James Blain: 0:26

Hello everybody and welcome to the Ground Train Station podcast. I am one of your co-hosts, James Blaine, uh, also known as the Road Warrior. I have my fellow road warrior. We have been out traveling, doing it. I'm lucky enough to have Ken as my co-host. How you doing, buddy?

Ken Lucci: 0:40

I am doing great. I'm so happy to see you. The last few, uh, episode recordings, I've been all by myself, and I, I've, I've had a tough time carrying the audience, I think.

James Blain: 0:50

Oh, oh. If only we believed you. No, it's, it's been, it's been interesting. We've both been traveling. So tell now, now I, I live on the road. I do tons. But Ken, this, this for you. I, I heard all kinds of great things about you giving all kinds of information and facts, and people were blown away by what you presented. So put us out of our misery. Where did you present? Where were you at? Where did you spend the past week?

Ken Lucci: 1:16

So, flew down to the chauffeur driven, uh, national Limousine Association in Dallas. And two weeks before the show, two weeks before the co I was prepared to do the state of the industry's, intro speech, which, which, listen, they've been magnanimous with me. Usually when you sponsor the state of the industry, you have five minutes to say hi. Hello, enjoy the session. So, I, I, I, over the years, I mean, Chris has been unbelievably magnanimous. He's allowed me to do 15 minutes of data. So we shared. We shared some, some quality data on the size of the industry. All of the feeder industries, meaning corporate travel, airport passenger growth, corporate travel group, and meeting. The, the bottom line is that all of these industries are still up. Okay. Um, we shared up to the, up to the minute on airport, passenger, for example, they had 4 billion,$4 billion in earnings this year above last year.

James Blain: 2:20

Oh, really? We're up.

Ken Lucci: 2:21

Absolutely. And they're up now. July. The airport passengers in July was only 0.5. Percent above last year, but it was five, 5% above the last two years combined, right? The average. So the bottom line of the state of the industry intro was that the feeder industries are doing very well. Every single one, um, hotel, luxury hotel growth growing by 11%, compounded annual growth rate. Investors are investing in five star hotels. The luxury cruise space, the top 10 most expensive cruises in the world okay, are growing about 9% compounded annual growth rate. Private jets growing at 5% an annual growth rate. So it really, all of the feeder industries that do business with us are doing great group and meeting in the United States is up about 5% compounded annual growth rate, but global group and meeting. is gonna grow by 9.8%, compounded annual growth rate for the next five years. So the next five years looks fantastic.

James Blain: 3:29

Okay.

Ken Lucci: 3:30

one piece of data we gave out, which was interesting is in the meeting and event space, they did a poll, a survey that 67% of the US companies that do global meetings would like to be dealing with a US DMC, or US Logistics Company to manage their global events. Okay?

James Blain: 3:51

Big opportunity for us.

Ken Lucci: 3:53

right. So when you look at the, when you look at the industry itself, every bit of the feeder industries is going extremely well. When you examine macroeconomic trends, the big picture of the economy, 2026 w we shared consensus data from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Bloomberg. That the chance of recession is less than 35%. Now, I told the crowd, don't, don't panic about that because every, every economist sets their baseline at 20%. Right? Even in the best, in the, even the best economies of the world. But it's almost a day-to-day thing where you, we are watching, we are watching the data on the economy from every possible database that's available. I shared with the crowd that we, we have 12, people in the economy that we pay unbelievable attention to in addition to all of the travel and transportation industries and hospitality. And one of them is Jamie Diamond from JP Morgan, who flat out said, there's a chance of a recession in 2026. We don't think it's a foregone conclusion, but we're preparing our bank. So the message I had for the state of the industry was every business owner should take that sentiment. Every business owner should, he's preparing his bank to withstand any downturn. So don't just focus on the positives of what happens over the next five years to all our feeder industries, but prepare yourself. So we gave a list out of, of things that we recommend, and it went over extremely well. I also had the two weeks before the show, I get a call from our friend Mike Blackburn from, uh, limo Anywhere, you know,

James Blain: 5:39

oh, oh, did you? Yeah. Let's go, Mike.

Ken Lucci: 5:41

And,

James Blain: 5:41

go. Mike.

Ken Lucci: 5:42

and, he, hooked. He, he hit me with a little bit of a curve ball. So, uh, Josh Anderson, who works for Limo anywhere in marketing, was putting on the limo Anywhere academy. and Mike said, listen, we want you to do a session. I said, no problem. And. they hit me early. I mean, it took me a good two months to prepare my remarks for the state of the industry and I live with that data. But the Limo Anywhere team, it was extremely impressive. They had 25 Limo anywhere, people in the academy, and they set up a room for one-on-one training with, with the operators. I've never seen a software company put so many resources into a presentation and I guess they liked what I had to say. I mean, it was the first time I met the President, Sean Arena.

James Blain: 6:32

Oh, you'd never met Sean before?

Ken Lucci: 6:34

no, I've known who he was. We passed in the hallway, but it's really the first time we spend time together. So that was my opener to the weekend was spending Saturday. And I will share with you that from a tech perspective, they've got a lot of great things coming out. Okay. I think that the software platforms are waking up a little bit. I think that, you know, my opinion on the consolidation on the software companies is evolving in that I believe that the company that owns both Limo Anywhere and Santa Cruz and Livery Coach, you know, I believe that they're putting money into this industry and I, I will, I will evidence it by what it must have cost them to have limo anywhere do that entire academy. and you know, one thing I came across from this session, and I think you'll agree with this, that in any course, in any software beyond the core features Reservation and dispatch something like 50 to 70% of the features barely get used. It's not just we, we hear the same thing with QuickBooks.

James Blain: 7:43

But, but that's, but that's a general business problem, right? Because I get people all the time that they're like, you know, I just found out today that I can create my own courses, or I just found out today that you have dispatcher training or CSR training or you train buses. Like I, I feel like every company has that 50% of what they do that their target audience doesn't know they do.

Ken Lucci: 8:06

I agree with that a hundred percent. And, and, and specifically on software or any, or any learning platform, it's People, there's a tendency for operators to ask for all these different features and when they ask me to do this session, I kind of did a deep

James Blain: 8:23

What, what session did they have you do? Because I know I had talked to Mike beforehand and we were, he was like, so what do you think, uh, I should have Ken do, and I threw a couple things at him. So what did you end up presenting on?

Ken Lucci: 9:12

So the first session I did was on the feature sets inside Limo, anywhere that we have seen our client operators excel at using. Okay.

