Episode 240 features BRC Director Ben Burr

Blue Ribbon Coalition Executive Director Ben Burr gives the low-down on what BRC needs right now and shows us how we can be successful in our land use fight. It’s a fascinating take on what is going on in the real world. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app. 

4:16 – my ancestors settled the Moab area; the Burr Trail is named for them 

8:01 – I was always an advisor on these issues, I had pretty deep life experience working on public lands             

17:13 – If you would have said I’m going to go from restaurants to politics, I would have been like, how am I going to get there? 

25:16 – that’s the operating system running things now, it positioned lawyers to be the key players in this movement, especially on the environmental side 

30:19 – and so, it is time to install an operating system that works to the benefit of outdoor recreation users 

37:21 – you say exclusionist, I say elitist, it’s a very elitist movement 

47:21 – SUWA wants concentrated recreation in just a few areas 

53:20 – Call to Action – join BRC, a change in the public land system is going to happen because a bunch of people rise up and demand it 

1:01:15 – if everybody who owned an off-road vehicle joined BRC, I’d be bigger than the Sierra club, it’s a $300 million organization – the math maths out on that 

Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast. 

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app. 

Transcript

[00:00:05.480] - 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present and future legends as well as business owners, employees, media and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle. We call off road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off road.

[00:00:46.370] - 

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[00:01:12.900] - 

Have you seen 4LOW magazine yet? 4Low Magazine is a high quality, well written, four wheel drive focused magazine for the enthusiast market. If you still love the idea of a printed magazine, something to save and read at any time, 4LOW is the magazine for you. 4LOW cannot be found in stores, but you can have it delivered to your home or place of business. Visit 4lowmagazine.com to order your subscription today.

[00:01:39.870] - Big Rich Klein

My guest on this week's episode of Conversations with Big Rich is Ben Burr. Ben is the Executive Director for the Blue Ribbon Coalition. We will talk about Ben's history, what led him to BRC, and the many fights that they have going on to keep public lands open to all. Good morning Ben Burr. How are you doing today?

[00:02:02.510] - Ben Burr

I'm doing great. How are you Rich?

[00:02:04.260] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. It's, it's good to get you on here. I don't think we've actually had a discussion or talked previously. I know a lot of the people that are on your BRC Board of directors and I've heard a lot about you. So I'm looking forward to this interview and finding out more about you.

[00:02:23.300] - Ben Burr

Hopefully it's the good things.

[00:02:25.120] - Big Rich Klein

Oh yeah, nothing but good so far. But we'll get, we'll get into all that. The first question I want to ask you is where were you born and raised?

[00:02:35.260] - Ben Burr

Yeah, so I was born in Provo, Utah, and I grew up around that Utah Valley area, up around Provo and Orem and went to high school, Mountain View, went to college at Brigham Young University. So kind of that's that northern Utah area is where I was born and raised and grew up there through most of my young adult life. And then by the time I'd gotten married and started working, I went and worked in Washington D.C. for seven years. So I lived out there for a period of time and worked in the United States Senate. And then when we left D.C. i moved back to southern Utah and I currently live in New Harmony, which is about 30 miles north of Sand Hollow. That's probably where most people that listen to your show know where something is in Utah, right?

[00:03:27.870] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I lived in Cedar City for a while. So New Harmony is very familiar because I had to work in St. George for a while. So. Yeah, that halfway point, basically.

[00:03:36.950] - Ben Burr

Yep. It's a nice little area we get. I, I can find 70 degree weather any time of the year.

[00:03:44.190] - Big Rich Klein

Also the wind, there is some wind.

[00:03:47.320] - Ben Burr

Here during the, when the weather changes, we get wind, but it's mostly pretty good.

[00:03:53.450] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, no worries. So then those early years growing up in Provo, I know that most Utahns are outdoors orientated. Yeah, the family was really big into the outdoors.

[00:04:11.530] - Ben Burr

Yeah. So my family has been in the helicopter business.

[00:04:15.170] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:04:16.060] - Ben Burr

And so my grandpa was actually born and raised in Moab and was multiple generation Moab. Like my ancestors settled that Moab area, the Burr trail out in near the Lake Powell and Bullfrog area. That trail is named after my ancestors and they ended up in the Moab area. And I, my great great grandpa did cows up in the La Salle Mountains. And then my grandpa grew up there and as a kid in the 60s, I guess it would have been 50s and 60s, he kind of saw the need for a helicopter getting around that area and he started a helicopter business. My grandma that he married was actually a swimsuit, the daughter of a swimsuit designer out of LA. So it was kind of an interesting story because back in that time period it was still like you had the good old boy Moab, long term resident meeting the newcomer coming in from the Hollywood scene and they married. And it says it isn't. It's also the same forces that are in play in Moab right now. And so he started a helicopter business and my dad ended up working for his business and then eventually starting his own helicopter business.

[00:05:32.970] - Ben Burr

And so when I was a teenager, my dad shipped me all over the west to at the time he was helicopter logging is what we'd call it. And so it's like you go cut down trees on the mountain and the helicopters would fly the trees down to a landing where they were accessible by a truck. And the Heavy machinery. And so it's a pretty efficient way of logging. And we'd usually only be clearing out like 1 in 10 or 25 trees. And so there'd still be a forest there when we were done. And so environmentally responsible as far as logging goes, I felt like. And so I was all over the west, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, California, Washington. I would, all summer long I'd be moving all over to these places. In a logging operation, you have a crummy. And the crummies, the rig you take to get to the job. And a crummy can be a brand new F350 truck with leather seats and. Or it can be a 1989 Suburban. It doesn't. It's always a crummy. Um, and that's where I got into off roading. Not because it was like a sport, but it was like to get to the work, I had to be able to ride around on these pretty, pretty rarely accessible back roads to get into these logging jobs.

[00:06:48.110] - Ben Burr

And that's where I first also kind of had my first run ins with the environmental movement that we're always fighting against nowadays at Blue Ribbon Coalition. And there was one time in Oregon we had a group of environmentalists came up and they didn't want us logging in their forest. And so they built a teepee on the logging road that we were coming in on. And they handcuffed a kid like a child to the top of the teepee so we wouldn't, no one would take it down. And it was, on one hand, it wasn't very successful for them because they built it on the wrong road. And we had a helicopter to get to work if we had to. But it kind of like opened my eyes to how radical these people are and the lengths they'll go to to enact their agenda. And we just thought we were there trying to make an honest day's work and provide wood for people, which I always like to. Look around you, do you see any wood? Like you probably are looking at some right now, you know, and so what is the thing we need? And it just didn't add up to me that this movement, the environmental movement, was as successful as it was.

