Coming up on this episode of Back Channel, we sit down with Francis Gibson and talk about his time in the Utah House of Representatives, including his time on the leadership team as the majority leader. And we talk about his current role as the head of the Utah Hospital Association. We’re also going to get some insight on what Lavel Edwards was like in a recruiting visit, and we’ll find out what his preferred sandwich is and what his preferred dessert is. That’s the kind of stuff you get from Back Channel coming up next, right after this.

This is the Back Channel. Back channel. You didn’t hear this from me. Back channel. Hey, you’re not going to quote me, are you? What channel is it on? Back channel. Offscript on record. And welcome into the second ever episode of Back Channel. And I cannot emphasize for you enough how close we came to being a one episode show. Not because there was anything wrong with the first episode. Abby Osborne was an amazing guest and it was so great to sit down and talk to her. But as soon as we finished the interview and she went off to the Capitol and I went off to my next appointment. I was driving down I7 southbound around 72nd South when take a look at this. This is what hit my car. It was a big piece of rubber or maybe really hard plastic. Could have been metal. And it punctured my windshield. Actually sent glass shards all over my shirt, all over my pants, all over the inside of my car and put an actual hole in my windshield. Everybody was okay. I actually saw it coming. It was a piece of whatever it was, debris that flipped up from two cars in front of me, hit the driver’s side mirror uh on the car in front of me, which redirected it and hit it into the bottom corner of my windshield. Everybody’s okay. Everybody’s fine. But we came this close to being a one-hit wonder. So, it’s good to be with you today. Good to be back. We’re going to have Francis Gibson on the show with us today. Francis entered the legislature back in about 2009. I think he ran in 2008. uh eventually left the legislature after being the majority leader and now he runs the Utah Hospital Association. We’re going to find out about those two roles. We’re going to find out what it was like to be recruited by Lavel Edwards. We’re coming up with that next. We are offscript and on record with Francis Gibson right after this. You’re a Texas guy. I am. Yeah. Which part of Texas? I I grew up in a place called Port Arthur, Texas. It’s about 90 miles southeast of Houston, Louisiana. Uh Texas coast on the I guess we call the Gulf of America now. Yeah, I always knew Gulf of Mexico was Gulf of America. And so just right there, literally 15, 20 minutes from the coast. That’s college football territory. That’s high school football territory. There are two religions in Texas. There’s the Baptist church and and high school football. And and depending on what day of the week, they can rotate in terms of what’s number one. Yeah. But growing up in that part of Texas, I would think inclines you to be an&m fan, but that’s I don’t have that right. Do I? You know, you it’s like when you’re in Utah, you like, no disrespect Utah State or Weaver or any place else, but it’s like you’re either blue or you’re red. Yeah. And and when I was growing up, you’re either a Longhorn or an Aggie. And uh I just kind of grew up University of Texas. Do you played football in high school? I did. And you played football in college? I I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to play in college. Um you know, it’s interesting. I really knew nothing about Utah and I really knew nothing about BYU specifically. And um one day a guy by the name of Lavel Edwards was at my house and um offer me an opportunity to come and take a recruiting trip here to BYU and um one thing led to another. So, we come and we get up here and I remember we were in a van and we were driving to Sundance and there’s a wide receiver named Bryce Dolman and he was talking about Olympus versus Skyline. I guess big rivalries and you know they had like 5,000 people there and Claude B made you laugh as a Texas I really didn’t laugh about because I didn’t know these people, right? They’re all Utah guys in the van and you know and maybe had a couple uh Pacific Islanders with us and we’re going up to Sundance for this dinner and uh I remember Coach Basset was in go Francis how many people at your last high school game 21,000 maybe. And so it was a little bit of a difference but it was we we’d go to Sundance and we go to the the tree room and I met this guy this actor named Robert Redford. Well, you know, I’m just this little redneck redneck snot-nosed kid from Southeast Texas. Never really been out of the state much. And Robert Redford was like a big-time movie star. And the first thing I remember goes, he’s a lot shorter than he is on on screen at 5’6. But I think the thing that I remember the most is he said he knew why we were there. And it was a recruiting trip. And he I remember this very distinctly. He said, “I don’t know if you will choose Utah as your place to go to school or not, but if you do, you’ll never regret it.” And um that was the piece of wisdom I think that stood out the most to me about Robert Redford. Now, he’s means a lot of things to Utah, the economy, you know, acting, the ski resort, lots of things, but for me personally, I think that was the thing that stood out the most. Nice recruiting trip. Lavel Edwards shows up at your house and then Robert Redford seals the deal. That’s not I don’t know a lot of people that have that story. Well, Ty Demer was my host and so that was that was you know so it No, it was great and I I do just remember saying very distinctly I don’t know if you’ll choose yourself but if you do you’ll never regret it. What did you love about playing football? What do you miss about it? How has it helped you in your life post football? You know, I think um athletics in general, it it gives you an opportunity to belong to something bigger than yourself. And you know, you have a team, you have to rely on other people. It doesn’t football specifically, there’s 11 spots on each side of the ball. And it become you can hide a couple people that may be weaker, but for the most part, everyone has a role. And those weaknesses they’re illuminated very quickly if they don’t do your job. If you don’t do your job and I think in life, people around us, I I’m a firm believer no one makes it on their own. Someone along the way, and I don’t know where we’re going to go with this conversation, but somewhere along the way, someone gave you a chance. And I think that’s that’s for me sports in general. And I could go from a myriad of different sports and say, “Well, that’s