In this captivating episode, we dive into a profound conversation with Justin Zajic, Superintendent for Chamberlain Schools District. Join us as he recounts his journey working alongside CMBA Architects on the transformative Chamberlain Elementary School project. Justin's insights shed light on the paramount role of relationships and collaboration in achieving success. From spearheading a successful bond initiative to fostering community engagement, this episode uncovers how Justin's partnership with CMBA Architects not only revitalized educational spaces but also revitalized a community. Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the pivotal role relationships play in shaping our architectural landscape and fostering meaningful change.
Skyler: Welcome to another episode of laying the foundation.
Welcome everybody to another episode of laying the foundations. Uh, I'm Skylar. I'm here with Justin Zeitz. I get it. You got it. You got it. Sweet. Um, from the Chamberlain schools from South Dakota, uh, superintendent, I think I got everything. And I miss any titles or anything. Nope. That's
Justin: about it. Yeah. Okay.
Awesome. Very good.
Skyler: Dr. Austin. Well, yeah, that one. There you go. Okay. Sorry. Dr. Justin sites. Yep. And then of course, Lee is over on my left. Uh, he's joining from our Sioux city office, just like myself. Um, and we are currently live from the, and let's see if I can get this right. Yeah. A
Justin: B S. The S A S D A S B S D joint conference here in Sioux Falls.
There we
Skyler: are. Thanks, Justin. Appreciate it. Um, here in Sioux falls and south or, uh, Sufa already said so South Dakota, obviously. So, uh, excited to have you over here, Justin, um, Justin, you're going to talk to us a little bit about, uh, some of your experiences, um, in part with CMBA, but more specifically, uh, you just gave a presentation, right.
And it was on the topic of success, not being an accident and how important relationships are. Um, within basically everything,
Justin: honestly. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, just did a presentation to the new principals here in South Dakota in conjunction with SASD and the department of education, uh, and the presentation is titled, uh, leading through action, how to impact culture, climate, and achievement through your actions.
Uh, but really the main point of the presentation and kind of how I actually operate as an administrator or as a leader is. Success is not an accident. Relationships matter. And so that's kind of what you guys asked me to talk about today.
Skyler: Yeah, absolutely. And it sounded like everything went well with your presentation, which is good, which is good, good for running.
Justin: So yeah, yeah, a lot of fun to do those. Uh, always enjoyable to work with colleagues.
Skyler: Awesome. Awesome. So I guess for, for starters, Justin, tell us a little bit about your history with, uh, Chamberlain schools, how you kind of got to be there, um, how you got to be the superintendent of the school. Is it the whole, like the district basically?
Justin: Yep. Yep. The whole district. Um, Yeah, so those of us that get into education, uh, typically have a teacher that's influenced us in a very positive manner and we go, Hey, I want to do that with kids. Uh, for me, I did have that. Um, but actually it was more a principal. So the entire time I went into education, it was, my goal was to be a principal.
Some experience with middle schoolers early on goes, I really like middle school. Uh, and so that's where I, I ended up after being in education for six years, I made it as the Mitchell Middle School principal, uh, and really was having a lot of fun with that. Um, never saw myself as a superintendent, but one day I had a conversation with the superintendent of Mitchell and he goes, you're really good at what you do, but you need to take the next step and be a superintendent.
Sure. I kind of was taken back like, Oh, okay. Um, but I pursued it and after a few interviews, uh, landed over in Chamberlain, uh, which was exciting. Um, you know, signed the contract February 21st of 2020. A week later, my wife and I had sold our house, uh, following week, we had put an offer on one over in Chamberlain, uh, and they accepted it.
And the following week was March 13th, 2020, when every school in the state of South Dakota shut down for COVID. And I went, I now have to run a district in the midst of COVID. So it was a transition unlike no other. Oh my
Skyler: gosh. Yeah. Like just thing after thing. And then boom. Yeah, international
Justin: thing.
International pandemic. Have fun running a school,
Skyler: right? Oh my gosh. I can't even imagine what that would, you know, kind of lead to. And I mean, what do you do actually? I mean,
Justin: yeah, to that. Um, it's interesting. Anytime you switch a job, it's hard. Um, but switching in the midst of an international pandemic, you basically have to Uh, stay ahead of what's going on.
So, you know, those, those of us in education work to become HVAC experts. And is this going to help, what do we do with masking, uh, those, uh, hot button issues that kind of make my stomach turn right now. And do you have in person, do you offer virtual? So, uh, great thing about state of South Dakota is we all work together.
So the superintendents had meetings. Here's what we're doing. Here's, what's going to work. Here's what we can do. Uh, and we were fortunate here. We didn't have a statewide. Mandate on what we need to do. It was up to the district. Uh, so Chamberlain, we were able to make those decisions for what we saw as the best and, uh, really what works for the culture of the community.
