48:46 Yeah, I love it.

48:49 My last experience with Tim was mid-March of this year. He called me out of the blue and said, We haven't been together in a while. So we met at a beer bar out in Katie. We had a lot of laughs,

49:01 and most of them were around. He got into sour beers, which I absolutely detest. So he got out. Yeah, Sowers, and he got this whole round, sample tray of Sowers, and he made me try each one,

49:17 and I got the one, and I couldn't swallow it. And he got a big kick out of that, some dill pickle garlic sour. It's like, Tim, these words shouldn't even be in the same sentence as beer. These

49:30 things should be on a sandwich, not in a beer, yeah. Thank you. Exactly, exactly, Joe. And we had a great time, and that was mid-March

49:42 And I'm so glad I got to see him then. He didn't have a clue that anything was wrong.

49:52 So that was my last great experience with Tim, and I got a lot more beer stories to tell, but.

49:59 Oh God.

50:01 I was very grateful to be able to see him and say goodbye. Yeah, yeah, good for you, Laura. Thank you.

50:09 I think the thing that I was telling Tim when I saw him last, because I don't think he maybe knew this or fully aggressive, the depth, but what an impact he had on so many people. You know, he

50:27 really did

50:29 He was just, he was kind of the glue that's, you know, stuck everybody together but in so many ways he, he had such an impact on so many people. Yeah, and I think much like glue, the other

50:45 thing that was, that was, I was at his memorial ceremony and I felt pretty reassured from it's just like glue is like, man, he left a lot of himself on other people So it's like, and that's why,

50:59 like, even now it's difficult to even believe that because I hear something or see something that's like, Oh, man, I'll see my friend is looking at some of the old spot for our demos and it's like,

51:08 Oh, man. It's just, yeah, and he just left a part of himself no matter where he goes. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of Tim out there germinating that

51:21 spirit will never die. And you can see that in his, like I say, you can see that in his family. You can see that in his friends. It's like, oh, dude, yeah, you left everything behind.

51:37 It was a privilege to know him. Yeah. It was a privilege to know him. Yeah. Yeah, I would say, and I've said this before, this is the toughest loss I've experienced personally. It took me a

51:51 little bit to come to that, but it's true.

51:55 We had a really special kinship, as obviously all of you guys do and did with him. And I would say no less than 200 people reached out to me to express their condolences, which is to me just wild.

52:09 I never would have expected that level of outpouring and appreciation for him. And I'm glad that people could at least see the bond that he and I had, which is a bond that you guys had developed

52:21 even years earlier. He just did such a great job, especially in the podcast world, just making everyone feel so comfortable. We have all different types of people, serious business people,

52:30 congressmen, people out of work. I mean, we'd have just very, very different personalities. And the constant with Tim is that he would just, it didn't take long. He could just make you feel so

52:40 comfortable. And this is part of why you're so great as a sales engineer or presenter, 'cause it doesn't take long with him. It could take five minutes, 30 minutes. God forbid an hour. You spend

52:48 an hour of that guy, you wanna spend another hour with him, right? You're like, well, there's a lot to him. And you're absolutely right, Joe. He left an amazing amount of greatness here with

52:60 us and his daughters are fricking awesome. Like they just recorded one of these yesterday and they were absolute stars They're gonna do whatever they want. in life and,

53:11 you know, just his like curiosity and playfulness, like I need to remember that in times and I'm getting pissed off or struggling with things 'cause he was a very curious and fun guy. And truly

53:22 that's one of the things I will take with me from my time with him. Any final thoughts amongst the group? Well, I call me your first impressions of Tim when you first met him. I mean, he came in

53:33 obviously for an interview, I suppose, but what did you see in him?

53:40 You know, I think we've all touched on it, you know, so you had this sort of really interesting of domain expertise, technical competence, a combination ability to connect with people. And,

53:55 you know, when we met people like that in an industry, you know, he was the guy that you're gonna put the bet on, you know, like, you know, he's gonna be the guy, he's gonna be the centerpiece

54:04 of that, because we knew that we had to, you know, you guys have worked in that industry all

54:11 your lives, you know, your professional lives. When, you know, coming into it new, it was a really difficult industry to navigate when it came to the organizational structure, finding the right

54:22 people, finding where the problems were. You know, we had a much easier time in some of the other industries. And Tim was, again, he was the evangelist and he was the guy that we just sort of,

54:33 you know, wrote his back and, you know, it was not a difficult hire. I will tell you that, you know, we met him. We just said, okay, here's, he gets the software. He has this great

54:46 self-confidence in himself. You know, let's go do it, you know? So, and, you know, we, as you know, we had some, we had some missteps there in the sense of, you know, we were trying to

54:58 come off of pharmaceutical into chemical and didn't really understand exploration in the oil and gas market from the get go. And, but he was, our instincts were good because he was the guy that let

55:11 us, you know, and, and, and got us to that place where we figured out where the, where the, where the bigger opportunities were for the product so wasn't a tough decision. So, you know

55:27 I will, I was going to say, I would say this for his family that's less than that he definitely was a part of our family.

55:37 And, and so I know they can be proud of that but as, as a family member for most that anything those guys ever need from any of us, right, for them not to hesitate to reach out and realize that we

55:49 definitely are extension of their family and are there for them no matter what the need is and so I'll just put that out there as well.

56:00 Thanks. Yeah,

56:04 I just, I guess I'll close it down by saying. to anybody who's listening, whether this is the only episode you ever listened to, or you listen to every single moment of the 102 episodes. Thank

56:15 you, you know, Tim and I didn't do this for us. We did this because it was fun and because we thought that it could add value to an industry that we love and care about and a good case, an

56:24 opportunity to showcase people that we're friends with and that have made an impact in the space. And to close it out with you guys on here who Tim loved dearly, this would put a huge, huge smile

56:36 on his face and just wanna thank everybody who was a part of this podcast. I honestly viewed it almost like fantasy football. Like when I started doing fantasy football when I was 21 years old, I'm

56:48 like, am I gonna be 80 years old when I'm doing fantasy football still? And now I can see a path to maybe that actually could happen. We started this podcast, we started liking it so much that I

56:60 honestly think we could have put out like a thousand

57:04 episodes. It felt like there was that much in front of us So, um, Yeah, I just want to thank everybody for listening. Everybody who came on be a part of this and who spent time with us. And,

57:15 you know, of course to Tim's family, you know, nothing but love from me and the folks on this call, the Digital Wildcatters family, the entire oil and gas technology, oil and gas industry. You

57:27 know, we're going to be here, right? And we put these episodes so that his spirit could live on. And I think we've accomplished that.