00;00;21;01 – 00;00;41;23
Marty
You’ve been in your career, a home builder, a legislator. Now you’re an Olympic organizer. Which one of those feels most natural to you?
00;00;41;25 – 00;00;48;03
Marty
Well, and the most recent is grandpa. Oh. Even bigger. Yeah, we buried the lead. Congratulations.
00;00;48;03 – 00;00;51;11
Brad Wilson
Exactly. I came from a grandpa a month ago. A little Cecilia.
00;00;51;15 – 00;00;52;21
Marty
But so.
00;00;52;22 – 00;01;03;27
Brad Wilson
And that’s honestly the the best part of all this is family. But I forgot your question because I was so excited about telling you I was grandpa. Which of those did? What did you say? Which of those?
00;01;03;29 – 00;01;14;23
Marty
Oh, just like which one has felt most natural to you? You were the home builder for the longest. You were a legislator for a long time. The Olympic thing is new. Which one of those do you think? Like, man, this is a real good fit just for me. Naturally.
00;01;14;26 – 00;01;41;27
Brad Wilson
Well, I think it depends on the snapshot in time that you asked me that question. And a funny story when I was a brand new lawmaker, I just been elected to the legislature. I finished my it was the last week of my first session, and I, I actually thought, I hate this, like, this is who in their right mind would ever want to be alone?
00;01;41;27 – 00;01;44;13
Marty
I campaign for this job. Yeah, I was thinking.
00;01;44;13 – 00;01;44;19
Brad Wilson
Hard.
00;01;44;21 – 00;01;44;28
Marty
For.
00;01;44;28 – 00;02;07;00
Brad Wilson
This and I said, But I’m not a quitter. I’m going to do, you know, finish my term. And literally by the year and a half later, I thought, wow, you could actually make a difference here. I think I might actually be okay at this. And then it was just towards the end of that first term as a lawmaker that Becky Lockhart, who was speaker of the House, asked me to be on her leadership team.
00;02;07;01 – 00;02;36;25
Brad Wilson
And and so it just depends on the moment in time. But I would say that I equally enjoyed being a business owner and an entrepreneur and being a lawmaker and speaker of the House in wildly different ways. And they they require a different skill set, they require different relationships and everything. But I like them both a lot. I’m still powering through the learning curve as CEO of Utah 2034.
00;02;36;28 – 00;02;54;05
Brad Wilson
But I’ll tell you, there is nothing like the power of the Olympic and Paralympic Movement and sport in this state to just be a really fun thing to lean into. So I but I can’t say I’ve mastered this. Like I felt like I had maybe some of those other things.
00;02;54;05 – 00;03;10;27
Marty
How important is that to you in this phase of your career? To say, I just needed a new challenge because sometimes mastering something, but there’s like a period where you say, this feels really good because I’m on top of my game, but very quickly you feel like you need a new challenge. Did that feel like you had reached that point as speaker?
00;03;10;29 – 00;03;30;17
Brad Wilson
Yeah. You know, I really felt like as speaker of the House that you need to be there for a season and then turn the reins over to someone else. And I was getting close to feeling like I’d been there, you know, long enough and and left on my own terms and pass the baton to a dear friend who’s the speaker now, Mike Schultz.
00;03;30;17 – 00;03;51;13
Brad Wilson
And and so I didn’t know for sure what was going to be next. I mean, I had a campaign I ran for the U.S. Senate didn’t turn out the way I had hoped at the time. I feel really good about how it turned out now, to be honest, for a lot of reasons. But and John Curtis is doing a great job for us, and I’m doing something that I love.
00;03;51;13 – 00;04;13;12
Brad Wilson
And so I feel fortunate. Things just sort of worked out the way that they that they should. But a new challenge, I will say, is I feel very fortunate to be at the age I’m at and to be powering into something that’s new and different. And I think it helps keep you young kind of, and is tiring at times, but it keeps you young.
00;04;13;13 – 00;04;21;25
Marty
So you’re a Kaysville guy now. But just as a let’s play the Utah game. Where’d you grow up? Where’d you go to school? All of that.
00;04;21;25 – 00;04;31;04
Brad Wilson
I am so incredibly boring when it comes to this. I have lived in Davis County my entire life, really, in just three cities Layton and Bountiful.
00;04;31;07 – 00;04;34;16
Marty
And what do you have against Centerville in Farmington? You don’t.
00;04;34;17 – 00;04;34;23
Brad Wilson
Yeah.
00;04;34;24 – 00;04;35;09
Marty
Well, I.
00;04;35;09 – 00;04;38;18
Brad Wilson
Spend I have, I have I spent a lot of money in Farmington.
00;04;38;22 – 00;04;39;20
Marty
Okay.
00;04;39;22 – 00;04;50;05
Brad Wilson
Have an office there, real estate office there. But yeah, I’ve just lived there my whole life. And, you know, it’s kind of one of those things. Why would you ever need to live anywhere else in my situation?
00;04;50;06 – 00;04;51;24
Marty
So yeah. Dave, a start.
00;04;52;00 – 00;04;53;00
Brad Wilson
Layton. Lancer.
