GCSAA Podcast
The official podcast of the Golf Course Superintendent Association of America turns a spotlight on the stories of GCSAA's members and the vital role they play in the game of golf's overall success. The podcast is also a vehicle to showcase association products and services that can help members do their jobs better, faster and more cost-effectively.
GCSAA Podcast
66. Looking back and looking ahead with Rick Tegtmeier, CGCS, MG
In this episode of the GCSAA Podcast, we visit with Rick Tegtmeier, CGCS, MG, director of grounds at Des Moines Golf and Country Club who is on the brink of retirement after a hall-of-fame-worthy, 40-year career in golf course management. Rick talks about his start in the industry at a local nine-hole course, some of the technological innovations he's seen, events he has hosted, projects he has undertaken, and accolades and awards he has won.
The GCSAA Podcast is presented in partnership with Envu.
Greetings all and welcome to another episode of the GCSAA podcast presented in partnership with Enview. I'm your host, scott Hollister, and I'm happy to have you with us for episode 66 of the podcast. Our guest today is a superintendent who is as well known and respected here in the States as he is on the other side of the podcast. Our guest today is a superintendent who is as well known and respected here in the States as he is on the other side of the pond, and that is Rick Tegdemeyer. Rick is the director of grounds at Des Moines Golf and Country Club in the capital city of Iowa. He is a longtime certified golf course superintendent through GCSAA and he is also one of just a handful to also earn the Master Greenkeeper designation from our friends at the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association.
Speaker 1:Earlier this year, rick announced that he would be retiring from his role in Des Moines at the end of October, so we thought it was a perfect time to have Rick on the podcast to talk about his career and some of his favorite memories from his 40-plus years in golf course management. Gcm's Howard Richman handles the interviewing on this one, and I think you're going to enjoy his conversation with the one and only Rick Tegmeyer on this episode of the GCSA Podcast. I want to remind you quickly that there are options when it comes to the podcast. There is, of course, the traditional audio versions available wherever you get your podcast, but we also have video versions available on GCSAA's YouTube channel as well as on GCSA-TV. So, whatever your preference, we have you covered, and with that out of the way, let's go. This is Episode 66 of the GCSAA Podcast, featuring Rick Tegmeyer, cgcs-mg, from Des Moines Golf and Country Club.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody, this is Howard Richman, associate Editor at GCM Magazine, the GCSAA, and welcome to our GCSAA podcast today. And we want to welcome our guest who has been around and a lot of you probably know him around the country, not just where he's from, in the heartland of it rick techmeyer, cgs, cgcs excuse me, rick and master greenkeeper, director of grounds at des moines golf and country club and great to have you, rick.
Speaker 3:How are you doing today? I'm good, Howard. Thanks for having me on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, we appreciate you doing this and taking your time for us. I don't know where to start with you, rick. There's so much, but I think I'm going to start at the latest, the breaking news kind of stuff that happened Well, not real breaking, but it happened recently, when you announced your retirement from the club be effective in October. Tell us a little bit about that, what came in that decision and why you decided this was the right time.
Speaker 3:You know, for me, howard, it'll be October 31 of this year that I'll be done. That's the end of our fiscal year. It's also the end for me is it'd be 25 years at the club. I've been here twice, so seven years. The first time 18, the second In September I'll be 40 years CGCS and then just over 50 years in the business. So it just seemed like a good time, when I turned 65, to move on to something else.
Speaker 2:Well, it's been quite a career. Like I said, I'm not sure where to start with all this. I'm going to hit some of these highlights and there's more, and if I miss some I apologize for that. One of the things we just talked about we hit on was the Master Greenkeeper, where you're the number 67th one in the whole world to reach that status with the British International Golf Greenkeepers Association, and only 89 have ever been, you know, have received that honor. Talk a little bit about that, what that meant to you and what you put into that to make that happen.
Speaker 3:Talk a little bit about that, what that meant to you and what you put into that to make that happen. Well, to start off, back in 2012, the club received word we were going to host the Soul Hunt Cup and Nate Tegmeyer, who's my son, is one of our superintendents here. He's been here 16 years. I was doing Nate's annual review and he came to me and we were talking about the fact that he was not CGCS yet and all that. And he said well, what about you? And I said, well, I'm CGCS. And he's like well, you're not a master greenkeeper. Guys that are doing the Solheim Cup, guys that are doing the Ryder Cup, are master greenkeepers. Why don't you try to do that? And so that was a challenge I accepted. I looked into it and got started with the process. Lee Strutt was very instrumental in helping me be my mentor and get through this.
