In this edition of Speaking With Experts, Kramon & Graham Managing Principal Dave Shuster speaks with Chip Lewis, the chairman emeritus of PSA Insurance and Financial Services. Chip Lewis is a well-known and highly respected leader in the Maryland business community. In this interview, Dave talks with Chip about his remarkable journey, his perspectives on building, running, and then ultimately selling a successful business, and the lessons he's learned along the way. Click play to listen to this engaging conversation.

00:00:00 Introduction

00:03:00 Growing up in Sparks, early jobs, learning difficulties and high school

00:08:27 Driving generals during the Vietnam War

00:11:45 College, founding PSA and selling insurance "from the trunk of the car"

00:15:19 Specializing in physicians' practices, hiring and growing PSA

00:16:17 Expanding into consulting, financial services and M&A

00:22:36 Mentors and referrals, "obnoxiously committed to growth"

00:24:54 Acquisition strategy and Chip's "acquisition interviews"

00:34:12 Building PSA's leadership team

00:35:53 Chip's stroke, the decision to sell PSA and moving to Florida

00:48:09 Losing a son and grieving

00:52:09 50 years of marriage and Chip's approach to life as a "people person"

00:56:07 Chip's advice on finding a career and building a business

00:59:22 Founding a bison farm with his son Trey

01:05:20 Serving on boards and retirement

Transcript

Speaking With Experts Podcast: Dave Shuster speaks with Chip Lewis, chairman emeritus of PSA Insurance and Financial Services

Dave Shuster: Speaking With Experts is produced for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal or professional advice or to constitute any type of sponsorship or endorsement.

Welcome to Speaking With Experts, conversations with exceptional people. I'm Dave Shuster, Managing Partner of Kramon & Graham, P.A., and your host. Today I'm speaking with Chip Lewis, the chairman emeritus of PSA Insurance and Financial Services. PSA is considered one of the Mid-Atlantic's leading independent insurance services firms specializing in employee benefits brokerage, property and casualty insurance, human resources consulting, and risk management consulting. Chip Lewis is a well-known and highly respected leader in the Maryland business community. I got to know Chip more than 20 years ago, on both a professional and personal level. He is one of those people with boundless energy, a cutting sense of humor, and a remarkable business mind. I'm excited to talk to Chip about his journey, his perspectives on building and running, and then ultimately selling a successful business, and the lessons he's learned along the way. Welcome, Chip. It's always great to see you.

Good to be here.

So let me set the stage for our conversation. A couple of months ago, you and I had a wonderful dinner at a nice restaurant. There was excellent food, a number of glasses of wine.

Do you remember that?

I remember that.

All right. I was just checking.

We had a wide-ranging conversation about life, business ups and downs, et cetera. And I don't know if you remember, in the middle of that conversation I invited you to do this podcast.

I do not remember that.

Okay, well, you agreed,

Well, here I am.

And so I don't think that conversation can ever be recreated, but I want to hit on some of the things that we talked about during that delightful evening. The first thing for people who don't know you, I think it's important to understand -- you are an introvert, right?

I've never been called an introvert. I married an introvert and she has stayed married to me. We just had our 50th wedding anniversary.

Congratulations. Congratulations.

I've never spent this much time with her as I have recently.

Did she receive any sort of award for that milestone?

Yes, dear.

And I say that obviously joking, you're not an introvert. And everywhere I've been with you, you enjoy making friends and meeting people. We're going to talk a lot about that aspect of your life. But let's get started with your early years. Where did you grow up?

Sparks, Maryland. And so I'm a first-born US in the family. So, my family came from Wales, literally worked in the coal mines and found their way to Baltimore. They grew up and moved to beautiful downtown Sparks, Maryland. And that's where I found my way.

What did your father do for to earn a living?

He sold insurance. He was an insurance agent for a national company and that's what he did.

And were your parents disciplinarians? What was it like growing up back then?