James Blain: 9:25

Oh, okay.'cause I was pushing him for profitability when he was saying that he wanted to use you. I thought a profitability session would be

Ken Lucci: 9:31

Well, believe it or not, we sold the virtues of lead quote close

James Blain: 9:36

Ah,

Ken Lucci: 9:36

a sales management system. we sold the benefits of, using what they call passenger survey, which means to me is a total quality management tool. Okay. and so I, spent a lot of time on the first session of those two things, and then I was amazed they had me close out the day and I did the last session on being proactive from a standpoint of. Of sales, marketing and messaging. I gave examples of why they need to be diversified, both in the corporate space and in the private space. I got some good reviews out of it. I think we're gonna do some webinars, on it as well. But the next day I went to the NLA board meeting, and that's where I started. I started recording kind of my own mental notes of the sentiment of the, of what's going on in the space. The first thing I, noticed was they got a report from the manufacturers and MCI, for example, was talking about the inability for them to, or the, the struggle they're having with setting prices on their vehicles because of the tariffs because of the changing. The build cost of all these parts. So, so from a real life perspective throughout the show, one of the themes I heard was all of the tariffs and trade uncertainty is causing havoc when building these vehicles like Jay Glick, from first class Customs. by the way, he brought a built to the show that was bought by a private, uh, billionaire that I've never seen the fit and finish on the inside of a sprinter like this one. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was a, yeah, it was, it was more set up like a jet sprinter, but it was for a private client and the, the fit and finish it was over two fi 2, 2 30, some 230,000 but, but it was a private build. That's why it, it looked like the inside of a jet plane. Anyway, so Jay and I were talking and I said, how are the tariffs? You know, you dealing with the tariffs. He said, Ken, the chassis are of Mercedes are made on the ground. So the chassis are not the problem. But all of the other parts I use are the problem. He had rims coming in from a manufacturer that built them in China, and the manufacturer in China shipped all of their. Dyes or whatever it's called, for manufacturing over to another country with more favorable tariffs. And guess what? All of their models and dyes got lost. So that was Chi look. That was China's way of saying, Hey, screw you when, right. So what did he have to do? He, Jay himself, designed a set of rims that he's gonna have sourced in a country that's not gonna cause him tariff problems. So I heard that repeatedly. Um,

James Blain: 12:38

Did they talk about the compounding? Because one of the things that I know and, and I spent a lot of time on the motor coach side of the industry, one of the things I know that was a concern was the compounding it used to not be a huge deal. If something came out from another country, comes into our country, goes to another country, goes right, these, pieces would move around a ton between countries. And the problem now, and, and I don't know where this landed, but there was a time where the conversation around that in the motor coach industry was, it's gonna hit four or five different locations and it's going to compound and it's gonna get worse. And a lot of people don't realize your motor coach companies, they're not making them here in the us MCI is a Canadian, right? You've got your Prevo, which is Canadian, you've got Van Hool, which is coming from the European side. You've got Tempsa, which is coming from the European side.

Ken Lucci: 13:28

Temps is Turkey. Volvo is up in Canada. Yep.

James Blain: 13:31

yeah. And, and so you've got, you've got all of these different countries, no one's making them here in the US and at one point when they were talking about the automakers, it was like, great, we'll be exempt. And then it was like, oh, well we didn't, we didn't think about buses. We didn't exempt you guys. So I, I see that becoming more of an issue. I mean, to the point now where I hear people talking about you have pre tariff vehicles versus regular vehicles, because if they have a pre tariff vehicle, they can sell you. It basically gets grandfathered through, is my understanding. So that's gonna be a huge problem on the

Ken Lucci: 14:02

it, it, it is, it's almost unpredictable. And, and you know, that's, that's one of the messages that when we were talking state of the industry, it was like, you need to be prepared. Prepare your balance sheet, meaning keep your debt low. You know, hoard cash. This is a need year. If I need to replace a person, replace them. If I need to replace a, vehicle, replace it. But I don't think, I don't see a ton of speculative buying, meaning I, I just don't see it. I think that the smarter operators, even the ones that are doing well, and that's one of the things we presented, was about 35% of the operators that responded. To, and, and we announced that we have a, a, a partnership with chauffeur driven on, on quarterly surveys now, but I took 300. The, the, the survey results were about 300 that answered these questions, about 35 per, and then I, I took 180 of, of the companies that we deal with from a finance perspective, about 35 companies are above where they were last year, and the average is about 12% above. But a lot of that is shifting from one operator to a better class of operator. My concern to me was the amount of people that were static and the amount of people that are down. I think that what I, I see is people who are reacting to the market and just waiting for the phone to ring their businesses are down. So the sentiment, the first sentiment was the worry about equipment costs rising. The second sentiment was, was the discussion about fleet insurance. And that came up. When the state of the industry session, came onto the main session where Chris Weiss from chauffeur Driven, asked questions, he had John Ferrari from TBL Group Up. He's in a captive. He had, Tammy from Commonwealth, and I'm not sure that whether they're in a captive. And then they had Tim Rose from Hoffman Family accompanies they're in a captive, but they addressed, they addressed the insurance issue extremely well. They all said basically the, the same thing where you need to develop a culture of safety and you need to build a case that you are low risk. And it dovetailed so much with what Tim Delaney from Lancer Insurance said on our recent podcast that you cannot approach the insurance market the way you used to. Where you've had the same broker for years and he's a good old boy. He is gonna take care of you because he's not controlling he or she, they're not controlling the market. You've gotta make the case that you're lower risk and you've gotta make safety. The cultural, uh, the, a cultural foundation piece of your company. So they talked a lot about telematics, they talked about, and, and Tim Rose hit the nail on the head. You have to use the telematics data on a daily basis to improve your organization. So it's interesting to me, there, there was a lot of talk about insurance. There was talk about solutions I believe that that report that they came out with from the NLA talked about best practices. I'm just not positive the operators are getting it. I, I'm not positive James, that they're not thinking, well, that's somebody else's problem. My loss runs are okay.

