Latest / Ducks Unlimited Podcast / Goose Camp Pt. 2: Addison Edmonds, Gunner Kennels & Full‑Circle Moments (Ep 750)

Transcript

Goose Camp Pt. 2: Addison Edmonds, Gunner Kennels & Full‑Circle Moments (Ep 750) · Ducks Unlimited Podcast

• 0:00
  VO: Can we do a mic check, please? Everybody, welcome back to the Ducks Unlimited podcast. I'm your host, doctor Mike Brasher. I'm your host, Katie Burke. I'm your host, doctor Jared Henson. And I'm your host, Matt Harrison.
• 0:18
  Welcome to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, the only podcast about all things waterfowl. From hunting insights to science based discussions about ducks, geese, and issues affecting waterfowl and wetlands conservation in North America. The DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails.
• 0:44
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• 1:06
  Jimbo Robinson: Welcome back. I am hosting this episode of the Ducks Unlimited podcast. My name name. I I have my own intro, Matt. My name is Jimbo Robinson alongside the world famous Maddie Harrison.
• 1:23
  And even better than that, we are joined by the one and only Addison Edmonds, founder, owner, dreamer Janitor. Of Gunnar Kennels. And one of the coolest and I'm gonna start this off. It's awesome. A full circle moment for me.
• 1:40
  I'm gonna start my duck season 02/2525 02/2526 duck season. I started with Addison in North Dakota. And we finished it. Yeah. And I finished it last cold.
• 1:51
  Waterfowl season with Addison in Arkansas hunting snow geese, and cool story. I was we didn't know this, but Addison went to North Dakota with me, in October, which is a fun guys trip for me, that turned into at Snow Goose Camp last year, all these cool things. One of, Addison's ex employees. But still good buddy. But he's still a great friend of both of ours.
• 2:20
  And I were talking. He's like, look. We're gonna be launching some new products in the fall, and we wanna go and do it in North Dakota. And so at the same time, when we get there, Ashton's like, well, I also have a lot of work to do. And if I don't, Emily's gonna kill me.
• 2:36
  And so what you did, the in this Kwanzaa hut, everybody saw it that that follows Gunnar, but he tells the story of ten years of Gunnar on the back of this old truck bed that our farmer owns. That orange. It's an orange truck bed and with the kennels, and he's just sitting there, and he's just being Addison. Right? Just being real.
• 3:01
  Just being
• 3:02
  Addison Edmonds: Being Addison. It was
• 3:03
  Jimbo Robinson: so cool because when I watched it back, the emotions that this man carries about his love for Gunnar Kennels, his love for Ducks Unlimited. And one of the things that hit me the most is he sent me this picture and what people I don't think everybody understands. He told this on the podcast at DUX last year, but I actually saw it. And you see it in that ten year video that they they put out on YouTube and on social media where he'd his dream, his vision was to have the Ducks Unlimited Ducks Unlimited logo on top of a kennel. Wow.
• 3:39
  And so when he's going through that story and talking about his goals and his and his whole vision board, if you've ever aspired to own a company and be a you know, do something in the outdoor industry, look what Addison and Askin can tell you all the faults he probably had in his career, but watch that video and look at his goal board and how he's checked them off. Because to me, it was very, very inspiring and very cool to see that ten year video and to see the stuff that he did as a young man and a very young person starting a company on his own to where he is today, it's incredible. So there's now Today,
• 4:18
  Matt Harrison: you're sitting at goose Camp.
• 4:20
  Addison Edmonds: That's that's wild because so a lot of the inspiration came from when I had this advertising company I started in college, I sponsored a Ducks Unlimited banquet, and they gave me a YETI cooler with a DU logo on it. Wow. And I it's in the back of my truck today. That was in '20
• 4:41
  Jimbo Robinson: let's see. 1413?
• 4:44
  Addison Edmonds: It was it was it was 2009 or '8 or '10 or '11 or something, somewhere in there. And that was one of the reasons why, like, I drew out I'm not an artist, but I drew out this kennel, and I put the DU logo on it. And I said something, like, in writing, like, you know, the ducks unlimited edition special. And it's so full circle to hear you say that because I'm like, wow. Holy crap.