[00:08:01.940] - Ben Burr

And so I've spent a lot of time thinking about that. And when I worked in D.C. it was something I would. I kind of was an advisor on these issues, even though that wasn't my primary responsibility in the Senate. I was always the one that the legislative assistance would come and talk to about these issues. Just because I had pretty deep life experience working on These public lands. And I remember as a kid laying on the floor of forest service offices coloring Smokey Bear pictures while my dad was negotiating logging contracts. And so I've been working with these agencies and in these public lands for a long time, as far as I can remember. And of course we'd also recreate. I mean we played hard. I mean my family was always into boating. We'd go to Lake Powell all the time. We had snowmobiles, we had all kinds of off road vehicles. I loved to go disperse camping on public land. And I do a lot of non motorized recreation too. I have a snowboarder. I like mountain biking, I just bought an E bike. I like to hike. I, I think I'm a, I, a lot of people, I think these groups that they try to put us in are arbitrary.

[00:09:04.900] - Ben Burr

I think most of us belong to a lot of different groups and, and find value in all kinds of recreation. And so yeah, I think to answer your question, I'm pretty outdoorsy and intend to be so for the rest of my life.

[00:09:18.960] - Big Rich Klein

So when, when school went in school, you were a good student?

[00:09:25.760] - Ben Burr

Oh yeah, yeah. I, I mean I had scholarships, 4.0. I got a master's degree in English of all things. And so it's interesting because you get a master's degree in English, you don't know how that's going to benefit you. But for BRC, it's we, our work really is going and doing a deep critical rating of these thousand page resource management plans and travel plans and determining whether they're done well or not. And so I taught technical writing at college at BYU for several years. And so I have a pretty good background in writing and critical thinking and reading and I always did quite well at school.

[00:10:11.280] - Big Rich Klein

And when you were, when you were in college, your degree you said was in English, was that primary or did you have other avenues that you investigated?

[00:10:29.640] - Ben Burr

Yeah, so I guess to be more specific, I had a double major in American studies and English. And so I got two major or bachelor degrees basically. And it makes like it works with those two because a lot of the same, the classes that you take in an English class, like the American literature classes, you would also would count for the American studies. So there's probably 20 credits or 30, 20 to 30 credits that double counted for both majors. And so it was pretty efficient. And then I got the master's degree just because I had a good close friend that was a professor that thought it would be good for me to continue studying in the field. I was wanting to get a PhD and eventually just ended up not. I mean, didn't end up not being the path I took. And so. But yeah, and. And it was. So that double major was also American studies. And so I took a lot of classes about, like, political science and economics. And like, you kind of get a broad range. It's a pretty. It's a cool major in that you get to study a lot of different things.

[00:11:36.830] - Ben Burr

And that's also probably where I. This knowledge I have of how the American system of government works is from all those classes and those studies and. Yeah, so, I mean, that's kind of my educational background.

[00:11:50.790] - Big Rich Klein

So when. When you were working or when you were going to school or before, you know, before you got into college, what was your. What was your plan? What was. What did you have. Did you have an idea of where. Where you wanted to end up and what you wanted to do?

[00:12:09.440] - Ben Burr

I wanted to be a rock star and play electric guitar.

[00:12:14.720] - Big Rich Klein

Me too. But I didn't have a voice for it.

[00:12:17.600] - Ben Burr

Yeah, I still like playing guitar, but it's. That's a pretty limited path of who can take that path and succeed at it. But I didn't at first. I mean, it was probably the default. Most people my generation, it was like business. So that was what I probably declared as my major when I went into college. By the time I'd been in there a year or two, I'd pretty much gravitated to where I ended up. But. And, But I. And I still have a good knowledge of business. I've owned businesses. I owned a software business for about 15 years. And right in college, I actually ran restaurants while I was going to college with my wife. We were. We had. We were part owners of three restaurants that my dad had invested in. And so I actually have a pretty decent background in running businesses. It's not. I've worked for the government. I've worked now for the nonprofit sector. And it's pretty. I guess maybe it's just the. My situation in my generation is you just kind of bounce around a lot and get experience where you can and climb whatever ladders are in front of you.

[00:13:31.040] - Ben Burr

And that's what I'm trying to do right now.

[00:13:33.490] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I spent my time. I mean, I got my degree in commercial photography and product advertising back in. I graduated college in 81, and I was my. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a photographer. And then working in an ad agency in San Francisco for six, eight months kind of drove me out of the Bay Area and up into the mountains and, and then, and then I, I bounced around doing all sorts of different things until I found in 2000. Well, in 98 when I met Ranch Pratt and he had started ARCA, that's when I realized what I wanted to do and that was be an off road event promoter. And it was, you know, it wasn't anything that I had ever done before except you know, leadership skills that I'd learned in scouting and, and running businesses. Everything from landscaping to wood cutting, you know, to working in automotive shops and you know, retail automotive shops and you know, running large, large, you know, 128 crew person crew, that kind of thing. But it was, you know, I found my niche when, when you were going through your, your various things from software and to.

[00:14:55.070] - Big Rich Klein

In working in the senate and the logging and everything, were you, were you just trying to find what fit or was it all a master plan?

[00:15:06.360] - Ben Burr

It was not a master plan.

[00:15:10.920] - Big Rich Klein

Because.

[00:15:13.040] - Ben Burr

Yeah, now you bring up Ranch and he's always like wanting me to come up with plans and it's like I have one now, you know, but it's not like I'm a, that's not. My personality type is to just have this meticulously thought out plan. I'm kind of a. I'm going to go and I'm going to do the best I can at the thing in front of me. And then whatever opportunities come from that, then I'll keep. It's kind of like climbing a mountain. I'm going to get to that part I can see and then once I get up there I'm going to see what else I can see and go to the next part and. But yeah, I mean like running restaurants. I mean we were running restaurants and it turned into. We'd gotten asked to do some. Is when charter schools were becoming really popular in Utah.