Wow. Good question. It depended on -- but you would never know, particularly my father. He was volatile, and he could be the nicest, fun guy or he could be very mean, very tough. And we clashed a lot. At 14, he used to give me jobs. I can remember my last job, I was 14 years old, and I went to him and asked for, I don't know, money, whatever it was. And he goes, "I don't give you money. You know that. You work for money." So he took me outside, gave me a shovel, showed me things, says, "Dig a hole here" And so I reluctantly — watch my words — reluctantly dug a hole. And he came out and looked at it. He goes, "Yeah, clean that up, dude." I dug the hole and he said, "Okay, fine, fill it up again, and here's your dollar," or whatever it was. And for which I said, "I will never work for you again." And he said, "Great. We had a successful day." And I didn't. But in Sparks, at that time in my life, there was more opportunities on farms and doing everything else. And I worked and never asked him for a nickel again. And at 17, still in high school, I moved out.

So that story stuck or that event stuck with you. You learned a lesson from that?

Yes, I learned lots of lessons, good lessons, bad lessons. But my commitment to be independent became an obnoxious obsession.

So what are the other kinds of jobs that you held?

Oh, man, I took care of horses at Oldfields. I worked all the time. I worked for a moving company. I worked on farms. I would do hay, the wool pull because I raised sheep and all these animals, and we cut the wool and do all that. So I worked all the time. And I was a kid who's living on my own with lots of money, got out of high school and I don't know, six weeks out of high school, I got drafted. Height of Vietnam War. 1966.

And you went into the army?

I went into the army.

Okay, hold that thought. Before you go into the army. And you were in high school. What kind of student were you?

I was a solid D student. I was a terrible student.

How did your parents react to that?

Horribly. Horribly. Have to worry about where this is going to go. I'll be 75 next month. I've never read a book in my life. ADHD, dyslexic. Can't read, can't write, can't spell, can't do this. I ran my mouth and took chances.

So were there many visits to the principal's office?

We are buds. Oh, yeah. We had a great relationship because I love people, and unfortunately for them, they love me. And so, yeah, I was often expelled, suspended, sat in the office through my entire educational career.

Where did you go to high school?

I went to Hereford High School, Sparks Elementary School, and then I went to Boys Latin for one year when it was downtown, where the Meyerhoff is now. I went there one year, and then I went to a boarding school for dyslexic kids up in Pennsylvania, and then I went back in Hereford High School.

And how old were you when you got drafted?

I was 18.

Wow. Where did you have to report?

Moved me all around, but Fort Dix, New Jersey.

What was that like?

It was a grow up experience. Because of the environment, because of the time. Here you are, 1966, height of Vietnam War. It was kind of kill or be killed. And it's funny, I never think about it, I never talk about it, but in retrospect, it was great because I grew up

Well, here's what's interesting to me. I've known you, and I can say with love and affection that you're not a rules person. And I'm trying to picture a young man, a young Chip Lewis, having to follow the rules in the US military. Was that difficult for you?

Yes, but I had a ridiculous -- as my life is full of extremes, there's nothing in the middle -- I've had the worst experiences and the best experiences, but at the end of the day, I was on the IG inspecting general team. I was an enlisted man, and I became a transportation officer. And I did that against all odds because when I was in basic training, a colonel came along and said, "Who could drive a stick-shift Jeep?" I raised my hand, looked around, nobody else could. Called me over and talked to me for a couple of minutes, and he goes, "You're my driver." And he adopted me in a way, and I went from two generals, and I did well.

So you didn't have to serve in Vietnam?

I did not.

Wow. So you were drafted.

And the truant officer for Baltimore County, Mr. Hart, turned out to be a bird colonel, and he knew me as well, and I can't believe I'm telling you all this stuff. He knew me as well, and so we made some agreements and did some deals and it-worked out. Bottom line, I never went to Vietnam. I went all around the United States and did all that, the reserve, so ultimately six years.

So, when you got out of the military, did you go into the insurance business or…

I went to college and work. So I went to college. I was a full-time student and a full-time employee.

And where did you work when you were in college?

I worked everywhere, all my jobs, figured them out, worked for Advance Moving Storage, moving things on weekends in the middle of the night. Worked in Ridgely Liquors packing. The family, I knew the family. They gave me the key. I'd go in there in the middle of the night and pack shelves and coolers and stuff like that, and never crossed my mind that I should take anything or drink anything. because I was looking for the money. And so a series of all that. Always had bunch of jobs, always had money, always was obnoxiously independent.

So how did you go from there to insurance and financial services?