true.” But I think those are some of the things that are the most important things that I remember the most. Physically, it’s very hard. It is very hard on your body. And um but I I think for me the the camaraderie and sometimes it’s not even about the performance themselves. It’s behind the scenes. It’s the locker rooms. It’s the friendships. It’s in the trenches. You know, even when you’re working on a big project at work and the project you present it and you nail it, that’s sort of like the fun part, but the real strength and the real value becomes from all the behind the scenes hours of preparation and getting it to go and getting it to prepare. That’s where you build. And that’s probably what most people miss the most. I think when you talk when you talk to some of the big NFL players who’ve retired, had these big long years of careers, they’ll say they miss the locker room. the relationships. That’s what you miss the most. I think you can tell when you go into a workplace, whether it’s somewhere you work or even sometimes you get a glimpse of it if you just go visit another person’s office. It feels like you can tell if it’s run or led by someone who came from a team sports background because that there’s sort of that it’s a priority then to have a sense of team in an office. And I I wonder if you’ve seen that in organizations where you’ve been where you say, “I’ve had it here. I haven’t had it here and it’s been a benefit one way or the other.” Oh. you know, in my career in in healthcare, it’s been I’ve always said, “It’s my job to help you get your next job.” And and I So good leaders help their teams become better people. And in return, they don’t want to leave because they know you value who they are. I’ve always wanted to make sure that people when they leave me, if you’re leaving me for something better, man, I want to help you pack your stuff, walk you to your car, give you a hug and a kiss, and say, “Boom, you got this. Go nail it.” But if you’re leaving me for less or you’re leaving for worse, then you have to say, “What am I doing wrong?” And to your point, when you walk in, you can say, “Do people really like their jobs? If they love being there, they’re going to be there forever.” And and I say that but some things aren’t forever because they want a chance to lead their teams as well. And you want people to go be the best version of themselves. And so how do you help people get the get to that point? And I think those are the great organizations. The former TV sports cer would be mad if I moved on to the next subject without saying uh Lavel Edwards very stoic. What was he like recruiting? How did he do in a living room with you and your parents? So, two quick stories about Coach Edwards. Um, you know, he flies into Houston. They drive 90 miles to my home. And, you know, my mom was a very sweet lady. She makes two sack lunches and she made a tuna salad and like a roast beef, not knowing any idea what they liked. She didn’t even know these men. I mean, my mom didn’t know squat about football other than what she had seen. And she makes these two. And coach Bassid gets the tuna salad or the roast beef and Lavella gets the tuna salad and he looks at the sandwich. He goes, “When you become head coach, you get roast beef.” And he switches it. But the more funnier one was we we go and we’re in camp and they have training table and he was a big tapioca pudding guy and I just you know you walked in as a was a cafeteria style. Now, the way athletes eat today versus back then are two totally different things. But it’s a it’s a cafeteria and you have a tray and you just kind of pick up things along the line when you go. Well, I grab a tapioca pudding. And he goes walking around the cafeteria and he’s looking for this tapioca pudding. And he notices the only It was the only one. And he quickly reminded me, he says, “You’re new here.” He goes, “When you walk by and there’s only one tapioca pudding, keep walking. If there’s more than one, you can grab one, but if there’s only one, let it go. And he takes it from me and he takes me and walks on. So, um, very, very good man. He was one, I think, embodied empowering his coaches to do their job and really trusting the different position coaches to coach their positions and he was the CEO of all coaches, but um, not a lot of micromanagement or at least that was in my experience and really allowed his coaches to do their job. And I think that’s what good leaders do. They allow their leaders to lead. They allow their teams to do their jobs. And um just a very very good man. I’m going to file it away under my useless information that now I know. Lavel Edwards, roast beef sandwich, tap the pudding. I’ll say tapiocll’s not with us anymore. But I guarantee you if you ask me in five years, I probably will still roast beef versus tuna salad. Yes. But tapioca every day. Yeah. Uh, so you played college football and that I mean look this is the this is the time we we were setting up the shot and I said finally I’m not like I don’t look gigantic in the shot because you’re you’re a big frame guy as well and you’ve over the last couple years you’ve you’ve sort of transformed that. Uh and I’m interested in like what your routine has become and why you started to prioritize. Used to be a bigger guy. Yeah. Big frame but used to be a bigger guy. Well, let’s be honest. I used to be fat. Okay. Well, you know, you say it. Yeah. Hey, my all-time high was, you know, 65 north of 350. I’ll just say north of 350. I won’t say exactly how far north, but it’s traveling pretty north. Tapioca pudding north. Uh, it was way north, but anyway. Yeah. Yeah. So, at some point you decided like, hey, this has got to this is going to change. And you made some like pretty significant lifestyle changes. I’m really interested in this because uh it’s you get up super early and your routine sounds awful. And I and I’m a workout every day guy. like I’m up at 6:00 and I go to the gym every day. There’s a workout every day and I still listen to what you do and I go I’m not I’m not at that level. So just walk us through like what it is that you do. Yeah. Um you know working in healthcare and running a hospital. I was wor I worked mountain healthcare for 14 years. Great career. Enjoyed it and um awesome opportunity with lots of people. Then at some point, I’m sure because this is sort of a quasi politically based show, I served in the state legislature for a little over 13 years. And it seemed like I was always giving my best to everybody. And the people that were getting my worst were the people I love and care about the most, my wife and my kids. And so I’d come home empty tanked. And you know, you give at work, you give in