Adam Torres and Tom Johnson discuss Texas FFA.
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Show Notes:
Listen to coverage from the 96th Texas FFA State Convention in Houston, Texas. In this episode, Adam Torres and Tom Johnson, Founder of Encino Landscape, Inc., explore the Texas FFA and Ducks Unlimited.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres and I am proud to say, Hey, today I am at the Texas FFA convention over in Houston, Texas. And I have Tom Johnson on the show, a return guest, also a mission matters author that he republished him. And one of our bestselling books that was all about it’s our Texas.
Leaders edition of Mission Matters. And we had some legends and amazing to have Tom back. And this is Tom, as I was telling you, this is one of my favorite parts of just coming back to the convention year over year, meeting new people. And now I got my, you’re, I think you might be my first return guest other than Aaron Alejandro.
So welcome back to the show, Tom, man. Thank you for having me. Good to see you. So it’s been a year. What’s going on just to dive right in. Let’s I want to start first with Ducks Unlimited. It’s been a year. What’s been going on with the organization since we last spoke? I know a whole lot. Well, as far as our youth program has come along, our certification has just went gangbusters since COVID was over.
And then we were able to. Get it back into the schools and stuff. So our certification has really taken off for the kids. They’re like in the wildlife class, which is huge here in the state of Texas. Our scholarship program is kicking off. We had 16 winners out of 61 scholarships that we offer nationwide, 16 winners from Texas.
So that was really big news for me. Yeah, yeah. Really big news. And it. You know, we’re pushing our, our fundraisers that we let the shooting teams participate in and the fishing teams participate in. So we’re trying to bring some fundraising ideas and some of our expertise into the mix. And so far it’s been received really, really well.
Yeah. We, you know, of course, we’re at convention this year right after a hurricane that Really wasn’t that big, but it done a lot of damage. It did. And it just, it warms my heart to see these kids still here, still coming. So many. I was like, for those that couldn’t make it, obviously, you know, I feel bad for them, but for those that did make it here, the energy in this place, I’m like, you would not, you would not know what’s going on outside and outside.
You would have no clue. None. No, no clue. I mean, they’re all smiling. They’re not as depressed. They’re glad to be here. And that’s what it’s all about. Yeah. So you mentioned the youth program and certification for those that are unfamiliar with maybe just ducks unlimited in general, maybe just a little bit of an overview, like for those that are watching and they’ve heard of it, but they’re kind of curious, like, well, just the work being done.
Well ducks unlimited is the world’s number one wetlands conservation company. We do a lot of work throughout Canada, Mexico, and the United States. A lot of our work is right here in Texas and along the Gulf coast. For instance, whenever they had the. Oil spill from the Horizon Oil Spill several years ago.
Well, everybody was jumping on the oil company that owned the rig and everything. And we went in there knowing that fall is coming and the birds are picturing they start migrating south to the coast. And we went in there with our hat in hand and said, guys, how can we help? And they said, what do we do?
You know, how do we help all these birds coming to the coast that’s covered in oil? And so through our science, we’re We told them, we said what we need to do is we need to go north of here, pay these farmers to flood these fields that normally would be dry this time of the year, create habitat quickly to help those birds that come down shortstop instead of going to the coast.
That’s what we’ve done, and so that was a big feather in our hat, and it helped those guys out too. Not to mention how many birds, not just ducks and geese, but shorebirds and stuff that rely on those wetlands help save those guys too. But we do. Work all over in Canada, prairie pothole regions, which is our nesting ground here in the United States.
Work really closely with the farmers and ranchers up there in that area. Teach them new farming techniques and stuff like that. And we also have pavement programs that we can help with too on planting some cover crops too. Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about the, the connection between Ducks Unlimited and why Ducks Unlimited, and even yourself, personally, I mean, you’re a business owner, you’re, you, a lot of things you do with your time, other than, of course, support Ducks Unlimited, and Texas FFA, so, maybe, like, you, personally, why do you get involved, why do you come to these conventions year after year, because I, I, I was hunting you down no, no pun intended.
I was hunting you down. I’m like, where’s Thomas? You’re out of season. Why do you do it? Like you’re a busy business on a lot of different things you could do, like with your time. Well, you’re right. But I grew up through this organization when I was a kid. I got to come to a couple of state conventions. So I knew everything about this organization that I could possibly learn.
And then I went, I grew up, become an adult, became successful, got involved with Ducks Unlimited, started giving back. I thought that our, our future, meaning Ducks Unlimited, relies on our youngsters today becoming involved as they get older. And we needed to educate them on what we do and why we need to continue our work.