James Blain: 17:29

Well, but I so genuinely, and, and I have been traveling a lot more this year than I normally have, and I can tell you one of the things is that this is not what makes an operator money. And I say it all the time, right? Training's not sexy. Nobody woke up one day. It's like, I'm so excited, I'm gonna go train my

Ken Lucci: 17:48

You know, the funny thing is, I, I, I get, I understand what you're saying, the sentiment is there, or their thought process is, it doesn't make the money, but the reality is what you sell in perfecting the service experience eventually does make them money. Okay. The sa

James Blain: 18:06

But that's proactive thinking. That's, that's not reactionary thinking. And whether we like it or not. We're a reactionary

Ken Lucci: 18:12

but you know what? All small businesses, all small

James Blain: 18:15

They

Ken Lucci: 18:16

tend to be reaction because, you know, my dad, I used to remember, he used to go into the store the first thing in the morning. And he used to be in a great mood, and by four o'clock in the afternoon, he was a miserable bastard because all kinds of shit took place. Right? But, but, but we are, we are reactive because we are in there block and tackling, solving problems. But, but the safety aspect, I, I firmly believe that safety is like what you sell, safety sell, okay. Training cells, quality service, excellent cells. But I'm not sure why these operators aren't getting it from a safety perspective. Guy comes up to me at the show, he said, well, you know, I'm a four car operator. I'm with Progressive Insurance. I'm only two years old. I'm like, you're in for a rude awakening. What's telematics you are in for a rude awakening because, you know, he's one bad accident is, is gonna kill his renewal. But also he's not building a case that he is a he, he is, he is a low risk candidate for insurance. It's, it's

James Blain: 19:23

But it, but it goes back to something that I've always loved and there's a saying out there that a lack of accidents does not equal safety. All right. you can go. And, and it's so funny because we see this happen all the time. I see companies that say, you know, we had this big robust safety program. We hit everything. But, you know, we never had any accidents. We never had any incidents. We were clearly spending too much money on it. Right? And what do they do? They scale it back. it made me think there's a story in World War ii and they've got these bombers, and these bombers are coming back riddled with bullets, all right? They're coded in bullets and they sit down with an engineer and they said, Hey. We're, we're losing a bunch of bombers. We need to beef them up. And the first thing the guy says is, look at where all the bullet holes are. And that's where we armor played'em. And they're, they've got this idea, they're getting ready to move forward. They've got it figured out. And one of the guys goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hit the brakes. Hit the brakes. And they said, well, well, what are you talking about? We saw the planes that came back. We see where the bullet holes are. We're gonna put the armor plating there. And he goes, put the armor plating where there are no bullets. And they looked at him like he was nuts. He said, the planes that didn't come back clearly got shot there. That's the place where if you get shot, the plane crashes. Clearly, the planes, if all the holes are in this part of the plane, that means that part of the plane can be Swiss cheese and it will still fly. And if you apply that to your business, oftentimes we look at the parts that get beat up, the parts that can take the beating, the parts that can deal with it. But all it takes is one fatality, one massive accident, one massive instant. And that business is toast. And you see them trying to bolster and armor the wrong part of the business. And if you look at that same thing, if you're looking at the businesses that weather the storm and you're using that to decide where to beef up, you should be looking at the guys that didn't make it and what basically took their business out. And I can tell you nine times outta 10, it's, you know, hey, they didn't have a robust safety program. They didn't have an incident response. When something happened, they let things go. They said, Hey, we haven't had an accident in 10 years. Clearly we're spending too much on safety. Let's take the money out of it. And then what happens? Six months, nine months, it's gonna be a while, right?'cause it's gonna take a while to trend down. 12 months later, the whole thing crashes and burns. And I see it happen all the time, Ken. It kills me. It kills me.

Ken Lucci: 22:57

I think we've, I think we've passed into there's a permanent shift in this industry that some people are not acknowledging. Number one, this industry is not easy anymore to make a profit

James Blain: 23:13

it. is getting harder

Ken Lucci: 23:14

Wait a minute, while managing it with your gut. Okay. Lot of entrepreneurs say, well, I've never looked at my financials. I've managed it by my gut. Those days are over. Okay. They're over, and I, we are seeing it because the companies that are doing better this year. That are on our program. They are granularly managing everything. Okay? The second thing that I think this, and so number one, the industry, the profits of shrunk. So you need to be more and more astute financially. The second thing that's happened is, and they're not getting it, is this is not a fad on the insurance issue.

James Blain: 23:55

oh, what'd Tim say? 14 years, right?

Ken Lucci: 23:58

correct. 14 years of losses on the commercial side of his industry. Meaning for every a hundred dollars you take in, you lose a buck and a half, or you, you, you lose 150 or a hundred,$101 and 50 cents. That's not a good trend. So these are permanent changes. In other words, we're never gonna go back to the five hour minimums on sedans and SUVs and charters because the market has shifted away from Uber. So when we deploy sedans and SUVs, we're gonna be maximum efficient. The profitability is shrinking because the costs are going up. In addition to that, the insurance issue is, is is not going to return back. So if you are gonna be successful, you have to have as a foundation or as a pillar of your company, fiscal and financial management and safety, safety management and risk management.

James Blain: 25:04

Yep.

Ken Lucci: 25:04

Okay. So if you don't have those two pillars, you are not gonna succeed long. And it's scary to me, because I see some operators that have been around for a while. They came up to me as like, can you know, I think it's time to get out. And I said, what's changed? I can't afford my insurance. The deposit on my insurance, or my insurance rates went up and now they're 15 to 16% of my total income. By the way, they should be seven to nine. So, but, but you know what, what gets me these problems are not insurmountable, right? I mean, at the end of the day, it's a mathematical equation and it's, pulling the levers of your business, okay? There's not one company out there that cannot go up on their pricing in some area. I don't think you can go up a lot on your sedans and SUVs. Okay. But I do think that from an elasticity perspective, you can go up on your vans and your minis and your motors in some semblance. Okay? But here's what you can do on sedans and SUVs. You can make a deal with the best guys in your local market and start working together. So Ken has SUVs. James has SUVs here to heretofore. We've not worked together, right? Because I don't like James. Right. Okay. Well, you know, I'm jealous of James because James is an operator. You know his, he has shinier vehicle. Okay. Stop.

James Blain: 26:27

Yeah.

Ken Lucci: 26:28

Ken and James get together and have coffee and say, look, I'm gonna make my schedule available to you from a sedan and SUV perspective. I'll have you be your back. You have my back. You know, let's maybe not have our logos all over the sedans and SUVs, right? So that when I've, and, and let's train our drivers that we have this now, and maybe it's five guys, maybe it's five operators locally. And, and what you do is a rising tide lifts all boats. Now you can make me more efficient because you know that I have, tomorrow afternoon, I have a guy coming out of the airport empty. That's what we have to be doing because the profits have gone down. Right. They've gone down. And, and I, I, I do think it's a, it's that much collaboration needs to improve, on the local level on the national level.

