Episode 131
Genius (IYKYK) with Tom Wasmoen
When Thomas Wasmoen started Firm Ground Architects, it wasn’t just about designing buildings—it was about creating a strong foundation for collaboration and innovation.
Thomas shares the incredible origin story of his firm, which began with a bold declaration at a bar and grew into a thriving, multi-generational company. With decades of experience, he talks about creating a culture that bridges generations and fosters mentorship in the workplace.
We explore what it takes to adapt to industry trends while balancing innovation with experience. From mentoring young professionals to working closely with contractors, Thomas shares how his team keeps collaboration at the forefront.
We also dig into the evolving demands of industries like senior housing, healthcare, and hospitality. Thomas explains how his firm meets these challenges with creativity, client-focused solutions, and a commitment to building lasting relationships.
Highlights from the Episode:
- The origin story of Firm Ground Architects—starting with a bold declaration over beers.
- How mentoring younger professionals strengthens workplace culture and innovation.
- Bridging generational gaps in the workplace and creating lasting collaboration.
- Adapting to trends in senior housing and healthcare with client-centered designs.
- Insights on building strong contractor relationships for better project outcomes.
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Transcript
Welcome back to the show, Brad Herda. How you doing my friend?
Brad Herda (:I am fantastic Mr. Stephen Doyle and how is the great Motor City of Detroit Michigan treating you this early summer period?
Steve Doyle (:I mean, it's it is actually very spring like. It's kind of cool here. It's it's very nice. Great golfing weather. Might be like 70 degrees out, so it's sunny 70 slight breeze coming in from the West. It's pretty nice. Might say must say so, you know. it definitely will change. Welcome to Michigan. So it's gotten to the point where it is 70 and sweatshirt weather, which is really odd.
Brad Herda (:Don't worry, it'll change.
Steve Doyle (:So, and how is the weather over in Wisconsin?
Brad Herda (:Yes, the wind off the wind off for you. The wind off the lake is out of the West. Today it's gorgeous. It's beautiful sunny.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. And how's the weather for how's the golfing weather? What's the golfing report look like? What's the golfing report look like?
Brad Herda (:Rain tomorrow rain in the for rain in the forecast tomorrow. Mr. Doyle rain lots of rain
Steve Doyle (:What? What? You better get out and golf tonight then.
Brad Herda (:But you know, the good part is, the good part is, nope, we have gear for that. We golf in the rain. It doesn't matter. Dress appropriately.
Steve Doyle (:No. No.
Brad Herda (:Yes, yes. It's a small season. Get all the stuff so you can do it properly. Doesn't matter. It's all good.
Steve Doyle (:OK. All right.
Brad Herda (:So as you can see on the video, our guest is walking in. He's making a grand entrance.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:I'm just walking into our building looking for a place to sit.
Steve Doyle (:I can. Yes, he legit.
Brad Herda (:So our guest today, Thomas Wasmoen, CEO of Firmground Architects. We met him at our conference back in April through another mutual coach friend of ours. Thomas is a managing principal of Firmground, licensed architect, licensed in 16 states, which is spectacular because we are now in 49 out of 50 states. Thank you, Vermont. Thank you, Vermont. We only have Delaware hanging out now. Doing commercial retail office hospitality.
Steve Doyle (:Woo woo!
Brad Herda (:healthcare, multifamily, student senior housing. Tom's greatest strengths may be his ability to blend architectural engineering design services into a collaborative team with the owner and contractor of the design build firm. Having worked directly for a national development company has given him an owner's focus and understanding of what it means to create raving fans. He's had this business since 2009. It's a great backstory as to how it got started at the...
I think it was a bar, if I recall correctly, at a lunch or something like that, if I recall the story. They got 19 staff members, 39 years in the industry, been married 38 years. Congratulations to you. Two adult children, both married, doing amazing. And we are blessed to have him on the show today. Thank you, Tom, for being here on Blue Collar BF.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yes.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Thank you.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Steve Doyle (:So Tom, before... I know, that's nice. We gotta get a walk -up song on that.
