Join us as we engage in a captivating conversation with a 33-year-old real estate mogul who believes in forging his own path to success. From purchasing his first rental property at 19 to owning extensive residential and self-storage units, he has continually sought new opportunities to grow and expand. Learn about his mindset, his calculated risks, and his vision for the future, all of which reflect a relentless pursuit towards sustaining and enhancing his thriving real estate empire.
I'm John Ryan. Welcome back to Must Know People. And today, got a great episode for you. I love to feature people just involved in a lot of things. And when I thought about the guest list for this season, this guy was at the top of my list. First of all, met all the criteria from Carol, stuck around the area, wanted to be in Carol, is involved in so many things. And I tell you, started literally kind of at the bottom, if I can say that, and has worked his way all the way up to the top. It seems like it's Kyle Bauer, who is the general manager of New Way Auto Group in Coon Rapids. But Kyle, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate it.
Yeah, John, thanks for having me. I really appreciate this. What did you think when I called you? You know, I always looked forward to hearing these, you know, you know, when's the next episode going to drop? You know, when I heard the first one, like, gosh, I can't wait to hear the next one. You know, it's something I just looked forward to. And it's it's nice to hear and get to know some of the people throughout the community. You know, even if you do not know them to know their story a little bit more.
Exactly. And I thought that was why you would make a perfect guest for this, because a lot of people may know you, but they don't maybe don't know your story, things like that. So we're going to get to know that here over the next hour or so. You are involved in so many different things right now. Can you actually name and remember all the things that you're involved with right now?
Yeah, probably because I'm younger yet. I like to think that.
You're all of 33, by the way. So keep this in mind when we're talking here.
I think I'm always looking for the next thing, too. I'm never just satisfied to sit back and sit there and wait for an opportunity to come. I want to go get it or go create it. I'm going to steal Kimmy Hackett's saying, opportunities don't just happen, you create them. And I truly feel that's what you have to do on some of the things. If you want something, you just have to go get it.
So give me a list.
What are you involved in? Yeah, so I started really in real estate at a young age. I bought my first rental property. It was a rental house. I bought my first one when I was 19. And then it kind of grew from there. And I bought my first storage facility when I was 21. And I bought my second storage facility when I was 23. And then I bought my third and fourth storage facility a few years after that. And then, you know, the houses I've kept adding to the rental homes. And then... How many do you own right now? Personally, I own 13 rental homes and then I've got four self-storage sites. So there's just over a hundred storage units. And then another coworker, Tom Hawcap, him and I having a conversation one day and Tom, Tom was saying, well, I'd like to buy some rentals. I'm like, well, you know, I'm, I've got my hands on a lot of other stuff, but if you want to, Tom, I'm, I'm okay doing it. And I said, I may not be able to commit as much time as you. And, and you know, we talked about that and You know, we bought our first one two and a half years ago, and we just closed on number five two months ago.
And you bought the car wash, Pettit's car wash?
Yeah. So July 1st, a friend, Jesse Weidel, and myself purchased Pettit's car wash. And it's crazy how that all came about. I bought... just over two years ago, I bought the old super wash lot located next to the old McDonald's. And I had, you know, I had these big dreams of putting a car wash there and that's what I wanted to do. And that was the reason I bought it. And, uh, you know, you start looking at the financial investment, what it takes to do it and, you know, doing it yourself and on a risk, you know, I wasn't comfortable on that, you know, that spot yet and, and having the capital to do it. And I've known Jesse for quite some time and, you know, started talking to him and we measured stuff out and kind of had it planned. And then, you know, he said, What about Pettit's? And, you know, I'm like, Well, I graduated with one of Todd's daughters, Kristen, and I'll go talk to him. My uncle worked for Todd for many years and still does kind of help and move people. And so I went down, and it was February of last year, and I sat in the office and just asked, have you thought about retiring or selling, Todd? And he said, well, it's something we've been talking about. It was a long process to get everything together. So you sought him out. I sought him out. He wasn't seeking you out. No. I went down knocking on the door there. Yeah. Probably caught him off guard a little bit, and I went down there another time, too, and just kind of a follow-up, and then we went out to eat at Hoonance one night. It was Jesse and myself and Todd and Pam, and then people see you in public, and then they're starting to put some stuff together, and you have people ask, hey, are you purchasing the car wash? We finally got a deal done and financed, and You know, we worked with the SBA on that and Commercial Savings Bank and with Ryan Milligan. Great relationship with Ryan. He's made things easy for me on the lending side of things or if I need something.
