Tread Lightly with Mike Sype | Ep. 11

But education is one of our pillars for our organization along with stewardship and outreach. And that's one of the major pillars for what we do. If it doesn't fall in one of those, we shouldn't be working on it every day. So I think, are you guys Toyota guys? I can't remember. Oh, you are. Yeah, exactly. So... I actually like this, but... Okay. Well, I feel like I'm really defending myself now. All right. My favorite question, Milwaukee or DeWalt? So I'm Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. This is Overland Weekly episode number 11. I am Davy, along here with my trusty co-host, What's going on? What's going on, John? I've been kicked out of my usual studio spot. Shares a wall with the baby's new bedroom. So we're in the garage that I still have not organized. John texted me earlier and said, The baby is teething, so I don't know how this is going to work out tonight. She's not real happy. And we'll see how it worked out. You're the one that got displaced. Yeah, we won't tell the wife that my phone's on do not disturb. Yeah, well, she can come downstairs and find you. She's not that far away. Oh, man. So what's happening? You guys did a little family camping trip. Was it this a no phones, no tech family getaway? It was. We had up Cedars of Lebanon State Park, 40 minutes outside of Nashville, door to door, which was really nice. And yeah, we did. We did. We pledged to not We did not have our phones out. Of course, we're still taking pictures, but it was nice. Lots of nice trails, a couple of very interesting sink holes, a ton of cedar trees, so the bugs actually weren't that bad. Drew loved it. She did not sleep very well, but she had a blast during the day. There's a video that my wife posted on her Instagram of me trying to make her stroller go down the trails that we were on, and it didn't work out. A new form of overlanding, yeah. Yeah. It was a great time, though. I'm excited. What was most exciting is we got home and the wife was like, Should we buy a bigger camper? Which told me that she had a great time. Hey, you You want to build one, too? I mean, we'll build two at the same time. You know, I'm working on my project. Yeah, maybe I'll commission you to build mine. Well, I had a good weekend. We had the Trail Fest by Southern Four Wheel Drive Association down at Colmont. So that was a good time. A couple of hundred rigs down there. Our club, the STLCA, was volunteered as trail leaders for that. So that was It was good. Always a good time at Colmont. Yes. All right. So we've got a guest that I want to get in here, but I do want to talk about one thing before we bring him on. This is a PSA that we need to discuss here. If you have not seen the news on what is happening in the state of Alabama with the legislation down there against private off-road parks, you You can Google it. I'm not going to go into all the details here, but essentially there is legislation that is currently in the state session there that It doesn't specifically say they're banning private off-road parks, but it makes it very, very difficult for a private off-road park to operate. There's some insurance restrictions and other restrictions, and there's a lot of speculation into what caused it and the different senators and representatives that introduced it. Not going to go into all that, but needless to say, it's, as it often is, a few bad apples that are really causing issues for everybody else. And that's rough. And if you're saying, well, I don't live in Alabama. This doesn't affect me. Boy, I tell you what, this stuff, unfortunately, just seems to spread like wildfire when these things And we've seen it happen here in Tennessee. So I would encourage you to get involved. There's petitions online. You can reach out to the state senators and state reps and let your opinion be known. Go read the bill. It's only about four pages long, so you can educate yourself on the matter and what I'm speaking about. So with that said, talking about trail closings, our guest tonight is very much a proponent of keeping these trails open and educating folks to take personal responsibility in order to continue to keep these trails open and maintain and grow trails. So let me add into the room here Mr. Mike Mike, the communications and marketing director from Tread Lightly. Welcome, Mike. How's it going today? Hey, hey, hey. Good, my friend. Thank you for jumping on here with us. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So, Mike, I think Tread Lightly is one of those organizations that when you say their name, people have heard the name. It's been around a long time now. They may not know everything you do, but they're at least familiar with the name or with the term. I mean, in some ways, it's a... Fred Lightly is a lifestyle or a way of mannerism on the trail. But what we really wanted to do tonight is to talk to you and learn some more of the the history of the organization and then bring it up to current day as to the different initiatives, campaigns, and how people get involved with this, because we have just seen... We talked about it over the last year. Unfortunately, it's more trails that we're seeing closed than we're seeing open, and we can't prevent it all, but education and personal responsibility goes a long way in preventing Absolutely. Yeah, totally. And Tread lightly promoting... It's all about sustainability, right? And I just heard you talk it before the intro, and I might have been listening in on that. And a lot of it is having that for future generations, having the availability to be off road. And you're right, that's that one or few % of everybody there's a bad apple in each batch. But yeah, I mean, Tread Lightly, we're here to support responsible use of motorized vehicles recreating outdoors. It's very important to follow the Tread principles, which we'll get into later. But, yeah, if you want to talk a little bit about history, I can certainly provide some of that info to you. Well, we'll get into that. Before we dive into the history of the organization, give us a little spiel on your background. I know that you've been involved in the off-road community with some other companies and professionally. So tell us what you've done and how you ended up where you are today with Tread Light. Sure. I originally started in the automotive industry here in Southeast Michigan. Worked for a company named Tenneco. Spent about 24 years with them. Short little stunt with them. But great time, great experience. I don't miss it for anything. I shouldn't say, Don't miss it for anything. I learned a lot and it was a great experience. It got me to where I'm at today. For about 10, 11 years, I was I'm affiliated with the Rancho Suspension brand, legacy brand. Yeah, a lot of people know that brand, probably 69-year-old brand. I quit counting last year. We got an opportunity to came up to work with Tread Lightly, and couldn't miss the opportunity. There were some interviews, and just last summer, took the job with the team. It's been a great experience. Nothing like going from a 25, 000 person organization or employee organization to 15. Definitely making the difference. And not that I wasn't before and working with a legacy brand. There was a lot of heavy lifting, too, by that small team. There was only five of us, but had that big corporate hierarchy. Man, I don't miss that at all. Not that we don't need corporations, but it sure is fun working for a small business. Yeah. A lot of folks, like you said, there's there's 15 employees now at Tread Lightly, and it's I think that's double what it was a couple of years ago. So it's It's really impressive what a small number of folks are getting to accomplish. And I have to assume that's in large part to the volunteer force that you have supplementing you all. Huge, yeah. So we grew from roughly seven employees in 2020 to over 15. Actually, we're getting