the legislature, you give to your constituents, you’re always having to be nice and always trying to put your best foot forward. And some days you’re failing at that as well, but when you get home, the people who love and care about you the most got the worst from me. And and I just remember it was um you know, January 13th, 2023. I I got out of the shower and I’m looking in the mirror and I’m going, “Holy crap, that’s the best you got.” And I just said, “I’m done. I’m I’m literally done.” And I started treating my health or my weight like it was um maybe and not it’s a disease whether it be alcoholism whether it be drugs or it be whatever and just say can you go to the gym seven days in a row and so I went seven days and that first seven days and this is coming from someone who at one time had you you’d work out being athletics and everything but I’d long forgotten about that my metabolism and my appetite were no longer in sync. Was it a pretty big drop off when you left college football? Was like, okay. No, I think it was gradual because like one day we all sort of stop shooting baskets in the driveway and forget that we did that. Become lazy after a while and you just kind of do your different things. You don’t even pay attention to it. The next thing you know, you go from a, you know, this to that and it’s and you just go, “Oh, I can always get there. I can always get there.” And the next thing you know, you you’re you’ve lost it. and and I just kind of just kept going and going and you know just and I I finally found a trainer and that trainer just kind of and I just laid it out to this is what’s going on. But I think the thing that really that really dug in is I went to a physician. I went to had a physical and he said if something doesn’t change soon there’s some drastic measures that need to happen. And I remember just breaking down and sobbing. I mean it wasn’t just like a whimper. I mean, it was just a hard hit rock bottom. And my wife was sitting next to me and um she just My wife is phenomenal. We just celebrated 33 years last week and she just she just said, “We got this.” And I just started going to the gym and I got a trainer and I started looking at appetite and started doing some different things. And tomorrow, today’s Wednesday, we’re filming this. And and tomorrow was 821 days in a row I’ve been to the gym. Uh my day starts That’s super impressive. Oh, my day starts at 3:30 in the morning. I wake up at 3:30 every day and I try to get in the gym by 4 and I try to get home by 6:30. So it’s about two and and it’s not like two hours. I do 1 hour lifting, hour and a half treadmill or an hour treadmill and then I do a half hour. This is where I spoil myself. Running or walking? It’s walking. Yeah. I’m not a runner. I mean, dude, you’re I’m right now I’m 6’5 218. Yeah. None of us have the knees we had in our 20s. 218 pounds today. And I started north of 350. And I think a lot of people are amazed at that. And I think I’m just a testament about discipline and consistency. And there it doesn’t matter if you’re if you have an addiction to something you shouldn’t be addicted to or you just want to create a new habit. It’s just one day at a time. And it’s just waking up every day and just going just get me through today. And there are days that I’ve sat in the parking lot in my vehicle outside the gym going, “Oh, I don’t want to do this. I don’t Especially Tuesdays and Thursdays are leg days. Oh, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to skip leg day.” But I just, you know, and I think it’s just I’ve tried to apply that and everything. And I would say that my marriage is better. I think my relationship with my kids are better. Um, I try I would like to think that my relationships with people are better. And it’s just because when you’re that size or when you’re battling something, every day is an effort to be your best. And uh some days you do it well and some days you don’t. And you skip the cold plunge part of this. That’s the part that I just can’t I can’t get to. I do. And so I I try to cold plunge every day. And uh there’s a reservoir near it’s Bartholomew Reservoir in Hobble Creek Canyon in Springville. And uh there have been many a day where I sent text messages to a few people and they’re like, “Are you stupid? It’s only me and the ducks. It’s dark and this water is sub 40° or sub 50 degrees depending on the time of year. It’s cold. But it it, you know, it it’s mental training. Kind of lets me know you can do I would say hard stuff, but some people say you can do stupid stuff. I guess that is stupid. Yeah. It’s the Navy Seal portion of your training routine. I love the part where you mentioned though that 821 days tomorrow. Yeah. Of consecutive days going to the gym. I love streaks and I love to start them and I love to I will do a lot to not break a streak, right? Are you the same way? I think what dawned on me is this stupid app called Snapchat. Okay. You know, my kids, my youngest one, he’s he’s 18 now, but he’s got this Snapchat streak of going like thousand days or some big long thing and we go camping. He’s like, “Dad, I need I need Wi-Fi. I need Wi-Fi. I got this streak.” Yeah. And so I find myself hiking to some peak or driving back into town just so he could get five minutes of Snapchat to keep the streak going. Yeah. I think for a while it it’s a streak and I think you know I’ve got a I have a torn muscle I’m had to have surgery on at some point and I’m trying to say can I get to a thousand days? Yeah. Before I because at that point I’ve got to take 12 weeks off. Yeah. And so I’m trying to get to a thousand days before and who knows at a thousand I may just keep living with the pain. But yeah I you it becomes who you are. You have streaks and you just want to keep them going and especially if they’re good streaks of of doing good things. How bad does it throw you off on a day when a streak ends? Obviously, that one’s been going on for, you know, almost three years now. That’s a that’s a good run. But but like yesterday, I didn’t get the word for the first time in like 55. I had a 55day streak. I’ve had a 100 day streak before. And I like it took a while to walk that off. I was like, I don’t get another shot of this till it. It’s just a little thing that gets my brain going in the morning, but I’m like, I cannot believe I didn’t get that. And like it was a real bummer to have the streak end. I I think it depends on what it you know the effort you’ve made into the streak versus okay I’ll start again okay I’ll start again you know I can’t tell you how many okay start again diets I’ve had over the years you know but um now this this would be a big one if I just if I missed it and my wife