And it wasn't just one of those deals where you were going to take over. You remodeled everything. You redid the car wash.
Yeah, sometimes I've got to tell myself, you've got to pull the reins back a little bit, Kyle. Slow down. Slow your roll. And, you know, I've always been, I want it right now. You know, I want to do it right now. But, you know, I get to it. I pull the reins back a little bit. You know, things take time. And we dealt with the DNR and removing the gas pumps and tanks. You know, that was something that, you know, I never dealt with before.
Mm-hmm.
And then, you know, we ordered equipment.
It's got to be daunting. I mean, just to undertake a project like that. But you turned it into something really, really cool. You also owned a party bus business in the meantime, didn't you?
Yeah. Do you still own that? No. So purchased the party bus business. Another gentleman and I purchased the party bus business. And we had that up and go. We had three buses and then COVID hits. And the craziest part about the insurance is I think we paid more for insurance in one year than we paid for all three buses. And then COVID hits, and there's not much going. It was fun. It was fun. We'll just say it was fun. It was a fun business to be in. Back to the car wash, we purchased it in July, and we started doing the rehab about a week after we purchased it. We ran it for about a week, and then the new equipment started to... We got a ship date on that. We... Did demo with all the old stuff and hauled that out. And my dad works at a junkyard, so I gave everything to my dad. Like, hey, you know, get rid of all the metal and whatnot. In the meantime, it was kind of crazy. There was another opportunity of a car wash that came up that we ended up purchasing, too. So we purchased our second car wash. And before this one was even up and done and operational, we purchased and closed on our second car wash location in Audubon. And that's a car wash and laundromat.
So you can add that to the list of businesses that you're into?
Yeah, so it wasn't necessarily planned or expected. It was just kind of an opportunity that that one just kind of fell in our lap. And we talked about it. You know, is it the right move? I don't know if it is, but it's close to home. You know, it's a 30-minute drive. Jesse lives in Templeton. You know, he can run down there quick. Where I live at, I look at my front door and I can see the Carroll car wash. So if there's an issue, it's something that can run right down there too. But it's been a good business.
You mentioned the word home. So let's transition back to that. You grew up here in Carroll. Almost all your businesses are revolving around Carroll. Talk about growing up here in Carroll. Where did you grow up and what street did you grow up on? Talk about that.
Yeah, grew up in Carroll, 641 San Salvador. All right. That was home, and we lived there, gosh, I don't know, until it was probably, my parents split apart when I was, I don't know, probably 10 or 11 years old. My mom lived in an apartment complex, and Dad stayed in the house until I was a junior in high school, and then he bought an acreage. And if I wasn't there, I was living with my grandma and grandpa. I was really close to grandma and grandpa. And that was on South Adams Street. That was home, too. So that was kind of a second home. I was there.
You were kind of a kid all around town.
I was, yeah. I was spoiled by them.
So what was it like growing up in Carroll? You obviously liked it. You stuck around.
Yeah. I don't know. I tried college. It wasn't for me. I'd come home every weekend when I was at college. Carol's got everything. For me, personally, Carol has pretty much everything I need. I can drive across town in five minutes. I look at going to Des Moines, you know, how long it takes to go somewhere. That's not me, you know, going out and knowing people in the community. And, you know, you go to a restaurant, you talk to people. You know, sometimes, you know, maybe you spend too much time talking, but it's nice being able to go out and know people and see people. Did it take you time to figure that out, or did you know that growing up? I'm not sure. I think it just came with time. I don't know if I really necessarily wanted to move away. I think I always wanted to be back here regardless.
Well, I tell you what, you made a big impact here on the town of Carroll. And by the way, throughout all those businesses, we haven't talked about the fact that you were holding down your full-time job at New Wave Ford as the general manager and getting into politics later on. But take me back to high school. What was high school Kyle like?
Oh, gosh. I honestly, I kind of struggled in school. I... I really had a hard time. I had some good teachers grade-wise. I had fun in high school and sports. That was really fun. I loved sports. When coaches tell you that enjoy the time while it lasts, you're thinking, nah. Well, it goes by a lot faster than you think. I've been out of school for 15 years now, and I look back, and I'm like, only if I could go back and do that again, I would do a couple things different. I would enjoy that moment. And if a young person listens to it, I would say really enjoy and embrace that moment because you only live once, and you're only going to have some of those experiences one time.