James Blain: 27:20

let me ask you something Ken,'cause we're at kind of a nexus point, right? So I go every and, and it's funny'cause you, you grew up in the grocery industry. Every time I go to the grocery store with my wife and I try to do it as little as possible, but every time I end up at the grocery store with my wife, it costs me more. I'm seeing the cost of groceries go up every day. The cost of insurance is going up every day. All of these costs in our personal lives Are, are going up. That's for all of your drivers, all your staff. On the business side, we're seeing cost go up, but what we're seeing at the same time, Amazon just announced that due to ai. They're doing mass layoffs. We're seeing that wages are not keeping up. We're seeing that all of these kind of, you know, and I, and I bring it up'cause you talked about earlier that, you know, we have this 35% chance of a recession, but we've got all of these kind of, what I would call, at least to me, red flags. if you're the operator and I have the advantage, I can ask my financial friend over here whenever I want. But if you're the operator listening to this podcast, you're like, man, I keep hearing all this stuff. I keep hearing all that. Like, from a financial perspective, what do you see? What, is there a breaking point? Does this keep going? Do we have to increase prices to keep up with it? I mean, it almost feels like there's a snowball coming down the hill to a lot of people.

Ken Lucci: 28:44

you know, and, and, and, uh, I have very in depth conversations with my buddy Bobby, be Gamba, who, you know, who used to own Concord. We helped him sell his business. We talk now about the stock market and, and there is some people that think that there we're in the middle of an AI bubble and, okay, so, so to answer your question, if you accept the reality that at any given time there is a, there is the potential for a Black Swan event, or there is a potential for at least some sort of a disruption, just like we saw on the pandemic, the strong survived. So at the end of the day, I think 25 and 26, don't forget, 26 is also a midyear election year. So I, think it's prudent that you, tighten the sheet a little bit, right? And you, you hold your cash, you go up in prices where you can, you work with people who pay you on time so that you're not left with a lot of cash out if something happened, you know? But the name of the game is we're a transactional business. and it's not enough to look at your transactions at the end of the year to see how you, did. You have to manage the business on a micro level every single month? am I, am I pessimistic? You know, I'm very optimistic about the larger equipment from vans, minis, and motors, and our ability to stay profitable in those sectors. I think we deliver a better service experience than any of the competitors out there. I think that in certain markets, like the corporate, I mean the, uh, airport quote, shuttle market, you know, I think that's a pricing game. But I think we do, I think we do a hell of a job on all of the others, and I see those areas continuing to be very profitable where I'm concerned. Especially because of the recent transactions that have taken place and the coming of autonomous vehicles. I'm concerned about the sedan and SUV space. You know, the other thing that I, let me, let me back up. I'm concerned that we can't even keep the market share that we have. We're$20.3 billion industry, if you include motor coaches, 6.6 billion of that is sedan and SUV. Okay. And, you know, we talked to, or Brett Bernal did a great job with, the Suzanne Nang, the CEO of GBTA. And I talked to her before and she's like, Ken, you know. we had to revise our 25 a little bit so that we are not growing at 10%. We're growing at 6.6%. Corporate travel is growing by 6.6% over 24 in 2025. In 2026, they've revised from 9% down to 6%. She said, but we're still on track. We are still on track to be a trillion industry. So I said, Suzanne, you know, 67% of the reason why corporate travel uses chauffeur is Sedan and SUV. Okay? And she said, I didn't realize it was that high. I'm like, it is. So my concern is not that we're gonna be attractive to corporate travel, to do groups and meetings, to do high touch board meetings, to do, bring people in for training, et cetera, et cetera, large equipment. I think we're gonna be fine. What scares the crap out of me? Is our lack of ability to come together as an industry on the sedan and SUV side. Number one, at the basic level, every single on the local and state level, we should be sharing resources and we should be helping each other out. And we should be, I mean, rock bottom prices to each other. That's number one. Number two, the other theme of the show was technology. Okay. And Every single session I went into and I hopped in and out of every one, our friend Joey Mills, was given a great talk on overnight tours, which is incredible. Every single session, the state of the industry session was about technology. I mean, Tammy Rudder from Commonwealth hit the nail on the head. We are constantly. trying to keep the corporate clients while the age of the passenger keeps going down and the age of the booker keeps going down. And she said flat out, they all wanna use apps, they all want dashboards. Okay. I think, I was pleased by what I heard and saw with Limo Anywhere, and I tried to say to myself, you know, forget about the fact that, you know, I played a part in the session. I gotta tell you, they've got some unbelievable feature sets coming. And the other thing I heard was, for the first time, the other software provider that's owned by Full Steam is going to be sharing some of their shuttle tools, because apparently they have a better shuttle tool than Limo Anywhere. And Limo Anywhere has better corporate dashboards. So I, I'm worried about the sedan, SUV space. from our industry's perspective, because, you know, we just saw that, that Lyft just purchased TBR, which is a smaller boutique network here in the United States, but they're massive in the UK and Europe. I mean, the highest touch meetings that take place in Switzerland in the finance and banking space are done by TBR. Well, that company was just purchased by Lyft. so at the end of the day, as we're seeing the, uh, TNC come into the premium space and we're seeing continuous talk about Uber just announced, by the way, they just announced that the Lucid neuro. Vehicles are gonna be launched first in San Francisco and Okay. And we'll talk about that. We've got another podcast coming up. So I'm, I'm massively concerned about the sedan and SUV space. Do I think we can, do we do, I think we still deliver the best service experience. Absolutely. But at the end of the day, if the eventual client wants to do their booking using technology, they're never gonna see that service experience.

James Blain: 35:10

Well, but, but you've got some things at play here. You've got some big pieces at play. So, so my mind right now is on the, the motor coach side because it's funny in, in, on the chauffeur side of the business, my message to that world is safety has to come first. You have to follow the regulations and you have to go above and beyond the regulations. They are the bare minimum. And you have to have safety programs and you have to understand the second you get to a Sprinter, which is a commercial motor vehicle, and I swear I have people at them. Well, it doesn't require CDL Well you better check your state.'cause in some states it does. Right. but but as soon as you get to that level right, they, they have to do it. And then the problem there becomes on the other side of that, and I'm speaking about this to one of the motor coach associations. The legacy motor coach side doesn't have the customer service level. So yeah. So in our world, we lack that safety conscious, those safety programs, the training, the mentality there, and that world, they lack, that chauffeur, that high level touch, those are

Ken Lucci: 36:21

but to your point, to your point, they, they've always, the motor coach companies, the good ones have always taken safety very, a much more serious.