I I’ll probably refer to her several times she is the she is everything that I’m not and I know when I get out of bed at 3:30 listen I’m not a you know you can we don’t have a water bed but you can feel someone moving out of I’d get up and and unfortunately I’d probably turn on the light or something and or I drop something in the dark and it startles her. But she has been really supportive of that and and it’s to a spot now where they’re if I don’t go they’re going to hold me accountable. What are you doing? Are you missing your street? So no. Plus you’ve turned into an adonist. So they she wants she’s got a vested interest. Don’t know about that but it it is it is a transformation. I want to talk about your time in the house. Um, you got there in 2009, which a really interesting time, I think, to sort of go to the state legislature because we were in the middle or coming out of the the great recession and there were some um fallout from that. We had a bunch of different issues going on there. What do you what do you remember when you think back to like your first couple years that was pre- leadership? Yeah. 2008 was, you know, I’d gotten elected 2008. I didn’t, you know, I’d served four years in the city council and ironically I just happened to be in the wrong place, the right place at the wrong time and I overheard a council member tell someone something they shouldn’t have said and I thought, you know, I’m going to run for that spot. Well, fast forward and you know, I I’m working for Did you win an open seat or what did you do? No, I took on a challenger, four-time incumbent and um who was that? It was Aaron Tilton. Okay. And I remember uh I was at the state capital on an issue that I was just not there as a lobbyist just as an industry industry person and our mayor was looking to speak to speak to him and he I guess he had said something that was not very friendly and so I just said I’m going to run for that spee that seat. I didn’t know what a delegate was. I didn’t know how to get what a what a caucus meeting was. I didn’t know any of that. and had a few people in our community, you know, Wilfrid Clyde was one of them from WW Clyde Clyde Companies and a few others that that had kind of walked me through what it meant to be. That’s a good guy to have in your corner, by the way. Yeah. What it meant to be a delegate, what it meant to be and and and so I went to convention and I won at convention and and this was back that was the only way. That was the only way. There’s no no signatures or anything. So, it’s the delegates. You could go to a primary, but there were no signatures. Exactly. And I won by two votes. And so I I came in and you know and it was interesting because Greg Hughes who was a speaker later when I served in leadership with him he and I were not friends at all. Interesting story maybe later but uh I came in that first session and we were $750 million upside down our budget. This was when 2008 was happening and I’m going to say our state budget was probably like 15 to 16 billion back then. It’s, you know, more than double that now. It was a lot. Yeah. Right. And I remember Paul Ray looked at me and he says, “Representative,” and Paul Ray had been there for a long time at that point. And he said, “This is going to be your easiest session because the word is no. No. Anybody wants something? No. Easy session.” Well, you know, learning where the bathroom is, learning where the Coke machines are, learning the very critical things of of being a legislator. Those are the two most important. Got any Where’s the caffeine and where where’s the rest? don’t know where to get rid of it. But it I remember that session being very very difficult and you’re realizing the needs the needs not just the wants but how do you fund the needs of the state and when you’re that have such a big budget deficit and very very tough. So yeah. Um so you get through the first couple of years how long until you made your way into leadership? Uh, I’d served six years and um I I remember um running for leadership and it’s an interesting it’s an interesting how that works and I don’t know that many people know but you know when you’re elected in leadership you’re elected by your peers and it’s the only private vote that you have. every other vote, whether it be committee, whether it be obviously on the floor, it is it’s public and everyone knows how you vote. But when you vote for leadership and when you vote in the House, you know, there are 63 members at that time, you in the Republican in the Republican caucus, right? they vote for leadership and I ran for leadership and Becky Lockheart was the speaker at that time and I ran against Greg Hughes um for the majority whip and I lost by one vote and I remember standing up and you’re calling all these different people. You’re working and every day there’s a new phone call and if you remember you’re getting these calls and you have to decide by two different people that you like. Yeah. You know, I really like you Marty. I really like you Francis. But you got to choose one. You can’t choose both. And and I always said, if you can’t run for leadership and lose, don’t run because there’s a good chance you’re going to lose. And the way you lose a leadership vote says more about you than anything about the way you win. And I remember Val Peterson, who’s currently still serving, he was my poll watcher. You go in and they take all the ballots. They go in in the secret room or not secret room, they go into a private room and they’re counting the votes up and who gets what? And that particular time you needed 31 votes to win. So it’s half plus one. And he goes, “Francis, you had 30 votes. Greg Hughes had 25. So there’s only six votes in the can.” He goes, “Oh, we got this for sure. We’re going to get this.” And so they just keep pulling them out. And the last six in a row went Greg Hughes. So he wins 3130. And it was very This is why you don’t talk to the ball before it’s in the hole. Ex. You just don’t get me. Don’t get me. Five more minutes and karma would have been on. You know what? And what turned out with that loss, I think it really showed Greg Hughes that there was a vitaucus and he needed to do some work. And um he and I were not friends. He was, if you remember when I said I very first got elected, um I beat one of his friends, Aaron Tilton. And there were some feelings about who’s this new guy just beat my friend, blah blah blah. And I was perceived to be a little bit more moderate than than the conservative caucus. And so that it caused some potential issues there. He and I wind up becoming probably two very very good allies and two very very good friends because of that. We saw that we saw