Thursday, July 23 – OGA’s Jeff Kaufmann joins the show and discussing ‘going virtual’ and how OGA is working to provide amazing content to its members.
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Episode Transcript:
Troy Hudson: [0:00] Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, welcome to the most amazing interview show on the information superhighway.
[0:09] Now Zooming to you live, and simultaneously, from two secret studio bunkers in dual time zones, located somewhere south of Alaska, east of Area 51, north of Guantanamo, and if I give you one more clue we’ll all be in deep trouble.
[0:22] It’s the amazing twin namesakes separated at birth, the two most famous guys not in witness protection, it’s “Coffee with Jim and James.”
[0:31] [applause]
Jim Schauer: [0:37] Good morning, everyone. Welcome to another fine episode of Coffee with Jim and James. As I like to get started on our segments, give a few teasers, if I were to say, “Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain,” or “We’re not all from Muskogee, but we’re from…” or if I say “OGA,” and I’m not referring to the old school graffiti artist, although back in my youth… Nah, we will never speak of that again.
[1:00] Anyways, when I refer to the OGA, I’m referring to the Oklahoma Gas Association, so before get into our guest, Jeff here, I want to as always introduce my partner in crime, my brother, hidden in a secret bunker somewhere in the world, Mr. James Cross.
[1:17] James. How are you this fine and beautiful morning?
James Cross: [1:20] I’m awesome Jimmy, and it’s in Texas, by the way. That’s where the bunker is, and it’s not much of a bunker, as you can see.
[1:28] Jimmy, as usual, you had a little bit of flare every time. I can’t decide if I like it. It’s still up in the air, but it is what it is.
Jim: [1:38] It’s me.
James: [1:38] I’m going to put it back on track and introduce Mr. Jeff Kaufmann, the director of communications for both OGA, the Oklahoma Gas Association, and the director of communications and professional development for the Oklahoma Municipal Alliance, OMA.
[1:56] And it looks like, I was kind of stalking you a little bit Jeff before, but it looks like you took a little bit of my advice on LinkedIn and upgraded your profile, so it reads, “Committed to helping others with leadership, communications, team building and, customer service skills.” So, Jeff Kaufmann, welcome to the show.
[2:19] [applause]
James: [2:19] This is where we would put in all the clapping and stuff if we had that skill, but Jeff, welcome to the show. Glad you’re here. How you doing this morning?
Jeff Kaufmann: [2:27] I’m great, man. Thank you for having me. It’s a real pleasure and honor to be here with a couple of my favorite people on the planet. And I really mean that, so honor to know you both. Honored to have the opportunity to work with you and have this conversation this morning.
[2:42] And I’m really here for the mug.
[2:44] [laughter]
James: [2:45] Well, good news, we can make that happen.
[2:48] So Jeff, I’ve known you from the OGA, obviously, and by proxy the OMA. But Jim was actually one that maybe the connected me with the OGA originally. So just in full disclosure with everybody. I’ve been involved with the OGA for about, well really for 2020. A little bit last year, but mainly here in 2020.
[3:11] So I’m excited to be a part of OGA and helping them craft their messages and do as much as I can to help the association. So Jeff, thank you for letting me be a part of that.
Jeff: [3:23] Well, and I will tell all of the audience and Jim, if you’re not aware of this, Mr. Cross’ name appears on our website as an Advi…Board advisory member. That was hard for me to say this morning.
James: [3:38] That’s all right.
Jeff: [3:39] And of course Jim and I go way back and I think Jim, we either met at one of our annual conferences, or a maybe in at a show in Tulsa, maybe a Corporate Oklahoma Corporation Commission event. And I think we go back, and I think we may have broken bread there in Tulsa, but I again am big fans of you guys. And I will not say that again, because I’m not getting paid to.
Jim: [4:00] The check’s in the mail, and you’re absolutely right. I’ve been involved with the OGA for, goodness, probably close to 10 years, and then during that time, you know, Jeff and I got to know each other.
