EP 19: Navigating the Pandemic in 2021 with Nathan Fitzgerald, CPA

Written by Nathan Fitzgerald | Jan 8, 2021 1:46:11 PM

Nathan Fitzgerald a Private Client Services Advisor for BKD discusses the impact Covid has had on businesses and what to expect in the coming year. 


 

Episode with guest: Nathan Fitzgerald, CPA

Private Client Services Advisor at BKD

(This episode was recorded in December of 2020.)

 

Key Episode Take-Aways:

1. If you feel like you don't know all the rules, then it is probably of critical importance to reach out to your accounting service provider.  (click to jump to this topic below) 

But what I will throw out there is if you feel like you don't know all the rules, then it is probably of critical importance to reach out to your accounting service provider, whether it be BKD, or any other CPA firm, to help them explain that and help navigate through because there are some decision points that businesses have. 

2. Tax rates are going to increase. (click to jump to this topic below)  

I think that's a great question. Very top of mine, you know, is we look forward to the future. I think, just nuts and bolts, the takeaway is taxes are going to increase. 

3. Having contingency plans in place and up on the shelf to draw upon and dust off were of critical importance. (click to jump to this topic below)

Yeah, it's a great question, which, you know, from, from my perspective, having those contingency plans in place and up on the shelf, and able to draw upon those and dust those off and put those additional games in the play. Those were of critical importance

 

Continue scrolling to read the full episode transcription.

Announcer  0:00  

Welcome to the "Change the Game" podcast, where we share stories of open-book management and highlight capitalism at its best. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the 'Change the Game" podcast with special guest, Corey Rosen. This episode was recorded during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Here's your hosts, Rich Armstrong and Steve Baker.

Steve Baker 0:10

Welcome to the "Change the Game" podcast where we are changing the game by doing business differently. And we're highlighting stories of capitalism, at its best. I'm Steve Baker and with me as always, my co-host Rich Armstrong, President of the Great Game of Business, and co-author of our new book, “Get in the Game: How to Create Rapid Financial Results and Lasting Cultural Change.” How are you Rich?

Rich Armstrong 0:32

Very good. How are you, Steve?

Steve Baker 0:34

Good man. I'm really excited about our special guests today.

Rich Armstrong 0:38

I am too. We have Nathan Fitzgerald. today. He serves as a member of the BKD National manufacturing and distribution group. He's BKD's transportation logistics team and its private client service provider and advisor. So, he helps his main focuses he helps closely held businesses, family, businesses and private equity owned businesses to develop strategies to reduce tax burdens and improve profitability. Um, I also want to mention that BKD has always been in a long-standing sponsor and supporter of the Great Game community. So, we do really appreciate that Nathan, and, and welcome Nathan, we're glad you could join us.

Nathan Fitzgerald 1:18

Thanks Rich and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and Steve. We're super excited.

Steve Baker 1:23

Yeah, we are too. We need experts. And Nathan, I guess it's probably good to start with the fact that you guys have a ton of COVID related resources on your main website. What is that address that we can send people to just we'll do it now. And at the end?

Nathan Fitzgerald 1:38

Yeah, certainly, um, you know, from a resource standpoint, I think that what we saw was a lot of business, whether it be through Aesop ownership, or whether we had a board of directors or if we had executives, you know, throughout the entire pandemic, here. We've seen inflection points where, were those ownership groups really need to focus on the health of their business, the longevity of their business, and ideally, trying to drive that successful outcome of creating profitability, even in these uncertain times. Our focus has been really in trying to provide updates from a legislative standpoint, things that, you know, there's a lot of stuff coming out from a legislative standpoint. We saw the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act. We saw the Cures Act, and helping businesses in providing kind of a platform for them to digest those acts and understand what was applicable to their organization, what decision points they had, but then also kind of accompany with that as we've navigated through the pandemic, and as business owners and executive teams start to really digest those legislative items, then I think that focus kind of reverts back to okay, how do we make sound business decisions? So out of our COVID resources are also just around general health and well-being of an organization. How do we ensure breakeven and profitability? How do we ensure continuity of business? One thing that we're seeing a heightened level or increased focus on is business in in the succession planning that goes on with that on how do we ensure that we have duplicity from a procedural standpoint, in the right level of training of our team members? And then really, where are we going in the future? where's this going? What's our endgame? Right? You know, as we start to navigate through the pandemic, I think that we're seeing, you know, some privately held businesses are much more focused now on either integration of Aesop planning, or maybe you know what that looks like, as far as executive’s ownership, group buyouts, how to navigate through that, is owners start to kind of recognize, hey, this, this was fun. I'm glad we got through it. Or maybe now's the time for them to step back.