And so it brought me back to the FFA because I think they’re just the, our type of kids. Yeah. We know these are going to be the future. Senators and state reps, and they’re going to be our future landowners. They’re going to be everybody that’s, that’s in the mix on what we work with every day, whether it’s legislation to help do our work or whether it’s actually doing work on their farms and ranches.
So what better group of kids to get involved with than these kids, because they are going to be the future for us and, and a lot of the other rest of the United States. So. We think this, these are the primo kids and that’s the reason we choose to come here. Talk to me a little bit about that whether it’s leadership or otherwise you use this term and what’s interesting is I’ve been using that term too And that’s our type of kids and I talk about this for mission matters and otherwise and and what and i’m like There’s so much and not to get political, but there’s so many there’s so many in this country that are thinking, you know About what’s the next generation doing or how is it coming or this or that and I tell them Come to a Texas FFA convention, and you will see the future of our country, like, you’re not exaggerating when you say our future senators, our future, like, they’re in this building right now.
Yes, but when I say they’re our type of kids, you can walk through this Convention Center and see these kids here, and they’re all well mannered. They’re here to learn. They, they’re learning leadership skills and we in the class, we’re, and we’re not talking about a couple hundred, we’re talking over thousand, 10,000.
There’s over 10,000 kids here. And it’s not like you have to go to one or the other. No. It’s like, pick any single one. No, that is, I mean, single one. And that, that blue jacket does, it does not discriminate. It fits every kid that wants to put it on. Yeah, that’s, that’s incredible. There. You see kids from all walks of life from rich, rich, rich to poor, poor, poor, but you can’t tell them apart because they all dress the same.
They all look the same. And that’s what it’s about. Big cities. I think I just met. Why? And I know I had towns. Yeah. They had 50 something or so. I was like, I think we might’ve just lost our charter, but we’re still going on it. I was like, Oh, I don’t know what to say, but it’s amazing. But then that same individual, that same blue jacket, that uniting, like like characteristic and shared experience.
Right. Right. It never discriminates. It picks everybody. You know, they’re just, they’re being taught things in the classroom in ag that are life lessons that they will carry forever. Yeah. I mean, and they will use those skills, their real life skills that they learned, whether, like I said, it’s the leadership, the speaking events that can help them develop speaking skills, just the things they learn in ag shop and ag mechanics, tractor mechanics, all those.
I mean, those are their career building tools that they’ll actually use. When they graduate and you’re not speaking like hypothetically and just as a sponsor or something like that Like you personally in your life in your way to success Like those core skills helped you along the way. Am I off on that?
Like yes, I I often use the Example that I learned to weld in high school I’m, not a welder. Yeah, and it may look like a dirt diver run down the road, but When I’m working on my equipment on the ranch, I know how to weld. I can weld it up because I learned that in school. And so, I never forgot that. I never did forget that.
It’s things like that that you, you do learn at an early age. And these classes that they offer gives them the opportunity to learn those things. And those things are what will carry On a lot of whatever they choose to do in life. Yeah, they can use them anywhere Yeah So I want to take a moment and I want you to you know speak from your business owner in that business side of things and put that hat on for a moment because I want you to talk to maybe some of the This is my third year and I just met a woman who she told me she’s been coming for 30 years and I I can’t wait till I say hey i’ve been here.
I’m at my 10 year anniversary party for when i’m coming I won’t make it 30 years. I’m a three, you know, you’re making it because I won’t hunt you down still You’re making it so Why you come back year after year. You already told us why those that aren’t here, specifically corporate America, other business owners, other successful individuals.
Why should they be here? Why should they be supporting this event and these kids? I think one thing a business looks at is how are they going to recruit the best for whatever business they’re in. And that’s one of the toughest things to do is find groups of young people. That are, are eager to learn, eager to work, have some skills, and they all gather in one place.
Yeah. That’s tough to do. And when you’ve got, they were estimating 17, 000 here this year. If we hadn’t had the hurricane, we’d have had that. I remember 2017, they had 11, 000 total at the convention, and we were tickled to death. Then we had a hurricane, and we got over 10, 000, and everybody’s, oh, the numbers are down.
No, I, this is great, you know. Yeah. But. You’ve got those kind of people that you want to recruit into your company. You’ve got at this convention, say 10, 000 of them under one roof. Yeah. What better place to connect? What better place to get your name out, your company out than under one roof with potentially, Out of 10, 000, there’s got to be a handful that will fit your company and want to come to work.
