Transcript generated from the episode’s audio. This episode has several participants speaking closely together, and individual speakers could not be identified reliably, so the transcript is presented unattributed. Automatic transcription may misspell names and terminology. Please refer to the video for the authoritative version.

So, I’m really excited. This is a very special episode of the Cancer Project podcast. I have my two partners, Chris Brown and Tom Welch here, and we are going to talk about the experience that we had buying the Oklahoma Proton Center out of bankruptcy in 2019. And for me, I think back on that period of time, 2018, working to try to buy the center and then ultimately being able to buy it in January as the most challenging thing that I’ve ever done professionally and probably personally too. What are your guys’ reactions when you think about that period of time in our life?

Well, I’ll go first. I think back and I have this sort of visceral reaction. Some of the first things I think about were the three of us being on the phone at night.

Yeah.

With bankruptcy counsel.

Yeah.

Because first of all, it wasn’t supposed to be a bankruptcy. It was supposed to be a structured sale. It turned into bankruptcy because of these complicating factors. You guys had already left your jobs. I think I may have I may have left mine through other circumstances which we can talk about. We probably will talk about, but I remember the three of us being on the phone with our bankruptcy counsel and I think we were paying $1,200 an hour. Was it $1,200?

13.

It was It was a four It was over $1,000 an hour.

Well, and then and then sometimes they’d have two attorneys on.

Oh, yeah. There were two attorneys on this call.

Yeah.

And so none of us had jobs. It wasn’t supposed to be bankruptcy. Now it’s a bankruptcy. And we’re paying 12 or $1,300 an hour counsel. We had never gone through a bankruptcy before and so all the jargon is new. Everything is new. The stress levels were so high. And I was I repeatedly throughout the process and I think we’ve all talked about it. Repeatedly we would get to a point and it was like what are we doing?

Yeah.

This has these are signs that we shouldn’t go forward.

Yeah.

But at the same time, and I’ll turn it over to Chris here.

At the same time, we had already we’d already burned the boats.

Yeah.

There was there was really no way back. You had to keep marching forward, which has taught me a lot of lessons personally that you kind of have to do that when the odds are against you because, man, it felt like the odds kept stacking against us, but we had to keep moving forward because we didn’t really have a lot of choice to go backwards. So that those are some of my reactions. It felt like a like that poker hand where you put a lot of money in initially because you think you have a good hand and then the pot just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and you just feel like well I’ve got to stay in at this point.

I just

Exactly.

Exactly. I just have to keep pushing more and more chips in. And there were probably what 10 12 I bet 10 12 stop signs that we got.

Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. I when I wrote them down, I wrote them down as hurdles, right, that we had to get over. So stop signs is another good word, but yeah, every at every turn specifically on the legal counsel, I remember having a phone call and they told us on that call it was a $25,000 retainer, and so we’re all on the call, right? And at this point everything’s a third, a third, a third, right? So, we take the 25,000. It’s like, “Okay, divide that by three.” And that’s the check I got to write today. And I remember the attorney saying to us, “Okay, well, you know, when we burn through this, then we’ll call and we’ll have to be have a have to replenish the retainer.” so we did that. We all, you know, send in our wires. And two days go by and we get another phone call and they say, “Okay, we’ve gotten through the retainer and we’re like, “What?”

I remember that. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. So, I was in the Nashville airport. I can still remember it. And I was I was negotiating with the attorney to let us pay one more retainer.

Yeah.

But then to go at risk for us and that we were good for it and we ended up getting that. Well, that’s one of those mile or those stop signs when it was like, “Oh my gosh, this is going to cost way more than we anticipated,” especially without a job. But yet, we had to keep moving forward. And so, we negotiated with the attorneys, right? And it seemed our it seemed like we had to keep doing that over and over and over. I mean, the one the other thing that pops in my brain, a couple things was I’m I had just let my our former boss know that I was going to pursue this opportunity with you all. And I and no kidding, I walk out of that office, look at my phone, and David’s text said, IBA just told us that we have to, tear apart the cyclotron.

Yeah.

And I was like, oh my gosh, I just basically quit my job and now we have to tear apart the cyclotron.

Yeah.

And so and lo and behold we get through the bankruptcy and we do the first ever field placement of the coil of an IBA cyclotron that they’ve ever done which also meant we had we had zero patients. That’s the other thing that sticks out in my mind. We had zero patients on treatment. I mean these memories keep coming back. I remember David and I sitting in front of Dr. Kauffer.

Yeah.

In the conference room at the Proton Center. You weren’t on that trip. And we were asking if RMA would be our radiologist.

Yeah.

And he looked at us and he said no. And he so he didn’t think that we would we would come out on top in the bankruptcy, which we didn’t know either. And we said, “Okay, well, we think that you’re wrong.” and we’ll we’ll keep going. We were all professional about it. But again, one of those things, we thought we had a radiology group. We don’t have a radiology group.

Yep.

But you know, I think the other thing that happens is you get fortunate. You don’t even know it because we recruited Dr. Story, we recruited Dr. Chang, now we have Dr. McLoughlin. So, we have really great physicians, better, I think, than we would have had otherwise. But those are again just some memories.

So just to provide a little context for listeners that may not know what a cyclotron is or what like the scope of this equipment swap out that we had to do. So the cyclotron is the particle accelerator that generates the beam of protons that we use to treat patients. It’s a 200 ton device. It’s inside of a concrete bunker with 16 foot thick concrete walls. It’s not supposed to move and it’s not supposed to come out at any point, right? Until you’re done with it and ready to dispose of it. And so, as you mentioned, there was a there was a defect within the cyclotron that required basically the entire inside of the cyclotron to get taken out, these hundred ton magnets on the top

and bottom to get taken out with a there may be a couple cranes in the entire United States capable of lifting these magnets out and then replaced with new magnets and all of that had to happen. One, it was the first time that it had ever been done at a proton center. Two, we’re paying payroll during that process, right? We’re like, how fast can you get this done? This is like if you’re doing the first open heart surgery of all time and you’re like, can you get this done in two hours? Also, like we have it like, you know, so it was that was really stressful.

And I remember what I remember was standing on the mezzanine watching the crane lower the new magnetic coils that are going to go inside the cyclotron. And they’re lowering them down into place and the first coil is coming down and it’s you know close to 100 tons and it’s coming down and there was an engineer with IBA standing next to me and I said well it seems like we’ve got a small margin of error here like you’ve got to fit it inside the cyclotron and he was like yeah he was like you know we could maybe be off by an inch or two one way or another but any more than that and we damage the coil and we have to start the entire process

over not start the lowering of the coil over start the process of making the coil over.

Yeah. I don’t think I’d ever That sets it back, you know, two months, right?

At least at least. And they’ve got they’ve got this group of guys standing around the cyclotron ready if this again this 100 ton coil starts to move to the left or right as it’s dangling on this crane. They’re somehow supposed to get it back in place. And so that was a really nerve-wracking I mean I they it took a couple hours for them to lower it down. I mean they were going inch by inch by inch. And that’s just that was at the end. That was like yeah we I mean everything leading up to that was just we had radiologists we had gotten through the bankruptcy. We had raised the private equity. We had raised the bank debt. I mean, yeah, this was and still it felt like success was still sitting on the edge of a knife with this with this cyclotron.

Yeah.

And then is it going to work? Is it is it going to turn back on? You know, I mean, we had just another moment that sticks out in my brain again well after the fact that we got the deal done was we had Dr. Dr. Yamamoto who was great and he didn’t want to have certain procedures done with the patients that was sort of like the point of no return because as soon as that happens they have to get on treatment with so much time and I thought well that’s going to push us back another month.

Yeah.

And so I had to work with the nurses and work with Dr. Yamamoto to say no we’ve got confidence that protons are going to come out of this thing but we still didn’t know.

Yeah.

And so those are just I mean again I maybe there’s there’s 22 or 24 things

12.

Well we there was definitely no turning back at that point but we were burning through I mean what was the run rate on cash per month at that point

Over a million dollars probably.

It was

Yep. And one of our saving graces was with no revenue coming in. Well, we had we had the accounts receivable coming in and we were fortunate that was more than what we had projected it to be.

Yeah.

We had some really old stuff that was coming in from some of the payers and it was it was more than the number we had put on there. And so that really helped pay payroll while we didn’t have any revenue coming in.

So I want to step back a little bit. You know, we’ve mentioned this bankruptcy a couple times. The whole process wasn’t supposed to be a bankruptcy. Like that was a little bit of a lastm minute change. And I think Chris, you and I were talking before we came on about that moment when we found out that this was going to be a bankruptcy.

I can I remember it like it was yesterday. My oldest daughter is in fifth grade and on fifth grade they go to space camp and it just so happened to be the week of space camp and so I’m down at space camp with her. This call with the bankruptcy consultant at that time and the banker and a few others you and I were on that call was like at 6:30 or 700 p.m. At night.

Yeah.

So, I’m standing in a dormitory because I’m a chaperone in a dormitory room that there’s, you know, four other 13-year-old boys that aren’t there. They’re at they’re eating dinner. And I’m standing there and this call goes on for an hour and a half. And the banker is just not happy. But they’re saying, “Yep, it’s going to be a bankruptcy.” And it’s kind of like this is the first moment that the banker is hearing this news. And so and so she’s having a visceral moment on the call. She had had a few drinks that

Yes.

She

Well, that was apparent.

Yeah. So she’s

Yeah.