00;04;53;04 – 00;04;55;25
Marty
Lancer. Okay. Yeah. I didn’t mean to offend.
00;04;55;27 – 00;05;18;01
Brad Wilson
Yeah. Two kids are darts, though, so we’re darts. Okay. Yeah, I went to. I grew up in Layton. Really? I lived in casualties five. Lived, grew up primarily in Layton, interestingly enough, in a very big home with my parents, divorced when I was ten, and so my mom married my stepdad shortly thereafter, and his five kids came to live in our house with five kids.
00;05;18;01 – 00;05;25;26
Brad Wilson
So I grew up in a house with ten kids, and we’re all close and had a great childhood.
00;05;25;26 – 00;05;30;12
Marty
Really seems like a sort of a case ville version of The Brady Bunch is what you grow with.
00;05;30;13 – 00;05;39;08
Brad Wilson
It was a little chaotic at times. I don’t care how big a house is, and we didn’t have a huge house big enough, but ten kids in one house is a lot of kids and a lot of chaos.
00;05;39;10 – 00;05;43;12
Marty
Where did you fit within those ten kids age wise, and how did that shape who you are?
00;05;43;14 – 00;06;13;00
Brad Wilson
Yeah, second to the oldest. So I’m the oldest of my siblings when when we had the families combined. I have a stepsister who was three months older than me. She’s actually passed away since in the last decade or so. But. But I was second to the oldest in that Brady Bunch house. And there was actually, as you can imagine, some kind of responsibility that came with being the oldest or one of the oldest kids in that house.
00;06;13;02 – 00;06;16;19
Brad Wilson
And I think that shaped me to some extent.
00;06;16;25 – 00;06;27;20
Marty
Was it tough to go from being I’m the oldest in my family, tough to go from, like I’m the oldest to suddenly I’m not the oldest. Like there’s a, there’s an identity that comes with being the oldest. Yeah.
00;06;27;23 – 00;06;43;23
Brad Wilson
So I was that’s a good question. I remember a few times there were maybe some tension about that, but not much. I think everyone had enough going on and there was enough stuff to take care of that. We all just kind of did our thing.
00;06;43;25 – 00;06;56;18
Marty
So you were in home building for much of your career, built a very successful company there. What got you into homebuilding? Why was that the field that you chose to like? I’m going to go work and lead a business in this direction.
00;06;56;24 – 00;07;20;22
Brad Wilson
So that actually wasn’t what I did. After school. I graduated with a degree in business and spent a number of years in the financial services industry and as a financial advisor. I was a CFP and managed a portfolio for my clients, and had a great friend and a mentor there who I still stay in touch with. But I decided after and I was actually pretty good at that.
00;07;20;22 – 00;07;48;13
Brad Wilson
I was about 30 years old. I was called the social Vice president, kind of running a big part of the operation here in Utah. And I actually read around this time a book that you’ve heard of called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And there’s a section in there where Stephen Covey says that there are times where you climb the ladder only to realize it’s leaning against the wrong wall.
00;07;48;15 – 00;08;16;15
Brad Wilson
And I read that and I’m like, oh my gosh, that feels like me. Like I’m doing this. I’m good at it. I’m making a living at it. But I don’t really feel like this is the wall I’m supposed to be climbing a ladder on. And one thing led to another. In my best friend since I was a kid, five years old was building homes kind of by himself out of his truck, and one thing led to another, and we actually ended up partnering up.
00;08;16;15 – 00;08;45;17
Brad Wilson
And I resigned as a VP for this big fortune 50 company, and my family thought I was crazy. I think my wife was like, this will be interesting. And we started home building company together. And for sure in terms of professionally and occupational, the best decision that I ever made. And it wasn’t that I was bad at that or I didn’t like the people or anything, it just this was a better fit for me.
00;08;45;17 – 00;09;05;04
Brad Wilson
And so I started climbing a ladder on a different wall. And we built a successful company. Not without its challenges. I mean, real estate is a tough business, but but that’s how I actually got into that business. And I didn’t know anything about home building when I started in that industry, but learned quickly.
00;09;05;05 – 00;09;22;16
Marty
How do you dive into something like that? That’s a completely different field. Yeah, I mean, I’ve made career changes, but they’ve been somewhat adjacent or like, oh, I see the connection between those. And I guess you do here because you know, the financial side and then you go to running a business and all that. But starting a business is a whole different operation.
00;09;22;17 – 00;09;50;21
Brad Wilson
Yeah. So what was really great about that for me and my business partner Dave, is we have very complementary skill sets but a very high trust relationship. And so I had a certain portfolio in the business and management, finance, marketing, sales, that piece he was the technician around construction and I’m oversimplifying it, but we melded our two skill sets together.
00;09;50;21 – 00;10;10;26
Brad Wilson
And over time, we both learned about the other parts of the business and became a very cohesive team. But we still sort of played to our strengths. And I think that’s an important lesson for all of us is, you know, you can’t be good at everything. Play to your strengths. Surround yourself with people that complement your strengths and have different strengths.
00;10;10;26 – 00;10;13;24
Brad Wilson
And that’s really how we built that business. Yeah.