Brad Herda (:We've not ever had anybody walk in. So thank you.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Ha ha ha.
That would be Raiders March from Indiana Jones.
Steve Doyle (:So, Tom.
Steve Doyle (:Alright. Alright, there we go. Alright, we'll see what we can do for the. We'll see what we can do when we post the show. So Tom, before we get started. Which generation do you fit in with?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:That's my walk up.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Heheheheh
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:I'm a boomer. Through and through. Just boom boom boom.
Steve Doyle (:Awesome. Awesome. That's awesome.
Brad Herda (:So as, as the business owner, this architect firm, you know, when you, when you took that over and did that 19 years ago, obviously you were still a boomer then now you're a boomer still. how has, how has that transition of finding younger talent and keeping them engaged and being involved and, how have you seen that in your industry change over the last 19 years?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yes.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:You know, I'm not sure how much it's changed per se. I will say that kids come out of school and I'll get a lot more money starting salaries than we did as boomers. Almost living wages, in fact. But we have, if anything, I would say that young people today are far more brilliant at what we do than I think we were when we came out of school. They've got so much more
information at their fingertips and they still have a lot of, they're still raw right, but they've got a lot of skills in terms of being able to make pretty pictures. They don't necessarily know how everything goes together yet, but they can really do some really, really beautiful renderings that gets people's attention. And then we have to take that and teach them how to make it so that it's a buildable, a buildable.
Steve Doyle (:right.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:and hopefully not lose all of that. But there are times when you have to look at it and say, well, that's really great, but nobody can build that. Or we can't afford to build that. Or there's too many corners in it.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:Anything can be built if you have enough money.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:That's almost true.
Brad Herda (:You know, ask Singapore. I mean, look what they've done down there from some other building. Correct.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:That's true, and do next to bye.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:So.
Yeah, but I love the young people we have in our office. We've got, you know, we've got three of us that are over 60.
one that's over 50.
three in their 40s, maybe four in their 40s, and everybody else is in their 20s and 30s. So it's fun. There's a lot of energy. I love spending my day with them and seeing what they can cook up on their own and with a little guidance.
Brad Herda (:Nice.
Steve Doyle (:Let's talk about that guidance there. One of the studies that I've been diving into on the younger generation is really that need and desire that they have for mentorship.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:How have you seen that impact, I would say, not just the younger workers, but also those that have more experience? And what's their appetite for that?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Well, I don't think there's anybody who couldn't use a good mentor in their life for one reason or another. One of the reasons you guys met me is because Adam has been mentoring me in that whole CEO level decision making stuff that you don't get training for in architecture school. So I've had to seek out mentors at that level.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:when you're starting out in architecture, having somebody who can mentor you and it's, you know, how does a building go together? Can I take you to a job site? Can I teach you how you need to build your network and introduce yourself to people and come across professionally and don't wear flip flops and shorts to a job site and those kinds of things, you know, those are all, those are all kind of that in that realm where we're starting out and working up from there.
And then after that it's, you know, do you know how to research products? Do you know how to reach out to product reps? Do you know how to, you know, connect with contractors and subcontractors that use these things every day and learn from them too? So there's a lot of little things that happen every day and it's one of the reasons why I am.
You know, we very early on went back to a three -fifths work schedule of being in the office at least three days out of the week so that people could have that one -on -one time with other people in the office and pick up stuff either directly or through osmosis through discussions and understand what, you know, some of what goes into the creative process besides, you know, sitting over your computer and drawing.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:Do you see the four, right? The three over 60, the one over 50. Do you guys, do you see that group learning from the younger folks and getting better at their jobs as well as they are seeing things through a different lens or is that not happening so much?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:No, I think that does happen in some respect because again, the younger people come out of college ready to be 3D designers. And so a lot of times they're thinking spatially three -dimensionally quicker. And I think that really helps guys like me. Here's my pencil sketch. This is what I'm thinking. What do you?