1972 was my big year. I got my college degree, got my military, finished my military services. I bought my first car from Bruce Mortimer and everything was the first year, and I needed a job. And I went out and interviewed for all these jobs all over the place. And everybody I interviewed, all these companies, basically said, I'll hire you, but you could do better somewhere else. And I said, why do you say that? And they say because when we interview people, we ask questions and they answer. We sit down, we interview you, you're interviewing us. What's my future? What's this? What's that? Never once did you ask us what the current income was. All you asked is about what my future was, what my opportunities were. And they said, we'd never had that before. And I didn't know I was doing that, but I remember them telling me it was a uniform one. This is weird. You don't want to work here.

Okay, so talk to me about PSA.

Yeah, I started with an insurance company, on commission only, but I didn't know that I was an employee. And that was the first six, seven years of my career. And they hired a new manager, and new manager all of a sudden started to literally really manage me. And I didn't do that well. He basically said, you work for me, you do what I want. I said, I work for myself. He says, no, you work for me. I said, I don't work for you. I earn my keep. And we had this little thing, and I don't know what happened. I don't know if he fired me or I quit. I literally don't know the answer to that. But it was an ugly moment, and I said things that I shouldn't have ever said. And next thing I knew, I was self-employed and literally selling insurance on the trunk of my car.

So how did you get clients and customers? What did you do?

My early career, all physicians. And so I called on people in med school, intern, residents, and my goal was 100 new physicians a year. And I never got there, but I always was in the high 60s to mid-70s new physicians a year. And I loved them. And people go physicians, why new physicians? I said, well, that's where the money is. He goes, you're a dumbass, and they're smart. And I said, okay, so what's the difference? And that's how that started. And built a big practice then. And now, even though the world has changed radically. Physicians, private, practicing physicians, overwhelmingly.

And did you start to hire people? How did the company grow?

My first hire was a long time ago, so it was a secretary, and that became an assistant and worked part time. And I hired her at the end of my first year or beginning, and she made as much or more than I did, and people said, you can't do that. And I said, well, I have to do that because I can't fill the forms out. I can't do this and I can't do that. I needed to hire somebody, and they thought I was teasing. I wasn't. And that was the beginning. And I just noticed that, for example, one of the things I noticed were people hired people that were like them, swam in the same pond, you know, ate the same lunches, did all the stuff. I went, I don't want to be around anybody like me. And so I was very clear, very clear that I want somebody to hire people who can do things that I can't do. And ultimately, that was really the beginning, because I had phenomenal success at that.

So is that the secret to PSA, that you were able to put together a group of people who worked well together but were different from you?

Yes, but I think the secret was a little spontaneity. I think the secret was that I couldn't do anything. So I needed to do that. I needed to trust people, I needed to find people. And the list of things that I couldn't do goes from here to my Florida home.

Okay, well, you've always struck me as somebody who is in touch, unusually in touch with their strengths and maybe their weaknesses or shortcomings. You purposely set out to find people that could assist you in areas that you weren't necessarily great at.

Yes, but you're trying to be too attorney like and nice. I hired people to do what I couldn't do, and that list will go around the earth. The things that I could do could fit on my finger.

Well, okay. What about being able to relate to people who were very different from you? Did it matter to you?

No. I love people. I thought and think we're all the same. And so it didn't make any difference to me then or ever in my career now, whether you own the truck or you're the truck driver or you own the restaurant or you're the chef, it doesn't make any difference. People are people. I love people.

So it didn't threaten you or bother you if an employee challenged you on a thought or had a different idea, wanting to go in a direction that you didn't think was the right direction?

I can't say that it didn't bother me, that it didn't challenge me.

Were you open to that?

The answer is if I liked it, I was very open to it. If I thought it was a good idea. I was excited about it. If I thought it was stupid, I would say, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Or, go ahead and prove it!

Okay, so let's talk about the growth of PSA. So when you first started out, it was you and your secretary.

Well, just me. I literally just started selling insurance out of the trunk of my car.

Okay.

And then I had a part-time secretary and then one person and another person and surrounded myself with people who were better, smarter, and different from me.

At the height of PSA, the largest it ever got, how many employees did you have?

175 to 180, something like that.

And what kinds of business, what lines of business did you start off with? Did you start out with physicians and then enter other lines of business?

