Latest / The Land Development Podcast with Ryan Glick / How Special Districts Make Development Work with Mustafa Abdul-Jabbar - TLP192

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How Special Districts Make Development Work with Mustafa Abdul-Jabbar - TLP192 · The Land Development Podcast with Ryan Glick

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you are not taking out of your pro forma the cost of all the public infrastructure.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: You are literally leaving millions of dollars, millions, maybe even eight figures, on the table.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, what's going on, everybody?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the land development podcast.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Ryan Glick.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited today to have joining me Dr.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Mustafa Abdul Jabbar.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mustafa is a land development and public finance attorney at Allen Boone Humphreys and Robinson based out of the Dallas Fort Worth market.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Mustafa, thanks for joining me.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for having me, Ryan.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, we had a chance to connect before recording today.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I got a little bit of your background and how you got into the land development industry, and it's a super interesting story.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think you know, I always start that way on all of my episodes where I have guests on.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to find out how you got into land development.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yours isn't a conventional path to land development necessarily.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So could you walk us through how you uh kind of where your path went and then how you ended up getting into the legal field where you're at today?
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I I got into land development as soon as I could.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was uh although it was a bit of a circuitous route.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I I started out born and raised in Texas, in Southeast Texas, and I actually began my first career in education.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was a teacher, I was a school administrator in Port Arthur, Texas.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in that role, uh, when I was teaching world geography and and became a school administrator, it was an informative time, I think, for me, where Hurricane Katrina had taken place.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: This was back in 2005 for the viewers, and we really all got to see as a nation what happens when there's decimated public infrastructure.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: When we see levees fail, many communities uh all around Louisiana, all around New Orleans, get an influx of climate refugees.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've got fellow Americans uh escaping catastrophe.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: They're pouring into Southeast Texas at the time.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And here I was, a school teacher and school administrator, trying to figure out how to integrate uh new community members who had literally arrived on our doorstep in Southeast Texas uh escaping catastrophe, and how to help them build community, how to help the students and their families uh make a new home in a place that they were, I guess, familiar with, but had never lived and had never uh called home.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that was sort of my educational background.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I did that for roughly ten years.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the education sort of took me out of the state of Texas for uh a few years, uh just over uh about around six years or so.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Went to the East Coast and then came back uh after living uh in Philadelphia and in the Boston area, came back to went to law school and and came back to uh to Dallas or to Texas, where I practiced as uh an oil and gas attorney.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: Started out at Vincent and Elkins, did that for three and a half, uh going on four years, and I was also at Sidley Austin for four, maybe four and a half years, where I practiced commercial litigation and really just got familiar when I was in energy work, energy litigation, oil and gas litigation, I got to see the infrastructure of that industry and how it informs civilization, how it informs our lives, how it informs the success of our communities.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Literally things like just getting power into our communities.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you people take for granted turning on the lights.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: But we if you know how do we get the lights turned on when they go out, those are questions that I would be able to answer.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, fast forward to where I am today, a unique opportunity uh came about a few years ago, and it was at Allenville and Humphreys and Robison, ABHR.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: They had probably about uh they had only been in Dallas, I think, for about two and a half years, Ryan.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I jumped on the opportunity to work uh at this law firm because of the nature of the focus, and it was really, it presented for me a great opportunity that married the skill sets where I was an educator, I was focused on the public, I was focused on uh the community building, community growth, and now I find myself dealing with public-private partnerships in the land development space where we're actually building the communities and we're focusing on the needs of our citizens and community members.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I felt like the stars aligned.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to continue the focus on the public realm, but I was able to channel that into the practice of law and advocacy and making sure that we uh made housing affordable for as many uh Texans as we could.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So for people who aren't familiar with ABHR and and your company today, could you describe what the company does?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I assume that there's different areas of expertise and everything, and you work in one of those areas, but as a whole, like what does the company do?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Powell Yeah, that that that's a great question.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what I would tell you is that that assumption is actually not right.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's a unique kind of boutique legal experience and law firm where we focus every single learn every single lawyer and attorney at the firm is focused on special districts or MUDs, as they may call them, uh the development of those, and also serving as general counsel and bond counsel to those special districts.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Every single attorney is has that specialization and only that specialization when it comes to the services that we offer our clients.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So what we do is, and I think that this is actually unique to the state of Texas, where we have a municipal utility district, that's the acronym for MUD, or other special districts like municipal management districts, water control and improvement districts, fresh water supply districts, uh, and there's just a lot of other acronyms that that get created and function essentially as political subdivisions of the state of Texas.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And these political subdivisions enable the public financing of public infrastructure to drive the development of high-quality public infrastructure that serves our community.