Brian Vogt: A Catalyst for Workplace Culture

[00:00:00] Hi, I'm Katie Kramer, President and CEO of The Betcher Foundation, welcome to Colorado Leadership Stories.

[00:00:09] Where we talk to everyday courageous leaders who have made transformational impacts in their communities

[00:00:14] and are building a better state for everyone.

[00:00:18] You'll hear from leaders and organizations and communities throughout the state,

[00:00:22] as we explore the idea that leadership is an activity that anyone can do.

[00:00:33] The Denver Botanic Gardens is one of the most beautiful and most visited public gardens in the country.

[00:00:39] Behind that success is Brian Vogt, the Garden CEO of 17 years who is joining us today.

[00:00:45] Brian is an avid public servant who creates programs to give back to the community

[00:00:49] and works to make the Botanic Gardens a beautiful place for all to visit.

[00:00:54] Welcome, Brian.

[00:00:54] Katie, you're so kind, thank you.

[00:00:57] We're glad you're here.

[00:00:58] Let's talk about the beginning, the origin story of Brian.

[00:01:00] I know you grew up in Lillton, your Colorado kid.

[00:01:03] I am a Colorado kid.

[00:01:05] The first few years of my life which I barely remember,

[00:01:08] except for drawing on the wall of our home and getting in trouble when I was three, I pay.

[00:01:14] I was in Aurora.

[00:01:16] We were in Hoffman Heights.

[00:01:17] In 1962 my father was elected sheriff of a rapo county,

[00:01:22] and a county seat of a rapo county was Lillton, so we moved to Lillton.

[00:01:26] Funny story about that, until my father was elected,

[00:01:30] every sheriff of a rapo county actually lived across the hall from the jail.

[00:01:35] And my mother, he was very young when it was elected sheriff.

[00:01:41] My mother said I'm not raising children outside of a jail,

[00:01:45] so we moved to a regular house in Lillton.

[00:01:48] But I used to go down to the jail after school every day.

[00:01:51] Wow, and you still live in Lillton today?

[00:01:54] Don't you?

[00:01:54] I do.

[00:01:55] A few miles south of where I grew up, but it's interesting.

[00:01:59] I've lived abroad.

[00:02:01] I lived on the East Coast.

[00:02:02] I've been all over the world and there's no place like home.

[00:02:07] Oh, that's great.

[00:02:07] Well, that's where I wanted to go next is to just talk about the story,

[00:02:10] the journey of Brian from Lillton.

[00:02:14] And here you are, CEO of the Botanic Gardens.

[00:02:16] You've had an incredible career.

[00:02:18] And just walk us through that story.

[00:02:20] It makes no sense.

[00:02:22] People should know that.

[00:02:23] I was just a happy go lucky kid.

[00:02:26] I grew way too quickly, so I was very, very clumsy.

[00:02:30] And I crashed into things all the time.

[00:02:32] So I got sent outdoors and the outdoors became my world.

[00:02:37] So everything in the yard, the gardening, the mulling, the trimming, the reading, everything.

[00:02:43] That was my part of the household chores.

[00:02:46] I started working when I was 13.

[00:02:48] I worked at a sporting goods store out main street in Lillton for a $10 an hour.

[00:02:52] And I thought that $10 was really special.

[00:02:56] It was amazing to actually earn my own money.

[00:02:58] In fact, when I did my social security documents once a year,

[00:03:04] it goes all the way back to 1972 working at that's where you get stored.

[00:03:09] And the whole amount was like $80 or something.

[00:03:12] But I learned how to work for paycheck.

[00:03:15] Within a year after I started working, my father died very suddenly.

[00:03:20] Interestingly, it has haunted the rest of my life.

[00:03:25] He had a blood clot that embalized and jammed in his heart.

[00:03:29] And killed him when he was 43.

[00:03:32] I thought it was a heart attack.

[00:03:33] I turned because I was a kid.

[00:03:34] I didn't know what different it's in.

[00:03:36] When I was 43 within one week of his age,

[00:03:40] I had a blood clot but it didn't embalize.

[00:03:43] It went undiagnosed with the same amount of time.

[00:03:45] But it allowed me.

[00:03:46] So that was really a clarion called to me because I realized how fortunately I was.

[00:03:55] But what losing my father at that age did to me was make me very focused on work

[00:04:04] and being responsible on supporting in every way I could, my mother and my sister.

[00:04:11] And then at school, I had mentors who were teachers

[00:04:15] who just took me under their wings and taught me.

[00:04:20] And my strongest mentor from a subject matter,

[00:04:24] perspective, was Tom Roberts, who is a history teacher.

[00:04:30] He was our Western civilization teacher and he was a master teacher.

[00:04:35] He treated me like an adult and I really appreciated that and took me into his wing.

[00:04:39] And inspired me to go to see you bolder.

[00:04:42] And when I went to bolder, I wasn't sure what my degree would be in.

[00:04:48] And then I wound up taking all these courses.