[00:15:54.110] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:15:54.570] - Ben Burr

And they wanted school lunch, school lunches brought in like they didn't have cafeterias. And so we started a catering program for school lunches. And we quickly learned that in order to manage all that we need, it would help to have like a web based ordering platform where people could order lunches online and then we deliver them to the schools. And that's where I built this software program that was basically just online ordering for school lunches. And once we built the program we were like, well we could just license this to all kinds of people. And so that's what got me into like web based entrepreneurship. And once I spun off that software platform as a its own business that got me learning SEO and social Media marketing and pay per click ads and all of those things. And it was that training that kind of caught the attention of. Worked for Senator Lee from Utah and I was his digital director. And that's because of all the work I'd done doing E Commerce. And so I went and helped him build his website, manage his social media accounts, and one of the first in the Senate really to be hired specifically to manage a digital media operation within a Senate office and built him a massive platform that he still is growing that today.

[00:17:13.810] - Ben Burr

And so it's like one thing grew to the next crew to the next, grew to the next. And if you would have said you're going to go from restaurant to politics, I would have been like, that's sounds fun, but how am I going to get there? Like, is that right?

[00:17:26.200] - Big Rich Klein

What's that transition look like?

[00:17:28.470] - Ben Burr

But that's what it looks like. And so, and, and then, but then to go from like Mike Lee's office to executive director of a nonprofit that's fighting to keep public lands open in the west, that's actually a pretty natural step. I think that, I mean I definitely, that's a, that's like usually the Senate staff, I mean the, you can either go become a lobbyist or. And that's not what I chose to do. I mean, my dad, he actually died in an accident in 2017. He was up doing a. It's called a. I guess it's like reclamation work on the Brian Head fire. And so after that fire burned, you had this situation where the ground was really unstable in the soil so they'll pay. Helicopter companies come in and drop straw mulch all over the burn scar and that's what he was doing. And we don't know what happened exactly, other than we think there might have been a rock or something in the net with the straw and it somehow hit him. It's like this freak accident. You probably couldn't recreate it in a simulation after a million tries. And that's why I decided to move back to Utah and help my mom kind of deal with some of the aftermath of that.

[00:18:42.970] - Ben Burr

And, and that's. It's in you watch. I mean, my dad had built this very successful business, had done some great things with his life, but was kind of still had a lot ahead of him. He saved up a lot of money and he and my mom were gonna go travel a lot and just make a, make their impact. It's not that he hadn't up until then, but he died at 58. And I was like, geez, not gonna wait. I'm gonna go make an impact where I can. And so I went. And leaving Mike Lee's office, I'd met a guy who was a Forest service supervisor who was helping ranchers kind of deal with their problems with the BLM and the Forest Service. And this was right after the Bundy situation had kind of flared up. And then we were dealing with the aftermath of that, and I was like, these ranchers need help. They don't know how to manage these federal agencies. And so I met this guy and he's like, well, I'll teach you how to do if you'll come work with me. I worked with him.

[00:19:38.250] - Big Rich Klein

My opinion is the federal agencies don't even know how to manage themselves.

[00:19:43.340] - Ben Burr

Yeah, well, I mean, but there's definitely an agenda that's enforced just as much as there's an agenda to kind of close off all our primitive dirt roads. There's certainly an agenda to remove the public land cattle ranching operation off of our public lands.

[00:19:56.410] - Big Rich Klein

Yes.

[00:19:57.380] - Ben Burr

And so these ranchers are really up against a juggernaut of multi billion dollar environmental movement, A whole army of lawyers and an army of bureaucrats. And they just don't. It's not the kind of people they are to want to go be in that world. You know, they just want to go out and run their cows and maintain their livestock and. And their livelihoods and. But then I found they kind of fight with each other a lot, as much as they fight with the government or anybody else. And it's a but. And so I have a lot of sympathy for them and I've helped them. And that's where I kind of learned how to do this public land advocacy work and the administrative advocacy work. And as I'd done that, I'm like, this is dumb. Like, I was kind of doing this as a for profit business with these ranchers. And after about a year of that, I'm like, this is a dumb way to do it. There's so much money out in the political space where if there's a nonprofit that's doing good, important work, litigation strategies, litigation advocacy, administrative advocacy, lobbying, like there's. If you can build an organization that's doing all of that, there's money out there that will support that.

[00:21:16.630] - Ben Burr

And so, like, it's dumb that these ranchers are having to fight tooth and nail for their livelihood when there's a lot of money that wants to rein in the administrative state politically. And so I've been thinking a lot about how to. And that's where I Kind of made up my mind that this eventually has to be done with a nonprofit. And so I was looking into setting one up, which was when I met Spencer Gilbert, who was the executive director before me. And he just told me, look, setting up a new one that you can. And it looks like you have the skill set to do it, but it would be a dumb idea because Blue Ribbon Coalition has decades of legal standing established, and it'll take you years to get anything meaningful done just to catch up to where Blue Ribbon Coalition is now. And so he's like, it'd be better for you to come and revive this organization and build it into what you're wanting to do here. And that was a pretty compelling argument when I once I started looking through the legal files that we have, and, I mean, there's cases we're looking into right now that we started them in 2011, the MOAB thing, everyone felt like that happened suddenly.

[00:22:25.680] - Ben Burr

It started in 2008. And so it kind of became apparent that this was the best move, was to build Blue Ribbon Coalition into something really, really strong that could fight all the fights it has on its plate and then go find some new ones. And I think there's a lot of work to do, and I'm excited. I think we've succeeded at that to some extent. There's still a lot to do, but that's kind of the path of how I got where I am now.

[00:22:56.610] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. One of. One of the things that I've always noticed, you know, I've been in off Road since 83, 82, 83, when I first went up on the Rubicon, and I kind of like got rid of my backpack at that point and started to wheel. And it was. What I noticed back then, at least in. In Northern California, is that there wasn't much. Much holding us back from doing what we wanted to do, meaning regulatory agencies and. And all the laws and everything else, or at least it didn't appear that there were. So a lot of people just were doing their own thing and not really worrying about it. And then in the 90s, things started to ramp up a bit. And then in the 2000s, especially here in Northern California with the Rubicon, we got, you know, we got hit with the. With the closure of Little Sluice and all the stuff that happened during that time. And what I noticed is that there's. That not only if you're involved in land. Land use and trying to keep public lands open is you're not only fighting the green industry, the environmentalists, but also you're fighting the government agencies because of the way that they're structured, but you're also fighting a lot of the users on the motorized side and on the non motorized side of public lands at the same time.