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's what every lawyer does here at ABHR.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, you're right.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I did have the wrong assumption there.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I've had I've had uh a few different conversations with lawyers who work in the uh, you know, in the land development space.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like you are now the first one that works for a company that is more focused in this area, which is really cool.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I do want to dig into some of those special districts and everything as well, because I think that plays an important role in something I want to get into today.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as we think about the state of Texas, and we think about just other states in the country that are having some uh a lot of growth, a lot of companies coming there, a lot of individuals moving there, residents moving in.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Texas is one of those top states that has a lot of inbound, you know, residents coming in, a lot of growth happening, a lot of businesses moving there.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a very uh pro-business and uh you know popular destination for people.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to get into what some of those reasons are, and not necessarily to be a uh for this to be um something that is an advertisement for people, everybody needs to move to the state of Texas or anything like that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think there's some really interesting things that Texas is doing that's uh leading to this, and one of those is the the special districts, and maybe maybe we can start there, or if there's somewhere else that would make more sense to start to kind of paint the picture as to why this has been happening, and you can walk us through some of that.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I will apologize because, you know, it is not intended to sound like an advertisement, and even though it may come across like one.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's definitely not.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I I would I would couch it like this for for the viewers that you know, just look at land development in Texas, and definitely the way that I'm approaching it is look at it as a case study.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, let's talk about the context in which land development in Texas is is happening and what informs the drivers that are driving the demand for housing, immediate housing, um, and how those various mechanisms inform community building and growth in the state of Texas.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think that from that story, it doesn't matter where you are, it doesn't matter what state you're in, I think there's going to be some uh some takeaway lessons that can inform land development practice in any state throughout the nation.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: That said, you know, MUDs and other special districts are really unique to the state of Texas.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think in that sense, it talking about Texas and MUDs in particular and special districts in particular provides an opportunity to understand a unique case study that could inform land development in other states and the success.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can kind of, if you think about, and I'll just mention briefly, sort of again, with MUDs, these are these public-private partnership models that incentivize private developers that when they build, they understand that they're going to recoup the costs of the public infrastructure in their development.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And those costs are going to be are not going to be passed on to the end user because you've saved them.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you talk about the concept of housing affordability or how do we make housing affordable, if you're able to say, look, when it comes to the cost of putting water lines, sewer lines, retention ponds and drainage, all that topography uh analysis, when you're talking about roads, when you're talking about streets, when you're talking about parks and recreational facilities, these are the public amenities that essentially the developer doesn't have to pay for.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: They may pay for it up front, there's an initial cost, but they recoup those costs in these public-private partnerships that are built in Texas, and that actually lowers what the end user, the lessee, the commercial lessee, the mortgager, the homeowner is going to have to pay.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's uh so when I when I think about that Texas as a case study, there's this incredible narrative, there's an incredible growth story that I think is is remarkable.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've got, of course, standing alone Texas would be a nearly three trillion dollar economy.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So there is that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: It is a large state and it has a large economic base.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And most folks would kind of stop there and say, well, obviously, you know, if you have a big state and there's a lot of land, then it's going to be able to inform land development.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that there are some things to understand in terms of when we talk about special districts, when we talk about what our firm does, to understand the nature of the land development challenges and opportunities that we face.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, one little known fact that maybe if you're outside of Texas, and I quite frankly would say if you're inside of Texas, you might not know that three out of every four Texans live in on only well, what's really less than 25% of the land in the state of Texas.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you're talking about, and I've heard it referenced as the Texas Triangle, where if you start with Dallas, Fort Worth, and North Texas, you go down to Houston and Southeast Texas, and then you swing west to San Antonio and Austin, you get this triangle that constitutes less than a quarter of the state's total land area.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: But again, 75% of the of the population resides on that land.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's this almost popcorn popper kind of situation where it's an intense population zone as more people pour, and businesses and capital and infrastructure pour into that triangle.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, this concentration of the population is what's creating this enormous opportunity.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's what's creating the enormous demand.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to relate this to, say, other cities, where, you know, regardless of where they are, other states, they're gonna have similar kind of concentrations of population, similar demand drivers that I think you can kind of relate to in uh from there.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: But this demand is gonna create opportunity for housing to get all those individuals as more employers move into the area or are moving into the cities or are moving to the into the state, there's gonna be a demand for the public infrastructure to service all of those uh incoming members.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that that's one piece of it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: The other piece, and I think we talked about this before we start a recording, but I do think it's it's important to mention I talked about the energy grid and to what extent it's it's independent or largely independent.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's another piece of this that helps to inform at least this case study in the state of Texas and the example that that it informs in terms of uh land development.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a the URCOT, which is the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, uh essentially serves about 90% of Texas electric load.