James Blain: 36:30

I sit on the bus industry safety council, right? I mean, there's no such thing as a limousine safety council, right? If there was, I'd be on it. I'd be preaching

Ken Lucci: 36:38

Okay.

James Blain: 36:39

the mountaintops, right? You know, we have a couple groups that work on safety, but not to that. For them, it's baked into the mentality, and then you get down on the sedan and SUV side right there. I don't see. The, the legacy motor coach as you as some of them call it, and the chauffeur side or limo side is a ti and that's typically how they think of each other, right? If you brought those two together and you got'em to harmonize, they'd complete each other. You have the service, you have the safety, you now have complete and whole groups. In my mind, the problem that I see with the sedan and SUV is that when I was at GBTA, I don't even want to try and guess how much money Uber spent, but Uber had lounges every, I don't know, 50 feet. There was an Uber lounge, you had Lyft, you have, and the one thing that we cannot do, and you know. The National Association is making a hard effort, but the one thing that doesn't exist in our world is a centralized national dashboard, unless they go through a broker. The thing that Uber is preaching is I got one dashboard for Intel, for Apple, for all of these massive mega companies, right? Nvidia, whoever it is, it doesn't matter where you send them. We have one dashboard to track where they are, how much they spent, all that. Look, I went and signed up for Uber's dashboard. I wanted to see it, and it's good. It's

Ken Lucci: 38:05

It's it. No, listen, it's, it's phenomenal And there's such a, there is such a state of denial on some people's mindset on the tech side, in the chare space. Well, that's too expensive. We can't do that. but on the other side of things, that's exactly what the corporate client wants. The, the private client wants the convenience of ordering that app. Oh. You know, and, and, and look. Pricing. Pricing. I maintain that. The TNCs have, without question, done a fantastic job. Urban city to airport near urban city. Okay. So JFK, LaGuardia, right? JFK and LaGuardia to downtown and then Boston to Logan Airport, to everybody who lives in the back bay in that area.

James Blain: 39:02

And they're integrating with the airlines too, right? So I, I got off a Southwest flight was, I think it was Southwest. Either way, I get off a flight and I'm, I'm in the app for whatever,'cause I'm looking at my next flight and it says, Hey, I saw you just got to the airport, click here. And by the way, if you don't know this is coming, you now have hotels doing the same thing. I got into my hotel app to check in when I got to the airport and it said, thanks for checking in. We see you're at the airport. Do you wanna have a lift? Click here. Boom. Right into the

Ken Lucci: 39:33

Yep. Yep. And, and, and I, I think that while I am overly optimistic on the large vehicle side, because we do deliver such a better service experience than the bus guys, and some of the bus guys won't even deal, they won't even handle groups and meetings, meaning logistics. We will do all of that. I, I'm really, I'm really optimistic there, but where I'm very concerned about the industry is. I mean, for how long are we gonna be talking about the fact that we need a unified corporate dashboard that can connect capacity in every city as well as we need an app? I mean, I heard someone say, well, it would cost$50 million to develop an app. I'm, I mean, I'm just gonna call h shit on

James Blain: 40:22

hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. So, so when you say$50 million, is that like We're gonna give, I don't know, maybe like 49000000.75 to somebody to go buy a yacht and then we're gonna take the 250,000 and we're gonna build an

Ken Lucci: 40:36

you go.

James Blain: 40:37

like, I'm

Ken Lucci: 40:38

But, but

James Blain: 40:40

We have a software platform. I live in that world. Nice

Ken Lucci: 40:42

right, right. I, and look, I had The owner of one of the largest networks in the country say to me, well, you know, so and so said that it was gonna cost them$50 million to develop an app. And that's why, you know, we don't have an app.

James Blain: 40:57

So I will, I will build it. Whoever said that I just want right now on the podcast, if you give me$49 million, I will build the app. Now, don't ask me what I actually spend building the app, but give me the 49 million. I'll

Ken Lucci: 41:08

So now, so, so now that we're, you know, we're into this and you're, you know, we're talking about the show, you know, two of the largest networks in the world were not at the show. Okay. They weren't anywhere to do with the show and let's leave names out of it. But they think they, they either think they're better than the general public. and I think that, or they just didn't think that there was

James Blain: 41:30

no, no, no presence whatsoever.

Ken Lucci: 41:33

None. None. And, and, my thought process is this, we're either gonna rise together or we're gonna fall together. And look, I got no dog in this hunt. I'll be able to sell, we'll be able to sell the businesses regardless. And, you know, we, we, there isn't really much that goes on in the space that we're not involved with, but. It concerns me that some of the loudest voices in the industry can't speak in harmony together and say, look, this is what we need, and it's not just to develop it for us, but this is what we need across the board.

James Blain: 42:09

Well, but let's, let's call a spade a spade for a second, because one of the things that is unique about our world versus the world of TNCs is that it is no secret that if I am a larger company with multiple different locations, my best move is to have my own dashboard, my own everything, and not tie into someone else's. So I think one of the things that we've got going on, and, and this has been true, you know, I, I won't say who it was. Well, when I got into this industry 10 years ago now, uh, about two or three years in, we went to one of the largest operators in the industry and we talked to them and their response was, you know, why do I wanna do something with you? Why do I wanna, you know, back you? Why do I want to have stuff with you and help you get your name out there and do all that and bring everybody else up? When it behooves me more to make sure that I am better than everyone else, and it's that mentality that we've been fighting since long before I got here 10 years ago, probably long before you got here. That I think is stunting growth.

Ken Lucci: 43:13

I agree a hundred percent. Just think about what I said about the collaboration that needs to take effect on the local level, right? So I deal with operators all the time that say, I have 20, I have 10 SUVs, 20 SUVs, et cetera, and I can't go up on my pricing. And then we look at the KPIs and we show them in a heat map look. This is where you literally have no usage during the day and on these days. So I, I mean, honestly, if you had two more rides a day, your margins would go up. Because think about it, you already put the vehicle on the road, okay? And you're probably paying that guy for an eight hour shift. You might be putting him down two hours, but regardless if you became more efficient, and that efficiency at the local level only comes through collaboration at, of with each operator or selective operators. All right? If the guy's a dirt bag, don't deal with'em. Okay? But I maintain to you that the same thing has gotta happen on the large side of the industry, okay? And it doesn't. And they're because, because for whatever reasons they can't get over. You know, the confidentiality, the proprietary, they can't work together. And unfortunately I think that that, that when you, you said it, when you go to the GBTA and you see Uber just courting the businesses, at some point the businesses are gonna say, you know what? I don't agree with it. They're gonna say, you know what? It's the same SUVI don't give a shit if they don't vet their drivers or it's good enough. That scares me. That scares me. It's lowering expectations.