[00:24:38.460] - Big Rich Klein

And it's, it's. I found that early on I got, I just got burned out because of all everybody just yelling basically a different, you know, at you from different corners.

[00:24:54.670] - Ben Burr

And yeah, that's a good assessment of where we've been. And it may, and it tracks out. I mean, Blue Ribbon coalition started in 1987. You know, I mean, prior to that there probably wasn't really the need. You know, I mean, it didn't form in a vacuum. It formed as a response to some changes.

[00:25:16.230] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:25:16.900] - Ben Burr

And so those changes happened in the late 80s. I mean, SUWA started about the same year, maybe a year before. And the Wilderness Society and all these other, I mean they, they probably went back a little earlier to when the Wilderness Acts were passed in the late 60s and into the early 70s. I mean that's when the laws changed. And so in the 1960s and the 1970s we installed a new operating system on our public lands. And it took until about the 80s for that to materialize into how are the lawyers really working this system? And that's the operating system that's really still running things now. And, and it has done exactly what you've said. I mean it certainly positioned lawyers to be the key players in this movement, especially on the environmental side. It's created whole industries, billion dollar industries of suing the government to get policy outcomes that you want. And then organizations like BRC and the fights to defend the Rubicon, all these other little fights have all kind of come around in response to all of that. And it is exhausting. And it has done a thing where it has divided users into each other.

[00:26:32.220] - Ben Burr

And that's why I told you like the ranchers are fighting with themselves as much as against the forces that are trying to take them down. And when I first came into this off roading advocacy space and it wasn't, I started kind of helping like ranchers and miners and those kinds of public land users. And then I got called by some off road groups because they'd learned of some of the things I'd done and they're like, can you help us? And it was a natural fit, you know, and, and, but I wasn't like part of the culture of these off road groups right out of the gate. I very much am now. I have, it's been a great new kind of Culture to become a part of, I guess is the way to say it. And, and it's one of its biggest strengths if we can keep everybody kind of going in the same direction. And so my attitude there is, it's. I'm pretty equal opportunity advocate. As long as you believe in keeping public lands open, I'm your ally. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna actively try to work against you. It's not. And so I've worked with rock climbers, I've worked with all kinds of motorized recreation groups.

[00:27:44.630] - Ben Burr

I've worked with. We're. And we're doing some advocacy now on like the E bikes and stuff. Like it's a. And there's a reason why and sorry, it's taking a minute to build up to this point. We installed this operating system back in the 60s and 70s. These policy environments, like these contexts, they don't last forever. If you were to look at the public land system in America, we've had it since the beginning of the country. George Washington was paid for his service in the French and Indian War with land owned by the crown, which was public land. And so I mean, and that was kind of the first iteration of this is that public land was owned by the crown. It was distributed out to loyal subjects based on their performance in certain activities. And that's how we allocated public land first. And then that transitioned into something more like the homestead movement where was still owned by the government, but we were giving it out to people who would just go settle the land. And then you had the transcendentalists kind of come around in the middle of the 1800s and they're the first ones who kind of planted this seed of what is now the environmental movement of these lands in and of themselves give us spiritual and transcendent value.

[00:28:58.780] - Ben Burr

And there, there's something there that's beyond settling them and cultivating them that we should be finding value in. And then that evolved into the administrative state with Teddy Roosevelt, who started creating like the force first national parks and forest preserves and things like that. And then that eventually culminated in the wilderness movement and the protection movements that we had in the 1960s and 70s. And, and so these all. There's like a sequence of this. And I look at where we are right now and I don't think that the operating system we put in place in the 60s and 70s continues indefinitely. I think we're getting to the end of its life cycle. And so I'm asking myself, well, what's going to replace it? What's going to be the center of gravity of the next operating system. And it's pretty painfully obvious to me that it's going to be recreation. Like recreation is a one point something trillion dollar industry right now. It's bigger than oil and gas. It is the number one reason anybody goes out and has a connection to public lands anywhere. And it has no laws protecting it. None. Zero.

[00:30:17.140] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:30:19.020] - Ben Burr

And so it is time to install an operating system that works to the benefit of outdoor recreation users. And that's only going to get done if outdoor recreation users can unite around some pretty common policy objectives that they want. And that's where I see the value of something like Blue Ribbon Coalition is it has the potential to become that. And so even though it's. You've lived through a very frustrating cycle, I think that I have a lot of opportunity ahead of me. If I can pull in even a fraction of this off, we'll be able to, I think, change the operating system and get a lot of these lands back open, keep open a lot of what we have and actually see the management agencies shift to where their priority is to ask the question, how do we make sure these lands are serving the recreation interests and benefits of the American people? Because right now they don't. They're not required to ask that question. Right, they do, because there's a lot of goodwill baked into the cake for that. But they're not required to. Which is what makes it difficult for BRC is because we, it limits our legal standing of how we can challenge things.

[00:31:36.530] - Ben Burr

And so like a cattle rancher, if you have a grazing permit on public land, you have a property right that's codified through the Taylor Grazing act. That gives you a right to kind of keep what you have. And that's why it's really difficult for an agency to kind of cancel or remove a grazing permittee off of their permit. They'll make it really hard. But at the end of the day, there's a constitutional property right underwriting all of that. Recreation users have nothing like that. And it's a huge mistake that we've let the land agencies have the goodwill of our support and, and that public lands are popular because we're allowed to recreate on them. But then nothing's being done to secure and guarantee our access to them.

[00:32:23.400] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So that's the only thing that we seem to have is RS 2477. And that's not, that's not.

[00:32:31.360] - Ben Burr

That was reminding me.

[00:32:32.530] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, that's not based on recreation.