[00:04:50] I took Egyptian hieroglyphics and I took H&Greek

[00:04:54] and I took H&G political thought and I took H&H history.

[00:04:58] And also, I'm taking all these ancient everything classes.

[00:05:03] And I wound up in the classics department where they had a classical antiquity degree.

[00:05:08] I think when I graduated, they were three or four of us in the entire graduating class.

[00:05:12] But I remember calling my mother and I was the first person in generations.

[00:05:17] I had this shot at going to college and it took...

[00:05:19] I worked every summer, every spring break, every Christmas break.

[00:05:24] It just took an enormous amount of work to be able to do that.

[00:05:28] And of course, it was a very different day back then because everything was kind of presubstitized.

[00:05:34] A little bit of a call around a residence.

[00:05:36] You could actually go to see you and not go broke for the rest of your life.

[00:05:42] And I called my mother up and I said, I have a degree.

[00:05:45] And she said, was that?

[00:05:47] And I said, classical antiquity.

[00:05:48] And she said, what's that?

[00:05:50] And I told her what it was.

[00:05:53] And she said, why do you want to study that?

[00:05:55] And I said, because I love it.

[00:05:58] And this is my mother.

[00:06:00] She said, this shot is so rare.

[00:06:03] That you should study what you love.

[00:06:06] The neck hole?

[00:06:07] That's really cool.

[00:06:09] And so I've used that when I worked with interns and student programs and even other people in the business community, or trying to mentor kids.

[00:06:23] And I say if you teach them to study something they hate, they're going to learn to hate their education,

[00:06:29] and they're going to learn to hate their jobs, they're not going to be good at it.

[00:06:33] If you can help them find a passion if there's something that they really engage with, it doesn't matter if you think it's practical or not.

[00:06:43] I have a classical antiquity degree and I've had the craziest career ever.

[00:06:48] Yeah, and I probably prepared you for all in all ways you didn't expect.

[00:06:51] It's always.

[00:06:52] In fact, I can name you three or four different opportunities I've had in my life where that degree made the difference.

[00:06:59] Oh, do tell?

[00:07:01] Well actually at the gardens it was fascinating because I had just left stake ever.

[00:07:06] Where I was ahead of the opposite economic development international trade and tourism.

[00:07:12] So I actually had a relationship with people with the gardens before I left the state.

[00:07:16] And I remember thinking because it was vacant at the time, the CEO position.

[00:07:22] And I remember thinking that would be a great job.

[00:07:24] I would love that job.

[00:07:26] And out of the blue I'd call from a headhunter on a Friday saying,

[00:07:30] Would I like to interview for the job on a Monday?

[00:07:32] And I said yes I would.

[00:07:35] And so I scrambled and studied.

[00:07:37] I got some materials that they gave me.

[00:07:39] And I was I walked into that as a little room where the poor committee was meeting.

[00:07:44] They had been working on this for about nine months.

[00:07:47] And they looked higher.

[00:07:48] I was the last thought of the last day and we started talking.

[00:07:54] And we just we just and I hope this is what we'll focus on today.

[00:07:58] We start talking about leadership in culture and how culture drives institutions.

[00:08:04] And if you have an intentional culture there's no end in sight.

[00:08:08] And so we were talking about possibilities and master development plans and all kinds of different things.

[00:08:14] But there was one person on there that was nervous because I had had actually had three cabinet positions with a Republican governor.

[00:08:25] And she was not a Republican and was worried that I wouldn't get the gardens.

[00:08:30] But then she said, but he has this degree in classical antiquity.

[00:08:35] So he can't be all bad.

[00:08:36] And I love that because people are scribe to certain studies, certain things.

[00:08:47] And when you go back in time if you study even American history,

[00:08:52] most of our founding fathers only studied the classics.

[00:08:56] They studied Greek and Latin and they studied ancient law and religion.

[00:09:02] And so this used to be our education used to be what I received when I went to see you.

[00:09:09] And it was the redosa of classics at the time.

[00:09:13] We had the best professors and it was brilliant.

[00:09:16] Yeah, that's awesome.

[00:09:17] Well, you like left me all these breadcrumbs.

[00:09:19] I'm trying to decide which one to pick first.

[00:09:21] But I do want to go back and hear more about the career journey because I think it's really interesting how you ended up with the gardens.

[00:09:28] But all these other things that you did, you've had a life of service in a lot of different contexts.

[00:09:33] So make sure you tell us about being president to the South Metro Chamber of Commerce due to that for 14 years.

[00:09:39] And then 18 and then you just teased us with the three cabinet positions with the state.

[00:09:43] So tell us about some of those roles and then how did you why? How did that all evolve?

[00:09:49] Well, I just always worked.

[00:09:52] Like I said from time on 13, I just always had a job whenever I could have a job.

[00:09:57] And so those experiences were really helpful to me.

[00:10:01] I wound up in 1982, after I graduated from university, I was at a luncheon and the head of a federal agency that was then called action, which had VISTA and Piscore and foster grandparents and all these different volunteer programs within the federal government.