00;10;13;28 – 00;10;28;27
Marty
I want to shift a little bit to the Olympics, because this is a topic that I think a lot of people are interested in. For those of us who or for the members of the audience who weren’t around in 2002, help us understand sort of the structure, like what is your role with the Olympics? What are you in charge of?
00;10;29;00 – 00;10;33;17
Marty
Because I think it can get kind of complex for people to think about, how do we pull this off?
00;10;33;19 – 00;11;03;12
Brad Wilson
Well, it is a very complex operation, and maybe even just before I dive into that, I will say that you talk about 2002, and that was such a watershed moment for our state in so many different ways. And I think if you even now, if we look at the horizon of back at the horizon on history of what happened, that moment to change our state, I think for the better in so many different ways.
00;11;03;14 – 00;11;27;16
Brad Wilson
And the team back then did a great job in spite of some significant headwinds that they had going into the games between a bid scandal and the nine over 11, four months before the games. And so we’ve inherited this remarkable legacy from 2002 of games that were wildly successful. They were profitable in spite of big headwinds, and everyone had a great experience.
00;11;27;17 – 00;11;54;20
Brad Wilson
And so our job as the technically were the organizing committee is what we’re called. And we have a small team right now. It will grow to be a large team of 12 to 1400 people by the time the games come. But our job is to manage all of it. There’s roughly 50 functional areas, everything from transportation to food services to ticketing, you name it.
00;11;54;21 – 00;12;15;25
Brad Wilson
We manage all of this and you know, we’re putting on more than a Super Bowl every day during the games across 13 different venues, five different counties. And it’s a very complex operation. And our job is to build a team. My job is to build the team to pull that off.
00;12;15;27 – 00;12;30;22
Marty
So it helps us understand your role a little bit better. I wonder if just to make it super simple, and I don’t mean to like make an apples to apples connection here. I’m not trying to put any kind of weird pressure, but like, are you the Mitt Romney of the 2034 games? Is that how people can think of the position you’re in, or is it a different position?
00;12;30;23 – 00;12;52;15
Brad Wilson
It’s a slightly different position in terms of titles. Mitt Romney had actually the title of CEO and president. I’m the CEO and they don’t really do that anymore. I’m the CEO and we have a president, Fraser Bullock Fraser chaired the bid committee. And Fraser’s role is around kind of the governance of the organization as well as he’s also leading a few functional areas.
00;12;52;15 – 00;12;57;22
Brad Wilson
And then my job is more just around the execution of everything else.
00;12;57;25 – 00;13;19;08
Marty
We mentioned 2002, and that’s going to get brought up every time we talk about the 34. In a lot of ways, it’s set the bar, as you mentioned, I think really high for sure. Does that cause you stress that it’s like, man, because you’re sort of competing against what we did in 2002 in some ways, and what we remember 2002 to be like, which can be different than what it actually was.
00;13;19;09 – 00;13;19;18
Marty
Yeah.
00;13;19;18 – 00;13;44;20
Brad Wilson
Yeah. So that actually the revisionist history piece is a bigger challenge. The 34 games are going to be very different than the 2002 games. Just to give you some kind of perspective on that, first of all, they’re going to be much bigger, 40% bigger in terms of number of events, number of tickets, just a much bigger games. And we won’t try to replicate 2002.
00;13;44;22 – 00;14;10;22
Brad Wilson
We will learn operationally how things worked, but they’ll look and feel very different. And so but yeah, there is this at times kind of false narrative about what did or didn’t happen. I’ll give you a great example. A lot of people think that there was 10 or $15 billion of federal money that poured into the state to support the games in 2002.
00;14;10;24 – 00;14;34;17
Brad Wilson
It’s not true. There were definitely big projects that occurred, for example, the reconstruction of I-15. You know, the rail projects that went on, those were actually happening anyway. They may have been accelerated or we worked harder to get them done. But money didn’t just flow into the state because of the games. Now, there were some projects that happened because of the games.
00;14;34;23 – 00;14;45;19
Brad Wilson
We will have projects that happen because of the games that will make the state a better place to live, that will improve our infrastructure. But we fight some false narratives sometimes like that.
00;14;45;21 – 00;15;05;14
Marty
It’s funny you mentioned the rail. I remember during the games if I’ve got this right in my head and again, maybe revisionist history, I think we only had one tracks line and I think it started or stopped at the Delta Center, Triad Center and then went up through Main Street. So it’s like that one line, maybe we had a second one that spurred off of it, but it’s sometimes it’s funny to think back that far.
00;15;05;15 – 00;15;15;29
Marty
I mean, now we’re talking about 24 years ago and say, what was this place really like back then? Because it’s for most of us who’ve been here, it’s changed little by little. Yeah. And you may not have noticed all the little things that changed.
00;15;16;00 – 00;15;45;02
Brad Wilson
Oh, it’s changed a lot in our offices right now. We have this amazing photograph of the city with the big banners that hung off the buildings. And what’s interesting, though, is like, it looks totally different now, and we’ll do some of those same things. We’ll use technology. It’ll be different. But the city from 2002 to the city in 2034, just as an example, looks different.
