Building Unbreakable Brands

Meghan Lynch (00:00):
We're rolling up our sleeves today on Building Unbreakable Brands with two generational leaders who are literally building their legacy, one project, one relationship, and one community at a time. Brothers, Matt and Nathan Tuckey of the Tuckey Companies are going to share how they balance honoring the values of their grandfather. With evolving to meet today's workforce challenges. We talk about what it means to be stewards of a multi-entity, family business, how place matters more than ever, and why sibling partnerships work best with a dose of humility and humor. Plus, Henry joins us as the voice of the next generation with some great questions about what the Tuckey Companies build and whether brothers ever fight all this and more. Coming up on this episode of Building Unbreakable Brands. Welcome to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast where we talk to business leaders with a generational mindset. I'm Meghan Lynch. I'm an advisor to family businesses and founder of Six-Point, a brand strategy agency that helps generational brands honor their past while evolving for the future. We have two guests with us here today on Building Unbreakable Brands Brothers, Matt and Nathan Tuckey. Matt is the business development director for the Tuckey Companies, and Nathan serves as corporate systems director. So welcome Matt and Nathan. So glad to have you guys on the show.

Matt Tuckey (01:31):
Thanks, Meghan. We're excited to be here. We've been looking forward to this.

Meghan Lynch (01:35):
So I was hoping that you guys could start us off by just telling us a little bit about Tuckey Companies, about the history and kind of what you guys do and how you impact your community.

Matt Tuckey (01:45):
Sure. I'll answer broad stroke and Nathan can color in the details. So third generation family business, Tuckey Mechanical Services started with my grandfather and then my father started Tuckey Metal Fabricators and Tuckey Restoration. So all three of those businesses are in the construction trades and Nathan and I are the third generation.

Nathan Tuckey (02:08):
Yeah, the only detail I guess I'd color in there is that, so Matt mentioned our three primary operating entities in construction and manufacturing. We do have a couple other organizations, businesses that run alongside those. One is a property developer. We develop and then manage properties locally here in South Central Pennsylvania. Also another that's in small retail as well, so there's some good diversity across the organization. Our dad says that it's primarily because he can't pay attention to any one thing for a very long time. He always needs something new.

Meghan Lynch (02:45):
Yes. That is the hallmark of an entrepreneur and that short attention span that leads to growth and innovation, so that sounds great. I'm curious with all of these aspects, it sounds like you guys are pretty interwoven within the fabric of your local community, whether it's helping businesses grow and actually constructing buildings or looking at opportunities for growth locally. Has that been also a driving force of where and how you get involved?

Matt Tuckey (03:23):
Yeah. Nathan has some great things to say in terms of just place and what that means for a business, but just looking back for a second, I often say that when my grandfather started mechanical services, he was very relational. He wasn't the guy to scale businesses. I mean, my dad was really, really that person, but one of the motivations that my grandfather had was, I mean, he genuinely just wanted to serve his neighbors well. He wanted to be able to show up at the grocery store and say, Hey, you got to know he call in January and we showed up and took care of you. And so whether it's just serving your neighbors well or serving on local boards, I mean that has always been super important to everyone in all three generations. But the roots of that, the DNA of that really started with my grandfather.

Nathan Tuckey (04:08):
Yeah, I think what Matt maybe is referring to there is I gave a talk at a chamber event last year that I don't remember entirely right now, but the gist of it was tied to what you're asking about the difference between place and community. We are definitely very locally rooted here in South Central Pennsylvania, more specifically in Cumberland County, more specifically in Carlisle. It's where our family is from. It's where we live. A lot of organizations emphasize community, community involvement, which is important of course. I think in 2024 though community has evolved and separated from geographic place. Like in 1924, community meant geographic place, geography. But now, I mean we have online communities, we have Facebook communities, we have whatever it might be, community is more about people who might agree with us on everything or every opinion that we have. And so that's why we like to really differentiate place. Place is important I think for that generational success for local business places where we bump up against people who maybe don't agree with us on certain things, places where we can invest physically, tangibly, and see the results of that. Really where relationships grow I think is in place more so than community as it's understood in 2024 at least. So yes, we're very much rooted in place, I'd say, of South central Pennsylvania, and I think that's been key to our success so far and our future.