How does it look to you when you start to look at it three dimensionally? And then the other piece is one of my employees came into the office and said, you've got to take a look at this AI software. It helps with renderings. So I played around with it a little bit and it's really, it's a very hallucinogenic kind of thing that it does. It does take like a pencil sketch and turns it into something that looks almost like, I'll call it cinematic.
with a couple of button strokes and about 60 seconds worth of time thinking about it. That gives us an opportunity to run through a lot of things. And so old dog, new tricks. So here I am playing with this and trying it out and seeing how it takes a pencil sketch or a 3D model and turns it into something really cool. And again, you have to be careful with it because it took a car and turned it into a planter and did some other.
Steve Doyle (:You
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:You know, but you know, the other thing is the other day I saw a meme that said, why is AI doing arts? I want AI to do the crappy stuff so that I can concentrate on the art. So, I mean, that's to me, that's probably the most important thing moving forward is that AI starts to I mean, I'd love an AI software that would read every one of my emails and say, OK, these are important.
you know, like if they came from Brad or Steve and I put them in one file and you need to read these Tom and the rest is like, here's this crap, you know, somebody wants to do estimating form from Peru or, you know, or I've got a long relative.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah
Brad Herda (:Take off. Hey, we can take off sheets all the time. We can do all your take offs.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Ha ha ha ha ha!
Brad Herda (:I get like 30 of those a week. Hey, do you need estimating a takeoff services?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:my day I think it's crazy so we do have we do have a software that kind of you know if you've blocked it it keeps it blocked kind of quarantines it but you know there's still so many things that slip through and then takes them and prioritizes them okay these are important these are very important this one you need to look at right now that would be nice but that's you know that's kind of the kind of help we'd like from AI not having them do 3d
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:3D renderings for us. We want to do those ourselves. Those are the fun part of the job.
Brad Herda (:Pre -show we kind of talked about you know your world and our world's kind of colliding with The wanting to work with right you work with contractors G GC's And they got to put your stuff together and whether they're bitching and complaining about the architect who does not design anything or the Architects complaining about the contractor does not put shit together Walk us through
how you guys develop that relationship for, to create those raving fans, right? Developing partnerships and developing opportunity across your very multi -generational organization with maybe some of those contractors who aren't very open -minded to listening to a 20 something, tell them what to do, et cetera.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Well, the first part of that is we try to never tell somebody what to do, but we try to be at the table together with the client and the contractor and the architect to talk through the process, you know, and have everybody involved when the decisions are being made so that, you know, later they're not going, well, why are you doing this when this would be cheaper or this makes more sense or this is, you know, I can build this for.
Brad Herda (:fair.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:you know this versus that. You know if they're in the meetings at the beginning or close to the beginning we have these discussions about well are we using this product or that product. That's when a contractor for us it's all value add because we're working together to come up with the best solutions for the price of you know for the budget that we're working with. So we can run through you know.
Material a B and C window manufacturer a B and C door manufacturer a B and C They they can price them out and say well we can get this look for this price with this door And it's and it does what you want it to do through all these other things and they can add they can add value that way and and And we're all making decisions together. You know the old -fashioned way of doing design bid build was always subtractive because you get
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:You get it all designed the way you heard the client say they wanted it with no real control over cost. And then you get it out there, you get competitive bidding on it, and the numbers would come in like a million dollars, two million dollars, three million dollars high. And then you get your physical out, you get your exacto knife out, and you start cutting stuff out. And your client goes from being a happy camper to really sad and angry that all these cool things they asked for are no longer part of the plan.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:So, you know, by having kind of that, I'll call it a pragmatic team effort to make sure that we are both getting what we need and what we want as far as the budget allows, it makes it, it makes it better all the way around. So we deliver a better product. We've got a happier client. The solution at the end is what they, they get delivered to them, what they know they were going to get because they heard it in the meetings. And it's just for us, it's just.
It just works a lot better. And I'll be honest with you guys. Here's the reason I'm good at this is I spent 10 years working for a national design build company. And so as a young architect, I pretty much got that, you know, big ego architect thing thrashed out of me pretty quick when I started working. You know, understanding what it means to be part of a team is really important. And I learned it at like...
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:You
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:And the good news is that everybody in my office gets it. Everybody in my office gets it.
