Restaurant has been mindnumbing. Very reminiscent of when we started camp bowow, but far worse. My other passion in his moms and kids, keeping it great. I really want to encourage moms in colorado to raise their hands and be the change they want to see in the world. I think we can really lift them up and give them a voice. I think they are the swing vote in colorado. We will see how that goes. Bob thank you, heidi. [applause] jim . Honor, the whole group. It is a humbling honor, blessed be part of it. Thank you for the great introduction. I can skip part of my talk. I want to go back one step. My granddad was a corn farmer during the Great Depression in colorado. He had to sell out. My granddad left and went north to find a new business. He started making grain doors for the railroad is this. That is how we got started in 1936. I jumped in my children, well my dad. He was six years old then. Now he is 85. We got into halftime, and his you, that is 12 hours a day. Is still hurting cattle herding cattle. My daughter is working in dallas , the halftime incident. Some of you may know about it. Some of the objectives you have here, my son just got deployed. He is heading overseas soon. [applause] it is a lesson i have been given. We started with 15, now we have 480. 300 independent contractors loyal to us, on top of our employee base. Ive been on quite a ride. On company is 80 dependent it. We look uniquely at the Forest Service as a partner. Their hands are tied. We have strapped them with regulation after regulation. And endangered species that itther issue drives me nuts to see that we will protect millions and millions of acres for one species. At the expense of many other species. And how about us humans . Particularly in our industry, most of our sawmills are in small communities. That is the lifeblood for agriculture and the Timber Industry in those small communities. And they can be destroyed. And when our business is destroyed, it can destroy a community. Just a quick note. Forest, they are clearly overstocked. They are not healthy right now. That is why we have a bug epidemic. With those dead trees, the fires. My next challenge that strikes me currently is the Exchange Rate. The currencyrate, Exchange Rate between us and canada, canada has gained close dollar, and on the guess what . 30 er prices have toppled in the direct relationship, with imports from canada, where they were formally sent to china. I believe in free trade. But i also believe in fair trade, it cannot be a oneway street like this government thinks. The third Biggest Issue i have qualityng a good education for our kids and employees. Trying to find good educators and students to come to work for us has been a real tough challenge. And on top of that, to find students that want to move to a Small Community is really a challenge. We are short forresters, management, really good electricians, and hightech. We have computers that cut around the curve of a tree. Our equipment is very hightech. I was on the board of trustees, and i constantly try to talk and influence the university to say, this generation is the smartest one ever. Oncehis Education System to put them in a certain direction. If we teach these kids and balanced education, theyre smart enough to figure out which side to go. Just give them both sides of the view. They will come along. So i have confidence they will come up with the right decision. Representsthis wyoming, the university of wyoming, this is steamboat. The institute here, which is steamboat, i would love to see it represented down here. I dont know if there are issues with that. But im so proud to be a part of the Steamboat Institute and speaking. God bless. [applause] bob you have all opened the door. I wanted to address the entrepreneurial part of our economy. It is been so important. I want to talk about the tax code and revelation. Im sure he will have other questions from the audience, i have a few of my own. Pete, let me start with you first. You and jim come from more longterm family companies. Heidi and paul are more recent entrepreneurs that have entered into the business. You all have an opinion. Key to thership is American Dream, so many of us cherish and experience it. Many think that it is threatened right now. Tell me, just yes or no, do you think entrepreneurship the opportunity to enter to the Business World and start your own business and live the American Dream is it getting easier or more difficult than it has starkly been america . Whether yes or no, tell me briefly why you came to that answer . Pete . Pete i think it is accommodation of yes and no. It depends a bit. How are my competitors . [laughter] any craft brewers . There are 4000 around the country. This has blossomed just in the tot 1015 years from nothing relative ease of entry in the marketplace. I have a gripe about it, they are not held to the same standards we are. But i think from that perspective, clearly, there is an opportunity for a doors to get in to our kind of business. They will learn soon enough as they get bigger, that they have more challenges in the regulatory reach of not only the feds but the state and local governments. One quick story. Retailer ine are boulder, colorado. He got a letter from the local Health Department that he had to have a food license, handling ice. Se, in order to bacg he called them up and said what does that entail . 