[00:10:24] He was sitting across table for me and we had a fantastic conversation.

[00:10:30] And I wound up driving him to the airport and before we got to the airport, he said, you should come work for us.

[00:10:38] I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next.

[00:10:41] And I said, well, we should talk about that.

[00:10:43] So we did and I wound up moving back to DC for about three and a half years.

[00:10:49] Oh my god, what a learning experience. Both good and bad.

[00:10:54] I mean, it is, well, it's more dysfunctional now than I've ever seen it.

[00:10:58] But when I was there, it was still dysfunctional.

[00:11:01] But fascinating. And I got to travel to the states all around the country,

[00:11:06] got to speak to huge groups, small groups wound up running the National Center for Service Learning, which was a volunteer program based in universities.

[00:11:17] Right? And then I moved back because the dysfunction was so bizarre that at one point,

[00:11:24] I just had this sinking feeling like if I didn't get out quickly, I may not be able to leave because they just keep giving you raises.

[00:11:32] So it was a kid and they just kept giving me like six thousand dollars raises every few months.

[00:11:37] So there's going, I don't understand why you're doing this and why you're putting me in charge of things.

[00:11:41] I moved kid and I was at a reception and this little man came walking up to me and we were visiting.

[00:11:49] And he said, how long have you been here? And they said about three and a half years and he said, get out.

[00:11:53] Oh my goodness.

[00:11:54] Sit out and I quit the next day.

[00:11:56] Oh my goodness.

[00:11:57] And I moved back to Colorado and didn't know what I was going to do.

[00:12:01] And I heard about this little bit of chamber that at the time, ironically, it was called the Centennial Chamber of Commerce,

[00:12:08] because they thought it was a generic name for the South area.

[00:12:11] It was a combination of the old Livalton and Engelwood Chambers in that, I 25-quarter group.

[00:12:17] And they were looking for somebody to run an economic development program.

[00:12:21] And it turns out I was available.

[00:12:24] Oh, I was young.

[00:12:26] I was super cheap.

[00:12:28] In hardworking.

[00:12:28] And I was eager.

[00:12:30] Oh, and I think every young person in the world should know that that is not a detriment.

[00:12:36] And getting underpaid when you start out, if you get the right opportunity, take it.

[00:12:42] Absolutely fly with it.

[00:12:44] So I started up the economic development group for the chamber.

[00:12:48] And we only had about five people on staff at the time.

[00:12:51] I started to grow.

[00:12:53] My predecessor as President Chamber developed brain tumor.

[00:12:59] And wound up unable to continue.

[00:13:01] And I had, in the meantime, I had done every job within the chamber.

[00:13:07] I had learned everything about the chamber.

[00:13:09] I was shadowing him, possibly.

[00:13:14] So the board made me president when I was, I think, 30, 30 ones.

[00:13:19] That's awesome.

[00:13:20] That's part of my story too.

[00:13:21] You know, it better.

[00:13:22] I kind of grown up at Betscher too.

[00:13:24] And they have done just about every job there.

[00:13:26] And I got the Vice President of Job when I was 26.

[00:13:28] And I was thinking, what are they thinking?

[00:13:30] I'm just a child.

[00:13:32] Yeah, but we grew into it.

[00:13:33] Did we?

[00:13:34] Well, and it's such a, it depends on your attitude.

[00:13:39] If you think, yeah, I'm all bad.

[00:13:41] And I deserve this.

[00:13:43] You all learn anything.

[00:13:44] That's right.

[00:13:44] If you're scared to death and you, and you think, oh, my God, I really got to understand this balance sheet before my first board meeting.

[00:13:53] And I know the CPA, I'm going to go sit down with her and pick her brain.

[00:13:57] If you go into it with humility, then you just learn my crazy.

[00:14:03] And every time I thought that Chamber, because I was in that role for 14 years, every time I thought,

[00:14:11] Okay, I've done everything I can think of to do.

[00:14:13] We grown tremendously.

[00:14:16] It was an extremely vibrant organization.

[00:14:19] And then I thought, I need to start looking.

[00:14:22] And then we had this little issue come up about the jurisdictional governance of South Metro Denver.

[00:14:30] And I wound up for three and a half years managing the campaign to create the city of Centennial.

[00:14:35] Oh, wow.

[00:14:36] And it was the privilege of a lifetime.

[00:14:41] It exercised every element of the American experience.

[00:14:44] Oh, we had 110 meetings.

[00:14:47] We went to district court, a Pelacord and the Supreme Court in one.

[00:14:53] We ran a belt for the legislature in a record short number of days.

[00:14:59] It passed the house in three days from first second to third rating.

[00:15:04] Wow.

[00:15:05] We had a team of 3,000 volunteers.

[00:15:09] And I was sending emails out to all 3,000 volunteers every day.

[00:15:13] We learned about the entire grassroots American experience.