[4:11] Huge supporter of him throughout the years, from my Center Point days on forward, and you know being able to connect the dots with Mr. Cross, and getting his expertise into the OGA, it was a perfect fit. And I couldn’t have been happier to…That’s what I do, the human switchboard. I connect the dots. So it was great.
James: [4:32] So Jeff, tell us a little bit about the OGA, you know, what’s going on over there? I know all…We, you know, we’re part of something like 30, 30 to 40 different associations across the US, EWNS, so we feel it. We see it. We know how people are are affected and changing during this time.
[4:58] And associations are learning new ways to really reach out to people, and it looks like, you know, obviously that’s part of your concern too, but tell us a little about what’s going on with the OGA in general.
Jeff: [5:10] You bet. You know, I think this is…The Oklahoma Gas Association, and we obviously serve, you know, our membership is primarily from from midstream down, down to the, the stove in customers’ homes. That’s sort of our space.
[5:24] Our board in 2019 started looking at, at where we were and what our direction was going to be and so, just recently within the past few months, we put a new mission statement and some core values.
[5:37] Our mission statement is to assist members in developing leaders focused on safety, best practice performance through education and networking.
[5:47] So we have a little bit of a tradition. So we always do a little safety minute at all of our meetings, little reminder, mask up wash your hands, stay away from one another.
[6:01] Shifting to our core values, safety. We want to share information and best practices for continuous improvement. Training, provide specialized training to benefit workforce development. Leadership, to improve leadership skills and build future leaders, and networking to provide opportunities to build strong industry connections.
[6:22] So that’s sort of where we are. That’s what we try to do, as an association. And to do that we do three events a year, three big events.
[6:32] Earlier in the year in February, Oklahoma’s legislative session starts in February, so we have our annual legislative forum. It has really grown and developed beyond simple legislation. We get some great public policy makers in. We have the Corporation Commission speak in February.
[6:50] We do an annual leadership conference. It’s a one‑day conference. We’re currently scheduled in November for that. That’s one day. It’s really designed to enhance what companies are already doing.
[7:03] You know, a lot of the large companies, Center Point as you mentioned, enable already have their in‑house programs. This is a little bit of bonus training, and that’s one day. And of course we have our annual conference every year. We’ll be virtually September 1, September 1 and 2.
[7:23] So do you have any questions before I go into that?
James: [7:29] Jim I’ll jump in, just real quick.
[7:30] Being a part of this, I just, I wanted to give my impression a little bit. You know, I’m a part of a lot of different associations. I attend a lot of events, but I will say one thing that really struck me with, with OGA and getting involved there, was really the focus on leadership.
[7:49] And in that last statement you made, on the value of, “And build future leaders,” that, that sells it for me. All right?
[8:00] Once, once I got involved and really got, you know, on the on ramp and realized who I was sitting next to, and how passionate everyone was about, the leadership part is really what struck me.
[8:13] And so I just wanted to state that, because from who used to be an outsider, you know, thankfully I’m involved now, that struck me and let me know I was in the right place and working with the right people. So just wanted to state that. Jim, you go ahead.
Jim: [8:28] No, I was going to say I agree with that, and the quality, Jeff, of the events that the OGA puts on are unbelievable. I mean, they’re world‑class. Especially when I’ve gone through them throughout the years, especially when you see the people that are members, even from outside of the state of Oklahoma, that have so much admiration and respect for the OGA organization that they traveled little bit of distances at times to come to the organization.
[8:55] And one thing that you did mention, that networking. You know, we talked about that a lot, but when we really look at this industry, and what we can do, and what we have the ability to do, and connecting the dots and helping people, you know, I may not have the right answer, but I might know a person that has a right answer.
[9:11] And that’s where I really thrive on, when people give me a call and say, “Hey, do you know anybody that does this?” So again, kudos to the OGA, Jeff. Absolutely Kudos on that.