James Blain: 44:51

But it's, but the important thing to remember, all right, and, and I am lucky enough that I had a father who worked for Sprint, which is now part of T-Mobile that worked with their procurement department. And if I'm the guy in procurement, I don't want to have to manage 50 different companies in 50 different places. And even if someone,

Ken Lucci: 45:13

and 50 different processes for billing and 50 different and 50 different ways of ordering things. I agree with you a

James Blain: 45:20

Thi this. This is why the broker model works, okay? The reason we have large brokers that don't own metal, and we have it in the motor coach side, the limo side, it doesn't matter what industry or NEMT that is because for the procurement guy, they'd rather have another layer below them that deals down and does all that, and they have one dashboard won everything to go through. I would rather take someone that does a half decent job and I only manage one to the guy that knocks it outta the park and does the other. And the thing that you've gotta be aware of there is a lot of this is under understanding what you are selling

Ken Lucci: 45:56

And understanding what your customer needs and

James Blain: 45:59

yes, because there's a guy who your goal is to sell to that broker. Or maybe it's a time in the business where it makes sense to sell to that broker, but you might decide, Hey, I'm a higher caliber company to where that's not my target. I'm targeting someone that wants a more high touch, a more exclusive, just because the procurement department of a large company wants one dashboard, one everything, they'll take low quality doesn't mean you're not gonna find someone that is the largest local company in your town that cares way more about the quality. I will share with you in my world of PAX training. I have customers that are defense contractors. I have customers that are massive corporations that are huge that you would never think, and the reason they've come to us is they've said, Hey, we have five in-house drivers, or we have 10 in-house drivers. They drive our CEO, they drive our mega, you know, contract. These are, we have like a tiny amount of guys when we absolutely can't afford to send something out of house and we want them to be perfect, right? And so that exists, and the reason that exists is because for that in-house clientele, they had to have it perfect. I've got customers that have told me, Hey, I need a higher level of training because I deal with the king and queen in my country, or I deal with this. And so I think a lot of this is kind of understanding where you sit in the market, but to a certain extent, you've also gotta understand. We as an industry, whether it's motor coach, whether it's NEMT School bus limo, I don't care what you're in, you have to decide where you sit in the market and as an industry, what you're gonna accept. I've said for years, if you look at the California raisins, I, my favorite thing to do is ask people, what were the California raisins? What brand? And everybody, all Sun made this, that, the other, and the answer is none. It was the California Raisin Growers Association that banded together to raise it all. Just like got milk, got milk, wasn't, you know, any specific brand that was a Dairy Growers of

Ken Lucci: 48:08

It was the dairy association

James Blain: 48:10

Now, now here's what kills me, is even between our industries. I travel a ton. I went to Washington multiple times with different associations. There was no collaboration between the different associations on the asks of the representatives. I went in with one group one day. I went in with one group another day. They have different lobbyists, but they're asking for the same crap. We have the same insurance problems. We have the same insurance issues, but we're not crossing those borders and having four different associations in transportation go to those representatives and ask for the exact same thing and say, Hey, exact, exactly. Together.

Ken Lucci: 48:54

Together. Yeah. And, and it gets back to the, it gets back to the, to the thought processes, uh, process of collaboration and Okay. Because, you know, at the end of the day, I think the NLA does a great job on with, um, their lobbyist firm and with their PR firm.

James Blain: 49:10

believe it's cornerstone, isn't it?

Ken Lucci: 49:12

right. Cornerstone. Correct. But to your point, I mean, do you think we could do a better job if collaboratively all of the private transportation associations were singing from the same ALS had the same PR people? The same, but it's, it's difficult. I, I, I can tell you that the NLA is doing a hell of a job compared to years ago when I was an operator. I honestly believe that, I mean, I sat in on the

James Blain: 49:37

I, I don't think it's about anybody doing a bad job. Right. I, I, I think, I think everybody's doing an incredible job.

Ken Lucci: 49:44

It's light years ahead of where it was us.

James Blain: 49:46

Right. And I, and I wanna be abundantly clear, right? I, dude, I, I can give you alphabet soup. Uh, I'm on the BIS committee. I'm part of driving force for a BA, I'm on U-M-A-T-T-A, right? I'm the co-chair of the Safety and Loss Committee for TT a I try to stay very involved with NLA. This is not a doing a bad job issue. This is a fact that when these industries all started, the lanes were really far apart. And we were all running the same general direction, but you couldn't look at the lane next to you and see them. We are now seeing that in this moment, at least for me, because I'm in all these different associations because we work with all of pastor ground transportation, I see it as one big highway. We're basically on a multi-lane highway. You

Ken Lucci: 50:33

With no more Jersey barriers to

James Blain: 50:35

No, no. Right. The we've, we've now merged onto the same highway going the same direction. So the motor coach guys are in their lane. The limo guys are in their lane n EMTs in their lane school buses, in their lane, taxis in their lane. But we haven't realized that we've all merged onto the same highway and what's happened, and the reason for me, it's so obvious, is I'm watching guys switch between lanes and I'm watching guys have vehicles in multiple lanes. It's very common now to see a chauffeur services company that runs buses. I'm now seeing bus companies that are starting to run black car.

Ken Lucci: 51:12

and, and they're running school buses. But you hit upon something, you hit upon something that, you know, I, I think is, is, is pretty important, which is we all have one massive common problem. And that's commercial insurance.

James Blain: 51:27

Oh, at every show, every industry. It's all of us.

Ken Lucci: 51:31

what you're saying then is why aren't these associations collectively? Why isn't there an insurance. Group a committee a task force with people from the UMA with people from a MA with people from ta ta and people of NLA. I mean, you heard it here first,

James Blain: 51:50

Yeah. And, and by the way, I, I will be that guy. Right. And I've, I've made that offer and, and I've tried to, to promote collaboration between the associations.'cause I'm at everything and, and it's probably no secret.