[00:15:20] And wound up finally getting clearance to have the election after all that time.

[00:15:25] And we won with about 78% of the vote in a record turnout.

[00:15:30] And it was tears the next day.

[00:15:34] We had our organizational meeting and there was a guy that served in World War II.

[00:15:38] And he got up and he said, after all I've done in my life,

[00:15:43] I never understood what it meant to be an American until right now.

[00:15:48] Wow.

[00:15:49] So chills?

[00:15:52] That too long after that because how do you top that?

[00:15:55] I did a call from the governor who says, I want you to come down and I had worked with the Office of Economic Development International Trade, my entire career.

[00:16:03] Okay.

[00:16:04] In little town.

[00:16:05] And so I knew all the players knew all the people say, why does part of the network.

[00:16:11] So it was really fun to go in there and hit it running and developing a great team with a great strategic plan that was really focused on rural communities.

[00:16:24] We did everything from economic development assessments, the branding assessments,

[00:16:29] to really it was all about community organizing around economic development efforts that were specific to those communities.

[00:16:40] And so I have a pushpin map at home of Colorado and all the places I went when I was at OED.

[00:16:48] And I covered the entire state last.

[00:16:50] And just the privilege of being in people's communities that they love and maybe they're struggling right now.

[00:16:59] And to stand in front of them and to do a brainstorming with them about what is their next highest best purpose.

[00:17:06] And how do we build the infrastructure for that and what resources are available at the state in order to propel them to the next level?

[00:17:14] I think people get very confused about economic development and they think it's just glitz.

[00:17:21] They think, well, the governor is going to go to a cocktail reception and their economic development person is going to be charming.

[00:17:28] And they're going to talk some CEO into moving their big business on to Denver.

[00:17:33] And in Colorado, like in most states, the vast majority of jobs are created by small businesses.

[00:17:39] And so if you're not really laser focused on resource development or especially rural communities, I think you miss a huge boat.

[00:17:50] That is not of you shared by some of my predecessors or successors, but it's something I was passionate about and we deliver.

[00:17:59] It was really, really excited.

[00:18:02] That's great. And so we're all of the positions in that area for you when you were working for the governors.

[00:18:10] No, there was a contract that had gone bad within a relation technology.

[00:18:19] And so for about a year, every came to the official Secretary of Technology.

[00:18:25] Oh, which told me, cracks me up because I know nothing about technology.

[00:18:28] You're an antiquity sky.

[00:18:29] I mean, it's a great thing.

[00:18:31] But I can negotiate.

[00:18:32] Right.

[00:18:33] And so I worked with the team there and worked with the incredible Henry Sobane, who was for the budget office.

[00:18:41] And we teamed up and got all that fixed.

[00:18:44] And then the last seven months, there were a couple of failed audits at Dola, a little department of local affairs.

[00:18:50] Right.

[00:18:50] And so I was asked to go over and be executive director there, get that cleaned up.

[00:18:55] So I found this amazing controller within the department and we worked our tails off.

[00:19:02] I got that all cleaned up and I'll never forget going to the state audit committee.

[00:19:06] And they were asking us all these questions.

[00:19:09] Then finally, oh, I wish I could remember her name.

[00:19:11] One of those state senators said, I just want you to know I'm very impressed.

[00:19:15] And I turned to my colleague and I said, let's get out of here.

[00:19:21] So we split and I thought, you know, we did our job.

[00:19:24] Oh, that's great.

[00:19:25] Well with all that background, probably running the gardens, I'm sure was really easy.

[00:19:30] And I'm joking because I know what you've done there.

[00:19:33] And I do want to talk about what you have done there in your career.

[00:19:37] And of course, betchers been a huge supporter from the very beginning.

[00:19:41] The better conservatory over there made with ideal basic cement.

[00:19:44] That's right.

[00:19:45] We're very proud of that legacy.

[00:19:47] You guys are memorials.

[00:19:48] Yes, yes.

[00:19:49] Yes.

[00:19:50] But you have completely, it's been a huge campaign.

[00:19:55] I want you to talk about what the changes that have happened at the gardens under your tenure.

[00:20:00] And then also chat filled farms, everything that's going on there.

[00:20:03] So so tell us about that journey.

[00:20:05] Oh, start with it from a foundational perspective.

[00:20:09] When I went in, I was so excited about it because I thought there is such opportunity here.

[00:20:14] And there's need here because everybody loved the gardens.

[00:20:18] That it was in the great shape.

[00:20:20] A lot of things needed to fix.

[00:20:22] There were dreams people had laid over for decades that they really wanted at some times.

[00:20:28] So my job was to coalesce everyone and not drive a plan but to exude a plan.

[00:20:35] You know, to get all the constituencies together, the staff, the board, the volunteers, the donors, the neighbors,

[00:20:41] the city people, you know, whatever I could find.

[00:20:44] And extract from them their highest best vision of what the gardens could be.