Meghan Lynch (05:43):
I love that distinction between place and community. And also in a way, when you were talking, I was expecting you to say the opposite of like, oh, so we're talking more about community, but I love this doubling down on place and the complexity and creative problem solving that's involved when you are committed to an actual location. Because sometimes it almost makes things more difficult, like you said, whether it's people not agreeing with you or whether it's just the complexity that comes with, let's say, doing business in a place where like, okay, well now we need local talent versus this large marketplace of we can hire from anywhere or we can do business anywhere, but really being committed to a place, there's almost some guardrails that it puts on you that then almost make you be more creative about how you stay true to that, right?

Nathan Tuckey (06:49):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is probably, our industry probably lends itself to this mentality too. I mean, we're in the construction trades and manufacturing, so if you need a plumber, he needs to be close by, right, necessarily. So we probably have a bent towards this idea anyway, but I think there's real value in it. I mean, in referencing our faith. I mean, we also definitely believe that God designed us for place, physical place to flourish in a place. So yeah, it's interesting to think about.

Meghan Lynch (07:20):
Yeah, yeah, that's great. As you talk about some of the positives, negatives of doing business in this generational mindset, you guys are now generation three of the Tuckey Companies and it's hard enough to work with parents. That's often conversations that I have with clients and family businesses or on the podcast, but working with siblings adds even another dimension. I'm curious how you guys have navigated that. How have you decided division of labor or how you work together? Has that been easy or a struggle

Nathan Tuckey (08:02):
Arm wrestling?

Matt Tuckey (08:02):
Mostly week to week, I think. Yeah, I'll be interested to hear Nathan's answer on that, but as far as siblings working together, I mean a couple things. So one is we're 15 years apart, so that's a little bit different than somebody who's only a year or two apart. There was never really sibling rivalry or a lot of the issue, so we kind of grew up in different times, and so we've always had a pretty good relationship. And then just who we are as people and our skill sets are very different and really compliment each other. So I have a tremendous respect for what Nathan brings. I know I cannot do what Nathan brings, and so there's a nice blend and balance. I think that's also couched in with a nice dose of humility. We disagree certainly, but I think there's just a good humility there to be able to say, I just respect this person's opinion, and I think we can land at different places sometimes, but be unified in

Nathan Tuckey (09:04):
That. Yeah, I would echo everything that Matt said there for sure. And I know our dad often says we work alongside him, so he has opportunity to provide this running commentary. So he often says that one reason why he thinks we do work well together is because we're very different people and that's what he'll say. They're very different people, and in many ways, obviously we share some foundational attributes and beliefs that are necessary to work together with someone at this level, but we do have different personalities. I think that helps us out. Like Matt said, I know he brings certain things to the table that I can't, he does way better than me, and frankly, I wouldn't want to do anyway. So that's helpful, obviously.

Meghan Lynch (09:48):
What are some examples of places where it's really clear division of labor of like, oh yeah, that's definitely a Matt thing, versus, oh, that's definitely a Nathan thing.

Nathan Tuckey (10:00):
It's almost in that you introduce us with our titles. You can tell it right there. Matt's the business development director. Matt is the people person. He wants to be out there. He enjoys making connections. He's very relational. I mean, that's a value foundationally to both of us, but his personality lends itself more that way. Networking, problem solving for the customer, all of that kind of stuff. I'm more systems driven. My title is corporate systems director. There you go. I'm more systems driven. I mean, I enjoy working alongside people, but I'd kind of rather sit at my desk and build a system that is just going to work, right, press play, and watch the system work. I mean, we could talk about practical examples of that, but even in the job titles, I think that's evident. Would you say that?

Matt Tuckey (10:46):
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, just practical example that comes to mind is just policy books. Nathan would love to dive in and has done, created and recreated our policy book and the legal aspect of that and HR and just putting that together, sitting down and plowing through a policy book beginning, and I can't think of something I just wouldn't want to do, but I would love to think about the implications of that. What does that really mean to the people and to our team? And so having those conversations together hopefully creates the best kind of HR policies.

Meghan Lynch (11:26):
Yeah, yeah, that's a great example. And I think one where you can easily see how the compliment or maybe some of the disagreements that come up become very positive creative tension, not destructive tension if you are kind of coming into it with that foundational respect of what that other side of the business or the team that the other person represents.