Ken Lucci: 52:02

This is the fundamental issue that will bring them all together. Okay? Now here's the other piece of this puzzle. If they come together for the insurance issue, they can also come together with a position on autonomous safety as well. Because the only people that are talking about autonomous safety at the moment are the autonomous industry, right? We don't want to, okay, but, but to your point, I, I think that, I think that there is a t there is a tremendous case to be made that all of these associations should be collaborating and funding money together. To change the insurance policy and to let, the insurance commissioners in every state. Now imagine what we're saying. We start, what about, by the way, we started this by talking about the CD and LNLA show,

James Blain: 52:47

Well, and, and by the way, no secret, which I wasn't even there because I, I

Ken Lucci: 52:51

your, well, your wife was there and I actually had a better time with your wife that I'm, I ever do with you. I mean, we weren't right. We, we weren't, we weren't next to each other. But every time I talked to her, she was very positive. She was always smiling and and she's the opposite Anyway, so what what we're saying is, you know, you, because you travel in all these other association circles and you see the commonality that insurance, insurance, insurance is the problem. I think what we're advocating here is instead of the NLA sending a letter or report to the state's insurance. That that letter would have the logos and signatures of the presidents, of all of the associations, that would be massive, massive collaboration.

James Blain: 53:41

it's, doable. Right?

Ken Lucci: 53:42

Are you pipe dreaming? Are

James Blain: 53:43

oh, no, no, no, no. So, so Matt Doss, who we will be bringing back on, right? And I will be seeing soon at an upcoming show, Matt Doss brought in at IATR. He had a panel presenting to the regulators. That was right. We had Vic, Rick Versace, which was representing, you know, the NLA and the FLA. You know, we had the head of Bannie, we had the head of TTA. We had, you know, IRA Gold, we had all these different people from all of passenger ground transportation all come in, all present at once. And I can tell you and this is something that has been gnawing away at me since the legislative fly in for, um, TTA and for N LA's stay on the hill, they were back to back So I literally, I've literally, we were there for NLA, we went and we saw all the representatives. Literally the very next day I missed the, they had one day that overlapped. The very next day after being there with representatives, I was now going with TT A to C representatives. And for NLA we were asking for an insurance task force. And we got, ironically enough, right? Cherise Davis, her head of office, had been with her for a long day. Cherise Davis is from Kansas. She's a representative from um, Kansas, I believe.

Ken Lucci: 54:59

she's a, she's a, from the House of Representatives?

James Blain: 55:01

I believe she's House of Representatives, democratic Party, state of Kansas. Don't quote me on that, I'm just going off top of my head. Um, but her, her head of office, of her office had been there for a long time. I wanna say, don't quote me on this one. I believe he was a Jayhawk like I am. And he, he told me, he said, look, you're gonna talk to a lot of kids. This is when, Vance was trying to get something done right. And they were all in session. He goes, I, I'm gonna give it to you straight. You're asking me for a task force. Okay, what does that look like? How does it work? What does it do? You want an insurance task force? Right? He, in a very, very nice way, he came to me and said, all right, you asked me for a pony. Great. Do you know what kind of pony? How are you gonna feed the pony? Where are you gonna keep the pony? How's the pony gonna live? This is not even my problem. This is a state issue. Um, and, and in a, in a, a roundabout way, that's kinda the message you gave. The thought to me was, all right, so we've got a state issue, so we have a very easy way for them to kick it down. It wasn't collaborated and in a short span of time, I wasn't able to go with UMA, but UMA was there too. So we had T-T-A-N-L-A-U-M-A, so you have the motor coach operations, you have NMT, taxi and Paratransit, and some smaller school bus, and the limo associations all converging, all asking for the same thing. At a roundabout way, what happens when we say, Hey? We've all come together as an industry. This is the shared problem. This is what we want a task force to look like. Here's a blueprint for it. We'd like you to endorse it. The whole game changes. Now let, let me be abundantly clear. Cornerstone did an incredible job and putting stuff together for us. TTA a's side did an incredible job putting stuff together for them. I don't want anyone to think that I'm trying to say, Hey, you know, enough wasn't done, or stuff like that. For me, it's, I saw this opportunity for a shared issue that I'm watching put people out of business. Right? And don't get me wrong, we play a huge part in that because your training, your telematics, all those pieces, but it, it's grown to a point where. We as an industry, a larger passenger ground transportation industry, have this opportunity to come together. I volunteer as Tribune, right? I am happy to help coordinate that. I've tried to put myself in touch with all the right people, but I think at a certain point the leaders have to come together and say, these are the main issues. We're not gonna agree on all of'em. We're not gonna want the same thing on all of them. But if we become that squeaky wheel that gets the grease and we're able to get that message out there effectively as a group, and we're able to pool resources and time and money to do that, guys, there's a reason that the Amish can build a whole barn so quickly and then get it to last for so long.

Ken Lucci: 58:01

Do we need them on the task

James Blain: 58:02

Look, look, it shows I live out in Kansas, right? It IME immediately goes to a barn

Ken Lucci: 58:07

no. You know, I, I think you've, I think you've hit upon something that, you know, at the beginning of the podcast, we didn't think we were gonna come up with, we didn't think about this as the aha moment, but at the end of the day, I believe the chauffeur space can only do this much on its own. And the UMA or the, the bus guys can do this much,

James Blain: 58:29

Uh, don't say theirs is bigger. You're gonna make people upset. Ken, we,

Ken Lucci: 58:33

But, but,

James Blain: 58:34

gotta pull their weight.

Ken Lucci: 58:35

but collectively, collectively, what you can do is you can, you can bring the legal experts together, like the, I mean Matt does, should be, he works across all

James Blain: 58:47

Uh, look, if I'm gonna have a partner in crime and getting everyone together, it's gonna be Matt. So Matt, I love you to death. I'm volunteering you. If you're up for it, buddy. I know you are.

Ken Lucci: 58:54

no, but, but, but I think that if it's much, much, much more impactful, if. On the days on the hill or whatever you send to each state, uh, both the governors and the insurance certificate insurance, um, head of insurance agencies, no, the in what's, what's the guy in the state that takes care of the insurance?

James Blain: 59:16

Oh, the insurance commissioner.