[00:20:49] And so we developed this master development plan that had lots and lots of elements to it that have now come true.

[00:20:57] The latest of which I still walk into every day and I can't believe we have it the Fair Numen Center, which is astonishing.

[00:21:04] There's nothing like it in the country.

[00:21:07] We're so fortunate. We have a movie theater.

[00:21:10] We've got three arc galleries. We've got a retribulner size of our library.

[00:21:13] We have a neighborhood coffee shop, we have six classrooms.

[00:21:17] We have parking for the entire staff.

[00:21:20] That's such a gift to the neighborhood.

[00:21:23] It's an incredible building in its stunning.

[00:21:26] So to finish with that was been great.

[00:21:29] But where it started was I had these vision quests with the staff.

[00:21:33] I called them vision quests because that was kind of cool.

[00:21:36] And I asked them who we were from a cultural perspective and who we wanted to be from a cultural perspective.

[00:21:45] I always have to explain culture at first,

[00:21:48] and I tried to explain it that growing up you knew as a kid the culture of the households in your neighborhood.

[00:21:55] The ones where you felt welcomed, where you felt like it was safe, and it was fun, you would go there for lunch.

[00:22:03] There were homes where you didn't want to go.

[00:22:07] There are businesses you don't want to walk into again, because you have such a bad experience.

[00:22:11] Businesses you walk in and you'd love it there.

[00:22:14] You kind of want to go back just to see the people that work there.

[00:22:17] That's culture.

[00:22:18] Everybody has a culture, everybody has a culture, everyone has a organization, everybody has a culture.

[00:22:24] It's hardly ever intentional.

[00:22:26] So my job was to find out what our aspirational culture could be

[00:22:32] and then to find it, and then begin to encourage everyone to defend it.

[00:22:39] So we talked about the line that really got to me was one of the staff, like Ben there a long time,

[00:22:46] said I would like to work in an atmosphere of abundance rather than scarcity.

[00:22:52] And I told them that's a choice.

[00:22:56] We can actually live in abundance if we choose it.

[00:22:59] It takes a lot of work, but we can do it.

[00:23:02] Or we can choose scarcity.

[00:23:04] It's sad to me that we haven't chosen abundance before, but do you want to do that?

[00:23:09] And they went, yeah, we actually do.

[00:23:11] Well, that sounds easy.

[00:23:13] And okay, let's do abundance.

[00:23:15] In my role, I had to make sure that we had something tangible boom really fast and we did.

[00:23:22] By the time a year had passed, we've broken on about $40 million worth of project.

[00:23:29] Including a parking structure, and a visitor center, and a greenhouse complex, and the children's garden,

[00:23:37] and all kinds of things.

[00:23:38] And we had because the financial collapse happened in 2008, everything else stopped in the commercial real estate world.

[00:23:47] Respected everything was cheaper for us.

[00:23:49] So we were able to really amplify what we're doing.

[00:23:52] And we had the only tower crane in the entire city for about a year.

[00:23:56] And if you want to go from zero to 60, take a group that has no confidence that season solves as kind of the left behind cultural.

[00:24:09] And then we have the only tower crane in the city.

[00:24:13] That is how you change people's confidence level, but also their outlook on was possible.

[00:24:20] So then you just have to keep building on that.

[00:24:24] So every single month I meet with all new hires, and we have such low turnover that we don't have that many years later except for seasonals during the big seasons.

[00:24:34] And we just had one last week.

[00:24:37] And it's I go through very unusual things because I spend all my time talking about what culture is.

[00:24:43] I talk about our values and our mission.

[00:24:46] And then I talk about some elements of our culture that are really important to us that are elemental.

[00:24:55] Starting with forgiveness.

[00:24:58] When you go to the workplace, you're throwing together with people you don't know.

[00:25:03] And people are going to annoy you from time to time.

[00:25:05] And when they do, the appropriate response is to forgive them because you don't know their journey.

[00:25:13] You don't know what happened that morning.

[00:25:16] So you're reacting to a behavior that's coming your way, but you don't know what it's all about.

[00:25:23] So you have to have the humility to say, I'm not going to judge this person right now.

[00:25:27] I'm going to start with forgiveness.

[00:25:30] And then forgiveness is twin is the ability to make it real through forgetting.

[00:25:39] I hate the expression, I'll forgive that I'll ever forget because of me, you're not forgiving.

[00:25:44] You're going to hang on to that and it's going to hot you.

[00:25:47] So we talk about the fact that if you forgive a coworker for upsetting you,

[00:25:53] really forgive them and don't bring it up again.

[00:25:55] And don't make it a thing that you're going to hot them with and don't let yourself with it.

[00:26:00] Get past it.

[00:26:01] And if it's irreconcilable, if it's something really severe,

[00:26:06] go to HR, go to your boss, go to somebody for help, but mostly it's never that.

[00:26:12] It's little thing is a turn into great big things.

[00:26:15] And so being able to say I'm sorry, which is the real twin of forgiveness,

[00:26:20] to actually be able to apologize, which is such a strength.