Steve Baker 4:06

Mm hmm. I think succession planning is one of those things that doesn't get talked about enough. We have a phrase around Great Game of Business where we say everybody is in transition, or denial. It's like, it's a coming and you just got to be ready for it. Well, let's, let's talk about the I mean, you do have an FAQ for entrepreneurs on your site, specifically about PPP. And let's talk about the payroll protection plan and 20 year in tax planning your FAQs. What would you say are the top two what are the big questions people are asking the hottest topics?

Nathan Fitzgerald 4:40

Yeah, so you know initially is we were getting into the PPP loans the big question that was out there was, how do I how do I get it? In so we kind of navigated through that the month of March and April. Now our focus is how do I apply for forgiveness and what considerations are out there from a forgiveness standpoint to ensure that my loan is 100% forgiven? So that is ultimately hot topic number one is the forgiveness process. Hot topic number two is one that is a fairly recent development and that is going to be applicable to any of our loans that are greater than $2 million in the necessity to complete the what's identified as the SBA form, 3509, or 3510. In those forms are specifically for those larger borrowers, and in their economic necessity, to the reason and rationale that they use to obtain the PPP. So, we don't have guidance on how the 3509 or 3510 is going to be scored. And everybody's a little bit worried about that because really, you know, from a fundamental standpoint, it feels like the aha, gotcha. But after the fact. Tornado all this information with respect to, to the economic necessity behind the loan, other sources of liquidity, profitability, quarter on quarter executive comp, so there's a tremendous amount of information that's being disclosed to the SBA. And without guidance on exactly how that's going to be scored. A lot of people feel like their loan forgiveness is going to be jeopardized, and how they might answer that 35 or 3510. So that is definitely a hot topic in very top of mind for those large borrowers. Something that is a kind of topic number three, that is really brand new, hot off the press, as far as something that happened under the cover of darkness last night is freedom Information Act. And there were requests for all EIDL loans, which economic injury, disaster loans, as well as all PPP loans for that to be made publicly available. Previously, the SBA had taken the approach to only disclose and allow information on a certain subset of loans and for any borrower that received what would be a smaller loan, that the individual borrower information in the amount of PPP that they had received was not disclosed. It was kind of identified geographically, they kind of had a heat map as to where a lot of the borrowers were in the various sizes of loans, but the individual borrower information was not disclosed. There was a FOIA request that was made, and that that information all got released last night. So now each borrower is specifically identified as well as identification of the amount of the loan. So

Steve Baker 7:40

Why is that important to the entrepreneurs that are listening today?

Nathan Fitzgerald 7:43

Well, it all goes back to public reputation. And I think that the you know, hindsight here is 2020. But the lot of borrowers felt like they didn't want this information to be made publicly available, because they just felt like it was kind of an infringement on really the overarching goals of the program to widely disclose this. I think what we'll see is you start to sift through the data is that it's, it's borrower A, that that is a very successful business, as borrower B is right across the street, as borrower C, that's, you know, operates the fast-food chain. So, I don't think that we're going to be able to really glean much more information out of that, that FOIA request and all the information that's made publicly available, other than the fact that there is a wide cast of PPP borrowers of recipients of those PPP loans. And I don't feel like that individually reflects negatively on those businesses. But there are going to be some business owners who are going to be a little bit squeamish about all that information being made public. It is going to give us some additional insights into maybe overall headcount of the organization, or overall salary ranges, because really, that's how the information or how the PPP loan was requested was predicated upon, you know, kind of your overall payroll costs. So, you're going to be able to glean some information here, but it's going to take someone who is really interested in data to kind of put that together and understand what that means on both the macroeconomic level as well as the micro.

Steve Baker 9:25

So, Nathan, our community is filled with people, you know, we're known as the open book community, right? So, we're very transparent and we're teaching people business and, and talking with our employees openly about what's happening. It sounds to me like if you were a little more closed up, buttoned up, you might be a little more squeamish than maybe folks who are already transparent and helping people understand why did we apply for it? How much did we get? What did we use it for? That's what I'm thinking now. Is there anything that our folks, let's say that that disclosure is not a big concern for them? Is that Is there any piece of advice that you would give people when they're applying for forgiveness that would help them sleep better at night?