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And what this means is that it's it's not synchronously connected to you know other regions of the United States.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um not that it's completely independent from an energy standpoint, but that it is largely independent in terms of the energy grid.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: You've got almost 230,000 forms and over 125 million acres that are that are agricultural in in nature.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not that it's all urban or it's all metropolitan.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: For the remainder of that large landmass, you have a lot of agricultural significance.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and of course, the energy piece with hydrocarbons, yes, there's oil, yes, there's natural gas, yes, there's energy, but also, you know, Texas is is positioned, I think, as the number one state for wind power in the United States.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: So even getting into renewables.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you look at that and you see the drivers, what's driving movement in the Texas, if if you're if you were to talk to me about, you know, who are the top ten wealthiest cities in the country, I would I have seen metrics that put three Texas cities in the top ten wealthiest cities in the country.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: That would be Dallas, Houston, and Austin, uh sitting alongside cities like San Francisco, uh, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when you compare the the average cost of housing, the average cost of accessing a home, it's half in many instances.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not in every instance, there's always exceptions, but uh it's it's it's seriously competitive.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: There are two metrics that I would throw out that I think are important just to share, and then I know you have more questions for me.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: The employment growth in Texas.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at the United States that added earlier this year maybe 531,000 jobs, Texas almost 194,000 jobs, you see that from an employment growth perspective, Texas has accounted for 36.5% of job growth in the United States.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So there's definitely demand when it comes to land development, housing affordability, companies who are moving here.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Fifty-seven of the top Fortune 500 companies aren't just opening offices in Texas.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're literally moving their headquarters here.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's the state with the most Fortune 500 companies in the country at this time.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that wasn't always the case.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Even though Texas was always competitive, we see this shift.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just theoretical, it's we're watching corporate America shift in this direction.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think housing affordability has a lot to do with it.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in Dallas, Dallas Fort Worth, North Texas area.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the DFW area alone is driving roughly 25% of positive United States industrial net absorption, meaning that uh as folks as the leases expire and folks move out of certain industrial facilities, and some folks are moving out, some folks are moving in, the net positive rate will tell you, well, you know, where's this occupation of industrial space happening across the United States, across U.S.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: markets, and DFW by itself, discounting, you know, not you know, Houston, not counting Austin, San Antonio, just DFW, accounts for 25% roughly of the U.S.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: positive industrial net absorption.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So the demand is here, the Fortune 500 is here, and the development community in this example has been faced with how do we house all these, all these, this incoming population.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's, I would say that's a huge context for this against the backdrop of the conversation that we're having today.
• 16:55
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• 17:00
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• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get back to the show.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've got several things here.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to dig into on what you talked about.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: The first one was only because I was interested, as you mentioned, at the wind power was interesting to me.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I just looked it up really quick.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, of course you're right that Texas is on top and on top by a lot.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I also wondered too, because I'm in the state of Iowa and I knew Iowa was up there in the top five, but the the amount of energy we produce from wind in the state of Iowa is small compared to Texas.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Texas is just under 13,000.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, it's 12,964,000 megawatt hours.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next one is Oklahoma at 4,000, and then you have Iowa at 3,000.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we're, you know, a fraction of what Texas produces.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's super interesting to see that.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing I was thinking of as you were talking through the, you know, some of the special districts and and the approach to that, talked about the energy grid, and you talked about the the businesses moving to the state of Texas.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think it's easy to get caught up in the like for people when they think about, well, of course, Texas is gonna have success in some of these different areas because of their geographic location or things that other states can't necessarily change.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, we talked about this before we pressed record.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, California has a great geography.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a it would it's a great state, but they're just not doing things the way that are being done in Texas or Florida or some of these other states that are seeing this type of growth.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: What why do you think that is?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, why do you think Texas is so focused on making it easy for this growth to happen?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I think that that is that is the question that I have had as well.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I I was I practiced law and and I was in a completely different industry for for years, probably collectively going on 18 years before I moved into the land development space.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I would say that one of the historic competitive advantages that I've seen, and just just observing it from someone who is is at least a bit objective, uh coming from a different context into the land development space, uh, there is a comparatively permissive development environment when you think about the laws, the regulations, and what it takes to develop in in the state.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And other states have this as well.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it I think it's important to stress that there must be mechanisms for financing the public infrastructure that is absolutely necessary to support communities and to support support growth in whatever state you know one may find him or herself.