[00:26:26] I always admire people that apologize.

[00:26:28] I think you owned it so how strong are you?

[00:26:31] So apologizing is one part of it forgiveness is the other part of it,

[00:26:36] but then forget that whole forget thing.

[00:26:39] You don't need to say you'll never forget.

[00:26:41] Then I talk about love and I talk about the amazing life you can lead

[00:26:48] if you love the work you do.

[00:26:52] If you love the mission you serve,

[00:26:54] if you love the people that are engaging with you,

[00:26:58] if you love your coworkers, what I mean by love is the celebration of the other.

[00:27:04] So it's a removal of selfishness and it moves toward paying much more attention to others

[00:27:14] and celebrating their successes.

[00:27:17] That to me is truly what love is all about.

[00:27:20] It's that removal of self celebration of the other.

[00:27:25] We talk about empathy and respect.

[00:27:29] We talk about the fact that people come through our gates every day,

[00:27:33] because it is such a stunningly beautiful place.

[00:27:36] And we've learned over the years that it's a healing place for a lot of people.

[00:27:41] So when they come into the visitor center,

[00:27:45] a lot of times they are carrying a heavy burden.

[00:27:48] And a heavy burden is visible.

[00:27:52] And so if we have the sensitivity and the empathy to recognize it

[00:27:58] when it walks through the door,

[00:27:59] we can be as you're kind and thoughtful and maybe a little

[00:28:04] not in their face, you know,

[00:28:07] they don't need us to be their cheerleader right now.

[00:28:11] They just need us to be polite and calm and nice,

[00:28:16] and then let them have their experience.

[00:28:18] And nine times out of ten, if not 99 out of 100,

[00:28:21] when they leave, they look different.

[00:28:23] There's something that has transformed in them,

[00:28:26] which is really powerful.

[00:28:28] And what it all gets at,

[00:28:30] on the magic of you talked about my accomplishments,

[00:28:33] my accomplishments are really focused on one thing.

[00:28:37] I am there to support and to love the people I work with.

[00:28:42] That's it.

[00:28:45] And try and use good judgment when there are issues that come up

[00:28:49] other tough.

[00:28:50] And I always want to take on those battles,

[00:28:53] because I don't want them to take those on.

[00:28:55] But to love the people I work with and to celebrate them,

[00:29:00] they return that with raising the bar every single turn.

[00:29:05] Every single turn.

[00:29:06] I have people coming in every day and say,

[00:29:09] I've got an idea or we have 225 community partners right now.

[00:29:14] That's because they came in and said,

[00:29:16] I found another partner for us and they're going to be amazing.

[00:29:20] And they've never been to the gardens before.

[00:29:22] And can we use the Shuttle Program,

[00:29:24] or can we have an event for them?

[00:29:27] We've had fundraisers for these early stage non-profits that work with

[00:29:33] really marginalized communities that have never had a fundraiser before.

[00:29:37] And we donate the space and they come in and they do a fundraiser.

[00:29:41] And we do everything we can to support them.

[00:29:43] Here's what that leads to, and this is the whole point.

[00:29:46] A mission-driven life is a beautiful life.

[00:29:51] At the gardens,

[00:29:53] we celebrate the fact that we go into work every day

[00:29:57] and we have a shot and making the world a better place.

[00:30:01] We can actually live somebody's life that day.

[00:30:05] And when you have that privilege,

[00:30:09] who doesn't want to do that for a living?

[00:30:12] I don't know.

[00:30:12] I mean, that's what I get to do for a living too.

[00:30:15] Exactly.

[00:30:16] We're tremendously blessed to have these incredible organizations

[00:30:21] that I think make Colorado better and serve people in a really powerful,

[00:30:27] meaningful way.

[00:30:29] And you speak so moving, just so moving to hear you talk about the love of your team

[00:30:37] because that is just, that's what it's about.

[00:30:40] And you know, in this day and age,

[00:30:43] we live in such a course and retime.

[00:30:47] We're reminded of the gardens that that's outside of our bubble.

[00:30:53] That's not our world.

[00:30:55] Our world is the cure for that.

[00:30:59] Our world is when people come in,

[00:31:01] we help to tamp that down

[00:31:04] and to give people an alternative.

[00:31:07] And they have wonder and joy and connection.

[00:31:12] It's beautiful.

[00:31:13] It is.

[00:31:13] Brian, is there a place at the gardens either at Chaat Phil Farms or

[00:31:19] the on York Street that is your place, your special place at the garden?

[00:31:23] I have so many special places at the gardens.

[00:31:27] These special place changes a lot.

[00:31:30] And it has been from time to time something brand new that I just knew

[00:31:37] prenatally and then I saw it completed.

[00:31:41] And I just, and so like the, the boardwalk that we have now,

[00:31:45] Kathy's boardwalk, it's called.