Speaker 3:It's a long, arduous process, you know I finally got to the stage where, you know, after the course tours and got that approved. Then I had to do the test. It's a two-part test and first time I took the test, you know it tells you specifically don't write your name. You know you have to sign it a certain way. And what do I do? I get done right and doing the test and I signed my name. So I flunked. I flunked without even them looking at me, I think. Second time I took the test I passed one part and then the third time I was able to pass the other part and received it, and it's quite an honor for me. It was difficult for me to get the job done, but I was very proud that I did it and I'm pretty sure I'm right about this.
Speaker 2:Weren't you involved with something really big at the course about that time before something else really big was coming to the course?
Speaker 3:Well, we were doing a four-year renovation project, so all 36 holes, nine holes a year, completely renovating the golf course, doing greens, tees, bunkers Not all of them, but we did all the tees and bunkers but not all the greens. And so, yeah, it was a, it was trying to process going through both at the same time.
Speaker 2:So yeah, of course, that led into. Another huge moment for you is 2017, with the Solheim Cup. Talk a little bit about that and the importance of that for you and your team and what it meant to the club you know for the club.
Speaker 3:You know we're a mid-sized community and to host a worldwide event is pretty special. And when you have a state like Iowa that has no professional athletes or athletics, you know no pro basketball, no pro football, no pro baseball. When you have a professional golf event like that, it is very well attended. And you know 1999, the club had the US Senior Open. It was the largest grossing senior open. And then when we hosted the Solheim, that too was also the largest grossing Solheim Cup. But also when we did it, the Junior Solheim Cup was held simultaneously In all previous venues it had been held. They held the Junior Solheim at one course and the Solheim at the other. When we did it we hosted both events here, all 36 holes, and we produced a pretty good event for those girls. It was really a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Annika Sorenstam was the captain for the opposing team, which lost. Yeah, To have people like that there at that facility. That's pretty cool, isn't it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was very cool.
Speaker 2:What just kind of hit me the other day when I was thinking about it, with the solar eclipse coming up. Was that right around then, or am I missing by a year when that you?
Speaker 3:know. No, I think it was right around there, Howard. What happened here? I remember it being very cloudy and it just got dark, so we completely missed it.
Speaker 2:It did that anything affect you with the course that week getting ready and things?
Speaker 3:no, not, not at all we just just you know that whole, that whole time leading up to the soheim, the week leading up to it and the week of the soheim was really just a blur it's. You're so, so focused by that time. If you're not ready for it all, you're in trouble. So our staff was very much well prepared. Both our superintendents at that time were very well prepared and they did an excellent job in pulling it off. And also having all the superintendents from Iowa as our volunteers was a special thing for us and for me, and it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm going to go forward a couple more years after that, in 2019, you were elected for the Iowa Golf Association Hall of Fame. What an honor that was. Did you see that coming, what had happened and what were your thoughts? And what does that mean to you for what happened with your career?
Speaker 3:You know, I really did not see it coming. I was told that I had been nominated and usually I know this now, but usually when your name is brought forth it can be on the nomination ballot for five years. I was very lucky to be a first year recipient First time my name was on the ballot. I'm the seventh superintendent in Iowa, the second from Des Moines Golf and Country Club and also the second from Rockford, iowa. John Austin, who's who I proceeded in Rockford when I was a young man, is also on the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame and it's quite an honor to go to those events and be recognized for what you've done and the contributions you've made to the game, and it's just, it's really nice to be recognized.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of getting into a theme here, kind of a pattern, rick. So we talked about 2015, 17, 19. Now we're going to go way back when all this started, when you were 13, when you really got involved with this. Now this, I think it kind of shows at that young age that you're going to do what you thought you needed to do or had to do, or what you had to say when you walked into a bank and thought you know what? I kind of would like to work at a golf course. Tell everybody about that.