Jeff: [9:20] Well, and and I’ll just say this. I agree we work really hard on putting together great content. That is not the professional staff. That is board members, who spend a lot of time. I’m not an operational fellow. I’m an association professional. I don’t know what keeps our members awake at night, so I’m certainly willing to hear that and build sessions to help answer those questions.
[9:46] Again, it’s the board. They’re, they’re very involved. They’re very active. A little shout out to Mr. Cross, whose fingerprints are all over our mission statement and core values. Came with some great thoughts, and again, that’s what we’re really all about, even just getting input from everybody involved.
James: [10:05] Yeah, but yeah, I appreciate that. And it’s been fun to interact. Like I said, the people, that makes the difference and knowing that you’re sitting next to the right people helping to craft those messages is payment enough, but I will take money.
[10:24] Jeff, you started to kind of go down the path with the you know, annual conference. And being involved I know, you know, kind of the pivot that, that is having to be made and kind of where our head’s at as an association, but you want to fill in our viewers a little bit on what…How it’s going to look, how it’s going to look a little bit different, and how, you know, what’s going to be on that agenda little bit?
Jeff: [10:51] You bet. Well, you know, obviously I think we all agree we would love to be in person. That would always be our desired outcome. We just have the ‘rona going on and they’re simply too much uncertainty. And I think the big thing for us was saying we are unwilling to have organizations bring their people in, that could leave and impact their operations.
[11:14] And again, the board spent a lot of time talking about that. So we are going to do a two‑day virtual event. I am taking a break from being on websites and in GoToWebinar setting things up, but we will be September 1. We will start the morning with the president and CEO of the American Gas Association, a pretty big get for us, we’ll have Karen Harbert on the phone on a virtual session. She’ll talk about the future of natural gas.
[11:42] Then we’ll talk about the mega rule, overview of rule changes. Here in Oklahoma we have passed medical marijuana, so that’s always interesting for safety‑sensitive folks, and that session is Cannabis, Concerns About Safety, cautionary tales and compliance issues for the oil and gas industry.
[12:01] Public awareness, ways to get people to listen. We have some of our member organizations presenting that one. Drone use for gas systems. Obviously, that’s an interesting topic for pipeline inspections. We will have representative from the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission joining us. And then we will finish out the day, Damage Prevention for educating contractors.
[12:22] Now, let me just be really clear about this. We will set up a series of individual seminars. You do not have to register for the whole day. I would encourage anyone who’s interested to go and register for all of them, and we will get notifications. You’ll get reminders. But come to one, come to two, come to all six. We would love to have you.
Jim: [12:44] That’s awesome.
Jeff: [12:45] Oh James, can, can I get you to do me a favor?
James: [12:49] Sure.
Jeff: [12:50] I forgot what the what the rate is for the conference. Could you share that with us? You recall?
James: [12:57] I can’t find information on that. I don’t, I’m not seeing any numbers.
Jeff: [13:01] Oh. Oh wait, wait, because there is no charge. There is no charge.
Jim: [13:07] Hey, can you say that again? Because my little ears are…Are we saying that it is a event that’s going to be held complementary?
Jeff: [13:15] Well, recognizing what’s going on in the industry and in budgets and those kind of things, for attendees there is zero charge.
Jim: [13:23] OK, OK.
Jeff: [13:25] But if you remind…But, but, Jim, if you remind me I’ll be more than happy to talk about what we’re doing for our sponsors.
Jim: [13:33] Well, I would absolutely be interested in that. And I will have to say this though, that, what a great thing that is, because again a lot of people are struggling with budgets this year. A lot of people are struggling with the whole conference sessions, you know, making the pitch to the higher‑ups as to whether they should go or not, and if they can go and attend and see one session, or three sessions, or something to get some value out of it. Oh my goodness. It’s so worthwhile.
Jeff: [13:59] You bet.