[00:31:48] And the staff put in these pollinators,

[00:31:51] screens to help screen the neighbors,

[00:31:53] but created these amazing pieces of art with natural elements.

[00:31:58] So there's a whole wall that has, it's like a pollinator gift store.

[00:32:04] There's, there's loose rock cotton and there's all kinds of twigs and sticks.

[00:32:10] And I mean, it's just for birds and bees and everything else.

[00:32:14] They can just go there and shop on some crazy around homes.

[00:32:17] They even have bee houses that they can take over.

[00:32:20] I love that because it's not only a plant story in an nature story,

[00:32:24] it's a human story.

[00:32:26] Right. And, and so there are benches.

[00:32:30] There are places that connect me to a donor or a staff person

[00:32:40] or some human being that interacted with nature in a way

[00:32:44] that created magic.

[00:32:46] And those tend to be my, my space.

[00:32:49] Those are the ones I gravitate to.

[00:32:51] Always back to the people.

[00:32:54] Always be it is.

[00:32:55] Brian, I want to make sure we talk about chat filled farms.

[00:32:58] Talk about the project, what you've been doing,

[00:33:00] what's coming, so people can appreciate that.

[00:33:04] In case they don't know about that piece.

[00:33:06] Check out your forums.

[00:33:07] We are going to celebrate the 50th anniversary of

[00:33:11] the gardens managing Jeff and Farms next year.

[00:33:15] So it was really time after finishing the master plan at York's

[00:33:19] house.

[00:33:20] We've been investing for a number of years now at Jefffield,

[00:33:23] but we're investing in a big way right now.

[00:33:26] We'll over $13 million worth in the first phase.

[00:33:29] Jefffield Farms finally has a voice.

[00:33:32] And its voice is right, parent and priority restoration.

[00:33:37] So we have these huge areas that we're

[00:33:39] restoring the native prairie and then

[00:33:42] we're going to be here.

[00:33:42] And it's a very clear creek as a whole section that has been

[00:33:45] restored to its natural self.

[00:33:49] The plants, the course of the creek,

[00:33:52] it's not a shoot anymore.

[00:33:54] It's got oxbows and it's refreshed

[00:33:58] and it has attracted back native birds and animals and

[00:34:03] insects and it's incredible.

[00:34:05] So restoration work prairie,

[00:34:07] and then regenerative agriculture.

[00:34:10] So we run a community-sorted

[00:34:12] agro, culture program.

[00:34:14] We have our urban food initiatives where we provide fresh

[00:34:18] vegetables to places where there's no access to fresh food.

[00:34:23] Mainly in the downtown parts of Denver.

[00:34:27] We're very active with farms and supplementary vegetables

[00:34:31] and Maraposa and Sun Valley.

[00:34:34] A couple years ago, I don't know what it was last year,

[00:34:37] we provided 60% of the food served at same cafe.

[00:34:41] Wow.

[00:34:41] Which is a page you can.

[00:34:43] Oh, cafe, I'm Colfax.

[00:34:45] There's one in Grace,

[00:34:47] with cafe and little tin we do the same thing.

[00:34:49] So we want to be relevant in the food space

[00:34:52] to people that really need food space.

[00:34:56] And that also involves a really innovative project

[00:35:00] in this phase.

[00:35:02] We're working with the City and County of Denver

[00:35:04] and Rail and Excel Energy.

[00:35:07] The City and County of Denver passed a bond

[00:35:08] to build more solar farms.

[00:35:11] They just don't have land.

[00:35:12] So they came to us and we worked out a deal

[00:35:15] where on the south side of Jeff Hill farms,

[00:35:18] we have an over 4 acre solar array that is now been built

[00:35:22] and we're going to incorporate it with agrovoltaics.

[00:35:27] So the panels were eight feet above the ground

[00:35:30] and they rotate with a sun

[00:35:32] and we're planning crops underneath it.

[00:35:35] And so it'll get daplled sun instead of just direct sunlight.

[00:35:39] So the vegetables, a lot of them are going to do a lot better

[00:35:42] because they just won't be burned up all day long.

[00:35:45] So we're really excited about that.

[00:35:46] We think it's going to invite international researchers to come

[00:35:50] and see what we're doing.

[00:35:51] Rebuilding the Robert and Judy Newman welcome center

[00:35:54] which will be a whole new way of coming into Jeff Hill farms.

[00:35:58] We're redoing our parking lots that needed it desperately.

[00:36:02] All new core infrastructure for a lot of people.

[00:36:06] This is big news on the south side of the creek

[00:36:08] where I'm going to have public restaurants.

[00:36:11] We're going to recall if the rest stop

[00:36:12] hoping somebody will want to name it.

[00:36:14] Because nobody wants to say the rest of the farm.

[00:36:18] But the rest stop, that's on this kind of appeal.

[00:36:21] Mary, very much.

[00:36:22] And then we have the Morgan family market square, which is where that old

[00:36:26] household parking lot was.

[00:36:27] We're ripping that out and returning it into a gather of his ways.