They always say youth is wasted on the young.
Yeah, it is.
Exactly. Who are some of the influences that you had in high school that, that you talked about teachers and my mom and dad were both teachers. So I love to hear the influence that they had on you.
Yeah. So I'm going to use my track coach. Um, it was my throwing coach, Amy Brown for shot and discus, you know, that was something I really enjoyed. And I didn't, I didn't start track until my sophomore year. And then, uh, You know, football, I did two sports, track and football. Amy was a good, good coach, and we had fun while doing it, too. And football, you know, we had a great group of coaches with McCartan and Schabel and Christensen and Noggle. Gosh, there's drawing a blank on some of the other, but, you know, there was a lot of those guys. You know, we had fun doing that, and we had good seasons. Do you run into them now? Yeah, every once in a while. You may go three, four years without seeing one of them, and then you'll see them two times in a week. You live in town.
Will they bring up football and memories for you?
Yeah, every once in a while we'll talk about it.
Remember that trip to the Dome, man?
That was great. Yeah, that was fun. Talking about one of those times, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, playing and experiencing that.
Yeah, for Carol, is that been their only trip to the Dome?
I believe so.
I believe so, too. I don't have that right offhand. If we had Blankman here, he'd be able to tell us in a heartbeat.
I seen Jeff out last night, actually.
What's your first job?
My first job as an adult or as a high school high school grown up? So my dad worked at Wendell Feedlot when I was in high school, and so that was my kind of first job. I hung a lot of guardrail and put in railroad ties in the ground for fence posts, and there was a lot of manual labor. And then I worked at Tractor Supply as well my senior year. We had a class called MO for multiple occupations where we were able to go out and work. So I worked at Tractor Supply.
What did those jobs teach you at that age?
Gosh, you know, at the time, you hated some of it. You know, I looked at working at the farm for Wendell's at the time. It was, I mean, it was hard work. It was hot. It was dirty. I would say, you know, one would be accountability and a work ethic and staying busy.
They weren't going to let you slide with just doing a half of the job. Yeah, those jobs will teach you a lot, and sometimes it teaches you what you don't want going forward sometimes. So that's interesting that you did some of those things. But I got to know you years ago because you worked at Champion Ford as a detailer in their department. So, I mean, literally in the car business, you started at the very entry-level position.
Yeah, so after graduation of high school, went to college for a semester, wasn't my thing. I came back and I lived with my grandma and grandpa. And I worked at the factory in Scranton building garbage trucks. And then when I bought my first storage facility, I bought it from the service manager at Champion Ford at the time, which was Larry Oberding. And I got a job detailing cars and kind of got my foot in the door in the car business.
How does a 19-year-old scrape together the money to buy that?
um well i didn't have any bills uh i lived with grandma grandpa true uh i lived with grandma grandpa and and uh my paychecks that weren't very much i honestly i still have some of my pay stubs you know from back in the day and you just kind of look at as things grow and you know i was like i was taking like 250 300 bucks a week home working 45 hours you know after you have your your insurance and stuff that comes out. And it's like, wow. But yeah. And then I'd mow, I'd mow lawns. I'd work at Scranton during the day. And then I'd come home and I'd work for Natalie Forky mowing lawns at night and wouldn't do it every day, but typically two or three days a week after I got off work. So yeah.
That's amazing. A 19 year old was old enough to say, this isn't enough. I want to be the owner of something. You want to invest in something. So what made you decide storage units and things like that were the way to go? Because it's been great for you.
Yeah, it has. You know, I, what really pushed me to real estate is, you know, that was probably before podcasts were really big to where, you know, you listen to people on a real estate podcast and you know, how they build their net worth and whatnot. I sat back and I looked at really people in the Carroll community, you know, people that have built net worth, a lot of them own real estate of some sort. So I'm like, well, heck, I can do this, I think. So let's give it a shot. And that's what I did.
As a 19-year-old, you, I assume, had to go to the bank.
Oh, yeah.
And get some financing with all of that. What was their reaction to you?