Jim: [13:59] And, and I think it will probably expand to where people say, “Hey, come join me, or you know, log into this, or register for this. Check it out.”
Jeff: [14:09] Yeah and part of our goals are to get more people involved.
[14:14] So that’s Day 1. Day 2 we will start with our annual meeting of the association. That’ll be a virtual format and, I think our first session of Day 2, where we pivot from operations. We’re going to pivot to the soft skills; leadership, team building, customer service, communications, the things that are that are near and dear to me.
[14:37] And we start with Mr. Cross and some co‑workers from EWN. Would you tell us a little bit about that? I’m a little trying to learn more about that.
James: [14:45] Absolutely. So our session, in fact, we provided a webinar if you remember. About two weeks into the pandemic we realized that a lot of folks, and a lot of people in the industry, were struggling a bit with the transition to, you know, a remote workforce; managing it, leading it, you know, being being a part of it, simply.
[15:09] So we put together a webinar to help people. Basically, we used our own story because a lot of people may not know, we transitioned in about half a day. We were ready, on the ready.
[15:25] I remember going in that day to the office and there were little bit of rumblings. We had a executive leadership meeting and decided we were going to pivot completely to remote, and and I say half a day. I’m saying 100 percent remote. Majority of people went home, plugged in their computer, and we’re ready to go.
[15:45] We were 100 percent there on March 17th, 18th doing full business from home. A lot of that was forethought with our leadership and our awesome technology department, but another part of that was having fantastic tools and people that could execute it.
[16:02] And so we tell a little bit of our story. We break it up into, really, the people, the tools, and also the, you know, project management side of it. And and I think it helps people to understand, number one, they’re not in it alone.
[16:19] You know now, man, we’re kind of pros at it, three months in, so what are the, you know good bad and ugly since we’ve made it through? So we’ll be talking a little bit of that.
[16:28] It’s myself, VP of brand. Dr. Matt Joiner, our VP of Education and Mayra Maese, who is our executive VP, so all of us from EWN, will be telling that story, so really pumped about that.
Jeff: [16:44] So James, I want to ask a follow‑up question here. Because it’s, the session is Thriving Amidst Chaos, a discussion of remote workers, so it could really, I imagine, be any kind of chaos, but the particular chaos here was having to leave the office in a day and be ready to work outside.
James: [17:01] Absolutely. I mean we’re talking about a remote workforce, but these principles apply no matter what. And that’s the big takeaway is, you know, if you’re, if you don’t have that personal touch and you’re not really clued into your your team, or teams of teams, then, you know, you’re missing out, number one.
[17:21] These methodologies when it comes to project management, and the tools, we were, the reason we were transitioning so fast were, all these things were in place without the chaos, right?
[17:32] So the fact that we rolled into the chaos gave us a catchy title, if you will, but yeah, it’s a, it’ll transcend. It’ll work better when we’re not in chaos, but if you are it does provide a path of least resistance.
Jeff: [17:47] You bet. You bet. Well, and thank you for, in advance, for you and your team helping us out there. I know there’ll be at least one registering for that, and that’ll be myself.
Jim: [17:57] There’ll be four.
James: [18:00] Five:
Jeff: [18:01] I’m talking about audience.
[18:03] So yeah, so our second session of the day was titled practicing, sorry, Best Practices on Managing Ambiguity in Pandemic and Unusual Operating Sessions.
[18:15] Here’s where we’re really looking for our membership to have a conversation. It’s a panel. We’ve got ONEOK. We’ve got Enable. We’ve got Oklahoma Natural Gas in the conversation. We also have a city manager from the city of Tuttle, here in Oklahoma. We do still have some municipal gas systems.
[18:31] So we’ll hear their perspectives on what they did, sort of operationally, but I do imagine there’ll be some some leadership in navigating expectations of folks.
[18:42] Now, we only have three real sessions on the second, and we have a really special guest to present the last one.