Yeah.
Skyler: Now you mentioned culture of the community, and that was something that I was going to ask about. Um, given the fact that you ended up kind of putting the charge into getting the, the Chamberlain school project, which CMBA is working with you with and everything like that, what was kind of the culture of.
Everything down there. Once you got there, uh, what was kind of the tone and emotion of the community as far as when it came to the school district and what you were jumping into and
Justin: right. Right. Um, well, yeah, so that's a mouthful of a question. Um, that's, that's all right. You know, I just got back up and say, okay, in superintendencies, typically you start July one, right?
Okay. And so that's when I officially started and my wife and I decided we're going to move at the beginning of June. I'm going to go into the community. I'm going to see what things are like and get a feel for it before I officially start. See if people will talk about the school before they know I'm in charge of the school.
That didn't work really. You know, I go into the grocery store the first time they go, Hey, aren't you the new superintendent? I am. And yeah, dang it. I needed to know more about the community, but there was one moment that really gave me kind of an insight into the kids in the community, which is what I'm about.
And after about. Two weeks of unpacking and my kids are, are frustrated, they're tired. And, and at the time I had, uh, almost one year old and then two other ones, I decided my wife and I said, we need to take the other two to the pool. So she stayed home with, uh, the little guy and I took the older two to the pool and they'd never seen a high dive board before.
Right. And so we go there and my, my daughter who would be going into fourth grade and my son who was going into kindergarten, like, we want to try that. We want to try that. Okay. And so my son goes up and he stands there and comes back down and he does that about three times and then he finally jumps like, Oh dude, you five years old at the time you just jumped off the high dive.
My daughter goes up and comes down and same thing. But the last time she was up there, she, she stood at the top and she goes, She can't do it. You know, I'm standing down there with my, my son and we're cheering her on, and, and after about five minutes, uh, maybe not that long, it seems like forever when you're the dad.
Right. But after a period of time, you know, I hear some kids start cheering. Oh. And, and my mentality goes, those are middle school aged kids. I know what middle schoolers are like. They're egging her on. They're gonna, and so I kind of turn into principal mode and she jumps. And she comes up and those kids, I kid you not, the whole pool is cheering for her.
They're going, nice job. Hey, you did it. It's easier the next time. And my heart just kind of goes, Hey, relax, dad. It's okay. And then I go, okay, that really gives you an insight of what this community is like. So it's very much a tight knit community, very welcoming, um, which was a good thing going into that school year.
Wow. Very
Skyler: encouraging, which is. Yeah. Positive environment to be in and such like that. So awesome. That's awesome. That's very cool. So. When you were getting into, uh, taking over this role, what were some of the goals that you had in mind as you were
Justin: kind of going into it? Right. So whenever you walk into a superintendency, you don't go, here's everything I'm going to change because there might be some things that work well.
So I had some ideas in mind, some things I wanted to bring, but really where all of it came from was I ate lunch with the school board president one day, you know, he called the day we moved in and goes, what do we have in lunch? I said. Give me a week. All right. So we ate that first week or second week I was there.
And, uh, he goes, okay, here are the top five goals of the school board. And like number three is build a new elementary, you know, the current elementary is, uh, 1956, 1960, uh, and the joke in Chamberlain is it's built by the dam engineers, right? Which it literally is. It's built by the engineers that designed the Fort Thompson dam because nobody else wanted to put it in the side of the hill.
So, you know, it's built by the dam engineers and it's four. Four stories, uh, from the first story to the top story, there's 40 steps. And so the building is in okay condition, but it's not a modern school building. It's starting to deteriorate in certain spots where we don't want to use it anymore. And so what Keith said is in five years, we want to be able to build a new elementary.
Uh, and we either want to have it here or we want to connect it to the high school. Oh, okay. So, okay. I sat down with the business manager and we came up with, if we, uh, squirrel away X amount per year in capital outlay, we can put this towards it because in Chamberlain, there's never been a bond successfully passed.
And so we know what we can do with what we have. Right. Uh, well, this is in the midst of the pandemic and December of 2020. Uh, the government said, uh, you get your second round of Essar funds, which for Chamberlain is that was about 5 million. And it was, okay, we're not going to spend 5 million on masks and plastic shields.
How do we make this impactful for generations? And so really what we did is we started fast forwarding. How are we going to make this building project work with what we have now, right? Here's what we can take out in capital outlay. Here's what we can use from Essar. Here's what we have on hand. And so that prompted, uh, basically, um, going out for RFPs for architects, and starting to have those conversations.
Right. Then March of 2021 hit and they released that third round of Esser funding. Now all of your Esser funding is tied to your Title one allocation, which is tied to your free and reduced or poverty stricken schools, right? All in all, through all three rounds, Chamberlain got around 17 million. Nice. You can't spend that much on plastic shields.