Nathan Fitzgerald 10:06

Um I think it is to take the time to actually do the computation. Okay. So, I say I say that because there is the ability for some of our smaller borrowers to do a very simplified one-page attestation statement to say that they use the funds in accordance with kind of how the program was designed. So that's going to be for borrowers, I think they have a loan under $150,000, they have the ability to do these one-page attestation statements to say that we use the funds just as they were intended. They were predominantly used for payroll. It's a very simplified process. I'd say, undertake that process, but maybe go ahead and take that extra step of going ahead and doing the computation so that you're not just blindly attesting to that. And then for larger borrowers, or anyone who's kind of in that threshold between 150,000 and 2 million, it is to really take the time to identify kind of what their covered period is. I will just say that, in my experience, we should be able to always attain 100% forgiveness. That was not necessarily our position back in March, in the first couple weeks of April. We felt like there was going to be some that was going to be jeopardized our ability to always obtain 100% forgiveness. But as they came out with the PPP flexibility act, and the ability to extend the cover period out to 24 weeks, is we kind of look at the portion of loan to say that you essentially got 10 weeks’ worth of payroll. And when you read out to 24 weeks, I think you're going to be able to attain 100% forgiveness. And, you know, actually going through and doing the computation with the best, best faith effort, I think is critical, and not just kind of slapping some numbers on it 35 in a way that represent that it should be 100%.

Steve Baker 12:05

Mm hmm.

1. If you feel like you don't know all the rules, and it is probably of critical importance to reach out to your accounting service provider. 

Nathan Fitzgerald 12:07

And we're seeing, you know, truthfully, we're seeing some organizations that have the internal accounting departments and resources that they can do that PPP forgiveness computation internal their organization without any problems at all. And this is not just a shameless plug on BKD. But what I will throw out there is if you feel like you don't know all the rules, and it is probably of critical importance to reach out to your accounting service provider, whether it be BKD, or any other CPA firm, to help them explain that and help navigate through because there are some decision points that businesses have. There's a decision point on using a simplified method on how to compute your FTE equivalent. There is the ability to utilize that extended cover period out to 24 weeks. So, getting some broad definitions in help having someone consult with the business owner or management group on those decision points, I think is of critical importance. But again, at the end of the day, our goal would be to always attain 100% loan forgiveness.

Steve Baker 13:20

I like that, that optimism and that that surety in your voice. I already feel better. Rich, I've been hogging the mic here. I know you've got some questions for Nathan, too.

Rich Armstrong 13:34

Well, did that take a little bit different take on this and what are you currently hearing in regard to any additional round of stimulus funds?

Nathan Fitzgerald 13:43

Yeah, so we've seen where Secretary Mnuchin has requested that the SBA release kind of that tranche of funds back to the Treasury Department, that that went unutilized. I think that we might see a second round of stimulus here, and it might come in a couple different forms and fashions. We might see some individual stimulus. We might also see some additional stimulus that's afforded to businesses. You know, a lot of those funds that were available for what they called the mainstream lending program, when kind of inapt. So, I think that they're hopeful and kind of drawn those back and being able to redeploy that or have that there in the tool chest. We're seeing from a legislative perspective, some things kind of get thrown around that lead me to believe that we are going to see a second round of stimulus. It's just a matter of where it goes, does it go directly to the consumer? Or are we going to provide that stimulus directly to those businesses in those organizations to then either make additional capital investment internal their organization, or to retain their employees? It's taken different forms and fashions and that's not unlike what we were hearing back in March. We all leave the businesses needed help to maintain and have that continuity of operations, and it made much more sense for them to maintain their employees instead of kicking them out over onto the unemployment board. So that was the motivation behind the PPP program. We also saw that direct stimulus go to the consumers in a way those $1200 economic stimulus payments. I think we're going to continue to see that, you know, from a democratic platform standpoint, we're seeing that they're wanting to take, I think, a little bit different direction with some of those stimuli, not to go directly, necessarily to consumers, thrown around a lot of different numbers. And there's a lot of unknowns at this point.

Rich Armstrong 15:43

I know this must be one of the unknowns, but any feel about timing?

Nathan Fitzgerald 15:47

Timing wise, I, you know, I, I thought that timing wise, we this would kind of be resolved back in the month of October, early November. What we really saw was the kind of as we as we look at the timeline of things, I think it was becoming much more critical. We were seeing a lot of media attention on the issuance of the second round of stimulus. And then we started to go down that path of looking for replacement. To on the judicial side. Let's see to our I apologize, guys, I'm going to have to break right there, umm.