And so finally this call ends. Luckily the kids hadn’t come back to the dorm yet. And so we hang up and like I hit end and I call you and both of us had the exact same thought like now is the time to make a deal.

Yeah.

Because before it was a number then and it wasn’t in bankruptcy, but now that it’s going into bankruptcy, that means a whole bunch of other stuff that we’re not really sure what that means, but we know it sounds really bad, right? We’re we’re learning terms on that call that we had never heard of, including what was the loans, dip lending, dip lending, debtor in possession lending.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

So they were on that call and there so at the time there was a there was a group of consultants that had been manage managing the center for multiple years, right? And they’re running the sales process. And the center ultimately, which I think we’ll get into more detail, but this they the center had to file for bankruptcy because they weren’t servicing their debt. So you have the banker or the lender that’s on the call. She’s pissed off. She’s been drinking. She thinks that a sale is about to go through. And then these consultants are like, “We’re not going to get the sale through in time. There’s multiple bidders. We’ve got to take it into bankruptcy.” and then you have another consultant for the banker that’s on the call. And there I felt like we were getting ganged up on a little bit.

Yes.

Because you and I mean we were the we were the sheep being led to slaughter because we didn’t know anything about the process about bankruptcy and then at some we’re like 45 minutes into the call and they’re like, “Oh, by the way, we need to borrow some money from you guys.”

Right.

Well, another term that we did not know was stalking horse.

Right.

Right. So, and they start calling us the stalking horse on the call. So, we’re like, “Well, what does that mean? That sounds good.”

Yeah. Maybe that’s good. Maybe that’s bad.

It sounds good.

Yeah.

But yeah, and then and then one of the consultants says, “Yeah, we need a million dollars of a dip a dip loan.”

Yeah. Der in possession. We can barely pay our 25,000 retainer with our attorneys.

And then they were like, “By the way,” or I guess that came after that, but yeah, they Yeah.

Maybe explaining what the debtor in possession, that’s what DIP is. What’s that money for?

Well, and so that’s a good question. So the issue that we had is that we wanted we had we had valued the center as an ongoing business, meaning that there’s doctors working at the facility, there’s staff working at the facility, there’s patients coming into the facility. When and when we buy the center, there’s going to be patients under treatment. So you have that transition. You know, you have revenue coming in. And this was I guess this would have been right before we found out about the IBA deal because we found out about that after the bankruptcy find filing.

And so part of the reason that they filed were going to file for bankruptcy is they were basically out of cash, right? And so we said, “Okay, well, you know, we want the center to still be operational. So, let’s do a chapter 11 structured bankruptcy versus a seven chapter seven where you’re just selling all the assets and shutting down the business. And they said, “Okay, well, if we’re going to make payroll and keep the staff around and like pay the electric bill and pay the landscaping and whatever all the expenses are, we have no money.

We need that money from you.”

Yeah.

The bank doesn’t care. The bank the bank’s riding off their debt. They don’t care if it’s operating or not. So, we are the only people who care. If you want to keep it operational, you have to fund the operations. And oh, by the way, part of the reason we’re taking it into bankruptcy is there’s another bidder. So, we you don’t actually even know if you’re going to get the deal.

Yeah. It goes into an auction, right?

It goes into an auction and then theoretically, if there’s a sale, you get your money paid back. But also, there’s a chance you may not get your money paid back depending

Well, another I mean, you think about another major stressor, right? To even get there, we had to talk to banks, which I think Chris should talk about. We had we had roller coaster there.

Yep. So, we had to talk with banks. We had to talk with private equity. Because we had to raise about $30 million. And so that wasn’t a guarantee. So, we’re we’re walking into the auction. I think we walked into the auction and we just had a we had a what? We had a term sheet? Did we have a term sheet?

We had a term sheet or was that before the bankruptcy?

Sale hearing. Was that was that at the auction?

I think it was the auction. We did have a term sheet.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let’s let’s so what we’re getting kind of going around is one of the biggest stop signs that I can recall. Right after so we had come out to Oklahoma City, like you said, we had talked to the banks, we had talked to private equity, things were lining up, right? We had a term sheet from a local bank. They needed us to pay a fee on that term sheet. I think it was $10,000.

Yes.

And then again, a third, a third, a third, right? And so then I make the payment. There’s the bankruptcy. And so then right after the bankruptcy announcement, I call the bank and I say, “Okay, you know, we need to start work working on this on or working through the term sheet.” And the bank says, “Sorry. Now that it’s in bankruptcy, there is no term sheet, right? You don’t have a term sheet.” And I said, “Well, hang on, hang on.” like this, you know, but this is a good this is a good thing. Yeah, but you said and we paid the money, right? And then they said, “Yeah, but we don’t know where this bankruptcy is going to end up. So, I’m sorry, you don’t have a term sheet.” And that was a very large stop sign for the three of us, right? Because then it was like, what are we going to do? We have to have a term sheet. We have to be able to prove to the bankruptcy judge that we can close.

Yeah. Right.

And I think our equity our private equity guys were still there even though we were going through the bankruptcy. They were still fine. But it was the bank that was loaning and it was I think the total number was it 29 million?

It was 29 million. That’s where we ended up.

That’s where we ended up. So 15 million loan 14 million from private equity. So 14 million was still there, but the larger number, the 15 million, wasn’t there anymore.

Right. Right.

And it’s like, what are we going to do now? You know, and as you said earlier, we’ve got our chips stacked on this on this table.

Well, and I remember so Chris and I were flying home and luckily you had called your friend. Yeah, Bill. Bill Burrell.

Yeah.

Yeah. And he said, “Yeah, I can get you a term sheet.” Now, it’ll say subject to a lot of provisions, but Chris and I were we somehow got seats next to each other going home. We’re drafting the term sheet.

Oh, yeah.

That we want to give to Bill. This is what we need and he came through.

He did. He came through for us.

So now we go to the auction with a bank term sheet.

Yep.

And I think we might have had some tacit approvals by our doctors that they were going to join us.

Well, and we would not have been allowed to participate in the bankruptcy auction if we had not gotten that term, right? We had to be qualified. We had we had to prove that we had funding.

So, I think this is a this is actually a good point to step back a little bit and talk a little and talk about how we even got involved in this mess. So, I remember so we were all working together and this is where we met was in Knoxville, Tennessee at a healthcare company there. And really that company was focused on building new proton therapy centers. So, we had the proton center that we had built in Knoxville. We were getting ready to open a proton center in Nashville, Tennessee. We were we were working on funding a proton center in Orlando and then exploring other projects around the country. And I had started my career in proton therapy back in 2010 at the Oklahoma Proton Center. At that time it was the ProCure Proton Therapy Center. And so shortly after it opened, right?

Yeah. Shortly after it opened.

So 2010 to 2013 I worked there and then moved to Knoxville to join the team to help operate the center in Knoxville. And so there was a point in 2018 when the consultants that were managing the Proton Center in Oklahoma City decided we need to sell this center. And the challen there was a couple challenges. One, that center had cost $126 million to build. So there’s all this debt on the facility. They were doing some great things clinically. They’d had great clinical outcomes with patients. They’d never been able to service the debt. They weren’t even paying all their operating expenses. They were treating about 300 patients a year. And to just put that in perspective for the listeners, we’re up to 750 patients a year now.

So, the point being is that they weren’t treating the number of patients that they needed to even cover operating expenses. So, they said, “Okay, we have to sell the center.” The challenge was, well, Oklahoma City is a relatively small market for a proton therapy center. And the center is physically attached to the INTEGRIS Cancer Institute. And the INTEGRIS Cancer Institute or INTEGRIS Hospital was a minority owner in the facility and said we don’t want to be involved. We like we don’t want to be an owner, but yet this facility is attached to their flagship cancer center. So there’s no other local buyer. There’s no other hospital system in Oklahoma City that wants to buy this. At the time, the sellers were looking for 40 or $50 million in a sale for a facility that’s not even covering their operating

expenses. So, there was almost no buyers. Ultimately, that worked in our favor.

Right. Right. I mean, it’s some of those things you look back, you think that we were so fortunate because someone else I was convinced the whole time. Yeah. Someone else is going to buy this because it made so much sense. And so the fact that it was attached to INTEGRIS really prevented other buyers

Yeah.

From doing it. So I mean you can look back at a lot of these things and you think, “Wow, we got so fortunate to get past some of these.”

I didn’t mean to.

No. That’s good.

And just to just to kind of run through this quick, we so I went to our boss and said, “Hey, I think we should have a parallel strategy of building new centers and buying distress centers.”

Right.

Yeah. And he was an opportunist. And so, you know, he said, “Okay, well, let’s take a look at it.” And we went through this whole due diligence process and we spent three or four months going out there looking through financials, interviewing doctors. At one point there was even a letter of intent, non-binding, but a letter of intent to potentially buy the deal. And then, I think you remember sitting at this restaurant in Knoxville, the Bistro, and this would have been July, like toward towards the end of July, right? And the writing was on the wall that the company that we were with was maybe going to pass on the deal.

Well, I had worked for our former boss 20 years before.

Yeah.

So, I had known him for 20 years and sort of knew that if it wasn’t his idea, probably wasn’t he wasn’t going to follow through.

Yeah.

So, I remember the three of us going to have a drink and saying to you guys, he’s going to back out.

Yeah.