Nathan Tuckey (11:54):
Yes, that's huge. I know you're not necessarily asking directly about this right now, but I'll take the opportunity to comment because what you're saying, I'm shaking my head. This is one unique thing I think, and one thing that I really appreciate about working with Matt, because we do have disagreements, especially coming from different personalities, whatever. One difference though is that I never really question his motive. And when you're dealing with others, even if you have a really close working relationship with someone, that there's real trust there that's different than working alongside a sibling that you have a trust, a sibling trust relationship with. He might frustrate me in a given conversation, but I don't question his motive, which is really just such a blessing. I often am thankful for that because not many people have that in their work life, which is huge.

Meghan Lynch (12:47):
Yeah. You brought up kind of the HR handbook. Have you guys had to put in policies in place or structures or systems to enable this relationship to flourish and grow in this way? Or have you been able to do it organically, kind of figuring it out as you go?

Nathan Tuckey (13:10):
I don't know, Matt, what you would say. We don't have any policy or structure that I can think of that kind of contemplates our relationship specifically. We definitely have policies in our policy book about employment of relatives and disclosure of that and reporting relationships. So I mean, even we fall in line there. Neither of us reports to the other, at least in this moment in time. So there's some clarity there.

Matt Tuckey (13:38):
A lot of it, I think probably is just been organic though. It's just sort of been this person's the better receiver, this person's the better linebacker, and so those responsibilities have just kind of fallen into place.

Meghan Lynch (13:50):
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Have you both worked in the Tuckey Companies your entire career?

Nathan Tuckey (13:57):
I've had some other jobs in the past, like high school, but since graduating college, yes, I've been here since college graduation.

Meghan Lynch (14:08):
Do you have a sense of the pros and cons of that, of knowing the business that well and staying with it for that long?

Nathan Tuckey (14:17):
Oh, yeah. In fact, I'd be interested. I want to listen to a lot of your other episodes that I haven't listened to yet to see if other people could speak to this at all, because I'm hoping I'm not the only one in this scenario. But yeah, there's a lot of questioning. Well, there are pros and cons. So the pro is that, I mean, I've been here for a long time now, and then I'm heavily invested. I've appreciated seeing even kind of the change of guard as longtime employees. I mean, we've had employees work for us for 50 years when I started here. Were still working here, so I got to know them and hear their stories to get a better sense of where we've come from, even outside of just my family employees who've worked here for that long. That's huge. I'm glad I had that experience early on in my career that I wouldn't have had if I didn't work here.

(15:08):
And then to see that change and just great historical knowledge, there's lots of pros credibility that comes with that. I'm here, I've been here, I'm sticking around trust with the team. Yeah, tons of cons though, or question marks at least. Should I have done something else beforehand? You hear a lot of stories of people who maybe come from a family business, go to college, work somewhere else for a while, come back and are better positioned to contribute them because they've worked somewhere else. What did I miss? What other opportunity was out there or what other experience was out there that I should have gotten, but I didn't get because did I just choose the safe thing? Was this some kind of safe cushy option that I chose for myself intentionally or unintentionally? Sure. I could talk about insecurities all episode if you want, but those are real, certainly. Yes. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Matt Tuckey (16:05):
My story's just almost the opposite of that. So I started my career, I won't go into the details, but did four or five years of other things, not the family business. And then I got married and thought, well, I guess the family business is the sensible thing to do. And so moved back into the area. I was on the west coast at the time and came into the family business and spent about three years in the business and thought, no, this is just not, my story is something different. And so then ended up exiting and doing about six or seven years of other things, mostly in the nonprofit sector. And then Nathan was involved by that point and ended up coming back. Now I've been back here just over 10 years, so kind of been in and out bobbing and weaving a little bit as far as that goes. And probably my answers to what are the pros and cons would just be mirror Nathan's in that I do very much appreciate the fact that I've been other places and lived other places and been on different sides of the table, even in the for-profit nonprofit worlds. But at the same time, there's been the in and outs and a little bit of feeling of like, oh, is Matt really here now for the long term or is he just looking for the next thing? So

Meghan Lynch (17:23):
Yeah, I think it's such a natural thing, especially once you get to the second and third generation or beyond of that question of which way is the right way to do it. And it sounds like you guys are showing that there is no right or perfect way. There's just kind of the way that you are doing it and that regardless of which path you choose, there's always going to be that kind of not travel question of what else could I do or see or what should I have done? But yeah, has there been any family conversation about that or going forward, I don't know if you guys have kids that are thinking about coming into the business or that you would hope would come into the business or what you would want for them?