• 5:09
  This all started with this vision, and now we have been great partners, hopefully, for the past few years. And, like, that's it's really weird to me that, like, the same damn coolers in the back of my truck. Yeah. You know?
• 5:25
  And and so so snow goose camp was something that I really wanted to do with some of our event partners. And and I talked to my boss, David Schuster, about it, and I said, here's my vision for this. And he goes, let's try it. Right? I mean because it's not expensive for us to do, but it takes a lot of time and effort from our partners to come from us.
• 5:44
  Jimbo Robinson: And and so and Gunner's the only not the only reason. Gunner is one of the main reasons that we're back here. Right? So at Snow Goose Camp sitting out by that fire that we set out last night, I spent time with Luke Moore, and Luke and I I said, Luke, man, we have a great partnership in our corporate program and our corporate partners program. Where we're lacking, I believe, is that our regional directors wanna have Gunner Kennels at their events.
• 6:10
  And one of the the struggles we've always had with that is shipping inventory control And just the cost? The cost of it in general. And so I Luke is you know, was a visionary. I come up with these massive ideas a lot with like this, and and I said, alright. Luke, here's my idea.
• 6:30
  Let's do a special kennel that you can only get at Ducks Unlimited events. We'll buy them, and then our regional directors can order them into these events that can handle these 500 kennels. And and and he said, okay. And so he went back and Bobby Bobby's the man. Bobby came up with all of these ideas.
• 6:51
  And so we met with them, I think, in April. So Snuggies Campus in February. We met with them in April, rode up there. It's the first time, I had I'd gotten to go to to the Kennels. First time I'd seen Addison in a long time in two or three years.
• 7:06
  And and we saw Matt, what are you doing? What?
• 7:11
  Addison Edmonds: I thought that was me. That's Matt.
• 7:13
  Jimbo Robinson: He keeps moving his microphone. Anyways nose. Oh, anyways, I saw the Kennels. I saw their vision, their two tone deal, what they wanted to do, and then all of sudden, in August, we launched it at DUX to our regional directors during the staff meeting. Awesome.
• 7:30
  They start selling them, and we start hearing the success stories, and David's like, we need to make it better. We gotta make it bigger. Like, we need more partners. We need to keep doing this. This is incredible what happened last year.
• 7:40
  And the ideas I've heard over the last twenty four hours Awesome. They're awesome. It's it's a great and it's you know, Ducks Unlimited is blessed, and we are all humbled to not only work for this company, but we're blessed to have partners like Gunnar and all these companies that want to work with us to continue our mission. Because at the end of day, we've gotta make money, but it's their business. Yeah.
• 8:04
  And so they work with us on these cool one off exclusive projects that our regional directors can take to events and make a ton of money on and and fundraise with, and then somebody gets to own an exclusive kennel that you can only buy at a Ducks Unlimited event. And that started here last year. Which is incredible.
• 8:21
  Addison Edmonds: Which I don't I don't think I knew about that until we were in North Dakota. Yeah. And y'all explained everything everything to me, and I was like, oh, wow. This is really cool. Yeah.
• 8:32
  So how many guys are at the camp? How many companies and how many guys you think?
• 8:36
  Jimbo Robinson: 21 guys are here. Right? Yep. Twenty twenty one. And how many brands?
• 8:41
  Matt Harrison: I think it was seven or eight, give or take, is what I believe.
• 8:45
  Addison Edmonds: How many dogs?
• 8:45
  Jimbo Robinson: There's four dogs. Mine's currently in his gunner kiln in the back of the truck because he's 14, and he's like an old man. Well, he likes to nap. Get him out for about an hour and a half, then he goes a nap. We've got +1, (234), 567-8910.
• 9:04
  Oh. 10 companies. And we had a few that couldn't make it. There was a lot of com we invited 15 companies Wow. With the thought of 15 people.
• 9:13
  And we had 10 come, and we had a couple extra staff members stay on. Maddie came, which was great to bring you because of our partnership on the event side with Matt and DUX. Matt in in the lifestyle brand that Ducks Unlimited is aspiring to be as well, and and and so it was cool. And then to bring the podcast here and get to talk to, you know, my man, Addison, today. See, the last two guests have been on the no goose killing group.