the world a little bit differently but we were able to come together and become really good friends. And so from an outsider or somewhat outsider a guy who wasn’t in the house watching you um in your time in the house because that’s about the time I started at the chamber. It’s about the time you got to the house and you were there through my time in the governor’s office. Um, including some of your time as in leadership as as the majority leader. I always found you to be like super effective but like pragmatic in the sense like this guy’s got conservative principles to him but also knows how to get a get something done and b like you know stand on principle but also get a deal done. Is that um how you would talk about yourself in your time in the legislature in the leadership spot or how would you u rate my assessment? I guess I I think for me um it’s I think it’s important when you shake someone’s hand. We live in a latigious world today where a handshake doesn’t mean a lot. It’s got to be signed and you got to have a lawyer review the contract or whatever. I think it’s important that when you shake your hand, someone’s hand, you say you’re going to do something, you just do it. And if for some reason you can’t do it, you go back to them and you say, “This is why. Yes, I’m going to vote on this issue. I support this issue.” And if for some reason changes or you get some piece of information you didn’t know, the ability to go back and tell them, “This is what I’m hearing. Tell me where I’m wrong.” That doesn’t always happen. And um I really prided myself of just being forthright and honest with people. And sometimes that wasn’t always what people wanted to hear, but I tried to never be rude about it. I just tried to be matter of fact and this is the way I see it. Um or this is my experience. But I would also say I never went into an issue predetermined like I knew everything. I always allow myself the opportunity to be taught. Um we are a lay legislature. There are so many great men and women, I don’t care what party you’re in, that are just trying to represent the communities that they’ve been elected to represent. And sometimes that community is not the same as your community. And so I would always allow people the opportunity to represent their communities. And you know, and if I could help them get a win, great, as long as that didn’t maybe pass what my principles were. And so I think the importance of just working together, trying to be honest with people and doing doing the hard work, that’s probably what makes the biggest difference. Um, I believe in pulling for the underdog, those folks who are maybe a little bit disenfranchised, per se, and we do have populations in the state of Utah that are like that or communities that are like that. And so where you can try to help them be successful as well. And I I going back to that leadership of wanting everyone to be the best that they can be. You got elected because your community believed in you. How can I let you be successful in representing your community, but maintaining that we have the state of Utah which is the number one winner. So though you may be from Magna or I’m from Mapleton or you’re from Salt Lake or you’re from Logan, uh those individual communities are all super important, but what has to be most successful is the state of Utah. And so sometimes blending all of that together is is hard. You know, I think I saw you your first golden episode, which by the way, let me say you open up your podcast, you’re a brand new coach, got a brand new team going. You go down, you score touchdown. Boom. First drive. Who’s the guest? Abby was great. First drive, she nails it, right? Then you get the ball the second time, you got me. And now we’re hopefully you don’t throw an interception or f metriculating the ball down the field. But in in that in that first P, she’s she mentioned, you know, you’ve got 75 members in the House and you’ve got 29 members in the Senate. And some people would say it’s like, you know, leading bulls on 29, then you’ve got hurting cats in the House. There just so many different people. And so to be able to bring, you know, the speaker has to somehow bring this all together. You’ve got a minority leader, you’ve got a majority leader, which in Utah is a super majority. You know, I think I had 62 or 63 members. Being able to bring that many people and that many different interests and that many different communities, moderate, ultra-conservative, you know, maybe a little bit left-leaning to benefit the state of Utah. That’s that’s tough. Um, before I move on past your time in the house, just I wonder if you could give us a quick example of the one thing that you were there that you accomplished that you’re really proud of, big or small, and maybe the one thing that you wish you’d been able to get done, big or small. I think one of the thing, one of the it was interesting because each speaker I served with, Becky Lockheart, first female speaker, genius, strong, powerful woman. I served with Greg Hughes and I served with Brad Wilson. And I can tell you qualities of each one of those people that I love the most. And you know, I think when just starting with something that was uh pretty painful uh onetoone devices, Becky Lockheart said, “Hey Francis, I was chair of education committee at the time.” She said, “I think every kid in the state of Utah needs a computer, laptop, Chromebook, a onetoone device. This is the way of the future. This is the way kids are went are going to learn. Man, you thought I was introducing Russian trigonometry to the classroom. And now today, can you imagine kids not having a device? Yeah. To do a report, to do research, to do whatever. Um, that was one. And I think it had$und00 million price tag. And the schools were against it. You had certain parent interest groups saying, “Our parents, our kids are going to be subjected to the the evils of the internet.” And that was a big deal. And um that was one that we ultimately got it done, but it was a year or so later, but I remember I took a lot of arrows that year. I I think um a big one that that is still playing out and I think it’s still happening is Greg Hughes gave me the task of creating the Utah Inland Port and how we move things back and forth. And interesting in my current job, the world’s most misunderstood policy, by the way. Yeah, the the Emlin Port. Um I cannot I won’t even tell you the battle scars that came from that one. But just two weeks ago, I was just in Cedar City in my current role visiting the hospital there and some community leaders and they were talking about the benefits of being able to get product shipped out of the state of Utah and opening up a