Well, I... I was actually living with my grandma. I still stay living with my grandma and grandpa when I bought my first rental house. And maybe it's because I was a favorite grandchild that some of the other grandkids would say. But, you know, I bought my first house that I ever lived in shortly after that and went to the bank. And I worked with Commercial Savings Bank with Ryan at that time. And it was good. It was easy. It was simple. It was... painless how scared were you starting that knowing that you're financially responsible for these bills yeah well I started you know it grew up we grew up with with not a whole lot so I figured you know hey worst case scenario I go back to that I want to build on it and if it doesn't work and you know I go back to where I started at and I knew I didn't want to do that so I was going to do whatever it took to make sure we didn't go back there
How long before you started that business did you realize, this is good? I'm going to make some money here, and I'm going to expand this.
Yeah. I don't think you see the actual return right away, just because time you have a payment and insurance and taxes, but the appreciation of value. Typically, real estate never decreases in value. Everything continues to go up. It helped me purchase the next piece. And kind of into the car wash, if I didn't have the real estate borrow my money against to help do that for my side of it, I wouldn't have been able to do that.
So all this from a guy who was cleaning cars. And by the way, that can't be a fun job. No, I did not enjoy that. You had to see the worst side of some people by cleaning their cars.
Some interesting things. But when I detailed cars, I did that for six or seven months before I was given an opportunity to be able to start selling cars. But I wouldn't change it at all because it made me appreciate from the ground up what it takes to get a vehicle ready for sale.
Yeah, you've done everything basically except mechanic, right?
Yeah, yep. As a general manager role, I got to learn a little more on the service side of it. You know, never sat as a service manager or service advisor. If I could do it again, I wish I would have been able to work up through those roles just to be able to, you know, touch, feel, understand it even better. But you learn more every day.
You've stuck with the car business. Obviously you like it.
I do. It's something different all the time. It's something different all the time. Meeting people, being able to help people network. It's given me some flexibility. It's fun. It's a lot of fun.
You talk about a business that has gone through immense changes. You went from pre-COVID times to, well, actually, even before that, you were probably too young, but cash for clunkers was going on. And so the car business really started to change then. But even through COVID and all that other stuff, supply chain issues, man, you guys have dealt with a ton.
yeah for me i'd say the biggest hurdle that i've experienced in the automotive business is kofid you know not knowing what the values would do somebody want to order a vehicle how long it would take for it to come in you know the market seemed like it just kept rising and rising and you knew that it was only a matter of time before the bottom fell out of it so you didn't want to get too heavy on you know vehicles or you know i was kind of skeptical of getting too many vehicles out there because when the market drops it's going to drop and it'll drop hard and fast I think it took longer than what I was expecting. But some of the values on some of the vehicles, it was crazy to see. But I think we see it now in some of the new vehicles, too, of the cost of things.
So all the time while you were working at the car business, doing things like that, been eventually in sales, you continued to add properties to your real estate portfolio, things like that. And how scary was that to keep on adding some of those? And did you ever feel overextended? This is iffy, but I'm going to do it anyway.
I remember both my mom and dad telling me, maybe you're doing too much. Maybe you're buying too much. Maybe you're getting involved in too many things. And I just remember telling them, I'm fine. If I feel overwhelmed, I'll quit. And you were how old? Oh, gosh. I remember my mom telling me that at a young age. My mom probably more so than my dad. And mom always told me, you know, kind of you're a dreamer. Well, yeah, but I'm going to achieve those dreams.
And you didn't rely on anybody else. You just relied on yourself.
Yeah.
I've always been under. Is that why you believe so much is because it was you. It was up to you totally.
Yeah. I always said, too, if I can't do it, I'm not going to go ask somebody else for help. So if I can't make this financially work or if I don't feel comfortable doing it, I'm not going to go ask somebody else.
When did you consider yourself successful at business?
Oh, I don't even know if I do yet. Really? No. Because I think there's more to come. I want to do more yet. I want to get involved in some more stuff. I don't know. It's something I enjoy, but I think there's more to be done out there yet.
How many hours a day do you work at this stuff? I mean, when do you sleep? I mean, it seems like that would be all-consuming, just trying to keep track of all the properties, all of that, your job, your full-time job, New Way Auto Group. So it's got to be just all-consuming.