• 9:41
  Right? Yeah. So my man my man Addison was in the goose killing group, and we act like we killed a ton. We killed 11.
• 9:48
  Addison Edmonds: Killers killed.
• 9:49
  Matt Harrison: Hunted till four.
• 9:51
  Jimbo Robinson: Wait a minute. But the killing was only between one Guess what? At 04:00?
• 9:54
  Matt Harrison: I was taking a nap.
• 9:56
  Jimbo Robinson: Who woke you up? Because we had to get to work, man. Slapping me on the back. I said, man, we gotta get to work, buddy. We got we got podcast to record.
• 10:03
  But it was fun to share the blind again with Addison, and and and they launched their their vest.
• 10:12
  Matt Harrison: Yep. Which is awesome.
• 10:14
  Jimbo Robinson: I was with you when you were gonna launch it. I was there the day you I wasn't with you the day you launched it, but I was getting and I it was cool because Addison was sending me, this was a moment in my career that I really felt, it was a really he doesn't know this yet. It was a cool moment for me. Addison had one of the best photographers, in my opinion, videographers launch their vest.
• 10:37
  Addison Edmonds: Shout out to
• 10:38
  Jimbo Robinson: Ben Potter. He sends me the the Ben Potter's original video, and he said, what do you think? And I was laying in bed one night, and I told Mary Morgan, I said, you're not gonna this is not gonna mean anything to you, but to me, it's gonna mean a ton. Addison just sent me the video and said, hey. What do you think?
• 10:56
  What what do you is this do you think this is cool? And I was like and I made one suggestion. It was like, you can't see something and
• 11:04
  Addison Edmonds: Change this or that.
• 11:05
  Jimbo Robinson: Your voice needs to be a little bit louder as and it was like
• 11:08
  Addison Edmonds: That the first that was the first draft too Yeah. Which is great to get feedback
• 11:13
  Jimbo Robinson: on that. But I it was cool for me. Awesome. I I really it meant it meant a little bit you know, meant something to me because I was a part of watching them record all of this in North Dakota. And then releasing it.
• 11:26
  And then releasing it. And so tell us about the launch. How was it?
• 11:29
  Addison Edmonds: Well, what's funny is, like, at that hunt in North Dakota, I remember sitting at that pond where they said there's, like, a gentleman's afternoon. Gentleman's afternoon hunt. And I said, you know, I I really want this to be, like, like, a high school football game. Like, you're suiting up. Like, you're putting your shoulder pads on, and you're suiting up to should I tell him to shut up?
• 11:47
  No. That's goose Camp.
• 11:48
  Jimbo Robinson: That's goose Camp, boy. There's ideas and things being invented over there.
• 11:52
  Addison Edmonds: And so I I mentioned that. And when he sent the first draft, he had, like, the drums. They make all their own music, and it was like, it very much felt like a high school football game. But the launch went great. We didn't we we got as many as we could, and we sold out of one, the bottom land in a week, which was the DU.
• 12:12
  A week. That was such a last minute deal too. Like, right before the vests were being made, we're like, hey. Can we make this a DU, like, addition vest? And everybody said, like, yep.
• 12:24
  Did that. Sold out of those in a week, and the green marsh, which turns brown when it gets wet. It's really cool. And, like, the shots of Dex Yeah. In that video are nuts.
• 12:34
  Jimbo Robinson: And that's one of the things I told him. I was like, you can't see the colors of that on Dex. We need to lighten Dex up. And, also, Dex runs a a two flat 40.
• 12:45
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. Dex is, like, the most beautiful American big, just giant black lab. Probably, what, four now? But he was Yeah. Three or something.
• 12:54
  I mean, just like a good eight before they're six, they're just still puppies in my mind. Oh, yeah. But we got some great footage of him, but we sold out of the the marsh green seven days later. So we sold out totally in two weeks. Two weeks.
• 13:10
  And we've I think it's way more than quadrupled our order for this year, but we got some cool stuff coming with with that vest and other stuff. But, yeah, it was a good launch, and it it all literally, like, happened so quick. I think I've traveled every week to hunt for work mostly from September 1 till now. Wow. So it's been until the ice storm a week or two ago, like, it's been a grind, which is good.
