00:00I know you feel really strongly about the Texas economy, deciding to have your businesses here.
00:05What sticks out to you the most? Yeah, I think one of the things that you can see is the
00:10speed
00:10of trust. I've lived in New York, Miami, Dominican Republic, Afghanistan, Brazil,
00:15a bunch of different places. In here, to be able to start a business and in a day have an
00:19LLC done
00:20and be able to move quickly and have investors trust you, it's just a whole different dynamic.
00:25And so I've found that businesses, even using legal, cost less here because it's so much
00:31quicker. There's something in the air here. I think it's the leadership of the city as well
00:34that means people are entrepreneurial. They want to start businesses, grow businesses,
00:39and the environment is really rich for that. Certainly the exchanges are taking notice. I do
00:43want to talk to you about your role as a founding advisory board member of the New York Stock Exchange
00:48Texas. What has that entire process been like? Yeah, it's been incredible. So I consider myself
00:54a Main Street guy, but I've worked on Wall Street. I worked for Goldman Sachs back in the day.
00:58And this has been a really neat kind of collision of Main Street and Wall Street. And so what it's
01:04been like for me is seeing all these Texas business owners and everybody moving to the state of Texas
01:09to start businesses and grow businesses from California, from the Northeast, from other countries,
01:13and seeing the exchanges come in and saying, hey, not only can you have Main Street here and build
01:18a business, but we're going to have exchange right here so you can do a dual listing or go public
01:22right here in Texas. So Texas Stock Exchange has said they plan to begin trading this summer. NASDAQ,
01:27you and I were just talking about that, launched a regional headquarters in Dallas. But you just hit
01:32on something. You're talking about launching the IPO here or dual listing. Do you think we'll see
01:38IPOs launched here in the near future? Or do you think we're going to see a lot of dual listings
01:42as
01:43people get used to all the exchanges here? It's an interesting question. It's something I think
01:47we're all curious about. I think we have 107 dual listings in the New York Stock Exchange Texas so
01:51far. But we've had a lot of interest in, hey, I think I might go public just in Texas. And
01:57so that's
01:57something to be seen. But we're very excited about the potential of that. How do you make that happen?
02:01I mean, how do the exchanges basically say, OK, just do it here?
02:03Yeah, I think the exchanges can do it. But really what the exchange is doing is introducing the
02:10investor and the operator together to make this happen. And so really, is there interest from
02:15the operator, from the business owners? And then what's the financial interest on the other side?
02:20And if those two ends meet, then it works perfect for the exchange. And so it's really an organic
02:24interest. Whether we can make it happen or not, I think the state of Texas has a lot of people
02:29that really want it to happen from the business community.
02:31I'm curious. We've talked to advisory board members of the exchanges here. I think all of
02:36them at this point, certainly New York Stock Exchange Texas and Texas Stock Exchange. How are
02:41you approached about that? And how does the process work?
02:43Yeah. So I think they were looking for specific people in different areas. They have Scott Mueller,
02:49for example, runs the region for Goldman Sachs and is a credible leader here in Texas and brings a lot
02:54of that to bear. I think when I was approached, actually, it was through a recruiting firm.
03:00And they talked about the background that I had worked in Main Street with, you know, I talked to
03:05200, 250 founders a year, and we work with founders to grow their businesses. And it's like, where do
03:10those businesses actually go? Whether we go public, whether we trade, whether we sell the private
03:15equity. And in recent years, you've seen the IPOs, people are waiting longer to do an IPO. So I think
03:21that's something that Senator Tan Parker, the governor, and frankly, New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ,
03:26we're all interested in how can we make that a little bit faster and more streamlined. And so
03:30that's how it came up for me is that connection of, like I said before, you know, Main Street and
03:34Wall Street, which I think everybody's now calling Yall Street. You just talked about Main Street. I want
03:40to talk about Wall Street for a moment. You spent eight years as a vice president at Goldman Sachs. So
03:44let's talk about their presence here and basically the presence you're seeing from financial institutions
03:49as they grow. Yeah, yeah. So I think first with Goldman Sachs, we have representation on the board.
03:54I was, you know, I worked at the firm, think a lot of the firm. But 5,500 people are
04:00moving here
04:02from New York and for the second headquarters of Goldman Sachs. They made that move years ago.