And if he does, we should do it and I’ll do it with you. Because I was not on the deal team. I was running the Proton Center in Austin. You were president of the Proton Center. You guys were You guys were on the deal team doing the due diligence. But I thought, so some of these things you got to go back to even before we knew each other, right? I think about how we how we’ve gotten here. So I had left a big company, major medical company, went to work for a startup to raise venture capital. I was and I was by myself really. And I learned a lot of lessons. So, one of the things, and I’ve told Chris this several times, the one thing I learned is I would never do anything alone again because it’s so hard.

And I thought, okay, these are So, I worked with you guys for about five years at Knoxville. Chris was the CFO for 10 years. David was the first head of operations at the Proton Center. And I thought, man, these guys are good. And I thought, if anybody can do it, we can do it. And so I was maybe not as confident as I’d like to be, but I was confident if anybody could make it work, we could. And so knowing what was ultimately going to probably happen with our former boss backing out, I still didn’t think we were going to win the deal, right? I remember being on a golf course in the rain and David is talking to the private equity guys while and I’m I’m like I’m not even on the call because I’m thinking we’re never going to get

this deal.

Oh, yeah.

Because when our former boss backed out, we had to convince the private equity guys. You, oh, you’re no longer working with this company of people. Now you just get to work with us three individuals. So they’re like, we don’t even know who these guys are. And we had to convince them, which was true. Yep. That you’re getting a better end of the deal because now we are dedicated.

Yep.

Yeah. I mean, we are basically for all intents and purposes moving here. This is our only focus. And luckily with David’s I guess just determination, right? We were able to convince them that we were worth a shot and it and it paid off. I’m jumping around, but I know Chris was going to talk about ultimately the payoff for those guys, but yeah, I

Well I remember being in a room with those guys. I think it was one of one of the trips you and I came out. This was before we had left.

Yes.

Our company.

Yeah.

To do the deal on ourselves. Yeah. And these guys are oil and gas guys, you know, and I’m sitting there and we’re working through a proforma and we’re talking about takeouts and, you know, I’m sitting there saying, “Well, you know, this could be the takeout, that could be the takeout.” Yeah. And I say, you know, I don’t know about the number like the dollar amount, but I doubt you guys will have something like this that has such a high percentage, right? As a as a return. And one of the guys quickly corrected me and said, “well, we did a trailer thing. That’s the trailer deal. Trailer thing that had like a 16 or a 17X or something like that.” So, but so we didn’t we didn’t do that, but ultimately everything that we did got benchmarked back to the trailer.

The trailer, right?

But when we when we did and I know I’m fast forwarding now, but when we did take them out in 25 months, so we took we took the private equity money, we borrowed the money from the bank, we took that as our capital and we ran. And then in 25 months, we go to the tax exempt bond market, which I’m very familiar with. Had done three or four transactions back at our previous company. Those guys got a 3x in 25 months. So it’s not a 17x but still pretty but still pretty good over a 25 month. You put a dollar in, you get $3 back in 24 months or 25 months. You do that deal every time.

And that was with COVID in the middle.

Correct. Yes. COVID in the middle of that which we had to basically pause everything.

Right.

Yeah. Right.

So we have the conversation at the Bistro and you’re like, “Hey, our old the old our old company is gonna back out of this deal. We should go do it.” we didn’t know what we didn’t know at that time. We were maybe a little naive about what was getting into.

Absolutely.

Ambitious, too. And so I remember July 31st, our old boss sends out an email to the deal team and he’s like, “We’re done. We’re not going to do this. This is not our company’s focus. We need to focus on these other projects.” And, I was pretty resolved at that point to go and try to do this deal ourselves. And Chris, maybe talk a little bit about cuz you had kind of separately resolved to leave. But we didn’t know that we were each right thinking that ourselves. And so maybe so two weeks later we’re back at the Bistro, right?

Well, let me because this is a story I don’t know if I’ve ever told the two of you guys.

Okay. Yeah.

So that happens like I think it’s the last day of the month of July. July 31st. That’s when the term sheet went and so it was turned down. At that point, that email comes out. I call my dad. And my dad lives in North Carolina at the time. So, and I’m in Tennessee. And I say to him, “Hey, I need to come see you. I’ve got something to talk to you about.” And so he says, “Sure, come on out.” And I go out there. I drive two hours and I sit down with him and I tell him where I’m at professionally, what issues I have with what’s happening. That there’s this opportunity, but really it’s at that point it’s just an opportunity. The Oklahoma Proton’s just an opportunity, right? There’s and so he asked me some questions. He’s like, “What do you really enjoy doing?” And so we go through this and really he looks at me and he says, “What are you waiting on?”

Oh, wow.

And I’m like well don’t don’t ask me that. You know, because that now Well, that makes that makes me like move. Yeah. Right. That makes me like I Okay. And so I said, “Well, probably what I need to do, is go see an attorney.” And he said, “You need to schedule that on your way home.” Yeah. And so I did. I called an attorney. I had a friend at church that was an HR attorney. So I called him on my way home, scheduled that appointment, went and met with him, walked him through everything, and I said zero to 10. And he said, “Chris, this is probably a one. Like, you should from a risk.”

From a risk Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah. From a risk standpoint. And so when I heard that, then I made an appointment on a Wednesday. Wait. No, it was on I’m sorry. It was on a Monday. Okay. It was on a on the Monday after that I got back and had met with the attorney. That Monday I walked in and I resigned. But it was because I needed I needed that from my dad, right? I need I needed and I needed him to push me and that’s exactly what he did. And so I look back and I mean that’s that’s I was there already mentally, but really he was the one who pushed me over and said, “What are you waiting on?”

What did you say when you resigned or what was the explanation or what were you going to go do?

So, I told him I told our former boss that I wanted to work on deals. Yeah. That was really what got me excited, you know, at there we did several deals, right? I mean, it was the only way we moved on was to do another deal. And I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed putting them together and helping see them through. And so I just said, “Look, I’m, you know, I’m that’s what I’m going to go focus on.” So, and he was like, “Great.”

So that’s on a Monday. That’s on a Monday.

I’m on a trip in Kansas City.

Yep.

And I’ll never forget this. We were at the Embassy Suites in Kansas City. It’s where he and his partner really love to stay. And we were, it was a Wednesday and we were heading to the airport and we were having breakfast at the Embassy Suites and I was like, if there’s ever going to be, and I’d kind of already made up my mind that this is what I want to do. And I was like, well, the two the senior leadership of the company’s here and I’m having breakfast with them at the embassy suit. What better opportunity to resign from my job? And so I said, “well, I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m I’m done. I’m I’m leaving.”

And same deal. They were like, “Well, what are you going to go do? What job did you take?” I mean, that’s the natural. What job did you take? And I said, “Well, I didn’t I didn’t take a job. I’m going to go see what’s out there.” And you know, and I may I brought up the Oklahoma deal. I was like, “Hey, you know, I have a personal interest in that center. I may go see if I can put that deal back together. Don’t know if it’s going to happen or not. We had no money committed at that point.” and then it was that So I you resigned on Monday. I resigned on Wednesday. Friday we’re at the Bistro the three of us.

Yeah.

And so talk a little bit about that. We’re sitting there.

Yeah. We’re we’re sitting there and I think I told Tom I knew you had resigned and I knew you had resigned. The two of us didn’t know that each of us had resigned.

Right.

And so I think I think Tom, you asked me a question like, “Hey, why don’t you tell David what happened on Monday?” And I looked at you and I said, “Well, I resigned.”

Yeah.

And then you looked at me. I was like, “Oh, no way.”

Crazy. I did, too.

Right.

And then I was like, “What?”

And you were like, “What?” But that was good. That I don’t know if that hadn’t happened the way that it happened. Like I look back and there’s always like the dominoes like what dominoes had to it’s like the meme where it’s the little domino and the it falls and the bigger domino bigger domino and then the biggest domino is maybe refinancing the center but there was like these little dominoes that had to fall and I don’t I think if we both hadn’t done that pretty close to the same time

Right because we I mean Tom you talked about the team aspect like I could not have gone out and raised the money in Oklahoma without somebody else doing it. And especially somebody like you who had been the person raising the money before as the CFO of the of our former company. You had this rapport and this relationship with the investors and knew how to raise money. I mean, you’ve been a part of raising hundreds of millions of dollars. I could tell the narrative about what we were going to do with the center because of what we had done with the Knoxville Center, but I couldn’t have handled the nuances of the capital raise and certainly not with the banks.

Well, so you know, the local bank here in Oklahoma City had come to Knoxville, right, to talk to us.

Yeah.

The there were two bankers that came out and so and in talking with them, I knew they didn’t know what we did.

Right.

At the proton center or what that was or anything. So, I had this great idea. I had this really good relationship with Bill and Bill had provided funding on proton centers.

Yeah.

So, I called Bill and I said, “Hey, Bill, we’re going to Oklahoma.” and so I brought Bill.

Yeah.

We went to the local bank’s office and we’re sitting in his office going through, okay, here’s deal point A, here’s deal point B and C and D to try to get him to transfer as bankers, you know, bankers talking to bankers. And that really worked. I mean, it was, you know, cuz where Bill was, this was not an opportunity for him, right? But I mean, that’s that’s at least two or three times that this guy has saved us.

That what a great thing. So, he came out and you know, showed him, hey, this is what you need to look for. This is important. That’s important. That type of thing.

So, that’s awesome.

So, the other So, then so right after that, you know, you and I are like, hey, there’s two things that have to happen. We’ve got to raise money and we have to convince the consultants running the center who are running the sales process that we’re a credible buyer.