ready to hire another employee up in the Seattle area. We just posted the job and got some great interviews this week. Great candidates. It's awesome. So many of qualified people out there. It's amazing. But yeah, I mean, just the volunteer reach then that comes along with that. So most of those new heads were program managers that we placed throughout the US. For instance, we've got Scott Amerman over in Pennsylvania. We've got Lowell down in the region nine area. I'm sorry, region eight area. So he covers pretty much from South Carolina all the way over to Texas, down to Florida. And then we got a bunch of people out West in the hotbeds out where there's a lot of projects, Utah, Arizona, California, you name it out West. There's a lot of activity going on out there. But what comes along with that is volunteers. We had over 5,000 volunteers involved last year, which is huge, huge, huge deal for Tread Lightly, because when it comes to matching with grants and you got to have those volunteer hours, it's a direct match to that. And it allows us to get more funding. Very cool. Yeah, it's good stuff. We are we are stoked, and 2024 is going to be a huge year for us as well. That's awesome. Yeah. So you worked with Rancho a little bit, and then that you use that to get into Tread Lightly in some ways. Was there any personal off-road vehicles that you have that you saw Tread Lightly and you're like, I want to I want to do that because I do this? Sure. Sure. Yeah. So I was, fortunately I was the brand manager for Rancho. So I was blessed with a few vehicles and got spoiled. Then I actually had already built a 2008 Wrangler JK and got rid of that immediately when I landed into the Rancho job back then. And I was I got a Bronco and I got a JL. It was rock these. We even had a gladiator in the fleet and a Superduty. We had a bunch of different vehicles, but new opportunities bring new vehicles. I picked up a JT gladiator, drove it around stock Rubicon for probably four or five months. Just love that field economy. It was 19 miles per gallon. Since then, I've now regeared it with 513s and 37s, full armor, got the bumper, the winch. I had to put new shocks on it, did a leveling kit. So, yeah, it just never ends. What are you at? 10 miles a gallon now? Yeah, maybe 14 on a good day. So the 513s definitely eat up some fuel. But that's It's a little better than John and I are doing. Okay. There you go. Yeah. I figured I might load it. My last is great. My last is great. It says 10 miles for a gallon for a reason. Yeah, I get it. Totally. And so I've got a rooftop rack that's going to go on the back. And I'm going to be using it in two ways. I've got a nice tulle to poohy holdout tent for it. But then I've also got a Gazelle and Gazelle Gazebo. So it depends on what we're doing. If we're going to be at a spot and then hitting different spots wheeling for three or four days. I'm going to bring that tent and just throw it out in the middle of the field. But for a blast and a gas and going from different spots, I'm throwing a rooftop on and we're just going to go. It's been a great vehicle. Full transparency, I drove a lot of different JTs, and I've driven a lot of Jeeps over the years, and some are really good and some are really bad. I think I drove seven JTs and finally found the one that I wanted. But it's a curse. Tenet goes to a shop company. In my career, I was a shop tuner at one point in my career. Got you. Yeah. The last vehicle I tuned on was, I believe it was the H2 truck when they had the H2T. That was the last vehicle at GM. Yeah, I was an engineer going back and forth to Milford, Michigan, tuning shots. That was one of the last packages. Honestly, that's where I got the off-road bug a little bit. We had to do some testing. But yeah, so it's a curse. I say I have an educated ass, and it's horrible. I can't get in a vehicle without picking it apart. It's tough. The vehicle dynamics curse, for sure. I'd love you in pair of parts to hook up and chat bump stops. Absolutely. Yeah, we definitely tuned some John's bumpers back in the day, and it was adventure, for sure. But all these things got me to where I'm at today, though. So it's been exciting. And yeah, seven JTs. Very cool. Now, was that seven... You own seven or are you test-rope seven? No, test-rope. Yeah. Some of them have those steering gear issues, and I, at the time, refused to buy a new one. So I was looking for a 22. There's a couple of things I wanted. I wanted the adaptive cruise control because I was going to be on the highway a lot. I just really love that feature. It's a game changer. It is. It really is. I've done a lot of road trips with it, and it's day-night when it comes to... I swore it's an extra three hours of driving just because you're not disvastated from it. But I just kept driving these 22s. I'm like, No. My wife would drive with it. She's like, I know what you're going to say.. It's so funny because we were talking earlier before we started how we both worked in Michigan Automotive. I'm the same way. You know, once you're in it, you know a little bit more than the average consumer, and you know the back end of the game. And you'll get into a vehicle and you're like, nah, you know exactly why. Absolutely. I get you. The dealerships like, oh, we can fix that. Never mind. No. No. That's good. You're going to put the same part back in, and we're going to be in the same place. I mean, just overall, I think, are you guys Toyota guys? I can't remember. Oh, you are. Yeah, exactly. Actually, Lexus, but... Okay. Well, I feel like I'm really defending myself now, but there's a lot of really good Jeeps out there, I've done a lot of work with Jeep, even since I started working with Rancho before, and now I've Tread Lightly. So do a little bit of stuff with Jeep Jambury USA on the side as well. Cool. I might be out there. When I was off for the summer, I did a little stand out there with them on the '24 media launch. That was a blast. That's awesome. Yeah, it was a good time. Definitely a great summer last summer. But man, Matt Caldwell called and says, Hey, You're interested in a job at Tread Lightly? And here we are. So love it. Yeah. Fun story. All right, so we shifted on to the Tread Lightly story here. Mike, walk us through a brief overview of the organization's history, because I think what surprised me, this is a really odd turn of events, that you have an organization that started as a a branch of the US government, or not a branch of, it was a campaign within the US Forest Service, and then got spun out as a nonprofit in the private sector. That just doesn't happen every day. No, it doesn't. So the deal is, as I understand it, is they were taking the organization from being privately funded by the US Forest Service to be able to be funded through a 501(C)(3) or nonprofit. And then you can start seeking membership for funding grants throughout the US. You can also get state grants. Blm can get involved in as well. And then you can also go get corporate funding. So there's three sources of income when you look at that in there. So it's actually a really good idea, in my opinion, because it allows us go out and continue to grow. Yeah, it's really cool. It's one of those things that I was going to say, I don't know if it could happen in our modern political climate, and that's not taking either side, but for the government to look at it and say this would be better off for the people if we let it go and grow on its own. I don't know if we'd hear that these days, but yeah, definitely. So this is a little bit older slide. Obviously, we're a little bit older than 25 years. And the team just celebrated their 35th. So we always say 1990 is when we started officially. And really, the organization was started, and I I just learned this myself, having only been here eight months. 