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, when I bought, I don't know, when I bought my home, I didn't necessarily think about the water, the wastewater, the detention pond, uh there's a pond, so you know, that you can go and you can walk around and jog around, but you don't think, oh, that's a detention pond, that if there's a flood event, this is going to capture that water and prevent it from coming into our home and coming into our housing.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you don't think about that as just a beautiful body of water, right?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: The roads, the streets.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I you don't really think, but if something fails, if there's if the the street ha has an issue, if the toilet won't uh work, if the water you turn it on and it won't come out and it's not potable or it's not clean uh accessible water, there's going to be a foundational, fundamental problem.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, it's it's it's an exciting uh business to be in.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and of course, Texas has the land, but that's not unlike other states.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that this is now a point, maybe in our conversation, we can talk about MUDs and special districts and the specific role that they play in making housing affordable.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: We did mention, you know, that if you look at Dallas or Houston or Austin, maybe the cost of a house might be 400,000, 500,000, in some areas 300,000.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: But compare that to if you were looking to get a home in s in other cities that are in the Top 10 wealthiest cities in the country, well, like Seattle, LA, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, obviously New York City.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you're going to get the four-bedroom, two-bath home for the$400,000.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the, not the only way, but one of the significant mechanisms that are that are in place in Texas, which is why I'm calling it a case study, are these MUDs and are these special districts.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the leveraging of the public and the private entities that are involved in the land development space to inform successful growth and land development.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you have a MUD, a special district, it's legislatively created, or maybe it's created by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe if it's a freshwater supply district, it gets created by a commissioner's court.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a county court system that is in place that can have the authority to create one of these types of special districts.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: But once the special district is in place, then what happens?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have a board, there's a governing board of five individuals who make decisions about uh that political subdivision.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and this is actually tied to provisions in the state's constitution dating back to 1917.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not like this was invented yesterday.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it has been around for over a century in terms of informing land development in the state of Texas.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it started at its inception with a focus on developing high-quality public infrastructure and incentivizing that development and not placing the burden of public infrastructure that's going to serve public needs for centuries beyond the timeframe that a private developing entity may have come in and built and built it.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about finding uh mechanisms like that to be able to make it more affordable.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: Again, if you're a private developer and you build a development which can be a single-family residential piece, it can be a master plan, community, a multifamily commercial, business parks.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: We've even seen industrial facilities, airports, baseball fields, anything that has water needs, wastewater needs, drainage needs, uh, streets, roads, recreational facilities, you can finance the public aspects of that, take that out of the pro forma that these private developers have to bear.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when you think about it from the vantage point of the end user, it's going to lower the cost that the end user, the commercial SE, the homeowner, the mortgager, the one who's going into the apartment, they're going to have to pay less to be able to access that housing unit because the public costs were removed from the pro forma of the development itself.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what's interesting too, as you talk through that, you know, I think about it quite a bit about just different states and how they approach some of this.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I wonder why some states wouldn't do a similar type of approach or this public-private partnership and understanding that some of these developments would not be able to pencil and even be done if it wasn't for some of these special districts in the state of Texas.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I think about that, even in other states and how they have to go about handling this.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there's plenty of other states that do have similar, um, you know, similar approaches to managing some of this.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's plenty of uh public-private partnerships that happen in other states and everything, but there are some states where it's not um so builder-friendly or developer-friendly, and they're putting a lot of that burden on the developers, and then you end up with really expensive housing, which doesn't meet the needs of uh people who are looking for housing in in many cases.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I I wonder, you know, when we think about the state of Texas and doing these public-private partnerships, and it goes back, like you said, it goes back a long ways.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this uh this thought about this.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why why do you think this uh public-private partnership approach works so well?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I think that whenever you make housing more affordable, I think that people are going to vote with their feet.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, especially in a time when when we're talking about inflation, rising prices in other contexts, being able to lower the price of one of the largest liabilities that a family can take on or that a business can take on, which is the infrastructure, which is the home or the office building or whatever that structure is that they're uh accessing, being able to lower that cost is going to make it competitive.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: There are some other pieces to this too that I think you know it it is what it is.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you have a headquarters in the center of the of the of the country, you're able to access just within a few hours either coastline uh within the country, that is also uh a piece of this that can't be discounted.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I want to focus on the affordability piece because it's what uh it's what I'm uh what I'm doing in terms of the the service that that that that we're focused on.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think that it's it's largely successful because of the affordability and also because of the risk and where that risk gets allocated may be the best way to explain that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: So there are other states who have districts that are similar to these public-private partnerships, and they are public-private partnerships in their own right.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I know Colorado has some, I know California has some, I know Florida uh has some, and I and I don't know all the details because we primarily, not exclusive, if not exclusively, we we practice in the state of Texas with respect to these Texas special districts, but other states have them too.