Steve Baker 16:29

Not a problem.

Nathan Fitzgerald 16:34

I'm trying to wrack my brain, what am I thinking of this? It's not our Secretary of State, but are

Steve Baker 16:39

You mean, the Supreme Court Justice?

Nathan Fitzgerald 16:41

The Supreme Court! Thank you.

Steve Baker 16:43

It's all right. So, let's back up a little bit. And where were we when you felt like you lost your flow?

Nathan Fitzgerald 16:52

Back to kind of timing, timing,

Steve Baker 16:54

Okay. Timing.

Nathan Fitzgerald 16:55

And those payments. I would say that, you know, October, November is really where we were starting to see a lot of increased media attention. And then we started to go down that path of looking for that replacement candidate there on our supreme court and all the media started really diving into whether or not you know, the Trump administration had the ability to make that appointment, whether that should be held over and carried on until after the inauguration. So, we kind of hit a roadblock. And then the Trump administration came out and said that they would be directionally supportive of some level of stimulus. But we saw, you know, as the presidential election was starting to really take shape that both sides just couldn't, couldn't find common ground. And without that common ground, it kind of lost its momentum. So now, I would say that it's probably going to be, we're going to have a little bit of carryover during the year until after the inauguration. And if the next administration in place before, I really think that there's going to be another round of stimulus. Now, that could all change I think, overnight. If we were to say that, economically, the economic factors really start to indicate that we're starting to see that downturn, I think that we're going to see both sides come together and find that common ground towards providing that stimulus to boost our economics here as a country.

Steve Baker 18:19

So, let's talk about that a little bit more the post-election world, right. Let's talk about taxes after the election. In the most practical sense, what should business owners and their employees expect in the coming year when you talk about that comparison of the current tax plan? And the, the new administration's proposals?

2. Tax rates are going to increase.

Nathan Fitzgerald 18:38

Yeah, yeah, I think that that's a great question very top of mine, you know, is is we look forward to the future. I think, just nuts and bolts wise, the takeaway is taxes are going to increase. And I think under the Biden administration, under their plan, they're going to boost, they're gonna drive some revenue raisers here in the way of tax reform. You know, under the Trump administration going back to the tax cuts and JOBS Act, that was very pro business, it provided those job creators some additional tax benefits. And I think that what we're going to see is that any type of tax reform is going to lead towards an outcome of there's going to universally be some higher tax rates that are going to be put applicable after. And some of these pro business, pro job creation type tax reform ideas that came out under TCJA are going to be in jeopardy are going to fundamentally be changed as that next administration comes into play. The other thing that's out there that that is receiving quite a bit of publicity, at least on the tax professional side is the necessity to incorporate some level of estate tax planning now into do so under the current rules. Because we have very high lifetime exemptions right now at over $11 million per individual. And I think that what we fully expect is that under any type of democratic administration, that those lifetime exemptions are going to decrease. Now, there's always the provisions out there to say that there's going to be a certain call back, or the people who took active steps to mitigate their estate tax liability in the future, that that can become jeopardized. But just from a practical standpoint, that's not typically the way that it's worked. Typically, if we have high lifetime exemptions, and take advantage of those today, then we don't get penalized for that in the future as those lifetime exemptions do decrease. But some level, the state tax planning for very wealthy individuals, is probably advised right now, and the timing to do so is really right now the end of 2020 and into 2021. I think as we start to see, tax law kind of kind of shape up and a tax plan rollout, we're going to get some additional indications as to kind of what direction we're heading. But overall, I would say that the democratic administration right now is directional and supportive of a decrease in those lifetime exemptions, and overall, higher tax rates.

Steve Baker 21:26

So for my clarity, if you, if I heard you correctly, you're saying that if people make decisive moves now, those changes could be grandfathered in and somewhat protected from changes in the future?

Nathan Fitzgerald 21:42

That's right. That's okay. That's typically what we have seen. Yeah.

Steve Baker 21:46

Great. Great. No, that's, that's good advice. And we want our listeners to benefit any way they can.

Rich Armstrong 21:52

Nathan, we're at you know, at SRC, and specifically around our methodology of Great Game of Business. We talk a lot about driving contingencies and creating contingency plans behind your, your growth plans. Well, a lot of those contingencies, were kind of used up through this old pandemic, right? You know, we've got a lot of a lot of people, you know, using the word pivot, loosely in terms of changing the way their businesses, I'm just curious, from your perspective, you know, what are what are some of the things that now that we've gone through this and there's going to be probably some additional Black Swan or recession in the next decade or something. What are some things that you've seen in retrospect, that business could have done differently to be more prepared for something like this?