Yeah, so like with Tom and I have... He's probably more, I know he's 100% more hands-on than I am. We'll go in and do some demo work, some, you know, rebuild work. But if he's there 40 hours on there, probably 10. So he does a lot there, and Jesse and I kind of split time between Carroll car wash and Audubon car wash. But, you know, like typical day is, you know, typically up around 5, and normally I'm getting home from, work at 630 or seven, and then there's always something to do running around and errands to run. And then Saturday mornings, I kind of relax, I sit at the office of the carwash, and I do my book work. And if that's relaxing, yeah, usually turn the news on or the TV and, and staying out and talk to customers when they come through and wash cars, which is another, another nice networking opportunity and getting to know people.
Do you get together with other business people? I mean, do you just kind of talk about that at all?
Yeah, sometimes I've tried to get some of my other friends into like going to do some stuff, but they've, you know, kind of been skeptical or scared or, you know, don't have the financial capabilities of doing it. But usually like when we go out away from business, usually we just, we want to go have fun and not talk about business. So I try to separate a little bit.
But when you do, I mean, do you, do you talk to some people and do you see red flags at sometimes the things that they're doing in their business that, that maybe you would say, I would back off from that.
Yeah, I think when you go somewhere, you look at maybe... the untapped potential that something has, whether it be marketing or getting more aggressive on something. I think when we bought the Pocahontas dealership three years ago, it was kind of a hidden gem, I think. They weren't selling that many vehicles. They were understaffed, and we've grown that facility about two and a half times of what it was. The building's still the same, but we have... It doesn't sound like a lot, but we have 12 employees to where when we bought it, we had five.
Yeah. I mean, that's huge growth for a community that size. To add that, what's the difference? How did it go from that to what you're doing now? What did you change? What did you do?
I just think the mentality, you know, they were ready, past ready to retire. They've wanted to retire for a while, didn't do a lot of advertising, didn't do much social media, third-party advertising, to where we kind of boosted some of that up, and that's really helped some things. I think the involvement in the community helps, too, making sure you get a name and a face out there to where when people are thinking of something, they hopefully think of you.
So what sparks your interest in maybe getting into a business? You said the car wash. You were kind of like, well, I'm kind of interested in that. How do you gauge your interest in something enough to go out and jump in both feet?
Well, it kind of started off on a podcast. And one of the things that really caught my attention is you have to think of how many homes have a vehicle or multiple vehicles. And then I started thinking of, you know, well, with the rising cost of vehicles, you know, people take care of their vehicles and people like to have them clean. So it's like, well... I think this would be a good opportunity, and I did some research on it, and I didn't know anybody that actually personally owned a car wash, so I couldn't sit and talk to them. Would they tell you the correct answers or numbers or not? One thing that was shocking for me is the financial investment of just the equipment itself. Yeah.
That has to be crazy because it's all computerized now.
It is.
It's not just putting in some sprayers and go to it, folks. It's complicated.
Yeah, the wiring that goes into it, you know, our PlayStation portals, they're all touchscreen. And when you open that up, the amount of wires and... Computer boards that are back there for communication. It's one of those things like, well, I hope everything works like a shit for a long time.
Like go back to the server rooms at the radio station. I mean, there's a million things there and they all have to work. Yes. If you're going to get water coming out to clean the car.
Yeah.
You know, it's crazy to think about that. But a number of years ago. So you owned multiple businesses, the storage, the rental homes, you're building homes now and condos, things like that here in town. And we'll get to that here in a minute. Plus your full time job at New Way Auto Group. You decided you were going to run for city council. And I remember asking you when you were running, you came in to record some ads. I said, what do you want to do that for? You talk about a thankless job. It's not one where you're going to get a heap of praise for. In fact, you're going to get a heap of criticism for. And I thought, what would you want to do that for? And you replied, I don't know if you remember this. You said, it's always been a dream of mine.
It has. I always look at, I want to make something better tomorrow than it is today, or make it better than I left it. And if I can help make an impact on something, I feel like this is one way that I could do it. And there's a lot that goes into it. A lot of things that, you know, not being involved in it, I never realized or noticed. And I'm 100% happy and thankful that I did it. I wouldn't change it at all. I think every young person should... should either think about it or get involved somewhere, sometime to get to know how some of the things work.
Now, I'm not pigeonholing everybody else on the city council, but generally it's been people in their 50s and 60s that have served on this. What perspective do you bring that was way different? And did maybe you run into some roadblocks being as young as you were?