• 13:38
  I love it. That that's why I started everything so I could hunt and call it work. But it's been a grind. It's been a great way to end the the season here in Arkansas, which I had first time since I was 12, not been able to hunt here. And and we're moving last year, so it's been two years.
• 13:55
  So it was a it was a big deal to me. I called Emily on my way in last night. I was like, I'm just so happy to be in Stuttgart. Like, it's it's just something about this place. It's something about Arkansas Duck Camp that is special to me, and I miss it.
• 14:10
  And I'm always jealous of my Memphis friends that are not that far away from it.
• 14:22
  VO: Stay tuned to the Ducks Unlimited podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan and Bird Dog Whiskey after these messages.
• 14:39
  Matt Harrison: Speaking of cool, though, we're sitting here at camp, and we're sitting on couches just chatting with our feet. All three of us have our feet propped up, but there's a book that the the podcast recorder was sitting on, and it's a book by YETI called Ducks. Tell us a little bit about this was not planned or anything. Addison literally told me. He's like, hey.
• 15:00
  Hand me that real quick. And he I hand it to him, he opened it up and went straight to a picture in there. Give us a little bit of story. I think it's so cool. I mean, literally just pulled up, and it's something to do with you
• 15:11
  Jimbo Robinson: and your brand. Yeah.
• 15:12
  Addison Edmonds: So And it's it's so cool. The funny thing is the first time they did these books, it was about tarpon fishing, and there's a lot of there's a lot of pages about my uncle Steve Huff, who's a fly fishing guide in the Everglades. And he's like the man Legend. Everybody knows, like, wow. Like, that's my claim to fame is your uncle Steve Huff.
• 15:34
  He fished my grandfather. He was my he was my grandfather's guy. He fished him to get 32 world records, I think.
• 15:40
  Matt Harrison: 32?
• 15:41
  Addison Edmonds: Yep. And I think 16 of them still stand. But so when they came out with this book and we came to the NWTF, I had three of my four kids with me, this was Chevy was a, like, a four month old. So this was three and a half years three years three or four years ago. And somebody I think it was I think his lawn was still there, but somebody's like, hey.
• 16:04
  We need to we're doing this picture book. Like, come and come by and get pictures. So I'm sitting there waiting to get our pictures taken, and I had Chevy and three little kids, ages, I would say, two, three, and four. Wow. No.
• 16:18
  I think two I think my four year old was not there. I think two, three, and five. And I've got this puppy, and we're sitting there waiting, and all of a sudden, Chevy decides he's gotta go to the bathroom. He Right there. He makes a big mess.
• 16:30
  I I was holding Billy. He was two at the time. I handed him to Daniel Hayes, and Billy had this, like, orange blaze orange what are those? Beanies. Beanies.
• 16:41
  Handed them to him, and I just grabbed the dog and ran out the back. Came back a few minutes later, and they're all laughing like it was a big it it was pretty funny. It was so stressful for me. But yeah. So Chevy's I mean, how old is that dog in that picture?
• 16:54
  Four five. Four months?
• 16:55
  Jimbo Robinson: Yeah. Five.
• 16:56
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. So he's sitting on a Yeti In that picture, there's there's two or three one or two more, but there's one of me in the back, I think. It's
• 17:06
  Jimbo Robinson: Holding him.
• 17:07
  Matt Harrison: Yeah. Holding him. Is that not so cool, though, to be able to just pull that book off the coffee table?
• 17:12
  Jimbo Robinson: Hit you sitting here. Yeah. That book hit you when you saw it.
• 17:16
  Addison Edmonds: Well, I just saw it, and I was like, no.
• 17:17
  Jimbo Robinson: That's and Chevy's in it.
• 17:19
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. I was like, oh, I remember this. And, yeah, I had the mustache rocking and the mullet, and Chevy was just a little pup. But it's just funny because we started the season with Chevy. Yep.
• 17:30
  Ended it with Chevy. I think he did pretty good today. He had a couple I told Emily on the phone in the truck. I was like, I think he had some of the longest blind retrieves today that he had all season.
• 17:41
  Jimbo Robinson: No doubt. And it's cool because I believe that dogs we somebody said it last night. The one reason I love doing this at Snow Goose Camp is because it's not serious. Mhmm. Very laid back.