Yeah, I was an opportunist. And as the opportunities grew, the business grew. As there were other kinds of services, whether they were insurance services, whether they were consulting services. At one time in my life, I started a broker-dealer, got in the securities business, had an RIA, managed millions and millions of dollars. We provided all types of financial services, and that was great. And then much later in my career I started to hone that down into some of the larger insurance industry only. Closed the broker-dealer, sold the RIA business, became a partner with the firm I sold it to, and ultimately, they sold out and took my money and put it back into the business, grew, bought another firm.

When in the early years did you have people that you got advice from -- mentors or anybody in the business who you can count on to sort of point you in the right direction?

Yeah, one of the things that I did is I would see wealthy, successful business people, and I would go introduce myself to them and said, I'd love to learn from you who you are, where you are, how you got here. My agreement with you is I will never ask you to do business with me, to buy anything. In fact, I won't do it with you. What I want is a mentor or a teacher. And so I ended up with a dozen to two dozen phenomenally successful people throughout the industries, heavy population in the Baltimore, Washington, corridor and I would go visit them on a regular basis and occasionally they’d say, hey, you know, we’ve been doing this for a year or two, and I want to do some business with you. And I’d say, no sir, I made an agreement. I'm not violating it. And I never did.

So how did you get business? Just cold call people, knock on doors.

The interesting thing is those people started referring people to me. They started referring young people to me that were my age back then. And I was 20 something or 20, maybe 30 when I was doing that, and they’d refer people to me, and they would do that, and sometimes it was their children. But I never would do business with them. And they used to test me on that all the time. I said, no, I made you a promise. I'm not violating it. And that became something of a big deal to them and to me.

I want to read you something that you said in December of 2017 in the I95 Business Magazine, and I'm quoting you here: “We are obnoxiously committed to growth. If you aren't growing, you're dying. It's never been a thought that we would not grow our workforce year after year. In fact, I'm afraid of not growing as a company.” Do you remember saying that?

I don't remember saying it, but that is spot on.

Has that always been your view? That if you're not growing you're dying?

Yes.

So what did that mean for PSA?

Keep your seatbelt on. We're moving. We're moving forward. And what we did yesterday, or this morning is a learning experience. But what we're going to do is something bigger, better, and different this afternoon and tomorrow.

Here's something else you said in the same article. “In any acquisition interview I do, I start the conversation the same. ‘Here are the rules of engagement. Rule number one there are no rules.’ I will tell company representatives that there are things I cannot ask, but there is nothing they cannot ask me. They have an obligation to ask me and my team everything to make sure it's the right fit, and only they know what is important to them and their employees.”

That is spot on. And so take the shield down, take your helmet off, and what do you want to know? Who do you want to know? And there are no rules.

So this is a conversation in connection with a potential acquisition. Is that actually what you're talking about?

A conversation with virtually anybody, and whether it's an acquisition, whether it's an employee, whether it's a friend, for me, it applies to everybody, because I was interested in knowing who they are, where they are, where they wanted to go, and what they were looking for. And if there was alignment, that was exciting, and we got there quicker than the ridiculous games that people play where they may or may not ever tell people that.

So how did you identify potential either producers or lines of business or groups of people who you wanted to join PSA?

I'm an observer, and I would see people spend my life with people, literally 18 to 20 some meals a week with someone under ridiculous breakfast, lunches, and dinners. I was out. I worked as a workaholic, so that was not good. And it was horrible for my family. But I was a workaholic whenever I could be around people. I was a good observer, and I was a good abstractor.

So if somebody impressed you, you might approach them about the potential for joining PSA or doing business together. Is that generally how it worked.

No, that was way too nice. If I was impressed, I was going to ask them. Regardless of whether I was going to ask to do business with them or I was going to try to hire them or I was going to do something. If I saw something that appealed to me, I wanted to extract it.

Okay, so hypothetically, if you saw if you saw a group at a competitor or another enterprise you thought would be good to have a PSA, you made a beeline for that?

Oh, absolutely.

And what is that conversation like? What's the beginning of a conversation where you're interested in bringing a group on board?