Steve Doyle (:Tom, what have you seen as trends, whether it's with peers in the industry, peers like peer architects, architectural firms, or even with GCs as it comes to their workforce and the adoption of bringing in the younger generation?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Well, I think that a couple things. So from a construction standpoint, there's some really good programs, university programs in the state of Minnesota that generate young men and women who are eager to get internship positions. And so most of the contractors that we work with have at least one or two interns on their staff, if not more.
We have, and architecturally and interior design wise, we have three architecture interns and one interior design intern on our staff. And they're all just coming back into the office full time now from being at school and working part time remotely. So it's fun to get their energy back in the office too. So.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Cool. Now the...
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:So I think that, you know, what am I saying? It seems like our industry, at least locally in the Twin Cities, is really interested in keeping young people engaged in what we do.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, and University of Minnesota. So my we talked a little bit or had time my youngest son, my oldest son, he wanted to start an architecture. His first his last time he did any artwork was like seventh grade. So he didn't make it through the 100 level filter class of art and design and those types of things, because he wanted to go design buildings. But he hated it at the end of the day. But the architecture school at University is spectacular. It is amazing what they have for.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Brad Herda (17:28.897)
opportunity there.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yeah, it was a good school back in the 80s when I was there and I think in some ways it's a better school now.
Most of the teachers, I think the last one that I had is just retired last year. So it's a whole new younger group of instructors over there. And they're experimental. I mean, they have done things with product design, packaging design, architecture, interior design. And there's sort of many, many ways to get through school with a design degree over there now, it seems like.
Steve Doyle (:Heheheheh
Brad Herda (:Yes.
Brad Herda (:Correct. Yeah.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:One of our interior designers is working on her capstone project right now to earn her master's degree in interior design. And she actually hopes to return and teach there someday. So...
Brad Herda (:Well, that's cool. So.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yeah, it is.
Brad Herda (:So you guys do a lot of work in different industries, you know, healthcare, hospitality, multifamily, different things. What are you seeing for changes in the needs in those various sectors as either we are, I guess it's going to depend on, right? As we get older, as you might work on a healthcare facility to support older, you might be working on something younger. Are you seeing differences of a...
Needs and or how those projects get communicated to you or how those interactions are working with the with the clients as You have different generations coming into you with those requests
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Good question. There are mega trends that are going on in the industry. The senior housing has gone from the old fashioned nursing home piece where everybody has a wheelchair. My son said once when we were in visiting my folks, he said, I smell old people.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Steve Doyle (:It is true.
Brad Herda (:That's true.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yeah. And so, I mean, the big trends are, you know, the CFM concerns, you know, bringing enough air into the senior housing to keep it fresh, keep the air fresh, keep it moving. But I think there are technological differences. There's advances in medical health. People are living longer. They're much older when they transfer, you know, when they transition into...
Senior housing used to be maybe in your late 60s to mid 70s and now people are not showing up until their mid 80s. So I'm into their, my wife's grandmothers both were in their 90s before they moved into senior living of any kind. So that's not to say they didn't have a little bit of help where they lived, but they were pretty independent. And there's, and I think the people in general are that way. They're more independent.
If people are looking to move, you know, the 55 plus category of resort living, resort style living has been pretty hot commodity for a while. I think it all slowed down a little bit with COVID, but it's all, it's all picking back up again. And we're working on a beautiful high end.
memory care facility right now in Wysetta, Minnesota that the clients care about, you know, creating an atmosphere that is incredibly home -like and is, it doesn't have a sniff institutionalism about it at all. And then on the flip side of that, because we've got this huge struggle with staffing, they have spent all kinds of money on, you know, staff lounges,
locker rooms, showers, break rooms, and having all kinds of support functionality for the staff to kind of keep them happy and engaged with what they're doing and keep them around so that they're not dealing with the constant turnover that a lot of places have. And that's meaningful because my mom always wanted to see the same person show up at her door every day with.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:medication. She didn't like it when somebody different showed up. So being able to do things to maintain that is really important. I don't know that I would say that there's a lot of difference between people my age and younger people who are in senior living per se because you don't do senior living unless you have a passion for taking care of people. And that's really
Brad Herda (:Thank you.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:important part of it and that we see that with our clients regardless of their age, that they've got a passion for it. And some of us have a passion for it for different reasons. You know, my parents, before my parents went through that whole thing, I mean, I remember when I was a little kid, my grandmother went through it. So you want to make sure that you're creating environments that they're going to be, I don't know, I think I decided you can't make them happy anymore, but you can keep them safe.