• 17:55
  Very
• 17:56
  Addison Edmonds: There's it's not like there's a lot on the line.
• 17:59
  Jimbo Robinson: There's not a lot on line. Yeah. Right? Like, you're either gonna I mean, but people that don't snow goose hunt and and I don't. Right?
• 18:05
  None of us do. I don't either. Nobody in this club is, like, snowscore. I have snow goose decoys. I I know how to set a spread.
• 18:15
  But when when I leave here, this is it for me for you.
• 18:18
  Addison Edmonds: You're thinking about snow
• 18:19
  Jimbo Robinson: goose. Thinking about snow goose ever. Yeah. But to me, we can we can offer this and have fun with it, but it's not serious. So there was multiple times today where it was like and, you know, we laugh about this, but there were multiple times today while we were hunting where someone's like, man, I gotta get I gotta use the bathroom.
• 18:35
  They would get out, and then it was like, oh, here comes, you know, 30 snowgies. Everybody run, jump back in. You know? And it's but it's funny. It's like you're not flaring them.
• 18:45
  You know, movement in a deco in a in a snowgoose spread, you know, especially when guys have on, you know, white hats and and all that is like it's just movement. Right? It looks like movement in a snowgast spread, and and it doesn't bother them. But we had fun, and Chevy made some incredible retrieves, and it's fun to work them. Like, it didn't matter that Addison got out in front of the blind, was able to work Chevy on these long blind retrieves because nobody cares.
• 19:10
  Addison Edmonds: I'm so used to early mornings when it's like and I gotta send them on a long one and I hop out. I think I turned back. Was like, Jimbo, do I need to get back in?
• 19:18
  Jimbo Robinson: No. And I was like, no.
• 19:19
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. Like, I'm so freaked out. I'm gonna ruin everything for everybody
• 19:21
  Jimbo Robinson: Right.
• 19:22
  Addison Edmonds: While I'm working the dog.
• 19:23
  Jimbo Robinson: And we all loved it. We thought it was and it was awesome because one of them was was, I mean, a long way away. And it was great to watch him. And then when he got it, like, it's that to me is always the best
• 19:37
  Addison Edmonds: Oh, everybody started laughing because he, like, cut, saw it, he was probably 400 yards away.
• 19:43
  Jimbo Robinson: Oh, yeah.
• 19:43
  Addison Edmonds: And once he got it, everybody's like, oh, do you see his butt just get down and just go?
• 19:48
  Jimbo Robinson: And it was so cool. Like, to me, that's as a dog owner, my dog's 14. I am very blessed and fortunate that he is still hunting with me. He's here in camp. And Ashton's like, if you would you have hunted him if if Shed wasn't here?
• 20:01
  And I was like, man, he's 14. Like, it doesn't matter. He's had an amazing season. He ended with my buddy Sam Hunt and Boone Walker on one of the coolest hunts I had all season, and and we he ended on two bull pintails that my buddy Boone shot on and doubled up, and then and Sam killed his green head. And it was so cool that like, and and to end it with those guys who I've been hunting with for twenty years, like, that's everything to me.
• 20:29
  Addison Edmonds: But, you know, he heard the shots from the truck and was like but Oh, man.
• 20:33
  Jimbo Robinson: I asked Derek. I said, did he ever bark? Derek goes, nope.
• 20:36
  Addison Edmonds: I think he's gotten to the point He's like, I'm good.
• 20:38
  Jimbo Robinson: That he's like, man, this Gunner Kennel and this OrthoPad I'm chilling on is really nice.
• 20:44
  Matt Harrison: Are y'all just trying to rub in that y'all got to shoot out a goose?
• 20:47
  Jimbo Robinson: No. But maybe but the
• 20:49
  Addison Edmonds: thing is, hey. Let let
• 20:51
  Jimbo Robinson: me ask you this. Let me ask you this, Matt. You had David Schuessler Mhmm. Hunting his whole life, Jimbo Ronquist, Brooke Richard. Yep.