Right.

Yeah. And I remember calling one of them and letting them know what had happened. Our old company, you know, they knew that the our old company had backed out and I said, “Well, I want to buy the center.” And there was a little bit of a chuckle on the other end of the line like, “Okay, yeah, that’s funny.” like, I mean, do you have any do you have any leads on some real buyers?

Yeah.

And I said, “No. I’m I’m actually serious. Like, I’m going to go try to raise the money and we’re going to try to buy this center.” And he was like, “Okay.” I mean, I guess like just let me know if you if you make any headway. So, we’re we’re working on that process, but then you and I are having to travel out to Oklahoma. And I remember the quality of the hotel that we stayed in deteriorated quickly when we were writing the check out of our own pockets with no jobs.

Right. Right.

Yeah. I mean, it went from like, okay, well, we’ll stay in a Marriott to what’s saving $10 a night.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I remember we switched I think it was, you know, it might have been you and I we stayed at a hotel because it was $10 a night cheaper and I and there’s, you know, clay all over the carpet. It was all the guys. What drug deals have been done in that room. We’re going to stay there and I thought, Chris, I think we can spend the extra $10.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we drew the We drew the line at sharing a room. So, that was the

Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Although, you and I shared when we first came out here to meet the private equity guys to convince them to work with us instead of Well, rather than our other company because they backed out. You and I did share a room.

That’s right. Yeah. We shared a We were real short on cash at that point.

Yeah, that was like save every last penny.

So, Chris, you wrote down some other things that you remembered. You’ve mentioned these stop signs or highlights of the deal.

Yeah. You know, one of the one of the big things was ultimately the loan that we got from the local bank required a guarantee.

Yeah.

And I remember we had we had dinner with one of the private equity guys. We went to a pizza joint. I couldn’t tell you the name.

Hideaway Pizza.

Hideaway Pizza. Yeah. And we’re and we had talked at this dinner about this loan guarantee. And I remember the investor as we were walking out, he was like, “Well, you know, private equity doesn’t we don’t do loan guarantees, so good luck figuring that out.”

Yeah.

And so you know and you know we talked about it we over and over again multiple conversations like you know look I don’t want to guarantee 5 million a piece 5 million a piece you know or and so you know we but we came up with a creative solution that the three of us got comfortable with that really didn’t put our families at risk.

Yeah.

And the bank went for it.

Yeah.

But I mean that was another one of those very large stop signs that we had to get past. I felt like with the private equity guys and by the way they were great as far as investing in us when we were forming a new company, investing in a center that was an extremely distressed asset. That we wouldn’t be sitting here today if it weren’t for those guys. But there were there were points along the way where they drew some lines and I always felt like those lines got drawn when we were out having a good time. It was like, man, dinner was great. You know, love the that the boss pizza from Hideaway. Yeah. Oh, by the way, we’re only a year and a half long contract.

Yeah, exactly. Contract.

We’re like, so we’ve we’ve guaranteed this debt. Yeah. We’ve created the company, won the bankruptcy, and now we only have a year and a half long

Yes. Management contract. I forgot about that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz because it wasn’t just there was the component of buying the center, which of the 14 million in equity, we had to put money in. I mean, we were we were a million in, close to a million in ourselves, right, as part of that equity. So, we’re investors, but then our jobs, like our ability to get a paycheck was based on us managing the center and the private equity guys were like, “Yeah, we’ll give you a short leash on that.”

Yep.

Yeah. And there was a condition I remember this was a there was a condition they put in they could buy us out of our shares if something happened. I can’t remember what that was.

Correct. So, we had a carried interest, right? Cuz they got a certain percent. And then once they got so much then that percentage dropped and our increased, right? And then again it did it one more time. And they wanted our shares, the ability to grab our shares if we were no longer the managers.

That’s what it was.

Yeah. And even if we like were disabled or something. So I remember the three of us sitting in the conference room thinking this is a deal breaker.

This is a deal breaker.

And we thought we figured out a way around it. We got them to pay a premium. Our disability in life. So our families would be taken care of.

Yeah. No. Oh my gosh. I remember that.

Yeah. That was that was a They were like, well, yeah, but if you’re disabled then we’re just going to buy your shares.

Yeah. Like and take money out of my kids food out of my kids mouth.

Which they would have. You’re of no value to us if you’re disabled at that point.

Yeah.

So what we came up with was we just bought insurance contracts. Yeah. On our lives and on our disability and if one of us passed away or became disabled, then those contracts would compensate us and our families and then they would take our shares.

Well, and we were I remember we had set up shop in your living room. Like that was our that was our office at that point because we had no office.

Yeah.

Your backyard, my basement.

Yeah. Yeah.

We kind of rotated crazy at the home office. That was before home offices were cool. Preco those when they were more annoying than anything.

So what were some of the other things that you had written down there, Chris?

You know, one of one of, more of a pet peeve of mine is, the bank’s attorney would not give us a number, would not give us a dollar amount that they were going to charge us.

Yeah.

Yeah. And, so we had a meeting. The three of us were there, the bank was there, the bank’s attorney was there, and I made the comment, “Well, if you don’t give us like a like, you know, a parameter or a fee, then it’s like giving you a blank check.”

Yeah.

And the attorney stood there and said, “Yep.”

Yeah. Yeah.

And then that ended up being what, like an $80,000 75 or$8,000 to draw up loan documents, right? And to listen to bankruptcy hearings.

Yeah. So I do, the So that brings up a good point with the bankruptcy hearings. Let’s talk a little bit about that because that was a wild time.

So it was a wild time.

Yeah. So I think we’re going to talk about this. What we’re getting, we’re in Delaware. The three of us are in Delaware. It’s the day of is it the auction or is the Well, we’re going to the courtroom. The sale hearing is what sales hearing about.

Yeah. So we’re going to the sales hearing and that was that December 20th because there was a December 20th December 27 first week of January because we were it was just after New Year’s to go to the sales here.

Okay. First week of January, man. Or was it the last week of December?

I think it’s the last week of December. We traveled both weeks.

We did. And because I remember the judge like wanting saying, “Hey, we’ve got to go.” Like I mean the holiday is coming up. We’ve got we’ve got to

Well, and our bid was expiring.

Yes. So that was our So we’re in this courtroom.

Yeah. Our bid is expiring or something was expiring. Was it our bid that was expiring?

Man, that sounds right. I think our bid was expiring.

So we’re thinking this has to conclude tonight.

Yep. Or this whole auction starts all over.

Right. I remember thinking that.

So before we get to the to the courtroom, the three of us are meeting with our attorneys and the our attorney’s offices, the ones that make the 12. And by the way, this is the dead of winter in Delaware.

Yes. Over Christmas, right?

Christmas.

Over Christmas. Right.

And so we’re about to walk out of the office and some FedEx guy shows up with a signed affidavit.

Yeah. From our former boss.

Yeah. And as we’re leaving and we’re like objecting to the sale, objecting to the sale.

Right. Right.

And so we read it real fast and we’re like whatever, you know. So, but it’s we’re walking over to the courthouse with this and it’s like, you know, cuz I think I said to the two of you, he’s going to be there. Like, he’s going to be in the courtroom.

Yeah. Well, and that So, and the reason for that is that he didn’t take the three of us leaving very well.

No. Right. Right.

Yeah. No, it was his perspective. I mean, he fired me.

Well, really didn’t take Yeah. Tom, how did how did your conversation go when it was taken so well when you said you were going to go work on this deal?

Yeah. Yeah. I remember I remember he told me after I resigned, he said, “well, when you fail, we’ll you can come back and work for me.” So, yeah, he definitely he was not rooting for us to get this deal done.

But one of the when we sat down one of the greatest things that I remember out of that’s the because that was a great day. That was a fantastic day. It was extremely stressful. Extremely stressful involved and very long and very hot in that courtroom.

Yeah.

But you know we start this hearing and then this attorney gets up and says, “Hey, I got a signed affidavit.” and the judge says, “Well, is he here?”

Yeah. Like today in the courtroom.

And the attorney says, “No, he couldn’t make it.” Yeah. And she says, “Well, they’re here. I’m here.”

Yeah. You’re here.

Yep. Tosses it.

Yeah. Never reads it. Tosses it out. Says that’s inadmissible.

Yeah. That was a great starting point to that.

Well, and that I mean to your you mentioned this earlier, our old boss objected to the sale, meaning that there was potentially this intent for him to come in and say these guys shouldn’t buy the deal. And part of what made the bankruptcy so complicated for us and really part of the reason that the center even went into bankruptcy is there was another potential buyer.

Right.

Yeah. And so our old boss who knew that other buyer had decided to join forces with him to try to block us from getting the deal.

Right. I’ve never seen so many attorneys in one court, right? Was it in my life?

And so I didn’t know you could so many people could object to the I mean we’re we’re good guys. I thought what are all these people objecting for? I mean there were banks objecting. Yeah. There was local hospital systems objecting. Payers were objecting. Payers had payers were objecting. And I’m thinking and even the judge finally said this is a simple sales hearing, right? Yeah. So she had obviously seen a lot of deals and could not believe the number of people that were objecting to this deal for some unknown reason and the number of people that showed up.

To court.

Yeah. Yeah. I guess I guess because there was another bidder. I think that probably had a lot to do it. And of course, there was unfortunately a lot of people lost a lot of money on the first deal. That was that was part of it, too.

