Latest / GAIN Momentum / Mastering a Hotel Renovation Project | with Brad Fortner
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- GAIN Momentum episode #62: Mastering a Hotel Renovation Project | with Brad Fortner === Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Gain Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, food service, and technology. Today, we have a special episode. We're focusing on construction and renovation. Within hotels and hospitality. I'm joined by our special guest, Brad Fortner at Team Hospitality Group. Brad, how are you? Brad Fortner: Well, Adam Mogelonsky: Great to have you. So we structure this podcast around four key questions that we ask all guests, but I want to start before that. I'm hoping that you could just give us a little bit of background on Team Hospitality Group and what your unique sales proposition is for the company. Brad Fortner: we're a construction company and we have a niche, uh, it is in hotel renovation and there's some really specific skill sets that really qualify us to, to be skilled at that and that's what we do. We're a GC. We are very focused on a really, um, specific niche in the industry. Uh, renovations need to be. There's a lot of intricacies to doing that well, it's, it's pretty fast paced. We can get into any of that that you, you have questions about, but that's basically the answer to that, Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, and hospitality, there are so many niches, so many niches. The renovation component is something that every single hotel needs to go through, uh, because it's inevitable that you need to update. You need to have a property improvement plan. You need to stay with the trends, both design, uh, technology, infrastructure, and upgrading your amenities. So Brad, we'll dive into our first question, then we can drill into some of the specifics about what Team Hospitality Group does. Our first key question is. When it comes to scaling a business, what is a single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs from your perspective as a professional in hospitality construction? Brad Fortner: I would say take your time, pump the brakes a little bit there. There's no substitute for experience, so do your homework. I, there's a post that I posted on LinkedIn. It was, I reposted it. Uh, I think the, the guy's name is wels, Jeff Belotti. He's the CEO of Wyndham. There's a nice interview of him that I reposted on my LinkedIn page, where he's talking about how his career progressed. Jeff started as a, uh, as a busboy. So, and, and now he's the CEO. There really is no substitute for learning that ground level. Whatever industry it is, but I think it's specifically really important in hospitality, hotels, restaurants, um. Learn from the ground up, you know, be a maintenance engineer for a little while, uh, be a project manager on a couple of, uh, renovation or construction projects. Uh, you know, work in the accounting department for a little while. There's no substitute for experience. I know in this day and age, we want to Google everything, watch a YouTube video and. We think we know it, really take your time, that wisdom that you gained from the experience, it's gold, it's priceless, so that, that would be the one thing I would, I would say to do. Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, nothing will ever beat the hands on and yet today, uh, the expectation is that it's all so fast and People assume that, you know, two weeks of training is all you need to learn the entire company, then they should be running the company. Uh, in terms of experience and, and training and learning, one point I want to touch on is that, uh, your formal background is in psychology. And this is so important for hotels, whether you're in construction, you're a technology vendor, or you're actually involved in operations, is understanding the mindset of guests. of customers and service culture. And I'm wondering how is, how is that formal education and psychology helped you to run and wear so many hats for a hotel construction and renovation business? Brad Fortner: Understanding, um, how people think and what their needs and values are. is key to everything. We're a service company, essentially. Yes, we're our niche is construction, but the more trust we build, the better we listen and just, uh, create that relationship where you can tell us what's most important to you. That helps me get to that outcome that we're shooting for. Outstanding outcomes is what the focus is, but how you do that. Is you really need to listen, you need to develop those skills of, uh, networking and trust and surrounding yourself with really great professionals. That's goes to psychology really is what it really is. The science of, you know, understanding how people think. Adam Mogelonsky: Well, okay, so let's, uh, let's drill down to outcomes because of course this is, this is where, uh, uh, stuff hits the road, so to speak. And of course, team hospitality has its niche. So how does a good GC add value to a renovation project? You know, in terms of attention, detail, planning, teamwork, and, uh, other skills that may involve understanding the client and expectations. Well, how does that add value to the outcome? Brad Fortner: Well, those three things are what you need to do. Well, the planning is so important. The more you do that, the more you're going to alleviate things that might happen later. You're, you're trying to, you're trying to cover all your bases. Um, sometimes, you know, change orders can happen just because sometimes preexisting Can't be forecasted. All right. Not, not always, but they're far and away lessened. If you do a really good job at planning, and the other, what were the other two things you said, planning and what else? Adam Mogelonsky: Oh, just, uh, teamwork and any sort of budget or attention to detail, you know, the, the, the minor things, right. Teamwork and Brad Fortner: right. And minor things, you know, what we do is not rocket science, right? It's a renovation. 