Matt Tuckey (18:14):
My kids are a little bit older than Nathan's, but I mean, we try to, that option's there, that opportunity would be there if they wanted it. But quite honestly, my dad never put pressure on me and even the bobbing and weaving kind of in and out when I was doing different things, he was fully supportive of those choices. And so I want to model the same things for my kids, quite honestly, if there's a leaning in that. But probably at least for us, my wife and I as parents, we probably lean more towards more hands off and no pressure to, whereas sometimes they might be like, I don't know, do I have an opportunity to go there? But we really want to be conscious of them not feeling like that's the expectation, because even if it doesn't come from parents, sometimes I think it comes from the community and other people. So whereas I don't feel like my dad or my parents ever put that pressure on us, there certainly is the perception that like, oh, well that's obviously what you do. So anyway, that was a long way to get to. I am not sure what my kids will do.

Meghan Lynch (19:23):
Do you think that that pressure, that community pressure is exacerbated with the last name on the door?

Matt Tuckey (19:33):
Yeah, for sure. And to the earlier point, just about place, I mean, we do have deep roots here in this community. And so yeah, the names on the door, the names on the trucks in town, people know what projects that we've helped with. And as Nathan and I are involved, just even in community things, I think that's highlighted as far as an expectation. Well, yeah, of course. Who's next?

Nathan Tuckey (20:04):
Yeah, I would echo what Matt is saying there. And even though my kids are younger, my oldest just turned 10. Yeah, I mean we think ahead to that. I would say our general approach is to just fold. Everything is open handedly as we can. Certainly thankful for the opportunities that we've been given, not taking them for granted, wanting to be good stewards of them doing what makes sense now in the moment, wanting our kids to explore the different interests and talents that God has given them. And if that looks like involvement with the Tuckey Companies in the future, then great. And if that looks like non-involvement with the Tuckey Companies in the future, that's fine as well. I don't think either Matt or I or really anyone in our family or organization feels this deep weight to keep the organization running at all costs because the name must live on. I don't think it's about that at all really. If it makes sense, if the organization, if our our team is in a position to serve our community, well then we will keep doing that so long as God has allowed us to do that. And if that changes, ultimately our identity isn't rooted in the business, ultimately our identity is not rooted in the business. And that's a blessing right there.

Matt Tuckey (21:32):
And the other thing as you were talking, Nathan, that I'd say is the Tuckey family of businesses as we're trying to build an unbreakable brand, it's not the fact that there's Tuckey family involved. I mean, that happens to have been the case and there happens to be techies that are still involved, but we know that the team that's going to take us into the next 50 years may or may not at all involve techies. And so hopefully that's the brand of the building.

Meghan Lynch (22:01):
You're listening to building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast all about brand stewardship and crafting an enduring legacy. I'm speaking with Matt and Nathan Tuckey, third generation leaders of the Tuckey Companies, both of whom are actively involved in board service and community development, and prioritize their faith and families in how they live and lead. So Matt and Nathan, I'd love to talk a little bit more about this, ensuring the longevity of the company, because you're saying that it's not necessarily tied to family involvement, that it's much more about building a team, building a strong company, and that the family's involved. It's just kind of more because it fits, not because it's necessary to keep it going, but I'm curious how you guys balance respect and appreciation for what your grandfather started, what your father's kept going, what's really endured for three generations with how do you evolve and prepare for the future and kind of build that infrastructure that's going to keep things going, maybe pass your own leadership.