Speaker 3:That doesn't know that story but I have an older brother and and he and I did a lot of walking beans baling, a lot of farm activities when we were 11, 12 years old. We actually even cleaned out some rail cars on the railroad while my dad worked on the railroad. Well, when I was 13, I walked in the bank with dad one day and a gentleman named Ed Batty was the president of the bank and he was also the greens chairman of the local nine hole and I just told him, I said someday I'd like to work out there and uh, he had some sodding work that needed to be done. Later that fall I went out and helped roll up sod and carry sod, load sod they were putting in a car path. And then, I think the following summer they had a little bit of push mowing and stuff that I that I did.
Speaker 3:Really when I was 15, I got started going pretty much full time where they you know I was push mowing, weed eating. You know the weed eaters back then were brand new and very heavy and very loud and hard to run. And then by the time I was 16, I learned on Moe Grains. I had a couple guys ahead of me Larry Pump and Chuck Chapman. Chuck actually went in to turf school ahead of me and when I was 17, ed was like, what are you going to do for a living? And you know, you can do like Chuck did and you can be a golf course superintendent. And that time my whole goal was to work on a nine-hole golf course. I'd work nine months out of the year, get paid for 12, and I'd be able to hunt and fish for three months and I thought, man, that's a really good deal. But that didn't last very long. You know, reality set in that you got to make some money and some other things happened. You know, when I went to Urbandale Country Club right out of college, when you were 17,.
Speaker 2:You were more or less a superintendent, right yeah.
Speaker 3:My title wasn't superintendent, but I ran day-to-day operations and Ed would give us guidance. He'd come out in the afternoons I think he had retired by then from the bank, and so you know he would come out and he would tell us what you know long-term goals were or projects and things like that. But yeah, day-to-day things. I basically myself and a couple other guys, worked on the golf horses. It was a really fun time, and then we did not have automatic irrigation. You know, we'd work every day eight, nine hours and then that night we'd go back and have to do hand watering with hoses and quick couplers, you know, for grains and teas. So it was, it was uh, you had to be very committed, I think.
Speaker 2:Talk about your college years. So it kind of was one of those situations where you eventually got to this. Ain't no stopping me now after you had some situations where you thought, well, maybe school didn't work out that I wanted to, but it ended up working out and it led to something really good.
Speaker 3:I was a decent student but I really didn't apply myself. In high school I was very involved in Boy Scouts and I was very involved working on the golf course, and so I really didn't during the school year, didn't apply myself. I didn't really have a good SAT score but I applied to Iowa State University and I don't remember if it was a function of money or my, I think it was more. My test scores really didn't match what their bottom standard was and I didn't get accepted to Iowa State and that really motivated me to you know. So my second choice then was a two-year program at Hawkeye Community College, which was a very good program. At the time my teacher was a guy named Peter Burks. He was a very good turf program. At the time my teacher was a guy named Peter Burks. He was a golf course superintendent out in New York who had moved to Iowa and Pete was very good at what he did and we had a good soils instructor and I applied myself and went to my first turf conference.
Speaker 3:I think I must have been, must have been 1979. The spring of 79 went there and and I saw three or four kids from Iowa State getting scholarships from GCSAA and I thought if they can, why can't I? So I applied I guess it must have been 78, because the 79 is when I got my scholarship and even though it was only $250, it really opened up some doors for me. You know, I was probably one of the first in Iowa to get a scholarship and I got some job interviews right out of college. I graduated in March of 80 and got a job right away and I guess the rest is history.
Speaker 2:What was it that kind of elevated you after you got out of college? Who were the people that really made a huge influence on you and kind of helped you take those next steps as you kept moving on?
Speaker 3:Well, there's a turf salesman. His name was Steve Bird. Steve was from Houston, illinois, and actually he had a cousin named Larry. You might have known him. Okay, yeah, but anyway, steve was a turf salesman for Brayton Chemical and he introduced me to an 18-hole superintendent at the Hyperion Field Club named Gene Janes.
Speaker 3:And you know I was single at the time and Gene kind of took me under his wing. He had a lawn care business on the side so I'd work all day at Urbandale and then I'd go help Gene in his lawn care and I was like a sponge. You know everything he talked about. I really wanted to emulate what he did. He was just such a cool guy and so successful. I thought I want to be an 18-hole superintendent. And so we talked about that a lot with both of them and Gene said you know, rick, you don't have a four-year degree. He said perhaps you should go work. You don't have a four-year degree. He said perhaps you should go work on an 18-hole golf course.