1985, what was really big in '85, ATVs were coming out, and three-wheelers were just dominating the scene at the time. Nobody knew what to do with these things, but they did know that they had a lot of messaging that needs to come to these people that we're recreating outdoors. And that's where the DRED principles came from, that acronym and the whole basis behind it. Fast forward to today, and we We look at things like UTVs, and we look at things like any recreation out there. Bronco owners, there are a bunch of new operators out there, too. So getting that message out there is still just as important as it was in 1985. Yeah, these Tread principles, to my knowledge, they haven't changed since back then. Like I said, I was just at this event this weekend at Comont, which is a park that's owned by the city of Comont. It's a municipally owned park. Right there, as soon as you walk into their big pavilion, they've got these... They've got five different metal signs for the five Tread Principles that are all hung up there. It's It's just one of those things that they were working with a group just this weekend with some kids, teaching them different games to remember the Tread principles. And it's like you said, it's not just we come at it from an off-road perspective But there's mountain bikes, there's boating, there's hiking, there's geo-catching. There's all these different things that are influenced by Tread Light. Yeah, we always say if it's got a motor or an engine, we're in. That's Really what we... E-bikes, jet skis, snowmobiles. If you got a mini bike in your on the trail, as long as you have the right permits, we're supporting you. We're all in on everything to do with. There was a group of those off-road mowers They're not going to be out there this weekend. Man, that is so freaking cool. They're insane. I'm like, What do you do if you roll? It's crazy. They've got all the flex on that front. I think that helps them a lot, but Not in the rear. I'm a little too old for that now. Yeah, it may be more of a young man's game with that. I hear you. I'm not going to lie. I've ruined my Facebook marketplace algorithm, and it's just a bunch of free ride on mowers. If I call you up for your trailer one day, Dave, you just don't ask any questions. No questions asked. Yeah. So you've got the Tread principles, and now you guys have this Tread Lightly 101 program, which is online, which anyone can go and sign up for and take instantly. And if you're thinking, Well, that sounds boring. It's just going to be the obvious answers. I took that course a couple of weeks ago, and I missed some. And it made me rethink. It made me rethink how to go about thinking about some of these different scenarios. It's a really cool thing. Yeah. We're encouraging everybody to go out there and check it out. I mean, it's actually pretty informative. I took it immediately, obviously, when I started. It just brush up my skills, and I've taken the Tread Trainer course as well. But it's definitely a good... And it's a little beyond a one-on-one. It actually is like, Hey, this is stuff I can remember, need to remember. I didn't realize that. And everybody gets a little bit of something out of it every time they take it. Yeah. Speaking of the Tread Trainer, so that, I believe, is the primary way that you guys have spread the word, so to speak. So tell us how that program works and the whole teach the teacher mentality of it. Yeah, you nailed it right there. It's really we're training trade trainers through our organization, part of the organization, directly with our staff. And then they're out there training trainers who are then training people. And it's really I always call it a big pyramid, right? And it's almost the Amway approach. But it really works well for us because there's no better way to spread the word than to educate people. And we talk about it and we haven't really covered it. But education is one of our pillars for our organization, along with stewardship and outreach. And that's one of the major pillars for what we do. If it doesn't fall on one of those, we shouldn't be working on it every day. So there's no better way to spread the message, though, like I said, than equipped enthusiasts that are out there that know the information and can spread the word. So it's vital to what we do, and it's how we go to work every day. Yeah, and I know that a lot of those train the trainer programs happen across the country with different clubs and events. But I also know that you have an online version of that with another class coming up here next month in May because I'm signed up for that course. So if anybody's listening, there's that option as well. It's great to hear. Yeah, So you get to meet Danielle, I would imagine, or maybe it's not Danielle. So that's the thing. You can get a variety of different trainers, but I'm stoked to hear that you're going to be on that. And let me know how it goes. I'm definitely interested in your feedback. Yeah, I'll report back on that. So Mike, what about if we've got somebody that's... John and I are both fortunate enough to be in an area where we're involved with different clubs and organizations that are affiliated with Tread Lightly. If somebody is listening to us and they've got a club or a group of folks that they ride with and Novoine is a Tread Lightly member or has any affiliation, and they want to start making that part of their their club effort, who should they reach out to? What's the first steps to get involved with that? Yeah, really, the best way is to get onto our website, treadlately. Org. And there's literally a tab that says become a member. And it has all the information you need. And And if you have more questions, you can contact Mandy, who actually happens to report to me because I do head up the membership side as well. So Mandy is a great person. She's one of the probably the longest, she's the second longest person or third longest person that's been with Tread Lately. So she definitely knows the ins and outs of membership. But any questions you have, you can also, there's a contact us form on Tread Lately on the treadlitely. Org, or you reach out to us on social media. Communications team will get with somebody to make sure that you're getting the right answers for what you need. We have varying forms of club memberships, so we should certainly talk if there's something beyond what you see on the Web page. Cool. Yeah, definitely. So probably a great time to segue into the different types of memberships that we have. There's lots of opportunities out there, especially for clubs. There's the $100, $200. There's also a new club level that we just started, but there's really no price tied to it. It's a customized partnership for clubs. It's called the Affiliated Club. What do we call it? Affiliated Club Partnership. So the partnership side allows them to get their logo on the website. Usually larger clubs that have clubs underneath them are the ones that are typically looking for that recognition, as well as it provides a discount for their clubs that are underneath them. So now the club membership is cheaper for the affiliated clubs. So definitely want to talk to you larger clubs that have clubs underneath you. We want to grow this membership in the clubs. And I think it's a great opportunity to provide a benefit to the clubs that belong to your club. So examples would be like the Pacific Northwest Four-wheel Drive Association. Many, many, many clubs underneath them. Trying to think of another example off the top of my head, but I can't think of one right now. Southern Four-wheel Drive is the same way. Yes, they're on my list. Tell them to give me a holler because I'm definitely really interested in talking with them. There's a Bo, right? Bow. Yes, BOW. Bow was on here just a couple of weeks ago. So we'll make that connection happen. Yeah, I believe I talked to Bo in the past and I would love to reconnect with him. Great. So that's clubs, but you've We got individual