You can't spend that much on a new school bus. You need to use it in a way that's impactful for the community. And so I sat down with the school board and I said, we need to move forward with this project. We have basically two years to spend this money wisely. Yes. And so they gave the green light. Uh, so we sent out RFPs.
Uh, to, well, I don't even know where we sent them, uh, but we got about 15 responses from all the architect firms in the area. Yeah. Awesome.
Skyler: And there wasn't any kind of like dissenting opinion and within the,
Justin: the school board. So that's an interesting question, right? Uh, and the way it works, um, we took the 15 and the business manager, Michelle, and I whittled them down to about six.
We said, here's the six we want to look at. And so we met with the building committee. Um, which is three school board members and from those six, we picked four. Now, all of the, I shouldn't say all, almost all of the firms that submit a proposal had come to the school and walked around and said, what's your vision?
What do you want to do? Right. So we kind of had a relationship with the ones we chose and, um, of the four, I don't remember the other three, but I know, uh, CMBA was one of the four, obviously, uh, And they didn't have, we didn't put them first or last. They didn't have primacy or recency. CMBA is right in the middle.
Um, and we have, was it 35, 40 minute interview, Lee? It's not long. And so what's interesting about this process is we're making a, in this case, 30 million decision based off of knowing this group for 30 minutes. Um, so. When it's all said and done, uh, you know, I don't make the decision. The school board does, they ask for my guidance.
And I, so everybody walks out and they say, what do you think? I go, it's gotta be CMBA, right? They go, why? Right. You know, here's this firm, this firm, why CMBA? Well, interestingly enough. Uh, so when, when you guys came in to do your proposal, it was Lee, Adam, Courtney, and Brian, right? Brian did introductions, Courtney, Adam, and Lee talked and uh, so what, what you got out of that conversation with you guys, and it wasn't necessarily a presentation like, here's what we do for you.
It was, it was an introduction into how your process worked. It's okay. What is the school board looking for? All right, here's how we would do that. Uh, what is the administration looking for? Here's how we do that. And, uh, uh, what It was very open. It was, it was different than the other firms. It felt like you guys were giving us time a day.
It wasn't, here's what we're going to come in and do. And, uh, you know, when I do a leadership talks or when I, when I lead, I always focus on the little things, right? Sure. And, uh, um, one of the little things that stood out, actually, there was two of them. Uh, the first one would be the walk around that CMBA came and did.
And we're looking at our gymnastics room and how else can we use this? And I'm talking with Adam and Lee didn't say much in that first walk around. So I'm talking with Adam and we go, Oh, you know, Adam goes, well, it's probably about this tall and Lee goes, Oh, it's actually this tall. I counted the blocks and here's what we need to do.
So, you know, Lee notices the little things and. One of the other things he noticed in the interview, and this is more than comical. I don't know if you remember it or not, uh, but I'm sitting there, uh, and you guys are up at the front telling me about what you're going to do. Lee interrupts Courtney or Adam.
They're talking to go. He goes, nice socks. Yeah. And I kind of laughed. I said, I noticed yours too, when you walked in and it led to the sidebar conversation of. When I interview, uh, potential teachers or administrators, right. I always look at socks, right? Sure. So if you're gonna work in a school, you have to be quirky.
And I think I had, uh, ducks bright knee on, oh, was it ducks? They were they blue with yellow ducks, I believe blew with yellow ducks. And, and uh, so it was the attention to detail and those side conversations that, that you noticed that it really brought the culture of C M B A into the school. And I'm like, that's why I want this firm.
Lee: Right? I do, I do remember that. It was, it was around the topic of. Um, how do we engage and how do we get to know, you know, to know you guys. And I remember, uh, yeah, asking him like, I want to know why Justin wears these, these duck socks, fun socks,
Skyler: right? Fun socks are awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's, I
Justin: like those I've got blue with, I think they're, are they red?
Yeah. Yeah. Something about Justin, he's colorblind. Yeah. So design, the interior designers don't necessarily appreciate me, sorry, uh, Sally Morgan, but yeah. Um, so yeah, that's, that's how we picked them and it's been a great decision. Yeah.
Skyler: Awesome. Well, I'm glad to hear that for sure. So when it comes to the project and you know, the scope of this project, you've got, you know, the money that's set aside, you've picked out a firm, what kind of priorities are going into the project and, um, you know, what are some of the key things?
Things that you were looking for when it comes to putting all this together and hopefully getting to the, the end of what will be the ultimate school that you can work within.
Justin: Right. Uh, so from the get go, uh, I made it very clear with the school board, the priority is a new K five building. Yeah, sure. You know, that's desperately needed, uh, in conversations with, uh, CMBA after that.