satellite inland port location in Cedar City and what that’s me meant to the community, the business community in Iron County. That was almost eight years ago. And so I looked at that going I may have had something to do with that. Didn’t really bring it up but it was nice to hear that that happened. Um lots of different issues that I had an opportunity to participate in and you know there are lots of things that I was able to support and vote on that other people pioneered that were great. And so it’s to I think to remember bill numbers that’s that’s far gone from my mind but issues I think I would say the inland port was one of them. um Utah tax reform. Brad Wilson gave me that glorious little bill to be able to travel up and down the state and he’s always talking about taxes. That’s a a lightly charged issue. So yeah, the beauty of being in the legislature, even in leadership, is that even there a turd rolls downhill and sometimes you get an assignment that you probably didn’t really want, but you’re going to go carry the water on it. At one point there was a big piece of cellophane wrapped um elephant dung and that was sort of the gift here. I’m when when the speaker would walk in with this in their hand, you’re like, “Okay, who’s about to get that?” Thank goodness for the cellophane. Right. So, you mentioned your role now with the hospital association. Um, you’ve been in in healthcare and been healthcare administration for most of your career. Um, what is it that most policy makers still don’t understand about hospitals that you wish they just had as a baseline level of okay, I get that now? Oh, I think hospitals are 247 365. There are a lot of mandates and regulations that are put on hospitals that they have to do certain things irregardless of people’s ability to pay, irregardless of what happens that you have to provide those services. I think the thing right now is that healthc care is expensive and I I wish it was not as expensive as it is. I think most policy makers don’t appreciate that when you think about the cost of health care, there are many many factors that go in and hospitals are just one portion of that. Hospitals are a business that they have to continue to run. No money, no mission. They have to be able to provide an opportunity to continue to serve people because of the mandates that are put upon them. There’s not a hospital out there that I know of and that I’ve had the opportunity to visit. There are 65 in the state of Utah. And as I visit them, there’s not one hospital that doesn’t have some sort of a cost savings measure that they’re having to put into place. And whether that be looking at services provided, we’ve got to cut services or we need to streamline staffing or we need to streamline cost supplies. Whatever it is, there are lots of different hospitals cannot be the only reason that healthcare costs so much. You can look at health insurance companies, you look at pharma, you look at supplies, device manufacturers, lots of people are out there and immediately people want to say, well, you make too much money, so we’re going to cut you. That’s not the case. And so most hospitals are working on singledigit margins. We’re very fortunate that we haven’t had a rural hospital closed in the state of Utah. And that’s not the case across this country. There are rural hospitals that are closing. And when you want to talk about business and you want to talk about recruitment of influx of businesses, our health care in the state of Utah has been very strong for a lot of years. If I’m wanting to relocate a company headquarters, a couple of the first things that I look at as a company, what is the education system? Are my employees, their children going to be able to get a good education? And what does healthcare look like? You want to bolster rural Utah in the world where we live with with technology? I no longer have to be in a big boom in metropolis. I can bring my small company of 50 to 100 people to rural Utah because of technology. But what does that health care system look like? Does that hospital do they have a hospital? Can I have a baby, an emergency appendecttomy? Can I have these different things that need to be happening? So, I think uh the thing I would want most lawmakers to look at are most policy makers as I’m a recovering one now. Um is to understand that the cost of health care isn’t solely at the hospital’s feet. There’s a collective effort needs to be looked at. Are you enjoying the job? Love it. uh lots of so many you know there are 8 million caregivers in the United States that work in hospitals. In Utah we have about 150,000 175,000 people that are working directly within hospitals part-time full-time PRN. Um so many people wake up every day and try to make a difference in the lives and and we see people at their worst. No one wakes up in the morning goes I’m so excited to go to the hospital today. I think of only one person. She’s 9 months pregnant and she wants that beast out. She’s the only one happy to go to the hospital. Everyone else is not. We see people at their worst. An emergency room means just that, an emergency room or even when you go to an outpatient imaging, to get an MRI or a CT. There’s a lot of apprehension. It’s not normal to put radiation in someone’s body. and we’re there to confirm unfortunately what a doctor may think is there or hopefully that test comes back negative and you don’t have cancer or you don’t have a torn ACL or you don’t you know and so we see people at their worst when they come in. No one’s going to come into the hospital excited unless she’s hopefully going to get this new little 8 pound baby girl or 4 pound baby boy or whatever it’s going to be. Right. And those are the people that are happy but no one else is happy to be there. Yeah. Um, almost out of time, so I want to finish with a speed round. Are you up for that? Let’s try it. Uh, all right. We mentioned that you played college football that you’re a former football player who has become a golfer. We didn’t get much into that. Um, what’s your handicap? And are you honest about it? I am honest about it. I have a son who’s a four and a son who’s a one and I always told them when you break 80 for the first time, I want to know that I can trust you. Or if you break 70, I want to know I can trust you. So, I’m a 14 and a half. I went last night with my two sons and uh we were able to play shot 43 and so that put seven over. Seven times two is 14. That’s about where I’m at. Well, we’re in the range where we could play together. So, uh what’s the last thing you read that actually changed the way you think? A levity. There’s a book on levity and it’s levity at work. And I think many people