James: [18:51] One of the best.
Jeff: [18:53] It’s a session called Leading People Not Like You, and I believe because no one else is really like him…
James: [18:59] Yes.
Jeff: [19:01] Jim Schauer is going to do that for us. Jim, tell me about that one. I’m just curious as to what I can expect.
James: [19:06] His head is swelling. I hope I can stay inside that little Zoom box.
Jim: [19:12] You know, I’m shy, timid, naive. I don’t know if I can give a presentation.
James: [19:16] I’ve just got a bingo.
[19:18] [laughter]
Jim: [19:18] I’ve got like 2,000 hits on LinkedIn with my bingo card, I tell you.
[19:26] But, Jeff, you kind of hit it on the nail head that not too many people are like me. But when you look at our workforce, you know, we are in the most diverse workforce we’ve ever had. And I personally have been a diversity advocate for decades, and am passionate about it. And we have a lot of fun with this.
[19:43] I’ve given this a few times in the past and had some great reactions, some great interaction with the members of the audience. And one thing to really note now in our industry, the aging workforce.
[19:55] So, a lot of times when we think of leading people not like you, a lot of these times right now, it’s people that are younger. You know, people that are, you know, coming into the gas industry, that are in their young 20s that, you know, they google everything and they look this up and they’re searching. Where, my generation were like, “Get me that book. I want to look it up.” You know, I’m flipping through pages and such.
[20:16] So it’s a it’s a fun interactive session. I can’t, I can’t wait to give it. It’ll be it’ll be a lot of fun.
Jeff: [20:24] We’re excited. We’re excited.
James: [20:25] Jim and I both, you know, crafted that presentation, have given it multiple times at various events, and we continue to kind of hone in on it even even better and better even at home. So, no pressure Jimmy.
Jim: [20:40] No, no.
Jeff: [20:41] No pressure.
James: [20:42] Jeff, it sounds like you have an awesome event planned. Is, is there anything else you want to add about that, other than the fact that it’s complementary to attendees again, but anything else you want to add about that in particular?
Jeff: [20:55] So, for attendees, it’s complimentary. We do have, we do have some sponsorship opportunities for company partners, and it’s a really outrageous fee, so y’all need to be sitting down for $150.
Jim: [21:12] OK.
Jeff: [21:13] Three digits.
Jim: [21:15] Could I talk you down to $149?
Jeff: [21:18] I know a guy.
[21:19] So yeah, we’re looking at $150. You know, we’re going to we’re going to do some signage, some recognition throughout the event.
[21:29] We are were coming fast and furious into the virtual world. And then we also onboarded or on‑ramped something new, our LinkedIn page. So for the $150, we’re going to get some, some, some recognition on our website, we’re going to do some LinkedIn promotions, we’re going to do some things in conference, and you’ll get a list of the attendees.
[21:49] So today, on this date, I am fast and furiously trying to set up a website and trying to set up a webinar. If my plan goes according to way it’s supposed to, which is 50/50 at best, hopefully our web site www.okgas.org will be ready for registration when this video comes out. 50/50, but again, we’ll keep, we’ll keep you up to date and we’ll work on the LinkedIn.
[22:19] So I imagine once the information is out, James and Jim will send out to their, those zillions of people.
Jim: [22:26] Absolutely.
Jeff: [22:26] We’ll move it that way. We’re working as fast as we could. My preference would have been to be out last week, but we’re just learning something new and it’s both frustrating and really exciting, because we simply never done this.
[22:37] But we’ve done about four practice sessions as a team. We’re just trying to get all the things worked out before we roll it out to our members so we don’t put out something that we’re not absolutely happy with
James: [22:46] Awesome.
Jim: [22:49] Let me just jump in real quick. You just mentioned that you learned something new. And I can’t tell you how many times we hear people saying, “Oh, I wish I could this,” or “I wish that,” or “Oh woe is with me.”