[00:32:35.680] - Ben Burr

Right. And so I worked with Mike Lee's office. And we introduced. He. He was the one who introduced it. But it's called the Outdoor Americans with Disabilities Act. It's the first legislation I know of that actually codifies a right to recreate on public land and defines it. And it basically assumes that motorized recreation is a form of disabled access to public land. And so for land managers, to accommodate the health benefits and the public benefit that comes from that recreation, they have to maintain a certain level of route density that's quantifiable, measurable on a map. And if they do, if they go below that, they have to either create new routes, open old ones that have been closed. That's what I'm talking about when I say we have to create rights, statutory rights to underwrite and protect our recreation. It is crazy that we have a $1.2 trillion economy built on such a terrible foundation of law. And so that's one way I'm looking at this. There's. I would love to see what other creative people come up with, but that's what I think that once we start passing laws like that is when you see the center of gravity start to shift away from this moment we've been in, which has been like the wilderness preservation crowd and the environmental groups, green groups, you call them, and probably like resource extraction, you know, like oil.

[00:34:04.600] - Ben Burr

That's really been the fight of this last generation. Like the baby boomers. It's like wilderness versus oil. And that was the fight. And I think moving forward, it's going to be outdoor recreation versus probably alternative energy developments. And those will be the big driving forces of how public lands get used. And. And to be fair, it's like. It's not like the wilderness movement will go away. I think there's. They have a lot of goodwill themselves. And I think a lot of people do value national parks. They do value wilderness areas. I think we've overcorrected on that front. And if you look at all the national monuments that are proposed, I was in. I mean, Blue Ribbon Coalition is challenging the Antiquities act right now. That the way presidents are using it is an abuse of power.

[00:34:49.620] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:34:50.100] - Ben Burr

We were in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals a little over a month ago, and the judge and the. In the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals asked the lawyer for the government, could President Biden designate every acre of public land, federal public land in the state of Utah as a national monument? And that lawyer wouldn't say no. That judge tried to ask that question five different ways. It was like two or three. But he kept trying to pin him Down. He's like, you're not answering my question. Not answering my question. And that government, that lawyer for the Department of Justice would not say no. As far as their concern concerned, they believe a president could designate every acre of public land as a national monument, which is just wild. And so I think we'll see some of those start to get corrected. And we're hoping our case goes to the Supreme Court. And if we were to prevail there, I think you'll start to see the national monument movement kind of roll back to something more realistic where, I mean, I would support a national monument that if they went and found an archeological site and you could draw a boundary around it and protect it, I'd be like, yeah, let's protect.

[00:35:57.950] - Ben Burr

I think archeological sites are awesome. I think they should be protected.

[00:36:01.420] - Big Rich Klein

I agree.

[00:36:01.970] - Ben Burr

I don't, I don't think you need 2 million acres to protect site. Like, I, I just went to Greece, and they have some phenomenal archeological sites. They've also managed to build modern cities around and on top of them. It's like you can both protect your cultural resources and still continue to have a functional, present modern economy. And that's not what the. That's not how the environmentalists see this. They see this as a way to turn our whole public land system into just a nature preserve that is untouchable, unusable except for the lightest uses. And sure, it'll affect, like off roading and things, but in Bears Ears, the plan they came out with theirs, like, it could very well potentially limit a lot of the hiking access and the foot access. I mean, it's. They're using this as a tool to just shut things down.

[00:36:50.520] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, it's a way to. Exclusion. They're exclusionists. They say that they're environmentalists, they're trying to protect the land, but what they're trying to do is just keep everybody off of it. To me, it seems to be that it's driven by lawyers, for the benefit of lawyers, to keep collecting money from those that live in large cities and never recreate in those areas anyway.

[00:37:21.040] - Ben Burr

And from you, I mean, a lot of the environmental lawsuits are paid for with tax dollars. But yeah, there's definitely a business model that they've tapped into. And you say it's exclusionist, and it is, but I think we need to be very intentional about using the term elitist, because it's first and foremost a very elitist movement.

[00:37:43.620] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[00:37:44.260] - Ben Burr

It's that only people of a certain political persuasion or certain socioeconomic class that are allowed to go and use and enjoy the benefits of these public lands. It's like I went to one of the first meetings I went to working for BRC was one of these Oceano Dunes meetings. And I went in and one half of the room was the group that wanted to keep the dunes open. The other half of the room was the group that wanted to keep the dunes closed. I don't take off roading and recreation out of the picture completely. This was a room that was divided by class. You had the upper classes wanting to shut out the middle and lower classes, period. And that's a recipe for not a permanent policy environment. If you look through history and look at when things unravel, it's when you have an elitist group of people dictating from the top their policy preferences against the masses. It just doesn't. Those do not last.

[00:38:52.820] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[00:38:53.220] - Ben Burr

And that's what we're dealing with in Jackson Hole and Moab and Idaho. Like certain pockets like these. There's a book called Billionaire Wilderness where you had a Yale professor go and embed himself into Jackson Hole and study the billionaires. And as an anthropological study of the billionaires of Jackson Hole. And it's a substantial. He exposes the. What the environmental movement really is. It's a tool to insulate the wealthy from everybody else. For example, it's like you moved to Jackson Hole, you've made a ton of money somewhere like California or New York or wherever. Then you go to Jackson Hole and it's like this pure place and it's clean and the environment's pristine. And so it's like, naturally, you want to keep it that way. It's very different than where you went and made all your money from. But it. But if it's just you there, then it's a problem. So you need some people there to grant authenticity to you being there. And so having a few ranchers around is good because it makes it feel like you're living in the Yellowstone show. You know, there's ranchers here and they're out here in Montana. And I'm now living this authentic life, and I'm not just making money.

[00:40:12.300] - Ben Burr

And that's how they see it. And having a certain group of like, maybe like some river rafters, that adds some cultural flavor to the scene. And it's really about them cultivating an identity for themselves. And then it's. And then. Well, you need to also be philanthropic because you've made a lot of money and now you need to help give back. Solving, like, human problems is hard like, solving poverty is hard. Solving teenage pregnancy is hard. Solving drug addiction is hard. Like, these are very hard problems to solve. There's a lot of great charities that do a lot of great work doing all of that. Building a fence around a nature preserve is easy. It is easy, but you get all the tax breaks that are tied up into private property ownership. I mean, the way we tax property, especially in somewhere like Wyoming or whatever, is. It just creates all these incentives for them to use their wealth to shut down access to the natural environment by everybody. And then that creates the housing scarcity problem. And you look at these people in Moab freaking out about how they can't afford to live there anymore.