Tell me about you. Tell me about you. My job was not to talk. My job was to extract conversations from other people. Tell me about you. Who are you? Where are you? Where do you want to go? What's in your way? Why haven't you done that? And people open up because not enough people ask for those questions, and particularly sales professionals want to tell them about themselves. And you're just another sales professional. I want to hear about the person who I'm with and who are they, and extract that and learn from that. And then, frankly, you quickly decide whether there's chemistry there and whether there's alignment there and whether there's an opportunity.

Did you think about the risks of the opportunity?

Never.

Never thought about it?

Never. Well, did I hesitate when I said that?

No.

Never.

Okay. I want to sort of dig into that. So risk doesn’t play a big factor in your business considerations for whether you want to acquire a business or hire somebody.

ADD Dyslexic. When someone says no, I hear go. I never heard no.

And what about the people who you mentioned earlier, who you assembled around you? Were they, did they ever dissent on ideas about acquiring a particular….

Oh, absolutely.

And what was that discussion like? How did that play out?

It was kind of like the question you asked me before. If it made sense to me, I liked it. Then there was a discussion. If I thought it was not good, there was no discussion. Yeah.

So do you have a sense of how many groups you've acquired, PSA acquired over the years?

40 practices from a solo practice or actually practices from somebody who had died or retired or a solo person. Up to 15 to 20 people.

So is it chemistry? Is that an overriding factor that tells you whether a potential acquisition is worth pursuing? Obviously, the numbers have to work, but…

Yeah, chemistry. No, it's an opportunity because sometimes it wasn't chemistry. I wanted people that were different than me that could do what I couldn't do. Chemistry was not necessarily a good word, and it was not appealing because I didn't want clones. I wanted this great…unusual people where they saw that they could complement. Complement don't clone.

And do you feel that was by and large, you were successful in being able to do that?

Oh, absolutely. Was it the only thing? No. I can't remember all the things because I didn't have a mentor, I didn't have a guide. I wasn't trained. I was this excuse me, dumbass kid who when you said no, I said go.

So ultimately, and I want to talk about this in greater detail, greater depth you sold the business.

Yes.

So I believe for almost the entirety of the enterprise, you were the chairman, CEO, the person at the top who was ultimately responsible for all the decisions.

Primary pain in the ass.

Yeah, but at a certain point, you made the decision that it was time to start thinking about a succession.

No.

That's not how it happened?

No, I started thinking I needed to grow it, and grow it meant I needed to build pods, and pods needed leaders within the pods. And again, goes back to what I said two or three times already. Find people who were different and complementary to me and maybe to others. But the people in those pods tended to be more alike than different, but they were in their pod.

So what are the attributes that somebody would have to have in order to be a member of PSA's leadership team?

Put the interest of the firm and put the interest of the client before themselves. And if it's all about you, then you don't belong.

That simple.

That simple.

Let's talk about your decision on a personal level to sell PSA's business.

It wasn't my decision.

Whose was it?

It was Lord's decision. The Lord said, you dumbass, you're too old you’re too this…. I had stroke and I'd think about it, I'd talk about it, but I couldn't pull the trigger. And I wasn't ready to pull the trigger. But the stroke, the stroke was a gift from God.

So, yeah, talk about that. When did it happen?

Four years ago. And I really don't know much about it, but at the end of the day, I had been on a plane, got home, went and played tennis with a group that I've played with for 20 years and went to the office that night, left the office. And these things I'm telling you now, I don't remember, other people told me. And I was driving down the road someplace in mid Baltimore County somewhere, and I had a stroke. And they picked me up, put me in a local hospital from which they moved me to Shock Trauma. I spent a month in Shock Trauma. I never woke up. I don't know anything about it. I know what people tell me. The stories they’d tell me. The things that I did and said they’d tell me with a smile, like the smile that you have on your face right now. And a month there. And they were going to release me and my wife and a few others, but a minority group said, we're going to take you to Florida. And on Christmas Eve, they put me in an ambulance of some kind with my wife, a driver, a nurse, and a combination driver-nurse assistant. These people drove non-stop and took me to a hospital in Florida, for which I spent another month there. And roughly halfway through two weeks into that, they started to wake me up, and I couldn't walk. I couldn't do anything, and ultimately released me from there. And I had no memories of Shock Trauma, no memories of what happened. Very vague memories of the last couple of weeks in that hospital -- getting out. And I went back to our home; excuse me, my wife's house in Florida, because I was not ever planning to go there much. I'd go and visit her. I love you, but I'll miss you. And then I started coming back and I started walking. And now I'm a Florida resident, and I come here, come home every month, basically. I come home up one week a month, and I walk, which I've never done before, and I walk 35 or 40 miles a week. I stroll 35.