Yeah, I mean, I think Carroll's always been, you know, it's the larger community around and, you know, Carroll has this, Carroll has that. But, you know, people think, well, the cost of living in Carroll's higher. Well... I've always been big on the economic development side of things of what can we bring here, the housing opportunities. I believe there's a major demand for housing in the community at all levels, and I've been an advocate on that for a while. And one thing I struggle with and still do with some of our lot prices throughout town, like if I want to build a home, you know, you talk about $60,000, $70,000 lot prices, then you've got to put up a home. Well, you know, you want affordability. That doesn't start at $65,000 lot prices. Mm-hmm. Some people don't like that the city gives incentives or gets involved in some of that, but I think if we ever want to grow, we've got to start doing some more of that that maybe they've lacked on in the past.
Now, when you first ran, I think the rec center was the big issue, wasn't it?
It was. It was a tough deal.
And you kind of ran, it seemed to me, tell me if I'm wrong here, like Tom Bordenero and J.J. Schreck, and you kind of ran as a block. It seemed like anyway.
Yeah. You know, we all have different ideas, different opinions on things. It was the first time that was a 3-3 split vote. That was a tough deal, because the design work and how everything was laid out was already done before we were ever involved, and one of the first couple meetings was, you know, voting on a multimillion-dollar project. There needed to be some updating done. Did that make you nervous? A little, a little. When you're green on something like that, it's a learning curve. The first time we did a budget, looked at the city budget, that was, you know, that's like, holy cow, there's a lot that goes into this.
So what was the biggest issue that you think you've dealt with on the city council since that time?
I'll tell you the hardest is, and it seems so simple, is vicious animals. Really? Because you're telling somebody that, hey, you can't have your pet anymore.
Sure, I suppose, yeah.
And I just look at my, you know, I've got two dogs, and, you know, they're like my children. I don't have any children, but they're like my kids, you know. For the longest time, I took my oldest dog to work with me every day, and he laid in my office, and, you know, it's truly a man's best friend. So you tell somebody, hey, you can't have that anymore, and it makes it tough.
Do you get a lot of feedback from people, voters out around town?
It's hit and miss. It depends on the issue at stake, I think. And it kind of goes in spurts. I always try my best to respond to everybody.
Have you ever taken a vote that you maybe felt one way, but your constituents, everything you heard from them was another way. And so you kind of said, OK, here's what the people want. Do you have any examples of that?
Yeah, I think it's kind of a split deal right now, kind of back on the economic development. How much does a city get involved on doing some economic development? Getting involved with doing incentives or such as land purchase. There was a big deal on a land purchase thing for future housing or future commercial. There's always been talk of this business or that business coming in, but if you don't have any bargaining power, you're not going to get some of those people here.
How do you deal with criticism? Because I'm sure that comes your way. Oh, yeah. Do you ever get somebody calls you up, it's just steaming mad, and then they calm down the more they talk with you?
No. No. Do they stay mad? I wouldn't say necessarily that. I think people go to the email method more so than anything. It's easier for them to send an email than talk to you one-on-one.
It's easier to vent all of their feelings.
Yes. Now you will still get some of the, you know, calls or one-on-one conversations. But I would say that the emails probably come more so than anything.
How do you deal with that? It's got to eat away at you a little bit.
Yeah. Some of it does more so than others. And some of the things I probably take a little too personal. But I just respond back with my true feelings and what I think is best, what's going to be best for the community.
And that's all you can do as an elected official. What's your least favorite thing about being on the council?
Oh, gosh.
Is there something you just, I mean, just not as like, I'd rather not do this, but it comes with a job.
I don't, I can't say that there is. I really like every aspect about it. Getting involved, probably going back to the vicious animal thing. I hate seeing those on an agenda. That's the hardest thing. Just tell somebody that they have to get rid of their animal.
So you've got, like I said, all this other stuff going on in your life. How much time do you have to commit to being prepared for a city council meeting and all of that?
Yeah, so typically, like for me, the Friday before our Monday meeting, we always go to MC's Cafe for breakfast. And it's usually another council member and Aaron and myself. We have breakfast. We talk about the agenda, go over it. know is there any questions get those questions answered you know so we you know we spend an hour there on that friday morning council meetings typically last you know 30 minutes to three hours or so anymore kind of hit and miss but then i always look through it over the weekend too i probably spend an hour looking through it over the weekend making notes jotting down things or looking back past at you know say a project for example
How would you describe yourself as a councilman? Are you conservative? Are you moderate? How would you describe your stances?