and you can keep them healthier than they would be if they were living alone. And that's kind of, you know, that kind of ends up being our goal. But we do try to create space that they can be happy in if they choose to be happy at that point in their life, I guess.
Brad Herda (:That is a, that is a great selection of words, right? We get to decide whether or not we're going to be happy. and we get to decide that every day. And, that's pretty cool as a, as a leader in an organization that deals with not only in the architecture side, but also on the construction trade side. What if you had to go back 19 years ago,
Steve Doyle (:I'm sorry.
Yep. Right.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yeah.
Brad Herda (:19 years ago, we were sitting at the bar, sitting at the table saying, Hey guys, we're gonna get in business together. Let's go make this happen. and your first GC comes across the table to you and you take that work. What from your position in that architecture, what would you tell the GCs, the contractors, what would you tell them to do differently? back then that would have created an impact today.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:as
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Oof, that's a good question. What would they do differently?
Brad Herda (:Hey, this is like 60 minutes here, Tom. You know, you've listened to the show.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yeah, I know. So edit.
Steve Doyle (:Hehehehehe He
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:You know, I think back then there was...
there was a lot more of the, we don't do it that way than there is today. I think the one thing that's changed in the years that I've owned my own firm and even before that, I think that there's been a lot of technological advance in how things are getting done and that the good contractors are learning to adopt those best practices where they make sense for them. And that's...
very different today than it was 20 years ago.
Steve Doyle (:So coupled onto that, what advice would you give to the young generation today coming into, whether it's the trades or the white collar space, what advice would you give them today?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Build your network. Never be afraid to meet people, to shake hands, to take somebody out for a cup of coffee just to get to know who they are. And that along with that is that people want to work with people they like. So be likeable, first of all.
Steve Doyle (:You
Brad Herda (:And yet you're still here, Thomas, talking to us. We appreciate that.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Ha ha ha ha!
Steve Doyle (:Eh!
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yes, you guys are very cool. Come on.
Steve Doyle (:Heheheheh
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Steve especially left a very loud impression on me in one of those beats where you were cheering loudly.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, I've been known to do that a time or two.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yeah, so I think it's important to be able to build friendships in the industry. I have friends that are general contractors, I have friends that are subcontractors, I have friends that are architects in other firms. It's important. But I also have my friends that are just like a handful of fraternity brothers that I still see a lot.
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:you know, the people from church and stuff like that. Just be a friend, make a friend and think of your network in terms of building relationships and not in terms of getting work. I think that's important. I'm a really strong adherer to Keith Farazi's Never Eat Alone book, if you guys have read that. And I try to teach that to the young people and the old people in my office too. It's just...
Brad Herda (:Yep.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:build those relationships.
Brad Herda (:Okay. So how do people get ahold of you or your organization? what's, you know, whether we got some college kids that might want an internship to go out and apply or want to talk to, you about, Hey, how do I make my, myself better in the industry or, or just to create those connections across those 16 States plus that you guys are part of, how do people find you get ahold of you contact you or.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Well, our website is firmgroundae .com. That's easy. There's a Squarespace connection there that they can hit info at firmgroundae .com and send us a message. My cell phone you can rattle off if you want to. It's you guys. OK. Well, but.
Brad Herda (:That's up to you. That's your number, not mine.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, go for it.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:I mean, we're easy to get a hold of. The office number maybe I'll give you is 612 -819 -1835. So you can reach me that way always. I'm on LinkedIn personally and our company's on LinkedIn, our company's on Facebook and Instagram. And we're starting to build a presence on Alignable right now.