[23:02] And I know we’re all struggling with a lot of these issues right now, and trying to work our way through them. And as I always say, every day, there’s always a bright spot, something that we learned.
[23:14] Look at me, for example. This whole Zoom, you know, six months ago James would have said, “You want to get on a Zoom,” and I’m like, “I have no idea what it is.” And now it’s, you know, just matter of fact.Those are the good things.
[23:27] Any more things with, Jeff, that you’ve learned from all this, or anything else you want to share? Some of the goodness that has come about of this time?
Jeff: [23:36] Well, you know, I think for me is I’m reminded every day what I’m allowed to do. What I have the privilege of being able to do.
[23:44] So my days are are 70/50, 70/40. I don’t know what the numbers are, some Yogi Berra math there, of course, but about a third of…Two‑thirds of my time is with local Municipal Alliance, and we serve municipal utilities, so I have the privilege of going out to small utilities all over Oklahoma, and some larger ones, and doing some professional development work, where they get maybe a day of training.
[24:11] So for example, tomorrow I will be in Duncan, Oklahoma and Frederick, Oklahoma talking about motivation. How we motivate ourselves, and self‑motivation. And then the day after I’ll be out just talk about goal setting and dealing with difficult people, so it may be very similar to your conversation.
[24:29] But I think we’re, what I love about the OGA and my OMA role is is this ongoing dialogue that that I’m 53, 54 very soon, but there’s still something new to learn. There’s something to take away from this, and even as I advance personally and professionally, that there are good things to find.
[24:52] There’s, there’s, there’s how I showed up with my ideas of leadership may not matter because there’s a different way to think about this.
[25:03] My favorite exercise about communication skills is, I have a 16 year old son. Quiz. “Take the trash out, George.” Is that an effective message?
James: [25:17] Not to my son, tell you that. “Where do you want me to take it, Dad? How do you want me to take it?” Everything in between, right?
Jim: [25:27] Sure.
Jeff: [25:28] So it’s a very simple example guys, but my point is, if we’re in a leadership role, as we are as parents, or supervisors or coworkers, for me it often will pin on outcomes.
Jim: [25:42] Sure.
Jeff: [25:43] So again, there’s a lot of learning to be had. And I use this example in my training sessions and people go, “Well, of course it’s a clear message.”
Jim: [25:52] Not. Right?
James: [25:55] Don’t know.
Jeff: [25:56] Maybe. Maybe, maybe. If the trash goes out, then it’s a clear message.
James: [26:03] Depends on…
Jeff: [26:03] As James says…
James: [26:05] Where did you take it? I can already see my son. You know, he’s watching his tablet as he picks up a piece of trash from his room and takes it outside and puts it in the outside dumpster and comes back was like, “I did take it out, Son.” I mean Dad. But, you know, that’s not effective.
[26:23] But it reminds me of if, you remember on Seven Habits, and they talk about, you know, he talks about teaching his son, to take care of the grass, the yard, right. And it was green and clean. Those were the two parameters, right, and just drove it home. “I want it green, and I want it clean,” and filling in the gaps, you know for him along the way, but…
[26:46] Jeff, this is something that we’ve bonded on, you know, I told Jim right at the beginning I go, “I don’t think that Jeff guy likes me,” but I realized you weren’t you weren’t on the call the first time.
[26:56] So then, then once we got on a call and start talking the same language, and I think…You know, now we’re Facebook friends and Instagram, and all that. So now we got a little more meat behind it. It’s like, “Man, we basically are out there screaming the same thing.”
Jeff: [27:10] Absolutely. Absolutely.
James: [27:12] You know, it’s something I’m really passionate about with my teens. And anybody I can talk to, I’m really passionate about the fact that you can lead from anywhere.
Jeff: [27:21] You bet.
James: [27:22] Leadership is not a title, it’s an action, and it doesn’t matter where you sit, whether it’s at home, with your friends, with your church, with your industry, that there’s a place for leadership all day long.