memberships as well, correct? Yeah. So we've got 25, 50, 100. And I got to look at my site. Sorry. That's horrible for me. I can always say you guys things so many times. The point being that it is extremely affordable, and it is not... Yes, you're paying to join this club, and your money is going to to these campaigns and to to all kinds of good uses. But you get you get some benefits as an individual member as well. And I promise we didn't plan this. Mike doesn't even know I'm going to mention this, but I just got an email from Mandy at 12:44 this afternoon with all these new memberships of benefits that that are now available. And I'm talking like 250 bucks off iCampers, 25 % off from Axel Off-Road, tire rebates from Firestone. It's more than my membership cost in benefits. It is. One of my favorite ones is the Onyx Off-Road one where you get the You get a very significant discount on the high-end package. It's so cheap. It almost pays for itself by becoming a member. But yeah, there's that $25,$50, $100, $250 level. And everyone, as it goes up, you get more stuff. Plus, you get a free shirt if you get the $50, and you get a sweatshirt if you do the $250. So there's something to wear, too. And you get some discounts at our store, depending on what level you get. Right now is a great time to join as well, because we've got our fund give away going on right now. And depending on what level you become a member or Great segue. Depending on what level you become a member is how many entries you get into the giveaway. But we're partnering with Holly Fowler. And it's going to be a killer build. A lot of great manufacturers, as you can see there. Mischiefmaker, JKU is her Instagram handle. And her and her husband, Walter, are building this vehicle for us. And this is our third year with And the membership numbers have moved. We've moved the needle big time with these giveaways. So, yeah, it's a great time. And again, you get entered into it today. If you become between now and when we do the giveaway, you get entered into the contest to win this Jeep. So great opportunity. And if you're already a member, you can you can donate and get entries as well. You don't have to be a new member to put in for this, this giveaway. Which is, I believe the the prize value is over $90,000. I mean, these Jeeps aren't cheap. And then you've got just a ton of modifications going on to this thing. Yeah, it's going to have tons on it. 42 stickies. The list just goes on and on. It's going to be long arm, of course. And we're adding more manufacturers actually here in a few days that I can't say. But there's a lot of great, even more products, four or five more manufacturers going on it. So we're really stoked. Another opportunity, too, if you already are a member, and maybe you don't want to push your membership past that year, Mark, we've got a hoodie and a T-shirt that you can buy that's limited edition, that's got a More of a sketched version of this Jeep. Oh, it's really cool. I saw a picture of it. Yeah. Yeah. So that gives you injuries as well. So I can't win, but I still bought the shirts. So that's how much How much I like the shirts. Like, yeah, I need one of those hoodies. But yeah, man, we're stoked for this build, and we're going to have it all through the show circuit here starting in May. Holly started building it here, like just this last week. So lots of parts are filing in and we're so forth. And you guys have done a couple of these now. I mean, it's relatively new, I believe, over the past few years, these vehicle giveaways, but obviously it's been an astounding success. As. Yeah. I think what was so exciting about last year's build is we gave away a gladiator, a Can-Am Maverick, and a trailer to haul it with. And this is a great story. So the young lady that won it, she wanted to buy a 392 and wanted to order one. And of course, in that '23 era at the beginning of the year, you didn't have all these crazy discounts and all that stuff like you have. Well, she wanted the discount. So one of our discounts with Tread lightly as a member is that you can then you can get a discount at one % below dealer invoice with a hundred dollar individual membership. So she went ahead and did that. She just happened to be in Utah visiting her husband who was working out there and says, I'm buying one of these. So she went home waiting for her vehicle to come, and we gave her a call. She won that Gladiator, the Can-Am and the trailer, and she had one entry It's amazing. That's all it takes. We got to meet her, her wonderful family. It was exciting. She was in the South Carolina area. Really excited. Yeah. So I mean, all it takes is one ticket to win. So definitely encourage you to become a member. Try to win that Jeep. It's pretty cool. I wish I could win it. I drew over it. We're looking at all the build images is and all the products. I was out to EJS interviewing all the sponsors. And I'm like, Man, this is going to be such an awesome build. I'm stoked for it, for sure. I've seen, obviously, a lot of different companies these giveaway vehicles, and even off-road, but they're almost always just stock. Like you said, you don't see somebody take a Jeep, put a set of one tons under it, and then put it up for Apple. That's cool. Yeah. I mean, it's going to have a half doors. It's got PRP seats. I mean, the list just goes on and on. I mean, it's just every aftermarket part we could throw at it. And if we were a partner with them, or if Holly and Walter were partnering with them. We made it happen. So it's good stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. So one thing that I'm sure my daughter will eventually be a part of is the TL Kids program, which is how you can educate young adventurers. So I'm curious about that if you could talk a little bit about that and if there's a minimum age requirement. No, no. Sign her up today, please. Is that two of trees? There you go. It could be. So this is something the team did a little bit before I came on board, but I'm really excited about it because who you're seeing there is Lightfoot. And Lightfoot was a recarnation of some different characters, as characters they've had over the years. And it really hits home. Again, it's all about sustainability and getting the message out. So who better to hit than some of the kids right from the ground floor who are more than likely going out with their parents anyways? This is a different approach. We created Coloring Books, and we give away a lot of events. Just recently, and you might have saw it, the Overland Expo Foundation is going to have at all the Overland Expos, their kids education course, which they've developed with us. Kids are going to be able to drive around, depending on which age, Jeeps, little Barbie Jeeps or Jeeps, as well as RC cars, and depending on their age with their parents, and they're going to get an education about the Tread Pledge that look like what's got here on your screen. So good stuff. We know attention spans are short, so it's going to be a trial by air, and try to figure out how does it goes. But we're excited that Overland Expo Foundation, sponsors They've sponsored us on that. They've also sponsored us with some grand opportunities as well that we're going to utilize this year for some projects and stewardship projects. So they're a great partner of ours, and we've been utilizing them as a strategic partner for quite a few years. That's awesome. I feel like if you can educate young, it becomes just part of the way that you interact outdoors. It's not something that you have to learn as an adult. You can try. It just becomes part of So it's awesome that there's something out there for folks. Hey, everyone. Davie here. I'm interrupting the show just for a second. So we've been at this for a little over a year now, and some of you have been following us from day one, and we greatly appreciate that. Others, you found it as