So how was you having a stroke a gift for you? In what sense?

I was a workaholic. And that's all I thought about. That's all I did. I was not a good husband. I was not a good father. And it slapped me in the head, appropriately, and slapped me in the head and said, you're an idiot is what you are. And frankly, because I couldn't go back to work, I couldn't do what I did, left me no choice to do what I needed to do, which was be a husband, be a father, be something other than the workaholic that I was.

Is one of the consequences of your health scare was that…. Did you come to grips with the idea that it was selling PSA, selling its business was something that now you wanted to concentrate on, or was that a thought that you had had over the years?

I've never had it. I was a buyer, not a seller, and I was grow grow grow. And literally, as I said, early from selling insurance on the trunk of my car, we became one of the top 100 insurance agencies in the United States, and most of them were either publicly held or roll ups, and I don't really know, but I think we were the only one in the top 100 that somebody went from zero to the top 100. And there are five to 10,000 insurance, not agents, more than one employee agencies in the country.

So tell me about the decision to start considering selling the business.

The Lord made that decision, not me. Slap me in the head and said, you're a a-hole Chip. What are you doing with your life? What are you doing with your family? And I couldn't process. I couldn't do that. I can't now. There are things that I could do now -- I can sit here and run my mouth with you doing this, but there are lots of things that I can't do, and there were things that I didn't do that I saw for the first time.

Like what?

Like being a husband. Like being a father.

So what did it for somebody who spent his career acquiring and buying? What was it like being on the other side as an entity that was now being looked at as a potential target?

It was emotional. It was emotional, but there was never a thought that it wasn't. But it was no option. The question was who, what, where and how to do that. And we elected to not sell ourselves, but to go to a national firm that would take us on the market and sell us and represent us in that sale, which was a phenomenal idea. I thought it was a good idea. And it was a firm that I knew well, and I bought an agency or two from them or where they were the representatives. I had served on a mini board or something, a committee of theirs. And so I knew everybody well. But there was no question that they could do things that we couldn't do, even though that's what we did for a living. Physician healing themselves.

How long did the process take?

A little less than a year. I don't know. I don't recall exactly, but less than a year.

And did you apply the same criteria?

Absolutely. It was not for the most money. Where would we be most successful? Where would we fit in and who would protect the employees and the staff? Because literally some people were just going to blow everybody out. And that took about 15 seconds to say this is not an option.

And what was it like emotionally to come to terms with the idea that here was an enterprise that you controlled for the better part of your profession and now you were getting ready to surrender the business to somebody else?

I can't say it's joyous, but it was very clear it was necessary. My mental capacity then and now would not allow me to do it. What I was doing before. My mental capacity. Also, the light bulb was going -- you are a crappy husband and you are a crappy father, and all you were was a workaholic.

And does that weigh heavily on your mind?

Oh yeah, very.

Florida?

Yes.

So now you make your home in Florida?

That is correct.

Do you consider yourself a Floridian?

No, I do not. Only for tax purposes.

No disrespect to Floridians.

I'm in Florida because my wife was in Florida, and then my son moved to Florida. I was the last one to go to Florida, and I don't know if they went there because they were looking forward to something they didn't have here or they were getting away from me up here. I think there were parts of both of those things in there, but they moved to Florida and I was still in Maryland. I had a stroke. I woke up and going, you 're a dumbass. You better get your act together, and the Lord allowed you to live. Against all statistical odds I'm allowed to live. You better clean up your act and do something with it.

When we first started our discussion, you said, yours is a life of extremes. I think you said the highest of highs, the lowest. I want to ask you about one of the low points. In my mind, it's life changing. It's life changing, yeah. You lost a son.

I did.

And it was an accident, a terrible accident.

Yeah. He drowned. He drowned in a pond at our house, on our farm with me and some other families and children.

And when was that?

I put that out of my head -- 25, 30 years ago.