I like to look at myself a conservative just like I would in my personal life. I don't live in an extravagantly big home. I live very simple. But I think as a city, we're providing a service to people. And you can only cut back so far before you start affecting those services. And I think that could sound like equipment too. You have employees that are running this equipment. You can only run this stuff for so long before you start spending bad money on something, throwing money in repairs. versus taking that and putting it into something newer.
Do you see any future in politics doing something else other than city council?
No.
No? This is going to be it?
Yeah, city council will be it.
How long do you want to be on the council? I'll run another term. One more term? Yep. After that, you just see as it comes, or you definitely kind of got your mind made up?
We'll see how it comes, yeah. But one more term for sure. I'll run again this fall. And then after those four years, we'll see what's after that.
Let's shift some gears here and talk about your typical day, because I mean, with all the things going on, I talked to somebody who knows you pretty well. They said, man, you sit down and talk to Kyle. His phone's going to go off about 10 times. So you you're busy. You're always communicating with somebody about something. When does your day start? What's your morning routine like?
Yeah. Like I said, get up about five o'clock every morning. Alarm clock. Um, it's hit and miss, you know, for the longest time I did snow removal and I quit doing that a couple of years ago, besides my own, besides my own property, I did snow removal for probably, I don't know, 10 years. I would do probably 15 commercial properties and had at one time had 50 driveways and, It was myself and three other people doing snow removal, which transitioned away from that. So now it's more normal than getting up and having to worry about all that. But I would get up at 5, and I'd take the dogs out and feed them, and then usually I'll make eggs in a microwaveable bacon for breakfast. It's pretty, pretty sounds yummy. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. It's kind of gotten, gotten to be a normal. And then, uh, like now I'll typically stop at the car wash every morning and just check everything out, you know, make sure everything's good. Make sure there's no, you know, I always worry about a water leak or something like that. Make sure all that's good. And then, and then head to the dealership. And then when I get to dealership, I head for the coffee pot. I find myself drinking coffee a lot.
I was going to say, where does the coffee come in? I think for me, that's first thing. I go grab that first thing in the morning before I head out.
Yeah. So I get the coffee, and then I usually go through my morning reports. look at our requirements that Ford has us do, making sure we're meeting all those criterias. And then we'll have a morning meeting. On Tuesdays, we always have our morning meeting and management meeting, which takes anywhere from an hour to two, going over that. And then, yeah, just kind of working throughout the day. What time do you finish up? uh usually about 5 30 at the dealership and then you know then head home i i go to the pocahontas dealership two days a week so mondays and wednesdays are my day in pocahontas try to keep it the same every week that way the employees know that you know kyle's going to be here you know these days and then they're not you know wondering if you're going to be there or not and then uh the only the only bad part about about driving an hour is that hour drive home gets to be daunting but and then you know i would you know come home and And typically there's always some sort of running around to do, and then... Being kind of a bachelor guy, I'm not very good at cooking, so usually I'm meeting a buddy for supper or something like that and grabbing a beer.
What time do you call it a day? You're up at 5 a.m.
Oh, yeah. I really like to be in bed at 9. Is that right? That's about latest I like to be in.
Hey, I'm totally down with that. I wake up early, too, so I always love that. But what makes a good boss? I mean, you haven't worked for a lot of people. You've worked for yourself a lot. But it seems like the people I've talked to said, you know, you're a good boss. So what makes that person?
I always tell employees, I never want to be a micromanager. You know, hire you to be a manager, you know, like our management meeting, you know, we hire you guys to be a manager for a reason. I never want to be a micromanager. I never want to micromanage you. And if I have to micromanage you, then you are probably not going to be in this role. I always would like to be involved in something, but I don't want to, I never should have to be touching every aspect of any part of, you know, a car deal, service, anything like that.
Are you decisive when it comes to things like that? If somebody's not cutting it, they've had enough time in that role, you're going to say, I'm cutting it right now.
I'm probably too laid back in some of that. You know, usually have that conversation. But really, all of our employees at the dealership are very good, long tenure in the car business with a lot of experience. And you don't replace that experience overnight. Now, the city, I think when you look at a large city, their mindset's different than small town. And, you know, I think that that transitions into customers to how we take care of our customers, because I feel we take care of all of our customers the same way we'd want to be treated.