Speaker 3:And Gene had worked in Chicago prior to his coming back to Iowa. So he set up an interview with the gentleman at Hinsdale Golf Club and I got the job, as the assistant went to Hinsdale and unfortunately the superintendent left midsummer and I ran the golf course the rest of the year. They offered me the job that fall and I declined it. Chicago was not where I wanted to live. I couldn't wait to get back to Iowa and, just by luck of fate or or whatever, a job came open here at Des Moines Golf and I became the north course superintendent in the spring of 83. So, and then I worked for a gentleman named Bill Byers. Bill was here for 49 years and that was who eventually I replaced what was that like replacing him?
Speaker 2:some people, that boy, there's got to be some thoughts going through your mind about that. What am I going to do to raise to that level of what Bill had done here?
Speaker 3:for so long. Bill was a man of few words, but he was also a very good teacher, if that makes any sense. He demanded the best of everybody and wanted you to do your best and he helped you do your best. And you know, when I was like 28 or 29, he said what do you want to do with your life, your career? And I said, bill, I want your job. And he said well, then, leave Des Moines Golf. He says you can't stay here and get this job. I don't think, and so I left.
Speaker 3:I had an opportunity to go to Elmcrest Country Club in Cedar Rapids. I went there for 17 years and again I tried to emulate what Bill did. Bill killed his greens here in Des Moines Golf with a fumigant and seeded an A4, when the time came for us to do it at Elmcrest, I did the same thing Put the same grass, the same seed, the same type of greens, so that I knew when that day came open, I knew how to do it, you know. I knew how to manage A4 grains and things like that, and I kept in touch with Bill that whole time I was gone. You know we talked and then, when the job actually came open, you know. He called and said you got a resume ready and I got.
Speaker 3:To be honest, I love Domecrest, I did not want to leave and my wife put her foot down. She says you wanted this your whole life. I was really scared that I wasn't going to get the job and I applied. There was 176 applicants for the job and I was lucky enough to land it. But replacing a legend like Bill was tough. You just got to be on top of your game the whole way and try to do better than what he did. And we worked three months together and it was the hardest three months I ever worked because I was ready to make changes and he was. He was pissed off because I was making changes. You know so and I you know so. Fast forward 18 years I got. I've got to remember the same thing with whoever replaces me. I I can't get mad. Uh, it's not my golf course, it's never been my golf course, it's always the members. I always try to remember that. So, so, hopefully, that transition goes well.
Speaker 2:We're going to take a quick break on the GCSA podcast with Rick Tegmeyer, cgcs MG, director of Grounds at West Des Moines Golf and Country Club. When we come back we'll talk a little bit about his relationship friendship that he's had with a major champion for quite a long time.
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Speaker 2:Before we took a little pause on that, on the first time that we were chatting, Rick, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the person you got to know, who the whole world has really gotten to know since your time when you were first with him at El Crest Country Club in Cedar Rapids, a guy by the name of Zach Johnson. Fill us in a little bit on how all that came about and the candy bars and the things that you were involved with and the young guys that were growing up around that course.
Speaker 3:Okay so when I was at Des Moines Golf, one of the things I asked Bill was what's the key to being successful or long-term at a club? And he said never tick off a kid, because someday that kid will be club president. He's going to remember it and you're not. And he said always try to embrace junior golfers and try to grow the game. So when I went to Elmcrest we had a great golf professional, larry Glatson, who had been there prior to my coming there and he had a long Hall of Fame career there also. But Larry had a great junior golf program and I tried to get involved with the kids and you know, show up at junior golf days and go down and talk to them and everything and talk to them about what we did on our side of the business. And we played five sums at Des Moines Golf or, excuse me, at Elmcrest, and there was five young men that played almost every day. They were like 9, 10 years old and I got to know them and I would challenge them for long drives or give them golf balls or tees or whatever. You know, we'd hit long drives for candy bars and they always beat me.
Speaker 3:I'm not a very good golfer, but one of those young men was Zach, and you know. So when he went to college at Drake University, you know let me back up he and his Cedar Rapids Regis team won the state golf tournament and then he went to Drake. One of the other players Brian Rupp, that was one of the boys that played. He went to the University of Iowa, which I think Zach would have loved to have gone to Iowa he's a huge Iowa Hawkeye fan but fate had it. He went to Drake. You know, and everybody knows his story. He was never the best player on the team. He was always like third or fourth and we stayed in contact. He always came back for lessons with Larry, and Zach's parents are still members of Elmcrest.