If at all, how do you move on or recover from something like that?

You don't move on. Oh that’s not true. You do move on, but you don't recover.

Do you think, is that one of the things that made you more of a workaholic?

I've thought about that a lot and I don't know the answer to that, but if I had to guess, I'd say no. It did not. But it was a great place to hide, and so I would hide. And in the world of extremes, I would hide, but I would not move. And so every day I lived in the same house. Every day I would drive past that pond. Every day I would do that and I wouldn't listen to counsel or pleas from my wife and others to get me out of here.

So there was some thought about selling the property?

I didn't have a thought.

Dave Shuster

No, but there were -- people were ….

Oh yes. Yeah. And as extreme as I was about keeping it, protecting it and seeing it, thinking about it; they were that extreme about get me out of here.

And obviously the grief is -- I can tell the grief is still with you too.

So I sit here and have this discussion and here I tear up. I was a tough, dumbass kid. I never cried. I don't know where. Somewhere. My dad said, Men don't cry. You shook hands. You don't hug me; you don't do that. Men don't cry. Men don't do this. And somewhere, preteen, I got that message and never did until Zachary died, and I've never missed a day since. It's a big part of my life. What it did for me or didn't do for me, I don't know. I think about that once in a while. You know? Am I different because… The answer is oh, yeah, I’m different because. All right, what are your differences? I don't know. If I worked harder, if I did this, if I did that, if I were different with people. I don't know. I think about that, and I have no answer.

What's an incredibly high point for you.

That I'm still married and I had my 50th anniversary. That I was this immigrant kid in Sparks, Maryland, grew up with his wife and experienced great things. I'm a people person without a neighbor. I didn't have a neighbor. I didn't live in a neighborhood. I lived in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the woods, in a little house, and you couldn't see anybody or hear anybody.

Yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how your people person and how I think it's like your oxygen.

Oh, it is. Lock me away, and I'm in trouble. In solitary confinement. I'm in trouble.

You're a people person. That's been established. Anybody who knows you knows that that's true.

True, and I have to apologize for that occasionally.

Sometimes you do.

Often.

I've seen you slap yourself on your wrist. On your own wrist.

Yes. I have scars.

Scars. I really believe that meeting new people, having interesting discussions with people is like your oxygen.

Oh, I love it. And I want variety of that. I want variety of people.

Meaning what? All walks of life.

All walks of life with all kinds of experiences, all different flavors, colors. I do not want to be around a whole bunch of people that I think they're like me or they think they're like me. Oh, my God. No.

Here's another observation. I get the sense that you are walking through life in a perpetual practical joke that you're playing on people. I get the sense that you really enjoy getting a rise out of people, pushing -- it's almost like your sport.

Oh, absolutely. And I'm not conscious about it, but it's my sport, and I do it all the time.

Do you have any fear of being the center of attention or taking center stage? Does that ever cross your mind? Or you just love that I don't.

I don’t realize that I'm doing it before, during, or after, but I am told always that you're doing it. You did it. You are, not good.

So what are the neighbors in your fancy neighborhood in Florida? What do they make of you? Or are they all a bunch of Chip Lewises?

Oh no, no, no, no, no. Variety. It’s variety. If they are, I'd be in prison. It's variety. Last night, we went back to one couple's house and a few others -- I don't know what, there were eight or nine or ten people there. And we could laugh. And they were all kinds of people from all kinds of worlds. And one of the guys puts his arm, goes, “where did you come from?” It's great.

I want to talk to you about or get your thoughts on lessons, business lessons, life lessons for people who are just starting out, young professionals. And let's start with just getting customers. The idea of getting customers and building a business.

Let's start out with don't get a job. Look for a career. If you have a job, you will be an employee all your life. You can have a career and legally and technically be an employee. It's how you see yourself, what your role is. Are you punching a clock or are you providing a service? And ultimately what you want to do is you want to provide value. You want to provide value to or with your employer or the business you're in. You want to provide value to your family. You want to provide value to the people around you. And so, look for value. And value is not a job. It's a career or a role that you're playing or something like that.

What about asking for business? Is there a particular thought you have on the best way to go about finding new customers, finding new clients, developing your own book of business?