Ken Lucci: 59:18

Yeah. But, but you should have the same package sent to every state. You, you are right that the insurance is a state issue, but I'll tell you what's not, it's not, it's tot reform is a national issue and it is a state issue from the perspective of state legislatures. But you're right, I think all of the passenger transportation space needs to come together. And I hate to say this, but the insurance companies can only do so much, and their inclination might be, you know what? Fuck this. We're gonna just go to another market. That's what I'm afraid of. Wait a minute. That's what I'm afraid of. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid that you're gonna lose the good guys in the insurance space that are gonna say, screw this. You know what? Let's start insuring horses. It's less risky.

James Blain: 1:00:07

Well,

Ken Lucci: 1:00:08

think it is. I don't think it is, by the way, but let's,

James Blain: 1:00:10

is, right?

Ken Lucci: 1:00:11

but let's start it. Let's start ensuring something else, okay? And that's what worries me the most. And these guys are, they've taken it as far as they can go alone. And, and believe it or not, they are your allies in this, okay? Because you know what? They wanna make money. They wanna go back to the times that commercial vehicle was a moneymaking sector of what they did. And it's not.

James Blain: 1:00:37

and tort reforms in their best interest, right? And I, and everybody's, oh man, they got a new boats, a new blah, blah, blah. They're rich. The insurance company. Look, I have a good friend and insurance, I have a very good friend in insurance. I'm not gonna say who it is because I don't wanna call him out, but, he literally at one point told me, he is like, dude, I go to these conferences. I tell'em I'm in, you know, I'm in like, you know, paid commercial auto, you know, basically like limmer chauffeur buses, and they're like, dude, the hell's wrong with you. And they start targeting margins, right? And, and their margins, right? He's like, we make this much. And they're like, ha ha, you suck. We make this much. Right? And, and so I think part of it is, believe it or not, if they can get tort reform, tort reform's a massive win for your insurance company too. But at the same token, you know, I see the same thing. I was sitting at a, I was sitting at a dinner table at CBA, which, which by the way, for those of you who don't know, we had CBA and C-D-N-L-A going in the same time. I was asked by the bus industry safety council to speak, California Bus Association. And they had, during that, they had their bus industry safety Council west. And I was asked to present. So I had my team

Ken Lucci: 1:01:41

Did you see my buddy? Did you see my buddy Jeff Brush out there from Avalon? One of my favorite people in the industry?

James Blain: 1:01:46

did not have a chance. I don't know if Jeff was there.

Ken Lucci: 1:01:49

Well, if he was, I'll tell you right now, if he was, he didn't announce himself because he's the, look, he's the biggest sleeper company out there that doesn't really, he's not, he's a great guy though. He's a funny guy too. He's a great guy. He's one of my favorite guys to talk to in the afternoon.'cause he calls me from California. and, and listen, to be honest, he's not for sale. Don't say that. I mean, he, he, he, he's on the buy side of some stuff. And then we worked, we worked with him on the coach USA deal. He,'cause he was successful bid anyway and I think he was gonna be at the CBA. Alright, so we need to bring this back home because it, it

James Blain: 1:02:24

I I think we bring it back home with, with, I think we gotta come to terms with the fact that all of our lanes, right. We've now gone, it's not, it's not Jersey anymore, where you have two highways with a massive divider and the trucks go over here and the cars go over there. Right. I think what we've come down to now is we are all on this highway together. We've got all of these lanes that we thought were completely separate, and now most of us are all just at the point where we can look next to each other and see the industry next to us, and we've gotta find ways to start rolling the window down and collaborating and working together across those lanes for common goals.

Ken Lucci: 1:03:05

Look, I, and I think it, it, I, I do think that, you know, just two, two idiots on a podcast here, I think, I think, you've come up, I think you've come up, with something that it, it is to the point where it is literally a, it's, it's a brush fire and it's taken over. It's taken over all of our landscapes. So I think this is a call out to. The heads and the executive boards of all of the transportation associations. The two idiots on a podcast think that it would be nice to explore a joint task force on the insurance issue of every National Transportation Association, every state association, and the largest operators in all spaces to get together to pool capital and to go in a common direction. This has probably been the most important podcast that we've, that this is probably our biggest contribution to the industry is your I is your idea to have all of the associations collaborate together. On the commercial insurance crisis. So that is the perfect way to end this podcast, monumental day. Uh, whenever this damn thing hits, you're gonna remember the date that it hit, because we flat out came with, came up with a brilliant idea.

James Blain: 1:04:39

Yep. And, and, and I'm gonna make it easy, right? Like

Ken Lucci: 1:04:43

Yes,

James Blain: 1:04:44

easy to get ahold of LinkedIn, Facebook, email. I'm at like every show. Get ahold of me. I have, I am volunteering personally. This is something that I think our industry needs. I know it's something that it's not just, yeah, I know. It's something that not just I want, but as someone that works with so many different associations, I would love to coordinate this with those out there that thinks it needs

Ken Lucci: 1:05:08

And you know something, as I close this podcast out, I've missed di having these podcasts with you because you've been out traveling. So I've, I've had to just pitch, hit on my own. But I love the passion you're displaying today.

James Blain: 1:05:21

I, I, look, I gotta say I, and for those of you that don't know, this is not the direction we were thinking we would go with this episode. Ken and I get together, we do these episodes, we have a topic, and then we just, we kind of go and so I, I think part of that,

Ken Lucci: 1:05:36

But this was gold. This was,

James Blain: 1:05:37

industry.

Ken Lucci: 1:05:38

I, you know what I I, I, I absolutely do, and on my worst day, I say, I'm gonna open that damn hot dog cart any day now. But I want to see this through to a conclusion. I, I, you know, we, we've been involved in some fantastically large transactions that, you know, maybe we'll talk about at some point. But, uh, but I see this common thread that's through the industry, and I hear the ins, the best guys in the insurance space basically say, this is, this is a terrible situation for us too. And, but what I've heard you say today is the closest damn thing I've seen to a universal solution, or at least a universal approach. to tackling this thing together. Together. I think the, all of the private passenger transportation associations can be 10 x stronger. So, um, I love your passion, man. Thank you for, thank you very much for coming in off the road. this has been the Ground Transportation Podcast with James Blaine from PAX Training, just touchdown in Kansas to kiss his wife and to, uh, before the next show. And I'm Ken Lucci from Driving Transactions. We do financial analysis, business valuations, and m and a advisory. Thanks and, we'll see you on the next episode.

1:06:52

Thank you for listening to the ground transportation podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe to the show on apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more information about PAX training and to contact James, go to PAX training.com. And for more information about driving transactions and to contact Ken, Go to driving transactions.com. We'll see you next time on the ground transportation podcast.