Matt Tuckey (23:15):
To me, one of the things is just, again, someone mentioned stewardship, but as leaders right now, how do we retain the DNA to lose, right as we're looking back? And so what are the foundational things? Putting God first in our business is certainly important to us. I mentioned serving our neighbors and neighborhoods well, being thankful, being humble, doing what's right. Even sometimes when that's at our expense, those kind of things, you can continue create that list. But as leaders, how do we make sure that we're retaining that DNA and building on that foundation? And at the same time, again, with a healthy dose of curiosity and humility and giving opportunity for other leaders to lead, how do we make sure that they're staying within those guardrails, but then giving them room and our team room to grow and develop and keep us relevant? It's the direction. Andy Stanley is an author and he says, direction determines destination end up somewhere on purpose. So these companies that become irrelevant don't just wake up one day and Oh, we're out of business. That's been a journey, and so how do we just make sure we're continue to be oriented in the right direction, building on the foundation of the past, looking forward and being courageous enough to try different things and change along the way. What else would you

Nathan Tuckey (24:37):
Yeah, I mean, again, he did a great job there. I would echo everything that he said and agree with it in our internal conversations. I don't know if we have a lot of college football sports fans that listen to the podcast or not, but in our internal conversations, we often liken this changing environment to the changing environment of college football. It's much different than seventies, eighties, nineties, now that we're in the transfer portal era, name image likeness, players are getting paid, all of that kind of stuff. And you read a lot about that in sports headlines, but similarly, the workforce has changed. Workforce expectations have changed what a work environment should look like and benefits packages and all of this kind of stuff has changed. But I think the culture that we're building doesn't necessarily have to change and shouldn't change. So just what Matt said, what are the key pieces of our DNA that are really timeless, and then how we execute some of that or how we build off of some of that is going to look much different now than in 1984, whenever it might be. But that's exciting. I think when you can tie those two together, not that it's easy. It's not easy, but that's exciting.

Meghan Lynch (25:54):
Yeah. Are there changes or evolutions that are keeping you up at night or industry problems that you've been looking at to try to solve in a creative way or problems of place that you're trying to solve in a creative way?

Nathan Tuckey (26:08):
I mean, the thing, maybe this is just because it's front and center in my role, but the thing that comes to mind for me is hiring, recruitment, retention, labor force, all of that kind of stuff. I'm the millionth person to say this probably, but we're no longer in the days of someone working at a job for 50 years, which we had someone do from 1968 to 2018, I don't ever expect that to happen again. So we have to adjust for that, and we are looking to adjust for that, even adjust our structures. We can no longer have a structure that anticipates someone staying here for that long. We have to recognize the reality that likely people won't stay here for that long. But I think still build a culture where people want to stay here, maybe not for 50 years, but the person might walk in the door thinking this is the next three years in their career, but after they've been here for three years, they appreciate that we're a different kind of work environment, especially in the construction industry that you know what? They might not mind staying here for a decade. This is the best fit for them.

Meghan Lynch (27:18):
One of the other things that I've seen a lot more of is companies being more open and welcome to Boomerang employees of like they come for three years, they learn something, they get some skills, they go out and they try something else, and then they realize, oh, I actually had it pretty good there. Or I want to come back and then bring something else. And I'm curious if that's something you guys have seen.

Nathan Tuckey (27:42):
Oh, definitely. Actually very timely. So that's happened multiple times throughout the lifetime of our organization. And without naming names, of course I would never do that. But just today we had an employee, boomerang back started again here today, and we are open to that possibility in that I think he comes back with more and different experiences. He comes back with. I'm sure he would say too, a better perspective.

Meghan Lynch (28:10):
And if Matt got to do it, I guess you can't really stop other people. That's right. You're right. He's one of the Frank employees. You're exactly right. I was

Nathan Tuckey (28:17):
Not.

Meghan Lynch (28:18):
I'm constant. It's true. Knowing that the company has evolved so much from kind of a single focus on mechanical services to now having multiple businesses with a much wider focus and impact, even if you are still in the same kind of geographic location, do you find that there's a thread that is connecting the various business units that you have or anything that you come back to that is that DNA of the Tuckey Companies across the different areas?

Matt Tuckey (28:52):
The first thought that comes to my mind is my dad is definitely the guy who, and I mentioned this before, has scaled all of this and grown all of this and originated all this. My grandfather was very focused on a small mechanical business. My dad is diversified. But in a lot of that diversification, it's been that entrepreneurial spirit to start something to address a need. So restoration is a really good example of there was a period of time where a plumber might be called out to a water leak in a house or someone has a flooded basement and the plumber will go out, fix the leak, and people were saying, that's great, but who's going to clean this up? And at the time in our area, there weren't franchises and everyone else, there was nobody to do that. So he said, well, we'll start a restoration company. And restoration started as a department of Mechanical Services and then grew into its own business. I think by nature, Nathan and I are a little bit more risk averse than maybe my dad was. Maybe my dad's a true entrepreneur, but I think that your question was what's the thread? And it's just that ability to listen and see and then be courageous enough to say, Hey, I think there's something here. Let's lean into that and see what comes of it.