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my understanding of uh the way they differ, if there is a distinction to be drawn, is it works almost like an assessment.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to have like a homeowners association wants to put in a new swimming pool or wants to revamp a swimming pool, it may have to assess.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say you've got a thousand homes in that homeowners association, and the swimming pool is gonna cost, but gonna cost us$100,000, then we're gonna divide it out, then we're gonna say every home is gonna have this particular financial bourbon to pay for that renovation, that installation, that development.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's an assessment model.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: What we've run into, though, with these assessment models is if you build it, the assessment gets assessed on the front end, bonds may get issued on the front end, and what happens if there is an economic disruption?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: What happens if all of a sudden, you know, like what happened with COVID, where you know you get to 2020 or 2021, and the housing prices or the cost of uh of real estate is completely disrupted.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: We saw housing prices increase by what?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh almost uh not quite double, but but significant increases in in the price of a home, uh, which is good in one sense, but in another sense, if if we're if we're saying we have higher costs for our development, we have a fixed assessment, we can't really go back and change that fixed assessment.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so what these public-private partnership arrangements do in the state of Texas, where it differs, is it's not 100% assessment-based, but it does uh involve the issuance of bonds and odd valorum uh taxes that are able to cope with change over time in terms of the valuation of the underlying assets.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see a lot of uh pushback from residents related to this approach at all?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I ask is as we're talking through this, I was just kind of thinking that, you know, throughout the country you have a certain percentage of NIMBYism, right, with trying to stop different development happening in their communities.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when you think about how something like this could be perceived from someone that doesn't necessarily understand the inner workings of how the dollars are used and and how it's uh put to use and everything, you could see somebody looking at this from the outside in and saying, it feels like almost like corporate uh, I don't know, corporate welfare or something where you're just you're giving this money to this big greedy developer to do this, you know, do some of this infrastructure work that that developer should have to pay for, you know, him or herself.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, do you see any of that down there, or is it pretty well understood from residents that this is mutually beneficial between the community and the developers in order to develop some of these projects that otherwise wouldn't happen?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that actually highlights another reason that I've been very excited to be in this industry.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot, there's a large need for education to inform the public and inform people, you know, what do these special districts do?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do they operate, uh, and help people to understand them.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say that, you know, really, if I were in another state, it may function as a giving of money because it's all front end.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Remember when I said that when it comes to an assessment, there's usually a fixed assessment, it comes on the front end, the developer gets a large amount of money, there are bonds, and they can't change those fixed assessments in other states.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: However, in the state of Texas, the developer takes all of the initial risk.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: They have to pay for the development, it has to go vertical.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: If it does not get built, if it does not get developed, if it does not get if it does not go vertical, there's not going to be any public reimbursement whatsoever.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's one important distinction that I that I would stress, which is in terms of who bears the risk, it's on the private developer.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And who bears the benefit at the end, it's going to be, and of course, if you can lower someone's development costs, that's going to be a that's going to be a win-win.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what public-private partnership models are based on, win-win.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what's one of the assumptions that's kind of built into your question is that there's going to be a loser, and maybe it's the public saying, hey, the private developers should be the ones who pay for this.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: But what's happening is it's a partnership, a public-private partnership, where for those high-quality public amenities that get built, high quality water, high-quality sewage, high quality drainage, roads, parks, and recreational facilities, the public has a vested interest that those facilities be of high quality and long-lasting and essentially are affordable when it comes to accessing them via your home or your commercial lease or whatever it may be, the industrial facility or recreational facility.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yes, there is definitely a need to continue educating about these distinctions.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that from a case that study standpoint, that's where other states stand to benefit.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I were to, you know, to put a pitch to other states, I would shift away from this kind of HOA assessment model where the developer takes all of the cookies at the very beginning of the development.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: They haven't built anything, and it's the hope that they're going to be successful notwithstanding a potential economic disruption.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Who bears the risk if something fails, if the development doesn't come to fruition?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be the public who said, Look, we've got these assessments and you didn't succeed with your development.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I agree with you that that criticism that you were uh highlighting and underscoring, I would agree that it would uh gain traction in those contexts.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that what and look, back in the 1980s, the MUDs and special district industry in the state of Texas has has not always been a reimbursement model.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so back in the 1980s, or from 1917 up to 1980s, these MUDs, MMDs, uh, water control and improvement districts, which are all very similar, but they have their distinct differences, back up to the 1980s, they were all assessment-based.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was only and and again, these special districts started essentially in the Houston area, so they were very sensitive historically to energy prices.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, without getting into what was happening in the in in the energy, oil and gas industry and talking about what was happening in the Middle East, but was affecting prices and home prices in the state of Texas and actually throughout the United States, a city like Houston that's very oil and gas centric, it's very energy focused.