And geez, we met, it almost seemed like weekly for a long time, you know, which is wonderful. Um, here's what we need to do. New K five building. Uh, I want it attached to our current high school. Here's the other three things I'd like to do. One is a new competition gym. Two is an elementary gym next to it that allows us to host larger events, host tournaments.
And three is a fine arts facility is future. I want it built around an area that we can have a stage and we can do performances, because right now we are So Chamberlain, Oakoma, right across the river from each other, we have plays in Oakoma at their theater. We do basketball games downtown in Chamberlain.
We want it all on one site. And, uh, you know, through those conversations, it's, this is our 10, 15 year plan. This is what we want done. Uh, what the scope of the project, uh, was about, uh, 24, 25 million. Um, that's what we were able to do. Uh, cause again, keep in mind this community has made it apparent. Right?
Bonds don't pass. I mean, it's farmers. Those bonds make it nearly impossible because it has a huge impact on some of our community members. Um, Lee and Adam and you said at one point there's like 20 some people working on the project. Small army usually behind everybody. Yes, they worked into the initial designs.
Uh, everything we wanted. Awesome. Right. They worked in the competition gym. They worked in the elementary gym next to it. There was a theater attached. And I, I said, Hey, this is great. We can't afford it. Sure. Uh, and you guys go, well, let's try what we want. And then we pair it back as we go. Right. Okay. Um, and that's really what the whole project did.
Cause
Lee: that's kind of originally started out as a master plan a little bit too, right? And that's kind of what it is, is thinking the big picture long term, um, Yeah. We may not be able to afford it, but we need to see how it all comes together for the 15, 20 year plan. Exactly. Start pulling it back after that.
Justin: Right.
Skyler: Yeah. Yep. Just like cut it up into chunks. Right now, this is the chunk we'll do. And then in the next 10, 15 years, whatever the case is, the next chunk we'll do and yeah, so on and so forth. Very cool. Very cool. Awesome. Awesome. And. When you were collecting kind of, and this goes for either of you because I know CMBA usually tries to work with, you know, kind of getting data from a lot of the different sources that are going to be involved.
I mean, who are you talking to when it came to coming up with these plans for this
Justin: school? Right. So, uh, I guess from the get go, uh, you know, again, moved to, to Chamberlain and took over and they, hey, we need a new school thrown on your plate, which is wonderful. Um, you start talking to the teachers. Uh, and so talking with the elementary teachers, what do you like, what do we need?
Um, I talked to community members, uh, coaches, what do you like about the setup? What don't you, you talk to your fine arts people and the school board and you kind of after those conversations, that's what I took to CMBA. And then you guys kind of took the ball and ran. Well, then
Lee: we set up similar meetings with those groups.
Our first was sitting down with school board, leadership, admin, kind of getting the big goal vision, you know, and then we took those. To teachers and kind of dug a little bit deeper and, uh, your, your team of, I think he kind of grabbed what a couple from each grade level, at least one from each grade level.
And, um, And so, yeah, we just kind of worked it, worked it, don't funneled it down to the users.
Skyler: Right, right. Worked back and forth that way. Because these are going to be people that will be inside the school, they'll be using these facilities. You want to know what it is that they need and what they want.
Justin: Right. I forgot about those meetings where we literally sat down with each grade level, each, uh, different special and what do you guys want? And really, we were able to work in, not we, I didn't do it. You guys did. Playing with the Play Doh. Remember laying out the Play Doh? Yeah, I remember laying out. Yep.
That's awesome. You guys were able to work in. Best case scenario for everything. Yep. Yeah.
Skyler: So awesome. So what kind of struggles kind of started to come up or poked up along the way, aside from just the, I don't think we can do all of this all at once.
Justin: Right. Right. Um, you know, I guess the things that stand out to me are.
Uh, some of our teachers throughout these huge pie in the sky ideas, guys, we can't, I think I threw out an led floor for the gym so we can change the lines. And he goes, you can't afford that. Sure. All right. You're, you're probably right. Um, you know, the, the biggest struggle in all of this, um, and this is, I could talk for days on this.
Um, we have our budget, right. And we were on track. We were on track. Uh, it's November of 21, we're still on track. We're going through the value engineering process, December of 21 hits. And, uh, I was, I was at a gymnastics meet. I was supervising a gymnastics meet and, uh, taking tickets and it's like six at night and I'm on a call with Lee, which is again, the little things like anytime I text you text back or, you know, uh, should give a sidebar story about before we actually selected CMBA.
Um, so we interviewed on Thursday, Friday, I'm sitting there, uh, calling references for CMBA. And right. I actually, uh, I called the, I looked up Brian, Brian's email, the CEO, I said, okay, here's a work number. I called the work number and I didn't realize it's six 30 at night and it was Brian's cell phone.