Nathan Tuckey (30:05):
Yeah. Again, I would echo what Matt said. The two things that came to my mind when you're asking the question, two threads. One is geography. We are saying that's coming up over and over again. We really do care about South Central Pennsylvania and Cumberland County and Carlisle specifically across all of those entities, all the organizations, that's a thread. We're not trying to become the largest mechanical contractor on the East coast or anything like that. Some companies are more power to 'em. I respect them for being great at what they do. That's just not what we do or want to do. We want to serve our neighbors. So geography is one. And then the second is service, which is what Matt was saying, and not just a service in a general sense, making sure your burger and fries are out within 60 seconds. Service in the sense of addressing needs. Many of our organizations have on-call emergency service capabilities when there's a fire, a flood, when your heating system is out in the middle of the winter, we will come at midnight if we need to come at midnight. That's definitely part of our DNA. We're not a new home builder, although we do remodeling. It's not called Tuckey Remodeling, it's called Tuckey Restoration because we're going after that emergency service work kind of as our primary thing that we're doing. That's certainly baked into our DNAI would say.

Meghan Lynch (31:33):
I know sometimes it can be, especially when you're kind of in that mindset of listening for issues that you can then help solve or listen, looking for opportunities to grow. Sometimes it can be harder to listen for like, Ooh, we tried that, but actually people don't need that from us or we need to discontinue that service. You get a little bit of that sunk cost bias of like, no, we're into this, so we're just going to keep offering it even if the market's telling us that we don't need it. Have you guys ever had that experience of trying something that then the market's like, Nope, that's not the right fit, and you have to reel it back

Nathan Tuckey (32:16):
Because we offer so many things. There's a temptation to say yes to everything and say yes to every project too. Also because we are service oriented and that's part of our DNA, we want to jump to help with anything. And there's good in that. I think just generally within our service offering, though we've been intentionally over the past couple of years trying to refine what projects, what customers are we truly best positioned to serve even within our service offerings. We want to pick projects that fit our team well and avoid projects that don't fit our team well. Because ultimately, if it doesn't fit our team well, it doesn't serve the customer well. So there is definitely a tension between our propensity to serve and say yes and want the next job, want to get the next job, and being selective, being intentional.

Meghan Lynch (33:12):
And I think walking that tension becomes one of the ways that you can not only grow, but really ensure longevity because saying yes to everything at some point is not going to serve you well, but also being scared to grow or evolve isn't going to serve you well either. So it sounds like you guys are playing a bit with that tension in a really positive way that's been healthy for the business, so that's awesome. You've both mentioned one of my favorite words, so I'm going to go ahead and ask you about it, which is this concept of stewardship, right? This idea that we aren't necessarily owners of the company but we're stewards of it or owners of the brand, but stewards of it. And knowing that you guys use that word, I'm curious what it means to you, what is the difference between difference being an owner and a steward?

Matt Tuckey (34:15):
Yeah, I think probably both have a good bit to say on this. We might have to extend the podcast. No, I'll be brief, and I know Nathan can speak very well to this as well. So two parallel tracks for me. One is in the context of faith. So I would believe that well, everything we have right now that our blessings, our businesses, our families, is our all God's grace and that it's all gifts from God, and our call is to care for those gifts and steward those gifts well. And so just from a faith standpoint, that's a huge why beyond that, I think it's that just as a leader, I'm the third generation. I didn't start this. I didn't start it. I didn't build it. And I also believe that again, we want to be around for a long time to come and what this looks like in 10 or 20 or 50 years is not something that I'm going to fully shape.

(35:16):
So for me, it's right now in this season that I'm here, how can I lead well and steward this thing of a business and a brand? How can I honor what's been built? How can I honor the people, the leaders that might take this further? And how do I honor the team that I have right now? And so for me, just that idea is very different as an ownership to me, it is just a different connotation. Ownership is very, this is mine and I'm going to decide how things are allocated. And of course there's decisions and in things delineations that are in that. But to me it's just a very different mindset.