90 percent of what we do is taking out what's already there and putting something back in. That's pretty similar to what was already there, but it's new, right? But the key is, um, you know, managing people there's any number of, there's maybe five, six, seven different trades on site at one time and everything is, um, it's scheduled in a way that. It needs to happen at the right time. So coordinating all those trades to work together as a team, teamwork, that's really, that's going to make or break you right there as a GC. You really need to hone in on that and do that. Well, Adam Mogelonsky: for this specific podcast, a lot of our audience are either owners. And a lot of them are on the technology vendor side. So a lot of them, they either have been up in the stratosphere for looking down at a reservation, a renovation in terms of the costs and, and outcomes and timeline, or they're in another cottage. industry to hotels and they've never, they haven't necessarily been on the ground for a renovation. So with that in mind, sort of looking at it from a beginner's perspective, uh, or a novice perspective, could you walk us through an example, the sort of soup to nuts of how you get involved, where those six or seven trades are that are on site, so that owners can understand the extent of what you do. and look at how you value engineer a project and then also so vendors or other, other industry leaders could understand where they might better plug and play into your process Brad Fortner: the planning stage is usually it began, let's say it's a branded hotel. Okay. And there's something called a PIP. All right. A partial improvement plan that typically comes from your brand people and they'll plan that maybe a few years out, but every few years they would like to see you give the hotel a facelift. Adam Mogelonsky: out of the owner's wallet Brad Fortner: that's true. And we can talk about brands, whether they're a good thing or not, but you know what brands help, they help you have confidence as a consumer. With the goods or services that you're going to be rendered. Right. So there's a reason people, they choose to fly the flag of, let's say Hilton or Marriott or whatever. Right. So those brand standards are really a good thing. If you think about it, that means if I go to a Hilton in Memphis, should be the same standard of service that I would go to a Hilton in Seattle. Right. there's some, um, Synergy there to what they're offering. Right. So, um, let's say the PIP people, the brand people have, have put a PIP together and the hotelier has that, and they know that they've got to do this, this, and that. If you send us architectural plans or blueprints or a PIP. and we look at that, we may have a few questions, maybe an RFR to, uh, to send, you know, up the tree and get an answer for it may need to go all the way to the architect or whatever. Typically we can put together, you know, a quote, uh, a proposal for services. Um, usually in a week or two, um, we, there may be some back and forth with some questions, uh, you know, about, whatever it is, what, what kind of door hardware are we using? What, what's the existing there? Sometimes there might need to be a site visit, but anyway, that period of time can take as long as you want to plan. And we can help you with that. And then once that stage is finalized and you choose a GC, if it's us, we'll start to order materials and plan for that project to start. When that project starts, we want to have everything there and procurement gets involved, right? A lot of your FF& E is coming. From overseas, it may be coming from Brazil or China. And so coordinating that and planning the start date to have everything there and then have the crew, all the trades people there, um, then, then it starts. Now, once it starts, there's some real procedural things that you do. Again, hotels don't close down for a renovation. They stay in operation. In other words, day to day business continues. So at that point. There are certain things that you do operationally to not interfere with the guest's experience while the hotel stays open. And yet you could do a hard re renovation. You're blowing through the whole, the entire hotel, right down to the slab and, you know, putting all the interior finishes back new, you got a new hotel. And, uh, anyway, there's, there's ways that you can, it's tricky. That's, that's what you do to a new hotel at the end of the, at the end of the day. Adam Mogelonsky: Now, one thing to pick out from your answer with regards to FF& E deliveries, and you mentioned, you know, coming from Brazil or China or Mexico. Do you have a framework or a guiding philosophy for optimizing between cost and delivery timeline? Brad Fortner: can you expand on that question? How, like what you can do to, Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. So, so, I mean, you know, oftentimes the, the going assumption right now in, as we're filming this in November, 2024, is that goods, if they're prefab might be cheapest from China, but if they take six months to get to you and you need them