All right. So we're going to jump into some some little quick answer questions here. So you mentioned football. Big fan of football. I mean, what teams do you cheer for?
Usually Hawkeyes. I don't get much into NFL at all. Don't you? Just a college guy?
How much time do you spend on social media?
Probably more time on Marketplace, Facebook Marketplace than anything. Looking for that next bargain, aren't you? Yeah, yeah.
Is there a business idea that comes to you just looking through some of that stuff?
Oh, you know, sometimes I'll search, you know, say like a business for sale or storage units or look at real estate listings through there. You know, I got my real estate license about a year ago. So that's always something to, you know, get on there and look and just see what's out there.
What do you think is overrated right now in society and people as you see it? It's like, what do people spend their time doing this for or worrying about this for?
Oh, gosh. I don't know. I think I kind of live in my own little bubble sometimes. I don't know. I don't. I'm not. Besides Facebook, that's the only social media that I have.
What habit will you wish you could break? I've never had anybody pause that long at that question. Everybody usually has one right away.
It seems like when I sit in a car, I don't know, this is maybe a fall, like sit in a car, I fall asleep almost instantly.
Is that right?
If I could break that somehow or another, I mean, I don't smoke or anything like that. So yeah, I don't know.
Other than a bad case of narcolepsy. Yeah. What's your favorite meal? Oh, you said you weren't a good cook. So I'm not going to ask you what your specialty is.
I would say like a basic, like hamburger and fries.
Okay. Have you binged watched any show? You don't seem like a TV guy.
No. I remember growing up watching Walker, Texas Ranger with my grandma and grandpa. And on Sunday nights on YouTube TV, that's on. So usually there's two or three episodes in a row. That's what I find myself watching.
What's a fact that you just recently learned? A fact that I recently learned?
YouTubers, how much money YouTubers can make. It was talked about at the dealership the other day. Is that right? And I was blown away by it.
What do you consider a waste of your time? Other than needless podcast interviews.
No. It's a harder answer than it should be. Waste of time is, I would say, driving. For me is, you know, I spend a lot of time on the road.
Yeah, you mentioned that hour-long drive sometimes coming back from pokey and things like that. What's the best compliment you've ever received?
I would say after purchasing the car wash and Saturday mornings, we honored car wash tokens. And we took in a lot of them. And getting to talk and know some people, how many people were saying, appreciate you being involved in the community at a young age.
Would you rather spend money or save money? Depends on what it's on. Give me an example.
I don't mind spending money on an investment or real estate or something that you're going to see return. I like old cars. So I've got a couple of cars. I like that. That's really about all I spend my money on is on toys, vehicles.
You're not going on big fancy vacations?
No, I actually went on my first vacation last year. Did you? Where'd you go? Went to Mexico. That was the first vacation I've been on out of the country. And every year there's a group of us that go on a side-by-side trip. Well, that's really the extent of it.
Nothing too extravagant there going on. What's your favorite kind of music? Or do you listen to just podcasts? Because you mentioned those a couple of times.
Yeah, I do listen to podcasts, but I find myself listening to FM radio 93.7 almost every day, all the time.
There you go. Correct answer. Do you believe in ghosts?
No, I haven't had an experience with something like that. So I haven't had had that now.
All right, so give me a little advice for a high school kid out there because, you know, you graduated and college, you said, was not for you. You had kind of a plan and you started in on it. Give some advice to the kid out there in high school that, you know, is just not into that whole typical college route.
Yeah, I think for, I look back when I was in school, I felt like they always, you know, it was always, you have to go to college. You have to get a degree to, you know, earn a lot of money and be successful. And I don't think that's the case. Look at a demanding trade or, More so than anything, have a little bit of fire and motivation under your end, and you can do about anything you want. But if I could go back and do anything again, for going to school, I would have went for electrician, plumber, building trade, something like that, a high-demand job that you have got some of these older guys moving and transitioning out of, and there's not a lot of younger individuals that are in it.
Well, you're not a plumber, you're not an electrician, but I think you did pretty well for yourself.
Yeah, it's been good.
All right, Kyle, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it, man. It was great talking to you. John, thanks for having me. All right, Kyle Bauer once again joining us here on Must Know People.