Nathan Fitzgerald 22:37

Yeah, it's a great question, which, you know, from, from my perspective, Having those contingency plans in place and up on the shelf, and able to draw upon those and dust those off and put those additional games in the play. Those were of critical importance. You know, so so I feel like personally that some businesses were afforded the opportunity here to kind of reinvent themselves. Like, as we go back and talk about the stimulus funds. Those provided a little bit of a stopgap measure. But that's really truly what it was, it was a stopgap measure. And they needed to take those active cleaning steps to really come up with kind of a way to, to be reinvent themselves. And for, for a lot of businesses, that reinvention was a reinvention of their labor and workforce. You know, as we kind of looked at businesses that were able to navigate this successful, they kind of fall into a few different categories or buckets. One of those buckets is, is the business that was able to quickly roll out the technology and allow for the implementation for their workforce. And that has not, not come without some significant investment. There were, you know, I kind of looked at it like this sped up our time clock probably by about decade right? I think, every year in southern Missouri, or if we looked at the Midwest, remote workforces were not something that was widely utilized. Maybe we had one or two remote workers, maybe a hinged depending upon the business size, but our ability to deploy virtually 100% of our office or professional staff to a remote working environment that's come through significant investment and those businesses that were able to roll out the technology quickly and get on board with some of those best practices, were able to to navigate through the pandemic of unimpeded. The other businesses that I feel like you know, have been impacted, but, but have just kind of continued that business as usual has been transacted or heavy leveled input manual processes. I think the time is now to kind of evaluate what that means to a workforce? What we're doing as far as employee retention? You know, think that's a huge thing that leads to additional efficiencies and additional profitability. So it's all about how we retain our employees? And some of those people first initiatives that we can implement. It might be through flexible work arrangements. It might be through some flat level flexibility and scheduling. And we got to kind of reinvent ourselves from the risk mitigation standpoint. Because, you know, as we start to see that we have high numbers of concentrated employees, Our manufacturing operations can become jeopardize to non-infected employees requiring numerous employees to step back and not have an active over the organization of the first two weeks. That could really impede our ability to push that product through our other processes.

3. Having contingency plans in place and up on the shelf to draw upon and dust off were of critical importance.

Nathan Fitzgerald 22:37

Yeah, it's a great question, which, you know, from, from my perspective, Having those contingency plans in place and up on the shelf, and able to draw upon those and dust those off and put those additional games in the play. Those were of critical importance. You know, so so I feel like personally that some businesses were afforded the opportunity here to kind of reinvent themselves. Like, as we go back and talk about the stimulus funds. Those provided a little bit of a stopgap measure. But that's really truly what it was, it was a stopgap measure. And they needed to take those active cleaning steps to really come up with kind of a way to, to be reinvent themselves. And for, for a lot of businesses, that reinvention was a reinvention of their labor and workforce. You know, as we kind of looked at businesses that were able to navigate this successful, they kind of fall into a few different categories or buckets. One of those buckets is, is the business that was able to quickly roll out the technology and allow for the implementation for their workforce. And that has not, not come without some significant investment. There were, you know, I kind of looked at it like this sped up our time clock probably by about decade right? I think, every year in southern Missouri, or if we looked at the Midwest, remote workforces were not something that was widely utilized. Maybe we had one or two remote workers, maybe a hinged depending upon the business size, but our ability to deploy virtually 100% of our office or professional staff to a remote working environment that's come through significant investment and those businesses that were able to roll out the technology quickly and get on board with some of those best practices, were able to to navigate through the pandemic of unimpeded. The other businesses that I feel like you know, have been impacted, but, but have just kind of continued that business as usual has been transacted or heavy leveled input manual processes. I think the time is now to kind of evaluate what that means to a workforce? What we're doing as far as employee retention? You know, think that's a huge thing that leads to additional efficiencies and additional profitability. So it's all about how we retain our employees? And some of those people first initiatives that we can implement. It might be through flexible work arrangements. It might be through some flat level flexibility and scheduling. And we got to kind of reinvent ourselves from the risk mitigation standpoint. Because, you know, as we start to see that we have high numbers of concentrated employees, Our manufacturing operations can become jeopardize to non-infected employees requiring numerous employees to step back and not have an active over the organization of the first two weeks. That could really impede our ability to push that product through our other processes.

Steve Baker 25:51

Interesting.