22 page application and 400 e, renewable every year. I have to let employees go. Who reads these things . Thisat the local level, bureaucracy is making it more and more difficult for Small Businesses. I guess there is a combination, bob, of opportunity and real challenge to succeed as under doors. A mixed bag. Paul i think the greatest challenge from technology, the government does not understand innovation. They do not understand the jobs. Why . The government does not innovate or create jobs . It have any of its own money, it is ours. I think they spend more time figuring out how to regulate innovators as they grow and succeed. They spends saying, less time figuring out how to open the door and create opportunity for new companies. I think pete would agree that it is ok to create more competitors. But dont also on the other side of your mouth come in and make it harder once you do succeed. That you are becoming the American Dream. What i rather go out and succeed . What i rather punch the clock, not be out of the ordinary, not innovate, not ruffle feathers. Even worse, when i stay at home and punch the remote . Heidi they goes back to how easy it could be to start a business. But then they have to go through the red tape of getting approval, the trademark office, all the crazy stuff that happens around starting a business. It could be so simple and easy to get so many more people owning their own business and version. , veryey can do that very easily with the technology that is out there. But then you hit that wall of government overreach, to the point where i dont know if you know this . Department of agriculture tells us how many people we have to have in the dog play yard. Ratio of 1 15. It is almost as strict as childcare. Othere couple of franchises around the country that can do that, we know it keeps the dogs safe. And it keeps us sustainable. But itrofitability cuts profitability. Theyre not going to enter if they make 10 less profit because of regulation. I sat with had of the department of agriculture, how do you come up with this rule . Anyone more camps that in the country . They said they have a feeling. I will show you all this data to prove you wrong. She said, that is not your job darling. We will tell you how to operate. I will remember that for as long as i live. I expect you will. Bob in your business, heidi, which is more onerous . Heidi i dont know if you saw yesterday the ruling from the labor board. Theyre going to fundamentally change franchising in this country. Theyre going after mcdonalds first. Theyre trying to change the franchisor to the franchisee. And they are saying that we are now responsible for those 3500 employees. Person makes a bad hiring decision, they all have to pay. What theyre trying to do is unionize the restaurant industry, they have not been able to do it because it is so heavy on franchises. If there independently owned and operated, we do not control the employee at the franchise unit. It is a terrible die for franchisors. S. We will see how it will roll. That was made by five unelected bureaucrats that obama appointed. Three of which are his buds. Or bad, or sp pointed out, a little of both . Looking back over the almost 80 years of what it took us to get here, i would first talk to them a little bit about i have pride in the manufacturing side. When you look at the strength of this country, we are founded on the manufacturing side. That is new money, or old money. It is so key. I have a certain pride in thaning new money, more the old money passed on. I try to encourage him. I would not do this, but if he asks for other opportunities, i would say go to canada. They will set out a square, give you all the timber you want for free almost. At very minimal cost. They will subsidize the labor and give you zero interest loans and put you in business. Dont you do that down here . I said no, it is a different concept. But if you can do it in america, we figured out how to do it. I was trying to think of what regulations you are dealing with in the Forest Service. That from deal with immigration, some of the ones i mentioned through the Forest Service. It goes on and on. We deal with it. I have a number of people each and every day dealing with regulations day in and day out. Even on the exports i. Bob paul . Paul yes or no, if there is more opportunity today than there has been in the past. In thinking about it, i would say there is more opportunity america now then any other time in history. Because technology has opened the door. The problem, the reason that it is not the case, is because the government has placed itself between the innovators and the opportunity. My granddad got in the farming business, it was a handshake from the neighbor the money to buy the land. He became a farmer, it can hold a lot more complicated when i joined. Fromi the financing for Small Committee banks, their disappearing. Let me ask the second question. Every politician, whenever they come from on the spectrum, will say i am for Small Business and progrowth economic policy. And yet the burden, as you have outlined, the