Sure. And he answers. And. Um, we have a conversation about my questions and then he asked about the project, the school year. And, and I, all of a sudden I realized, I said, Brian, I apologize. It's six 30 at night. I, on a Friday, I said, I didn't mean to bug you. He's not a problem. I said, I'm just, I've chilling at home doing something.
And he goes, I'm glad to answer the questions. And we ended the conversation like very receptive. Yeah. Um, but so I'm sitting at this gymnastics meet. I've taken tickets or everybody's in. So I'm sitting there watching the door and I'm chatting with Lee and we kind of both go. Prices are skyrocketing at this point.
So our, our 23, 24 million project is getting out of hand, right? And that probably led to the biggest struggle of this project was how do we continue with everything we want to share? And that at that point, Lee and I both realized that's going to take a bond. You know, you flat out said it, Adam flat out said it.
I go. I'm only been in Chamberlain a year and a half, and I know my school board does not want to consider
Skyler: a bond. I was going to say, you've talked about it a couple of times now, like they're just not really into that. They
Justin: weren't into it. Uh, we have, I have seven members on my school board. I want to say five are involved, their family's ranch.
Right. And, uh, so we end up, I think the first part of January, we put a full stop on design, which. Probably put CMBA weeks, if not months behind on what they were doing. Um, the reason we did that in conversations with Lee, I said, we need to pull out the cost of the competition gym and we need to redesign this building so that if we can't afford it, the competition gym goes away and we can add it when we can't afford it.
Right. And so you guys took the time, you did that. You know, I think it was six, eight weeks before we could start rolling again, um, which puts us about March and I'm, I'm having the conversations with my school board on the side going, we're not going to be able to afford all this. Uh, we're going to have to figure something else out.
And, uh, one of the, one of the school board members at the meeting in April of, uh, 2022, I think, yeah, April of 22 goes. You know, they asked about progress update. I said, Hey, we're going out to bid in May, uh, looking at this amount. And if we remove the gym, this amount, he goes, well, how are we going to afford everything?
And I go, we probably need to consider a bond and nobody said anything. They didn't ask questions. They adjourned the meeting and that was all we heard about that. Um, so then we go to, uh, we go to bed, right. So we're just going to go to bid, see where it's at. And, um, we did a bid package where we had, what are they called?
Uh, extras, I call them. Alternates. Alternates. So we did a bid package with alternates, uh, being the gymnasium and a couple other things. And we just, we're going to see where we're at. And it came back right where we anticipated it. It was about 32 million or so. And if you pull out the gym, okay, we can afford it.
And so we met with the school board in July. We had a special meeting and, uh, we just kind of hashed it out with them. And they actually voted seven to zero to go to a bond. Really? And I went, okay. To grab that extra gym. Yeah, to grab the extra gym. So we made it very clear if we don't pass the bond, we still get the elementary.
Right. We don't get the gym. Right. And so, you know, South Dakota law is you have to vote. To do a bond, and then you have 45 days before you can hold the election. So, that's where things get really interesting for us. Um, you know, I talked with Lee and Adam, and I can't recall if Brian came to that meeting or if it was just you guys.
Um, I know he came to a few school board meetings, but I know after, uh, after the bond vote, you know, I talked with you and Lee. or you and Adam, sorry, Lee . You, you and you guys said, you know, we'll help in any way we can. Uh, Brian called a few days later and goes, you have our firm at your disposal to get this passed.
What do you need from us? Wow. Christie, our bond promotional. Yep. Yep. So we worked with Christie and we got, you know, here's our daily schedule of what we need to do. Here's all of your graphics, here's the message, here's a website. And we really, it was, uh, 45 days of messaging and, um, You know, there's not often, you could say we, we did something nobody else has did, but we passed a bond.
Yeah. Wow. For 5 million with 84% approval. Oh my gosh. And they've been trying to do that in Chamberlain since 1970. So I
Lee: remember being at this convention right after that had happened basically, or you know, somewhere close by and. And I remember people stopping at the booth, like, Oh, that's the Chamberlain school.
Cause we had a picture of the school and they passed the bond. You know, everybody was just like, it was a,
Justin: it was a miracle. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. It's not common. That's
Skyler: like movie level success story. Yeah. Like just like,
Lee: wow. I think to back up there a little bit though, into that six to eight week hiatus, I mean, it was a hiatus from kind of design, but there was some soul searching there from the school board.
Yeah. Yeah. Your team, like it became okay. Needs. Um, and then really assessing, I don't want to say air quoting wants, right. That, that gym, that competition gym was needed, but when we had to really dig deep and look, look hard at it, it was, we had to classify it as a want. Right, right, right. Yeah. Um, but, um, so there were, there were some hard decisions.
There was a couple iterations in there that we had to make some decisions on moving some other stuff around and things like that, but yeah, I mean, but that was early on. Yeah, when we first met the school board was adamant about we're done cutting corners. Yeah in the past they were used to Cutting corners and they always had to live with those regrets, right?