Rich Armstrong 25:52

Yeah, I, you know, it just, it made me think, and, oh, this is a little off topic a bit that you get an opportunity to, you know, talk to a lot of businesses through all of this. And I'm just curious, if you if you've seen any higher level of financial transparency to the, to the employees, or at least the leadership of those companies, then what has traditionally been in the past as a force people to be more open about their financial positions to everyone in the organization?

Nathan Fitzgerald 26:20

Well, you know, again, it goes back to, to, to the goals of Great Game, right? To create those leaders within the company who are focused on profitability of the company understand their position in the executables, that lead to increase profitability, and create these miniature owners across the organization. And we are seeing a higher level of transparency or higher level of organizations that are trying to encourage that collective thought to that level of involvement by all of the employees into kind of thinking strategically about what direction the business is going, or even think strategically about how we can do live a higher level of profitability. But it does require some level of transparency. You know, if we have employees who are making those decisions in a vacuum, and don't understand what the profitability of the organization is today, or what inputs and what the costs of those inputs look like, then they're, we're coming up with ideas that are just kind of off the wall, right? We think this would be great. You know, we've heard there's a need for this. But it's not well founded, it's not well formed out of their desire, because they don't have that knowledge base of what those inputs really truly look like. So I have seen organizations being more transparent from a financial standpoint with their employees. And that that really does I think, encourage a certain level of buy in on the employees to where they feel like, yeah, this is working out for them individually. You know, that we're all in this together, we're all coming together on a day to day basis, manufacturer, provide service, whatever the industry that they're in is, but then get a little bit more collective buy in definitely higher engagement out of the employees.

Rich Armstrong 28:17

Great point. Great point.

Steve Baker 28:21

So when we talk to experts, Nathan, sometimes we we think we've got all the things lined up all the questions in mind, what's the question we are asking that we should be asking you?

Nathan Fitzgerald 28:31

Yeah, so good question, really good question. You know, from from my standpoint is, you know, is we're kind of looking towards the future. I think the, the team demic, I mean, it's been negative. And we've all been impacted individually, I think negative ways undoubted. But it does provide us the opportunity to kind of re-envision and re-design, from an organizational standpoint, what it is that we want to accomplish. And come up with those contingency plans to think critically about, you know, whether it be supply chain management, profitability, employee engagement, we can really use this and leverage it to our benefit. And I think the questions really surround, how do we really envision what it is that we're going to do in the future? How do we maintain ourselves as a business and as an organization so that we don't become stale and stagnant? Because there's a lot of companies out there that were, you know, from a, from a longevity standpoint, they had of continuity of operations, and that all became jeopardized, really again. So now's the time that we kind of got this additional pins spacing. We did through stimulus or maybe we found a different way to kind of manage our revenue streams, merge our supplier relationships, different price points. We figured out now how to be profitable. I think the time is to now invest in involve our management in discussion about how do we reinvent ourself as a business? Where do we go from? What does the future really look like? And it's, you know, we can sit there and try to say, crystal ball wise, how do we plan for the future? I don't know that anybody had the crystal ball and the foresight to really plan for a pandemic. But I think in our contingency planning, we should plan on how do we reinvent ourselves? And where are we going to see increased profitability? Where are sectors moving? You know, we're seeing a tremendous amount of movement in various sectors. Some consolidation with from a business continuity and standpoint. Where do we position ourselves? What do you see yourself in the future? And that that feature is one year down the road, five years down the road and ideally 50 years down the line? How to play the game, execute that game, so that we're always setup for success.

Steve Baker 31:01

So never let a crisis go to waste?

Nathan Fitzgerald 31:04

Right.

Steve Baker 31:05

I heard you say, well, Nathan, it's been a real pleasure. I love having the expertise and the advice on the show. We appreciate you being on the podcast. Your resources can be found at bkd.com?

Nathan Fitzgerald 31:09

Yes sir, yep.

Steve Baker 31:12

All right.

Nathan Fitzgerald 31:13

They're all written on bkd.com

Steve Baker 31:23

That's great, guys. What can I say? It's been a real pleasure, Nathan Fitzgerald from BKD. Check out all those resources at bkd.com. And let's keep the conversation going. Send us your stories and your best practices, your ideas, your challenges, and your victories. Remember, remember one thing is that you are not alone. And Rich and I are here every week on the podcast to help you get this through or get through it together. That guys is capitalism at its best. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

Nathan Fitzgerald 31:55

Thanks Steve and Rich for this