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Mike Fricks, president of Bear Ironworks.

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Tell me about your vision, man.

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You've built something incredible

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and I wanna hear all about what it is, where it's going.

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Yeah, it's very interesting.

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So I was in the construction business.

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Since I was 24 years old, I had a construction business.

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My dad was a contractor.

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He kind of sold out and then bought a cattle ranch

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in Western Colorado.

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So I was on a cattle ranch, raised there.

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My dad, as everybody well knows, back in those days,

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cattle ranching wasn't that great.

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And then he had the opportunity to do oil field work,

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building the pads for the drill locations.

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And so at a young age,

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I learned how to run heavy equipment.

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And so I went to a school in Rifle, Colorado.

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And during the 80s,

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Rifle, Colorado was known for oil shell.

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It was a big deal.

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Yep.

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And Exxon, Amaco, all the heavy hitters

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were trying to figure out how to get the oil out of the rock.

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And so meanwhile, the high school that I went to

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was a very small high school

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until everybody started moving in.

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And they had a really cool welding program

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that was in combination with the high school

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and the college, Colorado Mountain College.

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And so I learned how to weld through that program.

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And so I took part high school classes,

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and then at night I would extend it into the college program

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because I wanted to learn how to be a pipe welder.

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So anyways, as time goes on,

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going to construction business,

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and that's kind of what I did for a long time.

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And these rock screens were kind of unique.

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They're something that nobody really knows about.

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The people that do know about them are like,

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oh yeah, they're for separating big rock.

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And really the reason they were used back in the old days

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was to separate the fines out of big rock.

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So they could use big rock for what they call riprap.

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It's R-I-P-R-A-P, riprap.

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And what riprap is used for is erosion control,

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like around dams maybe, spillways,

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highway structures maybe or whatever.

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So that's kind of what they were used for,

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nothing else really.

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And one day I'm golfing at a golf course

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and I look over at the maintenance yard

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and they have a small one, like for a skid steer.

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And I'm like, man, that's such a good idea.

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One of these days I'm gonna build one

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and maybe I could sell them or something

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or just build one for myself.

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And it was probably 20 years later,

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I had a bunch of iron leftover

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and I had a kid that worked for me,

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wanted to learn how to weld.

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And I says, hey, we're gonna make one of these things

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to see what happens.

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And so we made it and we made a few of them actually.

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And we took them to an auction

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which is called Richie Brothers Auctioneers.

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They're a worldwide auctioneer company,

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one of the biggest in the world.

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And so we took it to Denver, sold it, made some money.

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And I thought, this is a pretty good side gig.

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So I started making them on the side

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and it was just for skid steers, little skid steer loaders.

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And so I was able to teach my son how to weld

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and we got going on that.

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And I was just selling them on Craigslist

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and taking them to auctions and just on the side is all.

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And so he went to college

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and he's kind of into motorcycles.

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He's a motor cross racer.

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And he was going to Colorado State University

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in Fort Collins, Colorado for construction management.

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And he needed a job, couldn't find a job.

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And I said, well, you should find some farmer

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and ask him if you could maybe use a little barn

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or whatever shop and make some of these,

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make a couple of months and it'll fit your schedule.

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It won't interrupt with your school

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and you can make them whenever you want and sell them.

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So he did.

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And he was really good at websites.

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So he built a website and they started selling pretty good.

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They started selling all over the nation as a matter of fact.

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And he got so busy building them

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that it interrupted his school because he was so busy.

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He was going to, he was hiring his buddies,

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like engineers and they'd matter whatever in classes.

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And like, hey, you wanna learn how to weld?

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I'll pay you.

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And he was doing everything with jet.

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He had a workers' comp.

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He was paying all the taxes, all that kind of stuff.

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And he was busy.

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He was delivering them and I delivered some.

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But meanwhile, I was working in Louisiana at COVID

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and I got sick with COVID

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and meanwhile, he decided to shut the whole thing down

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because it wasn't doing good with school.

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He wanted to finish and get his degree in that.

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So I kind of got done down there and I says,

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hey, what do you think?

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I says, how much time do you think he was putting into that?

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I mean, compared to what, if you did it full time,

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how much time do you think he was putting into it?

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And he goes, I was probably putting 10% into it.

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And I said, so we did this thing 100%,

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we could go do it pretty big, right?

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And he's like, yeah, I think so.

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So I did, we braided in COVID about August of 2020.

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I didn't have a shop.

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I came from Louisiana.

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My mom and dad had a little shed

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that literally measured 16 feet by 20 feet.

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And I was just making them out

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of that tiny little shed basically.

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And we've got the website going back up.

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And next thing you know, people are going,

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man, I need it, and we started shipping them.

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And next thing you know, he gets his education

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and he becomes part of the company.

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And we started adding more products

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and designing more things.

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And I guess, the other thing too is in Louisiana,

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when I worked down there,

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the bedding boxes part of our products,

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we couldn't get them.

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We was bringing them in a thousand miles away.

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And so the rental companies like United Rentals

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had to bring them in from, like I said,

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a thousand miles away.

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And I thought, man, I can make them.