00;15;45;04 – 00;15;58;26
Brad Wilson
I mean, another really amazing thing, and we hear this a lot from people that are excited about being here, is just the number of hotel rooms we have, the number of five star hotels we have compared to 2002. For visitors, it’s like we’re not even the same.
00;15;58;29 – 00;16;02;21
Marty
It was basically the Grand America. In fact. Yeah, it’s much more than that.
00;16;02;22 – 00;16;12;08
Brad Wilson
Yeah. You have 1700 rooms being built at Deer Valley East right now that are all four and five star rooms. I mean, just think about that. It’s crazy.
00;16;12;10 – 00;16;37;22
Marty
One of the things that’s always been kind of a, I guess, a feather in the cap for Utah when it comes to the Olympics is that we built all these venues, but then we didn’t just let them fall apart, we used them. We’ve trained a lot of Olympic athletes here. I wonder, though, as you’re starting over, is it really that much of an advantage or does are there certain situations where it’s not such an advantage to have legacy facilities like in some cases?
00;16;37;22 – 00;16;43;13
Marty
Have you found it’s awesome that we have those, but it’d be better if we could start fresh here. Or has it always been an advantage?
00;16;43;19 – 00;17;18;29
Brad Wilson
It’s about 95% of them that, you know, I we are not dealing with construction of venues. We, we we have the venues tied up. We’re ready to go. They could use maybe a little TLC in a spot here or there, but no, we’re at a great advantage to having them. And I think if you step back and think about like, what does the Olympic and Paralympic Movement need, especially for Winter games, it needs places like Utah that have a very compact Olympic theater.
00;17;19;06 – 00;17;43;04
Brad Wilson
All the venues are very close to the core, which is in our case, Olympic Village will be the University of Utah. The athlete village will be the University of Utah. Everything’s an hour from there. We are arguably the only place in the world at this point that can probably host the games, hopefully on a rotational basis moving forward that has that type of footprint.
00;17;43;04 – 00;17;56;28
Brad Wilson
I was in Italy earlier this year, and you’re 5 to 6 hours away from Milan, for example, to attend some of those mountain venues now. They were amazing, but just a different model. Our model is.
00;17;56;28 – 00;18;10;01
Marty
Different and some of that kind of thing. You can’t sort of build your way out of, like even if you took the closest comparison. I don’t want to put you in a spot where you have to talk about other cities, but like, think about Denver. Their airport is not as close to actual Denver as our airport is to Salt Lake City.
00;18;10;02 – 00;18;28;27
Marty
The mountains are not that close compared to what we’ve got here. So there’s just some geographic advantages, even though this is going to be kind of a statewide approach. And I want to ask you about that, because these are not the Salt Lake City Olympic Games or the full title will get get that right if we tried. But these are the Utah games.
00;18;29;00 – 00;18;32;07
Marty
Why? Why the distinction and why is that important?
00;18;32;10 – 00;18;55;27
Brad Wilson
Well, I said earlier actually that we have 13 venues across five counties. Yeah, Salt Lake City will be the hub. I mean, it’s where opening and closing ceremonies will be. It’s where we will have hockey. It’s where we’ll have the metals Plaza likely have curling downtown. The Salt Palace will be where the broadcast center is, where the media center is.
00;18;55;27 – 00;19;20;25
Brad Wilson
It will there will be more events in Salt Lake City than anywhere else. But we have events, other places, and we will have volunteers from 29 Utah counties. We will engage the entire state. One of the biggest differences between the games in 2002, in these games, is the amount of lead time we have to think about the games differently.
00;19;20;27 – 00;19;42;12
Brad Wilson
We got awarded the games two and a half to three years earlier than would be normal. We’re actually still in a bonus year. Our normal cycle would be to get awarded the 2034 games sometime in the next 12 months. We got them 24 months ago. So we’re thinking about this very differently. We have these core functions around games delivery.
00;19;42;13 – 00;20;08;03
Brad Wilson
You asked about venues. Yeah, we’re working on that. We need to generate revenue. There’s a top line revenue number for our games of about $4 billion. We’re working on that. But the part that we’re excited about is thinking about impact and legacy in this state. How do we because of this longer lead time, how do we shape the state in a different way and leave a legacy in a bigger way?
00;20;08;04 – 00;20;34;02
Brad Wilson
And also, how do we give fans that come to the games or are online or on television watching them, an experience they’ve never had before? So we’re taking the fundamentals, not taking it for granted, but building on what we had in 2002. And then we’re imagining how this experience for the fan, as well as our legacy, can be enhanced in really big ways.
00;20;34;03 – 00;20;49;22
Marty
So we have an extra two years in planning, and we’ve got 95% of the facilities are where you want them to be, or it’s an advantage 95% of the time. So tell me what you spend your time on. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Like what’s what’s a day like for you?
00;20;49;23 – 00;21;12;28
Brad Wilson
Yeah. Well, we are actively working on the revenue piece. I mean, $4 billion in revenue is a lot of revenue that has to come in. And it comes from a variety of different places. But we we have a lot of effort that’s being put into that. There are games delivery elements that are important for us, and we’re starting transportation planning now.