[00:41:25.760] - Ben Burr

It's like, this is why they've tried to gut all the middle class businesses and all of the industries that could sustain them. So the only thing that's left is a bunch of billionaires paying for a bunch of fake nonprofits that don't really do anything but buy up real estate and lock it down so they get tax breaks. And I. This is like the kind of economic system that gets. It doesn't just, like, get improved. It gets overthrown. Like, they're building a very toxic environment in the west socioeconomically. And it's in this recreation stuff. And so it's like, wow, you're talking about these, like, pretty heavy things. But why, why recreation? Why does this even matter? We run into this, like with Lake Powell. We were advocating for Lake Powell. Why should we care about water skiing when we have all this water issues we have to worry about? I care about the water. I live in the Colorado River Basin. But the recreation economy is massive. It is the economy of Page Arizona. It is. I mean, you can't look at a $1.2 trillion industry and most of that happening in the west and just say, this doesn't matter.

[00:42:43.630] - Ben Burr

And so outdoor recreation needs to have a seat in these issues. It needs to be a voice in these issues. It's how a lot of people are making a living in these towns. And there's a lot at stake there. And it's very much tied up into the access to the land. And I mean, my ideal vision is that it's closer to like, what you were experiencing in 1983, that we can go and enjoy these lands and not have to be like. Not have, like, the closures are just so nonsensical to me as I've gotten into this and actually gone out on the ground and looked at what they're advocating, why these need to be closed. It Never adds up. It's all like the environmental movements just like shadows and mirrors and lies. Like, it's usually hardly ever rooted in anything real true. Like I, like, I'm following on Facebook right now with AI like there's these groups that have popped up and it's like, it'll be like Yosemite National Park. Join the group and they'll have like an AI generated picture of Yosemite and it'll get like 10,000 likes. And then you go read the comments and it's like half the people like, oh, this is so beautiful.

[00:43:52.470] - Ben Burr

And the other half of the people are like, that's not Yosemite. That is fake. It's not real.

[00:43:57.440] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. That's happening all over social media right now. It's crazy.

[00:44:02.830] - Ben Burr

That's been the environmental movement since 1987. I mean, they've been like photoshopping and selling a fake version of nature. Right. To prop up their industry since the beginning.

[00:44:12.280] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. They take one area that might say, like, where motorcycles are ridden and try to try to force that upon you, as that's how the whole west is, especially to those East Coasters, the people with money that are sitting there looking for something, some way to get a tax write off so they donate money to the green industry.

[00:44:33.920] - Ben Burr

We should start a nonprofit, Rich, where we're just trying to protect the AI landscapes on Facebook.

[00:44:39.480] - Big Rich Klein

There you go.

[00:44:40.640] - Ben Burr

Save this place. Donate money. We'd probably print money brainwashing people into trying to save things that aren't even real.

[00:44:50.010] - Big Rich Klein

So the other day, you know, you'd.

[00:44:51.850] - Ben Burr

Be ready to get a good job at the environmental movement.

[00:44:54.100] - Big Rich Klein

Like, exactly. So the other day I saw something on like images of the Old west or something like that. I mean, it was a group that, you know, where people are, you know, the history of the old West. And it showed what was the California. What they said was the California Trail. And it had row. Couple of rows of immigrants, you know, going across the country in their wagons and, you know, calistogas or whatever. And there were no horses except for the ones being ridden. And it was, you could totally tell it was an AI photo because those, those wagons weren't going to go down the road on their own, down the trail on their own. You know, there was, you know, there was no horses in front of them or oxen or anything pulling them. And people were going, oh, what a great photo and stuff. And it's like, do you realize that first of all, when this photo says it was taken, there was very few cameras, cameras and photographers out there that could capture a scene like that, especially one that had movement, you know, or was showing movement. It's like, are you.

[00:46:08.640] - Big Rich Klein

Are you people that dense? Come on. But, you know, they're. Same thing happened after the hurricanes or, you know, that hit this year with, you know, it showed people, you know, in their, you know, there's one that really caught my eye, and it was this girl in a boat with a life rat, you know, with a dog. Yeah, that. And it was. And it was. But the first one was that, you know, that was the Asian girl with the German shepherd saving her. You know, that one's the one I said, oh, look at, you know, we need our rescue dogs. But, you know, the one where, you know, that's a boat and the, you know, that obviously in a flooded street or something, and they're trying to get this girl and she's already got a life vest on. And the boat in four different photos is all different. So is the life vest. The face of the girl never changes. And it's like, you know, okay, you know what? Five things changed in this photo. You know, the color of the boat, you know, all these different things. And people are, you know, they're sharing it, like it really happened that this was real.

[00:47:20.960] - Big Rich Klein

And.

[00:47:21.450] - Ben Burr

Yeah, and it's like I'm. And this feels like a tangent, but it's not correct because this is why people need access to the actual real thing, however they can possibly get it. And so if all we're doing is closing every access point we can possibly find and limiting and doing what. I mean, SUA wants this. They want concentrated recreation in just a few areas, not letting people go out and explore and find new things and to disperse out across Atlantic. I mean, that is. That is like the antidote to all of this fake crap and staring into glass screens all day. And in Canada, they're like, actually prescribing outdoor recreation as a health benefit in their public health system. It's like, at some point the laws are going to catch up and define rights around this so that we. Because what we're doing to ourselves with this technology is going to need to be corrected or. Or mitigated as much as possible. And it's probably one of the only few ways left to do it is to actually go out and experience something real. And the other thing with this North Carolina situation, there was a map that floated around.

[00:48:33.760] - Ben Burr

I have a screenshot of it where they showed all the roads that got closed by that hurricane. It was like a fifth of the state, you know, right about this, about the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument combined, that all the roads were just gone, like washed out, closed. Okay, where is the wilderness Groups advocating that we don't build those roads back. Where are they? That's. God did it. He. He made that area back into a wilderness overnight. All those roads are gone. Now. Have you heard a serious person come and say let's just not build any of that back?