Nathan Tuckey (36:00):
I mean, as usual, I would echo what Matt said there. This is why it works out, right? We generally agree on this foundational stuff. Yeah, I would echo what you just said. I think I don't necessarily deserve anything. I don't necessarily deserve to wake up tomorrow morning. The fact if I wake up tomorrow morning, which I hope I do, that in and of itself is going to be a blessing of a day that I get to steward, right? I didn't earn that. I didn't earn this breath that I'm taking right now. So that's kind of just generally or posture to start, I think. And then certainly within the context of a third generation family business, what Matt said is right. I mean, we didn't start this build this. We came into this after something had existed, and so how do we honor that for the past and the future?

Meghan Lynch (36:50):
You're listening to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast for leaders with a generational mindset. My guests are Matt and Nathan Tuckey. Now, Matt and Nathan, when we asked you guys to boil down what the Tuckey Companies are all about for my son Henry, who's eight, you distilled it as we build things and when things around your house or business break, we help to fix them. So pretty simple, pretty straightforward. I like it. It's succinct. So now we're going to turn the mic over to Henry to see what questions he has as the voice of the next generation. What kind of things do you build?

Nathan Tuckey (37:29):
We build all different kinds of stuff from houses, parts of houses, mechanical systems to really cool things out of metal. We make tons of things out of metal. One cool thing that we've made out of metal is one gentleman asked us to build a custom iPhone holder for his Harley Davidson. We did that project to boring things like big tanks that are used in agricultural facilities, lots of different stuff.

Henry Lynch (37:56):
Do you have a favorite thing to build,

Matt Tuckey (37:58):
Henry? My thing, we build and we rebuild. So favorite thing for me would be is when we respond. When people have things that happen to their house, maybe they have a flood or a tree fell down on part of their house and we can come in and help them rebuild that space to get it right back to where it was before.

Henry Lynch (38:18):
What is it like working with your brother? Do you two ever fight?

Matt Tuckey (38:23):
We have disagreements, and it's not always easy, but just as any siblings, we have to respect each other. We have to listen to each other. We have to work together. We have to share. We have to apologize if we do something wrong. So I don't think that age matters as just those fundamental things of how to respect your family.

Nathan Tuckey (38:48):
Yes, Henry, we do fight. Ultimately though we love your brother,

Henry Lynch (38:52):
And I wanted to tell you guys a construction joke, but it needs a lot of work.

Matt Tuckey (38:59):
That's good. Henry. Henry, I'm going to steal it. I'm going to borrow that sometime and use it. Nice.

Meghan Lynch (39:06):
Thanks Henry, and thanks Matt and Nathan so much for being on Building Unbreakable Brands. We really appreciated having you guys on the podcast, and I think there were just a lot of great nuggets in what you guys had to say. So if people wanted to learn more about the Tuckey Companies or wanted to connect with you guys, what's the best way for them to do that?

Nathan Tuckey (39:26):
Certainly on our website, Tuckey.com. Pretty straightforward. Or on most social media platforms or just give us a call. I mean, we're locally rooted. Call our main number. Ask for Matt Nathan. We can connect that way as well.

Meghan Lynch (39:41):
Awesome. Thank you guys so much. We'll link to the website in the show notes, and again, just really appreciate you both for being on and sharing everything with us.

Matt Tuckey (39:51):
Well, thank you, Meghan. Thanks for doing what you do, and it's been a fun conversation, so thanks for sure. Thank you.

Meghan Lynch (39:59):
Matt and Nathan shared so much wisdom in today's conversation. But what's really sticking with me is their powerful distinction between place and community. In a world where businesses are going more virtual and more global, their reminder that generational success often grows from deep local roots is something worth reflecting on. This makes continuing to develop skills of courageous conversations and connecting with people who have different backgrounds and beliefs even more valuable. I also love their take on sibling partnership. It's not about being the same, but about bringing different strengths to the table and leading with mutual respect. If this episode resonated with you, please consider sharing it with someone else, navigating the complexities of family business, or leave us a review so more people can find the show. Thanks so much for listening to Building Unbreakable Brands.