00;21;12;29 – 00;21;43;12
Brad Wilson
We’re looking at all of our venues and deciding what investments need to be made and how we’re going to pay for those. And when we’re looking and designing the things we just talked about, what can this fan experience look like? And we’re actively working with members of the community around building the legacy for 2034 already, and I’ve only got 15 ish full time employee kind of equivalents right now, and saw that team is spread pretty thin to do all that work.
00;21;43;12 – 00;21;47;20
Brad Wilson
But we’re, we’re we’re working on it.
00;21;47;20 – 00;22;02;02
Marty
I try to put myself a little bit in your shoes as I think through these questions. And part of it, I think of it as like a puzzle. And if you know you have all the pieces in front of you, then at least you can manage your time. Like, how do we get there? I know this is how I would be.
00;22;02;02 – 00;22;15;27
Marty
I wonder if you’re like this as well. I would be losing sleep over. Do I have all the puzzle pieces? Like what am I not seeing and what am I going to have as things get more hectic toward the deadline? Yeah.
00;22;15;29 – 00;22;41;23
Brad Wilson
You know, I worry about that a little bit, but my job as CEO is, I believe, fundamentally to make sure we have clarity of where we’re going, what our big objectives and ambitions are. And then my job is to line up the right people to go make that happen. And so that’s how I think about the work. And we’ve got a great team right now.
00;22;41;24 – 00;22;56;17
Brad Wilson
We’re slowly, you know, evolving the team and building it. And I don’t worry a lot about that because I think they’re going to be people that are smarter than me about the technical parts of the games, that we’ll know that better than I ever could.
00;22;56;20 – 00;23;10;07
Marty
How did your role I mean, you’re trying to manage a lot. How did your role and your time as speaker and your time as a business leader prepare you for what you’re doing now? Do you look and say, man, I’m glad I had this experience because it’s helped me this way?
00;23;10;09 – 00;23;37;28
Brad Wilson
Well, I had just alluded to it a little bit, but I think that for all leaders in an organization, the most important or at least the first thing to do, and arguably the most important is to have tremendous clarity of what the objectives are, what the mission is, what the priorities are, and whether I was running a business or leading a team in the finance sector or speaker of the House, that’s the most important thing that a leader needs to make sure happens.
00;23;37;28 – 00;23;52;26
Brad Wilson
And then you line up the resources against it. So the work is very different in terms of the technical work and the day to day work. But the big elements around leadership are the same. I think in any organization.
00;23;52;29 – 00;24;21;28
Marty
I want to talk about a couple of things just happening in our state a little bit. One of the areas you were most, I guess, out in front on an area where you said, I’m taking this issue on head on. And I think with tremendous success, if nothing else, certainly in branding it The Great Salt Lake and taking on that issue, you know, I think I’ll what I say almost too well, it’s like we had other issues and suddenly people are first and foremost worried about water in the Great Salt Lake.
00;24;21;28 – 00;24;39;12
Marty
We saw that with the data center up in Box Elder County. It’s an issue that kept coming up. But what about water, the Great Salt Lake? That’s tremendous message penetration, if you ask me, from trying to like, hey, this is an issue, we want to talk about it for most things. You can put it on the public’s radar and it may be there for a little bit in it fades.
00;24;39;20 – 00;25;00;10
Marty
That Great Salt Lake issue is one that I think people have really bought into. This is something of concern. I wonder as you, as you look at it now, not being the guy that has to worry about it so much, but but let out on that issue. Are you proud of where we’re headed on that? And maybe just talk to me a little bit about how that became something that you were concerned about.
00;25;00;13 – 00;25;26;03
Brad Wilson
I was working out one morning and listening to a podcast, and it’s a weird thing to be doing, to listening to a podcast about water. But I was and listening to a podcast talked about Owens Lake in California. That was a terminal like like the Great Salt Lake and dried up. And the billions and billions of dollars of the state of California spent on it.
00;25;26;06 – 00;25;53;05
Brad Wilson
And I, I knew what was going on in the environment and, you know, the water environment in the state. And that’s actually the moment I’m like, we have to lean into this. And so it was a really remarkable thing to watch. And I think at times I get a little more credit than I deserve. The timing was just such where we were in a very dry cycle.
00;25;53;06 – 00;26;15;04
Brad Wilson
The lake was hitting all time lows, and we just didn’t have a good enough understanding of the consequences if the lake continued to dry out. And so I do remember calling my then chief of staff and saying, I know this is completely out of the blue, but we are going to make the Great Salt Lake one of our top priorities.
00;26;15;11 – 00;26;29;13
Brad Wilson
And I remember her saying, okay, and, and you know, and we did. And actually she should get a lot of the credit for the things you’re describing, which is Abbey making people, because that was her work.
00;26;29;19 – 00;26;46;16
Marty
Our first guest on this podcast. Yeah, I wanted. To actually. Yeah. That was your prep for this, for this interview. Yeah. I know that you’re not sort of you’re not in that position and it’s not probably the thing you think about first and foremost anymore. But you were very involved in it. And, you know, whether you want to take full credit for it or not.
00;26;46;19 – 00;27;02;20
Marty
Do you like the trajectory we’re on? Like, I guess people can say we recognize it as an issue now I do, but I don’t know that I could say, are we on pace? Are we working toward it? Are we making progress or not? And I know a lot of that is just what does mother Mother Nature give us every year?