Yeah. Get to know them. Don’t attempt to close the sale without knowing who they are, where they are, where they want to go. And clarity that you have, that I would have, in helping them provide that. When I see that alignment, where I see clarity, where I can make a suggestion or make the introduction -- now there's value. But just standing around the corner trying to do business with somebody, that's ridiculous.

Not going to work. What about dealing with mistakes or regrets when you pursue a certain transaction that doesn't work?

Yeah, done many of those.

So how do you rebound?

Own it.

What do you mean by that?

Bad decision, screwed up, that was wrong. I need to correct this. Don't sweep it under the rug or turn your back and walk away. You've got some ownership in that. Maybe all or significant or a piece.

In addition to operating financial services and insurance services business, you operated a bison farm. Okay, first of all, first of all, what on earth were you thinking when you decided you wanted to operate a bison farm?

All right. I was a workaholic, so I was working all the time, and I wasn’t necessarily always working in my, quote, primary business. And so I loved getting on the tractor and mowing. I love cutting and splitting firewood. I love doing things that had nothing to do with, quote, my primary hat on there. So I was always doing something. The bison business was a product of my son Trey, and it had little to do with me early on. And we went to a big farm show looking for a tractor and a mower to mow the fields and saw bison. Now, we had seen bison before out west, and we'd seen them and from hundreds of yards away or more, but all of a sudden, we saw them up close and personal. And got this information about them and things like that. And he starts looking at and reading this and telling me all about it. And I did the stupid father thing, and I said, you can't believe everything you read that's stupid. Well, that upset him because his father was stupid. And he went home and looked it up and read all about it and comes to me and said, look at this. He didn't say stupid old man, but that's what he was thinking. And I thought, wow, look at that. And that's where, that's what set the seed to grow. And we learned about it and we did a little traveling and we flew out to Denver to the biggest show in the world – animals and all that. Bison operations and we learned about it and came home and said, okay, all the corn and soybeans are gone. We're going to plant grass, put up fences, and buffalo somebody.

How many bison did you have at the farm?

Well, it ebbed and flowed, but we ended up our farm, and plus we leased farms at our high – 250, maybe close to 300 head at the high. So, yeah, it turned into a big operation that we ran for not quite a little under 20 years, 15 - 20 years.

And you had a store on the farm as well?

We had a store on the farm, but we sold the stores and had deliveries and restaurants, and we would ship it around all around the United States. We sold a lot of bison meat.

When my kids were young, I don't know if you remember, I took them out to your farm to stand by the fence and check out the bison and buy some bison burgers or whatever else.

Are you buffaloing me?

No, it's true story. And they're magnificent animals. Huge. Any close encounters with any of them over the years?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The rule was never, ever get inside the fence with them because they could turn and kill you. They would, and they would tear things to pieces and do all that. And they look mild mannered, and they're also incredibly fast. So, if you have one sitting at the fence next to you, and you are inches away, nose, nose inches away, literally in a snap they can be up, and you could be looking at its tail. And so they’re very limber, very quick. They just look big and slow, and they’re not.

And eventually you sold the farm, the bison operation.

Yes, that’s correct. Closed that. A friend of Trey’s who was involved in the business and helpful and all that has bison on our farm. We got rid of all the other farms. So we still have bison on our farm that don't belong to us. And he raises them and takes care of them, and they're his joy, and I love seeing them.

So when you come back up to Baltimore once a month, it's for business purposes?

Yeah. Or escape.

You sit on some boards?

I do.

What boards do you sit on?

This particular board is Carroll Independent Fuel and the High stores. And so I'm going to dinner tonight and two days of board meetings.

Is there ever a scenario where you would stop doing business and retire, retire? Or is just working a part of your life and will always remain?

No, there's a scenario. It's called death.

Well, that answers that.

I hope I have the privilege -- and I mean that -- I hope I have the privilege, A; and B, the ability to make a contribution going forward. When I stop making a contribution, then my privilege should be taken away, or better yet, I should give it up.

That seems like the perfect note to end our discussion. Chip, it was a pleasure and it’s always so nice to see you and chat with you and laugh with you.

Love you guys. You're great. We have a great relationship. Great stories. And if this works out, maybe there's a future for you….

We’ll see. Thanks again for coming in.

Thank you.