byron of government gets heavier and heavier and c and to be more c and to be and more difficult to access. Job creation is harder. Percentagemall working or looking for work then we have had in over a generation. Focus first on the tax code and then i want to ask you even more about the regulation problem. Profess, is the tax goes what we want to incentivize . Is the tax code friend or foe . Thinking i might know the answer. Tell me specifically what you would like to see changed in the tax code. They talk about in washington every election cycle. If you could Tell Congress and the president what to do about the tax code, what would it be . Let me start with paul. Paul the real answer is not whether or not Congress Knows what to do. I think it is whether or not congress will actually act on it, because they have all of these different invisible players that incentivize them to not act. On tv everyut them night. They are talking about lowering the tax rate, broadening the base, getting rid of loopholes. You know all the words they use on tv. Ill know it. They all know it. Both parties. Historically, they know that is what works. But that is what they tell us. And then they go back with their buddies in dcn dont do anything. What theyecessarily dont know to do, its what they comfortable with bob . What would you tell them to fix . A handful of things. I would simplify and make things easy. I would lower all the rates across the board and get rid of a handful of them. It baffles me, but maybe because im 29 and i dont understand complex subjects. [laughter] the gas tax blows my mind. Maybe that is because my grandparents are in their 80s and 90s, and i dont think about that as often, but i cant imagine how that works. Goes back to the previous question that everyone mentioned, at the end of the day, its about money and control. Thats what its about. They can say they are for the middle class and entrepreneurship and jobs, but at the end of the day, the government at all levels is about control. How do you get control . You breed dependence on the system. You look like you are ready to go. I want to jump in. Was campaigning i had a debate about inheritance tax. A bunch of contractors in the room. Said, we are talking about maybe 5 million per person as an exemption. He says, dont you think 10,000 is enough . He said certainly everybody in this room would probably go along with it. When i got up i said, how many people in this room have 10 million . A few hands went up. I said how many would like to . [laughter] and i got the whole crowd. I used to say if you get rid of debt tax, one or two things will happen. Kids will have a spree and spend it, where the money gets back into the marketplace. [laughter] or they reinvest and build jobs and build the economy. There is nothing that is bad that can happen if we get rid of that. Bob heidi, friend or foe . I love to talk about capitalism and how it is not a cursed word. If you look at the last 200 years of history, there are fewer people in poverty, fewer people who are hungry all around the world, not just here. There has never been more innovation than the last 200 years. What happened in the last two injured years . America happened, free market and capitalism. Its unlock the potential, not just about making money, its about solving all the worlds worst problems. If we can let loose entrepreneurs and innovation, i think that getting rid of the tax tting to a fair [applause] of camp bowtill ceo wow but i sold it to a veterinary chain. I got to experience paying the tax bill. Bracket,in the 50 tax so 50 goodbye, and then if i die, 50 goes does not go to my kids or husband. What it does is, do i want to start another company right now . No. I have all these opportunities, but i said i would rather work on my nonprofit. Its terrible. it is a major this disadvantage. We havent talked about the highest Corporate Tax rate in the world of any developed nation. It does baffle me, i have sat in the halls of congress and hurt these heard proclamations that we are incentivizing capital formation, business investment, those risk takers out there. Are we incentivizing them, or does the tax hold coders holding us back. Jim its definitely holding us back and we have to simplify it. If we could abolish the irs, that would be good. I spend in my company, a few hundred thousand dollars just to accountants. It would sympathize and reduce my cost just to figure out what simplify and reduce cost just to figure out what taxes are. A simple tax code would be good across the country. Why are we penalizing the rate . Rich . Why is this whole country thinking about the wealthy and help the poor . Lets try to get the rest of us to get there. Start an tax, i helped organization 15 years ago working on the death tax. That is double taxation, triple if you are a corporation. You have already paid at the corporate level, personal level, or then you lose your father mother and pay it again. From my hand, there should be no death tax. It should be abolished altogether. I dont care how wealthy you are, i know i wont get elected either if i take that tone forward, but that is my view. Code is certainly a big piece of how government regulates on every move. Ive had economist