00;27;02;22 – 00;27;05;13
Brad Wilson
Well.
00;27;05;15 – 00;27;27;09
Brad Wilson
I am really glad that we have some leaders that are still talking about it in a significant way. The governor, House and Senate leadership. There’s a few key lawmakers that are working on it, and it’s a really tough issue. The math is not in our favor, and it is at the end of the day, like so many things in life, a math exercise.
00;27;27;11 – 00;27;49;14
Brad Wilson
And so, you know, one of the things that I did at the I knew I was going to be leaving, and I really pushed hard to get a great Salt Lake commissioner. There’s a lot of people that don’t like that idea, but we pushed hard and got that because we needed someone that had ultimate kind of understanding and a lot of authority and some accountability around the lake.
00;27;49;20 – 00;28;07;19
Brad Wilson
And I’m not putting all of this on her shoulders now, but I think that we have to look to people like her for leadership around what needs to happen next. Here’s the reality. The easy stuff has been done. We did that when I was there.
00;28;07;21 – 00;28;11;03
Marty
And you got the town the right way to do it.
00;28;11;06 – 00;28;23;09
Brad Wilson
Yeah, just kidding. But it’s just the work is really hard. But there’s nothing in terms of the natural environment that northern Utah sits within the matters more.
00;28;23;10 – 00;28;41;06
Marty
Yeah. So help me understand then like we can a get more snow which can send more water to various places and we can conserve it better and get more of it to the Great Salt Lake. What else? Well, like what else is part of the plan? Because I think a lot of people go, we know we got to save it.
00;28;41;07 – 00;28;45;27
Marty
We know we’re trying to get more water to it, and then they kind of move on. I don’t know what the next.
00;28;46;00 – 00;29;11;14
Brad Wilson
You should have a commissioner on your podcast, but. Well, it is. I mean there’s you’ve got two sides of the equation the supply equation and the demand equation. And, and they are related to each other. But you either find more water and bring it in, pray for more water and have the Lord bring it in or you change the other side of the equation.
00;29;11;14 – 00;29;16;25
Brad Wilson
You use less water and the truth is, we need to do all of those things now.
00;29;16;27 – 00;29;32;05
Marty
We had a massive snow year I think 2 or 3 years ago now when that hit, was that like, oh, here’s a great boost to us, or is it sort of like, we still know this is and I’m getting into the hydrology of the whole thing, not necessarily your specific expertise, but.
00;29;32;06 – 00;29;39;11
Brad Wilson
Well, we were super grateful when we had, you know, 850in at Snowbird.
00;29;39;13 – 00;29;50;29
Marty
We had Jean Shawcross on the river Commissioner, and he said this last year was a 1 in 100 chance that we’d have a summer this or a winter this dry. But the one we’re talking about was the 1 in 100 chance would have won that wet.
00;29;51;00 – 00;30;15;27
Brad Wilson
Yeah, yeah. So and isn’t it interesting they happened within 3 or 4 years of each other. But actually at the time it was from my perspective. And for many of us that really knew the gravity of the situation for the Great Salt Lake, we were concerned about the really big wet winter because we thought it would just everyone would say, our problem has been solved.
00;30;15;29 – 00;30;18;04
Brad Wilson
So we knew that it was transitory.
00;30;18;05 – 00;30;24;20
Marty
And it kind of would have been had it started like a string of hay runoff, 20 of those, and were using pumps in the Great Salt Lake.
00;30;24;23 – 00;30;35;12
Brad Wilson
If we’d had a cycle like we had in the late 70s and early 80s, it was just wet winter after wet winter after wet winter. That would be different. But we had one wet winter.
00;30;35;13 – 00;30;42;29
Marty
Yeah. Yeah it doesn’t. You can’t eliminate a 22 year drought, 2225 years in drought with one good winter.
00;30;43;07 – 00;30;43;19
Brad Wilson
It helped.
00;30;43;19 – 00;31;03;09
Marty
For sure. I want to wrap up with this question on the house. When you look back at your time, either a speaker or member of leadership or just, you know, your first couple of years when you were in a leadership, what do you look back on and say, this is what I’m most proud of for my time, and what do you look back on and say, man, I wish I had another shot at this one.
00;31;03;12 – 00;31;08;28
Brad Wilson
Oh boy. These are hard questions.
00;31;09;01 – 00;31;45;09
Brad Wilson
I think that this is probably not specific enough, Marty, but but I am really proud of the work that we did to try to get policymakers to think a little bit longer term about the implications of the decisions they were making, whether it was about water, whether it was about the economy, whether it was about investments that needed to be made in the state from an infrastructure standpoint, and just the way we also managed the fiscal affairs of the state.
00;31;45;13 – 00;32;17;15
Brad Wilson
So that would be the theme, as you know, taking the long view instead of just worrying about the short term issues. The reality is, and you know this, the short term stuff takes care of itself up there. It’s easy to just be super reactive up there. That’s part of the job. But I think real leadership comes from balancing that reactive policymaker stance with then what are the really hard issues that we need to lean into that if we change some things today, we’ll make the state a better place in two decades.