But David, I can still remember sitting right next to Tom in that hot courtroom. Yeah. Watching you on the stand, taking those questions from the other side. Yeah. You know, whether it was about the doctors or about you or about us or and I mean Tom and I just like looked at each other.

He was killing it.

You were killing it. Killing it. And the quote the quote of all quotes that after the judge, she has to list all those objections and then basically overrule every objection. And she said, “By the way, I found the witness incredibly credible.” That’s it. I wrote it down. I wrote it down. Incredibly credible. This is okay. We got it. I was like, “We got it. We’re going to win.”

Yeah. That was because they because there were all these objections, they said, “Well, somebody from your group has to come up and be cross-examined.”

Yes.

Yeah. Publicly here, right?

And I remember one of the questions it was the attorney for the local hospital system. They were trying to poke holes in our proforma, essentially saying, “These guys don’t know what they’re doing. They’re claiming that they can turn this center around. Ultimately, it’s the bankruptcy judge’s responsibility to find a buyer or award the deal to a buyer that’s going to ensure that the center has is long-term viable. So, are the staff going to get retained? Patients going to get treated? And he’s trying to poke holes in the proforma. And the attorney said, “Well, you know, I don’t know how we could have any idea what the payroll is going to be.” He said, “Well, like they could be way off on the payroll number.”

and I said, I said, “Well, I don’t know how we could be way off on the payroll number because all of the employees are there and we know what they’re making.” And he’s like, “Yeah, but how are you going to know what they’re going to make?” And I said, “Well, I think they would just make what they are making.” It was part of the purchase agreement. It was part of the purchase agreement. I like we’re just retaining the employees. And he said he said, “Yeah, but what if they all want raises?” And I said, “Well, I guess we’ll have that conversation with them.” And we knew so that the hearing was public and so we knew that a lot of the employees had were on the phone and so and listening. Yeah. And listening.

And so I leaned into the microphone and I said, “Well, it looks like the attorney for the local hospital system has just given everybody raises.”

But it was it was just Yeah, there were just things like that where they were they were trying to do everything that they possibly could. And this was attorneys for the hospital system, for the other buyer, and for one of the insurance companies, to discredit us as a group. Who are these guys? What have they done?

And so part of the challenge for us was really just proving to this group of people in the courtroom and proving to the bankruptcy judge and then ultimately proving to our partners, the equity partners and the banks and the doctors that we were recruiting to move from out of state to come work in Oklahoma that we did have a plan and we did know what credibility is so big, right? I mean, and you had touched probably what, five different proton centers, Chris had raised what, close to half a billion dollars between Knoxville, Orlando I was running the proton center in Knoxville.

We were treating 80 patients a day. Yeah. In a smaller market than Oklahoma City. And so, but everybody has a reason to doubt, right? Private equity, the bankers, the judge, the other attorneys, the other buyer planting seeds of doubt. And so you we had to overcome so much skepticism legitimately. So now, some of it was crazy, but it’s a lot of money. It’s a big deal. You’re taking over this operation. You have zero patients. You have zero doctors. You have zero brand. Yeah.

I mean that we haven’t even touched on the operational challenges of going from zero patients to 80 patients a day that we’re treating today.

Well, and think about that center. I mean, I remember this when we were doing the due diligence and we were looking at the financials of the ProCure Proton Center in 2016, 2017, and 2018. They lost over a combined $10 million in operating income. That’s not even trying to service debt. That’s we’re bleeding every last penny that we have in savings just trying to treat patients. And so a big part of our challenge was we are passionate about this business. We’re passionate about the people that work here. We’re passionate about the patients that are walking into this facility, but we want it to be long-term viable, right? We don’t want to go through this again. And what do we have to do operationally? And maybe there’s going to be some hard decisions, but ultimately the goal for the three of us was always, let’s have this stay open indefinitely for years to come. That was certainly the goal.

I mean, I remember the one of the first questions I asked David when he was he was like, “Okay, we can do this.” And I said, “Did they take good care of patients?” Yeah. Because that’s critical, right? Because if can’t fix that proton brand was damaged in Oklahoma, it was a non-starter for me. And the staff has already always done a great job of taking care of patients and then it was the goal of really getting it on the best footing for a really long time.

And since then, I think we’ve done that with, so we’ve talked about the private equity guys, and Chris should probably talk about the ultimate exit for those guys and the vehicle that we use, but we’ve got 30-year debt now, right?

Yeah. I remember I remember our break even on the initial capital. We were I think it was 40 patients a day, right? It was right around there.

Maybe something like that.

Yeah. So we kept thinking, okay, we get to 40 patients a day because we were going without pay.

Yeah. Right.

Because we only had so much cash and we were using it to pay the staff and so we knew if we got to 40 patients a day, we could we could maybe get a paycheck, which thank goodness we did. But then what, two years later, we raised 72 million.

72 million. Right.

The takeout was a se a tax-exempt bond offering through the ODFA, the Oklahoma Development Finance Authority. We issued 72 million bonds. The Oklahoma Proton Foundation purchased the Oklahoma Proton Center and issued those bonds in order to pay off the bank and pay out the private equity guys.

Well, and we knew that we had to do that. I mean the private equity and really even the bank debt that we had initially that was always shortterm right I mean that was we want to get in you guys turn this around and then we want out right so we knew we had to have a long-term funding plan for the facility and this is this provides 32 years yeah of capital and so yeah so I think I think we address the capital we addressed the revenue yeah and we addressed the expenses. I mean, we had tackled all three of those things in order to make this thing work. You know, and it was it was not easy. That was I mean, we’re still doing it today.

So, I want to and before we do this, I do have I would hate it if I missed this opportunity to give a little bit of a shout out here to the Dogfish Head Craft Brewery from Delaware.

And I remember after we were awarded the deal, so that was kind of the big culminating the day of the auction. The day of the auction, the day of the auction, it’s the big it’s the moment of truth. The judge comes out and she can either say one bidder gets the deal, the other bidder gets the deal, or nobody gets the deal. That was actually a possible outcome. And she walked out of the of her chambers and came back out and awarded us the deal. And then we said,”Well, you know, how do you celebrate in Delaware? What are we going to go in the dead of winter? What do you go do?” And, fortunately, our attorney and, we got to see, what, you know, close to $1,000 an hour buys you as a vacation home in Delaware. Fishing shack.

A fishing shack.

Fishing lodge, he called.

Yeah, the fishing lodge. He let us borrow his fishing lodge. Didn’t Didn’t charge us for the night, I

Well, cuz we told him. Yeah. So, you’re going to give us a key to your fishing lodge tonight? Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we just paid you $1,300 an hour.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

And so he let us go down drive down the coast to go to the fishing lodge and so we were staying there and then the Dogfish Head Brewery was just down the road. And so we drove down there and we I tried all the beers at that night. I was like, “Whatever you guys have.” We were like, “What’s the stuff in the back that you haven’t even brought?” What are those things called?

The flights.

Flights. The flights.

Yeah, we did the flights. I think we each got three or four.

I still have I still have those. I saved them.

Really?

They’re at my house where you we would write down the names of the beers and the flight cards. I saved them.

I brought or I bought a couple of special IPA glasses that had Dogfish Head, the Dogfish Head logo, and I still have those.

So, in honor of that, I have the Dogfish Head 30 minute light IPA, but they do need to bring back Namaste.

Yes, that’s the

Please Dogfish.

Yes, please Dogfish. Your best beer.

Exactly. And distribute it to Oklahoma, too. I think my head still hurts from that night.

Yeah, that was a rough morning the next morning.

Yeah. And it was it’s it’s funny looking back because it was like you know you had this high of winning the bankruptcy, but then it also kind of hits you like we were driving to the airport and I was like, “Oh my goodness.” Like now we actually have to operate this thing.

Yes. Well, we have to close first.

We have to close. We have to close first. We have to get everybody’s money. We have to get the bank’s money and we got money got to get all the attorneys in line and we have to close the deal. Get the doctor’s agreements done.

Yeah. Yeah.

There was a lot to get done over the next few weeks after we had been awarded the deal. But as you guys look back over the last few years, what are some of the things that you’re most proud of or maybe successes is another term because I feel like we’ve done a lot since we bought the center.

Yeah. I So I wrote down successes, you know. So 2019 January we bought the center. So in 2020 we started Blue Orca. Yeah. Which is a marketing company. We weren’t satisfied with what we were getting out of our marketing company here. And so you had the great idea to start our own marketing company. And so and it’s it’s been the marketing company for the Oklahoma Proton Center since 2020 for five years. So that was 2020. That was also COVID.

Yes.

The year of COVID was 2020 which did impact our business significantly. 2021 we did the bond transaction. So that was that was big. Let’s see here. 2022 we started the development of the premier breast health institute.

Yep.

25,000 square foot building with the with breast imaging at the on the bottom floor. So that was 2022. Then Premiere opened in 2023. So a year later also in and then in 2023 we had the GenesisCare transaction. So there were three locations that GenesisCare was going bankrupt and so we purchased the assets of those three locations and stop started operating those as we were experts at that point.

Right. Buying stuff out of bankruptcy, you know, that was it was old hat. Didn’t scare us.

Exactly. So that was 2023. And then and some successes that I’m really excited about are the recent ones and 2024. So you know we as a country we’ve experienced this inflation. Everybody has right with what’s happened. And so you know in 2024 we started seeing some of the vendors that the Proton Center uses come at us with much higher increases in contracts and renewals. And so we do what we always do. We get creative and we pivot. So we created our own IT company in 2024. So that’s that’s been fantastic.