[00:49:14.570] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[00:49:16.450] - Ben Burr

So why is it okay to close that much space of roads in Utah, but if a hurricane washes them out in North Carolina, it's a national emergency and people can no longer access their homes and their livelihoods. And. But if it's for the sake of a national monument, then this is great. This is, this is good policy. And. But essentially what that hurricane did is about the same effect as what these national monuments have done in Utah as far as access into an area. And so it's a. And so I want them to build all those roads back. I'm glad that a lot of the first responders were able to get there were. I mean people were begging for anybody with a side by side to come to North Carolina so they could get into places and dirt bikes and mule trains. And it's like, it's just such a, it's such a dumb fight that we have these like primitive roads and we're just like not allowed to use them because the government said so. Where, when, if the same roads got washed out in a hurricane in another state that doesn't have federal public land, then it's a national emergency.

[00:50:36.190] - Ben Burr

And so anyway, kind of a tangent, but it's, you brought it up so.

[00:50:41.510] - Big Rich Klein

But it's true. It's. It, it's that scale, you know, that people don't think about the balance, you know, what's happening in one place and what's happening in another. Just because it's not as populated an area doesn't mean that it should be totally shut down because people still go there to recreate. Maybe they don't live there, but they go there to recreate. They go to there to explore. They go to, you know, to get away.

[00:51:12.270] - Ben Burr

People didn't live there. And part of the reason that fewer don't is because they can't because of these kinds of restrictions.

[00:51:21.800] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[00:51:23.150] - Ben Burr

And so it's. And there are people that rely on their livelihoods in these areas. And that's why, I mean our case against the national monuments, we have like a rancher that's with us. We have a mining claim owner, we have a private property in Holder. We have all our off road groups. Like it's like there are people that have livelihoods in these areas and so it'll be of agency how it shakes out. We're obviously going to fight hard and we're going to have to because whatever happens with the election, I don't know when your podcast comes out, but for those listening, we're talking before the election. And so if you listen to this after the election, we don't know what happens. But whatever happens, it's possible that Biden's going to do a bunch of. I mean he will be a lame duck period, because he's not running and he could does. There's several in California. They're looking at one that's just north of Glamis. There's one in the south of Joshua Tree national park that covers an area when we're looking at this one and what it's doing to an area called Meccopia. I've just started seeing groups in California posting about this Range of Light National Monument or whatever which is between the parks.

[00:52:38.870] - Ben Burr

And we put out posts on that years ago. And I'm glad people are starting to like wake up to it now that it's probably an imminent threat that this gets designated in the next few weeks. But the only real shot of reversing a national monument in California would be this. If the Supreme Court declares that these million acre monuments are an abuse of power and we're one of the few groups like fighting that fight as far as we possibly can.

[00:53:05.660] - Big Rich Klein

So what is a call to action? What can people that listen to this do besides just sit here driving their car or at their desk listening to this? What can we get them to do?

[00:53:20.490] - Ben Burr

Well, I'm biased, but I'm going to tell you to join BRC because to my point, it's like we were talking about that monument years ago and we set up action alerts on everything we talk about so that you can either contact a member of Congress, contact the agencies and get involved in these issues. And you're going to have to be like, you don't. A change in the operating system or public land system isn't going to happen in a vacuum. It's going to happen because a bunch of people rise up and demand it. That's what I'm trying to organize together groups of people willing to do that. And so if you become a member of brc, you'll get dialed into all the work we're doing to help you do that. And it's like we've talked a lot about national monuments, but when we're. We're involved in about two to 300 actions a year right now. Me and my team, we're in several lawsuits right now and we're covering a wide range of issues. I mean we're challenging the monuments, we're challenging the closures in Moab. One of the biggest legal victories we got this year. So we challenged the film and photography permitting guidelines on public lands on first amendment grounds.

[00:54:30.810] - Ben Burr

And we got an injunction to where if you're a member of brc, you are not required to comply with the film permitting regime right now. And so we, and we have our. I mean I'm actually hiring a lawyer right now. We're going through the final process on getting this woman on boarded. There's another one I'm looking at hiring by the first of next year and we have a bunch of legal partners that are. I can't disclose a lot of details yet, but we'll be getting a lot of pro bono work getting done here in the near future as well. And so I think in the few years I've been here, we've got BRC as strong as it's ever been. And I think we're just getting started. And so I want people to be part of this. I think we're going to do some big things and if you're not a part of it, you're going to miss out. And. But also if you're not a part of it, my success is going to be limited. And so I just. If you sympathize with anything I'm saying and you agree that we want this stuff open and we want access to it, it's a pretty small price to pay and it goes a long way for what we're getting done.

[00:55:46.110] - Ben Burr

I think we talked about the fake AI crap, right? We're not people distanced from these lands living in a city across the country. We actually live here. We actually go out and recreate in these areas. We actually know all these trails. You can Point to Route D61FB on a map on the van. I've maybe ridden it. If we're not communicating that knowledge to the agencies, then we deserve to have the AI bots win this fight. And so I need people sharing their knowledge at the agencies. And it's frustrating, it's not fun. I like, I always say that we've. The environmental movement kind of functions like a church and people get into it with sort of the zeal of a religion and the off road motorized recreation Community is it has gotten into off road motorized recreation as a thing to get away from church. We don't want somebody to come and tell us we have to like sign up for a thing or to sign up for. We're trying to get away from politics. This is our escape. We're trying to get away from life and the grind of a job. And, and, and so it's not fun for someone like me to come and tell you that you do.

[00:57:10.300] - Ben Burr

Like when you buy a gun, you know, you just signed up for a political identity. You are now a second amendment enthusiast of some level for the most part. I mean, there's maybe a few people that would contend that with me, but I think most would agree of like, yeah, if I bought a gun, it's because I generally agree with the premise of the second amendment right. When people buy an off road vehicle of some kind, they don't, most of them don't recognize at that moment that they've just adopted a political identity as well. And so I need people to understand that and to take action accordingly. Like join the groups like ours that are fighting to keep this stuff open and to make sure that that's a, that's a beneficial thing that you did. Like, I, I think so much value comes from being able to go out and explore and access these areas. And if you believe that, then we are doing legitimate work that makes that possible.

[00:58:04.180] - Big Rich Klein

And, and I think that, that people need to understand that it's not just motorized, it's what, however you enjoy the outdoors. I mean, except for maybe if you're barefoot or wearing, you know, leather moccasins. They, you know, the environmentalists, the exclusionists don't care if you're on a mountain bike, if you're on a, on a horse, if you're, you know. Yeah, they, they don't care. They, they want it shut down.