So that's something that was really on the mind of the school board right kept was important to them that we're gonna do it, right? I was
Skyler: just gonna say What do you guys feel like we're kind of those key elements that you feel like were what helped that bond to finally
Justin: go through? Right. I think a lot of it was the messaging that came through but we focused on We're going to build the school.
We had the groundbreaking ceremony for the elementary before the bond vote. And we had a good, we had a grill, a cookout, we invited everybody, we had an informational session. I think really what was key is, uh, we need this, uh, and the way that we were able to design it, uh, we're kind of a facility along I 90 in the middle of South Dakota that can host.
Big events. Right. You know, Rapid wants to come play Sioux Falls in a, a game. Sure. You each travel two hours, you're right there. Yep. Uh, we can host the crowds. We have the, we have the capacity in the hotels. Yeah, sure. You know, really this, this, uh, Elementary project is a community wide project that is going to bring people to Chamberlain.
Oh, absolutely.
Skyler: Yes. Sitting down. Uh, we did another podcast episode, uh, talking with Christy and, uh, Courtney and Dan from the MMC, I believe. MMCRU. Yep. MMCRU. And they talked about bond promotion and how important. that a school is for the community. And like, there's so many aspects of it that you don't even think about, like just from face value.
Yes. It's an educational space for kids, but the way that like, without that school, the community can't grow because you know, families are moving away. And if I can't have my kids here in school, then we're, you know, I'm not going to live here and things along those lines. And just like you said, I mean, even just bringing outside people into your town and your area, um, which helps grow that from that.
Aspect as well, which is pretty incredible, so,
Justin: yeah. Yeah, yeah. You have a good school, people are gonna come to your community.
Skyler: Absolutely. Honestly, when it comes down to it, how, how do you feel like you and your position within leadership and kind of recent POS position within this leadership of, uh, of Chamberlain really kind of affect, um, The entire outcome of both the project and passing the bond and everything like that.
Are there, is there something that you feel was incredibly key? I mean, I'm not trying to allude just straight to the title of the presentation and everything about how important relationships
Justin: are, but absolutely. Yeah. So I mentioned it at the beginning. My, my leadership style is, uh, if I'm going to ask you to do it, I'm going to do it.
Sure. And, and my relationship with you matters. And the reason that I've had success is because. I have these positive relationships. I, I like to think I care about the people that work for me or work with me. Um, and I took that to Chamberlain, uh, from the get go, you know, getting to know the staff, the community, uh, what do we want?
Um, and like any community, you have this outsider come in, you know, I'm not from Chamberlain, uh, they're skeptical. And that, that. little thing, COVID, uh, and the decisions that went with that, um, you know, no school administrator made a decision that was right during that. Right. Right. And so there's a part of the community that goes, you messed all that up.
You did it wrong. You know, how do you build back that trust? Well, it's through your leadership skills, your actions, and doing those little things. So all of that goes into, if you set that up, right. You have success. So I worked hard with my administrators Make those relationships with your staff count absolutely make the relationships with the community count go go that extra mile take care of things You know, I'll give you an example that Maybe people noticed maybe they didn't but in South Dakota, we get snow.
Yeah, right the little things so We, we have an early out and this was a couple of years ago, uh, when I was over in Mitchell, we have an early out and they, I, I'm sorry, Dr. Graves, if you hear this, but you called it too late, right? You missed the call. Uh, so there's like six inches of snow on the ground when we're dismissing school and I'm trying to get 600, 700 middle school kids out to their parents and gone and they're getting stuck.
Yeah. So what do I do? I go out and I start pushing cars. Okay. Get these kids out of here. And everybody goes and everybody's gone. And I walk back in and the next day, tons of thank you emails. Oh, awesome. So I'm like, Oh, that's super nice. Yeah. Uh, you do those little things. Um, you volunteer. In the community.
So, yeah. You know, I, I love kids. Uh, I, I coach, uh, flag football. I do ninja classes at the gymnastics place. Nice. Uh, so that I get You take the money outta
Lee: gymnastics. I mean, you sit at the Yeah.
Justin: The booth, right? Yeah. Sit at the booth, talk to people. Um, and I, I think. Through that people realize I'm, I'm not just here to collect a paycheck.
It's, it's a passion of mine to work with kids, uh, to lead. Um, you know, during COVID I'm, I'm in a classroom subbing because we don't have teachers, right? And so all of those go to, okay, now we're open to accepting ideas and, and he's actually got some good things coming this way, so let's work with it.
Let's, uh, let's see where this goes and, and it all, you know. I guess that kind of, does that answer the question. No,
Skyler: I mean, yeah, basically like, like you said, kind of the title of everything with the relationships are, are the key to everything really. Right. It's so much more than just, I'm a leader. Here's my position.