And then in let’s see here in 2025 we created our billing company. So again same thing billing company comes back to us and says they’re going to double our rates and we say no thank you and we pivot and create our own billing company. So yeah we’ve we’ve been busy. I mean it’s always been about you know it’s it always comes back to the proton center that is what is best for the proton center is always our has always been our mentality. Yeah.

And so and you know so creating these companies and creating these service lines and the proton center is better because of those things.

Yeah. And I think so just maybe starting with Blue Orca and the marketing company we mentioned earlier that the proton center was treating about 300 patients a year in the five years before we purchased it last year at the Proton Center. So not any of the other locations just at the proton center. We treated 650 patients. Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do with Blue Orca and the and the creative that we’ve put together. It’s it’s compelling. It’s impactful. But we’ve also done it in a very cost-effective manner.

And so and we’ve had the opportunity with Blue Orca to help some other proton centers out as well. And I think that’s something that maybe we’ll have the opportunity to do more down the road. And then certainly the billing company. I mean maybe talk a little bit about that. I mean we took over the billing in January and that’s a big transition, right? That’s a complicated process, right? But we’ve had a lot of success even just in six months. Yeah. And in six months I we just put together the board material, right?

So this is off top of my head, but six months year-over-year. So January through June 2024 to 2025. In 2025, our collections have increased 24%. Yeah. Over the same period in 2024, if you’d have told me that we one wouldn’t have a hiccup, two that we would be flat, I would have said that’s a fantastic day. Yeah. But to be up to not have a hiccup and to be up 24%. Yeah. That is that’s blowing the doors off. So and that’s and that’s that’s better for everybody, right?

So but I want to go back to Blue Orca because when you when you said that it made me remember you were able to bring on the king as Blue Orca and as Barry.

Oh yeah. Coach Switzer. Right. Right. I mean that was one of the first things that Blue or that Blue Orca did was Yeah, that was great cuz coach Barry Switzer, you know, legendary football coach. He actually had a really good friend that got treated at the Proton Center, Buddy Bell. And, Buddy had a great experience and Coach Switzer came up to the Proton Center a couple times with him was like, “Hey, I you know what’s going on here? What are we doing?” and I had the opportunity to meet him and he got really passionate about the facility and the care that his friend got and yeah that was a great partnership and now we have a great partnership with Shannon Miller.

Yep.

Olympic gymnast and gold medal winner from Edmond, Oklahoma. And so that’s that’s a really exciting partnership that we have going forward with our breast center, Premier Breast Health and then with the Proton Center.

Yeah, those are huge, right? I mean those are those are huge deals to land that as part of the marketing

Yeah.

Company.

So what are you so Tom for you looking back what are some of the things that you’re most proud of?

You know of course the new businesses the new functions. It’s hard to argue those are those are fantastic. You know I think about some of the smaller steps along the way. I was thinking when Chris was going down his list you know things that are that seem small now that but were huge deals. We had to negotiate payer contracts when we first started. And so and we got when we came from Tennessee, we had zero payer contracts. I mean, think about that. So, and now we have contracts with really every payer. And so we landed the United contract. That was a huge deal. It took over a year to do that.

Yeah. So, Coach Switzer, you talk about him as a partner, you know, he had a good friend that got treated at the Proton Center and he came up a couple of times and I will say what was interesting about starting the marketing company is that none of the three of us were really intimately involved with marketing when we were working in Knoxville. I was more operations and then business development. Tom, you were operations. Chris, you were the CFO handling everything on the finance side, obviously intimately involved in the development side. And as we were divvying up roles, there’s three of us. And it’s like, okay, well, who’s going to do what now that we’ve bought this center? There was kind of this thing lingering and I was like, hey, development, I can do that. We’ll get out. We’ll talk with physicians. Maybe there’s some other deals that we can do in Oklahoma City. But it was like, “Okay, well, who’s who’s going to do TV ads?”

And you had the previous experience, right? You knew their names. You knew what quality they did.

I remember that because you were like, “Well, and I think you might even showed us an old commercial.”

Well, we and we retained this group. Maybe we shouldn’t say their name, but And I remember the marketing agency. It had been because we thought, well, that’s what you do. You hire a marketing agency, so that’s what we did. And so and I remember sitting in probably the third meeting and after we get these invoices and the invoices are all the people and no content and I and I said, “David, this isn’t us, man. We’re a bootstrap kind of group.”

Well, and it was it was I mean there was line items for respond to email, schedule meeting.

Yeah. And it was a lot of money meeting and there’s like eight people in I mean it was like is this what’s about and we’re writing all the we’re writing all the content. I remember sitting in our rental house and I was like, “Okay, David, tonight we would go work out.” I said, “Okay, you write four taglines, I’ll write four tag lines.” So, as homework, right, because we what else were we going to do sitting in Oklahoma? So, it was great working with coach Switzer and he’s been an amazing advocate for the center and now we have this opportunity to work with Shannon Miller, Olympic gymnast, gold medalist, native of Oklahoma City and I think that’s going to be a great partnership going forward. And so that’s really helped establish the brand and put the Oklahoma Proton Center on the map.

You talk about that rental house though, that was an experience because we went from, you know, we’re we’re living in Knoxville, living with our families in our houses. We’ve been doing that for years. We’ve got kids. That’s just kind of your normal day-to-day. And then suddenly we buy the center in Oklahoma City and we’re like, “Okay, well, we have to come out here just about every week at that point to run this facility.” I think it was in the loan agreement. Yeah. With the bank. I think they said one of the three of us had to be on site every day. And you know, we can’t we can’t keep staying at the courtyard, right? So, let’s go. Let’s go find a house. I think you guys tasked me with picking a good part of town just because I used to live in Oklahoma City.

Well, we talked you out of a condo downtown.

Oh, well, that’s right. I Yeah, I was like, well, I’m going to live. How much work are we going to get done? I was like, “Yeah, Dave, no. We’ll we’ll stay near the I’m going. It’s Yeah, I’m going to be living my best life in the condo downtown, walking distance to the bars.”

Yeah. You were like, “No, that I don’t think that’s what the We’re here to work. We’re here to work.”

Okay, got it. Right. Yeah. Okay. So, then we looked for houses that were somewhat near the Proton Center. And we pulled the trigger on a house and then it was like, “Okay, well, we have to furnish the house. What are we going to do?”

Oh my gosh. I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget it. So, I think it was just David and I here that week and David goes through Amazon doesn’t have a catalog, but if they did, he went through it. Yeah. The kitchen catalog. And so, we were here opening box after box after box and it’s cold. We have no furniture. Yeah. We’re sitting on lawn chairs.

Yes. February.

Can these canvas, you know, camping chairs. And I’m looking at this mountain of cardboard. There was a mountain of cardboard taller than me. It was it was seven or eight feet tall. And I’m thinking, and I’m away from home, and I’m like, “What have I done? This is my existence now. I’m in this strange city. I’m away from my family. We’ve signed up for this. We’ve committed a lot of money. We have no other This is our job. What have I done?”

Well, and we’re still bootstrapping at that point.

Well, you have no furniture. And so it was, you know, we didn’t go get the furniture that’s already put together.

We got the furniture. Why would we do that?

We had to put the furniture. Pay for pay someone to put to put it together.

No, we had to put it together. And I prioritized our collective comfort by getting a big TV, really fast internet, right? And some TV trays and some lawn chairs. So that if you came to visit us in those first few weeks or really probably the first month or two and came into the living room or came into the house, what you saw was three lawn chairs, three TV trays. Yeah. A big screen TV and some really fast internet.

Yeah. And then you softy moved, right? You moved back to Oklahoma. Yeah. So Chris and I still use those TV trays.

Oh, well good.

Absolutely. We don’t have a kitchen table. Yeah. We don’t have a kitchen table. High quality TV trays.

Yeah. Recliner. Shout out to whatever Shout out to whatever Chinese company made those TV trays.

And they’ve lasted six years. Well, and I still I mean we all still have the you know the nightstand, the Amazon nightstand, the Amazon lamp.

Oh yeah. The Amazon chest of drawers.

We had matching furniture.

Yes, we did. Yeah, we did. Matching headboards, matching dressers, matching

Yeah. It was three of everything. So yeah, that was but you know, we laugh about it.

And throughout my career, I’m older than you guys. There’s been a few instances where I’ve truly had synergy. Yeah. With someone and I’m and I believe in synergies. 1 plus 1 equals three is a really powerful thing. It’s a very rare thing. And that time in the rental house, what when did you move back? How many months in?

Well, it was year and a half. Yeah. So, we bought the we closed on the deal in January. So, January 22nd of 2019, we closed on the purchase. And then I moved back around May of the next year.

It was right during a year and a half. We’re all We’re all three. We have one car. We have we share a house. We have one car. And it will be probably the most high-performing time of my career, I think. And that’s one because we did everything together. We ate together. We still cook breakfast together. Chris and I do because we still live together when we’re here.

I cooked some great meals for you guys.

David was the best cook.

David absolutely. He’s the messiest, but he was the best cook.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I cooked, you guys cleaned, quality of the food has definitely gone down, but the house is clean.

Yeah. But that year and a half or so was the stakes were so high. Yeah. The pressure was so intense. You had to perform. Yeah. But you know, looking back, it’s certainly one of the most proudest times I’ve had in my career.