Speaker 3:His dad's a retired chiropractor now. He was actually my chiropractor but you know, zach turned pro, went on the Dakota tour. I played golf a couple times with him. You know the different places and you know he finally won the Bellsoft classic. He goes in 2005,. He gets a chance to go to Augusta and so Larry and I went to support him. So I have a golf ball sitting here in my office from his, from his first masters, that he signed for me. I don't I don't have many autographs, but that's one I cherish. And then, of course, in 2007, he won the Masters and then in 2015, he won the Open Championship at St Andrews, so one of six golfers in the world to ever win at both those venues.
Speaker 2:So that was pretty cool. You've had some experience working over the pond, haven't you?
Speaker 3:Yes, I was actually one of two Americans to be on the open support team at St Andrews. So all four days. So open support team is done by Bigga and basically what you do is you're assigned a threesome each morning and you walk with that threesome and ring bunkers if they happen to hit a dimmet. So I walked St Andrews for four days. It was one of the probably one of the top five things in my career that I've done, you know. So it was pretty cool. And actually the night before the Open Championship they asked me if I would ask Zach to do a little video message to the crew and he did it. He did a great little video message and it was pretty special for me, you know, being an American and you know because he was the past champion at St Andrews and he put out a good message that was shared around the St Andrews crew and the open support team. But it was a lot of fun doing that. I would encourage anybody to do that and experience it. It's quite a deal.
Speaker 2:When you think back on 40 years, there's probably been so many changes in the industry. And what you guys do out on the course, what are the most significant ones that stand out to you, rick, do out on the course?
Speaker 3:What are the most significant ones that stand out to you, rick? Biggest probably is changing turf grass species. You know it used to be, you know I remember in the early 80s when everything changed to bent grass. Another big change computers. I mean we, you know, never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd have a computer in my operation. I go to Elmcrest. There was a computer there and I actually I was so naive that I thought you could type a letter at the DOS prompt. You know that's. You know that was before Windows. But I got involved, you know, with, with Turf Bike, with Dwayne Patton and Lawrence Country Club and John Scott, who's deceased now. He was another one that started TurfBite and I learned computer skills and that was really the first social media, I guess, of the turf world, and now we have podcasts and Tur net and twitter and everything you know.
Speaker 2:So gary graded his group on facebook and a lot of good ways to communicate with people all over the world name the piece of equipment early on in your career that really wowed you and you thought, boy, this is going to be something huge. And maybe it turned out to be or didn't turn out to be, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Probably the most significant thing that I've seen, howard, is the Toral 648 air fire. That was a game changer with air fire, with airification, grains of airification. I probably never told you this, but I was actually. I invented the machine it was called the Dillard Master. We actually had a patent on it and we took it to the shows and tried to sell it. We did a couple of GCSA shows and we're part of that deal and we made 35 of these units. We sold all 35 that we took out and sold. So we'd go to a golf course and we'd sell it or download it and they'd buy it.
Speaker 3:There's still a couple in existence that are still being used today, but we couldn't get distribution. So that was a thing, a flop for me, but we made our money back that we invested in it. So that was probably a good one and a bad one. But there's been so many good changes to the mowers. You see fully autonomous mowers now coming out. You see just the quality is so much better than pulling a seven gang mower, you know, down the fairway and hopping off with the tractor and having to adjust it and everything like that. So a lot of changes over the years.
Speaker 2:As we're seeing your crews, your teams changed a lot. How have you altered, adjusted on the fly with that through the years?
Speaker 3:Well, I've never been very good at dealing with people. I get frustrated easy. I'm loud, I'm big, I'm boisterous. It's sometimes taken as that I'm trying to intimidate him. I'm not. I'm really a softy that I'm trying to intimidate him. I'm not, I'm really a softie. It's been really good for me to have superintendents that work for me to tell me back off, you know you're doing it wrong. They're not afraid to tell me that. And it's taken me, you know, 40-some years to learn how to maybe do things a little bit better or a little bit smoother or more political. You know I've always been one to tell people what I think and that's gotten me into trouble before you know. So, yeah, but I guess you know I'm very proud of one fact that you know I'm going out on my terms. You know I've worked over 50 years in the private club industry and I've never been fired. So that's I'm pretty proud of that. So yeah, I got seven months, howard.