So what better place to come than this place right here and introduce yourself to those young people right now, plant that seed in their head, give them a idea of maybe they want to come to work for you. Yeah. Right. Here’s the place to be. Yeah. And on the other side of things for the brands, and I agree with everything you said, and that’s, I, and I’ve seen it.
I’ve seen it. We’ve met mission matters have had. Interns from here and otherwise that are now in college and moved on. And they, I mean, I’ve seen it and I’ve benefited from the talent here. So for that, I’m speaking as well from experience, but then from the other side of things, I’ll tell you something that’s new to me this year is now our brand.
And we’ve been here enough times to where now. I have people that are coming up that say that they listen to the show, or they, or they, or, or we used to, we gave out these little Mission Matters coasters a couple years ago, three years ago. Then I had a couple people come up, like, we still have our coasters, are we doing this?
And I’m thinking to myself, like, that’s not my, that was never my intention in coming to these, is to like, To get a new audience or to get more like we’re not necessarily selling anything at this booth. We’re just here to support. And our goal is to get the word out to as many people. Cause I see the amazing things here happening here.
So I want everybody else to see it so they can participate, especially corporate America and sponsors. I want everybody here. But that being said, for those that want to get brands in front of like these individuals, like you’re, you have your fruit, your future leaders, our future senators, our future business owners, our future successful individuals, Who do you want knowing your brand from a young age and knowing that oh that brand used to support us I remember them from FFA you’re going after a big contract And now this individual which name slipping me right now But interviewed her a couple years ago and she’s a she’s a head of a bank a credit union here so now you think about like someone like that making the decision and X amount of years ago, she was actually wearing that blue jacket, that blue and gold.
Exactly. So who do you want, like to know your business or your brand in the future? Is there future consumers too? Exactly. And the more they know about your brand, your organization, your company. Even, even if they’re not going to go to work for you. Absolutely. If you’re looking for support, like a Ducks Unlimited, we put on a ton of fundraisers and I tell them.
I get the magazine by the way. I’m a member. Did I tell you? Yes, you have. I am a member. After your last convention, when we met, I am now a member and I, and I get the magazine and I’m looking and I obviously, I’ll say this, not for you obviously, but for my audience that know, that watch this, obviously I’m a poser from the standpoint of, I don’t know much about how you put me in the, I’m gonna die if I go in the country and someone like you’s not helping me.
I don’t know how to take care of myself. I’m not gonna lie. Well, but that being said, when I read, when I flip through that magazine, man, I swear I’m like, hmm, hunting dogs. I’m like, oh, that’s interesting. I’m actually learning. A whole lot. I read it, so I’m learning more. Well, you know, it’s funny you bring that up on a lot of people back in the day.
Ducks Unlimited, of course it was formed by hunters that was concerned because our number of ducks was going down, down, down, especially when the dust bowl came. Yeah, it was huge. And so there was no organizations to support our wildlife and conservation stuff. So that’s when we were started in 1937. But I tell people I don’t care.
Most of our members are not hunters. Yeah, by the way, they don’t hunt. I mean, they care about conservation. They want to give back to something. So I, and I tell everybody, do you live in a house? Yeah. And they say, yes. I said, do you live in a city? They, most of them say yes. And I said, well, that house and yard you have, wild animals used to live there.
Yeah. Now you have taken their home away. You should join a wildlife conservation group that builds back habitat, that gives back. environment and give back to where you’re living. Yeah. And so it kind of sets off a light bulb in their head. And I tell them, I said, I choose Ducks Unlimited because I feel, and I done, I done my work.
I feel like for my dollar that I give them, I know that 86 cents of every dollar that I give them goes straight for conservation work. It doesn’t go, the rest is for administration costs and things like that. Big one. 86 cents. To go for projects. It’s huge. That’s since that’s a lot. I mean that is yeah No other conservation group can say they they put that much money forward And our biggest return of course We match money that we get with other organizations a lot of federal dollars out there a lot of a lot of other Organizations give money to us, but the biggest Turn that we ever had we took one dollar and turned it into seven dollars because of matching funds And when you’re talking about millions of dollars like that, it turns into a lot of money And which turns into a lot of good a lot of loss in a lot of work right now And I get tickled because people when I tell them this number it blows their mind and your eyes are fixing to get big When I tell you this Whatever we’re in a campaign right now five year campaign.