we've gone along and found our format and continued to put out this content, and I really hope that you're enjoying it. So if you are, this is the part where I ask ask you to do us a favor. If you're on YouTube, give us a like, give us a subscribe if you haven't. And what really helps is if you can leave some comments there in the in the blog below. If you're listening to this on a podcast format and you can do a rating or review there, we'd greatly appreciate that as well. All right, back to the show. Mike, we were talking earlier about the volunteers and how that really drives everything. So So let's talk a little bit, if we can, about these stewardship opportunities and the best way for folks to get plugged in in their local area. I mean, we see a lot of things on Instagram and Facebook, events that are happening. But where can folks find out about these events ahead of time so that they can be a part of it? Great question. Yeah. I mean, I can't stress enough, become a member first. I mean, that's the number one thing you can do, because then it allows us to communicate communicate with you via email and then share all the projects that we have going on. Even in the last year, our program managers, because we have so many of them, I wish we had more, but we have so many of them. They're reaching out on a regional hot map saying, hey, we've got a project in Pennsylvania. We want to grab a circle 100 miles wide and bring some people in. And it's working. We're moving the needle, getting people in. But the other thing you can do is keep an eye on our social media, our Facebook page. As well as Instagram. Also, if you go to our our Web page, chardletley. Org, and just check out events, all of our stewardship projects are in there. There'll be links to Eventbrite. And then when you go to Eventbrite, you can also subscribe to our Eventbrite. So you'll get notifications from Eventbrite on how to get to those projects or what projects are available. When we're doing 271 projects every year, there's a lot of stuff going on and they're just starting to build up. Just even here in Michigan, we've picked out three, four projects already this year alone. And every day we're adding new projects. So keep an eye on those things. The information is right at your fingertips. You can get to it really easily. Just got to go through a few steps and looking forward to seeing everybody out there for sure. Yeah, for sure. And you were talking about getting these corporate sponsors involved, and how A lot of times it's a match between the corporate sponsors and the volunteer hours or volunteer dollars, whatever it may be that are coming into it. And so that goes to these grants that you have set up. And I want to talk about those. You've got a couple of them. And I'll start with this BFG Tire grant. But these are really, from what I understand, geared towards supporting... You don't have to be some huge club or organization You can be really a small grassroots level group that whatever it is that you need financial assistance with, whether it's buying the trash bags or food for the volunteers, there's opportunities to get that from BFG. It's funny you say that because literally right here in my home state, Michigan, this weekend, we've got a cleanup project that is from Wicked Jeep Southeast, Michigan. And they applied for this grant through us with some guidance. And we immediately went in there like, this is a no brainer. They've moved up to times three dumpsters full in a semi truck truck, semi truck full of tires. So there's a lot of illegal dumping going on. I mean, obviously, off-roders aren't driving around with their tires on the back of their ATBs to dump them off in the middle of the woods, typically, or refrigerators, or boats, for that matter. So we're just trying to get trash out of the woods. Off-roaders are just as big of conservationists as anybody else. Actually, I feel sometimes we're probably more conservation friendly than anybody else out there, but maybe I'm a little biased as well. But So clubs are taking advantage of that. Exactly. The BFG Outstanding Trails program. So that's a program that Treadletly runs for BFG. So we're screening all those requests as they come in. I definitely encourage all you clubs out there to go out there, apply, apply, apply, apply. There's funds out there that you can use. So we donated $250 to that cause and it allowed me to buy all the trash bags, water, some pick up sticks, a lot of stuff that they can use to get that that had been gone. So big or small, let us know for sure. Yeah, unfortunately, like you said, a lot of this trash and trail cleanup is just... We have to do more of it than we'd like, but we're happy to to do it. We've got some friends south of us in Alabama, the Rocket City Rock Crawlers and Heart of the South Cruisers. And those guys worked to pull a abandoned F-150 that had basically been dropped in a creek bed there. And they've been sawzalling it out and dragging it out in pieces, because if not, it wasn't going to get done. And they didn't do it. These are the guys that aren't going to post it on Facebook and Instagram, which makes it that much better that they're just out there to make it that much better for their community. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, just over the years, it's funny to say that I just got a call from my buddy Steve Risk over. He's in Dayton right now, but he's spent a lot of time at AOAA up in Pennsylvania. He says, I got another cleanup for you. I guess there's a Grand Cherokee that burned to the ground out there last weekend. Yeah. I think we're going to have to rip that one out. We actually have a guy going to AOA tomorrow to go check it out. He's got some other stuff to do as well. There's a whole network of Tread Lightly people out there. It's growing as we've grown, and it's exciting. But these grand opportunities are huge. Corporate partnerships are very big for us. I don't know if you guys know, but we work with Fox Trail Trust, which is a division of Fox Racing and all that, and Can-Am, Bronco Fund, Overland Expo, like I talked about earlier. Realtrucks sponsored some trail projects out in Easter Jeep Safari, as well as the CEMA organization. So that's just a small portion. We've got well over 200 corporate partners that we work with every year. And the whole team is responsible in working on that stuff with those corporate organizations. And man, it's a lot of effort, but it's so worth it. Again, it's another third of that funding that we've got to pull from and to keep this machine rolling. What about this, the Quadratech 50 for 50 program? That's been going on for a minute now, trying to hit all 50 states. Tell us about that. Yeah, we're just about to wrap up this thing Honestly, I think we're maybe only one away. So we work on what we call impact reports, and it's compiling all the information from every stewardship project. And then it becomes this big document that we fill out. And long Long story short, we've got about nine of the projects done. We just haven't provided them yet to the information to our team. So I think we're on 49, maybe even 50 done. But that's been over, just over a year with Quadratech. They came in to us and said, hey, we're going to give this much money. Let's get 50 states done, 50 projects. Go team. And we did. I mean, we got it done. It was like challenge accepted. And so we've even done projects in North Dakota. It's like, really? Holy cow. I didn't know the off road of North Dakota. Sure enough, they totally do. I mean, they have flat fender runs out there and all this fun stuff. And they're not that far from the Badlands, too. So it makes a lot of sense. But, yeah, there are some challenging areas where maybe there's not as much public land, but we made it happen. I'm very proud of the team. This was started before I even came in, and, man, they let it all the way through. They