Steve Doyle (:Okay, cool.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:We like to think we're eating fine, hopefully.
Brad Herda (:The name that you guys came up with was spectacular. So in this last couple of minutes, could you please go through the origin story of of firm ground architects for our audience to hear? Because it is a spectacular story. And I know it's going to put us over our time, but if you have the time, could you please grace us with that story? Because it is so fun.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:boy.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Absolutely, absolutely. So in 2008, we were working for a development company called the Hartford Group. And it had an internal architecture and engineering group, which I and another gentleman led. And times are tough. And we had shrunk from about 17 or 18 total down to about seven.
Well, we got into February of:But he's coming in tomorrow. So he came in the next day. It was, I think it was February 4th. And he came in and he said, guys, he took the two of us aside and said, guys, I can't pay you. I didn't get funded last month. And we're like, okay, so I guess we're kind of out of jobs then, aren't we? So we rounded up the seven and we went out to a place called Bunnies here in the Twin Cities. And we were at a big round table in the back corner. And we said, okay guys, here's the deal. Jack didn't.
get funded in January so we aren't getting paid.
So we're like, okay, so everybody's got a, you know, first thing you need to do is go apply for unemployment insurance, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I got to the point where we're just kind of sitting there quietly and kind of staring at the bottom of our beer glasses. And one of the guys, Pat says, you know, we're fucking genius architects and engineers. We ought to be able to come up with something. And I looked at him, I slapped my hand on the table. I said, Pat, that's it. You just named our new company F G A and E.
Steve Doyle (:you
Steve Doyle (:You
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:So we all went home and we're fucking geniuses. We're going to start our own company. How do we do that? We'll figure it out. Well, you know, one of the people happened to be able to get kids at home and they were like, well, mom, what's the FG for? And she's like, I'm feeling groovy. So then we came back together into the office space. We were subletting and the seven of us sat together and said, well, okay, if we're serious about this, we got to come up with something we can put on a letterhead because we said,
Steve Doyle (:Right?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Millennials will love fucking genius, but no one else will take it. So we kicked through a few ideas. And finally, because we had landscape architecture, civil engineering and architecture all together, firm ground just resonated with us. The other reason it resonated with us is the guy that didn't pay us was always on shaky ground and we wanted a real firm reputational break. And so...
Steve Doyle (:you
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Firm ground A &E just really, really, really fit the bill for us. Now we have since broken into two separate companies. Other architects wouldn't hire civil engineers and they needed more work than we could generate internally. So we split into firm ground architects and civil site group. And we still work together every day and we have lots of projects under our belts together, but they're able to work with other
Steve Doyle (:Love it.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:other architects who don't think they're going to steal their clients. The truth of the matter is we've gotten more referrals from them split up than we did when we were together because we were very cautious, very cautious about our relationships. Yeah, that was...
Steve Doyle (:Mm -hmm.
Brad Herda (:So so so if the FG stands for fucking genius, what does the CS stand for in civil service civil service?
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:What's that?
Brad Herda (:If FG is fucking genius, what does the CS stand for on the civil engineering services side of things? Just curious.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Yes.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:I don't know I'll have to ask now I'm curious
Steve Doyle (:Wow. Wow. Wow.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:There's things that come to mind, but I don't know.
Steve Doyle (:So why?
Didn't know we were going there this show, but all right.
Brad Herda (:It's the end. It's a s - right? Come on, it's all good.
Steve Doyle (:man.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:in the end.
Brad Herda (:Thank you for sharing that origin origin story Tom. We appreciate that very much. Thank you for being a thank you for being a guest on the show. We appreciate what you do. Thanks for right. Congratulations as well as for building an organization that has all the generations involved and moving forward and not being stagnant. And that's a big deal.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:All right. And no bl -
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:we love it. Yeah, we love it. It's great. It's fun coming to work every day.
Brad Herda (:Awesome. Thanks for being here, Tom. We appreciate it. Have a great rest of your day.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, thanks, Tom.
Thomas P. Wasmoen (:Thanks guys, appreciate it.
Brad Herda (:Thanks.