suggests to positionf we were in a. , that Business People were making Business Decisions based on what may business sense instead of what the tax code told him to do, we would probably immediately add 2 trillion of Economic Activity to the gdp. Simplifying or flattening our making fair the tax code makes a lot of sense. Let me move on because we are running out of time. Many live unto on to regulation. To put it in context, by the government on count, the cost of regulation on an annual basis, just federal regulation, not state or local, is about 2 trillion a year. That exceeds by a factor of the cost ofto one paying all these taxes we have disady said there is a big incentive. It baffles my mind when we have had all kinds of people, people in the Business World as well as major economists, that take certain pieces of legislation with 800 billion plus stimulus packages, dodd frank, obamacare, and in the middle of a antijobs,we impose anticapital investments regulation that compounds the problem. And not surprisingly, through these last seven years when we are in recovery, job creation and getting the economy moving again has been a little sluggish. Regulation is that excessive, i would like to hear from each specifics. E i will ask a twopart question. What regulation specific in your business are most problematic, and if you are in one of those witness chairs in front of congress, and they said what should we do . To fix the problem, what would have a macro effect to get the economy moving, to get us going at four and a half or 5 where many people think we need to be . What would you Tell Congress . Let me start with heidi this time. I have a lot to say about this. I am a Firm Believer in vote with your dollar. I think society would be a much better place if we just left it individuals to figure out who they wanted to support and which theiries they should give dollars to, and i think the free market would flush out regulatory stuff. As i was sitting in front of congress and ask them to do one thing, i keep thinking about when you were campaigning in talking about your first day in office eating there and going through all the regulations in colorado. Somebody has just got to let the slate clean. I doubt think that will happen, but we got to get somebody into office that is willing to take that attitude with it and trust people. Jim im going to go back to one of my opening comments on environmental. When you do Environmental Impact the forestit Takes Service 57 years to put together a timber sale. And then they are inundated. It takes two to three years to put the statement together, and a single letter letter can stop that sale. This to me ties back to Forest Health along with the regulation. The Forest Services hands are tied. Guess what happened . They file a suit and find one little bitty deal wrong and then the government reimburses the Environmental Community for their fees. In some cases, 700 an hour for the legal fees. That is incriminating. There are bills in right now to help that regulation may be be diminished and untie the hands of the Forest Service, which would help us tremendously. Our costs go up to that. Businessour specifically, litigation has become a weapon of war. Jim yes. Rich, guiltyny liberals are in the room . You get rid of regulations and all those guilty rich liberals are going to be worried somebody is going to get hurt. I think dr. Carson hit it right on the head, by reducing the size of government. We are generating somewhere 30000 and 60,000 pages of new regulations every year. Who writes regulations . Little underlings that get government jobs that pay nicely and they can retire when they are 40. Size ofn reduce the government, we will reduce the size of regulation, eventually leaving we can begin to repeal some of this. As long as we have regulators having the opportunity to keep they willgulations, write it because it is job security. It is true at the federal level, state level and local level. Absolutely. With some hesitancy i will challenge my friend. It is more like 80,000 pages out of the federal government and another 20,000 out of the state. 100,000 pages of rules promulgated every year to control everything we do. And dodd frank is a great example, we put Community Banks out of business. We have not started a new unity bank in bob i think there has been one new charter in colorado. Peter and we lost a lot nationwide. Bob paul, i want to ask you maybe more specifically, since you volunteered that you are still under 30. [laughter] isnt it amazing what he has accomplished . [applause] you are inspiring. Your generation, sometimes i see some polling data, and pete touched on it. One that heidi mentioned in the talkingpaign, i kept about needless regulation and how we had to go after them with a vengeance and i would like to do that. But some statistics i have seen more recently, just in the last month or so, suggest that especially among young adult, they have a very different attitude. They think they really need government to control those nasty big Corporate Executives that are out there preying on them, and government somehow is going to save them from themselves. If that is prevalent in younger adult age group, and i think it probably is, how did