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: If that industry gets disrupted, which it did in the 1980s, you can see all of a sudden this development that we had planned, it's not going to get built.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: And there may be some economic defaults.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not good when you're a bondholder and you're saying, I'm expecting some return on my investment.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so after the 1980s, after that particular uh uh disruption, could the in the industry was completely revamped.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it was based on now a you know, a very hyper-regulated to the to the Texas Commission on environment on environmental quality.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was very hyper-regulated.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: The legislature is creating, and the developer is only going to get reimbursed after they build it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So now we shift the risk from the public to the private.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have, I I like to ask a question when I have developers on here, I usually ask this question of saying, hey, do you have a favorite project that you've done over the years, a favorite development or anything?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: But from your standpoint and uh where you come to the table at, do you have a favorite, uh, I guess it would be the same question.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you have a favorite project that you've worked on over the years, whether it's related to a special district that, you know, special district creation or something, or any project in general that you could talk about at all?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that is a great question.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And there is no specific project that comes to mind that I'm gonna just that I would say, hey, look, let's look at this project and look look at what we did just because of attorney client sort of privilege.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of the takeaways from all the projects that that I've worked on, I would say every single one of them is different.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've done freshwater supply districts, I've done water control and improvement districts, I've done uh municipal utility districts, I've done municipal management districts.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Just example after example of these public-private partnership arrangements that are really tailored to and they're curated to provide a solution that can make the math work and to can make a deal pencil for a developer.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're we're living in a time where economically, you know, we really it's really for some developers, it could be challenging to get a deal to pencil.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you tell them, well, if you put a special district over the acreage that you're looking at developing, we could take the cost for the end user per lot, per home, per structure down$200,000.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: That is it, that is a material advantage.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's all it's actually been you know kind of interesting when I've had conversations with developers, because, you know, for those who don't know about special districts, you know, you'll tell them, look, if you're engaged in development and you are not taking out of your pro forma the cost of all the public infrastructure, you are literally leaving millions of dollars, millions, maybe even eight figures, on the table.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you take the cost of, you know, a thousand lots, a thousand homes, two thousand multifamily, an airport, whatever it is, and you can take out of your development costs, water, sewage, drainage, roads, the public aspects that the public would have an interest in ensuring high-quality public infrastructure for decades and as long as they as they can.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's under those circumstances that I would say that uh, you know, if you can figure out how to bring the end user lower cost facilities, that's going to be a win, win, win.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be a win for the state.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be a win for the end user, the again, the lessee or the mortgager.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, quite frankly, it's going to be a win for the developer.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: A partnership benefits all partners, not one at the expense of the other.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, before we get into the last segment, the lightning round, I do want to talk about one other thing, and that's uh how we got connected.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we we got connected through a relatively new organization called Dudes in Development.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure some of you listening in um have probably heard of it or have seen uh posts about it on LinkedIn and everything, but I did want to get your perspective since you're you're involved in it down there in the Dallas area.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Could you talk about your involvement in the organization and what it's looked like so far?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: So through my role at ABHR, uh, I got to learn about another related organization called Ladies in Land.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: And Ladies and Land, for those who don't know, preceded Dudes in Development.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was built around the idea that uh maybe perhaps there weren't as many women involved in the development, land development space and industry as as there were men.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was this Ladies and Land project to say, let's gather them and bring them together and have this organization that offers education, that offers professional development, that offers continuing education credits if you're a professional, like an engineer or developer.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: And quite frankly, even if you're an attorney, you have continuing legal education credits that some of these lunch and learns that that we have month after month can be satisfied by attending them and also extending how many continuing education credits that you can get towards renewing your certifications.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it started with Ladies and Land, and I am now the uh the chapter lead for the City of Dallas for Dudes in Development.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's an excellent organization.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would say it came to Dallas probably just a few months ago, maybe three months, Ryan, and it's just been like drinking from a fire hose since it got since it got created.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Dudes in Development again is dudes, guys in development, and we are already talking about many uh partnership opportunities with our our sister organization, Ladies and Land, Dudes in Development, doing a shared Christmas uh happy hour and gathering together.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I love it because from day one, we've had an amazing level of participation, of interest in getting involved in the organization.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it brings together developers, it brings together those who are in the real estate industry, those who are home builders, those who are in finance, those who are attorneys.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's amazing the diversity of the professional that's in the room who's engaged in not just professional networking, but an opportunity to learn in an in-depth fashion about what a company may be involved in in our space.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, historically I've been able to go to Happy Hours and I'll I'll bump it to someone that I've met on a gig or on a job or on a deal, and I'm like, hey, it's great to see you.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Who do you know?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or how'd you get here?