[00:36:32] So great.

[00:36:33] Well I can't wait to see.

[00:36:34] I know it's underway and it's just such a wonderful spot for our community.

[00:36:40] Well, what I love about it, the most is that it's different in your

[00:36:43] extreme.

[00:36:44] Right.

[00:36:44] And our other two sites, Melcoliath and the Plains Conservation Center

[00:36:48] are different than that.

[00:36:49] So it puts the gardens not only with these 225 partners,

[00:36:54] and counties all over the region doing real work with real organizations

[00:36:59] with four actual sites where people can go and experience something completely different

[00:37:04] at each one.

[00:37:05] And I bet a lot of people didn't know that there's four sites.

[00:37:08] I bet a lot of people didn't.

[00:37:09] That's right.

[00:37:10] It's top secret to the other.

[00:37:12] Well, my friend, I could talk to you all day.

[00:37:16] But I do want to let you off the hook here.

[00:37:19] After of course, four more lightning round questions.

[00:37:22] Okay.

[00:37:22] That's end up on you.

[00:37:23] What is your favorite Colorado hobby?

[00:37:26] Ooh.

[00:37:28] It's been a while but it's been hiking in the mountains.

[00:37:31] Uh-huh.

[00:37:31] I'm sure.

[00:37:32] I bet.

[00:37:33] Do you like gardening?

[00:37:34] I mean, if you like I should ask you that since you.

[00:37:36] I love it.

[00:37:38] I like gardening and I like landscaping.

[00:37:40] Yeah.

[00:37:41] Growing up, I was the rock guy.

[00:37:43] My father taught me how to mix and pour concrete when I was 12.

[00:37:49] My yard looks like a quarry.

[00:37:51] I have now just this tiny little patch of grass in my front yard.

[00:37:56] Everything else is there.

[00:37:58] And I landscape the whole thing.

[00:38:00] I have a dry creek bed in it.

[00:38:01] My boulders.

[00:38:03] Wonderful plants.

[00:38:05] Yeah, no I love it.

[00:38:06] Well, and should be the CEO of the Botanic Gardens.

[00:38:08] Yes.

[00:38:08] So very, very, very little brand pressure.

[00:38:10] Okay.

[00:38:11] What's your favorite Colorado landmark?

[00:38:13] Oh, wow.

[00:38:14] Denver, Indiana Gardens.

[00:38:15] Of course.

[00:38:16] Now, of course.

[00:38:17] I didn't have to think about that.

[00:38:18] No, no, no, no, no.

[00:38:19] I would expect that.

[00:38:20] Wait a second.

[00:38:21] I feel kind of bad about it.

[00:38:22] No.

[00:38:24] Brian, is there an action hero that you most identify with?

[00:38:27] Oh, an action hero.

[00:38:29] I know how nerdy this is going to sound.

[00:38:31] It is probably just my generation.

[00:38:33] I would say Yoda.

[00:38:35] I thank you.

[00:38:36] That would be my answer to it.

[00:38:38] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:38:40] And yeah, I'm going to go with Yoda.

[00:38:42] I love that.

[00:38:44] And what are you currently binging?

[00:38:45] Is there a show of book of podcasts?

[00:38:47] I have something to say guilty guilty.

[00:38:50] Good.

[00:38:50] I love it.

[00:38:51] I'm washing it for the third time now.

[00:38:53] It's called resident alien.

[00:38:55] Oh, and it's about an alien.

[00:38:57] The crash lands in Colorado.

[00:39:02] And patience, Colorado, which I take it to me, that it's kind of down there

[00:39:06] to Ringo.

[00:39:07] And he's able to turn into human form.

[00:39:10] But there's a kid in town who can see him for his alien self.

[00:39:15] And he's the star of the actor is so funny.

[00:39:19] And I just crack up with that show.

[00:39:21] I haven't asked about that on my list.

[00:39:22] You know, this has just been so much fun.

[00:39:24] I so appreciate you as a leader.

[00:39:28] Thank you.

[00:39:29] Thank you.

[00:39:30] For what you have done over a huge career in impactful ways.

[00:39:36] And the way that you spoke about culture was amazing.

[00:39:39] Well, thank you.

[00:39:41] That means the world to me is I know something about that.

[00:39:44] Sorry.

[00:39:44] Appreciate that.

[00:39:45] Thank you very much Brian for being with us today.

[00:39:47] There is a joy.

[00:39:48] Thank you for joining Colorado Leadership Stories, where we hope to inspire the next

[00:39:53] generation of Colorado community builders, doers and different spacers.

[00:39:59] Colorado Leadership Stories is presented by the Bachelor Foundation.

[00:40:04] The Bachelor Foundation supports Colorado by empowering leaders and communities with tools

[00:40:09] to tackle challenges and pursue opportunities, building a better state for everyone.

[00:40:15] With an 85 plus year legacy of giving back, we're committed to amplifying our impact for future generations.

[00:40:23] That's the spirit of better.