think that if you laugh at work, you’re somehow not taking your job serious. And I think uh there needs to be more levity in the workplace, more levity in life. We are too serious. Everything has a political cause. Everything has a political bent or it’s me versus you. We need to laugh more and not take ourselves so serious. Who’s the most underrated person you’ve ever worked with and why? Robert Spinlo. Uh Robert Spinlo. He is chief economist for Zans Bank. Quiet, wicked smart, the dude. And and he is funny actually too. So um I enjoy everything about Robert Smith. Love Spendy. Uh, if you could go back and spend one day shadowing any leader in history, who would it be? Oh my gosh. Honestly, I I think about there there’s the Ronald Reagan type, you know, and this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with someone who was totally out of his realm when it came to politics. He was an actor, but he was a pragmatist and everything was very pragmatic and he just looked at it black and white. Does this make sense? Does it not make sense? And he just kind of called BS and he just went about doing what’s best for the people he represented. And there are lots of different people I could probably say, but I think when I just this is a political show per se, I like him because he was not raised as a politician and he was just and he wound up becoming someone who came into office not thinking people weren’t thinking that he was going to be a great politician but wound up being a very good one. Former sports cer. Yes. And a great communicator. Um, okay. One more and then I want to get to a wrap-up question. Uh, when it’s time for your brain to check out for the night, what’s your go-to app? I’m not a big social media guy at all. And I I don’t I think I’ve posted eight times in the last four years, including your burner accounts, everything. Eight times. And And it’s really has to do with something about my wife or celebrating a walk and I see a sunset or something. Um, but I really don’t I I’ve been trying to go 45 minutes an hour of just no screen time and uh and going off. I think if I had a weakness, what I would go to is not an app. It’s one or two episodes of Everyone Loves Raymond. Uh, one of the funniest sitcoms of all time. Everyone Loves Raymond. If you don’t watch it, give it a try. It’s It’s funny. Best character on Raymond. Uh, Raymond. Raymond. Okay, fair enough. Um, all right. I’ll get you out of here on this. If you could go back in time and give teenage, pick any time, teenage Francis Gibson some advice, what would you give him? Um, have fun, enjoy the ride. Um, trust people and realize that there is always somebody out there who’s willing to take a chance on you. But then when you become the old Francis Gibson, open the doors for others. And I think that’s what I spend the most time on is trying to help benefit the people who help gave me a chance along the way. That whole pay it forward, it’s religion for me. Welcome back to back channel. In our final segment, we remind you you can subscribe to the audio version of our show wherever you get your podcast. You can find us also in a video format on YouTube. You can follow us on social media like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok. We’re joined in our final segment by the producer of our show, Shalice Obé. I thought that was a really interesting discussion with Francis right off the bat. I didn’t know any of that Lavel Edwards stuff and I think that was really cool. I loved it. I always he complimented my shoes for one thing. So, we’re friends forever, but he he’s inspiring and I think it’s always amazing to get to know people behind the scenes. Like people are rad and it’s so cool to hear the experience that led them to where they are. Yeah. I love what he said about uh as a leader, it’s his job to help people who work for him get ready for their next job. Yeah. And I was really immediately I thought, but not chalice. We want chalice to stay here. But why wouldn’t you want to work for We would like to have you in position to go somewhere else, but we’d like you to choose to stay here. Um, okay. We’re going to we’re playing around with this third segment of the show, this final segment, but we’re t talking about this at the moment as more offscript. There just a couple random things that I think would be interesting to discuss. How closely are you paying attention to the mayoral race in Los Angeles, California? Because I think it’s fascinating. Yeah. So you kind of put me on to this race and I went back and watched a lot of Tik Tok and a lot of interviews based on So this is the incumbent is Karen Bass. Um you know her primarily because she sort of has been the mayor during the Palisades Palisades fire which is what led her challenger to get in the race and that’s Spencer Pratt. People our age I’m probably a little old to know this but I do know this just because I’ve looked into it. Uh Spencer Pratt was on the show The Hills, which was kind of the spin-off of Laguna Beach. It was all in that MTV sort of pseudo reality TV um genre. And I got to tell you, um I find him to be incredibly effective in the way he’s going about this. I would almost go so far as to say this is the new model for running a political campaign. Um, it’s got a little taste of the the MAGA stuff because he he’s not above calling names. Like he doesn’t refer to her as Karen Bass. He refers to her as Karen Basura, which is of course Spanish for garbage. Um, but he also like just comes with the facts like here’s what they’ve done wrong. Here’s what they’ve done wrong. And if you’re running against an incumbent, I think that’s so effective. Tell me what you thought about it, what you’ve seen. I’m not sure I’m the biggest fan of like the contentious like name calling and all the things, but definitely what he’s saying is true and he presents himself very well on camera and he knows his facts and he knows what he wants to do. So yeah, definitely has been effective in in his communications so far. Uh there there was a Tik Tok uh or there was a video that I just saw yesterday. So I presume it was released yesterday and it’s it looks like it’s primarily AI generated and it’s him like as a superhero coming to take on the incumbent Democrat political establishment in California who are just laughing at the people. And I what an what an effective way to do that. But even like the Tik Toks and stuff he’s doing where he’s just sort of saying hey look this is the Palisades. This is where I lived. It’s been over a year since this happened and they’re not letting us do anything to repair it. this is on the people in power and we’ve got to fix this. I just think it’s a winning message. Anytime