were actually out with us at Eastern Chief Safari a couple of weeks ago as well. Even though it wasn't one of the 50/50s, they were still pitching in, helping out that whole team from Water Tech. So I definitely appreciate them. That's all. Yeah. I was going to say, well, one, a shout out to the Dakotas, our buddy West, Black Hills Builds. I was just talking about the wheeling opportunities out there. But I think this is just Davie talking out loud here, but a lot of times When you think of Tread Lightly and you think of these events and programs, a lot of them are in the western half of the US. And that's where, as we all know, the majority of our public land lies. So there is a lot of attention that happens out there and needs to happen out there. But Tread Lightly is a national organization. And as Mike has been talking about here, wherever you are in the Southeast, in the Northeast, in the Heartland, if there's an opportunity that you see, whether it's trail cleanup, trail maintenance, another way that you think Tread Lightly needs to get involved, and you don't know anybody else, pick up the phone and call them. They're all nice folks like Mike They will direct you to someone that can help you get involved. Yeah, we are a very passionate organization. I would say we're all enthusiasts, some in varying levels, but sometimes We just need trail therapy. We just want to get out and help and get out there and be away from our desk. And yeah, give us a holler. We need projects. There's no shortage of things that we need to do out east. When we say east, east of the Mississippi. Because there's so much going on, like you said, to the west side of the US. There's hotbeds over there that we don't even need to get into today. It's a whole another monster over that way and definitely very important to us, no doubt about it. Our relationships with BLM out there are bar none, but some of the best. Our ability to get things done with the Forest Service, BLM, even your state, counties, township, that's why we're a powerhouse when it comes to getting these projects executed. We spent the last 30 years doing this, 35 years almost. So we have this method of getting through to them and relationship building and tie that with the corporate partnerships and our membership base. And we're just a powerhouse to get this stuff done. But even off road parks, we just talked about ALAA a few minutes ago up in Pennsylvania. We've done projects there a lot. And even though it's a private park, it's still public land. We want to make sure that that's getting cleaned up. And that's a whole other piece, too, because anybody can come in there in the back way. So that's all reclaimed area from the coal mining industry. So a lot One of our off-road areas are reclaimed areas. I definitely encourage everybody to get involved and read up on the Tread Principles. They're a guiding way for us to recreate responsibly and just encourage you to get involved. It's the D of Tread Lightly, do your part. Yeah, you touched on it, Mike, with the private versus public. But there are some folks that are of the opinion that if it's private land, Tread don't apply. Is it just a free for all. This is where the personal responsibility factor comes into it. And it's not about trying to shame folks rather educate because we didn't... My buddy Andy Ridge that I was riding with this weekend, he made a comment. He said, I've been wheeling out here for 35 years, and sometimes I I forget that the guy behind me, it may be his day one. And that really hit home for me that we all are responsible for educating those around us. Yeah, absolutely. It's a no man left behind mentality that all of us off-roaders have. It's educating and creating that culture. Then, again, not to bring it up again, but that your TV market doesn't quite have that culture that we have, maybe necessarily in the full size market. And that's our job to educate them. Listen, I was just at a project last week in Northern Michigan, up by the Indian River area, and had this gentleman that I've been working with on the UTV side. He came up to me and he was with roughly 40 UTV guys. Man, they were just so appreciative of everything that we were doing as full-sizers to keep the trails open. We were trimming trails, picking trash up, putting the signs up there. And these UTV-ers were stoked. Now, granted, I had a bunch of K-am stuff. I'm like, Hey, who's got a can am out there? We were handing stuff out, but it was still great. They were, Hey, give me a card. I want to learn how to join, and all that. They want to keep it open, too. We just all need to be together as one large group and one large voice to keep these trails open and work together and follow these Tread principles. I mean, it's the most important thing. And that'll guide us to be one big, large Our next group to move forward and speak together. That's awesome. Yeah, definitely. Listen, I agreed with all this prior to coming to working for Tread Lightly, and I was passionate enough about it that I definitely wanted to work here. So, yeah, it's viral. I mean, we're definitely growing. And it's man, you just can't slow us down right now. We are still. So it's good stuff. Back to what you were saying really quick, just to touch on that in the private parks. We do know there are areas that it is an open scramble area. That's back to the E of Tread Lightly. Educate yourself. Know what you're doing and where you can do that when you want to do that. There might be an open scramble area in your public land as well. We have one in Michigan that we go to a lot. It's just an open area. But you've got to know that. You can't just go off trail and blaze trails when it's not allowed in your area. So that's all. It's to eat. Educate yourself. Yeah. Well, before we wrap up here and John leads us into the rapid fire, I want to talk about some wins, right? So this popped up on my Facebook feed, I believe it was, or Instagram. So there's a very famous trail, Trail 42, out in Arizona, the St. Claire offroading area. And it closed years ago. I believe it was a fire that originally closed it. And then, as we all know, it's a lot easier for them to close trails than to reopen them. All right, Pete. Frank is safe. Forest is one we've been working on out here that we lost access to. But the point of this story is after 17 years of persistence, they had this Big grand opening out there just a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, it's a cool deal. So hats off to the Tonto Recreation Alliance. This is their having lifting. They brought Tread lightly in just to help them through this as far as being part of that. And we're obviously very proud of part of that reopening. But they're using Tread Lightly educational messaging. And that was part of the plan to help alleviate and keep that. Like, here's our plan. We're going to use this messaging and the education signing, and it just helped aid the reopening. And education, back to that same pillar we keep talking about, it's a very important aspect to this. And there's different forms of that. We do educating when we're doing stewardship projects or trail conservation projects, but it's also through kiosks and signage, or we can educate you online. There's different ways we can do that, but it's all tied to communication. So it's just one big circle, right? And that's why they were able to do that. We're part of the reason, or not the only reason, definitely the Tonto Recreation Alliance. They did all the heavy lifting on that. So we're just proud to be part of it. Yeah. Congrats to them. That's really, really awesome. Absolutely. Got to give a If you pull that back up, you got to give a shout out to it. It looks like a solid actual swap, Lexus Hunley. That may be a solid actual swap, John. That's a good eye there. I don't know why else you would trim the fenders up that. My suspension doesn't travel that much. If this