• 21:00
  Seth Dorch. Alright. I would say that on the on the board, as you're looking at the board of everybody who's hunting with
• 21:08
  Matt Harrison: I thought we had the better
• 21:09
  Jimbo Robinson: guys that were going with me were like, I got Jimbo Robinson, Mike Wilson, I don't know. Brett Baker, I don't know. And they're like, I guess that's who we're going with. And then bam.
• 21:19
  Matt Harrison: Shot more than we did.
• 21:20
  Jimbo Robinson: We shot more than y'all did. But if on paper,
• 21:23
  Addison Edmonds: suggest the show
• 21:24
  Matt Harrison: the Garhoe is fine. Look. I was expecting that. So it's not as bad when you was expecting.
• 21:31
  Jimbo Robinson: You know? So what Addison, what is Gunnar what is Gunnar doing this year? You got some new new things coming? Saw you just launched a new color?
• 21:41
  Addison Edmonds: Yep. Last year's a big year, launching that dog bed and the vest, I think did really well. We've got some new partnerships and collaborations and some new products. There's a there's a couple of products I can't talk about that I'm, like, super excited about that's probably not gonna launch till '27 hunting season, but it'll be a good year. I think, you know, when we we're traveling a lot and out of the office a lot, and now I told my I told I was in a meeting last week.
• 22:11
  I was like, look, guys. I've been traveling every week. I'm sorry. I have not been in the office very much, but it's all about to end. I'm about to be in the office a lot more, and we're gonna kinda make sure we're steering in the right direction.
• 22:22
  But, yeah, it's it's gonna be a good year. I can't really name anything we're doing right now, but it it'll be good.
• 22:31
  Jimbo Robinson: We have a new Matt's with these buttons. But we have a new color. We're gonna repeat.
• 22:39
  Addison Edmonds: I've got a bowl in my truck that I brought to show you.
• 22:43
  Matt Harrison: Oh, cool.
• 22:44
  Jimbo Robinson: Yeah. So we have a new thing that we are launching that we that Bobby what is Bobby? R and d? Bobby is He's
• 22:52
  Addison Edmonds: the mad scientist? The design genius.
• 22:56
  Jimbo Robinson: Design genius. Yeah. Much better than what I said. Bobby, when he showed us the ideas for the kennel that we launched this year for DU events, He also showed us kennels for '27 '26 and '27. Was like, woah.
• 23:10
  Hold on. I'm like, you're you're so far ahead of me, but it was there's a cool collab of four or five different things for this year that's gonna be more than just a kennel. I don't wanna tell everybody everything because we're gonna do a cool social media in August. We'll we'll do it at DUX again so that our volunteers and our regional directors will be able to see what they're gonna sell at their fall events. And the public that come can see what you can only get at a Ducks Unlimited event.
• 23:39
  But it'll be awesome again. And and this color in my in my opinion, this color is
• 23:43
  Addison Edmonds: gonna crush. Kill it.
• 23:45
  Jimbo Robinson: It's it'll do it'll do, you know, better than than year one. Year one was incredible, but I think it'll do better because we got lots of different things to go with it. So Yeah. We're super excited to collab again with Gunner on the event side to launch this exclusive kennel. Yep.
• 24:01
  And It's gonna be awesome. Y'all moved into a new facility.
• 24:04
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. It's crazy. I I go to the warehouse and I'm like, oh my goodness. This is giant. I've been siding in all my guns after all the warehouse guys leave because I've got 75 yards from one side to the other.
• 24:17
  The other night, was sitting in a thermal and Emily's like, where where are you? I'm like, oh, I'm I'm working. I'll be there in a minute. I mean, it is long and big, and it's a brand new build. It's a it's exciting.
• 24:30
  We got this big gunner sign on the front of it.
• 24:32
  Matt Harrison: Like That's awesome.
• 24:33
  Addison Edmonds: You can see it from the interstate for a split second. Do people come by there? Yeah. If not now, eventually. We've got a the last build out part that we've got is the showroom.
• 24:45
  Yep. Right now, the showroom is just like some kennels on the ground. So it's not done, but they will be eventually. But it's it's exciting. It's to think about how it started in my garage and then maybe a 500 square foot area in a warehouse, and then maybe a I think it was, like, 6,000 square foot, and then we we really thought we're in high cotton at, like, 9,000, and now I think it's 45 or 55,000.