[27:35] And also, the the last thing I’ll bring up, the fact that there’s not a silver bullet on leadership. Is that it is a growing set of tools that we continue to grow, and grow, and grow, and if you think you’ve made it there, then you probably got a little bit of work to do too.
[27:52] So yeah, man, I love it. I love we could…we’re gonna have to have Jeff where we just talk about this all day. We’ve had some other folks, if you haven’t watched our episode from Miss Cindy Mitchell, from Southern Gas Association, she talks about strength based leadership. That’s an awesome one as well.
[28:11] We’ll just have to have a group of nerds like us on one day, where we just talked about leadership and what works and doesn’t, and what we’re excited about at any given time, because man I could speak for hours. We may have to get a longer Zoom call for that one.
[28:28] But Jeff, if we talked about that and we begin to wrap this thing up today, you have any final thoughts for us or for our viewers?
Jeff: [28:39] No. I mean, you know, James, right on. You know, you know, preach. I think it’s about always trying to get better. Usually when I, when I hear somebody that’s like, “I got it all figured out, or I’ve got it all worked out,” that’s usually a red flag for two things. And one is I’m not going to be able to reach that person, and number two, that probably, maybe something how much I want to, how much time I want to invest with that person.
[29:01] In terms of the the big panel discussion, you know, getting a handful of this, you’re talking about ours. I’m all on board. I would try to figure out if we want to share that or not. Selfishly, that may be something we want to keep for us.
James: [29:14] Just therapy. It’s soft skills therapy for us.
Jim: [29:16] Absolutely. Absolutely.
[29:18] So, so again, just a couple of things to wrap up. Again, we have the OGA virtual annual conference September 1, September 2. Be on the lookout for our registration information.
[29:29] And I cannot thank you two guys enough. You know, I go back to meeting Jim in Tulsa, or or in Norman, whatever it was. It was so impactful I can’t remember which one it was.
Jim: [29:42] It’s the border.
Jeff: [29:42] But I do remember, I do remember eating at Pei Wei in Tulsa.
Jim: [29:49] That we did.
Jeff: [29:49] And James, and all of your work, and then the opportunity to do this, and all the insight you provide to our board. I do appreciate you, and of course thank you for what Energy Worldnet does for our association, and the industry.
James: [30:03] Man, I appreciate it and I want to thank you guys for letting me, you know, play, play in that world because I know, number one, I guess maybe I’m an honorary Oklahoman? Is that a word? Did I just make that up?
Jim: [30:20] Your’e an Okie.
James: [30:21] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think maybe I’m an honorary. I’m so close. You know, I’m just right there. Be there in 40 minutes, but I appreciate you guys letting me, you know, be a voice there and sit shoulder‑to‑shoulder with you all. I appreciate that.
[30:37] Jim, you want to lead us out?
Jim: [30:39] Absolutely sir.
James: [30:41] Lead us out in prayer.
Jim: [30:43] I can do that. I do it quite often, so it would be no problem here.
[30:47] But Jeff, on behalf of James and I, we just want to thank you so much. You know, our friendship has gone on for years, and being able to bring James into the, into the mix, it brings me a lot of happiness, and it brings a lot of happiness to us to have you on the show today, so we just want to say thank you to that.
[31:04] You’ve enlightened us. Again, I would encourage folks to connect with not just James and I, but also Jeff on LinkedIn. Reach out to Jeff too, about the conference. Again, no cost conference. I would highly attend anybody in the energy industry to attend that conference. It would be a fantastic event for yourself, so please do.
[31:24] And I think with that, I think we’ll get ready to sign off. Again, thank you all for watching. We will see you next time on another, another exciting edition of Coffee With Jim and James, and until then God bless you, and God bless our industry, and have a great day and stay safe.
[31:40] Take care everybody.
Jeff: [31:41] Bye‑bye.
Jim: [31:42] Bye.