It’s unlimited. We’re two years into that campaign And that five year campaign is a three billion dollar fundraising campaign. We’re two years into it, a little over two years into it. It’s a good thing I’m sitting down. And we are over, we’re over two billion dollars already raised. So we have less than a billion dollars to raise and we have two and a half, three years to raise that.
Pocket change. Pocket change. Pocket. There is no other organization out there that can say they are raising three billion dollars. Amazing. Yes. I mean, it’s, it’s just. Well, we want to help contribute. What’s that going to? Like, what’s that campaign? Talk, tell me a little about it. Well, all of that goes to any of our wetland restoration projects.
Here locally, I always tell people right here, In the city of Houston, 70 percent of Lake Livingston, which is right up the road there, and all the Trinity River, 70 percent of that water belongs to the city of Houston. Matter of fact, they have a pipeline south of, north of Liberty and south of Cleveland that they pipe water over to Lake Houston for Houston’s drinking water.
Well, between Trinity River starts and Fort Worth, it runs through Dallas. And so when they get a big rain, all that All and just everything washes into the Trinity river and down the river and it’s gone. Well, they built Richland chamber lakes down there, Richland chambers. And we went in there and done a lot of shallow wetlands around the edges of that lake built with more wetlands.
And those, well, the wetlands naturally filter that water and clean all those pollutants out. Well, they done that because when the, after it’s cleaned up there and it goes on down to the river, into the lake, Lake Livingston, which is used as drinking water, it’s cleaned up more. By the time it gets there.
So those wetlands that we’re building and protecting, they are actually our natural water cleaners. Dang. All of them. Yeah. Anytime you see a swamp, everybody thinks, Oh, that’s a muddy swamp. No, that there’s rivers and creeks that run into those swamps and those swamps, all those plants, and they are cleaning all this stuff, the carbon and stuff for storing it in the ground and stuff.
And they’re mitigating floods too, because when those rivers come rushing into those wetlands, those wetlands spread that water out over an area, and it helps just flooding quickly. So, if we, we’re learning along our coast, that soil or wave erosion is eating into our freshwater swamps there and killing them.
So we’re going in and building dikes to stop that saltwater intrusion from coming in and killing those. But aquifers is another big issue in the Panhandle of Texas around Lubbock. The aquifer up there is pretty much depleted from from farming And it’s because we got rid of a lot of the wetlands that are up there So we’re doing a lot of work on the in the panhandle too To restore some of those wetlands because they capture that water let them percolate and restore recharge those aquifers Yeah, so that is one reason ranchers and farmers and ducks unlimited Need to, we need each other and we need to work hand in hand for both legislation that helped both of us and for our projects that help both of us.
So that’s the reason why we like partnering with the farmers and the ranchers, because our work is done on their land. Yeah, it’s not done on our land, so it’s done on theirs. And so we try to have a good relationship with them. And we know these kids are going to be our future landowners too. So. That’s pretty much Ducks Unlimited in a nutshell.
Man, billions of dollars. Billions. That’s just like, you’re right, mind blowing. I didn’t know what the number was. I can’t spell 3 billion. I can’t, man. I don’t want to deal with it. I ain’t dealing with it. We got chat g billion. I don’t know. Exactly. But I mean, that’s impressive to me. No, to me, yeah. And it shows.
It shows by the fact that of the numbers you’re already hitting. That wasn’t a random. No, yeah. No. We’re over 2 billion and still have a lot of time left. Well, Tom, hey, I just want to say appreciate you coming back onto the show again. It’s a lot of fun catching up with you and I know we could talk all day, but I know you got a busy day as well.
Oh yeah. I’m gonna let you get to the booth and do what you do. To everybody listening, let her, I want you to look into the camera. How do people get involved? Website? How do they, how do they connect with Ducks Unlimited? We got a website. It’s ducks. org. You can go to the website. It’s got all of our information on Look around, we’ve got, on the website, it shows some events in your state, you can find a local event, go attend your local event, see what it’s all about, and support the greatest wetlands organization in the world.
Yeah, and I’m gonna say, hey, definitely join, go to the website, join, you’re gonna get this magazine, the magazine alone, let me tell you, when you read through that thing, the stories, it’ll update you, it’s got, just, it’s a pleasure for me to read every time it comes in, and if you’re a first time viewer of Mission Matters, And you haven’t done it yet.
Hit that subscribe button because we have many more interviews coming up for you. We got mission based individuals. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re releasing new content. I want you to get that notification. So hit that subscribe or follow button and we’ll see you next time.