there in three months, you may go for something that's more expensive, that's prefabbed in Mexico or in Brazil because it has that slightly shortened, uh, delivery timeline. Brad Fortner: well, that's, that's the question. That's what you have to weigh out. And I would definitely do my homework and ask for examples of prior work. Because sometimes there's difference in quality of, you know, goods and services. When you start comparing apples to apples, I would definitely do that. what I'm trying to say is cheaper is not always better. And at the same time, faster delivery is not always better. Just, I would do your homework on that. And sometimes, um, you know, spending a little extra more is actually cheaper in the long run. You understand because then you're not having problems with it down the road. So a lot to weigh out there Adam Mogelonsky: And do you, uh, build model rooms on a lot of projects before you do the whole hotel? Brad Fortner: we do. And that's an excellent way to troubleshoot, you know, issues design teams, um, often come in when we do a model room and I get to watch them. Pick out every little detail, which is a lot of fun. I love to work with design. That's if you haven't had that experience, you really should. Once in your life, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun. These people are geniuses. They can, you know, identify a little. Orange strand in the carpet and you don't see it at the time, but then when the room is finished, you realize that that little one color strand ties in to the pattern of the wall covering or a lamp shade or just in it all. Pops. It's amazing. It's really almost jaw dropping the first time you experienced that. Model rooms are not something that we make a lot of money doing, Adam, but we do it as kind of a loss leader as a service because, um, you know, the big picture is it does make the overall project, um, much, much. Better planned, it's planned a lot better because you can physically be in the model room and see it, touch it, feel it, and, you know, see what it's going to be like. So, yes, we do, Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, the whole idea there is a, I guess, measure twice, drill once, pick out a lot of those last minute corrections that you may need from the FF and the order. on the topic of loss leaders, we're going to shift into our second major question and it's very open ended. So Brad, what are some of the common pitfalls or failures? You have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business. Brad Fortner: Well, back to taking your time and, and growing, sometimes slow growth is better than trying to scale too quickly. You know, um, I know everybody wants to do everything fast. You want to, you want to get there quickly, but sometimes slow growth in the long run, it is really better. And where that really, where the rubber meets the road with that. here's two things to think about, okay, some of these renovations, you may have a six, seven, 8 million renovation. Some of them are much more than that, right? The personnel to help you plan that project, the people that you have on staff, Them being experienced and you cultivating your team around you that really Operationally can take that project on and made it make it access. It's very it's very important Um a lot of times Hoteliers will use an owner's rep and owner's rep is, is not a bad idea. If you feel like you're a little light on just construction lingo, understanding how things are built or, you know, the structural integrity of buildings and how. That can be compromised if you don't know what you're doing, right? It may be a good idea to bring an owner's rep in and they can help you every step of the way, you know, from the planning stage, which again, very important, but all the way through that project from start to finish, Adam Mogelonsky: So, uh, you, you talk about growing slowly and steadily to make sure that everyone really understands their role and you can trust your teams. And I sort of want to segue to understand that from the context of where you are, which is in Western Kentucky and, uh, you're active in that area as well as Tennessee. And I imagine other, other states around there. And I'm wondering if, if you could color. The answer about steady, consistent growth with respect to the growth that you're seeing in the states where you're most active. Brad Fortner: well, we've been renovating hotels for about 20 years. So we we're coast to coast. And hoteliers, sometimes they're regional, but a lot of times they're all over the nation. Some of them are global, you know, um, so we, we do hotel renovations in California and we do them in Miami and every, everywhere in between. What do I see as far as the pitfalls of growth? Well, exactly, help me out. Tell me where you're trying to Adam Mogelonsky: Uh, Brad Fortner: in. Adam Mogelonsky: well, okay. So one of the pitfalls of growth might be unanticipated costs. Uh, things that, that come up and if you have a very experienced team, you're more likely to see those in advance and know where. a project may go wrong or where more planning is involved or where things where the second you start breaking down walls, you realize there's a lot of extra stuff that needs to be moved behind those walls. So, uh, a question therein, yeah, a question therein is, um, for everyone listening is what are some of the most anticipated areas where unanticipated costs can occur during a hotel construction, whether that's a A new bill, the renovation or any other sort of pet, Brad Fortner: Honestly, we don't see a lot. We work with hoteliers that are really very professional. And they understand that making mistakes can be costly. So, but I will tell you, let me give you an example of something that, that could happen. I've personally not seen this happen, but just like to get your head around about what, what we're talking about, let's say a hotel hasn't been renovated in a while or, or maybe codes have changed and you need to add ADA rooms. Maybe you need to add to a floor and there's however many floors there is in the hotel. Many times the, the area of the bathroom or some area in that guest room will need to be expanded. In other words, you may need to move a wall or move a water closet. If the toilet moves from this wall to an opposing wall, then that means that the toilet's got to have a drain and the drain hole through the slab is probably, there's tension cable. I will almost guarantee you that tension cable is in that slab. And if you were to drill that without an x ray, not knowing where that tension cable, well, the structural integrity of that building. Could be compromised. So I have not seen that, but it could happen. And after you work with people who are experienced, we all help each other look out for things that might be structurally compromising or cost. You know, it would push your cost up dramatically. And there are things that you can do, you know, to eliminate that, minimize that. You don't want to make those mistakes. And sometimes you make a change to the plans. It's actually a little bit more cost effective than what your plan was originally. You never know. I mean, sometimes it's more expensive, but I don't see a lot of change orders that, that just blow the budget out of the water. The planning is usually done pretty, pretty well, pretty precisely. Adam Mogelonsky: but you talk about planning and, uh, being cost effective, whether that is coming in later, where there's a change order involved or, or specifically during the planning stage. And the term that I see tossed around a lot is this idea of value engineering, and I'm wondering if you could offer maybe some other examples or a general framework for advising owners to when they look at a project that are really trying to value engineer it in terms of. What will keep it cost effective and what other items may, maybe are, uh, dare I say, superfluous from a design perspective, do you have any words of wisdom there? Brad Fortner: I do. And I had to look that term up to be honest with you. I wasn't familiar, here's one area that I see it's more, it's like a trend. And I do understand it and, and it makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know if you've noticed this, but a lot of tubs are going away in hotel bathrooms. Have you noticed this? Yeah. Okay. I think there's more than one reason for that. I think, I think the first reason is because I think hotel patrons, they want to see a nice, clean, updated bathroom. Okay. And if you switch out a tub to a shower pan, and now you've got nice new shower surrounds in that shower, it looks fantastic. It looks clean. It's easy to maintain and it's easy to clean. It looks great. I know I, when I say in a hotel, I'm always, I always love to see a nice new restroom, and if I see that big sliding glass door with. the brushed chrome shower door frame and everything. And I've got that nice shower in the surrounds. I love that, but think about the cost effectiveness of this too. How much water does it take to fill a tub and how much time do we spend? You know, showering, you see what they've done there. that's a double win. That's a win win that's a smart move. And I fully support. We're switching out a lot of tubs for shower pans now. There's, there's a lot of that going on. Makes sense to me. Adam Mogelonsky: I mean, I always looked at that from the design perspective and people wanted those nice, uh, those nice shower pans in the rain showers. And then I also thought about it from a safety perspective in terms of climbing into. Uh, a bathtub versus just being able to walk in and out as, as well Brad Fortner: Brother, I'm six foot 250 pounds. You, you, I can't tell you the last time I've been in the tub. It's been a long time. So yeah, Adam Mogelonsky: yeah, you know, people are getting bigger statistically, uh, height wise, right. Uh, I'm six, four, uh, I don't take baths, right. Unless I'm in a, you know, thermal resort somewhere where they, I know it's going to be big, but you know, I, I look at kids these days and they're all getting their vitamins and six, four is going to be on the short side going forward. You know, there's kids these days, it's like, you know, yeah, you're 6'5 I mean, good luck making the basketball team. You're not tall enough, right? Brad Fortner: That one makes sense. And that, that's what comes to mind when you ask that question. It's, uh, it's already underway where we're, we're seeing that a lot, you know, making the switch Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, and, and, you know, to tie that back to what you said about, you know, the brand, uh, not necessarily dictated, but brand guided renovations is the brands will insist that say, Hey, you got to move away from this tub because the design trend is moving this way. Here's the reasons why it's going to add value, the water savings, the cleaning times, the safety, all that stuff, but also. People are getting bigger. Um, you know, the other trend that I just remembered is if you look at the evolution of hotel desks, so the desks in rooms, they've gotten around 25 