I've got a badge, whatever the case. I yeah.
Justin: Let me throw this at you guys. Right. So in first podcast I've been on, so this is really cool. Um, and I was talking with my wife the other day and she goes, well, have you looked at how to be a good guest on a podcast? I go, no, I haven't. So I looked it up and they said, listen to some of the podcasts.
So I actually listened to all the ones that you had. One reoccurring theme in almost every podcast is the culture of CMBA. So first thing, Brian, if you're listening to this, I want to talk about how you did that. And what the culture's like, um, because it's always spoken positive of CMBA. So you guys are doing something right.
Yeah. Uh, and those, those relationships that go with it. Uh, for instance, uh, Lee and I have worked together a lot. We know each other pretty well now, right? I know his kids. I know what they're up to. I know where they go on vacation. Uh, he knows my kids knows what they're up to. Yeah. Uh, knows about my chickens, you know, I, I.
I strongly believe we wouldn't have had a successful building, we wouldn't have had a successful bond if it wasn't for the relationships with the architects that I worked with at CMBA. So, you know, do you guys go through training there? Do you do this? Do you read a book? That's a
Skyler: good question, honestly.
Um, I actually... We did start
Lee: that talking about Brian, so... Yeah,
Justin: so, call him, let's get him on the phone here. Yeah, right, we'll pull him in as
Skyler: a guest as well, yeah. Honestly, that's a, that's a great question. Um, I did sit down, I did an episode with, um, Anna Bednarco from our, and Joe Copley from our Des Moines office.
And we just talked about company culture. That's what the whole episode is about. Um, I don't know if that'll be out by the time that this one goes out or if it'll come after, that's kind of hard to say. Um, but whatever the case, you know, it's. It's really an issue, not an issue, a topic of continued, uh, visiting of it, of the company culture, continually keeping it in mind and continually working on it.
There's never a point where, you know, you've done every kind of fun holiday and you've got something in the calendar for each one of those. And so you're like, okay, we're good. We'll just keep doing these every year. We'll do Oreo day and we'll bring Oreos. We'll do donut day and we'll bring donuts, whatever.
Um, it's, it's constantly looking for new things to do and new things to integrate. Um, as somebody kind of from the, that event planning side as part of the culture committee, I mean, that's a lot of what I look at and there's definitely more to it and I'm sure, I don't know, Lee, you look like you were ready to say something.
I don't know. Oh man, I
Lee: think it's, our leadership does a good job of just, um, really vetting the hires and finding those people that are relational. Um, but it's, you know, it just comes down to, uh, yeah, like I said, Brian and our leadership, they talk about it. Consistently. Yeah. Um, we make sure that our project managers are doing that with our teams already.
You know, and, um, yeah, just a lot of different things
Skyler: coming
Justin: together there. Absolutely. One of the, and I don't, I don't recall from the podcast if it was new or you've always done it, but one of the interns was talking about the Monday morning meetings. And, and it's. What did Brian say? He said, it's not just business.
And here's what's coming up this week. It's what's going on in your world. What happened over the weekend? How's your family? So, you know, it's very apparent that you guys are doing something right in that regard. Yeah,
Skyler: absolutely. I think just even bringing everybody together on those Monday meetings and saying, you know, Hey, we're all, we're all a firm and we're all together and on these projects.
And you know, these projects aren't just. You're assigned to this, go off and do it. It's bring it to the group. Let us know how things are going. Do you need help on something? Right. What do you need from us? We're here to, to make sure that you succeed. I think that's definitely a big part of it as well.
Yeah, for sure. So awesome. I've never had somebody throw a question back to me. So that
Justin: was fun. Yeah. Well, we got to keep it interesting, right? Yeah. Thanks Google. Yeah, I got a whole page. If you want Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Skyler: Well, actually that's, that's how I like to end things at the very least is, is throw back to you, Justin, you gave me an amazing rundown of everything that you were planning on kind of talking about.
Um, and some awesome stories. Did I miss anything? Did I not? You missed
Justin: one. Okay. And I think this one's actually a pretty interesting story and super important. Absolutely. Speaks to the detail of CMBA and Lee again. Right. All right. So. When you guys came to look at the project that first time, and we're walking around and we're walking down our, uh, the hallway by the weight room and towards the business office administrative room, you started looking at something we had set up, right?
So I'm going to step back from that and see if you can figure it out. Um, thinking here, my, my school board is, is very interesting. Um, I love working with them and there's some history behind them. So, uh, I think three or four of them have. Parents that were on the school board for a number of years. My school board president, Keith, his father was school board president in late sixties, early seventies.
And in the late sixties, uh, they bought the land where our current high school sits and they had a master plan with a vision, 1975 vision. Um, and his dad was at the forefront of that vision as school board president. And so they had this wonderfully designed high school. It had a swimming pool. It had a rotunda and a fountain.