• 25:18
  It's So cool. It's it's built up a lot. So it's it's hard too because it's we like to have our warehouse and office in the same building, which a lot of people don't. So a lot of places are like just warehouse or just office or just warehouse and, like, 500 square feet of office. And we had to we had to add a bunch of space for our office, so it's we got a ton of room to grow and
• 25:40
  Matt Harrison: That's all.
• 25:40
  Addison Edmonds: Kinda look forward to the next chapter.
• 25:42
  Jimbo Robinson: But I don't think people realize too that when those doors get there and I got to see it firsthand, and we may have hit on this a little bit DUX. But when those doors come, they don't come assembled. Like, you have somebody that's doing it. And so having your warehouse and your office there together, you're able to have that personal touch with the people that are actually putting these kennels together hand by hand Yeah. You know, screw by screw and then all that.
• 26:02
  That's you know, for you, that's a special touch. And and and the way y'all put it together, it's almost like having it all there allows that touch on everything y'all do.
• 26:11
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. Plus, I get to drive a a forklift whenever I want. That's scary. A little bit of the Michael Scott in the office. I mean, I I when I was to to to siding that gun, I was driving the forklift back and forth, and I was just what's the term?
• 26:28
  Like
• 26:28
  Matt Harrison: With the donuts?
• 26:29
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. Just doing doughnuts and a forklift is amazing. Oh, man. To hide the keys from me in the last warehouse, but right now, they're they're still, yeah, they're still available.
• 26:41
  Jimbo Robinson: That is so much fun. That's great. Well, I know that, you know, for me, over the last year, really year and a half, but for us to to reconnect and and you know, I mean, I tell the story all the time. One of the funny moments was when I walked into the warehouse last April,
• 26:57
  I was telling this this lady was telling us a story. She was giving us a tour. We were waiting on them to get back with the food or whatever, and she's telling a story. And she's like, yes. You know?
• 27:04
  And I said, well, you know she was showing us all the things in the covers, and I was telling my buddy, Tim Ferringer, who's with me. I said, Tim, it's funny that they have these covers, and this is one of the first things they launched because when he was first launching this thing, I had, you know, one of Gunner's original kennels, and I was like, there's no way that these things stay as warm as you do, Addison. I had little faith in. So I put roofer's tape on it, and she the lady stops, turned around, looks at me. She goes, you're the guy that almost killed his dog with a roofer's tape?
• 27:33
  I was like, yeah. And she started laughing. She's like, Addison tells that story all the time about how warm they are, and it was a funny moment and and a full circle moment. So, you know That's hilarious. Addison, we really appreciate not only you being here with us, but your passion for DU from day one with the inspiration with Gunner and the kennel and everything that that you've done for DU in conservation.
• 27:57
  And Yeah. It's awesome to see your passion.
• 28:00
  Addison Edmonds: Yeah. Yeah. No. It's it's it was it's amazing to have such a great partnership, and it's it's funny because last night how cold did it get last night? 25.
• 28:11
  25? You know, you'd think I would have all of our products with me, but I didn't have a door cover, which we make for, like, single digits or teens. And Chevy slept in the kennel last night. It's got a cover. And I was like, I just need to close that door up a little bit.
• 28:28
  And I got our dog bed and pushed it up against it, put a food crate up against it to push up against the tailgate. And I remember thinking about that story about the roofers tape, and I was like, yeah, I'm I'm making it work. Just like the roofers tape, like, it's all good. But, yeah, it's it's very full circle, especially pointing out that we started in North Dakota and finished in here at Snow Goose Camp.
• 28:51
  Jimbo Robinson: It's been awesome. Yeah.
• 28:52
  Matt Harrison: Yeah. It's awesome. Addison, thank you so
• 28:59
  VO: Thanks for listening to the DU podcast, sponsored by Purina Pro Plan, the official performance dog food of Ducks Unlimited. Purina Pro Plan, always advancing. Also proudly sponsored by Bird Dog Whiskey and Cocktails. Whether you're winding down with your best friend or celebrating with your favorite crew, Bird Dog brings award winning flavor to every moment. Enjoy responsibly.
• 29:20
  Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ducks.org/dupodcast. Opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect those of Ducks Unlimited. Until next time, stay tuned to the Ducks.