to 50 percent smaller because laptops have gotten lighter and people are preferring to work from their beds. And from the Divins, if you have them, Divins or couches versus working at an actual executive desk. So it's very interesting to see these trends, how they evolve, you know, over a 10 to 20 year time span as, as hotels go through their, their evolutions and their pips. Brad Fortner: There's a lot there. We could probably spend a whole episode just talking about those trends. There's a lot. Yeah. Adam Mogelonsky: Well, I mean, you know, that brings us perfectly into our third key question, which is, uh, Brad, what, what do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for. Hotels and also hotel construction or renovation companies in 2025 and beyond, both in terms of technology, labor and design trends that, uh, hoteliers should be cognizant of. Brad Fortner: Well, there's always challenges. I think the future is really bright right now. And especially, you know, if you follow current events and notice what's happening with the market lately, I mean, wow, huge upside next four years, four or five years, this is exciting. The market was already, you know, we went through COVID and we had that, that terrible time for, you know, us to try to, uh, Digest, endure, and get through, right? To me, I don't see how in the world, like business travel, conventions, um, you know, business group bookings and stuff like that. I don't see how that's not just going to explode. I mean, we're already seeing it come back, but in the areas that really catered to business travel and conventions and stuff, think the challenge is going to be to stay ahead of that. And provide enough infrastructure for there to be enough available for it to happen. I think it's going to explode. I really do. Adam Mogelonsky: Well, uh, so if we could break that apart, I'm also seeing the growth of business travel and convention travel, or the acronym there is MICE, uh, Meetings, Incentives, Conventions, Exhibitions. There's so much going on here in terms of how that's changing, particularly in the rise of remote work and hybrid work, where meetings and conventions are a way to really bring your teams together when they aren't necessarily meeting in a traditional office commercial space environment daily or bi weekly, tri weekly basis. So I see that huge growth potential as well. And from your perspective, in terms of recent jobs you've completed renovations, what are some of the design features that you've seen that really work as an outcome, either looking at the rooms specifically or other hotel features that you've built to really help facilitate the process? that mice growth for a hotel. Brad Fortner: Well, first of all, let's think, let's think about it this way. We've already talked about PIPs, right? And since COVID, those have kind of, sometimes they've been pushed back. Okay. And something else that has happened a lot of times, Instead of doing the entire renovation, they've chosen and brands have been really good to work with hotel owners to, to do this, but maybe they stage it out for a year or two and they do it in phases, right? So because of COVID because of whatever, they've decided that they want to kind of delay that and do it in stages. But think about the market, I'm thinking that, yeah, that's a possibility. And you always want to analyze it and see if maybe that's the right move. But with the market, the way it is, I'm thinking that it might be a better return on investment to look at doing more rather than less and delaying in order to tap into and stay cutting edge current with your facilities, technology, all of that, I think maybe. We need To be careful about the market can change dramatically. You, we saw that this week. Now the outlook's totally different than it was just last week. Right. So I don't know that before we even talk about specifics of facilities, what I see, you know, people doing or what I think. That's probably the big one that you need to really go back and look at and analyze and think, is my plan, is my path in the next year or two, for all of my facilities, has it changed? Is it different? Because it may be, and especially in mind of ROI, return on investment. Adam Mogelonsky: So, so, I mean, you, you talk about really stretching things out in stages and staggering the pep over, you know, a three, four year timeframe because people were uneasy in during COVID or something like that. And now we're seeing this just a trend where people are simply replacing a lot of the capital assets and the, uh, core equipment. Uh, versus doing a full scale PIP, just because those had to get done and were delayed during COVID. I'm wondering, you know, let's, let's say somebody wants to move on an accelerated timeline to really get up to speed, as you say, you know, rip the band aid off, but also do things cost effectively and bring the hotel up, knowing that, knowing that overall for the next four to five years, we are going to see huge growth in that area. And that's just, You know, you can put some stats and some feasibility behind it, but you know that there's going to be growth, you know, this, this is going to work. So I'm wondering if you could talk about any sort of specific advice you'd have for a hotel that has to remain in operation and wants to stagger the work, but also wants to do so on a very, very fast pace. Without compromising guest service. Do you have any specific advice there? Brad Fortner: First thing I would do is, is look at your, your room occupancy. Okay. And analyze that