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I know how to weld.

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I know how to make these things.

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And so we added that line to it.

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We was the first ones to build bedding boxes

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for many excavators.

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And then we've been done well with those.

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And we make great big ones for large excavators.

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And our screens now, we make them mega huge screens.

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And our newest screen is one that you can just shovel.

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And if you're a person in your backyard

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wanting to make compost or screen out your deck

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or the block or whatever, you can screen it out.

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Oh, that's cool.

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And all the way up to mega machines.

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Wow.

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Oh my gosh.

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That is so cool.

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Okay, Vision Pros.

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One of the things I'm gonna do on behalf of all of you

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is I'm gonna take this specific episode

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and I'm gonna ask Chad GPT to create us a guide

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of all the principles that we can learn

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from that one tiny story.

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Mike, that's freaking incredible.

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Mike, everything that you've done

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with working with your son on this,

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teaching him and empowering him to hire things out,

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delegating, understanding you don't have to be 100%

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from day one.

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Like there's so many principles about the story

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and about how you came to build this out

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that reminds me of a mini version of Rockefeller, right?

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That reminds me of the paths that I've seen.

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And for those of you who don't know,

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I don't talk about this a lot

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because we're usually talking technology stuff.

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My grandpa was the first man to drill

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a successful horizontal oil well

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in the state of New Mexico.

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No kidding.

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And he ran a little company called

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the McNutt Oil and Gas Tool Rental Company.

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It was the largest tool rental company

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for oil and gas in the world.

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I know that name.

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Ah, you know Herb McNutt?

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Well, I know the McNutt.

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That's great, right?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, my grandpa was also known as the,

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like the best fisher in the business.

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So back in the day, for those of you listening in,

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you know, something fell into the well,

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you had to figure out how to get that thing out.

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I didn't have all the technology they have now.

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And so he'd fly over all over the world,

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Panama specifically a lot to go down

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and help out when something like that would happen.

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And my dad, when I was 18 and in college,

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was on my way home and he said,

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hey, I'm staying over in rifle

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and I work on a well out here.

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Why don't you come by?

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So I hit rifle Colorado on the way down.

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So it's all this blue collar stuff.

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And again, another secret vision pros,

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the more boring your business is,

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the more I get excited.

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All right, the more legitimate,

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the more like, oh wow, everybody's overlooking

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the needs associated with this.

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And so Mike's tapped into something

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absolutely incredible with this process.

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So if your vision is something that seems obsolete

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or seems unrelatable to what's on mainstream media

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or what's on the everyday news,

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that does not make it an unimportant vision.

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In fact, you might have a vision that's essential

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to helping us be able to enjoy the sports

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and enjoy the gossip or whatever else people

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are trying to enjoy on mainstream news.

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So Mike, thanks so much for sharing this with me.

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Like this is so cool to see.

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We're gonna close out pretty fast

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on this particular episode.

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I'd love to have you back though.

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And I'd love to dive in deeper

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because there's just so much we can learn.

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If you're willing to honor us with your time and come back,

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we'd love that.

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In the meantime, I wanna know what's your why, man?

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What drives you?

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What gets you going?

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You know, I've always, I've tried to work for other people.

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I've been working for myself most of my career.

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And I tried to get, like I said,

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I worked for one of the biggest construction companies

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in the world in Louisiana and as a manager.

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And I still couldn't do it.

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I still had a hard time.

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And I just love working for myself

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and getting up in the morning

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and this is what I gotta do today and self-driven.

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And it does, it motivates me a lot.

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And like when I work for somebody else,

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it's like, I don't wanna get out of bed this morning

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to go to work.

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There's some limitation there.

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I was fired from almost every semi-corporate job

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I ever had.

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So no, it just does not for me.

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I need to be able to learn more

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and control my day a bit more.

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Yeah, so I do, you know, for that,

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my son being able to work with my son is really fun.

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And then he's come up, you know, he's done really well.

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He's automated basically the whole company.

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I mean, it's in the businesses

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in Grand Junction, Colorado.

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I live in Phoenix.

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He lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

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Oh.

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So we can watch it live all day long

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when the welders clock in on the item

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that they have to build.

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And we can sit there and see what's going on,

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you know, material ordering or shipping or whatever it may be.

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And you can go sailing in Charleston.

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I did that a couple of years ago.

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Right, did you?

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Yeah, we have this, there's a new studio there.

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Again, all you vision pros are gonna benefit from this.

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There's a state of the art podcasting

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slash virtual conference studio.

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It's got one of those virtual media rooms

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that's just out of this world.

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It's one of the few like it in the country.

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And so a company I was working with

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rented that out for their virtual event.

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You guys might pop in someday and just take a look.

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And I'm sure if you look up virtual events,

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podcasting studio Charleston, it's easy to find.

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But I'll also provide that in the show notes

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for anybody interested.

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And Mike, we look forward to having you back on the show.

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This was an absolute pleasure.

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Okay, good deal.

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I wanna come back.

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Vision pros, we'll see you guys next time.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions

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as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is gonna get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision

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and becoming a vision pro yourself.