that happen and what do we do about it . I think it is the antiamerican economy, antifree market. Paul a ghost to the point that government has done a good job of one thing, making people dependent on it. It was a debate over the past few years if we should increase the age where young people can stay on their parents plans. Well, there are a few exceptions. Who in the world would rather stay on their parents plan, stay in their parents house until they are 26, or go out and have a good paying job they can work and field that about themselves and a port afford to go out . As a nobrainer. I think that the reason that you see the statistics is not because that is the optimal thought of young people. I think that is what government has bread. You look at dodd frank. Its also a lot of information being given. I went to speak to a group of about 100 students at a runningty, while i was for congress. I said, how many of you have heard of obamacare . Raised their hand. How many of you have a bank account, student loan, anything . Everybody raise their hand. How many of you have heard of dodd frank . Two people out of 100. Two people. And we were talking about this over dinner. Pages a misguided, 2300 attempt to fix corruption in the financial markets. Do we really think 2300 pages of documents is going to fix corruption . All it did was make the corruption more complicated, made it harder to find, and that is what the intent was. They can say all they want that is about helping the consumer and helping innovation, but at the end of the day it goes back to control. They want to be able to keep their dominion in d. C. And keep us back here where we belong. Numbers, talking about jobs, millennials had the lowest employment in the history of our country. Across age brackets, it hovers around 16 . What is even more discouraging to me is that in the africanamerican community, that number climbs to what he percent 40 . That is unacceptable. It is because night after night we see on the news and coming ourof the white house, government and the people in congress, and not all the people are good people, for anybody watching on cspan, there are good people. Just not all of them. That noin a society longer, as my grandfathers generation, no longer rewards success. Andonger rewards hard work no longer rewards you to be loyal. What happened to the loyalty in our country from relationships to employment . 30 years ago, people would stay with companies for 30 years or that and start a country company. And then they would go back things thathose saved the Company Millions of dollars. Created a small thing that saved his Company Hundreds of millions. He started at the very bottom and work all the way up to the very top after 40 years, and became hailed as forbes best managed company in the 90s. That wasnt because he was handed it or because of the government, it was because he off, and heutt knew his hard work would be rewarded. Today, young people dont see that hard work is rewarded. Is a sad we are touching on a subject, if we have time to ask. I want to talk about the workforce, and workforce readiness. Jim, i will open with you. You have had the experience at the university of wyoming, president of board of trustees. You mentioned the thing in your opening comment, that education is an important business thing to you. During the last campaign, i springs. Olorado i spoke to an official and he pointed out a big paradox. I specifically went there because their Unemployment Rate was among the highest in colorado. Asked him how many jobs, how many were unemployed . Heres what i remember. He said we actually have posting Jobs Available, outnumbered the number of people on unemployment by two to one. More Jobs Available than people who are unemployed. That seems to be a paradox. He says the job skills of those needloyed dont match the for that job. Study,t a steady, are they ready to work . This is an opening quote in the summary. Workforce is woefully illprepared for the demands of todays and tomorrows work face. Ceos like the fourth you had input into that study, and they studies,eed basic academic skills, but what is more necessary in todays workforce is applied skills. ,rofessionalism, work ethic oral and written communications, teamwork and collaboration. Critical thinking and problem solving. Heres the question. After the pontification. Can you find a workforce that youneed, and if not, specifically have pondered this and work at it. What do we need to do to fix it . I have such a strong passion for education, trying to help and have an influence on the Education System from a business perspective. To forcetimes we try our kids on to college because that is the right thing to do, when maybe a trade school would be a better option. I will divert a little bit if you dont mind. I want to share an experience i had at montrose. We took that over almost three years ago. Workforce,rd of the we have done the study and none of them were using unemployment, none of them used the medical services. They were all qualified. Under the Social Security administration, they were all legal citizens under the security administration, we cannot look any deeper than that piece of paper they give us. It is illegal. In wyoming, we use Homeland Security everify. We started snooping and applied it down there instead of the traditional company. Found out 38 employees working legal. Working legal. Some had been there 14 years, some 11. Some of them had children that were graduating from high school and had been in the community. We had to make the tough choice. Hired a really good legal firm out of denver to consult, and their specialists said this administration hates you. They will not hurt the employees. Those immigrants that are not legal, they are after us, the business guide. The fine would have been 16,500 per document. 