is your solid actual swap 100 series, reach out to us on Instagram. Let's talk about it. I did some looking on that page quite a bit prior to this call, and man, there's a lot of sweet Toyotas on those tied to this whole group. So you guys might want to look into them for sure. That's awesome. Davy, I'm going to take your last question. Okay. A little bit of a show me the numbers, guys. The curse of engineering, Mike, as I'm sure The impact report. I love this. Tell me about it. Tell me everything. How do you get the data? How do you collect it? How do you present it? What's it all about? Sure. So this is my proud parent moment. And as one of the leaders of the team, we definitely like to compile this and share this with as many people as possible. And every one of the program managers, as they complete a project, they fill out an impact report compiling this information for every project. And then one of my team members brings it all together into one document. And then we put this out quarterly. As a matter of fact, her name is Jerica. Hats off to Jerica. She's working on that document right now for the first quarterly year. So we put this out yearly, bookend it by the calendar. And, yeah, 271 projects. This is the one that's really cool because this runs through my team, too. For me, it's 641 educational signs. That's everything from a sign that says stay on the trail to full more huge kiosks that we put up that we need cranes to put kiosks up. So it's every type of communication and education sign that's out there. Very, very important to us. We don't always like to be known as a trash pickup people, but it's a big part of what we do every day, too. It can't just all be fences and kiosks. Trash pickups are very, very important to us. So 241,000 pounds of trash. I mean, that's huge. Yeah, that was the number that stood out to me. And if you're... Some folks listen to this and don't watch it. So if you can't see the numbers, there are nearly a quarter million pounds of trash removed from public lands. Absolutely. That's insane. It's sad that you can even pick up that much. Yeah. Unfortunately, trash weighs a lot sometimes. So it's definitely there's a lot of trash out there, though, too. And the other, just a few other numbers really quick is the 3,000 volunteers, that speaks volume to the passion and compassion that this industry has and off-road enthusiasts have. They want to come out and do their part. We obviously always want to see that number grow. But man, just imagine 3, 000 people throughout the whole year have been helping out and doing their part on the trails. And then, yeah, just communication is another pillar that's very important to us. So I went back and asked Jerica, How do you calculate the 48 million impressions? That's everything from we've got a poster program, we've got our social media, we've got our website, we've got our Treadline's newsletter, which, and Jerica would be mad if I didn't say this. Get out there and subscribe to our Treadline's newsletter. It's out there on our Facebook, sorry, our on our web page at tredly. Org. You can go in there, just put your email in, and you'll get all the information, regardless if you're a member or not. So treadlitely. Org, subscribe to our newsletter, Treadline's. So that's a big part of what we do. And then we're always educating people with the 814 online courses that people have taken and lots of trade trainers, too. Yeah, yeah, amazing. It's our report card. Every year we put it out, right? And there's nowhere to go but up. I will say probably our number won't be as high this year because we're not backing off projects. We're just trying to maybe do some larger projects. So maybe that number is going to be closer to 200 this year. I can't guarantee. But we always say that, but I can guarantee it's going to be maybe a little bit more than 200. But who knows? Well, sometimes it's got to be quality over quantity. I mean, this- Sure. Sure. And they were all quality projects. Yeah, definitely. Definitely quality projects last year. We rocked it. But it was, maybe we do one or two less trash pickups and do one big fence project or something like that. So just strategically work. And we just see that there's a lot of corporate partners that want to do those types of projects as well. But there's always trash pickups. There's always no shortage of trash to pick up out there for sure. Amazing. Very cool. 5622 current new or renewing members. This is as of, if you're listening to this, this is as of December 31st, 23. Yeah, and that number is very cyclic. So as we do these protected fund giveaways, those numbers go way up when we introduce those. And then because they're reoccurring every 12 months, the numbers may go up or down. So that number is much, much higher right now. So I don't know off the top of my head, but I know it's more than 5,600. So awesome. Well, this is A lot of people with a lot of charities and nonprofits want to know where the money is going, and that's a fair question. I like the fact that you guys put this impact report out there, and it really very detailed as to everything that's occurring. It's so important. 90 cents of every dollar, this is official, 90 cents of every dollar goes back to this, what you're seeing here, what you're hearing here on the podcast. So that's a good return rate for your money. Well, that's funny you say that, and Mike and I didn't talk about this beforehand, but I was going to say, if you're a bit I've come from a corporate finance background like myself. You can go pull the 990 for Tread Lightly and all the raw is there, and it all backs up to that. So it's very, very good numbers to see. Cool. Thanks for doing your homework. All right. All right, John, you ready to walk us through this rapid fire session? Yes. And I will say I took the first question so I could take the third. Oh So we'll know when we get there. All right. Go-to camp meal. So I've been recently... So we do a lot of deer hunting in my family. Outdoors is a big part of what we do. So I tend to bring some wild game with me. So But I like to cook easy, get in and get out. So I like to do like a venison backstrap, cook in some butter, and then throw some rice in there and cook it all like an instant rice. So that's my go to meal right now. It might change this year. It's just starting to get warm in Michigan. But last few overland events I've done, I'm definitely doing that meal. So definitely some venison. There's a really nice state park just outside of Nashville. Okay. If you're interested in coming down and. Let's connect. Definitely. I could be interested in that. I need some time to myself. That's funny. I love how you said it like it was just such an easy, like you were making a sandwich, just a little venison backstrap and some rice. Yeah. I mean, we've got to shoot three deer every year. I have twin boys. They're 18. I'm really proud of them. They're both in college right now. One's studying trades and the other one's going to be a welding engineer. Really excited that they're out there doing that. But man, we've over COVID, we did a lot of deer hunting. So that free soul. And we love to eat venison in my family. So we definitely like to. And then cooking outdoors, you got to have venison. It's just really important. Yeah. The couple of guys that I keep up with from my Bosch day is routinely send me Snapchats of them going out hunting deer. Yeah, that's just what we do, man, Michigan. I mean, we love it. That's awesome. Mike, what is your bucket list adventure location? It's a tough one because I've been to some places now. I want to answer this question with just telling me about a cool trip we did make. We took a trip from Michigan all the way to the Rubicon. And by the way, I took my two twin sons with me. They turned 16 on the Rubicon trail. We had the rooftop tent on top of the JL and ran the Rubicon with that. And then they