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: But when you meet month after month after month with this particular group that's self-selected into we are focused on land development in this space, in this region, exciting things can happen.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it looks like uh so dudesindevelopment.com for any of you out there who are interested in seeing if there's a chapter in your area or even reaching out to maybe start a chapter in your city if there's not already one there.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um appreciate you talking about that.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: And with that said, based on where we're at right now, a little over 40 minutes, let's go ahead and shift into the lightning round.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got five questions for you.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some of these, it always turns out this way just because you never know where the conversation's gonna go, but some of these there might be a little overlap of what we already covered.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: But first one for you, what's the most misunderstood public financing tool in Texas?
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I would actually say that it is the MUD or the the any of the special districts that we create at ABHR.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: We've we've run into a lot of focus on PIDs or public uh improvement districts because particularly I think in North Texas, there was a prevalence of PIDs, public improvement districts, that really operated along the assessment model that we were discussing earlier.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been it's it's something that when you think about, well, what is a PID and how does it get created?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Those are created by cities or counties, and because they are not it's not so much under the influence or there's there's no sort of partnership to the extent that a MUD or an MMD or a special district might offer.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: So for example, uh, if you're doing assessments as we already discussed, there's gonna be greater risk that the market or anyone who invests in PID bonds, they're gonna get paid back from development that may not get built if there is some sort of an economic disruption, which we discussed.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there's gonna be a greater demand for reserves being held in association with that project.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the market expects a reserve fund when it comes to any types of PID bonds, but there are much fewer reserves when it comes to the special districts like MUDs and municipal management districts that get created.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's more project flexibility with the MUDs and special districts that we do, you know, versus the PIDs.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: There are more restrictive benefits.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're really hoping that the development gets built.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: It may, it may not.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's greater political risk.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen cities who have a city council may turn over and they're like, look, we're just not going to issue those bonds.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're just not going to do it.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, all of the risk uh that the bond Holders face really sort of uh comes to bear immediately and and the development is ultimately not successful.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we feel, you know, for folks who are sort of they're they're more familiar with maybe say a pre-existing framework, there's a huge educational component to help clear up misunderstanding.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: These are not PIDs.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how they're distinct, here's why they're different.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I'm not gonna say that PIDs aren't a good fit for specific projects, because there are some where I think that they actually could be superior to a MUD or a special district, and that usually deals with maybe a smaller project, not one that's gonna be coming to scale.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: But outside of that, I think the special district models that we have the MUDs, the MMDs, the Wicked's, the the FWSDs, freshwater supply districts, uh those are gonna be superior.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right, second one.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's one infrastructure cost developers tend to underestimate?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: An infrastructure cost that developers tend to underestimate would probably be their public infrastructure, which is what we're focused on.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got obviously the water, the sewage, the drainage, and the roads, and the parks and recreational facilities.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of that gets dealt with with respect to the lot being developed.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Before you put a structure and you go vertical, you absolutely have to attend to the political negotiations for water, for wastewater, uh uh detention pond drainage systems and regional drainage systems, regional water authorities, and then these massive road-related systems and road-trained systems.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not an inexpensive cost.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say on top of that, knowing and understanding how taking those costs out of the cost of the development is going to uh essentially bring on the kind of savings that we were talking about earlier in the podcast that ultimately will inform the success of that development and the ability to populate the homes, the facilities, or the residences that that you're building.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: One of the models that we have, and this is from the Texas uh House of Representatives Land and Resource Uh Management Committee, uh, one particular metric is if you have a lot, then the actual if you have it the cost of your home is going to be the cost of the lot four times four.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you're able to remove, let's just say fifty thousand dollars of these public amenities out of the cost per lot, if you have a thousand lots, that's fifty million dollars that you will have removed out of the cost of the development project and essentially saving the end user.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I will I will close on this particular question, Ryan, by saying that when you compare the cost of living in a mud or a special district versus not having those cost savings, you're going to get, again, hundreds of thousands of dollars more in expense that's going to be subject to a higher interest rate when it comes to paying your mortgage and your mortgage interest over 30-year mortgages.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, some I've even heard people talk about a 50-year mortgage.