9000would have been something dollars. I had to let people go. Its one of the toughest people go, toughest things to go through. I spent 6 million plus thatng to eliminate was my alternative because i could not find skilled workers to replace. I have had a test situation there. I have a passion for the hardworking ethics that come from mexico, to part of colorado. I felt like i was going back 50 years. They have some of the passions i see in my dad and granddad, the work ethic and strong faithbased family values that i had to let go of. That really hurt. Ib one of the many places, think they do need to enforce employee or laws but they also need to give you a system that is quick and accurate, that you can actually live within the law and they have not done that. I followed the law, but broken 20 or 30 years of laws letting people coming across the border and not having a proper system. You have an enormous workforce. A skilled workforce, how tough are easy is it . Bag. its a mixed we have employees that have been there 30 or 40 years love the company and love everything about it. The younger employees tent to be a little bit more mobile. You talked about going to colorado springs. He had abanker friend, hard time keeping i had a hard time keeping cashiers. Thats a nice entry level job, probably High School Education required, minimal amount of skills. You have to be able to count, use 10 fingers. Its a good entrylevel job and you can do that for a while and maybe an opportunity arises. Im paying them good rages wages, but they cannot make good money at my wage rate as they can if they go on unemployment. I dont know what the actual number is, but it is well in excess of 50,000 of income. And then you have to pay taxes. He for you compete with being on the government. When dr. Carson was talking safetyhe hammock and the net, we have it too many people in the hammock, not because they necessarily want to, but if they were going to offer you, wouldnt you take it . The work ethic is something that is not being developed in young people. We are seeing this with young people, as we have to replace technical people, make mechanics, technicians. It is very difficult for people who want to take the time and be apprentices and learned the trade and have a lifetime career. Truckers are offering 90,000 for truck drivers. We cant find enough over the road truck hollers to bring in grain and beer into the marketplace. Collect ahome and check, why should i be in a truck and be away from my family . These are the issues that we need to deal with. Shrinkingovernment, dependency on the government will be a long way towards developing talent. It will grow out of me. My great grandfather came here, all of our ancestors came here, there was no safety net. There was no epa. Itre was no disability, note no unemployment. We didnt have any choice. Now there is too much choice. Bob you have outlined it very well and i find nothing to make exception with. I would ask a followup question, can we get from here to there . Can we implement the kind of reforms we are talking about and get that job done in the political environment . Peter people go to work out of necessity, they have to eat. If they are ablebodied and take away their subsistence, they have to go out and take those jobs. They better start learning how to do those jobs. Paul, you are in the tech business. I expect you need privilege pretty skilled people. Can you find them, and what about the workforce in america . Especially the folks entering the workforce at your age. A lot of it goes down to education. And also the point peter was ethicg about, the work that was instilled in previous generations have not been intrinsically instilled in my generation. That is also partially because the government got too big and then it thought it could tell parents how to raise their kids. You are looking over your shoulder, if you collect or reviewed your child, thinking you might get thrown in jail for it. I dont have kids and im not married, but that would be my observation. Terms ofeducation in hightech workforce, it is definitely a challenge to find people. There is a shortage across the country in technology and engineering. Day, it has made this kind of transient shift of employees back and forth. That is why you see lawsuits between facebook and google because they are stealing employees. The only place they can get employees is other companies. I think that sends back to the fact that stems back to the pushing peoplee to go to college, graduate school, in the name of equality, we are saying Everyone Needs to get the same degree and be the same person, do the same