Well, and as you mentioned, you talked about working on the radio ads or the TV ads or the taglines for the center and we really were start I mean it was creating a brand from scratch like it was a new name, new website, new we met with the TV station about billboards at lunch together. It’s like okay, seven words or less and we’re like all right, we got to think of seven words or less to go on these billboards. More than a cure quality of life.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So we and Yeah. I mean, what do you do in the evenings? We’re here in Oklahoma and we just work, right? And there were there was some desperation too a little bit at that time because you know we went from January until April again with no revenue coming in not treating patients and then even after we reopened it’s not like the field of dreams if you build it they will come. There was no guarantee that the patients were going to come back because it’s a new brand. The center had shut down for multiple months. New doctors. We have new doctors. The hospital partners pulled out of the deal. The doctors that had been there are long gone. And so there was it was a as desperate of a situation as you could describe. No patients, no doctors, no brand, no hospital partner. And I’ll throw on top of that, another proton center had opened, right? Yeah. The month we started, right?

Oh, you opened up a second proton center in their same town. That’s happened? What?

Like I think there’s two or three other cities in the US that have two proton centers and here we are in Oklahoma City, one of the smallest markets in the country with protons and we have competition. Yeah. And it’s OU and

Right.

The big name brand. Yeah. Yeah. Those were those were wild times at the house and with the car and just coordinating. I mean, we had to coordinate who had the car, which I guess for the most part, we were going to work and coming home, and there was a gym. We joined the was there the 24-hour fitness, right? That was that was a terrible decision, but we could run to the gym.

Yeah. Yeah. It was so close. We could and I think going to that gym built up immunity that prepared us for COVID, right?

Yeah. So, that Yeah.

And somehow we stayed off the steroids. Everybody else in there was on steroids, right?

I would go in and admire myself in the mirror as much as the guys that were on steroids. Yeah. I had no reason to.

But Well, also there was not a whole lot of overlap between us. Yeah. Like, you know, I mean, we all it was kind of like the trivia pursuit pie, right? I mean, we all had our piece. Yeah. And we all contributed and we were all rowing in the same direction. And yeah, it was fantastic because we just worked very well together. Yeah. And also like I wanted to perform the two of y’all. Yeah. Like I needed to give my best game because I wanted, you know, us to be successful and that meant all three of us being successful. So, and I felt like y’all did the same. Y’all still I mean we still do, right? I mean it’s not past tense. It’s it’s we give our best. So, I wanted to perform for you guys, you know. I mean, it was we were in this together. It was a third a third a third. Always was and always will be. And I wanted to give my best. And I could see that y’all did too. So, yeah.

Well, and I think I mean, you mentioned that there’s minimal overlap in what we do. I think, you know, it’s one thing when you set out and there’s a little bit of desperation, all hands on deck. We’ve got to do whatever it takes to be successful and get this center back where we’re covering operating expenses. We’ve got to focus on generating returns for the investors those first couple years. We’ve got to deal with COVID. Our patient volumes dropped in half, right, the first six months of COVID. And then you come out of that. But we’re still we still have maintained that synergy and I think that respect for each other and that collaboration.

Well, and trust. I mean, you know, we’ve we’ve all worked at other places and you know, the trust allows you to move so fast. Yeah. And so when there’s a lack of trust and respect feeds into that, right? Because you if you respect somebody, you trust them. Yeah. And so there’s there’s I think so much mutual respect. It doesn’t mean it’s always been easy, right? We’ve not always agreed with one another. But I think we have so much respect and that leads to so much trust. We can move so fast. Yeah. And once you once and we’ve had really tough times and David used the word pivot, man, we’ve pivoted so many times. And once we move, we go fast. And then rely on each other’s strengths. I think to really perform. And that’s been, certainly a blessing in my life. I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s really changed my life. I mean, this risk and opportunity is has been a life-changing experience for me and my family.

So, flashing back because I don’t think that we talked about this there. What was the moment you were in Charleston? There’s a story about you being in Charleston. Was that Was that with the equipment and I called you? Oh. And you were with Gina. This was this was back in like October, November.

Well, I was I remember being in Charleston. It was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Yeah. So, a lot of this happened over the winter. It seemed like it was always raining, too. I remember wherever we went, it was raining. Cold and raining. I thought, man, if this isn’t a sign, it’s a turnaround to them. But we were working on the purchase agreement and I was working because I was still working for our old company. So, I was working at night and on the weekends. Yeah. On this stuff. And I was work we were Thanksgiving. I was in Charleston. And I told the family, I you guys are just going to have to go. I’ve got days worth of work to finish this purchase agreement.

And it got to the point where I and I told my wife, I said, “I’ve got to let my boss know that I’m doing this because it’s it’s it’s taking too much time. I’ve got to start spending time during the day.” I started feeling guilty because you guys had already left. You’re working the deal. I’m working on it at night. It’s taking now too much time. And I said, “I’ve got to tell my boss that I’m going to pursue this.” Yeah. And she said, “He’s going to fire you.” And I said, “I think you’re right.” Yeah. And I finally told him November 28th that hey, I’m gonna I’m gonna go work with Chris and David on this. And we hadn’t won the deal. Yeah. He didn’t have to fire me.

Yeah. And he fired me two days later.

Yeah. And then you’re walking out after you got fired and that’s when you texted me and said, “We got to tear apart the cyclotron.”

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I thought, “Oh my gosh.” And then there was something else that happened. And not to go backwards, but you Oh, the bidder protections.

Oh, the bidder protections.

So, something else happened when I was at our old company and I’m walking out thinking, “Okay, that didn’t go so well.” Oh, I just got fired. Yes. Yeah. I just got fired November 30th and we have a call with our counsel because there was a one of the steps in the bankruptcy was approving our purchase agreement and we had asked for bidder protections and creating the stalking horse and creating the stalking horse and as a stalking horse most the time you get your money back if you don’t win. That was the thing. We had bidder protections if we didn’t win we got our some of our money back.

Yeah. Well consolation, right?

There was a there was there was a if we got beat I think there was a portion of the difference of the purchase price that came our way to essentially cover expenses for being the stalking horse. Yeah. And we had a call and they said, “Oh, you didn’t get to bidder protection.” And I was like, “Okay, so I just got fired, right?” Yeah. I have no job. Yeah. And the one piece of security to cover these all these expenses and these bidder protections and the judge overruled the bidder protections. Yeah. And we’re and we’re staring down probably a half a million dollars in expenses each.

Yes. Easily.

Yeah. Easily. It was It was a ton of money.

Yeah. Did I tell you David outed me for not having a job to my to my children?

No.

Yeah. So I was So I was I would get up and I would go work in the basement and you know they’re going to school, right? And I don’t know what day it was, but I hear David coming. He’s loud. You know, I hear him come upstairs and he’s talking to Gina and he sees my daughter Kenzie. He goes, “How’s it feel to have an unemployed dad?”

And I’m like, I hear it and I’m like, “Oh, I guess I better go explain some things.” I was still working on messaging at that point.

Yeah. You’ve gotten better at that.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. The taglines, you know, I had Well, I didn’t want to I didn’t want to trouble my kids with, you know, unemployed deadbeat downstairs in the basement. I just was going to let them know they may not be getting gifts for Christmas that year. It was it could have been a skinny year.

It could have been a skinny year. Yeah. Yeah.

So I asked that story because you look back on that day getting fired, walking out and I think it was that same week that I called you and was like, “Hey, by the way, we’re trying to buy this proton center.” And the entire center and its ability to function is based on having a working particle accelerator. And I’m sorry, Tom, we don’t have a working particle accelerator at the facility. We should still try to buy it. I’m sure they can fix it, course, but yeah, let’s just keep going. And yeah. And then, yeah, we don’t have bidder protections.

So, now looking back, what are maybe one or two things that you’re most proud of? You know, it’s it’s tough as the as sort of the operations guy. A lot of it’s I do a lot of the grunt work I feel like which is fine. That’s that’s sort of my thing. But I think some of the big things, you know, the payer contracts in Knoxville we had none. And so here it’s I think I stalked the regional United rep for almost a year. We got and I finally got a meeting with him. We got a contract.

We met with Blue Cross Blue with Shield when we first started. We had the existing one from ProCure, but we’ve since changed that. That took I think almost four years to change the contract. And those things make a big deal, right? You’re able to treat more people. You’re you’re able to help more people. You know, the other thing that sort of sticks out in my brain and everybody contributes to this obviously is in Knoxville, we’re so reliant on marketing and self-referred patients. And I think I think here we’re Chris said we’re putting the we got a board meeting tomorrow. I was just looking at the board materials.

I think probably 65% of our inquiries are physician referrals.

Wow.

And so think about that, right? We’ve really validated our proton center, who we are, who our staff is. And it’s so much better. Like when a patient’s referred by their physician, you have instant credibility, right? And so, and that’s evolved over time. And that’s the opposite of Tennessee, right? It was two-thirds were self-referred, a third were physician referred. So, we’ve really done a great job of meeting the physician referrers where they are, making them realize we’re we’re partners instead of competitors. And that was not the same thing in Tennessee. Which made it a lot harder. And the 800 patients that I think we treated last year total.