very carefully because you may have been thinking, um, December through February was your only option, but now that the market is very different. Maybe you might consider doing it well into the spring, or maybe earlier in the fall. The you know, from coast to coast is pretty much the same until you get to Arizona, Florida, and then seasonality flips. The busy times for hoteliers in South Florida is 180 degrees different than it is just. Like here in Tennessee or Kentucky, winter time is when most people plan to do renovations. But if you really want to get aggressive and maybe move things up, see if you could possibly work with a GC who's, who's really good at, uh, being respectful to your guests and they're very experienced about, you know, keeping you in operation and being able to do a renovation with minimal interference to the guest experience, but maybe. Maybe look at that seasonality a little bit different and consider doing it outside the months that we typically would want to schedule those. That's, that's one big one that I would look at. Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, that is a really big one. Uh, cause yeah, you, you're making assumptions about when the low season is going to be, and you think, okay, we're a three season hotel, but things are changing so, so fast on the ground. And I would add to that, you not only need to look at your. Revenue on the books, but also what your market's doing, looking at, uh, star reports and hot stats to see how the rest of the market's moving and what convention business is coming up and, uh, you know, what, what big compression events are coming into town that, that you may want to schedule around. So that's a really good piece of advice. before we close out here, I'm wondering, uh, you know, I'm, I'm fairly active in the luxury category and team hospitality group does, has done a lot of work in that category as well. Do you have any specific advice for hotel, hoteliers in that specific category of luxury and luxury construction, luxury renovation? Brad Fortner: Well, we've, we've already kind of touched on it, but I'll go back to it again. The higher the level of luxury. The tighter the specs are to all the finished work. So it's very important that we're speaking the same language when I'm delivering service to you. And so the higher the level of luxury of the hotel, it becomes even more important. Your team, your director of construction, your project manager. For projects, renovations, whatever that they need to come behind us and help us look for defects. I can get it close, but really it's teamwork. When we do that punch, Adam. It doesn't bother me at all when you find defects. That's what blue tape is for. That's why they make it. So we're very comfortable with you giving us feedback. In fact, if you're in the hotel business, we're very used to getting feedback. Are we not? That's how we tailor our service, right? Think about sitting down to a meal at a Michelin restaurant. How does the waiter interact with you versus? Going to a fast food chain and ordering a meal. There's a difference. There's a difference, but it takes that communication and we have to listen to you very carefully. It's not just about asking the right questions. It's about that relationship. We work together to get to that outcome. That's a really great question. And I love that question. Adam Mogelonsky: Well, I love your answer too, because that's the common theme to all hospitality is that it's about relationships. Uh, communication, understanding one another, and going back to right at the beginning, planning, planning, planning, and making sure all on the same page and having trusted partners. Brad Fortner: I tell people, Adam, all the time is it's not that you can't hurt my feelings, but I need the information hit me right between the eyes with it. I'd rather know, and it's sting a little bit. Then I don't know I, if I don't know, I don't know. I can't fix it. I, I need, need the feedback. I need the give and take back and forth. Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, uh, you know, that's a great place to end it off, uh, because it is all about feedback and learning and being honest with one another and taking the time to properly communicate so you're all on the same page. Brad, I can't thank you enough for coming on. This has been a delightful, uh, powerful 40 minutes. To discuss the construction and the renovation. Uh, thank you. And, um, if you have any closing words about, uh, what team hospitality group does, please, by all means. Brad Fortner: Well, I really appreciate that the opportunity to come on. I don't know if I helped much or not. I think maybe I muddied up the water more than anything, but I will say I appreciate the opportunity and, uh, Hey, keep the, the great, um, information. I'm following your podcast and I'm watching. Your, uh, content on LinkedIn, outstanding, dude, I learned so much from you. So, uh, keep it up, dude. I'm a big fan. Adam Mogelonsky: thank you really, really means a lot. It is a labor of love, as you know, but, uh, spreading, spreading the good word about how great our industry is and, uh, all the various components that go into it from, you know, idea and design through to funding through to operations, more operations, renovations, technology and. you know, food service, everything works together to deliver what we call an experience. And there's so much that goes Brad Fortner: to be in the industry. We really are. Adam Mogelonsky: So Brad, thank you for making that magic happening. Thank you.