Speaker 2:I got seven months. Howard, if one of your people on your staff anybody may come up to you from another course, whether it's in Iowa or somewhere else, if they came up to you and asked for advice on how to better themselves or advance, what would you tell them?
Speaker 3:I guess all depends on what the situation was. I always have a lot of people come up and ask me questions about asking for help, and I'd love to help people. You know, and I even see myself, maybe in retirement, you know, if a middle nine hole needs some help or 18 hole needs some help or advice, I want to be that guy that they can call and say can come look at it, come help me and do that, you know. So it's got to be very specific what they're looking for, what they're asking about, or uh, or whatever. I mean I've seen a lot. I think I have a lot to offer people if they want help.
Speaker 2:You know they just gotta ask working with your son nate for what? 16 years now, one of your superintendents, what's that been like having him there? He's been with you for a long time, even before he worked for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he actually started going to the golf course when he was two. You know he would get up every weekend and go, so that was pretty cool. You know it's probably been more difficult on him than it is on me, you know, because I expect a lot out of him. It's pretty cool to go through it. You know it's neat to see how he has developed and become a good young man. You know I like how he's approaching this juncture in his career. You know he wants to try to go for my job. I'm fully supportive of him. You know he and Mitch Meyer, our other superintendent you know they're they really are my succession plan and Tanner Walsh, one of our assistants, and Jeremy Griffey. They've been here a long time with me. They've all been through the Solheim Cup or or came right after that. You know, and and you know so your succession plan for the club is to make sure they know how to do everything.
Speaker 3:You know how to do, and nate and mitch know that, and nate, nate wants to move forward uh that'll be up to our general manager and the and the search team whether or not he deserves that chance, you know, but but hopefully, uh, hopefully that works out for him looking out on the horizon to late october.
Speaker 2:Beyond, what does your life after let me say this word, right superintendenting mean to you, as you kind of go forward with your life after being a superintendent for so many years and so much of your life and your career you know?
Speaker 3:Howard, speaking with Larry Glass and my former golf pro and friend in Cedar Rapids. He said don't make any decisions for the first four months. He just retired. He said, rick, you're going to have so many people come at you with different things. Don't make any decisions, just wind down. And that's pretty good advice.
Speaker 3:I think there's a lot of things that I want to do. I mean, I have other friends that are retired, that have some cool things Gene Jennings, the gentleman I mentioned from Hyperion. A couple of years ago he purchased a 32-foot houseboat and his goal has always been to float the Mississippi with it. So I think he and I are going to do such a thing where we put in, and that's good. You know, huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, we're going to hop on that boat. We're going to float a couple of days on the Mississippi and see what happens, you know. So doing things like that, there's just a lot I want to do my wife Sherry. She just retired after a successful career. I want to do my wife Sherry she just retired after a successful career. So we're good, we're healthy and hopefully there's a lot to do yet you know lots to see.
Speaker 2:So Well, that's terrific. Well, we wish you the best, Rick Tegmeyer, CGCSMG from Des Moines Golf and Country Club. Thanks so much for taking the time with us today, and we really appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Well, my pleasure, howard, I appreciate everything you do. I appreciate the time you came to the Solheim and spent with us and all you do for GCSAA and the superintendents, and Scott too, even though Scott's going to be missed. But I wish you both the best.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, and I love being there for the Solheim Cup. Rick, thanks again, and that's it today for the GCSA podcast. Thank you all for listening and take care.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us for this episode of the GCSA podcast featuring Howard Richman's conversation with Rick Tegmeyer, cgcscsmg. We appreciate Rick taking some time to join us for this one and wish him nothing but the best as he rides off into retirement at the end of October. Tuned to your favorite podcast feed. For all of that, but for now it's time to say farewell and thank you to our podcast editor, evan Shapiro, everyone at Enview for their ongoing support of the podcast, the GCSAA Board of Directors and the outstanding staff at Association Headquarters in Lawrence, kansas. And, of course, my thanks to each of you for subscribing, downloading and checking us out. Until we meet again, stay safe, stay healthy and thank you for your support of the GCSAA podcast.