That’s not just in protons, but total, you know, that’s that’s a result. One thing that Chris reminded me of was, you know, RMA, the group that told Dave and I, no. Yeah. Right to our face. It’s not that they wanted to think about it. It was no, we’re not going to work with you. We have thought about it. It’s no. Yeah. About a year in they wanted they wanted to treat patients at the Proton Center. So that was a true testament, I think, to what we’ve achieved, and validity and good care. And for them to and we made a we finished a professional service agreement with them that gave them privileges at the Proton Center, which

again, validation to everything that we sort of and some great doctors with that group. Great doctors. Yeah. You treat more. I mean, we wouldn’t I would say this, no way would we have started this venture if we didn’t believe in the medicine of proton therapy. I mean, if we were if we were twisting paper clips, right? You know, we wouldn’t have done this. We wouldn’t have traveled away from home for this many years. This many I think I’ve I was telling Chris, I think I’ve probably traveled here 160 times. Yeah. You double that for the trip home. Yeah. This is over 350 between 350 400 times I’m traveling back and forth.

That’s a lot of time in the airport. It’s a lot of time in the airport. And you don’t do that unless you really believe in what you’re doing. And we have great people. And so that helps it too. We’ve got great a great staff. We’ve always had a great staff and who care about the patients and that’s inspiring too, right? So that sort of keeps you going. You know, that’s that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of is with our staff. When we when we took over actually right before we closed on the loan to purchase it out of bankruptcy, we had an all hands meeting in the conference room. I’ll never forget it.

And you know, this staff had been through multiple iterations of management.

Yep.

And nothing ever stuck. President a year. I think as a president a year and so they sit us down. They don’t know us, right? And we’re doing all this stuff, you know, behind the scenes and trying to get the deal and the staff is there wondering like who are these guys? And they know you cuz you used to work there, but they didn’t know us. Yeah. And so we’re sitting there and I’ll never forget this like I’m looking and there’s like they’re they’re just like they’re doubters, you know, and that’s that’s what they’ve evolved to, right?

And finally one of the ladies, she’s she’s retired but now, but she was there and I remember I just I was like, “Look, just give us a chance. You know, we’ll prove to you that we are good operators, that we can that we can do this, but just give us a chance. And I remember saying, you know, if you looked at their 401k, they had never gotten a match. Yeah. Right. It was always a discretionary match. And guess what? It was never given. They had not had merit raises in like five years. Yeah.

And they hadn’t gotten a bonus in five or six years. And so I remember us saying to them, look, this is what how we envision this in the future is that you’ll get a nondiscretionary match. It won’t be our you will get the match. There will be merit increases on an annual basis and then there will be an incentive plan that you guys can achieve and we’ve done all those things. So I’m I’m very proud about that we’ve we took a situation where the employees were not well taken care of and now they are. Yeah.

So yeah.

Well, that’s a great point. And there were some folks who probably, you know, you think about what that center went through, the ebbs and flows and ups and downs, mostly downs. A lot of good people will leave. Certainly we had a lot of dedicated people. Some people probably maybe not should have been there anymore. And so you have to sort of deliver that bad news and that impacts your you know the way people view you and that was hard to do. I mean some of those people have been there a long time but so and you look at the staff today what this is this is what almost seven years ago. This is almost seven years. Yeah. And most of them don’t remember all that because they weren’t there. Right. Right. And it’s a it’s a it’s a much more well-oiled machine now. It’s busy. And they’re great. And so fortunately, they don’t have to remember all that bad stuff, but they’re still I don’t know 20% of the people who were probably there when you were there originally.

Well, we’ve added service lines. We do brachytherapy now. We do ultrasound ablation. We do traditional radiation. We’ve opened up an ocular melanoma program. Yeah. We’re doing theranostics. So, we’re doing we’ve added the breast center. So, we’ve added a lot of programs as well, which I think is exciting. We do procedures at the facility, which has helped us develop relationships with some of the referring physicians. I mean, those things add up.

So, Chris, anything else that comes to mind for you that is something that you’re proud of or maybe what are what are things that you’re looking forward to over the next year or two?

You know, look, I’m a I’m a numbers guy, right? I mean, I again, back to the board material. In 2020, that was our first full year, right? Because 2019, we started in April, and so we only got, you know, a little over eight months. 2020 net revenue, $19 million. Yeah. And now that was a little bit of COVID, but that was that was our first full year, right? We just we just published financials for the Proton Center for the first six months of 2025. Almost 17 million in

Wow.

Net revenue. So a full year five years ago 19 million. Yeah. First six months in 2025 almost 17.

Yeah. That’s amazing.

That’s really is a and I think to one thing that’s amazing about that is that we’re living in the field of oncology and specifically radiation oncology in a decreasing reimbursement environment. Right. So we get paid less per patient right today than we did in 2020. And yet you just talked about we’ve almost had the same amount of revenue in six months that we did in 12 months right five years ago. So, I mean, so, and that’s a testament to our employees and that’s a testament to the marketing. That’s a that’s a testament to our doctors, you know, and our brand.

I mean, you know, we treat these patients like, you know, the like they’re they’re the only thing that we have. I think I wanted to say this. Earlier I was talking to the front desk, Tessa at the front desk and she said that we just had a patient from UK. Yeah. That came in that was treated as a 10-month-old. Yep. And now he’s 10. And the parents came. They’re on a the another episode. Another episode of the podcast. Okay. Yeah. Shout out to the Cancer Project podcast. A previous episode that’ll be released. Yep. So, the parents So the kid does not remember, right?

I mean, he was 10 months when he came and got treatment and now he’s 10 years old. But the parents remember and the parents told Tessa after they had done the gone through and met everybody and all the new staff and she’s like the way that the patient is treated has not changed one bit. Like it’s still the same culture for the patient. So I thought man that’s that’s fantastic and that’s ultimately the goal. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we’re passionate about what we do. It’s about the patient, right?

It’s about people that are walking into our facility that are going through for a lot of them the hardest thing that they’ve ever gone through certainly physically, emotionally, psychologically, and we’re intersecting with them at that moment in time in their life. And we have this opportunity to provide a service to them. And we talk about the financials, and the financials are a benchmark. I mean, it’s a it’s a measure of success. But ultimately what that says is you’ve treated a lot of patients and you’ve created a model or a structure that’s going to enable this center to continue to stay open and continue to provide great service for these patients for years

to come. And we’re we’ve reinvested a lot of the money back into the facility upgrading software, upgrading equipment, and we’ll continue to do that going forward.

So, what just thinking about what’s next, what are you guys most excited about over the next few years from a personal or career standpoint?

Well, I think about I was thinking about before this you know where we are. So, we even have another opportunity, right, we’re working on now to add a location. Yeah. And so we are the largest nonhospital-based radiation therapy provider in Oklahoma. Yeah. By a long shot. Yeah. And so and one of the busiest proton centers in the country. There’s 50 proton centers in the country. We’re probably top five in terms of the number of patients that we treat. Our manu our system manufacturer IBA is like you guys are the busiest customer we have. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy. That’s crazy for little old Oklahoma Proton Center. Oklahoma Proton Center with another proton center in the market.

Right. Right. Yeah. By the way, when you fail, come back.

Yeah. Exact. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So, you think about that and you think about the other locations we’ve added and the other service lines we’ve added. And I think knowing us, we will figure out how to I don’t want to use the word leverage, but grow it from there with sort of the nucleus that we have, which we’ve done already. And some of those opportunities were opportunistic. I mean, they came to us. Of course, we had to figure out how to get them done. But I think I think that’s exciting.

I think the other thing you know cancer therapy I think is going to change a lot over the next none of us are physicians right so we won’t go there in the in the technical details but imaging is changing I think there’s a lot of activity around we do theranostics now at the proton center which is interesting it’s early stage right there’s really only one major indication for it but there’s a lot of work in that space and I think we’re perfectly positioned to try to leverage that going forward.

So of course the doctors will have to drive that but I think that’ll be interesting to see how we sort of fit into that landscape over the next I don’t know five six years.

Chris, what about you?

You know, I’m I’m really excited about the new the new companies that we’ve created the last two or three years that I mean, I think I think the Oklahoma Proton Center as a customer for those companies is a great launching pad. Yeah. Right. But also those companies are giving the best service back to the Oklahoma Proton Center. You know like we’ve got IT service like we’ve never had before. We’ve got billing like we’ve never had before. So, I think it’s I think that’s just great that we can take an opportunity like that, hire really good people that care and that are passionate about it, provide the best service to the Proton Center, but then also let them use the Proton Center as a as a launching point to really grow their business. I think that’s that’s that’s been really smart for us to do that.

Yeah, I think that’s exciting and for me I’m still and I know I know you guys are too really passionate about proton therapy and the we get to see dayto day the clinical benefits that treatment modality provides for patients reducing side effects improving outcomes potentially even as a recent MD Anderson head and neck study demonstrated extending life for patients. And so I think creating more access for proton therapy is going to be something that we are very well positioned to do. We have a lot of experience. We’ve been able to operate a center very successfully for a number of years in Knoxville, take that model to Oklahoma, improve on it, expand on it, successfully operate that center, and I’m excited to get involved with other Proton projects down the road.

So, well, I really appreciate you guys coming on.

Yeah, this has been fun.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My first podcast.

Yeah. Mine, too.

Well, you guys were great. I think this may need to be a recurring episode. You know, we can opine on anything that’s going on. We may venture into sports, politics, you know, whatever. Can we talk about Coldplay and the

We could

Yeah, cuz that’s all over.

We can talk about politics could be dangerous.

We could talk about proper concert etiquette.

Yeah, exactly.

Politics. Yeah, just about anything.

So, well, again, thank you, Tom, Chris. Loved working with you guys and also love doing this podcast.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having us.