you’re challenging an incumbent and you can just sort of throw bombs and say this is your failure. This is your failure. This is your failure. I I just I think he’s going to win. Like I think he’s I I guess I wouldn’t go so far as say I think he’s going to win. I don’t know the race well enough yet. I think he’s got a really good chance to win. He does have a good chance. He’s presenting himself as a man of the people, right? He’s living in a trailer. He’s speaking Spanish. He’s out there and yeah, I think it’s been effective. And I think the Tik Tok stuff is is still a little bit of the wild west when it comes to campaigns. Like the Trump campaign used it very well during the last presidential election. It’ll be interesting to see because especially like look, you’re a Republican in his case running in a heavily Democrat area like Democrats, it’s basically one party rule there. Um so what can you do to combat that? um clearly you can point out what they’re doing wrong and at some point it get in this case you know you can make the argument and he certainly is that it’s getting so bad you can’t even ignore it even if you’re inclined to say that’s the party I vote with. Um so can sort of like be like hey this goes beyond party. Um the second thing is like if you’re trying to get Democrats, um one thing that can kind of maybe combat where they’re entrenched is you’ve got a reality TV guy that kind of appeals to some people who are sort of like maybe not generally tuned into politics and might just reflexively vote Democrat and then like he’s kind of funny and kind of entertaining. Yeah. And I think he can activate a Republican base there. So yeah, there’s a huge number of people who are undecided. Yeah. I think he said it’s something like 40% undecided. he’s put out polling or he’s shown polling that says, “Hey, we’re neck andneck with 40% undecided. I’m gonna go get that 40%.” Right? And it’ll be interesting to see how he has to as as the polls show what the race looks like, how he calibrates that. But anyway, if you haven’t watched it, Spencer Pratt’s stuff is is really interesting to watch. I think it outside of, you know, stuff that’s going on here in Utah, I think it’s the race that I’m most interested in just watching because I I just I think that that, you know, even the times I’ve run political campaigns like 2012, 2016, 2020, it was still like we’re buying TV time and we’re putting TV commercials on and they’re they’re they’re sort of formulaic. You try to do them better and a little bit fresh. And I ju I just think we’ve kind of broken away from that mold and now uh things like Tik Tok or Instagram reels or even YouTube let you talk to constituents in such an interesting way. Yeah. Just directly like what are the new campaign coms like here’s my life. Here I am as a person and it takes a little bit of crazy to go do it. Right. It takes just a little bit of like because I think the safe playbook is oh I’m going to do the political ad. I’ll go on the news. Right. I’m going to do the political ad or or like even the attack ad which we don’t get a lot of in Utah traditionally at least not a candidate um pushing an attack ad. So anyway, I think that’s a really interesting race to watch. Uh I I I want to shift to the our final topic today which is was all started by a text message that came from your seventh grade son. Yeah. So on Sunday afternoon, my 13-year-old son texted me, “You should buy me some smelling salts.” And my famili familiarity with smelling salts is like historical fiction. where like if your daughter elopes then you faint and they bring you back with smelling salt. Very Victorian look at it. Yes. Like if you’re laced too close or too tightly into your stays then you faint and they bring you back with smelling salts. Um so I had no idea that it was like a new powerlifting or like football thing where athletes use them. And I guess to play youth lacrosse now you need smelling salts. I guess. So, we asked around the office because we’ve got about, you know, 10 people here. Yeah. Including some former athletes like that that you would think, oh, maybe they’ve had some experience with. Nobody nobody had ever had smelling salts. And I have seen people, you know, with the little capsule, some of them are little capsules you kind of crack and then you can smell and you can see it sort of wakes people up. Uh, but we decided that since nobody’s ever tried them that we would try them. And thanks to the miracle of Amazon, we got some here on Monday’s notice. We did not get the little capsules though, right? This is like This is like a jar. Okay. We’re We’re gonna try like authentic to the Victorian times. I’m nervous to try. I don’t know. Do you want me to open it so it doesn’t make your hands smell? I opened the C. What if it’s the opposite effect? It makes me faint when I Then we’ll have to catch you faint this way and I’ll try to make a motion there. Okay. These are smelling salts. You can tell it’s it’s like little pellets inside of it. Um, we opened it up just to break the seal a minute ago and quickly closed it because we didn’t want to ruin the effect. I don’t know how this works out for the people listening to the show, but for the people uh should you scream or something when you smell it? Uh, so we’re taking a little bit of a risk here. And I think you just open it up and give it a little like how Oh my goodness. Is it Is it strong? That’s different than I expected it to be. Was it really? Yeah. That’ll wake you up though. Ew. It like it reminds me of cleaning the oven with ammonia. Like it just smells like ammonia. Yeah. It’s like a really really strong ammonia smell. But yeah, that’ll wake you up. Yeah. Should I give it to my son? That’s the vote. Should I give it to him or not? Yeah. I’d probably like make sure he inhales it. Like it says right there for inhalation use only. Like and I think that means to smell it, not to actually snort it. You might want to just clarify that for before it gets to it. So not good for you if you smell it too often. things we should have researched before we bought it and opened it and and sniffed it. All right, smelling salts. Uh, I give it a four out of five. Would maybe recommend depending on your situation. I It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of cleaning with ammonia. Yeah. Well, we’ll see how much more productive we are for the rest of the day because maybe it like really woke us up. I I’ll I’ll try it again after lunch when I get that like that fade after lunch just to see if that wakes you up. Uh, all right. That’s it for us today. Uh, thanks for watching. back channel back next week with another episode. Shal, thanks so much. Thank you.