04:07Senator Tan Parker and the governor were talking about exchanges here. But that was a big first
04:11mover advantage, I think, there. If you look at J.P. Morgan, J.P. Morgan now has more people in
04:15the
04:15state of Texas than in New York. Right. So you're seeing you're seeing a shift, but you're also
04:21seeing that there's room for two big financial centers. I don't think the New York Stock Exchange
04:24will ever lose its luster. I was there a few months ago and it's an incredible place. You know, 1972,
04:31the Buttonwood Agreement under a tree. That's when these exchanges started for a market need.
04:35And it's existed ever since in that form. So it's going to be really neat to see both of these
04:39financial centers continue to emerge. All right. So from Wall Street to Main Street, well, some
04:44stops along the way in the military, but your company, Kotala Holdings, your business is an
04:49aerospace infrastructure and water in the U.S., but mostly in Texas. Water is something I really
04:54want to talk to you about because water is something that people say really can threaten
04:59the future of Texas. What's your thoughts on that? Yeah. Well, as you may know, there's only one
05:04natural lake in the state of Texas. It's the Caddo Lake. Every other lake has been built for other
05:08purposes, largely water. And so with a fast growing population, water can quickly become an issue.
05:14You've seen it become an issue in Arizona, California, and is an issue here in Texas.
05:18And so looking at, okay, what are the different things we can draw on in Houston, San Antonio,
05:23some of those cities, 60% of the water is subsurface. That's where our company all say
05:28works is the subsurface. So I think it's going to be similar to energy. There's going to be a lot
05:33of different ways to get water to the people, but a lot of it right now is subsurface. We're looking
05:38at desalinization. And then you've got a lot of brackish subsurface water and aquifers, too.
05:44And so being able to drill that and convert brackish to drinking water is going to be
05:48very important as well. If you look at your backdrop here, there's just not a lot of room
05:52to build a massive lake. I believe the Bodark Lake in Dallas might have taken close to 30 years
05:57to build. And it's just complicated and hard to do. So we're going to have to look at a lot
06:00of options. But it's going to become an issue. It's something on the governor's mind. It's something
06:04on the land commissioner's mind that a lot of people are thinking about in Texas.
06:07I do want to talk to you about with gas right now. I mean, we're talking about how much it
06:12costs right now to fill up your tank. And this war continues on. How is it affecting your business?
06:19Yeah, I think inflation is real. And energy inflation is part of it. I mentioned earlier
06:24this morning, it took me $125 to fill up my F-150 yesterday. And that's going to show up
06:31in energy prices. It's going to show up in inflation. It's going to get passed along to
06:35customers. And so I do think it's an inflationary thing. We'll see how long the Strait of Hormuz
06:41stays closed. But 20% to 25% of the world's energy passes through that. So it's going to
06:49be difficult until that gets solved.
06:51Yeah. And how is that affecting you at the office?
06:53Yeah. I think, like I said, we're Main Street. So we haven't seen it affect a lot of our businesses
06:58yet. But similar to when tariffs went in, we're starting to see little things happen.
07:05You know, we have different routes in our trucks. In our home health business, we have hundreds
07:09of vehicles that take our nurses around in eight different states to get to their patients.
07:14Right. So that is a major driver of, okay, do we do route management? How can we be more
07:21efficient? But it is going to cost a lot more to deliver patient care when you look at energy
07:26prices where they are, oil specifically, and gas.
07:28As you know, with energy, you have the data centers springing up all over Texas. I mean,
07:32is this a good thing, do you think? Or is there a point where this can affect the water supply?
07:38It can affect other things?
07:39Yeah. Yeah. I think as long as it's managed appropriately, right now, we're actually in
07:43that business. We have a business called Pond Robinson that actually works with data centers
07:47as they get built. And the first question is energy, water. And I think a lot of communities
07:54are saying, do we want the data center? Because we want jobs. We want the investment. We want
07:58the tax base. But is water and energy, are this going to be a problem? Does that going
08:04to compete with the local population? And I think that's what's being kind of seen, not
08:09in my backyard, with a lot of the data center built, which are happening every day in this
08:15country.
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