were able to drive in my Jeep on the Rubicon. And then we turned around and drove up to the Bear Tooth Highway and ran a Jeep Jambourie up there with those guys on the Blue Bear Tooth Highway, as well as the Morse and Jeep Pass before it was all roaded down to nothing. So that's a tough one to pass. It'll say that's not the bucket list because I got the run already. Then we drove all the way back to Michigan. We did 5,200 miles or something like that. It was quite the trip. I was ready to get out of that Jeep for sure. But that was definitely one. I honestly want to get... I want a road trip down to Moab and actually take my time and get down that way, try to avoid as many public highways as I can and just meander around. But there's so much to see in Michigan that I feel like we've just touched, just gracing the touching surface on what we can do here. So that's the beauty of living where I live in Southeast Michigan. I can be to a lot of places really quick, and it seems like it's so far away, but it's really not. And like Nashville, right? So there, there's my bucket list. I want to hit that state park on Nashville. All right. All right. My favorite question, Milwaukee or DeWalt. So I'm a DeWalt guy. Oh, man. Yeah, The reality is I'm an older gentleman. So DeWalt was the brand for years. And Milwaukee is like, eh. But don't get me wrong, I just don't want to switch now. I'm so deep into it that So I've got all their packs and all that stuff, too. I haven't fact-checked this, but I did read that Milwaukee trademarked the Sawzall name. So if you have a Sawzall that's not a Milwaukee, it's actually a. Well, John, I will give credit where credit is due here to Milwaukee. And I'm with Mike. Maybe some of us that are a little bit older, maybe a little bit wiser are on that team to walk. But the one Milwaukee tool I have that I got 17 years ago when we got married, I got it as a wedding gift from a good friend of the family, is a sawzall, a Milwaukee Plug in. This was before Cordless Sawzall. And folks that are in Nashville knows that back in 2010, we had a terrible flood here. And all of those things were in a basement, all of my power tools that flooded about three feet high. And we lost wedding photos, lost furniture, lost everything. But all of my tools were in there. And all of those power tools were toast, with the exception of that Milwaukee sawzall that I used the other weekend. You just cannot kill those. Now, that was a made in USA. Let me make sure that's clear. That's old Milwaukee. But But yeah, I'll give them credit on the Sawzall. It's bad. You're in the garage, so you can see everything's red in here. Yeah, definitely. I will say, so I bought some different levels of DeWalt, and definitely the made in USA, the waltz are so much better, too. Oh, my gosh. It's a game changer for sure. It's day and night. So typical overlander, typical offroader. I'm so cheap that I actually bought the adapter to use Harbor Freight power cordless tools, too, so I can use the default battery. Because- They're so cheap. They're so cheap. We are so cheap. But how often do you use a hedge trimmer. Until we started working on a Tread Lightly, and then we used them to brush trails. But regardless. So it was like, I'm not going to buy a default hedge trimmer. I'm sorry. A shout out, Harbor Freight. I picked up one of those Bauer surface prep tools. That's the clone of the Eastwood. And that thing did the job last week. So this is a Harbor Freight box full of them. That's true. I have a Harbor Freight box. I'm totally with you, man. I'm a club member. So It's the same. It's the I see. Yeah. Yeah. My membership expired in May. They're like, hey, do you want to buy it again? I'm like, I'm going to wait till May. I shop at Harbor Freight. Yeah. And I get my phone over to all my family members, too. Getting that dollar's worth. There you go. All right. Segway to back in the Jeep, Mike, if you've got one album, you can only listen to one album while you're out wheeling for the day. You've got that album on repeat. What's it going to be? This is a tough one, Davy. Man, because I'm an early '90s guy, right? You know how early '90s music was so everywhere. Oh, yeah. It was all over the place. Yeah. I'm going to throw out album and say playlist because. I have my playlist. It's called Mandatory Metallica, and it's like anything to do with Metallica, and it's forever. It literally doesn't repeat the same song for hours and hours and hours. Let's just go with Metallica, Mandatory Metallica Playlist. But I'll add a little clause to this, like an asterisk. If it's during hunting season, it's definitely Ted Nugent and Fred Bear. It's definitely what we listen to. The Nugent. Yeah. All right. I'll go with that. Michigan Man as well, right? Yeah, exactly. But I love to everywhere else. All right. Last question. All right. Favorite National Park. So this is timely. So just last fall, I took a trip out to Yellowstone in the Tetons. And we went out there for about nine days to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Congrats. Yeah, thanks. And we got to spend a lot of time out there. And honestly, I was more in all with the Tetons. I loved Yellowstone, but the hiking on the Tetons was just amazing. Got to go with the Tetons. That's so far. And I've been to Bryce Canyon. I've been hike the Narrows. So there's a lot of great national parks out there. But right now, the Tetons are my favorite. We are very fortunate. We are very fortunate. We took a family vacation to Yellowstone, and we drove through the Tetons, and that took me back to the road where you can see them. Yeah. And it's hard I don't forget. Yeah, that's where we went hiking. We did the whole valley hike all the way through. And listen, we're from Michigan. I think we're what, 50 feet above sea level. So it took me about three days to get used to that elevation. But once we got dialed in, it was pretty good. But as you get closer to 50, it's a lot tougher. So it's tough, man. But we trudged through it and had a great time. And it was a trip of a lifetime. But we're going to hit a lot more national parks here in the future. That's on our bucket list. So it's awesome. Yeah, definitely. Well, this has been great, Mike. We appreciate the history and education lesson here. And anybody that's watching or listening, I would encourage you to either as a personal member or as a club member, become a part of Tread Lightly and immerse yourself in everything they've got going on. Also, if you've got... I'm going to throw this out there. If If you've got events, if you've got cleanups or anything going on around the country that you need help getting the word out, reach out to John or myself, and we'll be happy to pass those opportunities as long as we can help as well. Yeah, please do. And Yeah. Thanks for giving us some time. Give me some time to talk about Tread Lightly, Davy and John. And like I said, check out treadlightly. Org and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. We even have a TikTok now, so make sure you follow us on TikTok. Hey, not too So you're not too old for TikTok. Do you run the TikTok, Mike? I do not run the TikTok. I have people that are much younger than I. I'm not up on that. John's probably got a secret TikTok account. We don't know. I bet he does. I would love to see TikTok run by Mike for a week. It would be zany. It would be pretty crazy. But I like reels. So we just take a lot of our reels and shove them into TikTok. Tiktok, and it works. But is it TikTok-optimized? Probably not. But it gets the job done. But we love our reels. We're always collecting content on the trails. We're doing these projects and stuff. It's fun stuff, definitely. We're pretty decent follow. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and Facebook. There you go. All right. Thanks, Mike. All right, guys. See you on the trail. All right. See you on the trail. See you. Bye.