And so these plans actually sit with the original school. They sit outside of the business office and there, I think there's two or three of them, I rotate through them every once in a while so people can see the hand drawn detailed, uh, sketches. Um, and so Lee's looking at these and he goes, Hey. We made these plans and everybody goes, what, and so at the bottom of the plans, it's, it's not CMBA, it's, um, yeah, it's like RM or, uh, yeah, it's RMMB or even older than that.
Yeah. What CMBA used to. Right. Right. And so it's interesting. All of this is coming full circle. So I have CMBA.
And so now, however many years later, you know, you're looking at 50, 60 years later, you've got, uh, Keith, who's school board president, that really kind of rallied the troops behind the project. He rallied the troops behind the bond vote. You know, if it wasn't for my school board, we wouldn't have passed that.
Uh, cause they're calling, they're having the meetings, uh, like I said, four or five of them are farmers, agriculture, and everybody's going well. Is Keith for this is Joel for this is Jim for this and we can say, yes, they voted. And so everybody goes, if they say it's okay, we'll do it. Wow. Uh, and, and it's, we didn't pick CMBA because of that design, but it's obvious that whatever you guys did 50 years ago, right.
Uh, you're still doing, it's That is
Skyler: incredible. What a twist. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow. So yeah, we've been. Semi involved all along. Semi,
Lee: yeah. And I'm curious, because Justin, you took a little bit of a risk, right? Yeah. You selected a firm that was not from South
Justin: Dakota. Right. So how
Lee: did that go? And why, like, what was, what did that discussion
Justin: look like?
There's actually, there's two times in this project that I kind of stood at the edge of the cliff and went, okay, this is either going to go well or not. Um, yeah. So we always talk about, uh, South Dakota does great things. We want to keep it in South Dakota, especially when you start talking public dollars.
And so I had a couple people call and say, why, why is it okay to select a firm outside of South Dakota to do this project? Right. And my answer to them is because it is what the school district in Chamberlain needs so that we can continue to be successful. So we interviewed. Four different ones. We looked at 15 different proposals.
We selected CMBA because they offered what our constituents said we're lacking. Um, and everybody goes, okay, that that's good enough. Wow. You know? Awesome. So yeah, well, that's good to hear. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm glad it worked out and I'm still there. I was actually
Skyler: just joking with one of the interns. I said, I don't think I've had a situation yet where I put a microphone in front of somebody and they didn't say something nice about it.
No, that's what
Lee: I said. I wasn't
Justin: sure. Right. Right. Yeah.
Skyler: Nobody's nobody's going to get mad at me on the other side. I hope so. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Justin, I really appreciate you being on the show, being on the podcast and sharing some of these just absolutely incredible stories. And like I said, getting to see how it all came full circle is.
It's pretty mind blowing to
Justin: be honest with you. Yeah, I appreciate the offer and, uh, uh, anytime come back if you guys want to chat. Yeah, absolutely. It's a fun project and we still got long ways to go, but we're making a lot of progress.
Skyler: Absolutely. I was really glad that I got to go to the convention that Lee and I went to, uh, up in Chamberlain.
Yep. Or Oakoma rather, but yeah, right across the bridge from Chamberlain. I actually got to see the school. I got some pictures of where we're at with the progress so far, so. It looks like a building.
Justin: It looks like a building. If you go on our Cub Nation Facebook page, um, I've got a couple different photos up there from last week.
I think a nice panoramic from the drone so you can look around. And then one of these times I'm going to go inside and do a couple more. Yeah, drone inside when nobody's in there so I can do a tour of it. But yeah, yeah, it's really fun to watch it all come together. Awesome. Yeah.
Skyler: And it'll be exciting to finally get to see the final product once it's all finished.
And yeah, that'll be epic. So yeah, awesome. All right. Well, again, thank you so much, Lee, of course. Thank you for being on the show as well. It's not your first time, which is interesting. No, I think it's only my second. It's only your second and we'll probably hopefully get some more. So, Justin, thank you so much for taking the time.
Thank you guys. And thank you, of course, for listening. Uh, this has been another episode of Laying the Foundation from CMBA Architects. Uh, if you're somebody out there that's a architect or more interested in finding out a little bit more about our firm, you can check us out at cmbaarchitects. com. And then of course, if you're more interested in seeing some of the pictures and some of the other posts of things that we've created and done in the past, uh, you can check us out over at any of our social media platforms, whether that be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
And of course, don't forget to follow, like, subscribe the podcast. Uh, we'd love to hear from you and drop us a comment if you're on iTunes or Spotify or Google podcasts or anywhere that podcasts can be streamed. We'd love to hear from you again. This has been another episode of laying the foundation. See you next time.