00;32;17;16 – 00;32;24;09
Brad Wilson
Yeah. So and in terms of regrets.
00;32;24;11 – 00;32;30;25
Brad Wilson
I don’t know. I have such a bad rear view mirror. I’m sure I’ve got some. I’ll get back with you on that. There’s probably a long list.
00;32;30;27 – 00;32;39;22
Marty
Yeah, I get maybe I’ll rephrase it this way. So we’ll let you sort of off the hook. But if you were still up there today, what’s the issue? You’d say this is the one I’d still be focused on.
00;32;39;24 – 00;33;09;13
Brad Wilson
Yeah. Well, it would actually be the water issue for the state. It’s just so important. And and we’re, you know, as an organizing committee, we have a responsibility to try to make wise decisions about use of resources to. And you’re going to see us leading out with some sustainability efforts around our forests or water, or how what kind of footprint does the games leave?
00;33;09;14 – 00;33;11;14
Brad Wilson
So yeah, I’m gonna watch that too.
00;33;11;17 – 00;33;15;24
Marty
We’re running a little short on time, so I want to end with a lightning round. Okay. These are.
00;33;15;26 – 00;33;17;01
Brad Wilson
Not really I’m terrible.
00;33;17;02 – 00;33;24;19
Marty
Things are. These are fun questions. This sort of top of mind. What comes up? We’ll start with an easy one. What is your favorite food?
00;33;24;21 – 00;33;26;28
Brad Wilson
Yeah. My wife’s enchiladas.
00;33;26;29 – 00;33;29;13
Marty
Okay. What? Chicken. Beef enchiladas.
00;33;29;15 – 00;33;33;03
Brad Wilson
Yeah. Chicken. Yeah. Really good. Come over. You love around the corner. Come over for.
00;33;33;03 – 00;33;41;15
Marty
Sunday dinner. Just invite me over. Okay. All right. That is the correct answer. You picked one of your wife’s dishes. That’s the correct answer. Favorite political figure? Current or historical?
00;33;41;18 – 00;33;42;12
Brad Wilson
Ronald Reagan.
00;33;42;12 – 00;33;43;29
Marty
Ronald Reagan. Why?
00;33;44;01 – 00;33;54;03
Brad Wilson
Just he. He cared about the right things. Big things. Great communicator. And was tough when he needed to be tough.
00;33;54;11 – 00;34;11;23
Marty
Great hair too. Got to give him that. Yeah, yeah. You may not appreciate that like some of us do, but I do. All right, give me a book, a podcast, a TV or a movie recommendation. Something that you have consumed that other people should know about.
00;34;11;25 – 00;34;16;26
Brad Wilson
So this is going to sound really geeky. Make me kind of love loser.
00;34;16;26 – 00;34;17;21
Marty
But get ready.
00;34;17;21 – 00;34;29;20
Brad Wilson
To actually just started reading a book I read like six years ago called Atomic Habits. Okay, I just thought I need to read this book again. And so but amazing book.
00;34;29;21 – 00;34;33;02
Marty
So what do you love about the atomic habits?
00;34;33;04 – 00;34;59;07
Brad Wilson
It’s it’s all about systems and how you can be more effective in kind of all facets of your life around thinking about who you are and what you do differently. And the premise of the book is that willpower is overrated, and systems are what drive outcomes. And he says in there. The favorite quote from the book is we don’t rise to the level of our goals.
00;34;59;08 – 00;35;04;05
Brad Wilson
We fall to the level of our systems. And my team hears me say that all the time.
00;35;04;08 – 00;35;13;03
Marty
You say it habitually, and that’s a good thing. It means the book is being effective job that you have not done that you would most like to try.
00;35;13;05 – 00;35;27;20
Brad Wilson
Oh my goodness. I have really liked cars. I like I’m a car guy. And so I think that like being like a race car driver.
00;35;27;25 – 00;35;29;22
Marty
Yeah, like an F1 driver and NASCAR.
00;35;29;22 – 00;35;30;02
Brad Wilson
Driver.
00;35;30;07 – 00;35;31;08
Marty
Have a preference there.
00;35;31;09 – 00;35;38;14
Brad Wilson
No, no it’d be F1, F1 the like because I’m like about the age of Brad Pitt in that movie last year. I could probably go.
00;35;38;14 – 00;35;46;27
Marty
Do that. Were you as body double I’ve heard. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. What is your least favorite chore?
00;35;46;29 – 00;35;59;04
Brad Wilson
My wife would say all chores are my least, my least favorite. But, you know, like, one thing that I will never do again if I can ever avoid it is painting like.
00;35;59;06 – 00;36;01;14
Marty
Like painting a house outside the room.
00;36;01;14 – 00;36;05;04
Brad Wilson
Or a house? Yeah. Like there’s just. I ever want to do that.
00;36;05;10 – 00;36;06;22
Marty
That is also the number one thing.
00;36;06;25 – 00;36;08;17
Brad Wilson
You have to do that at some point in life.
00;36;08;19 – 00;36;18;03
Marty
But I have a guess on this one, so I’ll ask it what you are and what you are naturally, having not made yourself into you. An early bird or a night owl.