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, 50 years of a high mortgage interest versus a bond that gets issued that's tax exempt at a much lower interest rate for 25 years and it's done at the 25 years, must in the end, special districts at the end just save everyone from my vantage point, the public and the private benefit.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Last three here we're gonna get into.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: So third one, what's one thing you learned during your teaching days that you still use today?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that is that is uh definitely uh a curved ball, but education is everywhere.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Learning is everywhere.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: I know I've been able to see firsthand that most people, let's just say you go all the way through college, 22 years old, you graduate from a university, and now you're in the workplace 24-7, discounting weekends for the rest of your life.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: You retire at, let's just say 65.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: So from 22 to 65, most of the learning that happens in our society is going to be taking place in our communities and in our careers and during our jobs.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is a huge need for increased education and learning, teaching and learning and professional development mechanisms while we're in our working years and not just I know we we upfront or we we load it up front from zero to twenty two, but you know, the majority of our lives, we're we we spend learning, teaching and learning on our jobs in our working years.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I, you know, one of I almost look at my educational background as kind of a built-in superpower that I have because it, you know, I don't take for granted the fact that people are always seeking to understand, and maybe they don't always understand, and there are ways to promote understanding of new ideas, new concepts.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when we talk about innovation, and I think that one theme that has coursed through our entire conversation today is definitely innovation in the land development industry.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that, you know, you how do we learn how to continue, despite the demands and despite the challenges, to remain innovative in the face of the 21st century land development space that we find ourselves in.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, fourth one.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's a daily habit that you've built over the years that's helped you in your professional career?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would say that I uh I definitely meditate quite a lot.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's important, uh, just kind of finding your your center.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I also think that being healthy is important.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Ever since I came to ABHR, uh Steve Robinson, uh, who is one of the founding partners of the firm, talks about green smoothies every morning.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: And something as simple as saying, hey, let's make sure that we start the day with a protein shake and and green vegetables, believe it or not, does keep you focused on health.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when you talk about how you're in the community space and you're talking about health of our communities, focusing on your physical health, focusing on your mental health, focusing on your health, uh, it it helps you to be a better agent of the kind of positive change that we want to see in our society.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right, last one.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: What's the best piece of career advice you've ever received?
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: The best piece of career advice I've ever received is that so I'm I mean, I I God, I'm 44 to share, you know, my particular vintage.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the best career advice I've ever received is that, you know, it's okay to shift careers again and again and again.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: And really, I mean, I'm a guy who started out in education and, you know, lived in multiple states, came back to Texas, got got into law, did litigation, you know, for years, almost a decade before coming into the land development space.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like, you know, I didn't lose any of the expertise or any of the knowledge uh that I gained throughout my travels, throughout my study, throughout my experiences, throughout my professional encounters.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: It it only was all growthful and accretive to what I do today.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that ultimately the best advice is be comfortable with no matter what happens, no matter how things change, no matter what.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a SWOT analysis, right?
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, right?
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like how do we how do we cope with change?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh just being comfortable riding the wave of change, being willing to continue to stay positive with all that happens and and to always be focused on making a difference.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what's the best way for people listening in to connect with you and to also learn more about your company?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, absolutely.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the best ways is uh you can reach me on social media, Dr.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: Mustafa Abdul Jabbar on LinkedIn.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've got folks who send me messages there.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can also look me up at abhr.com on our professional website and look me up.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm always happy to have a conversation with anyone who has a question.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys, if you look down in the description for this episode, you'll see a link there to the show notes page.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: On the show notes page will be the link to uh Mustafa's LinkedIn, but also to the uh website for ABHR.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Mustafa, really appreciate you hopping on here and uh sharing a lot of your experience with all of us.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh really interesting stuff.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Ryan.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me on.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: You bet.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right, guys, that's all for this episode.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not already subscribed, please click that button.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have you back for the next one.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we will talk to you all next week.