[00:58:35.110] - Ben Burr

I, since the Moab trails got closed, I've been contacted by the people in the mountain bike community, been contacted by people in the base jumping community, and contacted by people in the dispersed camping community. I've been contacted by the rock climb. Like nobody in the recreation community is thrilled about that plan. The only one that's kind of like on the fence is the river rafters. And that's because you have a group of them that are pretty closely aligned with the wilderness groups. But most of them are upset that their voice is being appropriated by the SUWA crowd. Most of the river rafters reach out to me, say we don't support these closures. Why are you Saying that the river rafters wanted it. I'm like, well, go read the Salt Lake Tribunal opinion editorials written from the viewpoint of a river rafter saying they wanted these close because that's what the BLM soft.

[00:59:29.110] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:59:29.470] - Ben Burr

And so we need everybody to speak up. And it's. And they really are designed to restrict as much access as possible and confine and concentrate people into as few areas. And those will be like they call them sacrificial areas where we'll tolerate some impacts to the environment so that we can keep everywhere else nice without people. And so there are. If you're, if you recreate outdoors, you're on the list. I mean, the first group to come out opposing the Bears Ears plan wasn't us. I mean, we're still going to oppose it, but it was the sportsman's groups. And everyone always asked me like, well, where's this? Why don't the sportsman support you? I'm like, oh, they sometimes do, but there are some hunters that kind of like wilderness. When you're out hunting, you kind of like the idea that there's not other people out there for safety reasons and for territorial reasons and all kinds of things. But then they closed target shooting in the whole 2 million acre monument of bears Ears, and now the sportsman's groups are all planning to sue them. I'm like, that's nice that you guys are here now, finally recognizing that you're on this list, you are the target.

[01:00:39.820] - Ben Burr

And so. And that's why that's when I say these things eventually change, they're not permanent, is because of this stuff we're talking about. Like, the change is already happening right in front of our face.

[01:00:53.230] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. It seems that nobody, nobody wants to get involved until it specifically affects them.

[01:01:00.390] - Ben Burr

Which if that's you, great. Still get involved when it affects you. Here we are. Come join us.

[01:01:05.150] - Big Rich Klein

But it would be nice if ahead of time, because normally by the time that they're kicking the door down, you know it's too late. Or not.

[01:01:15.900] - Ben Burr

It is not too late if you join, if you'll support me, because I've been preparing for it. But when the time comes to fight, then I do need your support. When you, when you have that moment where you wake up, I need it. But that's why we are commenting on 300 things a year, so that when these fights all come and happen and they affect. When your MOAB gets shut down, whatever that is, I'll be ready to fight it. But I can't fight every fight unless I have a whole lot More support. I'll fight everyone I possibly can to the amount, like within the confines of the resources I have. And so then it's just a matter of resources. If everybody who owned a off road vehicle joined BRC, I'd be bigger than the Sierra Club. It's a $300 million organization. The math maths out on that.

[01:02:01.840] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah.

[01:02:03.030] - Ben Burr

So that's, I mean at this point, I mean I, we have the skillset, we have a team that now it's just a matter of can we scale it? I believe we can. It'll scale as the resources come in and we'll fight everything we can and we'll also. And the other thing that comes once you have that scale is then you have a political movement that's big enough to change the law nationally on a federal level. And it's. We have a lot of work to do to still get to that to where we're act. I, I believe we're big enough to do that. We just don't act like it. We're not mobilized to do that. Doesn't take long to do it. I think a couple more years and we're probably there. But that means you still have to be part of the program.

[01:02:46.320] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So the call to action is join, join, join. Get involved, get involved at whatever level you can. And we'll.

[01:02:58.970] - Ben Burr

And then once you. And the reason I say that is because once you're a member then I can educate you on all kinds of things you can do if you want to do more. Like we get tens of thousands of people every year making comments on these plans. Same thing contacting members of Congress. We've it you can. I like people to go follow us on social media. Like SUA right now is paying a fortune. I know how much they're paying for the ads they're buying and they're paying a ton of money because they don't have like an authentic organic movement. But I get the same reach on my social media channels just because people are following us, they're sharing our stuff, it's all free. You know, it's like no money. But if you just do that much. Now I, I have a leg up on these groups that are trying to shut everything down and I don't have to pay for it. And so I can use my resources more strategically than on like they're just like the ads they're buying are like the, they're kind of the dumbest digital ads you can buy. And good for them.

[01:04:03.660] - Ben Burr

I mean they have money to burn. They should do what they're doing. But. But we actually have an organic movement of people that are fired up about this, and the more that grows, the better. It just all snowballs, and that's what we're trying to do.

[01:04:19.690] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Very good. Well, Ben, I will join. I'll make that commitment right now. And I know that I have been, in the past a member from year to year, but not necessarily every year, which is a. Is a mistake on my part. But I want to say thank you so much for coming on and explaining and talking about your life and what you're doing with brc and you know, what we can do to help you.

[01:04:56.510] - Ben Burr

Yeah. I appreciate you having me on the show. It's one I have followed from time to time when it pops up in my feed and people I'll know that are part of this movement and give it a listen. So I'm glad to be part of it, finally.

[01:05:09.470] - Big Rich Klein

Well, thank you, and I'm glad that we were able to have this conversation. And I'm going to say good luck. I'm saying that actually from the deepest part of my heart because it's not an easy road to haul. Just trying to do things locally just totally frustrated me, and I can't imagine trying to do what you're doing in the, you know, with the reach that you're trying to get with everything. So I appreciate your. I appreciate what you're doing.

[01:05:46.200] - Ben Burr

Yeah, no, I. I appreciate. I. I appreciate the compliments. You're right. It is really hard work, and it is, like, as we've talked about, I mean, it can get frustrating at times, but I do think there's a lot of good things coming, and we're. We have a lot of good things going for us right now, and it's enough to keep me going. And so long as we get the people like you on board, we're. We're going to keep working it.

[01:06:14.760] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. All right, thank you. And I will continue to share and follow, and we'll hopefully make a difference.

[01:06:23.040] - Ben Burr

All right, thanks, Rich.

[01:06:24.170] - Big Rich Klein

All right, take care and have a great day.

[01:06:27.480] - Ben Burr

You, too.

[01:06:28.230] - Big Rich Klein

Thank you. Bye. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest. Please forward the contact information to me. So that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.