00;36;18;04 – 00;36;19;04
Brad Wilson
Oh, I’m an early bird.
00;36;19;05 – 00;36;21;22
Marty
Yeah, yeah. Have you always been an early bird.
00;36;21;24 – 00;36;23;26
Brad Wilson
As an adult? Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00;36;23;28 – 00;36;27;07
Marty
But as a kid, you could do with nine siblings you could sleep in.
00;36;27;08 – 00;36;30;00
Brad Wilson
Was the opposite as a kid. Yeah, yeah.
00;36;30;02 – 00;36;38;04
Marty
How about a guilty pleasure? Ultimate guilty pleasure. Rabbit hole. If you’ve got time to burn. What app are you going to or what are you reading about? What are you watching?
00;36;38;06 – 00;36;39;02
Brad Wilson
Something like last.
00;36;39;02 – 00;36;39;21
Marty
Night.
00;36;39;24 – 00;36;53;08
Brad Wilson
Sure was mindlessly a long day, doing a lot of planning and budgeting or planning and budgeting. I went home and watched YouTube videos about cars. Okay.
00;36;53;12 – 00;36;55;04
Marty
Race cars again are just cars.
00;36;55;04 – 00;37;01;03
Brad Wilson
And yeah, some German sports cars. Okay, so.
00;37;01;03 – 00;37;12;22
Marty
Yeah, you are leading our Olympic efforts. So what is one Olympic sport that if you had to compete in one, do you think you’d have the best chance of meddling in.
00;37;12;25 – 00;37;20;14
Brad Wilson
My days as an Olympic athlete or behind us? So, you know, a lot of people will say they would become good curlers.
00;37;20;15 – 00;37;21;03
Marty
Okay.
00;37;21;09 – 00;37;34;26
Brad Wilson
I’ll tell you, I’ve watched curling during the games just this last year. And those people are like really good. Yeah. Like, so don’t just assume you could be a curler. I think I have probably a better ski jumper than curler.
00;37;34;28 – 00;37;52;25
Marty
Just because you can smoke when you do it doesn’t mean it’s easier, right? That’s right. All right. So I’ll rephrase that one to try to get the to get to an answer. So curling is one that you appreciate. If, if you could just pick one that you, that you would medal, you could win a bronze medal in something.
00;37;52;25 – 00;38;00;22
Marty
You won’t displace too many people from their medal. You could win a bronze medal in any Winter Olympic sport. What would it be?
00;38;00;24 – 00;38;06;20
Brad Wilson
Probably like the men’s downhill if I was that good of a skier.
00;38;06;23 – 00;38;07;19
Marty
Are you a skier?
00;38;07;20 – 00;38;08;11
Brad Wilson
Yeah, but not.
00;38;08;11 – 00;38;08;26
Marty
Like, not at.
00;38;08;26 – 00;38;14;03
Brad Wilson
That level. They’re fearless and amazing, and it’s amazing.
00;38;14;07 – 00;38;22;23
Marty
It’s pretty crazy what they do there. All right, here’s another easy one. And then we’ll finish with a good one. Your go to pizza order.
00;38;22;26 – 00;38;38;12
Brad Wilson
I have celiac. Okay. So I have to this is a really important question. Someone that doesn’t eat gluten or I have to eat gluten free pizza. And there’s a place that we just discovered in Syracuse called Jets Pizza that has great gluten free pizza.
00;38;38;13 – 00;38;44;13
Marty
Okay, I have I have a gluten free. I have two gluten free people in my house, so that’s a good recommendation. We’ll take.
00;38;44;13 – 00;38;45;21
Brad Wilson
DoorDash Jets pizza.
00;38;45;23 – 00;39;01;12
Marty
Jets pizza in the cuz. Gotcha. All right. We’ll wrap up on this one. Brad Wilson, you can go back and give. Oh let’s say 17 year old version of you some life advice. What is the life advice you’re sharing with yourself?
00;39;01;15 – 00;39;14;02
Brad Wilson
I don’t really have any regrets, Marty. I mean, I’ve learned a lot, but I would just say, don’t take yourself so seriously. You know, everything works out the way it’s supposed to. And, yeah.
00;39;14;03 – 00;39;17;28
Marty
We tend to get that a lot from a lot of folks, and it never goes the way you planned.
00;39;17;28 – 00;39;18;23
Brad Wilson
But yeah.
00;39;18;24 – 00;39;20;22
Marty
Yeah, it still goes the way it’s supposed to.
00;39;20;24 – 00;39;21;22
Brad Wilson
Yeah, for sure.
00;39;21;25 – 00;39;29;01
Marty
For sure. All right. You got eight years to go get this thing ready, so we’ll let you go. But thanks so much for your time and best of luck. Thank you. As we move through the planning stages.
00;39;29;01 – 00;39;29;21
Brad Wilson
Thank you, thank you.
00;39;29;28 – 00;39;30;14
Marty
Thanks so much.
00;39;30;15 – 00;39;30;24
Brad Wilson
Take care.
00;39;30;24 – 00;39;31;17
Marty
Bye.
00;39;31;20 – 00;39;32;03
Brad Wilson
So.
